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How can one be jealous over one's possessions in the middle of the driest desert on earth? How can one feel insecure in a place so isolated that the mere idea of Instagram is a dream straight out of the hardest of science fiction novels? If anyone can make it happen, Atomic Samurai can make it happen. He is a professional hero and a superhuman swordsman after all.
"Master, that man was just being polite!" Feet clap across the sand and dust of the main street of San Pedro de Atacama, one of the most peaceful villages with one of the best night skies on earth, a village within the infamous Atacama Desert. A young woman's musical voice sails down the cobbled streets, over the sound of a dual set of footsteps.
Steel clinks and hair whips through the painfully dry air as a man turns his head to look over his shoulder. His skin, having begun at a healthy shade of weathered brown, has become even more so thanks to his time spend in one of the most extreme environments possible. His long black hair, however, has proven immune to the bleaching effects of the sun, and is just as black as before, while Ginny's red hair has lightened to a strawberry blonde. It's a highly fetching thing on an already highly fetching young woman, helping to make her the most popular girl in town, at least with the men. Really, that shouldn't be a problem, since Kamikaze and his favourite student aren't 'together' or 'involved', and that is entirely the problem, of course. Or, not entirely, as the world's greatest swordsman would be even more jealous if the girl was his in more than just the pupil and master sense.
"Please, Gin, I know what people think of me, but I'm not so dim witted or naive that I don't know flirting when I see it." Atomic Samurai arches a sweeping eyebrow at his prettiest and most firey disciple. Behind his head, the blue sky forms a halo, with the red peaks of distant mountains attempting to jut in and gatecrash.
His statement causes Ginny Weasley to come to a dead stop, her feet in their armoured boots throwing up puffs of sand, her left hand lightly gripping the neck of her katana's pink lacquered scabbard, the same way her sensei is holding his red one.
1. Always be in contact with your sword.
Of course it was flirting, and she may have been flirting back a little with the handsome young man serving her and Kamikaze coffee. Just a little, just to see what her master would do.
What he would do would be to cause a scene and stomp out after threatening to cut everyone and everything up, a result she should have foreseen and attempted to avoid. The thing is though, that she can't quite believe that he has feelings for her, no matter how many times he demonstrates them via jealous outbursts. There's always some excuse she can make for why any other reason but the true cause is the culprit.
Because she comes to a dead stop, so does Atomic Samurai, his other eyebow joining the first in reaching for the distant dome of sky. "What? Why did you stop?" he asks.
"Sensei, this charade, this farce even, that we have going, is ridiculous, you know that, right?" No one has ever accused Ginny Weasley of being shy. At least, not since her very first crush, her very first crush on one Henry J. Potter. Kamikaze is no Harry. There is no angst, no brooding, no smelly teenaged hormones with him. He is a grown man, and Ginny is neither afraid of nor annoyed by him. Rather the opposite. As such, she tosses her hair back over her shoulder, her hair, which is done up in a long, artfully messy braid. It's glimmering shades of gold and red capture the samurai hero's attention to the extent that he momentarily forgets where he is and what he's doing there - a huge bonus when you've decided to train (and/or fight monsters) in the middle of the Atacama Desert.
"Gin, I…" for a second it appears as if the most hardboiled of the elite heros is going to crack his own hard shell and emerge as the adorable baby chick that he is inside. But such a thing is simply too scary a move for the rough and tough swordmaster to contemplate at the present stage of the duel. "Gin, we're wasting time. Come, the sun is high. Let's train."
2. If you unleash your sword, it must cut something before being replaced in its sheathe.
Although there are perfectly good sand plains to dance around with a sword on, Atomic Samurai instead chooses to dance around with a sword on a salt flat. The Atacama Desert is the setting for the various 'Mars' plays that NASA puts on, and all around the pair of weeaboo knights vast stone mounds rise into solid waves of earth, forming canyon after canyon, some of which contain stubborn plant life, despite not seeing rain for the last five hundred years. It's a surreal world, made for contemplation, contemplation and absolute peace and freedom from the demands and yapping (and meetings) so beloved by other people is exactly why Atomic Samurai woke up one day and decided to skedaddle on over here.
Also, he may have heard that the lack of light pollution causes the night sky to be magical beyond words, and he can't remember the last time he saw the sky without light pollution blotting out the stars.
ALSO, he assumed there would be no other MEN wandering around the blasted desert, but instead he walked into a place full of handsome badasses, all of whom decided that his pupil is some sort of goddess.
It's not exceptionally hot in this Chilean desert, not like some deserts, so the breeze which pluck at the man's robes and hair is warm rather than blistering. Thankfully, because even Kamikaze, divine though he may be, sweats.
"Aaah," he sighs, dragging an arm across his perspiring forehead after an excellent and most satisfying bout of dancing swordplay with his disciple.
Across from him, over a floor of salt, Ginny adjusts her grip on her blade. The pair are so talented (and gung ho) with their chosen weapons that they never use training blades. Plus, accidental wounds and cuts are a good excuse to touch each other and provide the care that both long to offer. In fact, her eyes glint as she watches her master be distracted by wiping away the sweat he half-realises she doesn't at all mind.
"Hah!" She yells, charging at him with her blade raised while he's off his guard. Despite popular opinion, such dodgy, unchivalrous moves are part of exactly why she's his favourite.
Dropping his forearm below his suddenly redly blazing eyes, Kamikaze retaliates, swinging his own, even longer blade up, clashing it with the young woman's. The duo set off into another dance duel across the sand and salt, smiles and grins fixed across their good looking faces.
3. Cherish your sword the way the uninitiated cherish their friends and families. Be jealous of it the way lovers are jealous.
Evening arrives, and with it come thoughts of dinner under the heavenly stars that will soon open their glittering eyes upon the desert. With the sun's dipping, the desert bleeds red, fully turning into Mars. Strange shadows fall across the wide plains of nothing.
"Master, you're hurt." To Ginny's great surprise, she actually landed a hit on her teacher, and his bicep is bleeding, his sleeve gaping open in a way that disturbs her because he so rarely is hit by anything at all.
The man tosses his head back, his ponytail swinging as jovially as ever, the sunset not helping Ginny's concern as it paints his skin red. "You are greatly mistaken, Gin. I'm not hurt, I'm Atomic Samurai, haha."
The woman stares at him and the image he makes, this still young but fully adult man laughing in the desert sunset, sword in one hand, the other arm bleeding, shadows gathering under his pronounced cheekbones and within his collarbone, making him look more vulnerable than he is. "You know, Master, I love it when you laugh. The sound makes me happy, even more than the ringing of steel and splash of blood." she says, stepping over to place her sleeve covered hand on his bicep in order to stop his bleeding.
Of course Kamikaze ceases laughing as soon as she speaks, but that is only so he may study her more closely, looking down with a fond smile on his lips as the desert plunges from sunset straight into night, as things go in these most desolate and beautiful parts of the world. "And I love you, dear Ginny. Laugh and all. I think though, that I may have to cease being your master, or else I will kill the next guy who brings you a cup of coffee with a smile and a wink."
The hand Ginny is using to staunch the blood, is joined by its sister, which twists in the samurai's cloak to pull him closer to her. "What if I wear a badge saying 'Property of Atomic Samurai. Wink at your own peril.' pinned to my chest?"
"Ha. I think that may work…"