The mongooses quickly traversed through the grass followed by Mana and the rabbit party. Once in a while, one of the mongooses showed its head in the grass just so the party following them did not get lost. At least the first impressions were made and, just somehow, the rabbits managed to stay alive. That was all that someone with the mentality of a rabbit could truly ask for.
In a way, Mana was a perfect ally to the rabbits. Where one side did everything in their power and considered their core motivation to stay alive and unharmed, the other declared it her life's mission to keep everyone she can that way too.
"Yer negotiation tactics were… Interestin'." Usukari quickened her pace to catch up to Mana so that the rabbit could talk to her shortly and in silence.
Mana did not reply. Usukari was considered one of the greatest warriors that the Ninja Rabbits could offer, alongside Usuzoku. Yet Usukari was held as a hero whereas Usuzoku was just tolerated, likely because of their tremendous difference in character. Mana had great interest and respect in what the rabbit hero had to say but the magician really wondered if she was not the one who should have done the talking before.
"You suspected that the mongooses would not listen to a word you said so you intentionally sparked a conflict and quickly defused it by playing it out in your mind again and again. Your execution was too perfect in timing for it to be any other way. In that way, you bought some time. You made them listen by making them respect your strength." Usukari explained the way she came to understand Mana's plan.
"Our strength." Mana corrected the rabbit. "I did not intend to trigger a fight, not really. My first plan was to get mongooses on our side by just mentioning the Ninja Snakes but it appeared to not have worked."
"Well, we are not out of the woods just yet. Our strongest fighters are still not in fighting condition and we are being led to the den of the enemy where power will not be the swaying factor because we simply will lack the amount of power for it to be that way. I look forward to seeing what you have in store there…" Usukari smiled while patting the magician on the back.
It was not as easy as the rabbit assumed it to be. Mana did not plan this meeting to go this way, this was merely a precaution she intended to take in case things went wrong. She completely misunderstood the personalities of the Ninja Mongooses. It just so happened that the countless war stories Usuzoku told her depicted the enemy all wrong. As an amateur historian, Mana should have seen that coming.
At a certain point, the grasslands just stopped. After a good couple of hours of slightly faster than a civilian traveling pace stroll, the mongooses took the rabbits to a two-meter tall structure that did not appear too different from a large pile of dirt. The magician raised an eyebrow, momentarily a hint of respectful fear starting simmering in her heart as she wondered if they were just being played.
No. It did not make too much sense. If the mongooses wanted the rabbits dead and had the means to achieve that, they would have undoubtedly gone for it all the way back there. Given the current circumstances, they have decided that fighting Mana and whoever else offered a fight was either too much for their numbers or too much of a hassle compared to just hearing them out.
"There. The Burrow Ziggurat of the Ninja Mongooses." The fiery furred animal pointed at the towered dirt. While on one hand, the place looked like a literal dump, looking at with a more analyzing glare it made sense. The Ninja Mongooses may not have wanted to be found out by anyone they did not approve and allow entry into their sacred grounds.
"So you live underground as well?" Mana wondered, just trying to establish a dialogue between her and the mongooses that would maybe keep the two talking long enough to form some sort of mutual understanding of each other's circumstances.
"Yeah, not as deep as you guys though. We need the grass but we also need to conceal our home from Kusagakure." One of the mongoose generals nodded while showing the rabbits and the accompanying humans an entry point into the burrow.
The entire descent into the inverted, underground ziggurat was tricky. There were no stone platforms or steps to descend, just a burrow of actual sand, which was beyond slippery. Nothing a small application of the walking on water techniques ninja used as well as some good, old body control and balance could not have solved though.
The mongooses were not kidding, the descent was not really that deep underground. The actual ziggurat carved into the natural stones and minerals still present in the upper layers where the mongooses lived was much larger than the mock burrow. It could have gone as far down as fifty meters and resembled an underground hive in the shape of a pyramid. The exact shape of the structure was tough to say, somewhere the mongooses had built the ziggurat into the dirt and soil, in other places, they built it in empty spaces of natural caverns formed after natural erosion and shifting glaciers.
To say that the party of the entire Ninja Rabbit society accompanied by a much smaller bunch of mongoose soldiers received its own fair share of curious glares would have been a massive understatement. The rabbits would definitely not have been welcome guests down there had a mighty looking military force of well-armed and trained mongooses not accompanied them.
"The Council of Mongoose Elders…" the generals spoke up to Mana before leading some of the more important looking rabbit figures inside while they left the rest with the remaining mongoose armed forces outside the room where the council was in. Curiously enough, the rabbit elders were also kept out of the room, perhaps this was for a good reason as the two generations had spent a life of war and hatred that would not simply be brushed aside like this.
