Before the Stars could have headed out back to the Allied Ninja HQ, Shige-H insisted that they checked on the peacekeepers and how the captives were doing. She didn't do so out of care for the two captured rogues, even though Mana cared immensely about at least one of them. Shige's care was in the fact that she'd have to report the mission to Regimental Commander Boriya so she'd need to know if those two were a threat to the future stability of the region and if the peacekeepers could handle the two of them on their own.
"This is a waste of our time," Endo said with a grumble. "We should've just killed both of them."
"I agree…" Asuka raised her index finger. Endo beamed a squint her way. "I mean, both of them had been crippled and lost all will to fight. They serve literally no use to any political or military goal and just exist to potentially cause trouble for the peacekeepers. They're both liabilities."
"You're too quick to judge something that carries the weight of severing a human life," Shige-H objected instead of Mana. The medical kunoichi replied while Mana had been struggling against an expansive mass of proverbial cookie dough, lacking any sweetness and expanding without end with its yeasty flavor. Asuka's remark was more a dig at Mana's response to her yesterday than a genuine wish to kill the two captives. That much felt obvious. "It would also be detrimental to our objective. We need to help maintain stability in the region while Earth Country and Lightning Country work Iwagakure's situation out. We don't have any right to execute prisoners of the local peacekeepers, so it would only cause tension."
"Yeah, maybe, but that high-ranking peacekeeper lady is an ex-Black Ops, so she's smarter than most. She knows the value of trimming the fat," Asuka shrugged.
"Gwirlon-san had no choice in the matter. He hardly even comprehended what he was doing and didn't have any particular opinions about what people told him to do either," Mana replied.
"It will never fail to baffle me how affectionate and defensive you are toward people that maim and try to kill you," Endo grumbled. While he wanted to speak up and support the matter of executing the captured rogue ninja, he stayed quiet, likely because of his distaste for arguing alongside Asuka. At last, he found a way to both bite Asuka by lumping her amongst those whose executions he advocated for and speaking up his mind.
"If I stopped tolerating you and defending you, no one would tolerate or defend you and that just doesn't sit well with me," Mana beamed a mean look at Endo, jabbing his way in return by reminding him he had a role to play in attacking and hurting most of the Stars himself and has fought Mana on at least two occasions. Endo stayed quiet for the rest of the trip, which felt longer than it needed to.
It felt longer because of Mana's condition. Though the magician refused to form the missing parts of her leg as armor ninjutsu or to float using Mystical Wings. It may have been wiser to use one of those two methods. It'd have been faster for one. It'd have also helped Mana reconnect her severed chakra nodes and rebuild her network into a full and functional connection. Not to mention that it'd have kept her ninjutsu skills sharp and given her focus training while on the only thing that passed as her time off these days. Still, because of a feeling of expansive emptiness deep down, something that felt so vast and full of nothing of solid feelings that could have been defined and spoken of but also hurt by how widely it blew out in Mana's gut, Mana felt like she'd rather just go limp.
"You guys are still sticking around?" Prim-S crossed his arms. Because of a few nasty bruises he got during all the conflicts involving the enemy ninja, starting from Krown and moving onward the time frame, he seemingly stayed to attend to the reception alongside a younger-looking recruit. "We thought you'd be long gone somewhere else already."
"We just wanted to check up on the prisoners for the mission debriefing when we return," Shige-H explained. Prim-S shut down the curious looks from the younger kunoichi by his side and walked out of the reception cubicle to accompany the Allied Ninja. The peacekeepers that were aware they were working alongside Allied Ninja appeared to respect the discretion.
"You have nothing to worry about. The sausage-head doesn't act up for now. He had spent most of his chakra fending us off back when, so it'll be a couple of days until his chakra recovers. We've placed a few suppression seals on his cell just in case but by that time we should have a task force to deliver him to the Tomb Stone," Prim-S led the Allied Ninja into the cellar that served as a containment facility to those to which the ordinary four walls of bars wouldn't have sufficed.
"Gwirlon-san is back in the cell…" Mana observed, walking up to the cell and pressed her hand against the bars. Something she noted as odd was that there were none of the restraints that he had earlier equipped on him. They did not lock him to the wall, there was no iron lid shutting his lower jaw and no iron rods restraining his head in place. No chains or cuffs of any manner. The man just stood with his back against the damp stone wall and stared at the bars.
"Yeah, a curious case, that one. Apparently, he just walked back to the cell all by himself a few hours after we left. The other guys restrained him, but his stupid Swiss-army arms keep unlocking and freeing him of any restraints. I don't think that anything besides Hozuki Castle is equipped in keeping this man behind bars and I'm not very sure about that place either," Prim-S groaned, rubbing his hand over his tired face and mucking up the position of his bandana tied over his head.
