Chapter Text
People sat in three bundles surrounding a tall stage that was cozily sunken in the shade, except for a few traditional oriental paper lanterns that provided ample stage light to the select few areas of the stage. Standing in the middle was a burly and bald man directing an orchestra. The spaciousness of the theater hall contrasted with how compact the stage was, however, the size of the stage was an illusion, carefully put together by assembling the right decorations and placing them in just the right places to make it appear as large or as small and cozy as it needed to be.
A little girl sat comfortably nested in between her parents. Unlike what was customary when seeing the theater, she was dressed up, but not in the traditional style. Instead of a kimono, the girl wore a simple white dress with a decorative periwinkle tie instead of a kimono. Because of the origin and novelty of the event the girl and her family attended, this in no way clashed with how the rest of the spectators were dressed up. The Western formal style was common amongst those gathered at the Konoha Theater to see the orchestra that evening.
"Dad, why does that man look like a penguin?" the little, short-haired girl turned to her father, bundling her disproportionately large head in between her hands as she beamed her starry-eyed glare of boundless curiosity toward the one man who, in her experience, had all the answers.
"I knew we should've taken Mana-chan to see Kyogen instead," a woman in a bright yellow blouse and a magenta dress suit crossed her arms, turning to her husband with an "I told you so" look that would have been insufferable if Nakotsumi Tsukumo didn't have a weakness for the two most important women in his life. One that made it impossible for him to get mad at either of them. "All this outsider stuff is too highfalutin for her."
"Shhh, you're not supposed to talk during the medley. Neither would you talk during kabuki, might I add. Besides, Mana-chan was the one insisting we go see the theater today as opposed to waiting for a more culturally appropriate occasion," Tsukumo replied. Mana's father also opened his mouth to remark about something else but then shut his mouth. Five years of marriage taught him how to pick his battles better than a dozen years in active duty as a ninja did.
"The conductor is wearing the tuxedo because it's his uniform. It relays that this is his show and that he's in charge. If he were a samurai, his uniform would be his armor and his baton would be his blade," Kei explained to her daughter in a patient whisper.
"Wow!" Mana exclaimed, pressing her hands together against her cheeks while her eyes beamed and glinted with adoration. "It's his show because he's the star…" she muttered in a more restrained tone that made the distracted spectators seated around the Nakotsumi family that scolded the trio with solemn stares when Mana raised her voice higher than they were willing to tolerate, even for a child, decide that young Mana had learned her lesson on her own and would keep it down in the future.
"I… Don't think you understand how this whole symphony thing works yet, Mana-chan," Tsukumo scratched his head, feeling stumped if this was a battle worth waging and if it was one worth fighting right this instant.
"Lay off her, will you? You know it's hard for her to understand things the way we do because of how she is," Kei wrapped her arms left arm around Mana's head, lovingly stroking her layered ends, and shoulder-length hair and kissing her daughter's head while young Mana observed the show in awe, waving her fingers and tapping her sandals to the beat of the music. "You're way out of beat, dear," Kei whispered into Mana's ear. "Don't force it, listen to the music, time it to the beat, and let the melody drive your body. It's like swimming–you just relax and let the waves carry you."
"Hmm? But I haven't learned the magic spell that makes you fly on water yet…" Mana turned to her mother with the look a toddler would've had when they broke an expensive family relic in the presence of their parents and expected to get punished and scolded for it.
"Now who's giving Mana-chan a hard time?" Tsukumo raised his eyebrow in jest.
"Wasn't it your idea to bring Mana to the theater to see if she's got a knack for arts?" Kei pressed her knuckles to her waist, spilling boiling oil all over the men her husband sent to battle.
"In any case, let's just enjoy ourselves. We don't do something like this all together too often," the Nakotsumi family patriarch sighed and turned his full attention to the stage. He had a point, Mana was five already, and this was the first chance for a family evening out they had since she was no longer heaps of trouble to carry to an event like this.
Whether it be because of Tsukumo being away on ninja missions or Kei working overtime in her café, the Nakotsumi family evenings usually involved one of the parents picking up the slack of dealing with Mana's quirks that evening. Despite being the one to suggest it, dipping his toes into the temporary nature of life and how fragile this idyllic slice of paradise they had truly was made it impossible for Tsukumo to turn his mind off his day job completely.
The midday sun smiled upon the peaceful corner in the vast Fire Country woods that was Konohagakure. If the fiery solar circle was a face, casting its favors and cheer all across the world in an instant, what it laid eyes upon would have made it crack a grin, if not outright guffaw. The mountain overlooking the Hidden Ninja Village, carrying the faces of all the past Hokage that had touched the lives of all the people living in the village and preserved its piece in tumultuous times and countless calamities, had streaks of red paint defacing its artistic integrity.
Lord First's stone face had kinder-garden level profanity bedecking its cheeks, accompanied by a straight, red booger drool drawn with crimson paint, suggesting Lord First to have been some kind of nose-bleeding pervert in the perpetrator's mind. Lord Second had a tongue added to its stiff and pouty lips, and some make-up of red paint applied to its right eye specifically, while leaving the left one untouched. Lord Third had both of its nostrils bleeding with painted booger streaks, besides drawn streaks of tears. Lord Fourth hadn't avoided the fate of a painted nosebleed either. In addition, the Fourth's stone face had swirls on its cheeks as a form of signature by the vandal, no doubt.
Having finished his magnum opus, the bratty hooligan in an orange and blue jumpsuit ran across the monument, suspended on a simple piece of rope, and truly plunged into the chaos of the creative process, drawing a cartoonish poop swirl on the cheek of Lord Second, before signing his face and adding a "Fools" doodle for good measure.
People and ninja alike were gathering at the rooftop of the Konohagakure Administration building, shaking their fists at the sky and yelling threats and warnings at the spiky, yellow-haired delinquent who rooted himself on the literal face of his art instead of fleeing to give himself the benefit of the doubt. Covered in blotches of paint and uncompromising to the end, Naruto Uzumaki addressed the less-than-adoring crowd that had gathered on the roof.
"You losers! You don't have what it takes to do something like this, you know! I rule and you drool!" Naruto exclaimed at the crowd of bureaucrats and ninja who wouldn't dare approach or stop him, doing what they all did best–shouting insults at trying to scold him from all the way down there. It was when he turned to address his crowd of art critics that the boy's gaze met with the disapproving looks of an old man in a ceremonial white robe with sharp red angles and a regal hat carrying the symbol of "Fire" on it. Beside him was a plain-looking man with a brown ponytail, bowing and apologizing passionately to Lord Third, who simply puffed his smoking pipe and stared at Naruto's profane doodling without a defining emotion to the administrator's façade.
"Drat!" Naruto cursed, nearly slipping and leaving himself hanging on the piece of rope he had tied over his waist. "It's old geezer and Iruka-sensei! I'm gonna get killed now for sure, you know!" he yelled while trying to pour and slather paint over his work, now that he's been noticed by someone who would do something more than just shout at him and stare in distant disapproval.
"I apologize so much, Lord Third! Naruto is my student, so I bear full responsibility for his heinous actions!" Iruka bowed at a static angle, sweating and on the verge of crying.
A pair of militaristic-looking ninja in black bodysuits and clad in armored vests and armored pads, wearing masks modeled after animals, flickered around Lord Third and fell to their knees instantly. "The ANBU?" Iruka blanked out, staggering back in disbelief that the village Black Ops unit that worked on the top secret jobs, assassinations, and suicide missions and was loyal to the marrow to their lord–the Hokage, made themselves known in public.
"P-Please, Lord Third, isn't sending the ANBU after Naruto-kun a bit too much? There's no need to punish him this severely, he's just a noisy kid, you know better than most.." Iruka begged his lord to reconsider sending the village's top ninja who would have taken the kid's life for far lesser offenses. While Iruka sweated and trembled, wondering if he was signing his death warrant by speaking out of line in the presence of the ANBU, the animal mask-wearing ninja whispered something to Lord Third's ear.
"Handle this for me, will you, Iruka-san?" Lord Third suddenly smirked and nodded in approval in Iruka's direction before turning to handle the situation that the ANBU informed him about. "I've got another, slightly more stunning matter that's been brought to my attention. I'll leave Naruto-kun to you."
"Y-Yes!" Iruka saluted Lord Third as the Third Hokage and his ANBU companions fled the rooftop. After the Hokage was out of sight, Iruka turned to Naruto with a face rendered stiff and outright demonic in ogreish wrath. "You buffoon! You nearly did it this time! Do you realize how close you were to actually being killed just now!?" he barked at Naruto, who just giggled with an empty paint bucket trickling with traces of what little red remained in it, smeared and literally red-handed.
A short girl who couldn't have been much older than ten stood atop of a stack of full boxes in front of a crowd. If she didn't look like an actual schoolkid, this could have looked like some sort of political protest. From the looks of it, the lass was performing tricks in front of a stupefied audience.
When she first started, the first handful of spectators stopped purely led by curiosity. They just wanted to see what she'd do. At some point, that curiosity became less and less influential and they became genuinely dazzled by the performance. The girl was pulling cards out from people's pockets, making them disappear, pulling all sorts of small-scale reality-defying stunts with sparks and confetti evenly scattered by wind that twirled in an orderly fashion around the little starlet of the show.
The young lady grabbed her blue tie like it was a snake rebelling against her and looking to bite. Stroking it, she moved her hand upward, until, in a blink, she held a bouquet of blue roses, neatly wrapped and almost larger than her upper body. This sudden pull made the audience gasp, especially when a colorful pop of neat, pentagonal electric stars accompanied each one of the girl's tricks.
With an elegant shake of her left hand, pinching in her fingers, the girl pulled out a lavender-colored hanky and flipped it over the bouquet of blue roses. Even though it seemed like a ridiculous notion that a child-sized hanky could cover up a bouquet of that size, somehow, the hanky fit around the girl's hand. When the little magician pulled the slope of the handkerchief, she revealed that the roses vanished into thin air with her empty right hand popping with some weak explosive and spouting out colorful confetti and streamers that a supernatural gale carefully guided in circles around the girl.
The crowd began rustling and stumbling off to the sides unexpectedly. This seemed to affect the young lady, performing on the makeshift stage of cardboard boxes. She may have been good at her invented craft, but her age relayed that she yet lacked the professionalism to be able to keep the show going, no matter what. As more and more people parted off to the sides, they revealed a short and slender old man dressed in a white and red ceremonial robe, surrounded from both sides by armored and masked ninja.
"Lord Third?" someone in the crowd exclaimed.
"The Hokage himself came to see this? What a lucky girl!" another faceless member of the audience leaned to whisper to the person on their right.
"Don't be ridiculous! He's here to punish this girl. Haven't you noticed? She was using ninjutsu in public! She's as much of a public nuisance as that Nine Tails brat," someone scoffed at the remarks suggesting that the Third Hokage came to the busy village street in the middle of a workday to see this girl perform magic tricks.
"See?" Third Hokage smiled kindly, turning to the masked ANBU member on his right. "There's your saboteur. It's just a little girl playing around."
"I suggest we take this girl in and interrogate her. She could still be a threat," one of the ANBU members accompanying the Third Hokage suggested with a whisper audible only to those within the reach of Lord Third's hand or those with advanced ninja perception.
"Come now, Bird. This is just a little girl. Admittedly, I have never seen ninjutsu like that, but she doesn't have the eyes of a malicious agent," the Third Hokage politely objected, still speaking in a soft and joking tone, suggesting that he wasn't taking this matter anywhere near as serious as either of his ANBU companions.
"Her skin tone isn't like that of the locals. Besides, her small chakra signature that the sensory unit picked up performing unauthorized ninjutsu within the village borders can still be suppressed. No Academy Student her age can perform Nature Release techniques as easily as flicking their fingers. Not to mention those of two nature transformations…" another ANBU member with short blond hair falling over a teal-colored fox mask argued.
"Hmm… Maybe we should ask that man over there what he thinks about this girl?" Lord Third calmly closed his eyes and puffed on his long pipe before turning to his left, where a man of average size and build with shoulder-length white hair, wearing a standard Konoha ninja uniform with a flak jacket and a bodysuit stood befuddled and extremely freaked out that Lord Third not only unexpectedly intruded in this scene before he could resolve it peacefully, but also noticed him. That could only have meant trouble. "Well, do you know this girl, Mizuki-san?"
"L-Lord Third!" Mizuki stiffened straight like a board with panicking eyes and a long face, bowing himself in a static angle while his hands that were pressed to his side trembled in extreme stress. "I must admit that this little rascal is one of my students! She should have been in class right now," Mizuki reported with a skin tone that was becoming paler and paler with each spoken word.
With this entire scene developing as it was, the audience was too distracted for little Mana to continue performing, so she just pressed her index finger to her lower lip, staring at the scene in awe and complete cluelessness. It was only when she could have sworn she saw Mizuki-sensei turning his head to give her a spiteful stare of eyes of a man who could have absolutely wrung a little girl's neck with gnashed teeth of simmering wrath that Mana's mouth closed and her lips began quivering in anxiety of the trouble she must have brought upon herself by accident.
Here they were. Those pesky social norms she understood very little about. With each passing day, with each patient lesson from her mom and dad, whenever little Mana did something wrong, she was learning more and more about how the people of this village expected her to behave. However, she must have been a few lessons short and now she got in trouble again. Mizuki-sensei wasn't the nicest person in Mana's experience. Well… Sometimes he was nice, but when Mana did something wrong… He made her body stiffen and tingle and he was so passionate about telling Mana what she did wrong that he made sure to speak it loud enough for the entire Academy to hear.
He also may have had the power of foresight, because he often went ahead and predicted Mana's future by saying she'd flunk, drop out of school, and never amount to anything. While it made Mana feel terrible and unwanted, she understood that Mizuki-sensei was just doing the same thing she was doing earlier–using his gift for the sake of those who didn't have it.
Just like Mana used her magic ninja powers to make people happy to the point of clapping, laughing, and cheering, Mizuki used it to warn "useless" children about the fact they had no future so that they could either prepare for a life that amounted to nothing ahead of time or worked extra hard to change their future.
"It's unfortunate that you must arrest Mana," Mizuki straightened up and shook his head in feigned regret with crossed arms. "I warned her about listening to me repeatedly, but she's just a tiresome child. Perhaps it isn't her fault. The girl has some kind of mental disorder, or so her parents told me. The Academy is a place for gifted children, not sick ones."
"We weren't aware that this girl was an Academy student. Her skin tone made her look like she was from Kumogakure and her behavior, practicing ninjutsu in the middle of a busy village street like this… It's highly unusual. Perhaps this was a false alarm after all," the "Bird" ANBU bowed his head in apology in Mizuki's direction. "In the future, please be advised that ninjutsu activity within the village boundaries is being closely monitored by the sensory division. This girl isn't a graduated and licensed kunoichi yet, so her chakra signature will tip off sensory alarms if she's performing ninjutsu in the middle of the village like this."
"Still, it's quite odd that her chakra signature tipped off sensory alarms. Usually, kids this age don't have the chakra capacity large enough to do that," the "Fox" ANBU crossed his arm and leaned his head to the side, befuddled by this case, as was his partner.
"You're raising some fine kids, Mizuki-san," Third Hokage smiled after pulling out his pipe, gesturing toward the teacher with the pipe-holding hand and sprinkling some burnt tobacco on the ground. "I've never seen a child of this young girl's age performing so many different elemental ninjutsu techniques. Nature release is a subject that even graduated ninja struggle to grasp sometimes. I've never seen any of those techniques she's performing either…"
"Oh, well… It must just be because your Academy days are so long behind you, Lord Third!" Mizuki laughed it off, waving at the Third Hokage in dismissal of the prying eyes and ears of the village head. Of all things, Mizuki wanted Lord Third to pry into Mana and all her quirks that she wouldn't drop, no matter the severity of Mizuki's punishments and attempts to force her to change, most of all. If he were to take Iruka's position and train truly talented kids like Sasuke Uchiha, Hinata Hyuga, and other heirs to elite ninja clans, he couldn't have Hokage analyzing the curious case of Nakotsumi Mana at any cost!
"Y-You!" Bird got lightly miffed at this remark. "Are you calling Lord Third old? Mind your manners, Mizuki-san!"
"Well… I see no falsehoods in what Mizuki-san said, so I can't get angry," the Third Hokage chuckled to himself in amusem*nt. "Perhaps you're right. I know more jutsu than my senior mind can keep up with. I'm sure the names of the jutsu this girl used will come to me, eventually. Now, we've taken enough of your time, instructor. We won't hold you and your precious pupil here too much longer."
"Yes…" Mizuki crept up to Mana and wrapped his hand around her, squeezing her shoulder hard enough to cause Mana pain, but not enough to make her cry. Mizuki was frighteningly good at only letting his mask slip to the exact extent he needed it to. "Mana-chan is such a precious student of mine. It's incredibly important that a talent such as hers is nurtured properly. In class."
"We apologize to trouble you for what turned out to be a false alarm, Lord Third. However, we suggested you let us handle this," Fox ANBU bowed his head in the Third Hokage's direction.
"I stand with my decision that a team of ANBU is unnecessary to discipline energetic inheritors of the Will of Fire," Lord Third looked up at the sky, imagining the two delinquents he had to postpone his paperwork to deal with becoming fine ninja and carrying on the legacy of the belief that love is the key to peace. "Naruto-kun and Mana-chan, I imagine that we'll hear about those two in the future. I have a feeling that these two will foster the Will of Fire and let it become a fierce, passionate flame fueling them both to achieve great things. I don't need my crystal ball to foresee that…"
The Fox ANBU turned around to see Mizuki guiding Mana forward and dragging her to the Academy with a pinched shoulder while the girl winced and grunted in pain, never complaining once. It was a stark contrast to how instructor Iruka handled Naruto and how Naruto responded to Iruka's soft approach. Before he could draw any sound conclusions, Fox turned around and continued on his way, accompanying Lord Third back to the administration building.
"Students, stand up and stand in line," Mizuki instructed the kids not too long after the lesson started. Just as the kids stood up and went to line up in front of the desks, the classroom door opened up and another Academy instructor of unimpressive height and build, brown hair kept in a spiky ponytail and a scar running across the bridge of his nose walked into the class, followed by around three dozens of kids around Academy age. More importantly–Lord Third himself walked in, followed by a pair of cloaked ninja with colorful, animal-themed masks.
"Children, yesterday I was struck with inspiration for a wonderful idea," Lord Third spoke up to the lined-up class while the kids that the other Academy instructor brought in bundled together behind their teacher in two separate lines. "How about we host a joint lesson? A bit of friendly competition shortly before the graduation exams? Seeing the future inheritors of the Will of Fire doing their best never ceases to amaze me and fill me with your youthful vigor. Not to mention, such a thing will be useful for you, letting you scope your strengths and weaknesses before the graduation exam, which is just a couple of days away."
"Greetings, my name is instructor Iruka. Some of you may have met me, as I'm one of the few instructors to teach ninjutsu classes to children from several classes. Besides that, I am also in charge of Class A here in the Academy. These will be your new classmates for today. Perhaps we should give the kids a few minutes to get to know each other and feel more comfortable around new classmates?" Iruka turned to Lord Third, who turned to Mizuki for objections.
"What a grand idea, instructor Iruka," Mizuki smiled with a warm and aloof expression. "As expected of the head of Class A. I look forward to seeing the performance of the descendants of Konoha's most well-known ninja clans."
With a kind smile and somewhat snoozy, Third Hokage went for the chair behind the teacher's desk, pulled it back, and slipped in, pressing his administrative cheeks onto its cushion. As he did so, a trumpet-like blow of flatulence-like air squeeze escaped something beneath Lord Third's rear end, making Lord Third wake up and widen his eyes immediately.
Behind instructor Iruka, a spiky blond-haired boy with large goggles and wearing an orange and blue tracksuit, collapsed on the floor, laughing out curled up. "Got you! Got you so good, old geezer!" the young, blue-eyed boy with whisker-like markings on his cheeks barked out while rolling on the floor. It was as if the boy could hardly believe that a prank this simple and older than its victim himself worked on the most famous, strongest, and legendary ninja in the village, renowned as the God of Shinobi.
"NARUTO!" instructor Iruka ground his teeth, pulling the kid up and off the ground and smacking him in the back of the head. "How dare you insult the personage of Lord Third with your immature, even for your age, pranks!? You're going to take the graduation exam in just three days and, unless you get serious, you'll flunk again!"
"Ow, ow, ow…!" Naruto grunted, rubbing his head that was beginning to display a large bump right at the back of his head, where Iruka smacked him. "This is child abuse, you know! You should be reprimanded, Iruka-sensei! It's the old timer's own fault for falling for something as stupid as a fart cushion, you know!"
"Hmm… As surprising as it is to say, I somewhat agree with Naruto-kun," Lord Third chuckled as he lightly tilted his old hips off the chair and slipped a cushion that quickly filled up with air once the pressure of an old bottom came off it. Lord Third lightly tossed it onto the table, making flushed with red Iruka grab it and slip it under his flak jacket.
"Are you serious!? That's my property, you know!" Naruto pointed his finger at Iruka, letting his loud mouth run wild and interrupting class again.
On the opposite side, standing amongst the lined-up students of Class B, Mana stared at the scene with a lightly ajar, O-shaped mouth. Just about everything to have anything to do with the hilarious happenings of this joint class exercise looked and sounded profoundly amusing. Young Mana didn't even see Naruto from Class A move at all, she couldn't pinpoint when exactly he slipped the farting cushion under Lord Third's seat. The sheer unexpectedness of this made Mana break into a chuckle that, when she saw the curious glares at her from both her classmates and those of Class A, made her realize she'd disturbed the class just like Naruto did with her laughter.
For a few seconds, Naruto stopped kicking and yelling in Iruka's grip to let out a chuckle too as he shared a look with the black-haired girl who found his gag comical. This was something that Naruto had never experienced before–a type of attention that he didn't know he wanted. For the first time, Naruto's toxic call for attention has earned him exactly what he begged the faceless mob for. Even Iruka noticed Naruto's newfound tranquility as he placed the kid down and let go of the collar of Naruto's tracksuit. The instructor did so carefully, almost as if expecting Naruto to be playing him.
"Well, I suppose, while it's not exactly what I had envisioned by getting to know each other, in a way, you've all come to know Naruto-kun just now," the Third Hokage laughed out, slipping his pipe into his mouth and taking a few hearty puffs. Unlike the usual pipes Mana had seen amongst the audience drew in with her impromptu magic shows from stacked boxes in the middle of the village, Lord Third's pipe sent streaming trails of bubbles from it instead of stinky tobacco smoke.
"Right," Iruka crossed his arms and nervously corrected his forehead protector while addressing the kids. "Please, Class A, line up and introduce yourselves."
"Please, everyone, follow instructor Iruka's fine example," Mizuki encouraged his class with a warm look. She's never earned an affectionate look like that from her instructor. And yet she wanted it more than anything. Seeing her teacher smiling fondly with closed eyes, not attributing his cheers to anyone in particular, made Mana want to earn that look of approval. The girl clutched her fists and resolved to behave. No more laughing or letting her attention wander off.
Mana will make instructor Mizuki proud and she'll change the future that instructor Mizuki prophesied, or lack thereof. Instructor Mizuki was a good man, he'll let Mana know when his foresight spell tells him Mana has earned her future as a ninja. Part of that future was here and now, Mana just knew it.
In the beginning, the introductions went a bit slow. There were a whole lot of kids walking around and awkwardly introducing each other as if they only did so out of the necessity of their instructor's demand. Eventually, as things were with kids, they made the best out of an awkward situation and began chatting about their favorite things, introducing each other to their friends, laughing up as if they'd known each other for years.
"Maybe that's enough for the introductions?" Mizuki turned to Iruka with a polite smile stretched across the entirety of his lower face in a tad unnatural way. Instead of a cohesive response, the inquisitive instructor received a stupefied look on his peer's face, as Iruka pointed at a developing scene somewhere further toward the end of the classroom, with bulged eyes and an open jaw.
"Wh-What's that?" he muttered, pointing at a crowd of children surrounding a table on which Mana stood and showed them a spread deck of cards. Clearly having favorites, she leaned down and offered the spread deck for Naruto, giving a few other kids spoiled faces.
"Wha? You want me to pick a card, you know?" Naruto murmured with light surprise, drawing a nine of spades and holding it close to him and away from Mana. With a warm smile, the black-haired magician closed the deck, shuffled it, and then extended it at Naruto, nudging it as if to encourage him to put the card back.
"Come on, Naruto, put it back!" a blond, blue-eyed girl with a ponytail pumped her fists in excitement. While Naruto clearly hesitated for a bit, likely considering pocketing the card and robbing everyone of their big show, curiosity prevailed in the end, as it often did. The boy stuffed the card back in, only for Mana to shuffle the cards in a myriad of different ways, making the kids gasp and cheer as the card began to glow with ethereal azure flare of visible chakra.
Farther on the other end of the classroom, a gloomy dark-haired boy with spiky black hair hung over his face as bangs and partly obscuring his face, who looked bored and disinterested in the circle of annoying kids trying to talk to him and get to know him, who stared at the annoying and loud magic show with disinterest at first, opened his eyes and leaned over a shorter student to see something that he could hardly believe.
"Magic!" Mana chanted out, tossing the deck of cards in the air. The deck behaved as if it was magnetized, spreading in a tidy manner and twirling like falling leaves. A blue, aura-like glow surrounded each individual card before one card popped with sparkly, violet fireworks, making the kids gasp, giggle, and cheer with laughter. The violet sparks from the popped card neatly stacked together in a shape vaguely resembling a nine of spades.
"Amazing! That was your card, wasn't it, Naruto?" a brown-haired boy with a fluffy jacket hood over his head and sharp, canine teeth snarled and pointed at the flashy scene in disbelief.
"Indeed, I glared over Naruto's shoulder and nine of spades was indeed the card," a boy in a long white trench coat and black shades nodded, correcting his dark glasses after they nearly slipped off his nose from startlement earlier.
"Wow, do you think you could magically refill my bag of chips?" a chubby boy with round cheeks, marked with red swirls, spiky brown hair, sticking upward, and wearing an open green shirt extended an almost empty bag of snacks he was nibbling on the whole time at Mana.
"Don't be ridiculous, Choji," a boy with narrow brown eyes, black hair tied to a spiky ponytail, and a bland look on his face massaged his shoulder and turned his neck around to relieve some tension. "There's nothing magical about this stunt. It's got to be some sort of jutsu…"
"Did that young lady just… Make chakra appear outside her body?" Iruka pointed to Mana, desperately trying to gaslight himself into sorting this confusing fact behind the fact that there were plenty of kids obstructing his view, who were now clapping in rabid applause and making noise that interrupted the introduction.
"That girl…" one of Lord Third's masked companions said, focusing their glare behind that featureless mask to get a better look at the peculiar kid who earned her instructor's ire.
"That's right, the last daughter of the Wandering Ninja. Nakotsumi Tsukumo's kid," Lord Third nodded in response with a muzzled voice that was meant to only reach his companions. "Unfortunately for her, she is utterly incapable of keeping a low profile, which makes me worried that, at some point, Danzo will come to know of her survival. It won't be easy keeping my promise to her father with that man on this girl's trail."
"Mana-chan!" Mizuki raised his voice, gently swimming through the crowd of applauding kids and taking Mana off the table. Even though his eyes were firing thunderbolts and Mana heard her instructor grinding his teeth, the man salvaged his standing with a smile as he pressed his hands to his hips. "If only you devoted this much effort to your classes, maybe you could graduate this year."
"You're kidding me, right?" Iruka gasped. "How old is this girl? She can't be much older than most kids in Class A. She just performed a ninjutsu I've never seen before, manifesting chakra visible to the naked eye. How can she not be graduating this year?"
"I know, right, Iruka-san?" Mizuki laughed out, looking almost delighted at Mana's whimpering lips and look of sadness as the girl struggled with the realization she'd failed her instructor again and that Mizuki was mad at her for something she messed up without realizing it. "Here she is, showing skill comparable to a high-ranking ninja when she's messing around with her childish games, but when I ask her to perform a simple Clone Jutsu, she just stands there and looks at me with those green eyes of hers. It's as if I'm speaking in a different tongue when it comes to Mana-chan."
"Perhaps you are…" Iruka stroked his chin. "Have you reached out to Mana-chan? Tried to find out why she can't focus on her classwork?"
"Sadly, she's beyond my reach, I think," Mizuki faked a look of regret and shook his head. "I wouldn't usually be saying something like this about one of my precious students, but… Mana-chan should have never been accepted in the first place. I believe it would be for the best if she dropped out and stopped wasting her life here."
"I can't believe you just said that!" Iruka turned to Mizuki with an outraged look on his face. Lord Third's glare focused on the feud between the two instructors as it robbed the classroom of its cheerful class trip tone and made the kids tense and worried. "Mana-chan is your student! It's your job as an instructor to cherish her talents and help them grow, guide her in the right direction, not to oppress her until she validates your lack of faith in her abilities!"
"You must have misunderstood me, Iruka-san," Mizuki shrugged, making an aloof expression of indifference as he faked an apology. "The first requirement of joining the Academy is to love the village and hope to help preserve peace and prosperity. The evaluation of her admission application stated that Mana-chan displays no affectionate feelings toward her village whatsoever, and she shows no interest in its monuments or notable historical figures, however, she's expressed kindness and affection, a staunch desire to protect its villagers that are unable to protect themselves."
"Are you implying that Mana-chan is not loyal to her village, Mizuki-san?" Iruka ground his teeth, showing no appreciation of the way Mizuki tried playing him off as a fool for implying subtext behind his words that, allegedly, was not there. "Because the village isn't its monuments, it's not its history, nor its leaders or officers. Loving and caring for the people of their village, their potential clients, is exactly the kind of attitude one should expect from a ninja."
"All I'm saying is that for someone who's striving to become an asset to her village, Mana-chan has a perchance to disobey direct orders and massive authority issues," Mizuki shrugged. "Not to mention, that's just one of the three admission requirements that Mana-chan struggled with. Requirement No. 2 is to have a mind that will not yield, able to endure hard training and work. And yet, again and again, Mana-chan is lost in her own mind, rather than sharpening it as a tool. You've seen the talent this girl should possess, however, her grades are all below average."
To demonstrate his point, Mizuki walked off to the table and leaned to open up a drawer where he kept the most recent copies of report cards. From the looks of it, Lord Third didn't seem all too pleased with the unpleasant and bickering turn that this two-class exercise had turned into, he cleared his throat as if intending to speak, earning Mizuki's undivided attention as the instructor stood up with a report card in hand.
"That's enough, don't you think? You're showing a poor example for your students by quarreling over something like this," Lord Third said with a voice of experience and kind suggestion.
"Perhaps you are right, I apologize, Lord Third," Mizuki's shrewd glare dulled and then turned warm and kind in a snap, making the white-haired instructor laugh awkwardly while rubbing the back of his head. The instructor bowed his head in apology toward his peer and put Mana's report card face-up on the table. "I apologize for letting our quarrel get this far, Iruka-san. Let's just agree that we have differing teaching methods, however, please understand that I've spent four years teaching Mana. Surely we can agree that I know more about her quirks than she's revealed to you today, am I wrong?"
"Lord Third is right, we shouldn't be quarreling in front of our students," Iruka admitted in discomfort that a student of the Academy was being discredited and tarnished like this and his attempt at defending her being shut down. "I think that's enough for the introductions. How about we go outside and begin our exercises?"
"A splendid idea!" Mizuki clapped his hands with an encouraging smile. Mana gulped, wanting more than anything to be Iruka at that moment and receiving that meager praise, instead of only disappointing her mentor. "How about we begin with some Traditional Shinobi Sparring? How's your class' taijutsu, instructor Iruka?"
"You're about to find out, instructor Mizuki," Iruka's eyes fired thunderbolts that connected with the invisible force field of faked politeness that Mizuki protected himself with. With the class and the esteemed guests moving to the outside stadium, Iruka glanced at the report card that Mizuki purposefully left face-up on the table, in clear view.
Village: Konohagakure
Rank: Student
Ninja Registration Number: -
Birthday: September 22nd (11 years old, Virgo)
Height: 149,2 cm Weight: 49 kg Blood Type: A
Personality: Sensitive, creative, reserved
Favorite food: Gyoza, chicken liver
Least favorite food: Plain food
Would like to fight: Nobody
Favorite word: Magic
Interests: Performance and arts, reading
Currently studying at the Academy
Grades:
Ninjutsu: E
Taijutsu: C
Genjutsu: A
Intelligence: B
Strength: D
Speed: C
Stamina: B
Hand Seals: A
Total Ability: C
Potential: F
"We'll just have to see about that," Iruka mumbled to himself before turning the report card over and putting it away from sight.
The kids circled around in the open, fenced off from the woods square. Lord Third, his masked companions, and the Academy instructors soon followed with the kids parting to allow Iruka and Mizuki passage into the center of the circle whereas the Third Hokage and his followers stood in the front of one side of the circle with the kids standing off to the side of the administrator of the village and his bodyguards.
"To begin this friendly competition between the two classes, instructor Mizuki and I will select one of our students for the Traditional Shinobi Sparring and then grade you according to your performance. Do not worry, all of you will get your turn and a chance to make your grade. Now, Sasuke-kun, perhaps you could be the first representative of Class A in the sparring session?" Iruka turned to his right where the black-haired and black-eyed young boy dressed in a blue, high-collar shirt rolled his eyes and stepped out to one side of the circle.
"Ooh, Iruka-sensei! Can I get another go at Sasuke!?" Naruto perked up, clenching his fists together and pressing them by his chest as he squinted and pumped his knees.
"Sorry, Naruto-kun, but the entire point of this competition is to see students from both classes performing against each other in a friendly competition. It has to be someone from Class B," Iruka replied with patience that few instructors would've had for a student yelling out of turn.
"Ugh, that's so not fair!" Naruto crossed his arms, blew out his cheeks, and pouted his lips like a little duckling.
"How is it not fair, Naruto-kun?" a rose-haired girl in a magenta-colored dress scolded Naruto from behind. "You've tried beating Sasuke way too many times in class already. You should just give up and realize it's never going to happen. How about you let someone else get a turn?"
