Hong Meiling Sleepwalks Through the Heavens

Hearing the explosions ringing closer and closer in her ear, Hong Meiling’s brows furrowed as she zipped from tree to tree. She held onto Ashina Uzumaki on her right shoulder as tightly as possible, and thought of ways to fight back with her one remaining arm.

It’s hard to fight with just one hand, but I just want to run, so this should be enough!

She turned her upper body as she ran and honed in on the explosions that crept closer and closer. She drew a quick circle in the air, and immediately, colorful, iridescent, diamond-shaped shards whizzed through the air towards the explosive tags.

This spell of hers is called Colorful Sign – Colorful Rain, where Meiling controls the qi within her body and turns the qi into iridescent danmaku that scatters like rain.

This is another rare long-ranged spell of hers, and since she wasn’t proficient in ranged combat, it was not very powerful. Each danmaku was as big as her finger, and in her memory, she only ever used it to deal with small fry.

Despite this, the iridescent shards of danmaku collided head-first with the explosive tags, causing an array of colorful explosions to scatter through the forest.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

However, the explosions were still close enough to affect her – it was enough to leave a few scratches on her body.

The cacophony of explosions obscured Jinpachi Munashi’s vision, which allowed Meiling a better opportunity at escaping.

Seeing the black, billowing clouds of smoke rising in front of him, Jinpachi grew anxious. His heart was pounding to kill his Lord’s murderer, and in his bloodlust, he dived straight into the smoke.

Plunging out from the smoke screen, his eyes widened, seeing that Meiling and Ashina were nowhere to be seen. Meiling is extremely strong for a girl of her stature, and in Jinpachi’s moment of weakness, it bought her enough time to run as far as possible away from Jinpachi.

In her escape, some ninjas continued to pursue the two, but they were no match for Meiling’s literal, otherworldly strength.

One hand was all she needed to deal with these small fry.

“Fragrant Wave!”

Meiling gathered her limitless supply of qi in her body and shot out an arc-shaped energy wave. Again, despite her weakness in ranged combat, it was more than enough to deal with those ninjas.

It was as if Meiling had mindlessly shot out the danmaku in a random direction, but it knocked two ambushing ninjas away immediately.

The Hidden Eddy ninjas guessed that Meiling was trying to get their leader to safety, and they immediately got into position to open up a path for her.

They still weren’t sure of this strange girl’s identity, but if she was saving their leader, then it would be better for them to clear a path for him to ensure that his wounds are treated as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the news of Sandaime Mizukage’s tragic death spread across the battlefield, and the morale of the enemy ninjas, especially Hidden Mist, began to decline rapidly.

Although some of them held vengeful, lustful expressions to avenge their Kage, most of the Hidden Mist ninjas held confused, and even bewildered expressions. How could our Lord possible die in battle?

The Hidden Eddy ninjas took advantage of their shock, and immediately pounced on the enemy forces.

Meiling, under Ashina’s instructions, sent him back to camp near the battlefield. The ninjas acting as medics immediately took Ashina from Meiling’s shoulders and treated him as diligently as possible.

Meiling sighed in relief seeing Ashina getting treated. Although she is strong, she is completely helpless when it comes to medicine.

After ensuring Ashina’s safety, she immediately ran back towards the front line of battle. After all, she had a feeling that the Hidden Eddy ninjas needed her support. Since Sandaime Mizukage perished in battle, her presence would bring greater help to the Hidden Eddy ninjas.

The battle was still incredibly difficult due to the sheer number of enemy ninjas that seemed to endlessly swarm into shore. The collective morale may be severely weakened, but it couldn’t make up for the number of ninjas they had.

If it was just Sandaime Mizukage, Hidden Mist would most definitely issue a retreat. However, Hidden Mist also sent three of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, as well as several jōnin – they’re strong in both physical and mental, and the jōnin immediately took over in terms of leadership.

Plus, other villages participated in the war, so the death of Sandaime Mizukage would have little to no impact on them.

Even with Meiling killing several jōnin, the fight is still equal, though no longer one-sided. Soon, under the leadership of the jōnins, the morale of the enemy ninjas soon increased once more.

