The stream of crackling blue-white energy beaming down from the moon gradually tapered off before vanishing entirely, leaving behind a gaping, glowing hole in the Earth's crust. The snow within a hundred-metre radius of the hole had melted into streams of water that trickled down into the incandescent depths, instantly turning to steam the moment they touched the molten stone.
"One thing after the other," Sakura sighed as she gazed at the blue beam rushing into the night sky. The chakra cannon's beam wasn't as fast as the Giant Tenseigan's, but it would reach the Moon eventually. "Are you going to be all right?" she added, glancing at the Hyūga clan members groggily rising to their feet. "Help is already on the way."
The Tenseigan Energy Vessel's beam did make for a rather conspicuous beacon, all things considered.
Sakura could already sense Lee-chan and Shizune making a beeline for this place, as well as an army of samurai hot on their trail. The Leaf shinobi had worn out their welcome in the Land of Iron the moment the Gokage Summit had ended, and she didn't particularly fancy explaining what all these Hyūga clan members were doing here, so far from the Hidden Leaf.
"B-b-baby…" Hyūga Natsu mumbled incoherently, staggering towards Sakura on unsteady feet. "Give… back…"
Natsu was the caretaker of Hinata and Hanabi, the Hyūga clan main family's sister pair. From what little Sakura knew of her, she was a kind and gentle woman, though not much of a martial artist. She was slower to recover than the others, who were already shaking off their drowsiness.
"What's going on…?" Hanabi said dizzily. "I can't see anything…"
As Sakura helped Hanabi to her feet with one hand, still clutching Miss Natsu's baby in her other arm, she couldn't help but notice the girl was bedazzled with all sorts of sparkly, stylish accessories. Kunai with little gachapon figurines attached to the pommel, ninja tools encrusted with plastic rhinestones… very cute.
"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"
Rock Lee and Shizune had finally caught up to her.
"Lee-chan, Shizune-san, would you mind helping our comrades back home?" Sakura said, handing Shizune the baby as Lee helped steady Miss Natsu. "I've got business to take care of," she added, pointing at the blue beam rising towards the moon in the distance. "And if you've got the time, please send a message to Kumo saying they don't have to worry about reprisal? I'm not holding this one against them… 'Kay, thanks!"
Sakura did not blame Kumogakure for firing the cannon in response to the Giant Tenseigan's attack; whoever had made the decision to shoot had doubtless not been watching the live broadcast of the Gokage Summit. And even if they had, they could hardly be blamed for firing back at the moon in retaliation.
Even so, Sakura couldn't allow the attack to land, so she quickly headed towards the Moon Cave. Using her Byakugan, she soon spotted a powerful distortion in space-time… there existed a spring at the bottom of a nearby cave, an Einstein-Rosen bridge that led to the moon, hundreds of thousands of kilometres away.
"There it is!"
Sakura ran into the cave all the way to the bottom, where she found a pool of glowing water. Without hesitation, she swan-dived into the water, which to her surprise, didn't feel wet.
Naruto's voice echoed through the passageway.
'Whoa, the water's not wet, ya know?'
'Technically speaking, water can't be wet,' next came Karin's voice. 'Wetness is when something gets coated in water. Water can't coat itself, so it's not wet… idiot.'
Sakura glanced around in surprise, but her friends weren't there… only echoes of their chakra, imprinted into the passageway?
She continued swimming down the tunnel, carefully avoiding the glowing balls of chakra that floated amongst the moon-like stone balls suspended all over the place. It was hard to tell where she was going; everything was enveloped in a baleful greenish-yellow light, and the surrounding chakra was so dense, while space-time was so curved, that opening any of her dōjutsu rendered her blind in the water.
Sometimes, less information was better.
Sakura continued swimming, but at some point, she burst free of the strange water, her momentum carrying her forwards a few paces towards a floating stone ball, from which she leapt off towards the next. Gravity's pull seemingly changed direction at random as she advanced; sometimes it pulled backwards, and her breasts floated to either side of her; other times it shifted, and her boobs drifted towards the front. The miniature moons that littered the tunnel also seemed to possess a pull of their own, and so did the sides of the cylindrical passageway whenever she got too close…
At some point, a strange ripple accompanied by a low howl propagated through the tunnel.
Overcome with a sensation of impending doom, Sakura glanced over her shoulder, and her heart nearly stopped. The passageway to the moon was unravelling behind her at a rapid rate, a dark void swallowing the stone balls and sucking them into space.
Sakura aimed for the nearest of the small moons ahead, using its small gravity to slingshot herself down the tunnel's length, briefly landing on it before pushing off as if it were a springboard. The unravelling was already upon her, sucking her sandals into the vacuum…
Ahead, the passageway's exit was already closing, like a camera's aperture—
"Almighty Push!"
Sakura thrust her hands to her sides and pushed with the force of desperation, propelling herself through the luminous screen of water at the end of the tunnel just as it snapped shut. Gravity flipped once again, and before she knew it, she was expelled from the water and into the roof of a cavern much like the one she had entered back on Earth.
"No, the spring!" Sakura shouted in anguish as she landed on the ceiling, looking down at the pool of water as its lustrous glow dimmed. "How are we going to get back home!?"
The only answer Sakura obtained was the echo of her own voice; the gigantic, but quite deceased, crab lying on its back nearby certainly wasn't going to provide any answers to her questions.
She was stranded on the moon… and so were Naruto, Karin, Tenten and maybe Hinata.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
…or not.
"Lady Katsuyu!" Sakura blubbered, clutching to her chest the small blue-and-white slug that had just appeared before her in a plume of white smoke. "Am I glad to see you!"