Mana sighed, she was sitting on the stairs leading down to the main hall of the archives. Normally she should've gone on down, taken all the scrolls and looked for a way out but she already knew there couldn't have been one. The whole place was simplistic with its architecture and the only entrance, also the only exit, was currently blocked and while she had some more explosive notes left from her last battle, those that she kept in another pouch, those could've actually taken the whole place down on her.
Currently the genin was wondering if sensei was going to help her out, after all, his clone did follow her and most likely had seen the battle. It also could've seen her moving away and then being attacked by another centipede and then entering this archive by accident. Her theory was supported by the fact that "Shadow Clone Jutsu" split one's chakra into parts, it would've been a foolishness to let the clones disappear after making them for the show - there had to be another meaning to them. Tanshu-sensei must've been ready to help them out in a pinch but not before he was absolutely sure of their incoming demise. That was just the kind of man Tanshu-sensei was.
Sadly it appeared that no one was coming to rescue her. That didn't make Mana sad, it made her furious that she was about to do all the work for herself, it was a good kind of anger, however. The kind of anger when mother and father don't do their own dishes and Mana has to do all of them, on one side it's annoying but, on the other hand, all the dishes get done anyways. The girl stood up and looked at the gigantic head blocking her exit one last time before heading downstairs into the main hall of the archive.
The stairs were pretty long, they were straight and lead anyone heading straight down, the staircase was just a few degrees off of being horizontal so it took some time before it helped the explorer descend to the archive level. The whole place was just how one would imagine an ancient archive or a tomb to look, the stones were mossy and old, many bricks were loose and several fell out from behind Mana's feet when she stepped on the step. The girl was happy that the place was relatively dark, that way she had no chance of seeing the kind of insects that must've loved it here. Being not unlike other girls of her age Mana was not too fond of insects, especially ones that lived in tombs and caves, for now, it was better if they remained unseen.
Why didn't they come for her? Did something happen? What if Shimo and Sugemi got attacked too? What if one of them got hurt? Mana was a little worried about her friends even she was clearly the one in a tighter spot - this place could've been closed out from any air supplies, there was little to eat or drink except the stuff that the magician had with her. No. Mana won't rely on her team to come and bail her out, she'll go and complete her mission and if needed she'll try and blow a hole out somewhere and leave when she gets really desperate and the risk of everything falling on her head is well worth it.
Mana entered the great hall of the archive after a long and boring walk. It looked so forgotten but also so fantastic, it resembled much more of a library but whereas libraries were filled with books, this place was filled with all sorts of colorful scrolls. Some of them had insignia on them, some of the signs looked like animals or drawings or symbols, some of them looked like hieroglyphs or letters of some ancient language. Mana removed all food and water from her backpack and started loading all of the scrolls but then she thought - how does she know which scrolls to load? Normally the four of them would've had enough space to carry all the scrolls, they each had tubes that had incredible amount of space in them and each tube could carry around fifty scrolls, problem was with Mana being here alone with no hope of being saved - she'll need to be picky and pick the most worthy scrolls being moved. Obviously they can return here at any time later with Mana knowing the location but, for now, she'll have to at least peek into the content of the scrolls.
She had all the time in the world, last she saw the Sun was setting which meant that night was approaching. Nights in the Forest of Death were incredibly dangerous, all ninja, even higher ranking ones were advised to leave the Forest at night because whatever creatures may have attacked them during the day, at night they were ready to feed, there were more of them and they were more dangerous. Also, night wasn't ideal for most people to defend themselves in. It was well within reason that Tanshu-sensei wanted to leave before night comes, now with lower chakra reserves the Jounin will call for the team moving out, leaving Mana behind - that was the most logical solution and sensei wasn't against leaving people behind.
Imagining herself tired and hungry, low on chakra and bit bruised in a forest filled with thing wanting to kill her wasn't fun in the slightest, it may have been a smart idea to sit tight and carefully select the scrolls she'd move over the night, then move in the morning. She could spare one sleepless night... "I always wanted to have a sleepover..." the girl thought to herself ironically since she didn't have too many friends to have a sleepover with. Moving in the morning would've been way better, she may not have had Sugemi's map but finding her way in the morning beat wandering at night without competition. And so as the decision was made the young kunoichi started checking the scrolls one after the other to choose the ones she could seal and ones better left behind for a later pickup. The place could have gone down during Mana's escape, if that happened the scrolls she left behind would've been lost so she had to do her best at choosing the most valuable ones. If she succeeded the mission would still be completed, after all the objective did state "as many as possible"...
