Chapter 54.3- Gamer of the Desert

She danced out of the way of the next two attacks he sent and then equated down to avoid a stream of high pressured water that cut through the building behind her. She really hoped Shizune was doing her job because she’d be pissed if this fight ended up killing even m ore citizens of Konoha. She reared back her fist and slammed it into the ground, disrupting her opponent’s footing. That was all the opening she needed to blitz him and land another powerful punch to his midsection this time. She felt the bones break beneath her feet as he flew off into the distance. She chased further, knowing that things had never and would never be that easy with Shinobi of his caliber.

She was proven right as she found him waiting for her at the point he’d been tossed to. She spotted the handle of the blade retracting from being wrapped around his hand to the shape of a normal blade handle. So that was how he’d been doing it then. Because she’d known for sure that her first attack had to have done some damage.

“You hit hard. Let’s see how hard you hit in the water” He said, and then began to weave seals.

Nope. She told herself and then jumped right at him. He abandoned the seals in favour of lifting his sword to block her attack, and then she felt it when her fist impacted the blade. It was like she was suddenly hit with a wave of dizziness. She felt drained. She could feel it in her chakra network. Like half of it was just gone at once. Her opponent smirked, and then brought his sword to bear at her.

She jumped backwards. At least, she tried to. She was too slow. A second later, she was on the ground and could feel several weeping wounds all around her body.

“For a second there, I’d feared that you were somehow able to resist Samehada’s drain. Just needed a second to kick in, I guess” He said with a smirk that she felt the urge to wipe off his face. What was going on?

She forced herself to her feet, ignoring the lightheadedness. Surely the blade couldn’t drain that much chakra so quickly.

“I can already see the thoughts written right on your face. You’re wondering how it’s possible for me to drain your chakra quick quick like this. I’ll tell you since you’re already about to die anyway, Tsunade Senju. They call me the tailless tailed beast for a reason. Even without Samehada, I have enough chakra to compare with a tailed beast. That means that from the day I got her, she has been feeding on my chakra consistently. That gives her one hell of an appetite, you see? Samehada never gets full. But she can get starved. When we first clashed, I hadn’t anticipated your power, so I used Samehada in her normal state, and you managed to overpower me. But then I made a decision to dial things up a notch. You see, since all the chakra in Samehada is mine, I can have her return it at any time. And that makes her very empty, and very hungry. Bye bye, Tsunade Senju” He said, walking towards her and raising the sword.

She swallowed and forced her body to cooperate with the limited amount of chakra she had. She lifted herself backwards on her hands and used them to boost her jump backwards. She landed on her feet and began to rack her mind for a solution.

A solution that she wouldn’t be getting the time to think up as he ran right at her. She took up her stance and dodged out of the way of the first swipe, and then stepped backwards to avoid the next two. The fourth one was a downwards slash that he overextended on. She took the chance. Dodged out of the way, and then stepped into his guard before he could bring the sword around. She lashed out with a punch and timed the explosion of her chakra to perfectly coincide with the second her fist landed.

“Twack” The punch landed on his chest. Beyond the dull sound, there was nothing to show for it. Samehada came around intent on encircling her. She looked at the shark-like weapon and jumped upwards to avoid the trap.

There was nothing she could think of. No way to avoid the creature’s chakra drain. If even his main body could absorb chakra just by virtue of being connected to the sword then there was no way to fight against him while avoiding the drain. “Who says you need to avoid it?” A voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like Uncle Tobirama whispered. It was the same voice that helped her come up with all her best plans.

Samehada could absorb chakra. Absorb, not nullify. That was important. Kisame Hoshigaki claimed the blade had no limits on its capacity, but she knew that could not be true. Her Granduncle was the smartest man to ever exist, and everything he’d taught her about chakra told her it was impossible. Everything had a limit. The question now became, ‘would she be able to find it?’ Kisame said he had the strength of a tailed beast, but she could sense his chakra. Not nearly as much as the Nine tails in Naruto. It was about twice as much as what Naruto had when he was drawing on Four tails of the Nine tails chakra. Each tail scaled exponentially, so that was only about Six tails worth of chakra.

Did she have that much? Not right now. But in her seal, probably. She’d funnelled all her extra chakra every single day for close to three decades uninterrupted. She hadn’t had to open the seal since the end of the Second War. Thinking of how much time had passed since then almost gave her a headache. Either way, she could feel how much chakra she had in there. More than she’d ever sensed before.

Enough? Maybe. It would have to be.

He started walking towards her again and she closed her eyes for a second while forming the Ram seal. “Strength of a hundred seal: Release” She intoned.

A/N; Did I steal the basic plot of this from All Might vs Nomu? Hell yes. Can't wait to have Tsunade popping off in the next part of this chapter.