The square outside the window was slowly becoming crowded with people. Swarming was slow for now, but it was bound to pick up soon enough. The first ones to come came as stragglers, the lone wanderers who either wanted to make it early for the graduation or who just had nothing better to do with their time but stand around and see the action building up one brick at a time before the ceremony finally kicked off.
"Mana-nee isn't going?" Tomi leaned over Mana's bed where she just laid slumped like a sack of straightened bricks. The wild girl slipped an Allied Ninja uniform on and even straightened her hair out into two proper pigtails hanging to the sides instead of the wild, spiky haystack she hauled around on her head.
"There's no use in going," Mana mumbled in return and switched her shoulder to turn to the other side. She still had told no one that she had failed the graduation test. It just sort of never came up throughout the entire four days separating the test and now. It might have been entirely on Mana, but no occasion just felt right enough to drop that bomb on everyone after denying them of it from the get-go.
"Finally, someone who understands how pointless the whole thing is…" Skaven smirked. "I've been telling everyone the whole time. There's no way they won't graduate us just 'cause we skip some stupid lump of speeches, right?"
He still had the uniform on, though. Because she switched sides, she ended up looking right at Shige-H and Endo, both of whom seemed to see right through Mana. Shige-H had an uncomfortable look of clarity in her eyes whilst Endo just looked mad as always. Mana wanted that maybe just this one he could relate to her and would just stop looking at her like she was responsible for the fact that his mentor tried to kill him in a cage hanging in an active volcano every day since his childhood. That is to say, the same way Endo looked at everyone.
"Alright, guys, go get us some neat places. This will be your first mission as Stars, graduated Allied Ninja and no longer mere recruits," Shige-H looked around the room with an encouraging fist pumping. While Tomi's glee had settled somewhat after looking right at the Stars leader, she still jumped off her bed and ran off first to follow the command. It wasn't as much that she was following what Shige-H told her to do, it was more that Shige's command had officially unchained the little wildling who was picking and pulling her stuffy collar the whole morning. "You too, Damisan, don't think you're not included in this first assignment."
Damisan's cylinder had a picture of a bright young man with a graduation uniform giving the photographer a peace sign with a smile that accurately expressed the infinite potential that the young man had for his future from this grand point on. In the few days he had, Damisan had rebuilt his arms and legs the way they used to be, armed and ready to fight alongside his Stars comrades.
"Are you sure you're going to make it to the opening ceremony, Mana? You haven't even taken your clothes out from the bag yet and I don't mean to sound ironic or douchey but you look a bit like a mess and I only say this because you usually really care about your appearance…" when Damisan's artificial limbs rubbed against one another they let a grungy, metallic clang out. The worry that Damisan expressed now seemed to threaten to pop his fingers out as they cracked with a gruesome crashing noise once in a while.
"That's not her uniform in there, you dolt," Endo growled. "That's her stuff."
"Nice going, looking that far up ahead that you've packed your things for the first mission…" Skaven smirked with an indifferent shrug as he dragged his feet to the door without a care in the world.
"Okay, I'll go help Tomi get us the places to hear the speech out then. With my looks, it'll be easy… That was a joke…" Damisan mumbled, adding the last part when it failed to brighten up the mood as the atmosphere in the room was getting heavy which was why Shige-H asked everyone out. With hefty stomps, the self-puppeteering ninja left the room and hurried to the square.
"Endo…" Shige-H turned to the samurai apprentice who sat on his bed, dressed and ready for the graduation ceremony but choosing to stare at Mana with his legs crossed. Now that Skaven and Tomi had left, Mana switched her shoulders again, turning to the wall and the window opening up the view to the slowly crowding square.
"Humph, fine. I only have things to discuss with the strongest graduates. Clearly, that only concerns you, Shige-H. I'll be expecting a word with you after the ceremony," Endo stood up and walked to the door, not even turning back to acknowledge the fact Mana existed once before he left and shut the door with considerable choler.
"So… You've failed the graduation test." Shige-H closed her eyes with a sigh. She didn't need to say anything, her self-loathing over the continuous festive mood amongst the Stars these last few days that made it so tear-jerking to hang around them soaked through her.
"Turns out my body's terrible at working when my mind's asleep. I never considered myself anything special, but I thought myself better than someone worth 0 points…" Mana snorted, still staring at the sunny skies outside.
"So, what do you plan to do from this point on?" Shige-H wondered, pressing her knees to the bed to bring her closer to Mana.
"Exactly what I promised to do. That's what the bag is for. I didn't waste any time these last four days. I knew exactly what I was going to do, so I sent a letter back home." Mana sat up and turned to one of her best and only friends these last six months.
