"Hmm… Are you sure that you want to go with me?" Mana wondered, turning to Ishikeru. The half-mountain, half-man sat in front of Mana in the spherical roller of impressive clockwork operating it that rolled over the space separating the golden inner "worlds" of the Moon. Because of Ishikeru's size, he had to hunch and bend his head. One would have hardly found anyone slim and flexible enough to fit in between the giant Moon ninja and Mana.
"Of course! If you're going to help us get rid of the Chaser, I will do everything in my power to help. Plus, you'll run into other Sky Clan ninja on your way and they need to know that you mean well," Ishikeru said, explaining his decision to just abandon his post.
"Won't your allies be mad at you for leaving the engineers unattended and unprotected?" Mana asked. Somewhere down in her gut, she felt bad about not telling him that the engineers that Ishikeru was supposed to protect had been escaping at this very moment. Then again, it wasn't like he'd have known that even if he stayed behind in his post.
"They may be. But we only need them because of the Chaser. If the Chaser is gone, we might still find happiness here, on the Moon. This place is our home and if we can still protect it, we should do our best to do so," Ishikeru bowed his head respectfully. "In any case, it's not like those engineers would ever bother attempting an escape or anyone or anything would try to break in. They're all the way on the Moon, so far from Earth, and The Chaser is after our chakra. He sucks us dry into lifeless husks and leaves us behind. He'd have no interest in mere Earth Clan civilians."
"I see…" Mana pondered to herself, scratching her chin. By now she had heard plenty of information about this mysterious Chaser, yet she couldn't put her finger on it. She had never heard of a biological weapon that could threaten someone or something as powerful as the Sky Clan ninja. If the Chaser's MO truly was draining chakra, it might have narrowed it down, but his identity was still a mystery.
"So, you know nothing about this Chaser, then?" Ishikeru thrust his proverbial index straight at the point with Mana's sudden solemnness.
"No, I'm sorry. One thing I am sure of–we haven't sent the Chaser here on purpose. Most Earth Clan ninja aren't even aware of your existence. Just like you've said, we're too preoccupied with violence and local warfare to look at the stars. Those of us who don't have any interest in mythology, history, and lore of the world we all share have long since forgotten about the war with the Sky Clan or any covenants we may have made," Mana replied as the transportation orb, clad in gears came to a complete halt. Its golden shine flashed away, leaving just a pearl-colored shell. Mana tried to find a handle to open it up, but Ishikeru just gently guided her away.
With a cracking thud, he punched through the shell and unraveled it from within, walking out and guiding Mana by her hand to make a soft and successful landing on the other golden world. As the two disembarked from the mechanism that brought them here, the cracked shell began emitting radiance and turned ethereal. The construct of pure energy connected together and then settled into a pearl-colored shape again, demanding for travelers to wind the gears up again and power them up to the state of a golden comet that could travel in between the world orbs.
"I'll take it we're still not there," Mana voiced her fears.
"No, we've run out of energy. I can power this thing up again in a few minutes or we can dash across to this dimension's station. It must have an orb that's powered and ready to go," Ishikeru pointed out. "The battleground can't be that much further ahead."
"This place is magnificent!" Mana gasped after turning around and absorbing the welcoming creeks, the cute little bridges arcing over them, and the luscious green providing shade and security to the boundless ancient temples that seemed well-maintained compared even to those on Earth. It was as if they were built just yesterday and being lacquered and swept through every day. "I wonder how all this elegance smells…" Mana pressed her hands to her chest, just trying to recall the pleasant tingles to her nose from her childhood and imagine that multiplied a hundredfold.
"Huh? You can't smell?" the horny ridge over Ishikeru's eye tilted with a dusty rumble. "You Earth Clan people are so delicate, like little flowers. Last about as long as flowers too."
"No, I've… Sacrificed my sense of smell to hone my chakra sensory sooner and to make it more powerful," Mana admitted. "I don't think that's permanent. Skilled medical ninja should be able to reverse that but… I just never had the downtime for surgery and recovery."
