The large rock that Team Fir chose to observe the raging battle from was collapsing from the powerful blow that the mechanical man dished out. Yushijin's feet remained firmly planted to one of the many collapsing pieces of rock. Discontent soured the chuunin's face as he was just about to deliver another decisive blow to his overextending and entirely too greedy opponent.
A man-sized mass of water arced all the way from a platform lower down. It was what the tricky assassin assumed to be a stealthy attack, truth be told, it was not half bad. Had it been anyone but Yushijin or someone with uncanny chakra sensory abilities – it would have worked. The leader of Team Fir had to hand it to the young woman – she moved with skill, silence, and swiftness.
To the perception of the enemy, Yushijin would have frozen in time again. Just like the plummeting rocks did or every single one of the tiny droplets separated from the splashing arc created by the living mass of water rushing toward the Konoha ninja. By the time the assassin would have become aware of Yushijin's feet tapping against the floor of yet another rock, reinitiating the Art of Tree Climbing technique to maintain the steady footing on top of a plummeting and not always upright chunk of rock, it would have all been too late.
In a refreshing shower, the mysterious and bloodthirsty female assassin exploded into a lifeless rain of water pouring down to the floor at the same time as the plummeting rocky platforms. Yushijin's feet once again left the surface of the falling rocks for no other reason but to allow them to crash down onto the floor of the Valley of Hell.
Liquid busted through the nooks and crannies of the debris, gathering into a single pool that erected a feminine shape that soon changed from the texture and appearance of an aquatic humanoid and into the angry and deadly, sai-wielding assassin from before. With a submissive and disgruntled face, the young woman sheathed her weapons and drew another pair in their stead – a pair of blades that were longer than the usual swords that would have been wielded in a pair yet a tiny bit short of what would have qualified as a decent sword, let alone a titan such as Yushijin's weapon.
The leader of Team Fir noted that the woman changed her weapons a bit too late. She was skilled, rather, remarkably well-trained but not very versed in battlefield experience. She clearly knew that her sai-combinations would get her nowhere due to the massive difference in the length of weaponry and the fact that Yushijin's main jutsu that comprised his fighting style completely nullified any speed advantages she may have had if any. However, she doubted her instinct up to now. It was clear to Yushijin that his opponent acted not out of instinct and experience but out of theoretical knowledge of the battle, a complex myriad of processes like experimentation and the drawing of conclusions based on their results.
"You've made a mistake picking this fight." Yushijin declared bluntly. There was no enjoyment in the inevitable outcome of his clash but neither was there any rage or brashness that could have cost him a won battle. Despite his wish to join and support his squad as soon as possible, the Konoha chuunin had enough experience on a battlefield to let the battle play out and just trust in the abilities of his teammates.
"It is not me who has made a deadly mistake!" the assassin declared while boldly charging ahead. Her blades moved in a rush of up and down motions, completely neglecting the wide swings or any attempts to move around the wide yet slower blocks of her opponent.
This strategy baffled Yushijin a bit. As would have any action performed by his opponent that he did not fully understand. At this point in his career, the young man had learned not to make the mistake of assuming foolishness and lack of skill or training from his opponent's part as usually that was not the case behind confusing attacks – it was some other deceptive plot being masked by novice mistakes or things Yushijin simply failed to understand.
And yet… He had no other choice but to fall for his opponent's attacks. He did what anyone in his shoes would have done – placed simple blocks that completely disabled not only the current attacks but locked out his opponent from proceeding with her fixation on up and down motions. That was just what his opponent would have expected, however, the Konoha chuunin expended some more effort than it would have been expected of him – he activated his Last Resort illusion once more.
The eyes of the young man shot open when he realized that once his perception focused back onto the battle he could not locate his enemy anymore, as if it was his perception of time that had just stopped and his opponent who had escaped his tracing. The issue at hand was that Yushijin had mere seconds of time and he still did not have eyes on his opponent. In a move of desperation but also battlefield improvisation, something only decent battlefield experience could have taught, the Konoha ninja leaned down and swept with his leg in a wide-reaching low-kick.
His sweep encountered hard resistance, proving a successful mean of counterattack to his opponent's clever attack. The painful bump against his shin alerted him that he had successfully tripped his opponent even before the young man noticed his opponent spinning in for a backstabbing attack. It was an interesting manner of attack – lull the enemy into a false sense of security, make them believe that they had a clear block on your swings and then unleash everything still pent up in a single explosion of speed to deliver a finishing touch.
Had Yushijin not set off his Last Resort at the right time out of sheer instinct, he'd have had two blades stabbing through his back and probably disabling him for the kill. And yet… The Konoha swordsman refused to call the prevention of this outcome anything resembling a synonym of luck, he'd have filed this success on the battlefield to grueling training and right opponents that humbled him early on and taught all the right lessons at the right time.
