Chapter 99. Extinguishing flames.

Danzo miscalculated.

No, it would be more accurate to say he was not privy to all the information and made a disadvantageous decision. As he fell from the building to the snow-covered streets below, he could not help but lament his misfortune. The Uchiha massacre was supposed to be a profitable event where he would acquire many Sharingans; instead, a Uzumaki demon poisoned him.

He grits his teeth at the memory. He cursed Ina in his mind as dragons made of wood - thankfully nowhere near the size of Moryo - burst from the building. They opened their maws to devour him, but he dodged their attack and ran atop their forms, proving he was a student of the Senju brothers.

More dragons grew from the main's body like branches on a trunk, viciously attacking him. Danzo leapt around the assaulting dragons; each step on the wooden dragon invoked more attacks, so he jumped off the dragon's back and onto the snowy ground.

Leaving him no rest, the wood dragon roared, and the smaller dragons that grew from its body-like branches broke away and flew toward Danzo.

Breathing deep, he released a barrage of wind that cut the small wood dragons to pieces.

Wood clattered to the snow, and Danzo finally had time to catch his breath.

Pain radiated through his chest, and he coughed violently. The snow dyed with his blood as he choked on the red liquid.

Reaching into his robe, he hurriedly took the medicine, his only lifeline.

A deep chuckle filled his ear as he swallowed the pills. He followed the sound to find Sakura floating above him. The momentary distraction was all the Kunoichi needed to pin Danzo. The wood dragon wrapped around his body and squeezed him tight.

Sakura brought Danzo into the air and smirked down at him.

"You don't look so well," She teased.

Madara could tell what was wrong with the village elder with her eyes.

The shinobi killer is a cancer that uses your chakra to destroy you; the more you have, the faster you die. From the information in Sakura's memories, he suspected it was a curse from Kaguya since those rich with her blood were the most affected. Pale eyes narrowed.

Danzo wasn't a descendant of Kaguya, so how was he suffering from that disease?

A memory flashed of Sakura ripping out Itachi's cancer and sealing it away. He couldn't find any memory after that moment, so he concluded Inner had something to do with it.

An amused smirk formed on his face. Even if he did nothing, the man would die, but where was the fun in that?

"Don't think you're my match!" Danzo declared, and two ANBUs appeared behind her.

Their blades cut through wood as their attacks missed. Danzo and his ANBU guards landed in the snow as the wood dragon shattered. Sakura stood away from them, looking amused as the two ANBUs fussed over their leader.

She charged them without waiting. They saw her coming and stood before Danzo Protectively. A smile formed on her lips as her body flickered away, and she suddenly grabbed the Yamanaka by the hair; before his partner could react, she threw him into the nearest building.

The Abarame released a swarm of poisonous bugs at her in retaliation.

She blew him a kiss of flames, burning the insects to cinders and forcing the two to retreat.

While Danzo got away, the Abarame was caught and held in a water prison.

"Where did the water come from!" he cried.

Confused, Danzo noticed the snow melted into the water. He gritted his teeth. Sakura was thinking too far ahead!

With a clone holding the prison, Sakura charged at the elder.

Danzo released a breath of destruction, but Sakura burst into flower petals as the attack landed.

"Substitution!" he cried.

Sakura attacked from all angles, and Danzo retaliated, keeping her away. He was on the defensive. Sakura multiplied and attacked from all sides simultaneously; frustrated, Danzo released an area attack, and Sakura's clones scattered into flower petals.

He looked around for the Kunoichi. She immediately attacked after a substitution. Where was she this time?

Danzo's instincts flared, and he looked up; Sakura was falling towards him, kunai in hand.

He leapt away and fired a cutting breath where he once was; Sakura burst into flower petals.

"Hahahaha!" her laughter echoed around him, and he searched for her frantically.

"The big bad Danzo," she teased. "Is this all you amount to?"

A shadow blocked out the sun, and he looked up with trembling eyes.

Sakura stood beyond the horizon, her form large enough to hug the earth.

"Such a pathetic existence deserves to be crushed like an ant."

With that death sentence, she pointed at him with her finger, and her hand lowered towards him, catching a blaze as she entered the atmosphere.

Danzo looked up in disbelief.

This couldn't be real.

The finger grew in size as it drew near, and Danzo's body trembled.

This can't be real.

As Sakura's fingerprint became the sky, Danzo gritted his teeth, defiant.

This was not real!

The illusion shattered, and Danzo smiled, but his situation wasn't much better than the illusion.

Pink petals rose from the ground to form a sword that surrounded Danzo.

"Die," Sakura said with a flick of her wrist.

The blades pierced his body, killing him instantly. Danzo's body went limp as life left his eye.

Tick tock

The Abarame trapped in a water prison, and the Yamanaka, unable to stand, looked on in horror. Their master, the one to raise them, was dead?

Tick tock

Sakura's eyes bled to red as she looked behind her without turning her head.

Danzo appeared behind her and attacked with a Vacuum blade.

Sakura smiled as disbelief flashed on the ANBU's faces.

A sheathed Katana formed in Sakura's hand, and she popped it with her thumb. Danzo leapt into the air and swung down with his full strength. It was then that Sakura moved too fast for normal eyes; she unsheathed her sword and cut through Danzo's exposed chest as she walked by him. Time seemed to slow as she attacked, and, in a blink, she was behind the man.

Sakura sheathed her sword with a click.

Danzo saw Sakura's absence before he felt the pain. But he did feel it.

A mouthful of blood burst from his lips as he fell to the ground; blood gushed from his chest.

"How?" he wondered in disbelief. Sakura was fast, but she wasn't that fast. His eyes widened as he looked at Sakura's back. The kunoichi spared him a glance, and he couldn't help the chuckle that gurgled from his throat.

