Chapter 164: Cold Frost Ice Funeral VS Dance of the Seedling Fern
"Ice Style - Cold Frost Ice Funeral!"
Chakra is a combination of physical and spiritual power, and therefore, it is also a manifestation of a ninja's spirit and will.
Therefore, when the enraged Haruno Sakura used this move, its power was even greater than when she had faced Kidōmaru and the others!
In the dense bone forest, ice began to spread and grow crazily. Spurred on by chakra that was frenzied to the extreme, in a short period of time, it had forcefully carved out a world of ice in the bone forest.
Tough bone against hard ice.
The Shikotsumyaku Kekkei Genkai against the Ice Style Kekkei Genkai.
The Dance of the Seedling Fern versus the Cold Frost Ice Funeral!
Both being Kekkei Genkai, the Shikotsumyaku possessed bones that were said to be the hardest, and the ice created by the Ice Style was in no way inferior.
The former was cast by a taijutsu powerhouse who had already thrown caution to the wind and was burning his life force. The caster of the latter was also a ninjutsu powerhouse filled with anger, whose chakra control was unparalleled in the world!
Diamond cut diamond.
The dense bone forest and the thick ice were, for a moment, locked in a stalemate.
Ghastly white bone pillars and crystal-clear ice hills simultaneously turned the same area into a world of entangled bone and ice.
And coincidentally, the casters on both sides possessed the ability to appear in this area in an instant.
Using the high-speed Body Flicker cast through bone and ice, the two of them began to madly flash, attack, and disappear in this entangled area!
Haruno Sakura's Monstrous Strength Technique was incomparably ferocious. A single punch or half a kick could smash the white-haired youth to pieces.
The spear in Kimimaro's hand was incomparably tough and sharp. A keen thrust could deliver a soul-stealing blow to the pink-haired girl at any time.
Neither of them could withstand a full-powered blow from the other!
So in this battle, both of them could only adopt a hit-and-run fighting style...
BOOM—!
Sakura's fierce whip kick only hit Kimimaro's afterimage, shattering several bone pillars. Ghastly white bone fragments instantly flew and scattered in all directions.
The white-haired youth disappeared from the bone pillar in an instant, and in the next moment, he abruptly emerged from another part of the bone forest. A bone pillar with a sharp whistling sound stabbed towards the pink-haired girl's back.
Haruno Sakura forcefully twisted her waist to avoid this blow, and with a backhand, she caught the bone spear under her arm. Just as she was about to turn and kick Kimimaro, the surrounding bone spikes were already stirring restlessly.
SWISH—!
Several sharp bone blades fiercely pounced on the masked ninja, but only hit the afterimage left by the girl's Body Flicker. Then they crashed into the ice layer and were destroyed along with the hard ice, turning into fragments together.
SMACK—!
Using the boundless ice as a medium, Haruno Sakura appeared above Kimimaro with a Body Flicker. A straight punch went straight for the back of his head, smashing his head into countless bone fragments!
"A bone substitute... Damn it! A step too slow again!"
Sakura cursed silently in her heart, but the movements of her hands did not dare to slow down in the slightest. She instantly used the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals and disappeared from the spot, narrowly dodging the bone sword that Kimimaro had slashed over horizontally.
"Take this!"
The girl had just stopped from her Body Flicker, and before she could even steady herself, she forcefully circulated her chakra, spurred on the Cold Frost Ice Funeral, and shot out ice spikes at her opponent—
Crack, crack! As expected, it only hit an empty bone shell again!
The opponent's slipperiness and tenacity were far beyond Sakura's imagination!
Each time her attack missed, he would use the Dance of the Seedling Fern to leave the spot. His speed was so fast that even she, using the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals, could not catch him. And Sakura herself also had to be extremely careful. In this place, which was also the home field of the Shikotsumyaku, if her surprise attack failed, she also had to immediately use a Body Flicker to leave the spot, otherwise, she would be pierced through the stomach by the bone spikes and Kimimaro's bone spear!
On the battlefield of entangled ice spikes and bone spikes, the nimble figure of the man in the white kimono and the slender figure of the girl in the black bodysuit endlessly crossed paths, intertwined, weaving a pattern of mixed white and black.
She, who was using the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals, Sakura Rush, and the Monstrous Strength Technique, and Kimimaro, who was using the Dance of the Seedling Fern and the life-burning tenketsu technique, were fighting an abnormally fierce battle, evenly matched!
