Guru scratched the top of his bald head. Apparently, the message to Mana was either the most important, the longest one or at least it was the only one that could have waited. After all, both Sugemi and Shimo were just about to leave. The old man pointed for Mana to follow him, he himself started walking, slowly picking up speed as he went along.
"Your sensei recognized the fact that he was strict on you in his final moments. He even went as far as to say that he may have been the strictest and hardest on you as compared with the others."
Mana's nose wiggled around, it was her trying desperately not to cry. She was strong, she had to be. Heroes didn't cry, they couldn't cry because they had to appear strong in front of the people they wanted to inspire. So the girl's lips kept pointing out, her nose wriggled around and sniffled like she was about to cry but she held her front admirably.
"He drew comparisons between you and a lady he had known in his youth, I am not entirely sure who this "Vashia" was, I have only been given a name in the Tsuchikage's message. The only thing that Tanshu had made clear was that this young woman was an honorable one and very similar to you. I believe that now that I've met you I understand what he meant."
Mana rubbed her wet eyes with her sleeve, she wasn't crying just yet so she tried to play it down like the wind had carried dust into her eyes, which was actually a quite decent and often seen occurrence since Konohagakure streets were mostly gravel and dirt.
"Yeah, Tanshu-sensei didn't really like my ideals. He often criticized me because I wanted to save even my enemies which he couldn't understand. He said that people like me were a danger not only to their own lives but those of their friends too as they will not only die themselves, they'll doom their comrades too. Those were probably some of the most painful words I've heard in my life... But I really looked up to Tanshu-sensei, I liked him a lot, he was a good mentor even if we didn't see eye to eye."
Ayushi's thick and chest long beard was twisted around, it once again let the girl know that the man was smiling. His eyes were so soothing and calm...
"Well, Tanshu wanted to meet this Vashia woman again his whole life, he admitted in his final moments that he knew deep inside that she was dead. He most likely believed that it was her honorable and kind ways that caused her death and he only was so strict on you because he saw Vashia inside you. He wanted to protect you by being mean to you. He wanted that you either left the life of a ninja or changed your ways, he saw you as a second chance to protect the woman he loved."
Mana turned her eyes away, somehow she managed to swallow down a huge gulp of despair and sadness, the magician thought she had already dealt with the pain of losing an authority figure like Tanshu but she was wrong. Pain like that most likely never went away. Still, it'd have been best if she followed her own advice, one she gave father back then when he was struggling with his injury. Mana had to stop letting her pain control her, stop letting it shape who she was, and choose an alternate identity. She had plenty to choose from, plenty of ideals to strive to shape herself by. Only by stopping floating, she would drown in pain and one thing Mana certainly was, was a floater and a fighter.
"Tanshu acknowledged that the world was the strictest on people like you, he also acknowledged the injustice of that, that the sweetest and kindest people were always the ones that paid the highest price in this world. He also loved that you were trying to change that, he acknowledged that people like you were needed, they were what would eventually change this world." Guru spoke once more after a moment of silence.
It appeared that the next few words were difficult on Guru himself, just for a mere second Mana forgot her own pain just because she was surprised to see Guru so stricken with emotions deep in his own chest.
"Tanshu wanted to let you know that he would have wanted that you would never leave the village, never found out about the real world out there, never found out about his death and the manner of it. He thought that living in a pink cocoon of cotton candy was for the best for you. I don't think he meant that you were weak and couldn't take it, I think he knew that you'd just blame yourself for everything you'd see, you'd put it on your childish and puny shoulders to change it all, you'd suffer tremendously under such pressure and he didn't want you suffering, he wanted a happy life for you the most of all people. As his final words to you he... Apologized for the way he acted with you..."
A villager tried to approach Guru and Mana, Ayushi's large palm rose up alerting that it just wasn't the time. The old man whispered something into the villager's ear and the man nodded and rushed away. Mana tried her best not to collapse but she just couldn't handle it. A strong but soft hand pressed against her shoulder and led her to a bench.
"Cry it out, kid, don't hold it inside. A world where people can't feel free is a pathetic excuse for a world. I've got a seminar in an hour, we've got all the time in the world."
Mana sniffled "I just... Wish that at least one of Tanshu's final wishes came true, Sugemi won't train with Hanasaku, Shimo won't train with me, I actually did find out about his death and do very much plan to tackle every inch of darkness and hatred this world has..."
Ayushi remained silent.
Mana was observing the sage giving his seminar. There were more people than she could have ever imagined attracting. The girl's watchful eye found her manager, also the owner of the hall they were in, Mr. Hiro rubbing his hands. This was really profitable to him, Guru Ayushi was a major international figure of wisdom and spirituality. He always made people gather so densely that half of the public didn't mind listening to the man's powerful voice from outside.
