Chapter 280: The Wind Rises
Night
The moon hung bright overhead, sea wind drifting soft and steady, waves rolling again and again against the rocks below.
Sakura and Yuki appeared on the shoreline without warning.
Sakura looked down at her sister, still asleep in her arms, and her expression finally softened, just a little.
She carried Mirai deeper into Turtle Island, Yuki following silently behind.
The trip to Mount Myōboku had left her brushing up against something like the truth behind this world.
The Sage of the Six Paths. The Ōtsutsuki clan. An enemy soon to arrive in the shinobi world — one so far beyond ordinary reckoning that even the Sage of the Six Paths himself had needed a thousand years of planning, gathering every scrap of power he could, just to prepare for it.
Next to something on that scale, all the fighting and killing across the shinobi world suddenly felt almost like child's play.
And—
Trailing behind Sakura, Yuki's eyes settled on the pink-haired figure ahead of her.
This one already knew all of this. And she's been working toward it this whole time.
"Why did you refuse the power the Sage of the Six Paths offered you?"
Yuki's voice broke the quiet of the night.
Sakura wasn't surprised by the question. Power like that, handed down from Hagoromo himself — it was the kind of thing that fell into your lap out of nowhere.
Free money, and only a fool turns it down.
That logic usually held. Just not this time.
"If I'd taken that old man's power — once I'd actually experienced it — I'd inevitably start drifting toward his path instead of my own."
The answer left Yuki faintly startled.
This one...
"You think you can surpass the Sage of the Six Paths?"
"That's not possible."
Yuki thought she understood exactly what was going on in Sakura's head now.
She actually wants to surpass a being who's existed a thousand years — longer than the entire history of shinobi itself.
"Why not?"
Sakura didn't turn around. She simply answered with another question.
That left Yuki briefly at a loss for words.
Was the Sage of the Six Paths strong?
Extremely.
Stronger, even, than Kaguya Ōtsutsuki herself.
He hadn't even needed to fight her directly — a single gift of Yin power and Yang power, handed to Naruto and Sasuke, had been enough to seal her away entirely.
In the original story, he'd never intervened directly himself, most likely because he couldn't bear to face his mother in person.
Yuki stopped walking abruptly and turned to look at Sakura.
"You're deeply ambitious."
Of course she was. Wanting to surpass the Sage of the Six Paths — what else could you call that except ambition?
"Is that so."
Sakura didn't say anything further.
The two of them walked on across the island, and before long they'd made it back to the temporary camp.
A handful of tents were pitched here, and from inside Naruto's, faint snoring drifted out — he'd clearly been asleep for a while already.
Sakura settled Mirai in her own tent, then summoned a ninja hawk and dashed off a quick letter home, letting her parents know not to worry — Mirai was safe, staying with her for now.
A flick of her wrist sent the hawk flapping off into the darkness.
After the exhausting day, Sakura sat down beside the dying campfire and tossed a few more logs on. The flames flickered back to life.
Yuki settled quietly beside her.
For a while, neither of them said anything.
"Where'd you go?"
A tent flap opened, and Hikaru — in sleepwear with a jacket thrown over it — looked out at the two of them sitting by the fire.
"Went to pick up Mirai."
Sakura gave her the rundown of what had happened on Mount Myōboku.
If they were going to face the Ōtsutsuki clan eventually, Hikaru would almost certainly be one of the main forces in that fight too.
"I see..."
Hikaru scratched her head, looking faintly troubled.
I've been buried in the ground for who knows how many years, and somehow we've gone from the Warring States era hacking each other apart with swords straight to fighting aliens.
"That's a problem for later. Right now the priority is dealing with the situation in front of us."
Sakura tossed another log on the fire, feeling her chakra slowly beginning to replenish inside her, and went on:
"How much longer until Sasuke and Karin get here?"
Hikaru answered: "Tomorrow morning, most likely."
Sakura said: "Then once the two of them arrive, we resolve Naruto's Nine-Tails chakra situation within three days."
"Three days?"
"Isn't that pushing it a bit?"
Yuki's brow furrowed.
Even with Matatabi — who'd been about as easygoing a partner as possible — it had still taken a full year to achieve Perfect Jinchūriki status.
They'd already decided beforehand that Naruto would only need to master Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, not the full Perfect Jinchūriki bond. But three days...
"Akatsuki's already moving."
"There's no time to sit here and wait on Naruto's pace."
"If it works, great. If it doesn't, he stays in Konoha a while longer."
Sakura kept her eyes on the fire, watching the flames dance.
"...All right, fair enough."
If Yuki was honest with herself, she didn't dislike the blond kid.
Something about him reminded her a lot of Killer Bee.
