Mana's mind just wasn't into it. Even when Garikan stood perfectly still and let Mana mold and channel her chakra her attempts to toy with his time perception just didn't stick. The magician might have rolled back on most of the progress she made training with Yushijin. And here Mana thought that she might have been close enough to something that she'd have possibly relied on it working in a pinch to give it a shot. This sparring session served as a cruel revelation that she still needed to keep it in the "to be polished later" bag and away from public view.
"Don't beat yourself over it, I… I think I felt the time extending somewhat…" Garikan scratched the side of his neck.
"Thanks…" Mana belched out. It only made her feel worse knowing that she made her sparring partner so bored with her attempts to stop time for him that she actually made him feel like time had extended to an eternity without any aid from genjutsu.
"Hey, are you seriously okay with this? Like… We don't want any part of your crew. Heck, we'd probably join it, either one of us," one of Garikan's friends approached the pair when they seemed like they had finished their training.
"Yeah, don't worry about it. Even if they had the right to tell me what to do and when they'd have to remember that I exist for that to happen," Mana let out a weary growl as she rubbed her tired eyes. She probably didn't mean to sound this mean though maybe she did, it was just that the better, more rational part of her obstructed the path for those words to come out.
"Did you get in a squabble with your crew or something?" another one of Garikan's friends got curious. "It would explain why Ion is rubbing backs with the star crew of the prep course."
"Yeah, sorry to break it to you, but if you're looking for the opening of my spot on the crew, you might be short out of luck. No problem, there's still an opening for Skaven. Maybe you can fit in there for the time being," Mana waved her hand in dismissal as she bowed in gratitude for the training session when she thought she needed it and began walking away from the gym.
Even the old man with a shaggy winter hat from the staff quarters began yawning watching Mana fail at time perception manipulation. That was always a good sign that it was time to wrap things up and brush up on something that might not have been working before trying whatever this was again.
"I didn't expect to see you walking around by your lonesome," oddly enough it was Skaven who approached Mana this time after history class, where usually it was the other way around with Shige's crew having to make moves on him.
"Yeah, I've just been feeling like I want to be with myself this past couple of days, you know?" Mana shrugged. Despite getting solid six hours of sleep, she still felt like Garikan's illusion hadn't let go of her and she's been just snoozing her way past through her life, leaping through time at random intervals.
"Trust me, I might be the only guy in this entire building who knows what's that like," Skaven replied.
Now Mana was sure she was seeing things – Skaven couldn't have actually been smiling right now. It was a creepy and rather weird-looking extension of violet-colored lips that showed off just how unnatural this state was to the young man's face but Mana felt sure like he was actually smiling at her. Though maybe it was just her mind playing tricks, maybe why it looked so weird that Mana's head just couldn't wrap itself around how Skaven would even look smiling?
"So, you just walked up to me to ask how come I was all alone?" Mana wondered. Skaven's breathing rate picked up, his eyes began shifting around. Was he getting angry, feeling confused, or embarrassed? Honestly, Mana couldn't tell. Being able to probe people's heads and read into the complex symbolism of their mental tales sort of robbed one of their natural perception of reading people. It began feeling as if though the only time Mana could understand what people were saying or doing was when they attacked her.
Ironic for one who sought to become a great hero, a Sannin even, someone to beacon the ideals of peace to only understand people when they were violent.
"Yeah… Whatever, just figured this was some sort of new, elaborate plan to recruit me into your band of jerks…" Skaven shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets and creeping away, looking in both directions as if he expected to be stalked back to the dorm floor.
"Way to show initiative, Mana!" Shige-H patted the magician on the shoulder having approached her from behind. The woman was standing back and observing with supreme anticipation as to how Mana would settle this opportunity and she must have seen some solid dents in the wall that Skaven's erected around himself or else she wouldn't be this cheerful.
"I still don't understand why we need that jerkoff," Endo grumbled. "They've already been calling us The Stars, in the back row. It's not like our gang needs more members. The more losers we let in, the fewer people will think of us and more bones we'll have to break to get our rep back."
"Why are you even here?" Mana squinted at Endo with a death-inducing glare. "Do you need my history notes?"
"Not at all," Endo crossed his arms, pouting his lips. "Ion promised me to give hers, that way I won't need to reduce myself to trash by having to ask you for help."
