The way home was filled with people wishing to congratulate Mana on her successful show or just straight out stop her to say hello. It was weird how people functioned, the girl couldn’t really understand the thought process behind just stopping a person to greet them but she enjoyed it and smiled back and greeted everyone who did so. These were the people that the magician loved most of all things in the world, it was nice to get at least a slight shine back at her from them.
Feedback for her deeds was not something she got as a ninja, ninja’s work is a secret one and most definitely a dirty one. It includes things that should never be thanked for or congratulated for, twisted and evil things. Yet deep in her heart Mana knew that the work they did was necessary, all those missions she did for the people was the hard work. It was a dirty and nasty work but it was something that needed to be done, somehow being appreciated for working on a different field entirely felt like living on a permanent “easy mode” of sorts…
Evil had to be fought, there were plenty of bad people around the village walls, people who were buying and selling other people like kittens, people who killed, who rudely took the responsibility over deciding over life and death from the great order of the Universe. As much as Mana still wanted to believe there was Magic “ a deity that oversaw all that happened and weighed its heavy hand on all things… After seeing what she saw it was apparent that either there was no Magic, no God or Goddess to weigh the right and wrong and decide for us, or that it was not a kind and loving Magic.
Yet the prospect of decision making, the prospect of herself being the only person responsible for everything going on with her life… It was a scary one, a terrifying one that claimed the teenager’s breath every time she tried to wrap her head around it. If she is the only one to blame for all the failures, for everything bad happening around her… No. Maybe that’s the right way. Only by realizing that the only reason something is bad is because she wasn’t strong enough to change it into better can Mana truly change herself and the world.
But was this change necessary in the long run? She was weak now, she could no longer shoot bolts of lightning from her hands, she could no longer weave illusions to trap her opponents in. She was just what she was “ a weak human, below even the potential and power of a normal adult, she was just half of what a human woman was… A halfling surrounded by superpeople, by people who could survive what couldn’t be survived, people who could do all sorts of things, people who were strong enough to change everything and yet all they did was kill, maim and abuse that power. The greatest curse in the universe was to know the truth and being unable to make everyone see it.
Mana stopped by the door to her home and looked behind her, she saw young kids with Konoha forehead protectors run down the streets. Young genin embarking on their first missions, not unlike Mana and her friends did not too long ago. It all went so wrong so fast… Mana was now depowered to the extent where she felt like being crippled. Shimo was a wanderer without a purpose to his wandering, someone who did something he deemed wrong looking for redemption which was impossible to be found because the thing he tried to find redemption for was not something one needed to be redeemed for in the first place. Sugemi was a prisoner, a man who took his power for granted and decided that he knew the one true way as to how to do things. A once silly and naïve man crippled by loss. Death affected people in the strangest of ways.
Normally the weak hated the strong. It was natural really, Mana opened the door and sighed as she took of her blue blazer and gently hung it on the sofa, relaxing and stretching out. She looked at her damaged leg which was now healed perfectly as if no damage even befell it. There was a certain jealousy that the weak had for the strong, the salmon always despised the bear, from the viewpoint of the salmon the bear was evil but from the bear’s point of view it was just doing what it needed to do to survive “ killing the salmon. Mana felt like a salmon who felt bad for the bear, she felt horrible seeing the unnatural burden that killing placed on the young bears and she felt even worse for the bears that grew up and never even felt the weight of that burden as their shoulders and jaws became too strong to even feel it. And yet she was a salmon in another river, protected by slippery and edgy rocks that kept the bears eating the salmon outside it.
Mana was of the weak who didn’t hate the strong, one of the weak who didn’t let the hate define her and dictate what she should do or how she should feel. The morality of the salmon was lost on her. But if she was not of the salmon’s morality, was she still a salmon? If the weak hated the strong and the strong were defined by their strength and Mana was a halfling who didn’t hate the strong, what exactly was she? Where was she placed? Who was it that defined her? Dying back then would’ve been so much simpler… She’d have died like a hero protecting a child and granting him his shot at redemption for what he did, she’d have known who she was “ a bear who found an alternate source of food and lived her life to the fullest, dying for something more meaningful than nothing at all…
A painful pinch on her cheek made Mana’s peacefully shut eyes open up in surprise “ Kiyomi was smiling leaning over Mana. The magician sat up and looked at the kitchen where mother and father were talking over a bunch of snacks “ Kiyomi must’ve come to visit but Mana wasn’t home so her parents suggested that the girl stayed for a while over some snacks.
“I heard it was a great show today!” the Yamanaka grinned out. She looked great, happy, strong and healthy, maybe a bit too healthy, wasn’t she supposed to be on active duty? Determined to complete literally all the missions she could so that she’d prove capable of taking part in the Chuunin Exam?
