Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

The Beginning of the End of the Road

Konoha was rustling. The time for the finals of the Chuunin Exams has come. Both the local villagers and the foreign visitors, both those arriving for a pleasurable event of young ninja competing for higher ranks and guests of honor who came here for political reasons were buzzing all over the village.

Those of the villagers who still held idealistic attitudes towards the world would have found this common relaxing sense of enjoyment truly beautiful. For the first time in a while, villagers of every village and country around the world have gathered in one place just to feast their eyes at a combat extravaganza that only came around once in a couple of years or so.

Whereas the earlier stages of the Chuunin Exams have been shrouded in secret and closed off from the public eye, the trials of the finalists – the strongest of the strongest, fastest of the fastest, the cleverest and the most skilled of all other examinees were open for all to see and gaze at. For one day and one day only, all politics, feuds and battles, both in the open battlefield and political, got swept aside.

Even the newly elected Mizukage from Kirigakure that has recently regained its autonomy was marching across the village with his following party of ninja, who were both his protectors and his intent to later feast his ocular orbs at the magnificence of children or less successful young adults attempting to enter the rank of ninja maturity. Even those who did not know the man's high status from rumors of the papers would have noticed his massive height, undercut hair and immensely rich mustache line as well as his fine silk attire.

Wherever the visitors came from, wherever they were wandering about, all of their paths lead up to the north-western part of the village and the Chuunin Arena where the finals took place. Seeing how the main event of the day was about to start in an hour or so, the place was already filling up with clouds of people and was only about to become more hectic.

"Meiko!" Kiyomi shouted out, waving her hand towards a familiar blue-green tracksuit wearing blacksmith who now appeared to be walking on her own two feet rather firmly and looked back in her cheerful original shape.

"Yo!" Meiko replied with a cheerful nod before running up to Kiyomi, where the Yamanaka heiress took care in gently working her way through the crowd, Meiko was like a rampaging elephant in a forest. Plenty of people got brushed aside and were about to object before they saw the size and the build of the blacksmith girl who had just shoved them aside and swallowed their objections or even went as far as to blame themselves and apologize for getting in the way of the careless rampaging bull of a girl.

"I see you've recovered", Kiyomi smiled, her hair had grown much longer and more unruly, it was not tough to see that the young lady of the Yamanaka clan was occupied with her training to take much care in personal hygiene and grooming except for the most necessary emergency procedures last night before the match.

"You bet. I'm not sure if I should be fighting but..." Meiko pouted her lips around at various sides before frantically looking around. "I wonder where Mana is, she's gonna be fighting today, right?"

"You know her, she probably won't be showing up until right before the match, not with this many people to pester her. She's a celebrity after all", Kiyomi shrugged, feeling pretty wise about having predicted her friend's thoughts so sharply.

"Yeah, that would have actually been pretty smart", Mana's voice ringed right from behind Kiyomi making the blonde jump up and turn around at the speed of lightning. She hadn't even sensed the pressure from her friend sneaking up, granted, Kiyomi was no sensor but most ninja possessed an innate ability to sense danger to a limited degree and Mana projected none of it.

"What the hell happened to you!?" Meiko exclaimed before covering her abdomen in laughter. The magician barely reminded of her old self – covered in burns, swollen red skin and a cloth bound around the girl's eyes, her hair looked so incredibly messy that it appeared to hold branches with actual bird nests sticking out from them. Mana reminded more of a crazy hobo than her normal self.