Chapter 537: Mist Hidden Village
Team Kakashi received the order to support the Mist Ninja on the same day.
Without delaying any time, after receiving the mission and making some simple preparations, the three of Haruno Sakura headed straight for the Land of Water.
Two days later.
Land of Water, Mist Ninja Village.
Haruno Sakura, who was not here for the first time, took her two teammates, familiarly crossed the Land of Water, and arrived at Mist Ninja Village.
Mei Terumi had already been waiting for a long time at the waterfall arch bridge at the entrance.
"You came faster than I imagined!" Haruno Sakura had just stopped when the Mizukage came up to meet her, shook hands with her, and said, "That's really great."
Her face was a bit tired, unaware of the flaws in her usually carefully applied makeup. Seeing Haruno Sakura's appearance, she obviously breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hn." Haruno Sakura nodded, glanced behind her, and added, "The two behind are my teammates."
Following her words, Sasuke and Naruto successively appeared behind the girl with a swish.
The Mizukage's gaze swept over the two boys, then looked behind them. It was empty, clearly no one else would follow.
Only three people?
No medical ninja accompanying... Her eyes flickered a few times, somewhat disappointed, and quietly hid her disappointment under her eyelids.
"Only the three of us came this time." Haruno Sakura noticed her gaze and explained.
"Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki."
Although she didn't think Mei Terumi wouldn't recognize the Uchiha orphan and the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, Sakura still gave a routine introduction.
"Nice to meet you." Mei Terumi seriously sized up the two boys a few times, her gaze staying on Sasuke a bit longer, and said faintly.
What a handsome boy.
If it were normal times, she would probably tease this little handsome boy with great interest. And the sunny, hot-blooded orange-haired one next to him was also a potential stock. Both of their backgrounds, strengths, and dispositions were not bad, perfectly meeting her criteria for choosing a mate, except they were a bit young—but Mei Terumi styled herself as a glamorous beauty in her youth, so what if she ate a couple bites of tender grass?
But today, the Mizukage was completely not in the mood.
"Thank you for your hard work." She squeezed out a smile, "Thank you for coming to assist Mist Hidden Ninja Village."
"Please come with me."
Saying that, the Mizukage turned around crisply and cleanly, leading the guards beside her and Haruno Sakura's group into the village.
"How is the situation?" Haruno Sakura followed closely and asked as they walked.
"Not very good." Mei Terumi walked at the forefront like a whirlwind, turned her head to glance at her and answered, "No, I should say very bad."
"Just yesterday we lost contact with another elite sensory squad, and still have no news until now. They have very likely already sacrificed."
"In fact, starting from the day before yesterday, we have completely lost the ability to monitor that storm sea area."
The Mizukage-sama had a worried look on her face and said heavily.
In that sea area, the Mist Ninja had previously scattered several reconnaissance squads. The team Chojuro led was one of the two elite squads among them. After receiving the news of Chojuro being attacked, Mei Terumi worried that the remaining teams would also encounter Akatsuki's enemies, so she cautiously withdrew them one after another, leaving only the last elite squad.
And strictly ordered them to pay attention to concealment, only setting up surveillance, and absolutely not to engage the enemy; once encountering Akatsuki people, retreat immediately.
In this way, the efficiency of the search naturally dropped greatly, even approaching zero. The Mist Ninja actually only roughly knew that the Three-Tails was still hiding in the storm, and the enemy hadn't succeeded yet. As for other things, like exactly how many Akatsuki came, they still couldn't be sure even now.
However, even so, the Mist Ninja also lost quite a few personnel, and eventually an elite team silently disappeared at sea. It had been a whole day past the agreed time, still like a clay ox entering the sea, without any news. Even the most optimistic person knew things were bad for them.
The Mist Ninja's manpower was already stretched thin, and this mission sacrificed many people, among which were precious sensory ninja. The moment Mei Terumi thought of this, her face turned ugly.
Besides the loss of personnel, a more serious problem was that the Mist Ninja had already lost the ability to control affairs right at their doorstep.
"We aren't even sure if Akatsuki has found the Tailed Beast or not." Mei Terumi sighed, fatigue showing all over her face, "What can be confirmed is that they sent at least Sasori and Kisame—"
Haruno Sakura frowned slightly and interrupted: "Impossible, Kisame is already dead!"
"Judging from current intelligence, Kisame's corpse was made into his human puppet by Sasori." The red-haired woman said with a face full of disgust.
"Human puppet?"
Sasuke and Naruto looked at each other. "What is that?"
Sakura suddenly heard this word and felt a sense of deja vu.
Her eyes rolled.
This strange word also awakened the distant memories in her mind. That was a year ago, when she fought Sasori, the word she heard from his mouth.
He wanted to make her into a "human puppet".
Haruno Sakura still vividly remembered the way Sasori looked when he said this. That clean and delicate face carried a pure smile, just like a big boy next door; the gaze looking at her, however, was evil and full of possessiveness, exactly like a poisonous snake that had found its prey, slippery, damp, eyes full of greed and desire.
