Naruto: Tales of a Ninja Magician

by Captain Claymore

A story of an alternate world where small changes long, long ago made a Ninja World of a different history and different people, different heroes, and different villains. Meet a young girl that tries to live a life as a ninja with a completely different set of ideals from the cruel world that surrounds her, trying to remain unchanged. A heavy focus on an OC cast.

468. Tales of a Ninja Magician Annual 3

A powerful explosion shook the Junkyard District of Konohagakure, bubbles of blaze erupting outward lit up the night's sky and swatted away the small raindrops that ceaselessly fell from the gloomy skies above. A young girl, couldn't have been much older than twelve years of age grunted in pain.

The shockwave ragged her around pretty badly, her quite fancy uniform got burnt up and torn, chips of wood were sticking from all over her body, dirt and fallen rainwater covered the girl head to toe making her hair look and feel sticky and get in her way. One thing was for certain, the magician girl was a fighter. Grunting in pain and yelling, she managed to stand back up.

Along with the agent of Kirigakure that caused this explosion, the cold rain and her own failing body she was also fighting her sticky, long hair getting in her way, continuously having to be swept aside. The black blazer that she wore atop of her soaked shirt hung awkwardly in a half-torn state forcing the girl to rip it off and shake involuntarily from the cold.

A demonic-looking shape walked out from the burning wreckage, a well-trained and athletic young man wearing a dark gi atop of the fishnet shirt. Rusty and bloody chains covered up the assassin's strong arms while an intimidating, horny mask covered his face. The lower part of the man's mask looked like a bloodthirsty mouth of a fiend but was actually just a fancy-looking voicebox that made the man sound like a cybernetic, lifeless doll whenever he spoke.

And the assassin did plenty of speaking. Perhaps it was his arrogance at seeing his opponent trembling in cold, bleeding out and twisted in pain with her entire body, maybe he was still hesitating to finish the job. Either way, the Kirigakure Demon was making sure that absolutely no part of his clever plan escaped the girl's understanding. Knowing that she would soon be dead, clarity of such a high order seemed like an odd virtue to bother with…

A loud roar completely overwhelmed the assassin's calm and robotic voice. The magician launched herself at the enemy in a fit of rage that looked completely unlike her. It was a fair assumption to make looking at how unnatural these aggressive movements looked on the girl's pose.

A speedy blur of kicks followed the initial one, one that threw the assassin's head to the side from its sheer force. It was tough to say just how effective they were for the Kirigakure Black Ops trainee did not appear to be trying all that hard to avoid them or to counterattack the cornered and desperate opponent. Oddly, neither did he use any of his weapons to exploit thousands of openings that his opponent provided him by wildly flinging her limbs about.

The arms and legs of the magician weighed down. Whether it was the exhaustion from her own relentless barrage of attacks or the blood-loss and the collective effort of her injuries kicking in, she was just about done. That was when the assassin finally attacked. He used his arms as well, instead of finishing the magician off, he just displayed his own superiority over her by repeating the manner of attack she had shown him except at a level that dwarfed hers completely.

The fists of the assassin ran rampant across the magician's body, like a machine-gun almost. The girl did not fall, she stumbled and hunched over, blood trickled down her busted face and her injuries made what remained of her soaking clothes die crimson. A clanging sound suggested that the Demon of Kirigakure may have grown sick of this little domination game. The young assassin vaulted over his helpless prey, leaving only chains that wrapped around her neck while he pulled on them from behind the girl, dragging the girl's tired body over and flipping her over his back while she slowly asphyxiated.

At least the Kirigakure rogue had the decency to snap her neck when her remaining chakra failed to sufficiently sustain her struggle to stay conscious and alive. The assassin was quite ruthless, once the girl's body went limp, he flipped her over and slammed it into the ground head-first just to check that her neck was truly broken and that there was no life rustling in her. In his line of work, with these type of opponents, one could have never been sure…

A dark shroud of a figure with a ghastly, white face that looked like it was painted on the dark mist that the creature looked to be made of began twisting around in the clockwise direction creating a dark, crackling sphere of energy. One that appeared to escape the attention of the dramatic scene of a teammate grieving the loss of his friend below after he was too late to join the field of battle to save her.

The Karamtan has seen everything it needed to see here and then.

---

Screams silenced by gurgling noises of lives leaving the bodies of their previous owners, shortly followed by a gut-wrenching splattering noise forced a flock of birds to take off in fear for their own lives. The signals of danger were considerable enough to force the birds to fly taller than even the upmost layer of leafage of the thick Land of Fire forests. Ironically enough, while the birds fled the lower level of the forests, they fled from a clearing into the more forested areas while choosing the higher layers of the sky to flee in.

A grotesque shape of a man whose face looked like it was sewn together from pieces before being given a few good brick shots just for good measure so that the rags of skin and flesh stuck to the sticky, goopy bits they were gathered together on stood up from a gruesome site of slaughter he had caused. A tight and long block of wood laid in his right hand. One of the eyes of the malformed, bloodthirsty murderer gapped open wide and scurried across the horrific sight he had caused.

"I've always been quite inspired by your devotion to the cause of massacre, my brother." Another man, one wearing a long, purple coat with a necklace made out of peculiar signs, depicting four hands of vastly different colors of the specter, wielding swords and clashing them in the middle spoke up. His eyes were just as mad as those of his companion but the less fancy features of his face were covered up by the thick beard of the monk-like man.

"That was like… Totally radical, my dude, but it seemed like… Such a hassle, you know?" a bandana-wearing man who once found himself amongst the ranks of the Shaphac in the Land of Wind observed. "Didn't my man told us anyone was free to leave?"

"Fuck that, nobody leaves!" the disfigured man gurgled out with a quite passionate reply. "The lucky ones will die of heartbreak when that fuck…"

Before the man could finish that thought, however, a titanic animal descended atop of his head leaving nothing but a bloody stain of all those men. It was a rabbit that could have only been called such because of the nature of his kind and not the sum of his properties for he was a mountain of fur and hardened bone-colored armor tissue covering various body parts. After disposing of the criminals killing the fleeing civilians the rabbit just closed his eyes.

"I hope you know what you are doing, Mana…" he rumbled with his mighty voice before disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

Farther to the north-west, in a little settlement surrounded by no walls but those that were provided by the massive forest around it, another group entered from the forest into the clearing. Met only by an adult woman standing alone in the center of the settlement and firing bolts of figurative lightning from her gaze at those that threatened the peace she had fostered from a little spark, into the flame it had grown until that day.

"No more rabbits from the Rabbit Goddess? I am almost disappointed…" a very casual looking man in a long coat and a black hat spoke up. The woman in the center of the settlement could sense a notable disruption of his chakra network suggesting that his chakra was less than what he came here with – a sign of a worthy fight but the presence of only one side tipped off on how that fight had ended.

"Bane-chan…" the woman mumbled to herself.

"I wonder, Konoha's Sorceress if right now you would consider killing us? After all we did, all of your people we have killed completely randomly, after we have invaded your little settlement you have managed, after we've killed your trusted, legendary even, partners…" a man in grey hair spoke up as he walked out in front of the group of criminals he led.

"The Fire Lord gave me this patch of land to create a settlement in once I retired." The woman magician spoke up. Her voice was completely calm. She knew this was the endgame so there was no use losing her voice over it. She had protected everyone she could, nobody died but those that chose to sacrifice themselves for her or the cause of protecting the fleeing citizens. As a little girl, Mana used to worry and blame herself much more for much lesser losses.

"I did warn Ranzon this was a bad strategic move. No rogue ever has entered this settlement with ill-will and left unbroken." An absolutely ancient man wearing a Konohagakure flak jacket littered with dozens of headbands of gold and silver sewn into it. A ninja received an honorary headband like that once they retired meaning that this man either killed a lot of old people or had served a ninja village for enough centuries to warrant this many honorary headband plates.

"In my adult years, I am less kind than I was in my teens," Mana admitted after raising her hand. Crackling lightning ran down her hand. "I tend to use my Magician's Touch to wipe people's minds much more often than I'd like to but my responsibility is much greater than ever before."

Vortexes of lightning, tornadoes and blazing infernos later, a field of bodies were scattered across the field of battle. The elderly man from before, the leader of the band had come with a couple of handful of the most notable S-Rank rogue ninja all of whom laid knocked out or just writhed on their knees while drooling in their disabled and mindless state.

A pouring rain washed down all the blood and took out a couple of fires but it would never wash out the misery and misfortune of this day. Mana was breathing heavily, as someone who had taken out dozens of the world's most feared men and women all by herself in the drabbest last stand ever to be forgotten by history, she had suffered remarkably few injuries apart from her great state of exhaustion.

"Heh…" the elder man smiled, finally removing his torn cape of red and silver and letting it fall and sink into some puddle of mud and blood nearby. "As expected from the Rabbit Goddess, the chakra to match that of the Tailed Beasts and the skill to discipline one if its attitude ever required adjusting."

"To answer your question from before…" Mana spoke. "No, I shall not kill you all. However, most of my colleagues I've worked with over the years thought death to be a superior counterpart to my kind of justice."

A powerful surge of lightning burst from the magician's feet, rising up her body in a storm of blue firebolts. The bolts compressed and focused into the shape of blades that were sustained and fed discharges from the source of Mana's own chakra through narrow nets of lightning.

"Lightning Style: Supreme Magic Pierce!" Mana declared as if it was a judgment upon her opponent as the blades all skewered the man in what appeared to be an instant. The battle was long and tedious, ninja to whom a second seemed like a millennium fought long enough to last the day. There was no way that the man could have had the chakra and stamina in his age to dodge this jutsu.

"Heh…" the man smiled. From the smoke and the resulting pulses of lightning discharges it was tough to see his skin turning black and markings of a human skeleton appearing on the blackness of his body. The shock of pain ran through Mana's face as the woman fumbled on her knees. Streams of her own blood, bursting from too numerous self-caused wounds to care for were washed away by the rain.

"I bet you knew somewhere deep down you would die here today. Your plan was always to minimize the casualties, wasn't it? So noble…" the man smiled as he tore off what remained of his upper clothes to reveal holes all over where vital organs were supposed to be on his body. At this point, this criminal was just a shell for his real soul, which laid somewhere else entirely. A deadly skill in combination with his Jashinist beliefs.

"And yet I believe even you were not able to predict just how badly you'd fail." The man weaved a pair of hand seals as red coffins burst from the ground. "Every single man you have disabled here agreed to give their lives up for immortality just like you will serve as my tool and slay every single escaped ninja and civilian you protected."

