As it would not have been too tough to imagine, Mana was afraid. She was just crazy enough not to be absolutely shaking in her sandals, however, facing off against twelve ninja at once, even if it was unclear how many of them wanted to go at her, with only a lesser amount of her chakra still useable was one of the toughest challenges she had faced. In fact, the girl had considered herself so mad that she couldn't accurately tell if it was just a challenge that'd push her abilities and quick thinking to its edges, or if it was outright a suicidal plan.
"What'll be suicidal is when I'll face these odds on the field, placing myself in between actual enemy and ally teams", Mana thought to herself as her eyes carefully observed both of the frozen in place alliances. "If I cannot shoulder all of their hatred and all of their violence and stop it, there's really no use advancing to the next stage", she concluded.
Where the Hoshigakure teams appeared to be somewhat hesitant in attacking Mana, the Sunagakure team showed no such hesitation. Daseaut dragged his left foot backwards, preparing for a powerful dash, or so Mana had read from his movements from just what she had seen. The female blacksmith girl, reminding Mana painfully of Meiko, or rather, a more exotic, western version of her, pulled a scroll out of her large pocket and placed it in front of her, letting it unravel.
"Hey, they can't be serious, attacking that girl all at once"? Relta looked back at Gorm who looked back at his teammate just as confused.
Alemyat's puppet pulled out. As Mana's eyes tried to follow the dangerous bladework of the grotesque mannequin, a strong punch from an attacker from the side tossed her back and rolling off her feet and aside. Her eyes blacked out, screeching noises and child's laughter were all the things Mana heard, just blackness and bright stars popping in her eyes but the girl powered through and pushed herself up on her feet.
Puppeteers should have never been this strong! Mana did not expect a puppeteer with such focus and training in taijutsu – such speed and skill. Puppeteers were supposed to be frail and focused on precise chakra control and crafting their intricate puppets, not powerhouses in their own right. As Alemyat's punches and kicks further pummeled Mana, giving her few chances to properly evade or counter his attacks due to her impaired vision, hearing and dizziness that made it hard to stand, let alone use her acrobatics to evade much of anything her sensei's words ringed in her ears.
"In the field, when facing a puppeteer, always target the puppeteer himself. Puppeteers are usually pretty frail and powerless when hit, also you'll always disable the puppet by beating down the puppeteer and even if you get poisoned by their weapons – most of them carry antidotes on them in case they get some of their own medicine", the mid twenty year old said to a class of children. Spoken by a man who had spent no time at all in the field, a man who had read about Ninja Arts from a book and attained a degree in them by talking about them, drawing from someone else's experience. Mana was not ready…
Alemyat's puppet dashed at Mana from behind, a strong punch made Mana stagger backwards, by the time the magician's eyes fell on the puppet it may have already been too late as its sharp elongated fingers extended to pierce the girl's back. It would have been a lethal wound for a normal human but only a disabling one for a ninja. Mana had no luxury to be disabled, she had no right to cry or complain about how difficult this was – it was a life she had chosen, stand in between both sides of the conflict.
The girl's hand pressed onto the puppet's shoulder as she graciously flipped back and over it, avoiding having an entire arm pierce through her body. Mana's body staggered as even after landing firmly on her feet she struggled to stay that way. Blood trickled down from her cracked forehead onto the left eye, the right eye was beginning to swell up again. Just one attack, she withstood just one attack…
"Power Strike"! She heard a noise come from behind her, another one was coming after Mana. The magician turned back and leaned her body backwards, avoiding a body shattering headbutt coming from Daseaut generating his odd wind sphere technique in his feet and propelling his body off the ground at the enemy at a break-neck pace.
A forceful shove at the ground made Mana roll aside from her exposed laying position on the ground to avoid a large blob of oil from covering her. Bukhande – the third member of Team Shahryar to join in on trying to knock Mana out and get her out of their alliance's way had unsealed a massive tube-shaped cannon mechanism that fired liquid oil-like substance, attempting to soak Mana in it. It would have taken an utter idiot not to know what she intended to do with oil, the magician could not let her land as much as a single drop on her.
