"Given how you've mastered a bunch of techniques of different natures than your affinity, I'd say grasping the basics should be a piece of cake." Musha grinned with a full-teeth smile. "From what I've heard, you're plenty resourceful, you can pick up from there on out."

"Works just fine with me." Mana stretched out with her eyes closed and her breathing steady. This was just her own way to warm up both her physical body and her mental and spiritual state as both needed to be in perfect harmony to master new concepts or begin learning new techniques.

"I think you're more experienced than me with the theory, given how you've been using low-ranking jutsu of different natures whereas I've been focusing on stronger techniques of a single nature but each nature has a way it is manifested," Musha explained as her hands danced through hand seals in a controlled pace, the woman purposefully weaved them in a way that the magician could see and pick up on. Given how the woman is a respected Jounin, in an actual fight, the magician would have had little luck in picking anything up at all.

"Yeah. Lightning Release is ignited through muscle tension. Once it sparks from a signal in-between neurons, chakra assists it to manifest into actual lightning." Mana added. "Wind Release is more of a breathing style of an element. Instead of controlling the nerve signals and muscle tension, you're making gusts of wind and controlling it to the finest extent through controlling the air inside your lungs."

"That's it!" Musha pointed at the magician bursting with energy. "That's a lot how Fire Release works too!"

"Really?" Mana wondered, repeating the hand seals that Musha had made. The magician breathed in and tried to mold some chakra into her breath just to see if this theory held water. What came out from Mana's mouth was a shower of winds strong enough to bend the blades of grass and rustle the creek behind Musha but not much else. It was not even that warm…

"No, no, no… You don't breathe through your lungs, you build up the air inside your stomach. It's more of a diaphragm motion than blowing." Musha explained as she weaved those same hand seals and breathed in deep. Mana noticed the woman's belly inflate abnormally while her cheeks puffed out and she blew out a stream of flames that quickly gathered in a large ball of blazes. It was not rolling towards Mana or moving at all, it was just a giant blaze doing what it did best and covering a wide enough area to make Mana quickstep behind.

"Huh? Did that accidentally burn you?" Musha wondered, looking at Mana clutching her hand and wincing every time she tried to caress the red swelling on her hand. "Sorry, sorry…" the woman laughed out in apology while acting out her guilt in overly expressive manner, just to show her spontaneously appointed student that there was no mean intention. "You'd think that I'd learn to control my one elemental nature but… Sometimes I overdo it a bit."

"It's nothing. Just a little burn." Mana played the irritating burning sensation off while she pressed her burnt hand to her skirt. "That was the Great Fireball Jutsu, right?"

"That's right, you've seen it before?" Musha wondered.

"Yeah, I've seen you do it before, in fact," Mana recalled the painful memories from the scuffle inside the Ninja Academy when the calamity threatened to swallow the entire village whole.

"You should try it, really. From your stomach." Musha instructed, showing the magician every tiniest bit of how the technique was performed. "Breathe in… Hold it in your stomach, feel it and give it hell. Charge it up until you cannot hold anymore. Then let the hell you gave it out."

The magician went through the batch of hand seals, it was extremely difficult and tedious given her aching hand but it was not a matter of being able to do it, it was more a matter of how long it took her. In addition, how much pain and irritation she was willing to sit through for this impromptu training session that may not have wielded much success at all.

"Great Fireball Jutsu!" Mana yelled out as she felt the hot tingling building up inside her. It felt like the fires just formed like little bubbles before erupting and infecting the rest of the breath in her system. The heat became a mass that was so uncomfortable to hold within that the magician spat it out more out of surprise and discomfort than the fact it was properly built up.

A grand fireball did not come out from the magician's mouth. What did come out was more like a vomited mass of fire that covered the close-range distance right in front of the magician and evaporated into thin air completely. The girl coughed a pair of times, feeling that very same irritation she felt from her hand getting burnt resonating inside her. Burning sensations tingling from her belly to her throat…

"Wow! That's amazing!" Musha chucked out with astounding glee like a child in their first firework show. It was a little surprising seeing an adult woman act this way really. "You've picked up this much from just one failed try? It takes children weeks to get this far! Try practicing some more, maybe you'll get it until the end of the evening?"

All the praising Musha did made Mana feel like some natural genius. While on one side Mana's resounding success compared to children just out of the Academy had a perfectly rational explanation, on the other, it did set Mana up for failure and made the bed she would land on while tumbling down very uncomfortable.

"Hmmm… That's too bad. You picked up the first stage pretty easily but it doesn't look like you've moved that much farther this evening." Musha sighed after a good couple of hours of the magician almost killing herself by throwing up the fire and spending a good five to ten minutes coughing and wheezing as her throat felt like burning up. It was a terrible feeling, almost felt like drowning in the fire, after a pair of uses, it felt like the type of thing that made people claw their own throats out.

