Chapter 541: Splitting Up
Heavy rain poured down.
Winds raged, and waves surged. The extremely harsh weather turned the sea storm area into a desperate situation for humanity. Even on Earth in her previous life, where humans had tamed the power of steel and fire, building ten-thousand-ton steel giant ships and airplanes, it was still regarded as a perilous path!
In this treacherous environment, three people walked on the sea surface, ignoring the surrounding fierce winds and giant waves, advancing firmly.
Suddenly, a giant wave surged up, a crest tens of meters high, several times taller than the highest buildings in Konoha and Mist Ninja Village, making the human figures look as tiny as ants in comparison. In the storm, however, it was common and ubiquitous. The terrifyingly powerful wave crest, sweeping thousands of tons of seawater, stood up like a water wall, blotting out the sky and covering the earth, pressing towards those three tiny figures with the momentum of overturning mountains and emptying the sea!
Crash—!
The giant wave smashed down head-on, exploding into a sky full of spray, then submerging into the undulating sea surface again.
The three figures walked out of the sea wave unhurriedly. Their auras showed no sign of disorder, still maintaining astonishing stability, as if no matter how big the sea waves were, they couldn't stop their advancing steps.
The young girl walking at the very front had an indifferent and calm face. Walking here, her body was actually incredibly dry, her steps still elegant and free. When the giant wave crashed down covering her face just now, not a single water droplet could be seen on her face or head. Obviously, she used some extremely profound technique to protect her entire body; however, being able to achieve this level, this chakra manipulation power was truly world-shaking.
The two boys following behind her couldn't achieve such miraculous chakra body protection to the point of not a drop of water touching them, but they each had their own methods to protect themselves from being drenched into drowned rats and ending up looking miserable.
They had already been soaked to the bone long ago, their clothes clinging tightly to their bodies, revealing the lean torsos of youths. However, their spirit and energy showed no signs of decline, their steps remaining steady and forceful, without the slightest sluggishness.
They were exactly the Konoha group who had plunged into the storm sea area after bidding farewell to Choujuurou and the other Mist Ninja.
After walking a few steps, the orange-haired boy suddenly stopped, crinkled his nose and face, and asked: "Sakura, we've been walking for so long, why haven't we seen the Akatsuki enemies yet?"
The girl paused her steps and looked back, her delicate eyebrows furrowing slightly.
They were different from the Mist Ninja squads that had searched this sea area before.
The latter, knowing they were no match for Akatsuki's people, proceeded cautiously and carefully along the way, looking around after every two steps, deeply afraid of bumping into Akatsuki, and didn't walk fast. However, even acting so prudently, they unfortunately encountered the enemy before searching for a few days, and only managed to escape by relying on Chojuro sacrificing himself.
On the other hand, Haruno Sakura's side, relying on Team 7's combat power being enough to handle any of Akatsuki's two-man teams, not only didn't focus on concealing their tracks while advancing, but instead swaggered forward quickly in a search-and-destroy posture. As a result, after walking for a full day, they still hadn't encountered the enemy, and the boys' chest full of fighting spirit and faint anticipation was completely extinguished by this icy rainwater.
The sky was gloomy and the sun dark. Wading through the water amidst violent wind, torrential rain, and huge waves consumed not only a massive amount of physical strength but even more so, patience.
As an "experienced person"... Haruno Sakura understood their thoughts very well.
She was also a bit helpless.
No matter how strong Haruno Sakura's abilities were, they weren't strong enough to control this entire sea area and casually dig out the enemy.
If it were in a calm and tranquil place, relying on large-scale sensory ninjutsu similar to the Rain Tiger at Will Jutsu, injecting chakra into the rainwater, Sakura could indeed monitor an area of several kilometers in radius. It's just that the weather here was harsh, with fierce winds and giant waves, torrential rain pouring down, and lightning and thunder. Any sensory ninjutsu would be greatly discounted, and even the most commonly used chakra sensing was greatly interfered with.
Therefore, although Team 7 deployed a reconnaissance formation, at most they could only sense movements within a radius of about a thousand meters, which was truly nothing in the vast sea area.
To discover the enemy, they had to rely more on luck.
The girl looked up at the sky and pursed her lips.
