"You came…" Mana could hear her own voice, but, whether it was because of the massive walloping that she's taken, or the profuse, trickling blood over her face and eyes, she couldn't see Shige-H over her. Despite the lack of vision and a state of semi-consciousness, the ninja magician could feel the refreshing wash of the Mystical Palm numbing the agonizing twinges on her ankle. "What about the monsters…? I… I had to… You must stop…"
"No!" Shige's voice resonated in Mana's mind with enough effect to snap the hazy magician's mind out for a second. When Mana saw a blurry silhouette of the perturbed face of the leader of the Stars staring right at her, it became clear that it wasn't entirely because of the blood gushing over her face that she could barely see anything. She's been slipping in and out for real. "You need to stand down and let us fix this mess."
"The townsfolk…" Mana muttered in a tone that sounded delirious even to her own semi-conscious state of comprehension.
"Are still safe. Right how we left them. We've dealt with the attack. Together. The enemy isn't nearly as threatening when you know they're coming and see where they're coming from. You'd know that if you bothered working together with someone for once," Shige-H bit Mana again while forcing a stronger pulse of Mystical Palm out. Mana could recognize that cooling wash. While usually Mystical Palm felt numbing and refreshing, if set to an overly intense glow, it could also feel cold and sharp. Like frostbite seeping into every pore of the affected area that was being treated.
"I'm… I'm sorry…" Mana had the common decency and the social awareness in her battered stupor to admit. She's never been drunk, but she's observed drunken people enough to make that comparison in her floating state of being.
"You will be. I've been busting my ass treating the injured peacekeepers the whole night. I don't have nearly enough chakra to make this painless for you, missy. Right now, I'm just betting on saving that leg. Shit, the bone's shattered all over… I'm surprised it's still attached…" Shige-H cursed. Her voice sounded dire. The medical kunoichi got angry from time to time but, throughout the last year they've worked together, Mana had never seen or heard Shige-H as mad as this.
Her neck felt too tired and no matter how much Mana wanted to keep it tense, her head just fell flat on the back of her skull while she laid stretched out. The pain made her burrow her fingers into the shallow layer of gravel underneath while Shige-H worked her magic.
"If you relaxed, you'll pass out," Shige-H noted the writhing uneasiness in Mana's body. "I can see your chakra network is in a fritz. Were you exhausting yourself? Your chakra resources are massive. I've never thought it to be likely to ever happen."
"That man… Selsig… He's the user of the… The mud-men technique…" Mana relayed the vital intelligence.
"Calm down," Shige-H barked out, pressing Mana's upper half to the ground with her right hand before returning to treating the grievous case of mashed leg and bone chips. "You won't be nearly as entertaining with wobbly wooden leg replacement, so let me do my best here and hope it won't come to that."
Mana coughed up, feeling trickles of blood splatter from her spit and fall over the dried layer already over her face while some ran down her neck. A little speck returned where it came from, just aggravating Mana's bloody coughing situation, which made an agonizing resonance pass through her ribs. The magician rolled over on her right shoulder and threw chestnut-colored bile out from her mouth. Shige-H backed away from it, realizing that if she kept Mana pressed down, the magician will just drown in the mash of her guts she was throwing up.
"God-fucking-dammit…" Shige-H cursed before gently directing Mana to stretch out again while she moved the leg over a backpack to get a better look at what she was putting back together. "Sorry, Mana… Your whole body's busted up. That was the bile from your stomach you tossed out. I'm going to need to switch my priorities shortly and… If I do… Your leg's gonna have to give or it'll infect the rest. I'm afraid I'll need you conscious for this. I need to observe your symptoms to see when your overall injuries are too much to ignore and when they'll force me to… Give up on your leg."
"The villagers… Are they safe?" Mana asked through a drifting fog in her eyes.
"Dammit, I already told you…!" Shige-H raised her voice, not loving the distraction from the vital work, but then she sighed. "Yeah… Yeah, we kept them safe. They're going to be okay. Just try to relax and go along with this. Hopefully, you'll walk upright tomorrow."
