The volcanic behemoth that Gunshi Aspen turned to let out a harrowing roar, forcing the entire arena to shake rabidly and throw Mana and her rabbit partner off-balance. Steel-tough and razor-sharp spikes of volcanic char shot from underground, cluttering the battlefield and forcing Mana to take it into the air and grab Usuzoku's arm, swinging him up to help him avoid getting skewered by the disastrous, terraforming earthquake.
"Izzat… Gunpowder?" Usuzoku huffed after Mana swung him over her head like a trapeze artist while gliding in the air using Mystical Wings.
"Gunpow…?" Mana was about to ask when a terrifying boom ripped the air. A massive conglomeration of fireballs erupting from a single spark swallowed Mana whole before spitting her out violently from the backside of the blast.
"Girly!" Usuzoku called out before twirling his claymore out in front of him to deflect a storm of fireballs that hurled from the heated tips of the fiend erupting into a barrage of hellish firepower. Mana's lightly scorched body skidded across the rough, charred battleground, smashing through a handful of volcanic stalagmites that, while painful to crash through, stopped her short of being flung out of the arena by the force of the ripping blast.
"Where did that blast come from? It's like that monster just made it appear from thin air…" Endo sat up with tension, leaning forward as Mana's well-being, evidently, bothered him.
"It's not thin air, can't you smell the gunpowder in the air?" Shige-H took a few good whiffs, picking up light traces of the substance. "It's like explosion powder in its rawest form. You won't find a source of more natural sulfur."
"Mana couldn't smell it," Damisan gnashed his teeth, earning a wayward stare from his teammates.
"Right, Mana's scent is impaired. She's intentionally given it up to train her body to elevate her chakra sensory," Shige-H snapped her fingers. "To think that the enemy would target something like that. They can't have known this, right?"
"Probably not, must have been a lucky shot," Asuka shrugged. "Either way, even if whatever abomination that magician turned into isn't reading Mana's mind and figuring out her weaknesses, it doesn't matter. More likely than not, it'll keep blasting things away and Mana will have to adapt to it or she'll lose."
"It's a massacre in here, girly!" Usuzoku howled, turning around a volcanic stalagmite sticking out of the ground like a pole. It wasn't a gentle vault, as the rough and sharp surface of the charred spikes tore wounds in Usuzoku's paws, but it beat getting impaled. The rabbit dashed off, evading the rapid downfall of a devastating, artificial meteor shower, scooping the dazed and injured magician off the ground and bouncing off. "Ya need ta snap outta it and call some more help! Usupari an' Usuvilme will chip dis thing down in no time!"
Rumbling and stomping the charred stalagmites into ash with its massive feet, the giant fiend advanced across the battlefield, chasing Usuzoku, who was carrying Mana on his back. The rabbit's sharp nose whiffed the air, taking swift hopes off to the side to avoid a cascade of incoming attempts to blow it up with spontaneous explosions, like the one that tagged Mana before.
"I need you to snap outta it, girly!" Usuzoku bellowed, with signs of fatigue in its voice. It wasn't a large enough animal to lug around a freeloading customer on its shoulders while swinging its massive sword and evading spontaneous explosions at the same time. "I ain't gonna cut dis thing when it's ragin' like dat!"
"I can't smell the gunpowder. Get me into range, I'll stop it for you," Usuzoku jumped up with jolts of shivers running down its back when it heard Mana's still hazy voice reaching its large ears.
"Aight!" Usuzoku exclaimed, dashing around a few stalagmites to dodge the first barrage of bursts and using the cover to lose the beast's focus. Usuzoku dived out from cover from a position behind the rumbling, stomping, and smashing behemoth of bone and fire, but, with a shrieking exclamation of its triumph, the beast swung one of its many sharp joints to slash the ninja rabbit and open its guts. Instead, the bone limb went through thin air and dispelled the afterimage of the basic Clone Jutsu.
"Lightning Style: Magic Bullet Barrage!" Mana's voice echoed through the ruined fighting stage, earning her the beast's attention as it raced to turn around and interrupt Mana's attack, all the while thrashing mindlessly with its countless limbs, sharp and hammering. After completing her hand seals, the ninja magician reached over Usuzoku's head, touching his sword with her hand, channeling vast amounts of Lightning Release chakra.
