Each One's Progress

Are we going to play a serious match...?

Looking into Sasuke's piercing eyes, Sakura was genuinely surprised.

Sasuke meant that Sakura should fight without holding back, using Ninjutsu like Water Release: Wind Blade Torrent and Ultra-Pure Water.

So, is Sasuke confident he can break through these two moves? Sakura stared intently into Sasuke's eyes, as if trying to see through his thoughts, and she already had a hunch.

It must be that they've awakened a higher level of Sharingan...

He was only Two Tomoe before, but he probably broke through to the Mitsudomoe level during the Chunin Ninja Exams.

Add to that Kakashi's new Ninjutsu, Chidori, a Ninjutsu with extremely strong penetrating power—want to test the hardness of Ultra-Pure Water?

Or perhaps, he would use his incredible speed and the Sharingan's dynamic vision to bypass the Ultra-Pure Water's defenses, find a weakness, and deliver a fatal blow?

Now that Sasuke has issued the challenge, he must have already devised a feasible strategy.

Unlike the sensitive and fragile Sasuke in the original work, the Sasuke Sakura knows, perhaps because he has always been by Sakura's side and suffered from her blows, does not have the inexplicable arrogance of looking down on everyone in the original work. He is less frivolous and more composed.

In the original story, after the Chunin Ninja Exams, when Sasuke discovered that Naruto's strength had skyrocketed, even surpassing his own, he felt unbalanced and even resentful, though he might not even know what he was jealous of or angry about. Perhaps it was simply because Naruto's strength had surpassed his own that he felt threatened. People who have been in the top position for a long time without being challenged are usually more sensitive to such things. Coupled with the recent stimulation from Itachi, he had an extraordinarily strong desire for power and an extraordinarily strong hatred for his own weakness. That's why, in the hospital, as soon as he woke up, he recklessly challenged Naruto, trying to prove that he was stronger than others by defeating Naruto, in order to salvage his fragile self-esteem.

Such Sasuke is both pitiful and naive.

But the Sasuke that Sakura knew, while also craving power, didn't have that arrogant "I must be number one" attitude. On his path to becoming stronger, he always had a clear goal: Sakura Haruno, who was always stronger than him despite being the same age. And the process of catching up with Sakura was also a process of Sasuke learning from the strong.

At first, she could easily outmaneuver him with just some basic Ninjutsu she had mastered—which made him realize that blindly pursuing powerful Ninjutsu was a wrong path, and that sometimes simple and practical Ninjutsu could be very effective when used well. Later, she had to use her self-created Nintaijutsu to suppress him, and he quickly realized that Taijutsu in actual combat should not be too fancy; strength and speed were the key. And recently, with her Sharingan having awakened to the Two Tomoe, Sakura could no longer Sasuke without using the Super Water Gun Technique and Ultra-Pure Water.

As the one being chased, Sakura sometimes felt quite emotional watching Sasuke improve at such a rapid pace. She felt that she could understand Sasuke's feelings in the original work. He was clearly stronger and had worked hard, but someone else had cheated him. The feeling of being caught up step by step could easily cause psychological imbalance.

If Sakura didn't have greater self-confidence and believe that her Ninjutsu was superior to that of the Uchiha bloodline, she probably wouldn't have felt comfortable even after living two lives.

I just didn't expect Sasuke to challenge himself at his full potential so soon. It seems Sasuke believed he had a certain chance of winning.

Thinking of this, Sakura smiled faintly.

Sasuke... you only realize you're improving, do you think I'm standing still? You don't even understand the power of Kekkei Genkai...

Sakura only discovered after she fully mastered Ice Release that Chakra, as a combination of spiritual and physical power, could actually have a reverse effect on both the body and the mind!

It's like this: everyone knows that there are many speed-type ninjas among the wind-style ninjas, the most famous of whom is the Fourth Hokage, the Yellow Flash. But few people can definitively say whether wind-style Chakra has the ability to enhance speed, or whether speed-type ninjas are more likely to develop wind -Nature Transformation. If such an effect really exists, it would be too subtle and too inconspicuous.

The effect of Ice Release is even more pronounced.

Although it's not obvious yet, Sakura has keenly noticed that since she learned Ice Release, she seems to be able to stay calmer during battles.

When she truly wanted to kill someone, a chilling killing intent would spread throughout her body, shielding her from negative emotions like tension and fear, stimulating her to fight more calmly and precisely. This feeling wasn't uncommon for battle-hardened ninjas, yet before the Land of Waves, she had never even seen blood or a dead body. Then, in her first real battle with an enemy in the Land of Waves, she could coldly kill... Okay, even if this was due to her transmigration, making her mental strength several times stronger than ordinary people, how do you explain the gradual improvement in her physical abilities after arriving in the Land of Waves, as her Ice Release training deepened?

