Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Trouble in the Junkyard District

Mana carefully navigated the poor district. To be entirely honest she had never even seen it being built here. This whole district of warehouses and storage places was supposed to be more of an industrial place, how in the world these people moved in here was beyond her. A man wandered down the alley, clearly drunk, Mana let him pass without showing herself to him, someone looking like her would've stood out in the district plus she couldn't risk being recognized. The kunoichi had to move fast if she was to make it to both lead the girl to safety and confront this Ooguchi guy.

Something worried Mana as she kept moving, slowly but silently and still unnoticed, the man she let pass kept stumbling forward and dived nose first into a bunch of trash cans - he was drunker than anyone could describe. The girl wanted to help him but she couldn't afford a distraction, it was quite likely that this soft and warm sleeping place was the safest place in the district for a while. What kept that small amount of fear rustling in her heart like a little tongue of flame was Ooguchi himself.

These people that gathered here were not a clan, they were not friends, they were a community, one with incredibly powerful bonds that no amount of torture could break. Mana had not yet seen the might of this Yoruma torture herself but if it was enough to make Shimo instantly dismiss torture as a viable option it must've been impressive. What kind of man gathers such amount of loyalty, even more so, does so doing crazy things like occupying a village district and doing crimes right under Hokage's nose, working with Kirigakure that had less of an approval rating in Konoha than Death God himself. He must've been a man of ideals, almost a cult-like leader, an icon to these people...

"Your mother wasn't from Konoha..." father's voice echoed in Mana's ear. She tried to resist the urge to sink in the memories of her father describing the wandering tribe that he met Mana's mother in, she had no time for that now. Either way, was her mother's tribe of people wandering from village to village similar to Ooguchi's crew? Mana didn't want to make any judgments before she met the man but what if they were the villains here by separating a community of poor people that have nowhere to go and no ideal to live up to, people that literally have nothing, people that were risking their lives and betraying their ideals just to make sure that their children are happy for one moment in their lives... That kind of person cannot possibly be bad. Inevitably Mana, Shimo, and Sugemi will not face off against bandits or animals trying to kill them but people, people with families that want their families to live in happiness...

Mana banged loud on the scrap door, a lady opened it - she wore rags and stank worse than Mana did when she was covered with centipede innards. "Excuse me, your husband sent me, he wanted to make sure you leave this district, it's going to go down today." the woman didn't look that sad or didn't even question Mana's words, she seemed to have a pack already ready to go, she gestured for the visitor magician to walk in and went to call her little girl. Mere moments later the little kid ran up to Mana with an actual piece of clothing which was a rarity - a raincoat and still held some sewn dolls. "Hey... You're..." Mana smiled and kneeled up to the kid so that she didn't have to look up all the time, "I'm Konoha's Sorceress and your daddy and I made a deal - you can see my show anytime you want and you won't have to pay anything, you can even bring your mom and dad if you want. Just please let's hurry..."

The kid looked ecstatic, this was probably the first time Mana saw someone love her shows that much, usually the public enjoyment was there but she never saw someone's eyes literally light up as if they were specks of stardust fallen to Earth. "Yay, I knew you're a nice person, Sorceress, when I find my third job I promise I'll buy my tickets like everyone else!" the kid shouted out. Mana's mouth opened to reply to that peculiar sentence and the horrible implications it had but she realized that she was literally wasting time here. "We'll talk later, please move to the gate, your husband is there waiting for you." Mana took some of her allowance money and handed it to the woman, "Rent a room in the village, sleep it over, we'll see how this goes. It'd be great if you went to the Administration and told them about this place and your situation in the morning."