After the genjutsu class finished without any further hitches, followed by a rather nice and simple ninjutsu class for fourth-years, Mana was getting ready for the most complex part of the day. Her being late and all the small obstacles along the way suddenly started looking so small and irrelevant in the face of the tactics and strategy interrogation special course.
Kiyomi approached Mana who seated herself on a small chair by the windows, toughening herself up. The blonde did not look all that worked up about something she'd be helping Mana do at all, ironic, considering that Mana was the one with more stage experience as a magician.
Then again, this was not just her passion, how it must have been for Tori. This was a mission. Not just that, it was a mission in which Mana told herself she had to excel. Just satisfactory performance was not enough. Satisfactory people did not become Sannin and it was all too easy to start making excuses and promise oneself that just this one mission will be allowed to slide but the real effort started on the next one…
"You were just hanging around?" Mana wondered, pulling her attention from the depths of her own mind, checking it twice on what she had committed there yesterday.
"Sure, had my fill of sightseeing around the village." The Yamanaka shrugged.
"I see."
"You seem terribly nervous. I'd have thought you to be less of the worrying type and more of the natural entertainer type…" Kiyomi noted.
"Yeah, truth be told it's a bad omen to still be grilling before the big curtain call. Usually, I'd spend the last couple of hours just getting myself in a cheerful mood. This is not a magic show, I'm not here to entertain people." Mana explained her state of mind about the comparison of her shows and the special course.
"I guess. I've been taught a bunch of intelligence gathering already so I'm kind of numb already. Ditch the theory, just tell them what you found to work in your own personal experience." Kiyomi suggested. Mana recalled Kiyomi mentioning that she completed a specialized class in intelligence gathering right after Academy before getting to the gritty.
"That's the thing." Mana removed herself from the worrying attempts at gathering her mind. "How can I be sure if it's right? I don't know if I really helped Shukuba or just made things worse. The Sixth told me that, if anything, I just de-stabilized the place…"
"Even so, did the dirtbag you grilled told you anything?"
"Sure."
"Then that's all that matters, in the context of what these guys need to know. You're the goddamn Konoha's Sorceress, they'll eat everything you tell them up." The blonde shrugged. "Check that guy out, doesn't look like a student or a teacher…"
The man to which Kiyomi was referring was a middle-aged individual with a red bandana tied around his head and a rather casual, if a little poor attire. If Mana had to guess she'd have placed this guy as originating from the parts of the village where once the junkyard district stood tall. While the place was no longer the criminal empire of those draining blood from its poor inhabitants, it was still just catching up to the rest of the village.
"You must be the person Tori-san invited." Mana stood up and approached the nervous man who kept looking around and over his shoulder before acting really interested in every poster and award stuck to the various information boards on the wall. The magician was no psychologist but he did look confused and halfway informed.
"Yeah, name's Ikiro. It's great that you showed up. I…" the man spoke up before freezing and glaring Mana over as if inspecting her or having trouble believing what he was seeing. "Excuse me, you wouldn't happen to be…"
"And there he goes…" Kiyomi threw her hands up in the air.
"Yes." Mana nodded with a warm smile. "Unfortunately, I'm not sure if you knew this, Tori-san could not be here today so she entrusted me and my friend here to carry on with the course. If that's okay with you?"
"Uhmmm… Sure, I just… Wow, Konoha's Sorceress!" the man replied with a full grin and a bunch of energetic gestures.
"So, I've been planning to just give them a general rundown of the theoretical part that will be in their future tests before giving them some of my personal, more practical takes. After that, I will question you using those same observations before Kiyomi tries her approach. She's a Yamanaka, you see." Mana tried getting the nervous man into the mix of things just to soothe his worries somewhat.
"I see…" he nodded. "I'm not into this whole ninja thing, really… As far as I'm concerned the magic you show on-stage and what those ninja use is all the same kind of hogwash."
