"You're… Leaving?" Mana babbled out with no obvious clue of how to react to Damisan's out of nowhere proclamation. "Why?"
"There's something I still need to do and I just don't think that the Allied Ninja will ever help me accomplish that. I must kill Fennec and dismantle his group," Damisan replied.
"It feels like you've been thinking of this for a while now. Why the suddenness?" the entire right side of Mana's face twitched and stiffened in disapproval of Damisan's choice.
"True. Ever since Fennec's group took over my family's old settlement, I've labeled him my enemy, and labels such as these don't come and go easily to us Land of Wind folks," Damisan looked up at the evening sky. The strictness and bitterness in his look contrasted the sublime beauty of the sky's turquoise shade and the stringy grape clouds sneaking overhead. "After what he did to me, I felt broken. As good as dead and scavenged for what few crumbs of a life I could scrounge up. Now, with my strength and body back, I've still got a duty to liberate my settlement. A duty to my people and the idea of justice itself."
"Those same people didn't do a damn thing to prevent your abuse and disfigurement. Some of them even cheered," Mana wrapped herself in the cradle of her own hands, looking down with a longing look that brought her back to her own tribunal and the social stigma that followed her release. "Circumstances have gifted you with a second chance at life and you're willing to risk either throwing it away or going down the same hole again? For what? Vengeance? Thirst for violence?"
"You know, when Fennec and his crew… Well, you know… It felt like there was no justice in this world. A just world wouldn't allow someone trying to do the right thing to be labeled a hero and a criminal and to be "punished" like that. It wouldn't allow for people to accept this sick perversion of the natural order as their new reality. I've learned from meeting all of you that justice exists. It exists here…" Damisan tapped the shaved side of his head before placing his hand on his chest. "And here. Justice is an idea, and it's up to the just to act upon that idea and bring justice to the world. I will bring justice back to my settlement and the Land of Wind and I'll include everyone in that just world."
Mana opened her mouth to argue but stopped, turning away as she choked up and felt tears building up. Far, far away on the horizon, the black shape of a kettle with a silver plaque was rearing its head–the front of the train that they'd take all the way to the Land of Lightning.
Did she truly disagree with Damisan's decision? Would she be acting in any different way? Damisan felt broken and powerless, abandoned and chewed up by the cruel world he inhabited, similar to Mana, which was how he found his way to the Allied Ninja and on the Stars. Now, with his old body back and both his body and soul beginning to heal, he felt powerful again. The first thing Mana did when she felt like lowering the walls of thorns and letting people in again was start performing again. Act upon the responsibility she felt as someone capable of entertaining people to do just that. This was exactly what Damisan was doing too.
Once the train stopped by the station and the staircase lowered to lead the passengers onto the train, the conductor followed the group of workers accompanied by a handful of ninja that would take up most of the train with a curious look. This elderly man had been making this trip every day, and yet this troupe proved to be an amusing distraction to the routine.
"Damisan is planning to leave the Stars," Mana spouted with her arms crossed and eyes closed once the train set off and was well within its pleasant roll over the grassland hills of the Land of Fire. "He thinks of heading back home and taking on Fennec again."
"Heh? Looking to prove who's the best in all the land, huh? I can respect that…" Endo smirked and put his fist up for an imaginary fist bump. "As long as you know that the absolute best is right here…" the swordsman pointed his thumb at himself while tapping his feet that rested raised over the seat in front of him and forced the workers sitting there to lean aside or face constant kicks to the backs of their heads.
"I couldn't care less about being the best. I just wish to free my home and make things right by slaying that monster," Damisan gave Endo a serious look that then transitioned to a friendly grimace as the two seemed to share a quiet moment flashing through their shaky relationship and the rough times they had together. Just like that–Endo was ready to let his punching bag go. Mana had wondered if he, of all people, would be more resistant to the idea.
"I must say…" Shige-H crossed her arms, mirroring Mana's concerned body language at first. "I had expected you to make your leave after you rebuild at least a fraction of your arsenal. Right now, your roster of puppets is barren. I was hoping you'd use us to get more prepared."
"You're okay with letting him go?" Mana stood up, baffled by Shige's reaction.
"I always meant the Stars to be a group for skilled yet lost and broken individuals. With Damisan back in his body, I had suspected that he would either recover from what led him to us in the first place or just learn to act like he's past it," Shige-H shrugged. "As I've said, I had hoped that Damisan's recovery would take a little more time. That maybe he would stay with us for a little while longer and rebuild his arsenal, but if not–that's just how things are."
"You would have gotten into a fistfight with me to keep me from leaving back then!" Mana objected.
"Because you're not healed yet," Shige-H shrugged. "Your reaction to Damisan's decision is a clear indication of that."
