The day had already reached its prime. Children were playing in the street, the smaller ones were chasing rubber balls and the slightly older ones were tossing wooden ninja tools at each other and clashing with wooden swords. Playing ninja was one of the most popular past times for kids old enough to grasp the basic concept. It was more common amongst young boys, girls usually played a strange simulation game where they're just sitting around at home taking care of their dolls which were supposed to be their kids. It was quite usual for the two groups to play together and fuse their seemingly separate universes into one.
Each kid had their "family", a "wife" they left at home when they ran off with other boys to play a great war of ninjas. Girls liked being part of boys' group and their silly antics never interrupted their own game so they played along with this weird social contract. It was a small model of how society worked, the most common and simple particles of it, at least. There were some girls who didn't fancy just sitting at home feeding the dumplings that their mothers gave them for snacking to their dolls.
They played alongside boys and went to war yet it never bothered either the boys or the girls. Girls accepted those other girls as part of their group, let them occasionally visit their "family" and boys treated them as their equal partners. If a girl was considered a weaker ninja of the group it wasn't because of her gender, it was because she wasn't creative enough to make a strong imaginary persona for herself and lacked the skills of imagination and quick decision making.
Maybe to some this would have seemed weird, those people would most likely not have experienced the world where the spiritual and physical energy of one's body was able to augment one's abilities to compensate for natural shortcomings. Some people would have attributed this strange aura of equality that surrounded the children, usually, the least likely group to behave appropriately and respect equality, to a certain amount of time having passed since the strongest and the leading ninja of the village was a respected woman. Even more, one who could've shattered the dreams of any man trying to match her in the physical strength department. Those people would not have known how things were before that woman took over from Star of Hope, Howoku, the Fourth Hokage.
Obviously, in a world where people's lives were wasted left and right a woman's decision to devote her time to raising children was very much respected. No woman was scorned or scolded for choosing to devote their lives to that goal, maybe even the opposite was the case, they were respected even more than an average ninja who devoted their life for their village would have. They enjoyed specific protection, a certain social elevation in their importance which was tough to explain but quite visible if one was to spend some time amongst the villagers.
A whole year had passed since Chestnut Hanasaku became the Fifth Hokage, her face was quickly added to the monument amongst the other Hokage of the past. The village was living in some strange state of having frozen in time after the initial shock of having lost their Hokage and most of their Sannin. There was an obvious vacant gap left, for the first time in many years Konohagakure had no Sannin to be proud of: Misu and Tanshu had killed each other in their battle, Hanasaku left the spot open by becoming the Fifth Hokage.
The council tried to raise some of their more prominent jounin to the rank but for one reason or another, they were refused. Konoha had plenty of powerful jounin but they weren't quite on that level just yet. Knowing full well the amount of danger and respect that the rank granted Hanasaku rejected each candidacy, the woman simply didn't think any of them could have handled the fame and the desire of so many bounty hunters from the sides of both: rogue ninja or other villages to take them down and add their heads to their collections.
Konoha still didn't have people in Kirigakure to observe the village's political and administrative life. Despite being the primary motivation of Hanasaku's election to the great chair, the woman just said that she either needed most ninja selected for that role in the village and at her disposal or she simply didn't trust them enough.
Little by little, people started talking that Chestnut Hanasaku had crumbled under the pressure, she made very few ballsy choices during her reign. Usually, Hokage punished with severity, chased goals of great ambition, even questionable ventures. It seemed that Chestnut Hanasaku was so afraid to show off her stupidity and inexperience that she just froze all iffy matters in time and space. While the council and any political experts and journalists didn't enjoy that behavior, to the general public her safe approach to politics seemed rather pleasant as they had one shock too many recently. Ambitious ventures became associated with the name of Mizukage Shirona and left a bad bloody taste in everyone's mouths.
