"That bastard's mine." Sakura growled, eyes blazing. "No time for backstory or tragic flashbacks—just know it would be great if you three could babysit this noob and hack some Spectres for me… until I kill that motherfucker."
"Uh… uhm…" stammered the three musketeers in unison, clearly overwhelmed by the hellish scene and Sakura's intensity.
She spun on them like a drill sergeant with zero patience. "NO 'UH UHMs'! FIGHT. NOW. SWING SOMETHING! SCREAM A LITTLE! I DON'T CARE—JUST LOOK VIOLENT!"
Yamada blinked. "Is this how you ask for help?"
"Yes!" She barked, already charging toward Kentaro. "This is me being polite!"
**
As Ren, Ryosuke, and Yamada surged into the fray, blades flashing and chakra flaring against the incoming wave of Spectres, Sakura stepped forward into the clearing. Her boots crunched the bone-dry leaves and ash that carpeted the Underworld forest. Each step seemed to echo in the stillness. Eyes locked with her uncle—Kentaro, the cursed traitor of the Ikari clan.
The blood-red moon hung above them like a malignant eye, casting long shadows that writhed like phantoms across the forest floor. The skeletal trees groaned in the wind, and for a moment, the battlefield stilled—as if the realm itself were holding its breath.
Kentaro stood tall in the center of the clearing, cloaked in black robes that hissed and whispered with cursed energy. His hair, once like her father's, was now streaked with gray and shadow. His eyes—piercing amber with flecks of void—were fixed on her, unreadable. He had aged, yes, but the malice in his presence had only grown darker, deeper, colder.
Sakura activated her Seishin-no-Me—the Spirit Eye—and the world snapped into crystalline clarity. She could see the tremble of his pulse beneath his throat, the twitch of his poisoned chakra like veins of coal lacing his aura. Every breath, every minute shift of his stance—she saw it all.
Kentaro's lip curled into a slow smirk, chakra flaring around him like black fire, flickering with forbidden symbols.
There she is. The brat. All grown up. Damn her eyes… they look just like his. Just like Muji's. She even holds those twin katanas the same way. Ikari blood runs strong. Too strong. But she's still just a child inside. Still the weeping little girl I left sobbing and scarred for life.
He chuckled, low and mocking. "So, the little stray dog has come barking at her master."
Sakura's hands tightened around the twin hilts at her hips—Dawn and Dusk, the inherited blades of her family lineage. Her voice was steel.
"You're not my master. You're the filth I'm here to erase."
She speaks like him too. That same righteous venom. I should've crushed her throat when I had the chance… but I hesitated. There was still something human in me back then. Foolish.
"You've always had your Father's arrogance," Kentaro mocked, slowly rotating his shoulder, the air groaning around his movements. "Let's see if you inherited anything else."
Then she was gone.
Sakura exploded forward in a burst of Shinpo—Flash Step, reappearing mid-air with a vicious spinning kick aimed at his temple. Kentaro barely raised his arm in time—reinforced with hardened chakra. The impact cracked the air, flinging dirt and embers in a wide arc. He slid back three paces, boots digging trenches into the cursed soil.
She landed smoothly and, with barely a breath, wove rapid hand seals. "Katon: Ryu Enjin no Jutsu!"
A serpent of fire burst from her mouth—coiling, snarling, its fanged maw wide as it roared across the clearing.
Kentaro gritted his teeth. "Kurokaze Dome!"
A dome of writhing black wind swallowed him, and the flame serpent slammed into it with a deafening boom. Fire and wind exploded, torching nearby trees and searing the air in an infernal shockwave.
She's gotten stronger. Faster. Her chakra's matured. But fire? That's your trick, girl. And I made it obsolete long ago.
"Pathetic." Kentaro hissed, flickering through the smoke—reappearing behind her with lethal precision.
But too slow.
Sakura ducked low, twisting with a scream of metal as she slashed in an X-shaped arc. Steel met flesh—blood sprayed.
Kentaro leapt back, clutching his cheek. His fingers came away red. He stared at them. Then laughed.
"You dare draw my blood?!"
"Planning to take your whole head next."
His grin vanished.
With a growl, Kentaro threw his arm upward. Black glyphs burst in the air.
"Yami no Kage: Thousand Shadow Knives!"
The sky above her shattered with sound. A thousand blades of darkness rained down like an avalanche of death.
Sakura's chakra surged outward. "Fūton: Shinku Kaze-jin!"
A cyclone of razored wind detonated around her, spinning at impossible velocity. The shadow knives hit the barrier and disintegrated with screeches like tortured banshees. The forest floor cracked and shredded beneath the force.
So she's learned to mix her elements. Wind chakra mastery this young? Muji must be laughing his ass off if he sees this, damn it! But power doesn't mean control. All that chakra is unstable—she's burning through it too fast.
Kentaro moved, shifting through the trees like shadow. But Sakura was faster.
