"Konoha's Sorceress!" a voice spreading through the first-floor hallways made Mana's expression lengthen as if she had just consumed the world's most sour fruit all at once. She was not used to being sought out since she's been mostly keeping it to herself until the Allied Ninja prep courses officially started and she most definitely wasn't used to being sought by her stage name from back home.
Then came the dilemma, if she should speak up and reveal her location to be in the waiting room by the language study room where, as Mana found out, the absolute best place to put her bottom down and read something was or if she should just sit low and let the overly-eager young man yell his lungs out, get tired and go about his business.
The waiting room by the language study room was a marvelous place for it boiled in a relatively active wing of the HQ but one needed to make a turn toward the language study room and do so willingly for that was the only room located in that downward leading hallway. By the room, there were ample supersized armchairs. As if designed to host those dedicating their years in studying the arts of ancient languages that were all substituted by the universal language spoken all over the world – what most saw as a meaningless devotion.
Mana wasn't sprawled out in the armchair with a book in her hands to study ancient languages, that much was for sure. She just liked the feeling of being inside of all the buzz, being all by herself while life transpired all around her but didn't bother her either since it couldn't quite find her in the long-abandoned pathway that Mana had chosen.
"I'm here…!" Mana raised her voice, knowing she'd regret it before even fully contemplating what she'd done but Shogito's voice sounded dire. It may just have been a life or death type situation troubling him.
"Whoa! What even is this place!?" Shogito peeked inside the hallway, his eyes roamed it for a few moments, and all the furniture stored and abandoned in it before his eyes found Mana's face and settled on it. "This place is so quiet, I heard you speaking from the main hallway!"
"It's early afternoon, everyone's out training," Mana replied.
"Why aren't you?" Shogito wondered, finally stepping into the hallway entirely.
"I'm already finished," Mana moved her eyes back to the book. If she misread the danger level of Shogito's distress, her time was better-spent multi-tasking.
"I never see you in the training grounds…" Shogito scratched his head, speaking as if he was casting suspicion on Mana.
"That's because I don't train at the training grounds," Mana replied without looking up from her book. "I am capable of creating the ideal training grounds inside of my mind as I meditate."
"You silly!" Shogito laughed out as if Mana cracked a joke that was in the outright hilarious category. "You can't get stronger just by thinking about training, if you could, Sekita would be a Sannin already!"
"Chakra is unity between mind and body. Comprised of both spiritual and physical aspects. You can reach both of those elements from within your own mind if you're skilled enough," Mana snapped the book closed and sashed it as she stood up and approached the confused young man. "You can simulate an entire world inside of your mind, create a dream opponent to spar with, and even make them stronger or weaker than they actually are to ideally stimulate your growth. In many ways, meditation is superior to the real deal. You sounded distressed before."
"Ah, right!" Shogito paled out when Mana brought it up. The young man clapped his cheeks with his hands as he struggled to believe how much time he had already wasted. "Sekita and Stein are going to be fighting soon, you've gotta come with!"
"What for?" Mana scowled.
"To see it! I dunno, I'd say to cheer them on but that's kind of not what our group is all about. To be honest, Stein's the only one cheering Sekita on and he can't even talk, just murmur at best…" Shogito scratched his temple as if contemplating the fact that maybe their little group wasn't seeding the most productive example of mutual friendship and support that was necessary to make it in the cruel world around them.
"I've got no interest in that." Mana sighed and turned around to return to her resting place. "I don't agree with fighting it out with your bullies nor do I enjoy meaningless fighting. The only place for violence is to prevent immediate greater violence, even then…"
"Are you kidding me? Sekita will break if you don't show up! You're like… Her idol or something, honestly, I think she might be more into you than me at this point and I've got all of your pictures from the Avalon magazine!" Shogito waved his arms over his head as he tried to portray how much of a fan he was. "I don't think that Sekita's gonna have the spirit to fight back without you. She'll just get pummeled out there and she's gonna drag Stein down with her too."
This group was so annoying. Shogito being just an all-around enthusiastic guy that drained everyone else of any semblance of vigor by just being the most over the top person in the room was one thing. Parts of his cheer were admirable even but there was something deeply dark about Sekita. That simplistic, might-makes-right mentality and the ease at which she signed under its dotted line and did so for every person in the room.
"No, thanks…" Mana fell back down onto the armchair after hesitating for a little while. "I am not someone who takes kindly with my beliefs being misrepresented and applied to something outright awful. I've burnt myself one too many times with that and I am still busy getting the stench out of the carpet from the last time…"
"Huh? I don't think I get it but… That's… Anyway, I've gotta go! Talk to you later!" Shogito scratched his temple in bemusement before running off.
"You're not going for dinner?" one of Mana's roommates, a young woman of flowing, blond hair, and a streak of wine surrounded from both sides by strands of black hair turned around in the group of departing girls. The rest turned back, looking surprised that Mana wasn't just mingling with their group as they had thought her to be all this time.