As a bodyguard the magician was failing her client – she allowed people even behind the curtains, sitting in circles right around the great Guru. If they wanted to attack the man all of what some of them had to do was to just stand up. Guru was one of the most powerful ninja once but he had left that behind and wouldn't have used any of his skills even to protect himself. Granted killing the man would've been close to impossible but if someone was stupid and desperate enough to go after Ayushi they would've at least done their research on him and come up with a plan.
What was so different between Mana and Ayushi? Why did he constantly gather full crowds, crowds even from other countries that followed the news of his travels, and came into the countries he visited only to listen to him? Why Mana only enjoyed moderate popularity if she actually spread the same message? Granted her crowd was steadily increasing and she gathered full halls more and more often but she wanted to know the secret of Ayushi's skill in inspiring people. Inspire people to change the world so that Mana left it better than she found it was her goal, learning to make people adore her was a major part of that goal.
Ayushi seemed to love contact with his crowd, he gave no speeches, no large monologues of his ideals nor did he hammer his messages in. For the man it was mostly crowd interaction over anything else, the leader let his crowd give him questions and suggestions for topics, he also always hugged whoever needed it and held the hand of the people who suffered so apparently physical contact also played a great part.
The two were completely different people: Ayushi inspired change through preaching and promoting peace and serenity of one's spirit by answering the questions to one's problems accordingly. Mana was an artist who tried to give the same message but using art as her tool instead of speeches and solutions to people's problems.
The councilman was right, usually, when a figure of importance had such close contact with their audience they at least invited creepy fools that either wanted to kill them to make their mark in history or at least show that they could've killed them at any time. One such event happened to Mana too during the time she trained after Tanshu-sensei's departure when a fan climbed on stage and just stood there watching her escape a deathtrap.
He probably could've just climbed on top of the box and held its top, making Mana drown in front of the public, it was transparent but the box withstood any attempts to break out from inside. The man never tried anything, he just stood there and watched from close up as if letting the girl know "I could've made this performance living hell for you but I didn't". Some people just loved feeding their superiority complexes...
Finally, the seminar was over, it took good four hours to conclude and yet it didn't look like anyone in the audience was bored. Mana had noticed that as well, usually when people gave you morals one grew very bored in moments, Guru Ayushi had been doing nothing but moralizing and questioning her about her life and fixing her problems the whole morning, and yet the magician had never even thought about being bored.
Maybe it was just because he was always on point, always having the perfect words to say for every problem. Living over a hundred years, two hundred years, however long Ayushi had lived, made one really wise, able to pinpoint the exact problem and its solution easily. If Mana had to prove Ayushi's longevity she'd easily use that argument as proof that needed no further argumentation. A man so precise and wise, a man able to pick any problem apart and recognize its solution in just a couple of sentences must've been around for a while to see a lot of said problems, to begin with.
The monk approached Mana cleaning his sweat with a towel, he was quite energetic and at times loved to wave his arms around, also because of the overcrowded public the air inside was really stuffy, Mana had also removed her jacket and was holding it in her hands. She'd still need that shower later... "So, how was that?" Guru smiled as he approached his bodyguard. Mana gave the man a thumb up.
"The world is this much closer to being saved... And no one had to be beaten up to boot..."
Ayushi laughed out.
"Don't lose sleep over it, sometimes a problem can only be solved by beating someone up, even as a pacifist I acknowledge that. You can either be a pacifist who never fights and speaks of change or a kind-hearted hero who fights for justice and those they love, also for those that cannot fight for themselves. You cannot be both. Both exist, both are needed. Wasn't it your idea that no person on this Earth is unnecessary?"
Mana pointed Ayushi to the exit, she was surprised that no one tried to catch up and talk to Ayushi off stage, usually, people did chase her down for flowers or just a chat after the show. Maybe it was just that Ayushi didn't arrive often so he always made sure to leave everyone in the audience satisfied.
"For that to be true the world also needs bad people that exist solely to hurt other people..."
Ayushi laughed out and shrugged his giant hulking shoulders.
"True, still, that is never the problem, somehow those always rise up... Even so, how would we know a hero, how would we know what's right if there weren't bad people to challenge those beliefs? Good is molded by evil, given shape by it, one only knows good when they see evil, point at it with a finger, and say "That is definitely wrong"."
For a moment there Guru continued to stare at a fixed point somewhere, the magician and the sage left the building and Mana started leading Ayushi to the hotel where he was supposed to be housed in. Konohagakure hotels were nothing too special which must've come off as quite the embarrassment since sometimes some pretty important guests had to stay there. At least some hotels had the business feeling in them enough to modify their places to closer resemble the classic style and try and appear like the shabbiness of the places was intentional. Guru was housed at the very best hotel in Konoha but that didn't say a lot. The whole place was just a simple wooden construction built in the classic style, all those silk cloths, carpets, and curtains were supposed to mask the lack of funds attributed to the field.