She vaulted off a splintered trunk, twisting mid-air, hurling a fan of kunai laced with explosive seals. Kentaro clapped once—*BOOM*—a dark barrier deflected most of them, but one pierced through—
*KA-BOOM!*
The explosion tore open his left shoulder, blood spraying. He grunted and fell to one knee, growling.
"Forbidden Jutsu: Kuroi Kōtei!"
A demonic black limb erupted from his back, clawed and massive, tearing through dimensions as it struck at her.
Sakura spun into a blinding flash of white-blue. "Ikari Style: Heaven's Crescent Sword Dance!"
She vanished—became light itself—and appeared behind him, blades slashing faster than a blink. One. Two. Five. Ten cuts in a blink. Kentaro howled as blood burst from his torso in wide arcs.
He staggered forward, panting.
Damn… she's fighting like a master. Is this that Deveraux brat doing? This can't be real. She was just a child. A broken, trembling child. I destroyed her. I know I did.
So why the hell… does she look like a goddamn avatar of vengeance now?
"No more games!" Kentaro screamed. He slammed his fists into the ground. A sigil exploded beneath them, pulsing with ancient malice.
Chains of dark chakra erupted—whipping around Sakura's arms, legs, throat—draining her chakra, her will.
Kentaro staggered toward her, bloodied but grinning.
"You were never strong enough, Sakura," he whispered. "You were a failure the moment you were born."
I always knew you'd grow into something monstrous. That's why I had to break you early. You were a threat to the clan. To everything I worked for.
But now... you're standing here like you're something righteous. Don't look at me like that, girl. Don't look at me with those eyes like you pity me—
You don't know what it cost me to survive the clan wars. To wear their hatred and walk out alive.
But Sakura—despite the chains ripping her skin—met his eyes without fear.
"You always feared me," she said. Her voice was quiet. Calm.
Kentaro froze.
"That's why you broke me all those years ago. Isn't it?" She continued. "You saw a child who would one day surpass you. That terrified you."
Her chakra surged. Raw. White-hot.
"I'M NOT THAT CHILD ANYMORE!"
She screamed, and a wave of ancestral energy exploded outward—blinding, divine. The chains shattered like glass, and the blast sent Kentaro tumbling across the clearing, crashing into a tree with a bone-snapping crunch.
Sakura landed in a three-point crouch. Her hair flew wild around her, her eyes glowing with blinding white light. Her breath came in sharp bursts.
...She really did it.
She broke the seal. The Ikari-elder's seal. The damn thing I branded into her spine. Only one of pure blood could've…
Muji, damn you. I have loved you, that seat of heir should've been mine! You and your cursed line… cursed you Muji!
"You're done, Kentaro," she said. "This ends now."
He dragged himself upright, leaning against the tree.
"Then finish it, girl," he rasped. Blood dripped from his mouth. "Be the good little avenger. Kill your uncle."
Sakura walked toward him. Her blades hummed, vibrating with the fury of generations. But just before striking, she lowered both.
"I wanted to spare you."
Kentaro blinked.
...What?
You would show mercy to me, after everything?
No. No no no. This is mockery. This is weakness disguised as pity—
"But I'm no hero."
She surged forward—and her blade sang.
*SLASH.*
A single, perfect cut across his neck. Blood sprayed in a crimson arc, catching the moonlight like rubies. Kentaro's body crumpled silently to the forest floor, his face frozen between disbelief and… peace?
No.
He did not rest in peace.
So this... this is how it ends. After all the schemes, all the battles, all the manipulation—this is the bitter conclusion.
I thought I could control it, bend it all to my will. But here I am, standing on the edge of everything I've destroyed... killed by someone I thought I...
She walked through hell and made it out alive.
Ha.
You little wench.
Sakura stood over him, panting. Blood dripped from her blades, her arms, her mouth.
"You disgraced the Ikari name," she whispered. "You tortured a child. And for what? Power?"
The blood moon bathed her in its crimson light. The winds howled once more through the ruined battlefield.
"Haaa...! It's over. It's finally over for you, Kentaro," she gasped, her breath ragged. "You shattered me into pieces, but I put myself back together."
Sakura let out a heavy smile. But her smile was heavy... not with relief, but with the weight of a final chapter closed. It was the kind of smile that spoke of endings, of things forever past.
And then her knees gave out.
She collapsed to the barren forest floor, breath ragged, her hands trembling from the strain of battle. The cursed soil drank her blood greedily.
Across the field—Ren screamed in fury. Ryosuke's katana clanged against a Spectre General's scythe. Yamada roared as lightning chakra burst from his palms, slicing enemies apart.
Sakura blinked.
No. It's not over.
She pressed her palms against the bloodied ground. Her fingers curled into fists.
"Come on, Sakura… get your ass up," she muttered through gritted teeth. "They need you."
Her body refused. Her chakra was nearly gone. But the fire in her chest refused to dim.
"Don't make me slap myself, dammit…"
Her arms shook violently, but she forced her legs beneath her. One breath. Another.
She rose.
Blood trickled from her lip, from a dozen wounds. Her bones screamed in protest.
But her eyes—they burned like twin suns.
She wasn't done yet.