"Don't underestimate me!" Tsunade snapped. Unaffected by her missed strike, she vanished into the rubble with a Body Flicker Technique a split second later.
By the time Jūzō's silhouette rematerialized in the distance, Tsunade was already upon him, descending from the sky like a falling meteor.
"Heavenly Foot of Pain!" Tsunade bellowed.
This was another application of her Monster Strength, a powerful, axe-like downward cleave. Her combat style was as wild and aggressive as her temperament.
"Water Release: Submerging Technique!" Jūzō finally caught the rhythm. He completed a hand seal and dove at high speed into a small puddle accumulated from the rain. The puddle was barely forty centimeters wide and shallow, a place where a person shouldn't have been able to hide, yet Jūzō vanished into it completely.
The next instant, Tsunade's heel hit the ground. The entire street shattered; the collapse rippled out across a hundred-meter radius. The gathered rainwater was blasted into the air by the shockwave.
Jūzō's figure emerged from the splashing sludge. He appeared unscathed, but he was starting to get worked up. He decided to give Tsunade a proper fight, lest she look down on the Yorozuya.
Besides, there was no need to report anything now. If Boss Diarmuid couldn't feel a commotion this massive, it would be a miracle. Patrol ninjas would be arriving soon; he didn't need to do anything extra.
Before his feet even touched the ground, Jūzō's hands blurred through a series of seals. "Water Release: Water Wringing Rope!"
Amegakure was saturated with moisture, making it a natural home court for Water Release users. As the jutsu took effect, the surrounding rain coalesced into five watery ropes, lashing out to coil around Tsunade. In a heartbeat, she was bound tight.
"Water Release: Water Bullet Technique!" Jūzō swung his arm through the air, striking the raindrops. Upon contact, the water expanded instantly. Within moments, they whistled toward Tsunade like cannonballs.
"Break!" Tsunade roared, throwing her arms outward. The water ropes binding her shattered into spray. Shunning hand seals, she simply stomped the ground.
The shattered earth sent chunks of stone flying upward. Spinning on the spot, Tsunade whipped her other leg out, striking the airborne debris like a lash. Bolstered by her incredible kicking power, the stones shot forward like projectiles, colliding mid-air with Jūzō's water bullets.
Having completed this fluid sequence, Tsunade's hands finally blurred through seals. Her chakra flared as she growled, "Earth Release: Four-Cornered Sealing Concealment!"
She was indeed a master of many jutsu; she simply rarely used them. In fact, her sealing speed was a notch faster than Jūzō's. Though Jūzō had initiated his next jutsu immediately after the water bullets, he hadn't finished before Tsunade transitioned from defense to offense.
The rubble at Jūzō's feet rose like walls, boxing him in from all sides and even sealing the top. Then, the four walls began to contract, threatening to crush him.
"Tch..." Jūzō clicked his tongue in annoyance. He knew ninjutsu wasn't his forte; his hand seal speed was merely average.
But...
In the next second, Jūzō abandoned his seals. A flash of blade light followed, and the oncoming earthen wall was sliced clean through. Simultaneously, Tsunade lunged directly in front of him.
"Die!" she roared, throwing another punch.
Jūzō had correctly guessed her intent: use the Earth Release to restrict his movement and then finish him with a single, monster-strength blow.
Choosing to retreat instead of advance, Jūzō stepped back into the narrow space of the Earth Release trap, narrowly dodging the punch. He swung the Executioner's Blade behind him to shatter the rear wall and leaped out of the enclosure, completely evading the strike.
The moment his feet touched the ground, he changed his trajectory. He charged forward, swinging the massive blade in a wide arc. Tsunade, charging back at him, entered the blade's reach.
She was fast. Before the edge could bite, she slid her right leg outward and pressed her left leg down into a deep crouch. It was a fluid motion, like a sweeping kick, lowering her center of gravity. The sharp edge of the Executioner's Blade whistled past, less than five centimeters above her head.
As the blade missed, Tsunade's bent left leg exploded with power. She pounced like a leopard, closing the distance to Jūzō.
