Even in the excitement of the growing battlefield, the noise of sorry whimpering and pain reached Mana's ears. The magician turned her attention away from the debris, wooden chunks and clouds of dust that remained after Erumo's and the remaining Chinoike clan members' entrance. It was the downed and crying, photosensitive Chinoike girl, conscious enough to realize that she was living her worst nightmare and do her best to attempt and cover up with the limited leather jacket laid on top of her but semi-entranced to the point where her movements looked limp and lazy.

Kouta moved away from Mana, trying to catch her eyes with his, what little corners of her boyfriend's glaze the magician did notice, she saw being full of regret, worry, and doubt of some sort. Mana's mind was set, she suffered from no such plagues. The healed magician disappeared from the initial location, something that Kouta pretty much expected, even if he didn't want it, the direction in which the young kunoichi dashed to, however, did surprise her beloved young man.

"There…" Mana muttered while placing her own, a bit dirty and in places torn blazer onto the still exposed and slightly burnt areas of Chisilla's skin. "I guess we need to find something more permanent to cover you, huh?"

Farther away, in the heat of battle, Erumo joined the side of her teammate in battle. Standing in the open was not a position she enjoyed but it was crystal clear from her determined expression that there was no one else she'd rather stand alongside and trust her safety to than Aozora Yushijin.

"How does this creep even have the hydration in his body to liquefy?" the trapster wondered.

"He'd have died, without a doubt had he used the Hydrification Jutsu," Yushijin said.

"Then… How?" Erumo remained baffled.

"Do you see any water amongst the ruins you've blasted out? Even in these immense temperatures, the Hozuki hydration does not evaporate. He must have used a simple Substitution Jutsu to replace himself with a busted piece of debris or something." Yushijin replied.

"That bastard really doesn't want to go down." Erumo cursed. The kunoichi continued to scan the battlefield for lingering clues of Mizoma's continued existence.

"It doesn't matter. He can only use such a cheap clutch once. His body is already at the limit, there's no way that he'll rest up to the point he can substitute again in this battle. Hydrification is also sealed off for him – he's cornered." Yushijin remained cool and reserved even when his opponent continued to spit in the face of overwhelming odds.

Despite Mizoma's valiant effort to commit genocide and the admirable devotion to his malicious goals, the absolute refusal to fold as well, there was no respect in the eyes of any of the opposing ninja. Normally, no matter how wrong a combatant's goals were, no matter how far they were off the beaten track, such might and sacrifice would have invited some. After all, ninja were not the lot that were known for remaining morally consistent for long in their line of work. Their morality depended entirely on that of their mission objective.

What kept the respect away from the eyes of everyone was the simple, primal sense of dread. The fear for Mizoma of the Seven Swords and it was panic well-earned.

Metallic clangs, slow and irregular in their repetition signaled Mizoma's appearance from the debris and whirlwinds of rotating grains of gravel and pebbles that spun in speeds that would have easily torn through the flesh of any living man as if they were tiny bullets. The goop dripping from Mizoma's wounds was much thicker as the proportion of water and blood in his release shifted much farther to the favor of the latter. The titan no longer had the hydration to spare despite wasting almost none. With death knocking at his door, the Swordsman of the Mist no longer could dance around the battlefield like he once could and did what he still had the strength to do – lingered and stumbled.

Refusing to give up until the end.

"He is mine!" Chiya growled, showing off her teeth to Erumo and Yushijin as if expecting the two to oppose her.

"That is still to be…" Yushijin attempted to argue, as their feud over whose responsibility it was to draw the concluding strokes on this painting of a tragic scene of warfare remained unresolved but his body froze up.

Mana turned back at her subdued teammates, the chakra coursing through their systems distracted her from her effort to ease Chisilla's torment as much as possible. It did not look like the young woman was in any danger of dying and although the burns over her body were quite severe, with her condition she most likely lived completely covered up regardless of how healthy her skin was, to begin with.

