Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Into the Darkness

The Justicars appeared strangely in quite a rush to speak about the situation they were involved in. This could've been due to a number of reasons but the fact that they concealed those reasons troubled Mana. The magician had read a lot of things about the order of Justicars over the years. It had many split factions, some were funded and supervised by the villages and countries meanwhile some worked separately with no supervision. Supervision technically was against the code set by the First Justicar several hundred years ago. Most of the time the Justicars, both supervised and unsupervised were just another kind of mercenary, one that didn't take money but only helped when they thought their code allowed it.

"I don't like this, not one bit. We have no obligation to speak with them, we could just leave right now and keep moving, we'd reach the edge of Takigakure in a couple of days." Shimo grunted, the young swordsman had a very fine reason to hate Justicars, most of the order despised nukenin and criminals and considered killing them their sole purpose. It may have been due to popular culture praising the Justicars that killed the nastiest and strongest criminals more than the code prioritizing killing criminals in any way.

"I don't know, we should hear what they have to say, won't hurt just to let them know who we are and where we're going, it might keep the Justicars off our tail. Remember that they answer to no one so if they think we're being shady they may attack us." Meiko spoke up raising a rather fair point even if her reasons of sticking around and talking to the ground were much more clear – these Justicars were just well built and developed people in general wearing ancient and gigantic looking armor and weaponry. Of course, the blacksmith would've wished to stay and admire these men and women a bit more...

"I really don't care, on one hand moving quicker is better, we'll get to our goal faster and all that, on the other hand making sure that we don't have the Justicars on our ass forcing me to hold a certain amount of chakra in at all times, just in case I'll need to heal someone, does have its benefits" Kouta shrugged, of all people his opinion seemed most indifferent but also the most objective, everyone else had interests or history with these people.

"I don't even wish to think hard about it, after all, we can't know if they're not still using those Intents from before. I don't feel like they are but the thought is still scary." Mana admitted looking to the side, usually, she was regarded by the group as the leader making her decision quite important in the actions that the group took. Now that she had removed herself from the decision-making process the situation became more complicated.

The large leading Justicar walked up to the four letting them keep some distance before leaning in.

"We're ready to answer any questions you may have but also report the situation at hand. If you could be troubled for a moment we've decided you could be quite helpful," he smiled, Mana looked at his face and wondered if the genuine affection and warm feeling inside of her were still from the Intent that the man used on a much smaller level or if she, just like Meiko, was captivated by how attractive visually and well trained these people were.

"Helpful?" Mana instantly asked, whenever there was a way she could've helped someone and potentially saved some lives the magician was all ears.

"Yes, you see there is a system of rotten trees the tops of which were devastated by a battle that had transpired long ago. In that system, the trees were ancient and well over a couple of centuries old with rich entangled systems of underground roots. We've been hunting those criminals we've mentioned to you before for a long time and some of them we've chased to here used to hide inside those root systems, apparently, they are completely hollow, almost like a tunnel. These people disappeared in those tunnels and, naturally, as Justicars we are very interested in this matter." The man explained.