The pale moonlight lit up the restored by the Box's powers oceans that ruthlessly and recklessly bashed against the small boat in which the Konoha crew traveled back. While the oceans were as disturbed and capricious as the powerful winds and uneasy weather would've normally made them the servicemen aboard didn't appear bothered by the little uneasiness and shaking.
As much as Mana wanted to be by the rails observing the uneasy storm and the calm nightly drizzle she wouldn't have liked to be seen. For someone with so much angst and inner turmoil observing the beloved raindrops roll off the illuminator of her small cabin was as good as it got.
The magician had no more tears to cry for her fallen friend. A life so treasured and taken for granted, one tied with so much kinship deep inside and made bitterer by the constant conflicts on the outside. Not crying at any given moment made Mana somehow feel bad, almost like somehow she wasn't grieving enough. Like she was as bad of a friend to her one of the most beloved teammates in death as she was while he still lived.
There were so many lessons to be learned from this trip. Every step of the way Mana tried to plan things, she tried to create little maps and problems for her intelligent and curious mind to solve and yet every time she was proven not as overseeing and clever as she thought she was. Even more, every time her plans gone awry, there were very few instances where Mana could correctly guess the reaction of the world around her.
Sitting on her overly soft bed that felt like a drowning abyss, not unlike the shaking and roaring waters outside, swallowing her body every time she placed her weight on it, and watching through the window Mana moved her legs closer to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. The first reaction to what happened was to shut in, let go of everyone around her before she could properly wrap her head around what had happened.
It felt so similar to her childhood – back when Mana still had the mental disorder preventing her from associating facts with an event. Back when mysticism and divine intervention were the only explanations she could understand. Maybe it was for that reason that after overcoming the disorder Mana became so planning, so eager to understand everything around her placing it into shelves with names on them, categorize and plan everything out?
The world couldn't be planned, the real world couldn't have been prepared for and the only way to know the world was to be released into it. Walls had to be bypassed or toppled in order for one to experience life, to experience freedom, however, life and freedom were scary. Sometimes it felt so much more reassuring to believe in purpose, to believe in mysticism and not even bother with explanations because explanations lead to the cruel realization that there was no purpose but that which we ourselves cause, name and attribute.
To some walls and constant shelter, protection from the real world – baby wheels of life, so to say, were the most attractive. Living sheltered away from the world outside the village walls, places where one's treasured and taken for granted lives were picked off like flowers under the feet of fire spitting dragons. Knowing what she now knew, processing what she had just seen Mana couldn't blame them in her right mind.
People keep children away from the reality as long as possible. After all, we ourselves sometimes fear to confront that grim purposeless world beyond the village walls so how could we subject our young and fragile to it? Even after Mana had discovered her purpose people continued to treat her as a child who had never experienced "real life", even after she left the village walls and had seen more death than some villagers will throughout their entire lives people still said that. People feared to confront reality and saying things how they were so much that they silenced others who did it for them out of fear.
Fear that these loud and brave talking people will force that confrontation, maybe fear that these people will somehow appear taller and better for lacking that fear. Fear of fear itself, fear of those brave enough to defy it. Fear of courage? Mana closed her eyes and burrowed her head in between her knees hunching her back so hard that it began to hurt. She wanted to wrap into a ball and just lay on her bed, let her thoughts take their place and settle down. They were like tea herbs after the water was poured on it, twisting and rushing all around.
Mana was an only child, she was often left alone in her home when her father was in missions and her mother was working managing her pretty popular and yet small café. Maybe her experience being alone was what invited that desire for solitude in her life's problems, maybe that was just an instinct of comfort being alone to face her thoughts and reflections?
The door to her cabin slightly opened with Meiko's curious eye peeking through the gap. The blacksmith visibly tried to enter unseen and while she was much better at stealth than Mana due to her general playfulness and lack of use of chakra in the matter she looked more childish than silent.
"Hey... How're you holding up?" Meiko asked carefully treading the minefield of emotions. By now the redhead knew how difficult it was to talk to Mana without the magician finding something to fret, obsess or blame herself over. The magician was someone who was too smart and mature for her age and yet because of that she felt it was her responsibility to foresee and control the world around her, just like it was her responsibility to help the people weaker than her just because she was a ninja.
Mana sighed, she didn't want to come off as a bitch but... She just didn't have anything to say, she didn't know what to reply and she knew that she'll be taken the wrong way. That was just how people were, every single time silence was taken as arrogance, as a refusal to interact with a lesser one instead of genuine pain, shyness or just not knowing what to say.
The magician's eyes widened in surprise and then squinted with warmth when she felt Meiko sitting beside her and shifting the weight of the whole damned overly soft bed. The blacksmith was a better friend to Mana than the kunoichi ever deserved. Maybe it was her playfulness, her childishness or her, at times, comedic immaturity that made Meiko stick to Mana despite how badly the magician must've treated her friends... There was no logical explanation for friendship, to that force that made friends stick together even when the friendship was as lovely as two venom spitting snakes wrangling over one another.
