Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

A Prelude to a New Adventure

Mana felt like a salmon who felt bad for the bear, she felt horrible seeing the unnatural burden that killing placed on the young bears and she felt even worse for the bears that grew up and never even felt the weight of that burden as their shoulders and jaws became too strong to even feel it. And yet she was a salmon in another river, protected by slippery and edgy rocks that kept the bears eating the salmon outside it.

Mana was of the weak who didn't hate the strong, one of the weak who didn't let the hate define her and dictate what she should do or how she should feel. The morality of the salmon was lost on her. But if she was not of the salmon's morality, was she still a salmon? If the weak hated the strong and the strong were defined by their strength and Mana was a halfling who didn't hate the strong, what exactly was she? Where was she placed? Who was it that defined her? 

Dying back then would've been so much simpler... She'd have died like a hero protecting a child and granting him his shot at redemption for what he did, she'd have known who she was – a bear who found an alternate source of food and lived her life to the fullest, dying for something more meaningful than nothing at all...

A painful pinch on her cheek made Mana's peacefully shut eyes open up in surprise – Kiyomi was smiling leaning over Mana. The magician sat up and looked at the kitchen where mother and father were talking over a bunch of snacks – Kiyomi must've come to visit but Mana wasn't home so her parents suggested that the girl stayed for a while over some snacks.

"I heard it was a great show today!" the Yamanaka grinned out. She looked great, happy, strong and healthy, maybe a bit too healthy, wasn't she supposed to be on active duty? Determined to complete literally all the missions she could so that she'd prove capable of taking part in the Chuunin Exam?

"You weren't there?" Mana looked at the girl curiously, she smiled with a shade of guilt and scratched the back of her head.

"Sorry, I was on a mission and I came as fast as I could, right after getting my swollen and busted face treated..." she excused herself, judging from the guilt and honesty in her voice Kiyomi wasn't lying nor would Mana have blamed her if she would've. The magician told the Yamanaka that she could check her show out for free if she ever felt like it but Kiyomi never cashed that free ticket in, not a single time in all the two and a half months after their last mission.

"Your clothes are new and far too fancy for mission attire, you've been home to change before visiting the Hospital, seeing how even the best medical ninja can't heal cloth. You smell of flowers, you've mentioned your mother's garden to me before so you must've also spent time there, you weren't gardening since your fingernails are pristine clean and done which means you were there to absorb the flowery scent... You were there wishing to impress someone... Someone to impress in the hospital... Eiju?" Mana mumbled out a series of emotionless guesses.

Kiyomi looked in complete confusion and slight embarrassment, as Mana listed her features the girl examined her own clothes, her own fingernails and smelled her own girly palm trying desperately to debunk Mana's analysis but she realized that the magician must've been right.

"Wow... You've been... Doing something with your time..." Kiyomi mumbled out, "You're only half right though, I came to meet Eiju but he was busy, we barely exchanged words, he healed me and threw me out..."

"I've been reading a lot, history books are very lacking in quality and cohesiveness, also they don't always add up. If you want to get good at history and lore you pretty much have to craft your own theories, analyze details since a single word in a room-sized scroll can change the entire fate of your theory... Busy?" Mana explained her newly discovered skill in perception.

Kiyomi nodded, "Yeah, Hisako's been pummeled like an apple on a mission in Kumogakure, from what she told us she was looking for some guy to kill, some Uchiha guy and then some large guy just snapped the guy's neck in front of her by just wrapping his hand around it and pressing with his finger, like popping a grape off the bunch and... You know Hisako, even if her mission's been completed for her she still took it as a personal offense..."