Chapter 278: A Ninja Full of Tricks
Mount Myōboku
"You..."
Fukasaku forced the words out, staring up at the thing gripping his throat as if he wanted to breathe fire through sheer will alone.
"I already told you. Road's closed. Why couldn't you just believe me?"
"Do you believe me now?"
Inner Sakura tilted her head, a strange smile on her face, gazing down at the toad in her grip.
"Mount Myōboku... Mount Myōboku will never..."
Fukasaku clawed weakly at the hand around his throat, grief and fury flashing in his eyes.
Behind Inner Sakura lay the bodies of countless toads, large and small.
A few might still be clinging to life somewhere in the wreckage. But it hardly mattered now.
Mount Myōboku had already lost, completely and permanently, any claim to standing among the Three Great Sacred Lands.
"Well then. Goodbye."
"Sage Fuka—"
The merciless words trailed out of Inner Sakura's mouth, and off in the distance, buried in rubble, Shima forced her head up to look.
She wanted to stand. Wanted to save her husband.
But her whole body screamed with pain, and she couldn't so much as lift an arm, let alone save him.
All she could do was watch, helpless, as her husband died before her eyes.
But right at that moment — before Inner Sakura could finish her sentence — there was a soft pop, and she vanished into a puff of white smoke.
Fukasaku dropped heavily to the ground.
Sage Technique — Yang Release — Mountain Splitter.
Sakura's current strongest technique.
Sage chakra, Yang Release chakra, Inner Sakura's Yin Release chakra, and her own unmatched, overflowing vitality.
All four were required. Not one could be missing.
Which meant that to actually complete the technique, Inner Sakura had to merge back with the original body.
And now—
"What an astonishing technique."
Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki looked at the divine axe manifesting behind Sakura, unable to hide a flicker of genuine admiration.
Not a Senju. Not an Uchiha. Not an Uzumaki.
An entirely ordinary human bloodline.
That she'd reached this level, this young, with none of it — even Hagoromo couldn't help but applaud.
Watching him stand there, seemingly unbothered, Sakura's eyes narrowed slightly.
The small hatchet in her hand blazed with dazzling light, and Hagoromo's expression shifted, just slightly.
He could feel it — something around them had changed.
But there was no time to think it through further.
If he couldn't block this strike, there was no chance she'd sit down and actually talk with him afterward.
And he knew this was her strongest technique. Once she used it, there'd be a window afterward where her chakra ran dry.
That would be his chance to actually negotiate.
So Hagoromo moved.
Or rather, the six black orbs floating behind him moved.
The Truth-Seeking Balls split apart in six directions, unfolding in an instant into a hexagonal shield, positioned between himself and the Great Toad Sage.
At that moment, Sakura brought the hatchet down.
And the divine axe behind her fell with it.
As if the wind itself had shifted, the hem of Hagoromo's robe grew faintly damp.
That detail made his brow furrow.
By all rights, in the presence of a technique at this level, the surrounding air currents should have been thrown into chaos — there shouldn't be any water vapor left to speak of. Even if there were, it shouldn't be enough to actually dampen fabric.
...Unless—
Hagoromo's eyes went wide. He'd just realized something.
The divine axe fell.
But in the instant it made contact with the Truth-Seeking Ball shield, the massive, overwhelming weapon dissolved like an illusion.
This was—
A mirage!
Hagoromo understood the pink-haired woman's plan in that same instant.
Was that Mountain Splitter fake, then?
No. It had been real. She'd released the technique the moment the Truth-Seeking Ball shield blocked her line of sight — but to keep him from noticing the release, she'd used the water vapor left over from the earlier eighteen water dragons, condensed around them into a region dense enough to refract light.
But that alone couldn't produce a mirage this convincing. So she'd kept a portion of her chakra active, using her precise chakra control to sustain a genjutsu projection of "Mountain Splitter" even after the real one dissipated.
And with her level of chakra control, pulling that projection back a split second before it actually struck his shield would have been trivial.
I've been played.
"Old relic! Skipped physics class, did you?!"
A dark shape flashed past Hagoromo, streaking straight down toward the badly wounded, unconscious Great Toad Sage.
Not good!
Hagoromo reached out on instinct to grab the shape — a tearing sound, and a sleeve came away in his hand, revealing the pale skin of a young woman's arm beneath.
