Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

Messages That We Send

The atmosphere in the air was uneasy. Mana noticed it while still engrossed in her book. It might have had something to do with the massive chakra signature in the vicinity. People were generally uneasy but not in a way that would have suggested them feeling as if their lives were at threat. It was more due to the fact someone meaningful had entered the facility. Either way, this presence caused her no reason to pull out from what she was doing so she filtered it out.

By now Mana had become accustomed to dealing with massive chakra signatures. For months after she had discovered her ability to sense chakra and began training it, she couldn't handle being around powerful ninja. It was so bad that she had to turn off that ability altogether if she wanted for panic attacks to not utterly engross her. It felt like floating in the void of space and turning only to see a supermassive ball of gas blazing right before you. It was an almost cosmic and hopeless feeling that crushed one's spirit and stopped one from breathing altogether.

The trick was not looking at the star but at its separate features, minute details. To subject oneself to parts that helped understand the ethereal subject of the topic but not to allow it to take over and terrorize you. That was the only way in which Mana could even begin to manage this predicament though from what little licks of the tremendous chakra she had gotten from the reading room, it was a ninja who would have left Mana sweaty and wheezing on the ground if she met them a few years ago.

Some forty minutes later the magician slammed the book shut and went to place it back into the shelf she took it from. Soon enough the ninja that were currently undertaking their prep courses would flood the reading room and Mana didn't want to risk meeting someone who held a grudge against her for harming Guru Ayushi, someone who looked at her as being no better than trash for having a fearsome conviction record of surviving Jigoku, someone who associated Mana with Shogito's group that wanted her dead via scornful looks they stabbed her way whenever their paths crossed.

Basically, someone who had any kind of reason to feel insulted by Mana's presence. Starting her career as a stage magician anew might have been hopeless...

Mana sighed as she couldn't tilt her eyes off the floor and her own sandals clapping against its stony tiles. She ascended the staircase to the aviary room to send a short message to Konoha. It wasn't like she was still loyal to the Hokage, or so the Allied Ninja expected Mana to believe, though it still felt right to report about her making here to the Seventh as well as letting Mr. Hiro know about Mana's situation and that she wouldn't manage to start her World Magic Tour until she completed her prep course.

Honestly, the delay might have been for the better. That would be six more months for people to get over what had happened. Then again, Mana had wondered if people would muster up the strength of stomach to look at her again back when she left Jigoku, there was no reason to believe that six months later things would be that much better.

"Should I let the Supreme Leader know about your messages to Konoha?" a voice uttered in a masculine and jesting tone made Mana's chest deflate. So the man following her from the library decided to let himself be known at last.

"It feels a bit oppressive to know that someone of your rank has nothing better to do than to spy on me..." Mana extended her hand to show the approaching man the message she had rolled up and very nearly hung on the hawk's leg. The bird of prey clacked its beak in vexation of the fact that Mana was forcing it to sit tight and wait until she tied the message and let it take flight.

"I apologize if I strengthened the feeling of loneliness you might be experiencing. Not fitting in well, I take it?" the man refused by shaking his head. His lower jaw twisted in a grin as if he looked almost a tad insulted that Mana took his suggestion that she was spying for her village seriously and not as a joke that it was.