The head of the Fifth Nagendi slammed on the ground. Its eyes closed as the serpent's central body began inflating and deflating rapidly. The fiery flare in its eyes, under the thin layer that covered them faded, making its eyes completely covered up by the faint blue hue of the scale that covered it up. The Sixth hissed out while it shook its head once more, the entire cavern shifted once again while the Sixth Nagendi summoned an earthquake with a quiver of its head, albeit much smaller one this time.

"Stop it, you'll kill us both!" The Fifth huffed out. "This ability of yours requires chakra. We have very low remains of that at the moment."

A soundwave woke the Fifth Nagendi up, forcing it to slither its worn out head to the edge of the cave and peek down. It was almost certain that the three rabbits had plummeted down, washed away by the flow of the rushing snakes it had sent their way. Another soundwave, then another and Usuchabi appeared from the depths of the fiery oblivion below with both of her comrades in her arms.

Every time the cat-like rabbit flapped her massive ears, they created a powerful boom, similar to that when the sound barrier brakes, propelling the cat-rabbit upward. After a handful of those, she returned to the heights where she could stick her feet to the ceiling of the cavern.

"Wow. That was dangerous!" Usuchabi growled. The façade of aloofness was gone from her face. It was clear that this was truly a close call that would have called for such a surge of seriousness. The other rabbits slowly recovered, shaking their shocked and bumped heads and sticking to the ceiling by their own effort.

"He just gave birth to a new limb that had an evolved ability just perfect for a combination with that of its own. To think that it would have kept such a technique hidden…" Usupari grumbled shortly after nodding in acknowledgment and gratitude to its friend who had saved the rabbit from disappearing into the fiery pits below.

"I think if it could have used that ability, it would have. There must be a reason why it only pulled it out now, is that right, snake?" Usuvilme inquired of the silver serpent pair directly.

"Well…" the Fifth Nagendi sighed, it was evident that the serpent struggled to breathe properly in its current state. Even the freshly born head looked to be like a snowman in the desert. All the genetic tampering combined with those high-ranking and conceptually expensive techniques were finally taking their toll.

"There's a reason why I am the Sixth Nagendi, isn't it? Why there are only two of us now…" The newly born looked at its exhausted predecessor with a surprisingly perceptive question.

"You are not wrong. I have killed my predecessor in time. We did not get along too well and it just felt like the right thing to do. Eventually, I expect you shall too devour me for your own reasons." The Fifth Nagendi breathed out with a heavy sigh.

"Incredible…" Usuvilme simply continued to stare at the worn out predator in disbelief.

"Why? Why go this far for just this one hunt? You essentially sacrificed your own life just to kill a bunch of rabbits. Someone of your power should have easily found lesser challenges to satisfy you." Usuchabi tried reaching out to Nagendi with a horrified expression. She had trouble wrapping her mind around the horrific implications of the technique the serpent had used and why it would choose to use it willingly.

"Hunt? You're no hunt. You're just something to do." The Fifth Nagendi managed to crack a grin, showing off one of its fangs as it peeked through the cracked, scaly flaps of the serpent.

"What my predecessor has done is improved Nagendi. He has granted me a new evolution, sacrificing itself for the power of the snakes." The Sixth Nagendi looked at its worn out comrade with greedy eyes. It appeared that the instinct to devour its predecessor was already on display.

"While consuming me would grant you a small boost of chakra, I would advise you to wait. Wait at the very least until I shall teach you a way to absorb me together with my combined evolutionary abilities." The Fifth Nagendi glared back at its successor with a deceitful glance, knowing full well of the temptation to instantly destroy one's weaker self when the first sign of loss shows itself.

"This is disgusting…" Usuchabi closed her eyes and looked away.

"Heh, so is that why Yamata no Orochi has come to have eight whole heads?" Usuvilme asked the serpent, somehow managing to overcome its own disgust at the dirty methods and shadow games that the two played with each other.

"I've no idea, honestly." The Fifth closed its eyes, desperately working to regain as much of its stamina as it could in case the rabbits decided to kill Nagendi now while it was weakened. "All I know is that the Orochi has every single ability possessed by every snake alive. In fact, every new snake born has one or two abilities of his… I do not think there is a person alive to know the amounts of evolutions that Yamata has undergone through the countless years it has been alive."

