Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

The Butterfly Effect

Being driven solely by one's way of being a ninja was a curious thing. Case in point, Mana had thought that she'd have at least a remote idea on how to handle the Chaser once she actually came face to face with the monster with a human face. Despite all the terror and awe of his power that even the insurmountable Sky Clan ninja had in their voices when speaking of him. Somehow, Mana thought she'd pull it through. Just like how she always did.

And yet, now, when she stepped out of the line of fearful would-be gods and slid down the crater to face off against a man like none she'd ever faced before, a monster she missed out meeting by accident and almost butted shoulders with early in her career as a kunoichi, nothing came to mind. She had aces hidden up her sleeves, sure. Moves and things to reveal that she thought she'd use against the Sky Clan if they ever stopped cooperating and tried to kill her and end her mission prematurely.

They weren't moves that'd work and save her, just something to fight back with. And yet, knowing what Mana knew of this bipedal parasite of chakra, she had absolutely no idea of what to do against him. And yet, her feet kept on carrying her forward. Even when the parasite sniffed something curious in the air and turned around toward Mana. These glowing eyes of cerulean light he gazed at Mana with. Despite lacking features signature to eyes, from their shape and the general body language of the tall and fit man, Mana could tell he was curious.

Perhaps curious wasn't the right word... Baffled, more like it. Mana wasn't sure if this monster could sense chakra. From what she recalled of Regalia's plight back in the Wind Country deserts, she suggested that there was nowhere one could run and hide from the beast. That he'd always find its mark once he tastes their chakra. Also, that nothing could stop him. Maybe it would have been wise to start working with that part?

"She'll get herself killed down there," Seikuwo stated, crossing his arms yet finding no better course of action than inaction. Maybe it was for the better, considering that he was a figurative nuke faced against a monster that only grew stronger from his sort of radiation and violent intent.

"That's right!" Ishikeru pounded his open arm with a stony thud. "Mana-sensei said she came here with comrades! I think Mushen turned them all to Shinkyochu!"

"Allies?" Seikuwo looked at his fellow Sky Clansman with confusion. "I suppose a puny little thing like this woman could use some. Though if Mushen stopped them, I can't see them doing much more but feeding the Chaser."

"Chaser! Stop this massacre and leave this Moon at once!" Mana yelled out, trying to put the lessons she learned from Usujitsa in the Rabbit Caves to use. Maybe he too was just a scatterbrain who would yield to a commanding voice?

With his signature silence, the Chaser turned around and raised its hands, as if preparing to wrestle the ninja magician. Mana would have been a fool not to take this as a declaration that her demand for a peaceful resolution had been for naught. Usually when one took a fighting stance–that signaled that they've chosen violence.

The Chaser vaulted forward with a pounce. His moves were animalistic. Fast, though even when Mana couldn't directly see them, her lifelong training at evasive taijutsu allowed her to read his movement patterns and this Yomi fighting style would only become more effective the more of Chaser's moves Mana sees. The magician swooped in a twirl, leaving the Chaser to pounce past nothing but empty air as she danced around him like a matador.

Mana kicked the Chaser, shoving the heel of her leather sandals in the sides of his knees, but it was like a fly trying to headbutt through a brick wall. The monster had been so utterly soaked with chakra that Mana's hits would not register until she either joined him on the level of power of the divine realm or let the beast starve again. Who knew how long that would have taken...