“Let me go…” Kiyomi cried out burying her anger and frustration deep in her chest, trying to sound calm and reasonable so that Sugemi freed her from his jutsu.
“I will. Once I see you have no reason to charge at the Kumogakure assassin who may have just killed our friend.” Sugemi mumbled out carefully observing the wreckage of wood and rocks where Mana’s body was flung into after the incredibly fast and immensely strong blow by the Imarizu. Even Sugemi found that man’s speed to be tough to see at times. It was almost like his attacks were delivered in an instant from his point of perception, they accelerated steadily but then at some middle point of movement they just went out of control.
“I won’t interfere!” Kiyomi shouted out in a way that made it seem that she will absolutely interfere.
“You shouldn’t pick a fight with that man, young lady.” Yanagi huffed out still clutching at his own aching sides from a clash with one of the Imarizu. Granted that one was fairly fresh and nowhere near torn down and broken as the leader of the group was right now, still, the unbelievable acceleration of their punches was just as dangerous and deadly. “You should feel lucky they didn’t kill you the first time they got their hands on you, usually when people deal with the Imarizu they feel lucky having escaped them and never interact with them again.”
“I am to thank for that, I believe, and also - you’re welcome…” Inomame smiled in a manner not unlike a way cartoons depict vipers twisting their anthropomorphic lips. “I could’ve had the Imarizu kill you at any point but I made sure you were captured alive!”
“Don’t rub yourself, it’s only because you were afraid the line of succession would be altered after your plot was found out. Posthumous line of succession alterations are nothing new and the discovered plot of heiress’ murder would’ve been all the proof the clan needed…” Yanagi replied calmly. Being a member of a highly overlooked yet prevalent and important clan he knew the intricacies of clan inner administration well.
“It’s why I don’t like it when people focus on the details…” Inomame complained poking his chin with his index finger.
*****
The whole right side of Mana’s face was sticky and warm, the magician tried opening up her eyes but the stench of blood and the taste of it in her mouth was too strong. She had to spit out some blood and teeth aside, only after her right eye did not open did magician realize that something was wrong. Right after her head was lifted up at least in a diagonal position a weak yet relentless streak of warm blood gushed out from her cracked forehead down the right side of her face. None of it reached Mana’s eye, the blasted thing was either gone or swollen.
Usually the magician may have felt troubled about the fact that teeth were painful to have regrown using medical ninjutsu, that replacing lost eyes, if that was indeed the case was astoundingly expensive as a new one had to be cultivated by highly treasured specialists using not just medical ninjutsu but actual organ cultivation through flesh modification with cultivated Senju cells. Right now only Inomame’s life mattered. Ignoring the blood and her blurry eyesight Mana got back on her feet and stumbled forward.
Kiyomi’s crying eyes when she looked at her were painful. Mana wasn’t sure just how badly banged up she was but the fact that seeing right was difficult and her head was dizzy enough to throw her around if she tried just walking straight told the right answer. She’d not be doing any flips or graceful acrobatics any time soon. At least she didn’t pass out… Not just yet… Had the magician not suppressed her body’s subconscious instinct to augment heavy damage she’d certainly have been comatose right now from chakra loss.
Mana had seen so many die. Not all who have fallen here today have died. Most of them were just out, whether from being knocked down and not properly finished off or due to their own augmentations being overworked causing them to pass out from chakra loss, just like there was a decent chance for this fight to end for the Konoha magician. She could’ve died here but she wouldn’t let one more person die, not if she could flex one more muscle, move one more finger and throw one more punch to possibly prevent that. No matter how heinous the man she was trying to save, Mana firmly believed that killing was not justified. It was an escape from justice.
“I must say I thought you’d walk away from this at some point.” the elder Imarizu uttered his first words in a while. “I believed that the next generation couldn’t fight with such devotion to their beliefs. That it wasn’t nearly as persistent as we used to be. Waging wars for days and weeks on end…”
“Same was thought of your generation by the previous one. It is the solace of the old belittling the young to make their past days mean something more in the present, build oneself up on the expense on those who are strong enough to take it.” Mana uttered, she could feel the weakness in her voice. She tried to say something that tied around her tongue and thoughts felt messy in her head, unrelated memories began flooding her mind and getting in the way of the here and now. The girl desperately tried pleading her body to endure, weakness at this moment meant death and not only that of hers. Surely the end of it couldn’t have been in her body’s prime interests? Then again, knowing the punishment Mana always put it through…
The old man began bobbing and weaving aside, his speed was slow initially but it picked up, just like his instantaneous punching techniques did. His punches were not like anything Mana had seen in the Sun Disc arena which was a compliment by itself. Still, she knew what she was hit by. The man threw a punch with great amount of chakra built up in it, focused into a slow power strike but then he removed all of that chakra to accelerate the strike to no end before returning a small fraction of it, just to give it some extent of its former power back. The speed of the blows was irrelevant “ they were so fast the speed may as well have been instantaneous and there was no point dodging them without predicting where they’d be coming beforehand. The old man from the arena would’ve been really pumped up seeing this striking technique…
Just like with his punches, the Imarizu’s image blurred, his moving-in self began playing tricks with Mana, leaving afterimages, whizzing by her and toying with her like all was already over. For a moment there the magician thought it was just her one barely functioning eye playing the trick on her “ showing blurs and afterimages instead of clear vision. No “ it was on point. At least Mana could still trust her left eye, it was beginning to swell but the bleeding into it was still controlled by her eyebrows and long hair that soaked most of the stickiness.
