It didn't look like this mysterious assailant was willing to wait for Mana and Shige-H to get the answers about his affiliations that they wanted to extract. Before Mana's jaw could even twitch to ask, the sand underneath her feet rustled and leather straps jumped up, lashing like scorned vipers. It happened so suddenly and out of nowhere that Mana hadn't even replaced herself with an illusionary copy to trick this man while she moved to a better position.
The tight loops of leather whips stretched around Mana and restrained her hands. It seemed like this man had been truthful to his request to take Mana and not hurt or kill her, as this sort of opening would've given him a fair shot at either. Yet he merely left the magician subdued and wriggling on the ground while he switched his attention to Shige-H.
"This is getting seriously annoying!" Shige-H dashed at the man. While he spent the entirety of his focus and surprise factor on capturing Mana, he didn't have nearly enough focus left to deal with Shige's sudden outburst of speed. The fist of the medical kunoichi lit up with a blue flare as she was about to make a paste out of his innards with a single power blow. "Everyone's after Mana all the time! How many times will I have to tell you mercs and assassins that she's mine!"
The body of the assailant coiled unnaturally, wriggling like an aspen tree before taking a hard yank and moving out of the way of Shige's focused fist. This amount of flexibility shouldn't have been humanly possible. Even Shige's eyes were wide open and as a medical kunoichi, she had a fair idea of what one could reasonably expect in terms of flexibility of the human body.
"Konoha's Sorceress is all I want. If you insist on getting in my way, you'll die," the man stated calmly while slamming both of his hands down like hammers. Responding to the downward motion, the pair of lashing whips he held in both hands went crashing straight down and ground Shige-H to the dirt.
Just as Mana thought that she had slipped out from the restraints, the leather straps pressed on. Something wasn't right. She had escaped bindings hundreds of times more complex, involving locks and far more limited movement. She could escape a coffin she was in if they filled it with cement, sealed inside of a safe, and drowned in a lake, and yet a few whips stayed on her as firmly as the blink they restrained her. Even more, Mana's fingers and joints felt numb. It was a likely culprit of why her escape effort just didn't work.
"I said… Take a hike!" Shige-H grumbled, shooting back on both feet, much to the surprise of the whip-using assailant while driving her fist up in a weighty wake-up uppercut. The man's entire body stretched out to the identical inhuman extent as his previous feats when eluding Shige-H's attacks, though this time it was because of the transferal of the countless megatons of force hitting his jaw. The attacker's neck, his spine, the entire body evened out like a string before he flew straight up like a human missile.
"Damn… Those lashes sting…" Shige-H winced and stumbled. She wasn't wrong, as evidenced by a pair of purple stretched across Shige's back with splatters of blood on the sides. The crash of the whip was so severe that it forced blood to spray through Shige's pores on the side. "You still down? I expected you to be out of binds like that yesterday."
"Something's off about this guy. I can't move and it's not because of the leather straps…" Mana grumbled. It was only when she calmed down and closed her eyes that she realized what was going on. There was a puny signal of chakra stretched out around the straps she had on her. It had been a while since Mana encountered this technique. Just like she would dispel an illusion, Mana expelled a pulse of chakra and sent it across the invisible steel wire strings, right toward its owner, wherever they were. "There's a puppeteer involved. They wrapped these whips in tiny strands of steel wire that connect upon touch. From there, the puppeteer can control the body of the restrained target so that they don't escape their bind."
"The real question is, if our whip guy's the puppet or if there's another guy in play…" Shige-H's eyes raced across the opening of the town where the terrified townsfolk hid in the nearest house or facility until the ninja in the town center duked it out amongst themselves.
"I can sense multiple chakra sources all around us. A few of them have got to be duds that the real puppeteer is using to keep us guessing," Mana sighed.
"They weren't aware of your sensory earlier. This must be just a habit of theirs…" Shige-H kept a tight watch to pinpoint where the real enemy may have been hiding. That was when the whip-user smashed back down, flopping with a rubbery thud and smacking off the ground a good few meters before flopping back again.
