A handful of sparks fired out from the cracked frontal part of the bounty hunter’s helmet. The man covered his face before realizing that his interface was broken and that Mana’s card penetrating the thing made it more of a hindrance than an asset. The large fingers of the man clicked at a pair of switches on the helmet releasing a trio of thick cords, he then carefully removed the helmet allowing his face to be seen.
Inside the advanced partially armored set of technology that’d probably have made Meiko swoon all over it for an hour was a strong and bulky man. That much could’ve been told by parts of his limbs that weren’t restrained by the heavy and bulky armor. His dread locks fell out from under the helmet, the sides of the man’s head looked freshly shaved allowing a more professional look for the bounty hunter as compared to a wild hobo-esque appearance he’d have had if his sides were allowed to overgrow his head with hair like his top and back did. The man’s face was covered with scars and one of his eye was cut grievously and closed forever.
“It’s you!” Kiyomi shrieked out in surprise, Mana looked at her friend in confusion. The magician had expected there to be more fear in her friend’s voice if she recognized this man. From the tech he carried and the skill he had he certainly deserved some respectful fear.
“That’s right…” the man admitted with a slow affirming nod before throwing his helmet away aside. As the techy sphere hit the dirt the visors shattered to pieces. The man reached behind him and pulled out the trio of cords that were still spitting some sort of gas throwing them aside as well.
“Can I get a little bit inclusion into the conversation, maybe?” Mana squinted at her friend feeling a bit offended that the blonde didn’t bother explaining it.
“What? You mean you don’t remember this guy?” Kiyomi snapped back at her friend, “He almost killed me twice! You’re just the worst, seriously!” the Yamanaka crossed her arms around her chest.
“Nekomata Roe, one of the unlucky souls tangled in Yellow’s plan, one of the insignificant pawns you’ve trampled over in order to subdue the monster that ruined my and my sister’s lives.” The man finally reminded Mana. He then stared at her with his single functional eye trying to see if the sudden realization would somehow make her feel a bit apologetic at the least.
“Well I barely even met you… I’ve only really seen your figure in the dark, really…” Mana blushed a little after a shrug, “Kiyomi fought you both times, didn’t she?”
“So you came here why exactly? Do you wish to restore your pride? Do you somehow hold me responsible for your sister’s death? That was Hisako’s doing, not mine” Kiyomi began defensively question this man, his presence did apparently affect her, Mana wasn’t sure if it was fear or some sort of mental scars, however.
“Pride? No. I’ve moved past those things. My pride was torn to shreds, just like my flesh after I escaped your trap by tearing chunks of my body off. Even if the order that trained me sewn my flesh back together like a jigsaw puzzle, my pride was always left behind in that bunker. Pride is something an assassin gives up on, a hunter leaves such petty things aside. I am also fully aware you didn’t kill my sister, I also don’t care much about vengeance for her life. She was your enemy, the nature of combat is to destroy the enemy.” Roe grunted out, it was clear that it wasn’t easy for him to speak, whatever grueling training he went through with this order of assassins he spoke of, whatever injuries he had sustained by forcing out of Kiyomi’s trap in the bunker must’ve damaged his throat and made it harder for him to speak. The cybernetic voicebox now made more sense.
“So then why? Why are you here? Is the bounty it? Are you now so pitiful as to fight for a bunch of money? If so I can pay you more, you know…” Kiyomi asked again. Mana looked at her friend with a bit of confusion, she had never expected to see her friend try to compromise with someone who was essentially a criminal. Her friend was very adamant in ending the lives of criminals. Maybe the two had some shared feelings of respect hailing from their battle in the bunker before?
“Tsk, that is all my order cares for. I am different. You represent to me a wall, a barrier I cannot overcome. Had I beaten you that day, had I had the capacity within me to leap over that wall “ my sister would still be alive. It’s as easy as that. All I want to do is kill you so that I know if I can leap over that wall now.” Roe explained with some trouble breathing as his hands weighed down and he took some pauses to huff and hyperventilate the whole way.
