When the day of the mission finally dawned, after a night of worry and grueling reading so not to come short to the standards placed on her, Mana felt strangely calm. It may have been a gift of hers. When the truly important handful of golden feathers hit the fan Mana usually was rather calm and accepting whatever outcome came.
The only thing that Mana had trouble working out and kept jumping from one boat to another on was whether to employ any help from any of her acquaintances. She made it halfway to the Academy before realizing that maybe it would not have hurt to pay Kiyomi a visit.
The two parted under less than ideal circumstances and while they made up in the end on the things that mattered, they could have worked it out more peacefully. At least in a manner of acceptance and honesty more befitting to true friends. Given how Mana now knew of the Yamanaka's vision of her future, she had an option to offer something that could have been of use to her. Maybe that would have helped illuminate whatever shade fell on their garden of friendship.
It was a rather early morning when Mana came. The Academy tried to instill a sense of discipline and iron will into the youngsters it tutored so the lessons started quite early. Fortunately, in this case, Mana only had to show up on the second lesson as Tori did not have a lesson in the timeslot occupying the very first hour of daily studies.
Regardless of the time, Mana expected a rather decent chance of finding Kiyomi home. If she was not, an even greater chance suggested that after a quick rooftop dash to the Training Grounds she may have found her lost friend and troubled her with the suggestion. In this time of early morning, servants tended to the gardens of what Mana may have classified as a genuine mansion – the home where Kiyomi and her family lived.
Her face was rather well-known around the village in general and that helped associate that face with Kiyomi as her friend's face to the service staff and the girl's family. For that simple reason, none of the servants troubled Mana. And yet, the magician noticed a presence of uneasy chuunin-vest wearing ninja in the premises which tipped the magician off just as much as the flash of her raven hair did the bodyguards before they settled down after a moment of examining this quick-footed visitor.
"Hey, what's up with you?" Kiyomi grinned, opening the door. Mana was relieved to see her friend herself and not another servant. She was a little tight on time and dashing around the village would have taken much less time, considering her speed, than it would have taken to explain the plentiful baggage of the reason why she was here to civilians.
"Are you busy this afternoon? I've got a thing about interrogation and… Well… You mentioned you wanted to enroll in the Intelligence Division, did you not?" Mana spoke up without departing on a lengthy quest to find her words.
"Oh…" Kiyomi's eyes lit up before the girl's gleaming oceanic blues settled on the ninja roaming the premises. At that moment, the spark in her eyes faded out. "I don't think leaving my home would be a good idea right now. I hope you didn't count on me too much."
"Oh, no… It's just, I'm teaching a course in the Academy about interrogation to kids and I figured you'd like to be there." Mana shrugged. Her own eyes happened to creep back at the ninja that did not appear that troubled by the conversation but that relentlessly patrolled the premises of the Yamanaka garden.
"Yeah, sorry. There is this whole thing happening with the Uchiha and Yamanaka over what I did with the eyes they lost and… It may not be the wisest idea for me to leave." Kiyomi rubbed her elbow in unease. Hints of anger and frustration of the more submissive variety appeared in her body language and the reflection of her soul in the girl's eyes.
Whatever was happening demanded more time from Mana than she may have had. The magician wondered how she could write herself out of this conversation she herself started and utilize the time she still had without seeming too rude. Whatever this situation with the Uchiha was, it appeared to greatly weigh on Kiyomi's chest and it was not something a friend would just dismiss with a "K, bye".
"I would really like to hear more," Mana said slowly, each word wrapping around the other like some complicated spell weaved by a master magician comprised of dozens of different languages and using a multitude of different artifacts and seals. This was not what Mana meant to do at all!
"You are the worst person that ever existed!" the girl scolded herself internally.
"Oh, there's not much to hear. The Uchiha got pretty heated up by the fact that a Sannin could not retrieve their precious eyes for whatever use they had of them and they sort of chose me as their scapegoat so the Yamanaka and the Uchiha are grabbing each other by the collars. Diplomacy has already failed at this point…"
Mana looked back at the ninja again, so that was it. The situation really must have been pretty heated if the village offered its own ninja to guard the Yamanaka premises. The magician could only wonder if the same courtesy was offered to the Uchiha who did sound as the aggressor from Kiyomi's explanation, then again, Kiyomi may have been the least objective person to portray the Uchiha in a just light.
"It's just that there's a chance to interrogate someone from the disappearance incidents and… You're someone who has probed their minds before. I've been studying a little bit about interrogation using genjutsu for a while now but I've never tried using it practically." Mana shrugged. The girl took a wary step back, feeling like she was overstepping her boundaries and asking her friend way too much.
"Though I can see that you really have your plate full here. The last thing I'd like you to do is hurt yourself trying to probe into one of those minds again. It looked quite painful and complex in the Chuunin Exams…" Mana excused herself but before she could run off, Kiyomi's tight grip on her wrist held the girl in place.
"Just what's that supposed to mean? Are you implying I'd have to work up a sweat about probing one of those again?" Kiyomi appeared to genuinely get a bit worked up and growly about the subject. Mana could not have counted on how upset and defensive it would make her. That was the last thing she intended.