Chiya dragged her hand across the blade of her sword as her infernal eyes gleamed with their signature crimson sky shine as if the fire in her gaze was only fueled by her life force that she smeared across the silver-edge of her blade and let run down its ridges. Instead of turning her blade at the entranced Yushijin and Erumo, the Chinoike instead rushed to settle things with Mizoma. By now Chiya was well aware of how quickly Yushijin could bust out of even her mighty illusion, even though, judging how difficult it was before, it was unlikely that the prison break would be quite as sudden as last time.

Mana flickered onward toward the battlefield. She did not stand in Chiya's way as it was unlikely she could have possibly covered the distance and then gotten in between the raging spirit of vengeance and her target, however, the magician did flash up to her teammates and placed her hands on their backs. The Konoha kunoichi closed her eyes and focused her own chakra if she was to aid Yushijin and Erumo in breaking out, she needed to emit her own chakra into their system, not unlike genjutsu did normally. It was like creating a new, completely blank illusion that did nothing except override the previous, the dangerous one.

Mana poured massive pulses of chakra that would have been enough to compose sky-spanning fireballs all by themselves, however, the eyes of her teammates remained blanked out and their systems remained leaking massive amounts of chakra by simply letting it escalate at an irregular pace throughout the normal circulation cycles. Whereas normally chakra was like water running through a well-maintained plumbing system, theirs was like a pack of rats attempting to flee a flooded sewer in agonizing desperation that threatened to stop their little hearts long before the flood drowned them.

The magician's eyes widened in shock after realizing that she, of all people, could have broken the illusion that Yushijin and Erumo were in. Perhaps it was because she was working on somebody else and not busting the walls of illusion down itself but after pouring such a massive flow of chakra down the drain, Mana quickly stopped and glared at the Blood Lagoon swordswoman in disbelief.

Just who were these people?

Mizoma raised his sword up, tumbling back from the weight of it as he continued to wield the sword, that may have weighed many times over the weight of a girthy man, The cool face of Chiya with her peculiar ocular mutation, followed by her entire, subtle frame exploded into a nova of blood as if someone had wrapped their arms around the young woman and squeezed her hard on multiple points until the body just burst.

In horn-like, whirling twisters, the blood jetted streamed upward right over Mizoma's head where Chiya reformed. The blood of the young woman, which she turned into upon sanguinating did not behave in the normal way in which water moved. It was like the uncanny ability to manipulate iron-rich fluids, like blood, that the Blood Lagoon possessed manifested itself in this spectacular ability to even manipulate the movement of the blood they themselves sanguinated into far beyond the extent to which a Hozuki could have controlled their hydration during Hydrification Jutsu.

After completely reforming, Chiya allowed mother gravity to do its job. Like a teetotum, Chiya whizzed past her opponent's defenses, leaving a massive gash on the man's back. The immense tension that this move demanded sprayed blood all over her wounds from her body, reopening them in an instant. Had Chiya not possessed the odd ability to coagulate her own blood into a sponge-like, gelatinous substance that glued one's wounds like nothing one has ever seen, she'd have likely collapsed not too long after her beaten opponent.

Chiya straightened her back and turned her head behind her to look at the collapsed enemy with pity. With a single, swinging motion, the baneful youth splattered the remains of her blood over her sword across the rocky floor. Within an instant of being separated and no longer cared for, the fluid started to evaporate and boil from the fiendish temperatures of the valley.

"Close your eyes now." Mana demanded with a sense of distaste rising from within her gut. "It's the only thing that locks them in your genjutsu."

"I will." Chiya nodded. "Right after I settle things with this man."

"The only reason why I allowed you to attack him was because the well-being of my friends felt more important than trying and failing to get in your way. Now that I know that trying to rescue them in an effort just as vain, I will not let you just kill this man." Mana moved past Yushijin and Erumo and stepped in to where her position could have been interpreted as a ballsy statement.

