Asuka and Endo stood in place and stared each other down for a second. Each one of them knew that the first sign of action from either of them would kick off an engagement that the death of the other would only sate. However, Asuka's stance betrayed insecurity. Without a weapon in hand or any sign of setup, she felt naked standing before a swordsman with both of his swords in hand. That decided the first one to make a move.
Reacting to the twitch in Asuka's muscles that telegraphed her arms, shooting back to remove something cumbersome that stood behind her, Endo slammed both of his katana together at the other end of their hilts and formed a two-sided weapon out of them. Asuka may have lacked the experience of fighting against the swordsman of the Allied Ninja to know this, but Endo preferred to dual-wield his swords for an aggressive, almost tyrannical approach of relentless attacking while inter-connected blades helped him to control range or larger crowds. Endo connecting his katana together signaled that he sought safety over reckless abandon in this collision.
As much safety as Endo preferred having, anyway. Right after connecting his weapon into a two-sided sword-staff, the swordsman flung it with his dominant hand, spinning with a fearsome, low-pitched buzzing to it. Asuka concluded her motion before the spinning sword-staff slashed her clean in half and drove her bandaged, tall package wrapped in bandages into the ground. The twin-sided sword collided with Asuka's tool and buzzed at it with a considerable expulsion of sparks for a few moments longer before the resonating force demanded that the spinning weapon bounced off.
It was a double-edge exchange. While Asuka prevented the weapon toss from leaving her in two pieces, the resulting burst of force sent her flying away from her own weapon while the bandages she kept it wrapped in splintered into shredded bits leaving a lone, man-sized umbrella with steel sheets rolling around on a bed of torn bandages. Endo's weapon skidded aside too. The swordsman reached for an old, metallic hilt and displayed it in front of him before igniting a Lightning Release blade from the hilt and rushing toward his displaced opponent.
Endo twirled with a daring horizontal vault, kicking Asuka aside in an even less stable position before regaining his footing and pursuing his opponent on the ancient, colossal throne that the young woman bounced off of from the force which Endo kicked her aside with. This time Endo himself emulated the slicing buzzer formation of his sword-staff with his legs and his repaired Sword of the Thunder God serving as a replacement for the jewel steel of his swords.
Asuka vaulted backward over the throne's decorations and pressed her hand against them. This confused Endo as he saw an opening to gore his opponent and Endo was too greedy in battle to ignore such easy opportunities. He charged ahead, but a network of thin yet immensely lengthy razor blades burst forth from the throne. They extended as a lone flat blade before splintering off into an entire pattern, forcing Endo to rely on his best acrobatic efforts to reposition himself on top of the extending razor blades.
It became clear to Endo that Asuka either didn't expect him out-maneuvering her cute razor trick or suspected he had what it takes but was too pressured to not act this way. Either way, he pressed on, whirling his Sword of the Thunder God about and forcing Asuka on the defensive. Despite her impressive performance in avoiding the blade's sizzling edge, with each dodged strike, the orphan from Kirigakure opened herself up for Endo's abuse. Any time she ducked a slash, a knee met her nose. Any time that she leaned back, Endo grabbed her clothes and pulled her in for a headbutt. Any time she tried restraining his wrists to prevent his oppressive swordplay, Endo kneed or kicked the woman aside. Eventually, he put too much force into it and kicked her too hard. This put her at a larger distance than Endo would've liked.
The swordsman stomped at the throne he'd been duking out with Asuka on and saw a chunk of it chipping off and spinning in the air. Endo swiped it with his free hand and toyed around with it.
"It's chakra-conductive…" he noted. "This ain't just your ordinary throne, is it?"
"Who knows?" Asuka grumbled in return, wiping the blood off of her busted nose.
Endo pressed the broken piece of the throne harder in his hand. At the same time, channeling his chakra through it as if he'd coat one of his blades. Just like before, a splintering network of razor blades formed a vaguely sword-shaped bouquet of black razors controlled by that same chunk he'd sliced off.
"Well, what do you know? This is the same trick you've used before. I knew it couldn't have been you," Endo mocked the traitorous kunoichi, feeling the fact that he had pressed her back to the wall and had this battle under his control again. As long as he noted the inevitable moment when she'd try to regain control and subvert that attempt, she's as good as skewered already.
"Yeah, well… This stone insignia you've chipped off is part of the Throne of Danu. It has meaning to the people of Earth Country and the ability to make the mountains bloom at the hands of the right person. Neither of us is the right person, it seems. I guess it's only fair, neither of us is from around these parts," Asuka stood up, adamant to resume her opposition though the reason for this seemed to confuse Endo.
Endo flipped his antique sword into the air while pocketing his newly gained treasure for future research and polishing. When both his hands were free, he weaved several hand seals while Asuka dashed straight at him, evading the chaos of the surrounding battlefield.
"Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!" Endo chanted out as his chest inflated with air, only for it all to come out with a terrifying gale that went right at the charging kunoichi. Asuka took it to the air and relaxed her body, moving with the gale as opposed to trying to resist it. Just like before, when she strode across wet remnants of a Water Release jutsu and employed petty tricks against Endo in their first engagement, the orphan proved herself to be second to none in terms of lightness of body and nimbleness.
Even if the gale smacked her back, by relaxing her body in the face of the wind wall, the kunoichi flipped back and landed her feet against the back wall only to kick off and roll onward, transitioning into a frontal vaulting approach that was so disadvantageous and dangerous to an attacker that it actually put Endo on the back foot after grabbing his Sword of the Thunder God out of thin air.
Endo's eyes widened in surprise as an invisible force greeted his wrists at the moment of intended punishment of such reckless and flash-over-substance approach to a life-or-death battle. Asuka's feet had been coated with chakra, yet it was so thin that the coating couldn't have been seen by a naked eye. It was only when the coating contacted Endo's wrists and obstructed them that he had realized about their presence. By that point, Asuka's boots already socked him flat in the face. This repaid the bloody favor that the swordsman had earned earlier.
Sensing her opening, Asuka unleashed a careful and measured flurry of jabs at the exposed pressure points of her opponent. None of them were potentially lethal, though all of them were placed where a human body was soft and where it would have been profoundly painful and debilitating to be hit. This further aggravated Endo. Surely this traitorous assassin knew Endo had by far the greatest pain tolerance from all of those people in the room? Surely she wanted him dead as much as he wanted her, right? Why would she choose a debilitating, yet fruitless, bunch of targets for an attack like this?
A strong, standing kick to the mid-section sent Endo on his back while Asuka pulled a kunai with steel wire attached to the other end and flung it to the ceiling, letting the kunai imbed in it with just the slightest application of chakra coating to its tip and making it possible for the Kirigakure orphan to zip around the hall with greater impunity than to pass by or over her fallen foe. A golden flash of Asuka's hair in the background of blood-red tipped Endo off that the infernal woman had rushed to her fallen weapon. Gnashing his teeth, Endo returned to his feet, fighting through the pain.
"This fuckery will get you nowhere!" Endo cursed through all of his pressure points, burning up with painful resonances throughout his entire body. "You had a fair shot at killing me there."
"Maybe. I'd wager you'd have either survived my attempt or that you've waited for just such an attempt to catch me being too greedy though. Either way, there's just one person in this room that I intend to kill today and it is not you," Asuka shrugged, opening her clanging steel umbrella and twirling its blade sheets over her head as if she was shaking raindrops off of it.
"So… The Allied Ninja have finally stepped in to support the oppressors? Makes about as much sense as anything else in this crazy world of ours," Chynfon cackled, crossing up her armed with knives hands over her gut as if she had intended to split it open to ease the strain of hilarity that had her in stitches.
"Not really. We're not for or against what Kumogakure is doing in Iwagakure. We just really aren't fond of you guys and what you're up to," Shige-H took a balanced taijutsu stance, sharing a glance with Denkka who stepped to the right in order to form a choking formation against the enemy leader.
Without letting go of her knives, Chynfon weaved a few hand seals, dislodging a rising stone pillar from underground that flung her up top to rush at her opponent from an elevated position. She was incredibly fast, Shige-H just barely had the time to weave out of the way of the thrust of the woman's dagger before she adjusted and thrust again with the same weapon.
Seeing Denkka rushing in from the backside, Chynfon flung her second dagger behind her in a round buzz. This projectile attack forced Denkka to slide down under and lose a lot of speed. The peacekeeper had slowed down enough for Chynfon to jump with a wild roundhouse and catch her in the jaw, sending the ex-Imarizu rolling aside while Chynfon returned to Shige-H. With a single hand seal, a small stone ridge burst from the ground with the leader of the group of rogues bouncing her dagger off of it to leave it embedded in Shige's chest.
"Not many ninja could fling a dagger without turning to look…" Denkka wiped her lip that had been covered with slobber.
"I know what you're doing, occupant. You're trying to buy your friend some time to deal with her injury. Fortunately for you, I hate your guts so much that I'm just fine with killing you first," Chynfon hissed at the rising woman that had a full head of size over the rogue kunoichi and a significant amount of bulk.
"Okay…" Denkka grit her teeth. She didn't enjoy seeing this kind of instinct and experience on her opponent. Especially one as motivated and capable of causing tremendous harm to the stability of the continent and the whole ninja world with her empowered, reckless abandon.
"Lightning Release Armor: V1!" Denkka stretched her arms out, feeling force itself pumping through her body. An overwhelming rush of energy as rampant electricity that pooled in her sky-blue aura and spiked up Denkka's hair, threatening the integrity of the woman's ponytail.
The head peacekeeper took off with a vertical halo of electricity expelled from her feet and beamed at her opponent in a straight laser-like charge. The same platform that rose to bounce the dagger into Shige's chest before springing to life and flew right at Denkka from the side, forcing the straight-shooter to manipulate her body mid-motion to backhand it into pebbles. This, however, proved to be just the distraction that Chynfon needed.
