Mana annoyingly rubbed her temples to attempt and alleviate her massive headache. This was possibly the absolute worst day to have a headache on. When it hit her it appeared like a bear trap had shut closed on her upper skull driving sharp spikes that bashed through the bone and dug into the very core of her brain, from there it transformed into a more worm-like shape as it burrowed around like a malicious pest with an outright evil intent to cause the carrier more pain and suffering.

"Something's wrong?" Kiyomi curiously inquired. The two girls have been waiting in the Training Grounds No 32. A very peculiar place that appeared like a typical decorative oriental garden and was artificially kept in a constant season of autumn by the Senju clan members working in the maintenance. While the Senju clan was a highly spoken of and rather elite club of amazingly vital and just as strong physically ninja with the added ability to manipulate trees on top of that, not all members were as elite and exceptional as the mostly spoken of golden apples.

"It's nothing, to be expected, honestly…" Mana forced herself to smile for her friend as she looked through the thick cover of falling leaves right into the noon sky. While waiting around for her sensei on the first day of training was not encouraging at the slightest, Mana still preferred it to the awkwardness of standing in front of Hanasaku herself this whole time. The woman had acquired a dislike for Mana whereas before she carried great expectations and a playful curiosity of just how far the magician would go. Standing in front of such a person for hours couldn't have been pleasant…

"To be expected? If you have migraine, that's a serious ailment. They don't authorize migraine patients for the field, it disrupts the chakra molding process, you know… You can't augment your abilities with migraine which will get you killed!" Kiyomi expressed her concerns in a motherly fashion.

"It's nothing like that, I do not have migraine. It's just that I've been practicing my illusions whole night yesterday, ever since I came back home. It's part sleepless night, part exhausted from being pinched and targeted brain centers acting up…" Mana explained as she rubbed her forehead once again in a desperate wish to ease up the acting up pain that just came and gone acting as it pleased.

"I see…" Kiyomi finally looked like she accept Mana's explanation, granted, the magician had no idea as to why she even had to explain herself or why her teammate didn't just accept the first version of explanation insisting on having the magician elaborate on what she's been doing last night. "You've been practicing your illusions on yourself? Hitting your own brain? That's dangerous…" she concluded. Her tone was odd. It was like she wanted to express concern but was worried to sound overly protective making her sound rather insecure.

"Have you been seeing Eiju again? You focus way too much in the medical aspect of things…" Mana sighed as the pain in her very brain finally eased up, it felt almost pleasant in a way, like a longtime cramp finally letting go and the body regaining a full use of an integral body part and flooding the system with happiness hormones in the process.

"If I was I'd never talk about the medical aspect of things. He's too careless in his job to warrant it being an actual topic he speaks about…" Kiyomi smiled. Her lack of a defensive reaction actually told Mana more than her actual reply. If Mana was asked the same question she'd have likely have gotten overly defensive, even aggressively so, even if she consciously tried not to do it. Comfort in such a question implied that there was no way back for the two of them at this point.

The orange, yellow and red leaves began wildly rotating in a circular pattern in a highly orderly manner as their team leader – the Konoha Sannin known as Chestnut Hanasaku landed on a small decorative bridge arcing over a little creek. The woman's landing was so swift yet so delicate that she raised not a single one of the layers on top of layers of leaves beneath her feet. Hanasaku wore a light and short flowery dress with the typical of higher ranking ninja protective vest on top of it. Her hair was actually tidy, verily unlike her usual self. The time spent as the Fifth must've made the woman more serious towards her view of the world.

"Sensei!" Mana bowed her head and her upper body respectfully suggesting respect and some degree of subordination. Kiyomi just continued to gawk at the woman's tidier look, her long spanning personal history with Hanasaku did not allow her to bow even a little. There was too many silly stories of the woman's incompetence in the Yamanaka's memory to force herself the basic courtesy of a respectful bow.

"Only the two of you?" Hanasaku wondered after winking at Kiyomi and completely ignoring Mana. "I was fairly certain that I let the third one know of my intention to accept her on the team…" the brown haired woman scratched the top of her head trying to recall any strange statements she could've made at Meiko's expense that could've scared the young lady off of training with the Team Hokage.

"Can't say I blame the third one, it's the first time you come in time to anywhere. Have you finally learned how to read the clock, sensei?" Kiyomi playfully bit at the mentor's expense, something that did appear slightly out of ordinary for Mana but having in mind the lengthy personal history and reliance on each other's best efforts to survive not at all surprising. The two have worked with each other, attended events together, saw members of their team come and go… Experiences like that make people forget courtesies and formalities.

"Sorry!" a loud shout alerted the team to an approaching bulldozer breaking tree branches and outright breaking some of them and tossing them over, breaking them in half in the process. Meiko with a greasy toast still in her mouth and most of her armor still embraced under her armpits charged at the battlefield with all of her attempts to not be any more late than she already was.