"Mana, dear, you're gonna be late!" mother's voice came from below alerting the girl to finish her gearing up quickly. The girl buttoned up her cufflink, secured and double checked her various hidden cards and sleeves. During that last year, Mana had changed up her ninja tool arsenal a lot, moving much more towards the card and magician prop focused more innocent and tricky style. Instead of the usual kunai knives, shuriken and explosive tags Mana used much more deceiving and tricky tools like steel edged cards like the ones used to give Sugemi that nasty scar back then, steel rings and ropes of cloth, also cards with explosive seals on them that only used a small bit of chakra to set off. Finally, the girl embraced her magician roots and her stage nickname of Konoha Sorceress, she tried to honor the will of her late sensei by doing so.
After securing her father's gifted hat and checking if she had the "package" sealed inside Mana ran down the stairs. She recalled how just a year ago using her father's seal sapped most of her chakra, a year of endless chakra level training allowed Mana's chakra to grow several times above her previous levels. If she pushed herself far enough she may have even been able to use the clone technique that once knocked her out cold before.
Mana's bulkier and firmer thighs also were a testament to gruesome effort and training that she put into mastering her own style of taijutsu. As the girl ran down the stairs and gave a free hug to her father and mother before leaving through the door, she couldn't help but call back to all the days she spent practicing acrobatics and various stretching exercises to better control her body. Mana was almost confident that her kicks and flips were now fast enough to surprise even a more physical peer of her level, something she took great pride in.
Obviously, her path had many training injuries and accidents, she burnt out just like before several times, also there was that time she broke her arm and her leg after falling pretty nastily in the training grounds. She continued to train even during injury which greatly annoyed the medical ninja. Having no fear to fight, no fear to hurt but never kill those that threatened her ideals and her loved ones made Mana much less afraid to train and grow strong. Her mind was completely free, absolutely clean of any doubts and fears. All she felt was curiosity and excitement, the girl was always a little bit on the geeky side and she viewed training and the subjects of genjutsu and ninjutsu techniques as another subject, a hobby with endless possibilities to be explored.
Even after a whole year, Mana didn't manage to master that technique, it was only when she started delving more deeply into the subject of illusionary techniques that Mana found out just how reckless and stupid she was back then using that technique at such baby stages. Honoring the last words told to her by Tanshu-sensei during their training the magician delved deeper into the craft, trying to pick up more tricky and difficult subjects of the matter, such as sound-based illusions and different mediums through which illusions could have been transferred. It was incredibly tough focusing on that specific craft. That was because of the nature of the specialty that Mana had chosen.
Genjutsu was the art of illusionary techniques. Illusions were fancy and often powerful, a good tool for diversion, displacement and various other versatile uses. However most ninja were too practical, they wanted to cause damage on the battlefield, cause some ruckus. Illusions never caused actual damage, they could've tricked one's mind with enough skill put into it to cause the body to damage itself but the illusionary fire was always just that – a fancy vision.
Also, the art of genjutsu was incredibly despised and neglected among most ninja, very few even bothered picking it up because of its intricacy and very unrewarding nature. It required almost perfect chakra control, great concentration, and skill as well as some imagination to be used effectively and even with all that effort it still dealt no direct physical damage to one's enemy. It wasn't hard to see why people were frustrated about it.
The thing was that because of the complete neglect of the craft that was barely even touched upon in the Academy made most people completely unable to defend against it. A surprising majority of ninja crumbled even under the most basic of illusions and incredibly skilled ninja could've even sunken those ninja under multiple layers of illusions, caused extreme confusion and made them believe that they were in an illusion when they may not have even been under one causing some terrible circumstances. There was this one story told in the Academy by the teacher, one that had a moral of never choosing to neglect any subject or craft completely.
The story was about this young and strong ninja who had a lot of potential, one who was all about physical and destructive power. That ninja focused exclusively on destructive techniques and strength overpowering all of their peers. One day they met a decently skilled genjutsu user who was actually a very unimpressive ninja otherwise and he chose to engage him.
Apparently, the illusion master caught that ninja into an illusion and convinced him to kill all of his comrades and give up all of the scrolls with vital information they were carrying. Then the genjutsu user delivered one final line: "I never even used genjutsu, it was all just the power of suggestion, you killed your friends because you believed I masked myself in their image, you gave me the scrolls because you folded under the belief that I had you in my control." Sensei in the Academy said that the ninja later committed suicide being unable to deal with the pressure of the situation and the shame.
