Kapitel 108: Ch108. Mei vs Kitsuha
Kitsuha landed on the spot where his second in command previously flared her chakra and instantly pulsed his own chakra outwardly, momentarily dispersing the steam in a small radius around him. This made Mei silently curse as she was caught off-guard and Kitsuha spotted her.
"It's the pipsqueak!" Kitsuha exclaimed as he pointed at Mei with a puzzled expression only for his eyes to show an understanding light a moment later as his expression scrunched to one of utter resentment and anger. "You! You are responsible for this! My glory! You ruined everything, bitch!" He shrieked in rage, not even noticing wisps of his chakra violently whipping around in reaction to his emotions.
Kitsuha was really enraged. This mission should have been his one-way ticket to being one of the most reputable ninjas of Iwagakure. It should have been easy as heck! And yet, his army was decimated by one little girl? He could not accept that lying down!
He didn't exclaim any death threats, however. Mei found herself facing his fist that was quickly approaching her face and only barely managed to use the flexibility beaten to her by Konan to arch her back into the bridge position, causing Kitsuha's fist to sail an inch above her belly. She knew there was no way to get away from Kitsuha by any physical means, so, with a quick Kawarimi, Kitsuha's second punch hit a half-melted corpse of Iwa ninja, burning him slightly as Mei appeared panting from exertion a few feet away.
Despite the rush she felt, Mei quickly joined her hands into a single hand seal. 'Water Release: Wet Beam.' She thought with a mild amount of embarrassment as the steam around her started to be absorbed to two spots on her right and left side, creating two growing balls of water that quickly enlarged into the size of a football ball and out of nowhere released two crushing torrents of water at Kitsuha.
Kitsuha didn't have even two seconds to react after Mei started her Jutsu. He only managed to raise an Earth Wall in front of him by slamming his palm into the ground, blocking the water's offense. Despite being blocked, the water flowed to the ground where it evenly redistributed and created a thin water surface on the ground.
Mei smirked at that. For the next Jutsu, she didn't need any hand sign. 'Water Release: Spiky Boo'. The small amount of water on the ground quickly gathered into small, sharp, and thin water spikes, aiming to impale Kitsuha who suddenly felt his feet to be pierced by something as pain flooded his brain and fear crept up his spine. It was only his reflexes as S-rank shinobi that enabled him to instinctively use Earth Release: Rock Skin to harden his skin. The water spikes started at first impaling his feet, only for bigger and longer water spikes to form and try to continuously impale the higher spots on the target's body. The Rock Skin Jutsu however prevented them from penetrating Kitsuha's skin so the only damage Mei's jutsu did was to injure Kitsuha's feet. It was only his pain tolerance that made Kitsuha able to stand but his ability to move was completely ruined.
Mei couldn't do a follow-up attack on Kitsuha who was suddenly a sitting duck. She had to jump forward as her senses suddenly alarmed her of an approaching sword. The feeling suddenly appeared and Mei wasn't about to question it which saved her from being pierced from the back as Kitsuha's second in command abruptly appeared behind Mei and went for a decisive blow.
Mei evaded and cursed as she saw the woman again meld into the steam and disappear from her senses. She was distracted and paid the price for it when she suddenly felt a searing heat closing in on her back. Mei only barely managed to pump as much of the mix of her suiton and doton chakra there to stop the damage as Kitsuha's spit of blob of lava impacted her back. Mei also jumped to the right, evading yet another slash from Kitsuha's second in command who thought she would be distracted enough by the lava.
"Graaah!" Kitsuha couldn't take it anymore and let out an enraged roar, attracting the attention of the two females, only for their eyes to bulge out as they felt his chakra build-up for a massive Jutsu.
"Fuck!" Kitsuha's second in command cursed in fright and disappeared again.
Mei frowned and decided to play it safe. She recognized the chakra mixture he was building up. It was yet another lava Jutsu. Fortunately for her, the buffoon didn't realize this was completely her expertise.
Kitsuha jumped up and spat out wave after wave of lava, covering hundreds of meters of the battlefield and killing a lot of his own unsuspecting ninjas while doing so. The waves of lava hit the ground, making it sizzle, sending white smoke to cover the area Kitsuha previously dissipated with pulsing his chakra. The surroundings were yet again full of thick white smoke, shooting the visibility to hell.
Mei just jumped a bit and used her lava-walking exercise to prevent herself from being covered by the waves of lava as she surfed on it until it slowed down enough to stand steadily. Mei smiled to herself. This gave her quite the much-needed advantage in this fight since Kitsuha clearly couldn't sense a shit in the mist and she didn't have that much of a problem facing his lava Jutsus.
