Mana could barely even believe what was going on, while the actual events and actions they were going to see and do were quite ordinary, at least for anyone with access to the archives, the goal of such discoveries and the prospect of them happening did continue to scare her. What if Guru found some impossible connection to some rare clan, what if she found out that she had some super amazing ability hidden inside of her, what if Mana would find out that she wasn’t actually the child of her parents? That would undoubtedly have caused more pain, not made up for the pain caused by Ayushi’s honesty previously.
“Hello there, young Sir.” Ayushi spoke up interacting with the slightly aged gentleman in charge of watching the archives, the man looked like he could’ve used some sleep as his half greyed out hair were messy and his striped black and white shirt was covered with wrinkles and one of his suspenders was on the edge of slipping off.
“I’d argue about the “young” part but you’re quite welcome to the archives if you have permission to be here, how can I help?” the man answered, he didn’t appear to be affected by Ayushi’s presence whatsoever, perhaps so because he too believed the man to be some prank pulling teen who transformed into a world known celebrity the picture of whom he found in some textbook of his.
“Well when you can recall the War of the Moon and the Earth going on when you were in your cradle with your mother covering your puny and weak baby body with her exhausted motherly figure so that the Moon which was about to crash into the Earth didn’t crush you, you’d reevaluate that argument…” Ayushi joked grabbing his belly in laughter. Judging from the look of the archive worker, the man was beginning to piece things together.
“Wait… Did you say the War of the… Holy crap, you’re actually him, aren’t you!” the man exclaimed jumping up so quickly that his geeky glasses almost fell off. Ayushi giggled like a little girl into his fist.
“Sadly I am, I’d be someone else if given the choice and wouldn’t have to shoulder all those desperate cries of people who refuse to rely on their own strength or strength of the new generation, asking that I solve all their problems instead… Sorry, I babble sometimes, yes, I am me, in that much I am sure, although now when I say that… Who am I as a person and who are you? How do we…”
Mana slowly crept up to the man and gently pulled on his rag. Ayushi got the clue and stopped talking giggling again into his fist. While the man appeared to be acting like a schoolgirl placed in an old man’s body by some mind replacement jutsu, for a moment Mana did admire the size of his fist, the great Guru probably could’ve punched out a horse with that effortlessly…
The magician nodded her head with a respectful bow in front of the archive worker and gestured at Ayushi. “The great Guru Ayushi would like to explore the archives, there is a question that plagues his wise mind, one that could be answered if permission to enter the archives was granted” she explained.
The archive keeper didn’t appear overly fond of the request. The man carelessly fixed his glasses and reached below the table, reaching for a weapon without a doubt. It didn’t seem like he wished to start a fight, he must’ve just felt defensive when cornered by a ninja and someone posing, quite skillfully, as Guru Ayushi. No! The man lunged out leaping over the table slashing at Mana with giant scissors, he wielded two sets in each hand, one was sent Mana’s way quite carelessly, just to cut her and show her that this was serious business, the other one opened up to straight up cut Ayushi’s head off.
Mana leaped back avoiding the strike, she wasn’t expecting it but the man didn’t mean to hit her that hard so it helped. She removed a kunai knife from her weapon pouch and got ready to block any follow up attacks. The archive man’s scissor blades snapped together driving the blades deep into Ayushi’s neck and sending streams of blood down the man’s neck. The girl was standing there speechless, as the blood of the holy man dripped on the ancient carpet she was shaking in disbelief. How the mission could have gone so wrong, how could she have failed it so badly? Where did this even come from!? The archive keeper just snapped out of nowhere!
“Who do you think you’re kidding, Konoha’s Sorceress, do you think I don’t know of your team’s stunt in the Police Force?” the keeper smiled sadistically at her as he clenched the blades again sending more blood from Ayushi’s neck onto the floor. “After that thing the three of you delinquents pulled, did you honestly think I’d let you in with some loser? Do you even know what’s contained within these walls? All the information on Konohagakure that one might need: names, addresses, histories, intel on all missions ever done in this village. You silly child, it was your head I should’ve snipped off!”
Ayushi smiled breaking the archive man’s concentration.
