Chino wove signs.
“Ketsuryugan! Blood Dragon Ascension!”
The chakra squirming around in the red pool began to collect at her feet and rise up, transforming into a red dragon with eight heads. It was big enough that he had to look up at it.
“Take this!” One of the dragon’s heads opened its mouth wide and came at Sasuke.
“Ngh!” This wasn’t an opponent he could go up against with naked flesh. Sasuke concentrated his power in his eyes.
Susano’o!
The armored warrior appeared, and Sasuke thrust Susano’o’s sword at the head of the blood dragon. He had no sooner watched the force of it send the head flying, than another head grew up to take its place. And this bit down on Susano’o, stopping his movements. Steam sizzled up from the place where the dragon’s teeth were locked on. The dragon’s other heads also coiled around Susano’o.
Sasuke spread Susano’o’s wings, and escaped into the sky.
“As if I’m letting you get away!” Chino opened her eyes wide, as if to catch hold of Sasuke.
Sasuke’s vision was dyed red. Chino’s genjutsu. The instant he tried to undo the genjutsu, one head charged, stretching out toward Susano’o’s wings. Sasuke plunged his sword into the open maw of the dragon, and it ripped through the blood dragon’s throat. One of the heads bounced back and scattered everywhere.
Sasuke brought Susano’o back down to the ground. and aimed with his sword at the base of the eight heads. “There!”
His sword pierced the dragon deeply, and two of the heads fell into the red pond, waves of water splashing up high.
As Susano’o and the blood dragon drew ever closer to each other, Sasuke met Chino’s eyes, and caught her in a genjutsu as well.
“Tch!”
But Chino apparently had set up any number of genjutsu guards in her mind; several red walls stood in his way, blocking Sasuke’s entry. The walls melted, and became waves crashing down on him.
“Genjutsu trap, huh?” The waves touched his body, and his memory was slightly exposed to her. Chino’s genjutsu was clever. And his head was spinning. She was probably fiddling with the iron in his body. It would be to his disadvantage to let this draw on. He focused on figuring out how to defeat her.
“Why?!” she suddenly cried out at him. “Why are you fighting for the sake of Konoha?!”
Perhaps she had seen something when she touched Sasuke’s memories.
“Konoha’s leaves are bright, its roots are dark! There is light and darkness in Konoha! For Konoha’s nourishment, your entire clan was absorbed by its roots! So how can you fight for Konoha?! How can you not be pessimistic about Konoha’s future?!”
Sasuke got some distance from Chino and looked at her. Why did he fight for Konoha? He found the answer surprisingly fast. “Because I’m alive.”
“What does that mean?!”
Sasuke remembered. The sunrise he had seen with Naruto in the Valley of the End. The day he acknowledged defeat.
“I have a friend who saved me. A friend who can share my pain.”
“A friend who can share your pain …”
“And a heart that wishes that someday the whole world could be like that too … connects me to Konoha!!”
He would endure until that day came. He would be the one to watch it happen.
I am not alone anymore!
“I’ll sever the chain of vengeance running rampant in this world! Just like my brother did, I’ll support this world from the shadows, along with,” Sasuke spat it out clearly, “the light this world is gazing at up ahead!”
He opened his eyes. This time, the Mangekyo sharingan caught hold of Chino.
“Ngh, ah …” Chino and the blood dragon stopped moving.
Sasuke aimed Susano’o’s sword at her. He would decide this battle.
“Chino!!” Nowaki called, and came flying in.
Typhoon Style! Tornado Destruction!!
Instantly, the wind rose up, and became a sword to knock away Susano’o’s blade. Although the sword’s trajectory was off, the pressure wave sent the two ninja flying; having lost its chakra, the blood dragon splashed into nothing.
“Ow …” After slamming into a rock wall, Chino stood up, pressing a hand against her back.
Nowaki had fallen very near her, and he was more seriously injured than Chino.
“Nowaki! Why did you come out?!” Chino grew pale and raced over to him. Nowaki forced himself to his feet and pushed Chino behind him.
Sasuke stood before them. He looked at the two of them and said to Chino, “You should understand the meaning of what I said now.”
Chino eyes widened, and she looked at Nowaki with a gasp.
I have a friend who saved me. A friend who can share my pain …
“I’m not alone. I have connections and live in this world.”
Tears spilled from Chino’s eyes. Red tears. They rolled down her cheeks, and fell to the ground.
“Nowaki, that’s enough,” she said, pushing back a groan. “That’s enough …” She placed a hand on Nowaki’s back, and looked up at Sasuke. “I wish we’d never met you in Takeno. Then I could’ve hated you whole-heartedly.”
Belying her words, the expression on her face was clear somehow. “I mean, once I met you and talked with you, it turns out you’re not really the kind of opponent you can hate.”
You meet people and become connected to each other by talking and getting to know each other. Many things are changed by a single word alone.
“You win.” Her red tears changed into transparent water. “With a guy like you in it, I want to see what kind of future’s coming for this world.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Chino stood in front of a red pond. Sasuke watched from behind.
“Sasuke, I saw just a little of your memory. Something that could turn into the answer to your questions might be here.” There was already no will to fight left in her. She intended to accept whatever punishment was meted out.
Telling him that she wanted to talk with him before that, she had brought him to the pond where the shinobi lay. She reached a hand in and the wriggling chakra returned to her, including the chakra circulating in the ninja’ bodies.
“During the Fourth Great Ninja War, a suspicious group passed under Yugakure,” she told him, a faraway look in her eyes, as if remembering it. “I was able to get the information from the mineral springs. When the strange group touched the mineral springs in the earth, the information flowed into it.”
It had likely been the White Zetsu.
“I used that structure as a reference to create this technique. But there was something I thought was weird while I was making it.” When Chino placed her hand on the bottom of the pool, the boiling geyser stopped and returned to inside the earth. The water of the pond pulled back, finally releasing the bodies of the ninja. She looked back at Sasuke. “In the middle of that strange group, there was one person who was faintly thinking that he should be fighting something different. Or maybe it’s not like he was thinking about it. Maybe the idea had been planted in him.”
“What do you mean?” As Sasuke listened to her, his heart had started to pound a little faster. He had a bad feeling.
“I don’t know exactly. But I feel like they were prepared for something different. To fight a more powerful something,” Chino said.
Sasuke closed his eyes tightly—this was the thing that had bothered him in the fight with Kaguya. Why, despite the fact that Kaguya was so strong, had she created the corps of White Zetsu and prepared for war? An absurd fear was about to become reality.
“That something’s definitely going to come along one day,” Chino noted.
“The idea that there’s a being that could threaten even Kaguya … and it’s going to appear in this land?” Did that mean that the day was coming when the peace they had finally obtained would be disturbed? Was the future people were walking toward now going to be destroyed once more?
But Sasuke shook his head no. He wouldn’t let that happen. He would protect it himself.
Chino looked at Sasuke. “You shouldn’t carry it all by yourself, you know.”
When he looked at her, Chino was smiling.
“You have a friend to share your pain with, right?”
These words instantly shut him up, and finally, he nodded quietly. “I guess I do.”
Right. He wasn’t alone.