A loud clang scared some birds that almost instantly darted off above the tree line. Another one soon followed. A blond girl sighed looking back at her sensei pulling out a kunai from her body. Sometimes it felt like her sensei was straight out immortal but she knew that the woman just had insane durability and a monstrous amount of chakra to heal herself up when she’s been injured. Unless something killed Hanasaku instantly, chances were it barely even bothered the woman. Kiyomi had seen countless battles where sensei’s body was completely riddled with injuries, swords and knives sticking out of her body, trying to just hit Hanasaku until she fell was a stupid idea.
“Sensei… I’ve been thinking…” a young male spoke up from behind Hanasaku, he was a young Inuzuka who had been assigned to Hanasaku’s squad because of his bad grades. As per the usual tradition each squad had one member with some of the worst grades, then one with average and at least one with above average. Obviously not every squad could have a stellar performer but the better they chose the good grade ninja, the worse the fluke one was. For example the team that got the best grades having ninja also had to foster the one with the absolute worst. After being alerted to her pupil’s words Hanasaku looked back at the boy after removing another knife and healing up her injury using medical ninjutsu.
“All of this… This mission, Yamashiro getting injured… I don’t think I want to do this anymore. I mean… We could have died out there, I thought I could handle it but… I don’t think I actually can, there’s nothing like a guy sticking a knife into your friend’s eye to alert you of that…” the experienced genin spoke of his troubles. That last mission was technically a success. The information was retrieved, all copies of it were destroyed. The enemy tried to prevent that extraction by setting off a bunch of timed teleportation seals that most scrolls with sensitive information had but Hanasaku sunk the entire island to prevent those seals from activating and salvaged them from the bottom of the ocean, withstanding even the water pressure of the deepest parts of the ocean that hosted the Water Country islands.
Training under Hanasaku was a unique experience. On one hand the woman was a Konohagakure Sannin so it was already a precious opportunity to learn from the best but… She was just so thick skulled and battle hungry, the woman never remembered any passwords she herself set up for the meetings to sniff out infiltrators, she never even bothered to learn message encryption and Kiyomi and Tetsuzuki had to do it all for her, message encryption was not something genin did, it was entirely possible that their messages weren’t even properly understood. While there was always the idea that one of the strongest ninja in the world, one bested only by Red Dog Tanshu long ago in the post-Second Great War days, would always protect one in a mission, that was not always the case, apparently. This ninja deal always seemed so innocent, just bunch of kids and their teacher who slowly became their maternal figure making a difference in the world in the most dangerous missions that genin could even be let out on. The four of them had been at it for years and they even skipped a Chuunin Exam just because they were away on a big mission at that time, which also happened because Hanasaku didn’t understand calendar properly and sometimes confused the dates.
Still, even with their unparalleled experience they were just children, the three got completely sure of that when they were captured after Hanasaku disappeared in the abyss of the ocean with that island. One thing one had to have mind was that not knowing Hanasaku’s limits, the three students always believed that their sensei died whenever she dove into a volcano or was flung into space or crushed beneath the ocean floor by bunch of broken land mass. Every time she was stabbed through the heart the three always were worried that their sensei, who was almost like a member of their family now, had died. Yet she always just came back after a couple of minutes when all hope seemed lost and kicked everyone’s butts. Not this time, this time sensei disappeared for quite a while and the three got captured, they were scared for information just because no one even bothered to torture bunch of “kids”. Yamashiro was injured in the eye during their escape, added to that were many more injuries he’d sustained getting captured and while escaping and it was unclear if he’d even survive. Having a teammate lingering on the verge of death made one reconsider their life choices. Hanasaku used her medical skills to stabilize the boy’s condition but he still remained unconscious and looked only barely alive.
Tetsuzuki’s dog barked out loudly, the little pup had grown significantly throughout the years. Not that it even mattered. The young Inuzuka kneeled down and scratched the canine’s neck. “I wonder what you’ll do after we’re done with this…” the boy gently whispered to his dog. “Don’t start with that shit, Tetsu!” Kiyomi the young Yamanaka prodigy of the group shouted out. She was losing another teammate now, right after Yamashiro got injured, that day the entire status of the team flipped over. With that strange reply they’ve received that demanded the team to return and to protect Hanasaku’s life at all costs… Kiyomi just sensed that her life was about to change and that she might be left all alone, for two years the three of them studied under Hanasaku surviving situations that would have qualified as battles of a war. For her friends to pull this on her with Yamashiro getting hurt, Tetsuzuki leaving and God knows what the deal with Hanasaku was.
