Chapter Text
Mana soared over the Konohagakure streets, free like a bird. Air brushed against her cheeks and rustled her hair, but, for some reason, this freedom and morning chill invited no feelings. There was only a festering pustule of deep-seated anxiety that Mana just couldn't explain. Almost like she was trying to get away from something.
Before landing on the ground, Mana performed a full flip, making the world spin vertically and for her location to change completely by the time her feet actually touched the ground. Pressing her knuckle to her racing heart and looking in each direction once, Mana entered the little village store selling imported products. Despite this making her look more shady, Mana stuffed her hands inside the pockets of her jacket and pulled it in as if to wrap herself in it like a blanket.
The store clerk's stare stabbed in Mana's direction from the point she walked in. The other shoppers also looked up from the packs, cans, and boxes they were examining and turned to Mana with bulging, bloodshot eyes, almost like her presence disturbed this demented peace and quiet that had reigned over this shop. Still, despite staring at Mana like she wasn't supposed to be there as if they were outraged by her presence but wouldn't do something about it, afraid that contact with this young woman would make them catch something heinous from her, the shaken bystanders remained frozen.
A few times when Mana passed over some stalls, she felt their eyes still following her, even when she moved between stalls and vanished from their point of view. That was okay. She wouldn't be here long. Mana reached out and picked up a box of something she couldn't read into and something that had no picture on it, just colors that couldn't have meant less in any context. For some reason, that was okay with her. Could one truly blame Mana for wanting to get out of this awkward situation as fast as possible?
A hand came in from behind Mana and pressed itself against the magician's mouth. A silky and smooth, feminine hand that belonged to someone who could sneak behind a higher-ranking ninja with no trouble. The assailant clutched Mana's waist with her free hand and pressed the young woman closer to herself in some kind of sick snuffing embrace. The disturbing treatment the rest of the villagers gave her freaked Mana out, but it also instilled a false sense of security, making Mana believe that everyone in this store was frozen in place at the mere sight of her and would remain this way until Mana left the premises.
A bright flash emanating from the woman's hand illuminated the dim store's premises. Somehow, despite knowing that the woman's hand was on fire and slowly turning into a sludgy mass of molten metal before squeezing its way into Mana's mouth and her airways, Mana only knew the inhuman amount of pain she was suffering. She jerked and struggled in vain, but she could neither let out as much as a squeak nor, in fact, truly feel being burned alive from inside out.
As Mana's innards turned to mush and flames began bursting from her eyelids while remnants of burning lava dropped on the floor beneath, seeing her flesh turn to roast as she reached out to the store clerk for help, Mana desperately tried begging the man for mercy, to be saved, but… The odd thing was, even if Mana felt her eyes melting out of their sockets with lava beginning to drool from the empty holes, somehow, she could still see the fear and disdain in the store clerk's eyes when he just wouldn't stop staring at the burning young woman until the pain became too much to bear and Mana erupted into wild, uncontrollable flames that turned her into a pillar of ash.
Mana looked up at the jewel-incrusted mirror hung over the drawer in her chambers in Agbarmahal. Damisan approached from behind and wrapped his arms around Mana's waist, trying to pull her in closer when she shivered out of his embrace. Realizing how rude and unexpected this freak-out must have felt, Mana sighed and pressed her forehead against Damisan's chest, signaling that she was reaching out for reconciliation.
"Sorry, just had a bad dream," Mana said so that only he and not the others who had to settle for being confined into one royal-size chamber could hear. "That's kind of like it went in the dream, so I just… Freaked out."
"I adjusted your prosthetic on the current length of your leg. I'll probably need to re-adjust it again when we're back in HQ," Damisan pulled out a wooden chest from underneath the bed and flopped it on it, causing the soft bed to indent slightly from the chest's weight. When Damisan opened it, inside Mana saw a polished blackwood puppetry limb, adjusted for the current size of Mana's slowly regenerating leg.
