A cold shiver heralding great fear tore its way out of Mana's heart after she saw the tall cloaked Getsugakure genin point at her. She was completely ill prepared for such a battle, not to mention she still needed to find a medical ninja capable and willing to help Meiko to not get eliminated.
"You barely got to do anything, Stea. Want to kill that Konoha cheerleader?" the Getsugakure genin who was referred to as Doma previously smiled.
It didn't appear like the Getsugakure team was overly rushing to engage Mana. The magician stayed glued to her spot since she wasn't sure how exact the Getsugakure giant's sensory was. If she moved or turned her attention off of her opponents they may have utilized that time, her best bet for now was to sit tight and obtain as much information about them as possible while looking for a good spot to slip away from their sensory range.
"She's not my trouble. I couldn't care less, knowing why she's here alone would be interesting to know though…" Stea, the silver haired kunoichi of Team Phobos, shrugged.
Doma, the raven dark haired and tanned skinned young man of his team just squinted angrily at his teammate before his cape floated open and his arm extended to the side. As Mana's senses sharpened she saw shiny tips of at least a good dozen blades coming at her general direction. This was as good of a time as any to slip away, if anything, just for the sole purpose of avoiding being made a pin-cushion, and so she did move away.
The magician's senses sharpened and she dashed sideways allowing the blades to skewer her hiding spot and etch into branches and wood behind her where she no longer was. Mana felt her chakra surging at an accelerated pace within her body, making her stronger, faster and more durable. She would've been outright impossible to perceive to any normal man and just a black blur to a simple genin.
A thick tree sized arm blocking her path stopped the magician in her tracks. The large and creepy feeling emanating member of Team Phobos stood right up front to the tree where Mana was leaping through and simply placed his hand as a barrier preventing the magician's passage. He was no ordinary genin. Faster, visibly stronger and seemingly with superior perception being able to not only see Mana's movements but read them and intercept them. He alone would've troubled the magician, together with his team fighting them would've been suicidal.
Mana stopped and gifted the large man a desperate and angry glare, her eyes flared up as she felt cornered and placed her hands in her fighting stance, ready to blast off with her untraceably swift hand seals. To be able to weave them fast enough to confuse her opponents was something Mana felt fairly confident in.
With a graceful leap backwards Mana landed on the lower ground level of the forest, soon she was surrounded by Team Phobos as the tall and broad shouldered genin removed his hood revealing a middle aged man with a face tattooed similarly to the face of Doma's. The magician's eye could spy on a bunch of golden flares as the dark brown eyes of the large and creepy man couldn't distract her from his excessive flare for wearing golden accessories all over himself: earrings, necklaces and chains all over. The man even had a golden chain etched onto his forehead and extending past his bald head, disappearing like a braid somewhere into the back of his skull.
"She's all alone here?" Doma wondered turning at the bulky teammate of his who just calmly nodded, delving deep into his chakra sensory ability, no doubt.
"Why?" Stea asked Mana, her eyes were strangely kind and the silver haired kunoichi didn't really look at the magician as an enemy or even as an opposing competitor.
Mana smiled with the tips of her lips and lowered her hands, she had managed to weave a pair of hand seals seemingly without her opponents noticing in mid jump. It was a moment when they were likely not to be too invested into perception of what Mana was doing. Realizing she was prepared for an unexpected attack, the magician lowered her fists and clenched them. Being just one step ahead wasn't really enough, she needed a greater edge.
Doma's hand flashed in a metallic blur, he slashed at Mana as his coat allowed him to slip out one of the many kunai knives he had under it seemingly unexpectedly. The magician's figure simply burst into flower petals and scattered in the wind. The real Mana kept on dashing away from there, doing her best to heighten the distance between her and the enemy before a kick in the chest drove all the oxygen out from her body and sent her flying back. It didn't look like it meant much for her opponent to dash right in front of her and punish this attempt to escape. Doma flashed through a bunch of hand seals, the magician could see that much but her eyes were more occupied looking out for his teammates.
