Raika watched the cut on my face with a strange expression. I ignored it, cracked my neck, and raised my tanto again, ready for the next round, but for some reason she remained frozen. After a moment, she shook her head and took a pained breath. “Well… that just tells me everything I need,” she said quietly. “I can’t let you use ninjutsu.” I sighed, having expected that much. She would likely go all out on speed now, but it was not like I did not have a solution.

  I grinned, and that alone put her on edge. I threw a smoke bomb, a powerful one that expanded instantly, swallowing a wide area and a huge part of my battle budget along with it. Raika looked almost offended at my use of shinobi tools. From inside the spreading haze, I sent another lightning spear, forcing more chakra into it as it burst from the cloud dangerously close to her position.

  She remained calm, coating her sword in lightning and slicing the spear apart. The impact sent electricity scattering in all directions as the force knocked her backward, and I fired another spear immediately after. She twisted mid-air, using one hand to adjust her trajectory just enough to evade it, then sent a flying slash toward the smoke. The attack tore through the haze with horrifying force, leaving a deep scar in the ground as she continued to withdraw, deliberately creating distance between herself and the obscured area. She slashed again, and then again, carving clean lanes through the cloud while I kept sending spears in response.

  It was a terrifying exchange, brutal and dazzling enough that the spectators began cheering as excitement surged through the arena and the lightning duel intensified.

  When the smoke finally dispersed, I was still standing, intact, though a fresh slash marked my chest and another burned along my thigh.

  Raika, on the other hand, was bleeding from the mouth. Most of her damage was internal, and I could see her shaking slightly from the strain. Using sharp intent to refine flying chakra slashes was not easy. She noticed how composed I remained, noticed my grin as I took in her condition, and anger flickered across her face. She knew lightning alone would not work on me, and I was too fast to be pinned down by wide, heavy attacks.

  So she did something incredible.

  All the lightning radiating from her blade began to draw back. It did not vanish. It collapsed inward, pulled tight with frightening precision. Instead of sharpening her swings or expanding her damage range, she used extraordinary chakra control and specialized training to compress the lightning directly into the blade itself.

  At first, nothing seemed to change.

  Then the blade slowly began to redden.

  My eyes widened as I flickered in, appearing near her and slashing toward her shoulder, but her sword suddenly blazed red as she swung upward to meet my strike. Her blade cleaved straight through my tanto. It hissed violently, passing so close that it nearly took the top of my head. I ducked beneath the arc, pivoted on one leg, and used the motion to drive a powerful kick into her abdomen. The impact sent her flying as she coughed blood, the force stacking brutally with the injuries she had already sustained.

  I immediately formed another lightning spear and hurled it at her, but she shattered it with that crimson blade. Then she lowered her stance, coiled her legs, and took a very deep breath, closing her eyes.

  I narrowed my eyes and shrugged as I wove through hand signs, shaping an especially powerful lightning spear since she had given me the opening. I released it with enough force to shake the ground, the technique screaming through the air as it tore forward. Raika suddenly opened her eyes, lightning bursting beneath her legs as her blade flared, now almost bright orange as she whispered “Red Bloom.”

  The ground fractured beneath her feet as she moved with terminal speed toward the edge of the arena, evading my jutsu entirely, her blade carving a perfectly straight line through the earth as she went. My eyes widened at the acceleration. She was burning an insane amount of lightning chakra to push her already terrifying movement even further, driving herself so close to flickering speed that it was genuinely frightening to witness.

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  Inside my head I was screaming, “did she just said her technique name out loud?” As if to answer me, she came at me with liminal speed, and if it were not for pure instinct I would have been cut apart instantly as I flickered to the side, burning a tremendous amount of lightning chakra just to compensate for the violence of my sudden shift.

  Her blade carved another line into the ground, a streak of orange light crossing against the blue lightning flaring around my legs. I glanced down and noticed the two lines crossing at a specific point, and realization dawned on me.

