Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

A Bittersweet Return To The Stage

Mana could hear her own shivering. No matter how hard she rubbed her sides, from the shoulder to her hands and her hands together, she couldn't feel anything. A temptation to send a spark of Fire Release ninjutsu somewhere harmless popped up, but it was just a sign of desperation. The more that Mana's unkempt, wet hair clung to her own freezing body, the worse it got, despite common sense suggesting that something covering her from the cold to a limited extent should help.

The door to a nearby incinerated room with a half caved in ceiling surrendered to one good shoulder push. It helped that Mana could barely feel that shoulder or any semblance of pain that should have resonated through it after she lobbed her entire body at the door like that. It was necessary, though. The door wouldn't work after the Four-Tails attack and this little room that Mana prepared for the magic show and after it was nowhere near being prioritized for repairs.

Finally, the pleasant feel of needles prodding her every pore and spreading warmth from within as she rubbed her body in a white blanket made Mana feel better. While still whimpering and shivering and barely controlling the finer aspects of mobility, the, as of now, yet again, stage magician found solace in the limited coverage of a rough, recently washed blanket. She should have used something more weathered and sweat-smelling, yet softer... Still, one would have been rude to complain about that which may have literally saved their life.

Shige's voice breached Mana's solitude from behind a few seconds before the medical ninja shoved the door and forced the unraveled tin shred against the floor making the equivalent of a calf being slain with a dull knife while its mouth was still being sewn shut of door opening noises. Mana wanted to hurry and get herself dressed so that she didn't have to stand before her cell leader in her underwear, but... In her defense, she was frozen today.

"I'll be ready for training soon enough, just give me five..." Mana managed to stutter out while rubbing the coarse blanket hard enough to warrant comparison to sandpaper.

"Don't rush, I just came to see how you were doing..." Shige-H put up her hands defensively, trying to shake off the accusations of being a strict squad leader. "I wouldn't be surprised if you skipped training today..."

"If I heard that every time I got frozen... That'd be the first time I've heard it..." Mana tried thinking up of something clever to say but she was freezing out of her mind so rubbing her temples that felt like something had been stabbing rapidly from within and trying to get out was the best she could muster at the moment.

"Seriously? You haven't been frozen before? Not even during practice?" Shige-H looked like she was about to say something entirely different before becoming oddly curious about this bombshell of a fact.

"Nope. Didn't even rehearse this trick," Mana shook her head, feeling glad that she could put her body through that much exercise. This gave her a headache-inducing idea. The stage magician slipped out from her lone savior blanky and jumped onto her arms, forcing blood to pump all over her stressed arms and flood up and down her circulation circle by doing a few overhead push-ups.

"Are you serious? You could have gotten yourself killed? Mana, you can't even call that which you did today "tricks". It's not stage magic, it's a bunch of stunts," Shige-H went for the jugular while observing the magician's scar-spangled back and arms that looked like they wore scars for tattoos. More than a handful of punctures that were yet to cover with scar tissue decorated Mana's body while she resumed her trembling shortly after standing back on her own two legs.

"That's rich. You know that to criticize a show you have to have seen it, at the very least, right?" Mana turned to her friend while slipping into her shirt.

"Mana... We have seen the show. I have a feeling that you know that." Shige-H softened her tone.

"You're right, I'm sorry. It was easy to pick out the only handful of faces I know from an empty hall..." Mana made a quirky grimace while shrugging with her right shoulder and buttoning up. This was a real low-blow for a return to the stage. She had hoped to lift some absolutely ruined spirits with some stage magic but while she somewhat exaggerated with her defensive sarcasm just now, the halls used to be fuller back in Konoha where people literally would have liked it better if she choked on her breakfast and didn't recover.