Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Into An Ocean of Dreams

A sound of disturbing kitchen noises woke Mana up. She was the only one willing to share a room in an inn with Hachiro, the others appeared either untrusting or unwilling to sleep anywhere near the same room as if the man was made of plague. Meiko however, despite her lack of desire to share a room with the man slept close to Mana and Hachiro just because she wanted to watch the man and keep him from pulling something dangerous on them. The blacksmith wasn't too devoted to the cause though as she got knocked out by the Sandman and remained in that state until the morning. Not even the countless rustles Hachiro made through the night could as much as make her wiggle her nose.

Mana's tired eyes examined the room, her heart was not as troubled as it once was. Naturally, the girl was afraid of being in danger the first couple of times she was woken up, now it was just annoying. Finally, the magician's lazy and floaty eyesight fixed on Hachiro standing by the window and drinking yet another glass of milk. For a man powerful enough to hold his own against their entire team the Uchiha sure was paranoid. Mana was the only one of the group to take his ramblings seriously and as such she didn't get mad at him for pulling this sort of thing, at first, at least...

"Is something wrong?" She whispered, without a worry of waking Meiko up who was sitting near her bed and guarding the magician like a guard dog. Despite being in a rather intimidating protective position Meiko's head was cocked back all the way and she was drooling all over her chubby cheeks while the blacksmith slept like a baby.

"It's just... I thought I heard someone talking outside..." Hachiro smiled, at least Mana thought he did. A sharp stench of sweat stabbed at her nose revealing that the man may have been playing brave while his own body played games on him.

"I don't think there's anything to worry about. When you open the fridge the light is flashing right into my eyes..." Mana tried to tell the man she was becoming very annoyed by having to wake up every five minutes because he had to drink some milk or place some ice cubes into his glass.

"Do you think I have inflammation of the pancreas, girl? I feel kind of nauseous..." The man wondered after looking back through the window.

"No, I don't think so. It's no wonder you're nauseous, you've drunk at least six glasses of milk so far, maybe it just has gone bad?" Mana wondered flipping onto the other side to try and sleep up. It was a possibility that she'd be sleeping on a ship the next night and that meant she may not have slept too good, the magician had never been on a ship before and new sensations were a poor catalyst for sleepy nights.

"Oh, it is bad... I wouldn't drink good milk, no one would slip in poison into bad milk, I mean why would they, no one drinks it..." Hachiro mumbled to himself. "I want to pee, can you maybe go to the bathroom with me and guard the door?" The man asked.

"I won't. There's no such thing as a shit-goblin, or any other sort of goblin for that matter. I'm sure Shimo told you this plenty of times before... No one watches the inn bathrooms, they're not public." Mana grunted a little more aggressively than she'd have wanted.

"Oh... Okay..." Hachiro replied as if her answer disappointed him and shaking as if he was heading towards certain doom he began heading towards the door. His voice was whiny and overwhelmed like that of a baby being told that he was responsible for filling in the taxes for the whole family and that he won't get any ice cream until he does.

A grunt came from under Mana's cover, the girl flipped her cover off and jumped out of her bed.

"Fine... I'll watch the door..." She replied annoyed.

*****

It was tough to say just who made Mana wish to break her no killing rule more – Hachiro with his paranoid waking up routine or Shimo with his declaration of moving out. The scaredy Uchiha was already waiting by the door by the time Shimo banged on it and ran out immediately after the young ninja woke everyone up. Mana could barely peel her head off the pillow. She felt sorry for her own miserable and sleepy face when she examined it in the mirror. After Hachiro left Mana began changing out of her PJs since if she decided to snooze for one more minute she'd have gone right back asleep.