As the smoke from the detonation of the gunpowder cloud cleared it became evident what became of Mana and Staeg, the leader of Team Eurydome of Getsugakure who chose to make it his personal responsibility to keep Mana and her valuable secret in his hands. An orb of purple chakra flames had enveloped the two, created by Harpalke of Residual Release style ninjutsu at the last moment, keeping the two from harm.

Looking around, Mana was surprised to see that while the flames did appear flame-like in texture and appearance, they were not quite hot when their user did not intend them to be harmful. The magician could only speculate as to why they appeared that way. It could have been because chakra was very flame-like in its purest form, it took the appearance of bland blue flames when visible and unenhanced. Or maybe it was because Harpalke's own Fire Release elemental affinity that the Residual Style appeared this way, taking some of its signs from its user.

Staeg landed on the ground before placing Mana down and looking up at the battle that erupted between the two Getsugakure teams - Team Eurydome of his own management and Team Adrastea and the attacking two teams.

Without waiting around too much, Mana dashed further away from the hectic battlefield but Staeg jumped in between her, the forest thickness, and the nearest tall tree.

"Your team is fighting right now, they could use your leadership", Mana uttered as she lowered her face making her hair slip over her eyes so her enemy couldn't read her distress and see her sweating forehead. To a ninja such details would be a clear indicator that Mana was tricking him and trying to avoid combat by all means which might have been taken for weakness.

"They are fighting Team Pahlavi of Sunagakure and Team Quartz of Iwagakure, Team Pahlavi lacks a member which makes it five on five. I'll manage watching you just fine", Staeg bravely responded raising his buckler to his strong and broad chest. Despite not being able to see the man sheathing his short sword, Mana could hear the sound of steel rubbing against the sheath – he was ready to punch her out if needed but her life needed to be preserved.

Up above a fierce battle was in its early stages. It was unusual to see teams from two different villages working together like Team Pahlavi and Team Quartz did. Needless to say, the desperation of a lost team member combined with ages of common history being abused by the larger ninja villages and ignored in the grand political scale made Iwagakure and Sunagakure grow a little bit closer than most other ninja villages would've. With those two elements combined, believing in the cooperation of the two was not that tough.

Fulgasa of Team Quartz, the young man who used the ash cloud technique earlier pulled out a strange long reaching weapon comprised of a long steel rod and a plough-like tip. Aiming to strike at the enemy team the young man charged diagonally down, aiming at the slightly worn out Harpalke who was beginning to hunch over the strain caused by her techniques. Luckily for Staeg's team Iuteb managed to clock Fulgasa straight in the nose using the same overplayed light-bending trick again.

"Partial Expansion Axe Handle"! Choroina yelled out leaping into the air with her hands raised over her head, aiming to smash her attackers into the ground. After a brief fraction of a second her hands expanded dozens of times, inflating in size and increasing in weight drastically.

As her arms drove down, however, they met a powerful resistance from the enemy as Fulgasa's female teammate with shaved sides of her thick, shoulder-long, maroon hair jumped in to assist him. In mid-leap rocks and dirt rose from the soil beneath Mana's feet and covered Fulgasa's teammate in an innovative rock, dirt and mineral armor technique allowing her to block Choroina's strike, however the immense force from the impact still cracked and shattered the Earth Release user's armor.

"Thanks for the assist, Taudall" Fulgasa grinned like an idiot, feeling sorry for being repelled and nearly taken out this easily.

Using the steel wire combination with the String Reeling Academy ninjutsu, Taudall, with Fulgasa in her strong and thick arms, zipped away from trouble with their teammate, the effeminate looking Yuki, providing some support.

"Ice Style: Diamond Mist"! The dark haired youth from Iwagakure chanted out as the air temperature around the tree where the five were situated, expanding to the tree where Taudall and Fulgasa were zipping off to chilled drastically creating a mist-like effect of dry ice and small ice chips floating weightlessly around, getting tossed around by the gusts of wind.

The golden haired, tanned young man standing calmly beside Team Quartz finally extended his arms from his praying stance to reach out to two scrolls crossed on his back, the size of which surpassed the feeble looking young man himself. The youth then quickly tossed the scrolls in the air after removing the pin that held them together and allowing them to open before he once again placed his palms together in a praying stance.