"Damn it…!" Usuzoku cursed, swinging its lightning-infused sword around and slicing off countless stingers and fending off swings of the rampant volcanic goliath until the chakra surged at the tip of the sword and fired with a barrage of sparkling electric thunder-balls, smashing into the beast's colossal body and dissolving with the concentrated fury of a thunderstorm all at once, pushing it back and leaving it stumbling.
Usuzoku braced itself, having originally planned to attack, but realizing that the aftermath of Mana's jutsu was too devastating for him to push through. The rabbit landed and gently placed Mana down on the ground and off his back while, weathering the flashing lightning storm that shot wild thunderbolts into the sky and covered the skies with complicated electrical webs.
"Da guy's hurtin'!" Usuzoku proclaimed, pointing its sword at a twitching, colossal, and disorderly tower of pulsating flesh that was rotting away like a snowball inside a warm and cozy cabin with the flash of the slumbering magical swordsman appearing from inside the rapidly rotting demonic carcass. "I'll give 'em a piece 'a my mind, let me tell ya what!"
Usuzoku dashed through the devastated and charred battlefield as the volcanic stalagmites began quivering and collapsing away alongside their deceased, abominable creator. After the rabbit warrior had dashed far enough across, Usuzoku took off with a bountiful leap, taking it to the skies, just high enough to reach the still-trapped and hazy priest.
"Rabbit Style: Double-Draw!" Usuzoku chanted out, slashing with its claymore in an instant as it dashed clean past the monstrous tower of rotting flesh, cutting through the dissolving meat and the living portal that made it materialize on their plane. After dashing and cutting past his target, Usuzoku pointed its long rabbit's feet at the nearest stalagmite that collapsed to dust, reacting to the shock of the ninja rabbit bouncing off it and dashing back. Passing back the same way he dashed at first, Usuzoku slashed through Gunshi Aspen from the other side before landing in front of Mana and sheathing its claymore sword behind its back.
The second slash was strong enough to rip the magical swordsman out from the warm and fleshy prison of the demonic innards, where the magician laid dormant while the leaking demon grew around him. Covered in blood and gore that quickly dissolved into goop and then dried out and scattered at the mercy of the light desert breeze, Gunshi Aspen peeled himself off the sticky floor, covered in rotting viscera, and reached out to pick its sword up.
"Okay, so now you've seen one of the legions of skeletons in my closet. No one said it was gonna be easy, but we can still make it work," Gunshi Aspen cackled while wiping the dried gore off its face and clothes while its ripped floral shirt freely rustled behind him.
"I don't recall agreeing to anything. In fact, I remember explicitly telling you this won't work," Mana solemnly shook her head in dismissal of the silly joke on her opponent's part.
"Huh… So that freak-face in my head was right. You are some kind of witch after all, though… I've never seen a witch invoking a rabbit for a familiar. Then again, I imagine you've never seen a guy sweat a demon out of his body through its pores, so, let's just say both of us are full of surprises," Gunshi Aspen smirked while standing up and picking his sword up, swinging it in front of him as a show that the fight was still very much in him.
"Now's our chance ta hit 'em and hit 'em hard before dey grow bones and start breathin' fire again," Usuzoku turned its grumpy snout to Mana with a bit of advice.
"Maybe, but it seems like I'm a bit short on options here," Mana admitted in discomfort. "If I use genjutsu, his control over his demons will weaken and the emergence of another devil will cancel my illusion. I imagine it's a similar case to how illusions work on hosts of Tailed Beasts. Even most of my ninjutsu is impaired here."
"Yeah, fire an' wind won't do too well against a guy spittin' hellfire. Lightnin' still packs a wallop doe," Usuzoku nodded.
"It appears I will need to rely on your strength, Zoku-chan, but… Don't worry, I'm not so mean as to leave you without backup…" Mana jumped up and weaved a one-handed seal to set off her Mystical Wings so that she could glide closer to her top hat. Almost as if he realized what Mana was doing, Gunshi wound his sword back and made it burst into black flames with a blazing outline.
"Abaddon Slash!" Gunshi Aspen exclaimed, throwing a ranged crescent slash projectile from his sword that shattered the dried-out and puny charcoal stalagmites and hurled toward Mana's location, threatening to punish her for leaving herself open while going for her hat.
