After a while of thinking up scenarios and problems for the kids to solve, Mana noticed that a particular girl was answering all of her questions. It was the same book-wielder from before, the one that aided her by informing that the students had scattered and mentioned where exactly Kanra was.

For a good fifteen minutes, Mana enjoyed that. It let her catch up to what amount of the lesson plan she had squandered by being a bit late and then embarking on the quest to gather the children together again. That being said, she could only allow this to continue for so long.

"What's your name?" Mana asked the knowledgeable kid when her hand once more shot up.

"Kinami, Maiya," the girl replied without getting flustered that the teacher had disrupted the rhythm of the lesson which it was getting comfortable in for a while.

"Could you please stop answering for fifteen minutes?" Mana smiled.

"Sure…" the girl sighed.

After checking on a suspicion she had, during the following five minutes the magician continued to make-up easier and easier problems, some of them even on the level of what first-years should have been able to solve. And yet, whenever she stopped describing the situation, the classroom went completely silent.

Mana looked at Maiya with the same polite smile she wore when asking the girl to stay quiet. In a way, it was a probing glare. It was evident that no one else in this class was studying anything for a while because they knew quite well that Maiya would be answering all the questions. They only needed to read up before the special courses and tests, only to stand on a barely passable level. These kids were feeling comfortable. It was the kind of thing that got people killed.

Maiya's cheeks did blush a little, she was a bright kid, she saw the problem just as well as Mana did but her fluster was not quite like that of a purposeful offender. It was more likely that she simply did not know what her peers were thinking about this. Tori was a smart woman, she'd have caught on to this eventually, meaning it was going on for a short enough while for the damage to be manageable.

"Alright, I'm going to write down some of the things you needed to know by today but, evidently, do not. The moment you do not know the data on a single dimension, be it the height of your perch point, the distance between you and your target or the length between you and the static point of your target's location, let alone the environmental factors, you get lost…"

"This is stupid!" Kanra yelled out. "Stupid and boring!"

"Shut up, Kanra!" Maiya spoke up, Mana knew the emotions that fueled the girl's snap back, it was shame. Shame in her class. This girl was so much how Mana would have been if she was a portion as bright as Maiya during these early years. She had so much potential inside her and she must have realized that by now. Better yet, she was trying her best to live up to that potential. Younglings did not get any better than this.

"No! What do I care how far away my target is. If I throw the projectile with all my might, I'll get it anyway! If I don't, I'll just kick their ass up-close," the boy objected trying to think outside the box of the provided problem description. In a way, these weren't bad traits, although looked down on by the more conservative and matured ninja.

"Just give him an assignment, huh?" Mana thought to herself, going back on what Tori told her before leaving. The girl walked up to a drawer in the corner. She remembered something very childish and very odd being in one of the compartments, the one that she opened up to check. At this point, the entire classroom was silent and looking on at what Mana was about to do about Kanra's challenge to her authority.

No doubt, they expected Mana to flip out and play into his hand. No. This was just the kind of thing Kanra wanted. Troublemakers thrived in trouble, in the attention it brought. What Mana was about to do was not very nice or how she would like to solve problems like these but it was the only thing that came into her mind at the moment.

To be entirely truthful, the magician could not really figure out just what kind of assignment she could give to the young man this whole time. Tori claimed that Kanra was genuine about his desire to become a fine ninja, that meant that whatever Mana gave him was supposed to be useful to his goal of becoming better without clashing with him too much. And yet, as evidenced by the grave silence whenever Mana tried to challenge the class with something they should have been able to solve, it could not have been advanced in any meaning of the word.

The magician approached the desk in the row where Kanra was seated and dropped a small pile of books. It only took a brief glance for the students that had the books dropped by them to realize they had to move those books further to the side so that they situated themselves on Kanra's table.

"Are these… Coloring books?" the young man squinted in disbelief as the taste of bitterness flooded his mouth, a feeling he let be known to the world outside with an almost cartoonish expression of discontent.

"They are. Please get to them at once." Mana nodded with a grin.

The entire classroom echoed with laughter. They saw it as a very immature but welcome snapback at their resident troublemaker. The likes of which their usual teacher did not even attempt. Then again, Tori was scary enough to shake off similar challenges by brats much worse and with much more malicious wills than Kanra, she also had plenty of executive actions as an actual teacher she could employ.

"This is…" Kanra pushed the books away from him.

"Stupid? Come now, don't be repetitious. You can do better than that." Mana kept on pressuring the young man. "Demeaning? Let me remind you'll be washing dishes and gardening for the first month of your life as a ninja before you'll even be allowed to look at a C-Rank mission. Then, when you do take up said mission, thinking you're making a difference, what you'll get is children telling you that what you're doing is stupid."

Kanra looked down. Finally, the same shame that previously peeked through from behind Maiya found its way to Kanra as well. If the young man knew shame, he was not beyond mending. He was unruly, he was a troublemaker and all too fast to drop whatever he was doing and run off to a restaurant using even the smallest things as an excuse for running away. But, then again, he had his whole life ahead of him.