'Damn...' Mei thought tiredly as she looked at her chakra levels. 'I'll have to end this quite fast since lava-walking takes a lot out of me and I have to continuously use suiton aura to prevent my own steam from burning me.'
The only consolation to Mei was feeling Kitsuha's chakra levels. The man had still more than her but it was dropping at a fast rate by protecting his body from the steam and using lava-walking. Not to mention...
Kitsuha went berserk. The massive failure of what he deemed to be an easy-going mission and the pain in his feet. It all stacked up until he couldn't help but blackout from sheer rage, instincts taking over. He started to shoot Lava Jutsu after Lava Jutsu all around. Large Fists made of Lava flew in every direction. Lava Bullets ripped through the mist. Animals made of Lava rose up and traversed the surroundings looking for the girl who messed his plans up. His chakra was depleting but he didn't care.
Mei didn't go to engage him. Instead, she decided to increase the distance between them, tracking his whereabouts with her senses every second. As she finally reached the four hundred meters mark away from Kitsuha, she smirked feeling another large fist of lava impact the ground a hundred meters in front of her. The heat was high and the steam was sent away by the shockwave only for white mist again to fill the air due to the searing heat released as the lava quickly cooled and hardened.
"Well, finally..." Mei mumbled as she felt every Iwa nin disappear from her senses sans Kitsuha. "Who would have thought he would kill his own men in the end. What a berserker." Mei quipped, making sure to stay steady as every time Kitsuha's attacks landed, the ground shook. Mei knew she would not win an honest one versus one against him. She knew it the second he started spitting an ocean of lava and seeing how little it drained him. She wasted too much chakra to create the steam to beat Kitsuha in one versus one... without cheating, that is. "At least my steam clones are finally finished."
Since she could not win honestly, it was time to go for a boom. When Kitsuha first jumped towards her, Mei mentally commanded five of her closest steam clones to her position and made them wait for an opportunity to strike. That plan went downhill the second Kitsuha's second in command showed she is capable of ending Mei with her sneak attacks. And when Kitsuha started using Lava, Mei changed her plan completely.
All nineteen of her steam clones gathered in the area around rampaging Kitsuha and started pulling the steam from the entirety of the clearing towards themselves, making it thicker and thicker... The white covering in the air rapidly receded from the edges of the clearing, the white mist engulfing the clearing slowly disappeared as it was dragged towards one particular area.
Mei watched as a hundred meters around Kitsuha became a thick white cloud ball while the clearing cleared of her steam since it all concentrated at her opponent who surprisingly enough, didn't react at all.
"I see... he is far too gone." Mei frowned, watching the occasional Lava Bullet or Fist to shoot out of the white cloud ball, making it ripple.
While Kitsuha's chakra expenditure increased exponentially due to how concentrated the steam was, this was not the end-game for Mei. The nineteen steam clones were made of her chakra. That meant she could manipulate them. Which meant she could change the properties of the steam too since her chakra was dispersed in it. She only needed a medium such as her clones to act as a proverbial 'middle man'. The clones started pulsing the chakra inside of them which made them quickly disperse into the steam. This chakra seeped into it and the ball of pure white slowly started changing to grey.
Mei smiled. The grey ball of steam was now perfectly flammable. She didn't even need to do anything as the second the change in the steam reached Kitsuha and his lava...
A loud booming explosion suddenly rattled the entire clearing, sending an earth-shattering earthquake through it as the surrounding mountains cracked, large rocks chipped off of them and fell to the ground while massive shockwaves spread through the land. Even Konan and Rei had to brace themselves and bend their knees, pushing their bodies against the large mass of wind that impacted them, hard, while their clothes were flapping in the strong winds, making their feet slid back on the grass. Mei didn't fare any better as she didn't even dare to think the resulting explosion would be so powerful and was sent rolling on the ground. Only Rei's string made it possible for him to keep Mei in the air until she managed to regain her bearing and twisted her body to land onto the ground with her feet and also brace herself for the strong shockwaves, groaning due to feeling all the bruises her quick but brutal roll on the ground gave her. Mei thanked whatever deity that watched over her that nothing was broken and knew well that only the chakra-strengthening prevented her organs from rupturing due to being so close when the shockwaves hit.
When the clearing finally stopped being ravaged by the aftereffects of the explosion, Mei let out a relieved sigh. The Kitsuha's chakra... disappeared. She wobbled towards a slightly battered Rei who grinned at her with a thumbs-up and Konan who growled and glared at her, most likely due to the last attack. Mei confidently stuck her chest out and stood in front of her teachers waiting for their final evaluation despite feeling like flinching and running for her life as she heard the silent growl of Konan.