Usuvilme's knife dug right in between the Fifth and Sixth Nagendi, very nearly cutting the snake at the parting point of the two split heads.

"You spin a pretty fancy yarn, snake. That doesn't change the fact that we'll kill you for threatening us." The rabbit grinned. It was not a malicious smile or one enjoying the death that the rabbit was about to bring. It was more of a grimace of relief. A sign that an enemy that none of the rabbits could have overcome was somehow bested through combined effort and careful planning.

"You won't, if you dare, I'll command my successor to bring the whole cave down. Maybe you'll survive being buried under kilometers of stone in the outer core, that's a big maybe, but those weaker rabbits behind you sure won't." The Fifth Nagendi grinned, using a hidden ace it had been boiling in a cauldron for a while.

"You'll command me?" The Sixth reared its non-venomous, yet massive fangs at its predecessor who was very much on its last legs. "I do whatever I feel like doing.

"Oh, come, don't you want me to teach you to absorb our collective abilities? You'll spiral way down on the ladder with just your current ability." The Fifth Nagendi quickly defused his trigger-happy youngling of a successor.

"This excuse will only work for this long…" the Sixth closed his eyes and looked away from his predecessor who was too devious even for such as himself, a literal snake to stomach.

"It is fine. Leave now." Mana and Usubingu joined the group fighting the silver serpent after their own front was successfully freed up.

"Wait, what? We have this bastard on the ropes, let's kill it and send a message!" Usuvilme showed Mana a handful of knives it had been pulling from a storage seal for a while now, having emptied its pouches in this battle.

"This whole thing started from a killing and a message," Mana bitterly replied. "Leave." She outright ordered the snake after turning at it.

"If you think I'll be thanking you, your delusional, ninja from Konoha." The Fifth Nagendi smiled as it had finally been given the excuse to burn out the stamina it had gathered to this point to raise its head off the ground and coil away.

"In fact, soon enough, I will be back to kill you." The Sixth Nagendi joined in on the sour loser mentality of its predecessor.

"This is a mistake…" Usupari let his opinion get out there. Mana sighed and closed her eyes to soothe her mind that demanded her to flip out on the rabbits. This entire situation attempting to rescue the rabbits was just like Mana had always imagined her job to be. Being a bridge of reason between two sides and, frankly, she had never really expected to doubt her own reason this much.

Had it not been for that, some would say foolish, determination to stick to her ideals despite what her attempts at rationalizing the battlefield told her, she'd have obviously advised the rabbits who had no reservations about killing to kill their enemies. That was never her way, usually, she had no qualms about letting people with different ideals than hers carry out their own brand of "what had to be done" but this time she won't let that happen.

"We have no time to chase those guys. You won, go assist Zoku-chan and Usukari." Mana tried to repurpose the directions to which the arrows of hatred pointed. Given how her sensory relayed the battle between Vasuki and the ninja opposing her going, perhaps that front could have used some hatred and anger to motivate the protectors of Ninja Rabbits for that final push that would take them over the edge that separated loss and victory.


Vasuki took its sweet moment, enjoying the impending victory and the desperation in the eyes of the enemy. For all intents and purposes, it had won. Usukari was barely strong enough to hold the mighty All-Mirage in her hands, her strength draining with each passing moment with nothing she could have done about it, the other rabbit was struggling just so that he could not die, with the human doing his best in that front.

The serpent opened her mouth, revealing her recently regrown fangs from after she fired them like projectiles at the enemy not even minutes earlier.

"Poison Fang Jutsu!" The serpent hissed out, sending a pair of its fangs at the desperate female rabbit who did her best to shield the distracted medical ninja and her beaten friend.

Usukari swiped her All-Mirage, summoning great strength in her strained arms to deflect the oncoming projectiles. She couldn't just dodge it, not with Kouta and Usuzoku behind her. But with each passing moment holding and using the All-Mirage, her chakra was slowly being drained.

The weapon had an awesome ability to swallow up its prey or entire jutsu and store them in a sealing dimension of its own with a mere touch. Such a powerful ability had an incredibly powerful toll, a cost so powerful that Usukari held the weapon sealed away when she was not using it because just wearing it sheathed would have slowly eaten away at her chakra.

