Time seemed to freeze while Yamata's blade kept on sliding through the air, closer to Mana inch by inch. This was no longer just the father of snakes using one of his children as a tool, he was actually using the jutsu himself, it was his own hand changing shape into the emerald sword. There may not have been time, momentum and stamina left in Mana to move away…
There may have been time for a jutsu though, something really old and carrying a bad omen to it but something that fell under a very comfortable category of being old enough for Mana to have gotten used to the technique and not carrying any of the baggage of blunders that was associated with any new jutsu.
"Magic Bubble Jutsu!" Mana yelled out after she used an ability of hers that was long since used, not for a while after she had trained in the Rabbit Caves – the sleight of her hands in weaving hand seals.
"Naïve…" Yamata scolded the magician, by that point, he had realized that Mana's skill in hand seal weaving surpassed whatever half-assed and spontaneously initiated dash with his blade he had mustered up but it did not matter. Due to his legendary power, he would simply power through…
A boisterous howl echoed through the field bending the grass to the lowest point it could go as the emerald shape that Yamata's hand had taken met Mana's blown up bubble of Wind Release chakra. A realization ran through the old snake's face with the very beginning of the impact followed by a sly smile. He realized he was being tricked while he forced the blade all the way through and drove it through the magician's chest before slamming her impaled body into the ground.
"Lightning Style: Magical Punishment!" Mana yelled out from up above, a strong jolt of Lightning Release chakra surged in a sky-splitting downward shot and hit the predisposed and distracted serpent right in the back. Yamata straightened his body out, his blade hand morphed back into its normal shape while the body of Mana he had impaled turned into illusionary petals that scattered in the wind.
"While amusing, that must have been costly." The father of Ninja Snakes muttered.
Mana thrust her hands downward, letting gusts of wind carry her a bit further back from being right above her opponent. On top of using Flower Petal Sanctuary in sync with the Magic Bubble technique, she also now was forced to let the Mystical Wings carry her away.
"You've seen my Flower Petal Sanctuary before. Couldn't risk you reading it." Mana admitted shortly after graciously landing a handful of meters away from her opponent. "Even now you saw through it before even setting the illusion off."
"Couldn't have been helped," Yamata smirked. "Once I felt the feeble resistance your wind bubble provided, I knew it was not your defensive measure. Not the real one anyway…"
Yamata was a pretty smart fellow, then again, he was in this murdering thing for a long time. Maybe Mana played it wrong by using her Magic Bubble on a much weaker level than its full potential, it did not really matter right now, she did save a pinch of chakra she could have used. That was not even the most troubling thing. Given how she had used Flower Petal Sanctuary multiple times in succession, the strain it would put on her body to use will eventually skyrocket. Even now, the next use may tire Mana more than any two of her other B-Rank techniques put together.
"Well, this has been pretty amusing… I'll have in mind the things you said about my children." Yamata could not keep his smirk off his face. Mana did not even notice the lower part of the snake-man's body morph into that of a white serpent while it launched the upper half of Yamata's body at Mana just like the other snakes lunged at their prey with their exposed fangs.
It was a clever way of attacking, had the roles been reversed, Mana would have been thoroughly amused by such an improvised assault, then again, knowing the age of the legendary creature, it had most likely used this method of attack for decades if not centuries. A thud followed by a shattering sound snapped Mana out of the lethargic dream of standing completely hypnotized by the astonishing speed of her opponent.
The magician looked down, seeing only shatters of blue scattering on the ground beneath her feet. Her body used it without her command… It pulled the wand out just to try and block the attack of her opponent, given how Shimo's legacy had already been cracked previously, now the wand had crumbled into smallest chips and pieces.
Mana barely even had the attention to spare on the peculiar method of Yamata's attack. The arms of the progenitor of the Ninja Snakes had morphed into serpentine bodies with the lower ends of those bodies having a very human head with fangs dripping with dark purple venom.
"Hmmm… You seemed to have saved your life. The venom of my Twin Naga Fang jutsu is incredibly powerful. It would have stopped your heart in mere seconds and paralyzed your breathing system instantly. Then again…" Yamata shrugged with that cocky smile of his. Mana felt her body tensing up with her throat appearing to fill itself with… Itself, as it seemed.
"A mere touch of the venom is enough for some of its effects to carry through… You may not have gotten any of it into your bloodstream but it won't matter." Yamata slowly walked up to the magician while she crumbled to her knees desperate for a breath. No, it was more than just a breath, she could have fought without taking one for twenty minutes, then used chakra augmentation to keep on extending that deadline but this was different… All of her body seemed to be stressed halfway to the point of shutting down.
Then the crimson eyes of Yamata no Orochi shimmered with their deadly, weakening light and everything around Mana turned blood-red. She did not feel the crimson bursts of chakra erupting from all over her own pores forming violent and bloody lacerations all over her body. She only realized of them when her control returned to her and she felt her blood gathering in a pool beneath where she was lying.
