"We're closing in on the summoner." Kiyomi's thoughts echoed in Mana's mind through the link. "I think Team Cirrus are working on the flaming sword guy."
"Wait." Mana quickly interrupted her friend. "She's got something. Some unknown ability, don't fire anything at her just yet. Try picking off the medical ninja first. I'll hold Corot here for a while."
"The numbers are on our side. If she summons something else we'll lose that advantage." Kiyomi tried to object.
"She reflected my genjutsu back at me somehow. Just think of what if that's an ability she can use to reverse your clan hijutsu. It will definitely make everything worse unless we learn what exactly happened there." Mana angrily snapped back at her friend.
An uncomfortable pause took over the link. For a moment there it was difficult to tell if the link was active at all. A short "I'll leave you to it then", issued by Kiyomi, ended the pause after the Yamanaka finally understood how much worse the situation could've gotten if Corot's abilities weren't properly analyzed.
"If that's true… You won't be able to use ninjutsu or genjutsu against her, can you do it?" Meiko wondered with a seed of worry in her thoughts. The signal was getting weaker as the two retreated slightly to assist Team Cirrus in picking off the splintered ninja of the Iwagakure alliance.
"It has to be me. I need to understand how her ability works." Mana firmly replied. Truth be told, the realization of the fact that she was left with nothing but her almost emptied card supply and entirely defensive and reactive martial arts style made Mana's heart skip a beat whenever she thought about it. When she put this plan together she really didn't realize what she was signing up for, it was ironic that the least analytical member of the Team Hokage brought this down to ground level.
A thud made Mana's eyes snap back open. She leaped off of the cover of the tree she was hiding behind. A kunai could've been tossed fast and hard enough, provided it was made as a custom order from tougher stuff than the bulky commons, to pierce right through even the toughest of wooden materials. If this specific kunai got stuck it could've meant only one thing – such was its purpose and the only kunai whose purpose was to be stuck to a barrier in the way was an explosive one.
A powerful blast scattered larger chunks of wood, several got stuck in Mana's flesh or scratched her shallowly by grazing by. The girl insisted and suppressed her chakra augmentations on purpose to save up some chakra and not to further kick her network out of balance. She knew that it'd hurt but she was in the safe zone, technically, her limbs wouldn't have been pulled apart at that distance, having reacted so early.
The magician extended her arm to stop her fall and swing off onto another branch a bit higher up. This time certain miniscule augmentations needed to be used, else her shoulder would've popped out. Sure, a more physically intimidating ninja may have pulled something like this off with just their physical training and impressive agility and strength but Mana was a different kind of ninja.
"I need to see Corot, get to see her up close. I need to see her deflect my jutsu, see if it's a weapon, a seal or a jutsu of her own." The kunoichi thought for herself. Her hands flashed through more hand seals. Her palm lit up with bright glow of concentrated chakra. By itself it was absolutely harmless, even if Mana punched someone with this glowing hand it'd have done no additional damage than just punching them normally. This was the one of the first illusions she made up but she rarely, if ever found a use for it. She never needed to be crappy on purpose…
There was a first time for everything. Mana dove down, using her unenhanced palm and her legs to swing from lower branches or to slow down her leap. She could pick up feint sounds of footsteps after her. There were certainly people used to a more mountainous environment, they walked like heavy machinery. They wouldn't have bothered of leaving traces behind, somewhere deep in their minds they were still walking not over the mossy brittle wood but on mountain rocks and minerals. It was something instilled, something learned and kept deep in one's subconscious. It needed to be eliminated and done so over time.
They weren't loud, the toughness of the ground their feet treaded usually warranted one learning to step silently. That being said, complete disappearance to a ninja's ears and eyes was something very few ninja could do. Most just accepted the common Academy training in stealth and variated very narrowly off of it.
Right after Mana's feet planted firmly on the mossy and wet forest dirt she quickly looked up. She couldn't see anything. They were fighting like ninja were supposed to, they'll try to pick her off. Yes, they. The footsteps Mana heard before, the rustling of leaves was too widespread, too rapid. There had to be multiple ninja involved in this.
However Mana wasn't planning on getting taken out by textbook techniques. She placed her glowing hand onto the ground and after her palm was lifted the glow stayed and flared momentarily. It was too weak a glow to signal someone but it was certainly direct enough to attract attention – genjutsu needed a medium to be transmitted. Sometimes the user needed to attract one's attention with an unusual object, a sound, often enough a glow sufficed. It was very useful for illusion using ninja to utilize such unusual environmental details – most ninja had remarkable perception and details rarely evaded their senses. That could've been used.
The glow on the ground faded completely. Feeling shock that her illusion didn't work Mana looked down. It wasn't reflected back at her like before. The illusion just ended. Mana could even feel it in her network – the illusion no longer demanded further chakra input of her. It was over.
A sword pierced Mana from behind, all the way through the chest. The magician's eyes widened in pain, tears ran down her cheeks before the entire frame shook like a bag of skin filled with fireflies trying their best to let loose before her body dissolved into flowery petals.
