Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

On the Way to Eden

Mana playfully swung her arms around and over her head directing them to her top hat allowing the invisible extra thin steel strings direct all of the floating in mid-air and bent over spoons to disappear into a storage seal inside her hat. She heard a bunch of applause from random passersby inhabiting a small settlement region. A quiet little town east of the Yamanaka Resort and Aporius' farm. Judging from the looks of things they were all people with things to hide or run away from, just allowing themselves a brief subtle stop to admire the magic tricks of a young girl on a cardboard box.

To the magician girl, it was just like it all had started – she performed without a stage, with no preparation or assistance. Just her own ninja tools, quick thinking and a little bit of healthy magician's improvisation. She was one of the first to perform magic, judging from what she had heard, after her thing in Konoha had taken off there were plenty of people picking up the craft but most of them didn't really threaten her secondary job or her success.

The kunoichi had gathered a fair amount of money and after a couple of polite bows to her audience, the message was out that the show was over and the passersby continued to float away like disturbed spirits on a quiet November night. A single chain of clapping did not cease, however. Mana looked at the audience member who didn't try and fade away with some curiosity, this was either a man who lived and quite enjoyed his time in this small murky town or someone who had no particular place to go.

Either way, that meant that he was beyond the typical understanding of a law abiding citizen. Mana was no romantic fool – she was well aware that for this grey and muddy urbanistic setting adoring settlement to thrive the majority of its providing activities must've been less than legal. To be a successful settler in such an environment was to be a criminal in some way, maybe to have dealings with the weapon and illegal supply traders and smugglers or to cut some throats for coin. If this man had no shame and no desire to walk away and hide his face he was a man to be feared.

"Now why would you take money from struggling and starving settlers when you can just make it using magic. Did you not pull a bill from a fellow's ear, all folded and mangled, just now?" the man curiously inquired. Judging from his tone he was just messing around, having fun. It was a twisted feature in its own way that he managed to still have inspiration for fun after returning to the gritty and murky reality of the settlement around him. Mana did her best to distract the settlers from what was around them but she was no miracle maker...

"It's a trick. There's no such thing as magic – I need to make my bread somehow and I don't feel like dealing with smugglers." Mana smiled putting the hat her father had given her and covering her brightly colored eyes. While she did not do the best job of concealing her face most of the time she had no need of being identified as Konoha's Sorceress in here. She was lucky no one had even identified her up to now.

"And yet you just put your hat back on like it's nobody's business, that same hat you just shoved a handful of bent utensils into..." the raggedy man didn't back down and followed Mana a bit further after she had stepped down the improvised cardboard and tin stage she had found for her show, just something to make some money.

"It's an efficient way of proving someone wrong – agree with them yet show them something that denies them at the same time. It's a form of aggressive sarcasm, some would say – offensive..." Mana replied beginning to feel a bit annoyed that the fan decided to tag along with her. She usually displayed no ill feelings towards fans, even when they got overly excited but this time she was in a rush. She needed that money and she made it the only dignified way she knew how - fighting and magic was all she knew and her magic show was already over.

"Oh, well I'm not that easily offended, mind if I tag along, Konoha's Sorceress?" the young man asked Mana, before he mentioned her stage name the magician was almost fed up to the point of more aggressively asking him to back off but after being noticed she just stood there with her mouth halfway open to yell out something ever cruder.