Izuna stopped mid-stride.
A violent burst of chakra erupted ahead, followed by the unmistakable roar of a Great Fireball. Moments later, lightning flashed through the trees, casting the forest in a harsh purple glare.
That was Madara's chakra.
And whoever he was fighting had just answered with enough force to shake the surrounding trees.
The search party exchanged uneasy glances. None of them needed to be told what that meant. Their clan head was powerful enough to make most shinobi think twice before approaching him, but the sounds from the forest suggested this fight was anything but one-sided.
Then came another violent impact. A tree cracked, followed by a surge of chakra so overwhelming that several shinobi instinctively slowed their pace.
Izuna's expression hardened.
"Move!" he ordered, breaking into a run.
Whatever was happening ahead, he wasn't about to leave his brother alone to face it.
Madara rolled his shoulder, feeling the dull ache left by their earlier exchange. It was hardly an injury worth mentioning, but the fact that she'd managed to land even a glancing blow on him was enough to make him reconsider his initial assessment.
He had never faced a kunoichi who could push him this far. It wasn't that he considered women incapable of fighting. He simply hadn't expected one to challenge him on equal footing.
Had he known they could be this talented, perhaps he would have paid more attention to that possibility.
His gaze drifted to the remains of her scarf, scattered across the scorched earth. Silver hair framed her face now, damp with sweat and singed at the ends.
There was something about her hair that tugged at the back of his mind, but he pushed it aside to focus on the fight.
There was no trace of the earlier nervousness on her face.
Only anger.
His opponent was proving full of surprises.
He had initially assumed she specialized in Water Release. Her technique had been fast, well-timed, and powerful enough to extinguish his Great Fireball.
Then she'd unleashed Lightning Release.
A shinobi capable of using two chakra natures wasn't unheard of, but the way she wielded them suggested considerable experience.
It was also, he reluctantly admitted, impressive.
Madara's Sharingan tracked the lightning gathering in her palm, but he didn’t get a second to react before the distance between them vanished in an instant.
Madara twisted aside, narrowly avoiding the thrust aimed at his chest. Her lightning blade tore through his left shoulder instead.
Kakashi didn't stop.
Her free hand flashed toward his ribs. Madara caught her wrist, but she twisted, driving her knee toward his stomach with unnatural speed. Madara couldn’t block it.
The impact lifted him off his feet.
Before he could fly backward, the woman grabbed him by the back of the head, her fingers digging into his scalp, and slammed his face back into her knee.
This time, he flew backward as she let go of him, boots scraping against the muddy road as he fought to regain his balance. Before he could settle into a stance, she was already upon him.
He caught the blur of silver hair and raised his arm just in time to deflect the kunai aimed at his throat, the armor protecting his forearm. Steel rang against steel.
She caught his arm, twisted it sharply with surprising strength, and drove her shoulder into his abdomen. The impact buckled the armor covering his torso and lifted him off his feet.
What the hell?
What the hell was happening?
How was she this fast? Madara’s Sharingan felt as good as useless. It couldn’t keep up with her at all!
No. That wasn't right.
His eyes tracked her movements. He could see the shift of her weight, the tension in her muscles, the minute adjustments she made before each strike. He could see everything. He simply couldn't react in time.
Madara hit the ground hard enough to splash muddy water across the road. Pain shot through his abdomen, and he barely had time to suck in a breath before a boot came down toward his chest.
He rolled aside, and the heel struck the ground where his ribs had been a moment earlier, cracking the packed earth and making it crumble into a crater.
Madara sprang to his feet, hands already moving through signs.
“Fire Style-”
She appeared in front of him. “You really like that move. Try something else for a change.”
His eyes widened at the lightning in the palm of her hand. It struck his chest before he could finish the first sign, and the force sent him into the air.
Madara’s teeth clicked together as electricity sparked through his entire body, and the armor protecting his chest shattered.
He crashed into a tree trunk. It broke under the force of his body, and he was sent flying into another tree and then another.
The woman stood several paces away, one hand resting casually on her hip, while lightning still flickered faintly around her other hand.
He had never encountered someone who could overwhelm him so completely without giving him even a moment to breathe. Not even the strongest man he knew, Hashirama Senju, had bothered to beat him this thoroughly before. Follow the newest chapters on NovelPing.
And that was the most infuriating part. She wasn't simply faster than him; she was controlling the entire fight.
“Are you going to get up, or should I come over there?” she mocked him.
Madara realized then that he had to use his Mangekyō, or there was a very high possibility that she was going to kill him.
Madara pushed himself away from the tree.
He ignored the ache in his ribs and the blood trickling from his injured shoulder. Pain was familiar. He had fought through worse injuries than these, but humiliation?
That was another matter entirely.
He straightened, forcing his breathing under control. Only then did the truth settle over him.
She had been holding back.
Until a moment ago, she had fought defensively. Her movements had been cautious because her goal had been to distract him rather than defeat him.
Now?
Now her sole focus was to kill him.
Madara's fingers curled. He had no intention of being looked down on by a stranger.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
She didn't answer. Her eyes regarded him with an expression so utterly unimpressed that Madara felt a fresh surge of anger.
He activated the Mangekyō Sharingan.
