Meiko disappointedly trekked back to Konoha through the brief dirty path that stretched through the endless woods of Land of Fire between the Training Grounds complex and Konohagakure. While she did feel somewhat clearer about what she needed to do, the "hows" of the matter still remained a mystery. She was lightyears away from inventing her own techniques and her most innovative jutsu was a simple storage seal. The two towering pillars of Masen's chakra imbuement technique and the Eight Gates loomed atop of Meiko's head, as if a dragon over the mountain, spitting flames at her direction and taunting to come with something stronger.
"Hey, it's you again"! A slightly familiar, cutesy voice attracted Meiko's attention as the blacksmith raised her eyes up and met an unexpected pair of ninja. "You stay away from us, Teia, let's get the hell away from this girl, don't even think about challenging her again"! Little Aoi Yuki exclaimed, pointing a finger at Meiko as he hovered in the air like a weightless snowflake.
"Whoa! Just the person I wanted to see! Let's fight again!" The blond swordswoman shrieked out as she enthusiastically rushed up to Meiko and grabbed the blacksmith's hands, pulling them on her chest. The redhead could feel Galateia's heart just pounding with excitement, despite Meiko beating the young woman there was not a hint of malice in the girl's eyes, just a desire to fight it out again.
"I thought the two of you were captured, or something…" Meiko squinted pointing fingers at Aoi, by far the more reasonable of the two nukenin that traveled around together looking for people to fight.
"We were, turns out that we aren't actually wanted in the Fire Country for any actual crimes and the international relationship between Konoha and Kumogakure isn't cohesive enough for an extradition." The floating pale kid locked his arms around his chest, feeling immensely annoyed by his experience in the Konohagakure Detainment Facility and the interrogation in the Police Force headquarters.
"Tee hee, he said "cohesive"…" Galateia giggled innocently before Aoi floated above her head.
"It's not a bad word, Teia, it means the characteristic of possessing cohesive properties"! Aoi shouted out right next to Galateia's ear. The tall blonde just stared into the eyes of her angered short companion in innocent confusion.
"You know, it's a really lousy explanation to someone who isn't aware of what the word means…" Meiko grinned with a shrug.
"Whatever, anyways, it was either execute us or let us go, they had no reason to keep us detained, on top of that, Teia's been deemed hopelessly stupid and the Police Force officers thought that executing her would've been like putting down a disabled person", Aoi explained. "They tried to pin kidnapping on us but Gwido just gave them an ominous stare and told them he did it just for the kicks of it. He'll probably land into some public works for being such a badass though".
"They did tell us to leave the village, that's too bad, there were so many strong ninja just walking around", Galateia dreamily stared into the sky.
"I may begin to understand why they insisted on you leaving the village", Meiko noted before getting an idea. "Are you two heading anywhere specific"? She wondered.
"Not really, we're kind of wandering, wherever the mood takes us. Teia's mood changes all the time so as you may guess – that's all over the place", Aoi managed to complain with his answer, something that flew completely over his oblivious companion's head as a little sparrow landed on her shoulder plate to rest.
Meiko stared in hesitation, for a moment, she felt truly psyched out and thought that the blonde-haired young woman would crush the poor bird but the silly girl just kept on staring at the little thing and just giggling.
"Not yet, little one, one day you'll grow up to be a giant dragon, then I'll fight you"! She declared.
"See what I'm dealing with here"? Aoi sighed with a hint of glee in his voice, while Galateia's antics must have gotten them in loads of trouble, it didn't look like the kid hated the swordswoman or needed her that much. There was some kind of a bond between the two and that must have been the reason why they stuck around.
"Would you mind training with me? You're both nukenin so I'm sure you're used to living outside the village walls. I'm sure you can find an inn to stay in around these parts. I'll craft training equipment for us and repair your gear whenever it wears out, maybe I'll even make something for you for the road ahead", the blacksmith suggested. This was just what the redhead needed, Galateia was a spectacularly tough opponent and she probably did not know the definition of holding back – she will be just the right training partner for the week.
The blond swordswoman kept on playing with her hair as she appeared to be deep in thought.
"That does sound like a plan, which is better than what we currently have, that'd be jack squat. What do you think, Teia"? Aoi looked at his companion's approval.
"You've no idea what I just said, do you"? Meiko smiled feeling pity for the tall potential training companion of hers.
