"It's in a remarkably great condition." Mana noted while looking around. Zairyo had used a ninjutsu technique that created a small light emitting sphere in his hand and walked up front, leading the way. At this point the trio were just wandering around the archive looking for the scroll that Usuzoku needed. "The centipede that used to block the entrance also appears to be gone…" the magician recalled the obstacle that prevented her from leaving the archive all the way back.
"Aye, de centipede goo is a great delicacy for dem mongooses. I must admit its slimy qualities hold certain power over me too, however, da very fact that the mongooses find it alluring deters me." Usuzoku explained only for Mana to throw up a little bit of illusionary bile in her mouth. She had every right to despise the material, she once literally swam in it for her life and mission objective.
Zairyo was obliviously nodding, when his eyes met Mana's questioning gaze he just shrugged, "What? It's rich in protein and food is scarce when you wander…" the man waved his hands feeling a bit on the defensive side.
"So what if the scroll really is destroyed?" Mana wondered, "What happens to the ninja rabbits? Do they become just rabbits?"
"Don' be stupid, ye dirty hatchling. We'd just make a new one." Usuzoku squinted at her fighting the impulse to physically hurt the magician.
"So why didn't you make a new one when this one was stolen?" Mana scratched her head in confusion, also to remove the excessive number of cobwebs that tangled in her long dark hair.
"Gee, I dunno, maybe it's because it's our Contract Scroll!? Why don't you humans build a new Hokage mountain and just blow this one to pieces fer no reason?" Usuzoku stopped and used his large toes to lift his body up to meet Mana's eyes on her level. The two just stared each other down for a while before Zairyo sighed in boredom.
The man bit his thumb and quickly made a bunch of hand seals before driving his hand to the ground.
"Summoning Jutsu!" he shouted as a cloud of smoke erupted after a loud pop of air and a flash of light. Where the smoke soon clear stood a pair of zebra-like looking creatures except they both stood on two hind legs and had strong looking horns on their foreheads. The creatures had completely red colored eyes which made the magician take a cautionary step back after the duo revealed themselves but then their expressions pacified somewhat and they just stared blankly at their summoner.
"Help me find a Rabbit Contract Scroll. It's supposed to be here somewhere…" the man grumped it out to his ninja animals who quickly scattered through the archive that wasn't really even that large and could've been examined in a good twenty minutes of careful observation. Had the Sannin shared this part of the plan with the magician she'd have disagreed to further worsen this place's integrity.
"Wait, you have a contract with ninja zebras?" Usuzoku stared at the recently performed summoning technique with shock. Almost like his entire life choices were just put into question.
"Yeah. They're useful and quite powerful runners. This pair also possesses the horn mutation which is rare amongst the species, they are a valuable specimen." Zairyo shrugged.
"YE IDIOT!" Usuzoku yelled out, for the first time the magician saw the rabbit being angry at someone else than her, "You can't be signed ta two species at once! Why did'ya even look for de damned Bailong scroll anyways if it's useless fer ya!?"
"Huh? I once fought a guy who used both a snake and a panda summon. I thought you could sign to as many species as you can convince to sign it… I thought the one species rule is more of a recommendation to deepen the "bond" between the summoner and the animal or some bullcrap like that…" the Sannin explained his position only for Usuzoku to facepalm.
"Un-frickin'-believable." The rabbit sung out to himself, "Ye idiot, ya can sign the individual contract with any number of given individual members of da species, but the species contract only works for one species at a time. Even if ya had found the Bailong contract it'd have been useless fer ya! Some summoner ninja choose to never sign the species contract, instead opting ta go for countless different individual contracts with different species. Dat's the idiot ye fought!"
Two combined loud poofs interrupted the conversation. Both Zairyo and Usuzoku looked on ahead at the cloud of grey smoke with great shock.
"What's that?" Mana wondered after a loud sizzling sound interrupted her own desire to nag her companions for answers.
A powerful explosion lifted the floor in the particular area of Forest of Death up, opening up by making the ceiling of the ruined archive pop up like a lid of a pickle jar after the air pressure inside builds up however it was no air that caused this particular eruption of dirt and ground that rained from the sky together with a downpour of rock and paper.