Vasuki hissed in triumph, enjoying its superior position and very much taking a fancy of the little game it was playing. Testing the rabbit's resolution, the cruel venom-spitter wondered what would give way first, the devotion to the mammal's team or her self-preservation instincts.

The serpent opened its mouth once more, the fangs it had dispatched had already regrown again. The ability to manipulate the genetic composition of their bodies on a molecular level of the Ninja Snakes had no visible limits in the heat of a battle.

"Poison Fang Chip Jutsu!" Vasuki hissed out, this time the serpent stored more chakra into its fangs before simply spitting them at the enemy at great speed. The built up chakra caused the fangs to crack and burst into a shower of hardened fang chips, soaked with dripping venom.

Usukari screamed out in pain, throwing the All-Mirage at the shower of poisonous projectiles in a spin. Due to the powerful spinning motion and its unique ability, the All-Mirage managed to seal the following bit of Vasuki's torturous fighting style away. A black, rotating hole opened up beneath the spinning horn, adorned with teeth. After its spinning momentum ran out and its intended defensive purpose was fulfilled, the horn disappeared in the void of its sealing dimension as Usukari's chakra was on the final verge of running out.

The poor rabbit was prone on the wall. Still resolute to protect her comrades but too tired to even stand on her two, ironically, because of her prone position, Usukari was spending even more chakra just to keep her stuck to the cavern wall. She could have plummeted below at any moment but Usukari was determined to protect Usuzoku and the young man healing him until that moment.

"Our little game was fun. Begone now." Vasuki hissed while keeping up an attempt to act bored. As if Usukari's resistance was entirely pointless. The serpent enjoyed seeing the disappointment and hopelessness in the eyes of those it killed. There was nothing like seeing one crushed completely and reflecting on their life as ultimately being fruitless before their untimely end.

The serpent swiped with its tail, finally slithering outside with all of its body. It clearly knew of the amounts of chakra it would be expending but it purposefully chose to do so regardless. Even after completely refreshing its body by shedding a new one from its dying one, even after nearly killing its enemy multiple times with venom running in its system, Vasuki cared little about the effort required to stick its titanic body to the cavern wall.

It was not its usual manner of attack, brutal, uncivilized but just humiliating enough to crush the confidence of the devoted and friendly doe. Usukari closed her hands, letting the force of the impact send her sliding back but doing her best so that she did not disturb Kouta and Usuzoku who were right behind her.

The hurt doe hit something rough with her back on her slide back. The balance of chakra manipulation in her feet faltered for just a moment, she lost balance but a strong grip on the back of her neck kept Usukari up. The rabbit was too weakened to look up and see who had rescued her but a pair of familiar voices emanated from above.

"I think this should do it. Be careful and don't get more of that junk in your system."

"What do ye mean? I already got it, what's it matter if I get more in me?"

"You fool, the more of it you got in you, the faster it will kill you. Eventually, I won't be able to keep you alive."

"Fine. Keep 'er from plummeting down, will ye?"

"Well, if I'm doing errands for everyone anyway…"

Sounds of steel clangs, sizzling and bubbling and liquid washing and splashing at the rocks around followed. Usuzoku rushed onward with an attempt to cut or skewer the enemy but Vasuki was too slippery. Whatever attempts the rabbit had at pinning the enemy down proved to ultimately be fruitless, her massive head evaded getting skewered with graceful and quick for her size moves.

"What are you doing? She's a snake with a long body, use that against it!" Kouta yelled at the rabbit, still holding Usukari in one hand.

"Shuddup!" Usuzoku growled at the youth, even though the rabbit warrior refused to admit it, he had adjusted its style to utilize Kouta's advice. It swung for the head but once the head disappeared from its reach, it went for the extended body. Try as hard as the serpent did, it would be unable to move its entire body.

Vasuki swiped with its tail again. It was an attempt to push the enemy away and gain some space. It has been a while since the smugness faded away from Vasuki's expression and it genuinely had to try to kill the enemy. Before it could really put its money behind that goal, however, in a blur, the rest of the rabbits rejoined their ally.

Vasuki looked around, it appeared that it had only realized how absorbed it was in this little game only now and that she failed to notice her companions running away with their lives. Judging from the disdain in the eyes of the venomous one, it was the type to choose death over humiliation, at least given these odds.

