Chapter 87: Probing
The cold, sharp blade was already within reach of the girl.
In that instant, in the world of the highly focused Kabuto, all that was left was the kunai in the hand of the corpse puppet.
The girl's smooth forehead was within reach. At this moment, Kabuto's mind was spinning wildly, thinking about the girl's possible countermeasures.
Taijutsu?
No. In this posture, in this situation, Haruno Sakura has already pushed her strength to the limit. It's impossible for her to block the kunai's thrust.
Substitution Jutsu?
Also impossible. The release of a Substitution Jutsu requires a medium that can be used as a substitute, such as a substitution log or a ninjutsu clone. Haruno Sakura just arrived here; she had no time to prepare the battlefield. To try and find a substitute medium from the environment before a kunai pierces her brain? There's simply not enough time.
A defensive Water Style?
From casting the jutsu to spitting out a water jet to hit the corpse puppet, all of it takes time. And right now, Haruno Sakura simply doesn't have that time!
Unless it's "that ninjutsu."
Kabuto's mind couldn't help but recall the ninjutsu that had saved Hinata in an instant.
It was clearly a powerful defensive ninjutsu, yet he could barely feel any chakra fluctuation. Water Style ninjutsu usually relied on impact force for offense and defense, but this transparent, water-like thing, just sitting there quietly, was harder than steel. When a rain of ninja tools crashed into it, it didn't even stir up a single ripple!
Incredible, simply unimaginable.
If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, Kabuto would never have believed that such a counter-intuitive ninjutsu existed!
Ninjutsu Common Sense, Rule Number One: The greater the power, the more chakra is consumed.
A powerful ninjutsu means a massive amount of chakra. Even his own Corpse Puppet Manipulation, likewise, was a huge chakra consumer; it was just a bit more exquisite and detailed. This was a recognized common sense, an iron law.
From the lowest-level E-rank ninjutsu, whose power couldn't even kill a small cat, to the battlefield-covering, surging A-rank ninjutsu, and then to the ultimate-move-level S-rank ninjutsu, the amount of chakra required to cast them increased level by level. Although one could use an exquisite design and superb chakra skills to make an A-rank ninjutsu display S-rank power—for example, the Rasengan, whose small-scale offensive power was comparable to an S-rank ninjutsu—it did not change the meaning of this iron law.
"Chakra Consumption" equals "Jutsu Power."
Ninjutsu Common Sense, Rule Number Two: Water Style usually relies on creating a large amount of water to attack or defend.
Those famous Water Style ninjutsu—Water Style: Water Formation Wall, Water Dragon Bullet, Great Waterfall, and so on—were all created based on this principle.
But the Water Style ninjutsu that had protected Hinata had openly and majestically ignored these two common sense rules in broad daylight.
That ninjutsu, cast in a hurry, Haruno Sakura had no time to conceal its chakra fluctuation, so Kabuto could clearly sense that a ninjutsu of at most C-rank strength had been activated. For this unexpected reinforcement, Kabuto's heart did not stir in the slightest; he even wanted to laugh a little. A C-rank ninjutsu? What a joke. Even a B-rank Water Style: Water Formation Wall couldn't block the full-powered offensive of the corpse puppets!
So, when that pale blue, semi-transparent water shield effortlessly blocked the raining barrage of ninja tools, and the calm water layer didn't even stir up a single ripple under the violent impact, Kabuto admitted that the deep-rooted world of common sense in his heart had collapsed in that instant.
But he was, after all, a ninja who considered himself no weaker than Kakashi. Even though he was extremely shocked, he still reacted subconsciously.
"Ninja Art: Corpse Puppet Substitution!"
Then, in the next moment, just as Kabuto had swapped places with the corpse puppet and hidden himself deep in the woods, a silver water line shot out from somewhere in the woods, from along the girl's slender fingertips, and crossed the entire battlefield, cutting the corpse puppet that had just swapped places with Kabuto, as well as everything else standing on the field—except for Hinata, of course—into countless, unnamable objects.
If the ultrapure water shield had merely left Kabuto astonished, then the extreme cutting power of the Water Style: Wind Blade Raging Stream had left him terrified, and even a little panicked. If he had been a step slower, Kabuto would have had to test whether his own medical ninjutsu could heal a version of himself that had been cut in two.
Kabuto recalled that not long ago, after sneaking into the Forest of Death to place the curse mark on Sasuke, Orochimaru had specifically mentioned Haruno Sakura.
At that time, he had looked at Kabuto and revealed a meaningful smile: That child's Water Style... is a surprise!
Now, Kabuto completely understood what Orochimaru had meant by a "surprise."
If the Water Style: Wind Blade Raging Stream was still traceable, and could be deduced to be the result of the ultimate evolution of some kind of water ninjutsu, then a ninjutsu like the ultrapure water shield was simply impossible to judge its origin, to speculate on what it was, what its weaknesses were, how to counter it, how to break its defense.
A ninjutsu like that was already enough to be a reason to abandon the mission.
