"Excuse me…" Shige-H approached a wandering pair of healers, trying to attract their attention, but it was like these shrouded men, or women, were entirely wrapped up in whatever occupied their attention. With each passing failed attempt at communication, Shige-H took a step back and grumbled in frustration with increasing volume the more her bewilderment grew. She did not think that she'd get stumped trying to get any of this facility's staff to speak.
It was after more than a few of these failed attempts that Shige-H saw something unusual that, despite standing out from the crowd and being a potential source of great danger, also brought the potential of being her key to a more successful attempt at cooperation. It was a young man with shoulder-long and flowy blond hair, wearing a violet bodysuit with white lines and numbers. Beside the young man seated on the floor was a helmet of matching colors with a streaking white line down the middle and cracked yellow goggles. This youth seemed to tinker with something resembling a mixture of a rocket umbrella and a glider—a sort of compact staff-shaped mechanism that unraveled into a flotation mechanism wide enough to fill this hallway.
"Excuse me, I'm looking for some information on some of my friends. They've been taking part in this battle royale," Shige-H asked of the seated young man only to receive a wary look back.
"I don't know most of the people here. It was chaos out there. I was lucky enough to avoid getting mixed up in it, but my glider still got wrecked. Unless I can get it fixed, I may as well walk out of here and never look back…" the seated athlete reported.
"I'm looking for a swordsman named Endo and… Well… Someone whose mind and soul rest inside the Five-Tails Statue body. I'd imagine that the second one would be tough to miss," Shige-H wondered.
"You'd be surprised," the seated athlete sighed in frustration. "I know the Five-Tails thing. It kind of had a hand to play with my glider getting all busted. Went on quite the rampage there. Can't say I'm surprised it got busted up, whereas I tried floating above the entire thing, to avoid attention, that thing just flat-out challenged the entire arena. Wait… I think it was protecting that swordsman guy, what did you say their name was?"
"Endo? So… Mana and Endo met up and identified each other. It makes sense, Mana's in a different body, but she'd be able to identify Endo. The question is–how did Endo make sense of Mana's predicament? He's not exactly the brightest and the most reasonable guy," Shige-H scratched her chin while thinking out loud. "Thank you…" she wanted to thank the young man for providing a whole wealth of useful information, but she realized she didn't know the young man's name.
"Ugh, I keep forgetting that people in these parts don't know what Glide Ball is… Name's Yenisel Saturona," Yenisel waved his hand as a form of belated greeting.
"Shige-H," Shige-H bowed her head slightly in polite greeting.
"Shige-H?" Yenisel snapped out of the enthrallment that drew most of his attention into the rocket-fueled glider he was tinkering on and looked up in turbulence.
"It's a regional thing in Kumogakure, the ninja village I'm from. People starting from a certain generation began adding letters to their name as a form of social rebellion against the system, it's an entire history lesson, I wouldn't want to bother you with it when you're clearly in a pickle yourself," Shige-H waved her hand in dismissal.
"Oh, okay… I guess, it just sounds weird, is all. Bet looks even weirder in writing," Yenisel noted while slowly drifting away and beginning to stick his feet back to his work, which proved to be an uncompromising abyss that made more and more time sink with each problem that Yenisel thought he had fixed.
"It does, that's… Kind of the point of it," Shige-H rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. It was odd to try to explain clearly something that just made so much sense to her as a Kumogakure local, especially when she didn't feel like going into all the context at that moment. It was the type of interaction where the other party just had to go along with it and trust the person they were talking to that it made sense.
"Alright, well… I don't really know where you can find this Endo guy. He got dumped pretty early in the competition. The guy ended up overextending, getting hurt and winded while making himself a target. That Five-Tails Statue thing stepped in, shocking many people, because those two were from different factions. But that thing… It fought like hell. In the end, it might just be that it's because of that ferocity and carelessness that both of them got canned. If your friend didn't pursue fights and butt heads, they wouldn't have become such a public target so early on, and if that Five-Tails thing didn't make enemies out of everyone and get banged up in return, they'd not have been smashed to pieces like that," Yenisel shrugged. "That's really all I can say, I wish I could help you some more."
"Thank you, that's plenty. I am sure that I'll put the complete picture together if only I can get one of these healers to talk to me," Shige-H nodded in gratitude for the help that this young man provided her.
"Don't even bother with these shrouded guys, or whatever they are…" Yenisel tilted his head off his work for a second to look at the rushing and bustling healers. "They're all work and even when they talk to you, they've got a language of their own. I thought they didn't have tongues, or something, at first, but they do talk, it's just some sort of unintelligible gibberish to me. Like they've got half a tongue each, but they're also not too bright in the head, except they're, apparently, incredibly skilled healers."
"Is that a fact?" Shige-H pressed her hands to her hips, almost feeling challenged a bit since she was something of a healer herself as a medical ninja.
"Yeah, some of these guys and gals got roughed up. That battle royale was wild. Like… They got REALLY fucked up. But these guys, apparently, will put them back on their feet in a day. They're a bit creepy, honestly, it's like… Their faces are covered so I can't tell one from another apart, you can never tell how many of them there are, where they come from and if they can even leave work," Yenisel took a brief moment to linger on this enigmatic healer corps before returning to his work again.
