Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Two Questions for Each Answer

That evening went surprisingly tame. Mana would've imagined pirates being some drinking and plundering brutes, a lot like the stories, both fictional and historical, she read. Despite their fear of portraying weakness in any way, demonstrated by Read's booming desire to kill anyone showing any disrespect to avoid a mutiny, the pirates were behaving rather civilized compared to Mana's imagined stereotype. While meditating in her small but slightly more pompous than Mana would've wanted quarters, filled with plants and multiple bookcases filled with both educational atlases and books of fiction to keep the girl company, the magician heard no loud cursing or brawling. Only occasionally someone passed by her door accidentally bumping into it with their broom while they scrubbed the deck.

The young magician wished to make no premature conclusions but perhaps the description of the pirates as just rebellious sailors wishing to be treated like human beings and running a humane if a little illegal ship was justified? After all, she had seen with her own eyes the scars on a marine's back, the cold and lifeless zombie-like eyes that each marine carried. It wasn't tough to see the allure of a pirate's life, a life where you were treated as a person as long as you stayed within your own bounds and respected the pecking order. After all, it wasn't tough to imagine similar punishment befalling any sailor questioning the order of their superiors. If anything on a legitimate ship the sailor may have been questioned and tortured before being executed, dragged through the whole tribunal charade.

After confronting the emptiness of her own soul Mana was no longer afraid of meditating. There was nothing out of ordinary in her body, at least there didn't seem to be, all was working normally, as long as one had Mana's disability in mind. Her body was still intentionally withholding the ability to mold chakra, the girl felt like she knew why. 

It was because of how she treated that gift. It was a self-preservation mechanism that her body placed on itself, choosing to never regain the full grasp of chakra control since the magician constantly risked her own life with it. She'd have fought Shimo to save those crawlers, she'd have fought the pirates to save that misspoken fellow who was killed that day... She'd have lost both fights. It was a scary thing to know that one's subconscious made more rational sense than one's own conscious mind.

Mana opened her eyes and stretched her tired body out over her own compact bed. She felt rested despite only having meditated and not slept throughout the whole time. She was such an idiot for not having done so during the last night, after all, if she had placed herself in a trance she'd have remained oblivious to Hachiro's antics and had a good night's sleep. Just like Meiko did. Except Meiko was no meditating genius, she was merely a really good and almost comically deep sleeper.

A loud thud alerted the girl's attention and she hesitantly walked to the door opening it. There stood a chubby, elderly man wearing a bandana and a torn and dirty shirt.

"Captain Read would like to see you at the dinner table, she's quite excited to tell you the stories you so wished to hear" the man bumbled out in a voice belonging without a doubt to someone's grandpa. The pirate's tone and voice were so soft and low pitched that it seemed like everything he said was an educational journey with rich rewards of experience and knowledge. It was the most grandpa voice Mana had heard.

The ex-kunoichi just bowed her head leaving through the door and following the man to a staircase below captain's deck.

"Forgive me for the messy shirt, young lady, it's just that I was fixing some gear-work before this and had no time to change, the captain looked urgent with her call for you." The round-bellied pirate smiled looking back at Mana picking his drunkard's red with pulsing blood vessels nose.

"It's really no problem, why are we going downstairs? Aren't we going to dine at the captain's deck?" Mana shook her head once before inquiring.

"Oh no..." The man chuckled grabbing his slipping out belly and stuffing it back into his oily trousers. "The captain dines with her men, we all eat at the same time by the same table, I can imagine it to be a bit confusing as marines cannot imagine such a luxury".