And yet it appeared as if the female assassin still did not have enough, with an admittedly impressive roll back, she got back on her feet and prepared for a lunge from a low, seated position, holding her blades in front of her like a great cat showing off her fangs and claws to another predator drooling over its kill. Perhaps, it dawned to Yushijin, a similar worry was on this woman's mind at the moment and she still incorrectly assumed that the Konoha party was here to kill these Blood Lagoon ninja for them?
"If you stand in our way, it is you who is making the last mistake of your life," the tattooed assassin declared before lunging like a mad dog at Yushijin's feet. It was an interesting attack – the female assassin noticed that her opponent was taller than her and that he carried a massive weapon to boot and attacked him at what should have been his most vulnerable spot – his lower shins and his feet.
Regardless of the clever tactic, the flaw was in execution, once more the young woman lacked experience and relied on what seemed like a dogma that she was taught – "if your opponent is tall, if they carry a heavy weapon or gear – go for the feet". A truly skilled combatant would have first engaged the enemy in a barrage of mock attacks and checked the swiftness of the opponent's footwork before devoting themselves fully to a strategy such as this.
Yushijin's feet blurred in a graceful backward dance. He hopped on the very tips of his toes, his feet moved so fast and so silently that they barely even disturbed the floor underneath before shifting positions with one another. Irritated with the constant pressure of his opponent that amounted to nothing and only proceeded to further postpone getting some answers, Yushijin finally shot his weapon out in front of him, placing the tip of his claymore at the bottom of his opponent's chin. With a taunting motion, the Konoha swordsman tilted it slightly just to have it sting the young woman a little and force her head up so that her eyes faced his own.
"You're… Good. Who is your master?" the assassin asked, at first her eyes blazed with blood-boiling fury but after a pair of awkward moments of staring right at Yushijin's eyes, that reflected his no-bullshit mentality the best at the moment of their stares clashing, she became somewhat tamer. For the first time since meeting her, the assassin did not viciously attempt to kill Yushijin for entire seconds.
"Does it matter? Would you betray your current alignment just to train with my master?" Yushijin asked.
The young woman looked away, her submissiveness may have been just a ploy as she let go of her swords and dashed backward and outside the range of her opponent's sword. She was still slightly flustered over the direct question, however.
"No. I guess not…" she admitted. "Master Mizoma may be one of the Seven Swords of the Mist, that I strive to eliminate, but I have more honor than to abandon him for power blindly."
"Ah, I see… That explains it." Yushijin smirked. When confronted by a confused look of his opponent, he explained. "I wondered why you possessed such excellent knowledge but could not execute all of it right. You'd have been more than a challenge for me if you'd have been properly trained. Does your master knows you intend to kill him at some point?"
"Of course," Burbotta admitted looking down. "That's why he took me up under his wing - because he found my ambition amusing."
"Your master sabotaging your training by withholding battlefield experience from you is the best compliment you will ever get," Yushijin smirked before sheathing his sword and turning around, the young man looked around and appeared to be sniffing the air as if one could smell much more than just the abominable feeling of iron dust in the air. "Means he's really worried you might kill him one day."
"How dare you!?" Burbotta flipped out again, she weaved a handful of hand seals and leaped forward. The mid-section of her body turned into a liquid while shuriken-shaped projectiles rained down upon Yushijin. The arms of the female Hozuki assassin turned into scythe-like liquid limbs as well while the kunoichi prepared to slash at her detested opponent like a mantis.
Yushijin's heel moved up, kicking the bottom end of his sheath, which in terms unsheathed a decent chunk of his sword. The exposed steel lit up with a faint, blue shine as the chuunin's chakra coated it entirely. The Konohagakure swordsman leaned to the side, like a dog catching raindrops with its tongue, the young man managed to move the blade of his still halfway sheathed sword in the way of every Water Release shuriken coming at him.
"The penalty for insulting master Mizoma in front of me is death!" the Hozuki youth declared right before her follow-up attack.
With a triumphant smile on her face, Burbotta slashed with her morphed arms in an X-shaped pattern. The scythe-limbs cleaved through the young man, leaving him in four pieces that floated in a nightmarish, lifeless haze before popping away into a cloud of smoke. A thumping sound and four falling chunks of rocky debris alerted the offended Hozuki assassin that her attack only caught a substitution and not the real Yushijin.
"It seems to be a pattern with you…" Yushijin sighed from farther away, where the crumbling rocky structure had gathered the largest piles of debris. "In any case, it seems like you won't back down easily and I really need to gather my team back together."
"Coward, stay here and fight!" Burbotta yelled out, completely unthreatened by the concept of fighting an opponent who was constantly looking for a way out of the fight for the most part of the engagement.
