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

Interlude During a Drizzle

"What were the questions about, really?" Mana persisted. Usually, it would not have been her interest to dig too deep into something that was in the beginning fenced off from her, not this business. The enigmatic element present in Jagaimo's story made Mana power through her usual locks that prevented her from digging until the golden shimmer of the precious intel she needed or the blazing heatwave of having dug her way into trouble.

"You're not gonna let this go, are you?" Jagaimo whined. "Even if I wanted to tell them anything about that thing of mine that I'm doing here, they would not have given me the chance. No need to nag me over it... Yeah, I tried toppling the ninja system, big whoop... What's in it that's so interesting for you?"

"I have a theory..." Mana admitted with a hearty sigh while Tokui was being questioned inside. "There are way too many villages and lands missing. It could be because they are small and rather insignificant but I have a different idea. I believe that the villages that have sent Voices here all have something in common."

Jagaimo looked away like it was the dumbest thing he has ever heard, at first, then his eyes turned back at Mana without giving the magician the satisfaction to see the entire face of the young man. A moment later, after a pair more blinks and a deep sigh and an eye-roll, Jagaimo finally asked, "Okay, pretend I'm interested too now, what's this theory of yours?"

"It's a bloody incident. Konoha has been attacked three years ago by a creature that came from inside the village and has never really disappeared since its release. Despite the monster roaming freely in the village's streets, the authorities pretty much did nothing about it. The response of the Hokage after the monster started rampaging was correct by the books but not by the eyes and ears of his villagers." Mana explained. "I have a suspicion that the rest of the villages may have had incidents, not unlike the one with the monster Honda."

"I don't think there's been something unusual in Kirigakure, not something that stands out of the ordinary. In the mist-covered slums there it's bloody murders most foul every hour of the day. People disappear, people get murdered... Less so now than back when I was a sprouting little lad but... Still happens." Jagaimo shrugged. "They do make a bigger deal out of it these days. A year back there was this one loon who just went to work, got sick of everyone's shit and just started wasting people with a box knife and a pair of scissors to cut flowers. Even though twenty blokes probably got stabbed while the authorities and the media chatted about this event, it was all over the tellies and the papers."

Mana and Jagaimo looked at each other with blank stares for a pair of moments before Jagaimo looked away and scratched his neck, looking a bit guilty.

"Yeah, I guess I see where you're coming from now. Though they didn't pry too much into that. They were all into my early life and the like, like what's my childhood and my current home like and the sort of questions like that." The street rat squirmed, resting his buttocks atop a windowsill and almost pressing falling locks against the cold window.

"What was your childhood like?" Mana sat in front of the young man, her own eyes wandered outside as well as she was enjoying the gloomy melancholy of the heavenly spray from the clouds above.

"That another one of your theories?" Jagaimo smirked while turning back at the magician. Mana acknowledged the gesture by mirroring the Voice's smile herself.

"No, just genuinely curious. I guess if you did not have the brightest of times early on, it would make sense why you'd want to change everything about... Well... Everything." Mana replied seriously to the rhetorical question while turning her eyes to the drizzle outside. "I know a bit about feeling lost and scorned and wanting to lash out, feeling unsure whom to lash out at so you start lashing out at pretty much everything, hoping that if you turn this one random stone, your situation will maybe miraculously change."