Ten enemies raced toward them. Kido and Magire retreated to the rear.
The team of Sakura, Ino, and Sai facing this onslaught might have been hastily thrown together, but that didn’t mean they were out of sync with each other.
When faced with a superior number of enemies, the key was to always keep moving and watch the backs of your allies—the body reacting without the head thinking.
Their enemies attacked in a variety of ways. Some tried to push them back with force, others released kunai and shuriken colored with chakra. There was even a Wind Style user. Occasionally, a slicing wind—which required real attention—came flying at them. And it seemed that the deadliness of each and every one of these attacks was further increased by the chakra of the Tailed Beasts.
Sakura fought with taijutsu and strikes. There were no long-distance-type enemies, so she was never at a loss for how to move forward. In this sort of close-range fight, Ino often moved around to the rear, but she wouldn’t be able to get away with that now. Instead, she backed Sai up with taijutsu.
A fireball abruptly came flying at them. And then several fireballs, all about the size of a human head, from their right.
Sakura leapt out of the way.
Their Fire Style attacker was the man who had played the fake Sasuke in the basement. Two tails grew from his chakra cloak.
“You want me to be Sasuke for you again?” he said, smiling crudely.
“Go ahead and try it,” Sakura said. “I’d probably throw my arms around your neck in delight. Of course, then I’d choke you.”
“I’ll be the one doing the choking!” Her opponent stretched a chakra tail out toward her. Just as it was about to reach Sakura’s body, the tip transformed into something like a hand and grabbed ahold of her neck.
“Ngh!”
Her body was abruptly yanked upward, leaving her toes to dangle above the ground. She couldn’t breathe.
“Tailed Beast chakra’s pretty handy, you know.” Her opponent crossed his arms, and an easy grin slid across his face as his other tail shot forth.
The heavy blow hit her stomach. She was pummeled with a series of tail strikes. The damage wasn’t serious, although she felt pain in the moment. But her position was not good. If she kept hanging there to be his punching bag, at some point he was going to get a decisive blow in.
Sakura gathered her chakra in both hands—in particular, her fingertips—and reached out for the tail around her neck. “Hng!” With a stifled cry, she tore the restraining limb away and dropped to the ground.
“Dammit!” Her opponent launched a follow-up attack with the tail.
Sakura dropped down out of its path and leapt at her opponent. She delivered a blow with her knee before tossing in an uppercut. Both landed nicely enough.
“Never! Change! Into! Sasuke! Again!” She punctuated each word with a punch. “Understand?!”
Her big finish was a roundhouse kick. Her opponent’s eyes rolled back to reveal the whites and he fell without a sound.
Once she had defeated him, the chakra cloak disappeared from his body. It seemed that once the user lost consciousness, the chakra robe also disappeared. Which was no different from the structure of any other ninjutsu.
“Looks like the chakra vanishes if you knock them out!” she announced to Ino and Sai.
“And it only works for so long anyway!” came Ino’s voice in return.
Sakura had also confirmed that with her own eyes.
Several light purple chakra robes had already disappeared, even though the wearers were not unconscious. But those wearers quickly popped another capsule into their mouths to bring back the Tailed Beast chakra.
“If we just fight slow and steady like this, they’ll keep replenishing their chakra,” Sai noted. He was fighting with taijutsu, while he sent his ink tigers out on the offensive. “Let’s knock them all out.”
At that moment, Ino cried out and tumbled to the ground. An enemy had swept her feet out from under her with his tail. Two others came flying in at her with kunai.
“Ino!”
Sakura knocked one of the attackers backward with a fist, while the other took a flying kick from Sai and hit the ground.
Ino stood up.
“You okay?” Sai asked.
Ino nodded. “Yeah.” Then she saw that Sai had hurt his arm, and she covered the area with her hand without saying anything. She was blocking the opening of the wound with medical ninjutsu.
Sakura clenched her hand into a tight fist.
Ino-Saku-Sai. We fight pretty good! she murmured to herself, before dashing off toward the enemy.