The dark clouds in the sky were so low they seemed to press right on top of their heads; the dense darkness made people feel depressed and irritable. From time to time, a startling thunderbolt flashed, crossing the sky like a swimming dragon, illuminating this dim world, and reflecting the girl's exquisite facial features and slender neck in stark black and white.
Rumble!
After a long while, the belated sound of thunder finally exploded with a crash between the sea and sky.
Haruno Sakura lowered her head and sighed. She also hadn't expected that the biggest difficulty of this mission was actually not how to fight the enemy, but how to find the enemy. The storm on the sea was truly chaotic and annoying; compared to it, the biggest rainstorms in summer in the Land of Fire seemed much gentler.
She turned her head, just about to persuade them with a few words, when Sasuke spoke up first: "Endure it for a bit, Naruto! There's nothing we can do about this kind of weather."
He casually wiped the water traces off his face, walked over and patted Naruto's shoulder, comforting the somewhat impatient little fox.
Haruno Sakura was slightly stunned, then chuckled lightly.
"Naruto, although you suffered a lot during your travels on the continent over the past two years, this should be your first time experiencing a rainstorm like this, right?" She smiled.
"Yeah." Naruto tugged at his collar, which was overly clinging to his body after getting wet, and said helplessly, "Ah... my clothes are completely soaked. I hate rainy days!"
Sasuke shook his head and said faintly: "In comparison, I hate the feeling of blind searching without finding the enemy more! Up to now, the closest thing we've seen to meaning 'enemy' are those few sharks ahead."
He pointed to the behemoths looming and swimming on the sea horizon ahead, his facial expression very disapproving.
Haruno Sakura looked in the direction he pointed, only to see several streamlined big fish a short distance away on the bumpy ocean surface, their tall black dorsal fins standing upright, swimming vigorously against the sea waves.
She couldn't help but laugh: "Sasuke, those aren't sharks... those are killer whales."
"Killer whales?" Sasuke's face reddened slightly, feeling a bit shy, and asked hesitantly.
You couldn't blame him for mistaking them. People living inland only knew that sharks were huge, fierce, and bloodthirsty, and had triangular tail fins standing on the water surface when swimming, but few people had heard of killer whales; so from afar, it wasn't surprising to mistake killer whales, which also had huge bodies and dorsal fins exposed on the water surface when swimming, for sharks.
"Hn, killer whales... also called orcas, are a kind of whale. Their body size is several times larger than sharks, and they are also fiercer and stronger, they are the most powerful overlords of the sea." The girl smiled, "In fact, sharks are one of their main hunting targets."
Sasuke and Naruto were startled, their vigilance instantly raised in their hearts.
To ninja, strong animals like sharks were also considered a threat. A considerable part of Kisame's Water Release ninjutsu was using waterized sharks to attack the enemy. Killer whales, which could hunt sharks, obviously made people even more wary.
"I'll go clear them out, so they don't get in the way." The black-haired boy frowned and said lightly.
Although with Sasuke's current strength, let alone a few sharks or killer whales, even if tens of thousands came at once, they couldn't harm a single hair on his head, a threat was still a threat after all.
What if they encountered them after fighting until they were exhausted and their chakra was used up later?
"Let me do it." Naruto cracked his knuckles, eager to try.
"Enough you guys, don't look for trouble out of boredom." Haruno Sakura glared at them grumpily, stopping the two restless boys, "Killer whales won't attack humans, they pose no threat to us."
How killer whales view humans... might be a bit like how humans treat cats, right?
Very amazingly, these large marine mammals have exceptional goodwill towards humans. At least on Earth in her previous life, the number of instances of killer whales actually attacking humans in the wild was zero, it had never happened even once. Aside from humans, these creatures were the smartest animals on Earth, had their own language and culture, and lived a group life. If it weren't for the lack of hands and living in the sea, they might even evolve into civilized creatures like humans.
Haruno Sakura had a lot of goodwill towards these black-and-white distinct creatures.
Especially after her strength grew to the current level, killer whales no longer posed any threat to her, and Sakura felt killer whales were even cuter.
