What did it feel like to leap from a four-hundred-meter cliff while holding a beautiful girl?
The wind blowing up from below lifted his hair roots as Uchiha Ci faced the gale and forced his eyes open.
His scarlet eyes swept from side to side, desperately searching for footholds that could slow the impact.
"Eeeeeeh?!"
Mei Terumi's face was filled with terror in his arms.
Instinctively, she grabbed whatever she could. One hand yanked Uchiha Ci's face, while the other tightly gripped the soft flesh at his waist.
With that tug—
"Ow, ow, ow!" Uchiha Ci yelped in pain, hurriedly freeing one hand to wrench away the hand twisting his face.
"Miss, stop flailing around! You're blocking my view!"
"You're crazy, crazy, crazy!" Mei Terumi screamed. Looking at the ground rushing closer and closer, she knew that even as ninja, they could not possibly survive a fall like this.
"Hit the brakes!!!"
"Calm down!" Uchiha Ci roared. "Listen up. When I count to one, I'll throw you out!"
"Grab onto the cliff face yourself!"
"If you can't hold on, then wait to die!"
Mei Terumi looked back at the boy before her. In this life-or-death moment, she forced herself to calm down. Calm down, I have to calm down.
Pah, how was that even possible?!
They were jumping off a cliff!
Why was I jumping off a cliff with this guy?!
They had known each other for less than a day. Even a Domineering CEO novel would not dare write a plot where they got married in a flash and died together like this!
Just as Mei Terumi was beside herself with fury,
Uchiha Ci's gaze turned fierce. He drew a kunai and viciously drove it into the cliff face.
Screeeech!
Rock fragments flew everywhere, and dust got into his eyes.
Suppressing the urge to rub them, Uchiha Ci forced his eyes open. Bloodshot veins quickly spread through the whites.
The kunai embedded in the cliff face scraped all the way downward, slowing their fall slightly.
Uchiha Ci calculated the timing. When the kunai finally caught in a crack in the rock, he yanked hard with one arm. Chakra erupted as he exerted a force that nearly tore his muscle fibers apart.
"One!" he roared, using that point of support to fling Mei Terumi upward!
"What? That was already one?" Mei Terumi cried out.
The next moment, she felt herself hurled upward. Right where she was headed, a tree grew from the cliff face.
A loop of bandages was tied around the trunk. A kunai hung from one end, while the other end—
Uh, had Hidan hanging from it.
Hidan, whom Uchiha Ci had kicked off the cliff earlier, was somehow still alive.
Clutching a length of bandage, he dangled in midair, trembling as he desperately tried to climb upward.
When he looked up,
he saw Mei Terumi flying straight at him.
Hidan's face twisted as his eyes widened. "Fuck, I'm screwed!"
"Don't come over hereeeee!!"
Fortunately, Mei Terumi was no ordinary ninja. After her initial shock, she immediately regained her bearings, controlling her body like a nimble cat as she lightly landed on the branch.
The branch barely swayed, and she even had enough strength to reach out and pull Hidan up.
On the other side, the kunai Uchiha Ci had lodged in the rock crack snapped with a click.
His whole body continued plummeting at high speed.
However, after seeing that his two teammates were safe, he finally let out the breath he had been holding, then turned to look at the rapidly approaching ground.
Uchiha Ci quickly formed hand seals, then faced the ground and assumed the opening stance of a Kamehameha.
Then—
"Wind Style: Void Severing Wave!"
A massive amount of Chakra gathered in his palms, transforming into enormous air pressure and ultrasonic waves that blasted down at the ground!
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
The fierce wind pressed downward, making the dense forest beneath the cliff sway wildly.
Birds took flight, flapping about in alarm!
Using that force, Uchiha Ci not only stopped his descent, but was launched upward once again.
Immediately after,
the Sharingan lit up with a brilliant scarlet trail in the night sky.
Like a professional gymnast, Uchiha Ci performed a series of flashy maneuvers in midair—one-armed three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spins, giant swings, springing up to touch his knees, back rotations around an imaginary bar, somersaults, and more.
Splat!
His entire body embedded itself into the cliff face.
"Ow!"
Nearby, Mei Terumi and Hidan, standing on the branch, watched Uchiha Ci and secretly applauded his misfortune.
"Just as expected of an Uchiha. Was this the escape route you carefully designed?"
"Come to think of it, this is the first time I've heard a cliff scream like that."
Mei Terumi walked sideways across the cliff face, pried Uchiha Ci out of the mountain, and clicked her tongue in admiration.
"Pah, pah!" Uchiha Ci spat out two pebbles and wiped away the blood where he had knocked his forehead.
He let out a long breath and flashed Mei Terumi a smug grin.
"Basic stuff, no need to make a fuss. Other than my eyes failing to keep up during the final part, I'd give the rest a ninety-eight!"
Then, he distributed Chakra across the soles of his feet and stood up on the sheer cliff face.
When he looked down, he saw Hidan's twisted face below, looking like some gloomy creature.
"Hahahaha, fuck you."
"You've still got the nerve to say that?!"
"I'm going to kill you! Do you know what would've happened if I hadn't caught this bandage when I fell?"
Fury flared in Hidan's eyes as he held the bandage out in front of Uchiha Ci.
The meaning was clear: Look, look! How dangerous was that?
Is this how you save people, you bastard?
Uchiha Ci said nothing. He took the bandage from Hidan's hand, removed the kunai from its end, and stuffed it back into his Ninja Tool Pouch.
Only after a while did he quietly say,
"You'd better have grabbed that bandage or that tree."
Hidan froze, sensing that there was more to Uchiha Ci's words.
"By the way, was that bankbook you gave Kakuzu real?" Mei Terumi suddenly paused. Recalling the heart-stopping scene from moments ago, she could not help asking.
"Of course it was fake."
Uchiha Ci turned around and looked up from the cliff face, his expression grave.
"There was only enough money in it for the Number Three Set Meal. I figured it wasn't enough to buy our lives."
Mei Terumi froze, completely outside her realm of knowledge, and foolishly asked,
"What's the Number Three Set Meal?"
As soon as she spoke,
eight enormous Black Tentacles suddenly shot out from above the cliff face. With a casual swing, they could crush rock and tear apart the cliff surface, terrifying beyond measure.
The next moment,
the tentacles pierced into the cliff face, as though drawing a bow and nocking an arrow.
The bow quickly bent into a full moon, while the tentacles stretched taut and let out shrill creaks!
Whoosh!
A figure with a face as black as the bottom of a pot shot straight down!
Kakuzu descended with eight massive, black Earth Grudge Fear tentacles on his back, his expression so dark it was frightening.
His face was full of rage at having been tricked as he roared furiously,
"You poor bastard, how dare you fool me!"
"Die!"
Uchiha Ci was briefly speechless, not knowing how to explain this to Mei Terumi. He could only give a dry laugh, scratch his head, and look up at the incoming Kakuzu, his expression gradually growing solemn.
"Well, it was probably a scraping package that every man likes."
Then he turned back, formed hand seals with both hands, smiled at Mei Terumi, and asked,
"Ready?"
"The real battle is about to begin!"
Before you continue