Chapter 215: The Dragon Veins, and One's True Nature
The needle-like sensation in Sasuke's eyes receded like a retreating tide. A warm force soothed both eyes, and even the ocular power he'd just burned through was slowly, gradually restoring itself under that warmth.
What is this...
As the warm sensation faded, Sasuke — using Susano'o for the first time — slowly opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was Sakura.
"That was..."
Sasuke looked at the familiar pink-haired girl, hesitant.
That had to be one of Sakura's techniques — but the fact that it could restore Mangekyō ocular power was frankly unbelievable.
"That's Yang Release. Think of it as an upgraded version of medical ninjutsu."
Sakura wasn't remotely surprised that Yang Release could restore Mangekyō power.
After all — how had Uchiha Obito been able to spam Kamui without consequence? Because the massive quantity of Hashirama cells in his body granted him more than enough Yang Release energy to burn through freely.
Sakura's own Yang Release, while not yet on Hashirama's level, had one advantage Hashirama's didn't: Hashirama was dead, and Sakura was alive.
If a dead man's Yang Release could produce results like that for Obito, then it stood to reason that Sakura — alive, and wielding Yang Release, whose very nature was healing — could restore Sasuke's ocular power just fine.
Hearing this, something clicked in Sasuke's mind.
So the problem of insufficient ocular power... is basically solved?
Does this mean he could just casually slap Susano'o on anything from now on, even a stray dog?
Sakura noticed Sasuke's thoughtful expression and her mouth twitched. She had a rough idea what he was thinking.
Whatever. It was just a bit of Yang Release chakra.
Sakura had plenty to spare.
Fire at will, Gundam.
"Sasuke!"
"You okay?!"
Naruto came running over, fussing over Sasuke with obvious concern.
Sasuke, expression completely blank, planted his palm directly on Naruto's face and shoved him away.
He still had a score to settle with this idiot!
Sending Sakura off to evacuate civilians — what was he even thinking?
Sakura ignored both of them and walked, step by step, toward Mukade, still lying in the wreckage.
Mukade was in rough shape. He'd taken a Sage Art Giant Rasengan head-on. If not for the Dragon Vein's protection, that hit alone would have killed him outright.
Shinobi as a class were high-damage, low-durability creatures. Aside from outliers like Hashirama Senju, Sakura, or Orochimaru, even Uchiha Madara could be sent to an early grave with a well-placed kunai to the throat.
And Mukade was just a puppeteer, on top of that.
"You dead yet?"
Sakura nudged the man — sprawled on the ground and playing possum — with her foot.
Mukade fought through the searing pain in his chest and cracked his eyes open. The moment he registered that distinctive shinobi-world-unique pink hair, his eyes went wide.
"F-Fif— Fifth Hokage..."
"Good eye."
Sakura crouched, laid a hand on his chest, and let emerald light bloom from her palm, healing his wounds.
Mukade resigned himself completely.
The Hokage. Here. In person.
What had he ever done to deserve THIS honor?
His voice was quiet, but it made Minato — who'd walked over by now — pause mid-step, his expression shifting slightly.
The Fifth Hokage...
A sixteen-year-old Hokage.
He suddenly remembered what Pinky had said earlier, during their fight.
"I'm the boss of Konoha's shinobi."
So that hadn't been idle bravado. It was literally true?
"What should we do with him?"
Minato suppressed the shock inside him and walked over slowly.
"He's still useful to me. I'm taking him with me."
Sakura glanced at Minato, then returned to healing Mukade.
"You know sealing techniques, don't you?"
"Seal off his chakra first."
Minato didn't argue. He stepped forward and began preparing a chakra seal for Mukade, though he stole another look at Sakura as he worked.
So young...
"What are you staring at?"
Sakura caught his gaze and spoke.
"I just never expected the Hokage twenty years from now to be this young."
At his words, Sakura stood, stopping her healing, and spoke with mild indifference:
"What, even you fall into that shallow line of thinking?"
Minato looked at the girl radiating vitality before him and gave a wry, apologetic laugh.
"That was careless of me. Someone who becomes Hokage at this age could never be an ordinary teenager."
As the Five-Element Seal locked into place, Mukade's chakra came under Minato's control.
"What's your plan going forward?"
Minato stood, looking at the pink-haired girl.
"Explore the Dragon Veins. And you?"
Sakura made no attempt to hide her interest in the Dragon Veins.
"To avoid disrupting the future, I'll place a seal on myself — and on all of you — to erase memory of this period."
So Minato really was exactly the Minato Sakura remembered.
"Even if it means your death?"
"Even if it means my death."
Minato nodded firmly.
"Suit yourself. Though honestly, sealing just your own memory would be enough. What harm could it do if people in the future knew about the past?"
"Besides — I doubt Naruto wants to forget you."
