"Mana!" Hanshin called out to the magician. It was not common of him to request back-up so one would have been smart and felt honored when they were called forth.

"On it." The Mana replied. It took Hanshin a good few dashes forward before he realized that the magician was not backing him up but instead working with the crowd. Had the special jounin bothered to learn more about his team, perhaps he'd have known Mana's priorities in each given situation.

"Heh, typical… Don't worry, I got you!" Meiko cheered while looking at Mana avoiding and tipping over multiple opponents. The Yordalarans were insanely strong for civilians, to begin with, then there was the crazy strength stacked on top of them when none of the usual morals or physical limiters that a body placed on itself when a strenuous action was performed applied.

"Be careful, don't engage that psycho-haired guy, there's something about him I don't like!" Kiyomi warned her team on the link, doing her best to stay on the behind lines and attempting to snipe the odd-factor out from afar. It was an old method of fighting, one she thought she'd abandoned after getting stronger and becoming more than a match for her peers in close distance, regardless, the respect that lingered in her chest for that grinning diplomat forced Kiyomi to stay back.

A mindless, unintelligible scream echoed from behind Hanshin. A man with a miner's helmet and a cloth that covered his face all the way from the nose down. Hanshin's eyes moved before his body, almost fast enough to face a braid of bony rods wrapped around each other with a peculiar aura of chakra coating it. Instead of just serving as a coat, the chakra aura split into small branches that grabbed large chunks of dirt and stone and instantly hardened and sharpened them into rocky teeth that rotated all around the two-handed bony contraption.

A flock of sparks shot out from a point in the air where Hanshin's chakra armor greeted his opponent's attack. Finally, one of the foreign spies revealed themselves. The gaunt figure stumbled back, holding his weapon in a deceitful manner that made it look like it was struggling to hold it but the ease in his hands could not fool an observer as skilled in the art of swordsmanship as Meiko and as experienced as Hanshin.

"Finally, the spiders reveal themselves. Let Hanshin tell you something, enough of these pesky webs!" Hanshin covered his face with the tips of his fingers as if lamenting the loss of a dear one before peeking from the very edge of his hand to reveal a gleeful stare.

"I'll keep the Yordalarans off of you, deal with this guy," Meiko suggested before unsealing a buckler from one of her chest armor pieces and coating it with chakra. Whenever a Yordalaran attempted to interrupt the fight or bring their crazy moshpit of violence to the brawling ninja, Meiko would swat or shove them aside. Given how she was taking on a significant chunk of an entire country, gathered to elect a new leader and gone absolutely wild, the very feat of her managing to give Hanshin and his opponent some peace of mind was astounding.

The man in a miner's helmet looked up at his comrade as if calling out to him. The diplomat only nodded before widening his grin.

"But of course, fight to your heart's extent…" he declared as if he could somehow understand the muffled and unintelligible babble coming out from his friend's mouth.

The permission to let loose appeared to make the muffled one exceptionally happy as the man swung his odd weapon in the air like a madman, turning his neutral chakra coating to one colored a watery red where the strands of chakra that formed the rocky teeth before now turned to blazes that jet off freely in every direction.

It was a while since Mana has had a flexing workout quite like this. Usually, when fighting a singular opponent her dance was split into two parts – avoid and counterattack, usually both at the same time as splitting the two often proved to be simply too slow. It required two independent thoughts and such lethargy was not tolerated on a high-caliber battlefield. This time, there was no break in between the movement. Movement was all there was.

Avoid, identify, avoid… There was barely even time to think about how Mana should avoid, had it not been for the strenuous training the Rabbit Caves, she'd have never had the experience of dodging attacks this fast with this little time to see them. At this point, the magician had learned to avoid faster attacks in total darkness, albeit in much fewer numbers so, ultimately, it all evened out. Avoid, identify, avoid…

The diplomat leaned to the back, effortlessly avoiding the incoming kunai blade coming from Kiyomi's side, his eyes lingered upon the Yamanaka still wary about coming closer. A handful of hand seals flashed through from Kiyomi's side, after the hands of the young woman settled on the final hand seal position of the Tiger hand seal, they lingered on that seal allowing the kunoichi to disperse like mist.

