Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

If You Can't Rasengan - Power Strike!

As it would not have been too tough to imagine, Mana was afraid. She was just crazy enough not to be absolutely shaking in her sandals, however, facing off against twelve ninja at once, even if it was unclear how many of them wanted to go at her, with only a lesser amount of her chakra still useable was one of the toughest challenges she had faced. In fact, the girl had considered herself so mad that she couldn't accurately tell if it was just a challenge that'd push her abilities and quick thinking to its edges, or if it was outright a suicidal plan.

"What'll be suicidal is when I'll face these odds on the field, placing myself in between actual enemy and ally teams", Mana thought to herself as her eyes carefully observed both of the frozen in place alliances. "If I cannot shoulder all of their hatred and all of their violence and stop it, there's really no use advancing to the next stage", she concluded.

Where the Hoshigakure teams appeared to be somewhat hesitant in attacking Mana, the Sunagakure team showed no such hesitation. Daseaut dragged his left foot backwards, preparing for a powerful dash, or so Mana had read from his movements from just what she had seen. The female blacksmith girl, reminding Mana painfully of Meiko, or rather, a more exotic, western version of her, pulled a scroll out of her large pocket and placed it in front of her, letting it unravel.

"Hey, they can't be serious, attacking that girl all at once"? Relta looked back at Gorm who looked back at his teammate just as confused.

Alemyat's puppet pulled out. As Mana's eyes tried to follow the dangerous bladework of the grotesque mannequin, a strong punch from an attacker from the side tossed her back and rolling off her feet and aside. Her eyes blacked out, screeching noises and child's laughter were all the things Mana heard, just blackness and bright stars popping in her eyes but the girl powered through and pushed herself up on her feet.

Puppeteers should have never been this strong! Mana did not expect a puppeteer with such focus and training in taijutsu – such speed and skill. Puppeteers were supposed to be frail and focused on precise chakra control and crafting their intricate puppets, not powerhouses in their own right. As Alemyat's punches and kicks further pummeled Mana, giving her few chances to properly evade or counter his attacks due to her impaired vision, hearing and dizziness that made it hard to stand, let alone use her acrobatics to evade much of anything her sensei's words ringed in her ears.

"In the field, when facing a puppeteer, always target the puppeteer himself. Puppeteers are usually pretty frail and powerless when hit, also you'll always disable the puppet by beating down the puppeteer and even if you get poisoned by their weapons – most of them carry antidotes on them in case they get some of their own medicine", the mid twenty year old said to a class of children. Spoken by a man who had spent no time at all in the field, a man who had read about Ninja Arts from a book and attained a degree in them by talking about them, drawing from someone else's experience. Mana was not ready...

Alemyat's puppet dashed at Mana from behind, a strong punch made Mana stagger backwards, by the time the magician's eyes fell on the puppet it may have already been too late as its sharp elongated fingers extended to pierce the girl's back. It would have been a lethal wound for a normal human but only a disabling one for a ninja. Mana had no luxury to be disabled, she had no right to cry or complain about how difficult this was – it was a life she had chosen, stand in between both sides of the conflict.

The girl's hand pressed onto the puppet's shoulder as she graciously flipped back and over it, avoiding having an entire arm pierce through her body. Mana's body staggered as even after landing firmly on her feet she struggled to stay that way. Blood trickled down from her cracked forehead onto the left eye, the right eye was beginning to swell up again. Just one attack, she withstood just one attack...