Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Tales of a Ninja Magician Annual #2

"Huh? A mission"? Mana stared for a moment at the closed, thin, blue file positioned on the Sixth's desk in front of her.

"Is there a problem, Nakotsumi Mana"? Lord Hokage's assistant, a lovely young woman, short of stature but compensating her lack of height with massive curly pile of dark hair, asked.

Mana quickly grabbed the file off the desk, swiftly flipping the four or five pages through, letting her eyes absorb the most basic information. She needed a reply, seeing as the magician was already not at the greatest of odds with the Sixth with the few encounters she had with the man, her reply needed to make sense as well.

"Well... I just hoped I'd have the week to train and prepare for the next stage of the Chuunin Exams", Mana shrugged, scolding herself for sounding so unsure of her reply. To her it made perfect sense – it was simply unfair to give her a mission and hold her back from her training, compared to the other contestants.

"It isn't a difficult mission, a D-Rank, if you caught that fact while you skimmed the file. It'll only take you one night to complete. It's also very important, despite being relatively simple. We figured we'd give it to our most handy genin asset – the Golden Child. That's what you are, isn't it? Handy", Lord Sixth sighed before explaining the mission to Mana. "That being said, you are in a position to decline the mission, due to the ongoing Chuunin Exams. It'd be troublesome for our administration to find a fitting replacement for you but..."

"It's fine, I'll do it", Mana bowed submissively before picking up the file, bowing again for a permission to leave the office and left. She needed this, a chance to please Lord Sixth and maybe earn more of his trust and respect. Judging from certain remarks in her past, his stance on Mana has softened slightly in the past, as a man with history working for a special department of ANBU, Sixth was impressed by Mana's performance fighting off the Imarizu in the whole Kiyomi's marriage affair. This could build something on top of that...

Mana had disappointed enough of her mentor figures and superiors to know how much it hurt and to earn some trust points with menial jobs like this, jobs where she did not need to compromise or choose between sacrificing her own ideals or the mission objective, was simple enough. Being the upmost authority on herself, Mana knew all too well, which one of the two she'd more likely sacrifice. She needed this, this menial job of...

"Babysitting", Mana sighed after checking the file again and sighing. "An experienced C+ Rank ninja is needed for babysitting". Yet when the magician noticed a question mark scribbled by the mission rank tab she realized that there may have been more to this baby-sitting mission than she thought there being before.

Question marks, such as that one, usually meant that the mission had an "unofficial" rank. It had a "question mark", a questionable aspect to it, which, technically, should have raised the rank of the mission but it wasn't solid enough to actually do so. All missions were graded accordingly with the universal ranking scale, agreed on by the five Feudal Lords. If a mission was graded freely, every village would simply rate all of their babysitting, and others of the sort, missions as being S-Rank simply for the bragging rights and looking better in front of the clients. "Question mark" missions were an iffy legal loophole but they were sort of an unwritten rule, not even one taught about in the Academy, Mana learned about that solely from her own job experience.

Feeling slightly intrigued, Mana rushed home to re-check her supplies and prepare for a possible combat scenario, something she didn't expect she'd need to do when she departed to answer the Administration's call in the early noon. There must've been a reason why Sixth chose a C+ Rank ninja like Mana, beyond the abilities of a genin but not yet consistently competing with the B-Rank chuunin ninja in skill, experience, knowledge and power. Mana would have been wise not to look down on this mission, it may have yet proved to be nice practical training for her after all...