Chapter 143: King and Mount
Scorching sun. Yellow sand. Furnace wind.
The one-eyed old man in his black-and-white robes watched the churning battle in front of him with perfect composure. His visible eye, black and white as ink, showed no particular feeling.
Even with an entity on that field matching him in combat power — reaping Konoha ninja lives by the handful — he remained unmoved.
Kakuzu.
Former missing-nin of Takigakure. Takigakure had once assigned him to assassinate the First Hokage. He'd failed. The First Hokage, in a moment of extraordinary mercy, had spared him.
And then Takigakure, fearing Hashirama might later retaliate through them, had thrown Kakuzu out.
At that memory, Danzō Shimura let something like contempt flicker at the corner of his mouth.
If the First Hokage had actually been that kind of person — the kind who settled grudges — the entire ninja world would already be beneath Konoha's heel.
Kakuzu's background had been extracted from Konoha's intelligence network days ago. He'd been working for Sunagakure long enough to leave tracks.
Danzō held no respect for a man who spent decades at every gathering loudly announcing that his most noteworthy opponent had been the First Hokage. Being spared by that man wasn't an achievement. Wearing it like a badge was embarrassing.
"Fire Release — Intelligent Hard Work!"
A casual technique. The kind a seasoned fighter threw without thinking.
But the resulting wave of fire moved like a living thing — a charging beast of flame that swept toward the Konoha line.
One technique. Five or six ninja couldn't clear the radius in time.
"That's five more."
Kakuzu's vivid green eyes stayed fixed on the bodies.
Sunagakure was paying a hundred thousand ryō per confirmed Konoha kill. He was past ten million at this point. Chaos was profitable. Bodies accumulated fast in an open battle.
"Wind Release — Pressure Damage!"
The fire wasn't finished, and he was already feeding it.
Howling wind tore from his mouth, feeding oxygen into what had been fading. The dying flames became a roaring wall again.
"Water Release squad — move!"
Three or four Konoha ninja rapidly formed seals, releasing sustained water walls that drove into the wind-fire combination.
The collision produced a blinding shroud of steam that swallowed that section of the battlefield whole. Visibility: zero.
"Now that's more like it."
Behind his mask, Kakuzu smiled and walked into it.
The Sunagakure force took his advance as a signal and charged alongside him.
In the white-out, a masked figure spoke quietly.
"Fū is ready."
"Confirmed."
Yamanaka Fū, amber hair, face composed, had already begun forming seals.
The moment Fū's hands moved, Aburame Torune stripped his sleeve and charged.
Lethal purple coated his skin — the nanoscale poison beetles he controlled. In the history of the ninja world, anyone struck by Torune without exception had died. No individual, no defense, no resistance on record.
"In such a hurry to die?"
Kakuzu spotted the purple discoloration the moment Torune closed the distance. Unusual color on skin — not a chance he was touching that directly. He activated his Earth Spear technique, skin hardening to near-impermeability, yanked off his own sleeve, wrapped it around his fist, and swung.
Why had he survived this long?
The secret techniques helped. But it was the disposition underneath — caution in the face of the unknown — that had kept him breathing.
The wrapped fist reached Torune — and Torune stopped.
"Mind Body Switch — complete."
Kakuzu said it himself. Torune's words coming from Kakuzu's mouth.
"Slow, Fū."
Torune smiled in Kakuzu's body and immediately grabbed Kakuzu's throat, beetles flooding the skin contact point like a tide.
In the same instant, Fū returned to his own body.
Years working together. He already knew — whatever had just happened to Kakuzu's biology, Kakuzu wasn't walking away from it.
Nobody walked away from Torune's insects.
"What — what did you do to me—"
The moment Fū vacated, Kakuzu's own consciousness snapped back in.
The exchange had looked lengthy. In real time — one exchange, under three seconds.
Kakuzu felt his body being consumed from within. Dissolving.
"Nanoscale poison beetles. Once I've touched you, you're already dead."
Torune watched without expression as Kakuzu's knees hit the ground.
Kakuzu couldn't respond. The insects had already destroyed his throat.
His body went down.
The ninja world's most feared underground bounty hunter — ended here. Born of betrayal, devoted to wealth, extinguished by the same transaction that had brought him to this battlefield.
Torune stepped forward and crouched over the body.
The insects had to be recalled. Without active control, nanoscale beetles didn't stop. They ate, reproduced, spread. Left unchecked in this region — the entire province would be consumed. Literally consumed. Not metaphorically. Every living thing, then the dead things, then the organic structure of the soil itself.
It had happened once before through a moment of inattention. A forest had died. He'd spent everything he had pulling the beetles back. He didn't think about what would have happened if he hadn't managed it.
This was what made him Root's ultimate weapon. Not the killing. The control — and the absolute necessity of maintaining it.
He reached out and began drawing the insects back.
