The scene of Kiyomi staring at the fading smoke and shifting layers of ice, Meiko breathing heavily and struggling to stand up from her kneeling position and the third Iwagakure spy staring blankly at the scene of Hanshin beating the life out of his comrade appeared frozen in time. It was not the first time that Kiyomi had killed someone and yet… This was the first time that she's felt this guilty about it even though her rational mind couldn't quite explain why.

The hand of the Iwagakure spy reached out into thin air, like an arrow piercing the shadows and seeking another life to take. Meiko leaned her head back, avoiding the grip of the enemy ninja just barely. The blacksmith threw both of her thighs forward and wrapped her legs around the arm of the enemy before applying a powerful hold onto the arm of the spy.

The third ninja grunted out in discomfort as Meiko's remaining strength was nowhere close where it would have done significant damage on his limb. Kiyomi let her body fall forward, releasing all of the weight, all of the conscious control she had over it before the very last moment. The momentary bliss of plunging down felt so terrific… If only it had lasted a few moments more…

All of the relinquished strength returned at once, Kiyomi shot off like a rocket, propelled toward her opponent. The enemy was very thorough at using only long-range ninjutsu attacks. Relatively simple ones, nothing stronger than B-Rank, very few techniques crossing even that line. He was a fighter that wore the enemy down from afar over longer periods of time, meaning his main weakness was if the enemy exploded in his face from up close with quick and devastating attacks.

The Yamanaka concluded her dash with a frontal palm strike, aimed directly at the right side of the enemy's jaw. The neck of the spy extended far back from the transference of force behind Kiyomi's wicked strike, devastating the man's jaw to the point where speaking would have been out of the question to him. The man's arm flailed around so quickly that Meiko lost her grip and tumbled onto the floor, just barely peeling her bleeding face off of the ice to continue watching the transpiring brawl.

Kiyomi did not stop. Stopping would have meant a reset of the battle conditions, it would have provided her enemy with the time to look around for objects to substitute with or to think up of a decent defense. If this man reset the engagement, giving himself space, there may not have been a next time for Kiyomi to close in. After all, close-range explosive combat was this man's only weakness, meaning he was prepared for this eventuality the most and would not allow easy passage again.

The Yamanaka threw a pair of stiff, direct palm strikes, turning her palm to the side to hit with the side of the palm, make her hits sharper and hit into the softer parts of the man's joints. By now she had already devastated the enemy's jaw, the following pair of strikes went for the ribs as well as the softer areas of the lower gut. A hard resistance hit the wrists of the young woman, the enemy was resisting – he did have some taijutsu skill after all.

The man slapped both of Kiyomi's palm strikes away, opening up the chest of the Konoha kunoichi for a quick attack of his own. Using the weight of his entire body, the man threw a palm strike of his own, aimed right at the center of Kiyomi's ribs. The hardest and the most protected area of her body, but the most devastating one if the attack succeeded in the initial goal of busting Kiyomi's bones. Their fighting styles were rather similar, however, whereas Kiyomi relied on her twisted palm strikes getting into joints and pressure points – the man chose to simply drive them with sheer force and destroy any defenses in his way, no matter where they landed.

No, he purposefully drove them at the toughest areas with the most natural protection, he aimed to break the enemy's entire body through brute strength alone.

Kiyomi's eyes whited out. The successive palm strike sent the Yamanaka sliding back with her consciousness hiding away somewhere else so that she did not have to confront the imminent pain of multiple fractures. Her entire body may very well have broken after this strike. The enemy continued their relentless assault with a pair of backhanded fist strikes, these packed significantly less force given how the man's weight was already invested into the first strike but it would not have mattered.

Fire lit up in the Yamanaka's eyes again. She moved in for a rising palm strike aimed at the chin of the enemy ninja, the man's jaw was already busted, any successive strikes there would have caused brutal damage, forcing the fractured bones to shred the man's flesh as open fractures appeared like mushrooms after an autumn rain.