A rumbling noise made Mana groan in frustration – Faeras, one of the Hoshigakure genins leaped in to cut her into shreds with his massive chainsaw sword. At least the blasted toy Meiko wanted to gander at so much earlier made so much noise that it would have been impossible to catch the magician unprepared with it. Once Mana picked herself up on her feet, avoiding the massive and sluggish weapon was not outside even what her out of breath and weakened self could pull off.
"Faeras"! Rosanna yelled out angrily, disapproving of her teammate's ecstatic and blood thirsty manner of attack. Mana didn't bother trying to hit him back with a counter attack – she was saving up her strength for her intended ace, it was not like she could leave a dent in his fresh, chakra augmented body with her out of breath puny strikes anyways.
"Haven't you caught on to it yet, Rosanna"? Bennow grunted as he placed his hands together, ordering his summoned murder of crows, aptly named Murder, collectively, to swoop down from their resting positions up above and right at Mana. Once the crows approached close enough they all dispelled with a poof of smoke, surrounding the magician in a blinding cloud that naturally came as an aftereffect of certain jutsu, such as Summoning Jutsu, in this case, when ninja animals were summoned or un-summoned.
"She's the one, Nakotsumi Mana of Team Hokage, one of the Team Hokage which eliminated Laoch, Clarmac and Deargli", Gorm recalled suddenly as he pressed his fists tighter, for a moment purple, foul chakra rose up from inside the boy, cloaking his entire body in it while it emitted a nasty shade of salad green in glowing aura. However, the young man calmed himself, controlling his deadly to himself ability and restraining it for a better time.
"Wood Style: Double Helix"! Rosanna yelled out, smacking her hands together as two wood structures rose out from the ground inside the large cloud, created by Bennow's crows disappearing and aiming to restrain Mana as they coiled in a double helix shape.
All twelve ninja stood with an uneasy feeling and observed the cloud of smoke where their desired distraction was last seen in and where she now stood supposedly restrained. Faeras screamed out maniacally, charging into the cloud of smoke with his roaring chainsaw blade, swiping at the double helix madly.
"Faeras, don't be stupid"! Bennow raised his voice, something he rarely did but he did not want the insane Konoha girl to end up dead in this, that much warranted an unusually energetic reaction from his part. Luckily for his intentions, the chainsaw blade only cut through chakra infused wooden double helix structure and thin air, scattering the cloud of smoke and dust as well in the process.
"She's gone"! Bukhande yelled out in surprise.
"She must've retreated, why would she bring this up on herself to begin with"? Gurker Gliesse pondered as he uneasily looked around, trying to determine if Mana was insane enough to try and sneak up on one of them or if she had actually withdrawn and was reasonable.
"Genjutsu: Sweet Lullaby"! Mana's voice mellowed from an undetermined place inside the dark green of the Forest of Death. As her soft and sweet whistled tune echoed through the battlefield all of the ninja found themselves entranced by the girl's tune and completely frozen in place. Overcome by unearthly pleasure of all of their bodily pleasure centers firing off at once, they quaked and quivered, some even fell writhing on the ground.
"B…B-Rank… Genjutsu"? Bennow groaned, struggling to even breathe or speak as he writhed and clawed at his own skin, trying to cause enough pain to overcome the pleasure, pain was one of the genjutsu cancelling effects after all, as a genjutsu user the crow summoner knew it. Still, the intense pleasure served as a painkiller as well, no matter how much blood the young man drew and how deep his nails burrowed into his own skin, not an ounce of pain was significant enough to overcome the beginning stages of Mana's genjutsu.
As Mana sat tight in her position on a lower branch of one of the trees, having found a chance to slip out once she realized what Bennow was doing with the crows and used the smokescreen to her own gain to slip out, she was beginning to realize the severity of the situation. Sweet Lullaby was an immensely powerful technique – subduing as many people as many of them heard the tune she whistled, sung or hummed. However, pleasure was a curious thing. The human body got used to it very quickly, where in the beginning stages no one was able to move or do much of anything – as time passed they'd be able to weave hand seals, even dispel her illusion of beautiful sights, divine smells and majestic melodies that affected all of those under her genjutsu.