"Have you tried killing him? Usually works…" Endo rolled his eyes, lowering his hand to flop over the handle of his sword. All he needed was a little encouragement.
"Yeah… I brought it up, but then Denkka noticed that besides freeing himself of his restraints, he doesn't actually try to escape or walk out of here. Not to mention, this no-chin bastard tried barking some orders to the nincompoop, but he won't follow them anymore," Prim-S shrugged. "He just does his own thing now, I guess, which is a little frightening because nobody knows what'll pop into his head. We hope that the reinforcements coming from Iwagakure might help us out with him. He's a major potential security risk, but he's not acting like one, so Denkka doesn't want to kill him until he actually tries something."
Gwirlon's foot twitched. Endo and Asuka, both of whom were waiting for an excuse to kill the captives and would've gladly taken anything one did as a viable reason to kill the other, sharpened their glares, focusing on the foot that took a slow yet bold step forward. The giant brought himself closer to the bars and pressed his hand against them.
"Okay… This is new… He did nothing while he was alone and he's trying something surrounded by all of us…" Prim-S dashed back while pressing his right index and middle fingers together while bending the rest in a preparatory position to weave hand seals.
"Please wait," Mana turned. "His chakra feels calm. He doesn't intend to cause us any harm."
"Bullshit, you've never been able to tell that before!" Endo drew his sword and aimed its tip at the giant, who slowly brought himself to the bars.
"His chakra isn't active!" Mana repeated before stepping out in between the gung-ho peacekeeper and Allied Ninja and extending her right hand out while she pressed her shoulder against a stone pillar to support her weight against it. "It's not flaring up at all. He will not fight us."
A rowdy clonk made Mana's eyes dull out from the suddenness and volume of the noise. Endo slid his sword back in and made a dash toward Mana but just as he reached out to pull her out of the way, the barred iron wall that Gwirlon pushed out of his way with a mere love tap stopped in mid-air from iron hooks sticking out from Gwirlon's knuckles catching the bars and holding them in place. The giant lifted the barred iron wall and gently dragged it into his cell with one working arm. He placed it by the wall before taking a few slow steps, all the while wearing a grumpy and ironclad look on his face.
A sudden upward jerk and a feeling of weightlessness made Mana yell out in startlement. It felt like she was shooting into the air, but before she could understand what was going on, the dread of the stone ceiling closing in on her made Mana gasp and lean down. Gwirlon had dived and scooped Mana up from behind, putting her over on his shoulders while he straightened out and brought her up. While it hurt leaning down to avoid bashing her head against the ceiling, the meaning behind this gesture couldn't have been clearer.
"You said that Gwirlon-san was a security threat to this facility and this town. We can take him off your hands," Mana suggested with an expression stuck in between a warm smile and a sprinkle of terror.
"You could…?" Prim-S scratched his head.
"We could?" Shige-H looked up to catch Mana's eyes to make out what she was thinking.
"Sure. If you're having trouble containing Gwirlon-san, well, the Allied Ninja have contained the Four-Tails so this guy will fit right in. Who knows, he may even choose to be rehabilitated and join the Allied Ninja…" Mana replied, wondering when Gwirlon would let her go and put her down but, the longer this went, the more obvious it became that her new position piggybacking the burly man was a permanent one.
"Well… If you will take responsibility for him… That guy will give us enough to think about as it is so let's settle on both of us splitting the prisoners for efficiency's sake and cooperation and whatnot…" Prim-S waved his hand in haste that made Mana think that they'd be unable to walk back this wild suggestion now even if they wanted to.
"I'm getting a surprising low of murderous vibes right now…" Asuka looked at Endo with curiosity why his sword stayed sheathed and the floor remained damp only with water and not the thick stickiness of spilled blood.
"If the whopper's gonna haul Mana around and make our trip back faster, serve as her ferry, I'm fine with that…" Endo shrugged. "Figured it's about time he started making up for costing Mana her leg. I don't think a lifetime of piggybacks will be enough, but that's not my problem."
"Your umbrella's closed too, am I to take it you're okay with this too?" Shige-H wondered.
"Me?" Asuka pointed at herself with a wide pair of eyes. "Don't look at me, I'm just a humble recruit here at Stars…"
"Damn it, Asuka, if we have to babysit you and watch the ogre so that he doesn't get assassinated in the night…" Endo grumbled, showing his canines.
"Chill out, it happened like… Twice. Thrice if you count the time I succeeded. This guy looks plenty poor and pathetic. Like a little orphan. So I'm all for Mana cheering him up a bit. I'm not a murderous lunatic, you know…" Asuka pressed her hands to her hips, looking almost offended that Endo would assume she'd pull something like that.
"All of you are…" a husky voice came from the cell next to Gwirlon. The bald giant turned his head in reaction to a familiar voice, but the grumpy expression on his face didn't change. "All of you have red on your hands. None of you would sleep peacefully until the end of your days if you've got an ounce of integrity in you."
