Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Whoever Wins, Everyone Loses

Shimo was putting everything he had into it, also speed to be able to at least fail keeping up with Sugemi by an acceptable margin, even more, he still returned some blows but his sword appeared to have gone dull as hits no longer cut Sugemi but hit him bluntly tossing the taijutsu user aside momentarily before he recovered to resume his rampage. Mana would've never imagined that her friends were capable of fighting on such a level even if such a battle was shaving at their own lives with each passing moment.

The young magician kept following the battle as it moved, with each floor it ascended or descended, to the southern wings and to the western. She could've tried to concentrate, control her chakra flow to see their movements more clearly and not just bunch of blurs and shockwaves busting down walls and destroying public property in their wake. But Mana didn't even want that, she didn't want to see her friends killing one another. 

"Stop it now!" she yelled out but no one heard it, maybe just a cowering guard who hid under a table as things started to blow up and bust around him.

"Don't you guys see it? It's no longer about saving Sugemi or avenging Tanshu-sensei. You're fighting because of your stupid pride. Because you want to beat the other one who feels just the same and so you just... Won't... Stop... Fighting..." Mana tried to tell them as she followed the battle but she just couldn't. 

Finally, the pace slowed up, Shimo's body was covered with bumps, bruises and his clothes were torn up from his body rubbing against rock. He had bleeding nasty gashes all over, his forehead had an especially nasty wound which he quickly temporarily mended by tying up his torn up sleeve as a headband as his own got lost somewhere in the debris of this battle.

"You can't fight me anymore" Sugemi spoke for the first time after opening his gates, it was the first intelligent sound he let, everything else was just cries of battle, grunts, and shouts.

"It's true I cannot compete with your Second Gate. Regardless I've won already. If I get a lucky shot in and beat you quick you'll go down, if I drag this out you'll still go down because you cannot fight your own body for much longer either. It's only been a couple of minutes and you're already losing flare, you're barely keeping up with the demand of the technique. Show me your last flares before you pass out." Shimo grunted out angrily as blood made it impossible to see his enraged eyes from further away. "Don't worry, Mana-chan, I'll beat this fool senseless and we'll go back to being how we were..."

It looked like whatever damage Shimo's head took was getting to him, he clearly didn't see the damage he had caused to the building, he didn't see the damage the two have caused to one another and so he still believed there was a point of friendship that they could return to. 

In fact, getting imprisoned for this and having their ninja status taken away was the best option, them outright murdering one another was by far the worst but at the moment the most likely. If this didn't stop... Mana was desperate and prepared to stop them, she'll throw herself into this battle, maybe once they severely injure or kill her they'll snap the hell out of this.

"If only I had perfected that technique... I could stop them from right here..." the girl lamented that she invested so much time in training her physical stats instead of focusing on things she was actually good at like Tanshu-sensei suggested.

Sugemi's body disappeared, his fist shot right through Shimo's figure as the shockwave of drilling air currents around his immensely fast fist tore through the cold air mirage that the genin actually hit.

"Ice Style: Cold Mirage Double Team Jutsu!" Shimo's voice echoed through the wrecked office as a bunch of Shimo's mirages started floating around faking out an attack. Sugemi stood still, he must've believed that they were all fakes because he had already seen the technique twice now.