Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

Strength and Safety

"Humph... I feel like I've had a full night of sleep or something," Endo grumbled after sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Not too long after, he threw himself in the direction of the bed where the suspicious rookie was sleeping. Almost as if trying to make up for the time of gatekeeping that he missed out on after going to sleep at night.

"She definitely moved at night but... The recruit is still out," Shige-H scratched her head, staring at the sprawled-out rookie who only had a thick cover wrapping to cover up her extremities. "It's almost like she got up to do something and then slumped into a deep sleep. You wouldn't know anything about this, would you?"

"Yeah, she tried to kill me again," Mana yawned. "She should wake up soon enough. I've already released the genjutsu I put her under."

"What? You mean you didn't kill her?!" Endo growled, grabbing the scabbard of his sword and approaching the slumbering woman with full intent to deal with her as he dealt with the last infiltrator assassin that tried to kill his squadmate.

"Shocking, I know..." Mana rolled her eyes. "I put her to sleep so that we can talk this through in the morning. She has valuable information about who hired her. Also, it'd be just downright odd if I wasn't half as curious as I am about what this is all about. The last I reckoned, most people wanting me dead considered even the sky-high bounty on my head not worth the trouble anymore..."

"This is such awful timing," Shige-H sighed. "We're in on an assignment of paramount importance. We can't afford to lose people on assassination conspiracies. At this rate, we'll have to hire mercenaries to assist us. I think I now know how the Supreme Leader feels every day..."

The blue eyes of the young woman fluttered and let the sharp rays of sunlight seep through. They opened a bit wider with each blink, risking more and more headache before locking her crosshairs at Mana. Shige-H and Endo all froze in place, anticipating the venomous viper to lash out at their comrade at the moment of her awakening.

"You should have tied her up, at the very least!" Endo growled, letting the limited sunlight breaching through their passenger quarter windows dance on the exposed edge of his blade and serve as a razor warning to anyone fostering ill will toward him or his fellow Stars.

"You do know that Rope Escape Jutsu is an elementary technique that every Academy Student knows before graduating from the Ninja Academy, right?" Mana squinted at her more bloodthirsty companion before slipping into her blazer and pulling up a chair to cross her legs over as she leaned in on the awakened assassin. The ninja magician almost taunted the blonde to try something again, almost as if testing how many lessons were learned last night and how much of what Mana said this youth took to heart.

"You...!" the blonde roared out while jumping up. Mana didn't move an inch from her location, but her adamantine facade did falter and let the torrent of shock bust through its dam. It wasn't the fact that the awakened assassin immediately jumped to the arduous task of killing the Konoha's Sorceress, even when her Stars member allies surrounded her. It was the fact that she stopped just a few inches short.

Mana could even feel the woman's warm breath brushing against her nose, split evenly across both of Mana's cheeks.

"Wh... What did you do to me!? Why can't I move!?" the golden-haired banshee screamed out right at Mana's face. As the ninja magician slowly leaned back and made herself more comfortable in her seat with confusion never leaving her eyes, it seemed like her wannabe assassin got easier in her gut to breathe and could move around again.

"Interesting..." Shige-H slowly approached the rookie and pulled her lower eyelid down, looking deep into the bloodshot eyes of the young woman that had suffered the dreadful agony of drowning in an abyss of freezing waters with the constant feeling of invisible, titanic observers eyeing her as their dinner from far away but never coming into view. "I've never seen this in practice before, but... I suppose... How terrifying of an illusion you put her in?"