"W-Why? You don't need to go that far. J-Just take your victory." The dying woman almost begged the man, her words were just as messy as her fleeting mind. Usually, the kunoichi was so bright and quick on her feet to devise just the right strategies needed for a victory, in her dying moments she could think of nothing else but the beehive of pointless thoughts that ran through her head.

"Victory? Look at this place, we did not expect to take it. What use do we have of this bag of broken sticks and stones? The only victory Lord Jashin accepts is total destruction and until one of the people you saved lives, that is not achieved. For the crime of raising the dead he has claimed, I must assure total victory in all my ventures." The view of her triumphant opponent blurred in the eyes of the dying woman.

Not too far away, a figure of stone blocks comprising its core and its limbs, littered with words of unknown meaning, age or origin disappeared in a black singularity. The enigma moved completely unseen and unfelt by any of the participants of the gruesome scene that the Karamtan had witnessed for a better verdict once it rejoined its kind in a space beyond space and dimensions.

---

A handful of blurry, juniper colored flashes separated the dense leafage that the ninja moved through. In the initial stages of their trip, none of the five spoke all that much. It remained unclear whether it was because of the impromptu assembly of the team and the lack of acquaintance between most of these individuals or if they withheld the honors of interaction until they reached the general area of their destination – the Forest of Death.

"I am impressed." A short and budding young girl bowed her upper body for the arriving bunch, beginning to speak before the five even landed all lined up right in front of her. "That was some impressive speed."

"It was traveling speed, not fighting speed. Don't forget that…" a brawny middle-aged man with blond, spiky hair crossed his large arms over his chest. Despite the strict tension of his lips as the stretched over the lower area of his face, the man's tone implied no ill will or mockery towards the girl who was dressed like a stage magician.

"It was rather impressive that you managed to track our speed, can your sensory even do that?" A girl of short, laguna colored hair stroke a beautiful grin, clearly more interested in humoring the new member of the Konohagakure impressive assortment of chuunin.

"No, I merely judged the speed at which your signatures moved from one point of my sensory range to the other." Mana let her head down humbly and shook her head.

"I must admit, chakra sensory is something else entirely in the hands of a skilled user…" A rather bland looking chuunin of wild brown hair scratched his chin. Unlike his colleagues, he had little to no distinguishing features to the way he wore his standard, village-issued chuunin attire.

"Indeed, I've been looking forward to working with you since the finals of the Chuunin Exams." A man that looked he may have been in his later fifties grinned with pride and excitement. This one did not wear the flak jacket at all, just like Mana did not. This made the magician feel a little bolder about her own refusal to don the iconic village accessory.

"That means a lot coming from you, Soba-san." Mana bowed her upper body in respect to the great expectations placed on her shoulders.

"I do not mean to be the sour plum here but…" another of the chuunin interjected into the friendly introductions. "Why exactly did you not meet us by the gate and instead joined us here? As far as first impressions go, joining with the team from the get-go inside an area where it is difficult to sneak in with a transformation technique or other switcheroo goes a long way…"

The skeptical one was a middle-aged man of slick, dark hair with slight hints of grey in them. A rather average build and a flair for a passion of combining dressing elegantly as well as practically as some of the clothes he hid under the flak jacket looked rather formal for the destination the squad was heading for.

"I apologize for this, it was not my call. I was merely training with the ninja rabbits inside the Forest of Death and for that reason, I received specific instructions from Lord Sixth to join with you here and assist you in any way I can." Mana bowed her head. "As far as I know, I am not a part of your squad, strictly speaking, nor am I on an official mission, I do not think…"

"I see…" The eldest of all chuunin – Soba nodded in acknowledgment. "In any case, you seem to possess a great deal of knowledge of the ninja rabbits. Your assistance will prove of great use in subduing this criminal."

"Forgive me if I seem overprotective or pretentious but… Jitsa is not technically a criminal or of deviant nature at all. He is more of an idiot and a force of nature." Mana tried correcting her superior in age and experience. Seeing someone so well-known amongst the average ranked ninja and respected for their experience and maturity react and take one's ideas seriously was a new reality for the magician and not one getting used to which seemed easy.

"A chump, huh?" The brawny chuunin in the middle smacked his fist into his own extended palm.

"I did not say that Sir, I merely meant that Jitsa is not very bright but it serves both as our advantage and a disadvantage." Mana was quick to correct her superior. "At the end of the day, Usujitsa is still an A-Rank ninja animal and is not to be looked down on."

"I see… So our opponent is not too bright and will not resort to intricate trickery, traps or strategy. That is great for us, on the other hand, their midst of battle decisions will completely baffle us and we have little to no hope of predicting them…" the bland-looking chuunin with brown hair spoke to himself as an observation he meant to share with the group.

"That is very insightful, Gansho-san." Mana nodded with a smile.

"Wait, I'm the only one you have not yet addressed by my name, please tell me you know who I am!" The sturdy, spiky-haired chuunin growled.

"I apologize if this offends you, but I do not really know every chuunin in the village, just those I have come to hear of or work with." Mana bowed her head in apology.

"Goddamn it! I worked with your father once! Name's Onaji Harou." The man yelled out in a tone that was loud but oddly lacking any actual rage or malice that is usually present in such a manner of speaking.

Most of the present chuunin laughed out or, at the very least, cracked a grin in amusement at how obnoxious their companion got over something this simple. Mana had to admit, she had only heard of two of these chuunin before even becoming a chuunin herself and finally getting to work with them. Unlike these five, who got briefed on their assisting hand beforehand, she did not receive any files or intel from the village except for the briefing of the fact that a mission to subdue Usujitsa will take place.

Once the squad entered the premises of the Forest of Death and the shade that the massive trees inside provided, their speed significantly dropped from their usual traveling style. Such was the case not just because navigating inside a cluster of wood, predators and natural obstacles like the Forest of Death may have been difficult when speeding at one's max abilities, but also because they were looking for something in particular and speeding would have been counterintuitive having their need of care in mind.

"So, Mana, what exactly are the capabilities of this Usujitsa? Any tips we could use when attempting to subdue it?" Soba, the elderly chuunin asked. He must have thought Mana to have some sort of practical experience taming the little disaster but truthfully, she was merely lucky that it decided to play along most of the time.

"I must say I do not." Mana shook her head, looking a bit disappointed in the lack of helpful tips she could give. "I have not really fought Jitsa myself. I've only seen him do his thing for a very short time and heard plenty of ninja rabbit legends."

"Huh, it's not like Lord Sixth to send a bunch of chuunin who usually take up C and B-Rank missions into a mission to capture an A-Rank ninja animal non-lethally." The blond female chuunin sighed, her body appeared to shake for a moment in hesitation to confront the troublesome odds ahead but her speed did not falter because of it. She appeared more like a qualified worker that saw a daunting pile of paperwork on their table but was quite capable of handling it, despite the trouble such an undertaking would have provided.

"Five of us and Konoha's Sorceress who's got previous experience with the animal. I think the odds are fairly balanced, Hitsumi." Gansho, the plain chuunin grinned.

"From what I have come to understand, Mana-san has managed to make it work with her somehow in the past. Perhaps there is still hope we can convince it to relocate without violence even now." Soba scratched his bare chin.

"Wait, what? You mean we won't even take it on? If we knock it out and just toss it out of the Forest of Death, it'd be so much simpler!" Harou raised a ruckus.

"Our mission is not to take it on or defeat it. It is to remove it from the Forest of Death so that it stops blowing things up and scaring the villagers, not to mention eradicate the entire sensitive ecosystem that Konoha had created here." Soba reacted at the proposal of this particular strategy with disdain.

"If we do come to blows with Usujitsa, do not overextend," Mana warned the group. "It uses clones to experience its environment. The real Jitsa, if there even is a real one, is always hidden while the clones interact with the dangers that'd usually kill it, having its limited intelligence in mind, the clones are also highly prone to explosions."

"That is plenty to work with." Harou while making this observation out loud even though it seemed mostly be meant for himself.

"Do you have a sense of its chakra? Given its reliance on cloning techniques, perhaps its signatures spread wider than that of a singular target?" Hitsumi wondered while looking at Mana.

"I can, yes. Although not because of the reason you've stated. Despite it cloning itself, the overall chakra it possesses remains the same and the clones do tend to stick to a pack. The reason why I can sense Jitsa is that I've sensed him before and it is much easier for me to pick him up again, even at the edge of my sensory range." Mana nodded.

"Hah, having that sensory must be pretty handy," Gansho observed.

"Not nearly as much as you'd think." Mana closed her eyes while thinking of the trouble she went through just to get that skill to the level it was on at that moment. "Most of the time, if I am trying to find something, I still have to rely on good old tracking. Either the target is outside of my range or I cannot tell it apart from the general details my sensory provides me."

"Do not worry, I have worked with sensors before. With years of training, the skill can reach incredible heights. It is quite like having another sense, some manage to sense at immense ranges while others can tell all sorts of intricate details about a particular signature up close." Soba joined in on the topic.

Perhaps the elderly chuunin was right, Mana had sacrificed one of her other senses just to accelerate the growth of her chakra sensory and now she was beginning to lose the track of what that sacrifice was for. She needed to work her bottom off sharpening and polishing it so that the loss of her scent was not in vain.

Mana grunted in irritation while her feet dug deep into a thick wooden branch, because of the awkward position she took to instantly stop herself in mid-motion, her knees and feet instantly got hit with an immense tonnage of force but through grit, she managed to persevere it. The alternative was much more dangerous and deadly - right in front of where Mana would have been if she kept moving, a white, stupid looking rabbit leaped up from underground with its limbs extended for a hug.

The five chuunin threw themselves out of the formation they were moving in and positioned themselves better for impending combat. Given their lack of chakra sensory, apart from the very fundamental and instinctual, more like the intuitive kind that every ninja possessed to a point, it would be difficult for them to see the attacks coming, especially in this environment.

"Ji-ji!" Usujitsa babbled, slobbering all over itself while it cheerfully greeted Mana. Without any warning, the clone then burst into flames and destruction, all wrapped up in one thunderous bubble of compressed, world-ending disaster.

Mana could not remember or make out what had happened. For what seemed like the longest time, it was like she was in a state of slumber and a deep dream. White as far as her eye could see, no memory or trace of what was happening before the current moment but the endless white plain. Only when the earthly sensation of intense pain and loud shrieking in her banged up head called for Mana did the magician snap back to her senses.

The fight was not going favorably, Usujitsa had justified its unpredictable nature by attacking them without giving the ninja a chance to interact with it. Gansho was slinging man-sized boulders at the rabbit but they proved to be a poor match for the high-intensity explosive power of the rabbit disaster artist and soon the backlash of his own stones blowing up in his face sent Gansho flying.