"Staying here and fighting is exactly what I would feel a coward would do…" Yushijin closed his eyes and let the detestable feel of iron fill his lungs and mouth. "A coward would allow himself to become engaged in a meaningless battle while it is his responsibility as a leader to guide his squad away from this hopeless battle. The burden of a leader is something I do not think you will ever understand while clinging to your master's shadow…"
Just like that, the Konoha ninja poofed away into a cloud of smoke and a momentary whirl of wind that carried the aftereffects of the Body Flicker Jutsu away. With a scorned look on her face, Burbotta followed the object of her bloody obsession. Not even for a single moment did the sight of her enemy leave her tracks, the air around the Valley of Hell boomed and thundered with a myriad of steel clangs and thuds before it all disappeared as suddenly as it all started and both of the ninja landed firmly on a tall rock nearby, finally allowing the light around them to fully cover them and make them visible to the naked eye.
"Persistent…" Yushijin grumbled to himself. "I must warn you, if you stand in the way of me rescuing my squad, I will not hesitate to kill you."
"Finally tasted your own medicine?" Burbotta taunted her opponent in return.
Yushijin charged forward, he drew his sword the moment that his feet left the rocky solace of the large rock and flew forward like an arrow propelled by the strength of his own lower body. Burbotta put her hands up, revealing an obsidian handle within her grasp and a dull, metallic stick as long as half her arm reaching all the way to her elbow and a bit past that.
It was an efficient way to counter larger and therefore slower sharp weapons. The texture of the pair of tonfa in Burbotta's arms looked coarse like sandpaper, they were more likely than not designed to chip away at the sharpness of any blade and their entire point was to provide the user with an efficient way to block sword swings with their martial arts skill without cutting their actual limbs by putting something in between their forearms and the edge of the sword.
Burbotta crossed her hands, forming a black X in front of her that was meant to take the force of Yushijin's front swing. The Hozuki assassin stood and waited for the impact, milliseconds felt like the entire eternity but the blunt force of the blocked sword swing simply did not task the young woman's shoulders or push her back in any way.
Just when something began seeming suspicious for the Kirigakure assassin, Yushijin's blade split her head into two by digging into the top and severing it sideways. Burbotta's split crown dripped in the shape of water and littered the floor under her feet, her body bloated and moved unnaturally while the lost water reabsorbed into the young woman's body and then reformed her damaged head. This time it was Yushijin who did not let up, every muscle in his body overflowing with the need to overcome his incredibly incessant opponent.
The anguish behind his decision to bring his squad here drove his swings, anxiety that his wrong call to pick a fight in this unfavorable battlefield gave birth to fueled the illusions that Yushijin weaved and irritation by his own failure in fulfilling his responsibilities as a leader by picking a fight for his squad that was defined by pretty much every circumstance surrounding it being some sort of disadvantage, starting from the number game, ending with their lack of intelligence about the entire affair.
Burbotta failed to keep up with Yushijin's movements. His unnatural rhythm once again threw her off completely, she placed her blocks responding to what she perceived the Konoha ninja's speed to be but she did not realize that by messing with her perception of time, Yushijin effectively robbed her of the knowledge of what his true speed was. Every added instance of Last Resort giving or taking the Kirigakure assassin a feint misdirection about time having stopped and then tricking her by having Yushijin appear in front of her made her believe that her opponent was vastly too fast and capable of dictating the dance of swords. Truthfully, their speeds were about the same but Yushijin allowed himself the luxury of greatly dropping his true speed just so he could further confuse his opponent.
Here this remarkably talented young woman thought that her opponent moved in almost an instant, placing her blocks perfectly, the moment she had the chance to respond to her own reads of Yushijin's movements but when she blocked or attempted to dodge she was always too early. The true strike always came a moment after and that always cost the Hozuki precious limbs or made her lose her head repeatedly in the more literal sense even if the figurative one still applied.
One of the myriads of agonizing exchanges concluded with Yushijin raising his sword at the decisive moment, just a few inches shy from Burbotta's frightened eyes before swinging his claymore around over his head and then sheathing it back. The young woman shook in her boots, staring right at the blank stare of her opponent who stared into a blank point somewhere in the distance before flickering away out of existence, having been revealed to be just another remnant of time frozen inside her own mind. A light shuffling of sandals alerted Burbotta that her opponent was nonchalantly walking away again, leaving her to ferment in her own despair and defeat. Just when the tattooed one turned around to express her newly gathered disdain, demand for their clash to continue, Yushijin interjected having perfectly read even this response in advance.
"Stop this. Haven't you noticed it yet? You're not producing any sweat despite taking me on for quite some time now in this hellish place. Even I'm drenched. All that dissolving and reforming you've been doing – you're dehydrated, aren't you? I was wondering what the weakness of your clan technique was and it appears to be hydration – every drop of water you dissolve into comes out of your own body. I'd advise not taking another step, you might not make it all the way up to me if you do…"
"Don't think this is over…" Burbotta grit her teeth.
"Over? Our countries are constantly at each other's throats. We're bound to meet sooner or later…" Yushijin turned his head back halfway just to send shivers down the back of his dried out, tormented opponent. A reminder of what refreshing showers outside this valley felt like.