Mana must have been mad. This was the end of times, this was it. After all this time that she's spent secluding herself from everyone, especially Shogito's squad of misfits, she was now the one looking for them. Beaten and a little bit broken, especially around the rib area, slowly, one stumble at a time she was looking for the gang that, honestly, Mana wasn't sure wouldn't resume the job that Sekita started once they set their paths crossed again.
Tracking them down was a child's play, that was fortunate enough. Had Mana not the ability to sense chakra, this task would have been outright impossible as she'd have long since collapsed from the constant reminder that an Akimichi with an inflated weight of a planetoid had stomped her and tossed her around more than a few times just mere hours ago.
"You shouldn't be here, walking around," a youthful yet strict-sounding voice made chills crawl up Mana's spine. This didn't sound like any of the staff watching the halls, the voice could only have belonged to one of the recruits though it was not a recruit that Mana had met before.
"Are you going to give me in?" Mana wondered, turning around. Just the notion of shifting her axis was enough to call pulsing pain through her cracked bones that made the young woman's forehead erupt in sweat, her vision blur, and the familiar taste of nausea move up and down her throat.
"Maybe. I guess it depends on why you're sneaking around at your state and where is it that you're going…" the young man had a head of spiky, black hair and hazel eyes, dressed in a mahogany-colored kimono and black hakama. There were bags over the young man's eyes and while, judging from his looks alone, he appeared young, though the patches of scarring littering the boy's face added maturity to his look.
"There is something I need to know," Mana replied. She took a few precious extra seconds before replying as her first instinct was to throw something standoffish at the young man as she was beginning to grow accustomed to but in light of recent experiences and promises she tried to remain truthful though without going into too many details. "Someone I need to talk to."
"Your sneaking skills are lousy. You'll get caught. That's to say even if I let you go off my hook," the young man shook his head. "I'm afraid I'll need some more details to know if I will."
He approached Mana and grabbed hold of her arm, the magician would have tried to resist but she figured that whatever this youth had in mind would have hurt far less than trying to fight back in her current state. The traditionally-clad youth gently guided Mana toward the nearby bathroom where no staff members would find them unless they made too much noise. He was not aware that Mana's abilities allowed her to stay aware of those men and women at all times.
"Now, I'd like to ask you this again and I'd like a more detailed answer – why did you disobey the rules and sneak out in your state?" the young man asked after moving close enough to Mana to be able to whisper and not alert any potential watchdogs walking by outside the bathrooms.
"There is a group of other recruits that I've become involved with, against my better wishes but still… There are still questions I need to ask them, I guess I just need that closure," Mana explained. Ever since the clash with Sekita concluded, Mana hadn't seen Sekita or Stein around so she wanted to know how did the disciplinary session conclude. She also wanted to speak to Joshipa about her "Curse Technique".
A sense of natural curiosity about a type of ninjutsu she hadn't heard of much, nothing at all if one excluded vague affiliations of the type of techniques to a murderous and dark cult that rose to prominence in the Tea Country. Whenever Mana encountered a type of legend or technique, she couldn't wrap her head around, it tended to keep her awake at night. Perhaps it was just a remnant of her childhood condition peeking its ugly head out but all alien concepts needed to be explained accounted for and understood.
"Fine, I'll lead you there. See to it that you don't get caught," the young man nodded with a sense of sternness to his face that made it evident that he had made up his mind about this.
"Wait… Who are you exactly? No offense but… This is a little out of the blue, you've got nothing to do with this," Mana scratched her head. "This is between me and the group in question. I don't think that my plagues are the same things that keep you awake too,"
"I'm a ninja, for one. A real one. I can make sure that you sneak past wherever we're going. Distract the obstacles if need be. I… Let's just say I also need this. Need this for me." The young man explained, dropping his façade of sternness when the matter involved his own person and whatever emotional conflicts he was going through. The more Mana snooped around this place, the more certain she became that very few recruits came here from a genuine desire to work here and fulfill their duty to the entire world instead of one country.
"Okay, as long as we stop wasting time and get moving," Mana relented. The last thing she needed to do now was to shoulder all the responsibility and challenge onto her own two shoulders. Especially so after she's been burnt by that very same thing not too long ago.
The young man didn't lie about his skill in the art of stealth. It was as if he could have approached a trained ninja from behind and walked next to their own two shoes and not have been noticed by them. Watching him from a safe distance, just flexing at the task of moving unnoticed in front of the multiple involuntary guards of the hallways was a thing of beauty. It seemed as if his scent, his figure, and his entire presence disappeared altogether. Mana felt like she might have just been tired and hurt but she could swear that it was difficult to tell the young man's chakra apart as well as he had kept it so ordinary in terms of its specificity that it both must have been a fruit of deliberate training and allowed his chakra to camouflage and almost disappear when he wanted it to.
