Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

Severed Connections

Mana must have been mad. This was the end of times, this was it. After all this time that she's spent secluding herself from everyone, especially Shogito's squad of misfits, she was now the one looking for them. Beaten and a little bit broken, especially around the rib area, slowly, one stumble at a time she was looking for the gang that, honestly, Mana wasn't sure wouldn't resume the job that Sekita started once they set their paths crossed again.

Tracking them down was a child's play, that was fortunate enough. Had Mana not the ability to sense chakra, this task would have been outright impossible as she'd have long since collapsed from the constant reminder that an Akimichi with an inflated weight of a planetoid had stomped her and tossed her around more than a few times just mere hours ago.

"You shouldn't be here, walking around," a youthful yet strict-sounding voice made chills crawl up Mana's spine. This didn't sound like any of the staff watching the halls, the voice could only have belonged to one of the recruits though it was not a recruit that Mana had met before.

"Are you going to give me in?" Mana wondered, turning around. Just the notion of shifting her axis was enough to call pulsing pain through her cracked bones that made the young woman's forehead erupt in sweat, her vision blur, and the familiar taste of nausea move up and down her throat.

"Maybe. I guess it depends on why you're sneaking around at your state and where is it that you're going..." the young man had a head of spiky, black hair and hazel eyes, dressed in a mahogany-colored kimono and black hakama. There were bags over the young man's eyes and while, judging from his looks alone, he appeared young, though the patches of scarring littering the boy's face added maturity to his look.

"There is something I need to know," Mana replied. She took a few precious extra seconds before replying as her first instinct was to throw something standoffish at the young man as she was beginning to grow accustomed to but in light of recent experiences and promises she tried to remain truthful though without going into too many details. "Someone I need to talk to."

"Your sneaking skills are lousy. You'll get caught. That's to say even if I let you go off my hook," the young man shook his head. "I'm afraid I'll need some more details to know if I will."

He approached Mana and grabbed hold of her arm, the magician would have tried to resist but she figured that whatever this youth had in mind would have hurt far less than trying to fight back in her current state. The traditionally-clad youth gently guided Mana toward the nearby bathroom where no staff members would find them unless they made too much noise. He was not aware that Mana's abilities allowed her to stay aware of those men and women at all times.

"Now, I'd like to ask you this again and I'd like a more detailed answer – why did you disobey the rules and sneak out in your state?" the young man asked after moving close enough to Mana to be able to whisper and not alert any potential watchdogs walking by outside the bathrooms.

"There is a group of other recruits that I've become involved with, against my better wishes but still... There are still questions I need to ask them, I guess I just need that closure," Mana explained. Ever since the clash with Sekita concluded, Mana hadn't seen Sekita or Stein around so she wanted to know how did the disciplinary session conclude. She also wanted to speak to Joshipa about her "Curse Technique".

A sense of natural curiosity about a type of ninjutsu she hadn't heard of much, nothing at all if one excluded vague affiliations of the type of techniques to a murderous and dark cult that rose to prominence in the Tea Country. Whenever Mana encountered a type of legend or technique, she couldn't wrap her head around, it tended to keep her awake at night. Perhaps it was just a remnant of her childhood condition peeking its ugly head out but all alien concepts needed to be explained accounted for and understood.