Ch144. Practical Training 2
"Lightning Release: Lightning Susanoo Armor."
Streams of crackling blue lightning continuously fell from the sky, connecting with the tip of Ringo's raised sword. Every time a stream fell, a loud booming sound and strong shockwave followed, sending Duy who was close flying back and forcing the members of the Kiri Seven Swordsmen to leap back and brace themselves to not be blown away.
It was Raiga Kurosuki who first noticed what was happening. The natural lightning that should have dispersed after falling from the sky, actually gathered around Ringo, wrapping itself around her body while becoming more concentrated. He knew she was doing some kind of insane and powerful Lightning Jutsu, a Jutsu that would instantly kill even him, the best Lightning User of Kirigakure. That's why he wanted to stop her...
The other members of the seven noticed a bit later and instantly wanted to disrupt Ringo but the shockwaves were too strong. No matter what they did, they were kept at bay, gritting their teeth in frustration and watching as the natural lightning started to become visible and shape up into a pulsing blue fiery aura.
Five seconds passed and the blue aura started slowly solidifying, creating electric-blue samurai armor on Ringo made of natural lightning held together and shaped by lightning chakra. She looked as if she was armored in mini-Susanoo, only two intense electric-blue orbs shining from the fearsome helmet.
Dropping down the arm with the sword she used as a lightning rod, Ringo mumbled. "I still have to train a lot to do this instantaneously." She was really disappointed with the time it took her to create the armor coating.
Her brown eyes turned electric-blue as a side-effect of pulling unadulterated Nature Energy into the lightning chakra armor. It made the armor stronger but also allowed her to enter something Rei called pseudo Sage Mode. Instead of balancing the Nature energy with the chakra in her body, Rei said she is balancing the Nature Energy in her armor made of natural lighting with the chakra in her body while her lightning chakra was holding it all together. To get that right was quite the pain in the ass. After all, it was impossible to do it normally. It was Rei who found the solution to that little problem after a month of researching...
Duy was flabbergasted to the core when he recognized what he was watching. The woman in front of him half-opened all of her inner gates! Shuddering fright washed over him as his bushy eyebrows disappeared in his hairline. Never once would he imagine it was possible to open an inner gate half-way and use it to perform a Jutsu!
Duy's fright only increased when the armored form of Ringo half-turned towards him and the electric-blue intense orbs landed on his small frame. Ringo looked at him for a second before speaking. "Run along towards the team you saved. This will get messy fast and you are frankly in the way."
Duy had no idea how to react to that but his fear was instantly suppressed when after hearing her speak about his son. He jumped up, "YOUTH!" and started running in the direction his son's team left.
All seven members of the Kiri Swordsmen and Ringo deadpanned at the green blur.
'And just like that, the green screaming weirdo lives on to spread Youth-induced heart attacks all over Konoha.' Ringo sighed. 'According to Rei, having two of them in one village might just be the thing that could finish the village off at a later date. Nevertheless, I am a bit disappointed if that was the best Genjutsu user of Konoha. He didn't even use his unbreakable Youth Genjutsu Rei praised so much.' She shook her head in disappointment with a relaxed posture but the corner of her eye already stalked her first prey.
Fuguki Suikazan only barely managed to raise Samehada in order to block Ringo's slash who just appeared in front of him without any telling sign.
'Shit! Her speed was enhanced to such a degree!?' He thought in a slight panic as sparks flew from the spot where Samehada met Ringo's nameless chakra blade covered in a bluish fiery aura that occasionally crackled with lightning.
The panic quickly subsided however as he realized they were almost matched when it came to strength. That was a big surprise too though. He was considered to be one of the physically most able in the Kiri Seven Swordsmen. After all, wielding a greatsword required a great deal of strength. So the former wielder of Kiba blades, swords that needed agility and flexibility instead of strength, was quite surprising.
Fuguki flashed the bored Ringo a brief grin as he saw his comrades react and jump towards Ringo. They were still a bit far away but... 'Hah, touching Samehada with a sword covered in chakra? This woman really learned nothing during her brief stay as one of the Seven!'
There was a reason why Kiba wielder never fought against Samehada wielder. There was just no way to parry or block a sword that sucked chakra when one was relying on coating his swords in chakra.
The fiery lightning aura around Ringo's blade instantly vanished and Fuguki's grin widened. He did not notice that Ringo already let go of that sword which made him a bit late in seeing her second blade approaching his waist. When he finally spotted it, he could only move Samehada's handle to the left, blocking Ringo's second sword with it.
'Fuck, even handle can suck chakra!?' Ringo inwardly cursed as she felt the chakra in her sword quickly disappearing and let go of her remaining sword.
Samehada was now positioned horizontally in front of her at the level of her head since Fuguki was a giant of a man and she only reached his chest. He was fully grinning at her with a mocking gaze at the now disarmed woman. He could not believe how easily he forced her to abandon her weapons! In his opinion, she was the biggest shame of the Kiri Seven Swordsmen!