"There's chakra moving again," Mana warned Shige-H. The puppeteer had canceled their connection to Mana when they sensed Mana sending them an illusion through the chakra-coated steel wire. This was an experienced ninja.
"What do you guys want with Mana?" Shige-H insisted, putting up her dukes as the stretchy whip ninja rose on both feet in an elastic and contorting manner. The man's face stayed as cold as ever while his eyes fixed on Shige-H, who stood between him and Mana.
"People know her face. We could use that publicity. Last warning, step aside or die, Allied Ninja," the whip-user warned Shige-H with an indifferent tone. Shige's back was too sore to jest. She just weaved toward the enemy, ready to give him a good mashing from up close.
She didn't expect the man to spin like a whirligig, lashing with both whips at once and forcing Shige-H to hunker down with crossed arms and take the lashing until the force of impact skid her body back out of the man's range. Nobody could move like that. It seemed as if though an actual whip had just spun the mysterious assailant around before letting him rip into Shige. So high was his velocity that he raised a vortex of dust, gravel, and blades of grass around him and he stopped and settled back down with the same apathy as he started with.
"This one didn't hurt nearly as much as the last one," Shige-H snickered. Mana couldn't help but note how Shige's body had been far less flushed with chakra than before. It made little sense for one's body to take less damage while amping down their chakra augmentation. Still, it seemed like Shige stumbled into something Mana couldn't quite grasp. It may have been for the best if Mana followed that example and asked questions later.
"That's because I put little force into it. This is the one that'll peel your flesh off like a sack," the man replied with the casualty of handling shopping business as he flipped both of his whips over his head and had them wrap around each other, creating a single lasher of a super-whip that he grabbed with both hands. "Ninja Style: Power Slam!"
"Wind Style: Magic Bubble Jutsu!" Mana swooped in front of her leader and stretched her arms to the sides, forming a massive bubble of Wind Release chakra around them both. The bubble burst with a violent pop, but the detonating aftereffects of violent Wind Release chakra tore into the strands of the whip and ruined plenty of the separate strands comprising the entire thing.
When the double lasher unraveled and the whip-user dragged his whips back to him to examine them, he could see tears in his precious weapons. It was partly his own fault, as the impact was just too violent for his own tool to withstand. As experienced as this ninja was, he could have prevented this outcome and maybe even crushed Mana's defensive technique with little effort if he had coated his entire weapon in chakra before the slam.
"Thanks, I had a feeling this one would have hurt," Shige-H nodded in gratitude, looking glad to see Mana on her feet.
"It would have crippled us both. Don't rely on my defenses again. That last attack was not something I can stop or block. We'll have to try to not get hit," Mana let her squad leader know.
The lasher ran his hand through his hair that had spiked up from the unease and the quick and unrestrained physical effort he had undergone during that last attack to slick them back. Mana sensed a handful of adequately sized, unfamiliar chakra signatures. This could only have been ninja, though, whose exactly side they were on, she couldn't tell yet.
"Tsk, I'll have to take you later. We thought you were an advocate for peace. If you were, you'd not have resisted…" the whip-using ninja looked Mana straight in the eye. Something in the look of this man was so deadpan and lifeless. It was as if Mana was staring into dyed rubber that lacked any semblance of a soul. Just as the taps of ninja sandals began tapping on the rooftops and peaks of local boulders, the lashing assailant collapsed into rubbery rings that slithered across gravel and patches of grass-like snakes.
"He's retreating?! Hey, you guys! Don't let him retreat. He's still in the area somewhere!" Shige-H yelled at the assembled ninja. Some of them wore brown flak jackets over red shirts while others wore one-shoulder white flak jackets over black bodysuits. This could get really nasty if Kumogakure and Iwagakure ninja start sorting out their relationship here… "Shit, how did he disappear so fast? It's almost like your technique… Did he pull a genjutsu on us?"
"No. I'd have sensed it. His chakra signature had completely vanished. Only the other signatures I've felt earlier remain. We should check them just in case he's hidden. I don't think he'd risk being sighted fleeing this area," Mana shook her head. "I wouldn't have resisted… What did he mean by that?"
