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

The Weight of Eternity

Without offering much speech, Omase raised her arm up. Her long sleeves scattered and fluttered in the wind. Kiyomi's sharp eye could pick up on a blur of white under her sleeve. Another talisman she tried to conceal. All too familiar vortexes of invisible wind gusts began picking up rubble and dirt off the ground.

If Kiyomi's memory served, these particular vortexes lacked the killing potential of the wall of wind that Omase used previously. They were quite easily avoided by simply giving them space to absorb enough, grow in size and change in appearance. Once the vortexes became fully visible by absorbing enough rubble from the environment – Kiyomi could freely move in.

Something stuck the Yamanaka as being off. Why would Omase attack her like this? The blonde took a pair of dashes back to give the whirlwinds some space to do their thing. Did she not figure out how this technique worked and how to beat it the first time she saw it? Unless... Kiyomi backing up, thinking she's safe was the point and the goal of using this technique.

The Yamanaka heiress moved her eyes away from the twisters to focus on her opponent, who took more and more gentle steps to the side, closer to the dent she left in the building behind her. Then, with a strong thrust of her palm, the woman opened up the cracked wall by having it crumble in a circular hole. Using weak chakra augmentations instead of any of her talismans to preserve chakra.

This was bad. Just what kind of goal could have been served by moving into the black market point? Were long-range ninja not stronger outside where they could move with more freedom? Unless... Perhaps some reinforcements lurked indoors, or maybe Omase wanted to exploit the tight underground corridors to use her long-range attacks without risking Kiyomi dodging?

Completely clueless about the true intent of her opponent, with simmering unease in her chest, Kiyomi waited the technique out before moving through the opening in between the twisters to chase her opponent into the black market building. She had this rogue cornered. She would not let them escape. Even if some reinforcements lurked inside, they would be puny quacks or black market dealers. Even if the corridors were tight and long, Kiyomi would be in just the same advantage as her opponent in terms of her own long-range jutsu.

With a strong dash, Kiyomi made it through the hole and looked around. The hallways reminded her of the Ninja Academy back home. Long, sunk in total darkness and appearing almost completely abandoned. Only cracked and dirty rectangle windows hanging by the edge of where the walls merged with the ceiling providing extremely limited lighting.

The blonde waited for her eyes to get accustomed to the dark better. She gave her opponent ample time to execute her plan and that did not please Kiyomi but the thing was that if she rushed ahead and ran into a cleverly laid trap – she'd be even less pleased and possibly play into her opponent's hand even more. A rushing hunter whose eyes were focused solely on the prey missed too many things, too many for Kiyomi to afford to miss. She needed to play this slow and steady, work for her reward.

With a careful step, keeping her eyes and ears open, Kiyomi began to tread toward the corridor to the left. She was not sure if she'd run into Omase that way but she saw her opponent move in a diagonal leftward direction when she leaped in and got swallowed up in the darkness. Then, if she knew the architecture of these types of buildings well-enough, that is to say, it was the same style of a building as the Konoha Hospital and the Ninja Academy, the corridors would loop in circles giving her a chance to meet her opponent even if she turned the other way.

A white-wearing man jumped out from the corner. A dark, silver blitz nearly blinded Kiyomi as the man swung what appeared like a scalpel in complete darkness. The Konoha kunoichi locked her arm around the man's wrist, careful not to crush it, she flipped the man over with a single motion while she swept her leg to aid that throw. Once the man was down on his front, still trying to take swings at the girl holding him like a hypnotized loony, the Yamanaka removed a talisman on the man's shoulder.