For a moment in time, barely conceivable and comprehensible to the mind of a normal human, Mana’s instincts froze her body, right before the other miners charged at her and her squad. For a single moment, just a raindrop in a raging ocean storm of moments to come, the magician tried to think, analyse the environment like she used to. Brawl in autopilot, surrender her body to pure instinct, let her chakra and her ninja perception guide her actions while her mind was busy analysing the environment, predicting the opponent’s movements. Oh how forgetful it was of her to do that…
Mana’s body moved slick and fast, avoiding every blow, every swing of each weapon, built or improvised. She avoided fists, steel gloves meant to rip loosened minerals from stone with tremendous force, pickaxes, axes and even tossed chunks of stone and coal. Just like Meiko taught her, all of her movements were fluid like water, she was ready to fight just about anyone or anything who wasn’t faster than human perception. Her movements were sharpened perfected, not only during the week of training but also all those years of being trained to be a soldier for her own village. While her full power was crushed beneath the feet of cruel fate, her mind was still the same… Mostly: slower, incredibly sluggish but at least just as potent.
Mana felt regret, doubt, she didn’t want to fight initially because she didn’t know if these men were just miners doing their job or tools of the Syndicate to be thrown at them. The first man was different, she knocked him out because she wasn’t ready, she reacted in self-defence, she restrained her movements from snapping his neck despite having full access to it. Then something snapped in her mind. She was protecting her opponent again, just like before… No more of that.
The kunoichi’s hands and feet joined in on her smooth evasion, her arms redirected every blow, every weapon choosing a new target for the attack for the enemy, using their momentum and their own strength. And there was plenty of it to spare, these blows were strong enough to shatter bones, crush skulls, maim and even kill. A pickaxe meant to be stuck into Mana’s eye, sent right into the knee of the miner’s friend to the right, a kick meant to kick the girl in the shin, it’d have sent her to her knees where she’d soon be overwhelmed had the man’s kick not been pushed into the groin of his friend. Despite her best efforts to stand there and fight, Mana had to move backwards, she had to avoid getting surrounded or else…
A sharp scratch composed of nothing else but sheer pain emanated through the girl’s back, sending painful shivers to her very core. She was tagged, her defence was slowing down, it was natural, she was only human. A punch to the gut hit her but Mana bounced back, adrenaline and fear kept her on her feet. She kept fighting back, trying to find weak but not overly weak spots to redirect the punches to. It wasn’t going ideally, she had more miners to deal with than she was comfortable dealing with. As much as she didn’t want to admit it “ she needed some help here… Fights were never pretty but if she was left alone Mana may need some more healing after this.
Meiko on the other hand was blowing everyone away. She unsealed the buckler from the sealing mark on her arm, shoving it into people’s faces, dashing around like a moving wall and blowing everyone off their feet, several times her swift and blurry movements saved Mana by cleaning her opponents right in front of her own eyes. The blacksmith leaned down and pressed a mark on her boots.
“C-Rank Seal: Release!” she yelled out as blue flames of pure chakra shot out from the seal in her boots. Had the blacksmith not spent so much time on maintenance of her armor and its seals she’d have completely forgotten to refill the chakra supply in the seal. A jet of flames sent the armored ninja on a rampage through the battlefield wielding her buckler as a battering ram, judging from the looks and the tremendous success she had blowing miners away it was more of a crushing ram.
“Look, Mana! I’m like Kurye from “Tales of Shikio”! The Mighty Valkyrie of the Shield!” Meiko yelled out, to her this was just a foolish game, just something to goof off and show her tremendous combat potential off, test out some new combinations of her weapons. Mana on the other hand was fighting for her life… Well, more like her pride, she couldn’t allow to be beaten there, even when outnumbered a dozen of times…
“Ugh, I’m like so Team Vetsu!” Mana yelled out rolling under a pickaxe, as her roll was almost completed her arms shot forward and using the momentum of the unfinished roll she repurposed the force generated by the leap into her legs that kicked the man’s pickaxe back into his face hitting him with the top side instead of the sharp one. Shouting in pain the miner collapsed.
