Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

A Reason To Excel

Mana's hands raced to perform hand seals. While she has resigned herself to putting an end to Endo's ambition and beating him here and now felt like an efficient method to put a stop to it, that didn't mean she had to allow this to extend into a drawn-out maddening brawl. If she could put Endo into a strong genjutsu and beat him quickly while he's dazed, she'd be able to end it efficiently.

A wave of pain resonated through Mana's arms and went down to her core, through her shoulders. Her eyes widened as she looked down to the epicenter of where the pain came from and saw a few shuriken sticking out from her hands. Even confirming what had happened to her hands froze Mana enough for the focus necessary for her illusion to all vanish, and Endo was now all over her.

Finding enough time for only one desperation technique with her body all off-put by the torment from her skewered hands, Mana clapped her hands and extended them, forming a protective Wind Release bubble around her. Despite her Magic Bubble jutsu, Endo's Sword of the Thunder God carved right through it, though it didn't graze Mana beyond just a shallow cut.

Despite that fact, an electromagnetic jolt resonated from the supercharged blade of the weapon and shocked Mana, bringing her up into the air alongside the man wielding the sword. Endo rolled in mid-air, positioning his sword over his head to form a buzzing, vertical disc that spun toward Mana in the air in pursuit of her. A storm of paper tags erupted from Mana's sleeves, forming a clone that grabbed hold of the magician's hand and spun her away from harm while Endo carved through the clone mercilessly, reducing her to twin sliced halves that bled paper tags that burnt up before they reached the ground.

Just as Endo's feet touched the ground from the spin, he rotated toward Mana like a human drill. This was ambitious. Mana had removed the shuriken etched in her hands and weathered the trickles of blood that they left behind. Despite the aggravated bleeding, just removing the uncomfortable, alien object from her body made her hands cooperate a little better. Mana flicked her hand, pointing a playing card with bloodstains on it in Endo's direction and as the swordsman's eyes met the skull-shaped symbol in the center of the card, his gaze became duller and he flopped to the ground, skidding past Mana awkwardly as he left a skidding trail of blood while grazing on the passageway of the old headquarters ruins.

"Hell's Attraction Jutsu..." Mana chanted to herself, completing the illusion, the initial effects of which had already disabled Endo.

"Wh... What... What is... That?" Endo hissed, trying to muster up the strength to just push his hands down against the floor and peel himself off the ground. But he appeared helpless in that task.

"Genjutsu usually attacks your chakra circulation system, but there is another, more ancient way of performing genjutsu that overrides your blood circulation by forcing my chakra to coarse through your body and pinch your brain centers. Amongst other things, one's sense of balance depends on the brain, so if I pinch it the right way–you won't even be able to get up on your knees." Mana answered, cracking a thunderous chop to the back of Endo's skull before waving her hand and slipping a playing card from her sleeve that unsealed a Wind Release nature whirlwind from within and sent Endo flying while completely powerless to resist the gale's demands.

Returning to her days in the Sun Disc arena, Mana kicked with her left foot in a manner reminding of how a valiant fencer thrust, slashed, and jabbed with their rapier. Once she felt the impact of her kicks weaken, the ninja magician switched dominant legs and repeated the process. Once the second leg became tired, Mana slipped another Wind Release sealed playing card down under her own feet and propelled herself into the air with a rushing bicycle kick that finished with Mana repeatedly stomping Endo into the narrow passageway.

This returned offensive made the bridge between the two wings of the ruins crumble and plummet down. Mana planted her feet against one of the falling chunks of rubble and made them fix onto it with chakra control. Kicking off of the rubble with her full balance behind it, Mana drove her palms into Endo's chest. The disguised swordsman coughed up in pain as Mana's own palms didn't quite come into contact with his body. There was a thin layer of steel between them and Endo felt its cold rub against him. By the time that the steel heated up and burst, unsealing the explosive potency sealed within the two cards that Mana slammed into Endo's chest, both the ninja magician and her opponent flew back, rolling in mid-air. Though where Mana landed with her feet pressed against a falling rubble platform, Endo slammed and crashed through every chunk of debris he encountered in his path.