Chapter 277: Fighting Orochimaru

Anko couldn’t help but feel a little giddy after landing her first hit against Orochimaru. She heard about how much fun Kurama had while he was pummeling Hashirama, and now she could more or less understand that notion.

While she was running after Orochimaru, she came to an abrupt halt and rolled her eyes in annoyance.

‘Damn, this guy is worse than a cockroach.’

Fire gathered around her fist, and moments later, she slammed it into the ground, resulting in another fire geysir being created and a charred corpse hitting the ground shortly after.

‘Although I’m a little reluctant to admit it, I guess I should be thankful for Yuna helping me improve my [Spirit Sense]; otherwise, I wouldn’t have noticed another Orochimaru hiding here. I wonder what kind of technique this was? The corpse in front of me clearly is real, but the other Orochimaru appears to be real as well. Some kind of weird splitting technique?’

Anko pondered the situation a split second longer before shrugging her shoulders with disinterest and chasing after the other Orochimaru.

Meanwhile, the Orochimaru that was sent flying by Anko had a twisted smile on his face. He already expected things to get dangerous when he felt Anko’s full strength after she burst out of the earth, so he immediately prepared himself to deploy jutsus that would help him get away alive.

Although he didn’t manage to dodge Anko’s first attack, he still used the chance to use one of his trump cards. The moment he hit the ground for the first time after Anko’s attack, he used the Second Tsuchikage’s splitting technique to leave a copy of himself inside the ground to have a backup plan in case he couldn’t get away from Anko.

A few moments later, he came to a stop as a serious expression appeared on his. If Anko noticed him smirking, she might find about his backup plan, after all.

However, before she could reach him, his eyes widened in disbelief, and he spat out some blood.

‘Impossible, how did she find my split body!?’

Although it was a bit too far away to see clearly, he could still vaguely see a charred body lying next to Anko.

‘HOW!? HOW DOES SHE HAVE A COUNTER PREPARED FOR EVERYTHING I TRY!? IT’S ALMOST AS IF SHE…SHE…she planned this encounter?’

The moment that thought appeared in Orochimaru’s head, his anger diminished instantly and was instead replaced by a combination of calculating calmness and dread.

‘I see, only after she prepared countermeasures for everything she thought I was capable of did she appear before me. Now that I think about it properly, she said that Yuna was only here for transport, so she must have gotten here with the [Flying Thunder God Seal], but where did she… no way… IT’S ON SASUKE!!! THAT FEMALE TRANSFORMATION WAS JUST A DISTRACTION!!!’

It was not a distraction. While Yuna put the [Flying Thunder God Seal] on Sasuke, she simply thought: while I’m at it, I might as well mess with Sasuke a little.

Shortly after Orochimaru’s realization, Anko landed in front of him, and when she saw his slightly distressed look, she couldn’t help but enjoy herself.

“Hehe, it seems like you managed to piece a few pieces of this puzzle together by yourself. So, are you ready to breathe your last breath now that you realized that there is no escape?”

Yet again, Orochimaru’s anger spiked when he saw Anko’s cocky expression.

“Don’t think it will be this easy! I am still one of the Sannin! I have been fighting in wars before you were even born, so don’t get cocky, brat! [Kuchyiose no Jutsu]!”

When Orochimaru finished his rant, he bit his finger and, after a few hand seals, slammed his palm on the ground, resulting in complex patterned growing out of his palm, followed by a massive smoke cloud.

“Orochimaru, you better have prepared the adequate number of sacrifices f…”

“You can have as many sacrifices as you want, Manda, but I will need to get out of this situation first.”

Although Manda was slightly surprised by Orochimaru’s slightly flustered voice, when he glanced around to see the reason for his current situation and only saw Anko standing in front of him, he scoffed in disdain.

“Isn’t that the little girl you gave out a contract to? Why are you getting cornered by a little girl, Orochimaru?”