"Thanks," Mana picked it up before scanning the room. She boiled in discomfort for a little bit before sighing and sitting down on her bed, pulling her dress aside and attaching the stump where the rest of the Stars could see her. While doing it in plain view of everyone, except for Ryoku Genshi, who had his own room all to himself, felt embarrassing and almost like Mana was ripping her clothes off and coming undone before the Stars, being left alone to do it in solitude somehow felt even less attractive, given how uneasy her nightmare from the night before made her.
At least for a little while, Mana would have preferred not to be left alone. She knew that chances that living magma clones wouldn't dissolve inside her mouth and melt her from inside with no one caring to help her were highly unlikely, if there were any at all, but still…
"We need to regroup with Genshi, his fight's the first one today," Shige-H pressed her hands to her hips, nodding in confirmation of the first thing on that day's agenda.
"The guy's probably shaking in his boots," Endo scoffed.
"Don't be ridiculous, Endo. He's only shaking one arm and one leg," Asuka smirked with a mean-spirited jab.
"I wouldn't count on it," Shige-H shook her head. "Even if the enemy is a ninja, a rather strong one at that, if there's one thing that Genshi doesn't lack it's spirit."
"Speaking of…" Damisan pulled out a triplet of scrolls and dangled them in a demonstration before Mana. "Given how Ryoku Genshi's opponent today is a ninja favoring Lightning Release techniques, I was wondering if you could help me offer him some defensive measures to protect him from it. I kind of ran into a shortage of time, so I could only repair the gear that Genshi had totaled in the first match, with very few specialized measures to help him pull the win off. Your Magic Bubble would go a long way in helping Genshi protect himself."
"You've got to be kidding me!" Endo lost his cool, lashing out at the two. "Don't tell me you're actually going to waste chakra the day your match is about to take place on something like that. You've already spent enough on hovering in the air the whole day yesterday!"
"As strange as it feels, I must say I agree with Endo, at least partly," Shige-H nodded with crossed arms, still contemplating how strange it felt to agree with the biggest hothead of the group as a leader. It only proved that all voices had a place in a team and it was up to the leader to decide which voice was to lead the way. "I'm not saying to refuse, but I'm advising you to be careful about how much chakra you spend bolstering Genshi's defenses when you've got a match of your own to worry about today."
"I…" Mana's voice got stuck in her throat somewhere. It was true that she barely regained any of the chakra she spent the last day maintaining an upright position whenever she wasn't sitting. It wasn't a ton of chakra that was spent, but no one felt glad about being wasteful.
"I mean, have in mind that the chances of a pro athlete being a trained ninja are slim, so you might waste your chakra by donating it to a lost cause like him," Asuka joined in on the discussion.
"That's unnecessarily cruel, you guys," Damisan gnashed his teeth, looking like he was malding at his team's indifference to someone they adopted as an asset and bet all their chips on before Mana's awakening. "Although, the call is still yours, Mana. I've only got a few scrolls to spare, but a protective Wind Release technique would go a long way toward Genshi's chances of survival."
"Yeah," Mana nodded. "I'll seal two uses of B-Rank Magic Bubble and one A-Rank, that should be enough, right?"
"Mana…" Damisan pressed his hand on the young woman's shoulder. "I'm not going to pretend like there's no point in Endo's objections. That's a lot of chakra you'll be spending on something that won't be affecting your match at all."
"Nowhere to back out now," Endo scoffed, turning his face away in disgust. "Now that you've already manipulated your girlfriend into helping, you shouldn't start listening to your consciousness now."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Damisan leaned beside Mana to glare angrily at the ready-to-go swordsman.
"You know damn well what you did," Endo replied without a hint of guilt on his face. "You manipulated Mana's soft heart with that "survive" business… Don't get me wrong, it's messed up, but, ultimately, it's her fault for falling for it."
