Mana’s thighs still shook in pain and burning exhaustion as she made her way downstairs to the lower parts of the hospital. The weight of her backpack dug into the girl’s shoulders and whereas, normally, the pain would’ve only kicked in a good hour or two in, now it began irritating the magician’s skin almost instantly. Fixing the still bandaged swellings on her face and moving one band away from obstructing her eye Mana looked around trying to find her friends.
“The young Yamanaka lady left with the Konoha party already. It looked like the young lady wanted to wait for you to recover but the Sannin were insisting that she left with them. Chestnut Hanasaku insisted that the prisoner boy was returned to Eden as well, as soon as possible, so, I’m afraid, you were left alone to return home.” The medical ninja explained to Mana, looking a bit proud he had successfully predicted the girl’s predicament like some sort of genius of inductive reasoning.
It made sense, while a little disappointed with it, Mana didn’t really feel angry about it. Kiyomi was the person around whom this whole story rotated, it made sense that Konoha would want the girl back immediately, that the Yamanaka clan would wish only the strongest ninja immediately secure the well-being of their future potential heiress. Still, Mana only departed from the village originally to see her friend and get to spend some time with her. While the two did mess around for a while in the Yamanaka resort it was all surrounded by the drama of bounty hunters being sent after Kiyomi which didn’t let Mana lower her guard for a moment.
The magician just sighed looking around for any friendly face but then seeing none, even with the medical ninja scurrying away to check some emergency, she just shrugged and headed for the door. On her way there the magician checked her pockets feeling a couple of clanging coins, not nearly enough to hire a rower back to the continent.
“Hey, where the hell do you think you’re going, all alone!?” Sugemi’s angry voice made Mana turn back rapidly as she was shocked to hear a young man she heard having left her behind not too long ago.
“I thought you guys left?” the magician asked with a longing and still a bit banged up and raspy voice.
“Our clones did…” Yanagi smiled walking out from the canteen with a dumpling and a cup of soda being suspended in air by a briefly intelligible swarm of black insects. “I made a pair of insect clones to follow the mean lady and her friend and make it look like we left with them…” he spoke barely intelligibly as bunch of his food he was still munching flew out from his mouth as he spoke.
“You couldn’t have fooled the Sannin with such a trick…” Mana looked away sadly wandering if her friends got into trouble.
“Obviously they weren’t fooled, still, they didn’t mind either. If they did find Yanagi out they didn’t object so it’s basically the same thing as them letting us stay…” Sugemi waved his hand at Mana’s concerns before wondering what was next.
“We head back, I need to put this sword by Shimo’s grave…” Mana declared with determination even if her voice was still weak and wavering. “What about you two? Are you going back to Konoha with me, Yanagi? If you showed your face around the Administration maybe you’d get noticed and considered for promotion.”
Yanagi embarrassingly rubbed the back of his messy hair, “Nah, I’ve had my fair share of trouble. I thought that by becoming someone important despite not being the kind of person whom everyone usually considers important while reaching out for recognition I could be free. You know, the whole nobody becoming somebody thing, it felt like true freedom. Truth be told, I guess deciding what you want to do, ignoring the public expectations for you to succeed, even if you want to stay where you are for a while, is the true freedom. Being pressured and expected to achieve greatness is really the greatest prison of all. I realized that after some while of being pummeled by the Imarizu out there… If I ever want to reach out for a more intense life, I’ll just ask to be transferred to a higher security prison complex whenever I feel like it.” The Aburame declared.
“Maybe you’ll come with me back to the village?” Mana turned at Sugemi, “It didn’t look like they were adamant about keeping you in Eden. You could ask yourself to be signed out of there, I mean you’re not even a real prisoner there. I know you want to see Shimo’s grave at the very least…”
“No. I’m going back to Eden. Maybe I’ll participate in the Chuunin Exams, though…” Sugemi laid back and looked away. It was obvious that he didn’t feel comfortable discussing the way he felt around Mana. “If the audience gets too much of the main character they’ll get bored. I need to let the supporting cast get some development. Plus it’s about time for my mysterious off-panel training arc anyways…”
Even if her whole face hurt and felt like a buzzing beehive Mana couldn’t help but smile if only faintly.
“You know, I really feel like you should just write that manga yourself, instead of waiting around to have it written later on. It could be a work in progress even if you don’t know the full story yet…” Mana suggested as the two turned for the exit while Yanagi stuffed the food he had bought in the canteen into the bag.
“Nah, I hate filler. I’d rather know the full story before adapting it instead of having to fillerize the damned thing. Do you want my story to get cancelled like “Samurai Tights”?” Sugemi angrily snapped back at Mana before both friends shared a laugh.