"I don't think you guys should laugh at young Kanra." Mana sighed before returning to the front of the class. "Coloring that coloring book teaches plenty of skills that will be more useful than you'd admit. It will teach his hand restraint and finer control. The likes of which using projectiles demands. It will make his wrists stronger making his grip stronger as well, wrist strength has plenty to do with the speed of hand seals as well. Not to mention it will teach him the most important skill of all out there – perception."

"Perception?" a kid from the front rows scratched his head muddled.

"That's right. The books in that drawer contain inks of Konoha monuments and buildings. Coloring it correctly requires committing them all to memory in fine detail, every single tile of every single roof, every single sign on every single shop and building. Being observant in a battle is often what helps you walk away from it. That coloring book is the surface which you must scratch to become ninja."

"Can we all get coloring books?" a chubby girl beside Maiya raised her hand. She had facial markings on her cheeks similar to those of the Akimichi clan. Then again, the Akimichi members varied their markings so this was just an educated guess using something that could have been just a fancy fashion statement as a clue.

"I wish… It would definitely make this classroom quieter and free me up a little." The magician beamed. "That being said, you guys need to be a bit sharper and advanced beyond the level of coloring books, no offense to those of us still coloring."

A pair of kids in the front and middle rows snorted through their snickering. Without transitioning in any way, Mana returned to what she first intended to do and began writing down some basic formulas and the mnemonic techniques that would have aided the kids to learn them better. The latter came from Mana's own experience having to learn them.


After the class, also the two classes of science for third years ended, the time for the lunch break came. Mana waited by the main exit from the Academy, looking for the all too familiar, childish image. The moody youngling stopped after Mana moved in his direction. Judging from his expression, the magician likely lost a fan that day. Regardless of the ill feelings and regret this would have normally invited, Mana raised a hand with four hundred and fifty ryo.

"I believe I distracted you from your lunch before." She smiled.

Kanra looked a bit confused by the magician going so far to repay him for something he had no right to be doing in the first place. The boy rudely yanked the money off of her hands and adopted an even grumpier face.

"All I had was disliking you before. For being late and then expecting me to respect you, for making a fool out of me in front of the others… Now you've made me feel like an asshole for even that." He replied after stuffing his pockets with his little hands and walking off.

The youth almost bumped into Kiyomi as the two crossed paths. He only narrowly avoided the Yamanaka after noticing the experience and strength in her eyes but also the much harder attitude when compared to the cushiony compassion and warmth in Mana's.

"So, how's your day?" the blonde teased the magician, knowing full well what her friend would have answered.

"I don't know why but I expected the kids to be less of a cast of colorful characters. I guess I forgot my own time in the Academy just a handful of years later…" Mana sighed. She still could not wipe away the smile from her face. Even if she knew that Kanra would despise her for the longest time, all she could do was hope that she gave him something to consider and taught him something at the very least and that his lunch was just fine.

"Kids are the most colorful, I don't know what dimension you attended school in…" Kiyomi remarked after taking a good look at the rowdy batch of kids in full youth that were being taught how to wield and manage the supernatural source of power all around them. "Maybe it's for the better that these little assholes never learn to augment themselves until after puberty…"

"That was cruel…" Mana tried scolding her friend. "I thought you'd have been quite popular in the Academy. You're strong, beautiful and an important member of a highly respected clan."

"Yeah, I was "popular"." Kiyomi snickered with great disdain for the context of the last word that left her mouth. "I was the second best thing after every Uchiha everyone's laid eyes on and then the moment the classes ended and the doors shut behind us, that was the last we've heard of each other. You may think I hated the Chuunin Exams but I actually treasured the opportunity to punch some of my old acquaintances in the face."

"Wow, I didn't know Academy friendships were like that…" Mana completely lost all trains of thought after hearing Kiyomi's impressions of the nostalgia that flooded her mind after walking these halls.

"What, you didn't have friends?" Kiyomi raised an eyebrow.

"Well, as a little girl, before the Academy, I was the weird kid that talked to herself so… Every acquaintance I got during those years I crawled through busted glass to get." Mana looked back at the depths of the building that at the time of her attendance here invited all too many mixed feelings. Feelings of loneliness but also admiration, feelings of being misunderstood but also the great joy when the few people that did understand her did so.

"Eh, screw them. The ninja life forges the real friendships. These are all artificial anyway…" Kiyomi patted Mana on the back.

"You're mistaken if you think it was all because I was a poor misunderstood but pure soul. Even if I was singled out as "the weird kid" and nobody cared or believed in me because I did not have a famous background, I didn't exactly pursue the friendship from others either. I was too afraid, most of the time and if I lived in the same fear now – I'd have perished long ago. I have a lot of discontent for the fearful little kid I was and my hesitation to confront those fears."

"Anyway, I was hanging around town but I didn't really eat yet. What do you wanna do?" Kiyomi changed the subject after seeing gloom corrupt Mana's eyes.


