"I noticed the bunnies playing close to home. When I spoke to them they seemed quite spooked out, what happened?" Mana looked at her ninja animal partner who just scratched a spot behind his ear, enjoying this action for a short while. After he alleviated that itch, the rabbit sighed and spilled the beans.

"Da snakes have us pressed to da wall. We dun have too much space ta back out to." Usuzoku grumped.

"What did they do?" Mana asked with a slow and composed tone.

"Not sure who done did it but one a dem done kidnapped a bunch a younglings. Dose dat ran back to deir mommies said da bastard straight out ate one little bunny up on da spot." Usuzoku explained. "'Ey… Where did ya go?"

Kouta looked around frantically, noticing that Mana decided to not wait around until the talk was over and the two had settled down. She had dropped her bag in Usuzoku's place and just disappeared. Even if she did not know the place, she could use her sensory while concentrating to reach out for the highest and most malevolent chakra signature she could find.

It was less than a reasonable plan of action but Mana was in a less than a reasonable state of duress. Kouta rushed out after her. He could hear loud and rushed clangs as he moved as fast as he could so that he could catch up to Mana while she was still concentrating instead of when she was moving at full speed with her target in mind.


Loud thuds to the stone spread out as wide as the sound could reach into these caves. Emanating and reverberating from any surface before it became a ghastly harmony of smacks to the stone by a hard but organic substance. Ever so often, the thuds were snuffed out by a panic-inducing, deafening hiss that expanded kilometers to each side until at the very edge of its sonic life became a sad, almost wailing-like melody.

The place was a deep, round cavern. Similar to an indenture in a chunk of clay if one drilled it with something solid and perfectly round. The half-cut sphere that went down into the hard and dense stone structure was illuminated briefly by cracks in its bottom from which a flow of molten steel spread its light and heat. The place used to be decorated with hive-like structures. Houses and the like for the rabbit population before the entire society was driven out, deeper into the caves.

Enjoying its current status quo, a curious titan hissed with self-satisfaction, raising its peculiar-looking head and enjoying the bunch of little bunnies it held inside the coiling position of its body. From here it could have just simply driven its head into the circular trap and swallowed these poor, petrified for their lives bunnies whole. They would have had to grow for a hundred years before they'd make the snake even stretch itself one inch while swallowing the bunch of them…

The colossal snake turned and twisted its strangely shaped head. As if showing off the crest on its head that was very much unlike the heads of most other snakes it had known. To the terrified younglings in its clutch, the gigantic snake with a pterodactyl's head would have appeared like something from their parents' nightmarish tales of the monsters that would come get them if they misbehaved on steroids.

"Lightning Style: Magical Punishment!" Mana's voice echoed through the structure while a crackling beam of lightning wrapped itself right around the skull of the titanic snake, applying all of its weight and density onto the skull of the cruel apex predator.

The snake hissed out while it fell to the front. Right before it would smash onto its own coiled up body and conceal the trapped bunnies in darkness, Mana hit its skull with a Spear Kick to make it change its direction and tumble backward while it uncoiled and let the bunnies go.

"Go home," Mana ordered the bunnies. There was no cheer or the usual showmanship in her voice. She had to sound strict and scary enough to intimidate these scared kits into motion from their panic and make them trust her. In her mind, such an approach should have worked however reality proved to be a little bit different.

The bunnies just quivered in their boots, pressing against Mana's calves and her thighs, depending on their size. The magician had counted on something that would scare the predator that scared them being scary enough to make them go home without this emotional breakdown but she may have let her personal frustrations get her too far.

The magician felt the chakra inside the titanic predator burn up again. It was preparing for battle, trying to fake the girl out by seeming dead but then springing into motion. Mana grabbed the bunnies that were not clutching to her already and leaped back to give her some distance before glaring at the panicking younglings and ordering them once again.

"Home! I'll take care of this!"

This time her elevated voice appeared to have sprung the young into motion and snapped them out. Gathering by each other and forming a row of bouncing fluffballs, the bunnies quickly ran away as it was ingrained in their genes to do. Running away was one thing that these younglings were remarkably good at, even in their young and helpless age, their lower bodies sprung them into such a blitz of motion that even Mana would have found it troublesome to keep up with them all.

"That hit wasss sssomething…" The reptile cried out after coiling up for a battle. It was at least a good dozen times Mana's size. The magician was surprised to only see minor damage being sustained on the animal's skull. The crest on the reptile's head was bent out of shape. As if it was dislocated by the tremendous force shock around the head. Drops of crimson, easily Mana's size, trickled from the beast's eyes.

"I counted on it crushing your skull," Mana replied. She was not in this to keep this thing alive. She had killed wild, primitive apex predators that had nothing to them but their basic instincts before. This one was even more repulsive than those ancient creepy crawlies in Wind Country caverns and given their unsightly appearance, that was a feat.

