Chapter 113: An Owl smothers an Explosion

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[Sukaina's POV]

While Mikoto fought Roshi some distance away from me, I looked at the ninjas surrounding me. They were all part of the infamous Explosion Corps, and varied in age. The youngest ones of the bunch looked around 15, so probably 12-13.

As for the oldest ones, they looked like they were around the same age as Hiruzen, which was impressive considering the life expectancy of a ninja.

Yet their leader was in his early thirties, and he went by the name of Gari. Looking at him up and down, I said, "Nice try, putting a fake up to ambush us. Unfortunately, you took someone incompetent."

Said incompetent man had his face turn red, but Gari, whom I had injured, replied with a dead face, "So it would seem. Kill her."

With his command, the surrounding men all extended their palms towards me. The thing about the Explosion Corps was that they all had the Explosion Release.

Not waiting for the attack, I vanished out of sight as I rushed toward the injured Gari. When he had attacked earlier, he had expected to take me by surprise, and vastly underestimated my speed, allowing me to get a strike in.

But now that he knew about my speed, he was clearly on guard as he backed up, replaced with three exploding fists.

The wise thing would have been to dodge, but I clenched my teeth and crossed my arms in front of myself, forcing my way through the explosion.

A thin layer of water appeared all around my body, this was one of the jutsus I had learned, I called it Water Film.

It offered a good protection despite its low rank as a part of the damage was stopped by it, although I felt my skin singe from the flames, and my muscles ache from the shock.

However, I did make my way through the explosion, allowing me to reach the three. Their eyes widened, and they tried to make another attack, but I struck out suddenly with both arms, hitting all three of their heads, and making them explode.

I did not bother looking at the massacre as I body flickered toward Gari, but he dodged me by using his explosions, quickly reaching my back as he sent an exploding punch toward the base of my spine.

Barely turning, I kicked his wrist up, making the explosion miss as I unsheathed my blade.

Again, Gari dodged by forming explosions at the base of his feet, but I was expecting this, which is why he wasn't my target.

With a swipe of my sword, two more heads flew up, while Gari's face turned ugly.

"Mole!"

Gari suddenly yelled this, and at his command the surrounding men punched the ground, forming a large explosion I couldn't dodge.

So I jumped and used one of my A Rank Jutsus.

Suiton: Water Colliding Wave!

At the same time as the explosions went on, I spit out a large tsunami under me, which not only cancelled the force of the explosion, but also knocked into the surrounding Shinobis, and flooded the area.

Now in my element, I followed with the Water Dragon Bullet, instantly forming a giant water dragon that dived onto a group of enemies.

Meanwhile, I quickly ran on top of the water, this time ignoring the annoying Gari and going for his easier subordinates.

They tried using their explosions to dodge, but I was too fast for them.

The Explosion Corps was made of around a hundred Shinobis, and in less than a minute, ten of them had already died.

The Third Gate gave me such a power boost that most of them did not even have the time to react and attack before they died. However, they weren't amateurs either, so they quickly made a plan to fight against me, and that was to explode everything around them.

Unfortunately, they were also playing into my palm.

As I feigned helplessness, getting hit by several explosions, I managed to get a large group of them to get quite close to each other.

Then, I stopped in front of them, and quickly moved my chakra through my Tenketsu Points as I prepared my strongest Jutsu.

Gari, who had been playing on the defensive and using his numbers to tire me out, exclaimed, "Move a-"

Before he could finish, a beam of water left my mouth, and with a single tilt of my head, thirty highly valued members of the Explosion Corps were cut in half.

Moreover, with their death they all exploded themselves, it looked like an automatic measure in the Explosion Corps, which worked against them this ten as ten more of their men, who had managed to dodge my attack, got killed by the gargantuan explosion caused by the death of thirty of them.

In less than a second, the Explosion Corps had gone from 90 to 50, which most probably was the greatest loss their squad had ever been through.

Gari looked absolutely livid at that, and was finally done with his kitting as he rushed at me, propelled by his explosion. Narrowing my eyes, I threw several kunais around him, before slashing at him.

Because of the kunais, he was unable to dodge to the sides, but he was inventive, and he made a front flip, narrowly dodging my blade as he kicked at my face, which I blocked with my arm.

However, while the kick wasn't very strong, the explosion that came with it sure was.

While my face was fine as it was protected by my mask, my right sleeve was all but gone, while my skin was either burned or simply not there.

Gritting my teeth through the pain, I jumped back right at him, which prompted him to take a deep breath, before blowing at me.

The explosion that resulted was not as widespread as the others, but instead travelled in a single direction, faster than the others.

I used the Body Replacement Jutsu to dodge that one, reaching Gari's back in the next instant, but he turned around even faster thanks to his explosions.

He attacked the incoming sword with an opened palm, and although I could see what was coming, I did not falter.

And just as I expected, the sword did not even get to touch Gari when an explosion came out of his palm.

My sword, which had already been weakened by many fights, finally couldn't endure it anymore, and broke into several fragments.

Gari looked triumphant, but I only looked at him quickly as my body was launched into the air by the explosion.

The son of a bitch looked smug, thinking the victory was his as I was in mid air, thus unable to dodge, and I had lost my weapon.

But as he clenched his fist, ready to strike me down, I twisted my body with a jerk, hitting one of the fragments of my sword.

Gari's eyes opened wide, but it was too late.

I had observed him while we fought, and learned something important. While he could use the explosion to move himself around and become very unpredictable, it also had a cost. His attacks were weakened.

To put power into an attack, one needs a firm stance, and since he was flinging himself in the air, his attacks lacked power.

So to make powerful attacks, Gari would always root himself to the ground, which would result in a small moment of weakness.

And so I used this moment of overconfidence to deal one unexpected, but deadly strike. Had I taken out a kunai or a shuriken, he would have had the time to react, but with me only making a single movement…

The blade fragment travelled the distance between the two of us in an instant, and as Gari tried to move away, the fragment lodged itself into his throat.