Kouta threw a lazily put together combination of blows. Menna who was honoring the boy as a sparring partner avoided it easily. Curiously sitting on the rock Mana was observing the playful match between the two while Tala angrily squinted at it before closing his eyes and acting uninterested for most of the spar. The magician felt a little bit curious about seeing Menna's abilities since he has not shown them during the brief battle with the raiders and was the only one of the squad save for the jounin leader to do so.
"You shouldn't have requested this spar if you hold back the whole time..." Menna smiled while avoiding another half-baked combination of blows with his eyes closed. Mana couldn't really get Menna's point, she could barely even see blurs and flashes from her point of view, was that amount of speed considered so pathetic amongst ninja, even genin? It only made her feel that much more powerless and outmatched.
Finally, Menna allowed himself to respond with a combination of strikes, he fought very similarly to Kouta, his style was highly improvised yet reminded of a demanding and very physical striking and kicking style. Surprised, if not a little bit intimidated, due to the sudden outburst of brutality and sheer strength from his partner Kouta raised his arms in a striking position around his head, leaving his arms and fists to defend his head while his elbows were left open for striking if he found an opening.
"Hm? Aren't you a little bit interested, Tala?" Mana asked looking at the annoyed redhead who was just angrily rubbing his boot against the rocky surface wishing for the Sun to finally hide behind the clouds again so they could move.
"Fights for shits and giggles do not interest me. Fighting is a process of attempting to kill someone, there is nothing playful or sporting about it." The grumpy young man replied continuing to rest with his eyes closed as if he was forced to not look at the spar going on in front of him.
"You say that yet you did not kill those raiders, they were full of wounds but none of them died..." Mana reminded the boy.
"That's because if we killed more of Fennec's men he'd raid another settlement and slaughter everyone before razing it to the ground. Murder only invites more murder as vengeance for the murder committed. For that reason, one must target the head of the fold and kill them before they can plan out their response. Fighting means to kill, that doesn't mean it has to be carried out with no thought to it, in fact, it means it needs more thought than everything else because people's lives are on the line. Now if you'd forgive me, I want to nap a little..." The young man lied because he kept on angrily kicking the rock he was sitting on while acting like he was sleeping the entire time.
Kouta was thrown back by Menna's strength, the medical ninja was sent dragging through the ground for at least fifty meters after Menna's blow which he managed to block. It appeared that while looking the least ready to fight physically the blonde may have been the readiest to slug it out of his entire team.
"That power, that chakra breaking out when you strike..." Kouta mumbled to himself before moving his smoking blocking arms out of the way from blocking his face so he could ask his next question directly. "You're a Juugo clansman, aren't you?"
Menna scratched the back of his head, "Juugo? What's that? No, I am Menna of the Ayaka clan" the blonde smiled gently as he always did when talking to someone.
"Ayaka clan?" Kouta turned his head to the side wondering if he had heard of such a clan before. Menna attacked just as fast and strong as Kouta did when he used his Juugo bloodline to form jets around his feet to move around or when he enhanced his blows with chakra using the medical precise chakra manipulation techniques. Certainly, it couldn't have been just chakra augmentation, no one would use augmentation of such caliber so casually for a friendly sparring match, at least a genin wouldn't.
Tiwul dropped down from above to sit closer to Mana, the girl looked quite happy, almost so to an alarming degree that looked a little too creepy.
"Your friend is about to have his butt kicked... Ayaka clan members have genetic mutations in their chakra systems allowing them to casually augment their chakra without any risk of inflicting damage to their chakra network. That means that Menna can augment his chakra as much as he wants and not worry about injuring himself or losing chakra manipulation permanently..." the chubby tomboy explained to Mana.
Menna moved his arms to the side and bent forward preparing for a dash, rays of blue light appearing almost like needles at where they shot out from his body that split into endless flocks of smaller pins at the end started shooting out from Menna's body. It took a great amount of chakra being released for it to be visible outside a person's body, usually, such displays of power displayed desperation for the ninja using it.
It signaled that a ninja was ready to go all out for this one final attack and then collapse from the pressure of his own chakra network being out of sync. Just for a moment, such burst of chakra accelerated the body's flow of chakra and, after a couple of moments, the body believed that was the natural flow, making it consume chakra normally at an accelerated rate before returning back to place. That is if it ever returned to normal...
Of course, if Tiwul was to be trusted, to Menna such degree of augmentation didn't mean anything at all.
Menna leapt forward, Kouta's body suddenly appeared to shift, almost like his entire skin changed to a more wooden texture as his pores opened and started bursting chakra through his enlarged network venting the built up chakra through the open pores so that his body never got used to the faster chakra flow and never had to adapt to the strain placed by augmentation. In a way both Kouta and Menna fought similarly, to Kouta augmenting the strength of his punches was easy and without risk since medical ninja could enhance the strength of their blows through medical techniques and precise and unmatched chakra control, also as a Juugo he could vent the excess chakra stored in his network so that his network didn't break. Both of these young men were users of chakra augmentation that found different ways to bypass the risks using their natural born advantages.