*****
At least having some company on her trip back to Konoha made the journey more exciting. It also allowed the three to band their funds together and hire an actual rower to get them from one shore to the continent. There was absolutely no way for Mana to fly over the small streak of ocean separating the Land of Waves from the mainland. Not in her current shape. In her ninja pouch she still had some pills given to her by the medical ninja in the hospital to take on her trip home. That way what would’ve taken almost a full year to heal completely would only take a week at most.
After the team finally reached the continent and approached Eden Yanagi and Sugemi split from the group. The group said their farewells with Sugemi promising to Mana to see her during the Chuunin Exams by asking to be released around then. The magician wasn’t totally sure as to why Sugemi would insist on staying in Eden instead of returning to the village. There was no official decree or punishment imposed on him, at this point he was just punishing himself. The girl couldn’t help but smile realizing that she herself was not unlike her teammate. After all, she could’ve planned a trip to the Konoha Hospital first thing back “ have her wounds completely healed and even her scars removed completely. Maybe she’d do so eventually but somehow suffering through her injuries did feel more right to Mana.
Maybe it was just her way of punishing herself. It didn’t sound right “ doing the thing she absolutely had to do while knowing that she’d be punished for it. It was like being created to be sick but commanded to be well, a great injustice logically. Still, in a way it still only felt right. As much as the magician searched for a reasonable explanation for her behavior of punishing herself for something she considered the right thing to do, she couldn’t. Maybe it was because emotions and inner worlds couldn’t have been rational by their very nature. It wasn’t like Mana, of all people, was suitable of a reasonable analysis of her character.
The trip home was rather uneventful. Granted, wishing for it to be something exciting to happen may have been treacherous. In her current injured and recovering state Mana was completely unable to defend herself from any threats that lurked outside the village walls. The very thought of molding chakra or trying to augment her body in any way made the girl’s head dizzy and her stomach nauseous. She still had a feint fever whenever she ate, her liver must still not have been completely healed as abdominal pains were quite often.
After a long trek home, finally, the familiar white wall surrounding a large and epic looking village of towering buildings with colorful rooftops and wires leading uphill to a hulking Administration building and the Hokage mountain met the magician’s sight. When she left even in her wildest dreams Mana couldn’t have imagined just how long she’d spent away from home. The very thought of returning home sounded completely crazy. Her own home and her own parents somehow began seeming like distant people to her. Father and mother…
Mana didn’t tell them a word about this whole debacle. Sure, they were quite likely to be informed of things after news of Kiyomi’s wedding finally reached the village but they still must’ve been excruciated by all the waiting and having no knowledge of Mana’s well-being. After all, the magician was not on a mission, she just left to meet an old friend and then got involved into this whole crazy story. This whole time she completely forgot that she had a family that was worried about her.
Just another pair of people Mana had failed… Right after she was about to sink into a depressing mess of thoughts the magician smiled unexpectedly. This was supposed to be a good outcome on any other account: her friend was alive and well, unmarried to an ambitious sociopath and also the entire world’s political balance was secured. Yet she felt so bitter about this victory. Granted, the political balance would’ve been secured either way, with Mana’s involvement however it was secured without shedding nearly as much blood… Despite a bloody battlefield whirling wild for half a day, it was still the less bloody outcome compared to total annihilation of the Kirigakure party…
Slowly Mana took her baby steps into the village. Looking around and wandering if she’d be stopped, arrested or encouraged to report to the Hokage immediately but nothing of the sort happened. She just waltzed back into her home village without fanfare or outrage. The guards did give her a couple of curious looks but remained seated, whispering something to each other’s ears. Having in mind that Mana still wore half of her bandages and the right side of her face was still bandaged, they were justified to suspect something shady or to discuss her state.
Apparently the magician was so tired and worn out by the five day trip home that she remained unrecognized by the public. Usually she was famous enough in the village to warrant a two or three times longer trip home with everyone wishing to ask her questions about the next show or just say hello to her. This time she was either not recognized with her right side of the face being bandaged and the left one being still a bit swollen up, yet remarkably less so compared to before, or the people simply didn’t want to have any of Mana’s current day rubbing off on their own lives. They were simply kind enough to let her be in this state and recover.
After the magician reached her home she pressed her forehead against the door and breathed in and out erratically. Her hand stayed on the handle but she couldn’t will herself to open the door. For a moment her will lingered, she pressed the handle but not to the end, letting it go gently as to not to alert anyone inside. Her head then turned to what laid behind her “ all the shining and tidy alleyways and streets of Konoha back there. Maybe it was better off for her to never show her face back home? Does she still have a place back there after just disappearing on a whim like those two most precious people, her literal family had not given her birth?