This was supposed to be a friendly visit to mend their relationship, which was once a bit wobbly, now it turned out to be slowly returning to its wobbly foundations.
"That's not what I…" Mana opened her mouth to object before she was dragged into the mansion with the door shut behind her. "What are you…" she tried to ask but Kiyomi was acting at the beat of her own drums.
The Yamanaka removed a blank paper tag from her ninja pouch before weaving a hand seal, then another. A hieroglyph of "Illusion" appeared on the paper tag and the girl ran upstairs for an unknown purpose. Mana stood where she was left standing in complete confusion, only when Kiyomi's mother trekked her way downstairs and into the kitchen, greeting the girl did the magician wake up.
"Oh, hello, ma'am!" Mana bowed her head in return for the woman's greeting.
Kiyomi ran down in a bit of a hurry and grabbed the magician by her wrist again, dragging her out the door. The girl then weaved another hand seal and began just dragging Mana down the main road to the exit from the Yamanaka garden.
"What are…" Mana tried speaking up before a hand slammed against her mouth silencing the magician. Only when the two stood a comfortable distance away from the estate did the blonde breathe easier and took her hand away.
"Sorry, I couldn't both maintain the False Surroundings Jutsu and initiate a mental link between us. I'm still rather fresh with that jutsu." Kiyomi grinned with confidence.
"False Surroundings Jutsu? That's quite basic. Just for how long do you think it will fool anyone?" Mana wondered. The technique was most efficiently used to create small illusions about one's environment whereas Kiyomi sealed it into a paper tag to create her own image and insert it into her room as well as fool the guards around her premises.
"Probably not too long. Those guards probably saw through it, to an extent but they chose not to engage me because keeping me indoors is not their job, still, dealing with them trying to talk me over would have cost us time." Kiyomi shrugged before finally letting go of Mana's arm and letting the magician stop tailing her mad dash toward the Academy and begin moving by herself.
"It was not that big of a deal, honestly. If it is a matter of your safety you really did not have to come. But… I'm glad you did." Mana smiled.
"Eh, saying it's a matter of safety is a bit paranoid." Kiyomi weaved a hand seal. The girl disappeared in a cloud of smoke before her changed image appeared from it – that of Kiyomi with a different set of clothes, blazing red head of long hair and emerald eyes.
"She says as she transforms so that she is not identified…" Mana smacked her forehead following it up with a sigh.
Calling Kiyomi up this early may have been premature. Then again, while the idea to come ask her for some assistance was something that plagued her overnight, the actual decision was made on a whim and was therefore executed thusly. Then, on top of that, with the normal stops and distractions of people continuously stopping and recognizing Mana on the streets, she managed to be a little bit late to the lesson she was supposed to teach.
"It'll be fine." Kiyomi calmed Mana down as she herself chose to settle down in the yard and encouraged the girl to go on ahead with a gesture. She had little interest or need to be present in the first lesson and therefore she decided to rest a bit on the swings outside.
"Are you sure you're just gonna stay here?" Mana wondered.
"Trust me, being outside right now is fun enough as it is. I can only handle this much excitement in my life. If I hear you talking about math for forty minutes – my heart may just burst," Kiyomi dismissed her friend's worry.
Mana rushed into the school bowing at least a good twelve hundred times before the groundskeeper about being late and taking the keys to the classroom off of his hands. She should have seen what happened next coming, really. Moving too fast indoors would have raised too much noise so Mana had to control her speed really well. Despite doing her best, she noticed that the number of kids sticking around the classroom was somewhat smaller than the amount she remembered from yesterday.
"Where are the rest?" Mana cried out, grabbing her temples in horror. Kiyomi may have been just joking, but Mana's own heart was not gonna take this much of rollicking good at the start of her day.
"You were late for four or so minutes so they scattered. I think I saw Kanra leaving. He's probably in Yakiniku Q…" a taller than the most of her company girl pressing a bunch of books to her chest explained. She may have had the best of intentions but her voice was remarkably smug for her age and social standing, then again, Mana pretty much felt like dirt for messing up this bad.
"This can't be helped…" the magician closed her eyes. She felt the flow of her chakra and forced it to move faster. A sensor would have seen the bluish aura around her intensify and burst out from her body as her speed became infinitely greater than whatever she was playing with before.
Mana took a dash forward before an aged man in a chuunin vest and dark spiky hair appeared before her. He was tall and past his physical prime and his face suggested that he was less than content.
"Did you just dash around the school grounds?" he mumbled.
"I know, I'm sorry. I was a bit late because of the special course pretty much half my class scattered because I was late for four minutes. I really don't want to disappoint Tori-san!" Mana bowed yet another twelve hundred times erratically. At this point, she was just like a hopeless student in a library with books of further stacking troubles being dropped on top of them and stacking up in a tower of knowledge beyond the student's ability to comprehend it all.
"I see… Either tone your speed down indoors or I will be forced to let Tori-san know." The man crossed his arms in objection.
Mana's head sunk down. If she had the time to pity and hate herself, she'd bash her head against the wall and purposefully hold herself back to the point where it would actually hurt. The magician just shuffled to the staircase at a casual pace, doing her best to stay quiet over everything else.