"Earth Style: Bridge Rack!" he yelled out.
Pulsing pain made Mana's consciousness black out for just a fraction of a moment as she let out a combination of a scream and a gasp for air she so desperately missed. She hit something rock hard and emanating with chakra, must've been the ninjutsu her opponent used. She had to move, moving was her chance of staying alive but by the time her mind got back into the game it was too late – rocky arcs smashed into her wrists crushing them by the rocky torture rack made by the Getsugakure genin.
She should've repeated her genjutsu again but it'd have cost chakra, a lot of it and also increased the cost for any successive uses for the rest of the day. She wagered on keeping it for the future but the way it was going there may not have been any future.
Warm streams of blood ran down Mana's wrists to her body, another stream of red just dyed the stone rack she was locked onto. Another set of rocky arcs locked tightly onto her feet. It was a torture ninjutsu, not really something to take out one's opponent, more like something to make them talk.
The creepy bald sensor of the team walked up to Mana and grabbed her by the hair before placing a kunai by her throat.
"Why are you here all alone? Did you three split? What are the names of your teammates?" he tried interrogating Mana without noticing her escape.
Mana was a stage magician, escaping binds was something she did for a living and she was beginning to slip out before her legs were even getting tightened. It hurt to weave hand seals with bruised and bleeding wrists, still, her ability to weave them using one hand proved very useful to Mana. She used an experimental concept for a new ninjutsu, bare and not quite ready, she began perfecting it and shaping it into an actual technique after returning from her trip to the Forest of Death before the exams.
It wasn't something anyone couldn't do, anyone with the ability to use Lightning Release elemental ninjutsu, that is. Simply separate a stream of chakra from the rest of the network and transform it into lightning chakra, no shape manipulation needed. It was an as of yet nameless technique, more of a concept but it functioned as a taser of sorts.
With a forceful shove of her leg Mana broke the rocky restraint and drove her kick to the back of her attacker's head while her freed arm pushed the elbow of the kunai wielding arm away from her throat. Saving her neck right before pulling her entire body away from the torturous rack and allowing it to crumble to a pile of lifeless rocks.
"What the…" Doma whistled before exclaiming in surprise.
"Lightning Release is known for its neutralizing advantage over Earth Release…" the creepy bald sensor of Team Phobos smiled before nodding, it was like Mana hadn't even put a scratch on him with her kick at all.
The technique Mana wanted to perfect using this taser-like concept was a taijutsu countering ninjutsu technique. A quick surge of lightning chakra over her body while simultaneously augmenting her own endurance to not take damage from her own ninjutsu, it would've shocked anyone coming within close distance to Mana. It appeared like it could've been used the way it was used in the current predicament as well…
"That wasn't an ideal use of the technique, you could've used it when Gasco was holding your hair, instead of right after you were locked up – you'd have shocked him as well…" Stea remarked landing nearby her teammates.
"I don't want to fight you three. None of you are my targets, none of you identified me as your target either…" Mana grunted before feeling her aching and still slowly bleeding wrists.
"It's true that you're not our target, still, we don't really know who your teammates are and they may just be our targets." Gasco cracked his knuckles before flexing his neck around, completely shaking off one of Mana's stronger kicks.
The magician took a fearful step back. The dark feeling coming from the man called Gasco of Team Phobos combined with her inability to decide if it was better to tell them the names of her team or to keep trying to escape without it made her tremble in fear against these three.
If she did tell these three the names of Kiyomi and Meiko nothing would've stopped them from coming after them. They would've fought Mana until the magician couldn't resist anymore and tortured her until she either passed out, told them where her team was or died. Something told her that these three didn't particularly care about which outcome it came down to. Then again, if the gamble went her way and neither of the three was a target there was a possibility of these three just moving on and leaving her to searching for Kouta.
"You've seen my teammates before, if you'd have seen their faces in the files, I'm sure you'd recognize them. Those pictures weren't taken that long ago…" Mana tried talking her way out of gambling with her team's lives. Then again, it wasn't wise to gamble with her own life either – at this moment Meiko's ability to compete directly depended on Mana's ability to find a medical ninja that could heal her.