The girl bent up from behind like an arc. It felt like ten billion volts had hit her, like she had fallen from the heavens onto a mountain of sharp and heated glass that went through her skin. What an immense jab, so swift and yet still strong, stronger than jabs usually are meant to be. Mana couldn’t stay on her feet, falling down on her knees so hard that they opened up again. Another seemingly instantaneous blow punched her so hard that she began whirling weightlessly, like a lifeless sack towards her friends. As Sugemi commanded the held captive Kiyomi brace for impact and move out of the way, Mana’s flight was stopped by an uppercut of the Imarizu who has moved in a blink in front of the girl who was about to smash into her friends.
Mana couldn’t feel that last punch, the pain and shock of it escaped her. She only remembered that she was arcing in mid-air and about to smash into the ground. Piercing the air like a precise arrow the finishing cross sent Mana back into the messy pile of rocks she rose from. Honestly the magician had no idea how she was still alive. It must’ve been a punishment from some cruel deity. That was the only feasible explanation that made sense anymore. It wasn’t like the magician was religious to begin with… While at some point the kunoichi had realized that her opponent had wasted too much chakra already to be augmenting his abilities to the point, it no longer mattered to her. She was just standing up to get knocked back down, harder than before.
Her reads no longer worked. She could predict the following combinations in her mind, base it on the archetype of the sort of martial artist her opponent was placed in but she couldn’t precisely compare the angles of blows to her own position letting her decide how and where to dodge them. Where before she could dodge the man’s blows without even facing him, now her mind was too dizzy to imagine in her mind’s eye her own position to her opponent’s and correctly guess the angle and point of her opponent’s strike even if she was looking right at it. Had it been a fight just for the kicks Mana would’ve known it was meaningless to stand up. Sadly a life was at stake… Not just her own life though.
“Mana, stop this!” Kiyomi shouted out from the depth of her lungs when the magician stood with her wobbly and shaking legs once again. This was no longer a fight, it was in the beginning “ a fight where two people clashed their styles, compared their experience and skill. Now Mana just stood up to get hit and see if she was alive enough to stand up for another serving. There was no longer even a meaning to it “ usually when one didn’t draw the right card they just stalled the game, folded their hands again and again, knowing that the right hand was still ahead. There was simply no higher card in the deck “ the game was meaningless. Mana only stood up to lose more until she had nothing more to lose.
“You said that you wanted to protect a life! How about save your own in exchange of this scumbag’s!?” Yanagi joined in hesitantly. Even the Aburame was beginning to feel uneasy watching this one sided beatdown continue. He was told that a prison guard should never be squeamish but honestly watching over Eden was slim pickings “ people there were criminals only by a very strict meaning of the word. A lot of them weren’t even sentenced with anything, they just used Eden for their own protection. He had seen more blood and guts, taken more than he could have imagined it was needed to. If being great meant doing what Mana was doing “ Yanagi would’ve rather been a watchman of Eden until the end of his days.
Mana didn’t reply, not because she didn’t know the words, because she couldn’t physically utter them loud enough. Memories flooded her mind, useless ones, not the kind that would’ve helped her get out from this fight or this predicament. Those of angry people, during the Fourth’s funeral when Sugemi cried for deadly justice. Those condescending eyes that wrote Mana down to being just the same as the people that killed their Hokage after she opposed Sugemi’s views. Yes, she thought criminals deserved to live, everyone deserved to live. She thought that after justice was served they deserved a chance at redemption. Carnefici from the Sound Village was a mass murderer long ago, there was no “but” to add or justification for his actions. And yet he lived his current life for a young girl who showed him kindness and faith in him, even while he knew there was no redeeming what he had done, believing in Hell and knowing that was his place he still protected that person dear to him to the last of his breaths. Ones that’ll hopefully never come…
Those very people Mana loved more than anything would’ve had no problem sentencing her to death just because she thought Inomame must have lived to see justice done. She was just as worthless of a life in their eyes as Inomame himself. For that reason she didn’t see her own life as something worth treasuring, saving up for some special occasion. This was the special occasion. Mana had no regrets dying hated for what she believed in.
Slowly the magician began stumbling onwards, her eye still allowed her to perceive that her opponent lingered onto her. Stumbling and weaving not because of his confusing movements but because he was tired. There were no more lifted up hands, no more protecting his busted up open and bleeding face. No more moving left and right, hopping back and forward to confuse and lure out needless punches from Mana. The man was just lingering like a village drunkard on his evening walk home. The two ninja met on a collision course in a couple of moments…
Mana threw a light punch, the dizziness in her head made her barely contain throwing up as her body weighed down into her opponent’s embrace. Pushing her off of the clinch the Imarizu threw a diagonal downwards cross aimed at putting Mana down on the floor. The man hoped that at some point the magician would fall and physically be unable to get up. Unable to properly respond the girl stumbled and dived down under her opponent’s punch hitting the man in the abdomen with her head as she fell. The assassin didn’t shout but he flipped up and rolled on the dirt in pain as his broken ribs burnt up before standing back up. Hearing the taps of her blood hitting the sand Mana forced her busted face off the sand as well. She was crawling at the man more than walking.
