Chapter 482: Tranquility
Haruno Sakura and Sasuke stayed in that world for about three days.
After teaching Sakura the Cherry Blossom Impact and Nintaijutsu, the two chose to return voluntarily.
The Nintaijutsu that Haruno Sakura improved from Monstrous Strength was now trending more and more towards a Taijutsu system; unlike Monstrous Strength, which focused on increasing the strength and destructive power of fists and feet, Nintaijutsu would comprehensively improve a ninja's explosive power, endurance, and destructive power, that is, the force and speed of fists and feet. Coupled with the reaction speed bonus from Cherry Blossom Impact, the Sakura who mastered these two techniques would see a surge in strength, transforming into a violent ninja focusing on Nintaijutsu.
How would that world develop after this?
Haruno Sakura and Sasuke had already returned to their original world by then, and perhaps would never have the chance to visit that world again, so they wouldn't know.
She just believed that they, in that world, would usher in a beautiful ending.
A few days later.
Main World, Konoha Village.
It was already early September. After the Start of Autumn, the "Autumn Tiger" began to ravage the land of the Land of Fire, and the weather was abnormally muggy.
Just returning from the dry and cold early winter of Konoha to the humid and warm late summer and early autumn of the original world, Haruno Sakura felt a bit uncomfortable all over.
The afternoon sun on this day was extremely toxic.
However, the Hokage's office was unusually cool—Tsunade extravagantly put the Ice Release formula into the Hokage building and used it as an air conditioner.
She said it was enjoyment prepared for the big client; didn't Haruno Sakura understand her?
Heh, women.
Dismissing the Anbu squatting secretly aside, the office door was locked tightly. Only the Fifth Hokage, Haruno Sakura, and Sasuke were in the room. Tsunade sat at the desk, looking serious, listening carefully to her disciple Haruno Sakura's report.
"...In short, Pain's strength is very powerful, an unprecedented enemy for us!"
"Hn, that's the basic situation."
The girl looked solemn and spoke slowly.
"Pain's strength... is really that formidable?" Tsunade frowned, with a bit of skepticism in her expression.
Six bodies, each with unique and powerful skills; a full-force strike could raze the entire Konoha to the ground... or even into a deep pit; this level of power had already exceeded the limit that ordinary ninja could imagine!
"He calls himself God..." Sasuke said solemnly, "Judging solely from strength, this title is not an exaggeration."
"Alright..."
Tsunade closed her eyes, lowered her head, and silently digested the intelligence stated by the two, not speaking for a long while.
"I understand." After pondering for a long time, the Fifth Hokage raised her head and nodded, "The intelligence you collected is critical, well done."
"However... I have a question. Where did you get this intelligence?"
The boy and girl exchanged a look in front of Tsunade.
When coming back, they had also considered this issue.
Intelligence from unknown sources would naturally have greatly discounted credibility; but how to say it? Telling the truth directly, this story was a bit too fantastical.
Sasuke was inclined to make up an excuse, such as accidentally encountering Akatsuki members while out... and obtaining intelligence from them after a big battle.
Sasuke wanted to treat the events of the past few days as some common little secrets between him and her.
This excuse sounded more reliable than traveling through worlds.
However, there were still many flaws in this logic. Even Haruno Sakura could find many loopholes that couldn't be explained at once, let alone the experienced Tsunade.
After thinking hard for a long time and not coming up with a perfect reason, Haruno Sakura simply decided to tell the truth.
—Anyway, there was nothing to hide.
"You may not believe it when I say it..." Haruno Sakura blurted out the familiar sentence structure, "We... um... traveled to a world one year later."
"What did you say?"
Tsunade widened her eyes, the tea in her mouth almost spurting out.
Sakura and Sasuke tried to explain a few sentences: "We borrowed the Ley Line energy from the Roran ruins to shuttle to another world—"
They talked all at once.
However, Tsunade didn't believe it at all: "Okay, okay, I know, stop explaining."
Ley Line energy of the ancient kingdom of Roran? Traveling through worlds? Seeing another self in another world? The story was quite wonderfully made up, giving these two little ones a hard time. Tsunade laughed secretly.
"Good imagination. However, if they are really two similar worlds, why did Sakura and you change the most in that world? Why was the past history the same, and changes only started with you? This is too coincidental." She shook her finger and refuted.
Tsunade really found it hard to imagine that her heroic, dashing, and powerful disciple would become shy, gentle, weak, and cowardly in another world.
Actually, if not seeing it with his own eyes, Sasuke couldn't imagine Haruno Sakura in that appearance either.
Tsunade waved her hand, stopping Sasuke's further explanation.
"I understand."
She blinked, looked at the two, and said with a smile.
What exactly did you understand!
The girl complained frantically in her heart, but due to the occasion, she couldn't say it out loud, which was really suffocating.
"What we said is true..." Sasuke said weakly.
"Haha, if you don't want to say it, forget it! Being able to collect such important intelligence is already a great merit. I won't ask about other things."
The blonde beauty stood up and patted the girl's shoulder like a kind elder.
"You also started to have your own secrets, Sakura..." She laughed with a gratified face.
"The most important difference between a woman and a girl is whether she has her own little secrets." Tsunade leaned into the girl's ear, lifted her hair from the temples, opened her crimson lips slightly, and whispered, "You've grown up, Sakura!"
Haruno Sakura's face twitched.
Completely didn't know how to respond.
"Go back and rest well!" She walked back behind the desk and said to the two, "It was originally a vacation arranged for you, didn't expect you to turn it into a field mission..."
Sakura and Sasuke looked at each other, turned around, and left the office.
Walking out of the cool building onto the street where the sun shone directly and the heat rose, Haruno Sakura sighed silently.
"I told you, Hokage-sama wouldn't believe it." Sasuke hurried a few steps, caught up with Sakura's pace, and said to her.
"At least we told the truth."
The girl didn't look back when speaking.
Telling the truth and others not believing is their problem; telling a lie and others not believing is one's own problem.
"Alright..." Sasuke pondered, walked to a position side by side with the girl, and asked, "Any plans recently, Sakura?"
"If Tsunade-shishou doesn't assign any special tasks..." Haruno Sakura touched her smooth chin and pondered, "It should be helping Kakashi-sensei train, and training myself."
Marked by the successful cultivation of Sage Mode, Haruno Sakura was now labeled as a top-tier combat power. Ordinary small missions would no longer be used to disturb her.
This also meant that after the three children of Team Haruno Sakura graduated together, Haruno Sakura now had a large amount of free time.
Just like Jiraiya who ran around the world after taking an intelligence collection mission.
—Although she didn't think she would be very idle.
Turning her head to glance at Sasuke who hesitated to speak, Haruno Sakura smiled slightly and said: "I know what you want to say."
This time traveling through time and space, while gaining a lot of intelligence, also left many confusions for the two.
It wasn't convenient to talk over there. After coming back, Sasuke still had a bellyful of questions to discuss with Haruno Sakura.
"Don't ask me now... I was too tired helping Sakura with special training overnight yesterday. I want to go home and have a good sleep first!"
She stretched vigorously, revealing a small part of her fair and slender waistline under the shirt, and said lazily.
Konoha in the afternoon was peaceful and calm.
It's just...
The world over there was already engulfed in flames of war, so how long could the tranquility here last?
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