The interior of the mansion was so much like one would imagine it to be after seeing it from outside that it was actually kind of boring, despite its "as high in price as it is in style" vibe. White marble columns, frescos, and mosaics, gold and gem accessories for that one last oomph when one had its mouth full of the luxury. It was not that nobody except the Feudal Lords could have afforded property like this, it was that they chose not to because there was a limit to their excess and self-importance.
The Feudal Lords often gathered in mansions just like this one, not necessarily identical in style or look but just about the same in terms of sophistication and affluence. Each one of the Feudal Lords was happy to host their peers in a place just like this, hoping to top the domicile of the last host, like a sick game overflowing with wealth and abundance from every corner.
"You must be the Konoha's Sorceress? Please, let me take you to your room, Mango-san." a wine-colored haired young lady with a forest green kimono covered with white lotuses that scattered their sewn petals across the outfit, like bleeding almost.
"Mango?" Mana squinted one of her eyes, feeling a tad confused.
"Natsumi Mango, isn't that your na… Oh! I'm so sorry, ma'am!" the servant bowed repeatedly with enough intensity and number of the motions to mimic a knife chopping vegetables. She checked the name on a sheet of paper that she carried around just in such a case. "I'm so sorry, ma'am, your stage name lulled me into a fake sense of security, I am afraid, I tried memorizing your name the least of all the representatives."
"It's fine. So are we under lockdown or something?" Mana wondered, seeing no samurai indoors made her question the security of the event. Just how long would it take for samurai to flood these rooms, just how would they sense impending danger and how quick would they be in response to one if it came to test itself against their mettle?
"Absolutely not, it's just that the Voices are each shown their rooms before being let to roam free. Some of the Voices traveled a very long distance, some of them prefer solitude and they actually self-impose a lockdown. Either way, it is up to us to provide them with this choice before anything else." The kimono girl bowed a pair more times before elegantly scurrying atop the stairs.
Even while her movements weren't followed by anyone else, nor were they observed by the kimono servant herself, Mana tried emulating the gentle yet almost flight-like strut of the kimono girl. It was so odd… The servant woman moved as if floating, making no noise or leaving little to no impact on the floor beneath her feet and yet retained the elegance of a blossoming young woman. Almost like an undead apparition of sorts… One that some would call "a ghost"…
Mana tripped over her own foot and stumbled on the steps. The servant lady turned around alarmed by the noise of the magician's knees bumping into the steps and the oddity of the young woman's breath when she fell. The magician very nearly gasped right before hitting the stairs elbow and knees first.
"Are you okay, ma'am?" the kimono servant rushed down the few stairs she had on Mana, kneeling up to the magician and extending her hand to help the young woman up.
"It's fine." Mana grinned, restricting a laugh came only with moderate effort put into it. "It's just… Forget it."
It would have been far too tedious to explain her fears, likes and dreams to a person this polite and devoted to making sure that the magician has everything she needed for the duration of the stay.
"What did you call me that time, "a Voice"?" Mana wondered in order to distract herself and the polite servant from her own fumble as well as satisfy her budding curiosity about the odd way of putting words together that the woman previously used.
"Yes. That is what you are, weren't you aware? This is a hearing of Voices. Voices of civilians, Voices of the military, Voices of the ninja… Voices." The servant smiled.
It felt odd to see nobody roam these redwood halls decorated with ancient carpets that must have once been some kind of massive animal that has since gone extinct and fur of which costs as much as a small settlement, black market people price included. The small and unimpressive plants like the ones that would usually be found in an office of a bored Administration public servant resting atop of a shoddy, wooden tripod was a nice touch though…
Regardless of the emptiness of the building, Mana could sense chakra all around her. Nothing of note, very few signatures even came close to Mana's, most centered somewhere around half of hers, then again, very few ninja ever did specialized training in that area so it was a lousy judge of someone's combat potential. Someone with one-tenth of Mana's chakra signature could have just as easily slit her throat if the magician kept her massive chakra at bay on purpose, preserving strength and evading damage to her network, just like stairs and phasmophobia – the greatest of Mana's rivals.
"There you go, ma'am!" the servant cheerfully declared after opening an unimpressive, compared to its surroundings mahogany door and lead the magician into a spacious and opulent room which matched the extravagance of the outer interior around it.
"I'm alone?" Mana wondered, depositing an unimpressive collection of the bare necessities. Usually she was the type to obsess and take care of her appearance, it was a trait of a good entertainer, however, she was just thinking about a whole other myriad of things to take too much of what she needed with her and prepared for a survival drill more than a hearing in front of actual people with the highly subjective skill of building first impressions.
"Yes, this mansion has more than enough rooms for everyone! Even the Feudal Lords, who were adamant about staying in separate rooms. They did get the masters' bedrooms, all five of them." The woman informed Mana.
Mana had not heard that the Feudal Lords were on such short terms. From what she knew about them, they were supposed to be quite chummy and willing to throw away all matters of politics and economics and gather for a weekend at someone's estate to play shogi and entertain themselves with movies at a moment's notice. Could the most powerful, most desired to both kill and kidnap targets in the world have gotten more mature as ages went on and generation substituted another?