"Good for you," Mana turned and walked away. Seeing the smirk on Shige-H's face when she looked around and interacted with all of the stupefied prep course recruits made something boil deep down. Maybe it was the realization at how clueless her fearless leader was, so much so that she couldn't see her gang, her Stars falling apart right in front of her?
Though it just as likely might have been that Mana felt jealous of Shige-H. After all, the charismatic woman interacted with people she barely knew and had only seen once or twice with the corner of her eye in class that were bedazzled by her intelligence and splendor just the way Mana used to be able to do as a child. It was either that Shige-H was incompetent and a lousy leader to trust or that Mana was a broken wreck that needed immediate mending that was the problem and it was so much easier to believe in the first option.
The first training grounds on the very edge of the mountainous wasteland that lied further ahead was empty. There were some noises coming from behind a few rocky pillars covered with moss and needle-thin trees that cemented the impression that Tomi was here playing with one of her summoned friends. Mana nodded her head, letting her hat roll off her arm into the grip of her hand while her left slipped inside and pulled out a pair of rabbits by their ears.
"Yo! Been a long time, leader!" Usuvilme saluted Mana with a hand full of knives. The knife-wielding rabbit had gained some considerable weight in the time that the two hadn't seen each other as evidenced by a round belly hanging down from his front, making it difficult to believe that Usuvilme could dance around the battlefield with the same amount of grace as he used to.
"Is dis about da child play again, hero?" Usukari ran her paw over her ears to straighten them out after Mana's unscrupulous manner of pulling the pair out. "Because I am a rather humble rabbit but I won't to ye an' say dat it don't sting my pride bein' reduced ta a regular Teddy…"
"Sorry, guys, I promised Tomi…" Mana clapped her hands together and winked with a desperate plight. She did, after all, save the rabbits' entire society and she took care of their Usujitsa problem for them, that had to count for something on the negotiation table even if Mana didn't like to fling either of those cards around.
"You kidding me, that kid again!?" Usuvilme put up his dukes that clenched four knives in each hand, preparing to resist any and all attempts to take him in alive with deadly prejudice.
"It's only because you're da only hero dat us rabbits got, lassie," Usukari shook her head, planting her paw over her face.
"I guess that brat ain't half too bad. She seems to have gotten along with each and every species of ninja animals in existence and yet she didn't befriend the ninja mongooses… I've no shame in drinking with anyone like that even if it is tea that I'm drinking," Usuvilme nodded to himself, putting his hands behind his back and stuffing his knives inside of his fluffy tail where they proceeded to hang attached to the funky furball as if magnetically attached to the fuzz.
And yet when Mana turned the corner, she saw that Tomi was indeed sitting by a makeshift log meant for mid-training snacks with tea and oat cookies but she wasn't eating it alone. Beside a circle of a red ninja elephant, a two-headed ninja snake, a pair of ninja elk, a ninja lion and a pair of ninja camels, a ninja zebra and a pair of ninja apes sat Ion alongside a man-sized bird of majestic, glistening, black feathers and a white head. Ion's partner had the sharp hunter's look to its eyes that befitted a ninja hawk. The moment that Mana stepped out into the clear, it seemed particularly interested in the pair of rabbits accompanying Mana.
Usuvilme, being the knife-happy rabbit that he was, pulled his knives out and put up his dukes, ready to punch the oversized hawk bloody or pin its wings to the picnic table from the distance for daring to look at him, not unlike one stared at a muffin.
"Oh, sorry," Mana shook her hands out in front of her with a slight flush of warmth rushing to her cheeks. "I figured that you were alone and thought I'd make good on my promise I made yesterday…"
"Kari!" Tomi jumped up. "How's my favorite bunny doing!?" the little brat leaped out of the circle of well-behaved regular ninja animal zoo and dashed across the distance between the two, rushing at Usukari with a shoulder-led tackle package containing hugs and cuddles. Usukari looked up to Mana with a displeased expression at being cuddled and mushed like this but closed her eyes and submitted to it eventually.
"It's okay," Tomi turned to Mana. "Shige-nee explained that you're busy. I didn't quite get it at first, I mean, Ion is also pretty smart like you, she's doing great in class and she always hangs out with me but if Shige-nee says so, she must be right. You don't have to be here, you can go train or read or whatever. I won't be mad."
