Chapter 60: The Pink-Haired Girl Who Just Won't Die
Sakura ground her teeth as Orochimaru came streaming up the staff toward her. The Yin Seal on her forehead lit up in that same instant!
Searing-hot blood was flung skyward in a single arc!
"Oh?"
"Weren't you so cocky a moment ago?"
The Kusanagi Sword, gleaming with cold translucent light, punched clean through Sakura's chest!
"SAKURA!"
The Monkey King — currently the staff in her hand — went cold. The cry escaped before he could stop it.
"Looks like the limits of my little sister-disciple are nothing special after all."
Looking at the pink-haired girl now skewered on his blade, Orochimaru's golden serpent-eyes brimmed with malice.
The blood soaked her cherry-pink hair red, and for a moment that pink took on a tragic, ruined cast.
The girl slowly lifted her head. The green eyes behind the curtain of pink hair were unbroken — and held a viciousness without parallel.
Black markings began to spread down from the violet rhomboid mark on her forehead, tracing down across her cheek.
Down her neck. Down her arms. Down her body. Down her legs. Black lines bloomed across all of it!
Yin Seal — Strength of a Hundred Technique!
"You want to weigh me?"
"Then call up Hashirama Senju to do it!"
The instant the words left her mouth, Orochimaru's scalp prickled. A massive surge of crisis-instinct swept up through him!
No time to think — Orochimaru, on decades of battlefield reflex, made the only correct call available!
The Kusanagi Sword extended in his grip just like the staff in Sakura's hand!
Sakura was sent rocketing several hundred meters straight up into the air on the point of the blade!
Her blood rained down like sheets of water and spattered across Orochimaru's cheek.
But even so — even so — her hand never released the staff. And Enma seized the moment to drag Orochimaru up with her into the high sky!
"You can survive that?!"
"This time I'm sending you to meet the Sage of Six Paths!"
The girl roared. Chakra blazed visibly around her fist — and ignoring her own perforated body, she planted a punch flush in Orochimaru's chest!
BOOM!
Under the impact, Orochimaru's eyes nearly rolled back in his head as his entire body was driven straight down toward the earth!
A radius of dozens of meters was pulverized in a single strike!
Sakura yanked the Kusanagi Sword out of her chest; blood sprayed out again like she was being charged for it by the gallon.
The instant the blade came free, the near-fatal wound in her chest knit closed at staggering speed. She wiped a smear of fresh blood off her face and dropped straight down toward the impact crater, hands flying through seals as she fell.
"Summoning Technique: Slug!"
A massive plume of white smoke detonated in midair — and out of it appeared an enormous blue-and-white slug!
"Eh?"
"Sakura, what's the —?"
Katsuyu hadn't quite registered what was happening, only that Sakura was here covered in blood.
"Lady Katsuyu!"
"Orochimaru is directly underneath you. Crush him."
Sakura snapped it out fast.
She'd only managed to pin Orochimaru down by burning her own blood as collateral — she was not about to let him slip away. While he hadn't pulled out Impure World Reincarnation yet, she was ending this fast.
"Got it!"
Hearing it was Orochimaru below, Katsuyu didn't argue — she just shut her eyes and dropped, free-falling several hundred meters straight down!
A nearly fifty-meter slug slammed into the ground and exploded outward into a tide of smaller slugs, countless little Katsuyu fragments scattering in every direction.
Sakura, gripping the Adamantine Staff, rode the descent down — and watched Orochimaru, who had escaped the impact through Earth Release submersion, drag himself out of the ground in a thoroughly disheveled state. The vicious eyes were now mixed with a flicker of provocation.
"Orochimaru of the Three Sannin. Underwhelming."
Orochimaru pressed a hand to his chest, taking stock of the chakra still in his coils.
The single use of Orochimaru-Style Substitution had cost him a meaningful chunk of reserves. And this damn pink-haired girl was an actual cockroach. She'd even summoned Katsuyu.
By this point, Orochimaru had no further interest in continuing the fight.
His original plan had been to use the second stage of the Chūnin Exams to plant a Heaven Curse Mark on the last Uchiha, securing him as a future vessel — and to scope out the old man's youngest disciple as a side errand.
Who could have anticipated this kind of resistance from a "pink-haired genin."
Stabbed clean through the chest, blood everywhere — and she still hauled him over and decked him, then walked it off like nothing had happened...
"Heh heh. The old man chose well."
"Until next time, my lovely little sister-disciple."
The serpentine man dropped the line with malicious delight, already mid-Earth-Release for his exit.
"Going somewhere?!"
"Do you really think you can?!"
Sakura whipped the staff out of her grip — and it instantly transformed into a cage of adamantine bars trapping Orochimaru in place!
Ninja Art: Diamond Cage Walls!
But Orochimaru, exactly as he'd entered, melted into a puddle of mud and slipped out through the gaps in the cage.
That level of Earth Release...
Sakura felt a chill go down her spine.
Goddamn it. This snake bastard has dumped every skill point into ESCAPE.
"Sakura, are you alright?"
A small slug clung to her shoulder, looking at her — half her face still soaked with blood — with concern.
"I'm fine, Lady Katsuyu."
She shook her head and planted the Adamantine Staff into the ground. The staff instantly transformed back into the towering Monkey King.
"Sakura. You did extremely well. He has, after all, been a name in this world for nearly thirty years."
Enma's voice was, in spite of itself, gentle. He looked at the blood-soaked girl in front of him.
He had genuinely thought, partway through the fight, that Sakura was going to die. Who could have guessed this child's life force was that tenacious — basically uncrushable.
"Lord Enma, please go report this back to the old man."
"Orochimaru came all the way out here for a reason. Make sure the old man's prepared."
Sakura's tone was a little flat now.
"...Alright."
"Sakura, in the future — anything you need, just call me directly."
Enma gave her one long, deep look, and then dispersed into a column of white smoke.
This summoner had not a trace of feminine fragility about her. The strength of her will was something Enma had rarely encountered in his entire long life.
Strength of ability was not real strength.
Strength of will — that was what made someone truly strong.
"Sakura, would you like me to heal you?"
Countless small slugs began swarming toward her from all directions.
Sakura reached up and patted her perfectly intact chest. The wound from Orochimaru's blade was already mostly closed.
"Uh — Lady Katsuyu, if it's not too much trouble, can you find a few people for me?"
"A blond. A redhead. A black-hair."
"The black-hair has the Uchiha clan's ping-pong-paddle fan symbol on his back."
"Very recognizable."
After the brawl with Orochimaru, Sakura had no idea where Naruto, Sasuke, and Karin had ended up.
In the same moment, two figures came tearing toward her from a distance.
Kakashi and Might Guy.
Sakura went a little quiet.
She remembered, before entering the Forest of Death, telling Anko to have Kakashi and Guy posted at the perimeter to watch for her signal flare.
She'd gotten so deep into the fight that she'd... entirely forgotten to fire the signal flare.