“You weren’t there?” Mana looked at the girl curiously, she smiled with a shade of guilt and scratched the back of her head.
“Sorry, I was on a mission and I came as fast as I could, right after getting my swollen and busted face treated…” she excused herself, judging from the guilt and honesty in her voice Kiyomi wasn’t lying nor would Mana have blamed her if she would’ve. The magician told the Yamanaka that she could check her show out for free if she ever felt like it but Kiyomi never cashed that free ticket in, not a single time in all the two and a half months after their last mission.
“Your clothes are new and far too fancy for mission attire, you’ve been home to change before visiting the Hospital, seeing how even the best medical ninja can’t heal cloth. You smell of flowers, you’ve mentioned your mother’s garden to me before so you must’ve also spent time there, you weren’t gardening since your fingernails are pristine clean and done which means you were there to absorb the flowery scent… You were there wishing to impress someone… Someone to impress in the hospital… Eiju?” Mana mumbled out a series of emotionless guesses.
Kiyomi looked in complete confusion and slight embarrassment, as Mana listed her features the girl examined her own clothes, her own fingernails and smelled her own girly palm trying desperately to debunk Mana’s analysis but she realized that the magician must’ve been right.
“Wow… You’ve been… Doing something with your time…” Kiyomi mumbled out, “You’re only half right though, I came to meet Eiju but he was busy, we barely exchanged words, he healed me and threw me out…”
“I’ve been reading a lot, history books are very lacking in quality and cohesiveness, also they don’t always add up. If you want to get good on history and lore you pretty much have to craft your own theories, analyze details since a single word in a room sized scroll can change the entire fate of your theory… Busy?” Mana explained her newly discovered skill in perception.
Kiyomi nodded, “Yeah, Hisako’s been pummeled like an apple on a mission in Kumogakure, from what she told us she was looking for some guy to kill, some Uchiha guy and then some large guy just snapped the guy’s neck in front of her by just wrapping his hand around it and pressing with his finger, like popping a grape off the bunch and… You know Hisako, even if her mission’s been completed for her she still took it as a personal offense…”
“Poor thing, I wonder what kind of a guy could beat her up like that…” Mana thought to herself, mumbling things under her nose “Or not kill her once he did beat her, people tend to kill their opponents until it is beneficial to them not to in this world of ours…”
“Is it still your world? I mean you haven’t been really responding to calls to action, Eiju’s been printing those excuse papers for the Administration like crazy without even bothering examining you. Hanasaku-sensei is worried about your indecisiveness, it’s hardly the first time someone lost their chakra control over abuse of chakra augmentation but they always quit after, you’ve remained out of duty for months…” Kiyomi looked at Mana giving the magician that strange worried look.
“Yeah… I imagine Eiju feels bad about it but… Strangely enough, you can tell him to calm down during your next date. I don’t blame him for what he did anymore, I mean when we spoke after my fight with the cat lady, when he told me about his sickness… I saw his despair towards that thing and… I really wanted to help him. I guess by being crippled for life, rendered absolutely useless as a ninja I helped him in ways I could’ve never helped by staying active” Mana explained, her voice shifted around from indifferent to outright depressed, it was apparent that she had given this matter quite a lot of thought.
“I heard interesting things from your parents… You’re still working out, at night, when you think they can’t hear you. You’re still meditating and researching jutsu in your room during your free time. Mana… Please don’t tell me you plan on going back to active duty. That’s why I came here, I’m worried about you. I’m worried you’ll pull some childish hogwash like apply for a mission without your chakra control back…”
Mana turned her eyes away, she was really sad about being called out on her dreams of regaining her chakra manipulation, regaining all that she’d lost, regaining her purpose and her lost dream. Why was she being called out on trying to call back at her dream? It was like yelling at a disabled person for still trying to hope to walk again, some day… In some way…
“There are ninja who can’t control chakra, you know… There were several students in our Academy group who couldn’t perform ninjutsu for their lives and focused purely on taijutsu or weaponry…”
Kiyomi jumped up, it was clear that she got angry and afraid after Mana validated her thoughts that the magician wanted back to her old life of being a ninja. “Yes! Yes there are ninja like that but those guys trained their whole lives! They trained their whole lives because they knew that they’re inferior, even more, none of them actually lost their chakra control, they have working chakra networks meaning they can still augment their physical abilities if needed. Mana, don’t do this! You’re going to kill yourself! If a ninja punched you with an augmented punch “ you’d die instantly, there’d barely be a body for your parents to recognize!”
Mana turned her whole body away crossing her arms on her chest and legs. She wasn’t sure if she felt like crying or if she was furious. At any moment Mana could either explode in anger or break into tears and quite frankly she didn’t want her friend to see either of those things.