“Please, this is all just a big misunderstanding” the man laughed out stuffing a fist into the end of the scissor blades and pushing it further, initially blood shot out from Ayushi’s knuckle but then the scissor set just broke into two blades with a loud clang and the entire thing fell onto the floor. “I assumed you’d be this protective over the archive right after the Kage Summit but I hope you won’t be mad for the carpet. I decided not to avoid your attack because it could not possibly hurt me, also it would undoubtedly convince you that I am the real thing.”
The scissor wielding keeper backed off and walked right behind the counter. Mana was still shaking in shock and surprise but Ayushi gave her a thumb off, “Don’t worry, young Mana, your mission is not affected by this at all, I’ve been cut and stabbed and burnt so many times that pain doesn’t even affect me anymore, my satisfaction with my stay has not decreased in any way, not unless you want to call this sidequest of ours off, that is.” As he spoke the giant wounds on his neck closed in almost instantly.
The young ninja magician tried her best to regain composure and nodded, the archive keeper sighed and put his signature on a permission to access the archive letting Ayushi and Mana in. As the two entered the first floor archive hall and witnessed the vast storage of scrolls inside the girl could feel Ayushi’s breath by her ear, she gently leaned to his side.
“Did you see that?”
“Yes, I felt like killing myself in shame when you got hurt, please do not pull this ever again, Ayushi-san” Mana whispered slightly louder than she’d have wanted making the archive keeper bang on the glass of the door with his steel scissors again.
“Not that, I was talking about the reaction of the archive keeper, that was not the kind of reaction we got from the Police Force, was it?” the Guru reminded Mana of the difference in protection in the two buildings, after finally realizing just what the Guru meant the girl nodded.
“Why do you think that was?” Ayushi tried to provoke some strange process of thought within the girl, Mana scratched her cheek and wiped a strand of hair out of her way.
“Well, I think that the village values information more than people. After all, at this day and age leak of information would cause deaths of many, one escaped prisoner means little compared to that.” Mana theorized.
“Correct, do you think that is right?” the man asked to which Mana reacted by violently shaking her head almost instantly.
“No! A person’s life is worth an infinite number of scrolls with information for me, it is the most expensive thing in the world and I’d never choose any kind of information over a person’s life.”
“Even if it cost the lives of many? Say it was the password from the cell of a criminal who had the Tailed Beast sealed into him, escape of that man means an attack against Konoha by a Jinchuuriki and then a Tailed Beast being unleashed when he dies, what would your choice be then?” the Guru tried to provoke Mana again and again but the girl still shook her head, albeit in a much more controlled and restrained manner.
“Even still, I’d save the life of the person I’d be saving and then fight that criminal and the Tailed Beast myself, I’d sacrifice my life before I’d let anyone die. If that criminal killed anyone I’d just blame myself because it was my responsibility to stop him as the person who chose to protect the life instead of information.”
Ayushi smiled and facepalmed himself, he wasn’t disappointed or sad, his expression looked happy as he smiled with the full extent of his abilities.
“My, my, you’re just a spectacular and unusual piece of work… You’ve almost sold me over to your cause with those speeches of yours, you know.” The man complimented Mana’s vocal abilities as the two proceeded to walk further down into the archive.
*****
Ayushi was spending entire hours researching scrolls, Mana thought that she was a history fan but even she couldn’t understand how he could just keep going like that. She even found some scrolls of herself to run through just to pass time. She kept in her mind about what she heard Ayushi say “ he was just a child during the War of the Earth and Moon. That meant that he was alive when Princess Satsuhimasa destroyed the Moon, if that legend was true. He saw the Earth covered with whatever punishment the First People had in store for the clan that broke the peace between the two, he even grew up in those times, could that have been the secret behind the man’s incredible vitality?
This was straight out insane! Why would a man like that, someone who lived in the period when the most powerful ninja could destroy and reshape entire moons as they saw fit, the period when the Tailed Beasts were created and tamed by ninja, be interested in her? Why would a man like that spend time researching the history of some nobody with no hopes of being somebody like Mana? Could he really have believed that Mana was ever destined for something more than nothing at all? What reasons did he have to believe that she had anything to claim from this world based on her legacy?
