"Okay, are they just not going to talk to one another?" Endo pointed at Mana and Asuka. The two were staying behind the moving party with their arms crossed. "What's even the plan at this point? Everyone freaks out when I pull my sword out to kill the assassin that infiltrated our squad but like… What are we doing if not that?"
"For the last time, Endo, we need Asuka on our side to complete this mission. We don't have enough people otherwise. If those Land of Earth terrorists decided to kidnap the Tsuchikage, they probably are a formidable bunch and we can't just assume we'll stop them. Not just the three of us," Shige-H raised her voice more than it was usual for her.
"I get that but… The new girl just tagged along with us as if she didn't just try to kill Mana yesterday, twice, apparently. How do we even know we can trust her? With someone like her watching our backs, I'd rather just stick her like a pig, leave her to bleed out in the ditch, and take our chances," Endo sneered back at the blond kunoichi who just pouted right back at him, matching the swordsman's disdain.
"You heard Mana, she thinks we can trust Asuka," Shige-H shrugged after stuffing her hands inside of her fur coat. It was tough to assess just how much faith the leader of Stars had in her declaration after she just shut down and turned to admire the sights of rice fields and farmland hills at the outer edges of Sound Country.
"No, I haven't, actually…" Endo squinted. "That's my point! Besides telling us the girl's name, she has said very little. If anything, she actually looks like she hates that bitch's guts just as much as Asuka hates hers. For fuck's sake, Mana looks like she likes this bitch less than when she literally tried to kill her twice. What did she even see in there?"
Shige-H sighed. For a little while, the Stars strolled across ceaseless farmland, admiring golden wheat farmlands and the moist and green rice fields filled with lively workers with their hands wrist-deep in the moist soil. Something had been boiling inside the Stars leader and it was only a matter of time until it flipped the lid. The curly-haired woman turned around and stopped in front of Mana, blocking the magician's path.
Mana tried stepping around the squad leader at first. It was only when Shige-H answered it by moving alongside her that Mana looked up into Shige's eyes with a grumpy, challenging glare, inviting the squad leader to spit it out. Spit it out Shige did.
"Okay, Mana… I consider you a friend and a trusted teammate. I'd trust my life in your hands but… When Endo becomes the voice of reason and when his rambling starts making sense… We need to know. Can we trust Asuka or not? I've tried asking her and I don't think her middle finger is a viable answer to this question. It definitely isn't one I'm willing to bet this team and the fate of the entire continent on. Do we do this or are we way in over our heads here?" Shige-H spread her arms out to form a living fence in front of Mana.
"She has everything to gain from the continent devolving into a bloody war and slashing itself to pieces," Mana shrugged. "But she has an ulterior motive that won't let her get killed. She's not willing to die alongside me. She wants to survive this, so that's what you should focus on."
"Okay…" Shige-H breathed out. From the easing looks of the woman, the way how the color returned to her face, and how her chest deflated and her shoulders lowered by a few inches, it became apparent that she shed a massive boulder of worry off her shoulders. "So she's not a suicidal fanatic. We can work with that."
"This explains nothing though," Endo squinted at Mana. "Before you entered her mind, you looked like you were almost going to become besties. Like she was your little bloody murderer pet project you wanted to fix. After you left, it's like you hate her as much as she despises you. Do we need to be worried that you'll send her to a coma or something just out of the blue?"
"I am not fond of her presence. Because of the stakes and the danger involved, I will tolerate her for the time being and fight alongside her, if absolutely necessary. After the mission is over, either I leave the Stars–or she does," Mana muttered out while turning toward the side of the road filled with untended apple trees and entire bushes worth of pesky weeds.
"That's cold… Also - new… I think I like it," Endo smirked. "It's good that you let some of our reason rub off on you. Maybe Shige is right and even you can still be fixed?"
"Is there anything you want to share with us, Mana? I assume that if we absolutely needed to know it, you'd have told us but… Maybe there's something you don't know you have to share? Something that's on your mind because… This behavior you're exhibiting it's… Not like you. It's far worse than you were when you still were mad at the world," Shige-H slowed down to match Mana's pace.