"Perhaps it is for the better that you have earned your life." Yamata pondered out loud while he turned away and looked at the disc of the Sun still hanging on strong in the sky. "I look forward to seeing what someone like you will do with the power of freedom of controlling their own life. Do not squander that for the waste of responsibilities and vows, that's my advice for you, kid."
Mana wanted to cry out for Shimo, the memory of whom felt like it had just been incinerated into ashes and cast with the wind from atop of a mountain. Scattering into the foaming oceans deep down below, so far away that one could not see the oceans from the mountains that the ashes were cast from.
"The reason why you lost is because you fought in the first place. You fought because of responsibilities and all that chaff. Leave that alone or the next time you will have nothing to sacrifice to the Naga." Yamata finished speaking with a heavy sigh. With his hands in the pockets of his barely dirtied fancy clothes, the shapeshifter walked away and disappeared into the depths of the Land of Fire forests.
If he truly wanted Mana to survive he'd have done something more than nothing at all. Then again, perhaps that was what he had meant, just do whatever one had the power of freedom to do. To bother with saving Mana's life was to place that responsibility on her shoulders whereas Yamata believed in none of it. The quivering and bloodied hand of the magician reached to wipe her tears and press to her aching forehead.
She believed responsibility to be power this whole time. It drove Mana to fight battles that reason would have told her to run away from and she has overcome odds that she had no right overcoming for the sole reason of not backing down when her responsibility told her to stay rooted and stand her ground.
All of that cut down and burnt down by someone that believed that the only power that was worth anything was the power of control over one's own life. Do with it whatever one wanted. The only justice was that which one's freedom allowed one to reach for. And this serpent had plenty of power, plenty more than Mana could have ever hoped to acquire by merely following the path of responsibility, had Yamata wanted it, she'd been dead in a blink of an eye or sealed away like those rabbits.
Now all she had was lying here wounded and slowly bleeding out. A feeling of chakra signatures flaring up nearby distracted Mana from her self-loathing and doubts. A pair of ninja in Konoha flak jackets blitzed up nearby the magician. One of them drew the large, cleaving sword he carried on his back.
"What the hell? No, we need to take her back alive." His friend quickly defused the situation.
Mana wanted the ease of blacking out. She was not granted that luxury. She felt every nasty bump of the sword-swinging ninja picking her up and placing her on her back in a style of carrying injured comrades home.
"I thought she left, I thought we kill those that leave?" the curly haired ninja carrying Mana on his back while his sheathed sword kept making the trip as uncomfortable for the still conscious passenger as possible.
"Sure, the missing ninja, maybe. Konoha's Sorceress didn't run away looking to sell our secrets or anything, she's just to be questioned, that's all." His comrade replied.
"Oh, I'm really bad at this guarding the gates thing…" the first one lamented.
"It's okay, you're still learning. You were out in the field before guarding the gate, right? Probably didn't have too many opportunities to ask questions."
"Weren't we supposed to at least kill that shady, white-haired guy? He was giving my back the creeps, just looking at him felt scary…" the first one scratched the back of his head.
"That's exactly why we didn't pick a fight with him. He was not moving toward the village so he poses no immediate threat. We'll just include him in our report together with whatever we obtain from questioning the Sorceress." His mentoring colleague smiled.
"We're kind of cowardly shits, aren't we?"
"Well… I guess that's one way of looking at it but we really do need that report. Plus, if we got killed, Oshin and Emica would have to substitute for us until they replace us. That's a whole lot of trouble too."
A curious sight of syrup colored eyes was the first sight that Mana saw in the dark blue gloom around her. Shortly after the two stars of bright brown lit up, the blond hair of the woman that owned that set of eyes came into full view. With all of the heavy equipment hanging on Mana it was tough to see and hear too much.
The magician was hanging in mid-air inside a steel sarcophagus tied to the walls by chains, each separate piece of the heavy equipment was covered by a chakra suppression seal. Mana's chakra resources were quite vast for her rank but this equipment was not meant for someone like her. It would have been enough for pretty much anyone, even a Jinchuuriki would have failed to do pretty much of anything inside such a contraption.
"I hope you don't hold this against us, Konoha's Sorceress, this is just the procedure of interrogation. Under no other circumstances would we do something like this." The woman explained herself. She did not sound too apologetic but there was no malice in her voice either. She appeared almost bored by seeing Mana locked down in mid-air like this.
The Sixth Hokage followed shortly after. This was unexpected. Even if Mana was in for standard questioning procedures, they'd have been conducted by someone inside the Intelligence Division and not the Hokage himself. If Mana's memory did not fail her, this particular woman was quite important in the Intelligence Division herself, important enough to conduct this interrogation properly for sure.
