Chapter 398: Sakura Is Gone
Eight kilometers outside Konoha, at the base of a small hill—
The shockwave caused by the clash between Super Gravity Punch and Night Guy had pushed the rubble and shattered trees from the village's perimeter all the way to this location.
Though the debris had changed positions and become even more fragmented…
One thing remained the same—amid the dust and broken stones, there was blood. There were pieces of flesh.
This time, very few survived. And many more had died.
Li Yao's appearance, his quick defeat of Naruto, and his clash with Night Guy all happened so fast that not many Konoha villagers had been eBakuated. Almost everyone was caught in the shockwave's blast radius.
Most of the corpses—crushed together with debris—were blown as far as eight kilometers away.
At that moment, from a blood-soaked pile of rubble, a hand suddenly emerged and grabbed hold of a nearby boulder.
Crash!
Dust burst outward as Naruto pulled himself upright from beneath the debris—his lower half still buried.
"…"
Mouth slightly open, he stared blankly at the distant, swirling mushroom cloud of dust.
His face was dazed—his mind still frozen in shock from the attack. He hadn't recovered. His brain was still numb.
Only when blood from the cut on his forehead slid into his eye, stinging it, did Naruto blink and snap back to reality. He suddenly remembered what had just happened.
"Gran—cough cough!!"
Just as he opened his mouth to call for Granny Tsunade, he inhaled a mouthful of dust and coughed violently.
Regaining composure, he waved the dust aside and urgently scanned the surroundings.
"Granny Tsunade!"
Naruto called out repeatedly as he looked around for her, for Sakura, and for Lord Fukasaku.
"Cough… I'm here, kid."
Suddenly, Shima's voice came from behind him. Naruto turned around in shock and relief.
"Lady Shima…"
Before he could speak further, she jumped onto his shoulder and urgently waved her hand. "I'm fine. Hurry—we need to find Tsunade and that little girl."
Before the shockwave hit, both Tsunade and Sakura had instinctively thrown themselves over Naruto.
First, they took the brunt of the shockwave for him. Then, they acted as human shields, blocking deadly debris with their bodies.
That was the only reason why Shima—who had been standing on Naruto's shoulder—had survived with only minor injuries.
Without them, she would have either been fatally wounded or critically injured by now.
Thanks to Tsunade and Sakura's protection, she was mostly unharmed.
But because of that, their own condition was far more worrisome.
Bang! Bang!
Naruto shoved aside the stones covering his legs, stood up, and scanned the area.
The air was thick with dust, obscuring visibility. But he could still see parts of Konoha-nin uniforms sticking out of the rubble.
He rushed to check them—one after another.
Six bodies. All dead.
"No, no, no…"
Naruto's voice trembled. As he searched, his whispers grew frantic and afraid.
His heart pounded harder and harder.
He was terrified—terrified of seeing Tsunade or Sakura lying lifeless.
Soon, he and Shima had combed through all the nearby debris. They found no sign of Tsunade or Sakura. All the others they found… were dead.
"No…"
He muttered, eyes slowly filling with despair. It flooded him like a tide, drowning his soul.
"Kid, use Sage Mode."
Shima's voice snapped him out of it. She suddenly remembered—he could sense chakra.
Looking for people with just his eyes was pointless.
With Sage Mode, he could scan for Tsunade and Sakura's chakra and know immediately if they were alive.
"Right—Sage Mode!"
Naruto jolted as if waking from a dream. He quickly unstrapped the scroll on his back and summoned the shadow clone he had stationed at Mount Myōboku for this purpose.
Poof!
As the clone dispersed, Naruto entered Sage Mode, absorbing the clone's stored natural energy.
The moment he entered Sage Mode, he began scanning for chakra.
"…!"
Naruto froze.
Terror and grief surged up at once—his eyes turned red with emotion.
Too few.
Way too few.
Within his sensory range, there were only about a dozen chakra signatures.
That meant… only about a dozen people were still alive nearby.
With that kind of sensing radius, it was easy to estimate—fewer than a hundred people had survived in all of Konoha.
After Pain's Shinra Tensei, Konoha had already dropped from a major village to a population of seventy or eighty thousand.
Now? Obliterated again.
This time was far worse.
Of the seventy or eighty thousand, most had been shinobi. Now, barely a hundred were left.
Even counting border forces, Konoha likely had no more than one thousand ninja left.
What could one thousand ninja do?
They were weaker than even a minor village now.
Konoha… was finished.
Even if Naruto and Tsunade survived, it didn't matter anymore.
The other Four Great Nations would never pass up this chance to conquer the Land of Fire and erase Konoha.
Konoha's fate was sealed.
Naruto didn't know these deeper political consequences yet.
But he knew one thing: tens of thousands of people had died.
His village.
His comrades.
And… Sakura.
"No!!!"
Naruto howled in rage. There was no chakra signal from Sakura.
That broke him.
He was about to lose himself again—Nine-Tails' chakra beginning to surge—when…
"Where are Tsunade and Sakura?!"
Shima yelled, snapping him out of it.
Tsunade—right!
Naruto jerked out of his fury and rushed off. In just a few seconds, he reached another rubble pile and frantically began throwing aside stones.
Finally, Tsunade's body came into view.
"Granny Tsunade!"
"Tsunade!"
Naruto and Shima ran to her side.
"Lady Shima…" Naruto looked at her anxiously.
Tsunade wasn't dead—but a steel pipe had pierced through her stomach, and she was unconscious.
If she wasn't treated soon, she wouldn't survive.
Naruto didn't know any medical jutsu, and there was no time to find someone who did.
Shima didn't know healing techniques either, but Mount Myōboku's condensed natural energy could serve as a substitute—a type of natural chakra that the body could absorb.
Normally, it was dangerous—few could survive the raw power of it.
But now…
(END CHAPTER)
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