Mana's eyes carefully weighed the curious case of a rogue ninja who stood and didn't move her eyes away from Meiko. In a lot of ways this young woman was very similar to the blacksmith, she was strong, her face was by default always in a curious expression, dazed and confused by a reality she couldn't comprehend before some trigger hit her senses changing the mask on her face permanently to the corresponding emotion of a fitting response for that trigger.
In many more ways she was different – overly tall and thin. Hair so long they absolutely had to get in her way unless she somehow incorporated their movement into her fighting style and so bright that they didn't really seem natural. Then again, hair colors like this were common to the Yoruma clan. Sometimes the color of one's chakra aura irradiating from them impacted the natural color of one's eyes and hair, that'd have made this girl an owner of an immensely bright colored chakra – a reflection of noble intent, sacrificial and pure hearted character which Mana doubted a nukenin to have. Even given her optimistic attitude towards people.
Similarly to Meiko the rogue was armored, however only in certain areas, choosing to wear casual light clothing where armor was not of prime necessity. All of her major arteries and sensitive areas where a skipped slash would've opened a battle or life ending wound were covered up: neck, shoulders, lower abdomen. Her stance with the sword suggested a heightened focus on protecting her chest making heavy chest plates redundant. She was already working with a lot handling that two handed longsword of hers.
Meiko playfully teased an attack, swinging a quick slash that was not as focused in its swinging force as it was focused on a quick return to position afterwards. Teia's feet danced beautifully placing her aside and avoiding a clash, in response she swung her longsword upwards aiming to chop off her opponent's hands. From a vibrant smile on the blonde's face it was easy to read that she didn't count on Meiko's hands dropping anytime soon. A brief metallic sound suggested that a very narrow part of the blade's tip did come in contact with the blacksmith's wristplates.
"Don't interfere." Meiko cautioned the two kunoichi in her team. "There's no need of wearing out our whole team. It's best we put this to rest now and play along." Her voice was unwavering and demanded to be held in some amount of authority.
"We could quickly beat that brat up and then assist Meiko in taking this plank-wench out…" Kiyomi pouted blowing out her cheeks in frustration.
"It's fine. We're not at our full power from that dash, while we observe this fight we can recover somewhat where we would exhaust ourselves even more if we involved ourselves. We'd be left mostly worn out, all three of us, against the odds of needing to fight three teams and fight off whomever comes for us." Mana grudgingly accepted Meiko's request. She didn't like this way of looking at things one bit but her own attitude had to be sacrificed.
"Good, I really don't like fighting that much. Seeing Galateia do it this often and put us in trouble makes it look like such a troublesome thing…" Aoi nodded looking a little relieved that the two kunoichi agreed to play along his friend's terms.
"Don't lower your guard. After this is done we're absolutely taking you in. Fraud of such high caliber and kidnapping of a Konoha villager, you're looking at years of punishment in Rengoku, you may even spend some months in Jigoku if the Tribunal feels particularly nasty that day." Kiyomi sneered at the little boy.
Looking at Aoi from the side it was difficult to say his age for certain. He may have been in his early teens but he looked that damn young and innocent. It didn't help that he was far too short for a teen and floated in the air using his strange weakened version of Mana's levitation technique. Honestly, he looked like a fairy or something.
"They didn't technically kidnap me, they said I could watch the earlier stages of the Chuunin exams for free by just sticking around them and acting like I'm all business." Gwido butt into the conversation. "Didn't know I'd get to see Konoha's Sorceress too… I'd have joined in immediately." The young man grimaced.
Galateia stopped swinging her sword at thin air only to switch onto dancing away from Meiko's blade. For a while the two swordswomen kept on slashing at each other without blocking, just parrying and avoiding damaging their blades as it was made quite clear that the matching craftsmanship of their swords would've made it quite impossible to quickly shatter the shoddier blade.
"Konoha's Sorceress?" Galateia suddenly broke her stance before sheathing her sword. "Are you good?" she shifted her attention completely at Mana making the magician question just how intelligent she could've been to pick a fight with Meiko and then completely drop it after a single attention trigger coming in.
"I don't want to brag…" Mana shyly shrugged.
"Are you kidding? She does some wicked fricking magic, and I've seen a shitload of magic on the streets after her shows picked up – nothing's as good as the real deal." Gwido started to sound quite obsessed with Mana's shows, frankly, the magician thought his input may have overrated her a bit, or been a little bit biased, but she was glad to hear that she was still ahead of those that may have picked up her odd and previously unseen craft in the ninja world after her.
"Magic!?" Galateia flipped the fecal contents of her innards completely before dropping on the ground and smashing her head into the dirt, like she was beginning forgiveness. "Please don't witch me, I merely wish to challenge Meiko to a fair fight so we can settle this! I have no wish to offend you, witch!"
"Does she know my magic isn't actual magic, just stage magic?" Mana wondered squinting as she leaned over to ask Kiyomi.
"It doesn't seem so. Please be advised, she's quite mentally challenged and it doesn't seem to be caused by a disease or anything – she's just of profoundly low intelligence." Kiyomi replied, she didn't appear surprised by this sort of behavior, a bit riled up, if anything.