A handful of clones scurried down after the incapacitated chuunin but Hitsumi's projectiles that looked like kunai and shuriken but were made out of Water Release chakra entirely sniped the clones out of mid-air, detonating them in the process and slightly injuring Gansho still but nowhere near the certain-death he'd have received at Usujitsa's hands otherwise.

A clone wrapped its limbs around Hitsumi's back, covering the young woman in a hold that she struggled desperately to escape before the clone detonated. Mana called out in horror of seeing a comrade being taken away so nonchalantly but then she noticed water dripping and pouring from the branch where Hitsumi allegedly had "died". It appeared that Usujitsa was not the only one capable of cloning techniques and deception.

The silent, slick-haired chuunin was wielding a claw-weapon in both of his hands enhanced with a chakra that emanated an odd, emerald-colored shimmer. He must have been a close-range fighter, an incredibly bad match-up against Usujitsa. Mana stumbled forward while her cracked forehead sent streaks of red over her eyes and mouth, inconveniencing her attempts at warning the ninja to back off just enough to where the magician was too late and had to see the close-range claw-fighter getting sent plummeting down with rather shallow injuries.

Whatever that emerald glow on his claws was, most likely just a chakra coating of pure Earth Release nature affinity, it must have provided an impressive blunt force protection field for the man to suffer this much injury from such a catastrophic explosion detonating right up in his face, where he tried to take the fight to.

"Koitoi!" Soba called out to his injured teammate while his image blurred all around the handful of confused Usujitsa clones he was dealing with. It was like his true movements left after-images that then left slightly weaker after-images of their own that continued the chain until the clones had their already limited minds completely blown by the hives of transparent opponents dancing around them.

Sadly, this may have been a bit too predictable of a move for the man to make. Then again, it was not the intelligence of the cataclysmic goofball rabbit that made it see through Soba's attempt to catch his squad mate from mid-air. It was the number of attacking clones combined with the great success it had in taking out the Konoha ninja. A handful of leaping clones that burst from bushes and tree-lines all around just jump and dive-bombed the old man.

Mana could still sense a faint signature rustling in the man's core but it was not the kind that people stood back up and continued fighting with. The man lucked out that he was skilled with chakra augmentation and that Usujitsa was cloning himself in such intense numbers, greatly lowering the chakra of each successive clone as clones that already had a split portion of the original's chakra split it even more.

Mana could sense as much as twenty signatures all around her, all so frightfully familiar and capable of chilling her to the girl's very core. The magician rushed in at the handful of clones that goofed about on the treetop where they were fighting Soba beforehand. She sensed Hitsumi moving in from the other side as well. They could have really used some Yamanaka mental links right now…

With a careless wave of her arm, Mana let her illusionary self just right at the handful of clones goofing about while her true form moved in on Hitsumi, whom Mana was careful not to affect with her genjutsu. It was a save on chakra she spent using it but it took a bit more time to cast the illusion as excluding targets instead of just slapping it across a general range was much more demanding preparation-wise, even if it was cheaper in terms of chakra it took out of the user.

"What gives?" Hitsumi grunted when Mana stopped her by standing in front of her and grabbing hold of the kunoichi's shoulders firmly.

"Don't just run at them. We have no time to brawl, not with Jitsa. We need a plan." Mana tried calming the shock of seeing her squad picked off one by one that both young woman clearly still suffered with. It was a cold shower in the most superlative of figurative meanings.

"Fine… What do you propose?" Hitsumi stopped for a moment.

"I… I…" Mana looked away, seeing Gansho writhing on the ground, covering his bloodied up and burnt face and at his dirty flak jacket that had almost molten onto the man's skin. She looked at Soba who was sprawled out, face-down on the dirt and, apart from the chakra signature he still gave out, he gave no signs of being alive. Then at the silent Koitoi who was struggling with getting back on his feet and into the meaningless fight.

She genuinely did not know. This was just like that time… Just like with Yamata no Orochi, the difference in power was just too great for any strategy in Mana's mind to compensate for. It was in moments like this that Mana felt the weakest, not when she was getting beaten. History showed that even greater odds were overturned with clever strategies and excellent moves, and yet… There were none in her mind, she was just too slow-witted to be one of those legendary ninja in history books.

At the moment, it had appeared more like she'd be the one making the casualty statistic alongside this team of bright and experienced chuunin. Would the Hokage blame her for this failure, would she be remembered as someone who played a hand in the complete elimination of an entire chuunin squad against a singular enemy?

"I'd suggest killing a great number of clones at the same time. It would help you distinguish the original. It has worked for some of you…" a high-pitched yet masculine voice that Mana completely did not expect to hear or even registered the signature of threw their own ryo coin into the fountain.

"What the…" Hitsumi's jaw dropped in a surprise of seeing a red-haired, casually dressed, frail individual just tapping his foot impatiently atop the same tree branch where the two kunoichi were trying to come up with a superior strategy to survive this encounter.

Mana was initially shocked, but the complete despair in her chest managed to help her squash the complete irrationality of the man's presence there at that time and forced her to think his suggestion through.

"Whenever a clone is dispatched, its knowledge returns to its original owner, as well as some of its chakra that was split when the clone was created. If enough clones were destroyed, we could find the original Jitsa by following the source of the signature that grows after their demise. It's quite amazing!" Mana mumbled to herself.

It had appeared that their play for distraction had only bought them this much time, Usujitsa was a complete idiot and any attempts to distract him worked with supercharged efficiency compared to what success they should have yielded but even with that in mind, they had to time out at some point. A handful of clones dived out from the bushes while yet another bunch leaped out from above, targeting both kunoichi as well as their mysterious companion.

"Oh well, there's no time for this," the ginger-headed man shook his head, "Let's just assume you did it and pulled it off…"

The mystery man lifted his hand up, detonating the clones in mid-air before they could come even a fraction of the distance they should have. This was utterly impossible, the man only appeared to have the chakra signature of a normal civilian and yet he reacted thousands of times faster than two B-Rank kunoichi. That was to stay silent about the show of force detonating every Usujitsa clone at a perfect distance where it caused discomfort but not injury.

"W-Who are you?" Mana muttered while the mysterious person spread his hands out wide, the movement caused some odd ripples across time and space itself. Mana could feel herself rippling as if she was but a reflection across the surface of the water and she saw the surroundings moving the same way all around her.

She could not believe that facing off against Usujitsa would not be the weirdest part of that day…

---

"This will do. We only need a temporary sanctuary…" Mana's mysterious new companion said in a tone that appeared to strongly believe that the magician had a hint of an idea of what was going right now.

Mana was quick to attempt and correct that assumption but the absolutely bizarre appearances of the place that the man willed them into overwhelmed her and forced the air required for speaking out of her lungs in a wondrous gasp.

There was an outlandish plain waving a good couple of hundreds of meters beneath where the two were standing on a floating chunk of rocky debris. It appeared like space itself was folding and waving like an ocean in the state of relative calm but the visible part of that fabric of space appeared tessellated as if it was one of those abstract art pieces. Islands of rock floated in various altitudes above the folding and waving space fabric, all the way until the intense vortexes of clouds with raging thunderstorms up above.

"Yes, I know, it does look dreadful but we will not need this timeline, nor will anyone." The mysterious man gently touched Mana's cheek with his fingers to direct her eyes back at him and as far away from the mind-boggling expanse of the odd dimension they happened to be in.

"Dimension? So this is a sealing dimension?" Mana wondered.

"Not quite… Although perhaps it might help you to imagine it as one." Her companion by accident smirked. "I know what you will be thinking immediately after the mandatory awe, I assure you, I have not left those ninja to die."

"What did you do to them?" Mana asked.

"If you must know, and trust me, you may not, because it always follows a very unpleasant chain of questions and we are not entirely loaded with time, if you catch my…" the man started going off but Mana politely stopped him with a gesture. Without needing to be told he was going off topic, the man just nodded and corrected himself.

"Well, to put things bluntly, I rewind their bodies into states before their injury." The man explained as if it was a simple and common thing for people to say.

"Rewind their bodies? All the talk of timelines, those odd powers… What are you exactly?" Mana pressed the conversation on, she did recall time being somewhat of an issue but, due to her blazing curiosity, she did not quite care. Whatever calamity or trouble were ahead, Mana's little heart would hurt much more after if she did not know what this man was and how he did the things he did.

"Well… Yes, I rewind their bodies and created this new, empty timeline just to find us a safe place to talk. There's something pretty outside the realm of your comprehension coming and the fact it is outside of your feeble understanding is not your fault, nobody should be dealing with those kinds of things so I decided I'd… Interfere." The man appeared to go off on a tangent again but some quite interesting details slipped into the seemingly off-topic things that came out of his mouth so the magician let him finish.

"This… Is a whole new timeline?" Mana gasped. "You can create entire timelines as simply as that?"

"I am glad you did not need explaining what timelines are. This really saved me some time and crayons." The mystery man sighed in relief, wiping the imaginary sweat off his forehead. "In any case, this call may have been counterintuitive as you need not concern yourself with this timeline and rather who will come to yours looking for you."

Mana blinked a couple of times rapidly. She wanted to ask something or say something clever but she just had nothing.

"Well… Now that I say that… To explain exactly what those guys are is… Complicated without explaining what I am, which, also tends to be amongst the top questions you ask." The man sighed in irritation. His ire appeared to be more self-directed than a frustration with Mana's lack of being on his mental plain.

"Wait, before you do, I've already once encountered this type of crazy, godlike power and it seemed to threaten the entire existence, all of the universes that exist. Is it really OK to just create new timelines like this, knowing the cost of using such power?" Mana dragged her foot across the newly forged rock of this timeline of the void.

"Oh, this is nothing like that time." The mystery man shook his head immediately after the magician was done talking. His eyes seemed so… Bright and ahead of things, almost like he knew exactly what Mana was talking about. Almost like he was an active observer or a participant of these bizarre events in Naruto's universe. "Usually, when I get involved, it is not just the entire existence of universes that is at stake, it is the existence of all universes that have ever or will ever exist."

"Things are that serious!?" Mana's jaw dropped.

"Well… Not quite. Right now, stakes are much more personal. It is only your life that is at stake. Not that of any other versions of you, just yours, in this timeline I snagged you from. Although depending on how this goes, things may escalate. In a manner of speech, I depend on them escalating." The man replied.