The Yamanaka sat down and gently placed her hand on Mana’s shoulder. The older girl calmed her voice and tried to appeal to Mana’s common sense instead of yelling at her.
“Look… I’m not saying that you shouldn’t train, training your body and your mind is healthy, I mean… That analysis thing you did previously was awesome and I could never do something crazy like that but… This is no longer a thing you can do. You look happy without it, you’ve got plenty of awesome things to do. The scissor guy in the archive keeps talking to me about you every time I go there, apparently you’re becoming some prodigy nerd amongst the archive readers, your magic shows are exploding in popularity! If you return to your old life, you’ll lose all of it, you’ll become like us “ a depressed and miserable superhuman who thinks they can make a difference by slaughtering an orphanage and bringing their heads home to their bloodlusted overlords”
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it, I won’t go out again, I will never do a mission in my entire life and I’ve given up on my dreams already… Is that what you wanted to hear?” Mana replied angrily, still refusing to look her friend in the eyes.
Kiyomi hugged Mana and stood up, walking towards the exit only to stop midway and turn back at the magician. “You know… When you were dying there in that bunker and Eiju refused to heal you… He asked me what exactly you meant to me and I told him… I told him how you looked up to me like I was your older sister and… And that for a moment… Just for a moment… I gave into that illusion, I really thought of you as my younger sister, I really wanted to be to you what my brother Kenji was for me…”
“It’s alright, don’t worry, I’ve already found things to do, things that keep blinding me and filling that hole inside me. I do feel incomplete, every day… Can you blame me? My lifelong dream, my nindo was ripped out from me. Ever since I woke up I felt like an incomplete half-baked trash. Still, stage magic, history and books… Those things help me forget, forget that my identity lost one of the most important pieces” Mana replied and stood up, leading her friend to the door and saying her farewells. Kiyomi probably wasn’t calmed down by this visit by the slightest. Still, she didn’t know what Mana felt like.
Kiyomi was a member of a well-respected Yamanaka clan, ever since her birth she had a place in the Konohagakure village intelligence. She could’ve worked for the Protective Service, she could’ve interrogated prisoners etc. She was born and raised like an elite and she was “ one of the best youths Konoha had to brag about. Mana was different, she was born with no advantages and she worked hard her entire life, not even for a moment getting closer to her privileged friends. Just barely competent enough to play her cards at the same table but never strong enough to not be the dead last. And then she got even that little that she had ripped away. Even if she was the slowest member of the race she got her kneecaps busted and she was beaten while she was down until she could no longer continue that race. Then one of the prize winners came to Mana and unintentionally rubbed it in, asking her to stop doing racing altogether and start baking pies for other racers…
That evening Mana and her father were working on a blueprint for another deathtrap. It was really a tricky one because it required a lot of different clockwork mechanisms and gears that were supposed to all work in a coordinated manner. They tried everything, kept arguing about how it was supposed to work. Mana had picked up some skill by working with her father for a while and her research and interest in world history and lore helped her sharpen her mind.
“What if we turn them sideways, change up their positions? They’re all turned sideways but what if we flatten them and place them facing us?” father scratched his chin. Both he and his daughter were completely stumped by this new deathtrap.
“No, that wouldn’t work, if we place those blades in then either the blade will damage the gears or they’ll get stuck, either way I’ll be too dead to know what went wrong…” Mana explained pointing at the part on the blueprint that was supposed to symbolize a ritualistic knife stuffed into the device and showing at how close it’d be.
“Well then… I suppose this device won’t work…” father angrily pushed the blueprint on the floor. Mana carefully picked it up and straightened it out.
“There’s an option, we could reduce the size of the gears, then they’d take less space, if we also turn them facing us and they’re at least three times smaller they wouldn’t contact the blades. We could use rubber bands as a connector here and here, the gears wouldn’t touch but the rubber would make them act like they do touch…” Mana explained her plan pointing at bunch of complicated drawings.
“That would never work. I always draw these gears as small as they get, how would you make them work while they are three times smaller than the minimum people work with!? That’s wishful thinking at best and a literal suicide at its worst, must I remind you, Mana that it’s a deathtrap we’re working on? It needs to be hundred percent foolproof for me to give you the greenlight to work on it...”
Father was always so careful…
“Still, better we give it a run before giving up on a whole evening of sketching, I’ll run it around several blacksmiths in the morning, see if they could help us…” Mana smiled rolling the blueprint into a large roll and putting it into her backpack.
Father nodded and scratched his stubble, all those extra shows Mana was doing made their time working on the tools make him neglect his own personal hygiene. Not that he cared much about it to begin with, father somehow often acted like his accident that left his arms burnt and him without his ninja license ruined his life…
Like father like daughter…
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