Chapter 378.5: Slash
The earth-shattering Water Style, unfathomable chakra amount, and Samehada, whose ability was powerful enough to affect the balance of the ninja game—these characteristics were so eye-catching on Kisame that Haruno Sakura unconsciously forgot his initial identity at the beginning.
It wasn't until Kisame displayed his superb sword technique, wielding a large sword so tightly that not even water could splash through, completely neutralizing Swallow Snow Storm's carpet-style attack, and even counter-charging in front of the girl, that Sakura realized this!
Kisame leaped up like a fierce beast, muscles bulging high, chakra gushing out loudly, Samehada held high in the air, smashing towards the girl with the crushing weight of Mount Tai.
Expanding killing intent rippled transparently in the air, blowing fiercely in front of Haruno Sakura, lifting the pink hair behind her head high; a shrill sword qi emitted from the heavy blade, carrying unmatched power, the whistle sharp and decisive, indicating that Kisame's strike would definitely be an earth-shattering one!
"Amazing."
Two thin lips touched lightly, Haruno Sakura gently breathed out this word.
The moment she said this, she moved.
The knee-deep water pool Sakura was stepping on suddenly froze into ice. The Ice Style girl lifted her leg violently and jumped up; the ice under her feet cracked under the reaction force, drawing a circular crack tens of meters in size on the ice surface. In the center of the circle, a deep, small sandal print was left impressively.
Her hands hung at her waist, unknowingly grasping a long popsicle. The popsicle extended into the ice pool, more than a meter long, widening abruptly near the ice surface, seemingly hiding most of its body in the pool. The girl gripped the long stick tightly and pulled it out of the ice pool. Only then could it be seen clearly that it was a huge ice sword.
And that meter-long stick was actually the handle of this large sword!
Just the handle was like this, so what about the blade? Kisame looked down from above and saw clearly that Haruno Sakura had almost held the ice sword flat, with a section of the blade still remaining in the ice pool. His pupils contracted suddenly. Compared to the ice sword in the girl's hand, Samehada, which had drunk Sakura's chakra and doubled in size, was completely overshadowed, as small as a child's toy.
Ten meters? Thirty meters? Or forty meters long, with a blade width of two meters, the super-giant ice sword was held steadily in the hands of the Ice Style ninja as if its huge weight was weightless.
"Hah."
The black glove on the left hand contrasted with the whiteness of the right hand. The huge ice sword was completely incompatible with the not-so-tall figure, but the seemingly incongruous combination carried a vigorous momentum!
Step, step.
The girl took two run-up steps on the ice surface. The steps were so powerful and swift that the new circular cracks on the ice surface expanded further, as if trampled by a heavy giant beast; the small body actually stepped out with the momentum of a fierce giant beast!
"Pity..." Suddenly, Haruno Sakura raised her head, her gaze meeting Kisame's directly, the corners of her mouth curling up, pursing her lips, revealing a faint smile.
Kisame's scalp suddenly tightened!
The long sword was finally pulled out of the ice pool by Sakura. The girl dragged the ice sword backwards, the tip scratching across the ice surface with a clang clang, producing a sharp and unpleasant friction sound. She ran two steps, then leaped up violently. The force was so huge that the ice pool under her feet was instantly trampled into powder by her kick, making a loud noise!
The girl's figure soared into the sky. The ice sword held backwards in her hand, driven by the unmatched power of the Monstrous Strength Technique, swung from bottom to top. The blade cut through the air, emitting a violent whistle!
It takes time to describe, but it happened in a flash. From Kisame raising his large sword to slash at Haruno Sakura, to Sakura condensing the ice sword in her hand, advancing instead of retreating, and boldly facing Kisame, many words were written, but in battle, it was just a blink of an eye, not even half a second!
However, under the blessing of the Sakura Rush, a nerve acceleration secret technique, in the eyes of Haruno Sakura whose thinking and reaction speed became extremely fast, the whole world tended towards a slow-motion scene, everything happening slowly and methodically!
And the moment Kisame launched the attack, she pushed the effect of Sakura Rush to the extreme, so that all seemingly swift movements turned into slow motion in the girl's vision:
Tiny water droplets and ice chips in the air scattered and flew;
Kisame jumped up slowly, raising the sword;
The ice layer under her feet groaned under the huge force with every step, deep cracks constantly crawling and extending outward;
Her right hand gripped so tightly that the knuckles turned white, pale purple blood vessels faintly visible under the nearly transparent skin, and the artery on her slender wrist pulsating slowly;
The ice sword in her hand absorbed ice blocks from the ice pool under the effect of Ice Style, extending and lengthening section by section.
