There was this stage of pain where one accepted it as a part of their being, as a part of their daily routine. Together with that stage came those memories of days of happiness and the thoughts questioning how could one have ever taken those days for granted so badly? It was only one’s own fault really, Mana could only blame herself and only hate herself. She was told what the world outside the village walls was, what ultimately her fate would be, she was told all about how stupid she was and yet defiantly she kept on strutting that road to disappointment and loss.
To most it may not have been that big of a deal, the magician realized that her friends wished well. They wished to know what Mana’s state really was but to the youngster it just seemed like she was betrayed. Her friends broke that sacred line of consent, it was supposed to be up to Mana and her alone to decide how much of her condition should have been made public, how much of her body should have been explored by anyone. Not only the people she loved and trusted the most crossed that line purposefully but they stayed in complete silence and would’ve undoubtedly lied to her if asked directly.
Why would they have ever been asked such a thing? After all, it would’ve never occurred to Mana that her friends could have done something like that. She trusted them completely, she would’ve given up everything for their sake. There were no ill feelings from Mana’s side towards her friends. Hell, in their boots she’d have probably done the same thing, if she saw that her friend was suffering she’d have crossed every line imaginable and even made herself hated in the eyes of that friend to save them from that torment.
It was just that cursed combination of hatred towards oneself and confusion about the betrayal of her friends. Mana hated her own body and mind for blocking an essential part of her identity off, almost like it was a self-preservation mechanism. Almost like being a ninja came with Mana having to shoulder all those responsibilities she placed on herself making getting hurt or killed an inevitability. Ultimately even her own body betrayed her and yet neither one wanted to stab her in the back, everyone who betrayed her wanted all the best to Mana making her the wrong one. That was what hurt the most.
Mana collapsed by a dark wall illuminated briefly by the dim salad-green flames from the eternally burning torches. She grabbed her hair and pulled it back behind her head so hard that it almost peeled her scalp off. She was such a mess, beaten yet healed just to the point where she was in no danger of dying, her hair was soaked in her own blood yet all of her wounds were closed. Only now did she understand those words that came from Guru Ayushi that time she revealed to him that there were no lines she wouldn’t cross to save someone’s life.
This was just the kind of life she cursed someone to by crippling them but keeping them alive…
*****
“Mana! Wait up!” Meiko yelled out leaping forward but Shimo stepped in her way. Meiko rudely tried to push him out of her way but the swordsman twisted his body around her palms and pulled his blade placing it to her throat in a surprising speed.
“She’s mad at us, give her some time. Were you really so dense to believe that what we did would never come up? What do you expect to tell her to make her stop being who she always was. She’s silly and childish but that’s who she is, that’s who we’ve befriended. Give her some time” he growled angrily the words he couldn’t stop telling himself trying to refrain from chasing Mana himself.
“But… She’s leaving out there all alone!” Meiko yelled out pulling out a kunai from her back pocket but Kouta stepped in pushing the two off of each other.
“Shimo’s right, we know exactly where she’s going, which path she’s taking. Right now she wants to see our faces the least and going after her is the worst possible idea. We’ve accepted this outcome when we decided to get our answers. Knowing what she just found out, Mana-chan must hate her own body just as much as she feels betrayed by us. Finding out that her own mind is keeping her from being whole, that has to be a cruel thing to know” the youth explained himself to Meiko. “Let’s just respect Mana-chan’s word and go to Sunagakure”
“If Mana gets hurt we’ll still fail this mission” Meiko irked out worried.
“Mana’s smarter than to get hurt” Shimo replied.
“But she’s not herself at the moment, normally she may be pretty sharp but now her mind may not be focused on the right things. Let’s give her some time but catch up to her at the end of the tunnel. The first path heads to Sunagakure gate, we’ll then track her back finding where the other one leads to “ with our chakras recovered we’ll be faster than she is” Kouta scratched his forehead still refusing to fully comprehend the disaster that just happened.
The three entered the tunnel walking straight onto the path where Mana told them to. They’ve already pissed her off already so if they ever wanted her to talk to them again they’d need to do right as she told them to.
