The two warriors stood about twenty meters away from each other, eyes either alight with anticipation or concentration. Kisame's hand slowly reached up and gripped the handle of the sentient sword Samehada, the blade itself still covered in bandages. This movement was mirrored by Beth's own reaching up and gripping the handle of her own blade which had no name.
She never saw the use of one. It's been given names by the few living enemies who've witnessed it in action but she didn't stoop so low as to allow her enemies to name it. It was a strange contradiction: having too much pride to not choose an appropriate name given by her enemies, and not having enough pride in her sword to choose its name herself.
Both swords wielders suddenly blasted apart the ground from the force of their takeoff. They met closer to Kisame's area since Beth had moved faster. Their blades met in mid-swing for just a millisecond. As soon as the blades had met, a mastery of muscle control on Beth's part withdrew the sword, giving the illusion of resistance for a moment that caught Kisame off-guard when he'd followed through with his swing. When he finished his motion, his opponent was already bringing the sword back for a horizontal swing towards his exposed left midsection.
Cursing to himself, he spun on his right foot to just catch her second strike. Samehada met the blade head on but let out a scream when the near infinitely sharper blade crashed into it. The unexpected cry knocked Beth out of her mindset for a split second and she didn't follow through with the swing. Stepping back, she watched keenly as Kisame regained his footing and looked down at his blade in concern.
"Hey, Samehada, what's the..." he paused and grimaced at the clean gash in his sword's flat side. The bandages and scales had been cut clean through and some blood was leaking from the opening and staining the white cloth. He looked back at Beth with a questioning and worried glance. That sword of hers had more than just its size to bring to a fight it seems.
Beth watched in true curiosity at the trembling blade. It was clearly sentient to a degree, as well as living. Her sister and Megusa were giving the sword a wandering stare as well. Who actually used a living creature as a sword?
She realized that her sword was far too sharp. Its sharpness made it cut with the same surgical precision as a high-frequency blade, but more like a scalpel instead of a saw. Only her own reflexes and muscle control stopping her momentum saved that sword's life.
"Kisame, why is your sword a living creature?" she asked, her cold tone chilling the air around her mouth.
"Samehada has been my partner for years after I killed her previous owner who wasn't worthy of her. The details surrounding her creation are sketchy but she's been around for a long time, changing wielders along the way. How come, for the first time in my memory, your sword was able to cut through her scales unlike any other sword I've ever fought against?"
"My blade's edge is sharpened to the width of a single molecule. Nothing but a similarly sharpened blade or a material of much stronger substance can hold up against it. You are obviously at a disadvantage due to the quality of our swords. You can not give your all in this spar if my sword cuts through yours at the first full contact, Kisame. Either I use nothing but the flat of my blade or—"
"or I should just avoid your sword," he finished with a serious grin, enjoying such a scenario as he fed his chakra to Samehada for her to regenerate.
"For Samehada's sake, I will use the flat of my blade when I can, but I will not pull any swings," she responded, a bit at ease that the sword could regenerate wounds. She'd just give it plenty of bruises. "It'd still be advisable that you not let my sword connect."
She sprinted off at him again and this time he didn't meet her charge. Instead, Kisame dug his feet in and braced his sword against his other hand. When Beth's blade came across in a half-extended swing from her body, he stopped the blade with the intent to duck and parry the attack over him to expose her. Had she swung fully extended, this would have been the idea but having the sword close to her body gave Beth more control over the momentum and direction of the nameless sword.
What he didn't expect was the tremendous force of her swing that sent him skidding backwards at high speeds with his feet making trenches along his path. The momentum of his body sent him smashing through a four foot wide tree that was commonly used for construction of buildings. Such a thing would take at least 80,000 lbs of force alone. Add that he'd been sent into it from over thirty meters away and account for his body mass and you could estimate the force of a controlled, half-extended swing accumulating around 100,000 lbs of force. Anybody of a weaker constitution, such as the shinobi around him or a civilian, would have been a bloody smear on an impressed tree base.
He shrugged off the numbing pain on his body since he's felt worse hits a few times in his career and that the falling top portion of the tree in front of him was chopped in half by a pursuing Valkyrian. She came in for an overhead swing this time and he knew he'd be in a crater if he didn't do something quick. Rolling to the side, he punched the ground to brace himself as the sword hit the ground and caused the expected tremor and explosion of earth and air.
