Ch 49 : Battle against Gaara Semi-Transformed state

Seeing that Temari had been knocked away by the water spear, Sakura felt relieved.

That Yarinami just now was the result of her special training with Sanada. However, there was a catch.

Sakura could only use Yarinami with the help of Lapras and even then, the power of Sakura's Yarinami was still far from the true Yarinami that Sanada had displayed to her.

If Sanada's Yarinami could be considered an Upper B-Rank Ninjutsu, then Sakura's would be considered barely B-Rank.

Sakura spent a few seconds taking in a deep breath before she rushed in Sasuke's direction to support him.

On Sasuke's side, the Semi-Transformed Gaara had revealed itself to be a lot stronger than what Sasuke could currently handle.

It was not as bad as in the original plot, but even after a few minutes of battling, Sasuke still couldn't get an advantage on Gaara, which made him a bit frustrated.

CLANGG!!!!

Once again, Sasuke's blazing sword clashed with Gaara's semi-transformed arm.

It was true that Gaara's strength was far beyond Sasuke, but because Sasuke was able to close the distance using his Hinokami Kagura techniques, the gap between the two had been shortened by a bit.

"GRAHHHH!!!"

Gaara boosted his speed as his giant arm was ready to rip Sasuke's body apart.

But then..

"Hinokami Kagura: Fake Rainbow!"

Sasuke's body turned into an afterimage as he appeared right behind Gaara.

Slash!

Sasuke successfully injured Gaara. He was able to timely use the Fake Rainbow to dodge Gaara's attack to then quickly launch a slash at Gaara's body.

Gaara's defense though was still far too strong for it to end in just one attack.

While Gaara was injured, Sasuke used this chance to widen the distance between them as he needed to take a breather.

"Aha... ahahahahahahaah!!!"

A sound of eerie laughter started ringing as it filled their surroundings.

Sasuke didn't know why, but he got a bad feeling about this.

He locked his gaze at Gaara and found that the other party was now beginning to change once again.

"More... I want more!!!"

In an instant, a big sand tail grew behind Gaara as he began to look more and more like a monster.

"Here I come!"

With speed uncomparable from before, Gaara suddenly flashed right in front of Sasuke.

"Fast!!!"

Sasuke was almost unable to react even with his Sharingan active.

He dodged Gaara slightly by jumping high into the air. Luckily the one-month training with Sanada had trained his reflexes to a very high level.

'If it's going to continue like this, I don't think I'm gonna last.'

"Hinokami Kagura: Clear Blue Sky!"

Sasuke slashed downwards as his body delivered a 360° slash right at Gaara.

Gaara tried to block it with his sand arm but the power of Sasuke's slash was still able to break Gaara's defense and reach his skin.

BOOMM!!!!

Gaara was thrown to the ground with his arm bleeding from Sasuke's attack.

His body was bleeding, but Gaara's face displayed a maniacs' grin.

ROARRR!!!

The sand around Gaara converged as he sent a huge amount of sand bullets in Sasuke's direction.

Sasuke was ready to avoid them, but he heard a voice coming from behind.

"Yarinami!!!"

A water spear was thrown towards the sand bullets and they ended up canceling each other. A figure then appeared from behind and arrived right next to Sasuke.

It was none other than Sakura.

After dealing with Temari, she had quickly rushed here to help Sasuke.

"You okay, Sasuke?" Asked Sakura which Sasuke only replied with a nod.

For this girl and Sanada's first disciple, Sasuke always had a bit of envy in his heart. If all that effort that Sanada put in to groom her, had instead been directed at him, then Sasuke was sure that he would have no problems handling Gaara right now.

Nonetheless, Sasuke also felt relieved when he saw Sakura arriving. He knew Sakura's strength and it wouldn't be an exaggeration if he said that he was confident that the two of them could handle Gaara if they worked together.

Sasuke was about to say something, but Sakura beat him from it.

"Let's go. We need to finish this fast before he transforms again..."

Both Sasuke and Sakura looked at Gaara, their eyes flashing.

Sakura immediately gathered some water vapor in her hand as she hurled several Uchimizu towards Gaara.

Clang! Clang!

Gaara deflected the Uchimizu easily with his sand hands as he kept moving in the direction of the two.

However, Gaara suddenly felt a trace of danger behind him and as he reacted he saw Sasuke no longer where he previously stood.

He turned his head around and saw Sasuke's blade heading toward his neck.

Swish!!!

Gaara was able to narrowly avoid the blade by tilting his body, but the enemy's attack was far from over.

Sakura, taking the opportunity, immediately arrived behind Gaara as she clenched her fist in the Fish-Man Karate's basic stance.

"Karakusagawara Seiken!!!"

Gaara immediately sensed the danger of Sakura's attack. If he was very confident in playing around against Sasuke before, adding Sakura to the equation that confidence went down.

The battle had become much harder for Gaara and after just a few exchanges Gaara had been pushed into a corner.

The huge shockwave of Sakura's Karakusagawara Seiken knocked Gaara into a huge tree as he failed to react timely to Sakura's attack.

GRAAAA!!!!

Gaara, who was getting beaten up by the combined attacks of the two, became even more furious.

He used his transformed arm and tail to launch a wave to attack. Sakura and Sasuke however avoided them with ease.

BOOM!!! BOOMM!! BOOMM!!

Flashing left and right, Sasuke and Sakura easily passed through Gaara's sand arm's weird attacks together.

Sasuke used his blazing sword to cut through Gaara's arm and tail while Sakura delivered another full-power blow right on Gaara's abdomen.

BOOM!!!!!!!