Making Body Techniques as Graceful as Gymnastics!

Chapter 44: Making Taijutsu as Graceful as Gymnastics. Ouch!

What does it feel like to leap off a four-hundred-meter-high cliff while holding a beautiful girl?

The wind from below the cliff ruffled the roots of his hair. Uchiha Ci struggled to open his eyes against the gale, his crimson irises scanning left and right, desperately searching for a foothold to cushion their fall.

"Eeeek eeeek eeeek eeeek eeeek?!"

Terumi Mei, clutched in his arms, was terrified.

She instinctively grabbed onto anything she could, one hand yanking Uchiha Ci's face while the other gripped the soft flesh of his waist.

With that tug...

"Owwww!" Uchiha Ci cried out in pain, yanking his face free and desperately trying to pull away her hand.

"Miss, stop shaking me, you're blocking my vision!"

"You're crazy, you're crazy, you're crazy!" Terumi Mei shrieked, watching the ground rush closer. Even as ninjas, they wouldn't survive a fall like this.

"Brake!!!"

"Calm down!" Uchiha Ci roared, "Listen up, I'll throw you out when I count to one!"

"Grab onto the cliff face yourself!"

"If you can't, you'll just have to wait for death!"

Terumi Mei looked back at the young man before her. In her panic, she forced herself to calm down, to calm down, she had to calm down.

Bah, how could I possibly calm down?!

This is a cliff dive!

Why am I jumping off a cliff with this guy?!

We've known each other for less than a day. Even the cliché romances in boss novels wouldn't dare write a script like this!

Just as Terumi Mei was about to lose it, Uchiha Ci's gaze sharpened. He drew a kunai and plunged it fiercely into the cliff face.

Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft!

Rocks shattered, dust flew into his eyes.

Uchiha Ci endured the urge to rub his eyes, forcing them wide open. Bloodshot veins quickly spread across his sclera.

The kunai slid down the rock face, slightly slowing their descent.

Uchiha Ci calculated the timing in his mind. Just as the kunai got stuck in a rock crevice, he pulled with one arm, channeling his chakra. With a burst of strength that threatened to tear his muscle fibers, "One!" he roared, using the kunai as a pivot to fling Terumi Mei upwards!

"What, what? That was one already?" Terumi Mei gasped.

The next moment, she felt herself being thrown upwards. Her landing spot happened to be a tree growing on the cliff face.

A roll of bandages was tied around the tree trunk, with a kunai dangling from one end. The other end...

well, it was dangling Hidan.

Hidan, who Uchiha Ci had kicked off the cliff earlier, was somehow still alive.

He was clinging to a section of bandages, suspended in mid-air, desperately trying to climb upwards with a look of sheer terror on his face.

He looked up.

And saw Terumi Mei flying directly at him.

Hidan's face contorted, his eyes wide. "I'm really gonna lose it!"

"Don't come near meeeeeeee!!"

Fortunately, Terumi Mei was no ordinary ninja. After her initial surprise, she quickly regained her composure, controlling her body like a nimble cat as she landed lightly on the tree trunk.

The trunk barely swayed. She even had the presence of mind to reach out and pull Hidan up.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the kunai Uchiha Ci had wedged into the cliff face snapped with a crack.

He continued to plummet downwards.

However, seeing that his two teammates were safe, his heart finally relaxed. He immediately turned his head to face the rapidly approaching ground.

Uchiha Ci quickly formed hand seals, then faced the ground and struck a Kamehameha pose.

Then--

"Wind Style: Severing Void Wave!"

A massive amount of chakra gathered in his palms, transforming into a powerful wave of air pressure and ultrasonic waves that surged towards the ground!

Whoosh whoosh whoosh!

The strong wind pressed down, causing the dense forest at the foot of the cliff to sway violently.

Birds startled and flew up, flapping wildly!

Using this momentum, Uchiha Ci not only stopped his descent but was flung upward again.

Immediately after, the Sharingan lit up the night sky with a brilliant scarlet ribbon of light.

Like a professional gymnast, Uchiha Ci performed a series of flashy maneuvers in mid-air: a single-arm 360-degree spin, a grand vault with a knee-to-chest tuck, a back-hip rotation flip, and more.

Snap!

He embedded himself into the cliff face.

"Ouch!"

Standing on a tree branch nearby, Terumi Mei and Hidan watched Uchiha Ci, silently clapping in their hearts.

"As expected of an Uchiha, is this the escape route you meticulously planned?"

"Speaking of which, this is the first time I've heard a cliff make a sound like that?"

Terumi Mei walked sideways across the cliff face, pulling Uchiha Ci out of the rock, and exclaimed in admiration.

"Ptooey, ptooey!" Uchiha Ci spat out two pebbles and wiped the blood from his forehead.

He let out a long breath and grinned smugly at Terumi Mei:

"Just a basic move, don't overthink it. Except for the last part, my eyes couldn't quite keep up, but I think the other parts deserve a score of ninety-eight!"

Then, he channeled chakra into the soles of his feet and stood up on the sheer cliff face.

Tilting his head back, he saw Hidan's face below, contorted like some dark creature's.

"Hahaha, you bastard."

"You have the nerve to say that?!"

"I'll kill you! Do you know what would have happened if I hadn't grabbed that bandage when I fell?"

Hidan's eyes blazed with fury as he held the bandage out in front of Uchiha Ci.

The implication was, look, look how dangerous it was?

Is this how you save people?

Uchiha Ci said nothing, took the bandage from Hidan's hand, removed the Kunai at its end, and put it back into his Ninja Tool pouch.

After a long pause, he said slowly:

"You better have grabbed that bandage or that tree..."

Hidan blinked, sensing there was more to Uchiha Ci's words.

"Speaking of which, was that bankbook you gave Kakuzu real?" Terumi Mei suddenly asked, recalling the heart-stopping scene from moments before.

"Nonsense, of course it was fake."

Uchiha Ci turned around and looked up the cliff face, his gaze serious.

"It only had enough money for a number three combo meal. I doubt it was enough to buy our lives."

Terumi Mei was taken aback, her knowledge base hit a blind spot, and she asked foolishly:

"Number three combo meal? What's that?"

As soon as she finished speaking, eight massive, pitch-black tentacles burst from above the cliff face. A casual swing could crush rock and tear through the cliff, terrifyingly powerful.

The next moment, the tentacles plunged into the cliff face, drawing back like a bow.

The bowstring, formed by the tentacles, was pulled taut, emitting a creaking, screeching sound!

Whoosh!

A figure with a face as dark as the bottom of a pot shot straight down!

Kakuzu, with eight enormous, black Earth Grudge Fear tentacles on his back, had a terrifyingly grim expression.

His face was filled with the rage of being tricked, and he roared furiously:

"You pauper, you dare to play this old man!"

"Die!"

Uchiha Ci was momentarily speechless, unsure how to explain the situation to Terumi Mei. He could only give a dry laugh, scratch his head, and look up at the descending Kakuzu, his gaze growing serious:

"Hmm, that was probably a scraping massage combo that all men love."

Then, he turned back, formed hand seals, smiled at Terumi Mei, and asked:

"Are you ready?"

"The real battle is about to begin!"