"Demonic Illusion: Tree Binding Death!" Kiyomi's deceptive voice came from behind the diplomat while a tree sprouted behind him, wrapping around the man and freezing his momentum completely while Kiyomi's upper half appeared from the bark from the tree as if it was a surface of the water. The Yamanaka pressed a kunai to the diplomat's throat.

"Talk, what are you doing to these settlers?" she taunted the man who, from the looks of it, quite enjoyed his immobility.

"The same thing I am going to do to you four, now that you so graciously offered yourself by entering the range…" the diplomat grinned.

"Kiyomi, get away from him!" Mana called out to the Yamanaka, "There's something in his coat!"

Kiyomi's illusionary image rippled together with the tree binding the foreign spy while Kiyomi vaulted backward with some impressive display of acrobatic skills. She did not know what exactly she was evading, forcing the Yamanaka to withdraw much farther than she'd have normally deemed necessary, just for the sake of avoiding whatever mind-attacking technique this creepy man used.

"What was that trick?" Kiyomi raised her fist up, frustrated that she could not properly capture and disable the target that seemed the most threatening to her out of the few spies that have revealed themselves.

"I am thoroughly disappointed, Yamanaka girl, as a member from a clan specializing in intelligence gathering and communication, I'd assumed you'd have better interrogation techniques than simply asking. Does it ever work?" The spy made a conscious effort to close up his coat and hide away whatever he held inside.

"You'd be surprised…" Kiyomi replied with the volume of her voice set low enough only for her to hear. Of all people, she liked being mocked by this joker the least. Even getting belittled by an Uchiha made the blonde feel less creeped out because that was simply the type of attitude those jerks had about themselves and the world around them.

The foreign diplomat turned aside, glaring over the crazed mob of Yordalarans being fought off by Meiko and Mana and Hanshin clashing with his ally. Things have gotten so crazy so fast that Kiyomi did not have the proper time to analyze the situation yet, it was only at this moment of temporary cool that she realized how odd it was that they were only being confronted by two spies. Surely a country looking to manipulate another settlement through subtle political manipulation would send more than two people there…

"It seems that I haven't picked the right frequency… It is a delicate process, after all, affecting this many minds and then capturing someone else…" the diplomat sighed in disappointment while he observed the changes in the battlefield of which, from the first glance, there appeared to be none.

A cascade of brutal grunts and roars followed by a bone-crunching sound echoed through the square, reaching the ears of both the Konoha ninja and the foreign spies. The Yordalarans were piling atop of something and creating a massive mass of bloodthirsty puppets of the foreign diplomats will. Given how Hanshin was still clashing with the strange, fired up ninja with the rock-shard chainsaw rod and Meiko was still busy blocking the offensive of the Yordalarans and keeping the moshpit off of the two, it did not take long for Kiyomi to realize what had happened.

"Mana…" she uttered.

"Interesting… I think… I think it worked…" the foreign diplomat stroke his stubble overcome by curiosity. "It appears that your friend's brain is functioning on a similar frequency to that of these people. Perhaps she is a kindred soul to these wandering settlers? Oh well, it doesn't matter…"

"What did you do to Mana, what did you do!?" Kiyomi yelled out. At that moment the respect and fear of the enemy's ability stopped mattering, the mission objective faded away. All that remained was the wish to aid her friend, to, if possible still, save her from getting stomped and hacked to pieces by a bunch of supernaturally strong settler civilians.

However, instead of rushing to Mana's aid, the blonde charged right at the mind-capturing spy. Kiyomi's movements flowed freely as she stopped herself in mid-rush to attempt to deliver a palm strike uppercut. A tiger-shade glow erupted from under the coat of the foreign spy that froze Kiyomi in her tracks. Her rising for a palm strike hand trembled as if it struggled to maintain its own weight before it flapped down and started swinging, dragging Kiyomi's right half down even. The Yamanaka collapsed to her knees as her body started to feel so heavy, although not as heavy as her eyelids…

The Yordalarans stopped fighting all at once, however, not a moment after the confusion had already set in and the generous and welcoming people could question why they were in the process of beating somebody into a pulp, with an enticing sapphire glow they had lost control once again. Kiyomi felt her strength returning to her body, more than just her natural strength to maintain her own weight and stay upright but her fighting ability too. Too late so, however, as a stiff kick to the face sent her down the ramp and into the fray of rampaging Yordalarans that started to pile on top of the Yamanaka as they had done atop of the ninja magician a few moments earlier.