Mana's eyes turned away for a moment, then returned at Vasuki with anger and a pleasant hint of fear, at least pleasant for the snake herself.

"You've brought someone else?" The magician asked.

"Maybe, who knows how many others heard Yamata no Orochi's declaration…" Vasuki pleasantly nodded its head, raising it up and down. It was not the prospect of potential allies in this uneven fight that made the serpent excited, it was the intimidation in Mana's eyes.

"Wait, you mean…"

"There's someone else? Where?"

The rabbits began losing it all at once. Kouta remained still, just a hint of sweat running down his face and worry over the rabbit it held in its hand. It looked like fever and small burns began covering Usukari's body as with her chakra getting dangerously low, her body failed to properly protect her from the intense heat of the cavern risen a couple of hundred of meters above the outer core.

"Ji-Ji-Ji…" A goofy sounding noise rang around the cavern. All of the rabbits with any sense of consciousness jumped up and got startled by the silly, almost infantile sounding noise that echoed through the depth of the caves.

"No… No way… Not here!" Usupari yelled out in disbelief.

"Like a bad itch ye can't get away from…" Usuzoku grumbled looking more pissed than he was afraid of the infantile chuckling and goofiness resonating through the cavern.

A chain of thunderous blasts resonated far away in the depths of the caves where Nagendi slithered away. The blasts were powerful enough to widen the entire cavern by blasting away the cave in which Nagendi came there. A pair of large eyes bulged from the darkness. As Mana intensified her perception, a sight of a snow-white fur worn by a dwarfing nightmare met her sight.

After just a brief second of exposure, a rush of compatriots, completely identical to the goofy looking rabbit flooded the cavern, most of them tripped over and plummeted into the depths, detonating in a chain of deafening explosions before they could even hit the scorching end of the fall down below.

"W-What is this?" Vasuki looked at the new threat in confusion as the rabbit appeared to struggle with the concept of there being no ground under its feet and, judging from the ferocious devastation it came from, had killed its companion.

"It's… Usujitsa…" Usuchabi sighed, "Now we're all really dead…" She lamented.

"Tsk, even more allies? Fine. I'll kill this thing first, just to see the hopelessness in your eyes!" Vasuki declared as it opened its mouth, firing a massive bubble of sizzling, dark purple venom at the newly emerged threat to its fun.

The bubble enveloped the white, confused rabbit who just drooled and glared at the incoming, tremendously slow projectile and pondered what its exact nature was. The bubble would have covered the little rabbit dozens of time over and the poor fool offered completely no resistance whatsoever to it. Within an instant, the rabbit was dissolved, before the poison could even start working.

"What a weakling, I guess one of the little ones cowering in the cave behind you found a way here?" Vasuki wondered observing the last hair of fur dissolving in the bubble of acidic venom before the bubble imploded on itself and covered the area where the rabbit once was.

"Ji-Ji-Ji-Ji…" A resonating tirade of goofy banter echoed from the cave behind Vasuki forcing the snake to turn around. Before it could react, more and more angry goofballs leaped out from the cave and wrapped their fluffy limbs around the snake, some even used their blunt chompers to dig deeper into Vasuki and to keep a better hold.

"Back!" Usuvilme yelled out, forcing everyone who was not covered with imbecilic fur balls to flee for their lives.

A loud shriek preceded a show of devastation when all of the angered goofballs detonated. Despite the explosive potential being of world-ending proportions, compressed to a minuscule range to drastically improve the damage to its target, what flesh bits still remained of Vasuki, trapped inside a scaly skin sock made its way into the cave before the snake fell on its side dead.

"Shouldn'a done dat…" Usuzoku noted while another one of Usujitsa peeked its goofy eyes from the cave and waved at the rabbits.

"I can't believe it killed them, just like that…" Mana ground her teeth in disdain for the force of nature that was Usujitsa. The feared menace of the Ninja Rabbits whom everyone avoided by a thousand miles.

"It doesn't look at the world that way. When it gets angry, it blows things up." Usuchabi closed her eyes, the cat-rabbit looked intimidated by the surprise appearance of the rabbit horror story rather than the enemy they were about to face.