Meiko stayed down, sprawled out in the crater she made after getting caught by her foot and slammed to the ground. Somewhere slightly farther away a weak and wobbly building collapsed. Those were mostly for show decorations of the training grounds and served no practical use and were not particularly considered as something of great quality.
The blacksmith wanted to simply rush for her armor again but she knew better. Her opponent had plenty of strength in her resources to multiply her speed and strength a hundred fold. For a while the redhead had wondered as to how exactly Mana passed this test as she lacked physical prowess beyond her evasive and redirectional skills and counter-attack based fighting style but now the answer was beginning to formulate in the girl’s mind “ Mana was crafty.
“Megaton Punch” Hanasaku roared out as she jumped down at Meiko aiming a clearly telegraphed punch right at the blacksmith’s chest. The attack was far too showy and slow for it to be meant to connect. Hanasaku must’ve wanted the blacksmith to avoid it “ the master wanted her potential student to best her internally but she still didn’t lower her level to where it would’ve been insulting to Meiko.
The blacksmith made a hand seal and focused. All she needed was to replace herself with her empty backpack. Just change up her chakra flow, move to the backpack nearly instantly and changing the two objects up “ leaving the backpack in her place while she stayed there.
“Too slow!” Hanasaku shouted out after her fist dug deep into Meiko’s back as the redhead tried to move away. The Fifth Hokage managed to track Meiko’s movements and intercept her Substitution Jutsu which meant that it wasn’t performed correctly. If done right the switcheroo trick transpired instantly. Something was missing! Meiko screwed up even the most basic Academy technique again, just like in the Katabami mines and in the Wind Country desert.
The moment Meiko’s crushed into rock body finally braved up to draw her first breaths a burst of blood blasted from the blacksmith’s mouth “ a sign of a grievous internal injury and a requirement to pay chakra to sustain normal functioning. Meiko looked at her shaking bleeding arm and tried to figure something out - this was stupid. Her race for the armor was too predictable, she was trying to fight Hanasaku at her own game while gunning for a far too predictable goal.
“C-Rank Seal!” Meiko smacked her arm at the crater feeling the dirt soak up from the blood coming out from her wounds. Even the few armor sets she had put on had been bent up from the shockwaves of Hanasaku’s fists and her slams.
“This is disappointing. I’m trying to see you do what ninja do “ I’m trying to see what makes you different from a tool. All I’ve seen is you fearing to even try to do that… This won’t do. Won’t do at all!” Hanasaku scolded Meiko before crossing her arms on her chest, “We’re done here, go and get some treatment and go back to the basics.” The woman cruelly declared before turning her back to Meiko and walking away.
Meiko’s hands went through a single hand seal.
“Displacement Seal!” she shouted out feeling her body sucked into the sealing glyph she left on the ground.
“What?!” Hanasaku shouted out, the Displacement Seal Jutsu was quite familiar to her as it was a basic trap sealing technique that worked similarly to the Substitution Jutsu but in reverse. It instead transported the opponent to the location of the exit seal, through the entrance seal. It had tremendously short range and it could’ve been broken with precise and powerful application of chakra that disrupted the sealing technique but it was the first attempt of the blacksmith to fight back.
The Fifth’s head instantly turned at the backpack “ it would’ve been a clever move to use the Displacement Seal to transport oneself right to the armor but if such a tool was in the redhead’s arsenal why didn’t she use it earlier? Only then did Hanasaku realize Meiko’s plan, she tried to turn back her attention at the entrance seal before a headbutt lifted her off the ground and knocked the Fifth down.
Using her jet boots Meiko whizzed through the past Hokage and right to the pile of her remaining armor pieces. The redhead never exited through the exit seal because her armor had none, she tricked her possible teacher into thinking that they had but truth be told they were far out of the range of being displaced to anyways. All the redhead did was temporarily get sucked into the entrance seal before it dissolved and spat her out.