"I see…" Chiya replied with a face completely static despite Mana's declaration, as if what the magician had just said completely flew over her head. "It is fortunate that I have already killed this man then…"

Mana was about to ask what the Chinoike was talking about but the twitching ascension of the fallen swordsman did that for her. Mizoma roared out like a wounded animal, no longer having the required amount of sanity and consciousness to form cohesive sentences or even complete words that weren't some sort of onomatopoeic interjections.

"About by the time that a Blood Lagoon member awakens their unique set of eyes, besides from being able to cast illusions through look alone, their blood acquires peculiar abilities. Abilities that awaken after contact with unrelated to the Blood Lagoon blood." Chiya looked down, completely ignoring the alarming signs that Mizoma will soon attack. Her hair hung down to where they obstructed most of her face, sinking all of it except for the terrifying eyes that she had awakened in shadow.

"My ability is explosion," she uttered softly as a whimper.

With a thunderous bang, that soon afterward gained gutsier, coming from the underbelly and slurping type of effect, the entire upper side of Mizoma's body just above the pelvis became just wet splatters that rained over Chiya instead of the fury-driven execution that the mindless titan previously promised. Like a balloon bomb that detonated above ground, a wet splash followed the collapse of Mizoma's liquids over the nearest area.

It was then that Chiya closed her eyes and breathed out a heavy sigh. The young woman raised her sword up as if demonstrating its shiny and well-maintained blade before sheathing it in front of the magician. Once Chiya's eyes opened again, there was no more of the bloody sky or an obsidian moon in her eyes nor the radiating, malicious violet gleaming from her ocular orbs. Her eyes were violet and irradiating only in the more figurative sense. Gleaming only in the sense that they appeared like a pair of developed amethysts.

The illusion that had locked down Yushijin and Erumo disappeared instantly like snapped away by a capricious deity. Mana glanced over her allies with worry, trying to discern if there were any underlying effects as most illusion of more powerful ranks would have had. Judging from what her experienced yet natural skill in the art of illusion could have suggested from a mere visual examination alone, the pair looked alright, if a little down from the experience. They were surely shaken, as someone captured inside an illusion should have been but there did not appear to be any lingering, permanent effects.

Perhaps Chiya's illusion was so complicated to bust through not because of it intricately weaved nature and sky-high ranking but because of the raw power of it.

"So she's killed him." Yushijin breathed out. Breath rolled off of his chest like a boulder.

"Thanks for bailing us out of the genjutsu, oh Mistress of Illusions…" Erumo sneered at the magician with a sharpness to her glare that Mana thought unfitting the situation. Then again, it was unclear what it was exactly that the two had seen while under the illusion or what other feelings Chiya's unnatural mutation placed the duo under. Had Mana spent what seemed like eternity locked in an illusionary world of her worst nightmares, maybe she'd also be cranky after waking up.

"I did my best." Mana admitted. "Her illusions weren't like those I'm working with. It felt like trying to move a mountain after having learned to plow a patch of land. At some point I've hit a wall that I chose not to try and climb over."

"Maybe that's for the better. Breaking one of her illusions cost me an arm and a leg." Yushijin said in a raspy and tired voice. The swordsman removed his claymore and tossed it aside. Having removed the weight from his back, the Konoha ninja stretched out and sat down on the ground to take a couple of breathers. While he failed the responsibility he had placed on himself as a leader, that failure somewhat freed him. At least freed him to rest a bit.

It was also a failure that Mana knew all too well and therefore could feel for her friend a bit.

"Your skill was impressive. I had to swallow my pride and actually use my ability because I'd have never pulled it off without my little opening." Chiya's voice rose in tone and volume enough to reach the Konoha group. After Mizoma's demise, Kouta approached his group and tried checking on them. While Yushijin dismissed his friend's requests for a scan and possible treatment, Erumo had accepted it and therefore the medical ninja occupied himself with what he could.

"Yeah well… I guess you wanted to repay the pain caused to your kin more than I wanted to lead my team right." Yushijin replied, still seated.

"His sword… It fits your style." Chiya looked at the blood-covered tool of murder laying beside its master's lower body that from time to time still emitted a little twitch once blood attempted to find its way back to Mizoma's stone heart that had long since been obliterated.