"Sakura-chan…" Naruto turned to the rose-haired girl. While he started the head motion ticked off, the more his face angled toward the girl, the more his expression relaxed. By the time Naruto fully turned to Sakura, his face turned dorky and airheaded.
"I would like Mana-chan to go first," Mizuki put his hands on his hips, looking content with his choice while looking at Mana with a kind-hearted smile. Iruka, meanwhile, looked less content than his peer.
"Are you sure, instructor Mizuki? Sasuke-kun is the top student in my class. While he excels in most subjects, taijutsu is one of his stronger suits," Iruka gave his fellow instructor a worried look. Against his better judgment, Mana's face lit up, and she bowed before the Academy instructors, standing side by side, then to the Third Hokage and his companions, before strutting to the other side of the circle to oppose Sasuke.
"That's exactly why I pick Mana-chan," Mizuki elaborated, with a cheerful and most faithful look on his face. "Her taijutsu skill is adequate, but she could use seeing a prodigy in action. I suspect that might just be what could elevate her taijutsu beyond merely a passable level."
"Hmm…" Iruka fiddled with his forehead protector, wiping some faint traces of sweat on his forehead as he observed the developing scene with concern. "Very well. In that case, students, face each other and perform the Seal of Confrontation!" Iruka instructed only for Mana and Sasuke to follow the instructions to a tee. Iruka's perceptive gaze noted how Sasuke stepped up and performed the seal before Iruka could even complete his instruction, whereas Mana lagged and seemed to mirror Sasuke's movements. This only made Iruka more worried that Mana might not have had nearly as many sparring sessions to be standing before Konoha's sole surviving member of the Uchiha clan.
"BEGIN!" instructor Mizuki ruled before Iruka could, swiping his hand down in a chopping motion.
Despite the sparring session having officially started, neither of the pair lunged at each other. Neither of them was aggressive enough to charge at an opponent they knew little to nothing about. Even Sasuke seemed to have been caught a bit on the off-foot since he was so used to having Naruto challenging and running straight at him from the get-go. Instead, the two students circled around, completing a quarter of the circle while staring each other down, neither one making the first move.
"The Seal of Confrontation represents that you have come to face me in battle. What's the point of making it if you act like a scaredy cat now that the battle's started?" Sasuke teased Mana just to get a reaction out of it, but his words seemed to merely be a wave of a stormy sea, washing against a jagged stony shore and splattering against the stone.
"Tsk!" Sasuke vented his frustrations at Mana's hesitation to attack and did what he rarely did, he dashed at Mana to make the first move.
"Sasuke's making the first move!?" a blond-haired and blue-eyed girl in a ponytail gasped.
Mana held her own in the beginning, fending off a handful of Sasuke's attacks that respected their personal space and were meant to scope her abilities while sensing around for any blind spots or weaknesses. Her wrists were solid, strong enough to deflect Sasuke's attacks. However, someone of Sasuke's caliber soon realized that, while Mana's arms were strong and swift, her core was softer. Thus, after dropping all sense of concern for defense, Sasuke pressed with an immensely aggressive approach and made it only a matter of time before he landed a solid palm thrust that dropped Mana down on her back. A few kids watching the sparring session winced as if they were the ones being stricken down.
"Please continue," instructor Mizuki spoke before Iruka could declare the end of the match. "This sparring session ended far too soon, and it's clear that both students still have plenty left in the tank."
Sasuke glared at the white-haired instructor with a bit of bewilderment, never having heard an instructor insist on continuing a sparring session that was over. This wasn't even one of his shorter sessions, he dropped Naruto four times as quickly as he did this girl from Class B. Regardless, he respected the instructor's call and adopted a fighting stance, ready to continue when his opponent stood up.
"This sparring session is over, Mana-chan, you don't have to…" Iruka was about to advise Mana to bow, reconcile with her opponent, and finish the session, but Mana stood up with a wincing right eye and gritted teeth and adopted a fighting stance too.
"She's still insisting on defending, even with all the bruises? She couldn't defend against Sasuke when she was fresh," the hooded boy with red, fang-shaped markings and pronounced canines shook his head in disapproval. "It's not like she stands a shot either way, but she should press on the offensive for once."
Rolling his eyes, Sasuke charged onward and did the dirty deed. This time, Mana couldn't even deflect or block his less aggressive blows as her inexperienced body failed her, making her arms crumble under the weight of Sasuke's fists and leaving her wide open for a flurry of blows that once again knocked Mana down on her back. Grunting and dragging her back on the ground, Mana clutched her aching ribs while Sasuke straightened his back and glared at Mizuki with an unspoken inquisition if the instructor was sated.
"Okay, this is…" Iruka was about to speak up in objection when Mizuki remained silent, but his peer raised his voice and overpowered Iruka's objection.
"Let's continue this until Mana-chan has had enough. It looks like you were completely beaten, Mana-chan. There's no shame in admitting defeat and walking away. I'm sure that some of the other students of Class B will score enough wins to even the score and salvage our reputation," Mizuki shrugged with so much unspoken mockery in his tone. Even if he was talking to an actual child, Iruka had never heard so much condescension in a man's voice before.
Panting and with her shirt torn in a few places, Mana pushed her body off the ground and, instead of making the Seal of Reconciliation, clenched her left fist while her right arm dangled numb by her side, leaving her completely open. Sasuke's frustrated eyes widened and softened a bit, feeling a bit of sympathy for this girl. Maybe he could identify with her persistence to some extent in how his father treated him back when he was still alive. Either way, Sasuke had no time to spare for people who had more guts than skill.
The prodigious student took a glide into the air, stomping down at Mana with a flurry of pushing kicks, believing such an attack to be sufficient in knocking Mana down and keeping her down for good. Having faced Naruto more times than he'd want, Sasuke knew that the only way to keep a persistent fool down was to make sure they couldn't continue. Then again, Iruka would have called the match already after the first knockdown.
A rowdy thud made Sasuke's eyes widen. Mana deflected all of his down-pouring kicks by straightening her back, turning her body sideways, and smacking his kicks aside with just her one working palm. That was pure Strong Fist style, almost like seeing it on the pages of the textbook. What a strange girl. She actually studied how to fight from a textbook, by learning and practicing all the moves described in the teaching material, as opposed to sparring.
She wasn't bad at all. Her taijutsu grade was a smokescreen, as both Sasuke and Iruka came to realize at the wrong time. It wasn't that Mana was bad at taijutsu; it was that she didn't spar or do practical exercises. She simply hadn't made a good grade that reflected her actual abilities. And now, because Sasuke only saw it when his coup de grâce was countered, he was wide open and in a compromised position. Just when it seemed like Mana would land a horizontal mid-kick into Sasuke's face and flatten him on the floor, the Uchiha ducked it and then grabbed Mana's heel, throwing her over his shoulder and slamming her face-first into the gravel again.
"That's enough!" this time it was the voice of Lord Third that concluded the match, not giving instructor Mizuki a chance to tease or mock Mana. "The winner of this exchange is clear. There's nothing more left to prove here. Both combatants have shown admirable skill and determination. Konoha's Strong Fist taijutsu style is in fine hands."
"Poor girl," Choji squinted while snacking on some crisps from his open bag. "Her taijutsu was pretty good. I don't know if any of us could've done much better."
"Yeah, too bad for her, but Sasuke's like a crazy genius. No wonder she couldn't land a single blow!" the blond-haired girl in a ponytail nodded with starry blue eyes as she admired the coolness of the dark-haired boy as he stood with crossed arms and waited for Mana to stand up so that they could reconcile and call the match over with already.
"Mana-chan, Mana-chan…" Iruka tried snapping Mana out and peeling her off the gravel, but her eyes just couldn't stay fixed on his finger and a bloody drool hung off her lip with a bit of blood tracing from her nostril too. "Damn it, she's completely out of it. You should have called the match off sooner, it was clear that Sasuke-kun had the match in the bag, Mizuki-san."
"I apologize," Mizuki stiffened his back like a plank and bowed before Lord Third. "I just care about my students so much that I wanted Mana-chan to succeed and didn't notice the damage she's taken. Such a rookie mistake…"
"Don't apologize to me," the Third Hokage shook his head before taking out the pipe and gesturing at Mana. "Apologize to the girl who got hurt trying to earn your approval."
"I'll make sure to apologize to Mana-chan when she's better," Mizuki bowed in Lord Third's direction again and stood back in the line while Iruka helped Mana up and was about to drag her off to the infirmary. Iruka grunted from the physical strain when he noticed Mana tensing up. Almost like she still wanted to turn around, wrestle out of his hold, and run at Sasuke. Surprised, Sasuke turned to face Mana, when, to everyone's surprise, Mana raised her index and middle fingers, bruised and bent, for the Seal of Reconciliation.
With a smile, Iruka stopped and looked up at Sasuke. The prodigious genin sighed and blew his cheeks out in embarrassment before pocketing his hands and shuffling up to the instructor and the concussed student he was taking away. Sasuke extended his hand and completed the Seal of Reconciliation, acknowledging that despite what had happened in this square that day, the two of them were still comrades. While the significance of this seal mattered little to Sasuke, he respected Mana enough to understand it meant a lot to her and humor her with this.
"Okay, now it's my turn, you know!" Naruto shot his fist out, aiming it at Sasuke as a means of challenging him.
"Please take over the training until I'm back, instructor Mizuki," Iruka nodded with a bitter expression at his fellow instructor. Before instructor Mizuki could set up the following sparring session, Iruka flickered away with Mana in his hands to make sure that she got some care for her concussion and over a dozen mean bruises.
"Nakotsumi Mana. Can Nakotsumi Mana please come to the desk?" Iruka leaned to the microphone so that his voice reached most of the room where the Academy students were quietly preparing for their graduation test and waiting their turn. To some of them, it would come in the form of a theoretical question, while for others, it would be a practical test.
"I am Nakotsumi Mana," Mana stood straight and stiff in front of the desk and bowed to the quartet of instructors overseeing the graduation test.
"A lot more energetic and… Coherent than usual," Mizuki noted. "Your grades are in no way remarkable, so I'm afraid your graduation will entirely depend on how well you do in your practical test, Mana-chan."
"Yes, sir," Mana humbly bowed her head to the instructor, leaving Mizuki lightly baffled. He wasn't used to Mana being this communicative and this… Present. Usually, she gave off the impression that she was floating somewhere off in the clouds and was utterly impossible to approach. This Mana seemed… Almost like a desirable student to nurture in just a few weeks since either instructor has seen her.
"I am glad to see you feeling hopeful and chipper. Even your instructor's impressed by your maturity despite having last seen you just three weeks ago," Mizuki complimented Mana with a look of content on his face.
"Oh, thank you, Mizuki-sensei, is it my hair?" Mana turned her head, letting her black hair slip over the front of her shoulder while the aspiring kunoichi gave it a few gentle strokes. This has been the longest she'd let them grow. Part of it was because of her brief hospital stay, the other part was because she's come to like it this way.
"The hair, the curious choice for an outfit. It isn't easy to beat Naruto's pizzazz, and yet, in this one area, you excel, as always," Mizuki smiled kindly with a nod.
"You are much more communicative, aren't you, Mana-chan?" Iruka raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his chair. "I've skimmed through your file, but I can't find much information about your hospital stay. I'd like to make sure that you're not committing a mistake by rushing straight ahead and taking the first graduation test since the one you were forced to skip two and a half weeks ago."
"The concussion I've suffered hasn't compromised my mind, Iruka-sensei. Quite the contrary, the hospital stay gave me ample time alone with my thoughts and Lord Third taught me meditation when he visited to check up on me. It's served me a great deal in getting my thoughts in order and it's a valuable technique I will cherish my whole life," Mana explained.
"Really, Lord Third visited you? My, my…" Mizuki smiled with cheer. It strangely lacked any genuine warmth behind it. While Mana couldn't pin down the reasons for it, she made sure to put a pin on it so that she could meditate on it later that day. After missing so much time in learning social cues, she had to catch up to a lot, and meditation was the invaluable tool that helped her to do so.
"Well, in that case, I don't see a reason we shouldn't permit Mana-chan to take the graduation exam," Iruka scanned his peers for any objections and found none in their expressions. Nor were any spoken.
"I agree, in fact, might I propose a practical exam for Mana-chan? Since we've made the comparison between her and Naruto-kun, perhaps it should be the same test we gave him. A simple Clone Jutsu?" Mizuki leaned forward to check on his peers in the graduation council of veteran distinguished instructors.
"I don't see why not. We've wasted enough time on a single student as it is," a tall and thick instructor wearing a bandana-style Konohagakure headband and decorated with a rough black stubble shrugged.
"I'd rather not perform that jutsu if that's okay," Mana answered with a bold statement for what was essentially a refusal to perform the task given.
"E-Excuse me?" a woman with glasses as thick as her magenta-colored layer of lipstick twitched her eyebrow. "You don't get a choice for your practical task, young lady. Either you perform the Clone Jutsu, or we'll have no choice but to fail you. Please be aware that this graduation test is the final one for this year's session, meaning that if you fail this year, you'll have to try again at least nine months later–during the next year's graduation session."
"That's okay with me. I just really don't want to do a boring jutsu like that," Mana winced on her right side before sighing in disappointment. Both Mizuki and Iruka, who were familiar with a version of this same girl from three weeks ago, looked stunned at the attitude they got from her.
"B-Boring…" Mizuki chuckled in faked discomfort. "May I remind you that you haven't performed a single ninjutsu technique we practiced during class successfully, Mana-chan? To be a ninja is to perform the task you are given. No questions, no objections. Even the request to sacrifice one's own life is to be followed to the letter. Even… Even… Sacrificing your friends…"
Mizuki turned to his left, biting his knuckle as he began to weep. Iruka glanced at his peer with a bit of confusion while the bulky instructor sighed, and the female instructor broke down alongside instructor Mizuki. Mana leaned her head to the side. She's never had a problem empathizing with the feeling of loss. And yet… For some reason… Instructor Mizuki felt like a black hole that only roared and swallowed and no matter how much empathy came in, it went nowhere and only the complete absence of light took its place.
"What an unfortunate thing…" the bulky instructor sighed again, shaking his head.
"Such a kind and caring man… Bringing up a personal tragedy for the sake of nurturing a young soul…" the female instructor kept on weeping.
"Actually…" Iruka spoke up, breaking up the tragic scene at the graduation council table. Mizuki snapped out of his bout of grief in an instant and turned to his peer with wide and completely dry eyes. "I'd like to test a theory I came up with when instructor Mizuki showed me Mana-chan's grades back during our cross-class exercise. Mana-chan, you called the Academy jutsu boring. Have you internalized and learned all of them?"
"Yes, sir," Mana bowed. "I know them, I would just rather not use them."
"This is ridiculous, how are we supposed to test your skills if you won't perform the task you're given, young lady?" the female instructor raised her voice slightly, showing her frustration with Mana's attitude.
"During our cross-class competition, as well as during a few chats with Lord Third, smoothing out things after a few pranks Naruto-kun pulled, I've come to learn a curious fact about Mana-chan. Mana-chan, is it true that you can create jutsu of your own?" Iruka weaved the fingers of his hands and pushed his back off the chair, adopting a diplomatic posture. It was fitting since he served as a sort of diplomat between Mana's… Quirky side… And the graduation council.
"Create jutsu? How is this possible? Most ninjutsu have been polished since the times of the Sage of the Six Paths and only a select few elite ninja have been able to create their own jutsu. Only a few ninja only manage to invent a jutsu or two throughout their entire lifetimes, most are content with merely mastering a handful!" the burly instructor argued.
"Well…" Mizuki winced and shook his head left and right, hesitant to admit it and confirm Iruka's statement. "Yes, Mana-chan has shown such a talent. However, I'd not go so far as to call Mana-chan's doodling as ninjutsu creation. Most of the flashes and sparks she's conjured have been utterly harmless to anyone. They'd rank firmly as D-Rank ninjutsu at best."
"D-Rank!?" the burly instructor jumped up, startled in his chair. "That's still incredible for an Academy student! Most genin who graduate only know a few D-Rank techniques and perhaps a single C-Rank at a beginner level. Inventing jutsu is beyond impossible for children of their age. If Mana-chan can indeed do such a thing, this must be evaluated separately. A ninja with such a talent could be an incredible asset to the village."
"Indeed, just imagine how much such a ninja could expand what we know about ninjutsu and chakra. It could be the greatest breakthrough in the field since the revelation of Ninshu," the female instructor squeaked, resisting the temptation to squeak in her seat as she fiddled in excitement. "Instructor Mizuki, why did you keep this a secret all this time? What if Mana-chan stayed a student forever, lost passion for being a ninja, or even worse–graduated and died in the field?"
"Well, I still think that the council is making a bigger deal of this than it is," Mizuki began slithering in his seat. The instructor slipped off his bandana and wiped the squirt of sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand.
"How many of your original jutsu you'd say are above E-Rank level, Mana-chan?" Iruka asked Mana with a stern look in his eyes. There could have been no confusion–he was already talking to her like an equal. In Iruka's eyes, Mana was already a ninja.
"Do you mean ninjutsu or genjutsu?" Mana stretched and stiffened her lips, eager to please the only member of the council who argued passionately for her graduation.
"G-G-Genjutsu!?" the female instructor gasped. "Academy students aren't meant to know genjutsu!? Genjutsu class is about learning the concept of genjutsu and how to deal with it, not actually being able to use it!"
"Bunch them up together, how many techniques of any ninja discipline do you know that are above E-Rank?" Iruka asked again with clarification.
"I'd say… Maybe around 12… No… 15?" Mana winced hard, trying to do a quick headcount, but more and more passion projects rushed into her memory as she did so.
"15!? This is ridiculous!" the burly instructor hammered his fist down at the table, disrupting the quiet preparation of the other examinees. "Surely this girl is lying, we can't possibly take her for her word!"
"How about this, Mana-chan, show us a single ninja technique that is C-Rank or above. One that is not in any ninja scroll. If you can do that, I shall fight tooth and nail for the case of your graduation," Iruka looked around, seeking for any objections, but most instructors kept their eyes on the young lady who dressed like a penguin, as if she was about to conduct an orchestra, and spoke ludicrous things of knowing 15 techniques nobody's ever seen or heard of.
"Okay, let's see, let's see… What to pick?" Mana smirked with a sheepish smirk, cracking her knuckles and then stretching her fingers, rolling her head and knuckles while warming up with light hops. In a blink, Mana performed the Tiger and Boar hand seals, keeping her hands connected in the Boar hand seal position as her eyes as well as the ground around Mana lit up with bright light. It was as if the ground itself became a flashing beacon.
The starry-eyed instructors leaned to the side, observing the other students keeping to themselves and ignoring the obvious signs of ninjutsu in front of them. Judging from their nonchalant reactions, nothing of note was occurring, meaning that it was only the graduation council that was caught in Mana's genjutsu. One by one, shimmering constructors of solid light emerged from the flashing area and became Mana's doppelgangers. Instead of one Mana, five total stood before the esteemed council of veteran instructors who observed the light show in awe.
"You asked for a Clone Jutsu, this is kind of like that, right?" Mana struck a pose imitating fanfare as if making a dramatic announcement and bowing to her adoring crowd.
"G-Genjutsu…" the burly instructor clenched his fists. "I never thought I'd see the day. I saw the images, as vivid as reality itself. I even felt the warmth of those sparks, felt them brushing against my cheeks, and felt worried they'd set my beard on fire. It has to be C-Rank at least…"
"Instructor Mizuki, I hope you understand we'll be reporting this case to Lord Third…" the female instructor leaned forward. "It's unacceptable that you kept such a student concealed from us. Even if Lord Third was aware of her talent, this young lady is invaluable to the Academy and the furthering of the field of ninja arts theory."
"Please," instructor Mizuki crossed his arms and shut himself off from criticism with body language by turning away from the critiquing instructor. "I feel like you're vastly overrating Mana-chan's technique. It was too flashy, the fact it was an illusion was too obvious. Even if it is decently executed, a technique like this would be easily dealt with by an opponent on the battlefield."
"Mana-chan, we must talk about this," Iruka pulled out a wooden case and opened it, revealing a Konohagakure headband wrapped in red silk. "I want to explain to you why it's important for us to reach this mutual understanding. You may despise the unoriginality of using jutsu taught at the Academy, but there's a good reason we teach it to the aspiring young ninja. Before we make your graduation official, we need to know that you have actually learned those techniques. Please understand that, while you may shun them, one day they might be what saves your life, or that of your comrades. Do I have your word that you've taught them to yourself and that you'll use them if it's your last resort?"
Mana clenched a fist and looked at it. With a lively smile, she pumped her fist for the council. "If it's to save someone's life–I'll forsake my pride as a ninja and as an artist. I'll use someone else's technique if it's what it takes. I swear!"
"In that case…" Iruka leaned back and looked around the council members. After it became apparent that they all shared his opinion, except for Mizuki, who still grumbled and pouted, but was outvoted, Iruka extended the polished oak wood box with the Konohagakure forehead protector inside. "Congratulations, Mana-chan. You pass!"
Steps disturbed the harmony of what looked like a sewer system beneath the Leaf. Mizuki looked around in awe, admiring the sights of classical architecture given to the different stations and entryways as he walked across a marble bridge. All this care and decorum felt wasted on some sewer, but Mizuki shook these thoughts out of his head. Soon enough, he won't need to be bothered by them since he'll be under another wing entirely.
Mizuki stopped upon hearing steps on the other side of the bridge. Ones that had perfectly assimilated to the taps of his feet. The steps of a true ninja–nigh impossible to perceive. Mizuki would have had no chance to register them had it not been for an additional sound–the tap of a wooden cane against the marble. Out of the shadows stepped a frail old man with a cane and a bandaged right side of his face. Shaggy dark hair on the man's head remained undisturbed by the meek breeze that made its way through the grating and caressed them.
"Danzo-san…" Mizuki spoke up. He didn't expect the village elder to meet him here himself. Quite frankly, he scarcely believed the information that someone as esteemed as Danzo, a witness of the glory of the First and the Second and a genuine rival to Lord Third, would be the broker that he sought in the village's underbelly.
"You sought my attention, instructor Mizuki?" Danzo sighed in disappointed resignation to belittling himself with this rendezvous. Like a man who had postponed putting down his sickly old dog for far too long and now had to do the dirty deed.
"Yes, sir! For quite some time, actually…" Mizuki nodded with vigor in his voice. He has heard Danzo Shimura being referred to as the Darkness of Shinobi, but he thought such titles described the man in his prime, not one he was currently.
"Contrary to you, I had no interest in ever meeting you. You've only made an impression upon me after you showed some remarkable resolve in executing your expendable comrades, though your cover-up job was sloppy. If it wasn't for Orochimaru, you'd have been caught in no time," Danzo spoke with the sternness and perpetual discontent of a conservative father.
"You must be misinformed, Danzo-san…" Mizuki began pacifying the situation with pumps of his palms, signaling to slow the conversation down a few notches. Despite his grin, Mizuki's lips were quivering, and he was squirting cold sweat. Evidently, his gig was up and, despite Mizuki's best attempts to get away with what he saw as a perfect crime, to someone of Danzo caliber, he hardly warranted a passing mention. With a dry mouth, Mizuki realized that the only reason he wasn't imprisoned or executed yet was because Danzo didn't care enough about him to waste exposing him to the Third Hokage.
"Insult my intelligence at your own peril, whelp," Danzo's stare squinted with focus, making the petrified Academy instructor gulp in sheer terror. Too horrified to let out a peep or as much as move a finger. "Although, I should perhaps give you a bit more credit for not going ahead with that ridiculous plan of yours, of using an unstable and immature Academy student to retrieve the most protected military asset in the village. Then again, that's commending a dog for not chasing its own tail."
"H-How!?" Mizuki blew his eyes out and dropped his jaw. How could Danzo have possibly known about this plan? It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing that Mizuki decided against, exactly for the reasons Danzo described.
"Besides, it appears that even in that you required nudging in the right direction," Danzo pressed his disapproving lips stiffly together.
A man stepped out from Danzo's shadow, having perfectly concealed behind his master's back despite being taller than him. All this time, this auburn-haired man with amber eyes and a deadpan stare of a cold murderer lurked behind Danzo's back, leaving no trace of his existence. In the face of this man, the shaking Mizuki identified a beginner Academy instructor whom he had met after Naruto's graduation. Danzo had his people even in the Academy? Only when he faced this auburn-haired man with an entirely different disposition of his face did Mizuki realize it was this very man who subtly convinced him to reconsider pulling Naruto's strings, all without saying Naruto's name or even mentioning any part of Mizuki's plan.
"I will admit, I placed my man near you to scope you out. Based on my intelligence, you've somehow managed to impress Orochimaru, despite being just a sloppy amateur with delusions of grandeur. You'd have gotten caught and imprisoned, if it weren't for my influence," Danzo closed his eyes, calmly shutting himself off from Mizuki for a second.
"So Orochimaru-san does remember me!" Mizuki exclaimed in joy. It seemed as if Danzo's not-so-subtle warnings had entirely slipped past his mind. All he heard of Danzo's scolding was that which he daydreamed about, what he wanted to hear. "The reason I've sought this meeting, Danzo-san, was to request that you arrange a meeting between me and Orochimaru-san! From the moment I met him, I've come to realize that he's the man I wish to follow, not Lord Third!"
"Tsk…" the auburn-haired man sneered in disdain at the megalomaniacal fool spouting open treachery before who he thought was a village elder. There was not a discreet bone in Mizuki's body and the man was so indiscreet, he laid his indiscreetness bare before perhaps the most dangerous and the most discrete man in the village. With a gentle gesture of his hand, Danzo dismissed the auburn-haired man, who vanished with a flicker.
"You are, of course, aware that Orochimaru, the man who used to be the greatest pupil of Lord Third himself, is a wanted S-Rank criminal, right?" Danzo lowered his head before tilting his gaze with a direct stab from the coldest depths of hell themselves. "Why would I, a village elder, risk my reputation arranging such a meeting, not to mention my life too?"
"Ah, I knew this would be a this for that exchange!" Mizuki chuckled as if he had deciphered some sort of grand code that hid behind the great mystery of the universe. "In exchange for arranging this rendezvous between me and Orochimaru-san, I offer you intelligence about a very special child. One that I tutored at the Academy. One that's of great interest to Lord Third and, allegedly, incredibly important."
"And why would I care about some child?" Danzo asked, finally vanquishing the impression as if he was condescending Mizuki, and genuinely beginning to negotiate with the traitorous Academy instructor. "There are plenty of children. A lot of them are talented, there will be plenty more. Such is life."
"Heh…" Mizuki snickered with an entitled and smug grin plastered on his face. In this moment, holding information over perhaps the second most powerful man in the village, one that's known as the embodiment of darkness that lies in every ninja, Mizuki felt truly powerful. Truly alive. "This one's described as someone who might usher in great breakthroughs in how we understand ninjutsu. At the age of twelve, this girl has created countless techniques that haven't been recorded in any scroll. She's dazzled the graduation council by performing genjutsu today."
"If you expect some kind of medal for fostering a promising kunoichi, I'm afraid that this medal belongs to instructor Iruka, for bringing up Sasuke Uchiha," Danzo closed his eyes as if napping while standing in a complete dismissal of Mizuki's offering.
"Perhaps you are too hasty in dismissing this girl, Danzo-san? In fact, I've heard during class that Lord Third explicitly wants to keep her a secret from you specifically…" Mizuki went for the throat with a weaselly look.
Danzo's eyes shot wide open. He knew something he didn't let on to. Something that Danzo didn't want to let on the value of to Mizuki, lest the Academy instructor upped his price. This impassable wall of discontent and condescension, coldness and secrets, finally toppled down. The Darkness of Shinobi finally showed his hand.
"Very well," Danzo nodded. "I could use some promising fresh sprouts at my service. Tell me what you know of this girl and I shall arrange a meeting. Before we make a deal, you must know this–I will not be involved with this deal. Whatever happens, it will be between you and Orochimaru. Also, I do not guarantee that Orochimaru won't send a lapdog to meet you, if he deems it more apt."
"Hah!" Mizuki scoffed at the very idea. "He'll come himself, I'm sure! He's spoken about how much I impressed him when we first met–it's why I'm still alive right now and everyone else is dead!"
"Well, you're right about at least one of these things…" Danzo sighed with elderly and stuffed lungs.
"The girl in question is called Nakotsumi Mana. She graduated today, so she'll be present in class for the split into squads. I must warn you, however, Danzo-san… Because of Mana's childish immaturity and pesky perchance to stand out, a handful of Academy instructors know about her potential. You need to act quick, or to nip them…" Mizuki served his end of the bargain on a platter.
"Hmph…" Danzo scoffed at the idea of assassinating Academy instructors. "Do us a favor and leave the shadowy operations to me. There is no need for the deaths of the village's humble servants. Their memories can easily be altered and Fu is already firmly planted in the Academy. He'll serve me well in both retrieving the girl and subtly altering their memories about whatever it is this Nakotsumi Mana showed them. As far as they'll be aware, she merely passed the test. Nothing to stand out about it."
"Splendid!" Mizuki clapped his hands in awe at becoming a witness of the village's shadowy underground operations first-hand.
"Await further instructions. You'll receive the terms of your meeting soon enough, similar to how you were told to come here. Be advised that sneaking out from the village and making to the place at the right time will be your business. I won't bother making any further arrangements, since they're not part of our deal. Besides, I don't want any of this tied to me and my reputation just yet," Danzo turned to walk away before turning to report to Mizuki. After speaking his mind, the shadowy head of the village's underground operations turned around and walked away, vanishing into the shadows as abruptly as he appeared from their embrace.
The last place that Mana expected to have to come to after graduating was the Academy. It was like the events of the previous day didn't matter whatsoever. There she was, back behind the school desk, waiting alongside a mish-mash of the graduates from different classes to be sorted into teams. The last thing Mana thought her first day as a ninja would be was boring. Her eyes wandered across the classroom, looking for anything to incite any spark of life in her while the full classroom waited for further instructions.
"Excuse me, may I pass?" said a girl with a pink haystack of hair, messed up by her forehead protector being used as a hair bow. It wasn't any particular part of how this scene started that made Mana perk her head off her arms and look up. She became interested because she knew one of the boys involved–the blond, spiky-haired troublemaker in an orange jumpsuit.
"Sa… Sakura-chan!" Naruto stammered with a look on his face that was equal part goofy and dreamy.
"NARUTO! MOVE IT! I'M TRYING TO GET AROUND YOU!" the pink-haired girl flipped out with a sudden personality shift that made Mana perk up a bit, like a jump scare in a horror movie. For some reason, Naruto immediately turned toward the boy seated beside him. A guy Mana knew well and felt discomfort bubbling in her gut upon picking from the crowd–Sasuke Uchiha.
In an unexpected beat of escalation, the pink-haired girl jumped on Naruto, almost like attempting to pole vault over him, and slammed his head into the desk while pushing herself over him and bringing herself a bit closer to the distant loner. Naruto gasped and thrashed around under the girl's grip, like a man being drowned looking for just a whiff of air. Sakura stampeded right over Naruto as if he were a doormat and sat in between the two boys, looking at Sasuke like he was a bonfire on a crisp autumn night. Meanwhile, Naruto simmered in humiliation, head resting on the desk, seemingly resigned to the role of a doormat that Sakura had assigned him.
Sensing the tension in the air and still bored out of her mind, Mana calmly stood up and took off her hat, fiddling inside it to check if all the storage seals that her dad made for her to wish her good luck on her first day were there. After checking up on her inventory, Mana began walking down the steps all the way until she descended to the teacher's desk and the blackboard, stepping onto it like it was a show stage.
By the point Mana turned back at the audience, some of which was looking at her in bewilderment, she noticed Naruto had crawled onto the desk and crept up to Sasuke where the two were beaming nuclear stares at each other.
"Get lost…" Sasuke said to the dorky kid getting on his nerves.
"Naruto, you jerk! Leave Sasuke-kun alone!" Sakura exclaimed, shaking her fist in the air and threatening with grievous, unspoken acts of violence.
"Hit him, Sasuke-kun!" some girls sang out in unison, cheering for the inevitable fight that would break out between the two. Such a conflict would've offered them everything they wanted out of school life–the sight of Sasuke acting cool and showing off his incomparable skill, and that annoying brat Naruto being put back into his place.
"H-Hey, look, what's up with that!?" a graduated Academy student with dark hair, tied into a spiky ponytail, pointed at Mana, prompting both of the feuding boys to turn their attention to Mana who took the stage.
"Magic Spark Jutsu!" Mana chanted, weaving her hands together in a hand seal position and expelling a flock of electrical sparks from around her body. Working in tandem with the technique she just performed, Mana weaved Ox-Rabbit-Tigger hand seals and chanted out "Rebellious Twist Jutsu!" before kicking her body into a spin in place. Wind Release chakra surged from the chakra nodes in Mana's body, enhancing her spinning into a tiny and contained vortex that picked up the sparks and distributed them evenly in a whirlwind of what appeared to be diamond dust sprinkled around her.
After finishing her trick, Mana struck a flashy pose with her arms up and open widely, before bowing to the stunned audience. A handful of kids began to clap and cheer, a few starry-eyed girls exclaimed how cute Mana's trick was while Sasuke and Naruto both stared in disbelief, albeit for different reasons. Naruto's amazement seemed more akin to confusion. The noisy brat simply couldn't understand why this girl on the stage was acting this way and what it had to do with him. Meanwhile, Sasuke looked amazed by the ninjutsu being shown off and the fact that the one performing these jutsu was his peer, but it visibly upset him to see ninjutsu being treated as a party trick.
"Mana-chan!" the voice of instructor Iruka made Mana tuck her head and turn to the classroom door, bowing in the direction of the unexpected member of the crowd who joined in on her show. "Entertaining your audience, I see… Man, whoever gets to mentor you will have their hands full. You've signed up to be a ninja, Mana-chan. You need to understand that ninja are meant to remain hidden, to stay underneath the underneath. And you just can't help but stand out. Go back to your seat, Mana-chan."
