The hive was a cradle-like environment. Cozy and greatly compressed by the massive amounts of threads and furs hanging all over the place. Judging from the looks of it, this was the place where the intricate outfits, accessories, and items devised out of the cadavers of both human and animal bodies alike were made. A handful of bare-skinned women donning only layers of paint across their extremities and their face, crooked and starved were still working, ignoring the end of their world transpiring around them.

Their hen-skins were pale and beginning to rot in places, the magician figured that these women would die the moment they stopped continuing the strenuous physical activity, allowing the cold to put them to sleep and then claim them shortly thereafter.

There was no missing the beady pair of eyes staring at the magician from above. A woman wearing shells of turtles and skin of other reptiles across her body hung over the top of the hive, using the webs of threads and hanging bone accessories to place her feet into and maintain her upwards, bat-like hanging position. Just like in the tribesman's mental image, a long tail of strewn together insect shells covering a piece of hemp rope and a frightful, still bloodied hook attached on the end and weighing the artificial limb down.

"Your people won't give up until you're down," Mana stated staring right back at the woman, unfazed by her ocular, death meaning sparks.

The black scorpion woman gave her assembly of workers a cruel hiss, obeying the scorpion's authority to the end, the bunch dropped their work in the middle of production and scattered. The scorpion woman then placed and rubbed her hands over her upper arms, as if she was cold, even though that could not have been the case. The black scorpion pinched and lifted both of the shells protecting her elbows and then let go of them, letting them snap back into place. The scorpion woman then pointed at the section of hooks behind shrouds of wool, dyed crimson by the skinned bodies mostly concealed behind the mists of wool puffs.

"Your people have no more home. If you're a drop of a mother figure your folk make you out to be, instead of threatening me you'd…" Mana grumbled as an answer to the revelation of what the scorpion woman planned on doing with the magician's dead body. Her answer was cut short by the scorpion's smack, with a single twitch of her abdomen and her chest, the woman sent her artificial tail whipping at the magician's direction.

It only took a lean of her head a bit to the side for the hooks to miss their mark and smack into the wool and the stone behind Mana. The magician was not nearly as stupid as to let down her guard and allow the hooks to hit her on the way back. She grabbed the artificial tail and sent a shock of Magician's Touch Jutsu through it. She could only perform a lower ranked version of that jutsu so suddenly and without the use of hand seals at that moment but even a B-Rank version would have sufficed.

True to the ideals she instilled within the hearts of her people, the black scorpion did not scream or grunt, she jerked and twitched as the charge of the Lightning Release jutsu passed through her body. The still smoking body of the tribeswoman smacked onto the ground. Mana would not give it time nor the space to recover, she dashed up to the black scorpion, delivering a crushing kick to her abdomen and sending the woman smashing into the wall with enough force to send even more cracks throughout the entire mountain range. A pair of dislodged chunks threatened to crush the two women still duking it out inside.

Mana thrust her hands up, she may have survived getting crushed by one of these boulders but not her opponent. Through grit and determination, the young woman pushed the boulder back the direction it came from but then something shifted so very high up. The weight intensified thousands of times. A back-breaking sensation similar only to having a saw dragged across one's exposed spine made Mana's perception of the environment around her fade out momentarily. For just one second, the entire mountain top was resting in her hands.

By the time the magician became aware of what was going on again, everything was pitch-black. The candles in the hive were all snuffed out, not even the tiniest scribble suggested a hint of life inside. No. The black scorpion could not have been dead! That was not why Mana came all the way here and let those tribesmen fend and fight for themselves. All that weight that pressed her to the floor was still on top, preventing the magician from breathing. If she just closed her eyes, cried like a pathetic child until she ran out of strength for good, it would take agonizing twenty to thirty minutes until her end.

One of the less thought about the advantages of the ninja metabolism…

"No… Not again!" Mana roared out as she forced her fingers into the pillar of stone and minerals that attempted to crush her to the ground and sapped her chakra each passing second while her body worked with augmentations to prevent being crushed. Her gloves were busted, her exposed nails dug into Mana's own skin and flesh underneath to try and get even the tiniest grips onto the mountain resting on top of her. That felt nice, the blood felt warm, soothing to her frozen body.