“Seriously?! We’re going to have a fistfight later!” Meiko yelled out angrily throwing her shield but it was blocked by a miner with a pickaxe, the force of the throw still sent the blocking pickaxe back into the unsuspecting miner’s face blowing his helmet off and making the poor man flee with a bruised face and his pride in ruins.
Mana wanted to quip around and act like she was having fun but the truth was that she wasn’t. She was struggling, she was getting hit and she could on occasion see some black marks on the few patches of her exposed skin that she saw. All of the damned miners from outside must’ve been rushing to this place. Still, their numbers were starting to dwindle.
Shimo couldn’t even be registered, he just flashed around in a blur, sending a small scale vortex of cold air to slow the reaction of anyone he attacked that looked like they were worth their mettle. Most of these miners were surprisingly good so they may have had some combat experience which was a little bit odd. Still, with a single swing of his sword the Yuki sent several men down at times. Kouta on the other hand was holding himself back much more, restraining his punches to the best of his ability. His blows still threw the men around the whole damned mine, propelling them well over fifty to hundred meters and slamming them into sheer rock or steel, leaving them crippled and if they didn’t have some shock absorbent vests on them and their helmets they’d easily be dead. Mana saw Kouta crush one man’s helmet to smallest pieces with just a flick, flipping the man over with the leftover force as well.
Mana saw Kouta’s body being covered with bruises and marks as well, even worse, due to him holding his full power back he was getting surrounded. Her eyes got serious. Suddenly it was like her fury over her friend’s injuries made the time stop around her, she had time to focus, she had the time to react. Or maybe she had it in her the whole time? Mana’s gentle taps moved so fast she could barely see them herself, how was this possible? She changed the direction of over twelve attacks coming at her at the same time!? All the men surrounding Mana fell over after receiving the attack from a comrade of theirs while the magician flicked a device on her sleeve getting some cards ready. With several quick swipes letting them fly she leave them etched deep into the flesh of the men giving Kouta trouble.
The boy looked at her surprised and blushed, he must’ve felt ashamed being rescued by a girl who didn’t even have her chakra manipulation. No… It was something else! Mana tried to react, she tried to move with the speed that she used before but where her mind was aware of the danger behind her, her body was not fast enough, it was once again the body of a normal, well trained in combat and martial arts human girl. She felt a sharp as a knife touch pierce her shin, then another on her shoulders, a gentle tap from a foot to her knee sent her down while the hand of her assailant grabbed her own wrist, still armed with a sharp tossing card and moved it to her throat. She was subdued! Those pinches felt like they sent lightning itself pulsing through her entire body, almost like she got shocked every time they touched her.
“Stop!” the man who caught Mana ordered. Mana just barely restrained her smile as each of her friends had already finished every single miner who rushed there. Why were there so many!? Were all of them responding to an alert?
“I’m sorry…” Mana murmured, she felt so horribly. The worst shame for a ninja was to be caught off guard and be captured alive, to be used as a burden for their team. Ninja were tools of their own village, not their enemies. She was a disgrace thinking she could still fight at that level.
“It’s not your fault, Mana, these men aren’t like ordinary brawlers, that was pressure point assault” Shimo sheathed his sword and prepared to lunge at them, the magician saw his eyes calculating the distance between her and him, he was trying to judge accurately if he could leap at them and cut them down with a drawing slash before they could react. While sounding quite impossible it sounded quite right for the boy in question.
“No, we’re not like you ninja guys, we actually had to train our entire lives. Push ourselves to the limit that is… Me and my brother, also every other Silkman in the Syndicate are versed in every martial art in the world. Even with their amazing speed ninja find us tough to keep up with up close and this girl was both impressive enough to pose us a threat and distracted enough by something, or rather someone to subdue…” the man spoke up.
“Silkman?” Mana wondered silently whispering to herself. Her eyes glanced below seeing the end of a long black and white kimono. So these were the bald kimono mobsters? Were all of them so skilled in martial arts?