"I see, in any case, we intend to finish watching this event now. It seems that I might be rooting for you then," Shige-H smiled kindly and bowed, leaving Yenisel to his work. The distressed young man sighed and wiped the sweat off his face, but he couldn't help but smirk with the corners of his lips too.
Asuka leaned to peek into a slightly ajar ward room, seeing a muscular man covered in bandages and light scrapes that didn't warrant wrapping up laying in a bed with scattered armor pieces laying on the ground. The hunk had spiky brown hair and looked rather distraught about something. Despite the visible frustration on this guy's face, Asuka thought she had a way of extracting information, besides, out of all the cripples and utterly useless people around, this guy looked like he was in some condition to talk.
"Hello," Asuka announced her presence, peeking into the room and sharing a look with the blue-eyed unarmored titan of sinew before entering. She noticed a bent metallic cowl on the ground with spiky, antler-like horns, one of which was chipped off in battle. It hardly seemed practical, which was exactly what distracted Asuka for so long. "I'm looking for one of my friends, I wonder if you might know something about that…"
"Hmm…" the man almost coughed out, making it painfully apparent that he was about to tell Asuka to get lost before something in his mind made him change that chosen reply and offer her something sensible. "What are your friends like?" he asked, even if it was still apparent that helping made him choke up.
"One's a pain in the ass, a swordsman with spiky hair. Uses all sorts of strange swords like a sword-staff, some kind of spiky, mineral sword that makes spikes grow out, some kind of energy sword thing, goes by Endo, ring any bells?" Asuka wondered, wincing since by now she'd wandered enough of this structure and seen enough of the scale of the event to know it was a long shot.
"I think I remember a guy like that, yeah…" the scraped and bruised hunk sat up. "He struck me as the hardy type of guy I'd work on in the field, you know, if he was a hero like me, that is."
"Excuse me, a hero?" Asuka almost cringed. "I wasn't aware that people could now label themselves heroes… I guess it makes becoming a hero easier, though it kind of diminishes the meaning of it, don't you think?"
"The mockery of the title isn't lost on me, don't you worry about that. I thought I was trying to restore some semblance of honor to the superhero name by reshaping our mission from being some glorified activists into something more helpful–eliminating the scum of the Earth with ruthless prejudice," the man spoke up, leaning with a pained grunt and an expression that accurately relayed the pain he was in while scooping up his fallen cowl that now laid on the floor. After picking it up, he stared at its front, as if trying to peer into the eyes of the man he was when he donned this mask. "Out of all people, I didn't expect to be made a fool of by a ninja. A hired goon, a mercenary with military stripes and medals and the status of a civil servant…"
"That ninja… It wouldn't have happened to be a magician-like looking girl in a fancy, butler-like uniform, top hat, dark hair, green eyes, insufferable, self-righteousness about her?" Asuka tucked her neck, hoping for the best. She'd have loved to shove it in Damisan's face that she'd found both of the two people they'd been looking for while he could only accomplish jack squat in that same time.
"Her? I wasn't aware she was a ninja, I thought she was working with the magician faction…" The self-declared superhero looked stumped by Asuka's observation. "There was a young lady who looked wholly out of place on a battlefield like that. She wore a foppy get-up and had a cheery personality and a flashy bag of tricks to her. This swordsman guy's resting fifteen wards ahead, the magician girl is walking around the place like a possessed wraith or something. I think she said something about some gemstone of hers pounding with an intense energy or something like she's looking for what it's guiding her to. You should bump into her if you just keep walking around this floor."
"Wow, that's… Actually helpful, thanks!" Asuka clapped her hands together and winked at the battered superhero. "You know, you say you've got your pride crushed, but you've just saved this damsel in distress, so you've still got it if you asked me."
"Such a tease…" War Man leaned back on his pillow while staring off into the ceiling.
"Guys, I've actually got some useful intelligence on both Endo and Mana," Asuka pressed the remote radio, plugging her left ear with her index finger to activate it and reach out to the rest of the Stars. "This cute guy clued me in that Endo's fifteen wards further from the ten-to-fifteen-minute section of the facility. I'm headed there now. Also, apparently, Mana's back in her one-legged magician body and back to her questionable fashion habits. Fortunately for us, it helped her get identified. Her little splintered spirit accident might have led to some deeper mental problems, though. My source said that she's working with the magician faction, which I guess exists now, and she's carrying some gemstone around and talking to people about how intense it is, whatever that means. The guy I spoke to said she's wandering on the first floor, looking for something that's making her gemstone pulse."
"Hmm… That somehow both sounds extremely Mana-like and, somehow, nothing like Mana at all," Shige-H observed. "Nice work, Asuka. I'm headed to the first floor to try to see if I can bump into her."
"Come on, cap, what are the odds that two people around the world have the same foppy sense of fashion?" Asuka's excitement was palpable through her communications. "I'll go check on Endo then. Hey, Damisan, you there?"