The battle continued until nightfall, where both sides issued a tactical retreat. The Eastern coast of Hidden Eddy is lost to the enemy forces – Hidden Eddy’s ninjas retreated and regrouped to the mountains and forests, while the enemy ninjas set up camp on the Eastern coast to fight the next day.

…

Meanwhile, in Hidden Eddy’s camp, bodies upon bodies were hauled into camp, and the medics tirelessly attempted to rescue their injured companions, while another group of ninjas counted the casualties.

“…three hundred and eighty-six ninjas are gone,” the ninja announced solemnly. “And another hundred and twenty-four of us are severely wounded…. what do we do now?”

In just a single day, there were 510 casualties.

Hidden Eddy’s pacifist stance seemed to bite back at them – they only had 3,000 ninjas living in the village, while other villages often had 10,000 to 20,000 ninjas living there.

Yesterday, Hidden Eddy sent 2,500 ninjas to fight, and the remaining 500 to stay in the village. In just a single day, over 20% of the ninjas fighting at the battlefield are either dead or injured.

“They lost over 700 ninjas, didn’t they?” another ninja asked.

“Tch, do you know how many ninjas they have?” another ninja scoffed. “That little number means nothing to them. They barely lost 15% of their ninjas.”

Ashina overheard their conversation and frowned. It seems like this war is still not in our favor…

There’s still hope, he sighed inwardly. We killed Sandaime Mizukage. Otherwise, Hidden Eddy might be gone tonight.

The gazes around camp may look solemn, but they held a flare of determination within them. They would fight to the death to defend their home; the enemy forces, on the other hand, may retreat if the number of casualties get too high. Wouldn’t there be a conflict of interest if there were that many ninjas participating in the war?

We have to persevere, Ashina thought.

As he watched the twinkling night sky, he saw the strange savior in green walking towards him with a smile.

“How are you feeling, old man?” she asked with a cheeky smile.

She seemed content that he was resting and healing. To her knowledge, Ashina is incredibly important to Hidden Eddy, and Hidden Eddy’s morale is directly connected to Ashina’s well-being.

The old man furrowed his brows as he stared at the enigmatic, mysterious savior of theirs.

Looking closer, he was shocked to confirm that she did not possess any chakra in her body. Earlier in battle, he could sense that the bombs of energy that she casted were not made of chakra either.

Ashina wondered if Meiling is a senjutsu practitioner – a ninja who is able to manipulate the natural, primal energy surrounding them and combine it with chakra. For example, Hashirama Senju, the first Hokage, was extremely proficient at senjutsu, as well as Sage Mode.

Ashina had seen Hashirama performing Sage Mode at a close range before. However, it didn’t seem like Meiling utilized senjutsu at all.

He felt stumped. Is this strange girl using… something else, perhaps?

Ashina is partly correct – senjutsu requires the usage of natural energy around the user (i.e., the earth, the air); qi stimulates the natural energy within a user’s body.

“I’m feeling a lot better now, thank you,” he smiled back at Meiling. “I’ll be able to fight again tomorrow, thanks to you.”

“Oh, it’s no problem!” she laughed as she rubbed the back of her head.

“I cannot thank you enough, and… I must ask for your name.”

“Hong Meiling,” she flashed another toothy grin. “Nice to meet you.”

Ashina’s mouth opened, as if he wanted to ask a question, but stopped himself. He wanted to ask of her origins, but thought that it’d be better to not do so.

“Miss Hong, why did you come to Hidden Eddy? Why save us?” he asked instead.

Her smile was still plastered on her face as she began doing several martial arts gestures, which soothed Ashina’s soul, “I’m just here to fight the wrongs in the world. No biggie!”

Hearing her answer, he simply nodded, and did not pry further. Count your blessings, he thought to himself.

The two continued to chat lightly under the night sky, and she excused herself back to her designated tent.

As she retired back into her tent, she saw the ninjas that were guarding the perimeters of the camp, and some other tents that were still lit up. It seemed like many of the Hidden Eddy ninjas were finding it hard to sleep, and she couldn’t blame them – with several villages plotting an attack against them, how could they sleep? They feared that, if they slept, Hidden Eddy might be gone tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, on the enemy’s side, they found it difficult to sleep as well. They lost much more than expected, and with Sandaime Mizukage gone, they realized that, this war is no longer the cakewalk they once expected it to be.