For a while, the party of warrior rabbits continued to stare at Usujitsa and his antics. The goofball gave the other rabbits and their human companions plenty of reasons to fear it. That was just if one completely ignored the warnings and the poor reputation that the mindless force of nature known as Usujitsa had gathered over the years.

"We have no time to linger here," Usupari spoke up as the gruesome sight of Usujitsa hopping on and kicking the still twitching corpse of Vasuki as well as biting at it angrily lingered in the eyes of the observers.

"Yeah, we don't know what next is on Usujitsa's hit-list. We were lucky that Vasuki pissed it off and took its undivided yet limited attention." Usuchabi sighed.

"Go, check on the others." Mana nodded at the rabbits while she took a wary step towards the frightening midget horror show that was Usujitsa.

"What are you doing?" Kouta raised his voice. The gesture was meant to remind Mana that she was moving toward a being with an unknown number of clones still lingering all over the place with the explosive potential to level everything around it.

"All those civilians, they'll need to get over this cavern." The magician's voice faltered. She knew that she was approaching the dragon's den here.

"I'm sure someone can make a decent stone platform ta walk over," Usuzoku grumbled. "Dere isn't a single rabbit without de ability ta mold chakra ta some extent."

"Yeah but Usujitsa is also a rabbit." Mana breathed out erratically. Her breathing was becoming increasingly irregular, the closer she approached the grumpy little murder-fluff that was Usujitsa. "He is also a part of this movement. Even if he is a mindless machine of destruction, he does not deserve to face the retaliation of the snakes alone."

"So yer takin' him with us? To make all 'a us face it with a bastard dat's just as likely ta blow us up as he is ta help us?" Usuzoku complained before he coughed some blood up. His stance was becoming as sloppy and slouched as his posture. Little by little the weight of gravity was dragging him down from the horizontal position of sticking to the cavern wall he was currently in and it's only been a couple of moments since the damage to his system was healed.

"Hey there." Mana smiled at Usujitsa before landing to his side and waving at the little goofball. Coming so close to the so widely revered horror of the Ninja Rabbits made the magician notice just how cute and silly the little monster was. The little critter hopped up to Mana with a pair of quick dashes and sniffed her.

"Ji-Ji!" Usujitsa babbled with strange cheer.

There was something odd about this creature. Mana could sense it all over the place. The entire cave system around this cavern was filled with Usujitsa. Judging from what she had seen before, this rabbit used clones to scope out its environment. Given its incredibly low intelligence, it was a very fancy way to survive this long – everything it met in its path it exposed its clones to and blew them up on. Maybe that was why this rabbit had a falling out with the rest of its peers…

"Look, I don't know if you can understand me or not but… We're leaving this place. All of the Ninja Rabbits and… Well, technically, you're one of us so you are also invited. We're going to find a new place for you to live, free of the Ninja Snakes, well… Freer." Mana smiled for the little thing, carefully and slowly reaching her hand out and letting the little Usujitsa clone get used to the girl's presence.

Mana had dealt with cats before, while the feline species tended not to explode upon making a mistake with the destructive potential to kill an A-Rank ninja, the core principles were not too different. No sudden moves, if Mana did not give this little bugger a reason to explode on her in self-defense, it should, in theory, not have done so.

After giving Mana's hand a quick handful of sniffs, the silly bunny wrapped its slobbery mouth around it, letting the magician's hand disappear halfway into its mouth. Mana stared at it for a couple of moments, wondering if the beast would detonate itself if she pulled her hand out of its slobbery expression of fondness. For the moment, she just let the rabbit try to taste the rubbery feeling of Mana's gloves.

"Ji…" Usujitsa babbled and spat Mana's hand out, dripping with slobber while it gave the magician a dumb smile.

The magician could hear the collective bunch of sighs around her as the other rabbits, as well as Kouta, observed how this entire situation would play out. She felt so nasty about disappointing them because there was still a very dangerous thought she needed to let the little goofball know.