"Good job. I will admit I never expected you to succeed and we were prepared to jump in whenever necessary but you proved me wrong. Color me surprised." Rei praised Mei, patting her head which made her deflate and giddily hug him around his waist.
Konan didn't feel generous, however. Her hair was all tangled mess and her clothes were ripped in various places due to the shockwaves but when Mei's expectant eyes looked at her, even she couldn't bring herself to scold the girl. "Yes, you did fine. Now..." Konan smiled menacingly and gestured at her torn attire. "you earned yourself some more of my personally supervised torture." She ominously said as her eye twitched, telling just how furious she was.
"You mean training, Konan-nee?" Mei squeaked, trying to appear small.
"Oh, no... nope. I mean what I said." Konan innocently replied, making Mei jump behind Rei for protection from the demon who wanted to torture her.
"Stop it, girls." Rei chuckled at their antics. "Let's go, we are leaving. We gotta have a serious talk with Tsu before finishing the second part of our mission."
Konan's demeanor instantly changed from glaring at Mei to a completely serious one, causing Mei to sigh in relief as she clutched the back of Rei's shirt in her small hands.
"Are you sure?" Konan asked while narrowing her eyes and for a second, flickered them over a certain area in the clearing. Rei however just uncaringly shrugged and nodded.
"Let it go. It's better this way anyway. I can't wait how much headache this would cause to Mizukage if it really goes as I think it would." He said reassuringly and before long, the trio was yet again on their way to Konoha.
It was only half an hour after they left the clearing, the spot on the ground to which Konan previously glanced rippled as Kitsuha's second in command slowly emerged from the earth. She had some mild burns all over her and was drenched in sweat but she was alive. Her heart pounded despite the fight being long over as she helplessly fell on her face, her chakra completely drained. She barely had enough to stay alive as it was.
It didn't take long for the sole survivor of the previous battle to faint.
Kapitel 109: Ch109. Warning
Tsunade barged into the office of the Hokage only to find herself under two sets of eyes as the discussion between Danzo and Hiruzen abruptly ceased. She wasn't deterred much under their scrutiny, not really caring about their opinion of her barging in. Instead, she just walked towards the couch into which she lazily flopped before speaking. "Don't mind me. Finish your gossiping, old folks. I can wait." She waved her hand lazily in a dismissive manner, enjoying how their eyes twitched.
Danzo was livid. The Senju brat just interrupted a very important meeting. He wanted to get some clan ninjas to his ROOT but Hiruzen was vehemently against it. Danzo knew he would eventually persuade the old monkey. He always did. The usual schtick of 'I do it in the shadows and you pretend you didn't see' always worked. In truth, he already had a few 'lost' clan females strapped to a table with the sole purpose of breeding more clan kids. He would give these kids to orphanages owned by him, naturally not the ones inside of Konoha, and then, when the kids are older, he would take them back into ROOT, getting rid of weak and bad seeds while nurturing those strong and resilient ones. Needless to say, these females he managed to kidnap would not leave their current 'accommodations' for a long, long time. He also had quite a bit of clan males being trained but those were in significantly lesser numbers since kidnapping a female for breeding was easier than kidnapping and persuading a male to serve him. They usually got aggressive and had to be put down. All Danzo needed was to make Hiruzen give him okay for having clan ninjas in ROOT and he would be able to not fear being persecuted when he reveals these clan ninjas he had. At that time, nobody would look how they came to be nor would they have any right to. Danzo sure as hell would make sure of that by having the council set some laws in place. Laws that individually might not even make sense but together would create a perfect shield for this operation of his. And yet, when he was almost done persuading Hiruzen, the Senju brat just barged in and fucked up four hours of his persuasion efforts!?
Hiruzen just watched how his friend huffed in anger, something he didn't see Danzo do for two decades at the very least, and walked away from his office while glaring murderously at Tsunade. He was aware that Danzo probably wanted more than just a 'few willing clan shinobi for his ROOT' as he put it but for all the smarts he had, Hiruzen couldn't really figure out what was his old friend's end goal.
Instead, Hiruzen looked at Tsunade and with a tired sigh, greeted her. "Hello, Tsunade. What can I do for you?" He tried to ignore the broken door and thanked heavens for sending his ANBU away before Danzo came in. It could have been bloody otherwise. Not that he believed his ANBU would be stupid enough to come into Tsunade's path when she is in a mood to smash things.
"I came to warn you." Tsunade plainly stated as she looked at the pictures of her Grandfather and Granduncle with fondness. Hiruzen wanted to bloom in a full-blown smile when he saw it but her next words chilled him to the bone. "Kiri is planning a full offensive to the northern shores of the Land of Fire." She said as if it didn't even matter.