Knowing when she'd been caught and in some trouble, Mana nodded and crept her way back to her seat while instructor Iruka turned to the scene that froze in time between Naruto and Sasuke and freaked out. "NARUTO-KUN! WHY ARE YOU ON THE TABLE!?"
After the chatty and unruly kids settled back into their places and looked like they were ready to listen, Iruka approached the class from the ramp in front of the class, standing between the teacher's table and the students, holding a list of all the graduating students who graduated during that exam session. He gave the kids one last scan, noting his precious students whom he might not get to see every day and whom he had gotten used to over the past couple of years of studies.
"From this day forward, you are no longer mere students of the ninja arts, but full-fledged shinobi. But among the ranks of the shinobi, you are mere novices, the lowest of the low. Your greatest challenges all lie ahead," Iruka walked up closer to the students' desks, stuffing the lists of the students and their grades behind his back. "The next step is the assignment of official duties to you all on behalf of our village. We will begin by dividing you into three-man cells. Each of which will be mentored by a jonin, a more experienced ninja who will guide and coach you as you become familiar with your various assignments."
"I made the selections so that each cell's abilities would be approximately equal," Iruka announced before beginning to run down the stacked sheets of paper where he had tables with the lists of all the official genin squads written down. He went ahead, listing names for a while until a bunch of names Mana knew came up at last. "Next up, Team No. 7. Haruno Sakura… Uzumaki Naruto… And… Uchiha Sasuke!"
"Iruka-sensei! What were you thinking of, saddling a most excellent shinobi like myself… With that loser?!" Naruto stood up and interrupted the squad assignment process, making some people groan and roll their eyes. Despite how much they enjoyed Mana's impromptu magic show, most of them wanted that Sasuke would have kicked Naruto's ass and hospitalized him instead.
"Of the thirty of you, Sasuke has the best grades, Naruto. As for you, you would be at the bottom of the class. The idea was to balance your different strengths… THAT'S why you two ended up in a cell together!" Iruka lectured Naruto with his hands on his hips, like he was drilling a hard-hitting lesson in class.
"Hmph… Just don't drag me down… Dunce," Sasuke mumbled under his own nose, without even sparing the attention Naruto so desperately craved by looking at him.
"What'd you call me!?" Naruto growled, beginning to roll the sleeves of his jumpsuit back.
"Just knock it off, Naruto!" Sakura interfered, acting as the most biased voice of reason imaginable.
"Now, for Team 9… That'll be Nakotsumi Mana, Fuma Konotoko, and Izuno Yodewana," the turn finally came for Mana's team. A boy with a brown, curtain-style haircut and two belts stacked with additional ninja pouches crossed over his chest looked around, making himself known as one of the two Mana's been assigned with. Mana knew Yodewana. He was from her class–a surprisingly tall and round boy for his age, with a gentle giant personality. He had cat-like whisker markings on his cheeks and a perpetual snot bubble on his nose. His eyes were usually closed, only to open when he was angry or really passionate about something. If one were to see his open eyes, they'd note how Yodewana had cat-like pupils.
"These guys, huh?" Mana mumbled to herself. It wasn't like she had any problems with either of the two. She liked Yodewana, even if she didn't talk to him often because of his perchance for napping and an incredibly passive and slow-paced attitude, and she'd never even met Konotoko before. He must have been from one of the other three classes. While Mana was distracted by sharing glances with her future teammates, Iruka must have finished reading off his list.
"Okay, everyone. I'll be introducing your senior ninja arts instructors this afternoon. Until then, you are dismissed. Feel free to get to know your teammates a little bit better if you'd like. You'll be spending a lot more time together from this day on," Iruka topped it off with a bit of friendly teacher advice.
The kids began flushing out of the stuffy classroom to get a bite of something to eat or to talk to one of their teammates. Mana perked up, trying to peer into the crowd and make out any sign of what her own squad mates may have been up to. She wouldn't have minded introducing herself and getting up on the right foot with those two. Yodewana didn't look like he'd be a problem, the giant just slumped in his desk and began snoozing.
A focused look caught signs of Konotoko's cheesy hairdo as the grumpy boy slipped out from the classroom alongside the rest of the hungry and energetic kids. Mana sighed, realizing that she wouldn't get to talk to both of her teammates at once until they were put together into a team. She didn't have too many expectations about ninja work, but she figured it would be stiff and grueling work. Not the type of environment to get to know people and chat around with them.
Given how she already knew Yodewana, somewhat, Mana stood up and flicked her hat on, running off after the squeezing crowd to get to catch up and talk a little with Konotoko. Even if she and Yodewana weren't too tight, she knew better than to bother him during his midday nap time. Mana ran out into the hallway and looked around, seeing Konotoko turning the corner and into a staircase that would have led to the roof of the building. That was an odd place to go, given that the class spent so much time in a stuffy classroom the whole morning with little to no action.
Mana gently made her way through the lazy and exhausted kids and turned to the same staircase. She ran up the stairs, noting how gloomy and empty it was. Maybe that was why Konotoko enjoyed hanging out in an abandoned place like this? Some people preferred the gloom and loneliness. As someone who loved sitting by the window during the rain and just looking at the downpour outside, Mana could relate to at least some extent.
Maybe she could use it as an icebreaker? Some kind of anchor, a starting point to begin their friendship?
A loud pop snapped Mana out of her bout of daydreaming. Before she could react, a tall and lean-built man with a pale complexion, and short spike dull black hair slammed against Mana, pressing her to the wall by charging at her from the top of the staircase in a straight line. He was incredibly fast! He struck Mana before the smoke of his dispelled Transformation Jutsu had even faded out. There was nothing that the girl could make out of the man's face, for he was wrapped in a tight black bodysuit everywhere except for his exposed nose and mouth. A pair of glasses rested on the man's nose, like a signifier of where his eyes were under that whole mysterious get-up.
Mana felt a sharp pain in her gut. Suddenly her eyelids felt so heavy. Too heavy to keep them peeled apart. A feeling of weightlessness overcame Mana as she slumped into the arms of her masked captor and passed out.
Mana woke up feeling like she was in a bed. Her head was pounding and the unnatural feeling of waking up in a dimly lit room didn't help her awakening seem any more natural. It was almost as if Mana's body had enough of sleeping and just flung her straight into consciousness. Although her room was only lit by a handful of barred lamps on the side of the room, the light still thrust needles into Mana's eyes when she opened them.
Just as Mana tried to move, she realized she couldn't. Her whole body, except for her neck and her head, was trapped in some kind of metal coffin. The thickness of the thing left no hope of actually being able to move inside this thing. Finding no success in the venture of moving a finger, Mana instead delved into her thoughts to try to understand what happened to her for her to end up this way.
Trying to peer into her memories felt like putting a crown of thorns on. Mana winced and grunted in pain, feeling the proverbial barbed wire constricting tighter and tighter around her forehead, but she pushed through where remembering required the brute force approach and was subtle and gentle where she had to navigate around more painful nerve bundles to reach the necessary memories.
She was in the Academy the last time Mana could remember anything other than the circ*mstances of her awakening. Mana could recall following the boy who was assigned to her team, only to realize that boy was another man who used Transformation Jutsu to take that boy's appearance. That man caught Mana off-guard, and that's probably how she ended up here. Now the fundamental question plaguing the girl was where exactly was here.
Mana wasn't sure for how long she stayed in that coffin, trying to put two on two together and figure out who kidnapped her or for what reason. Truth be told, she knew far too little information to come to a solid guess. In time, whether it was a few minutes or a couple of hours, Mana could single out more features of the man who kidnapped her when she peered into her memories. Some good that did to her. From what she recalled, the man was masked, and not even his eyes could have been visible. Though he wore a Konohagakure headband, that could have been a ruse to make everyone believe he was a local ninja.
Mana has only been a ninja for a day. Maybe the older ninja knew every other ninja around the village by name or by face, but Mana certainly didn't. She barely even knew the other kids from the Academy who were in the other classes. Before Mana could plummet deeper down the pipeline of theories and wild guesses, the safe-like door of the room she was in turned and opened, leading a handful of people inside.
A pair of them looked no different from the ANBU that accompanied the Third Hokage. They wore dark hoods and colorful, animal-themed masks on their faces. The man in the center couldn't have been more different from the Third Hokage, however. In his stern features, there didn't seem to be a glint of kindness or emotion.
The man in the middle was a frail-looking old man, walking around with a cane. He had black shaggy hair that stuck out from the bandaged top of his head. The bandages covered up his right eye as well, though not his left. Stretched all across his chin, there was a cross-shaped scar. He wore a white kimono underneath a dark gray robe covering his right side, like a cocoon.
"Nakotsumi Mana. My contacts told me a lot about your quirky talent. I've thought little of it in the beginning, but one of my trusted tools vouched for your ability to create ninjutsu at such a young age personally. That means a lot more to me," the man in the middle was the first one to speak up as he stared Mana straight in the eyes. Despite wanting answers more than anything, Mana couldn't help but look away and crumble from the judgmental peering that busted down all emotional and psychological barriers and felt like it peered straight into her soul, straight through the layers upon layers of metal that Mana's body was locked in.
Mana tried her best to work up the courage to snap back at the old timer's face and demand to know where she was or why she was taken from the Academy against her will, but it felt like a bottle of acid had been crushed inside her stomach with the vitriol leaking out and eroding her innards with a sizzle that was as emotionally crushing to hear as it burnt to feel.
"Quiet. That's a good sign. It shows me you can listen to what you're being told. The relationship between the tool and its wielder has only one direction, however, a master that does not tend to the tools that perform well is at risk of breaking them or rendering them blunt and useless. Right now, I believe you wish information more than anything–to know where you are and why you're here. You are still in your home village, you haven't been taken by the enemy. In a way, nothing changed for you, in another–everything has," Danzo continued to speak, taking his time and leaving Mana lingering on his every word. She was like a parched woman, dragging her dried husk through the desert with every word from Danzo's mouth, serving as a splash of water to give her just enough life to keep on dragging.
"My name is Danzo Shimura, and this is a branch of the Konohagakure's Black Ops that I have founded. You have graduated from the Academy, signing yourself to become a valuable tool for your village. That hasn't changed–my goal is to turn you into a Konohagakure asset, however, on a much grander scale than Hiruzen would have had you be. Under my direction, serving as a polished blade in my hands, you will dissect and expose the threats to our village and cut them out before they fester," Danzo showed the first glint of emotion that Mana had seen out of him–fanatic conviction and passion for his work, though it only breached through his iron façade for a second.
"Cut out? Do you mean kill, Danzo-san?" Mana spoke for the first time since Danzo met her as well, giving him something to reflect on in return.
"Naturally, if necessary," Danzo blinked slowly.
"I refuse," Mana passionately objected. "Even though it's a great honor to be recruited into the village's Black Ops before finishing a single mission, I consider life, above all things, the most sacred thing. This universe is mystical in a way that none of us can understand or control. Life is a shape of that magic. None of us have a right to decide when it should start or end. None of us have the power or the authority for it."
"Nonsense," Danzo sneered. "To kill a person is to prove your power to decide the circ*mstances of that person's life or death. I see that there's a lot of work ahead of us before we condition you to be a suitable asset for my organization. Before your training is complete, your hands too will know the feeling of being drenched in blood."
"I refuse!" Mana barked out, struggling in vain to enact any influence upon her restraints. "I don't want to be a part of your organization! I will never take another life!"
"Foolish girl," Danzo peered into Mana's eyes with a stare so frigid that it stunned Mana in place and crushed her spirit worse than the punch that knocked her out. Strength left Mana's body, and the simple sequence of drawing breath and breathing out became too difficult to remember. The restrained girl began coughing and panting for breath. It was like thousands of lives that Danzo had taken throughout his lifetime, all the victims of war and assassination targets he was directly responsible for all dropped on top of Mana, burying her in a body pile that scraped the sky just by Danzo merely looking her in the eyes. "A blade has no say about whether they will be used and how. It is for the swordsman to determine those things."
Danzo turned around, looking a tad disappointed at how this conversation turned out. He turned to the man to his right and placed his hand on the masked man's shoulder. "Find out who this girl and her family are. It's apparent that someone in her family is not a local. Hiruzen didn't want me to know about this girl and her family, and I suspect why. If you can determine where her family is from, ask around our contacts in that area. Pull some favors. We'll do a detailed background check before we begin conditioning this one."
"Yes, sir," the masked and hooded figure nodded, with Danzo and his shrouded companion on the left turning and leaving while the hooded and masked man on the right stayed in the room with Mana. When everyone else left, the hooded man approached Mana and placed his hand on her forehead, despite Mana's struggles. With his free hand, he weaved a hand seal and sent a powerful pulse that reverberated not only through Mana's already rattled brain but her mind as well.
Upon feeling the intrusive wrecking ball smashing down any barrier of privacy and decency Mana knew of, the young kunoichi realized the purpose of the metal sarcophagus she was imprisoned in. It wasn't so much that Danzo and his subordinates were worried Mana would escape their clutches. These restraints were just a muzzle to prevent Mana from hurting herself while the Black Ops violated her mind and forced every ounce of personal information out of it.
An auburn-haired man with amber eyes, dressed in a standard Konohagakure flak jacket, turned a corner, bumping into Danzo, who was just leaving the meeting with the Third Hokage and the Konohagakure elders. The bandaged ninja veteran barely even acknowledged the approach of his subordinate, but he slowed down the pace to allow Fu to shuffle into his personal Black Ops guard.
"Did you come to complain about your station in the Academy, Fu?" Danzo wondered after the Yamanaka didn't speak up. It may have been because the two were treading across the interior of the Konohagakure Administration, but by speaking up so publicly, Danzo dispelled Fu's doubts.
"Even though I feel like I have no further business working undercover in the Academy with Mizuki having gone rogue and his student successfully captured, I will follow your orders if you feel like that is not the case, Danzo-sama," Fu closed his eyes and politely shook his head. "I've come to report a matter about Team Kabuto."
"The team we arranged to accompany Mizuki on his rendezvous?" Danzo raised his left eyebrow. Even though he told Mizuki that he wouldn't interfere with his meeting with Orochimaru, Danzo not only sent his Root members to scout and report how the meeting went but pulled some strings to place a genin team that's already been under Torune's mentorship for alleged protection. There was no chance Danzo would miss potential information on Orochimaru and a glimpse at his future plans.
Despite Danzo and Orochimaru having a working relationship, Danzo would have been a fool to assume that Orochimaru was content it staying that way. Just like Orochimaru didn't count on Danzo to stick his neck out if he ever needed it.
"Yes. Orochimaru's apprentice killed a genin on that team. A young woman by the name of Shikoru Hachiwari," Fu reported.
"Do we know how that happened?" Danzo squinted. Even though he cared little about the life of a bottom-of-the-barrel ninja, as a village elder, he could hardly stomach Orochimaru's insolence at thinking he could take it as if it belonged to him.
"Orochimaru knows Torune. Torune couldn't be there. Neither Mizuki, nor either of the surviving Team Kabuto members, had the guts to stand up for themselves. I understand that Mizuki's rendezvous is a source of valuable information on Orochimaru's plans, but perhaps Mizuki was an expendable enough figure not to put loyal figures on the line," Fu explained.
"Hmph… Neither of those three knew about our activities or of the Root's existence in general. As far as they were concerned, they died on an ordinary mission," Danzo dismissed any hints of worry for the loss. "Perhaps it's for the better that Torune's genin were so spineless. We'd have lost them all if they weren't. Have Torune pick an agent to reach out to Mizuki. Someone expendable, in case they get caught. Let Mizuki know he hasn't escaped our influence and that if he wants to be kept alone, he'll feed us intel on Orochimaru's plans."
"Yes sir," Fu nodded.
"Anything else?" Danzo noted that Fu didn't turn the corner and walk away when he had the chance, risking being seen around Danzo longer than necessary. A man posing as an ordinary Academy instructor had no business being seen around Danzo and appearing as if they were taking orders from the village elder.
"It's about the girl we've captured. Nakotsumi Mana," Fu spoke up.
"Ah, did Ushida find out why Hiruzen didn't want me paying attention to her?" Danzo wondered.
"Not quite. Ushida-san said that extracting intelligence was remarkably easy. The girl's memories and thoughts are stacked like files in a cabinet. However…" Fu struggled to inform Danzo about the failure of their mutual acquaintance to fulfill Danzo's request.
"The girl doesn't know it herself," Danzo surmised without spite or disappointment. Almost like Ushida's discovery only confirmed the inevitable.
"Indeed, she doesn't, sir," Fu nodded. "You aren't surprised?"
"I expected that much, though I wasn't certain. Why would she know? She's just a little girl. If her family had some secrets Hiruzen didn't want me to know about, she would be the last person to be told about them at her age," Danzo explained his thought process. "Surely Ushida knows her background, though? Who her parents are, et cetera?"
"He does. Ushida-san was so eager to make up for his failure that he probed the girl's mind long and hard, looking for anything to put your mind at ease, Danzo-sama. The girl's father is Nakotsumi Tsukumo," Fu reported.
"The Trap Ninja?" Danzo widened the squint of his exposed eye and turned to Fu. "That's hardly something for me to care about, although her father has done some good work for the village. Makes me wonder why his daughter is such a stubborn doe."
"Her mother is Nakotsumi Kei, she's the owner of the Nakotsumi Café, a cozy coffee shop in the village," Fu reported.
"That's odd. Given the girl's complexion, I expected one of her parents to have roots in the Land of Lightning," Danzo grumbled. "I've met Nakotsumi Tsukumo. He is from Konohagakure, born and raised, and decently loyal. When he was younger, I considered him for recruitment. It'd have been a mistake. He failed to live up to his potential. Investigate the girl's mother a little. Perhaps an assignment for some of our recruits?"
"Shin and Sai?" Fu proposed.
Danzo nodded. Some steps clacked at the other side of the hallway. When they turned the corner, they could only see dancing leaves twirling around the strutting village elder and his companions, as Fu flickered away in an instant the moment his report was finished and there was a threat of him being made.
The door to Mana's prison opened with the man who's been probing her mind entering and immediately stepping off to the side to let Danzo walk in, accompanied by a handful of hooded Black Ops members with colorful masks. Mana decided not to humor the bandaged veteran with pleads to be released or empty proclamations that she'll never work in Black Ops.
Instead of engaging with her, Danzo approached the thick metallic sarcophagus Mana was restrained in and pressed the sealing area on its center, pouring some chakra into it and undoing the seal. The action made the sarcophagus unravel like a bundle of rags, dropping Mana to her knees. One of the masked Black Ops members approached Mana and kneeled, extending a folded uniform comprising a short black-and-gray jacket with red straps and a high-collared midriff shirt.
"What is this?" Mana asked. Even though she knew the obvious answer, she was more interested in what this uniform signified rather than what it was.
"The beginning of your service. Before you may begin your training, you will have to undergo a trial, alongside a partner. She'll be your peer. This girl just joined our ranks recently, so it will be easier to start," Danzo turned, letting a rather tall girl around Mana's age with long, eggplant-colored hair and black eyes step up.
"I won't do it!" Mana refused with gusto. "I don't care what your training entails, or how useful it is. It couldn't matter less how honored ninja should feel to be recruited into your organization. I know that the end goal is me taking lives, and that's something I will not accept."
"That is okay, you are free to refu…" One of the masked men was about to scold Mana by emphasizing something they thought was important. Before they could do so, however, Danzo's cane turned into a blur and cracked into Mana's jaw, knocking the girl face-down on the floor with a shattered jaw.
"The Root has no use for toothless recruits. If you refuse to participate in the training, you'll only make it easy for your companion to pass it. I will not have the Root training loosened by some softhearted, stubborn kid," Danzo hissed, pressing his cane to the ground. There was a bit of a wet thud when the cane's end touched the floor, for it disturbed a thickening blood trail. "Your father used to be a loyal ninja of this village. He worked undercover, a lot like I want you to do. Even if it endangered his life, he did dirty and dangerous work and he wasn't afraid to stain his hands if need be. If he saw you acting like a brat, he'd kill you himself, expressing his profound disappointment in your weakness."
"No!" Mana snapped back, the masked ninja jumped up in place, expecting the girl to lash out and attack Danzo. However, Mana only stomped her foot and pressed her arms to her sides, choosing to argue despite her busted nose and messed up jaw that made her froth blood when speaking. "You never knew… My father at all! I know… He'd be proud of…"
Before Mana could finish, Danzo swung his cane in the blink of an eye again, knocking her down once more. This time, however, he wound the cane back over his head. Wisps of green energy began twinkling as emerald energy tendrils wrapped around it like vines, turning it into a thick battering club. Danzo's cane, imbued with Earth Release chakra, pounded down like a hammer. At first, it swung anywhere it could hit, then the veteran Black Ops ringleader began swinging to maim.
Nobody in the room, not even the violet-haired girl who was to be Mana's training partner, winced or shivered at the sound of churning limbs and shattered ribs, at the wet splashes of blood covering Danzo and the cloaks of his companions who simply stood there and observed their leader meting out punishment. Rarely he did so with his own two hands. Then again, rarely did a recruit defy him to the extent that this girl did.
Danzo only stopped beating when he had to take a breather and pant his old age away. He closed his eyes and turned to the violet-haired girl with a blank expression. "There is something you can still learn from this failure. Despite me breaking her arms and legs and beating her to an inch of her life, Mana didn't scream once. That is remarkable tolerance for a recruit. Fear for pain is difficult to smear out at this age," Danzo spoke to the recruit with a kimono stained in red and splashes of blood coating all the way up his face.
"Shall I get a new training partner then?" the girl asked.
"Do not worry," Danzo stroked the girl's head. "This one will get around yet. Now, why don't you start training hard to get ahead while this one's acting capricious?"
"Yes, sir!" the girl exclaimed and dashed out of the room. After seeing her off with squinted eyes, Danzo attempted to get blood off his face with some backhanded strokes. After realizing the fruitlessness of the notion, Danzo turned to leave the interrogation chamber to find himself a place where he could wipe all of this away.
"Danzo-sama!" Ushida spoke up. "Shall we heal this girl or get rid of the body?"
"Stabilize her, but don't heal her. Throw her into a solitary cell. Heal her at this time tomorrow. If this doesn't do away with her persistence, we'll have to roll our sleeves back and discipline this recruit for real," Danzo dragged his hands across his soaked with red droplets hair, combing it back as he leaned his head off to the right to glare with a death-inducing stare at his subordinate.
"Y-Yes, sir!" Ushida exclaimed, concealing his shaking hands by wrapping them together behind his back. After Danzo and his bodyguards left, the hardened Black Ops interrogator who was fairly used to torturing prisoners and taking it as far as it went shivered when looking at the bloody pulp lying lifeless by his feet.
"Lord Third, a man is waiting to see you," a bland-looking chuunin working in the village administration slipped his face in through the door, checking if he wasn't interrupting something important. He found the Third Hokage staring longingly into his crystal ball. Upon being distracted, the old man looked up and lamented what he had lost in the reflection for a lone blink before smiling and politely nodding at the man. "You may come in, sir," the ninja from the village administration said to the man waiting outside.
A man with shoulder-length violet hair, amber-colored eyes, and glasses stepped into the Third Hokage's office, surprising the elderly overseer of the Leaf village with his presence. The two men hadn't seen each other in some time and, the Third suspected, that the fact that this man had come to him without being summoned to serve, had something to do with an unpleasant way in which these two men had soiled their relationship in the past. Based on the somber look in Lord Third's eyes, he carried a lot of blame for the falling out these two men had in the past.
"Tsukumo-san?" Lord Third muttered in surprise, dropping the pipe he held clasped in his mouth tightly and spilling the tobacco and ash all over the floor as the pipe rolled around.
"Lord Third," the bespectacled man kneeled. The gesture had everything to do with the fact that the man was a ninja facing his ultimate superior. However, despite the falling out that had occurred in the past between the two men, there was still an amicable glint of respect rustling in Nakotsumi Tsukumo's eyes. "Your crystal ball didn't warn you of my arrival, I gather?" the man jested.
"Foresight is a curious thing. It only warns you of the things you are looking for," the Third Hokage dismissed his assistant, who rushed to pick up the fallen pipe and clean up the floor, leaning under his table to do his own dirty work.
"Then I am unwelcome?" Tsukumo wondered with a subtle flash of discomfort.
"By no means," the Third Hokage shook his head. "It's just that you've never come here seeking help as a villager. You've only come here to do your duty as a Konohagakure ninja, and you never stayed a blink longer than you had to. I know well that there are reasons for that cold shoulder approach, however… That is only why I didn't expect to see you today."
"I see, well… The matter I wished to discuss has something to do with the conditions upon which we've last spoken as a villager and Hokage," Tsukumo said, glaring back at Lord Third with a strangely bitter look in his eyes. "At the risk of offending you by presuming ludicrous things based on your age, I will remind you that the last we spoke of matters that weren't related to my work was about you promising the safety of my family."
"The enemies of the Nakotsumi family are the enemies of not only the Third Hokage, but the God of Shinobi," Hiruzen recounted his words to the letter. "Did something happen? Is this about the incident at the Academy?"
"I didn't doubt for a second that you hadn't forgotten your promise, Lord Third. It's just that I intend to request sensitive information you may not be willing to surrender to a civilian, which is why I wanted to let you know that this request and your promise are related," Tsukumo nodded, letting his hair slip all over his face and prompt the man to brush it out of the way.
"Information?" Lord Third's eyes squinted with focus.
"Just about the jonin you placed in charge of my daughter's team. It's not something that's exactly public knowledge, but information such as this will not jeopardize the village's security in of itself," Tsukumo looked up, softening his glare and kicking Hiruzen Sarutobi all the way into a tumble back in time to the time he saw those same eyes glaring at him this exact way. The eyes of a pleading, a desperate man with so much promise and inner strength, but one who needed protection and help to get out of a hopeless situation his life's choices led him to.
"Mana-chan showed remarkable skill in genjutsu. I planned to put her under the care of Yuhi Kurenai, the village's most talented genjutsu user whose skill in the field surpasses even my own," Hiruzen replied without dallying. "However, Tsukumo-san… I'm worried that you are aiming your driven mind toward the wrong end. Please, tell me what's bothering you and I shall do what I can to help you, as I would any other villager in need."
Tsukumo nodded and approached Lord Third's table, sitting down where the Third Hokage gestured. "It's Mana, Lord Third. She's graduated from the Academy after having such a tough time adjusting. Quite frankly, she's amazed both Kei and me. However, she hasn't been back in a few days. I know it's not unusual for jonin to take their students for survival training to test their skills properly and teach the most invaluable skills they deem necessary for the missions ahead, but…"
"A few days? That is concerning…" The Third Hokage weaved his fingers with a restless expression.
"That isn't even the half of it, Lord Third. I've spoken to the instructors in the Academy, coming to them for information first, even though I thought little of my chances of getting it. While they didn't tell me about the roster of her team, they let me talk to the graduation committee. Only one of them can remember a student by the name of Mana, none of them can recount much about her performance during the graduation exam," Tsukumo explained. Hiruzen's face grew gloomy and bitter, the man allowed the shadows cast by his wide, triangular hat to draw their tendrils across his front side.
"I've met Kurenai yesterday," Hiruzen said. "She was worked up about the situation as well. She had to test her students, but she was forced to fail them and send them back to the Academy because of Mana's absence. It's something that didn't sit well with her, but it could not have been helped. I've assigned her a new team today."
"What!?" Tsukumo barked out. "You knew Mana was missing all this time?"
"It's…" The Third Hokage squirmed in his chair and turned off to the side, lighting up his pipe once the assistant cleaned it, stuffed it with tobacco, and handed it back to the village overseer. "Please understand, Tsukumo-san. I had to consider Mana's condition. I thought that she simply slacked off. She is an excitable kid who belongs more on stage than on the field."
"I can't believe it…" Tsukumo crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair as he grew pale before jumping off and storming toward the door. "I can't believe I've ever counted on you to keep my family safe!" Tsukumo barked out before slamming the door.
"Mind your manners, shinobi!" the assistant yelled at a man who's long since stormed out of the office with Lord Third raising his right hand to tell his trusty assistant to stand down.
"Tsukumo-san is right, I'm afraid," Lord Third puffed on his pipe while turning around to gleam at the Hokage Monument behind him, visible through the window from a certain angle. "My hesitation to confront that man has rendered me toothless and blind, I'm afraid. Can you truly blame an old dog of war for wanting the future generations to never experience it?"
"So you know where this girl is?" the assistant turned to Lord Third, jolted.
"I do not, but I suspect. And the suspect has me rendered senile and passive," the Third admitted. "Though, perhaps… For too long. Perhaps it is time that someone draws the lines. At some point, the peaceful men need to understand that the blood let to appease dogs barking of war isn't worth it."
To the amazement of the Hokage's assistant, Lord Third reached out over his crystal ball to gaze into that which Hiruzen Sarutobi wanted to see the most at that moment. Even though this knowledge and the prompt to act may have led the village on the path leading to civil war.
"Is the girl ready?" Danzo asked Ushida while strutting across an endless, dimly lit hallway on his way to the holding room where Mana was thrown to suffer in her agony and wounds.
"Danzo-sama, I've probed her mind after she was healed to see if there was no residual brain damage after yesterday's… Disciplining," Ushida lingered for a second before delivering the final word, scolded by Danzo's judgmental glance that turned away once Ushida uttered the word Danzo was content with. "Perhaps torture isn't an effective approach?"
"Nonsense," Danzo scoffed at the idea. "Over the years, I've recruited several dozens of children into Root and reached out to hundreds. If there's one thing I've learned is that children submit to pain, for it's their insurmountable weakness. The childish fear of pain, discipline, and sacrifice, needs to be beaten out of them and instilled by stern men like me. There isn't a single child that's not afraid of pain. The key is in the amount, and I am not a scrupulous man, I do not play around. While this capricious goat is making fools of us, her partner's training is being held back. That will not stand."
"Danzo-sama… Mana is… Yesterday, I described her memories as being neatly placed into compartments, like a cabinet full of files," Ushida said hesitantly and with restraint, ready to drop the topic and leave Mana to her misery if the alternative meant sticking his neck out any more than he was willing to.
"That's right," Danzo nodded.
"Well, I've come to learn the reason for this–Mana is skilled in meditation. Her memories are orderly because she's made them so. In the same way, while you were… Disciplining her yesterday… She was absent, she withdrew into the deepest corners of her mind. That is why she did not break even once," Ushida explained.
"If we put her into the Iron Maiden, with you amplifying her pain, will she be able to remain concealed from the torment?" Danzo wondered.
"It would take a better man than I to pull this off," Ushida admitted. "People think that a certain amount of pain can kill with shock, but that simply isn't true. If I can stimulate the mind to coordinate the body to prevent circulatory shock, I can amplify pain billions of times. If you imagine meditation as hiding in a cabin, the pain I can bring about is like a tidal wave. It will wash her consciousness right out and bury her under, if that's what you deem necessary, Danzo-sama."
"Do you take me for a cruel man, Ushida-san?" Danzo raised the eyebrow of his unbandaged eye. "For torturing a little girl like I would a treacherous prisoner with the information I deem invaluable?"
"It was not my intention to imply it, sir…" Ushida denied such a notion, keeping his true feelings hidden, just like Danzo's training taught him to.
"Truth be told, this girl is like a prisoner of war or a terrorist. She is someone with a spectacular set of skills, unseen throughout history. She is someone who owes her village a debt as great as her skill, yet denies it. As someone who sees it as his sworn duty to protect this great village and see it thrive, I take it upon myself to be as cruel as need be to ensure its prosperity and security. I have no regrets in being seen as the villain, as long as there are people alive to think so of me from the comfort of their own home, safe and perfectly sound," Danzo stated his case before the party of Root members walked into the room.
Before Mana fully stood up, the cloaked Root member extended his hand, lighting up a sealing glyph at the palm of his hand and prompting the chains in the holding cell to wrap around Mana's wrists and heels and hold her suspended and chained up in the air.
"Are you finally willing to take the lives of the enemies of this village now, Mana?" Danzo asked after approaching Mana within a distance from which the two could trade glares while missing no details from the reflections of each other's faces.
"Never. Do your worst, Danzo-san!" Mana figuratively spat her words into Danzo's stern and unmoved face.
"Be careful what you wish for…" Danzo sighed and turned around. His men knew what they were meant to do. Ushida approached Mana and stuck a sealing tag on her chest. From underneath the sealing tag, sprung rubbery bands that wrapped around Mana and contained her into a rubbery bundle that a large man could pick up and vault over his shoulder.
After the Root members carried Mana to the interrogation chamber and dumped the rubbery cocoon on the floor, one of them leaned down and pressed the sealing glyph stuck to its center, pouring some chakra into it. Upon being triggered, the seal unraveled, releasing Mana from the elastic rubbery binds by shrinking them down and dragging them back into the seal.
Coughing and panting for breaths, Mana crawled back away from Danzo and his men before turning around and seeing the same girl from before standing behind her. The Root members were blocking off the exit in an impassable line of elite ninja working underground where, Mana surmised, not even the Third Hokage knew what they were doing. Nor could the old man reel them back in if need be. Meanwhile, this cold-faced youngling was the only other person in the room.
"You seem possessed with saving lives, Mana," Danzo said. "This recruit–codenamed Nagi, needs her training partner to proceed with the training regiment. By denying her that partner, you are stunting her growth. If I send her out on a mission unprepared, unhardened, and green, she'll surely die. I want you to look this girl in the eye and tell her she is expendable to you. That you're willing to let her die to preserve some kind of vague principle that's entirely incompatible with the way of life you've chosen. Admit to Nagi that you're a traitor."
Words became stuck in Mana's mouth. The young kunoichi wrapped her arm around her mouth, muzzling herself as she wept and shivered. Whereas Ushida and the other Root members looked amazed by the effect that Danzo's manipulations had on this ridiculously stubborn girl, Danzo looked thoroughly unimpressed. To him, there could not have been any other outcome. Mana screamed out, tensing her whole body, and slammed her forehead down into the floor, splitting her head open.
"You see, Ushida? Sometimes, you don't need a fancier, more painful torture method. Sometimes you just need to know the right nerve and the way to pinch it," Danzo squinted with his sole exposed eye. "Now, Mana. Will you become part of this organization? Will you submit to my training regiment and do the dirty deeds that are necessary to keep this village safe? Are you willing to take lives to save ten times that many? Are you willing to remain unknown by history, or even worse–be vilified, despite being a hero?"
