Chapter 90: Hashirama's Combat IQ
Both palms together — one seal — and Hashirama launched straight into World of Trees Wall without preamble. Sakura didn't even have time to complain about the escalation.
The already-ruined rooftop gave up entirely. Roots and branches erupted from the wreckage, surging upward in every direction — the Wood Release that had once leveled the shinobi world, returning to the field for the first time in decades.
"Great-great-granddaughter! Get clear!"
Hashirama watched the pink figure weaving through the forest of branches and shouted in genuine concern.
"I DON'T LOOK ANYTHING LIKE TSUNADE—"
"APOLOGIZE TO MY PARENTS—"
Sakura ducked and twisted through the undergrowth, branches whipping toward her from every angle like living things — because they were — forming nets that closed in from all sides.
Her eyes sharpened.
Her foot hit the ground.
CRACK — like a thunderbolt detonating underfoot.
The nets of branches shattered outward in every direction. Sakura launched herself clear of the treeline, airborne.
"Beautiful!"
Hashirama's face lit up as she broke through his technique—
Then shifted immediately as three branches shot out of the canopy below and snapped around her mid-air: one on each ankle, one on her right arm.
"Damn it—"
Hashirama's jaw set with frustration. Orochimaru's control was too strong, and this body was too weak — nowhere near what he'd had in life. If he had even half his original strength, he could have forced through the Edo Tensei's compulsion and personally sat on Orochimaru's head until he stopped moving.
Instead, he watched his own arms do things he wasn't ordering them to do.
A kunai flashed toward Sakura's skull.
"Dodge! That's my Flying Thunder God Slash!"
Tobirama's expression was tight with something between fury and helpless frustration. He was fighting the commands with everything he had.
Sakura had already anticipated it. From the start, she'd marked Tobirama as the more dangerous of the two — not the raw power of Hashirama, who was a numbers problem in a compromised body, but Tobirama, the mechanic, who fought by reading your toolkit and dismantling it.
The kunai grazed her cheek and drew blood.
Before it could go further, a silver-haired figure appeared directly in front of her, caught the kunai's handle, and drove it toward her face.
Really? My face again?
Orochimaru slashed the face. Now this one's going for the face. What is it with everyone targeting my face—
Sakura jerked her head sideways. The kunai missed.
What Tobirama had actually been aiming for was her throat. He'd burned through his remaining resistance forcing the trajectory to deviate — the face was as far from the neck as he could manage.
He went for a follow-up strike.
Sakura tilted her head back.
And headbutted him.
A dark shape hit the floor like it had been struck by a truck, punched straight through the rooftop, and disappeared into the floor below.
"OH—!"
"Well done!"
Hashirama applauded without reservation.
Sakura glanced at the branches still locked around her limbs. Flexed everything at once.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
She dropped to the ground, free.
She didn't get a breath before Hashirama was already on her, a full-force punch driving toward her from close range.
He'd read her clearly by now.
Taijutsu specialist. Same type as Tsunade. And Orochimaru's command was attack.
The question of how to attack — that was where the intelligence lived.
Was it the same to attack with Wood Release versus with fists? Of course not. And this body was fragile by Hashirama's standards — nearly useless by his own measure.
So: use the body's weaknesses to attack her strengths. Find the gap between what she was built for and what this broken tool could threaten.
Hashirama's ideas about people tended toward the naive. His combat IQ was something else entirely.
Sakura caught the incoming fist with one hand and punched back without hesitation.
BOOM.
Confetti. Half of Hashirama's arm below the elbow disintegrated in a shower of paper fragments.
"Excellent. Getting to see a successor like you with my own eyes—" Hashirama's expression was genuinely warm as he looked at her, arm already beginning to regenerate, "—I'd say that's the best thing about being summoned back like this."
He kicked her.
Sakura didn't dodge. She brought her forearm up and took it — and was already calculating the angle to break his leg on the return—
A shape burst from the floor beneath her feet.
Tobirama. Back. Kunai sweeping in at high speed.
The blade cut through a strand of pink hair. Sakura didn't flinch — she dropped Hashirama, arched backward to let Tobirama's follow-up miss, and drove her foot into his chest.
He went flying again.
Hashirama, freed from Sakura's attention for a moment, turned his eyes toward the figure standing at the edge of the battlefield.
Tsunade. Silent. Not moving.
"Tsunade. What are you waiting for?"
"Get in there and fight alongside her!"
Tobirama pulled himself up from the rubble and began forming seals. He'd already worked out what his brother was doing — as brothers who'd spent a lifetime fighting in sync, the logic was transparent.
Abandon your strongest domain. Attack her strengths with your weaknesses.
His gaze moved to Sakura's hands.
The gloves. High-strength alloy, chakra metal woven through the construction, rare materials throughout. With the user's own chakra cycling through the material, the effective force multiplied several times over.
She'd used them to catch the Severing Wave bare-handed.
Which meant she could combine them with the Yin Seal on her forehead and the Enhanced Strength at will, and the gloves would only make it worse.
In that case—
Four seals, fast.
"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique!"
He hadn't found the answer yet, so he defaulted to straightforward assault.
Meanwhile Sakura — not watching the space behind Hashirama where Tobirama was completing his technique — drove a punch at Hashirama's center of mass.
Hashirama felt his brother behind him. The corner of his mouth moved.
One hand hit the ground.
"Summoning Technique: Rashōmon!"
A massive demon-faced iron gate erupted from the surface, directly between Sakura's fist and everything behind it.
Sakura's punch connected with the gate.
The structure shuddered and groaned and began tilting — back toward Hashirama.
The Water Dragon Bullet hit the gate from Tobirama's side.
The water pressure shoved it upright again.
The gate stood. Sakura was cut off from both Hokages behind a wall of iron.
"Well done, Nii-san."
Tobirama looked at his blocked technique and actually smiled.
Hashirama, however, was not smiling. He was staring at the gate with the expression of someone turning something over slowly.
In his memory, Tsunade was not the kind of person who stood at the back of a battlefield and watched while a village junior fought alone.
Has something happened to Tsunade?
(End of Chapter)