"I don't know… I sort of need my Meiko strong and ready to fight for me, rogue ninja… I am considering severe bewitchment…" Mana played along with Galateia's silliness.
Galateia stood back up and pulled her blade out before pointing its tip at Mana's direction. Her eyes looked cold and emotionless, she didn't sound offended or anything of the sort, she just turned her attention completely at the supposed witch that threatened her goal with a barrier of bewitchment.
"Hmmm… What am I to do? Fighting a frail witch with troublesome magical powers is boring, but I do want to fight Meiko a lot…" Galateia muttered to herself as her eyes rolled around signaling a desperate shift in her thoughts. "Witch, may I strike you with a deal? My companion here is a Jiangshi, a flesh eating undead being of a boy that died a tragic death and is looking for vengeance before he can return to the spiritual plain. If you would choose to direct your righteous magical fury at him instead of my fight, we could settle our differences afterwards."
Kiyomi smacked her face. Aoi dashed up to Galateia's face and shouted out in her face, "You stupid idiot, I told you already, I'm no Jiangshi! I'm a human boy, a really short one and pale one but just because I was sickly as a child!"
The Yamanaka, still stroking her aching forehead turned at Mana, looking to question the sanity of this situation, only to find her nowhere to be found. A tip of the magician's hat was located further behind a tree. Confused the Yamanaka slowly walked up to said tree leaving Meiko and Galateia to fight their problems out. Mana was sitting and wheezing on the other side of the tree, for the most part the magician didn't even notice that she was found and jumped up in surprise and shakes when she found out she was discovered.
"You do know he's not a real ghost, right? I mean for Pete's sake, you were supposed to be the smart and reasonable one of us…" Kiyomi sighed realizing that even Mana was consumed by the madness of this conflict.
"Sorry… Couldn't help it, she just said "Jiangshi" and my legs sort of gave way. I just really don't like ghosts…" Mana whimpered out before standing back up and fixing her messy clothes and hat and returning to the battlefield with her teammate. "He does look like a Jiangshi though…" the magician leaned in to whisper at her friend's ear so that she wasn't heard by the Yuki boy and didn't offend him.
"He does…" even Kiyomi had to admit.
"Jiangshi aren't even ghosts, you know… They're flesh eating undead." Aoi sniffled in both significant melancholy and defensive anger.
"She's a sucker for ghost stories, I suppose other kind of undead too… If you asked me it's a psychological thing, she hates letting people die so I suppose it symbolizes failure to her." Kiyomi rubbed her temples in annoyance waiting for Meiko and Galateia to finish fighting it out but it seemed like neither of the two even landed a solid hit on each other as Meiko held back significantly trying not to waste too much stamina and chakra whereas Galateia didn't fight all out by default, choosing to enjoy the battle in its dragged out entirety.
"Hmmm… Teia doesn't like killing either. I really don't care, though… She thinks that a person she kills she can't fight later so it also makes sense when you look at it from their eyes. Though she had gotten a bit overexcited before, she's not the brightest judge of when one is already dead or not…" Aoi chuckled.
A bombastic barrage of shockwaves with sparks emitted from the two clashing swords devastated the surrounding. A pair of large spiders tried catching Galateia and Meiko in their web or wrap their eight legs around them and inject their poison forcefully but the two quickly sliced their respective predators to pieces with just several quick slashes of their swords. Galateia finished dealing with hers first – after all her sword was sufficiently large by itself to do the dirty deed, she didn't need the additional effort of added movement to finalize the cut.
Meiko, just having finished dealing with her spider turned back and swung her blade backwards from instinct, she met nothing but a face full of blonde almost golden colored hair, making the blacksmith waver backwards and try listening in to her moving in opponent so that she could defend in time. It was a clever manner of attack – utilizing Teia's long hair and letting Meiko's sword just cut some of it where the patches that passed through slammed right into the redhead's face dazing her momentarily.
A quick and disorienting pull completely confused Meiko before she identified her opponent's motion – she was grabbed by her own chest plate and pulled in for a stab. That wouldn't have worked. Meiko was too fresh and her augmentations were too solid – the sword wouldn't cut too deep into the skin so early on so it slightly confused the weaponry user before an eruption of pure pain hit her right in the nose making a warm blast of blood cover her face from the blacksmith's nose. It was not a stab that Galateia pulled Meiko in for – it was a headbutt.
After Meiko opened her eyes from the burst of tears coming out from inside her tear ducts a somewhat soft kick sent her flying back. Differently from the strong and focused headbutt, this attack was barely even registered and was, most likely, solely meant to send the blacksmith further away.
Meiko quickly slid her unprotected elbow through her nose where the steel wasn't covering up the green tracksuit underneath allowing her to quickly wipe off this burst of blood and buy her seconds of time before another one came. Too slow… Galateia was already behind her!
