Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

Counseling

"Fire Style: Fireball Barrage!" Mana yelled out, breathing out a flock of fiery sparks that ignited and blew out into fist-sized fireballs scattering across the area. Not even Shige-H's medical training in advanced acrobatics and evasive techniques allowed her to maneuver around all the spread shot barrage of fireballs. The medical kunoichi grunted as one particularly nasty hit sent her falling down on her face after shaking up her ribs.

"Ugh... I don't think... I don't think you're supposed to dodge that," Shige-H grumbled while returning on her feet. The medical kunoichi turned to Mana with raised eyebrows and rushed up to the seated magician as fast as she could with a pouted lip. "What's the matter? Why did you stop moving? Is it your heart? Do you want me to check up on it again?"

"No. I feel fine, better than fine, really. It feels like I'm brand new, somehow. I can't even feel any of my old scars giving me flack in that area, it feels odd..." Mana muttered, looking down at where there was just a gapping, swooping hawk-sized hole in her chest. The young woman pressed her hand to feel is if her healed body wasn't just a phantom she imagined. It was hard being sure if the Empress didn't put her under some sort of dream inside of her own mind, lulled her into thinking she's awake while the monstrous fear-born persona of Mana wreaked havoc upon the actual world.

"You're confusing me," Shige-H ran her hand across her curly hair, throwing them about like still developing pancakes on a pan. "This doesn't look like I'm glad to be alive face on most people, you know. Most people don't quit training prematurely, they actually do the exact opposite and stretch way past their limits. That's why I insisted on helping you train. I wanted to make sure as the team leader and a medical ninja that you didn't push it too far."

"Yeah... I think I'm done for today though," Mana sighed and sat down on a large stone that might have been a part of some mountainous structure once but had fallen astray onto the training ground once something blew the mountain up long ago. Now it was merely something hard and cold to sit on and rest. A poor fate to most considering what it once was, though nobody could even find the rest of the mountain so this fate was a cost of its survival.

"Okay, I will not bully you into pushing yourself. You push as hard as you want..." Shige-H shrugged and sat down on the grass around the stray stone. "It's just odd, that's all. You've always pushed yourself really hard. Whenever we had free time, I could have been sure that most of the time you were either training or reading and having seen some books you're into–that's just alternative ways of training yourself. You probably know just as much about a chakra network as I do at this point."

"Yeah, I think I've nailed this jutsu already. I'm fine calling it quits for today," Mana shrugged. Just like her eyes tried evading Shige's glare, so did Mana's consciousness, tried eluding the realization that that was what she was doing from catching up to it.

"Okay, yeah... You've learned a pretty decent ninjutsu technique. Having taken a shot from it, I'd say it packs a wallop. Nice. I have a feeling like you didn't read all those books on genjutsu and chakra network before the accident to learn Fire Style: Fireball Barrage, though." Shige-H winked with one eye, just trying to get her teammate to talk to her and give her a clue that Shige-H was onto the fact that Mana was running away from something.

What Shige-H didn't expect to see was seeing her teammate just break down and for her face to disappear inside the clutch of her arms while her body wept quietly. Mana bent her legs up to have somewhere to rest her leaking face on while she covered her collapse up with her arms.

"It's okay..." Mana felt a light pressure of Shige-H's arm wrapping around her as far as the young woman could reach it. The sound of Shige's fur coat rubbing against Mana's blazer came out as an irritating, rubbing grunge but it almost felt as if being wrapped in a blanket, like the medical kunoichi had warded them both off from the world and let Mana know that she was there for her. "Someone has tried to kill you and came dangerously close to succeeding. That's... We fight for our lives for the entirety of our service, and most of us still don't know what that feels like. I'm sorry, it's perfectly fine for you to take it a little slow for now."