Sakura ignored it entirely, charging straight for the Great Toad Sage. Hagoromo's eyes hardened.
Chibaku Tensei.
An overwhelming, terrifying pull yanked Sakura back toward him at once!
But at that same instant, another dark shape appeared directly above Hagoromo!
"Old relic! Eat this!"
Sage Technique — Yang Release — Superhuman Strength combined with Heavy Rock Technique!
Hagoromo's eyes snapped, startled and furious, toward the Sakura caught in his Chibaku Tensei.
A shadow clone?
No — not a shadow clone. A physical Yang Release clone.
The Truth-Seeking Ball shield snapped up in front of Sakura, and countless stones converged on her fist — a heavy, crushing blow landing squarely on the black shield.
The stone bound by sage technique protected her fist, sparing her body from the risk of dissolving on direct contact with the Truth-Seeking Balls.
Under the impact, the black shield shuddered violently. But Six Paths-level was Six Paths-level.
Even a fraction of it. Even an avatar.
But — it wasn't over yet.
Watching the shield tremble under her own blow, Sakura understood in an instant.
Sage techniques don't just threaten the Truth-Seeking Balls of a Six Paths-level being. They can actually affect the balls themselves.
That changed everything.
The stone wrapped around her fist spread out across the front of the shield in an instant, and she pressed her free hand flat against it.
"Sage Technique — Yang Release — Super Heavy Rock Technique!"
This time, the Heavy Rock Technique wasn't aimed at herself. Its target was the shield in front of her.
There was no need to worry about him pulling the shield back — the moment he did, the stone she'd just reinforced with the technique would slam straight into him regardless.
Which meant Hagoromo would almost certainly be forced to use Shinra Tensei.
And the moment he did, the Chibaku Tensei holding Inner Sakura in place would fall apart on its own.
"Shinra Tensei."
The black orbs withdrew in an instant, and the stones fell — exactly as Sakura had predicted, Hagoromo unleashed Shinra Tensei...
But—
He kept it under precise control, using it only to deflect Sakura's real body and the falling stone away, without ever interrupting the Chibaku Tensei holding Inner Sakura captive.
Just as I thought. Not that easy to deal with.
Sakura crossed both arms in front of her face to shield against the debris, her eyes hardening as she looked at the calm, unreadable Sage of the Six Paths.
The flying rubble tore through her sleeve, exposing pale skin beneath.
And somehow, visible now through the torn fabric, right at the midpoint between her elbow and shoulder, a black tattoo — shaped like a cherry blossom — had appeared on her skin.
At that moment, the tattoo began to glow with a faint pink light.
Sakura seemed to have changed. And yet, somehow, not.
She steadied herself and charged straight at Hagoromo — and below, Inner Sakura, drawing on the pull of the Chibaku Tensei still gripping her, surged toward him at the same time.
Hagoromo glanced briefly at the Yang Release clone racing up toward him.
This clone's at roughly eighty percent of the pink-haired one's real strength.
And even a Yang Clone is more fragile than the original, comparatively speaking.
Deal with the clone first.
And besides — of the two, this one's actually closer to me than the real body is right now.
The black Truth-Seeking Balls reshaped themselves into a monk's staff, and with a sound like tearing air, he swung it down hard at Inner Sakura.
"Old relic!"
"Die!"
Inner Sakura drove a fist wrapped in furious golden flame straight into the staff.
Watching her own strike land against his weapon, Hagoromo felt a flicker of relief.
That should take care of this clone—
A sharp, ringing clang of metal on metal rang out.
What?!
Hagoromo focused his eyes, and saw it: Inner Sakura's hand had somehow slipped into a pair of small cat-face brass knuckles. The staff had struck squarely against the cat-patterned knuckles.
Those were—
Sakura's shinobi tool!
Why is Sakura's own equipment showing up on a clone?
There was only one possible reason.
The one in front of him wasn't a clone at all. It was the real body.
At some point, they must have switched places.
This was—
The Flying Thunder God Technique.
A flicker of triumph gleamed in Sakura's eyes as she used the overwhelming force of Hagoromo's own strike to launch herself downward, straight at the Great Toad Sage below.
