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

The Allied VS The Spliced

"You left all the other Congregation groups all by themselves. You could have captured them, saved them all." Mana complained vocally while Rushira let the magician slip from her hold.

"Maybe, we needed to confirm your connection and get right to the point of our investigation. These guys showed interest in you before and rescue missions would have only been a distraction." Cailar replied.

"To be fair, we expected to get some more info, since the horn-armor dude was so generous with the beans if you catch my cold." S-Crew scratched his neck showing a little embarrassment but only for getting caught and not for what was questionable about the call the Allied Ninja made.

"It's fine, it was always a risky plan trying to follow a sensor. Suppressing chakra while using Hiding Mole Jutsu was troublesome enough." Junichi tried shutting this subject down with a firm tone. Mana was about to have none of it. She's long passed the point where the endless bounds of respect for these Allied Ninja made her get modest and nervous when talking to them.

Still, she had to hand it to the Allied Ninja, they played their stealth cards just fine. Managing to use a lower-ranking Earth Release technique to hide them underground while suppressing their chakra to an average rank while in the middle of a ninja village. Even if Mana had caught a whiff of their signatures before, they'd mix right into the endless crowd of ninja whose chakra Mana also had sensed before, without focusing and trying to single them out, it'd have been near impossible to notice them.

But she did, eventually. Even with their impressive attempts to hide from Mana's sensory, even while she purposefully restrained its range inside this shop, she still picked them out. Mana was growing strong. She'd have lied if she had ever belittled her ability to find out she's being followed.

"You really have little reason to be mad at us, Mana. You sensed us for a while, didn't you? You could have exposed us much longer and not played along and have the enemy Spliced give us everything. Still, you did the right thing. You played the expectations of these lunatics and helped us with our investigation." Rushira tried getting Mana back on her side, or, if that did not work, point out that the magician was on no moral high-ground here with how she justified the plan of the Allied Ninja with her actions after she found them out.

"Not to mention, you've cleared your own name," Junichi affirmed with a confident nod. "Now we know why these people knew you and you're under no fire from us."

"Well, they're coming." Mana turned at Junichi with angered eyes. "The Congregation you ignored are returning with a company."

"B-But how?" S-Crew flipped out, "They were supposed to wait, we were supposed to have more time!"

A cackle of laughter silenced the Kumogakure native while life returned to the eyes of Buberuri and his awfully mangled body lifted off the ground as if yanked by some twisted puppet-master that refused to let his toy die. Dislocated and broken limbs put themselves back into place letting out gruesome snapping and churning sounds while cream-colored dust formed complicated webs over Buberuri's skin and hardened again.

The jelly-man nearby Buberuri was also slowly putting himself together, chunks of jelly slid back into a singular mass that was just rustling restlessly and beginning to take the shape it once had. The one before it was blown to bits by Cailar's jutsu.

"Thank you for not betraying the Congregation's movements, Mana-sama. They may look pitiful but they are very easy to ignore and miss but you sensed them, right? Your heart is still lingering between our side and that of your village, right?" Buberuri spoke his first words after his rebirth.

"Village? These ninja aren't village ninja... A lot of village ninja hate them, distrust them just as they would a foreigner ninja. Ninja that know no boundaries know no loyalties either and very few Kage trust unconditionally, without expecting loyalty in return." Mana replied. "Take me to Guru now."