"It's not bullshit nor is it a joke, I will actually read your mind and dig deeper into what you may not be able to actively remember. It might not be always too comfortable, you know." Kiyomi warned the man. "If you don't want that, you can always just wuss out and call it quits."
"Oh, there will be no need of that. There has been plenty of questioning and "probing", as you might call it, after I "re-appeared". Plus, it's all for the sake of these kids anyway. If my misfortune may help someone, I'm all for sharing it." The man laughed out, still a bit nervous and defensive in his body language.
"Just for the record. Whatever happens to those people out there, their minds get fractures into zillions of little pieces. It's like their entire bodies are comprised of an infinite swarm of co-existing swarm minds. If you're bullshitting us about those disappearances and it's all just a fancy party story, I'll know." Kiyomi looked pretty forewarning and rather aggressive towards the man.
"Kiyomi, where did that come from? Ease up a bit, will you." Mana tried softening the situation but the two looked rather uncomfortable after Kiyomi's way of expressing her suspicions about the way in which the man ticked her off. The guest kept tagging at his collar and fixing his clothes and his headwear while Kiyomi kept trying to decide if she wanted to accuse the man of something or hide her eyes in shame.
There was a suspicious amount of duality in Kiyomi's character today…
"The kids are gathering, perhaps it is time?" the guest pointed at the classroom. Who could have known that after she spent so much time working up and over this class, by the time it actually came, Mana would feel relieved about it starting because the tension before it was getting a bit too much.
The Academy students gathered in this special course were fourth-years after all. Likely, the classes who would be taking the graduation exam in the nearest future further tightening the grip of the responsibility wrapping around Mana's neck. Had the kunoichi not been used to stage fright under intense conditions and beginning to revel in it by now, she'd have gone completely silent.
These students were behaving much more respectfully even compared to the class of fourth-years that Mana taught before, some of whom were present in this special course as well. Not every fourth-year would have been eligible for a graduation exam but some of the faces amongst the endless sea of children ringed a bell.
Teaching these people the mandatory interrogation theory course went like a butter. Mana disapproved and personally found most of the points in the course a little bit aged but those were the things these kids would be forced to answer in the graduation paper test. It would have been cruel to teach them something different and make their grades depend solely on their other answers and their practical test just because Mana disagreed with some points.
Then again, it may have aided them in practice so the true usefulness of each approach was still lost in translation…
"Any ninja who is not a member of the Yamanaka or Yoruma clan will have great difficulty successfully interrogating the subject, having to resort to torture, which in terms will tire the subject and bleed them out greatly. Obviously, a subject in such condition will be of reduced use to the skilled interrogator once they are available so weigh one's approach and the necessity of doing preliminary interrogations appropriately." Mana spoke.
"Anyone could interrogate. If I could pull it off, without torture, just common sense, anyone could do it. There are more ways to get into a person's mind, most people are surprisingly reasonable to where probing their minds may not be necessary." The magician thought to herself. As if assuring herself that she was not buying her own words.
"If there are no possibilities of summoning a skilled interrogator of the aforementioned clans, the secondary priority comes to the genjutsu users who may find great success in using illusions to penetrate their targets' minds. Interrogation-based genjutsu are easy to learn and can be picked up even in the middle of a mission. If the need arises." Mana kept on speaking, wondering if anything she was saying sounded genuine to these young people.
Her own disbelief in this interrogation theory seemed to make her undersell a little bit of the importance of her words even though the students could not stop scribbling and memorizing them. If anything, she prepared well and represented that preparation appropriately, if a little dryly.
After going into the dry and gritty but necessary detail for well over what would have filled an average lesson in the Academy Mana could finally sigh and look at Kiyomi and Ikiro at the side of the class. The first one was standing in a strict and tense stance as if in a constant mode of vigilance whereas the second was seated in a chair and kept on trembling and getting squeamish during some parts of the lesson.
"I'm not sure what your guys' stance is on practical experience but my own experience in interrogation was one of the factors that sold Tori-san on entrusting this course to me, so…" Mana appealed to the consciousness of the class. One of the fourth-years stood up in a strict, militaristic stance.