"Ninja Style: Śrāvakayāna, Pratyekabuddhayāna", the feeble youth spoke in a praying-like tone as a bunch of bits and detached parts unsealed from the scrolls.

"Whatever he's doing, don't let him"! Gunoi turned at his teammate, the medical ninja Crus who just shrugged innocently.

"What am I to do"? He replied much to his teammate's annoyance.

"Lightning Style: Shock Wall"! Gunoi quickly worked through his own hand seals, before electrifying multiple strings of steel wire and swinging them by parting his close placed palms. After the steel wire had expanded to its limits and stopped in place, the Lightning Release chakra continued to flow and move outside its initial medium.

The cloaked teammate with a purple mohawk, standing beside the feeble looking member of Team Pahlavi quickly bit his thumb and started working through his own set of hand seals, right as Gunoi moved to attack his teammate. As the strings of Lightning Release chakra expanded the tall man had already completed his Summoning Jutsu.

A violent eruption of smoke and loud popping noise followed the resolution of the Summoning Jutsu and for a moment it was unclear if Shock Wall had hit its intended target, or any target at all. After the smoke cleared however, a massive spider, standing in between two trees and right behind teams Pahlavi and Quartz was present, having created a large round web which absorbed the lightning shock and was glowing and sparkling with the intense amount of Lightning Release chakra running through it.

"Darn it", Gunoi cursed after realizing that his most powerful and advanced jutsu was so effortlessly absorbed into the web.

"Hurry up, Buhakim", the punky man encouraged his teammate who did not appear to be reacting to his ally that much nor to the massive spider behind him who continued to climb up and up until it seemingly disappeared in the upper layers of trees. "Skip the early stages and go right for Bodhisattva"

"I cannot do that, Zahafbit, you know very well that without Vehicle of Disciples and Solitary Awakening there'd be no Enlightenment. That is the path of Uber Spirituality", the frail youth explained with a soft smile. After his words ceased, the young man's fingers extended from their praying stance revealing strings of puppetry, glowing with chakra being channeled through them.

Soon the seemingly useless floating body parts began merging, forming two separate puppets. One of them reminded of a creepy fusion of bodies and body parts, with eight legs, thirteen, or so, hands and a number of limbs and heads that was too numerous to count from a quick look. It was covered with a red piece of cloth that ran down from one of its mouths and wrapped around its entire grotesque body before disappearing in another open mouth of a malformed face with four eyes yet no nose.

"Śrāvakayāna"! Young Buhakim prayed out as the puppet took shape and stretched its multiple body parts.

Then the second one fused together from a floating bunch of parts, forming a weird iteration of the dharmachakra shape, reminding of a ship's wheel, with arms for handles and an obsidian eye at the center, controlled entirely through a single puppetry string, whereas the first puppet demanded whole nine fingers to control.

"Pratyekabuddhayāna"! Young Buhakim repeated the praying ritual before the odd non-humanoid puppet activated.


"Let me leave"! Mana yelled out in a demanding tone right at Staeg who appeared completely stunned at the massive fight that was about to break out above.

"You're in no condition to make demands", the strongman took a step towards Mana, bringing the shield closer to her, as if pressing his stance towards her.

"Don't you get it? A massive fight will break out soon, it already has. Nothing good will come of it. I don't know what you wish to know so you'll all fall for nothing"! Mana tried to explain as she felt her voice breaking in desperation. "Please, there's no need for any of this"!

"You're right, there isn't, tell us what we want to know and this fight can end right now. All of us just want the secret, but they're fighting for the right to beat it out of you". Staeg lowered his shield as he saw in Mana's pleading eyes that she wasn't about to harm him. He saw the truth as the magician had settled on wasting no more chakra for fruitless attempts of escaping and trying to reason with her captors and all of her re-captors.

"Please, just let me pass and find my wand. You can all chase after me together after, I don't care. Just don't fight", Mana pleaded.

"I'm not moving one inch, if you want to save everyone from this fight, you'll have to think harder and remember what you did to bypass the rules. I have no leeway to offer you. I won't move or take bribes. If you want to pass, tell me what I want to know – those are my conditions", Staeg firmly cut the conversation down. "Or you can fight me yourself, see where that goes".

