In the morning no one felt really well. Mana and Kiyomi had slept about as peachy as someone switching in for someone to stand guard could've, despite their supernatural ninja metabolisms allowing for more leisure and skipping some nights of sleep altogether, that didn't mean they felt all that great about it.
Meiko may have been the only one of the trio feeling just fine, initially at least. Some coloring returned to her cheeks and she was looking plenty cheerful, if a little floaty. She didn't stand up or jig around or anything but she looked a lot less like a dying person compared to last night which was probably the best scenario imaginable.
This, obviously, was a very quick and short term improvement. It was very much a postponing of the worst of the troubles – her inner infection which may have only been made worse by her eating something to give her body the energy to fuel her metabolism. It was a gamble at best – if Meiko's metabolism treated her injuries by itself she'd be set for combat in a pair of days, if not and the fueled infection managed to overcome the out of combat healing factor of a functional kunoichi she's looking at significant trouble. Maybe even lethal…
"What are the odds of someone finding us here?" Kiyomi wondered as she sat around Meiko, a little melancholic since the blacksmith refused her suggestion to warm up her still a little paled skin through close skin contact.
"Fairly in our favor. We're so close to the northern exit that most teams will stay as far away from here as possible. Most of them will likely wish to take down their targets before coming here, no one in their fair mind will look for their target in that one place every team, including the teams after them, will be gathering in. Still, it'd be foolish to rule it out completely, after all – we're here, aren't we?" Mana replied bitterly.
The promise she made for Meiko pressed heavily against her fragile shoulders. The day went on with no activity, waiting this thing out until the injured got better and the active ninja beat each other up was a smart option. If anything, it was a very ninja thing to do. If Tanshu-sensei ever saw Mana in this situation he'd likely love her mindset. Then again, knowing that made the magician wonder if she was supposed to feel glad about it or not.
The further the day went on the worse Meiko got. Her gut wound was now nothing but messy soft scar tissue having completely closed up, its coloring was petrifying to observe. A man may have made a fortune if they got a ryo every time the girl's scar tissue changed color, from red to blue to greenish pale back to black and red.
What was worse was that Meiko's attitude started to change with it. She started getting sleepy, lazy and once Mana picked some mushrooms she could somewhat identify and made a stew out of them in a sealed clay jar heated underground by scorching hot stones she refused to eat it. That was a signal of the worst things yet to come. That "I don't feel very hungry" sounded like a drummer of the Apocalypse raiders kicking a very passionate solo.
Kiyomi dragged Mana away by her elbow. The aggression of the blonde visibly troubled Meiko but she was too weak to do anything about it. Unlike last evening when she argued somewhat passionately, current Meiko looked better visually but was apathetic and very sleepy.
"We have to give her up. This is getting scary…" Kiyomi whispered in a pretty aggressive tone. Almost like she knew what Mana would say and had played this argument out in her mind multiple times.
"No. I promised her I wouldn't do it." Mana refused.
"Which would you rather be, a liar or someone who let her friend die in front of her?" Kiyomi tapped her feet, her smart looking face revealed that she knew this phrase would cut deep, especially so for Mana. "Haven't both of us lost enough people already? We can give her up and still salvage our standing, move on to the other round."
"You know I'd lie a thousand times before I'd let Meiko die…" Mana cut back with a tone just as sharp, the fact that her friend would try to manipulate her by cutting at her most painful spiritual wounds hurt her all by itself.
"As long as she's not on your shoulders on the way to the southern entrance you've got nine hundred ninety nine lies left… The fact that she's not here arguing for herself shows how bad the situation is. We've no time to bicker about this – we need to hit those targets already, every moment we spend the possibility of being hit ourselves grows."
Mana turned back and stroke her sweaty and dirty face, Kiyomi's thoughts and words really were well thought out and sharpened. Not a word was used that didn't cut Mana personally, attack her own positions and stances, her own nindo itself. If the trio were attacked at any point, while Meiko was the way she was she was a possible weak link to be utilized by the enemy.