"I spent three more minutes…" Mana groaned as her disappointment in herself in what felt like a nightmare scenario was only beaten by the fury of her internal clock mercilessly counting down seconds she was wasting by searching for students in a casual, human pace. She managed to locate the rest of the class just scattered across the school, buying snacks from vendors or training in the gym. Now there was only Kanra left.
Of course, he'd drag his troublemaking behind all the way to Yakiniku after his teacher was late for four whole minutes!
Kiyomi jumped up and off her swings to follow Mana. She must have felt pretty interested in why the magician just suddenly left the Academy darting off towards the commercial districts of the village.
"What happened, weren't you late already?" She asked.
"My students scattered because I was late for four minutes." Mana rubbed her temples, desperately trying to control her racing thoughts and try to make some sense out of this mission, which was sifting through her fingers already.
"Seriously? This new generation…" the Yamanaka made a sarcastic expression realizing how silly it was for her to say that in the first place.
"I found the rest without much problem using my chakra sensory but this one guy left all the way to Yakiniku." Mana let her friend in on it.
Things could have been much worse, now, outside the Academy premises, the two could have moved much faster, albeit still much slower than they were fully capable of. Also, Kanra was just where the girls told Mana he'd be – Yakiniku Q.
The boy jumped up after feeling the two girls just appear behind him. For the first couple of moments he felt lost as to why they would even be here but after glaring at Mana for a short while he spoke up.
"Konoha's Sorceress?"
"That's right, I'm replacing Tori-san for today. Please return to the Academy with us." Mana tried to stay calm and collected and not just flip out on the kid. Granted, she was just psyched out enough for it to have gone very wrong but somehow she managed to keep her composure.
"Fine." The young man sighed in front of his half-finished patty before Mana and Kiyomi disappeared with him in Mana's grip. The other customers of Yakiniku barely even raised an eyebrow at this. If anything, the young man being present in the restaurant in this hour of the morning would have made them much more baffled.
Finally, Mana with Kanra still firmly in her grip appeared from the staircase leading up to the classroom she was supposed to teach in. The kids all jumped up to their feet in acknowledgment meanwhile Kanra tried to wrestle out of Mana's hold.
"Let go of me, you don't need to keep hold of me now that you can't move really fast…" he tried throwing elbow strikes but given how he was just a moderately irritated youngster, his strikes were all too slow and predictable for any relevant success.
"Sorry for being late, kids. I'm Nakotsumi Mana and I'll be replacing Tori-san for today." Mana took a moment to catch her breath and introduce herself to the kids, even though she was well-aware it was not necessary. If anything, kids their age were the target demographic of her shows.
"We know, we unlocked the class for you, sensei!" One of the kids spoke up. He pressed on the door handle letting the class and Mana in.
It took a fair handful of moments before the classroom was all filled up and the kids settled down. With almost a quarter of the lesson being wasted trying to cover for her own initial mistake and looking for the impatient kids, Mana was finally ready to get on with it.
"Alright, I hope you guys won't mind if we skip your introductions, given how I already messed up and came in late. I was preparing for the special course later today and that's why I was late." Mana explained herself and apologized for the nth time.
"So… Mathematics, from what I know about it, you guys were getting a fat slice of trajectories and projectile mechanics. It's one of the most important subjects really, one of the most practical as well. It also ties into the practical science lessons you'll have during your third year. Knowing the density and properties of your projectile will be necessary knowledge when you try to calculate the exact force and trajectory of your projectile in nanoseconds on the field." Mana made a valiant effort to finally begin her mission.
"Hey, we already passed all that! So if we're done with trajectories already, can you show us a trick? If you do we won't tell Tori-sensei you were late." Kanra stood up from his seat. For someone so bold and in-your-face, the boy sure lacked in the heights department making him appear barely taller than his peers even after standing up.
"Nice try, Kanra, I know the lesson plans and I am well aware what you did and did not study. Tori-san described you as someone who genuinely wants to become a fine ninja, despite your problems with discipline and authority, don't ruin that fine impression by trying to wiggle your way out from one of the most important things the subject of mathematics will teach you on the field." Mana disciplined the young man.
Kanra hesitated to take his seat back but did so hesitantly. He and the rest of the class clearly had a bit of a problem listening and staying quiet when someone just a handful of years older than them was trying to teach them something. Had it not been for Mana's acquired respect as a beloved in the village stage performer and her amazing show in the Chuunin Exams establishing her skill as a ninja to these kids, they'd have been rampaging all over this class.
"You captured an entire criminal syndicate just a couple of weeks ago, you can handle a bunch of kids…" Mana tried pleading to the butterflies that were beginning to flutter in her stomach.
"Although, if magic is your fancy, I'm sure I can show you a trick or two that ties into the subject of projectile mechanics and trajectories." Mana smiled as a desperate attempt to earn some cred with the kids.
At least for a little while, this appeared to have worked and the lesson could have finally begun. Of all things she managed to accomplish in her life, Mana would not kneel and admit defeat to a bunch of hyperactive kids.
