Opening her eyes upon the realization that she was alive came as a struggle to Mana. The first peel only barely squeezed a minuscule gap in between the eyelids, but the radiance of the encroaching midday stabbed at the eyes of the young woman painfully enough for her to learn to take it slow the hard way. A meek chill ran down the magician's gut all the way down to her calves and feet.
Mana's left leg had been equipped with a fuzzy woolen sock and wrapped with ample cloth to keep it warm. The tights of the ninja magician had been cut up, from the looks of it, gently and using a pair of scissors. Their stringy remains, alongside Mana's sandals, laid beside her bed. It was of no shock to Mana to wake up in a hospital bed, though her memories from the grueling fight returned to her in segments, wildly and out of order.
There was a warm cover neatly placed over her right leg. Mana still felt the painful twinges in her right calf, though they weren't immediately painful and mind-robbing. Shige and the town's healers must have given her something for the pain, or maybe they kept her asleep and the drug they used to do so still hadn't shaken off. It wasn't that all-encompassing, cruel, unrelenting, and uncompromising sharpness, but a dull and toothless, phantom pressure around her ankle, nibbling to her knee.
Just as Mana tried to tilt her head, the true crown of torment resonated down, forcing the magician to wince and moan in pain as she grabbed her forehead to rub and ease it gently through the process. A soft and orderly wrap of bandages laid over her head meanwhile Mana's face her been decorated with band-aids. From what she could recall, she almost drowned in her own blood, so she was probably concussed and bruised all over, hence these bandages.
Mana wriggled up a little, using her elbows like a fish used its fins to swim, but… Something about her motion felt off… The weight attribution over her body felt… Off. The pressure around her right calf just up and snapped away. Where her left leg felt like a lazy clog that tangled in the bedcover, the sheets, and everything in its way, her right leg moved surprisingly smoothly and didn't get tangled in anything at all. This curiousness made Mana flip her bed cover.
A depleted scream filled the hospital corridor, causing those that stayed and watched the door on the outside to jump up and rush into Mana's ward. Prabba and Endo promptly tackled the door and entered the ward, meeting the sight of Mana shaking frozen stiff in the same position she had when she moved the covers. Her right leg had been covered up from the thigh to the knee by a white hospital gown while from the knee down it went fully wrapped up in an excess of rubbery bands, layers of cotton, and just about anything that shut blood out from drowning the bedside. Mana's right foot didn't have a thick woolen sock, keeping it warm because there was nothing to keep warm.
"Shit… We really didn't want you to find out this way…" Prabba ran her hand up and down her face, strolling through the ward and back while Endo sulked with his arms crossed. "We wanted to guide you through it gently but… We couldn't watch you twenty-four-seven and… We just missed you waking up."
"My leg…" Mana muttered, her tanned face had gone pale as she fell on her back, finally regaining some semblance of freedom to her muscles but only enough to flop on her backside and begin panting in panic.
"Don't be such a drama queen, it's just a foot and maybe half your calf," Endo said with a grumbly tone. "For getting as cocky as you did, you got off pretty cheap. You could've gotten yourself killed."
Mana had been gravely injured before. She's had her extremities messed up and broken before, but she's never had to face such severe consequences. It almost felt unfair. While when she remained blissfully ignorant of her amputated foot and "half a calf" before, thoughts were slow to seep in her head, now all manners of clouds drifted over her airspace. Mana wrapped and cradled her head, squeezing it hard, pinching her temples to wake up from this nightmare before pounding the bedside while gnashing her teeth and gnawing on her lips until she drew blood.
"Your injuries were incredibly severe. Even by the time we got to you, the shards of your calf bones had scattered all across your entire body from the excessive bashing, your leg gangrened on the spot and it had nearly been severed already. The exposure to air didn't do your blood vessels and corrupted flesh any favors. It was nothing Shige shouldn't have been able to treat, but…" Prabba was all too vigorous to guide Mana through the grisly parts of the affair, though she seemed to get stuck in the middle.
"Shige got all tuckered out treating those bunch of nobodies the last night. She couldn't keep up and perform her duties either as a kunoichi or a medical ninja that evening. She's been fighting on emergency reserves and she just lost it and tapped out. If the townsfolk didn't amputate your leg, Shige would've killed herself trying to save you and dragged you along with her," Endo finished the recollection for Prabba.
"How is she?" Mana sighed, letting her airborne fist flop back down without a trace of life or tension in it as she stared at the ceiling. She wasn't one to give in to defeat, at least she liked to think so but… This felt about as final and defeating as things got. Mana's left hand crawled up her chest and squeezed her gown, because of the extensive damage to the chakra network when a whole bit of it got sliced off like this, she could barely feel a fraction of her usual chakra total.
