1019 AD, 7th Month of 12, Aokigahara Forest, Japan, Planet Sky
Two figures in the sky were fighting. One was a beautiful woman with long blue hair and blue eyes. She had a black simple kimono with slits on the bottom that would allow her to move her legs freely without difficulty. On her feet were military grade shinobi-sandals taken from the shipment meant for noble families. She had a rusty iron sword that she was wielding with furious passion at her opponent but looking at the slightly creased expression on her face, she was getting tired and frustrated.
The other figure was a boy with long feral black hair and black eyes. He had donned a white coat with black outlines along with black military grade shinobi-sandals. He had his hand behind his back while one was used to redirect each sword strike his opponent delivered. With his ever-calm and neutral expression, it can be observed that it wasn't difficult for him.
Chizuki and Uehara were darting across the skies at unimaginable speeds The incessant sound booms alone would shatter the eardrums of any random human due to how often they occurred. They would occasionally fight along the surface of the ocean and thousands of kilolitres of water would be displaced with every sword strike Chizuki delivered.
"Your control is wavering. Focus on how you channel the nature energy into the sword."
Chizuki stopped to take a breath.
"Yes master."
With the rusty sword having yellow lightning bolts condensed around it, the water would boil to the point of evaporation just by being in close proximity to it. Despite all this though, she couldn't even damage the fringes of Uehara's cloak.
"Incorporate the power of the water into your attacks."
With the boundless oceans around them and only the full moon in the sky serving as illumination, the pair appeared as vanishing shadows in the night as they fought.
"Yes master."
Taking advantage of the ocean below them, Chizuki began to use water spears and bullets in a bid to hit Uehara from his blind spots but he'd always either dodge, redirect the blasts or block them using his bone shields.
"Let's increase the difficulty a bit."
Uehara started increasing the pressure on Chizuki by wrestling with her for control over the water and air in the vicinity. With the increased pressure, droplets of sweat were forming on Chizuki's brows since she now had to consume nearly twice the chakra and immense amounts of mental fortitude just to regain control over the elements.
[Wasn't master's main element fire? How can he control the elements of water so well?]
Those thoughts clouded her mind as the chakra drain affect caused her to tire. Uehara then appeared behind her and held a bone dagger to her neck.
"You're getting too tense. The more tense you are, the less control you have over your chakra. You'll have no hope of reaching the next level if you can't control your emotions. Keep calm."
He then stabbed it in her heart and with a quick overhead kick, sent her shooting straight into the depths of the ocean.
[This is already the fifth attempt. If she can't achieve it in a state of distress, then I'll just have to be more brutal in training her.]
Seconds turned into minutes as Uehara silently gazed into the depths of the ocean with a neutral expression on his face.
Soon, a faint smile appeared on his face as the surrounding weather began to change for the worst.
"She's finally achieved it."
He took a light step back when a gigantic ice fist the size of a passenger jet tore through the surface of the water, passing right through where he was standing a second ago. Branching off from the huge ice fist, hundreds of smaller ice fists chased after Uehara like snakes. He calmly dodged them with sheer speed and agility as he skirted along the surface of the ocean. One hand had a bone sword that would cut the miniature ice fists while one hand was calmly unbuttoning his snow-white coat.
While continuing to dodge, he finally took off the coat, revealing his muscled 5-year old body with black pants and black shinobi sandals. Using a finger, he drew a few characters on his cloak before it suddenly shot high up into the sky where it would hover above the clouds indefinitely.
"Now we can be serious."
A huge mass of bones spread like a tumor on his right fist. With his fist now close to the size of a small car, he performed one last backflip before using the surface of the water to dash forward and punch. With the ice fists that were chasing him having shot down into the ocean below after his last dodge, he had darted forward and arrived at the main ice fist and his punch landed on the elbow part, shattering it as well as the hundreds of smaller ice fists in an instant.
When the fog from the destruction of the ice fists dissipated, Uehara was now a few hundred metres away from a dazzling beauty with long blue hair, pale skin bordering on white and pupil-less eyes. A single blue diamond could be seen on her forehead and Uehara could sense that that diamond was gathering nature energy en masse. Standing atop the erect ice platform, she looked like a goddess that looked down on the entire world.
"You've finally achieved water-sage mode. I'm impressed."
"It is only due to master's help that I managed to get to this stage."
For the past three years, he's been teaching her how to utilise nature energy to her own benefit and after she unlocked the first stage of her sage transformation, he immediately shut down her excitement and taught her how to use nature chakra next so that she could get into the second stage of sage transformation, the elemental sage mode.
The sage transformation Chizuki was in was the water-sage mode. After deliberately bringing her to battle in the middle of the ocean where chakra was abundant, he hoped to further her comprehension of the water aspect of chakra since it was her main affinity.
However, Chizuki could never further her mastery over water no matter how hard she tried. So for the past three months, Uehara had been hoping to kick-start her water-sage transformation through gruelling combat sessions while forcing her to fight using the water around her.
Fortunately, his efforts paid off and she finally succeeded in unlocking it.
His eyes turned yellow as the urge to battle emanated from him.
"I'm interested in seeing how powerful you are right now."
Chizuki offered a light bow.
"Thank you for this opportunity master. I promise I won't disappoint you."
A somewhat demonic smile plastered his face,
"Good..."
Out of his palms came out a set of chains with three curved claws at the end.
"...because it will hurt if you do."
He swung the bone chains forward in a pincer manoeuvre towards Chizuki so fast that it broke the sound barrier with such rapid speed that it sounded like machine guy fire.
