Chapter 165: The Final Blow
Haruno Sakura gradually caught her breath and straightened her body.
The broken mask on her face had become tattered after this battle. She simply ripped it from her face and tossed it aside.
The broken cat-face mask on the ice, missing its original pattern, gave off a sense of the absurd. But at this critical moment of life and death, even the absurd mask became serious, suddenly giving off a strange aura.
The mask was removed, revealing the girl's clean and clear face.
The two long, thin bloody gashes on her face, which she hadn't had time to treat, left a stain on this flawless beauty, like an ink mark accidentally smudged, defiling this beautiful scroll painting.
However, in the solemn and desolate atmosphere of the battlefield, these two abrupt bloody gashes added a touch of heroic spirit to her delicate beauty.
Perhaps it would not be an exaggeration to call it cold and stern.
Because at this moment, she was not a flower-like girl in the bloom of her youth on the street, but an Anbu ninja on the battlefield, fighting to the death, bathed in blood.
Just by standing there simply, her hands hanging naturally, a sharp and intimidating presence emanated from her.
Especially her eyes.
Under the icy texture of her chakra, there was not a trace of warmth in her gaze. She looked at Kimimaro coldly, without a shred of emotion.
Then the girl closed her eyelids.
When she opened them again, a sharp killing intent leaked out from those exquisite, emerald-like eyes, oppressively enveloping the entire battlefield.
"Then let's decide the winner in one move..."
She said coldly.
She wasn't clear why Kimimaro would make such a suggestion—the Kimimaro from the original story, who was on his last legs, could not possibly have displayed such strength. She could only think that the changes in events after the Chunin Exams had completely deviated from the so-called "plot."
Perhaps it was because Kabuto did not need to take care of a seriously injured Orochimaru and could focus all his efforts on Kimimaro's illness. The unharmed Orochimaru had probably also helped a lot. In short, Kimimaro's condition was much better than the one in her "impression." But after being ravaged by the Raikiri Raging Stream, Kimimaro was probably already approaching the end of his life. The reason he could display such combat power was likely because he had used a secret technique similar to the Eight Gates to forcefully increase his strength.
Sakura had just recently been researching the secret technique of opening tenketsu points to amplify chakra with Hinata and Neji, so she had a decent understanding of this kind of secret technique. Judging from the extent of his strength increase, Kimimaro's life now was very likely to be measured in minutes, or even seconds.
So as long as she continued to drag it out, she would be able to defeat Kimimaro without a fight. She could completely avoid battle until his body collapsed, and she would naturally achieve victory in this battle.
But she did not choose to do so.
Kimimaro was pressed for time, but so was she.
Orochimaru, who had never shown his face, was a sword of Damocles hanging over her head.
Stalling for time—who knew how long Kimimaro could last? What if he held out until Orochimaru arrived?
Therefore, stalling for time could not possibly be her choice. And Sasuke was also seriously injured and needed timely treatment.
Haruno Sakura was even more anxious than he was!
"This move will be the final blow!"
She issued her declaration.
The troublesome part about Kimimaro was that while he was in the Dance of the Seedling Fern, he could dissolve into the bone forest at any time and launch an attack or dodge one from any time, any place.
Therefore, this one move had to destroy Kimimaro along with his Dance of the Seedling Fern to truly kill him!
Haruno Sakura took a deep breath, feeling as if her entire chest had doubled in size.
"The Yin Seal didn't have much energy stored to begin with, and there's not much chakra left. This time, I have to use it all up at once...!"
To extract so much chakra at once might be a common occurrence for a Kage-level ninja, and even in a Jonin-level battle, it would happen from time to time. But for Haruno Sakura, who had always been meticulous with her chakra and disliked using jutsu with huge consumption, this was the first time...
The feeling of power rushing out madly made her scalp tingle.
The huge amount of chakra even stirred up a vortex of air around her, making the tattered parts of her clothes rustle.
Her pink hair flew up in the wind. The soft strands constantly brushed past her face and eyes. From time to time, they would block her eyes, but they could not cover the bone-chilling killing intent that emanated from them.
"This time, you won't have any space to dodge..." she said silently. "Because I'm going to blow you, along with your Dance of the Seedling Fern, into smithereens!"
