Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

Barbed Rings

Damisan sat in the middle of the town square that had just hosted the greatest massacre it had ever seen. Blinded and afraid, the villagers had butchered each other, unable to tell friend from foe, and Damisan took a key part in it. He didn't even try to stop them. Worse, he actually struck a handful of people down with full intent of getting them out of his way just so he could get to Fennec's men that fled into the sandy blizzard content with what they've sown, fostered, and reaped here.

The desert wanderer sat with his back pressed against a wooden pole that had a human ribcage and a mortified head decorating its peak. The barbs of the wire he had loosely wrapped around himself to stop himself from making any sudden moves he'd later regret dug into his skin lightly every time that he drew breath. The survivors moved around to remove the gore and the viscera from their town the best they could. Plenty of them still carried injuries.

"I thought you worked for the Kazekage..." a strong and rather husky for what was essentially a feminine voice reached Damisan. His stare stayed hazed and focused on a blank point, but some of his consciousness emerged to the here and now by using that voice as an anchor to the horrific present.

"I used to," Damisan replied.

"What does that mean, you used to? Have you gone rogue then? If you have, your actions in liberating this town don't quite make much sense," the woman walked out in front of Damisan and crossed her arms. It was the same young lady that Damisan found lying around with a handful of puncture wounds in her abdomen with grievous blood loss during the battle. There was a thick layer of bandage over her exposed mid-riff and her bodysuit was torn in many places, suggesting that she had been involved in something violent here too.

It was just that Damisan lacked the fight in him to burrow deeper and pull that truth out. Right now, he felt sick to the core and just wanted this all to be done with. Mana told him he was making a mistake in coming here. She may have been wrong about the reason, but Damisan was having the nastiest feeling that she was right about the conclusion she's drawn.

"I volunteered to come here and gather intelligence on Fennec's activities in this town. I knew the locals would recognize me, I've grown up in this town. What I didn't expect back then was that they'd sell me out and then just watch Fennec have his way," Damisan recounted the memories that still felt like reflections from a surface of a pulsing clot that spewed blood and puss and made his stomach wrench each time they came up. The twinging and searing in his face, crawling to his neck and throat and then resonating through the nervous system all across his body, the quartering... It all felt like a distant dream ever since the Sky Clan accidentally restored his old body back to form but actually his new body, ability to do whatever he used to be able to, and freedom to do those things were the real dream.

It took all this bloodshed for Damisan to begin to wake up from that dream.

"You mean Fennec discovered you were working for the Kazekage and you survived? That's impressive. You don't see any of those folks having survived, then again, seeing their states, maybe the madman went soft on you?" the woman tilted a ring of loose barbed wire and moved it away so that she could sit beside Damisan without cutting herself.

"You mean..." Damisan muttered.

"That's right. All of those body horror shows around you are either Kazekage's agents or those of the Sheikhs. At this point, all of them recognize Fennec as a vital threat to the Wind Country's future," the woman ran her hand over her luscious brown hair and moved them back from obstructing her face, revealing shades of dark yet paled from blood loss skin underneath.

"And which one were you?" Damisan wondered.

"Were? I am Shakhra, an agent of the Fahzad Sheikhate. My torture and injuries don't make me less loyal to the Sheikh. You didn't answer my previous question, though. Fennec's dog said that you've redeemed yourself after his punishment, what does that mean? I thought it meant you turned to his side, but then your actions here three days ago wouldn't make sense. Just who are you really?" Shakhra leaned forward and turned to look into Damisan's eyes to find any traces of falsehood in his response.