The next morning after the overly indulgent dinner there was a certain period of cooldown where Meiko and Kouta took their time recovering after overeating and enjoying far too many drinks. Impressively enough the ninja metabolism eliminated most signs of hangover after one and a half hour at worst but the whole day Shimo kept on whispering something in the ears of his teammates, something that slightly troubled Mana for she worried that her declaration may be overheard or intercepted in mid-delivery.
After lunch the magician’s team gathered in Mana’s quarters. They only barely all had a place to settle as the place was not meant to fit more than two people inside, while the rooms were certainly costly they were not overly spacious after all. Everyone began speaking at once filling the limited space with verbal rubbish which wouldn’t have been intelligible to even the most devoted listeners so Mana just gently calmed everyone down and sighed trying to explain as much as she could to her team.
“Wait, Shimo said…” Kouta began speaking again, this time alone.
“Don’t finish that sentence. It’s not safe to utter those words in captain Read’s ship” Mana jumped up pressing her hand against the boy’s mouth.
“So is that true? What’s your plan?” Shimo asked angrily rubbing his temples. While Mana was sure that internally the young swordsman was completely with Mana’s idea he wanted to act out like he needed persuasion. The reasons of such rebellious behavior eluded Mana’s mind but she had long since passed the point trying to reasonably explain the boyish ego.
“Look, all I can tell you guys is that… Yes, that’s true but I can’t discuss it. It’s too dangerous” Mana answered.
“Don’t worry, guys, I’m sure Mana has a plan, she’d never endanger us or doom us for a confrontation like that unless she has a foolproof plan” Meiko grinned leaning back on her arms without a care.
“Actually… I haven’t figured that part out yet. I only have small parts of an actual plan because my actual plan is very dangerous. It has about fifty-fifty chance of success and everything can go wrong. I don’t want to leave the fate of my team to chance, I want it to be a full hundred but… I simply see no other way than my plan” Mana admitted looking down and then turning around to look through the illuminator.
“Well… At least you have a plan” Meiko tried justifying Mana’s words but then the magician turned around and shook her head sitting on her bed and staring at the expensive carpet beneath her feet with apologizing and guilty eyes.
“I’m really sorry, guys. I just can’t give captain Read or any single Pirate Lord that many shards. I have no problem paying Hachiro-san or any wanderer who probably wouldn’t have much use to it but what if Read melts the alloy and coats her ship with it? It’d take a miracle to sink such a ship. And what if she coats her cannonballs with it or learns to manufacture it after handing one to Green? I know this is the same argument we had in the desert but I’ve learned my lesson, we all must’ve. These shards are coming back to Konoha, I’d rather die a thousand times over than give this many of them to Read or any other pirate” Mana tried explaining herself, she spoke quietly and Shimo constantly stood on the watch peeking through the illuminator. Technically they’ve only expressed very abstract ideas yet but they’d still sound suspicious if the wrong ears overheard them.
“You paid Read half of the share already” Kouta said.
“I’ll take it back” Mana cut down in a tone that implied she was not going to discuss this any further and has made up her mind already.
“What’s the plan?” Shimo asked.
“We’re going to send a message with coordinates to another Pirate Lord, we’re going to spark a fight between the two pirate crews and do what we came there to do before fleeing. We’re ninja, doing our jobs and fleeing are what we’re supposed to be good at” Mana explained pressing her shaking hand against her face, she knew how bad that plan must’ve sounded and how much risk was involved.
“Send a message to a Pirate Lord from the ship of a captain loyal to another Pirate Lord?” Shimo snickered.
“How are we even going to contact him?” Kouta added salt to the wound.
“Wait, that’s why you asked the pirate lady about the Lords yesterday?” Meiko pressed her index finger to her lips as her forehead wrinkled really hard suggesting some complicated thinking processes transpiring in the redhead’s mind.
“Yeah… I wanted to know which one to contact, I wanted to know their personalities and their skills. I had assessments to make” Mana admitted “Obviously a bit of personal curiosity was also involved but I’d have never been so persistent to talk about them onboard if it wasn’t for my plan”
“You did all of that without consulting us? You know, you’d make a fine Black Ops ninja…” Shimo cursed squinting angrily at Mana. “You’re talking to us about something and yet in that complicated head of yours you’re constantly weaving plots. You’re no different from most scumbags we’ve seen on this mission. A real blossoming ANBU…”
Mana’s blood began to boil and she wished to shout something rude out, offend the young man and tear him to bits but… She contained that rising storm, her fingers dug into the sheets on her bed and she allowed her raven black hair to run down her face and cover her rage up. Once her mind calmed down and Mana realized that she had some blame to own she wiped that hair off and faced her friends again.
