Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

The Splintered Cell

Kiyomi rolled the two remaining food pills in her hands. So far, Mana has been the only member of the team not to use the pills she had stolen from one of the teams. Maybe it was her own guilt tripping her over, maybe the magician genuinely thought it'd be more reasonable to save them for later. Either way, for the Yamanaka it seemed a foolish oversight which couldn't have been allowed to continue.

Meiko was gulping down water sounding more like a thirsty horse than a decent and composed human girl. Water was not something that was completely unavailable as various lakes and ponds and smaller water sources were all over the place. Obviously, the water needed to be boiled and purified for ideal drinking experience but it rarely was a problem. The redhead could've gobbled down all of the water the trio had and it could've been replaced. After the initial glances at her thirsty friend Kiyomi started to completely ignore her expression of thirst after remembering all those things.

"Mana, you need to take these", the blonde raised the problem out loud. The magician was positioned by the tree and sat up on the branch the trio was resting on. The trio weren't too far away from the marked Team Maruf hideout so strategies needed to be drawn and preparations needed to be made.

The magician pondered on something, trying to come up with an excuse not to take the pills but she couldn't really figure anything out. The usual accelerated ninja metabolism began recovering chakra resources pretty soon after leaving a field of active battle and consuming one's stamina. Her chakra was already regenerating to some extent, similarly to how normal resting worked. That being said, it almost always took a day or two to fully recover chakra resources for a ninja. Even their bodily injuries ached and troubled their body less in two or three days even if they took longer to fully heal.

"I know what you're thinking – we don't have the time. We've wasted enough of it as it is. We don't have two or three or five days, however long it'll take. These pills can return you to half your peak in couple of hours. Even your wounds will stop stagnating and bleeding and will start to slowly heal. We need you". Kiyomi pressed on harder.

"Well, we may need you less in this mission, it'll all be stealth and sneaking around but... You are an important part of the team", Meiko nodded energetically, Kiyomi realized after looking right into the redhead's happy eyes that the blacksmith missed the point of this conversation completely. Meiko thought this was about Mana's self-confidence so she felt obliged to compliment the magician's importance but it was more than that. It was about proper teamwork and getting back into track after spending so much time fighting snuck in rogue ninja and their own hunters in battles that took too much time and too much effort to fight.

Mana closed her eyes and looked down, she looked kind of defeated and submissive but it may have been the general look of her – she was pretty banged up from all she had to go through recently. Kiyomi's pouting frown turned upside-down as she witnessed the magician fondling the food pills for a moment before placing them in her mouth.

"These are red pills after all – they're by far the least stressful to your body so you'll be able to take two of them no problem"! the blonde energetically cheered on her friend.

There were better tasting things than the red food pills that Mana chewed up for a while and swallowed. It sort of tasted like dragée made of old mashed tomatoes, paprika and chili peppers. It was bitter, sour and sweet, hot and acidic all at the same time but it was a little less chewy and seaweed-like than the green pills. Almost instantly the magician felt an influx of energy that was quick to burn up but it felt like her entire body hit the reset button and was quickly beginning to fire up again with newfound strength and stamina.

"My chest itches a bit", Mana noted after scratching it softly to alleviate the uneasy feeling.

"Yeah, well... Those are medical food pills after all – they do stress your body even if those are the least stressful to take. You should be clear of heart attacks just yet", Kiyomi shrugged before lightly tapping on Mana's shoulder and looking on ahead to the empty space of the forest where Team Maruf hideout was supposed to be.