Mana moved around the cracked or totaled buildings with as much grace as someone broken and bruised could have packed. She moved slow, at a slug's pace even but that was only if compared to Mana's standard speed. The magician could feel it, Honda had stopped not too far away in the sewers. He could not have been in an ideal condition himself if he stopped moving so close to the hole he had busted through.
The fact that Honda could have deteriorated in terms of his regenerative condition was a shock to Mana who previously thought to have had the general grasp of Honda's capabilities. At least as much as someone like the genetic monstrosity could have had capabilities that were clearly defined and measurable. Mana's plan was to drive Honda's regenerative factor to a dysfunction, not a halt.
This was the worst idea ever. Mana knew it. Somehow she had managed to drive a monster hunting her in the woods away and instead of taking the second chance at life and fleeing she pursued it. She lacked the drive, the rage in her chest that would have diminished the pulsing pain all over and made Mana into a force of any fighting value. Now she was just moving to her own impending death, like begging the monster to take her life and not run away.
Mana's sandals slammed into the moist and crunchy sewer stone with a loud thud. A shock emanated through the girl's feet, all the way up to her knees making Mana wince just a tiny bit. Her shortage of chakra rendered every attempt at superhuman speed result in aftershocks, Mana was not as used as she thought she was at landing from great heights and actually suffering some consequences for it.
The pale moon moved from the cover of the clouds, providing a singular, focused beam of light that shined through Honda's hole, providing barely existing lighting on the hunched and huffing monster. Mana's feet trembled as the girl took a few steps back and covered her mouth in scare.
Honda's feet were covered with branching out lacerations that all conjoined on his back, right at the center of the spine where his flesh had split. It appeared like yet another featureless shape attempted to break out from under Honda's ribs. It had burrowed all the way through the ribs before tearing the membrane of the monster's flesh with just its bare, life-craving fingers. The featureless growth pulsed intensely as unidentified liquid flowed through it due to the fact it shared the same circulation system with Honda. The growth did not display any conscious behavior, no signs that it was suffering, it just pulsed there, its massive, misshaped head bobbled as if it was gasping for air but had no cavity or breathing system to speak of.
Honda's regeneration factor was in shambles. Mana could not understand what could have escalated such a violent reaction, one moment it had only begun displaying signs of a biological short-fuse, the next it was completely shutting down and breaking the monster's body.
"Come with me, I can help you. I know people that can try to heal you, give you as much of a normal life as it is possible." Mana pleaded with the boy in a monster's body, unaware of just how much of the boy remained in the consciousness but the boy backed up.
"I'm not a monster," Mana tried to force a smile, perhaps mimics could help her where her appearance only terrified the boy. "It's me, magic girl, remember? With the rabbits?"
It would have been naïve to expect that Honda would just stand up and surrender, go with Mana and fully subject himself to a bunch of nightmarish healing sessions, even more surgeries, experiments, and tests. But heroism and miracle both were given birth by a little naivety.
"Magic girl!?" Honda yelled out. Fear was no longer a part of his voice, it faded away as sounds came out of his mouth, in a single sentence the monster went from a terrified little boy to… Well… A monster. Mana did not have the luxury to wait until her head got popped like a grape. She sprung a device on her sleeve with two fingers and yanked on a piece of steel wire, firing a barrage of steel-tipped cards.
She was right to do so. Had she not fired pre-emptively, basing her aggressive response solely on the tone of the monster, she'd have been dead before she even knew it. Honda froze in mid-charge as something appeared to freeze him in place. The horror show leaned over and clutched over his ribs, the bloody murder in his eyes that Mana only saw a glimpse of right after her attack faded away. Honda was back on the reigns again but once again his body was failing him.
Liquid lumps started building up from one center of the body to another. All on the areas where massive chakra nodes were in one's network. Honda's network could not have been a normal one, it must have been patched from scratch, perhaps even innovated and weaved like a complicated web, completely defying the rules of how ninja anatomy worked. A non-conventional being such as Little Honda demanded a non-conventional fueling system, after all.
The massive, tumorous torso flailing and wheezing atop of Honda's spine and slowing the monster down tremendously, possibly one of several reasons why Mana's body did not mimic a fruit fly squished in-between two spiteful fingers whenever Honda desired it to do so, burst into a flood of hot and sludgy goop that covered Honda whole. None of Honda's reaction appeared to be caused by pain but the monster began twitching violently as if it was seizing before it crumbled into the sewer water.
It was tough to say if Honda was dead for sure. The monster's chakra system had so many different nodes, nooks, and crannies that even if the monster was dead, perhaps some of the complex circulations would still run for a while. On the other hand, sometimes the monster's chakra just disappeared from the sensory range while it was still alive. Mana felt justified in keeping her respectful distance between the monster and her shortly after the monster's collapse and her short-term choice to maintain said distance.
