Meiko punched her own palm from excitement. For some reason this training session seemed to excite her. Maybe it was just most things that the blacksmith saw in her life. Sometimes she looked like a little ball of hype, she did have a sensitive and a little sad part of her deep inside but she rarely ever let that part shine through. The part filled with lack of confidence in her ability, having been dropped out from several teams and barely managing to graduate from the Academy by the skin of the teeth was irrelevant. Neither was the part filled with disappointment for her inability to control her chakra properly.
“So, I think in the beginning it’d be best if I showed you some basic redirection moves. From what I remember in the Academy you preferred a quick and always moving and striking style, differently from everyone you used your palms instead of fists” Meiko started the mentoring, Mana still felt hesitant that she needed these lessons but the blacksmith was a superior physical combatant with decent knowledge of taijutsu even if she didn’t focus in it.
“Yeah… Knucklebones are weak, they break easily also the palm isn’t as likely to kill your opponent since they inflict less direct damage but they still knock one off their feet and can break bones with enough chakra focus. Recently I switched to a kick-focused style though” Mana nodded, despite her lack of interest in this training she figured that being honest was the least she could’ve done.
“Well neither of those will do. You’re simply not quick enough without your chakra manipulation to utilize your movement properly” Meiko’s body disappeared from Mana’s line of sight, the magician turned behind her knowing the blacksmith’s intent well. With a cruel grin Meiko was standing right behind Mana. It was like the magician was living in a world with a lagging view of it, one moment Meiko was there, the next one she was behind her…
“Even when ninja don’t put much effort into it they can strike and kick ten or twenty times per second, they can move at speeds completely untraceable by normal people. You could train your entire life and you’d never tag a ninja”
Mana closed her eyes and sighed. “Unless you’re a samurai or a mercenary…”
“That’s different” Meiko nodded, “Most samurai use chakra, they just call it “Ken-ki” those that do not never rise above the peak human limit, they fight with pure technique which takes a lifetime to learn. Mercenaries use easy and cheap moves, they use high tech weaponry and various specialized methods of combat designed to fight ninja. Only a mercenary can teach you that style as I am completely unfamiliar with most of it”.
Meiko showed a couple of flowing hand movements. She moved gracefully yet with speed, she didn’t augment her body at the slightest yet her arms moved fast enough for Mana to have to see the movements a couple of times before she could fully get them. Even several more reps were needed before she memorized them.
“These movements work like handseals. You have to repeat them again and again and again and again before they become second nature to you, before your body automatically performs them as fast as you can while your mind can analyze other things and be focused on observing your opponent” Meiko said, apparently she was taking this whole teaching Mana how to fight without her chakra thing seriously…
Mana kept on repeating those moves, she kept repeating them for at least four hours if not more on end before sweat broke out from her forehead and her lips dried out, her tired hands could stay raised and waved around. Meiko looked displeased by the result. “You’re not even closing your gap between where you are and from where we can start the actual training, we’ve only got six days left…”
Crushed and depressed by the lack of progress in her training and with arms that felt like they were literally filled with acid that burnt them from inside Mana went to bed that day. Meiko wanted to ask for Mana to keep on working on her moves but Kouta objected as a medical ninja, at least he said he did it as a medical ninja. He may have just felt sorry for Mana, her face must’ve looked so miserable. Feeling too weak for even basic training drills and then having her weakness rubbed into her face by Meiko’s disappointed face.
It wasn’t even that Mana felt bad about her own lack of skill and progress with the training, it was the sadness that she started to break through Meiko’s façade. The blacksmith just started looking so sad and disappointed in herself because she wasn’t able to properly help Mana, because she must’ve felt like she was failing her friend and on top of her own problems the magician started feeling bad because she made Meiko feel like that.
The next day Mana’s movements looked even sloppier because of her exhaustion from the last day. Kouta decided to patiently sit with Mana and heal her arms from the damaged muscle tissue that was getting in her way. The magician had long since forgotten what this human exhaustion felt like. Ninja clearly got exhausted but their supernatural out of combat healing factor patched it up to the point where it all went away the same day. Kouta said that without his help this pain may have kept relentlessly plaguing the girl for a week or so.