"Okay, I have the feeling you may have brought me this far away from my own home for a reason. Please say what you have to say." Mana sighed, none of the things this man was talking about made any sense to her but the least she could do was hear it all and then judge them from the entire context.

"To understand what you are about to encounter, you need to understand the scale of our existence. We are beings beyond any dimensional tier, we are beyond length, width, time and space with power over all of those simple things. Just like you can fold a piece of paper or walk a step, we can traverse across in time or entire timelines and universes and experience the entirety of history in just a blink of an eye."

"We?" Mana focused on the more interesting part of the man's tale.

"Yes, I am not the only being like this. In fact, I am more like a freak accident than an entity of such a scale. Who I am or my life's story are questions too long for even the infinity we could spend in the suspended flow of time of this timeline. Just know that those that will come for you are naturally born this way, they are those that reside outside time and space and every other dimension you can imagine." The man replied.

"Why would any of them care about me, just this version of me, anyway." Mana looked down. As unfair as her odds seemed from the man's story, the fact that such beings were bothered by the existence of such a simple and unimpressive being like her seemed the most unbelievable thing in the entire story.

"Because those that want you dead, the Karamtan, they are not like others of their kind. They are zealots. To most such as them, things that transpire on a dimensional level do not concern them, to the Karamtan, it is the peak of their interest." The eyes of the mystery man widened, he looked back in surprise just to see black lightning crackling behind him in a blood-curdling, screeching sound that followed the beacon of light instead of the usual thunder.

Black masses of energy began gushing from the wound inside the newly created timeline while a white mask surrounded by grey hair and plates of what seemed like protective protein hanging on the entity like a necklace. The grey one slithered and whirled through the bleeding wound in the timeline until its entirety flopped on the ground and began floating up, as weightless as a balloon.

"The Phantom Traveler." The entity appeared to speak as well. Mana was not sure about what it was exactly that the entity had said. It appeared to be addressing her newly met companion. It must have been a title he was known by or something…

"Nakotsumi Mana, meet a Karamtan." The Traveler smirked at the magician.

"You've removed this girl from her timeline. You've interfered with the natural flow of time, needless to even mention this abomination of the void you have created, foolishly believing that we could not enter your cage of suspended time at the edge of this infinity of timelines." The Karamtan was listing its grievances like a judge recounting crimes before a punishment.

"So do something about it." The Phantom one spread its hands out and bowed, mocking the entity in front of him.

"There is nothing else we can do. We have contained your abnormality upon your creation, severed you from your infinity of timelines and universes and deleted them all." The Karamtan appeared disinterested in fighting or punishing the Phantom Traveler at all.

"You made me forget my own name!" the Phantom Traveler flipped out, the sudden nature of his emotional pain from whatever it was that the Karamtan did to him scared Mana for a moment on a very basic level. The presence of this Karamtan scared her on a much deeper and longer lasting, existential level.

"The only reason we did not delete you is that we could not. Just as the times you've tried lashing out at us, oblivion is but another dimension we are above of. This conflict is foolish, we can only fight the shapes we take to exist at this fundamental level, Traveler, leave the Karamtan to our own proceedings." The entity demanded.

"Your proceedings are a joke. The reason why there is a literal infinity of infinities of timelines and universes is that each one is free to define their own fate, make their own choices. Time has no determined flow because timelines change all the time and branch out, to try and correct their course is to try and ask a bolt of lightning or a snowflake to form differently. Their beauty is in their unpredictability and freedom." The Phantom Traveler stepped up in front of Mana, placing his hand in front of the girl.

"So that is why you bother with this lowly individual element?" the Karamtan wondered.

"That's right. If the death of this girl was to come naturally, because of her own mistakes or choices, I'd never even look her way to see it. An infinite number of hers have existed and died up to now and will a moment later, most of them will perish in vastly different circumstances having made different choices. You're not the ones creating order, you're the one toppling it down." The Traveler looked down after meeting Mana's gaze for just one moment.

"We have examined her fate in every timeline. The vast majority of them end in a violent death, she only lives to see retirement in thirty-two timelines of four universes. That is a rate of mortality that is an abnormality all of itself, it is like fate itself has declared this judgment for us." The Karamtan's movements became more erratic and the being appeared to slither and swim through the air with more effort to stay afloat than before when it appeared to exist in a state of perfect tranquility.

"Even so, this Mana and every other you will see killed is free to make their own choices, they're free to die their own deaths if that is the path their choices leads to." Traveler did not look anywhere close as convinced by the Karamtan's arguments as the entity thought it to be.

"Very well… It appears we are at an impasse. However, you would be wise to realize the futility of your efforts." The Karamtan covered itself in similar dark mists while the energy flowing outside the reopened bleeding wound on the space and time of this newly born timeline sucked the grey one inside it like a handful of noodles going down the drain.

"Sorry, I had counted on this trick to have worked. I guess they are just as persistent and powerful as I am…" the Phantom Traveler sighed, the man stroke his orange hair in frustration. "So… These are the Karamtan I spoke of. Most of the time they just look at a bunch of timelines in different universes, determining the most common traits in each of them before they subtly direct the others to follow in the wake of events they define as "destiny". It's like a democracy of timelines, the events and decisions in the majority gets to decide how the other ones will go."

"And you believe that every timeline is free to forge its own path?" Mana asked.

"Yeah, something like that…" the Phantom Traveler scratched his neck. "I became like this because of an event not too much different from the one that sent you into Naruto's universe. It was a freak accident, just like the ones happening all over the place, I will not accept anyone telling me that I was born to become like this, that the oblivion and severance from my origin were predetermined or that there was anything of order about it."

What surprised the magician greatly about hearing the Phantom Traveler speak about this was the pain in his voice. Here was someone who appeared to possess a godlike power to someone like Mana and yet whatever had made him this way appeared to not influence his humanity in any way, shape or form. He still very much felt pain, at least psychological, he still had convictions that helped him shape his path and direct his immense power.

"I mean all timelines have common points. It's why computers are called computers in most timelines, tell me, what exactly is a "bullet"?" the man asked Mana rather bluntly.

"Well, in the Ninja Academy, we were taught that spherical projectile ninjutsu are often called "bullets". If I recall correctly, it has much to do with the genetic memory of the word that helps us prepare and mold our bodies for the tremendous task of using ninjutsu until it becomes as second nature to us that we can use them without calling out their names." Mana shrugged.

Just a moment after she explained this to the Phantom Traveler did she recall that this was someone who could experience the entirety of someone's history in just a blink by just willing it, which was how those Karamtan must have studied infinite timelines of an infinity of universes in a frame of time acceptable to them. Then again, what did time matter to someone beyond it, just like Phantom Traveler has done here, they could have suspended time altogether if they needed it.

"Well, in a lot of other places, a bullet is this." The Phantom Traveler lifted his hand up revealing a little, metallic-looking chunk in his hand. "It is used in a type of weapon, one that, for the most part, has evaded most of the timelines in your infinity of universes. And yet, all of you share the word, it is what is called a "ley line" between universes or timelines. These ley lines are in no way significant, from my great experience, they are completely random and I discover new ones every once in a while. There is no destiny or order in deciding these, just like there can't be anything determining the fate of another."

"You would go so far as to fight the Karamtan just to save my life?" Mana still could not believe it.

"Oh, I will not be fighting the Karamtan, that would be entirely pointless. I can destroy them or they can destroy me but the concept of destruction is something that does not really bother us because we only influence the lesser universes through shapes we take in them. We are beyond destruction itself nor can someone like us be created." The Phantom Traveler shrugged. "I guess my anomalous upbringing is what pisses them off about me."

"So if the Karamtan know you won't be resisting them, why did they not just delete me from history by just blinking me out or aging me a billion years the moment that Karamtan entered this timeline?" Mana looked at the Traveler with confusion. The odd and procedural ways in which these godlike entities used their power proved odd for the magician.

"Because they do not want you deleted from the existence, you are not an anomaly, you merely have a fate – to die. That being said, they cannot just kill you because that would add another element to the equation – themselves. They need you to die without their direct intervention because they are beyond fate and them killing you themselves would leave an error in their imaginary paperwork of fates." The Traveler did not look to be very pleased when talking about the way the Karamtan thought.

"They did interfere with you though…" Mana observed, even though it was not quite a question, the Traveler felt obliged to answer it.

"Because I was seen as an anomaly, massive enough to delete and shift things about to where my origins no longer exist. Universes and timelines I resided in deleted, universes close to mine but different enough moved to the farthest reaches of dimensional void and sealed off so that I can never put the entire picture together…" There did appear to be more that the Traveler wanted to say but the pain inside did not let him. Perhaps it was his own cruel fate of endless and pointless wandering that made him so scornful to the very concept of fate itself.

In any case, Mana may just have been quite lucky that the Traveler despised fate, else she may have already joined the countless Manas that died, as described by the Karamtan before. The inevitable common trait between Manas of dying a violent death fighting for their ideals was something Mana pushed down as deep under as she could reach. It was a weight too massive to deal with under these circumstances. This particular breakdown had to be postponed until entities beyond any dimensional understanding and concepts were no longer looking to kill off all Manas in all points of their development.

---

A disruption in time and space made itself apparent with the outfit of white cracks across its surface. In the center of the light it put through, a single, tall piece of an old, wooden door appeared. It did not pop into existence nor did it take form chip by wooden chip, it was not there once the distortion started but once one delved deep enough at the center of the brightness it put through, it was there.

A short magician girl opened the door and nonchalantly walked out through it. For a brief moment, she observed the door with an almost childish bewilderment before occupying her gaze with the simpler things that were more familiar to her while her odd companion walked through the door and stuffed the pockets of his jacket with his own two hands.

"A door?" Mana asked.

"I'm a sucker for theatrics, I was human, after all." The Phantom Traveler shrugged. "I don't always choose doors though, sometimes a nice elevator up or down scratches the itch."

"That makes me wonder." Mana crossed her hands over her chest while she pondered hard on the problem on her mind. "If the Karamtan won't kill me directly, just how exactly will they do their thing?"

"Just like they sent Usuzoku into a frenzy to kill you." The Phantom Traveler shrugged. "They won't kill you themselves but their effort does not necessarily have to make sense history-wise. As far as they are concerned, they are bringing your very fate to life but accelerating it a little bit."

The two calmly walked toward the large cave system that appeared to be spontaneously dug up through the use of immensely powerful pairs of feet grinding stone to dust and burrowing through the dirt like few other animals could have.

"Ah, the Rabbit Caves." The Phantom Traveler admired the inner workings of the settlement the ninja rabbits have made of the place allotted to them. They were free to settle down in the Forest of Death as they pleased, a favor handed down to them by the Hokage for the sole reason of the rabbits being sole contractors of Nakotsumi Mana – an asset of his village.