With a cry of both agony and pride in her ninja way that she intended to upkeep until the end, Mana forced the mountain platform off of her, pressing it up and then shoving it to the side. Thusly she formed a narrow corridor to slither closer to the collapsed black scorpion woman. The once proud and deadly black scorpion was now just a reminder of the less glorious, human part of each tribesman: the woman was badly burnt by Mana's Magician's Touch, one of her eyes was whited out completely and looked almost like a marble of molten cheese in terms of its texture, her ruined outfit had melded with the woman's flesh and skin in places where it touched her body when the scorpion received her burns.

Blood kept on erupting from the woman's open orifices, signaling a poor condition of her inner organs. Both Mana's kick, the scorpion's slam into the wall resulting from the kick as well as the collapsing mountain bashing and crushing bits and pieces of its own added on top of that condition, demanding their own pound of flesh. The black scorpion only had this many pounds she was able of giving and she was running out of them already.

The broken and battered leader of the community jerked a pair of times, showing off to her opponent that she was in no condition to keep on fighting. The right arm of the black scorpion was crushed up to her shoulder, so was the left leg. A handful of smaller chunks of rock opened the woman up where her collapsed armor failed to protect her but, judging from the scarred skin all over, she probably did not feel all too much of those bruises at this point.

"I'm not going to kill you." Mana shook her head "Although I don't think you're in my ability to save…"

It only occurred to the magician that her enemy may not have understood a single word she said. Maybe that was why the woman was so eager to interrupt Mana's speech before. To someone as down to earth and primal in terms of her objectives, someone speaking non-stop must have seemed like utter heresy. Especially if one could not understand a single word they were saying.

The woman shook the parts of her body that remained uncrushed. What the magician took as yet another persistence that Mana granted the black scorpion the death she wanted very nearly took the life of the Konoha kunoichi. Somewhere halfway through the woman's motion, Mana figured that insistence such as that which she had imagined was not entirely up to the behavior of this woman. It was then that the magician moved her upper body aside.

A metallic clang followed shortly by a sharp feeling on Mana's cheek and nothing suggesting impalement or steel hooks tearing chunks of her flesh off tipped the magician off to the fact that she had successfully avoided the enemy's sucker punch. Just in case, the magician caught the withdrawing tail and tore it off with a popping, rubbery snap.

Having just effectively disarmed her opponent, Mana approached the black scorpion and sighed. There was probably no way of removing the woman from under the rocks without sentencing her to death but she was dead either way. Mana needed something to show the surviving tribesmen… If she as much as moved the stones, the woman would die from the injuries. A lesser, more brutal ninja would have removed her head and been done with it.

The only functional shoulder of the black scorpion woman twitched. Mana granted her moving opponent her full attention but it was not another attempt at an attack. With a pain-ridden shake to the movement, the black scorpion pointed at a section of the room that was entirely covered up by a boulder.

"I…" Mana was about to try and ask the woman about some clarification but then, once the rumbling of the mountain settled down a tad bit, having recently found a new sense of shaky balance to keep itself erect and mighty on, a faint noise of scribbling came from the direction. The magician closed her eyes and tried reaching out for any possible parts that the boulder may have split off from the rest of the hive.

With a steady step, Mana approached the boulder and touched it gently. There was an actual treasure hidden behind this rocky structure but… There was the conundrum… If Mana blasted the stone to bits, she risked causing more of a downfall, perhaps the entire rest of the mountain landing atop of her shoulders. While Mana could have held it up for a limited amount of time and therefore hoped to survive for a handful of minutes, the treasure split off from the hive behind this boulder could not. In fact, the treasure would have been rendered pointless by merely letting it stay there, in a deep, dark cavern where no light or oxygen came in or out.

The magician bit her thumb and placed her hand inside her hat. A beaming nova of violet light erupted from somewhere deep down while a handful of fuzzy furballs leaped out with a grumble. Usujitsa was not too happy about something, then again, it had the mental capacity of a child so it may have not been overly excited about just about anything, as soon as the time to be frowny tolled for him.