Mana settled down and crossed her arms, blowing her cheeks out and turning to the window. She tried just about every method she would have accepted to keep Damisan from making the biggest mistake in his life. The last thing she'd have ever done was physically assault him to keep him from leaving and yet his stubbornness left only that option available.
Was there even a Stars left at this point?
"Ugh… What the actual fuck is this mission report even?" the Supreme Leader bent down to flip through the pages of what looked like an entire tome. One that Mana and Shige-H had worked on the entirety of last night to make sure that their mission report was consistent with the new reality they shaped. Not a mention of alternate universes or timelines.
"Things got complicated, Supreme Leader," Shige-H pointed out after tilting her face while still on one knee. "The workers have been kidnapped by ninja from the Moon so we had to figure out how to get there and rescue them."
"And it appears that slacker Skaven has perished… Were those Moon ninja that frightening? Could we perhaps make them an asset for the Allied Ninja?" Regimental Commander Harcel's eyes gleamed at the prospect of witnessing a new level of strength. His obsession suggested that he would have wanted to see strength regardless of if it worked for the Allied Ninja or against them.
"Skaven was a member of the Konoha Black Ops this entire time," Shige-H spoiled a significant section of their mission report. It wasn't entirely truthful, as Skaven wasn't part of the ANBU. He was a member of an organization the ANBU would have seen as their version of ANBU. What the kappa feared of being dragged into the depths by while they were prowling on unruly children. "The Sky Clan wish to have nothing to do with any organizations or conflicts occurring on Earth."
"Seriously? Fuck!" the Supreme Leader slammed her hand down onto the table and dragged her fingernails across it so roughly it seemed for a second she'd carve ridges into the old wood. "How the fuck did that happen? What scum-fuck imbecile vouched for that ass-hat?"
"I'm going to take a wild guess that they're probably dead," one of the new Regimental Commanders, a woman with leather reaching up to her knees and military-style knee pads and white cargo pants, a sleeveless black top and black face paint that was obscured by her short, white hair falling over half of it proclaimed with a decent amount of snark in her remark. She wasn't wrong though–if it were a Regimental Commander, an instructor, or some established Allied Ninja, odds were that they died during the Four-Tails' rampage.
"I'll assume that scoundrel has been taken care of then?" the new southern region Regimental Commander, a man with bright and flashy colors and hefty plating of some silver alloy armor where most ninja adorned flak jackets proclaimed, stroking his full, brown beard. Even if he looked like the most marketable and swoon-inducing of the Allied Ninja, Mana would've paid everything she made in Konoha from her shows to get to punch this guy in the mouth.
"Skaven was not acting against the interests of the Allied Ninja," Mana spoke up instead of assaulting a superior officer in the Allied Ninja as she daydreamed. "His mission in the Allied Ninja was to serve as a guard that saw over my best interests for however long he served here. You could say it was Konoha's way of thanking me for my time serving there after I left. We've settled that him staying in Konoha and not coming back with us was for the best."
"Hmm… Maybe it's for the best that we avoided picking a fight with the Konoha ANBU by killing one of their members. They were kind enough to provide us with the supplies needed for our reconstruction and they helped get them here," the eastern Regimental Commander, a young and frail-looking man in a zip-up bee Kigurumi pointed out while shuffling his hand inside of a honey jar. From the sound of it, he was merely sifting through paper tags in there.
"Well, one thing's for sure–you took your sweet fucking time jerking off on that mission. That's not what I expected from your group when you told me you're ready for a schedule like nobody's business, Shige-H!" Supreme Commander slammed her palm over a tome on her table before sighing and rubbing her temples. "Fine, our meeting's fucked so all of you degenerates can fuck right off and let the brats finish their debriefing."
The so-called "degenerates" comprising the new quartet of Regimental Commanders walked out from the Supreme Commander's command tent, leaving the Stars to conclude their debriefing before heading straight back to their tent for some well-deserved rest. It may have been the last time that they had such a solid line-up to occupy said tent. Skaven was already gone and soon enough, so will Damisan be.
Circumstances had the Allied Ninja forces stretched out thin and wide. The few surviving ninja took over all the workload, sometimes working schedules that were physically impossible to take up. Missions requiring squads and individual ninja to be in multiple places at once was a common occurrence. That may have been why the Supreme Leader looked peeved to see Damisan off, though that was also why most of the Allied Ninja that weren't away found time in their day to see the reborn puppeteer from the Land of Wind depart westward through the wasteland all by his lonesome.