Mana couldn't let this opening go unpunished. Her mind raced trying to remember which of her pockets still had cards she hadn't used before. Just to give her more time to think she threw a pair of hook kicks, striking at her taller opponent using her upper leg before wrapping her leg around his neck and leaping over him. She landed a pair of palm strikes, targeting Hafred's nose. Anything to make his eyes tear up and mess up his precision with that sword.
The swordsman swung his blade around but he was just a cornered and desperate opponent. Mana could have probably dodged such desperate swipes even as she was still a depowered civilian. She had hoped that her greater than usual experience in the field before taking this exam would've helped out before this all started. This was one of those few moments where she felt a bit more skilled and experienced than her opponent. His nose was burning from being slammed and cracked, his eyes were teary. Not ideal conditions for prime swordsmanship.
Four small equestrians rammed straight into Mana's side. They were so fast, so silent. So that's why Corot wasn't here to back her friend up – she was still hidden, trying to conceal her uses of Summoning Jutsu and whatever skill allowed her to cancel or deflect back opponent's jutsu.
Mana gripped her sides as a taste of blood made itself present in her mouth. That must've been a pretty nasty impact, she wasn't expecting it. Even with elementary augmentations she only managed not to immediately get splattered and still took some damage inside. That blowback force from the iron skulls of those blasted ponies sent Mana sliding back and rolling all over the dirt, she had to augment her body in several places to avoid breaking bones needlessly in that powerful blowback.
Still, for someone granted an almost free hit on an unsuspecting opponent engaging in combat with another ninja so that said ninja didn't recover and attack more efficiently, those little ponies carried little kick to them. A higher rank summon would've easily knocked Mana out with such a successful hit.
This was good… Those two were so thrilled by hunting down Mana that they forgot that two of their alliance mates were now taking on five other genin.
"Is that all you've got?" Mana asked taunting her opponents. She needed them on edge, even if together they could've easily injured her or sidelined her.
"Corot, I'm going back to supporting the others. Your Folkrumnir counters her abilities the best, keep her away!" Hafred yelled out finally having come to the same realization Mana had come to. As the swordsman rushed up and away at immense speed, his Iwagakure teammate took his place. Now that she showed herself Mana realized what changed in the formula – she held a round, green and brown buckler in her arms with variously colored diamond and flower shaped enhancements.
This weapon must've been the means of deflecting and absorbing Mana's jutsu. While the magician was overall quite satisfied with her level of experience and skill in this exam, this encounter reminded her that she could've used having a technique to destroy such weaponry. Surely nothing of the sort could've been used in exactly identical situations, seeing how any technique would either get absorbed or deflected back at Mana, in general, an ability to destroy weaponry would benefit her greatly.
"A lightning bolt could do… But it'd have to be intense enough to be qualified as a B-Rank ninjutsu and I don't know if something like this could be learned easily." Mana thought to herself as Corot remained stationary and watching Mana. The kunoichi knew exactly why this was so, while Mana previously avoided showing off her abilities, what little she had shown and had deflected must've already made it clear for the summoner that she'd be unable to beat the magician. Her goal was to stand there and keep Mana from aiding her team.
After a brief stare-down of the two girls, Mana just fell on her butt and relaxed her back. Corot turned her head in confusion before lifting her shield up and holding it tighter to her body, the ponies also surrounded her in a closer circle, wary of somehow being tricked.
"What're you doing?" Corot asked, judging from her voice she was almost afraid to ask it, almost like the magician's revelation as to what exactly made her so relaxed and confident would reveal something terrible, something that'd just make it all hopeless for the Iwagakure girl.
"Backing down so both goats can pass. The difference is that while I'm going to pass second, I'll be passing to facing more stubborn goats whereas you'll be headed to a freedom. Although given how our society works – I'm supposed to feel like a big winner here!" Mana sighed.
"What do you mean? Explain!" Corot demanded as her ponies lowered their heads and prepared to charge for another painful tackle.
"Your goal is to keep me here – that's fine by me. Your shield blocks any low ranking techniques I can throw your way, you've efficiently restricted most of my options here. Fighting you hand to hand would make me spend too much effort, I don't know if you've noticed this but this forest is all about the economy of effort." Mana explained.
"So, if you submit, nothing stops me from beating you!" Corot took an aggressive step forward, "I could join my team and help them, they need all the numbers they can get!" she slowly reduced the space between herself and Mana.
"True. But we both know you can't beat me. Your ponies are a low ranked summon, I have experience with summons and higher ranked summons cost a load of chakra and aren't too cooperative with genin summoners. These guys would never touch me and you know it. You could summon some aid but I wonder how much chakra you've got left after summoning that B-Rank amphibian horse and these D-Ranks, plus unsealing your shield. The shield also takes its own chakra cost to use, doesn't it?"
"Don't assume to know anything about my Folkrumnir!" Corot warned Mana, she stopped moving in and her eyes appeared to be getting rid of their aggression as well.
"I know enough. It has two special abilities, both of them cost chakra to use, like a technique of their own. That's how weapon abilities work, right? It can either absorb and nullify or deflect back a ninjutsu or genjutsu technique, right? But not only it is limited by rank, you also can't choose which of the two the shield chooses." Mana smiled trying to befriend the Iwagakure kunoichi.
