Mana expected to see space. She wasn't sure what had happened outside, to her physical body. Somewhere amidst her serene tranquility of meditation, there was a bleed of crimson inside of her mental expanse and it was something outside of Mana's experience. She had been poisoned before and fought it off with meditation, fended of minor sicknesses but nothing quite like this. Cracks and fissures that seemed to shatter her very inner universe began cradling the entire psychic orbit, forcing Mana to choose to stay inside and cradle psyche off, see how she could help herself from inside rather than rush to what might have been her certain death.
At the very core of her immaterial scope, there was no space, no nebulae. Only an orb of lapis lazuli and salad-green. An Earth drowning in serene waters that hosted only one continent and if Mana was certain what it was that continent reminded her of – it was a curious sight to explore. The magician girl tilted her hand and pulled on the mental fabric like she'd have pulled a shroud to unveil what's underneath, pulling herself through the spiritual province. Her feet touched solid, sandy ground.
"Well, this is a surprise…" a voice familiar to Mana's own demanded the magician's attention, prompting her to tilt her arms and not turn by herself but roll the world around her as if she was turning a barrel. Thusly she positioned the inner world of her mind to where the mysterious mental construct now stood before her in full-view.
"What's wrong, has it been that long out there that you can't recognize me anymore?" a woman who was undoubtedly Mana though no mirror image of her as she had seemingly lived an entirely different life to the magician crossed her arms, resting both her elbows in a gentle grip of her hands while her lips made a mocking tilt. Her eyebrows joined in on the proud facial expression, challenging the magician to prove that her mind was made of sharper stuff than to fail to comprehend the inner workings of her own brain.
This Mana was an adult, her hair laid flat and long, reaching the lower sections of her thighs as scarlet strings tied around iron rings comprised her red dress. She donned extravagant make-up of eye-carving colors, shaped in patterns, more like ritualistic face-paint rather than genuine touch-ups meant to improve her appearance and hide the natural imperfections. Her exposed arms displayed an intricate network of abstract tattoos, lines running like threads, weaving, and hiding underneath various symbols and other simplistic artwork.
This construct's existence challenged what Taiga-sensei taught her about the human mind. The only way that a version of oneself could exist inside one's own mental realm would have been if one hosted multiple personalities. When Mana probed the minds of other people – she saw their mental avatars but only because she was a third person roaming their mental forts. If she was to roam her own – she'd have had to only perceive it from the first person.
"Space Baby…?" Mana muttered. Her first instinct was to recall the last time she found herself in a similar predicament – trapped inside of her own mind as her physical body floated slowly onward across the hellish river and toward the doom of a roaring whirlpool of finality.
"Oh, come on!" this new, adult and quite human version of space baby tsked as she wagged her finger in front of Mana's face like a cute warning. "I could forgive you calling me that back then, namely, because I wasn't quite sure what I was, and I certainly looked the part, but if you call me this again, I'll crush you and take over."
"Crush me and… Take over…?" Mana scratched her head, never having imagined that this was an option that was pointed at her and put on the table.
"Oh, don't linger on that!" this alternate construct of Mana waved her hand at it and raised her hands, proudly displaying the version of Konoha that she had created for Mana's mental fort that shined like a brilliant gemstone in all of its glory around them. "Like what I've done with the place while you were busy?"
"You've created a world inside of my mind and gave yourself a more defined mental shape…" Mana stated the obvious, admiring the mental constructs of Konoha citizens treading about, going through their day, glaring at the two Mana with wary stares. They were smitten by the two women though, it occurred to Mana, that they might have been terrified of them all the same. Still, they looked identical to the villagers Mana had seen and met throughout her life, she could identify some of them.
"Well, technically… You won't hear me admitting it often but… We created it. I used your eyes and ears to catch a glimpse of them. The scent in the air is based on your memories from childhood since… Well… You know…" the Mana in the red dress shrugged.