A loud clang followed by an immense shocking sensation followed as Meiko bent her back in pain, her opponent's focused strike cut right through the armor on the back, strongest exactly where the redhead's spine was located as that part was to be protected at all costs. As the blacksmith worked her way to roll and dash away from her brutal opponent as fast as possible she lamented the damage she allowed to be inflicted initially as the countless distractions from pain coming from all sides and irritation in her entire facial area prevented from her focusing and substituting properly. A focused and good at controlling themselves and their chakra ninja would've been able to…
Meiko gritted her teeth in pain as the warm feeling of blood trickling down her back and soaking her clothes didn't let her forget this moment of getting careless. Galateia had certainly gotten better in the handful of days that the two hadn't fought each other, she was leaps and bounds ahead in just that short amount of time. Still, Meiko felt like it wasn't yet something she couldn't handle.
Suddenly a whistling and crashing buzzsaw emerged from the trees, Galateia lifted her hands up with her blade and continuously flipped overhead emulating one and slicing through wood and likely steel alike. With a gentle leap Meiko avoided the strike, she dragged her hand across the wristband of hers as a sealing glyph made itself clear and a steel string with a weight on the end got unsealed which the blacksmith used to yank herself farther away from her opponent and get on the upper layer of trees.
"I was really looking forward to this fight, Meiko. Ever since we first fought! I trained really hard to not disappoint you like the last time, please let's do our best!" Galateia grinned, for someone who described a process of two people horribly murdering each other she looked awfully excited and optimistic about it. Sometimes the blacksmith felt a bit too excited about fighting too, it was that one thing she was confident about, something she could've been useful to her friends in. But never to such extent.
"You just got me with that hair attack because I didn't expect it, let's make this clear…" Meiko answered with a smile of her own.
"I see… You've sealed your sword though, do you surrender?" Galateia wondered, "Because I won't accept such an end to our battle. I'll chase you to the end of the Earth to settle this!"
"It is tempting to just let you get bored handing me my ass and then be done with this but I need to pay my dues for my team. They worked really hard to get me to this stage of the exams, I absolutely cannot let that effort go unrewarded." Meiko replied as her smile faded and was substituted by a determined expression.
Galateia didn't offer any words, she just leaped at the tree Meiko was standing on slashing at its base aiming to bring it down. Break her opponent's sense of balance and concentration before attacking her while she had no footing. It was a grand idea but Meiko had an even grander one. With a mad battlecry the blacksmith focused her chakra all in her feet, the blacksmith ventured back to all of Mana's lessons, she relied on herself not failing with this simply trick as the redhead kept stuck on the tree even as it began sliding down only to leap behind it and kick it with her feet thusly that it wound end up flying right at Galateia.
A single silver colored blur and the golden swordswoman cut the tree in two allowing the two parts of it to split off and not harm her. With a relatively cold yet also anticipating the upcoming hype of Meiko's attack stare the rogue swordswoman continued to observe Meiko's response. Without even a sword in hand the blacksmith dashed out from the nearest bush, having hid there during the distraction that the falling tree had provided her. Teia instinctively swung her blade aiming right at the blacksmith's abdomen but was suddenly caught off balance as red sticky blood burst like a balloon bomb had just exploded in her face. The golden haired swordswoman took a couple of graceful leaps back, swinging her longsword in front of her just to ward off any attempts to capitalize on Meiko's clever offense at using her own relentlessly bleeding nose.
Teia's scream colored the dark and dangerous forest as Meiko's palm strike tensed her back elbow too much for the sword to remain in her hand.
"I made a mistake before." Meiko uttered attacking Galateia's entire body, every unarmored point with her bare fists. "I fought you – a skilled swordswoman with my own sword." The blacksmith continued after she noticed Teia's feet attempting to move and simply unsealing and tossing a pair of kunai blades that grazed her shins and stuck straps of her denim trousers to the ground. Tearing those straps required additional motions, motions that weren't getting away from Meiko's relentless offensive and bought her time.
"I don't plan to make that mistake anymore!" Meiko finished after unsealing a knuckle duster and fitting her fingers inside it while it was still in mid-air after being removed from its seal inside the blacksmith's wristguard. The redhead threw a powerful cross with it throwing her opponent off her feet and downing her. Quickly, Meiko unsealed several more shuriken and launched them at her downed opponent pinning some more of her clothes to the dirt and wooden roots beneath her.
Again Meiko angrily sniffed her nose letting some more blood burst out so that her breathing was unclogged. It was difficult attacking so relentlessly with a bleeding nose and teary eyes, she'd have been able of inflicting so much more damage if it wasn't for the damage she had sustained…
"Stay down…" Meiko quietly growled before turning her back to her opponent.
"Where do you think you're going!?" Galateia's angry growl made the blacksmith turn around. The brutal nukenin swordswoman had torn her clothes up by forcing her way out of the lock of steel that she was placed in and stood back up. Apart from cracked lip and a bad situation in her mouth resulting in a mouthful of blood coming up from time to time she didn't look too badly damaged.
"You had my back exposed…" Meiko groaned in frustration. "Should've just finished it!"
"That'd have not been fair. I only attack from the back when you anticipate me to. Not when your guard is down." The blonde shook her head before picking her sword back up and resuming her fighting stance.