Chương 78: A Spar.

"Scared Retsu-san?" Haruto taunted.

"Oh? And why would I be scared, Haruto-kun?" Unohana asked softly, her smile widening but her eyes narrowing. Haruto chuckled and spoke softly, "Aren't you afraid of creating another stunted child?" Unohana's eyes widened slightly as her hands trembled, but it was too late for her to wallow in her emotions. Haruto threw up his fingers to form hand seals as he spat out a fireball that went hurtling towards her.

'I know her abilities well… but she doesn't know me well enough yet…'

'This is a blind fight for her, so the best I can do is take her by surprise while she's still figuring out what's going on.' Unohana's eyes widened when the fireball flew at her with great speed at such a short distance when she was already distracted. Yet she responded to the new kind of attack with practiced ease. With a simple flicker Unohana's body left after images that made it seem like the fireball passed right through her! The fireball however wasn't a simple one!

Haruto had predicted the direction in which she would dodge before she even dodged! As such, the pretimed explosive in Haruto's fireball, a tenketsu filled with fire release chakra, exploded! And it changed the fireball's trajectory along with it! The fireball broke off into a small piece as part of it exploded and shot off in the direction Unohana had just landed in a surprise for her. Unohana smiled as she watched Haruto for a second before flickering once again with a nearly inaudible buzz!

The fireball detonated and covered the rather short battlefield in dust, shrouding both Haruto and Unohana and robbing them of their main advantage, sight. Unohana remained still in the dust cloud, her eyes closed to prevent any dust from getting into them as she heightened her focus on the battlefield.

"Is that all you've got, Haruto-kun? If so, it's disappointing." Haruto smiled softly and retaliated.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm just getting started… I was holding back to test you out… but I guess I can let some of my true power show now." With Unohana closing her eyes Haruto didn't form any hand seals anymore and simply spawned a clone beside him. They split off immediately into two opposite directions, running around Unohana in a circle before attacking sharply from opposite directions. Haruto punched right at Unohana's head while the clone swiped down at her legs.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Despite keeping her eyes closed, Unohana's retaliation was sharp and on the spot. Her scabbard holding sword swung out backwards and attacked the clone while her free hand snaked around Haruto's hand and grabbed his collar to achieve two things at once, to prevent Haruto from forming any further hand seals and also to control his further movements.

Both the scabbard and the hand found their targets, only Unohana felt something wrong about them at the last second, her instincts screamed at her as she tried to jump backwards to dislodge herself from the trap Haruto had seemingly laid down for her. Except, Haruto wasn't going to let his prey slip out so easily. Without even a command, the clone lunged at Unohana's scabbard and gripped it tight as if its life depended on it.

At the same time, Haruto pulled out a kunai from his tools pouch and lunged towards the caught Unohana. In spite of the surprise, Unohana's reactions were sharp, in an absolute show of strength, she wielded the scabbard held by the clone and smashed it into Haruto causing all air to be knocked out of his lungs, yet she wasn't done! Clenching Haruto's collar tight, Unohana swung him up and then hurled him towards the ground!

Haruto was about to be thrashed when he somehow managed to react just in time to prevent himself from being wounded, without forming any handseals since one of his hands was blocked by Unohana, Haruto spat out a small but extremely hot fireball right at her face! He had used the small size to reduce jutsu casting speed, reducing it by two thirds entirely! Unohana felt the excessive heat swimming towards her face and patiently released Haruto from her grip allowing him to safely roll away after hitting the ground.

With her now free hand, Unohana didn't even speak before releasing a flash of glowing thick long yellow rope from her hands that clashed with the fireball and wrapped it around and contained the ensuing explosion within it.

'Bakudo #4 Hainawa!' Haruto recognised. At its core it was a defensive kido to bind an enemy with a reishi rope to stop their movement, but in Unohana's hands they had been used to bind the fireball to prevent its explosion from escaping outside. Haruto spun around a few times while rolling but managed to stop eventually where he pushed himself up and stood back up again. Only, as soon as he was outside the range of the planned explosion, he detonated his clone!

'Explosion!!' BBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!! A large explosion cloud went up in the air as it obscured Unohana's figure. Megumin stretched out her hand to rush into the fight to save or even warn Unohana but Edward held her back adamantly. Haruto however didn't wait for the dust to settle, as soon as he was on his feet, Haruto extended his hand in the form of a finger gun, "Bang."

Another explosion rose into the air that was ever larger than before since Haruto had put plenty of chakra into the explosion without skimping on it at all. Sweat beaded on Haruto's forehead as he nervously stared at Unohana's figure that was becoming clearer and clearer through the dust.

"You went tough on a healer Haruto…" Edward said but Haruto's focus was still fixated on Unohana's hazy figure in the dust cloud.

'She's perfectly alright…' Haruto mumbled in disappointment when he noticed that Unohana wasn't even breathing hard. The dust cloud soon cleared and Unohana became visible to everyone, she was surrounded by two boxes, both were green but each seemed to be serving different purposes.

The larger green box which surrounded her fully had protected her from the explosive clone and the ensuing explosion while the smaller green box wrapped around her arm seemed to be healing a cut that had opened in the rush when Haruto's kunai had scratched her lightly while he was pushed away by her.

"That was quite the surprise Haruto-kun." Unohana said calmly, "You've forced me to defend myself twice." Haruto stayed silent, his mind going through several possibilities about where this fight was headed but he couldn't bring himself to speak up. Eventually Unohana's hands slipped to the top of her scabbard. With a slight pressure from her thumb, the sword that had been sheathed within it slid open singing sharply as the blade was exposed!!

"It's about time I get serious." Unohana said softly, her eyes narrowing and her lips widening into a grin. But before Unohana could move, Haruto shouted out loud!

"Stop!!! I surrender!!! You wi-" Haruto froze mid words since Unohana's blade was already at his neck, she had flickered to his location at some point in time, the green shields had vanished and her haori was swaying in the wind. Gulp. Haruto gulped dryly and then smiled with sweat slipping down his face.

"You won… Unohana-san."