Friendship and bonds couldn't be explained, couldn't be predicted and put rationally just like the world. Mana's too smart for her age yet not genius level intellect failed to understand either, failed to predict and categorize either. Differently from her mental disorder childhood days, she had no answers to the questions raised by those subjects and it hurt. It was a new realization – that the most logical and what seemed the right way didn't have all the answers, couldn't predict and categorize everything to differently named jars.
"So... Kouta's father said we're going to Land of Hot Water after arriving at the port, from there it'll be a peaceful couple of days trek back home. We're pretty strong and, with Kouta's beast of a dad with us, we'll be safe." Meiko smiled to Mana, the magician saw that lovely and innocent smile on her friend's face reflecting from the illuminator lit by the candle flame.
"Oh... That's..." Mana tried to reply literally anything on her mind just so she didn't hurt the one person stepping over herself to still be her friend. Shimo's death and general depressing thoughts were all over her mind but Mana had to step over herself just like Meiko always did for her. The first instinct of anyone meeting Mana would be to stay as far away from that ball of pain, failure, and blame. Mana owed at the very least her best to Meiko for how much effort the blacksmith put into it.
"You're probably still affected by... Yeah... I've never felt anything like that so... I don't know how to help you." Meiko admitted looking away, Mana saw in the girl's reflection the smile fading and changing into sadness. The magician turned and hugged Meiko from behind.
"Shimo was a friend to all of us. I wouldn't dare say that you don't know how I feel because all of us are feeling the same pain." Mana spoke up finally finding words that she wouldn't feel embarrassed sharing. It's already been a good couple of days after Shimo's death and ninja got over such events much faster – people came and left their lives like snapping the fingers.
After her head slowly raised to look at Meiko who stood up and turned around Mana was shocked to see the blacksmith smiling through tears. "You're the best friend I've ever had! Thanks for fulfilling that promise, that Box was really huge and soaked with chakra so I doubted I'd be able to lift it but... I'd rather have torn my body apart rather than failed to lift it after how much you did to get us there!" the redhead raised her fist up to Mana's face to which the magician wasn't really sure how to react. Appreciating her friend's presence Mana decided to be truthful. She looked away into the dark stormy sky looking at the drizzle intensifying into a full on rain.
"You know, I tried to blame myself... I tried to find something I could pin on myself and hate myself for but... I couldn't really. I think I've done everything I could to avoid anyone dying, there was nothing I could've done to predict anything or change anything. I did everything I could and I can't find what to blame myself for, what to hate myself for... That may just feel worse – the knowledge that things would've gone this way no matter what you did." Mana said expressing her thoughts truthfully. Meiko grinned with that excited full mouth smile, so hard that the redhead's eyes were shut closed just so her mouth could curve like that of an excited monkey.
"Good! I'd be worried if you did hate yourself. We did everything we could, we didn't hold anything back and we did our best. We all know you did your best, when the Fran... Fran..." Meiko appeared to get stuck by the Pirate Lord's name making Mana helpless and breaking out in a giggle, "The Pirate Lord prepared to kill me my last thought was that I couldn't die there. Not until I justified my presence by your side after everything you did, everything you've sacrificed to make your promise to me come true – that's what it all started from, right? The promise..."
The magician was about to burst into tears, both those of some of the blacksmith's excitement rubbing off on her and those of built up sadness, but Meiko's hopefulness and excitement and heroic posing forced the magician to smile and break into restrained laughter. The blacksmith was a small anchor to humanity and sanity that Mana still had. That was a little ironic having in mind how weird and childish a neutral spectator would've found Meiko to be.
Seeing Mana fight over her own emotions the blacksmith decided to leave while she still saw the magician smiling. Mana awkwardly gasped just before Meiko left making the redhead turn around curiously. The blacksmith had that strange trait with her face that she only could have one clear feeling and thought being present at all times – it was almost like she could not possess complicated thought or history of feels nor could she hide anything but she was feeling. If Meiko was sad – she looked sad, if the girl was happy – she was happy no matter what was going on around her. Meiko was simple, Mana's life was anything but. Maybe that was why the magician felt this strange attachment to her friend and a newfound appreciation.
"I guess the mission is failed now..." Mana said with a strangely raspy voice from all the crying she's done over the last couple of days. "I mean... I may not have used the Box for my own personal gain but..." she tried to stroke her messy hair to at least remind more of what hair of a normal human being looked like instead of the stack of black hay stacked on the head of a ninja magician.
It was beginning to look like Meiko was getting really angry, more in a playful way, sure, but still... "Didn't we already tell you? That was the deal the whole way. We all knew what we were getting into and while the journey was something greater than any of us could've imagined or prepared for – nothing changed!" she declared bravely and out loud.
"You guys..." Mana began getting a bit touched by Meiko's words as her nose got caught by a nasty case of sniffles.