Chizuki was fast and made thick, sturdy ice walls to block the bladed chains but her eyes widened when she saw Uehara's fist a few metres from her face. With quick reaction speed, she managed to fall back just in time to see his fist passing right over her face.
Unfortunately, she didn't get away completely as the shockwave alone sent her barreling hundreds of kilometres across the ocean's surface. She soon recovered and stood on the water's surface, only for Uehara to land a well-placed overhead-heel kick to the forehead, sending her right into the ocean's depths.
A deafening crunch was heard when Uehara's heel had landed contact on her forehead, causing the surrounding water to part due to the sheer force of the strike. Uehara didn't follow-up this time as he'd be heavily disadvantaged against a water sage underwater.
After a few moments, Chizuki emerged from the water with a burst of momentum. A tornado of water covered her lower half as she ascended dozens of metres into the air. With a wave of her hand, a large body of water morphed into a giant hundred-metre tall tsunami that rushed towards Uehara from his left.
Large amounts of thick, hard bones came from his spine and enveloped his body, shrouding him in a very tough bone cocoon. Due to how his cocoon remained immovable in the air, the tsunami passed over him. He quickly retracted the bone cocoon and looked at Chizuki who had now made a giant womanly made of ice. With her hidden inside, she manipulated it to punch down with such a force that a huge shockwave occurred from the motion of her truck-sized ice fist.
Two clones immediately came into existence by Uehara's sides. They all dodged the fist and ran along it. The clones swung their bone chains to the ice woman's chest and pulled while Uehara jumped forward and punched at the throat.
Large chunks of ice fell off but Uehara quickly back-flipped away, only for two ice spikes to appear where he was. While he was in the air, he whipped out his bladed bone chains again and hooked them to the ice-woman's right arm.
Meanwhile, the clones had dodged ice spikes of their own after having torn apart that chest of the ice woman. Both of them went for the head again while Uehara had landed on the ocean surface and pulled on the chains that were hooked to the ice woman's arm.
With the ice woman falling, Uehara jumped forward in a sheer burst of speed and kicked the ice woman's chin, almost causing the head to completely break off. Unfortunately, before Chizuki could fix the crack on the neck, Uehara's clones had hooked their bone chains to the ice woman's head and after having jumped behind her, pulled.
Timing their pull with Uehara's kick, they were able to rip off the ice woman's head. While Chizuki was distracted with dealing with the clones, she suddenly felt a tingling sensation behind her. She quickly switched locations again to the ice woman's leg and the abdomen where she was at was suddenly penetrated by a sharp tri-bladed bone chain.
A trace of sweat trickled down her forehead as she drew in more nature energy to repair her ice construct. Unfortunately, Uehara looked at her dead in the eye.
"You think I, who taught you how to use nature energy, would be unable to sense where it was gathering the most. I had ignored it the first two times but it is clear you are not learning."
Chizuki had been changing locations in her ice construct. She would sometimes hide in the head, arms, torso or legs. When Uehara broke the chest, she drew in nature energy to fix it but due to that, Uehara found her hiding inside the skull. He broke the skull and she hid in the abdomen. She drew in nature energy again to fix the head but Uehara found her again in the abdomen.
Now, she couldn't even react before the leg was severed clean from the rest of the body. With her still hiding in the leg, she released some ice spikes to buy some time for her to rejoin the main body but Uehara didn't give her the chance.
Nine sets of tri-bladed chains hooked onto every part of the ice leg and pulled in three different directions. The result was the gigantic ice leg being torn apart. Chizuki was taken by surprise but she soon regained her composure. She tried to immediately dive into the water but bone chains hooked onto all four of her limbs and suspended her in midair.
Clenching her teeth, she pulled her arms and legs together, resulting in gruesome gashes and chunks of flesh being ripped from her limbs. She ignored the pain and vanished under the ocean's surface.
Uehara didn't chase after her. He looked at the bladed ends of the bone chains covered in blood and pieces of meat his shadow clones were carrying and simply smiled.
[Such strong will. Most wouldn't have the heart to do what she did.]
His golden eyes followed her figure underwater as she entered the ice woman again.
[Unfortunately, she's still too narrow-minded in battle, a consequence of having fought against weaklings.]
He looked at his chest and licked the blood that had splattered onto it after Chizuki broke free from chains. He took the time to savour the taste while Chizuki hurriedly restored her ice construct to its former glory. At the rate she was drawing in nature energy, Uehara would be able to sense her even in his deepest sleep.
[It's unfortunate she can't store much nature energy in her body yet otherwise, she wouldn't need to give up her location so many times.]
When Chizuki entered her water sage mode, she became one with nature and she would be indistinguishable from the nature energy in the environment But, one would be able to locate her by feeling where the nature energy was densest the most or where it was converging.
She had managed to partially mitigate that impact by creating the gigantic ice-woman and pumping it full of nature energy so as to hide herself. Unfortunately, Uehara found her by forcing her to absorb nature energy when he broke off parts of the ice woman. So, even though she was indistinguishable from the ice woman, she would be immediately found out once she started absorbing nature energy since Uehara would see through his golden dragon eyes where it was converging the most.
When Chizuki finally reformed the ice woman, she made it stand up on the ocean surface. The height of the titan alone would put most skyscrapers to shame. Tri-bladed bone chains appeared on Uehara's hands again as his clones stood next to him again. With the rise of the morning sun, it illuminated Uehara's face, contrasting well with his golden eyes.
"Time for round two, Chizuki."