"I…" Mana pulled her bleeding forehead off the floor, releasing twin trickles of red across her face, dripping all over the old clothes that she resisted changing out of and staining them in blood. She turned her head away and brushed her hand across her elbow, shaking and barely holding herself together. Exhaustion burned every tendon that made themselves known to Mana. The phantom of agonizing torture still resonated in bones that couldn't understand why they were working despite being powder just yesterday. Mana's mind was in complete shambles. If she could have chosen, she'd have fallen and asked to be left lying there like a wounded soldier. She knew too well that wasn't an option–she was Danzo's precious asset now. "I…" Mana breathed in again, not knowing if she had it in her to save the first life as a ninja this way.
A crystalline blur whizzed past Danzo's ear, stunning the underworld overseer, for no one could have surprised him in his domain. The shadows, the underground of the village, the roots of the magnificent tree, those were all his to pull his strings as he saw fit.
"Lightning Illusion: Flash Pillar!" a stern voice froze the Root members solid in their place as the crystal ball that whizzed past Danzo stopped in place, centering itself in the middle of the interrogation room and released a wicked lightning storm from within its core. Instead of shocking those the lightning passed through, it merely blanked out their sight with white light and filled their ears with screeching, forcing even the stoutest of men into a cowardly stagger.
Hardened killers fell on their knees or pressed against the tight walls of the doorway for support, panting in overwhelming anxiety as images of bloody murder, a man in a white robe and the Hokage's hat dispatching them in a hundred different ways as they crumbled underneath the pressure of the God of Shinobi and his countless jutsu reduced the Root agents to whimpering mess as Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage stepped into the interrogation room through the space between the confused and horrified ninja.
"Y-You…!" Danzo stammered, somehow managing to remain on both feet, despite walking with a cane under normal circ*mstances. "You made your way here, Hiruzen!?"
"Why wouldn't I, Danzo? This is my village to protect. Both the heavens, the ground, and the underground where all the rats scurry off to," Lord Third proclaimed as he approached Mana and leaned to pick her off the ground. With tearful eyes and a confused look, Mana looked up at the Third Hokage, who gently helped her up and, once he had secured her, turned to the treacherous Root and their ringleader.
Unlike how the Third looked normally, this time, his white ceremonial robe was open and fluttering in reaction to his every movement. Underneath was a black jumpsuit with mesh segments over the lower portion of his limbs, and a green gauntlet that covered most of Hiruzen's lower arm. Despite coming here ready for combat, Lord Third didn't ditch his Hokage hat for a more suitable combat headgear.
"For all those years… You stayed clear of this place, you left me alone to govern the underground matters while you posed yourself as a hero. You've stayed out of my way and I stayed out of yours… There was peace!" Danzo hissed, for the first time Mana's seen the man showing some genuine emotion. Some twisted co*cktail of spite and disbelief.
"That's right. I have every right to do so, Danzo. After all–you went against my specific orders to disband the Root!" Hiruzen bit back, pulling Mana behind him where Lord Third thought she'd be safe. "What you're doing here is criminal, all the agents working under you are traitors and the enemies of the village. And you, Danzo, you're the ringleader. In case your men haven't heard the news yet–the Root is disbanded! Anyone wearing the Root gear or acting as an agent of this terrorist organization will be labeled a rogue ninja and dealt with accordingly!"
After receiving this warning, the men in the interrogation room flickered away without a trace of them ever having been there. Mana wiped away her tears and observed in awe as just the mere presence of the Third Hokage made all these murderous, powerful men clear out and even held Danzo utterly stupefied. With a softer glare, Lord Third turned to the girl behind him. Realizing she was seen, the girl ran off and left the room with Danzo gnashing his teeth and seething in absolute hatred of his rival.
"Have you gone senile, Hiruzen!?" Danzo cursed the village leader with deep-seated vitriol. "Do you have any idea what damage a civil war will do to this village? ANBU against Root? Our enemies will watch Konoha drown in blood and bodies, villagers will flee in panic to whichever place takes them in with false promises of peace and security. Your actions here undermine what your predecessors have built. Centuries of the Leaf's legacy!"
"It's not my coming here that dishonors my title as the Third Hokage. It is my hesitation to deal with you in all those years. Despite suspecting that you are still committed to one of my greatest mistakes as Hokage, I refused to admit the truth and confront you, deluding myself that peace between us is more valuable and that my ignorance is a lesser evil than our conflict. However, you made a grave mistake by coming after Konoha's children, Danzo!" Hiruzen scolded his shadowy counterpart.
"A mistake? I'm merely continuing what we both agreed upon before your once stern and determined heart, now softened by years of peace and clenched by old age, led to you making the real mistake of disbanding the Root," Danzo objected, openly challenging the Third Hokage and standing his ground.
"This village has been founded upon the base principle of the Will of Fire, Danzo! Love is the key to peace, or have you lurked in this shady abyss for so long that you've forgotten it? It is this Will of Fire that keeps our ninja strong. Each of us identifies a King that we fight to protect. Tell me, Danzo, what exactly are you trying to protect here?" Hiruzen scolded the bandaged veteran, losing his temper for the first time since coming down here, straight into Danzo's shadowy lair.
"My purpose, my principles, have remained consistent and strong, Hiruzen," Danzo replied after a single heartbeat of consideration. "I've always acted for the sake of the village. The Root carries out missions that benefit all of Konoha. The Root are the nutrients that sacrifice themselves to keep the tree alive and strong. The Root is that which supports the majestic tree of Konoha from the unseen depths of the soil, doing the dirty deeds that those basking in sunlight cannot bring themselves to do."
"You've operated this terrorist organization without my knowledge or my permission, entirely autonomously of my authority. You've gone mad with power. After losing out the title of Hokage, you've sheltered yourself in the shadows and pretended to be the ruler of your little dark corner. It saddens me to see a once great man who fought alongside me to protect this village reduced to this," Hiruzen lamented Danzo's state.
"So you would stand in my way for something as insignificant as this one little girl?" Danzo glared into Hiruzen's eyes, casting his challenge for Hiruzen to declare war and showing the Third that neither Danzo nor the Root would budge, despite his foot stomping down and opposing them.
"For the sake of the King, which is the life of every Konoha villager, there is no enemy I am afraid to face. I am the God of Shinobi, Danzo, a title you seem to have forgotten the meaning of, despite still carrying the wounds of the last time you were reminded of it," Lord Third proclaimed, swiping his hand off to the side and adopting a Strong Fist fighting stance.
"So be it," Danzo closed his eyes and tapped his cane against the cold and mossy stone floor. "Take this girl and leave then, Hiruzen. But remember that not even the Hokage represents the best interest of the village and not even Hokage is immune to becoming the enemy of this village if his actions undermine its safety."
"The only person bringing this village closer to war and sabotaging its safety is you, Danzo. Lord First found this village to protect the children from the horror of perpetual war against the entire world. To provide them with a sanctuary where they could be safe and enjoy their childhoods. Next time you intend to scheme behind my back, I implore you to look back at your actions and question if they serve the same goal," Hiruzen muttered the last piece of advice before taking Mana's hand and gently guiding her out of the interrogation room. Seeing the unwavering eyes of the Third Hokage as he approached closer, Danzo turned to let Lord Third and the girl he rescued from the Root's clutches walk out.
After the Third Hokage took Mana away, it took almost twenty minutes for the first cloaked figure to flicker next to Danzo and kneel, asking for Danzo's orders.
"Our situation has just changed. We'll need to burrow even further underground. The Root is now compromised. Only our foreign agents may operate freely until my further order. My last order is to contact the agents we've sent to contact Mizuki," Danzo said, still shaken by this encounter.
"Shall they withdraw?" Torune asked.
"No. Have them contact Orochimaru directly, instead. They are to tell him that, whatever he is planning, he has the Root's full support," Danzo's ruthless glare stared off at a blank point sunken in shadows where not even the artificial light could illuminate.
Mana pressed her forehead against the door to the Third Hokage's office. Ever since she came back home, her parents insisted that Mana didn't have to go anywhere and that she had nothing to prove. Mana wasn't completely oblivious, she saw that it hurt her mother to see Mana leaving again and that she'd have much rather seen her little girl stick to her magic shows.
That would have only worked for a couple of days. While both Mana's parents were working and would have preferred that their 12-year-old daughter wasn't, Mana wanted to do her own thing. She wanted to discover her own path and ever since she was old enough to play in the sandbox with the other kids that lived near her, Mana knew she wanted to be a ninja.
If anything, Mana's drive to become one and prove to herself and to whatever seedling of himself Danzo had implanted into Mana's heart that she could become a splendid ninja without killing anyone, merely by protecting the people who couldn't protect themselves and serving as a force for good. Whenever Mana had bad dreams about her time as Danzo's captive, it always ended the same way. With the sight of the Third Hokage, a great hero, standing up for her and making Danzo and his underground organization scatter with his mere presence alone.
Mana wanted to be a great ninja like that one day. To make all the violent and wicked people fear her and flee her on sight, defeating them without having to throw a single punch. After affirming that to herself, Mana breathed out and opened the door, answering the call from inside that invited her in.
Inside the Third Hokage's office, there was already a pair of ninja with Konohagakure headbands, wearing matching high-collared, sleeveless purple shirts with a short-sleeved white shirt underneath and wrapped in obi around their waists. One of the ninja had round shades and a purple facial veil and a bandana concealing their hair. The other also wore a bandana and a facial veil, but his glasses were ordinary. The two ninja turned to acknowledge Mana's presence upon her entry, making Mana hesitate and wonder if she wasn't intruding on anything.
"Please, come in, Mana-chan," Hiruzen kindly smiled and invited Mana in. A tad anxious, the girl stepped into the middle of the room as the two ninja moved aside and let her take center stage before the esteemed ninja village administrator. "This is Nakotsumi Mana. The young kunoichi I told you about."
"I see. Perhaps we will make you reconsider your outfit yet? Might I suggest a purple shirt over a white one?" the ninja in shades said. Mana smiled in discomfort. While it occurred to her that the tall ninja was kidding and referencing the fact that the two of them wore matching uniforms, whereas Mana wore a uniform of her own, looking more like an orchestra conductor than a kunoichi, because of the facial veil hiding his cheeks and lips and the shades concealing the man's eyes, it was impossible to perceive when this one was smiling or frowning.
"These two are members of Team Yoroi, Mana-chan. Team Yoroi is an experienced team of genin looking to participate in the Chuunin Exams next week, however, their teammate died on a mission recently. Only teams of three are permitted in the Chuunin Exams, leaving Team Yoroi in a tough spot. One as difficult as your own, wouldn't you agree?" the Third Hokage pointed out.
"What is Mana's mission record?" the ninja with clear glasses wondered.
"Mana-chan hasn't been on an official mission yet. She was… Sidelined… Immediately after being assigned to a team. Her previous team has been disassembled," the Third Hokage explained.
"She's got no experience!?" the bespectacled ninja exclaimed in disbelief that the Third Hokage would pull something like this. "We don't intend merely to participate in the exams formally, we want to be promoted, Lord Third!"
"No, this is fine," the veiled ninja in shades shook his head, easing his teammate's concerns. "If we can be assigned a bunch of low-ranking missions in a row, Mana can earn some experience and earn the minimum mission record required to sign up for the exams alongside us. Meanwhile, we'll have some time to recover and ample free time… To train… On our own…"
The way in which this man spoke, leaving something dangling ambiguously, something that was clearly meant for his teammate and something that only the two of them could understand, rubbed Mana the odd way. The girl switched her attention between the two, trying to determine what it was they were communicating without speaking up about it. She caught the moment when the man with clear glasses jumped up with vitality, realizing what his teammate was implying.
"Oh, that's true, maybe that is for the best!" the man with clear glasses spoke up, suddenly becoming an advocate of Mana joining Team Yoroi. At least temporarily. "Besides, we'll get to know each other better during these low-stakes missions, isn't that right, Mana-chan?"
"I guess. It will be an honor to work with experienced ninja. I look forward to learning lots from watching you, senpai," Mana bowed formally at the bespectacled ninja who looked like a fully grown man almost twice Mana's size.
"Excellent, in that case, it is a done deal. I will sign you guys up for an extra share of D-Ranked missions and, if they go well, I will vouch for this team's skill to permit you to sign up for the Chuunin Exams personally," the Third Hokage nodded enthusiastically, puffing on his pipe with a smile.
"Please allow me to do the work, senpai!" Mana bowed her head before Yoroi and Tsurugi, her new teammates, as the three of them were assigned to wash the dishes at Yakiniku-Q for a measly 14 000 ryo and a D-Rank mission on each of their records. "I am the understudy here in need of some invaluable experience!"
"Nonsense," Yoroi shook his head, putting on an apron and stepping up to the sink as he turned the crank and picked up a sponge to begin the grueling work. "You won't acquire the meaningful experience of the ninja world by washing dishes. D-Rank or not, this mission is supposed to be a team effort."
Tsurugi slipped an apron on and began washing the dishes in silence as well, just after his teammate did so. Mana's gaze bounced from one teammate to the other, wondering if that was the team dynamic here, with Yoroi leading the team and serving as its voice of reason, with Tsurugi serving as backup. Unwillingly, the young kunoichi wondered what role their deceased teammate served on the team, but decided against speaking up about it. Based on what the Third said, it couldn't have happened long ago enough to speak comfortably about it.
"So, Mana-chan, could you tell us more about yourself? Your aspirations and maybe a bit about your strengths and weaknesses? It's the type of thing a jounin would have scouted out during your first survival training test, but you won't be getting that, I suppose," Yoroi wondered.
"A splendid idea to pass the time," Tsurugi nodded in agreement. "Let's get to know each other a little better."
"I…" Mana was about to exclaim her nindo boldly. Her way of life, which she couldn't have felt more certain of just forty minutes ago. Images of Danzo's stern face and pulsating red, flickering stars, and the taste of blood in her mouth made Mana stiffen up.
"Perhaps we should begin?" Yoroi turned to Tsurugi. "My name is Yoroi Akado. My wish is to become an apprentice to one of the Legendary Sannin and, one day, become famed for my own skill as well. My strengths are taijutsu and chakra control and my weaknesses are mid and long-range combat. I love fishing and my favorite food is unagi. I hate we… Well, you get it now, don't you, Mana-chan?"
"Say, Yoroi-senpai… I noticed your team is called after you. Also, your cell isn't supervised by a jounin mentor. How come is that?" Mana asked.
"That's because our jounin instructor died during a mission handling rogue ninja near Otogakure. The only reason our squad survived so much loss is because of Yoroi and his ingenuity. He's an incredible leader who's always able to make the tough decisions. That's why I wish nothing more than for Yoroi to earn his promotion to chuunin and live up to his potential to lead," Tsurugi explained.
"Tsurugi…" Yoroi turned to his teammate with an entirely different tone. There was none of that artificial honey-like sweetness he spoke with earlier, but he wasn't growling or thundering either. At that moment, he truly felt some connection with his long-time teammate. "Well, it's only because I've grown to care about the people in my team, my true comrades, that I can make these tough calls and surprise myself with how… Hmmm… What's the right word I wonder…?"
"Ironclad," Tsurugi suggested.
"Ironclad," Yoroi nodded. "How ironclad I can be."
"Like armor…" Mana smiled.
"Yes, like armor," Yoroi looked down with his eyebrows tilted and arced over the dark shades he didn't remove even indoors. Mana realized that Yoroi was smiling underneath that veil. That must have been what those shades, and that veil, were for–to conceal the fact that Yoroi was human with emotions and aspirations too.
"My name is Nakotsumi Mana. My dream is to become a strong kunoichi who can protect those who cannot protect themselves with her sheer presence alone. More importantly, I wish to do so without taking a single life. On my shoulders, I'll carry a world in which people's lives are treasured and where no one is treated as unnecessary. My strengths are ninjutsu, genjutsu, and chakra control. My weakness is close-range combat. Did I do it right?"
Yoroi and Tsurugi shared glares. Because she was focused on a particularly tough-to-scrub spot of barbecue on her plate, Mana couldn't determine what those glares were about. By the time she caught her teammates staring at each other, they dropped it.
"Welcome to Team Yoroi, Mana-chan," Tsurugi welcomed Mana formally.
"The Academy again…" Mana sighed, scanning the giant dumpling of a building that, from the ground floor, looked more like a bustling eastern restaurant than a part of the village administration and an educational facility.
"For some reason, Lord Third insisted that we sign up ourselves, despite vouching for our team. We're looking for the third floor," Yoroi said while stopping to measure the crowd of ninja swarming the place to sign up for the Chuunin Exams. Something must have caught Yoroi's eye, for he spent some time staring at the crowd, but when Mana leaned to check on her teammate, he dropped it and glared back at her, almost looking like Mana was the odd one for staring at him.
"Look at those chumps," Tsurugi cringed, pointing at a handful of ninja performing warm-up exercises, squats, push-ups, and pull-ups in the yard. "Leave the training ground for the kids, you losers!" he exclaimed in mockery of the anxious ninja.
"That's unnecessarily mean, Tsurugi-senpai," Mana observed. "They must just be anxious to enter. Just looking to be at their best when they take up the greatest challenge they've ever tackled."
"This is some nonsense," Yoroi dismissed Mana's worry. "They're exerting themselves and wasting time training when there's no chance that those few extra squats will compensate for their lack of experience. No one's a few squats short of perfect. You can't lick the plate to be sated if you're not full after finishing your meal."
Mana clenched her shaking hand into a tight fist and pressed it to her chest, just to hide away her own anxieties. Her own teammates scoffed at those ninja and dismissed them as some kind of trash. From where Mana was standing, she didn't think herself much better after merely having completed a few missions that would have passed as chores more than military assignments. She felt more prepared to take maid exams than rank up as a ninja.
There was a crowd gathered on what appeared to be the third floor. Men and women of all shapes and sizes, different backgrounds, and wildly different appearances filled the corridor from which deafening cracks and thuds resonated. Yoroi and Tsurugi began nudging and moving people aside to get to walk ahead, making their way through the crowd, confusing Mana.
"What are you two doing? Didn't you say we needed the third floor?" Mana pressed her hands to her hips.
"Yes, this is the third floor, can't you see?" Yoroi pulled out onto the staircase and pointed at wooden boards that numbered the different offices. All of them clearly spelled out three-digit numbers beginning with "3", representing the third floor.
"It's an illusion, you guys. A neat one, they even mess with your brains to make you mix up how many floors you've ascended by having you skip one in your head," Mana weaved her hand in a one-handed seal that made the room around the crowd ripple like a dissolving mirage, making the crowd of wanna-be chuunin look around. When the true appearance of the room became clear, the three-digit numbers labeling the officers switched to starting with "2", representing the second floor.
"Amazing!" Yoroi gasped, exclaiming with so much gusto that he made his veil move. "I guess you weren't kidding when you said you were good at illusions. Still… To see through one almost instantly…"
"Come on, guys, we've got a chance to get ahead of the crowd and miss all the line-ups!" Mana waved from the top of the staircase while the cranky genin began swimming through the mass of frustrated bodies in an attempt to catch up to the quirky and flamboyant girl who was the first in line for the sign-ups now.
"Hmm…" Yoroi grumbled while struggling against the tide of the crowd himself. It occurred to Mana that he wasn't making as much of an effort as he could. Almost like didn't want to rush ahead and emphasize this opportunity to be done with the sign-ups quicker.
"Don't fuss about it, Yoroi," Tsurugi nudged his teammate's side, after pushing a few guys aside to get close to him. "We can check on THAT guy during the actual exams. There's no reason to spend more time than we have to stand in lines when our new teammate scored us a chance to be done with this quickly."
"Hmm…" Yoroi grumbled again, though this time with a much kinder tone. The shades-wearing shinobi began putting more effort into his scrambling, swimming his way to the front of the line and catching up to Mana without too much effort. Tsurugi was quick to follow.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting. My name's Morino Ibiki. I'm the proctor and chief examiner for the first part of the exam. Said a tall and imposing man with a rugged head and a face covered with old wounds and scars. The man wore a black bandana and a militaristic-style uniform with a dark trench coat and stood in front of an entire division of higher-ranking ninja.
"You, the kids from Otogakure, you can't carry on any way you please when the exam's about to start! Or do you wish to have come all this way to Konoha just to get disqualified?" Ibiki gestured at the three creepy-looking troublemakers from Otogakure who got psyched out by Naruto's bold and loudmouthed remarks and started acting up.
"Sorry, sir, it's our first exam, and we got a little carried away," a bandaged Otogakure genin with a metal arm he used to injure a contestant and induce vomiting despite missing a punch retreated and joined the group of genin ready to maul Naruto for running his mouth.
"Is that so?" Ibiki squinted. "Then it's high time someone laid down a few ground rules for you guys. From this point forward, there will be no more fighting without the express permission of the examining officer. And even in the event that such a permission was to be granted, anything that endangers another applicant's life is strictly forbidden."
"Oh, it seems like Mana-chan won't be at a tremendous disadvantage in this exam," Tsurugi closed his eyes with a smile and turned to Mana, who previously expressed her deal-breaker of taking lives to her team.
"Any of you little piglets who break our ground rules will immediately get kicked out, am I clear?" Ibiki scanned the room of wanna-be killers with a glare that froze all of their hearts and made them space out and look away.
"So this is a test for little girly men?" a wild-haired genin from Otogakure beamed a mimic that he intended to be both threatening and mocking, prompting Naruto to gulp in unease. The difference between Naruto's passionate glare and the look in this youth's eyes was self-evident. There could have been no doubt that the Otogakure genin had taken plenty of lives before and, for whatever reason, loved doing so. Mana gnashed her teeth and tsked her tongue.
"If Naruto-kun is a little girly man, what does that make you for standing behind your team and jumping him three-on-one?" Mana barked back, making Yoroi and Tsurugi look at the angry little whelp yapping between them. With a baffled expression, Naruto turned back, noticing a familiar face speaking up for him when most people around only brushed him off or insulted him.
"Simmer down!" Ibiki cooled the escalating conflict that Mana made herself a part of by antagonizing the Otogakure genin, who already looked like they needed no excuse to kill you. "The first part of the Chuunin Exams is about to start. Turn in your written applications and take one of these seating assignment cards. Then, report directly to the seat indicated. When everyone's seated, we'll pass out the written part of the test."
"How are you with written exams, Mana-chan?" Yoroi turned to Mana, asking with a restrained tone.
"If I can maintain my focus, I should be fine. Why?" Mana looked up, confused as to why the team leader was so worked up about her.
"This test will be taken as a team of three. If one of us fails–the entire team gets the boot. For all our sakes, please try to maintain your focus," Yoroi explained before the three of them all turned in their written applications and drew their seat numbers.
Mana sat down and looked around, noticing that all the teams of three were scattered all over the place. It was impressive how consistently the examination committee had scattered them apart despite the application turn-ins being randomized. As the last butt planted firmly on their seat, Ibiki stood in front of the blackboard and addressed the classroom.
"Now, listen up! Papers down until I give the signal," Ibiki beamed his intimidating glare across the classroom. "There are a few big rules that pertain to this first test. I'll write them on the blackboard and explain them all, but I'm not taking questions, so listen carefully. I will only be explaining this once."
Proving himself a man of his word, Ibiki turned around and began scribbling down on the blackboard. He spoke loud and clear, addressing the classroom as he wrote each rule. "Rule number one! Each one of you starts here with ten points. The test has ten questions, each worth one point. For each question you get wrong, we will subtract a point from you. All ten questions are right–you keep the ten points you have. But, for example, if you answer all ten questions incorrectly, we'll take away all your points. Rule No. 2, as some of you may have already guessed–this written test is still a team event. Passing or failing will be determined by the sum of the points held by all three members of the team."
"The objective is for each team to have as few deductions as possible from its joint thirty-point total.
"W-Wait a second! The whole concept of the starting points and the deductions are hard enough to follow… But what is this "Team Total" you're talking about?" a pink-haired girl who, if Mana's memory served, was part of Naruto's team raised her hand, leaving Mana stumped as to why she would so blatantly risk disqualification by ignoring Ibiki's remark about him taking no questions. As far as they were concerned–the test may have already been started and she may have just broken one of the rules, as explained by Ibiki.
"Did you not hear the part about there being no questions!? We have our own reasons. Shut up and listen and you may end up learning something! This next rule is crucial. Rule No. 3: if, during the written exam, a candidate does anything out of the ordinary, we subtract two points from each member of the cheater's team! That's right, in all probability, some of you will run through your entire allowance of points during the test. If so, you'll be failed and asked to leave," Ibiki thundered down.
A spiky, black-haired ninja with a band over his nose and stubble leaned forward with a malicious grin etched in his expression. Mana gulped after turning back and noticing the ninja who arrived alongside Ibiki by flickering into the classroom, having sat down around the examinees, in prime position to observe them and try to notice when someone was cheating.
"If you let the proctors catch you cheating, you'll bring yourself and your friends down! If you aspire to become chuunin… If you want to be the best ninja you can be… Then you better start acting like you already are!" Ibiki scanned the classroom, already judging everyone like they were aspiring cheaters, looking at them with deep anticipation. It was almost like Ibiki couldn't wait to flunk them.
"What a curious choice of words…" Mana noted. "He didn't tell us not to cheat, he told us to do our best. It's almost like…"
"Oh, and one more thing," Ibiki snapped his fingers, remembering something. "If an individual loses all ten of his or her points, that person's entire team, regardless of how well they did on their own tests, will be disqualified!"
Mana turned her head down and stared at the white back end of her test sheet. Ibiki wasn't kidding. There was a whole lot one could have learned merely from listening to what he told them. One of those things was that, based on what Ibiki said, the only way to truly fail the test was to be disqualified. He mentioned nothing about a point quota one had to meet. That meant that as long as someone had at least one point–they passed.
"You have one hour, starting… NOW!" Ibiki exclaimed, alerting the examinees to flip over their sheets and scanning through the questions.
Mana glared at the first question. It was an advanced cryptography question. This was ridiculous! One would have needed tools and time to decipher this jumbled mess of symbols. Immediately, Mana jumped to the next question. If she could answer at least one of them–that meant she was safe and she did her part for the team. From that point on–it was in the other guys' hands to keep them in.
"The parabola marked B represents the greatest effective distance the enemy shinobi A could throw a shuriken from the top of a 7,1-meter tall tree… Calculate the specific features of the scenario and deduce the range of the shuriken's effectiveness, assuming a consistent speed for shinobi A's assault upon any enemy shinobi operating within the arc that the flight of the shuriken describes. Show your work…" Mana scanned the text that initially looked more jumbled and ciphered than the paragraph of the actual ciphered message.
Mana bit the back of her pen and rolled her eyes up, deep in thought. There were a few potential ways in which this problem could've been solved. One was to take a more realistic approach and hypothesize a bunch of conditions like wind direction and speed, wind resistance, and atmospheric pressure, then apply the laws of kinetics to whatever you hypothesized. However, in Mana's view, the superior method was to simply ignore those conditions, not try to overthink the problem, and merely count on what she was given.
The ninja magician rubbed her eyes, struggling to stay focused on the sheet. Quickly, she scribbled down the elementary, textbook mathematic equations and came up with an answer based solely on the information provided. While Mana's way of solving the problem was incorrect if she were coming up with a strategy in real life, on a paper test, technically, she gave the right answer with the data the examinees were given.
There it was–a question Mana felt somewhat confident getting right. Then again, it was probable that the committee might have wanted a more real-life and practical solution to the problem. While Mana didn't feel as uncertain as 50/50 about this one, she was definitely around 60/40. Just in case, Mana skimmed over the rest of the test and see if she might solve any of the other problems. This test was a tough nut to crack for certain! While skimming, Mana found two more questions she could have solved on her own, merely by biting down on her pen and forcing herself to stay focused on the problem until her eyes turned bloodshot and turned her head.
"Huh?" Mana scratched her head after reading through Question No. 10. "This question will not be provided until forty-five minutes into the exam. At that time, please answer the proctor's question to the best of your ability."
What was with that question!? How was that even supposed to work? How will they note each examinee's answer and bundle them with their teams? Will it be an open-ended question, or will the proctor walk across the class and ask everyone the same question individually? Purely from a logistical point of view, this approach sounded ludicrous. Something was up with this question. Then again, Mana solved three problems, and while she felt shaky to a certain degree about each of them, the odds of her missing all three were also astronomically low.
Sighing in relief, Mana flipped the test face-down. A feeling began gnawing at her right side. Something akin to what Mana had never felt before. It was like she could see a sparkling little star twinkling in the corner of her eye, except she couldn't see it for real, she just knew it was there, somehow. Carefully, so to not cause the spectators to think she was cheating, keeping her chin up and away from an angle where one could have thought Mana was trying to peek, she turned in the direction of the phantom twinkling star, only to see a red-haired boy holding a partially sandy eyeball in his hand.
"An eyeball…!?" Mana's face dragged down in befuddlement, she slapped her mouth shut before she uttered a peep, stopping herself from causing trouble to herself and her team as she turned her eyes down and on the back of her test. So that was the gig–Mana's initial instinct was correct. The proctor really encouraged them to cheat in their own unique way to figure out the answers. Fortunately for Mana, she didn't graduate that long ago, so a lot of the subjects and impractical Academy stuff still lingered fresh in her mind.
She had three questions dotted down. At least one of them had to be correct. Her best option now was not to try to prove something, but to sit tight. Then again, there is a possibility that the proctors will shave down a bunch of teams off of the entire bundle after the first test, based on how many points they collected. Suddenly, anxiety started gnawing more and more at Mana's gut. The girl caught her gloved hand shaking on her desk.
If the intention of the exam truly is to shave off the worst-performing teams, then just answering three questions out of ten won't do. Even in the Academy, the passing standard was more than half of the questions. The problem was, that Mana knew of no conceivable way to solve two more questions. She was utterly stumped on them. Even worse–her entire skillset was as flashy as her get-up. She based her entire personality and skillset around being seen by as many eyes as possible. Nothing in her bag of tricks could have helped her cheat without standing out.
"Pst…" Mana heard a hiss, jumping up wide-eyed. Just barely, she resisted the instinct to turn around. That could have cost her more precious points. With stuttering head twitches, Mana looked down and almost exclaimed in a jolt of excitement. It was some kind of elongated limb dressed in Team Yoroi's uniform. It left a face-up sheet of paper–the test with all the solutions in between Mana's feet–a level of elevation that was almost impossible to track because of how many moving boots there were on the ground and how much the tables obstructed.
"Tsurugi-san…" Mana realized. During their brief stint doing manual chores that passed for missions, Mana recalled Tsurugi contorting and elongating his limbs to an almost inhuman extent to catch a fleeing raccoon that was stealing the restaurant's food supplies. Even though it didn't sit very well with Mana to be pulled through by one of her more experienced peers, it would have felt even worse letting them get thrown out because of her. Carefully, Mana copied the answers for the rest of the test and then carefully tapped her toes near the corner of the sheet, signaling for Tsurugi to pull his arm and test back to him.
One by one, the unfortunate examinees who were caught cheating began getting escorted out of the room. Some of them came quietly, others resisted and demanded their cheating be proven. It made little difference how they reacted to their ill fortune. They were thrown out all the same. Things got so exciting that Mana didn't even notice how fast time flew by.
"Forty-five minutes have passed. The time has come. Now that we've weeded out the worst of the slackers… Let's move on to the most important question. Isn't that right? Get ready for the tenth question!" Ibiki glared over the classroom with the sullenness of a man who condemned everyone to death already, despite seeing over a mere written test. "Before the tenth question itself… I'm adding a new rule. Let me explain. This rule is absolute. First… You must choose… Whether to accept or reject this tenth question!"
"Accept or reject?" Mana thought to herself, realizing that most of the others must have been wondering the same thing.
"Ch-Choose? What happens if someone doesn't accept the question!?" a girl with a Sunagakure headband tied over her neck with blond pigtails asked, worked up.
"If you reject the question and don't even try to answer it, you'll lose all your points immediately… And you will fail… In addition, all your teammates will fail right alongside you," Morino Ibiki said in a restrained voice. Despite his decreased volume, everyone taking the exam heard him loud and clear.
"Say what!?" someone in the crowd coughed out. "Why would anyone choose to reject it, if that's the outcome!?"
"Because of the other rule," Ibiki explained, turning his head down and closing his eyes. "If you try to answer the question… And you get it wrong… You will never be permitted to take the Chuunin Exams again. Not ever!"
"You can't be serious! That's outrageous! It's unfair!" a boy in a gray jacket and wild, canine-like facial features jumped up. "There are ninja here who have sat through the Chuunin Exams more than once already! We know there are!"
"Heh, heh, heh…" Ibiki chuckled in his own profoundly messed up way. "Just your rotten luck. I wasn't making the rules in past years. I am now. To be upfront with you, you can take a failing grade and try again later. Anyone who has any doubts would be smart to reject the tenth question right now. Come back and reapply the next year and the year after that."
Mana ground her teeth and rubbed her hands together, firing off nervous twitches all over the place. To be frank, she cared very little if she got the promotion or not. She was only here to assist her teammates, who agreed to take her in despite her lackluster job experience. Mana knew this exam meant a great deal to Tsurugi and Yoroi, so she would not quit. Not unless one of them chose to quit. Mana had already decided that she would not be the reason Team Yoroi failed the exams.
"Are you ready? Then, let's begin! Those who choose not to accept the question, raise your hands. Once their number has been confirmed, they will leave the room," Ibiki turned into a figurative giant before the crowd of potential chuunin, looming over them with his imposing presence and choking breaths on the throats of the weak-willed participants.
It hardly took a few seconds after Ibiki stopped talking that the first few raised their hands and proclaimed their intention to reject the question. Once a genin declared that they were rejecting the question, a proctor sitting on the sidelines confirmed their number, then the numbers of their teammates, and sent the trio out of the room, exactly how Ibiki described it.
Mana noted someone in front of her raising their hand. She gasped out a muzzled breath in surprise. She saw the familiar flashy orange tracksuit and spiky yellow hair. Mana almost couldn't believe for a second that even someone as loud and energetic as Naruto would crumble under this immense pressure. Before Mana's softened look could moisten, Naruto's hand clenched in a fist as he stood up and pumped his fist at the proctor.