"She's right, weren't both of her teammates female? All of our targets are male." Stea nodded calmly.
"Still… To wander off alone without a team, I bet those three losers were looking to beat their targets alone. Such arrogance, not unlike Konoha… Thinking you're so big and so strong! Arrogance like that must be punished!" Doma broke out into a fit of rage rushing at Mana, his speed completely caught the magician unprepared.
The kunoichi leaned aside trying to avoid getting stabbed right in the center of her chest, a painful shock made her stumble back as a gash bloodied up her uniform where she was about to be stabbed. Mana took a leap back, she couldn't pin down just how she was injured – her opponent missed, it was like the air around his thrust was just as sharp as the actual attack.
Mana's scream made a bunch of curious birds scatter away and look for worms and smaller insects elsewhere. Doma had moved in behind the magician's back and tackled her with his shoulder sending her bashing into a tree ahead before he kneed the magician down below like a ragdoll, smashing her and grinding the kunoichi to the ground. Luckily enough, Mana managed to roll aside right as soon as she recovered and avoid three more knives coming from under Doma's cloak trying to skewer her while she was down.
The thrust that she was meant to be stabbed by only grazed her chest, still, it was a painful reminder that her opponent possessed strange and as of yet misunderstood ability. Dodging was dangerous around him. It was like his entire skillset was centered on torture: dodging only slowly scratched and cut away at one's will and body until nothing but a tortured broken victim remained. His entire ninjutsu arsenal appeared to be focused on capturing and dealing a great amount of pain to his opponent.
Mana needed the young man to speak. Speaking was almost like a dance of swords all by itself, it revealed things about one's opponent, things that made them easier to read. If she knew her opponent was psychotic she could better predict their actions, if she knew them to be tranquil she'd know they'd aim for finishing the fight quick or not fighting at all. She needed Doma to speak…
An iron grip locked around the magician's neck catching her by surprise. She should've sensed the impending doom from the large Getsugakure sensor ninja but she was too occupied observing Doma. These three were just too much to take all by herself… No air… The bulky giant was firmly crushing her throat with his lock from behind, vision was getting blurry, Mana gasped for air but as her mouth opened Gasco only found an opportunity to crush her throat further. Mana tried kicking around, augmentation took some time to work right, she was too weak at that point. Brain was getting lazy and slow. All sorts of stupid thoughts clogged it when she needed clarity and firm decisions.
"I'm waiting for you to stop me…" Gasco's voice still found its way to the magician's fading senses. Vision was growing dim, sounds were dulling and starting to slip past her registry. It would've taken at least twenty minutes to kill a ninja out of air deprivation, why was she fading so fast?
"Stop you? Why would I care about that? Just snap her neck and be done with it. Arrogant fools that think they can take on other teams all by themselves are a weak link for their villages, a pointless existence…" the short shinobi of Team Phobos sat down on a nearby rock before turning away from Mana struggling for her life.
Whenever she wasted chakra to kick or strike Gasco with her elbows the man's own chakra augmentation countered it by toughening his body. Her strikes were completely useless against a much stronger physically opponent. Only once Mana realized how fruitless her struggle was, how this feeling of creeping certain death which she would experience for almost half an upcoming hour would be prolonged to eternity by that freaky dark feeling which Gasco carried around him her brain started working separately from her own body.
"I… Need… Help…" the magician begged her own mind to cooperate, sometimes talking to her own body in her mind helped. She'd have never given her opponent the satisfaction to beg them, judging from Doma's words he hated ninja that were incompetent in his eyes and such begging would've only made him angrier and made Mana seem more incompetent. Meiko and Kiyomi needed her help… If only she could've found Kouta… Kouta… Where was he?! Mana's eyes closed focusing on her slowly fading mind instead.
An influx of oxygen sieged the magician's chest. Like a thirsty person being thrown under a crushing tide of water all at once she began coughing and shaking, the space under Mana's eyes began pulsing madly as her blurry and dark vision started to slowly return.