Mana’s thoughts of self-doubt made her a little sad, she peeked at the man being completely absorbed into his research. Sometimes he turned back at her and asked her something like the names of her parents and things like that but some things even Mana herself could not tell. She didn’t know the names of her grandparents, both father’s and mother’s side. She didn’t know much about any other relatives besides her parents, she recalled father saying that his brother died early in his ninja life long ago, first mission outside the village, in fact.
No, Ayushi’s research and his claims were preposterous, how could she, of all people have been someone special? An Uchiha or a Kaguya, her? No way! Mana was just Mana, she could never have been anything more than that. The girl stood up and slowly walked up to Ayushi, looking over his search. He was reading a scroll in some language she could barely even recognize, the whole world spoke one language “ a heavily modified version of the language that the First People spoke in. There were different dialects of this language in between different historic periods and so sometimes it was almost impossible to read them without a translation scroll. This could’ve been one of those occasions but why was he reading into so long ago? Either her roots were so celestial that they reached into ages ago, or Ayushi couldn’t find any clan roots in Mana even in that period, that last thought made Mana especially sad. One thing was being told she was nothing special, the entirely other was have it be confirmed that she was so much of nothing that one had to tread into the times of the First People to even grasp at straws of something special in her… This quest was a bad idea.
The girl crept back and dropped into her chair, she covered her head and let her wild hair flow freely covering her face in darkness. Poor Mana could hear her own troubled and sad breathing. What a foolish girl she was, ever thinking she could’ve been some princess or a descendant of some special clan or a family… Mana wanted to slap herself so hard that she’d return to reality, trying to force the violent and sad thoughts away the girl just returned to her scroll and started run over it one more time. Time just flew by like that…
*****
“I think I’ve got the entire story…” Ayushi leaned back in his chair, he was really tired, it was seen in his face. Even his several ages old forty year old body looked wrinkled and worn out by all that running around looking for the right scroll, climbing the ladder to pick it up and all that reading. Mana slowly picked herself off the chair, whatever Ayushi would have said would’ve just crushed her dreams, both knowing that her parents adopted her and that she was just an ordinary good for nothing kid were equally depressing things to think about.
“Lay it on me, then, Ayushi-san” Mana uttered with a tired and still a little depressed voice.
The man looked pretty happy by his discovery, he laughed out and relaxed into his chair. “Well, I think it’s the best answer for you, you’ll really be most happy to hear it… First of all, you’re the child of your parents, that much is for sure, you’re not some princess or an heiress of a clan adopted into an ordinary family to learn humility, truth be told you have no royal blood in you whatsoever. Also, technically you are completely clanless, completely as if in one hundred percent.”
Mana shook her head, her stare was both confused and a bit annoyed, “Wait a second, I thought that was impossible…” she grunted out in a voice completely taken over by exhaustion and irritation.
“So have I, apparently there is a way to be completely clanless, that’s to be a descendant of a clan that is not technically a clan. When is a clan not a clan, young Mana?” Ayushi kept poking at Mana and trying to provoke her interest even if the whole time he was the only one excited by it all.
“When it completely rejects all the principles of a ninja clan: it does not cross-breed with the other branches of the clan or inbreed, it does not cultivate ninja, it does not teach them any secret techniques nor does it have any bloodlines, a clan one can be a part of not only by being born into it but also being accepted into it.” Ayushi kept waving his arms like a child who had just been bought his favorite toy by his mother. He apparently made the discovery of the century and suddenly the historian within Mana’s heart also started hammering at her indifferent and depressed façade with a pickaxe of emotion and confusion.
“Wait… What? There was a clan like that?” Mana asked in complete disbelief to which Ayushi energetically nodded in agreement.
“Just to be sure, could you tell me how you graduated the Academy?” Ayushi asked Mana, the girl sighed, she wasn’t a fan of talking about that story, mostly she just remembered it and then just instantly placed it below layers of other memories.
“Well, as a little child… Fine… Even now, I really dislike using techniques that I did not invent myself. I dunno, it just feels like… Like I’m taking someone’s heart away. Someone put parts of themselves, their own feelings and thoughts into those techniques, they told their own history about the friends they had, enemies they faced into those techniques and I could never even hope to understand those feelings, how could I ever use such techniques without understanding that sort of thing?” Ayushi shrieked like a little girl, honestly, seeing a grown man act like that shaking his hands and shrieking in joy made the magician laugh a little.