"Have you ever been here? Like actually been here, not experienced it through your ability to know things you need to know instantly?" Mana wondered.

"No. I merely wanted to make it a discussion." The Phantom Traveler admitted.

"Don't do it again though, it is creepy. Just ask things you need to know that I may know of. That is how discussions are done, in case you forgot." The magician placed her hands on her hips. She was a little bit jealous of the uncanny ability of the Traveler to satisfy any curiosity he wanted to through just looking into the infinite web of universes and every single possibility of every event that could have happened inside any one of them in a blink.

"Seems counterintuitive… But I suppose it is a logical choice for any kind that is bound by dimensions and concepts." The Traveler scratched his chin as if making a mental observation.

A handful of bunnies hopped around Mana, some of them bumped into her lower body by softly tackling her. Something that used to bring her down and cause nasty injuries and bruises the first time she had encountered this playful habit of the species, now the magician's legs were hardened enough to where they bent or turned a little after being tested but did not break or bruise nearly as easily.

"Let's race, Mana-san!" Some of the little ones pretty much demanded of the magician by placing their soft, furry hands upward and jumping up and down, as if begging the magician to lift them or, at the very least, agree to race them. Even if they were just bunnies, they packed considerable speed through the instinctual use of their awesomely powered lower bodies. Even in her current state of training, Mana could not match these younglings and had to resort to different methods to win her races.

"I see some of my trickiness has rubbed off on you lot, first you try and break my legs, then you demand a race." Mana jested with the bunch before her eyes settled on a shy little bunny holding up a bag filled with carrots.

"Pwease?" The little thing muttered out with shyness and its own youth fighting against it.

Mana's hand reached out for the bag before she noticed that it had gone numb and limply fell to the side as if that half of her body had died all of a sudden. While in the beginning of this curious sensation she got bewildered, in a relatively short blink of a moment she turned to her recently befriended companion who glared at the little rabbit with ire.

"You are not the brightest of Manas I have encountered. Just after being warned too…" the Phantom Traveler's gaze intensified while the little rabbit screamed out in a voice of an adult man and took one's shape after a loud popping sound and a cloud of smoke surrounded it. Shocked by this event, the other bunnies scattered.

"This is not the first time you mention other versions of me. I am beginning to have a feeling I am not the first Mana you are trying to save…" Mana looked at Phantom Traveler with both confusion and a bit of disappointment. With a thunderous sound ringing through the Rabbit Caves, the assassin dispersed into a flurry of floating shapes comprised of some manner of glowing energy as if it had never existed in the first place.

"Perhaps you still are not entirely hopeless…" the Traveler sighed.

"So… If the others you tried to help died, can't you just bring them back? I mean you're supposed to be almighty, aren't you? Can't you just point your finger at them and resurrect them?" Mana wondered something she had been wondering for a while now.

"No, the best I can do is move onto another universe or to another timeline." The Phantom Traveler shook his head letting the weight of his words linger. "Even if I would say go to the past and save you from meeting the same fate, I would not be bringing the you in your own timeline back, I'd merely be saving that other you in the past timeline."

Mana turned away. The fact that even someone like the Phantom Traveler could not bring back the dead really weighed heavily on her. It was not some surprising self-reflection or observation really, knowing what she knew about her own character, the magician knew quite well it would affect her this way, should have known anyway.

"I mean, in theory, I probably could breathe life into a body but… It would become like me – an abomination and a cosmic accident. The Karamtan would then have a just cause for deletion of that version from the timeline so even if I could do it, it would not matter." The Phantom Traveler looked around the caves in discomfort.

"It was a stupid idea, forget I asked." Mana sighed. "I guess I'll just have to be more careful in avoiding unexpected assassins posing as rabbits with poisoned carrots."

"I'd watch out if I was you." The Phantom Traveler nonchalantly warned Mana, speaking so fast and so suddenly that the magician struggled to follow it in the beginning. Ninja could speak and otherwise communicate pretty fast in the middle of a battle but given how the Phantom Traveler was an oddly empowered human with cosmic-scale power and not someone trained in ninjutsu, the magician had forgotten that such speech was even an option for him.

Acting upon the clue provided for her, Mana leaped aside, avoiding a bunch of blades attached to chains with perfect timing. It was as if the Phantom Traveler knew not only that an attack was coming but also when and how fast he needed to warn Mana that she would avoid that attack with no time to spare or any of her blood being shed.

"You killed my brother, prepare to die!" a frantic and utterly twisted voice rung through the voicebox of a familiar form covered with chains and intimidating body armor that made Mana's assailant look like a demon from any of the historic or religious art pieces. The signature look of the Kirigakure Black Ops.

"I know you mentioned these assassins are under no obligation to make any semblance of sense but… It is almost distracting." Mana observed while she contemplated her chances of taking on an old nightmare of hers. It was true that she has improved significantly since the days she first took this youth on in but she also had no idea about the actual power difference between them back then, let alone the version across the stormy oceans of space and time that was facing her.

For all Mana knew, this could not have been dementia speaking through the Demon's lips and the magician in its timeline or universe could have actually killed this youth's brother. Unlikely as it sounded…

Judging from the experience of fighting this opponent once, the kunoichi stayed on the defensive. This indeed was the Demon of Kirigakure she remembered, even the way he fought was very similar as the young Black Ops assassin displayed none of the insanity present in his mental state in the way he fought. Mana's opponent kept his distance, used his chained blades from a long distance in an attempt to both kill his opponent and not overextend and provide Mana with an opportunity to punish him.

What was the oddest that the magician could barely sense any trace of this youth's chakra but it was beginning to rise slowly and very consistently. Almost as if the Black Ops agent had intentionally suppressed his chakra signature before attacking Mana the first time and now that he was channeling it again to fight the opponent decently it was shooting right up.

"I'd appreciate if you did not interfere." Mana spared no time to look back at the Phantom Traveler, knowing that it was a luxury she did not have. Even diverting enough attention to address him was dangerous.

"Somehow I knew you would say that…" the ginger dandy jested.

The movements of the Demon were impressive in term of skill and technique but they were lacking speed. Mana's training in the Sun Disc arena and the acquired skill to profile and read into fighting styles worked wonders on the Demon's long-range chain-fighting style while the magician eventually turned bold enough to use the weaponry of her own opponent as her own platforms and tools to zip around the battlefield in almost a perfect evasion rate.

Within moments she had an almost matching understanding of how the chain-fighting style of the Kirigakure Black Ops worked to that of her opponent's. She may not have had the skill of execution required to fight using it but she had the theoretical grasp of it and that was all she needed to apply her evasive and counter-attacking knowledge. It was like Kouta and Meiko were fighting alongside Mana this whole time, calming her down and whispering tips into her ear.

A pair of spiky chains clanged as Mana's tight grip locked around them while her other, free hand flashed through a collection of hand seals. "Magician's Touch!" Mana yelled out and, through effort, she managed to execute her defensive Lightning Release technique in a very quick manner. Using only a quarter of the hand seals she may have usually needed to execute it with one hand as well as calling a shorter version of its name out.

Lightning surged upward the net of chains and seeped through the chained image of a Demonic figure covered with spikes and horns, a grotesque image that the armor which the Demon of Kirigakure wore provided him. The young man grunted out. It was a dirty and blood-curdling noise that transitioned into a full-on roar but one that got snuffed out by a poof, leaving only a busted bag of carrots behind where Mana's Magician's Touch traveled.

Chains behind and in front of her rung like ropes comprised of little bells. Mana blitzed upward with all the swiftness she could muster up, sometimes she thought she could outrace her own lightning, when her life or that of someone else was at stake when her heart pounded harder than it normally did and her entire body felt on edge…

The magician observed a complicated system of loops form below, her opponent undoubtedly had attempted to catch her in one of those loops of his wild chains and then hang her or just strangle her from behind. It was a well-timed substitution too… Even after all this time, she still found this young man remarkably impressive. Mana could not figure out if she should be ashamed by her own lack of rapid improvement or merely awed by how an opponent from her younger days could adapt and keep up with her current self.

Something was off, Mana sensed an influx of amazing chakra signatures popping in from all over the caves. Really amazing and truly frightening individuals. Could have been well over a dozen of particularly scary ones and an entire horde of much weaker albeit just as wicked ones following. This was not an attempt at the magician's life, this was an entire invasion!

A flurry of kunai came at Mana's direction from the darkness of the caves, these wicked souls needed no entry points or obeyed no actual laws of nature. They were all strays of time and space, runts from other universes or timelines all sent here with the same goal that the Demon of Kirigakure was programmed with. Mana was lucky to have encountered souls and cataclysms with this particular degree of wickedness, had she been an ounce less experienced with chakra sensory, the wickedness in the hearts of these men that defined their entire chakra signatures would have sent her down all by themselves.

Just the sense of the fearful illness sensing their innate twisted natures would have caused made Mana shiver as she observed a chain of explosions ravaging the landscape of the caves while a grey-haired man in a fancy robe walked out with his hands stretched out. A truly crooked-looking fellow, bloodshot and maniacal eyes, fit but not bulky in any sense of the word build.

Mana felt a crushing grip by her neck. She shouldn't have let her guard down. A real powerful yank came from below, one that made the infernal taste of blood make itself known in the girl's mouth as it very nearly crushed her throat and snapped her spine if not pulled her whole head off. The Demon playing with his chains, utilizing the moment that the magician was looking away.

"What a dirty trick…" Phantom Traveler observed as he nonchalantly entered the center of the fold, as dark and twisted all of these figurative demons from all over time and space were, they all backed up just from the unspoken of, more basic and instinctual fear of the most powerful being in this or any other room.

"What can I say?" the grey-haired rogue grinned, showing his murky yellow and lightly decayed mouth of teeth while he opened his robe and showed a myriad of empty holes where his vital organs would have been. "I have no heart!"

A wave of laughter coming from all kinds of villains gathered in these caves rang around. Another giant form, that of a dandily dressed, long dark-haired man of glowing with chakra bursts eyes and a very hungry expression stepped out in front of the other villains that parted ways. The chakra of this particular figure felt so… Scary and different. It was not necessarily powerful or massive but… It was a lot like that of another sensor, it was reaching out, grabbing and looking to take hold. Although something told Mana that once the chakra of this one would touch hers, it would never let go and tear it up to bits.