A tight and heated squeeze made all air in Mana's body just leave abruptly. Like a million chains wrapping around her all at once, the speed was so unbelievable that for Mana's diminished perception it may as well have been instant. In just one blink, the surroundings went from a creepy, damp sewer and the monster that haunted it lying unconscious right in front of the magician to it springing back on its knees and wrapping its hands around Mana.
In all honesty, she should have been dead already. There should have been no way that Honda would not have forced her innards out whichever end they came out through first. Just somehow, what minuscule portion of Mana's chakra remained managed to augment her spontaneously just enough to survive Honda's attack but as the monster's rage grew it was questionable for just how long Mana's feeble efforts to delay the inevitable would last.
She needed to push back. It would require every ounce of her remaining strength, every last bit of chakra, she'd be dry, maybe, if she was not careful, she'd even pass out. Still, if she had a chance of escaping this crushing grip for just one second before dying anyway, that was a chance worth taking. The only absolute here was that if she did not leap at that opportunity blindly – she'd die for certain.
The taste of blood returned to Mana's mouth, the magician had not missed it at all since last feeling it a couple of hours ago. Her stomach and innards shifted and churned, she could feel them moving, it felt like the most awkward bowel movement except it was followed by a pulsing, overwhelming sensation of pain that resonated throughout the entire nervous system.
The kunoichi was so tired of the pain. It felt like with every passing second the pain sapped her of her strength. The worst part about being in torment sufficient enough to dull your screaming throat became not the actual suffering but how it wore on Mana's very core. The magician could feel a weak voice wondering from a remote corner of her mind that perhaps letting go and stopping her resistance was not such a bad outcome if it came with a release from all the torment she went through that day.
The village has the information, they'd trace Honda with more powerful sensors than Mana through it and smoke him out of the sewers eventually. They would most definitely not take any chances and just hit him in the vitals though, kill him as fast as they could, destroy the vital brain center, wherever Honda's altered anatomy has it, ending the boy's life in a blink and making all regeneration post-factum pointless.
"No!" Mana powered out a yell through her own lulling screams and grunts, the first intelligible thing she's let out this whole time. Her arms felt so warm and comfortable, traveling through something pudgy and very weak. Honda's eyes widened in shock, he could not understand why his hands had outright exploded into a mess of bio-organic materials and clotted, thick blood, a pair of shades too dark for the color it should have been in.
To be entirely honest, Mana did not understand it either. She was not this strong, her chakra was almost entirely gone. She had just barely controlled her expenditures enough so that she did not pass out after breaking out, but she did not augment herself nearly enough to warrant such a reaction.
For a handful of seconds, both Mana and Honda hyperventilated in front of each other, just staring at the collapsing state of Honda's body. The hands that were blown off did not regenerate back to where they were, instead, they regrew new upper arms and shoulders and blood vessels and muscle tissue extended from the shoulder, browsing desperately for something to connect to. All that came out from Honda's wounds was some bloody growth that looked more like a stump flipped inwards and turned inside out than a regenerated hand.
Whatever this was, Mana was not going to let it go to waste. She relaxed her back, letting the gravity and falling drive her body forward, while her legs desperately moved forward to keep her upright. In this awkward manner of movement, she charged toward Honda, ready to dance the devil's swing until she either completely broke Honda or the monster finished her off.
In her current state, whichever outcome would have been a relief…
A strong swipe sent Mana flying back. The girl spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth and felt cold breeze caressing her back. Also, the irritating itch of infection that looked to corrupt and conquer her vitality through the bruises on her back acquired when Mana's weightless body slid through the rough sewer floor. The torn bandages on her back flapped about in the wind.
The kunoichi had no idea where the strength to roll and tumble back on her feet came from. She felt the wet remains of Honda's goop, his oddly thick blood, and sewer water soak her hair as she screamed out like a cornered animal and tumbled at the monster again. Honda took a wild step back before freezing his fleeting foot and moving forward. The boy behind the monster was beginning to disappear again, it seemed. Soon, the fear that the boy had inside his heart for Mana's gruesome appearance would no longer be a beneficial factor for her.
White. It did not seem to bother Mana at all, given that she was previously in completely blacked out sewer in the middle of the night, barely illuminated by the rarely emerging moon, this was profoundly odd.
A ragged but fit middle age man with shoulder-length red hair. He wore a hooded cape that was worn before a long journey. The man looked ready to leave but he turned his head sideways just to acknowledge Mana a little. That was when Mana noticed his strict eyes and apple-colored stubble.