Tetsuzuki placed the unconscious body of his friend onto his dog’s back and secured it tightly, the dog was more than capable of carrying it. “It’s just that, I’ve seen plenty of shit already, this life isn’t what I signed up for. I’ve had more experience than I even need to be respected in my clan and I’ve got a royal position. If this happened to me my father would consider my claim at leadership of the clan hindered. Coma isn’t the best status to add to royalty’s life summary, you know… I decided that logistics and managing the clan might be for the best for me, what about you, Kiyomi? You’re on a pretty high position too, right? Is ending up like Yamashiro even worth it?”
Kiyomi’s eyes almost started filling with tears of rage, she was visibly getting angry that her teammates were scattering and that the team was falling apart. “Yamashiro was too arrogant, he thought that just because he’s a fucking Uchiha he was entitled to win every fight, he thought that running away wasn’t honorable enough. He got sloppy, we never did. You have no idea how much this stupid “royalty” bullshit is making me want to smack you right now!” the girl yelled out angrily, she ran up to Hanasaku who was ignoring the squabble and yelled it out into the woman’s face. “SAY SOMETHING! Your team is falling apart!” Hanasaku sighed.
“It’s fine, Yamashiro’s injury is on me, if Tetsuzuki feels like I can no longer protect him under my wing, if he wants to be a leader of his clan at the end of the road then being taught by me is the wrong place to start from. Sannin are always sent on the most dangerous missions, I always long for a good fight so I ask for them to be even bigger. Just serving in my team for a while is a good thing to have in a clan leader’s record, there’s no need for him to end up like Yamashiro.” Kiyomi jumped into the air with a kick that Hanasaku evaded, the girl followed it up with a straight jab that just bounced off the woman’s thick skull, Kiyomi removed her aching knuckle that felt like she had hit a stone wall.
Hanasaku placed a hand on Kiyomi’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, I know that your friends and your team and this life means a lot to you, more than anything. The two of us can still work as usual, for the two of us nothing changes. If you ever want to see your friends at least you’ll know they’re safe in the village, isn’t that what you want? For them to be happy and safe? This way everyone will be happy, sure I don’t like losing students I’ve trained for years, you two were almost like my own family but… Times change. Ninja have to learn how to let people go, us most of all people, people die on every mission. I don’t because I don’t want to disappoint anyone, that’s where I draw my strength from but if Tetsuzuki doesn’t have that thing to draw inspiration from “ he’ll die on another mission like this. I’d rather lose him as a student than have him lose his life.”
Tetsuzuki walked up in front and glared at Hanasaku’s eyes angrily, inside of his heart he didn’t like the woman too much. Despite her being incredibly powerful and seeming impossible to kill, he still blamed her for a lot of things going wrong, for selling their map for bunch of dumplings during their first mission, for breaking his arm during their first survival training, for accidentally splashing acid on his back when the idiot dove into an acidic lake that one time. She was a danger to society, usually natural selection makes people like this woman disappear but… Apparently some people just manage to evade fate by being really persistent. “Don’t get me wrong, sensei, I do treasure all the memories but… I can’t wait to sign those resignation papers and start working on another team until I get my promotion to Chuunin. From there on I can start taking the control of my clan over from my father. You’ve made us grow really strong, it was inevitable to survive your incompetence and even if we entered the Chuunin Exams last year we would’ve blown everyone away. At least for that much, I am grateful.”
The team moved in close to Konohagakure gate, bunch of guards started swarming the area which alerted Kiyomi. Apparently Hanasaku’s return was a huge deal, the blonde turned at her sensei “Sensei, what if we messed up and you’re gonna get reported and they’ll call the Ninja Tribunal on you again, last time you were just barely acquitted, just because the politican you killed turned out to be a leader of a criminal syndicate.” Hanasaku shook her head. “No, if that was the case we’d have gotten arrested, the guards are keeping their distance as if… They’re protecting us.” Tetsuzuki smiled angrily, “Don’t stretch your brain on this one, sensei, let’s just move in and find out from the Administration what exactly do they want with you.”