"Forget it." Yushijin waved his arm at the legendary blade. "This Valley will forever remind me of my failure as a leader. Leading my team right into a clash they did not belong in and failing to protect them. It could have cost us the integrity of our mission. Taking this sword would be a reward and I do not believe in rewarding failure."

Chiya ducked down to pick the massive weapon up. When held in her frail hands, the sword easily matched the size of the young woman. With her paled-out face and violet eyes, the swordswoman examined the fine craftsmanship of the sword and recalled its unbeatable, still mysterious qualities. Mizoma, if he even truly knew what the sword was actually capable of, carried the exact nature of the weapon to whichever wet stain it was appropriate to call his grave.

With peaceful dismissal in her eyes, the swordswoman tossed the chunk of steel away. The tool using which the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist claimed countless human lives clanged with a heavy and dull noise that rose to a higher pitch once the sword dragged across the Valley floor.

"As if I'd ever consider fighting with the weapon that was meant to be used to slay everyone I love." Chiya smiled in a way that made Mana wonder if perhaps the swordswoman actually honored the idea of granting Mizoma's sword a different purpose.

"Are you guys sure you don't want to just pick it up and carry it home to Konoha? Sounds like madness to encounter a treasure like this and just leave it on the floor in some valley." Chison somehow managed to complete the sentence through his endless fits of chuckling. For whatever reason, he found both surviving sides of the battle dismissing the only material trinkets out of sheer principle of it hilarious.

"No, if I brought it home, I'd be rewarded for bringing back a sword that belongs to the line of Seven Swordsmen. I will report about it but I won't bring it back. Maybe the punishment I'll get for leaving it here will help me sleep better at night." Yushijin sighed, finally gathering enough strength to get back on his feet. With slowly returning vigor, the young ninja stretched his muscles out.

"You guys shouldn't linger here." Mana brought up. "After realizing their attempt at killing you failed, the Hozuki will come here again. Not to mention the Seven Swordsmen that will come to reclaim their sword. Even if you got rid of it now, they'll still come for where it was last supposed to be."

"The Blood Lagoon ran. The Chinoike stand and fight. They put down roots." The tall and melancholic swordsman of the Chinoike that came with Erumo's group replied.

"What's this Chinoike business?" Utaretta turned at her peer. "Have you guys actually agree with Chiya about this clan stuff?"

"Sorry, Utaretta, we know how you feel about starting a clan but we can't live the way we've been living. We can't just live as rejects until our dying day. I'd rather see our descendants get rid of the disgusting stigma we live with long after we are dead over living as a group of runaways." The cloaked Chinoike phantom stepped out in front of Chitsu and his tall swordsman friend.

"I doubt that Land of Hot Water will take it kindly to us residing here but… Oh well… Living like badass vagabonds was beginning to get old anyway." Utaretta grumbled like a pouty child who just got outvoted about the next game that the pack would be playing together.

"Don't think they'll fight all that hard. Who would risk breaking their leg for this dump?" Erumo sighed.

With Chiya's friendly chuckle, the Konoha party turned back to face the way they came and the road that led past the Land of Hot Water and into the frigid white of the Land of Snow.

"Do you think the Chinoike will be alright?" Kouta wondered. After his less stable warrior side had failed him and gave him reason for a personal crisis to overcome in the nearest future, the side of a caring medical ninja that was long forgotten had awakened, even if only temporarily, within the young Juugo.

"Tough to say. Though if they all possess those same mutated eyes that allow them to control iron-rich fluids, there are worse places to settle in than the Valley of Hell. If this home field does not give them the advantage to survive any challenges ahead, it is tough to imagine what might." Mana shrugged.

Perhaps it was for the better that they left the Chinoike alone. They were a bunch tied together by bonds that made them extremely dangerous to even the vaguest threats to those bonds. With two principle-driven groups like Team Fir and the Chinoike, a clash would have been inevitable somewhere down the line and neither of the sides truly needed that.