Entering her standard form with blade pointed to her side, Naruko stared at her opponent who was slightly off-balance due to the loss of an arm. Despite this, the one-armed man returned the stare with eyes that of a predator, all playfulness from earlier gone. She could tell that the man was taking her seriously despite the fact that she was genin, though it made sense after her earlier display of power. If she could cause so much destruction with a single shot from her bow, who knew what she could do with a sword. He could feel Zabuza focusing his attention on Kuro, possibly intrigued by the strange design and on alert from the strange stance she was taking.
It was a given since she had developed it herself after countless bouts with Itachi and Sasuke. Kuro wasn't a single-edged sword like most on the Elemental nations nor was of the shape of any double-edged swords, meaning that creating her own style was the best way to go as opposed to using a style meant for other types of swords.
"Is there anything about you that is normal?" He deadpanned.
"Nope." She simply said, earning a chuckle from the swordsman. Naruko didn't know how the swordsman could be so nonchalant about the loss of an arm, but she guessed that the missing-nin was prepared for such wounds since he decided to become a Shinobi.
"Enough of that now, block THIS" He yelled the last word and dashed forward at a frightening speed, sweeping his sword from the side. It was slightly off target, possibly due to his center of gravity being off due to the less of an arm, but it was accurate enough.
She brought Kuro to the side to guide it away from her instead of blocking. Despite being strong, she wasn't going to risk a contest of strength where she couldn't utilise Kuro's weight shifting ability since she was on the defense.
Before she could even think about counter-attacking, another Zabuza swung again, this time aimed to decapitate her. She crouched before she had to dodge yet another swing.
Fast! She thought as she continued to dodge strikes, not finding any room to begin her offensive. She gritted her teeth in frustration as her fighting style was not designed for continuously defending, and her stamina was being chipped away slowly.
This was Zabuza's goal, to not give her the chance to attack. He had most likely figured from the shape of the sword that it wasn't made for defending but for repeated attacks, and was trying to kill her without giving her to use any gimmicks she might have.
Fortunately however, Zabuza stumbled slightly on one of his swings due to his right hand not being present to stabilise him. Realising his mistake, he immediately pulled back, but it was too light.
"NOW!" Kurama called as Naruko jumped up and brought her blade down at the giant sword in Zabuza's hand, increasing the weight to 1000x an instant before the two blades collided.
"[Weight of the World]!"
The earth shook as the ground beneath Zabuza caved along with the ground within a ten meter radius. Cracks appeared within the earth and spread from the area of impact towards the corners of the clearing and into the nearby forest. Zabuza's feet buckled slightly as his remaining arm bent from the force. She could see that his hand was trembling under the weight, and in an instant he retreated before she could cripple his only remaining hand. Looking carefully, she could see Kuro had managed to dig halfway into Zabuza's sword in the short exchange.
Naruko could audibly hear two jaw's drop from behind her, most likely from Haruto and Kushina. She had actively used chakra this time unlike her battle with the masked man a year ago, increasing its power and efficiency. The attack was extremely cost-effective, as she barely used any stamina for it due to the fact that the strength behind it was mainly from the weight-shifting itself, but its weakness was that she could only use it with a downward swing whilst she was airborne, or else she would either: 1) lose her balance completely. 2) crush herself from the weight or .3) damage herself more than the enemy.
Despite this, it was incredibly effective against enemies who were unaware of Kuro's property, as it would 9/10 times completely crush the enemy if they were caught off-guard.
Zabuza, however, didn't seem to be taking chances, and had fully focused all his strength on the block, most likely cautious that she would pull something like the arrow earlier.
That was what had saved his life.
"You know kid, are you just the Kyuubi in disguise or what?The ears, tail and strength all kind of fit." He said in a completely serious tone as he stretched his leg. His words actually had merit to be honest, and nobody present could question it even if she said the claim was correct despite how absurd it may seem.
"He's not going to give you the chance to do that again, you need to end this quickly or else you'll lose in the long run if he keeps going on the offensive." Kurama said and she nodded in agreement.
She slammed her sword into the ground again, causing a cloud of dust to form around her, blocking her from Zabuza's vision. Using her hearing senses, she confirmed that Zabuza was still stationary in anticipation of an attack from any direction, and used the chance to charge up an attack.
Gathering all her tails to a single point above her head, black and negative white chakra began to gather from the surrounding air and slowly began forming a dark ball. She could hear collective gasping from her team behind her, who could still see what she was doing as they recognised the attack she was using. In fact, it would be strange if the three of them DIDN'T recognise what she was about to do.
As the ball formed, the pure power energy being emitted from it dispersed the cloud of dust, revealing Zabuza who was still in his defensive stance. His eyes widened as he saw what she was doing.
"I thought this was a kenjutsu duel you brat!" He shouted.
"I proposed a duel, not a kenjutsu duel, I'm still playing within the rules, your fault that you accepted." She replied with a foxy grin, face strained slightly from the amount of chakra being used.