*****
Mana’s shoulder started to feel really numb, she wasn’t used to using a cane to walk around, using a cane which supported just one side of her body when both of her legs were hurt wasn’t the best of ideas but she at least could move around with minimal pain in her muscles. Was she never going to become strong? If she didn’t overtrain she’d have fallen behind, if she did push her body to the limit she went overboard and burnt it up. Perhaps greatness wasn’t her destiny, maybe fate told Mana to stay a nobody with the unimpressive legacy of not being a member of any clan that made a difference in the village. The closest resemblance of a clan was from her mother’s side of the family and those guys weren’t even ninja, just a bunch of greedy con artists that danced and pulled tricks off for food and payment. Traveling artists weren’t known for their impressive combat capabilities.
“That’s the most retarded thing I’ve heard ever!” a familiar voice reached Mana’s ear coming from the street to the right that connected to the central street that lead right to the Administration building.
“Oh, excuse me, and what would YOUR plan be in case of the dead ninja rising from their graves to eat the living?” another familiar voice made the girl magician turn around and see her friends walking towards the Administration and quarreling. They seemed to be so consumed by their discussion that they didn’t even notice Mana walking in front of them, even with her strange choice of apparel.
“I don’t know, probably burning them to bits. That or chopping their legs off so that they can’t move”
“That’s even MORE retarded than my idea and my idea, I will remind you, was to breed a special breed of killer dolphins with chakra cannons on their back trained to track the dead and shoot them from the seas with tracking blasts of chakra lasers.”
“Why is that? Your idea was right out of a manga book!”
“Well for one dead ninja can’t die, loser, so you’ll just have a burning zombie rampaging in the battlefield setting things on fire. Before you know it you’re on fire and there you go, you’re dead too!”
“Well dolphins aren’t even land mammals, you twit!”
“That’s why you’d make their chakra cannons track their targets from long distance so they can fire from the sea where the dead can’t even hurt them… Mana?!” finally her teammate noticed the magician staring at them awkwardly right when they almost bumped into her.
Shimo rushed in to hug the girl to which Mana just grunted in pain as her leg muscle acted up again. “It’s been so long, Mana-chan, where have you been!? We haven’t seen you much around the training grounds and when we did you were just meditating on a log.” Sugemi butted in “Well yeah and Shimo didn’t know that you can’t really move a person who is meditating or else they’ll mind will become trapped in their own mind and they will always remain sleeping like that.”
Mana blinked rapidly a couple of times. “That’s… Not really true, you can talk to a meditating person, my parents often do alert me when the food is ready and all that. But yeah, I was training alone, got a bit overly invested into it too…” the girl nodded pointing at her cane. The two boys started asking questions which made Mana have to explain the entire situation in detail.
“A kick based martial art to keep opponents at range? That’s a pretty good idea, did Tanshu-sensei suggest you that?” Shimo asked rubbing his chin after hearing the idea.
Mana shook her head. Sugemi yawned, “Yeah, we pretty much mastered his tips he gave us already, those two months that he had been gone were pretty useless, I mean we did make some progress initially but we sort of hit a wall. Progress without a mentor just becomes so slow and tedious, there has to be a special training method that helps you boost your progress, what’s your secret?” he asked.
Mana got deep into thoughts observing the Administration building coming up in their sights. “Well there’s this training drill that lets you increase your chakra. There is this stage of meditation called “Ego”, it basically grants you total awareness of your own body, it shows the chakra nodes that are clogged up with unused chakra masses so with a burst of chakra to those spots you can unleash them and then adapt your flow to the larger mass of chakra being in your body which grows your chakra capacity in total. Then I’ve started to find this other stage of meditation entirely, you can learn to create scenarios in your mind and convince yourself that they are real, you can go through entire training regiments in your mind within just minutes and then convince your body it’s real, the best part is that when you wake up, in an hour or two your body realizes it was all fake but you still keep the gain where your exhaustion is suddenly gone and the body realizes that it didn’t even spend any chakra for real.
Shimo looked really impressed by Mana’s methods but Sugemi looked pretty annoyed. “Darn it, it sounds pretty cool but… I’d never manage to learn meditation. It’s too boring and weird for me.” Shimo laughed out, “Yeah, Tanshu-sensei tried teaching it to me unsuccessfully too, it’s useful for a swordsman to learn to adapt and change up their style and mental simulation is the best method for that, still, Mana-chan, Tanshu-sensei said it was a pretty advanced method and you’ve already reached that level of meditation mastery? That’s pretty badass!” The magician just looked away, she was a little humbled by the compliment but there was that knowledge that despite her breakthrough in training methods she still considered her teammates above her. Shimo struggled against the Demon but he at least gave the youth a good fight, Sugemi fought an undercover Jounin and didn’t get immediately taken out.