Those eyes belonged to his teacher.

So, in the end, Sakura was the host to the gods of shinobi, huh?

Sakura walked away from her foe; he was down and could no longer fight.

Danzo watched her go just as he watched his teacher leave after naming Hiruzen Hokage.

"Don't go."

He couldn't say it then, and he couldn't now.

He wasn't sure if the memory of that time made him lose his mind, but Danzo did something desperate. He couldn't allow that child to live,

Drawing energy from his Hashirama cells and speeding up his death, he found the strength to rise again.

Danzo rushed toward Sakura in a desperate attempt to end it all. He would take her with him. He reached out a seal on his palm. Sakura grabbed his neck and held him at arm's length.

"My, you really just don't know when to die," Sakura mused. Danzo grabbed the hand holding him and grinned in triumph.

"You and I shall leave this world together!"

"I think not," Sakura said calmly. She threw him away as a seal spread on her body. Danzo rolled painfully in the snow, but his grin never flattered.

"There's no escape for you!" Danzo laughed. "That seal will cause your body to self-destruct! I will do anything to protect the village from a monster like-."

"I don't want your filthy chakra anywhere near her body," Sakura's voice was cold. "It's already crowded here."

Danzo's eyes widened as the seal faded from Sakura's body.

His vision blurred.

Was it useless after all?

No. Not yet.

A seal appeared on his body, "Reverse Tetragram Sealing Jutsu." He really didn't know when to die.

Sakura sighed and disappeared in a swirl of cherry blossoms.

Danzo's seal activated as he reminisced about the Konoha and what he did to protect it.

"Sorry, Hiruzen," he muttered. "I'm leaving a fool like you with a monster like that."

Boom!

Sakura watched from the hotel's wall as the seal expanded, taking the surroundings with it as it disappeared. Only Danzo's body survived the aftermath.

"One down," She muttered.

The sky was clear that night. The forever winter land was free of snowfall for one night, and Tsunade intended to enjoy it. Sake in hand, the princess gulped down the burning liquid, sighing in satisfaction after a few gulps.

It was a day for the history books.

An ancient demon reemerged, a god of shinobi was born, and Tsunade could perform surgery again. She was forgetting something. Oh! And Danzo was killed by said god of shinobi. She took another few gulps.

"Mine if I join you?"

Tsunade looked up at the uninvited guest. Shikaku looked like he aged a few years since she last saw him. Feeling sorry for the guy who no doubt had to deal with Sakura, she patted the spot beside her.

Shikaku popped his own bottle of Sake and gulped it down.

"How bad is it?" She asked him.

He sighed. "Sakura is really a pain," he stated. "Though I'm pretty sure it's not Sakura."

She gave him an odd look.

"We're trying to keep it hush-hush, but it seems the reanimated Hokages have possessed Sakura's body," he told her.

"What?"

"Well, we're hoping it's only the previous Hokages, at least," he added. "I'm not so sure."

"Wait," Tsunade rubbed her temple. "Are you saying Grandpa and Uncle Tobirama are currently in Sakura's body?"

"The fourth Hokage is in there, too, from what I'm seeing."

"How can that be?"

"You'd have to ask the Second since it's his jutsu."

"Then what about Sakura," she inquired. "I know she's strong, but even the Jinchurikis struggle to co-exist with their tail beast. Is Sakura okay with that many ghosts inhabiting her mind?"

Shikaku thought back to the battle he witnessed and sighed.

"Sakura hasn't appeared since the battle with Moryo," he confessed. He interacted with her after the fact, but even he could tell she wasn't in her right mind.

"Then who's controlling her body?" Tsunade asked.

Shikaku gulped down more Sake at the thought.

"I haven't figured that out yet," he admitted. "But I suspect they have been in Sakura's body longer than a day."

Suddenly, the odd behavior of a child made sense. If she shared consciousness with an adult, her changeling-like behavior made sense.

Shikaku suddenly remembered the past, and Inoichi's pale face after interrogating Sakura came to mind.

"No, it can't be," he muttered.

"Madara?"

Sakura's pale hair danced in the night wind as she sat on the windowsill looking out. As night fell, the other genins reluctantly retired to their rooms. Naruto opted to sleep off his worries, leaving Sasuke and Sakura awake in the moonlit room.

Sasuke sat on his bed, his eyes locked on the woman before him. He saw what happened in the meeting room and heard what Sakura did with the Kages. She would never be the same. Shikaku explained it like Naruto living with the Nine-Tails but with more people.

"If there's a way to undo it, Sakura would know," Shikaku explained. It was the same as saying there was nothing they could do. If Sakura intended to undo the jutsu, she would have by now.

"What's on your mind, Sasuke-kun?"

Sakura was looking at him, her smile soft as the moon glowed behind her. Sasuke stared, mesmerized, before he remembered himself. He looked away.

"How long will you stay like that?" he asked.

"I'll go to bed in a bit," Sakura responded, causing Sasuke to grit his teeth.

"You know that's not what I meant!" he yelled. Sakura looked at Naruto's sleeping form, and Sasuke flinched at the reminder. Wordlessly, she leapt out the window, prompting Sasuke to follow.

Naruto remains asleep.

Pale hair danced in the moonlight as Sakura gracefully traveled atop the roofs. Even with her graceful movements, Sasuke struggled to keep up.

"Sakura!" he called out, hoping she would stop so they could talk. She looked back at him and gave a mischievous grin. She didn't slow down.

She was teasing him!?

Despite his swirling thoughts, Sasuke couldn't help the grin that appeared on his lips. If she wanted to play, he'd play.

Sasuke chapped chakra to his feet and received a burst of speed.

The chase was on.

The next chapter will be 100! I can't believe we've had 100 uploads already. How many years has it been? I feel old.

Next Chapter

March 15