The situation that developed in front of Kusagoro would have never appeared nearly as odd as the expression on the man's face. He was just ambushed by some unidentified party of the Sand Village as the assailant showed no desire to hide that: the Sunagakure mark was present on the gourd of the beauty of the party, it was also on the center of the leader's eyepatch, the teen Uchiha in the group also wore the Sunagakure headband tied on her arm. And yet the suspended jounin of Konoha couldn't have looked more excited. Finally, once the man recovered from the initial glee of seeing new opponents reveal themselves the mood of the man suddenly changed to worse as he turned at his comrades and coldly and lacking any emotion ordered them.
"Treat Mardith, kill all of them. I'm heading after the kids in the castle, we know now that we're looking for a box of some sort" Kusagoro cut down in a commanding tone and slowly started walking towards the ruins.
"Yeah, not gonna happen!" the one-eyed Uchiha leaped forward swinging his sword at the leader of the Konohagakure group when the Hyuuga lady leaped into the air, Remashi's eyes were wide open with veins around them being shot out creepily with her white irises of the Byakugan being as clear as ever.
"Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven!" she yelled out as the woman's body spun creating a violent bright blue sphere of energy that blasted the Uchiha assailant away, the man was caught in a hand-shaped mass of glowing sand that shot from the gourd of the woman that followed him. Gently the mass placed the man on the ground.
"Be careful, husband, these people appear to be stronger than your useless sister reported. These are no genin..." the woman said slipping back her sleeves to make arm movements faster and more comfortable for her in the upcoming battle. Once Remashi's sphere of chakra ceased to spin and the woman landed Kusagoro was nowhere to be seen, he had used the commotion as an opening to slip away. Now it was just two against three of the Sand.
"Choke on dicks! I'm not responsible for everything going on in Konoha you ingrate bitch!" the teen got unreasonably angry for the insult thrown her way, it didn't appear that the two family members were on the greatest of terms.
"That's why I have you here, Regalia, it's your job to watch over my back when I get reckless" the one-eyed leader of the group stretched his body out and pulled a second curved blade from his sheath. The swords that the man wielded were much more detailed and of much finer quality, had Meiko had the ability to feast her eyes on them she'd have most definitely taken a moment to admire the fine craftsmanship of these tools of murder.
"Are you quite done yet, Gokibure?" Remashi turned at her teammate seeing a whirlwind of cockroaches bringing her teammate safely to their beheaded teammate. Once Gokibure reached his goal the man picked up the separated head and placed it closer to the beheaded lifeless body. As consciousness returned to Mana's head overflowing her senses with crippling pain the girl observed closely as to what exactly this man would do – something that could've reversed death interested the magician greatly as preventing meaningless death was her lifelong dream after all.
"Nano-Roach Style: Fix!" the man mumbled as green light emanated from the corpse, the skin from the edges of the head stuck together in a grotesque manner as a loud steely scratching sound started covering the area. Just mere seconds later Mardith stood back up on his feet and cracked his reattached head around.
"I seem to have been caught unprepared..." the gentle giant apologized to his friend.
"Don't sweat it, old pal, that's why I placed my nano-roaches into your bloodstream, right? To fix you up with your insane self-stabbing style when you need it..." the cockroach wielding Aburame bowed his head playfully as if he was greeting a lady. He appeared to be quite proud of this ability that his insects possessed. Mana felt her forehead and realized that while she was having an insane fever she couldn't have been dreaming as everyone fighting Kusagoro's team was as surprised as she was.
"He's an Aburame who has reached a nano-insect level of clan ninjutsu mastery, be careful with that guy" the one-eyed Uchiha warned his team clearly frustrated that the odds were evened.
"Interesting, it appears that he has placed nano-insects within that man's body specifically, must have something to do with his fighting style, there'd be no way he'd be able to sustain several bodies worth of nano-insects though, right?" the gourd wielding woman observed.
"Yeah, they seem to grant some passive form of regeneration, they must be on the lookout for injuries which they try to fix once they find one, with that Aburame being able to kick it to overtime with a jutsu. It'd be beneficial if we took out the roach-man first" the one-eyed man nodded.
"Kay, I'll kill him for you, bro" the teen smiled and charged forward swinging her twin blades at Gokibure.
"I'll take care of the Hyuuga woman, as someone who uses a great deal of chakra flow in your techniques you'd be greatly inconvenienced by her chakra network closing fighting style" the leader declared before roaring proudly and leaping into the fray swinging his swords that lit up with chakra infused glow.
"Very well, then... Dear Jiou, I shall kill for a chance of our freedom from our demonic pursuer as well" the older woman swung her arm carelessly as the glowy golden sand from her gourd flooded in a crashing wave towards Mardith, intending to crush the life out of the man once again right after his life was restarted again.
