Mana's floating body lowered and her buttocks gently touched the ground. Her eyes filled with light once the magician opened them and directed them right at the manager of the indoor gym who was approaching her. The short, middle-aged man looked around the burnt streaks and bent-up wooden boards with irritation in his face. He didn't like any of it but not to the extent where he'd forbid Mana from meditating in the gym.
"That's some mighty freaky shit you're doing with all that floating and lightning shooting out of you," the man noted, leaving it up to an obvious hint that he was not a fan.
"Sorry, chakra manifests itself during meditation. It frees my spirit and mind and builds both of them up at the same time. I actively suppress the Fire Release from manifesting," Mana nodded in acknowledgment of the fact that her meditation sessions have been growing a tad unruly, its devastation growing alongside her strength and skill.
"Well, at least I didn't have to wake you up from it, that's still a win, I guess…" the man scratched the right side of his neck and sighed. "The guys usually use this place for games and some friendly wrestling, this is the first time someone uses it to form whirlwinds and jolt with lightning inside, that's all…"
"Oh, don't worry, once entranced, I'm hyper-aware of everyone's presence. More so than I'd be with thoughts cluttering my mind normally. You'll never have to worry about slapping me awake," Mana assured the man as she gathered the few things she brought to the gym and headed for the door.
"You know, you've been hanging out by yourself this whole week. It just isn't normal, you know. The guys that usually use this gym are training outdoors in the training field, I'm sure they'd love to include another gym-lover to their group…" the manager shrugged. He disappeared inside his little office, appearing a few moments later with a broom in his hands.
"That's fine, I'm sorry I made such a mess. I'm in a hurry to get to the library before the lunch break but I can leave a clone to help you clean the place up," Mana suggested.
"Nah, missy, that's fine. It's kind of my job," the manager sighed. From the looks of it, Mana lost all the good faith she had accumulated with the man just by bringing the singed floorboards up. "You go take care of your books and whatnot…"
"Thank you," Mana thanked the man for letting her use the gym to meditate and bowed.
Maybe she could have been just fine meditating inside her room but to restrain herself to the extent where her chakra barely manifested itself would have greatly hampered her training. She's been doing plenty of meditating in the evenings already and while they haven't said anything yet, Mana had a hunch that her roommates didn't appreciate the glowing outline around her and the hum of rushing chakra when she focused.
The librarian didn't speak to Mana. She didn't say anything specific due to that problem but from what the magician could gather, she recognized Mana and that was exactly why the tall, old woman, who had a turtleneck for every day of the week and a broach with a different gemstone to decorate it alongside it, didn't speak to Mana.
Seeing the grumpy librarian put a stamp on her completed library card and file a new one under Mana's name reminded the young woman of how excited the scissor-wielding lunatic in charge of the Konoha archives was whenever Mana's card was filled up and he needed to start a new one. He had a pretty neat habit of storing filled-up library cards in stacks and show them off to their owners and other passionate readers and Mana's stack was beginning to gain up on the village's leading readers before all the madness went down.
Maybe it was that inhospitable atmosphere or maybe it was something else but Mana couldn't stand reading in the library. It had a reading room larger than Konoha's own rather dark, oppressive and gloomy archive but it was constantly full of people of various ages and stages of progress in their courses which just didn't let the reading absorb Mana within them like it did when she was alone or in the company of the few very apathetic roommates.
The fact that they were apathetic was why Mana liked them though. They never objected or belittled her for the baggage she carried here from Konoha nor have they even heard of her or her show, from what Mana could make it from their curious looks. One of the four young ladies even thought that Mana entered the room to provide some sort of room service when she first tumbled in with her bag.
A scream of the most curious pitch filled the hallway leading to the staircase Mana intended to take to the fourth floor. The magician lowered the book that she held in her hand and looked up, the volume and desperation, the plight of pain as well as its very repulsing pitch engrossed her curiosity more than the book or the perception training of trying not to bump into anyone or anything while reading it did. All Mana had was her chakra sensory to rely on the task of getting to where she wanted to go without embarrassing herself and half-engrossed into her reading.
"What is wrong with you!?" a colossal and, frankly, quite grotesque shape of feminine fashion of dressing bellowed, tossing her arms about in a vain attempt to hit one of the handful of cackling young men around her. Mana's gaze sharpened around a senbon sticking out of the gut of the grotesque-looking giantess. Did one of those four attack her in the middle of the hallway?
"I just wanted to slurp on some marshmallow fluff, what's wrong with that?" one of the guys taunted the jumbo-sized woman as all four of them danced around her heavy limbs as they thrashed about inflicting damage on the HQ's property by stomping the floorboards into splinters and smashing the surrounding tables until they resembled modern art pieces of randomized patterns of metal and wood sticking out of them.
Mana had seen this particular young woman. Despite her immensely memorable and unfortunate appearance, she was not the one of her group to stand out – she was in the group hanging out with the goggles-donning young man that hassled her on her way to Supreme Leader. Her cheeks had the typical facepaint of the Akimichi clan but her particular type of hulking bulk was different than the mere chubbiness of the Akimichi that Mana had seen before.