“Do you maybe know who put the bounty on Kiyomi’s head?” Mana asked trying to be polite, she didn’t know the man’s story or his history for Kiyomi but it was clear that the Yamanaka didn’t really wish this man a brutal death as she did for most criminals. The blonde looked devastated to find out that she couldn’t reason with this man.
“Sure. I did…” Roe nodded before fixing his wrist gauntlets and checking the functionality of his wrist blades and taking an offensive stance.
“Wait, what?” Kiyomi broke out.
“Yeah, the order that trained me only cares about hunting down the bounty. I knew that they wouldn’t approve of me just going for you, using their hidden hunting techniques to chase after personal demons. This was the only way of going after you” Roe explained before lunging at the two girls.
Kiyomi dodged the straight jab of the man’s blades, then the secondary swipe by leaning under the blades and rolling over the lower strikes. Mana felt like it was her chance to attack the man now that he focused only on the young woman he wished to destroy so she threw a couple of lightning fast kicks at his exposed back. The bounty hunter flipped over Mana by gently grabbing her shoulder for support and then pushed the magician at the Yamanaka making the two slam at each other.
Roe tapped at his chest removing a fist sized steel capsule and pressing a button on it for it to expand into a sharp steel rod. With a violent husky roar the bounty hunter tried impaling both girls with a single spear. The rod penetrated through Mana’s back and Kiyomi’s chest together but the bodies of both girls evaporated into thin air right after Mana cancelled the illusion the hunter was under. Once the hunter realized that he was standing still under the influence of Mana’s illusion this whole time it was too late “ once the magician’s genjutsu ended and both girls stood in front of him with their punches sinking into the man’s sewn together face sending him flying back into the trees.
“Fancy Trick Jutsu!” Mana chanted out the name of her illusion. Truth be told she counted on Kiyomi being more receptive to the man’s attack but her breathing greatly troubled the magician “ she must’ve spent a lot of chakra on fighting him before which was why the younger kunoichi had to take the defensive initiative.
“H-How… I didn’t even see the hand seals…” Roe grunted out after spitting out a bunch of teeth and blood aside. Mana’s palm strike, even if connecting to his face wasn’t that tough but together with Kiyomi’s left hook it clearly did some damage.
“If you did “ I’d be disappointed in my hand seal speed” Mana smiled politely to the bounty hunter. “A good magician never lets the audience see the moment when the reality ends and the illusion begins.”
Kiyomi looked at Mana and nodded in both approval and gratitude. It was clear that the blonde wasn’t really prepared for the cat-man’s attack. Her chakra pool must’ve been dwindling which meant that her physicals weren’t at their best, her reaction speed may have been unstable.
“I’m sorry, Mana, I know you don’t like us fighting this man, truth be told I’d like to settle this with him by myself but… He’s too strong for that, I’m too tired” Kiyomi admitted. This was probably the first time in a while that the magician saw her friend shed the goofball approach and be serious for once.
“No problem at all. I’m willing to help out while I’m here, just know that I won’t let you kill this man” Mana nodded in approval.
“To be honest, I don’t really want to kill him myself, he’s a lot like me “ someone who wants to manage his own clan with virtues he sees as right. Back in the day he reminded me a lot of my brother, except Roe was careless towards his own sister. It seems now that was only a façade but I don’t really wish Roe’s death, he’s not like the other criminals, he’s just misguided, made a lot of bad calls and was just unlucky his whole life” Kiyomi admitted, it was clear that it was this cat-like man that made the blonde shed her outer layer of joking and carefree approach to things.
“No, that would make him just like most criminals I’ve met” Mana shook her head.
“Don’t you dare talk about me with pity and assume superiority while I’m here!” Roe yelled out charging at the two young women with his wrist blades ready for attack. He was really fast “ Mana realized in the middle of his charge that if the man is initiating the attack, at certain point she had no chance of interrupting him with her own technique. To this man a lightning bolt would’ve been as slow as dripping honey. If she was to interrupt him with an illusion she needed to not be caught unprepared, to start her hand seals in early stages of his attack.
