Chapter 108: Inner Sakura in the Tsukuyomi
"Water Release: Thousand Hungry Sharks!"
The seals completed. Dozens of water-formed miniature sharks launched themselves at Sakura in a churning mass — and Kisame was standing in water, which meant they kept coming, an endless supply of them, blotting out the horizon.
Itachi stood to the side and thought.
Coming back to Konoha had been an impulse, more than anything — a product of the chaos, the war, the shifting political situation. He'd wanted to make his presence felt. To remind Hiruzen that he was still alive, that the promises made still stood.
But the weapon in Sakura's hands had planted a different thought.
Sasuke always came first. That didn't change.
Sakura reached into her pouch without urgency and produced a single shuriken.
Kisame's eyes, still full of malice, flickered with something like amusement.
One shuriken? One?
"Shuriken Giantification Technique!"
"Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique!"
She didn't hold back. Not against Kisame.
Enhanced Strength fed into both techniques simultaneously. The single shuriken became a black cloud of spinning steel that tore through the shark swarm in an instant — and then the blades kept going, straight toward Kisame like a storm that had found a destination.
Wind howling. Water screaming. Everything in the path of that black rain got shredded.
Kisame dove underwater rather than take it.
Sakura stopped watching him. She turned.
Itachi was already moving.
Something's wrong.
The thought arrived before she could articulate why. Something about this. Him, body-type forward, closing distance when Kisame was right there — it didn't fit.
Her fist came out anyway. He ducked it — fast, low, almost impossibly quick — and his hands blurred through seals at that same inside distance, point-blank, no room to breathe.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
No space to dodge. The fireball was forming directly in front of her face.
She didn't dodge.
She raised her other hand.
Chakra flooded it — the beast-head manifestation of Enhanced Strength flaring to life, massive and immediate.
"—HAAAH!"
The chakra-formed construct hit the unfinished fireball and crushed it before it could fully ignite. The follow-through kept going, aimed at Itachi's head.
If that lands—
It didn't land.
Itachi didn't move.
The punch connected — and he dissolved into crows. Hundreds of them, filling the air, scattering in every direction.
Genjutsu. When did—
The crows vanished.
The slug in her collar had already responded — its presence shattered the visual layer immediately.
Sakura's mind snapped back—
A hand closed around her throat. She hadn't registered him flanking her. The momentum carried her backward and slammed her into a tree, bark cracking behind her head.
Her eyes sharpened, ready to counter—
She looked up into a pair of red eyes.
Tomoe like shuriken.
Tsukuyomi.
The world changed.
Black sky. Red earth. Her own body drained of color, grey-white, fixed to a cross she couldn't move from. She pulled against the restraints and nothing happened.
"Give it up."
Itachi's shape appeared in front of her.
"This is my world."
His voice was flat. Not cruel — simply stating a condition.
"Time. Space. Both are mine to control here."
"However long you spend in here, outside it's only been an instant."
"So don't expect your summon to help you break out."
He'd noticed the slug during the actual exchange. But to break someone out of a genjutsu, you needed to first realize they'd been caught — and Tsukuyomi happened between one heartbeat and the next. There was no interval to react to.
He was done talking. A blade materialized in his hand. He looked at her with the expression of someone completing a task.
Cat clan weapon. Close relationship with Sasuke, therefore.
Serious injury in the Tsukuyomi. Sasuke learns of it. Hatred intensifies.
Kill her — no. She's Hiruzen's disciple. Sasuke would be alone in a harder way, and the path Itachi had cleared for him would become more difficult.
Injure her badly. That was the calculation.
The blade moved toward her chest.
"Don't comfort yourself with the thought that it's just a genjutsu."
"Pain in the Tsukuyomi is real. Completely indistinguishable from the real thing. So—"
Sakura's eyes were bright with something that wasn't fear.
Kakashi had taken this and stayed conscious. She had the Yin Seal and medical ninjutsu and years of chakra control. There was no universe where she handled it worse than Kakashi.
The blade was almost there—
Itachi stopped.
He stared at his own hand.
His wrist had been caught.
A white, slender hand was locked around it. Holding it completely still.
"Oh, honestly."
"I can't believe you need me to show up personally for this weasel."
"Embarrassing."
In a world defined by grey-white and black sky and red earth, a color that had no business being there materialized between Itachi and Sakura.
Vivid pink. Faintly luminous, like something lit from within.
A girl who wore Sakura's face and Sakura's clothes looked at the real Sakura — pinned to the cross — with an expression of profound theatrical judgment.
"You—!"
Sakura stared at the figure. Her mind reached for the explanation.
Inner Sakura.
Itachi looked at the intruder in his own technique and experienced something he had not felt in years.
Confusion.
The Mangekyō Sharingan was the pinnacle of Yin Release. Its genjutsu drew on that nature to create a bounded world — absolute, unbreakable by anyone without equivalent spiritual power. Equivalent Yin Release.
And something had just walked through the boundary of his Tsukuyomi.
Disrupted it from the inside.
This is Sakura Haruno's Yin Release?
He thought about Hiruzen.
Is this why you took her as your student?
Yin Release strong enough to interfere with the Mangekyō's genjutsu?
(End of Chapter)