Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Games of Body and Soul

A Final Bounce Through the Heavens

Meiko took a quick step forward, moving her body in front of Kiyomi while she reached behind her back. These two have fought together and trained alongside one another for so long that they knew perfectly how to act in any given situation. Right now, Meiko realized that the two lacked a proper battle plan and gave Kiyomi time to establish a mental link between the two.

While the Yamanaka spent precious moments doing so, Meiko worked on a distraction as her guess that the old man would once again attempt to use his elongated limbs to strike at them was justified.

The one removed arm on Togure's body began bubbling before a slightly more pale and slimmer stump appeared in its place. Meiko had foolishly expected that by throwing the man's removed limb into space she'd prevent him from growing it back.

Somewhere deep in her mind a thought was sparking up, a memory, a fading spark that lit up before dying out again that reminded her of the ability of these disappearing people that have reappeared to shape and mold their bodies. So far, Togure was the only one who could flat out create new substances on his body whereas the other one Meiko had seen appeared to be only able to shift their body around without creating new cells.

Before Togure could attack, Meiko flung a windmill shuriken his way, attached to a steel wire through which she could channel chakra to imbue the weapon with. While she still kept hold of the tool, it would act like a yo-yo or an improvised ranged projectile and its chakra coating would prove useful against defenses lacking matching chakra values.

Togure's hand extended with a raised palm, the shuriken sliced through it without any resistance at all. It was a like a buzzsaw working through plasticine. Togure's arm split open in the middle while the windmill shuriken and its wicked blade dance continued its destructive path.

Then, right when it would have buzzed right through Togure's neck, removing his head, the shuriken changed directions and missed the man. Instead just narrowly leaving a cut in the gummy part that held his head on his shoulders. It was a loss of balance that made Meiko miss her mark, the grip she could not notice before, holding her leg by its lower parts, strengthened making the blacksmith finally notice it.

Through brute strength, Togure dragged the blacksmith underground using his other elongated limb that he managed to slip underground during Meiko's attack and tunneled right under her.

The old geezer dragged his opponent through the dirt and pulled her in closer. Meiko tried to respond but the physical injuries she sustained during the clash with nukenin before took their toll on her making her too weak to resist the man's pull or kick out from his grip. To top it off, her augmentations were slipping too. An occasional rock bashed her in the face underground as, it seemed, Togure smashed her through the harder minerals he felt intentionally before unearthing her and pulling Meiko up close. He did so only to deliver a pair of mocking smacks and a strong finishing punch to send the blacksmith flying.

"You done yet?" Meiko thought to herself, focusing her thoughts in a way that would make Kiyomi hear them if she was finished with setting up a line.

"Yeah, remember when fights were so sluggish it seemed this jutsu was instantaneous?" A somewhat bittersweet signal pulsed inside Meiko's brain.

"Set-up something to substitute with, this guy hits like a truck, even when he doesn't mean to," Meiko advised while she charged back into the battlefield just so her opponent did not get the bright idea to try and attack Kiyomi or, even worse – Hanasaku. Truth be told, she was better off following her own advice, her sides were burning and the taste of blood just could not leave Meiko's mouth.

The blacksmith's boots lit up with chakra flares sending the girl rocketing towards her enemy and slamming right into the back of his body with a shoulder tackle. It was like hitting an iron wall! All of a sudden, the man's body felt hard as a figurative brick whereas before he seemed all elastic and gummy.