The silver snake with the multiplying ability leaned back for another strike. Before Mana could snap out of her train of thought and register the upcoming attack, the creature was rearing its fangs and coming at the bunch. It must have noticed Mana's straying and wandering eyes and registered it as its cue to attack.
The magician started moving too late. These snakes were incredibly fast and dodging their attacks after the initial moments of their muscles tensing and air slipping from their long bodies in a petrifying hiss seemed near impossible. The girl felt a rough impact on her side, it was nothing like being chomped by a massive grey snake should have felt like. That was because that was not the source of the force.
One of the rabbits managed to push Mana away from the brunt of the attack. A dark-furred and battle-scarred thing with five knives in each hand. Given the rabbit's finger-situation, it was a remarkably skillful way to wield such weaponry. The silver-grey reptile was fast enough to adjust its approach, it turned its head at the final stretches and repurposed its lunge into a slam of its body near the head that blasted both of the two away.
The two grunted in unison and flew spiraling back. The other two picked up on the cue as the two singled out targets flew out from the tight defensive formation. The large air-streaming snake displayed the impressive bone growth on its tail and hummed in the creepy tunes of air entering the hollowed end and getting infused with the reptile's chakra.
"Wind Style: Barrage Air Bullet!" It hissed out sending a bunch of compressed air projectiles at the direction of the flying back targets.
While the air-projectile using snake was busy finishing off the stray targets that were knocked away by its ally, the poison-spitting one got busy with the remaining rabbits and Kouta, watching them so that they did not come to the aid for their displaced friends.
"Water Style: Exploding Venom Wave!" The snake hissed out while its long, dark body blobbed up into an almost spherical shape. Once it opened its mouth again, the source of its enlargement was revealed to be a massive mouthful of a purple liquid that quickly shaped itself into a large sphere after leaving the snake's mouth.
Mana could not think of anything else but the kindness of the rabbit that saved her and how it saved her from harm while damning himself with her because she let her guard down against an opponent the likes of she had not faced yet. The feelings of freefall and wind passing through her skin and ruffling her clothes were her only links with consciousness.
Even that final link was lost. A smashing blunt force that felt like being blown back off one's feet and the painful shock of slamming back into the mineral wall behind her made everything fade into black.
A rabbit of a feminine build who did not yet have a chance to show off her skills stepped in front of the rest of the formation and threw her chest out after a handful of hand seals. A powerful stream of chakra passed through her body, channeled into a sealing glyph on her forehead. The rabbit quickly swiped her arm over the area before throwing the mass of chakra at the massive bubble of venom trying to swallow their party up.
"Summoning: All-Mirage!" She chanted out as the mass of chakra finally finished summoning a golden, ancient-looking horn weapon with a long mouth that spanned in a spiral all around it where ridges of the horn would have normally been.
The bubble of venom erupted into an uncontrollable tsunami of acidic venom but the horn appeared to grow in size as well when confronted with such a manner of expansion. The wave of death stopped moving while it whirled all around the ridges of the ancient horn. The gaping mouth of the horned weapon slurped the weapon inside the infinite storage space and into oblivion.
The colliding kinetic energies of both attacks appeared to have been sufficient to nullify each other so the female rabbit just pressed her hand into a knuckle. This made her All-Mirage that was spinning back and falling into the outer core below disappear into a mass of chakra and return to her hand before running back into her forehead and scattering into a glowing aura all over her body, before even those signs of All-Mirage faded away, before the legendary weapon was called for again.
"The legendary All-Mirage… So the rabbits still do have some worthwhile relics…" The venom-spitting serpent appeared to almost chuckle in amusement, despite having failed in swallowing the party of rabbits in its bubble of venom.
"Stop messing around, Vasuki. Where are the other two rabbits!?" The dirt-colored, black-striped serpent with the bony growth that fired projectiles of compressed air hissed out loud in acknowledgment that two rabbits managed to slip off of the platform while the female rabbit was busy dealing with the venom bubble.
The disappeared rabbit finally flashed back onto the platform, holding both Mana and the rabbit who got injured assisting her. Now that the warrior rabbit stepped into the center of attention, its peculiar cat-like features became more prominent, namely its wide, floppy ears, its lack of a tail and the elongated and highly elastic limbs that helped it move much faster and with more cat-like grace.