"Heh, she's kinda cute…" Kiyomi grinned in a very simian-like manner making Mana raise an eyebrow. While not quite masculine, the blacksmith had a certain build and overly heavy manner of dressing that would've separated her from how most kunoichi looked and dressed themselves. Mastery of chakra demanded perfect control of one's body, fine ability to manipulate and control the chakra network allowed the ninja to possess a fit if not a little slim build for most fine controllers of the both bodily and spiritual aspects of chakra. Maybe that was why Meiko looked a bit more bulky than your usual kunoichi, even one focusing on physical strength – her control was lacking, if anything. Either way, it was a very odd comment of her friend to make.

"Hope I'm not too late! Been a bit busy reconstructing the armor of Jiom Taeyang from the Black Sun Reckoning…" Meiko laughed out rubbing the back of her head in an apologetic manner with a little blush in her cheeks.

Kiyomi looked at Mana questioningly to which the magician could only shrug with a smile, "She's a geek about armors and weapons. Makes sense she'd spend whole night making an armor of a movie character…" the kunoichi replied to the unvoiced question which was apparent on Kiyomi's face.

"Well… If it's fine with you three we can start then?" Hanasaku inquired to which Mana uncomfortably interrupted. She didn't burn with desire to stand out in the eyes of the mentor who already sort of didn't feel too hot about her but there was one matter she still had to solve. The magician took off her hat and quickly weaved a hand seal opening up a seal inside her hat, pushing her arm deep into it until it was a good halfway there. As the arm backed out from the storage seal inside her hat the Audra blade sheathe was in her hand.

Meiko shrieked in joy, clapping like a little child. An expression of childish glee that Kiyomi found quite interesting and even hilarious. One couldn't have been sure what exactly entertained the armored kunoichi: the casual magic trick or the very rare and expensive sword in the magician's hand. It was more than likely it was the total package of the two…

"I recovered Shimo's sword recently, I went through a lot to get it but then as I stood in front of Shimo's grave I realized that just bringing it back won't do any good. Seeing how the blade was no longer owed to the man Shimo stole it from, I figured I'd give it to someone who knew how to use it and had a fancy for swords… Would you please take it?" Mana presented the sword bowing her head in an almost pleading request that her friend took it.

Meiko kept on standing there with giant stars burning out in her eyes. The blacksmith's mouth was so gapped and she looked so dumbstruck that anyone watching her would've erupted into a fit of laughter had the scene transpiring not been so touching. After the genuine admiration of the craftsmanship and value of the rare artifact in Mana's hands the blacksmith realized just what the magician was asking her to do.

"Mana… I…" Meiko uttered a couple of words in a total loss of air as the absolute awe of the amazing sword in front of her being given to her was just too demanding of it. "It's… So beautiful, absolutely unlike anything else!" the blacksmith began dancing around the magician's arms checking the sword out from every angle but wary of touching it as if it wasn't just offered to her and was just an exhibit in a museum. "But I… I just can't…" Meiko almost cried those words out. It looked like Mana's request made the big girl really squeamish and she was about to explode in a fit of tears and cries.

"I can't use it, my swordsmanship would kill any man or woman it faces but only out of laughter. Shimo's death still hangs over my head and I just couldn't use it and a sword such as this must absolutely be used…" Mana pleaded even more as she got on her knees. "Please take it!" she insisted.

Suddenly the ground beneath her feet disappeared, shocked by the development the magician screamed out in fear but then she realized that she was just being lifted up and smothered by her friend.

"This is single handedly the most amazing thing anyone's ever done for me! Still, I can't do what you ask of me, let's just say you lent the sword to me. I promise to give it back to you once your hands are more fitting for it than mine!" Meiko cried out completely taken aback by Mana's plead and what exactly was asked of her.

Realizing that such a day would never come as Meiko had years of swordsmanship experience on Mana and also trained exceptionally into use of weaponry the magician nodded in agreement. This was no consensus, this was Meiko giving in to Mana's conditions without realizing how little of their meaning she's changed by this common agreement of hers…

"Well then, are we done with this?" Hanasaku couldn't help but look touched by Mana's notion as even she raised the front of her eyebrows while lowering the ends and smiling softly looking at Meiko freaking out over the newest addition to her arsenal. "I would really like to start our first training session because I don't think you'll be done by evening…" the woman mysteriously grinned.

"Nah… Its fine, lady… I'm fine…" Meiko whined out while still rubbing her giant teardrops at her sleeve and blowing out her nose into the bandage from her ninja pouch. The Audra sword in her grasp looked tightly held, so tightly in fact that not even the devil itself could've pulled it out from there…

"So if I want you to smother me, purely theoretically… All I need to do is give you a present? Good to know…" Kiyomi joked with a devilish look on her face, the strange behavior of her friend didn't quite click with Mana. Maybe it was just the Yamanaka's way of making new friends, then again, the magician couldn't remember such behavior from the blonde when the two of them first met.