Ending the conversation by simply walking away, Mana walked out to Meiko and knelt by her side taking her hand and feeling its scorching heat. Her temperature did a full 180 turn overnight, where previously the blood loss threatened to drop it to a freezing point, now the infection was searing her up.
"How are you feeling?" Mana asked with a smile, she knew it was faked, she knew that Meiko must've seen through it and focused on the tears on her friend's face.
"I don't remember the Earth's mantle being this hot…" the blacksmith faked a smile back at Mana.
"Want to eat something? Play cards?" she wondered.
"Nah… Not feeling hungry." The blacksmith reached out for cards but once the distance between her hand and the deck of cards placed on the grass would've required her to physically move the infected area she froze. "You know what? I'd be a fool playing cards against you, a goddamn magician. Your strategy yesterday to feed me to deal with the blood loss was genius, sometimes I forget which one of you and Kouta is the medical ninja, you know?" she joked.
Mana's eyes lingered on the horror of realizing her friend couldn't even more her lower body due to the pain. The magician took her friend's hand and pressed her against her face.
"Do you want me to bring you to the entrance? They're gonna patch you up in minutes… I just can't do that from where I am now." Mana cried out trying and failing spectacularly to restrain her tears as the promise she had made was tearing her up from inside.
"Mana… You promised me… No matter what…" Meiko mumbled out, even through crippling pain which the blacksmith herself feared of, even with a sickness that made her resent food – one of her biggest passions she still held up her own about this.
Mana stood up and walked away, a quick glance back betrayed that her friend lacked even the strength to follow her with her eyes and her head just flopped down as she kept on staring at her bloodied and pus covered bandages.
Even in this situation… If Meiko maintained her inner strength, how could Mana give up?
"See? She won't last till the next morning… You're supposed to be the smart one out of the three of us! How about you use that brilliant yet thick head of yours…" Kiyomi hissed angrily. The worst part was that she was right, at any point in time, she was just right…
"Let me try one more thing. Please. Before I lose my last friend… One more thing." Mana whispered a request. An awkward pause took over as the future Yamanaka heiress considered it.
"Don't take too long. If I see her life really fading I'm using all of my chakra on one mad dash back – not only will I give her up but I'll also diminish my own chakra greatly which means more work for you to pull us through. Only because Meiko isn't the last friend you've got, not yet…" Kiyomi sighed before walking back to the blacksmith.
Mana jumped onto the tree branches and started dashing onwards. The worst part of this whole thing was that she couldn't rush. If she moved too fast she spent too much chakra, similarly like the energy expended to travel fast, chakra was to match those resources being used. There was a certain threshold beyond which the cost of each additional ounce of speed cost an almost Faustian bargain. The magician was wise and self-controlled to travel just on the edge of that line.
Yet her friendship towards Meiko and respect of Kiyomi's love for her wanted her to just ignore it and move past all lines, beyond all the limits and spit in the face of the future, struggles yet to come.
Kouta. He was Mana's plan. One shot in a billion, she knew, he was not the only medical ninja in this place but he was certainly the only one who would actually consider helping Meiko. The magician was aware of the odds of finding him in this vast nothingness. Given her speed of travelling it'd still take forever to scout the entire forest and track him down…
Before she gave up on her promise, before she earned Meiko's eternal scorn, she figured that she should at least waste all opportunities, try every shot and every stupid idea in her mind and she had plenty yet in mind. At least now her eyes had few tears left to shed, swollen and twisted in sadness as they were, at least they were functioning.
The magician scoured through every corner she could find, she homed in on every wildest sound trying to find anything at all. Even if she found an opposing team of other competitors, as long as she didn't engage them it'd be fine. Just like the predators of this forest, everyone here must've followed the very same rules of economy. The energy needed to take out a random kunoichi passing through was simply too much unless the magician was their intended target, in which case the odds of meeting that person were just about as slim as bumping into Kouta.
An explosion echoed from a faraway area, a burst of light and shockwave emanating from the area made the magician cover up and just barely not get blasted aside with the debris. It wasn't that uncommon to find a field of active combat in this case. A significant amount of time had passed since the exam started and plenty teams may have already concluded their first engagements. Many have already been baptized in blood and steel.