"Surgery?" Ishikeru became even more puzzled as he began winding up the traveling sphere for another trip only to stop and turn to Mana with bafflement sealed in his face.
"It doesn't matter… Say, maybe we shouldn't bother with this? After all, if you wind this orb up again, it will waste some of that energy while we travel across this world again. We'll run out of juice again even sooner. Let's just find another station. Do you know where it is?" Mana asked. She wouldn't have minded a brief trip across this pocket space of natural wonder. Marvels of nature's grace, emboldened by a loving human hand, such as these in this world, were a natural antithesis to violence and warfare.
"I understand. I guess we are in a bit of a rush, aren't we? You should just ask Seikuwo to fix that nose for you. He has the power of matter manipulation. Seikuwo can transform matter in any way he pleases, so fixing that for you should be no problem to him. I bet he'd love to help you after you explain the whole Chaser situation for him and we tell him you're here to help," Ishikeru advised.
"Matter manipulation? If I could ask this Seikuwo something to put that power of his to use on, I'd ask him something else entirely," Mana sighed while the two turned around and she let the oversized mountain-man that lived inside of the Moon to show her the way to the next station. "A Sky Clan ninja named Mushen turned their bodies into insects and scattered them all across. I'd like this Seikuwo to reassemble them since they lack my experience with meditation and can't return to form by themselves. Even with my lifetime of training, it took me a little while."
"You know, you probably would have been stronger staying as a swarm of bugs. The Shinkyochu are far more than an Earth Clan youngling such as yourself can handle," Ishikeru shrugged with indifference.
"Yes, well… I'd rather not live the rest of my life as a swarm of beetles, thank you very much. I think my audience would prefer my dazzling self over space beetles. Plus, who would have taught you magic if I had stayed that way?" Mana raised a sarcastic eyebrow, wondering if her disciple in stage magic truly just suggested she'd have been better remaining as just a guiding thought behind a swarm mind.
Someone had turned the lights off. In a blink, all the splendor, all the excellent gardens, and bubbly little creeks had gone away and only a world of darkness remained. Mana's body froze in place. It started as just a shock reaction. She waited for pain or other alarm of what had happened to her to make itself known but, as seconds came and gone, nothing of the sort had happened.
A crushing blow lifted Mana off the ground without warning. Plenty of ninja had punched Mana, but never quite like this. It was as if someone or something had thrust their whole fist right through her body with just the snappy twig of her spine halting the fist a few inches short from blasting clean through. Blood and thick bile came out from her rocked guts as she collapsed on the ground. Another shock came from the side. She couldn't taste the sharp sensation, yet it felt odd… Wooden. Yes. It was wood. The noise of wooden boots clacking against stone reached Mana's ears.
"What is the meaning of this, Ishikeru?" a feminine voice filled the black void. Even though Mana had found herself to be alone in it for a handful of seconds by that time, she had already felt lonely enough to welcome the voice of her attacker ringing like a tolling bell somewhere beyond anywhere that Mana could reach.
"Stop, Tairunto! This Earth Clan woman is here to deal with the Chaser for us!" Ishikeru grumbled. Mana could hear rumbling thuds of a diamond drill hammering against stone and Ishikeru grunting in the distance. Were those two fighting against each other?
"What?" the Tairunto woman exclaimed in surprise after the meaning of Ishikeru's voice finally filtered through her trigger-happy interior. A snap filled the dark void that Mana drowned in and light returned just as suddenly as this Tairunto robbed her of it. "I am a benevolent soul, but I am also a warrior at heart. I suggest you explain yourself and do so fast. Be warned, however, that my light illuminates through deception so I will not be as easy to make a fool of as Ishikeru."
The woman standing before Mana in wooden clogs was a fair and slender kunoichi in shape, clad in a classical white kimono with the motifs of black lotus decorating it and a black haori on top. Her face was a more lunar shade of pale compared to her robe, though her eyes were blazing with a fiery glow and showed off the pattern of interconnected crescent moons around her pupil. The woman's black hair fell freely over her shoulders and back and a round, horizontal ring of horny regalia rose from behind her head in the shape of the bountiful morning sun.
