Arata jumped back, instantly starting to weave hand signs. Yet his opponent wasted no time in giving chase.
Arata had hoped it wouldn't end up like this. Plan C was really his least favorite, the most risky, but also the most likely to happen.
His feet hit the water, and he slid back another fifty meters. He slammed his hands onto the water's surface. "Raiton: Mizuraisu!" He shouted, causing the water around him to explode with light as the water mixed with lightning chakra and countless lightning bolts rose out of the water around him with explosive force.
Yet as the world was colored purple from lightning, he felt a sharp pain on his cheek, forcing him to stop his ninjutsu and body flicker to the left.
"What's wrong? You only just cast that ninjutsu, why end it so fast?" A sadistic, gleeful voice came from above him.
Arata narrowed his eyes and sent a handful of kunai up into the air, "Raiton: Seiden no Tate!" He used one of the few defensive lightning-style ninjutsu he knew. It created a magnetic field, sending incoming projectiles off course.
He used it not defensively, but offensively; he used it to give speed to his hastily thrown kunai.
However, the Suna Kunoichi, easily avoided them, as if gliding on the wind itself, changing course midair.
Yomei landed gracefully, one foot skimming the water's surface with practiced ease, the other spinning a fan lazily in her hand. Not a scratch on her.
"You really don't take it slow, do you?" she said, eyes glittering with amusement. "Boys like you always rush—rushing your jutsu, your throws, your fear." She tilted her head, grinning as if genuinely enjoying the chase. "It's kind of cute."
"You talk too much," Arata muttered, forming another string of hand seals.
But she darted forward again, impossibly fast. He barely managed to twist aside, her fan grazing his shoulder—sharp enough to draw blood but shallow enough to taunt.
"Two," she whispered sweetly, already behind him before he even completed the roll. "I do like counting my cuts. How long do you think you'll last, pretty boy? Twenty? Thirty? Or will you scream before that?"
Arata gritted his teeth. He needed space. Distance. Time. She was pushing the tempo too hard.
He flicked a charged tag toward the water and detonated it mid-air to cover his movement—water splashing high in a blinding arc.
Yomei danced back, laughing, twirling one fan to clear the mist. "Oh no. Not running already, are you? But we just started! I thought you Leaf types were supposed to be brave." Her voice turned sing-song, like a girl teasing a schoolmate. "Maybe I should've brought smaller fans… Something gentler. Like paper cuts."
"You're not as funny as you think you are," Arata said coldly, channeling chakra to his feet, retreating further across the lake's surface, his mind racing.
"Oh, but I am," she said with a mock pout, stalking after him. "You should see the way my last target laughed—until she ran out of blood." She raised a finger and twirled it. "A little cyclone, a little slice, a little scream. Mmm... music."
There was no mistaking the sadistic delight in her voice. She liked this. The fear. The tension. She fed on it.
Arata's eyes flicked toward the waterline—tags in place. Substitution logs charged. Traps ready. But he needed her to commit. He needed her angry, cocky, reckless.
He straightened and stopped moving.
"I didn't know Suna trained murderers and dancers in the same dojo."
Yomei's smile grew sharper. "They didn't. I trained myself. What I do is art. You? You're just another blank canvas."
She raised both fans.
"Now hold still for me, little lightning boy."
Arata hated this woman already; she really was annoying. Not only was she dangerous, not only was she a deadly enemy, but she treated this like a game, playing with him, toying with him. It hurt his pride as a proud Konoha shinobi.
Still, he was also glad she was this hateful; if she had just wanted to kill him, he didn't think he would have much of a chance. She was too fast, able to stop him from getting them time to weave hand signs properly.
It was only because she was playing with him, wanting to have fun while hurting him, that he believed he had a chance at all.
Because the more she played around, the more time this would take, so the more time he would have to find a chance to turn things around, it wouldn't be pleasant, it wouldn't be painless, but it was a chance, and one he would take with every bit of skill he had.
Yomei moved.
Not a step, not a dash—she glided, she danced on the wind, closing the distance on a cushion of chakra-infused air as she waved her small twin fans around.
Arata ducked low, chakra bursting from his legs as he Body Flickered behind her, barely avoiding the strike. But she didn't even turn—her second fan spun backwards as if sensing him by instinct. A shallow slice opened across his ribs, clean and fast.
"Three," she chimed. "You really do look better in red."
A second clone flared to life beside him—Arata flickered again, leaving the clone to catch her next blow. It popped with a puff of smoke. He used the distraction to dive into the water, chakra clinging to the soles of his feet as he skipped across the surface like a stone.
She followed.
Not running. Drifting. Effortless and smiling.
"I expected better from a Konoha shinobi. Are you all this delicate now? Or just the boys?"
Arata reached for a smoke tag—threw it—body flickered again.
Too slow.
A sting on his thigh. Another on his forearm. A third on the back of his neck.
"Six... seven... eight..." Yomei sang softly. "Careful. You'll spring a leak."
Arata bit back a curse and threw a second clone wide, trying to draw her off. She laughed, slashing through it without even breaking pace.
"You should really stop with those," she said, almost bored. "They don't scream as well as the real thing."
He grit his teeth and threw himself behind one of the rigged substitution logs—swapping places just as a fan slashed through where he'd been standing. Another cut opened across his calf—shallow, but it burned.
"Eleven," she whispered into his ear before vanishing again.
Arata spun, heart hammering.
He was covered in cuts. His sleeves were ragged, fabric clinging to skin in wet patches of red. None of them deep enough to drop him. But enough to remind him, over and over, that he was losing.
That she was playing.
He activated another jutsu in desperation—Raiton: Denkō Shunshin, blinking across the lake in a crackle of blue light. He landed clumsily, knees nearly buckling.