"Ma'am, please tell us all about it," He spilled it out like beans.
Before she could even begin to start shaking the foundations of the theory she just laid out for these young people, Mana gave them a little bit of the backstory without mentioning any specifics and keeping it vague while the general picture remained intact.
"As I questioned this member of the criminal syndicate, I noticed that they have been trained and prepared for the usual ninja interrogation approach. I began doubting just how useful intimidation and torture are on the field and started to look for alternative methods of interrogation. I am not implying these are the real deal or in any way superior to the theory of interrogation, I am merely suggesting they can be applied as an alternative in a dire and usually hopeless case."
The kids appeared unusually interested in what Mana had to say which was genuinely surprising to the magician. She was used to her reflections and experiences being ridiculed and looked down on as foolish musings of a naïve brat who had not yet been sufficiently broken. Now, these young minds sat here and listened to every word she had to say with completely open minds even though it often directly came into conflict with what Mana laid out for them before.
"The problem with the intimidation approach, especially early on in your careers will be that you may be able to shoot lightning bolts and play ball with planetoid sized fireballs but on the outside – you're basically children. You won't look very intimidating even to non-chakra manipulating individuals. Let alone the utter uselessness of torture in extracting the truth."
"Uselessness?" It did not take too long for one of the students to call Mana's bluff. "But it is one of the main methods of interrogation, are you suggesting that one of the core pillars of interrogation theory is useless, Sorceress-san?" Someone from the crowd inquired.
"Well, I do… I cannot for the life of me see the point and only see where torture comes short. The way I see it, if it succeeds, you will extract a pile of intel that is very shaky and unverifiable at best – it was obtained from a target under extreme pain or psychological torment. How can you be sure that the target did not merely hand the intel out to stop the pain and it is, in fact, wrong? Then again, if it fails – you will be bleeding and gravely wearing your target out, rendering him almost…" Mana stopped in an attempt to look for a better word than the first thing that came to mind.
"Useless?" someone in the audience suggested.
"No one's life is useless." Mana objected.
"Even the target's? The lives of the enemy?" A bunch of renegade voices echoed in from the audience.
"Especially the target's and the enemy's, if they were truly useless, the village would not ask you to take them. Those lives may belong to the enemy but they are distinguished enough to demand the village's and your attention and respect." The magician held herself together. The life of being questioned and ridiculed in terms of her political and social ideas has hardened her tremendously.
"But then… If torture may be as outdated and pointless as you suggest, let alone the matter of morality, how are we to extract information if we decide to delve into your practical experience, ma'am?" A familiar voice from the audience inquired.
"By either getting the target to your side or making them believe you are on theirs. I obtained all the information I needed, be it subtle nudges and hints, by offering deals and appearing to be someone who was being played by them." Mana suggested.
"I see… Getting underneath the underneath…" The voice repeated a famous quote about the ninja life from one of the more distinguished ninja novelists. A name that must have been much fresher in these young minds than it was in Mana's.
"That sounds pretty cruel, huh? And here to think I use ninjutsu to get into people's heads…" Kiyomi tried lightening the mood a bit and try to remind these kids that these were just musings on the side by someone with experience. Mana quickly caught on to her friend's thought. She may have been exposed these kids to too much of her practical experience too late in the lesson.
The memories that usually had the habit of staying for the night were the fresher ones, after all.
"True. You will not be giving back your tests for me to grade so don't expect any of what you heard from me to grant you a good score. I'd suggest you stick to the theories of the people who grade your tests, just for now." Mana winked to the audience followed by a powerful and synced laughter. The magician sighed realizing that her charisma as an entertainer pulled her out from the accusations of trying to brainwash Academy students.
"So… Let's put your experience and my own mad skills to the test then?" Kiyomi suggested after giving Ikiro an encouraging glare. The bit worried man lifted up his chair and awkwardly dragged it for a handful of meters until he positioned himself in the center of the class.
