Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

Break-Ups

Mana blinked a few times before the proverbial weight of the hooded woman's words finally started burning her shoulders and brought the kunoichi down to reality where she had to deal with those words. Ironically, while it was those same words that knocked Mana off-world, it was the pain from those words that made her come back.

"One of yours, what do you mean?" Mana struggled to find which one of the gathered secret organization members handled this to focus her eyes on them.

"Exactly what it sounds like," the silver-bearded man replied in a strict tone, almost as if they had done nothing to blame and felt offended by how Mana reacted to this news. "Skaven was a plant from our organization. We sent him to infiltrate the Allied Ninja and work from within. He wasn't a mole or a double agent per se. His objective was not to report to us or to undo the Allied Ninja. It was to protect your life at all costs."

"Skaven was a lousy agent," one of the bowl-cut crew muttered with an apathetic expression. "He shouldn't have gotten so close to you. Normally, any of us would have operated from a safe distance, tried to keep you unaware of our presence because awareness and proximity only threaten the secrecy of the mission. If his status would have been discovered because of this, the Curse Seal would have claimed his life."

"He was a resourceful agent, though," another bowl-cut ninja proclaimed. "Somehow, despite coming closer to his VIP, he protected his status as a secret organization plant."

A lot of things began making a bit more sense to Mana now. Why Skaven was so resistant to the idea of joining the Stars at first–he was acting just how these creepy youths stated they would have acted. Also, why Skaven asked Mana to wipe that part of his memory–he wanted to avoid a situation where he'd have gotten captured or incapacitated and Mana might have wandered into his mind, stumbling into his secret by accident. Still...

"So..." Mana said, feeling stuck as she stumbled and tripped over words. "All those memories of yours we visited together, all of that was fake?"

"No," the hooded old woman shook her head. "We did not implant any fake memories into Skaven. He was a punk rogue ninja who knocked on our door for protection from the darker rogue element that exists in the shadows of the world in exchange for the heads of those more valuable to us than him. His cutthroat instinct and the ability to sell people impressed our organization. He sold out people he spent half his life with without hesitation. Skaven was useful to us, so we took him in and he certainly had some profound skills to exploit. Though his loss wouldn't have been painful enough to us to warrant the trouble of implanting fake memories. A very messy thing... Can go wrong in so many ways."

"Mana... This is new to me too," Skaven pocketed his hands. Despite there being validity to his claim, he still looked like he had sold everyone out again.

"Yes, I know. That's the memory you asked me to wipe..." Mana rubbed her tired eyes.

"And a quality slice it was," the old woman said after a brief and subdued cackle. "If you trained some more with the Intelligence Division, polished your skills some more, we'd have use for your particular skill at wiping minds."

"Just... Forget it," Mana threw her hands up in the air and left the cell, fully intending to just leave the Police Force building and these sneaky bastards that seemed to always be there when Mana's life turned for the worse, despite claiming they were there to protect her. "You know, I'm beginning to seriously not like you guys, so you better practice that sneaking skill of yours really well because if I find out you have any more agents following me–I'll wipe their memory and free them too."

"There's no need to seed bad blood between us, Mana," the hooded man turned around with the platoon of bowl-cuts lining up in front of the ninja magician and cutting her off from the staircase. "You need to understand–you are a treasured asset for protecting Konoha, which is our one and only goal. You've done this village a profound service and all of us owe you our lives for preventing a potential world war. We just wanted to make sure that no harm falls to you while you're with the Allied Ninja. Our agents had a role to play in securing the Ayushi Cells that brought you back from the brink of death."