Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Sound Village Stories

Kouta sighed and kneeled by the woman placing his hands above her wet blue dress. She looked like she may have been in her nightgown preparing to sleep but somehow ended up in a faraway and desolate industrial district of the village. Even so, her appearance was odd – it was clear that the woman was in her mid-thirties, the early forties perhaps. Her bodily condition and her appearance alone would've suggested her being in her late sixties, however – her skin was wrinkled and yellow in its shade. Even through the messed up and washed off make-up of hers it was seen that something was incredibly wrong with this woman. Her heels may have looked impressive ten or so years ago, or a certain amount of nights of rubbing them into the pavement but now they looked pathetic at best, the fewer said about her sticky and messy blond-like hair the better...

A blueish bright glow emanated through the boy's hands as he uttered "Diagnosis Jutsu" to himself as there was simply no one conscious enough to hear it or make sense of his words. The young one scanned through the woman's body suspecting assault, maybe she was attacked, injured with a kunai blade or maybe shot by one of those Syndicate's kunai firing gadgets they carried around. Soon the young medical ninja's eyes shot open wide before squinting just to protect his white as early winter snow eyes from the pouring rain.

"What say you, Doc, how much I got left?" The woman uttered, having her condition in mind it was surprising that she could even speak, blink or think. Kouta felt like being truthful with her may have been a bit too cruel, he did not know this woman or her story, he had no proof that Syndicate was even involved or her own role in that damned organization. He knew so little about her but she had so little time left that Kouta decided to spend his night with this woman... Right until her last.

"I'm going to heal you up, it won't cure you of what's wrong with you, that simply cannot be done, not by someone of my skill level and not by anyone in Otogakure. We'd need to see some specialists in Kirigakure or Konoha for that. I'll be as honest as human decency allows me to be – you don't have long... That is why I'll resort to healing you in the first place – any hospital would consider your case hopeless but you don't have enough time to snap out of this... Alcohol or drug induced... Whatever you're going through so I'll have to heal you partially just so you don't spend your final moments being high." Kouta replied as the light emanated from his hands changed color, turning salad green in the process.

He had no money or place to go until he was found by his friends. Human decency begged him to stay by this woman's side until her final moments...

*****

Mana kneeled by the body of the young girl on the ground. She carefully observed the stabbing wound on her chest – whoever wanted to kill this kid meant it, wanted it. It was strange how straight and unbent the angle was, so pretty... Almost like the girl didn't resist being stabbed. The scream that escaped her mouth must've come after she realized how painful being stabbed in the chest actually was, Mana would've known, after all. It's not something one brushes off, even if they fully wish it and for some reason intend on accepting the injury.

The people around the two girls began to grow bolder, some asked questions if Mana and Meiko had anything to do with this, some felt angry that the magician took examining the body into her own hands. Truth was that this wasn't even close to her team's jurisdiction, her mission was to find a place to sleep over in and then find Notasa, question the performer about the sphere, proceed to the coordinates written on it. This was something Mana took up to do because it felt like the right thing to do, Meiko just stood by carefully shoving anyone trying to get into Mana's face back.

"Mana, maybe you should hurry up with whatever you're planning to do, the Police Force could be here any minute, that'd get us in trouble. Unless you plan to spend our night at the arrest house, in which case it's a pretty desperate idea..." The blacksmith grunted as the flow of people gathering around them intensified. It wasn't that they were strong enough to push Meiko aside, far from it, however, their sheer numbers made seeing all of them and tracking their moves difficult.