Caelestra – Side Story: Nana
What is “strength?”
The strength to overcome an enemy?
The strength to hide your strength?
The strength to hide?
Why the hell can there be so many interpretations of one word?!
Is what I always thought as I watched the ninjas practicing from outside my window.
They always appeared so strong in their various techniques, physic and speed, yet in battle they always opted for underhanded, sneaky methods such as hiding their presence and overwhelming with numbers. What ever happened to pride and honor?!
Yet this was all the thought of a little, weak girl who just watched others training from her window. Even though she was the daughter of a noble ninja clan and of the head family no least, ever since she was born, she had been deemed “weak.” There was no such “strength” in her body, yet that was all she could think about.
What is strength? And does hiding it with strategies really count as strength?
She couldn’t admit it. I couldn’t admit it. As I sat at that window, elbows leaning on it, hands supporting my chin, a bored, almost pouting look always on my face, I grew more and more irritated. Why could those born with strength not use it properly? All the while weak little me could only look, and grow irritated.
I couldn’t even practice. I couldn’t even try.
“Don’t strain yourself,” they would say.
“Your fever will come back,” they would insist.
“Shut the hell up!” I would explode, followed by a coughing fit.
Yes, I was weak. But…that was about to change.
One day, as I had sneakily – see! That’s what weak people are supposed to do! – stolen a wooden sword, I crept into the forest, the exercise enough to give me fatigue, and strained myself by trying to imitate the swings I had observed so many times.
I knew what to do, I had the concentration, the precision, but my body wouldn’t follow my mind. It couldn’t keep up. When I was already past my limit (just a few swings, might I add), my willpower all that kept my sluggish movements going, my sword was suddenly slapped away from my grip. Looking up, confused, having been too focused just on going on to notice anything around me, I found a group of ninja students, looking down on me with contempt.
“Hmph! Weakling shouldn’t do what they aren’t fit to doing! Who do you think will be blamed if you faint later? Huuuh?”
They weren’t even that strong. But…they far surpassed me. I was that pathetic.
With frustrated, angry tears rimming my eyes, I grabbed the wooden sword and ran deeper and deeper into the forest…I have no idea how many hours passed. Well, at least to me they seemed like hours. Looking back, it was probably only a few minutes considering my physical state.
Anyway, to make things short, I was exhausted, panting, out of breath, waaaay past my limit, and nearly fainting as I lay with my belly down on the grass, my eyes straining just to keep open as my head struggled to lift up slightly. The last thing I remember seeing was the sweet, yet slightly eerie smile of a woman.
She took me to a candy house. Right in the middle of the woods was a house made of candy, and that is where I woke up. All around me nothing but candy, sweets of all kinds, foods I had never seen or imagined to exist. And then…came the woman. She was a lot creepier than I had remembered her. Sure, she looked ordinary, even on the pretty side. But…that smile was not gentle or sweet. It was creepy.
And with that smile she fed me all kinds of sweets. I noticed that each day she would measure of my body, look disappointed, and then smile again as she began feeding me more.
I never did get fat. I think that’s what she wanted. Maybe she was jealous of my beauty? I may have been weak, but I know I am beautiful!
If ninjas, which pride in strength, even in their partners (since they want strong children), had lined up for my hand in marriage, what else could I be? Of course, I declined them all with a big “Hell no!”
Who knows what they would do when my beauty was no longer enough to distract from my weakness? Plus, at some point, every ninja started pissing me off. Even my family.
However, this woman, even with her creepy smile and jealousy, did not piss me off.
She fed me so many sweets, one more delicious than the other, and I didn’t grow fat. In fact, the only difference I noticed was in strength. At first, it was barely noticeable at all. But with time, I started to walk further and further into the forest. My breaths would take longer and longer to grow panted. I could swing that wooden sword more and more times before fainting (I always fainted, in the end.)
The sweets gave me the energy I needed. The week girl, who had been fed and fed up with healthy vegetables and fish all her life, had finally been given something that gave her the strength she needed!
I could go a full week swinging that sword before fainting now. I was too used to doing it until I fainted to stop before that happened.