Hiruzen's mouth opened as a thousand thoughts swirled in his mind. He had no idea what to think about that. It was plausible. Probable. Possible, even. As a plan... if Mizukage did what Tsunade just said he was planning to do, 'It could spell the end of Konohagakure.' Hiruzen realized in horror.
"Why do you think so?" He carefully asked Tsunade. If it was true, now was not the time to panic. It was time to act and plan accordingly to this new information. "You surely have some proof. Jiraiya's spy network spans every single nation. He has spies even in the Land of Earth but no report of Kiri forces planning to attack our country was received."
"Well, duh." Tsunade deadpanned. "The Mizukage is much smarter than you think yourself to be, Sen-sei." She said in a sing-song tone. "I am sure Jiraiya informed you I lived some time in Kirigakure. I have a few... friends there." She deliberately stopped, letting Sarutobi digest what he just heard. "And they informed me. Believe me or not, that's not my problem. I gave you the intel I had and that's where it ends for me." Tsunade stood up and shrugged. "Anyway, I'll return to the hospital." She said before marching out of the broken door, ignoring Sarutobi calling her name.
Rei wanted her to alert Konoha. To be honest, Tsunade didn't really have much fondness for the village itself. It could burn for all she cared. The possessions of her clan were already stored safely in Rei's dimension and she didn't much care for the lands. After all, even if Konoha burned to the ground, the lands would still belong to the Senju clan. The clan money was also in the bank, not in the village itself. As for her Grandfather's wish? She could care less what one idealistic fool wanted. The village was corrupt and twisted. The village higher-ups were responsible for the extinction of the Senju clan. Tsunade was only curious how her grandfather would react to hearing this. Sure, he wanted peace but he was a Senju. The family went first, no matter what angle one looked at it. Tsunade had no doubt Hashirama-jii would burn the village down himself if it saved the Senju clan.
'I just wonder why Rei wants Konoha to survive. Sure... if it fell, there would be a power vacuum and the war would probably considerably lengthen. By now, the villages are going on fumes and one to two years should be enough to end the war but is it really worth it? We could maneuver better if there is a war among nations...' Tsunade thought in confusion. Rei informed her he would defect from Kiri and as such, it would be easier for him to do whatever he wanted to do while Kiri was preoccupied with war. Tsunade had no idea why he wanted to alert Konoha to something that could be a fatal attack. 'Well, he probably has his own plans.' She shrugged, deciding to just go along with it.
At the same time, the Hokage was cradling his head, for the first time since the start of the war not knowing what to do. If Tsunade was right, then this was a major threat to the village. He would also have to re-evaluate the Mizukage... something he didn't want to admit he was wrong about. Alas, he didn't really have much of a choice. If he believed Tsunade or not, he was grateful she alerted him and it made his heart warm that his student still cared for the village and its people. Since she returned, she was completely cold and uncaring. Especially during the Council Meetings. At times, he wondered if she was a Nara as she often just laid her head on the table or tended to her polished nails, not really listening to what they discussed. Her most likely reply to any question was, 'Don't care, do whatever...' and it really worried Hiruzen.
But he was unable to complain since the civilians and ninjas alike utterly loved her. If he decided to give her the hat, he knew the village would burst into celebrations despite being in the middle of the war. Tsunade was just that good of a medic. Every single clan had many fatally wounded people she somehow saved. Nobody except Tsunade had even an inkling how but they clearly lived past something that should have killed them. Tsunade was always cordial towards people and never acted high and mighty... she was a Senju, after all. This made the civilians love her despite her bitchy attitude when it came to scolding people who didn't listen to her medical advice. For people, it was just a sign that she cared and while they always left the hospital grumbling under their noses, they appreciated it. Tsunade Senju was a legend before she left the village. But now that she returned? She didn't even need to enter the battlefield, something that irked many, and despite that, she became one of the biggest heroes of this war. The number of lives she saved... Hiruzen really couldn't complain about her acting like an utter bitch to him and anyone on the Council. Sadly, that was also the sole reason why he was unable to pass the hat to her. He feared the Council would be dismantled sooner rather than later if that happened and he could not in good conscience do that.
"Tsunade... why can't you be a cute and obedient girl like you were as a genin?" He groaned and banged his forehead on his table while pressing a button under it to call his ANBU. Not a second later, four people appeared kneeling in front of his desk.
"Hokage-sama." They chorused.
"Three of you back into your positions, Owl, wait until I write a message for Jiraiya. I will need you to deliver it... discreetly." Hiruzen said, not bothering to wait for a reply. He took his pipe out of the drawer before starting to smoke as he wrote new orders for his spymaster. It was high time to get a better look at the actions of Kirigakure.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
200+ Power-
Rangliste 
13 Power-
Stein 
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