Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Limits of One's Field of Vision

Meiko stayed down, sprawled out in the crater she made after getting caught by her foot and slammed to the ground. Somewhere slightly farther away a weak and wobbly building collapsed. Those were mostly for show decorations of the training grounds and served no practical use and were not particularly considered as something of great quality.

The blacksmith wanted to simply rush for her armor again but she knew better. Her opponent had plenty of strength in her resources to multiply her speed and strength a hundredfold. For a while, the redhead had wondered as to how exactly Mana passed this test as she lacked physical prowess beyond her evasive and redirection skills and counter-attack based fighting style but now the answer was beginning to formulate in the girl's mind – Mana was crafty.

"Megaton Punch!" Hanasaku roared out as she jumped down at Meiko aiming a clearly telegraphed punch right at the blacksmith's chest. The attack was far too showy and slow for it to be meant to connect. Hanasaku must've wanted the blacksmith to avoid it – the master wanted her potential student to best her internally but she still didn't lower her level to where it would've been insulting to Meiko.

The blacksmith made a hand seal and focused. All she needed was to replace herself with her empty backpack. Just change up her chakra flow, move to the backpack nearly instantly and changing the two objects up – leaving the backpack in her place while she stayed there.

"Too slow!" Hanasaku shouted out after her fist dug deep into Meiko's back as the redhead tried to move away. The Fifth Hokage managed to track Meiko's movements and intercept her Substitution Jutsu which meant that it wasn't performed correctly. If done right the switcheroo trick transpired instantly. Something was missing! Meiko screwed up even the most basic Academy technique again, just like in the Katabami mines and in the Wind Country desert.

The moment Meiko's crushed into rock body finally braved up to draw her first breaths a burst of blood blasted from the blacksmith's mouth – a sign of a grievous internal injury and a requirement to pay chakra to sustain normal functioning. Meiko looked at her shaking bleeding arm and tried to figure something out - this was stupid. Her race for the armor was too predictable, she was trying to fight Hanasaku at her own game while gunning for a far too predictable goal.

"C-Rank Seal!" Meiko smacked her arm at the crater feeling the dirt soak up from the blood coming out from her wounds. Even the few armor sets she had put on had been bent up from the shockwaves of Hanasaku's fists and her slams.

"This is disappointing. I'm trying to see you do what ninja do – I'm trying to see what makes you different from a tool. All I've seen is you fearing to even try to do that... This won't do. Won't do at all!" Hanasaku scolded Meiko before crossing her arms over her chest, "We're done here, go and get some treatment and go back to the basics." The woman cruelly declared before turning her back to Meiko and walking away.

Meiko's hands went through a single hand seal.

"Displacement Seal!" she shouted out feeling her body sucked into the sealing glyph she left on the ground.

"What?!" Hanasaku shouted out, the Displacement Seal Jutsu was quite familiar to her as it was a basic trap sealing technique that worked similarly to the Substitution Jutsu but in reverse. It instead transported the opponent to the location of the exit seal, through the entrance seal. It had a tremendously short range and it could've been broken with a precise and powerful application of chakra that disrupted the sealing technique but it was the first attempt of the blacksmith to fight back.

The Fifth's head instantly turned at the backpack – it would've been a clever move to use the Displacement Seal to transport oneself right to the armor but if such a tool was in the redhead's arsenal why didn't she use it earlier? Only then did Hanasaku realize Meiko's plan, she tried to turn back her attention at the entrance seal before a headbutt lifted her off the ground and knocked the Fifth down.