"Wait, I thought you lost your chakra control..." mother quietly tried to wrap her head around Mana's explanation of why she was packing her bags. The magician didn't give her parents that much to work with but it wasn't because of ill will, she just wanted to be ready. Ready for anything. Ready for success or for failure. Ready for safety and ready if her team would ever need a useless weakling which she currently was to pull their asses out. Mana packed her cards and stuffed the pockets and all the hidden dispensers of her uniform with them. This time she'd have to use them smart if she'd ever need to, she'd not have her father's hat to utilize this time.
"I am not leaving as a ninja on the mission, I'm leaving as a client and the team will serve as my bodyguards. It's a quite common C-Rank type mission" the magician explained with her full attention still being occupied by her stuff. Over all this time she spent completely powerless her weapons and ninja tools were all over the place seeing how they were mostly unused.
"Wait... Are you sure about this? You'll be leaving the village with a bunch of genin? Experienced genin, experienced enough to be given C-Rank missions, but genin nonetheless..." mother tried to argue, she looked at her husband who was just standing nearby for support, trying to ask him to join in on the attempt to stop her daughter from leaving the village without having recovered her ability to stand up to the threats outside of it.
"It's fine, they need my history knowledge, not my brawn. Not that there's too much currently there to be desired..." Mana growled angrily, she felt so much anger inside which she had no reasonable direction to direct it at.
She didn't know what this anger was all about or where it came from. It was just like in the recent years she started to get angry and annoyed and outraged by everything all the time. Even the smallest injustice appeared to offend her and make her boil. It hurt having so much anger inside, the anger she had no right to release being a public idol, showed and idolized by children with parents trying to make their own kids more like she was.
"Look... Mana... I know how it feels, losing the edge, being unable to fight on that level anymore. I hope every day that what's happening with you is not forever, that it's not as final as my injury but... What I and your mother wish to say is... Don't pull anything stupid, don't try to fight like you used to. What you're going through may be temporary and you may just get your chakra manipulation back, it's definitely not worth losing your life before you do because you want to prove something to someone..."
Mana pushed her bag aside and turned at her father, she dashed up to his face and almost screamed out into it. Just barely did she manage to contain her snappy reply at the last second. He was right. Father did know what Mana was going through, he knew it far better than she did, he's been dealing with it for much longer and for him it was definitely final. All this anger, all this sadness and lack of something to fill that part of her own self.
"I know, dad..." she hugged the man instead doing her best to push that rage down, maybe it'll be useful at some point, maybe there'll be some pickle jar in need of opening. That's just about all she'd be good for at the moment. Father's eyes looked completely blissful, he must've not even noticed that the magician almost blew right into his face, her mother however instantly picked up on Mana's hidden feelings, she pushed her husband out of the way and gently placed her hands on the girls shoulder holding her closer face to face to herself.
"I know it hurts, Mana, it hurts when people need you or think you're good at something that you don't wish to take pride in. You want to be strong again, that's why you work out every time you're out of our field of vision, you're trying to put something else on top of what you lost and now people recognized it but it still hurts because it's not what you want to be known for. It's the worst. But this isn't who you are, this is temporary and you'll deal with it. Just don't make a dumb mistake that'll ruin that for you. 'Cause you will hate yourself in the end for being so rash and stupid later. When you'll get your chakra back"
Mana nodded and hugged her mother. She needed something like that but... It didn't help all that anger at all. It just made her feel better for managing to contain it, for being able to push it all down. Her parents didn't deserve to see her like that, they were good people who only deserved to see Mana in her best behavior.
"Now go, those brawnheads won't find that thing without your bright head..." father pointed his chin at the door with a confident look on his face.
Mana nodded and dashed towards the door with her bag staying in her hand, the magician almost flipped over as the bag weighed her back, it was so heavy that just casually carrying it around was quite impossible, in her old days she had her chakra bump up her casual physical abilities to that of peak human condition, as strong as a human could be. Now she had to earn every extra pound she could carry around with hard sweat. Mana stopped and flipped the backpack onto her back, filled with whatever she'd need for the mission as described in the objective.
The magician ran off, rushing towards the gate. Most ninja could just run on the rooftops or the wires on the upper level, moving around faster than how a thousand of horses combined into a mother of all horses could carry them like. Mana wasn't like that, not anymore, she had to use the way that civilians used to travel around. Maybe she should've used that grappling hook device her father and she designed for that one magic show? It'd probably have pulled her arm off having the weight on her back in mind though...
"There you are..." Meiko jumped up in joy finally seeing Mana approach the gate. This one was like a gumball of joy and excitement...
"You took your time, Mana-san" Shimo let the magician know that she was not only the last one to come but also the last by a significant margin. As if his displeased face didn't let her know by itself...
