Chapter 307: The Fading "Inner Sakura"
Temari, dead. Ōnoki, dead. Deidara, dead. Kisame, dead. Hiruko, dead. Sasori, dead. Nagato, dead. Konan, fled. Obito, fled.
The Land of Rain front alone had already broken the combined strength of the Land of Wind, the Land of Earth, and the Land of Rain.
Under the still-dark sky, Sakura sat for a brief rest, while Sasuke reported the outcome of their missions in the Land of Wind and the Land of Earth.
"Well done."
Sakura nodded.
"Come here."
She waved Sai over.
The brown-haired girl hesitated, then stepped forward, timid, standing before Sakura.
"I need to head out now. You'll travel back to Konoha with the unit and rest there."
"Konoha will treat you as one of its own."
Sakura looked at Sai as she spoke.
"Where are you going?"
Sai asked, hesitant.
"Wherever I'm needed."
The pink-haired woman rose to her feet, looking out at the distant sky.
Though the Land of Rain lived under near-permanent rain, even here the coming of evening was unmistakable now.
The clouds Deidara's C4 Karura had torn apart earlier had already begun knitting themselves back together, threads of golden evening light growing thinner across the sky, gradually gathering and fading away.
Right now, Sakura needed to get back to Konoha and use the village's Flying Thunder God Formation team to reach the Land of Frost front.
Hiruzen had already been revived through Edo Tensei by Orochimaru — which meant there were almost certainly other powerful figures revived alongside him.
Possibly even Madara Uchiha himself.
Konoha's forces on the Frost front alone couldn't hope to hold against opponents like that.
She had to go there personally.
And Tobirama, Tsunade, and Hikaru would need to join the fight as well.
"Karin. Sasuke. Yuki."
"Let's go."
She called out to Yuki, still off in the distance directing the cleanup of the battlefield, and the four of them vanished from Land of Rain soil.
—
Land of Fire — Konoha
Hokage's office
By now, Konoha's garrison strength had dropped to a historic low. Even so, the Second Hokage still held the village down.
Tobirama's expression was grim.
Intelligence from the Land of Frost front had just arrived through special channels.
Over a dozen legendary figures from across shinobi history had appeared through Edo Tensei, one after another.
If Shisui Uchiha hadn't used Kotoamatsukami to forcibly wrest control away from whoever held Hiruzen and Itachi, the front would likely have already collapsed.
Even so, Hiruzen alone, holding off both the Third and Fourth Raikage's combined AB Combo along with the Gold and Silver Brothers, was still stretched to his limit against four top-tier opponents.
Itachi, using Susanoo, had barely managed to hold off the Second Mizukage, the Second Tsuchikage, and Kakuzu simultaneously.
Even so, the front-line forces had already been pushed back to the very edge of the Land of Fire's border.
If this continued—
Tobirama had already dispatched Hikaru and Tsunade to hunt down the Sorabune forces still active along the Land of Fire's coastline.
"Tch..."
Tobirama felt a flicker of frustration at the situation.
But even so, he didn't regret sending Hikaru and Tsunade after Sorabune. Konoha's own security mattered every bit as much as the front line — arguably more.
Right now, he was the only top-tier fighter still in the village.
"Someone."
Tobirama sighed, then retrieved his sky-blue armor from the Hokage office's rest chamber and put it on.
In a crisis this severe, with the Fifth Hokage herself out on the front lines, there was no excuse for the Second Hokage to sit this one out from behind the scenes.
"Lord Tobirama."
Yūgao, always on standby, appeared before him instantly.
"Tell Homura Mitokado his retirement's over — he's taking temporary command of Konoha."
"The moment Hikaru and Tsunade return, send them straight to the Land of Frost front using the Flying Thunder God Formation."
"Once the formation team delivers them, they're to return to the village immediately and stand ready for the Fifth's return."
Tobirama glanced at Yūgao, gave only those few instructions, and vanished on the spot.
The instant he was gone, Yūgao headed straight for Homura's residence.
Meanwhile, Sakura was already on her way back.
A massive Susanoo streaked across the sky, racing toward Konoha at full speed.
Sasuke's Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan now had more than enough eye power to sustain flight over this kind of extreme distance.
Sakura, Sasuke, Karin, and Yuki all rode together within the crystal formation on Susanoo's forehead.
Using the travel time to recover her chakra, Sakura let her mind sink inward, into her own inner world.
Blue sky. White clouds. Skyscrapers.
The same empty modern city as always.
No — not empty. A city holding exactly one person.
Something about Inner Sakura's condition had already given Sakura a certain suspicion, and she'd come specifically to check on her.
Inner Sakura sat alone atop the rooftop of one of the towering buildings, hundreds of meters above the ground below.
For an ordinary person, sitting there — even without a fear of heights — would have been genuinely terrifying.
"You're here."
As if sensing Sakura's arrival, Inner Sakura spoke without turning around.
A cold, high-altitude wind stirred her long pink hair. Ordinarily wild and unrestrained, Inner Sakura seemed, right now, unusually quiet.
