"Fish head and tofu soup?"
Kisame laughed in fury, his mouthful of sharp teeth grinding audibly.
"Brat, I don't think you know what true terror is."
Boom! The ground beneath Kisame's feet exploded as he shot forward like a blue cannonball.
The enormous, bandage-wrapped Samehada came crashing toward Son Goten's head with an air-splitting shriek.
There was nothing fancy about this strike, just a combination of strength and speed that compressed even the surrounding air into explosive cracks.
"Dodge!"
Asuma Sarutobi's pupils contracted as he roared.
"There's something wrong with that blade! It devours all the chakra it touches!"
Kakashi Hatake also tightened his grip on his kunai, ready to provide support with Lightning Blade.
Faced with a blow powerful enough to split mountains and shatter stone, Son Goten stood completely still.
He was even stuffing the last glutinous rice dumpling on his bamboo skewer into his mouth.
He merely raised his left arm lazily. No chakra covered it, only a faint layer of golden ki flames, almost impossible to catch with the naked eye.
"Too slow."
Son Goten's assessment came out muffled.
Clang! A deafening metallic crash made everyone's eardrums ache.
The expected scene of blood and flesh flying never appeared.
The enormous Samehada, as tall as a person, slammed into Goten's tender little forearm, only to stop as though it had struck a diamond, unable to advance an inch.
It hadn't even scratched the skin on Goten's arm.
"What?"
The recoil numbed Kisame's sword arm, and astonishment appeared on his blue, sharklike face for the first time.
How was this possible? Even hardening one's body with Earth Release couldn't allow someone to withstand a slash from Samehada head-on.
But that wasn't even the most absurd part.
The instant Samehada touched the layer of "ki" on Goten's arm...
The