Chapter 109: This Is a Gift from Heaven!
"Hey. Why are you staring like an idiot? I'm talking to you."
Inner Sakura looked at the real Sakura — fixed to the cross — with an expression of genuine puzzlement at the lack of immediate response.
Sakura's mind was running at full speed. She arrived at her answer almost instantly.
"Can you get me out of the Tsukuyomi?"
Inner Sakura looked her over. The smug expression that followed was approximately nine thousand percent confident.
"Is that all you think this is?"
"Watch. A Tsukuyomi. Please."
!!!
In that instant, Itachi felt something he had not felt in a very long time.
A lethal warning.
Real world.
A fist tore past his hairline with a sound like shearing metal.
Itachi had released the Tsukuyomi himself — deliberately, a fraction of a second before whatever was about to happen inside it happened — and pulled back.
If the Tsukuyomi were broken from the inside by force, the feedback damage could be catastrophic. He'd made the calculation and chosen retreat.
"Oh?"
"You actually dodged?"
"...I'll give the weasel credit for that one."
Inner Sakura rolled her neck. The vertebrae cracked. She looked at the man in the black-and-red cloak with a smile that had no caution in it whatsoever, and walked toward him.
Itachi's eyes narrowed.
Something had changed. The person in front of him now moved differently. Occupied the body differently. Like a second driver had taken the wheel.
The other personality. From the Tsukuyomi.
CRACK.
The ground exploded beneath her feet. She launched herself at him — light bending around her movement, a streak more than a person.
Itachi's Mangekyō had no equal for observation. Pure reflex took over. He twisted out of her path at the last possible instant.
"Not bad!"
Inner Sakura's grin was absolutely unhinged. The failed rush didn't slow her down for a fraction of a second — she was already loading the next strike, chakra building in her fist, and she drove it straight into the ground.
The full weight of Enhanced Strength, unrestrained, connected with earth.
BOOM.
The riverbank simply stopped existing.
Embankment. Stone. Packed earth. All of it erupted upward and outward simultaneously. Itachi landed on the water's surface with his footing suddenly uncertain.
Behind Inner Sakura, a large shape rose from the disturbed water.
"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique!"
The dragon rose — twenty, thirty meters of it, eyes blazing red — and roared toward her back.
"You're calling that a dragon?"
"Apologize to every dragon that has ever existed, you absolute disaster."
She didn't turn to face it. She didn't look at Itachi behind her either. She just leaped — straight at the dragon — the chakra beast-head blazing on her fist, and hit it head-on.
BOOM.
Water. Everywhere. A wall of it, driven by wind from the impact, flooding the entire area in a sudden drenching rain.
Itachi's hands were already moving through seals.
Her back was completely exposed.
"Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique!"
The fire dragon launched from his mouth, eating through the rainfall, closing the distance to her undefended back.
She felt the heat approaching.
The grin got worse.
The diamond mark on her forehead ignited — purple light, the Yin Seal opening fully. Black lines spread down her face, her neck, across her body.
She turned.
"Heavenly Foot of Pain!"
"Die."
Kisame had surfaced.
She kicked him.
CRACK — BOOM.
The section of river ceased to be a river. The banks on both sides shattered. Trees came down. The earth itself fractured in both directions. For one instant the riverbed was visible — bare stone, river water gone, drained by the violence of the impact.
"Kisame!"
Itachi felt his scalp crawl.
Kisame dying was one thing. But he'd walked into Konoha without authorization. Explaining this to Pain was going to require some creativity.
And then — the Great Dragon Fire connected with Inner Sakura's back.
The drenching rainfall put it out almost immediately.
Inner Sakura looked down at the scorched flak jacket. She peeled it off and dropped it in the water without ceremony. She tore away the sleeve on her left arm — burned through, useless. Reached into her pouch, produced a kunai, and cut away the sections of hair that the flame had curled and damaged.
Pink strands drifted down to the water's surface.
She didn't look at them again.
Itachi watched her and felt something sharper than the tactical concern.
This isn't Sakura Haruno.
This is whatever lives underneath Sakura Haruno.
Clinically speaking: a dissociative personality. Or something that functions like one.
He had no reason to keep engaging with this. The situation was already a disaster — the noise had been catastrophic, Konoha's forces were converging on this location, and he needed to be gone before that became a problem.
Kisame was in the water. He could see Samehada's movement beneath the surface, heading away from the village. Alive, then. Retreating.
Inner Sakura shook her head. Ran a hand over her shorter hair. Seemed to find this deeply satisfying.
She looked at him.
"Well?"
"Want to go another round with me?"
Itachi's eyes narrowed fractionally.
She's letting me leave.
Inner Sakura's mouth moved slightly. Just slightly.
Itachi looked at her for a long moment — then turned and left without another word.
Inner Sakura watched his back disappear and made a sound of contempt.
If he weren't still useful, she'd have summoned Enma ten minutes ago.
She glanced at the pink hair floating on the water. Walked toward the bank without looking back.
"Sakura!"
"You're—"
Karin stopped.
She'd come back with backup. She'd been running the whole way. And the person standing by the river had short pink hair and a missing sleeve and looked almost but not quite like the person she'd been worried about.
The backup Karin had brought arrived half a step faster.
Tsunade studied the figure in front of her with a frown that was doing a lot of work.
Wrong. Something is twelve kinds of wrong here.
She knew Sakura. If she had to put words to her read of the girl — usually there was intelligence under the confidence. Awareness of limits, even when she didn't show it. A certain quality of calculation behind the eyes.
What was in front of her now had kept the confidence and removed everything else. Or rather — turned the confidence up past where confidence ended and something else began.
Those green eyes looked at Tsunade with open assessment, the way you'd look at something you were deciding whether to bother with.
"What are you staring at, big chest?"
Tsunade's frown deepened into something more specific.
"How did you grow up like this?"
"This defies science."
!!!
"EXCUSE me — this is a GIFT FROM HEAVEN!"
(End of Chapter)
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you