"Mana-chan needs help…" Kouta brought up, looking at the blood running down Mana's face and dripping onto the rocky platform. The magician must have been too dazed and injured to use one of her illusions to escape the attack and the rabbit team was too pressed together and busy to assist until after the venom was dealt with.
"Not now!" Usuzoku growled out. "We can't just keep defendin' we need to bring it to 'em!"
"I'm afraid I must agree with Usuzoku." The All-Mirage wielder nodded. "As useful as young master's abilities would be ta us right now, we 'ave little time ta waste".
"We cannot just rush in either… All of those bastards are crazy powerful. We need to coordinate our attacks." The rabbit who used stone shards before to deal with the snake clones added.
Usuzoku was already gone by the time the rabbit finished his sentence. The rest just sighed in frustration before leaping off the platform and after their intended targets. They shared the three amongst each other in mid-charge.
"I shall assist Usuzoku!" The All-Mirage wielding female rabbit assigned her own role.
"Human, assist me with the air-streaming bastard!" The rabbit who previously used Earth Release asked Kouta. The medical ninja had to alter the direction of his movement in mid-air slightly to better adjust for the requested position, luckily his foot morphing chakra jets were just the ability needed for the job.
"Usuvilme, can you move?" The cat-like rabbit inquired the injured rabbit who quickly jumped to his feet. The trio comprised of him, the cat-like rabbit and the rabbit with large ears he used for striking all attacked the remaining serpent.
"Yeah, the bastard focused its Wind Style more on the girl than me." The knife-wielding rabbit nodded before pulling out another set of knives to wield from his back pouch and moving in from the front.
"Usuchabi, take the left side, I'll strike right!" The other rabbit commanded the plan of attack to the cat-like rabbit who just nodded and changed direction.
One advantage that the defending party had was their smaller size. The snakes forced themselves into tight and shut caves that were long since forgotten and used their natural abilities to slip through and sneak up on their prey. However, most of their bodies were now using those same caves for support, limiting their mobility somewhat. Until the snakes slithered out of the caves and began using chakra to stick to the walls of the cavern, they were fish in a barrel.
It was not hard to piece together why the snakes were hesitant to do just that. Their bodies were massive. That meant that they both had to use more chakra for their Academy-grade techniques, but also cover more space with them as the more of the contacting area there was to cover with the Art of Tree Climbing, the more chakra it consumed. Seeing how snakes got everywhere by slithering, they would be straining themselves just to stick to the walls of the cavern.
Kouta's hands lit up with blue chakra flares as he roared proudly while delivering his attacks. His intention was to bust the air-streaming bone growth before it could be used to do more damage to his allies or the platform that held Mana's seemingly unconscious and injured body. While the air-streaming snake attempted to bite and swallow the boy whole multiple times, it deserved a pair of good punches to the jaws to properly daze it.
That was when Kouta delivered his most important strike. Focusing a powerful jolt of chakra into his right, the boy threw a strong downward cross at the exposed bony growth after the snake appeared to be off its game and swinging its busted head about. A strong bash threw the boy away and smashed him to the mineral wall. He smacked his head pretty hard against it, realizing just how it was that Mana's head got busted open as badly as it did – that wall was harder and denser than anything Kouta felt before.
"Stop worrying about the girl, get your head in the game!" His rabbit ally scolded the boy, noticing the slip in his speed and his wandering eyes as Kouta delivered each punch. He must have had some impressive fighting experience to realize that Kouta's heart was not completely in the game.
"Earth Style: Stone Fist Jutsu!" The rabbit yelled out after throwing his arms into the hard minerals and letting them encase the limbs. Like a wild animal, the mammal then continued to throw wild and unfocused blows at the snake's general direction. It was not targeting the snake's bone-growth at all. They were too disorganized…
Despite that, the space for the snake's maneuvering was too limited, the rock-fists too massive and the snake was too dazed already to defend itself properly. The rabbit's stone-fists continued to wreak havoc on the snake's head, smashing it open and letting goopy, dark red substance drip from its eyes and mouth, similarly to how Brownback bled in his own time.
