Ch113. Northern Shores 3

Both Konoha and Kiri ninja armies hurled ranged Jutsu and weaponry at each other. Kiri ninjas tried to get to land while Konoha ones were fervently doing everything in their capabilities to prevent precisely that.

Unfortunately for Kiri troops, what the Third Mizukage had in terms of talent for large scale tactics, he lacked in the actual commanding aspect. The man could manipulate the entire war with just a few deployment orders and feint troops movements but when it came to him leading men into battle...

That's why despite Kiri forces being four times larger, they were still kept at bay, wasting chakra by having to walk on the water. The battle progressed and both sides started losing people due to the ranged attacks.

The Mizukage was starting to contemplate retreat as he saw the incredibly disadvantageous deadlock for his army but then finally some of his soldiers reached the land. He felt overjoyed at the opportunity to turn the tables only for his hopes to crash down when his ninjas on the land who focused mostly on securing an easier passage through the hail of fireballs, kunais, shurikens, and explosive tags, were surprised by the earth turning into swamp courtesy of Jiraiya.

The problem of Kiri forces was that while numerous, they had only a very few of their forces fighting and those in the backlines had nothing to do due to being unable to get in range. In short, they were stuck.

Finally, Himeno had enough and temporarily took command, ordering the Kiri ninjas to spread which changed the entire battle. The Mizukage would protest if he didn't know he brought her exactly for that. To cover his shitty commanding.

Instead of trying to rush through the focused ranged attacks of the enemy, the Kiri forces spread out to the left and right, taking advantage of their numbers. It didn't take long for some of them, mostly these furthest to the right or left, to finally reach land without much resistance as Konoha forces couldn't spread out enough to cover the sides due to insufficient numbers.

The battle on the land started.

As the Konoha and Kiri forces finally reached the state of both fighting in more melee combat, the Third Mizukage engaged in a battle with the Third Hokage while Himeno was intercepted by a woman around twenty years old with long red hair.

The Third Hokage spun his staff, trying to hit the Third Mizukage with fast-paced and powerful swipes while the Third Mizukage flowingly dodged like an expert dancer, bending his body in ways to most thought impossible while occasionally hurling hidden senbons with incredibly powerful poison at the Third Hokage from his sleeves or blocking the staff with the sword he held. After all, Kirigakura was heavily invested in swordsmanship so the Third Mizukage was naturally good at handling swords despite being more of an assassin than anything else.

Their fight was very fast-paced and the Third Mizukage made sure to limit the Third Hokage by fighting near Konoha ninjas, causing the old monkey to be unable to use strong and destructive ninjutsu. Despite this massive advantage, the Third Hokage has shown the exact reason why he was called the God of Shinobi. The Third Mizukage was being pushed back... horribly so.

There were no interruptions to talk nor any condescending insults. The battle started and continued being completely silent, both men focusing only on murdering the other with precise brutality of their strikes. Not one sweep of the Third Hokage's staff was aimed at a non-vital place. Not one counter-slash from the Third Mizukage would not be fatal if it hit despite him being pressured. Both were exchanging a flurry of strikes, slashes, blocks, parries moving across the battlefield while ignoring the general chaos of Jutsu, summoning animals, and weaponry with exploding tags flying around as the two armies clashed. Muscles ached, bodies protested, and bruises formed almost with every move but neither of the Kages slowed down in their resolve to win, waiting for an opportunity to land a fatal strike.

...

Himeno panted as she had to freeze yet another massive amount of water that came at her from the sea because of the Jutsu of the overzealous redhead who decided to fight her.

"Damn... You have... incredible... Suiton." She praised between her labored breaths, trying to stall for time to recover. Fortunately for her, her opponent seemed to be a brash idiot...

"You bet, dattebane! Name's Kushina Uzumaki. Your Hyoton is incredible! It's such a pity we are enemies! We can feel we could have been good friends but for Konoha I will defeat you, believe it!" The redhead gave Himeno a thumbs-up, causing her jaw to almost fall onto the floor as she blankly stared.

'What. The. Fuck!?' Himeno for the first time in her life was startled by the sheer stupidity of her opponent. She was unable to comprehend what was going on because since she was just a little girl, she was taught to exploit any opening but the... sad excuse for all power but no brains in front of her was akin to something out of her wildest dreams.

Alas, Kushina's Talk no Jutsu was quite underdeveloped compared to Naruto so no enemy-to-friend conversion happened.

While Kushina was talking, Himeno finally got her breathing under control and prepared herself for the continuation of their fight. She now knew she would not win an honest ninjutsu fight. For that, the woman in front of her had too much chakra. Heck, the redhead didn't seem even winded after thirty high-ranked large-scale Suiton Jutsu while Himeno was almost on the floor from exhausting much of her chakra too fast. Himeno knew she still had over half of her chakra reserves, but she felt very drained after their previous quick Jutsu exchange.

Himeno quickly ascertained that the woman in front of her was one of the noble types so she pulled out her tanto, resisting a smug smirk from appearing on her face when the redhead mirrored her action by pulling out a katana, readying for a weaponry clash.

Both women jumped at each other, slashing their swords only for the blades to meet in between them. Kushina's self-assured face quickly revealed shock only to morph into realization followed by panic as she quickly jumped away...

Himeno smugly smiled as she saw Kushina's clothes starting to die themselves red due to ice skewering her as the redhead panted, glaring at her. Himeno had no desire to play by the book when her sword had a smaller reach and was most likely of poorer quality. She naturally added Hyoton chakra into the blade in order to create ice spikes at any given moment and did so the second their blades met, riddling Kushina's body with wounds.

"It was too obvious from your expression you are too confident." Himeno started talking, trying to distract Kushina into a conversation while discreetly feeding chakra into the shards of ice in Kushina's body. While the redhead managed to get away from the ice spikes without tearing them apart, some shards were still in her. It was a very hard thing to affect the shards and required incredible control despite giving almost no result but right now, as long as it widened Kushina's wounds, Himeno didn't care.

Unfortunately, Himeno miscalculated as Kushina's eyes became red with black slits and Himeno instantly felt the connection to the ice shards disappear as Kushina's wounds started healing at a visible rate. It didn't take even five seconds for Kushina's eyes to return back to violet and her face to reveal a winning smile. "I won't lose, dattebane!"

'A fockin' Jinchuuriki! My luck...' Himeno cursed, throwing a blank stink-eye at the beaming Kushina who just shrugged off wounds that would kill a lesser woman. 'Well...' She bent her knees and raised her tanto in front of her. 'No choice, I guess.'

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Author Note:

First of all, FUUUUCK.

WORST CHAPTER EVER! - at least from my point of view as the author.

Writing this chapter was a nightmare! My motivation hit an all-time low... I started in the morning hours and the second I got to the fight between the Thirds... I lost my motivation in the first sentence and couldn't bring myself to continue...

Hence, I am sorry if the fight between the two Kage guys is not described in detail. I just could not bring myself to do it :D.

Only when I somehow pushed myself and decided to conveniently skip it, going for Himeno v Kushina instead, I regained my drive. I wanted to end it in this chapter but, I guess I am liking it too much to only show so little of either Himeno and Kushina's prowess.