"Have you ever wondered, young Mana, if you were something extraordinary, something special? Like an heir to some ancient clan or maybe your parents adopted you from some elite clan of ninja like the Uchiha?" Guru smiled, his words may have been taken as rude by some people. Mana loved her parents and they very much loved her, to think that they may have adopted her at any point would've been at the very least offensive to them. The girl shook her head.
"We do have several hours to kill until the place gets dark, even then I wish nothing more than to see that glorious Konohagakure shine at night, to see all the street vendors and all the lights reflect from the Hokage monument playfully dancing in my eyes. It is one of my favorite experiences in Konohagakure, something I always look up to." the man's eyes wandered off onto the Hokage Monument – a giant structure of faces of all past Hokage carved into a mountain. It was an amazing monument but when one walked below it every day it often sank into oblivion and lost its primary charm. "I wonder when they will add Lady Hanasaku to the four faces..." Guru added.
Mana nodded, it was her mission to make sure that Ayushi has the most pleasant stay in Konohagakure. The girl took her mission objective quite seriously. If the great Guru wished to hang around and roam the village and talk about Mana's heritage it was more than fine with her.
"The reason why I say this about your heritage is that your skin color and your hair, your eyes, and your entire face look slightly too exotic to be from around this place." Guru started describing his mighty theory, "I've traveled all around the world and I found out that people all around have different traits. People in the northern parts like the Snow Country or the northern Kumogakure wastelands, northern Earth Country especially tend to be very tall, bulky, and strong. People from Kumogakure tend to have dark or darkened skins, they're either very bulky or very slim and lean. People from the Wind Country have slightly more squinted eyes, no doubt to better protect them from the constant raging sandstorms, they're also lean and smaller in size so that they didn't have to burn too much energy fighting the desert winds and storms."
Mana was interested in Guru Ayushi's suggestion that there was something more exotic about her origin. Other Academy students always did think she looked a bit weird and for children that meant that Mana was automatically out of the most popular circle, she still had friends and all, she just was rarely described as the etalon of beauty or attention. The girl was told by her father that her mother was not from around and that was the cause of Mana's exotic looks but she never questioned that story at all or dug deeper into it. That was odd, it wasn't like Mana also despised her different heritage in any way...
"The thing is that if I had met you and had to guess, I couldn't even pin down an exact region you may be from. Your skin is of a darker shade than people from Konoha yet not dark enough to be from Kumo, not even if one of your parents was from Konohagakure. Your facial bone structure, namely your lips and cheeks also seem to be completely different from those of the people from Kumogakure. You are also rather short and slim but not like people in the Earth Country. Your appearance is so strange to me that if I had to say I'd say you're descendant of one of the Sky Clans, just because you don't fit the description of any other clan I've seen..."
Mana got a little stumped by Ayushi description, normally a person would've been offended when they were put on a pedestal but the Guru did raise an interesting point and she was a bit curious as to what he exactly wanted to do with that theory.
"Wait? Sky Clans, you mean like the Fourth was the descendant of the Sky Clan? Can't I just be clanless?" Mana wondered, after all, she belonged to no known clan which was a reason why very few people placed expectations on her in the Academy or outside. The thing was that all the best ninja were from one clan or the other, being a part of a clan granted one access to those crazy bloodline abilities or hidden technique only taught in those clans. Mana had none of those advantages so from her childhood she was looked at as cannon fodder, as a filler material in armies made to be led by someone from one of the elite clans.
The likes of Yamanaka had access to techniques that made one able to control one's mind, how was a genjutsu user supposed to compete with that? The Inuzuka clan and their kinship with ninja hounds made them become unmatched in terms of brute force, speed, and sheer peeling power on the battlefield. The Aburame clan and their control of insects made them more amazing than most ordinary ninjutsu users could ever get as the insects were basically a living ninjutsu technique with a swarm mind of their own, fitting any use and capable of draining the opponent of chakra completely. The Nara clan was able to completely lock any enemy strategies and were unmatched strategies, masters of displacement, and diversions. The Hyuuga clan also made one impossible to compete with in terms of close quarter fighting.
One didn't even need to mention the likes of incredibly elite and rare clans like the Uchiha who were few and far in between each nation. A skilled Uchiha was more treasured and trained in a village than a Jinchuuriki carrying a Tailed Beast yet they were so rare that an Uchiha was usually too arrogant for their own good and died very early in their lives. The noble Kaguya who were all descendants of the Sky Clan, leftovers from the clansmen who moved back to the moon after the War of Earth and the Moon.
The forbidden fruits of love-based union between the Earth and the Moon people with abilities so amazing and fierce that they were treated as elite without even needing any training, just possessing their bloodline abilities. How could Mana, someone without a clan ever compete with all those families? While the girl did have a complete and utter devotion to her cause, she never even for a moment placed herself amongst those elites nor did she even wish to, the title of "Strongest" was meaningless to her.
