Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Promises We'd Rather Not Keep

While Usuzoku was busy playing around with Mana's hat the magician turned around and went Kiyomi's way. Momentarily, a loud poof with a cloud of smoke signaled that the rabbit had chosen to return home the easy way. Mana's chest, crushed by the weight of her friend's injury and the risks they had to take, barely moved. The psychological pressure alone made breathing difficult.

"Zoku-chan said that he couldn't help us. I'm beginning to get an impression he doesn't like me very much..." Mana scratched the back of her head, her eyes wandered down as she felt quite guilty about not being able to help out.

"Goddamn it!" Kiyomi screamed out clutching herself into a fetal sphere of pain and rage.

"We need to move back to the southern entrance. Move Meiko there and ask them to treat her as eliminated." Mana admitted what Kiyomi must've been thinking as well.

"No! Meiko can't know. She'll fight back, she'll make her own injury worse by trying to escape. Can you contain her if she decides to flip her shit?" Kiyomi began losing it.

"Actually I can."

"Please tell me you haven't just said that!"

"You're right..."

"We can't move her there. There's a genin out there that is out to get Meiko. If she is eliminated they'll lose their chance and fail. Removing her from exam isn't fair, they'll likely consider removing our whole team from the exam." Kiyomi started thinking of the worst.

"Maybe they'll just count Meiko as eliminated and just count a win for that guy? I don't know... We won't know until we give it a shot." Mana shrugged.

"Mana... Please..." Kiyomi grabbed the magician's shoulder forcefully stopping her from relaying the news to Meiko and asking to have her moved the southern entrance.

"We won't fight. We absolutely cannot fight over this. It's a luxury we can't permit ourselves." Mana's voice cut back strictly.

Kiyomi's hand moved back, shaking. Even in her extreme duress she realized that if they raised their fists against each other everything would've ended – they'd have wasted too much resources to continue to compete.

"If Meiko is out they won't eliminate anyone. They must have a scenario where a genin is eliminated due to hunger, natural causes or sickness. The most reasonable case would be just to pass the genin whose target the eliminated person was, granted, the genin without a takedown would risk approaching the northern entrance..." Mana sighed.

"What are you guys talking about?" Meiko's weak and lingering voice surprised both of the girls.

"You should stay tuckered in!" Kiyomi jumped to the blacksmith who just rudely stepped aside from being gently pushed back, avoiding the Yamanaka's arm. The girl then staggered and fell on her butt as even such elementary evasive action was too much for her paled and weakened state.

Kiyomi felt up Meiko's forehead. "You're burning up... Go back to the campsite!" she lied.

"What were you talking about? "If Meiko is out" part, what's about that?" the blacksmith demanded to know. She began wriggling in Kiyomi's embrace and almost fighting out of it.

"Your cold is very suspicious. We are considering giving you up to have you treated. Granted that'd eliminate you from the exams." Mana admitted starting it off with a sigh that both demonstrated her hesitance to admit it but also heralded her honesty.

"No!" Meiko objected, her bandaged gut began briefly flashing red, the bleeding was very weak but it was there and its weakness was quite likely because the smith had diminishing liquids left to bleed with.