Chapter 276: Bring Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki Here, Then!
A towering brown body, streaked with fire and stone, hide studded with the warty growths characteristic of toads — a form hundreds of meters tall that looked, at a glance, like a mountain standing in the middle of Mount Myōboku itself.
Its thick, powerful limbs were crossed with strange red veins, as if magma flowed sluggishly just beneath the surface of its skin. With every breath, visible tongues of flame leaked from its mouth and nostrils.
Its throat swelled and released a deep, resonant croak that seemed to shake everything nearby.
Watching this, Sakura found herself thinking that "Great Toad Sage" barely applied anymore. What crouched before her now looked less like a sage and more like something out of the old tales — a demon. A monstrosity.
As the Great Toad of Iwayado tore free of the earth, the stone and rubble that had covered its body shattered and scattered, filling all of Mount Myōboku with dust.
And then, a thin black shadow tore straight through that sky-blotting cloud of dust.
Held against the sheer scale of the Great Toad of Iwayado, the Adamantine Staff in Sakura's hand looked like nothing more than a sewing needle.
That "needle" shot straight for the Great Toad Sage, and in an instant slammed into the swollen underside of his throat.
"Destroyer of the future. I stand here now to erase you."
A voice like a beast's growl, low and resonant, rolled out of the Great Toad Sage's mouth. The muscles in his hind legs suddenly swelled to twice their size, and he launched himself upward — clearing a thousand meters in a single leap, dodging the extending staff entirely.
Sakura looked up at the massive form leaping skyward, gripping the Adamantine Staff tight. In her hands, the long staff became something like a vaulting pole — bending under her strength across its hundred-meter length, and then—
Springing back!
Driven by that stored force, Sakura shot upward like an arrow loosed from a bow.
At the peak of that launch, the staff snapped back to its normal size in her hand, and she rocketed skyward alongside the leaping Great Toad Sage.
By now, he'd already cleared several thousand meters with that single jump.
His cheeks swelled to an almost grotesque size, and even at a glance she could see crimson flame glowing beneath his nearly-translucent skin.
At the peak of that swelling, a waterfall of blood-red, scarlet flame poured down from the sky, straight toward Sakura climbing below him.
The flames drenched the entire sky, until the air itself seemed to shimmer with heat.
A sea of fire this savage, falling from above like divine punishment, covering so vast an area there was nowhere left to dodge to.
Watching that crimson sea of fire descend, Sakura's eyes lit up with excitement.
Yes.
Yes.
This is exactly the feeling.
That full-body adrenaline rush.
She whipped the Adamantine Staff into a dense, impenetrable wall of motion and drove straight up into the wall of fire.
"Sakura, even I can't hold out against heat like this for long."
Enma's voice came from the staff in her hands.
"How long can you hold it?"
Sakura asked.
"Three hours."
"That's plenty."
A smile curled at the corner of her mouth.
The long staff spun and coiled in her hands like a sea dragon cutting through waves, the wind it stirred whipping up into something like the eye of a storm.
Above, the endless fire began to swirl inward, gathering into a spiral. The sky burned red from horizon to horizon, except for one small point at the very center, where a sliver of blue sky was still faintly visible.
"That... that's..."
On the ground, Fukasaku and Shima had no time left to grieve — they stared up, stunned, at the blurred figure barely visible at the center of that burning spiral.
"That's... the Hokage."
The Great Toad Sage's flames weren't ordinary fire. The heat couldn't quite match the Uchiha clan's Amaterasu, but it more than made up for it in sheer volume — a single breath of it could burn all of Mount Myōboku to ash. That was exactly why he'd chosen to take the fight into the air.
Except he hadn't expected this.
Sakura's usually soft, gentle features had sharpened into something fierce, her eyes lit with an excitement that was hard to put into words.
This. This is exactly the feeling.
Endless fire poured along the Adamantine Staff in her hands, and she felt the searing heat radiating up through the metal.
The Yin Seal on her forehead had opened without her noticing.
A jagged ring took shape around it, radiating outward from the seal like the Great Sun Formation.
Sage Mode — activate!
The sage chakra she'd stored beforehand let her drop into Sage Mode instantly — and not only that, she poured a portion of it straight into the staff itself.
This was sage chakra she'd already carefully balanced beforehand, blending her own chakra with the natural energy of Shikkotsu Forest's sage pool, so there was no risk of it running wild inside Enma's body.