"Can't stand the food, maybe I'll make some when I feel hungry," Mana looked up at her roommates for a moment.
"Oh, you're treating us if you do!" the colorful blonde pumped a fist while the rest of the group just chuckled.
"What's the use of learning how to cook if your future husband won't even see you once to notice you," someone in the group jested though Mana quickly shoved it aside. Cooking was more than just practice before sticking her head inside of a choking loop of marriage. It was self-improvement first and foremost, a practice of focus that held within a great array of values that were rewarded in all aspects of life, being a ninja included.
It was formulaic until one became skilled enough to step out of line and improve on those formulas, make new rules for everyone else to follow. It was personal, requiring observation, patience, and plenty of other things to be done well. Mana still hadn't forgotten the lessons that old man Aporius Noregin taught her, even if she was mostly sure that it was all just metaphors for how to be better at genjutsu.
Mana looked up and at the empty doorway, fully aware of the entrant that was about to reveal themselves. Their chakra was uneasy, suggesting that they would not be giving her an easy time. This was unfortunate as Mana avoided the canteen to avoid just the sort of bad time that she expected to have here. She did not expect to see a boulder just a tad too large to fit through the door making its appearance and denting the doorway before Stein walked in afterward, holding the supersized rock in his right hand as it weighed nothing and was stuck to his palm like wet dung to a leaf.
She should have asked him what was going on though almost immediately Mana recalled that this young man did not speak with anything intelligible for the most part and, even if he did, she'd have no idea quite on how to word her turmoil from seeing him in her room holding a boulder twice larger than her bed that was scratching against the ceiling, floor and walls of the room. Not to mention, Stein was hyperventilating. The hair that held him from snapping and smashing Mana against the wall with the boulder was thin and growing thinner with each hastily drawn breath.
"Whoa! Are you crazy!?" the voice of a tomboyish-sounding girl was not the next thing that Mana expected to hear. She turned her head for the doorway and noticed the goth girl from Shogito's group standing in the middle. "This shit-stain isn't worth getting booted out for!"
Mana's eyelids clapped a few more times in rapid succession. Her book had been lying by her side for a little while now as there was no way that anything on the printed page was more enthralling than this scene. It felt sad and vexing that this group kept on bothering her though at the very least they were entertaining with their approach to hassling her.
The goth-girl of spiky black and cyan hair shuffled through Mana's room, stepping over the beds of her roommates until she could get to the window and shove it open before turning to her friend and pointing at the open space through which only cold air came in with a demanding face.
"You're not ruining your life on my watch, out with the boulder, now!" she demanded with most emotion that Mana had seen this young lady show. It would not have demanded much of her to claim that achievement and yet she didn't just claim it, she was styling over all competition though none of the said competition could even see her from how high up her current state was compared to them.
Stein growled and grumbled but eventually, he did shove the boulder through the far too small window and let it float like a balloon as he held his hands in a hand seal position. Once the boulder had floated far enough, Stein let go of his hands, letting it slam and crash onto barren land, raising clouds of dust and quaking the ground all the way here.
The goth woman then looked at Mana as if she was looking at a dead body, a result of an accident of her own architecture, dismissing, spiteful and apathetic to the fact if the gruesome fate that she had envisioned for Mana in her own twisted mind came to pass this very moment. It was the face of a person who hated so much that they could eat a muffin while observing the object of their hatred dissolving in a vat of acid and screaming for their life.
The woman didn't say anything nor did she have to. She just turned around and walked away, Stein followed her like a lapdog though given how he couldn't even glance in Mana's direction without tearing up and scowling at her with scorn it was not because of subordination of any kind toward the practitioner of the gothic style, it was because he couldn't bear looking at Mana and facing the things she represented.
It was only a few days later that Mana realized what caused the incident in her room. Coincidentally enough, she found out while walking with her stuff to another room as her roommates weren't too fond of the scratches and scrapes all over the room, let alone the oversized hole in the window that was entirely too small to fit the boulder that it fit through.
"The worst thing about hospitalizing that lard-mass is that we can only do it once…" Mana overheard a conversation that she had stumbled into halfway. It wasn't common for boys to wander the sixth floor which was why Mana didn't expect to stumble into it.
"No way, it's good not to see her butt-ugly kisser. Hope she takes the fucking hint and vacates the spot…" the second of the group of four bullies turned to Mana who stood in front of them with her stuff filling her hands as she was in the process of looking for a room.
"You…" one of the quartet mumbled, recalling Mana as someone who stood up to them when they were handing out their abuse left and right in the hallway. "I'm glad you got smart enough to know who you shouldn't associate with. Imagine having to work with a skin-flapping cow like that on the field. She'd get you killed. Pick your friends better next time…"
"Creeps!" Mana screamed out at the top of her lungs. It was one of those situations where if one yelled out anything in general – nobody would notice, but as soon as Mana cried about fire being in the building, a wicked blaze that threatened anyone around, every lady young and old on the floor noticed. Soon enough the hallway was full of scorned women with the older ones taking charge.
