A quick metallic clang signalled the beginning of the clash between two teams from two different villages. The exhaust pipe-like extensions of Laoch's armor hardened and extended outright before bending in half at Team Hokage's direction. It was a rather slow manner of attack suggesting it being some sort of a setup or a distraction of a more complicated combination.
Light emanated from the deeper end of the cannon-like armaments as a beam of superheated Fire Release flames spewed out at the general area of the Team Hokage. Instinctively expecting to be targeted Mana leaped aside, feeling the heat from the blast as it extended and erupted into a dome shaped explosion with intensity and heat matching that of the genin's previous attack. The immeasurable heatwave from before was no outlier, it was a hellish reality of what had to be overcome.
Mana saw Kiyomi gracefully bouncing from one branch to another away from the multiple dome shaped and still expanding explosions. Mana stopped not wanting to retreat too far. As the domes of fire and smoke disappeared Meiko stood right in the center with her shield placed with in front of her. She appeared to choose to block the beam's intensity by only taking the damage from the explosion, choosing not to open herself up by moving away and dodging the blast. Her slightly scorched clothes and singed skin suggested at least some damage being taken from the explosion that surrounded the shielded kunoichi.
Hearing the noise of rustling waters behind her the magician leaped up without looking behind. It was a risky strategy but it allowed her to avoid taking some damage from Clarmac's repeated Kraken Fang. They used the same strategy as before – allow Laoch's overwhelming blasts to distract their enemy and make them scatter before Clarmac picked them off one by one. Deargli's role in this was still unclear as the young woman remained still and standing in her place with an apathetic expression and a completely open to attacks stance.
Kiyomi appeared to have noticed it as well as she threw a pair of kunai at the kunoichi to move her, just to scope out how she'd deal with a little heat from a simplistic attack. Without a doubt the Yamanaka had hoped that Deargli would reveal her abilities to some extent, clearly not having expected to be targeted for an attack when her teammates represented the clear present danger to the enemy team.
Laoch moved in with his wide armoured hands placed together in a primitive blocking stance allowing the steel knives to just bounce off of his greaves. A barely audible clicking sound alerted Kiyomi of danger. She instinctively tried to move away allowing her adrenaline to command her body to some extent. Sharp pain in her arms and legs alerted her that she's been tagged. A visual observation of the pain cause allowed her identify the problem – a handful of senbon launched from Laoch's armour during his block had successfully hit her.
Senbon were very peculiar tools. They were tough to see in high speeds, large for a needle but very thin for a projectile. They didn't do much lasting damage unless they hit a very precise vital point of one's body. It took a very knowledgeable of the human anatomy ninja to successfully utilize senbon, Laoch didn't remind Kiyomi of one and seeing how she felt no ill effects that usually followed a successful use of senbon showers she must've been right with her presumptions. It was merely a tool to cause her pain and make her think twice before repeating similar attacks in the future. With a rude pull Kiyomi yanked the needles out, grunting in pain as a pair lodged deep enough to hit some bones which was never a pleasant feeling, a small stream of blood trickled down the affected areas.
Laoch was overly proud of his successful protective action to notice the fact that Meiko's buckler dug right into his cheek throwing his entire body in a stumbling spin around his axis. The blacksmith's hand went through some hand seals, remarkably fast, one may have added. It appeared that the redhead had taken some lessons of Mana's in hand seal speed in mind. Triggered by Meiko's sealing technique the sealing glyph on the buckler lit up triggering a fairly weak explosive blast that further threw Laoch off his feet and tumbling down below.
Meiko was relatively skilled with sealing techniques but her low ranking seals couldn't have contained too much chakra in them. That was too bad since her move may have actually caused some damage to both opponents had she sealed more chakra into the seal placed on the buckler.
"Don't rush after him!" Kiyomi's voice ringed in Mana's mind.
"I know. I'm not moving one inch…" Meiko's calm mental response followed.
"It didn't look like he took too much damage from that. May need to hit him harder than that." Mana let her own observations be known.
"Above you!" Kiyomi's alert reached Mana in time, a tiny bit earlier than the magician would've naturally heard her friend's response usually and went through the hand seals. The magician hopped back avoiding the crashing Kraken Fang from above that tore the tree she was on like a rolled newspaper in a shredder sending small wooden chips at every direction and forcing the magician to hide behind another tree.
Mana reached into the hat while holding it with her teeth and weaving a hand seal with the other hand. Her hat lit up with dark blue hues as the seal inside it opened up and the magician pulled out the wand that was made by Meiko before. She hadn't had much time to practice with that thing yet but she'd need it. A particular set of techniques came in mind as very useful to the magician but she remembered that it required a chakra channelling tool. Normally a simple kunai would've sufficed, but Mana wanted to try something stronger, more efficient and conducting to chakra moving through it.
"She pulled it out! My wand!" Meiko's shrieking wand almost made the magician grasp at her temples as it caused moderate headache but she couldn't help but crack a grin at her friend's excitement.