"I need something soft and small," Mana commanded the rabbit with the usual strict tone that used to work on him. Deep down, the magician kept telling herself that Usujitsa would do whatever he's told to do as long as Mana sounded authoritative enough to fool him that she had actual control over him. "Also, some clones to hold the ceiling would be nice."

"Ji-Ji!" Usujitsa grumbled and turned away like a capricious toddler. This was not the time… Not with this much at stake. Usujitsa was the key to making out of this situation with the ideal outcome in hand, his absence was the way that led to a two-faced surrender of everything she considered her ninja way or a painful failure.

"I know I summoned you already and told you to do all sorts of weird stuff. I summoned you again right now before you even had a chance to return home. But behind this boulder, there are a bunch of friends that want to play with you. If you misbehave, they'll get crushed and die. Then we'll be alone." Mana tried to sound genuine for once. She's demanded so much of Usujitsa during her training as well as the time after that a little bit of honesty, even if it ultimately pointed to a path of failure, was welcome.

"Ji…" the rabbit looked down. It looked honestly down about what Mana told him. The more Mana came to spend time around the innocent calamity, the more she doubted the malicious nature that the rabbits attributed to the demon of destruction. Usujitsa seemed more like a bumbling idiot who destroyed everything around it because of silly antics and its frightening power rather than a desire to cause harm.

"Yeah… Alone. You don't like that, do you? That's why you're always surrounded by clones. It's not just a survival mechanism, is it?" Mana sighed, feeling a bit bad about the little critter.

The white fur ball breathed in deep before blowing the air out in its entirety. Emboldened by the sense of passion to protect the as of yet immaterial friends, Usujitsa formed another clone of itself. In a manner far different from how the original clone was given its origin, the clone continued to split apart to handfuls of versions of itself while continuing to drastically dip in size and weight as its numbers grew out of control. Not too shortly after, with a cascade of tiny pops and a signal of great rumbling, the boulder collapsed to small pebbles.

As if there had not yet been enough trouble, it appeared as if the boulder was far more important to the structure of the mountain than Mana originally thought. After its quick collapse, as subtle as it was, the entire mountain decided to crumble down. Mana cupped her hands together and breathed in. She needed to cast the fastest ninjutsu she's ever cast. Luckily for her, the treasure she meant to protect was as tiny as treasures got so she had every microsecond she needed…

"Wind Style: Faith's Judgment!" Mana chanted while blowing out all of the air she had accumulated within her chest. The stream of air became a vortex of Wind Release chakra that not only maintained the crumbling mountain afloat but pushed it up a tiny bit as well. Fully aware of the nature of this twister, the magician dashed into it.

The jutsu was supposed to be a torture technique of sorts. The insides of the storm were where the enemy was supposed to remain trapped in while the raging winds opened up numerous cuts all over their body. The longer the twister continued, the more and deeper cuts it inflicted. With her best shoulder charge, Mana tried to force her way through. Almost immediately the resistance of the turbulent yet contained winds pushed her out of the torturous twister while the smaller parts of her body that made it through became covered with cuts as if an entire army was determined to find out Mana's secrets and decided that interrogation of a thousand cuts was the best option.

"Ji!" the tiny rabbit encouraged Mana to try again. Or maybe he told her to get smarter and stop trying to kill herself. After all, childish exploration and withdrawal upon the first injury was the way it experienced the world.

"Yeah, I know… Just… Let me get myself together…" Mana replied even though she was more doing so to herself rather than the nincompoop of tragedy.

The next push was far more successful. After a certain amount of spitting at her own well-being coursed through the magician's entire body, she found herself deep within the twister that kept elevating her up and tearing her bit by bit. It felt like every smallest string of flesh and skin was being pulled apart while miniature slicers the size of a needle, comprised entirely of Wind Release chakra, kept working at what remained.

What started with a whimper, ended up in a scream by the point Mana appeared behind her own whirlwind of torture. The only jutsu that seemed powerful enough at the time while also suitable for the task…

"Ji!" Usujitsa exclaimed something. Possibly something of congratulatory nature.