There was a problem that the kunoichi didn't understand what was written in some of the scrolls, she automatically left some of the ones containing legends behind, she considered actual historical sources more important. It was quite difficult telling history from the legend, often the girl had to sit down and read everything in that scroll to better understand what was written in it. Luckily enough Mana was pretty good with the history that was taught in the Academy, she also did some extra reading so placing some of those into history wasn't that hard. Some of those that the magician chose were actually legends, but those she recognized as really important as they were considered lost in time but influential to historical figures and ideas. Mana was the best person that could've possibly wandered into this archive as she was most likely the best out of her squad in history department, of course, she didn't know Tanshu's degree of mastery over history but something told her that something as useless practically as history wouldn't have been much to sensei's fancy.
Then an idea came to Mana's mind - her father's top hat... If she wore her magician's uniform she could've used her father's seal to seal some more scrolls. Sadly she chose a more practical attire and while the combat situation proved that to be the right decision, now she sort of wanted to have chosen her fancy attire just so she could have saved some more scrolls. Some of the scrolls had some sort of jutsu formula inside them, they only needed one to have the scroll unsealed and making the handseals with the scroll providing a one-time use of the jutsu. Most of them were high ranking techniques, Mana wouldn't have had any chakra for them anyways even with her larger than usual reserves. "Shadow Clone Jutsu..." Mana ran through one of the scrolls, it described the process of the technique and its different variations, sadly, if the girl used even the most simple version she'd die of exhaustion shortly afterward...
This was the most painful realization - knowing that not everything could be saved, that Mana wasn't perfect, that somewhere along the road she made the wrong choices and now she had to leave a bunch of scrolls to rot here and risk having them permanently lost in time. Maybe... Maybe Tanshu-sensei wanted her here? Wanted her to know how real missions work, that she can't possibly be almighty enough to save everyone, that sometimes people have to be left behind? Except, of course, the realization would be made through scrolls...
"NO!" Mana almost broke out with emotions, being closed in a relatively dark space with only her own artificial light stick she took from home to illuminate her surroundings did horrors to one's condition. "I have to... I have to save everything..." Mana grabbed her face to keep herself from crying. She had to do it, she had to at least try to do it perfectly... The magician weaved the handseal and uttered... "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" just as the scroll described. Concentrating an equal part of chakra and splitting it off of her own, making just one clone shouldn't kill her but it'll be close! With a loud poof of smoke, a clone appeared, suddenly Mana felt an impulse of pain in her chest as the clone puffed into smoke again, just like it once appeared. The magician fell on the ground, she felt blood pressure around her eyes as her vision blurred and her chest was pounding trying to contain the strain from exploding her chest into a pool of blood. Mana fell on the ground, she tried to reach for the scroll extending her arm towards it, a sad and sorry "No..." came out of her before the girl passed out.
*****
Somewhere farther away, the boys had returned to the rendezvous point and met up with Tanshu-sensei. Shimo was really angry, "What the hell, sensei!? You left us alone! We could've died!" Sugemi grinned "What's wrong? Future Hokage had trouble with some forest animals?" teasing Shimo. Tanshu looked into the leaf layer covering the sky, "It's bad, it's getting late, we got to move back, maybe we'll make it to the exit before nightfall..." Shimo and Sugemi looked around, "Where's Mana-chan? Maybe she got attacked too, maybe she's hurt?" Shimo got worried and looked at the direction where Mana headed off to when they separated. "Nope, she won her fight, she did better than the two of you did, she's actually in the archive right now which is the best place for her to be in, with a little luck she'll seal some of the scrolls and find us in the morning, we are NOT wandering this place looking for her at night." Tanshu decided and pointed in a direction that headed back to where they entered.
"Heroes from manga don't leave their friends behind," Sugemi said as he turned around and started moving towards Mana's direction. A burst of chakra came from Tanshu's direction, suddenly the air became chilling cold, both boys froze in place in fear of the sheer strength and killing intent coming off of the man. "We are heading that way." he said pointing at the entrance once more as the two boys turned around without questions and headed to where Tanshu pointed, "Yes, Sir," Sugemi added. Spirit of manga faded in the cold grip of Tanshu's killing intent.
"Man... This sucks... What if Mana-chan is hurt?" Shimo slightly peeked back at the direction he imagined the girl would be in. "It would be the most gentleman thing to do to help her out..." he added, Sugemi kept rushing through the trees, moving at a speed completely different from one they moved to the location in. Even when the boys were low on chakra sensei's orders didn't let them let up, both of them were sweating heavily and barely keeping up with their sensei and huffing heavily. It seemed that all that Tanshu was worried about was getting out of the forest until the night comes, in the forest it looked like every moment of day was night, that was one of the scariest things about this place - night just crept up on you and all sorts of creatures started hunting on you at night...