“You fools! She’s not even a ninja! She poses no threat to you! Let her go and let us pass!” Kouta yelled out, his chakra was raging deep inside so prominently that his violent Juugo heritage made it leak from his pores in the shape of blueish glowing dust. His hair started flowing upwards from the rising pressure and the electrifying presence of chakra particles in the air around him.
“Quite the contrary, she’s the one who would’ve been the most bothersome one to tag and take out in a rush. We were fighting ninja our entire lives yet this girl uses no ninja techniques and still has such a well-focused and purposed style of countering our martial art styles that she had to be disabled…” another voice behind her spoke up, so there were more than one assailant?!
“Also, we’re not the ones stopping you from passing, you’re not letting our men withdraw from the mines!” the first Silkman shouted out angrily pressing the card closer to Mana’s throat in anger. “We’ve disabled this girl’s dominant leg with a pressure point pinch for several minutes, we observed your styles and know which pressure points would most efficiently disable yours too but we’ve no time, we need to retreat now!”
Mana saw more miners moving in from below, walking up the ladders since the elevator was unavailable. Using the emergency tunnels made to exit the mine in the event of the main elevator and all other exits being blocked. They were all armed and ready to take her friends out. These mobsters were right “ the magician felt her left leg being totally numb so she was in no condition to leap or even to stand up right.
“You shall stand there and let us pass…” the Silkman ordered as several more miners moved onto the elevator before some broke off of the group and moved up closer to the aftermath of the fight.
“Wait a second, these brats beat up our friends! Let’s kick their asses!” the miner yelled out to his friends.
“Don’t fool around! The monster down below is free! The brutes won’t hold him for long! We need to get out of here NOW!” another miner asked his friend to return onto the elevator but more and more branched off heading to beat these young ninja to the inches of their lives or even beyond that line.
Meiko grinned, “Don’t worry, Mana, I have a plan… You just sit calm and don’t worry”
Shimo grinned, he was visibly worried by the impending beating. “I could use a joke right about now, what’s your wonderful plan?” he asked.
Meiko gave him a thumb up, “We’ll endure everything they throw at us until they fall unconscious and exhausted!”
Kouta slapped his face. He extended his arms at the incoming attackers, preparing to open up the holes in his arms and concentrate the leaking chakra into the Juugo bloodline blasts, but the second Silkman ordered him to stop and stand down. Mana almost burst into tears from her shame. It was because of her that her friends were going to get beaten and killed, it was because of her that this mission will fail. After all this time, after all this training… It wasn’t even because she was too weak… It was just a simple mistake.
No. They won’t be hurt, not because of her! Mana looked Shimo in the eyes, he knew her the longest, he knew just what she was about to do and she was right to think so as the swordsman’s eyes shot wide open and his arms extended at her to stop her. He was actually afraid, Mana’s intentions actually broke his façade of cool and empathy.
“Mana! Don’t even…” he yelled out but the magician closed her eyes.
“Find the box, I owe Meiko to let her hold it in her hands…” she uttered before shoving her neck forward and cutting the lower side of her neck on it. The Silkman leaped back, he clearly didn’t expect this sort of suicidal effort so he tried to dash back and find another way to deal with it. His movements slowed down Mana heard his wild and uncontrollable scream and a loud slash from a blade “ Shimo got to him in an instant… He wouldn’t have made it if he tried before. The girl coughed… Blood was flooding everywhere, both inside and outside, her hair felt sticky. She heard deafening barrages of thuds, they were like small explosions and after every single one there were uncontrollable screams of pain, Kouta was angry…
“You idiot! Stop the damned fisticuffs and go heal her!” Meiko screamed like a wild cornered beast. Mana’s vision was starting to blur but then she felt something “ something freezing. Shimo must’ve used one of his cold air gusts to freeze up her wound. It wasn’t delicate, it wasn’t the thing to do in a situation like that but it was at the very least enough to stop her bleeding somewhat. The blurry vision dyed in a shade of salad green. Kouta’s sweaty face cleared up.
“Can you treat her!?” Meiko’s wild scream followed by screams of the miners and the sound of them hitting the ladders and stairs to escape this place reached the medical ninja. His face covered with wild torrents of mixture of blood and sweat turned back.
