The first couple of seconds after the fight ended Meiko looked around, worried that Othello's team would lash out and jump at Kiyomi. From where Meiko was standing, Othello G beat her friend up quite badly and the Yamanaka would not have been able to defend herself properly. With such an explosion of anger being completely by the rules and legal, the probability of it only increased.
After those chilling couple of seconds of silence Sunny Lee sighed disappointed by the outcome before moving back a bit and letting Meiko rush in, as Anaron dispelled himself, also to catch Kiyomi in her arms. It looked that the Yamanaka was able to stand on her own but the angle she was falling in looked pretty bad so the blacksmith's body just acted on their own.
Kiyomi rubbed her face into Meiko's left side. "Never let go, Meiko" she dreamily exclaimed before the blacksmith jumped back, accidentally letting the blonde fall on the ground. Rubbing her aching head and elbow, hurt when Meiko's instinctive jumping trigger going off caused the Yamanaka to get dropped. Kiyomi stood back up on her feet chuckling to herself.
"Come on, let's see your wounds. Sunny, you're gonna tend to Othello"? Masen-Z wondered asking his friend.
Sunny just nodded as she ran at a casual pace to her teammate before smacking her hands together.
"Wood Style: Static Cotton"! She chanted out as four buds of wood burrowed from deep underground as well as few more from up above, making short work of the incredibly tough minerals that made the walls, ceiling and floor of this Snapper-Ant cave. The trees quickly burst their buds revealing a large white cotton-like substance that then parted off of their source and floated in mid-air, emitting lightning sparks in their static state.
Carefully the cotton chunks forced themselves under Othello G and lifted him up. It was more than likely that Sunny Lee was well able to lift her teammate herself, even given his respectable weight, still, her decision to instead use the Senju bloodline ability of Wood Release revealed that she considered that technique a lighter strain on her chakra resources than trying to lift her teammate with her natural strength.
Once the static cotton wrapped around Othello G it appeared to stick to the man as if he was magnetically attracted to it. Maintaining the hands locked into the hand seal position, Sunny Lee strolled to the Snapper-Ant nesting pods with her teammate floating carefully by her side as the lightning sparks coming off of the cotton appeared to electromagnetically levitate off the ground.
"We should just go", Kiyomi suggested, even while Team Cumulus were quite polite and nice she felt like she should've stayed around as shortly as possible. Maybe it was just her own uncomfortable feeling having just butt into their day and beaten Othello G, eliminating him from competition, but she didn't like sticking around the cave for too long.
"Nonsense, in your current state you're far too slow. You'll be keeping Meiko down and you may get attacked halfway there. You're already one member short and you are injured, what are the odds of Meiko fighting off any attackers alone"? Masen-Z objected.
"He has a point, let's just stay around shortly and then we can go to the gate and finish the exam. We have nowhere to rush now, we've done it"! Meiko energetically cheered on Kiyomi after encouraging her to heal at least a little bit.
"It won't be that short of a time. Even elementary patching may require hours. These nesting pods have a very useful secretion being emitted but aside from a tremendous amount of stem cells inside of it and other useful elements for regenerating and growing new tissues it isn't a miracle cure or anything", Masen-Z brought Meiko down to reality. "Just lay down inside and relax, try to get some sleep, there are some relaxing chemicals being released inside there too so you may just get some rest done"!
As Kiyomi laid inside the horribly uncomfortable, bioluminescent, bright green pod and felt the warm and gooey substances being emitted she thought that she'd have never laid inside anything like this under any other circumstances. Now, with all of her innards, bones and joints hurting, with her voice still raspy and husky, with her muscles burning and her chakra reduced to less than third of her total pool, a little disgusting smelling and feeling goo was the least of her problems.
"Othello was really unfortunate to face your friend", Masen-Z smiled. Even while his face showed content he was clearly disappointed that his friend had lost.
"Huh? I'm pretty strong too, you know, I'd have beaten your friend too"! Meiko objected feeling a bit offended by Masen's implications.
"No, you don't understand. She knew all of Othello's moves, it was evident in the way she fought. She gave Othello no opening for a What-What at all, even when Othello tried balancing the scales by damaging her body, disabling her ninjutsu, she managed to come out on top", Masen-Z shook his head.