Kiyomi leaped in front of Mana redirecting the man’s attacks. Observing her friend’s skill the magician was impressed, she thought that her training in redirection made her unique but Kiyomi appeared to have natural skill in it despite, most likely, never having went through that martial arts training. Mana with all of her experience of being trained in martial arts in the Sun Disc arena saw that Kiyomi had considerable skill in taijutsu, well above that of her peers, still, that would’ve only been comparing Kiyomi to someone she had long since outranked in true skill as she simply didn’t belong on the scale of other genin.
The Yamanaka heiress threw a couple of quick jabs of her own, her misguided attempt at trying to hit a faster, stronger and more skilled opponent was greeted with only hitting empty air and opening herself up for an attack. Still, the blonde must’ve known that now she could afford such luxury, she had her friend having her back. Roe moved like flowing water, acrobatic and swift, moving under, over or aside from the blonde’s blows and positioning himself for a perfect shredding slice at the Yamanaka’s kidneys.
With a poof Kiyomi disappeared where Mana appeared instead, facing Roe and seeing the nature of his attack from behind. The magician used Substitution Jutsu to replace herself with Kiyomi, near instantaneously, having observed the attack from behind and knowing how the blonde was attacked. Mana used the training of both Meiko and Kouta, also all she was taught in the Sun Disc arena to hit the man’s wrists lightly and push them away from her body. This odd manner of attack combined with a peculiar game of switcheroo appeared to completely astound her foe.
Once again the two switched places using the Substitution Jutsu, this time Kiyomi replaced herself with Mana positioning herself right where the magician was after redirecting the man’s strikes and ready to hit him. The blonde gave a couple of quick jabs aiming at the still working eye of her opponent, Kiyomi undoubtedly tried to swell it up and rob her opponent of vision. Using her opponent’s disadvantages to her own advantages like a real kunoichi would. Right when the moment appeared to be a triumphant one her blows phased through an illusionary hologram of her opponent.
A loud thick from above made Mana quickly raise her head only to realize that at some point in between the switches their clever switcheroo combination was found out and Roe realized he had no chance of beating it. The man moved above slipping away unseen while he left a hologram behind him. It must’ve been before the final switch, right before Kiyomi wished to make her attack. The sound coming from above was soon to be revealed as Roe firing his long wrist blades at Kiyomi from above like projectiles.
These projectiles were as slow as a kilometer per second, around the speed of one of those kunai dispensers the mobsters around Fire Country carried around. Mana felt like she could work with that and she knew that Kiyomi invested too much weight and momentum to do something about those incoming blades. The magician’s hands went through a collection of four hand seals and pointed forward firing four projectiles of lightning chakra shaped like short swords.
“Magic Skewer Jutsu!” she chanted out after the lightning projectiles blasted each one of the fired blades away. One of the projectiles didn’t hit anything but Mana in her distress fired off four even though there were only three blades. She still had to learn how to work efficiently under stress when her friends’ lives were in danger.
Kiyomi leaped back finally having recovered her balance and nodded in gratitude at Mana. Both girls knew that they worked well together, they had history working as a team and fighting pretty strong opponents together. They’ve fought alongside each other under numerous occasions. Even a strong as stealthy opponent like Roe shouldn’t have been too much to handle for the two of them working together.
“He’s quick and slippy, quiet too” Mana blinked as she was troubled by these things moderately.
“Yeah. I couldn’t keep track of him slipping in and out of shadow back then, I doubt I could even now. I thought before that your whole meditation awareness thingie was a joke but now I see that you could’ve never picked him up. He doesn’t exist unless he wants to, that’s how stealthy he is” Kiyomi nodded clearly feeling similarly annoyed by her opponent’s skill.
Suddenly a sharp explosion of pain made Mana want to scream. She was so shocked by the speed and how totally unexpected the attack was that she didn’t have enough breath in her chest to even scream, her mouth just gapped trying to catch breath to scream but the pain didn’t let her. Her body lifted up, she couldn’t help it, the magician looked down only to see the tips of the bounty hunter’s wrist blades sticking out from her gut.
“Mana!” Kiyomi screamed but her scream was silenced by a quick spin kick sending her back.
