Mana slowly followed the procession of the Congregation, stumbling and turning back to admire the magician's presence as if they saw her for the first time every time did not do the pace of the process any favors. Axolkin, one of the Spliced that followed the magician not, staying not too far behind and looking back to confirm that none of the Allied Ninja succeeded in giving the other Spliced the slip and rushed in to take them out.
Looking at the intense, dark and endlessly deep glare of the Spliced ninja Mana was sure – this man was willing to sacrifice his life for the magician. There could not have been any mistake about it, Mana herself has had that very same look in her eyes. Every time the Congregation stopped, the back of the flock bumped into the front while the front turned back and the back thought to mumble and shake their fists at the front before deciding that looking back at the magician was not such a bad idea, Axolkin looked a bit irritated but his eyes turned softer when the movement continued.
All of a sudden, the procession bumped into a closed steel door with the Spliced ninja slowly demanding to be given way through the crowd. He pressed his hand to a panel, a screen similar to those most villagers mindlessly stared at during free time, after emitting a pleasant beep the steel rumbled open. Slowly, picking up the pace like an old train brought back into action for one last ride but with a degree of certainty and inevitability to it.
"Only I can operate this door. Had one of the others decided on following you, I'd have had to hand them out a piece of my own body to open it." Axolkin spoke up. It was just a mean to strike up a conversation but, given the peculiar topic, it was certainly a poor one.
"How so?" Mana did her best to smile, just like she used to smile onstage. At this point in time, she was an entertainer. Better than that, she was an actor. A lone star who will never be acknowledged for any accolades, a girl stricken with disgust and drowning in the bitterness of betrayal but one so determined that she moved past it and turned that scorn into strength required to move on.
"My cells are unlike those of the others. My regeneration works a little differently." Axolkin explained while the two made their way through the most sophisticated looking of all labs present in the underground facility. This one still had flora being cultivated in tubes, strange and misshapen organisms, some more humanoid than others, being produced in tubes. Mana could only imagine what the smell of this place would have been like…
Axolkin quickly pulled out a kunai blade and spun it about in his hand, somehow Mana managed to resist the better judgment to jump up and react in self-defensive instinct. That would have seemed odd to the Spliced ninja, it'd have tipped him off, which was the last thing that the magician wanted. The ninja pressed his hand against the wall before slashing at his pinky, removing it with a less than gracious swipe. A kunai lacked some of the grace of the finer blades…
The severed finger began growing back almost instantaneously. Let alone that, the severed finger began rumbling and writhing on the ground before beginning to elongate itself. Axolkin just looked at the elongated and inflating mass of flesh while he had the free time to admire his creation after glaring at his newly regenerated finger.
"My severed cells actually carry the potential to give birth to a new organism." Axolkin grinned with pride while the pinky turned to a sleeker copy of the original, laying on the floor with its eyes and mouth shut by a wet membrane of skin. "That's because my cells can become whatever kind of cells they want to be. Blood cells, skin cells, stem cells… It was my rebirth that brought Ayushi-sama the most use."
"It's true, your abilities seem to be on the whole different level compared to your counterparts and the reappeared ninja. Now that I mention it, are they our agents as well? Infiltrators of some sort?" Mana inquired, playing up the curiosity angle of the act.
"No. They've been given their abilities, they've served their use as Guru's experiments and they all refused to participate in our mission any further. For that reason they've been protected against mental probing and interrogation, their memories of their time with us have been mucked as much as it is humanly possible and they've been let go." Axolkin appeared to have a moderate amount of disdain towards the people Mana spoke of. People like the old man that gave Kiyomi and Meiko so much trouble, also Tanko Shigin, the invulnerable genin.
"I see…" Mana sighed.
"Is this all? I would rather we moved on…" Axolkin glared at the Congregation group that was almost body-piling by the next door. After clawing and bumping their surprisingly vigorous, rotten bodies against the steel barrier, the rotten ones turned back at the figures of their religious admiration once in a while, stopping the clacking and thudding coming from their side.
"I will be moving on." Mana casually muttered. "I'll be taking the Congregation and heading right for the hospital."
"For what purpose? Make no mistake, the battle behind us is a sacrificial one. The other Spliced are merely providing us with an opportunity to escape. The village will find out what we've been up to this whole time. Guru had prepared for this eventuality, for the inevitable clarity of his goals and the attempts to discredit him because of his rogue status. We shall bounce back from this." Axolkin still did not catch on to what Mana has been insinuating.
"I am sure you shall. Ayushi-san is too intelligent for any other eventuality. However, I shall bring these people back to their families, to the way they've been before. As much as I can." Mana declared.
"I see, so you've been playing around. Does not make sense why you would just betray your comrades like this but… It does not matter. There is no time. I apologize for what I am about to do but you will be brought before Guru, conscious or not." Axolkin took a threatening step forward, forcing Mana on the defensive taijutsu stance. Maybe she should have played this with more deceit, tried taking the Spliced ninja out while he still was not aware of Mana's ploy but…
What possible use could it have been? Against an enemy that could not be dismembered, probably not even killed properly for his life transcended the knowledge and understanding of the modern conception for the term. Axolkin was not an opponent Mana could just hit hard, hit them fast, and put them to sleep… In that case, could she beat him?
