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

The things we do for a good punch

With the bit of heart-stopping excitement that was the last handful of days in the magician's life, Mana's mornings lately were pretty much the same. Get up, slog through the usual morning routines, head for the headquarters of the Intelligence Division for some genjutsu training. Then again, perhaps this was what was needed. Facing Yamata no Orochi gave Mana plenty to think about.

It was not even the fact that she lost that didn't give the magician the peaceful night's sleep. It was how she lost and the implications Yamata provided for his unimaginable amount of strength. He was not too different from most powerful ninja Mana knew. Tanshu, Hanasaku, Lord Sixth, all of them were in a lot of ways similar to the Eight-Headed Snake. All of them had a certain distaste for responsibility and needless restrictions and the power of control over their own lives, something Mana could not for the life of her even find, let alone grasp.

There was no control. Mana thought that she was in full control but was she really? She thought she chose to find the Ninja Rabbits and lead them out of their infernal caves and into a living quarter more akin to what they were used to. But would it not be true to claim that she only "chose" that option because of the promise she had made, because she was bound to it and decided that this was the right time to do that.

Did she even decide that much? That it was the right time? Maybe it was only because of the bonds of friendship with Kiyomi that Mana began getting emotionally involved into the brewing conflict between the Uchiha and the Yamanaka and ruined her working relationship with the village, forcing it to vacate her schedule, making it the right time. The more Mana delved into the wicked webs of choices she has made, the more horrifying the discoveries were.

Her bond to her responsibilities was beaten soundly by Yamata's freedom to control his own life. The only hits she landed, each inch by which she shook Yamata's freedom was the inch she was humored by her opponent to shake him by. She did all that she was allowed to do, she only survived because Yamata decided that she has earned that survival. And at what cost...

Mana wiped the predecessor to tears forming in her eyes, every time her thoughts lingered back on that moment and the shards of Audra alloy scattering in the air she could not help but barely keep herself from tearing up. Now all that remained of her lifelong friend was just memories. She could not even fulfill the responsibility of honoring his memento and putting his name out there by making him proud of what she did with what the Yuki had left behind.

"Is something distracting you?" the head of the Intelligence Division lifted her eyebrow. Even the Intelligence Division officer Mana was training on looked back at her with a curiosity about what was taking the magician so long to probe into his mind.

"I'm sorry, Seiga-sensei. It's just... I don't know if this is the right thing for me." Mana lied. "I am an entertainer at heart, I try not to use techniques I did not invent myself."

It was a stupid excuse but it was one Mana would much rather shield with than let the woman see the truth of the turmoil that was inside her chest actually. Mana's very foundation was being questioned, the very pillars that held it up high and going strong for the entirety of the girl's life were being busted down by a hammer just large enough to topple the entire thing down.

"Well, this is not exactly a technique." Seiga sighed with a strict glare at Mana. While it was clear that the woman wondered if she was wasting time with Mana, it was not like she had anything much better to do. The head of the Intelligence Division lead very few actual interrogations and, for the most part, just saw that everything was running smoothly. "More of a concept."

"Oh, I see..." Mana replied without feeling. She did know the difference between these. It was the difference between the redirection style Meiko taught her, between the evasive style Kouta tutored her in and the fighting style she devised with the old man's help by molding those two together. This was just something she'd devise something stronger from.