The open pipe through which Mana crawled continued to shake about together with the quakes plaguing the entire structure. Unlike a few of the other ones that the magician crawled through, this pipe did not appear to send waves of heated gas, howling as it made its escape to the outside. In her crawl, Mana had only her chakra sensory suggesting which direction she might find either Kiyomi, Meiko, and Hanshin or where the document was being signed to rely on.
It did not take long for the Konoha kunoichi to hit the end of the pipe. She flipped over on her back and gave the structure a good, hearty kick. Despite the heat from the surfaces Mana was rubbing against having cauterized the wound on her gut, together with some burns all over the magician's body where her chakra augmentations faltered, the gut of the young woman lit up with burning impulses the moment she put more strength into her kick.
Perhaps too much strength. After Mana kicked the end of the pipe, the entire end of the structure exploded from the pressure outward and sent the injured young woman plummeting a good fifty meters down to the nearest hard surface. Luckily, the chakra augmentations lazily flowing through the magician's body to keep her mostly unharmed in the ungodly temperatures of the ventilation pipes of the Eternal Fire served as enough of protection against the fall to only cause moderate discomfort in her sickly feeling bones all over and some bruises as the magician gone through a long table circling the entire hall on her way down.
It was less than a ceremonious and dignified way down. At least it served as a decent distraction. Mana tried to gather the strength to pick herself up and confront the Iwagakure ninja but, much to her horror, her arms wobbled and gave in halfway, every time she tried applying more force to her movement, such as when she needed to stand back up, her limbs began feeling numb and just collapsed.
"The Konoha ninja! They've found us here! It's all over now!" someone was in the process of freaking out despite their highly advantageous position. What sick irony, Mana managed to follow her chakra sensory right to the hall where the document was being signed but she was in absolutely no condition to stop the signature from being put nor to do anything else but to witness the failure of her mission.
"Calm yourself. She doesn't look to be in any condition to stop us." A man in long and spiky black hair observed Mana's writhing body from a safe distance after bolting over the steps to where the magician had plummeted down. "Although if she's here, the others might make their way here as well. I would advise you to stop fucking up already and sign the document properly."
"When we planned this, I did not count on the Yordalar politicians being this bad at signing documents. This is your one job, is it not?" a feminine voice referred to the handful of cowardly Yordalar representatives that must have been the collaborators who would surrender their own country to Iwagakure's management. Not too much different from the way Kirigakure had lost most of their autonomy temporarily a few years back, except Kirigakure had no say in the matter whereas Yordalar appeared to surrender willingly under the illusion of a democratic election distracting the folk.
"Well, it is not our fault your draft of the contract was faulty. If we sign the wrong form of contract, it will be treated as void by the international community and I thought the whole point was to legitimately have Yordalar move under Iwagakure's wing." The previously cowardly politician objected.
"He's right… There will be no point in all of this if we sign the wrong form of a contract. Keep drafting the thing, you…" the Iwagakure spy with long and dark hair pointed at the cowering collaborators, "Sign the contract as soon as it is done. Soon enough we will have more problems on our hands than Konoha, I hate to admit it but if the Yordalarans discover what's going on…"
"You're a bunch of foreigners. The worst they can do to you is to cast you out, it will be our bodies hung from a tree upside down!" one of the politician collaborators cried out.
"It doesn't matter if they do not kill us. Returning home without Yordalar's support is the same as dooming us to destruction, political and otherwise…" the apparent leader of the Iwagakure spy squad looked up at the devastated ventilation pipe. His eyes looked far beyond, however, somewhere to a point in space and time that could not be normally seen by the bare eye and one that existed merely in the man's own memories and imagination.
The woman assisting the Yordalar politicians with drafting the document looked up as well. Mana had managed to lift her upper body off the ground but she could only helplessly stare at the death penalty these people were signing themselves for when Hanshin and the group get here. She lucked out that the enemy made the most boring and ridiculous kind of mistake and that they brought a wrong kind of contract to the place to sign, regardless, she felt powerless to punish and exploit that mistake in her current state.
