Chapter 277: Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki
The Great Toad Sage crushed one water dragon in his grip, then turned a cold glare on the rest still coiling around him.
Even dragons dozens of meters long looked like nothing more than garden snakes against a body of his overwhelming scale.
"Hokage. Is this really all the power you have?"
He spat fire in every direction, trying to burn every last one of these irritating little eels dry.
Riding one of the dragons, Sakura swung the hundred-meter staff and drove it straight into his flank, wringing a pained grunt out of him.
"You talk a lot for someone whose death anniversary starts a year from today."
Sakura answered, cold.
"Big mouth for someone so young."
With that, the Great Toad Sage seemed to decide he'd hold nothing back. He pressed his palms together like a shinobi forming a seal, his massive crimson eyes blazing like beacons in the dark—
And his body began shrinking. Fast.
Sakura's eyes lit up slightly.
Is he... turning human?
Like air rushing out of a balloon, the Great Toad Sage's form collapsed inward and condensed, and within the blink of an eye, a tall man in crimson armor stood before Sakura.
The armor's style closely resembled the one Yomi had worn — clearly another relic of the same thousand-year-old era. And his presence had climbed steadily the whole time; the chakra inside him now sat like a vast, boundless lake. Even to the naked eye, waves of heat rolled visibly off his body.
"Hah..."
The Great Toad Sage let out a slow breath, a thread of flame curling from his mouth.
"It's been a while since I've fought in this form."
But in the next instant, an iron fist slammed straight into his stomach, and the sheer force sent him flying backward.
"You really do talk a lot. But this confirms it, at least."
"You're the same kind of creature as Yomi."
"A demon."
Sakura's eyes stayed calm, watching him get thrown dozens of meters and rise back to his feet regardless.
"Heh. Fair enough, I suppose."
"It's not just me. The slugs of Shikkotsu Forest, the white snakes of Ryūchi Cave — we're all the same kind."
"But don't lump us in with something like Yomi."
"That lowly thing wandered off its path and never even realized it. Pathetic."
"Not that any of that matters to you anymore."
"Your Sage Mode... is running out, isn't it?"
A flash of gold flickered in the Great Toad Sage's eyes. He'd already noticed the sage markings on the Hokage's face beginning to fade.
"Is that so?"
Sakura's mouth curved into a faintly odd smile, and she took a single step forward — an invisible shockwave rippling outward from her body.
At that moment, a vast surge of chakra came rushing up out of the ground toward the sky — visible to the naked eye, an actual river of chakra.
Sakura stood bathed in it, and the sage markings that had just begun to dim flared bright again.
"That's — my Mount Myōboku's natural energy."
The Great Toad Sage's face darkened.
This woman is drawing on Mount Myōboku's own natural energy to refresh her Sage Mode.
The staff in Sakura's hand vanished with a puff of white smoke, and she raised a single finger, pointing it straight at him. Her golden eyes burned with undisguised bloodlust.
"Round two, then."
"Let's go."
The moment the words left her mouth, both of them vanished from where they stood.
One punch.
An invisible, savage shockwave blew apart the surrounding clouds in an instant.
Golden light surged. Fire poured down like a waterfall. The Great Toad Sage's entire body blazed with flame as he traded blow for blow with Sakura, fist against fist.
As someone who knew of the Ōtsutsuki clan, the Great Toad Sage understood exactly how much raw physical power mattered. Like Sakura, he'd poured nearly all of his effort into strengthening his own body.
Every strike, every strike, every strike — both of them fought at full power, a contest of pure flesh against flesh.
The golden flame wrapped around Sakura's body held back the crimson fire radiating from his, while she worked, relentlessly, to break through and destroy the chakra pathways running through him.
Human or toad, anything that could channel chakra had to have pathways for it to run through. If Sakura could locate and force her way into his, the outcome of the fight would already be decided.
But the Great Toad Sage had clearly caught on to what she was after, and fought just as hard to keep her out — crimson flame blanketing his entire body, resisting the encroaching Yang Release with everything he had.
They fought from sky to earth, and from earth back to sky again — tearing through cloud layers, shattering mountain peaks, snapping the course of rivers.
It was almost impossible to believe this was a fight between two beings relying on nothing but raw physical strength.
And the longer it went on, the grimmer the Great Toad Sage's thoughts became.
How is this Sakura Haruno managing to keep pace with me at all?
He'd trained on Mount Myōboku for a thousand years.
