Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

I Am Mana

"You do realize that there's nothing in this library that you don't know, right? I mean... You can't create something that you don't know," Scarlet muttered, rolling her eyes onto something more exciting than just seeing Mana sitting around and meditating or flat out reading.

"Maybe, but I can't entertain these people as a stage magician and there's nothing for me to protect them from inside here. You've taken care of that..." Mana sighed and slammed the comprehensive book she's been skimming through closed.

"Wait, are you saying you want there to be crime and war in our pocket universe? I thought you hated that stuff..." Scarlet stood up and pouted. "Either way, I will not let you stay in this world unless I know you're content. We're doing this for the betterment of Mana, we want what's best for Mana, and that means all of us."

"No. This is great. It's just..." Mana looked down.

It felt selfish to notice minor flaws and inconsistencies in the universe that Scarlet made to contain the Sorceress part of her personality as a fair trade for taking over when or if she wakes up. For all intents and purposes, this may just have been a perfect little world. Scarlet had conjured everything to be well, or so it seemed and left there no purpose for conflict to sprout. Still, something felt creepy about this place.

"It's just what? Also, what's this about you being unable to entertain these people? They'll love and applaud everything you do," Scarlet blew at an unruly strand of her hair falling over her face and sticking to some excessive violet make-up on her eyelids.

"They will but... That's not why I love entertaining people. Frankly, it's scary that you would think that the applause and adoration is the point," Mana stood up and moved past the table to confront her other self. The magician dragged her hand across the empty space in front of them to move them to the Konoha square. An intersection of multiple paths that led to most key areas in the village if one selected a path and walked it all the way through.

"Hey, don't point fingers at me. You're the Sorceress here, you do the magic tricks..." Scarlet shrugged. "Just tell me what's wrong and I'll help you help yourself. All I want is for you to exist here, feeling fulfilled for as long as you want. Time only matters here as much as you make it matter. There's still time to make it work, all the time in the world."

"These people..." Mana muttered, turning to a passerby who froze in place as if a spear had impaled him and tilted him overhead on the spear that stabbed him for his last agony to be admired. "They don't feel like they're happy. It feels more like they've been told to be happy. They're afraid. They seem to be afraid of me, which makes me think they're afraid of you because we have the same face and I've only come here... However long ago..."

Scarlet sighed. A golden flame enveloped her and spread around, burning it all away at the first sight. It was only when Mana cried out and reached for the pocket universe inside of her mind that peeled itself away and disappeared into flames that she realized that the universe stayed underneath them as the column of golden flames erupting from Scarlet tilted them up into the cosmos of Mana's higher mental functions.

"It's dangerous to expose our personas to this plane. Our body might still die, both of us might get lost forever!" Mana warned Scarlet, but it seemed like Mana's doppelganger in a showy red dress preferred her light show.

"I can show something to you. Something that took me a little while to learn," Scarlet spoke with a bland tone as she extended her hand and streamlined the firestorm of golden flames on ahead to whirl in a yellow twister that left a luxurious, classical-style mansion floating on a rocky platform out in the higher planes of Mana's mind.

With the fire-show suspending itself until Scarlet would need it again, the pair floated inside of the mansion only to find a little girl with messy black hair and darker skin complexion, accompanied by two happy parents. Mana's father wore decorations proper to an ANBU member though he lacked a mask, Scarlet made it this way for the analogy to be utterly unmistakable. Mother wore a bloated and opulent pink dress, looking almost like a queen that way.