"There, that must be it!" Sakura said, her forefinger tracing a line across the world map spread out on the table in the centre of the situation room. "That's where they must be hiding... the Hole. Weird name, if you ask me."
"The Hole, eh?" Shikamaru said, glancing at the label on the map. "Can't say I'm familiar."
There it was again; the Hole, that was English.
Although Sakura had never given much thought to the fact that the diverse peoples of the shinobi continent all spoke perfect Japanese, she had occasionally found herself wondering why the people of this star very often used foreign loanwords borrowed from Earth countries that no more existed here than Japan did.
"Looks like some kind of nature reserve inside a sinkhole," Sakura said, flipping open a pamphlet from the region's tourism office. "But just look at this picture—" She turned it over, showing him an aerial shot of the Hole taken from a hot-air balloon. "Have you ever seen a more perfectly circular sinkhole? This thing doesn't look natural…"
Shikamaru shrugged. "I'm no geotechnical expert, but yeah, I guess… if you stop to think about it, I suppose it does look a bit unnatural, maybe…"
To Sakura, this reeked of the Ōtsutsuki clan; it was just like them to carelessly leave their rubbish lying around. One man's trash was another man's treasure; what might be no more than a can opener to a god could pass for a divine weapon to a human. The only question now was whether this so-called rubbish was a one-off trinket from a filler episode, or something far more sinister belonging to Boruto's era, unearthed far too early because of the war…
"All this time, and they were right under our noses!" Sakura sighed. "How in the world did they manage to get past our defensive line so easily?"
The Hole was located a few kilometres north of Mount Shumisen. The north-western reaches of the Land of Fire, where the mountain stood, were inhospitable, the surrounding terrain nothing but wasteland and rock as far as the eye could see. This literal hole in the ground sat like an oasis in the middle of a desert, its lush forests standing in stark contrast to the barren no man's land around it.
"Iwagakure's speciality is Earth Style," Fū said. "Maybe they tunnelled into the nature reserve?"
It sounded ridiculous, but…
"If so, I doubt the full Land of Waterfalls invasion force is stationed there," Sakura said thoughtfully. "It would take a lot of time to move so many people through a few narrow tunnels, and I imagine it would get rather stuffy down there with thirty thousand men. Maybe they've split up; a fraction went around the defensive line by way of sea, while the rest headed for the Hole…"
Sakura's voice trailed off. That hadn't been Shikamaru's voice, just now!
"Yo, Sakura-chan!" Fū exclaimed, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Long time no see!"
Fū was just as much a hyperactive genki girl as always, unable to remain still for more than a few seconds. She had not changed much since the last time Sakura had seen her, three months ago. In the chest department, she was still firmly on the same playing level as your average ironing board.
"Fū!" Sakura said, pleasantly surprised. "Where did you come from!? What are you doing here?"
"Yeah," Shikamaru said pointedly, recognising her from the only team Takigakure had sent to the Leaf-Sand joint Chūnin Exams a few months ago. "What are you doing here?"
Although the Hidden Waterfall had tacitly granted the Hidden Leaf permission to establish its defensive line within its country's borders, its leader, Shibuki, had ordered the village into complete lockdown, despite Sakura's warnings that Iwagakure might already know exactly where to find them.
Shibuki had no intention of joining the Leaf's war effort and sending his people out to die. After all, in its current state, Takigakure was little more than a nursing home fused with a kindergarten. A village once renowned for the quality of its shinobi, Taki had been left with precious few elites in the wake of the bloodbath that had been the Third Shinobi World War.
"I got bored staying put, so I sneaked out and came over to play!" Fū said, beaming. "Hee hee, I can't wait to see Shibuki-sama's face when he finds out I'm gone! That'll teach him to lock me up!"
Sakura glanced up as two dozen Konoha-nin armed to the teeth came rushing into the situation room. To have bypassed all her guards, Fū must have flown into Hiruko's old ascension ritual chamber through the ceiling skylight using her bug wings…
"It's okay, it's okay, Fū's my friend!" Sakura called out to them, waving them down. "You can stand down now! False alarm!"
Without warning, Fū reached out and slipped her palms beneath Sakura's breasts, lifting them up and down as though she were trying to weigh them.
"Touchy much?" Sakura sighed.
It felt rather odd having her boobs fondled through Karin's magical reducing bra. She could still acutely feel Fū's small hands roaming over her bountiful curves, but due to the warp ratio between her sealed and true sizes, it was like she was being groped by a giantess's hands…
"I'd never get bored if I had stress balls like that!" Fū marvelled as her hands sank deep into the plump boob flesh. "Munyu~ munyu~"
"N-no need for sound effects, either," Sakura said, trying not to let on how much she was feeling it. She was still a bit sensitive from earlier, having used Breast Flow on the three Stone genin, two of which she had transformed into girls. "Okay, that's quite enough…"
Shikamaru, who was desperately trying not to stare, coughed into his fist.
"Anyway, the only thing left to do is send the scouting teams ahead to make sure we're not walking into a trap," he said. "Once that's done, we can have the Lord Fourth teleport into the Hole with the two Tsuchigumo volunteers and have them nuke the place with their ultimate technique… down there, there'd be nowhere for the enemy to run."
"But it's a nature reserve!" Sakura said, aghast. "What have the plants and animals ever done to you, Shikamaru!?"
"Yeah," Fū said, tut-tutting him. "Not cool, bro."
Shikamaru rolled his eyes. After all, it wasn't as though you could make an omelette without breaking at least one egg… or in this case, a hundred thousand. In his opinion, it was far better for a few rare animals to lose their lives than a hundred Konoha-nin.
"Ah, hang on!" Sakura exclaimed as she turned the tourist brochure over once more. "There's a village down there— Tonika, it says so right here! We can't just blow up civilians, we're supposed to be the good guys!"
Shikamaru turned his head and clicked his tongue in annoyance. So, Sakura had noticed after all… he'd been hoping she wouldn't. That damned bleeding-heart woman, who couldn't even kill three helpless Iwa-nin…
Those villagers were most likely all dead, anyway.