When Anko saw Manda appearing and heard how dismissive he was of her, she couldn’t help but chuckle again. Honestly, a few years ago, she was absolutely terrified of Manda, but now she could only see him as a bloated worm.

Since Yuna told Hinata and Anko about her previous life, she would occasionally tell some stories about it. One of those stories was about how intelligent animals increase their level of power. There were only very, very few cases in which they didn’t decide to compress their power into a smaller, more compact form, and now that Anko was using Natural Energy and was looking at Manda, she knew why that was the case.

From the perspective of an untrained eye, Manda’s massive form was incredibly intimidating, but Anko could quickly tell how fragile it was. Even a normal kunai could potentially penetrate Manda’s scales, which would have been impossible if he went for a more condensed form.

Since Orochimaru and Manda were still busy arguing with each other, Anko decided to stop messing around. She could easily tell that Orochimaru was already heavily weakened from using the Edo Tensei, his escape, his splitting technique, and finally from summoning Manda, so it was time to finish this.

‘Akane, you got a moment?’

Moments later, a small crimson snake peaked out of Anko’s sleeve, and when it did, Orochimaru and Manda’s heads immediately snapped towards its direction.

While Orochimaru could only feel incredible dense Natural Energy which Akane’s body seemed to be entirely made of, Manda, as a fellow snake, could feel a dangerous feeling radiating of off her.

Before either of them could move, however, Akane opened her mouth and gathered massive amounts of Natural Energy in front of her, resulting in a small white ball of concentrated flames forming. At the same time, Anko took a deep breath and gathered a similar amount of energy in her body.

Anko was just about to shoot the technique while saying its name when a glint passed through her eyes.

‘Since this is the finisher, I might as well make it flashy. How bad could it be, right?’

“[Man Beast Flame Cultivation Combination Arts: Heaven Devouring White Inferno]”

Anko and Akane shot the technique they prepared simultaneously, resulting in a massive wave of searing hot, white flames shooting towards Orochimaru and Manda.

Manda didn’t even bother to pretend to be loyal to Orochimaru and immediately burst into a cloud of smoke, leaving Orochimaru behind.

Orochimaru, meanwhile, gritted his teeth, bit his finger again, and summoned something else.

“[Kuchiyose no Jutsu: Rashomon]”

Three massive gates appeared between Anko’s combination attack, and Orochimaru and moments later, the wall of flames smashed into the first gate, melting it down instantly.

Before Orochimaru could comprehend what just happened, the white flames washed over the second gate, melting it down just as quickly. When Orochimaru finally realized that his gates barely granted him any protection, it was already too late.

The last gate endured the onslaught of white flames barely any longer than the first two, and moments later, they engulfed Orochimaru, burning him to a crisp instantly.

When the technique was over, Anko fell to her knees while breathing heavily, and Akane groggily vanished inside her sleeve again.

“Whew, that took more strength than I expected.”

While Anko was regaining her breath, a slight blush appeared on her face, and she quickly spread her [Spirit Sense] to see if anyone was nearby and after she made sure that she was alone, she sighed in relief.

“Good, it seems like no one heard me use that cringe-worthy attack name. I’m never doing that again. Guess it is time for the last push.”

Meanwhile, a few hundred meters away from Anko’s current position, a small white snake dug itself out of the ground. It warily looked around, and after it confirmed that no one was watching it, it started sneakily slithering away.

Unfortunately for it, just when it was about to disappear inside the dense forest, a small crimson snake sneaked up on it and bit into its neck, killing it instantly.

After the crimson snake finished eating the white one, it felt the density of its body increase, but despite that, it had a dissatisfied expression on its face, and moments later, Anko approached it with a slight chuckle.

“See, I warned you that he would taste foul, Akane.”

Akane hissed at Anko in annoyance before yet again vanishing inside her sleeve, causing Anko to chuckle yet again.

“Oh well, now that this is done, let’s see how Yuna is currently doing.”

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