Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Ino-Shika-Cho-Ino

Mana's breathing continuously slowed down to a crawl before stopping completely. After her vision began returning from the complete eye-scratching dark red agony into bright blurs she saw that the two ninja that were looking to hunt her down had passed her current position and were now walking further, filtering through their surroundings step by step.

If only Mana could fight back, resist in any way. At this point her ninja tool supply was nearly emptied, her chakra resources strained to such an extent that she lucked out to not pass out after saving her own life. That last saving grace left the magician in a state of exhaustion that left her completely incapable of moving a muscle. Just the little involuntary twitches of her aching muscles or her bleeding abdomen or her chest when it began frantically lifting up and sucking in air.

There was this strange reaction to exhaustion when one's chakra was approaching the edge of complete depletion that one's lungs began working overtime. The body began taking in air as if breathing in so much air that it bloated out one's chest would somehow help replenish one's chakra reserves. Mana tried moving her head in a way that'd have allowed her to see Kiyomi but she couldn't. Her neck simply wouldn't bend backwards that much.

*****

Meanwhile, the blonde's vision was similarly beginning to return. That being said, with her body being paralyzed and unable to protect or rub her eyes from the immense pain that the flash of light ninjutsu technique before caused made the girl's eyes teary and slightly swollen. It looked like she had been crying for hours on end. As the vision finally returned, in limited blurry shapes and forms, Kiyomi finally saw the mysterious assailant that attacked her and Mana for seemingly no reason at all.

It was a young Nara clan member of average height and frail build. That much was evident from his dark hair tied into the spiky ponytail mostly seen on Nara clan members. He also wore silver earrings with the kanji symbol for "deer" on it, something that, as a Yamanaka, Kiyomi also had a general read about. He worked with the members of Akimichi and Yamanaka clans, these three clans had a very close relationship and whenever the members of their clans were placed in a single team they always symbolled that momentous bond spanning generations with the silver earrings with kanji symbols of "boar" for the Yamanaka member, "deer" for the Nara member and "butterfly" for the Akimichi member.

"That's rich, you bastard!" Kiyomi growled angrily showing off her teeth like a wild animal. At that moment she was truly ready to claw the frail Nara's eyes out with her bare hands. "Attacking a Yamanaka member with the fucking Ino-Shika-Cho earrings, that takes fucking nerve!"

The Nara didn't reply but from what little Kiyomi could tell, with her still barely functioning eyesight, his face did undergo a painful and worried reaction – the clan traditions still meant something to him, evidently. As seconds passed, the Nara refused to honor Kiyomi with a reply or even a version of a pathetic excuse as to why he attacked a Yamanaka member. As more and more of Kiyomi's vision started to return, the return being accelerated by Kiyomi's mostly completely peaked chakra resources, she could identify more and more details about the bright blue jumpsuit wearing oddball of the Nara clan.

One of the more important details of the Nara's attire was the Hoshigakure headband tied directly onto his forehead, like most ninja on the field usually wore them. This traditional approach to the ninja attire pissed Kiyomi off even more. This guy looked like a pretty mindful and submissive to the clan rules individual and yet this collection of details on him when paired with his behavior kept on rubbing off on Kiyomi in all the wrong ways.

"Hoshigakure?" Kiyomi grunted out, "I wasn't even aware Nara had members in that village. You sure as hell won't anymore after this shit. I'm Yamanaka Kiyomi – member of the Konoha's elite Yamanaka branch, future heiress of the Yamanaka clan. I don't care what pity grievances you have with my team, they end here and now, let us go!" she commanded the Nara who appeared to be somewhat troubled by the revelation.