"And how do you know that?" Corot sat down as the ponies around her poofed away, returning to where they were summoned from.
"Well, the first genjutsu I've used was Hell Skewer Jutsu – a very specific imagery based low ranking technique. If reflected I'd have easily identified my own technique which I did and dispelled it. A smart kunoichi would've instead chosen to absorb it and make me think you're incapacitated, luring me in for a surprising counterattack. The second one was Many Faced Jutsu – a technique that creates mirage-like genjutsu copies of me that appear from the light on the ground, your shield absorbed it instead of confusing me with copies of you appearing. Something like that would've simply baffled me and given more chance for your comrade of catching me by surprise. The odd choices gave your shield away." Mana slowly and in detail explained it to the Iwagakure girl who just calmly listened, with her shield still raised up and placed in between Mana and Corot.
"What about the rank of the jutsu it affects? You've only used low ranking illusions, how would you know how it affects a higher ranked technique?" Corot wondered. By now she realized that Mana had a bit more experience than her and was more curious than wishing to escalate a fight between them, especially given that the magician submitted so easily to just sitting this one out.
"A shield that affects all ranks of any abilities would simply be too powerful for a genin to wield. A village would not entrust a tool so priceless to a genin who is as likely to die in battle against a more powerful enemy as they are to accidentally lose it. Then there's the unwritten rule of chakra usage – commensurability. Usually to dispel or break a technique a chakra input matching it or greater needs to be applied. You'd simply not possess the chakra to wield a tool capable of such a wide reaching ability. I was completely assured of it when your shield failed to affect my Flower Petal Sanctuary Jutsu which is a B-Rank genjutsu technique, it also didn't affect Kiyomi's mental link technique, my guess is because it was used before the shield was unsealed." Mana shrugged.
"You're right. About almost everything… Folkrumnir is a shield entrusted to me by my grandfather and you've pretty much pinned down what it does. However the cost of chakra to use it doesn't come from me, the shield feeds itself from the jutsu it absorbs." Corot admitted.
"That's a pretty strong ability. Let's keep it a secret from Meiko – the armored teammate of mine. She'll be all over your shield if she finds out and will probably try to challenge you for it." Mana laughed out.
For a brief minute Corot shared that laugh before getting serious. "Why didn't you keep fighting? Don't you wish to support your own alliance? With your experience I'm sure you'd have beaten me eventually."
"I already told you – it'd have been pointless. I'd have wasted chakra, I'd have gotten injured and injured you. Before I used to not like fighting in general, now I really despise pointless fights. Plus, my team isn't used to fighting alongside Team Cirrus, I'd probably just have gotten in their way." Mana replied, slipping back in her memories to how she was before meeting Guru Ayushi and Hanasaku-sensei. Where Tanshu wanted to make a killer out of her, without compromises, Hanasaku and Ayushi tried to just shift her ideals into a more favorable direction creating the Mana that she was right now.
"So then there's a point in stopping us from beating Team Cirrus?" Corot pondered.
"Several." Mana nodded.
A party of ninja approached Mana and Corot, the six were surprised to see Mana and Corot just peacefully talking over things. Inaba, Quill-B and Junipu-R appeared to be mostly alright, so were Meiko and Kiyomi. They had several small scratches and bruises but nothing major that a little rest couldn't fix. Surprisingly enough Steinck also followed the temporary alliance of Team Cirrus and Team Hokage. He held on his shoulders the knocked out bodies of the other alliance mates of his.
"I'm sorry, Steinck. If I'd have come to rejoin you – she'd have followed and rejoined the enemy." Corot apologized her alliance comrade.
"It's fine. She must've realized that there was no need for her to be there. Somehow those five knew to focus specific targets. They just sat on our asses until they landed the successful hit." Steinck grunted angrily while looking away, clearly ashamed by his loss.
"Mana told us how to fight, the Team Cirrus guys knew which people were whose actual teammates." Kiyomi triumphantly smiled. She looked at Mana and nodded, her eyes were much softer than before and it looked like while the deep insult of the magician choosing to betray her own comrades rather than her ideals still hurt, Kiyomi was willing to look past it.
"I see. So you've eliminated the two members that were both members of separate teams, seeing how the alliance was made between two teams with one eliminated member in each – further fighting is now pointless. Corot and Steinck are from separate teams. I was too busy analyzing their abilities to think of such a simple solution." Mana admitted with a smile.
"Me and Erblau were members of Team Monazite. Seeing how Corot's Team Rutile is also from Iwagakure we kind of knew each other. We've both lost our teammates early on so we could've used each other's help… We lost our genjutsu user – Kepdur, Team Rutile lost their ninjutsu powerhouse – Vespiga. I guess alliance was ultimately just a temporary solution that prolonged the inevitable." The towering genin angrily admitted to himself as he was clearly frustrated over getting eliminated from the exam.
"Well then, now that we've helped you survive the attack of Iwagakure's alliance unscathed, I want to challenge Junipu-R to a one-on-one fight." Mana nonchalantly declared. "Junipu-R is my target."