"Earth Style: Scorpion's Tail!" Chynfon chanted out and pressed her hand against the floor, making the ground under her feet shake as a blue flame of basic chakra enveloped a splintered stone platform she stood on. The chain spread across, connecting multiple stray stone platforms that formed a tail-like shape that swiped toward the distracted peacekeeper and knocked her flat. Emboldened by this success, Chynfon took it to the air with a roll that concluded with a foot stamp across the face of the downed peacekeeper.
"That's right, all of your tactics are well-known to me, oppressor!" Chynfon howled with mania radiating from her body language and the tone of her voice. "I speak the language of madness spoken in war. I know all of your underhanded tricks and tactics."
While cursing her enemy, the rogue Iwagakure kunoichi stomped at Denkka, though the peacekeeper had placed a firm block and tensed her rock-hard muscles well enough to take minimal damage from such an emotion-driven attack. The disturbing sound of steel clanging against stone distracted both women and prompted them to turn to Shige-H, who had pulled the dagger out and closed her own wound already with a quick patch-up of Mystical Palm.
"You may have a right to feel angry, you may feel sad and uncertain about your future. But one thing you can't feel is betrayal!" Shige-H declared, taking up a taijutsu stance and making her fist burst with the blue light of the Chakra Enhanced Strength. "Your actions threaten to drown the entire continent in war. You're okay with killing, maiming, and abducting people, you're not above hurting even your own people that are already being oppressed! No country, village, or organization will ever support this madness you subscribe to!"
"Madness?" Chynfon stepped off of Denkka and took a hellish stab at the downed woman only for Denkka to roll aside and jump at Chynfon with a cross-armed tackle that made the leader of the rogue ninja group slide back grumbling and spitting up blood. "You're right. Plenty of people have labeled me mad long before I gathered all of my comrades together. But in the chaotic boiling pot of war, the madmen are often the ones that find the most order in all that chaos. That's why a madwoman like me excels and feels the most comfortable living in the trenches. If a Great Ninja World War is what it takes to raze Kumogakure to the ground and establish order in Iwagakure, so be it!"
Denkka clenched her fists, igniting the Lightning Release Armor aura around her while Shige-H put up her dukes. The two dashed forward toward their mutual enemy. "String Reeling Jutsu!" Chynfon weaved a single hand seal, revealing strings of steel wire wrapped around the handle of her discarded dagger she used to reel the weapon back in her grip. Almost at the same time, Chynfon ducked Shige-H's rush of power blows and rolled and danced around Denkka's own berserker rush.
The rogue kunoichi cleverly manipulated the battlefield and her opponents, always having one or the other in between her and the other opponent so that neither Shige-H nor Chynfon could use the full potential of their attacks and overwhelm the rogue kunoichi. Seeing an opening, Chynfon flipped back in the air and flung her dagger toward what seemed like a complete lack of a target while weaving hand seals.
"Blade Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Chynfon chanted. A loud pop came from the whizzing dagger as dozens of replicas of the dagger appeared from what seemed like thin air in an instant. The overwhelmed kunoichi covered themselves up. Shige-H grunted in pain as the weapons skewered her like a pin-cushion, prompting her to augment her body to toughen it up and leave the daggers to merely cause shallow injuries while Denkka's Lightning Release Armor rendered the dagger-fall an irritating nuisance more than a life-threatening emergency.
"Not bad… Creating clones of inanimate objects is some high-art…" Denkka rubbed her grazed cheek with the back of her hand.
"War often provides more people to cut than blades to cut them with…" Chynfon offered the pair a manic smile. The woman must have found what she had just said especially hilarious as she began cackling to herself while preparing to attack again. Her body froze in place. A crimson splatter splashed at the eyes of Denkka and Shige-H, nearly blinding them. Because of her medical training, Shige-H had trained her eyes to follow the tide of battle at all times, which made her smart enough to duck under the bladed disc of the tool that had slashed their enemy from behind.
"Watch out!" Shige-H yelled out a warning to the Kumogakure veteran, but Denkka just extended her hand and caught the buzzard in her hand. "An umbrella tip?" she muttered before looking up at the manic smirk frozen on Chynfon's face as her head slipped off her shoulders and her dead body slumped down by it.
"Chynfon!" Selsig cried out in visible distress. The worry he felt at the sight of his leader's demise had granted the distraction that Mana needed to free herself with an overhead whirlwind kick, using her arms for support. Given her physical shortcomings, the twirl was incomplete and lacked punch, but the mud-men had been frozen and especially wimpy because of their master's shock and utter loss of fighting spirit.
"Nice shot, if I say so myself. I've been looking for a chance when she'd lower her guard…" Asuka scratched her neck from an area behind Chynfon with an iron rod in her hand that served as a part of the umbrella blade she used to decapitate the rogue kunoichi from behind. Seeing how Endo's neural networking had ceased functioning, having seen this transpire in the middle of his fated clash with the blond kunoichi, Asuka winked at him and offered her wrists to the swordsman. "I've killed the one person I intended to kill today already. I give up."