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

The Bigger Picture

There were times when Erumo felt a bit jealous of the Konoha Sorceress and her ability to track chakra. In the present, with the trapster concealed under a Cloak of Invisibility that she had formed out of a sheet of plain cloth using the Camouflage Technique taught to all budding ninja in the Academy, she was experiencing one of those times. The camouflaging cloak was perfectly manipulated to appear completely identical to the floor which the young woman crawled on while hiding under it. The air down there was a tiny bit clearer as well, although the despicable stench and taste of iron did not disappear completely even for a moment, neither did Erumo's nausea.

Her first instinct after tumbling down was to conceal herself to prevent follow-up attacks. She was no weakling but she did not perform favorably with the fight brought directly to her face where she could not have placed any traps and have any moments to think things through and strategize. It was the least advantageous type of combat for the kunoichi of Team Fir. Everybody she knew had those type of unfavorable conditions, it was no big deal. And yet... It would have perhaps helped a little if her numb-skulled teammates would appreciate her role a little bit more with both of them being front and center, attention-hogging action heroes.

The concealed kunoichi wondered shortly where her teammates could have been. She was in no condition to peek out for too long or too wide or else her entire effort of hiding herself so well would have been swept away as meaningless dust on a shelf. Erumo could hear ear-piercing sounds of something heavy, mechanical but also... Something like intense and focused lightning bolts, so high pitched that the thundering almost made it feel like the lightning was crying under pressure. Should she perhaps move a little bit closer to that battlefield?

A shockwave made Erumo clinch to her cloak harder than she's ever needed to in order for her camouflage to not simply be blasted off from the emanating gusts of wind. Something much more intense was transpiring nearby. The trapster rolled aside, letting her cloak envelop her inside it like a wrapping, as long as her camouflaging ninjutsu kept going, the shape of her concealment or even her position barely mattered. The young woman pressed her body against rough and edgy rock rising from the very bottom of the valley and peeked over it to the battlefield that demanded her attention at the moment.

There he was... Kouta. He was quite close to these Blood Lagoon people. Just who were they really? Why were these ninja so adamant about snuffing them all out? Moreover, so deep within another country's territory. Land of Hot Water was a well-known neutral space that did not like to be drawn into any lasting wars or conflicts. Even when fighting transpired right on their doorstep or even within their own borders the place chose to remain uninvolved. For people in Kirigakure headbands in plain sight to commit something on this scale on such a respected ground, so recently after regaining their sovereignty as well... It was asking for trouble.

There was only one type of grievance that defied reason – a personal one. Bigotry perhaps? These Blood Lagoon folk really did look out of the ordinary and appeared to be many things but none of them completely. Their appearance was strikingly similar to the Uchiha and yet not quite completely, they lacked the certain apathy in their emotional states, not to mention that their own unique set of red eyes lacked some of the notable Sharingan attributes or abilities.

The fight was transpiring four-on-one. Kouta even managed to send the opponent flying and he had not even tapped into his Curse Seal just yet. If needed, the young man could have amplified his strength, speed and endurance dozens of times, he was in no danger. Not in this engagement anyway. What worried Erumo much more was how little all of them knew about anything. Who exactly were these people trying to eradicate the Blood Lagoon, whose orders were they acting under, who was the Blood Lagoon exactly?

Something inside kept on nagging Erumo that she'd help her squad out much more by providing answers to these questions. Ones acquired not from the mouths of one those feuding two sides but ones that were gathered from some good, old snooping around. Something ninja were supposed to do more of anyway. It should not have been so difficult, if these two were at each other's throats based on a grievance as personal as Erumo had a reason to believe, they'd be spouting out way more of needless words of spite to one another than necessary. A lot could have been extracted from filtering out the useful information from all of that.