Chapter 287: Defeat
Bang.
Terumi Mei closed the distance rapidly and drove a kick toward Yashamaru.
This was only a sparring match, not a life-or-death battle. Otherwise she would not have needed to engage in close-range taijutsu. Taking advantage of his inability to react, she could have ended it with her bloodline limit techniques long ago.
But the kick landed and the figure in front of her burst into mist.
A Clone.
"Oh?" Terumi Mei's expression shifted into something thoughtful and amused.
He had managed to deceive her senses in that brief window, using a Shadow Clone to fool her.
This student of the Fourth Kazekage genuinely had talent.
Swoosh.
While she was still processing this, a hand thrust from behind her holding a kunai.
Terumi Mei reacted as though she had eyes in the back of her head.
She leaned to the side and let it pass.
Then she saw Yashamaru forming seals and launching a Wind Release technique toward her. A fierce gust immediately lashed across her face, tearing a corner of her clothing.
She turned fluidly and retreated, creating distance.
After opening the gap, Terumi Mei narrowed her eyes.
Her attacks had been continuously suppressing her opponent, but Yashamaru had still managed some meaningful counterattacks and was defending himself properly. He was not the kind of person who could simply be overwhelmed without resistance. Including that kick she had just landed, Yashamaru had intentionally turned his body to minimize the injury.
This guy seems to have some understanding of the Hidden Mist fighting style, Terumi Mei analyzed internally.
What she did not know was that before the Third Great Ninja War, Yashamaru, Sakamoto, Pakura, and the others had primarily trained on the battlefields of the Land of Wind and the Hidden Mist Village's coastal regions.
Techniques like the Hidden Mist Technique she had just used, employing concealment for surprise strikes and assassinations, were patterns Yashamaru had anticipated. What he had simply not expected was for her concealment technique to be that powerful, and for her to be able to continuously release different techniques in rapid succession, giving him no breathing room at all.
In the center of the arena, Yashamaru was doing everything he could to mount resistance.
But overall the flow of the fight was being dictated entirely by Terumi Mei.
Although Yashamaru and Sakamoto were both experienced students with solid combat backgrounds, reality was harsh. At certain moments in a ninja battle, even drawing on accumulated combat experience to find an advantage became simply impossible when facing an opponent who was too strong. This was the fundamental question of talent.
In the ninja world there remained a clear and largely uncrossable gap between ordinary ninja and genuine geniuses.
Even with the additional guidance and training Yashamaru had received, his underlying natural gifts had limits that could not be fully overcome.
Terumi Mei possessed not only extraordinary innate ability and an exceptionally sharp combat instinct but also clearly exceptional battlefield analysis and combat thinking. Yashamaru came from a common civilian family in the Sand Village.
By ordinary standards he was considered strong.
But facing someone like Terumi Mei, he was being reduced back to baseline.
In other words, training and skill could only elevate an ordinary person so far. It could not make someone comparable to a genuine genius like Terumi Mei.
Before long, Yashamaru's stamina was spent. He was older than Terumi Mei, yet his physical strength depleted first, his chakra reserves running low alongside it. Every technique he had used in the battle, including the precise timing of when he deployed them, had been read and predicted by the girl.
In the end he was defeated by Terumi Mei in a manner that at least preserved some dignity. He was swept off his feet by the water current filling the arena and could not get back up.
"Hidden Mist Village, Terumi Mei wins!"
Baki called it at the right moment.
Another loss.
Unlike at the Hidden Stone Village, where Yashamaru and his opponent had fought to a near draw before a single missed move and an earth technique binding his lower body had decided the outcome, this match had shown Yashamaru the clear difference between himself and this girl.
Three consecutive losses across three different exchanges.
He had not brought a single win for the village against Konoha, the Hidden Stone Village, or now the Hidden Mist Village.
What made it even harder to bear was that this time, unlike the previous two occasions, he had suffered defeat in front of a large crowd of Sand Village spectators.
His teacher, the Fourth Kazekage, was also in the stands, watching his humiliation from beginning to end.
By contrast, Terumi Mei stood not far away with a bright smile, waving cheerfully to the audience. Looking every bit the winner.
As this thought crossed his mind, Yashamaru lay motionless on the ground, raising one arm to cover his face.
He was crying.
"Stay strong, Yashamaru!"
"You were already amazing. Everyone could see that."
"That's right. For a ninja, winning and losing are both part of the path. To fight this well against the Hidden Mist Village's renowned genius is no small achievement."
From up above in the nearby spectator gallery, the voices of Sand Village civilians drifted down.
Not a single person said anything negative about Yashamaru.
"You there! Get up! Don't embarrass yourself! At worst we find another chance to win it back later. What kind of state is this, crying like that?!"
A shout rang out from not far away.
Yashamaru recognized Sakamoto's voice immediately. He had not been competing this time but had come specifically to watch.
Yashamaru raised his arm and looked in the direction of the shout. He saw his best friend's irritated expression looking back at him.
At this moment Terumi Mei, having already secured her win, walked over to him, bent slightly, and extended a hand.
"Losing to me is quite normal. I've lost count of how many people I've defeated. Your strength is still relatively good compared to most of them and should leave a decent impression."
"You can take some pride in that," she said with a smile.
Yashamaru said nothing.
Was that a compliment to him, or a veiled compliment to herself?
"I also don't like weak men. Handsome men don't cry. Like, for instance, your teacher, the Fourth Kazekage."
Terumi Mei added this casually.
Yashamaru staggered to his feet, shook her hand, and said:
"You are quite different from the Hidden Mist ninja I have encountered before. A loss is a loss. I hope we have another chance to fight next time."
He then turned and walked away.
"If this had been on a real battlefield, Yashamaru would probably have been killed the moment he faced her. This is just a competition and she is clearly not fighting seriously."
Up on the platform, Yuji allowed himself a quiet internal smile at the thought.
Looking at Terumi Mei's baseline performance across every dimension, she was already operating at Jonin level. And she possessed two distinct bloodline limits on top of that. Even an ordinary Jonin might not necessarily hold an advantage against her.
This was the particular quality of the ninja world. Geniuses always shone more brightly than others, and that kind of light was simply beyond the reach of those who were not born with the same gifts.
It was how it had always been. For him and Sasori both, the path had been the same kind of escape from the ordinary.
Half a day later, the second match began.
The Hidden Mist Village's competitor was a member of the Hozuki clan.
Almost identical to the first match, the Sand Village side found itself completely overwhelmed and lost quickly.
The Hozuki clan's secret techniques combined with their individual combat statistics were both exceptional. Their Hydrification Technique in particular, a form of body transformation, was extremely difficult for ordinary opponents to cope with. However their weakness was also clearly defined: they were vulnerable to Lightning Release ninjutsu.
The Sand Village's Chunin clearly did not have Lightning Release available. So they lost.
This Hozuki clan member's Hydrification Technique had not yet reached a particularly high level of mastery. He could not achieve the near-total liquefaction that would later be seen from fighters like Suigetsu in the original story.
But simply being able to render physical attacks ineffective at this level of mid-rank combat was already something approaching a broken ability in practical terms.
...
STONES 💎
Read upto 75 chapters ahead@ keepsmiling818 p2reon