Hong Meiling Sleepwalks Through the Heavens

Sandaime Mizukage’s quickly turned his head towards the advancing chains and frowned.

My troubles are endless…

Originally, he thought he would eventually be able to kill Ashina Uzumaki and gain an absolute advantage for the ninja coalition. However, he never thought that a strange girl would be the one to intervene.

Both Ashina and this green-clothed girl are extremely powerful, and a one-against-two fight is undeniably an uphill battle.

Of course, Sandaime Mizukage simply scoffed. I am a Kage, am I not? I shall not retreat!

As the golden chains whizzed closer towards him, he snorted coldly as he summoned whips of water on both of his hands, whipping the chains away with swift, violent swipes.

As he was whipping the chains away, Hong Meiling leapt into battle once again.

Seeing the strange girl run towards him, he whipped away the prowling chains using the whip on his right hand, and willed the whip in his left hand to transform into a water dragon as it opened its terrifying, endless maw towards her.

Meiling’s eyes widened as she slowed her advance down. She did not observe any seals being summoned by Sandaime Mizukage when he transformed the whip into a dragon. A Seal-less Jutsu!

Most ninjutsu requires seals to cast, save for a few ninjutsu that inherently don’t require seals. For powerful, experienced ninjas, the number of seals needed for a release can be reduced or even cast with a single hand. However, only the most powerful of ninjas are able to perform ninjutsu without the use of seals.

However, Meiling could see that he was inexperienced in using seal-less jutsu – the water dragon wasn’t as threatening as the ones he summoned before, and compared to his other ninjutsus, this was definitely weaker.

Charging through the air like a shooting star, she relentlessly punched through the water dragon in a single hit.

However, this was simply a tactic to buy Sandaime Mizukage some time. As the water showered upon Meiling, Sandaime Mizukage phased several meters away, dodging from the chains as he hurriedly formed seals with his hands.

“Water Release: Hidden Mist Jutsu!”

Immediately, a thick fog flooded the area where the three were.

Meiling and Ashina’s vision was greatly reduced within the fog, making their advance much more difficult.

Ashina could still predict Sandaime Mizukage’s location thanks to his perceptive abilities, but his chains hovered by him, and he was seemingly unwilling to just launch his chains into the fog.

Meiling tried to estimate Sandaime Mizukage’s location using her qi, but it was incredibly difficult. After all, although chakra and qi were conceptually similar, they are still concretely different when separated across worlds.

Meiling closed her eyes to hone her perception, but felt as if her body was submerged into a large orb of water, and water began filling her lungs in shock.

Unknown to them, Sandaime Mizukage could still track them accurately within the fog, and imprisoned Meiling in a prison of water.

This release of his summons a large ball of water to enclose around the target, limiting the target’s movements drastically as they begin to suffocate.

Panic filled Meiling’s body. After all, she was an ordinary man for more than 20 years ago before transforming into a female youkai – it’s expected for her human instincts to kick in.

Although the prison of water was no powerful ninjutsu, it is still incredibly difficult to escape out of the suffocating orb of water.

However, as somebody who had experienced a taste of death, Meiling steeled her mind and forced herself to calm down to formulate an escape plan.

Combining two ninjutsus together to isolate a target… is this a standard Hidden Mist tactic, or his own?

To keep me trapped inside here, she blubbered in her mind. He has to maintain the spell! If Ashina somehow interrupts it, I can escape! Plus, isn’t he good at perception? He’ll notice something’s wrong!

…

No. I can’t rely on him.

Despite her movements being severely limited in the bubble, she focused her mind on the qi circulating within her body.

She directed it continuously over her veins as power began coursing through it violently.

Fierce Tiger Energy Release!

Opening her eyes, she let out a powerful burst of qi originating from her body.

Violent, primal energy emerged from her body violently like an explosion, immediately bursting the bubble-like prison open.

Sandaime Mizukage, feeling that his bubble was burst, felt dumbfounded.

How? She managed to destroy the bubble from the inside. How?!

Doubts echoed in his mind, and out of the corner of his eye, a green-clothed girl rapidly launched herself towards him amidst the fog.

“Red Cannon!”

Her fist was imbued with a fiery, red light, and just as her fist was about to connect with his body, he vanished once again.

Meiling scoffed to herself. Damn it…!

