Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

No Rest for the Kind

White, seemingly eternal bliss was everywhere where one's consciousness could reach. There were various strange voices, long-lost memories, voices of people who once said or did something. Was this life flashing through one's eyes right before death? A blast of needles struck Mana's forehead forcing her to peel her eyes open. She didn't remember anything. The girl looked around, her floating vision and migraine didn't let her forget that something horrible must've happened but her mind was still in shatters.

"Jeez, idol-bitch, you really struggled like a beast, you know that? For a little bitch like you, I didn't expect that much resistance, thought you'd claw my fucking eyes out." Hisako's soft voice reached Mana's ears making the girl turn at the raven-haired woman. The woman's annoyed face leaned over entering Mana's sight of vision from above, her eyes flared up, catching all semblance of light that the fire nearby emanated and reflected it off like a colored glass panel.

Mana gripped her chest and grunted out, some throbbing sensation reminded her of something horrible having happened earlier. A young man passed right through, looking at Mana for a second and breathing out heavily. "Oh, you're awake... That's good, for a moment there I thought we lost you," he said acting as if he was someone Mana was supposed to know.

Mana sat up, still clutching her chest, only then she realized how cold she was – her uniform was full of fist-sized holes all over, close to her laid her cards, all stacked in a steel-tipped deck. When the magician was found her uniform must've been so singed up that all the hidden pockets couldn't hold her weapons inside. The girl took the cards and tried to find where she could've hidden them. Mana weaved a hand seal and removed a small pouch from the bottom of her hat unsealing it from father's seal. She had several necessities in there in case of an emergency as large as this.

Slothfully, the girl placed all of her cards into the empty leather pouch, her body was shaking from the cold. Thoughts started flooding in, thoughts of what exactly happened, her memories were all jumbled up so it was tough to put them together. Mana definitely wanted to unleash a flood of questions because at the moment nothing at all made sense to her. It was like she woke up in a dream or something. The magician let her vision get straight, she let her eyes run around the small camp consisting of several sleep bags placed around a small fire.

"What happened? Why does my chest hurt so much?" Mana mumbled out through the cold that made her grind her teeth and shake. The magician moved in a little bit closer to the fire, Kiyomi smiled at Mana and hugged the girl. It was strange to see such expressions of softness and affection from the blonde, usually, ninja didn't care that much about their comrades except the professional bonds or the ties of sharing one's village that tied them all together.

"Hisako stabbed you in the heart, I got really scared but then they told me that this guy here is a medical ninja I've no idea why he saw it necessary to put that thing into your chest, you may want to ask them..." Kiyomi replied. She looked pretty happy that Mana was OK but she didn't seem overly fond of the situation they were in, perhaps it was because it was Hisako and that strange young man that pulled the two out of trouble.

Hisako shrugged, she was eating something that looked like a fish cooked on a stick and it didn't appear like she overly cared about anything going on around her except for that fish. "I was walking down the forest path, thinking how I could return to you guys and help with the mission because I suddenly got the urge to actually do that mission and all. I didn't think how much fun it'd be killing all those criminals, it's basically a kill-all-you-want buffet of murder. Then I heard those strange whispers behind me, also that strange radio transmission, naturally my instinct told me something was wrong and I didn't take any chances, I started rampaging all over the crew of mercenaries."

The young man walked up to the fire and sat down, he stroke his messy and spiky blond hair and took off his dirty cloak tossing it to Mana. The girl looked at it and gratefully dug herself under it, she was freezing.