Her choices in this case were slim. She could either jump out of her cover, carefully, without using her chakra augmentations so that she did not disturb the calm and steady genjutsu lock she had everyone in, take everyone out, one by one, or she could have kept still and waited for her illusion to time out. Eventually her genjutsu would end: be it by her chakra draining too low to keep it up, her opponents getting used to its effects and finally managing to break it or a different factor entirely. Either way, the problem was time.
Mana told those teams she would take all of them out if they did not stop their irrationally massive brawl. Do so skillfully and painlessly, as it was her nindo. So far, she had managed to calm it down a bit by engaging everyone and locking them down in a time-out of sorts. If she was to try and actually beat the enemy who hesitated, underestimated and even made fun of her, she had to harm them actively, going out of her way to injure them. Mana did not want that. Therefore, she kept on sitting calmly, holding the lock in place. Despite knowing exactly how she would lock the hostile alliances down, Mana wondered if she truly thought this whole thing through.
Mana kept sitting still, she saw the affected genin easing down before their bodies regained a certain degree of mobility. A few moments later, a number of larger aquatic looking masses on Tankobaji's body imploded into gooey liquid and ran down his body. It did so like it was nothing but a puddle of water. Slowly, one by one, each member of each separate alliance was regaining an amount of their mobility and raising their shaking hand up in a hand seal position. They were preparing to dispel Mana's illusion.
"Dispel"! Bennow grunted, being the first of the entire group to overcome Mana's illusion. While he identified being under a genjutsu long ago, his body only recently regained enough freedom of movement and control to actually fight back. His prowess of illusionary techniques must have helped him out to be the first one.
Once the genin stood up, he bit his thumb and went through hand seals. Mana knew what the collection of hand seals was – it was the Summoning Jutsu. She may have engaged the escaped genin but it would have been detrimental if not foolish to do so. She was worn out by all the previous fights and struggles to escape captivity. Even once she started out back then, she had only about half of her total chakra level brought back by the pills.
"Seppuka, find her"! Bennow commanded ordering a much larger crow with an exotic black, purple and silver colored feather pattern. Whereas Murder was a collection of relatively normal looking, if a little ravenous, crows, Suicide was more akin to what a partner ninja would have summoned looked like.
"It was pretty smart of you to lock us in a genjutsu together. Overcoming a high-ranking illusion requires a high input of chakra, higher, without a doubt, than the cost you had to pay for the technique. Seeing how you want to stop us from fighting this way, I'll assume tiring us out by forcing us all to dispel your illusion is how you plan on achieving that"? Bennow confidently theorized, calmly observing Suicide swoop up in the air.
Mana wondered just how would the large bird go about finding her. After all – Mana hid pretty well. Needless to say, the bird was far too large for a head-on assault as it struggled to even maneuver around the thicker layers of upper Forest of Death trees. It was then that the large bird cawed harshly, while the sound was blood chilling, it did not disturb the concentration needed for Mana to maintain the genjutsu.
Then the oddest thing appeared to happen, it was almost like the crow's intense caw forced it to shed a couple of handfuls of feathers, sending them like sharp projectiles, piercing random angles and locations all around it like large rods falling from high up. Still, neither of them appeared to come even close to Mana, could to fire away randomly have been his plan? Why would he be so reckless with his approach?
"Genjutsu: Suicide Sphere"! Bennow chanted, slamming his palms together as he activated the illusion.
"The feathers are a medium"! Mana realized as she swiftly closed her eyes. Luckily enough, she managed to do so before the genjutsu initiated, or so it seemed at that moment. The magician decided to stay mindful of her environment in order to identify any potential changes that'd betray an illusion.
"Wood Style: Hand Tool Manipulation"! A feminine voice ringed in Mana's ears realizing that Bennow had counter on the magician identifying a genjutsu medium in time and closing her eyes – in fact he wanted that very thing to allow his teammate to attack when her guard was down.
