A violet guitar with a layer of tempering to prevent it from breaking too easily, decorated with thick spikes just narrowly whizzed over Mana's nose as the magician leaned her back to move her upper body down in just the right angle to both avoid the unorthodox weapon and to mock its owner with how close she got to hitting her.
It might have been the mockery but Joshipa did not let up and continue to wail her hardened guitar around, bashing it against dirt and leaving mean ridges where the spikes of the guitar shred the ground as it would've minced through the flesh of her opponent. It was an interesting weapon and for someone who's only been at it for a couple of months, Joshipa had gotten quite the hang of swinging it around.
The magician vaulted over her opponent, holding Joshipa's shoulder with her right hand while her left weaved a hand seal. Activating her Rebellious Twist Jutsu, Mana spun her body around while upside down, disorienting and sending her sparring partner for quite the spinning trip. It might have been because Joshipa used to practice the Jashinist rituals and use their Curse Techniques but the young lady had a pain tolerance that was second only to the Guru himself counting down the ninja that Mana had encountered.
"You never did tell me how exactly your Curse Jutsu worked…" Mana said bluntly at the frustrated face of her opponent who was peeling her face off the dirt, still clutching her guitar in hand and ready to try and tag the elusive magician with it at least once.
"Wouldn't you like to know!?" Joshipa yelled out, running at Mana while swinging her spiked and reinforced guitar like she'd wield a battle ax. Her barrage of strikes was too relentless for Mana to just dance around, in addition, Joshipa had spent the last couple of months seeing Mana move and there were just that many ways one could have dodged a spinning ax slash.
The young woman screamed out in pain and fell flat on her back. Mana extended her hand to pick her hat and put it back on as she sat up and rubbed the aching back of her head, feeling it for lumps. She didn't like augmenting her body at all but if she hadn't – she'd have had thumb-sized puncture wounds all over her mid-section from the spikes on Joshipa's guitar.
"What was that? Still didn't work?" Joshipa wondered, pressing the top of her guitar to the ground for support of her whole body while the ex-Jashinist wiped the sweat off her forehead.
"There's a reason why I haven't used the jutsu, it's because I don't feel like I can pull it off under the duress of battle yet and this is the proof…" Mana sighed. Even with her experience, she got too stiff. She tried dodging at first but saw that Joshipa had her usual evasions covered up, she figured that she'd slip out with Flower Petal Sanctuary but that would have been pointless as she'd have evaded the hit but also not have actually done any training that day if she kept pulling that card.
Thus, Mana tried executing the foundation for her fighting style with most of her reaction time already wasted. Whether it was because of that fact or not, she flunked it hard.
"If you're trying to nail something, you can just practice that, you know…" Joshipa pouted. It was the expression of a kunoichi who thought that she was holding her sparring partner back. She's been known to adopt that look every once in a while, these last couple of months whenever she felt bad about her progress.
"I have no need to practice that fighting style anymore. I've been working on it for a year now and I can pull it off, just not in the middle of a battle yet. That's why I can't use it, it's unreliable…" Mana sighed as she realized that her partner wouldn't offer her a hand to get back up.
"Yeah, well… Not sure why you need it at all. You don't seem to be breaking any sweat knocking me flat when you're actually trying," Joshipa let go of her guitar, letting it hit the dirt with a husky thud as the young woman herself crossed her legs and sat down, staring at the ground with the long and pale fingers of self-loathing creeping up her neck. "Who knows if Lord Jashin would even forgive me after all this time…"
"No!" Mana refused to let the young woman entertain that thought. "You don't need that strength, those techniques. It doesn't matter how easily I can beat you during training, this isn't about a one-on-one fight, this is about honing our skills. We're not fighting so I'm not actually beating you – you're honing your skills with that weapon while I'm trying to even out some chinks in all the concepts for new jutsu I'm working on."
"But you keep asking me about them…" Joshipa looked up.