Mana bit her lip in frustration, hard enough to draw blood. She was not sure if Staeg didn't get it or if he simply was that desperate for the secret. His team was tired, sure, they were not the strongest people in this forest but he did not need it that badly. If the fight broke out it'd only end with one side or both of them utterly wiped out, that's to rely on the lucky chance that another team won't join into the brawl halfway – half of the Forest of Death wanted Mana right now.

Mana fell on her knee as a sudden feeling of dizziness began drawing her to the forest floor. The magician moaned in pain before reaching back to the source of her pain and feeling Crus' projectile scalpel that was still stuck in her back. So many things have happened, one after another, that the girl had completely forgotten to deal with that injury. It just remained there sucking chakra out from her network and draining her stamina until the pool grew too thin for it to be ignored.

"Oh, are you OK? Do you need help?" Staeg jumped up and rushed to Mana, helping her up, "I have some bandages in my pouch, sorry, no food pills or anything like that".

As the strongman helped Mana sit down on a rock and began burrowing in a pouch attached to the belt wrapped around his body, shoulder to pelvis, something popped in the magician's mind. A realization, or rather an idea, which required external simulation and a calmer situation to have a mind be properly wrapped around it.

"Food pills…" Mana lips muttered out moving seemingly all by themselves.

"Huh? No, I told you we have none. Those are too expensive for our team and they're even more difficult to get in Getsugakure than they are in Konoha", Staeg waved his hand before pulling out a bandage and examining the wound. He must've been trying to judge if the wound would be sufficiently patched up by a bandaged ninja's metabolism or if it required stitching – a rather rare occurrence in the ninja world, mostly applicable when ninja's chakra was dwindling low and had little to no hopes of recovering soon or with exceptionally deep wounds.

"No, that's the secret", Mana quietly explained with a weakened voice as her skin began paling at a crawling pace.

"That doesn't make sense, plenty of ninja consume food pills. I believe that many of them would've brought a handful here, at the very least, and yet all of them got eliminated, I'd assume", Staeg wondered before taking a couple of steps back to think before placing the bandage back in his pouch. He must've lacked trust in his own ability to treat the wound.

"Yeah but not right before an accidental knockout. Also not two in a row. Usually ninja consume them right after the battle or during its end, whereas I took them just in time for them to be at their peak effectiveness when I was taken out". Mana shook her head before realizing that it made her dizziness even worse and made a nauseous note to herself not to emote so energetically in the nearest future.

"How would medical food pills keep you from being knocked out"? The Getsugakure ninja still felt defiant and mistrustful towards Mana's explanation. He then gestured for the rest of his team up above who quickly withdrew from the heating up battle and surrounded the two ninja, shortly followed by their opponents.

"She says that medical food pills helped her prevent elimination", Staeg cut it short for the rest of the ninja gathered there.

"They wouldn't just keep me from being knocked out but they'd hide it from the staff. Think about it, how does the staff know about a ninja being knocked out"? Mana asked, trying to guide her pursuers through the thought process themselves. It was a psychological trick of sorts, if the others arrived to the same conclusion as Mana all by themselves they would be more likely to buy it.

"That huge sensory ball, right"? Gunoi confidently stated before looking at the other ninja around him, waiting for one of them to butt in and correct him but no one did. That was because he was correct.

Seeing that Mana was cooperating Crus slowly took a larger pouch off the back of his belt and started checking Mana's wound out. The attacking teams of Sunagakure and Iwagakure initially reacted jumpily but then eased up a bit after seeing him start to stitch and bandage Mana's wound, before rubbing numbing powder to kill the pain in the area and an ointment to slow the bleeding down. Crus was a really skilled medical ninja, more so than Kouta, since unlike the Juugo youth Crus knew exactly when he needed medical ninjutsu and when he could've handled the situation with medical supplies and which ones exactly. There was dedication and experience in the Getsugakure genin's moves as opposed to Kouta's usual desperation and fear for his friends' health.