At that time during the life-and-death struggle, she didn't have any special thoughts. Looking back afterwards, thinking about what it would be like if she were made into a puppet, she finally felt a severe chill all over her body.
"Disgusting thing." Haruno Sakura curled her lip.
"Akatsuki generally acts in two-person teams," she shook her head, throwing that disgusting feeling out of her mind, and said, "so there should be another person there."
Might even be more than two people.
"Indeed." Mei Terumi took a deep breath, "We are very certain that at least one team was wiped out by another person... unfortunately, they lost contact without leaving clear enough intelligence. We still keep some fragmented pieces of information transmitted when they were attacked. You have dealt with most of the people in Akatsuki, maybe you can come over and help us analyze some things?"
She pointed in the direction of the intelligence analysis department, turning her head to glance at Haruno Sakura.
The latter nodded and responded: "Of course, that's what I came here for."
"But, before that..." The girl rubbed her wrist and asked, "Where is the wounded person? Shouldn't we go to the hospital first?"
"Eh?"
Mei Terumi was suddenly stunned and stopped. She turned her head and sized up Haruno Sakura, only then suddenly remembering that the other party was also a disciple of the medical grandmaster Tsunade. The traits of a combat ninja on this girl were simply too distinct, so much so that Mei Terumi had forgotten she was also a medical ninja with good medical skills.
"Heh. I'm really dizzy." The woman supported her forehead with her hand and smiled self-deprecatingly, "To actually forget this."
Then she smiled slightly again, her mood like finding another village amidst dark willows and blooming flowers, suddenly becoming clear.
"Then let's go to the hospital first... I'll leave Chojuro to you, Sakura!"
This was the first piece of good news Mei Terumi had heard in so many days.
Mist Hidden Village Hospital.
Calling it a hospital, it was actually just two rows of short buildings, with a sign saying "Mist Hidden Village Hospital" hanging crookedly, the walls very mottled.
During the Blood Mist era, Mist Ninja Village formulated many twisted rules. Graduates slaughtering each other was one thing, abolishing the hospital was another—they thought this was an act of weakness. Of course, the reasons behind it were complex and complicated, omitted here.
It wasn't until Mei Terumi came to power that this hospital was re-established.
Just looking at this old building with a sense of age, Haruno Sakura knew it recorded many bumpy experiences of Mist Hidden Village. She had no time to pay attention to these things. Following Mei Terumi into the building, she saw the sleeping Chojuro in an independent ward.
Breathing weakly, lacking vitality.
The radiance of chakra lit up on Haruno Sakura's palm, and she began to use medical ninjutsu to detect Chojuro's physical condition.
The faint blue light illuminated the girl's face, her expression flickering green and white uncertainly, very gloomy.
Mei Terumi frowned. The doctor previously said Chojuro had passed the critical period, but looking at the girl's severe expression, she feared the situation wasn't that optimistic.
"How is it?" The Mizukage waited patiently for the chakra radiance on the girl's hand to dissipate before asking in a low voice.
"A total mess." Haruno Sakura's face was not good, shaking her head and said, "Your doctors only know how to handle external injuries like fractures and lacerations, completely failing to properly handle the injuries of the internal organs."
"The spleen here has a grade 4 rupture, to actually fool around with such crude treatment methods, are they trying to remove the entire spleen..." Sakura muttered a large paragraph, turned her head and found Mei Terumi looking blank, completely not understanding her words, so she stopped talking.
"Our doctors here have only trained in your noble village for a short period of time, their skills are not refined... it can't be helped."
She sighed.
"Alright, I understand." The girl spread her hands, indicating she could understand, "At least they stopped the bleeding."
"Good thing I came early, treating it now is still in time, it won't leave permanent damage. After recovering, Chojuro can still continue to be a ninja."
"As long as he can be cured, as for other things, I don't hold extravagant hopes... because Chojuro won't be able to be a ninja in the future." Mei Terumi gave a bitter smile and shook her head.
Following her line of sight, Haruno Sakura carefully lifted the quilt and saw the empty pant leg under the sheet.
The girl immediately fell silent.
Mei Terumi didn't speak either, and the atmosphere in the ward instantly became extremely depressing and oppressive.
After pondering for a good while, Haruno Sakura suddenly raised her head and said in a deep voice: "It's not entirely without a way."
"Is this... possible? What needs to be done?"
Mei Terumi asked half-believing, half-doubting.
Haruno Sakura smiled mysteriously, not answering directly, just saying: "Of course it's possible. Just leave it to me!"
Cloning and stem cell technology can create miracles.
This wasn't the first time Sakura had done this kind of thing. However, this time she planned to use this opportunity to do some other work, including guiding public opinion to change the natural aversion other people in Konoha had towards this technology.
The twists and turns in this are not enough to be told to outsiders.