"Everything about this is curious to me," magician Mana admitted. "Your choice for the mental fort, the incredible precision you've gone through to assemble it as if not a single detail was allowed to be off-model. Your own choice for expression, your appearance… You're something that exists within my mind, it makes sense you'd model yourself after me but…"
"I wasn't aware that we've had a detective Mana snooping around, maybe the magician Mana is still off, floating inside the pocket universe in her own mind?" crimson Mana jested.
No, all of this is stunning, don't get me wrong, but… When an artist draws a masterpiece comprised of a specific image, depicting something concrete, the core question remains – why this thing specifically?" Mana shrugged, moving her hands and yoinking the fabric of space inside of her mental fort, twisting and turning it around, reducing it in size and growing it back to its original state with motions of her hands and hardened willpower to weave the network of her mind as she saw fit.
"You know, you could just turn…" the Mana in the red-dress slumped, sinking her hands and shoulders down as she hunched in an expression of slight disappointment in the way that her other, dominant self was acting. "You don't have to… Do… All this."
"Sorry, I'm making sure not to hurt or change anything. Your masterpiece is simply brilliant, I seem to be stuck inside for a time so I'd love to spend some time here and relax a bit, if you don't mind," Mana suggested her other-self. "We've been apart for quite some time, when we first met, you didn't quite know what you was and I, certainly, had no clue. I'm curious if after all this time you'd have gone on to understand yourself better?"
"You're the one who did all the mind-probing training, tell me, Magician…" the woman in the red dress teased Mana but she was quick to abandon the act, knowing full-well what Mana did and did not know, being a construct of her own mind, after all. "I'd like for you to stay here, in fact, I made this place specifically for that purpose."
"So there was a purpose…" Mana smiled, admiring the flowers growing out of the wayside decorations, silken to touch and fragrant in smell – a pleasure that Mana had long since forgotten about.
"Fine…" the woman in red groaned, running her hand over her straight hair, the nervous tick left her perfect hairdo a tad untidy, not at all unlike Mana's when she relented the inevitable defeat against her own wild hair. "There was, and… Look, I know… We've basically got infinity to mess around here, eat ice cream, dazzle people on the stage and receive as much praise as we want but… I'm not going to beat around the bush here if you don't mind."
"We both know that a dazzler won't get done in by a little glamour and soft-talk," Mana admitted.
"Exactly," the other Mana nodded. "You're right, I've come to understand just what I am and, you won't believe it, but… What you are too."
"Really?" Mana wondered, visibly acting intrigued. "Do tell."
"You see, you think that you're… Well… You, Nakotsumi Mana, Konoha's Sorceress, Konoha's Special Jounin, and Allied Ninja in the making, right? Truth be told, we're one and the same. You're not Mana, not really, neither am I. Both of us are Mana. You've been changing, redefining yourself just like I have, the difference is that you've been in charge, steering the whole ship whereas I've had as much time as I wanted to shape myself inside this mental realm." Mana in the red dress said.
Mana's sights set on the villagers, smiling, bowing, and nodding, albeit nervously. Bit by bit she could pick up speech patterns and they didn't make much sense. They were faking conversation and nodding to each other, petrified that their act would be discovered and it was exactly because of that reason that Mana acted like it wasn't. This version of her in the red dress, she might have been dangerous, or at least her own mental fragments suggested this much. It took a mean piece of an architect to make the building they designed scared shitless of them.
"So what you're saying is that I am merely a mental construct, just like you, though formed earlier?" Mana wondered if she got the pitch just right.
"Exactly! I know you won't like this thought but… I'm not sure that either of us is the original. Who's to say how many other Manas there were, the one that formed inside your mother's womb, sparked by our combined origin, that one must be long-gone already. Who's to say if there even is a fragment of the original us inside any of us anymore. Just think about how much you've molded and shaped yourself, Magician. You've gone from cheerful and naïve to experienced and just to bitter and gloomy, your experiences dented you and you've filled those dents with whatever you could find. Still, given my experience in the mental and spiritual matters, I'm more than certain that you're still the Magician construct."
