Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

The Tunnels Have Eyes

"Protect Mana-chan!" Kouta ordered waving at Meiko before rushing forward. His speed was incredible, even with all of her recently acquired mastery over physical chakra Mana had no idea what was going on or how fast the medical ninja was going. He just disappeared and reappeared with his elbow deep inside one of the creature's abdomen. He punched so hard that even with all the force absorbed the thing pitifully lifted off the floor giving Kouta a chance to follow up his offensive with a sideways jump kick flinging the creature aside.

The medical Juugo prodigy proceeded to bash and dominate his opponent with a combination of quick straight strikes to the creature's abdomen and only after the poor thing was down and out shrieking in pain and spitting up blood pathetically did some of the others get the idea to interfere, Kouta was taking them out and stringing combinations faster than thoughts manifested in the minds of these creatures, faster than their brains passed the appropriate signals around. Mana wondered if Kouta was actually augmenting his abilities the dangerous way.

There had to be some explanation to Kouta's incredible growth, before leaving the village the boy admitted to never having been able to morph his body once using the Juugo bloodline however after leaving he soon learned to do so and after a brief moment managed to control the ability quite potently. His medical skills also grown exponentially matching that of an average medical ninja whereas before they were lacking and only slightly enhanced the natural bodily healing processes. This strength and speed wasn't the medical ninja strength enhancement technique, it had to be Kouta betting his very chakra on the line, the very thing that cost Mana hers...

With a lightning fast combination of kicks, Kouta kicked the whole bunch of these things around like ragdolls, kicking them up in the air before leaping up to them and whirling with his legs upright sending the cave dwellers crashing down into the cave floor. Several of the beaten creatures burst into clouds of smoke, some sort of self-defense mechanism that filled the entire section of the cave with smokescreens forcing Mana and Meiko to cover up themselves so that it didn't force into their lungs and make their eyes itch.

"Stop, you're gonna tear down the whole cave on us!" Mana shouted out prompting the rampaging medical ninja to calm down somewhat.

More of the cave dwellers began leaping off the walls of the tunnels trying to claw Mana's and Meiko's eyes out. Meiko easily caught them by their wrists slamming them together or swinging them around and tossing them before dashing from behind the flying things and kicking them downwards so that they didn't slam into the tunnel walls and further unbalance the tunnel system. She fought with such control and thought that it was scary to think that it was the carefree and goofy Meiko doing it.

"Mana-chan!" Kouta yelled out trying to dash up closer to her but Mana's kicks took the things pursuing her down after bursts of reddish chakra began coming out from her body pores. She had to tap into the physical chakra to defend herself, it wasn't something she wanted to abuse but it made her leagues and bounds beyond the abilities that these cave dwellers showed. 

After a couple of moments, Mana memorized their moves, their primitive bloodthirsty leaps and turned her augmentation off allowing her natural flowing movements and pitch-perfect prediction of these creatures' movements to allow her to perfectly avoid and counter each blow. With each strike, an arm was broken at the joint, at each kick the base leg was tripped and the fallen body was stomped, with each attempted bite the head was caught between Mana's elbow and her knee. She didn't see their movements either, she didn't have to, even if their surrounding was bright enough to see her opponents more clearly their speed would've been beyond Mana's eyesight to follow and yet it made absolutely no difference.

"I don't need you rushing to my aid," she grunted at Kouta who looked in awe at Mana masterfully switching between the use of her physical chakra that allowed her to surpass the speed she had even at her peak back when she was still a proper ninja and just sheer martial art skill.