Mana rubbed her closed eyes a bit too excessively. The pressure inside her skull was getting uncomfortable but she refused to put the book she’s been studying for over fourteen hours down. She stopped a couple of times only to make a pair of meals for Aporius and herself, only to be belittled for her lack of experience in the matter and be treated like a child. She was used to training by herself, when there was only her to scold herself because she thought she knew where to bite to make it hurt.
The knowledge inside this book seemed ancient to Mana, outdated and irrelevant compared to the ones she had read in the Konohagakure archive or the Academy textbooks. It did contain detailed and needlessly long explanations of the human brain, how it worked and how application of chakra to specific brain points worked. It did contain some impressive knowledge like techniques meant for taijutsu users “ applying chakra to their own brain centers to increase their own potential or temporarily boost their abilities without suffering the drawbacks of chakra augmentation.
That was mainly why Mana was still reading the book “ every time she thought that the book was outdated and irrelevant, describing needless information in excessive detail she discovered a thing or two to keep her interest. Most of it was revision but once in a while, for a good four or five minutes the magician found herself studying about an area of the brain she knew nothing about or stories of ninja who had a very unique understanding of the genjutsu subject.
Despite those far in between interesting attention grabbers Mana felt like her limited time was being wasted on a book. The next morning Mana cut into her finger with the humongous kitchen knife and it was only because of her reconsidered stance on chakra augmentation that she was left with a shallow cut instead of parting with her whole finger. The old man only laughed at her and belittled her saying that her finger would still have needed weeks of being smoked and seasoned before he’d have considered putting it on his sandwich.
Despite Mana’s growing frustration and feeling of wasted time studying a stupid book while her friend was being taken no one knew where for a deduced marriage that could have not even been a marriage to begin with, such outcome was only the most probable, Aporius suggested to help the magician with lunch. His help would’ve come included with actual example of how a good steak is cooked, steaks were not something of the sort Mana was used to cooking so the kunoichi’s frustration grew even more “ she was wasting time on things she never thought she’d need while her friend’s kidnapping made time a luxury.
“No. I’ll do it. I’ll do it right this time. I still have reading to catch up on!” Mana rudely shut the old man down and gently placed her palm on his chest, never pushing but keeping him away from where the meal was being made. Aporius looked at her with strange suspicion, almost like he realized the magician was responsible for a murder somewhere but he soon relented and sat down on a criminally short and rusty metal stool.
“Don’t forget the garlic. Rub it into the fried bread as well as the meat…” the old man croaked as if he was just forcefully sat down.
“The way this room reeks of garlic, I won’t need to…” Mana mumbled under her nose as she had to bend her head down every time she entered the kitchen due to garlic hanging everywhere. It was a highly preferred seasoning and ingredient of the man as mentions of its necessity came with each passing lesson of the man.
After the lunch, surprisingly without a single complaint or demeaning remark from Aporius, Mana finally got a couple of hours to devote to the second book she was given. She hadn’t yet finished the first one but she had to do something else, had she not tried a new book she’d have found a way to cut her veins open with a page and tore them out with her teeth if that meant liberating her from another book.
The old man entered her room, he didn’t look too good “ his usually slick grey hair was now messy and his bowtie missing, his shirt sleeves rolled up and his vest improperly buttoned as if it was done in quite the rush. One look at the man’s pupils gave Mana a clue she didn’t wish to tread deeper into. When the old man opened his mouth however it didn’t appear to affect his mood at all, whatever made this effect on the man’s meticulousness was no drug, at least not one that Mana was warned or aware of. The fact that she would rather recall the effects on the user’s mood of all drugs she knew of showed how sick she was of studying people’s brains and the art of illusion which was infamous for being gruelingly difficult both in theory and practice, especially compared with the rewards it granted of being able to create illusions.
“Did you finish all the books yet?” the man asked. Mana looked at him wondering if he was kidding. She was handed a good dozen of books, each of which had well over five hundred pages of some of the driest text recorded on page. Sometimes the magician was so baffled by entire paragraphs that she had to research the medical terms in a whole other set of books, oftentimes those books left references into other books and like that without an end in sight.
“I did not, not for the lack of trying though…” Mana admitted.
“At least seven chapters into the first one?” the man changed his question up a little curiously. He clearly knew of the amount of work needed to finish these books “ the fact that he almost pinpointed the exact place Mana was in at that time was a living proof of it.
“Eight, a good four hundred pages in, I really couldn’t take it anymore so I started this one, two chapters in…” Mana reported showing the man the second book, one centered on genjutsu meaning much closer to heart subject which was much more accessible to the magician.
“Good. That’s just about what you need to start working on the illusion. Start being the key word…” the man sighed, he managed to sound disappointed even when his sigh was a more of the relieving kind.
“You aren’t going to teach me? Don’t you have the needed knowledge? Don’t you know all these books by heart already? You have to, how else would you have selected them and known so much about where I was in given the time spent studying?” Mana felt like her frustration over the lack of progress and the passing time was becoming clearer, in fact, it was beginning to leak over and into her casual speech.