  She was moving within a defined area. I tried to flicker out of the full range of her movement technique, but she was already there, her blade slicing through the path as if she had read my intent and forcing me to flicker back instead as the slash passed through the space my body had occupied a heartbeat earlier, close enough that the heat washed over me and made my skin prickle, a silent warning of how narrow the margin had become.

  I clicked my tongue as my stomach dropped with grim realization. Her speed was increasing. It felt like each slash added momentum as she moved again, the time between her attacks shrinking at a frightening rate. I relied completely on instinct and on projecting her movement, jumping high as an even faster orange line crossed the space and slashed up from beneath me. I landed hard to the side, trembling from the sudden acceleration as I rolled back onto my legs, already searching for her next position.

  Her blazing orange blade was already swinging toward me once more. I twisted my body at the last possible moment, narrowly escaping a powerful slash constrained along a precise trajectory. When I looked at the ground again, I finally saw it clearly. The lines connected. A geometric flower had been carved into the arena by her slashes, with only one final line missing to complete the shape.

  Her determined eyes burned as she poured most of her remaining chakra into movement, forcing her legs and technique past their limit. She moved with such speed that her blade passed through me the instant my legs started to move, my instincts failing to react to the ungodly speed of the attack as it cut cleanly through my body.

  She could not stop herself. Her momentum carried her into the ground and then the arena barrier beyond it, her body crashing hard before finally coming to a halt. She lay there heaving, blood spilling freely as she smiled through the pain, convinced she had won.

  She looked up, only to find a cloud of smoke where I should have been. Horror crept into her voice as she said, “I felt resistance when I slashed him. Was it a shadow clone?” A calm “hi” sounded behind her, and she barely had time to look up and hear “bye,” before my fist slammed into the side of her face with full force. Her head struck the ground hard as her eyes rolled back, and she lost consciousness.

  I sighed as the adrenaline finally faded, my body aching in protest. I was very low on chakra, having spent most of it on the clone I created while hidden within the smoke, tucked behind the few pieces of cover that still existed at the edge of the arena. It was lucky her movement technique had been limited to a specific area. Still, using lightning chakra in that manner was terrifying, and I really needed to get my hands on a chakra-conductive blade.

  The proctor appeared between us, examined Raika briefly, then raised my hand. “Raika of the Hidden Cloud has lost consciousness. Winner, Noa of the Hidden Leaf.” Boos erupted from the stands, accusations flying from every direction. “The tyrant does not fight with honor.” “How dare you be so violent to a girl.” “I hate him because he is taller than me and I am thirty.” I sighed and lowered my head in despair. No matter what I did, fate seemed determined to make me look horrible.

  Raika stirred, surprising me with how quickly she regained consciousness. At first she looked around in confusion, clearly unsure where she was, before her gaze landed on me and the proctor raising my hand in victory. I stood there bloodied, injured, and victorious, and that strange look crossed her face once more. To my horror, her cheeks reddened.

  “Wha…” I started, only for her to cut me off. “You are the first man to win over me. You… you have to take responsibility.” My mouth opened as I genuinely had no idea what she was talking about. She slowly stood, shaking and dizzy, her eyes fixed on me as her face grew even redder. “Let us go out so we can… compare notes.”

  “I am good, thank you. I don’t do that,” I said quickly, turning and starting to leave. To my disbelief, she followed me. When I increased my pace, she panicked and started running after me, calling out, “Wait, let us just talk.” I shouted back without looking, “Not interested, please leave me alone.”

  The audience watched in disbelief as the tyrant ran full speed away from a girl chasing him. Somewhere in the stands, someone sympathetic said, “I knew it. It wasn’t just me. If a demon like the tyrant is afraid of women, then I have every right to be too.”

  

  A/N: Sorry y’all, but work is crazy right now and I am utterly exhausted. Due to staff shortage, I am doing the job of two people, and by the time I get home, I do not have the energy to do anything else but lie down. I will be back on Thursday, because the shortage should be resolved by then.