Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

The Emprical Clause

Kiyomi's tapped her foot uneasily as if a terrifying theme of a tense thriller was running. She wasn't sure why but she was worried about Mana more than she'd have liked the people around her to see. She put up a tough façade but every time Junipu-R's peculiar attacks landed on the magician opening up a new bruise the blonde noisily objected.

"She shouldn't be taking this much damage..." the Yamanaka expressed her worries. "She's better than this, she should be able to dodge those attacks!"

"Not really. I'd have trouble dodging them too. Mana hadn't yet fought an opponent who has little to no experience and training fighting hand to hand. She honed her skills in a martial arts grinding house arena seeing and being trained by the best of the best. She probably can't understand it herself but that lack of experience facing someone as bad as she used to be is hindering her..." Meiko shrugged after sinking her teeth into the dried up pack of noodles that were so dry that they cracked and crumbled like biscuits.

"Tsk... This makes no sense!" the blonde objected, truthfully she just refused to believe that the magician had taken much more hits than it was healthy for any combatant to take willingly before changing their strategy.

"Usually when a skilled ninja faces this problem they augment their body to withstand the skipped strikes until those lacking strikes are all mapped out. Mana must be saving her chakra for something else, she probably doesn't see the threat in those strikes." Meiko began analyzing the exchange of fists and feet more carefully.

"You're the best close range combatant out of us three. Is there any hope for Mana to win?" Kiyomi asked with a worried expression.

"If you asked me – she's already won. Junipu-R tossed everything she had – every odd looking combination and Mana's already beginning to see through them. Just look at it carefully. Unless her opponent launches something huge soon, something to knock Mana out with a single hit – R will lose." Meiko smiled confidently before asking Inaba to give her another pack of spices to enhance the taste of her bland unprepared snack.

"Please don't call Junipu just R, nicks are solely for friends to refer." Inaba calmly noted.

There was some truth to Meiko's words. Mana was beginning to see pathways around Junipu-R's odd dancing fighting style. She saw dozens of openings for swift counterattacks and yet she restrained herself from exploiting them – that's exactly what lead her to getting hit the last handful of times. Now Mana was just using the space advantage she was creating to see all the strings and wait until Junipu will begin repeating them. Bit by bit, Mana was seeing where the dancers' legs could stretch, how far her reach was and how much she favored each limb. Small details like that were beginning to draw a profile and soon, the magician felt, her opponent would no longer be able to as much as touch her.

"One thing that's bothering me though..." Meiko scratched her head. "Why doesn't Mana use her odd flower petal illusion thing? She could've avoided getting hit each and every time..."

"From what she told me before, I gather that that the strain of that technique increases drastically every time it is used. It then takes days of time for the cost to reset again." Kiyomi replied calmer, now having seen the bigger picture of what seemed like a losing battle before.

Junipu's long spinning overhead kick got blocked by Mana's daring dive in. Just as the second leg of the Kumogakure kunoichi snapped back hooking on the magician's neck and locking around it in a crushing stranglehold Mana's own push kick blasted off into the girl's chest throwing her like a ragdoll flying away and smashing into nearby trees.

Mana wiped the traces of blood on her mouth crawling out from a cracked lip and wondered deep inside if she could even outlast her opponent like previously expected. Slowly she was beginning to gain the advantage on close distance encounters and she had already revealed to her enemy that their ace technique was useless against Mana. Normally she'd have had this fight in the bag, that being said, as the magician's vision blurred and her right eye began to swell up she wondered if she could even outlast her opponent to that point of certain victory.