The Council may have listened to Mana and some younglings but not those that carried the burden of thousands of their own dead ones on their consciousness.
"The Vigilant Council, we have encountered this massive party of rabbits just passing by our scouts who called up this emergency seizure. The rabbits were treading here with a purpose, all together. They claim they were not doing so with force and cruel intentions though." The fiery-furred general reported on all fours in front of the council. One of the council members raised their paw as a sign for their general to stop speaking.
"Thank you, Mongohi. We shall hear the rest of the concerned party." The elder mongoose nodded its snout. The poor mammal looked so old that it looked dead even in the middle of its speech. Its age forced its eyes closed, its whiskers had grown grey and so long they almost reached the ground from its sizeable stone throne.
"With your permission, we shall stay in the procession of the hearing to better serve your needs. One cannot lower their eyes when rabbits are concerned." The mongoose general stood on two hind legs and quickly moved by Mana's side. It was a social cue for the magician to step forward and talk.
"What's that supposed 'ta mean!?" Usuzoku flipped out after the remark that all the other rabbits somehow managed to let slip. Mana should have seen this coming too, then again, the afflicted needed to be present so that she had him as proof of their goals here. This was an unavoidable blunder it seemed, but a blunder nonetheless.
"Please, can we just for a moment forget the animosity to one another?" Mana stepped in.
"One does not then forget wars older than you are, human child." One of the mongoose council members glared at Mana with an incinerating glare. In this case, she may have been more disliked than the rabbits in the room and the way she was referred to truly was meant as an insult and a way to surface Mana's inexperience.
She was just glad that Usuzoku somehow managed to shut his mouth, whether due to his better judgment behind all that tough-guy act or the sickness that was slowly pushing him into an early grave. The rabbit just grunted in pain and coughed out a handful of blood on the stone floor.
Mana had managed to keep her own composure too. She had nothing to get offended for. She was criminally inexperienced for such negotiations and the role she took up to serve. Then again, no ninja who had ever become Sannin waited until the circumstances were appropriate for the great deeds they have performed. They went past their own limits, broke through the barriers of their own flaws and excelled. That was what Mana needed to do as well. And if that failed, nothing else would matter.
"We did not come here to keep fighting. A Ninja Snake named Vasuki has bitten one of us, and we need the anti-venom. That is all." At that point, Mana fostered no false hopes of the Ninja Mongooses doing anything more than just tossing them a vial of anti-venom in the best of cases. There would be no temporary truces; there would be no alliances against the snakes.
For whatever reason, staying divided seemed a more attractive option even to these mammals that have only known war amongst their kinds for all of their lives.
A pair of the four mongoose elders started laughing, just like the generals laughed before. This only made Mana feel more stupid inside as she stood here risking her own hide and the lives of the entire Ninja Rabbit population just to save one very treasured friend.
"And why should we help him then? Usuzoku, of all rabbits, one who had slain plenty of our own kind." The same distrustful council member managed to stand up and was just about to raise its paw in the air as a sign to order the eradication of all the rabbits within their sacred grounds.
"Because if you do, you won't have to see us anymore. The Ninja Rabbits are leaving to Konoha's Forest of Death, moving their home." Mana suggested a reason that in her mind would have been enough to extend just this much courtesy. Just to deny a single, dying and suffering soul its death.
"You will disappear if we slay you all here and now then…" the mongoose sat back down but did not make any hasty judgments. "It seems then that there is really no use for us to waste even a drop of our own anti-venom on a lowly rabbit."
"He will need more than a drop. Vasuki had injected her venom into him multiple times." Kouta interjected.
"Even more so then…" the feisty mongoose council member was about to erupt into another tirade of insults and slurs before he was interrupted by the oldest mongoose in the room.
"Regardless of your feelings then on the matter, Mongokoto, a decision as grave as killing a bunch of refugees fleeing to our sacred grounds for help would require a unanimous decision from all of us."
"Hardly a sacrilege then, spilling rabbit blood in our sacred grounds. It has been done before and will be in the future…" the first mongoose crossed his front legs over its chest in disdain of having its grand speech interrupted by a simple reminder like that.
"Please, we do not care about continuing the conflict of our kinds right now. We can war all we want in the future. This is about the Ninja Snakes. They are a natural predator of our kind and a rival to yours, seems to me we've got common grounds here." Mana interrupted both of the council members seeing how it appeared to her that they were merely discussing two options, both of which were just as negative to the rabbits.