This predator just had that kind of face and feel to him. Although he, as well as the others, were taking their sweet time. For a moment there the magician wondered if they were just admiring her moment of weakness or if they were looking to postpone their desired moment of her violent end for as long as they could to maximize the ecstasy of finally making it come to life.

"You need not speak, Mana." The Phantom Traveler closed his eyes while he looked down in displeasure. "I have stopped the time to all but us already, the instance these bastards from another time came in here I moved all of the rabbits away. We have only one chance to make this timeline right, we shall not ruin this."

Mana struggled to free from the chains and felt them especially brittle. Normally they would have been overflowing with chakra channeled through them but perhaps the movement of chakra itself was frozen somewhere within them and therefore they were not quite what they should have been. The moment that the magician got back on her feet and looked around at the violent end the Karamtan had planned for her she realized that she'd never survive this way.

"I can't do this…" Mana scratched her throat, the Traveler must have been doing something because there'd have been no way she'd be able to talk after a nasty trap like that. "They'll just keep coming, won't they? Until I can no longer fight back…"

"Indeed…" the Traveler nodded with a bitter expression as he opened his eyes fixated on the Kirigakure Demon boy. "You have both your past…" His eyes moved onto the tall man of glowing, star-like, hungry eyes, "Your future", he moved his glare onto the grey-haired zealot and his goons of rogue ninja, "And your end all in one place."

"All of this…" Mana sighed, still gently massaging her aching throat, almost ignoring the bleeding injuries where she had grabbed the Demon's chain and where its spiky surface had tied around her body to restrain her, "You can do some of this too? What you said before, infinite universes and infinite timelines you can pull things from, right?"

"As long as that is your decision, how you would like to fight these fiends back." The Traveler nodded.

"Can you not pull some more versions of yourself, from the entirety of the universes and all of the timelines, an infinity of Phantom Travelers?" Mana wondered.

"Sadly, there's only one of me. Also of each Kamartan." The Traveler shook his head.

"Oh well, worth a shot. Can you find me a place in that case?" Mana smiled.

---

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Mana wondered with a sour face.

"Oh yes. The precise timeline of the precise universe in the entirety of the infinity of possibilities. Just what you requested." The Phantom Traveler grinned.

Mana looked a little surprised as well as a bit hesitant to believe that this volcanic and hellish landscape could belong to the universe she expected. It was then that the kunoichi looked up to check on the light source beaming down below from the night's sky that was overpowering even the blazing glow that the ruined Earth bled from its carcass.

"Holy…" the magician's speech got taken away in the middle of a sentence as the sight of a mechanic and aeronautic wonder demanded the entirety of Mana's attention.

"It would seem that your friend was busy." The Phantom Traveler pulled on his coat and fixed his hat. He appeared to in no way be amazed by seeing a mechanical, man-made planetoid floating around the ruined planet Earth about as close as the Moon used to be except the proper satellite was nowhere to be seen.

"Knowing her, she must have been in ecstasy screwing in every bolt of that giant thing." Mana's excitement settled down. She placed her hands down and prepared to fire off a strong jet of Wind Release chakra that may have carried her to the planetoid. It would have been a challenge but not because Mana was not sure she could do it, she merely had never done it, therefore, there was naturally a sense of butterflied making a mess in her tummy.

"You are aware I could just take you there, right? I took you this far…" the Phantom Traveler joked at Mana's expense.

"No. I need to know. I planned this trip with Kouta in the future and I need to know I can join him there." Mana was smiling even though her eyes were respectfully intimidated and her forehead was sweating slightly. Although if called out on it the magician was sure she could play it off as being the result of the superheated and ruined planet she was standing on.

"It would be a real pity if you lost focus and just choked in space after this whole ordeal we went through." The Traveler objected but ultimately he was an advocate for total freedom.

"Mystical Wings!" Mana yelled out, one of her hands went through a long string of hand seals that was completed in an instant before both of her palms expelled a powerful concussive blast of wind that blew the magician upward like a little rocket. The conditions of space were nothing, the worst part was the absence of air but even that Mana could survive for at least twenty minutes or so… She needed to soar, go as far as she could.

It was not like diving underwater at all, it was something that Mana lied to herself this entire trip being like just so that the fear in her lower body would settle down. She kept blasting out air but she needed more and more powerful jets to compensate for how high up she was. The rarer the air, the fewer surfaces there were to propel her, the more effort Mana needed to put out for all that Wind Release burst to not simply circulate into the vastness of space.

The air was leaving her lungs. It was actively trying to blow the magician up from inside by bursting through her every pore but the girl's body persevered. It was cold, Mana felt like a jellyfish fired from a cannon into the air, desperately trying to will itself to remain in one piece. Her sight tunneled narrower and narrower, blood vessels burst in the magician's eyes from the speed at which she was moving.

There was the sensation of swimming she so desperately craved before – the feeling in the final stretches was the same as when one dived as deep as one could and once they started feeling like they were running out of air, they looked back up onto the surface and raced to reach it before they could hold it no longer. The final swings, the last stretches were always the hardest. It always seemed like one would finally emerge after every swim up but every kick was one kick too few and one had to keep their breath in for one kick longer…

A strong thud broke Mana out of her almost trance-like state, tremendous tension traveled all through her bones and the magician quivered from the sudden shock of returning to almost perfect conditions for life. Whatever it was that Meiko had built here, it was both wonderful and capable of artificially simulating the perfect conditions for human life.

"Well, I suppose you have your answer then?" the Phantom Traveler sighed.

"I lucked out. I can't believe how reckless this was…" Mana hyperventilated almost over on her knees and grasping at her burning chest and massaging her aching knees. "I mean this damn thing is spinning, what if I missed it completely and darted off into cold, dead space!?"

"I'd have beamed you back here." A familiar red-haired shape appeared wearing a hideous, striped blue and black sweater right under a Konoha flak jacket. The blacksmith's shapes were verily expanded, this Meiko was much shorter than even the girl Mana had known in her own place and time but she was also much rounder.

Then again, given the blacksmith's appetite, it was more of a wonder that the Meiko that Mana knew was nowhere close as round as this middle-aged version of her. The lower lip of the woman was trembling the whole time she looked at Mana and wetness was beginning to gather in the woman's eyes.

"I did not expect to be such a miserable sight to see for Meiko, of all people." Mana looked at the Phantom Traveler in confusion.

"You idiot!" Meiko screamed out as her tears finally let loose and the woman charged at the magician, wrapping her hands around Mana and pressing her hard, although nowhere near as hard as the Meiko from Mana's own time and space who trained much more vigorously was able to do. "We've lost you… We've lost so many…"

"I'm dead here…" Mana whimpered to herself, even though both the round groundskeeper Meiko and the Phantom Traveler heard her cruel realization.

"For reference, I shall remind you that you are dead most of everywhere, in such a high rate that it has been ruled as your destiny to die." The Traveler cautioned the magician.

"You must get in. Follow me." Meiko's hands sunk down after she let go of Mana and lead the magician to an emerging cabin from below. It was almost like a combination between a cybernetic bunker of finest, shiniest and hardest metals and a casual office. It was something only Meiko would find incredible, lo and behold, a slim and puny version of Meiko with glasses and clothes that would be more akin to what Mana would wear emerged. This version of Meiko also appeared to tend to her hair and was, as of yet, the Meiko with the longest hair, letting them flow a bit beyond her shoulders.

"Please come through. Glad to see you here, however you've made this possible." The receptionist Meiko winked at the magician and pressed a collection of buttons that made an elevator emerge from the giant, mechanical planetoid. Acknowledging the receptionist Meiko's sentiments with a nod, the magician stepped in, shortly followed by the Phantom Traveler and let the long trip down in a dark tunnel take her for a ride of her life.

"I must admit, coming here was an odd request." The Phantom Traveler grinned. "Odd enough to entertain even my soul which has seen pretty much everything."

"I live to amuse." Mana offered a full smile back but her eyes were a tad too ashamed to try and look for the gaze of her companion.

"What has inspired you to ask to come here of all places?" the Traveler wondered. Due to Mana's request to try and not abuse his ability to simply and experience everything everywhere in space and time he looked genuinely confused and rather happy by this new state of mind.

"Well… A very mature old tome of historical knowledge, a codex of strategic knowledge of ancient generals." Mana smacked her chest with a cough that cleared her throat.

"It would be a pity if the Karamtan find us here and damage this world too much. Then again, it seems like it has long since been ruined, perhaps a permanent slumber would be to this timeline's benefit." The companion of the magician sighed in a moment of somber reflection.

"I shall not allow that. Every time and place deserves a chance to start anew, even if it is more difficult in some places compared to others…" Mana looked around the faintly lit tunnels of cold, solid steel and complicated machinery around her. For a short moment once the door of the elevator opened up revealing the duo inside to all the different Meiko nobody seemed to bat an eye. That was until the drab eyes of all the different versions of the blacksmith turned at Mana all at once, noticing something outside the grey routine they were used to.

"Been a long time." Mana raised her palm in a nonchalant greeting. "I'm afraid I've no time to catch up though…"

The resulting mayhem was asphyxiating. Meikos old and new expressing joy and shock in the way only they knew how. And yet, Mana noticed a familiar lack of questions about how all of this was possible. The magician was just about to ask that but the overwhelming typhoon of Meiko voices all around her gave her no chance to speak. Before the moment was done, the two curious intertemporal and interuniversal travelers found themselves in a large, round, hi-tech room.

"Mana…" one of the Meikos seated atop of a humming and shaking piece of heavy machinery that was tall enough to raise her bottom all the way to the top of the chamber spoke up. "There is a face we did not expect to see here, of all places."

"Meiko…" Mana nodded in acknowledgment as well as greeting to the middle-aged version of Meiko that looked perhaps the most normal and the most of what the future version of her own best friend would look like.

"It is Queen Meiko to you." Another Meiko seated atop of a piece of heavy machinery, one with tidy and well-kept hair and tidy, almost geeky clothes and braces that looked like planetary rings of space dust but significantly more hi-tech spoke up.

"Quick to resort to conflict, as usual, Councilwoman Meiko." A surprisingly young version of Meiko in a black T-shirt and shockingly plastic set of glasses replied with serenity in her voice that was very unlikely to make itself known to someone taking up Meiko's name.

"I will let you know that we did not become the Council of Meikoworld to be treated like lowly blacksmiths." Councilwoman Meiko replied.

"I will remind the Council of Meikoworld that the only system to refer to yourselves you have invented is to call each other by what sets you apart," Mana spoke up. A fit of vibrant laughter thundered throughout the Council of Meiko sitting high and low. "I am a bit confused about what this place is exactly and how it came to be but… I'm afraid we are in a bit of a rush. Whatever calamity befell this time and space, it will get much worse just by me staying here too long so I have no time to explain anything."

