Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Long Voyage Goodbye

The pale moonlight lit up the restored by the Box's powers oceans that ruthlessly and recklessly bashed against the small boat in which the Konoha crew traveled back. While the oceans were as disturbed and capricious as the powerful winds and uneasy weather would've normally made them the servicemen aboard didn't appear bothered by the little uneasiness and shaking.

As much as Mana wanted to be by the rails observing the uneasy storm and the calm nightly drizzle she wouldn't have liked to be seen. For someone with so much angst and inner turmoil observing the beloved raindrops roll off the illuminator of her small cabin was as good as it got.

The magician had no more tears to cry for her fallen friend. A life so treasured and taken for granted, one tied with so much kinship deep inside and made bitterer by the constant conflicts on the outside. Not crying at any given moment made Mana somehow feel bad, almost like somehow she wasn't grieving enough. Like she was as bad of a friend to her one of the most beloved teammates in death as she was while he still lived.

There were so many lessons to be learned from this trip. Every step of the way Mana tried to plan things, she tried to create little maps and problems for her intelligent and curious mind to solve and yet every time she was proven not as overseeing and clever as she thought she was. Even more, every time her plans gone awry, there were very few instances where Mana could correctly guess the reaction of the world around her.

Sitting on her overly soft bed that felt like a drowning abyss, not unlike the shaking and roaring waters outside, swallowing her body every time she placed her weight on it, and watching through the window Mana moved her legs closer to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. The first reaction to what happened was to shut in, let go of everyone around her before she could properly wrap her head around what had happened.

It felt so similar to her childhood – back when Mana still had the mental disorder preventing her from associating facts with an event. Back when mysticism and divine intervention were the only explanations she could understand. Maybe it was for that reason that after overcoming the disorder Mana became so planning, so eager to understand everything around her placing it into shelves with names on them, categorize and plan everything out?

The world couldn't be planned, the real world couldn't have been prepared for and the only way to know the world was to be released into it. Walls had to be bypassed or toppled in order for one to experience life, to experience freedom, however, life and freedom were scary. Sometimes it felt so much more reassuring to believe in purpose, to believe in mysticism and not even bother with explanations because explanations lead to the cruel realization that there was no purpose but that which we ourselves cause, name and attribute.

To some walls and constant shelter, protection from the real world – baby wheels of life, so to say, were the most attractive. Living sheltered away from the world outside the village walls, places where one's treasured and taken for granted lives were picked off like flowers under the feet of fire spitting dragons. Knowing what she now knew, processing what she had just seen Mana couldn't blame them in her right mind.

People keep children away from the reality as long as possible. After all, we ourselves sometimes fear to confront that grim purposeless world beyond the village walls so how could we subject our young and fragile to it? Even after Mana had discovered her purpose people continued to treat her as a child who had never experienced "real life", even after she left the village walls and had seen more death than some villagers will throughout their entire lives people still said that. People feared to confront reality and saying things how they were so much that they silenced others who did it for them out of fear.

Fear that these loud and brave talking people will force that confrontation, maybe fear that these people will somehow appear taller and better for lacking that fear. Fear of fear itself, fear of those brave enough to defy it. Fear of courage? Mana closed her eyes and burrowed her head in between her knees hunching her back so hard that it began to hurt. She wanted to wrap into a ball and just lay on her bed, let her thoughts take their place and settle down. They were like tea herbs after the water was poured on it, twisting and rushing all around.