The magician was barely given any time at all to settle in. Mana had planned on some meditation, maybe an hour or two spent on getting back into the magic game, plan some new ninjutsu she could train during the downtime in between missions or when recovering from an inevitable injury.
"Come in, please." Mana raised her voice because she was not sure if the duo stalking behind her door were civilians or ninja, in the case of the latter they'd not have needed a raised voice. She sensed these two from a mile away, however, they have never given her a suspicion that they were at all interested in Mana.
A slim and tall fellow slumped into the room, dragging his sandals across the floor. The young man had long, pecan colored hair that fell over his face and shoulders. His teeth were large and overly pronounced, despite his best attempts at disguising this feature, every time the young man drew breath in, he unwillingly displayed his frontal chompers that looked almost like a pair of shields pressed together to maintain a defensive line. The violet headband protector slid off of the young man's waist, almost letting his baggy pants slip free.
The second one was far more curious and a much more likely one to be called an unexpected guest – a Kumogakure native, judging by the sangria headband around his sizeable right bicep, a dark skin to match his country of origin, apricot colored eyebrows and goatee, a color that most likely would have matched his hair color if the young man had any. His eyes scurried and shot all over the place, he evidently was displeased and embarrassed to be inside this room. After taking a few good looks at Mana, however, the shooting-eye-syndrome died down a bit.
"Hey, you're Konoha's Sorceress, right? When I heard you were coming, I thought that there's no one else I'd rather play some cards with! You must be pretty good, every high-roller in Mist would want you to perform there, they'd line the street stones with gold veins just to have you walk on them," the slim Kirigakure rat raised a worn deck of cards. It had been used enough to have some cards be stapled together as they were torn up. Hardly a respectable gambling tool, however, nothing about this man was respectable.
"I'm Mana. You will have much more success with finding people to con at cards if you give them at least a fake name." the magician gave the sloppy street rat an almost motherly scolding look. With a lack of skills like his, it was a miracle that this boy did not get killed by now. Given his style of clothes, how none of them fit his build, they were likely all stolen or bought second-hand, that meant he was from the poorer districts of Kirigakure and less one spoke of those places the better.
"Sorry, sorry… A useful habit, never giving out any names… Fewer people will scour the place I'm staying for debts that way." The young man caressed the back of his head, he spoke in a very similar way of speech that Eiju used to speak in but he pronounced letters much rougher, prolonging stronger vowels like "u" and "o" greatly, sometimes even roughing up the way he spoke them as well, using different intonations and all. He was not using the same manner of speaking, not even close, but it may have had some common roots. "Name's Jagaimo, I'm the Voice of Kirigakure, if you didn't put it together already."
At least the long one was jolly. A foolish, gullible smile shined on his face the entire time he spoke to anyone that was not a debt collector or after his head. Mana had some trouble taking Jagaimo as a legitimate ninja, he looked sloppy, acted like a goofball and his chakra signature was nothing to write home about. Not only was it not of respectable size, but it also felt very bland. As if the young man had completely neglected it, he felt about as bland a person without defining features or emotions. The blandness of him was almost bitter in itself, perhaps that was the sense that Mana should have taken about him?
"I apologize if we are intruding, Nakotsumi Mana." The tall, buff and significantly more silent one bowed slightly in respect to the magician, it was incredibly rare to see such displays of adoration from a Kumogakure native. "However my wish to leave you with your own thoughts and problems is dwarfed by the interest in one who has beaten a member of the Imarizu all by herself."
"Hmmm? Nakotsumi Mana? Imarizu? What's that all about?" Jagaimo squinted, turning at his accidental acquaintance with lips that extended into a thin line as if the Kirigakure ninja had eaten something sour.
"I would not expect a paleskin lowlife like you to know, were you only interested in how good this woman is at playing cards? Pathetic…" the Kumogakure ninja growled, looking at Jagaimo with disdain. "She happens to be an impressive ninja, someone who should not be measured by the meager standard of being average."
"So you take after the Imarizu?" Mana closed her eyes. She just very narrowly resisted the temptation to smile, she was tempting the physical ninja to see if he was after her life as some sort of mindless act of revenge or if he was after something more like a sick sense of respect, maybe some other goal that only a mind of someone who had grown up in that specific melting pot of xenophobia as well as reformation soaked with the more modern ideals of unity could have come up with.
"Not entirely." The Kumogakure ninja admitted with a hearty sigh. "I merely acknowledge their strength and believe that some of the values they fight to protect are worth protecting. If I was offered a position in the defunct organization, I'd likely refuse. That does not mean, however, that I would not choose the side of the Imarizu between them and those disgraceful knaves with their "styles" and fancy, one-letter nicknames…"
"So what's your name then?" Jagaimo hunched over and extended his long finger at the physically impressive accidental companion of his.
"Tokui Kyuri." The Kumogakure ninja replied with a cold face, without offering the foreigner too many words. He did not as much as look at the elongated youth, choosing instead to keep up a challenging eye-contact with Mana.
