A few moments later, Yuna and Naruto appeared where Shizune has been fighting before. Yuna noticed that a huge toad and an equally huge snake were fighting in the background, but decided to ignore that for now. She had seen Naruto’s toad summon during the chunin exam, so she didn’t need to ponder long about where the toad came from, while the same was true for the snake.
Yuna looked around and could guess what happened rather quickly. Shizune was laying on the ground and seemed to be unconscious, while Tsunade was kneeling next to her. Her whole body was shaking, while her eyes, which were looking at her bloody hands, were filled with fear and despair. Kabuto, meanwhile, was standing nearby and was too busy looking smug and boasting to finish Tsunade and Shizune off.
Yuna quickly appeared next to Shizune and Tsunade and started to focus her senses on Shizune.
‘Her heart rhythm is unsteady. Guess that Kabuto guy has a method to directly attack the heart or something like that. Unfortunately, I can’t use medical jutsu due to my chakra being mixed with Kurama’s, while Naruto has the same problem, so the only one who can heal her is Tsunade, who is still incapable of moving.’
“Aren’t you forgetting about something?”
Yuna noticed that Kabuto was trying to sneak attack her, but didn’t bother about it. Just when Kabuto’s palm that was glowing with chakra was about to land on her back, Naruto’s foot kicked him in the face, sending him flying.
“Naruto, go play with him for a while, I will see what I can do here.”
“Hehe, sure, nee-san.”
Naruto was slightly surprised when he looked at Kabuto and noticed that he had barely taken any damage from his attack.
“Ohh? Either your skin is much thicker than I thought it would be or you have some crazy regeneration power.”
“Hehe, Naruto, huh. The inferior twin. Do you really think you have a chance against me?”
Naruto tilted his head in confusion at that nickname.
“Inferior twin? That’s the first time I heard that nickname. I don’t appreciate random people like you giving me a nickname, you know.”
“Hehe, isn’t it true, though? After all, so far you have always been standing in your sister’s shadow. No matter what you do, you are inferior to her, isn’t that right.”
Naruto got even more confused when he heard that, but after a few moments, he widened his eyes in understanding, while hitting his opened hand with his fist.
“AH! Now I know why you suddenly decided to tell me a story. You think you could provoke me. Sorry, but you have to try better.”
‘Besides, I easily crushed nee-san in a ramen-eating competition, so there is that.’
[Knowing you, you would have probably started training to “eat a lot of ramen” more seriously than anything else you have ever trained in if you lost that one.]
‘Damn straight!’
[*Sigh* Maybe Yuna can swap me around with the other me…for some reason, I feel like this is a bad idea…]
Yuna, meanwhile, wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the situation in front of her. Tsunade wouldn’t react to being called at all, so Yuna decided to go for another approach.
*SLAP!!!*
A loud sound echoed over the clearing due to Yuna slapping Tsunade’s face. This at least got her out of her thoughts. Tsunade was now staring at Yuna with a mixture of bewilderment and anger, which was at least better than the despair and fear she previously had.
“W-What? W-Why did you do that?”
“Well little girl, time to heal Shizune. You are the only one here that can use medical jutsu, so if you don’t do it, she will die. That is why I decided to wake you up a little bit more roughly than I planned to at the start.”
Tsunade, who was still slightly dazed from the slap only shook her head, as the fear seeped back into her eyes.
“I-I-I c-can’t…I…”
“I see, then I guess there is no point in having her struggle in pain any longer.”
At first, Tsunade didn’t understand what Yuna meant, but when a sword appeared in her hand and she stabbed it towards Shizune’s heart, Tsunade’s eyes widened in surprise and horror.
Just when the sword was about to reach Shizune, Tsunade forced her body to move. She barely managed to push away the sword with her bare hands, causing it to stab into the ground instead. She was so desperate to move, that she didn’t even notice that she wasn’t cut by Yuna’s sword despite directly pushing away the blade with her bare hands.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?”
Yuna nodded in approval when she noticed that Tsunade at least stopped stuttering.
“Well, Shizune is obviously suffering. The only one who could save her is you, but you said that you can’t do it, so I decided to shorten her suffering by a few minutes.”
Tsunade stared at Yuna in disbelief and moments later, their eyes met. Seeing the total indifference to Shizune’s life in Yuna’s eyes, Tsunade couldn’t help but shiver a little. Tsunade gritted her teeth and glared at Yuna.
“I will heal her!”
Yuna only shrugged like she couldn’t care less and put her focus on the fight between Jiraiya and Orochimaru instead. She noticed that Tsunade’s hand was still shaking from seeing blood, which certainly wouldn’t make the treatment process easier, but it seems that Tsunade decided to push through it with her willpower alone. Yuna being nearby, certainly wouldn’t help with that.
Unfortunately, just when Yuna was about to leave, she saw Orochimaru approaching, closely followed by Jiraiya who was trying to stop him.
While in midair, Orochimaru’s tongue shot out, snaked itself around Jiraiya’s leg, and sent him flying, opening quite a bit of distance between the two.