“I told you to stay put” Roe husked out and grabbed Mana’s neck from behind only to snap the wrist blades from his gauntlet and leave them sticking out from the girl’s body. He didn’t want her to bleed out, he didn’t want the magician to die but she was too dangerous and had far too effective disrupting abilities to be allowed to keep on fighting. She had to go down first. “Keep those blades in and don’t move. You’ll live” he grunted at the magician’s ear from behind before tossing her body aside.
Mana’s head screamed, loud shrieking noises, like two metal bars being grinded against each other on and on again. The more time passed the more of them joined in. Her vision was blurry and kept on whiting out, the magician knew that her temporal awareness was wonky as these white outs robbed her of a couple of seconds.
“This is nothing… Ninja keep fighting with worse wounds. You need to get this in order…” she tried talking to her own body, she couldn’t meditate and actually talk to her own body, as would’ve been the most efficient way. The pain and the mess inside her own mind made concentrating impossible. Could ninja actually have fought through with these sorts of injuries? Mana had read so much about legendary ninja and samurai fighting through hundreds of swords sticking out from their bodies but now it was tough to believe.
“Focus your augmentation. Ignore everything else, fight the pain and the bleeding” Mana kept on repeating in her mind like a mantra. The pain was slowly beginning to settle down, she’s been stabbed before but this was different. She was careless, she was letting down her guard. She wasn’t augmenting her body to withstand such attacks because she was afraid to lose her chakra again. Kiyomi undoubtedly had her body hardened and ready for an attack, she’d have never had those blades penetrate her, at least not the full way through.
Mana pounded the ground with her fist. She hated herself right now. She hated herself so much, because of her own personal fear of losing her chakra control she now let herself get taken out, Kiyomi was left all alone against an opponent she had no chance of beating. The raven haired kunoichi pushed her body off the ground and watched a small puddle of blood drip off her gut onto the dirt. Her grip weakened and her body hit the dirt again. How? How did those strong ninja fight through this?
Loud clangs came from further away, Mana looked on and saw Kiyomi once again locked down in a fatal chain link of attacks. The blonde could barely fend off each successive attack with her kunai. Mana’s shaking and covered with blood hand moved to her thigh opening up her ninja kit and removing a roll of bandage. The other hand moved to the slowly but relentlessly bleeding stab wound. Mana’s breath intensified.
She needed to pull out those broken off blades.
That’d unleash all hell, a motherlode of all bleedings.
Kiyomi needed her help.
It’d bleed a lot. She’d need to be quick.
She could manage it, augment her body to leak a constant small amount of chakra and keep the blood away. She knew how to keep herself alive by just changing up her chakra flow.
The pain would be immense, it might make it difficult to be precise.
Kiyomi screamed in pain “ she must’ve been cut… Mana needed to move!
“Move!” she screamed out scolding herself and damning her stupid fears, Mana’s shaking bloody hands moved to the sharp broken off blades and gripped them tightly. The blades were still so sharp, just touching them cut the magician’s hands. Mana didn’t want to augment her skin, she could withstand some pain, a couple of cuts…
The magician wanted to just yank those blades out but her hands shook and stayed on the blades. What if once she pulled them out and started disrupting her flow, repurposing it again… What if it stayed that way, what if she lost her chakra control again? What if this time it was permanent? She’d be useless again…
Another scream of Kiyomi’s reached Mana’s ears, her friend must’ve been getting murdered out there!
What if Kiyomi died, just like Shimo did. Did the magician really have any right to stay down and worry over her chakra control at the expense of her friend’s life? No. No she couldn’t. She’d give up her gift, everything special about her in a heartbeat just to save any one life. Mana calmed down her breathing, wiped her tears off with her bloody hand leaving a streak of blood around her face.
It was better to live as a useless cripple knowing that her friends were alive than to pay for being special with someone’s life.
Mana yanked two of the three blades out letting blood storm out of the wounds. Her terrified screams killed all the other noise around, the sounds of battle transpiring nearby were snuffed out by her own pain. Her sacrifice.
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