The beast had some basic intellect to it and it set Mana off the wrong way. It enjoyed its primitive, murderous nature and was not in it just to kill a bunch of easy prey – it decided to maliciously play with them and terrify them first. On top of that, this was just not the best time to threaten a bunch of kids on Mana's watch.

"Ssscary…" the beast sassed Mana before coiling its head back and preparing to lunge. "Ssssomeone like you should have ssssigned up with usss."

The speed at which the reptile's titanium-hard head propelled forward surprised the magician. She found herself frozen with nothing but useless thoughts of scorn in her head, instead of an actual strategy and reads on her opponent's moves and possible strategy.

White. The magician's consciousness whited out. There were voiced of the young bunnies ringing in her head, it took her a moment to remember what exactly she was doing. That was one hell of a hit… Had the snake intended to bite her or use some sort of a poison – she'd be impaled on its fangs and poisoned as a cherry on top of that. Its approach appeared to be different.

It made sense given the shape of this beast's head. It chose to stun its prey. Another heavy shock made Mana feel the hard surface of the toughened minerals of the deep that the rabbits lived in. The predator decided to not give Mana the time to recover her better senses. That was smart, it had noticed that the magician was snapping out and decided to pin it down and flatten her with its tail.

Surrounded by such hellish heat, Mana could barely feel the warmth of her own cracked head. She could definitely feel the all too familiar taste in her mouth though. This was seriousness, maybe she should have tried using her genjutsu escape… She was underestimating this beast from the very beginning. Just because of that blinding rage, because of how successfully she caught the reptile unprepared.

The next hit for sure… "God… I can't breathe…" Mana coughed as she felt overwhelmed by the burning that rushed into her lungs. Fear began wrangling around her heart. That meant her augmentations will get sloppy, she'll spend more chakra than it was necessary just to breathe properly and push through her busted ribs and the head injury.

Most importantly, she won't make it in time before…

"Chakra Shotgun!" Kouta's tired voice made Mana's eyes widen as adrenaline surged inside her. Kicking her in the butt one more time to get used to the heat in the air she so desperately needed to survive. The typical Jugo chakra cannot blast spread out wide into a spread-shot of smaller blasts that bombarded the skull of the injured reptilian titan.

Without as much as a hiss, but with a loud, crashing thud, the beast crumbled down. The cracked beneath the bottom of the round cavern through which the scorching red of molten metal flows was shining elongated but the cavern held the beast even as it tried to crush and stun Mana and while it itself was toppled down.

"Are you okay?" the boy rushed up to Mana after he finally landed with his two feet firmly on the ground. Kouta was not repeating Mana's mistake, he was too shy in his base state to let the rage of his Cursed State consume him, even though his strength and speed intensified so much. He was the pinnacle of control… There was much Mana could have learned from him.

"I… You're the expert on that." Mana wheezed, still feeling the burning pain in her ribs. Her stuck-up lungs just couldn't handle the blaze that the rabbits resided in each passing day.

"Shit… Let me take care of that…" Kouta winked at the magician, sacrificing his chance to finish the snake off just to give her ribs and her back a little patch-up, just enough to alleviate her breathing. "I guess it was tough using your illusions with those busted ribs, when you couldn't speak, huh?"

He was smiling. He was not blaming Mana for being careless, for letting her recent history get to her. He was not blaming her for rushing out all by herself or not letting him catch up to her properly before she engaged the enemy of unknown strength all by herself, even though that was exactly what she deserved. All he was doing was giving her his most friendly smile and healing her… Mana loved him so much.

The injured reptilian coiled itself together in an attacking stance again. The fact that it withstood both a close-range blast from Kouta as well as one of Mana's strongest techniques was a testament to the creature's toughness. While its skull was bent and misshapen, its crest bent out of place completely and thick, dark blood pouring from every orifice, the snake insisted on finishing what it had gotten into.

This was a matter of pride for the reptilian.

"Konoha ninja? Here?" It hissed out with a hint of mockery more than fear. The titan should have known better than mock one of the most powerful neighbors of Kusagakure. Slimy and thick goop of what was most likely blood continued to drip from the titan's mouth as it opened or whenever its tongue stuck out to whiff air particles around it.

"The Ninja Rabbits are my partners. I understand that they are your prey and that ninja animals have their own relations with each other. However, you have stepped out of line here. As a summoner of the Ninja Rabbits, I came here to uphold my end of the contract." Mana replied to the beast with a much more reserved and calmed tone. The girl was strict on the curious, evil-eyed predator but she managed to contain the previous rage that stood in the way of her properly settling this dispute.

"I am Brownback of the Ninja Snakesss. The only authority I anssswer to isss that of Yamata no Orochi." The titan hissed. "Rabbitsss are weaklingsss, I do with them asss I pleassse".

"I know people like you." Kouta stepped forward to stand beside Mana. Usually, medical ninja held themselves to the back of the ranks but something appeared to be important enough for the young man to bring himself to break that rule. "There is one more authority they respect."

