"Psst!" the man outside hissed, more urgently this time. "I just need to ask you a few questions!"
Obito's and White Zetsu's voices were very distinct, and the voice she had just heard definitely did not belong to either of them. There was little chance of this being a trick on the prison guards' part either, as she was already at their mercy. If they wanted to take advantage of her, they would go for the door, not the tiny window hole in the wall that overlooked the lake.
If this adventurous climbing visitor fell, it would be a long way down…
"Who are you?" Sakura whispered back through the hole. "How did you even get here!?"
A stern face appeared in the window. Her interlocutor was as bald as a monk, and he had a goatee.
"I'm looking for someone," he said coldly, ignoring Sakura's questions. "Teenager. Black hair. Recently admitted. Have you seen or heard of someone like that?"
Sakura noticed that he had not mentioned his target's gender, which gave her a fairly good idea of whom he was speaking about…
"Jashin cultist?" Sakura ventured. "Name of Furin? Crossdressing as a boy?"
The man exhaled sharply. "You know where he is?"
"Not so fast," Sakura said defiantly, waggling her finger at him. "It just so happens that Furin and I are sworn sisters. If you've come here to assassinate her, I won't let you do as you please."
Naturally, Sakura was lying through her teeth. The man's mask of composure had slipped when she'd mentioned Furin's name, and an obvious look of concern had flashed across his face. The man obviously cared about the girl, so being her 'friend' might be useful…
"Furin is my son," the man said urgently. "Please, I need to find him and get him out of here. I promise I will find some way to repay you; I never go back on a deal, on my reputation as Kazan of the Hundred Transformations."
Sakura wasn't especially concerned about breaking out.
If it came down to it, even if she couldn't master Sage Mode, she would swim across the raging of the waters of the lake. It was a simple matter of holding her breath and diving into the water to remove the Celestial Prison Jutsu, then swimming across the lake to firm land in her Susano'o.
Even though she had instinctively learned her Mangekyō Sharingan abilities and their names when her eyes had fully awakened, there was no way she would be able to unleash their full potential on the first try; otherwise, she would just fly the coop with the Perfect Susano'o's wings when she wanted out.
That being the case, what she needed most right now was…
"… food. Gimme all your ration pellets, I'm hungry," Sakura said. "In exchange, I'll tell you exactly where to go to find Furin."
"That's all you want in return?" Kazan said incredulously. "You do not wish for freedom?"
"Nope. I can leave whenever I want."
Kazan did not look convinced, but he was a man of honour.
If Sakura could help him free his son, then he would give her what she wanted, and more besides. With her help, he would not have to stake out every square centimetre of the Blood Prison, memorise every guard patrol pattern and timing, or identify each and every person worth knowing. The less time he spent here, the fewer chances there were of getting caught infiltrating the prison.
"Here, my provisions are in there," Kazan said, tossing in a scroll and a pen through the window. "You can unseal the scroll's contents, then draw a map and write any details you can think of on the back."
With a hand sign, Sakura unsealed ten military ration pills from the scroll, carefully storing them in her pockets except for one, which she popped into her mouth and started chewing. Hyōrōgan were made with different seeds depending on where they were made, but they were always rich in protein.
"I'm no good at drawing, so I'll do you one better," Sakura replied, backing away from the window. "Stay right there, I'm coming with you."
Question marks seemed to pop up above Kazan's head as he watched the pink-haired girl approach her cell door. Unlike the regular detention areas, where the bars were made of wood, the solitary confinement cells were no joke, hewn from solid bedrock carved out of the cliff itself, fitted with small, yet thick, steel doors.
However, the door did have a thin slot through which her meals could be pushed into the cell, and for Sakura, that was more than enough. She scrabbled at its edges with her fingernails, breaking one as she tried to pry the slide open ("Ouch!" Sakura hissed). Frustrated, she struck the slide with a Chakra Enhanced Strength jab that sent it flying into the wall opposite her cell with a loud ding.
Sakura peeked through the gap and sighed in relief. The coast was clear.
Ram! Dog! Monkey! Kamehameha!
"Crystal Style: Jade Crystal Mirror!"
A slight burning sensation spread across Sakura's chest as she manifested a hexagonal, green crystal in the corridor outside her cell, but she gritted her teeth and soldiered on.
Horse! Ram!
A pink-haired Crystal Clone emerged from the mirror.
After a brief examination of the cell's exterior, the clone flashed Sakura a thumbs up before slipping out of sight. Sakura pressed her ear to the door and listened as sharp, high-pitched crystalline sounds rang out while her doppelganger picked the lock, until at last she heard a click, and the small door swung open.
"Here you go," the Crystal Clone said casually, snapping off her little finger, which had taken the shape of a pink key, and dropping said pinkie in Sakura's cleavage as she crawled out of her cell. "I'm taking your place behind bars, right?"
The key bounced off the upper curve of her breast, and Sakura snatched it out of the air.
"As expected of my clone," Sakura told her doppelganger, patting her shoulder as she rose to her feet. "You're quite perceptive."
Unlike the Shadow Clone Jutsu, whose defining "feature" was perfect chakra sharing, its elemental variations were more flexible, allowing their users to control precisely how much chakra each clone received. If half of her chakra were drawn out all at once, Sakura would instantly shoot past the ten per cent leeway, and the Celestial Prison Jutsu would have incapacitated her on the spot.
"I'd like to see those Wood Clone bitches try that," the Crystal Clone's sparkly voice rang out as Sakura locked her in. "They always act all modest and prim and proper-like, but I know for a fact they think they're better than the rest of us clones, Hmph!"
The snowflake-shaped mirror shattered into dust behind Sakura as she crept down the corridor towards the exit. She might have some undiagnosed mental issues that she would need to eventually address, but for now, it was time to exploooooore!