It was not at all surprising that Shogito's squad had a room of their own. They jumped up and their chakra signatures flared up once Mana's companion entered the room first. Once the magician followed suit, their reactions turned even more predictable. Shogito exclaimed in joy whereas Joshipa and Baiso looked much less interested. Joshipa rolled her eyes whereas Baiso just settled down in his bed, losing all investment into what he saw as someone barging in his room for a fight. He'd have loved that, Mana could tell.
"Konoha's Sorceress!" Shogito yelled out as he ran up to Mana. His iron backpack containing his puppet-limbs rested on the bed now. The mechanical limbs were inside making the iron backpack a very curious sight from afar.
"Konoha's Sorceress?" the young man with a scarred face turned to Mana. "You mean… You're the thug that beat up Guru Ayushi?" his voice turned harsher and more distant. It was only natural.
"Yes though… I sort of thought that maybe you already knew that…" Mana admitted, scratching her neck.
"I failed to recognize you without your flamboyant get-up and effort to keep up your appearance," her sneaky companion hissed. He may not have been as full of it as Mana wanted to think. She had been neglecting keeping up her appearances ever since being stomped on by Sekita.
Before Mana could speak up, however, Stein stood up from the other end of the room and walked up to the magician. The silent shinobi then pressed his hand to his own chest and nodded his head with a soft look on his face. Mana blinked a few times in rapid succession in confusion at both the fact that the troublemaker was still present and set free and that he was being so tolerant of her presence in his room.
"This is his way of apologizing for what he's done," Joshipa muttered with a passive-aggressive tone. She wanted Mana to take it at that and just walk out of the room if her tone was of any indication.
"Yes, I can strangely tell…" Mana admitted. Despite the man not speaking a word for however long Mana had been aware of him, she had to relent to the simple fact that he had ways of speaking without opening his mouth and raising his voice. Ways that weren't all that complicated to translate and understand.
"Whatever this meeting is all about, I regret being a part of it now," the newly met young man stated, giving Mana a scornful look. "I'm not sure what you guys are all about but I'll have my eyes on you and if any of you step out of line again, I'll destroy you immediately."
After his bold declaration, the classically-clad youth walked out of the room, closing the door quietly and fading out into the hallway. Mana had no doubts that given his profound talent for deception, diversion, and stealth that he'd have no problem returning to his room.
"Destroy us immediately?" Shogito scratched his head.
"Aku-Soku-Zan?" Mana muttered to herself. It was a samurai principle. That and the boy's attire made the magician wonder if perhaps this youth had ties with the Iron Country though she hadn't seen a blade by his waist at any point which was an oddity if he truly was a samurai or a trainee.
"He's the new guy, isn't he? Arrived here last night…" Baiso spoke up with a raspy, growling voice while looking up to the ceiling. "I noticed him, he's got a good look on his face!"
For some reason, Mana wasn't sure if she should have chuckled or be taken aback by the rich smile on the burly man's face as he proclaimed that sentence. She was aware of what he meant. The youth's killing sense was not quite in the territory where he'd be able to form his Killing Intent just yet, but he was seriously close. He had a certain no-bullshit flare that took someone who had met someone like Red Dog Tanshu in their life and learned to handle themselves around men like that to stomach be around such people.
"Whatever, I dunno what bee stung him…" Shogito leaned back on his arms, making a nonchalant look out of wanting to look as if he didn't care about the young man at all. "Whatever his business is, he'd better stay out of our way."
"Our way?" Mana wondered, somehow she felt like Shogito had clumped her in alongside his crew of misfits.
"Oh, I'm sorry… I thought you came here to move into our room, now that Sekita is out of the Allied Ninja…" Shogito muttered, widening his eyes and working on his best innocent, begging cat face.
"No, sorry, I came here to clear a few things out, that is all." Mana shook her head. "I want to know what happened after Sekita's mutation went wild."
Stein approached the window and stared out through, looking at some unclear, blank point on the horizon. Most likely his eyes just bounced off of a rocky wall of the mountains covering the entirety of the landscape up. Mana didn't exactly need to wonder what got into him now that she knew that Sekita was out of the Allied Ninja.
"Oh, Stein got off the hook. The committee made peace with the fact that he did what he did for Sekita, that this wasn't his usual behavior. They probably would have let Sekita off the hook just this once too, maybe had her and Stein work on the poison she gobbled down and help the Allied Ninja get their supplies back in order but…" Shogito scratched his neck.
"They said that Sekita was a bad influence on Stein. That it was just courting trouble to keep them both around so one of them had to go. Those pricks, it's 'cause Sekita is a mutant, they should have gone out and said it!" Joshipa got more worked up than Mana had seen her be. Despite her apathetic façade, the goth lady truly seemed to have a bond with her misfit friends. A bond that Mana couldn't help but respect.
"It was cruel, what they did. Villages don't like mutants, they won't let Sekita come back to their midst if they ever find out. Her clan won't accept her back, they probably already didn't like her to begin with due to the way she looked and now this…" Shogito ran his hand through his head, pulling his goggles down to shroud his eyes as he rammed his back to the wall of his room and just slid down on his butt in a state of helpless collapse.
