Chapter 370: Instant Kill
According to Might Guy, the most effective way to counter Sharingan genjutsu is not to look directly into their eyes.
To some extent, this is an impossible piece of nonsense. Humans have a large field of vision. Not making eye contact with the Sharingan means only observing the enemy's movements with peripheral vision, which is impossible without long-term training. Unless one closes their eyes, one will always subconsciously meet the gaze of the Uchiha.
Moreover, as far as Sakura knows, Uchiha's genjutsu can even be cast with just one movement or one finger after practicing to a high level, making it impossible to defend against. Guy's tactic is meaningless!
To put it bluntly, Guy came up with this tactic based on his experience fighting Kakashi, and Kakashi's genjutsu attainment... well... is at most slightly higher than Kurenai Yuhi.
Anyway, she didn't think much of it. In short, Haruno Sakura expressed no comment on this tactic.
The bigger problem with avoiding eye contact is that Itachi's Mangekyo Sharingan has a secret technique called Amaterasu, which burns everything. When cast, black flames are released at the focal point of vision, extinguishing only after burning all targets to ashes. Compared to genjutsu, this is the ninjutsu Sakura fears the most. She has some confidence in countering genjutsu, but being burned by Amaterasu would be a serious injury.
Amaterasu is cast extremely fast, but it is still a ninjutsu with traces to follow. As long as one stares closely at Itachi's eyes, pays attention to his chakra movement, and has a fast enough reaction, one can dodge this move. However, this requires her to always pay attention to the movement of the Sharingan, rather than avoiding Itachi's gaze.
In short, at the Kage level, many commonly used routines and tactics are no longer very effective.
Sensing the chakra on Itachi's body suddenly moving to his eyes, casting the secret technique of the Mangekyo Sharingan, Haruno Sakura subconsciously raised her hand to protect her chest, condensing an ice armor on her body, wanting to repeat the trick like intercepting Itachi's Amaterasu last time.
But she guessed wrong.
Itachi did not cast Amaterasu, nor was the target of the jutsu her standing at the front.
With a thud beside her, Haruno Sakura turned around in surprise. Fuu's eyes were unfocused, and she had already collapsed limply on the ground.
The Seven-Tails Jinchuriki couldn't withstand a single look from Itachi!
Haruno Sakura's heart sank violently.
"She was hit by genjutsu..." Sakura took a stride forward, supported the Jinchuriki girl's limp body, and checked her breathing with her index finger. Fuu's breath was weak, her breathing faint, consciousness lost, and she had fainted. Obviously, her spirit had suffered great damage, and it would be difficult to recover in a short time.
Was a major general instantly killed right at the start... how can we fight this? Although she had expected Fuu's actual combat power to be low, being instantly killed so cleanly was also somewhat beyond Sakura's expectation.
Haruno Sakura carefully put her aside, her face sinking like water, and turned to Sasuke: "I'm afraid she won't wake up in a short time."
"Doesn't it say that Tailed Beast Jinchuriki are immune to genjutsu?" Sasuke frowned, his face darkened, and asked back.
"Perhaps Mangekyo Sharingan genjutsu is an exception." The pink-haired girl's eyes were solemn, and she said in a deep voice, "Because what he cast was..."
"Tsukuyomi."
Sakura paused and said coldly.
Only this move could silently instantly kill a Kage-level ninja in one move!
"Tsukuyomi..."
Sasuke's gaze was fixed on Uchiha Itachi, murmuring the name of this jutsu in his mouth.
Haruno Sakura looked back. Although the black-haired boy's face was gloomy, he maintained calmness and restraint, at least not shouting or anything as soon as he saw Uchiha Itachi; this was probably the only good news besides Fuu being instantly killed by Itachi.
After experiencing training in the Anbu for so long, and with the intelligence given to him by the girl, Sasuke had at least regained some sense, and his performance was much more composed than in the original story.
"Now, are you still confident in defeating us?" Itachi's words came from afar, his voice cold and emotionless, carrying a chill that made people feel cold in their hearts.
"Hand over the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki. The Waterfall ninja's affairs have nothing to do with your Konoha. We have no reason to fight."
From the perspective of a member of the Akatsuki, when two tigers fight, one is bound to be injured. Whether it was the two people from the Akatsuki or Haruno Sakura, both sides were masters with impressive battle records, unlike Fuu who had power but lacked experience and could be instantly killed by Itachi with one look. If a fight really broke out, it was uncertain who would win. Itachi used a big move to instantly kill the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki right at the start, making the situation greatly unfavorable for the Konoha side, but if it really came to a life-and-death struggle, Itachi and Kisame couldn't guarantee defeating Sakura and Sasuke without paying a price.
Neither side had a reason to fight to the death. To be cautious, there was naturally no need to start a battle.
What's more, the Third Hokage was not dead, so Itachi's identity as a Konoha spy was still preserved. At this moment, he naturally wouldn't kill Konoha's new generation hope and his own brother—even in the original story, when Itachi and Kisame attacked Konoha after the Third Hokage died following the Chunin Exams, they didn't really kill Kakashi and the others. That battle was full of various intentional or unintentional holding back. Otherwise, at least Kurenai Yuhi would definitely have died.
Betraying on the spot, uniting with Haruno Sakura to kill Kisame, and returning to Konoha was also unrealistic; one important purpose of Itachi joining the Akatsuki was to monitor and deal with the person calling himself Uchiha Madara, and secondly, to die at Sasuke's hands, achieving Sasuke's glory as a rogue ninja. Neither goal was achieved, so he naturally wouldn't leave the Akatsuki organization easily.
