Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Shattering Wicked

The next morning after the overly indulgent dinner, there was a certain period of cooldown where Meiko and Kouta took their time recovering from overeating and enjoying far too many drinks. Impressively enough, the ninja metabolism eliminated most signs of a hangover after one and a half hour at worst but the whole day Shimo kept on whispering something in the ears of his teammates, something that slightly troubled Mana for she worried that her declaration may be overheard or intercepted in mid-delivery.

After lunch, the magician's team gathered in Mana's quarters. They only barely all had a place to settle as the place was not meant to fit more than two people inside, while the rooms were certainly costly they were not overly spacious after all. Everyone began speaking at once filling the limited space with verbal rubbish which wouldn't have been intelligible to even the most devoted listeners so Mana just gently calmed everyone down and sighed trying to explain as much as she could to her team.

"Wait, Shimo said..." Kouta began speaking again, this time alone.

"Don't finish that sentence. It's not safe to utter those words in captain Read's ship." Mana jumped up pressing her hand against the boy's mouth.

"So is that true? What's your plan?" Shimo asked angrily rubbing his temples. While Mana was sure that internally the young swordsman was completely with Mana's idea he wanted to act out like he needed persuasion. The reasons of such rebellious behavior eluded Mana's mind but she had long since passed the point trying to reasonably explain the boyish ego.

"Look, all I can tell you guys is that... Yes, that's true but I can't discuss it. It's too dangerous." Mana answered.

"Don't worry, guys, I'm sure Mana has a plan, she'd never endanger us or doom us for a confrontation like that unless she has a foolproof plan." Meiko grinned leaning back on her arms without a care.

"Actually... I haven't figured that part out yet. I only have small parts of an actual plan because my actual plan is very dangerous. It has about fifty-fifty chance of success and everything can go wrong. I don't want to leave the fate of my team to chance, I want it to be a full hundred but... I simply see no other way than my plan." Mana admitted looking down and then turning around to look through the illuminator.

"Well... At least you have a plan." Meiko tried justifying Mana's words but then the magician turned around and shook her head sitting on her bed and staring at the expensive carpet beneath her feet with apologizing and guilty eyes.

"I'm really sorry, guys. I just can't give captain Read or any single Pirate Lord that many shards. I have no problem paying Hachiro-san or any wanderer who probably wouldn't have much use to it but what if Read melts the alloy and coats her ship with it? It'd take a miracle to sink such a ship. And what if she coats her cannonballs with it or learns to manufacture it after handing one to Green? I know this is the same argument we had in the desert but I've learned my lesson, we all must've. These shards are coming back to Konoha, I'd rather die a thousand times over than give this many of them to Read or any other pirate." Mana tried explaining herself, she spoke quietly and Shimo constantly stood on the watch peeking through the illuminator. Technically they've only expressed very abstract ideas yet but they'd still sound suspicious if the wrong ears overheard them.

"You paid Read half of the share already," Kouta said.

"I'll take it back" Mana cut down in a tone that implied she was not going to discuss this any further and has made up her mind already.

"What's the plan?" Shimo asked.

"We're going to send a message with coordinates to another Pirate Lord, we're going to spark a fight between the two pirate crews and do what we came there to do before fleeing. We're ninja, doing our jobs and fleeing is what we're supposed to be good at." Mana explained pressing her shaking hand against her face, she knew how bad that plan must've sounded and how much risk was involved.