The cruel mark of "9/20" carved itself into Mana's chest with heated glass. Before seeing the results of the international law test Mana thought that seeing the result, whatever it was, would have been preferable to the gut-wrenching unknown but now that she had her test in hand–she wasn't too sure. The magician's glance faltered onto the paper of Damisan, who sat beside her. The tutor had decorated his sheet with a "1/20".
"It was awfully kind of him to give me a point for scribbling my name. I had to use a stamp I operated with my foot to do that…" Damisan pointed out with an energetic voice.
"It's a good thing that I did my own test," Endo leaned down from the higher row catching the moment when the entire room was abuzz to exploit the moment before the tutor finished handing back the tests that would impact the final score of the subject at the end of the prep courses. "I'd have sunk if I copied Mana again." He declared wearing his result that was just a few points short of a perfect score, like a ribbon on his chest.
"Wow, that's impressive, Endo," Mana admitted while turning away and doing her best to look supportive. She hadn't known it that morning, but with this current experience taken into consideration, she'd have preferred getting a lousy score rather than one just one point away from passing.
"Yeah, man, we're proud of you," Shige-H patted Endo on the back from right beside him. "This test was so rough, I got a 4/20 too…"
"You're lucky that your past few exams had high scores. This blunder won't do much damage to your overall score, though it'll be a visible blemish still," Skaven waved his finger like a maternal figure, embarrassing the leader of Stars for a second there.
"There were other exams?" Mana's jaw dropped.
"Yeah, four more while you were being a sleepy-head!" Tomi chuckled. The wild girl appeared to have just barely made it over the passing mark, though that was usually her modus operandi. Not a care in the world as long as she was just a pinky toe past the passing line.
"I guess my score's a 0 in all four of them." Mana sighed. "I'll make sure to write to you guys when you're out on missions."
"Mana!" Shige-H raised the volume of her voice to somewhere where the surrounding students gave her awkward and scolding stares. "Don't even joke like that! We're Stars, we're sticking together, remember? We'll all pitch in and help you pass if we need to. It's the least we can do for helping us with studies for the last couple of months."
"Though I would still recommend letting me help you out. I wouldn't trust those worthless dweebs if I were you. Tomi's an underachiever, Skaven's smart but he can't explain stuff for shit, Shige-H shows insufficient results to be a viable tutor and Damisan is an utter failure in everything he tries to do, both in studies and in general." Endo shrugged, looking mighty proud of his suggestion as if he had just donated a billion ryo to an animal shelter.
"Well, even if he could have been nicer about it, I will not be much help to you, I'm afraid. Though I should do much better in tests now that I've replaced my arm prosthetics!" Damisan pumped his steel arms from underneath his eggplant-colored cape that he hid his scarred body and replacement limbs underneath.
"You wrote the test without your arms?" Mana's eyes soured. Even with her miserable failure, Damisan's situation somehow felt way worse. He had a talent for making one's problems feel insignificant, though Mana felt horrible about even thinking it, let alone speaking it.
"Yeah, I lost my arms helping secure that medicine we used to wake you up. It's fine though, life's not gonna feel sorry for me if I'm armless either," Damisan nodded to himself, bobbing the oversized cylinder hanging over his head.
Mana wondered to herself if there was anything unfortunate going on in this world that she couldn't in one way or another track back to her and feel personally responsible for. It was because Ion nearly killed her and Mana needed that unclear medicine that nobody went into any details about that Damisan had his prosthetics busted again and couldn't perform in class.
Will she truly become so desperate that she'll ask Endo for help? Mana had never considered herself a person who put great importance on pride though just thinking about asking a cocky asshole like him for help made her wonder if she wouldn't rather just fail the prep courses and stay chained down inside of a classroom for six more months.
Considering the fact that the nerves about the test kept her biting her fingernails the whole hour and she couldn't write a thing that the tutor discussed in the lecture didn't do Mana's self-worth any favors. Just ironically Mana wondered if the Stars wouldn't have been better off just pulling the plug on her if this is the bucket of shit she'll have to plow through to return to just a speck of serenity in her day-to-day life.
"Now, I'd like for Nakotsumi Mana, Damisan, Pairte Daisyn, and Uppity-J to stay for a brief word. The rest of you can take that sweet post-exam racket somewhere else," the rugged tutor clad in natural linen and covered up with fur thick enough to serve the same function as the standard flak jacket rested in the spinning chair while he followed the rest of the students out.
"Stay strong, you guys," Shige-H clenched her fist in front of her as she passed Mana and Damisan as if this gesture could have somehow inspired strength inside of them as well. "We're rooting for you!"
"Foster this anger and disappointment and know that you won't have to feel this way again if you agree to accept my mercy," Endo smirked as he passed the two by alongside Tomi who just skipped along without a care in the world.
"I don't think that Endo meant that stuff he said for me but, thanks, guys!" Damisan nodded almost hard enough for his cylinder to tip over.
