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

Shocking Assurances

Toiya's husband pointed Mana to an armchair for her to rest on while he hurried into the dark room where the noises of a crying baby came from. He returned not a pair of moments later with a somewhat relieved expression.

"Is everything OK?" Mana wondered before realizing how stupid that question was. If she had an option to, she would have sunken underground in embarrassment for even opening her mouth to ask something like this of a man who had just lost his wife.

"The baby's fine. He does that... Just start crying out of the blue as if checking if someone is there. Right when you pop your face into his room he goes dead silent and just watches you with a mischievous smile." The man rubbed his tired eyes before settling down to a cup of tea. He offered to make Mana one as well but the magician politely refused, stating that she was not going to trouble him for too long.

"He just wants attention. He wants to know he's not alone, probably." Mana smiled before what she wanted to say next got stuck deep in her throat bringing up nothing but tears. Even after losing someone due to her inability to let go and deal with loss, she still remained the same... It was just a cursed circle of people Mana let down. People she lost.

"She died subduing some criminal, right? Toiya, I mean." The man inquired, changing the topic to where he had thought Mana wanted to take it. He was no detective but even someone like him must have been able to see how painful it was for Mana to as much as sit here. The home of someone she had failed to protect.

"Yeah... I... I was supposed to subdue this assassin woman. I saw her before she could accomplish what she came to the Tribunal to do and jumped in to intercept her but... She played me, knew right where to hit me to make it hurt. I hesitated just for a moment and..." Mana recounted. Going back to that place was almost like working out with weights twice heavier than they were supposed to be. It hurt but the pain was supposed to be a good one, one that would lead her to something better, improving herself. Supposed to...

"There was a whole room of officers. Seems like a lot of responsibility for a teenager to protect all of them and fight someone alone..." the man wondered with a softened voice.

"The assassin was trained with mercenaries. I think she said something about that when we first fought. It doesn't matter how many weaker opponents you stack against someone like her, she'll slaughter them all. It takes an opponent of matching skill to fight someone like that. I was the strongest, the fastest out of that entire room. It was my responsibility to protect everyone." Mana lamented.

"It does not look like you've dealt with that pain right..." the voice of Toiya's husband whimpered just for a moment. A single second seemed like an hour when the subject matter was especially touching or when it was a moment when two ninja were clashing. Sometimes it was preferable to be weak, to not be able to perceive that little twitch and hear the weakness of a man that was given birth by something you had the hand in happening.

"I did not have the luxury of coming here when I have dealt with it. My weakness that was exploited was something that happened almost six months ago and yet I still have not dealt with that. If I did not come here now, I don't think I would have ever done it." Mana shook her head firmly, accepting this weight on her chest that kept drowning her under and forcing her to draw in more pain in her lungs. Each breath made her panic and choke on more and more of it.

"Why did you come here?" the man wondered. Mana had expected to hear spite in his voice, she expected to be hated, asked out even. She may have even been relieved by that hatred, by the fact that she somehow suffered for her mistake. That dismissal, that hatred should have been her punishment. The fact that Maizoku, Toiya's husband, was more curious than spiteful made her almost desperate in her quest of finding a suitable punishment.