Sakura gestured toward Naruto, standing with Sasuke and Kushina, watching this exchange with a complicated expression.
Minato looked at Naruto, hesitant, feelings too tangled to voice.
"Forget it... As long as you keep watch over the Dragon Veins and prevent people from the future coming back to disturb things, that's enough."
In the end, Minato abandoned the idea of sealing memories in Sakura's group.
"Lord An Lushan!"
Just as the conversation was winding down, a red-haired girl burst into view.
"Princess."
Minato stepped forward, blocking Sara's path.
"Who ARE you people?!"
"What are you going to DO to Lord An Lushan?!"
Sara's eyes darted to Mukade lying in the wreckage, panic rising in her chest.
Her mother was dead. An Lushan was the only person she'd ever truly trusted.
"Princess Sara. Please, calm down."
"According to intelligence I've verified myself, your mother was killed by An Lushan."
"He has also been continuously enslaving the citizens of Rōran for his own purposes, without pause."
Minato regarded the girl with steady calm.
"That's IMPOSSIBLE!"
Sara shook her head wildly, refusing to believe a word of it.
Sakura had no interest in staying for this. She turned to Naruto, Sasuke, and Kushina.
"Naruto, we're short on time. Stay here."
"Sasuke, Kushina — help Minato with the cleanup."
None of them objected. Sakura vanished from the spot.
Alone, Sakura walked through the empty Dragon Vein palace, surrounded by over a hundred puppets standing sentinel.
But with Mukade defeated and his chakra sealed, the puppets — no longer under anyone's control — simply stood motionless.
She stepped onto the platform built above the Dragon Veins' origin point and gazed down at the churning, liquid-like mass of pure chakra below.
It looked like a pool formed entirely from an inexhaustible convergence of chakra.
Sakura paced along the wall encircling the origin point, emerald eyes contemplative as she studied the phenomenon before her.
Looking at the chakra-soaked stone, she extended her hand and plunged it into the origin point.
The instant her palm made contact, her brow furrowed. Something felt wrong.
Beyond the unmistakable, colossal chakra reserves, there was something else — countless traces of...
Life force!
As a master of Yang Release, Sakura immediately recognized the presence of extraordinarily pure vital energy.
Her frown deepened. A knot of unease formed in her chest.
This so-called "Dragon Vein" wasn't at all what she'd imagined.
She'd assumed it was some kind of naturally sacred site, akin to the Three Great Sage Regions.
But—
She pressed her lips together and plunged her hand back into the origin point, closing her eyes to focus.
Flowers. Grass. Trees.
Plants. Animals.
Countless traces of living energy.
And—
It was growing. Constantly. Without pause.
Sakura's eyes snapped open. She yanked her hand back like lightning.
This is NOT a Dragon Vein!
This is a Death Formation of unimaginable scale!
It drew in every trace of surrounding life energy and pooled it here — masquerading as a wellspring of blessing, when in truth it was a reservoir of "corpse-water" formed from the deaths of countless living things.
No wonder this entire region was desert!
Because the Dragon Veins had drained it all!
Sakura stared at the beautiful, shimmering purple liquid before her and felt a chill run through her.
The more beautiful something is, the more poisonous it tends to be.
The shinobi world did have barrier formations of its own kind. The Four Violet Flame Formation, the Four Crimson Sun Formation, the Heaven-Covering Formation — these were techniques Sakura knew intimately.
And how had barrier formations first come into being?
Gifted individuals had discovered naturally occurring anomalous points in the world and, inspired by them, developed formation techniques from their observations.
And this so-called Dragon Vein — this was one of those naturally occurring anomalous points!
Drawing every trace of surrounding life force into a single convergence point.
Over centuries, over millennia, land that should have been lush oasis had been drained of its life force, one drop at a time, until it became barren desert.
The thought made Sakura's frown deepen further. She reached into the Dragon Veins once more.
Heaven-Covering Formation — ACTIVATE!
As her sensory barrier technique bloomed to life, Sakura's consciousness surged through the Dragon Veins and the network of conduits Mukade had installed, sweeping across the entirety of Rōran.
She saw Naruto nearby, still talking with Minato.
She saw Sara, slumped and defeated, having just learned the truth.
She saw Rōran's citizens, whispering among themselves in the underground chamber, staring at the now-inert puppets.
Then, following the Dragon Vein's naturally formed, almost artistically perfect pathways, her consciousness raced outward — a thousand li in every direction!
At this point, Sakura's mind reeled with shock.
The Dragon Vein's life-force absorption radius...
It encompassed nearly two-thirds of the ENTIRE Land of Wind!
Everywhere her consciousness reached — desert. Nothing but desert.
This was simply—
Sakura felt a genuine chill of horror.
She withdrew her hand and released the Heaven-Covering Formation, her consciousness returning.
Sakura's expression turned grave as she looked at the Dragon Veins before her.
