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.