Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Idiocy that'll Change the World

By the time Mana had woken up in the waiting room, it was an early morning. She was surprised that she was allowed to just pass out waiting for a patient to recover like that. Almost instantly the magician jumped up and tried to peek into the ward where Ayushi was left in after the fire he had caused to test Mana. She had that silly reason in her mind even though she wasn't entirely sure why Ayushi had done that. He said that he wanted to make up for the pain that he had caused and yet he caused the most pain to her with that last stunt.

Truth be told, Mana was angry at Ayushi, not in a way that made her hate the man or anything, no blood vengeance was sworn. She was just very angry at him because he made her stress out so much, even more so because he made her deny her father treatment once again. Mana's mission was to protect Ayushi during his stay, make sure his stay was pleasant and yet the man seemed to have gone out of his way to almost kill himself. If that would have happened there'd have been no life as a ninja for Mana. She'd have been eternally dishonored and would carry the stigma as the girl under whose watch Ayushi got hurt.

Thing with dishonor was that it was one of the worst marks for a ninja. Usually most cases of shame and dishonoring one's name or clan didn't make one lose their ninja status but it always carried a certain social stigma to it. If a person let a teammate die or killed them themselves, they'd have always had the name of a "comrade killer" and be treated as scum. At times even rogue ninja were treated with more respect than those with shame. Letting one of the most beloved icons of the ninja world get injured and stay in a comatose state would've made one of the worst social stigmas out there, there'd have been no comparison.

Mana was surprised to find different people in Ayushi's ward, even the monk's bed spot was filled by some old lady. The girl ran out to the bathroom and fixed her hair, washed her dirty hands and face and snapped out of her morning snooze, then she tried to find a medical ninja and ask them about what had happened. One was always walking around and it wasn't too tough of a task to fulfill. After walking just down the hall Mana ran into a group of two just walking to a ward near the one where Ayushi was yesterday. The kunoichi raised her hand and stopped them.

"Excuse me, Guru Ayushi was brought into the ward yesterday, right there, where is he now?" she asked, "I am responsible for his well-being and I am working for the Konohagakure administration so I do have access to this information." The girl added that last bit just in case she was refused the information.

A medical ninja lady with short blond hair came up closer and explained the situation to Mana in half whispered speech.

"Yes, he was here however he had completely recovered after you asked for him to be woken up so we let him go. Well... Actually, he just stood up and left, we couldn't really stop him or anything, technically there wasn't anything wrong with him after he completely healed himself so we had no authority to keep him here."

Her male colleague smiled to Mana, he seemed to know the girl from the situation that happened last night.

"Hey, you're that girl who saved his life, right? He was brought here all burnt to a crisp in a pretty much comatose state and you asked to have him woken up, letting his passive use medical jutsu kick in, right? That was some bold call, how did you know it'd work?"

Mana smiled unpleasantly, she quite honestly didn't, she was disgusted by her own behavior yesterday and just remembering the darkness in her heart made her puke. That dark gnawing at one's heart of failure, that terrifying prospect of seeing one's most loved people disappointed forced her hand, it was her own selfishness and desire to protect Ayushi's life at all costs, abiding no moral codes and seeing no ethical lines, that forced her to make that call.

"Lucky shot, I guess..." she tried to play it down but the medical ninja didn't have any of that, he almost started clapping to Mana.

"Lucky call my ass! You luck out when you win the lottery, to make a call like that, to wake up a barely alive man into a life of eternal incomparable pain and disgust of their own pitiful existence, you must've had really strong reasons for that! Ah, it's OK, I guess you're a magician and a hero, those don't often share their secrets. Anyways, Ayushi-san insisted that we let you sleep up, he said he'd be waiting for you by the gate once you wake up. Remembering your heroism yesterday and Ayushi-san's authority... Well, the hospital was happy to oblige."