not edited, i hope this chapter isn't too bad haha. It's been so long since I've written a proper fighting scene lol

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Kaira grunted as her back was pushed against the rough bark of a tree. She tightened her grip around the wrist of the woman, digging her nails into her skin. The woman whimpered but did not pull back, but instead pushed the kunai towards the Uchiha's face even harder.

Kaira's nails scraped a thin layer of tissue from her arm. The woman still didn't budge, which forced Kaira to take things a step further. Clamping the skin between her nails and the palm of the hand, she gave it a hard pull, detaching even more tissue from the arm.

The woman screamed in pain, dropped the kunai, and started struggling to get away from Kaira. She swung her kunai around like a maniac, successfully slicing the Uchiha in the process. Kaira let go of the woman and they both stepped away from each other. Kaira brought her hand to her forehead, noticing that another cut had been added to the collection.

The woman clutched her arm and fell to her knees, her shoulders shaking as the pain became unbearable for her. The sight satisfied Kaira. This was the kind of suffering she wanted to put this woman through in her genjutsu. She knew it was wrong to feel pleasure or satisfaction over this kind of thing, but she couldn't help it. This woman was after her, and the Uchiha was putting her back into her place.

Kaira kicked her shoulder, making her fall over. Stepping on her ankle, she made sure to use enough pressure to bruise it. ''Tell me,'' She spoke, putting more weight on her ankle, hoping the woman would understand her threat. ''Who are you?''

The woman snarled at her, obviously refusing to answer the question. With great speed, she took out a scroll and drew on it with her bloodied hands. While her fingers were trembling, she wrote with great precision. Kaira realized what she was doing and stamped on her ankle with enough force to break a few bones. Reaching down, she took the scroll and threw it to the side, but it was already complete.

Before Kaira had even tossed the scroll, the piece of paper disappeared and a snake was summoned. The Uchiha intended to step back to create space between them, but wasn't fast enough. The snake charged at her.

When Kaira had taken a hold of the long limbless reptile in order to throw it away from her, it had already bitten her. The Uchiha winced as she felt the snake's sharp teeth sink into her thigh. Kaira stopped herself from trying to pull the snake away from her, fearing her skin might tear if she forcefully pulled the teeth out of her leg. Instead, she reached for the kunai the woman dropped earlier and detached the snake's head from its body.

Carefully, she pulled the teeth out of her thigh. Groaning in pain, she cut her pants where she was bitten took a look at the bite. It was bleeding, but not profusely, so Kaira assumed no major arteries were cut, which she was very grateful for. After all, she did not know what kind of snake it was, or whether it was venomous or not.

Venom...

Could this be the woman who poisoned Izuna, and who hurt Yuuji? The one that was after her family?

The Uchiha focused her gaze on the woman, her eyes darkening when she saw her crawling away from her, unable to walk due to her partly broken ankle. Fueled with new anger, she started to walk at her, holding the kunai tightly in her hand.

The woman saw her approaching and performed several earth release techniques, cracking the ground beneath them and making pieces of the solid material go up. Kaira dodged most rocks, but since the ground she was walking on was unstable, it was impossible to dodge all. The rough surfaces of the rocks caused minor cuts and abrasions, but it didn't stop the Uchiha.

When she reached the woman, she got ready to strike her with the kunai, but the woman sat up and grabbed her wrist, pulling Kaira down. The pain in her leg forced her to go along with what the woman wanted. Kaira didn't let her get the upper hand though.

Pushing down, she tried to make the kunai cut her neck, but the woman resisted by pushing her hands up, away from her body. Kaira wanted to kick the woman to make her lose strength for a moment, but she couldn't lift the leg with the bite, and she also couldn't lift the other because then she would be leaning on her bad leg.

Grunting, she put more weight on it and smirked when the kunai came closer to cutting her skin. She had no time to feel bad about how much she was enjoying having the upper hand, but she knew she'd regret having 'fun' in a moment like this later. It had been so long since she last was in a fight like this; a fight to the death. The adrenaline and suspense reminded her of the fights she had when she was younger.

Kaira knew it was either kill or be killed. With just the two of them here, there was no one to arrest her, no one to keep her in check if Kaira were to win and continue her journey back home.  Killing her would be easier than knocking her out and somehow taking her back to the village. But in her current condition, Kaira wasn't even sure if she could make it back to the village alone. Keeping her alive would also mean bringing her family in danger.

Kaira used all her strength to bring the kunai down. To her surprise, the woman suddenly stopped resisting. The blade went down. But instead of pushing Kaira's hands away from her, she now pushed them to the side. The kunai made a deep cut into the woman's cheek before it dug into the ground.

The woman didn't waste any time and punched Kaira in the face. The Uchiha grunted and faltered slightly before punching back with twice the amount of power the woman used. The both of them exchanged some more blows until Kaira decided to take another risk.

Forming the seals with her hand, she got ready to burn the woman with one of the Uchiha signature abilities; the great fireball technique. From this close, none of the trees would catch fire. Unfortunately for the Uchiha, the woman saw it coming and formed a few seals of her own.

A piece of earth shot up from the ground next to the woman's head and hit Kaira's shoulder with great speed and force, enough to push her off of the woman. The same shoulder hit one of the trees. The impact was so hard that it dislocated her shoulder.

Kaira cried out in pain, carefully grasping her arm. She had never felt intense agony like this before. It made her all forget about the throbbing wound on her thigh, or the annoying headache that has been bothering her for a while now. As she kept whimpering, the woman slowly crawled to another tree.

Kaira tried to calm herself down again, knowing the fight wasn't over yet. She couldn't afford to lose now. She couldn't go down like this, no matter how miserable she was now. 

When she noticed the woman trying to use the tree as support in order to get up, Kaira slowly got up herself. They were both too injured to properly continue to attack each other. With Kaira's shoulder and the woman's deep cut in her cheek, the pain made it nearly impossible to move as they wanted to.

Kaira yelped when her injured leg suddenly gave in. Unable to properly support herself, the Uchiha fell to the ground. Tears blurred her vision as the excruciating pain in her shoulder became beyond unbearable.  She took shaky breaths as she closed her eyes tightly. For a moment, she thought she was going to pass out from the pain.

After a few seconds of extreme suffering, Kaira continued to suffer, but not without moving forward. With her good arm, she pulled herself towards the kunai that was still stuck in the ground.

With grunts and whimpers, she reached the weapon and pulled it from the bloodied soil. Turning to the woman, she hadn't been able to get up yet. She clung to the tree, holding onto one of its lower branches in order to try to get to her feet, while the other hand was pressed against the tree bark.

Neither of them could fight anymore, so Kaira only had to immobilize her. She was grateful to the woman for making it easy for her.

Despite the pain, Kaira threw the kunai with terrifying accuracy. Not to kill her, but to make her suffer more. In their current state, neither of them could do anything anymore anyway. The woman couldn't get away anymore, and Kaira didn't have to kill, no matter how much she wanted to.

She realized now how it would affect her life in Konoha if news of her murdering someone would get out, and she couldn't risk losing that life. While she did not think she could settle this without having to kill before, she did now and she did not hesitate to choose the path of sparing her life.

The kunai pierced through the woman's hand, successfully pinning her to the tree. She let out a loud scream, her legs giving out once again. Her hand was still stuck to the tree above her head, and her weak attempts to pull the weapon out with her other hand were to no avail. She couldn't move from her current spot.

And neither could Kaira.