His vision shifted as the familiar power surged through his eyes, and he prepared to bring it to bear against the woman who had so thoroughly humiliated him.
At last, he would force her to take him seriously.
The woman glanced at his eyes, then had the audacity to roll her own at him.
He had never met anyone so infuriating.
Not even Senju Hashirama managed to irritate him quite so efficiently! At least Hashirama had the strength to justify his arrogance!
This woman-
Madara's Sharingan spun faster. He refused to lose to her!
Madara brought his hands together. Chakra gathered around him, immense and turbulent, taking shape beyond the limits of ordinary ninjutsu. Ribs began to form around his body.
If ordinary attacks weren't enough to force her back, he would overwhelm her with something she couldn't simply interrupt.
Susanoo.
The skeletal structure rose around him, its enormous form towering over the road.
Madara's expression hardened. "Let's see you dodge this."
He began drawing on his chakra, intent on completing the manifestation.
The woman finally straightened, her casual posture shifting by the tiniest degree.
There. At last, he had her attention!
A sharp crack split the air.
Before the skeletal frame could close around Madara, a lightning-coated hand slammed into the side of his face, snapping his head sideways and shattering his concentration.
For a disorienting instant, Madara couldn't make sense of what had happened. His half-formed construct flickered, its enormous frame wavering as his focus shattered.
She drove her elbow into his ribs, and his breath left him in a painful rush.
Before he could recover, her knee struck his stomach, folding him forward. She caught the back of his armor and pulled him down, then planted a boot against his chest and kicked him out of the collapsing chakra construct.
Madara struck the muddy ground on his back.
The incomplete Susanoo vanished in a burst of blue chakra.
He barely had time to register the loss before a kunai pressed against his throat.
Silence fell over the forest.
Madara stared up at the masked woman standing over him.
Her silver hair clung to her forehead, singed ends sticking to her damp skin. The remains of her scarf hung loosely around her neck, and the front of her shirt was stained with mud. Find the original chapter at NovelPing.
Her silver hair stirred a memory he couldn't quite grasp. He was certain he'd heard something about a woman like her before, but he couldn't remember where.
This close, he could see a scar that cut through one of her eyes, pink yet faded with age.
Madara found himself staring at it.
How utterly ridiculous.
He lay on his back in the mud, his armor shattered, his shoulder bleeding, and his ribs screaming with every breath.
A literal weapon pressed against his throat, held by a woman who had dismantled him so thoroughly that he wasn't entirely certain how many times she'd struck him. And somehow, he was still more offended that she looked thoroughly unimpressed with him.
"Well?" she asked.
Madara's eyes narrowed. "Well, what?"
"Are you done?"
The sheer audacity of this woman. Madara tried to move his hand. The kunai pressed a fraction closer to his skin.
"Ah-ah." She wagged a finger at him with her free hand. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Madara had never wanted to kill someone more in his entire life. On second thought, that wasn't entirely true. There were several Senju who came to mind, but this woman was rapidly climbing the list.
"You're rather pleased with yourself," Madara spat.
Then she glanced down at him, seemingly puzzled. "I am? Because, personally, I'm having a terrible day." She gestured vaguely at her scorched clothes. "My scarf is ruined, my haori is ruined, and I was already hungover before you decided to mess up my day more."
Madara stared at her in disbelief.
"Now, about those eyes." Her tone turned almost conversational. "I've already explained how I found them. You got them back. My students are gone. We can both walk away from this."
"Well, I can walk away. You might need a minute."
Madara's Sharingan spun as anger rose in his throat once more.
The woman sighed. "Seriously? You're still thinking about fighting me?"
"You think you can humiliate me and walk away?"
At this moment, Madara didn’t care about the eyes anymore.
"I mean, yes?"
For a moment, Madara genuinely forgot how to speak. Then he laughed. "You're an arrogant little-"
“Arrogant and little?” She cut him off with a mean look in her eyes. “I think that description would fit you more than me.”
Madara's laughter died, and his face flushed a deep, angry red.
“I will admit I’m a little disappointed in your performance, especially given those eyes, though I suppose you must have gotten them recently.” Her eyes watched him with the cold patience of someone waiting for a troublesome dog to stop barking.
At this point, Madara was fairly certain that if her kunai didn’t kill him, the humiliation might.
Madara hated her.
He hated her silver hair, her mocking tone, her stupid mask, and the way she seemed entirely unimpressed by everything he did.
Most of all, he hated that she had beaten him. And yet-
There was something about the way she stood over him, utterly unafraid, that made it hard to look away.
He wanted to know what it would take to make her look at him with respect. The thought was so absurd that he almost laughed.
He had more important things to worry about like the fact that she looked like she was weighing the pros and cons of killing him.
"Madara!"
The shout rang through the forest.
The woman's visible eye shifted toward the sound.
Madara recognized the voice immediately.
Izuna.
A blur of dark clothing burst through the trees, followed by several Uchiha shinobi who skidded to a halt at the sight before them.
For one long, terrible moment, nobody moved.
Izuna's gaze went from Madara, lying on his back in the mud, to the woman standing over him with a kunai pressed against his throat, then widened.
“Kakashi-san?!”