"I want you to know this, if you understand me, things will change after we move. I'd rather you not blow the entire place up because Konoha will not be as ignorant of it as Kusagakure is about you busting up these caves with your antics. You will be on your best behavior once we move." Mana shook the slobber off her hand and warned the rabbit.

Usujitsa's eyes turned angry, it showed Mana its teeth but the magician stayed right where she was kneeling up to him. The others behind her lost their collective minds. They backed off with Usuzoku and Kouta yelling warnings at Mana but the girl maintained her eye contact with the little terrorist as she meant every word she said and if by any chance, she was understood, she wanted Usujitsa to know she wouldn't tolerate its way of living for too long if he refused to change its destructive ways.

"Ji-Ji-Ji!" Usujitsa cheered all of a sudden and jumped right up to Mana, for a moment the magician wondered if that would be how she died. Blasted to pieces and disintegrated by a suicidal weapon of mass-destruction in rabbit form before her body could even register the heat coming off from the explosion but Usujitsa just bumped its chest at Mana and bounced off of her.

The little ball of fluff fell to the ground and rolled around on the rocks, giggling to itself as it wrapped its little cuddly arms around its waist and continued to display its inability to keep its mouth content inside his mouth. After this fit of laughter, the little ball of death jumped back on its stout, little feet and saluted Mana.

The magician looked at the other rabbits from inside the cave. She sighed in probably the biggest amount of relief she had ever felt as she did so.

"It's okay." She let the others know. "I think it will follow us to Konoha."

"How is any of that okay?" Usuchabi wondered.

"If Calioph returns, if any more snakes come, we may use Usujitsa's raw power." Usuvilme brought the idea up.

"Leave alone we could use the temporary truce. Any moment we don't have to worry about that maniac blowing all of us up is a moment of bliss, as far as I am concerned." Usupari nodded.


Together the rabbits and the two ninja returned to the other rabbits that waited impatiently for how the battle would have concluded. Nobody was sure if the Usujitsa that returned with them was the real one or another clone but Mana doubted that the real one ever as much as peeked through a corner without first having its clone thoroughly blast said corner to bits with a suicidal explosion.

All she could say was that she felt the presence of dozens if not hundreds of rabbits, all possessing the chakra signature around that of a genin. If all of them belonged to a single, original Usujitsa, its original chakra signature would have been unbelievable. It would have surpassed those of most Konoha jounin and easily surpassed those of Vasuki and the other snakes that the rabbits faced in the cavern.

While Usuvilme and Usupari relayed what had happened to the elder rabbits, Mana assisted with Kouta's instructions in making something that could have helped ease up the symptoms of Usuzoku's poisoning. While she did that, Kouta did his best to slightly assist Usukari's condition. After a short while healing her wounds, the boy wiped the sweat off his forehead and approached Mana for a short talk, the magician could not help but notice the bags under his eyes.

"She should be okay. A day of sleep will help her a hundred times more than any amount of healing ninjutsu." The boy sighed. He was completely tired and he barely threw a punch in that entire fight. "Perhaps you were right, if I did go fists swinging, we'd have won sooner but I would not have been able to help anyone and we'd have had casualties."

"I understand that you wanted to help your way. That you wanted to beat a big, bad snake all by yourself. However, you don't need to prove anything, not to me. To me, you're the strongest one there is." Mana playfully nudged Kouta in the chest. She was glad that just this once everything turned out as well as it could have turned out, knowing the stakes and the odds.

Kouta wrapped his shaking and tired hands around the girl and pressed her closer to himself. Glad that the little feud between them was past now, Mana mirrored the gesture. Helping the rabbits find a new home would have been infinitely more difficult with the young man she loved hating her guts. She needed him just as much as he needed her.

Without Kouta by her side, Mana's mind was drawing blanks. Without his support, the craving for it was all she could think and any good thought had to plow through an ocean of self-loathing for having lost that support in the first place. Without Mana to hold him back at times, Kouta would have succumbed to that anger he carried inside and lost his cool. He would have never lived up to his full potential.