"Hey, what gives? Now you'll have to choke her all over again…" Doma complained at his teammate.
"We can't kill her." Gasco shook his head, the magician heard his loud and wide footsteps thudding away from her. This man was done with her.
"What? Why not!?" Doma shouted out before jumping off of the rock he was on and running after his teammate.
"Maybe because it's just good sportsmanship not to kill people just because you aren't forbidden to?" Stea sarcastically cheeked her teammate's obsession over killing people he saw as useless ninja.
"No. That's because she's a rare breed, she'll be a very useful kunoichi to her village in the future." Gasco's voice still reached Mana, the surprise that his words invited made her struggle back on the magician's feet and stumbling after the trio just to hear what was it that Gasco felt.
"What do you mean?" Doma wondered, all malevolence in his voice disappeared in an instant. He stopped and looked back at Mana with a whole different set of eyes, less bloodthirsty and enraged and more curious.
"She's a sensor. That's why her signature felt so weird and was so recognizable to me, tell me, girl, I feel different than other people, don't I?" Gasco's low pitched and rumbling voice thundered out as he also turned at Mana.
The magician nodded after a short confused delay.
"Sensors are able to tell if the chakra signature belongs to a sensor, it feels like that person is eating up the chakra that one's body emanates and spits it back out. Her abilities are still undiscovered and latent that's why I wasn't able to feel them initially. Then she turned them on subconsciously and I felt it clear as day, she must've sought someone using her entire essence, cleared her mind in her desperate plea for her life. Remember what you did, learn that ability. It's what very few ninja have…" Gasco explained before putting his hood back on and concealing his creepy bald head.
After a surprised but somewhat vibrant shrug Doma also concealed his tattooed face under the hood, Stea also followed hiding her silver locks. The trio dashed away, they had no further use for Mana at this point.
The magician crawled on all fours to the nearest tree, her body collapsed right after the dark and scary feeling from Gasco disappeared completely and nothing but whistling forest winds and rustling leaves were left as her only company. Mana closed her eyes and lifted her chin up, truthfully that revelation sort of did make sense. Didn't her meditation work very weird recently, displaying some strange images of stars and space-like imagery. It must've been some sort of symbolism, the spacial imagery must've been some strange way for her body to use the sensory ability that was beginning to bud inside her.
She only saw those strange moving stars whenever she moved past her entry-level meditational stages. Mana closed her eyes and focused onto her own body before calling out to the surrounding environment, calling out to Kiyomi, Meiko or Kouta like she did when she felt like her life was slowly being choked away. In a loud blazing roar a bunch of stars materialized in front of her in the total blackness of space. These must've represented chakra signatures, the size of these stars must've symbolized the size of the chakra signature.
"I can see three of them one by the other…" Mana spoke to herself inside her own mind. She saw the stars at least lightyears away from her, that must've symbolized her sensory range, at this point she had no idea about the proportion of her mental imagery and actual distance she sensed the signatures in. At least it was a clear indicator of where she could've found ninja. The signatures were south-west from her whereas Stea, Doma and Gasco moved north-east, they belonged to someone other than Team Phobos.
Pain brought the magician back to the world around her. Once again her sensory abilities disappeared and she was left with the five senses available to her from birth. Even with all the hard work and training she did in preparation for the Exams or before trying to become strong enough: strong enough to catch up to her peers and the world around her, strong enough to change the world and make it better than she found it after being born, even with all that, she still needed training. Training to sharpen and blossom her chakra sensory abilities, training to perfect all of her concepts for new techniques.
It felt like being smacked in the face by a dirty wet blanket… But still, she was alive, she had a sense of purpose and the next clue.
"Wait, Meiko… Please. just wait a little bit longer." Mana mumbled under her own nose while pushing herself back on her feet. Her head still felt dizzy but it didn't look like her wrists were bleeding or the scratch on her chest was something serious.
Slowly, one step after another, Mana headed south-west where the next chakra signature clue tipped her off to go.