This massive gathering gave the assembled workers a chance to work on the reconstruction of the Allied Ninja facilities while they were elsewhere occupied. While Damisan was one of the ninja bringing them back from the Moon, most of them hardly knew him at all, so they'd rather just take the chance to work unbothered by ninja than to take part in some tearjerker goodbye they felt excluded from.
"So long, you guys," Damisan waved, still styling the old cloak that he used to cover up his scarred body with even though now he looked both formidable and rocking in terms of appearance. "Thanks for helping a wounded soul feel included and helping me rediscover myself. Who knows, with the Fennec gone and dead, maybe I'll find myself lacking a purpose in life and wander right back here?"
"I sure hope so," Shige-H nodded, approaching Damisan and hugging him farewell.
"Young Damisan…" Regimental Commander Harcel approached the puppeteer, who still matched the gaunt officer in size but now significantly outdid him in terms of bulk and youthful vigor. "I labeled you to be of the weak during your training and I must admit that I was wrong. While you weren't quite of the strong, your skills proved adequate for the challenges you've faced. I wish it to be so for the daunting endeavors ahead of you too."
"Wow… You really didn't have to say anything, but you did… Now I'm not sure if I don't want to leave anymore or if I should have been leaving more often back when you were still being a dick to me… Sir," Damisan beamed a cheerful smile and patted his superior's shoulder before offering him a handshake which Harcel reluctantly accepted.
"You… Fucking diva…" the Supreme Leader approached as well, her tone was shaking though it was a matter of debate if she lamented Damisan's departure or losing another person under her employ which made it more work for her and her crew assigning work to the active Allied Ninja. "Just take the goddamn hike already, you piece of shit. Don't make me punt your stupid ass across the wasteland, kissing your ass cheeks with my boot."
Damisan chuckled and slipped his cloak open, revealing a bare-chested physique well prepared for the searing heat of the Land of Wind. The puppeteer slipped his bottom half out and smacked himself across the bottom, breathing in slowly as the painful needles of his smack set in. "I have felt little in those regions for a while now, so I might actually enjoy that, Supreme Leader. I guess even if I don't work for you anymore, I'll still call you and remember you as Supreme Leader, 'cause I don't really know your name, ma'am."
"Kill that bastard. If you take too long–I'll do it for you and prove why I'll always be No. 1," Endo came in with a challenging grimace. While Mana never quite got this vexing way of communication, she noticed in some guys she knew, it seemed to invite a heartfelt reaction from both parties involved and brought two people closer together in the end so she couldn't quite hate it the same way she couldn't stand the rest of the macho crap.
"You really need to work on your personality, pal. Killing a guy like Fennec requires the help of other people and you'd never get people to help you acting the way you do. Seriously, man, you've got some issues. Hope you'll be less of an asshole the next time we meet," Damisan bumped Endo as the two stared at each other with teasing mockery in their smirks while they backed off of each other.
"I still think you're making a huge mistake…" Mana muttered and turned away with her arms crossed under her chest. "You're either going to get yourself killed or lose yourself in the bloodshed. I… I just don't want to lose you, whichever way it goes down."
Damisan's arms wrapped around her regardless of the fact she didn't offer to hug Damisan goodbye and pressed her closer to his chest and slipped Mana's whole back under his cloak. After he let go, the puppeteer gently grabbed hold of both of Mana's elbows with his hands and placed her back where she stood before he pulled her in.
"Thanks for everything, Mana. I'm so really flattered that you care so much about me. Sorry, I forgot to wear the disguise you gifted me. Though it'd probably have made it really complicated for the rest…" Damisan chuckled to himself like an oaf, scratching the back of his head as he gently skid his feet away from the assembled group of Allied Ninja.
"Bye, everyone! I kind of would have liked Skaven to be here too. I think I got along the best with him. It's sad that he turned out to be a double agent from Konoha!" Damisan waved his very human and quite strapping arm as he backed away from the campsite one step at a time.
After enough backing steps, the stout young man turned his body to face the rising sun while his face still lingered on the party of Allied Ninja. Eventually, before his large back even disappeared over the horizon or melded with the flowing mirage of the wasteland, Damisan completely turned away and walked looking only forward. Ahead to where his goal was.
"Don't think you'll make-do without having to take in additional fuckwads under your wing, Shige-H," the Supreme Leader noted when the departing Star was long gone and only his chakra signature still rustled in the senses of those willing and able to sense him.
"I always intended Stars to be a six-man-cell. Five rays with me at the center, connecting them and keeping them together as a star and not just separate edges. I've been looking for a fitting replacement since Tomi's passing. I'd rather you let me have a say in assembling my team, Supreme Leader," Shige-H replied.
"You'll form the new Stars now. You lot have loads of work to do," the Supreme Leader insisted, stomping her boot down and drilling her heel into the dirt.