Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

Monkey See, Monkey Smash

Mana's eyes burst open, covered in a bloody web of vessels ravaging them from their edges all the way to the iris. The blood made for a grisly contrast with the pure white but the Stars didn't get to marvel at their awakened friend for too long before Mana sat up and rubbed her aching forehead before struggling against gravity and rampant earthquakes from far away in the distance to get back on her feet.

"What happened in there?" Shige-H asked, approaching Mana and helping her maintain a steady balance on her feet.

"No time. Have to seal away the Four-Tails," Mana grunted. Her hands pushed Shige-H with moderate restraint, both because the magician felt weakened after her grueling quest inside of Rakugi's mind and her distaste for the idea of pushing her friend away for real.

"I guess she found it. Way to go, Mana!" Damisan pumped his sparking arm in the air. His artificial limb jammed a few times mid-pump, leaving the self-built man no other choice but to force his pump half the way through and guide the gesture with his free hand.

"Good, you're finally out of there..." Endo picked up a broken-off part of his blade off the ground and approached the sprawled-out assassin doomed to live out the rest of his days as a vegetable, reliving an artificial memory of training lovingly with his daughter–something that had never even happened exactly for the lack of trying on his part.

Maybe now that there won't be a world for Rakugi to protect Ion from, he'll be a gentler father even if it won't amount to much in the end. Either way, it just felt right giving him that chance. When Endo raised his arm up to drive the broken piece of the blade through Rakugi's eye, his wrist stopped in mid-air. A trickle of blood ran down the swordsman's wrist and he looked up at it with a curious gap to his stare.

Mana's wrist twitched, holding a loop of steel wire in the hand. She pulled on it gently so that she didn't cut too deep into her ally's hand or disarm him in a more literal sense. Endo took a few seconds to realize that there could have only been one person to stop him from killing this ruthless killer.

"You, of all people?" Endo wheezed out in disbelief. "He wanted to eviscerate you more than most of us and I actually killed his daughter!"

"Stand down," Mana said it plain and simple. "If you want to be useful, help me seal the Four-Tails."

"Aren't you a bit on a timer here? While we're bickering here, people are dying out there. Good people, Allied Ninja!" Endo pointed his arm toward the emerald flashes in the horizon and the titanic beast trampling and bashing people into bloodstains and ravaging the landscape.

"That's exactly why I won't discuss this with you. If you insist, I'll take you down too." Mana replied with a strict glare. Blood ran down her forehead and down from her nostrils now that she got back up on her feet and glared right at the fellow Star.

"You know I'd love nothing more than to show you your place..." Endo relaxed his hand and let go of the chipped-off blade. As his muscles loosened, so did the adamant grip of the steel wire as the loop limped down and slipped off of the young man's arm. Though instead of pressing on his claim to Rakugi's life, Endo approached Mana so that the two could stare at each other eye-to-eye.

It was only when the samurai apprentice approached the ninja magician that the size difference between them became even more apparent. Endo wasn't really a bulky fellow, athletic and fit for sure, above average in height though he was larger than Mana by his entire head and yet Mana didn't flinch or twitch. The young woman just raised her head to follow the line of eyes closing in on her.

"You didn't beat him. His life isn't yours to take or decide over," the two were so close to one another that Mana could mutter and Endo would have heard her perfectly.