That inability to deal with even the most basic illusions of most ninja out there gave an illusion user a slight advantage, however, the idea that there were no skilled illusionary ninja in the village to train with brought that advantage down and dragged its face in the dirt. There were very few ninja who even dabbled in the illusionary arts, let alone skilled enough for Mana to ask advice or guidance when in a tough spot. Sure she still hadn't reached the level where she'd be the authority figure of genjutsu in the village but she was approaching that spot and that prospect scared her quite a lot.
Mana's amazing growth in strength and spirituality and mind wasn't the only pleasant news to happen during that year. Her magic shows pretty much became the biggest source of entertainment in the village, her strangely classy attire also helped create the illusion that it was a very high layered kind of entertainment, many rich and famous people started attending her shows bringing the owner of the hall, Mr. Hiro a terrible lot of money making him appreciate his newly found golden hen.
Hiro insisted that Mana moved all of her performances to what he called "prime-time", he let her dictate the terms whenever she threatened to leave his care. Still, even with all that success, the magician tried to not let it go over her head. She still tried to incorporate the lessons of public contact and certain closeness between an entertainer and their audience that she picked up from Guru Ayushi during his seminar. The price of her shows never rose beyond the price she charged at the beginning, her tremendous rise in profits was not due to increased prices but because of increase in people who bought the tickets.
Maybe that same success in terms of her being an amazing and unique sort of entertainer, seeing how stage magic was still something no other village had explored, was what made Mana so well known in the village. People approached her in larger masses, spoke to her more often and invaded her public privacy with every chance that they got. This newly acquired fame was both something the girl enjoyed and in a way wasn't overly fond of.
She loved being appreciated, she loved that people acknowledged her art and the message that it carried along of ninjutsu being what the user used it for, not the predefined tool used for murder and nothing else. On the other hand, Mana hated being known just for her stage magic. Quite often when the girl did leave on some of the smaller missions she was recognized by both her mission targets and her fans, most people thought that she was only a ninja because of a publicity stunt and criminals she tried her best to apprehend always made sure to make fun of her for her child celebrity status when they were beaten.
Mana was just as much a kunoichi of the Leaf as much as she was a stage magician. She felt like people neglected and never appreciated the things she did as a ninja, they kept waving at those things and mentioning how cute they were and how she just "played ninja" and kept considering her mainly a magician and only cared about what she did as a magician. If only she could have done something amazing, something so incredible and heroic that she could've finally busted through that barrier of neglect and ignorance.
If only she could have placed herself amongst the higher rated genin of the village, the kind that attracted people to the stadium when those genin sparred... Mana started craving to be strong, not because she wanted to be the best, not because she had a selfish power fantasy but because she wanted to be taken seriously, not as some silly girl playing ninja. There were plenty of times she could've died in the field and yet no one acknowledged that and thought she was still taking it easy. That hurt Mana a lot internally.
"Hey, it's Konoha's Sorceress! Hello, will you be performing today?" a lovely pair stopped Mana just to say hello and talk. Mana stopped and smiled at them despite still feeling hurt inside by her own feelings that she brought up.
"No, sadly I've been called to a mission, it's been a while since I went on a bigger mission and I was warned to cancel any shows I had today or in the nearest future, it may be something pretty grand." Mana scratched the back of her head only now realizing that she may have been leaving to her final mission, all of a sudden the girl started feeling like she may not have said her goodbyes fondly and softly enough. Each mission may have been one's last and should've been treated as such.
"Oh, that's too bad, we were really looking forward to it, be careful, Sorceress-chan!" the pair bowed their heads slightly suggesting respect despite still using the slightly demeaning honorific.