"Huh… What's up with this guy…?" Prim-S waved his hand over Gwirlon's face, trying to get a reaction out of the man, but he just stood there with his severed arm hanging loose with no attempts at restraining the bleeding.
"Mana is keeping Shige occupied. If we are to get anything out of this guy, we better patch him up now!" Prabba declared after regrouping with the peacekeepers and the Stars on the ground level while they surrounded the unresponsive giant.
"Yeah… I'm pretty good with severing limbs, but I ain't too good at working them back together…" Denkka scratched the back of her head, looking embarrassed for the first time anyone could remember seeing.
"Don't look at me either…" Prim-S excused himself, frantically shaking his hands out in front of him. "I might slam a boulder onto it, but I'm not sure how it'd help."
"Ugh…" Prabba leaned down and ripped the sleeves of her peacekeeper uniform clean off. This didn't seem like even remotely enough to cover up the bleeding from a missing limb but a shinobi's body had a tendency of autonomously acting in the right way to save itself, as long as they had plenty of chakra to fuel this method of survival. "I'm teaching kids at the Academy. You're all lucky that survival skills are as prevalent of a part of the ninja curriculum as they are."
"Don't yell at me, lady. I don't really have a deep background in the Academy. I learned everything I need to know fighting for my life with a sword in hand inside of a cage hanging over an active volcano," Endo pointed at himself with a confident and tranquil look on his face.
"What herbs would you use to best assist a body in dealing with profuse bleeding?" Prabba wondered, knowing that she'll get an immensely amusing answer even if she won't get a correct one. She could use a little amusement as while her survival skills were as sharp as they came, they wouldn't be remotely enough to treat this man, just postpone the severity of his injuries from kicking in until a qualified specialist got to look at him.
"Herbs? That's chickenshit. Those don't grow in an active volcano and a cage doesn't produce moss either. You just press your gash to the edge of the cage and the heat from the hot-red bars cauterizes it." Endo crossed his arms and turned his eyes away.
"Yeah… Melts your flesh like cheese too…" Prabba muttered to herself while running through most of the emergency supplies she had on her. She commonly had to deal with arrow puncture wounds, stab wounds, and deep cuts. Poisoning and the like. Never actual severed limbs. She was a survivalist and a damn outstanding teacher, not a medical kunoichi let alone a miracle worker.
"Do you really think he's worth all the hassle and the bandaging?" Endo scratched his head. "He looks like kind of an idiot. Plus, he's a nukenin. It's kind of hilarious you guys are protecting him, 'cause he's an Iwagakure radical."
"Look at him," Denkka closed her eyes with a grumpy expression. "He doesn't look like a guy that has deep-seated views and one that can support a winded political discussion if you catch my cold. Likely, those guys just used this poor dolt as a tool of theirs. The thing about tools is that one takes them for granted. It's more than likely that this guy's been present at plenty of meetings and helped plenty of colorful folks. He's got intel alright. All we need is to squeeze it out of him."
"Yeah, but how…?" Prim-S scratched his head, still snapping his fingers and trying to get a reaction out of the abused and sad-looking mountain of flesh. "Look at him. I don't think we're going to surprise him with a sprinkle of torture."
"I have my ways…" Denkka crossed her arms. Endo and Prim-S both felt shivers running down their spines upon trying to make anything concrete out from the woman's expression.
A pair of leather boots tapped against the dusty stone. A tall and thin man with a round face covered with black and red tattoos with the black lines connecting his eyes and the red ones separating the top and bottom half of his face stretched his back out and turned behind him. A woman of a thick and muscular body clung to the outer edges of a rocky mountain range and pulled herself up to the edge, finally standing beside her partner. After finishing her grueling climb, the thicker of the two ninja dragged her arm across her fuchsia-colored spiky hair. Similar to her brother, her face carried violet facial markings, though hers seemed to be more modeled after make-up than the excessive lines and symbols on her brother's face.
"What the heck is this?" the muscular woman sneered at the small town at the peak of the mountain they've climbed. The top appeared to be shaved off with a crater-like carving inside of it that fostered a small mining town.