"Nope! You just said so many things, I kind of got lost, none of them really involved fighting so I lost interest", Galateia laughed out.
"You know, training would probably involve a lot of fighting", Meiko teased the nukenin.
"Sparring is a form of fighting", Aoi prompted his companion, helping her out with this fancy word.
"Glorious! If it involves fighting Meiko again, I'm all for it", Galateia grinned before getting a bit serious, the blacksmith had an itching feeling that the nukenin got excited about facing off with Meiko for the entire week straight. It was actually quite a beneficial deal for both girls.
Meiko spent the rest of the week training with Galateia in the wilderness of the Land of Fire. Every evening the blacksmith returned home to lick her wounds and repair her armor and gear whereas the duo of nukenins returned to the inn to rest, eat and drink up and prepare for the series of tough hardening battles the next day.
Facing off against Galateia was truly a limit, as well as the body, breaking experience. While the swordswoman herself may not have been able to tell initially – Meiko held herself back, she only fought using a sword, which was why she got trounced so many times. The blonde was an amazing prodigy of a swordswoman, she may have been a bit slow in everything else but as far as swordsmanship went she may have been a genius. She was reading strings and predicting next moves better than Mana did after the combined evasion training. Once the blonde started catching up to Meiko's lack of varied skills, the blacksmith had to go full out just to snuff that impression, even then Galateia sometimes bested Meiko in battle. It appeared like the nukenin was growing more skilled and powerful when facing off against that same opponent each time she dueled them. It was quite scary…
Regardless of how scary of an experience this past week was for the blacksmith – her physical strength, agility, endurance, chakra level have all improved significantly. It would have been completely foolish to ignore the leaps and bounds that her swordsmanship has improved by, Galateia oftentimes explained Meiko's mistakes just to make the blacksmith a superior opponent to her. Eventually, however, it appeared that the nukenin's interest in the redhead was beginning to dwindle. Like a child who played with their favorite toy and therefore became sick of it, Galateia was beginning to just train by herself. Even in those cases, Meiko saw how a physical monster swordswoman trained, allowing herself to train using similar methods.
Once the blacksmith trained that same way but outdid Galateia, the rivalry picked back up again and the blonde-haired kunoichi was willing to duel Meiko again. It was a remarkably silent and gruelingly physically tolling week, maybe one of the most such in the blacksmith's life but as the days approached the deadline of the next exam, Meiko was beginning to feel more and more confident about her growth. To top it all off, after Aoi warmed up to the blacksmith, as a ninjutsu using Yuki clansman he picked up Meiko's chakra control training from where Mana left it off which helped the blacksmith improve her sealing techniques and chakra control as well.
Not relying on cheap and body breaking Eight Gates to multiply her strength and speed for her, but instead training her body to be more overall balanced and capable of outlasting such a risky fighter in battle was a superior choice, Meiko knew it by now. Even if Galateia and Aoi decided to take off to Land of Lightning one day earlier than it was agreed on, the blacksmith felt confident in her abilities to pick it up from where she and Teia left off all by herself.
"It's thirty-three to thirty-three, I figured you'd have wanted to settle it once and for all", Meiko grinned as she waved goodbye to the nukenin friend she never figured she would have.
"Not now, fighting as we are now would be boring. Get stronger, learn new techniques and moves and I'll do the same. Then let's fight again. That'll make the tie-breaker more exciting and it'll give us something to look forward to", Galateia waved her farewells to Meiko as she walked off down the forest path, followed by the little Yuki clan shortie, floating by her side.
Training and the unexpected mission she was given had kept Mana so preoccupied that despite having decided on hosting one show during the week she had to prepare for the next stage of the exams, Mana still only barely found time to squeeze the show in at the very last day of the preparations. Maybe it was because of the time restraints of preparing for a magic show while actively training throughout the day, maybe it was so because of Mana's perfectionist attitude towards her shows, maybe both conditions had something to do with the timing of the show.
Once the magic show had concluded and the curtains closed, Mana sighed and rushed out of the hall and into the long service corridors behind the stage. She did not have time to change out of her less than comfortable uniform since another troupe of actors preparing to perform their play right after Mana's show occupied her little closet for the evening. It was only because of the quality and appeal of her shows that she was so spontaneously even granted time by the owner of the hall, Mr. Hiro, so her service closet was a very modest sacrifice for the ability to perform tonight.