Even if she greatly doubted her odds, Mana followed the trail of destruction. Whatever clues she got about a possible location of any ninja she had to check. One of these fields of active combat could've been that of Kouta's team. The odds weren't great but as puny as they were – they were Mana's last chance at doing something before betraying her friend's trust.
The magician was never the stealthiest out there or even amongst the best dozen of such individuals, she only exceeded in stealth when her opponent's own reason combatted against them. Under normal circumstances she was about as quiet and sneaky as any normal genin that graduated the Ninja Academy. That was why faking death was such a common strategy for her – she needed her opponent convinced she died and ignoring any signs of her existence she gave out.
Still, given that the two teams were engaged in active combat – they had plenty more to worry about instead of troubling their heads over Mana. The magician was standing in a smoky and decimated battlefield with a crater at least thirty meters in radius and at least five meters deep of nothing but dirt and coal. Something very hot clearly caused the destruction she felt before.
Inside the crater knelt a tall and strong looking genin wearing a blond ponytail. Nearby him fought his teammates: a gothic attire wearing and very edgy looking your lady and a greasy dark hair possessing young man wielding two kunai knives. They were facing off against a trio the magician knew about quite well – that mysterious trio that scolded her before signing up for the exams, together with that hulking giant that gave the magician a bad feeling about him.
If she focused really well, Mana could just about see what they were doing, even see the hand seals they were making as none of their speed matched that of her own. She could also hear and focus on every word, as long as something much louder did not demand her undivided attention…
The magician wondered if she should just move on. Just like her thought before indicated – the battlefield of two teams was nothing special at all and given how Kouta or his team took no part in this scuffle it just didn't really make any amount of sense for her to do anything about this but flee.
An angry tsk of tongue alerted the magician as a woman in a red dress and an Iwagakure jounin uniform leaped down from just below where Mana was situated. Who was that woman? Why a jounin of Iwagakure was present in the second stage of the Chuunin Exams!? Curiosity took the better of Mana, she continued to sit atop of the branch she was on, where the previously unnoticed lady was also situated as it was a comfortable spot for observation and continued to observe the battle between the teams.
"Damn you three! If I wasn't so injured in my previous fight… And lacking of any chakra to spare…" the greasy haired weasel-boy yelled out, it didn't take an unnaturally gifted ninja to hear his words as he made sure to make just about everyone in the nearest vicinity heard them with his tone.
"Wanna try cutting me again?" the silver haired female who appeared to be somewhat reasonable and restraining her teammates of much more conflicting nature before suggested. It didn't look like she wanted any of this battle, if her own tone was to be judged separately, she couldn't have been hunting her target here…
"Fuck you, bitch! Just one cut, one cut will be enough!" the greasy haired knife fighter cursed at her before rushing at her shorter and much more volatile and annoyingly voiced teammate. He oddly enough extended his arms and accepted the slashes that came his way, with a throat spraying blood as well as an open chest the young man staggered back yet didn't fall. With an off handedly raised hand he and a sadistic smile he weaved a hand seal.
The body of the greasy haired fellow flew back as the cheeks of heavy make-up wearing teammate of his dyed crimson red from the bleeding teammate of hers. She just offered her downed friend an off-handed look.
"You mean if you didn't use Ptet like you use me until he was of no help in this battle?" she taunted the young man despite the appearance that he couldn't really care any less of these taunts and was quite knocked out and bleeding out as well as drowning in the pool of his own blood.
Those sharp crescent cutting wind projectiles that the shorter weirdo launched before didn't evade Mana's eye. However they were blindingly fast, if they were used against her Mana would have some trouble evading them, maybe if she didn't invest too much into her attack that was countered like the greasy haired young man did.
The man who was just called "Ptet" by the young eccentric kunoichi collapsed on the floor after a period of heavy panting and kneeling by his attackers. If her words were to be believed he was completely dry of usable chakra reserves, a fate not unlike that which once befell Mana hit him right in the face making him pass out from the exhaustion.