"There…" the tall and lean man pointed at a collection of spiky ridges at the other end of the mountain. In the center of the crown-like ridge, there was a shady opening that could only have been an entryway into the vast collection of the legendary Iwagakure mines.
"Really? You think Yaban hid himself to rot inside of a mine after retiring as the Tsuchikage?" the kunoichi pressed her hands against her hips while giving her brother an inquisitive look, not entirely devoid of mockery.
"Maybe he's struggling with his conscience?" the gaunt man shrugged.
"As he damn well should. Still… Come on…" the woman shook her head before realizing that she had no better alternative to offer, at which point she exhaled and the two ninja vanished in a dash of the Body Flicker technique.
"I'm off to get me some beer, do you guys need anything?" a cheerful ninja wearing the standard Iwagakure uniform that had seen better days and carried signs of hefty wear on it pushed an old wooden door and left outside into the dusty plateau of the mountain the ninja residing in the small mining town atop of the mountain lived on. Cheer turned to confusion as the man's eyes halted, fixed at a curious pair of visitors that looked nothing like the usual folks one might have encountered at a remote place such as this. "What the…?" he muttered.
"Tag…" the gaunt man donning a shiny leather suit nudged the man with his knuckle. A rich smile didn't leave his face for a second. The confused ninja was about to argue, but his words seemed to slur inside of his mouth. His legs began acting wobbly as he staggered into the house he had just left. After a short while, those outside could have heard glass and wood shattering and household inventory scattering all over the place as ninja became disturbed by the sudden collapse of their comrade.
In a blink, the mining town filled the entire center of the small mining town with at least forty ninja. All of them had Iwagakure uniforms, though all of them had combat marks on their forehead protectors or rips and tears over their flak jackets. Some of them lacked their bandanas and had to improvise another location to stitch their forehead protector plates to.
"Jeez, what happened to keeping a low profile!?" the chubby woman waved her hands about frantically, objecting to her brother's nonchalant murder of the man.
"I wasn't aware we were doing anything of that sort…" the tall and slim man crossed his arms and turned his nose diagonally up and to his left. He had a childish pout on his lips as well. "Aren't these guys Yagan's bodyguards, anyway? Scum protecting the man that sold out his country and hid inside of some rundown mine don't deserve to have us sneak around them. I say we go through them."
"Ugh… It's going to be such a chore…" the woman shook her head, looking grumpy about this sudden switch in how she thought they were going to handle things. "This is so unprofessional. Saseau sent us on a hit, you know. Hit and run, if you will."
"A hit? Lord Tsuchikage? You're here to assassinate Lord Tsuchikage!?" the ragged bodyguard bunch picked up the breadcrumbs scattered by the enigmatic pair.
"You two… You're Toxi and Veno, aren't you?" another one of the battle-worn ninja with the stubbly facial hair of someone who hadn't tended to their physical hygiene for entire months grumbled. "Why are you attacking Lord Tsuchikage? Didn't you fight on our side during the Coltan Conflict?"
"What? Toxi and Veno? The Two-Men Hit Squad? I've never seen them in action, the command never deployed them on active battlefields I served in…" yet another one of the surrounding ninja reacted with grand surprise to the novelty of the highly esteemed visitors they've been graced by the presence of.
"You assholes, I should ask you those same things…" Toxi hissed out, punching his own open palm before taking a boxing-style taijutsu stance. "You've abandoned your lives and adopted the affiliation of a "traitor" the moment you hesitated to end Kaguya Yaban's life after he surrendered our village to the enemy!"
"Look at what you did, you made my goofball brother act all mad and patriotic… This doesn't bode well for you guys at all…" Veno teased the surrounding battalion of ninja by pointing with her finger toward the edge of the crown-shaped spiky mountain ridge and gesturing for flight with her hands. The meaning behind her offer didn't really need interpretation.
"So… It was Toxi's punches that killed Valey…" a faceless ninja in a raggedy and miserable crowd of soldiers now lacking a purpose behind protecting the man who seemingly gave up on his own life surmised.
