Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Finally, the Semi-Finals!

Standing in front of the Konoha High gym hall made Mana realize just how much the ranks of the genin still competing were trimmed. There were no more long queues or waiting for the better part of the day to get anything done. While plenty of the genin still stayed around the village just to get to see the finals, which took place right after this round, they were not allowed inside for this one, meaning they had no reason to crowd the place needlessly.

Mana sighed as she just stared at the large, modern, orange building made of three thick towers rotated around a large prismatic glass center, making an almost flower ring like of a shape with the rotating colorful towers looking like petals whereas the glass center was the ovary. While the place was certainly amazing, this just was not the day nor the mood for Mana to give it the credit it properly deserved. This whole morning she was just kind of functioning on autopilot.

Her parents really wanted to know why Mana came back home so crushed and did not talk to them. Their daughter's pain was a big deal to them and denying them the information for the sole reason of her not feeling like talking to anyone for the duration of last night just made Mana feel worse about herself. Not only did she feel guilty for ruining her relationship with a young man she very much still had feelings for but now she felt bad about just shutting down on her parents as well.

"You've come this far, going to let a door stop you"? A happy-go-lucky sounding voice speaking with a foreign, northwestern accent kicked Mana out of her little box of depression. The owner of the voice was a genin Mana had not gotten the honor of meeting in the previous stages of the exam. It was a young man with tall, brightly orange hair that laid on the boy's head vertically, like reeds on the shore of a lake, a simple, dark green shirt and baggy black pants that were part of the standard ninja uniform around the world. The boy had a slightly darker tanned skin suggesting he was from one of the warmer island countries. Only then did Mana's eyes linger down on the Getsugakure headband he wore as a belt.

"Not very talkative? Okay... We're all a bit nervous today, best of luck in there, if you consider actually walking in. Unless you face off with me, of course, in that case – worst of luck"! The tanned ginger started laughing out at his own joke so hard that he almost broke up. His large, held by his strong and broad shoulders arms reached for the handle of the door, failing to grab hold of it initially due to him cracking himself up but then finally overcoming the difficult task of walking through the door.

Mana sighed before grabbing the door, before it could shut right in front of her face and pushing her body gently through it, without pulling on the door too hard and using effort to open it wide up again. In a bit of confusion she wandered through the corridors leading to the different faculties of Konoha High before finding a sign that directed her to the gym hall. With her relationship done with and her mood as crushed as it was Mana felt almost naked walking up to the gym, seeing the light at the end of the dark hallway she was walking towards almost choked her up.

This would be it. If she failed here the world would not just explode, no one would die but... It would be it for Mana. She needed to win this, whatever difficulties came her way she needed to grit her teeth and push through. She had no team to go back to, she had no right to fail if she was to still believe in her own strength and wisdom being able to eventually change the world. Just keep walking, just keep pushing through...

Mana slowly crept through the various teams that stood lined up in a rectangular shape, surrounding a square in front of several higher-ranking ninja and an empty tall chair that, obviously, was reserved for Lord Sixth himself. It was not uncommon for the Hokage to observe the later stages of the exams as well as the teams and the team leaders of all other teams. The leaders of other countries and villages would only join in to see the finals, however.