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

A Whirl of Wearying White

A storm of white capable of piercing its chills to one's bones as well as feeling like it was strong enough to expose them due to the sheer whirling dance of the unruly snow gave a lonely coachman all too much trouble by itself. The man was a professional, he was used to fighting the environment as much as he was fighting his own willpower. The animals he managed trusted his judgment enough to resist their own natural instincts to flee south, at least as far back south as to the bordering fields of the Land of Snow, where the ground was frozen solid yet snow was not knees deep even on maintained and used roads.

It was because of the natural awareness and the on edge state that ruling in such conditions demanded that the man noticed a lonely figure in a black coat. Shoulder length dark violet hair fell over the shoulders of the young man, mixing into the thick and rich fur from the hood hanging on his back, a part of the man's winter attire.

With trouble in his mind and worry over the potential success of his job in mind, the coachman halted the caravan. In his youth, he may have tried something as hot-headed as turning his caravan and trying to run around the obstacle, given how he could not see what was under all that snow, however, his horses could have twisted and broken their joints instantly by galloping into a ditch or even the smallest of tripping hazards. Plus, who knew for how long this man was standing here, what preparations he had laid or who was hiding around these parts waiting for a chance of a potential ambush.

"If you look for money, look elsewhere. I take solicitor to a castle in the mountains. All money is in the castle, not on my client." The coachman spoke up first, something that was very unlike the locals. Then again, he did speak similarly to the other Land of Snow giants, omitting plenty of words found pointless and adding nothing that lacked necessity.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your work, we are looking for information ranging from something concrete to mere rumors on strange happenings in nearby settlements. Coachmen and merchants tend to travel around, we'd like to know if you, by any chance, have come upon something of the sort," Yushijin inquired.

The coachmen glanced the young shinobi over. He did not look like he enjoyed what he was seeing nor the trouble that this lonely obstacle in the road offered him.

"Can't say. Strange is vague term. No time to compare notes." The coachman prepared to encourage his horses to move along. It was a power play that was meant to see if Yushijin was going to be trouble or not. If the young ninja blocking the path was weak-willed or truly did not mean to cause the coachman any trouble, he'd have moved aside. If trouble was truly brewing, he'd have remained rooted and even tried something that would have only aggravated the situation.

"Please, anything that fuels the imagination. Grisly murders, mysterious disappearances of people or items." Yushijin did not directly block the coachman's path but he did turn his body aside, thusly, while not directly blocking the passage, he did not move out of the carriage's way either.

A head of a blond and well-dressed man appeared from the space between the open door and the carriage. The man inside the carriage was not dressed in particularly heat-insulating clothes so he may have peeked out only to see what the reason for stopping was. The mountains were still a decent distance away and the carriage may not have made it there until late at night, even later if stoppages like this persisted. The man may have been rightfully irked.

"What's happening, why have we stopped?" he inquired.

"This foreign ninja asking around." The coachman pointed at Yushijin.

"Foreign ninja? What is it that you want, ninja?" the solicitor wondered out loud, his speech suggested that this man was not a local himself. He spoke at least remotely like a human being.