There were also people in the Land of Water who used killer whales as summoning beasts. This kind of creature not only had extremely strong combat power, but its IQ was also innately extremely high. They were also social animals with very good obedience, much better than sharks that were blindly bloodthirsty, killed indiscriminately, would even cannibalize their own kind, and even devour their masters. They were also a top choice for summoning beasts.
"So that's how it is." Naruto touched his nose, putting on an expression of sudden realization—pretending he understood all of Sakura's words, "Then if Kisame is an evil shark, Sakura would be a killer whale that hunts sharks!"
This analogy... Haruno Sakura's mouth twitched, looking at the sky and silently rolling her eyes. (Note)
"If we could sign these sea beasts as summoning beasts," what Sasuke thought of, however, was another problem, "searching wouldn't be this troublesome, right?"
Haruno Sakura shook her head.
"Indeed. It's just that the summoning contract scrolls for killer whales in the Land of Water have long been lost, and the clans that used killer whales as summoning beasts also died out entirely during the Blood Mist era." She said coldly, "Other somewhat reliable large marine summoning beasts were also purged and slaughtered clean during that dark decade."
Associating this with today's scene, I'm afraid the demise of those clans was mostly intentionally caused by a certain mysterious person.
It seems the mastermind behind the scenes started laying out his plans over a decade ago?
Pausing for a moment, the girl continued: "The only one that slipped through the net was Kisame Hoshigaki who defected... unfortunately, a few months ago, he was also killed."
Sasuke and Naruto: "..."
They should be thankful that Sasori of the Red Sand, who took away Kisame's remains, was born in the Land of Wind, didn't know much about Water Release and the ocean, and didn't know there was this kind of move, otherwise this sea area should be swarming with sharks acting as Kisame's eyes and ears everywhere.
After a moment of silence, Sasuke still asked: "If this method doesn't work either, then what should we do? Although we can persevere, it's still better to find the enemy sooner, right? If it drags on for a long time, the Three-Tails might have fully formed!"
It's even possible that the Three-Tails has fully formed, and Akatsuki's people are currently dealing with it... after all, no one knows what exactly happened inside the storm!
They had to speed up their pace.
It's just that at this moment, Haruno Sakura also couldn't come up with any brilliant plan, and could only remain silent.
"How about we split up and act separately?" Naruto said with a dark face, suddenly proposing.
Haruno Sakura and Sasuke were startled and turned to look. Naruto's expression was solemn, with no intention of joking. He said decisively and calmly: "We split into three directions to search, this way the efficiency will become three times higher!"
"But the danger will become ten times or a hundred times higher!" Sasuke directly rejected Naruto's suggestion without even thinking, "This is too risky, I disagree!"
Except for Sakura who could fight one against two, whether it was Sasuke or Naruto, facing Akatsuki's two-man team alone was extremely dangerous, and they might even fall before support arrived!
Especially Naruto, his methods were the most monotonous and also the most worrying.
"Sakura, you are the captain, what do you think?" Naruto knew his own shortcomings and didn't argue with Sasuke, turning his head to look at the girl with tightly furrowed brows on the side.
The two waited silently for Haruno Sakura's answer; as the voices died down, the sounds of wind, rain, surging waves, and thunder occupied their ears again.
"I also object."
The girl said coldly.
Sasuke's face relaxed, but Naruto's brows furrowed even tighter.
"Sakura...!" The orange-haired boy shouted anxiously.
"Listen to me, Naruto, and Sasuke." Haruno Sakura said calmly, "I object to splitting into three groups, but I don't object to the method of splitting our forces."
The two boys were stunned.
"Meaning...?"
"Split into two groups: you two as one group, and myself as one group."
The girl said calmly.
Haruno Sakura's proposal finally gained the approval of Sasuke and Naruto—after all, they couldn't find a better method either.
After splitting into two groups like this, each group would have the power to fight when facing Akatsuki's two-man team, at least able to hold on until the other group came to support, greatly reducing the level of danger.
They made a plan, rested for a while, replenished their food, and then went their separate ways, left and right.
Perhaps because splitting up greatly increased efficiency, before walking for a few hours, Haruno Sakura truly encountered the enemy.
Killer whales are a very interesting creature, smart and powerful, but this analogy... is more suitable for describing boys, hehehe.