Axolkin attacked without warning, his movements were fluid and highly unpredictable. Had Mana never experienced the Sun Disc arena or trained to evade and protect herself with a medical ninja and a profoundly experienced martial artist, she'd possibly have succumbed to the enemy then and there. Axolkin's movements were quick and stiff but they had a hint of reservation to them.
Whenever the Spliced ninja attacked, he extended himself and lagged out. His hits looked heavy and strong in execution but they were too slow and one of Guru Ayushi's finest did not invest too much into his offense, always keeping three-fourths of his body that was not attacking on the defensive. On one hand, Axolkin's style was executed with an efficient strategy that prevented Mana from attempting to exploit any openings she found in fear of an even stiffer and faster counter-counterattack, on the other hand, the Spliced ninja spared himself on some sweet opportunities to go all out and overwhelm the magician.
"Wind Style: Salamander Puff!" Axolkin chanted out, ramming at Mana with his shoulder. Had Mana not just heard the call of the jutsu's name, she'd have probably gotten fooled by the physical attack that preceded the ninjutsu that Axolkin used.
In the current case of events, Mana cleverly stepped to the side before reacting to the intense streams of Wind Release chakra propelled through the sides of Axolkin's mouth, like a fish blowing streams of water through its gills. The magician took great interest in the fact that the streams appeared to cause very little damage to the ceiling they slammed into once Mana evaded the attack with a lean back. This must have been an extremely close-range type technique, given this knowledge, its power must have been easily worth the trade.
Evading while leaning was careless and very arrogant. Mana sacrificed balance and opened herself up when doing so but she had little to fear, her opponent had overextended themselves far before she used this very frowned upon method of evasion. Still, she reacted more out of instinct, almost like her body whispered the ideal way to evade and she only heard the imaginary scolding she'd have gotten from one of her plenty taijutsu teachers afterward.
"You did not attack." Axolkin noted, his eyes followed Mana while the girl dashed back to give herself some distance and "reset" the clash, so to say. Both ninja were showing very few cards from their hand and were very eager to shuffle their hands back into the deck, leaving the opponent wondering if the opponent had a bad hand or if they are merely playing mind games.
"I don't wish this battle. I only seek to rescue these poor people." Mana spoke referring to the Congregation without giving her opponent the free opening and glancing at the pathetic bunch pressing themselves against the door, wondering why two of their religious figures were infighting.
"Or maybe you acknowledge the pointlessness of attacking me? You are clever to study from the mistakes of others instead of those you make yourself." Axolkin grinned. It was a very respectful mimic, it was not tough to read that respect from her opponent's face. There were some brief realizations just why someone like Mana may have interested even a legend of the ninja world like Guru Ayushi. It was not her combative abilities that interested the Guru though, Axolkin would have been wrong to assume that much.
Mana was similarly respecting the ability of her opponent to read the tide of battle without the battle revealing too much of itself and more of its intricacies wrapping out underground. Like a truly experienced shinobi, Axolkin presumed that Mana had seen one of the Allied Ninja fight the Spliced and note their strategy – to utilize their invulnerability for a quick recovery and brush off clean hits, then use that moment of surprise, of wasted effort to attack their opponent while they were open. By refusing to waste her effort on pointless attacks that would be easily regenerated, Mana spared herself those cheap openings and her opponent the counterattack opportunities.
Fighting this way was dangerous, however, usually when the opponent had some sort of a passive ability they had little care of working consciously into the whirlwind of a battle, it was one of their main weaknesses. Take the Uchiha, for example, their Sharingan was an ace in any battle, however, if its strain and chakra cost was ignored for too long, it could have handed one's opponent the battle just as much as it could have won it. By refusing to attack Axolkin Mana was freezing the battle, not exploiting her opponent's weaknesses or making any progress toward victory.
Victory was a faraway dream, in this case, the size of Mana's chakra signature was perhaps her greatest combative advantage and Axolkin's chakra signature was even larger than hers was.
"Water Style: Fish Walk!" Axolkin yelled out, slamming his palms together while his large and puffy lips waved about and elongated to the point where they covered the greatly enlarged head of the Spliced ninja ear-to-ear. Concentrated streams of water fired out from the very tips of his lips, blasting at the ends of the laboratory and propelling the ninja onward in a water-propelled dash at his opponent.
Her opponent thrust his feet forward, working his massive acceleration by repurposing it into a strong stomping attack. Even with all the observation, analysis and profile drawing that Mana was in the process of doing mentally, the magician knew that her best hope was to brace for impact and hope for the best. The young kunoichi slammed her own palms together before spreading them out wide.
"Magic Bubble Jutsu!" Mana chanted out, naming her vain attempt at fortifying her defenses and protecting herself from brute force possibly too mighty to just power through with chakra augmentation alone.
The boisterous shattering sound alerted the kunoichi to the puny and absurdly ineffective resistance that her Wind Release protective technique posed to the enemy. The girl could not help but huff and grunt in pain while her body was stamped into the ground like a measly insect that annoyed the owner of the house too much to be permitted to live.