Kabuto decided to probe one more time, not because he was particularly loyal to Orochimaru, but simply as a subconscious reaction of an ambitious young man: to promptly eliminate a future powerhouse who had become an enemy, and even if he couldn't kill her, to try and probe her secrets as much as possible before she had fully grown. After all, the precedent of Orochimaru being one-shotted by the up-and-coming Itachi was right before his eyes.
Kabuto believed that any ninjutsu must have a weakness.
Where was the weakness of the ultrapure water shield?
Watching Sakura being forced into a desperate situation, Kabuto observed the girl's reaction with full concentration, hoping that her ninjutsu would reveal a flaw!
Time seemed to be stretched. The interval of a tenth of a second seemed as long as a century.
In the air, the girl, her body stretched to its limit, had, without realizing it, already quietly placed her free right hand in front of her chest. Her slender fingers quickly formed hand seals, waving out a series of afterimages.
One-handed seals!
This was the unique skill that Haruno Sakura had learned from Haku.
The difficulty of casting a jutsu with one-handed seals was not higher than casting a jutsu without seals. After all, one hand was still used to assist the circulation of chakra. The realization of some skills is just a matter of piercing a thin layer of paper. Before it's pierced, it's like looking at flowers in a fog. Once it's explained, it can actually be mastered very easily. For Sakura, her commonly used ninjutsu could already be cast with a single seal or even without seals. One-handed seals were not very meaningful, only used to cast her still-unskilled Ice Style ninjutsu.
It's not the ultrapure water shield!
Kabuto saw with surprise that with Sakura's hand seals, in a few tenths of a second, the girl had instantly condensed a large amount of chakra!
Then, in front of the advancing kunai, a clear sense of resistance was transmitted.
Through the vision of the corpse puppet, Kabuto saw that in the instant the iron tip of the kunai touched the girl, water vapor madly gathered in front of it!
Driven by Sakura, the chakra circulated madly, intertwined, surged, and condensed into a water mist, which converged into a water mass.
In less than a tenth of a second, the water mass rapidly expanded like a balloon being blown up!
Crack.
The girl's right hand flew. Ice-natured chakra leaped frenziedly, emitting an extremely cold aura. The moment the water mass formed, it had already begun to condense into a block of ice. The ice layer extended from the inside out, growing madly like a bamboo shoot!
CRACK!
The front end of the kunai was already completely encased in ice. The corpse puppet suddenly exerted its force. The friction between the ninja tool and the ice shards produced a sharp and ear-piercing sound, but the block of ice that was stopping the kunai's advance did not move an inch.
The corpse puppet's cold eyes widened, its pupils shrinking violently. The resistance in front of the kunai had become firm in the blink of an eye. It gathered all its strength, but it couldn't advance even half an inch! Seeing that Sakura had already retreated to her limit, and the kunai was just a hair's breadth away from piercing the girl, Kabuto was stunned to find that the kunai, completely encased in ice, no matter how the corpse puppet used all its strength, was firmly blocked, unable to advance another inch!
Then, the girl looked at the corpse puppet coldly. The chakra in her body boiled and surged, and the hand seals on her right hand sped up even more!
The boiling chakra became even more violent, churning like a raging boil. It erupted from Sakura's meridians and, under the exquisite and complex control of its master, was quickly forged into ten-thousand-year-old ice harder than steel. It encased the kunai, extended, grew, and then, in a short period of time, swelled into a one-meter-long ice cone!
The head of the corpse puppet, which was in the path of the ice cone's expansion, was pierced by it, pried open, and burst like a watermelon. Dark red and pale white paste-like brain matter and flaky bone fragments all burst and scattered, turning into a bloody firework in mid-air.
The corpse puppet's body suddenly convulsed. The strength in its hands dissipated like snow in the sun. It fell limply to the side.
A line of blood spurted from the corpse puppet's artery, breaking into blood-red jade beads in the air, which dripped onto the girl's fair face, blooming into flowers of blood. The snow-white skin, dotted with the crimson of blood, against the backdrop of Sakura's snow-like, icy eyes, looked strangely cold and beautiful.
Having dealt with the corpse puppet, the girl had won a precious two seconds to relax. The grim look on her face had not yet faded. The Kabuto who was controlling the corpse puppet from below was her final enemy.
She tensed her abdomen. From her original position of lying flat in mid-air with her back to the ground, she used the force of arching her head back as far as possible to flip her body one hundred and eighty degrees, turning to face the ground.
Her long neck stretched gracefully. The girl's posture in the air was like a dancing swan.
Her clothes rustled in the air. As she tumbled, her top rolled up, clinging to her chest, revealing a flash of the snow-white skin of her waist. Her two faint mermaid lines and slightly bent right leg clearly hinted at the immense power hidden beneath her slender appearance.
Below the girl, Kabuto, who had taken everything in, did not care about this small fan-service bonus. What he cared about was the familiar chakra fluctuation on Sakura's body.
That was—
"Monstrous Strength Technique: Wind God Kick!"
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