The rain had already pretty much died out when Mana and Ayushi left into the streets of the village, leaving the archive behind. The magician wasn’t sure if her guest felt the same way, but she definitely felt like she left the archive a much happier and more complete person than she entered. The prospect of being some long forgotten heir to some clan, having some amazing larger than life ability, maybe more exactly the knowledge that she couldn’t be one of those people, the reminder of that fact was what plagued the girl when entering. Now all those thoughts were behind her.
Mana still felt some inferiority over that fact, the fact that most students in the Academy were special. Usually the people who enrolled to be ninja were the descendants of clan members, they really had very little choice in the matter. When one’s father was a famed Inuzuka hound master, known for his prodigious skill in the clan’s techniques it was pretty much expected for one to be able to follow up on one’s parents’ legacy. There was much pressure but also clarity and hope. While one was pressured into joining the Academy and becoming a ninja, because of their clan member status they were looked as if they were already elite in the making by default.
On the other hand the clanless children were looked down on, they had all the other jobs to choose from. They’d bring shame to no one if they chose the profession of a baker, florist, vendor owner etc. They could’ve made perfect janitors or caravan runners. The only place for a clanless ninja in the battlefield was to either make the casualty statistic, to make the bravery of the elite sound even greater and more built on blood and flesh than it actually was, or to become one of the countless filler ninja in the armies. Become a grey mouse, a page in a large novel, no, an entire address book. Pages to be torn away when a cruel reader became mad and started peeling away at their book, as the Feudal Lords sent their ninja to die on meaningless assignments.
To say that Mana had different treatment in the Academy was to flat out lie, no one ever expected great things from her, they didn’t, nor do they have now, the reason to. She was born to a family of an average ninja, with greater than average reputation, and an owner of a café. Honestly her best bet for a profession would’ve been to inherit her mother’s business, she had no place in the ninja world, then there were her magic shows in which it was safe to say the girl was largely successful in. What point was it for her to be a ninja, most kids and teachers looked at Mana as a showoff, as someone who would back out at the first sign of pain, trouble and blood in her sight. On the other hand that was what made the teachers praise her more when she actually did something right, when no one expected one to succeed, they were only more surprised when they actually did so.
“Fantastic, just outright spectacular, astonishing!” Guru Ayushi kept shouting out looking around at the glowing nocturnal Konoha. Neon signs were a rather recent invention, apparently there was a ninja somewhere in Kirigakure that could use some sort of poisonous gas that when ignited glowed at a very bright and visually appealing light. It was just what Mana always wanted to see, the amazing abilities of ninja put to other sort of use, ninjutsu couldn’t have been purely a tool of murder, it was what the user made it do that defined it. Everyone’s ninjutsu was different, different by the actions that were done using it.
Mana couldn’t help but smile, on one hand she was admiring the remains of the intense rain on the ground and the raindrops barely hanging off of the various surfaces, on the other she couldn’t have enough of Ayushi’s reaction to things. He acted and looked like a child who had seen a train for the first time, so many things, so many gears, so many devices all working in unison. Similarly to that kid, Ayushi was impressed by so many different artificial lights brightening up the nocturnal village and making it look so majestic and almost divine, in a sense.
“So do you wish to walk around and buy something or do you wish to head back to the hotel? You’ve been so active today, Guru-san, I’m sure you wish to get some rest.” Mana tried to keep up with the Guru who was just running around, people all parted to make space for the man but they always banded together when Mana had to pass making her need to excuse herself to pass every time.
Guru soon returned with numerous large flasks of sake and a lovely purple umbrella on a bamboo stick. It looked rather traditional and it couldn’t have been too cheap, the strange thing was that Mana could have probably made one just like that herself if she had the appropriate cloth. These craftsmen must’ve been making a fortune in this world where all everyone knew how to do was fight, without these men this world would’ve been lost, all those simple pleasures of life would’ve been lost and even the meanest fighters had something they loved most of all and needed the craftsmen for: some loved smoking, that needed someone to make their cigarettes out of God knew what, also the various fancy lighters that most ninja used, some loved to just sit down and rest, they needed all sorts of bedroom things to enjoy that simple pleasure. Fighting was overrated, an ancient and needless, also very underpaid and risky craft. One could’ve made their life making umbrellas instead…
“I don’t have too much money, I think I’ll just make do with these! Come on, let’s go back to the hotel!” he cheered after taking a sip from one of the flasks right on the street.