"Alright! So the Chuunin Exams are literally a couple of weeks away! We have no time to mess around, whatever training we need to do we need to be done quickly and efficiently. That is why I acquired a permission from the Hokage to take you guys on a little trip where I'll get to test all of your abilities and we can focus on training together." The woman explained with fiery enthusiasm behind her voice. Kiyomi and Meiko looked excited but Mana felt a bit uneasy having in mind what the Sannin had told her in the hospital. She had a feeling that she knew where the speech would turn next.

"However I don't feel like I can teach Mana anything. Her skillset is entirely a mystery to me. I don't understand genjutsu and as far as I know she refuses to learn any techniques that haven't been invented by her, for that reason I'm afraid I'll have to leave you behind." Hanasaku cut into the friendly cheers and expressions of joy of her team. With a long face Mana just uncomfortably looked away and rubbed her feet at the rustling layers of autumnal leaves.

"That's so much bullshit!" Kiyomi shouted out, "My skillset is also genjutsu as well as ninjutsu and yet you still trained me! Mana is a part of our team, how can she miss out on a whole training trip!? Do you want us to stay a genin forever?"

Hanasaku sighed, she must've anticipated such a heated response. "True, your skillset in theory does match that of Mana's, however you use genjutsu as a supplementary skill. Your main focus is your ninjutsu. For Mana that is the other way around. There is nothing I can teach her in genjutsu, she could teach me a thing or twenty, to be entirely honest. She did completely school me in our first training session."

Meiko sighed before interrupting, it was clear that if it was anyone else the speech was rotating around she'd have stayed quiet but her own friendly feelings towards the magician made her speak up. "As someone who has trained Mana, I must say that even if you train her in a subject she doesn't grasp of specialize in – it's very useful to her. When I taught her taijutsu during our time working together she implemented that as a part of her core skills seamlessly…"

"I don't believe that would be of much use…" Hanasaku shut the blacksmith down. "She'd just divide the time I can give you two – someone I can actually train. Look, you guys, I'm not leaving Mana behind completely. I just have other plans for her! I've already arranged a more suitable mentor to take her with him on a similar trip. She'll be even training in the Forest of Death and not Land of Lightning like us – arguably she'll be toughening up more than we will!"

Mana bit the inside of her cheek in sadness, Kiyomi pinched her shoulder to try and speak her mind but the magician just looked away.

"I'm really fine… Even if there's no one to train me, I can train myself just fine." Mana realized how much pain her tone expressed. The last thing she wanted Hanasaku to know right now was how uncomfortable Maan felt about her decision which, honestly, she should've seen coming.

In a way the magician understood the Fifth. After all, with just a couple of weeks left until the Chuunin Exams there was no time to treat any life threatening injuries. Any baggage of such an injury Mana would've carried into the exams and with Hanasaku's pent up anger towards the magician and how she treated the whole Kiyomi kidnapping situation it was impossible for someone as thick skulled and clear minded as Hanasaku to be impartial and properly train Mana without exerting too much strength on her and completely crippling the magician in the process. It was clear that Hanasaku didn't want to be in the same room as Mana and she'd have felt that way every time she threw a punch. That was not a safe environment to train in and it was in Hanasaku's interests that Mana helped Team Hokage to go the distance.

"Please don't feel like I'm benching you. I asked none other than Zairyo Jitensha – a fellow Sannin to train you. He is himself a genjutsu user, I feel like there's much he can teach you and he did express interest in that brain targeting style of illusions you use as well. It's going to be a very beneficial experience for the two of you, that man wouldn't have it any other way, honestly…" Hanasaku explained.

Both Meiko and Kiyomi just kept standing still and quiet looking scorned yet knowing no ways of properly responding to their mentor's arguments. They knew that deep inside it kind of made sense but Kiyomi could see that there were some bad feelings in their mentor's heart for Mana and she couldn't help but suspect where it came from. As for Meiko, it was never really clear what she thought, still, she must've saw through it all as well, she just didn't share the experiences that Mana and Kiyomi had just before this training session so she was mostly still in the dark as to where this shade on their team came from.

"As for today's training…" Hanasaku smiled before slapping her hands together and focusing her chakra so intensely that it burst out from her pores and exploded like an aura of silver colored violence that even Mana could see. That meant that it was fully visible to non-sensors which was alarming. Suddenly the woman's fangs began to grow in size and sharpen, her snout extended forward and arms covered in fur as well as her hair began slowly enveloping her face and wildly falling behind her back. A playful wagging tail pushed away the woman's dress. Chestnut Hanasaku began looking like a hybrid of a man and a canine as even her eyes changed into sad puppy eyes that despite it not being the woman's intention just couldn't stop looking like their owner was begging for food.

"You'll have to catch me…" she growled through her sharper and extended teeth.