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

Drowning

The streetlights had gone out for the morning. It was not something of great significance, not quite a life or death type alert. Regardless of that fact, Mana opened her eyes and stood up from the bench in the middle of the town square where she was residing the whole night, meditating. It may have been a tad too early to declare an end to the night, given that the sky would still be dark for hours, but the magician was finished with that town square.

It was not that Mana could not have paid for a shabby roof over her head and a bedbug-ridden place to rest her head on for a single laydown. She just found herself conflicted and at a bizarre case of inner strife. There was something about this town, something about that last day that, not all by themselves necessarily, but in a peculiar combo of the two prevented the magician of even thinking about sleeping.

It was as if this entire town leaked out some strange incense of malice at night. At this point, the magician was not sure, if she was imagining it or if the mysterious, town-size mass of reek of bloody murder was real. One part of Mana told her that she could not have caught a whiff of anything – there was no logical reason for her to worry, nothing solid, anyways, she could not have been sensing anything at all.

But then... Even civilians sometimes had bad hunches that were justified. History was full of stories of people who sensed something bad in the air around them and did not depart on trips that would have been fateful to them. In theory, if a great combination of chakra signatures of outright wicked, twisted, beyond redemption scumbags all gathered in one place, Mana, as a sensor could sense their inner natures impacting their chakra signatures.

The problem was – Mana did not quite know for sure how dark and corrupted chakra signatures felt, only had it told and described to her. What was to say this wasn't just her making stuff up. The report was out, her mission was over, and yet... Mana stayed in Shukuba, rotting in its reek and letting it soak her in its corruption, making her shake from her very core.

Indeed, Shukuba was different at night compared to the happy-go-lucky ball of cheers, carnivals and ice cream vendors it was during the day.

*****

With a yawn, Mana entered the Security HQ, looking to meet with Itemi and Okasune. It felt odd referring to one with their first name, while Mana always thought of the other referring with their last name. It was just that whereas Itemi was so goofy and weird and officer Okasune described as such a big and deserved servant of her town that an honorable referral seemed to be in order.

"The kid waltzed in like she owned the place, the sentiment present not in her strut, hell, she was basically dragging her feet behind her. It was just that she came back even though she had no reason to. No one in their right mind ever took a one-two Shukuba beatdown and came back for more with a bloody smile. Rough night? I asked her." Itemi did his thing.

"Not really, I found it quite productive training my chakra capacity through the night. I've spent some yesterday while I was sneaking around, figured some meditation and chakra node stimulation was in order while it was recovering." Mana yawned again. It was unlike a kunoichi to get tired this easily. Ninja were used to taking multiple sleepless nights with their chakra augmentations sustaining their systems. Maybe there was more to this "Shukuba beatdown" than the magician heeded.

"Right... Chakra... That was that spiritual thing ninja had. I had no idea how would one even go about training such a thing, figured that with the unjust world we live in, you'd live with what you're born with." Itemi shrugged as he sipped a cup of something very aromatic.

"Not quite. It's not only spiritual either. Chakra is both physical and spiritual in nature, only by training both parts of one's body can it be made to grow efficiently." Mana replied feeling oddly honored that Itemi was genuinely interested in ninja. Given how most of her interactions with the civilians was about her profession as a stage magician, talking about this to someone who had not undergone the ninja training felt very exciting.