"I was harsh on you, I know… I could not help it, I saw too much of her in you. It's been so long that I can't even remember her name now. The sweetest and kindest people are always the ones paying the highest price. That was why I wanted you to become as hateful and indifferent as I was. I'm sorry about that… Mana…" the man uttered before walking away. The magician could not move, she wanted to run after Tanshu and try to talk to him some more but it felt like the white around her was thick enough to have some supernatural force chain Mana to it. Like floating in some ethereal, afterlife jelly…
With the sound of masculine laughter and mutters, she could not make sense of, Mana's consciousness returned back to the present. She was on her knees and elbows, her face was dripping with blood and now most of her bandages were in complete tatters. The magician forced her head up. Honda was dragging his body over to her. The force of his push-kick that hit her before was strong enough to throw her back a bit too far for the monster's immediate reach.
Honda's foot lingered above Mana's head. The magician wanted to go back to that quiet and nice place she was in before. One more hit and she'd probably have a few seconds more, two or three and she may just get a place there for hours. A good finishing blow and she'd become a permanent resident…
Mana's feet drove her body without her consent, through sheer instinct. Her shoulder drove up in an attempt to strike Honda right at the soft spot behind his knee. The way that the old man from the Sun Disc arena taught her to counter this kind of attack. She did not hit anything that provided any semblance of resistance. Only soft mush, attacking Honda felt like a mixture of punching clay or a barrel of rotten and beaten apples.
Mana did not stop Honda's kick, she tore his leg clean off at the back of the knee, making the monster wave his hands around awkwardly before he succumbed on his bottom and yelled out in pain. Once again, the severed foot regenerated its missing upper part and started creating a shapeless, fleshy tumor above without soul or thought except the wish for its cruel and unnatural existence to be put to an end whereas Honda's own stubble barely mustered a fleshy bit of ham on its outer end.
If Mana gave the monster space, time to get back on even his one functional and full-length leg, she'd have risked getting socked again. She was too tired, too fired out and it began feeling like she could literally feel her own vitality fading bit by bit with each wasted movement. Mana dove at the monster's middle section with an attempted tackle.
Normally it would have been useless, she'd have slammed into the monster like a brick wall but now he was more like a house-sized cake. The slightest application of force just tore Honda's entire body apart and forced his regeneration to work overtime. It must have been the stress, the monster was petrified by Mana's state which further aggravated his already pushed to the edge state from before. His regeneration was still doing its best but Honda's body was collapsing.
A tight grip locked around the back of Mana's collar. Warm air with the feeling of blood and taint lingering in the darkness of the faintly lit sewer passed by the magician's hair and caressed her cheeks. The ground was closing in. Even without her advanced, superhuman perception, time slowed down. This was no chakra. This was adrenalin and fear for her own life. If she hit the floor swinging at this speed, her ribs would have flown all over her body like bullets, tearing through flesh and organs.
Mana's feet wrapped around Honda's last arm, pressing against the upper area of the limb tightly enough to tear the weakened muscle and skin off. Like a nimble monkey, Mana shifted her body's position around to avoid hitting the ground and saw Honda smash his own arm into the moist and mossy stone. The sequence was followed by a burst of blood and bone, not unlike that which Mana would have undergone through had she allowed Honda's desired outcome come to pass.
Honda stumbled backward, his busted, massive hand hung by a few narrow strings of tissue. Mana charged at the monster like a feral cat, ignoring the tremendous size difference, the strength difference and the fact that she was the prey in this scenario. Honda fumbled back awkwardly, he was not used to fighting without both his hands.
The metal-shade blur, too unremarkable to be witnessed in the limited lighting of the sewer telegraphed Mana's steel-tipped cards slashing and working their way all over the monster's body, further giving credence to the previous analogy of the magician's manner of feral assault. Something hard locked around Mana's knee, despite her greatest warnings to herself not to look at it and commands to continue attacking, Mana's eyes lingered downward.
More faceless forms burst from Honda's wounds and began wrapping their soft, newborn limbs around Mana. While their strength was even lesser than that of the magician girl, the sheer number of them and their erratic grasp for life or desire to have it be ended caused significant trouble for the magician. Honda roared with all of his monstrous might, lacking the hands to resist, he relied on his numerous tumorous growths to lock the magician in place while his punctured and filled with rot lungs delivered their shockwave that tore the magician apart.
It was useless. Too much sickness, fluid and growths inside the monster's lungs for a decent shockwave to come out. A strong wind blasted against Mana's face and cheeks, with the last of her willpower and strength, the magician turned and twisted her hand to dislocate and pull apart the weakling growths wrapping around her battered body and attempted to press her hand against Honda's head. Before she could do that much, more arms from growths bursting through Honda's shoulders stopped the magician's hand in mid-air.
String reeling sound temporarily lit up the darkness of the Konoha sewer system in a more figurative sense. Something large, heavy and round hit the wall and stuck to it. Mana felt stickiness overwhelming her and washing her back. Fighting something like this should not have been that hard but to her current body, it was like swimming up a waterfall.
"At least I can't smell this…" was the last positive thought on Mana's mind before she hit the cold and refreshing flow of water that the blowback of bio-organic goop washed her down into. The very thought of swimming up sounded like a pink dream.