“Yo, you look like shit.” Minato, who was still gasping for air on all four, heard an amused feminine voice not far from him, causing his head to snap up only to see a teenage girl crouching five feet away from him.
‘How the hell did I not notice her sneak up on me?’ He idly thought, his mind mostly blank after three hours of non-stop flashing and killing. He might have spent only half of his chakra in doing so but the amount of stress his mind and body were under was quite immense and Minato would like nothing more than to drop into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness right about now. Alas, it was not to be.
Minato took one deep breath before forcefully calming his gasping for air, pulling himself first onto his knees before sluggishly standing up, almost falling down multiple times while doing so, causing him to circulate his chakra through his body, energizing it. The girl just watched him with barely veiled enjoyment, making him quite disgruntled.
Only now did Minato take a proper look at her. She had black shorts, blue haori with a flowery pattern, and on her forehead was slashed Kiri symbol, showing her status as nuke-nin. Obviously, she was not clad for war, much less fight which made Minato slightly hesitate.
“Who are you and what do you want?” He asked, stalling for time and trying to appear fine while still working on getting his body combat-ready.
Mei frowned but as soon as the frown appeared, it again disappeared into the amused facade with a slight smile. “Haaa~, whatever. Forget it. You are wasted. I doubt I could get a good challenge from you as you are now.” She reluctantly said, making Minato relax a bit.
Despite that, he was inwardly quite amused. ‘Fight? This girl wants to fight me? She isn’t very bright, is she?’ He thought while keeping his polite expression up, not commenting at the field of hundred corpses that died by his hand all around them. If that was not enough deterrent for the girl in front of him, then he could only pray her stupidity won’t one day be the end of her. ‘Oh who am I kidding… of course morons like that die first.’ Minato inwardly snickered.
“Well, since I obviously won’t get the fight I wanted, I guess taking a few kunais with your seal for research purposes will have to do.” The girl boredly stated and stood up, about to leave.
‘Wait… taking my seal? Oh, no, girlie, you don’t-‘ Minato was about to protest when Mei suddenly raised her arm and her forearm blocked a surprise kick from one of the Konoha jonin who came to help him… after three hours of gawking. ‘Great.’ Minato mentally snorted.
Mei raised her eyebrow as the Konoha jonin tried to push her arm back with his strength only to fail horribly at it. She didn’t even budge. “Heh, looks like I will get the fight I wanted, after all.” She happily said, causing Minato to groan.
Kunais and shurikens suddenly flew at Mei from behind Minato as the Konoha ninjas finally decided to intervene. Minato saw the projectiles hit the girl and inwardly shook his head. She was not his enemy, more like a stupid annoyance but still, he didn’t like meaningless killing. Contrary to his expectations, the second the sharp projectiles came into contact with Mei, they ricocheted from her as if they hit steel while Mei still stood in her previous spot, now scowling at the approaching Konoha ninjas without even scratch on her body.
‘Uh, oh…’ Minato thought as he contemplated when and what Jutsu did she use. He certainly didn’t see her use anything and that was bad. Incredibly bad at that. He prepared for yet another exhausting fight. sensing all the seal beacons on his kunais strewn all around.
Mei tilted her head, letting a kunai with an exploding tag sail harmlessly an inch from her cheek, passing her and later exploding far away behind her as she stared with impassive eyes at the Konoha idiots. For three hours they just waited until the yellow flashlight finished Iwa troops, not even pondering about helping him and now when there is only one, probable, foe, they charge at her with five hundred of them? Throwing weapons without even ascertaining if she is an enemy or not? ‘Somebody needs to be properly taken down a peg, I guess.’ Mei’s eyes shone with determination.
The first to run her was a screaming twenty years old man who was waving his hand holding a kunai at her. Mei kicked him into the stomach, making him fly back from where he came running from, still screaming.
The entire field fell into a pin-drop silence at once.
“You didn’t really think I would not retaliate, did you?” Mei rolled her eyes at the men staring at her as if she grew a new head.
They quickly snapped out of their reverie and again charged at her and the battle started anew. Minato watched as Jutsu after Jutsu, Weapon after Weapon impacted Mei’s body only to be deflected the second it came into contact with her while inflicting no wound whatsoever.
Mei danced amidst the flurry of strikes, fire, water, earth, and weapons, using only taijutsu to break bones and tear muscles with a quick succession of punches. After Konan’s trademark clone training, Mei had incredible spatial awareness and it showed.
Leaning back, she evaded a sword, grasping the hand of her would-be attacker before throwing him into three ninjas running at her. She then sent a bigger than needed amount of chakra into her soles, propelling herself into a jump only to land in the middle of five bewildered Konoha ninjas. Using her momentum from the jump, Mei quickly lowered her center of gravity by crouching down and dropping them off their feet with a sweeping kick.
Minato just watched as a ninja after the ninja was downed with broken bones and decided that enough was enough. Feeling for the closest beacon seal near Mei, he teleported in a yellow flash.
Mei suddenly felt her instincts flare, not as if she was threatened but more annoyed when she tilted her head to the right and raised her eyebrow as she spotted the tip of Minato’s kunai an inch from her neck, a visible strain appearing on the blond-haired man’s face as he tried to plunge the knife deeper with all his might and his wide eyes betrayed how unbelievable he found the situation.
Mei smirked. “Did you really think you could sneak attack me? I wanted to fight you to properly show you how easily countered your technique is. Naturally, I have a way to deal with it.” She rolled her eyes, causing Minato to narrow his.
A completely new battle began. Minato was flashing from kunai to kunai while trying to cut, pierce, kick, and even plant an explosive tag on Mei while Mei didn’t even try to dodge his strikes and instead focused on trying to punch him.
‘She has some kind of wind barrier around herself? My attacks are completely useless!’ Minato mentally exclaimed, distressed as he watched the previously planted explosive tag explode and engulf Mei in a fiery ball for a second before only smoke remained. He would cheer if he wasn’t such an experienced sensor. A few seconds later, Mei just walked out of the smoke, completely fine in a pristine condition. ‘Shit… Not even a smear is on her clothes.’ Minato gaped, thinking about how to defeat her. He was starting to feel the hits the girl scored on him… and couldn’t help but inwardly praise her instincts and speed. He could almost feel the nasty purple bruises he would surely feel tomorrow. Surprisingly enough, Minato didn’t really get the feeling of dread from the girl. She was not fighting to kill, she was acting as if this was a harmless spar!
‘Who the heck is this monster?’ The Konoha ninjas thought, cowed.
Mei mentally nodded to herself, happy with the result. Her new Jutsu was incredible. ‘Listening to Rei’s stories about Susanoo with Ringo really paid off.’ Mei slightly smiled. ‘Even those boring science lessons were useful.’ She admitted with disgust as she thought about them.
Mei just used her Boil Release to form a translucent smoke around her entire body, compressed to the thickness of an inch. The smoke would normally cover the entire clearing… simply there was enough of it to stop even a powerful A-ranked Jutsu without letting it penetrate deep enough to even scratch Mei.
“Well, this was fun and all but now that I know my Jutsu is working and you really can’t even scratch me… Mei is out!” And with that, white smoke burst from under Mei, covering the entire battlefield but quickly dissipating.
When the smoke cleared, Mei was gone, leaving flabbergasted and confused Konoha ninjas with their uniforms painted in unwashable bright pink color and pensive Minato with neon green hair contrasting with his cerulean eyes that flashed with shocked understanding.
‘Did she just call herself Mei?’
