"Good luck!" Sakura called, waving goodbye as Tsubaki and Sasuke departed for the place where they believed the Ultra Particles were hidden. "And don't forget to ask about the star showers at the Astronomy Research Institute! The daimyō's office keeps pestering me about meteors causing damage throughout the country, and I honestly don't know what to tell them!"
Sakura's arm fell to her side as soon as the pair had vanished over the horizon.
Although Sasuke had told her that Tsubaki had sealed away Orochimaru for good, as the ice buried deep in the darkness within the heart of the mountain would take thousands of years to melt, she had no intention of leaving that snake's fate up to chance.
"Milady, I won't be able to hold the reverse-summoning much longer," Mini-Katsuyu chirped on her shoulder. "If you still have business in the Land of Redaku, I suggest you hurry…"
"It shouldn't take too long," Sakura replied. "I just need to pay a quick visit to an old acquaintance…"
Sakura vaulted over the city walls and landed on the other side, now disguised as a royal guard. She quickly made her way to the royal palace, freely using the Saimingan to bewitch anyone who stopped her and questioned why she had left her post.
Before long, she was dipping her toes into the cold water filling the palace's basement.
"Eugh, corpse water," Sakura muttered to herself, wrinkling her nose. "Disgusting…"
No amount of dry-cleaning would ever remove this stench, so she quickly flattened her breasts and stripped naked, carefully storing her clothes in a waterproof sealing scroll. She then took a deep breath out of reflex— even though she didn't need to breathe— encased Mini-Katsuyu in a small bubble of chakra, and dived into the murky water.
Following Orochimaru's faint chakra signature, she began swimming down into the depths, navigating the submerged passageways using the Byakugan until she found the frozen sculpture of the Great White Snake himself.
Sakura swam closer and touched the ice, permeating it with her chakra, before giving Katsuyu's bubble a little tap, the signal to cancel the reverse-summoning. Anything making direct contact with her and her chakra would accompany her back once the summoning ended.
The plan was to retrieve Orochimaru alive, just as she had already done with his Sound Three, whom she had sent back to Shikkotsu Forest by trapping them inside a larger fragment of Katsuyu.
She really had no other choice.
"Summoning Jutsu: Cancel!"
The world spun, gravity reasserting itself as Sakura and company reappeared in Shikkotsu Forest within a large bubble of water. The bubble instantly popped, releasing its occupants with a small, localised flood that washed across the mossy ground of the forest.
Sakura briefly entertained the idea of executing Orochimaru right there and then, but she held back from doing so. The snake had a proven track record of resurrecting himself when killed, so sealing was arguably a better method of dealing with him… after all, he'd implanted his DNA and his cursed seals in many people, and there was no telling if killing the main Orochimaru would cause the backups to return to life all at once…
"Scorch Style: Extremely Steaming Murder Jutsu…"
The ice began melting like… well, snow in the sun, and before long, Orochimaru's feathered serpent form was flopping limply on the ground before her.
"N-no," he slurred. "Not… again…"
Incidentally, Tsubaki had been mistaken about Orochimaru's dinosaur body: it was not a poikilotherm but rather an endotherm, a warm-blooded creature capable of adapting to various climates.
Even so, being frozen into an ice lolly was not a particularly pleasant experience for him, even with his resilient physique. No matter how hard he tried to extract chakra, his metabolic rate was too low, and he was simply too lethargic to do anything…
"Losing to my clone, of all people… this is your just desserts, Orochimaru," Sakura said coldly, fixing him with her scarlet eyes. "You can only blame yourself for cloning me without my permission, and now, I'm going to work you to the bone for the Hidden Leaf Village… Kotoamatsukami!"
…
And so, Sakura returned to the Hidden Leaf Village, leaving Orochimaru and his underlings behind under the strict supervision of Katsuyu in Shikkotsu Forest. Upon her return, she immediately assured Tobirama that she was close to finding a cure for his big brother's condition.
Less than a month later, in the first week of December, she received a messenger hawk from Sasuke and Tsubaki, informing her that they had finally found the Ultra Particles and that, once the Land of Waves artisans put the finishing touches on the good airship Tsubame Maru Ni-gō, they would be coming straight back home, though it would take quite a while.
Sakura immediately sent a telegram to the Land of Waves to inform them of the survival of their compatriots, before sending for Tobirama and Hashirama to tell them the good news… but when she turned the letter over, she found an account of their chilling discovery at the National Observatory in the Land of Redaku:
"These recent star showers aren't normal meteor showers," she read aloud. "The moon is falling out of orbit… the meteors that have been falling are actually pieces of the crumbling moon, drawn to the planet by unusual gravitational activity. When the moon reaches the critical point of no return, it will completely disintegrate and rain down upon the planet, extinguishing all life."
Sakura sighed and leaned back in her desk chair. The events of The Last: Naruto the Moviefilm were finally happening. There was no pushing this back any longer.
"With the Hyūga clan safe in this pocket dimension, there's no guarantee Ōtsutsuki Toneri will personally descend and show us the way to the moon…" Sakura muttered to herself. "…Black Zetsu."
Sakura's shadow seemed to lengthen, stretching across the floor and climbing up the wall.
A gravelly, disembodied voice echoed across the room. "You called…"
Two scarlet dots appeared upon the shadow's head, staring out from the projected darkness. A wide, crooked grin formed by the absence of shadow slowly stretched across its face beneath the glowing eyes.
"…Mistress Kaguya?"