Chapter 401: Some Changes
Haruno Sakura's gaze lingered on Sasuke's face, which was forcibly calm but with the blush just fading.
The emotions of young people always come surging like a summer storm, without warning, accompanied by gale and thunder.
As someone who had been there, she understood this very well. What's more, the boy in front of her had his clan exterminated in his childhood, the murderer was actually his only relative Uchiha Itachi, and he lived in such a messed up world of Naruto. Being able to grow up strong was already not easy. Even if he grew a bit crooked during the period, becoming sensitive, extreme, narrow-minded, and chunibyo, it was reasonable.
Being able to forcibly stabilize his emotions and restore calm instead of being dazzled by momentary anger was already showing quite a bit of self-control.
Sakura was even a little surprised.
In her previous life... what did everyone say? In the latter part of Shippuden, everyone said that the older Sasuke grew, the darker he became, and the more childish he became. Well, anyway, she hadn't seen that part, nor did she know if it was true or false; just looking at Sasuke's appearance of being able to calm down quickly and wait for an answer after touching the reverse scale of Itachi, it seemed that such a statement was biased.
Either Sasuke was unfairly maligned, or she, the little transmigrated butterfly, had completely fanned the wings of the "plot" askew and changed him. At least with this kind of personality—impulsive and extreme, but able to calm down in time—he shouldn't be very annoying.
Thinking of this, the little depression Haruno Sakura felt from being yelled at by Sasuke just now was also relieved a lot.
—Very good, this avoided the dialogue developing in the direction of an eight o'clock soap opera like "You actually yelled at me!" "Who told you to lie to me!" "You're doing it again! Try yelling at me again!"... Because firstly, these two were not in that kind of relationship; secondly, as a science student, our protagonist Miss Haruno Sakura naturally resisted this kind of dialogue that contained no effective information...
"As for Itachi's strength..." Sakura pondered for a moment, sat back on the stone from before, hugged her knees and said, "How should I put it? What do you think of my strength?"
The black-haired boy hesitated for a moment: "Feeling... okay? Just like that?"
"Hn?" Raised her tone.
"I mean, very strong! Much stronger than people of our generation!" Sasuke quickly corrected himself (remedied), "Actually, I think you might be even stronger than the Fifth Hokage."
The superfluous sentence at the end made Haruno Sakura unable to hold back the expression of "go on, Sakura-neesan likes it very much," and she couldn't help but chuckle.
This counts as... clumsy flattery, right? Only to Sakura would he say such things in private.
"Alright, don't drag my master into this." Sakura suppressed her smile and said, stretching out her long white leg and gently kicking him; however, she didn't refute Sasuke's words. Presumably in her heart, she also believed that her strength had surpassed her master—and surpassed by a large margin.
It's just that such a view is better kept in mind. Saying it out loud for others to hear would appear a bit frivolous and disrespectful to her teacher.
"The so-called 'Kage level' is actually just an unwritten strength classification hierarchy. It's hard to say what criteria must be met to be considered a 'Kage level' ninja, but for us ninja who have stepped into this stage, it is a very clear dividing line of strength."
"Speaking of which, Sasuke, you can already feel the gap between 'Kage' level and ordinary Jonin or even Elite Jonin, right? Because in terms of combat power alone, you are already considered outstanding among Jonin, the so-called Elite Jonin. One step further is the 'Kage' level."
The boy nodded.
"What I want to say is, even at the 'Kage' level, there can still be huge gaps in ninja strength. You can even subdivide this level into 'Quasi-Kage', 'Early Kage', 'Ordinary Kage', 'Peak Kage', and so on. Such division is of course stupid and meaningless, but if just for reference..."
"I think Itachi's strength can be ranked in the last two layers of these subdivisions."
"This is my evaluation of his strength."
Sasuke's face darkened. After a moment of silence, he said solemnly: "Is he really that strong?"
Haruno Sakura nodded: "It's true. Didn't you just ask me how I dealt with his Susanoo and Tsukuyomi? These two moves are actually not difficult. Susanoo can't completely withstand my Water Pistol Technique. In fact, the Railgun you used wasn't completely ineffective, right?"