"NEVER UNDERESTIMATE ME!" he thundered out before slamming his hand against the desk. "I DON'T QUIT, AND I WON'T RUN!"
"Atta boy, Naruto-kun…" Mana smiled. Deep down, she felt like a rotten gambler for accepting this question despite having no assurance she'd be able to handle it. If Mana was a gambler, Naruto was a flat-out dreamer. He had to have been asleep to believe he had a chance at all, and yet he didn't quit solely because that wasn't what he was about.
"I'll accept your stupid question! Even if I risk ending up as a rookie for the rest of my whole life… I'll still become Hokage, even if can only make it by pure stubbornness. I don't care! I'll become the world's first genin Hokage if I have to! I'm not afraid of you!" Naruto kept on stacking. This challenge of Naruto's did not go unanswered, for Ibiki stared Naruto straight in the eyes blankly.
"I'll ask you one last time. This is a decision that could affect the rest of your life. Quit now while you still have the chance," Ibiki said slowly and calmly.
"I never go back on my word! Vindictiveness is part of my ninja arsenal!" Naruto barked back into the proctor's face.
With a dropped jaw, Mana scanned the room and saw Naruto's bravado igniting a flame of resistance and willpower across the rest of the genin. She'd never seen anything like this. It was like everyone who shook and cowered away, still struggled with quitting while they were ahead and were too cowardly to quit before Naruto's outburst suddenly became overflowing with courage. Naruto simply had so much willpower, that it spilled over and filled everyone else up. Mana looked down at the back end of her sheet. What she wouldn't have sacrificed to become that kind of hero. Someone who could change people without having to throw a single punch, purely because of their energy and personality alone. Naruto was never a person Mana thought she'd feel jealous of, but here she was…
"Good call. So everyone who is still here… You've just passed the first exam!" Ibiki declared.
"Nice work on the first test," Yoroi approached Mana from behind after the over seventy genin who made out after the first exam walked out into the yard and followed the newly introduced proctor of the second part of the Chuunin Exams, Mitarashi Anko, to a remote training ground that was a fenced off, massive forested territory.
"Tsurugi-san helped me out. Without his aid, I could only have answered three questions," Mana admitted. "I'm not sure how much further I can keep up with you guys."
"Don't get discouraged just yet," Yoroi pressed his hand on Mana's shoulder in a very mentor-like way. "Neither I nor Tsurugi could answer a single question in that exam. The fact you figured three out on your own, without needing to resort to cheating, goes a long way. In some ways, you're already more impressive than us."
With the face of someone who had bitten into a bitter and chewy handful of salad leaves, Mana turned away to glare at the daunting challenge ahead. The trees inside that forest were hundreds of times larger than anyone, with just a single root arc sticking out from the ground measuring well above 10 meters. All across the fence there were warning signs telling the beholder to "Stay out". Just what did they get into this time?
"This is the arena for the second exam: Training Ground No. 44, also known as the Forest of Death!" Anko proudly declared to the rest of the examinees. "And you guys are about to get some first-hand experience why they call it that."
Naruto, high on his MVP performance in the first exam, began running his mouth, but the second proctor proved herself to be a genuine nut job by slashing his cheek open, then flickering behind the boy to lick off the blood that trickled down the cut. After Ibiki showed them his scars underneath the bandana and the daunting that just filled the room, Mana never thought in a million years to meet someone who could match, let alone defeat that.
"Before we begin, I have something to hand out to you all," Anko dangled a handful of documents in front of her that had "Consent Form" in massive font written on the top. "They're consent forms. Everyone has to sign one. We want all the details covered before the first deaths occur. You need to sign this so that we can't be held liable. You wouldn't want to get your cute proctor into heaps of legal trouble, wouldn't you?"
While the students signed their consent forms and submitted them to the proctors seated on a wooden vendor by the entrance to the forest, Anko went ahead to elaborate on the upcoming test. "To put it bluntly, it's a no-holds-barred survival test! Let's start with the topography of this training ground. I'll explain the rest later. Training Ground No. 44… Is bordered by a circular perimeter, interrupted at regular intervals by forty-four locked gates. There are forests and a river… And in the center, there's a tower… About ten kilometers from those gates. Within the confines of this carefully delineated area, you're going to undergo a survival test. During the course of that test, you may use any ninja arts or weapons you have at your disposal."
"It's a kind of deathmatch version of capture the flag, or… In this case, capture the scroll," Anko gave the examinees a sad*stic look from behind a handful of scrolls she clenched in her hand and showed off to them. Then, the proctor parted them and showed two scrolls, one being white with the symbol of "Heaven" written down, and another–black one with the symbol of "Earth".
"There's a Heaven Scroll and an Earth Scroll… Your objective is to acquire both scrolls," Anko explained, appearing to be the sole person who was by far the most excited about the test she was overseeing. "There are seventy-eight of you here. That's twenty-six three-member teams. Thirteen teams will start with a Heaven Scroll and thirteen with the Earth Scroll. You'll need both scrolls to pass. Your objective is to hold on to your own scroll, then get your hands on one of the other kind… And then bring them both to the tower at the center."
"In other words, at least half of us, the thirteen teams whose scrolls will be stolen will fail," the pink-haired girl who was Naruto's teammate, spoke up.
"You betcha! And, to make things even more exciting, there's a time limit to boot! You have 120 hours in which to complete this exam. Exactly five days," Anko flashed a smile.
"Five days!?" a blonde in a ponytail expressed her outrage.
"What are we supposed to do for food!?" a chubby in a green shirt and round cheek markings standing by the other girl's side joined in on the complaining.
"That sounds like a you problem," Anko shrugged. "The forest's full of nature's bounty. Of course, you should keep in mind that nature also sees you as its bounty. That pink-haired girl before theorized that only thirteen teams will pass, to be honest, I think that's way too optimistic. As time shortens, the trials will come harder and faster. There'll be less recovery time for mistakes, accidents, or injuries. You'll be surrounded by enemies at all times, so you'll have to sleep with one eye open. So in addition to those who die in attempts to defend or capture the scroll… Some of you are bound to succumb to exhaustion, exposure, starvation, and dehydration."
Mana clenched her fists tightly to her sides. She was so horribly out of her depth here. This sounded exactly like the scary stories her father told her about being on the field when he tried to prepare her for the life she chose when little Mana became bedazzled with the life of a ninja. She's never been on an actually dangerous mission like this. All she's done since graduating was manual chores. Could she really keep up with everyone?
"Don't worry, Mana-chan," Tsurugi's arm wrapped around Mana in comfort. "This time, we'll be able to back you up like a real team. You won't have to be left to fend off on your own."
"Now, let's talk a bit about the rules… And what offenses you can get disqualified for? Obviously, the teams that fail to reach the tower in time as a three-member cell, carrying both the Heaven Scroll and the Earth Scroll, are out. So is any team that loses a member, whether it be because of death or a severe injury. Also, under no circ*mstances are you allowed to leave the forest before the time is up. No recess or time-outs. Oh, I almost forgot… It's also forbidden to look at the contents of the scrolls until you're inside the tower!"
"Huh… What happens if we take a peek?" Naruto wondered.
"That's for those who fail for looking to find out," Anko left it ominous. "If any of you make it to the chuunin level, there will be times when you're entrusted with top secret documents… So consider this a test of your trustworthiness. That's all the explanation you get. We'll trade one scroll for every three forms. When you've got yours, choose the gate you want to start from. Everyone will begin at the same time."
"One last piece of advice," Anko said without her usual excitement, purely business. "Stay alive!"
Immediately after entering the forest, Yoroi instructed his team to lie low and do their best to avoid being noticed. It felt odd to Mana. Their objective was clearly to obtain the Heaven Scroll and make their way to the tower in the central area. The more time they spent in this place, the more difficult it would become with them running into more and more encounters and wearing themselves out. Not to mention, spending more time in the forest meant more chances for the opposing teams to run into them.
Despite questioning Yoroi's decision internally, Mana swallowed it and followed instructions. Yoroi's strategy was to wait until the rest of the teams exhausted each other. According to him, around the time the time limit would be close to running out, a whole bunch of teams would converge around the area close to the tower, some in desperation, some seeking to ambush the desperate teams. While passing time, the primary concern of Team Yoroi was to survive.
Yoroi set up some simple sensory barrier seals that would alert them if a ninja closed in. All three teammates learned a series of password questions and answers to prevent Transformation Jutsu switcheroos. Mana asked Yoroi to train her a little. Because they kept their chakra suppressed during their downtime, all they did was taijutsu. Mana found Yoroi to be a skilled taijutsu user, perhaps one with the most skill Mana has ever traded blows with. Then again, taijutsu was a weakness of hers, so it meant little.
The training wasn't just a slight filler of Mana's taijutsu skill gaps. It also toughened up Mana's body. As a side effect, Mana noticed her chakra capacity increasing by a decent amount as her physical training caught up with her mental acuity gained through meditation. In addition, Tsurugi helped Mana by relaying some battlefield lessons. In a way, this couple of days served as an advanced ninja Academy course. Mana felt like she needed it more than she actually did. She just hated the idea of sitting around doing nothing. She even insisted that she'd be taking care of the chores, like washing their clothes, maintaining tools, and preparing meals.
For whatever reason, Tsurugi took over the meal preparation chore from Mana after the first evening. Still, the lion's share of the chores beat sitting around idle. Being busy helped to fend off thoughts of being the weak link. Not just in her team. That much was obvious. But in the bunch of Forest of Death participants. By the time the first handful of days passed, Yoroi appeared from his usual scouting trip back to the camp and declared that they'd be heading out.
It still worried Mana about how lax they acted, despite the fact they needed the scroll to complete their set and have moved no closer to getting it. Still, Yoroi looked confident. Confident in a way that experienced people are confident about their area of expertise, which helped Mana soothe her worries and just trust her team's skill and experience.
The oddities started when Team Yoroi headed toward the tower. The plan was to carefully circle around and filter the area for potential easy targets to ambush. Yet, somehow, despite taking double and triple the time to scan the area, it seemed like Team Yoroi had not advanced that much further in the forest. Confused, frustrated, and just as worn out as they wanted to find their targets, Team Yoroi landed on the ground level to reconvene. It was then that Mana felt the cold and sharp graze of a kunai's edge against her throat.
"Show us your scroll," said a grave voice that seemed modified. Almost like it came from some kind of gadget or voice-modulating device. "There's no need to lose this one until we make certain there's a point for us to fight, is there?"
"When did you sneak up on us?" Yoroi gnashed his teeth. This was the first time that Mana saw the team leader sweating. Understanding that this was something he hadn't prepared for made her heart skip a few beats too.
"That hardly matters now, does it? Show us the scroll. I won't ask a third time," the sneaky assailant warned Yoroi.
"Genjutsu, huh?" Mana's hand moved to smack herself in the face, throwing the assailant off-guard and making them put more effort into manhandling her at a blade's edge so that they could avoid Mana making any more unnecessary moves. "I'm sorry, Yoroi-san. My senses were too overwhelmed. This place is too weird and creepy for me to notice we were walking in circles this whole time."
"Don't move!" the assailant warned, raising the volume of their voice. Mana realized that this wasn't meant for her. It was Yoroi and Tsurugi who were supposed not to move as two figures wearing straightjacket-like uniforms over skintight black leather bodysuits and white cloth binds over their eyes crept up from behind them, appearing seemingly from the dirt itself. The creepy way these guys just manifested into being left no wonder how the first one snuck up on Mana.
"Hmm…" Yoroi quickly turned around, igniting a blue flame around his hand as he smacked his fist in a backhanded swing, phasing it through an afterimage of his assailant in an Amegakure headband, which dissolved upon being struck. Tsurugi jumped up and delivered a flying roundhouse kick only to achieve the same thing.
"You dug this girl's grave, not me!" the first assailant thundered out as he wrapped his right arm around Mana's throat and stabbed his kunai into her lower back. Instead of being showered with blood and hearing a blood-curdling scream, the Amegakure ninja got flashed with a beam of light that erupted from the illusionary duplicate he stabbed. "Wh-What!? A genjutsu!?"
"It was an interesting thing to see Mana not just being good at spotting illusions but being able to use them as well. It's not a skill you see plenty of genin being capable of," Yoroi said while adopting a Strong Fist fighting stance with his blue flares flaming around his hands.
"Yeah, she's got to be pretty good with it too. We saw you holding thin air hostage, and, based on the reactions of your team, so did they. To be able to cast an illusion affecting multiple targets like that… Lord Third definitely didn't toss the shortest stick our way with Mana," Tsurugi snickered.
The appearance of dozens of more and more clones of all three Amegakure straightjacket genin scrubbed the smile right off Tsurugi's face. However, just as the trio of Team Yoroi were meant to begin feeling pressured and outnumbered, another crack of light spilled out from underground, revealing an emerging handful of Mana clones as well.
"That jutsu… Could she be using Mist Servant Jutsu as well?" the wild spiky-haired Amegakure genin hissed, recognizing some similarities in the jutsu he and his team specialized in.
"Well, well… Mana's clones aren't as vivid as yours and she can't produce anywhere near as many all at once, but, in her defense, she made this jutsu all by herself, whereas you guys look so proud of this trick of yours that you're putting all your team's eggs in this basket," Yoroi observed. A whizzing noise from somewhere off in the brushes alerted him, but it was too late. The Konohagakure genin swung his blazing blue fists to deflect a handful of kunai coming his way, ending up with a nasty scrape on the back of his hand.
A whizzing hail of shuriken cut up Tsurugi from his blind side, forcing Team Yoroi on the defensive. With the Amegakure genin being unable to target Mana anymore, because of her illusionary duplicates, they began singling out the other members they initially saw as being the workhorses of the team and avoided focusing on.
"That's some incredible range and precision…" Yoroi complimented the sharpshooting skill of his enemies.
"Not to mention the sheer number of projectiles. I bet most of them are fake, but, if you can't tell the real from the fake, there's little difference. Avoiding the actual weapons is just too much of a hassle with so much illusionary junk accompanying it," Tsurugi grumbled, realizing the two of them, who exclusively specialized in close to mid-range attacks, were at a disadvantage.
"This is nothing. Just show us your scroll and we won't have to seriously hurt you," one of the straightjacket trio from a blinding crowd of illusory duplicates yelled out with their voice mixing into the crowd of clones, yelling the same thing.
"This is a problem," Yoroi grumbled, taking off and rushing into the fray of illusionary clones, outrunning the rain of steel coming in his direction. While this bold decision let him avoid the additional cuts and stabs from the rest of the projectiles, he entered the blurry danger zone and left himself wide open to attack. The spiky-haired Amegakure straightjacket genin exploited this by slashing Yoroi's back and crumbling him to one knee.
Tsurugi seemed to be having a much easier time, however. His body was so incredibly flexible that he seemed to be able to block and parry the incoming knife strikes at just the right moment. He took a few nasty kicks and trips, accelerating Mana's heartbeat with worry over her teammate's well-being. Each of these illusory clones attacked alongside the real deal and, while Tsurugi appeared to be able to determine the real one, the lag in needing to engage his perception like that served as a tremendous disadvantage.
"Hey, genjutsu user! Your numb-skulled guy teammates seem too thick to realize we just need to see your scroll. You have to be smarter than them to be able to master genjutsu at such an early age. How about we extend the same deal to you as we did to your teammates–the scroll for their lives," the leader amongst the Amegakure three, concealed in the bunch of illusionary clones and composing a massive army of three separate platoons called Mana out, still looking around and unable to see the location of the real ninja magician.
"I won't lie, we could really use your help here, Mana," Yoroi grumbled, taking a few mean kicks to the face and getting reduced to a fallen mess, at which point a straightjacket genin, whether or not they be a clone, leaned down and placed their kunai near Yoroi's throat.
"Damn, I guess we're kind of the worst, huh?" Tsurugi chuckled in pain after taking a stab to his shoulder and kicking one of the genin aside with a connecting whip kick. "We promised to protect you, but you kind of put you into a tight spot, didn't we?"
Mana closed her eyes, wondering what the best course of action was. She didn't know what scroll the other team had, either. However, if she showed them their scroll and it turned out to be the one they wanted–they'd just go all-out and finish Yoroi and Tsurugi off, leaving Mana to either pull out in a hopeless situation from which their team couldn't recover at this point of the second stage of the exam or to fall alongside them. Then Mana opened her eyes in shock. She saw something in that darkness, prompting her to close her eyes again and shuffle through hand seals.
"Maybe she doesn't have it? The scroll, I mean… The shades guy looks like the team leader," the Amegakure genin holding Yoroi hostage was about to search Yoroi when Mana extended her hand toward the ground.
"Finger of Fate Jutsu!" Mana chanted out, thrusting two of her fingers toward the designated area of the mucky dirt and firing a concentrated stream of Wind Release chakra that stabbed through the dirt, squirting out blood from underneath. Dirty and exposed, the real Amegakure genin sprung out, dispelling the illusionary platoon of his duplicates.
"Mystical Wings Jutsu!" Mana chanted out, taking a controlled plunge down and correcting her trajectory to shoot to where Tsurugi was so that she could back him up. "Rebellious Twist Jutsu!" she chanted out, erupting into a rapid spin around her axis that produced a Wind Release whirlwind and dispelled a handful of clones while knocking one of the Amegakure genin on their back.
"Damn it! She's like an illusion, bloodhound!" the last concealed genin exclaimed before Mana turned around and faced him directly, gesturing to his precise location. Tsurugi lashed his left arm, elongating it while holding a kunai and stabbing into the shoulder of the third genin, pinning him to the tree like the Amegakure genin injured Tsurugi.
Yoroi loomed over the fallen Amegakure genin who, just a few milliseconds ago, was on top of him and struck him with a flurry of blue-fisted blows, rendering the genin unconscious. Tsurugi hurled himself at the second, prone genin and wrapped his body around that of the straightjacket genin like a constrictor. With a bit of amplified force, some bones cracked and left the genin passed out and broken.
"They've got the Earth Scroll," Yoroi declared, pulling out the scroll from the genin he just dispatched of with his strange blue-fist technique. "Finally, a stroke of good luck. We can finish this stage now."
"Holy smokes, Mana-chan!" Tsurugi exclaimed, turning to the panting magician who performed her jutsu in rapid succession, stressing her body to save her teammates' lives and pull all of them out of the fire. "How did you see the real ones like that? Was it like with the floors back in the Academy building?"
"Not sure," Mana shook her head. "It was like… I could just feel where they were. The real ones, I mean. They all looked like tiny licks of flames, but the real ones stood out. They were more intense."
While Team Yoroi managed to reach the tower and unravel their scrolls there, their troubles for that day weren't yet over. The seven teams to complete the Forest of Death stage of the Chuunin Exams successfully were led into a larger arena underground. One equipped with a display screen and decorated with the statue of arms making the Ram hand seal. Right behind the arms' statue, there were a bunch of inactive screens and staircases leading to the observatory balcony.
"Congratulations to you all on passing the second exam!" declared Lord Third after finally making himself known to the best of the best to make it out of both rounds of the exams. A wary glare aside made Mana identify the threatening Otogakure genin trio, casting stares at the other teams again. This time, however, for whatever reason, the spiky-haired fellow who picked a fight with Naruto and had a problem with not killing his opponents looked more obsessed with casting death-inducing stares at Sasuke Uchiha–Naruto's teammate. Mana simply assumed something must have happened in the forest…
"Listen up you lot! Lord Third will now explain about the third stage of the exams! Listen up to his every word and take it to heart!" Anko Mitarashi exclaimed into a headset she wore. Despite the usage of audio equipment, there wasn't a single soul who wasn't able to hear her normally, making her use of a headset a bit baffling to some. "They're all yours, Lord Third."
"Very well," the Third Hokage nodded in approval. "The third examination is about to commence… But before that, I need to go into specifics of how it will be conducted. Let me make one thing abundantly clear! It pertains to the underlying purpose of the exam."
The rowdy crowd of banged-up and worn-out genin stretched out and settled down, lingering on every word of the old village head, just like their proctor instructed them.
"Why do you suppose an examination of this nature is being jointly conducted by all the nations in our mutual alliance?!" the Third Hokage asked before answering his question himself. "This series of so-called exams is in fact to promote friendship among allied nations and raise the level and standards of the art of shinobi. To be very clear about what those fine-sounding phrases mean! It's a war-in-miniature between all our allied nations!"
Mana faded out and, against her better judgment, Lord Third's further political ramblings completely sifted past her. A miniature war? Was that what was going on here? Did Lord Third sign her up as a soldier to help him wage war against his actual allies? Perhaps Mana should've been happy and felt privileged that this war she was a part of was indeed a miniature war and that they weren't placed in actual trenches and experiencing the grueling and senseless violence of war every day, but just the thought of this being any kind of war rubbed Mana the wrong way.
"Though my meaning is subtle, I chose my words carefully. To preserve the balance of power at the risk of lives… Is the essence of friendship in the world of ninja. Let me reiterate before the third test begins. You are not taking just any ordinary test! You risk not only your futures and your dreams… But the dignity and prestige of your home as well.
"Whatever…" a creepy, red-haired fellow with extremely baggy eyes said in a raspy tone. "Could you wrap up with the philosophical talk and get down to this life-or-death business you described any time soon, old man?"
"Hmph!" the Third Hokage scoffed. "So, you insist I explain the third test?"
Before Lord Third could do so, a ninja in a standard Konohagakure flak jacket uniform flickered in between the grouped-up genin and the Third Hokage, kneeling before his lord. "Forgive me my interruption, Lord Third, but… Would you mind handing the rest of the proceedings over to me, Gekko Hayate, the proctor of the third exam?"
"Go ahead," the Third Hokage agreed after a brief pause of deliberation.
"Good to meet you, everyone… I'm Hayate," the Konoha ninja repeated his name before turning to face the genin and revealing his pale and sickly-looking face. "Uhhh… Before we start the exam… I must ask you all to do something for me…"
The rest of the genin rustled in unease and uncertainty as the purpose and the nature of the third test continued to be stalled toward a point unknown.
"Umm… You see… There are some preliminaries to the exam proper… And whether you proceed to the main exam is contingent on how well you manage those," Gekko Hayate explained.
"Preliminaries…!?" a spiky ponytail-donning genin with dark hair barked out. "Like what!?"
"Hayate-sensei, I don't understand. What do you mean by preliminaries? Why can't all the remaining applicants just proceed directly to the next exam?" the pink-haired girl from before, another teammate of Naruto's, asked.
"Well… I don't want to be mean and say that the first two exams weren't demanding enough, but the truth is… We still have way too many applicants left," Hayate's sickly eyes sent a figurative senbon shower that skewered the audience of genin listening to him.
"Under the traditional rules of the exam, we have to have a preliminary test to reduce the number of applicants who'll proceed to the third exam. As Lord Third mentioned, several honored guests will observe you during the third exam, so we must make sure that the third stage of the exam is intense, tight, and fast-paced," Hayate explained. "So anyway… If anyone's not feeling up to it after the whole Forest of Death affair, you may step up now and just quit while you're ahead. Just spare yourselves the trouble. The preliminaries will start right now!"
"Now!?" a hooded boy in a gray jacket exclaimed in disbelief.
"Huh… I guess nobody's looking to take it easy and call it quits, understandable, I guess…" Hayate scratched the back of his head. "Uhhh… In case I forgot to mention… From here on in, you'll be fighting as individuals and not as members of your teams. You can now make decisions without worrying about anyone else. So maybe anyone actually wants to show their hand and spare themselves the bruising?"
After an extended pause, nobody dared to call it quits after everything they've been through that day. Mana noticed that Sasuke, Naruto's teammate, was looking bad and could barely stay on his feet, clutching the side of his neck for some reason. He probably wasn't the only one. Then again, he was Naruto's teammate, and it was probably impossible to admit defeat around an energetic and loud fellow like that around. Restrained conversations began brewing amongst the jounin overseeing the exams and the teams simultaneously with Naruto and the pink-haired girl getting worked up about their teammate. From the looks of it, Naruto's friend grabbed hold of the girl's hand and prevented her from speaking up about something.
"So, uhhh… Looks like nobody's actually bailing out," Hayate sighed. "Well, then… Let's begin the preliminaries. The preliminaries will comprise individual combat matches, as though this were part of the tournament. It sucks there're 21 combatants here. We'll just have to do a triple-threat match at the end, probably… In any case, the victors of each match will advance to the third stage. Either that or some of you will double-knock out each other, leaving us the option to eliminate both of you."
Everyone looked overwhelmed and still struggling with the idea of having to go through a stage of tournament matches to earn something that was already supposed to be theirs to begin with, but they persevered regardless.
"This is no-holds-barred combat. Each pair of combatants will fight until one of them is either dead, unconscious or admits defeat. As soon as you feel like your opponent's overpowering you, immediately concede defeat if you value your life. We don't want a total bloodbath here, so there may be cases where the officials will have to interfere to stop the match and decide the undisputed winner, but we'll try to avoid such outcomes."
On Anko's command, the monitor screen proudly displayed over the hands' statue lit up and began shuffling through letters.
"From here on out, the key to your fate is held in this electronic scoreboard. At the start of every round, we'll display the names of combatants competing in that match," Hayate explained. "Ummm… Not to hurry you to the slaughter or anything, but… Let's begin this preliminary stage by announcing the first two names."
Mana did not expect to see Yoroi fighting in the first round. When the scrolling letters on the display screen assembled his name, Mana turned to Yoroi with a worried look. Yoroi glared right back at her, but his look was different somehow. Despite being unable to see into his covered eyes or face, Mana felt a scalding wave sweeping her aside. Almost as if Yoroi wanted nothing to do with her now that their engagement was formally over.
Yoroi was still worn out and scraped from his fight with the Amegakure genin. Mana felt personally responsible for how that went, somehow. Even though she was the least experienced in the group, she was the one with the uncanny skill that helped her pull her team through. If only she awakened it earlier, maybe Yoroi could have started the match fresh. The only saving grace that kept Mana from begging her senpai to throw the match was the fact that he would face Sasuke Uchiha. While Mana had first-hand experience in what exceptional ninja Sasuke was, Sasuke was perhaps in the worst state among all the present genin. Despite that, and despite Yoroi's incredible ability to drain chakra with the touch of his hands, Sasuke somehow pulled through with an impressive taijutsu combination, eliminating Yoroi.
Looking crushed after seeing her senpai fail after coming so far, Mana turned to Tsurugi, wondering how he was taking all of this. After all, the two of them must have been tight after all the missions they were out on together and all the losses they suffered as a team, surviving them together. The sheer indifference on Tsurugi's face sent chills down Mana's spine. Tsurugi was observing the scene almost as if this was yet another match between two random competitors he had never met before.
"Ummm… For the next match… Nakotsumi Mana VS Zaku Abumi," Hayate's voice broke Mana out of her haze. The girl turned her eyes to the display screen, freezing up with jitters when she saw her name up there. Honestly, she should have quit right after her failure, and no longer would have dragged Yoroi and Tsurugi down. She didn't belong here, she was just a participant in name only… However…
"Heh, there is justice in this world!" Zaku scoffed, giving Mana a psychotic glare and flexing his hands. "Now I'll get to show you what being a real shinobi is all about since I recall you being really confused about it before."
Mana gulped and clenched her fists. She wouldn't quit. Not against this young man. He was someone who made fun of human life and treated it like some fickle thing to build up his reputation with. Someone who went out of his way to complain when the proctor forbade him from fighting and killing fellow competitors. As a first for her, Mana wanted to defeat this man and make him eat his words more than anything.
"Hey, that's the weird girl from the Academy, isn't she?" the blond girl with a ponytail, whom Mana remembered from class and the graduation ceremony, pointed at Mana.
"Yeah," Naruto nodded. "Go, Mana! Kick that guy's ass!" he chanted, pumping his fist over his head. Like Mana, Naruto had a bone to pick with the Otogakure genin as well. Based on the look on the face of Naruto's pink-haired teammate, she wasn't tight with these folks too. It surprised Mana to see a reaction out of most of the genin observing the matches about this Zaku Abumi. Naruto, the pink-haired girl, the blonde, her chubby friend, their ponytail teammate, and even the bushy-browed genin in a green jumpsuit who was older than Mana since she didn't remember him from class.
Mana and Zaku took their positions against each other with Hayate swinging his arm down and yelling out, "Begin!" to kick off the match formally.
"You're screwed, brat! You should know that my team captured our scroll first thing and spent the rest of the time recovering, so we're almost completely fresh here! You're so toast!" Zaku flexed his hands, cracking his knuckles. As he flexed his fingers, Mana noticed some kind of accessories on his palms. It was only fair to assume that they had something to do with his fighting style. Faking Mana out, the wild-haired Otogakure genin extended his arms, pointing those little barrel-like tubes at Mana.
"Decapitating Airwaves!" Zaku chanted out, sending a mixture of sound waves and airwaves concentrated into a singular invisible burst that hit Mana square in the chest. The crowd of spectators and even Zaku himself exclaimed in disbelief when the hit took Mana's body off the ground and tattered her clothes, messed up her hair, and made her eyes roll back, dropping her dead in place.
"What the…!?" Zaku grumbled out, turning to the proctor in confusion. "I… I've never killed someone with such a weak blast…"
While initially, the Otogakure genin looked confused, it only took a short while for him to begin cackling and cracking himself up. He collapsed on his knees and began smacking his knee, finding this immensely hilarious. "Oh, man! I should've known this would happen. It's always those ridiculous weaklings who preach about fighting fair and not killing!"
"So, your hands are implanted with some kind of modification that allows you to channel concentrated bursts of air and sound from the ventilation tubes in your hands," Mana's disembodied voice filled the fighting stage with Zaku looking up, horrified. Where Naruto and the rest of the rookies who knew Mana from class were beginning to grow restless after seeing their peer killed off easily at the beginning of the match like that, they were now beginning to cheer for Mana again and wondering how she pulled this trick off.
The horrifying visage of Mana's corpse began fading away from sight like a mirage before Zaku's own eyes. The baffled genin began aiming his arms everywhere, trying to discern where Mana's voice was coming from and where the real concealed illusionist was.
"You were wrong," Mana scolded her opponent again. "It's not weakness to resist the urge to kill your opponent. It takes a great deal of restraint and skill to defeat your opponent without finishing them off. In order to kill your opponent, it's enough to just fumble your way through and barely come out on top. To defeat them, you have to control the match to the extent where it's up to you to choose how the match ends. You cannot merely survive the fight, you need to control it."
"Show yourself and fight!" Zaku cried out. "Or are you running scared!? How about I crank up the noise and smoke your cowardly ass out!? Extreme Decapitating…"
Mana's image faded in as her concentration of her Fancy Trick Jutsu illusion faded and she began working through hand seals. "Wind Style: Friendly Gust!" Mana chanted out, inflating her body like a balloon, before blowing a concussive gale from her lungs that hit Zaku's exposed hands head-on.
"What the…!?" Zaku exclaimed as his cranked-up sound waves failed to come out from his arms. Instead, they accumulated in his forearms and inflated them from inside as the sound waves got stuck inside his arms and blew them out like a balloon too. This caused extreme amounts of pain to Zaku as the boy began screaming and would have clawed his own face off in agony if he could control his inflated arms at all. The audience gasped when a deafening pop resonated throughout the arena and Zaku fell flat on his back with a shocked expression frozen in his face. Blood began to accumulate underneath his armless body while Zaku's eye twitched from nervous shock.
Ninja wearing flak jackets swarmed the field and took Zaku off to the infirmary on the stretchers. Mana glared at Zaku's whimpering body as he frothed and shrieked in pain, glaring at Mana with bloodshot eyes that wished a thousand deaths upon the girl who crippled him for life.
"You made the mistake of thinking I was a pacifist just because I don't kill," Mana said to the Otogakure genin before bowing to the audience and turning around to walk away. "Now you'll know that people who treasure the sanctity of human life aren't afraid of fighting for what they believe in. They will just never take a life. I hope that you find the inner strength within you to adapt to the changes in your life and change your violent tendencies. Make something out of the rest of your life, please."
Before Zaku could reply, the medical ninja dragged him off with Mana returning to her place on the spectator stands. Naruto leaned to glare at Mana from where he was waiting for his turn to compete, covered in minor bruises from the second round. He looked shocked to see that goofy class clown magician girl having grown into a splendid ninja in her own right so soon.
"So, this is the Nakotsumi Mana whom I may have ended up teaching…" a fair-skinned woman of thick and athletic build with black untamed hair stretching to her upper back and red-colored eyes glanced at Mana while she was walking up the stairs to the balcony. "She certainly is impressive, despite the fact she's a rookie. I've never seen a genin pull off such a quick illusion under pressure. With proper guidance, in time, she might come to rival even that man in the field of genjutsu, despite not having an esteemed clan heritage."
"Do you regret not getting to mentor her now, Kurenai?" a tall man with brown eyes, a slightly tanned hue of skin short, spiky black hair, and a standard Konoha flak jacket uniform turned to the fellow jounin with a smirk on his face.
"Not at all. I've come to cherish those three of mine. Besides, there's no guarantee she'd have passed my test and stayed a genin if she were to take it alongside her past teammates…" Kurenai shrugged it off. "My only wish is that this girl receives the proper guidance she deserves and doesn't waste her talents showing off."
"That was amazing, Mana-chan!" Naruto barked out, giving Mana a thumb up with an ecstatic, sheepish grin.
"Yeah, those Otogakure genin gave all of us a tough time back in the Forest of Death," Ino nodded. "Then again, maybe it was just because they worked together better than we did? One-on-one, they may just be beatable…"
Much to Mana's surprise, Tsurugi went next. He quickly used his uncanny flexibility abilities to coil himself around the body of the Sunagakure ninja with face paint and all-black attire, constricting him and threatening to break his neck if Kankuro didn't concede. The sad*stic and overconfident way in which Tsurugi was acting rubbed Mana the wrong way. She could hardly recognize her own lively teammate down there. A thought occurred to her that maybe Tsurugi wasn't this sad*stic and co*cky and was merely using psychological warfare against his opponent.