The built-up blood in Kiyomi's mouth from her busted organs made a release as a rough impact sent the young woman sliding back on the ice, completely powerless. It was a tackling motion, the man crashed his shoulder right into Kiyomi's body before her counterattack could have connected. Ordering her body to move even an inch, do anything but twitch her fingers helplessly was of no use.

Meiko fumbled in to protect Kiyomi, the blacksmith could barely stand right but she willed herself to do so just so she could place herself in between her friend and the enemy ninja. Both of the young women were closer to death than they could ever remember being, this desperation was what provided them with the strength needed to keep going, submitting to their physical limitations would have meant certain death.

"M-Meiko…" Kiyomi whimpered.

"You dummy, you were so worried to look after me that you got messed up worse than I did…" Meiko grinned in the face of the most danger she's ever been in. Only one moment in time rivaled this one in terms of how close the blacksmith was to losing everything but, unlike the time fighting Akimichi Francho for the control of the Box of Ultimate Bliss, Meiko did not feel hopeless or powerless. She would not just sit there and dwell on approaching death, she'd rather punch it in the face.

The Iwagakure ninja attempted to speak, instead, just a puddle of blood, teeth, and slobber dripped down his busted mouth. This sent the man into a fit of rage as he charged forward at Meiko.

The blacksmith's head felt weird. As if something or someone was inside it and tried to speak. It was a similar feeling to the one when one felt like they were being watched but on a much deeper, more personal, internal level. It did not help Meiko's concentration at all…

The enemy threw a pair of palm strikes. Meiko leaned aside, letting her faltering balance aid her in the evasion, whenever the draw to the ground was too strong, the young woman just let it take over from there and let go, then, right before it was too late shifted her balance around, tensed up her muscles and pulled on the driving stick of her body with all of her weight and will. It let the blacksmith avoid these simple strikes at least… A pair of haphazard counterattack jabs landed with solid wallop behind them on her opponent's body, further wearing it out.

After feeling like she's softened the man up a little more, Meiko's hands swung again. This time they were just mere fists, however, a pair of arrows popped out from the blacksmith's forearm armor pieces. One of the arrows caught flame when whizzing through the air while gripped tightly in the blacksmith's hand, the other one had a peculiar black end that was meant to penetrate with more success by giving the projectile a tip of sharper and more durable materials.

The enemy avoided the strikes by moving the upper body. The man's feet remained firmly rooted in the ground. Something that did not evade Meiko's notice. The man knew how to keep his balance – an integral feature to any formidable hand to hand combatant, also, a very notable feature for a more arm-focused taijutsu specialist. After reading her opponent thusly, the blacksmith managed to avoid the hard right cross and wrap her body around the opponent with her right hand constricting around the man's neck and her left continuously throwing elbow strikes at the top of the head of the Iwagakure ninja.

There it was… That feeling again… Something was inside her mind, just residing there and watching. Somehow the blacksmith felt like she was hearing heavy, controlled breathing in her head even though she couldn't actually hear anything of the sort. Her opponent appeared to suffer from no such disadvantages, no such quirks, perhaps his head wasn't busted enough…

A rough grip managed to grab hold of Meiko's hair and swing the blacksmith over the man's head before slamming her right into the ground in front. Oddly enough, while the impact made the young woman's body burn up with thousands of hot needles that injected hot wax everywhere they could reach, this was not as devastating as Meiko had predicted it being while her body felt weightless and flying in an arc toward the ground.

Meiko had predicted a stomp coming her way, which was why she chose to rather crawl and writhe in a highly prosaic manner and pose than risk getting her life punched out of her. Her opponent hit her with an unfavorable move back then, his style did not favor slams and wrestling moves like the one from before… That was why Meiko didn't have pieces of her ribs flying all over her innards and poking around where they didn't belong. This finishing blow… It felt real, it felt genuine…

Although, despite the determined look on the opponent's face and the clearly immense power packed away into the final strike, it was not a stomp that came Meiko's way but instead a punch. It seemed completely counterintuitive to punch the ground while the upper body was too leaned over to draw force from the ground beneath one's feet. Balance added more than half of the force behind a punch, not just blindly swinging one's arm from the shoulder like a rookie…

This man was no rookie, however, while the strike itself had missed Meiko entirely, the quake from after the punch that resonated through the ground lifted the blacksmith up into the air higher up than the entirety of the opponent's height. Had the blacksmith not utilized this high-flying opportunity to throw a stiff kick from her right leg to halt her opponent's proceeding attack, she'd have been wide open for the true finishing blow. The fighting style of this man… It was unlike anything Meiko had encountered before. It was no Strong Fist of Konoha, to say the least.