"About as bad as you. She doesn't want to show or admit it, but… She blames herself," Prabba scratched the back of her neck uncomfortably. "She couldn't even pitch in on with the procedure, her hands were all shaky and she couldn't stop crying or admit that this had to be done. The fact that she couldn't admit it only made her feel that much worse."
"It's not her fault, it's mine…" Mana sighed and closed her eyes. At that moment she wasn't sure which felt more crushing, that her career as both a kunoichi and a stage magician as Mana saw them was effectively over as no one would've wanted a crippled ninja working for them and no one could feel dazzled and amazed by an invalid who felt like she could never smile again, or that it was entirely because of her actions and choices.
"You're damn right it is," Endo came back with a figurative slap in Mana's face. "If you're gonna run off and tackle the big fight all by yourself, you better fight the best scuffle you've ever fought in your life."
"Wow… You're just… Awful, aren't you?" Prabba crossed her arms and tapped her foot as a sign of impatience for Endo's grumbly and rough exterior.
"No, he's right…" Mana rolled on her other side, facing the ward window and away from the peacekeeper and her squadmate. "It's all my fault. I've ruined everything and I'll have to live with it."
"Mana…" Prabba said, approaching the ninja magician who now felt like she was neither of those two things and placed her hand on her shoulder. "You'll get through this. I know it's tough, but life goes on. It has to…"
"You know, when I was a kid, I looked at my hands, my legs, even my fingers, seeing all those veteran ninja with prosthetics or proudly showing off their scars and stumps… I thought… If this were to ever happen to me, I'd just rather die. I couldn't fathom even losing a finger, not even a nail. It was… It was my finger, the one I was born with," Mana dived under the cover and wrapped herself in a ball while surrounding her head in a painful squeeze of her arms just to distract her from the sizzling in her core and the choking that went up and down her throat. Not to mention the tears that were soaking Mana's pillow, no matter what she had to say about it.
"Don't say that, I know it's tough on you now but… It will get better. As long as you…" Prabba kept on trying her best to ease the young woman that saved her life through this life-altering experience.
"Can the pep talks. They're not gonna grow Mana's foot back. Hey, drama queen, technically you're okay to go already. You're a ninja, so your body's already recovered enough to move around. If you decide to stop feeling sorry for yourself, pick up those crutches and join us. We'll be doing our actual jobs in the peacekeepers' HQ," Endo's blunt tone dug through even the thick cloth that Mana wrapped herself up in while she struggled through the immense despair that just couldn't stop washing over her head and dragging her down under its surface.
It seeped through Mana's nostrils, turned, and rolled her all over until Mana didn't know up from down. Until Mana became confused if the bog had been drowning her deeper toward the abyss or if it was pushing her up toward the surface. Unsure if she should've swum in the opposite direction or relaxed, taken a deep breath, let the sludge fill her lungs, and just drowned.
It was tough to make out just how many hours Mana spent rolled up. Every time she tried to will herself to slip out from bed and tackle the struggles of keeping this thing going, she neutered herself with the thought of staying down just a bit longer. By the time that Mana showed her face from down under again, the sky was bleeding red shrouds again. Mana rolled the woolen sock off of her foot that was still intact and dangled the clean and neatly wrapped stump over the floor as well. It may have been a lack of forethought, just staff following ordinary procedure or fate itself mocking Mana with the cruel punchline of what she'd have to call the rest of her life, but there laid two slippers on the floor by her bedside. The mercilessness of it all nearly made Mana smirk.
There were no bright sides to this, slipping into a plain, blue kimono and barely slipping and staggering to a crutch to use for support wasn't in any way made easier because Mana was missing a foot and half a calf. Even worse, the painful resonances began walking up and down her severed bone and the stump felt like burning the entire way through to the outside of the corridor. The worst part was that because of the excessive bandaging wrapped over her stump, Mana could not scratch or rub it and make it any easier. She just had to grit her teeth and take it.
"Whoa, whoa there!" a caretaker rushed up to Mana while the handicapped magician wobbled and struggled to turn the corner with her lone crutch. Like it used to happen to her when she was a little girl during wetter winters when Mana found herself in the middle of a frozen puddle and could move neither forward nor step back to where and when she last felt safe and solid footing, she stopped. Knowing neither a way to keep moving nor a way to go back. The caretaker gently offered his own shoulder for a secondary crutch.
"It'd probably be easier if you used both crutches," he said in a soft tone. Despite his young age, he must've seen and guided plenty of people through similar experiences.
"I… It's just a foot and half a calf… I should be able to move better than this…" Mana sulked in disappointment at her own mobility.