This scorned mammoth was not merely thick of limbs and body, her general facial features were not only quite masculine and rectangular but also highly unpleasant to look at, her skin was flabby and didn't appear to let her flesh fill it with a healthy plump as the other Akimichi did. Whatever problems plagued the body of this woman, they were entirely natural as none of what caused the bullying youth to swarm around her like flies around a squashed plume left to sit flat there for a couple of days on the pavement was due to any fault of her own.
It was fortunate that Mana had sashed her book.
"That wasn't very nice of you…" Mana approached the scene. The titanic kunoichi removed the senbon etched in her gut coloring her sailor-type top with a dot of red. Tears almost the necessary size to fill an adult mouth formed under the eyelids of the unfortunate Allied Ninja rookie yet not even that looked normal as her lower eyelids seemed to bloat excessively and swell up before just puking the tears out once the swelling could no longer contain it.
"I wasn't trying to be nice," the outspoken one of the group struck a confident pose. "Sekita is an ugly whale that's a sore for everyone's eyes. She should just disappear and make everyone's time here easier."
"It's no wonder you're trying to find marshmallows this way. With an attitude like that no girl with a functional brain would let you take her out for ice cream," Mana replied, feeling bitter about the whole situation. She knew that she was pretty much just courting attention toward her own bag of problems but it couldn't have been helped.
"You're… Konoha's Sorceress, right?" Sekita asked caught by surprise that Mana stepped in out of nowhere like that. While the exact sentiment that the overgrown woman felt toward the ninja magician remained a mystery, it did ring cords deep enough to make her weep in the open with even greater intensity than the shock of sudden pain did earlier.
"Konoha's Sorceress?" the outspoken bully who was about to respond with something furious and snappy took a few steps back. One of his cackling friends who had up until now remained silent grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back.
"Whatever, man, just leave this alone. She's the one that beat down Guru Ayushi… You don't want that…" he muttered with volume that only made it audible to half of the people in the hallway observing the scene unfold. Curiously enough, they had remained mostly oblivious to it while it only included the group of boys sticking senbon into the victim of their abuse and it was only when the prospect of actual conflict rose up that they suddenly got interested.
"Wow…" Sekita muttered. The floor cracked and quaked underneath her feet as she ran with excitement, following Mana after the magician tried vacating the scene with an embarrassed expression until too many people etched her features into their minds. "Would you have really fought them off for me? You do know you can't do that, right? You'd have gotten in trouble with the Regimental Commander."
"I… I don't know. I wouldn't have fought them, not for real. I've lived my entire life mastering subduing people or taking them down without killing them, I don't see someone like him being a problem," Mana tried to shrug off the attention of the abused youth as she continued to attract attention rushing after her.
"They're really mean, you know. I'm grateful that someone strong like you stood up and taught them a lesson but you can't quit halfway," Sekita tried placing her hand on Mana's shoulder to stop her and make the magician cut out the act of pretending to be reading when she was this embarrassed and rushing to get away this fast. The hand of the Akimichi woman was too massive so she ended up placing it square on Mana's back. The flesh on Sekita's hand felt soggy as if it would peel off of the oversized bone at any moment if pulled on hard enough.
"What do you mean?" Mana sashed her book again and turned to face the towering victim of abuse.
"I know who you are, the Regimental Commander Harcel told me about you when he brought me here. You're really strong. You have the strength to crush dreams of weak, delusional fools like Guru Ayushi, fools that croak about peace lie about their supposed strength by turning the other cheek instead of showing it. You have it, real power!" Sekita looked to be more fanatical about Mana than her goggle-eyed companion was a few weeks back.
"Look, I don't know who you think I am but I'm not going to fight an opponent that stood down. I'm sorry that people are mean to you. You've been dealt a bad hand and you definitely don't deserve it but your obsession with power is delusional. If you merely flip the switches and shift the roles of you and those bullies, you won't make a change. Not one that matters anyway." Mana replied looking the colossus of flabby flesh right in the eyes.
Sekita looked dumbfounded as if she couldn't believe the words that were coming out of Mana's mouth at that moment. The magician was about to advise her to keep away from that Regimental Commander that brought her here because it didn't seem like the man had her best interests in mind while something much more sinister was brewing in Sekita's mind but before she could speak up, another one from the group from earlier busted into the conversation.
It was the tall and broad-shouldered man with strawberry-blond curled hair and deep blue eyes who concealed parts of his appearance underneath a cover way back but hung out together with Sekita, the goggle-eyed fellow, the goth lady and the other burly bruiser type almost as large as him. He didn't speak, just shoved himself in between Mana and Sekita and grabbed Sekita's massive hand in between two of his, pressing it hard and pushing it underneath his cloak to press it closer to his chest.
"Yeah… I'm okay, don't worry about me…" Sekita nodded in response to the mute way in which she was being addressed by the curly-haired Allied Ninja. "Konoha's Sorceress helped me out. She showed me more about how to be strong. I've got my mind set straight, Stein, I'm going to Regimental Commander Harcel so that he sets up a sparring match between me and them."