"This "What-What", is it really that strong of a move? I've been hit with a lot of tough moves, I'm pretty confident I could take it", Meiko pouted, still feeling a bit competitive about the implication that Othello would have beaten her.
"No one who has been hit with it has ever stood back up. It completely breaks most of the body's bones. It's a certain-win move. Still, it's no use if one can't find an opening to counter with it, like all powerful jutsu, What-What has a counterbalancing weakness. It's best used when the opponent doesn't know about your presence or is too reckless and wide open", Masen sighed.
Meiko just dreamily looked up in the trees that burrowed from up higher, close to the surface. By now, the trees had begun to rot away slowly before collapsing to dust. Seeing how chakra gave them life, without its support they could not survive being completely encompassed by rock hard minerals. Seeing those trees rot made Meiko remember the Academy, back when the kids were taught that higher rank Senju clansmen were able to create entire forests that did not rot away without chakra input at all.
"Maybe I do need an equalizer of sorts", the blacksmith pondered to herself, recalling her conversation with Masen-Z as well as the fight with Lithia's team before.
"What in the holy shit are you two losers doing"!? As pretentious as it was loud yell penetrated the peaceful moment of rest, making Meiko's sleepy eyes shoot wide-awake and have her jump on her feet and running at the source of the noise.
"Wood Style: Static Cotton"! Sunny Lee jumped in to protect her still recovering teammate with surprising ferocity. The kunoichi flashed through hand seals and unleashing a large forest of smaller in size bushes erupting from the floor and ceiling and unleashing a larger concentration of much smaller cotton chunks than before. All of the cotton projectiles rushed at the unknown trio of opponents who had entered the cave through unprotected previous cave and the corridor of disabled traps further back.
One of the trio, dressed in baggy pants and wearing odd armored boots and chest armor that extended over the ninja's upper body, wearing an iron plated mask with red eye pieces and a breathing device of sorts, extended their hands forward unleashing a powerful wave of steam that incinerated the cotton up to the smallest speck of dust just from the intensity of the heated steam alone.
Dashing from the side was Masen-Z, jumped into his newly repaired and slightly updated Gear-Man armor. A heated scorching red sword extended from his arm piece as he aimed to slash at the trio of invaders and shake them off. The invader from the right jumped in to meet his advance, right as the caped blond haired girl closed in six mechanical arms appeared from under her body-covering coat as she unleashed a steel bending flurry of blows straight to the core of the Gear-Man armor.
Grunting from the power of the blows Masen-Z skid back, thrusting his heated sword into the rocky floor to stop his throwback force before his tall robot armor got thrown into the back wall and busted up most of the nesting pods. The blond girl then graciously leaped back to her position to the right of the trio.
"Can you just stop this shit and listen"!? The invader from the center yelled out as he pointed at the Konoha headbands on the center of the well-armored genin's forehead to his left as well as one on the head of the blond haired girl with six mechanical arms added to two of her own to his right.
"Nara Sugemi"? Kiyomi's voice, now sounding slightly more feminine and healed after a good handful of hours of regeneration inside the nesting pod, yelled out in surprise as the Yamanaka crawled out of the pod. She didn't leave the pod because she felt rejuvenated but because of the sounds of fighting made by the interaction between Sugemi's team and that of Team Cumulus.
"Yeah, it's me, calm the fuck down, will ya"? The Nara scratched the back of his neck, "Jeez you guys are trigger happy", he complained afterwards.
"Well, your introduction wasn't very polite", Meiko shrugged as she looked at Sunny Lee and Masen-Z with a reaffirming glare, suggesting them to stand down.
"Hmph, maybe we better pack up and leave this place. It's becoming too publically accessible for my taste", Sunny Lee bitterly noted as she settled down on a rock and waited to hear what Sugemi and his team had to say.
