Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

Chatter

"Explain away, it's not like I have much choice," Mana crossed her arms. That wasn't entirely truthful, she may have tried leaving Skaven's mind though, given his superior knowledge and mental training, he'd have been just as capable keeping her here too if he employed his shoulder into it.

Skaven stuck out his tongue, revealing a sealing glyph. While Mana hadn't seen this particular sealing glyph, she was familiar with the general idea behind placing a powerful sealing technique on one's tongue and why it would make one hesitant to talk honestly. Although Mana thought herself to have much better judgment, the way she looked at Skaven softened and her arms weighed down beside her while she took two careful steps to observe the seal from closer up.

The sealing glyph disappeared behind Skaven's chompers alongside the tongue that it was decorating. The air around the two mental projections became heavy and turned heavier still with each passing moment. Skaven's impeccable control over his mental realm might have stumbled once or twice. At least now Mana had a clearer clue why Skaven kept some things a secret. Still, whether or not his life was on the line, nobody enjoyed dealing with people keeping secrets significant enough to protect in such a drastic way.

"Shige-H mentioned that you were a part of a band of outlaws. In my experience, bandits protect their secrets using far more brutish methods." While Mana couldn't hope to understand the secret that the sealing master placing this seal meant to protect, she could at least learn of the surrounding circumstances.

"That's because the Hellhounds weren't the ones that gave me this glyph." Skaven replied, spreading his arms out. While Mana's skills in reading people suggested his body language to imply truthfulness, such was the eternal problem with this enigmatic young man. He had an aura of shadows about him. He could have easily known how to pretend and adopt a body language of honesty, just as he manipulated his own mind like a master interrogator.

"A village then? The Allied Ninja wouldn't have taken a bandit in so you defected and offered a village your services, hoping to legitimize." Mana rubbed her chin with her thumb and index finger. With Skaven's mouth being sealed, literally sometimes, she had to do a decent amount of figuring out by herself with Skaven only serving as a waypoint toward the truth.

"That was a very perceptive leap." Skaven noted.

"I'm familiar with the general idea of resocialization, believe it or not..." Mana sighed as her memories flowed back to Eiju, a Quack who chose sickness and eventual death as a legitimate medical ninja under Konoha's employ rather than continuing to live long and prosperous as a Quack.

"I suppose someone who's so adamant about keeping her enemies alive would try to learn all about something like that and constantly have it on her mind. In any case, it was a village that gave me this seal." Skaven nodded.

"I suppose there's no point in asking why. A criminal approaching a village to work for it wouldn't be trusted as long as they drew breath, no matter how many times they've been useful." Mana scratched her head.

"He who turns around has already showed he has the capacity and the drive to do that. It's a wise decision, but it's not why the seal was put into place." Skaven massaged his throat, feeling a light pressure around it as the speech began creeping up to the subject of the secrets that the seal protected. "Regardless of the reason, I'd ask you to abandon this for a more opportune time. Now that we're here, I'd like you to tell my reasons of why I asked you in here. If you understand where I'm coming from, maybe you'll still choose to help me? If not because of the sense of debt for saving your life, then because you're just that kind of person."

Mana tsked her tongue. The tendency on random people she meets to have done their homework and possess vast masses of intelligence on her personality and accomplishments outside that which people might have known within reason, namely her career as a stage magician, was becoming irritating. Shige-H wanted Mana for her gang. She was looking for a specific kind of people, so it made a modicum of sense for her to research the new recruits. Skaven too, though?