Ch127. Mei vs Minato

"Yo, you look like shit." Minato, who was still gasping for air on all four, heard an amused feminine voice not far from him, causing his head to snap up only to see a teenage girl crouching five feet away from him.

'How the hell did I not notice her sneak up on me?' He idly thought, his mind mostly blank after three hours of non-stop flashing and killing. He might have spent only half of his chakra in doing so but the amount of stress his mind and body were under was quite immense and Minato would like nothing more than to drop into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness right about now. Alas, it was not to be.

Minato took one deep breath before forcefully calming his gasping for air, pulling himself first onto his knees before sluggishly standing up, almost falling down multiple times while doing so, causing him to circulate his chakra through his body, energizing it. The girl just watched him with barely veiled enjoyment, making him quite disgruntled.

Only now did Minato take a proper look at her. She had black shorts, blue haori with a flowery pattern, and on her forehead was slashed Kiri symbol, showing her status as nuke-nin. Obviously, she was not clad for war, much less fight which made Minato slightly hesitate.

"Who are you and what do you want?" He asked, stalling for time and trying to appear fine while still working on getting his body combat-ready.

Mei frowned but as soon as the frown appeared, it again disappeared into the amused facade with a slight smile. "Haaa~, whatever. Forget it. You are wasted. I doubt I could get a good challenge from you as you are now." She reluctantly said, making Minato relax a bit.

Despite that, he was inwardly quite amused. 'Fight? This girl wants to fight me? She isn't very bright, is she?' He thought while keeping his polite expression up, not commenting at the field of hundred corpses that died by his hand all around them. If that was not enough deterrent for the girl in front of him, then he could only pray her stupidity won't one day be the end of her. 'Oh who am I kidding... of course morons like that die first.' Minato inwardly snickered.

"Well, since I obviously won't get the fight I wanted, I guess taking a few kunais with your seal for research purposes will have to do." The girl boredly stated and stood up, about to leave.

'Wait... taking my seal? Oh, no, girlie, you don't-' Minato was about to protest when Mei suddenly raised her arm and her forearm blocked a surprise kick from one of the Konoha jonin who came to help him... after three hours of gawking. 'Great.' Minato mentally snorted.

Mei raised her eyebrow as the Konoha jonin tried to push her arm back with his strength only to fail horribly at it. She didn't even budge. "Heh, looks like I will get the fight I wanted, after all." She happily said, causing Minato to groan.

Kunais and shurikens suddenly flew at Mei from behind Minato as the Konoha ninjas finally decided to intervene. Minato saw the projectiles hit the girl and inwardly shook his head. She was not his enemy, more like a stupid annoyance but still, he didn't like meaningless killing. Contrary to his expectations, the second the sharp projectiles came into contact with Mei, they ricocheted from her as if they hit steel while Mei still stood in her previous spot, now scowling at the approaching Konoha ninjas without even scratch on her body.

'Uh, oh...' Minato thought as he contemplated when and what Jutsu did she use. He certainly didn't see her use anything and that was bad. Incredibly bad at that. He prepared for yet another exhausting fight. sensing all the seal beacons on his kunais strewn all around.

Mei tilted her head, letting a kunai with an exploding tag sail harmlessly an inch from her cheek, passing her and later exploding far away behind her as she stared with impassive eyes at the Konoha idiots. For three hours they just waited until the yellow flashlight finished Iwa troops, not even pondering about helping him and now when there is only one, probable, foe, they charge at her with five hundred of them? Throwing weapons without even ascertaining if she is an enemy or not? 'Somebody needs to be properly taken down a peg, I guess.' Mei's eyes shone with determination.

The first to run her was a screaming twenty years old man who was waving his hand holding a kunai at her. Mei kicked him into the stomach, making him fly back from where he came running from, still screaming.

The entire field fell into a pin-drop silence at once.

"You didn't really think I would not retaliate, did you?" Mei rolled her eyes at the men staring at her as if she grew a new head.

They quickly snapped out of their reverie and again charged at her and the battle started anew. Minato watched as Jutsu after Jutsu, Weapon after Weapon impacted Mei's body only to be deflected the second it came into contact with her while inflicting no wound whatsoever.

Mei danced amidst the flurry of strikes, fire, water, earth, and weapons, using only taijutsu to break bones and tear muscles with a quick succession of punches. After Konan's trademark clone training, Mei had incredible spatial awareness and it showed.

Leaning back, she evaded a sword, grasping the hand of her would-be attacker before throwing him into three ninjas running at her. She then sent a bigger than needed amount of chakra into her soles, propelling herself into a jump only to land in the middle of five bewildered Konoha ninjas. Using her momentum from the jump, Mei quickly lowered her center of gravity by crouching down and dropping them off their feet with a sweeping kick.

Minato just watched as a ninja after the ninja was downed with broken bones and decided that enough was enough. Feeling for the closest beacon seal near Mei, he teleported in a yellow flash.