"Now that he opened his mouth, any chance you could take this guy with you too?" Prim-S groaned, running his hand across his face.
"It's too late to trade now," Endo closed his eyes and crossed his arms with pouted lips. "Well done, Mana, picking the prisoner that keeps his trap shut, mostly."
"You Allied Ninja aren't much better than the tyrant occupants. We were doomed from the start in relying on the support of other countries and the Allied Ninja. All of you only look to your own backyards, only act when it's safe and when you conform to what's best to your interests," Selsig stared down at the rotten cell he would long for once the Kumogakure reinforcements move him to the Tomb Stone. "Kumogakure wasn't our enemy. No. Rather… They weren't our only enemy. We should have picked all of you as our enemies too. Your inaction in the face of Iwagakure's plight makes you just as liable and deserving of punishment as the occupants."
"You self-righteous cretin…" Mana's raised voice made the hazy faces of the visitors and denizens of the peacekeeper underground cells turn to her instead. "You've had the moral high ground the entire time. The moment you stood up and decided to liberate Iwagakure from oppression, you had the world's support. You certainly had mine. If you weren't as excited as you were about sticking labels and killing innocents, so blinded by your hatred for those you've labeled your enemy that you've stopped being able to tell your enemies apart from your allies, you'd never have squandered that goodwill. You've wasted all of that by becoming common thugs, murderers, and terrorists. Your leader was a madwoman craving for a perpetual state of war to make her madness stand out less. None of you have a case to plea. All your group amounted to is yet another group of oppressors and yet another demon for the already oppressed and terrified small folk. I've spent time in the worst prison my country offers and I'm glad that you'll see the worst of yours because that's exactly what you deserve."
Because of Mana's injury, but, more importantly, because the Stars were tagging along with a known and feared terrorist amongst these parts, they couldn't have proceeded to Iwagakure for Mana's planned performance. It wouldn't be difficult for Mr. Hiro to settle it with the local hall owners and entrepreneurs by letting them know of a minor accident that forced Mana to cancel all shows in the region. They'd get a bit unruly for some time, but, given the unstable state of their region, they'd have no other choice but to deal with it.
Instead, the Stars turned for the nearest port town to the Stone Gulf. The path took them through Ishigakure. While the first thought would have been not to skip this exciting opportunity to see more of the world, the Stars lacked any semblance of weight or history with the local ninja. That meant that they'd be unable to check in on the rogue ninja they've captured, provided they were still alive at this point. Since showing Gwirlon's face around those parts didn't feel like a good idea either, the traveling party of Allied Ninja went around Ishigakure through mountain paths less traveled before returning to the major roads leading to the port of Crag Town that had the men and the bustling ship business to take the Allied Ninja across the treacherous Stone Gulf all the way to the Land of Lightning.
Or so the Stars initially thought. A few failed inquiries revealed that the local ships were all far too small for a voyage, like one leading them through the Stone Gulf and all the way to the Land of Lightning. The Stone Gulf required a smaller, more maneuvering vessel to navigate across while smaller vessels weren't sizeable enough to last in the open oceans and certainly weren't large enough to carry the amount of supplies to feed all the mouths for an amount of time it'd take to complete the said voyage.
This problem left everyone quite stumped and grumpy. They've covered a lot of ground since leaving Boulder Town and making all that trip back only to turn and walk all the way to Otogakure, where they could've found themselves a nifty port with fancy enough ships to take them all the way back didn't sit well with anyone but Gwirlon, who, despite walking for two people due to carrying Mana on his shoulder the whole time, didn't seem to be too grumpy or happy about anything. Even Asuka, who was the most knowledgeable about ships and sailing in general because of her upbringing, looked baffled in the face of this problem.
It was fortunate that this issue was one that was incredibly common around these parts and one that presented many lucrative business opportunities to the locals as a shriveled old seaman unraveled a map of the region on the nearest table and pointed at a star-shaped mass of land a good eighteen hundred kilometers from the Stone Gulf.
"Getsugakure?" Mana's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. Realizing she may visit a place with some personal history and known faces around it soon enough made her look the most lively she's looked for a long time.
"That's right, young'uns, Getsugakure has large and powerful ships capable of soaring across any length of the ocean and won't have to worry about the perils of the Stone Gulf. With all the foreigners coming and going, it's become a lucrative place for both tourism and as a valuable port town capable of connecting Crag Town with the rest of the world through the ocean," the old man pointed out. "One problem though, since I was the one who pointed this out to you, you'll have to ride my vessel to Getsugakure…"
There was always to be a catch with the locals, then again, it was one that came with almost negligible drawbacks as this man appeared to be one well-acquainted with the Stone Gulf and more than capable of taking a small crew across it.