Chapter 390: Departure
"Huff, huff... There's no point in fighting anymore..." Uchiha Itachi panted, his shoulders heaving as he spoke, "Let's end it here for today."
"Hmph..." Haruno Sakura clenched her silver teeth and snorted coldly, "Do you think I'll just watch you take the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki and retreat safely? Keep dreaming!"
Itachi simply raised his hand and pointed at Sasuke lying on the ground.
"Although you are strong... you can't chase me while carrying the unconscious Sasuke, can you?" He said calmly while calming his breathing, "Or are you going to leave him unconscious in the wilderness and chase after me alone?"
The Ice Style girl's face changed. She looked back at the black-haired boy lying on the ground, clenched her fists, and put on an indignant expression.
"Are you... threatening me?"
"I'm just pointing out a fact..." The Mangekyo pinwheel in Itachi's eyes flickered a few times and degenerated into a three-tomoe Sharingan. He put on the Akatsuki cloak again and continued, "Mission or companion? Given the usual practice of you Konoha ninja, you'll probably choose to protect your companion, right?"
The girl bit her lip, put on a resentful posture, yet helpless, and spat out two words bitterly: "...Despicable!"
Haruno Sakura's venting curse did not get a response from Uchiha Itachi.
The latter just stared at her for a few seconds, confirmed that she had made a choice, and then turned back to White Zetsu who was waiting aside holding the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki Fuu at his feet.
"Take the Seven-Tails, let's go."
White Zetsu nodded and quickly sank into the ground with Fuu. Only then did Itachi release Susanoo, look back deeply at Sasuke, and disappear into the air with Body Flicker.
Haruno Sakura watched coldly as Itachi left, finding no chance to keep the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki.
"If I were ruthless enough," a thought suddenly popped up in the girl's mind, "maybe it would have been better to kill Fuu the moment she fainted..."
In that case, the Seven-Tails would enter a resurrection state, and the Akatsuki's plan would be delayed for a while again...
Sakura smiled bitterly.
Before guessing that the outcome of Fuu being taken away might occur, would she really have killed Fuu, this somewhat innocent and naive Jinchuriki, with her own hands? Her character didn't seem so ruthless and heartless.
Haruno Sakura took a deep breath. No need to dwell on things that didn't happen. What's more—
"Forget about Uchiha Itachi... did I allow you guys to leave?"
An ice clone suddenly appeared beside the group of whispering White Zetsus in the distance and said with sharp killing intent!
The White Zetsus who just said "Stop arguing, we should go! Itachi is about to retreat!" were immediately startled and their faces changed drastically!
"W-When!"
"Run! Hide underground!"
"This is a clone, don't be afraid, let's attack together!"
The White Zetsus were panicked and shouted chaotically.
Some wanted to flee, some wanted to resist, and some were frozen in place by shock, at a loss.
For a moment, this group of plant-people acted randomly like headless flies.
Haruno Sakura's ice clone acted much more decisively. The moment the White Zetsus were panicked, she had already completed the brewing of the ninjutsu—
"Explode!"
With a loud bang, the clone detonated herself without hesitation.
Super-hard ice blocks split into tens of thousands of small ice prisms in the explosion, flying out at a high speed of more than ten times the speed of sound, piercing holes in anything they encountered until the ice prisms were smashed into powder!
When the ice clone exploded with full force, the ground shook like a beaten drum, and the air wave was lifted tens of meters high; every humanoid creature within a radius of forty meters was forcefully pierced by dozens or hundreds of ice prisms. The cold and hard edges of the ice prisms were extremely sharp. Passing through this group of unsuspecting White Zetsus was like penetrating blood tofu, easily tearing their weird bodies into pieces...
Even Orochimaru suffered under this ninjutsu, let alone the cannon fodder-like White Zetsus?
Unlike the White Zetsus in the original story, these White Zetsus had not been strengthened by Wood Style. As scouts, their combat power was extremely weak. In a frontal confrontation, they might only be at the level of Genin, or at most Chunin...
So even if there was only one, the power of the clone explosion was enough for them to suffer!
When the dust settled and the field of vision became clear again, there were no White Zetsus standing on the ground anymore. Only a pile of mutilated limbs and corpses torn into unknown shapes remained, and filthy blood flowed all over the ground, almost converging into a small stream.
White Zetsus... annihilated.
No, Sakura looked intently and unexpectedly found that one White Zetsu moved. This White Zetsu was the strongest and fastest reacting one among the group. The moment the clone self-destructed, he condensed a large amount of chakra to strengthen his body, protected his vitals, and hid behind others!
So he was very lucky to escape death, not dying on the spot, just heavily injured on his limbs with a few more big holes...
This lucky guy struggled to push away the bloody flesh paste covering the ground, wanting to drill into the soil—"Faster, faster... I'll be safe once I dive into the soil!" He endured the pain all over his body, forcibly commanding his limbs to move his body, but the last bit of distance became as far as a chasm under the condition of heavy injuries...
In the painful movement, his luck finally ran out, and a pair of cold eyes fell on him.
Killing intent almost condensed into substance raised large goosebumps on White Zetsu's back. He shivered and looked up into the distance, just in time to see the pink-haired girl standing straight. On that pretty face stained with blood spots and dirt, there was a pair of clear and indifferent emerald eyes.
The moment their eyes met, the girl snorted coldly, her right hand moved slightly, a white light flashed, a head fell to the ground, and the last survivor fell into eternal darkness.
After Itachi left, venting all her anger on this group of cannon fodder couldn't release the pent-up emotions in Sakura's heart.
Actually, she didn't know what she was angry about.
Just seeing Sasuke fall in pain and Fuu being taken away unconsciously, she felt a sense of irritation rise spontaneously in her heart.
Perhaps it was both heartache for her companion's encounter and sulking over not protecting others well?
However, she was not a homicidal maniac after all. Torturing and killing this group of plant-people wouldn't bring her any pleasure. The reason for the ruthless extermination was just to try to cut off the branches extended by the Akatsuki as much as possible.
—Even though she had a premonition that the true number of this group of White Zetsus might be unimaginably large, possibly thousands or tens of thousands! Dying dozens was nothing at all.
"Also..."
She took a deep breath, calmed down, and thought of the reminder Itachi left at the end.
Carrying the unconscious Sasuke on her back, Haruno Sakura quickly found the corpses of the Root ninja monitoring them based on Itachi's hint.
When discovered, the people of the Akatsuki—probably Uchiha Itachi—killed them in passing.
It could be seen that Itachi also had no fondness for Root.
"Danzo..." Haruno Sakura walked up to the two corpses dying with grievances, and her face slowly darkened.
Was his target Sakura herself, Sasuke, or...
The Seven-Tails Jinchuriki?
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