"If only Guru Ayushi did not abandon us… Why did he leave when we needed him the most?" the woman called out for fate itself to answer her as it did not appear anyone else knew the answer. The leader of the pack of spies turned at the woman and removed a cigarette and a lighter from the pocket of his leather jacket.
"Guru Ayushi?" Mana mumbled before repeating the same out loud. "Ayushi-san was in Iwagakure!?"
The leader of the spies turned to Mana after lighting up his smoke and taking a good long draw on the chemical poison that lurked inside. The man's lungs did not appear to be ruined to the point where he'd cough incessantly, he was still at the condition of relative relaxation and cool enjoyment of his intake of death in gaseous form.
"Yes, he was… We were as surprised to see him as anyone else. We thought him long gone after he visited Konoha. Everyone was whispering about you guys having assassinated him behind our backs but nobody had the balls to do anything about it and Kumogakure – the only country to have the muscle to kick your ass chose instead to not risk their position at the top of the military power ladder for a bunch of rumors." The man replied.
"Where is he now?" Mana asked. The Iwagakure spy looked so surprised by how indifferent this young woman that had quite literally fallen from the sky to them was toward her mission objective and how curious she was about something apparently so random and unrelated. Perhaps it was for the same reason that he humored her with an answer – because talk of Guru Ayushi, a faux savior angel of the ninja world was a way for him to stall the young lady until the contract is properly drafted.
"He left. Got what he needed from Iwagakure and left right before the coltan conflict really got heated. Like idiots, we all hoped that, after making such a heroic return, the legendary Guru Ayushi would stay in Iwagakure and help. Guide us through tough times and breathe some sense into the Great Countries…" the spy found himself a spot on the donut-shaped table to sit down on as he conversed with this oddly devoted and powerless Konoha kunoichi that fell from the sky at the worst moment.
"What was he looking for there?" Mana rose even higher up. The curiosity about Ayushi's actions as well as the chance to look deeper into the man's activities, maybe get some edge before their fated, unavoidable confrontation or just get to understand him better fired the magician up. Shocking pain needles no longer ran down her back when she moved, Mana's numbed limbs started feeling a little bit more lively with every mention of the man's name.
"Only he knows." The leader of the spies sighed.
"One of us saw him, you know." The woman from farther away, the Iwagakure kunoichi helping the collaborators from Yordalar draft the document spoke up. "Before he left. They said that they asked Guru Ayushi how could he leave Iwagakure right when it needed the Guru the most…"
"He replied that he was looking at the bigger picture, that lowly trade squabbles were inconsequential on the grand scale of his plan." Mana guessed the words that would have followed.
"Yes… Actually… Almost word for word." The woman turned away from drafting the contract and glared at the magician in surprise. "What exactly happened to Guru Ayushi in Konoha?" now it was the Iwagakure ninja who were curious.
"A man with too open of a mind changed, adopted childish ideals while possessing the power to actually make them come true…" Mana breathed out with a hollow chest. She attempted to rise on her feet but her body crumbled down, turning all the work, all the progress she had made over the brief time into pointless chaff.
The male Iwagakure spy stared at Mana for a short while before standing back up from the table he sat on. Mana wondered if he decided to finally kill her, perhaps it would have been for the better if he had – she could have used a little bit of motivation to move her broken body. Before the question could be answered, however, the entire supporting wall blew open with metallic shreds erupting outward and into the main hall of the Eternal Fire as a single, robust blow peeled the entire metallic barrier open.
"Tsk… I knew it, with all the distractions in Hanshin's way, you beat Hanshin to getting here." The flippant Konoha special jounin lamented in an almost fun-poking manner as he shook his head and held his hands tightly crossed over his chest, his buttocks twisted to be on full display to the people present in the room the figurative door of which he had just figuratively kicked down of.
"Who is this joker now?" the Iwagakure spy asked while looking quite worried. The man's feet kept on dragging back, closer to his ally and to where the contract was being drafted. Mana knew why – these ninja weren't nearly as powerful as the others that the Konoha party had encountered. They sent their best people to delay the enemy. The specialty of this man and his female partner must have been more stealth oriented, more trained in political discourse and manipulation. Depending on whom one would have asked – the more dangerous type of ninja and one capable of causing much more damage.