Guru shook his head in response to Mana's question. "Actually no ninja is completely clanless. Back when the First People split into groups and their society erupted into a civil war they each split into groups, each group grew with the bloodline of that group's patriarch, the strongest defined what that group's bloodline was, what blood their inheritors would carry. The First People split into clans, wandering the endless wilderness in a constant state of war against everything, eventually, their elite and royal bloodline became less and less royal and elite and something happened, the First People changed and started becoming extinct, they were getting replaced by two lesser factions that they fathered – the Sky Clan and the Earth Clan. After the two were given the Earth and the Moon to watch over by the last of the First People, the Earth Clan still lived following the old ways, living in clans, only when the Settlement period began did the term "clanless" appear, a "clanless" person back then was someone with very vague family ties with some clan. In other words, even you have ties with a clan, just they may be traced very far back and the percentage of their bloodline in your blood is not enough for you to manifest it."
Mana thought for a while, did she really need that question answered? What did it matter if her ancestors were Yamanaka or Uchiha, or whatever. She looked at Ayushi with a rather bland expression.
"I'm sorry, I just don't see the point of it all in that case, if solving this mystery would please you, however, it is my mission to help you enjoy your stay. What do you have in mind in particular, how do you plan to find out about my heritage?" she asked.
Ayushi sighed, "Well, I used to have a technique to determine that, as a medical ninja I can diagnose irregularities in one's blood. Sometimes it helps one to determine the more extreme memberships of a clan, like the Kaguya, have greater concentrations of iron in their blood, the Uchiha's blood structure is also very unique and they have an overdose of a certain protein. I really don't want to devolve into that however as I only use my old techniques if I have no other choice. You seem to be a girl who likes reading, else why would you know so much about history, what say you we hit the archives and check your heritage?" Ayushi grinned
Mana nodded, even if she still didn't understand why that interested Ayushi so much she went with it. Still, she had to admit that even the magician was getting a little curious about the entire thing. After all, what if she really did have ties with some weird clan way back, the little historian in her was a little excited.
Not only because she was about to find out the truth behind her heritage, something that father and mother kept telling different stories about, but she also will get access to the Konohagakure archives that were usually pretty secretive about their information and only to be accessed by people with Hokage's permission, working there or people in a mission which requires information from them. Even so, who would ever deny someone like Guru Ayushi information? Mana followed the great Ayushi without uttering a word until they've come close to the archive.
"So, what do you know about your origins? Maybe this whole little sidequest of ours is pointless?" Ayushi asked curiously.
"Well, father used to tell me that my mother had something to do with some traveling band of wandering ninja, that's pretty much as detailed as he got... Mother usually just said she was traveling around as a youth before settling down with father in Konoha, she never even mentioned the "wandering ninja" and seemed pretty sensitive about the subject, my mother is pretty hot-blooded, and when she's sensitive about something everyone around her is in danger so I never poked any deeper... I just accepted that it's nothing special and moved on."
Ayushi carefully listened to young Mana's words and nodded, "Very well then, may this be my reward for refusing to help, or rather doom, your father and hurting your kind young heart. I shall find the secret of your origin for you and even if there's no secret to it. I could swear that you're so interesting, your hair is dark and messy enough to remind me of Uchiha yet you would've already woken up the Sharingan by now if you were, your skin suggests that you may be from one of Kumogakure's clans, Arashi perhaps? Let's just say you sparked the interest of the medical ninja in me..."
Mana shrugged, "As long as you don't start dissecting me, I'm up for some research" she joked hoping that Guru didn't take it as a suggestion.
Ayushi laughed out, "Truth be told had I been a medical ninja still that would've been what I'd have suggested. I can keep people sedated and alive during similar procedures and it had a perfect success ratio, also it wouldn't have even left a scar after... Sorry, old habits, back during the war they had me harvesting bloodlines so some of my jokes may be a bit dark" he returned the joke back.
Mana did start feeling a bit creeped out by the man but she realized that this was a man who had helped her out greatly and only had the kindest intentions in his heart, also a man who had been through a lot in his life and was a relic of times where things were greatly different and people didn't casually joke about dissecting other people.
"Well then I'm lucky that you left it all behind then..." the magician played it off as a joke as the two entered the archive building.
"Part of why I left it too, the more masterful you become at intricacies of surgery and the medical field the less ethical some of the practices look. Even when you extract sickness from a person on a cellular level it still feels horrible sometimes... Even now there are very few ethical lines for the medical ninja, something I was reminded of when those vultures asked you to talk to me about those cells." Ayushi's eyes changed to very serious and almost angry right before switching back to his usual carefree bliss.
"Now then, let's begin our search!" he clapped as he approached the ninja observing the entrants to the archive to have a talk with him.
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