Chapter 155: Sakura, Kakashi, and Mei vs. Killer Bee
Sakura crossed the battlefield in a series of leaps, covering hundreds of meters at a stride, and spotted Kakashi's figure below.
"Kakashi!"
She threw something as she passed overhead. It arced through the air and dropped into his hands.
Kakashi looked at what she'd thrown and his expression fell slightly.
A bag of special-formula soldier pills.
One was enough for most people. Sakura, accounting for Kakashi's notoriously inadequate chakra reserves, had included an entire bag as a thoughtful gesture.
He stared at it.
He'd never actually eaten one. But he'd watched Naruto and Sasuke both eat them, and Naruto — a person with essentially no food standards — had come close to vomiting. The implications were clear.
The fight with Darui had left his chakra at a level he couldn't afford to ignore. And this was an emergency.
He steeled himself. Pulled the mask down. Selected one pill — the size of which was already a problem. Closed his eyes. Swallowed.
Sakura glanced back and noted his expression with quiet satisfaction before accelerating.
Her pills worked. They were still technically in the testing phase, but the results were excellent. People were letting appearances deceive them. This was a matter of looking past the surface to understand the substance.
Don't let taste stop you from eating things that work.
"Water Release — Water Surface Cut!"
Precision blades of water launched across the flood Mei had created, driving toward the half-transformed figure standing in it. Every one of them was sidestepped with infuriating ease.
Killer Bee moved through the evasions and turned directly into a sprint, charging at Mei with the speed of something that had been deliberately holding back.
Her eyes snapped wide.
Different. Completely different.
The gap between before and now was the gap between a wild goose and a falcon splitting the sky open. He'd been concealing his real speed the entire time — closing the distance while she watched for patterns, building toward a single decisive strike.
"Ha, even octopuses are fish!"
"Watch the Plough, you stupid woman!"
He hit the water surface like artillery, each step sending waves outward, tailed beast chakra blazing in place of the lightning he'd had before.
Damn—
Mei forced her teeth together and tried to use water displacement to dodge. The distance was too close for a clean escape.
She slipped the elbow strike by the smallest margin. The six chakra tails swept past her at burning proximity — she could feel the heat radiating off them without touching.
And then — before she'd processed what was happening — Bee didn't turn back to continue.
He went straight for Kushina and Ino.
"No—"
"You slippery—"
She'd seen it too late. He'd decided she wasn't a quick enough takedown and abandoned the engagement to go for the actual targets.
She went after him immediately.
Kushina felt the enormous chakra approaching, held the technique, and kept running her mouth silently in what was probably prayer.
Ino, beside her, had gone somewhat pale. Neither of them spoke.
The formation had to hold. Sakura needed it.
That was all.
Bee cut through the protective detail with pure momentum — tailed beast cloak making most jutsu irrelevant, the rest absorbed or slapped aside. Ninja who threw themselves at him to buy time went flying. He didn't slow.
The shadow fell over both of them.
The detail protecting them was gone.
"Found you, little mice."
What had been recognizably a person showed teeth.
"Lightning Plough—"
"Not today! Die!"
Sakura came in from the angle, arm already bent, and traded elbows with Killer Bee at full commitment.
"Sakura!"
Kushina's voice cracked with relief.
"That's our girl!" Ino kept the technique going with visible effort and audible enthusiasm.
BOOM.
The shockwave expanded outward from the point of contact. Against Bee in six-tails state, even Sakura absorbed the impact — four, five steps back.
Bee went further. He hit the water surface at a distance and sent a wave outward.
Sakura looked at the situation with no expression of relief on her face.
That had been Bee in midair, no leverage, caught by surprise at an awkward angle. His speed, his raw force — both were above the Raikage's. She'd seen enough to know that.
She turned to Ino.
"Clear the area. Tell everyone to spread out, as far as possible."
Something in her face stopped Ino from asking questions.
"Yes!"
The order moved outward through the Formation. The surrounding ninja retreated.
