Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

A Rollicking Good Start

Mana snapped out of the overwhelming sensations of being sealed inside the tag scroll after the attraction sucking her inside of it ceased. First of all, the magician examined her own body, feeling sure that such phenomenon would've surely torn her apart. Even if she saw plenty of ninja get sealed multiple times, the sensations were so odd that she couldn't help but still check the integrity of her own body and make sure she was completely intact.

Neither there were injuries on her body from all the oddities, that the sealing process made her go through, nor did Mana feel any weaker from being forced to augment her body. In fact, she could not even remember using augmentations for a mere moment. There was certainly a fair amount of time dilution in the process as at some point the sealing had begun to feel slightly frustrating to go through with the endless sensation of falling inside a roaring and spinning tunnel of flashing lights with nothing but void below her starting to bore Mana instead of scaring her. The creator of the tag scroll must have modeled it with seals that protected the transported person perfectly from the inhuman conditions that other dimensions may have possessed.

Only after making sure that both her physical form and her stamina were both in perfect condition did Mana notice the odd dimension she was floating weightlessly in. Deep below her, farther even than her augmented superhuman ninja perception could scope, was nothing but whirling clouds of gas and crackling lightning – a violent expression of the massive chakra present inside this dimension. Above her laid the same sight, the same thing to be said of wide and far around her. Nothing but crimson red skies with lighter tone gas whirling around in a never-ending storm. The area where Mana was stored in was protected, however, in a bubble of unknown and invisible chakra that held the stormy conditions of the dimension as well as the outrages of its energy further.

"If the time dilution was so sensible just being sealed, just how long will I have to wait until I am unsealed"? Mana wondered to herself. "It may take a couple of minutes outside, but it may feel like hours waiting here".

All this senseless waiting frustrated Mana to no end. It was not because she was an impatient person – far from it. There may not have been a more patient and reserved genin inside that entire hall back in her home dimension. It was because of the innate fear that she felt, the nervousness before the big fight. She had to wait and tolerate it for fifteen minutes before the match, now she may sit here feeling nervous and eating herself alive, thinking all the thoughts imaginable for hours... Not that it could've been helped or anything. It was just the way she was supposed to behave. All just a part of the test...

"It won't be any different if I get promoted, really", Mana tried to reason with her own gut that was booming and squirming with butterflies trying to sprout through the magician's own flesh and fly into freedom. "I'll be sitting in ambushes or collecting information for hours, in missions far more important to me and the village. Better get used to it now".

Feeling rather reasonable with her own bodily reactions, Mana simply crossed her legs before taking a meditative position and closing her eyes. One advantage of meditation was its ability to calm Mana down and give her complete awareness of her body as well as the limited capabilities of affecting her mood or bodily conditions. It did not take much time for an experienced meditator such as Mana to calm herself down through meditation.

"I could still make out Jon-D being the one to get sealed inside the scroll. That means I am much more likely to get to face him. That's good. I know what he can do, I know the abilities he will rely on. Oto-B, however, is a complete mystery. I should only need to deal with him if Roh-D deems him an unfair match-up, choosing to tag out instead, or in the unfortunate eventuality that he loses without eliminating anyone. Such outcome is unlikely, yet possible", the magician began running through streams of thought, she found that thinking and strategizing, trying to predict what exactly it was that she would have to face helped her stay calm the best.