"Well not all of us can move like ninja..." Mana replied realizing that she may have said too much.
"Well, why can't you?" Kouta scratched his head confused by her words.
"Umm, the darned shoes make me trip over the cables all the time..." she made something stupid up, granted if she was running in heels that'd have been the problem but Mana wore similar sandals to what all ninja wore on missions so it was a made up trouble.
"Honestly you're always such a fashionista..." Shimo checked his sword and his tool pouch before turning at the gate.
The magician sighed, it was better that her friends took her for a silly girl who overdressed all the time than let them know of her trouble and the extent of her injury that left her just as a client this time. Mana didn't think she'd be ready to talk about that, none of them would've understood anyways. Meiko wasn't too confident in herself just because her chakra control was not up to par with everyone else's, she'd probably have looked at Mana really weird if she was told of the fact that Mana couldn't use her chakra at all.
The team of four headed for the village gate having finally gathered as a team. As the two approached the village gate they were stopped by one of the gate guards.
"Hey, you're the guys leaving for the mission in the Wind Country desert, right?" he asked.
The four nodded in almost synchronized manner, their sync may have needed work but they were a team put together completely at random just to fit the time requirement so their lack of team esthetics could've been forgiven.
"Could you guys fill this form, we'll send it to the outpost in Roiyaru for archive keeping. I mean you guys don't wanna get attacked by the guards there and get extra pain in the ass, do you?" the guard laughed out extending the form to fill. Mana had never seen anything like that before, it was a completely new procedure.
"We have a guard outpost in Roiyaru?" she mumbled out.
"Aggressive enough to react on sight?" Shimo added.
"Yeah, there've been a couple of pretty nasty security breaches in that area so we pretty much had to build an outpost and place some Chuunin there to watch the area" the guard explained looking a bit annoyed that he has to take extra time to explain it to a bunch of youngsters.
"Security issues? Sounds fun..." Meiko chuckled to herself tightening a belt around her glove that shot out a small blade from her forearm before deactivating it and retracting it back, it looked like a thin one time use tool that'd break upon hitting something tough but it was perfect for slashing soft areas and lodging into tougher ones leaving a weak spot there.
"Ah, I've heard people have been disappearing around that area lately, it's all about that, isn't it?" Kouta jumped up looking surprised that his teammates haven't heard about it.
"Well yeah, initially we just tried to play it as the rogue ninja having fun filling their bloodshed quota but when that Honda kid disappeared and his mother was found in a vegetative state the public outcry was something that forced the Hokage's hand. We don't have that many Chuunin to spare, they drop like flies and not that many join the ranks as most failed the last Chuunin Exam..." the man continued to explain the situation further, this time it looked like his annoyance was shifted on the events going down there instead of the youngsters talking to him.
"There..." Mana handed the man the papers back after leaving a couple of ominous scratches on their mission objective. It was not something that needed to be discussed in too much detail and she wasn't quite fond of leaving traces like that in a guard outpost surrounded by wilderness. After seeing mercenaries able to blow up a large portion of a forest in seconds with laser weaponry somehow an outpost didn't feel too safe...
"That'll do, thanks for not making it too much of a problem, this other team refused to leave and even brought the matter up to the Fifth..." the guard nodded and headed back to his post where his colleague was waiting for him and the filled documents. The placed it onto a leg of a hawk and sent it off. Those carrier hawks were quite fast, able to carry small packages faster than most ninja could move and much more silently, leaving less of a trace while also being much more expendable with the added bonus of being able to destroy the message by flicking a piece of flint on their claws at their steel plate and setting the thing on fire.
"For good reason, mission objectives shouldn't be sent around like that, if anything this is the security issue..." Shimo grumped around but then resumed his indifferent stare at the forest thickness. All around wherever one could see was just trees. Ahead was a trip unlike any that Mana has had before, they'd be going all the way to another country even if it was one quite near. It may take them a week or so moving fast. Maybe even more moving at Mana's pace. She was able to run and leap at a relatively fast pace but she was just as fast as an athletic person of her age and build. She had no mastery over bodily spiritual and physical energy to aid her leaps and steps...
"Why are you moving so slow, Mana-chan?" Shimo looked back at her after having to slow down to match her pace.
"Yeah, you've been left behind for the fifth time this hour..." Meiko looked at her with a troubled look, "Are you OK? Maybe that meat in Yakiniku Q was bad or something?"
"If it was you'd be having it the worst, Meiko-san..." Kouta shyly laughed out before remembering that he also participated in an eating competition, "I would not be doing too well either, I suppose..." he added with a hint of sadness and disappointment in his tone.