The magician noticed Clarmac resuming his technique, she once again leaped off from her branch onto another continuing to move further away from the relentless barrage of Kraken Fang assaults as he continued to aim to beat the magician down with it. Her free of holding the wand hand weaved a pair of one handed versions of the normal hand seals used by ninja as she swung her wand around, feeling the surge of lightning chakra moving through her body and through the wand, wasting not a single ounce of it… Audra steel was amazing.
"Magical Shock Jutsu!" Mana yelled out pointing the lit up wand at her opponent and firing off a beam of Lightning Release chakra at her opponent. It was a fairly simple and not overly powerful technique with relatively short range of around nine meters, and yet, range was of no matter here, when her opponent was closing in on her and trying to chase her down.
Once the beam hit the tunnelling water stream with Clarmac rotating inside it, the whole damned thing lit up with lightning bolts firing aside. Oftentimes with concentration good enough a Water Release user may have overcome the natural weaknesses of water like naturally produced electricity or intense heat that'd have evaporated it all in a second but this was no natural weakness – it was all ninja magic.
Not too long after the Kraken Fang was hit by Mana's response, the formation of water simply exploded like an explosive kunai was detonated from inside. The Inuzuka inside of it plummeted down clearly having taken some damage but Mana knew it wasn't nearly enough to keep someone like him down. A lot of her arsenal was fairly outdated, techniques created by Mana when she was just a child with high naïve hopes of pacifying her enemy with weak lightning bolts. It may have hit a sweet watery spot and multiplied the effect greatly but it was still not enough to keep a decent ninja down.
"Don't get too excited, Suppressing Fire Barrage!" Laoch's voice broke Mana out from her little moment of joy as the armoured genin managed to sneakily get on a branch below and unleashed fire of kunai at the magician from his gauntlet devices that appeared to function like multiple automatic kunai dispensers attached to his boulder width arms.
Step by graceful step Mana leaped away and hid behind trees trying to evade the suppressing stream of bladed hell unleashed on her. A painful scratch to her back suggested that the blades were launched fast enough to pierce right through even the thickest and toughest of trees that grew in the Forest of Death. To make matters worse, loud sounds of steel rubbing against itself alerted the magician of worse problems to come as Laoch's shoulder cannons once again aimed at her and fired off fiery jets at her as well.
The magician's hands went through a bunch of hand seals and she breathed in deep. Had the fiery blasts simply been fiery projectiles they'd have been easier to dodge but they weren't, they flew up into the air before reaching max altitude and plummeting down. That made Laoch's assault especially dangerous because it required to focus one's attention at the bombardment from above while the endless sharp hell of kunai storms continued to be fired from other directions.
"Rebellious Twist Jutsu!" Mana yelled out while blowing out all of her air inside her lungs and starting to spin against the direction she was blowing it out at. A weak vortex of wind chakra formed around her, just strong enough to deflect even the most intense ninja tools launched at her at the highest speeds. That still left the downfall of fiery doom to deal with. A loud blast above following a great fiery light emanating downwards suggested that it was no longer Mana's problem as Meiko, having once again regained her buckler, jumped up and blocked the fiery projectiles.
The force of the blast still flung Meiko down at great speed but the blacksmith stopped herself by digging her buckler into the tree besides her and breaking her fall, or at least minimizing the damage and speed of it since she still ended up hitting the ground below somewhat. The shield's attempt to break the fall had only cut the tree open deep enough for it to collapse down and cover up the devastated area from Laoch's initial explosive pillar of fire.
"I've got your back…" Meiko grinned with a dirty face and slightly singed hair. Her shield appeared to have taken some punishment as it had turned black as coal in its center expanding like a star of total darkness to its edges and darkening its initial emerald color.
Mana nodded in gratitude before sensing impending danger and turning behind. The danger always came from behind as being caught off guard was the easiest way to deplete the ninja's chakra reserves, augmentation without control and fuelled by surprise was always the most wasteful. It was the difference between carefully picking the pennies from your wallet to pay the exact price and randomly grabbing a bunch of bills and tossing them at the clerk.
Luckily enough Mana found just enough time to shove her wand down the throat of Clarmac's kind of cute yet scarily adult dog – Basto. The dog whined in shock of having a hard metallic tool shoved down its throat and kicked off of Mana before pouncing away into darkness again. A loud explosion from where the fight initially started made Mana and Meiko turn their glances at it, flipping back a couple of dozens of times, Kiyomi appeared from the cloud of smoke before grabbing a weaker branch to break her mad acrobatic swing and landing not too far from Mana.
"Didn't you say you could summon ninja rabbits? How about evening the odds a little bit?" Kiyomi suggested while panting a little as the show of acrobatics before clearly cost her some air in her chest.
"Not worth it…" Mana linked her thoughts. "The only rabbit that shows up is Zoku-chan and he hates me. If I call him every time emergency strikes I will never earn his respect, plus if I summon him and he refuses to help I'll have wasted a whole bunch of chakra on a B-Rank ninja animal that just kinda sits around and looks cute."
