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

Gambling House Down

With a gust of wind that picked up rubble and dust, scattering them all around in a highly organized whirlwind, Usubane vanished completely. Mana's chakra sensory registered the rabbit high above, perhaps even at the very top of the Hanada gambling house. It was a taijutsu technique that Mana was familiar with and one that was in the handbook of any Konoha ninja as much as beginning to study taijutsu.

"Leaf Shadow Dance?" Mana wondered to herself. She rushed onward at a half-assed pace just to control her movements and stay close to the rabbit in case Usubane would need to be pulled out after extending too far. "I guess living so close to Konohagakure has rubbed off on her." The magician thought to herself.

"Hot Feet!" Usubane yelled out as she took a leap of faith and extended her feet downward in a sky-splitting foot-dive, aiming to drive them right into Honda's bulky chest. The rabbit's lower legs set ablaze halfway down, it was too difficult to tell if it was a natural occurrence or one caused by ninjutsu. The attack was not just successful but frighteningly so – Usubane's feet dug inside Honda's chest cavity, making blood of a very washed out and darkened color burst from the monster's chest together with unidentifiable, bright, purplish fluid.

Honda appeared to regain consciousness out of the sheer pain of his chest cavity opening up so suddenly. This was highly unlike any reaction Mana had witnessed before. The monster appeared an unstoppable juggernaut the entire time and simple taijutsu attacks should not have harmed him this much, not those ranked as low as Usubane's.

The frightening part was that the pain from the previous kick to the jaw had already forced Mana's novice illusion to be canceled. There was absolutely no effect on Honda's chakra network or his mental state and yet a simple stomp managed to do this much damage.

The force of the impact caused the giant's body to bounce off the ground and float weightlessly for just a moment but that moment was enough. Usubane's hands and her ears delivered a blinding combination of blows all over the monster's body, leaving nasty looking bumps in Honda's flesh similar to those that cookie dough had when someone punched them. The bumps also took a longer while to fill up and fix.

This time Usubane's body did not light up with flames but Mana did sense chakra at play. It was a very specific kind of sense where one's body lit up with pulses and signals of various sorts, chakra signatures always appeared like lights, flames or entire stars, depending on their size and when chakra was in play the burning or shining processes were drastically escalated. It was not something a novice sensor would pick up but Mana had advanced to the point where she could, most of the time.

The chakra augmentations Usubane used made her body tough, similarly to how chakra augmentations protected a body from taking too much damage every time one was hit by those unnaturally strong blows. Except Usubane appeared to use these endurance augmentations offensively, to stiffen up her blows and harden her body while she was on the offensive and not being hit, which additionally stressed out her system. It was relatively smart as this way of using these types of augmentations reduced the risk of ruining one's chakra network as it was nowhere near as stressful as coating oneself while one was being hit.

Usubane managed to send Honda shooting skyward, the rabbit, using her amazingly powerful lower body, followed up on her airborne opponent. Mana would not have risked it with this kind of pursuit, she made sure to use her Mystical Wings Jutsu to follow her rabbit partner in case she needed to be pulled out as the kunoichi expected Honda to just spontaneously pop back into his senses any time now.

This was especially likely now, when both combatants were airborne and dodging in close distance was near-impossible without some sort of ninjutsu technique to aid one with propelling themselves aside, like Mana's Mystical Wings may have, however this particular jutsu may have been too slow to help Mana evade Honda in time if such a need ever arose.