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

Something Old, Something New

The white of Mana's bedroom ceiling was beginning to blur and take shapes and appear in patterns in the middle of the night from the focus of the girl's eyes resting on it for an extended period of time. The air at this time of spring was still relatively chilly, especially so late at night so Mana enjoyed the artificial comfort of wrapping herself up in her bed cover.

There may have been a cause for sadness that night. The date with Kouta went relatively great and she didn't mess it up completely. While she was hanging out with the boy, Mana only had to half-ass her attempts at hiding away the way she really felt to manage that. That was one of the reasons why the magician loved that young man so much.

He had no business working himself over something completely trivial like this. Kouta was pretty sensitive and he had a nasty habit of often going out of his way to do something stupid for Mana. Then again, perhaps it was a bit hypocritical of the magician to think this way when she herself did the same thing constantly and viewed it as another one of her responsibilities to do so.

All sides of Mana agreed with the notion that Kouta was best seeing Mana happy and having completely moved past the insane battle with the Yamata no Orochi. As far as he was concerned, Mana forgot having lost a battle she bet her ideology on and it did not matter to her that the last material memento of her teammate was scattered all over Fire Country.

The magician sighed, she switched sides on which she laid hoping that there'd be more success in finally drifting away into nocturnal slumber, if not, then eventually, at the very least.

"This is pointless..." Seiga grumbled while a fist of a black, armored gauntlet blew past the walls protecting Mana's secrets inside her mind.

The economy behind that woman's mental assaults was impeccable. She knew at all times how much focus and effort was needed to blow past any defenses, she wasted no chakra, even now she did not generate an entire giant demon to decimate Mana's fortifications, she merely created its gauntlet – the only required part to efficiently humiliate Mana.

"I've seen babies with better skills at protecting their mind. That is the point of our training, isn't it?" Seiga worked herself up. "This was so pathetic I am beginning to wonder if I understood the point of this training right, to begin with."

Mana stood back up, massaging the pulsing veins on her temples and the torturous pressure on her forehead. This was just what she needed in her life, getting verbally belittled while the entirety of her mind was getting probed and sacked dry and leaving her with a mother of all migraines.

"Ma'am, it does not look like this training session is all that productive." The ninja overseeing the training and assisting in any way he was needed butt in. "Perhaps it would be for the best to call it quits for today."

"No." Seiga locked her arms tightly over her chest while her incinerating glare appeared to peel away everything Mana built around herself to try and protect her inner self without requiring any genjutsu or hijutsu to do so. "Not just today. It is pointless for you to come here until you sort out whatever's wrong with you."

Mana stood up with her eyes closed so that her tears did not show. Maybe Seiga knew that the magician was about to break out into them, maybe the blackness around them concealed the painful crystals in Mana's eyes well enough that without unnatural measures it was impossible to tell. Regardless, tears meant suffering and someone who was suffering was weak, Mana did not have the luxury to be seen as weak right now.

The magician bowed to the head of the Intelligence Division and the officer overseeing the training and head for the door. By now she's come to this dark room many enough times to memorize this place and not require help to find the door, even if the better senses would have still had a ninja of the Intelligence Division lead the magician to the door, by now they trusted her enough not to bother, it seemed.