"What's going on with you?"
Sakura stood behind her, watching her back.
"What's going on?"
"Haven't you already figured it out?"
Inner Sakura was Sakura, and Sakura was Inner Sakura.
There was no separating the two of them, not really.
Whatever Sakura knew, Inner Sakura knew too.
Whatever Inner Sakura knew, Sakura knew as well.
Only when the two of them stood face to face like this could they be treated, even loosely, as two distinct consciousnesses.
Coming all the way here, in Inner Sakura's view, was frankly redundant.
"How much longer, roughly."
Sakura fell quiet for a moment at that.
"Could be any time now."
"Could be decades. Could be right now."
Inner Sakura sat on the edge of the rooftop, swinging her legs, apparently unconcerned.
"Though, going by the current pace..."
She looked down at her own hand.
Weaker again.
Less than two hours had passed since the fight with Obito, and already she could feel it — her own power fading, just slightly more.
"My existence was always meant to protect us."
"To protect this body."
"Like how Sakura Haruno resisted Ino's Mind Body Switch Technique."
"I'm a concentration of Yin Release. And you've completed the Yang Release Body Technique, growing stronger every moment, without pause."
"So my own existence keeps fading, bit by bit, right alongside that — and whatever power drains out of me gets absorbed straight back into the body."
Sakura listened, her expression calm.
She already knew all of this.
The reason she'd come wasn't to learn something new. It was simply to see — one more time, while there was still a chance — this version of herself.
Inner Sakura turned to look at her.
"What's with that face."
"Wasn't getting rid of me one of the reasons you started training Yang Release in the first place?"
Sakura opened her mouth, and found she had nothing to say to that.
"Not that I mind, honestly."
"Once I'm gone completely, in a certain sense, I'll finally have a life that's genuinely, fully my own."
Inner Sakura walked up to stand in front of Sakura.
The two of them held each other's gaze for a long moment.
"In that case, I won't say anything more."
Sakura nodded, and vanished from this inner world that held only one person now.
Inner Sakura's existence functioned, in essence, as a firewall for this body — sufficiently powerful Yin Release let Sakura shrug off ninety-nine percent of genjutsu she might otherwise be vulnerable to.
But as Yang Release grew stronger by the day, the Yin Release that had given rise to Inner Sakura was steadily eroding away.
Her Yin Release was being consumed, piece by piece, by Yang Release, gradually folding back into Sakura's own.
Yin Release — Mirage, the technique she now wielded, was one of the clearest signs of this — a hallmark of Sakura's own, independently developed Yin Release.
And with the knowledge Hagoromo had granted her, combined with Sakura's deepening understanding of Yin, Yang, and Yin-Yang Release together, that process had only accelerated further.
Before long—
This entire inner world would collapse, right along with Inner Sakura's disappearance.
Sakura could already foresee it: the moment Inner Sakura vanished completely, that would be—
In the real world, Sakura's eyes slowly opened.
"What's wrong?"
Karin, noticing something off, asked quietly.
"Nothing. Where are we?"
"Almost at Konoha."
At Karin's answer, Sakura nodded.
Thinking of Inner Sakura's coming disappearance left something quietly heavy in Sakura's chest.
But just as Inner Sakura herself had said — Sakura was Inner Sakura.
"Once we're back in Konoha, Sasuke — let me restore your eye power."
Sakura looked over at Sasuke, still maintaining Susanoo.
Time inside the inner world didn't pass quite the same as it did in reality. Like a dream — what feels like a few brief minutes inside can stretch across an entire night outside.
For Sasuke, who'd only just awakened his Eternal Mangekyō, maintaining Susanoo all the way from the Land of Rain back to the heart of the Land of Fire was still putting real strain on him.
Using Yang Release was the fastest way to solve that.
"No need. Your Yang Release should go toward something more important."
"I'll recover on my own."
Sasuke shook his head, turning down the offer.
Sakura didn't push the point, simply looking down at the ground rushing past beneath them.
The Land of Rain front was finished.
Iwagakure had only Kitsuchi and Kurotsuchi left standing. Sunagakure had only Baki and Kankurō remaining.
Barring further outside intervention, both villages might, in theory, claw their way back to relevance over the next several decades, drawing on the legacy their predecessors had left behind.
But—
They didn't have that kind of time left.
Once the Land of Frost front was settled, the entire shinobi world would be hers for the taking.
Once this war ended, the so-called noble class would already be standing on its last legs.
Whatever resistance remained would be nothing more than a dying gasp.
Everything — all of it — was drawing to a close now.
The shinobi world had no room left for the idle.
Every enemy who stood against her would end up nothing more than a ghost beneath her fist.
This stagnant, unchanging world, a thousand years old — was about to be reborn with a vitality entirely her own.
And when that day came, peace — real, visible, unmistakable peace — would finally descend on this world.
The hundred-meter giant soared across the lush green forest below, the wind of its passing setting the trees rustling and swaying in its wake.
(End of chapter.)
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