Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

Brothers: A Tale of a Son or Twelve

Shitaka pulled a wooden cork out of the plastic jar and allowed whatever vapors it contained fill the air. While Mana could not smell its sharp odors herself, judging from the nose-turning reaction from the other Allied Ninja, it was an aroma that stung at the nostrils. The subdued ninja writhed in a vain struggle underneath Shitaka's knee which kept him pinned to the ground.

"What is that you're giving him?" Mana looked up from a fallen position. She rubbed her hand over her moist and cold nose a couple of times to take a more presentable appearance before the Allied Ninja.

"What does it look like? I'm giving him rocking mad drugs to make him spill the beans!" Shitaka stuck out his tongue, looking mighty proud of his approach to the situation.

"That's torture. His comrades are all dead and now you're going to torture him?" Mana pushed herself onto her feet, even though her stance was wobbly, a bit weak at the knees, but she managed to carry herself to the scene.

"Calm down, I'm not quite sticking knives under his shoulder blades just yet. We're just gonna have a rocking good time, just a little chat, nothing more," Shitaka snickered. Junichi rolled his eyes. This leather-clad ninja chemist didn't make his case any more presentable by behaving like a street punk.

"You're drugging him. That's still torture. I've trained with the Intelligence Division. I can interrogate people far better than you ever could by torturing them," Mana insisted.

"Once again, drugging, not torturing..." Shitaka squinted, looking around the area just to confirm that he was not the only one thinking this way. While none of the fellow Allied Ninja looked at Shitaka as if he was crazy, they did turn away suggesting that the punk would get no help from them.

"If you inhibit his mental state, he'll just tell you whatever he sees and feels – a bunch of delirium from the tripping handbook. I can do it properly," Mana pressed her case.

"Absolutely not," Junichi cut the magician's will down. "Not in your current state. You're worked up about your summon killing off a bunch of enemy ninja. You're in this to prove something but your mind isn't in the right place. I agree that the Intelligence Division's methods are superior to Shitaka's but I will not permit you to mess with the interrogation while you're distressed like that."

"I'm not distressed! Ugh!" Mana yelled out and then grunted, realizing that she just made Junichi's case for him, even though she couldn't even begin comprehending the angle from which she might have agreed with him.

"Take a rocking good whiff, crow dude..." Shitaka snickered, placing his jar by the nose of the subdued ninja and then pressing his knee to the ninja's gut to force him to take some air in faster. Ninja could have held their breaths for anywhere from twenty minutes to over an hour, depending on their training with this specific area of chakra augmentation. They'd have all grown beards by the time this guy decided to speak. "Now, who's your master, and what does he do?"

The ninja clad in black writhed on the ground as if attempting to wrestle against the adverse effects of the substance he had just inhaled. The man began clawing at his face, ripping the black cloth that he had wrapped over his head and freeing his lower face though ironically it only led to him taking more breaths of Shitaka's drug.

"I... I fly like a crow. Me and my brothers, we all fly like crows. My sister... She came for us, to bring us home... Home... We couldn't go back home. We were on a mission... Me and my brothers..." the ninja began grunting. Sweat glistened on his forehead with the reflection of the moonlight. The man had a pale complexion due to constantly wearing that wrapping for his getup though his blood must have been boiling for he was all flushing with red.

"Whoo boy..." Shitaka sighed. "It might be a while..."

"Your brothers, those were the ninja fighting alongside you, right?" Mana inquired.