Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Questions That Hurt To Be Axed

"So... Team Alto is going to be in the next match, huh"? Kiyomi sighed, voicing her thoughts out loud. Frankly, it was something that first caught Mana's attention as well after the next match up was announced.

"Yeah, Quill B claimed that he had a qualm with Team Alto and wanted to take Kres-T's life for killing his friend. I've seen Quill B among the genin in the audience so things might get a bit heated up", Mana agreed.

The two girls found themselves calmly waiting outside of the infirmary where they were told that Meiko was still in the same condition she was left in after her match and was being moved to Konoha Hospital. Her moving, based on what the girls were told, was not due to changes in the blacksmith's condition, but merely because more and more injured genin needed medical attention and Konoha High was ill-roomed and staffed to deal with the demand.

"Yeah, but... Can you really blame Team Alto and call them monsters, ones like Team Phobos? More so, why are we calling Team Phobos monsters to begin with"? Kiyomi uncomfortably shrugged, it was becoming clear that she knew how Mana would react to these questions but she wanted them raised regardless.

"We don't call, or consider Team Phobos monsters, really. Not in terms of their humanity. They are referred to as such because of their monstrous skill gap, compared to the rest of the genin. In a way, we were supposed to always be monsters as well. We are still overtrained and overly experienced for this exam, remember"? Mana replied, feeling equally as uncomfortable because she sensed where Kiyomi wanted to turn this topic to and she did not want to argue with her good friend about that, at least not now.

"Alright, but I mean... Why are we supposed to dislike them? Team Phobos are nothing but really patriotic folk. I cannot ever blame someone like that. They love their village and want all that is best for it. They're willing to do whatever is necessary just to make it one of the Greats, not even for monetary or economic reasons but just so it doesn't go through famine again", Kiyomi wondered.

"Yeah, but they aren't all just one kind of people. Just because Stea doesn't like violence and doesn't like kicking her love for her village to the extreme, doesn't mean her teammates don't. Gasco and Doma advocate taking of another's life just for the sake of that person being weak and a detriment to their village's military strength. I've seen it with my own eyes, you can't ever place your heart and moral support behind people like that", Mana objected passively. It wasn't that she lacked passion for her arguments, it was just that the pressure of all that has happened recently was sinking her head beneath the surface and it took all of her flailings just to stay relatively afloat.

"Yeah, but then why are we supposed to treat like Kres-T did something wrong? From what Quill B told us, he killed a traitor, a ninja who planned on leaving their village, becoming nukenin. There is no greater honor for a ninja than killing someone with such traitorous intentions, it is Quill B who truly is out of line, wishing to kill a fellow ninja for the sole reason of him killing a traitor", Kiyomi became more passionate and less uncomfortable with her arguing with each passing moment.

Somewhere deep inside she must have felt a bit misguided to voice these thoughts at first but now that she had let them out, they quite nicely aligned to her own ideals – Aku-Soku-Zan. The ancient code that demanded the complete annihilation of any evil one saw at their sights. It wasn't even pure Aku-Soku-Zan that fueled Kiyomi, a true follower of that code would've slaughtered Mana with no hesitation for stealing supplies from another, they'd have gone on killing other killers without any qualms about it. The two sides of the same idea: the pure Aku-Soku-Zan and its modernized version were tearing Kiyomi from inside, Mana could feel it.

"Life is life. No life is to be thrown away meaninglessly. I don't care if that life belongs to a traitor or not. I'll stand behind a man wanting justice for a death of his friend but I will not let Quill B kill Kres-T if they ever meet in combat either", Mana firmly stood by her stance, "That, after all, is still, and always will be my Ninja Way".