Inside a nearby tent, the boy who'd supposedly been fast asleep had, at some point, quietly opened his eyes.
—
Meanwhile, Black Zetsu had already put his own plans into motion.
Drawing on White Zetsu's ability to spread anywhere and take on virtually any form, he'd had no trouble slipping into position at the side of nobles across every nation.
Land of Water, capital city, Daimyō's residence
"What?"
"Are you certain this is true?"
A man in sky-blue brocade robes frowned at the retainer standing beside him.
"There's no way to be entirely certain."
The retainer kept his head lowered, not daring to meet the eyes of this esteemed lord directly, and spoke with careful respect:
"But the previous Land of Fire Daimyō's death was suspicious, to say the least."
"The Land of Fire's capital is nowhere near Takigakure. How could the Seven-Tails jinchūriki possibly have crossed the Land of Fire's border defenses and suddenly gone berserk right in the middle of the capital?"
"And how convenient that it happened the day before Danzō Shimura was set to become Hokage."
"And at a moment that critical, why would Sakura Haruno leave Konoha and travel to the capital at all?"
The retainer raised his head, meeting the increasingly troubled gaze of the Land of Water's Daimyō directly.
"Danzō Shimura's appointment as Hokage was already all but certain at the time. And then the Seven-Tails attacked the Daimyō's residence."
"In the end, one person survived."
"And that person happened to be the previous Daimyō's most incompetent, most useless son."
"Sakura Haruno naturally threw her support behind installing that son as the new Daimyō."
"My lord — doesn't all of this strike you as suspicious?"
The Land of Water's Daimyō sat with his brow drawn tight.
Exactly as his retainer said. Far too suspicious.
If this Sakura Haruno had simply backed a Daimyō in exchange for securing her own Hokage seat, he wouldn't have bothered wasting a second thought on it.
But to assassinate a Daimyō with her own hands, then install that Daimyō's son as a puppet in order to legitimize herself—
That was different.
"Send Ryūzawa to Konoha. Use mourning the previous Daimyō's death as the pretext, and the fact that the current Land of Fire Daimyō is already twelve — old enough for a betrothal to be arranged. Get close to him. Find out what he actually knows."
"See what information we can pull out of this little Daimyō."
Rather than simply take his retainer's word for it, the Land of Water's Daimyō chose to send someone to Konoha — now the de facto capital of the Land of Fire — to gather intelligence directly.
"Ah, my lord — that young Daimyō may already be entirely under the Hokage's control."
"And besides, his..."
The retainer hesitated.
The current Land of Fire Daimyō, frankly, wasn't particularly capable. Getting anything useful out of him would be difficult.
And more than that — whatever passed between him and Ryūzawa would very likely end up on the Hokage's desk regardless.
"What, does a fiancée now need the Hokage's permission to visit her own betrothed?"
"Besides..."
The Land of Water's Daimyō gave his retainer a cold look.
Even the most useless Daimyō was still born of royal blood. Raised from birth in an endless, inescapable web of political maneuvering.
A fool? Only by the standards of ordinary people.
Any male heir who couldn't think several steps ahead would've fallen off a horse and died as a child, long before reaching adulthood.
"Understood."
The retainer said nothing further and bowed to withdraw.
"Wait."
The Daimyō spoke again suddenly, calling him back.
"Have Kirigakure stand down from their campaign against Amegakure."
If the Hokage really had assassinated a Daimyō with her own hands, then every scrap of power available needed to be kept firmly in hand.
If the death of one Mizukage triggered a war costing the Land of Water and the Land of Rain countless shinobi lives, that would only mean cutting off one of their own arms before the real confrontation with Konoha even began.
Which made a ceasefire, right now, the wisest course of action.
"Um... will Kirigakure actually agree to that?"
The retainer hesitated.
"How many Kage have died over the course of the shinobi wars already? What's one more Mizukage in the grand scheme of things?"
"Just do it."
The Daimyō waved a dismissive hand.
"As you command."
"I'll take my leave."
To the Land of Water's Daimyō, what did a Mizukage matter? What did a tailed beast matter?
Tailed beasts had been captured before — Hashirama Senju himself had done it decades ago. Whatever this so-called Akatsuki was trying to do now, capturing tailed beasts, hardly seemed worth losing sleep over.
And a Kage's life mattered even less.
How many Kage had died across the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Great Ninja Wars combined?
So what — those Kage were allowed to die, but this one Fifth Mizukage somehow wasn't?
What mattered to him was making absolutely certain that the interests of his own noble class remained untouched.
Not by a hair's breadth.
Let alone something as unthinkable — something that hadn't happened in a thousand years — as the assassination of a Daimyō.