She had no interest in either getting slain with the Ninja Rabbits nor getting thrown out with a dying friend in her arms and a medical ninja too exhausted to help any longer. It appeared that her proposition was of interest even to the more stubborn and war-supporting mongooses.
"We do hate those filthy snakes more than anything else then, even rabbits, I suppose…" the council member called Mongokoto who was Mana's most passionate opponent up to now scratched a spot under its ear with its sizeable claws.
"Screw that then, even the thought of those snakes, even the damned word itself makes me fucking angry!" one of the mongooses who had remained calm up to now jumped on its hind legs and began passionately clawing at thin air with whited-out eyes, filled with fury.
All of the mongooses looked uneasy as if the talk of the Ninja Snakes was calling forth the surfacing of some deeper instincts that took an actual physical effort to restrain. Mana found that insanely curious. This meant that the roles that the animals played in the overall system had an actual physical effect on them.
That also meant that the Ninja Snakes may not have been innately cruel and overall the foulest thing Mana had ever encountered. They may have similarly been driven and instilled the sense of cruelty and the feeling of hatred by their more basic instincts. Granted, the serpents Mana had faced and seen did not look like they were being led by instinct but it was a nice dream to ponder on.
"We don't want your help nor do we intend on actively fighting the Ninja Snakes. All we need is the anti-venom." Mana replied.
This may have been a wrong thing to say, given how the prospect of fighting the Ninja Snakes, even if it was alongside the Ninja Rabbits, was the only thing keeping the mongooses entertaining the idea of settling on her side.
"Very well then, how about we put it to a vote?" the elder mongoose suggested, looking clearly disappointed that he would not be fighting any snakes either way. Given his advanced age and a rather poor fighting condition, it was a surprise to see him feeling that way.
"I then say we should help the rabbits. If the snakes hate the rabbits, by helping the rabbits we will piss off more snakes." The elder then elaborated on his own condition making Mana nod at his general direction in acknowledgment and gratitude of his decision.
"I too then think we should help the rabbits. If one vial of anti-venom is the price we pay for never seeing them again, that's a price we should not wait on paying." A chubby mongoose in a kimono wearing paint on its face, heavily suggesting that it was a female, replied. Strangely, the female mongoose had remained completely silent yet Mana won her over with an argument she'd have thought she'd win the more negative mongooses over with. "I am also rather fond of this human. While she is not on our side, the manner in which she attributes herself to the contract species of her signing is inspiring."
It was just due to blind luck that she brought that point up. She was so immature and unprepared for something like this… She should have never gambled the lives of the entire rabbits' species on something she had no experience with like this.
"I then also support helping the rabbits. Elder Mongolong raised a very interesting point. I too am in favor of spiting the snakes even though the enemy of our enemy is still an asshole." The more negative towards Mana's position council mongoose also joined in. It appeared that it was not Mana that won Mongokoto over but the point raised by his superior in age and experience.
"It then does not matter what I shall say then, we shall help the rabbits regardless. Hurray for democracy…" the fourth member bitterly let it slide. While the fourth mongoose looked a bit peeved by the fact that his decision, which undoubtedly would have been not in Mana's favor, did not matter he was not hateful enough to put the entire meeting into question and he decided to simply throw the vial the rabbits' way and move it along.
"Well then, it appears we have reached our decision. Because the rabbits and the mongooses have been at war for so long, the military party that subdued them shall be accompanying them for the entirety of their stay in the Ziggurat." The elder mongoose then looked at the present general to oversee that the council's will was given form.
"Alright then, please follow me to the rest of your kind. A small party will accompany Usuzoku and one of you humans to where you can get the vial." The fiery furred mongoose general ruled without any clear emotion about what he thought about the decision. He could not have been very fond of the rabbits but he at the very least must have respected Mana after their exchange somewhat. Maybe that counterbalance was why he managed to keep his calm and neutral face.
After the party, present at the meeting, was led out and into the spiraling staircase of the Ziggurat, Mana sighed freely. While she was very disappointed in her ability to talk for her contract animals, this meeting could have gone much worse and ended up with a lot more bloodshed.
"I was actually getting my blood pumping to let my Curse Seal loose. I think in a trouble such as this I'd have reached the Second Level…" Kouta also sighed easier after a short while.
While that would have undoubtedly been a tragic outcome, Mana did stop to wonder if the Second Level of a Jugo Curse Seal would have done something as amazing as fending off the entirety of the Ninja Mongooses. Regardless of that, Kouta would have lost all of his senses and would have become a bloodthirsty maniac while the state was active so whether he won or lost that battle, there'd have been no victory for the rabbits.