“I know and I’m sorry” she admitted, “But I cannot allow that much Audra to fall into Read’s hands. She is no world conquering maniac like Fennec or that bad of a person from what I’ve seen but… She’s still a pirate answering to other pirates, if her Lord gets a sniff of power that’d help him dominate the seas “ he’d eat his own face off to obtain that power”.
“Starting a pirate war just to escape with your hide… That’s so sneaky and… So…” Kouta looked at Mana a whole different way, his disdain stabbed at Mana’s chest the most.
“Ordinary people may get hurt, such clashes would spark a war, they always do. Civilians suffer the most during wars, that’s’ why generally wars suck. Obviously it’d make the villages take pirates more seriously, maybe eventually they’d even be eliminated freeing the seas but are you willing to make that call?” Shimo asked Mana sitting near her and placing his hand around her.
Mana closed her eyes and covered them her nails almost dug into her own eyebrows from how hard she trembled and pressed at them. This wasn’t fair. She had a mission objective, one that wasn’t really her responsibility, she was a client and yet she was a client who has taken up to own that responsibility. If she made that call people would die in the pirate war, without a doubt, then the pirates themselves would be eventually eradicated by the angered villages combining their forces. If Mana rolled back on her plans then one Pirate Lord would acquire a great deal of Audra and rule the seas eliminating the others, the optimal power balance would be broken. It was impossible to say if the Lord would rule with a just fist or an iron one. Either way, people would suffer and die because of Mana’s call.
This wasn’t why nor was it what she became a ninja for. Mana wanted to change the world, to reduce the suffering around her not to control it or choose between what exactly would be the cause of it. This wasn’t fair at all.
“I’ll need a great deal of chakra. Meiko can place seals on a bottle working in a similar principle to the seal on her jet boots, it would release a small output of chakra every couple of seconds and send it propelling through the water. I can drop it during a cold evening and no one would suspect a thing…” Mana finalized her decision.
“Alright!” Meiko grinned giving Mana a thumb up, the magician had no idea if her friend realized the thoughts that went into making such a decision and just what would be the fallout from making it.
“Well, the village will be proud if we make it, we’d have gone through great deal of trouble to grant it those shards. Well done, great hero, you!” Shimo sarcastically “commended” Mana and left her quarters. The magician sighed uneasily, she knew that deep inside he agreed to her call, he just didn’t want to be seen agreeing to something like that nor did he choose to own such a decision up. He was right, Mana would earn major extra points with the village higher ups for such a stunt, that being said these people were not the kind of people she wanted approval from. These were the leaders of liars and killers, people who managed and had their own personal armies of assassins and thieves. And Mana would be their wonder child…
A couple of hours later Shimo returned with Hachiro. Mana had finished up writing the message to Pirate Lord “Blue” “ Aomura Flint.
“Here, I brought cowardly-sensei so he can fill your seal’s juices up. He agreed to fill her up for two extra shards…” the swordsman mumbled out indifferently staring at his sensei who walked up to Meiko asking if she was ready.
“Can you really transfer your chakra through me?” Meiko asked, it wasn’t like the Uchiha was some sort of supernatural being like Synth who could freely grant or take its chakra away from people. Usually chakra couldn’t be passed around like water from a bucket, unless with a use of some sort of technique.
“No need for that, it’s a simple seal, I can simply duplicate it with my own chakra input” Hachiro grinned, “Is it a secure bottle, won’t I get any cuts from the glass?”
Shimo smacked the man in the back of his head, “I’ve seen you take hits that’d split the planet in two with your stupid face, it’s not like your huge chakra augmentation levels can’t compensate for a little cut”
“Yeah, but if I insert this much chakra my flow may be interrupted and not work properly. What if I secretly have hemophilia I know nothing about and I bleed out and die!?” Hachiro began freaking out more and more. Kouta walked up to the man and pressed his hand against Hachiro’s forehead.