"This may be a first time for you but it is the procedure. You've left the village while you and the Administration weren't on the best of terms. Tensions were high. You were sighted inside Kusagakure by some of our spies. You are not being blamed for anything but we just want to know the nature of your visit there and what exactly did you tell Kusagakure." Lord Sixth spoke up himself. It was rare to see the head of the Intelligence Division play second fiddle in an interrogation and the woman was evidently not too happy about it herself. Then again, Sixth's career inside the Black Ops of all Black Ops did grant him certain experience in these things as well.
Mana wanted to cooperate. Say something simple and truthful just to calm this insane man down. Not only was he beginning to take drastic measures like these but he also was apparently spying on his allies. Kusagakure was a den of diplomacy and neutrality. It would have taken a special kind of snake to place spies inside there.
"You spy on Kusagakure? They're our allies, they're everyone's allies." Mana replied.
"That's exactly why it is valuable to spy on them. Do not make this difficult, Mana, you're a B-Rank ninja now. You're no longer a child fooling around. Your actions have real weight." Sixth was beginning to get himself quite worked up before managing to control himself over Mana's non-answer.
"Do you want me to push her a little?" the head of the Intelligence Division looked at the head of the entire village.
"No. I'm sure she'll cooperate after the initial shock of the world around her not being as romantic as she'd imagined settles down, won't you?" The Sixth Hokage looked at Mana. Even in the shadows with her chakra suppressed and some weird buzzing and yelling ringing in her head due to the seals placed on her the man's eyes were quite intimidating. They would have been enough to freeze his subordinate in place without much effort or any pent-up anger from the man's part.
"I told them as much as an unconscious ninja with crushed legs and nearly depleted chakra can," Mana replied.
Inside a completely silenced room, the taps of the woman's sandals became quite thundering, unnerving to an extent even. She did not believe there to be any use in this interrogation, it did not take an interrogator or a mind reader to realize that. The eyes of Lord Sixth kept glued onto Mana for an uncomfortable while. It was not until the voice of the woman by his side interrupted him again that the discomfort got snuffed out.
"Do you need the medical ninja that checked up on her wounds to confirm her leg injuries? I am quite sure that there was a note of that." She asked her superior.
"I am aware of the renewed tissue on her leg muscle." Lord Sixth muttered just barely loud enough for Mana to hear over the unsettling ringing and yelling in her head from the effects put on her. "Very well, I hope you will understand our caution. I also hope you will be pleased to know that we have accommodated the Ninja Rabbits inside the Forest of Death. They are all a notable boost to our village's military power so I am thankful for you bringing this asset back."
"I second that, I hope you understand that this is merely a standard procedure. You know how tense things are with all the talk of a civil war brewing…" the blonde beside Lord Sixth who turned around and appeared to have lost interest repeated it all to Mana to draw her attention away from the Hokage who was leaving.
"It's no secret that there would be no civil war, even if these tensions were real. The Uchiha are a special case, always have been. There's no way Konoha would part with their strongest asset." Mana couldn't resist biting back.
"Is that scorn in your voice? You're hardly the beacon of objectivity in this case as well…" Lord Sixth grinned referencing Mana having grown up in a team pretty much lead by a Yamanaka whose clan was also very much a side in this conflict. Without making much more of a case of it, the man simply left the room allowing other officers from the Intelligence Division to rush in and unchain Mana from the contraption she was trapped in.
It was dangerous pulling on the Hokage's whiskers like this. Especially after the man already showed Mana his executive claws quite efficiently after their last tense situation. The magician could kind of understand her rashness though. This whole conflict just caught her at the wrong time, she was tired, beaten, provided just the surface rank medical aid after her encounter with Yamata who questioned the very core of her beliefs.
The magician was a mess this whole time and it wasn't hard to see why she'd show her own standing up hair to the head of the village. With hands inside her torn up pockets, Mana sulked to the brighter and available to the curious public parts of the Intelligence Division offices before the woman who was there when she was being questioned approached the girl from behind.
"This entire situation has been a bit of a shitshow. Let me tell you something, you've got ample time to train, how about you come over here some time for a tour of the place and maybe a couple of lessons. I've heard you're pretty strong with illusions, I'm sure you'd pick some of our tools of the trade quite easily." The woman suggested. Her voice was just as bored as it was before.
She must have been playing Mana. Did the Sixth put her up to this? These last couple of dealings with the village really killed Mana's team player spirit so the Sixth may have, being the very experienced and devoted leader that he was, put the woman up to some of the rekindling of Mana's patriotic feelings through work and training. Even back home she couldn't shake off the snake problem…
"Sure," Mana smirked. Some of the techniques that the Intelligence Division taught its employees were quite interesting and Mana could always use some connections so that she could help Kiyomi's dream come true in the nearest future. When this whole Yamanaka-Uchiha pot cools off a bit and the Yamanaka heiress can safely return home. At the end of the day, Mana may have learned a little bit of tongue-sticking herself…