"It's okay, I don't intend to spend too much chakra on my match anyway," Mana tried pacifying the situation with a kind smile before weaving single-handed seals and pressing her hand against the open scroll to send a hardly visible aerial shockwave bubble that promptly swirled up in a whirl of light and vanished inside of the scroll.
"Oh, yeah…" Asuka rolled her eyes. "A mystical priest swordsman channeling the spirits of otherworldly demons sounds like a real breeze of an opponent…"
"How Mana uses her chakra is up to her," Shige-H sighed, realizing there was no use in wasting tears over spilled milk. "Our mission objective isn't to win the match, it's preventing the Chaos Factor or the Fennec's crew from winning and both factions have already been eliminated. All we need to do now is to ensure there's no foul play and that the tournament proceeds to its conclusion normally."
After Mana finished sealing the Magic Bubble Jutsu into the scrolls and handed them to Damisan, the Stars left the room and headed out for the arena. The matches were going to start an hour before midday and should have taken the entire day to conclude. Scheduling was less nightmarish now that only eight contestants remained in the Succession Tournament. Before heading to the arena, the Stars decided to pick up Ryoku Genshi from his chambers, since his match was first and he was still a valued ally of the Stars and a protégé of Damisan's.
"Who the f*ck are those guys?" Endo grabbed the hilt of his blade, preparing to dash at the pair that had Ryoku Genshi cornered and cut them down.
"Hold up, they don't appear to have violent intentions," Shige-H extended her hand to defuse Endo's natural first instinct. The Stars pressed themselves behind the corner on the other side of the corridor and waited this situation out.
A woman in a black leather skirt and a purple sleeveless top, topped with a red leather jacket and a decorative red beret, accompanied by a man in a purple tuxedo and a black vest with golden buttons, a top hat, and a domino mask passed the ninja by, completely ignoring their presence despite them having every chance to acknowledge the group. It was as if to these two the Stars didn't deserve acknowledgment.
"Genshi, who were those two?" Damisan asked, being the first one to part from the wall and rush to the very baffled pro-athlete. To his surprise, the athlete had a blocky metal briefcase placed on the floor before him.
"Sponsors," Genshi admitted, brushing the back of his head in discomfort. "Sorry, Damisan-san… You said yesterday to not be embarrassed to take any offers that come my way, so…"
"I see," Damisan crossed his arms and kneeled to examine the contents of the briefcase that the two flashy jokers left behind. Mana got a neat peep at it too, from up above. It had some state-of-the-art military gear from every one of the Great Countries' military forces. Clawed gauntlets equipped with finely crafted blades of the Land of Lightning smiths, stocks to equip and utilize scrolls, originally invented in Land of Fire, minigun kunai dispensers, Land of Earth advanced tracking and scanning technology… "This is some high-grade stuff," Damisan admitted.
"So kind of those money bags to just hand you military secrets from every Great Country like that," Asuka crossed her arms and bent her head to the side with a mockingly sarcastic remark. "I know for certain Land of Water would make you pay four times the normal amount if they found out you were buying their military secrets alongside someone else's. They're that afraid of their secrets mingling in common hands…"
"That means that these sponsors either work with surprising discretion and professionalism or that they simply have boundless amounts of money to burn," Shige-H acknowledged, lightly troubled by the sight of so much military equipment in one place.
"Either way," Damisan stood up and patted his protégé's shoulder. "It's a good thing you took this offer. It will go a long way to ensuring your survival and, if we allow ourselves to dream–victory. I wasn't able to put together anything revolutionary for you, but Mana has so graciously donated a few scrolls of a potent protective Wind Release technique. You've only got three uses, so use them only in a pinch. They'll fit nicely with those scroll slots from Fire Country tech."
"Thank you, Damisan-san, Mana-san…!" Ryoku Genshi stiffened and bowed. "However… All this is amazing and all, but… I'm not sure I have the time to put all this to good use."
