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

Frozen Dinner

The crowd went dead-silent when Mana retreated to a small stand where a glass of water stood. There were some boredom and order to her step, before that moment the magician had been performing for well over half an hour making a short break almost necessary. They lowered their guards, they couldn't help it. It wasn't just the need for a break, a faint return to reality in the shape of their winged boots touching solid ground, it was also that their minds wanted to be fooled and by that point they've seen so much magic that things beyond their belief started losing their very special charm.

Mana flipped the glass over, almost gorging on the water that she, in all fairness, truly did need after so much time in the spotlight. She had spent so much time training her ninja art that the frivolous warmth of the stage and the dryness of one's throat following strenuous talking sessions became a problem for her once more, for the first time since her childhood.

A lonely card peeked its edge from the magician's pocket. Mana had made sure to seal some Lightning Release sparks inside of it to make it catch the attention of even the furthermost spectators. Playfully, the magician lowered her glass and looked down at the card. At the same time, the card disappeared in Mana's inner pocket. A mere matter of string-play inside and outside the magician's uniform. When she started out Mana felt pretty worried about using steel wire out in the open. She almost felt naked by performing the switch out in the open, the instinct of any novice magician was to conceal the trickery.

It took multiple times of getting fooled in the battlefield for Mana to realize just how tough steel wire was to spot out in the open, even in such illustrious lighting, especially for someone with untrained perception. These days Mana hated the idea of using steel wire from inside her uniform, contrasting the sentiment of the past, hiding string always left the risk of an awkward folding of her clothes to reveal the trickery and that would have just been sloppy.

Continuing the act, Mana reached in for her pocket where the curious card had appeared from and tried pulling it out from the pocket it has supposedly hidden inside of. What appeared for the audience as the young woman browsing the front pocket of her blazer concealed a snap of the magician's fingers from the inside, which unsealed something sealed previously. A burst of indigo light erupted from Mana's pocket with a brigade of young rabbits leaping out of her pocket and scattering across the stage, running off just far enough for their return home and the resulting smoke and the popping sound to not be visible to those that desired entertainment and trickery.

The stage shook, cracking multiple of the wooden boards under Mana's feet. Breaking her act for just a moment, the young woman glanced at the devastation she had brought upon Hiro, the manager of the hall, and realized she'd be compensating that. She should have practiced more, on more surfaces... Before Mana could even figure out what she did wrong here and ways she could have avoided this blunder and the resulting faltering and stumbling, a massive rabbit, a fur-ball just like the young that had appeared before, stormed the stage.

This particular youngster had a very odd, natural look to him, his fur took grass-like dark green hue that made him appear almost like a living forest monster in his current form. The young one roared just like Mana had taught him while workshopping the trick and charged at the magician, further shaking the stage to the point where Mana began seriously doubting if the structure would hold.

A loud crack and the feeling of weightlessness answered the question. At least Usukai canceled his technique, massively reducing in size and leaving a lovely image of a fallen magician halfway buried in rubble with a lovely, critter-sized bunny resting on top of her head. Mana couldn't stop grinning, for a bunny his age, Usukai had a knack for showmanship. Maybe she'd ask him to help perform in her shows more often...

Mana's eyes browsed the audience for a specific smile that would have been the perfect shining star to dye the entire night's sky with genuine, more human kind of magic. She couldn't find him, maybe she had fallen too low down from the stage, the young man was a short one, if he was in the back she'd have easily missed him...