"I'd much rather just be a tool for now. Tell me what you need me to do, whom you need me to fight, and what I need to do until the mission is accomplished. That's all I want to hear or talk about," Mana wrapped her arms in a twist with her blazer and crossed them over her chest, burrowing them under her armpits while completely locking herself out.
"Okay, the reason I've asked is that I want you to perform on a magic show in Otogakure," Shige-H explained. "Just messaging Iwagakure isn't enough. Kumogakure needs to sign off on your magic show too because Iwagakure has no more autonomy anymore. We need to really sell the illusion of your World Magic Tour and if we pass by the world's most booming entertainment center… It'll be a grim look. Plus, we can all really use some time to get on the same page and organize our efforts better. Earth Country is just a few days away."
"Okay," Mana closed her eyes, changing nothing in the rest of her morose expression.
"One a 'dese days, I'm gonna skewer the lot 'o ye. An' den, nobody'll be laughin'!" Usuzoku grumbled, juggling with a dozen of swords in front of a rather bemused stage. Mana was performing some mechanical magic. She did the tricks, did them right, and with almost robotic technical execution, but the audience barely reacted to any of it.
The magical box got skewered by all of Usuzoku's swords, then burst to bits with puny, firework-grade explosions before a mechanical arm reassembled it in the right order only for Mana to step out and bow to the audience. Even if the lapel of her blazer was burning with a measly lick of flames, just like back in Konoha, this audience was just having none of it. They looked more like a table of professors listening to a presentation. They weren't hostile, because the magic was solid and technically flawless, but watching the flawless performance was like watching the clock tick.
"She's bombing! How is Mana bombing, didn't she invent this craft or something?" Shige-H pulled on her curls.
"She's not doing much magic herself, isn't she? She's leaving most of the show to those rabbits…" Endo grumbled, half-asleep while looking at a show he's seen done a thousand times better by the same performer from much better seats. "It'll sound weird when I say it, but no one pays to see a walking-talking rabbit do magic tricks."
A little girl in a black hoodie sweater slipped off her seat. The poor thing must've been anywhere less than a pair of handfuls of years old, yet she had to wrap herself in her own hands and start quivering while tapping on her cute little boots, giving her father tearful glares. The father wrapped his hands around his little girl and cradled her close to his chest. Asuka's glare sharpened, focusing on the signs he was making with his left hand.
"It's okay, this isn't like back then. This is entertainment. Just for fun," he showed using sign language. It was ironic that, given all the resounding noise on the stage of explosions and rabbits involving themselves in wacky high jinks they didn't practice for, the only way to communicate loud and clear was through a method of language meant to help deaf people.
"The girl. She's deaf, isn't she?" Asuka leaned over to ask the man something that she probably shouldn't have. Then again, in her experience, people liked it even less when she just used the information gathered through observation without establishing how she knew it. Usually, spying, intentional or otherwise, didn't prove to be an effective foundation to build a relationship.
"Oh, don't worry about her. Ban-chan is just scared. She usually loves these shows but… She must've gotten flashbacks. She lost her hearing during a rogue ninja attack on our old home in Daifuku Town. All those explosions must bring terrible memories back. Usually, Konoha's Sorceress is a lot more colorful and cheerful. More confetti and puffy smoke, fewer… Ninja tools, military-grade explosives, and swords…" the father replied while slowly running his hand over the hair of his daughter and slipping a seat to his right to fill the seat of an audience member that left around fifteen minutes earlier. "Do you know sign language?"
"A few of the orphans back in Kirigakure are deaf too. You shouldn't cradle your daughter. Expose her to this. Konoha's Sorceress isn't much different from the rogues that robbed her of her hearing. The sooner she accepts it, the better," Asuka crossed her arms. She thought she could connect to someone who hated Mana just like she did or make another passenger of the Mana hate train but it seemed like both the father and the daughter had some previous history watching Mana's shows so they were unlikely to see Asuka's point of view.
"Really? Kirigakure, that's a long way to come just to see a show!" the man gasped.
