A whimpered as the scorching air of the forest fire burned his exposed… everything.
Sakura only needed to press down on his head with her foot, and it would explode like a watermelon squeezed by too many rubber bands. He had killed her mistress, so it was only fair that she killed him in return, and yet… was this really what Lady Tsunade would have wanted? Probably, since the older generations of Konoha were rather ruthless, but was this really the kind of Hokage Sakura wanted to be? The kind of shinobi… no, the kind of woman she wanted to be?
"Stop whining, you big baby," Sakura sighed, planting her hands on her hips. "I just took your skin, you won't die… as long as you can get to a medic on time."
"Ya mean…" Killer B blubbered. "Ya won't kill 'im?"
Sakura licked her lips. It would certainly feel good in the moment, but…
"Vengeance isn't good for the soul," she sighed. "I'm satisfied knowing he won't be hurting any more of my countrymen any time soon… so call off the invasion and get the hell out of my country, and I'll let you take him away to get treated."
Killer B sniffled as he nodded, wiping his tears and snot with the back of his hand.
"You won't be hearing from us no mo'," he said with a stiff bow of the head. "You have my word, fo' sho'."
Hesitantly, Killer B approached Sakura, but she made no move to stop him, even as he stooped to pick up his bro's limp body. He nodded to her once, before flickering into the forest before she could change her mind.
"As for you, don't think you're getting off that easily," Sakura said sharply, jabbing her finger in Shira's direction. "Blame that technique you came up with… you're too dangerous to let live."
Sakura didn't know if he had mastered the seventh step of his breathing method, but if it was anything like the Gate of Death…
"I'm sorry… Sen, Yome," Shira said quietly. "For the sake of the future… I'm going to have to break my promise to you both."
With infinite gravitas, Shira slowly spread out his arms... and then, without warning, snapped them back in, stabbing himself in the chest with his own fingers and piercing six holes in a distinct pattern around his heart.
"Seven Heavens Breathing Method, Seventh Activation, the Seven Breaths," Shira said calmly. "This technique involves piercing seven holes through the pectoral muscles in order to more efficiently feed the lungs oxygen and push the body to its utmost limits… but there is no coming back from this. The moment I pierce the seventh and final air hole, I will have exactly seven breaths to take you down, before my lungs collapse and my body burns to a crisp."
Sakura wanted to kick herself for not catching on quicker and stopping his self-mutilation. As a former Japanese, it was almost instinctual for her to let her opponent finish transforming or introducing themselves. It was a relic from the era of the samurai, back when it had been important to know who one was killing in order to get paid. Liege lords didn't bring out the chequebook for killing nobodies, after all.
"You don't mind revealing your big secret because you think there's no way you'll lose, right? Well, go on, then," she said glumly. "You might as well finish powering up at this point. It's not as if I'm fast enough to stop you from doing it…"
Shira swiftly stabbed himself in the chest with his thumb, and as soon as she had seen this…
…Sakura bravely turned tail and fled.
"Lightning Style Chakra Mode!"
Sakura turned into streak of blue light and vanished into the forest, barrelling straight through the encirclement of Sand-nin. If she could put enough distance between them, he would have to waste a valuable breath or two catching up…
"The First Breath."
Sakura's ringed pupils shrank to pinpricks.
Space seemed to warp and fold around Shira's figure as he almost instantly appeared by her side, one leg already drawn back for a kick. He had caught up already, she inwardly shrieked. It hadn't even been a hundredth of a second, and he was already nearing the speed of light? How exactly was she supposed to survive seven breaths!?
BOOM!
Before she knew it, Sakura was hurtling backwards through half a dozen trees, the village's wooden palisade, and ten houses, her lightning armour shattered and her arms dangling limp and broken behind her, before she crashed into the ground and tumbled head over heels, the world spinning and spinning until she finally came to an abrupt, jarring stop, digging in her heels once she had lost sufficient momentum.
"Ninja Art: Creation Rebirth— Strength of a Hundred Jutsu!"
Somehow, Sakura found the wherewithal to activate Lady Tsunade's ultimate medical kinjutsu. Her broken bones popped back into place, whole once more. Her arms, which she had somehow managed to use to guard against the most casual of Shira's kicks, were fully healed.
All of a sudden, Shira was standing before her, blasting her away with a gust of wind pressure merely by virtue of arriving. She hadn't even seen him flicker, and thanks to the properties of his chakra, she hadn't heard him either!
"The Second Breath."
Sakura immediately levelled her hands at him. Even though she had become black, her palms had retained their natural pinkish skin colour.
"ALMIGHTY PUSH!"
Shira casually strode through the gravitational wave emanating from Sakura's palms, acting as though it were nothing more than just a stronger-than-average gust of wind, and punched her with such force that half her body was blasted away, sending her spinning through the air before she crashed into a crumpled heap a hundred metres away.
With Karin's sealing bra torn in half, Sakura's right breast rapidly expanded back to its true size, leaving her looking quite lopsided, and she flopped heavily onto her side.