"I'mma call ya Kay, kay?" Jagaimo taunted his physical superior, something Mana found profoundly short-sighted and foolish beyond words. Something that the young man was replied with a quick thrust of Tokui's fist that blasted Jagaimo aside. The Voice of Kirigakure flew like a dead eel smacking against the wall completely lifeless.
"Don't worry, I did not use my fighting strength with him. We are not allowed to get serious even for a moment here. However, I found him really despicable." Tokui grit his teeth while he still held his fist up and ready for another strike had the Kirigakure ninja risen faster than the Voice of Kumogakure allowed him to.
"He stabbed too sharp at you for it to not be purposeful," Mana admitted. She had seen enough of the Kumogakure's rebellious youth in the Chuunin Exam to know the way they spoke, puns and rhymes were all the rage and it would have resulted in a more literal rage with the no-nonsense locals who still preferred the classic ways and values. "I think it was his way of asking for attention."
"I'm okay!" Jagaimo yelled out as he slithered on his feet, like a balloon-man that had wind being blown at it from beneath, raising him up and making him flail about as foolishly as Jagaimo was. "I just bounce off of blunt things, really…"
"I don't care." Tokui grit his teeth again.
"I do admit, if he did care, he would not have hit you." Mana nodded. While she disliked meaningless violence, especially one that took source from the way someone was or the fact they existed at all, she was not overly fond of Jagaimo's irksome behavior either. It was evident that the young man sought this sort of attention with his challenging personality.
"Whatever, you got what you came here for, you saw the person who beat that whoever she beat. Now you can scram!" Jagaimo squinted and leaned toward his physically superior accidental companion as if taunting him to hit him again.
"Did you not come here to play cards? At least my reason for being here is somewhat decent…" Tokui crossed his robust arms over his chest.
"You can actually both stay. I would not mind getting to know other ninja from other parts of the world." Mana noted.
"I can see why you've come into conflict with the Imarizu with that sort of attitude… You may be a Konoha ninja and be completely oblivious to our values but don't you feel any sort of pride in your upcoming? Surely spending time with miscreant such as this paleskin would irk you?" Tokui wondered.
"Just how many synonyms for "lowlife" do you know? Are you sure you're not secretly into that whole novelty "freestyling" thing that's all the rage in Kumogakure?" Jagaimo taunted the ninja who has already shown he had no problem hurting him. There were many ways of sewing foolishness and bravery together in a sentence that was as much an accusatory one of someone's short-term-focused intellect as it was a compliment for refusing to submit to the primal feeding chain mentality, at that moment, any single one of them was due.
"What exactly did you have in mind with playing cards? Why me specifically? It seemed like you were aware of my career as a stage magician, are you sure you want to play cards against someone like that?" Mana was quick to change the subject away from something Tokui clearly found very annoying.
"That's exactly why I want to play against you. Nobody cheats better than a stage magician. If I can survive you for a pair of rounds, I can survive the toughest joints in Kirigakure. Plus, if someone with your… Professional eye… Can't scope my own cheating out, that'll be a compliment as well as a green light for me to gamble with some serious people." Jagaimo's eyes turned to little, glittering, white stars.
"I see, so you admit that you plan to cheat?" Mana sighed.
"Of course, if not, then what's the point? That's the only way people like us can have fun playing cards." Jagaimo pulled out a handful of decks and tried doing some fancy shuffling and passing card tricks. He was not half bad but Mana's eyes could have followed his every movement even if she had not perfected her own hand to trick the eye. Now all Jagaimo was doing trying to stuff cards into his long sleeves was embarrass himself. The Kirigakure street rat just shrugged and smiled with guilty and apologetic eyes of a puppy that had peed all over the carpet after the magician gave him a no-bullshit glare.
"Sorry, I just thought if you've got your own sleeves loaded, maybe it's only fair that I do the same." He tried playing it off like it was not a big deal.
"Disgraceful…" Tokui grumped. The young ninja settled down on an armchair and crossed his arms and legs, suggesting he was going to watch the whole thing and not move an inch from Mana's room. "I shall enjoy seeing Nakotsumi Mana make a fool of you, not that you aren't doing a fine job of it yourself."
"Finally we can agree on something." Jagaimo grinned like a baby that was handed a lollipop twice his size. "I've gambled against cutthroats, street rats and professional gamblers alike and none of it scratches my itch. How can it for people like us, right? We risk our lives every day so how can a little dismemberment-poker ever scare us? Gambling against you, your cheating against my own, that's the real deal!"
"I do not intend to cheat." Mana shook her head.
"Spoken like a true cheater. I shall not be disappointed as I can see…" Jagaimo smiled as he quickly split the deck still in his hands. The magician's eyes were quick to pick out the fact that with a simple movement of his hand the gambling aficionado had removed every card lower than 9 from the deck and held those low cards all in his left hand. It was an impressive and demanding trick but it carried too unimpressive of a payoff for Mana to steal it and implement on her return tour.
"So do you suggest that an honest player would claim they will cheat?" Mana squinted.
"Idiots…" Tokui grumbled.
