Despite being a battle and sword maniac, Ringo was still a woman. Having her face messed up… and especially having Rei see her right after A landed that bone-shattering blow on it… Ringo slightly shuddered in self-pity. Her love saw her when her face was basically turned to a gory mush! She was already not the most womanly girl out there but this made her self-confidence take yet another hit.
In short, a grudge formed in her heart. It might not have been a grudge strong enough to make her trek into Kumogakure and trash it but it was a grudge nevertheless. Now that she had an opportunity to return it, there was no way she would pass up on it.
A nervously gulped when he felt the menacing aura all around the petite redhead in front of him but what could he do? There was nothing else for him than to try and fight.
Their respective Lightning Armors flared into existence around both combatants at the same time, sending screeching and chirping sounds all over the surroundings while cracking the ground under them from the force of their chakra.
Despite his nervousness, A was an easily riled-up man. Just the fact Ringo did not even deem it necessary to draw out her sword yet, made him feel insulted. The woman totally intended to fight him with just her fists!
Ringo quickly realized his thought process from the subtle shift in his expression and to push him over the edge, she knowingly grinned at him.
A’s expression twisted even more as he huffed like a bull, and charged…
Ringo didn’t move. She simply stood in her spot and waited for A. Thanks to her heightened reflexes and reaction speed, it was a child’s play to react to the quick punch as he appeared in front of her.
Instead of blocking, a kunai fell into her hand from her sleeve, and with the flick of her wrist, she sent it on its way while imbuing it with her chakra…
Time as if stopped for A and his pupils dilated as he noticed the kunai coated with concentrated lightning chakra razing its path through the air towards his neck from below.
His punch was almost upon Ringo… and the batshit crazy woman was still looking into his eyes, smiling, not moving even an inch except throwing that kunai.
‘She… She is testing me!?’ A realized, causing him a big inward disturbance.
He realized Ringo wanted to see if he would get hit by her attack for the sake of landing that punch, or if he would abandon his attack in order to dodge. A was fine with being injured. Wounds were a part of his profession but this was something else! Whether his punch or that kunai… it could easily kill an average ninja thrice over! These were not the kind of techniques you just wait to be hit with.
‘I knew it! She is a total whacko!’ A inwardly screamed while using chakra to allow his momentum to shift as he quickly jumped away from Ringo, barely evading the thrown kunai.
Ringo’s crimson hair wildly flailed in the burst of wind A’s quick movements caused, but the curious smile on her face did not cease.
“You dodged… that was unexpected.” She chuckled and tilted her head as her smile widened, her eyes slightly brightening while A felt uncomfortable with her looking at him as if she was studying him. “You will have to be faster if you want to hit me like that.”
A prided himself in being one of the fastest ninjas so being told he was too slow was a direct hit to his pride. Snarling, he disappeared in a burst of lightning chakra as he fed more and more of his reserves into his lightning chakra armor.
Ringo’s eyes slightly widened… and her hand shot up with lightning-fast reflexes, her fingers tightly curling around A’s wrist and stopping his fist an inch from her face. “That’s more like it.” She whispered.
A tried to yank his hand away but Ringo’s grip on his wrist was inhumanly tight for a woman of her stature. His sense of danger suddenly wildly flared…
From the perspective of the people outside the Kage Box, the entire Kage Box suddenly exploded with loud screeching and sparks of lightning wildly dancing all around it as a lightning strike fell from the sky once again straight in the middle of the Kage Box with a loud thunderclap, deafening those in the arena. For a brief moment, the surroundings were bathed in blinding blue.
After the attack passed, what was previously the Kage Box, was now mostly rubble and the air was full of dust clouds.
A coughed, breathing hard and feeling extremely sore all over his body. There would definitely be some bruises on his body comes tomorrow but he was still whole. That was all that mattered.
“Heeh~, I guess we are more similar than I thought.” Ringo giggled from behind the dust cloud. A turned in the direction of the sound and could only see a dark outline of a person. “You seem like a total musclehead but your head is not totally empty, is it? To think you would stop the brunt of my attack by applying a counter explosion of lightning chakra in my direction… marvelous usage of our chakra nature.” Ringo praised in an amused tone.
The dust in the air slowly cleared as the air breezed through the Kage Box, and A could now see Ringo’s state.
“Are you mad?” He quietly muttered, barely audibly enough for Ringo to hear.
Ringo’s clothing was reduced to scraps that barely covered her modesty… only a bra and shorts remained that curiously did not sport any signs of being damaged by the wild lightning chakra. Other clothing of hers was utterly shredded.
Her well-toned figure would otherwise be mouth-watering for most but right now, her whole body was littered in nasty dark purple bruises. A wondered how the woman could still stand, much less be so carelessly smiling.
“Am I?” Ringo burst out with laughter. “Hmm… you do not realize it? Just luck, then, I guess.”
Ringo was inwardly shocked, to say the least. She thought her opponent finally found the weakness of her counter-move against his lightning armor but… apparently not.
The thing was… countering worked both ways. The frequencies of lightning simply countered and nullified each other. Ringo just came out on top because she was aware of that fact and could reapply her lightning in an instant. It was so fast that it seemed as if hers was not nullified.
“No matter.” Ringo sighed and flooded her body with Crimson’s chakra from within her, healing her body at a visible pace. ‘I was careless. I did not use Senjutsu nor Crimson’s chakra in my Lightning Armor so A was able to counter it.’ She inwardly grimaced. ‘Good that neither Konan nor Rei saw it or I would have been grounded.’
It was invisible outwardly but after her body was healed, Crimson’s chakra seeped into Ringo’s skin and muscles, toughening them considerably as a defensive measure.
A’s jaw dropped when he saw the bruises on Ringo disappearing one by one, leaving only unblemished skin. He thought he could eventually wear her down and when he saw how damaged she already was, he was on cloud nine but…
‘What a freak…’ He bitterly thought.
The win condition has just gotten much harder for him.