An arm erupted from the hole pulling out from underground a ponytail wearing man – the owner of said arm who was quite pissed judging from the expression on his face. In a moment's notice something, like a furious rocket, blasted out from underground in a pink flurry of fur and bladework, cutting and kicking air for the rabbit's little paws could get their hold on nothing else to cut to pieces. Zairyo picked himself up and got himself together, even if he was caught in the explosion he had little to no injury to his clothes, opting instead to augment his body and simply take the explosion instead of choosing to avoid it in some more wasteful manner. A sword found its way into the man's arm, gripped firmly the blade that extended past the hilt was of solid gold color with a hieroglyph positioned at the tip of the blade meaning "giraffe".
"The scroll… It's… Gone…" Usuzoku cried out looking at the falling and still smoldering pieces of paper and leather that covered some of the scrolls' backs. "So many years of questing, so many investigations…" he still couldn't believe it as the animal tried to grab paper from paper but every single scrap burnt up just as it touched the paws of the poor crying animal.
"Forget that, where's the kid?" Zairyo asked Usuzoku who kept on weeping over the raining storm of scorched knowledge that was never to be read by anyone again.
"Heh, heh, heh, eat shit, ya stupid rabbit scum!" a sneaky laughter chuckled from behind. Usuzoku jumped up and turned around in a feat of acrobacy, foreseeing an attack from behind to come, which didn't come. Still, his aerial maneuver permitted by his immensely powerful lower body strength was remarkably impressive regardless.
"Mongoose!" he hissed out in anger. "There's always another mongoose!" the rabbit growled to himself.
"I assume you will take care of it?" Zairyo sighed before sheathing the sword. Even if the swordsman realized that the ninja animal that attacked him had greatly pissed him off, it was still a much more personal opponent for the pink rabbit rogue and the Sannin respected the rightful right of dibs for those with a personal history with an enemy.
"Aye." The rabbit nodded before he pulled out his large sword with both of his ears by allowing them to wrap around the blade whilst the rabbit's own arms pulled out two smaller daggers from his belt holsters.
The ninja mongoose that stood on an emptied centipede carcass stand brandished its claw gauntlets that had double clawed threat to them – one was the mongoose's natural claws, fully capable of decapitating a person or a large snake and fully capable of chakra imbuement due to their natural origin with them being a part of the mongoose's body. The other – steel claws were likely made from high tier chakra conductive alloy for they glowed bland blue – the color of base and lacking an elemental affinity chakra.
Usuzoku leaped at his opponent clashing with them, using his large sword to distract and occupy the animal's gauntlets, placing two quick swipes from his short daggers that danced as fast as lightning. Soon the deceitful mongoose realized that there was no following that particular pair of daggers once the skilled eviscerator – Usuzoku the ninja rabbit got his hands on them.
The mongoose quickly responded with a counterattack swiping with those clawed gauntlets of his. Usuzoku was no longer where the mongoose wished the rabbit to be, however, instead explosive tags of the rabbit himself sizzled trying to give this mongoose something of his own medicine. After the dirt and smoke picked up from the blast cleared out Usuzoku tried to survey his environment, there was nothing of the mongoose left.
"Ye stupid mongoose!" Usuzoku yelled out as his ears flung the large two handed sword into the air and his hands quickly tossed the pair of blades up only for the rabbit's long ears to lock around them while the rogue's hands made hand seals. Once the long sword landed the switch was reversed and the rabbit hopped slightly slamming the ground with great force that sent a crushing shockwave through the surrounding area, powerful enough to make the ground bend and wave like an ocean and crushing the surrounding trees from the sheer immensity of the force passing through them, surfacing their underground roots in great quantity.
"Earth Style: Exo-co-ét!" Usuzoku yelled out looking at the lifeless sack of flesh, fur and bones that got tossed out from underground. The rabbit lunged at the seemingly unconscious mongoose swinging his larger sword with the intention of cutting the ninja animal in two, just inflicting enough damage to kill it instantly and not letting it return to its native territory in case it was summoned here.
Just as the sword was about to collide with the mongoose the unconscious body poofed into smoke revealing a clone. The real mongoose dived out from underground with some tears and cuts and an awkwardly hanging broken hind leg, having chosen to remain underground and take more damage from the earthquake technique than expose himself for the finishing blow.
