Chapter 294: A Fierce Tiger? Me?
Tonight was unusually dark. This close to the Land of Rain, the sky hung heavy with cloud, as though rain could break loose at any moment.
At that moment, the Hokage — who'd been resting quietly — suddenly opened her eyes.
Someone was here.
And they'd been brought in under guard by the border shinobi.
"Lord Hokage. A Suna shinobi was caught sneaking into camp in the middle of the night."
Two shinobi escorted a young woman into the tent — disheveled, exhausted, clearly having pushed herself hard.
Sakura looked at the newcomer, a flicker of surprise crossing her face, followed almost immediately by understanding.
"I'm not a spy. I've come to defect."
The girl — Sai — struggled against the two shinobi holding her.
But she was, at best, a chūnin, barely scraping jōnin-adjacent skill — after a desperate, night-long dash to get here, exhausted and starving, she had no hope of breaking free from two Konoha shinobi.
"Defect?"
Sakura looked down at her and waved the two shinobi off, releasing her.
"...Yes."
Sai pressed her lips together, looking up at the Hokage with a mix of stubborn defiance and grief.
"...I killed the Land of Wind Daimyō's envoy."
At Sakura's gesture, Sai recounted everything that had happened in Sunagakure, in full detail.
"And the acting Kazekage just let you go?"
Sakura watched the girl, a faint smile playing at her lips.
"...Yes."
"Probably because I'm Lord Gaara's disciple."
A flicker of loss crossed Sai's face.
The current acting Kazekage was Gaara's own sister, Temari. If she couldn't bear to watch her late brother's only student die at the nobility's hands, and used her authority to quietly let Sai slip away — in a certain light, that made sense.
"So you chose Konoha?"
Sai looked up at the Hokage, hesitation flickering across her face.
"Because Lady Temari said you're the only person left in the entire shinobi world who could save me."
"So I came."
Sakura considered this thoughtfully.
So Sasuke's mission in Sunagakure succeeded, then.
Her gaze settled back on Sai, dressed in Suna's traditional attire, studying her carefully.
There was no trace of any dōjutsu influence on her at all.
Which meant — Sasuke had cast Amatsukami on himself, wishing simply for the mission's success, and let events play out however they needed to. Whatever path Sai's fate had taken to get here, the outcome, for Sakura, had already been guaranteed.
And besides—
Sakura thought of Temari. A woman whose skill spoke for itself — someone who valued family, certainly, but who wasn't the type to blur the line between duty and personal feeling.
It was entirely plausible that Amatsukami's influence had softened her resolve just enough, at just the right moment, to let Sai slip out of Sunagakure.
But all of that remained, for now, just Sakura's own speculation.
"All right. I'll trust you, for now."
At the Hokage's words, Sai looked up, disbelieving.
That's it? Just — trusted?
This Hokage's remarkably easy to convince, isn't she?
"Someone — put the Curse Seal of Silence on her tongue."
Sakura, naturally, had no intention of trusting Sai fully before word came back confirming Sasuke's involvement. Better to keep her contained first.
Sai, handled well, could prove genuinely useful on the battlefield tomorrow.
Hearing she was about to be marked with some seal she'd never even heard of, Sai's expression froze slightly.
Right. Taking that back.
"Rest for the next two days. If you conduct yourself well, the day after tomorrow—"
"You'll become part of Konoha."
The Hokage's words left Sai confused.
What exactly does she intend to do with me?
Regardless, Sai had no real say in the matter. She could only cooperate as the seal was placed on her tongue.
That night, Sai curled up in a corner of the command tent and drifted, quietly, to sleep.
Sakura glanced at her once and said nothing further.
She simply waited for Yuki's arrival.
The next day
Yuki and her unit, having pushed through the night, finally crossed the morning dew and reached the Fire-Rain border — having traveled nearly the entire length of the Land of Fire.
Even Yuki herself showed clear signs of exhaustion by now. So did the three hundred chakra-armored jōnin behind her.
Fortunately, the journey had passed without incident.
"Get some proper rest. Tomorrow, we move."
Sakura personally stepped out of the tent to greet Yuki, which left something stirring, faintly, in Yuki's chest.
After all, the person before her was the Hokage of Konoha — and though Yuki had been named commander of this elite unit, she was, still, technically, a prisoner taken from Kumo.
The Hokage greeting her personally, in full view of everyone, amounted to a clear, public endorsement.
She was no longer a prisoner. She was part of Konoha now.
The Hokage's personal welcome made that unmistakable.
Once this war was over, Yuki suspected it wouldn't take her much longer to be fully integrated into Konoha.
But that was a matter for later.
Right now, the present moment mattered far more.
—
Land of Rain — Amegakure
Central Tower
Dark. Pitch black.
A heavy iron door slowly swung open.
A man in a simple single-layer robe stepped into view before Konan.
Konan looked at him, and her eyes went unmistakably wet.