However, she felt like her fist did connect with something. It should have, at least, grazed him before he teleported away.

Plus, the fog around her is starting to dissipate. She guessed that she must have hit him.

Immediately, she heard the sound of water splashing, similar to her own bubble prison being burst open.

Meiling guessed that Sandaime Mizukage imprisoned Ashina in another prison of water. However, since her punch connected, he must be unable to keep the prison up, which led Ashina to break out of the flimsy orb of water.

The dense fog soon cleared, and Sandaime Mizukage could be seen limping a few meters away. His left hand clutched against his chest, which was where Meiling felt her punch land.

The Red Cannon is a signature move of Hong Meiling, and it is extremely powerful at a very close range. Although her fist had barely grazed Sandaime Mizukage, it caused considerable damage to him – enough to fully dispel his ninjutsu and incapacitate him.

Ashina immediately summoned his adamantine chains, and the chains rapidly launched themselves towards Sandaime Mizukage’s limping self.

He simply scoffed to himself once again. How annoying.

If it was a one-on-one fight, he wouldn’t take an old man like Ashina seriously. However, with a young, dazzling girl joining the fight, these pesky chains were much more of a nuisance.

He knew that, if the chains wrap themselves around him, the fight would be over.

Just as he was about to phase away from the chains, a sharp pain interrupted him in the chest.

He staggered as he continued to form the seals to teleport away, but that minute moment was all the chains needed to wrap around his waist securely.

Sandaime Mizukage cursed loudly as the chains wrapped around him, and sure enough, he immediately the dampening of his chakra within his body.

Hong Meiling smirked to herself. Now that he was bound by the chains, he couldn’t teleport away from her attacks anymore.

However, just as she was about to launch divine retribution onto Sandaime Mizukage, two figures leapt out from behind the treees, dashing towards them at extremely fast speeds.

These annoying ninjas!

It seemed like the Hidden Eddy villages failed to fully defend against the enemy ninja coalition, and some enemy ninjas managed to slip through in an effort to save their Lord.

The ninja rushing towards Ashina donned an eyepatch on his left hand, and his beard was tied up into a braid. He carried a large sword-like contraption on his back, which was decorated with charms that looked eerily familiar to explosives.

Jinpachi Munashi! Meiling recognized. He’s one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist!

Meanwhile, the ninja who dashed towards Meiling is a burly, orange-haired man carrying a large, fear-instilling sword with both hands. The sword was as large as Meiling, and was covered in scales down to its blade. Looking closer, there seems to be a maw in the front of the blade.

Fuguki Suikasan!

The two ninjas are part of the the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, originating from the Hidden Mist Village. Each of their mystical swords hold their own unique characteristics, and they are bestowed the legendary title of the Swordsmen of the Mist.

Each one of these ninjas are incredibly powerful. If the seven of them unite in a battle, they may be able to threaten entire medium-sized regions and villages with their strength.

The Hidden Mist Village was adamant in the destruction of Hidden Eddy Village. Hence, they sent out their Kage, Sandaime Mizukage, as well as three of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.

Two of them are Jinpachi Munashi and Fuguki Suikasan, and the other one is Jinin Akebino. However, Jinin Akebino was still fighting against the Hidden Eddy ninjas, and is still unable to reach to Sandaime Mizukage.

The three Swordsmen of the Mist are still, currently, very young. Jinpachi and Fuguki are barely twenty, while Jinin was just a few years older than them.

Of course, they must not be underestimated.

Jinpachi’s sword is named [Shibuki] – explosive tags are contained within a scroll, and each slash of the blade causes destructive explosions to occur.

Fuguki’s sword is named [Samehada] – a living sword able to absorb chakra, and the more chakra it absorbs, the larger it gets.

Although Jinpachi was still far away from Ashina, he could see that his Lord is shackled up in chains, and he immediately slashed his blade through the air, causing devastating explosions to be launched towards Ashina.

Immediately, Ashina dodged to the side, still holding the chain tightly within his grasp.

Meanwhile, Fuguki rushed towards Meiling – he was about 2.49 meters tall and weighs 156 kilograms, but it seems that his stature does not affect his speed at all.

Meiling halted her advance towards Sandaime Mizukage, realizing that she needs to deal with this burly ninja first. I will not be ambushed by him! I have to take him down first!