Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

When Gods Arm Wrestle

"There is another man outside..." Shimo huffed out to which the Kazekage just grinned.

"The men I brought with me got that covered... Now if you will excuse me, there is a package I was expecting to receive today that was too important and sensitive to handle to send my assistants to pick it up" the redhead giant unsealed the time-space transporter device back in its rightful place, "What's this?" suddenly he stopped turning at Shimo's bag.

The exhausted Yuki tried to pick it up but the Kazekage was simply too fast, the contents of the bag soon became public.

"What are those shards? I've never seen the likes of it before..." the man wondered to himself.

"It's something I wanted to send back to Konohagakure, Kazekage-sama" Shimo replied in a more grumpy tone than he would've liked. While this man didn't remind of a scumbag this was his village and he did hold a bag full of Audra ore in his hands. It was expensive beyond belief, even if the Konoha four only managed to secure a limited quantity of what laid beneath the Katabami mines.

"Hmmm, this looks like... Audra ore. The same color as Audra alloy would have, I wonder how a full armor or a puppet made of this thing would run, might give me an edge in my next rival match with Lady Fifth, what would you say? Shall you lend this to me, young man? I might reward you with something from my arsenal, you know" The gentle giant looked right Shimo in the eyes with a look that suggested more of a curious gambler's interest than malicious intent.

"Actually... Wait? Why did you say you need it again, Kazekage-sama?" Shimo squinted as he found the man's reason for needing this ore quite odd. Using these shards he could've armed an entire unit with Audra layered weapons or made entire crates of ninja kits of Audra alloy kunai and shuriken. The Kazekage was known as an inventor beyond his time, building puppets, weapons, and armors for himself and others, inventing barriers and new techniques and also technology to improve the quality of life in his village.

"You see, young man, me and Lady Fifth have this friendly competition every year after a Summit of our villages. She comes at me with an intent to kill me in a location of my choosing and I use all of my traps and puppet armies and puppet suits of armor to stop her. This package is, in fact, an absolute hot generator, it generates temperatures of close to one and a half quintillion degrees, this year I intend to attempt to dehydrate the Hokage, you see. This way we settle friendly differences where peace treaties demand a coin toss or some other trivial ritual, sometimes we arm wrestle but I soon learned how hopeless that was..." Mugao smiled pulling out a glowing battery cell that appeared like a miniature star held in a battery-like containment unit.

"I'm sorry, sir, I'd rather send the bag back to Konoha" Shimo replied after an uncomfortable pause of silence.

"I see, that's too bad... I went through a lot of trouble to acquire this generator from Kumogakure and an Audra infused puppet army would've greatly benefited me by cutting down the chakra costs to maintain them all in active combat. At this pace, Konoha will have their representatives take over the Kirigakure slum district from us as well as a couple of islands from the Archipelago that the Lady Fifth has already won. After getting trounced with my black hole dispenser last year I am running out of things to throw at her" the man scratched the back of his head

*****

"Wait, you met the Kazekage!?" Mana yelled out in disbelief as the four were talking over breakfast the next morning.

Last night they all returned having taken care of things they needed to do so late that they didn't bother doing much more. Kouta just stitched Shimo's chest injury with simple ninjutsu-free good old medical science and the four went to sleep. Everyone was really curious about just what kind of trouble could Shimo have run into as they didn't appear to have that eventful of a day. Since it had gotten far too late for tales the impressive story of terrorist groups functioning inside Sunagakure and the opposition to world peace had to wait.

"Wait, so Hokage-sama has won over the right to take over the management of several Kirigakure locations, I wonder why doesn't she actually send people there, a couple of years more and Kirigakure might just learn and regain their autonomy, we'll run out of opportunities to stick it to them" Kouta wondered to himself eating a morning dumpling.

"It is said she receives some sort of benefits from other villages for not utilizing her right to take over the areas that belong to her authority, however the Kazekage appeared to mention that Konoha might have representatives there that would take over some areas yesterday" Shimo replied scratching his stitched wound to just Kouta just angrily objected, the disadvantages of good old way of dealing with wounds was that there was an entire healing process to it, even if ninja healed at a much more accelerated rate with their insane ninja metabolisms.

"We've been away from Konoha for so long, so much must've happened while we're gone..." Meiko looked at the sky before stretching out on the emptied table longingly.

"Well, this may just be the worst line to bring it up after but... I found a very interesting poster yesterday stuck on the walls of one of the buildings" Kouta wriggled in the chair before pulling out a torn up and worn out sheet of paper with a smiling lady on it. The young lady in the picture had the most playful of smiles and was winking at the supposed viewer of said picture, she also wore a very curious set of headgear that appeared like some sort of a headset and stood close to a table that appeared very hi-tech with a lot of glowing buttons and panels. The whole poster was black in the background but it was filled with streamers and lights that gave the poster a vibrant and artsy feel to it.

The title of the poster said, "Notasa – Last chance to see her perform"

Mana blinked a couple of times still struggling to get the clue. "I don't think we have time to see a singer of some sort... Especially if you check the date of it – the concert happened last week"

"Yes, she is from the Land of Sound's Otogakure and is apparently a musical genius" Kouta explained. Finally, the whole table got interested.

"She may help us solve the puzzle of the sphere..." Shimo calmly stated what everyone was thinking.

"That's right, from what I gathered from people in the streets, she can compose and perform complex compositions in the middle of a show, it's what she calls "Improvosition", she may just be to music what Mana-chan is to stage magic" Kouta explained slowly gathering hype for his idea and getting more and more excited as he went on. Mana slightly blushed and looked away after being complimented, she really missed magic and while being complimented on her entertainment skill felt great she really wished it didn't remind her how badly she missed all of it.

"Well then, once we get a reply from the village we'll head towards Otogakure then..." Shimo confirmed with a strong nod and finished his morning tea.

"It's actually great because no matter what the reply is – Otogakure is close to Fire Country, if we are denied permission no one will get suspicious because we'll be sighted in Fire Country anyways moving towards Land of Sound" Kouta got energetic to which Mana sadly shook her head.

"Even so, normally it'd take you a couple of days to get there once we reach Fire Country but with me in your way, it'll take much more. Maybe even several weeks to get there. If we are denied permission that will be it... Our adventure will be over, I don't wish to put you guys in more trouble than you already are" Mana looked at every teammate sitting around the table.

"It'd be really great if we got the permission to extend our objective, we could use it as a safe-card against my father if he decides to mess with our mission again" Kouta dreamily looked into the sky relaxing in his seat. It appeared to be a tranquil and calm morning of warm Sun that had not yet reached the point where it was annoyingly hot.

"Still, it'd have been better if we figured it out earlier and used it in our report, an actual plan would've been a much better reason to grant us extension than just an abstract clue to the Box's location" Shimo angrily complained looking away and relaxing in his chair as well.

It's been a long time since they could just relax and enjoy their meals after sleeping in warm and soft beds. It was definitely no home of theirs but it was the closest second thing to it. The four were slowly becoming accustomed to the hot desert climate, soon it'll seem weird to step on the ground and not have one's foot get filled with scratchy and searing hot sand...