Asuka's hand shot to her hip first. The blonde grabbed something from her pouch and flung her at Endo's face. The swordsman didn't let this feint trick him. The rookie was luring his draw slash out. She either saw to entrap his arm with the sword already out or to control it before the draw to restrain Endo's blade. Endo rolled aside, avoiding the small object like the plague. A small scroll flopped on the ground while Asuka clapped her hands together.
"Barrier Style: Koho!" she chanted out and extended her hands, creating a solid rectangular construct of chakra in front of her.
"That's cute of you to think I'll be coming from the front," Endo spoke with absolute death behind his tone as he loomed from behind Asuka, having blinked there with hi-speed movement. The newbie amongst the Stars had stiffened up and froze in terror, not having expected her opponent to have moved so quickly. Endo's foot caught Asuka while she was in mid-turn and sent her crashing through her own barrier and resting on the pile of junk from the café table they just ruined.
With all the distance in the world that he needed, Endo pulled out his two swords and connected them into a sword-staff by the hilt, twirling it around over his head before resting in a high sword-fighting stance and giving his opponent a mean look. It took him a while to notice sunlight dancing underneath Asuka's lip.
"String Reeling Jutsu!" Asuka said with the strand of steel wire under her lip, hurting the clarity of her speech a bit. With a good yank, she pulled on the steel wire and unraveled the scroll that she tossed at Endo to distract him earlier. The unraveled scroll expelled a torrent of water shooting right up and causing a temporary downpour around the two ninja.
"I don't think that's how water scrolls are meant to be used," Endo sneered in disgust at what he saw as a lack of experience from his opponent. Plenty of ninja whose natural affinity was for the Water Release carried around scrolls containing a large mass of water inside to be used to help them perform those techniques. The scroll was meant to be opened sideways or face-down so that a large pool of water could accumulate. Instead, Asuka's scroll splattered water in a downpour, too slow to accumulate before the ground absorbs it.
"Says you," the right tip of Asuka's lip turned upward as she weaved a hand seal. "Water Style: Water Assault Jutsu!"
"Water Assault? I told you, this much water won't make for much!" Endo growled. He wouldn't have been nearly as peeved if Asuka didn't use a textbook technique on him that most Water Release jutsu users could pull off. The double-bladed swordsman spun his weapon out in front of him like a chopping shield to deflect the rushing water. While ninjutsu could force such an improvised rain to become a true typhoon-like nuisance, Endo still fended its featherweight pelting with a mere motion of his sword. The sound of clapping filled the area.
"Barrier Style: Koho!" Asuka chanted out. Endo wondered what his opponent was trying to do. Why would she go for protecting herself behind a barrier when she had an upper hand and had droplets of water, sharp as a senbon needle, rushing straight at Endo? Come to think of it, Endo couldn't even see the barrier that his enemy had made…
Asuka leaned down and shot up a good three-floor high, vaulting over her front and kicking off something solid in the air to drive a crashing foot in the back of Endo's head with a nasty thud. This way she vaulted straight over Endo's twirling defenses out in the front and used the opening while he was defending himself, planting the swordsman face-down into the wet gravel.
"For someone who stated to attack to kill, you haven't been showing much so far," Asuka playfully skid across the wet floor, gaining an impressive amount of distance between the two before the water in her scroll ran out. "I'd call this teasing."
"I'll tease you to a dozen pieces!" Endo growled, jumping off the floor and channeling Lightning Release chakra through his sword. A vibrating slash cut through the right shoulder of Asuka's vest like scissors going through tissue paper. Before the kunoichi could adequately evade one deadly slash, the other end of Endo's blade was already coming in for a repeat stroke. Asuka's eyes blanked out in pain as no blood squirted out from the slash across her thigh.
Before the woman could even collapse on her knee, Endo turned around with a solebutt kick and sent her flying and skidding aside on her back. Endo wasn't one for letting his opponents stand back up after they make fun of him to his face so he was already mid-air and preparing to drive the end of his sword into Asuka's solar plexus with a descending stab when Asuka snapped out of it.