Stein turned back, clenching a fist. His eyes weren't hateful at all which Mana found welcoming for a change. They were hopeful and determined. Despite finding something new to respect the mute shinobi over, she could only wonder what might have inspired this sense of hope in the young man.
"Yeah, I get ya, she's tough. Tougher now than ever. Plus, she made that call herself. They didn't kick her out so I don't think it was 'cause she was a freakazoid at all…" Baiso husked out still staring at the ceiling. It seemed as if though the burly brawler could tell exactly what his friend was thinking without even needing to look at his cues.
"Still, what choice was that, exactly?" Joshipa looked down to the floor with a sense of longing and pity in her eyes that made light gather and dance in its reflection off of the traces of tears that began forming in the girl's eyes. "To have to choose to leave or to let someone you love leave instead…"
"Sekita chose to leave herself?" Mana muttered. She didn't truly need an answer to that question which was great because she didn't get one either. Instead, the rest just looked at her, wondering what might have gotten into the magician.
Knowing that after this experience the chubby young woman decided to leave herself instead of hurting the dream of the young man that loved her and whom she loved equally, it made Mana hopeful that maybe in the end Sekita saw the error of letting Regimental Commander Harcel's words define her attitude toward life and learned to trust people and the strength in bonds a lot more than she did before. At least Mana hoped that Sekita changed her strength-chasing, reckless ways and looked to redefine herself from the toes moving up. After all, going through her experiences alongside Sekita made Mana remember some important things and learn something new too.
"That jutsu you've used to subdue Sekita," Mana muttered and turned to Joshipa. "That Curse Technique, what was that? An advanced bloodline?"
"Nothing like that…" Joshipa dismissed the thought. This had disappointed Mana some as the magician had been working on learning to combine two of her three Elemental Affinities and create something new and sublime ever since she made it out of Jigoku prison and some time before then. "Those techniques are a gift from Lord Jashin."
"Jashin? So, you really are a Jashinist…" Mana muttered. Now it made a bit more sense why this young lady would be considered a reject by her village and the Allied Ninja too. Jashinists had a mean reputation of utter destruction and bloodbaths being left in their wake, no ninja village would like fostering a youth subscribing herself to those beliefs in their roster nor would the Allied Ninja though the latter might not have had much of a choice if they were short on potential recruits.
"Yeah, got a problem with that?" Joshipa looked up, pointing at the leather collar on her bedside table with a circle and an upside triangle inside of it decorating the front of it.
"I don't approve of your religion, your God, or what they represent but… I don't think that you're a bad person. I'm just curious to know how exactly you manage to stay on the right side of the law while maintaining the ability to utilize your Curse Techniques," Mana spoke truthfully. There was nothing in a religion that forced its followers to enact total destruction in all matters they engaged in and did not allow them to pick fights without slaughtering everyone involved or go through a long and grueling ritual of repentance for their sins that sparked anything but disdain in Mana.
"What's wrong? Don't like the world much once you've left your ivory tower?" Joshipa hissed at Mana. The goth chick curled up in her bed, collapsing into a sorry state of regret all at once. "Lord Jashin understands me, he doesn't force me to destroy and kill everything, just everything that I engage in. All I need to do is stay distant from all I don't want to destroy, that is all…"
A painful moment of silence took over the room. Mana contemplated for a second the fact that Joshipa got involved with Sekita though she didn't kill her friend, despite what her religious commandments demanded of her.
"You've lost your connection to Jashin, haven't you?" Mana wondered. Joshipa took to her knees and rolled up her shirt, turning her back to Mana and revealing entire nets and systems of lashes and cuts, then she unbuttoned her sleeves and rolled them back as well, revealing ridges many times more numerous than her age and as deep as her devotion to her religion.
"Hardly would be the first time. If I repent, Lord Jashin will understand…" Joshipa muttered in a tone filled with self-loathing. This was one of those times where Mana felt the call to do something stupid. Something that she's stopped doing because of the pain of alienation but something she needed to find again if she was to resume the path she walked before her imprisonment.
"I won't presume to know what has led you to adopt this path of your life but… You know, you could take this emptiness as a sign of something new. You could make something new for yourself, in fact, we could do it together. I've been working on a new fighting style as well after all my peers have left me behind during the last six months, maybe we can work on building something new for both of us together?" Mana suggested.
"You know, you can always just maul and slash yourself whenever you feel like it…" Shogito stood up and slipped off his goggles to look at his hurting friend with his own two eyes. "You should just give it a shot. If it doesn't work, sure – whip and carve yourself away."
"Fine," Joshipa mumbled out and fell on her side, turning to Baiso's side of the room to look away from Mana. "I'll find you when I want to train."
Stein placed his hand on Mana's shoulder and pointed at the sorry-looking bed that Sekita had left behind in their room. Mana turned to the door and felt the handful of yawning staffers parading the hallways behind that door.
"Yeah, I suppose that my odds of going back to my room successfully in this state are pretty slim…" Mana sighed in admittance. "I'll stay over but just tonight."