“Hemophilia Identification Jutsu!” he chanted out a made-up technique. “No, it seems you do not have hemophilia, otherwise my hemophilia identification technique would’ve found it…” he smiled like a doctor smiled handing a toddler a lollipop.
“How much chakra exactly do you have, old man?” Meiko wondered.
“Oh, you’d be surprised…” Shimo grunted in annoyance. “He’s a pretty amazing fighter when he’s not scared, his chakra level should be at least lower tier jounin level…”
Meiko’s mouth gapped in surprise while Hachiro placed his hand on the bottle and made a couple of seals.
“Chakra Eruption Seal!” he chanted opening the seal up and leaving a sealing hieroglyph onto the bottle before beginning to pour his chakra inside.
Shimo looked at Mana who still looked like a walking ghost, it was clear that the magician was crushed by the weight her decision placed on her shoulders and that she approved of none of its aspects, the decision she made was just apparently the lesser one of the two evils.
“How do you even plan to find this Flint guy? It’s not like we know where he or any of his ships are…” the swordsman wondered.
Mana’s pale hand rose to point at an enlarged version of the Archipelago with the oceans and seas surrounding it hanging on the quarter’s walls, it had three centers connected with straight lines with “Tako’s Reach” scribbled in the middle. Together those three colored centers made up a triangle. That accursed triangle most ships barely dared to tread inside of.
“So?” the Yuki asked for some clarification.
Mana’s fingers pointed at each of the centers, her lips barely moved upon pointing at each one calling the color of each circle representing the center. “Red, green, blue”
“Oh…” Shimo finally understood the meaning of that map. It would’ve made little sense for each captain not to have multiple versions of such maps hanging all around the ship “ it detailed where exactly the current territory of each Pirate Lord identified by their codename color was. When treading inside another Lord’s territory meant being plundered and sunken to the bottom where the Eight Tails may have lurked, one had to make sure that as many crewmates knew just where the accessible territory was and just where their Lord’s influence ended and another’s began.
Hachiro sighed heavily and moved his hand off the bottle. “There, I made four seals on each side of the bottle, if one burst of chakra takes one fifty or so meters this should take the bottle to Flint’s territory and beyond easily, even if it does run out of juice it’ll float where the guy can find him…” the Uchiha explained.
Mana nodded and thanked the man handing him two shards for his trouble. Hachiro really did look like he was sweating heavily and almost like most of his blood was drained. It must’ve taken a great deal of effort for this strange plan to work and it was a very unusual mean of delivering a message in the ninja world. Everyone scattered and went back to their rooms meanwhile Mana continued to sit around rolling the bottle and the message contained inside between her hands.
All of a sudden her door burst open with such intensity and unexpectedness that the girl just dropped the bottle down in sheer surprise and scare that such unexpected and swift entry gave. Just barely did Mana’s foot manage to break the bottle’s fall so that it didn’t break, the blasted thing just bounced off her foot and fell onto the carpet rolling around there for a while. The visitor that entered Mana’s quarters was Read herself. This could’ve ruined everything! Mana’s foot hooked the bottle and rapidly pushed it to the end of under her bed!
“Oh you!” Read squinted at Mana making the magician’s heart tense up and her blood begin pumping hard for the second time that day, this time out of sheer petrifying fear. “Don’t think I didn’t see! You’re a naughty young lady!” Read smiled maliciously. Was Mana’s plan discovered!? This could’ve ended everything. Read was fast enough to murder Mana before she could make as much as squeak and then silently kill her unsuspecting friends while they’re asleep!
“Drinking alone, aren’t you?” Read smiled and extended her arms to the sides. Her coat ruffled and slipped off the captain’s shoulders. For a moment the woman battled her sister for the right to keep the coat on, the poor sister must’ve been suffocating beneath that massive thing and wanted some fresh air.
“Yeah… Sorry. I can pay for it if…” Mana began admitting her “crime”, Hell knew she had enough guilt in her heart to look convincingly sorry even if she was a lousy liar. Sometimes she lucked out just enough so that circumstances allowed her to technically tell the truth and get away regardless.
“Nah, don’t sweat it, still, kinda feels wrong that someone’s little girl gets hammered on my ship in secret, you know. I mean… I guess… If you’re allowed to go outside the village walls you probably can but… Still, those fucking moral principles, right?” Read smiled.