“It’s… Passable I suppose, we’ll start the actual training tomorrow, you’re just barely at an acceptable level but we’re running out of time… We can’t afford to stay here any longer than our mission funds allow us, we’ll need to buy supplies for our journey too so we may get to stay here for even less than we originally plan, we’ve got no time to perfect your movements. You’ll have to do it yourself on the road…” Meiko complained out loud, she tried to be gentle and polite to a friend but Mana saw it in Meiko’s face “ she was terrible.
The girl wrapped herself tighter into a sheet before passing out trying to get some sleep, she just felt so weak and vulnerable, cold never felt so troubling before, heat never took away all traces of her strength so quickly and effectively, she couldn’t keep up with her friends and in the process she felt like she was just outright an inferior being to everyone. It was clear that the other teammates wanted to comfort her but they couldn’t find the right words, they knew that they lacked the knowledge to properly understand what she was going through so they just kept quiet about it. Silence was not a good treatment, it just made Mana feel even lonelier despite being surrounded by friends.
Meiko’s fist completely blurred, she said that she didn’t use any chakra and that she held it back but Mana’s face burst into a combination of blood and pain. It took Kouta at least twenty minutes to patch up her busted up face after each unsuccessful attempt to redirect a punch.
“Should I fix your teeth too?” Kouta asked referring to the gapping hole in Mana’s mouth when Meiko’s fist almost got swallowed by the girl in its entirety.
“Yes please…” Mana replied as well as her aching face allowed, her decent looks was the last speck of confidence that the girl had. She got kicked around and had to watch the disappointed looks of her friends all around her for entire days, at least she didn’t want their looks to also be disgusted at Mana’s busted up face too…
“It’ll hurt, regrowing teeth and fixing bones is a bit painful…” Kouta warned her softly, his eyes were kind, he didn’t appear to judge her swollen and covered with bruises face, her eyes that looked like they were assaulted by a whole swarm of bees and her missing teeth or her battered body.
“I don’t care, I’ll take it… I’d wish there was something to bite a rag with while you did it though…” the girl tried to joke with the most pathetic attempt to slightly alleviate the pathetic situation she was in. Why was she failing so much? Was all that she had ever achieved only because of her chakra control? Was the gift of chakra which she was given the only thing that made her special, the only thing that made her halfway competent? Was the girl behind the ninja worthless and unable to learn even the most basic movements?
“Yeah… They should make other pain management techniques for people without teeth” Kouta giggled warmly as the emerald light from his arms started glowing so intensely right up at Mana’s face that it nearly blinded her.
Yet another punch hit Mana right in the gut, feeling merciful for the epic failures of Mana getting socked in the face with the power of a giant hammer every time the blacksmith started punching her in the gut or kicking her in the shins sending Mana down and sometimes dislocating bones or twisting her legs in the process. Each of the injuries that Mana went through every day would’ve crippled someone for weeks yet Kouta always found the time to fix her up in under an hour, no matter how severe it was. The boy barely trained by himself, he devoted his time to healing Mana completely.
“Can’t Kouta do the punching me in the face thing?” Mana wiped the blood off of her face after skipping another gut punch and throwing up. “Doesn’t seem so hard to do and he is actually well versed in taijutsu thanks to his father’s training” the magician wondered on her fourth day. It only made sense that a ninja focusing on taijutsu would do her taijutsu training but for some reason it was Meiko continuously pummeling Mana.
“He didn’t want to, he said so himself, after hearing his reasons Shimo agreed and appeared to be quite adamant about it. Didn’t even tell me those reasons, he just insisted that I did the training…” Meiko scratched the back of her head throwing Mana some towels and band-aids. The magician patched her cuts and bruises up and wiped the blood coming out from her mouth.
“Looks like a pretty nasty internal bleeding, you may want Kouta to take a look at it…” Meiko looked concerned after Mana stood back up in her defensive position adamant to learn to redirect at least one blow her friend throws.
“Well if he dislikes me so much he doesn’t even want to train me, may as well not get in his way with my petty problems, are you gonna punch me in the face or what?” Mana grunted angrily, she felt quite nauseous too so she may have had a concussion coming but at that moment in time she felt so hurt inside that she wouldn’t have minded if she flipped up dead after one of those hits. It’d have surely been better to die while still having semblance of who she used to really be than living without a part of her identity having a new one forced down her throat.
