Lorna's expression shifted. She turned. "John—what are you doing over here? I've already been registered by the police. Why would you expose yourself like this?"
John waved a hand. "Lorna, our organization isn't something that has to hide from the light. And a lot of our own people are ordinary humans—this would be classmate Maya Hansen, wouldn't it?"
Maya asked, wide-eyed, "Who are you? Where did you come from? And—how do you know me?"
Well—a certain President had cranked the acting back up again. The Oscars owed each of the Manhattan Twin Stars a little gold statuette.
"Hey—don't be scared, kid, I'm one of the good guys!" John flashed a mouthful of white teeth and went on. "My name's John. I'm a mutant too. I was just talking with Spider-Man, actually—not Tony, the Coca-Cola Spider-Man. Your name I heard from other people—those classmates of yours, they all said you're the one who organized them to come out and stand up for mutants. You're a good girl!"
In truth, every move John's trio made was inside Maya's sensing, and the Coke-suited Spider-Man had let John "run into" him entirely on purpose. Maya also knew John's hearing was formidable—he could eavesdrop from a good distance—and he'd caught her conversation with Lorna as well.
"John—have you really met Spider-Man?" Maya asked, feigning doubt.
"I have. Don't believe me, go ask him yourself," John said firmly.
With Spider-Man as guarantor, Maya seemed to genuinely accept that John wasn't a bad sort. She asked, "Are you and Lorna in the same organization? Why are you trying to recruit Liz?"
John turned grave. "We're the mutants who stand for justice. We're the Mutant Underground!"
Seeing both Maya and Liz go blank, John let out a long sigh—and, remembering that Spider-Man just now hadn't seemed to know about the X-Men either, grew gloomier still. "The X-Men are the mutant organization that stands for justice. We came looking for Liz to unite mutant strength—to improve the hard lot mutants face. Liz—will you join us?"
Liz didn't answer him. Instead she leaned in to Maya's ear and whispered, "This sounds a little off to me. Never mind whether what he says is even true—the fact that they want me! God, a weakling like me, and they come fussing over me like I'm some treasure. Maya, you tell me—people this desperate, this un-picky, are either looking for cannon fodder, or the organization itself is just too weak!"
Madam President cut a glance at John across from them—and sure enough, he stood there mortified, face flushed, not sure whether he should speak.
"First of all, they're probably not bad people—they've got Spider-Man's stamp of approval, after all."
Seeing Liz nod along, Maya went on. "And you've got a bit of self-awareness, at least—you know you're a weakling. But even a weakling like you, they're willing to take in. You can read an organization's whole guiding philosophy from the small details of how it behaves. They were kind enough to explain all this to us—so what does that tell you? At minimum it means they value you, which means their principles are decent. I think you could try joining and see. Once you're in, quietly slack off, let them take the dangerous jobs, and just tag along to train up your ability. They're all mutants—they'll definitely have more experience."
Realization struck Liz. "Makes sense. And I won't leave New York—they're mutants too, so they're hardly going to experiment on me. Here's the plan: I'll call you every two days. If more than two calls go by without a word from me, you tell Spider-Man about all this—well, Stark's company. That Lorna got registered by Tony too, so you can go find her then."
John's face went black as the bottom of a pot. He'd figured that since Liz was on the older side—around Lorna's age, more mature in mind and body—she'd make a good recruit; a little more strength for the cause, wasn't it? Who'd have guessed this Liz would be such a handful—and her student council president slyer than sly. Ah. Looked like the organization couldn't afford to skimp on ideological education going forward.
For the trip back, Maya and the others naturally weren't about to go on foot—the march was over, after all, so they took the subway home to Manhattan.
Over the next several days, every news channel covered the affair enthusiastically. None of it had anything to do with Maya, so we'll skip past it.
A few days later, on May 15, Maya officially received her elementary school diploma—and with it, she was student council president no longer. Ahead lay a vacation of over two months, which would also be the crucial window for her training under Master Stick.
"Nana, stop crying. So we've graduated, and from now on we won't be at the same school—but I haven't moved. You can come find me anytime," Maya said, hugging the tall Black girl.
"Hnh—it's not the two of us parting that's got me down. Hnh—it's that I'm scared. Scared that without you covering for me in high school, I won't be able to hack it!"
The hand Maya had been patting against Nana's back stiffened in midair. After a long moment she said, "Heh. It's fine. You can still drop my name! Heh—come on, let's go take a group photo."
At three in the afternoon, Maya stood at the door of the student council president's office, a big bag of belongings in hand, and murmured softly, "Goodbye, my office. Goodbye, my title as student council president. Goodbye, my elementary years!"
In the instant Maya stepped out the school gate, she seemed to feel a pair of warm eyes—carrying a blessing—turned toward her from the direction of the old principal's office.
And so, Maya Hansen officially graduated from elementary school.
She was home before four, and with nothing to do, Maya flopped onto her bed. Feelings tangled, she opened up her System and refreshed today's Black Shop.
The same swirling vortex, spinning and spinning—ding-dong—and a disc appeared on the spot.
Maya took one look and was instantly floored. Tch—a Naruto world with a DVD player was already weird enough, and now there's a disc of kunoichi gone blue-film? That is way too down-to-earth. And it's this damn expensive on top of it—two thousand Influence Points. Only a total idiot would buy it.
She dismissed the disc and called out in her mind, Show current Influence Points!
Influence Points: 142,617
Since Chapter 126: 5,953. Master Stick: 340. The Lucius party: 147. The Uncle Ben incident: 12,700 (with great power comes great responsibility—it drew still more attention). Tony declaring himself Spider-Man: 13,955. Maya exposing the mutant human experiments under Tony's name: 4,005. The march: 2,312. Miscellaneous: 420. Total increase: 3,079.
Influence Points gained from direct participation come at a larger ratio; indirect influence yields only one-tenth. For instance, Tony declaring himself Spider-Man generated 139,550 Influence, of which the host receives only 13,955. Whereas the host, having personally taken part in the Aldrich affair—which generated 143,900 Influence—receives only a fraction: 4,005. For events the host carries out independently, the ratio is higher still—for example, when she dons the Spider-Man suit to save people, all the Influence the rescued provide goes entirely to the host.
Maya read the notes below and understood: Tony had played an outsized role in these events, and so accounted for a large share of the Influence—leaving Maya with a much smaller cut. It was the same as how nobody pays attention to an ordinary person's divorce, but a celebrity couple bickering makes the front page. Same rescue—Maya saving someone and Tony saving someone carried different weight. Maya could understand that, and accept it.
So now she'd banked another hundred-forty-thousand-odd in Influence—and how to spend it was the real problem. First: what did Maya actually lack? A ninja had five attributes in all—chakra volume, plus ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, and experience. Chakra volume was handled by Hansen's Sage Ninja Art; basically no need to fret over it, and fretting wouldn't help anyway—there wasn't a single secret art in all of Naruto better than Hansen's Sage Ninja Art.
Strike ninjutsu off the list—Maya was a ninjutsu-type genius to begin with. Taijutsu she now had Master Stick to teach her, so that could be set aside for the moment. Which left genjutsu. But genjutsu in Naruto was a peculiar thing. How to put it? Even the most gifted ninja alive, mastering the mightiest secret art there is, still can't hold a candle to one particular pair of eyes.