Hesitant to keep on walking Mana scratched her neck, maybe she should return and talk to her parents a little bit more, she had some time left to do that and... Whatever. Father knew what kind of thing these kind of missions were, he wouldn't have been too surprised if Mana got hurt. If all of those stories of her mother being a descendant of the wandering ninja were correct she also had been on the outside of the village and had seen the world beyond the village walls. As much as the girl wanted to say her goodbyes as if they were her last she felt like her parents were tough enough to handle the tension.
Slowly the magician started walking towards the Konohagakure Administration to pick up her mission. If she was told that it'd take several days that'd have meant that Mana was supposed to leave beyond the village walls, right? But then why would she have been sent out like that alone? She still didn't have a team despite Hokage's most desperate attempts to find her one.
Seeing how many high ranking ninja died in the Kage Summit many of the assembled teams were left without a sensei so there were many genin without a team. Even during the early stages, some genin managed to get themselves killed already, right after leaving the Academy. There were vacant spots but as Tanshu-sensei said, there seemed to have been some special rules when putting teams together. What with all the one member being a genius, one average, and one loser rule, for example.
After entering the Administration building Mana just went up to the floor where the Hokage office was situated. Some more manual labor kind of missions were handed out by simple office clerks but the kind that this mission apparently was were handed out by the Hokage and her assistant themselves. Mana walked up to the door and knocked, listening in and hearing a permission to enter. The girl opened the door hesitantly only to see the Hokage and her assistant in the building. The strange part was that they weren't the only people there. The Hokage gestured towards the blond Yamanaka girl that Mana had seen several times before, the one that used to be on the Fifth's team apparently at some point.
"It's good that you've come. I invited all three of you but for some reason, the third one didn't come... Those guys are always a real pain in the ass." The Hokage scratched her forehead angrily trying to just rub her headache away.
Mana looked curiously at the other girl, she looked pretty tough but she was a pretty girl too. She had those deep light blue eyes that would've made her an ideal pop idol singer but her look was far too tough for that kind of profession. There was little innocence in this girl's eyes, she's seen the outside world, without a doubt. The Yamanaka suddenly turned making Mana jump up a bit, trying to act as if she wasn't staring. The magician was really interested in this girl, she was so pretty and looked so strong that Mana couldn't help but admire this girl.
"I'm Yamanaka Kiyomi, pleased to work with you, Mana." the girl said extending her hand forward. Mana did look a bit confused about how would the blonde know her name, after all the names or even the fact that they'd be working in a team was nowhere in the actual mission objective. Hesitantly the magician answered the gesture of greeting.
"Oh please, your name is all over the place, to be honest, it's written in some really small letters, "Konoha's Sorceress, on the other hand, is really clearly spelled out. If it's an ego thing I can call you that, I guess." The Yamanaka girl explained without having to be asked.
"Was she reading my mind?" Mana wondered inside of her head, knowing the skills and the reputation of the Yamanaka clan members to be absolute masters of controlling and messing with their enemies' minds.
"No, I didn't read your mind, just because I'm a Yamanaka doesn't mean I read your mind all the time, you know..." Kiyomi leaned at Mana angrily placing her hands on her hips as if she was being placed into a stereotype, despite the magician never having said a thing.
"Ummm... Sorry, I guess..." Mana just let out turning away with a blush. She made a fool of herself in front of this really cool girl, she really wanted to fit in with this blonde who was a part of the Hokage's squad. Truth be told, part of Mana's wish to be approved by Kiyomi was because the magician was extremely jealous of the girl despite knowing so little about her.
Kiyomi was a member of a clan, a pretty well thought of and one held in very high regard at that. She must've been able to do all sorts of amazing things and she looked a year or two older than Mana which gave this young lady an experience advantage. Also, Mana was still going through her puberty so to herself she looked kind of weird, where this Kiyomi girl was clearly a more attractive due to her age and completed the process of puberty as well as probably a much stronger girl by a margin.
"Relax, I'm just messing with you" Kiyomi laughed out playfully punching Mana in the elbow. "That's just what most people tell me when they're socializing, I've got a system by which I classify people by what they tell me, it gets boring sometimes."