He looked at the body one last time.
Turned away.
"What a resilient heart."
The words came from behind him.
Torune spun.
Shk.
Black tendrils punched through him.
He felt them moving inside. Searching. Something was reaching for his heart.
"No — don't—"
He wasn't begging. He was thinking about the insects. If he died, they'd lose control. This area would be destroyed. Not just Konoha and Suna ninja — civilians in proximity too. Everyone.
"Begging?"
"Your insects are mine now."
Kakuzu's Earth Spear technique had kept three hearts functional through the initial beetle attack. The tendrils pulled something free with a wet sound — still beating.
The insects swarmed.
Without their host's control, they moved on instinct: consume everything.
The purple spread from Torune's body outward in every direction.
The sole exception was Kakuzu. They avoided him entirely.
Kakuzu looked at what he'd just done and felt something close to exhilaration.
If he hadn't hardened three hearts in time. If Torune had waited a moment longer before recalling the beetles. If—
Too many ifs. Ninja combat was an information war. Torune hadn't known Kakuzu carried five hearts. Kakuzu hadn't known Torune had a Yamanaka backup. Both had paid for their intelligence gaps. One had paid permanently.
He'd genuinely danced on the edge of death this time.
But now the beetles were moving on their own.
They consumed indiscriminately — flesh, chakra, sand-nin, Konoha ninja, the soil, the air above it. Any ninja caught in the spreading purple wave was dissolving in real time, trying to scream through a body that no longer had the structure to scream with.
Jutsu could destroy individual clusters. But at this density and this reproduction rate, nothing was keeping pace.
This was a swarm. A feast. An event.
"SOMEONE GET ME—"
"SUMMON YAMANAKA ZHIWEI AND ABURAME ZHEIKOKU—"
Hiruzen stared at the battle report in his hands and felt his blood pressure spike.
Danzō Shimura.
Danzō.
Danzō.
Six thousand deployed.
Four thousand dead.
How. How did you justify this decision to yourself.
The neat black characters on the report looked, to him, like they'd been written in blood.
Nanoscale poison beetles. He'd handed them to someone else.
"That's quite a heart."
The meeting space in Amegakure. Nine figures projected above the Demonic Statue's fingers.
"South Star."
The Pein representing Zetsu's host looked toward Kakuzu.
"What happened at the River Country front?"
Before Kakuzu could answer—
"Ooh, ooh, I know this one!"
Zetsu, White side, grinned.
"Kakuzu stole a Konoha ninja's heart and almost died! And then the Konoha ninja's beetles got loose and ate six or seven thousand ninja from both sides! Even one of my clones got caught in it~"
"If you don't have anything useful to say," Kakuzu said, "you could simply not say anything."
"Wow, that many deaths at once! Lord Jashin is going to be thrilled!"
Hidan immediately chimed in for his eternal companion.
"Kakuzu. Can you control those insects?"
Pein ignored the commentary from both of them.
From his perspective: a subordinate had acquired a new capability and become more dangerous. That was what mattered. The Konoha and Suna casualties were incidental — a small additional pressure on both villages.
"Yes."
Kakuzu met Pein's eyes briefly and looked away.
New power or not, this was not someone he looked at directly.
"Heh... with Kakuzu making that much noise over there," Kisame said, "can we still count on Suna?"
He was currently holding the River Country front against Ōnoki's combined formation techniques — Earth Release on that scale didn't interact well with his water-based techniques, and it was slow, grinding work.
"They have no choice but to count on us."
Pein's voice was entirely flat.
"Without our support, Sunagakure would already have fallen. They will attribute the insect casualties to Konoha. They will say: the Konoha ninja, in desperation, deployed a technique that killed indiscriminately, but thanks to Suna cooperation and the assistance of the immortal Kakuzu, the disaster was contained."
He let that settle.
"Kakuzu will be celebrated as Suna's savior."
A mercenary becoming a village's hero. The irony was complete. But it would hold. It would hold because it was functionally true.
Itachi watched all of this from his position, saying nothing. The red Sharingan behind the mask showed nothing readable.
"Itachi."
Pein noticed.
"Your thoughts?"
"None."
The answer visibly annoyed certain people.
"Aww, is our little Itachi upset because so many Konoha ninja died? Hmm? Is that it?"
Deidara, never capable of leaving well enough alone.
"If you want to die," Kisame said, to his partner, "I'm not going to stop you."
"Is that right?" Sasori's expressionless gaze moved to Kisame. "Do you want to try something? Because I'm currently fighting your former village's battles, if you'd forgotten."
"Sasori..." Kisame's voice went very quiet.
"You shark-faced—"
"Enough."
Pein's voice cut through it. One word.
Silence.
That was what absolute power produced. No matter how unruly the collection of people, in the presence of force that could end any of them without effort — they sat down.
