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

The Pacing Game

So far Mana has been careful. Perhaps that very same caution has prevented her from exploiting some chances that she should have looked at. It made sense, rationalizing fighting at only the level in which she was used to fighting before the crazy training in the Rabbit Caves and completely ignoring the costlier show of the growth she has accomplished. After all, she was weakened by the scuffle with the Red Hawks and the struggle against the Yordalarians, it only made sense to conserve strength.

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A blow sent the magician crashing through something tall, sharp and hard as a rock, then tumbling through the stony caves, hitting just about every rough obstacle in her way. It was hard to say what was worse, the hit itself or the landing and the proceeding to stand back up. Even when Mana knew that Usuzoku's slash was coming, his sword still hurt like hell even at the highest level of the applied defensive augmentations. By now the magician was long past being afraid of chakra augmentation as she was some time after breaking her chakra network – fearing such a fundamental part of battle meant certain death in here.

„Yer holdin' back!" Usuzoku declared, a distinctive metallic clang suggested that the showoff rabbit swordsman has once again stabbed his sword right through the stone, avoiding damage to the blade by coating it in chakra, while using the massive weapon for support.

"I'm not holding back," Mana argued, her voice was devoid of any irritation that the voice of a kunoichi that's been kicked around and battered for well over a hundred hours by that point would've had.

"Yer dodgin' just as fast as ye did from da get-go, and yer punchin' just as strong. Means yer holdin' back, always have been." Usuzoku spat to the side, in the purposefully dimmed area of the Rabbit Caves that aimed to better emulate the inhospitable conditions of the old home of the rabbits, now used solely for training, Mana could hear every part of the journey for the little drop of spit or any of its fractions. She had no other senses to rely on except touch, hearing and her chakra sensory.

"Or maybe I'm just fighting intelligently." The magician breathed out a pair of heavy sighs as she struggled to push herself back into fighting shape. "I knew I was in it for a long brawl so I'm pacing myself, doesn't mean I'm holding back."

"Yeh, it does. Ye've been trainin' for hours since before I came 'ere askin' fer trouble. Ye've been tired since da very start, ye've known dat." Usuzoku cracked his knuckles, then drew his sword out from the stony floor it put it into for a short rest.

"All the more reason to..." Usuzoku disappeared before Mana could finish. Mana's body flared up with accelerated chakra flow, almost pouring from her every pore. She did not know where exactly she'd be hit at and she could not afford getting cut down or impaled again, that simply demanded too much time to recover from, too much time she could have spent training. Guru Ayushi had nearly infinite amounts of stamina and has fought battles for twice the amount of days to how many hours Mana has been sparring for...

Another painful flash lit up the magician's vision. It was not created by a source of light, instead, it was a different way for the body of the young woman to express the pain and the damage she took while her body toughened up to take it. Even in the airless oven of the training caves, Mana felt the cold brush of air against the bleeding wounds. It was the prime way of identifying what was bleeding and what was just bumped really badly. While Mana's chakra augmentation withstood the sword slash by having only the blunt swinging force spread throughout the kunoichi's body instead of cutting her open, the slide and the slam from the aftereffects of the impact weren't as easily protected against in this stage of the battle.

"Ye know I'm fresh, ye know I've got more chakra den you. What's dere to fight intelligently about? Just let loose, take a gamble, win or lose, at least ye won't have to take a beating to come to da same resolution..." Usuzoku taunted the magician.