Usuvilme stuck a knife under Mana's skirt, putting the point of it by the back of her thigh as he turned to her with a crazed expression that he tried passing off as a lovely, child-friendly smile though he couldn't have come off as anything other than an absolute maniac.
"Don't… You dare… Leave… Me…" he muttered half-whispering, half hissing in a manner that seemed to pique the interest of the two-headed ninja snake.
"My, my, it's so great that you've come, Mana-san. I don't think we ever got to hang out yet so you must stay… I don't think there's place for everyone though…" Ion pressed her violet nail to her scarlet lips as she made a distressed expression on her face. The magician didn't need to be as good at reading people as Kiyomi was – she could tell that this young woman was the real snake by the table, or else she'd not have needed to act out and fake her emotions quite this clearly.
"That's okay, it does seem like you only have one free spot at the table so I'll leave Kari-chan here," Mana lowered the beak of her hat down to obstruct her eyes and covered up her face with the hand holding her hat as she turned away.
"Mana, I beg ye ta reconsider," Usukari muttered to the magician but by then Mana had backtracked her way far enough for her to claim plausible deniability of having heard the rabbit's plight for mercy.
"It's okay, Kari, this time I made special, homemade cookies that won't kill you if you eat them!" Tomi shrieked out in childish glee as she wrapped her stubby jungle-girl arms around the frozen in mortal peril rabbit. "I don't know many ninja rabbits so how about we become best friends?"
"We may as well, after all, da hero has become da betrayer…" Usukari cried out, submitting herself to her fate.
Every breakthrough that Mana has made throughout her ninja career in the field of illusions should have made her mastering time perception manipulation a simple matter. She had learned the primal method of achieving illusions through an assault toward the brain centers of the opponent early in her career and it elevated her genjutsu game, multiple leagues ahead of her age category. By now she was meant to be a master of the craft, at least her village deemed it to be so. And yet…
This one category of techniques had eluded her attention. It was true that the technique that Mana was pursuing – a combination of time perception manipulation to an extreme degree in combination with an auditory tick to activate it, making this jutsu not require any hand seals to be made, merely the right words to be uttered and for an opponent to hear those words, would have classified the jutsu as an S-Rank illusion in difficulty but she's been stumped by this one technique for years now.
Jigoku truly did shuffle her cards and Mana didn't like the new hand that she drew.
The chakra emanating from her body had elevated her above the moist rocky formation that she sat on and didn't let her bottom to form any bruises from hours upon hours spent on meditation and reflection upon the training session she had last night with Garikan and his crew. Maybe Skaven had a point after all? Feeling replaced and lonely had its perks, now all that she had to blame and all that she had to work on was herself. Maybe the Stars were better off without her, maybe Tomi was right, maybe Mana had just been making excuses, lying to herself and the Stars?
After all, Ion was smart, she could follow orders well enough to help Damisan craft a functional pair of prosthetic limbs, she seemed pretty tight with Shige-H and more than just a fangirl compared to the bulk that approached the ex-Kumogakure ninja every noon after class. Even Endo, of all people, felt comfortable around that woman. He had never offended her or tried to kill her even once which Mana thought to be so impossible that she couldn't utterly dismiss the idea that the two of them were in cahoots just to get rid of Mana.
It didn't make sense, Endo joined the Stars solely because of how useful he saw Mana being. He would have had no reason for getting rid of her now. Even if Ion was in his mind, a replacement to the use Mana served, he'd have rather left the Stars and all of the baggage contained therein.
Atop of a limestone plateau, a woman in black, leather military boots reaching her knees, a black, pleated skirt, and a military-themed uniform made out of a white, sleeveless shirt and a red tie sat down on one knee. The woman moved her hand back in a forceful motion to push her long, black coat from obstructing her aim. She tilted the beak of her white naval-style hat and moved a scroll off of her back.
Ion knew that Mana was a sensor. The magician would have been capable of tracking Ion's chakra seeing how she had felt it once before in Damisan's room. It was a careless mistake on Ion's part to forget to use her chakra signature suppression jutsu back then, a mistake that the assassin made sure not to repeat today when the magician crept up on Tomi.
Still, suppressing one's chakra signature meant that she couldn't use any jutsu or augment one's abilities without canceling it and being recognized. The only time when Ion would feel safe using her jutsu was when she reached the approximate range of twelve kilometers from the magician's current whereabouts. Now that Ion had locked her sights on the magician, she'd be able to measure just the right angle to hit her from, be it twelve or twelve thousand kilometers away.
