The Supreme Leader appeared utterly stunned by the fact that a small group of recruits made their way up to her office. Regimental Commander Harcel was also present as the two must have been discussing a matter or two before the Stars decided to grace the highest authority in the entire Allied Ninja organization with their presence.
"What the fuck is this shit!?" Supreme Commander pointed her arms to the door to her office like two metal rods she meant to impale all of the entering recruits on while her crazed eyes turned to Harcel. "I don't even see people that work for us unless it's to get debriefings or hand out sensitive jobs to them. Why are those fuckers here!? Why are you fuckers here!?"
"Ma'am, we've come to talk about Nakotsumi Mana," Shige-H stepped out in front of what de facto was her squad and nodded her head. "We've heard that you might be considering turning her off life-support and letting her die. You've got to give us a chance to plead our case since Mana can't plead hers."
"What!?" the Supreme Commander tilted the front beak of her cap and scratched the back of her head, turning to Regimental Commander Harcel. "Okay, I'm fucking lost here… I don't know what the fuck is going on here…" she blew a stream of air out from her lungs.
"Well, to be fair, we were discussing the matter right now," Regimental Commander Harcel turned to the Stars with a smug grin on his face. "Although, you may be surprised to know that it was I who advocated letting Mana-san pass away and the Supreme Commander was the one who held on to her position that we simply cannot do so."
"Huh?" Shige-H switched her surprised pair of eyes between the two authority figures in front of her. "But I thought…"
"Yeah, when all of you came rushing back with that chest-less bitch in your hands, bleeding all over my headquarters, yeah, I got more than a bit pissy, I'll admit, tensions were high, cords almost got cut…" the Supreme Leader removed her hat and crossed her arms over her chest with it, "Though when cooler heads prevailed, it's clear that we can't do anything but hope we can get Mana back on her two feet and working for us again."
"That's good, she outranks you so we're good, right?" Tomi pulled on Endo's hakama, looking up to the apprentice samurai like she'd have looked up to an older sibling, with hopeful eyes.
"Not necessarily, I am still hoping to convince all of you to see reason – Nakotsumi Mana is but one ninja, a special jounin so she's no average ninja but she's not worth the constant upkeep in resources we've got to spend to keep her alive in her current state. The way she is now, she's useless to us, as sad as it is to admit it, and we cannot afford to throw our resources and manpower down useless prospects," Regimental Commander Harcel turned back to the Supreme Commander, as if talking to the Stars simply wasn't worth his time.
"W-Wait, that's not true! We're… We're working on a way to get Mana back on her feet. We just need a little time," Damisan stepped out atop of his rather crude, skeletal-shaped, metal prosthetics that were made merely to provide him with some elementary limbs rather than to be efficient in combat. "Working together, Shige-H and I can make some artificial organs to replace those that Mana had lost. She can be an asset to the Allied Ninja again. She can be alive and living again."
Damisan was sure to emphasize the fact that those two terms meant very different things. Especially so to him – someone who was left alive after a particular nightmarish event and spent so much of his time merely being alive and only recently started truly living.
"So what you are suggesting might bring her back the way she was before the injury?" Regimental Commander Harcel raised an eyebrow, giving the young ninja an almost mocking look.
"We've got no reason to think it won't!" Damisan pumped his artificial fist with an uncomfortable, screechy bend to his elbow joints.
"Well, that's not quite true…" Shige-H looked down with a grim expression, "Without Mana's real, organic heart, her circulation will be a mess. A whole bunch of her very important tenketsu points have been straight out obliterated and… I can't say for sure that she will come out of it weaker but… She'll have tremendous difficulty recovering and she may just need to learn to mold chakra all over again,"
"There you go, do we really have the luxury to spare invaluable and limited resources on rubbish like that? If we can afford to host ninja that need to learn the basics all over again, why don't we just start taking in children from now on?" Regimental Commander Harcel snickered as he entertained these possibilities, wondering why the rest of the office wasn't laughing alongside him as his look raced across the room to find others to join in on his chuckling.
"I think you've got your solution there, you rotten asshole," the Supreme Commander flipped her military cap back on and lowered its beak while she gleamed a malicious grin. "I'm keeping Mana plugged in and alive because I've got no other choice – she might be a criminal back in Konoha but she's also a starlet. She attracts attention to this fucking joint just by being here, existing, and living her day to day life. The next course of recruits has filled up before this one even started. Plus, there are some very influential people in Konoha that won't let me cut the cord but that's none 'a your fucking business…"
"Are we at such a foul state that we will allow ourselves to be influenced by mere numbers of meaningless chaff now? So what if Konoha's Sorceress attracts fodder here? Are any of them even one-tenth her worth in battle? Plus, why are we being bullied by some shadows over in Fire Country? We reside inside the Lightning Country and have the backing of Kumogakure – the strongest military power in this world. We are meant to heed no influence from any external sources, we are beyond such mere political frivolities," Harcel acted out spitting over his left shoulder in disgust.
