Sakura cracked open one eye and flinched as harsh light spilled into her vision from the lamp above. Tilting her head slightly, she took in her surroundings. She was flat on her back, helplessly bound to some sort of sacrificial altar in the centre of a small room cluttered with test tubes filled with colourful liquids and humming electrical apparatuses. She discreetly scanned the room for the so-called Box of Paradise, but there was no sign of it.
Or perhaps it was right in front of her, behind the mountains on her chest blocking her view.
Sakura turned her attention inwards. The Celestial Lotus Seal was beginning to condense nicely on her brow, but progress felt excruciatingly slow. She could faintly sense nature energy in the air, yet though Orochimaru had half-heartedly passed on what he knew of harnessing it, neither she nor Tsunade— the imprint responsible for its gathering— had any real experience in the art.
It was the very same problem Minato had faced when learning Sage Mode, Sakura realised; it was too slow to be useful in combat. Chakra, like gravity, was a force of attraction— and though she possessed a vast reserve of it, it still paled beside the power of Naruto or Kurama. Even lying perfectly still, she couldn't draw in natural energy nearly as fast as they potentially could.
Upon hearing footsteps, Sakura closed her eyes and mimicked the breathing patterns of someone who was supposedly unconscious, allowing her naked chest to rise and fall naturally.
"Fire Style:Celestial Prison Jutsu: Release!"
Sakura almost yelped as Mui seized a handful of her ample chest. The purple bands of jutsu formulae branded across her skin writhed to life, retreating swiftly into the prison master's palm. The only conclusion she could draw from this puzzling act was that the fūinjutsu would somehow interfere with the Box's attempt to consume her— which meant she was officially out of time.
Her eyes snapped open.
"Celestial Lotus Seal: Release!"
At once, the Celestial Lotus Seal— which Sakura had spitefully named after the seal that had just bound her— released the energy it had gathered over the past few minutes. Discharged in perfect measure with mechanical precision, each strand of energy merged seamlessly within her. A shimmer of royal blue eyeshadow flared across her eyelids and the corners of her eyes, and for one fleeting heartbeat, Sakura felt utterly at one with the world.
Was this the world Ino felt when she used Sensory Ninjutsu, she wondered?
"SHA!" Sakura shouted.
With scarcely any effort, she wrenched her limbs free of their bonds and leapt off the table, snapping the chains and shattering the solid steel cuffs as though they were made of silken tofu— not even the extra-firm variety!
Mui was already upon her, a sword of living flames aimed at her neck, but even without having activated her Sharingan, he seemed to be moving in slow motion before her eyes.
Instinctively, Sakura felt as though she could now push her body's limits further than she ever had before. She leaned back as if slipping beneath a limbo bar, confident she wouldn't be struck. The fiery blade sliced harmlessly through the air between her swaying breasts, and she casually caught Mui's wrist and wrapped her legs around his arm and twisted, dragging him down to the ground.
With a light squeeze, Sakura crushed the bones in Mui's wrist, and the flames streaming from his palm flickered out… and that was all the senjutsu chakra she had accumulated. Her Sage Mode sputtered out, blue eyeshadow and superhuman strength alike vanishing in the wink of an eye.
A strange sense of emptiness overcame Sakura, as if she had lost a part of herself. Taking advantage of her momentary distraction, Mui threw her off him and rolled to his feet, while Sakura did the same.
"A valiant effort," Mui said, forming the tiger seal. "But unfortunately for you, this is my victory… Fire Style: Celestial Prison Jutsu: Suppress!"
Mui had only temporarily deactivated the Celestial Prison Jutsu to extract Sakura's chakra and feed it to the Box of Paradise; otherwise, it would have automatically converted her chakra to useless heat. Once more, purple ropes bloomed across Sakura's chest, tightening around her like a vice, but before Mui could manually trigger her self-incineration…
"Lightning Style: Thunderclap Arrow."
With only a flash of light as warning, a bolt of lightning tore across the room and smote Mui. His body convulsed as the charge coursed through his muscles, and he let out a choking cough of black smoke before collapsing, unconscious. Sakura immediately whirled around and threw herself behind cover, wary of any further surprise attacks.
"No need to be so wary," a man's voice called from the darkness beyond the room. "We're all friends here, aren't we?"
"…Maroi?" Sakura called back, after a few seconds. "Is that you?"
Maroi had claimed to be from Kumogakure, and Sakura was inclined to believe him, judging by the colour of his skin. Even so, she didn't trust the smooth-talking operator any further than she could throw him— which, admittedly, was now quite a distance. At this time of night, he ought to be in his cell, and yet here he was… wherever here happened to be.
"That's right," Maroi said cheerfully, his footsteps echoing throughout the secret chamber. "Your good old prison buddy Maroi, that's me."
Sakura's mind raced.
"You weren't really sent here because you failed Kumo, were you?" she said at last. "The Raikage sent you for Kusagakure's ultimate weapon."
"You were sent by Konoha for the Box as well, I suppose?" Maroi sighed, and the sound of his footsteps came to an abrupt halt. "That's a shame. I could have tricked you into defecting to the Cloud before stabbing you in the back, but it looks like we'll have to fight it out fair and square…"
If Konoha knew about the Box of Paradise being here, then they hadn't told her.
The truth was that Sakura had only been sent to Hōzuki Castle to appease the international community, due to Orochimaru's and Tsubaki's gallivanting around the continent and ambushing Kekkei Genkai holders to steal their powers.
"The Box won't grant your wish," Sakura said coldly. "It will only bring about disaster."
"I suppose we'll have to see about that," Maroi said lightly. "Oh, I see it, it's right there. Wow, that is the ugliest box I have ever seen."
In theory, the two of them ought to have been on equal footing.
Sakura was confident in her own strength, yet if it came down to fisticuffs, she wasn't entirely sure she'd win. They were both bound by the Celestial Prison Jutsu, which restricted their use of chakra, and without their supernatural abilities, she was merely a shorter-than-average teenage girl encumbered by her own generous curves, facing a grown man with much longer arms and legs than hers.
Moreover, if Maroi had been sent here deliberately, then the odds were that Kumo had found a way to stop the cursed seal from fully taking effect on him…
"Right, I forgot to mention," Maroi chuckled. "I've already signalled for backup from Kumo. We didn't expect a chance at the Box to come up so suddenly, so it'll take an hour or two— but before long, this island will be crawling with Kumo-nin."
Sakura was forced to make an impossible decision.
The woman in the monkey mask had already taken Kazan of the Hundred Transformations away. Kusagakure's scheme to use Kazan's daughter, Furin, as leverage— forcing him to assume Naruto's likeness and assassinate key figures from the other Great Villages— was already in motion, even with Mui incapacitated.
With political tensions already running high, if another of the Sannin's disciples were to cause trouble abroad, there was no doubt the world would once again be engulfed in the flames of war, with Konoha at the heart of the conflict. She had to stop this from happening at any cost, but on the other hand… if Kumo obtained the Box of Paradise, there was no doubt it would give them the confidence to start new wars of aggression.
Stop Kusa, or stop Kumo?
With so little time, she could only choose one…