"Will it always be this bad?" Mana wondered. Her lips worked very oddly, she had her mouth completely stuffed with painkillers once in the Konohagakure Hospital when the medical ninja were regrowing a handful of missing teeth and the numbness felt similar. The girl felt up her lower jaw and her hand tensed up in shock, realizing it was covered in scars.

"Nah, you're just picking it up. Late, I might add. You're stronger and more durable than your average kid who would be practicing their first fireballs. You can breathe hotter flames and for much longer. I don't see many ten-year-olds breathing fires for four hours straight." Musha pat Mana's back. "Don't worry, they have ointments for that sort of thing in the Hospital. Kids go there with these kinds of injuries all the time. Eventually, they all learn to adapt to their own heat and their bodies protect themselves, you'll get there too."

"I probably won't." Mana closed her eyes before standing up.

"What? Learning a new elemental nature too much of a hassle for ya?" the Jounin woman wondered.

"Not quite, I meant that I won't bother learning that technique. I think I've got the handle on basics so I'll apply them on making a jutsu of my own." Mana tried to grin but her scarred and swollen lip area made her whine out in pain when she tried to stress it too bad.

"Hmm, that so? It takes ninja months to invent new jutsu and it usually ain't kids that even attempt it." Musha warned the magician. "You need to really understand the basics to invent even the most basic and harmless techniques."

"Maybe, but I've done it before and with elements I did not have a natural affinity for. Even if my flames will need a couple of years to really feel hot, like my lightning did, I'll make a blazing path on my own. As an entertainer, I really don't like plagiarizing some else's show." The magician made herself look confident despite Musha's warnings.

"Well, I guess my job here is done. Unless all this tough-talk made you feel like giving it another go? Maybe you can do that special technique of your own right now? Won't know until you try?" Musha taunted the magician but Mana just coughed up some more air and hunched with her hands dragged down almost to the ground.

"It's no use." The girl admitted. She still felt like there was plenty of chakra in her system, she had, after all, never fully performed the jutsu she was practicing once, however, the state her body was in was troubling and physically beyond the point where the magician could have kept on practicing. "I do humbly thank you for your help, Musha-san!" the girl repurposed her slump into a bow.

"Awww, shucks…" Musha made a half-assed grin while the woman waved her hand off at the magician.


It was surprising, to say the least, to feel the gentle tap of a hand on her shoulder signaling the magician of an outside stimulus that distracted her from the laborious task of working the Liquid Village Sensory System. Mana felt the connection to her temporary colleagues severing, her entire body slumped forward after another ninja that followed the short and plump Village Protection ninja unplugged the magician.

A feeling of longing overcame the magician for a pair of moments, one that followed every sudden disconnect from the system. One cannot be connected to so many people and get so invested in work without feeling as if a piece of themselves was lost after they've been unplugged.

"Did I do something wrong?" Mana wondered. There was always an unpleasant burn in her belly when a Village Protection ninja interrupted her work. Big enough of a mistake may have cost her the success of this mission and she was pretty much set for success at the moment. A hitch could have displaced her entire road based on dreams of becoming a Sannin.

"No. Not that I know, anyway…" the plumpy croaked out while stroking his chin before waving for the magician to stand up and follow him. In mid-turn, he turned around and realized that Mana was in full bodysuit get-up so he nodded his chin toward the changing room.

While the girl was changing she couldn't help but boil in the soup of unease about this strange ninja and this uncharacteristic cancellation of a profoundly useful job she did for the Village Protection and the entire village. Mana was so anxious to find out what exactly this man's business was so that the unknown could finally choke on itself and disperse that she pretty much dashed the entire way from the changing room back to the man.

"I've heard you've got a large chakra reserve." The man grumbled. He did not look irritated but the certain croaking quality of his tone and voice made him seem constantly angered even though his entire body looked neutral and sometimes quite content.

"Compared to a ninja of my rank, yes," Mana confirmed. She may have in fact been underselling it. Ever since starting on working on meditation and careful training of her chakra network through mental stimulation, the magician's chakra may have increased not too far away from the level of an average Jounin. This aspect may have been the only area in which Mana truthfully excelled compared to her peers.

"Excellent. I've heard from Inoshi and Shikoiko that you're quite talented at picking up new things as well. Perhaps you might help me with the barrier duty." The man raised an eyebrow.

"I am not sure, I am completely unfamiliar with barrier ninjutsu." Mana brushed the back of her head with embarrassment. Even if she was under no obligation to help the Village Protection with this specific area and request, the kunoichi still felt bad that something she was asked to do was outside her reach.

"Oh, we've got other people, heavy machinery and sealing jutsu for that. All you will need to do is unseal the barriers and use simple barrier repairing busywork. Just pouring chakra into holes, the actual techniques have already been set-up for you, I am sure you will catch on. Name's Yudachi, by the way." The little man gestured with his short but thick hands.