“I don’t like your attitude, missy…” Meiko slowed her punch up to a crawl, just to the point where Mana managed to tap her wrist and redirect it near effortlessly. “You do know you have to redirect those blows, not take them, right? I don’t enjoy punching you half to death every day either, it hurts me internally just as much as it hurts you externally…”
Mana got furious and started throwing punches instead, not even using her palms but using her clenched tightly fists. Her blows utilized all of the Academy training, these weren’t childish punches, these may have knocked out even a skilled martial artist. Meiko effortlessly caught or avoided each and every blow, she smiled softly because she knew that this was good for her friend, punching her anger and troubles away. For a ninja it was easy to block or dodge a blow like that, still, even Meiko skipped one punch. After the loud thud echoed Mana’s eyes shot wide open in surprise, she jumped up to Meiko but only saw her unfazed face. Only then did she realize that she broke her fist after punching what seemed like a brick wall…
The fifth day was spent entirely of Kouta treating Mana’s injuries, the medical ninja demanded a whole day because he had some treatment to do for the injuries that he stopped from being emergencies but left some nasty painful scars. He decided to remove all the bruises and black marks all over Mana’s broken body, all of her black eyes and bumps.
“You seem awfully quiet today, Mana-chan…” Kouta observed after the girl spent several hours just angrily squinting at a small clock on a fridge instead of looking at the boy for at least a single moment. “Don’t get discouraged, you could kick the ass of anyone not using chakra, you could easily reflect all the blows of Meiko where she only used her normal strength, each of your reflections is so skillful that you’d open up even the best normal martial artists for a counter attack. You may not fight ninja until…”
“Stop…” Mana shut him up angrily.
“Stop?” he looked at her confused trying to catch her eyes but he could only contact Mana’s angry puffed up cheeks.
“First of all stop talking about how “my chakra will return eventually”, no one knows if it can even happen and at this point I started doubting it myself. I was examined by a Quack when it happened and he said it may have been permanent, I couldn’t even show my face up in a hospital because I was afraid a doctor would confirm it because that’d feel like he’d put a nail into my coffin!” Mana yelled out finally turning her eyes to greet those of Kouta’s
“Also, please stop trying to boost my confidence when you have no hope in me. You’re one of the most skilled genin in taijutsu yet you so adamantly refused to train me. Why would you do so unless you didn’t actually believe that I could succeed? I appreciate the mercy you show me by healing me from time to time as if encouraging a kid putting their head into a guillotine by placing candy on the other end but if that is all it is “ pity, please stop! It’s hard for me as it is… Getting beat up every day and seeing all of my friends disappointed in me, feeling weak and useless, knowing that I may never be able to do that one thing I love, to achieve my lifelong goals!” Mana started tearing up after the last sentence.
Kouta smiled politely, his eyes never changed from that warm and polite look, he tried to move in closer and hug her but then he stopped half way and awkwardly breathed into Mana’s face before jumping back and acting like he was just observing her face for more scratches to heal.
“I do care about you, Mana-chan. I do believe you can succeed. People can’t fight ninja but you’re not like most people. You are a very quaint girl and that’s what makes you so special, that and one other thing makes me believe you can do it. You’ve already made some progress” Kouta kept on smiling as he was bandaging Mana’s arm which had a nasty bruise from when the girl was tossed on her back and bruised it into a large rock which was in her way.
“Then why… Why wouldn’t you train me?” she asked after slowly wiping away her tears with the sleeve of her healthy arm.
“Because I don’t want to hit you, Mana-chan” Kouta closed his eyes and smiled with a full grin as if he had just told a joke.
The next day Mana got beaten up again, royally so since Meiko decided to once again boost her speed to superhuman extent which proved to be Mana’s limit previously. It appeared like the word superhuman was there for reason, whatever the human limit was even when Mana knew the movements perfectly, even when she could analyze the visual ticks in Meiko’s face before she made the moves she couldn’t redirect the blows in time.