Mana grunted, this was her chance. If only she could've managed to stand up and... The girl tried to wriggle around but she couldn't, it hurt far too much to try and move. The magician lifted her arm and tried to force her body back on her feet, angrily she tried to push herself off the bloody ground but couldn't. Disappointed in her own strength the genin just looked at her blood covered hand as her vision blurred in and out. For moments it appeared like she passed out only to regain her vision again.
The girl knew that these Sunagakure people would just rush into the castle once they're done, so would Kusagoro's squad. Then again, if Kusagoro's squad won they'd surely make sure that she was dead, they wished to claim her head, didn't they? Such a cruel and unnecessarily brutal custom of the past, to cut off the head of a traitor or a ninja of another village that a ninja defeats. Mana didn't know that it was still practiced, at least not in Konoha, it was made famous by the Seven Swords of the Mist who were operating in Kirigakure. Why such a pointlessly gruesome custom would become so famous was beyond her.
The girl thought about it for a moment, imagining once again that feeling of being helpless and completely overpowered. That feeling when her life belonged to her enemy. When that sword hung above her head ready to cleave it off and end her. At those final moments the girl imagined her head being handed to the Hokage, the magician knew that Hanasaku would not tolerate such behavior, she'd discipline any Konoha ninja still engaging in this bloody tradition of the past but there would've been no use trying to tell these people that. Her head was welcome on any table since she was a ninja, after all. Even Sunagakure, a village protected by Konohagakure and the other great villages for a long time would probably still pay out the bounty on her head, as insignificant as it may have been.
Some ninja in the countless history books Mana read claimed they felt proud when their enemies would've beheaded them. They felt some sort of pride knowing that their killer would receive a hefty bounty on their head, they felt pride knowing that they've caused enough trouble to someone that they were ready to drown their killer in ryo coins. To give them such excessive bounties that one could've literally retired and lived in luxury after killing a single jounin and cashed them in. Mana felt none of that pride. Maybe it was because she wasn't that important in the end, the bounty on her head would barely even pay for her slayer's dinner. As a nameless nobody genin nobody cared much if she lived or died but were ready to reward for her death just because this was the world that rewarded such brutality. Such was the custom.
No. It wasn't because of just lack of pride in causing enough trouble. When the girl imagined her head rolling on the Hokage's table and then the woman yelling at the ninja bringing that to her, even after the explanation that the girl planned on using the Box for herself and lie that it wasn't there, even after the lies that she forced her will on her team threatening to bite her tongue off if they didn't comply. Even after all that the Hokage would've still suspended or outright discharged everyone involved in this brutal murder. Then she'd have had to inform her parents and eventually the news would reach everyone in the village. That was what Mana was afraid of the most.
She wasn't a popular girl, she wasn't chased after by many boys and while she did qualify as a popular entertainer she still wasn't sure if she was worth an honorable burial for just what she had done so far. She dreaded the idea of her parents witnessing the head of their daughter and she was ready to fight her hardest to prevent that from happening. Her parents were amazing people who didn't deserve to experience something, even dirtbag parents didn't deserve anything of the sort. And even when Mana was completely sure that no one in the world would give two fingers to pee on if she died, she still would've refused to give up just because she loved those few people who would have cared. Even more so, she wanted to stand back up on her feet because she wanted to live!
Yeah, lately Mana had been wondering about that a lot. Ever since she lost her gift of chakra manipulation she felt down, she felt useless, she felt miserable and she didn't really see the point of her rebirth. After all, her lifelong dream was to be who she was before her "death". If her gift was taken, technically the responsibility to protect everyone was supposed to be gone too but it never felt like that, despite gifts being able to be lost with a snap of one's finger, responsibilities were much more difficult to shake off.
Mana wanted her gifts back and for that, she had to live. She was no one important and in order to become someone important, someone people would look up to if they wanted to change the world around them to a world where life mattered she needed to stay alive. Mana wanted the world to change which meant she wanted to stay alive, she wanted to see life being treasured which meant that by extension she had to live to achieve that dream. She wanted to live!
Deafening barrage of clashes echoed through the field, gusts of sand picked up blasting straight at the ruined shanty town, gusts so powerful that they shifted the rocky ruins around. With every clashing blow of the two sides of ninja craters as far as hundreds of meters deep opened up and these clashing sides barely even meant it. Mana flipped over on her front and coughed up some blood. Her hand reached into the back pocket where the food pill they looted off of the raider camp was supposed to be in. She placed the black pill in her mouth waiting for it to restore her dormant and useless chakra and immediately treat her injuries. The medical food pill was supposed to be able to do that, the magician waited and waited and waited. The pill was a fake...