A few of strikes from Hanshin's armor that his opponent could not see found their way around the formidable weapon that his enemy wielded and shook the mumbling giant up. Even if this rock-chainsaw wielding spy could have been considered a giant under normal, neutral judgment, Hanshin's size almost matched that of his opponent making the two appear almost equal, had it not been for the bloody murder in the spy's eyes compared to the smugness and enjoyment in those of Hanshin.

Whereas before the curious weapon of the spy gathered sharp shards of stone and coated them in chakra, rotating them in an ellipse formation like teeth of a chainsaw, now it spat out jets of flame similarly to its mode of operation from previously. Using a skilled manner of bobbing and weaving around the attacks, Hanshin danced around the flames to deliver another combination of strikes. The power behind his blows intensified as his fists became more and more visible to the naked eye and after a hit numbered in the thousands turned completely reminiscent of its usual Black Vicious gauntlet shape.

Being occupied with letting the battle flow uninterrupted while in the middle of a riot, Meiko noticed everything that Hanshin did. She knew from before how much chakra it cost to maintain something like Black Vicious for a prolonged period of time, Hanshin was lucky to be strong enough to finish his battles quickly. It was not that his technique was impossible to learn or that it took a lifetime to learn it, just like Hanshin only fought with this single style, it was that Hanshin had spent a lifetime mastering it, learning to handle every weakness, perfecting every aspect, leaving nothing for potential successors to improve upon.

Just like now when he only materialized Black Vicious' gauntlets to strike with all the strength of Black Vicious but using the absolute minimum effort while doing so. He would not require to deal with the strain of forming Black Vicious nor would he need to uphold it continuously, the gauntlets appeared, struck the enemy and popped into shards of black chakra upon impact. The man's skill in violence was absolutely captivating…

Hanshin's body hit a striking pose, perfectly tensed and stiffened at the moment before impact. The entire arm of Black Vicious materialized to the right of the shinobi before he delivered the coup-de-grace he was setting up for with his quick, as precise as they were stiff, wearing down blows. A cold breeze shot out from under the ethereal chakra plating that covered the arm with a hint of drizzle inside of it. A cold shower intense and shocking enough to force most of the Yordalarans rioting around the foreigners to dash back and attempt to get back to their graces.

"Black Vicious: Snowblind!" Hanshin yelled out while aiming his crushing, right-hand cross at the center of his opponent's chest. Instead of crushing the ribcage of the spy, the punch met a hard resistance in the form of his weapon. The block was rather sloppily planned but it was something, it was all that the man could put together at that moment.

Meiko's eye caught a shimmering glow below the waste of the enemy. A metallic bling that could have belonged to a secondary weapon but Meiko's mind put it together in an instant. It was no weapon…

The foreign spy murmured unintelligible banter, muzzled by the cloth that covered his lower mouth, perhaps even more than something a simple cover. Almost like he had something else in his mouth that filled it completely and prevented the man from speaking. The chakra irradiating from him and forming the aura around his weapon returned to the spy's body before rumbling and breaking the ground beneath his feet.

A resonating pulse of force betrayed the fact that Hanshin used his as of that moment invisible chakra armor to send him a few meters in the air with a simple palm strike. Meiko's body lifted off with a blast from the jets of chakra flares in her boots to avoid the quake. The rioting mob of Yordalarans appeared to calm down somewhat while they struggled to stay on their feet and fumbled around or found themselves struggling from falling inside the newly formed fissures.