"I don't think that's…" Mana moved out from being rudely covered up by the tall and broad back of the affectionate ally of Sekita's but Stein turned at her with a vexed expression and pressed Mana to the wall, driving his forearm in between her throat and her chest as he did so.
"That's okay, Stein, she's the one that helped me. She was talking like some weakling before but I think I get it now. She doesn't want to crush those bullies herself, she wants me to do it, she wants me to be strong enough on my own. It's what Regimental Commander Harcel meant all along. She was testing my strength, still is, someone weak who can't even crush her enemies has no right to ally themselves with Konoha's Sorceress herself, I must do this, Stein!" Sekita gently pulled her protective ally off of Mana, making the magician finally regain her full footing as opposed to almost dangling by her toes.
Stein raised his hands and grabbed Sekita by her shoulders, shaking her lightly as the two looked each other in the eyes. Mana wasn't sure what these two were all about but it looked like Sekita could make out what her mute ally was saying, it wasn't telepathy as Mana couldn't sense any sort of chakra signals coming off of Stein but it was more like Sekita could read Stein's very body language. Every twitch, every movement was like a word and they were all together words of a language that the jumbo-sized woman understood very well.
"Fine. You can fight alongside me in the match. Let us fight together. I cannot rob you of a chance to show just how strong you are too. You have things to prove as well, don't you?" Sekita agreed only for Stein to nod to her implication and press his hand to the center of her chest.
It was as if trance took the pair over. Any hints of emotion just faded from their faces as they turned around and headed toward another hallway that led to another staircase. Mana had a feeling that they were both headed to the office of their Regimental Commander but this was none of her business. There were rules which had to be followed if an Allied Ninja wished to fight another Allied Ninja and, as far as Mana was aware of it, they fully intended to follow them.
Just like always, she thought that she was doing something good, something that would result in a positive change in the community she joined for the time being but it turned out that all she did was open up for her own flesh to be peeled off and her nerves examined one by one. Sekita disgusted Mana and it was not due to her repulsive appearance at all. Her misguided clinging to power and the shallow way of displaying strength was what made Mana want to have no further part of that group's affairs.
Although, if what Sekita said was to be believed, she may just end up meeting this Regimental Commander Harcel before long. That's if he truly was as interested in Mana and her strength as Sekita described him to be. Mana ran away from Konoha to run away from hatred and disgust directed toward her by people she loved and wanted to protect for something that she did for exactly that reason but she'd have never thought in her wildest nightmare that she'd end up in a place where that same transgression would end up garnering her praise and adoration from her peers and superiors.
"Hey!" a vibrant declaration of greetings made Mana jump up just as she pulled out her book and turned around the hallway. It was just her luck to bump into the same goggles-donning young man in a colorful jumpsuit. "I've noticed you stick around the library. Do you like books? Here, I've picked something up for you!"
The young man extended a hand holding a book in it. Mana's right eye squinted but she raised her hand to pick it off of him just out of sheer curiosity. Surely this guy couldn't have been thick enough to think that just by picking up a random book and handing it to her would somehow make his stalking any less creepy, right?
Mana looked down at the cover of the old, leather-bound book with the title encrusted with golden letters and smirked. This book about stepping up one's ninja tools game and enhancing them with electronic upgrades was useless to her but Mana couldn't help but wonder about the amazement on Meiko's face if she was to ever see such a book. The magician sashed it, leaving there no place for the book she held in her hand currently but she intended to progress reading on her way in any case.
"Huh? What is it that you're reading?" the goggle-eyed youth leaned down to check on Mana's book and pinched his nose. "Ewww… That's smut…"
"It's not smut…" Mana looked away. "It's romance, actually. It's set during the Warring States period too so it will be a little useful for the history classes too later on."
"Romance, smut… It's all the same to me…" Mana's curious stalker stuck out his tongue and shook his head in disgust as if he had just gulped down some repulsive medicine. "Did you even like the book I gave you at all?"
"It's… Quite nice, actually. I don't know the first thing about craftsmanship unless it's a death-trap but it reminds me of home so… Thanks." Mana smiled and nodded.
"Oh! That's awesome! I'm Shogito!" Shogito introduced himself extending his hand out. Mana noticed that this guy went an extra stylish step to wear fingerless gloves too when she extended her hand just to avoid being rude. "The pictures from your shows, they had all those flashy devices in them, I figured you're a gearhead like me!"
"No, I'm afraid that was all my father. I've picked up a thing or two from him but I'm still hopeless with even the slightest deviation from the blueprints I've memorized. My best friend is a killer tinkerer though," Mana admitted, lowering the hand that held the romantic novel she wanted to progress through on the way to her room.
She promised her mother that she'd give this socializing and being herself thing another chance. That's she would fully buy into this new opportunity to flip a fresh new leaf and she owed her to at the very least try and do that. From the looks of it, Shogito didn't seem nearly as much of a strength-obsessed nut as the other pair of his friends.