"Heh, not bad!" The snake hissed out before throwing its bone-growth up again and firing a stream of air from it. The stream appeared to intensify while it was going, the air kept coming in and it was increasing at an alarming rate.
"Wind Style: Eruption Breakthrough!" The snake bellowed, completing its jutsu that was properly set-up and masked by just a normal wind stream. The airwave intensified so that it covered the entire cave and pushed the rabbit all the way to the other side
"He was not a close-range combatant…" Kouta realized. He was a bit relieved to see that after hitting the wall on the other side so hard, the rabbit managed to recover and that he was getting ready to rejoin the fight. "He's adapting to my style… We need a strategy". He realized. His eyes once again wandered off to Mana who was lying peacefully on the platform with a small pool of blood beginning to gather beneath her head.
It did not take a medical ninja to realize that was a bad sign.
With a strong leap, assisted with his chakra jets, Kouta leaped back onto the platform and kneeled over Mana, preparing to treat her. His rabbit partner covered his fists with rocks again and leaped back at the air-streaming snake before getting blasted back again before he could make the whole leap. Luckily, it was a weaker airwave as the snake did not have the time to channel a larger one yet.
"What are you doing!? Help me out, I can't handle an A-Rank threat alone!" The rabbit yelled out at Kouta from his small crater on the other side of the cavern.
"Hold him off, please. This will not take long. Just fight him your way." Kouta insisted while his hands lit up with emerald green.
"Mystical Palm Jutsu." He whispered doing his best to treat the busted head of his girlfriend. She may not have been the strongest out of them but she would know what to do. She had to…
"Cotton Rush!" The rabbit with the fluffy airs yelled out as he bent his head forward and thrust his ears in rapid succession, using their immense size at their ends to hammer at the snake while manipulating his chakra flow to have the ears harden at the striking area.
"Many Hidden Shadow Snakes Jutsu!" The clone-using snake hissed out, leaning its head back as it displayed its bottom side. A swarm of snakes identical to their summoner appeared from the exposed area in an instant and utilized their tremendously short lifespans to rush at their opponent and attempt to bite into their ears or, at the very least, block their rush-attack.
The snakes and the rabbit's ears continued to work one another, the reptiles hissed out and tore to shreds of snakeskin and flesh upon getting hit by the rabbit's ears. Eventually, the offensive overpowered the snake's improvised defense, resulting in a landing of some very stiff looking blows on the clone-using snake.
"You broke through! Keep going, Usupari!" The rabbit's knives-using companion encouraged his ally. Fueled by this encouragement, Usupari pressed on, continuing to strike with his ears. Before the advancing striking offensive could land some key shots on the snake's head, however, the previously cloned snakes began wrapping around their master to soften the hits it took.
Frustrated by the lack of notable progress, Usupari was forced to retreat and look at how successful his comrades were, judging the situation on its full picture with the option to assist his friends remaining intact.
"Careful, Usuvilme, those snakes from before are still around!" Usupari warned his ally just in case they did not notice. Usuvilme was keeping a long distance and using his knives to try and land a good ranged shot on the snake's eyes, its nose or its mouth but none of this worked as whenever he thought he'd land it, the clone snakes scattered around the area slithered up and took the shot for their summoner.
Out of nowhere, a long, aquamarine colored tail wrapped around Usuvilme, catching it in place even in the safety of a longer range. The cloning snake soon turned its full attention to the subdued rabbit rearing its fangs and striking at it. This time the breakneck speed at which Ninja Snakes delivered their lunges was not present, however.
"Summoning: Giant Boa!" The silver-scaled serpent hissed out. Its body rippled as if it was made out of liquid of some sort as two identical in color but different in shape heads peeked out from its sides, effectively transforming the silver serpent into a three-headed wonder for the short duration of its strike.
The cat-like rabbit jumped up in front of the three-pronged attack, swiftly moving its limbs around in an impressive string of redirections as well as chops to the front of the advancing heads. Confronted by the flurry of limbs and a skilled and painful taijutsu defense, the boa heads withdrew back inside their summoner and the core head had no option but to move a bit back as well. The defending rabbit then used her impressive feet to kick off of the withdrawing snake's head to repurpose her momentum into a diving kick.