Mana smiled, she was still embarrassed and didn't feel too comfortable in the girl's company even if she had a genuine desire to feel that way around the Yamanaka. There was nothing really wrong with the blonde, her eyes were pretty kind and had no malice behind them, she had lost all the anger and irritation that the Yamanaka once had when the two bumped into each other in the hall last year. It was just that this new feeling of wanting to be acknowledged and looking up to someone was quite new and it didn't let the magician feel too comfortable around the girl. It was all about the new itchy experience that didn't let her relax.
"So... What's the mission, when do we leave?" Mana tried to change the topic for later hoping to avoid the awkwardness from having to socialize with a person she had strange sensations about which the young magician barely even understood.
"Not so fast, there's a third person you need to pick up, I'm not sure if she even plans to drop by anytime or if she's even coming, that one is a real loose cannon sometimes," Hanasaku growled irritated by the personality of the third one. Mana started both feeling curious about this third person but also feel slightly hesitant towards them and started to get a bad feeling about them.
This whole mission felt weird, usually, team-based missions promoted teamwork between the three or more participants, now this was much different. The three teammates haven't met each other yet, they won't be a long-term team, just work together on one mission, the three had no time to get to know each other, learn about the skills of each other or learn to cooperate. It was almost like Hansaku just tossed this mission and this team together randomly, organizational skills like that cause casualties. Mana felt like she's about to experience Fifth's lack of experience first-hand but she stayed quiet.
For a short while, the two girls just stood quietly before the Hokage. The year was actually quite kind to the woman, her brown hair finally settled towards an acceptable and even somewhat regal hairdo, instead of flowing wildly all over the place in mad locks. Her eyes and her skin looked soft and had no bruises or blunt traumas that a ninja on active duty had their body full of.
Even Mana had a couple of long-term scars already, it wasn't to the point where the girl was shy to undress in front of a mirror but in a year or two, it might get there. The truth of the matter was – Chestnut Hanasaku was looking much more ladylike and sported a more fitting look for a lady in charge of a village. Power didn't seem to corrupt this woman, it changed her for the better, taught her some experience. Still not enough, apparently.
"Enough!" Hanasaku shouted out slamming the table, this time the woman restrained herself perfectly, she also seemed to have learned restraint as breaking too many tables must've cost the Administration an arm and a leg. "If that girl doesn't feel like showing up to the briefing just wait for her near the gate until it becomes a bother, then ditch her. I swear to God!" Hanasaku yelled out angrily.
"It's fine, me and Mana here can handle it if the third one is a no-show" Kiyomi smiled confidently. Mana smiled back and nodded. She liked Kiyomi's confidence. Just one more feature to make this blonde be Mana's idol, the kind of ninja that the young one tried to be more like soon. It wasn't like Kiyomi was that much older to be her absolute hero or anything, it was more like a directional guideline, almost like an older sister for Mana to admire and try to imitate.
"That's a big no. Usually, I'd send at least five genin to a mission like this, probably even a chuunin to lead the squad. A son of a rich perfume tycoon of Konohagakure was kidnapped. We don't know anything about who kidnapped him or why. They didn't send any requirements or demands or a reason as to why that was done. It is starting to seem that the son may not have been kidnapped for his father's funds which is beginning to scare me. You absolutely need to have a third member, your mission is to find out about the kidnapping and if possible reclaim the victim. The mission objective is information, the secondary objective is the return of the victim safe to the village. If by any chance the third one doesn't show – hire some mercenaries outside the village walls. It's a dangerous gambit but a hundred times less dangerous than going in just the two of you."
Kiyomi nodded, Mana was about to kneel as per normal procedure when accepting a mission but seeing Kiyomi's ignorance the magician just awkwardly froze half-way and then straightened out, blushing to her ears about how dumb she must've looked.
"Yes, ma'am!" Mana uttered shyly.
Kiyomi laughed out openly, seeing a hatchling ninja several years younger mess up continuously trying to look cool must've been hilarious to the Yamanaka. The two turned around and left the office. Both of them stood awkwardly for a moment in the corridor just looking around, each one of them was hesitant to take charge of the mission but, eventually, both of them started walking downstairs to the first floor complex of offices.