"Yes, I do, because if I understand how they work I can understand what you're good at, which can help me advise you on a fighting style," Mana explained. "I'd never practice vile jutsu like that myself."
Despite what she said, there was lingering thought in Mana's head. This freaky deity that these cultists worshiped demanded total destruction and slaughter in all battles though his Curse Techniques didn't appear lethal at first. In fact, Mana saw plenty of potential for non-lethal takedowns using something like the asphyxiating Curse Technique that Joshipa used to take down Sekita during her rampage. Mana would like to torture herself after every fight to keep in Jashin's good faith, supposedly, but she'd still have an unorthodox method of tackling unruly opponents, even if it was an incredibly wicked source of power.
"Well… They're sort of like… Rituals, you know." Joshipa stood up, revealing some of the mystery that she's been so secretive about all this time. "You fulfill a certain condition and something happens."
"Rituals?" Mana wondered. She could vaguely grasp the basic concept but her understanding of ninjutsu theory just didn't click with this explanation. Then again, neither did it click with something like Tanshu's Demonic Pentalimbo that was essentially a sealing technique which was a ninjutsu technique that was transferred like a genjutsu.
"Yeah, take the jutsu I used against Sekita – Curse Technique: Flogging of the Pure, its condition is that the target has in their possession an item of mine. Once they do, I initiate and end the jutsu through a ritual dance. Once one rotation of the dance moves is complete, my opponent goes through an excruciating collection of fracturing bones. An arm might break, sometimes a leg, sometimes a few of their ribs…" Joshipa shrugged. It did seem like she was going through a sense of longing just speaking about those techniques, just speaking about them made her feel powerful and she missed that power.
"It seems like a combination of genjutsu and ninjutsu. It's a highly demanding concept, your chakra control and skill in execution must be exceptional!" Mana noted. It was both an attempt at building up her partner's spirit as well as a genuine suggestion of where she should focus her fighting style. "I'm not suggesting you drop your guitar completely but the crux of your new style should focus around ninjutsu or genjutsu. You'd likely also excel at sealing techniques too."
"Your fighting style, how does it work?" Joshipa wondered, brushing right past the compliment. Mana felt like it would have been for the best to tell her what she wanted to hear, maybe her own work might have inspired some ideas in her sparring partner too.
"It's supposed to be a sort of genjutsu that's triggered by another genjutsu," Mana explained, she couldn't even feel when her hands slipped inside the pockets of her blazer as she was talking about some highfalutin concepts that were meant to describe what she tried to achieve before being smashed in the face and knocked flat on her back.
"Huh?" Joshipa scratched the back of her head.
"Well, you see, genjutsu are usually initiated by something. You see some sign, the user's eyes, hear a sign or perhaps see an accessory they accentuate and you fall under it. I am trying to make the trigger of this illusion to be another illusion. People look down on illusions because they don't have tangible effects and since the medium of my intended illusion is in itself illusionary, it's tougher to make it work than you'd think. Easier when you're meditating or concentrating while standing still but hitting it in the middle of a battle is a different matter entirely…" Mana explained, still rubbing the aches from her most recent failure.
"You need to hustle a bit more…" Joshipa suggested.
"Hustle?" Mana muttered.
"Yeah, I mean, you have ample of tricks you can use to stall for time for you to get it right. You're moving all around the place all the time, I'd never hit you if we were just flat out fighting and you weren't trying to use that genjutsu-squared thing on me," Joshipa pointed out. "You need to fight like you're stalling for time."
Joshipa might have had a good idea there, though she didn't give Mana the right advice. Perhaps until Mana could, at last, get the execution of her jutsu just right she was better off employing other techniques to help her stall for the precious milliseconds of concentration that she still needed? Then again, perhaps she was trying to "square" the wrong illusions?
"Let's give it another go," Mana invited her opponent to come at her with her index finger. Saluting her opponent, Joshipa pulled her guitar off of the ground where it was stuck due to its weight and pointy accessories and prepared to come at her.