After being encouraged that the only thing she would require in this venture is a tremendous chakra reserve and stamina to share with the diminished barriers in order to repair them, Mana felt a bit braver about her chances of completing this job. She nodded with greatly diminished hesitation and followed the gleeful shorty to his office where a tall and almost skeletal-looking man with a black ponytail was glaring at the two entrants with black bags all around his eyes.

"Shikoiko-san!" Mana bowed her head in front of the Village Protection ninja she barely got to know during her time aiding the Village Protection. The Nara waved his hands but he appeared too drained of any energy to even do that much.

"Here, I got us an aide, since you're so drained all the time." Yudachi grinned while tapping at Mana's back a pair of times. Had the magician been, in any manner of speech, decently tall, the plump man would not have been able to reach even that far.

"Oh, that's pretty good. You know barrier ninjutsu, Mana?" Shikoiko calmly wondered, which in itself was the most excited Mana had seen the man. All she's been seeing the man react with before was yawning or picking his nose or just haunting the premises like a wicked but lazy spirit.

"I was told I would not need that. I think the deal was that I would only need my chakra resources." Mana squirmed in discomfort. She felt a little betrayed by this perfectly trustworthy toad-like man.

"That's just fine, Shikoiko will place a custom reparation seal on every barrier you can fix so that chakra insertion will be all that you need." Yudachi waved it off with both of his hands. "You can do that, don't slack off of this, Shikoiko!" the little man pointed angrily at his colleague.

"I see… That's a lot of work… But I'm pretty behind so… Whatever…" Shikoiko picked a booger out of his nose before rolling it and flicking it at the direction of the shorty but greatly above his head. This entire time he was looking with simultaneously the most indifferent as well as the most sleepy eyes Mana had experienced. "Then you're buying me dinner after work. I'll need to replenish my strength if I am to catch up on… All the work I'm behind…"

The Nara appeared to doze off in the middle of some sentences, he did not snooze or fall asleep but he simply froze before breathing in slowly, yawning or sighing that the trouble of speech weighed so heavily upon his frail, malnourished shoulders.

"If you ate half the stuff I bought you, you'd have my stature, you lazy bastard." Yudachi waved the two off. Shikoiko was about to reply something in return but he just sighed instead and began to slowly crawl towards the door. Turning at Mana with his baggy and bloodshot eyes as if signaling her to come with. The last thing the magician wanted to do was piss this man off by proving it necessary for him to expend the effort needed to speak a word.


"You know, you may just learn a lot about barriers by repairing them. They're… Not really that difficult…" Shikoiko engaged in small talk while Mana placed her hands on the glowing sealing glyph the man had just placed that allowed anyone to insert chakra willingly into the seal from which fed the entire area of the village barrier.

"I don't think you are correct with that. Barrier ninjutsu required precise talent and control…" Mana broke a sweat as it sometimes felt like gallons of her actual life force was extracted every time she placed her hands on the cracks of the barrier. She was just about becoming accustomed to sensing the barriers and various seals around her to tell just by her sensory sensations alone if an unconcealed barrier of a certain rank was present and if it was broken.

"Maybe the programming you place on barriers… With sealing techniques is pretty tough… But the basic concept is pretty easy to pick up…" Shikoiko sighed.

Over the next couple of hours of prolonged and filled with needless pauses talks, while Mana poured her chakra into cracks, filling them up, she found out a few interesting tidbits about barrier ninjutsu. Learning about it from someone that was quite talented in it and had to learn it by themselves, with the added bonus of being immensely lazy and needing to do it quick and easy, was just as potentially quick and easy.

"Ninja Style: Barrier!" Shikoiko placed his hands in front after leaning back to a wall and molding up chakra for a pair of seconds. Upon him extending his limbs forward a floating blue rectangle made of solid chakra appeared. The rectangular barrier had reflective properties and looked ideally healthy that way. "You try… Just imagine wanting… Someone really far away…"

Mana thought the idea was truly stupid but she had experience with protective ninjutsu having learned the Magical Bubble technique already. This could not have been that much different, right? Just to get the lazy Village Protection ninja off her back, Mana weaved a bunch of hand seals and moved her hands to her hips to build up chakra just like Shikoiko had done before. Once she felt confident with the amount of chakra, the lingering and imagined desire for the drowsy Nara to keep away from her and the compression of all those things into a singular shape, Mana extended her hands to the front.

"Ninja Style: Barrier!" she yelled out. She could feel it. Some invisible and unfocused but very real force. Judging from the barely traceable chakra signature, it most likely would have toppled if a nasty wind blew her direction and would not have prevented a curious passer-by from passing by it and dispersing it, completely oblivious of the pitiful shape's existence, but it was there nevertheless.

"Heh… I got you to waste your… Energy some more… You'll be begging for food… Later…" Shikoiko yawned.

Mana's final days of assisting the Village Protection for her mission were coming to an end with the setting of the burning solar disc in the horizon.