"You're going back to Konoha? Isn't that really dangerous? The Land of Fire is bustling with criminals still looking to cash in on your head, and I don't think the Supreme Leader will spend workforce escorting someone who's definitely not going to be an asset to her." Shige-H stroke the back of her head while she thought things through.
"The Supreme Leader won't let me go. She says she wants me to stay here and give the prep courses another shot," Mana shook her head. "That's why I have to leave the place when it's busy. Someone will see or sense me leaving, but it won't matter. I don't yet owe this organization anything, I'm not worth that debt, it seems."
"Don't beat yourself over it. It's just a test. No one in the Stars will care too much if we have to work without you for a year more or so until the next round of prep courses starts and wraps up," Shige-H replied with a soft tone.
"That's fine, I don't think I'm going home. Konoha doesn't seem to have changed too much in the last half-year, they still would rather forget I ever existed." Mana smiled while shoving the rushing tears down her throat and into her warming-up gut. Somehow speaking it aloud made it easier. It didn't cut out the sadness, but it helped accept it as one's own. The easier it was for the horde of blue to take the castle, the fewer castellans would pay the price.
"Mana…" Shige-H slid off her bed and wrapped her arms around Mana's hunched back and her bare knees, pressing the magician closer to her. "Don't you dare think that you're expendable, you're not unneeded, we need you, I need you."
"No. I've spent six months rotting in prison already, six months wondering if this is the place I belong and failing spectacularly. I will not waste any more of my or anyone else's time," Mana shook her head, her black leather jacket squeezed uncomfortably as the magician dragged her nose across the coarse and stitched together patches of animal skin.
"Well, I can't let you just walk out there into the world and wander aimlessly," Shige-H said.
"That's fine. I missed stage magic a lot. I think I'll just do that for as long as it keeps me fed. My ancestors used to do this sort of stuff for a living, anyway. As long as I don't cross any villages, I should be fine," Mana stood up and grabbed hold of her backpack, flipping it over her right shoulder and turning to look behind her. She looked messy, like someone who wallowed in self-loathing and emptiness for four days straight, desperate to stay afloat and not fill her lungs with the sorrow she was drowning in.
"So, this is it? You're leaving?" Shige-H looked up with wobbly lips.
"Sorry, I ruined your graduation mood. For what it's worth, I almost remembered how life was back in the day. You guys made me feel like I wasn't a loathsome human being who should have died in prison. That's just fine, five is a way better number for a group anyway," Mana could only muster a soft smile before dragging the door open and walking through the doorway. She ignored Skaven, who seemed to hang with his back pressed to the wall.
"So, you're just going to ignore me and walk away like that?" Skaven turned to the leaving magician when she turned her back on him and turned for the nearest staircase.
"You know I'm a sensor, right? I could sense you listening in the entire time," Mana stopped but didn't turn back. "Lay off my case, it's not like you to care about things. People come, people go, right?"
"Shut up, damn it!" Skaven yelled out, frightening both the graduates making their way to the square and just a handful of Allied Ninja wandering the headquarters halls for shortcuts to various offices found throughout the hive-shaped building. The Nara clan punk pushed his back off the wall and stumbled closer to Mana, stepping in front of her and turning his eyes up to grill her. "I know I shouldn't care but… I can't let you leave. This joint, I don't know why, but I don't give a crap about it. If you're leaving, I'm leaving with."
"What the…? That's kind of out of nowhere?" Mana scratched her bed hair. Her backpack was feeling heavy on her single shoulder, so she kept bumping it up with her hips to ease the numbness instead of augmenting her body to make it feel like nothing.
"I know, I don't quite understand it myself either. I just… I can't allow you leave, I must watch over you." Skaven looked Mana straight in the eyes. "I don't feel any attachment to this place. Legitimate business, I don't care, a place to belong–I'd rather flush it down the toilet. I just have to make sure you stay here."
"I will not fight you, Skaven. I don't recommend it to you either. As long as you're still a recruit, you can't just fight another recruit, which I still am, you'll get yourself expelled." Mana groaned with her impatience radiating off of her as she bumped her backpack up with a push of her hips time and time again. What's gotten into him?
"That's what's the dumbest thing of all–I can't understand it, I can't justify it. The reasons I thought for being here, for being an Allied Ninja, just sound as vague excuses now. The only thing that makes me feel like anything at all is keeping you here and making sure you're safe," Skaven spoke up. His face begun turning pale, a few shades paler than was normal to him. The Nara wheezed twice for air, making Mana touch his shoulder and check on if he was alright.
"That's what you didn't want me to see. It's something related to the seal of silence you have. It's the memories we've tampered with," Mana muttered under her own nose, though she was close enough for Skaven to hear.
"So what? Do I just ignore the only thing that feels like it makes any sense now?" Skaven coughed out.