*****
Mana’s stomach growled, the magician kept on breathing heavily without even bothering to look into her backpack. She knew that Meiko carried around all the food. The girl thought about eating one of those creepy hand sized spiders that scurried all around the walls, avoiding just the spots that have been illuminated by the fire on the walls. The noise of their shells rubbing against the rocks and their giant crawlers ticking and tacking against the walls was creepy but despite their incredibly terrifying appearance Mana knew she was bigger than them. She was in pain in more places she could count so if they bothered to bite her it’d barely even be a shock to her, some parts of the girl actually wanted those crawlers to pick a fight with her so that she could express all of her anger properly.
Something rustled the sandy floor by scurrying around the path that Mana was in. It sounded like… Fur rubbing against the rock and the sand. Could there have been some mammals living in this cave? How could they have maintained their fur, most mammals living in dark and desolated places like this must’ve lost their furs and their eyesight over time…
“The fires…” Mana realized looking at the green source of light. These torches displaced the natural balance of the cave ecosystem by eliminating the irrelevancy of sight. Most mammals must’ve seen just fine, some insects must’ve relied on eyesight as well since the place did have some illumination that never dimmed. Still, this place had a system of its own, Mana had never seen anything like those giant critters scurrying around and avoiding her sight or those giant pincer wielding spiders on the walls.
What could they have been running from or where towards if they didn’t mind entering a human’s line of sight?
*****
“This cave is boring, I wish Mana was here so she could translate all those hieroglyphs on the walls…” Meiko’s face dragged out reminding that of a horse.
“You do know that not all ancient languages are the same, Mana isn’t a universal translator, she may not even be able to read those…” Shimo looked at his bored friend with curiosity.
“Hmmm… Something isn’t right…” Kouta scratched his chin.
“How so? Are we being tracked? Will we be ambushed!?” Meiko excitedly pulled her fists up to her grinning teeth and shook in her boots.
“Well the whole way through we’ve heard weird noises, crawlies and some sort of critters and snakes digging through the sand, this cave has an ecosystem of its own made of animals I have never seen before” Kouta continued to slow down before he completely stopped and looked behind him with worry.
“Yeah, you told us to watch the sand ripples so that we don’t get bit by any snakes” Shimo stopped and grabbed the hilt of his blade, he trusted Kouta’s senses even if his current sense he relied on did feel like a bit on the sixth side.
“Precisely, this place has animals who are ready to hunt in the environment of this cave and appear to be completely different from any others. I may not have the antidote against the local snake or insect poisons nor the skill to properly analyze it. Having our environment in mind these may be the animals from thousands of years ago that have went extinct everywhere but in this cave” the medical ninja explained.
A hissing sound alerted all three of the genin. Frantically all of them started turning around, they pressed against each other’s back so that they are not attacked from behind.
“Is that… A snake?” Meiko asked with a serious yet still somewhat excited tone, “A giant snake maybe? Fighting the little ones would be boring” she added.
“No… Sounds like… Gas…” Shimo noted too late as the hissing noise started coming from another corner, then another, then another until it was finally coming from all around the genin. Smoke as black as tar filled the area making the genin hold their breaths for a while.
“Do we run or do we fight?” Meiko asked exhaling some air but keeping herself from drawing any in, Kouta pulled off some of his cloak and tied it around his nose. The boy leaned down and fell to his knees, despite them holding their breaths and trying to filter the gas out it still passed through whatever blocked its path. All four started coughing.
“Vision’s blurry…” Meiko complained and judging from Shimo’s staggering attempts to stand straight it could’ve been correctly assumed that the same was with everyone affected by the gas.
Suddenly the gas started circulating and forming humanoid shapes that were just briefly illuminated by the green flames, no careful looks were needed, Meiko would have recognized the shape and face of her father wherever she saw it.
“Why did I leave my clan and move into Konoha?” the man asked in a haunting voice.
“Am I the only one seeing it?” Meiko looked back at her friends but she noticed they were all gone. She was alone in a room filled with black as night gas with her father who seemed to be emanating some sort of light. The figure was carefully proceeding forward and walking up closer to the blacksmith.