The girl kicked off the sand, trying to tackle the man with her shoulder, use the natural force of gravity pulling her down to stay down. A force that at the moment seemed infinitely strong to the kunoichi. The Imarizu turned around and fell backwards delivering an overhead kick that hit the magician at the back of her head. It wasn’t a kick as much as it was a fall of his leg, fueled by nothing else but gravity as there was little to no energy left in the assassin to fight properly. He had been hitting and killing people whole day, he lacked the needed strength to kill instantly making this young girl suffer more than she needed to and that was something the old man was regretting as he roughly shoved himself staggering back up and down on his knees.
Mana threw some blood up. All the movement made build it up, she must’ve had a pretty bad concussion. The Imarizu rushed at her trying to tackle Mana down, he intended to sit on her chest and just pummel the girl’s face until she didn’t move. He felt enraged that even as she danced right at the edge of death waiting below she still defended this pale-skinned target of his. If he played with her any longer he may not had the strength to even hold up the sword he intended to execute the man with. Mana didn’t try to resist, she just fell on her back raising her knee and kicking the man in the jaw as the two fell.
The Imarizu straightened out on the sand completely immobile besides Mana. The two just huffed heavily with their eyes closed, twitching in exhaustion and pain, wandering which one will gather their strength quicker to climb on top of the other and finish them off.
Mana flipped up onto the bruised and bleeding chest of the old man, it felt as slippery as a submerged rock covered in sea weed. The magician’s back straightened out as she still staggered struggling to keep herself from falling off his chest and throwing up more blood on the sand. If she stopped struggling she’d fall asleep, falling asleep meant death, not only for her but Inomame. Falling asleep was unacceptable! Mana swung her palm wildly slamming it at the left cheek of the Imarizu elder, blood and teeth spilled out. The magician repeated the motion from the other side again and again and again and again. Until one final slam from her palm right at the man’s nose completely busting it open, until Mana saw the old man’s eyes swell up in front of her and she was sure he couldn’t see anything from how much of his own swollen flesh was in his face. Then the magician fell, smiling and peaceful.
“You didn’t kill me…” the old man wheezed from his busted up lungs.
Mana wanted to whimper “Never” back at him but she couldn’t. Her lips wouldn’t move, air wouldn’t pass her lungs the right way, her tongue wouldn’t flip like it had to. If she died then and there it’d have been fine. A loud pop broke Mana’s one working eye wide open as she realized that black as tar smoke began filling the air.
“No!” she thought.
A loud and metallic string reeling sound followed. Mana flipped on her front trying to grab at air, hoping to stop the second wind of the assassin before he ruined his own integrity as a man, but no one was there. That was it “ Inomame was probably dead! As the smoke cleared momentarily Mana saw Kiyomi, released from Sugemi’s technique at last, Yanagi and Sugemi with their kunai out protecting Inomame who was sitting with his hands around his head. Mana’s troubled and frozen in fear face returned to its usual tranquility of saving a man’s life, she looked at her side and saw that the assassin kept up his side of the deal “ Shimo’s sword as well as a small pouch laid there, right beside her.
Kiyomi’s angry and crying face intruded Mana’s limited and reddening field of vision.
“I’d hit you really hard right now, but I’m afraid you’d die!” she shouted erratically. Trying to find anything in her pouch that was of any medical use. Yanagi checked the sword, pulling it out and letting the Audra steel shine in the afternoon sunlight. He then sheathed the sword and checked the little pouch left by the assassin.
“It has some yellow medical food pills in it. These may keep Mana in stable condition until we check what amounts to medical care in this place…” Yanagi said.
“Huh? Why didn’t the bastard eat some of those himself before the fight? He would’ve mopped the floor with Mana if he had even the slightest amount of chakra more left…” Sugemi wondered pouting while he looked around for where the assassin may have zipped off to with his string reeling technique. “Heh, he must’ve used the Academy Cloak of Invisibility Jutsu… Remarkable use of an Academy technique…”
Mana closed her left eye as she was in too much pain and too tired to do anything but that. So the old man played fair “ both of them being injured was one of his conditions, it was a stipulation he upheld to the end. Had he consumed one of the medical food pills and supercharged his metabolism to heal him up a little bit it wouldn’t have been a gamble, it wouldn’t have been a fair deal so it was out of the question. After he felt like he had no more strength left he simply used the smoke bomb for escape, covering up with a primitive disguise ninjutsu technique until a medical pill healed him up enough to reveal himself and return to his village… An elite assassin through and through, the Imarizu elder never intended to join his comrades in the afterlife “ reporting on his mission to whomever hired him was his goal all along. The gamble was the only question.
This day fate chose Mana as the victor!
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