Mana quickly moved into her coat and rushed through the corridors before noticing one of the actor troupe – a guy named Gani. As a little girl, when Mana first started performing in the hall, the magician used to have a bit of an innocent crush on the guy. It probably had plenty to do with the fact that he commonly played Shikio in most of the adaptations of his adventures. It was a well-known fact that most of young girls idolized both the character and the young actors portraying the lion-hearted legendary ninja.
"That ending was pretty loud, busy night, huh"? Gani welcomed Mana in his own way, excessive amounts of smoke went out his mouth as he spoke. The kunoichi wasn't a big fan of the way smokers smelled usually but now she had the advantage of not being able to feel it, still, the unpleasant memories of the lingering smell kept unpleasantly reminding Mana of the worse parts of the olfactory spectre.
"Hey, I'm only here for one night, heard you guys are leaving on a tour"? Mana smiled out of politeness, stopping to briefly talk to her old time colleague in the craft of entertainment.
"Yep, kind of a drag, really. I'm thinking of dumping the acting biz and moving into writing plays. Let other jackasses sweat while I get pockets full of ryo every time my property is adapted and toured with, ya know"? Gani continued to smoke, nonchalantly filling the corridor that the two in with a murky cover of smoke. While Mana couldn't really smell any of the disgusting odors that the man subjected himself to, her eyes still felt a bit itchy from the toxicity breathed out. It sort of became clearer why her little unused janitor's closet smelled of smoke so often.
"Writing isn't easy either, you know. Can't just write anything and expect it to break it big, have you tried writing something"? Mana wondered. She appeared to have stepped onto a mine as her pal gleefully pulled out a sheet of paper and showed her a sketch of a Konohagakure Police Force shinobi facing off against masked opponents with two massive kissing faces taking up space in the background. It was an impressive concept art for a writer, the magician suspected that he may have gotten one of the sketchers from the morning to early afternoon times to scribble it.
"In a world where bad guys control people's minds through tainted meat in burgers, one Police Force ninja has his hands full saving the world"! Gani enthusiastically read the pitch to Mana as if she was an executive in charge of making actual films.
"Well… Why didn't the Police Force ninja get infected then"? The magician wondered as her impressions were mostly comprised of utter confusion.
"He's vegetarian – he doesn't eat meat", Gani explained as he put out his cigarette and dumped it into the trash can, he tried looking really cool as he did it, thinking his concept was going to knock Mana out of her sandals.
"Yeah but… Burgers are just breaking through, I'm not sure those people making them will appreciate this, they have their hard times competing as it is", Mana scratched her chin.
"Egh, everyone's a critic… Anyways, do you really trust those burger-things? I mean the first burger came from a whole another universe, didn't it? Why would you trust something like that? What if the other universe tainted the burgers to wash our brains so occupying us would be easier"? Gani tried blowing Mana's mind. He was a curiously oddball of a soul, then again, he was an artist.
"Uh-huh", Mana raised an eyebrow, being the person who brought back the inter-universal package from Naruto's universe she almost felt offended by the implication.
"Look, I'm not saying they are… But what if… You know? The Police Force should look into it, never know what you're gonna find…" Gani shrugged as the two friends said their farewells and Mana left into the cold snowy streets of cold season Konohagakure.
A familiar face of a short and well-trained young boy with messy hair in a shearling jacket met Mana as she left the show. The magician always scanned the audience for familiar faces during the show but this time she found no one. Not too surprising not seeing Meiko and Kiyomi during these busy times but it appeared like only young Sayaki bothered to show up. Then again, once Mana started seriously filling the seats it became almost impossible to tell for sure who showed up and who didn't.
"Hey", Kouta mumbled out, his tone was just as confused and irritated as the magician had predicted it being. She had foreseen this talk coming a long time ago, pretty much when she did something really stupid, or something that'd look really stupid in Kouta's eyes.
"Hey. Didn't see you at the show. Just waited outside the whole time"? Mana tried somehow to soften the blows that will soon inevitably come. She had this coming, really. That pathetic circling around the topic was all she could do at this point.
"Yeah, well… I wanted to see you but I wasn't sure where I could find you. Figured you'd definitely be here in your own show. Didn't want to barge into your home with something like this", Kouta grumbled out in irritation. He was almost as bad as Mana was with hiding something, be it emotions or half-assed truths. He was livid and it was crystal-clear.
