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

Heroes Unsung and Punished

Even though their parting could have been much more severe, had Jagaimo taken his game much less seriously, less as an extension of his own life, a revelation of one's own inner morality system, and more like a means to an end kind of thing, Mana still had little peaceful sleep the night before the big meeting. It was not the closeness to being forced to betray the system she wanted and was tasked by the village to protect, it was more that the magician was worried about just how many others would Jagaimo trick successfully after leaving her room.

With his skill at Weiner, shown by him easily capturing seven souls under his belt before even coming to Mana's chamber early in the evening, it would have been a simple deal to capture at least one more in Mana's stead. That was perhaps why Jagaimo was so quick to void the game he did not like or approve of. It was one thing to void a game which one could still repeat seven more times against seven more opponents, it was another when one's own life hung on the balance.

Something told Mana that Jagaimo's life very much hung on the balance with this matter. He was not working with Kirigakure on this, that much the magician had pretty much figured out. The exact nature of the forces that the young man was being pushed into this by still eluded the magician's grasp and because of that it also intrigued her to no end. She was almost tempted to gamble her consciousness, mission objective and the very content of her soul for that forbidden knowledge. It breathed enough passion into the magician to keep her staring at the ceiling for hours on the night before one of the more important days of her life.

A handful of minutes before midday, the magician descended downstairs and stood by the small crowd of ninja waiting for the meeting to begin. It was an easy matter to find Jagaimo, having in mind that the magician had showered in his signature yesterday with multiple smaller copies of it surrounding her and forcing the young woman to center the entirety of her attention on the quartet. A curious straying glance even captured a familiar look of a dark-skinned individual in a militaristic, juniper colored vest and bright, spiky cut hair and a pair of shades with red numbers running all over it. Must have been one of those cutting-edge scanning devices from Iwagakure...

With how violent the two villages have been with each other, it only made sense for each other's technology to bleed over into the hands of their competitors, although, perhaps, it was a bit less the case in Kumogakure's case as it was the country with the strongest military and therefore the place was almost shoved into the frame of the aggressor and the forward pushing factor of the little scuffle for resources and economic supremacy.

The magician did her best to locate the Iwagakure representative as well, it may have been useful to survey the attitude of that person and accurately decide if they were going to be a problem or not. Mana was looking for any signs of unhealthy obsession with the real Tokui or stares that attempted the good old "looks can kill" method of disposing of someone.

The Voice of Iwagakure was a short girl of brown hair and a red jumpsuit. She was slightly hunched over, her posture left plenty to be desired but the magician may have noticed the source of it. Large bags laid tied around her forearms and her calves, ones with fancy colors and visual enhancements that made the boring, cherry-colored jumpsuit slightly stand out.

It did not take a genius to decipher that the bags were filled with something profoundly heavy, it appeared that rays of light itself bent around the hanging bags as they looked as if they either emitted great amounts of heat or were heavy enough to cause mirages by bending the light passing around them. Several of the ninja standing around the petite girl noticed that detail as well and occasionally turned their sights toward the weighty bags of the Iwagakure representative.

"Sleep well?" Jagaimo smirked at Mana. Noticing the magician and speaking up to her before the magician could, what with all the distractions present in the room.