The Nine Tales gang was right to hire her, the Snipe Hawker. Whatever the bounty on this young woman's head was, those guys must have felt it was well worth paying an international assassin capable of infiltrating the Allied Ninja and working her target until she was prime and conditioned for the little push needed to make her dead. The Nine Tales insisted on the whole body being brought to them, that meant minimal injuries, she needed to be identifiable from just her corpse, and moving a body bag through the border would be troublesome. Even carrying a stiffer inside of a scroll was dangerous these days, Kumogakure was especially paranoid about weapons of mass destruction being smuggled inside whether it be of Konoha's making or any of the other countries looking to challenge their position as the No. 1 military force in the world.
Ion moved slowly but methodically, she couldn't use any traces of chakra or else she'd be recognized. This Nine Tales gang seemed to blab something about their own members taking shots at this particular girly and failing already. To be fair, now that Ion put the prep work needed in taking her out, scoped out her abilities in this very handy war game and her intelligence during the classes, it wasn't hard to see why. The crew, her trusty Stars, needed to go too. Too many wildcards amongst them. Still, making Mana feel lonely amongst a circle of unsuspecting friends wasn't too hard when the chick was already a mess of her own category.
"This will be mercy killing, sheesh…" the Snipe Hawker muttered to herself. Despite being well over the ten-kilometer mark that she estimated Mana's sensory to stumble at, the assassin still whispered as she feared that something might have gone wrong. Such was her current mark – lulling her opponents into a false sense of security was her game the whole time.
It seemed as if only when Ion takes the shot and punches a hole through the Konoha Sorceress' chest the size of a homing ninja hawk missile and hands the body back to the Nine Tales gang, only when she feels the pleasant clang of ryo in a briefcase that she can truly stop expecting flower petals or rabbits shuffling behind her and the magician stuffing an explosive card down her throat from behind.
"No shaking," Ion shivered, extending the scroll on the flat plateau and raising a cloud of smoke that would have been instantly picked up on had it not been for a late time of evening and the immense distance between her and her mark. Ion wasn't like her father, she didn't like to make it close and personal or into a competition, she didn't like confirming her kills or seeing life leaving their bodies. It was best when her marks died without her knowledge, the less she had to look at them, the fewer things to go wrong, the better.
This was her first big-time mark like this. The payday wasn't nearly as big as the combined bounty on this lady's head was on the black market – rumors say – the combination of her Bingo Book bounty as a special jounin of Konohagakure and an Allied Ninja as well as a whole ton of whipped cream thanks to the ire of the Diamond Hand syndicate. A two-pronged jackpot, so to speak. Still, the reputation of this kill would make her stand out more than her father's little girl on the black market and that was all that Ion had ever wanted.
Once the smoke cleared, a supersized mountain of metal with a chest-cavity-wide tube sticking out in front appeared from the scroll while Ion crawled up her supersized ninja tool and placed her arm into the other end of the cannon, the loading compartment. The needle inside pricked her thumb automatically, forcing Ion to merely mutter the words "Summoning Jutsu!" and sit through a show of smoke and loud popping noises for her Snipe Howitzer to be locked and loaded.
The angle needed to be just right, else she'd be shooting one of her ninja hawks to hit a flat wall or some background decoration, down a tree or, the worst-case scenario – blast a hole into the Allied Ninja HQ itself. Screw that, Ion was no amateur. She was the only assassin capable of handling angles like they were crackers and even an inopportune miss could provide her with plausible deniability if she plays her retreat cards just right.
What Ion wanted the least of all was to blow an arm or a shoulder off and leave Mana bleeding out and grunting but alive. The Snipe Hawker licked the tip of her tongue and raised her arm over her head outside of her mechanical hawk-shooting contraption to get a feel of the wind again just in case.
The magician girl should have trusted her friends more and cared about the people she ended up pissing off. Ion soothed and cleared her mind, realizing that none of this was her fault. This would be a perfect, clean kill, all of this chaff in her head was just meaningless trivialities. Her father never showed any hesitation or worry before, during or after a hit. It must have been his experience talking.
This was enough of playing with fire. The cooking needed to start at some point. Nakotsumi Mana had to die.