A wave of blistering heat rolled over Sakura as Pakura closed the distance between them in a flash. Instinct took over; her practised fingers blurred through the five seals of the Substitution Jutsu, finishing the final seal a heartbeat before the heat became unbearable.
The air shimmered, and for an instant it seemed Sakura had burst into flames… but in the blink of an eye, a section of log appeared in her place amidst a puff of white smoke, crumbling to ash almost at once. Sakura broke out in a cold sweat at the speed with which Pakura's jutsu had consumed the log. Had she been a breath slower, that might have been her!
"Did you know flames can change colour depending on their heat and what they're fed?" called Pakura. "By adjusting the temperature, I can make my fire nearly invisible, especially with the sky as the backdrop… though I seldom rely on that trick, since it's rather tiring, and no opponent until now has ever driven me to use it… but for you, Wood Style kunoichi of the Hidden Leaf, I'll make an exception, and fight you with all my strength…"
…
It's the busty kunoichi Sakura's science corner!
Since the supernatural phenomenon known as chakra does not contain any sort of matter that one would consider traditional in any meaningful sense, the light originating from the incandescence of burning matter can usually be ignored when gauging the temperature of a Fire Style technique.
According to Planck's law, all things in this world continuously emit electromagnetic radiation. As the particles of which things are composed begin to get excited, this radiation gradually transitions to the visible spectrum, following a bell-shaped curve for a specific temperature range: from red to orange, then yellow, skipping green and appearing white, then blue, then skipping indigo and violet.
Why are certain colours skipped, you might ask?
That is because at the temperature required for green to dominate (roughly 5200 degrees Celsius), all colours are more or less equally represented on the curve, precisely because green is the middle colour in the rainbow of the visible spectrum… and, as you undoubtedly learned in science class, the combination of all colours is white… unless you fancy yourself the artistic type, in which case you might have learned that the sort of colour you obtain by squeezing seven tubes of differently coloured paint into a bucket and mixing it all together is… well, a rather shitty brown.
Moving things right along.
Continuing to increase the temperature, a flame then turns blue… and remains that way, because the human eye is poorly equipped to see violet and indigo, compared to the far more naturally occurring blue, even as the invisible ultraviolet begins to dominate the curve… however, for a Dōjutsu like the Sharingan, which can perceive far more of the electromagnetic spectrum than any regular eye, seeing through nearly invisible chakra flames is all too easy!
(Incidentally, that's why there are no green, indigo and purple stars in the night sky.)
…
"Sharingan!" Pakura muttered to herself, seeing Sakura's eyes turn scarlet. "What in the world is that girl… first the First Hokage's long-lost Wood Style Kekkei Genkai, and now, the Uchiha clan's Dōjutsu…!?"
Sakura gritted her teeth.
So, Pakura had turned her fireballs invisible, exactly as she had surmised. Since she could not make eye contact with her opponent through the heat haze, Sakura had decided to activate her Sharingan, abandoning any attempt to land a genjutsu to spare herself the trouble of guessing which shimmering patches of air concealed a fireball.
Better safe than sorry, Sakura told herself. Using her superior speed and senses, she dodged Pakura's fireballs as they orbited her in seemingly random patterns, sometimes accelerating and at other times decelerating. It was a good thing she was in Sage Mode, or she would have been reduced to cinders a dozen times over already.
Even so, dodging was getting her nowhere, Sakura thought to herself as she performed a handspring and bounced up, contorting her body as she sailed between three erratically flying fireballs to keep from touching any of them. It was about time to strike back, but she needed to be delicate about it, to avoid killing Pakura and irreversibly changing the timeline!
"Captain Pakura!" a voice suddenly rang out. "All hostages have been saved! They're unconscious, but otherwise unharmed!"
"Mercy is the privilege of the truly strong," Pakura said, thanking her opponent with a slight bow as Sakura landed on her feet. "But unfortunately for you, I'm not foolish enough to think that I'm strong enough to take you in alive."
Once again, the temperature spiked, making Sakura's eyes swim. Fires spontaneously erupted around Pakura as she slowly walked towards Sakura, leaving smouldering footsteps in her wake as she conjured orange fireballs about her. She spread her arms wide, and the fireballs converged into a single, massive sphere above her head.
"Oh, shi—" said Sakura.
There was a flash of light, and for a single instant, the world turned pure white.
When the brilliance faded, all that remained of the flourishing jungle trees Sakura had planted in the middle of the desert was a graveyard of jagged, ink-black charcoal spikes jutting from the ground amidst a sea of red. Gradually, the glowing ground cooled, revealing that the sand underfoot had melted into glass…
Mechanically, Pakura withdrew a portable oxygen tank from her item pouch, fitted the mask to her face, and drew in a deep breath. This attack had the unfortunate side effect of consuming all the oxygen in the air in an instant. The first time she had attempted it, she had been terrified that she had somehow triggered a chain reaction that would ignite the planet's atmosphere, and she had fainted… but, fortunately for her, those visions had been nothing more than an oxygen-deprived nightmare.
"Maybe I am having a nightmare…" Pakura muttered dizzily to herself. "What in the world is that thing…"
Pakura had overdone it and burnt herself out; she had overdrawn her chakra reserves, and her body was overheating… yet the pink-haired girl still stood, safe within a pink chakra cocoon shaped like a ribcage. Pakura had lost without even receiving a single blow from her opponent.
If only she possessed an immortal body and endless chakra, Pakura thought wryly, she might have been able to shrug off her own kinjutsu's backlash and keep fighting… but that was nothing more than wishful thinking, wasn't it… there was no way a jutsu that convenient actually existed.
'Come on,' Pakura silently urged her opponent. 'Take a deep breath, and I win…'
Carbon monoxide poisoning was no joke.
At this concentration, it would take only one or two deep breaths to render anyone unconscious, but here, out in the open where the air flowed freely, CO poisoning probably wouldn't result in death… but unfortunately for Pakura, Sakura had learned her lesson from using the Great Fireball Jutsu underground, and besides, she could see her opponent breathing from her portable oxygen tank.
The pink chakra dissolved, and Sakura fell, landing lightly before Pakura and catching her as she toppled backwards; she was teetering on the edge of consciousness, her chakra almost completely drained. Holding her breath, Sakura snaked a hand down Pakura's top and fondled her plump boobs, and then… she felt a hand come to rest on her shoulder.
"We've escaped enemy pursuit!" came a rather familiar voice behind her. "I've got you!"
"Ehhh!?" Sakura yelped. "Waaaait!"