It was, after all, saboteurs such as these that decided fates of entire international conflicts, just like this contract that was being drafted had the promise to do.
"The contract hasn't been signed yet, they're drafting it right now," Mana called out to Hanshin. A worrisome flame ate away inside her chest that made the young woman almost expect to be betrayed by the man and see him murder every soul inside the Eternal Fire not holding a Konohagakure headband regardless. It was just how things usually turned out for her, nobody ever shared her crazy devotion to preventing senseless murder.
"I see…" Hanshin sighed. "Well, Hanshin may be described as difficult to work with, but Hanshin has never given anyone the chance to call him a lying snake. We'll be doing it your way then, kid."
"What are you two talking about? Why is that guy talking in the third person?" the Iwagakure spy turned to Mana, pulling out a kunai knife out of his holster. He was getting desperate, a ninja that looked old enough to outrank every other ninja around just burst into the room and he talked enough shit to be seen as quite a big deal. He was someone who emerged from a room which was protected by the strongest members of the spy party sent here to acquire Yordalar's support.
Everything pointed at the leader of the spies pulling something profoundly stupid and rash soon enough. Almost like ordered by mail, the foolish act came on a figurative cue just moments after any attempts of reading the room would have revealed the signs to it. The Iwagakure spy grabbed Mana by her throat, making the magician cry out in pain as he forced the brittle peace between the magician's wounds and her body to collapse in a river of blood. The feeling of blood in Mana's lungs and the dread that came with it followed as because of the tight grip around her neck, the bleeding had little elsewhere to go.
The other hand of the man reached down for his ninja pouch. While the remaining Iwagakure spies carried little combat potential, the leader of the group appeared to still be capable of holding the body of a young woman up with just one of his hands while the other browsed for a weapon to hold her hostage with. It all transpired in just split second but somehow it felt almost sluggish and extremely spontaneous, someone of Hanshin's level should have had what felt like years of time to intervene but the jounin remained stationary and just stared at the Iwagakure ninja escalating the situation.
For an awkward amount of time, the Konoha special jounin continued to stare right back at the eyes of the Iwagakure ninja in confusion. An entire myriad of emotions ran down the face of the enemy spy, most of the negative ones were fueled by the lack of any sort of meaningful reaction from the side of the Konoha ninja who was supposed to be at threat here. Even the young magician that squirmed in the ninja's arm did so more because of the pain of her injuries acting up and not because of fear of any harm about to come from the Iwagakure ninja.
"How much longer?" the Iwagakure spy yelled out, clearly aimed back at his ally and the Yordalarian collaborators who were hard at work at drafting the contract but because the ninja refused to pull his eyes off of the most dangerous man in the room with the most indifferent pair of eyes, this fact came more from the context than an immediate reading of the spy's social cues.
"Have you ever tried writing down an international contract? We're working as fast as we can. As fast as we can without setting the paper on fire and having to do it all over again…" the female ally grumbled in return of the leader's complaints.
"Hah! So that's what you're trying to do…" Hanshin smacked his forehead with his own palm before dragging it down. "It was so confusing when you grabbed the magician that Hanshin sort of froze there…"
"W-What do you mean? Of course I'm threatening you to stay still with this woman's life and demanding you to let my allies finish drafting and then sign the contract, what kind of an imbecile are you?" the Iwagakure spy lost even more of his cool, moving the knife closer to Mana's face to the point where it covered the distance from the magician's eye with the tip to her throat with the edge nearing the hilt.
"Pfff…" Hanshin mocked the spy. "For your information, Hanshin was attempting to make it here too late so that he could kill all of you and burn the contract, bury all the traces of it ever being made. It was this very young woman that hurried all of us along."