In a curious feat of movement, it seemed as if the young woman had skidded across the surface with her buttocks, avoiding deadly impalement, but Endo disconnected the back end of the sword and thrust it at Asuka's chest while she was standing up. The kunoichi swatted with her right hand, pushing the thrust to miss her chest and graze her shoulder bone instead while she slid back. This curious method of movement didn't elude Endo's eyes.
"I take it you were going for a moist ground this entire time?" Endo performed a kata with both of his swords before reconnecting them. "So that you could slide around like a water strider across it. That's a troublesome type of movement, especially when the gravel is all moist and my movements are actually impaired."
"Yeah, if I had just created a field of water, you'd have no problem moving around at your usual speed, which is too much of a pain in the ass to deal with. I had to improvise," Asuka winced, holding the wound on her shoulder. Endo's Lightning Release coating had a mean property of numbing the nerves in the area it hit, making using that area difficult for a few seconds. It also sliced far cleaner than a weapon without the coating would have, so it made for quite a nasty pair of wounds.
"You're playing with childish toys. Your barrier ninjutsu is self-taught. You can't even rely on it to protect you in a split-instant and have to set them up beforehand. Your jutsu are all puny. You can't kill someone like Mana without being able to do at least one B-Rank jutsu. Right now, while your body and training are that of a B-Rank ninja, your arsenal is that of a genin," Endo mocked his opponent.
"Orphanages don't make for the best training grounds, you know," Asuka replied with little in terms of reaction. She usually liked to sass and mock people, but Endo knew he touched a nerve when bitterness snuffed out the snobby smirk she usually would have adopted. "No one wants to teach a deadweight, either. You have to make do with what you have! I didn't have first-class teachers like Nakotsumi Mana did. Her sensei took the only real mentor I ever had and everyone else left me when I wasn't useful to watch over anymore!"
"Make excuses all you want. At this level, it's just a matter of time before I strike you dead," Endo sneered at Asuka. "I haven't truly graduated my swordsmanship studies. I don't have to follow some rubbish like the bushido anymore. I can slay weaklings and women alike, so don't think you can beg for mercy just because you're both."
"I'll just have to keep you at bay then and keep that troublesome pointing stick of yours away," Asuka took a wary and defensive fighting stance.
"Lightning Style: Rupture!" Endo yelled out, swinging his Lightning Release chakra-infused sword with wicked violence behind his intent. An electric shock wave of chakra shaped like a ranged crescent slash sought to prove Asuka's plan a foolish one. Before that could happen, however, the projectile fractured and dissolved into tiny electric strands, surging back into Endo's body and forcing the swordsman to growl in pain before it escaped his lungs with a shout.
"You idiot, I still soaked you with my Water Release downpour before you did that. I was waiting for you to do something hasty like that and you played right into my hands," Asuka turned her back to Endo while the stunned swordsman fell on his face, shocked and smoldering all over as his own overwhelming force came back to bite him. "Now, I'm off to find someone that can help me kill Nakotsumi Mana. If it ends up sparking a war across this continent of numbskulls, even better."
Asuka weaved a hand seal, disappearing as living droplets of the rain into the murky and wet scenery while Endo wrestled against gravity and numbness to get back on his feet. Before Endo could give chase, something heavy slammed into his back and pressed his head against the ground.
"I've got this one, chase after the other!" a low-pitched and masculine voice yelled out as Endo's subduer pressed his knee onto the swordsman's back and pressed with their entire body weight, which was significant.
"Don't boss me around, no-village trash," a slimier voice came from a dark-skinned ninja wearing Kumogakure gear with cream-colored, spiky, and long hair. "What's with all this mist? No way we'll find that chick in all that haze."
"Asuka…!" Endo bellowed out with so much force behind his battle cry that he even tilted the Iwagakure ninja restraining him. "I swear to kill you for this!" he yelled out into the thick, white fog formed from the moist ground as Asuka's cover for escape. She had this whole thing planned–to play into his violent and distrustful instincts and then to slip away and join the enemy.
It's almost as if trusting someone who tried to kill someone twice in a row was a bad idea all along, no matter how direly they needed her favor.