Mana looked away, she knew she was guilty and she knew she deserved everything that'd come but… She just wished that he'd hurry up and explode already. This hesitation and his inner hesitation of just blowing the lid off wasn't doing anyone any favors.
"So… You mind telling me why you betrayed my weakened team's location to a team from Sunagakure"? Kouta finally stabbed straight for Mana's heart.
"I… I did it and… I'm sorry", Mana mumbled out, just barely holding herself together. She really would've rather had this conversation any other day than the night before the next stage of the exams but as someone who really crossed her own boyfriend she had very little say in when she was to be confronted about it.
"I know you did it, Yushijin told me you did. It's not like those Sunagakure guys were very loyal to you either, they spilled the beans on you before they even got to the fighting – they wanted this on you. You're my girlfriend, Mana, at least, I thought you were, so I'm giving you a chance to explain why you did that. This isn't some stupid joke, people used to get executed for stuff like that", Kouta was beginning to sound really angry and desperate, he was just as pained and scared as he was angry. Mana didn't even have to look him in the eyes, she wouldn't have needed to smell his sweat, even if she could do that, to know it. That pain was the worst part about this whole interaction.
Mana remained silent. Honestly, she just did not want to try and excuse herself, she did what she thought was right, she acted upon her principles and it may have been the wrong thing to do by anyone else's scale but hers but… Even if it hurt her inside to admit it – she would do it again.
"Was it your principles again? Your tangled web of responsibilities and "right things to do""? Kouta angrily wondered. Mana's lips felt like they were hammered shut, her throat felt dry and short of air, as if she was actually being choked up by the guilt she felt, guilt not for what she did but for how what she did made her boyfriend feel. She could only offer a pathetic nod. Kouta threw his hands up in the air before ramming his back at the wall of a building and falling down on a thin layer of first snow.
"Being someone's girlfriend means to trust that person, also being able to trust that person to trust you. It's a bond of trust and love, one can't go without the other. You betrayed my friends, I don't know if you knew or not that I was out by that time, you probably did but… Stabbing at them is the same as stabbing right into my back. I… I don't think I can do this anymore. Being in love with someone means that your principles and rules have to come second to the common interests of the entity that you and your other form. You must be able to sacrifice your own good for that of the ones you love. Of all people, I thought you'd understand it. You weren't able to do that, Mana", Kouta started rambling calmly.
Mana just stood there locked down and crushed. Her hands trembled from the failed attempts not to cry. Sometimes being able to read people, read situations and predict what was coming was the most painful thing ever. Reading situations and events, like ninja were able to do, to the extent where it was almost knowing the future was no blessing – it was poison, a virus that rot one's own guts from inside out before making them blow up once the predicted future came to fruition. Most sadistic killers always told their victims ahead when their deaths would come, it was not for no reason at all…
Kouta stood up and placed his hands inside his pockets, his face looked calmer, even while a vein was shot out in the upper left corner of his forehead, it was slowly starting to dwindle down as the boy's eyes gained clarity.
"When I look into your eyes I see a lot of things, pain, maybe still a whole lots of love we feel for one another. The thing is that I don't see regret. We both know you're not sorry for betraying me and that's what hurts, that's what twisted the knife and cut us apart. Now I know why Shimo used to be so angry and rude with you, he just knew you all too well. I just really hope that whatever you got out of this deal with the Sand Village was worth it…" Kouta calmly explained, looking both a little lyrically happy but also still in pain over what he had to do. Having just cut his bond with Mana apart the young man calmly turned around and walked away while Mana broke down in tears onto the newly fallen snow.
Mana's crying and silent sobbing went completely ignored by the rushing people all around her, some of them bothered to look at her with irritation and disgust as her mental breakdown sort of disturbed the nice and quiet evening in the rather busy village street and fouled their own good mood. Left to deal with her pain all by lonesome in one of the busiest streets of the village, the magician shed her tears until she realized that while she still loved Kouta, crying wouldn't fill up the massive hole in her chest that him ending their relationship tore out. She weeped until she realized that for someone who saw it coming she really failed to anticipate just how efficiently crippling the blow would be.
This was over. Arguably, the most important night in her life was still ahead though.