"When will I ever learn... Nothing comes easy, what I wish can't just be handed to me. It has to be earned!" Mana grunted to herself, for a moment she felt horrified by just how miserable her weak voice sounded. Just how badly was she beaten? Mana slipped her arms beneath her weakened body and tried to push herself off the rocky edges that slipped into her battered body, going through her beaten skin and spilling blood from closed up wounds all over their clay surface as they cut into her flesh.
"Come on, you asked for everyone to flee, at least have enough decency to gather them back together, they need you..." Mana whispered to herself before slipping up and slamming back on the sharp edge she was stuck on. She heard blood dripping somewhere even lower below in a hole dug up by one of those destructive techniques that decimated the courtyard. She looked at her pale hand, her vision was blurry also the whole head of the magician was spinning.
"They don't need you. They're all so amazing, they're all pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a ninja, you're just laying around waiting to catch your death... No one needs you..." Mana whispered to herself, then suddenly from deep inside she felt anger burning up. Not at the world because it didn't need her, at herself because she wasn't good enough to be needed. No one needed dead weight. Mana lifted her lifeless frame off the ground, one moment her eyes looked at a couple of puddles of blood below her, the next one it stared into the distance where countless invisible blast waves rustled her sticky hair every couple of seconds. There were so many explosions and blasts going off there, there was some huge battle going on and she couldn't see any of it...
Suddenly a figure flashed in front of her. It was one of the Uchiha assailants, the one-eyed one. "Stay here, you will lead us to the Box" the man ordered her. Mana spat in his face, she was surprised to see blood come out from her mouth, she must've been pretty banged up. The magician felt a shock, the man must've struck her down carefully so that he didn't kill her and so she was back where she started from.
The girl chuckled, she felt blood budging from her gut and running down the edge of her lips before dripping beside her. "The enemy needs me, at least..." she couldn't stop laughing even if her entire body shook as she did so. Suddenly the girl felt some relief, she wasn't sure if the fake pill she just ate was at least somewhat medical in its nature or if her laughter eased up her pain somehow. Mana got back on her feet and looked over at a small corridor of ruins stacking a small tunnel which lead straight into one of the entrances to the ruins.
"Everyone hates me, Shimo and Sugemi must hate me for who I am, for what I choose to be. My enemies hate me because they need me for their goals to be fulfilled, Meiko and Kouta must hate me because I couldn't properly lead them after taking that responsibility, I lead them straight into a beating and almost dying... A beating for which I am fully responsible both as a leader and the person who inspired the reason for this battle. I'm sure once this fever passes I'll feel horrible about myself..." Mana thought for a moment, every negative thought, every self-bashing word fueling each painful step forward.
"Goddamn stairs, why did it have to be stairs!?" Mana yelled out grabbing her injured chest after being brave enough to shout out. Both squads appeared to be overly engaged in their battle to care about her slipping away. The magician's body gave in and fell right onto the stairs, she cracked her head at one of them but then quickly picked herself up and started climbing. Her bleeding fingers and nails from before opened back up. At least that fake pill she ate kept her from dying, now she could punish herself again by trying to not mess everything up again.
Mana's curious blood covered face peeked into the room she ended up in. She was officially inside the castle's entrance. The girl looked below her, she happened to end up on the upper floors balcony which was busted up and could've sent her tumbling down into an abyss at any time. The girl screamed out in fear when the castle shook up. Its very foundation shifted around, rubble started falling splitting off of the ceiling, Mana looked closer at the dark ruined hall below. It had a bunch of columns that could've been used for climbing if she felt suicidal enough to attempt it. There were multiple holes in the ceiling so this suicidal climb could've allowed her to reach the upper floors. Kusagoro mentioned some traps but Mana doubted if any of them could even be functioning at this moment in time, centuries away from when this castle was last used by a living being.
The magician got back on her feet again, she tore a sizable piece of cloth off of her white torn up top and tied it around her head where the only currently bleeding wound was – the one she got from bumping her head into the stairs. The girl then tore one-half of her trousers off and made a cloth for a climb up the pillars. There was no way she could've done it without a little aid from the laws of physics. She had to use parts of her jeans as a climbing aid and still, it would hurt like nothing she experienced lately as most of her bones were being halfway treated by that fake medical pill. Mana knew the pain of bone treatment and she was going through it all but at the slowest rate imaginable.
"Okay, world's worst squad leader... Here's what you're gonna do, you're gonna run up this balcony, kick off the edge and grab that column right there, then before you tumble down to your death you're gonna wrap your legs around it and this cloth around it to use for climbing instead of your useless weakling arms, okay?" Mana asked herself as if she was someone she could talk to. She just wanted confirmation that she was about to do something really crazy while under the effect of some behind the counter forged food pill.