"Watch out!" Usuzoku called out, taking off like a speeding bullet with a hefty kick of its powerful legs and tackling Mana in the back. The tackle swept Mana off her feet. As the crackling, dark crescent slash accelerated toward the collided pair, it became apparent that dodging it from their position was out of the question.
With a devastating blast, the slash detonated in the western wing of the arena, splitting it open as the driven ranged slash projectile caused a collapse of a horizontal, cone-shaped ridge in the arena. The ring still trembled and spat out pebbles from its fissures and cracks. Just when it seemed as if Gunshi's ranged slashing attack had either destroyed Mana and her rabbit or sent them into a ring out, someone in the audience called out, following a cavalcade of pointing, clapping, and cheering.
Usuzoku was high in the air, having used a Substitution Jutsu to replace himself with a dislodged stalagmite before kicking off and away from harm's way high in the air. Mana blinked rapidly, her hat firmly clutched in her hand, even though the ruckus of the resulting exchange left her a tad shellshocked. Gnashing his teeth, Gunshi heaved the Leviathan's Cross over his head and slashed a few times again, sending a barrage of weaker versions of his cuts from the residual energy still channeled through his sword.
"Look alive, girly!" Usuzoku panted, tossing Mana out of his way before taking his sword up with both hands again and deflecting the incoming storm of attacks. A sharp, swish-like sound made both Mana and Usuzoku turn around. Before the magical swordsman could make the first move, Mana extended her hands and expelled a shotgun blast of steel-tipped cards, prompting her opponent to move his sword to cover him up from the incoming hail of cuts instead of attacking.
Metallic clanking kept Mana's and Usuzoku's guard up, as behind their opponent's back unfolded a dozen of golden, metallic limbs, positioned in a mandala-like position and looking metallic and mechanical, equipped with scalpels at their tips. A flurry of them lashed out at Mana, prompting the ninja magician to clap her hands as fast as only she could, and extend them to her sides, forming a protective bubble of Magic Bubble around her. The long, mechanical limbs poked holes in the lower-ranked defensive ninjutsu, before wrapping around Mana's defensive bubble like a spider that's caught its prey.
While Mana wrestled with Gunshi Aspen's Partial Possession technique, Usuzoku positioned behind the unholy priest and engaged with him in a mid-fall sword fight. Gunshi's sword flashed a dozen times, but Usuzoku's silver flashes were just as rapid, resulting in thunderous booms and vivid sparks erupting from each collision of their blades. While still wrestling with Mana on the backside, Gunshi rolled backward mid-air, positioning himself for a thrust, and hurled himself at Usuzoku.
The rabbit swordsman deflected the thrust with a delicate turn of his sword before responding with a thrust of his own. Gunshi was quick enough to return to his guard. The spider-like mechanical legs crushed Mana, accompanying the fusillade of deafening clangs with a troubled feminine yell. Gunshi didn't dare move his eyes away from the sword-fighting rabbit to confirm the success of his attack, however, when Mana's clone popped and left the mechanical scalpel spider arms unoccupied, he felt the hesitation of his mind being split between operating the demonic limbs with sustaining a sword fight with the rabbit.
Gunshi moved his spider arms to wrap around his front, wrapping himself up in golden mechanical arms that absorbed the force of Usuzoku's aerial dropkick. After blocking the strike, Gunshi thought to wield the momentum of his opponent's force to fuel his own kick, but he only kicked through thin air, as Usuzoku was nigh uncatchable when fighting with his legs. By the time the mechanical arms parted and Gunshi shoved his kick out, Usuzoku had bounced off the golden wall and landed safely in the arena below.
"My body's strained. Expect no more freebies from me!" Usuzoku barked out, directing his scolding to Mana.
"That's okay, I can still use a Substitution myself, though I'd rather not if I can avoid it," Mana nodded in acknowledgment of her partner's warning.
"What about dat pretty, flowery nonsense ya do ta scurry away?" Usuzoku growled, which was an odd tone for a rabbit, but not at all for this particular rabbit.
"Flower Petal Escape is a genjutsu," Mana replied without skipping a beat. "He might slip into demonic possession again if I put him under illusion to break it. I'd rather not have to deal with any more demons."
