In the semi-darkness of the underground room, blue-coloured chakra glowed faintly under the soles of Sakura's sandals— she was crouching upside down on the ceiling of the subbasement, gazing attentively at Kakuzu, who was slowly strangling the life out of her Shadow Clone.
Sakura crept closer and quietly unsheathed the Manyuu blade, waiting for her chance to strike. Her knuckles still ached from when she had punched Kakuzu in the face, so she wasn't especially eager to repeat that particular experience…
"I'm starting," came Shino's voice through Sakura's earpiece.
Unbeknownst to Neji, Hidan and Kakuzu, Shino's Kikaichū parasitic insects had been continuously streaming into the room through the hole Sakura had made in the ceiling, since the moment she had entered the fray.
"What the!?" yelped Hidan. "What are— ouch! — these things!?"
Once they had grown sufficiently numerous, the Kikaichū swarming around Hidan's and Kakuzu's feet had begun climbing up their legs, getting under their Akatsuki robes and biting at every available centimetre of exposed flesh— and unfortunately, the pain of a thousand tiny bugs nibbling at his ankles had snapped Hidan out of Sakura's Genjutsu.
Tiger! Snake! Rat! Snake! Tiger
"Stand still," said Kakuzu, who was rapidly forming hand seals, seemingly unbothered by the thousands of insects crawling around in his trousers. "Water Style: Water Wall!"
Kakuzu spat out a torrent of water from his mouth, which rapidly accumulated in volume until it had formed a veritable tsunami. The gigantic wave of water rammed into Neji and Hidan, sweeping them off their feet and slamming them into the walls at their backs (along with Shino's poor insects and everything not nailed down).
Unfortunately for Neji, he had still been trapped within Sakura's illusion when he was struck by the wave, and as such, he was unable to react. Neji's head was dashed against the hard rock surface of the subbasement's walls, causing him to immediately lose consciousness. With a plop, his body slipped under the water's surface, where he would undoubtedly drown without outside help…
At that moment, Sakura was sorely tempted to use the Chidori to electrify everyone standing in the waist-high (and still rising) pool of water, but she quickly dismissed the idea— by sticking her hand in the water, especially since she would be the source of the current, she would only be short-circuiting herself!
In the end, Sakura settled for Wind Style— since the Rasenshuriken had been sufficient to finish off Kakuzu in the original timeline, Sakura supposed that it would only be fitting to finish him off with Naruto's nature— the sheer sharpness of her chakra would surely be sufficient to cut through whichever Ninjutsu Kakuzu was using to harden his skin against external trauma, in her opinion.
"Wind Style: Vacuum Blade!"
Sakura took a deep breath and exhaled a roiling mass of greenish-white chakra onto the Manyuu Blade, before flipping off the ceiling and swinging her sword at Kakuzu's neck. It was a shame that she'd have to ruin the element of surprise by using such concentrated chakra on her blade, but her sword would probably bounce off her opponent's armoured skin without it.
"A Shadow Clone? You must have swapped places after punching me," said Kakuzu, immediately sensing Sakura's fierce chakra fluctuations over his head. "I've fought against your First Hokage, the God of Shinobi himself— the tricks of you Leaf shinobi mean nothing before my eyes."
From the way he was phrasing it, Kakuzu was implying that he'd been evenly matched with Senju Hashirama, and that since he had outlived him, he was the superior shinobi.
However, that was far from the truth!
When Kakuzu had tried to assassinate the First Hokage, he had indeed been a splendid Jōnin, but he'd been so far beneath his target's notice that Hashirama had felt sorry for him and spared him on a whim.
At the time, Kakuzu hadn't even started practising his signature Jutsu, the Earth Grudge Fear!
Kakuzu snapped the Shadow Clone's neck, and the instant before she struck, the painful feedback of memories travelled back to the original, throwing off her aim. Sakura's blade penetrated Kakuzu's neck like a hot knife through butter, but she failed to completely cut off his head— it was still hanging on by a thread!
Nonplussed, Kakuzu grabbed his own head and slammed it back into place on his shoulders. The grey tendrils wiggling eerily in his neck and torso reached out to each other, and they quickly knitted themselves together.
And just like that, Kakuzu was as good as new, and Sakura instantly knew that she had picked a fight that she couldn't win.
While Sakura possessed Wind Style and Lightning Style Jutsu that could break through Kakuzu's Earth Style hardening technique, the nonagenarian was surprisingly sprightly for his age. Just like Sakura, Kakuzu was an all-rounder— but the difference between them was that he'd had ninety years to perfect his craft, while Sakura had only had less than a year.
Kakuzu had more chakra than Tsunade, knew as many Ninjutsu as Kakashi, and had access to all five elemental natures, just like the Third Hokage. Furthermore, he was virtually immune to Genjutsu and low-level Taijutsu thanks to his Earth Style and his strange body, forcing Sakura to compete with him in Ninjutsu.
However, if Sakura tried to hit him with Ninjutsu, Kakuzu would simply use a Ninjutsu of the opposite Nature to counter hers— since Sakura lacked techniques and the Earth Style nature transformation.
It was simply no contest!
That is, unless she pulled out something big like the Rasenshuriken…
"What the hell, Kakuzu!" Hidan yelled angrily, as he popped out of the water, spitting out mouthfuls of murky fluid. "Watch where you're aiming, you bastard!"
Hidan was also fine— Kakuzu's Water Style had drowned Shino's Kikaichū. If both of Sakura's opponents started fighting together, she wouldn't stand a chance against them, even with Shino and Karin backing her up.
"How am I supposed to do my ritual now?" Hidan shouted at his comrade, completely ignoring Sakura's presence. "There's water everywhere, you idiot!"
He reached under the water and pulled out Neji, whose lips were beginning to turn blue due to oxygen deprivation— He wouldn't be able to sacrifice Neji to Jashin, if he wasn't the one to send him to the Shadow Realm!
"Retreat!" Sakura shouted into her microphone. "I'll take full responsibility for abandoning the mission!"
And having said those words, Sakura gathered chakra into her legs and leapt out through the hole in the ceiling, before running out of the building and into the vast plains of the Land of Fire, holding her heavy breasts under her left arm to stop them from jumping and sloshing about.
Kakuzu immediately jumped out of the subbasement and ran off in pursuit of Sakura— his precious seventy million ryō were making a break for it!
"Understood!" came Shino's and Karin's determined voices in response.
Just now, Sakura had uttered the code phrase they'd agreed on previously— which meant that the Neji Retrieval Mission wasn't over just yet!