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

The Heresies We Commit

"They're both waiting for us on the bridge." Mana established through the use of her chakra sensory. "Their chakra sizes are moderate, about the size of any one of us if you exclude Hanshin-san."

Good, that means we can kick their ass easily, we have the numbers on them!" Meiko exclaimed. She raised her fist in the excitement of a favorable brawl.

"Chakra size is rarely an accurate measurement for skill." Mana tried cooling Meiko down. "They seem to be under the impression that we will be passing the Kannabi Bridge, we don't really have to though. We can easily bypass them by dashing around the place."

"That's if we don't fall for another trap," Kiyomi noted. "I'd say it would be safer to just kill them and be done with it, that way even if we do fall for a trap, we can just get out of it and continue on our way. What if the reason they're waiting at the bridge is that every other passageway across is trapped?"

"Can you sense any of the traps?" Hanshin wondered, turning at Mana.

"I can sense plenty of small signatures all around but they may not be traps. I can't sense anything that's not purely chakra-based so if they set an explosive note or something similar, I'll only sense it when it activates, seconds before it's off." Mana shrugged.

"Hmph, for someone who played them and forced them to back off, you're awfully hesitant to engage them." Kiyomi grinned at Mana. "If they're pestering travelers, I thought you'd want to stop them."

"We don't absolutely have to fight them, that means we shouldn't." Mana voiced her position. "If we're careful enough, we can avoid the traps they've set around the bridge, given they're even there."

"Awww, come on, they clearly wanted to kill us, aren't you a little bit curious as to why?" Meiko leaned back, for someone who was willing to engage a pair of rogue Uchiha ninja, she was awfully relaxed.

"There's been a price on my head ever since I became a chuunin, there's a great one on Hanshin-san's. They did appear interested in Kiyomi though..." Mana tried playing Meiko's appeal to Mana's curiosity, a powerful stimulus for certain, but then she herself appeared to contradict her own feeble effort to downplay the allure of curiosity.

"It does not matter if Mana's curious or not, we're going." Hanshin declared. "We don't know if these losers are in cahoots with the foreign spies trying to rile up Yordalar. They may know something and I have two skilled interrogators on my team. Plus, they're Red Hawk scumbags and killing them for the Uchiha would be just a show of good faith."

Kiyomi extended her tongue, making a gagging mimic at her two teammates while Hanshin played being oblivious to the goofy reaction of the Yamanaka heiress. Mana sighed and placed her hands in the pockets of her blazer, raising her shoulders up in objection to what her team was about to do as if she was outside and underdressed in mid-winter. The four figures of the newly assembled squad heading to Yordalar disappeared after their targets, covering the entire distance in a nearly instantaneous dash forward.

"Oh... You're really cocky to engage us in an open field." The first Uchiha teased the emerging Konoha party.

"We both know the Kannabi Bridge cannot be covered from any of the treelines. The only way through is across." Hanshin stroke his hair, breathing in the fresh edge of the Fire Country air while his chest lifted up and expanded vastly, the man tensed up his entire body as if showing it off in an effective showy pose.

"That's not the only reason why we chose to stop you here." The second Uchiha hit a smirk and glanced at his partner.

The first Uchiha swung his hands around in a circular motion as if channeling his chakra but as Mana's sensory tipped her off – that was not it. He was not molding anything inside his body, there was something else to be afraid of but given how nobody appeared to have a solid clue about what it was, Mana decided to stay on her toes. She would not want to use Flower Petal Sanctuary again, using that illusion twice before she even arrived at the mission destination would be a lousy start for something as important and dangerous as the road ahead.