Mei suddenly felt her instincts flare, not as if she was threatened but more annoyed when she tilted her head to the right and raised her eyebrow as she spotted the tip of Minato's kunai an inch from her neck, a visible strain appearing on the blond-haired man's face as he tried to plunge the knife deeper with all his might and his wide eyes betrayed how unbelievable he found the situation.

Mei smirked. "Did you really think you could sneak attack me? I wanted to fight you to properly show you how easily countered your technique is. Naturally, I have a way to deal with it." She rolled her eyes, causing Minato to narrow his.

A completely new battle began. Minato was flashing from kunai to kunai while trying to cut, pierce, kick, and even plant an explosive tag on Mei while Mei didn't even try to dodge his strikes and instead focused on trying to punch him.

'She has some kind of wind barrier around herself? My attacks are completely useless!' Minato mentally exclaimed, distressed as he watched the previously planted explosive tag explode and engulf Mei in a fiery ball for a second before only smoke remained. He would cheer if he wasn't such an experienced sensor. A few seconds later, Mei just walked out of the smoke, completely fine in a pristine condition. 'Shit... Not even a smear is on her clothes.' Minato gaped, thinking about how to defeat her. He was starting to feel the hits the girl scored on him... and couldn't help but inwardly praise her instincts and speed. He could almost feel the nasty purple bruises he would surely feel tomorrow. Surprisingly enough, Minato didn't really get the feeling of dread from the girl. She was not fighting to kill, she was acting as if this was a harmless spar!

'Who the heck is this monster?' The Konoha ninjas thought, cowed.

Mei mentally nodded to herself, happy with the result. Her new Jutsu was incredible. 'Listening to Rei's stories about Susanoo with Ringo really paid off.' Mei slightly smiled. 'Even those boring science lessons were useful.' She admitted with disgust as she thought about them.

Mei just used her Boil Release to form a translucent smoke around her entire body, compressed to the thickness of an inch. The smoke would normally cover the entire clearing... simply there was enough of it to stop even a powerful A-ranked Jutsu without letting it penetrate deep enough to even scratch Mei.

"Well, this was fun and all but now that I know my Jutsu is working and you really can't even scratch me... Mei is out!" And with that, white smoke burst from under Mei, covering the entire battlefield but quickly dissipating.

When the smoke cleared, Mei was gone, leaving flabbergasted and confused Konoha ninjas with their uniforms painted in unwashable bright pink color and pensive Minato with neon green hair contrasting with his cerulean eyes that flashed with shocked understanding.

'Did she just call herself Mei?'

---

Author rant time!

Nothing interesting here so just skip it!

Okay, so I have read some comments about the previous chapter and this is the reaction.

The first thing I will cover is the timeframe because there was a dude having a problem with the fight lasting for 3 hours and wanted to reduce the time to 30 minutes.

I mean... I feel you, mate. I get it. Just... I did the math, alright?

The previous chapter probably made it clear I do not believe Minato to just flash himself and the Iwa shinobi to fall dead from shock in under a second.

So... why 3 hours? Simple. 1 hour is 3 600 seconds. If the fight lasted 30 minutes, it would be 1 800 seconds which would on the other hand mean Minato would have to kill one person in under 2 seconds. I honestly do not believe he could manage that. Just swinging his arm to stab or cut with his kunai would AT THE VERY LEAST take a second. And I am extremely generous here considering the Iwa ninjas did NOT just stand waiting for their deaths. Yeah, some died without even realizing it because Minato was fast but, in the end, they were high-ranking ninjas. Most certainly had the reflexes enough to block Minato at least a few times. No... 3 hours or 10.8 seconds per person seemed more manageable.

In this fight, Minato used the confusion of their enemies against them. Some say, 'Why were Iwa ninjas so stupid and simply did not do something about the kunais!?' My answer... confusion, chaos, and this was the first time Minato used the Second Step of his Thunder God. Minato was one small target moving at barely noticeable speeds in the midst of thousands. Any general would be hard-pressed to do anything about it. What order could Iwa commander give when Minato was in one moment on the right flank of his force and in another on the left? Retreat... that is about it. Then again, Iwa ninjas are supposed to be too stubborn for their own good. After all, what could one single ninja do?

Minato might be SS-rank. But just take into consideration that he is a human too and that Thunder God is not Henge. Using it consecutively over thousand times ( because if he could not get a kill, he would obviously flash away to another person, not try to fight somebody capable of blocking him while surrounded by high-ranking enemies ) would simply drain his chakra. I honestly believe his chakra coils would burst if he tried to do that. I do think human bodies have a certain limit and using a high-ranking teleportation technique in a short time a few thousand times would probably make a mince-meat out of anyone who didn't spend YEARS training it. (That is also my faux reason why I simply do not make use of the Self-storing seal in fights. Other than it would make them a bit boring if I just had my characters use the seal as Thunder God. )

The best example would probably be the death of Tobirama. He was probably strength-wise the closest thing to Hashirama there was in his time. I am not saying he got to Hashirama's level. Far from it. But he was close. Just remember all the techniques he invented on top of his water Jutsu. And yet, he died fighting around twenty (not sure if I am correct about the number but it is not a big number) of JONINs. They simply tired him out.