She pressed a hand to her mouth, voice catching, choked with emotion.
"Nagato... you've finally..."
The man before her was none other than the true controller behind Pain's six bodies!
"Konan. Sorry to worry you."
Nagato looked nothing like his usual gaunt, half-dead self. His body now stood sturdy and strong, his eyes sharp with vitality, powerful muscle clearly visible beneath the white robe.
Even his striking red hair had grown down to his waist.
"Looks like the Wood Release cells worked well."
Present in the room, alongside Konan, were Zetsu and Hiruko.
Hiruko studied the now-robust man before him, red eyes flickering with unease.
When Zetsu had first come to him, asking him to transplant Obito's Wood Release cells into a complete stranger, Hiruko hadn't understood why.
But looking now at those pale-lavender, ripple-patterned eyes, he understood.
This was the true power behind Akatsuki.
Pain had only ever been his puppet.
And now, having successfully received the cells of Hashirama Senju — the legendary God of Shinobi — Nagato didn't even need to consciously project pressure. His mere presence was enough to raise every hair on Hiruko's body.
"How does the situation stand right now?"
Nagato, having successfully undergone the Wood Release transplant, felt better than he had in longer than he could remember.
Beyond his body's full recovery, he could now even draw on the legendary God of Shinobi's own bloodline limit.
"The Hokage's already reached the border."
"The Two-Tails jinchūriki has linked up with her there as well."
Zetsu regarded the man before him, calm.
"The Tsuchikage Ōnoki and the Four-Tails jinchūriki will arrive in the Land of Rain shortly."
"Given the timing, Sunagakure's forces will likely arrive around the same time as the Tsuchikage's group."
Nagato nodded slightly at that.
"However..."
Zetsu's tone shifted abruptly.
"Even with all of them combined, they're unlikely to stand as real opponents against the Hokage."
"We still need to secure the tailed beasts."
Nagato nodded, no objection there. He looked around at the three others present, brow furrowing slightly.
"Where's Obito?"
"He's already headed to Konoha."
"According to White Zetsu's intelligence, Sorabune — long hidden away — has suddenly resurfaced, launching a long-range assault against Konoha from the Land of Fire's coastline, using their aerial superiority."
"Things aren't going especially well for them, though. Tobirama Senju and Hikaru Uchiha are still stationed in Konoha."
Konan reported.
"Understood."
Nagato nodded, unbothered by news of Sorabune specifically.
"Once the Tsuchikage and Sunagakure's forces arrive, we begin our move against Konoha."
Zetsu hesitated for a moment, watching the scene, before speaking.
"Better to let the coalition army and Ōnoki's forces wear down the Hokage's chakra first."
"Then let our leader step in last."
"Drain her down as much as possible before that."
Nagato didn't push back against this. He considered it seriously.
Having been crushed so utterly, so directly, by the Hokage, Nagato had already shed the arrogance he'd once carried.
He'd started, now, choosing to work with others instead.
As far as Nagato saw it now, the so-called Sage of the Six Paths had been nothing more than an unusually powerful human being. Not a true god at all.
And the Rinnegan, in the end, was simply a particularly powerful bloodline limit.
If he kept clinging to that old, seductive dream of godhood, he'd eventually get himself killed on the battlefield, sooner or later.
"Fine. You all move in first. I'll finish it at the end."
Nagato waved a hand.
There was no such thing as being too careful against that Hokage. But even the strongest individual had their limits.
However powerful the Hokage was, there was no way she could withstand a rotating gauntlet of nearly ten top-tier fighters, on top of a combined coalition force from Wind, Earth, and Rain numbering nearly thirty thousand shinobi.
Even if it took drowning her in sheer numbers, they could bury her under enough bodies eventually.
Time passed, minute by minute.
Nagato spent it acclimating to this long-unfamiliar body of his — one he hadn't inhabited fully in longer than he could remember.
He could feel it: the vast reserve of chakra within him, fused now with a vibrant, thriving new source of vitality.
Hashirama Senju's own power.
Belonging, once, to the God of Shinobi himself.
His pale-lavender Rinnegan glowed faintly.
Nagato looked up at the endlessly overcast sky, his fists clenching tight.
Some part of him wanted to try what the Hokage had done — scattering the storm with a single act of will.
But with the battle so close now, that would be a genuinely reckless move.
Nagato forced the restless impulse back down.
—
The next day
Fire-Rain border
The pink-haired Hokage, accompanied by Sai, Yuki, and three hundred jōnin-level shinobi, advanced into the Land of Rain.
As the distance closed, the sky grew steadily darker.
A light drizzle had already begun to fall across the vast, empty landscape.
A cold wind howled through, stirring not just the resolve of everyone present but the Hokage's own pink hair as well.
Cresting a rise in the terrain, the view suddenly opened up before them.
Dense, endless ranks of figures filled her field of vision.