"Exactly, the sensory ball. Once a ninja's chakra signature drops below a given point – the staff treats them as knocked out. They can likely tell when a ninja is knocked out and when they're just really low on chakra but it must be a tough detail to tell apart. That's how medical food pills work – they slowly, partially refill ninja's chakra pool boosting their bodily metabolism in the process. Since I was knocked out in the middle of my recovery – my body was still quickly regaining chakra which tricked the sensory ball." Mana explained her best guess at what exactly must have happened.

"I see… There is one problem, however", Zahafbit, the punky looking attacker, mumbled out before placing his hands together in a hand seal position.

"Genjutsu: Speyeder"! The ninja chanted out as a bright green light flashed from high up above. Mana could barely make out the shapes of a giant spider with a humongous eye with luminescent green iris that was spreading the blinding light before her mind blacked out for a moment. The last sight she could consciously make out was the eyes of all surrounding ninja blanking out. Everyone but Team Pahlavi appeared to have dulled out grey eyes, like hypnotized zombies almost.


Mana opened her eyes after a rude shake when her carrier failed to maintain his balance and subtlety while moving alongside the thick branches of the Forest of Death. Her head ached, she could clearly remember the last moments before she blacked out, still wondering if it was Konohagakure staff that carried her with intent of eliminating her.

"Don't worry, you're not out of the woods yet, get it, because we're in a forest"? Zahafbit turned around with a mocking smile. His teammate – Buhakim sighed in disappointment.

"Don't mind him, he doesn't get jokes", Zahafbit snickered addressing Mana who remained tied with what appeared to be spider silk on his shoulders.

"That was dirty, we could've all just parted ways with the information. There was no need to eliminate us all". Mana bitterly expressed her sadness.

"I told you – none of you were eliminated, in the beginning at least. You just can't remember the illusion that I cast on you. I did knock everyone else out after they went to sleep, though", Zahafbit coughed back at her in moderate annoyance. "Sadly, we did have to leave Alsamryf behind as well, she was knocked out before taking any pills so even with the information you have we couldn't have helped her".

"What business is it to you if I'm eliminated or not? You should've just finished me off", Mana grunted as she tried her usual rope escaping tricks, sadly, the material she was bound with was more of a sticky, glue-like bodily secretion than a rope she could work with.

"And what if I go to pee and Buhakim looks away, with one lightning fast swoop you'd be removed from our grasp. We need you for one last exchange and its safer if you're not in danger of being removed by Konoha ninja whenever we look away at the same time", Zahafbit smiled, this must've clearly been his idea as he looked too proud explaining it all to Mana.

"You see, while we are grateful for the information you've provided, we have no medical food pills or that much supplies left so it is useless to us. There is however a way to obtain those food pills and other ninja tools – the bounty on you", Buhakim explained calmly. The odd golden haired boy leaped at tremendous speed without even opening his eyes or moving his hands away from praying position.

Mana felt tired and whatever medical supplies were used on her to numb the pain in her shoulder was beginning to wear off but a genuine laugh still escaped her chest.

"Zahafbit was wrong, I may be Uber Spiritual but I do enjoy a good laugh, may you share with us what was so funny"? Buhakim wondered.

"Last time a big chunk of ninja met together in one group, one guy ended up screwing all of them over. What do you think will happen now"? Mana smiled.

"Shut up, the bounty's real. Multiple teams we've exchanged information confirmed it", Zahafbit dismissed Mana's words but his face could not quite shake off the uneasy feeling that sparked up in his chest. The man even went as far as to scratch his chest.

"Really? Who do you think still has enough ninja tools to pay a bounty? This is the very end of the road – most teams have already finished the exam. Everyone who's left now are on their last legs, their supplies emptied and they're all ready to jump at each other's throats. Everyone's worried about everything, why do you think my survival has inspired so much trouble? Everyone is looking for any smallest straw to devote all their effort to because at this point they feel like their main objective may just be pointless", Mana twisted the knife she believed she had firmly planted in Zahafbit's chest already.

"Buhakim, help me out here"! Zahafbit complained.

"There is little to say, what the girl says has some reason. Lucky for us, Uber Spirituality and reason has little to do with one another", Buhakim coldly explained as he continued to pray silently as he continued to dash ahead.

"My wand"… Mana lamented quietly in her mind, due to Team Pahlavi having moved her so far away from Shimo's sword, reworked into the wand, which was so precious to her.