The ground had been destroyed under Beth's feet, making her airborne for a moment but it was all that was needed for Kisame to fire out of his modified 3-point stance to charge her. She spun to cut him but he parried upwards her blade and drove his shoulder straight into her chest. Since she was airborne with no purchase for resisting the blow, she flew from her position and into another nearby tree. While she didn't break through it, the tree's base did splinter all the way through.
Seeing Kisame come at her, she spun and cut the tree at an angle for it to fall over her and at the swordsman. He cut his way through the large top of branches and came out running along the trunk. Looking around, body tensed, he didn't see Beth anywhere. In fact, when he last saw her, she was in the way of the falling tree—he jumped to the side as the familiar and deadly claymore cut through the trunk where he'd been at and nearly removed his feet from his calves.
He made for a small clearing as he spotted Beth looking at him from where a section of the tree had been chopped to pieces from her surprise attack. The woman gave him a noticeable tilt of the head before coming at him in a jog that turned into a sprint. With a hop at the end of her run, she planted her feet into the ground and blasted off of it, kicking up a small wall of earth and rock and mud where her feet were.
He knew this time to not try and contest her strength unless he was absolutely sure of his base. With chakra enhancing his muscles, he probably could, but they didn't have a ground stable enough or he the body weight heavy enough to actually stay grounded unless her attack was more of a downward stroke.
Running from his spot, he avoided the blur of Valkyrian mass and gleaming metal to see her literally plow through a tree that was behind him. She caught herself on the next tree feet first and pushed off, utterly exploding the bark and half the trunk from her push off.
She came at him again and he readied himself to meet her. At the last moment, he ducked low, angling Samehada towards the woman in the most defensible stance he knew for a charging opponent. He'd experienced a few of his fellow Seven Swordsmen using the tactic whenever he was charging them. Beth held her blade sideways to skim along Samehada like Kisame had hoped she would but instead of just flying over, she didn't go empty handed as she grabbed his sword hand and tried to take him along for the ride. He had planted his stance and was solid but using her own force and anchor to arrest her own direction, she had flipped to her feet behind him and still using her own momentum, she bent forward and threw Kisame over her by his hand and into the ground in front of her.
The impact knocked the wind out of him unfortunately and tried to move his sword in front of his body to block her follow up downward swing but she never let go of his sword hand and was holding it out. With his wind knocked out of him, he couldn't muster the strength to fight her grip so rolling over was the only way to avoid becoming shark paste. Thankfully for his sake as he didn't know how he'd recover before she could land a decisive blow on his body, Samehada sensed her wielder's predicament and sprouted sharp scales from her handle that impaled the very outer layer of Beth's own hand due to her durability, getting Kisame's in the process.
He bit his teeth to ignore the sharp stinging and thankfully it did stop Beth's ground rupturing swing. She didn't show any signs of it actually hurting her but it had stopped her attack. She gave the handle of Samehada a curious look and noticed that it probably didn't take into account her own pain tolerance that bordered inhuman and impossible. It didn't help Kisame or the sword that the "wound" was nothing more than a deep scratch a few millimeters deep.
Now that she's distracted, I better capitalize on Samehada's opening, Kisame thought.
Kisame caught his breath in that small time and tried to wrench her hand and sword free but to his misfortune, it appeared the sharp pain was nothing to his opponent who had only gripped his hand, and by consequence the handle, even tighter and actually bending the scales that should've impaled her hand back into his own flesh. Channeling a lot of chakra into his arm, it became a tug-of-war on his part while Beth didn't let her grip go. Samehada was gibbering in confusion since she didn't know how to help anymore and Beth was taking pot shots at him with her own sword via swings and thrusts that he was barely avoiding by moving their connected arms to get in the way of any attacks that might hit him.
He jerked their arms up to block an overhead swing and ducked when she came around the backside with a swing at his neck, her shoulder stretching almost like rubber to allow the extremely flexible move. He tried to take advantage of her over-stretched position but with a hard jerk, she'd yanked both her arm and him all the way around her body to meet the returning swing of her sword. He saw she was aiming for his arm instead of his body which was troubling since his body could dodge but his arm couldn't. The only thing he could do was pull his body closer to hers and use his forearm to catch her swinging arm's elbow. It became a hinge like on a door and the sword nearly gave him a buzz cut.
He gave the Valkyrian a painful—for him!—headbutt to the nose that caused her to flinch but she still didn't give up her hold on his hand and sword! She back stepped and flicked her arm to put some space between their bodies and brought her sword back to her to launch a thrust at his body. He twisted his body to let the sword pass underneath his caught arm. Ignoring the feeling of a few layers of skin being thinly sliced, Kisame pulled himself back against her body for another chakra-empowered headbutt that connected with her own headbutt.