Mana tapped her leg angrily, “You shouldn’t be drinking, you know, this is a public spot and drinking is one of the ninja vices…”
Guru laughed with a full mouth making some sake leak out all over his beard and down his hairy and bulky chest.
“Hah, that’s the best part, I’m not a ninja anymore! I thought as a descendant of the most freedom loving people to ever walk this Earth you’d appreciate a man doing what he wants. Don’t worry, I won’t share any, you’re WAY too young for that, what are you… Thirteen, fourteen?”
“Twelve and a half, doesn’t matter, let’s go to the hotel, it may not be best for you to be seen drinking like that!” Mana smiled dragging Ayushi gently by his elbow to the hotel room.
“Heh, girls always look older than they actually are, experience says… Anyways, it’s fine, I told you I can’t even get drunk, technically it’s not even drinking, it’s like I’d be sipping water…” Ayushi laughed out like a beast again, his laughter roaring wildly through the crowd. Mana had seen father and his friends drink before, they sipped that thing, just barely let it touch their lips, none of them usually finished more than two or three of those small cups.
“You’re not sipping, you’re gulping, quite intensively I must say.” Mana tried to contain her laughter inside, Ayushi getting drunk worked so weird, he got drunk for just a single moment “ his voice started dragging and slowed down, he became softer and his eyes closed up, his smile twisted his entire face and he blushed. Then it all went away in just a moment and his entire body returned to how it was. It looked just so silly and stupid, Ayushi must’ve only felt the dizziness for just a moment making him want to get drunk more and more just to experience that feeling. For a man who couldn’t feel almost getting his head snipped off, Mana couldn’t blame him for wanting to feel something…
“Let’s go, it’s not too far away.” Mana kept calmly encouraging the drunk-then-not-drunk-anymore Ayushi to stagger-walk back to the hotel.
*****
If Mana thought Ayushi’s drinking habit was weird before, it really got out of control when he didn’t need to worry about walking, the man just dropped onto his butt crossing his legs and started cleaning one flask after the other, tossing them aside and letting the small wooden containers roll further away. He must’ve really longed that feeling, the feeling of being vulnerable and dizzy, the feeling of some sort of happiness and carelessness. Mana wanted to be strict on his drinking but she just couldn’t. This was a man who had the entire world asking him for answers, now that he had answered all he was asked, didn’t he have the right to relax the way he saw fit?
“You know what…” Ayushi started slurring slightly, his speech dragged on, he started speaking slowly and omitting words. “I’ve lived for so long with little to no activity, always talking excuses and… Oh… Alright…” Ayushi’s speech fixed itself from the last flask of sake being emptied. Any living man would’ve undoubtedly been either dead or about to be from the excessive amount of alcohol consumed in such a short span of time.
“I mean, so many people came to me for help, they kept begging me to kill this tyrant or do this heroic deed and I kept denying their requests, offer other kinds of help. Gather monetary support for their villages and offer spiritual guidance. Meeting you made me wonder… Maybe your way, the little more hands-on approach was actually better. What if instead of gifting monetary support, which got plundered by the same tyrant I tried to help them recover from anyways, I just stood by their side and used intimidation to repel his forces? What if instead of cowering behind my retirement I used my medical skills again to save lives, to create medication that’d eliminate and heal pain? What if I learned how to degenerate my own cells to the state where donating them could actually help people instead of killing them faster?”
Ayushi downed whole other flask of sake down his throat and tossed the flask aside. “Makes one wonder, huh?” he slurred out again.
Mana wasn’t entirely sure just what Ayushi was getting to, just which part of this was his drunken delirium and what was actually his intention? Could her conviction to her cause actually cause the man to reconsider on his centuries old vow to remain passive and neutral and distant from all conflicts and problems of the world? How could it have been so? Mana wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t take her ideas too seriously but… What if he did do what he spoke of? What if he did cure pain and sickness and people could get his cell treatment finally? What an amazing dream of a world would that be? Ayushi’s authority could stop wars, his panaceas could cure sickness and unhappiness, his unseen prowess in the medical field could bring back the recently dead and even grant children for those who cannot conceive them. This man just wondered if he should make the world perfect and Mana was about to keep him wondering.
