Chapter 44: Turning Taijutsu into Gymnastics. Ouch!

Chapter 44: Turning Taijutsu into Gymnastics. Ouch!

Leaping off a 400-meter cliff while holding a beautiful girl—

What kind of feeling is that?

The wind blowing up from below lifted his hair. Uchiha Ci, fighting against the strong wind, tried his best to keep his eyes open.

His crimson eyes scanned from side to side, desperately searching for a spot to step on, something to cushion the impact of the fall.

"W-w-w-what?!"

Terumi Mei, in his arms, had a face full of terror.

Instinctively, she grabbed whatever she could—one hand yanked at Uchiha Ci's face, while the other clutched tightly at the soft flesh around his waist.

That tug.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch!" Uchiha Ci cried out in pain, quickly letting go of one hand to pry off her hand that was twisting his face.

"Miss, stop shaking! You're blocking my view!"

"You're crazy! You're insane!" Terumi Mei screamed, staring at the rapidly approaching ground. Even as shinobi, there's no way they could survive such a fall.

"Stop this madness!!!"

"Calm down!" Uchiha Ci shouted back, "Listen up, when I count to one, I'll throw you out!"

"Grab onto the cliff yourself!"

"If you can't hold on, then just wait to die!"

Terumi Mei looked back at the boy in front of her, forcing herself to calm down in this dire moment. She had to calm down, she must!

But... how could she calm down?!

They were jumping off a cliff!

Why on earth had she jumped off a cliff with this guy?!

They had known each other for less than a day. Even those quick marriage plots in cheesy romance novels wouldn't dare write a scene like this!

Just as Terumi Mei was fuming,

Uchiha Ci's eyes turned cold, and he drew a kunai, stabbing it fiercely into the cliffside.

Thud thud thud thud thud!

Rocks shattered, and dust filled the air.

Uchiha Ci resisted the urge to rub his eyes, forcing them wide open. His sclera quickly became bloodshot.

The kunai, now lodged in the cliffside, scratched downwards, slightly slowing their fall.

Uchiha Ci was mentally calculating the time. When the kunai finally jammed into a crevice, he yanked hard with one arm, unleashing chakra to exert a force that nearly tore his muscles apart.

"One!" he shouted, using that moment to fling Terumi Mei upward!

"What?! That's already one?!" Terumi Mei exclaimed.

The next second, she felt herself being thrown upward, landing perfectly on a tree growing out of the cliff.

The tree had a bandage wrapped around its trunk, with one end tied to a kunai, and the other end...

Well, tied to Hidan.

Hidan, who had been kicked off the cliff earlier by Uchiha Ci, was somehow still alive,

dangling from the bandage, frantically trying to climb up.

He looked up,

just in time to see Terumi Mei flying toward him.

Hidan's face twisted as he widened his eyes in disbelief. "What the hell?!"

"Stay away from me!!"

Luckily, Terumi Mei wasn't just any ordinary shinobi. After her initial surprise, she quickly regained her composure, gracefully landing like a cat on the tree trunk.

The trunk barely wobbled. She even had enough strength left to reach out and pull Hidan up.

Meanwhile, Uchiha Ci's kunai, stuck in the crevice, suddenly snapped with a crack.

He began plummeting again.

However, after seeing that his two teammates were safe, he finally let out a sigh of relief. Then, he turned his gaze towards the ever-closer ground.

Uchiha Ci quickly formed hand signs and, facing the ground, struck a Kamehameha-like pose.

Then—

"Wind Release: Extreme Air-Cutting Wave!"

A large amount of chakra gathered between his palms, transforming into a massive air pressure wave and ultrasonic blast that shot toward the ground!

Whoosh! Whoosh!

The fierce wind pressed downward, causing the dense forest below the cliff to sway wildly.

Birds took off in panic, flapping in chaotic flight!

Using the force of the wind, Uchiha Ci not only stopped his fall but was launched back upwards.

Immediately after,

his Sharingan lit up in the night sky with a brilliant crimson glow.

Uchiha Ci, like a professional gymnast, performed a series of one-arm rotations, 360-degree twists, giant swings, and flips in mid-air.

Finally, with a thud,

he embedded himself into the side of the cliff.

"Ouch!"

Terumi Mei and Hidan, standing on the tree trunk, watched Uchiha Ci. They secretly applauded in their hearts.

"As expected of an Uchiha. So, this was your carefully designed escape route?"

"Come to think of it, this is the first time I've heard a cliff scream like that," Terumi Mei remarked as she walked over, sideways along the cliff face, and pried Uchiha Ci out of the rock with a click of her tongue in admiration.

"Ugh, ugh!" Uchiha Ci spat out two pebbles, wiping away the blood trickling from his forehead.

He exhaled deeply and flashed a smug smile at Terumi Mei:

"Basic moves, nothing special. Except for the last part where my eyes couldn't quite keep up, I'd say I could score a solid 98!"

He then distributed chakra to his feet, stood upright on the sheer cliff,

and glanced down to see Hidan's face contorted like some shadowy creature.

"Haha, you're hilarious."

"You dare say that to my face?!"

"I swear, I'll kill you! Do you even realize what would've happened if I hadn't grabbed this bandage while falling?!"

Hidan's eyes blazed with fury as he waved the bandage in front of Uchiha Ci.

The implication was clear:

Look at this! Do you see how close I came to dying?!

Is this how you save people?!

Uchiha Ci said nothing, taking the bandage from Hidan's hand, retrieving the kunai from the end, and stowing it back in his ninja pouch.

After a moment, he spoke softly:

"Well, you'd better hold on tight to that bandage or that tree."

Hidan paused, sensing that there might be more to Uchiha Ci's words.

"By the way, was that bank account you gave to Kakuzu real?" Terumi Mei suddenly asked, recalling the nerve-wracking scene from earlier, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"Of course not, it was fake."

Uchiha Ci turned around, looking up towards the top of the cliff, his expression serious.

"It only had enough money for a No.3 combo. I'm guessing that's not enough to buy our lives."

Terumi Mei froze, utterly lost, and asked blankly:

"A No.3 combo? What's that?"

Just as the words left her mouth,

eight enormous, pitch-black tentacles suddenly burst out from the cliff above. With a casual sweep, they smashed the rocks and tore through the cliff face with terrifying force.

In the next instant,

the tentacles pierced the cliffside, bending like a drawn bow.

The tension quickly pulled tight with a loud creak!

Whoosh!

A dark figure shot down like an arrow!

Carrying eight massive black resentment-filled tentacles on his back, Kakuzu descended with a menacingly dark expression, his face twisted in anger.

"You broke bastard! How dare you trick me?!"

"Die!!"

Uchiha Ci was momentarily speechless, unsure of how to explain to Terumi Mei. He could only chuckle awkwardly, scratching his head while staring at the approaching Kakuzu, his gaze becoming serious:

"Uh... it's a combo that every man enjoys."

Then, he turned back, forming hand signs, smiling at Terumi Mei as he asked:

"Ready?"

"The real battle is about to begin!"