Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Unexpected Encounter of the Family Kind

The never-ending tree line around the small forest path that the quartet was still moving on kept on monotonously moving by as the four ran forward. The night had caught them unprepared and they were already supposed to have reached Shukuba town – a small pleasure town at the end of Roiyaru road. It was well known to thrive serving as a pit stop of sorts for ninja passing by and was a nice halfway stop for shinobi heading outside the Fire Country.

"Say, Meiko-san, your armor makes some noise and doesn't look too comfortable, aren't you worried about that in battles? I mean most ninja sort of dress more casually to blend into the crowds and have relative comfortability while sneaking around, an armor protects you when in battle but fighting face-to-face isn't what ninja are all about..." Kouta asked out of the blue.

"If we didn't have to worry about fighting we wouldn't really need you" Meiko replied, her tone didn't suggest that it was supposed to be taken as something offensive but Kouta did look a bit knocked down a peg.

"I think it isn't about fighting, Kouta" Shimo butt himself into the conversation, slightly picking up the speed to catch up to the two who were leading the squad by a couple of feet.

"I remember Meiko from the Academy, I was a little interested in her back in the Academy since she always failed her genjutsu and ninjutsu assignments but kept working hard even when she completely blew everything. During the exam, her clone looked like an asthmatic bald granny and she never even managed to use a simple disorientation genjutsu throughout the whole course. What Meiko is doing with this armor and her focus in weaponry which she clearly telegraphs to everyone looking at her is finding her own identity and sticking to it. That is worth a lot of respect. Despite that, I must admit I was surprised to hear you graduated the Academy the same year" the Yuki added.

"I almost didn't, that asthmatic bald granny of a clone just barely flung me over the minimum grade..." Meiko admitted, judging from her tone and her facial expression her shortcomings weren't a topic she liked discussing too much.

"I don't know, I kind of like what Meiko is doing. She loved blacksmithing outside her missions so she found a way to incorporate it into her main job. Not many people can do that, it's tough to balance several parts of one's personality and combine two seemingly different things like that. Ninjutsu and genjutsu can always be sharpened later..." Mana gently smiled to Meiko who looked back at her, looking at the magician with surprise. It must've been not so often that she was commended for something.

Mana felt like there must've been so much in common between her and Meiko. Obviously, ninjutsu and genjutsu were areas where Mana passed with flying colors and as far as her illusions were concerned could've tutored her Academy teachers a thing or two as it was not a very popular and researched subject. It was only due to her average intelligence test and slightly below average physical and accuracy exams that her overall grade dropped down from remarkable to average.

Still, Mana was commonly scolded for far too many things, in a similar manner to Meiko. Whereas Meiko was made fun of for not living up to her awesome Kirikuzu potential and outright denying it by changing her last name, Mana was commonly made fun of in the Academy because of lack of any special bloodline at all. She was never meant for great things, she was just a grey filler material in an army of special prodigies. Someone to fill up the statistic and that was why she felt so similar and soul-mated with Meiko. It was like the two were always meant to be friends.

"Well, obviously you'd like that..." Shimo started his reply but then stopped and got dead silent, he looked back and dashed on top of a tree with blurring speed, Mana could barely even see his movements with her perfectly normal eyes. The swordsman dashed up to a strong enough branch to hold him on it yet slim enough for his liking and placed his ear onto it.