“Let’s wrap this up… It’s over, your body is broken, you’ve got just one functional arm, Kouta will definitely wish to heal you whole day tomorrow so… Let’s say that you can easily beat any non-ninja opponent, even the best martial artists would get redirected and provide you with an opening, if you can finish them during that opening you’d win, if you couldn’t they’d adapt to your solely redirective style and come out on top. I suppose you still, under no circumstances, can fight a ninja…” Meiko explained scratching her head. She still looked disappointed, she wanted to make Mana whole again, to give her friend an ability to fight against the other ninja so that she could perhaps smile once again.
“I’d suggest always finishing the fight using a kick combination and topping it off with the Spear Kick” Meiko sighed and turned her back
“Spear Kick?” Mana huffed out through blood and sweat, both of which she had all over her face and mouth.
“Yeah, that jumping stomp thing… I liked it so I named it, I own it now and you must use it when I demand it! It kicked me down even while I was blocking really hard, it looks really cool too!” the blacksmith replied.
“Wait… Meiko… Let’s try again! You hit me with a decent punch, something that’d kill me if it hit me, you don’t have to make it your top punch but… Please” Mana begged bowing to Meiko, the magician saw her blood dripping from her face and her open wound that made blood push through even Kouta’s bandages. She risked bleeding out or passing out due to blood loss if this training continued.
“What? No! Look at you, you’re almost dead as it is! If I punched you right now it’d be like being crushed by a flying boulder and your bones are broken as they are, you’d have your organs mashed into porridge!” Meiko turned back and swiped her arm angrily trying to talk Mana out of it.
“I can’t do it. I can’t live a life where I am always that person everyone’s looking at like a china doll, someone that everyone cherishes to protect from every smallest thing. I want to be strong enough to protect everyone, if I’m not then what’s the point? Please, all I’m asking for is to give your best shot and have faith in me…” Mana begged falling down on her knees.
“My best shot? You’ve never redirected even a decent shot, I can bend steel with my best shots, break boulders, that’s how I test the gloves of my armor! What you’re asking of me is madness, you’re the client of this mission!” Meiko yelled back at Mana picking her off the ground by the collar of her shirt and making her stand on her feet.
“I know… That’s why I’m asking you to do it. You still believe I can do it and I believe that you are an excellent teacher. I saw your disappointment deep inside when I couldn’t fight as well as you wanted me to and I want you to smile just as much as you want me to do so. There’s just one way to make both of us happy “ try to punch me so hard that it’d throw me to the Moon, so fast that I’d never see a thing coming. My heart is in this, all the way!”
Meiko closed her eyes and clutched her fist. For a moment Mana thought she saw air bend around the fist making it appear like it was blurring, almost like a mirage. Her body instantly switched into the preparation position, her arm gently yet as quickly as it’s never moved before flailed preparing her body for a redirection. Meiko’s body disappeared, Mana could hear her friend’s roar, she could almost swear she could hear her fist flying at her as if it was on fire. If that hit her she’d be left as a bloody stain “ that was an all or nothing moment.
Kouta’s happy smile appeared in Mana’s mind. “Because I don’t want to hit you, Mana-chan” the mirage said. Mana couldn’t even see her own body pushing Meiko’s fist aside and kicking the girl right in the center of the back of her leg sending the blacksmith tumbling down onto the ground. Kouta and Shimo rushed out of the inn, they looked in awe at the cracked and busted up ground where Meiko’s focused energy of her blow was redirected.
“Mana-chan did it, she redirected a chakra augmented blow!” Kouta jumped up into the air in joy and ran up to Mana spreading his arms up for a hug before awkwardly switching to a faked interest in her injuries. “I need to look at those immediately! Let’s go back to the inn!” he yelled out dragging Mana by her ear
“What the…” Shimo still stood there refusing to believe what happened, he walked up to Meiko giving her an arm to help her stand up.
“Well, I suppose you aren’t a taijutsu focused ninja, you’re just decent at it. We can’t make big claims yet, also no actual ninja would just focus all their energy into a single punch like that… But… Still…” the swordsman just stood there with his mouth open looking at the hole that the force of the redirection made Meiko dig up.
“No… It was… Chakra. Mana did it, she augmented her body, both her perception and speed!” Meiko looked back at Shimo with a look of similar confusion. The two looked back at the inn where the light lit up in the second floor room. Mana learned a lot over these several days and yet… More questions got raised than answers and lessons were learnt.
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