"Ninja animals, am I right?" Kiyomi cheeked it.
"Wait, you can summon bunnies!? I wanna see!" Meiko's cheerful voice once again summoned headaches for everyone listening in on the mental link of the three.
After looking around and realizing that she won't be this lucky to respond to Basto's attacks from behind consistently enough, and if she doesn't – she'll likely have her throat in between its jaws, Mana had to reconsider. She playfully flung her wand in the air before biting her thumb and placing her hand inside the hat after flashing through a whole bunch of one handed seals and lighting it up once more.
Soon enough the magician had to quickly move her hand out as Usuzoku simply dove out from the hat and landed on a branch beneath Mana's.
"Are you serious!?" his angry voice rumbled out. "I was in the middle 'o my trainin'!"
"Sorry, Zoku-chan…" Mana blushed before rubbing her messy hair. "I thought you guys choose who comes out of the hat…"
Usuzoku, completely ignoring Mana's wonders, sniffed the air with his cute nose. "Izzat a filthy mut!? Izzat a mut I smell!?" he shouted out before grabbing the handle of his blade that hung on his back.
"Eh… It's cute, I guess… Not my kinda cute though. Not sure what I was expecting, really. Don't like pink fluffy things too much." Meiko shrugged.
The enemy team just stared in shock at the actual rabbit that was pulled out from the hat. Neither one of the ninja present there was actually categorized as a B-Rank threat. As such, Usuzoku clearly demanded the enemy's full attention.
"Actually I believe Basto is quite well smelling for a dog…" Clarmac raised his voice at Usuzoku. "Plus, don't you dare play the big badass here, dogs hunt rabbits, that's common knowledge…"
"Tsk…" Usuzoku played with his tongue inside his mouth, he was clearly pissed beyond belief that he was summoned again but the desire to kick a dog in the teeth was too alluring. "I'll have ye hatchlin's know I hate filthy mutts… I'ma kick 'em in de teeth and den be on mah way!"
"I am grateful, Zoku-chan… Although… I thought you hated centipedes and mongooses." Mana scratched her chin trying to clearly draw the circle of the species Usuzoku hated. If he cleared that out for once, maybe she'd know exact opportunities to summon him on.
"Don' even get me started on 'em mongooses!" Usuzoku growled through his front two chompers before pulling his sword and taking an offensive stance.
Kiyomi giggled right beside Mana, "Yeah, this guy's weird enough to be your summon…" she let it out on the mental link.
"Alright, ye bastard, ye son of a lots-a-fleas! Come at me!" Usuzoku yelled out as he leaped behind Mana and straight into the darkness of the forest. Clarmac only gulped in worry of what difficult fight awaited his canine friend.
Leaves right below Clarmac rustled intensely before Deargli landed right beside him and extended her hands over the burnt areas and injuries that the Inuzuka had sustained.
"Mystical Sealing Variant Palm!" she uttered as her hands lit up with black and red light instead of the usual greenish emerald hue of most medical techniques.
Trying to interrupt the healing Meiko tried to leap at the duo but fiery beams from Laoch's cannons stopped the blacksmith by firing right where she would've been had she carelessly jumped at them. Kiyomi pointed both her arms at Clarmac who was being healed.
"Mind Body Disturbance Jutsu" she shouted out aiming her technique carefully. A miss would've left her exposed for easy counterattack for far too long for comfort. Using blue flame jets in his boots Laoch once again dove in to block the technique with his own body. A loud howling sound echoed through the forest area before the strongman turned with a backhand smack at his teammates knocking both of them aside.
Still holding her hands at the extended hand seal position and struggling to keep control of the brutish genin Kiyomi grinned. The healing session was interrupted successfully and now she had a puppet under her command for a brief while.
"I'd appreciate some protection for a while." Kiyomi uttered out loud as she probably couldn't keep her mental link running as efficiently as before while struggling with this B-Rank technique. Just the fact she could use it at all was fairly impressive for her rank, then again, having her higher than usual genin experience and skill in mind it was of no surprise at all.
"Alright…" Mana nodded stepping up front and allowing her wand to light up lightning release chakra and beginning to emanate the Audra's signature coloured glow. Similarly Meiko hopped up a couple of branches to get to a better position to intercept any unexpected attacks coming at her teammate.
"As long as I can keep this hand seal going, he's my puppet. He's resisting so if my concentration wavers, like if I get hit or something… He'll break it himself. He's pretty strong and I'm not too good with this jutsu yet, just holding him like this is pretty rough…" the blonde smiled feeling proud that she gave her opponents no other choice but to protect their teammates by shielding them with their own bodies.
"They won't be holding back anymore, they need Laoch, Deargli is a supporting ninja so they'll lack offensive without him. They'll pull out all the hidden techniques now to get him back. Get ready." Mana tried mentally getting herself there as well.
"Yeah, but now their focus should be split, they won't be one-tracked on taking you out, Mana. This is a good thing, as long as it lasts…" Meiko grinned.