The method Haruno Sakura chose was the same as the dart explosion and the ice clone explosion... to detonate the entire ice layer created by the Cold Frost Ice Funeral at once, creating an unprecedented frost explosion!
Her hands were placed in front of her chest as she began to form hand seals.
A huge amount of chakra, following the changes in her hand posture, began to pour out.
"Chakra is pouring into the ice layer below. What an astonishing amount of chakra... what is she planning to do?" Kimimaro was shocked, but he couldn't care about that much now. He could only choose to attack without any regard for himself!
Sakura's hand seals acted as a signal. Kimimaro also gathered all his strength and began to charge towards the girl—
"Take this! Ice Style - Ice Prison Explosion!"
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—!
The ice layer, which covered an area of several hundred meters, shattered at the same instant!
With the permeation of chakra, every ice wall, every ice spike, became like a high explosive, detonating with a roar!
If the ice dart and ice clone explosions were like small ripples in a calm lake;
Then the ice layer explosion that Sakura created at this moment was a monstrous wave stirred up by a fierce storm in the boundless sea!
This one move was truly earth-shaking.
Sakura, who had jumped into the air, could see the entire land shaking, cracking, and shattering under the unbearable load!
The intense explosion directly created an earthquake in this area!
In the distance, the sound wave from the explosion actually formed a transparent and distorted air wall, which spread out from the center of the explosion.
The flowers, grass, trees, giant rocks, and broken stones closer to the explosion were swallowed by it, turning into endless dust and powder.
A little further away, although not affected by the explosion, wherever the airwave passed, broken stones and fallen leaves flew, large trees were uprooted, and small trees were sent flying horizontally. The dense bushes were pressed tightly to the ground, becoming more than half a meter shorter out of thin air.
"Tsk! The original is really messing around!" The ice clone's face tightened. She firmly protected Sasuke behind her, and broken stones and withered branches hit her back one after another.
Under this heaven-and-earth-shattering blow, the bone forest, which was tightly connected and intertwined with the ice layer, along with its underground part, was also completely blown to smithereens by this one blow, shattered into countless bone fragments, and completely disappeared from the land.
Only a large crater nearly ten meters deep was left.
The sound of the explosion gradually subsided. The girl panted lightly and landed on the ground.
Her face was as stern as ice.
"This move still couldn't kill him..." she said through gritted teeth. "This unkillable monster!"
In front of her was a giant bone sphere composed of layers of bone shields!
Although it was already tattered and on the verge of collapsing, the person inside the bone sphere was actually still not dead.
Pierced by several broken ice spikes, Kimimaro still had one last breath. He staggered out of the bone sphere and struggled to his feet.
"This move... was indeed a terrifying blow! But, while it destroyed my Dance of the Seedling Fern, the ice block medium used by your ice Body Flicker jutsu was also all used up in the explosion..."
"In other words, this time, neither of us can use the Body Flicker to evade an attack..."
Kimimaro looked at Haruno Sakura coldly.
His body was already growing cold. His internal organs had long since stopped working under the unbearable load. Only the last of his chakra was still forcefully maintaining the operation of his brain and muscles. His life was already a candle in the wind, and could be counted down in the last few seconds!
"This blow, we must both face the opponent's final blow head-on!"
The two of them launched their final charge at the same time.
"Dance of the Clematis!"
"Monstrous Strength Technique - Star Cannon Hammer!"
Their figures overlapped.
Dark red blood and broken pieces of flesh burst out from the intertwined figures.
Kimimaro's bone spear brushed past the hair at the pink-haired girl's ear.
Haruno Sakura's hand, however, had pierced through Kimimaro's chest, completely shattering his heart!
"You've lost..."
Haruno Sakura looked indifferently at Kimimaro's trembling and bloodless lips, and said coldly, with a ghastly killing intent.
She, who had activated Sakura Rush and the Monstrous Strength Technique, in this kind of mutual charge where they could not use Body Flicker to dodge, how could she possibly lose to an enemy who could barely even stand?
"Cough, cough!" Kimimaro spat out a few mouthfuls of already cooling blood and said weakly.
"No, I'm the one who won... After using that move just now, you no longer have a medium to use your Ice Body Flicker... You can't escape!"
She... had been locked down by his physical body!
"This is the final blow..."
"Dance of the Seedling Fern!"
The flower of Kimimaro's life bloomed.
And then it withered.
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