Kaguya had indeed learned to wield her power more effectively after her trip to a parallel world.
She had always stood at the pinnacle of the world. The only true battle she'd ever fought had been against the Sage of Six Paths and his brother. For someone who had possessed supreme power from the very beginning, there was no need to refine combat skills. In contrast, someone who climbed their way up from weakness to the peak would naturally accumulate far greater battle experience, even if their raw strength was the same.
Kaguya had entered the parallel world severely injured, her remaining strength barely hovering at the Six Paths level. She could hardly even use her signature techniques, Amenominaka, Yomotsu Hirasaka, and the like.
But even in that desperate state, she had managed to reclaim her power.
And through that painful journey, she had learned how to fight, step by step.
Now, Kaguya stared intently at Kaede. Her highest-grade Byakugan pierced through his body, sensing the surging, stormlike chakra within. But instead of simply thinking about what move to use, she was analyzing his weaknesses, thinking about how to create an opening.
Ssst!!
In the next instant, she moved.
The All-Killing Ash Bones in her palm shot forward, vanishing into a Yomotsu Hirasaka rift, only to reappear behind Kaede in a flash.
Swish!
Kaede's figure flickered, dodging her strike with ease, and then, without warning, reappeared directly in front of her, driving a fist toward her chest.
It wasn't space-jutsu.
It was pure speed.
Kaede's movement was so fast that even Kakashi, watching through the eyes of his Rinnegan, could barely perceive a strange blur, he couldn't track the exact motion at all!
"So fast!"
Shock flashed through Kakashi's eyes.
Since awakening the Rinnegan, he had rarely encountered anything that could escape its vision. Even back when Kaede wiped out multiple former Kage in the Sand Village, Kakashi had been able to analyze that terrifying speed.
But now,
Even with the Rinnegan, he still couldn't follow Kaede's movements!
It wasn't that the Rinnegan wasn't strong enough, nor that Kaede had always been faster than it could perceive. It was that over the years, Kaede's speed had grown even faster!
"To reach this level and still be able to push your speed further... he definitely wasn't this fast back then," Kakashi murmured in disbelief.
Now he understood why Kaede told him not to interfere. With speed like this, Kakashi wouldn't be able to help, he'd only get in the way. If he couldn't even see Kaede's movements, he couldn't provide support, and using space-jutsu carelessly might even be exploited by Kaguya.
Then,
Kaede's punch landed.
Though it seemed like a simple strike, the moment it was thrown, it warped the surrounding space. Kaguya couldn't react in time and was struck directly.
BOOM!!!
Her chest was blown open, half of it vanishing instantly as she plummeted from the sky like a meteor.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!!
Her body crashed through five or six glaciers in a row, shattering them into clouds of glittering ice shards before finally coming to a halt.
Her ruined body twitched, then instantly regenerated.
"This speed and power..."
Even with her immortal body, Kaguya's heart sank. The speed and force Kaede had just displayed made it nearly impossible for her to find any opening.
Without hesitation, as soon as she recovered, she launched another barrage at him. Her fists pounded upward toward Kaede.
Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack!
This time, the barrage was even more overwhelming than what she had unleashed against Kakashi. Kaguya was going all out, pouring every drop of her chakra and strength into the assault.
The sky darkened under the weight of the attack. Even before the fists reached him, the air itself seemed to compress with pressure. The howling wind knocked Sakura off balance atop the glacier, sending her flying backward with chunks of shattered ice.
Swish!!
Kakashi's eyes gleamed. He vanished with a space-jutsu and reappeared beside her, grabbing her by the collar mid-air.
"Ka-Kakashi-sensei..."
Sakura couldn't even be embarrassed about being carried like a kitten. She stared up at the sky, heart trembling as she watched the storm of fists fall toward Kaede.
Earlier, when they had been shielded by Kakashi's full-body Susanoo, she, Sasuke, and Naruto could only see the barrage, they hadn't felt its true force.
But now,
Out here in the open,
She felt it.
Just the shockwaves were enough to take her breath away. The oppressive force made her feel like a tiny boat lost in a raging sea, about to be crushed at any moment.
Naruto and Sasuke, standing on another glacier, were equally overwhelmed.
But then,
Something even more shocking happened.
Facing the incoming barrage, far larger and more fearsome than anything before, Kaede merely clenched his right fist and swung it forward casually.
"Evening Elephant."
BOOM!!!!
The air itself surged like crashing waves as visible shock ripples exploded outward.
A colossal shockwave, many times larger than Guy's Evening Elephant, erupted from Kaede's punch. It was at least ten times the size!
Kaguya's Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack collided with that massive white beam of energy, and was instantly overpowered and destroyed in a thunderous boom that split the heavens.
Swish!
Kaguya's eyes narrowed. But she had been prepared. As the white beam approached, she didn't panic, instead, she vanished into Yomotsu Hirasaka.
When she reappeared, it was behind Kaede. In both hands, she held All-Killing Ash Bones, slashing them toward his back.
At the same time,
A massive bone spear erupted from her back, lined with countless bone spikes that instantly transformed into even more Ash Bones, flying straight at Kaede.
But that wasn't all.
She also used Amenominaka to distort space itself, making it harder for Kaede to escape with his own spatial abilities. Her white hair whipped toward his legs, trying to entangle him.
And yet,
Kaede's expression didn't change at all.
To the naked eye, his body seemed to flicker, almost as if time skipped, and in the blink of an eye, he was no longer facing away from her, but staring her down directly.
Then, Kaede simply raised his right hand and punched forward.
From Kakashi's Rinnegan perspective, dozens of fists suddenly appeared in front of Kaede. They didn't seem especially powerful, but each one distorted space itself.
CRASH!!!
Kaguya's hair, her twin bone blades, even the volley of Ash Bones, were all shattered in an instant.
Her body, too, exploded into fragments of white matter, disintegrating like wet clay into countless chunks, scattering in every direction.
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Completed version available on Patreon.com/Veltoria