"That's okay," Mana comforted Genshi with a hearty nod before placing her hand on Damisan's shoulder from behind while he eyed all this incredible military technology with starlit eyes. "Damisan, please help Genshi do the best with this sponsored gift he's been handed. We'll reserve you a seat and you can regroup with us when you're done."
"Y-Yeah…" Damisan nodded, wondering if the target of his affections was setting him up for some sort of trap with this kindness. "Come on, Genshi, we'll see what we can do with all this. These sponsors sure look like they knew what they were doing. Most of this is already arranged like puppetry parts. The problem isn't in making you able to put this gear to use, it's in making use of all of it."
"Can it be done?" Shige-H wondered.
"I have some ideas. Ironically enough, Genshi's physical impairment actually makes it easier to slot more gear into his equipment," Damisan nodded before shutting the briefcase and lifting it off the ground to drag it into Ryoku Genshi's room.
The Stars strutted off to the arena, while Damisan and Genshi began the last-minute preparations, slotting all these elements into the provided or Damisan's own spare puppet parts and finding compromises in making all this overload of military support work for one man. While Damisan was hard at work and in a rush to make it happen in time for the match, that's about to take place in around ninety minutes, Genshi's daunting task was to memorize all the options he had for pulling through the first match of the quarter-finals.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome! Welcome to the quarter-finals of the Succession Tournament! The grueling battle royale on the first day of the competition has reduced the number of competitors from almost 200 to just 16! Those who wanted this victory the most!" the announcer began the simplest task in the world–to get this crowd hyped up for another day of breakneck, super-powered slobber-knocking. Given that was exactly what this crowd wanted from this day, excelling in this task was a piece of cake.
"Some of you may argue that a lot of victories in the battle royale were determined by sheer luck, and you would be right! But please keep in mind that the winner of this tournament doesn't just win the title of the strongest warrior in the world! No! They compete for the title of the Sheikh! That means that having the favor of Lady Fortune is also an integral part of such a warrior's arsenal because they'll be sharing that favor with all of us in the foreseeable future!" Rajul said before seeing the gates lowering and extending from the Sun Disc backstage and connecting to the arena in the middle with a stony rumble and an influx of sandy dust.
"For the first match in the quarter-finals–we have the nimble and strong-headed ninja of Kumogakure, Yoibetsu-N! The sturdy brawler who defies the stereotypes of how ninja fight and tames greased lightning itself!" Rajul said while turning to the eastern wing of the arena to his left. Golden electric sparkles surged in a static field before a thunderclap nearly deafened the audience and Yoibetsu-N dashed straight into the arena in a single stroke of a lightning bolt, on one knee and ready to dash, like a runner ready for a race.
"And his opponent… The Forever Underdog, the man who, despite making his name playing ball-games, fought, dug, and clawed his way to victory, sacrificing parts of his own body with each win, but persevering nonetheless! No! Excelling! Despite being underestimated and dismissed as yet another athlete on a warrior's battlefield, this young man has fended off serial killer, Cursed Warriors and even a samurai refused to cut him down with his sword, leading to an unbelievable upset! Express your adoration to the man who's made clear he wants this victory most of all–Ryoku Genshi!"
Clad in a black and golden kabuto-style helmet with a hi-tech radar mask and gauntlets and boots equipped with mini-gun kunai dispensers and katana claws and riding the stream of chakra burst emissions into the arena, Ryoku Genshi flew out from the western wing and performed a few loops in the air before slamming down onto the ground and straightening up with a noble stance emphasizing fair play.
"Hmm… Is it just me or did the announcer spend more time building you up?" Yoibetsu-N smiled with a wink of his left eye while surveying his heavily armored and armed opponent.
"A lot of people's hopes are riding on my victory. Also my own hopes, so… I can't afford to let everyone down," Ryoku Genshi said with an artificially augmented voice that emanated from voice boxes equipped to his somen-style mask.
"BEGIN!" Rajul chopped with his free hand, declaring the beginning of the quarter-finals of the Succession Tournament.