“String Reeling Jutsu!” Meiko chanted out pulling on several steel strings that held on her armor pieces and pulled them right onto her own body where with a couple of quick flicks of switches the blacksmith had finally assembled the full set. It was a risky idea to try and trick her opponent like that but ninja usually lived by the principle of always trying to look ahead, sometimes when one looked ahead they missed the fundamental details.
Hanasaku picked herself off the ground and smiled as she wiped a small streak of blood from her lip.
“That wasn’t bad, I even didn’t dodge your attack just to give you the gratification!” the woman grinned with a full smile clearly entertained by Meiko’s attempt.
When the opponent didn’t know what the blacksmith was working towards, when they didn’t know the full plan of getting there either “ that was when Meiko stood a chance against her opponent. Still, it was bad fight to pick for her. Meiko fought at close distance and her sealing techniques were mostly for support. It also gave the blacksmith an idea for the future “ to place the exit sealing glyphs on her armor just for easier access.
“It was pretty dirty move though, you attacked when I ended the battle.” Hanasaku complained switching between feeling gratified to looking disappointed in a moment.
“You attacked me while I was getting ready too.” Meiko snapped back. The blacksmith was still trying to work out a way how to attack her opponent as she saw no visible way of trumping her opponent here.
Feeling that her jet boots had wasted enough chakra stored into them and were running low on supply Meiko slowly landed on the ground. She raised her hand up and pressed against her chest plate where a sealing hieroglyph lit up in crimson colors.
“Sealing Technique:…” Meiko began chanting out the name of her technique before her opponent attacked. It was evident that Hanasaku had reconsidered her refusal to accept Meiko now and decided to continue the test now that the blacksmith began to fight around her weaknesses and insecurities. Using what she did know to achieve what she couldn’t or what would’ve been risky with her lacking chakra control.
“Mandala Arrows!” the blacksmith finished her technique, feeling sure that her technique will do what it had to. The redhead’s armor lit up with sources of light all over it, similarly to a swarm of glow-worms as arrows sealed inside the armor previously fired out from the light sources. With Hanasaku having moved in so close she virtually had no time at all to avoid these arrows but the Hokage did more than avoid them, one by one her blurry and invisible arm had gathered all of them. The woman pushed her previously bent foot to stop her rush and repurpose her rush onwards into a charge backwards giving her more space and time to gather every single arrow.
The right side of Meiko’s lips arced into a lovely smile as her hand finished a one-handed hand seal activating the sealing tags on each one of the arrows. A deafening explosion picked up dust and rubble from the floor as each arrow carried the explosive power of a simple explosive tag that most ninja used. Gathering all of them in one handful may have been the worst thing to do.
Meiko cheered for herself but then after her eyes rose up to track a moving object up above she froze in respectful fear “ Hanasaku had outraced the explosion after it started but before it damaged her. Something like that should’ve been impossible “ Meiko clearly saw the woman still hold the arrows in her hands and look at the mandala sealing marks on them, even as the explosion set off Meiko saw the woman still holding the arrows and there was nothing in the sky for her to substitute to.
Hanasaku landed on the ground smiling like a toddler with a new toy dangling above its cradle.
“W-What did you do!?” Meiko shouted out in disbelief after the woman landed.
“What do you mean? I looked at the explosion and the rate at which it expanded and thought that it was a bit too troublesome to augment myself to withstand. Can’t go on augmenting yourself all the time, you know, that can leave your network all messed up. So then I kept on watching, thinking what to do, I thought for a microsecond that maybe I should let it hit me and then heal the injuries back. The problem was that I felt a bit squeamish to get chunks of me splattered around so I settled on just outrunning the explosion in general…” Hanasaku explained with a lovely and gleeful face as if she was telling the most adorable baby a bedtime story.
Meiko’s eye twitched erratically.
“You can’t do that… Even ninja can’t do that. I mean you wasted too much time analysing the explosion, I was sure I saw it hit and envelop you “ it’d have taken something far too fast for the ninja limits to surpass it.” Meiko still couldn’t believe it.
“Oh… I’ll know from now on that I can’t do that.” Hanasaku nodded. Her image then blurred before she rushed onwards. Meiko wasn’t ready for such a speedy attack and yet. It was nowhere close the speed of a being capable of outracing explosions right before they hit them.
