Hayate decided it would be unprofessional of him to delay the beginning of the match any longer when the combatants were in such high spirits.

“The match between Uzumaki Karin and Sabaku no Temari start!” He exclaimed and jumped… not to the edge of the arena as during the previous matches but he outright jumped out of the arena in fear of getting caught up in between the two outraged ‘genins’ who could put most elite jonins to shame with the potency and volume of their chakra.

What could a poor Special Jonin like him do against ‘children’ like these!? How was he supposed to proctor this match? Stopping it when they go overboard? Him? Really? With what army?

‘Now I know why Lord Hokage looked at me with such a pity when he handed me this ‘honor’.’ Hayate bitterly thought with an inward sigh and outward cough.

Oh well, it was no longer in his power to intervene. What should happen will happen no matter if he pointlessly puts his life on the line or not. That’s why he decided he would rather keep his life and body intact. The two ‘not-genins’ could tear each other apart for all he cared.

Down in the arena, the second Hayate started the match, both women moved.

Temari fully opened her war fan in one swing, sending a gust of powerful wind at Karin while two chakra chains burst out of Karin’s sleeves, snapping in Temari’s direction.

The gust of wind and chains, both supercharged on chakra, met in the middle, creating a powerful shockwave that dispelled the wind and deflected the chakra chains while forcing Temari to shield herself with her war fan and Karin to create an Earth Wall to avoid said shockwave reaching them.

Because of the shockwave, the inside of the arena felt as if a ferocious storm was passing through it. The hair of both girls flailed wildly in the uncontrollable winds that sprang forth from the impacts of the shockwave with the walls of the arena. Cracks were left on every place the shockwave impacted a surface and soon enough, the whole arena was covered in them.

It was incredible… to think only their chakra clashing could do this much damage to the environment.

On the same note, the Kages instantly realized a small problem. The women were far too strong for the restricted space of the arena. At this rate, the fight would surely spill out of it and the audience would be caught up in it!

Fortunately for them and the unknowing civilians, Tsunade would not pit Karin against Temari in a place where they could massacre half the village just as collateral damage without sufficient preparation.

Seals started to spread at breakneck speeds all over the cracked walls of the arena, visibly repairing them and covering them in a layer of chakra barrier. The barrier continued to spread until all walls were covered in it and a translucent dome was created above the arena to enclose the barrier.

The amount of chakra funneled to this barrier surprised many ninjas, especially the foreign Kages and Orochimaru. Konoha definitely did not possess anything like this during the last war as they could see numerous ways of how to use such a barrier in a war but Konoha never did.

This barrier had enough chakra to withstand a bijuudama!

For some reason, that only hammered down their confidence in the upcoming invasion. Tsuchikage even started to regret his decision to join a pathetic snake like Orochimaru now…

Once the shockwaves were over, Temari hoisted up her war fan and started to wildly swing it from left to right, sending chakra-enhanced wind slash after wind slash at Karin, hoping to catch her off-guard because her visibility was impaired by the huge Earth Wall in front of her.

Karin, however, didn’t need her eyes to see. Especially not when chakra was involved. Her Mind’s Eye of Kagura warned her about the incoming attacks the second they left Temari’s war fan. She put her palm on the back of her Earth Wall and focused, drawing a sequence of seals from her memory, inscribing it onto the wall with just her chakra.

If the current Sealmasters saw a girl of her age doing this, they would puke blood, thinking their lifelong efforts were just a waste of time since even a small girl could replicate it.

Temari’s wind slashes splashed onto Karin’s Earth Wall but unlike Temari expected, they did not go through it like a knife through butter. Instead, their force was mostly deflected sending the inside of the arena into yet another windy storm that increased in ferocity with each slash that hit Karin’s wall.

Deep gashes formed all around the ground in a show of just how much power each slash contained and while some of these deflected slashes reached the walls, the chakra barrier held firmly, only slightly shaking from the impact.

This utterly shocked Karin. Her Enhancing Seals were strong enough to nullify B-rank Ninjutsu head-on! The fact they had to deflect Temari’s attacks instead of nullifying them meant each slash contained power surpassing B-rank Ninjutsu.

Karin’s smile uncomfortably twitched at that thought. ‘Crazy bitch. She is really trying to kill me.’ Her smile widened, her red eyes gaining a gleeful malicious gleam, ‘Hehe, that just means I don’t have to feel bad about going for the kill from the get-go.’