So in this situation, using a big move on the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki first, instantly eliminating an important combat power, and then persuading Haruno Sakura and Sasuke to retreat was already the best choice.
It wouldn't arouse suspicion from other Akatsuki members, nor would it harm Konoha.
Haruno Sakura was silent, glancing left and right.
The Seven-Tails Jinchuriki fell to the ground, and the Waterfall ninja had already evacuated this place. Only Sasuke could fight alongside her, but considering his combat power... fighting for real was no different from her fighting one against two.
It seemed that if a battle really occurred, their side was indeed at a great disadvantage. Fighting the people of the Akatsuki regardless of life and death for the sake of the Waterfall ninja, wasn't this very foolish behavior?
The best course of action, as Itachi said, was to hand over the Jinchuriki, avoiding battle for both sides.
But...
"No chance of winning?" She said coldly, "How do you know without fighting?"
Giving up fighting just because the opponent looked stronger was not Team 7's style. Asking her to watch helplessly as the Akatsuki snatched the Jinchuriki from her hands without any resistance, Haruno Sakura couldn't do such a thing!
Moreover, if she didn't resist now, should she wait until the Akatsuki collected all the power of the remaining eight Tailed Beasts and finally attacked Konoha with supreme force to snatch Naruto before resisting?
"A futile decision." Itachi said coldly.
"Strength and appearance are both excellent, but unfortunately the flaw is overconfidence to the point of arrogance." Kisame smiled mockingly, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth, pulled out Samehada and carried it on his shoulder, saying, "Let me help you clear your head!"
He looked down at the two people at the foot of the mountain. The bottomless chakra was restless, and the monstrous momentum surged out wildly, pressing towards Haruno Sakura.
Haruno Sakura remained unmoved.
Facing the surging killing intent from Kisame, the girl advanced instead of retreating, taking a step forward. Her black sandals stepped heavily on the ground, dust splashing up, falling on the exquisite shoelaces and slender ankles.
"Who is the one overconfident?"
Her nostrils flared slightly, and the girl snorted coldly.
Facing two elite ninja of the Akatsuki alone, she was indeed a bit strained, but she was not completely without a chance of winning!
The only thing about Kisame that made her feel troublesome was Samehada's ability to absorb chakra. In terms of taijutsu, her nin-taijutsu combined with Body Flicker and Sakura Rush was enough to contend with Kisame's sword technique; in terms of chakra amount, her Yin Seal storage was even more sufficient than Kisame's; in terms of ninjutsu, Sakura was not afraid to compete in Water Style with any ninja!
The same was true for Itachi. What she feared most about him were nothing more than the two secret techniques of the Mangekyo Sharingan: Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi. However, these two moves consumed a lot of Itachi's energy, not something he could use just like that.
Leaving aside these super-spec ninjutsu, just looking at the ordinary three items of ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu, the increasingly mature Haruno Sakura had undoubtedly reached the peak in the usual sense.
From Haruno Sakura's eyes, Kisame saw her strong confidence. The girl in front of him seemed to really want to stop the two of them alone! "Leave her to me, Itachi," Kisame's face also turned cold, his tone implying anger at being despised, "I'll teach her a lesson."
"No, let's attack together. Make it quick, Kisame." Uchiha Itachi said coldly.
He stretched his hand out from the black robe, the Mangekyo pinwheel in his eyes slowly rotating, chakra quietly surging.
Unlike Kisame, Itachi's fighting style leaned more towards precise and effective attacks, rather than squandering chakra unscrupulously to launch area attacks like Kisame.
Since teaming up with Kisame, the two rarely encountered enemies that required them to work together—in fact, the ninja in the ninja world who could beat one of these two in a duel could be counted on one hand, and obviously Haruno Sakura was among them—so their coordination wasn't particularly tacit, but at least having been companions for many years, they understood each other fairly well.
Haruno Sakura also prepared for battle. The massive amount of chakra extracted from the Yin Seal surged in her body, stirring up whirlwinds, blowing her shoulder-length pink hair.
"Sasuke, step back a bit."
She said without looking back, but what she got was not an affirmative answer.
"No, let me deal with him." Sasuke also took two steps forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with Sakura, his voice cold and firm.
Sakura was surprised for a moment and turned to look at him: "What did you say?"
Sasuke didn't say who he wanted to deal with, but Haruno Sakura knew he was talking about Itachi.
His expression remained calm, without the madness of extreme hatred in the original story, nor was his head overwhelmed by anger.
Confirming that Sasuke hadn't relapsed into chuunibyou, nor was he blinded by the anger of revenge, Haruno Sakura was even more surprised: "Do you know what you are saying?"
Even the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki was instantly killed by Itachi in one move. Sasuke had even less strength to confront him. Since seeing Itachi, Sasuke had been very calm, able to recognize the strength gap between himself and him, not rushing up like a headless fly when seeing Itachi. In this point alone, he had indeed grown a lot.
Therefore, Sakura didn't understand why he said such words even more.
"I'll hold off Uchiha Itachi." Sasuke didn't look at her, just stared at Itachi deadly and said, "You finish off Kisame first, then come support me."
So that's it.
Perhaps there were thoughts of revenge involved, but what Sasuke considered more in his heart was sacrificing himself to help Haruno Sakura bear the pressure of battle.
"I've said it, I won't hide behind and watch your back anymore."
Haruno Sakura's emotions surged, blocking her chest, not knowing what to say. After a moment of silence, she slowly spoke: "You can't beat him."
"Then defeat Kisame before I'm defeated by him!" The black-haired boy turned his head, pulled the corner of his mouth, and revealed a smile so faint it could hardly be seen.
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