“So naturally this would’ve been a problem in the Academy, the graduation test and a very important part of the Academy’s curriculum is mastering and using the textbook Academy techniques to their maximum potential. I just refused to do that, even during the early mock exams, so the other teachers said that I was a pathetic loser and a silly excuse of a ninja and that they’d fail me every time and that I should just give up…”
Mana scratched her eyes, she really thought that she’d cry at least a little having remembered all those memories, all those words and angry faces shouting at her. It definitely made her cry as a child, little Mana scratched her eyes until they started bleeding from wiping her childish tears. Father and mother kept telling her to just give up as well, they said that it wasn’t wrong believing what Mana believed and that it was OK to not be a ninja because of those beliefs. Still, even knowing well she’d fail little Mana kept showing up in one mock exam after another, getting yelled at and having the other students laugh at her.
“One day the sensei in Academy found me meditating on the swings, just sitting on them in perfect balance, completely snoozed off. The man was really impressed by the spiritual depth of such powerful meditation mastery of a child of such a young age, he asked me to show some ninjutsu to him, any ninjutsu at all and so I showed him the techniques I invented myself as a kid. He was blown away knowing that a kid invented ninjutsu techniques all by herself even if they were pretty much harmless. He passed my during my exam just because I showed him any of the techniques I’ve invented. The only condition of his was that I’d actually learn the techniques I was meant to know, just in case I’d need them to save my life some day and if I’d reconsidered in that case.”
Ayushi smiled, “I see” he noted. “This belief is native to a very special but also very… Ordinary clan of ninja “ “the Wandering Ninja”.”
“Wandering ninja?” Mana leaned her head to the side as the name confused her, all ninja had villages, there could’ve been no other kind of ninja. All samurai had masters, those without masters were known as Ronin, they were romanticized but usually not overly respected in a professional environment. Ninja without a village were just straight out rogues or nukenin. Rogues could’ve been killed by anyone at any moment, just being a rogue was a crime punishable by death. There could’ve never been such a thing as a “Wandering ninja”, they would’ve automatically been labeled rogue and killed on the spot.
“Yes, they were descendants of the First Men just like all the other ninja but they never joined any of the ninja villages. You see, after the War of the Clans the people decided to settle down, live safer by living in a bunch sparking what was known as the Settlement period. That was the time when clans united and formed villages. Some ninja like the ancestors of the wandering ninja decided that uniting and the advantage of not being in a state of constant survival environment was just not worth total subjugation, they loved their freedom more than their lives.”
The young magician still could not believe that, something like that sounded too crazy to have ever been true or taken as true by anyone. Someone like Guru Ayushi couldn’t have possibly believed in that, right?
“Initially what happened mirrored your first thoughts of what’d happen, by refusing to ally with any of the villages these wandering ninja became enemies of all of the villages and have been hunted down for decades just like the rogues. Their ranks started to thin, the mass genocide of their kind proved as a further motivator for ninja to finally pick a side. Then the genius solution came for the wandering ninja “ learn to entertain. And so the wandering ninja became perfect dancers, gamblers, salesmen, singers and entertainers of all kinds. They travelled the world visiting a village after village, some of them were just plain con artists, most were actually good entertainers with exceptional heart for business. Explains why your mother is so amazing at managing her café, even if she did trade the ragged clothes of a wanderer into a suit. Wandering ninja were roamers, they adapted and survived. That also explains your exceptional skill at stage magic that all those posters around the village praise so much.” Ayushi finally concluded.
Mana wasn’t sure about what to even think about it. She had heard some similar stories from her father, something about wandering tribes of ninja but it never went into too much detail. There must’ve been some painful stories about that. A smile covered Mana’s pretty childish face for the first time in a while that day. Rain started pounding quietly but relentlessly into the windows from outside as the night caught the two unprepared. The girl stood up and made a small lap around the table she was sitting near.
“So… My people, can I maybe meet them some day?” she asked with excitement, Ayushi sighed.
