A lone guard watched over the room where, apparently, Sugemi was held in. Ayushi stopped by the man and smiled at Mana. The man must’ve wanted the magician to do the talking which to Mana seemed quite strange. After all, was he not the famous authority figure around the world? The man called the "spiritual leader” of the Shinobi World? It was just really odd that he wanted Mana to talk with the man. The girl sighed and took several steps closer to the guard who instantly directed his eyes at her. The man must’ve known that she was there yesterday as he did indeed tense up as if preparing for an incoming attack from the magician’s side.
“Umm… Guru Ayushi would like to see the young man kept in this room. It’d probably be best if you let him in, after all, what harm could Guru Ayushi, of all people, do?”
The guard didn’t look too pleased. He snarled angrily at Mana and then at Ayushi. His hand moved behind his back slowly, he tried to move it so slowly that the two would not notice but Mana was no idiot. Having her hobby in mind she had to be not only perceptive enough herself but also know how to fool the eyes of a public.
“Is that it? So it’s Guru Ayushi who wants to see this guy, huh? Aren’t you this guy’s teammate, girl? Which is more likely, that the world famous Guru Ayushi wants to see some edgy punk who messed up like a loser, or that you asked someone to use Transformation Jutsu and transform into Ayushi?”
Mana took a step back, she knew that this wouldn’t work, why would it? She turned back at Ayushi who closed his eyes and sighed. Some odd feeling ignited inside Mana’s chest, she turned back at the man and walked right up to him, her head was looking up straight into the man’s eyes. It must’ve looked pretty ballsy to just waltz in front of a guard who was whole head taller than the girl and just stare him off.
“Sir, with all due respect, this is Guru Ayushi, the man who has fought the Uchiha, all four of the other Great Ninja Villages and was personally involved in two of them no longer being called “Great”. He was a man who has seen battles that lasted for entire weeks, losing his allies and then bringing them back to life as he shaved at his own lifespan to do it, and yet he still lives for over a hundred years. The man who abandoned all of these horrors and now a Police Force guard in Konohagakure wants him to remember all of that which he had left behind and despised? I don’t think you’ve thought this through, Sir.”
Mana’s voice was quiet but tough, cold and unwavering. It was not a tone usually attributed to her. The guard gulped and nodded. “Umm… Very well, I’ll arrange a meeting immediately! Just please be brief, Ayushi-san, this young man is about to be transported in an hour or two, you’ll be the last people seeing him.”
Ayushi nodded and sat down by the wall on the stone floor. The monk closed his eyes, Mana would’ve mistaken his state for meditation had she not been such a prodigy in the field herself. No… Ayushi’s eyes were moving sloppily, during the first state of meditation Mana remembered her eyes being quite static, during the secondary, more advanced stage they were all over the place. The girl walked up to the man and sat down on the cold stone floor beside him, she didn’t care if she’d dirty up her skirt, she didn’t care if the stone feel pretty damp and cold.
The man grumbled something, as if clearing his throat and then spoke up. “So… You really do want to see these two quite much. No girl would try so hard to get into a room if the person inside wasn’t her friend or her beloved. I’ll take your word for it that it was the first.”
Mana closed her eyes as well. “Yeah. I do want to see Shimo and Sugemi before they leave. No, I will see them.” Her voice continued to flow like a river stream in spring that had broken through the ice of winter past, just as firm and strong as it did before.
“Good, I’m glad to have been able to help you see your friends. At least once my words and intentions won’t cause you pain, that much I owe you.” Ayushi mumbled as it appeared he may have been snoozing. Then his eyes opened again and he turned at the girl.
“One thing though, one thing bothers me. You seemed pretty determined to get into that room, from what I’ve heard when arriving to the village from the guards you’ve also been pretty determined to stop your friends from killing each other, even going as far as to use an experimental genjutsu technique. You do know that sometimes unpolished illusions cause permanent brain damage to both the user and the receiver? Were you ignorant of this or did you wish to save their lives at that cost? What lines are you willing to cross when protecting life?”