Faster, a little faster—
Both of them were shouting the same sentence in their hearts!
A little faster, to be able to dodge his/her attack!
A little faster, to be able to hit her/his figure!
The battle between these two, from the very beginning when Sakura cast the Cold Frost Ice Funeral, had been at top speed and had directly entered the climax of the battle!
It wasn't just the two of them who were fighting.
The bone forest created by the Dance of the Seedling Fern and the ice blades extended by the Cold Frost Ice Funeral were also constantly clashing, grinding, and colliding, desperately fighting for and devouring more space!
Clang! Clang!
The chaotic sounds of bone swords and ice blades clashing constantly rang out across the entire battlefield!
In the frenzied battle between the two ninjutsu, the remaining space was constantly being encroached upon by the madly growing and spreading bone spikes and ice blades. The bones and ice were packed tightly together, and soon all the gaps were filled, turning into a new platform, and the venue of Haruno Sakura and Kimimaro's battle was constantly being raised upwards!
"Heh!" Stomping and shattering another bone pillar that was waiting for an opportunity to ambush her, Sakura turned and leaped, landing on the tip of a towering ice pillar.
The landing point was more than ten meters away from the nearest bone pillar, so for the time being, she didn't have to worry about being ambushed by Kimimaro. The girl took the opportunity to pant heavily.
"Hah, hah!"
Sakura supported herself on her knees, feeling her breathing was more rapid than ever before. Large drops of sweat flowed down her hair and cheeks to her chin, her collarbones, and her body, quickly forming a small puddle on the ice pillar.
The still-bleeding wound, a thread of blood slid down with the sweat, adding a touch of dull red to the puddle.
The intense battle, which had lasted for several minutes, felt as long as a century. Only when she broke free from that suffocating, high-speed combat did she realize that her body was, without her knowing, already covered in wounds!
Her muscles were sore and weak, and her entire body, inside and out, was burning hot.
She had already gone all out.
Apart from the ineffective Wind Blade Raging Stream, all her ultimate moves: the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals, Sakura Rush, the Yin Seal, and the Monstrous Strength Technique, had all been unleashed without reservation, yet she had still only fought him to a draw. She had to admit that Kimimaro, at full power—no, with his death gate opened and his combat power increased by more than tenfold—was indeed unbelievably strong!
However, if she knew that in the manga, Gai, who had opened the Gate of Death, had almost kicked out the grand finale, perhaps she would not have been so surprised.
"Orochimaru could appear at any time... I can't get entangled with him like this," through her broken mask, Sakura stared intently at Kimimaro, who was also taking the opportunity to catch his breath in the distance. "I have to end this quickly!"
"I have to end this quickly!" The same thought popped into the mind of Kimimaro, who was standing on top of a bone pillar!
The Setsugakkō had been open for several minutes. There was not much time left...
Before this, he could never have imagined that even with the use of this forbidden jutsu among forbidden jutsu, he still couldn't do anything to that Haruno Sakura ninja!
The opponent's water jutsu, ice jutsu, body flicker, reaction speed, and nin-taijutsu were all despairingly powerful... In his normal state, he would have been no match for that girl. Only by using the life-burning secret technique did Kimimaro have the qualification to contend with her!
His body was gradually becoming numb to the pain. Kimimaro knew that it wasn't because the side effects of the secret technique were decreasing, but because those parts were already beginning to go numb and die. It was a true case of exhausting all his resources. The energy in his cells had been completely depleted, and his life force had completely disappeared.
He felt an unnatural twitch in his body. Blood seemed to be about to flow from the corner of his mouth, but in the end, nothing happened.
It seemed he couldn't even bleed anymore.
His body should have already died long ago.
It was only by relying on the chakra obtained by burning his life force, as well as his extremely tenacious spiritual strength, that he was barely maintaining his existence, like a firework blooming in the night sky, only able to shine for an instant before dimming.
There was not much time left. At most, there was room for one more blow.
Kimimaro was very clear on this.
"We are both running out of time..." Kimimaro said faintly, looking at Haruno Sakura.
Even when facing the last moment of his life, Kimimaro could still remain calm—perhaps only matters involving Orochimaru could excite him.
"So with the next move, let's decide the winner!"
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