Still, she came.
Elegant. Unrushed. Eyes dancing.
"Why don't you scream, lightning boy?" she called. "It'd make this so much more fun."
Arata didn't answer. He couldn't spare the breath.
She wasn't trying to kill him.
Not yet.
That was the only reason he was still alive. Arata knew it with the cold clarity of someone forced to do math in the middle of a nightmare. Every cut had purpose. Every dodge she allowed him was deliberate. He wasn't surviving. He was being performed upon.
Another gust whispered past his ear—he barely ducked. A sharp line opened across his back, cutting through cloth and skin alike.
"Twelve," Yomei cooed. "Though I suppose that one might be a bit deeper. Oops."
She flitted sideways, fan in one hand, fingers on the other extended like claws. Arata saw no blades, no wind tunnels, no visible jutsu—just glimmers in the air where her techniques passed, bending the water ever so slightly.
Invisible wind.
He leapt backward, already forming another flicker sign—too late. A seam tore down his right sleeve, the fabric fluttering and falling away. Another followed across his chest, neatly carving through his flak jacket.
His shirt loosened—then split, the shoulder and collarbone exposed, blood streaking his skin like angry brushstrokes.
"Oh dear," Yomei giggled. "I do make a mess, don't I? But don't blame me, Arata-kun... you make such a tempting canvas."
He didn't respond. Couldn't waste time on it. He substituted again, vanishing into the smoke of a detonated tag—appearing behind a ridge of foaming lake water.
But she was already turning to face him. Smiling.
"Tell me," she said, voice syrupy sweet, "do you feel it yet? That helplessness? That realization that no matter what you do, I'll keep cutting?"
She walked toward him, fans resting on her shoulders like parasols. There was no urgency in her step.
Another flick of her wrist. A razor-thin arc zipped through the air. Arata shifted—too slow. His shirt split again, the side slashed open completely, revealing another shallow red line just under his ribs.
He moved. He flickered. He dodged. He spun a clone wide to the right, then another behind him.
Slash. Puff. Slash. Puff.
Smoke filled the air with each failed distraction. Arata exhaled slowly, trying to ignore the sting crawling across his body.
His pants were cut near the ankle now, his sleeves in tatters, and most of his upper body was bare. Each breath cooled against a dozen tiny wounds.
She hadn't missed once.
She's too fast, he thought grimly. Too accurate. And she hasn't even broken a sweat.
And still, she advanced—flicking fans like a conductor, carving air and cloth with equal precision.
"Don't worry," she said, "I won't go for the eyes. Not yet. I want you watching when the real fun begins."
Another arc hissed by—just grazing his cheek.
Arata blinked sweat from his eyes and forced his breathing to stay slow. Panic wouldn't help him. He could still win. No, not win—but escape. That was enough.
He spun one last kunai in his fingers, tagging it with a surge of lightning chakra. He threw it—not at her—but toward the water.
A misdirection.
She didn't fall for it.
"Oh no, no," she said, voice velvet and teeth. "No more toys, Arata-kun. Just you and me."
She vanished.
Arata turned instinctively—her fan was already swinging in from the left.
He raised his arm too slow.
Slash.
Blood misted the air as his forearm took the full edge—deep enough to numb the nerves, not deep enough to sever.
"Seventeen," she whispered, close to his ear again. "Do you want to keep counting?"
He staggered back, half-falling, chakra pulsing under his feet to keep him afloat.
His vision blurred for a second—but his mind stayed sharp.
No... he wasn't done yet.
He had one more trick. One more escape.
But not yet.
Let her think he was breaking.
Let her gloat.
He could take it.
He had to.
Another gust sliced toward him—Arata twisted sideways, letting the wind carve a fresh line across his ribs. The pain flared sharp, but he forced it down.
Eighteen, he thought grimly. Or was that nineteen?
He couldn't keep track anymore. The blood loss wasn't critical yet, but it was steady. Controlled. Like everything else she did.
He landed hard on the water, knees dipping, skidding backwards with a chakra burst—barely avoiding another gleaming crescent of wind that hissed past his neck.
Then, for just a breath—he heard the rest of the battlefield.
To his far left, a violent burst of chakra detonated through the air—followed by a deep, rolling explosion that shook the lake beneath his feet.
Haruto? The thought came unbidden, wild and hopeful.
Another sharp screech tore through the air from the opposite side. A screech he knew—Kuro, howling. Barking.
Then came a flurry of thuds, a harsh clash of metal, and something that sounded very much like Koji snarling. Chakra thundered in short, brutal bursts.
Koji's still in it. Haruto's still in it. That left Yuki...
But he knew there was no way she would go down; she was way stronger than the rest of them. Even if she was fighting the strongest Suna-nin, she wouldn't lose, not now, not ever. She was also the biggest chance for help.
He couldn't hear her fight, but her fights were never that flashy, just deadly. He likely would have known she had won her fight until she appeared at his side.
He clenched his fists tighter.
If they were all still fighting—then so could he.
Arata shifted his stance again, pivoting off one foot as another wind blade clipped his leg—shallow, but enough to bite. Another cut. Twenty? Twenty-one?
It didn't matter anymore.
He wasn't going to die here.
He wasn't going to scream for her.
And if he could hold on long enough, just long enough, someone would come.
Or—better—he'd find his moment.
Her arrogance. Her pride. Her cruelty. It was giving him time.
Time he'd use.
I just need one spark. One chance. One overstep.
Another wind slash grazed his hip, slicing through the last of his flak vest and leaving his chest bare, streaked with blood.
Yomei's eyes glittered with delight.
"You really are pretty when you bleed," she whispered.
She didn't miss.
She didn't falter.
And she still wasn't done painting.
(End of chapter)