Mana’s eyes remained closed, she had never really thought about that. It was a very core shaking question indeed. Her entire life the magician wanted to save lives, to be the moral compass for the world, an example of a hero which would cause the world to change. She assumed that saving lives would always be the moral choice but sometimes it wasn’t. She was aware of the possibility of permanent brain damage for either of them when using her early stage of an illusion, yet the girl could not remember that stopping her for a single moment. It was just something that ran through her head.
“I… I suppose any lines. I did know that possibility but I wasn’t afraid of it, it seems that I am ready to choose life over death, no matter the moral implications of such decision. I’d save a man from death, even if it meant that he had to suffer for the rest of it. I believe that no life in this Universe is unnecessary and this belief is unwavering.”
Guru closed his eyes again and returned to his state of slumber.
“That is a scary answer, young Mana, it is an answer that fanatics would give when asked about their beliefs. I’d wish to believe that you gave such an answer because you are still very young and have not yet encountered a truly gruesome situation where saving a life was to doom someone. Yet I’ve no reason to truly think so… But don’t you think it is weird that you are afraid of hurting someone in that case? You don’t wish to kill, that is fine, but tell me if you’ve ever frozen in place unable to fight off a threat? You said you were afraid to interfere in the fight between your teammates for a very long time, I’d imagine this was not the only time this happened to you, have you ever wavered before entering combat before? Don’t you think it’s hypocritical to restrain yourself from fighting when you say that no line is going to stop you from saving someone?”
Mana was shocked by those words, she looked at Ayushi who was playfully smiling with his beard and moustache being twisted. It was not a sadistic or bad kind of smile, it was a smile of a father who had just scared the dog off of the stairs letting his daughter out to play because the dog was barking and scaring the little child. Mana had that feeling of dread for violence this whole time when she didn’t realize she may have been contradicting her own belief. Fighting was not wrong, not always, fighting to save someone she treasured, someone she loved was alright. She was not a pacifist, she couldn’t be if she wanted to be who she was. All life was sacred, that did not mean that people who threatened it couldn’t have been taken down, crippled or paralyzed. It may not have been morally correct but such were Mana’s beliefs.
This Guru Ayushi was amazing, now the young magician understood why he was called “spiritual leader” and one of the wisest people alive. He just solved one of Mana’s most painful problems for her with nothing but words, no, encouragement for the girl herself to come up with an answer. He never said anything, he just asked her questions and encouraged her to think for herself. This monk was truly something!
*****
About twenty minutes had passed since the guard started arranging the meeting. In between then and now the guard had left the room and ran around setting up the meeting with his superiors. Apparently seals and restraints were in order to prevent the detained one from hurting the girl who detained him last night and also the visitor. While bored of waiting Mana turned at Ayushi. A question popped into her mind, something didn’t add up but she didn’t yet wish to accuse Ayushi of lying.
“You told me that ordinary humans could not make use of your regenerative cells, yet Tanshu-sensei claimed once that he had regrown an entire muscle out of them, why was that? Was he sick too, riddled with tumors like that man you told me about?”
Ayushi opened his eyes and smiled again, just mere moments later he broke into an uncontrollable laughter. After a while of letting his laughter go free the man finally wiped a tear off of his eye and decided to reply the girl to her question. Guru Ayushi looked like a man who was in no rush at any point, he acted like his entire life was still ahead of him.
“Actually there’s an interesting story there… I remember meeting your sensei back during my last visit, no, it was a brief stop as I was heading for the Fire Temple and Konohagakure was just in the way and night sneaked up on me out of nowhere. Anyways, I wanted a drink so I went to the bar, my regenerative cells prevent me from ever getting drunk so I can enjoy my drinks indefinitely. So I sat down close to this young fellow, he looked pretty strong, back when I sniffed up his Killing Intent I knew he was someone amazing. We talked for a while and… He told me and showed me his arm “ the entire muscle looked like some bastard tried to rip it out with its teeth, must’ve been a summoned animal or something.”