"I'd stop talking about it for once. Who knows what this obsession of yours is, with those memories gone, you've got a genuine chance to start a new life here. I'd take that," Mana straightened her back out and turned to walk away from her friend while he was still short of breath and while she still had the chance to do so.
"Then… Why don't you?" Skaven let a sly remark slip before Mana turned the corner and rushed down the staircase while curious eyes still followed her the entire way.
"That damned brat. Holed up in that fort of hers, buzzing with busy-bees. Taking all of them would be a tall order." An aged man in a showy suit of armor stood tall with his arms crossed over his chest as he stood atop the forehead of a crimson-furred, mint-skinned gigantic monkey with the body build appropriate to a gorilla.
The beast's eyes that would have normally shined with yellow irises and white pupils were now shiny with a completely opposite color scheme with a corrupting, jade-colored glow beaming from its eyes as a lotus-colored outline decorated its blank and emotionless stare as the beast strolled onward where the veteran assassin willed it. Atop of the forehead of the four-tailed monkey, in between the assassin's legs, stuck a paper tag with five clutching jade fingers holding it in place from each side. From the looks of it, the fingers came out from an arm that stuck out from the beast's own forehead to secure the paper tag bearing the writing of an ancient mantra: "Om Mani Padme Hum"
This was what the veteran assassin felt inclined to do, given the circumstances. With Nakotsumi Mana, the unfulfilled contract of his late daughter and her killers holed up in that accursed building, surrounded by troublesome ninja, he had to get creative. Him getting creative was a frightening thing. Then again, his entire life this was just being professional. Now it was entirely personal. As the Four-Tails advanced closer toward the Allied Ninja Headquarters building, the assassin riding it who had discovered the ancient method of enslaving the beast didn't regret the fact that he enslaved a living weapon of mass destruction merely to throw the Allied Ninja into chaos and give him a chance to act.
Excess didn't matter. The value of a Tailed Beast in the black market, the knowledge and tools to control it, none of it mattered. As long as he puts that cursed woman on his sword and presents her head to those thugs in Fire Country to absolve the dishonor on her late name as an assassin. It wasn't his own name that the elderly assassin felt worried about; he had killed just about anyone in any layer of society, done enough for multiple lifetimes, and survived far too many times to retire and become a gambler, for he had spent all his luck on his job.
Positioning the Four-Tails atop of the cliffside and commanding it to open its mouth, the assassin pointed toward the hive-shaped building on the horizon. One finger holding the paper tag had been open the whole time, the ring finger stretched back to accompany the pinky, leaving only three fingers holding the paper tag with the ancient mantra in place on the Tailed Beast's forehead. An unearthly howl filled the air as wind, enriched with chakra, rushed into the open mouth of the Four-Tails.
"Don't destroy the entire building. I need to make sure that Nakotsumi Mana, my daughter's killer, and his group are alive," the veteran assassin barked out an order to the beast. The slowly accumulating Tailed Beast Ball compressed into a bite-sized orb, which the monkey promptly swallowed and gulped down. Once it opened its mouth again, it came out as a jet of green flames that sunk the entire valley like a flood.
The Allied Ninja Headquarters became a nest of hornets that just realized that someone had spilled soaped water all over it and that they were drowning. The flames stuck to the unfortunate ninja, young and old, just as soap stuck to the wings and bodies of hornets, burning them up in an instant without offering them a chance to wash the flames away.
"Go play around a little, don't disturb me or my targets. I don't much care if you wipe them out or if they kill you," the assassin made another order. This time, the middle finger of the jade arm holding the paper tag in place opened up, loosening the hold over the beast. The killer took a valiant leap, blinking away with a Body Flicker while the howling monkey took a plunge down and began swinging its fists in a wild rampage.
A distinctive hum filled the air when the assassin swung the Sword of the Thunder God to cut down an Allied Ninja, who noticed him methodically and menacingly making his way toward the headquarters. Whether he identified the killer as the commander of the mad Tailed Beast laying waste to the Allied Ninja remained a mystery that the Allied Ninja carried off to his shallow grave. A black trail of charring crawled up the split sword that the ninja tried deflecting the assassin's flashy strike with and ended up cut in half just like its owner.
"Where are you? Nakotsumi Mana, also, Araki Endo…" the assassin grumbled to himself as he kicked down the shoddy wall and entered the building covered in bright, emerald flames that were slowly reducing it to rubble. The killer didn't much care if he ended up destroying the Allied Ninja and earning infamy across the entire world, becoming public enemy No. 1, all that mattered that the head of that magician girl laid on the Nine Tales Gang's table and his daughter, the Snipe Hawker, would have her vengeance and could rest easy.