“It’s a long story but I’ll try to sum it up soon. Your story about you being so original with your craft, it actually mirrors the beliefs of the people, your exotic skin and facial structure matches the story too “ wandering ninja accepted people from all around into their midst, as long as they had dismissed all previous ties, the dark skinned giants of Kumo procreated with all sorts of people, even some Uchiha rejects which I why your hair looks so much like theirs, making a unique race with no bloodline, that’s why you looked so unusual to me. You’re not an alien or anything, you’re just a mixture of what’s best features of several people.”
Mana shook her head energetically, “No, I don’t care about that, tell me more about my people, where are they now!?” she yelled out, the archive keeper must’ve been long gone as he didn’t really care about the noise she made.
“Well… There’s really no other way, I’ll tell the whole story to you, the whole story of your conception and the events that lead to it… So it all began from a visit, the Wandering ninja came to Konoha, the timing was a little odd as the Fire Lord himself appeared to have decided to visit his strongest land. Naturally there was tension between the Fire Lord and the Wandering ninja as they obeyed no master and the Feudal Lords are the masters of all ninja, even now. As the wandering ninja did their thing, played with the local kids, gambled, danced and sung in the streets the councilmen of Konoha decided to get onto the Fire Lord’s good side… He decided to eliminate all of the Wandering ninja. He sent a young genin “ a man who would eventually become your father to spy on them, they then staged a murder right in front of your father’s eyes making him report that the Wandering ninja killed and robbed a villager of their money. With the Fire Lord already quite tense about those guys the decree was passed, no one really would’ve cared or missed ninja that belonged to no one…”
Mana kept listening, from Ayushi’s tone she already knew that this was not a happy story, she already knew where it was headed just because the man was so persistent to tell her the whole story. She was visibly becoming sadder and sadder.
“Well the hit happened, all of the wandering ninja were slaughtered, they were great tricksters and entertainers but they fared not too well in combat against trained ninja who got the drop onto them. Only one young girl survived, that girl was taken into your father’s family, the two then married. Since she adapted to the village life and never tried to recreate her old life, band the new wandering ninja, the village just left your mother alone. I believe you already know the remaining history, you lived it yourself…”
Mana and Ayushi stayed quiet. Knowing that she actually had special blood, blood of the wandering ninja, the world’s most beloved entertainers, dancers and singers, the most freedom loving people in the world. That actually calmed Mana’s heart, she was special, she was special because there was very little but her pride in her heritage that made her special. Her belief came from nowhere else but her heart, it wasn’t her clan mentality that made Mana into who she was, it was her own free decision and maybe it was the blood of the wandering ninja speaking but… Mana loved that, that she was made and defined by that freedom, by being who she wanted to be, the magician actually honored the legacy of her people and with the blood still in her veins she had their legacy in her hands. Her people went extinct, sure, but they never were so much into being pure blood maniacs anyways. In a way Mana was still royalty, her mother’s own little princess, the last survivor, last half-blood of her people who carried within them the blood of all the united countries of the world.
Mana’s ancestors had no relation to a village, they went above that, ideals to them spoke higher and were more important than any village. A village was but an establishment and ideals went higher than that. Knowing her roots made many changes. All of a sudden knowing that there was nothing special about her but at the same time knowing that she was unique in her own beloved way made Mana feel greater than the village, greater than everyone else. Her children would be the inheritors of that will of freedom, that belief that one’s own mind and decisions, one’s freedom was above any authority and beyond their reach and for that the girl thanked her mother and her people. Even if they weren’t any elites of the ninja world, more like the rejects, Mana still thought that they were the best tribe she could’ve hailed from, Ayushi was right “ she really did get the best possible answer!
Guru looked outside and stood up, stretching his neck. “Well then, now that we’ve got that out of the way, I suppose we can head for the hotel? Tomorrow will be my final day here, the people aren’t as affected by the death of the Kage as I’ve thought they were, now I am needed most in Kirigakure where the major reforms are taking place. You, young girl, were the only thing of interest in this village at the moment with the seminar out of the way.” Ayushi’s hand pet Mana, he tried not to come off as rude so he didn’t keep his hand on the top of her head for too long. Mana put her jacket back on as well as her hat, the great Guru Ayushi turned off the lights as the two left the archives. After the two left the building Mana heard a large lock clanging signaling the archives being locked up.
Her origins were known now, it was a gift from Guru Ayushi and what a gift it was!
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