Usuzoku grunted in pain and fell back first to the wall. He was pretty much clawing at his gut and his chest. Yelling in pain and sweating profusely making his sweat all wet and greasy. In the areas where the poison had affected him previously, but that were healed by Kouta's ninjutsu later, the poor rabbit was losing his fur, leaving only swollen black lumps of burnt flesh that looked like they'd burst with darkened blood if they were pressed for just a little bit.

The moment of temporary calm was abruptly ended. Both ninja jumped up at the same time and rushed to the ailing rabbit. Kouta because he felt responsible for examining the rabbit's wounds and any judgments he may have made on the battlefield, Mana merely because she was worried. She felt so powerless and useless, just standing around while the medical ninja scanned through Usuzoku's injuries.

"This isn't great. I can help him stay alive for a while but we need to find him some anti-venom." The Jugo shook his head after he was done looking at the rabbit's condition.

"Why did we ever think this was a good idea?" Someone from the crowd gathering around the severely poisoned rabbit started rustling, giving the uneasy bunch the spark it needed to create a fire of panic.

"All of our strongest fighters injured and worn out right out of the gate, just barely one-tenth of the way through. All of the snakes now after us because of what we did to their kind, now this… We're all doomed!" Someone else joined in just before the complaints and doomsday prophecies for the entire Ninja Rabbit species got out of hand. Just a bland murk of animals scared for their lives not knowing how to express that anxiety in a meaningful manner or channel it.

They had all the reasons to act this way. Usuzoku may have been one of their strongest warriors, maybe Usukari was more acknowledged due to her wielding the All-Mirage but Usuzoku was the one who was trusted with the recovery of the contract scroll way back when. To see all of their trusted warriors exhausted and barely able to fight after just the first obstacle in the path must have been disheartening.

"We're not doomed. Usuzoku is injured and needs treatment, that is an obstacle but it is one we can deal with. We need to stand together and deal with these obstacles as they come, figure out which direction we'll be running from now on together. Not bicker and split ourselves further apart because that is how the rabbits will die out for sure." Mana replied. She found her hand rising up on Kouta's shoulder as if soothing him and advising him to hold down his Curse Seal for now.

It was her duty to calm him down when his anger was not needed, misplaced or counterproductive. It was her duty to help him grow into the best possible version of himself as it was his to support Mana in his own unique ways.

The rabbits did calm down, surprisingly enough, after just this one call for reason. Usuvilme, Usupari, and Usuchabi all looked at Mana with respect and smiles on their faces. If a little bit twisted from the aching sides and exhaustion that drew them closer to the resting ground.

"To think I bathed in all dat mongoose blood…" Usuzoku sighed. "Only ta die like dis…"

He must have been really bad to be this delirious. Then, something snapped in Mana's mind. She sat down to his eye level and gently lifted his weighed down head to meet her own gaze.

"What was that you said about mongoose blood? What does that have to do with anything?" Mana asked calmly.

"I dunno, dose bastards are immune ta most snake venoms. I figured deir blood might be magical or sumthin'." The rabbit shrugged with frightening indifference and haze in his eyes.

"As a medical ninja, I can tell you – don't get your hopes up," Kouta interjected. "I do not think there is anything unusual about mongoose blood. Their immunity must come from some other part of their anatomy, more likely from the sum of many parts."

"Oh, I did not expect a vial of some wonder blood to heal him." Mana closed her eyes and stood back up. She pondered hard one an idea, walked around and mumbled to herself for a short while, creeping the rabbits carefully observing the scene out while some younger bunnies joined in on Mana's intense thinking ritual by mirroring her moves as a fun game.

"Although, if anyone would have a way to cure this, it would be the mongooses." Mana sighed.

"We can't go to the mongooses." Someone from the crowd of rabbits spoke up.

"They are closer than Konoha." Someone else objected.

"They'd kill us. We were at war for a long time." A third voice joined the conversation.