With a deafening thud, the cat-rabbit made the giant, aquamarine snake tail that had restrained its comrade loosen and become flappy before turning back into a small, white serpent and attempt to flee, only to be finished off by Usuvilme's accurately placed knife.
"Thanks, Usuchabi." The knife-wielding rabbit breathed in and out while stretching out its muscles.
"Anytime," the cat-like rabbit grinned with a cheerful smile and a playful gesture. Her composure faded in an instant, her personality completely changed the moment she or her friends were not in immediate danger.
"What a strange ability. This one morphs itself or its clones into any shape or size of a snake it likes…" Usupari cursed with tired eyes. It took three average ranked rabbits to even entertain this beast. Its might must have closely approached if not fit the skill of what ninja classified as an A-Rank summon.
On the eastern side of the cavern, Usuzoku leaped at Vasuki, he lacked the support of solid ground under his feet, something he could have used to boost his speed with his strong lower body. The rabbit raised its massive sword in the air, instead of directing it at Vasuki immediately and forced it to spin by releasing it above its head. Right before hitting the snake head-on, Usuzoku pressed its paws against the other end of the sword and pushed it forward while it was still spinning, using it as a make-shift drill.
"Murder Drill Jutsu!" The rabbit yelled out, attempting to skewer the venom-spitting snake with a direct attack.
Unexpected to the attacking rabbit, Vasuki opened its mouth, revealing another massive, purple bubble of venom building up inside it. Startled by the chance of getting completely swallowed in it, the rabbit thrust its blade up, switching its intended target with a blind thrust at the wall above it. Behind him, his ally attacked using All-Mirage to swallow up the bubble but was forced to evade the beast's jaws as well when Vasuki lunged out of its cover inside the cave.
"Don't get reckless. Vasuki is stronger than both of us. We are buyin' time 'ere." The female rabbit scolded her hot-headed friend.
"Maybe dat's yer plan, Usukari. I'm goin' ta kill dis bastard!" Usuzoku yelled out while swinging his massive blade around wildly. At this point, he relied more on the weight of the thing and the power behind his swing than any sort of strategy. There were some fearsome qualities behind this sort of berserker approach.
One after another, streaks of red began appearing on Vasuki's skin wherever Usuzoku tried to chop her to pieces. The slashes cut through the snake's skin and into its flesh but its chakra control managed to contain the strike by toughening its flesh before they inflicted too deep of a cut.
"She's bidin' her time, ye can't just swing at 'er until she dies!" Usukari tried to reason with her ally. Her words appeared to fall to deaf ears, she just sighed in frustration.
"Devil's Elixir Spray!" Vasuki hissed out. The serpent opened its mouth to expose its poison gland and spray a stream of bright purple liquid at Usuzoku. Usukari was right, the venom-spitter gave some space and withdrew, biding her time until Usuzoku overextended and entered the limited space of a cave, where her direct spray of venom would be of maximized use as the rabbit had vastly reduced space for evasion.
Grunting in pain, with a sizzling sound following wherever he moved, Usuzoku dived out of the cave covered in the acidic venom. Due to the gooey concentration, the rapid movements helped the rabbit to rid himself of some of the venom while the rest of it burnt past his skin. Usually, venom required contact with the bloodstream to spread, making it require injection or for a sprayed substance to enter through a cavity of some sorts.
The acidic nature of Vasuki's venom made it corrode its way into the bloodstream the hard and painful way. Even if the rabbit managed to shake off and use chakra to quickly neutralize the corrosive effects before they burnt him to a rag of bones using a quick burst of chakra, some venom must have made its way in.
"How does dat girl deal with ye?" Usukari scolded her brash partner.
"Get off my back, ye nagging broad!" Usuzoku grunted at the direction of his friend who took a quick and powerful leap toward his direction to examine his wounds.
"Does it hurt? Ye need ta wash these burns…" The female rabbit kept on pushing after taking a look at the rough patches of burnt off fur and the scars that were left in just the fractions of a moment that the acidic venom was allowed to work its deadly magic. "Use your chakra to channel the venom, contain its spread inside you. You can buy yourself some time that way and finish this fight."
"Dis ain't my first bite. Jeez, yer da real naggin' snake 'ere…" Usuzoku growled in both pain and frustration while angrily yanking his hand out of his companion's grasp.