A red flash made Usuzoku flip over his axis and plummet down, on his chest a crimson X identified the scar he had received with the mongoose's curved blades bypassing his quick attempts at blocking as well as the primitive and limited armor that the rabbit wore. The rabbit smashed down with immense force, enough to kill any man but Zairyo did not choose to interfere knowing that such an impact would be close to nothing for someone of the rabbit's level of skill.
"Enjoy oblivion, stupid rabbit dirtbag!" the mongoose laughed out. "Now that your Contract Scroll is gone no one will ever sign to you stupid rabbits, you may have won the war, but we – ninja mongooses have won the… Bigger war, comprised of smaller… Less important wars!"
"One thing, ye filthy mongoose bastard…" Usuzoku huffed out as being tagged by his opponent's blade and the double threat manner of his strange weapon leaving a bigger wound than it reasonably should've had drawn most of his breath out. "I see ye ruined all of my centipede scarecrows, huh?" the rabbit asked while glancing around and seeing most of his centipede towers being toppled down.
"That's right, I even toppled all of your stupid towers! No mongoose will ever allow anything built or given birth by a rabbit to stand! For every plan you make, there'll be a mongoose to ruin it all!" the mongoose was really enjoying his wickedness on top of a strong lower tree branch. Then the animal hopped down and brandished his weapons again preparing to go in for the finish.
"So what yer sayin' is… Nothing's stoppin' me from doin' dis…" the rabbit leaned down, the mongoose leaped forward aiming to decapitate his opponent as Usuzoku's movements left countless of openings but the pink rabbit had concluded his movements faster, pulling on a handful of steel wire hidden underground.
"String Reeling Jutsu!" Usuzoku shouted out as the steel wire picked up on other loops of strings and more and more, triggering a chain reaction that soon locked around the mongoose's body and locked the ninja animal down to the tree. The rabbit charged up to the mongoose and lifted his ear-held blade up for the finishing strike before a loud wheezing and coughing of a young magician girl interrupted him and forced the rabbit to take a hop back and observe as Mana crawled out from underground moving like a caterpillar because the object she had her hands and legs wrapped around didn't let her use anything but her body and her head.
"Hatchling…" Usuzoku declared the obvious in surprise.
Zairyo just smiled feeling relieved that he would not have to confront Chestnut Hanasaku about one of her students dying to an explosive trap set up by a ninja mongoose.
"You have the Contract Scroll!" Usuzoku suddenly realized as his eyes fell on a brown leather covered scroll with royal pink ribbons all around it and the hieroglyph for "Rabbit" being dyed on a white circle in purple colors – some of the most expensive colored paint found in the world.
"I figured that you should've outraced that explosion, the only reason for you to have stayed was if you tried to find the scroll after the explosion triggered but before it reached us, then shielded it with your body…" Zairyo walked up to Mana and helped her get up as the magician was pretty banged up and her uniform had suffered some damage. A bunch of her cards were no longer held inside their pockets so they just scattered on the ground forcing Mana to pick them up and seal them inside her hat. Struggling to stay on her feet the magician stumbled up to Usuzoku and handed him the scroll that she had trouble holding in both of her extended hands.
With genuine shock and tears in his eyes the rabbit took the scroll from Mana's hands and placed it in his back scabbard where his two handed sword previously was held. The rabbit took the sword and slammed it right above the mongoose's head, tying up all of the steel wire strings and with a twist of the blade locking them all around the sword.
"That's odd…" Mana whimpered out with a weakened voice. "You've locked the trap up more firmly yet you also gave the mongoose a chance to escape. If he struggles long enough, in an hour or so he'll be able to escape the wire by having the sword cut through it." she explained.
"Hmmm… That doesn't fit the profile you've painted for us…" Zairyo looked at the rabbit questioningly, "Did you really cut off the head of that mongoose before or did you make all of that up?"
Had Usuzoku not had a dark pink fur with darker stripes all over it the two ninja could've seen the ninja animal blush in embarrassment.
"Shuddup, ye filthy humans! I've killed a thousand mongooses, a million billion of dem over de years! I'm Usuzoku – da great rabbit hero warrior!" he shouted out hopping on his large feet just to shout from higher up position than the two humans talking to him.
