Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Games of Body and Soul

A snake by any other name...

Time seemed to freeze while Yamata's blade kept on sliding through the air, closer to Mana inch by inch. This was no longer just the father of snakes using one of his children as a tool, he was actually using the jutsu himself, it was his own hand changing shape into the emerald sword. There may not have been time, momentum and stamina left in Mana to move away...

There may have been time for a jutsu though, something really old and carrying a bad omen to it but something that fell under a very comfortable category of being old enough for Mana to have gotten used to the technique and not carrying any of the baggage of blunders that was associated with any new jutsu.

"Magic Bubble Jutsu!" Mana yelled out after she used an ability of hers that was long since used, not for a while after she had trained in the Rabbit Caves – the sleight of her hands in weaving hand seals.

"Naïve..." Yamata scolded the magician, by that point, he had realized that Mana's skill in hand seal weaving surpassed whatever half-assed and spontaneously initiated dash with his blade he had mustered up but it did not matter. Due to his legendary power, he would simply power through...

A boisterous howl echoed through the field bending the grass to the lowest point it could go as the emerald shape that Yamata's hand had taken met Mana's blown up bubble of Wind Release chakra. A realization ran through the old snake's face with the very beginning of the impact followed by a sly smile. He realized he was being tricked while he forced the blade all the way through and drove it through the magician's chest before slamming her impaled body into the ground.

"Lightning Style: Magical Punishment!" Mana yelled out from up above, a strong jolt of Lightning Release chakra surged in a sky-splitting downward shot and hit the predisposed and distracted serpent right in the back. Yamata straightened his body out, his blade hand morphed back into its normal shape while the body of Mana he had impaled turned into illusionary petals that scattered in the wind.

"While amusing, that must have been costly." The father of Ninja Snakes muttered.

Mana thrust her hands downward, letting gusts of wind carry her a bit further back from being right above her opponent. On top of using Flower Petal Sanctuary in sync with the Magic Bubble technique, she also now was forced to let the Mystical Wings carry her away.

"You've seen my Flower Petal Sanctuary before. Couldn't risk you reading it." Mana admitted shortly after graciously landing a handful of meters away from her opponent. "Even now you saw through it before even setting the illusion off."

"Couldn't have been helped," Yamata smirked. "Once I felt the feeble resistance your wind bubble provided, I knew it was not your defensive measure. Not the real one anyway..."

Yamata was a pretty smart fellow, then again, he was in this murdering thing for a long time. Maybe Mana played it wrong by using her Magic Bubble on a much weaker level than its full potential, it did not really matter right now, she did save a pinch of chakra she could have used. That was not even the most troubling thing. Given how she had used Flower Petal Sanctuary multiple times in succession, the strain it would put on her body to use will eventually skyrocket. Even now, the next use may tire Mana more than any two of her other B-Rank techniques put together.

"Well, this has been pretty amusing... I'll have in mind the things you said about my children." Yamata could not keep his smirk off his face. Mana did not even notice the lower part of the snake-man's body morph into that of a white serpent while it launched the upper half of Yamata's body at Mana just like the other snakes lunged at their prey with their exposed fangs.

It was a clever way of attacking, had the roles been reversed, Mana would have been thoroughly amused by such an improvised assault, then again, knowing the age of the legendary creature, it had most likely used this method of attack for decades if not centuries. A thud followed by a shattering sound snapped Mana out of the lethargic dream of standing completely hypnotized by the astonishing speed of her opponent.