Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

The Swood Acid Trap

Sugemi crouched down on one knee, placing his hands together in the Nara hijutsu hand seal position. Deciding to press on his advantage, he mumbled out the name of his "Shadow Tendril Jutsu" sending an elongated shadowy line across the thin layer of snow and toward the broken collection of thinly grown together trees.

Emerging from the large clump of shadows, which Sugemi once again utilized for his Nara clan hijutsu, the shadowy tendrils smacked Vinda around, from one to another before the final one wrapped around the girl's neck, swung around and slammed her hard into the ground. The slam was so strong that the resulting shock lifted the downed trees lightly up in the air while shaking those that Vinda's flight after she was punched had not cut down just yet.

The kunoichi picked herself up and dashed her way outside the small patch of artificial forest and into the opening, where the limited sunlight would have been enough to make it more difficult for Sugemi's hijutsu to connect properly and would have required a direct contact with her shadow to be set off. Her hands moved at a respectable pace while they worked on hand seals.

"Water Style: Acid Shower!" she yelled out with frustration and deep-seated pain that she tried to hide away but the battle damage she had sustained spoke louder than her intent on hiding it. The girl spat out a direct, powerful stream of water right at Sugemi who simply disappeared into thin air before the acid could cover him head to toe.

Using his superior speed and physical strength, the Nara moved in for a beatdown, delivering a combination of powerful straight punches as his blurry body moved up close to his opponent. After a powerful uppercut and a spinning kick right to Vinda's back while the girl was still airborne following her being knocked up by the uppercut, the Getsugakure native was sent dragging across the battlefield and eating dirt again. Sugemi's ruthlessness and complete silence was alarming and, frankly, a bit scary.

*****

"This is a complete curb stomp, he didn't even use his gates yet..." Kiyomi pouted, she felt a little bit glad that the outspoken and rather sadistic girl got shut down and up by Mana's ex-teammate but still, the match barely even seemed entertaining.

"I don't think you're reading this quite right. Sugemi is not using his gates for a very smart reason – the strain on his body", Stea interrupted. "Didn't you see how the second splash of acid did more damage than the first? That's because there's more to Vinda's Water Release ability than meets the eye and Sugemi instantly picked up on it – each successive neutralization of her acid requires more effort and chakra. Her acid is corrosive in more ways than one, it corrodes his bodily and spiritual defenses just like it does his flesh".

"So if he used his gates, that looked pretty painful and tiresome to him back in the semi-finals, he'd have an even harder time neutralizing Vinda's acid? She locked down his most powerful ability like that..." Erumo exclaimed in wonder.

"This must have been the focus of her training during these five weeks. Seems a bit too lucky of an ability for her Water Release to have developed given the occasion for it to be otherwise", Mana concluded.

"So what kind of Advanced Bloodline even is Acid Release?" Erumo asked, "Water and Fire Releases combined, water and lightning?"

"It's not an Advanced Bloodline at all nor is it a clan ability". Kiyomi shook her head. "A part of manipulating an elemental nature is being able to control its properties. Acid Release is an actual Advanced Bloodline – a combination of Earth and Water Releases but the acid that Vinda uses is merely an advanced manipulation of Water Release, which is why it is so easily nullified by even opponents of matching or lesser skill".

*****

Covered in bruises, donning a cracked lip and an eyebrow and with the right half of her attire tattered, Vinda tumbled back up on her feet. It was quite interesting how neither of these two had used the Substitution Jutsu quite yet, knowing of how explosively lethal their respective opponent's abilities were and that there will undoubtedly be more useful times to play that card.