"To be honest, one has to work through kilometers of dirt and rock, then, swim through a freezing lake and into an underground stream to even end up in the cave system. How was I supposed to know it'd become so crawling with people"? Masen-Z laughed out after he jumped out of Gear-Man. The boy then loudly lamented the dents in the frontal area of the armor before picking his tools and preparing to fix them. A little bit more and those punches could have drilled right through the most armored part of Gear-Man and that alarmed Masen-Z as well as informed him of the strength of that Konoha trio.
"We were looking for Team Hokage for a while, we knew from quite recent information exchanges that you two were supposed to be around here but we didn't know where exactly. Then we met Lithia Uchiha climbing out of the cave and learned a bunch of things", Sugemi shrugged.
"Like that Lithia Uchiha is a stuck up bitch", the blonde from his right remarked bitterly locking her normal, fleshy hands around her chest.
"So what do you want from us? Don't tell us that I am your target"! Kiyomi wondered out loud.
"No. I just wanted to know why you left Mana alone to be kidnapped and bargained for a shitload of supplies to other teams"? Sugemi calmly asked before a vein began popping out from his forehead suggesting a massive rage impulse raising up.
"Wait… Mana"? Meiko's jaw gapped from surprise.
"That's right, I know that in my time I wasn't the best teammate for one of my childhood friends but at least even at my worst I never forgot about her existence"! Sugemi shouted aloud as a bit of his pent up rage began spilling over the top.
"I mean… She was… Knocked out, by the way, we didn't leave her behind. We got attacked and separated and we just… Assumed she was taken away by the staff because she was out cold", Kiyomi looked down in disbelief. She just could not wrap her head around the fact that for some reason, despite being completely knocked out, Mana was still not removed from the competition, at least according to these three.
"Wait, what!? She was knocked out"!? Sugemi took a step forward at which point he was stopped by his heavily armored and covered up teammate from his left. "You guys are seriously the worst teammates, and I'm including the asshole that I was to her before in that assessment", he cursed after painfully lowering his head. It was clear that Mana and Sugemi still had issues to work out that the Nara boy was suppressing.
Snakes burst from underground, wrapping around Sugemi from out of nowhere, reaching in for a complete lockdown of the young genin's body. And yet the "What-What" could not have been completed, the reason why could've been observed once one looked down and noticed a long string of shadow extending from Sugemi and all the way to the massive lump of flesh and muscle who had emerged from his pod. Sugemi may have struggled to keep Othello G paralyzed under normal circumstances but with the wrestler's weakened state he was still fair game.
"Who the fuck are you three"!? Othello G thundered out, roaring like a proud lion and trying to toughen out through his injuries that were still evident even after some time resting.
"Ah, my name's Nara Sugemi, this armored fellow is Daidao Deiji – the Five Tails' Jinchuuriki and the other one's Nanaba Aomyaku – the Seven Tails' Jinchuuriki. We're a special team from the Eden Correctional Facility with special permission from the Sixth to participate in the Chuunin Exams - Team Hawthorn", Sugemi calmly introduced himself and his team, upon being introduced each of his teammates bowed respectfully with the Nara remaining the only one unbowed.
"Now, maybe you will consider not attacking us, please"? The girl Jinchuuriki of the Seven Tailed Beast – Nanaba bowed once again respectfully upon which request the "What-What" snakes withdrew and slithered back into the bushy cover of Othello G's chest hair as well as his boots and his trunks before disappearing there.
"Two Jinchuuriki"? Sunny Lee scratched her head looking a bit overwhelmed by the fight she very nearly picked. The casualty at which the information was relayed as well as the contents of the information surprised her equally. Usually Jinchuuriki – the people inside of whom laid sealed dormant the Tailed Beasts were a guarded secret and a treasure for each Ninja Village to have. Like a human weapon of mass destruction.
"That is correct, we may be Jinchuuriki owned by Konohagakure but we are also ninja, not just prisoners. We are usually located in Eden for our own safety, not due to criminal activity in our past. It is useful for the village to train us as well as rank us up once in a while", Daidao confirmed with his voicebox enhanced yet calm in tone voice.
"Can we just get to the matter why we came here"? Nara angrily shouted out before crossing his arms around his chest.
"Ah, yes, your Mana. Please, carry on, Sugemi", Daidao bowed.