So...

Yeah, what Minato did here was incredibly impressive and worthy of calling him an SS-rank legend. I just took into consideration the limits of his body, mind, and chakra reserves because he DEFINITELY has those.

People are like: BUT MADARA-SAMA!!!!!

And I say: Fuck Madara, he was reanimated with limitless chakra. Naturally, he could use the army-wipe fire technique without worry because he simply, had no limit in how much chakra he could feed it.

Honestly, I doubt the Gokka Mekkyaku would be army-wipe in the hands of ANY other Uchiha or even 'living' Madara simply because there would be a limit to their chakra reserve. If you look at Sasuke, he is mostly using technique and skill rather than bombard his enemies with a massive amount of energy like Naruto is prone to do.

Now... I am going to address how a 'small girl' handed Minato his ass because I know some would be like: Duuuude! Why Minato lost to Mei!? Are you Minato-hater!?

I am going to give yet another simple example here... Naruto.

Naruto managed to get from utter loser to almost Kaguya level in four years and that was without any capable teacher. (Nope, Jiraya sucks. We all know it, most just refuse to admit it.)

As much as I like Jiraya's character, he is NOT teacher material. Jiraya is inherently a ninjutsu-based fighter... as is Naruto. And yet, in the years together, he only taught Naruto taijutsu basics and how to make Rasengan bigger. NOT. A. SINGLE. JUTSU!

The man didn't even tell Naruto the secret of Shadow Clones... ( Now, we all know this is a fault of Kishimoto because, at this stage, Kishimoto most likely didn't even know he would introduce such broken mechanics to Shadow Clones, nor did he want to make Naruto someone throwing Ninjutsu around but the perspective of a reader is different from the perspective of a writer )

So... in the end, Jiraya sucks. And no, I am not even taking into consideration how he abandoned Naruto. As much as I like Jiraya's character in the show, I don't think he is a good teacher, parent, or even that he deserves Tsunade. Just look at how he behaves and acts. The man is one big comedy relief.

So back to the topic, compare Mei to Naruto or Sasuke. Mei has two SS-rank ninjas teaching her since she was a little kid. Two ninjas who simply do not use the traditional way of using jutsu as the normal ninjas do. With the introduction of nature energy, ninjutsu and body get stronger. But most importantly, the elementary BLOODLINES get an extraordinary boost to their power, not to mention they taught her to be creative with her Jutsu rather than just... spit at her enemies. (Because honestly? That's all the canon Mei does. She just spits lava or acidic steam on her enemy and that's it.)

Mei, under such tutelage, and yes, they DO spar quite regularly, had around 6 years to get strong enough to beat Minato with relative ease, using a direct counter to his Thunder God Jutsu. Minato... could always simply flash away, making the fight draw. Also, take into consideration Mei is taught by a Sealmaster of a higher calibre than Minato. Naturally, Rei taught her a few ways to fight seal-users.

Naruto who had no-one, or Sasuke who was mentally impaired, got to almost-Kaguya level in under four years with an unhealthy amount of plot armor. So... please, do not moan and bitch about Mei getting to her level through diligent training under strong people.

The last thing I want to rant about is the strength classification. I am not entirely sure but I think there was one comment about: How can Mei who is chunin-level beat Minato!? (Yeah... not sure if the context was exactly like this but it is a good example to explain some things so...)

First and foremost, I sometimes use terms, 'genin-level, chunin-level' etc. This is stupid of me but I simply find myself using it sometimes without even realizing it.

Why is it stupid? Genin, Chunin, and Jonin are military ranks in the village. They do not showcase the strength of an individual, just his ability to climb ranks. Simply, if somebody is chunin level with a good connection, I think he probably could get into Jonin rank even if he was not exactly at that level yet. Same with wartime promotions.

Another example... Naruto was genin when he fought Kaguya, Pein, Madara...

So Mei being chunin on paper doesn't mean she can not be stronger than Jonins. It simply means she hid her strength well enough to not get a wartime promotion.

If you look deeper, you will realize the Narutoverse uses D-SS ranks for the strength of the ninjas (Bingo Book) but it feels a bit wonky using it in fiction, hence, genin/chunin/jonin-level. The only rank that probably gives sense is S-rank because, at that stage, the person proved he or she deserves such ranking through actions rather than promotions that could be based on connections.

Last example... Naruto should have been chunin after defeating Gaara but he was not the most likeable person in the eyes of the Konoha higher-ups (Danzo and civilian council) so he stayed a Genin even after defeating Nagato and saving the village. Sucks to be him...

Anyway, I could go on and on but I think here is the best part to cut myself short so I will just say...

Have a nice day.