"Don't get hit!" Kiyomi's thoughts signaled through Meiko's mind, breaking through the awkward and quite freaky silence from before. "It's his fighting style… Whatever he does to the ground, he does to you if he lands a blow. Him posing as a long-range ninja is a trap…"

This last attempt by her friend to share intelligence cleared Meiko's mind a bit. She knew at least that her friend, while fading in and out of consciousness, was alive and while she was still unable to talk, she was at the very least still lucid enough to think clearly and relate those thoughts to the blacksmith. Given how the pair were tagging in and out of this battle with the out member of their tag team staying unconscious, such information sharing seemed useful.

Through pain and grit, the redhead cackled, her hand covered up and wiped blood from her busted lip and the other free arm had to clutch at the chest of the young woman to protect her busted ribs that were being scorched by the blaze of pain this sudden influx of movement invited all over the blacksmith's body. Regardless, the young woman had to persevere, refusal to do so meant a whole lot more short-term pain followed by absolutely nothing at all…

The enemy grumbled, spraying out bits of busted teeth and blood from whatever still qualified as a mouth on his face.

"I bet you're wondering what's so funny…" Meiko straightened her body out, performing a pair of quick stretches to ease up and balance the burn in her body more evenly. Cramps all over the body beat agony in just one specific area. "You see, this kind of tag team fighting is just what we went through in the Chuunin Exams, seemed kind of pointless then…"

The two ninja launched their worn out and broken bodies at one another. Both seemingly still capable of throwing their fists just as both of them could have died after any one of these earth-shattering blows they threw each other's way since they have long since passed the point of reason and bodily limits, proceeding forward while borrowing fuel to do so from their life force directly.

The enemy, who from the first glance appeared to have more at stake and therefore carried more will packed and pushing the agenda of the man's survival, threw a combination of rapid palm strikes. It would have appeared impossible to avoid this wild storm of thrown hands as the swiftness and ferocity of the combination made it look as if the Iwagakure ninja had grown thousands of extra arms all of which proceeded to rush with strikes at various angles.

The only reason Meiko survived this onslaught was blind luck, she could not read or predict this peculiar style at all, for that reason, she did not try. The redhead merely proceeded to attack the way she meant to attack her opponent before realizing she was outpaced, hoping for the best. The blacksmith leaped forward like a little monkey, throwing both of her clenched fists down in a hammer-like manner to use the enemy's shoulders for support of her leaping venture.

The Iwagakure ninja sprayed blood and teeth again in pain and stumbled on all fours from the lightest tap. This, however, was no blind luck, the bodies of all of the participants of this massive brawl were broken to such an extent that even the slightest touch sent ripples of force that disturbed broken bones elsewhere entirely in one's body. Similar was the case with the stumbling of the Iwagakure spy as well.

Adamant to finish the fight and desperate in her foresight that a mere unchaining of her best strikes would not do it, Meiko unsealed a windmill shuriken from the center of her chest and with a battle cry coming from the deepest crevices of her chest did her best to plunge the ninja tool into her enemy's exposed back. A whistling noise pierced the silence before the kill, the arm of the Iwagakure spy flew back and grabbed Meiko's throat, crushing it and snapping the young woman's neck in an instant as it offered little to no resistance in its current state.

Instead of a lifeless body, only crumbles of wood and string dropped onto the icy ground. The enemy turned back and raised an eyebrow in the surprise of the well-timed and placed substitution technique of his opponent. It was only after realizing that his opponent had substituted out of his deadly counterattack that the Iwagakure ninja realized where exactly the bow was located before being substituted with and what was the most important in this realization – the fact that he had just exposed his back to the enemy again.

