NOVEL NEXT Chapter 318: Your Saviour Has Arrived!
After ten full days and a journey spanning the equivalent of four entire Lands of Fire, Team 7 had nearly reached their destination. It was the longest Sakura had ever gone without her beauty sleep, pushing her superhuman endurance to its limits— but with dawn breaking and their goal finally in sight, she pushed the team onwards.
"Sakura!" shouted Sasuke warningly.
"Yeah," Sakura replied breathlessly. "I can hear it too!"
The sounds of battle could be overheard from ahead. Cries of rage, pain and fear, the dull thunks of arrows lodging themselves in wood, the clanging of metal against metal, the roar of flames and explosions…
"Hinata, fly ahead and scout the area. Prioritise locating the priestess!" Sakura barked. "As for everyone else, maintain radio silence unless your life is in serious danger or you've found the V.I.P.!"
"Got it!" Naruto, Sasuke and Hinata replied curtly.
Hinata leapt up and rocketed into the air, quickly disappearing from sight. As for the three remaining members of Team 7, they swiftly collected chakra under their feet and flickered forwards, leaving behind phantom afterimages.
The full extent of the devastation wrought upon the Land of Demons' shrine became clear to Sakura as she crested a forested hill and landed on a branch overlooking the scene. The temple grounds below were strewn with smoking corpses in identical green ceremonial robes, and the pavilion looked as though an elephant had crashed straight through it.
Sakura tore open the skin on her thumb with her teeth…
Boar! Dog! Bird! Monkey! Ram!
…and slammed her palms down on the ground.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
With a series of consecutive puffs of white smoke, miniature copies of Katsuyu rained down upon the bodies littering the battlefield.
"Are you ready, Katsuyu?" shouted Sakura, as her two teammates engaged in combat with the white-robed aggressors. "We're going to use Immense Network Healing!"
"Are you certain, Sakura?" asked Katsuyu, startled. "You haven't finished filling up your Yin Seal yet, so you'll have to draw upon your own reserves."
In doing so, Sakura risked running out of chakra, leaving herself exposed to an attack. Even worse, if she overdrew her strength and pushed herself too hard, she risked death.
"We're just going to stabilise the survivors, not restore them to full health," Sakura said through gritted teeth. "But we don't have a choice. We need more information about the situation, so ask the survivors where we can find the priestess while you're at it, okay?"
When it came to V.I.P.s, they often had networks of escape routes and hidden tunnels they used to flee if their stronghold was attacked. Without a dedicated Sensor or detailed intel, Team 7 might end up wasting valuable time searching for their protection target, who could very well be fleeing straight into the enemy's arms.
Sakura clapped her hands together and lowered herself into the lotus position.
"Immense Network Healing!"
As soon as she started the technique, Sakura felt as though her chakra were being sucked into a bottomless void. Gritting her teeth, she stemmed the flow of chakra flowing out of her through Mini-Katsuyu on her shoulder.
"Find out anything?" Sakura groaned. "Give me the condensed version."
Luckily for her, there weren't many survivors, so she managed to conserve some stamina.
"There's a secret passage behind the priestess's bed," said Katsuyu softly. "It leads to a secret waterfall behind the main pavilion where she purifies herself."
As soon as she had the information she needed, Sakura ended the technique. She'd done all she could for the survivors— it wouldn't do them any more good in the long run if she failed to assist the priestess in sealing Mōryō because she'd run out of chakra at a crucial moment.
Sakura dismissed Katsuyu before dropping into the courtyard below, then bounced up through the gaping hole above the temple's main entrance. A quick sigh of relief escaped her lips as she ran through the room, spotting the priestess's empty bed. Without hesitation, she spun and kicked open the hidden passageway's entrance above the bed, barrelling through.
Upon hearing the loud noise Sakura had just made, a young attendant robes carrying the priestess on his back turned around. His eyes widened.
"Behind you!" he screamed.
Sakura whirled around and drew her sword just as a pink-haired man wearing white robes embroidered with the trigram for wind soared through the secret entrance. His scalpels flashed, meeting Sakura's blade with a shower of sparks. Using the force from the counterblow, he disengaged and backflipped into the air, landing a few metres away.
"Water," Sakura grumbled under her breath, clicking her tongue as she realised that she'd landed feet first in the stream flowing from the thin waterfall behind her. "Lightning Style's a no-go, then."
If she tried anything flashy, she'd be the first to short-circuit and get electrocuted— followed by the attendant carrying the priestess, and then the priestess herself. As for the pink-haired man, he defiantly raised his weapons, only to suddenly realise his arms' muscles were trembling badly from the shock— just how strong was this pink-haired girl, anyway?
"You're lucky I'm running out of chakra," he said, smirking obnoxiously. "So, allow me to leave you with this parting… present!"
He hurled his sharp scalpels at the attendant cowering behind Sakura, forcing her to knock them from the air, then turned on his heel and sprinted off before she could counterattack, vanishing the way he'd come.
"Tch, he got away," Sakura snarled.
As much as she would have liked to give chase, the V.I.P. was right behind her, and she couldn't leave the priestess all alone with only one of the many incompetents she had surrounded herself with. Besides, the sounds of battle outside were already dying down.
"Who…" said the priestess drowsily. "Who are you…?"
"I'm from the Hidden Leaf Village," said Sakura gently, lowering her forehead protector so the priestess could see the engraved spiral leaf symbol. "Everything's going to be all right now that we're here."
"You," said the priestess slowly, squinting at her. "You're…"