Chapter 570: Nine-Tails
"Wait!"
His butt had just touched the ground when Sasuke Uchiha suddenly shouted.
Something was wrong!
Although he was so exhausted that he just wanted to lie aside and rest well, leaving everything for Sakura-kun to handle, Sasuke still subconsciously thought about some things...
"You are..." He leaned on a nearby rock to stand up, glaring at the girl high above. "No, you're not Sakura-kun!"
"You're that clone with the Sharingan!"
Sakura Uchiha was currently using the Mangekyou to subdue the Nine-Tails. Hearing this, she slightly tilted her head and smiled helplessly: "Couldn't it be that Haruno Sakura temporarily swapped in a Sharingan?"
Sasuke completely ignored her words, his expression suddenly sinking: "Where is your original body, Sakura-kun? Where is she?"
He wasn't relying on Susanoo and the Sharingan to distinguish Sakura-kun from her clone at all!
Sasuke just felt that the clone's demeanor and tone didn't resemble Haruno Sakura herself.
Even though they had an almost perfectly identical appearance!
But Sasuke could just recognize it.
"And here I thought I could fool you!" The girl curled her lips and said, "To think I even specially imitated the original's tone and demeanor... Alright, the answer is revealed-"
"I'm right here."
Haruno Sakura walked out from behind the girl, interrupting her nonsense.
Her body was still extremely weak, requiring her to lean on the other Sakura to stand firm, yet her eyes were piercing and full of spirit.
The moment he saw her, Sasuke understood why Sakura had just hid aside and not met him.
"You're injured!"
Sasuke looked straight at her, his brows suddenly furrowing deeply.
"I ran into Pain and had a fight with him. In that kind of battle, getting injured is inevitable." Sakura avoided his gaze, subconsciously reaching out to scratch her hair.
She spoke lightly, but the aftereffects caused by that battle were far from that simple.
At the end of that battle, when she used Ice Body Flicker to escape from the vicinity of the detonating nuclear bomb, her movements were one-thousandth of a second too slow.
In that one-thousandth of a second instant, she faced a detonating nuclear bomb at close range!
What does it feel like to take an atomic bomb to the face?
The intense radiation destroyed everything on the girl's exterior within 0.001 seconds and seeped into her body.
Haruno Sakura only had time to feel a piercing pain before falling unconscious.
When she appeared before Katsuyu the Slug Sage, she was completely naked, more than half of her hair was scorched, half of her body was burned, and large patches of her skin were blackened and reddened. She looked less like a human and more like a charred lobster.
Fortunately, she had already lost consciousness at that time.
And even more fortunately, such a brief amount of time was not enough for the atomic bomb to truly harm a powerful ninja. After receiving personal treatment from Katsuyu the Slug Sage, Haruno Sakura's external injuries quickly recovered.
But her hair couldn't grow back in a short time, and the scars on her body hadn't completely faded either.
Thus, what appeared in Sasuke's eyes was the image of a weak and disheveled girl with shortened hair, riddled with scars and wrapped in bandages.
Actually, she wasn't so ugly as to be unpresentable.
It could even be said that with short hair, her hesitation and slight lack of confidence actually added a bit of naive charm and cuteness to her.
However, compared to her temporarily changed appearance, the more serious problem was how to deal with that tyrannical radiant energy inside her body.
"I remember you saying," Sasuke reacted extremely quickly, immediately recalling the story of Hoshigakure, "that the Mysterious Peacock Method was developed specifically to absorb this kind of radiant energy."
"That's correct. But..." Haruno Sakura's expression was stern as she slowly shook her head.
The Mysterious Peacock Method combines radiant energy with chakra to produce an activated chakra with various powerful and practical characteristics. It could easily condense into physical entities and transform into different chakra forms, which seemed to be the answer to the problem. However, Haruno Sakura couldn't use this method.
Because the radiant energy in her body was more than what the majority of Hoshigakure's people absorbed in their entire lifetimes combined!
The Mysterious Peacock Method simply couldn't harness such a powerful force!
"Yes, I said that before..." She lowered her eyelids and said in a low voice, "A long time ago, I planned to use the Mysterious Peacock Method and Sage Mode as references to develop an advanced secret technique of Sage Mode. This happens to be an opportunity; I can take this chance to cultivate-"
"Cough, cough cough!"
Halfway through her words, Haruno Sakura suddenly covered her mouth and went into a violent fit of coughing.
The energy on her body fluctuated violently. Suddenly it became extremely weak, like a dying person, and then suddenly it became extremely strong, strong enough to make the heavens and earth change color!
When the girl calmed down and released her hand, Sasuke clearly saw a trace of blood at the corner of her mouth, looking shockingly distinct against her pale, almost transparent skin.
"Don't push yourself too hard," the other girl turned her head, looking at the original with worry, holding her hand and saying, "You should head back to the Shikkotsu Forest to heal first!"
Haruno Sakura shook her head gently but firmly.
"I can still hold on a little longer..." she said slowly, her voice very soft. "At least let me deal with Naruto's matter! Otherwise, I won't be able to heal and train with peace of mind at all..."
"Release the genjutsu trapping the Nine-Tails. Blindly suppressing it with violence won't solve the problem. Let me talk to it..."
"Even doing what I did couldn't make it obedient. Wouldn't releasing the genjutsu make it even harder to handle?" Sakura Uchiha frowned slightly and mumbled a complaint, but still obediently released the genjutsu.
Sure enough, the moment the Nine-Tails broke free from the genjutsu's restraint and saw Haruno Sakura, it angrily opened its mouth, wanting to unleash a Tailed Beast Bomb!