"She's not mi… Look, whatever, the point is – you guys must've missed something because the information we got from one of the teams we spoke with was that Mana was kidnapped when you three weren't around and she's being bargained for a caravan-load of supplies", Sugemi explained. "The worst part is that the info is solid, we have no reason to not trust this team and we've confirmed it with yet another team".
"But… Why would they even care enough to kidnap Mana"? Meiko wondered, "She's just a lifeless, knocked out body".
"Because she wasn't eliminated, for whatever reason", Kiyomi realized before scratching her chin as her mind raced to develop that thought, "A passing by team finds a body, one that's been knocked out, but sleeping peacefully all by itself and yet not eliminated. That'll raise some questions – she's valuable as a possible bypass of the rules. If a medical ninja examined Mana they may determine why she wasn't removed despite being knocked out".
"Wait, examine? You mean they'll cut her open"!? Sugemi freaked out.
"That is a possibility, Team Hokage is widely hated by the other teams so subtlety is not a necessity with those teams. Wasn't there that whole huge thing about a bounty on your heads"? Sunny Lee suggested.
"That asshole Pagu will probably donate his liver just to get to cut Mana up, that stupid asshole, always taking jokes too far"! Meiko grinded her teeth.
"Wait, that's a bit of a logical leap, don't you think"? Kiyomi smiled.
"Oh yeah? Do you even know Pagu Aphonei"? Meiko freaked out before beginning to pack up all her tools and things that she had unpacked during her brief stay. She was in a rush to find the team that had kidnapped Mana and wanted to bargain her off.
"Wait, Meiko. If we go look into this – we may risk needlessly. We've beaten our targets, all we need to do is walk out the gate now. Even if we recover Mana, we can't be guaranteed she'll even be allowed to continue", the blonde tried to calm the blacksmith down.
"Excuse me!? We're talking about Mana! She crossed half the world to save you from your fucking arranged marriage"! Sugemi jumped up and started rolling back his sleeves angrily, intending to punch the Yamanaka right in the nose. His calm and calculated proceedings were stopped by his armored teammate.
"Wait, arranged marriage"? Meiko squinted at Kiyomi.
"Technically, I wasn't entirely opposed to that marriage, she went a bit rogue on that one but… Fair point", Kiyomi looked away, feeling ashamed slightly by her calculated leader's approach to the matter.
"There is logic in what Kiyomi Yamanaka says, her team has won. Anyone looking for Mana's body will likely have to fight through numerous teams and is very likely to be beaten up and eliminated. There is zero use in risking one's life for a dead-weight teammate that's already out of the exam." The mechanical ninja explained.
"Daidao-kun, please stop talking this way. This is mean for poor Mana-chan"! Nanaba shrieked out horrified by her teammate's words.
"Nanaba, I merely am stating that this Yamanaka is a capable and logical leader. We are wise to rank her possibility to rank up very highly", Daidao shrugged.
"I can't fucking believe it"! Sugemi yelled out. "Fine, you just run away, tuck your tails and go. I made Mana suffer enough way back when, with my words and my actions. I'm gonna go there and beat everyone up even if I need to fight off the summit of all of the teams present here, I'll be the kind of man manga are written about"!
"Wait… We're going too", Kiyomi sighed after picking up her things and quickly waving her farewells to Team Cumulus.
As a leader she had to weigh the pros, the cons, the advantages and disadvantages, the risks and consequences of each action her team performed. This action was profoundly stupid and yet… It felt like that was what needed to be done. Just looking at Meiko's face it made it feel like the right thing to do. Meiko promised Mana and Kiyomi that she would protect the two, she wanted to pay back the favor of getting the blacksmith through the first half of the exam and for sticking to the promise not to give Meiko up during her injury.
While no sane leader would have agreed to take up this madness of a hunt, who was Kiyomi to deprive her teammate of a promise she had made. Technically, it was justifiable even from a leadership point of view – a happy teammate was a teammate who would coordinate better in the future. While Mana's well-being meant a lot to Kiyomi, she had to delve deep into her own mind in order to make up excuses for sticking to this hunt for Mana's unconscious body mission.