“Pure coincidence,” I replied innocently. “Besides, my version is optimized for fluid adjustment of the power output, and yours is all about maximum peak boost. I peak out at around six megawatts, but you can probably manage thirty or forty for a couple of seconds at a time.”
“But you don’t have to telegraph your punches to get full force,” she pointed out. “Your version is more refined than mine, and it’s a lot more useful against anything but a bijuu. But how are you so fast? You don’t have the Byakugan, so you can’t be using the Hyuuga speed boost.”
“It’s all the same technique,” I told her with a smile. “I’ve rebuilt all my muscles to have a freakish tolerance for chakra boosting, and trained myself to enhance all the muscles that are actually exerting force at any given instant while resting everything else. Of course, moving around at full boost is a whole different world. I can break the sound barrier with a leap or a punch, so changing direction quickly can be a problem. I use a lot of Flash Step and Earth Anchor to manage my momentum, but traction is still a major limiting factor for me.”
She shook her head ruefully. “You are one serious taijutsu monster, Sakura. I don’t suppose I could convince you to help us?”
I blinked in surprise. “Of course I’m coming with you! What, did you think I was going to leave you to save the world by yourselves? Konoha was my home for most of my life. I want a piece of the asshole who destroyed it.”
That, and I wanted to collected as much info as I could about this new threat. It would be pretty embarrassing if we finally managed to end the loops, only to get killed by some overpowered psycho a couple of years later. Oh yes, I was looking forward to trying my new skills on these Akatsuki guys.
“So, Tsunade tells me you’re going to help us?”
Two weeks of recovery had done wonders for the old pervert. His regrown hand was just about fully functional, and his other injuries were long since healed. Tsunade was looking much better as well, although I was amused to note that she was still de-aging herself as part of her daily physical enhancement transformation. Her apparent age was down into the late twenties now, and I had to admit she was getting hot enough it was actually a distraction for me when we sparred. I’d spent a long time alone on my mountain, and I’d had a soft spot for her ever since my old training loops with her.
But she’d spent decades living under an illusion disguise that she’d intentionally set up to look ten years older than she did now, so why the change? Was she trying to catch Jiraiya’s eye? Or did she feel some need to compete with me?
Whatever it was, Jiraiya was certainly appreciating the change.
But it looked like they were finally ready to discuss more serious matters. “Yes,” I confirmed. “If you plan to avenge Konoha and stop Akatsuki, then I’m with you all the way. I’ll even stick around for the rebuilding if we end up picking someone sane as the next kage. So what’s the plan?”
“It isn’t going to be easy,” Jiraiya said with a frown. “Akatsuki is made up entirely of S-rank missing nin, so they’re all serious opponents. Sasori and Deidara, Itachi and Kisame, Hidan and Kakuzu — those aren’t all of them, but they’re the ones we know about. They work in two-man teams, and most of them aren’t quite on our level, but even so I don’t think we can fight more than two teams at once. What’s worse is that even together I don’t think we can take Pein, unless he has some weakness we haven’t identified yet. We’re going to need help.”
‘Our level’, he’d said. As in Tsunade, Jiraiya or Sakura. I felt a thrill of pride at the realization that the Sannin considered me an equal, and had to suppress a sudden urge to do a victory dance. It’s one thing to call yourself an S-rank ninja, but quite another to have your childhood heroes agree.
“If we can find Naruto, I can convince him to help,” I said confidently. At Jiraiya’s skeptical look I turned myself fifteen, and smiled. “I’ll just tell him the truth about who I am and why I left, and ask him for help.”
They thought I meant the story I’d told them, but knowing Naruto I wouldn’t need to lie. I’d tell him about the time loop and my need to put myself back together, and ask him to forgive me for leaving him alone, and that would be that. Although it was tempting to throw in a little seduction as well — having the Sannin around had woken up my sleeping hormones, and they were loudly complaining that I’d spent way too long alone on this mountain.
“If you’re really as good at infiltration as you claim, investigating Pein is probably more urgent,” Tsunade put in. “Jiraiya’s the only agent we’ve been able to get into Amegakure in years, and he was found out almost immediately. Pein has to have a weakness, but we’ll never beat him unless we can find out what it is.”
“That’s a good point, but we need help too,” Jiraiya objected. “We don’t have very many allies who can contribute much in a fight like this. Naruto’s the only one with the raw power to match Pein, and he’s also a natural leader for the other jinchuuriki. If he can recruit the ones who are still alive we might have a chance.”
“Well, we don’t have to pick one or the other,” I said. “I can be in two places at once. Check this out.”
Tsunade looked pretty impressed when I built a second body from my blood, and they were both intrigued when I split myself and dropped my water aspect into it.
“There,” I said. “Now there are two of me. I’ll handle Naruto, and she can infiltrate Amegakure.”
“Sounds like a plan,” the other me agreed.
“I don’t see anything that would give you away,” Tsunade grudgingly admitted. “What is that, some kind of flesh clone? Can you really manage that for weeks at a time, with hundreds of miles between you?”
“I’m not a clone,” the other me said. “I split my mind in half, and made a body for this half to live in. We each have less chakra that the whole, but we’re both completely real. If I get caught and Pein kills me I’ll just snap back to our shared mindscape, and I can try again.”
Tsunade looked dumbfounded. Jiraiya chortled. “I’m glad you’re on our side,” he said. “Hey, do you think Pein could be doing the same thing?”
I shook my head. “I hope not. Even three aspects at once takes massive amounts of chakra. To maintain a six-way split for any length of time? If he were that powerful, even the Kyuubi unleashed couldn’t stand against him.”
Three weeks after they first arrived on my mountain the four of us set out for civilization. We’d planned to stay together as far as Yoshiro, an obscure port in Lightning Country that Jiraiya claimed was our best bet for getting back to less frozen climes unnoticed. Then one of me would take a crack at Amegakure, while the rest of our party looked for leads on Naruto.
Pein found us first.
You’d think two of the Sannin plus me would be enough firepower to handle any opponent, but the last Rinnegan user proved my assumption wrong. The Sannin both began summoning the instant they realized who was attacking us, and in a matter of seconds a half-dozen massive toads and slugs filled most of the wide valley where we’d been intercepted. But our opponent had summons of his own, an endless variety of monstrous creatures decorated with strange spikes and piercings that charged recklessly into our allies and proceeded to unleash massive levels of destruction on them. Jiraiya was on the defensive from the beginning, and Tsunade was hard-pressed to even stay alive.
I joined the fight by body flickering behind one of Pein’s bodies to plunge a Flame Rasengan through his back, only to find out firsthand how insanely fast he was when he dodged my attack and beheaded me in one lightning move. My overpowered Rasengan detonated an instant later, which at least threw my opponent off the slope and into the river below.