And with Enma's Body of Indestructible Vajra, even if it did run wild, he could take it without issue.
"No wonder you're the one worthy of appearing in my prophecy."
High above, the Great Toad Sage came charging toward Sakura, feet treading atop roaring flame.
"Some kind of flight technique, riding the updraft of your own fire?"
"Not bad. Not bad at all."
A single glance was enough for Sakura to work out roughly how he was managing flight.
"But that's all there is to it."
The Adamantine Staff in her hands became a still point at the center of the raging fire, flames sweeping across its length under her motion, and then—
Extend!
The staff surged forward, wreathed in countless flames, straight at the Great Toad Sage barreling toward her.
Amid the roar of fire and the shriek of the staff tearing through the air, the Great Toad Sage swore he heard something like birdsong.
Phoenix Through the Blossoms!
Like a blazing divine bird trailing streamers of flame, wings spread wide, it drove straight at him.
"How laughable!"
"I am the one who commands fire itself — and this is my own fire you're using against me!"
"You think this will touch me?"
The Great Toad Sage's voice rumbled through the sky like distant thunder.
Sakura said nothing. She simply drove the staff straight into his chest.
The difference in scale between them was staggering — if the Great Toad Sage was a mountain, Sakura was nothing more than an ant beside him.
But even an ant, in this moment, could turn the world upside down.
An overwhelming, savage force surged through the staff, forcing the Great Toad Sage to grip it with both hands just to hold it back.
And yet Sakura moved through the air as easily as if she stood on solid ground, driving him steadily, relentlessly, higher into the sky.
All the while, the staff kept extending. Extending.
By now the two of them were several thousand meters above the ground.
At this rate, it wouldn't be long before they reached the troposphere.
The troposphere sat roughly eight to fifteen kilometers above the earth's surface, holding about seventy-five percent of the atmosphere's mass and nearly all of its water vapor.
And for every kilometer of altitude gained, the temperature dropped by roughly 6.5°C.
By now, the Great Toad Sage had clearly caught on, his expression growing grim.
He was a being who commanded fire. Reaching the troposphere would inevitably hamper it.
Clearly, this Hokage meant to decide the battle up there — where water vapor, everywhere and inescapable, was the one thing that could work against him best.
But if she thinks a little water vapor is enough to beat me, that's painfully naive.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
"How interesting! Not since Hashirama Senju has humanity produced a wild card like this!"
"Now — let old me take your true measure!"
The Great Toad Sage roared with laughter toward the sky, and to Sakura's surprise, released the staff entirely, flying higher still.
"Heh."
"Take my measure?"
"You're not qualified for that."
"Bring Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki here, then!"
Sakura pulled the staff back and gave full power to the Light/Heavy Rock Technique, chasing after him at full speed.
"Brat! Don't get too full of yourself!"
Hearing that name, the Great Toad Sage's fury exploded, and dozens of massive fireballs came raining down at Sakura in response.
Facing that falling storm of fire, Sakura didn't dodge a single one — she simply swept the staff through them, shattering every fireball into countless smaller ones that scattered harmlessly down toward Mount Myōboku below.
Seeing this, Fukasaku and Shima's expressions changed at once. There was no time to watch the fight — they scrambled to marshal every toad they had, ready to put out fires the moment they landed.
Wind howled around her, and at some point the tie holding back her hair had blown away entirely — her long pink hair whipped wild in the high-altitude wind, her gold-flickering emerald eyes locked unwaveringly on the toad climbing away from her.
"Ready. Time to get serious."
Sakura said, gripping the staff tight.
"Hmph. I was just warming up."
Enma answered.
By now, the sun-pattern marking across Sakura's body had begun glowing faintly gold.
Her emerald eyes had gone entirely, fully gold.
Sage Technique — Yang Release — Yin Seal — Strength of a Hundred Technique.
Her speed exploded, several times over, in an instant.
Five kilometers up.
Six...
Seven...
Eight...
Like a curtain torn open, a massive shape burst up through the endless sea of clouds below.
And a moment later, a staff stretching further than the eye could follow tore through the same clouds, swinging straight at the massive shape.
The Great Toad Sage threw up an arm to block, but the force behind the blow was so monstrous that a single strike sent him flying hundreds of meters.