An explosion contained within the classroom halls from a weakened explosive tag stuck to the teacher's chair rumbled in the classroom where Mana was supposed to teach the students about genjutsu. The magician stood up from the busted up chair with her most genuine attempts to restrain her composure after this cruel prank.

"You know, a lot of ninja work really hard at restricting and controlling their augmentation. Just one day you may meet a teacher who does not augment their abilities and seriously injure them…" Mana did her best attempt at a mentoring scolding.

Evidently, due to her age, it all fell on deaf ears as the classroom was barely controlling itself. Whereas the classes Mana was teaching before were divided with some being more into pranks and some being more devoted to studies, this classroom appeared to be completely united.

"What can we say, you barely showed any tricks to anyone the whole day and none to us. We figured we'd lure one of your escapist illusions at least this way." One of the boys farther in the back managed to contain his snickering to reply.

"Yeah, it's all for the sake of our studies." Another joined the other's side.

This was of no use. These guys appeared to have little care for genjutsu class, notably much less so than kids of similar age cared about math. Mana was not aware that her preferred subject was held in such major discontent. Then again, it was a high difficulty for a very subtle reward type of subject. Study as hard as they may have, these kids would not have most likely barely been able to weave an illusion together, except the more textbook kind, the likes that Mana used to focus on as a kid.

"I'm getting a lot of hate for genjutsu here…" the magician smiled as she decided to try another approach. "You guys just really don't want to study genjutsu today, do you?"

"Nope! It's a lame-ass subject for losers!" Someone in the increasingly unruly crowd of second-years pointed out.

"How so?" Mana pressured the kid to stick to his position and base it.

"Well… It's useless. What are you going to do with it against a seasoned ninja? Show them some horror show? Get real! Real ninja aren't afraid of anything, no way some image or creepy sounds are gonna distract their rock-hard focus. In that time a strong ninjutsu user can hit someone with a fireball or a hurricane. A goddamn hurricane!" the kid did his best representing the most popular position on the matter.

"That's even if someone does not dispel the illusion." Another much more contained voice came from a girl in gothic clothes who received a piledriver right into the make-up box that morning, judging from the looks of the young soul.

"Alright then. Maybe you guys do have a case, care to bet it on a game?" Mana grinned. The magician moved her hands in a heart-shaped motion as decks of cards appeared sprawled out in her hands. Using both of her hands to shuffle both decks simultaneously through inhumanly fast motions and nimbleness of her wrists and her fingers, Mana slammed the decks on the desk.

"Pffft, fine!" Some tall, for his age, pale and slim kid who did not speak before this moment in that class decided. He stepped up to Mana's desk.

"The rules are simple. We'll play a hand. If you win – you guys are free to go and Tori-san will hang my skin to dry on her wall. If I win – you study this subject to the best of your abilities, at least as long as I'm substituting Tori-san." Mana suggested.

"Whatever, I can dispel illusions, you know. Something elementary like card tricks can't be too tough to break." The kid grinned before cutting the decks a bunch of times and dealing the hands to both him and Mana.

"We'll see…" Mana left it ominous with a soothing ring of her voice.

"Pffft, check this out, I've got three kings!" the kid yelled out before slamming his hands on the table. Mana raised her hand a little, preparing to reveal hers but the kid stopped her. "I know how this thing goes. You did some lousy trick that will disguise your cards as four kings or something. Because we're playing with two decks – that's fully possible."

"Oh?" Mana wondered.

"Yeah, let me do a little check then…" the kid weaved a hand seal and focused his chakra into a solitary burst. As a sensor, Mana was impressed to an extent. The kid was gifted with naturally strong enough chakra resources to break from the lowest ranking illusions even at his age.

"Well then, have you dispelled my trick?" Mana wondered.

"Yeah, show me the cards!" the kid threw his fist forward only to have his mouth shoot agape upon gazing his eyes at five aces in Mana's hands.

"B-But I…" the kid muttered with a weak tone.

"Dispelled an illusion? Sure, if I cast any. You just wasted chakra breaking an illusion I never cast. That shows you're incapable of seeing through deception and telling it from an illusion. Your breathing and almost critical remaining chakra betray you to be beaten before a fight even starts. You've done yourself in." Mana grinned after tossing her hand on a table and then spontaneously tossing another hand of five more aces that appeared to pop into her clutch from thin air, as far as these kids were concerned.

"Never play card games with a stage magician," Mana advised the kid.

"T-That's cheating!" the kid tried his best to recover from having lost his classmates' souls to having to study their hardest.

"It is. And you walked into it knowing that it was but not listening to the voice in the back of your head that told you that. You kept silencing that little voice, thinking you will win because, surely, I'll use illusions to trick you and surely you'll just break them. It's a good thing this isn't tactics and strategy class or I'll have failed you and left you after class." Mana grinned. "Now, how about you open your textbooks and cash my win in?"

Tricking kids into studying through their inability to resist gambling was beyond dirty, but as long as it wasn't murder and ended up serving the kids, in the end, Mana only felt bad for a second.