The blacksmith tried to decide on what to do to not get utterly splattered. Her mind slowed things down for her perception to keep up, undoubtedly costing the blacksmith more and more chakra. The redhead flicked a switch on her gauntlet releasing her armor and scattering it in a round formation as the kunoichi took a wild leap backwards. Right after Hanasaku moved in and through the range of the still airborne armor pieces a rain of kunai was unleashed from the defensive mechanism on the armor.
Meiko grunted in frustration seeing Hanasaku evade every single kunai fired at her faster than any kunai dispenser she had seen the ninja mob use during her journey. Even surrounded by these defensive mechanisms and having kunai fired at her at untraceable speeds this woman perfectly evaded them all.
“You can’t do that either!” Meiko shouted out as she formed another hand seal.
“Entrapment Seal!” she chanted as the sealing marks on the kunai, dodged and etched into the ground, lit up with currents of electricity that formed a makeshift chakra barrier around the woman they surrounded. Hanasaku’s body powered through the barrier and delivered a punch to Meiko’s jaw.
Meiko punched the ground in anger and spat out a bunch of blood together with a couple of teeth. Regrowing teeth always hurt, just like most other bone associated treatments in the hospital.
Hanasaku shrugged, “Why are you so upset? Was I not supposed to do that either?” she curiously looked at Meiko and the blacksmith stood up, wanting to yell it all out in this insane woman’s face but then she froze. Looking at the innocent face of her possible future sensei she realized that Chestnut Hanasaku honestly didn’t know if ninja could move under the Entrapment Seal.
“No… Actually ninja can’t move under the Entrapment Seal for a very limited duration of time. They can however break out of the sealing technique by supplying it with a burst of chakra matching its own content. However you didn’t do that, you broke all known rules and limits! Just like ninja can’t move after this! String Reeling Jutsu!” Meiko shouted out pulling on a string of steel wire that collected all the strings stuck on the shot kunai and formed a big and powerful trap of steel wire that wrapped all over the Fifth.
“You got caught?” Meiko seemed surprised herself.
“Wait… This isn’t something special at all. It’s just normal strings, I can move after this, in fact…” Hanasaku realized before she flexed her body and tore the steel wire to shreds, leaving just a couple of shallow scratches over her body and clothes.
“So that’s why you’re so special…” Meiko began figuring her opponent out, “You literally don’t know what people and ninja can and cannot do which makes your body and its strength, speed and chakra level completely unpredictable. Not only that, if you are too dumb to know your limits, you’d never feel like you’ve hit them during training. This is such a stupid trait that it’s awesome!” the blacksmith declared in childish glee as she began running around the confused Fifth and check out her injuries, pinching her skin and trying to bite the woman or wrestle her just to test her theory.
“This test is over.” Hanasaku smiled before pulling Meiko off the top of her head like a stray kitten and gently placing her down on the ground. “I’d have never thought a simple genin would’ve figured my secret out. I’ll have to ask you to keep it a secret, otherwise too many people will know and too many people rely on me to be who I am to protect them.”
Meiko made an improvised zipper gesture on her mouth before resuming her strange analysis of the woman’s body.
“My goal here was to see if you are more than a tool. I have seen enough to draw conclusions.” Hanasaku explained.
“What? Why would you think that I’m a douche? I’m the nicest person ever!” Meiko replied before checking how Hanasaku’s arm bends and if it does so the same like the arms of all the other human beings do.
“No. You don’t get it, not that kind of a tool. You see, when a person needs something done they can either use weapons and tools to do that thing by themselves or they can hire a ninja. That suggests that a ninja needs to be more than just a tool, more than they are meant to do. They are more than just tools, they are living and breathing, flexible specialists that accomplish a task and can do so in many different ways. They adapt, they survive, they go underneath the underneath. That is what a ninja is. They needn’t be strong and firm enough like samurai, they follow no principles and rules other than those of their own or their village’s unlike martial artists and yet they have ancient traditions and principles to uphold unlike pirates or rogue ninja. I can tutor anyone, but I will never tutor a tool. Tools bend under pressure, they corrode and break “ ninja do what needs to be done, they think on their own and surpass tools.” Hanasaku explained.