Joshipa yelled out, forcing effort through her airways as she raised the guitar over her head for an overhead smashing strike that would have left a spike etched into Mana's brain if it connected the right way and the reinforced surfaces would have smashed the magician's head outright. Mana's body dissolved into flower petals, Joshipa had been used to this method for escape but she wasn't used to what came next. Before her eyes, the petals became explosive tags that covered her entire body and filled her ears with a disgusting sizzle.
The goth chick fell on her knees, panting in shock. She looked down at her trembling arm that clutched her chest and wouldn't move. Through rigorous effort, Joshipa managed to just fumble on her side and crawl back from the reassembling image of her sparring partner before her.
"W-What was that?" Joshipa muttered.
"That was it," Mana nodded. "My mistake was that I tried to use the wrong illusion as a medium. The very point of my Flower Petal Sanctuary is to trick my opponent into attacking an illusionary self while the real me escapes harm – it's a perfect jutsu to stall for time and use as a medium."
"When those petals turned to explosive notes… I was terrified… As if… As if deep down I knew I was going to die. This shit's messed up, I've been around plenty of explosive tags, heck, I've used a shitload myself!" Joshipa hissed, she was confused and spiteful toward herself for reacting that way to something she deemed so elementary.
"People usually think that illusions are pointless. They think that fire or snakes or scary images wouldn't scare them but a skilled illusionist can manipulate your mind into being afraid of anything. It's just how high-ranking the illusion is. If I kept the illusion going you might have passed out or gone into what illusionists call genjutsu coma. It's a rather self-explanatory term." Mana explained.
"Wait, so you tell us how to feel, what to think of your illusions?" Joshipa scratched her head. "Maybe I should try genjutsu then…"
"Don't bother, if that's how much you took about the subject – you'd flunk at it," a rather mocking, feminine voice came from farther away. Mana had sensed the signature for a few minutes now but it was not as if it was unnatural to sense a ninja hanging around the training grounds. This woman was just one of the dozens of signatures moving closer and farther in the area so until she made it a part of Mana's training session, the magician had no reason to care about her signature.
Joshipa growled something unintelligible while mirroring Mana's turn to where the voice came from. Out came a woman dressed in a traditional Kumogakure uniform but instead of the baggy, black undergarments she donned a more revealing black bodysuit underneath. She topped her dazzling appearance with a large and thick, red fur coat that got stuck in the branches she attempted to elegantly move past resulting in a rather comically failed entrance to the scene as the dark-skinned woman was forced to liberate her fur coat before resuming her entrance.
"Genjutsu doesn't tell you what to fear, but it can manipulate your body to be more likely to fear something. You might not be afraid of a snake but you'll be wetting the bed if you have sufficient enough fever to make the snake grow a few heads and have you trip so hard that you could swear the snake has nanna's eyes on its front." The woman of long and curly, light purple hair stepped onto the scene, revealing to know more about illusions than she did about making a shocking entrance. "That's trademarked, now that I've said it though unless you take me up on my offer, you can't use that idea for your jutsu, by the way."
"I'm grateful that you've helped my partner understand the subject a bit better, I sometimes forget to speak in terms that someone uninitiated in the subject might understand, but this training ground is taken," Mana stated, staring the approaching woman right in her salad-green eyes.
"It's a good thing I couldn't care less about this useless patch of land. I'm here for you, Konoha's Sorceress!" the curly-haired woman stated before approaching Mana to where the two could look each other square in the eyes. Despite being of similar height, Mana found this Kumogakure kunoichi to be far thicker in build, almost looking like a slimmer man in that department.
"Hey, can't you see that we're training here? Mana's taken!" Joshipa hissed, jumping up and stepping in between the two in an attempt to hog some of the spotlight meant for her training partner.
"Oh, but I wouldn't mind recruiting you as well, Joshipa. Even if you were more careful to hide your Jashinist insignia, I am aware of your background as well…" the curly-haired woman turned to Joshipa as well.
