The sky-wide blue and purple bruise was beginning to fade away, giving in to the fountain of bloody sunlight that squirted from the horizon before stabilizing into a shape of a burning sphere. The gaseous cotton was like a canvas for illustrations of Mother Nature as she performed another masterpiece. The jury was still out about if it would bring a downfall of frost on the land or if something different would define the color palette of the ground beneath Mother Nature's aerial masterpieces.

Mana had little time to observe the shifting and breaching dawn, her attention was solely focused on a white rabbit of a cottony fur, just like the clouds above her head, except the rabbit's white was yet to be tainted by dirt and blood. Usuzoku was a mighty opponent, once he may have been even mightier, like when the two had first met, she could not have ever dreamed of matching the rabbit in skill and speed.

Now the matters were entirely different. Even as Usuzoku brought his best, Mana was quite able to, for the most part, avoid getting demolished. Just for the sake of preserving chakra for the day and not to needlessly risk breaking her system again, crippling herself potentially for life, Mana asked Usuzoku to use a bokken instead of his massive and quite deadly cleaving blade.

That was not to say that getting hit with a hardened wooden sword swung by someone much faster and about as strong as a B-Rank ninja did not hurt or did not carry the potential of leaving calamitous injuries. Yet being hit in the face by wood, as much force as it carried behind it, was much easier to treat afterward than getting dismembered or cleaved in half.

Mana danced around Usuzoku's quick barrage of hits but she was getting tagged. Every single impact burnt the surrounding area while it temporarily made the point of impact completely numb, only to return with tenfold the searing sensation and a nasty bump afterward. As she was getting hit more and more, continuing to dance around Zoku's attacks was getting progressively harder, just like in the arena with Stea.

Except this fight was nothing like that time. This was just a game, a pointless sparring session meant to just keep Mana's skills sharp. Despite her being about on the same level as her summoned rabbit partner, she was holding back significantly as her goal was not to fight the rabbit. It was to push herself to her mental limits and then sharpen her willpower. She needed to get hurt, to get cornered and then accept that pain, learn to deal and live with it.

"String Reeling Jutsu!" Usuzoku yelled out, the frightening sound of steel wire shrieking like a scorned apparition as it tightly pressed against Mana's wrist, digging into her flesh and breaking her skin but failing to leave anything but a nasty skin-deep cut due to the magician's chakra resistance. Good, her reaction was on point, she managed to toughen up a limb that was previously lacking any augments faster than the pain of it getting hit cruised through her neurons.

"Double-Draw!" Usuzoku yelled out, using his massive rabbit feet to dash near-instantaneously up to Mana as he drew his blade, driving it against her locked up by steel wire arm at her elbow and her armpit. One hit – a drawing slash with his bokken aimed to break her hand by the elbow, re-sheathe, draw again and thrust it towards her armpit to disable the opponent completely.

Mana's body burst into flower petals, scurrying away from harm before reassembling her bodily shape farther away. She was not proud of having to dodge the attack this way, the magician intended not to use this jutsu during training. Had the opponent been anyone else, had they been a microsecond slower… She could have relied on her stage magician cred to pull her out from the binds. She could have surprised the opponent by being free before they even prepared to exploit the bound state of their opponent.

"Yer holdin' back. Dis ain't even fun!" Usuzoku grumbled, sheathing his sword before raising his cute, pink, little nose in the air like a pouty little curmudgeon that he was.

"This is not about fun. I need to be cornered, I have no interest in an even battle. This is not a contest of which one of us is better." Mana stretched out her tired neck before grunting in pain as she caressed a couple of painful bruises where Usuzoku's bokken made through her defenses. She had to hand it, Usuzoku was even faster without that massive blade, not that something as petty as an eight-kilogram sword would drag the rabbit down any, he just fought differently and the wood was much more difficult to keep up with in partial darkness of early winter mornings.

"Dat's still me, by the way!" Usuzoku opened one of his eyes, attempting a sudden-death glare on Mana but the magician was so close to him by the time he had opened his eyes up that the rabbit lost his balance and began stumbling back, only to be saved by Mana's sudden finger pincers pulling on his soft and furry cheeks.

"As long as it lets you sleep easier", the magician smiled.

"I am, I'm tellin' ye! What's the deal about you getting yer crapper kicked, anyway!?" The grumbler did his usual thing.

"That's the way it usually is. I fight differently to most ninja. I have morals and goals holding me back. For that reason, I either need to become stronger than anyone else or learn to fight from the position of a hopeless underdog." Mana winked as she took her coat from a damp little stump of wood where it was placed for the duration of the training session.

"Fightin' without tryin' ta kill can't be dat hard…" Usuzoku raised an eyebrow.