Meiko nodded energetically wondering if she maybe should’ve written it all down.
“You have a lot of insecurities about you and I saw why “ your ninjutsu and chakra control are wobbly to put it generously. You are also just as much of a thick-skulled idiot as I am which isn’t the greatest, but as you’ve seen, an idiot can often accomplish what a smart guy would never even try to…” Hanasaku’s speech was cut short after a face familiar to her landed from the treeline besides her and whispered to her ear.
“It seems our lesson will have to be cut short. My friend told me that your future team ran into trouble “ one of them has been kidnapped…” Hanasaku spoke up before her friend in standard Konoha ninja uniform once again whispered to her ear.
“Could we… By any chance make this go any faster, I think I’m… Losing a lot of blood…” Meiko complained feeling her aching gut where some degree of internal damage was rapidly burning through her chakra resources.
“Of course, I need to treat you immediately! It appears also that the Sixth doesn’t want us to know this information because he thinks we’d make a mess out of things…” Hanasaku finished retelling what she was told as she settled down close to Meiko to treat the young lady’s injuries.
“You know, Lady Fifth, I didn’t tell you all that only for you to retell it to a genin!” the man who was once the Fifth Hokage’s assistant complained only to be dismissed by a careless gesture and affirmed that the woman was grateful for his loyalty and the information.
For a good minute Meiko felt relieved while Chestnut Hanasaku treated her injuries. Then a dominating feeling of nausea took over as the blacksmith bent over to the side and threw up. Hanasaku used the Diagnosis Jutsu to scan through Meiko’s body to determine that a lot of things were really messed up.
“Ooops, this may not be the best time to tell you this but… I’m not the best when it comes to healing other people. My own body is much more durable than that of others so I sometimes really get confused by how other people’s bodies work… Sorry!” the woman apologized making an innocent puppy face before picking Meiko up and rushing to the Konohagakure Hospital with the barely conscious and pale skinned genin in her arms.
“But… I thought… You were… S-Rank medical ninja…” Meiko whimpered out weakly as she was beginning to feel really dizzy and her fever was beginning to really kick in.
“I’m really good at healing myself, as I’ve said, I can heal injuries no other ninja can survive but sometimes I mess things up unless I heal myself. My body works a lot different from that of other people so I’m not used to your weakling bodies.” Hanasaku elaborated as to how exactly her high rank was granted to her.
*****
“Well… There appears to be a set of perfectly functional teeth in your liver, your broken rib has now relocated itself inside your left lung and is poking out from it, also your stomach content is now inside your kidneys… Seriously, how and why would anyone put it there!? I’d say you’re lucky to have survived this long and no way you’re going anywhere this week!” the medical expert concluded after looking at Meiko’s test results in the hospital.
Hanasaku blushed and with a guilty pair of eyes pulled the collar of her sleeveless shirt as she was beginning to sweat a little. As numb-skulled as the woman was, even she realized that she had messed up pretty good here.
“I can help!” she suggested to the medical ninja a good couple of ranks lower than her.
“Please don’t!” the medical ninja rudely replied. This mustn’t have been the first case of this woman’s patient that he has treated. His eyes were looking at the results of her healing far too casually and forgivingly and he was treating there excessively strange injuries like they were a common occurrence.
“Aw, come on! I’m the only S-Rank medical ninja in the village. Even I get my things right most of the time! This hasn’t happened to me in a really long time, I’ll have you know!” Hanasaku desperately pleaded to which the medical ninja just sighed and reluctantly agreed.
Just like that the Team Hokage was finally assembled and all its members were tested and decided on. Had Meiko not been peacefully asleep after her actual treatment of her treatment had begun she may have been more concerned about the state of the rest of her team. Something that completely slipped out from Hanasaku’s mind after she got so embarrassed by messing up Meiko’s treatment so badly.
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