"Status?"
Sakura reached Mei and handed her a small bag of soldier pills without preamble.
"Still standing."
Mei looked at the bag, recognized the shape of the pills inside, and sighed. She pulled one out and ate it.
Kakashi arrived.
A single pill was more than enough for his reserve, bordering on too much.
On the water surface, Bee watched the three people watching him. His expression was unbothered. The math was getting more complicated, but complicated wasn't the same as impossible.
Should I take over?
The Eight-Tails Gyūki posed the question through their link, looking at the three through Bee's eyes.
Nah. Let me try.
He smiled. If the situation called for releasing the Eight-Tails, he'd do it. But right now he wanted to see what this was first.
The water's surface settled.
Bubbles began rising.
"Here he comes."
Sakura spoke before anyone else reacted — the Heaven Concealment Array had been running the whole time.
A massive chakra tendril erupted from the water and drove straight at all three of them.
"I'll take point. You two support."
Sakura went forward instead of back.
"Wait—"
Mei stared.
This woman is a medical ninja. The point person should be—
Kakashi grabbed her arm.
"Trust Sakura. She's stronger than you think."
He pulled Mei clear of the tendril's arc.
Sakura caught it.
Her hand closed around tailed beast chakra and the contact was immediate — white smoke rising from her palm, the sensation of pressing against heated iron.
The brow furrowed. She didn't let go.
The force erupted from her grip. A figure was wrenched from beneath the water.
Bee, surfacing against his will, looked at the girl holding his tail.
Strong. The intelligence was accurate. Comparable to Tsunade.
Even the boss doesn't have this kind of pure physical strength.
He reacted immediately. Five remaining tails gathered momentum and drove at her in a coordinated strike.
She twisted through them — reading the angles, slipping each one — but the tailed beast chakra still grazed her skin where the tails passed close, burning through the fabric.
His style was a natural counter to a taijutsu specialist. Every surface radiated heat that wore down close-range options.
Sakura glanced at her reddened skin.
Smiled.
"That's why they call you a jinchūriki."
"Let's see some more."
She wrenched toward herself.
Bee flew at her involuntarily. She loaded the full force of her combined chakra into her fist — both colors burning, blue and pink, a tiger's head forming—
The remaining tails wheeled back and lined up to impale her from multiple directions.
If she followed through, she'd punch him in the head. And take five tails through her body simultaneously.
She ran the numbers in the fraction of a second available.
Five penetrating wounds from tailed beast chakra-infused tails. The Strength of a Hundred couldn't regenerate that fast enough. The size differential made the math worse.
Bee had seen it. He was counting on it.
Kakashi and Mei moved.
"Water Release — Water Surface Cut!"
"Lightning Release — Chidori Shuriken!"
The space between them was too close for anything large-scale. The targets were the tails themselves — precise, directed.
"Tch. Annoying."
Bee abandoned the counter, pulled back entirely. Five tails retracted, sacrificing the setup.
Sakura stumbled one step, chakra still blazing in her fist, and found herself holding a severed tail stub.
Bee stood on the water surface again. Where his tails met the water, steam rose in thin columns — the lake's surface unable to absorb the heat.
The tail dissolved as Bee withdrew the chakra feeding it. Nothing to hold.
Sakura looked at the burn marks across her palm.
"Worthy of a jinchūriki."
"Interesting."
She unsealed the Yin Seal. Black lines spread outward from the diamond mark. The wounds closed at a visible rate.
Gyūki, watching through Bee, spoke.
"She's described in the intelligence file as having healing capability. But that's something else entirely."
"She's like Hashirama Senju."
"Sakura." Kakashi spoke with the alertness of someone recalibrating threat models. "This enemy is different from anything before. We go in together."
Mei nodded. She'd had the most time with Bee and had the most direct sense of what he was.
Sakura exhaled. She grabbed the sleeve her jacket had lost to Bee's tails and tore it off cleanly.
"Then let's take him apart together."
(Chapter End)
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