Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Mana Pushes Back!

"Was it worth it?" Stea breathed out, forcing air through her throat and nostrils before throwing her body forward at Mana. Swiping her palms in the manner of chopping motions, as if her palms were knives and Stea danced in a complicated martial arts style.

The magician put her hands up, she was not used to seeing such completely innovative fighting styles. It was by no means a deep style or a difficult one to master, or understand, yet it was one of Stea's own making nonetheless. Hits continued to slip past the magician's staunch, sluggish and generalized defenses, a result of still persisting dizziness of recently very crippling anxiety she felt so very recently. Whenever a chop hit her in the liver, her sides or her joints, exposed areas of the magician's neck, it was like being cut by a sword that inflicted all of the pain but none of the actual damage of a sword strike.

With every skipped blow, Mana's entire nervous system lit up like the sky in the Snow Country did during aurora borealis. It was like all of the magician's pain receptors went off at the same time, branching out in a system, a river of pain from the source of Stea's impact. There was no time to comprehend the manner of attack and focus on each individual strike when they sieged Mana's sloppy defenses by hundreds of thousands each second.

"Was it worth betting all of your chips on chakra sensory and losing everything? This battle, your future, your team!?" Stea kept on pushing on. Mana knew what the girl was doing – her opponent attempted to piss Mana off, try and make her fire up, bring about the second wind of the Konoha's Sorceress to make this battle appear like less of a one-sided beating.

Mana was not that kind of person. She was not a pent up bottle of emotion looking for a verbal or any other reason to lash out with all of her built up might. She was different. Words did not build her up, words did not inspire her to blaze hotter and strike harder, they tore her down because each word registered, each word passed through Mana's mind and each one of them was paid and given Mana's utmost attention.

Throwing up a mouthful of blood, Mana collapsed on her knees. Stea's martial art style was simple, it was one of the eight varieties of Land of Wind knife-fighting. It was basic, the foundations for this style could have been found in any library, leave alone Konoha's extensive Archive building. It was polished somewhat, the second arm laid entirely winded back for defense, that was clever. Many desert knife-fighters used it sloppily for balance or just left it dangling, some of them used it as a reserve attacking hand, always attacking with fifty percent efficiency. Stea also had her legs spread as widely as her long silken dress allowed her to spread them without tearing – a strong balance was also a weakness of Land of Wind knife-fighters.

"I had to", Mana responded, wiping off the remaining blood that leaked out from her damaged liver off her lips. "Tracking just your pressure was about as accurate as relying on dreams to tell your future. I am not playing cards, I needed more certainty and clarity."

Mana's eyes lingered sadly across the arena, the audience did not look excited. They looked appalled. Most civilians thought they were a bloodthirsty bunch. That was only because they have never seen a truly bloody battle. There must have been some mercy and decency hidden deep underneath even the most violent soul. That hopeful observation gave Mana the strength to get back on her feet. Her knees and elbows had gotten grazed quite nastily by a number of times she'd been forced down on them.

Stea dashed off again, using the same form, that was just careless. Mana easily danced around the same strikes leaving her opponent looking like a fool. Still, that would lead to little actual success. The magician could not effectively counterattack, disabling half of what her own taijutsu-style was supposed to achieve. Every counterattack would have only made her opponent stronger, both as far as her jutsu and her medical techniques were concerned.