"Roar!"
Sakura Uchiha raised her delicate eyebrows: "Haven't suffered enough, have you? Get down for this young lady!"
A blue light flashed in her eerie eyes, and the windmill-like pupils spun once. The wildly thrashing Nine-Tails lost all strength in its body and collapsed limply, pinned to the ground by a single stomp from Susanoo!
Hmph!
The girl snorted coldly in disdain.
The Mangekyou Sharingan completely and utterly countered the Tailed Beast. In front of those eyes, the Nine-Tails had no room to act wildly!
If it weren't for the fact that the Nine-Tails' body still wrapped around Naruto's body, she truly wanted to give it a severe beating until it submitted!
"Have you calmed down?" She released the genjutsu again and asked coldly.
"You damned brat..." The awakened Nine-Tails struggled frantically, roaring angrily from its mouth, "To actually dare use the Mangekyou Sharingan's genjutsu on me, I will definitely kill you, I'll tear your corpse into ten thousand pieces-"
The two girls exchanged a glance.
Sakura Uchiha's face showed a hint of anger. Susanoo responded to its master's emotions, and the force of its foot increased by a few degrees, stomping the Nine-Tails' head straight into the dirt, turning the latter's murderous threats into a series of unintelligible whimpers.
"Have you calmed down?" This time it was Haruno Sakura speaking, her clear and cold voice ringing out from above. "Or do you prefer being a beast that refuses to communicate? We can humor you to the very end!"
Susanoo slightly released its foot.
This time, the Nine-Tails finally stopped trying to attack the girls.
After being violently tormented a few times, it finally learned to suppress its anger in front of Haruno Sakura.
It was a Tailed Beast after all, not a wild beast.
"Haruno Sakura... you clearly don't possess the bloodline of the Uchiha clan!" The Nine-Tails looked gloomily at the two people overhead and said coldly, "Why do you possess a Mangekyou Sharingan!"
"My time is limited, so don't ask such stupid questions!" Haruno Sakura glared at it and replied, "Haven't you seen Kakashi?"
Kakashi... while inside Naruto's stomach, the Nine-Tails had naturally seen him, countless times.
But Kakashi's Sharingan compared to Haruno Sakura's was a completely different matter! With just a light glance, it had lost consciousness... even among pure-blooded Uchiha, there were exceedingly few Sharingan capable of controlling it so easily!
The girl's eyes reminded it of that man from a long time ago.
As well as those unpleasant memories.
"Listen well, Nine-Tails!" Haruno Sakura continued, "I demand that you withdraw from Naruto's body right now!"
"Do you care about that brat a lot, little girl?" The Nine-Tails bared its teeth, revealing a mouth full of sharp fangs, and sneered.
"What if I do?"
"Then, I refuse!" The Nine-Tails said resolutely!
"What did you say?!"
Two pairs of eyes with icy gazes fell on the Nine-Tails simultaneously.
One pair was the Mangekyou Sharingan that it deeply feared; the girl's icy stare pricked its body like needles.
The other pair were emerald-like eyes, devoid of visual prowess, yet strangely, they brought an even stronger sense of oppression to the Nine-Tails!
However, the Nine-Tails was an old monster that had lived for hundreds and thousands of years after all. It had killed countless people and had been killed by countless people. This level of killing intent was not enough to make the Nine-Tails afraid!
"I said..." Feeling the pressure from Susanoo's foot becoming increasingly astonishing, the Nine-Tails still sneered with unconcern.
"I refuse!"
Bang!
The Nine-Tails was stomped straight into the dirt by Susanoo!
"If you have the guts, kill me!" The Nine-Tails' voice came out intermittently from the dirt, still as untamed and full of killing intent as ever, "If I die, I will continue to resurrect after a period of time; but if Naruto Uzumaki dies, he will die forever!"
"Bastard!" Sakura Uchiha gritted her silver teeth in anger, "You're courting death!"
"Hahahaha!" The Nine-Tails laughed maniacally in the dirt, "You don't dare to kill me, you don't even dare to hit me, because Naruto Uzumaki's body is still inside me!"
"Nine-Tails," amidst its maniacal laughter, the Nine-Tails suddenly heard Haruno Sakura's familiar clear, cold, and calm voice transmitting from above, "You don't really think that we have no way of dealing with you, do you?"
The Nine-Tails' laughter abruptly came to a halt.
"You should know that every pair of Sharingan has its unique ability." Haruno Sakura still spoke unhurriedly, "And this pair of Sharingan of hers has mastered a unique genjutsu called Kotoamatsukami."
Even though the weather wasn't cold, the Nine-Tails suddenly shuddered.
"The ability of Kotoamatsukami can completely change the thoughts of the one hit by this jutsu, modifying a person's will just like editing text!"
"For example, I can modify your intense hatred for humans, Nine-Tails, into an uncontrollable affinity and friendliness towards humans, and make you view Naruto as your eternal master!"
Susanoo released its foot.
The Nine-Tails slowly crawled up from the ground, no longer laughing maniacally, its face just gloomy as it stared fixedly at Haruno Sakura.
It knew that Haruno Sakura wasn't lying to it.
"I will repeat this one more time, Nine-Tails," the girl said coldly, "Return Naruto's body and consciousness!"
[Typing at night is truly too exhausting. I typed this chapter from 10 PM to 4 AM, coughing blood. I had absolutely no inspiration, used the longest time to produce the worst effect, and consumed the most energy...]