However, in an act of shocking reversal, Kankuro revealed the body that was being constricted to be just his puppet duplicate. With great skill in puppetry, the Sunagakure genin had his puppet wrap his puppet its mechanical limbs around Tsurugi's body and constrict the elastic Konohagakure genin instead. Despite Tsurugi's plights, before the distressed genin could concede defeat, Kankuro broke all the surgically altered joints in Tsurugi's body and left him limp and lifeless on the floor, winning the match.
This was so messed up! How was Mana the only one in Team Yoroi to advance to the third stage, despite being the one who merely signed up to pad the team's numbers and only a participant in name only? She was no chuunin material! She wasn't even on a single proper C-Rank mission! She didn't belong alongside these monstrous genin… Mana looked down, closed her eyes, and gulped down, pushing down her ill thoughts deeper down and focusing on the fact she helped her team get through the Forest of Death and then won her match. Not only that, she answered some questions in the first stage too.
Maybe… Just maybe… She deserved to be here and give her best shot at becoming chuunin.
Mana wanted to visit her teammates in the hospital, but she couldn't find them anywhere. She would've liked to have gotten some things straight about the things they said to Sasuke and Kankuro during the preliminaries. Despite having spent most of her official career as a ninja around those two, it turned out that Mana may not have really known them at all. Based on what the nurse told her, Yoroi wasn't hospitalized anymore while Tsurugi wasn't allowed visitors, because of the extent of his injuries.
Despite Yoroi being Mana's teammate, she didn't even know where she should have started looking for him. She may have been meant for Tsurugi's condition too, if not worse. She was slated to face off against Gaara of the Desert during the finals of the Chuunin Exams. Because Sakura Haruno from Naruto's team and Yamanaka Ino knocked each other out during their match, both of them were eliminated, conveniently leaving ten contestants available for the finals. This left it to one round of five matches being arranged for the finals in the massive arena in the north-western part of the village.
"Greetings, young lady!" Mana heard an unfamiliar voice behind her. When she turned around, she saw a man dressed in a green bodysuit and wearing an unzipped Konohagakure flak jacket. Just like his show-stealing student, Might Guy wore a bowl cut and had bushy eyebrows. However, from what Mana could gather, this was more of a case of students emulating their esteemed master and not the other way around.
"You're… Rock Lee's master, aren't you?" Mana bowed politely. "Hello, sir."
"Such respect, such politeness, and vigor, the Fire of Youth sure is something, isn't it?" Might Guy flashed a smirk with a thumb up, seemingly approving of Mana's attitude. To be entirely honest, it may have been because of the jolt of adrenaline in her system that drove Mana to this energetic bow and a lively greeting. "Are you here to visit your teammates?"
"Y-Yes, sir! B-But… It doesn't seem like I'll be able to. Yoroi-senpai is out of the hospital already and Tsurugi-senpai is too badly hurt to see visitors," Mana turned her worried eyes away so that they didn't bother the Leaf's Noble Green Beast.
"I'm here to visit my spry and stubborn young apprentice too! Hopefully, he'll be in excellent condition to see visitors!" Guy clenched his fist with eyes that flared up with passionate best wishes for his student. Seeing Might Guy show this much care for Rock Lee's well-being after such a grisly conclusion to his preliminary match made Mana smile warmly. She was almost a bit jealous of such a caring mentor figure.
"How is Lee-san doing?" Mana wondered. She didn't really know Rock Lee, but the green jumpsuit genin made a stunning impression on the ninja magician during his preliminary match, despite losing. Despite taking pride in her performance skill, Mana had to uncomfortably admit that the Konoha's Handsome Green Beast stole the show with his perseverance and limit-breaking show.
"Hmm…" Might Guy's eyes became gloomy and moist. Just like everything else this man did, his switch in emotions was sudden and the emotions he experienced were all at the tallest peak of their highs. He either laughed with radiant glee or wept with gloomy despair, with there being nothing in between. "They say his injuries are extensive and grievous. There is a chance he might never go on another mission as a Konohagakure ninja again. More importantly, he needs some important surgery that no surgeon in the village is willing to take up… My bashful apprentice is hardy and strong, but… I'm worried about him, young Mana!"
"Th-There, there…" Mana muttered when a grown man hugged her and began sobbing uncontrollably into her shoulder, blushing in embarrassment and looking around, hoping that Might Guy's breakdown went unnoticed. "If it's okay, Guy-san… I'd like to see Lee-san too and wish him good luck with his recovery."
"HA HA HA HA!" Might Guy sprung on his feet with his hands on his hips, making Mana's left eye twitch in the suddenness at which this man came alive again after seemingly succumbing to despair? "I see that the Konoha's Handsome Wild Green Beast has stolen your heart with his outstanding performance! Very well, young Mana, let's wish him the best together! I'm sure that a maiden's best wishes shall give him the strength necessary to get back on his feet in no time at all! Maybe he'll even be cheering you on in your match in the finals!?"
"It… It would mean a great deal to me," Mana nodded. Even though the whole cringy talk of the maiden's best wishes made Mana not want to be seen with this man in public, she genuinely wanted to know Rock Lee just how moving his performance during the preliminaries was and, despite never having met him before, how Mana wanted him to make a quick and complete recovery.
However, just as they ascended halfway to the second floor, something strange rubbed against Mana's and Guy's nostrils. "Sand…?" Mana muttered when she extended her hand to look at the localized fringes of a whirling sandstorm that was picking up in the staircase. In a snap of the fingers, Might Guy's expression became serious, and he flickered away. Mana dashed off at her top speed right after.
There was no chance in hell that there was a localized sandstorm brewing inside the premises of Konohagakure Hospital. These rampant sand particles brushing against the skin and accumulating by the handfuls on the stairs could have only meant that Gaara of the Desert came to the hospital and, given how his team cleared the preliminaries stage with troubling ease, establishing themselves as bona fide monsters amongst the genin rookies, there was only one young man Gaara of the Desert could have come here to see.
"Dynamic Entry!" Might Guy exclaimed, slamming his flying kick straight into the erected mass of sand that protected Gaara of the Desert from the wrath of the interloping Konohagakure jounin. After catching up with Might Guy's sudden bolt, Mana had to take a second breath only to notice Naruto and Shikamaru flattened against the hospital floor with the fear for their lives reflected in their horrified eyes. "You… What are you doing here, young Gaara of the Desert?" the jounin pointed his accusatory ring index finger at Gaara after bouncing off the wall of sand and back flipping onto the stairs in a flawless Strong Fist taijutsu fighting stance.
"I've come to kill Rock Lee…" Gaara of the Desert answered without skipping heart beat. "You…" he glared at Mana. "You're here too? Hmm… I would have had no problem crushing you during our match, making a blood fest for the bloodthirsty crowd, but since you're here…"
"I don't understand!" Mana called out to Gaara, with Might Guy boldly putting himself in between Gaara and the ninja magician. "You won your match! There's no reason for you to want anything more from Lee-san! Stop this madness already!"
"The match? I couldn't care less about my match!" Gaara raised his hand, clenched like a lion's paw, as if he meant to rake his own skin and peel it right off his face while sand rustled and danced around the deeply disturbed Sunagakure genin. "The value of one's being is determined by the people they crush! For your existence to mean anything, you must prove your worth by crushing meaningful things! Rock Lee is strong! Very strong… The first in a long while to land a blow on me and bypass my Sand Shield. That is why… I must bathe in his blood to make my existence mean more than his does!"
"That's hogwash!" Mana nearly threw herself to her death with Might Guy extending his arm and stopping her from coming into the range of where Gaara could've ripped her apart with his sand. "Everyone's life means something. Everyone deserves to live, no matter the circ*mstances of their birth or who they are in life. There are no unnecessary people in this world. Everyone's life has a purpose. You don't need to grant your life purpose because it's already meaningful."
"Y-You… K-KILL YOU!" Gaara's eyes bulged out as the red-haired Sunagakure genin fell to one knee, drooling from the mouth as, Mana could've sworn, for a second, his teeth became razor sharp and beastly. Gaara grunted in pain and forced whatever horrors lurked deep in the corner of his psyche back where Gaara kept it sealed, halting his terrifying sandstorm and pulling his sand back into the gourd on his back as the frothing Sand genin stood back up and crossed his arms over his chest. "Nakotsumi Mana…" Gaara said with a much calmer, yet even scarier voice, exactly because of how restrained his deep-seated desire to rip Mana apart was. "I'll enjoy grinding you into dust and exposing your ideals as worthless and fickle as desert sand in the wind. During our match, bring your best and defend your silly ideals against my power. Debating philosophy with you here is worthless. If I am right, my strength will crush you. If you have a point worth making–you'll survive."
After explaining himself thusly, Gaara of the Desert calmly walked away with Naruto and Shikamaru gulping down and finally finding themselves able to breathe. Might Guy let down his guard and rushed to check up on Rock Lee too, who laid on the ground covered in bucket-worth of sand, but otherwise unharmed. Mana looked down at her shaking hands and clenched them into fists, calming them down before calmly walking up and entering the ward to see the gripping reunion between a master and apprentice.
"That guy's crazy! You can't fight him, Mana!" Shikamaru, the fellow with a spiky black ponytail from class, approached Mana and looked like he wanted to shake her by the shoulders until Mana saw reason. "He sidelined Lee like that, crushed his leg whole, and the two of them had no beef beforehand. With you setting him off like that… He'll try making an example out of you."
"I can't let him win," Mana shook her head. "If I walk away now, I'll be admitting to myself and to the entire world that I believe there might be a chance that might makes right in this world and I simply do not believe that. I believe every word in my ninja way, and that is why I will fight to my last dying breath to uphold my beliefs."
Naruto was looking at Mana like she was a madwoman even more messed up than Gaara at the beginning of her speech, however, at some point during her, he realized that the two of them weren't all that different. In the clarity reflecting from Naruto's expression, Mana saw Naruto believed he'd do the same thing in her shoes. This gave Mana even more serenity. If a great guy like Naruto, someone who inspired will and hope in people who have long given up on themselves, would do something like this, Mana felt justified in making the same choice, despite the tremendous risk.
"Mana-san!" Rock Lee looked up at Mana as he, with Guy's help, sat back on his bed. "I would strongly advise you to concede defeat in your match against Gaara of the Desert! He is not an opponent that you can defeat, at least, I don't believe so. However… Your determination is even more beautiful than you!" Rock Lee flashed a smirk and offered Mana his support with his thumb up.
"Hmm… If my wild apprentice has given you his approval and support… I guess there's no other choice…" Might Guy crossed his arms in front of his chest. "You don't have any mentor training you for your match in the finals, right, young Mana?"
"That's not entirely correct," Mana shrugged. "I have my father and myself…"
Mana gasped and jumped up with amazement when Might Guy fell to his knees and bowed before her, slamming his forehead against the hospital ward floor. "Please! Young Mana, please allow me to train you for the Chuunin Exams finals! Together, let us prove Gaara of the Desert the power of the Fire of Youth That Protects Life!"
"It…" Mana coughed out. "It would be… My honor, Guy-sa… Guy-sensei!"
Naruto, Shikamaru, and Rock Lee smiled, observing the scene together. Despite the crushing defeat and absolute death that the threat of Gaara of the Desert represented, all of them believed in miracles and there was no better person to make that miracle come true than a bona fide ninja magician.
"Alright!" Might Guy pumped his fist in front of him with a vivid smile on his face. "Gaara of the Desert, you're not ready for the teacher-student duo of the Leaf's Noble Green Beast, Might Guy, and Leaf's Magical Black Beast, Nakotsumi Mana!"
"L-Leaf's… Magical Black Beast?" Mana scratched her cheek, wondering if she committed a grave mistake by accepting the offer of the esteemed Konoha's greatest taijutsu expert to mentor her for the final match of the Chuunin Exams.
"And now for the second match: Gaara of the Desert VS Nakotsumi Mana," Genma Shiranui, the replacement proctor for the Chuunin Exams finals, announced.
"So, it's time…" Rock Lee closed his eyes, observing the finals from the spectator area in his casual robes as a bystander. "Time to see what Guy-sensei's training amounted to."
"Hmph," a girl with pigtails, seated near Rock Lee, pouted. "Give me a break, if Guy-sensei tutored Neji, maybe he wouldn't have lost to Naruto, of all people!"
"Guy-sensei can't really help Neji-san too much with his hidden clan techniques. Besides, the Hyuuga clan wishes for Neji to train within the confines of the clan's control, as usual," Rock Lee replied while staring at the arena with visible anxiety. He still had traces of fear that, despite everything, he would witness a murder.
Mana stepped out in the open and scanned the audience stands, bowing in their direction as if she was about to begin a magic show and wasn't about to fight for her life. After Mana walked out and took her place in the arena, it didn't take long for Might Guy to find a seat near his students, from where he could observe the match.
"Guy-sensei…" Rock Lee turned to his mentor, trying to peer into the man's facial expression and see the amount of confidence he had in Mana.
"Can she really hold her own against Gaara of the Desert?" the pigtail girl wondered, turning to her mentor with an inquisitive stare.
"As long as she sticks to the plan and there are no surprises…" Might Guy flashed a smile, looking confident in the progress of his temporary student.
The audience was fired up from the rowdy conclusion of Naruto's match. All Mana had to do was perform a few simple tricks to hold them in the palm of her hand. Some sparks, burning playing cards, and whirlwinds to spread the dazzle out just right and sprinkle it in the wind's direction, went a long way. Some members of the audience may not have understood why Mana was wasting chakra on some pointless performance, but they were entertained and so they cheered accordingly.
Gaara walked out and took his place some twenty meters away from Mana, looking livid. Mana noticed that the red-haired kid was already covered in traces of blood splatter that coated his hair and trickled down over his forehead and face. He'd killed someone on his way to the arena. His sand leaked out from the gourd and danced around him like flame tongues in a wildfire.
"Good, you're both here. Begin!" Genma Shiranui chopped with his hand, officially kicking off Mana's match in the Chuunin Exams finals. A journey of a thousand steps, all leading up here.
As expected, Gaara's sadism tipped over the top and leaked out with a torrential floor. With a vocal grunt and forced effort, the sand-user sent a whole tide of sand toward Mana, spreading it out far and wide, only for the sand to smash down like a tidal wave, and, when Gaara solidified the giant Sand Coffin, he realized it was empty.
"Fast!" Rock Lee gasped. Despite his arm and leg having been crushed, his perception hadn't deteriorated from what it was before.
"That's right, young Mana's speed has improved dramatically. Even though it didn't start great, with young Mana being too worried about what was possible and what wasn't, when she managed to let go of such silly notions, she did well," Might Guy flashed an approving grin. "However… Mana's speed isn't really her principal weapon. I'd say she's still a few steps behind you, young Lee…"
"Hmm? But… Gaara's attacks were difficult for me to keep up. It took losing weights and opening several Inner Gates to keep up and surpass him," Rock Lee turned to Might Guy with a worried look. Mana simply didn't have the time to master all these taijutsu techniques. Nevertheless…
"Stop running!" Gaara bellowed out, raising his hands after realizing that Mana's speed, while much nimbler than what it was before, wasn't quite in Lee's league, meaning she wouldn't be outpacing his Sand Shield and landing any hits. Responding to his aggression, the bubbling mass of sand erupted with tendrils that sought to swarm Mana, wrap around her, then crush her and rip her to shreds. "You said you'd prove to me that your existence and ideals are worth something by comparing them to mine! My existence is only worth something if I can crush one as preposterous as yours!"
Gaara's sand tendrils should have, by all means, swarmed Mana. However, just when it seemed like the magician was cornered, despite her impressive footwork and evasive dashing, Mana took it into the air, speeding away like a whizzing arrow. The audience gasped in secondhand terror, seeing Mana navigating around the tendrils that weren't used to chasing after people capable of tapping into height with this much control.
"You've learned to fly?" Gaara hissed in animosity toward the nimble ninja magician, eluding his attempts to crush her and grind her into dust.
"Well, to be honest, I have known my Mystical Wings Jutsu since back in the Academy. I merely mastered it…" Mana winked at the audience playfully while hovering in the air and riding artificially generated wind currents, strengthened and restrained as needed by Mana's skill in using Wind Release.
"Come on, Gaara… This match is pointless, stop wasting time and chakra and do what you were told!" Kankuro barked out somewhere in the arena.
"No use wasting words," Temari shook her head with a bitter reflection of Gaara's slipping mental state. "Gaara's obsessed over killing this girl using his own strength. He won't be handing control over to the beast until he finishes her off."
"I didn't even see Mana performing hand seals," Rock Lee exclaimed in amazement. "That's where the crux of the training time went, wasn't it?"
"That's absolutely correct!" Might Guy gave his student two thumbs up and a heroic grin with a wink. "Young Mana's arsenal of jutsu surpasses that of some chuunin. She's got over a dozen different jutsu, both ninjutsu and genjutsu, that she can use at any given time. However, performing hand seals takes time and, if Gaara could interrupt her, Mana would be shut off from her primary advantage. That's why we devoted the most time to making her hand seal speed absolutely ludicrous! In fact, I don't think anyone could keep up with young Mana's sleight of hand unless they're the proud owner of a very particular set of eyes!"
"Don't think you've escaped from me yet!" Gaara bellowed, pressing his hand against the ground and sending an audible quake across the sand serving as the foundation of the very arena. Like a geyser, the sand shot upward, erecting Gaara from the ground level and elevating him to Mana's height. By tapping into the sand comprising the very foundation of the arena, Gaara made more sand and amped up the killing potential, range, and density of his controlled sand drastically.
"Sand Coffin!" Gaara cried out, hurling dozens of surging tendrils of sand, capable of shifting and busting through solid building walls, let alone catching a lone girl off-guard. Despite Mana's remarkable agility in the air and a whole additional dimension she could elude Gaara's chase in, an ironclad grip wrapped around Gaara's heel and began crawling up her leg all the way to her thigh. "Sand…" Gaara was about to seal Mana's fate when…
"Polymorphy Jutsu!" Mana exclaimed, clapping her hands together. Gaara's eyes spaced out for a second as he lost control over his sand, causing the Sand Coffin wrapped around Mana's leg to sprinkle down as Gaara's flying mass of sand collapsed down on the ground, burying Gaara in tons of his own major weapon.
"The speed of her jutsu is incredible!" Temari exclaimed. "She's got Gaara completely beat!"
"No surprise…" Kankuro scoffed. "Gaara's calling forth ungodly amounts of chakra to control this much sand. He's never tapped into the sand of his environment before, not that I'm aware of. Controlling sand on such a scale… Gaara's already drawing stamina and chakra from the beast. It's like Gaara's swinging his blade with wide power swings while his opponent's riposting with quick and precise thrusts."
"NAKOTSUMI MANA!" Gaara roared as tons upon tons of sand parted away, revealing bestial teeth and black sclerae for eyes with yellow pupils and black, starry irises lurking inside all that sand. Mana was taken aback by this sudden shift in appearance and the booming nova of chakra. Pulsating, overwhelming pain took over and rendered Mana helpless to compete against a gigantic pile of sand, shaped like a four-finger beast's hand and slamming Mana into the arena's wall.
"That's a… Stop this match!" Might Guy exclaimed, jumping to his feet as the veteran ninja identified a partial transformation of a Tailed Beast occurring. The feat of drawing chakra from a monstrous pure chakra construct, as Naruto did during his match, was nothing compared to losing control.
"N-No…" Gaara began restraining himself, pulling back the raging sandstorm and the torrential tsunami of rampant sand, neutering the crashing wave before it could obliterate the entire arena and leaving it merely to stack against the village walls. "I won't let… You… She's mine… All mine!"
"Gaara's reverting the transformation!" Kankuro exclaimed. "Has he ever done that before?"
"What's going on? Wasn't the plan for him to transform? Why's he pulling it back?" Temari screamed out.
"This is wrong," Baki, the jounin accompanying the Sunagakure genin, scanned the place, identifying the jounin preparing to interfere. "He's wasted too much time! Now the Konoha ninja know what we're up to. The factor of surprise is ruined. You two, pull Gaara away from the village. Maybe, if he loses sight of that girl, he'll transform and return to the village. We can't let the high-ranking ninja intercept and stop Gaara!"
"Sunagakure brought a Jinchuuriki to the arena! An unstable one at that! We have to stop it before it loses control and releases the Tailed Beast!" Asuma Sarutobi slipped his fists into his knuckle dusters and ignited them with Wind Release blades while Kurenai Yuhi prepared to throw herself into the arena to support him. Might Guy shot forward from the stands, lighting up with an emerald shimmer of the released first Inner Gate.
"Might Guy's leading the way! Let's go, Kurenai!" Asuma exclaimed, throwing himself overboard and running down the wall in a speedy blitz toward Gaara. While the boy was still struggling for control, all Asuma needed was one good shot to take him down while the ANBU subdued the emerging beast. Kurenai followed Asuma, watching his back while serving as his guardian angel in case he needed it. Her skill set was better suited for support, anyway.
Guy's foot slammed against something solid, ripping it to shreds and shattering a puppet while Baki dashed out in between Gaara and Asuma. "Wind Release: Wind Blade!" Baki chanted out and drew his fingers down as if cutting with an imaginary sword and sending a crescent projectile Asuma's way. Surprised, Asuma was forced to cross his knuckle dusters and block the incoming deadly slash with his chakra-imbued blades.
While Asuma avoided the deadly fate that befell Hayate Gekko, the forceful push of the slashing Wind Blade slammed him into the arena wall. Moving in from behind, Kurenai Yuhi weaved hand seals and activated her genjutsu. In a blink of an eye, Baki found himself subdued as a massive cherry tree grew over him and wrapped its adamantine bark around the Sunagakure jounin.
"I'm not sure what you Sunagakure ninja are up to, but we're putting a stop to it!" Kurenai's voice rang in Baki's ears as her thick figure emerged from the bark of the illusionary tree, holding a kunai. She reached to cut Baki's throat and kill the Sand jounin.
The very next moment, Kurenai's body flopped on the ground, shrunken down and made of straw. Something impossible had occurred and the Konohagakure jounin found her mind displaced into the body of a straw doll as a curse for attempting to attack the Sunagakure ninja.
"That's the power of the Yamanaka Clan!" Kurenai's mind resonated in shock. "What's going on here?"
"Kurenai!" Asuma barked out and dashed to retrieve the lifeless body of his treasured partner. Before he could reach her, however, a gigantic sphere of black insects swallowed him up from the side. When the insects cleared out, Asuma flopped on his knees with a blank stare at the sky, completely stunned and drained of chakra by the Aburame Clan bugs that came out of nowhere.
"Come on, Gaara, let's go…" Kankuro pulled the roaring and snarling Gaara out from his sandy tomb and took off, accompanied by Temari.
"Oh, no you won't!" Naruto exclaimed. "Come back here!"
Absolute pandemonium broke out in the arena. Civilians and trained ninja alike started dropping asleep by the dozens. Naruto, Sakura, and a handful more rookies took off to pursue the Sunagakure ninja that attempted to flee the village while masked Sunagakure and Otogakure ninja struck from nowhere, invading the village and starting an attack the likes of which the village had never seen before. Konoha was under attack!
Coughing, battered, and broken, Mana swam out from the piles of sand. She gasped and cried out, feeling a burning sensation in her lungs as she emerged. No matter how much Mana craved oxygen, whenever she tried breathing in, it was like she was drawing in pure hellfire. The burning was so agonizing that it interrupted Mana's vain attempts to breathe and reset them, with no air being inhaled.
"Well, if it isn't Mana-chan…" Mana heard a familiar voice. A blurry image of familiar purple shapes rustled like a mirage above her as Mana's weakened body could merely twitch and crawl in a pathetic attempt to breathe in at least once. Yoroi Akado ignited his Chakra Absorption fists and grabbed Mana by the throat, lifting her off the ground as he sapped her of all her chakra.
"Did you know that when a ninja reaches the critical point of 10% of their total chakra capacity, they pass out? If they keep losing chakra, eventually they slip into a coma or, if they run out of chakra completely–die?" Yoroi stared at Mana with a look the girl couldn't even see from behind dark shades with a veiled expression. "Let this be a final lesson that I impart to you as your senpai."
"You should have just snapped her neck or cut her throat. This is taking too much time! It's chaos out there!" Tsurugi's voice rang by Yoroi's side as the other member of Team Yoroi flickered by.
"You wouldn't know by looking at her, but Mana actually has a lot more chakra than someone at her rank should have," Yoroi replied coldly. "We'll need this extra chakra to keep up with the heavy hitters."
"Heh, sorry, Mana-chan… It's not really personal. You ended up being a lot more helpful than we initially thought," Tsurugi cackled in sad*stic glee while watching Mana go limp in Yoroi's grasp as her crushed ribs simply wouldn't let her put up any respectable opposition. "It's just that Yoroi and I have gone rogue a long time ago and worked as spies for Otogakure. We've had to sacrifice so many patriotic teammates that we just stopped asking them to desert the village alongside us at some point."
"Don't you two have any chivalrous bone left in you?" a voice Mana was unfamiliar with rang behind Yoroi, blindsiding the leader of Team Yoroi as a giant toad slammed down behind the two rogue ninja and wrapped its tongue around them, drawing them into its mouth and gobbling them up while Mana flopped down on the sand. By the time the Legendary Sannin–Toad Sage Jiraiya swooped down to her rescue, Mana passed out from chakra shortage and injury.
"Tsukumo!" a dark-haired woman in a burgundy suit turned to her husband with terrified violet eyes. Mana's father clasped his wife's hand as he dragged her through the backstage area of the arena, fending off the Sunagakure and Otogakure assailants as they revealed themselves and tried to dispose of them. Nakotsumi Tsukumo wasn't that amazing of a ninja when he had to wing it without apt preparations and setup for his traps, but his civilian clothing confused most attackers that they were in for an easy kill, just before Tsukumo surprised them for the last time.
"I know… We need to clear the premises and get as far away from here as we can!" Tsukumo barked out in a voice full of desperation. "I'm not sure what's happening, but I think I saw a giant toad somewhere. That means that one of the Legendary Sannin is on our side, not to mention the Third Hokage. Not even the combined forces of two ninja villages will be able to extinguish Konoha's resistance with those two spearheading our counterattack. We just need to survive until then…"
"B-But… Mana-chan!" Nakotsumi Kei cried out. "She's hurt! Our baby girl's hurt and in the heat of things!"
"Yeah… I'll go back for her, but I need to make sure you're safe first! Something's fishy going on here! It's like… It's like we can't really trust even our own ninja…" Tsukumo gnashed his teeth, sweating profusely as he dragged his mentally strained and resigned to despair wife through the backstage corridors.
"That's very perceptive, Konoha's Trapster…" a voice came from around the corner before Tsukumo heard the taps of a walking cane and saw the emergence of a bandaged man with spiky brown hair and a squint to his lone-seeing right eye.
"Danzo…!" Tsukumo hissed, stopping in place and gently brushing his wife behind him. "What's going on? Why are you standing in our way? You should be fighting alongside Lord Third and helping protect the village!"
"I am protecting the village…" Danzo looked down with deep regret. "I'm protecting it from the misguided leadership of the Third Hokage."
"You…" Tsukumo stammered in disbelief with lips that grew pale. Almost as if all blood had drained from the man's body. "You're leading the attack against Konoha, aren't you?"
"Not quite, but very perceptive," Danzo replied with no sign of enjoyment behind this heinous act of treachery. "I like to think that it's not my betrayal that doomed Hiruzen and his supporters, but Hiruzen's own incompetence as Hokage. After all, he presumed to be able to dismantle the Root and simply absorb my ninja into his fold, as if their loyalty was ever in question. Even now, they're undermining the village's defenses as we speak, despite wearing our uniform and fighting amongst our ranks. By the time the protectors of Hiruzen's perverse government notice, it will be too late."
"Unbelievable, Danzo…" Tsukumo cried out in horror at what the village elder admitted to. "You've gone completely mad! You were always the worst kind of scum imaginable, but this… I'll admit, I've always demonized you even more than it's apt, but… It turns out I was still too lenient. You were a far worse monster than I've ever imagined."
"You're the one to speak, traitor. After my agents finally uncovered what Hiruzen kept concealed, I've had to make sure I kill you and that dangerous woman myself. Don't worry, if your daughter survives this attack, I'll make an agent out of her yet. She's too talented to slip through my fingers," Danzo shook his head. "I've never seen a recruit fumble their assignment worse than you ever did, Tsukumo. You were to gather information about the Wandering Ninja, lower and sabotage their defenses, and prepare them for a simple and quick elimination."
"Genocide? You call genocide an assignment now, Danzo?" Tsukumo barked back in defiance. "I've made mistakes because of how young and ambitious I was, that's true. But my only mistake was getting drawn under your influence and considering you an example of what a true ninja was!"
"I will not allow a single Wandering Ninja or someone who knows about Konoha's role in exterminating them live. Both they and people who are aware of their fate are too dangerous to be left alive! Thankfully, you spared your daughter of your fate by keeping her in the dark…" Danzo replied, completely unmoved. The sounds of fighting, steel clanking, men grunting, and feminine screams were drowned out by the precarious battlefield raging outside, all across the village.
When all was said and done, Danzo walked out and joined his loyal Root agents. The traitorous and deranged village elder left behind a scene of carnage. A man and a woman sliced up into pieces and blood-soaked walls. The completion of the extermination of the Wandering Ninja, a mission Konoha started some fifteen years ago, would pale in the total body count of the Konoha Crush. An attempt to level Konoha that would both nearly succeed and, ultimately, fail because of Danzo's intervention and the role that his undercover Root operatives played in both hindering Konoha's defenses and bolstering them, once the Third Hokage fell in battle against Orochimaru.
The hopeful world Mana left behind when she took on Gaara of the Desert shattered into a million pieces. So thoroughly that it seemed impossible that they could ever be reassembled into a complete and beautiful picture.
Mana's ideals shaken.
Her team scattered and revealed themselves as traitors who merely used Mana to further their treachery.
Her parents were cut down by the figurehead of the village she served.
It would be an impossible task to pick up the pieces and lick the wounds of this day, but that was the monumental mission of tomorrow's Mana. Right now, Mana earned some modicum of rest in her complete defeat.
A striking, mature woman with blond hair parting above her forehead, tied in two shoulder-length bangs reaching her lower back, faced the sight of the rebuilding Konohagakure a few months after tragedy leveled the village and nearly finished it. The woman's long, white Hokage robe rustled in the wind that usually carried blooming petals and leaves but was now barren.
"Konoha has suffered a great deal, but I'll keep it safe now that I'm its protector… The Fifth Hokage!" Tsunade, Lady Fifth, declared, clenching her fist decisively in front of her. Konoha Crush claimed the life of her predecessor–the Third Hokage, and very nearly claimed the life of Danzo Shimura, the man who may have very well saved the village by stopping Orochimaru and repelling his forces where Lord Third had gone short.
Danzo Shimura did the impossible, standing up to the reanimated past Hokage. However, the wounds Danzo suffered were too great, and the village needed a leader. The elders and the surviving villagers turned to the man whose timely interference had saved the village during the early, most hectic stages of the attack–Jiraiya, the Toad Sage. However, Jiraiya had no interest in becoming the next Hokage. The Toad Sage found and convinced Tsunade to take the seat instead.
Even though Tsunade didn't feel like a worthy successor to Lord Third or a suitable replacement to Danzo, who, by all means, should have gotten the seat, desperate times forced her to take up the mantle. At least until Danzo recovers from his severe wounds sustained against Orochimaru during the invasion. So much work was still ahead: reconstruction, investigation into reports of esteemed village clans supporting the invading force, causing Asuma Sarutobi, Might Guy, and Kurenai Yuhi to become sidelined for a time… Not to mention the desperate need Konoha had for both chuunin and jounin because of its current circ*mstances.
Because of the insurmountable wall of work that was left behind after the Konoha Crush, day and day again, Lady Fifth found herself sleeping in her office by just slumping over a gigantic collection of stacks of documents that made Lady Fifth's table seem like a blueprint for the new village plan. One morning, like usual, Izumo and Kotetsu found Lady Fifth sleeping in a complete mess with a bruise on her cheek and a hanging drool.
Despite the tremendous sacrifices to her own health and sanity, Lady Fifth greeted the hard-working village guards with a carefree wave before they slammed another ceiling-scraping pile of work on her table and lined up in front of her desk.
"Lady Fifth, there's something you need to know," Izumo said with slight worry in his expression. After the two handed Lady Fifth the filed official report, she slammed her hand against the table and slammed her rear end against her chair.
"WHAT!? ARE YOU TWO SERIOUS!?" she boomed out
"That's right, ma'am. Haruno Sakura, Sasuke Uchiha's teammate in Team 7, confirmed it," Kotetsu nodded. "Sasuke Uchiha has gone missing and Sakura Haruno believes that he may have gone rogue."
"Dammit, now of all the times! Our Chuunin Exams got interrupted, our top ninja are all sidelined fending off invasion and we can't let our guard down, or else traitors might try taking over the village from inside again!" Tsunade barked out, pacing left to right across her office. "Darn that Orochimaru! This can only be the doing of Kabuto Yakushi…"
"Kabuto Yakushi?" Izumo repeated. "You mean that man who's the alleged successor of Orochimaru? The one that was integral to coordinating the invasion and tried assassinating you before you took the seat of Hokage?"
"Yeah, there can be no doubt about it. With Orochimaru sharing Danzo's fate, Kabuto must have stepped up to keep Orochimaru's snake den alive and running. Jiraiya and I must not have kicked his ass hard enough last time!" Tsunade kept on rolling her fists and cracking her knuckles, as if Lady Fifth felt itchy to get her hands on that creep again. "We need to send a pursuit team immediately, who do we have available?"
"Well…" Izumo scratched the back of his head, reluctant to admit the sorry state of the village force available to chase after a missing ninja. "We've received reports that Kakashi-san might return from his mission in a few days… Other than that, our forces are thin. We literally have no chuunin or higher ninja to send after him."
"Even if Kakashi-san returns from his mission in a few days, that won't help us much. Ever since the invasion, Kakashi-san has been picking up an unfair amount of slack and leaving on missions non-stop, taking up the workload of the rest of his peers," Kotetsu said, sounding worried.
