Chapter 44: Making Taijutsu Look Like Olympic Gymnastics. Ouch!
What does it feel like to leap from a four-hundred-meter cliff while carrying a beautiful girl?
The wind from below whipped at his hair. Tsukasa fought against the powerful gusts, straining to keep his eyes open. His crimson Sharingan darted left and right, desperately searching for footholds to break their fall.
"AHHHHHHHHH?!"
Mei Terumi, in his arms, looked absolutely terrified.
She instinctively grabbed at whatever she could—one hand yanking at Tsukasa's face, the other clutching and twisting the soft flesh at his waist.
With that pinch...
"OW!" Tsukasa cried out in pain, quickly releasing one hand to pry away the hand that was distorting his face.
"Miss, stop moving! You're blocking my vision!"
"You're insane! You're insane! You're completely insane!" Mei Terumi screamed, watching the ground rapidly approaching. Even as ninja, there was no way they could survive a fall from this height.
"We need to brake!!!"
"Calm down!" Tsukasa roared. "Listen! On my count, I'll throw you away from me!"
"Grab onto the cliff face!"
"If you can't manage it, you'll die!"
Mei Terumi looked at the boy holding her, desperately forcing herself to calm down. Calm down. Calm down. She had to calm down.
But how could anyone possibly calm down in this situation?!
This was a cliff dive!
Why did I even jump off a cliff with this guy?!
We'd known each other for less than a day. Even the most dramatic romance novels wouldn't dare write something this reckless!
Just as Mei Terumi was spiraling into panic, Tsukasa's expression hardened. He drew out a kunai and thrust it forcefully into the cliff face.
SCRAPE, SCRAPE, SCRAPE!
Rocks shattered, dust filling his vision.
Tsukasa resisted the urge to blink, keeping his eyes open despite the pain. The whites of his eyes quickly became bloodshot.
The kunai embedded in the rock face dragged downward, gradually slowing their descent.
Tsukasa mentally calculated the timing. When the kunai finally caught in a crack between rocks, he pulled with one arm, chakra surging through his muscles with force that threatened to tear them apart.
"NOW!" he roared, using this pivot point to fling Mei Terumi upward!
"Wait, that's it?!" Mei Terumi exclaimed.
The next moment, she felt herself being launched upward, landing precisely where a tree grew from the cliff face.
A bandage was tied around the trunk, with a kunai attached to one end and—wait—
Hidan dangling from the other end!
Hidan, who had been kicked off the cliff by Tsukasa earlier, was miraculously still alive. He hung suspended in mid-air, clutching the bandage strip with a look of absolute terror on his face as he struggled to climb upward.
He looked up and saw Mei Terumi flying directly toward him.
Hidan's expression twisted in horror, his eyes widening. "Oh, come ON!"
"Don't crash into me!!"
Fortunately, Mei Terumi was no ordinary kunoichi. After her initial shock, she quickly recovered, maneuvering her body like an agile cat and landing gracefully on the tree trunk.
The trunk barely swayed, and she even had enough control to reach out and steady Hidan.
Meanwhile, Tsukasa's kunai, wedged in the cliff crack, snapped with a sharp CRACK.
He continued his rapid descent.
Seeing that his two teammates were safe, his anxiety finally eased. He turned to face the rapidly approaching ground below.
Tsukasa quickly formed hand seals, then positioned his hands toward the ground in a stance reminiscent of charging an energy attack.
And then—
"Wind Release: Gale Palm!"
A massive amount of chakra gathered in his palms, transforming into an enormous shockwave of compressed air that blasted toward the ground!
WHOOOOSH!
The fierce wind pressure slammed downward, violently shaking the dense forest below the cliff.
Birds scattered in panicked flight!
Using this opposing force, Tsukasa not only halted his downward momentum but actually propelled himself upward again.
Immediately, his Sharingan blazed brilliantly—a crimson streak against the night sky.
Like a professional Olympic gymnast, Tsukasa executed a series of spectacular mid-air maneuvers: multiple one-armed 360-degree spins, a powerful aerial loop, hand-to-knee tucks, backward flips, and other dazzling acrobatics.
Then—
THUD!
He face-planted directly into the cliff wall.
"Oof!"
Nearby, Mei Terumi and Hidan, perched safely on the tree trunk, watched Tsukasa's performance with mixed emotions, secretly impressed despite everything.
"As expected of an Uchiha! Was this your meticulously calculated escape route all along?"
"Come to think of it, this is the first time I've ever heard a cliff face make a sound like that."
Mei Terumi stepped sideways across the cliff using chakra, pulled Tsukasa from where he was embedded, and remarked with genuine admiration.
"Ptooey, ptooey!" Tsukasa spat out a couple of pebbles and wiped blood from his forehead.
He exhaled deeply and smirked at Mei Terumi.
"Just routine practice—nothing special. My aim was slightly off on that last part, but I'd give the rest of my performance a solid 98 out of 100!"
He then distributed chakra to the soles of his feet and rose from the sheer cliff face.
Looking down, he saw his younger brother Hidan below, his expression twisted like a vengeful spirit.
"Ha ha ha, you BASTARD!"
"How dare you act so casual?!"
"I'll kill you! Do you have any idea what would've happened if I hadn't grabbed this bandage when I fell?!"
Hidan's eyes flashed with fury as he clutched the bandage in his hand and thrust it before Tsukasa's face.
His implication was clear: "Look! LOOK at this! How dangerous was that?! Is this your idea of saving someone?!"
Without a word, Tsukasa simply plucked the bandage from Hidan's grip, removed the kunai from the end, and tucked it back into his ninja tool pouch.
After a brief pause, he spoke matter-of-factly:
"Well, you should be grateful you grabbed that bandage. Or that tree."
Hidan was stunned, wondering if Tsukasa was being deliberately obtuse.
"By the way, was that bankbook you showed Kakuzu real?" Mei Terumi suddenly asked, remembering the terrifying confrontation moments before.
"Of course it was fake."
Tsukasa turned to look up the cliff face, his expression becoming serious.
"There was only enough money in there for a cheap bowl of ramen. Definitely not enough to buy our lives."
Mei Terumi blinked in confusion, having encountered something completely outside her knowledge. She asked innocently:
"A bowl of ramen... how much money is that exactly?"
As she finished speaking—
Eight massive, pitch-black tentacles suddenly burst forth from above, shattering the cliff face. With a single swing, they could crush boulders and tear through solid rock. The sight was absolutely terrifying.
The next moment, the tentacles drove into the cliff face like a bow being drawn.
The formation quickly curved into a full crescent, the tentacles tensing with an ominous creaking sound.
LAUNCH!
A figure with a face as dark as storm clouds shot straight downward!
Kakuzu, carrying eight enormous black Earth Grudge Fear tendrils on his back, had an absolutely murderous expression.
His face was filled with rage at having been deceived, and he roared furiously:
"You broke bastard! How DARE you trick me!"
"DIE!"
Tsukasa was momentarily speechless, unsure how to explain this situation to Mei Terumi. He could only laugh awkwardly, scratching his head, then look up at the descending Kakuzu with gradually hardening resolve:
"Well... let's just say it was barely enough to buy instant cup ."
Then he turned around, formed hand seals, smiled at Mei Terumi, and asked:
"Are you ready?"
"The real battle is about to begin!"
End of Chapter 44
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