“Yeah, the wound isn’t fatal, I’ve treated worse but she may have trouble breathing and speaking for a while, I’m not sure yet, the lower part of her throat is damaged but it seems to have missed the major arteries, I don’t think those cards are meant to slit throats” he reported back lifting Mana’s head a little to check her neck for any other wounds. The girl coughed up something that looked like blood but Kouta stroke her hair and calmed her down.
“Don’t worry, it’s just the water from Shimo’s ice ninjutsu, it melted and got into your lungs… Shit it opened the wound again… Sorry…” the boy lowered her head and started treating the wound again.
“Run! Someone blow the fucking exit!” a voice of a miner reached Mana’s ears. By that point the shock disappeared and overwhelming pain took over. She wasn’t sure if this pain was dumbed down by Kouta’s treatment or if it was the full experience but it hurt so much that she started to wriggle, she wanted to scream but she knew it’d open up her wounds and she’d probably drown in her own blood.
“Please try to endure it… I’m almost done… Sorry… I’m doing it as fast as I can but… I’m… I’m a bit… Inexperienced...” Kouta wrapped his hand around Mana’s head and pressed it tighter to his chest so that it remained still while she writhed in pain.
Mana wanted to talk but she couldn’t, she forced a smile and looked Kouta in the eyes trying to portray her feelings with the best of her ability. She wanted to calm him down, to tell him that there was no one else she’d rather have taken with her to this mission but him.
“I’m not letting you die! Try as hard as you might to get yourself killed…” the medical ninja smiled back at her he wiped something from his eyes, it could’ve been tears, could’ve been sweat and blood getting to his eyes. “Look at you, you’re bleeding out from having your throat slit and I’m the one you’re calming down…” he almost laughed out. Judging from the relative calm look in his eyes the worst was over “ she was going to live.
“Shit! You fucktard, what did you do!?” a miner yelled from far far away at a friend.
“I stopped the ninja from escaping, I sealed the doors!” he tried to answer but then his voice twisted into a grunt of pain.
“You sealed the other miners!” the man yelled out, “Now they’re trapped down there with… With that thing and the elevator’s stuck on this floor since the elevator room down there is caved in!” the other miner said something back but their voices were too feint to hear. Some amount of them actually escaped from wherever they were running from.
Kouta helped Mana get up. Meiko looked closely at the magician’s neck trying to make out the mark that this reckless move left.
“I’d punch you right now, a full out, direct blow to your stupid face!” she yelled out, “Can I do that!? Won’t it open the wound again?”
Kouta shrugged, “I did the emergency treatment, I’ll give her some herbal concoction for the voice, several more Mystical Palm sessions will make the scar barely visible, I’m sure the medical ninja in the village may, in time, completely heal it. The card isn’t really an ideal tool for cutting necks, even with steel tip, it’s still a bit too flexible so the wound wasn’t too deep…”
Mana spoke up, her voice was shallower, almost like when she had the flu and her throat was really irritated and her voice was husky and it hurt to speak. It hurt to utter every word, felt like her throat was on fire but she had to tell her team what ailed her mind.
“We need to get down there, to the bottom of the mines, as deep down as it goes. There are still miners there and the secret of this mine is still a mystery. We get the elevator down there and break the elevator room open… We need to save those miners”
Shimo cursed and sheathed his blood covered sword.
“Well… At least we know you weren’t switched with a changeling… The Mana I know would worry about the people that tried to kill her first, right after nearly drowning in her own blood…” the swordsman’s image blurred and then a green light lit up on the control panel where Kouta’s father activated the cart belts previously, he moved in an instant, at least it looked like he did to Mana, the other may have been able to make something out of his movements. The elevator lit up with a green light and the cart belts stopped.
“Ladies first…” he tried to make an offensive tone while sarcastically bowing to show Mana the way to the elevator. It was clear that he had some very negative feelings towards the magician and her continuous attempts to get herself killed and her lack of the instinct of self-preservation. There may have been a very tough and uncomfortable talk in the nearest future brewing but it appeared that the swordsman kept it for a time when the magician could talk more comfortably.
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