It was a nice lifestyle. I didn’t need to get irritated thinking about strength. I ate sweets, swung my sword, slept, and repeated the cycle. Every day I was fed more sweets. And every day I began to notice how the woman began to become more and more frustrated, her patience running out.
I was not only not getting fat, but was growing up rather nicely in figure. She was totally jealous.
I didn’t blame her.
And I also wasn’t surprised when, one day, when her irritation had grown to its maximum limit, the vein on her forehead straining, she had pulled on my arm with her long nails to haul me into the burning oven which had given birth to so many pies and cakes I had savored so deliciously.
Cakes were the best.
Especially if they had a lot of delicious, sugar-sweet frosting. My mouth waters just thinking about it!
Anyway, I’m obviously not dead.
After observing those ninja training exercises for so many years, when I got the only thing I lacked, “strength,” there was nothing stopping me. I had technique and the power to use it. So, I used it.
Before I could fall into the fiery depths of the metal oven, with the arm she wasn’t holding I grabbed her arm, twirled her in the air so that our positions were reversed, and watched with a smug smile and she screamed and burned like the witch she was. What? Did she think I hadn’t read Hansel and Gretel? Weak girls are very bored, you know.
With that, and a sack of sweets swung over my back, I decided it was time I went back home. The journey really did take only about two hours, and never did grow tired or started panting.
I don’t really want to go into details about what happened then, though. So, I will be fast. There were worried and surprised screams, scolding, me getting irritated, me decided to chop everyone down with my wooden sword to test my new-found strength, surprised expressions, a stern father telling me to go to bed…a punch in his face, followed by the custom running away from home by epic, rebellious daughters. Yep, that was it.
Oh…and there is also that irritating Athan sent to take care of me. I never was able to outrun him. But, being the direct, non-sneaky person I am, that was to be expected. I had learned to live with him and his remarks, so it’s (probably) okay.
But…there is one thing for sure!
It is the moral of this story, and what it has taught me!
My musing about strength did indeed find and answer, and that was:
Sweets are strength! (See? They both even start with “s!” See how in harmony they are?)
PS: “N” is for Nana, and “A” is for Athan. Where is the harmony there? Just go away, you bug! No…you bat! (And please don’t suck my blood and life away! How many sweets would I need to eat then? Even I would grow sick of them!)
*
And that was the memoir of the great ninja Nana, which I “sneakily” stole from her as I ran away from the major’s room. She obviously wrote it to show the whole world one day how “awesome” and “epic” and “strong” she is! No one will ever beat her in narcissism! And no one will ever beat my intelligence network! See, dear readers, how much effort I put in? No one is better fit for telling this story than me!
And that’s why we are now going back to focus on me, and my beautiful little form, with my beautiful big singing voice.
PS: I wonder when she will notice I stole this. Do I have to show it like I did with my parents? And when she does find out…what evil, cruel way will she devise to torture me? Please do not imagine it, dear reader. It is too disgraceful for me.
[A.N.: I must have really become obsessed with this character to write this...but it wasn't planned at all. lol I admit she has been in my mind for quite some time, and always changing. The first time I imagined her was in history class. Hitler pissed me off. And so, out of no where, I imagined him coming to his office (he had one, right? whatever) and finding her sitting of the sofa, legs over the coffee table, wearing cute, bright clothes and black, knee-reaching leggings, eating sugar-coated cake directly with her hands. She would look at him with a cocky, arrogant expression, crumbs of cake and icing covering her face, and just look awesome. That was it.
Then, I was reading my new manga addiction, Gamaran. They were talking about strength, and there was a creepy bald dude licking his lips thinking of how only Gama was strong enough to feel this way...and then I remembered a masochist from the anime Brave 10 who loved people who could beat him (in other words, the epic, awesome main character. That anime just screams "epic!" with ever battle scene, so if you like that stuff, watch it
I started thinking about strength, or rather a girl who sat at a window and thought about strength. Het thoughts flooded my mind, she harnmonized with Nina, and so this side story was brought about! And now this author's note is as if its own side story with how much I have written! lol You are a truly barve soul to have read this far. ;D Thanks for reading (even if you skipped this note)! XD]