"It wasn't like that." Sasuke shook his head slightly, "I already used my full strength, but the Railgun was still deflected by him."
"But you also smashed half of Susanoo's arm, right?" Sakura smiled slightly, patted his shoulder and said, "There is nothing that one shot of Railgun can't solve. If there is, then come another shot!"
Sasuke was almost shocked by her Railgun cult missionary declaration.
However, Haruno Sakura really wasn't joking. The potential of the Railgun technique was huge, almost limitless, while the side effects were close to zero; she even had the urge to specialize in Lightning Style, but unfortunately a mysterious force pulled her back to the pit of Water Style—Water Style is the strongest!
"Back to business."
"The Tsukuyomi technique... I resisted it head-on. However, you don't need to care too much. The damage of this technique to you wasn't as big as you imagined, right? Besides being irritable and easily angered, are there any other sequelae? When you become stronger and older, you can also take this move head-on."
"On the contrary, he also has a move called Amaterasu that needs to be guarded against at all times. Fortunately, there are ways to deal with it. Although the activation of that move doesn't require hand seals, the chakra fluctuations and eye movements can be traced. If you are fast enough, you can dodge it; or things like chakra cloaks can also block it."
—Speaking of which, in the original story, Amaterasu really didn't burn many famous experts to death.
"In short, if you want to break his techniques, it's not very difficult. The difficult part lies in how to deal with the person Itachi."
"If I fight him to the death, I will win barring accidents; but to be honest, in terms of combat talent alone, I am inferior to him."
"Do you understand what I'm saying?"
With Haruno Sakura's temperament, she rarely praised a person so highly; so Sasuke knew the weight of her words.
Heavy as a stone pressing on his heart.
The girl stopped talking here, and the black-haired boy also fell silent.
Sasuke stood silently, his eyes wandering to the brilliant sunset on the horizon, wondering what he was thinking; Sakura also sat silently, hugging her legs, chin resting on her knees, looking at the setting sun in the distance, saying nothing.
The atmosphere suddenly quieted down.
The chirping of insects nearby, the crackling of burning firewood.
The gurgling sound of the river flowing in the distance.
And the whistling wind carrying a bit of restlessness in the warmth of early summer.
All suddenly became noisy.
Playing an early summer symphony in the quiet world of this small campsite.
After a long time, he turned his head and looked at Haruno Sakura; the afterglow of the evening fell on her face, dyeing that perfect profile with brilliant gold.
Suddenly, his heart moved, as if he understood something, and he smiled. No matter how strong Itachi was, it couldn't change his original intention: become stronger, then take revenge, or find an explanation for all this; just like the sun sets invariably every day, just like that stone lies invariably by the river, just like this girl, and that boy, and his companions, will invariably be by his side.
At this moment, he believed so.
"Hn. I understand."
The black-haired boy said.
Haruno Sakura was stunned, turned around to look at him, wondering where this sentence came from. Looking carefully like this, she felt some tiny changes happened to him in a short time. However, Sakura also knew that although the world says women are fickle, in fact, men are also fickle, especially adolescent boys.
Speaking of which, did he really change? Actually not necessarily, right?
"Hn? What are you talking about?" Haruno Sakura curled her lips and asked.
"I said, leave the first half of the night watch to me." Sasuke shook his head, avoiding the answer.
The girl looked at him suspiciously a few times.
"You are much more tired than me, so rest first." He said toughly, walked over and pulled her up from the stone, "I slept all afternoon, happen to be very energetic... I'll call you when I'm tired."
"Alright." Sakura shrugged and accepted his kindness. She wasn't made of iron. Having fought so many battles in a day, she was indeed exhausted, so she didn't tough it out.
Walking back to the tent door, she heard Sasuke ask another question.
"By the way, the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki was taken away by the Akatsuki?"
"Hn." The girl turned her head and answered calmly, "Mission failed."
"Oh." Sasuke responded, "By the way... give me the shoes, I suddenly have an idea."
Haruno Sakura raised her eyebrows.
Turns out her shoes were more important than the Jinchuriki whose life and death were unknown?
Two days later, Haruno Sakura and Sasuke, who failed a mission for the first time, returned to Konoha.
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