"Yeah, talk about a disappointment," Asuka smirked. Even if she couldn't make these two useful and the only two people around her tolerable to be around and talk to, maybe she could still find some joy because her hated rival was bombing on the stage.
"This is all my fault," Shige-H grabbed her head, cradling her curls in between her both hands while she sank in self-deprecating despair. "I shouldn't have pressed on Mana to perform so suddenly."
"Don't worry, we still got paid heaps, weren't we? The Konoha's Sorceress name pays a bunch. The Supreme Leader would have us parading around the world and just collecting ryo for the Allied Ninja if she were smarter," Endo leaned his head to the right to hang as close to his own shoulder as it could.
"Where is the Ban-chan's mother?" Asuka asked her father. "Magic shows feel like a family activity."
"I'm afraid we left her behind with our old life in Daifuku Town…" Ban's father sighed. His eyes could no longer stay level to watch the stage, but in Asuka's mind, she was doing the man a favor by making him tear up over his dead wife. This way he won't have to see that all-corrupting witch performing on-stage.
"Oh…" Asuka's face soured as the blonde ran her hand through her hair until she could find a sore spot to scratch. Looking at the face of this terrified child, pale and quivering in her father's arms as she looked too afraid to cry like normal people did, made Asuka feel something. Something way worse and more revolting than watching the Konoha's Sorceress flop on-stage. "Come on, let's get that flunky poser off-stage and have some real fun."
Asuka grabbed the little girl's hand. The poor thing went from being petrified and flashing back to the time when her mother pressed her mouth so that Ban's cries didn't alert the rogue ninja tearing through their town to just being confused about who this new lady was and why she was dragging her all the way across the hall toward the stage where all the scary explosion and sword-juggling was.
"A volunteer?" Mana muttered with an apathetic look on her face before her stagecraft kicked in. "A volunteer!" she chanted, leaning down toward little Ban and Asuka, who looked baffled about why Mana was playing along and where she was getting at.
"Get off the stage. I'm gonna save your miserable stupid show for you," Asuka spoke without using her voice, just moving her lips. She knew well enough that Mana understood that much. Heck, with how many surprises the ninja magician had been providing, she probably knew sign language herself too. "You're bombing and you'll get a bad rep that'll keep us out of Earth Country for good."
"What's your name, volunteer?" Mana bowed down, moving past the rabbits, all of whom just froze in place. They had no idea what to do and how without Mana's hand and command guiding them through her impromptu show. Her show that she refused to be much of a part of, and handed it to them to bomb for her.
"She's deaf, fuckwit," Asuka moved her lips while trying to pull the terrified kid off of her lap. "Get the fuck off the stage and let me take over. Anyone can boss a bunch of confused, juggling rabbits around."
"Oh…" Mana muttered as her mood turned back from mildly amused to blue. "That's okay. I think that magic has just the right thing for you, little volunteer."
Mana stepped back, clapping her hands and causing the ninja rabbits to dissolve into a colorful torrent of flower petals lingering over the entire stage. The dazzling dance of colors and the wall of pleasant, flowery smells was the first hammer through the ice wall between Mana and the audience.
"What de heck did she do?" Usuzoku froze in place, too afraid to scratch his head as the audience seemed entranced by something he couldn't see and absolutely dazzled by it. "Now what de heck do we do?"
"I think… I think they don't see us anymore. We can get off the stage…" Usuvilme whispered as the two rabbits snuck off to the side of the stage and disappeared in a puff of smoke, returning home to the new Rabbit Caves in the Forest of Death.
"Okay, kid, seriously… Get…" Asuka had been trying to pull Ban-chan off of her lap like a piece of band-aid but then realized that the resistance she was struggling against was just a phantom. Little Ban was standing right in front of the edge of the stage, shyly weaving her fingers together but looking curious and a little excited about the sights that the reborn magic show can show her. "Off…" the blonde finished her sentence out of instinct, even though there was no further use for it.