"So... Why are you alone? What happened to your team?" Kiyomi opened up the discussion first. "Usually genin are working in teams until they are promoted in the Chuunin Exams"
Mana's chin sunk down as she once again remembered the story of Team Oak. "Well, Tanshu-sensei died during the Kage Summit, one of my teammates messed up and left on a journey of self-discovery, the other tried to kill a prisoner we caught from Kirigakure and... Well he was sent away to a containment facility, Eden I believe"
Kiyomi whistled out in surprise. "Tanshu? As if in Red Dog Tanshu? Holy Hell! I thought you were just for show initially, no offense, all the fancy posters and all, sort of makes an impression of all those pop idol bubble gum girls, you know? Tanshu's hardcore, Hanasaku used to be my sensei, the two constantly hung out, the rep was that Tanshu was just insufferable. No matter how many beatings we took, how many times we got burnt or something blew up cause sensei was a loony, we always thought it could've been worse, we could've ended up under Tanshu's care... I mean, all the respect for the dead and all..."
Mana smiled, recalling the first meeting of the team and how Sugemi had his hand broken the first day. Then remembering how they were left to be animal food or get good and survive. From a neutral point of view that was brutal but... To them it felt nostalgic, they were afraid for their lives back then but it felt so silly and innocent. They were just children after all.
The two just started moving towards the Konohagakure gate, deciding to wait for their third team member there. Kiyomi didn't feel like letting go of Mana as she kept asking questions. "Hey, how old are you? Cause, no offense, but you look like a damn kid, you know? I mean we're all kind of still kids but... Ninja grow up fast, they pretty much have to."
"Almost fourteen" Mana replied, Kiyomi whistled in surprise once again.
"You've been through some badass shit and you're pretty young, I left the Academy almost three years ago at thirteen, not because I flunked a class but because I took a course in my clan's special class. It's something like intelligence gathering and that sort of thing. Everyone expects Yamanaka to be all about intelligence, you know, mind reading, spying, telepathic mental links and all that..."
Honestly, all that talking was making Mana grow fond of Kiyomi, the worst thing she could've done was stay shut and not talk to Mana. The magician started to feel like she was viewed as somewhat of an equal so that made her warm up to her temporary teammate.
"So what happened to your team? Are you alone just because Fifth became the Hokage?" Mana finally gathered up the courage to ask something herself, Kiyomi just hissed, something about the Fifth rubbed the girl the wrong way, probably still an old wound about the Chuunin Exams...
"Nah, one of my teammates got cocky on a mission and got hurt, he was an Uchiha so he started showing off those stupid eyes of his and got careless. He lost his eyes. Fucking Uchiha... Hate those guys. The other guy left the team shortly afterward, Hanasaku isn't the best of mentors, then again, look at me complaining to a student of Red Dog Tanshu..." Kiyomi laughed out. It appeared that it wasn't that much the Fifth herself that irritated Kiyomi but the history of her team. She must've still held a grudge towards the Uchiha boy and the one that left.
"And the worst thing is that they still didn't find me another team, I mean just slap the two of us together, give us a hot guy on our team and I'm as happy as it gets, we could take the damned Chuunin Exams, no problem. I swear to God if they make me skip another exam!" Kiyomi started angrily rubbing her fist and slamming it into her free hand and punching air. It didn't look like Kiyomi was a physical kind of ninja but she definitely threw a punch with free and fluid movements like a pro.
"You really think we'd make a good team?" Mana asked smiling.
"Hell yeah!" Kiyomi yelled out energetically, "If I and the red eyes doofus made it work between us without me strangling that cocky bastard, we could make do. All teams fight between each other, it's not the chemistry at the beginning of the road, it's the chemistry when it counts that matters!"
Mana smiled and nodded. Somehow talking to Kiyomi made her own worries and painful history feel a little bit lighter. Kiyomi was definitely a person that the magician wanted to be around more and maybe work with after this mission. If they even return from their mission, that is.