"Wind Style! Great Sickle Weasel Technique!"
Burning with anxiety, Temari swung her giant fan with all her might, the fierce wind sending Naruto tumbling several times. He was only able to stop himself with the help of his many shadow clones.
"Gaara! Are you alright?" Temari immediately found Gaara. But the sight that met her eyes...
Hiss!
How is this possible!
The mottled Armor of Sand on Gaara's face had vanished, replaced by a face full of blood. This was different from their fight on the street, where Gaara had been careless and hadn't focused on defense. That guy had shattered Gaara's absolute defense head-on with a single slash. A single slash had severely wounded him.
Recalling the crimson sword aura that was dozens of meters high... was that a slash a normal person could even produce? Besides shock, a bitter taste filled Temari's heart.
"Get lost!" Gaara struggled to his feet and slapped Temari away. His face was a mask of savage madness, blood dripping down. After tasting the blood on his tongue, Gaara laughed wildly.
"Blood! This is the taste of blood! Hahahaha!"
"Sand Shuriken!"
The technique that had brutalized Naruto and Sasuke before appeared again, but this time, its power and scale were magnified more than tenfold.
DONG! DONG! DONG!!
Shuriken made of sand rained down like a violent storm, piercing through everything that blocked their path. Wood chips flew everywhere.
"Ah!" Naruto was unlucky and got hit again. Hinata, relying on the boost from her breathing method, jumped out of the range of the sand shuriken.
"Gaara, stop! Kankuro is still in there!" Temari shouted urgently, seeing Kankuro desperately trying to evade the massive number of incoming sand shuriken.
But the crazed Gaara seemed not to hear, continuing to laugh madly as he launched round after round of attacks.
CLANG! CLANG!
The sound of a sword clashing was continuous. The sheer force was even slowly pushing Kusuo backward.
Slash! He leaped up and swung his sword down.
SWISH—
A crescent-shaped sword aura descended from the sky, slashing towards Temari, whose eyes were wide with terror. The sharp glint of the blade stirred heaven and earth. The sword aura carried both a sharp coldness and a sun-like heat. The mix was so intense that Temari could even feel the hairs on her skin being repeatedly burned. A sharp, deep pain.
The yellow sand surged. Gaara slammed both hands on the ground.
RUMBLE!
The earth shook. A giant effigy of Shukaku, covered in an indestructible shield of sand, rose from the ground.
POW!
The Shield of Shukaku shattered into a sky full of sand. It had been destroyed by a single slash.
"How is that possible?" Kankuro, who had used his puppet to reposition himself behind Gaara with Temari, looked on with disbelief. Feeling the power of that last slash, his face was filled with shock. The crimson sword aura had shattered the Shield of Shukaku, which was supposed to be the ultimate defense. Just how big is the gap between us? Is this even a Chunin Exam anymore?
Temari and Kankuro looked at each other, their mouths agape, their hearts filled with shock.
Kusuo stood on a tree branch, looking down. Just now, he had suddenly felt a throb, and a strange new power had appeared in his wrist. He clenched his fists slightly. The gripping force traveled from the hilt to the body of the blade. The silver-white blade, which originally had a cold glint, at this moment, began to turn scorching hot.
[Ding! Congratulations to the Host for successfully unlocking the Crimson Blade! Current Role-Play Percentage: 100%!]
The Crimson Blade!
An intense joy surged in his heart. Unlike the Sun Breathing techniques, the birth of the Crimson Blade meant an all-around breakthrough in his power. Looking at the sword in his hand, the entire blade was glowing red. He lightly swiped it against a nearby tree branch without using any force.
Sizzle! It was as if he were cutting through soft tofu, without the slightest resistance.
"What is he doing? Why did he suddenly stop attacking?" Temari was puzzled. The storm of sword slashes from before, with their astonishing power, had made her delicate body tremble. He was too strong. Just like Gaara, a monster-class existence.
Just as she was hesitating in her uncertainty, Kusuo leaped up and slashed down. This slash was light and understated, a seemingly ordinary movement, without any flashiness.
"You die!" Gaara saw Kusuo leap towards him, his eyes filled with cruelty.
"Sand Waterfall Imperial Funeral!"
Wild sand flew, and countless sand snakes as thick as water buckets writhed across the ground, then covered the entire area.
RUMBLE! RUMBLE!
An astonishing amount of chakra was channeled from Gaara's hands into the sand. At that moment, even Neji's team, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, and Sasuke's team, who were miles away, could clearly feel the ground shaking. They looked at each other, all horrified. What's going on? What kind of battle could cause such a commotion?
Deep in an unknown part of the forest, on the branch of a large tree, crouched a figure with a deathly pale, almost bewitching appearance. Her eyes glinted like a cold-blooded animal, and when she blinked, they revealed the vertical pupils of a snake.
Orochimaru.
"Ssss~ ssss~"
"Not far. Interesting."
Sensing the chakra fluctuations underfoot, the woman Orochimaru was disguised as showed a playful smile. Chakra of this scale... tsk, tsk. Gazing deeply in the direction of the fluctuations, Orochimaru's eyes narrowed, and he transformed into a white snake, slithering away.
...
Back on the battlefield, the ground was covered in the explosions of yellow sand. The moment Kusuo landed, his feet were swallowed by the sand. The entire sky was filled with dark yellow sand, making it impossible to see.
But... Sizzle... sizzle...
Kusuo didn't even need his naked eye to observe. He could pinpoint his opponent's position just by their breathing.
The scorching Crimson Blade slashed out—
"Shield of Shukaku!"
Gaara used the same trick again. The Shield of Shukaku, which had been able to block Kusuo's entire sword aura slash before, should have no problem defending against a single ordinary swing.
However, the sound of a smooth cut shattered his fantasy. The shield, which had seemed tough enough to be unbreakable, was neatly sliced open by this one slash.
"Gaara, run!" Kankuro and Temari, seeing the blade's glint about to fall on Gaara's head, pushed him with all their might, barely getting him out of the range of the slash. They had almost given up resisting. Faced with Kusuo's casual sword slashes, besides Gaara, who could barely resist with his sand shield, they had no means to counter.
But the next move followed immediately. Kusuo kicked out, using the two halves of the shattered Shield of Shukaku as a soccer ball and kicking them into Gaara's chest. One could directly see his black bodysuit tear, revealing the Sand Armor behind it cracking like porcelain.
"Uwaah!" Gaara vomited blood wretchedly, crashing into the ground and creating a large pit.
"Kusuo!" Hinata and Naruto rushed over. They had been forced back by Gaara's Sand Waterfall Imperial Funeral and couldn't enter the field.
"It's alright now. Let's go," Kusuo said, looking at the severely wounded Gaara and shaking his head at Hinata and Naruto. This was his limit. If they fought any further, Gaara would fall into his second personality completely. If the One-Tail were to emerge prematurely, everyone in the Forest of Death would be in danger.
Faced with the power of a Tailed Beast, he was confident he could retreat unscathed, and even win. But Hinata and Naruto couldn't. He couldn't disregard the lives of his teammates.
"Alright!" Seeing his two teammates nod, the three of them then left the area, leaving behind only the ruins of their battle.
-------
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