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

Into the Valley of Hell

"We're making a lot of swerves. Wouldn't it be faster to travel in a straight dash for once?" Kouta asked in a disgruntled tone.

"It would not. We would get dragged into pointless fights and arguments if any of the local settlements or ninja from Yugakure notice us nearby. It is safer and faster to travel around every settlement and especially as far around Yugakure as possible." Yushijin explained in a dry tone.

"Is he making sense?" Kouta asked by checking the reply with Mana. The magician felt a little flustered to be forced in between the two like that and suddenly be made into the deciding figure who ruled on what was right or not. It always felt like she was just along for the ride, not in a leading position to make any sort of relevant judgments.

"Sort of." Mana shrugged.

"Can't you take a position a little bit harder?" Kouta raised an eyebrow.

"Well, the Land of Hot Water is covered with especially tourist-friendly settlements that actually profit from passing by parties of ninja and merchants so we are unlikely to be unwelcomed around any of them but... Technically, Yugakure is still a ninja village – a militaristic establishment to which the presence of ninja from other villages might turn out as more work so some tension between us would be inevitable." Mana shrugged again. The more any of the two would have pressed her to take a stance on one camp or the other, the more rebelliously Mana would have wanted to maintain neutral ground.

"You guys and your camps." Erumo snickered. "You should know better than to think there are just two ways to every problem, Kouta, there are just about as many paths as there are people walking them..."

"Hmph..." Yushijin's glare sharpened and his eyes turned to the side. Mana looked at the squad leader wondering what could have troubled him. The young swordsman stopped and looked around, sniffing at the air. Kouta and Erumo did the same.

"Can you sense something in that direction?" Yushijin asked the magician.

"Too tough to tell..." Mana's face soured from a repugnant sensation emanating from the direction in which Yushijin was pointing at. "There's something overpowering, something that stops my perception from going farther, like a jammer of sorts..."

"Jammer? How does that work?" Erumo appeared especially interested in the mechanics of how to trick chakra sensory. Given how her interest seemed more on the professional side, judging from the young woman's tone, as well as how she was on Mana's squad and giving her as much intel as possible may have just saved Mana's life at some point in the nearest future, the magician tried her best to explain.

"A lot like placing a massive statue in front of someone trying to look for someone. A large, distracting object might conceal a much smaller one hiding right behind it. The chakra emanating from that direction is so massive and has such... Distinctive properties that... I can't seem to go far past it."

"If this chakra is this massive, you must have sensed it for a while now. There may not have been a need to delay until we could smell this thing." Yushijin scolded the magician.

"Well... My sensory is not always taking the stage. Not unless I'm using it. Yes, I've sensed it for a while now but I sense signatures of all kinds and sizes all the time." Mana replied. Chakra sensory was such an exotic talent that she always had to explain to other people just how exactly did it work.

"In other words, despite its repugnant taste, you still ruled it as not a threat to us?" Yushijin asked for an important clarification.

"Yes." Mana nodded.

"I see... Still, I'd like to be informed about any out of the ordinary chakra signatures around the area." Yushijin sighed and looked on ahead. His body was just about tensing up for another leap to continue the dash through the Land of Hot Water heading towards the Land of Snow before he was interrupted.