“I think it’d be selfish of you not to do so…” Mana uttered the words which she instantly regretted and slapped her own lips for uttering. The girl stood up and turned around, bolting out of the room and shutting the door, locking it behind herself. Her heart was thumping and her chest was jumping up and down from the intense and stressed breathing. How could she have said that? It was selfish of her to wish anything of the sort to be done. Mana slowly unlocked and entered the room, she was careful, a single word or a bad stare from Ayushi would’ve sent her back but he didn’t do any of those things.
“So you’ve decided to watch over me while I rest? Thank you, young Mana, I will certainly feel safer this way. I think you’re right, it would be selfish of me not to use all of my gifts to benefit humanity, the Guru Ayushi that will leave Konoha tomorrow will be a whole new Guru Ayushi. I shall create a better world encouraged by a brave and lovely young lady in Konoha. What a wonderful future for our world…” Ayushi slurred and then recovered again, sitting onto his bed and slipping his cloth off of his chest, the man kept his ragged pants on and fell asleep almost instantly. He must’ve been really tired with all those seminars and walking around the village and researching Mana’s history after all…
Mana carefully settled down on the floor by the door, she made sure to shut the windows and set some wires, hooking them up to fragile objects. If anyone tried to apply pressure onto the window, the fragile objects would’ve fallen down and broken, something like that would wake Mana up. Wire trapping was quite common among ninja, it would’ve worked against the more common ways of entering through the closed window like cutting out the glass or trying to open it from the other side but if a strong wind blew against it nothing would’ve happened.
Slowly Mana blacked out and slipped to sleep, she was just as tired as Ayushi was, chasing after Sugemi last night and barely having any sleep at all after that. All the roaming and worrying over her friends and the Guru also tired her out. While Guru shouldn’t have been in any danger she protected him like he needed constant surveillance her protection. Mana’s standards were just that high, now that her team was disbanded she had to make sure to do her best, to prove to Hokage that the decision to not suspend or strip her rank of ninja away was the right one. Suddenly thoughts started feeling murky and the girl’s mind drifted off into the black void of slumber…
*****
Heat. Smoke. Mana’s eyes shot wide open only to reveal her own worst nightmare realized. Guru Ayushi was covered in flames completely blacked out, the whole room was filled with smoke and she started coughing almost instantly after returning to consciousness. It took the magician a moment to realize that everything that she was seeing was actually real, that it wasn’t a dream or an illusion but it was painfully real. She could feel her body starting to drift away and feel weak and sleepy from the smoke. The need to move hit her head in an instant, the pain in her thighs was meaningless, Mana fought through it forcing her body up. The girl weaved a couple of handseals shooting a burst of wind chakra from her palms shooting her body up onto the air, she stopped breathing “ the highest parts of the floor were where the smoke was the thickest.
Mana leaped over the wall of flames, while in mid-air the ninja tossed a kunai knife to the side, she heard the window break and the wires pulling a vase down. That meant that the windows weren’t trifled with, Mana had her back against the door and would’ve been woken up upon it being pushed, how could this have happened?! Mana shot more air currents from her palm to force the flames aside for just a moment in which she landed and grabbed onto Ayushi’s ragged pants. Mana aimed her palms at the wall, she had just one try to make this jump just right, anything less than perfect will kill both her and Ayushi and she had no time to hesitate or do this any different way “ the smoke was slowly killing her, she could feel it.
Mad burst of chakra sent air currents that bashed into both the bed and the wall, once again splitting the fire apart and shooting Mana’s body off of where she and Ayushi were. The two were propelled to the window. The girl shouted out in pain as she felt painful sensations over multiple spots on her body “ she didn’t make it perfect enough, she and Ayushi still got cut up by some glass. Desperate not to lose consciousness Mana shot out the final gust of wind chakra to cushion their fall. She still hit the ground pretty hard, the girl heard her clothes tearing and felt some gravel and stone etching into her body, the cuts were bleeding and the dirt that got into those wounds burned. Still, pain was the only thing that reminded her that she was still alive, dead people felt no pain. The magician peeked at Ayushi, his body appeared to have no more flames on it after the secondary burst of wind from Mana, still, he looked bad. His body was almost completely charred. Mana messed up…
*****
The girl kept scratching at her wounds angrily, as if she wanted to open them, wanted to punish herself and bleed out in the hospital waiting room. How could that have happened? The room was completely safe, everything was done according to the procedure as taught in the Academy, where could the fire have come from? There were no gas leaks, this was a classical hotel, it had no gas lines going through or below it. From what the magician had heard Ayushi’s was the only room that was set ablaze. None of this made any sense whatsoever. She messed up, she’s such a loser! The Fifth made a huge mistake, she should’ve kept Sugemi and Shimo but dismissed Mana. Ironically enough, as much of a crybaby as Mana was, she didn’t cry a single tear. This was too absurd and she was too tired to even cry.