And Sakura Haruno? Even if she'd started cultivating from the moment she was in the womb, it wouldn't add up to a fraction of what he'd put in.
If she'd been born a Senju, an Uzumaki, an Uchiha — even a Hyūga, even Kaguya herself — he could have accepted it. Those clans all carried the Ōtsutsuki bloodline in their veins.
But—
But—
Why?! How can a mere mortal, with no bloodline at all, stand toe to toe with me?!
I am the Great Toad Sage of Mount Myōboku!
"Sage Technique — Flame Fusion!"
In that instant, the Great Toad Sage seized both of Sakura's hands, wrenched his jaw open, and unleashed a searing gout of flame straight at her face.
Sakura's eyes sharpened, a flicker of light kindling in them.
Sage Technique — Yang Release — Ward!
The chakra in her body condensed at once — so densely that the pathways beneath her skin, glowing gold, became faintly visible through it.
The flame washed over her head. And just as the Great Toad Sage's face began to curl into a smile of triumph—
A streak of pink came crashing straight through the fire at him.
His Flame Fusion hadn't done her the slightest harm.
"That's not — that's not possible!"
Before he could process his shock, this damned pink-haired woman was already driving a headbutt — full force, brutal, merciless — straight into his skull.
At that instant, the chakra pathways beneath Sakura's skin lit up gold from end to end. She'd pushed the Ward technique to its absolute limit for that single moment.
He was, after all, just as much a master of physical power as she was — a bare-knuckle headbutt like that would've hurt her every bit as much as him, ordinarily.
But the Ward technique had absorbed the impact for her completely.
Clearly, the Great Toad Sage hadn't expected her to pull a move that costly — mutual injury be damned — and his consciousness blanked out for a split second under the blow.
Sakura wasn't about to waste an opening like that. One hand locked hard around his wrist, and the other pulled back, drawing power.
Sage Technique — Yang Release — Mountain Lord!
Chakra flame erupted violently across her fist, and the roar of a tiger cracked through the air.
!!!
Even with his mind still blank, the Great Toad Sage sensed the danger closing in. But before he could counter, that fist — wreathed in the roar of a savage tiger — slammed straight into his chest.
The impact hit him like a hammer blow. Scalding, blood-red blood erupted from his mouth.
Some of it splashed onto Sakura's hand, hissing faintly against her skin.
She didn't care. She pulled her fist back, drew power again—
Sage Technique — Yang Release — Mountain Lord!
Another punch, straight into his chest.
More blood burst from his mouth.
The force of the blow sent him flying, but Sakura's other hand caught his arm and yanked him bodily back — and then—
Mountain Lord!
Mountain Lord!!
Mountain Lord!!!
Five consecutive strikes slammed into his chest, one after another.
Even a thousand years of cultivation couldn't withstand five hits like that back to back.
His chest caved in, flesh torn and bleeding, faint tongues of crimson fire leaking out through the wound.
But Sakura had no intention of letting him off yet.
She'd come to Mount Myōboku today for exactly one reason: to kill.
The roar of a golden tiger gathered around her fist once more — a massive, savage beast rising behind her, roaring up at the sky, before condensing entirely into the chakra pooling in her hand.
"This is the last one!"
"Die!"
She screamed the words, and the punch — carrying force beyond compare — drove straight for his heart.
If that blow landed clean, the Great Toad Sage would die on the spot.
A thousand years of cultivation, gone in an instant.
But then—
A hand caught Sakura's wrist.
A single punch, powerful enough to split mountains and shatter stone, unraveled completely against that hand.
Sakura's eyes narrowed sharply.
She turned to look at the owner of that hand, which had appeared out of nowhere.
A figure with striking, angular features, dressed entirely in white, sitting cross-legged in midair.
And most importantly—
A pair of pale-lavender, ripple-patterned eyes, and six black orbs floating behind him.
The Rinnegan. The Truth-Seeking Balls.
This was—
The Sage of the Six Paths. Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki!
So Katsuyu had been right, after all.
Mount Myōboku answered to Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki.
The last living being of Six Paths-level power in the entire shinobi world.
With the Great Toad Sage on the verge of death, the old man had finally decided he couldn't just sit back anymore.
"Hokage. Would you do me a favor?"
"Let the Great Toad Sage live."
Hagoromo looked at the badly wounded toad in Sakura's grip, his expression complicated.
The Great Toad Sage held a particular place in his heart. It was because of him that Hagoromo had once been forced to join with his own brother, Hamura Ōtsutsuki, to seal away their mother — Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
Did he hate him for that?