Jūzō didn't panic. He pressed down hard on the hilt; the blade, still moving with momentum, slammed into the ground and wedged itself there. As Tsunade's punch arrived, Jūzō grabbed the back of the blade with his other hand and used it as a lever to hoist himself up. He flipped through the air like a hawk, narrowly avoiding the fist.
The moment his feet touched the earth again, his arm muscles bulged. He wrenched the Executioner's Blade from the ground, swinging it in an upward slash toward Tsunade's back.
Not far away, Shizune was mesmerized. The exchange displayed high-level close combat skills: a master swordsman versus a titan of strength. At this range, the fight was a representative clash of high attack and low defense. Every exchange was lethal; one hit meant critical injury.
The Executioner's Blade was long, giving Jūzō the advantage of reach. With her back to him, Tsunade seemed unable to turn in time. Shizune's heart hammered, it looked as though the Princess was about to be cut down.
But at that precise moment, Tsunade whipped her head around and raised her fist. Her pale blonde ponytail lashed out like a whip, striking her own fist. Using the momentum, the hair coiled several times around her hand, and she pinched the end with two fingers. She then jerked her fist downward; the tension pulled her head through a half-turn, allowing her to see behind her.
Her eyes gleamed. In the next breath, her hair-wrapped fist accurately blocked Jūzō's blade.
The blonde hair was instantly severed, and blood sprayed from Tsunade's palm.
Despite the hit, Jūzō's eyes widened in shock. The strike should have severed her hand entirely, but it had only carved through a layer of flesh.
She used the hair as a momentary buffer and then accurately pinched my blade? Jūzō thought, stunned. That's insane.
The hair provided almost no real padding, but it was just enough. With the Executioner's Blade's sharpness, no normal human should have been able to catch it in such a microscopic window of time.
But Tsunade had done it. Her palm was sliced and bleeding, but she held the blade in a vice-like grip!
Tsunade spun around like a raging beast. With a roar, she raised her other hand. Transforming her palm into a Chakra Scalpel with a karate-like posture, she brought it down on the flat of the Executioner's Blade.
"Hah!"
Her hand slammed into the metal. The legendary Executioner's Blade was snapped clean in half by the sheer force of her Monster Strength!
In that same motion, the hand holding the front half of the blade exerted force, performing a bizarre disarmament. I catch the tip of your blade, break it, and now I have the weapon.
Jūzō was momentarily dazed by the maneuver. Before he could react, Tsunade hurled the broken front half of the blade back at him.
His conscious mind couldn't keep up, but his instincts did. He swung the hilt of the broken blade upward, knocking the flying shard away. But the moment he made the move, regret filled his eyes.
The movement left his front wide open!
"Crap!" Jūzō hissed. Lightning sparked around him as he prepared to tank a hit from the "Monster Woman."
Tsunade's blood-stained fist shot toward his heart. But strangely, the punch felt slow.
Too slow!
He noticed Tsunade had closed her eyes, and her aura was wavering.
What the hell?
He didn't know that Tsunade suffered from Hemophobia. Even her own blood terrified her.
"Ha!" Jūzō seized the chance. He slid and rolled across the rubble, a "lazy donkey roll" that narrowly avoided the punch.
When Jūzō looked up, he saw the punch hit nothing but air, yet the sheer pressure created a sonic boom that blasted the rainwater away, creating a vacuum.
If that had hit me, I'd be dead or crippled, Jūzō thought, breaking into a cold sweat.
However, he noticed that the erratic Tsunade had suddenly returned to normal. He hadn't noticed the detail: that final punch had been so powerful that the shockwave had blasted every drop of blood off her hand. Furthermore, her wound was already gone!
Natural Healing.
It was a simple application of her Creation Rebirth. Without the blood, she was back in the fight.
She opened her eyes and glared at Jūzō, raising a foot to stomp him into the dirt. This time Jūzō was ready. He pushed off the ground, vaulting into the air.
Tsunade's foot turned the ground into dust. She looked like a human-shaped dragon.
But instead of pursuing him, Tsunade stopped. She stood still, looking toward a pile of collapsed ruins. Standing atop a high, jagged stone was a figure that had appeared out of nowhere.
"Who are you?" Tsunade asked, her brow knitting together.