"Lightning Country used to have the strongest military, old man, maybe back in your day, but after flexing that military for far too long, they've lost their position. It just so happens that Konoha is the second most powerful force on this planet so it might be wise to listen to what they have to say from now on," Endo replied with a strict and disdainful look directed to the Regimental Commander in charge of the recruit matters and their education.
"Hmph… That may be so, but there is no way that Konoha would risk their position "flexing" their military, as you put it, so far out in Lightning Country territory. The entirety of the Snow Country is protecting us, their forces would wither before they made through the mountain range, everybody knows that, you'd know that if you paid attention in class," Harcel hissed back at the bratty youth. "Basic knowledge in Logistics implies that there aren't enough caravans to transport a large military force over the mountains, meaning they'd have to march through and that would shave the difference in manpower down to nothing, if not tip the scales in Kumogakure's favor."
"The matter of military superiority is meaningless here. Konoha has always had a drastic advantage in population, sheer manpower and that is what is important. They have the most medical staff, the most booming small businesses, and the most ninja as well. That is why their voice matters, if we represent the world's matters – we represent Konoha's matters proportionately more so than the rest of the world's. Those are just basic statistics," Shige-H shrugged, looking to the Supreme Commander for support.
The woman sighed and nodded. "I guess you brats have been picking up a thing or two in class after all. I'm not the one you should be fucking bending over here. This fucker's also like so whatever… You're just posturing for its own sake, you tryhards. I've already told the lot of you, Mana's fucking staying, and she's gonna keep breathing. If she recovers and manages to pitch in in some other way than merely being a fancy flagpole to attract people with – that's all the better for us."
"Very well, I've understood your position, Supreme Commander and I will accept your decision, however, accept this also – if Konoha's Sorceress recovers and fails to keep up in class because of her condition, I won't spare her just because she's your little attraction. She'll flunk as many times it'll take to make a proper Allied Ninja out of her "new" and "weak" self," the Regimental Commander was sure to emphasize the two terms with great disdain for both of those words in his tone.
"Fine, I'm not asking you for anything else, dickwad," Supreme Commander smacked her forehead and sighed, looking increasingly more tired by this conversation the longer it went on. "It might even be for the better to keep her sorry-ass around, becoming an inspiration to the ninja she attracts to our cause so if she fucks up a couple of times and sticks around to build the other noobs up – all the fucking better."
"Always a very unique kind of pleasure to talk to you, Supreme Commander…" Regimental Commander Harcel bowed the upper half of his body with a smirk and left the office, walking around the Stars with a scornful look on his face.
"I'm impressed that you stuck up for Mana's life," Damisan noted, placing his stiff, metal prosthetic hand over Endo's shoulder. "It appears that being with the Stars is having a positive influence on you after all,"
"Yes, I too am glad that my education is of our prime concern here," Endo agreed with a lively nod. "I can't stand to deal with pissy tutors when they fail to teach me right and they end up failing me either. Mana is the only guarantee that will not happen, we cannot afford to lose her."
"Well… Your heart might not be in the right place just yet but… It's a work in progress," Shige-H smirked with half of a smile.
"You sorry fuckers, what the fuck are you still doing in my goddamn office!?" the Supreme Leader barked at the Stars, shaking her fist over her head. The quartet took it on their toes, right where their freezing hearts sunk down to when the Supreme Leader scolded them. The four dashed out of the office, not minding any sort of etiquette but, judging from the look on the Supreme Leader's face – the only fact that the woman cared about was that they got out and left her to work in peace.
"This is the end of this class, cease this abomination at once!" tutor Mauma crossed his arms, looking at Endo dragging Damisan by his heel across the ground as the battlefield has returned to the seals that gave birth to it at the beginning of the class and the recruits started packing into their own groups of friends and moving toward the dorms again since the class was finished for the day.
"Just give me five…" Damisan bellowed, rubbing the back of his head and wincing from the constant stimulation of the bruising that Endo's careless handling of him left him in. Shige-H leaned down to heal him, looking beaten.
"I was looking at our performance, we're lagging behind. Our current level doesn't befit our esteemed name, I expect you lot to do better next time," Endo wheezed out as he sat his bottom down on a nearby rock and wiped the sweat off his face.
"You were the worst of all of us!" Tomi yelled out, running at Endo with a large stick to whack him in the head with it. Being an expert swordsman, Endo managed to elude Tomi's swings without much effort and having the quality of common sense, until blind rage robbed him of all traces of it, the samurai apprentice knew better than to get hit even once by the furious young'un.
"That is ridiculous…" Endo caught the stick and redirected it, making Tomi stumble and very nearly plant on her face to the side.
"What was that carrying method you used," Shige-H turned to Endo. "Didn't you read the Battlefield Care Compendium? You put your ally on your back and then position their legs under your arms and hold their lower core while your back supports their body weight, you don't just drag them by their heel on the ground like a sack of trash."
"You know perfectly well that I did no such thing as reading anything. Even the Bushido code I have memorized from my master's retelling by heart. I had no use in reading when I was…" Endo got his song started again.