"The Magician construct? So you're something like me, right? Another mental construct, someone who can steer the physical Mana if need-be, right? What does that make you? Scarlet Mana?" the Magician pondered, humoring her vivid imagination for a second.
"Call me whatever you will, it's not like there's a mother-mind to name us… Either way, you can stay here, in this version of Konoha. With how developed and trained our mind is – we can freely shape the entire mental dimension as we see fit, the entire universe at our command, whereas out there all you'll have is misery. Don't think I haven't seen you. More and more of you is getting chipped away with each passing day and if that continues – there'll be no more Magician to guide Mana." Scarlet rushed out in front of Mana, pleading her case with alarming passion.
What she stated suggested that her intentions were pure. Though based on everything that Mana had seen up to that point, she was beginning to wonder. Then there was this whole affair with her not being who she thought she was and merely The Magician construct. This idea felt like trouble. Mana had no idea how to approach or argue against it. She didn't feel like just a mental construct, she felt like… Well… Her… The real her but… Wouldn't that be exactly what a mental construct who was just a personality, a mask temporarily assigned to wheel duty say?
"Okay, so what's your pitch, Scarlet?" Mana mumbled, pocketing her hands inside of her blazer and swinging on her wobbly feet, doing her best to disguise the shapeless feeling that she had in her gut as if even her own mind was trying to trick her and lie to her. It felt like that was exactly what Scarlet was out for – to depose Mana and destroy her or tuck her away.
"Stay here, with me!" Scarlet stretched her arms out, suggesting that the splendor and artificial happiness around them was a substitute for reality. "You were closer to nabbing time perception, you know. I can feel it, inside your own mind, you can spend however much time you need in just one blink of real-time. We can enjoy this mental fort together and you don't have to ever surface again."
"That's… Hopeful. Even if we spend an eternity in here, eventually the Allied Ninja will get rid of Mana… Of me… The physical body. They'll rule us out as dead or hopeless. Hiding is no excuse, someone will have to surface and take control eventually." The Magician sighed.
"Only if the physical body is healed. You've seen it though, right? It doesn't look too good… Who knows if a cataclysm like that can even be repaired. Come on, think about it, I know that outside hurts, you've suffered for so long, for almost twenty years you've been chipped away and battered, weathering Mana's storms and troubles. If need be… If need be… I can surface and take over," Scarlet pleaded. The Magician couldn't see any glimmers in Scarlet's eyes when she said that, it was either that she received no gratification from such thoughts or that she simply was too good of a liar to tell anymore what she wanted or liked.
"Well… It's not like I've got any options, right?" The Magician shrugged, digging her cheeks and into her blazer as if it could shield her away from the decision she'd have to make eventually. She couldn't get a read on Scarlet at all anymore, who knows, maybe Scarlet is just as viable to be Mana as the Magician was. What a confusing mess, before this day, even with all of Mana's mastery of the mind, she'd have never thought anything that Scarlet told her to be possible or that the gates of probability were open and welcoming for something like Scarlet to even exist.
Being trapped inside Paradise that was designed by another you wasn't the worst fate, however long it lasts…
The ginger-haired staff member walked into the Stars' room, wiping sweat off of her face. Her expression looked hopeful, nothing in her face indicated that Mana might have died on the table or that the odds were dire but she wasn't outright gleeful either. That was why getting the initial read on the woman seemed impossible.
"Your friend survived. Her condition had stabilized already by the time we've brought her to the medical room and, thankfully, moving her the way we did didn't seem to aggravate it. Though the condition in which she's stabilized to… Well…" the medical ninja tried mustering up the necessary and stern stuff to say it but couldn't.
"She's as good as dead, ain't she?" Endo spat it out, never being shy of displaying his stuff that, most of the time, was the sternest stuff around.