“No. I think you can do it yourself. You’ve gotten far in sufficiently to know about the subject enough for the invention of a powerful illusion by yourself, especially given your experience on the subject, having created your entire arsenal from scratch as a child…” Aporius shook his head and turned around preparing to leave the room.
“Wait!” Mana shouted out, she could feel her blood boiling and coming up through her neck, had anyone cut her throat now they’d be washed away by the excess of rage fueled blood that dyed her skin red instead of the usual far northern tan. “You’re lying, I’ve researched it sufficiently to know that I’d never pull such an illusion off without finishing these books and I’d never finish these books in an acceptable time frame. It’s like you’re avoiding training me like we decided on, what’s the matter?!” she yelled out.
Aporius sighed. “You’re right. I’m having my reservations about training you myself, devoting my knowledge to where it’d be wasted… I’m a practical man, if what I do would not matter “ I refuse to do it. I wouldn’t help you put your head into a noose unless I’m absolutely sure you can get out of it.”
Mana took a trembling step back. She wanted to yell something out in return for the man’s words but the sadness kept her words stuck somewhere in her throat. Instead she just snapped her mouth closed, her teeth rows smashing against each other like a guillotine that’d have separated her tongue clean off had it gone stuck in between them. Anger and despair made the magician’s muscles twitch, she was feeling confusing feedback to the old man’s words. He was treating her as a lost cause, he felt like helping her was to waste his time which both infuriated her and made her feel like breaking down into tears. The young teen inside her clashed with the friend who felt obligated to assist her friend in need.
The kunoichi just sat down on the bed and looked around. She had nothing of value devoted to this room, nothing would’ve stopped her from just getting up and leaving. Doing her best to mastering the illusion on her way, failing and confronting the Imarizu unprepared, probably dying in the process… There was simply no other option, Kiyomi needed her and any other attempt to relinquish the responsibility on her shoulders would’ve ended up in someone dying. Mana was the only one who cared enough to make everyone involved walk away alive…
“Look, today I saw you for the kind of person you were. You refused my aid with the lunch and it was terrible, better than before but still terrible. You’re absolutely obsessed with taking responsibility and I know what you’re thinking deep down “ after you learn the technique you want to learn you’ll just face those Ima-somethings alone, that’s what you are planning, aren’t you?” Aporius softened his tone up trying to clear up the exact meaning behind his words.
Mana looked down as she realized that she had nothing on her. The magician stood up and started walking towards the door from the little writing room stayed and studied in and into the living room. She fully intended on leaving.
“So what?” Mana uttered as the old man didn’t move out of her way and stayed in the middle of the passageway leading to the living room. While she was enraged she fostered not a single idea of forcing the man to move so she was stuck standing in front of him and confronting his verbal beatdown on her immaturity.
“You asked for my help. You thought this was some kind of a deal, didn’t you? You use my study, read my books and do it all alone and you payback your end of the bargain by cooking your subpar meals for me and sometimes cleaning my terribly messy place. You are being kind but you never allow other people to be kind to you by taking all the weight over from them, by treating the people around you like the kind of people would inhabit this monstrous and cruel world. This is not and never was a deal of equal exchange, I want to help you and your friend, I want to help a young woman learn to do what she wants to do. Make your future husband and kids happy by making you better than to poison them with your food. I’m doing what I always did as a writer “ looking out for the future generation.” Aporius irradiated with a certain shade of kindness and calmness.
Mana breathed in to reply something but she couldn’t, at some point holding her breath in was too painful so she wheezed it all out, probably making herself look like a stupendous idiot.
“You’re right…” Mana finally spoke looking away with an uncomfortable feeling of shame. “I can’t do it without help, with or without the jutsu. Not that I have people to turn to at this moment…”
“Spent too much time pushing them away, like me?” Aporius smiled lyrically
“No one within reach I can think of… Unless…” Mana suddenly looked up with a hopeful realization. “I guess I’ll be rolling the die twice… But I won’t be rolling anything unless I hurry up and finish this pile of books.” The magician sighed before settling down by the pile and flipping through the pages of the first book.
Aporius sighed and pushed the pile of books off the table letting their messy and barely holding together pages split off and scatter all over the study floor.
“No more books! You have the essentials and we can begin. You have just about the same theoretical knowledge that a common genjutsu using ninja has, even more practical knowledge than most users. You are no longer just a genin in that subject, you are well into the category of being an intermediate. Let’s put those essentials to good use together!” the man smiled at Mana with trust she never saw this man have.