Finally the three entered the Administration building, it seemed to be especially buzzing and no one bothered to inform them of what exactly was going on. Everyone was just so angry and busy, almost like some big event was about to take place. Some people almost tripped Mana over and it took the attempts from both of the boys to catch her and keep her from falling down as smallest tension to her thighs made her muscles burn up and the pain made them to just give in to the pressure. “You sure you can do this, Mana-chan? I mean I am still on my training vacation and they called me so it seemed weird but you’re straight out injured. Why would they pull something like this on us? They don’t pull ninja out of their training vacation or injury unless it’s a war situation or something, even then why would a challenge like that need the desperate aid of an injured genin and one that’s not finished with their training yet?” Shimo wondered.
“Well a lot of my favorite manga are on break now so I actually enjoyed a little challenge.” Sugemi cracked his fist in excitement. This was a strange change as usually it was the Nara who was the least excited about missions unless they sounded like good chapters for his imaginary future manga. “I’m fine, as long as I don’t have to fight someone or move around a lot, I can probably even make hand seals if I really need to. I’ll probably be a burden for your guys though, I’m sorry.” The girl smiled with an apologetic smile, she really felt bad about this. Shimo laughed back at her, “You a burden? Forget it, you beat that Ooguchi guy into a pulp and wrecked that Demon’s armor! I wouldn’t have matched up to him as well as I had if it weren’t for you. I bet even injured you could kick bunch of butt!” While his optimism was appreciated and recorded, Mana would’ve really enjoyed some more realism out of her friend right about now.
Finally the busy assistant of whoever was in charge now that the Fourth was out to the Summit invited the bunch of them inside. It was none other than one of the Councilmen inside! These guys were really important, they were high ranking politicans who were always included in all of the Ninja Tribunal sessions and their opinions were always consulted whenever Hokage made any important decisions. His presence only made this occasion more intimidating and the young magician found herself subconsciously stroking her aching thigh in worry. “Well, Team Oak, I assume. No offense but Mana is quite easy to recognize with her… Public status. Sometimes I call you guys “the Sorceress’ team” because of how well known the girl is for her artistic activities…” the councilman finally addressed the three with a pleasant tone but his eyes looked tired and sad.
“Personally I’d have never allowed a girl with such a celebrity status in our village on the team but as long as her “fame” is contained within the village walls, I suppose she can play ninja for a while.” Despite councilman’s words stinging quite a bit, his tone sounded like his words weren’t supposed to be taken as offensive, still, those politicans had a way with words. That was basically their entire job so who was Mana to judge them? Shimo cleared his throat, “While Mana-chan is the de facto leader of our team it’s only because me and Sugemi butt heads too often for any of us to make a productive leader. What bothers us is that you called us in a middle of my training vacation and Mana’s injury, each ninja is guaranteed at least three months of time to train each year to improve their overall condition and potency. It’s a very desperate decision to call for a ninja during that time, the tradition forbids it.”
The councilman fixed the messy collar of his kimono and tightened his fancy silk belt on his waist. Took a couple of deep breaths and finally opened his troubled eyes. “I am fully aware of your and Mana’s condition, in fact, I was personally advised to NOT call Mana out of her resting time by the medical ninja who supervised her recovery. That being said there are some very… Troubling news I must deliver to you three, also there is a simple but important job I want you three to take care of. It will take only a day or two and the chance of a fighting scenario is almost zero. Despite that it’s still a B-rank mission at least as it’s quite iconic and very important to the village, I thought quite long about which team should get this “freebie” in their record and… Well since I had news for you three anyways and since you did exceptional work with that Kirigakure spy, I suppose you guys are granted that opportunity.”
Sugemi raised an eyebrow, “What “troubling news” are we talking about? That “Demon” guy didn’t escape, did he?!” he asked.
The councilman sighed. “There is no easy way of telling you this so I’ll just break it down to you guys “ the Fourth and Red Dog Tanshu, the Konohagakure Sannin and the supervisor of Team Oak were killed in action during the Kage Summit!”
P.S. Yamanaka Kiyomi is an OC made by Jordan Patterson, one of the readers of the story who was added to the story with his permission. All credit for that character goes to him, I just adapted the character to my story
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