"Check this out, Sakura-chan! These dragon bones are huge!" Naruto said in awe as he pressed a palm against a gigantic rib jutting out of the ground, part of a much larger ribcage half-buried in the side of a mountain. "Imagine how much ramen broth you could make with one of these!"
Hinata's stomach rumbled.
"I think those might be dinosaur bo— ouch!" Sakura yelped, smacking one of her meaty tits. "Stupid mosquitoes!"
Team 7, along with Hinata, had finally arrived at the Mountain Graveyard beyond the Three Wolves Mountain Range, in the furthest reaches of the largely frozen Land of Iron. Yet here, warmed by ocean currents flowing up from the equator, the region abruptly turned into a tropical rainforest, much like the southern and eastern reaches of the Land of Fire.
"So, where to?" Kakashi said, turning to Sakura, whose delicious Uzumaki blood had apparently attracted a swarm of mosquitoes to herself. "Where is Madara's secret base?"
Instead of replying, Sakura turned to Naruto.
"Naruto, you're up!" she called. "Can you detect any malice nearby?"
"Er… lemme see…" Naruto replied, entering Kurama Chakra Mode after a short delay. "There's a big one right there, but nah…" he said slowly, his brow scrunched up in concentration. "Wait, that's weird… eh? All of a sudden, there's a whole lot, ya know!"
It was as though a shockwave of malice had burst from Sakura's feet and rippled outwards through the earth. At once, she shut her eyes and opened her inner eye through the Mind's Eye of the Kagura, tracing the White Zetsu and the roots linking them back to their source...
"SHA!" Sakura shouted as she punched the ground. "Chakra Enhanced Strength — Cherry Blossom Impact!"
Deep, spiderwebbing fissures cracked open beneath Sakura's fist, and she jumped down into the rapidly growing dark chasm below, followed quickly by the others. They landed one after another in a gloomy tunnel, the flickering light emanating from Naruto's and Hinata's chakra cloaks catching the back of a White Zetsu as it sprinted away from them.
"Gotcha!" Naruto said as he flickered forwards and caught the Zetsu by the ankle just as it dived into the ground. "You're not wriggling out of my grip, ya know… eh!?"
"Let me go!" shrieked the White Zetsu as its body bulged and swelled in strange places, branches laden with leaves bursting from its swelling flesh. "I'm… I'm blooming!"
Before long, the White Zetsu had completely morphed into a tree, its sprawling branches piercing through the tunnel's walls and its massive trunk blocking the path ahead. The potent life energy coursing through Naruto's chakra cloak had overcharged its Divine Tree cells, transforming it into an inanimate tree.
"So much for asking it questions," Sasuke said sarcastically. "How are you planning on interrogating a tree, idiot?"
"How was I supposed to know that would happen?" Naruto said irritably. "And besides, I'm not seeing you helping out, ya know! Where d'ya get off mouthing off to me like that?"
With her Mind's Eye of the Kagura, Sakura watched as the White Zetsu burrowed deep into the earth's crust, deeper than she cared to follow them. They really were like cockroaches, and now that they had been alerted and gone into hiding, she could no longer follow them to the source…
"There's a large pocket of warped space in that direction that's disturbing my Byakugan's vision," Hinata said timidly, pointing past the treeified Zetsu. "I don't see any humans, but maybe we'll find a clue there…?"
That also worked.
Sakura and the others wiggled and squeezed past the tree taking up most of the tunnel, and after a few minutes spent picking their way through the labyrinthine underground corridors, they finally emerged in a large, empty room hewn from the bedrock.
"Something extremely heavy used to sit here," Kakashi said as he examined a deep imprint in the hard ground on one side of the room. "Come stand over here, Naruto, I could use some light…"
"The Demonic Statue of the Outer Path," Sakura muttered to herself. "If it's not here, could it be back in Amegakure…?"
Between the Sage of Six Paths, Pain and Madara, the Gedō Mazō had been all over the continent.
"There's residual chakra in the air," Sasuke said as he opened his Sharingan. It was faint, but he could see traces of dark red chakra floating about that had yet to re-enter the natural chakra cycle due to the sealed nature of the place. "Uchiha chakra… Obito and Madara fought here."
"Kun~ kun~" Sakura went as she sniffed at the air. "Two different people were here, no doubt about it… I suppose that confirms what Black Zetsu told you."
Unfortunately, there was no more to be learned here.
Save for a few scant chakra metal shavings in one spot, probably from the Uchiwa Gunbai which Sakura had damaged, there were no other traces of the place being lived in. One of the scent trails ended abruptly towards one end of the room, while the other led deeper into the tunnels and back to the surface… in the Land of Lightning, as Sakura and her colleagues soon discovered.
From there, Madara's week-old scent trail grew fainter, but thanks to Pakkun and Kakashi's other summoned dogs, Team 7 managed to follow it all the way to the eastern coast. As Sakura stood on the edge of a sheer cliff overlooking the ocean, it was becoming all too clear that Madara had fled overseas.
"Trail's gone cold, lass," Pakkun said wearily, shaking his head. "It's over."
"But Madara's still out there!" Sakura hissed, a manic look in her eyes as she nervously gnawed at her thumbnail. "As long as he's alive, we'll never be able to live in peace! I'll always have to keep looking over my shoulder!"
"It's been three days, Sakura," Kakashi said softly, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Three days since we've last checked in with the village…"
As Hokage, Sakura's first responsibility lay with the safety of the village and its people, but ironically, that very title had become the leash holding her back from doing just that. Madara was planning something big again, she was certain of it, and now was the best time to stop him, before he could dig in his roots and start another Akatsuki…
"The Hidden Mist has the best blacksmiths in the world," Sakura said insistently, thinking of the way Obito had manipulated the Fourth Mizukage for years. The Land of Water had always been home territory for the Akatsuki. "I put a crack in Madara's war fan; he's bound to be looking for a way to fix it! We have to go over there now, while we still have a chance of even finding him!"
"Sakura, you are the Hokage; the villagers placed their faith in you, so at the end of the day, the choice is yours," Kakashi said calmly, meeting her gaze unflinchingly. "If you order us to go, we will go, but you will be trampling on the peace you have strived so hard to achieve. Your place is with the village… the Hokage is meant to be the village's last and best shield, not its spear."
Just like Shira, Madara had left an indelible mark on Sakura's heart, but unlike Shira, Madara was the only man who had ever truly triumphed over her and lived to enjoy it. His shadow stretched long, and his waters ran deep; no matter how strong she became, she would always feel as though it weren't enough… all because of him.
Chakra, she needed more chakra… all the chakra in the world! She would need all the power she could stuff inside her boobs for their rematch!
"Naruto, Sakura," Kakashi said, startling Sakura out of her delusions. "There's something I've been keeping from the both of you, and it's about time I got it off my chest."