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

Crossroads of Monsters and Painkillers

"Wow, the little starlet didn't check out." S-Crew grinned while gesturing at Mana, who showed up at the nearest hotel to where she and the Allied Ninja parted ways last night.

"Why would she? It was her idea to tag along..." Rushira squinted at her comrade.

"Just making conversation, sheesh." The Kumogakure native shrugged.

"You have a good reason to be surprised. Not every young ninja would come for more of what we did yesterday." Cailar looked at his colleague.

"I am more surprised to see Junichi here." Rushira grinned while butting her tall friend with her elbow. "One would think that after years of serving abroad you'd spend a bit more time with your family."

"We've got work to do." Junichi cleared his throat.

"You're all closed in like your missus cheated on you or something." S-Crew joked.

"She did," Junichi replied without a hint of emotion.

"H-Holy shit!" S-Crew flipped out, the rest of the team gasped. Mana was not overly invested into this small-talk, she was just itching to get to work but this little revelation did somewhat touch her.

"Are you serious!?" Rushira lost it, she leaned in on the giant's side and began patting his shoulder and his back excessively in a friendly manner. Taps like that would have broken the ribcage or dislocated any punier shoulder. "I'm so sorry."

"It's no big deal. I came back home, saw my wife with another man. Lost it. She said that I should have expected no different after four years. I thought it was fair enough, a rather valid point so I conceded." Junichi shrugged. "So are we looking for those missing villagers or what?"

"He's joking." Mana nonchalantly called the man out while his colleagues were losing it. They began fumbling over individual elements of what was said, each thing more ridiculous than the other, together with the cold and bland tone of the speaker they created a very inviting for conflict scenery. Mana was about as much of a people person as anyone else but she knew a bit about entertainment and she could see fluff being pulled from a mile away.

"Indeed. It is a joke. I found it hilarious when I thought of it this morning." Junichi pouted his lips while he nodded his head repeatedly. "Then I thought it was stupid and out of nowhere but you walked into it so you left me no choice."

"Damn, that was pretty mean though. Leave the joking to me next time..." S-Crew rubbed his nose with his thumb erratically.

"Very well, in any case, we do not have strong clues about where to look yet. I suggest we examine the records from yesterday, look for any reason to look into things further, no matter how slim. If someone found a ryo in the place where someone disappeared earlier, we look into it." Junichi declared the no less grueling schedule.

"Actually..." Mana rubbed the back of her neck in discomfort. She felt a little bad bringing something like this up but the Konoha native Allied Ninja did say that they were looking for anything, no matter how slim. "I heard and felt something yesterday. I'm sure it was nothing but... It was like this huge presence just appearing out of nowhere. Like something big with an immense chakra signature had been sleeping and woke up yesterday. It can't be anything important, right?"

"Hard to say, what are the odds of two similar calamities befalling Konoha at the same time and in no way clashing against one another?" Junichi rubbed his chin in worry.

"Come on though, we're looking into night terrors now? I mean yesterday kind of dragged but we did it all for the noble goal of closing the case down. If something huge would have woken up yesterday, it'd likely have gobbled the village down by now." S-Crew objected in his own way.