On the other side of the arena, Temari was having the time of her life. She didn’t care if her attacks were deflected. Just spamming them on that redheaded banshee was enough to relieve her pent-up stress. Hit-Karin could really become one of the best stress relief activities for her!

The fact the arena was drowned in sharp screeching winds was really relaxing for her too. It didn’t matter that the visibility was becoming worse and worse. Or that her extremely trained hearing sense was becoming really irrelevant because of the winds. She felt at home in this environment and it only made her inner elation skyrocket.

Suddenly, her relaxing daze was interrupted as multiple chakra chains burst from the ground around her, snapping in her direction with brutal precision, every single one of them aiming to pierce an instantly lethal place.

Temari remembered the redheaded brat was a powerful sensor and frowned. It certainly complicated the matter.

‘And here I thought I would be able to just relax and drown her in ranged attacks. Sigh, kids these days are troublesome.’ She distractedly lamented while twisting and spinning her body on her heels, just right to avoid the chains by inches. Her instincts and senses were trained to the extreme under Lady Pakura’s tutelage. There was no way some Uzumaki upstart could kill her with such a pathetic attempt!

Unknown to Temari, Karin didn’t aim to harm Temari with her attack.

The chains were all around Temari. Because of their length, even if she avoided the attack of the sharp pointy end, their long body was still quite restricting to her movements.

Temari’s eyes widened as she realized her area for evasion was shrinking. She clicked her tongue and reached for her fan with the intention to blast these pesky chains away…

And that was what Karin waited for.

Her chakra chains suddenly shifted, new chakra chains emerging from the body of her old chains in a similar fashion as Orochimaru’s snakes burst out of his sleeves when he uses the Formation of Ten Thousand Snakes.

A sense of danger invaded Temari’s mind as she found herself surrounded by sharp pointy ends of chains about to rush at her from all sides and she didn’t have enough time to reach for her war fan.

‘The tomato brat hid her intentions well.’ Temari grumpily thought, watching the threatening sharp chains approaching her body in slow motion.

Even in her most absurd dreams she never thought Karin would be able to corner her like this.

—

Author Note (or rather rant because I didn’t do one for a very long time and I feel like nitpicking and I am also a bit bored so I wonder what kind of response I will have for this):

Lately, I noticed a few guys doing comments like: ‘Boring’, or with similar meaning.

I think I should address that :D. Feel free to express yourself if you find it boring. That’s fine and I won’t get offended. Actually, I am just amused by that kind of childishness.

Look guys… we are at chapter 400th+ right now. If you feel the story bores you, just stop reading for a month and then read all chapters at once if you are still interested in it.

If you are here, then I think at least something in my story kept you reading for the past four hundred chapters. Going through that experience, you should have noticed that I am not talented enough to make every single one of my chapters exciting and interesting.

I try but… I am sorry for being blunt but, in the end, I don’t write for you. I write because I like it and have fun doing it. I write what I want to write and if you don’t find that exciting enough for you… then I am sorry but this is the best I can provide.

Nothing will change by typing ‘Boring’ into comments.

If you feel the need to express yourself, at least give me a reason why you find it boring. Describe which part was rubbing you the wrong way, which interaction was not well done, what did you not like. Give me that feedback :). If you need to roast me alive, feel free to do so but state a reason for it. That would actually make me happy.

‘Boring’ … is discouraging. I don’t let it get to me too much. I had tons of people trash-talking me in comments and reviews so something like that is not enough to get to me but it still brings the mood down when reading it.

Getting proper feedback on ‘why’ you think it is boring and maybe how it could have been done better would be a different case.

Nevertheless, some of my chapters will still be boring. No way to go around that.

And that’s because I don’t have a precise plan in my mind while writing each chapter. I vaguely know where it is heading but when I write a chapter, I write what comes to mind and what I find interesting. I write in a way I think would be interesting for me.

In the end, I write for myself, and in order to get better at it.

To be honest, sometimes I am flat out testing some stuff and people’s reactions to them. Like purposefully doing certain things in the plot and then reading all the comments regarding them to know how they would be received.

But my point is…

<- This guy, is no JK Rowling.. Don’t expect too much from me, please :D.