"I'm currently tied up with something. You can regroup without me, I'll stay on the line if you need me," Damisan replied. "Good work, Asuka."
"Excuse me, you're "tied up" with something?" Shige-H peered deeper into it. "As the squad captain, I feel inclined to ask what's this about since I don't recall giving you any orders."
"I'm helping someone out with something. Don't worry, it won't impact our mission one bit," Damisan replied.
"Helping someone out? Who? Why?" Shige-H pressed on.
"Never mind that I'm more worried about the fact that Damisan complimented me! Everyone heard it, right? No way of taking it back now," Asuka cheered on the line.
"I met one of the contestants in the tournament. They're not affiliated with the Chaos Factor or the Fennec's group. I'd have never agreed to help them if they were, but I feel like helping them out," Damisan replied.
"This is… This complicates things, Damisan," Shige-H insisted.
"I don't see how. Our mission objective after regrouping would have been just sitting tight and watching the tournament. If I can help this person do well and they end up winning, wouldn't that prove favorable to the Allied Ninja that we've got favors to call?" Damisan translated his duty-bound engagement in a way that would have seemed alluring even to a pragmatist like Asuka or the Supreme Leader.
"You aren't wrong, but… If we were to back someone, it should have come as a democratic decision. All of us should have picked the most favorable competitor instead of throwing our support under the first person we liked," Shige-H both scolded and encouraged her peer at the same time.
"Nothing prevents us from diversifying our bets, does it?" Asuka suggested after listening to figurative mommy and daddy bickering on the line. "I say we should all find someone to back. It's a brilliantly crafty plan to come from a total bore like Damisan. Our mission demands merely that neither the Chaos Factor nor Fennec's mercs get Agbarah, that's pretty much done. We've almost regrouped too. This way we can squeeze some more gain out of it and bring back some more assets to our precious boss-lady and earn our well-deserved praise and promotions."
"That's… Unnecessarily risky," Shige-H groaned, rubbing her tired eyes. "But our mission's not completed yet. Regroup, then make sure that neither the Chaos Factor nor the Fennec's band prove to be salty losers and try a path of a hostile takeover after the official options have become exhausted."
"Yes, ma'am!" Damisan replied.
"I'll expect communications while the regrouping is in progress, Asuka, am I being clear?" Shige-H asked.
"Sure thing," Asuka nonchalantly threw out.
Then, the blond renegade of the Stars saw something outlandish. Something that, at the same time, both infuriated her and made her heart skip a beat in excitement. She realized she had laid her eyes on her magician girl, except this one had spiky, long pink hair and wore an azure version of Mana's magician's uniform with a sand-colored shirt and a flashy orange bowtie. It was frustrating to see someone who looked so similar but couldn't have looked any more different from the person Asuka was looking for. Still, before Asuka reported her folly, she figured she'd at least speak with this fake stage magician about any potential connections she might have had to the ninja magician whom Asuka was looking for information about.
"Excuse me, I can't help but notice you're dressed like someone I know," Asuka hopped up on her toes, waving her hand and raising her voice to stand out in the crowd of muttering healers. It didn't look like the mutes much appreciated Asuka's raised voice, but they didn't make too much of a fuss about it after Asuka calmed down as quickly as she roused some rabble.
"Huh?" Minara Bebe turned to the blonde with a stumped expression, pulling out a cutesy wand-like accessory and feeling up a gemstone that was positioned at the cornerstone of it. "Wow, the soul sapphire is pounding so intensely right now! You must be the one that got Sorceress' spirit so riled up."
"Sorceress'?" Asuka blanked out for a second. "So, you do know something!"
"Oh, you're a friend of the Konoha Sorceress, then? That would explain why the soul gem had been acting up. She must have sensed your energies when you arrived and begun acting up. It's been brimming with activity and pulsating with energy unlike anything it's been putting out before. It was what led me out of my infirmary room and led me to look for what got the Sorceress so riled up…" Minara Bebe explained.
"It feels like you've skipped over a few chapters and have just assumed that I'm up to date here," Asuka shook her head, trying to wrap her head around everything. "All I know is that Mana's in trouble and that her mind's trapped somewhere. We kind of need it to reconnect it with her body, which we went through the world's trippiest layer of hell to get our hands on, and now you, a complete stranger who, for whatever reason, seems to imitate Mana, are talking about soul sapphires or whatever…"
"Oh, I'm sorry, to start it out, my name is Minara Bebe and I am a magician's apprentice. I've been a longtime fan of Konoha's Sorceress and her magic shows. Konoha's Sorceress has been a tremendous influence on my lifestyle and I just couldn't let an opportunity to meet her slip me by. However, I couldn't identify Nakotsumi Mana in her statue body until the body was destroyed. Long story short–Konoha's Sorceress' soul is now inside this gemstone!" Minara Bebe gently pulled the soul sapphire, pulsating with transparent ripples out of the wand she carried around and showed it to Asuka.
"Guys… We've got a whole situation here, I'm going to need some help here," Asuka pressed her remote radio and reported without dropping her blank pair of eyes from the rippling gemstone pinched between Minara's fingers.