At that same moment, the cherry-blossom tattoo on her arm glowed faintly.
The Flying Thunder God Technique — Tobirama Senju's own space-time jutsu.
But if Sakura had actually fully mastered the Flying Thunder God, the Great Toad Sage would already have been dead long ago — there'd have been no need for any of this.
Sakura could currently only form a Flying Thunder God marker; she hadn't yet reached the stage of placing that marker on external objects.
What she could do was mark the technique onto her own chakra.
Meaning: onto Inner Sakura.
As a manifestation of Sakura's own chakra, Inner Sakura made the perfect anchor for the Flying Thunder God.
In the split second she'd been flung back by Shinra Tensei, Sakura had swapped places with Inner Sakura instantly.
Which meant the one below wasn't the Yang Clone at all. It was Sakura herself.
"..."
Hagoromo went silent. Whatever composure he'd maintained until now slipped away entirely, and he shot downward after her at full speed.
But at that moment—
"You old bastard!"
"Be a good boy and die already!"
High above, Inner Sakura — wreathed in blazing pink flame — came diving straight down at him.
Hagoromo had no choice but to turn and block.
He let out an internal sigh.
In the end, I'm just an avatar too, aren't I.
Stone gathered in Inner Sakura's hands, and the roar of a pink-flamed tiger's head thundered out behind her.
Sage Technique — Yang Release — Super Heavy Rock Technique!
Sage Technique — Yang Release — Mountain Lord!
Both techniques struck at once, and another brutal blow slammed into the staff in Hagoromo's hands.
Meanwhile, the real Sakura had eyes for nothing but the Great Toad Sage falling below her.
She'd exhausted every trick she had, every method available, for exactly one purpose: to kill him.
She flipped her wrist, and a kunai appeared in her hand.
Blue, pink, and gold chakra blazed across the blade, forming a near-meter-long sword of pure chakra.
The most ordinary application of chakra there was.
But right now, it was exactly what she needed.
The Great Toad Sage seemed to sense the danger. He forced his eyes open, straining to look at the Hokage bearing down on him.
Ah... the Hokage...
She's come, then.
The one who tramples the future underfoot.
Was I wrong?
I wasn't wrong.
I simply failed. That's all.
Even facing death, the Great Toad Sage still believed he'd been right.
He hadn't erred. He'd only lost.
And the price of losing was—
The chakra-wreathed kunai looked, to his eyes, like the sharpest blade in all the world.
He felt it. A pain he hadn't felt in longer than he could remember.
Flesh tearing. Organs shredding. Chakra pathways severed inside him, the flow of his own chakra choked off entirely.
Blood, far more than his body should have contained, poured out of his human form like a raging waterfall.
The Great Toad Sage crashed down into a mountain hollow, and within moments the sheer volume of blood had filled the entire basin, forming a lake of it.
As the blood spread, everything within that hollow dissolved and corroded away under its searing heat.
The Great Toad Sage was dead. As dead as dead could be.
Sakura's kunai hadn't just torn through flesh — it had severed his spine entirely.
If he could somehow survive that, Sakura decided, she'd accept it.
She stood there, still hovering in the air, pink hair loose and streaming, sunlight washing over her, a lake of steaming blood spread beneath her.
She looked up toward the sky and let a defiant smile cross her face.
Whoever I decide to kill — not even the Sage of the Six Paths himself can save them.
Above her, Hagoromo had just driven Inner Sakura back once more, and now stood still.
He stared down at Sakura and said nothing.
This was the first time — the very first time — he'd crossed blades with someone from this era, someone the world called a shinobi.
Even just an avatar. But an avatar of Six Paths-level power, all the same.
Six Paths against Extreme Kage.
Hagoromo had lost.
The Six Paths had failed to protect the one he'd meant to protect. The Extreme Kage had succeeded in killing exactly who she'd meant to kill.
His thinking had simply grown too rigid. His experience in battle was still frozen a thousand years in the past.
Back then, he'd already been Six Paths-level. No one alive had ever been his equal.
The only ones who'd ever come close were his mother, and his own brother.
But once his mother was sealed away, his brother Hamura had left for the moon, to stay by her side, forever.
And so—
Faced with a shinobi of this era — full of tricks, full of tactics — Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki had simply lost his footing.
(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