Chapter 375: Frontal Confrontation (Part 2)
How immense was the force generated by the Monstrous Strength Technique—even if reduced to only twenty or thirty percent by Samehada? The moment he felt the overwhelming force transmitted from the Samehada great sword, the sneer on Kisame's face froze instantly, his pupils dilated abruptly, and his expression changed drastically!
"D-Damn it!"
Bang!!!
An earth-shattering boom exploded in the valley. The sound wave, almost tangible, radiated from the point of impact between fist and blade, distorting the air and spreading outward like a transparent wall. In an instant, countless water droplets, ice shards, and dust flew into the sky, shrouding the ground in a chaotic swirl.
Kisame's burly figure curled into a ball and was flung out from the gray dust and mist, flying high and traveling dozens of meters before landing heavily on the ground, sprawling out like a broken rag doll with a muffled thud.
"You absorbed all the Ice Style chakra instantly, yet deliberately left that part behind you as a trap?"
A cold voice came from the dust, as icy as an iceberg and overflowing with killing intent, easily felt even through the thick fog.
However, amidst the firmness, there was a faint hint of weakness in that voice. Lying on the ground, Kisame could tell that the owner of the voice must have suffered severe injuries, causing a battle-hardened ninja to speak with uncontrollable hollowness.
It seems that the woman who just clashed her fist against the great sword definitely didn't come out of it unscathed. This thought flashed through Kisame's mind. But so what? The muscles on his face twitched. As he came back to his senses, the frantic, excruciating pain from the right side of his body made even this man, who was accustomed to pain, change his expression. Looking down, his right hand, which had been holding Samehada, was hideously deformed. The dark red flesh was a mangled mess, with bone shards piercing through the skin out of the body. Even the ribs on his right side were fractured one by one, the flesh torn open. Through the wounds, one could even see his internal organs matted into a dark red lump.
It was as if the right side of his body had been crushed by an incomparably huge boulder—then again, wasn't the power of Nin-Taijutsu exactly like the crushing weight of Mount Tai? He wasn't killed by a single punch thanks to Samehada absorbing much of the chakra from the fist, reducing Haruno Sakura's power from a fatal blow to a seriously injuring one.
However, Kisame's current state was not much different from dying on the spot. Even for a ninja known for tenacious vitality, receiving such injuries was just a difference between dying sooner or later!
Even in the battle with Suikazan Fuguki back then, the most dangerous battle in his memory, Kisame had never been in such a sorry state; in his impression, this was the first time he had been beaten like this.
Kisame clenched his fist, his body, which was curled up like a shrimp, slowly uncurled. Forcing his severely injured body, he struggled to stand up from the ground.
His eyes were as cold and terrifying as an injured beast, staring deadly at the place where the voice came from.
"Hmph!" Kisame snorted coldly. The moment he opened his mouth, purple-black blood spilled out, filling his mouth.
"Wasn't your move obvious?"
Shrouded in dust and mist, Haruno Sakura fell silent for a moment and did not answer.
Surprise attacks using Body Flicker were often obvious, yet enemies still couldn't cope with them. For example, the Fourth Hokage, recognized as the strongest user of the Body Flicker Technique—the whole world knew his move was to teleport over and slash people, but so what? Did anyone crack it? Even the Raikage and the Eight-Tails, whose speeds were equally perverted, were beaten black and blue by him. Although Haruno Sakura's Body Flicker wasn't as perverted as the Fourth Hokage's, coupled with the superb reaction speed brought by the Sakura Rush and the peerless power brought by Nin-Taijutsu, it was also a semi-invincible combo that ordinary people couldn't handle.
After a pause, Kisame panted heavily and continued, "The Ice Body Flicker can only be cast using ice as a medium. I only left the patch of ice behind me, so you could only teleport there..."
The greatest difficulty in dealing with the Body Flicker Technique lies in the enemy's elusiveness. The opponent can attack from every direction in three hundred and sixty degrees. No one can guard front, back, left, right, up, and down simultaneously. Therefore, those who use the Body Flicker Technique well always hold the absolute initiative when facing enemies, and naturally, they are invincible in battle.
But if it is clear which direction the opponent will appear from, dealing with it becomes much simpler and easier.
—Unless the opponent is an enemy capable of using the Monstrous Strength Technique.
"As expected..." Haruno Sakura sighed inwardly.
Sakura really hadn't thought that there would be someone who could counter her ninjutsu in such a way. After she cast Frost Funeral, she didn't delay for a moment and directly followed up with a Body Flicker to storm him. She didn't expect that in that short instant, the moment her Ice Style extended to Kisame's feet, the chakra creating the ninjutsu was absorbed. The ice disappeared as soon as it appeared. Samehada's chakra absorption ability was simply astonishingly fast!
What was even more terrifying was that Kisame could precisely control this absorption ability, appropriately leaving a patch of ice behind him, forcing Haruno Sakura to appear only in that spot when casting Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals, thereby setting a trap.
A ninja capable of doing this to this extent, presumably, was only Kisame, the wielder of the Samehada sword, in the entire world, right?
From this perspective, in this exchange, Haruno Sakura was outsmarted and lost a round.
That was why the girl sighed secretly.
From her debut until now, in so many battles, big and small, she had always been the one outsmarting others, and rarely was she the one being schemed against. On one hand, this was because she had read part of the manga and had an intelligence advantage over many enemies; on the other hand, the various strange and powerful moves she developed were widely different from the style of the ninja world, so they often took people by surprise and caused them to suffer great losses.
This created a vague sense of superiority in the girl—whether it was the superiority of knowing the plot or the superiority in ninjutsu development and usage. She knew this was wrong, but how could humans delete such emotions just because they wanted to? realistically speaking, at least for events before Shippuden, she could act as a semi-prophet, especially when her changes to the "plot" were not yet significant.
For example, the Land of Waves incident felt like watching a live-action movie to her. It was clearly a sudden event, but in Haruno Sakura's view, there was always a feeling that everything was being staged according to a script. The acting skills of the actors were all explosive; Zabuza's ruthlessness and Kakashi's calmness were all impressive. Under such circumstances, it was already not easy for her to restrain her mood of knowing spoilers, pretend to be ignorant of everything, and execute the mission like a normal ninja instead of a prophet.
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