"Have you been living under a rock? I've already got a crew of my own and I might be scummy at times when it comes to not eating the mayo in my friend's fridge or hogging their spotlight but I'm loyal when it comes to standing by my crew." Joshipa replied with a stern and adamant look on her face. "Plus, I've lost connection to Lord Jashin and I don't intend on chasing after it."
"Ah, I see, that's too bad. I've got no use for you in my crew then. You can hang around your pals in that case," the woman waved her hand, running the other one through her hair just to play around with it. Mana noted the heavy use of flashy make-up and a care for appearances that surpassed Mana's back when she was still worried about that sort of thing and performing on the stage. She had lemon-colored circles of glittery facepaint over her eyes. "Also, I've only arrived at the headquarters last night so yes, I am not aware of everybody's affiliations right from the get-go though that is a work in progress."
"Wait, you're assembling a group?" Mana wondered. "What for, exactly?"
"Oh, you know… I like to keep it in teams, that's where my skillset shines the brightest. Also, groups are just useful in general, we can be a study group, a friend group, a fighting team, a great array of different kinds of groups at the same time. I've got it on good authority that staff tends to notice that sort of stuff which might result in us ending up working together more often than not." The woman explained herself. While there was nothing unnatural in what she was saying, something in her defensive body language and the way she said it made Mana feel a bit chilly about buying what she was selling.
"Huh… So, what you're saying is that if I really don't want to have to work with some jerk bag, I might want to hang around a certain group of people and the authorities might notice how well we sync together?" Joshipa tapped her nose while concentrating on her thoughts hard.
"I've already told you, you're useless to me and my crew if you are no longer connected to Lord Jashin, now, ladies, if you will excuse me, this has taken me more time than I predicted which means I'll have to deal with another pest…" the woman yawned before turning around in a flashy manner that left her baggy fur coat gliding through the air as she threw a back strike and deflected something coming at her from behind. The weapon blitzed around in a wide, arcing trajectory before sticking into the ground, revealing itself to be a unique, double-bladed sword.
"Araki Endo, the ex-pupil of Gozen – one of the Four Godly Swords, you've answered my invitation to join the crew, I see…" the woman proclaimed, giving the emerging, all too familiar to Mana face of a spiky-haired young man with traditional clothing and baggy eyes that, despite their weary outline, beamed deadly intent at the flamboyant, wanna-be ringleader woman.
"No, I've come to slay the evil that is you immediately!" Endo declared while walking up to his double-bladed sword and pulling it from the ground. "Identify yourself, wench, so I can leave a name on your tombstone!"
"What did you tell him?" Mana looked at the curly-haired woman who was emanating emerald light from her palm to heal the wound on the back of her arm where she deflected the young man's blade. "He hated my guts before but you must have only made it worse…"
"I lied to him, of course, that we were plotting something nefarious. He did run away from Gozen's training voluntarily, before recruiting him I must make sure that he isn't some welp with a famous master and that he deserves to be called his pupil," the bombastic and glamorous Kumogakure kunoichi explained to Mana.
"Why am I not surprised to see the Witch of Konoha involved in your schemes? Perhaps it is for the better, I fully intended on putting my blade through her throat the moment she gives me an excuse to do so," Endo flexed around, spinning and tossing his impressive weapon around as if it was second nature to him. From what the young man let up to Mana with this display of warm-up exercises, he was an impressive acrobat on top of being an adept swordsman to wield a weapon like that while retaining all of his own limbs.
"That guy's so intense!" Joshipa pointed at Endo with a blush on her cheeks. "You shouldn't have antagonized him though. It doesn't look like he ever lets up his fervor."
"That is why I desire him in my crew," the curly-haired woman stated, running her hand through her hair before taking a balanced and stout taijutsu stance. "Though before that, we will need to calm him down some. I could appreciate your backing, Nakotsumi Mana, after all, I'm not sure in what mood the others will come."
"The others?" Mana rolled her eyes.