"Crazy woman." Ayato's brow tightened. He vaulted up onto a collapsed pillar and looked down at Mei Terumi with cool disdain. "An ordinary Kage's strength won't be enough to shake me."
"Let's end this here. If you keep acting like a storm, I'll make time to deal with you properly — even if I have to interrupt my schedule." He did not bluff. Kage-level strength was terrifying, but it still ranked below the power of someone who carried the Six Paths-level authority Ayato had access to. To him, the rest of the world felt like ants.
He'd been teasing Mei for fun, pushing her buttons and taking a cheap advantage of her outrage. But if she kept escalating, he really would finish things — quickly and cleanly. He was a man of action.
"Try it if you dare. You stole my precious first kiss… you pervert! You must die!" Mei exploded, chakra flaring around her. In an instant she vanished and reappeared behind Ayato — lightning-quick, eyes cold with killing intent.
She'd taken his taunt personally. This insult had wounded her pride more than she expected; she wanted him to pay. She wasn't afraid to die for the insult — that was the truth of it.
Ayato's expression stayed level. "If I don't give you a lesson you'll remember, you'll keep chasing me through town until I get bored. And I'm not in the mood for that."
With a crackle, electric blue lightning wrapped Ayato. He turned and caught Mei's wrist with one hand, the other moving up to her throat — not to kill, but to stop her immediately.
"In that case, I'll settle things like an adult," he murmured near her ear, his tone disarmingly calm. "You'll pay for acting recklessly — but not with your life."
Mei's eyes widened at the unexpected measure in his voice. She'd come to kill him. Now she found herself seized and unable to move — not by a murderous grip, but by targeted chakra control that leeched a measured portion of her reserves.
Her body sagged. "Y—you can absorb chakra…" she gasped, astonishment and a flare of indignation mixing together. Her reserves had been drained down so deeply she would need days to recover fully.
There were no records, at least none Mei had read, of someone simply stealing another's chakra like that. It felt wrong and unfamiliar — an eerie, intimate kind of power.
"Come on — let's go have a proper talk," Ayato said, hoisting her under the arms. He moved in a blur of lightning and brought them to a quiet ice-cut cave tucked in the mountain side.
Mei slumped in the dim entrance, every limb trembling. She both hated and couldn't deny the sensation of being disarmed, powerless. Tear tracks marked her cheeks but her voice was hard. "You better not try anything. If you do, when I recover I will— I will kill you."
Ayato smiled faintly. "You're so dramatic." He shrugged off his coat and stepped forward slowly, putting distance between threat and conversation. "The stronger the resistance, the more interesting it becomes. But I don't need to hurt you to make a point."
Mei's hand snapped out and bit his palm with a flash of fierce will. Blood welled, and Ayato only grinned; the wound sealed almost instantly under his chakra. She had strength yet — she would not be humiliated easily.
"Stop playing games," Mei spat, clambering to her feet despite the weakness. "I am the Mizukage! I will not be toyed with."
"And I'm someone who hates being underestimated." Ayato's eyes were silver-white in the dim light; he reached out and steadied her with a single hand. "You've grown strong, Mei. That's precisely why I wanted to see you at full force. Don't pretend otherwise."
Her defiance flashed, and for a moment the cave echoed with two people who had once been opponents — now something more complex. Pride, history, and unspoken things tangled between them.
When Mei's strength finally ebbed, she pulled her robe straight and forced a brittle composure. At the village gates the next morning, dozens of Anbu and guards fell to one knee as the Mizukage appeared. She forced her face back into the practiced mask of authority.
"Are you—are you unharmed, Mizukage?" one guard asked, his voice tight with worry.
Mei nodded once, slow, and forced her voice steady. "I—am fine. Nothing happened."
Inside, she seethed and refused to let anyone detect the tremor of vulnerability still clinging to her. The idea of a Kage being made vulnerable — especially by an outsider famed as a disaster — was unthinkable. So she covered it, because she had to. Her image was the village's shield.
Ayato, for his part, had vanished before dawn, the cave empty except for a few scattered stones. Mei sank against the gate's wooden frame and bared her teeth to the breeze. She had been humiliated — and she would not forget. The name Ayato Hyūga was engraved in her thoughts now, along with an odd, confusing knot she could not untangle.
"Count on it, Ayato," she mouthed to the empty air. "I'll get back at you."
Some quarrels could be settled by force. Others — the dangerous ones — left scars that neither combat nor words could simply erase. As the Mist Village awoke under chill skies, its Mizukage strode away with two things firm in her mind: the duty to protect her people, and a private, burning promise that one day she would make Ayato pay — but on terms she chose.
If you want, I can now:
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