The staff churned wind and cloud, tearing the sky apart, and then a pink-haired girl burst through the clouds herself, staff hundreds of meters long in her hands, chasing the toad she'd just sent flying.
Sage Technique — Yang Release — Superhuman Strength!
The iron staff, hundreds of meters in length, bent nearly double under the force of her swing as she battered the Great Toad Sage in a relentless storm of blows.
Feeling the staff land again and again, the Great Toad Sage flew at top speed while spewing flame from his mouth, as if trying to burn a hole clean through the entire cloud layer.
Where fire met cloud, water condensed and fell as rain toward the earth.
Below Sakura and the Great Toad Sage, a downpour had already swept over all of Mount Myōboku.
The toads who'd been running themselves ragged fighting fires relaxed at once.
"Sakura, this one's trying to burn off all the water vapor nearby — turn this into his home turf."
Enma spoke up suddenly.
"Naive."
Sakura let out a cold laugh, raising one hand in a sword-seal before her chest.
She shouted, furious—
"Sage Technique — Yang Release — Water Dragon Bite-Crash!"
In an instant, wind surged and clouds churned as countless streams of water vapor gathered together, taking shape as living, breathing water dragons.
And there weren't just one.
Eighteen of them.
Eighteen massive dragons converged together, coiling through the sea of clouds like the Dragon King himself summoning rain.
The pack of dragons roared as one and surged toward the Great Toad Sage.
You want to drive off the water vapor? Then I'll just gather more of it.
"Sakura, using that much sage chakra all at once — how much do you have left?"
Enma asked, worried now.
"Not much."
Sakura admitted it without hesitation, which left Enma at something of a loss for words.
But a moment later, two puffs of white smoke rose beside her, and three shadow clones peeled away, dropping fast toward the earth below.
Their destination:
Mount Myōboku's toad oil.
Just as Shikkotsu Forest had its sage pool for Sage Mode training, Mount Myōboku had its own equivalent.
And compared to Shikkotsu Forest's sage pool, Mount Myōboku's toad oil was considerably safer to use.
Watching anxiously from the ground, Fukasaku and Shima caught sight of the three falling figures at once.
"That's — the Hokage?"
Three identical figures. Shadow clones.
Fukasaku's brow furrowed deep. He couldn't immediately work out why she'd send three clones down now, of all times.
But the direction those clones were falling made his expression shift.
That's the pool formed from the toad oil.
She means to use her clones to draw on the toad oil's natural energy and replenish her own sage chakra!
"Stop the Hokage — now!"
Fukasaku barked the order almost on instinct. He couldn't let her succeed. Not this.
But as the toads rushed toward the toad-oil pool, a single figure stepped into their path, blocking every one of them.
The Hokage. A shadow clone of her.
"Sorry. Road's closed."
The pink-haired figure stood her ground against the entire mass of toads, and their fury boiled over instantly.
They were on Mount Myōboku — and there was somewhere here even they weren't allowed to go?
"Hokage, don't you think this is going a little far?!"
Fukasaku ground the words out through clenched teeth, glaring at the figure before him.
He'd already seen it — two of the clones had reached the golden pool of toad oil and begun drawing in its natural energy.
"Or maybe — you think a single clone is enough to stop all of us?"
Shima spoke now too, her face dark with fury.
"Well. You're welcome to try."
A faint, oddly unsettling smile crossed the clone's lips — nothing at all like the Hokage's usual demeanor.
Because this wasn't an ordinary shadow clone.
This was a Yang Release — Yang Clone.
"You've gone too far!"
"Get her!"
Even Fukasaku's patience had a limit, and this was past it. He swept an arm forward, and a swarm of toads surged ahead.
"Ah — this is on you. You started it..."
Inner Sakura's mouth curled into a cruel little smile, and she met the charge without a trace of fear.
Compared to her merciful original, she wasn't nearly so accommodating.
As far as Inner Sakura was concerned, the "real" Sakura was already being far too generous. She could have brought Tobirama, Tsunade, Sasuke, and Hikaru along and wiped out all of Mount Myōboku outright — and instead, because these stinking toads had helped Konoha a few times over the years, she'd decided to go after the ringleader alone and spare the rest.
That wasn't mercy. That was practically charity.
By Inner Sakura's own philosophy, the answer was simpler:
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Bathe the mountain in blood.
Bend the knee, or die.
(End of chapter.)
☆☆☆
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