As dawn broke and the sandstorm that had enveloped the Hole finally abated, Sakura and a small detachment of Hidden Leaf forces returned, only to find it had become just as desolate as the wasteland outside.
"Kill one man, and you're a murderer," Sakura murmured to herself as she kicked a pile of dust that might have once been a human. "Kill ten thousand, and you're a hero…"
The walls of the cylindrical pit had collapsed, giving way to an even wider crater, a dome-like depression in the earth where no trace of life or civilisation remained. The trees, the houses, everything was gone… save for the mysterious construct that had lain buried at the Hole's centre. It was now fully exposed to the world: an indestructible black cylinder lined with zigzagging red patterns…
"Well, what do you think?" Shiranami called triumphantly as Sakura and Minato cautiously approached. "Isn't the Tsuchigumo's ultimate technique everything you could have possibly wanted, and then some? This is devastation beyond anything even the Bijū could accomplish, and on demand, at that!"
"You missed a tiny bit, there," Sakura said, pointing at the black cylinder half-buried in the ground.
As expected of something the Ōtsutsuki had built, their futuristic technology was rather durable.
"I've finally decided on our payment, by the way," Shiranami said lightly. "I kind of like this place, so I'll take it off your hands on behalf of the Tsuchigumo clan. Wouldn't do if those Iwa bastards came back and occupied the place again, eh?"
Sakura was tempted to cut off his head right then and there. She understood now why the Third Hokage had placed a ban on this Fury Jutsu of theirs and named it kinjutsu.
"A bit far from the mountain you call home, don't you think?" Sakura said testily. "Unfortunately, the structure behind you is of great importance to the Land of Fire, so I'm afraid you're going to have to pick somewhere else to settle."
The Hole sat on the Land of Fire's border and was abnormally rich in nature energy, the result of the Ōtsutsuki apparatus draining it from the surrounding area. If the Tsuchigumo clan settled here, they would be able to charge their Fury Jutsu incredibly quickly, and it made Sakura rather uncomfortable to have the owners of such a destructive technique living so close to the heart of the Land of Fire.
Shiranami crossed his arms. "Is that so?" he said, scowling. Now that he had demonstrated his clan's destructive potential, he was much less polite than before. "Somehow, I find that hard to believe. Lady Hokage, if you wish the Tsuchigumo clan to remain the Leaf's allies, then you'd better rethink that attitude—"
With a flourish, Sakura dug a sealing scroll from her cleavage and activated it. A futuristic silver apparatus appeared from the paper in a puff of white smoke. Seven sockets lined its upper curve, eagerly awaiting filling like a mistress's holes.
"As you're about to see," Sakura said, lying as easily as she breathed, "the Hidden Leaf has already been conducting research on that artefact over there for a while now."
A Leaf chūnin stepped forwards, carrying a bundle of white rods in his arms. Using her Byakugan, Sakura had managed to locate them after the Fury Jutsu sent them hurtling across the wasteland in all directions, though doing so had taken the better part of the night and a call to Hinata for assistance.
Consulting Disonasu's notebook, Sakura began inserting the rods into the Saezuri, the Ama no Hoko's control device, according to the proper activation sequence. With each rod fitted into its rightful socket, the device played a musical note, and when the last rod was inserted, a low rumble echoed from deep underground as the earth began to shake, in turn causing Sakura's boob flesh to quake and jiggle wildly.
Sakura ignored her comrades' stares, choosing instead to focus her attention on the black cylinder, which had begun growing skywards like a telescopic baton. One section emerged from the base, then another, as the tower stretched towards the heavens. Along its sides, the protective outer panels began to split into smaller segments, while mechanical arms extended from the central pillar to push the detached plates away from the main body so that it could vent its heat exhaust...
"Sakura, we don't know yet what this device is capable of," Minato said worriedly. "I glanced over the notebook while you were out looking for the rods, and most of what Disonasu wrote is based on hearsay and old village legends…"
Supposedly, the device was supposed to empower whoever stood at the top of the tower.
"I'm confident in my ability to store chakra," Sakura said, pointing at her forehead. "Besides, what are you proposing? That we test it out on her first? What if she turns into a monster and tries to eat me out? I mean, eat me."
Sakura pointed at a shell-shocked Kurotsuchi, who was standing nearby under the Hokage Guard Platoon's strict surveillance. She was the only Stone-nin to have survived Hotaru's nuclear blast, having been whisked away by Minato when he used the Flying Thunder God Mutually Instantaneous Revolving Jutsu to swap places with the Tsuchigumo pair with the HGP's help.
An idea suddenly occurred to Sakura. If it was a guinea pig they needed…
"Summoning Jutsu!"
"At your service, Milady!" said Mini Katsuyu as she appeared in a tiny puff of white smoke in Sakura's palm. "It's been a few days, hasn't it?"
Sakura wiped the blood from her freshly bitten finger on her skirt under her Hokage robes.
"Do you know what that is?" she said, turning the little slug around and pointing at the glowing, slowly revolving structure, but to her disappointment, she merely shook her tiny head. "In that case, would you mind if I used your divided self as a test subject for an experiment?"
Katsuyu did not mind. And so, Sakura ran up the side of the tower to the very top and stuck the slug to the inside of the hole she found there; this thing was hollow, like a cannon's barrel!
"Activate!"
Sakura rearranged the colour-coded rods on the Saezuri according to the energy release pattern. At first, nothing happened… and then all at once, steam hissed from the newly formed gaps in the tower's shielding panels, blasting the gathered shinobi away.
"Everyone!" Sakura cried from the safety of the tower's neck.
Barely had her cry escaped her lips when a crimson ray shot out of the tower's summit, quickly blossoming into a pillar of blinding red light. That reaction being a tad more violent than she would have expected for what was effectively a glorified Ōtsutsuki wireless charging port, Sakura instinctively reached for the Saezuri to turn off the Ama no Hoko, when Katsuyu's soft voice rang out:
"Ahh, that feels so good!" she squealed.
Sakura tentatively poked a finger into the crimson stream. It burned a bit, but in a rather good way, so she slipped into the opening, clutching the rim to avoid falling to the bottom of the tower.
"It's like a sauna in here," Sakura gasped, fanning herself as waves of red energy washed over her.
Her Celestial Empress Lotus Seal's nature energy reserves were rapidly increasing!
"Oof, I feel a little bloated," Sakura said, wincing a little as she scratched her underboob. For the first time ever, the seal had reached full capacity. "Ready to get out, Lady Katsuyu?"
"Kyuu…~"