Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

What Stays Left Behind

Sugemi stared angrily at the entire gathering of teams, for reasons known only to him, his eyes changed from being full of cold indifference and calculative wary to complete disgust and a clearly translated desire to punch someone when the Nara's eyes wandered at the side where Team Scuti stood.

"What the fuck was that all about"? Sugemi coldly asked, staring angrily at the Hoshigakure alliance's direction, his eyes lingered on the ghastly looking Tankobaji the longest. The Nara knew better than to let his eyes slip away from this more unstable persona of Gentib for too long. "Mana shows up and suddenly you betray our alliance, is that all that it was worth to you guys, you knew fairly well that I was looking for her before we parted ways".

Relta stared at the Nara with guilt in her eyes. While she hesitated to engage Mana directly, she did nothing to stop those of her alliance that did attack her.

"Don't even bother denying it, Daidao saw everything with his goggles. You bunch taking Mana on, don't go on bullshitting me that you didn't know who she was either", Sugemi growled through his teeth.

"It is true, my googles can lock onto heat signatures, within visible distance, and even see in the dark, they are indeed handy", Daidao noted before tapping the dark tinted goggles of his with his finger.

Tankobaji reached to his chest, Sugemi's eyes followed Gentib's movements very carefully, observing the Hoshigakure genin pull hard on his attire before pulling it all off at once. A whirling cover of flames surrounded the young genin, just a lightshow from a chakra seal placed in his inner pocket. Once the lightshow concluded, Tankobaji was no more and Gentib stood in his usual clothes, his facepaint smeared all over, but otherwise his Idol persona had returned.

"It's true, we didn't do anything to protect Mana, we're sorry. It was a tough call to make – betray our alliance with Team Cephei, who wanted to avenge another team of Hoshigakure, or our alliance with you. Don't take this out on my team, they didn't have their leader amongst their ranks so I couldn't make the call", Gentib replied firmly, showing some genuine regret over not behaving in a very ally-like manner as far as Team Hawthorn was concerned, yet still determined and strong. There was no sign of breaking or subordination between the firm clashing stares of Sugemi and Gentib.

"What were you even doing right here"? Kiyomi asked of Mana.

"I was looking for you guys, I wanted to find you before this fight broke out, I needed to tell you something but... They met further away from the watchtower than I thought. I tried to circle them and just keep on moving but they spotted me", Mana explained.

"And then you took on twelve ninja at once while still recovering from being completely knocked out recently"? Meiko chuckled, teasing Mana.

"It was a question I needed answered. They were fighting in such an impractical manner. Dragging along teams and friends, risking their participations needlessly, I felt like I had to do something", Mana shrugged guiltily.

"Against twelve ninja"? Nanaba smiled at Mana from further away, the girl hid her busted up puppet arms inside her colorful wool and leather cape before walking up to the magician. "You could barely even compete against any single one of them, maybe against two of them if you're lucky. You lucked out they didn't know how to cooperate and attacked you one at a time so that they didn't get in each other's way".

"It doesn't matter how powerful they are", Mana objected, "It was a miscalculation on my part. I am taking this exam seriously because I know what it represents. Everything went just as I planned it to go but then..."

"You froze and couldn't finish what you started, as usual"? Sugemi turned around to squint shamefully at Mana.

"It's not that. I've long since moved past that fear of all violence. It's just that I planned to knock everyone out and... I only considered what elimination stands for outside of this simulation once everyone was already in the genjutsu", Mana bitterly grunted.