This was terrifying.
Earlier, she'd been considering replicating this beneath Konoha. Now, that idea was completely off the table.
Looking at the beautiful, deceptive origin point, Sakura's thoughts churned. She deliberated for a long time.
Structures like this — formation-type phenomena — were typically extremely precise. Disrupt any single point, and the entire thing would grind to a halt.
Now a question confronted her.
Destroy the Dragon Veins, or preserve them?
If she destroyed them, all that accumulated life force would naturally begin flowing back out as the anomalous point vanished. Whatever it had absorbed, it would have to release.
The desert would eventually bloom again around the Dragon Veins' epicenter, potentially transforming the Land of Wind into a resource-rich region comparable to the Land of Fire.
But—
The Land of Wind's Hidden Sand Village was Konoha's enemy.
Even with the current non-aggression treaty in place.
Who trusted a piece of paper like that, really?
Sakura fell into deep thought.
Destroying the Dragon Veins felt like handing resources to a potential enemy.
After a long while, Sakura left the Dragon Vein palace.
"Sakura — where'd you go off to?"
Naruto asked curiously, having noticed her long absence.
Sakura ignored him and instead turned to Minato, her expression complicated.
"Want to talk?"
Two heads are better than one.
Right now, the only person here with the strategic perspective suited for a decision like this was Minato — even though he hadn't yet ascended to the Fourth Hokage's seat.
Minato blinked, surprised, but seeing the furrow in Sakura's brow, nodded.
They hadn't known each other long, but he'd already recognized this girl had her own clear convictions.
For someone like that to need to talk something through with him — it had to be something significant.
Atop a nearby rooftop, the future Fifth Hokage and the soon-to-be Fourth Hokage stood side by side, gazing out over the thriving city below.
"That's the situation. Any thoughts?"
Sakura laid out everything about the Dragon Veins.
Minato was both shaken by the horror of what the Dragon Veins truly were, and genuinely surprised by Sakura herself.
He'd assumed a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old would carry the typical adolescent bravado of that age.
The Dragon Veins were terrifying, certainly — but according to Sakura, that unimaginably vast reservoir of life energy was undeniably real.
Life energy. What was that, fundamentally? Something that spoke directly to the essence of life itself.
Minato had seen with his own eyes the Yang Release technique Sakura had used to heal Sasuke.
This pink-haired girl was without question a master of Yang Release.
And Yang Release was inextricably tied to life energy.
Yet here she was, not scheming to claim the Dragon Veins for herself — but genuinely weighing whether to destroy the anomaly and return that life force to the Land of Wind.
"Doesn't it tempt you?"
Minato voiced his curiosity.
"It does."
Sakura nodded honestly.
With that much life energy, her Yang Release cultivation would leap forward by unimaginable margins.
"Then why—"
Minato wanted to see, truly, what kind of person this future Fifth Hokage really was.
"I..."
A flicker of hesitation crossed Sakura's eyes.
Absorbing that much life energy would undoubtedly accelerate her Yang Release growth. That much was certain.
But what consequences might follow — she had no way of knowing.
To some degree, the shinobi world operated on the primacy of will. Especially at the level of the Six Paths.
Uchiha Obito had lost control of the Nine Tailed Beasts within him precisely because his resolve wavered upon stepping into Sage of Six Paths Mode.
And carrying this much life force meant carrying an unfathomable weight of accumulated will.
Just thinking about it was frightening.
"Using someone else's life force to grow stronger — that's fast."
At this thought, something unreadable flickered through Sakura's eyes.
"But..."
"Every step of my journey, I've used my own fists. Every ounce of chakra I possess is mine, and mine alone."
That's right.
That's exactly right.
Why would Haruno Sakura ever need to borrow another life to accomplish anything?
Can I really not do this on my own?
Without that life energy, I can STILL crush everything in my path!
Every enemy she'd faced, and every enemy she might yet face, flickered through Sakura's mind one by one.
Orochimaru. The Two-Tails. The Raikage. The Kazekage. The Mizukage. The Akatsuki. Uchiha Obito. Uchiha Madara. The Ōtsutsuki...
Countless faces surfaced in her memory.
Without that life energy, I can still crush everything in my path!
The thought rose in her once more.
And having personally sampled the benefits of using another's life force...
It was like flour to an addict — once you tried it, you couldn't stop.
And if she absorbed that life energy, what would separate her from those Ōtsutsuki aliens?
They planted trees that drained a planet's energy to bear chakra fruit. She'd be absorbing life energy from an anomalous point — sampling this shortcut to power once, and who could say she wouldn't manufacture more Dragon Veins artificially down the line?
Human nature couldn't withstand that kind of temptation.
For some reason, Sakura found herself remembering something Tobirama had once said, back when he'd been guiding her Yang Release training as a reanimated corpse.
She wanted to throw one punch and shatter everything.