Mana sat down on the porch pressing her back against the wall and sighing. She could probably make a pretty decent living by herself. Performing on the streets for a while for the elementary living, performing on the stage and saving up enough to get a place to call her own. It was a despicable feeling “ knowing how much you failed everyone in your life and yet not feeling regretful about the specific thing you’ve pulled. The girl felt firmly “ she’d do the same thing hundreds of times over, maybe she’d do one thing or the other differently but… Despite the massive letdowns all around she did what she had to…
The magician stood up and walked away from her home door. Tears began gathering in her eyes the further away she walked but she figured that before she decided what sort of page this new page of her life would be “ it’d be fitting enough to close down the old one. Mana couldn’t really remember making the entirety of her way to the cemetery just outside the training grounds, must’ve been the fever acting up again. There were a few people there kneeling by the graves of people they knew with flowers. The magician took a while to find her friend’s grave, still, a familiar face standing by it made her instantly locate it…
Shimo’s mother was calmly sitting by his grave and just blankly staring at the gravestone. Mana’s hand pressed against her own chest as if stopping her halfway, her other hand pressed against the sheathed Audra sword she swore herself to return. The magician grinded her teeth in pain as tears soaked her bandages. Everywhere she went was full of people she was embarrassed to show herself to. People she felt like she failed in one way or the other even if the feeling wasn’t mutual.
The girl turned around before tearing the bandage off her right side. As sunlight pierced through her closed and still hurting eye the tearing got out of control but Mana didn’t care, she calmly brushed her hair to cover up the right side of her face and hide her eye from the direct sunlight. Hide one half of her tears…
“Mana?” Shimo’s mother’s voice reached the magician, the girl began slowly walking away before trying to pick up her step but then with half of her face being covered up in hair she didn’t notice a young man she bumped into. The youth apologized himself and helped the magician to get up, his left eye was covered up with an eyepatch and both of his hands were hidden inside his kimono with the one hand he helped Mana with slipping out. The dark shade of his hair looked familiar to the magician.
“You came here to see him? You don’t need to run…” Shimo’s mother pleaded the magician from behind.
“You were a friend of my brother’s, weren’t you? You’ve got a right to see him…” the young man who helped Mana up said. His voice was pretty low pitched and strong but from its husky nature the magician could tell he wasn’t a talker.
“My husband told me that you are still blaming yourself…” Shimo’s mother uttered before stopping her thoughts. Mana knew what she was about to say and why she stopped. The woman tried to claim that there was no blame of Mana’s and no hard feelings but the magician believed that the woman didn’t want to lie. She may not have wanted it but the mother still felt uneasy. Mother’s feelings were also rarely rationally explained. To her Mana will always be the face of her son’s death even if there was no direct correlation.
“I just wanted to place this by his grave… It was his…” Mana said giving the sword to the mother of her friend. The woman shook her head erratically with her face sinking in tears.
“This isn’t what represents him. This isn’t what people will remember about him, there’s no place for this blade by his grave…” the woman uttered in tears.
Once again Shimo’s brother’s arm extended from under his kimono and touched Mana’s shoulder.
“I am aware that there must’ve been some trouble obtaining this. Still, this sword represents the confusion of who my brother was, not his final moments of clarity. A sword is a tool of a wandering warrior looking for a purpose. No one who knows who they are allows them to be represented by a sword they used to carve their identity. It is a part of that journey, part of what needs to be discarded along with the past…” the young adult calmly explained being much more skilled at portraying that there were no hard feelings between the girl and the family of her deceased friend.
“Then can you at least keep it? It did belong to your brother, didn’t it?” Mana pleaded.
The young man laughed softly before pulling out a stump on his other arm and placing it to his eyepatch, softly touching the cloth.
“I’m afraid I’d do the sword injustice. My father is more of a man of a pen than a sword as well. Despite of how it looks, despite of what you are telling yourself, this sword is no longer that of Shimo, he left it behind…” he explained.
Mana’s head sunk down and her hands began to tremble. “I need to… I need something to…” she smacked her trembling free hand to the left side of her face before she broke into tears. “I need to make it right… Somehow…” she cried out.
Shimo’s brother calmly touched her shoulder before wrapping his one arm around his weeping mother and turning away.
“Then fight with it. Fight with it for what my brother stood for. If you won’t let yourself move past his death, don’t let the world do it either. I’m quite sure my brother would’ve loved to help you make the world you dreamed of, he spoke about it some way back. Shape this new world of yours using his sword, how long do you think an Audra sword would remain intact stabbed into the dirt of a grave before some lowlife uses it to tarnish the memory of its wielder?”
Mana froze in place still trembling with the sword in her hand. Shimo’s mother walked out from her son’s embrace and walked up to the girl calmly pressing the magician’s grip around the sheath and then softly pressing the hand holding the sword to the girl’s chest. It was the woman’s way of entrusting this part of her son’s memory and passing the sword along.
As the family of her passed away friend walked away Mana collapsed on a bench nearby looking at the sheathed sword in her hand with tear soaked eyes.
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