Mana glared over the twister behind her, feeling the pull back into the turbulent shredder and feeling the warm trickles of blood running down from her wounds while she glared at a handful of peaceful sleepers by her foot, weaved into the woolen entrapments. The magician tried not to think if these were all of the babies that the busy-bees at the hive were taking care of and how many of them may have already been crushed after the initial shake. The optimistic side of Mana thought that there may not have been any. There was a notable number of the world's quietest and most badass-looking babies, ones already past their baptism in blood and savagery, without a doubt, otherwise there would have been no way in hell they'd have stayed this quiet and with just a mere whimper rubbing against the woolen webs around them to suggest of their existence.

There was no way for Mana to carry all of those infants back home. It would have been impossible to even pass back through the whirlwind without having the babies reduced to flat slices in the time it took to snap her fingers. It was not a matter of weight but one of space. It could not have come easily for the black scorpion to let go of the children and grant them life at the expense of everything she believed in and what she had intended these kids to grow up believing in. The least proper way to treat one's sacrifices was to return them home in the shape of sliced salami.

Feeling the strength of her twister slowly fading away, the magician pressed her left hand to the bottom of her hat, opening up the seal before beginning to push the babies inside her sealing dimension one by one. It was impossible to say what sort of conditions were present in one's own sealing dimension. Time and space could have functioned entirely different inside it, it could have been as large as the universe or as small as a room. However this was no reckless gamble, Mana had stored her rabbits inside it for quite some time now and had not noticed any displeasure or injuries from them passing through it. It would not be a roll through the park but it was the only way for these babies to make it out of this mountain.

"Get ready to blast us out. There's nothing more left saving…" Mana sighed while her attention passed through the flayed bodies and other more gruesome remains of the tribe's lifestyle.

"Ji!" Usujitsa exclaimed with a hint of glee that the magician had managed to save his aforementioned friends.

"Watch over them until I get back home, at least." The magician uttered the final order before the mountain started rumbling again. This time she did not work with anywhere near enough devotion to protect the cave systems from collapsing.


A rising shockwave erupted from the summit of the mountain located in the complicated mountain range system, where the tribesmen used to hang their furs and skins. Following a barrage of shattering sound barriers, Mana landed in front of the Konoha and Kumogakure ninja. Much to the relief of the former and to the frustration of most of the latter.

"Mana!" Kouta yelled out, just looking happy to see the magician alive and okay. "Sit down, I'll heal those wounds."

Mana looked at her shaking hands, covered with streaks of red that drop by drop sent leaks of blood down. It really must have looked terrible, as if she had gone through hell.

"Seriously? Those weaklings messed you up this bad?" Uru-V grinned with mockery in his look as he looked behind him in search of some peer approval. Something that Mana did not expect to see was that he saw none.

"You've failed, Konoha's Sorceress. We've killed every tribesman we've clashed with. Those that had enough brainpower to hide must have been crushed in the downfall." Sore-T grumbled at the magician, fully expecting a continuation of the conflict from before. Having seen Mana's strength and devotion to her ninja way, even the Kumogakure powerhouse did not enjoy the idea of clashing with the young woman at this point.

"You completed your objective. I did what I thought was right as well." Mana shrugged.

"Wait… You saved some of them!? You bitch, if you let some of them go, we'll have to scour these goddamn mountains to find them and kill them!" Kari-E flipped out at the magician.

"You better get started then. Blizzards are never too far away in these parts. They get infinitely worse higher up too." Mana looked back at the Kumogakure ninja who must have just sworn blood vengeance on her while trying to slay the magician with her stare alone.

"Why I oughta…" Uru-V slipped his fists back into his gauntlets with frightening speed and prepared to lunge at the young woman but Sore-T stopped him.

"Mana is right. We have no time to fight it out with Konoha, we have a mountain range to scan for potential survivors." The giant of physicality sighed in frustration.

"Indeed, there is no way that our superiors would leave a report such as this unquestioned. Mana's description all but guarantees that we shall be drilled on the prospect of potential survivors." Ara-K acted frustrated but she managed to slip in a nod at Mana's direction.

"Ugh… This place is hopeless. I can't get my shine on in these conditions." Kouta shivered. "It's not good for Mana either. Let's head for the settlement until I can heal Mana proper."

"You're the medical ninja here." Yushijin nodded, heeding the advice of the team's medical ninjutsu expert and signaling for Team Fir to move the opposite direction to that in which the Kumogakure ninja flickered off to.