Chapter 31   - Ch31. First mission with apprentice 2

"Konan, if you will?" Rei asked Konan.

Ringo's cheerful mood dropped. She wanted to see some of Rei's raiton! Not some paper techniques!

Rei saw Ringo's dimming excitement and smirked. A half-year might have passed but they never showed her their Suiton or Doton. It was time to show the girl.

Konan nodded at Rei and put her hand in front of her chest, her index and middle fingers outstretched, showing her dark-blue nail polish and her perfect nails.

Ringo knew Konan did it to mock her! She always gritted her teeth because her nails were always chipped or cracked from sword practice. It was only when Rei showed her a way to reinforce and protect them with chakra, her nails finally stopped being damaged! Konan laughed for two months straight at her for being dumb and not asking instructors in the academy about it! Ringo was jealous alright! Even the beauties in the Seduction Corps didn't look half as good as Konan! They even invited her there! Well… granted, that didn't go well for them. Konan almost skinned them alive... if not for the Mizukage...

'SWAT'

Rei again swatted Ringo for not paying attention. Ringo's face planted again into the softened paper that Konan prepared under her exactly for this occasion. She pouted and focused on Konan as her sensei wanted.

Konan only watched the young girl with an amused smirk. She noted the girl was looking intently at her hands and shook her head. The hand sign she was 'using' was exactly that. Just a useless gesture without any meaning. She was using it to fool anyone who was looking. Konan knew how to mold her chakra internally without the signs. Two years was enough to learn it and be in complete control. Hence...

"Suiton: Thunder Hail Waterfall."

She pushed her created Suiton chakra and released the hold on her molding to start the Jutsu she held semi-finished until Ringo started paying attention. She was happy for that distraction as it provided her the five minutes she needed to mold her chakra into the massive technique she was about to unleash.

It was easy to create your own Jutsu once you could consciously mold chakra however you wanted. Yes, it still took time to fine-tune it but at least it was possible and manageable. Most ninjas... took years to create a completely new Jutsu when Rei would need a month and even then it would be for fine-tuning. Konan… could do it in two months, much to her dismay. Rei was just better at these academic things. All thanks to the inner knowledge of chakra molding and how exactly the Jutsu were made from that point all the way to the flashy effects. That's why sealless Jutsu were so revered.

Ringo tilted her head as she heard Konan exclaim the name of the technique. Nothing happened. She was about to open her mouth when a droplet of water landed on her nose. She looked up and her eyes instantly widened as she crouched down and curled into a ball, her face snapped towards the ground and her hands covered it protectively while quivering from fear.

It was only then a thick rain fell on the castle and its surroundings. It was so dense, it was more of a waterfall from the sky rather than rain. The water level rose, the marshes became small lakes, sweeping everything in the hailstorm of water. The greenery disappeared under the water in a moment as more and more water unceasingly fell from the sky.

Ringo peeked at her sensei when she didn't feel herself being crushed by the torrent of water and found that a dome of translucent futon chakra was around the still dry paper platform. She saw Konan looking at her mirthfully and her sensei raised an eyebrow at her reaction. Ringo grimaced but relaxed and straightened up.

She marveled at the gorgeous sight as she spun and looked around. She couldn't see the castle anymore. She couldn't see even the surroundings! It was like a thick mist surrounded them! Only, it was made of densely falling water from the sky instead of fog! Ripples were continuously appearing on the futon dome as the water impacted it and flowed down while more water and more fell into the never-ending stream. It was as if Ringo was looking at multiple rivers flowing into each other, battling for superiority all around her! The only thing she could hear was the loud fizzing and cracking sound the water produced as it impacted the dome. Any other sound was quickly absorbed by the waterfall's own symphony.

To be honest, the technique was terrific to Ringo. She was sure that just the initial torent of water was enough to crush a human to death. Such an amount of water falling on somebody at once? Ringo shuddered from the thought.

But here she was. It was a minute and the heavy waterfall of water still fell from the clouds. Ringo heaved a sigh of relief when she saw Konan stop doing the hand sign and the absolute downpour started weakening. It took three more minutes until it stopped completely.

Ringo looked around... at the newly made lake. Trees were crushed as their broken forms barely peeked from the surface. Everything was only clear water all around them. Only the hill and the castle stood proudly but even then water flowed out of the castle's drainage as a violent river, down the hill into the newly-made lake. Ringo's thought about how many people were crushed to death by the technique as she saw the slight reddish color of the water flowing out of the castle.

"Don't worry. Every person in that castle was a mercenary who helped the Lord suppress the locals. The Lord didn't allow them to bring p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.es into the castle. Nobody 'innocent' died." Rei chuckled at Ringo's pondering expression.

"Well." Konan interrupted before Ringo could speak. "That took three-quarters of my chakra." She rolled her shoulders as if mockingly showing how tiring was leveling the surroundings. "Rei, your turn."

Ringo's jaw dropped. "Sensei! you are going to use a technique!?"

"Well, the castle is still standing, after all!" He smiled and ruffled Ringo's hair. Then he pointed up with his index finger. "And this is a combination technique, anyway. I couldn't in good conscience waste all that effort Konan put into it." He grinned as he already started molding his chakra ever since the water started pouring down. He couldn't let that effort and chakra be put to waste, indeed.

Ringo looked up again and froze. The clouds... were completely black. Massive bluish sparks could be seen raging in them, just waiting to be released onto the ground in a flurry of destruction. Ringo suddenly got a very bad premonition about what's to come.

Rei did the exact same hand sign as Konan.

"Raiton: Thunder Hail Waterfall."

It was another downpour as Ringo stared in awe. The downpour of lightning.

The roars of lightning impacting the ground reverberated through the land as the ground trembled from continuous lighting strikes, the thunderous roars completely deafening everything around. In a way, it was worse than its predecessor, the water. Ringo could clearly see the castle being continuously destroyed by the thick lightning beams as they thundered down onto it, destroying towers, walls, the hill itself. The water all around them got agitated as the lightning impacted it, loud crashing waves started to form and swirl around, reaching meters into the sky as they completely bypassed the hill and washed around the castle's wall, getting inside through the damage done by the lightning. Ringo thanked that they were on the paper platform, twenty meters above the land as she was sure these ten meters waves would crush even the Mizu fleet without much resistance. She was sure that the people who won't die of lightning, will drown in the castle as the water was slowly flooding it.

It was ten minutes later that the lightning still danced all around in a furious symphony of destruction, tearing down the landscape and making the newly-formed lake rage under the unceasing thunderstorm. For ten minutes straight, Ringo's world was filled only with deafening thunders as with gritted teeth and her hands on her ears, she dearly wished the painful sound to stop. Finally, it ceased as Rei put his hand down. And the hill and the castle... were no more.

Only a clear glittering lake was left behind. The world regained its serenity.