“You left because of the falling out with the clan, they didn’t want to make weapons, you thought weapons didn’t necessarily need to be made for killing, that everyone decided what they’d use their weapon for and you didn’t want to limit your skills. You wanted freedom to make whatever you wanted to make…” Meiko replied. Father’s figure shrieked in the dark with a creepy almost animalistic noise. The sound of scribbling and taping against the rock could’ve been heard. For a moment the gas cleared up around Meiko and she saw her friends again.
The blacksmith screamed out seeing Shimo being held by some sort of insectoid creature. It was at least one and a half meter tall, standing on two legs while two others held the swordsman and pressed it against its black shell while the two upper legs stabbed the young man in the back. Shimo shouted and struggled for a while before passing out, his eyes were completely white, some sort of white substance mixed with blood was dripping from his mouth.
Kouta’s eyes were completely normal but his pupils were running around. “I don’t know your favorite food, you chow down everything you see in front of you! he yelled and waved his arms around, his cheeks were blushed and he looked like he was having a fever. Another two insects crept up to the medical ninja, Meiko tried to leap to his aid but she didn’t notice yet another one scurrying up to her from behind and standing on its two legs.
Black smoke once again sprayed from small cysts at the insect’s face, it’s face looked similar to a large wasp except it had three pairs of mandibles, in between of each pair was a large pus filled cyst that sprayed the pus out whenever the insect pleased. That sludgy substance was highly reactive to air because it turned to that noxious gas whenever it came out. Suddenly Kouta’s troubles and unconscious Shimo and all the other swarming insectoids disappeared. It was just Meiko and Mana who was standing right in front of her.
“What weather do I like the most?” the magician’s voice asked, the tone was so wildly different from Mana’s, it was so… Deceitful. Meiko knew the answer, she had it somewhere deep in her head. That one day the blacksmith visited Mana in the archives and the magician told her, it was a small throwaway line but… Darn it… What sort of a friend was Meiko!? She kept failing Mana at every turn, forgot everything her friend had ever told her, she deserved every injury, she didn’t deserve to see and hold the Box of Ultimate Bliss like Mana wanted her to…
“I’m sorry, Mana…” Meiko’s tear filled eyes tried to walk up closer to Mana, she didn’t want to play this one question game, she didn’t want to see what those bugs were doing to her friends. She just wanted to tell her friend that she was sorry, that she just wanted to be close to Mana and support her friend when she felt betrayed, when she needed a friend the most…
A powerful grip clutched Meiko’s body and shut it in pressing it right up to Mana’s body. The blacksmith’s eyes were racing all around but she couldn’t see what exactly was gripping her or what was hurting her. Sharp pain made her close her eyes and bite her lip but Meiko didn’t scream. She felt blood running down her back, Meiko felt her consciousness fading, her eyes weren’t listening anymore, they rolled back, suddenly Meiko felt so nauseous.
So sleepy…
*****
Mana kept on stumbling forward. She ate some sort of supersized maggot that was crawling around, it was the worst thing she had ever eaten, its insides felt fatty and slimy and it didn’t swallow even remotely well. The magician knew that she needed more, one upchuck summoning maggot wasn’t even remotely the amount of protein she needed to recover from those injuries but she physically couldn’t keep those creepy things down. She had to force herself to swallow as much as she did.
A hissing noise stopped the magician in her tracks, she frantically looked around, her eyes raced trying to find where it was coming from. She felt a weird sensation, something was smelling way off but Mana’s sense of smell was actually inferior to even most normal peers of hers, she only smelled that something was off with the air when it was already too late. The girl started to cough, what was that smell and those sounds? She heard pairs of feet clacking against the rock, somewhat was trying to sneak up to her from above using the rocky ceiling for support.
The magician girl tried to roll away to avoid an attack she predicted but her body was too trippy from all that gas she inhaled so she just carelessly stumbled around and almost snapped her own neck by sloppily flopping her face down into the sand.
“Just great… I deserve to get killed now…” she thought to herself crawling desperately as far away as she could from where she imagined her assailants to be. She scratched the sand out of her eyes wildly scratching one of her eyelids so hard it started to bleed. When she regained her blurry and racing vision the girl noticed that the entire cave was sunken in black clouds of that gas she previously inhaled and that she must’ve taken in all of it there was.