Guru delved deeper and deeper into his thoughts. Mana hated when the man just stopped talking and drifted off like that but she did want to hear all of the story the way it happened and if that meant some breaks in between it did not matter. Guru finally seemed to have remembered the events and continued.
“So… The guy was pretty bold, he asked me of my cells almost instantly after the story, “Give me your cells, geezer” were his exact words. I explained to him just as politely as I did to you why it couldn’t be done and then he challenged me, he claimed that he could drink me under the table and if he did he’d drag my body to the hospital and take those cells from me. Now there was a challenge I could not refuse “ on one hand I couldn’t possibly have lost such a challenge as I couldn’t get drunk, on the other one if I did by any chance lose it I’d be helping a young man whose career was ruined…”
“I don’t get it” Mana interrupted the story, “Why would your drunk cells work differently from your conscious cells?”
“Because you see, when my body is conscious my cells work impeccably, but when it is either comatose or passed out or… Well… Drunk they work at an incomparably weaker and slower rate. Rate that does not stress ordinary body nearly as much as my ordinary one. Normally that never happens “ whatever damage I am dealt to my brain I heal almost instantly so I have not passed out enough times in my life to count them on my hand fingers. But that Tanshu was a very crafty kid, he had this strange seal ability to neutralize my jutsu without me even noticing and so I end up drunk in no time because without my ability I’m quite lightweight, despite my menacing size… I suppose now you can piece the rest of the story together…” Ayushi finished the story at last. Mana gently covered her mouth as she laughed out, it couldn’t have been helped since the story was just really funny and weird.
*****
As half an hour more passed the meeting was finally arranged and Ayushi and Mana were called up to Sugemi’s cell room. The two entered and the man wasted no time walking up to the young man and sitting in front of him and Mana kept her distance by the door. She just felt that horrible feeling like Sugemi must’ve hated her for stopping him yesterday so she just stared at her feet which she kept rubbing at the stone floor shyly. Guru leaned back in his puny wooden chair making it creek for its life.
“Greetings, young man, news have reached me that you’d be sent away to a remote facility on one of Fire Country islands. Rest assured, the one you’re sent to is only prison by name actually it is quite pleasant. You see there are three prisons in Fire Country: one of them is a prison called “Jigoku”, it is a prison where the worst of the worst are held in the toughest security conditions and under constant surveillance, their chakra is kept sealed at all times and no one gets too worked up when a prisoner or two die in “accidents”. The people there are considered rejects of society and very few of them have a chance to ever leave that place. “Jigoku” is located underground, somewhere in a remote location of the Fire Country.”
Sugemi didn’t seem very interested in the man’s tale. He looked at Mana and interrupted the man’s explanation which was supposed to calm him down and get him talking in the first place.
“Do you hate me, Mana? Why are you so distant? What happened?”
Ayushi’s hand raised to stop Sugemi’s interruption. “I will leave you two time for farewells, sadly the words I have for you outrank the importance of the farewell of two young friends who will be parted for a year or two. The words I have for you are the last words spoken by Red Dog - Uzumaki Tanshu before his passing that were overheard by the Tsuchikage and sent to me via message. Those words are meant for three people: Nara Sugemi, Yuki Shimo, Nakotsumi Mana. Please let me finish my explanation and get to my message, then I shall leave the two of you to say your temporary farewells.”
Sugemi looked pretty surprised by the fact that someone overheard Tanshu’s final words but then his surprise was quickly overwhelmed by annoyance that this man would insist to finish his speech before delivering them, he then settled down and gestured for the Guru to continue.