"Don't pay this too much attention, most of this mess is because you've been absent for so long. I'm sure you'll catch up eventually," Skaven waved his index and middle fingers farewell from his temple in a salute-like goodbye gesture.
The tutor looked like he hated this small meeting about as much as the four that he had to stay after class dreaded it. It wasn't hard to see why as he was an Allied Ninja and not one that Mana saw around too often. She could recall contemplating about this man's Senju legacy and how tough it was leaving Konoha with that esteemed bloodline working for him what felt like an eternity ago. Tutors changed often though, only their regular notes stayed after them for those that replaced them.
"Look, guys, I have little time for this sort of stuff, but I'm guessing you have a fine idea about why you're here." Joshi Senju, one of a few tutors for the international law course, spoke up, stroking his well-maintained brown beard.
"I'm guessing we all failed the test?" a girl of skin grey and gloomy as stone spoke up. Judging from her name and what her philology courses told her, the girl's name suggested that she was from somewhere in the Land of Water. It would have explained her dreary skin tone too. Pairte also had a notable amount of colorful make-up to help with the somber greyness of her skin that wasn't at all livened up by the dark brown locks flowing up to her waist behind her back.
"The cards say that the true reason lies deeper than that…" a dark-skinned young man who had a name quirky enough to pin him right down to hailing from Kumogakure and having made it up, as was the custom with the younger, more energetic generation of the north-western part of the world declared after pulling out an actual deck of cards and looking at a hand of a bunch of them he drew.
"The cards told you that?" Damisan's metallic finger peeked through his cape, pointing at the oddball ninja who appeared to be deep in thought and wore his pink hair like a bowl-shaped helmet over his head. There was not a hint of mockery in the voice of the self-puppeteering ninja, just curiosity.
"I'm not sure why you'd need to divine from cards to tell that when the truth lies in front of your face but you're right–it goes a bit beyond just you guys flunking the test. In fact, there have been a bunch of recruits that did a lot worse than you four. My problem with you four is that I can tell that all four of you will fail my course and therefore the prep courses." The tutor crossed his legs while shaking his head. The man didn't look at all impressed by Uppity's card reading tricks.
"Indeed, the cards spell out "Death" for me," Uppity's lips dragged down as his face lengthened a good chin's worth. What caught Mana's attention was the fact that Uppity pushed the "Death" card back into the deck and drew again several times, but still drew "Death" all over again. The size of his deck suggested that he only used one deck of tarot cards for his divination shenanigans. Even as she stood before the tutor wearing a stage magician's uniform and holstering a bunch of her own outlandish tools all over her body, Mana couldn't help but label this guy a weirdo. Even by her lax standards.
"Well, who knows, maybe those cards of yours don't mean squat. I let you use them in the test, didn't I?" Joshi Senju smirked, loving every moment of poking fun at his wackier students. "In any case, I don't want to have an earful from the Supreme Leader about flunking too many people or whatever. I've got better things to do. That's why I'm gonna give two of you four a chance by giving you an extra test right now. The grade you get here is 20/20 or 0/20."
"The cards say that…" Uppity was about to say something before the tutor interrupted him by standing back up and nuzzling his deck back to his chest.
"You don't need to draw your cards, kid, it's pass or fail. As if in pass my course if you pass the upcoming test and the final exam or seal your failure of the course in stone." Joshi groaned, pushing his greasy, long hair back and nearly freeing the bun of hair that he had hanging on the back of his scalp. "I'm not asking, for the record. You're doing this right now."
"That's fine by me, it's not like we can fail the course we've already failed even more." Pairte shook her head, regretting the choices that led her down the path of having to rely on her success in a single test that would decide if she stayed in prep courses for six more months.
"Technically, you still can. I like where your head's at though, kid." Joshi nodded with a smirk. "I don't really have the time or the patience to check more tests, so I'm just going to have you four duking it out outside."
"The card I drew is Judgment–I believe that our skills are about to be put to the test and it will decide our fates from this point on," Uppity-J proclaimed after showing the card depicting a horned woman in wide, oriental dress descending from the skies with a trumpet in hand.
"I disagree with those terms," Pairte objected. "It's no secret that Mana and Damisan are part of the same student group. Obviously, they know how to work together meanwhile I'm stuck with that imbecile. Plus, how the heck is a pair spar going to help us learn international law?"
"There are multiple legal systems around the world that accept trial by combat as a viable legal argument. The Sun Disc arena of Agbarah comes to mind," Mana was quick to jump at an opportunity to save her an unnecessary extra six months of roasting inside of a classroom. As much as she thought she could have used some more time sharpening her skills in the local training facilities, it was just a fact that she could have done some good out there as well. Plus, it's not like she won't have the chance to train in the headquarters in between assignments.
"There you go," Joshi shrugged, "Consider the theme of this test–trial by combat."