"Don't sell yourself short!" the caretaker objected passionately. "You're moving around just a pair of days after the surgery. That's impressive even for ninja who break all records for a swift recovery! Your body must still be dizzy from the drugs and the lack of mobility for the last few days. Take it easy for a while, won't you?"
"I want to leave…" Mana declared. "I'm afraid my team still needs one last contribution from me."
"Yeah, okay… Sorry, we've cut up your clothes. They looked expensive so you can have this kimono…" the caretaker helped Mana with the steps. The young woman had never felt so pathetic, it didn't take plunging all that deep down to realize that she'd have flopped on her face and broken something else if she was left to descend just two flights of steps on her own. Even if before Mana tried her best to convince herself that her current condition was just a mindset, she couldn't stop hearing her own voice calling her useless, pathetic, and crippled.
"Oh… Konoha's Sorceress-san!" a receptionist raised her hand and waved it. She was of tanned skin and wore grey and white accessories, suggesting that she was from the Land of Lightning part of the globe. "Are you leaving? That might be risky!"
"That's what I tried telling her. Those ninja recover insanely fast but I don't recall the last time one of them moved around all drugged up, battered, and numb in just a few days' time," the caretaker replied with a somewhat emotionless and far duller tone than when he spoke to Mana earlier.
"Well, if you insist on walking out, we'll hand you what's left of your items back. We'll need you to sign if it's okay…" the woman rushed back to a line of drawers and unlocked one cubicle. She pulled out a handful of clipped and cut-up black and white rags and Mana's sandals, everything had been soiled by what might have filled bowls of blood. Looking at her soiled black sandals, Mana couldn't help but wonder if she'd have slipped and fallen walking in them, being so soaked back before it all dried out.
"I thought you'd have ditched it all…" Mana sighed. She had already enough on her plate just moving around, having to lug about a bunch of useless, cut-up rags and blood-soaked sandals and pantyhose really wouldn't have helped.
"Those are your items, after all…" the receptionist shrugged.
"Can you get rid of them for me?" Mana looked up at the woman with the biggest and wettest puppy-eyes she could make. "It doesn't feel like I'll need it anymore."
"I… I guess so… I had a feeling you'd like it burnt. I guess we can throw it into the oven alongside a few corpses…" the woman shrugged. Mana's pleading had worked, though it almost felt like cheating knowing how easily she put that face on. Almost like any other face was just a skin-deep mask and the expression of crushed submission to utmost despair was her new natural look.
"Corpses? Did the attack hit the village hard?" Mana looked up, wondering if the universe could give her this one thing and maybe let her mangled remains take a little gulp of fresh air from underneath its oversized, spiked boot.
"Surprisingly, not as hard as you'd think. We only found out were under attack after the fact. People say a lot of mean things about the occupants and they may all be deserved but… They maintained order this time…" the caretaker shrugged. He exchanged a few odd stares with the woman from Kumogakure, going through a whole myriad of interactions with just a few struggling stares. They left it for later, Mana didn't need any of their political bickerings at the moment.
"Yeah, a few people die once in a few days. There were no casualties during the attack but we didn't get to dispose of any corpses from a few days earlier either due to all the commotion. A few of them died in between then and now just from your everyday, natural causes. I'm sure no one will mind if we burn some bloody clothes alongside their relatives… Very few even want to watch the entire scene," the receptionist sealed the deal by pulling the stack of Mana's clothes and items back.
"Are you seriously sure about this? You had stacks of cards, sealing tags, and stuff stacked all over that blazer. I've never seen a uniform like that before, there're braces, hidden triggers, and stuff. Stuff that doesn't burn too good," the caretaker sighed, but Mana had wobbled closer to the door on her own by then.
"I won't be fighting anymore, not like this…" Mana stopped, only to look back at the troubled pair and hop out the door after it didn't give way to the pressure of her shoulder in the beginning. She had to apply grander pressure and once the door gave way, Mana nearly flattened herself and ate shit on the outside, luckily, a civilian cushioned her with their chest and helped her straighten out.
On her way to the peacekeepers' HQ, where she could still feel everyone's chakra, Mana had to make a few stops to pathetically wobble and make her way to the nearest bench, however she could. It didn't look pretty, in fact, it must've looked outright pathetic to those watching her from behind but, luckily enough, it looked woeful enough that no one was laughing at her. After thinking, imagining, and feeling her follow-up actions, Mana always picked herself up, no matter how tempting just staying on the bench until her heart stopped beating or she starved to death sounded right then.
There was still one way she could be of any use to her team before she accepted this new life of being an anchor that only led everyone to the bottom. She couldn't allow herself to be lazy or for her heart to stop until she served that use. Being useful to someone in any way imaginable was Mana's excuse to keep going right now. It was what got her out of bed and had her challenging this new status quo and it would have to do for as long as it will do.
What other choice did she have?