章 42: Sakura's Gambit

Far above the forest floor, a few metres above Orochimaru, who was still perched atop his gigantic snake, Naruto's eyes flew open. His blue eyes had turned crimson, and his ordinarily round pupils had turned into vertical slits; his canines had lengthened, and the triple whiskers on his cheeks had grown visibly darker and more pronounced.

More and more of the Nine-Tailed Fox's malevolent chakra was leaking out from the seal…

Orochimaru's snake was the first to notice something was amiss with Naruto, since it was a wild creature highly attuned to danger. As a summoned beast from the unexplored Sage region of Ryūchi cave, where the only rule the snakes followed was the rule of nature, it knew very well how to avoid those stronger than itself. Size did not necessarily correlate to strength, and while Naruto was extremely small compared to its large body, he radiated a very familiar sense of danger…

The giant snake looked up, and Orochimaru tore his gaze away from the three rapidly approaching Sakura Shadow Clones below him (one of which was actually Sasuke in disguise). A rampaging Jinchūriki was much more threatening to him than Genin, even if their true power was actually closer to that of Chūnin…

Without warning, Naruto shot out from the tree in which he had found himself embedded in, sending shards of tree bark flying everywhere. His figure turned into a blur as he rocketed downwards towards the snake, and as he fell, he unleashed a terrifyingly powerful haymaker punch into the snake's snout, knocking its head down to the ground!

Annoyed, Orochimaru picked up Naruto; five purplish flames lit up on his right hand's fingers, and then he jammed them into the boy's stomach and twisted:

"Five Elements Seal!"

With the odd-numbered seal conflicting with Naruto's original even-numbered Eight Trigrams Seal, Naruto's chakra pathway network was sent into disarray; instantly knocking him out in the process.

Naruto getting temporarily incapacitated aside, this was the moment Sakura had been waiting for: for Naruto to tear Orochimaru down from the high ground, allowing her to unleash the unblockable four-pronged attack she had planned!

To be quite clear, Orochimaru had been quite puzzled watching the three 'Sakura' running madly at his giant snake. Standing on his snake's head, he was roughly 20 metres above the forest floor, out of reach of their swords. What they should have been doing was to run up the trees to bring the fight to him, the snake's summoner.

After all, how much damage could mere Genin possibly inflict on a snake summoned from Ryūchi Cave? It was smarter to aim for the weak flesh of the human summoner, instead of aiming for the snake's sturdy scales…

But now, Orochimaru could see that they had planned to bring him down to their level all along, despite not having communicated a word of their plan to Naruto, who had been the key to make it all possible…

In Orochimaru's opinion, there was only one way that they could have known that Naruto was still in fighting shape, even though he had been struck with enough force to turn him into meat paste, and furthermore predicted that he still had enough fight left in him to knock his snake down at that precise timing…

That's right, Orochimaru guessed that it must have been the doing of the Sharingan's visual prowess, namely its limited precognition in combat and its observational capabilities! There was no conceivable way that Orochimaru could have guessed that the information had come from Sakura seeing it happen on the television before her transmigration, so Orochimaru's greed for the Uchiha's exclusive Dōjutsu only grew!

Seeing Sasuke-disguised-as-Sakura rushing towards him, as if to serve himself up on a silver platter, Orochimaru could only smile happily! He unhinged his jaw, extending his prehensile tongue like a spear towards the three pink-haired girls running towards him, but out of the corner of his eye, Orochimaru spotted the fake 'Sasuke' throwing the huge Fūma shuriken at him, before poofing out of existence…

Orochimaru chuckled, lowering his stance. He then snapped his head towards the three pink-haired girls, causing his extended tongue to whip at them, producing a sharp crack as the tip of his tongue broke the sound barrier.

The first of Sakura's Shadow Clones was immediately destroyed, and it disappeared in a poof of white smoke. The second one somehow managed to flip over the tongue, narrowly avoiding being destroyed. And finally, Orochimaru's tongue made contact with the third one, the unsynchronized one, and found it to be solid, and not a fragile Clone made out of shadows.

Orochimaru eagerly wrapped his tongue around the third pink-haired girl, tugging her towards him and squeezing hard until she cried in pain. The pink-haired girl's Transformation Jutsu came undone, revealing herself to be Sasuke, just as Orochimaru had guessed.

He had successfully captured his prize…

Sakura's surviving Shadow Clone hit the ground running after flipping through the air and she brandished her sword, attempting to cut the tongue holding Sasuke prisoner. And at the same time, the large Fūma shuriken spinning through the air towards him cancelled its own Transformation Jutsu, also revealing itself to be Sakura, just as Orochimaru had predicted!

In a way, Orochimaru was fairly impressed at the pink-haired girl's reflexes. Having made so many Shadow Clones, she must have had little to no chakra left to passively enhance her reflexes, which meant that her baseline nerve conduction velocity had to be incredibly high for her to dodge his tongue whip! It kind of reminded him of that blond fellow who had beaten him to the Fourth Hokage job…

Orochimaru quickly wound back his tongue, pulling Sasuke towards himself to avoid losing his grasp on his prey. He had observed that the pink-haired girl seemed quite attached to her comrades, so in his opinion, as long as he held Sasuke next to him, there was little to no chance that she would continue attacking and risk hitting her comrade by mistake.

After all, how could the pink-haired girl possibly know that the last thing he wanted was to have Sasuke's body damaged? Sasuke wasn't a human shield; he was a precious vessel candidate for Living Corpse Reincarnation!

But contrary to Orochimaru's expectations, the pink-haired girl and her Shadow Clone did not stop their blades. They both continued the sword swing they had commenced, as if they didn't care that Sasuke's body stood between their blades and their enemy!

There was no way Orochimaru would be able to draw out his Kusanagi Sword to parry their blows in time; he had stored it in his throat, and his tongue was currently busy holding Sasuke. And so, Orochimaru quickly made the decision to mitigate his losses by hurling Sasuke out of harm's way and at the pink-haired girl's Shadow Clone.

Having run out of space to dodge, Sakura's last remaining Shadow Clone disappeared in a poof of white smoke upon being hit by Sasuke. Reinvigorated by the sudden return of the last Shadow Clone's chakra, Sakura swung down her blade with as much power as she could muster.

"Manyuu Style Kenjutsu: Breast-Hunt Slash, Breast Flow Ver.!"

At this point, Orochimaru could no longer run away or dodge; he could only try to block the real Sakura's sword to avoid taking damage to his vital organs.

Orochimaru vomited a mass of snakes to shield himself, but the Manyuu blade turned illusory, passing through the multitude of snakes like a phantom!

"SHANNAROOO!" shouted Sakura, as she slashed through Orochimaru's chest with her sword!

Leaving the flesh unharmed, and cleaving only the breasts; that was Sakura's sword technique!