Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Autumn Garden

"Are you leaving, Mana-chan?" one of the janitors asked the magician as she was packing her things and walking through the empty hall. The magician felt a bit embarrassed to look the man in the eyes as she had often asked him to postpone doing his job when she wished to meet her fans after the show.

"Yeah..." Mana nodded.

"Won't be meeting the fans this week?" the man asked with a wide smile that made his black and rich mustache line bend like an upwards crescent moon.

"I guess not." the magician shrugged, she just didn't feel uplifted enough to show her real face to the fans just yet. There were so many things happening all around her, both present and the past. Acting on the stage was easy, forgetting the loss of a friend on the stage was not too hard but off-stage, when your life wasn't pre-planned and practiced to perfection, anything could've happened. The girl just felt quite likely to burst into tears if certain notes of her deeper psyche were played.

"That's too bad... People may start thinking you're avoiding them..." another voice came. One from a man who had recently entered the hall as Mana hadn't noticed him during the show. The face of a man she actually tried avoiding, one she should've seen but didn't because it'd have been too hard. The face of Shimo's father.

Mana blanked out, she felt that her mouth was wide open and that her eyes were gapping to the extent that they were beginning to itch. Still, she couldn't find a word to say, luckily she didn't have to.

"Maybe we can talk outside?" the man asked after removing his top hat and pressing it to his chest. It made the magician remember how she saw the man when he picked Shimo's unconscious body up after a grueling mission cleaning the dishes. Now the man's hair was rarer in the center, beginning to grow a bit balder and decently greyed out – the stress of losing one of his heirs didn't help...

"I uh..." Mana lifted her thumb up pointing it to the back exit, trying to make up an excuse to just run away and leave the man behind but she realized that it wouldn't be fair, not to him, not to Shimo. She was there when this man's son died, she asked the Hokage for the mission where he died, she made a lot of calls that lead to the young man's death. Mana didn't really blame herself for her friend's death directly but deep inside she was looking for reasons to do it.

"Sure..." she relented and followed the man outside wrapping a scarf around her neck and buttoning her coat before leaving the hall.

"You didn't come to visit, we didn't see you at the funeral either..." the man started, Mana just closed her eyes and lowered her head. If the man had something negative to say to her. If he felt like she had some far distanced role to play in his son's death she'd accept that. Maybe it'd finally be a reason to hate herself, hating herself, blaming herself would've been simpler. Much simpler than to accept that something so terrible just happened because of a call she had no say in. Because she had no possible way of saving her friend and it was something just meant to be.

"I couldn't... I wanted to come and see him off but..." Mana looked down at her rubbing her boots at the cold and rough road. It wasn't a willful motion, just a mindless instinct. A childish one.

"I wanted to ask you how you're holding up but... It's like we've feared. Does the other young man know? I'm sorry, I forgot his name..." the man shook his head asking, his eyes were warm and kind and Mana felt a bit confused, betrayed even by how lightly he was letting her off.

"Sugemi? I'm not sure, last I've heard of him he was still imprisoned but from what I know it's not a mandatory imprisonment. He had a couple of chances to have the prison administration oversee his case but didn't, I think he may have grown fond of solitude and imprisonment." Mana replied awkwardly, despite no negative intent or words coming out of the man's mouth she still felt like she was somehow an enemy of his family.