Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

It's Not Like I'm A Friend Or Anything!

"It's in a remarkably great condition." Mana noted while looking around. Zairyo had used a ninjutsu technique that created a small light emitting sphere in his hand and walked up front, leading the way. At this point the trio were just wandering around the archive looking for the scroll that Usuzoku needed. "The centipede that used to block the entrance also appears to be gone..." the magician recalled the obstacle that prevented her from leaving the archive all the way back.

"Aye, de centipede goo is a great delicacy for dem mongooses. I must admit its slimy qualities hold certain power over me too, however, da very fact that the mongooses find it alluring deters me." Usuzoku explained only for Mana to throw up a little bit of illusionary bile in her mouth. She had every right to despise the material, she once literally swam in it for her life and mission objective.

Zairyo was obliviously nodding, when his eyes met Mana's questioning gaze he just shrugged, "What? It's rich in protein and food is scarce when you wander..." the man waved his hands feeling a bit on the defensive side.

"So what if the scroll really is destroyed?" Mana wondered, "What happens to the ninja rabbits? Do they become just rabbits?"

"Don' be stupid, ye dirty hatchling. We'd just make a new one." Usuzoku squinted at her fighting the impulse to physically hurt the magician.

"So why didn't you make a new one when this one was stolen?" Mana scratched her head in confusion, also to remove the excessive number of cobwebs that tangled in her long dark hair.

"Gee, I dunno, maybe it's because it's our Contract Scroll!? Why don't you humans build a new Hokage mountain and just blow this one to pieces fer no reason?" Usuzoku stopped and used his large toes to lift his body up to meet Mana's eyes on her level. The two just stared each other down for a while before Zairyo sighed in boredom.

The man bit his thumb and quickly made a bunch of hand seals before driving his hand to the ground.

"Summoning Jutsu!" he shouted as a cloud of smoke erupted after a loud pop of air and a flash of light. Where the smoke soon clear stood a pair of zebra-like looking creatures except they both stood on two hind legs and had strong looking horns on their foreheads. The creatures had completely red colored eyes which made the magician take a cautionary step back after the duo revealed themselves but then their expressions pacified somewhat and they just stared blankly at their summoner.

"Help me find a Rabbit Contract Scroll. It's supposed to be here somewhere..." the man grumped it out to his ninja animals who quickly scattered through the archive that wasn't really even that large and could've been examined in a good twenty minutes of careful observation. Had the Sannin shared this part of the plan with the magician she'd have disagreed to further worsen this place's integrity.

"Wait, you have a contract with ninja zebras?" Usuzoku stared at the recently performed summoning technique with shock. Almost like his entire life choices were just put into question.

"Yeah. They're useful and quite powerful runners. This pair also possesses the horn mutation which is rare amongst the species, they are a valuable specimen." Zairyo shrugged.

"YE IDIOT!" Usuzoku yelled out, for the first time the magician saw the rabbit being angry at someone else than her, "You can't be signed ta two species at once! Why did'ya even look for de damned Bailong scroll anyways if it's useless fer ya!?"

"Huh? I once fought a guy who used both a snake and a panda summon. I thought you could sign to as many species as you can convince to sign it... I thought the one species rule is more of a recommendation to deepen the "bond" between the summoner and the animal or some bullcrap like that..." the Sannin explained his position only for Usuzoku to facepalm.