Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

The Red Pill

The skin felt irritated and eerily sensitive as the bandages rubbed against it. Once Mana finally returned to her senses she felt up her bandaged face before letting her hands feel below her neck. As the more painful wounds instantly alerted the magician not to be touchy she quickly pulled her hands away from them. Mana looked around seeing a bunch of red medical pills laying around in a little decorative bowl as well as a couple of cups of water. Seeing how one was in a purple plastic cup decorated with flowery motifs Mana sipped from it barely finding a spot on her bandaged head to do so.

There must not have been much to the Land of Waves' medical specialists seeing how she was still bandaged and very much in pain. Arguably feeling a lot worse than she did during the actual fight, granted, back then she had the advantage of slowly fading consciousness that didn't rag her about how much everything hurt and how nauseous she was. Even a small sip of water, arguably one of the worst problems of waking up after a long period of resting sent the girl's stomach into a full-blown strike mode.

Trying to rub her tummy to please it somehow Mana laid back down. She really didn't feel like walking around. The magician peeked at the medical pills wandering if she was allowed to take them, that is to say, if they were left there to be taken when Mana woke up, as the water was. Knowing how potent those medical pills were, also the risk of taking too many over too short period of time Mana sort of kept herself from it, despite the pain and unrest. Even if they were the red ones, some of the least potent ones, they still would've helped her tremendously.

The door screeched as it opened revealing a curious middle aged man walking in. The man had a curious case of bushy facial hair, very thick glasses and wore a typical light blue medical ninja non-combat uniform.

"Ah, you're awake... What's wrong? You didn't take the food pills..." the man curiously inquired as he made a hand seal bending to the other side of Mana's head allowing the seals with her medical information to reveal themselves to him.

"I'm... Nauseous. My boyfriend is a medical ninja so I know these aren't too healthy to have too many of." Mana replied quietly, hearing how soft and weak her voice was and how slurring her speech came out.

The man smiled and waved his hand indifferently, "Don't worry, we don't have the really high risk-high reward kind. Red ones won't hurt too much even if you take one too many. Your liver and your digestive tract were completely grinded to mulch, healing that took a dozen of medical ninja, sadly we don't have any higher ranking specialists here so we had to pool our efforts. You're lucky you're a Konoha kunoichi, even luckier the Hokage specifically asked to have you treated as a very important patient."

"He did?" Mana wondered remembering very little after what had transpired in the beach. She was under the impression that the man utterly despised her, even more than the girl was willing to accept as being reasonable. People disliked some other people, it was just the way things were. The Sixth however really looked like he was out to get Mana the last time they met. She had figured that the man would be completely out of his mind after hearing what she had pulled – going into such a battlefield alone without informing Konoha and all...

"Oh yes, a Konohagakure party came in yesterday and took that Kirigakure gentleman away. All of the Konoha Sannin were here, all ready for a fight! It looked like a scene from an epic novel, I tell you..." the medical ninja smiled after handing Mana a single food pill, being wary of the girl's concerns of being careful with the medical food pills. The magician softly opened her mouth – as much as her sore and cracking jaw allowed her and chewed the slimy and chewy red pill that tasted like tomatoes with herbs in some gooey and milky substance. The taste certainly could've been improved.