"Let's not rush, we're not in that much need to be in a hurry, the source is relatively old so it's unlikely that it'll be followed now if it wasn't before. Also with those security threats being out there, I want us to move slower and smoother..." she added.
"Well, you're the client, you don't really have to act like one and move slowly..." Meiko laughed out playfully slapping Mana's back almost making the magician trip over. She was having trouble keeping up with their slowed down pace as it was.
"That's a very strange, yet wise move..." Shimo replied ominously slowing down to a pace that was a crawl even compared to Mana's.
"What's that?" the magician looked back at her friend who appeared to be a little spooked by something.
"Back when I was still training on my journey with Hachiro-sensei there were some quite confusing behaviors he showed at times. He was a very lax but well-adjusted ninja, he had contacts everywhere and he kept on asking his contacts about that one specific thing, twice after hearing from them he paled and ordered me to turn back" the Yuki started explaining the source of his agreement with Mana.
"So, rogue ninja are always hunted by bounty hunters and hunter-ninja, they're not too popular with normal ninja either, most want to be the "hero" and kill one when they see one..." Kouta replied, slowing down significantly to match Mana's pace.
"Not like that, not Hachiro-sensei. As I told he lost his arm to a courtesan's charms because he was too trusting, too much of a slacker and too carefree. He trusted everything people told him, he believed that I was a war orphan and took me under his wing, even when a village ninja recognized me he assumed that the ninja was lying, even when he found my ninja license he thought it was fake... Yet there was something, something in Iwagakure that also moved near Shukuba town a little past Roiyaru road that intimidated him, that made him lose his cool and carefree approach" Shimo answered looking a bit scared himself by his sensei's intimidation.
"That's odd, you think whatever Hachiro-san was afraid off and the security threat could be related?" Mana asked her troubled friend.
"I believe it to be one and the same, whatever made this Honda brat disappear, whatever left his mother in a pitiful state barely alive... It has to be what Hachiro-sensei was fearing, he was so full of it in his pants that we got stuck close to a ninja village because Hachiro was afraid to move past Tanzaku town"
"Well, now you're making me feel all warm inside..." Meiko chuckled in excitement and slowed down to match the speed of her team before she disappeared leaving them behind.
"I don't know what you know, Mana-chan, but you are wise to wish to be careful here, I believe you may be right when you ask us to move slowly and carefully before we move past Shukuba" Shimo looked at her with a comforting look.
Mana turned her eyes away because she basically lied to him, she felt embarrassed about not being able to admit her weakness but it was just how it was. "Well... I mean... I'm sorry but moving at this pace we will only reach Shukuba late at night, we may not get a room that late..."
"It's fine, Mana-chan, reaching it later is better than having whatever happened to that child happen to us, if we don't get a room I'll build you a hammock myself..." Shimo nodded his face still not dropping his serious expression. He genuinely believed that Mana may have been worried about the security threat instead of being completely unable to move at the pace of a ninja.
"You seem to be quite intimidated by that whatever it is yourself, Shimo..." Meiko curiously inquired with a little hint of sly poking around and offense intended to be taken.
"I believe that whatever may have intimidated Hachiro-sensei is worth being careful of..." the Yuki shrugged.
The three continued to run around the ground levels of the forest which the magician was thankful for since she didn't feel confident in her ability to dash around the upper level and running on the trees like most ninja did. Finally, the Sun set. Catching the four unprepared and forcing them to slow their pace down even more before they managed to even reach Roiyaru road.
"Shit... This might be a sleepless night cause of me..." Mana started feeling worse and worse about her lie now, her eyes started to wander off from what was in front of her and Shimo had to interrupt her by dashing to the side and tackling the girl before she hit a tree.
"Careful, you dolt..." he smiled carrying Mana around on his shoulders before stopping to put her down.
After they kept on going and Shimo slowed down even more, most likely because whatever must've lurked in this road intimidated him that much, Kouta closed in on Mana and whispered something close to her so that only she could hear.
"Say, Mana-san... Are you and Shimo... Well, you know..." he tried to form a question in a way that wouldn't have sounded rude. Mana smiled.
"We're longtime friends, you could probably say that Shimo is one of my best friends..." she replied to his question, Mana felt like she knew which direction the boy was taking the question but she didn't want to reply to it that way because if he didn't mean it she'd have literally burnt up from shame. An ominous response may have been the best one there could've been in that situation.
"Oh, I see... It's just you two look pretty close and he doesn't hesitate to push you around or talk weird to you and... I just wanted to know..." Kouta shook his hands wildly and moved back.
Mana smiled, even if due to the pitch black darkness around them the boy probably couldn't see it clearly.
"It's fine. You're new to the team so you didn't know..." she replied.
"Yeah... Exactly..." the medical ninja nodded erratically.