"Tsk… So we can't even pursue ninja deserting from the village without leaving ourselves open to attack and short of the workforce to do missions in our own village? Man, what a task Jiraiya's dropped in my lap…!" Tsunade groaned, running her hand across her face. With such grim observations not being meant to be spoken out loud and heard, Lady Fifth reflected to herself how she hadn't had to make choices this difficult since the war. Certainly, she hasn't left people in trouble like this…
"You can't be serious, you know!" Naruto barked out, slamming his hands over the outer side of Tsunade's desk and toppling several piles of meticulously stacked paperwork awaiting completion. "So you're telling me we're just gonna leave Sasuke be!?"
"Naruto…" Tsunade said with a restrained and afflicted tone of voice. "It's not as easy as that. Why can't you understand that? You may still be a child, but I can't afford to treat you as such anymore. With the aftermath of Orochimaru's attack, most of our capable ninja have been sidelined or they're busy on other missions. Sending even a three-man cell after Sasuke would be detrimental to the village's security. Can't you understand that the world has seen Konohagakure bleed and many forces at play would see the village crumble and burn? You've met at least a few of them…"
"Cut the crap, you know!" Naruto seethed with clenched fists, ready to send them duking, even if he had to knock some sense into the thick-headed Fifth Hokage herself. "If you're short on people to send after Sasuke, just send me! I'll bring Sasuke-kun back, no problem! It's a promise, you see!"
"You know I can't do that Naruto," Tsunade rubbed her stressed temples. After as many consecutive all-nighters working, she didn't deserve to deal with Naruto's childish nonsense right now. "It's more than likely that Kabuto or some of the more dangerous Sound Ninja, who were rampant during the invasion and survived our counterattack, are involved. The last time we had to deal with Kabuto, he nearly killed you, me, and Jiraiya. I hate to admit it, Naruto, but he might even be more dangerous than Orochimaru himself right now."
"In that case, send out the rookies!" Naruto demanded. "Send all of us who pursued Gaara of the Desert and fended off an actual Tailed Beast, preventing it from running rampant in the village, you know!"
"That won't work either…" Tsunade squinted, genuinely considering flicking this annoying brat out of her building. It wasn't just that he was preventing from any work being done, it was more that Tsunade knew he was arguing from a morally superior position and that she was the villainous politician in this case, however… As far as she was concerned, it was that same rotten politician who was keeping the village on life support and running through willpower and medical food pills alone. "Shino is away on an important mission, backing up his father. I'll be sending a bunch of genin after some of the most dangerous rogue ninja in the world, and not even our top ones because our strongest genin is the one that's being dragged away and our second best is away. Sit tight until Kakashi returns from his mission, that's an order, Naruto!"
"You know better than anyone that I won't listen to that stupid order, you know!" Naruto barked out, leaning over Tsunade's table and pointing an accusatory finger at her. "I know that the rest of us won't too! If we handled Shukaku, we'd handle Sasuke and glasses-guy too, you better believe we will, you know! We'll go rogue too if we have to, and we'll drag Sasuke back together! You can count on that, you know!"
"Damn it…" Tsunade leaned back in her chair, feeling completely exhausted and powerless to change anything. Arguing with Naruto felt like bashing her head against the wall, and Tsunade was already cracked open and concussed beforehand. "Fine, I'll send you lot after them, but… I'll assign you someone else too. I can't just sign you guys off and send you to die. You're too valuable as potential chuunin material!"
"Sign up whoever! It doesn't matter, I'll save Sasuke by myself if I have to, you know!" Naruto nodded with his arms crossed.
"Very well, pack your bags and be here in an hour. Your squad will be assembled and signed off to leave immediately," Tsunade spat back at the impetuous and stubborn young ninja behaving like a complete and total brat.
"Alright!" Naruto pumped his fist and dashed out of the building to start packing. He didn't much care for Tsunade's vetting process, as far as he was concerned, he was more than fine working alongside the bunch who went after Gaara after he hurt Mana during their match.
Despite not wanting to take from his master with this one specific detail, Naruto would have usually been late to the mission briefing. But not this one. With this one, he made it well in time, with only Shikamaru Nara and Neji Hyuuga preceding Naruto. Naruto gasped, identifying his opponent in the third round of the Chuunin Exams and exclaiming some unintelligible gibberish while he pointed his finger at Neji.
"Huh!? What's this guy doing here, you know!? He wasn't with us when we chased after Gaara!" Naruto growled while Neji just turned his back and turned his nose up with his arms crossed.
"I'm still your superior in terms of skill and experience, Naruto. You should be grateful that I am lending my skills for the capture and retrieval of a village's missing ninja," Neji replied, without skipping a beat.
"What was that, you…!?" Naruto was already rolling back his sleeves and ready to get his fists a-swinging. Before the two could start fighting, the door opened again with Choji walking in, holding a pack of crisps, lazily stuffing his chubby cheeks and completely ignoring the blatant tension between Naruto and Neji.
"Akimichi Choji, reporting for duty, I guess…" Choji said with cheeks stuffed with mashed potato chips.
"Hmph… Of course, Naruto has nothing to say about this slob coming in and speaking with his mouth full," Neji beamed a scolding glare at Choji, who lost his cool and began shaking his chips-holding hand over his head as if threatening to hammer Neji into the floor like a nail with it if he didn't get off Choji's case.
"If memory serves, none of us got promoted this year because the Chuunin Exams were interrupted during the second match!" Choji yelled out with whited-out eyes. In this berserk state, even Naruto was a bit afraid of messing with Choji. It wasn't too dissimilar from when someone suggested Choji was overweight.
"That may be so, however… I'm still your superior in terms of experience, meaning that I'm the natural choice for the role of a field team leader," Neji scoffed at Choji's suggestion that they were all equals in this office.
"Come on, guys… Leave some of yourselves for the actual bad guys…" Shikamaru stuffed his index finger into his ear and rattled it up and down before staring at whatever came out and wondering for a second if he should've stuffed it up his nose and raked out the boogers that were bothering him or if he should've waited until they had access to a closed bathroom for that.
"Sorry… Sorry, I'm late!" Kiba yelled out, bursting through the door with his little pup Akamaru stuffed in his furry jacket. "My sister and I only returned from a mission in Kusagakure yesterday, so I had to pick Akamaru up from a dog groomer's office."
"That's quite alright, you may just not be the final one to arrive here," Tsunade said with a grim look on her face with her sullen face hiding behind her interwoven fingers. "I found one other ninja being currently available. Granted, she's been sidelined for almost a full month now."
"A full month? Don't tell me…" Neji gasped. "Lady Fifth, is it really okay? No one has seen or heard about Mana since her defeat in the Chuunin Exams."
"It's not just her defeat, man!" Kiba growled, winking his left eye at how badly Neji screwed it up. "Mana's parents got killed during the invasion. If you asked me, it's understandable that she had to take a few days off because of it. Few of us could keep going on with that kind of loss hanging over us."
The mood of boyish bickering suddenly became direr when the topic turned to Mana's deceased parents and defeat at Gaara's hands during the Chuunin Exams. Nobody blamed her for losing. It took a handful of rookies to fend off the same psychotic version of Gaara that flipped the lid and sidelined Mana and, unlike Mana, they knew what kind of danger they were pursuing when they pursued him. Just as Tsunade was about to dismiss the heavy topic and send the team off without the absent ninja magician, the door opened again and a dark-haired girl in a tuxedo-style uniform and top hat walked in like nothing had happened and joined the team.
"M-Mana…" Tsunade exclaimed as she had almost written Mana off in her head and was contemplating retiring the young lady after she'd missed out on almost a month of work during the most ridiculously overworked time in the village's history. "How are you doing? From someone who's a medical ninja, your eyes, skin, and hair don't look healthy. Before I sign you off on this dangerous emergency mission, I need to know that you're ready to return to the field after what happened."
Mana nodded while saying absolutely nothing. There were easily noticeable bags under the girl's eyes, her hair looked dry and brittle like drenched, old wheat. Tsunade wasn't the only one alarmed by Mana's sudden appearance in the camp after just disappearing for a month with no contact. Even given the circ*mstances of her substantial loss, Mana was fortunate that far too few ninja were keeping track of mission records and performance lately. Even those geeks had to be sent out to the field at some point.
"Understood, I'm signing you guys off then. Based on the intelligence we have, around eight hours ago, Sasuke Uchiha left the village on foot. It's likely that he's established contact with some Otogakure ninja because the international community has acknowledged Otogakure as a foreign terrorist organization after their heinous actions during the Konoha invasion," Tsunade explained the bare essentials before handing out five copies of the same scroll containing the mission details and objective inside. "Please have in mind that, because of the potential of foreign ninja contact, this mission would be qualified as B-Rank, and, because of the rank of the rogue ninja potentially involved, it might even measure up as being an A-Rank mission in terms of danger. Please be careful out there. Don't make me worry and keep in mind that the village cannot afford to lose you."
"Alright, look alive, men!" Naruto exclaimed, shooting his fist up into the sky. He then immediately scratched his cheek and began chuckling awkwardly after turning to Mana. "Heh heh heh… I guess what I meant is… Men and women, you know."
"Naruto, seriously…" Shikamaru groaned. "We're all ranked genin, so just leave the whole leadership thing to Neji already. I know it sounds like a drag, but… He's the one amongst us with the most experience."
"Oh yeah, how many A-Rank missions did he complete, you know?" Naruto pressed his hands over his hips.
"Same number you did–0," Neji scoffed.
"Hah!" Naruto pointed his finger in a very gotcha-like motion. "Actually, I've completed two! One in the Land of Waves and another one chasing Gaara of the Desert and trying to prevent the emergence of that colossal sand raccoon!"
Before Neji could explain that neither of those missions counted toward his official mission record, the group heard a feminine call for them to wait up. This time, even Mana, who stayed quiet and just went along with the group, turned around and noted the appearance of Sakura. The pink-haired kunoichi looked absolutely devastated and miserable.
"Wait, guys…" Sakura called out. "Take me with you, please."
"I'm sorry, Sakura," Neji crossed his arms and shook his head. "We cannot do that. Based on the intelligence Lady Tsunade gave us, Sasuke knocked you out last night. You need to get checked out so that the medical ninja can determine you didn't suffer any long-lasting damage from that episode."
Mana opened her mouth to speak up before Shikamaru spoke first. "Sorry, Naruto, Sakura… I'm with Neji on this one. While it might seem like the best thing to do for us is to take as many people as we can, our best chance for success is to move in a compact group that's in a tight formation and able to look out for any enemy traps."
"Sakura-san!" Lee, who came to see his comrades off, despite still recovering from the life-altering surgery that may have granted him his life as a ninja back, courtesy of Lady Tsunade, stammered.
"Sakura-chan…" Naruto muttered, looking worked up about something.
"Naruto-kun, everyone… This… This is a wish of a lifetime… Please, please… Bring Sasuke-kun back to me, please!" Sakura cried out. "I couldn't talk him through it, I failed him as his teammate and his friend. Now the only people strong enough to bring him back are you guys."
"Heh, heh…" Naruto chuckled with a goofy facial expression. "Man, Sakura-chan… You really care about Sasuke-kun, don't you? Don't worry, I know all too well what you're going through right now. Don't you worry, you know! We'll bring Sasuke-kun back to you for sure!" the spiky-haired boy flashed a smile and a thumb-up for his teammate, bringing some hope back into Mana's eyes, even though it was just a glint of second-hand stuff.
"Naruto!" Neji scolded his squad mate. "Are you really going to go around making unprofessional promises like that?"
"Hmph… Don't you forget it, Neji! I never go back on my word! That's my ninja way, you know!" Naruto reminded Neji of something that everyone had already gotten sick of hearing. Not Mana, though. She could've used hearing that reassurance once in a while. She could have used a little bit of hope right now.
"Alright, everyone!" Naruto called out. "We've burnt enough daylight already! Time to get to it, you know!"
"Chakra signatures right ahead, everyone!" Neji, who, despite being the de facto leader of the Sasuke Retrieval Squad, dashed in front, because of his Byakugan being able to scan the battlefield for traps the farthest distance ahead that way, yelled out, warning everyone of impending danger.
"There's an entire group ahead!" Kiba barked out. "I think we still outnumber them though…"
"We do, there are four of them and five of us," Neji nodded.
"So, Sasuke has escorts…" Shikamaru muttered, not wanting or expecting any response.
"Come on, guys! Let's just catch up to Sasuke already!" Naruto yelled out.
"Shut up, Naruto!" Kiba glanced back. "While we're all of equal rank, you don't get to decide that. Don't forget that your knucklehead mentality might doom all of us!"
"I don't mind following Naruto's suggestion," Neji said unexpectedly. "After all, with my Byakugan, also Kiba and Akamaru's incredible sense of smell, we can observe the situation from a long-range without coming into contact with the enemy until we are sure we know what the situation is like and we know we're ready for a collision."
"I'm a sensor ninja," Mana said, making the rest of the squad get startled and turn at her after expressing their surprise at what Mana said. "I can sense chakra signatures from afar, similarly to how Kiba-san and Akamaru can track scents."
"That's good," Neji nodded in approval before adopting a dire expression. "That way, even if one or two of us would get taken out, the rest of us can stay on Sasuke's trail. We cannot afford to play detectives for too long, or else Sasuke might end up crossing the border and then we'll have lost our shot at capturing him."
"Neji-san, might I suggest being careful?" Shikamaru asked the de facto leader, having by far the easiest time accepting Neji's leadership, perhaps rivaling only Mana. "Based on the fact that we managed to catch up to an enemy that left eight hours ago, it seems likely to me that the enemy might have set up their camp and placed traps around it. They might also have sensor ninja of their own. Mana, you wouldn't by any chance be able to tell?"
"Sorry, I haven't had a lot of time to hone that skill yet," Mana shook her head. Just to be professional, she closed her eyes and allowed her chakra sensory field to expand as far out as she could, but, despite being able to feel large chakra signatures ahead, she wasn't able to tell much about them at all.
"Alright!" Naruto cried out, sounding all pumped up and ready to go. "Once we crash their little camping party, I'll use my newest jutsu to pulverize them!"
"Naruto, wait!" Choji barked out an order. Before Naruto could get in Choji's face about it, the chubby ninja pointed up at a sealing tag stuck on a thick tree branch above.
"A paper bomb… They're setting up a perimeter barrier," Shikamaru gnashed his teeth, not liking the look of it one bit.
Because of the perimeter barrier being set up around the area where the Sound Ninja were camping, the Sasuke Retrieval team had to land below and try not to trigger any tripwire traps. In a feat of close call, Naruto nearly tripped one trap, if it wasn't for the timely intervention of Shikamaru taking control of Naruto's body with Shadow Possession Jutsu and freezing him in place before Naruto could trigger the tripwire trap.
"These guys are the real deal," Neji noted. "Some of these traps are just ordinary tripwires, however, I picked up at least a few wires that are sprayed with green paint, making them concealed inside the forest grass."
"Damn it, those guys are taking their time and covering their tracks and not leaving us any openings at all," Shikamaru scratched his neck, vexed by how terrifying the enemy was before any of them even ran into them.
"They're close," Mana said in a restrained tone. As if heeding her warning, Neji stopped moving too. The retrieval squad began closing in on the Sound Ninja.
"Any closer and they'll spot us," Neji warned the team.
"Let's not get impatient. Let me think up of a winning strategy," Shikamaru said, frustrated about having to exert effort. Choji, Naruto, and Kiba both began yelling over one another about who would be the first one to strike the knockout blow and whose new jutsu would have the greatest impact in the battle.
Having come up with a strategy, Shikamaru had the team circling one another. Having approached the enemy within seeing range, the Konohagakure ninja could, at last, see the escorting squad of rogue ninja and their goal right before them. At first, Sasuke's absence confused the Konoha ninja, but Neji pointed at the man-sized, round coffin layered with sealing tags, connected with glowing glyphs.
Before they could execute their strategy, however, a blue-haired Sound Ninja flung a kunai with three explosive tags exactly where Shikamaru and Neji were. The resounding blast scattered the two most important ninja in the squad and left them dragging across the ground out in the open as the Sound Ninja lined up in front of the two grazed ninja. Had it not been for Neji's impeccable instincts, the two would've suffered much worse injuries.
"Well, well… The things you find under the bushes," a pink-haired young woman with notable and emboldened eyeliner spoke in a brash and bratty, almost tomboyish tone. "I expected to see a feisty snake, but it's just a couple of bugs."
"Wait up, now!" Shikamaru extended his hands with a pacifying gesture. "We didn't come here to fight, we came here to negotiate Sasuke's release!" this was a clever ploy to buy the other Konoha genin who managed to remain hidden for some time.
"Is that so? Then how would you explain this?" a six-armed, tanned Sound Ninja grabbed hold of a web line within his arm's reach and pulled on it with a hearty tug, reeling out Naruto and Kiba by their heels and hurling them face-first toward the ground. Kiba executed his planned role perfectly, crushing a smoke bomb and filling the battlefield with a thick smokescreen.
"Heh, heh… What do you think you're going to achieve with this lowly smoke bomb?" the six-armed Sound Ninja laughed out in mockery. "My webs are all over the place, they're thinner than a hair, harder than steel, and practically invisible. You have no chance of making a move I'm not aware of with these webs weaved all over the place!"
"How about the sky?" Mana exclaimed, hurling steel-tipped cards with sealing glyphs on their backs that lit up shortly before they would explode. With the aid of her Mystical Wings Jutsu, Mana could bypass the Sound Ninja's webs and tripwires. Psyched out by this strange method of attack, the six-armed Sound Ninja spat out a thick strand of web that connected to a spread web network and formed an elastic yet steel-hard protective shield, blocking Mana's explosive cards.
"Told you, my webs are tougher than steel!" the Sound Ninja exclaimed before stopping in place and looking down in shock. Shikamaru's shadow had already connected to theirs and his Shadow Possession Jutsu was complete.
"With Mana doing what she does best–attracting attention, you guys left yourselves wide open," Shikamaru sighed easily, realizing that he captured everyone into his Shadow Possession network.
"Heh, not bad, kid. Not bad at all. A jutsu that paralyzes the enemy when the user's shadow touches theirs. Too bad you didn't have all the information, you could have almost had us there…" A blue-haired Sound Ninja flashed Shikamaru a psychotic smile as Shikamaru realized that an identical duplicate that was attached to the blue-haired ninja's back was gone.
"Damn! He's free, spread out!" Shikamaru tried warning the Sasuke Retrieval Squad. The tallest and thickest of the Sound Ninja, a balding and chubby young man with balding pink hair, struck the ground, causing violent tremors. The grounded Sasuke Retrieval Squad jerked to the left and to the right, while the round and sturdy Sound Ninja chanted "Earth Style: Earth Dome Prison!" and enclosed the shaken Konoha ninja inside of an Earth Release ground dome.
"Well, aren't you screwed?" the pink-haired female Sound Ninja turned to face Mana, who landed on a faraway upper tree branch, avoiding the Earth Dome Prison, but this only left her at the mercy of the other three Sound Ninja.
"Come on now, at least try to run away and make this fun," the six-armed Sound Ninja taunted Mana while spitting twin strands of webs toward left and right and using his feet for a bow as he created a golden arrow from some sort of secretion from his body. The golden arrow split the sky and burrowed through trees like a light-ray bullet, piercing a hole in Mana's chest and leaving the ninja magician to drop dead with a lifeless stare.
"Heh, so easy it almost feels bad," the pink-haired Sound Ninja taunted after walking up to examine Mana's corpse before turning to her round teammate. "Hey, fatso, make sure to gobble those other dweebs and catch up to us, kay?" she warned the largest and balding ninja in her squad.
"They're mine. You don't have to hurl insults all the time, Tayuya," the tall and round, pink-haired ninja replied without paying his squad mate too much mind. A thunderous rumbling came from within the dome-shaped earth mausoleum, signifying that the trapped Konoha ninja were looking for their way out.
The other three promptly took off, carrying the barrel Sasuke was sealed inside off with them while the lumbering Sound Ninja kept his hands on his prize, draining his fair share of chakra from the ninja trapped in the dome. He smirked, enjoying the fact he managed to trap a couple of ninja at once. That way, he'll fill himself with loads of chakra and get back to full strength in no time.
"Hmm… It would have been even better if you were there too," the sturdy Sound Ninja said seemingly to himself as he turned his head to glance at Mana's dead body that his teammate shot down from the tree line, only to see nothing out of the ordinary. The grass where the dead body was meant to be wasn't even bent or disturbed at all. "sh*t, we were duped!" the Sound Ninja hooted.
"Magical Skewer Jutsu!" a shaken feminine voice alerted the Sound Ninja too late about an incoming attack. The flashy-looking Konoha kunoichi who faked her own death using genjutsu earlier began crackling with electricity before firing a shapeless mass that split into a handful of thick electric rods that skewered the Earth Release dome. Immediately after getting shocked by Lightning Release and greatly weakened, a massive Human-Boulder burst out, shattering the earth dome and liberating the Konoha ninja.
"Quick, the others are getting away!" Neji pointed out with his Byakugan active. "Mana, please take off and trail them. Stay behind them at the very edge of your sensory range. By combining your sensory and my Byakugan ranges, we can trace them from double the distance and greatly reduce the threat of Sasuke getting away!"
"Think you're getting away, think again!" the balding, pink-haired ninja smiled, plunging his thick arms into the ground and pulling out a gigantic boulder that he lifted over his head and hurled somewhere vaguely into Mana's direction. "Let's see you try your slipping away illusion trick when I'm smashing the entire forest region to bits with this!"
"Human-Boulder: Human Bullet Tank!" Choji exclaimed, he was already in expanded size after busting out, hurling himself flying toward the colossal boulder that threatened to flatten Mana into a bloody stain. Upon soaring toward it like a cannonball, Choji unraveled his body and thrust his fist out in a devastating uppercut, shattering the boulder to bits before landing on the ground and giving the thick Sound Ninja a stern look.
"Go, Mana!" Neji scolded the magician for dallying before Choji removed his scarf and flung it aside.
"No, you guys!" Choji barked out, flinging a pouch over to Shikamaru, who grabbed it and peeked inside. "Leave this guy to me. You keep on moving and recover Sasuke!"
"Hmph, as if I'm letting any of you run away," the Sound Ninja favoring Earth Release plunged his arms into the ground, pulling out a thick slab of dirt that he erected before him and threatened to bust down like a heavyweight domino piece and crush the Konoha ninja.
"Human Bullet Tank!" Choji exclaimed, throwing himself at the dirt barrier and shattering it. While the balding Sound Ninja wrestled with the human cannonball, the Konoha ninja took off in the direction where the rest of the Sound Ninja went off to.
"Choji…" Shikamaru glanced back with worried eyes. The rest of the squad just followed, sharing their worries for their teammate, but trusting that he'll have what it takes to finish off the enemy.
The remaining three Sound Ninja were dashing across the tree lines, heading toward the Valley of the End, which marked the edge of Land of Fire territory. The frail, blue-haired Sound Ninja turned to glance behind him and smirked his black lips. "That idiot Jirobo is late again…" he noted.
"No, here he is," the six-armed Sound Ninja smiled at the approaching bulky shape of their sturdy Earth Release favoring teammate.
"What took you so long, man?" the blue-haired Sound Ninja asked.
"Sorry, I was draining them losers' chakras," Jirobo replied.
"Hey, fatso, we don't have the time to fart around! How about you do something useful for once and carry the damned casket!?" the loud-mouthed, pink-haired female member of the Sound Four growled at Jirobo.
"Okay…" the sturdy Sound Ninja answered after deliberating in silence for a few seconds. At that point, all four Sound Ninja gave their teammate weird looks.
"What's wrong, Jirobo? Feeling ill or something?" the six-armed Sound Ninja wondered.
"Whaddya mean?" Jirobo growled in frustration.
"It means I ain't giving you the casket, 'cause you ain't Jirobo!" the six-armed Sound Ninja turned around, causing the rest of his squad to follow suit. Before the transformation could be dispelled, the six-armed spider-like Sound Ninja charged toward Jirobo and exchanged a few blows, noticing that this fake Jirobo certainly lacked the oomph of his real teammate.
"Do you wanna know what gave you away?" the spider-like Sound Ninja asked while the two entered a ridiculous power struggle. Jirobo, who was easily twice his opponent's size and a few times thicker too, became locked in place against a six-armed scrawny fellow from Otogakure. "The real Jirobo's always scolding Tayuya about her language."
"I see… I probably could have guessed since I've seen it happen," Shikamaru admitted after dispelling the illusion. "Sorry, guys, I got a bit careless here."
"Ninja Art: Spider Web Net!" the six-armed ninja chanted out after weaving some hand seals and spat out an expansive spider web of his signature, almost invisible spider silk. Shikamaru grunted as the web stuck him to a nearby tree and left him completely bound and restrained. The spider-like Sound Ninja began sticking together another golden arrow to shoot through Shikamaru.
"Wind Release: Finger of Fate!" Mana chanted out, wearing Rabbit and Tiger hand seals and thrusting her index and middle fingers at the branch on which the spider-like Sound Ninja was standing. A cutting stream of Wind Release chakra fired off from Mana's fingers, slicing the branch clean off and leaving the six-armed Sound Ninja in free fall. "Saw that trick already. You won't surprise us with it anymore."
"The fact you're alive surprised the heck outta me, brat!" the spiky ponytail Sound Ninja laughed out and shot a twin web line that stuck him in a crucifix position and stopped his fall. "I saw my arrow penetrating your heart, saw your dead body and all."
"Fang Over Fang!" Kiba growled as two tunneling attacks drilled through the Sound Ninja's webs and dropped him while Kiba corrected his course and was about to slam into the web-weaving ninja. The spider-like Sound Ninja took the blow straight to the chest and got hurled through trees and bounced off the ground. Kiba stopped rampaging to cheer on himself only to see the enemy stand back up, coated in some kind of skin-tight golden armor that completely absorbed the blow.
"Got you!" Naruto exclaimed, raining down from above with dozens of clones. The six-armed Sound Ninja spat a bundle of webs into his hands and quickly weaved a spider web in which he captured all the Naruto's clones at once. Just as Kiba tried jumping off to hit the webweaver while his guard was down, the Inuzuka clansman realized his feet were stuck in the webs sprayed over the tree he stood on.
The Sound Ninja exclaimed in pain as Neji dashed right past him, tagging him in the back with a Gentle Fist blow and shutting down a chakra node. The six-armed ninja spun a web in his hand like pizza dough, forming a web he could toss and wrap around Neji. Hurling through the air with Mystical Wings, Mana rammed into Neji and took the webbing while Neji clutched to the side of a tree's bark and pulled out a kunai to defend himself.
"You guys find a way to liberate yourselves and charge after the other two. I'll try to buy you an opening!" Neji declared while taking off and engaging in a hand-to-hand exchange with his opponent. The fact Neji could keep up with a man with six arms in taijutsu was impressive enough, but exchanging blows with Neji proved to be a fatal strategy as the web-weaver's arms quickly became cluttered with red dots where his chakra nodes were shut down.
"Heh," the spider-like Sound Ninja spat out a malleable golden mass and sculpted himself six improvised, crooked blades. After Neji charged after the spider-like Sound Ninja to try to keep him busy, the six-armed ninja caught Neji off-guard with a web line and hurled him aside, only to throw his crooked blades at Naruto. Mana thought it strange that he would waste time trying to hit Naruto amongst a crowd of his clones when he could have had much more success killing either Mana or Shikamaru with the first shot.
"Heh, ain't this one either, huh?" the Sound Ninja laughed out maniacally after he missed Naruto yet again, thwacking yet another duplicate instead. It was like he was a gambling addict or something, based on the constant cackling and the fun this guy appeared to be having. While he was messing around, Neji landed near Mana and thrust his fingers into the web, dissolving the strands with focused Gentle Fist strikes.
"As I thought, he imbues those webs with chakra. I must be the one to stay behind, you must go after them now, Mana. We can't lose them! You and Kiba are the only trackers left now, so I'm leaving it to you two!" Neji said after a quintuplet of golden boomerang blades whizzed in from different directions only for Neji to answer with a defensive bubble of chakra while his body rotated around, deflecting the incoming attacks with little effort.
Kiba managed to wriggle his limbs to loosen the restraints enough for a Tunneling Fang spin that ripped him and Akamaru out. Shikamaru found a golden boomerang blade embedded into the tree within arm's reach, pulling it out and cutting himself loose. The real Naruto landed near Neji as the Konoha ninja reassembled together on a branch before the decisive push forward.
"This one's stronger than the guy before," Kiba observed.
"Yeah, but we've decided to do it one-on-one, so that we don't lose track of Sasuke," Shikamaru made the unpleasant reminder.
"Shikamaru, you're the field leader while I'm staying here," Neji temporarily promoted Shikamaru with a serious look on his face. "However, please make sure that Naruto is the one who reaches Sasuke. Even with Mana's and Kiba's tracking skills, even with Shikamaru's strategy or my skill, none of us could bring Sasuke back. Naruto's the only one who can do it. That's his role in all this. Now go!"
"Neji…" Naruto said with worry painfully apparent in his voice. The six-armed Sound Ninja spat out a widespread mass of webs, only for Neji to take off and rip through it with precise Gentle Fist taps. While Neji made the opening, the Konoha ninja slipped away and popped some food pills Choji gave them earlier. Neji did the same before engaging his web-spitting opponent in a dramatic one-on-one collision.
"Dammit, this going haywire fast! It's up to us four now…" Kiba cursed.
"Don't worry, Choji and Neji are going to catch up to us any moment now," Shikamaru smiled to alleviate his teammate's concerns.
"Yeah… I bet they're staying back, looking to make a dramatic hero's comeback, you know!" Naruto pumped his fist with bashful gusto.
Mana didn't join in. She just stared ahead. She really wanted to believe, to hope. Naruto was the type of shining beacon who made people believe in those things again, but whenever Mana wasn't somewhere, people died. It was hard to believe in victory when all you've ever known was failure. Even Mana's victories turned into failures. Mana graduated from the Academy only to stand out enough for Danzo to notice her. She excelled in the early stages of the Chuunin Exams, only to be humbled in the finals…
Deep down, Mana wanted Naruto to make her believe in hope just like he inspired Sakura to believe that Naruto would bring Sasuke back to her. In the meantime, all that Mana had to do was fight her hardest and make sure she made Neji's orders come to pass. Naruto had to reach Sasuke.
"We're close, and there're two enemies left against the four of us. That means that from this point on, we can afford to fight two-on-one," Shikamaru noted.
"Alright!" Naruto cheered for their team. "Now we're talking! Let's go, guys!"
"Actually, it's five-to-two," Kiba smirked, with Akamaru barking to stand out.
"Right, sorry…" Shikamaru laughed out.
The forest was beginning to rare out and, occasionally, the full moon slipped out and cast its silver moonlight across the dense Land of Fire leafa*ge. This Sasuke Retrieval Mission took them the entire day already. The blue-haired Sound Ninja and Tayuya halted in place, stunned in complete awe as they witnessed before them the majestic sight of the Valley of the End.
"Wait a second, I can't hear the waterfall…" the blue-haired ninja hissed out before Tayuya pressed an iron flute to her mouth and blew an expansive sound wave that dispelled illusions all around her.
"Damn it, we've been had!" Tayuya scoffed after tearing off a sealing tag that must have been the source of the illusion. Mana's last resort to halt them yielded results as Kiba with Akamaru, Shikamaru, Naruto, and Mana at last caught up to the pair of Sound Ninja.
"Fine, have it your way!" the blue-haired ninja exclaimed, rushing straight at the whole ground with the intent to kill. "I'll just have to kill the lot of ya in no time flat!"
"Doesn't waste any time, does he?" Naruto smirked, flinging a kunai at the swift assailant, only for him to slip it and deliver a terrifying, multiplying punch that turned his right arm into a blurry barrage of blows, all of them coming from one arm.
"Multiple Fists Barrage!" the blue-haired Sound Ninja called out. The overwhelming rush of strikes pummeled three out of the four ninja into the dirt with Mana, Shikamaru, and Kiba taking debilitating damage only to disperse into smoke. The Sound Ninja gasped, realizing that Naruto used a combo of Shadow Clone and Transformation Jutsu to dupe him while the real Naruto was channeling a spiraling azure sphere in his other hand.
"Rasengan!" Naruto called out. Despite the howling storm localized entirely in Naruto's hand, the Sound Ninja stopped Naruto's attack by grabbing his wrist. Naruto smiled and grabbed hold of his opponent.
"Tunneling Fang!" a triumphant bark accompanied a drilling tunnel that ripped through Naruto's Shadow Clone grappling with the Sound Ninja and hit the blue-haired ninja dead-on, flinging him away. Meanwhile, the female member of the Sasuke escort Sound Four group sat perched and protected Sasuke for the final few minutes that were left of his evolution.
"Shadow Possession–Successful!" Shikamaru called out happily, tying himself with Tayuya and taking a plunge down the leafa*ge while Naruto and Mana dashed toward victory to secure the barrel in which Sasuke was sealed. Just as Sasuke was about to be within hand's reach, a white blur stepped in between the Konoha genin and their prize, swatting them aside like annoying gnats.
Mana flung a kunai attached to steel wire and used it like a grappling hook to swing her across to another tree branch while Naruto created a Shadow Clone to spin him around and throw him to another nearby tree branch. Mana spread a handful of steel-tipped cards while Naruto secured a kunai, only for the two to gasp in sync as they stared at an entirely new threat.
Before them stood and staked his claim to Sasuke a handsome man of pale skin and vivid green eyes, sharp and bony, yet symmetrical facial features, two scarlet dots on the forehead, and shoulder-length white hair divided down the middle of his head with two separate partings on either side of the face and one loose ponytail near the middle of his back.
"Whoa!" Naruto exclaimed. "Who's that?"
"It doesn't matter. Kiba-san and Shikamaru-san separated the Sound Ninja so that we secure Sasuke. We need to move this man aside and retrieve Sasuke-san," Mana said, hurling her handful of steel-tipped cards at an opponent she saw as unarmed.