In fact, she could indeed sense that when mental and physical power mixed into water and wind Chakra, then condensed into ice Chakra, and then naturally degraded and recycled back into the original mental and physical power within her body, something changed.

For example, speed is actually an attribute heavily influenced by innate abilities. Non-speed-type ninjas can easily reach their speed limit and cannot improve it no matter how much they train. From this perspective, Lee is the real genius because his body can actually support his crazy training without collapsing. On the contrary, he steadily improves in strength and speed. A normal person—at least with Sakura's physical condition—would have ruined themselves by training like that!

The time travel didn't change Sakura's physical attributes. In the original story, Sakura Haruno wasn't a speed-type ninja, and neither was the Sakura in this world. Her training quickly pushed her to her physical speed limit, where there seemed to be an invisible wall that she couldn't overcome no matter how hard she tried.

Things changed in recent months—she found herself moving faster.

It wasn't due to physical development, because she hadn't grown much taller, nor had her chest suddenly gained any weight. Moreover, she had always been in her developmental stage, giving her a very direct understanding and ability to predict improvements in her physical abilities. She didn't have many possible reasons for the sudden increase in her physical strength, but Ice Release Chakra was the most likely one.

Or to put it more simply and clearly, Sakura felt that her physical abilities were trending towards those of Haku, and her mediocre physical attributes were transforming into those of a speed-type ninja, making her fast in both movement and reaction.

Besides that, there are probably some other changes, such as her appearance becoming more like that of a fair-skinned person, her skin becoming less prone to tanning, and her facial features changing from the original heroic type (voiceover: I give it five points) to a more pretty one (5.5 points).

This is something only someone looking in the mirror would notice.

Chunin Ninja Exams, everyone trained for a month. Due to the increased speed, Sakura's Taijutsu skills improved significantly. As Sakura moves towards becoming a speed-type ninja, Sasuke's high-speed combat might give him the upper hand, but if he thinks he can beat Sakura Haruno so badly that she can't react or use her Ultra-Pure Water defense, that's really wishful thinking.

So, after thinking for a moment, and with Sasuke and Naruto both looking at her expectantly, Sakura shook her head.

"I refuse."

Sakura waved her hand to stop Sasuke and explained, "One reason is that we used up Ultra-Pure Water a few days ago, and it will take some time before we can accumulate enough for battle."

As we know, Ultra-Pure Water is water with extremely high purity. If air or impurities dissolve into the water, causing a decrease in purity, its peculiar properties will disappear.

Normally, Sakura uses Chakra to isolate the Ultra-Pure Water and maintain its purity. However, in intense battles, excessively violent collisions can cause the water film to break, allowing impurities to mix into the water, resulting in a decrease in purity and a significant drop in strength. Even if this contaminated water is discarded in time, the purity of the entire mass of Ultra-Pure Water will inevitably decrease until it becomes completely ineffective.

"Secondly, I've recently learned a few Ice Release. Would you like to try them out now? I'll probably stick with Wind Blade Torrent."

Seeing the hint of defiance on Sasuke's face, Sakura chuckled, "Because this move is becoming increasingly unsuitable for sparring."

Without her making any move, the girl simply raised her hand, Chakra suddenly surged, shooting out a stream of water from Sakura's palm, severing a rock in the distance.

As the girl's signature skill, Water Release: Super Water Gun Technique can not only evolve into Water Release: Wind Blade Torrent, but the casting speed has also become increasingly faster. This is the level that Sakura broke through during her battle with Kabuto a few days ago. In that moment of desperation, she completed Water Release: Super Water Gun Technique with a single wave of her hand, which even she herself found somewhat unbelievable afterward! With just a single gesture, in a mere 0.5 seconds, she completed a high-level Ninjutsu. Sakura's mastery of Water Release is truly unprecedented, and it is unlikely that anyone will ever surpass her!

Sasuke's expression showed that he understood what the girl's move meant. He had struggled with whether to follow Itachi's path of increasing Hand Seals speed or learn from Sakura to simplify the Hand Seals and eventually achieve hand seal-free jutsu. Now it seemed that Sakura's approach was the ultimate in jutsu; no matter how fast the Hand Seals were, they couldn't be faster than no hand seals, faster than raising a hand!

--As an aside, many of Itachi's Ninjutsu can be performed without hand seals.

The Sharingan can detect an opponent's muscle activation with extremely detailed observation, thus discerning and even predicting their next move, but it cannot predict changes in Chakra. Sasuke thought he could defeat Sakura with his Three-Tomoe Sharingan, but faced with this kind of Ninjutsu...

The outcome is at least uncertain.

But how can a friendly sparring match between teammates escalate to the point where one wrong move could result in being sliced in two?

Sasuke first shook his head, then nodded.

"Okay, that's settled then. I've made some new progress recently, you should give it a try!"

The two then assumed their stances and formed Seal of Confrontation.