Chapter 132: 1 < 1+1+1+1
"Watch carefully."
"This is how you use a staff."
The Adamantine Staff dropped into "Sakura's" hands — just the right weight, just the right thickness. One sharp command and it extended, catching the Raikage square in the chest and launching him backward.
The Raikage's expression darkened. He moved to grab the shaft —
— and it had already retracted. "Sakura" planted it against the ground, and in the same instant it shot upward dozens of meters, carrying her into the sky.
The Raikage launched himself up after it. The staff contracted from the bottom end — lightning fast — and "Sakura" was already twisting in the air, both hands on the shaft, green eyes bright and feral, and with a shout she let it extend again.
Straight down.
The Raikage's pupils shrank.
BOOM.
The earth didn't crack. It split.
Monstrous strength, the Adamantine Staff, airborne momentum, full rotation — the combined force drove a fissure through the ground. The Kumogakure ninja standing in a ring around the two combatants — who hadn't dared intervene — were knocked off their feet by the shockwave. Four or five of them went down.
"Boss!"
Darui shouted over the ringing in his ears.
They had to stop.
The Raikage's arrival at this front had been a covert arrangement. That was gone now — he'd been visible to every set of eyes in the area from the moment he engaged. The man's cover was completely blown.
The plan had been to recover Yugito. Instead Yugito was still captured, Shi was dead, and now the Raikage himself was standing in the middle of the battlefield while the Konoha main force was advancing.
The army needed its Raikage commanding, not brawling with one of the enemy's students out of grief and rage.
If killing her was the goal, that could be arranged properly afterward — bring in Killer Bee, execute the AB Formation, finish her with the combined Lightning Plough Hot Knife in an instant. Clean. Controlled.
This was not that.
Sakura watched herself fight the Raikage from the third-person perspective she'd found herself in, and felt profoundly strange about it.
This was the second time. But the last time had been brief — she hadn't had a chance to really observe. Now she could.
And watching, she started to understand what Inner Sakura actually was.
Original Sakura's consciousness plus original Sakura's split personality plus her past life's will plus this life's will, all fused into one aberrant existence.
Awkward to put into words, but roughly:
Haruno Sakura (canon) + Inner Sakura (canon) + herself (past life) + herself (this life) = Inner Sakura (aberrant)
She'd inherited everything from the Sakura of the Ninja War timeline — including the split personality, in the most complete sense of the word inherited.
Four separate mental forces compressed into one body.
It was well established in the canon that Haruno Sakura had a natural talent for genjutsu. And genjutsu talent was a function of mental strength — spiritual energy.
Yin Release.
Inner Sakura.
What was controlling her body right now was her own Yin Release given form.
Chakra was produced by combining physical energy and spiritual energy — Yang Release and Yin Release. When one of those became drastically dominant, what happened?
The balance broke.
And out of the body's own self-preservation mechanism—
Inner Sakura had been born.
Because the spiritual energy was so overwhelming, its control over the body was finer and faster — able to react to things the conscious mind couldn't process in time.
And because it had grown up alongside her, everything she knew, Inner Sakura knew too.
What she needed was stronger Yang Release. Restore the balance.
Come to think of it — in the later parts of the original story, Inner Sakura disappeared entirely. That was probably exactly this: taking Tsunade as her master, training medical ninjutsu, Yang Release growing stronger over time and inadvertently resolving the imbalance.
And because the master was Tsunade, genjutsu never entered the curriculum. An Yin Release this powerful — just quietly left to wither.
What a waste.
Sakura watched her own body and Inner Sakura trade blows with the Raikage, and her expression darkened.
Uchiha Itachi had probably recognized this for what it was back then.
She really didn't want to admit it, but in the specific domain of genjutsu, Itachi was likely the single greatest practitioner in the ninja world. The only name she could think of that might surpass him was Uchiha Hagoromo, who had created Izanami centuries ago.
On the command platform, Jiraiya surveyed the churning mass of two armies below him, his expression calm.
He'd lived through the Shinobi World Wars. War didn't move him the way it once had.
This sudden offensive served two purposes — breaking the deadlock, and buying time for Sakura's group.
He hadn't known what Kumogakure was planning. But with Kurenai's information confirming the Raikage had arrived at the battlefield in secret, his response was simple: stop waiting and act. Stir the water. Whatever scheme they were running, their main force was pinned here and couldn't go anywhere.
The Two-Tails had been captured. The Raikage was tied up by Sakura. According to Kakashi — who had arrived, delivered his report, and immediately departed again with a small squad toward Sakura's position — Darui was there too.
The white-haired man rubbed his chin.
Then he vanished from the platform.
He reappeared in the center of the battle, moving through it like water — jutsu and shuriken and kunai filling the air around him, a nearby Kumogakure ninja dispatched without breaking stride.
He tilted his head. Caught a kunai spinning from somewhere in the chaos with one hand. Drew it across his palm.
Blood welled up.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Not one summoning beast.
Three.
Mount Myōboku's trio.
Gamabunta. Gamaken. Gamahiro.
Three enormous toads materialized on the battlefield simultaneously, and for one suspended moment — silence.
Every set of eyes on that field recognized them.
One of the Sannin. Jiraiya himself, entering the field personally.
The Konoha side erupted.
The Kumogakure side went very quiet.
One of the Kumogakure ninja who knew the Raikage had arrived looked involuntarily toward Dodai standing on the opposite command platform.
Commander. Jiraiya just showed up. Where's our Raikage?
Dodai looked at the sun sliding toward the horizon.
"Prepare to with—"
The word draw hadn't finished forming when a blast of violent lightning split the air from the distance, throwing up a wall of dust as it came.
"THE RAIKAGE!"
"Lord Raikage is here!"
"He's arrived!"
The Kumogakure side found its voice again — and then almost immediately lost it.
Because the Raikage standing before them looked...
The golden bracers he never removed were battered and half-destroyed. Half his face was smeared with dust and dried blood. His white shirt was in tatters.
And there was something in the air around him that was hard to describe.
A weight. A grief. Something that hadn't been there before.
(Chapter End)
☆☆☆
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