Now, without the Dragon Veins — could she still do that?
No.
I can.
I'm capable.
I can do this.
"I don't need it."
Her tone was calm, matter-of-fact.
"Why would I need to rely on external means?"
"Are you underestimating me?"
The girl looked at Minato with perfect composure.
As though stating the most obvious fact in the world.
Clear-eyed self-knowledge. Unwavering commitment to one's true nature.
Minato stared at the girl before him, astonishment written plainly across his face.
Absolute self-trust. Refusing, categorically, to let external forces influence who she was.
He'd clearly sensed her hesitation moments earlier — but he hadn't expected her to steady herself so completely, so quickly, and walk away from what amounted to an overwhelming temptation.
That kind of conviction. That kind of iron-clad, unshakeable will.
"Genius" wasn't a strong enough word for this.
She was someone who trusted herself absolutely — a devotee, in a sense, following her own unwavering faith.
Except the object of her worship was herself.
If she lived long enough, her future in the shinobi world would be...
No.
"Shinobi world" was too small a frame to describe it.
She would become one of the brightest stars in the entire flow of history. And after her, countless others would walk the path she'd carved.
"No."
Minato pushed down the storm raging inside him and spoke with calm composure:
"It's not that I underestimate you. It was only ever a suggestion."
A pity — I probably won't live to see how brilliant she becomes.
A note of quiet regret settled in Minato's heart.
"That said — to avoid disrupting the future, you might consider destroying the Dragon Veins only after you've returned to your own time."
"After all, no one knows what might happen over the next twenty years if you destroy it now."
Sakura nodded at this.
"Fair point."
"Heh. Well, at least this gives the Land of Wind something good to look forward to."
"Something good" was an understatement — it would be a salvation for every person in the entire nation.
The Land of Wind had always suffered from a desperate scarcity of resources, most of its territory nothing but desert. Once the Dragon Veins were destroyed, however many decades' worth of accumulated life force would come pouring out all at once. It wasn't hard to imagine — before long, the Land of Wind could become one of the most resource-rich territories in the entire shinobi world.
Sakura departed.
She left with Naruto, Sasuke, and Kushina, taking Mukade with them.
Leaving Rōran. Leaving these twenty years in the past.
Behind her, an unending fountain of chakra continued spilling countless traces of life force across the desert.
On the surface, this mission appeared to have yielded nothing beyond Mukade.
But only Minato — twenty years in the past — and Sakura, in the present, understood exactly how much she'd truly gained from this journey.
Steadfastness in oneself. Fidelity to one's true nature.
No matter what, never letting one's core convictions waver.
Every path taken, every choice made, unquestionably her own.
This was not something power alone could ever produce.
It was something far more precious than power.
"SAKURA!"
"WHERE have you been running off to all this time?!"
The moment Pinky stepped back into the Hokage's office, a roar erupted, instantly shattering her composed expression.
Looking at Homura, bellowing like an enraged lion, Sakura felt a bead of cold sweat trickle down.
"Uh, ha, hahaha, Elder Homura, let me explain..."
She tried to placate him while simultaneously shooting a desperate, pleading glance at Tobirama nearby.
Tobirama spread his hands helplessly.
As Hokage, disappearing for this long — there was nothing he could do to cover for that. It simply wasn't possible.
"EXPLAIN what?!"
"Do you even understand your own position?!"
"Your STANDING?!"
Homura had been through absolute hell these past several days. He'd assumed the new Fifth Hokage — young as she was — would understand the gravity of her role.
Instead, less than two months into office, she'd pulled a full-on disappearing act.
As Konoha's elder, he'd been running himself ragged this entire time.
If something like this happened again, Homura felt certain it would take years off his life.
Could she PLEASE spare a little consideration for a seventy-year-old man?!
"Uh, I know I messed up..."
Sakura had no choice but to apologize meekly. But then her eyes lit up, and she spoke quickly:
"But I brought back a talented recruit this time!"
Before Homura could react, she yanked the visibly nervous Mukade in from where he'd been waiting at the door.
"And who is THIS?"
Mukade had put on some weight since his wanted poster. Homura knew about the joint pursuit request from the Sand, but he didn't immediately place the face.
"This is... An Lushan... yeah! That's right! An Lushan!"
Sakura hesitated for half a second, then declared it with total conviction.
Absolutely certain. This man IS An Lushan.
"That's not a name you just made up on the spot, is it?"
Homura stared at Sakura's painfully obvious attempt at damage control, a vein throbbing at his temple.
"NOPE!"
"He's been going by An Lushan for SIX YEARS now!"
This was, technically, the truth. Sakura said it with a completely clear conscience.
What "Mukade"? Mukade died a long time ago!
This man is An Lushan.
The civil engineering prodigy she'd traveled to the ends of the earth, through blood and sweat, to recruit!
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