"Fighting for your life in a survival exercise against your master inside of a steel cage in an active volcano… Bla, bla, bla… We know it already!" Tomi shook her fist now that she realized how useless attacking Endo with a bludgeoning piece of wood was.
"You forgot the part where my master was the God-Sword user, one of four legendary swordsmen entrusted with a God Sword technique who chose me as the successor of that technique so next time you try and take a swing at me with some stick, remember who you're swinging at and who it is you are blaming," Endo gave little Tomi a scornful look, feeling like he had picked a great opponent to jab at each other's wits with in a girl half his size.
"Guys… Let's just go home, we're nearly done with our secret project anyway…" Damisan whined out after rising back up on his wobbly, prosthetic feet once Shige-H retreated off of him and stopped healing him with a weary breath coming from her lungs.
"I was hoping that we would finish it tonight, though given how Endo has mistreated you and how healing you has made me beaten off my feet… Who even knows anymore…" Shige-H rubbed her eyes while her arms fell limp by her sides.
"Just for the record, I knew how to carry an injured ally on the battlefield, it's just that touching this freak is too disgusting for me so I chose to drag him across the ground like the trash he was," Endo pointed out, looking like he felt it of profound importance to point this out before they were done with today's class. "Though I do agree, we must finish on getting Mana back on her feet as soon as possible. It is getting increasingly difficult to drag ourselves along those ruthless courses without her."
"I can't believe I'm agreeing with Endo here…" Tomi rubbed her tired eyes with her tiny knuckles and yawned. "I'm sorry, guys, I don't think I'll be able to help you much. I can summon Saruedo again to help you with your tinkering."
"Thank you, Tomi-chan, I could use some help from Katsuname and Katsukuji as well. At times it feels like they're more knowledgeable in medical ninjutsu than me," Shige-H nodded with bags under her eyes while the Stars proceeded toward their room and the chaos found therein. It took a special sort of dedication to devote one's free time to a project such as building a functional replacement for Mana's missing body.
Most of it could have been replaced with standard, Senju-clan filler of connective tissue but Damisan took no leisure time in designing a functional, mechanical heart prosthetic while, with the aid of Shige-H and Tomi's ninja slugs who seemed incredibly experienced in medical ninjutsu themselves, they've recreated the blood vessels and planned on connecting them with what remained of Mana's chest cavity before the medical ninja gave it their fairest go at reviving the magician once more.
"I… I can't believe it…" Damisan stumbled back from his secret project, positioned on the worktable and seemingly gleaming with ethereal light of the sum of all of the hard work that most of the Stars had put into making this come to be. "It's done…"
"I didn't expect it to be done so fast," Shige-H wiped the moistness from her eyes with the sleeve of her fur coat. The rough hair rubbed against her sensitive and tired eyes, irritating them and making them swell a tad. "Thank you, Katsuname, I didn't know that the cultivation of the artificial blood vessels could have been accelerated like that."
"Let's just hope it works…" a salad-green slug released a sticky sound out into the wild as its front end stuck to its body. The ninja animal had attempted to duplicate the human nodding motion but its front ended up sticking to the middle section.
"We're all holding out for Mana-chan," Katsukuji wriggled in excitement, the dark grey, and white slug poofed away into smoke only to be shortly followed by his companion after Tomi rubbed the slug's head in gratitude, shaking her sticky hand to get the goop off of her and attempting to wipe it at her raggedy, torn top once both of them were gone from view.
"Well, I'll be damned, I guess those bastards really did end up being useful. Now I feel sort of bad for trying to kill them with salt that one time," Endo approached the table, marveling at the artificial heart. He took it off the table and shook it in his hand, handing it back to Damisan when he let out a bunch of unintelligible growls, worried that the apprentice samurai would break it.
"It's busted, it doesn't pump anything…" Endo declared his judgment of the quality of the work.
"That's because it's not connected to anything!" Damisan scolded the samurai apprentice for almost busting the invaluable gadget. "Once hooked up to Mana, it will feed off of her chakra reserves to sustain itself and start managing normal blood circulation."
"Let's just hope that her body can grow accustomed to normal blood circulation after weeks of whatever she's been putting herself through. The last thing we need is for her body to use her brain as a circulation point…" Shige-H sighed easier as well while the two cradled their little baby and put it into a handheld chest where Damisan used to store sensitive parts to his prosthetics when he was rebuilding them again.
The handle of the door turned, without Mana to sense and warn the Stars that someone was coming, the entirety of the drained group turned to the door with exhausted stares only to exclaim in shock when Skaven was the one to walk to their room. They've been trying to reach out to this young man for entire weeks once Mana was still okay, though they've somewhat abandoned their recruitment efforts once the revival of the stage magician began demanding the most of their attention.
"Yo, you guys, I've heard you're working on some prosthetic for Mana. I'm here to ask you to can it and throw it out," Skaven scratched the back of his greasy-haired head, with a nonchalant expression as he asked the Stars to toss out their recent passion project to get Mana back to full consciousness and on her feet.