"As someone who has taken the idea for the universe she's looking from a volume of My Battle Bikini Goddess, you are in a poor position to judge." A geeky looking Meiko with short hair and some unidentified manga-style character depicted on her white shirt sprayed as she spoke out a playful reply to Mana's own teasing.

"A codex of strategic knowledge?" Phantom Traveler glanced at Mana.

"That is a surprising amount of insight from Meiko…" Mana scratched the back of her neck in embarrassment and a desperate attempt to switch the topic.

"We are well aware of interdimensional travels, Mana." Queen Meiko spoke up again, silencing the others that were snickering or telling each other jokes. "This world is a dead end in more ways than one and all of us found our sanctuary here. A dead end of space and time, a tribute to humanity's ultimate failure and a reminder of the cost of that of our own. It is here that our creativity is fondled the most."

"That was a very poor choice of words." Traveler snickered. "I am beginning to see why you asked for a whole world of this particular woman."

"The reason why I asked for Meikoworld is that if I am to die out and if the ultimate destiny of Mana is to die out across the timelines, I may as well do that surrounded by and wearing an armor made by my best friend," Mana spoke both to the Traveler and the Council of Meikoworld at the same time.

"What is it exactly you need an armor to protect you from?" Queen Meiko wondered as her inner creativity was very much being fondled at that moment by the very idea that a Mana would come at this edge of space-time seeking for aid.

"A being beyond dimensions, beyond space-time and any concepts we know of. A whole religion of them that think that the destiny of Manas across all time and space is to die." Mana answered quickly and as precisely as she could, given that the fate of this entire little nest of time-space was being threatened just by her staying here for too long.

"Hmph… We shall see about that." Queen Meiko looked challenged, not by the request to build an adequate set of armor to protect Mana from her apparent destiny but by the offense that the Karamtan inspired within the set of her own beliefs.

"Death of a Mana of this Meiko is unacceptable. Let alone the influx of new mouths to feed and employ if all Manas go extinct. Just imagine how quickly an infinity of Meikos would discover us under grief of having lost their Manas." Councilwoman Meiko got flustered over the very thought of a surge in new recruits in Meikoworld.

"I agree, the current rate of new Meiko coming here looking for solace and a creative challenge is sufficient to maintain perfect equilibrium." Professor Meiko noted. Mana was not yet been introduced to that particular Meiko but it did not take a bright mind to figure out her name amongst the Meikos of the Council.

"The bloodshed of so many Manas is like really not cool…" the Meiko with glasses, T-shirt with a quote of equal amounts of cringe and inspiration to be found in it and jeans observed. "It hurt like hell when I lost mine. Meat never tasted the same but a change in diet was still not the most painful thing in that exchange."

"Most of us lost our Manas, Hipster Meiko, the feeling of needing an outlet for our emotions and creativity that would not result in a creative end to our own lives is still fresh in our minds." A Meiko in a leather jacket, an odd-looking hat with straps and goggles replied to her fellow Council peer.

"Building things is a better outlet to cutting myself. I'd like to help." A faint voice of a gothic-looking Meiko which looked so erupting with a contrast of black and white that it may as well have escaped from the first experimental movie aired in Konoha. Her voice was equally as bored as it was predicting an outburst into tears, despite its low volume it was powerful nonetheless.

"Yes… I'd very much prefer an armor over that Meiko hurting herself." Mana voiced her notion with a fearful point of her finger at the scary Meiko.

"You were always so kind, Mana." Queen Meiko smiled softly, her eyes closed as she recalled the Mana of her own time and space. "No matter the Meiko, you always looked to make us happy."

"I must disagree." An elder Meiko with a Konoha flak jacket and a clean-shaven hair observed. "Not with the happiness part, it would be much more efficient to make a sword that could kill one of dem Karamtans."

"It very well may but I do not wish to kill the Karamtans. I want to survive them until I can find a way to settle our quarrel." Mana politely refused. "I'd rather face their ire with my own bare hands rather than point a tip of a sword that can kill them at them."

Even the scary Goth Meiko from before was smiling. The bald, military-style Meiko that voiced her killing intent dragged an unexpected bent finger under her eye to wipe a tear from her slowly swelling with red, emotional face.

"That's just like mah Maney…" she said.

"That's enough, General Meiko. Do not ruin your cool vibe." Queen Meiko smiled before standing up and bowing her head to Mana. "We will make you your armor but, if time is of the essence, I'm not sure how successful we'll be."

"Just let me take care of that. Time is like flowing water and I have all sorts of lids and switches and sponges and valves and I'm all around good at messing with pipes… I'm running out of plumbing analogies." The Phantom Traveler sighed at the end.

"The Karamtan have found us before." Mana still looked worried.

"That was when I created a new timeline and made time stop to anyone but us two. Now I'll be much more proactive at meddling, a baby with paint-covered fingers could use some lessons from me at how much time-shenanigans I'll bring them." The Traveler pointed his thumb at himself as if bragging. "I have a really good feeling about this time."

---

A flight of stairs broke through the dead and rocky platform of a collapsed fortress and extended all the way into the endless gloom and the stormy clouds above that tainted the pocket of space and time where the Karamtan chose to take residence. A place that used to have no concepts of space or time but one that had those concepts brought there by the Karamtan, concepts that could have been purged just as simply as they were brought in.

"See? I told you that they'd be an easy bunch to find." The Phantom Traveler cheeked at a curiously misshapen, short and feminine form. There was so much junk all over her that it was tough to say exactly who this young woman was but the Karamtan realized it immediately, without the armored magician needing to speak a word.

"Nobody is looking for us. Usually, one's first idea is to run from us, that is why we do not bother hiding." One of the Karamtan spoke up, a hideous and greasy looking lump of rotten flesh that had no neck, head or face, instead a similar white and plain mask was seemingly molded to the upper parts of its chest area. When the entity spoke, black shroud burst from the mouth-gap of its mask. It was frightening to even imagine what sorts of matter that thing was or what horrendous effects it may have had on a normal human.

"Let's just hope this junk holds…" Mana sighed, clumsily and struggling to even walk straight, she lumbered on. Her right foot was completely exposed and bare, her left one was armored with an oddly rocky feeling boot of obsidian material while shimmering, star-like plate armor protected her thighs and waist. Her chest appeared to be rather unprotected for the purpose that she had chosen as it was merely protected by a black turtleneck. A curious coil of living energy was wrapped around Mana's left hand, despite it looking quite heated and intense, it appeared to not damage the long sleeve of the turtleneck it laid on the slightest.

Her right hand was puffy in its entirety. Almost like something had torn off the arm of a giant behemoth and simply forced Mana's inside it, the magician even felt the gooey feeling of someone else's limb rubbing off against her from inside, not to mention the itch of the hair of the beast's fur getting inside the darned casual turtleneck that she wore under the plate. Her helmet was shaped like a bucket and completely covered up the magician's head, save for the part on her face where the bucket seemed peeled open. Despite this really lousy design flaw, the magician's face was concealed behind a dark aura of shadow generated by the sealing glyph on an upper part of the bucket-helm.

Whatever beast the Meikos had slain to build the right-hand armor part, its horns rested proudly atop the lousy tin bucket protecting the magician's head. Also, a forked, golden rod the purpose of which the magician was very unsure of even at the moment of the fateful showdown with fate.

"Having second thoughts about your choice of a blacksmith?" Traveler raised an eyebrow.

"No, it's just… As much as I trust the Council of Meikoworld, this is just… Too odd… If only I could know it works…" Mana struggled to speak while she still stumbled over. The hardest parts to move around with were the curious rings of an unknown dust-like material that spun around Mana as if she was a planet maintaining its own ring system. "Will it?" she looked at the Phantom Traveler almost begging him to check what the future held for her.

"Who knows…" the Traveler shrugged. "Whatever I see ahead in your fate is just a stupid prediction. Go and make your own fate defined by your own choices."

"I'm so dead…" Mana lamented while she kept on stumbling forward and into the greatly confused fray of the entire order of the Karamtan. They were many, they were all large and chose powerful and very bizarre for the eyes of an earthly beholder looks but their defining characteristic that bound them all together was the white mask with black paint on it that gave all of them an emotionless and plain facial features.

The Karamtan closest to Mana twitched. Within an instant a black ray materialized from its mouth, the magician recognized that beam of darkness and intense, near-infinite gravitational pressure. It was what killed Shimo, the mass manipulation ability of Akimichi Francho drawn from a point of time and materialized to haunt her once more.

The magician grunted in pain as her entire body got violently tossed backward. Her bare foot tapped against the shifting rocks and gravel beneath her feet and her body stabilized as if she was surrounded by a weightless bubble. That must have been the function of whatever seals were placed on her bare foot…

The Karamtan emitted an odd, bemused sound when Mana simply bounced back from the intense attack that should have easily finished her off. All of them concentrated the same beam attack, all of them drawing from different timelines of different universes, wherever Akimichi Francho existed and had used this technique.

Mana covered herself up in a clumsy blocking pose, a strong push covered her all over but it did not feel that much stronger than a powerful gale in the spring. With a shocked expression that completely did not translate to a neutral observer due to the shadows obstructing the clear view of her face, Mana straightened out.

"It works…" she muttered to herself. Even when her guard was completely down last time, a beam of near infinite gravity only inconvenienced her and left a mean bump meanwhile every version of that beam ever fired in the history of time-space left absolutely no mark on her when she offered effort to protect herself. She was pretty much invincible unless the Kamartan stopped fooling around.

"This armor…" a Kamartan that was just a giant, skeletal, humanoid shape wearing the black and white mask at the center of a giant shield-like shape that hung awkwardly on the bones that were supposed to form its neck observed.

"The Destiny Buster!" Mana yelled out, the Council of Meiko were very specific about letting these entities know the name of their work.

"A mockery of the timeline, a cheap cheat!" Many of the Kamartan lost their composure, choosing instead to flip out. "A direct intervention is necessary, this armor is an anomaly!"

"None shall cheat fate!" A Kamartan that was just a ball of purple flames flowed like a mass of flames that its core was with an aggressive show of its own power. An immense blast of energy that transcended such description, its purpose was tough to impossible to define as if may have meant to delete Mana from all of the traces of history or it may have simply meant to age her a billion years or two.

One thing was clear, while the armor rumbled when covered by the intense attack of the Karamtan, it remained whole and Mana felt completely unharmed inside. It was time to step onto the offensive. The magician roared out as she placed her armor boot forward, thrusting her exposed arm that was surrounded by the coil of energy and letting the coil unwrap in a curious, drilling-like motion aimed to attack the flaming Karamtan.