"She's stable. Stably comatose that is. If we let her sleep and don't interrupt her – she'll likely sleep for as long as her body can last. Who knows, if we supply her with food and water, she might last for a full lifetime. Those are the best odds of a completely heartless person with a massive hole for a chest ever, I must say. Your friend is remarkably tough to kill, which shouldn't make sense because physically her body is an absolute wreck – she's been through some rough times already, does anyone know how old she is?" the medical ninja wasn't sure if she felt crushed by this report or admired her helpless patient more.
Everyone turned to Shige-H who, it was no mystery, had done extensive spying and research on every hand-picked member of her Stars.
"Around seventeen, the exact count didn't seem like integral information," Shige-H shrugged with a sad sniff of her nose.
"Well, she's the most punished and battered seventeen-year-old I've ever seen, in that case…" the medical kunoichi scratched the back of her neck, still feeling uncomfortable by the scans she's performed on the poor youth.
"Please do not get discouraged, Shige-H, I don't believe that Mana-san's condition is quite as hopeless as you are making it out to be!" Damisan spoke up, he didn't look quite as potent to change Mana's fate of helplessness, looking more like a wriggling, limbless caterpillar, carefully placed on his bed with his concealed head rested over a pillow. "I don't think that the Allied Ninja have a superior engineer than me in terms of producing functional organ replacements. Shige-H-san is an amazing medical ninja, if she gives me a blueprint of all the organs and blood vessels that Mana is missing, I can make mechanical replacements. Rubber tubes for vessels and a mechanical heart can't be outside the realm of possibility!"
"We're using pig vessels for replacements at the moment. Mana's body is incredible, once we've connected the separate, splattering vessels together with the biological replacements, she seemed to adapt and redirect the blood circulation, reworking how her body functions completely and inventing new blood circulation patterns just to survive. Without her help, she'd have long been dead. You guys seem like true stand-up guys too, though I'd hurry if I were you. I'm not sure for how long will the Supreme Leader let us keep Mana on the table all patched up like this. After all, she's quite helpless to the Allied Ninja in her current state, all she's doing is taking constant time, attention, and sustenance away from others that need the help of the medical ninja…" the medical kunoichi nodded, wishing the Stars the best of luck before she left their room.
"I'm sure that the Supreme Leader will come around after we visit her…" Endo looked grim and frightening yet hopeful of his success. "If the ultimate goal is for all of us to pass all the lessons the witch was pulling us through, I'll use all of my determination to make the Supreme Leader an offer she can't refuse!"
"I should probably get to work on my own prosthetics first, I can't tinker on anything for Mana without arms or legs of my own…" Damisan's cylinder weighed down in a depressing slump when he examined his current, limbless state.
"You better not mess up Mana's heart and vessels like you've messed up your own shoddy parts last time…" Endo warned the sad fellow Stars member.
"It wasn't me, it was Ion, or whatever her real name was. Shit, I can't believe I couldn't recognize that she was playing me and installing workarounds in my own limbs to disassemble me faster…" Damisan appeared to be getting even more worked up as self-loathing and desperation took control.
"Don't get yourself down, freak, if I looked like you and someone winked her eye at me, I'd be just as blinded to their treachery just out of the sheer shock that someone could even act like loving me," Endo seemed to mean it as an encouraging declaration of support though it seemed to utterly decimate his ally who flopped on his face, flinging his entire frame with one bountiful flick of his entire torso and, from the looks of it, turned himself off.
Endo yelled out in pain as a smack over his head resonated through the room. Little Tomi stood on his cupboard, looking vexed at her ally with her little hands, both the subtle and tanned left one and the bandaged and comically oversized right one to her hips.
"That's mean!" she scolded Endo, pointing an accusatory finger at him.
Little by little, the Stars planned on salvaging what they still had left after Snipe Hawker's attack.