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

Revenge Against the Mighty Cerebrator

"What a dry dump..." Hanshin remarked, his eyes carefully fenced around the interior of the Eternal Fire, poking with a glance at every single nook and cranny while remaining mostly unimpressed by the bright, sandy interior.

"Yeah, but why is it like a desert though?" Meiko nodded her head to the side as if changing the degree from which she perceived the room would have changed the way that the room looked or the general amount of sense that the decorations made.

Meiko's generalization was not too far off, the inner great hall of the Eternal Fire was covered in sand with an occasional sandstone rock erected where tables and stands should have been. What may have served as a distraction of the dry and dusty air inside of the structure, now only served as an unpleasant reminder of it.

"The sand is really hot. What genius decided that pouring a bunch of sand into a bunch of heated, metal tubes was a good idea?" Kiyomi whined while she kicked her sandals about like a wayward mare. With each kick, each gesture of struggle she shook out handfuls of sand from inside her sandals only for the torrid hindrance seep back into her shoe once the young woman set her foot back down.

"That is not what Hanshin meant. The interior is a fascinating artistic statement, it is the parched air that will inevitably ruin Hanshin's hair and skin..." the special jounin lamented. "The sand is supposed to boil one's feet so that the politicians and councilmen did not tap around and made up their damn minds for once."

"I see..." Meiko nodded with childish enthusiasm a pair of times.

"Whatever you say... I need to find a place to insulate my feet in. I refuse to keep them augmented the whole time." Kiyomi grumbled. She turned around only to meet a three-meter tall man with a hairdo that suggested that the man had literally torn most of his excess hair out before deciding it hurt too much and abandoning the venture half-way.

Without making the stupid mistake of talking before the kill, the giant swung a pickaxe about his size and twice his width in an attempt to impale the Konoha kunoichi on it. It was easy to figure out that the man intended to murder Kiyomi silently from behind and the only reason why the Yamanaka had noticed him in the first place was that she had decided to turn around at the most inopportune moment for the massive miner.

Kiyomi did not appear to be that easily done in, even with her injuries she vaulted backward and followed the blade of the oversized picking tool nearly scratch her eye out while she did so. The Yamanaka stumbled on her feet, feeling a bit woozy from all the blood she's lost and the pressure around the bags on her eyes and her nose suggested that if she strained herself some more, another vessel may have burst and reset her nasty nosebleed.

"How awesome is that pickaxe!?" Meiko screamed out like a schoolgirl upon the sight of a family of wild, newborn kittens being tended to by their mother. "I bet it can pick as well as a diamond drill can, except with the added benefit of using your muscles more and putting your back to it!"

"Indeed, the prospect of unnecessary workout routines does sound alluring. We shall deal with who loots this pickaxe later." Hanshin agreed with the blacksmith on one of the few rare occasions.

"Drats, it appears that I have been unsuccessful at nabbing these scoundrels." The pickaxe-wielding redneck cursed in an oddly intelligible manner uttered in an almost childish-tone. It served as a grotesque contrast to the man's naturally ugly façade and disastrous hair situation. Just as Meiko suggested previously, however, both the central body and the man's arms were very well trained, as evidenced by the amazing speed at which the attacked swung his mighty tool. "Nevertheless, the trap my comrade has laid shall obliterate you, cretins..."

Kiyomi's eyebrow rose almost out of instinct. Her back foot quivered just by an inch before an explosion resonated through one of the larger halls of the Eternal Fire where the confrontation between Konoha's and Iwagakure's parties was taking place. An effect of a compact mine of white clay, carefully detonated when the Yamanaka was as close to it as possible after she dodged the initial strike and positioned herself by the mine.