And yet… Energetically as ever the young lady shrieked in the air like a wild fury willing to murder the living hell out of her enemies before charging at her opponent while weaving hand seals. The silver haired female stepped up in front of her teammate who was the target of the gothic chick's furious wrath. A deafening shockwave relentlessly sieged Mana's ear drums and blew her off her feet and back into the trees which were somehow not assaulted heavily enough to be completely downed by the powerful earthquake causing punch of the young kunoichi.
Just as swiftly as she was knocked back, doing the best she could to keep up on her stealth, Mana scaled onto a pile of trees before hiding between the still intact leafage of some of them. Using them as improvised bushes she kept on observing the battle. It may not have been overly safe to move past now as she no longer had the cover of rich tree-line to protect her.
The first clear sight that the magician got was the silver haired member of, if Mana's memory served, Team Phobos from Getsugakure placing two of her fingers by the gothic kunoichi's chest area and the poor young woman just gasping for air with the most terrified expression. Her eyes were rolled back, the decorative pink strips of hair were torn up and scattered all over revealing a much more natural blackness of hair. A small stream of blood ran down from the girl's nose before she collapsed on the ground, dead or knocked out, it was tough to say…
"They were not that strong…" the female member of Team Phobos concluded before she flipped her hood back up and allowed her palm to slip deep into her dark sleeve until it was of use again.
"Only because they were already worn out. I believe they'd have been more competent if they were fresh… Maybe even troublesome." the larger member of the team from Getsugakure remarked, just looking at him made Mana's heart pound uneasily. At this point just sheer curiosity made her wish to witness his actual combat prowess.
"Yeah… I think one of them let it slip that they retreated from a previous fight against their target, let's see…" Doma from Team Phobos, previously named by Shibari during his expression of hatred for Konoha's way of handling the Exams, checked the file that laid right beside the knocked out knife fighter of the three. The file was soaked in blood alerting Mana that the young man was in desperate need of medical attention.
"One… Kouta Hirano." Doma read out loud.
"Kouta Hirano? That's Kouta's fake name he went with until recently…" Mana's eyes shot wide open as she was happy to find out that the odds of Kouta's team being somewhere nearby were halfway decent. "Judging from his chakra control grade, I'd say he's more than likely a medical ninja, we may pay him a visit if we get injured…"
The injuries that Doma had sustained from the greasy haired knife fighter's attacks were completely gone now, almost like he had regenerated them away however Mana saw no ninjutsu in effect which made her just blink in confusion about the young man's abilities.
"So… How about we kill those three pricks? They're nothing but trash that flee from their objective, run away from their target. Hypocritical ninja like that just make my blood boil!" Doma shouted out before a kunai slipped out from his sleeve and he trust it at the unconscious goth girl's chest while kneeling on one knee.
His hand was caught halfway by the Iwagakure jounin lady.
"While killing is not explicitly forbidden in the Chuunin Exams, I cannot allow you to kill these three. Sorry. I will admit that they've lost and take them to the entrance, whichever of the three is your target – you've now eliminated all three of them as I don't feel safe leaving them unconscious here with you three…" the woman coldly explained before letting go of Doma's arm rather rudely. Liquid masses of greyish blue and metallic in texture looking mass surrounded the three and raised them up in the air like floating vertical donuts. After the woman turned around and left carrying her team behind her the steel donuts followed her.
"Hmph…" Doma angrily growled, a bit unhappy by the fact that he didn't have a chance to kill ninja that spit in the face of his own understanding of what ninja should be like.
"I guess that's it. Your target is down, Gasco…" the female member of Team Phobos smiled before reaching out to tap as close to the shoulder of the giant scary fellow of the team as possible.
"No… This isn't it. I sense a sneaky little owl eyeing us. Her chakra signature is very distinct, impossible to miss. It's the little missy from before, before the sign-ups…" the voice of the large young man thundered loud and wide. Mana's heart froze up. That man was a sensor!? Those were quite rare and few in between as sensory was a genetic trait and not a talent one could just train…
"Oh? Konoha's cheerleader? Let's go and play with her a little bit…" Doma smiled before looking at his hulking teammate who pointed at Mana's exact location relatively to them.