The edge of steel that had been pressing against the bottom of Mana's chin and encouraging the magician to raise her head and peel herself off the ground was a katana reflecting artificial sunlight with a brilliant gleam of a polished diamond.
"My name is Nakotsumi Mana. I am a kunoichi from the Earth Clan. I work with an alliance known as the Allied Ninja. Your people have kidnapped our engineers and architects and we must bring them back to avoid the Great Ninja Villages from lashing out and causing great bloodshed. The Earth Clan weren't aware of the Chaser. We most certainly haven't sent him here to wipe you out…" Mana began explaining herself. She made a brief pause to push the cocktail of blood and guts threatening to burst out through her throat after each sentence though her torment began easing slightly with each passing second of Tairunto's radiant aura shining at Mana and overwhelming even artificial sunlight with its luminescence.
This time, it was a blinding light that overwhelmed and drowned Mana's senses out. The first thing to come back to her had been her own screams. When Tairunto's light stopped tunneling with righteous punishment in an intense, pumping stream of heat, Mana's recovering eyesight could only see her own charred skin and shaking smoldering hands.
"I sensed uncertainty in your heart. Since it wasn't a flat-out lie, I spared your life, but I'd advise you to stop lying to me, Earth wench. Your feeble body will not handle another fit of my displeasure," Tairunto walked up to Mana and looked down at her with disdain as if she was looking at the lowest form of life groveling before her.
"Please, Tairunto! Heal Konoha's Sorceress right now! She won't be able to help us with the Chaser in this state!" Ishikeru pleaded with the living lie detector.
"I… I couldn't be sure…" Mana heard a husky, pathetic plight escape her scorched lungs. "No country… Sent the Chaser… Willingly…"
Tairunto rolled her eyes as her radiant aura streamed through, eclipsing even bright sunlight with its radiance as it washed over Mana and caressed her charred body gently. Mana's wounds began mending within her very eyes with charcoal becoming flesh and bone and then silky-smooth human skin, better than the dirty layer that Tairunto had burnt off.
"I warned you to be truthful with me, kunoichi of the Earth Clan. My eyes detect all falsehoods. No feints or deception will slip past me," Tairunto warned Mana in what the magician was sure was the last time she'd hear it.
"As I was trying to say, no country has any ambition for the Moon that we are aware of. I cannot guarantee that no criminal or a mercenary flung the Chaser off to the Moon, but… It doesn't seem logical that they would do that. If they have a biological weapon this powerful on their hands, they'd use it to conquer the world. The interests of the Earth countries lie within the territories and wealth of each other. As far as their ignorance is aware, the Moon is a barren wasteland that isn't worth the trouble it would take to put a man on it," Mana explained her hesitance earlier.
"You… Aren't lying," Tairunto formed her conclusion.
"See? Mana-sensei is for real!" Ishikeru stepped in between Mana and Tairunto to allow Mana to stand back up and take a breath in after being reborn for a new life just now. "And she's here to deal with the Chaser for us."
"Mana-sensei?" Tairunto tilted an eyebrow.
"That's right, she taught me actual magic, like making cards disappear and things float in mid-air!" Ishikeru pleaded with his comrade.
"Hogwash, you are a proud ninja of the Moon Clan, the prime descendant of the First People. Of what use is manipulating specks of paper and minor feats of levitation to one as awe-inspiring as yourself? Has this woman robbed you of your pride in who you are?" Tairunto hissed.
"Well… You're right, when I think about it, it's way useless!" Ishikeru clenched a fist in front of him and pressed it as tight as he could until dust began spewing from his grip as his stony knuckles began cracking. "But it is both aesthetically pleasing and fun to do!"
"Hmph…" Tairunto sneered with distrust, though the right corner of her lips tilted in a smirk. "All I can tell for certain is that she believes and knows what she says to be the truth. That is all. She can just be a pawn in someone else's game all the same. She just said that she was here to bring the engineers and architects that Seikuwo had taken from the Earth back. Nothing in her objective compels her to deal with the Chaser."