"We're waiting for the nurse! My ribs are still busted from the sparring match, I need food pills!" one of the bullies wheezed but despite being justified in being on the floor, they were kicked out regardless. The general medical ninja on the first floor won't come until morning, leaving them too chicken to walk back up and take their food pills.
If Mana knew the masculine mentality, a night howling of aching ribs sure beat having to deal with a floor full of pissy women that all felt threatened by their presence. This place was beginning to get on Mana's nerves. It was dragging out the worst from her – she'd have never even thought of doing something so low and spiteful back home. She'd have just stepped through and around the group and been done with it…
"Konoha's Sorceress?" Shogito's voice was something she really didn't need to hear in her life after descending to the fifth floor and checking if any boys would have tolerated having her crashing in one of their rooms. As long as she used the women's bathroom on the sixth floor and found some older and more mature guys, they'd probably not have minded.
"I have a name, you know…" Mana groaned. Seeing anyone of Shogito's group of pals was like seeing the cross flip over before one's eyes. Nothing good could and would come out of it. Mana could only face the upcoming, most recent mudflow to sink her down under in turds.
"Yeah, I guess you do…" Shogito chuckled, rubbing the back of his head while trying to look goofy and innocent though it became clear that the young man didn't care to hear that name as he didn't ask nor did he acknowledge the fact in any other way than that. "I wanted to see you, maybe talk to you about some magazine cut-outs of tricks you've performed, I don't think they make much sense without the full context. I mean on one picture you're surrounded by explosive tags, then it's all just pigeons and everyone's happy…"
"How's Sekita doing? I heard she lost the sparring match…" Mana just flung her stuff on the floor in a messy roll and sat down onto it, dragging her hands across her hair in an attempt to mercy-kill herself by ripping her own scalp off. It didn't work, needless to say, it did make the magician's headache far worse though.
"Oh… Yeah… Sekita isn't… She's not very strong, you know…" Shogito sat down, crossing his legs and having no trouble of sitting where plenty of masculine feet trampled dirt and water all over. Then again, who was Mana to criticize when she just dropped her own rolled bedding on that same floor?
"She's an Akimichi, isn't she?" Mana wondered. Akimichi were a distinguished clan, quite capable of sustaining effective and highly physical combat even on lousy odds. She'd have bet on an Akimichi against a bunch of bullies any day of the week.
"Yeah, but… Her clansmen never taught Sekita any of their clan hijutsu. It's because of the way she looks…" Shogito rubbed the back of his head, looking genuinely down for the first time since Mana first saw him.
Mana was about to ask Shogito for more information about Sekita but then she recalled her trip here and Junichi's advice. She had to visit the kunoichi in the infirmary and ask her herself, that was the right thing to do. There was a collection of words that never failed to make Mana's life more miserable.
"She's in the infirmary, right?" Mana wondered.
"I… Wouldn't…" Shogito mumbled, draining himself of all that vigor that usually defined him. "She's crushed. Not taking it well at all. I thought that the gloom would pass after a day or two, she's lived her whole life being bullied so it's nothing new, she usually shrugs it off in an hour or two tops but… She's not dealing with it right at all, I was so, so, very wrong. Bottom line – I'm not a psychologist and do not come to me for commentary on mental health. Learned that lesson the hard way…"
"Had an incident with her boyfriend…" Mana recalled bitterly.
"Oh, yeah… He's with her at all times. I think he suspects that she'll just get gobbled up by the floor if he leaves her side. Also, don't call him her boyfriend in front of either of them – they're honestly not handling their own relationship very well, they're like a pair of children half their actual age," Shogito admitted.
"I don't think I'll ever be allowed in front of either of them," Mana sighed.
"Isn't that the truth!?" Shogito chuckled, igniting with vitality once more even though he was affirming the source of Mana's frustrations. "I don't think Sekita thinks much about you but Stein blames it all on you. Thinks you should have helped them fight, at least been there to support them or at least watch them."
"I…" Mana tried explaining how bad the Guru Ayushi callbacks were whenever she heard Sekita spout her bombastic, fascist bullcrap about strength being the source of all that was right in the world but she realized that she couldn't bring up even half of the village secrets contained within. "I'm not a good person…" she put it differently.
"So… This is a wrong time to ask how that trick with pigeons and explosive tags works?" Shogito tilted his eyebrows, hoping for a certain kind of answer.
"Sorry, I've got to find a room before I get flack for poor barracks etiquette and get sent to the Regimental Commander for it," Mana shook her head, always being so very eager to disappoint. "The explosive tags are the pigeons…"
"No way!" Shogito kept wheezing in shock as Mana walked off with her dirty bedding to look for a different place to crash. Every day new recruits made it to HQ and filled more and more rooms before the prep courses start, making her odds of settling down worse and worse.
What else was new?