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

Exodus

The rabbits had one final night to gather everything they could carry while maintaining a reasonable pace and leave first thing next morning. They would be heading closer to toward the Ryuuchi Cave, a sacred location for the Ninja Snakes. The home of the snakes that resided there was an equal distance away from Land of Fire to the north-east, as the Rabbit Caves were to the west.

Kouta opened his eyes in the midst of the night, awakened by a strange feeling that he could not explain. He didn't hear or see anything but the air around him felt somehow different, different enough to trigger his perception and awaken him, at least. When the young man turned to the other side than the one he was facing while he nodded asleep he noticed Mana.

The magician was sitting in a meditating position with an aura of light around her. The odd thing was that she was levitating a small distance off the ground and it was not her usual method of levitating either. Given how her chakra was visible on the outside, Kouta figured that it was the sheer output of Mana's chakra that levitated her. She was concentrating and controlling her flow thusly that when it left her bodily pores, the force of the energy flowing around her propelled her gently off the ground.

The young man closed his eyes again. He decided not to interrupt Mana with something like a question. She was probably recovering in her own unique way. Both of them spent some chakra fighting Brownback and Kouta spent even more after he had to quickly patch Mana up during the battle and complete her recovery after it.

The next morning, when Usuzoku was packing all of his weaponry and paper tags and Mana was observing the preparations both inside Usuzoku's carved home and outside where the rabbits were beginning to gather, Kouta finally got his chance to speak to Mana.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" He wondered, trying to use his professional qualifications as an excuse to strike up a conversation. Even if they had gotten close lately, he still didn't feel brave enough to just talk to her without a reason or as much as a made-up excuse.

"Fine. As fine as one might feel with what's ahead." Mana replied, sipping a little from her cup of green tea before closing her eyes to calm her heart that began racing just from the mere thought of transferring an entire society of Ninja Rabbits to another location.

"I noticed you were meditating yesterday. Did you rest well?" Kouta wondered, still keeping up his professional façade instead of revealing his actual friendly concern over his girlfriend's well-being.

"Meditation is not a substitute for sleep. It is a lesser way of resting but I had to spend one more night at it." Mana replied. After seeing the confusion on Kouta's face when she explained, the girl elaborated. "You see, I was boosting the size of my chakra signature. I was trying to increase it as much as I could through meditation last night. The challenges we will face will be unlike anything else, there is a high chance of A-Rank animals trying to kill us".

"You can increase your chakra size through meditation?" Kouta wondered.

"No, meditation merely boosts your spiritual chakra, at least normal meditation. Over the years I have learned to have it substitute physical training as well by simulating it in my mind. That helps me train both aspects at the same time and achieve growths of my chakra at half the time." Mana explained.

"So I can just think about training instead of training?" The young man wondered with innocence to his bafflement that made Mana chuckle.

"It is much tougher than that. You must not just think it but truly feel it. The process you're simulating must be ingrained in your mind, you must visualize the sights, the smells, every strain to every muscle. It takes immense concentration and years of practice to learn." Mana replied with a smile, her amusement still lingering in the system.