The two spent the entire evening trying to create the concept behind the illusion. Making it the way Mana wanted it to work “ to make her disperse upon impact to her body as if it was a substitution was immensely difficult by itself. The real problems presented themselves soon enough with them beginning to delve in deeper. To make an illusion beyond the power of the certain point required hand seal input, creating the illusion affecting so many brain centers of many people around her while making such an illusion work would’ve required well over twenty hand seals. While it meant barely a fraction of a second to the magician, it would’ve alerted the opponent to the trickery. Also it would’ve been impossible to pull off around speedy opponents, having no time for hand seals was the problem Mana lost to the Imarizu the first time “ they simply beat her down and interrupted her before anything could have been done.
More to that bag of troubles, to reduce the number of hand seals meant increasing the chances of failure. Either that or weaken its power “ making it affect a single person at a time instead everybody she wanted to would’ve cut a good seven hand seals off of the complicated chakra moulding process in order to properly execute the technique. However that also couldn’t have been accepted “ Mana wanted the technique to be as powerful as she needed it to be, affect exactly the number of people she wanted it to affect.
The difficulties were not also that theoretical and conceptual. Last time Mana worked on a high power and area of effect sound transferred genjutsu she took literally years to complete it. Now she had days to be generous. At this point the magician had settled that making it sound based would be too out of the realm or reality. She had to somehow make it focused on being something else entirely. Maybe it could’ve been transferred through her eyes like the most of her illusions, while such a focus for illusions could’ve been figured out, at least exploiting it would’ve required a second chance which the magician didn’t plan on giving the Imarizu.
As the day ended in nocturnal darkness, ultimately fruitless, Mana’s sadness and frustration grew more and more. After refusing to eat her next morning’s breakfast Aporius noted it.
“You are growing impatient, child. Hurry will only lead to mistakes, mistakes will lead to a worse outcome than you doing nothing.” The man said after calmly making his own sandwiches for breakfast.
Mana had to be reminded continuously not to rush things but she couldn’t. She had spent multiple days sitting on her bottom and wasting time. While she was growing stronger and smarter in all the right subjects, ultimately her training was fruitless.
The next morning after that Aporius returned after tending to his potatoes outside and it appeared like he was hiding something from Mana. The man was uneasy the whole time and the magician kept on pressing him, even to the point of being terribly distracted from her training just to find out what her mentor was being so secretive about. Deep inside the girl feared that bad news came and Kiyomi’s body was found somewhere having been disposed of or that the marriage had already transpired in secret and it was too late for Mana to change anything about it.
“It’s… I’ve heard rumours from the old spinsters living in the farms around “ Yamanaka Inomame is apparently arriving to the Land of Waves from Kirigakure. It is unknown why, he has little reason to do so, frankly. While a big cheese in Kirigakure and a possible candidate for the post of Mizukage, when the Kirigakure autonomy is restored, he has no power in the continent.” Aporius explained.
“He’s the one.” Mana stated almost like it was a fact, like no further research was needed. “Think about it “ a powerful Yamanaka in Kirigakure and the Archipelago with no power in the continent marrying a future heiress of the continental branch of the clan. He’d be a pain in the ass to deal with in the world politics “ Yamanaka are the intelligence of each village they are in: the best interrogators, the best sensors, the best surveillance ninja… Everyone would be kissing his royal buttocks just to get on his good side, he’d be more influential than the Fourth Hokage ever was… Where Mizukage Daikon ruled his own land through suffering and terror, Mizukage Shirona looked to conquer the world through war “ he’d rule the world without actually having the crown or moving a single finger for it.”
Aporius nodded, “I see you are my equal in historic and political understanding of this. The situation here has grown to be too dire to make this your personal matter, you must give up on this and share this with the Hokage, the Yamanaka Resort “ everyone. The political balance of the world cannot depend on this personal pilgrimage of responsibility.”
Mana sighed. The man plotting to marry her friend forcefully was making his move and here she was nowhere close to doing what had to be done. She had no knowledge on who exactly the Imarizu was, they certainly were no common cutthroats, having bested so many Yamanaka ninja on a whim. She was not even close to mastering her technique which would’ve helped realize her plan on fighting those people off. She had no one there behind her back to help her and even her mentor was no longer aboard this personal quest of responsibility. Mana cared less of the politics of the world being shifted and more about her friend. Politics shifted every day, what Mana wanted was Kiyomi marrying whomever she wanted to marry, not a kidnapper plotting to use their clan for his own influence.
Even if her friend did not share that sentiment…
After another day of fruitless training, now with both Mana and Aporius being out of the game, in the morning after entering Mana’s room the old man only found a brief note of gratitude and no sign of the magician that wrote it “ the last daughter of the wandering ninja. Just like her slaughtered ancestors the kid had no allegiance towards any political alliance or village, even that of her own home. She only had attachment to people “ her own kin whom she would’ve considered her tribe. Ultimately that was what lead Mana to leave the training and the old man behind and leave towards her next destination without mastering the illusion. The old man couldn’t help but weep after realizing the mistake this young child had made. He got dressed immediately and left his own ways. Not to his knowledge, but completely opposite ways to where Mana was headed.
The magician just hoped that the dice roll in Eden Prison complex would be less of a trainwreck than the one behind her training…
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