Then, she jumped up.
"Pity..." Shallow thin lips touched up and down lightly, speaking faintly like a whisper, yet clearly audible to Kisame, "Not enough."
The ice sword swung from bottom to top, drawing a huge and perfect arc, slashing at Kisame with a furious whistle!
Kisame only felt his ears filled with the roaring wind, noisy and clamorous; the evil wind raised by Samehada slashing down from above was blown back by the sword wind of the girl's ice sword slash. The terrifying wind sounded like small knives scraping, making his cheeks ache.
He didn't even have time to blink, only seeing Haruno Sakura taking small steps on the ice layer, running two steps extremely fast, and then soaring into the sky. The speed was so fast that the girl's figure in his sight instantly left only a blurred and distorted afterimage!
Blood seemed to rush to his head instantly. Kisame's face tightened, his hand suddenly gripped Samehada tightly, chakra absorption ability fully activated!
Then, the two swords collided.
A scalp-numbing sound of metal hitting stone came from where the blades touched.
Vaguely, a low muffled groan and an inhuman scream could be heard.
The next moment, the ice sword exploded loudly, breaking into several pieces, spinning and flying to unknown places; a burly figure was knocked flying backwards dragging a sword, plowing a deep gully in the mud!
Then, another thin figure holding a broken sword landed heavily, standing on the ground without shaking at all.
Kisame lost again!
Haruno Sakura took a deep breath and calmed her breathing. She looked at Kisame who landed in the distance and didn't pursue. The latter looked embarrassed, but actually, while in the air, Samehada had already healed his injuries.
"Your Samehada... can suck away the chakra of objects or ninjutsu it touches, but there is a flaw," The girl watched Kisame stand up as if nothing happened, expected it in her heart, and was not disappointed, just said faintly, "The farther the distance, the weaker the suction on chakra. Am I right?"
Kisame narrowed his eyes, his gaze sweeping over the broken sword in Sakura's hand. He didn't answer her directly, but said: "So that's why you created such a long ice sword... Is this your so-called special ninjutsu? Truly a smart move!"
The place where the blades clashed was a full ten meters away from the handle of the ice sword. In this way, Samehada couldn't easily suck away Sakura's chakra when touching the ice sword; otherwise, under Samehada's full chakra absorption, whether Haruno Sakura could maintain the Monstrous Strength Technique was still a question, let alone knocking Kisame flying with one blow!
"It seems you spent a lot of thought on dealing with Samehada! But how long this little trick will work is hard to say..." Kisame said coldly. "What's more, even if your little trick works forever, you can't defeat me!"
He wasn't uttering wild words despite losing a move.
In the confrontation just now, Kisame was indeed defeated, but Samehada quickly healed his injuries, turning the results of Haruno Sakura's round of efforts into bubbles. In this way, Kisame seemed to have no loss, but Sakura wasted a lot of chakra.
Consuming like this, no matter how much chakra Haruno Sakura had stored in the Yin Seal on her forehead, it couldn't withstand such waste!
Kisame stood leaning on the large sword and sneered: "I will become stronger according to the strength of the enemy... The longer the battle, the more chakra you consume, and the weaker you become. On the contrary, I won't be tired, nor will I be truly defeated!"
"You have absolutely no chance of winning!"
Haruno Sakura looked at him indifferently all the time. When he stopped talking, she lowered her eyelids and replied coldly: "A guy whose every round of attack has ended in failure since the fight started dares to say such shameless words. Who gave you the courage?"
"What you rely on is nothing more than Samehada's ability. As long as I kill you with one blow instead of seriously injuring you, Samehada's healing ability will be meaningless!"
Haruno Sakura had many ways to defeat or even kill Kisame! It's just that before that, the girl who learned her lesson needed to spend a little more effort to probe his accurate intelligence...
"Or..."
The cold voice stopped abruptly. The girl lowered her body slightly, her eyes became sharp, and then she moved her feet, launching a charge at Kisame!
At the same time, the broken blade in her hand began to grow rapidly, repairing itself.