A feint light emanated up front, slowly it was closing in on Mana, turning around and shaping itself until it made a solid humanoid shape. It was Kouta’s.
“What are you doing here!? I told you I want to be alone!” Mana screamed out angrily wiping blood off of her bleeding eye. It was her good eye that was bleeding while the other one was still swollen and blocked off by lumps of swelling flesh.
“Whom do I love?” Kouta asked, his tone was hateful, deceitful and wishing the girl harm.
“What… What are you talking about?” Mana’s voice shook and she took a couple of steps back, she looked back seeing similar figures and lights approaching from behind her, they looked almost nightmarish in appearance forcing the young magician to stand her ground there.
“You love your father, Kouta” Mana answered making the figure stop for a moment. It then started moving forward but pain took it over and forced it to twitch as if it was on its dying legs. Mana grabbed a torch off the wall and slammed Kouta’s face with the open flame. This wasn’t Kouta, this was some sort of a dream, a nightmare. Some sort of vision caused by this accursed ancient cave!
Clarity returned to Mana’s vision, she kept on bashing the fallen figure again and again and again and again. She wasn’t sure how or why was the nightmare creature disguised as her friend or what was it aiming to achieve by that question, also why did it stutter like that almost like her answer was neither right nor wrong. Whatever nightmarish rituals made it must’ve been crossed. Finally the illusion faded and Mana saw a crushed and shaking figure of a giant insect wailing around, one set on eternal green flame and one with head completely bashed into the stone but still alive to feel the heat of its final moments.
Mana cried out in pain and dropped the torch, her ribs were burning, she clutched at her aching body and ran on forward using the last of her strength. Suddenly the world blurred and turned black again, the girl stumbled and hit the wall. She felt pulsing pain on her nose and a warm torrent of blood going down her face. The magician stood up and turned around pressing her body against the cold wall and feeling her own pounding heart as if her arms formed an imaginary barrier that protected her.
Another figure appeared from the black smoke. It was Meiko this time.
“Why did you take us on this mission?” she asked just as slyly and deceitfully as the previous nightmare incarnated.
“Because I’m a greedy and selfish person!” Mana screamed out at the shapeshifting image of her friend.
“I don’t care about any of you, I just wanted my chakra control back. Now just kill me or leave me alone or do whatever you must do! I don’t want to see any of you anymore” the magician collapsed on her knees in tears. Why was all of this haunting her so much? Why did she purposefully lie to this image to get it to hate her, to get it to go away. Why would she wish to push one of her best friends away? Why would she purposefully wish to be hated?
The figure closed in, Mana felt a tight grip press her body against Meiko, one so strong that it almost broke her spine and cracked her ribs. The girl didn’t scream, she just cocked her head back and gave up, if this thing was here to kill her it could go on. She wouldn’t stop it. She deserved it really… Abandoning and pushing away everyone she ever loved. Sharp pain almost made Mana scream, finally the illusion went away revealing the magician completely in the insect’s grasp with its upper legs having penetrated her back. Mana felt some sort of gooey liquid being pumped into her body and coursing throughout, what was that: poison, some sort of anticoagulant?
“Why am I not dying? Why am I not going asleep?” the magician wandered to herself. She wanted to die, she relaxed her body and tensed it again forcing the poison to course along her body easier.
“But… What if… What if these things also attacked the others? Do I have the right to give up and die risking to let my friends die too? No… No… I must fight… I need to find out if they’re okay” Mana’s eyes shot wide open, she couldn’t ever hope to free herself from this creature’s grasp, she didn’t know why didn’t the poison work on her nor did she care, the magician thrust her teeth forward past the creature’s mandibles and dug deep into the gooey cysts on the insectoid’s face. Warm and sticky goo that smelled worse than a paralyzed diarrhetic pirate’s diaper shot all over her face and down below. The insectoid violently shook on its hind legs and twitched falling down and shaking in a grotesque and nightmarish manner. Mana grabbed another torch off the wall. Her hands were shaking, her ribs were burning.
It was time to do hero’s work…
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