The Iwagakure ninja threw his upper body to the side once more. The exposed and pushing overtime muscles on his back sprayed sweat all over him as the man just barely managed to catch Meiko's wrist clutching an arrow in it that was meant for the back of his neck. Hanging in mid-air, with the clutch of the enemy tightly controlling her plunging arm, watching out for potential counterattacks and for that reason preserving the remaining limbs for the defensive, Meiko stared at her opponent in as much misery as she did sheer rage.

So this was how far her lukewarm declarations of not killing went… At this desperate point, driven with her back to the wall and then having her body smashed through the said wall, Meiko could see no more choices but to kill the enemy. Even when she resorted to these sort of attacks – attacks meant to end and not just maim or soften, she could not defeat the enemy nor triumph his will. Mana's resolve seemed so worth admiration now… Just how often was her friend driven to just these sort of extremes and still chose to gamble her own life and the life of the enemy before resorting to foul attempts such as those that Meiko had used.

The Iwagakure ninja twisted Meiko's wrist, forcing the young woman to grunt in pain while her feet dangled in mid-air, lacking the support needed to prevent continuous twisting of the joints in her locked arm. How could she have done so much and yet still be so far from winning? She did everything she could, her body felt less and less responsive and vision was beginning to fade, for the first time in a while Meiko would have liked some sleep more than rich tables of food and yet… The willpower of the enemy beat that of hers.

Was just doing her best, never giving up and just pushing on not enough?

Was she not owed victory for risking her life this way? Or maybe… The enemy risked their life to an even higher extent, the Iwagakure ninja craved victory more than Meiko did.

It was so easy for Mana to say that if she died – she was better off dead when she never actually did lose when giving her all, when pushing her body to just these same sorts of extremes.

Meiko's feet shot forward before the enemy could crush her fist completely. The vision of the Iwagakure ninja faded away as their eyes whited out from shock while both of the blacksmith's feet dug into his chest and left crushing craters in the man's ribcage.

Overcome by adrenaline as much as she was with rage, Meiko continued to wallop with her one still responsive arm, punching, throwing elbow strikes before switching to her feet and her knees to give her arm more time for winding up and repeating the same combination. After a finishing elbow strike right to the softest chunks of the exposed flesh of the wound on the jaw of the Iwagakure ninja, the enemy rolled back like a kicked ball and slammed against the most northern wall supporting the Eternal Fire.

Meiko's eyes widened in shock, respect but also submission to the indomitable will of the Iwagakure ninja when the spy just fumbled and writhed back on his front and tried pushing his body off the ground. It seemed that the only way to make the man submit was to actually kill him on his feet, that would have been the only way for the Stone ninja to not rise after being knocked down.

Just as suddenly as it blazed alive, the Will of Stone faded once the horror of seeing his teammate reduced to fleshy, bloody stain by Hanshin reflected off of the peeper of the Iwagakure ninja. It was as if at that moment the ninja had simultaneously realized that he was left alone amongst the three that signed the iron resolution here to halt the Konoha ninja as well as the fact that there was no way that he would achieve anything through further resistance.

While almost halfway back up on his feet, the enemy collapsed and stayed down. Meiko's weary eyes turned back at the last gaze that inspired so much fear into the heart of the enemy, she felt lucky that the swelling on her face and the blood gushing from one of her busted eyebrows as well as the forehead blinded one of her eyes as she was certain that the sight of what remained of the smart-talking, pickaxe-wielding spy was not for the faint of heart.

"I can't believe you just sat here this whole time…" Meiko fumbled, words barely strung together, the pull of the frozen ground below was too strong to resist and growing stronger each passing second.

"Hanshin did consider moving on without you two, after all, you taking so long was wasting quite a lot of Hanshin's time… Then, Hanshin remembered that the longer we take, the better our odds at getting to kill every spy in the building so…" Hanshin shrugged as if what he had just said was any sort of justification and not completely devoid of any moral decency.