"I agree that we cannot afford to all go to the mongooses." Mana sighed. "Maybe in two groups…"

"I could bring Usuzoku to the mongooses. You could keep leading the rabbits to Konoha." Kouta shrugged his shoulders.

"That would be madness." Usupari stood up and walked up to the scene of the conversation slowly. His sides still hurt and he was decently winded from the fight still. "The snakes can literally see your signature through the walls, hear you moving. The moment you part from all of us you'd make yourself a target."

"Plus, the mongooses won't care ta negotiate with a single dying rabbit an' an unaffiliated human dat just wanders in'ta deir home. They'll kill ya an' be done with it." Usukari sighed, having finally woken up and gotten back on her feet after the scuffle. "One thing is fer sure, dey won't hear anythin' we try ta tell dem so talkin' will be on you."

"I cannot ask all of you to gamble with your lives. The moment we come knocking to the mongooses, they'll take you hostage. They'll see your weakness and need. It will be tough to negotiate with them. Maybe I can pull it off, maybe not." Mana looked at her quivering hands and realized how tired and stressed out she was. The rabbits could neither return nor stay where they were and she now had to make the hard choice between saving Usuzoku and gambling on all of their lives or let a cherished friend die and have it hang on her consciousness forever.

"Whatever… It was just a stupid thought anyway, just leave me be…" Usuzoku's husky voice tried to silence the talk and move it away from the dangerous territory it was going in. He knew Mana best out of all of the rabbits and he must have known which choice she would choose. The magician always was an all or nothing kind of girl.

"No. That is not an option." Mana shook her head.

"Wait, if the snakes are a predator of the rabbits..." Kouta spoke up.

"Amongst other species…" someone in the crowd of rabbits discussing the matter fixed him.

"…Then who is the predator of the Ninja Snakes? Surely there must be some, right?" The medical ninja wondered. "If they hunt snakes and don't just rival them, like the mongooses, surely they also have some ways to cure the venom."

"I think that'd be a bunch of the Ninja Birds species. Those tend to live far to the north." Usukari closed her eyes in sadness. "If we're willing to go that far, we may as well try and rush it to Konoha. We'd have to cross the Snow Country and the entire wasteland of the Land of Lightning before we'd reach the hawks."

"Mongooses it is." Mana declared.

The other rabbits rustled in unease for a short while before looking up at Mana, then at their tired warriors and, after picking up on the respect in their eyes, back at the magician. They probably won't like it but they will follow her for now.

"Just for da record, yer a human in deir secret land. If de negotiations don't work out, dey'll kill ya too…" Usuzoku grinned with a fate-defying grimace through his pain.

"If I end up dooming an entire species to death, I will take my own life in shame before that." Mana gave her old friend a similar defiant smile before looking at Usujitsa. That white snowball was a massive problem in the upcoming negotiations. Just moments after she had somehow managed to form a temporary truce between the rabbits and this walking disaster waiting to happen, she had to speak to him again.

If things insist on following the same vein tradition for much longer, the magician's heart will burst through her chest and kill her before countless other factors manage to get their best shot.

"Jitsa-chan." Mana sat down by the curious-looking clone, a handful of others surrounded her and started poking her with their little, round and fluffy fists. Some as an attempt to nudge, some were just checking her.

"Ji." The little rabbit looked up at Mana with the same goofy eyes and stuck out its tongue to the side, never failing to leave ample puddles of slobber wherever it went.

"We are planning to go to the Ninja Mongooses for help. I'm not sure if you plan on just sticking with us from afar or if you… God help us… Plan on coming with but we could use some… Not anything blowing up at all." The magician tried reasoning with the little thing, against her better knowledge.

"Ji-Ji-Ji!" the little clones started frantically running around and hugging each other after running into one another. A handful of them jumped at Mana, wrapping their hands around her as if she was one of them. It was completely unclear whether the rabbits understood a word she said but at the very least they were happy and looked strangely content about being called with the endearing honorific.

The Ninja Rabbits and their human allies had a moment to rest before things would get a whole lot more interesting and more stressful.