"It slows you down. Every time I dodge an attack, I see dozens of openings for strikes. Neck, thighs, liver, kidneys, so many pressure points and arteries. In that fraction of a moment, you need to weigh in which strikes will be lethal and which ones will just hurt really much, hopefully, enough to shake your opponent off any dreams of keeping it up. The old man from Sun Disc kept trying to slip in lethal attacks in his training, hoping I would not notice. I guess he figured that once I actually had blood on my hands it would be easier to draw it again and embrace that, he might have even been right. Once blood is drawn, you cannot return to the place you were before."

"Heh, dis handicap sounds fun, I'll try it next time…" Usuzoku ground his voice soothingly, fighting was about the only thing that made him do so. Something about being able to fight really well-made people really fond of it and excited about new opportunities of testing their mettle.

"Anyway, I'm off home. Still haven't checked the mail today, left earlier than the mailman dropped by." Mana wrapped herself in her coat, "Got about fifteen more minutes of a magic show to plan out too."

"What, ain't gonna run to yer boyfriend to get all kissy-huggy askin' him to lick yer wounds?" Usuzoku cut pretty deep. Letting him get as close to Mana as the magician did make him catch on to a pair of things that were like exposed nerves to her, used to be anyway, before Mana tore them out.

"You don't hit hard enough for that. I'll walk it off." The magician replied with something that was just as likely to make Usuzoku flip the table and jump at her.

"What was dat!? Dat's it! Next time I'm kickin' yer ass real hard! I'm serious, don't ye mess around da next time, ye'll die!" Usuzoku began grumbling before returning to the rabbit caves, leaving just a puffy cloud of dust and smoke that got carried away by the chilly winter winds in a breeze.


Mana did not expect to get summoned to the Administration this early after having the talk with Lord Sixth. It has only been a couple of days and she was already about to be sent off on another mission, in a rather peaceful period, when the villages were cooling down after the rather turbulent Chuunin Exams, no less.

One thing that will take a lot of time for Mana to get used to was being addressed with respectful honorific of "-san" which she barely ever heard added to her name before. Being a chuunin did grant certain status and warranted respect. A chuunin was a full-fledged ninja, not only by name but by the contents of their character, experience, and skill. Most ninja did not ever surpass that rank and were still regarded quite highly, chuunin was the standard rank of ninja.

That being said, the gap between a chuunin and what laid further beyond was also much wider. If the gap between a genin, a C-Rank ninja, and a chuunin was a world of skill, power, and speed, the gap between a chuunin and a jounin would have been the entire universe in comparison. When genin just started out, their heads were full of something else, Mana could even recall feeling somewhat hopeful when she and the rest of Team Oak were being tried out by Tanshu-sensei…

Something made silly people feel as if they knew a real lot, whereas when a ninja grew more experienced, they were made more and more humbled.

The last person waiting for meet the Hokage in the waiting room had left with the assistant glaring at Mana and briefly thanking her for coming. Sitting down on this chair and waiting for Lord Sixth to call her up all by her lonesome felt so insanely awkward and unnatural. It was almost as if she had messed something up and was awaiting punishment, this was how unnatural being issued a solo mission was.

"Lord Sixth!" Mana bowed in the respectful and submissive way. She had considered a kneeling greeting, having decided to play this ninja game to the best of her knowledge and abilities for as long as it still lasted, but she was not sure if the Sixth invited her to receive orders or for another matter entirely.

"You look injured. Is everything OK?" The assistant of Lord Sixth raised the issue by pointing out numerous dark bruises that showed even on Mana's darker than most of Konoha villagers skin tone.

"I was just training. It's nothing but a couple of bruises and I am ready to do my duty." Mana quickly brushed the matter aside.

"That's a good answer." Lord Sixth praised the magician, something that she was not quite used to hearing from the man, reminiscing their first meeting, one would have been quite foolish to prophesize the two developing a respectful professional relationship. "I have a mission for you."

Mana kneeled on one knee as Lord Sixth placed a file on the edge of the table for her to pick up once she stood back up. This manner of etiquette was ancient, genin barely ever observed it, even some older ninja saw themselves beyond these trivialities but Mana, as someone decently read up on historical matters, loved the traditional way ninja received their orders.

"The mission is not too difficult, that's why I'm sending you all by yourself. It's a B-Rank assignment because you will be handling some secret information and you'll see some sensitive numbers on the documents you'll be looking at out there." Lord Sixth began briefing Mana in the traditional way, while the Hokage deposited the mission file for the ninja to see, it was polite of them to also provide a brief summary of the assignment as well. It was just a proper answer to Mana's highly traditional reception of orders, quite likely.

Mana picked up the mission file and pressed a one-handed seal to its edge, unsealing the elementary seal used to seal up information that did not belong being feasted on by too many curious eyes.

"It requires clearance to handle secret information, I did not yet undergo that evaluation," Mana noted pressing her finger on the mission requirements.

"We went ahead and submitted your file for the clearance already. It's a trivial and quick procedure. All you need to bother about is the mission." Hokage's assistant bowed his head, looking quite proud of himself, it was more than likely that he was the one who pulled those strings.