Kiyomi and the second spy leaped off of their elevated platform, augmenting their leaps with chakra as much as they could to maximize the time they stayed in the air and minimize the chance of getting hit by the quake themselves. It appeared as if the quake was not all of what the half-masked spy intended to do with his jutsu. While the quake ruptured and split the ground around most of Yordalar, a large number of rocky platforms shot out into the air, covered and shining with blood-red blazes of chakra around them and erupting into flames while at their highest point.

"He's going to crash this back into the ground like a meteor shower…" Meiko said while glaring at the floating and flaming rocky formations up in the sky. "It's gonna do a number of Yordalar if we don't destroy them…"

"These settlers knew what they were signing up for when they built their houses so flimsy. If the whole damn place burns up, it's because it was too weak to stand." Hanshin flippantly dismissed Meiko's worries while staying occupied with his opponent. "Although Hanshin permits you to save the place if you feel like it, as long as you don't get in Hanshin's way. Hanshin is no master of yours."

Meiko chuckled to herself. This was no laughter of joy or cheer, this was a giggle of desperation. Just when she thought she saw something interesting around her opponent's waist, something that could have helped them score some major points in the mission and here it all went… She had to ignore that shot, that potential opening to exploit that opportunity to try and protect a bunch of rioting settlers and their flimsy wood and fur buildings from complete annihilation. Now Meiko kind of felt for Mana…

"Mana…" the blacksmith suddenly realized before looking down at where she last saw the magician.

The black and white flashes of the magician dancing around the enemy and trying to come up with a way to peacefully solve the conflict were absent. A massive burst of chakra defined by crackling lightning vortexes and thunderstorms shooting upward blasted the body pile of violent enemies off of the magician. Mana burst from down under with her uniform slightly torn and her hat lost somewhere in the shuffle, a bunch of shallow cuts that sent weak, crimson trickles down and bruises covered the body of the young woman.

Why was Mana struggling this much with these people and why did she break out with such ferocity and violence right now? What was going on? Meiko looked into the magician's eyes noticing the complete absence of her friend, the eyes were like that of a machine, racing across the battlefield, falling onto the key points of the battlefield and surveying the information so that her body could act as strong and as violently as it could.

Mana was not holding back at all… Yordalarans flew left and right, skyrocketed and slammed firmly into the ground – scattered in all directions and did not stand up despite their most heartfelt attempts to do so. A pair of them looked completely lifeless and scared the blacksmith before coughing up with blood or grunting and soothing her soul. Meiko knew how difficult it would be on Mana if her losing herself and getting violent right now ended up killing someone.

Something was wrong with Mana. She was no longer fighting to stall, come up with a plan or disable the crowd. She was fighting just for the sake of fighting, looking for the next nearest target to hit and hit them as hard and as violently as she could. She wasted no time breaking bones, smashing bodies into the ground with a ferocity that Meiko had never seen before… Had Mana's style not been designed from the ground up to result in zero fatalities, had her techniques not been defined by the magician's creed of never taking a life – she'd have murdered everybody in a wide radius around her.

Both her friend and the settlement needed help. Meiko turned at the rain of falling meteors and dashed at it, letting the chakra from her boots fire as intensely as possible. Hitting the first rock felt excruciating, the returning force from her impact that shattered the first meteor resonated throughout Meiko's body but the blacksmith did not stop, she changed directions and towards the next handful of meteors. She had no time to flinch, just keep flying, just keep hitting.

A barrage of explosions lit the sky as Meiko punched her way through a number of meteors that made her lose count already. Her head bounced about and her body shook in painful resonances of shock after each strike but she could not stop to flinch or catch her breath. The blacksmith shot at the next dozen of meteors again. Even if a single one of those hit the ground – the entire settlement will be in ruins, some of her friends might get injured too!

A deafening boom sent cracks and ripples of sheer force throughout the massive meteor, which one of the dozens that Meiko tried to stop, the redhead could not tell. The same force was returned to her and resonated through her own bones. The young woman screamed out and grunted in pain, her vision faded and her arm folded. Her body started feeling weightless… The only thing that Meiko could still see clearly was the light from the two flaming meteors she failed to stop… The wind was howling through the blacksmith's ears as she plummeted down, hair was getting in her way. Maybe letting it grow so unruly during her training was a bad idea…