Both Kouta and Menna clashed with each other, exchanging fists at incredible speed, sonic booms flew out from where their fists collided, rocks and debris were thrown at any watchers to the point where Shimo who was resting nearby and observing the spar had to draw out his blade and deflect the flying hazards coming from nearby battle that was moving everywhere and raged throughout the entire desert field they were resting at.
Tala's eyes suddenly shot wide open overflowing with annoyance and anger, he placed his arms forward in a hand seal position.
"Sand Style: Desert Automaton" he yelled out as the sand below his feet shot upwards in bullet-like projectiles at the debris and small stones hitting all of them and destroying them with pinpoint accuracy.
"Thanks for that, Tala." Tiwul laughed out scratching the back of her head, they could've been injured if Tala didn't act as fast as he did.
"You idiots! Stop fooling around already!" The redhead yelled out loud making Kouta and Menna stop rampaging around the battlefield with fists up close to each other's faces. "You're tiring yourself out and you're making a mess out of this place risking injury to the VIP and others, even more, you're revealing our position with this display of destruction and violence. What if at least one of you fails to properly control their chakra and they end up causing an explosion strong enough to destroy the whole desert? Stop messing around!" He yelled out expressing his annoyance.
Menna and Kouta both moved back from each other, Menna's face was completely swollen and the blonde was gripping at his ribs as if they may have been broken whereas Kouta had a cracked forehead and his cloak was torn up and had some blood marks on it signaling that he may have had some internal damage since he was spitting up some blood after being punched.
"How did they get those injuries? Just how fast were these two fighting? It looks like they've been fighting for entire days..." Mana thought looking at the two hyperventilating boys, Menna was breathing much heavier than Kouta which made the magician better able to analyze his clan's ability.
"It's alright, Tala, their control was exemplary and they've only transferred the entire force through their opponent, it was their speed and the secondary effects of it they could not control. While the world around them was in no danger of blowing up just yet, that is why sparring like this is important, it teaches us about what can be improved, how our own power can be controlled. That being said, Tala is partially right, spar at a much more casual level next time. For now, it's time to move out..." Izem, the jounin leader declared after appearing close to the huffing youngsters. He had left to do some lookout and the fact that he returned so quickly suggested that he may have found something interesting.
"Hmph..." Tala closed his eyes and leaped off the cliff landing on the ground without raising too much sand beneath his feet despite the fact that he leaped down quite the distance. Tiwul helped Mana get down as well.
"Why are you back so soon, sensei?" the chubby puppeteer asked.
"Because we need to move" he replied casually.
"But isn't it the peak of Sun's activity?" Shimo raised an eyebrow, always ready to bicker with the man.
"Yes, but Sunagakure is just a good twenty minutes of walking speed away, the desert winds are strong so the sand they picked up obstructed our view before, I bumped into the guards almost instantly after I left" the man explained. The team then quickly packed their things and started moving, moving through the midday would be pretty tough and they'd need several showers to wash off the sweat and sand from their bodies after this trip but if they would reach Sunagakure within twenty minutes of Mana's walking pace it'd all be worth it.
"For the record, Menna would have kicked Shimo's ass..." Tiwul playfully pinched Mana's elbow, the magician smiled and shook her head.
"No, you may not have noticed but there is a difference between the Ayaka and Juugo bloodlines. Menna's body indeed does protect him from tearing his own network apart like I have done in the past, however it does nothing to protect his muscles from fatigue, in fact, he is fatigued much more intensely because his network takes no pressure away from his muscles where the excess chakra is probably redirected damaging the already fatigued muscles even more. Kouta, on the other hand, vents the excess chakra away through his pores. Menna is stronger as far as short bursts of augmentation are concerned, he can augment his chakra to much higher extents but Kouta is more of a marathon runner and he'd be able to outlast Menna in an actual fight" Mana found a prideful moment to bite her newly met friend in the butt. Tiwul opened her mouth to argue but then closed it and looked away after noticing how much trouble Menna had just standing on his feet and how much he was rubbing his aching thighs and arms.
*****
Sunagakure was a very odd village when compared to Konohagakure which was the only village that Mana had to compare it to so far. Konoha reminded of an actual small city built in the middle of a rich and prosperous forest surrounded by sky-reaching trees and crystal lakes. Konoha was surrounded by a gate, an artificial wall made of wood and bricks that was then imbued with chakra and various seals and barrier ninjutsu techniques to protect it. Unless the barriers were dealt with in a cleverer and discrete way previously it'd probably take enough force to destroy the entire world to destroy both all the barriers and Konoha itself from outside the village.
That being said, Sunagakure appeared to be built entirely in a large crater that appeared more like ones caused by meteorites. The magician could not quite remember all the legends talking about Sunagakure's origins as the village was absurdly old, perhaps as old as Konoha itself having been built relatively soon after Konohagakure's rising.
Some of them said that a great ninja purposefully made this crater to host the village inside of it, there were others that said that the crater was caused by a meteorite falling down and leaving it imbued with incredibly pricey minerals making this specific spot much more fitting for a village to be built. There were legends that claimed that this was a site of an explosion caused by a Tailed Beast or a Lesser Demon...
