Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

...Tarry a While You Are So Fair

The door to Mana's home opened crispy clean, no squeaking or hitches. Silent like the year's longest night. So disturbingly without a sound that the magician closed it a bit rough just to alert her family that she was back. This was odd – father's hands were far too damaged for precision work like maintaining the door, mother had too old fashioned of a mindset to do maintenance – man's work. Rubbish. Silly thoughts to distract her from the confrontation to come, yet another pair of beloved people she let down.

"Oh, God..." mother gently exclaimed before running up and hugging Mana firmly.

The girl squirmed and moaned uneasily as her aching sides flared up devouring her entire emotional specter, demanding the entirety of the magician's attention.

"I'm sure this begging for her life is expression of love and how much she missed us, not how much this hurts..." father sarcastically remarked before softly pulling mother away.

Mana stood there with her head lowered and submissively turned away, waiting for their choice of words to yell at her. Knowing what came next after the primary expression of love and happiness that she was relatively more alright than one would've normally been after what the girl has been through.

She just stood there waiting only for absolutely nothing to follow. Mother returned to the kitchen and father sat down by some unseen device that was settled down inside an oaken cupboard. The device father was fixed on appeared to show moving images, just like all the screens on the buildings in the different universe the magician had visited. It was like her household, which meant any normal household, had access to a miniature cinema screen. This wouldn't make old man Hiro happy at the slightest.

"Will you be having pancakes, dear?" mother's raised voice came from the kitchen. She still wore a bit too fancy and formal of attires meaning she must've only recently returned from work and still had no time to change and settle down.

"Pancakes for din... I mean... Wait, I just disappeared without a single word from me. I know I let you guys down, okay? I'm sorry..." Mana got distracted by mother's question seeing how she completely ignored the issue at hand.

"Yeah... Okay. I know, no one eats pancakes for dinner but the thing is that one morning I was too busy to finish making them so we had them for dinner and it sort of stuck. We now have pancakes for dinner once in a while..." mother smiled at Mana once again brushing the girl's issues again. "Those bruises on your face don't look too good, you may want to have those scars removed in the hospital tomorrow..." the woman smiled before returning to her kitchen work.

"Aren't you going to punish me? Yell at me or tell me how worried you were!?" Mana felt her tone rising to uncomfortable heights straining her tired vocal cords.

"Well, it's made quite clear you already know that..." father's voice came from the guestroom.

"Plus, we can't really ground you or anything – you have training and missions and the village is really missing those few skipped magic shows..." mother forked a cake from the pan and slammed it into a plate piled with them.

"That's... What I was supposed to say..." Mana mumbled to herself seeing how she seemed to recall a similar conversation happening at some point before. At this point the magician was well beyond tearing up even though the world she was supposed to know the best – one of her own home defied any conventional laws of logic and understanding. Why weren't her parents mad at her? Why didn't they try to tear their hair out in anger trying to punish her?

"We're just happy you're okay and that you're back. What's that you have?" mother wondered pointing her chin at the sword packed and sticking outside Mana's backpack.