Princess Sāra knelt before the factory's Ryūmyaku relay node and raised her arms above it, palms down. "Kyu, kyu, nyo, ritsu, ryo," she chanted, gently forcing down the chakra welling up from the spell formation. The eye at the centre of the formation slowly closed as the profound runes surrounding it glowed, then vanished altogether.
And with a loud mechanical hum, the factory's machinery began to power down.
Still trapped within the gigantic puppet, Sakura clicked her tongue in annoyance as the ambient nature energy began thinning back to normal levels. While the puppet had been hard at work trying to absorb her chakra, she'd been absorbing torrents of nature energy from it in return, enough to fill nearly a quarter of her Celestial Lotus Seal!
It was a rather good bargain, all things considered; the puppet couldn't drain her chakra if she simply refused to make any more, while she remained free to siphon off its own. Still, all good things come to an end, and harvesting free nature energy would have to wait for another day.
The Celestial Lotus Seal on Sakura's brow glowed brightly in the darkness of the puppet's belly, banishing the gloom. Sky-blue bands spread outwards from her forehead, wrapping around her entire body as the Sage's eyeshadow appeared around her eyes, forming intricate and profound patterns. For the first time, she had amassed enough nature energy to fully harness her Sage Mode, bringing it up to par with Hashirama's Sage Mode, or the Yin Seal's full release!
"Sage Mode x Body Revival Jutsu x Chakra Enhanced Strength!"
In that moment, even if she hadn't reached the ultimate heights of power possible in this world, Sakura had physically become the strongest being alive. With the slightest twitch of her fingers, the reinforced armour restraining her arms crumpled like soft tofu beneath her touch. As she stretched her legs, the puppet's inner frame tore apart as easily as soaked toilet paper... and not even the double-ply kind!
Sakura interlocked her fingers.
"Sage Art: Partial Expansion, Both Breasts!"
"What the!?" Anrokuzan snarled, watching as his giant puppet seemed to twist and warp. "What's happening in there?"
BOOM!
With an ear‑splitting, metallic scream, the puppet's torso burst apart in a shower of fragments, startling Chōza as the largest pair of breasts he had ever seen erupted towards him, their sudden expansion knocking him backwards into the tangle of machinery at his back. The brass pipes and levers gave way beneath his weight like wet cardboard; yet, fortunately for Princess Sāra and the citizens of Lōran chained to their workstations, Naruto and his Shadow Clones were quick to save them before the wreckage and Chōza's gigantic posterior crushed them alive.
Groaning, Chōza groggily pushed himself upright and rubbed his aching head… and his eyes widened in disbelief. The vast globes of fully dressed pale-white, milky flesh that had sent him flying were already drawing back, shrinking until, in their place, stood the most magnificently endowed kunoichi he had ever seen— the culprit was none other than the future girl, Sakura!
Sakura stamped her foot— and in the next instant, she was gone. A split second later, almost as if its destruction was nothing more than an afterthought, the puppet's lower half tore apart with a chorus of metallic shrieks, exploding into hundreds of fragments in her wake.
Enraged, Anrokuzan jerked his fingers, pulling hard on the chakra threads binding the shattered puppet fragments… only to falter in stunned disbelief, as the pink‑haired girl, her face, arms and cleavage traced with glowing blue bands, seemed to materialise before his eyes in the blink of an eye.
She was fast. Incredibly fast!
"SHA…"
Anrokuzan unconsciously took half a step back in fear as Sakura clenched her fist and drew back her arm. Her biceps seemed to swell before his very eyes…
"NA…"
Snarling as he regained his wits, Anrokuzan flicked his fingers inwards, sending several blades snapping free from his defeated puppets and hurtling towards Sakura's back!
"RO!"
Sakura drove her fist into Anrokuzan's stomach with all her strength, following through as if she meant to punch straight through him. Instantly, the senjutsu chakra cloaking her hand erupted outwards at the point of contact, amplifying the force of the blow even further!
BOOM! BOOM! Boom! Boom! Boom!boom!
A rapid succession of thunderous booms resounded as Anrokuzan was hurled clean through the factory wall— then through the one beyond it, and the next, and the next, and so on— until, at last, a final, distant crash marked the moment his broken body buried itself deeply in the underground's outer walls, in the bedrock.
"That takes care of one problem," Sakura said, dusting off her gloved hands.
Minato gave a sharp nod to his teammates. Shibi— who had been helping Naruto free the citizens of the Land of Lōran from the chains binding them to their workstations— followed him and Chōza through the gaping hole in the wall where Sakura had blasted Anrokuzan out of the factory.
Sakura frowned. She was still here, and so were the two Narutos and their Shadow Clones. She'd hit Anrokuzan with enough force to turn him into a bloody mist, so why weren't they returning to the future, if he was really dead?
"Whoa," Dark Naruto muttered. "Sakura-chan's even hotter with make-up on… oi, where are you going!?"
"I'll lead the citizens to safety!" Sāra called, waving for her people to follow her up the stairs to the surface. "Don't worry about me— go after Anrokuzan! And if you get the chance, lure him into the chamber where you first appeared. The power of the Ryūmyaku can't reach into it; he'll be utterly helpless inside!"
"Got it!"
Sakura and Dark Naruto followed after Naruto Prime; he had already jumped through the hole in the wall without them to chase after his father.
"It's no good, that fat bastard turned his body into a puppet!!" Dark Naruto said breathlessly as they ran and jumped through the series of holes. "Dad stabbed him in the head with a kunai, but he just repaired himself, ya know?"
"Then that just means it's only a matter of punching him enough times!" Sakura replied, her chest bobbing wildly as she kept pace with him. "Still, I can't believe that didn't kill him… I didn't go all out, but that punch was still on the level of the Gate of Wonder's release, wasn't it…?"
Indeed, as long as there were puppet materials around for him to replenish his armour, Anrokuzan could not be defeated! He had all of Lōran's chakra and building materials at his disposal, making him immortal within the bounds of the Ryūmyaku!
Soon, Naruto and Sakura reached the final wall she had blasted Anrokuzan through. A crater in the shape of his body scarred the bedrock opposite the hole, yet neither he, Team Minato, nor Naruto Prime were there… only a multitude of deep imprints along the walls of a vast spiral staircase, as though some giant insect had trampled its way down into the depths.
…
Meanwhile, deeper down the spiral staircase…
"It's no good," Shibi said evenly. "He's got so much chakra even my Kikaichū can't devour it all…"
Anrokuzan had transformed himself into a gigantic ant-shaped puppet, which Shibi had covered with his insects… but they were dropping dead in droves, gorging themselves to death on more chakra than they could digest.
"I've got him!" Chōza roared, as he inflated himself to match the puppet in height. "I'll hold him back while you… argh!"
Razor-sharp blades sprouted from Anrokuzan's puppet body, cutting deep into Chōza's palms, arms and stomach as he desperately struggled to hold back the monster. Gallons of scalding blood gushed from his wounds, and Chōza was forced to deflate back to his normal size. Freed from his grasp, the puppet skittered into the depths below, its eerie laughter ricocheting up the staircase walls.
"This is bad…" Minato said grimly. "He's heading for the Ryūmyaku's source!"