Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Demons of Our Own Making

The second to the top floor was completely sunken in darkness, save for a handful of long glowing lines on the floor that extended to the end of the room. They appeared to glow similarly to those neon lights that were becoming so prominent in Konoha's nightly ads and vendors. Navigating such a room was difficult. Especially when the two were worn out and wounded and had no idea just where the staircase to the next floor even was. Jeandette was already breathing heavily and took a couple of stops to cough for quite some time with gurgling sounds that Kouta didn't like as a young medical ninja.

It was during one of those coughing sessions that Jeandette exclaimed a surprised yell and fell to the ground. Kouta jumped up and wanted to rush up to the woman but he noticed a shadow moving through the briefly lit shadows of the floor's corners. Could someone have snuck up on them? That should've been impossible, Kouta was a ninja! He was the one who was supposed to be the one sneaking up on people if he had enough time to waste on stealth. How could this one assailant possibly sneak up on a ninja? Maybe his low chakra resources greatly impacted his perception?

"It's Mortenson... Don't come any closer..." Jeandette cried out in pain. Whoever this "Mortenson" was, she must've wanted to lure Kouta into lowering his guard helping Jeandette so she could take him out as well. She was a fast and sneaky one, fast and sneaky ones usually couldn't do well in an open one on one fight which must've been Kouta's only chance.

"Jeandette, you old crone, couldn't die alone in a puddle somewhere?" A feminine voice emanated through the room, taunting both Kouta and his new acquaintance. "Do you really need an old acting friend to deliver the killing blow? Did you become sentimental in your wilting years?" The woman kept on talking but she was constantly moving, by the time Kouta would've made his way to the location she was speaking from she'd have moved once again.

A sharp pain hit Kouta in the gut, it was a fist-sized round sphere of iron that must've been launched at high speeds, possibly from a kunai dispenser, the sphere sent Kouta tumbling backward and hitting the wall after it blew up close to his body and sent him off his feet. It wasn't an efficient weapon, he had very little chakra augmentations left and his endurance was slowly approaching the simple point of whatever his body offered without any enhancements. If the explosion didn't incapacitate him it'd probably not kill a normal human, it must've been a weapon of displacement and torture rather than murder, then again, it wasn't like kunai dispensers were the most lethal of weapons unless a whole barrage of blades were fired or a vital was hit.

The medical ninja instinctually rolled to the side avoiding a couple of more blast shots opening up the wall behind him and breaking the lighting situation by forcing the building's emergency lights to flare up and lighten up the room.

Mortenson cursed from the other side of the room spitting the cigar from her mouth to the floor. She dressed similarly to the other Syndicate goons but with a more slick and feminine version of the outfit, her hat was more compact and rotund in shape and she wore classy red shades that probably helped her see in the darkness of her room where she saw everything that transpired in the room. Then again, all of her secrecy and stealth must've been pointless, after all any assailant would've been gunned down or beaten long before they reached Mortenson's floor so it must've been just her way of life.

The female mobster played with her dyed blood crimson hair with streaks of blue on them. Once again she pointed her long and complicated looking kunai dispensers at Kouta forcing the medical ninja to bite his own lip and fighting through the pain evading her shots and seeing them leave large gapping holes in the walls and the floor. If he got hit by that again he'd probably be down for the count, just waiting to be finished off so Kouta decided to just not get hit.

The two clashed, Kouta's elbow slammed into one of the long kunai dispensers, Mortenson swung the other, lifting her knee upwards aiming at Kouta's crotch. The young man met the woman's attacks with an upwards block from his arm and a block of her knee strike with his own. The two exchanged close distance blows, again and again, occasionally firing a shot or two to try and tag Kouta some more. Mortenson appeared desperate to aim at the young man and fire away at him at point blank range.