Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Mutual Insanity Society

The more time Mana spent figuring out her options, the less she liked the situation she was in. It felt almost like Stea had planned on being in this highly disadvantageous position the whole time, almost like she preferred it. With each consecutive illusion Mana would use, the damage inflicted upon the mental health of her opponent would keep on corroding until... One of few worse scenarios would occur.

"Polymorphy Jutsu!" Mana chanted out, requiring to utter the name of her illusion yet having mastered the illusion to the point where a wave of her palm was enough to initiate the illusion and no hand seals were required.

Stea's body became locked down, momentarily the veins on her forehead began shooting out as if the mother of all migraines had locked her up before the rustling silver locks hid the hideous signs of tremendous mental strain inflicted to her psyche. The girl fell on all fours, shaking and rustling like a little possum. Mana raised her arms up, attempting to intimidate the little "critter" that Stea saw herself transformed into but instead of scurrying outside the battlefield, the kunoichi fell on her back and rolled her hands and feet up in front of her.

"A possum, huh?" Mana mumbled to herself, smacking her forehead since the trick she intended to use did not work, given Stea's illusionary transformation. A rat would have scurried away, a rabbit would have hopped off without looking back, away meaning outside the battlefield. A possum would have played dead until at least parts of Stea's psyche would return.

This was indeed a problem, given the damage already inflicted upon Stea's mind up to now, Mana had a limited handful of illusions she could use before she drove her opponent mad completely or made her go comatose. She would be of no help to her villagers in that state, nor would she get promoted and the Getsugakure villagers were the entire reason Mana even fought this battle.

And yet, seeing Stea play possum before bits and pieces of her human mind returned and her weak genjutsu began timing out, bit by bit, Mana noticed something interesting. A lot of what exact animal one saw themselves transformed into when under the effects of Polymorphy Jutsu depended on the animal on their mind. Their behavior also was influenced by what the victim knew of the animal in question.

The fact that Stea transformed into a possum and played dead when threatened could have been a coincidence, but it also could have meant that the idiom may have run its course in the mind of the Getsugakure kunoichi. In that case, she was well aware of what was happening with her body and purposefully heading the battle that direction.

With a wave of her wand, Mana canceled the illusion herself. There was no use continuing it, given that the magician could not have exploited the opening she was given without storing damage in Stea's seals. She was locked on a crash course – each illusion she weaved continued to damage her opponent's mind and head her towards potential madness or total collapse. Soon physical battle, something that meant certain defeat, would have been all Mana had to do.

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" Mana asked with bitterness and desperation. "That headache, the fever, the symptoms of dawning madness don't matter to you then?"

Stea laughed out, through pain, through tremendously disadvantageous to her battle, she laughed still.

"I know who you are, Nakotsumi Mana. I know my enemy, I know that you have the chakra and mastery over those illusions to wave them around the whole day but you won't, once things will get dangerous – you'll lock yourself down and fight the battle on my terms. It will be a losing battle, make no mistake." Stea grunted as she returned to her feet. "You could have killed me while I was under your illusions but you didn't, because that's who you are. There are no risks involved for me fighting this way because I know you."