Blue chakra flares lit up the ground beneath the boy's feet, the chakra flares spread without breaking through the surface he stood on, throwing Kouta like a spiraling arrow onward while his fist hardened with similar blue chakra glowing on his fist. This was no Jugo technique. He was using the herculean strength of a medical ninja instead.

"Strength!" the boy shouted while he threw his wallop aiming for the snake's head. Almost like it was mocking the young man, Brownback threw his tough as nails tail up as a blocking measure. A deafening shockwave made the entire cave tremble where Kouta's punch met the beast's tail. After the deafening sound of the clash silenced, however, it appeared that the force was absorbed by Brownback's tail completely.

"What ssstr…" the titanic snake was about to ask but Kouta's feet suddenly changed direction, a faint flare of chakra made his feet position upwards while he flared up his Chakra Enhanced Strength using fist and redirected his strength to a different direction.

The reptile was about to laugh at this vain effort but then it noticed the cracking minerals beneath its massive frame. At that moment it was too late, Kouta pushed the titan enough to sink it into the endless oceans of molten rock and minerals flowing below this deep layer. Probably the scariest thing was the husky sound that the snake made while it got covered and set ablaze by the superheated flow around him.

Using his morphed feet as jets, Kouta dashed in the air back to his initial position and observed the painful looking agony of the cruel Brownback.

"Don't lower your guard," Mana warned. "I highly doubt that someone of this snake's rank would be done in by some outer core flows…"

"Maybe if it was whole…" Kouta sighed. "With those gruesome injuries cracking its skull, all that heat will incinerate it from inside. What's the point of those amazingly hard scales if the insides did not need protection?"

A loud cracking noise followed by a bright flash of light followed, Brownback's tail, covered in flames and liquid metals burst through the rocky surface and tried its best effort of wrapping itself around the two ninja that sent it floating into the outer core to get incinerated from inside out. It was a last ditch effort just to save it some pride.

"Lightning Style: Magical Punishment!" Mana yelled out while pointing her Audra wand at the slithering, blazing tail. A beam of Lightning Release chakra shot out and covered the exposed area of the Brownback's tail, snapping it with a loud and gruesome crunchy sound.

After getting shocked, the tail went completely limp and lifelessly slithered under the layer of still barely intact rocks and minerals. As if accepting its own failure and giving in. Despite the fact that Mana was not in it to protect any attacking ninja animals, letting Brownback sink under felt wrong.

Unlike what Mana expected, these Ninja Snakes were not mindless predators. They were not fueled by just their basic instincts. Brownback had intelligence and ideals, granted, his intelligence was as limited as comparing strength and his ideals were entirely in the wrong, being lead completely by his own cruelty and a malicious desire to torture and kill, but these were higher functions regardless.

"What's wrong?" Kouta wondered looking at Mana's grief. "We saved those rabbits, didn't we?"

"Yeah but… I shouldn't have killed Brownback." Mana looked to the side. "I was just… So angry. It was too soon for this to happen, I wasn't thinking straight."

"Hey, don't hog this kill! I did it." Kouta interrupted her. "You just didn't let him drag us under, which, granted, we could have survived but… We'd have wasted a bunch of chakra doing it".

The two dashed their way outside the abandoned rabbit caverns and into the cave system that lead them back into the current Rabbit Caves location. They were in no hurry to return. They spent a decent amount of chakra fighting this incredibly powerful threat that would have pushed either of them to their limit had they faced it alone. It was best to let the chakra they have spent recover a little.

"When I ran here, the whole way here I thought that I'd be faced by someone who's just an apex predator. I didn't expect to fight something that's genuinely this twisted." Mana sighed. "I was too mad about what it did, by the memories that it brought up and the failures it made me confront to think of a strategy… Thanks for saving my life there."

"Hey, you didn't take me with you just to face the embarrassing pep talks from Usuzoku, did you? I'd like to still take a look at some of those injuries when we return. It was hasty battlefield treatment that I did back there." Kouta insisted. "So you've decided to not kill these snakes either?"

"I can't…" Mana sighed. "They're not like those hunters in the desert. They don't always kill just to feed themselves. They're genuinely evil but that means that there's still a part of them that can be changed".

"That's an odd way of looking at it…" Kouta observed. "I'd have taken a scumbag like Brownback as more deserving of death than the insects in the Wind Country. Higher intelligence doesn't always mean better things."

"I'm not sure what I should do." Mana sighed. "I've never really stretched or questioned these parts of my principals. Most threats I've faced up to now were human, it was a no-brainer about no-killing with them."

"Whatever you decide to do, it's up to you. I'll support your decision. But I won't let them kill you either, even if I have to kill them like Brownback. I don't like killing, similarly to you, but I will protect you to that extent if I need to." Kouta replied.

The pair made their way back to the Rabbit Caves in silence after sorting that out and finishing dealing with the unpleasant matter that scared the young bunnies so much. At the time only the short-term implications of what had happened in that cavern mattered to the two and given how much it shook them, they could not have been blamed. Regardless of that, there may have been long-term implications to come as well. The two must have realized that much even if it was in some deeper corners of their minds.