"Nah, didn't you hear what sensei said? Mana is in the archive, it's a bit weird that she went in alone but if she was in danger Tanshu-sensei would do something, the Golden Oak of Konoha the Fourth Hokage would never be friends with a person who is actually a dick, right? Tanshu-sensei didn't leave us alone, from how certain he was of Mana's location and condition it seemed like he tracked us the whole way, it is possible that his clone is still watching her... Let's just wait till morning, then we can go look for her, if we die now you won't become Hokage and I won't have a manga written of my adventures, even more, Mana will be pissed at us for dying while looking for her. We'll also blow her dream away, have you forgotten? Mana's dream is to protect everyone, always."
Shimo just shut up and kept moving where sensei led the way. It took three times less the time they took to get to the river pass to get back to the entrance. The last kilometer was full of clouds of insects buzzing and trying to feast on the blood of the ninja that were foolish enough to stay in the place for so long. In addition, there were strange sounds all over the place, sounds like roaring and whining, sounds of the natural fight for survival going on all around them, it was clear that had Tanshu-sensei and his insane killing aura had been around to repel wild animals the boys would've long since been food. It took them their best techniques to defend against a single animal each, more than half of their chakra reserves just to fight a single hungry and desperate animal. One could not begin to imagine fighting multiple or entire packs of animals. There was howling, roaring, trees tumbling down all around the place.
Also, Tanshu's chakra and his aura were greatly weakened. Even with his full reserve there must've been animals brave enough to challenge even him, now when he made multiple shadow clones and kept up such inhuman pace of running for so long leading the way his chakra reserves could've been as low as being halved, if that was true that meant even more danger for the kids and himself. It didn't take a genius to realize that sensei's call was actually the right one, Shimo just hoped deep inside that if Mana is alright in there somewhere she also understands the situation and doesn't hold it against them. She was amazing enough to win against the animals of the forest and find the archive, she was smart enough to stay inside and wait overnight. She'll be OK... She must be!
The three ninja approached the exit and Tanshu banged on the gate hard. It took several minutes but, finally, the gate was open, there were multiple guards watching it so that no beast escaped the area. "You guys were pushing it, several more minutes and I'd have kept the door shut." the lady that let them in initially said, "Weren't there four of you? Did something happen?" she asked signaling the men to wait, "Do you need an extraction squad to go in there?" she added. Tanshu shook his head, "I've got the best man possible watching my student - myself, we'll go back in in the morning, I hope you guys have nothing against us setting up camp here till the morning?" the lady laughed, "How can I refuse you and that crazy feeling you got..." the team started putting up their tents. No one spoke too much, Sugemi and Shimo were working on the map, planning where they'd go so that they waste no time, theorizing where exactly the archive was. After a couple of hours, they went to bed, sleep was integral for recovering at least some of their chakra overnight...
Next morning came almost lightning fast, the boys barely had any time to sleep. Tanshu rudely woke them up by knocking on their tents and with extreme force clashing two kunai against one another. The sound of steel clashing forced the boys awake, none of them complained, all of them felt responsible for what happened but more so about extracting their teammate they had to leave behind overnight in one of the most dangerous places in Fire Country. Sugemi whispered "If Mana is OK, I think we're good for the Chuunin exams. I mean, I heard they have a round in here, after missions like this we're ready for everything." Shimo didn't reply, this wasn't time for goofing around or small talk. The three stretched out, wasting no time and bolting forward with all the speed they as ninja could come up with right as the gate opened. Back into the Forest of Death, hoping only that the place didn't live up to its name. Tanshu-sensei looked adamant and relatively calm, the boys were quite surprised how much so.
No one doubted if he wanted to pull Mana out of this at all, both boys understood that sensei held himself responsible for their well-being, he just showed it in unique ways. "Sensei..." Shimo tried to calm him down, "It's not your fault, I know that you just tried to test us, to put us in a life-threatening situation to make us grow stronger and learn, you're just that sort of a teacher." Tanshu-sensei looked back at Shimo with a rude and cold look, "Why would I be to blame? Everything is under control, as much of an idiot as your teammate was, she lucked out and ended up in the best place for her to be. If she's as smart as she's shown herself to be up to now she'll have finished sealing her share of the scrolls before going to sleep last night and will be waiting for us."
Sensei was moving insanely fast - he knew exactly where the archive was because his clone followed Mana who found it yesterday. It was just as if they were racing with an imaginary embodiment of death itself. "Please be OK, Mana-chan." Shimo thought to himself as the three kept moving forward.