"Try to avoid them, if you can…" Toxi moved in a mock charge, frightening the surrounding ring of ninja and making those in the vanguard position stumble over on their rear ends. Satisfied with the mockery he had made of the Iwagakure ninja protecting Kaguya Yaban with their lives and choosing self-imposed exile alongside their leader over serving the Kumogakure occupants, Toxi snickered.
"Earth Style: Mud Wall!" a myriad of grumbling voices littered the miserable mining town as the men slammed their hands against the rocky ground and erected a wall of solid, grey stone as if summoning the mountain peak to grow taller in order to shield them.
"That's right, don't let him anywhere near us! He's a close-range combatant, keep him away and we can pin him!" a voice of a ninja hiding behind the wall reached the pair. However, the combined, improvised stone barrier that the Iwagakure ninja made for themselves served as a hindrance to themselves, as neither of them could see Veno weaving a good bunch of hand seals. It was only when the woman clapped her hands together that they realized their error in obstructing their own clear view of the pair of rogues.
"Venom Style: Great Venom Shockwave!" the woman proclaimed, thrusting her hand downward while opening her mouth far and wide, displaying two lines of teeth so decayed that their stench visibly translated with a murky vapor whenever she breathed out a stronger breath or opened her mouth wide enough. Purple sludge leaked out from her mouth, running down her face and body and gathering at her fingertips before converging into a single, massive orb of rustling wetness.
"Quick, crush them!" someone from the surrounding ninja urged their comrades to attack before the technique could pick up some steam. Given how slow it was to charge up and flush the enemies out, it was self-evident just how potent such a jutsu must have been with proper channeling time and execution behind it.
"Earth Style: Life Shaver!" a synchronized myriad of voices all uttered at once, smacking their erected rock barriers with open palms, which sent a chakra pulse throughout. The potent resonance made the other ends of the barrier sharpen up with protruding stone spikes. Racing against the clock of their own demise, the Iwagakure ninja took another staunch step and focused their chakra inside the ends of their fingertips before slamming their open palms into the blunt front of their barrier walls and pushing them to slide at an alarming speed toward the enemy intending to crush and mash them into a bloody paste.
Despite the gruesome intentions, the sharpened death trap only plunged inside of an inflating bubble of purple death that had risen both Toxi and Veno higher than the crown ridge surrounding the mining town. Upon the bursting of the venomous bubble, the area drowned in a tidal wave of the violet ooze, covering the poor folks in the deadly sludge and leaving them white-eyed and foaming from the mouths in seconds after emergence while Toxi and Veno floated atop of the tidal wave with chakra focused on their feet.
"I'm not sure if I should feel offended or glad we did away with this chaff…" Veno blew her cheeks out with a childish caprice beaming through her body language.
"Offended?" Toxi raised his eyebrow.
"These chumps apparently knew who we were, yet they didn't know that my Venom Release is an Advanced Bloodline ability. They didn't even try running atop of it as you'd run over water. It wouldn't have worked to someone who hadn't trained this skill but… They didn't even try… I bet they didn't really know us, they were all just full of shit!" Veno yelled out, throwing a fit and kicking a few of twitching soon-to-be corpses experiencing agonizing seizures.
"Who cares about what these folks know?" Toxi closed his eyes and approached a fallen foe, only to punch him straight in the chest. Upon contacting the flesh of the poisoned enemy, Toxi's punch blasted clean through the flesh as if the venom had softened it to being mushy and silky like cotton. Even bone seemed more brittle than chalk to bust and grind into nothing. "Let's just deal with Yaban already. This is what we're best at."
"I don't know, we've fought plenty of scary ninja, but I've never pulled a kidnapping. Yaban's a powerful ninja as it is, worrying about not offing him will suck major ass…" Veno sighed, throwing a piece of bubble gum into her mouth and mashing it good before blowing out a neon-pink bubble from her mouth.
"That's why Selsig and his crew left to pick up Konoha's Sorceress, right? Plan B…" Toxi's lips arced in a subtle smile that suggested Toxi would've been fine with either outcome of the upcoming clash.