A low hum buzzed in Sakura's ears, growing ever louder as the bandaged boy rapidly drew near. In another half moment, he would be upon her!
"Manyuu-style Kenjutsu: Breast Guarding Stance!"
Holding out her blade in front of her, Sakura immediately corrected her stance, having been put off balance after having been forced to dodge Kin Tsuchi's senbon. But now, as long as she maintained this stance, she would be able to parry and counterattack in a single fluid movement!
The bandaged-face boy drew back his long sleeves, revealing a strange-looking metallic vambrace full of holes on his right forearm; if Sakura was remembering things correctly, his equipment could amplify ambient sounds to ear-shattering levels, which was what had brought down Rock Lee in the original story.
Speaking of which, where the hell was Lee!?
Dosu's sonic attacks targeted the eardrums and the inner ear, upsetting one's sense of balance through the semicircular canals. So, in theory, as long as Sakura didn't hit his noise-amplifying gauntlet, or at the very least, kept her ears away from it, she would be fine.
However, that was easier said than done…
Bandage boy was now upon her, forcing Sakura to make a split-second decision. He swung his armoured fist at Sakura, but she immediately parried the attack with her blade, knocking his forearm aside with a resounding CLANG.
Seeing as she had put an additional sword's length of distance between her ears and her opponent's noisemaker, Sakura had thought herself safe from the sonic feedback…
But unfortunately for Sakura, as her brain screamed at her arms to move, she quickly found them to be unresponsive to her commands; her upper limbs were trembling uncontrollably. Her sword had transmitted the vibrations from the boy's gauntlet to her hands and arms, causing her muscles to seize up for the half-second she needed to strike back, effectively stopping her from transitioning from defence to attack.
At the very least, Sakura's sense of balance was intact, since she had blocked his gauntlet with her sword from a distance. Sound travels much better through solids (such as Sakura's sword) than gases (such as the air), so putting some distance between her ears and the gauntlet had indeed not been the worst decision that Sakura could have made.
The sounds that the gauntlet produced were loud, but not unbearable at range. Furthermore, most of the high-frequency oscillations she had picked up through her sword had ended up getting dispersed in advance through her arms' blood vessels and muscles, instead of travelling along her skeleton and up to her inner ears. Sound travels well through dense media, but it will be damped if the structures it travels through are highly irregular, such as living flesh!
However, unfortunately for Sakura, the Manyuu blade was now emitting a high-pitched metallic whine; it was resonating with the boy's gauntlet like a tuning fork. Sakura was forced to plant her sword in the ground and leave it there to disperse its energy; it was completely unusable in its current state, since it kept humming and ringing loudly, worsening her headache and making her dizzy.
But that was just a minor setback; Sakura didn't mind being forced to give up her weapon momentarily. After all, Sakura wasn't a samurai! Her sword wasn't her life; it was just a tool! Shinobi used the right tools for the right jobs; she would have just as readily abandoned her sword if she had been facing a Lightning Style user!
"Nice going, Dosu!" his male teammate called out to him as he skidded to a halt behind Sakura, aiming both of his palms at her. "I've got her now!"
The bandaged boy named Dosu jumped back, giving his teammate a clear shot at her, but unfortunately for them, Sakura's temporary paralysis only affected her arms!
The air rippled; the other boy had just shot a jet of pressurized air at her through the holes in his palms. Sakura jumped and flipped to relative safety in Dosu's direction, just barely avoiding the sonic blast, which exploded harmlessly against the dirt.
Harmlessly to her, that is; that was the main thing. The dirt got off much worse.
"Careful where you aim those things of yours, Zaku!" Dosu cried out in annoyance.
Upon hearing the distinct peal of Kin Tsuchi's bell senbon, Sakura immediately transitioned from her somersault into a forward roll the instant her feet touched the ground, and not a moment too soon, as a dozen needles planted themselves in the spot where she had just landed.
Sakura had pretty much guessed their attack plan by now:
Dosu acted as both tank and crowd control, drawing enemy attention by attacking first and paralysing them with his gauntlets, while Zaku was the main damage dealer, with his pressurized sonic blasts. As for Kin Tsuchi, she had the role of an assassin.
At first, putting bells on senbon might seem like a stupid idea, but by using such weapons, she could lull her foes into a false sense of security; even if their backs were turned to her, they would still hear her attacks. So, once she was sure that her opponent had forgotten about her, she would switch to bell-less senbon for a silent and lethal strike!
Still on the ground, and making sure to keep Kin Tsuchi in her field of view, Sakura kicked at Dosu's shins, trying to sweep him off his feet with her right leg, but the boy jumped in the air to avoid her attack. Then, as gravity pulled him back down, Dosu swung his armoured fist down at her, putting all of his downward momentum behind his strike!
Fully aware that his special gauntlet weapon magnified and amplified all of the sounds it produced, Sakura leapt to her feet and pre-emptively jumped backwards, jamming her fingers into her ears, right before Dosu smashed his gauntlet into the ground; to avoid having her legs paralysed from the earthquake-like shockwave and having her eardrums ruptured by the ear-splitting:
BANG!
Sakura removed her fingers from her ears just in time to hear a jingling sound; more senbon were now flying towards her. It seemed that as long as Sakura kept an eye on her, Kin Tsuchi would never swap to regular senbon.
Even so, Kin was still aiming to kill with her bell senbon, and annoyingly, she was also specifically choosing to throw her senbon at Sakura when she happened to be in midair, when it was difficult for her to dodge!
"Substitution Jutsu!"
The senbon needles embedded themselves in a wooden stump that had appeared in Sakura's place with a poof of white smoke, and Sakura reappeared a short distance away. The air shimmered, and Sakura ducked under Zaku's next sonic blast, taking the opportunity to snatch up her sword from the ground where she had planted it.
Wondering why the enemy's tank had stopped applying pressure on her, Sakura glanced at Dosu. He seemed to have stunned himself with his last attack, which had apparently been so loud that it had bypassed whatever gear he used to protect himself from his own vibrational attacks. Probably earplugs?
'SHANNARO!' Inner Sakura shouted. 'Finally, an opening!'
"Cover me," Dosu grunted, and Zaku ran to his side to protect him in his moment of weakness.
Unfortunately for them, Sakura was not going after Dosu, but after Kin Tsuchi! She had had enough of being harassed by the girl's needles, so Sakura summoned chakra to her feet and flickered to her side. Using the Body Flicker in combat was fairly risky because of the rapidly evolving state of shinobi fights, but thanks to the Yellow Flash's reflexes, Sakura had no trouble adjusting after abruptly changing locations!
"Wha—!"
Surprised at Sakura's speed, Kin Tsuchi swiped at her with a handful of senbon, but Sakura batted her hand away, turning on the spot in a semicircle and bringing her sword around in a wide arc through her opponent's chest:
"Manyuu-style Kenjutsu: Breast Execution!"