Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Not Everyone

Mana had no idea for how long they've been fighting. These Justicars weren't just ordinary bandits. She hit them as hard as she could, they took all she could dish out and stood right back up. Every blow she dodged she attempted to counter in return. Ten or more people attacked her at once, none of them landed a solid blow, all of them got counters coming their way, aimed at their joints, their eyes or ears. Every time Mana thought she broke something, injured someone beyond recovery, even thought she may have gone too far, the guy or gal just jumped back on their feet with bloodied faces or limbs dangling strangely and kept coming at her.

Just their degree of hate directed towards her was disgusting, it wasn't fear of violence on their part, physical violence was something Mana experienced for the most of her life. For a person who spoke of peace, she was somewhat of a hypocrite as she was a child trained in combat since the days she could firmly stand on her feet. No, violence wasn't what scared her, not the prospect of being beaten or having her face caved in or her flesh exploding from being unable to withstand the force behind those superhuman blows. It was the more spiritual part that scared her.

These people wished to kill her, to an extent that was scarier than any of their beaten and battle-hardened faces grunting at her, trying to scare her by staring at her to death because they could no longer land a blow on her. These men and women hated Mana because she could not allow any harm to come to those poor misshapen men and women of some settlement who were now doomed to spend their days in hiding, shy of their own misshapen forms. Was that so deserving of hatred? Why did these people come at her with such devotion, such ferocity? Was it not human nature to try and help each other to the best of one's abilities?

Maybe it was Mana and not these violent people who were misguided. Maybe she was the anomaly who didn't belong and deserved to get murdered in a cave deep below Takigakure waterfalls? Maybe she was wrong to change Kouta's life, to try and change everyone she met? Maybe Kouta was for the better as a violent spawn of his Juugo father, maybe the efforts of his mother to make a medical ninja out of him, a person not at all similar to his father were wrong? Maybe violence was the norm here for the sole reason that much more people accepted it as an option, not even that, a solution.

A flurry of kicks sent a wall of people crashing into the cave walls. Mana was fast, she was getting slower, however. Avoiding blows was beginning to wear on her, her own body was beginning to break down for using so much physical chakra. And yet these people stood back up, they sacrificed just as much to kill her and then kill those dwellers trampling on Mana's dead body while doing so. They were just as devoted to their cause as Mana was on hers. For how long could she play this perfect protector of peace when she was the minority, how long until she falls and with her the last of this world's, what seemed to Mana, common sense?

Fury, previously unheard of rose inside Mana's heart. She became visibly more devoted to her strikes, more violent. She no longer felt content at pushing these men back, she felt angry, violent. She continued to strike, kick and push people even while they were down, she continued to dislocate, crush and twist their limbs, the more gruesome the noises came from them the better. She killed no one but killing was not the only immoral thing in the world. What was this anger she felt, why did she not feel content just pushing back? Maybe she had more of this world inside her than she thought, maybe she was no saint herself? No... There was nothing perfect about Mana, imperfect origins, average skills and now her disability...

A violent explosion ripped Mana apart from the twelve Justicars she continuously maimed and bashed at. Just barely a couple of them didn't drown in... Magma? Mana felt the blood rushing from inside of her, immense heat rising up before the physical chakra helped her deal with it. Augmenting her body... Physical chakra wasn't really working as potently as the real thing. Mana coughed up handfuls of blood and felt her lungs burning up. She almost got incinerated from inside by just breathing this hot air in. She heard loud yells, the Justicars were fleeing back, focusing on Meiko and Kouta instead as magma blocked them off.