Pein observed this and found his convictions reinforced.
The golden chains moved like living serpents.
Kushina watched them and felt a warm glow of satisfaction rising in her chest.
To speed things along, Tsunade had taken a shortcut: she'd inscribed the Adamantine Sealing Chain array directly onto Kushina's body. Kushina provided the chakra, Kushina activated it.
This approach let Kushina feel the technique functioning from the inside — a vastly faster path to true understanding than reading about it — and it meant the next suppression attempt could start sooner.
Three days after Kushina had internalized the chains, Sakura arrived at Training Ground 3 again.
Everyone had learned from last time. Tsunade had pre-deployed the Adamantine Chains throughout the entire training ground before Sakura arrived.
The goal: contain Sakura — or rather, whoever emerged — from the start. No more chasing Inner Sakura around the field.
Hiruzen arrived as well, visibly preoccupied but present.
"Adamantine Chains."
Tsunade raised one hand, index and middle fingers together. Golden chains erupted from every direction and wrapped Sakura thoroughly.
Simultaneously, Kushina activated the Adamantine Sealing array on her skin — and extended a single golden chain, pressing it gently through Sakura's chest. Her chakra, full of that formidable Uzumaki vitality, began flowing through the link and into Sakura's body.
A thin line of red appeared along the chain's path. Kushina winced internally but didn't pull back.
"You can begin."
Sakura felt the tide of Kushina's chakra inside her — warm, vigorous, almost aggressively alive — and her voice was calm.
Tsunade looked to Sasuke.
He activated the Sharingan and met Sakura's eyes directly.
Sakura's head dropped forward.
Inner Sakura didn't appear.
Tsunade frowned at the stillness.
Does she know she can't come out? Is she simply not bothering?
Then something else caught her attention.
Sasuke. His jaw was clenched. Something strained in his expression.
He can't get in?
She was about to ask when Sasuke, trembling slightly, answered on his own:
"I was... ejected."
"The moment I entered Sakura's inner world..."
— Inner world —
Blue sky. White clouds. Glass towers.
Sakura blinked and found herself standing on a rooftop.
Sasuke wasn't with her. This time she was alone.
Wind moved through her short pink hair. She looked around.
Silent.
The endless crowd of Sakuras from the last visit — gone. Every single one. As if they'd never existed.
The city was there. The streets were there. But the streets were empty. The world was still. Not peaceful — dead.
"Hey. Your Majesty."
A figure appeared behind her.
Sakura turned.
Someone exactly like her was standing at the rooftop's edge, one hand in her pocket, coat snapping in the wind.
But not quite the same.
The outfit was different — ninja trousers, but above that only a white chest-wrap, leaving a great deal of pale skin visible. Deliberately different.
The hair was different too. A long pink ponytail instead of Sakura's short cut.
The smile was different. Unreserved. Wild. The expression of someone who had decided long ago that none of the usual rules applied to her.
"How did you like my gift last time?"
"Did you enjoy it?"
Toward everyone else she called herself I — the arrogant pronoun, the one that assumed superiority. Only toward Sakura did she use the ordinary form.
"Let me guess." Sakura didn't address the question about the gift. She began working her brass knuckles onto her fingers, slowly, one at a time. "Your power is at an all-time low right now. Isn't it?"
"Power?"
Inner Sakura tilted her head, something genuinely amused moving behind those green eyes.
"Sakura."
She opened her mouth.
"Do you know the difference between a king and a mount?"
Sakura's expression didn't change.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm not talking about the obvious things. Not 'person versus horse,' not 'two legs versus four legs.' Not that kind of riddle for children."
Inner Sakura raised her fist. Pink light gathered in her hand — and on her fingers, a brass knuckle, identical to Sakura's, appeared. A cat's smiling face pressed into the metal.
"When two completely equal beings exist!"
"And one becomes the king who commands the fight—"
"And the other becomes the mount who amplifies the king's power—"
"What is the difference between them?"
"That is what I'm asking."
The air thickened. The distance between them felt charged.
"There is only one answer!"
"Instinct!"
"What you need to draw greater power from equal strength."
"What the one who becomes king requires."
"To seek battle without hesitation. To pursue power endlessly. To crush the enemy without mercy, break them, grind them until there's nothing left!"
"To maintain an absolute hunger for combat."
"The hunger written into our bodies at the genetic level. The raw desire for battle and destruction that was carved into us before we were born!"
Inner Sakura's smile spread wider, more unrestrained, those green eyes bright with something pure and uncomplicated and entirely dangerous.
"That naked instinct?"
"You don't have it."
"You fight with reason. You defeat enemies through reason. You think before every strike."
"You're a sword that never leaves its scabbard. Who do you think you're cutting?"
"This body—"
She looked straight at Sakura.
"I'm taking it, Sakura."
(Chapter End)
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