It was too late. Sharp pain made Mana scream out in pain and lose concentration of her illusion as she plummeted down from the top of the tree she sat on. A brief glance at her shoulder allowed her to identify a wooden kunai, made entirely of Wood Release chakra and therefore brimming with more chakra and hardness than a regular steel kunai having lodged deep inside. The Senju girl probably aimed to trap Mana by placing the wooden knife in her artery – a trick she herself once used, long ago. Luckily enough, she missed due to having a very unclear idea of where the magician was exactly. It was merely a flesh wound at that moment.
The real trouble was that the hostile alliances all got released from the genjutsu at the same time. Whereas Rosanna had to not only use chakra to break out of Mana's illusion but also her own Wood Style technique, which had to be pricy, the rest of them got released by Mana simply failing to maintain the high ranked illusion.
A loud and powerful booming blast came from the direction opposite to Rosanna, just as Mana was still in mid-air, having hit another branch very painfully and bounced off of it, continuing her fall. The magician remembered that noise – it was that "Power Strike" technique – that intensely powerful sphere of chakra.
As Mana fixed her falling position to prepare to possibly intercept the incoming enemy, or at least try to control where she would be hit, she saw more and more of those spheres form in the young man's palms and down on his feet. The boy used the first two spheres to propel himself at break-neck speeds right at Mana, to waste no time or give her no breathing space to evade, where now he formed four more of those incomplete spheres in both his palms and feet.
Mana realized painfully that this was it. There was only one thing she could have done – the Substitution jutsu but no object would have come in mind, not only that but she wasted too much time on the very thought of if violating her shaking principle of using someone else's techniques. Bit by bit, the racing Sunagakure genin was coming closer, there was nothing Mana could have done but brace for impact and hope not to die...
"It was a noble effort", she thought.
A booming howl absolutely overwhelmed Mana's ears, shortly rendering her completely deaf. Something was wrong, she wasn't in pain, besides her bleeding ears that gave up before giving Mana any trouble for being in pain. The "Power Strike" barrage never hit Mana. As the rotating expanded storm of Wind Release chakra cleared out somewhat, a brutal yet, in a way, absolutely awesome sight of a blonde wearing a long cape, with six mechanical puppet arms punching wildly at each continuously forming "Power Strike" her opponent threw at her met the magician's eyes.
"I see it now…" Gurker smiled, "He uses an incomplete early version of this high ranking jutsu because of the way he uses it. He does not just form one sphere, running at the enemy with it. He attacks forming entire dozens of them, using them and their unstable force naturally to complement his fighting style. It's why he needs not utter the jutsu's name until he uses it at a certain later stage"! The young man yelled out for the sole reason of feeling absolutely at awe at two genin, the cute six-puppet-armed brawler and the Sunagakure Wind Release sphere ninjutsu user continuously wailing at each other with everything they had until a blowback of exploding chakra from a more concentrated stage of "Power Strike" tossed both genin apart from one another.
Mana observed the resolution of the clash between the mysterious six-armed genin and Daseaut from the comfort of tough yet feminine arms and a familiar goofy face. That of Wakizashi Meiko who had managed to catch Mana successfully.
"You're such a meanie! Ruined my hands fending off that technique of yours"! The blonde complained, whining out loudly and slightly dipping the cool impression Mana had made of her.
"Calm down, Nanaba, your opponent, in his desperation to blow you away, wasted a lot of chakra. Work with that for now", a voicebox enhanced, almost cybernetic voice calmly exclaimed as yet more genin joined in on the battlefield. Amongst them was the mechanical armored genin, who, as Mana assumed, was the one to speak with a voicebox, Kiyomi and a very unexpected face to see.
"Sugemi", Mana muttered before Meiko carefully put her down and helped her stand up, before reaching to yank at the wooden kunai stuck in the magician's shoulder.
"Please don't, it'll be better if we remove it once we can properly treat it", Mana asked after moaning in pain from her teammate's unexpected initiative at yanking the thing out.
Sugemi's face did not look happy. While Mana felt glad that her friend had arrived with Team Hokage and that the team finally regrouped and joined in together, something told her that only more fighting would come out of her attempt to minimize the pain and suffering from all this fighting.