Daimyō belonged above everyone. Nobility existed to rule the world beneath them.
That was his belief, plain and simple.
And this same pattern was playing out far beyond the Land of Water. In the Land of Wind, the Land of Earth, the Land of Lightning, and even the smaller nations — Birds, Waterfall, Bears — the same story, over and over.
Just as Tobirama Senju had once said.
On the surface, the nations of the world seemed locked in endless war. But beneath that surface, the noble families of every nation remained bound together tightly, tangled in an unbroken web of marriage alliances.
And the endless wars fought between shinobi were, in no small part, deliberately stoked by those same nobles — to keep the shinobi population from ever growing large enough, or sharp enough as a blade, to turn around and cut the hand that wielded it.
—
The next day
As the sky began to lighten toward dawn, Mirai stirred and blinked her eyes open, groggy.
That had been one long sleep.
She shifted slightly and realized she was still wrapped in a familiar, warm embrace.
"Sister!"
Looking up and seeing that familiar face, Mirai's whole expression lit up with delight.
She had no idea why she'd woken up next to her sister, but as far as Mirai was concerned, that hardly mattered.
"Awake now?"
Sakura felt the small body stirring against her and blinked her own eyes open, still groggy herself.
With how much chakra she'd burned through, she still hadn't fully recovered.
"Mm-hm!"
The little pink-haired girl wrapped her arms around Sakura's neck and nuzzled affectionately against her.
Sister smells so nice!
Watching Mirai cling to her like a koala, Sakura simply held her close, hoping to coax her back to sleep so she herself could steal a bit more rest.
But Mirai, having already slept through most of the night and morning, clearly had no interest in going back to sleep.
"Sister, get up, I'm hungry."
Mirai rubbed her head against Sakura's chin, trying to nudge the still-sleepy Sakura into getting up and playing with her.
"Ha ha ha."
Left with no choice, Sakura pulled on her clothes and got ready to find something for Mirai to eat.
Mirai, for her part, dressed herself quickly and efficiently.
At three years old, Mirai had already — much like Sakura herself at that age — developed a fiercely independent streak; small things like getting dressed didn't need an adult's help at all.
Holding Mirai's hand, Sakura stepped out of the warm tent.
And the moment she did, a familiar figure came into view.
"Naruto!"
Mirai's eyes lit up at the sight of him, and she let go of Sakura's hand to run over.
"Huh?"
"Little Mirai!"
Naruto blinked, startled for a second, then crouched down and ruffled her hair, grinning up at Sakura beside her.
"Morning, Sakura."
"Morning."
Sakura answered.
"What are you doing, Naruto? It looks amazing!"
Mirai stared at the pot Naruto had set over the fire, steam curling up from it.
"Making breakfast for everyone."
"You can try some of my cooking in a bit."
Naruto gave the little girl a warm smile.
Looking at her, he saw traces of what Sakura must have been like once, a long time ago.
Except the Sakura he remembered from back then had been buried in nothing but training, training, training — barely any trace of an ordinary kid, let alone a little girl, in her at all.
Watching this bubbly, energetic pink-haired little sister in front of him now, he felt like he was catching a glimpse of a completely different version of Sakura — one that could have existed, maybe, under different circumstances.
"Wow, so cool!"
Mirai reached for the pot lid, but Naruto caught her hand before she could touch it, suddenly sounding every bit the responsible adult.
"Careful, you'll get burned."
"Little kids shouldn't get too close to fire, okay?"
He pointed at the flames licking up beneath the pot.
"Wow!"
"Naruto-nii really does know everything!"
"I'm gonna eat a whole bowl later!"
"No, wait — three bowls!"
Mirai's eyes — the same shade of green as Sakura's — shone with unmistakable admiration.
"Hahahaha!"
"That's the spirit!"
"Just don't eat too much, or you'll upset your stomach!"
Naruto laughed and scratched the back of his head.
"Looks like your sister's pretty fond of that kid."
Hikaru had appeared at Sakura's side without a sound.
"Mirai and Naruto do have a lot in common, honestly."
Sakura said, unbothered.
Given how alike their personalities were, it made sense the two of them hit it off. Naruto and Mirai both had a knack for making the people around them feel good, after all.
"I'm going to go wash up. Naruto, keep an eye on her for a bit."
Sakura waved to Naruto.
"Yep, yep, yep! Go ahead!"
"Mirai's totally safe with me!"
Naruto grinned and ruffled Mirai's hair again.
And meanwhile—
Off the coast of Turtle Island
A handful of figures appeared out over the water.
"Is this where the Nine-Tails and Two-Tails jinchūriki are, then?"
Pain gazed calmly toward the massive island rising in the distance.
(End of chapter.)
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