"Before you try and make up excuses for hating yourself, remember this – by kicking Francho's ass when no one else could. By fighting him with illusions and quick thinking and... I guess some revenge brought fighting frenzy you've saved the world. He could've cracked the whole thing into a bunch of space rocks, he held the Earth in his hands but, with a single illusion, you disarmed him knowing he'd have no defense against it. Give poor Nakotsumi Mana a break for once..." Meiko winked before walking out and leaving Mana to cope with her thoughts alone. Meiko had it in her to grow up to be a great hero, one for the history books, she knew exactly what to say and when to leave someone to make the best impression. Mana knew none of those things, she was no hero, she struggled to even say the worst things and always refused to leave someone alone even if that would've been the right thing to do.
In a cabin west to Mana's Kouta had just returned after wandering the decks looking for Mana. The young man wanted to see if Mana was handling what had happened alright but he didn't want to just budge into her cabin. He wanted to be a good friend, maybe even a good boyfriend but he just felt too shy to be too persisting. His father was much cruder and yet he always said and did the right thing. He always spoke his mind which worked out both just right and completely wrong but when it did he simply didn't care.
"So did you find the girl?" Kusagoro spoke up laying stretched out on one of the two beds and staring at the wooden drippy ceiling. It didn't look like the man was even thinking about anything and yet his questions and interest suggested something of the sort.
"No. A couple of days and I've never seen her leave her cabin for anything but eating or..."
"Pooping?" Kusagoro laughed out.
"Dad! Well... Yeah..." Kouta shrugged after getting pretty heated up at his father. "Why would she? Did you even hear what you told her back then? She saved us at the very last moment. If it wasn't for Mana-chan the whole world would be floating as a gigantic cloud of rocks"
"I stand by my words" Kusagoro closed his eyes. "That girl is something totally different from what I thought she was, from what you still think she is," he added.
"I will still be her friend! Hopefully, if she forgives me, maybe even more..." Kouta shouted out angrily at his father.
"Oh, I've got no qualms about that. So far she's done more for you embracing your true heritage than I did through your whole childhood. Her presence is useful, if anything, for now," Kusagoro spoke up looking at his kid with a thumb up.
Kouta laughed out in a bit of relief. "Wow, I thought you'd insist on sparring with me again so you could kick my ass for being so stubborn..." he admitted.
"Well... Sparring is the best kind of training, especially when you think you can die at any point for real." Kouta's father smiled vibrantly.
"Fair enough but... Can't you just apologize to Mana-chan for what you told her? It looked like it really weighed heavily on her. Over our time together I've figured out that fists don't keep her down as well as words do. The worst enemy of hers is she herself." Kouta expressed concern looking at the damp wooden floor with profound worry in his eyes.
"Tsk... Trust me, maybe it's for the better if that kid stays down. I can't stop thinking about how she pulled us out." Kusagoro said turning his head up and continuing to stare at the ceiling.
"Yeah, wasn't it great?" Kouta smiled.
"From a warrior's perspective it was perfect – she knew that her opponent was self-taught and unskilled at chakra control so she attacked him with illusions. That one thing that can only be beaten by focus, clear mind and impeccable control... She perfectly dismantled that man, it was scary if nothing else. All of that summoned from deep inside just out of sheer rage over a killed friend." Kusagoro spoke calmly and with a shallow tone, respectfully even which was a novelty.
"How unlike you..." Kouta raised an eyebrow reminding his father of how much less restraint he's been showing after the death of his team and how annoyed he got after Remashi's tie got burnt up to a crisp off his arm.
"Yeah but... She speaks one thing – she says she's a protector of life and that she doesn't like fighting but once she gets ticked off she's so good at it it's genuinely scary. She's also a ball of sadness and depression. If a person so skilled at utterly dismantling any opponent becomes powerful and loses their mind... I bet the Boss Lady would love hearing about that. Everyone keeps laughing at that kid talking about how she will change the world but... I may now be a greater believer in it than anyone else, after what I've seen – she'll either kill everyone and take over, ruling with an iron fist of scorn or kill such a person." Kusagoro closed his eyes again, Kouta looked at his father's face and felt really uneasy about how serious his face looked.
"Mana-chan doesn't kill, she didn't kill Francho, remember? She thinks no life in this world is given unnecessarily and it's not up to her to take them..." Kouta spoke up but father's raised arm interrupted him.
"Yeah, but for how long? Did you not see her eyes after she reawakened? She was going to kill the Pirate Lord, those were the eyes of a tyrant in the making. She's dangerous and that's what makes her interesting." Kusagoro admitted.
"Is that what you saw in mom?" the medical ninja teased his father after settling down in his own bed.
"Sure, your mother was a kind and supporting woman but she had a murderous stare just like that brat's. As a medical ninja, her scary eyes were even scarier – that was one woman who knows how to take life lightning fast or torture someone for days."
The father and son shared a laugh together before an awkward silence set in. For the longest time, only the raindrops bashed against the illuminator could've been heard. Nature's lullaby.