The long sleeve of this mystery man blurred with a wide swing. A metallic clang filled the air as something solid and adamantine, yet something neither Mana nor Naruto could make out deflected Mana's projectiles with pinpoint accuracy and almost flawless precision.
"You two are late," the fifth Sound Ninja said, addressing the scattered pair who were taking on their separate opponents. "And what of the other three? Before there were Sound Four, there were Sound Five, after all…"
"Sound… Four?" Mana muttered to commit this group of missing ninja to memory.
"Who are you?" Naruto flipped out at this immovable and mysterious white-haired man. "Where did you come from? Answer me, you know!"
"You two should be embarrassed," the white-haired man cracked his neck to the left and then to the right, all the while never moving his hand away from the barrel. "I am a man who can no longer move my body because of a deadly sickness plaguing it. You are testing your bond as a team against a man who is moving purely out of an appreciation of Lord Orochimaru's dream, and you are proving to be despicably weak."
"Orochimaru… I hate that goddamn name, you know!" Naruto spat aside with a death-inducing glare. Unlike before, when Naruto fought to prove some non-existent point of superiority and the rule of his own cool, Naruto very much wanted to crush this man for the sole reason of mentioning that name.
"Orochimaru's dream… What dream was that!?" Mana felt her tearful voice joining Naruto's plight. "Tell me, you asshole, what dream was worth taking the lives of my parents and countless other people for!?"
"The greatest dream there is–the eradication of death," the fifth member of the Sound Ninja said while tapping the top of Sasuke's barrel. "This young man here is Lord Orochimaru's perfect vessel. Because Lord Orochimaru must have him to awaken from his miserable state and seek to wipe out death and grief from this world, I am willing to spend the last hour of my life protecting that dream."
"Y-You…!" Mana screamed out, taking off her top hat and pointing the inside side at the white-haired ninja while biting her thumb and dragging a round smear of blood across the hat's inner side of the trim. A loud pop and a puff of smoke pumped out, spitting out a roaring Fire Release dragon that coiled around like a real deal and launched itself with an all-incinerating roar, seeking to obliterate this pretentious fool. "You dare…!" Mana seethed as the raging fiery dragon cleared out a tunnel that revealed a grassland clearing some couple of kilometers away from their current location.
"You seem to be incredibly invested in this loss of your parents, girl. Tell me, would you sacrifice their lives for the sake of other people? So that no one ever has to experience that which you are feeling right now? While you scream, shout, and froth, Lord Orochimaru is making the hard choices and moving closer to a world where people don't have to die and leave overwhelming pain as their legacy," the white-haired man said, having dodged the raging Fire Release dragon projectile and moved aside alongside with the Sasuke's barrel.
"You asshole, give us Sasuke back now, you know!" Naruto demanded, clenching a fist and preparing to fight this man with his full power.
"You are too late," the white-haired man shook his head with a distant stare of his vivid green eyes. "This boy is the perfect vessel for Lord Orochimaru to awaken from his injured body and be able to use jutsu to change this world. Against that reason, there is no conceivable superior purpose for which you may need this boy."
"Eat sh*t!" Naruto barked out, throwing himself senselessly at the white-haired man. Mana felt a chilling, blood-curdling chakra bubbling inside the rampant young ninja that soon burst with such intensity that she didn't need chakra sensory to perceive it anymore. It was causing very real and very calamitous effects on the surrounding forest. "My reason for wanting to bring Sasuke back… Is because he's my friend, you know!" Naruto expressed his agitation before clenching an almighty fist and throwing it at the white-haired man, only to receive an effortless kick that knocked him straight into Mana and dropped both genin down the tree they were confronting the fifth Sound Ninja on.
"Damn it, damn it!" Naruto barked out after rushing, stumbling, and crawling while scaling up that tree and making his way to the top only to see the fifth Sound Ninja having vanished alongside the large barrel the Sound Ninja sealed Sasuke into. "Where is he!? Where did he go!?" Naruto grabbed his head and nearly burst into tears as Mana noticed his quirky canine-like features, such as his whiskers and bestial eyes, becoming more pronounced.
"Calm down, Naruto-san. The man is moving in that direction. He's not nearly as quick with Sasuke on his back as he was without him," Mana pointed in the direction she could still sense the chakra of that indomitable, cool, and deadly presence. His chakra felt like staring at the edge of a sword. One could only admire the craftsmanship and the artistry that went into making it, but the one overwhelming feeling was dread. Dread at how easily that thing could take your life away for no other reason than serving the purpose for which it was being wielded against you.
In any other case, Mana would have shivered and thought twice about challenging a man such as this. However, given his ties and reverence to Orochimaru, the ringleader of the invasion force that chopped up Mana's parents like vegetables to be thrown into a soup and just left them there to be found, ruining Mana's life and crushing her spirit without any care in the world, while proclaiming to be righteous, made Mana abandon reason.
Even though her failed attempt at surviving the wrath of a host of a Tailed Beast taught Mana her place in the ninja hierarchy as the fancy foot soldier to be used and thrown aside for the sake of more important and more powerful figures on the board, right now all Mana could think about was the joy that this power would be fighting that pretentious pretty boy alongside her. Hopefully, the animal inside Naruto will hold nothing back, like Gaara's held nothing back against Mana.
"Damn it! This guy's too fast! Even with Sasuke, we won't catch up to him, you know!" Naruto snarled. The boy grew more and more out of control the more ahead of them Kimimaro got.
Mana weaved a hand seal and held it, setting off a powerful Wind Release pulse that threw her into the air, at which point she activated the Mystical Wings Jutsu and soared forward like a speeding arrow, saving some time and momentum because a flying ninja didn't need to bounce off any branches and could maintain their maximum speed at all times.
Despite Mana's efforts, even though she felt how much closer she got to Kimimaro, she had to stop and land kneeling and panting. Even if she was closing the distance to the Sound Ninja, she couldn't maintain this level of speed and effort for too long. Naruto snarled, dashing right past Mana and swinging his arms like a wild animal slashing with their claws. The swipes sent powerful aerial projectiles that ripped through the tree line and either ripped the leaves off their branches or broke the treetops outright.
By the time Naruto's destructive outrage reached its purpose, Kimimaro had long moved on to a different location. After catching up to the raging young ninja, Mana had to admit that his rampage was causing more trouble than it fixed by wrecking their path toward the enemy, which they could have followed. Mana dashed out in front of Naruto and gestured for him to calm down. By now he'd slowed them down enough that Naruto would have lost the Sound Ninja if Mana wasn't with him to guide Naruto with her sensory.
"Please calm down, Naruto-san!" Mana pleaded. "Your attacks aren't connecting, and you're only making it harder to follow the enemy."
"Sasuke…!" Naruto growled with a voice that sounded like some sort of supernatural, beastly tone had altered it. "Must find him…! Must return him…!"
Just as Mana was about to sigh and acknowledge the difficulty of talking to the animal, the emergence of which she initially supported, hoping he'd help them crush the enemy and complete their mission, the strangest thing happened.
"He stopped moving!" Mana exclaimed.
"Huh?" Naruto asked, all of a sudden, his red and beastly eyes and sharper, more pronounced whisker markings had settled down and the beast returned to its cage. "What do you mean, you know?"
"I'm not sure, but we need to hurry ahead," Mana decided to rush to Kimimaro's location instead of speculating why he stopped.
The pair of Konoha ninja burst through the leafa*ge and landed in a grassy opening, where the white-haired Sound Ninja was standing with his back turned to them and staring at Sasuke's barrel which was emitting a beaming pillar of malicious chakra into the sky and shaking the ground with pulsating chakra reverberations. Mana let out a whimper in terror, she'd never sensed chakra as vile as the one Sasuke was exhibiting. It was like snake venom and demon bile had a signature smell and Sasuke was proudly spreading it across the land.
"You're shaking, you know! What's going on?" Naruto inquired, worried about Mana's state.
"It's Sasuke, he's awake…" Mana pointed out as the barrel's top had been blown off, tearing up the sealing tags and sending the drilling pillar of wickedness into the atmosphere. "His chakra has multiplied many times over and it's… Bad."
"No way!" Naruto laughed. Mana acknowledged what a horrendous situation they were in when she thought Naruto's optimism was a sign of weakness and a hindrance more than an asset. "It's still Sasuke, right? I'll just talk to him and tell him to stop messing around, you know! We'll go back to the village and things will go back to how they were before!"
Before Mana could spit a cold shower reality check, Sasuke stood up and revealed himself from inside that barrel. His skin was as black as his hair for a second, but, as precious seconds burnt away to cinders, Sasuke's skin turned ash-gray and then returned to its usual pale hue.
"At last, you're awake," Kimimaro said after turning to Naruto and Mana. "Hurry on ahead. The Valley of the End is just a few good dashes away and, from there, you should be able to reach the border to Otogakure. Once you're there, Orochimaru's associates will pick you up."
"You're the one the others spoke of. The fifth one. Kimimaro, right?" Sasuke turned around and away from Naruto and Mana, facing the direction Kimimaro was fleeing in. "Sakon said that you were the strongest of all of Sound Ninja. Why are you wasting your time with these two instead of killing them quickly and moving on ahead?"
"Unfortunately, this has always been a one-way trip for me. My body is burdened with a crippling sickness that will claim my life. It's why I could not become his perfect vessel. There is nothing that can be done and fighting only accelerates its progression. The drugs that keep me active will kill me faster than the disease, so… Please forget me and move on ahead without me," Kimimaro insisted before leaning his head off to the side. His flesh bubbled, almost as if something was moving and churning the muscle underneath. Then, with a fleshy pop, the tip of a white bone popped out and the Sound Ninja pulled it out, holding it like a sword in his hand. The other end of the bone was sharp and pointy, like the tip of a sword.
"Heh, heh…" Sasuke put up his hands and glared at himself. He looked as if he was completely reborn in the body of a whole different person.
"Stop fooling around, Sasuke!" Naruto called out to his best friend and rival. "Let's go home to Konoha, you know! I know you can hear me, Sasuke!"
"Go on, even though my disease has driven me to the brink of death already, and the drugs that keep me fighting are wearing off at a rapid pace, I'll hold them off here," Kimimaro encouraged Sasuke to leave, almost like Naruto didn't exist at all. Much to the shock of both Mana and Naruto, Sasuke vanished from place, taking off with a ripping gale emanating in all directions, caused by his inhuman speed.
"This is bad!" Mana realized. One of her hands shuffled through hand seals while the free hand moved toward her pouch.
"Huh? Those one-handed seals, they're like Haku's…" Naruto noted.
"Naruto-san, please move on ahead! I'll do my best to hold this man here for you. Now it is my time to make the sacrificial play," Mana said, smiling as she submitted herself to her fate. She'd been dashing around and casting jutsu at all those different Sound Ninja and fighting the world, she didn't have all that much chakra left. At least she'll have some serenity from the fact that she wouldn't lose to someone sick while at her own full strength. Both she and Kimimaro would have their shortcomings.
"What are you talking about, you know? You sound like you're gonna sacrifice your life or something!" Naruto clenched a tight fist and objected to the narrative that Mana's drawn in her head.
"A part of being a good illusionist is to never lose a grip of reality. My job is to entertain people with tricks, not to trick myself. I'll do the best I can to give you an opening. Please go on ahead and reach Sasuke-san. Wherever he is. Bring him back. You made a promise to Sakura-san, remember?" Mana smiled while her eyes were glistening with bittersweet feelings. "Magic Spark Barrage!"
Kimimaro's body tensed up in action, he weaved and dashed from place, avoiding a blizzard of round Lightning Release orbs that burst with a miniature lightning storm upon hitting anything or reaching the maximum range of Mana's jutsu. This wasn't good enough! He was too nimble and had too many options to interrupt Naruto's retreat.
"Naïve…" Kimimaro stated, flinging his bone blade right at Mana. The magician's whole life flashed before her eyes as she saw the tip of the adamantine bone closing in, and her body was too stiff to twitch a muscle about it. A kill-shot!
A tight and fleshy crack stopped the bone inches before Mana's forehead. In between Mana and Naruto was a boy in a green jumpsuit, a black bowl cut, and bushy eyebrows. Unyielding determination burned inside the eyes of a newly re-approved for active duty Rock Lee. Rock Lee opened his hand and dropped the bone to the ground.
"Konoha's Handsome Devil has come as part of reinforcements! Lady Fifth is working non-stop to help make sure your mission is successful, Naruto-kun!" Rock Lee declared before adopting his Strong Fist taijutsu stance.
"Naruto-kun, Mana-san, please leave this man to me and move on ahead!" Rock Lee said without breaking eye contact with Kimimaro once.
"You heard him, move on along, Naruto-san," Mana joined Lee. "We'll hold this one off."
"Careful, Bushy-Brows, this guy's strong enough to give both me and Mana a hard time and he's using his own bones to fight, you know!" Naruto warned Rock Lee before the ninja in green gave him a thumb-up, stunning Naruto for a moment.
"Don't forget, Naruto-kun, that you made a promise to Sakura-san. Just like you, I'm making a promise to both you and Mana-san that I'll defeat this man right here!" Rock Lee declared with reinvigorated fighting spirit.
Naruto weaved his hands together in a Clone Jutsu hand seal. "Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!" he chanted out, swarming the battlefield with doppelgangers that all rushed on ahead. Meanwhile, a matching blitz of green and black blurs charged toward Kimimaro with a silver blur answering the impending assault, admitting that he wouldn't be able to contain Naruto's distraction and prevent at least one clone from slipping past him. As long as just one could slip past–Naruto could just substitute himself with the clone that made the cut and dash on ahead.
Mana and Rock Lee assaulted Kimimaro with vicious and rapid kicks from all sides, despite Kimimaro being more than able to keep up with either of them, the duo of Might Guy's students landed kick after kick, finding blind spots and rocking Kimimaro into a defensive stance, then into repeated stumbles as more and more resounding blows rocked him and forced Kimimaro into a wild flurry of bone-thrusts, fending off Rock Lee and Mana into retreating.
"Incredible, you've forced me to resort to one of my dances…" Kimimaro commended the pair. Mana turned to Rock Lee with impossible-to-contain surprise on her face. Despite never having fought alongside this youth before, the two of them were able to coordinate their attacks easily, because they were part of the same martial arts school. It was like Mana's body was moving on its own, having committed the Strong Style to memory like a section from a textbook.
"You go high, I'll go low!" Rock Lee said. Mana wasn't going to argue about this after the two of them had made their first successful breakthrough yet. The two became blurry flashes, spiraling around one another while Rock Lee attacked with a double-foot slide. Kimimaro jumped over him, only to see Mana plunging from above.
"Spear Kick!" she exclaimed triumphantly before Kimimaro thrust his bone forward to get Mana impaled on it. A horrid fleshy punch left Mana impaled on the bone and hanging limp with eyes rolled back.
"It makes no sense for her to die this soon, genjutsu?" Kimimaro instantly surmised and kept up his guard, Rock Lee pushed his body off the ground and assaulted the airborne Sound Ninja with a flurry of kicks from below, but Kimimaro slashed with the same bone, tearing Mana's illusionary corpse in half, and slashing at Rock Lee.
"Damn!" Rock Lee exclaimed, putting up his arm for guarding as the bone cut clean through, with neither muscle nor his bones providing much opposition. A splash of crimson splattered across the grass, with Rock Lee rolling backward and returning to a standing position. Mana was standing beside him, having faded into Kimimaro's vision as she undid her illusion.
"I see what you still lack in speed, you've compensated for with your illusionary prowess!" Rock Lee gave Mana a faked smile, despite his eyes begging for help out of pain for his gushing cut on Rock Lee's forearm. "It would appear that I'd better keep up, or you'll steal the spot of Guy-sensei's top apprentice from right under my nose!"
"Your lack of experience betrays you, girl," Kimimaro taunted Mana by swiping his blood-tipped bone off and splattering Rock Lee's blood over the tips of the rustling grass around them. "You've never seen the life leave someone's eyes. It's never as quick and peaceful as your illusion portrays it. You mock death's insolence, it's true, all-consuming horror and brutality and that is why you'll never trick me with this illusion."
"Sir!" Rock Lee extended his hand while reaching for his pouch. "Please permit me a moment to take my medicine!"
"Medicine…?" Kimimaro and Mana both turned to the quirky, bowl-cut boy while he pulled out a bottle and popped the cork off, throwing it up and downing more than a handful of gulps of it.
"Bleh! This is the worst one yet!" Rock Lee stuck out his tongue, struggling to keep the medicine down. Much to both Mana's and Kimimaro's confusion, the youth in the green bodysuit began stumbling off to the sides before throwing his fists out and staring at Kimimaro with half-squinted eyes, slurring through his speech. "Ey, Whaddaya lookin' at, ya jerk!?" Rock Lee slurred out with a streak of red running across the boy's cheeks and concentrating on the tip of his nose.
"Hyeere I come!" Rock Lee slurred out, leaning forward awkwardly, almost like he was about to trip and fall flat on his face, only to stiffen up and shoot forward, straight like a bullet. Mana could only gawk in shock as Rock Lee's body became much faster and more than a challenge to Kimimaro's agility, however, his movements also became much too unpredictable for her to cover for him. What's more, in his loopy state, Rock Lee completely ignored the pain and blood loss in his right arm.
Kimimaro leaned aside, dodging the loopy master's flying punch, then put up his forearm to block the backhand swing that the punch suddenly transitioned into. Rock Lee's hand shot to the ground for support while his feet started shooting in a wild flurry, overwhelming Kimimaro's block as one good kick slammed against the chest of the white-haired ninja and sent him flying for the first time.
Still not content with his contribution, Rock Lee spun like a wild spiral, drilling forward through the air and socking Kimimaro with a bullet headbutt, stacking damage to his opponent's body on top of what petty victories the Konoha ninja have already scored. It was like there was no end to Rock Lee's aggression and not a single thought of backing down, rolling through the air, the Loopy Fist user adopted a hand-stand position and began cutting down with the heels of his feet, prompting Kimimaro to plant his feet on the ground and yank out another bone to block the relentless barrage of kicks.
"Camelia Dance!" Kimimaro chanted out, taking on the offensive approach and turning his bone-wielding arm into a dancing blur with rapid, non-stop thrusts of his bone blade. Meanwhile, Rock Lee proved to be just as agile and unpredictable on the defense as well, effortlessly weaving around each thrust with enough speed to leave blurry afterimages.
So out of his depth was Kimimaro on his offensive role, that Rock Lee turned his back and leaned his body backward, blocking one swing and entrapping Kimimaro's arm while Rock Lee's elbows tested Kimimaro's ribs and then responded with a backfist counterattack. Smelling red, Rock Lee kicked Kimimaro in the gut, then unleashed a mad flurry of power strikes to stack damage onto Kimimaro's sick body. Rock Lee's body was a mystery, his limbs bent, moved, attacked, and defended in ways they weren't supposed to, yet each successive strike connected and scored powerful hits.
Having bounced back on his feet after yet another blow, Kimimaro slipped his Sound Ninja robe off his chest, exposing connected crescent-shaped markings forming across his bare body. This sudden development and drastic surge in Kimimaro's chakra even kept Loopy Lee at bay, gawking in surprise at the markings, the outlines of which glowed in the visible gleam of erupting violent chakra.
"Goddamn it," Mana panted out while looking at traces of Lee's blood splattered on the grass running down. While Lee's attack proved successful enough to corner their opponent into using whatever power-up this was, likely aggravating the rate at which his sickness would kill him, Mana would have rather seen Lee coordinating with her.
His current state could stack hits, sure, but his attacks lacked the strength of precise and proper form, despite being unpredictable. Moreover, Mana noticed something strange about Kimimaro's body from the way Rock Lee's punches sounded when cracking at his bones. It was as if the steel-tough hardness of Kimimaro's bones persisted in the man's skeleton as well, meaning that it would be nigh impossible to break his bones with physical attacks.
"My fighting style uses the bones in my body, just like your comrade warned you," Kimimaro said while raising his forearm and showing how a crown of razor-sharp bones ripped through his forearm, which healed completely on sight. With renewed bloodlust, Kimimaro lashed out at Lee, striking with his bone-mace-like arm. Lee caught it by spreading his fingers around the bones and instantly moved for the counter, but Kimimaro's chest opened up like a shark's mouth, bursting with a ribcage that ripped from the Sound Ninja's chest like a hungry mouth.
Because of his agility, Rock Lee dodged out of the way, avoiding having his head chomped off, but he returned to Mana's side with a gash on his cheek and multiple tears all over his bodysuit. Those sounds were barely skin-deep, though.
"I can control my bones completely, and Lord Orochimaru's Cursed Seal allows me to amplify the scale of this Advanced Bloodline," Kimimaro taunted Rock Lee and Mana from afar, demonstrating the ability to sprout bent and straight bones from all over his body.
"Drats, what's going on?" Rock Lee shook his head, pressing his hand to his forehead while he stumbled with a sense of lost balance as he stood up.
"It appears that the pain from getting cut woke you up, you got loopy there for a second," Mana observed.
"Loopy?" Rock Lee shook his head to try and shake off the nausea. "I… I might need a second…"
"I will do my best to give it to you, Lee-san," Mana moved her hands together. Kimimaro dashed toward Mana, speed-blitzing her completely from behind as he prepared to skewer her with his erupting ribs and shoulder bones before finishing off the shaken and stumbling fool by her side.
"Camelia Dance!" Kimimaro chanted out, but he heard Mana speak at the same time.
"Magic Bubble Jutsu!" she called out, erecting a Wind Release protective barrier around her that thwacked Kimimaro aside and sent him skidding across the grass.
"Impressive, I confused the movement and fighting speed of this girl with her speed in casting jutsu. Her sleight of hand and chakra control eclipse even my movement speed with Curse Seal… That's no small feat. Even Orochimaru-sama would enjoy arms as hardened as hers…" Kimimaro stood up while wiping slobber and blood off his face with his hand that lacked the bony protrusions all over it. "Unfortunately for her, Orochimaru-sama will have a perfect vessel for when he wakes from his injuries. He will have no use for an arm transplant."
"Hell Skewer Jutsu!" Mana chanted out, weaving her hands together with hand seals so fast that, from an outsider's point of view, she barely used any at all. Kimimaro looked around, seeing nothing but darkness around him. In a blink, hundreds of airborne swords skewered him and pinned him down to the ground, stunning the Sound Ninja in place and paralyzing him with intense pain.
"Mana-san… You should stand back…" Rock Lee said while inspecting the sweat pouring down Mana's face and her shaking hands. "Your chakra pool is second to only Naruto-san's, but… You appear to be at your limit. The enemy is pinned down, so let me deliver the finishing blow!"
"Leaf's Great Hurricane!" Rock Lee exclaimed triumphantly while soaring through the air and winding a perfect, full-power kick that would have blown the head of any lesser ninja clean-off. While, given Kimimaro's adamantine bone structure, that seemed impossible to pull off, Mana didn't doubt for a second he'd deliver a decisive blow.
"Larch Dance…" Kimimaro muttered, sprouting dozens of bones and becoming a grotesque sea urchin of flesh and sprouting bone. The fleshy thud of Rock Lee getting impaled on so many sprouting bone spikes made Mana scream out in terror while Rock Lee's eyes rolled back and he spouted red from his mouth. After Kimimaro withdrew the bones from his body and dropped Lee limp and spitting blood from his many wounds, the Sound Ninja straightened out and cracked his neck to the sides.
"It seems your skill as an illusionist is overrated," Kimimaro taunted Mana, who collapsed to her knees in despair, shaking and spaced out after seeing Rock Lee take such a gruesome injury. Even the best-case scenario was that he'd be out of the battle and needed immediate medical attention. Worst case–he was dead already. "My bones need to burrow through my flesh every time I use them, meaning that I feel their every move. I've grown somewhat accustomed to an extreme amount of physical pain, but I still feel more than enough of it to snap me out of genjutsu when I do it."
"N-No… P-Please…" Tears squirted from Mana's shocked face as, while her eyes demanded her to weep, the rest of her face was still unresponsive and baffled.
"The role of a ninja is to stake one's life on the line every time you fight. There's no use in begging for your life. Don't fret, you two did well–you've accomplished your goal of keeping me here. More than likely, this place will become my grave now. However, the same can be said for the two of you," Kimimaro glared at Lee's slumped and twitching body, identifying it as too grievously wounded to do anything about. Instead, the Sound Ninja approached Mana, who had submitted to her fate of impending death already with all trace of fighting spirit crushed after seeing Lee's demise.
After her parents died, Mana's been dreaming of them every night. She didn't see their bodies. Nor did Mana see the scene of the crime. In some ways, that only made it all worse. Every night, she experienced that nightmare over and over again; she saw different horrific scenarios of how it all could have happened. Again and again, Mana saw her parents dying on a dozen different days each night. Seeing the bloody body of Lee lying in the grass sent painful resonances of suppressed memories of those dreams, resulting in Mana covering her head and screaming out so loudly that even the ruthless Kimimaro stopped in place and produced a bone blade for self-defense.
However, he soon identified it as the false alarm it was. With renewed ruthlessness, he grabbed hold of Mana's hair and tilted her head up to expose her throat before winding his hand for a slashing swing. Even if this girl proved to be difficult to pin down and finish off before, something told Kimimaro that she wouldn't be able to switch out with an illusion if he held her actual body in his hand before delivering the finishing stroke.
"Sand Tsunami!" a raging tidal wave of sand burst forth from the forest behind, ripping and tearing trees alongside with its roots and swallowing the battlefield whole, turning it into a desert in a snap. With a subtle little whirlpool in the overwhelming tsunami of sand, the newly made desert produced two bodies: those of Mana and Rock Lee.
"Gaara… of the Desert?" Mana mumbled while looking up at the red-haired boy all too familiar to her. Instead of the psychopathy that was his signature companion before, Gaara now looked at Mana with soft and caring eyes and offered her a hand to help her up on her feet. "What are you doing here?"
"Lady Fifth sent a plea to Sunagakure to send reinforcements. Given how our village has played a role in why Konoha is short in ninja right now, the Kazekage sent us to redeem ourselves," Gaara explained.
"You need to hurry…" Mana's arms shook while tears accumulated on the sand produced by grinding the minerals and rocks present in the soil of Land of Fire. "Go on ahead, Naruto-kun and Sasuke are five kilometers to the north! Sasuke's chakra is soaring to an unfathomable degree, and Naruto's is slowly fading away–he's in trouble!"
What Gaara implied was true, when Mana focused on stretching out the range of her chakra sensory, she felt the reassuring presence of Temari's chakra where Shikamaru stayed to hold Tayuya off and Kankuro's where Kiba was fighting Sakon. Choji's and Neji's battlefields were outside Mana's range, unfortunately. Right now, it didn't seem likely that they'd be able to join the fight here.
"I see, Sasuke Uchiha is a powerful opponent. You should be proud, Nakotsumi Mana. While it was Naruto's sturdy fists that broke down my façade of loneliness, your kindness and love for all life made their way inside my lonely heart too. I'll finish that man here and now, meanwhile, please take Rock Lee and flee to safety. Saving you two is the least I can do for all the harm I did to you," Gaara leaned down and pressed his hand to the sand's surface. "Imperial Sand Funeral!"
The terraformed battlefield that resembled a newly born desert compressed with ironclad tightness, flattening and squeezing the insurmountable tomb in which Gaara had buried Kimimaro down under, hopefully, sealing away his threat and condemning him to the fate of succumbing to his illness in a peaceful slumber of unconsciousness. That's if he survived at all. Mana knew exactly how devastating the power of Gaara's sand was.
While Mana slowly dragged her worn out and broken body to Rock Lee and kneeled to feel traces of the meek pulse of life still rustling in his body, Gaara turned around and erected himself into the air, riding the mass of his own sand from his treasured gourd. Mana observed Gaara flying off to assist Naruto with blurring vision before hearing a grungy thud.
A lance of solid bone, longer than a fully grown man, burst forth from underground. Kimimaro burst forth from underground, resembling a dark-gray-skinned dinosaur with black eyes with yellow pupils, sharp teeth and six massive bones protruding from his back, and a long, bone-spiked tail. Kimimaro's once silver-white hair was now darkened and gray and his eyes stared at Gaara's back with manic desperation. There was no time to hesitate…
SHUNK!
Gaara turned around, gasping at the grisly sight of Mana's body serving as a shield for Kimimaro's aerial lance charge. The spear completely obliterated Mana's internal organs, bursting forth her whole abdomen with only the fact Mana bent her feet and tucked her knees, expelling air currents to slow down Kimimaro's lance charge as much as she could to give Gaara the best chance to respond stopping Kimimaro's attack.
"MANA!" Gaara bellowed, extending his arm. "Sand Coffin!"
A mass of sand surged around Kimimaro, entrapping him whole. "Sand Funeral!" Gaara cried out with teary eyes, clenching his fist and crushing Kimimaro's exhausted remains into a bloody shower. The lance-wielding arm that impaled Mana fell after the rest of the body was wholly obliterated, with Mana slumping down with it.
Against his better judgment, Gaara rushed to Mana and gently tilted her head off the ground. The magician's eyes were blank and unfocused and blood poured from her mouth from the gruesome internal injury.
"Mana… You did it," Gaara wiped his tears. "You did it! You proved to me the worth of every human life, and you did it all by saving me instead of fighting me. Just like Naruto… You truly are… A genuine hero!"
"I'm so grateful…" Mana whimpered with a meek and sad voice. "Please… Let Lady Fifth know… That I'm so grateful… For this chance to… Be better and save you… This time."
"Don't tax yourself, Mana, please! Lady Fifth's report said that Kakashi wasn't too far away. Soon you'll be able to thank the Fifth Hokage yourself," Gaara said while surrounding Mana in a cushion of soft sand to keep her in the best possible position and not to aggravate her horrific wound any further.
"Please… Save Naruto…" Mana begged Gaara with tears running down her eyes. Gaara nodded and, after he looked up, he couldn't see any movement or traces of life in Mana's face.
"Sasuke Uchiha has been captured and returned to Konoha. The combined forces of Naruto and Gaara of the Desert captured Sasuke, despite him tapping into his Curse Seal power," Kakashi explained while debriefing Tsunade about the mission in which he was, unfortunately, too late to do anything but pick up the pieces. His entire life, Kakashi was late everywhere, but just this once it wasn't a source of comedy. If Kakashi could have helped it, he'd have liked to have been there for those unfortunate kids who sacrificed everything to save their friend.
"I see, so the mission of the Sasuke Retrieval Squad was successful. Naruto-kun is making quite the habit of living up to his promises. I'm becoming worried he might steal my job any day now," Tsunade crossed her arms with a smile before moving on to the subject at hand and leaning over a stack of files with crossed-out pictures. "What of the losses?"
"While using my ninja hounds to track the footprints of the Sasuke Retrieval Squad, I've followed their exact trail. I've run into the dead bodies of Choji Akimichi and Neji Hyuuga. Because I knew that Hayate and Shizune weren't too far behind as backup, I left tending to their bodies to them. On my way to the Valley of the End, I ran into Mana and Rock Lee. Fortunately, Rock Lee survived, but…"
"I see, so Mana too…" Tsunade bit her lip with her voice softening and relaying a hint of the asphyxiating sadness that wrapped its hands around the woman's throat. She sent three kids to die and the rest for a prolonged hospital visit. Had it not been for the assist from the Sunagakure ninja, Shikamaru, and Kiba would have died too.
"It's a strange thing, when I rushed to the Valley of the End to assist the Sasuke Retrieval Squad, I saw Mana's dead body and Lee's injured body. I stabilized Lee's condition and moved on, but… When I came back, Rock Lee's body was there, meaning that Hayate's squad hadn't caught up to me there yet, but Mana's body was gone," Kakashi sighed, dragging his hand across his exhausted face. "She's the only one whose body we cannot bury in the village. She's a hero, like the rest of them. It feels f*cked up that she won't be getting a hero's acknowledgment and a proper burial."
"I'm sorry, Kakashi, I… I know how f*cked up all this is, but… I just don't have heads to spare to look for her body. Not when I've got your confirmation that she was dead. It's not like she could have wandered off somewhere, right?" Tsunade looked up with a crushed look on her face. She's been so sick of playing the awful politician lately, but that was what the role of Hokage entailed.
"As much as I'd like to be hopeful and say Mana could have wandered off, she couldn't have done so with that giant lance sticking out of her chest. The thing weighed four times her body weight, and she had no pulse," Kakashi shook his head, refusing to stay hopeful. "What a grim joke…"
"I know it's tough, Kakashi. Asuma and Kurenai were discharged from the hospital today. I can give you that vacation that's long overdue. Maybe with time, we'll all manage to stomach this horrific outcome and learn to see the good in the fact that Sasuke has been rescued from Orochimaru's clutches," Tsunade covered her head in her arms, submitting to the role as a leader and abandoning the role of a human being, against her best wishes.
"The First Hokage established this village to prevent this exact outcome. All those years since his time, Obito and Rin still died because of some wars and political games of lousy adults. More years passed, and nothing changed. Naruto's generation is bound to be scarred the same way ours was…" Kakashi said with a defeated stare at the floor, completely distant from the place he was in and the person he was talking to.
"Something tells me that Naruto won't take it the same way we did. I believe in Naruto being strong and hopeful enough to break this cycle of death and violence!" Tsunade offered Kakashi a lukewarm smile. Sensing a rustling glimmer of warmth in the woman's encouragement, Kakashi nodded and answered with the same warm smirk.
Beaten and leveled, tons of bloodshed in pointless wars, children sacrificed for the primitive state of survival… Despite all that, Konoha stood to see another day. Because of the efforts of Naruto Uzumaki, Nakotsumi Mana, and many other ninja doing their best and being their best selves, Konoha had something that neither betrayal nor invasion could take away. Konoha had hope.
Tsunade turned around in her chair and looked up over the peak of the Hokage Monument, imagining the hopeful faces of Choji, Neji, and Mana looking down from wherever their souls were at the moment. Something made Tsunade feel like those three would have been happy to give up their lives for a little bit of hope. After all–inspiring hope was the job of true heroes.
Lady Fifth sighed with a selfish yet impossible wish that, one day, Konoha's heroes would come back home and see the wildfire of hope they've helped kindle.
"Heroes, come back…" Tsunade whispered to herself.
