The arena's sandy floor had been ravaged beyond recognition.
Tsunade had once stamped her foot, sending spiderweb cracks through the sand.
Kushina's foxfire, lightning, ice spikes, and wind blades had left countless charred craters and furrowed trenches in the sand.
The breathing of fifty thousand soldiers rose and fell with every collision in the arena, the two figures moving so fast they blurred reflected in their eyes.
Tsunade stood in the center of the sandy floor, her bare feet sunk deep into the warm sand, feeling every faint tremor transmitted through the earth.
Her breathing was a little quicker than usual, but her eyes remained sharp as blades. Her gaze stayed locked on the three-meter-tall, nine-tailed figure opposite her.
"Though the Nine-Tails Celestial Fox isn't as large as a Tailed Beast..."
Her voice was low, as though she were talking to herself, or questioning someone in the stands.
"But these nine powers... there are too many! They're hard to deal with!"
She raised her right hand and looked at her faintly trembling knuckles. In that last exchange, she had shattered at least seventeen ice shields, eleven walls of fire, nine stone walls, and six wind barriers. But every time she shattered one, Kushina instantly replaced it with another element. When a wall of fire broke, an ice shield rose; when an ice shield broke, a stone wall erupted from the ground; when a stone wall broke, a shadow barrier enveloped her; when the shadow barrier shattered under the vibrations, the flow of time suddenly distorted, slowing her punch by half a beat. Nine elements, nine entirely different kinds of power, nine methods of attack and defense that worked together and complemented one another.
"This is practically the power of the Nine Tailed Beasts combined..." A trace of disbelief entered Tsunade's