She was officially the worst ninja in existence, she wasn’t sure who took the second place but she beat that person by a longshot. How could anyone come close to her idiocy, the world’s most famous figure, loved by all, the world’s spiritual leader almost died on her watch. The girl shouted out in frustration and punched the wall, she cried out in pain as she drove some small shards of glass deeper into her palm, crying from pain Mana removed them, the medical ninja that healed her before must’ve missed those. For all people to burn that night, it was Mana that should’ve burned, she felt so embarrassed that she was about to burst aflame at that moment.
Two ninja walked out, one of them must’ve been a student as he couldn’t have been much older than in his mid-twenties, that was the age when medical ninja usually start working on actual surgeries and treating actual people. The other one looked like a seasoned medical ninja. The younger one walked up to Mana and shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Mana-chan, we did what we could but his body is burnt to the point where anyone else would have died. We kept him alive just to use parts of him as his cells, technically now his cells are damaged enough to use them to heal people successfully” he spoke sadly, scratching his neck. It was clear that he was ashamed of himself to talk about a living being that way.
“If you woke him up… What if he healed himself?” Mana wondered, she was talking nonsense, she was not herself, the stress and fear for that man’s life made her almost lose it completely.
The older ninja stepped in, “That’s possible, he is Guru Ayushi after all but that would cause him so much pain it is just as likely that he’d just pass out, either that or die from pain. Who knows, everything we do is uncharted waters with this man. Think about it, the way he is now we can heal everyone, we can cure incurable diseases using his damaged cells, we can even heal your father back to how he was, he may even be a ninja again…”
Mana closed her eyes and grabbed covered her face, her whole body was shaking in fear and the fact that she didn’t know what to do. No. She knew perfectly, she was Nakotsumi Mana, Konoha’s Sorceress and she had no right to accept that offer. She’d screw herself and the people she loved but she’d do the right thing, she’d save the man’s life even if it would have meant dying. “No… We wake him up. He’ll heal himself, I…. I believe that he will.”
“That’s just stupid, Mana-chan!” the younger medical ninja shouted out, once again stepping in. “We’ve got no reason to believe it’d work, we’d just be torturing him by waking him up, if we kept him sleeping we could heal hundreds of hopeless patients every day!”
“It… It wouldn’t be right, save Ayushi-san’s life. At least try to…” Mana spoke even if her tongue flipped on an autopilot, she was completely dazed off, it all felt like the worst dream she had in her life, she just rejected her father’s salvation just to get a chance to save one man’s life. This happened on the same day that she asked that man to save her father’s life and he said he couldn’t. Mana was the worst daughter in the universe... Arguments could’ve been made for being the worst person alive.
“This is stupid, I won’t let some insane brat…” the younger medical ninja started talking trying to storm back into the ward but the older medical ninja stopped him.
“This is unethical, completely immoral and gambling on a man’s life, you’re asking us to destroy a panacea just to do something which can kill the man, just because it has a slight chance of saving him. It’s disgraceful and despicable, I approve of it.” Mana would’ve been completely taken aback by this expression of the old ninja’s opinion but it appeared that the younger one actually beat the girl by one second.
“No! You can’t seriously be…” the younger medical ninja tried to stop the older one who was about to enter the ward where the stench of burnt flesh was spreading from.
“This girl is the Guru’s bodyguard, for the duration of his stay in the village she is in charge of decisions like this. She’s got the balls and lack of moral sense to try something as mad as this, I can respect that.” the older ninja disappeared into the ward, unwittingly the younger one followed. Mana sat back down, she was shaking. She just confirmed her own worst fears, there was no line she wouldn’t cross to save a life. Even if the person begged her to kill them, even if they were doomed to a life of pain. Ayushi recognized that darkness in her heart long ago… A pitiful and selfish being like Mana shouldn’t have ever been born…
A deafening shout of pain, one that froze entire bodies and hearts of everyone who could’ve heard it echoed through the entire hospital. Even Guru Ayushi who was hurt in every way possible shouted from pain. There was nothing to be done to help him. Mana grabbed hold to her ears and pressed her own hair so hard she thought she’d tear it off. All of a sudden the screams stopped, a minute later the completely shocked younger ninja walked out, he placed his hand on Mana’s shoulder and gently tried to force her into the ward. The magician didn’t even resist it, she despised herself more than anything in the world at that moment.
