Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Going Underneath the Underneath

Mana was absolutely stumped after hearing Sugemi's suggestion. Was he actually suggesting going above and beyond their mission and taking down some bigshot crime lord that may not even exist? How would they go on and do it, by trashing through the village and then attacking the man they pinned down as being guilty? That's how ninja became nukenin. The magician wanted nothing to do with that, Mana started walking away at a faster pace but she heard Sugemi coming after her. "And how would you begin your "investigation", where would you start?" Mana asked trying to make Sugemi bug off, she spent some time with the two boys and she knew a lot about them. Sugemi often had grand ideas but always got hesitant when people started asking about how he'd go on with realizing them.

"Well... We could interrogate the guy with the broken leg." The boy scratched the back of his head, the fact that he didn't back down after Mana asked him about him realizing his idea was bad - he really believed in what he said. Shimo crept up to Mana and placed his hand on her shoulder, gently stopping her. His face looked kind and soft - he really wanted to get Mana along with the ride but how on Earth did he and Sugemi manage to agree on an idea? "I think it's a good idea, Mana-chan," Shimo said slowly and quietly as if he felt that what he was saying was stupid.

"Think about it, a shinobi is supposed to be the person that goes underneath the underneath, that's what they tried to bash into our heads in the Academy, right? Well isn't this going underneath our mission? Isn't this actually making a difference? Sugemi wants to get a manga written about him, well if he does heroic things like this he'll have it, I want to become Hokage and the first step is to go beyond my mission objective and make a difference. I know you want to become a hero - to protect the people around you and change the world... Well after we did what we did just now nothing changed - tomorrow there'll be other bandits taking money from the same people. If we took down the whole thing it'd be much more of a protection, don't you think? You'd protect the people that come to see your shows, you OWE them this much, Mana-chan."

Sugemi butt in, he saw Mana's eyes change, he saw hesitation and he decided to exploit it. "We need this, guys, I want to become strong, that's the only way to become strong. Taking down crime rings is what higher ranking ninja do: chuunin and even jounin... I want to see how well I rank against that. I know that Shimo wants that too but you Mana... I know you're different, you don't care about measuring your strength but the thing is that... You want to protect everyone, right? Well, there's a war about to break out, we're just kids, there's no way they'll let ordinary kids on the battlefield which means you'll be unable to even try and fulfill your goal. You need to hurry up, you need big feats like this to get your promotion in time, if they see how cool we are, maybe the Administration will finally stop looking at us as if we're children, maybe we'll be given a shot at the Chuunin Exams even this year, think about it..."

Mana stopped and clenched her fists. She knew that she wanted to do that, she didn't care about authority, she couldn't have cared less if she'd be branded a nukenin or given some sort of dishonorable mention on her bio. She didn't care if she got hurt or even died, all she wanted to do was to change the world, to make life valuable and not some dirty cloth to be tossed around freely. Ideally, she would've liked to do something like this by herself, this was her dream, her nindo and Sugemi with Shimo had nothing to do with it. They didn't need to get into trouble for this or get hurt in a battle. Mana sighed, "Fine, but if I see as much as a wink to torture that guy I'll make you two think you're worms and wriggle in the dirt for an hour. We'll do this peacefully, no torture, if we find out that there's something big in play we try and solve it nicely and only take them down hard if they resist. And for God's sake let's not blow anything up, we'll get in trouble for this as it is..." Mana gave in.

Shimo raised his palm to his head and saluted her, "Yes, ma'am!" he yelled out before winking at her. Sugemi shrugged, "You took the file, I suppose me and Shimo would keep stepping on each other's toes if we were allowed to take charge so... Lead on..." Truth be told the magician didn't really know that much about criminal investigations, her first idea would've been to question the guy that Sugemi hurt too. Thing was that she knew perfectly how it'd go: Mana was a twelve-year-old girl who was known around the village as a stage magician - it doesn't get any less intimidating than that, the guy would say something rude to her, Shimo and Sugemi would only get annoyed and resort to torture ignoring what she said. They were eager to prove themselves now and Mana wouldn't have been able to stop them, she had to play them differently, try and avoid any sort of opportunity for them to want to show off.