Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Games of Body and Soul

Yak Milky Way

The meeting with the governor of Shukuba town could have gone better. Mana spent no time hesitating before admitting that to herself upon reflection. She could have picked up on a possible further lead to investigate, she could not have mentioned the name "Tanzaku" to the man and furthered the brief talk into a downward spiral of a rant about the place.

Then again, it could have also gone much worse. The way it had gone now, Mana salvaged her presence in Shukuba becoming tomorrow's morning news. In addition, she managed to convince Sho that the magician was not here to tumble whatever house of cards he had built here and was willing to join it by adding her own tower by the side. Granted, that was verily false.

While the magician's theory about a town-wide conspiracy of money laundering was only fed more biscuits, she needed a more solid lead to look into. Perhaps she could have lingered about the place, concealed herself amongst the civil servants and waited until Sho left his office, entered it and performed a quick scan of the man's drawers. For that to happen, the magician needed to have fewer doubts about her ability to remain stealthy, also, the possibility of a satisfying reward for the massive risk was minuscule – Sho may have been a goof but he was no idiot who kept his "uncooked" books in his drawer.

Mana played an innocent and spoiled little show business idol by playfully inquiring one of the public workers about the location of a bathroom. If she was to gain any leads, they would come from down below. If the leads did lead to Sho's office, in that case, the previous plan will be the current work in progress. Avoiding high risk for an improbable reward until absolutely necessary was a praiseworthy course of action.

After she safely concealed herself in the ladies' room, the magician weaved a hand seal, concentrating hard on a different shape she was planning to take.

"Transformation Jutsu!" she mumbled emitting a large cloud of smoke from the stall as well as a loud popping sound that signaled the transformation being completed. Mana disliked using generic jutsu or jutsu she did not invent herself but this time was one of dire need. She could not afford getting recognized and throwing the town square out of whack again. A more controlled and calm crowd was much more to Mana's liking as a working environment, easier to read, easier to single out people who may have provided her with information.

Mana left the stall and examined her new shape in the mirror. She was lucky that nobody was in the bathroom or the magician would have had to blush and explain the awkward sounds and smoke coming off of her stall. Luckily enough, the natural ninjutsu after-effects were quick to completely dissipate, unlike actual smoke, and left little to no trail. It would have taken a chakra sensor to identify after-effects of a distinct ninjutsu signature.

The transformation was a massive success. Mana had made herself grow a good half-a-meter, changed the color of her hair and made them short and curly. She also made her body more feminine and more complete, imagining Kiyomi's shape in her mind as something that she needed, as, otherwise, the magician would have been a tad bit inexperienced with the proportions. She did not change her uniform, however, changing clothes and maintaining that change using Transformation required a bit more chakra and Mana decided to be stingy with it, just in case...

Maybe it was fear of her network breaking down again, maybe it was paranoia of men in black watching her every step, one of assassins with hidden weapons looking to snuff the magician's curiosity out to protect some imagined wild conspiracy. Either way, this new Mana looked like someone she was comfortable working with. For a brief moment, the magician even wondered why Meiko could ever screw such a simple jutsu up when she pulled off much more complex feats of chakra manipulation that were not ninjutsu in nature.

Unseen by the public servants, Mana slipped out from the ladies' room and innocently trekked downstairs before leaving the building. It was a good thing that Mana had memorized how it looked like and where it was, something told her that this building would be quite useful to her in the future. She, in her new shape, may need to visit again just yet.