Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

A Helping Hand

Leap by leap, Team Hokage was traversing through the Forest of Death towards the region where Team Dunyazad was last seen in. It would've only taken about half an hour to cover the entire distance, the trio didn't want to spend chakra on going any faster. Maybe if they focused hard and decided on wearing themselves out they could've covered the distance of over hundred kilometers momentarily, still, given their situation it would've been less than reasonable.

"I still think we should've fought that bear..." Meiko pouted, killing the silence that had reigned for most of the early morning.

"It had an arm taller than an oak and many times thicker. Its claws were twice the length of a banana. It'd have taken too much effort." Mana firmly shut her down.

"Yeah, but we left so fast that I left my bag behind..." Meiko whined.

"Your bag!?" Kiyomi flipped out, "You mean the one with the map and your spare ninja tools and supplies?"

"No. That's my main bag, I'm talking about my beef bag." Meiko smiled.

"Mana was preparing for you out of her own supplies for two nights already, I've stored water for you in condoms! You didn't tell us you had a bag full of beef." Kiyomi launched herself at a diagonal angle to slam her shoulder at Meiko and throw her off balance, the blacksmith just kicked off of a nearby tree and launched herself back at her rushing teammates rejoining the formation.

"Now that I think of it, it sounds like something Meiko would do. We should've seen it coming." Mana smiled. It may have been the short moments of bliss watching her friends behave like people that knew no sorrow and fooling around with each other that made her this ignorant to the troubles she went through to satisfy Meiko's hunger but something left just that kind of an effect.

"So you admit it then!" Meiko yelled out, "It was condoms!"

Mana was surprised that she was able to hear the sound of Kiyomi's teeth being grinded. While the blonde blushed and really didn't look like she took the right things from all of this situation, allowing herself to be dragged down into an immature game Meiko played to make everyone forget her own offense of hiding food, the magician found it as just kind of hilarious.

"Although, I have to admit – Mana's cooking kind of got awesome all of a sudden!" Meiko vibrantly cheered for her teammate.

"It was one of the several things I've trained during the whole Yamanaka clan affair." Mana shrugged.

"How much further ahead?" Kiyomi looked around before Mana stopped, only for the rest to follow.

"Not sure... It'd be naïve to expect to find Tala, Menna and Tiwul in the same spot they were last seen in. That being said, I believe that they may not have changed their quadrant. Moving around so drastically is just looking for trouble, as we've found out..." the magician scratched the back of her head before settling down and preparing to meditate.

"Is this gonna work? Will you be able to recognize their chakra signatures?" her armored friend raised an interesting conundrum.

"Obviously not, still, we'll head towards the nearest signature I can find." Mana shrugged.

Once again it took her a good while to calm herself and reach the right degree of concentration. It took longer still to reach out with her entire consciousness to the environment around her and until all of the chakra stars flared up in her imaginary visualization of the chakra sensory ability. It was such a flawed and early stage of the ability, Mana would've liked to devote so much more time into this genetic trait, at least as much as it'd take for her to sniff chakra signatures out as easily as she could tell smells.