"That isn't entirely true," Mana stood up and walked out from Ishikeru's back to stand by the side of her newly met disciple in the art of stage magic. "If we just kidnapped our people back without eliminating the reason you needed them, that'd just cause a deeper schism between our people. Nothing would prevent you from attacking with full force and wiping us out, then kidnapping those people back as your slaves."
"You think so lowly of us? If we were the monsters you take us for, we'd have long since wiped your people off the face of your home and claimed it as our own. But we honor the pact we had with your predecessors. Even if we no longer have obstacles that prevent us from descending from the skies onto your home, we tolerate you and your way of life, even if we couldn't come further from respecting it," Tairunto pointed her sword at Mana's face. It was her way of warning the magician that she was still treading on thin ice, even if she was being truthful while doing so.
"Well, the truth is… Even if I don't entirely understand you, I still want to help you as well," Mana challenged Tairunto to look into her eyes and judge her truthfulness.
"You must be what they call a "useful idiot"," Tairunto closed her eyes in disappointment that she couldn't take any seeds of the darkness of deceit from the young woman standing in front of her. "So blindly devoted to your words and bold proclamations. Tell me, Nakotsumi Mana from Earth, how a weakling such as yourself will challenge the Chaser that had tormented us, the Sky Clan, gods to the likes of you, for years already? Not even Seikuwo's own powers affect that monster, he is a human juggernaut that does not know weary, does not know pain or fear, only knows his need to hunt, to maim, to feed until he takes all there is to take."
"What do you have to lose?" Mana shrugged. "I'm offering you myself as your vanguard. Throw me against this Chaser. If he is truly from Earth, then it is my responsibility to help you get rid of him. Though… If you wish to kill him, I'm afraid I won't be able to do that."
"Wait, I thought you said you didn't know who the Chaser was?" now it was Ishikeru who stepped out of the staunch defensive line they've formed and stepped up in front of Mana by his comrade's side.
"I don't," Mana admitted, and the serenity in Tairunto's eyes confirmed she was telling the truth, or, at least, believed she was. "Though I am just a servant of the chakra's will, gifted with chakra manipulation and one that feels a responsibility to serve those in need of my strength. That's what my ninja way has always been about. It is not up to me to decide who lives and who dies. Nobody and no one is accidental in this universe. Everyone serves a purpose, and it is not up to me to decide what that purpose is and if they have already served it."
"The Earth has sent us a madwoman," Tairunto lamented. "Well, Earth Clan, as far as your feeble stage of development and even feebler power is concerned, we are your gods, as far as you are concerned. And, as such, we have the power to decree that you are allowed to kill that monster if you indeed can do so."
"I'm afraid that's not how it works either," Mana shook her head. "I'll fight alongside you and if you wish to take the Chaser's life, I won't stop you, even if I will not approve. Your ninja way is your ninja way. I am nobody to judge or criticize it. But I will not take the Chaser's life, no matter the risk."
"Are you sure these Allied Ninja haven't just dumped you on the Moon to be rid of you?" Tairunto ran her hand through her hair. The majestic kunoichi gave a wary look to her half-mountainous ally, who just cackled and scratched his stony headdress with embarrassment. It was him that introduced Mana to the Sky Clan.
"Please, Tairunto, you must accompany us to the battlefield. With your approval, no other resident of the Moon will dare to question Mana's goodwill. You're our gorgeous beacon of truth, after all!" Ishikeru gave the sword fighter a stony thumb up.
"I suppose Seikuwo will kill this woman on sight without my approval," Tairunto sighed and relented. "Come hither, you two. To the battlefield we go. Just so you know, you're no longer allowed to reconsider now, Nakotsumi Mana from Earth."
"Can you sense any hesitation in me, Tairunto-san?" Mana challenged the stare of the majestic kunoichi with her own.
"No, that's what scares me the most," Tairunto admitted while leading the way to the mechanical wonder that would take them all to the battlefield where Mana would finally meet this Chaser and begin working toward making the first steps toward peace between Earth and the Moon.
She's been fighting monsters most of her life, how hard could tricking another one truly be?