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

Maximum Alonenessness

It was the calm time of the night. The time when even the depressed and the wicked, the likes that were the least likely to find solace in the activity of sleeping were already asleep. Whether it be willfully or otherwise, it was the kind of sleep for those people that they would not even remember having in the morning, whether it lead to them looking into the source of the problem or addressing the ills of the soul that lead to it was a different story entirely.

With a silent clank, unlikely to be heard even by the family pet if they had one, Thumb screwed her hooked claw-like blades into the locks, beating the simple ancient lock of the mansion that the two women found themselves in. The mansion that apparently housed the Pinky Ring, leader of the Pinky and, apparently, Thumb Fingers.

After the door opened, Mana and Thumb disappeared from the realms of the human perception, blitzing past the rooms and past any feeble attempts to protect the estate. Steel wire about as thickly positioned as the raindrops during a violent storm were still a poor defense against Mana's inhuman and surpassing even the ninja range of evasive skills. Thumb danced around like a cat let out to play after a long-term of house imprisonment. Clinging to the walls and swiping her hands and feet around madly, cutting the steel wires in her way, oddly with enough finesse and soft, feminine touch to her impressive speed that the swipes did not trigger the security traps attached to the wire.

The two met together near the same room, one where a middle-aged woman was peacefully sleeping in a half-empty bed, clearly meant to bed two people. As Thumb mockingly chuckled and pointed her long and slender finger with a sharp hook attached to the end of it at Mana, the magician entered the master bedroom and turned on the light, waking up the woman bedded inside, or at least so Mana thought initially.

There was no struggle in the woman's awakening, one moment she was looking on the window, longingly positioned on her side and observing the gentle snowfall outside, the other she was up and staring at the two invaders of her home fort. Oddly enough, not only was the woman not asleep, she was also not at all worried by the presence of a young magician girl and one of her husband's known associates from his less than honorable craft.

"Trouble sleeping?" Thumb grinned with her crimson lips, making an almost creepily delighted smile as she bent her upper body closer to the woman. Strangely, the wife was not any more intimidated by Thumb's imposing approach than she was by the very fact of the two having found their way inside.

"My consciousness is not the reason for my insomnia." The woman defiantly stood up to face Thumb's playful stature with dignity. "I am worried."

"Heh, it seems like your gut instinct was right after all!" Thumb turned back at Mana, laughing out loud as she addressed the magician. The burglar found something about the fact that Mana had guessed correctly that Pinky would be skipping town tonight but did not trust her gut feeling enough to be present in the party sent to apprehend him there inherently hilarious.

"When I found out that the Pinky Ring was being paranoid about his job performance, I figured he'd try to flee the town." Mana sighed, feeling like a complete fool that she did not go on her gut instinct, instead of sending a small squad of people Shira trusted together with the Security officer to the path that lead out of Shukuba and into Konoha.

"This whole affair with the town budget. It was messier than the Middle Ring had wanted it to be. Muriya always thought his life would be in danger..." the woman bit her index finger, clearly she was working through a lot of distressful emotions.

"And he left his family behind?" Mana raised a doubtful eyebrow. "I think I noticed two children sleeping right at the end of that corridor, what sort of man would just leave his family behind like this?"