"I've drawn a High Priestess, I'm not sure what that means, but she looks pretty nice so it has to mean great things!" Uppity-J nodded to himself after shuffling his deck and pumping his hands. "The cards suggest that fortune is on our side, partner."
"Please tell me you steel-tip your cards like Mana does, at the very least," Pairte groaned, dragged her hand across her face and smearing her exotic make-up.
"That would be impractical, I rely on cards in every aspect of my life. I'd cut myself far too often drawing my fortunes that way," Uppity-J extended his hand, casting some judgment of his own with such a bold gesture.
"We're going to be fighting here!?" Damisan turned around with his entire body. Mana looked at him, wondering if he could see in such dim lighting at all underneath that cylinder. The self-puppeteering ninja was quite adamant about not letting people see his face to where he slept with that thing and usually only touched it to correct its position or to switch out the poster he nailed to its front.
"Correct. I've thought a little about what Pairte said I thought I'd make it a bit more interesting by having you schmucks fight it out in an archive room. There are archived legal documents all around you, if you damage the cases containing all those important scrolls–you'll screw yourselves over because nobody in your course will prepare for the upcoming tests adequately." Joshi pointed out with a smirk, feeling incredibly clever about himself.
"How is that supposed to make things any fairer?" Pairte objected. "We're supposed to hold back too!"
"Oh, come on!" Damisan chuckled to himself, "If you can't beat an impaired shinobi who can't even use half his deadly tools inside of his prosthetics–you deserve to train harder before taking on a proper assignment."
Mana looked at her friend with a soft pair of eyes. She wished that she had half of that positive energy to speak so openly about her shortcomings. It was as if Damisan had absolutely no complexes about his appearance and impairment, although he constantly kept most of his body tucked away and hidden, suggesting otherwise. Mana had never thought of her fellow Stars ally as a liar, though, so this contrast struck her as a bit odd.
"That's just fine," Mana flexed her hands, making steel-tipped cards appear and disappear from her sleeves at will. "I can restrain myself a bit if I have to."
"Really? But you're always fighting so flashy, Mana! Then again, that's so you–being able to improvise and adapt on the fly," Damisan nodded, turning somewhere to the other side to where Mana was standing. This might not have inspired much courage, but Mana still had the mental crutch of Uppity being a shinobi of questionable combat potential as well.
"Are you guys good to go then? I've sort of got places to be…" Joshi scanned the students from a neutral position a few steps away from them.
Uppity moved his arms aside, revealing his hands inside of his sleeves as a deck of cards floated before him. It was doubtful that Mana would have needed her chakra sensory to tell that he was using Wind Release chakra to maintain his deck of cards afloat before him, shuffled and drew from that deck with minimal physical intervention too. Still, to cast ninjutsu without speaking a word or weaving hand seals–this was a jutsu that came as easy to Uppity as flicking his fingers.
"The card I drew is "World"! It describes the world of potential that our impromptu team-up has," Uppity-J proclaimed, turning to Pairte.
"That's not even what that card means in fortunetelling, you dumbass!" Pairte growled. "Hey, Joshi-sensei said that he needs two winners. It doesn't have to be me and turd-mancer over here. We can still team up and leave them in the dust, you know."
"Sorry, having a member stuck in a classroom would muck things up for us Stars," Mana shook her head. She decided not to voice her disgust of choosing to betray her friend and working alongside a ninja from the Land of Water, the bunch that crippled her father, just to guarantee her own success in the test.
"Phew, you had me worried there for a sec, Mana," Damisan laughed out to himself, placing his mechanical arm prosthetics over his hips. "Just to let you in on a little secret, my eyesight isn't really optimal in this gloomy archive room, so I thought you'd go for the simple choice to work against me and Uppity there."
"Don't call me Uppity without my chosen name, we're not that close!" Uppity-J objected. "For this transgression, cards spell out "The Magician" for you."
"You've no idea what that means, do you?" Pairte shook her head and sighed, realizing that she'll have to make do with this joker working alongside her.
"Of course, I do–it's reversed, so it means that Mana made a poor decision sticking with this fool," Uppity-J extended his arms, looming over his deck of cards as they shuffled before him. For a snap, Mana's focus sharpened on the chakra signature emanating from every card in the deck. Uppity-J might not have been the oaf he made himself out to be in the beginning, after all. There was still a trick to his fighting style that needed to be ascertained before Mana could build up a plan of action.
"From your point of view, the magician card is reversed, but it's not from our side. The magician means exciting new opportunities when it's the right side up and I'm willing to bet on that read," Mana smirked, turning to Damisan even if deep down she knew that her goofy partner couldn't quite make her out in the shade.
It was an attempt to psyche Uppity-J out by speaking rubbish about his craft and it appeared to have worked as Uppity-J waved his hands in front of him, running through his cards like a rushing wave before him. He was about to attack, of that there could have been no doubts.