The Karamtan emitted a mighty roar as the coil pierced a wide hole through it. The mass of blaze that surrounded the mask that defined its core began rotting while its flames were slowly dying out. After a handful of moments, only the mask remained and it weightlessly dropped into the endless abyss of gloomy clouds beneath the floating debris of a ruined fortress.

"Did it?" Mana turned at the Phantom Traveler in fear that she may have destroyed the Kamartan but the Traveler just shook his head.

"They cannot die. Death is a concept that they are beyond of, you merely punched it back into its primal shape." The anomalous entity explained.

Mana screamed out in pain, her entire body was feeling the searing heat that made her begin to wish that she passed out or died. The magician worked her way outside the mass of flames that reformed all around her just in time to witness the mask of the Kamartan fly back to its upper part and attach to the reformed entity creating a Kamartan reborn.

"That's right. These are just avatars they use to act upon the dimensions beneath their existence. When I destroy it they can just reshape by willing it…" Mana realized it all to herself. The magician glared down only to see her turtleneck completely incinerated and bare, dirtied and slightly burnt skin resting where it once was. Even the protective seals the Council of Meikoworld could not protect Mana completely from the process of the Kamartan's rebirth.

A blast of the dark, crackling with intense lightning shroud hit Mana from behind forcing the magician to cough up with blood even inside her armor. The Kamartan were sieging her armor from all sides, overwhelming even the surprisingly effective protections that the Council had granted her. The star-like plate on Mana's lower body became bent up, torn up like a peeled off piece of a tin can and covered with black rust-like signs of damage and wear.

A dark hand construct comprised of the same shroud of fate tried squishing Mana in its mighty palm but the magician screamed out in defiance and formed a protective bubble as both the energy on her coil as well as the ring rotating around her pitched in to protect their wearer from certain oblivion in the face of her own destiny.

The immense cost of this battle was beginning to take its toll on Mana as the magician felt the alluring embrace of collapse call to her with a sweeter and lovelier voice every time. In the face of this kind of pressure, this kind of fear and opposition dying, putting the end to it all quickly was slowly beginning to feel like a very tempting alternative.

"Do you despise him? The anomalous one? The Traveler?" one of the Karamtan asked, seeping the black mist from every crevice of its mask, like taint that was meant to lure Mana even further into the abyss of her own fear and despair.

"Yes. He has brought you here just to fail. Why does he not fight? Why does he not help? Why did he not help you keep running instead of serving you to us like that?" another Karamtan joined in on the tainting attempt to influence the magician into surrendering. Tears started to form in Mana's eyes. She knew those demons were wrong, they were just looking to make their jobs much easier but… They had a way with words, a way of influencing and expanding her own negative emotions a thousandfold.

Just as Mana opened her mouth to object the Phantom Traveler, a voice rang in her ears. It was unclear, it was pretty rough and surrounded by interference but it was oddly familiar. It was almost soothing…

"Don't give up. Do what you always do and keep on fighting. Help is on the way."

It was Meiko. Mana was not sure which one or where she was speaking from, she was not sure if it was the golden rod placed upon her bucket for a helmet transmitting Meiko's messages or if it was just Mana's banged up head imagining things but the magician yelled out and leaped forward. The rings around her armor began shaping up upon her commands, creating swords and crescent constructs to slice the Karamtan up, fists to pound them and push them aside, shields and bubbles to protect Mana from their wrath.

The magician had no idea for how long she's been fighting. It could have been just a minute, it could have been a millennium but she was only sure of one thing. By the time the last tin piece of her armor folded and gave way and the magician got yanked out of the fray of battle covered in blood and all of her muscles too burnt up to even move, she was content. She had done everything she could have done, she had swung and swum her way through every ounce of that corruption, every smallest crevice of that meaningless battle and even if every destroyed Karamtan returned with a dozen times the zealotry in their tainted shrouds than before, she kept on swimming until she could do it no longer…

"You've become quite a bane for us, Nakotsumi Mana. We almost regret that it is not us that will delete your anomalous presence from existence but your own destiny. We merely direct its power to you. There will be no more attempts, no more anomalies, the name of your end is our judgment. Disappear from the face of space-time." The Karamtan recounted their judgment all at once. That was when a powerful wave of shifting space-time stopped all of them in their tracks.

"The Traveler!? This is foolish!" the Karamtan all grunted out at once. "You know that our battle is pointless. We are one and the same, it will never end and neither one of us can best the other. Would you lock yourself with us in this eternal battle just to spare this one, third dimensional human?"

"There is no need for sentimental nonsense like that. We may be equals in power but I am the one that the truth has chosen." The Phantom Traveler grinned.

"The truth?" the Karamtan wondered.

"All of you lot keep talking about fate and destiny. It is the defining factor of all of your actions, none of you are truly free and beyond all coils, until it tells you what to do. But that is not even the cruelest of ironies, it is that you cannot see the busted destiny right in front of you. Yes, I understand it now. The reason why those blacksmiths called their armor that… The Destiny Buster."

Mana just barely managed to gather her strength enough to get back on one knee. Her head was buzzing and spinning but she saw the Traveler's point now. It did not look like the rest of the Karamtan were ready to see it though, all that was on their minds was to sentence Mana for deletion. With the struggle she put up, Mana was almost glad it was all over…

A violent clash interrupted the dark shroud that would have deleted all traces of Mana from every timeline in every universe. A poor alternative for her initial fate of death. The bright glow of the energy that smashed itself into the Karamtan was oddly familiar to the injured Mana – it was the coil of the Destiny Buster. The familiar feeling of the thick fur wrapping around her busted ribs and causing burning pain to erupt from her chest distracted the magician from the Karamtan and made her notice the help that Meiko spoke of.

"It was selfish of you to think that the fight for our right to exist is yours alone." Mana's own soft voice rang in her hazy head. Behind the Traveler, standing all over the floating debris of the home to the Karamtan stood an entire collection of Manas, all clad in Destiny Busters of their own. The Karamtan rustled in discomfort where the Mana that saved their injured alternate version left them to gawk at the emerging reinforcements.

"It took us millions of years to collect all these Manas from across time and space. Every Mana that survived long enough for us to snag them, every one of them with an ambition of her own to bust through the barrier of her unfortunate destiny." A voice of Meiko that differed from the one that spoke to her before and announced the incoming help. A project of reinforcement that was passed down through the generations of Meiko realized in the blink of an eye in a dimension of a vastly different flow of time.

"The hardest part was finding a way to send them to you…" the cheerful voice of Meiko announced before the bucket over Mana's head collapsed into a handful of tin junk from the damage it had suffered over the drawn-out struggle against the Karamtan. In between the army of Manas that were all ready to fight for their own right for survival stood one Meiko with an armor covered with gears and steam-pumps and a scarred face.

"Behold, you losers, the Horde of Manas! All thirty-two thousand of the survivors." the Meiko yelled out shaking her fist up into the sky.

"I'd appreciate if you did not call us a horde." The Mana holding the injured Mana looked at her friend with a bitter tone in her voice.

"I agree, it sounds like we've come here to pillage and rape and not to defy destiny." Another one behind them nodded in agreement.

"Tsk… It will take hundreds of millennia if not thousands of them to defeat all of them!" One of the Karamtan reflected with a similar tone of despair in its tone.

"All the destinies that will remain unobserved and uncontrolled." Another one lamented.

"That is what you idiots failed to notice." The Phantom Traveler declared waving at the thirty-two thousand defiant souls ready to struggle pointlessly against their fate, even if at the end of the day, they'd most likely fail. "The destiny of this human was to die, to be killed in her vain quest for peace in a world that is inherently violent and revels in it. A world that does not want to change how she wishes to change it. With her "pointless" struggle this human has defied fate already, she's made it worse, in fact, from a girl destined to die she became an anomaly destined for deletion."

The Karamtan looked at each other. They pondered just completely frozen for quite some time before snapping out of their static states.

"It appears so…" the Karamtan all expressed their consensus in unison. "If destiny can change for the worse, perhaps it also can change for the better. We'll let you off hook just for now. Just because your deletion would cause more trouble rampant across the timelines and universes left unobserved than it is worth."

That was how the young magician girl from Konohagakure defied her own fate – by making everything worse and making the masters of her own fate declare that they were happy to find an excuse not to delete her.

---

A ladder descended all the way from the clouds and into the gloomy and chilly Forest of Death. A man with a stubble and a ginger hairdo slid down the sides of the ladder while his coat waved about in the wind. A ninja magician slowly floated down by his side riding the gusts of her own wind.

"Well, I guess this is where we say farewell…" the Traveler scratched the back of his neck. "I bet after this one you'll want to never see my face ever again."

"No, I am very thankful for your help and for the help you've provided my teammates before calling me up." Mana bowed her head.

"Eh, you're forgetting you'd not need my help if it was not for the bastards after you messing with that rabbit's mind." The Phantom Traveler shrugged before jumping up the ladder as it formed into a long rope. One that slowly ascended into the clouds, dragging the man hanging on it away.

"You're right… This is a little bit too strange for me…" Mana nodded with an uncomfortable smile. Her politeness always came off that way when she felt bad about her own lack of knowledge of complete understanding of what was going on. A status quo not very common for her.

"Oh well, either way… I trust you to figure things out with your village and the explosive rabbit. It's not your destiny or anything, it's just a hunch I have. Don't forget what happened today, never forget the greatest part about being alive – the freedom to craft your own destiny. To me, that's sweeter than any of that destiny crap."

The Traveler appeared to have timed his exit just right as the rope disappeared into the clouds just in time for him to finish saying his farewells and acknowledge Mana waving at him in return with a nod.

---

Three whole years. Now I'm kind of curious how long it will take me to get to the point in the story I intended to be in after the first couple of months. Guess it just shows what a poor planner I am. I do recall last year lamenting that the Annual came out twice longer than I meant it to be, this year it's even longer even though the story technically seemed rather simpler...

Anyway, I'm really glad about how trippy and weird this Annual turned out, almost feels like a fanfiction of a fanfiction really. I would worry about what few people follow this story losing it about how little it has to do with Naruto but, given how most of the fanbase already hates me for only borrowing the universe and not its characters, if you're reading this far, you probably don't care all that much. Maybe I'll feature some Naruto characters again in the next Annual just to make up for this weird one, won't make any promises just yet.

In any case, on Wednesday story resumes as usual, really looking forward to it! Hope you guys feel like this was worth the hiatus.