“Thank you, as I’ve said, the second prison is “Rengoku”, it is the prison also known as the “Konohagakure Correctional Facility” located inside the village. It isn’t anything too impressive, just your ordinary prison meant for perpetrators not tough enough or not evil enough or with hope for being adapted back into society after their redemption. The prison you are sent to is called “Eden”, do you know why? Because technically it is not a prison, it is just a location where people of interest are detained. Currently all of Konohagakure Jinchuuriki are located there so that they do not escape or die and let their Tailed Beasts roam free. It is entirely possible that the Fifth will revise that decision and let those poor two go in the nearest future…”
Sugemi sighed, “Look, old man, I’m not worried about the whole containment situation, I don’t care. Just give me the words Tanshu-sensei left us and get out.”
Guru smiled and nodded. “Very well…”
“Tanshu believed that you were just as stupid as his sister, by which I believe he referred to Chestnut Hanasaku who had adopted him in his youth into her “family”. The man wanted that Hanasaku would train you herself because the two of you were both too stupid to know where your limits were. He also expressed a belief that your goal of having a manga written about you was not that bright.”
After Guru finished Sugemi asked if that was it to which the man nodded. “If it was any more personal than that I’d have asked the young lady to leave but I didn’t believe it was.” Guru added.
“Well, whatever, I don’t want that woman training me. Plus even if I did I pissed her off enough for a lifetime, I’ll do fine training in the containment facility with the two Jinchuuriki, I guess…” Sugemi shrugged, he then looked at Mana again. Mana’s eyes raised up to meet those of her friend and she approached him and slowly hugged him.
After the girl backed off she desperately tried to fight tears off. “I’m sorry, Sugemi, I don’t hate you. I just… I got in your way, I understand. But I couldn’t let you kill that man, nor could I let you and Shimo kill each other.”
Sugemi banged onto the steel table signaling that he was done with the meeting. “I know, Mana, I’m still gonna get that manga written about me, I’ll just go about it differently. I’ll change the world, just like you wanted it to but I’ll go about it the entirely other way. Don’t you get it? The hero who has no backing from the people around her will fail and die alone and people don’t want peace. They want those who did fucked up things get fucked up things done to them. People are simple, I am going to get into their hearts by exploiting that and earn respect, that is how I will be immortalized in legends and get my own manga. We will clash again, Mana, it is inevitable. The one who wishes to kill all killers and the one who wants those killers to get “justice” by scolding them are bound to clash but I don’t see you surviving that clash, people will always back the killer of killers because people want blood. For your sake, I hope one of us will die before that clash because one of us won’t survive it if it happens and killing you would be too painful to me. Shimo was never my true rival, it was always you, Mana. It just was as Tanshu-sensei said, I was too dumb to get it.”
The guards came to take Sugemi away and prepare him for being moved. As he was taken to the door the Nara gently wriggled out of the guards’ hold and walked up to Mana placing his chin on her shoulder gently. “Goodbye, old friend, until we meet again…” was all he uttered. Mana and Guru observed Sugemi get taken away, the captain of the Police Force approached the two and stroke his brown thick moustache line.
“So you are seeking for Tanshu’s students, Guru Ayushi-san? In that case you’d better rush to the Konohagakure gate. We’ve had reports that one of the students, the swordsman, was leaving and the guards tried to hold him, once he explains that his status as a ninja is suspended they’ll have to let him go and if he leaves you’ll miss him.”
Mana and Ayushi started moving quickly towards the gate, the two ran up the stairs to the roof and left the building, moving quickly, dashing through the rooftops and wires, all the electric poles and the wires where the laundry was hung. Ninja travelled like that when they were on a mission, the rooftops were the playground of empowered criminals and ninja. Mana would’ve never guessed that Ayushi had retained so much of his past speed, she could barely keep up with him, several times she had to pop her “Mystical Wings” jutsu just to send the gust of wind to keep her from tumbling down when she missed a jump. The two were forced to move at such a pace that Mana almost twisted her neck several times.