"Well, I guess that's that then. The brat fulfilled her end of the bargain, good luck with that whole rebirth of the ninja rabbits thing…" Zairyo waved as he started to slowly move back towards where the two entered the forest before.
"Wait, what about the ninja zebra you've summoned?" Mana worried, "I couldn't find them down there… The explosion must've swallowed them first."
"No. The summoned animal can return to their native territory as long as they were summoned to their location at that time. That's the sound you've heard before the explosion." Zairyo shook his head coldly, something made Mana wonder if the Sannin collector would've even cared all that much if these priceless zebra would have truly perished.
"Wait…" Usuzoku touched Mana's shoulder as the magician took her first difficult and painful steps forward. "Da summoner of de species is a very special someone. De ninja animals don' just sign contracts wit' stupid hatchlings like you! Da summoner needs ta represent da species dey sign da contract with, advocate dem and make a name fo' dem!" the rabbit explained with a strict voice. Mana just smiled back.
"Yeah, I know. Take care and best of luck finding that person…" she waved the rabbit goodbye, lifting her hand made Mana's ribs burn up but she really wanted to let the rabbit know that she had no hard feelings for the pink fellow, he was far too cute for anyone to hold anything against him.
"Shuddup, ye stupid broad!" Usuzoku shouted out making Mana turn around while halfway having caught up with her companion. "Come 'ere an sign de damn thing!" he yelled out angrily while covering up his eyes with his ears, half the reason being so he couldn't see the person he hated so much signing the contract because he'd have done something stupid to hurt Mana if he saw it, the other was because he had round crystal orbs of tears running down his cheeks.
Mana's eyes opened wide in happiness as she quickly stumbled back to the scroll and opened it. Just as the scrolls contents became visible a large brush got unsealed from inside the scroll and fell on top of it. Wielding the scroll was really difficult as it was a good deal larger than Mana herself but with moderate effort the magician scribbled her name on the empty signee spot before biting her finger and signing in the second row with blood.
"Dere! Now ye can call on all of us that are willing ta answer yer call. Don' expect to see an elite warrior like me ever! I dun work with de likes 'a hatchlings like you! Just use the Summoning Jutsu whenever ya need us, we're now contractually bound as partners – the ninja rabbits are now your partners, hatchling, don' make light deal of it!"
Mana scratched her chin before slapping her forehead.
"Sorry, Zoku-chan, this won't work…" she realized. The rabbit slammed the giant brush against Mana's face splattering paint all over and making Mana tumble back into a tree from the force of impact.
"Call me dat again, I dare ya! Why de frick won' it work? The Summoning Jutsu is simple, even a total twit can do it!" Usuzoku yelled out.
"Yeah… But I don't like using jutsu I didn't invent unless it's a life or death situation, I will most likely never use the Summoning Jutsu ever… Sorry." Mana bowed for the rabbit to the ground realizing that she had already signed the scroll and it was too late to go back.
Usuzoku hopped up to Mana's hat and peeked inside.
"It's a B-Rank storage seal, ain' it?" he wondered.
"Yes, my father made it and I can seal and unseal things from it as I please, it was modified to be useable by me even though I couldn't replicate it even if I wanted to. I use it out of respect for my father and his gift." Mana explained feeling curious as to what the rabbit had in mind.
Usuzoku put his paw inside the hat before it disappeared far past its bottom and a shine of purple right erupted from it. The rabbit rogue then took some blood off his chest wound and let some of it drip into the hat before the seal began glowing more intensely and closed down.
"If yer stupid rules allow ye to use dis thing 'ere, now ya can summon us from just using the seal by first summoning us into the storage seal's pocket space, then pulling us out. It'll cost ye some more chakra but it's not like you care, do ye, ya stupid hatchling?" Usuzoku explained before tossing the top hat back to Mana and quietly beginning his journey back to wherever ninja rabbits were naturally located.
"Mana!" Zairyo's voice broke the magician out of her daydreaming, "Come on, we've got some decent distance to cover before nighttime, you don't want to stay here past then…" he reminded the kunoichi. Mana picked herself up and quickly limped back to her companion, still feeling a bit banged up.
The total result of that day was overall much more entertaining and fruitful than the magician had initially foreseen them to be!
