Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

What was Promised

While Mana possessed no gifts of chakra sensory, these were born with and developed at some point during teen years, she didn't need them to sense the destruction and massive numbers of lost lives in the vortex of battle transpiring behind her and the Yamanaka. She wanted nothing less than to hear any propositions, this had to end. Sadly her reasonable mind, as crushed by her emotional part as it was, suggested that this very offer may have been just such a mean to end this bloodshed.

"Kill the Imarizu for me." Inomame smiled arrogantly.

"This isn't a proposition, this is a demand." Mana coldly mumbled out as she clenched her fists, hearing the grunts and shouts behind her made her more and more impatient.

"Well... More like a... Insisted suggestion..." Inomame shrugged, his smugness faded from his face once he got defensive for just a blink of a moment. "Do you know why I've achieved what I have and what I am? It's because of weakness. Because I do not possess the very common amongst the Yamanaka gifts of sensory. I was unfit for the battlefield, not as one of the elites, anyway. Being anything but exemplary was unacceptable to me, I couldn't stand it. It's me we're talking about, how could me, of all people, not be the focus of conversation?"

"Shut up..." Mana intruded upon the upcoming monologue, she had no time to waste on monologues, not while lives were being taken behind her. She turned her back to the cocky bastard who tried to have her friend killed, then forced into marriage, which for some crazy reason Kiyomi was not overly objective about.

"You like monologues? How about this one? I will tell the Imarizu that I'm ready to stop opposing them. That I made a mistake and my mistake cost more lives letting you die would've cost in the first place. I'll get out of their way, it'll be a surrender from my part, yet I'll come out the victor – my friend will be by my side again and you'll be dead." Mana finished as she began walking back into the battlefield at a casual pace. She still had chakra left for a couple of clutch petal escapes, if needed, before she reached the Imarizu.

Suddenly her body stopped, Mana forced herself into motion but she could only muster a twitch. The light blue glow from below revealed that she was caught by Inomame's hair trap technique.

"You'll offend your principles, won't you?" Inomame asked her, his tone was not desperate at the slightest.

"My wish is to save everyone, sometimes that's impossible, I'm too weak to do that so for now I'm satisfied with saving as many as I can. I'll grieve, despair for a fair amount of time, ultimately I'll decide to grow stronger so that the next time I can protect everyone and inspire people to change the world around them into one where all life is respected... I'll somehow deal with it, I've lost plenty and I always deal with it and come out stronger." Mana replied. She felt uneasy, she had no idea what Inomame's plan with this was. He looked completely careless about the battle in which his men were being killed. His play here was still a mystery to Mana.

"That's fun. You've got spirit. Breaking the spirited ones is always the most fun." Inomame shrugged, even as he expressed his intent to break Mana he didn't move.

"Go ahead, kill me, it'll be ultimately useless to you. Just like, I assure you, the battle will be over by the time torturing me will give you anything useful." Mana encouraged the man with a brave tone. The only hints of intimidation she had were not due to the imagined death or pain she'd experience, they were because of the fact she still had no idea what Inomame intended to do with this. If it was as easy as she imagined it to be – pain or death, he'd still lose so it had to be something else.

"It's true, my Demonlings are tough. They won't survive the Imarizu though, maybe pick a couple of 'em off but not all four working as an ultimate fisting machine. You on the other hand... You've survived them before. I can use you for that very same purpose, use you to kill them. Tell me wouldn't you break seeing blood on your hands and cold dead bodies beneath your feet? It is your mouth that burnt its owner, not mine..." Inomame chuckled to himself before placing his hands up. Mana's eyes whited out, she tried desperately to break out of the hair trap but she failed to do anything but twitch a muscle here and there.