What surrounded Sunagakure was not a manmade barrier, it was not a wall nor was there an actual gate. Regardless, there had to be barriers and seals protecting it just as strong as those of Konoha, at the very least Sunagakure should've had the barriers that did not offer protections but signaled of the entry of any entity with a chakra level strong enough to register.
Those were quite simple to put together by a barrier ninjutsu user but all of it was just speculations, the true nature of the protections surrounding the village must've been a military secret guarded by the village's Black Ops and Protections Service ninja. The natural barrier around Sunagakure was a tall valley of rocks and judging from the tall wall of natural rock on the other side it only had one passageway to and out of it.
There were two ninja with Sunagakure uniforms watching the long and narrow pass and doing watch duty. They must've also served as the first line of the village's defense so Mana assumed they were also formidable combatants as well trusted by the Kazekage to defend the village first before the reinforcements swarmed the perpetrators and assailants from all sides moving in from above the pass. Even if someone managed to beat the guards and move in they'd be closed in from both sides and sandwiched leaving themselves open for attacks from each side or above. It was a pretty impressive defense, Mana wondered about how this village could have been hit by the war so hard with such competent natural defenses.
After a brief conversation and check-ins with the guards, Izem managed to get both the Sand and the Konoha genin past the gate guards. Right after the whole party entered the narrow pass the magician noticed hawks or eagles flying above their head, these must've been the messenger birds used around these parts as well. The Kazekage must've been already reported to about their arrival even without there being any need to report to his office.
"So where to now, will the Kazekage wish to see us in his office?" Shimo looked at Izem questioningly. The jounin lifted his fist up into the sky and extended it into a palm, it was a sign for the Sand genin that they were set free. Right after the palm was extended the young ones whispered their farewells and dispersed disappearing into thin air faster than Mana could see which was slowly beginning to be a habit. At this point, the magician wondered just how could she not be considered blind when she was able to see so little of what went on around her...
"There's really no need, I'll report to Kazekage, your business is to report to the Hokage. That in itself is really not our mission objective anymore but after that, you can feel free to hang around the village for as long as you need... Konoha and Suna are no enemies, you'll be under no threat here" Izem replied slowly walking towards a large rotund clay building with a crimson hieroglyph symbol on it, seeing how it was the largest and the most impressive building in the whole clay-based architecture of the village it must've been the administration building.
"Awww... I thought we agreed to an eating contest with Tiwul... Yeah, she'd better run" Meiko sighed looking a little down, she must've not been overly fond of all this sand even inside what appeared to be the largest center of civilization in the entire Land of Wind.
"In any case, I'll go on and report to the Hokage, you guys find us a place to stay for a couple of nights. We'll need to receive a reply and an official permission to continue the mission, technically our objective is already complete but let's hope Lady Fifth will allow us to continue with our objective extension" Shimo stretched out and took a couple of moments to locate the building that had the "Aviary" sign on it, it was not too far away from the Administration building as it could've been expected. It couldn't have been too difficult to find since a large concentration of birds soaring above the village landed there and departed from there.
"Here's to hoping that what little clues we have to the Box's location will be enough to grant us an extension..." Kouta replied stroking his messy hair and wiping the sweat from his face.
"Well then, we can go refill our supplies. I'll take care of our clothes and our ninja kits, also Shimo please take these custom orders I've written up for Konohagakure, I doubt that Suna will be too cooperative with giving us custom-made weapons to carry around here. It'd be smart for Kouta to refill our medical supplies and for Meiko to refill our food. We still have plenty of stuff to trade after that raider camp raid so let's make sure we do that" Mana finalized.
"Should we trade our Audra shards? Our deal with the raiders didn't go well..." Meiko wondered out loud.
"That's a good call, let's not risk being called traitors and return those to Konoha instead. Give me those bags, I'll ask for them to be delivered via space-time delivery to Konoha. If they'll wish to check inside I'll just wave words like "confidential" around or pay them off if needed and they should shake off, I mean we're sending things to Konoha and not from it so it shouldn't be too much of a problem" Shimo took the large bags filled with heavy Audra shards that they managed to recover from the Katabami gold mine.
"Great, let's meet here after we're done and then I'll lead you guys to the hotel I'll find. Sand Village is known among medical ninja for its fantastic herbs and I'm looking forward to seeing what I can barter out from the local Suna Greenhouse" Kouta excitedly declared.
"Don't forget to patch up your face, no one will barter with you when you look like a war survivor..." Meiko laughed out pointing at the dried blood all over Kouta's face since he appeared to have forgotten to heal himself after the spar which was odd since he did patch Menna up remarkably well.
"Sadly, whatever he can do will not fix all the problems with his face..." Shimo playfully teased his teammate before disappearing into the crowd far away from where the friendly wrath of his teammate could have reached him.
Finally, the team reached the Sand Village, hopefully, what they have planned for the Box would go just as planned, after so many bad twists and turns ruining their plans throughout the entire trip they could've used at least one thing going according to plan...