"I'm… sorry…!" Sakura cried, tears of pain and terror streaking down her face, caked in white mortar dust and blood, leaving brown trails through the filth. The healing process automatically kicked in, and her body began rapidly restoring itself, pink tendrils of flesh stretching into the void in her side as tissues reformed into organs and blood vessels. "I won't… do it… again…! Please…"
"…repulsive," Shira said in disgust, watching as Sakura slowly crawled away with one gigantic breast hanging out, leaving a pool of blood in her wake. "Like a pitiful slug… no, a snail leaving behind a trail of slime."
The few villagers who hadn't yet evacuated to the underground shelters began to gather around them. Mostly military police and retired shinobi, their eyes widened in shock at the sight of Sakura crawling through the dust and dirt with her white Hokage cloak stained dark red, a Sand-nin cloaked in unbearably hot chakra standing above her.
"Is that…?"
"Her skin's the wrong colour, but those clothes, that huge…"
"That's definitely the Lady Sixth!"
"No, get away," Sakura said weakly. "You're no match…"
If Sakura was grateful for one thing, it was that Konohamaru wasn't there to throw himself in front of her. If he and his little friends got themselves hurt again trying to protect her…
"Unlike you, I don't get any pleasure from tormenting those I've beaten," Shira said, raising his foot as he went to squash Sakura's head. "This is the end—"
And it was at that precise moment that Naraka Path＝Paragon Sakura finally succeeded, having learned from her predecessors' mistakes, connected as they were through the forest's hidden root system. Physical, spiritual, and nature energies mixed together within her wooden body in a perfect 1:1:1 ratio, without the need for the Celestial Empress Lotus Seal to automate the process. And having completed her task, she vanished.
Just like Naruto, Sakura had finally truly mastered Sage Mode… Shikkotsu Forest's Sage Mode.
"What the—"
Senjutsu chakra filled Sakura's pathways as she instantly entered Sage Mode and called upon the power of Organic Reincarnation. In a flash, she fully restored herself and relocated most of the mass from her right breast into her left, which was still seated rather unsteadily in its sealing bra cup, leaving her flat-chested on one side, but at the very least, mobile… and now that she no longer needed to rely on the Rinnegan to maintain her connection to the Sakura Five, she swapped back to the Mangekyō Sharingan.
And while she was at it, Sakura also turned her skin back to its rightful colour. The last thing she needed was to have the Konoha Police Force confusing her for an invader and beating her up for being an ethnic minority.
"Sage Art: Lightning Style Chakra Mode!"
Dense, royal blue lightning chakra danced along Sakura's silhouette, cycling from tenketsu to tenketsu, forming a true and complete chakra cloak. "CBT, First Edition," she muttered under her breath, and faster than she had ever moved before, she struck. "SHANNAROOOO!"
"Lightning Style: Chakra Enhanced Strength, Cherry Blossom Thunder!"
Shira casually tilted his head back, easily dodging the punch, but as he went for a cross-counter…
"Eh…?"
Shira wavered, his hand flying to his chin and meeting a thin trickle of blood. He'd been cut.
"Ha, I hit you!" Sakura shouted mockingly, flickering away in a flash of lightning and sticking out her tongue at him. "Not so smug now, are you!?"
"Tch, just a cut from the wind pressure of your punch, nothing more," Shira replied darkly, flicking away the blood with a wave of his hand. "Celebrating just because you've managed to lightly wound me…"
Shira took a step towards Sakura when, all of a sudden, he was struck by a bout of vertigo, causing him to stumble and fall to one knee... and before he knew it, Sakura was upon him, driving her own knee into his nose and sending him crashing through a flower shop's façade… but his body was filled to the brim with his rioting chakra, and as a result, he was far more resilient than he looked.
"Did you already forget how I beat you last time?" Sakura called gleefully. "All that high-purity oxygen to the brain... you've successfully burned your way down to your very last brain cell and turned yourself into an idiot, congratulations!"
Shira groaned as he tried pulling himself out of a pile of flowers, only to end up flopping around like a fish out of water… except with the force of a hurricane, causing the building to crumble down upon him.
"Genjutsu…? No…"
This wasn't a genjutsu, illusions wouldn't take hold on him in this state, he'd tested it with Sen… Rather, the Sixth Hokage was using the Fifth Hokage's technique… she was producing high-powered electric fields with her punches and using her knowledge of medicine to temporarily rewire his nervous system! How could he have forgotten? That was the technique she'd used to beat him during the Chūnin Exams, last summer!
Luckily for him, Shira was very in tune with his body, even though he was a little muddleheaded.
Even if the Sixth Hokage swapped his nervous system's connections around, he'd be able to figure out what was linked to what before long... which muscles controlled the diaphragm and intercostal muscles again? There, the left little finger and his bladder... never mind the fact that he had just pissed all over himself trying to breathe, he was fine... deep breath.
In… and… out.
"…the Third Breath… begins now," Shira breathed. "I won't underestimate you any longer, Hokage… surprise attacks won't work on me any more."