The day after she talked with Naruto, Sasuke reached out to Tsunade and said she wanted her advice.
Just past noon, the two women squeezed into a table at a restaurant and faced each other.
Tsunade already knew Sasuke had been seen in a variety of places. It might have been a while since she stepped down as village chief, but Kakashi sent subordinates from time to time to keep her informed of important matters.
“The Sasuke people are seeing simply can’t really be him. But Gaara said he had the same chakra. And I can’t think of anything plausible to explain that,” Sakura said.
“Hmm.” Tsunade crossed her arms. “A method of mimicking not just face and body, but also chakra…”
“Apparently, there’s a shinobi in the Anbu who uses a jutsu like that, but he’s off on a mission right now. He doesn’t seem to have anything to do with any of this. Do you have any ideas, Master?”
Chakra couldn’t be copied with transformation jutsu, and the user of a shape-shifting jutsu couldn’t make a copy of any kind unless they had access to Sasuke.
“It’s a tough one,” Tsunade said, after a few moments of silence. “I can’t think of anything off the top of my head other than what you just suggested. It’s not as though White Zetsu survived, after all.”
“I don’t think he did.”
Silence descended on the table.
Finally, after wetting her lips with sake, Tsunade offered, “Still, the most likely option is shape-shifting jutsu.”
“But in that case, there would be a connection between the user and Sasuke.”
“Mmm. His own chakra would have to be split and given to the copy. But if the user somehow managed to absorb Sasuke’s chakra without him noticing it and gave it to the copy, that could create a situation in which the fake ran rampant without Sasuke’s being aware of it.”
“Without Sasuke noticing?”
“Right. But that wouldn’t happen.” Tsunade rejected the idea immediately. “It’s hard to think of a situation where someone as skilled as Sasuke would have his chakra absorbed without him knowing it.”
“That’s true.” Sasuke nodded slightly. But she felt like it was worth pushing and digging deeper into this idea of Tsunade’s.
The fact that the fake had Sasuke’s face and body was no serious problem. The transformation jutsu itself was not particularly high level. The real issue was that the chakra was the same. And just as Tsunade noted, chakra could be absorbed from an opponent and passed on to someone else. Transferring, substituting, moving—these things were all possible with chakra.
So there had been a transfer of Sasuke’s chakra without Sasuke’s knowing about it.
What sort of trick would be involved in something like that? Sakura had the feeling her fingertips had finally touched upon something after groping around in the dark.
“Without he himself realizing it,” she murmured, and then looked down at the ground, concentrating hard. As she gently tucked behind her ears the hair hanging down on both sides of her face, she had a sudden flash of insight. “Hair…”
“What’s the matter?” Tsunade looked dubious.
“Master Tsunade,” Sakura said. “Hypothetically speaking, would it be possible to extract a person’s chakra from something like their hair or skin?”
“Hair?” Tsunade said. “Well, I suppose it’s not impossible. Although it would be an extremely small amount. Basically, as long as the material contained some component of the person, in theory, it’s possible. In that sense, you wouldn’t be limited to hair; blood or sweat would work too. But there are a lot of conditions at play here—how was it stored, how much time since the material was taken from the person. Sakura, so you think…?”
“It’s just a thought that crossed my mind. I don’t have any real confidence in the idea. But when I started thinking about Sasuke’s chakra being used without him knowing it, that’s what popped into my head.”
“Get ahold of Sasuke’s hair or skin and then, from there, his chakra,” Tsunade mused, staring out into space. “That’s not a bad line of thought. Technically, it would be fairly difficult, but I feel like it’s closer to the truth than anything else we’ve talked about.”
“But assuming that someone is making Sasuke’s chakra like that, how are they passing it on to the copy?”
“We’ll have to think about that too. Did they do some kind of cosmetic surgery, or maybe give it to the fake in a capsule form, like a drug?”
There were too many threads to pull at here. But at least she had a starting point for her wandering thoughts now.
“Master, thank you so much. I’m going to think about this a bit more by myself,” Sasuke thanked Tsunade.
“Good luck, Sakura.” Tsunade nodded. “I’d see you through to the end of this discussion, but I am actually retired. I’ll leave the rest to you lot.”
“Please do that, Master.” Sakura nodded firmly.
Because Sasuke would have told us to deal with it ourselves too…
∞
Tsunade said she would stay and drink a bit longer, so Sakura left her and headed out of the restaurant.
She figured she would try to find some books or documents that might serve as a reference at Konoha Hospital and started to walk in that direction, when someone called her name from behind.
“Sakura!”
Turning around, she saw Sai walking toward her. “Sai.”
“On your way back from lunch?”
“Mm-hmm, with Master Tsunade. I was just thinking I’d go and look up some things at the hospital.”
“Oh yeah?” He fell in step alongside her, saying he had business at the Hokage’s Office.
“I heard, you know,” Sakura said, remembering what the Hokage had told her. “You’re looking into that thing where the daimyo was attacked, right?”
“Master Kakashi told you?” Sai asked.
“Yeah. I was in his office with Ino yesterday, and he told us.”
“He did? Well, I guess it’s only natural he’d tell you guys,” Sai said, almost muttering.
She started to ask if his investigation was getting anywhere and stopped herself. She felt like she shouldn’t really intrude on him too much. Sai probably gave encouragement or advice to himself when he needed it.
“By the way, did you hear about Sasuke?” Sai asked, dropping his voice.
Sasuke nodded yes. “But actually, Ino and I found out before you. When we were on that trip to Suna, Gaara told us about it.” Sakura told him about the trip.
“So even his chakra was the same as Sasuke’s?” Sai was surprised.
“Uh-huh. Gaara said it was in the Sasuke he saw.”
“The informant who told me about Sasuke didn’t mention the chakra part.” The look on Sai’s face was grim.
“But I thought of something when I was talking with Master Tsunade before. Chakra can be transferred. So maybe Sasuke’s chakra is being used for evil purposes right now without him knowing about it.”
“Without him knowing…”
Sakura went on to tell Sai about the theory she had come up with while talking with Tsunade earlier.
“Hair or skin, huh?” Sai murmured, and abruptly stopped moving.
“What’s wrong?” Sakura looked back at him.
Face still grim, Sai brought a hand to his chin.
Just as Sakura was about to prompt him, Sai said, “Sakura, you mind coming to the Hokage’s office with me?”