Wind. Earth. Rain.
Forces from all three nations, assembled in full.
Perhaps some contingent from the Land of Snow lingered somewhere among them too — but their strength was negligible enough to ignore entirely.
"Quite the turnout."
Sakura studied the vast, orderly formation before her, something like genuine wonder in her voice.
Neither in this life nor her last had she ever personally witnessed thirty thousand people gathered in one place.
Not even on a television screen.
And every one of them, here, was her enemy.
Yuki and Sai flanked the Hokage on either side, and both swallowed hard at the sight.
A solid black wall of bodies, stretching as far as the eye could see.
Even the Hokage herself had never faced a sight quite like this. Neither had they.
And all of it — every last soul assembled here — existed for one purpose: to kill a single person.
"Hokage."
An aged voice rang out across the sky, drawing Sakura's gaze upward.
Ōnoki, the Tsuchikage of the Two Scales.
"I imagine there's little need for lengthy words as to why we've come."
"So I'll simply ask you one question."
"Surrender, or refuse!"
At Ōnoki's words, the massed army below let out a thunderous roar.
"SURRENDER!"
"SURRENDER!"
"SURRENDER!"
Tens of thousands of voices, chanting as one, chakra bleeding into the sound itself. The three-fold roar seemed almost enough to crack the very sky and earth.
The scale of it was staggering — in Sakura's past life, thirty thousand soldiers like these could have cut clean through an army of a million.
Even the three hundred jōnin-level shinobi at Sakura's back, bolstered by chakra armor, couldn't help but feel a flicker of genuine fear.
"Old man's flying awfully high up there. My neck's starting to hurt from looking up."
Seeming entirely unmoved by the army's unified roar, Sakura rubbed the back of her neck.
Her tone was light, casual — as if the other side had simply invited her to afternoon tea.
But the moment the words left her mouth, an invisible weight crashed down onto Ōnoki from above.
Under normal circumstances, Yang Release — Dominion wouldn't have fazed a top-tier Kage like Ōnoki at all.
But Sakura, by now, had drawn close to a level once thought purely legendary. To stand against her directly would take something like Hashirama Senju himself, brought back to life.
Even Madara Uchiha, if he stood here now, would find himself crushed beneath her.
Ōnoki felt, in that moment, an unbearable weight bearing down on him, crushing the breath from his lungs.
As though a god had descended from the heavens.
Because a god never looked up at anyone.
This Hokage — compared to our last meeting...
She's grown stronger. Considerably.
Ōnoki's mind reeled with genuine shock.
But being crushed to the ground in full view of this many people would be a devastating blow to morale.
The old man, seventy years past his prime, struggled to hold himself steady beneath that crushing weight, staring up at Sakura's faintly amused expression.
"Ōnoki's no match for this Hokage."
At the rear of the coalition army, Konan watched the trembling Tsuchikage with a grim expression.
Her sheer presence alone was enough to freeze a Tsuchikage in place.
That was—
"If a single Tsuchikage were enough to handle the Hokage, we wouldn't have needed to come at all."
A blond woman in blue-and-white Kazekage robes walked past Konan, expression flat, heading toward the command platform overlooking the army.
"HOKAGE!"
Temari's voice, carried on chakra, rang out across the entire battlefield.
"Do you even understand what you've done?!"
Temari's sudden outburst had nothing to do with Ōnoki's plight — but it made Sakura's eyes sharpen slightly regardless.
The chakra roiling through her body surged, and Ōnoki, no longer able to bear the weight, finally dropped back to the ground.
But with Temari's intervention, the coalition's attention shifted, almost instinctively, toward the acting Kazekage instead.
Morale had dipped somewhat, certainly — but it was still far better than watching the Tsuchikage get crushed to the ground in front of the entire army.
"What have I done?"
The Hokage let out a low laugh, stepping forward, her voice ringing out across the battlefield like the toll of a great bell, shaking something loose in every listener's chest.
"Don't mistake your own ignorance for confidence."
"It's frankly embarrassing, otherwise."
"This world's system has stood for far too long. Long enough that I find it, frankly, tedious beyond words."
"I meant to remake this world entirely — and instead, all I find waiting for me is a pack of dogs, content to stay exactly as they are."
"A dog is a dog. Gathering a pack of them together doesn't make them wolves."
Sakura reached out and took hold of Sai's wrist, drawing her forward, in front of the assembled tens of thousands.
"But — fortunately — even the most broken world still holds a spark of hope somewhere."
"Even among a swarm of ants, a fierce tiger, unbowed, can still be born."
At the Hokage's words, every eye on the battlefield turned toward the visibly stunned young woman standing before them.
Sai's mind reeled with panic, facing down tens of thousands of watching eyes — plenty of them Suna shinobi who knew her personally — but she forced herself to hold her ground, not retreating a single step.
Even so, confusion churned inside her.
A fierce tiger?
...Me?
(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