No. Hagoromo didn't hate the Great Toad Sage.
Just as the toad had told Sakura himself — he'd been right. That was simply the truth of it.
But did he like him?
No. Hagoromo had never particularly liked the Great Toad Sage.
Because his existence was the reason mother and son had turned against each other in the first place.
Even knowing the Great Toad Sage's judgment had been correct, some part of Hagoromo still couldn't quite let it go.
"Hagoromo... Ōtsutsuki."
Sakura regarded the figure before her, tension in her expression, glancing warily at the Truth-Seeking Balls hovering behind him.
She hadn't yet mastered the balance of Yin-Yang Release. Hadn't yet stepped into Six Paths-level power herself.
Against someone who had, the Truth-Seeking Balls amounted to something close to a dimensional weapon — annihilation, essentially unanswerable, for anyone who hadn't reached that level. Without Sage Mode active, even brushing against one could well be a death sentence.
Sakura wasn't entirely sure — even with Sage Mode active, if she landed a punch on one of those orbs, whether her own body would survive the exchange or simply come apart.
Even Might Guy, in the original story — with the Eighth Gate open — had needed Kamui's assistance just to slip past a Truth-Seeking Ball's protection and land a single kick on Madara.
"So you already know who I am."
Hagoromo nodded slightly at her words.
He'd been keeping an eye on the shinobi world all along. Of course he knew who stood before him.
A mortal, born with no bloodline at all, who'd fought her way upstream against impossible odds. Someone who'd overpowered tailed beasts head-on and killed Yomi at only sixteen years old.
A promising candidate, someday, to stand against the Ōtsutsuki clan.
Even knowing she was the one who'd killed the pawn he'd once relied on.
"And you think one sentence from you is enough to make me let him go?"
Sakura's eyes went cold as she looked at him, already turning over how to handle what came next.
They'd already come this far.
She couldn't rest easy with this toad still breathing.
"Ha... Hagoromo."
"Save... save me..."
The Great Toad Sage forced his eyes open, looking at the figure before him.
Hagoromo looked at the toad, beaten nearly beyond recognition, and let out a sigh.
"If it had to come to this, you should have thought twice before starting."
"Hmph. Enough noise out of you."
Sakura let out a cold snort, and released her grip.
The Great Toad Sage plummeted, straight down from a thousand meters in the air, toward the earth below.
Hagoromo's expression shifted slightly at the sight, and he reached out to catch the falling body — but Sakura spoke first, cutting him off:
"You want to save him?"
Hagoromo only glanced at her without answering. If he hadn't intended to save him, he wouldn't have stopped this in the first place.
From a hundred meters away, he simply closed his hand, and Chibaku Tensei activated — the half-dead Great Toad Sage hanging motionless in midair, suspended in place.
"Unless I'm mistaken — this body of yours is only a projection. Isn't it?"
The words that came out of Sakura's mouth carried an edge of real danger.
Hagoromo's brow furrowed slightly at that, and he turned to look at her.
"Correct. This is nothing more than one of my avatars."
"My true body crumbled to dust centuries ago."
I knew it.
If the body's already dead, then strong enough Yin chakra alone is enough to keep someone lingering in the world indefinitely.
Sakura's eyes narrowed.
Yomi wasn't lying to her, back then.
"But if you're only planning to raise a hand against me over this — I'd strongly suggest you reconsider."
Hagoromo shook his head, a trace of resignation in his voice.
He'd been watching this one for a while now. Someone who seemed to calculate everything ten steps ahead — and yet, underneath it all, reckless to an almost absurd degree.
"If you stand down here, I'm willing to—"
But before Hagoromo could finish, Sakura had already stepped back, and let out a furious shout:
"Old relic — if you'd shown up here in your real body, fine!"
"But you send a mere avatar to lecture me to my face?"
"Beat up the kid, and now here comes the grandfather?"
"Who's spoiling you like this?!"
"Take THIS!"
In an instant, the sky churned, wind roaring, and endless chakra converged.
Blue, pink, and gold chakra pooled together in Sakura's palm.
A divine axe took shape behind her.
Hagoromo's mouth fell open slightly at the sight.
He hadn't even finished speaking—
Since when does this younger generation just attack on sight?!
"Sage Technique — Yang Release — Mountain Splitter!"
The same divine axe that had once annihilated the demon Yomi now revealed its unmatched power once again.
The axe fell.
And heaven and earth themselves seemed to change color.
(End of chapter.)
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