"You look disappointed, is there a problem? Anything that might impact the mission?" Lord Sixth raised a suspectful eyebrow.

"Not at all, it is just not the kind of mission I thought I may see as a chuunin." Mana admitted out of the duty of being completely honest with her superior, more than the desire to complain.

"These type of missions are ALL chuunin see. You showed remarkable intelligence in the Exams, do not dirty up that impression. You will be making decisions that will impact Fire Lord's finances, this is beyond important because your failure will reflect on me and the village as well. You are long past just washing dishes and manual paperwork in Konoha Police Force." Lord Sixth disciplined Mana.

"Understood!" The magician relented.

"Dismissed." Lord Hokage noted a while after he had already returned to his paperwork and moved his mind forward and past the mission he had just handed out.

Mana pressed her hand seal against the mission file, sealing it up again. Seeing this mission made her feel divided. Something she could not have predicted when she got out of bed this morning was that she was handed an immensely important assignment – it was a village issued mission, likely a matter that rose from the direct orders from the Fire Lord himself. Apparently, Shukuba Town, a small pleasure town in the Fire Country a little bit down the path outside the village had a possible finance leak problem.

The kunoichi quickly dropped by home to gather her tools and examine her father's seal as well as her uniform and any seals present on it for preparedness. She then quickly scribbled something for her parents, something her father would see first, given how he did not spend more than a couple of hours shopping for his herbs and ointments and health drinks. In addition, Mana added the official summon letter by the note, just to show her parents she was not running off and doing something reckless like the time with the Box of Ultimate Bliss.

The reason why the magician despised the sight of this mission was that she hated economy, finances, and money matters. That was why her mother managed her show funds and mission pay separately even past the point when Mana got emancipated as a kunoichi of Konohagakure. The fact that she'd have to sniff about drawers and lockers of old files trying to find the leak or a possible laundering scheme which explained where the Fire Lord's money went, made the magician feel dirtier than washing the dishes at Ichiraku Ramen.

The gate guards stopped Mana, not because of any particular reason but just because they felt jumpy. Stopping random people leaving and entering must have been the new modus operandi for those two. They had to justify their salaries and going above and beyond in the line of work more now than at any other point. With all those mysterious disappearances, the village authority and the commoners sneered at and expected of them to do their duty in stellar ways.

After being informed that she was on official Konohagakure business and shown the file, the contents of which they did not even think of checking, after all, Mana was now an equal ninja to them, not just a newbie, the duo backed off and even went as far as to wish her a safe and relaxing trip.

One never thought about safety while en route to any place inside the Fire Country until they actually went past the massive village gate and left the safety of all the barrier and protective seals behind. Now it was only Mana, her wits, and skill, against the rest of the world. A single well-timed and executed raid by bandits or mercenaries could have ended her career early, just like it happened to father, every mission, even such as trivial and petty as matters of Fire Lord's financial aid could have resulted in Mana losing her life.

She had never previously thought about that, she has never experienced being forced into life-threatening situations on official village business. Sure, her life was threatened from time to time, the magician faced off against her fair share of deadly threats and enemies she had no rational right of surviving against but it was always her call. Never, in the magician's recent memory, was she shoved in between being labeled a traitor or a failure or death in the line of duty.

The Fire Country woods looked so peaceful and white. It would be tough to see steel wire or other traps in this blinding frost, the Sun bouncing off the snow and solid ice, poking at Mana's eyes was doing more than just caressing her cheeks with all the warmth that one could have gotten in this season. It was also adding to the danger of traveling these roads all alone.

Her logical mind kept telling the magician that the likelihood of being attacked on the road in between Konoha and Shukuba Town was reasonably slim. Even those few bandits that would have hung around these well-traveled and protected parts would have been bandits of desperation, not professionals. People who could have actually used that Fire Lord's money, people whose lives were broken by a couple of bad life decisions or bad dice rolls, sometimes even completely without their role to play in the collapse of their very own totality.

One could not have helped but thought of the possible dangers lurking outside when traveling the lonely and dead-silent woods, even in the early morning. Of how worried Mana's parents will inevitably be when they find the Administration's summon papers on the table in the living room and will eventually realize the cause of the summon when Mana won't come home in the evening.

It was all a matter of welfare. The Fire Lord felt very charitable and generous supplying welfare for various matters, ranging from monetary support to the more severe and public cases of life hitting someone in their country too hard to a public venture like a big play or event being put up to entertain the villagers or townsfolk of the Fire Country. All her life Mana had taken welfare for a good thing, a monetary version of what she wanted actual people to be like.

The kunoichi had a bad feeling that her idealistic view on the matter may actually change the deeper she investigates this matter of hers, possibly even shaking the very core of her understanding of how it worked and what it was used for… That was, of course, if some lowly bandit did not hit a well-placed shot with a kunai while Mana's defenses were down and end it all prematurely…

The next destination was Shukuba Town!