‘Damn, is there a jutsu to make someone’s tongue longer? That could be useful, hehe!’
[Is that really the right time for that? That degenerate is coming closer.]
‘Yeah, yeah, I will focus on the fight, stop fussing.’
“Kukuku, time to collect you, my test subject!”
Orochimaru shot at Yuna with a sword in his hand, while seals slowly started to appear on the fingers of his other hand. Yuna, however, had a deep frown on her face.
‘Did he just call me a test subject?’
Orochimaru’s sword pierced forward, attempting to pierce through Yuna’s shoulder to temporarily cripple her, but Yuna moved her hand towards the sword tip and let it pierce all the way through her hand until Yuna’s hand could grab the guard of Orochimaru’s sword and as soon as it did, ice started to spread all over the sword’s guard and towards Orochimaru’s hand.
‘Did he just call me a f*ing test subject!?’
Orochimaru, however, didn’t notice that yet. He was elated that his sword managed to pierce and poison Yuna and moments later his hand shot forward and slammed into Yuna’s stomach, causing seals to spread all over her body.
“Kuku, you are mi…*ARGH*!!!”
Yuna’s free hand moved towards Orochimaru’s hand that was currently putting the seal on her and moments later, Yuna’s ice started to slowly creep up on Orochimaru’s hand. Yuna analyzed the seal that was supposed to suppress her chakra and unraveled it the moment it started spreading on her body and thus, she was able to activate Kurama’s chakra and crushed Orochimaru’s half-frozen wrist.
“Did you just call me a f*ing test subject, INSECT!?”
Orochimaru wanted to free himself from Yuna’s grip, but the ice was already starting to creep up his arms, firmly connecting him to Yuna’s hands.
“YOU DID, DIDN’T YOU!?”
Orochimaru opened his mouth, and another sword shot out of it directly towards Yuna’s face. Orochimaru had clearly abandoned the idea of capturing Yuna alive. Before the sword could reach Yuna, one of her chains burst out of her shoulder, punting away the sword towards Kabuto, who was trying to help Orochimaru. He barely dodged the strike, but the moment he lost his balance from the uncontrolled dodge, two more chains burst out of Yuna’s back and pierced through Kabuto’s shoulders, immobilizing him in the process.
Yuna, meanwhile, calmed down quite a bit. She noticed that she had overreacted at being called a test subject, but she truly despised people who saw someone as a mere test subject, especially if that someone is herself. Although she never cared much about others paying respect to her in her previous life, that has a bottom line as well. Treating her like a test subject, a mere object to be experimented on, easily stepped over that bottom line.
Yuna had promised Anko that she would be the one to kill Orochimaru, so she wouldn’t kill him for now. Anko might have lost all her fear of Orochimaru, but being the one to actually kill him should be quite good for her cultivation progress, so Yuna decided to be satisfied with a little punishment for Orochimaru.
“This is your punishment for the disrespect you have shown me, insect!”
Yuna tugged on Orochimaru’s arms, and moments later, both of the frozen arms shattered all the way up to Orochimaru’s elbows.
Orochimaru staggered backward and looked at Yuna in disbelief. He knew that she was very strong. Even an idiot could see that from the incredible power she had shown during the chunin exam, but so far he had never seen Yuna fight in a calm and calculated manner. Every time he had seen her fight, either she was too strong to take the fight seriously, like her fights against Sasuke and Gaara or she went into a battle frenzy and fought seemingly on her instincts alone as she did against Hashirama, Lee, and the Naruto, Hinata combo. Now, however, every move was calculated and seemed to aim for the fastest possible way to finish the fight, overwhelming the unprepared Orochimaru, who even felt some pressure for an instant. If Yuna and Orochimaru had a proper one-on-one fight, things wouldn’t have been this one-sided, but unfortunately for Orochimaru, he vastly underestimated his opponent, something powerful individuals seemed to do rather frequently.
Orochimaru gritted his teeth in anger as he glared at Yuna like she was his greatest enemy.
“I will make you pay for this!”
Yuna, however, only shrugged her shoulders and waved him away.
“Get lost, little snake. I promised Anko that she will be allowed to take your life in combat, so quickly scurry away.”
Moments later, Jiraiya and Naruto appeared next to Yuna and although Jiraiya was slightly dumbfounded at how easily Yuna repelled Orochimaru, he would ask about that after they defeated Orochimaru.
Yuna could only shake her head after seeing Jiraiya’s so-called resolve. It was obvious that he didn’t want to kill Orochimaru at all and as she expected, Jiraiya didn’t move at all despite Orochimaru slowly sinking into the ground to escape the battlefield.
Yuna glanced at Tsunade and Shizune and noticed that Shizune’s breathing seemed to have stabilized, which was a good sign. Tsunade was still shaking from having blood on her, but Yuna noticed that it wasn’t as extreme as it was previously. Tsunade was currently in the progress of slowly wiping away the blood from her body with shaking hands, which was already good progress.
‘Mission success, I guess. I really hope nothing else happens on our way back.’
[D-Did you just purposely raise a flag?]
‘Hehe, I have no idea what you are talking about.’
