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

Forced Reconciliation

For a while, the party of warrior rabbits continued to stare at Usujitsa and his antics. The goofball gave the other rabbits and their human companions plenty of reasons to fear it. That was just if one completely ignored the warnings and the poor reputation that the mindless force of nature known as Usujitsa had gathered over the years.

"We have no time to linger here," Usupari spoke up as the gruesome sight of Usujitsa hopping on and kicking the still twitching corpse of Vasuki as well as biting at it angrily lingered in the eyes of the observers.

"Yeah, we don't know what next is on Usujitsa's hit-list. We were lucky that Vasuki pissed it off and took its undivided yet limited attention." Usuchabi sighed.

"Go, check on the others." Mana nodded at the rabbits while she took a wary step towards the frightening midget horror show that was Usujitsa.

"What are you doing?" Kouta raised his voice. The gesture was meant to remind Mana that she was moving toward a being with an unknown number of clones still lingering all over the place with the explosive potential to level everything around it.

"All those civilians, they'll need to get over this cavern." The magician's voice faltered. She knew that she was approaching the dragon's den here.

"I'm sure someone can make a decent stone platform ta walk over," Usuzoku grumbled. "Dere isn't a single rabbit without de ability ta mold chakra ta some extent."

"Yeah but Usujitsa is also a rabbit." Mana breathed out erratically. Her breathing was becoming increasingly irregular, the closer she approached the grumpy little murder-fluff that was Usujitsa. "He is also a part of this movement. Even if he is a mindless machine of destruction, he does not deserve to face the retaliation of the snakes alone."

"So yer takin' him with us? To make all 'a us face it with a bastard dat's just as likely ta blow us up as he is ta help us?" Usuzoku complained before he coughed some blood up. His stance was becoming as sloppy and slouched as his posture. Little by little the weight of gravity was dragging him down from the horizontal position of sticking to the cavern wall he was currently in and it's only been a couple of moments since the damage to his system was healed.

"Hey there." Mana smiled at Usujitsa before landing to his side and waving at the little goofball. Coming so close to the so widely revered horror of the Ninja Rabbits made the magician notice just how cute and silly the little monster was. The little critter hopped up to Mana with a pair of quick dashes and sniffed her.

"Ji-Ji!" Usujitsa babbled with strange cheer.

There was something odd about this creature. Mana could sense it all over the place. The entire cave system around this cavern was filled with Usujitsa. Judging from what she had seen before, this rabbit used clones to scope out its environment. Given its incredibly low intelligence, it was a very fancy way to survive this long – everything it met in its path it exposed its clones to and blew them up on. Maybe that was why this rabbit had a falling out with the rest of its peers...

"Look, I don't know if you can understand me or not but... We're leaving this place. All of the Ninja Rabbits and... Well, technically, you're one of us so you are also invited. We're going to find a new place for you to live, free of the Ninja Snakes, well... Freer." Mana smiled for the little thing, carefully and slowly reaching her hand out and letting the little Usujitsa clone get used to the girl's presence.

Mana had dealt with cats before, while the feline species tended not to explode upon making a mistake with the destructive potential to kill an A-Rank ninja, the core principles were not too different. No sudden moves, if Mana did not give this little bugger a reason to explode on her in self-defense, it should, in theory, not have done so.