The shuffle of inter-tangling vines, a rolling disc of the sun with a cartoonish smile, and flowers with the heads of singing fish all joined in on the magical trip that the audience went on alongside an excited little girl. Then… The girl screamed out. Not out of fear, which would've been Asuka's bet, she screamed with absolute glee. The little booger turned her back on all the magic, on all the flowers, and looked at her father to shout out "I can hear!", feeling chilly tingles at the sound of her own voice.
The show could only go uphill from there and uphill was exactly where it went. Little Ban leaned left and right, swinging like an upright pendulum alongside the rhythm of singing fish before hopping off the stage and placing her chin on her crossed hands for support. For the rest of the twenty-two minutes of the salvaged magic show that went off over the moon like a rocket, little Ban may as well have forgotten that war and things as terrible as little girls losing their family and parts of their own lives to human greed and malice even existed.
"I'm sorry, Mana. It was wrong of me to ask you to perform when you weren't feeling like yourself, but you turned it all around in the end, didn't you?" Shige-H bit her index finger, almost like she needed that confirmation herself. The owner of the hall slipped in and handed Shige-H a folded napkin filled with ryo bills.
"I thought your show was just kind of okay at first, but I guess it's a bit like pro-wrestling, isn't it? You started slow before getting the ball rolling, huh? Now I think I get what all the fuss about this Konoha Sorceress gig is really all about!" the sleazy guy in a flashy, oversized suit struck a flashy pose pointing at Mana while slipping out the door to leave the stage magician and her crew to change.
"Can we afford a hotel?" Mana turned to Shige while wiping her hair with a towel. She wasn't used to having hot shower facilities to use after the show, given how she used and preferred a rundown service shack back in Hiro's Hall. "I'm not very good with money, so I'll leave it to you to manage our funds."
"Like… To buy one? Probably…" Shige-H blew her cheeks out while counting the stack of ryo. "I'm not sure who that promoter of yours back in Konoha is, but… Is this how much you usually make per show?"
"I don't know… I make… Money. Stacks of money. Kind of like this one, I guess. My mom manages all of it. She used to tell me it's in a safe place even if I never really asked her about it," Mana shrugged.
"Mana, one of these shows would be more than enough to bribe off any cutthroats coming for your head. This is billions of ryo we're talking about!" Shige-H shook the spread handful of the highest possible bill ryo came in to the entire room. "For how long did you say you were performing?"
"Like… Professionally? Probably just as long as I've been working as a ninja," Mana shrugged.
"Oh, my god…" Shige-H covered her mouth.
"Mana…" Asuka stood up and approached the stage magician while she was tending to her needy hair with a champaign-colored towel. "That little girl, Ban-chan…"
"Oh, yeah… She's a cute little thing. Did she already leave? Maybe we should invite her for a meet or something?" Mana pondered.
"You… Made her hear things?" Asuka crossed her arms.
"Sorry…" Mana's cheeks stretched out while she squinted as if having chowed down on some lime. "Was that too cruel? I just… It was an illusion. Genjutsu can manipulate one's brain, it can translate feelings even to people that have never seen or heard anything by transferring those signals from my chakra system. I really shouldn't have done that, huh? By the time I finished working on that illusion, I couldn't use it to help anymore, and… I just had to help someone else out. I had to use it at least once."
"You didn't have to. But you did," Asuka looked down. "She looked happy. Thank you. I'm never saying this to you again. It's like you said earlier. I intend to live through this and become Mizukage one day. That is why I'll work with you for now until this matter is done. Devolving the continent into war sounds fun, but that puny wet sponge of a Mizukage we have won't do anything with it. He'll probably do something ridiculous like send financial support and supplies."
"Huh, imagine doing something like that…" Endo muttered.
"That's why I have absolutely no use in sabotaging your work. I'll work with you and see to it that this mission is done. Then I'll kill you later, when I can come close enough to you to enjoy seeing you choke on my hands, squeezing that cheerleader spirit right out of you." Asuka fired a chilling glare from where she stood with her back pressed against the wall. "Enjoy those few days of labor you've got. You've earned them with that stunt of yours."
"So… We're… Back on track then?" Shige-H winced, scanning the room. Seeing how she got no objections from any parts of it, the leader pumped her fist. "Alright, Earth Country, here we come!"