It took a brief moment for the class to die out in silence. Mana took the teacher's chair and seated herself in front of the man in a relaxed and calm, also polite position. She offered the man plenty of personal space so that he did not think about how close and imposing she was over the questions she would ask him.
"So, then… Ikiro-san, could you please tell us about the incident of your disappearance. I'm sure it would be of great use to the entire village to finally unmask the perpetrators behind this grand disappearance trick that has plagued us for years now." Mana started slow and steady.
"Ummm… I told the much scarier guys interrogating me after I resurfaced – I don't remember much. I was just doing some gardening in my small patch of land outside the village walls and then my memory just blanks out." The man shrugged.
"I see," Mana reacted with glee and gratitude. As if the man had handed her most important information. Something that appeared to interest the few observant eyes of the audience Mana caught glimpse of but also unnerve Ikiro a tad bit.
"So you don't remember anything at all then? That is rather unfortunate. I feel for what you've been through, Ikiro-san. I know you would like to help the village with all you can but, hey, you would have likely not reappeared if the people responsible didn't wipe your mind clean of their prints, right?" Mana remarked with warmth and support.
"Well… My can's not entirely empty. When I close my eyes and relax… Can I?"
"By all means,"
"When I close my eyes and relax, I can vaguely get the smell of almonds mixed with decaying flesh. The aroma of daffodils and western incense combined with the smell of human remains and animal feces. Such conflicting smells, they're probably just in my mind though…"
Mana's eyes widened. She wondered if these details ever came out to the more cynical and hardened interrogators that may not have allowed their target to relax, as per their centuries-old interrogation training.
"Hmmm, that actually sounds rather important. A trained Inuzuka with his canine partner might be able to pick up on similar scents and trace such a location." Mana crossed her arms over her chest. At that moment, she began wondering if she actually just achieved more in having the poor, scared man relax and look into what seemed as his dreams than a bunch of scarred and badass men doubting their own success over the awesome mind wipes that have been hindering them for the last months.
"What do you guys, think?" Mana looked at the audience.
A young man stood up, now that the audience was no longer in direct contradiction with Mana, they were more eager to show their faces.
"Well, he could have been lying. Without forceful physical or psychological pressure, it is tough to tell." The young man wondered.
"His body is calm, his skin is not perspiring more than it is usual, in fact, he appears to be a little chilly in this stage of early spring and he did not play with his nose, his hair or his clothes. Nor was he breathing erratically. Ikiro-san was completely relaxed. Remember, your own enhanced perceptions are sharper than any pressure you may apply in relaying if you are being told the truth or not."
"His feet are closed in and his hands are facing inwards. It is evident that he is itching to close himself up by crossing his arms over his chest as well." A young girl expressed her doubts about Mana's assessment. For someone in the middle row of the class, her observations were impressive, if a bit shallow.
"You forgot to include his usual personality into your observations. As someone who observed Ikiro-san in his neutral state, before I started talking of torture and interrogation, you may have noticed and memorized how he behaves normally. If you did – you'd have found out that he is naturally slightly introverted and tends to close his body off from the surrounding environment. Closed off body speech or other signs of duress do not always mean deceit, that is why pressure and purposeful duress on the target makes telling truth from lies even more difficult." Mana replied.
"A sign of emotional trauma from the incident, perhaps?" Another young man from the audience observed relaying his agreement with Mana's assessment over that of his colleague in studies.
"Either way, the emotional wipes are quite powerful and with my non-intrusive approach, this is likely the deepest I can get. Want to give it a try?" Mana winked at Kiyomi.
"I thought you'd never ask. You better buckle up, mister, I won't be as softcore on you as my friend." Kiyomi grinned as a playful tease that may have had the wrong and needlessly stressing effect. Given how Mana surrendered the interrogation, she expressed no doubts about her friend's approach.
It was time to see just what the Yamanaka could uncover with her mind switching abilities and her specialized intelligence training.