"Yeah, sure, it's gonna be the best idea ever..." the girl answered herself in a different voice as if her mind contained multiple people. "We're great at climbing, it's not like we ever failed tree climbing in the Academy or anything..." Mana mumbled out before bolting forward and kicking off the ledge only for it to fall beneath her feet sending the girl down just inches from the pillar.
The magician's instincts kicked in almost instantly, still with her cracking with pain bones she swung the denim strip forward and tied it around the column pulling herself in only to grab the pillar half way and cry out in pain as her lower body hit the rocky surface of the column in a way that reminded a crash more than wrapping it around as she intended it.
"I hate you... I hate you, you're the goddamn worst!" Mana screamed out at herself nearly bursting into tears from the pain of bashing her body against the rock. Pain like this used to be nothing. Had she had her gift back her body would've just hardened itself instinctually with little to no pain, she wouldn't have even felt a dip in chakra from something as minuscule as that...
A loud rumbling suggested the girl that the column she landed on may not have been as solid as it looked from the side. Mana's instincts instantly switched from self-pity and self-bashing to moving, the magician quickly turned around the pillar and kicked off of it grabbing a curtain that was hanging from another balcony to the right of the pillar she jumped to. Right after her body left the pillar the entire rocky structure collapsed into a black abyss below. Mana sighed...
"Holy shit, curtain, what the hell are you made off..." she joked about the toughness of the curtain that was somehow holding her weight despite the fact that it was several centuries old. Mana slowly started scaling the cloth to catch a breath on the balcony she leaped up to. After reaching the end the girl tried to pull the curtain off but the blasted thing held firm, it would've taken a knife to cut this thing and even then it would've been a real struggle to do it. This cloth was really impressive!
"Okay, so this was a good start, let's see about this column..." Mana spoke to herself again bracing for another jump, first she leaped several balconies further leaping over several meters away with each balcony, catching her breath only to leap further before she could even reach the column. Once she reached the central balcony of the hall the magician prepared for the jump before looking back, there was a huge hole in the back of the wall and once the girl peeked outside she saw that there was a gap for her to climb out through and scale up the rocky surface to the next floor instead of trying her luck with that huge jump and the unstable structures again.
"Sorry, Mr. Pillar but your brother was kind of a dick..." Mana smiled before leaning outside as the cruel desert winds bashing sand into her face made her regret the decision to move out almost instantly. Still, grabbing hold of several gaps Mana managed to slip out and start crawling the wall. The genin saw several more cracks, maybe one of those lead her to somewhere she could've found the rest of her team in. For a moment the magician wondered if she even wanted that. If she really wanted to see her team again. After all, it was because of her that they got beaten up like that. She caused Kusagoro's team to attack them and then she wasn't a good enough leader to somehow help them overcome that impossible gap in skill and power.
"Well, want it or not, you've got nothing better to do, it's either that or falling down and bashing your brains all over the rocks below so... Not much of a choice..." the magician spoke to herself again reaching up for another rock and pulling her aching body up before letting it roll into a large hole several floors higher. She may not have wanted to get inside that hole like that but her fingers were bleeding and really slippy from the combination of the wind pushing her off the rocky surface and her own blood making the climb tougher than it had to be.
Mana hyperventilated for a while down on the rocky floor of the room she landed in after a small tumble down the ruins. "It's okay, no pain will break me worse than my pride is broken at the moment..." once again the magician tried to lift her own mood up and peel her body off the ground. Before she moved on to another room the girl decided to first check the one she ended up in out. She could've used a breather before deciding to crawl back out and try to climb the rock wall outside bashed around by the winds up here or try and find an actual staircase this time.
The room she was in appeared to be a dining hall of some sort, with the wooden table included and some strange pictures on the wall depicting someone impossible to identify. The paper was in such a bad condition that the pictures looked like someone spilled the paint all over them with random colors covering the whole thing.
"Yeah, no one is going to hide the box in a dining room, move on!" Mana ordered herself as she flung her body forward rushing up a spiraling staircase. At this point, she was just wandering around the place aimlessly. She needed some more planning in her quest.
"This is the Settlement Period, any treasure worth hiding would be kept in a treasure room hidden in the throne room. That means I have to find the throne room first, then figure out where the treasure room is and how to access it... Easy..." Mana realized before looking around any clues in these barely functional ruins that may have tipped her off to the location of the ruins.
There was no use in wandering around looking for her friends, they could've been anywhere and running into them would've been a matter of luck, finding the Box was actually a bit more orderly and Mana could've also tried to plan out her attempt at using the Box as a bargaining chip with literally everyone trying to kill her at that moment in time.
Purpose and hope were once again back in Mana's busted up little heart. She was finally doing something that made at least a little bit of sense which felt refreshing after having the tables flipped over like that with the metaphorical dinner being smashed all over her face in the process...