The force expelled the wind from around them for a moment and Kisame almost wanted to bite his tongue off to keep from crying out from the pain of the blow. His eyes had stars flickering in their vision and he desperately tried to shake them away. Beth for the first time showed a bit of surprise and her eye twitched in substitute for a wince as her skin and skull vibrated from the powerful impact.
While Kisame was dazed, she could have gone for a winning move but instead she stomped on the inside of his knee, causing it to buckle and a few strings of his tendons to tear. With him kneeling, she jerked their connected arms and was able to slam Samehada into his head, ironically draining his own chakra—not that that would hurt him since Samehada would give him some if he ran low.
Still, the blow itself skint a large portion of Kisame's face, finally drawing out a yell from him but he still didn't let go of his sword… not that he would if he could though he couldn't because the scales of the handle had torn through his hand and been bent at an odd angle back into it. Ironically, the draw of blood from the attack on his face was enough to force his mind to rid itself of the dizziness from earlier. He looked up through the one eye not covered in blood to see an impassive Beth bringing her sword's flat side upon his head.
Channeling a large portion of chakra to his arm and shoulder, he lifted his hand and caught the blade. The impact was jarring and his hand was in a lot of pain but that wasn't what got a roar of agony out of him. He'd failed to realize just what he'd unintentionally done. He reinforced his arm and shoulder to withstand the pressure of Beth's swing but didn't take into account where all of that power would transfer.
The weight and power plowed into his hand which didn't shatter, transferred into his arm which didn't give, accumulated into his shoulder which held up, but used the unrelenting stubbornness of that limb as a conduit for its might to ram right into his shoulder blade and back which hadn't been reinforced. The result was his shoulder tearing through its own socket and tendons and forcing the shoulder blade to explode through skin and from his back. Muscles and tissues were torn or stretched to a severe degree as they were exposed to the raw elements normally held back by skin and Kisame's brain was registering every bit of it.
Beth saw and recognized the damage and took a couple of steps back as she interpreted that the spar was well beyond over. Understanding came to her as she saw the undamaged state of his arm. She waited until Kisame's yell dialed down into hoarse breaths and deeply forced grunts as he tried to figure out what exactly happened.
"You reinforced your arm to withstand my attack. You had the right idea but you didn't think it through all the way, Kisame."
He gave her a confused glare that begged for an explanation.
"Your body is filled with muscles and tendons that all complement each other to allow the body to perform to its maximum capabilities. You reinforced your hand, arm, and shoulder, but when you exercise those muscles in a similar manner, such as an overhead press, you're using more than just that limb. Your back muscles keep your form and legs strain to keep your stance. The force exerted by my attack could dissipate throughout your limb, which would have destroyed that arm, so instead, it used your own enhancement against you to travel down your body. Since you did not reinforce your back muscles, they could not hold up to the amount of pressure.
Should you reinforce your fist to attack or defend something with power greater than your body is adjusted to, you could tear muscles in your arm or break your wrist. Should you reinforce those, your forearm could be used as a medium to tear through your own elbow. Should you reinforce your arm, your shoulder would pay the price. You merely failed to take into account the step after that Kisame. Luckily it was this and not during your other mistake."
He looked thoughtful for a moment before remembering the only other time he used chakra reinforcement. "My headbutt?"
Beth nodded. "You reinforced your head to slam it into an object even harder—my head. Did you take into account to reinforce your own spinal cord? If you didn't, then you are very lucky to not have broken your own neck since the neck has few muscles to protect it."
His eyes widened momentarily from something he himself should have realized. He may not be an expert at anatomy, but he does know how to inflict physical trauma on someone—it comes with killing for a living. It's much easier to kill someone with a blow to the neck than anywhere else since if you have enough force to apply to the spinal column, the victim would be dead no matter the muscle they have.
"I'll… definitely remember that, but if it's alright with you, this spar isn't over yet." At her questioning look, he lifted Samehada up. Her size began shrinking a bit but the flow of chakra from her to him was quite visible. His wound began healing quickly and after a minute, there wasn't anything but a big scar left to show for his injury. Beth showed a visible expression of surprise before regaining her focus, merely giving an acknowledging nod for them to continue.
Kisame gave a grin and started cycling his chakra throughout his entire body to reinforce it properly. Samehada had shrunk to half her size and was now around Beth's own sword's size. Deciding now should be an appropriate moment, Kisame removes the bandages from the sword, revealing to Beth Samehada's true form. It looked more like a huge club instead of a sword though just covered in spiky scales.