Mana closed her eyes, she was afraid to face what she had done, a gentle “It’s okay, you can look” snapped her out from her despair. The body that greet Mana’s eyes was a completely healthy and sleeping one. Guru Ayushi healed everything in an instant, his body healed itself subconsciously right when the body was woken up, Ayushi’s new skin looked so pale and so soft. He had just grown it all from nothingness, strangely enough his whole build changed, the fire decimated his muscles and all the fat in his body. Now Ayushi looked slim, as if a baby who had just been born and has never trained a moment in his life. His body healed only the bare minimum of his muscular structure. This was a medical miracle, but the cost at which it was achieved scared the magician. She forced the man to be woken up, she didn’t know nor did she ever assumed he’d be OK, she just wanted that his life would be saved. Somehow…
Ayushi peeled his eyes open, he smiled at Mana. “I believe a sign of gratitude is in order, you’ve just saved my life, young lady, while I’ve healed myself from much worse before, I needed my full consciousness to do so. I put myself to sleep consciously when the fire got really bad.”
Mana looked the man right in the eyes, she was hit by a realization all of a sudden. There was no way for the fire to just happen out of nowhere, the windows were sealed, the doors were closed and Mana had all of the entries well protected. Furthermore no one in this world wanted to harm the man. Now that the girl finally saw the man’s face without that fuzzy beard to cover him up, now that she saw his real face, all of his mimics. When she saw the man smile at her and speak to her… She realized something that made her doubt the reality of this dreamlike experience.
“You… You caused that fire, didn’t you?” Mana uttered a single question.
Ayushi smiled and nodded. “I heard so much about your beliefs, I just wanted to see if what you told me is real, I wanted to see how deep your devotion to the ideals you spoke of went. If you were ready to cross the boundaries that no one else would cross, in other words, what were the limits of your conviction. Apparently there are none, that is good to know, I plan to embody your ideals and so not having any lines to get in the way will make me much more efficient at creating the perfect world. I can finally stop being selfish, just like you told me, young Mana.”
Ayushi shrugged and pointed at all of the medical ninja, “Now, you can go home to your family, affirm your father that eventually I’ll heal his injury, I’ll heal all the injuries, all the sicknesses in the world, I’ll even cure war. I’ll relieve you of your duty, a duty which is unfit for such small shoulders of such a cute little girl. I’ll fulfill your goal for you.”
Mana walked up to Ayushi. “You could’ve killed both of us!” she told him staring the man right in the eyes.
“There was never such a danger, I could not have died even if the flames ran their course, eventually someone would’ve either cut off large enough chunks for me to grow myself from them anew, or would’ve woken me up, then I’d have reanimated you, success depending of course on how much time had passed…”
Mana staggered back, it was like she was talking to a whole another person. A person who adopted Mana’s beliefs but just found out that there were no ethical or moral boundaries to stop them. Even worse, this man had so much power that he could have backed off his wild claims, unlike Mana to whom all of that was just a childish dream she swore her life to. The magician knew she’d fail eventually, that she’d die somewhere in the battlefield, alone and forgotten after failing to stop all war and violence. Ayushi could’ve actually made it happen. The magician’s childish heart couldn’t decide if she was supposed to be horrified or happy. At that moment she lingered on both. She wanted to shout out to Ayushi that all of it was just her stupid childish dream but she couldn’t, she genuinely believed that naïve dream and she couldn’t deny that even if she’d lie doing so.
The girl just collapsed on a chair nearby the man. He gently stroke her cheek with his new baby skin. “Oh, maybe it’s too stuffy here, doctor, please open the window. Or better yet I should probably leave, after all, there’s no point in me being here “ I’m completely healed. Oh well, I’ll leave in the morning.”
The older medical ninja from before stepped closer to the Guru and objected.
“Silly doctor, you cannot stop me…” was Guru’s only reply.
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