“Yeah… Moral principles…” Mana nodded slightly in agreement. “Well, I really feel bad about doing this, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again” she “swore”.
“Nah, no big deal, I mean if you were my crewmate I’d whip your ass cheeks till they reminded the bars of a prison cell you’d eventually rot in but you’re not “ you’re a paying customer so drink up, it’d just be… Calmer for both of us if you did during the times when everyone’s drinking, you know” Read walked up and sat near Mana on the bed. Instinctively the magician shoved the bottle further with her heel.
“I understand… It’s just… Those expectations, you know. I have to be a nice little lady and nice little ladies don’t drink… It’s tough” Mana made something up, by now her lies were beginning to stop appealing to the hardships in the girl’s heart so her voice began to tremble and it must’ve began to become apparent that something was off.
“Oh, girlfriend, don’t even go there! I totally get you! I mean, you’re talking to a female captain of a pirate ship for fuck’s sake! Don’t bow to those fucking norms, be a bitch if you want, you’re the only one whose say matters” Read slapped Mana’s shoulder so hard that the magician almost felt her arm fall off. The captain then stood up and tipped her hat before leaving.
“You know, you’d make a really good pirate captain one day… We’d be the Trinity of Sea-Bitches, you, Bonny and me! Think about that” Read smiled before leaving Mana’s room. The magician breathed out a heavy one. Her heart almost jumped out through her mouth during that brief talk.
That night the oceans were pretty rough but they weren’t exactly stormy. Mana was careful in her silent and slow paced walk to an edge of the ship. She carefully looked at her compass and determined north, luckily enough it was on the side of the ship she was on. Had she needed to sneak passed actual pirates she’d have failed, after all most of them, if not all of them, could mold chakra. Mana would’ve been discovered the moment she breathed out her first breath and peacefully lead to her room. The second time she’d be discovered would also be the last…
With equally as troubled and stormy feelings Mana tossed the bottle as far as she could. The splash it made was silenced by the roaring waves and soon the bottle completely disappeared into the horizon nowhere to be seen. So she committed the most heinous act in her life “ started a pirate war between two lords… That’s only if the plan succeeds, Flint gets the message and everything goes as planned. Flint only had a couple of days to get the message and gather his crew, after all, that’s how long it’d take for Read’s ship to reach the Box’s coordinates.
Mana felt a hand press her shoulder, scared the magician turned around only to see Kouta. The boy hugged her and pressed her head against his own as hard as he could. Mana could feel her wet and soaked by rain head press against his and raindrops falling from his hair fall onto her head and down to her neck where it sent shivers down her spine.
“Why Flint?” he asked.
“Flint is an adventurer, one mention of the Box and he’ll be all over the information. I mentioned that if he didn’t hurry up the other two would get to it first. One thing adventurers wish is to be first to discover something…” Mana replied looking down. Usually the magician loved the rain, usually it washed down her heavy thoughts but now it somehow felt like it was the heavens dooming her.
Kouta kissed Mana’s forehead softly getting a sip of rainfall in his mouth in the process.
“You’re really smart” he replied as the boy turned and began leading Mana back to her room.
“Devious one should say…” she replied hating herself with every essence of her being.
“There was no way to avoid the fallout, you could only direct whom it hit first. These people aren’t exactly saints, you know” Kouta tried to calm her down.
Mana gently pushed him further from her door gesturing that she wished to spend the evening hating herself alone. Sometimes that was the only way to cope with difficult choices, to just be sad about it and embrace that sadness, to let it run its course so that the next morning there was no sadness left and only everything that sadness was not could take the control over.
“I used to not make that distinction. It used to be a way in which murderers justified their casual death sentencing…” Mana replied closing the door and realizing that she was the only one who heard that last part as a strong lightning bolt silenced her final words. The magician always used to believe that she was someone special, someone who could delve into all that darkness and remain unchanged. Was the truth actually different? Was she slowly becoming what she hated the most? Would that mean that to truly change the world around her eventually she’d have to end her own life?
Mana dragged her lazy feet to the bed and covered up her head. Failing to fall asleep she sat back up and observed the raindrops falling outside. The lightning barely troubled her anymore, only the rain… That one true friend that always calmed her down and reminded what she was fighting for. Only the rain…
Only the rain…
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