"Better accept it dat yer gonna have ta tangle with some beasties! A guy like dat… I ain't gonna knock 'im out quickly, dat's fer sure!" Usuzoku put his sword up into a balanced, thrusting-oriented position, pointing its tip at Gunshi.
"That's why I secured this hat," Mana waved it in front of Usuzoku.
"You wouldn't 'a need it if ya used Summonin' Jutsu like a normal person!" Usuzoku flipped out, giving Gunshi Aspen an opening to attack with both his opponents distracted.
Gunshi's back spread three pairs of wide, black, feathered wings. With one flap, the six wings sent Gunshi soaring onward while his demonic mana surged through his entire body, building up more than enough acceleration and force to crash through multiple pillars of charred mounds standing in between the unwilling one-man legion and his opponent.
A devastating thud made the audience cover their ears and wince in discomfort. In a blink, Gunshi found himself sunken in colorful dust, filled with star-shaped, reflective sparkles and confetti. The crushing blow hurled Gunshi flying out from the colorful dust cloud that spilled out from Mana's hat and bounced him off the ground a few times, making the winged priest level a whole line of brittle stalagmites on his way skidding toward the center of the arena.
With bloodshot eyes and frothing from the mouth, clutching at his solar plexus that had a nasty indentation suggesting a potential fracture, Gunshi stood up and was about to beat his massive wings to blow away the colorful dust and confetti away. Before the wings could flap even once, the sharp noise of metal slicing the air raked at the priest's ears, causing him to turn right and witness knives skewering his wings. As the sign of Partial Possession withdrew back into Gunshi's body, which had become a living portal for outerversal, demonic activity, Gunshi glared at the settling smoke, witnessing the emergence of three more rabbits he'd not seen yet.
"Hell yeah!" a smaller and leaner rabbit with hazel-colored fur and cream-colored fluffs over her knees, wrists, and head, also decorating the tips of her long, dark-brown and thickly furred ears pumped her fists, mirroring the movements of her hands with her massive ears, easily the size of her own body. "Mana-sama summoned me again! You better believe it I'm going to show her the fruits of my training!"
"Now, now, Usubane, your ears have gotten stronger, but I suggest you follow my lead," a six-meter tall and round rabbit, wearing a pair of jeans with suspenders over thick fur that had black stripes, similar to those of a tiger laughed out, holding his round belly as if trying to keep it from bursting. The rabbit's snout was covered with shaggy fluff, similar to a beard, and its eyes were wholly black. The most impressive feature of this ninja rabbit was the smashing hammers it had for ears. They were even larger than the brute himself and looked thick like stone to batter with.
"Would you two stop yappin'? If it weren't for me, that guy would a' blown the two of you away with those freaky pigeon wings of his!" a burgundy-colored rabbit with deep-blue, sapphire-like eyes brandished a hand stuffed with knives, betraying him to be the sharpshooter that skewered Gunshi's wings earlier.
"Usuvilme and Usupari are all good choices, but Usubane is still green!" Usuzoku objected to Mana's choices for reinforcements.
"You're too protective of her, Zoku-chan," Mana dismissed Usuzoku's scolding by flipping her hair. "She's proven invaluable to me in the past, to where I've begun growing fond of her. Besides, she was the one to land the first blow and interrupt the opponent."
"M-Mana-sama is growing fond of me!" Usubane's eyes flared up with passionate flames of youth as she clenched a rather delicate, compared to her clobbering ears, fist in front of her. "I swear, Mana-sama, I won't let you down!"
"More familiars, huh?" Gunshi Aspen panted out, finally getting enough air into his lungs to pick himself back up and twirl his sword over his head, flaunting its length and his mastership of the weapon, before gripping it firmly with both hands and holding it in front of him, displaying the sword's daunting length. "Since you're relying on quantity, I'm imagining that it shouldn't take much to send them packing."
Mana's newly assembled platoon of ninja rabbits stepped up to spearhead the assault, helping Mana find an opening and deliver the decisive blow in this match. Gunshi Aspen resolved himself to fighting off all these talking animals, brandishing a frightening number of weapons for how cute they were. Despite both sides taking some mean bumps, the match was still very much alive and up in the air, it seemed.