"That's odd. I counted on you using chakra augmentation to withstand the blow." Axolkin wondered. He had ceased his attack without trying to exploit the opportunity of kicking Mana to the ground. "A hit like this would have decimated your augmentations and forced your body into stress if not completely busted your chakra system."
"You count on something as devious as this on purpose?" Mana stood back on her feet, something deep inside her was blazing out of the mere thought of someone causing the pain and loss of identity that she gone through after her chakra network was broken and her body and mind were completely out of sync.
"You will be brought in front of Guru-sama, the greatest medical ninja to have ever lived. I have tremendous respect for you and that respect limits my options." Axolkin admitted.
One thought continuously smoldered in Mana's mind, one that recalled the more perfected and later inventions of Guru's mission, all the seemingly immortal and invulnerable ninja. These Spliced weren't like Tanko Shigin. Their regenerative properties worked entirely differently. Some of them, like Buberuri, could not regenerate at all, just the layer of armor on the deer-man could do that.
These Spliced were different from the perfected versions of Guru's experiments. They were merely ninja with animal cells spliced in. The serpentine man before had the cells of a snake, Buberuri had those of a deer, his gooey friend was spliced with the cells of an immortal jellyfish, most likely. The enhanced healing factors of these ninja were not exactly like their animal counterparts, the human chakra network supercharged and altered them greatly, but they may have carried some of the more general principles.
The magician girl raised her hands up for hand seals. She was nimble with those and her jutsu using speed was one of the greatest among her peers, especially when using the jutsu that Mana had perfected in the Rabbit Caves before the finals of the Chuunin Exams. Regardless, given her opponent's awesome speed, it will be a gamble either way.
Axolkin slid across the cracked steel tiles on the floor as if he was a water strider riding on a lake. Mana could hear and see her opponent breathing in, this would be dangerous, regardless of how close he'd get before she was finished, regardless of how this gamble would all play out, Mana would not cease her chain of hand seals.
"Wind Style: Salamander Puff!" Axolkin spoke, his voice was calm. He saw through Mana's intentions and called her play. He was willing to measure the speed of his own devastating, close-range jutsu against Mana's unseen to him technique.
Axolkin was massively faster than Mana, however, he underestimated the importance of a couple of factors: Mana started her hand seals first, the lag of his reaction time helped diminish the speed difference some, the jutsu that the magician intended to use was also well-trained and had no little to no range limitations. Most battles took place at mid-range, the most comfortable range for Mana's jutsu, that meant she would not need to charge forward to maximize the efficiency of her jutsu and diminish the advantage that the difference in speed provided even more.
Now, all that mattered was if all these factors were enough. The magician's hair rustled the effects of the upcoming blast of wind, without a doubt. The jutsu was coming, it would hit her any microsecond now… It seemed like time had stopped for the final moments before the resolution.
"Lightning Style: Magical Punishment Jutsu!" Mana's voice cut the curtain of darkness like a lightning bolt. Just like the one that came out of her extended palms and slammed right in Axolkin's chest, making the amphibian croak out in pain, spitting out blood as all of his ribs broke simultaneously and skewered the man from inside. The resonating shock force of Mana's technique sent the bleeding and stumbling opponent of hers sliding back and fumbling on one knee.
"Well played…" he grumbled spitting up blood. Despite the tragic look and the normally quite lethal outcome of such an impact, Mana knew that Axolkin would quickly bounce back even from such an injury. He could quite literally force his blood cells to become new organ cells and simply ditch the ones that were busted. Axolkin was absolutely a frightening opponent and if Mana let him use the full extent of his abilities, she'd end up unconscious and forcefully brought in front of Guru Ayushi.
The refusal to allow such an outcome was all on Mana's mind as she leaned forward and dashed toward her opponent. Her hands flashed through hand seals and her lips moved so fast that any bystander wouldn't have even noticed them move at all.
"Magician's Touch!" Mana declared while her entire body lit up with discharges of Lightning Release chakra. With quick jabs aimed at the joints of her opponent, turning the technique on and off at will, Mana intended to give her the necessary time to enact her strategy of possibly making out of this encounter alive and with the Congregation following her.
A tight grip locked Mana in place, just an inch shy from reaching her opponent. Her extended fingers and the resonating lightning discharges just almost inconvenienced the injured Axolkin enough to make him wink from the intense light show. An arm was sticking out from the puddle of blood that Axolkin had left after being hit, the arm that grabbed Mana and refused to let go while small jets of air blew out from its pores as propulsion to gather the necessary force to counteract Mana's movements and keep the magician locked in place.
"Dangerous!" Axolkin stood back up and patted his fully healed chest. "But perhaps a bit too greedy. We were dancing so carefully before, you opened up too quick."
A stiff, vertical jump kick hit Mana right in the nose and sent her flying back at the other side of the laboratory. The inevitable taste of blood and the constant cheeping in her whited out mind reminded the magician of the consequences for rushing too far ahead. This may have been it, this may have been what Mana wanted to prevent, the outcome of comparing skill and strength with a superior and much scarier opponent. Axolkin's strike back.
