Chapter 59: Death-Match
A modest plume of white smoke surged up in front of Sakura — and Orochimaru's technique completed in the same instant!
He had dropped flat to the ground; his mouth opened wider than a human jaw should physically allow, as if it had no bones, and an ocean of small flicker-tongued snakes came pouring out of his throat!
Within moments, the ground in front of him was a literal sea of serpents!
"Orochimaru..."
The white smoke cleared. A massive figure now stood in front of the snake tide.
White fur. Long tail. Body armor.
The Monkey King!
"Sarutobi failing to kill you back then was, indeed, a mistake."
Enma fixed his gaze on the man casting the technique and spoke slowly.
"Lord Enma!"
Sakura moved fast. She scrambled up Enma's massive frame.
Enma, in perfect sync, hoisted the pink-haired girl skyward and hurled her — Sakura immediately rocketed up onto a branch high in one of the surrounding trees. Enma himself swarmed up the trunk on all fours.
"Right here, right now, Orochimaru — your time has come!"
Enma stood on the branch with his arms folded across his chest, voice cold, looking down at the man who had just risen back to his feet.
Orochimaru's gaze sharpened on the Monkey King above him.
So the old man had handed this one over to the little girl too. How extraordinarily favored. Playing favorites in his old age, hm...
The countless snakes on the ground below simultaneously opened their mouths. Cold-gleaming blades emerged from each — and they all surged up the tree trunks toward Sakura.
Branches snapped clean off the moment the blades touched them. The cutting power was terrifying.
Sakura immediately yanked a shuriken from her tool pouch, made a one-handed seal, and the shuriken instantly enlarged to giant size!
"DIE!"
Enhanced Strength behind it, the girl's roar driving it forward — the giant shuriken howled toward the snake tide!
"Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique!"
The seal completed in the same instant the shuriken left her hand!
One became two. Two, four. Four, eight. Eight, sixteen!
In a blink, the entire sky above the clearing was covered in giant shuriken!
Enhanced-Strength-thrown giant shuriken combined with Shuriken Shadow Clone — the snake tide was scythed through and obliterated in a single sweeping moment!
The ground looked like a heavy artillery battery had plowed through it. Snake corpses everywhere, blood soaking the dirt to a uniform deep red!
"Lord Enma!"
"Got it!"
Sakura launched off the branch into the air; Enma sprang toward her at the same instant.
"Adamantine Staff!"
Enma transformed in midair into a length of adamantine staff — directly into Sakura's hand!
She gripped the impossibly hard rod and dove straight at Orochimaru!
"Tch."
Seeing the exact development he'd been least hoping for, Orochimaru opened his mouth — and a snake's head emerged from inside it. The snake's mouth, in turn, opened and disgorged a long sword that gleamed with cold light!
The Kusanagi Sword!
Orochimaru gripped the hilt; without even waiting for the snake to retract back down his throat, he charged Sakura!
"Sakura — what he's wielding is the Kusanagi Sword."
"Even I can take a meaningful wound from that blade."
Enma's voice came through the staff in her hand.
Sakura didn't reply. She brought the staff straight down at Orochimaru's head!
The Adamantine Staff whistled with a sharp, ear-splitting wind. Orochimaru dodged — fast.
This little sister had inherited Enhanced Strength and now had the old man's summon backing her up. One clean hit from that staff and he might genuinely die here today.
The staff slammed into the ground — and the entire earth fractured in every direction in a single strike!
Like a small earthquake had detonated underfoot!
The ground in a several-meter radius around Sakura was reduced to powder!
Orochimaru watched it happen. The corner of his eye twitched.
If he hadn't received intelligence years ago that the old man had taken a new disciple, he would have honestly assumed this kid was Tsunade's secret love child.
The resemblance was uncanny.
But shocked as he was by Sakura's monstrous Enhanced Strength, his hands didn't slow for an instant — the sword stabbed straight at Sakura's throat!
Orochimaru was, after all, Orochimaru. No matter how spectacular Sakura's attacks looked, her actual combat experience was, ultimately, too thin. Four years in ANBU was four years — but it couldn't compare with someone who had been crawling and bleeding through battlefields for half a century.
Sakura was a prodigy. Did Orochimaru not also count as a prodigy?
The razor-sharp blade nicked the cord of her Konoha forehead protector loose from her snow-white throat — then drove straight at her slender neck!
In the crisis instant, Sakura jerked her head a fraction to the side, and the staff in her hand swung at Orochimaru!
At this angle, even if he opened her throat, as long as he didn't take her head, she would survive!
And in the same instant the staff was on its way to cave Orochimaru's skull in!
Sakura did not believe that with his entire face mashed flat — with his mouth nowhere to be found — the man could still pull off his Orochimaru-Style Substitution!
Sakura's read held. Faced with the staff coming for his head, Orochimaru bent backward into a flat plank-bridge dodge — but his wrist twisted, and the blade came across her face instead!
The pink-haired girl let her body collapse straight downward, planted one palm on the ground, and the staff in her other hand snapped to point at the still-recovering Orochimaru!
"Enma — EXTEND!"
Orochimaru's pupils contracted to needle-points!
The staff shot out like a lightning bolt and caught him square in the chest!
And then —
A plume of dust and debris erupted that nearly split the entire Forest of Death in half!
The shockwave was big enough that every candidate still in the second exam jerked their head toward it!
The weaker candidates moved as far away as they could. The confident ones, almost in unison, started moving toward it.
They wanted to see what in the world was kicking up that much commotion.
Orochimaru was driven by Enma's extending staff straight into the outer wall of the Forest of Death itself — and before he could draw a single breath, a thick, powerful hand emerged out of the staff and clamped down around his throat!
"Orochimaru — today is the day you die!"
"At the hands of Sarutobi's last disciple!"
Enma's killing-intent-saturated voice rang from the staff.
Throat caught, Orochimaru's face contorted in pain. Before he could respond, the staff retracted at lightning speed!
And waiting for him at the other end was Sakura — already wound up to strike!
There was a fresh cut across her face from the Kusanagi Sword. Because the sword had cut her hair-tie loose, her long pink hair was now spilling down loose around her shoulders.
"Damn brat..."
Looking at the pink-haired girl staring him down with utterly cold eyes from the far end of the staff, a vicious flash crossed Orochimaru's eyes.
His mouth snapped open — and a pair of hands emerged from inside it!
Wait. The technique can be used like THAT?
Sakura had no time to be shocked. Half of Orochimaru's torso was already extruding out of his own throat!
He gripped the Kusanagi Sword in one hand; the lower half of his body had transformed into a serpent's tail. Following the contracting staff, he came streaming toward Sakura!