Finally the gate was in sight, the two landed just in time to witness the figure of Shimo leaving. The boy was no longer wearing his formal and fancy clothes, instead choosing an attire more fitting for a homeless wanderer, which he was not. The boy wore a washed plain green kimono which would’ve soon get covered with dirt and get torn up in his travels. Right before he left Mana’s voice reached his ears and he turned around. His innocent surprised eyes and jarring mouth when he recognized his friend would’ve made Mana laugh had the situation not been so desperate. Guru took several steps forward again, as usual he had to complete his own duty to an old friend, the only man to have ever drunken the famous and unbeatable in drinking Guru Ayushi under the table.
“Young man, please wait. I have words to tell you, words from your late sensei. After than I believe the young woman would also like to tell her farewells and it would be extremely rude to…”
“Deny a lady a chance at saying “Goodbye”, I know my manners, old man!” Shimo finished the monk’s sentence before the man could. Wasn’t even that surprising, ever since he was a little kid, since the first day he entered through the Academy door wearing that comical suit with the world’s biggest bowtie he acted like the world’s most polite six year old gentleman. No one could’ve educated Yuki Shimo on manners when matters concerned women.
Guru coughed up and started fulfilling his duty. “Tanshu expressed extreme fondness of you, he admired your moral decision to despise a tyrant like Mizukage Daikon, he also expressed support for your goal to make it so that no one lived in tyranny again before his final moments. Tanshu hoped that you would train your swordsmanship and perhaps asked Mana-chan here to train you in chakra control one day. He also wondered sarcastically if you’d have liked the now deceased Mizukage Shirona over Daikon, the one who was responsible for the events of the Kage Summit.”
Shimo smiled and nodded in confirmation that he heard the words meant for him, his smile was not a happy one, more like one that was almost lyrical. It was clear that the Yuki acknowledged the sadness in his sensei’s passing but appreciated having heard his final words, at least as far as he was concerned. Once again, just like Sugemi, Shimo inquired if that was all to which Guru just nodded. “Well I guess sensei wasn’t a man known for his words or his extreme skill with the tongue. Still, thanks for that, Guru Ayushi-san.” the swordsman then turned to Mana and approached her.
“Heh, it feels pretty bad to make Tanshu-sensei wait before his final will is completed, I’ll definitely ask you teach me when I’m back. I just don’t want to draw my sword again before I understand who I am and where I stand. Nothing pulls the carpet from under you like raising a sword against your own brother in arms and being taken down by your own little sister…” Shimo hugged Mana gently, the girl once again just barely kept her tears in her. Shimo then moved back and laughed out as if he was going to say something really stupid.
“I really hope you didn’t fall in love with me or anything, I’m not a guy worth swooning over neither am I a guy who ties himself with just one lady so I’d just break your heart…” Mana’s fist bounced off Shimo’s head from the sheer force of her pound. She was pretty angry that her silly teammate ruined the moment but it couldn’t have been helped. Her friends were always sort of goofballs. Guru was smiling the whole time, after exchanging hugs and waving each other farewell the two parted, Mana followed Shimo’s figure as it disappeared from her sight in the thickness of the forest outside the village gate.
“It may seem like the end of the world to you, young Mana, but as I’ve come to learn that people leave only to return. You will meet your friends again, in the meantime you’ll make many new ones and while you won’t be a team anymore bonds like that which you share are not easily broken. Just some distance and journey of self-discovery is powerless against that sort of friendship. Now all that’s left is what was meant to be told to you…” Guru once again spoke wisdom. Mana didn’t intend to keep the man from completing his debt, when she finally didn’t feel Shimo’s presence anywhere close the girl turned back at the Guru and walked up to him to hear Tanshu-sensei’s final words meant for her.
Knowing her sensei it must’ve been something pretty mean so the girl’s little heart was pounding relentlessly in her chest but she knew that sensei always meant well with his strict words. His insults made everyone work harder, his jokes always kicked them in the butt to move forward faster. Mana was ready, she just parted ways with her friends and in order to start a new chapter of her life she needed to tie all the knots from the old one.
“I’m ready” the girl uttered letting the Guru know to spill it out.
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