"Taking Samehada from your hand is also a good way?"
Accompanied by the ear-piercing friction sound of the ice sword held backwards dragging on the ice layer, Haruno Sakura's slightly sarcastic words accurately reached Kisame's ears.
While speaking, her figure erupted, the restrained momentum rushing open like an explosion, crossing a distance of dozens of meters in a few steps!
The near-sneak attack raid didn't make Kisame pale. His face was solemn. After two rounds of hand-to-hand combat, Kisame clearly understood the unparalleled brute force of Haruno Sakura's Nin-Taijutsu. That fierce and peerless ferocity was definitely not something ordinary people could withstand!
That charging figure, although slender and thin, looked like a furious giant beast in Kisame's eyes!
Even after saying words like "Haruno Sakura has absolutely no chance of winning," Kisame still felt the hairs on his hand stand up, and a shrill alarm of danger suddenly sounded in his heart!
He stared deadly at the figure of the Ice Style ninja attacking. From that overwhelming momentum, from that killing intent condensed like cold ice, and the turbulent boiling chakra fluctuations, Kisame felt that the power of this strike would be stronger than the two probing moves before.
This was the power of Haruno Sakura's full attack!
Kisame had a premonition that once the ice sword in the girl's hand hit solidly, that power like a flash flood outbreak might chop Samehada along with his flesh into blood mud!
Without thinking, he formed seals with both hands. Chakra in his body circulated crazily, then surged to his throat. The massive chakra amount instantly expanded Kisame's upper body, his chest, neck, and cheeks bulging high—
"Water Style: Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave!"
Unmatched water volume spewed crazily from Kisame's mouth, like surging tsunamis, sweeping everything around, turning the earth into swamps, puddles, great lakes... then carrying turbulent waves, slapping at the incoming Haruno Sakura!
One side was the boundless giant wave created by Kisame's ninjutsu, towering into the clouds, endless, unstoppable; the other side was the Konoha ninja charging at high speed, with the force of thunder, menacing, destroying the decayed. Both collided brazenly with their respective resolute wills!
Boom boom boom—!
This was the collision of a flash flood against a tsunami!
A huge roar instantly came from the field.
The girl stopped abruptly, raised the giant sword in her hand, and slashed horizontally at the huge wave brazenly, splitting it into pieces in an instant; then, the sharp sword qi cut waves and split the sea, carving a channel in the endless water wall, extending for hundreds of meters until it approached Kisame's nose tip, stalemating for a moment, before exhausting its momentum and being rolled back by the surging water spewing from Kisame's mouth.
Pure brute force, although able to cut open this ninjutsu for a time, lacked stamina and would eventually be washed back by the endless stream of water...
The clearing split by Haruno Sakura also shrank rapidly as the sword force disappeared, being covered by water again.
Water kept gushing out until the seemingly endless chakra in Kisame's body began to bottom out, and the ninjutsu was finally completed. And at this time, a giant water ball with a radius of several hundred meters actually appeared on the ground!
The water volume of this Water Style deserved to be described as "terrifying"!
Haruno Sakura raised her eyebrows, floating slowly into mid-air with the water flow; opposite her, Kisame also jumped up panting.
"Huff, huff!" He grinned ferociously, the large sword in his hand seemingly dissolving, slowly merging into his body. "In this case, how are you going to take Samehada from my hand?"
With Samehada squirming into his body, Kisame and Samehada actually merged into a strange creature! It had fins, gills, and a fish spine, yet had human limbs and Kisame's face... A half-fish half-human appearance, probably could only be described as a merman!
Familiar chakra fluctuations allowed Haruno Sakura to quickly recognize what ninjutsu this was: Combination Transformation Jutsu! She was the one who introduced this jutsu to Sasuke. However, Sasuke combined with a cat, while Kisame combined with a sword... in this way, Samehada was indeed a biological creature in essence.
Moreover, compared to Sasuke just having a few cat ears and tail parts added to his body, because Samehada's power was stronger, Kisame's appearance change was also greater—almost losing human form! Correspondingly, Kisame's ability after transformation was also stronger. Since Sasuke gained the cat's agility and ability after combining with the cat, then Kisame should have gained Samehada's chakra absorption and healing abilities, as well as the characteristics of aquatic animals.
Compared to Sasuke's slightly immature transformation jutsu, this was the truly rule-breaking ninjutsu.
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