"Ha! You got rust-"
And Ringo who was still clad in the Lightning Susanoo Armor simply willed her lightning chakra to make the natural concentrated lightning extend from her palm and a shining blue sword made out of natural lightning appeared in her left hand in a split second.
Instead of attacking, Ringo just swiftly positioned the back of her sword in the middle of Samehada's handle, between Fuguki's hands that were holding the upper and lower part of the long handle of the greatsword. Her right hand also flashed and another sword made of concentrated natural lightning appeared.
Chill ran up Fuguki's spine. No wonder she let herself be disarmed if she could create lightning swords at will! He knew he had to do something and since the back of her lightning sword was connecting with Samehada's handle...
Samehada hissed in pain as it tried to suck chakra out of the sword. Ringo's blade however just slightly shimmered. Unlike the fiery lightning aura that coated the blades from chakra metal, her current created swords were mostly made of natural lightning held together by Ringo's lightning chakra like the rest of her armor. Samehada managed to eat up the lightning chakra but all Ringo had to do was keep supplying the sword with more and more of it to make it keep the shape while Samehada was getting constantly zapped as it tried to eat the chakra.
Needless to say, it didn't take even a split of a second for Samehada to refuse to eat the chakra. Fuguki could force it but at that point, he had other problems. While he tried to make Samehada eat the chakra from the lightning sword, Ringo slashed the sword in her right hand at his neck in a piercing move.
Assessing his situation, Fuguki quickly realized he had only two options. He could not evade while holding Samehada because of the sword hooked around the middle of Samehada's handle. Refusing to be disarmed, he went for the other one... offense.
Letting go of Samehada's upper part of its handle with his right hand and at the same time, pulling his left hand that held the handle on the lower part back, Fuguki smashed Samehada into Ringo's unprotected left side without any obstruction since the sword in Ringo's was still hooked around the middle of Samehada's handle.
Fuguki's eyes widened when Ringo didn't even budge from the force of Samehada's blade slamming into her.
His plan was simple, shred into her left side and send her flying away, freeing Samehada and creating distance. But Ringo didn't move even an inch. The Lightning Susanoo Armor on her left side was shimmering not unlike the lightning blade, just on a bigger scale while Samehada was shrieking in horrific pain, trying to wiggle away from the armor of natural lightning covering Ringo. Even the enlarged spikes that covered her whole left side and were supposed to shred her couldn't even pierce through the armor!
Fuguki didn't have much time since Ringo's sword was almost upon his neck... His left hand let go and he jumped back while Samehada finally disconnected from Ringo's armor and fell on the ground next to her, wheezing in pain while smoke was rising from between its scales.
Ringo smirked at Fuguki who was looking at her with immense rage and a bit of humiliation at being disarmed in a four-second-long exchange. Ringo didn't have much time to gloat, however. The other six members of the Seven were already upon her, their swords slashing, piercing, and stabbing into her figure with a loud clang, or boom in case of Shibuki... but their wielders' ferocious winning grins disappeared when her armor blocked all of their attacks without even leaving a scratch on the armor.
"Well, so much for that..." Ringo amusedly quipped and pulsed the chakra in the lightning swords she held.
A split second later, the swords burst into a large energy wave that slammed into the six swordsmen surrounding her and sent them flying back at breakneck speed while the lightning swords dissolved.
Fuguki hatefully watched as his associates were flung away and Ringo casually bent down, picking Samehada up by its handle. Samehada tried to pierce her hand with some spikes but again, they could not penetrate the armor covering Ringo's hand and one fast zap made the sword very obedient.
Ringo, with a gleeful smile, pulled out a special stasis storage scroll given to her by Rei. Normal storage scrolls could not store living things, hence, Samehada or any other of the Seven Swords, for that matter, could not be stored, no matter if they possessed sentience or not. Hence, this feat required special high-level fuinjutsu.
Fuguki could only helplessly watch as Ringo stored Samehada and put the scroll into her pocket, all the while she stared straight at him with a mirthful gaze.
'Haaaa~, why is he glaring at me so much? I am a ninja, not some honorable samurai who would throw the blade you dropped back to you. I would naturally take the only thing that could possess any sort of danger in this fight out of the equation as soon as possible. Does he even realize this is basically one versus seven?' Ringo thought, resisting a strong urge to shake her head in disappointment at him.
Her armor didn't take much chakra since she only had to hold the natural lightning together. But once Samehada started eating the chakra from a large area, she had to quickly resupply it and... Just the single second when Samehada was connected with her left side cost her two percent of her whole reserves.
'There is no way I would leave such a weapon in the hands of my enemies.' Ringo sighed as she connected two chakra strings with the handles of her nameless chakra-metal blades on the ground and pulled them back into her grip, coating them in her Lightning Susanoo Armor which made them many times sharper and tougher. She only started with the Fiery Lightning Aura coating her blades at the start of her fight against Fuguki to goad him into a false sense of security when she dropped her blades, after all.
'Well then...' Ringo's eyes flashed in giddiness when she saw Fuguki taking out an ordinary greatsword from a storage scroll while the other six members of the Kiri Seven Swordsmen stood up and prepared for a fight, 'Let's start the real testing of my new technique!'