"Y-You mean… The life of your comrade means nothing at all to you? You're just waiting to tie up all the loose ends?" the Iwagakure spy took a stumble back in disbelief, Mana felt some solid ground beneath her feet for the first time in a while as she was no longer mostly dangling in the air. "I am glad that it was not Konoha that Iwagakure came into conflict with. This lack of honor and human decency would have made any ninja fostering the Will of Stone feel sickened to their core."
"Oh? So then your actions are honorable?" Hanshin grinned through his mocking, improvised mask formed from his own hand and crooked fingers. The almost psychotic gleam of the man's eyes broke through the shadow that his own hand cast onto his face. "Hanshin has never been accused of being dirty by a tar kettle. You're trying to send an entire settlement of people that barely escaped tyranny for genocide this very moment."
"Maybe." The Iwagakure spy let Mana's body hit the floor, despite the magician's most genuine attempts at keeping her balance and maybe even strike back, she fell on her knees and coughed up the blood that she was nearly drowning in for the nearest handful of minutes while her assailant placed his weapon to her face from a different position. "But I am doing so to protect my own people. Kumogakure is the strongest military power in the world, it can be beaten but not by any singular military and no other village dares sacrifice their own people. Someone has to take the fall and we'd rather it be these people."
"Hey, you two!" Hanshin yelled out directing his words at the pair of collaborators. "Just for the record, you two are perfectly fine with what's going on here, right?"
"Why wouldn't they be? It's their only chance at not only survival but acceptance into a greater entity – they'd have been either corpses or eternal refugees as Yordalarans but by helping Iwagakure survive they become a part of it. Have you forgotten Yordalar is choosing to surrender its sovereignty here? This contract isn't just for show, you know…" the female spy turned back at Hanshin to answer for the Yordalarans who were hard at work.
"Well, Hanshin was hoping for a most amusing betrayal but… It seems that Hanshin would have to find his entertainment elsewhere. In that case, you were mostly correct. Under most circumstances, I'd find any comrade of mine captured by the enemy a meaningless distraction just in Hanshin's way. Something Hanshin hates most of all is annoying things getting in his way, however…"
Black Vicious emerged from behind Hanshin, almost momentarily, as a response to the show of force, the Iwagakure ninja pressed Mana's face to the ground and almost drove his knife into the back of his head. A show of brutality originating from the ever increasing desperation.
"So you do care about this woman…" the spy smirked sly as a snake.
"Indeed, she is an invaluable artist Hanshin would rather preserve." The special jounin gestured with a pose aimed to show off some of his finest bodily parts.
"So how about you make that armor disappear or else your artist will have to create her art without any depth perception." The Iwagakure ninja dragged the knife up to Mana's eye while still holding her head down to the floor. What tiniest bits remained of Mana's chakra had to be devoted to not having the heated metallic floor burn her face. For the moment, her feeble efforts were just about enough but…
"In time you will learn how poorly you worded that…" Hanshin smirked without dropping the pose. Blood fell from above like a trickle of crimson rain down the drain, despite having plenty of it of her own soaking her, Mana realized it was not her blood. The magician tried pushing back at the hand that held her down and she was surprised just how easily it gave in.
The body of the Iwagakure spy was bent backward at an awkward angle as if the man had been broken in half from behind like a twig. The expression of shock and pain that surpassed the realm of agony and entered to explore a realm beyond the depths of pain which humans can even perceive colored his face. The thing with explorers of the painful kind was, they always came back home after they had seen enough bringing all that they had found with them and the man's eyes were desperately trying to prolong the inevitable return of the figurative discoverer.
It was only after a pair of moments that Mana noticed brief, almost ethereal and ghostly outlines of the Black Vicious armor behind the enemy ninja. No chakra signature, no clear shape, color or sound, not even a tap on the floor or the whistle in the wind as the armor moved – no evidence of the armor's existence whatsoever.
"Black Vicious: Spirit Frequency." Hanshin licked his lips before chanting out the name of his technique with the man's tongue flipping as sweetly as recounting the most delectable cherry he had tasted recently.
The special occasion forced me to post the chapter a few hours earlier than I would have normally done so. Sorry if someone is inconvenienced by it. Anyway, Happy Holidays!