"Please take heed, shinobi of the Leaf!!" said Yotaka. "The thief who absconded with the star has appeared once again!"
"Lord Akahoshi is currently stalling the thief," added Shisō. "Please lend us your aid!"
Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke looked down at the two men who had suddenly flickered in front of them and dropped to one knee, begging for their help. But to Sakura, their acting felt somehow hollow— there wasn't a hint of sincerity in their eyes…
"This doesn't make any sense," said Sasuke pointedly. "They already have your star, so why would the thief return?"
"This…"
Yotaka and Shisō exchanged a glance. How exactly were they supposed to come up with a logical answer?
Unbeknownst to the other Hoshigakure citizens and the three shinobi from Konohagakure, the masked figure who had appeared the previous evening to kidnap Sumaru wasn't the same one who had originally stolen the star. The fake's identity was actually Akahoshi, the self-proclaimed Fourth Hoshikage. Believing the real thief to be Sumaru's mother, he had naturally taken her child hostage, hoping to draw her out of hiding and reclaim the stolen meteorite…
"Lord Akahoshi is no match for the thief," said Yotaka, further lowering his head. "Please, you must make all haste and assist our lord before it is too late."
"All right," said Sakura, cracking her knuckles in anticipation. "Lead the way."
Having finally maxed out her stats in the detective vocation, Sakura figured it was time to job change back to shinobi and punch a few people. After all, to confirm her theory that the star thief was actually Sumaru's mother, she would have to unmask her— and it's not as if she could do such a thing without getting closer, right?
"Follow us!"
Shisō and Yotaka leapt to their feet and started running normally towards the border, with Team 7 in hot pursuit. Within minutes, they had reached the deep valley filled with poison gas, the battlefield that Akahoshi and the thief had chosen for their little civil war.
As Sakura and the others closed in at high speed, the figures of the combatants began to come into focus. Akahoshi made for a pitiful sight, scrambling backwards on his backside, while the thief advanced inexorably towards him, wreathed in wisteria-coloured chakra…
"I'm going on ahead!" shouted Naruto, excited to finally get a chance to fight after so long. "Just watch me, Sakura-chan, Sasuke— Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
"Wait, Naruto!" cried Sakura.
Whenever she was around, Naruto would tend to show off more than he would normally care to, which often landed Team 7 in unnecessary danger. Even though the Mysterious Peacock Method could at best be considered a bargain bin version of the Susanoo— since both techniques protected their user at the cost of eating away at their bodies— it was still nothing to scoff at.
"Oryaah!" shouted the hundreds of Naruto, as they rained down on the masked thief.
The thief performed an odd hand seal, and the individual chakra peacock tail feathers erupting from her backside grew a pair of glowing eyes and merged into a beastly form. Having been given the shape of a wild beast, the wisteria-coloured chakra reared its head and snapped at the falling Shadow Clones with unerring accuracy.
One by one, Naruto's Shadow Clones all burst into smoke in quick succession and disappeared, but their brave sacrifices weren't in vain. Even though the Mysterious Peacock Method was the ultimate shield, as conventional weapons couldn't cut through chakra (only chakra could destroy chakra constructs), it did not offer 360-degree protection like the Susanoo could. While Naruto was drawing the thief's attention in the air, she would not be able to split her defences to guard against Sakura and Sasuke below!
"Chidori!"
Upon hearing what sounded like the cries of a thousand birds, the thief turned away from Naruto, searching for the source of the sound— and now that the thief was looking in her general direction, Sakura chose to strike!
"Genjutsu: Breast Illusion!"
Despite the distracting illusion of bouncing breasts before her eyes, the thief instantly recognised the true danger: the crackling lightning coiled around Sasuke's hand. Without hesitation, she redirected her focus to him, sending her chakra surging forwards to form a protective shield.
'That proves it,' said Inner Sakura. 'The thief is a woman!'
Sakura had become so proficient with the Breast Illusion Genjutsu that she'd reduced the required hand seals to a single hand clap— an achievement that would've surely made Senju Hashirama shed a manly tear, had he been alive to witness it.
Unfortunately, the downside of such a quick and easy to cast Genjutsu was that it only worked at full effectiveness on red-blooded straight males and wet-spaghetti lesbians, charming them and reducing their IQ. For everyone else, it was just a mild annoyance— like getting hit with a Blooper ink item in Mar*o Kart.
Sasuke thrust out his lightning chakra-wreathed hand and struck, shattering the chakra construct's beast head. Taking advantage of his teammates' distractions, the real Naruto dropped from the sky and delivered a massive haymaker punch to the thief's jaw, sending her sprawling to the ground!
As she rolled and tumbled to the edge of the cliff, the thief's gas mask fell off her face, revealing her to be a gorgeous woman.
"A woman…?" said Naruto dumbly, as if he'd never seen one before— channelling his inner Solid Snake.
Upon seeing the woman's face, a vague memory bubbled up from Sakura's subconscious mind. According to Sakura's Second Law of Filler, beautiful people couldn't be evil, which meant that this arc's true antagonist was actually…?
Feeling as though she were moving in slow motion, Sakura turned to face Akahoshi, but it was too late— he was already joining his fingers together…
"Naruto, watch out!" screamed Sakura.
"Peacock Arts: Beast!"
Lilac-coloured chakra exploded outwards from Akahoshi's back, knocking Sakura aside and knocking her flat on her butt. The blast then slammed into the Beauty Thief and Naruto, launching them off the cliff and sending them plummeting into the poison-filled valley below. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Sasuke drew a length of wire from his tool pouch and rushed to where Naruto had fallen, but as he looked over the ledge, he found there was nobody to lasso.
Naruto was gone.
"Naruto," Sakura croaked out, as she scrambled on all fours to the canyon's rim and peered over the edge. "No, this can't be happening…"
Without Naruto to complete the pair of brothers, the world was doomed. He was her friend, her teammate! He had to still be alive. He just had to! It couldn't end like this, not in such a stupid way!
"We have to get away from the ledge," said Sasuke desperately, pulling Sakura to her feet. "The gas might be dangerous, even at this range…"
But Sakura was unconsolable.
The valley was filled with H₂S — and Hydrogen Sulphide meant instant death the moment it entered the lungs. Even with Kurama's healing factor, there was no way Naruto could still be alive— but maybe… despite her interference, maybe he still had his plot armour?
"You'd better not be dead," whispered Sakura, warm tears flowing uncontrollably down her cheeks and dripping onto her chest. "Ngh… N-N-Naruto…"
It started as a prickling sensation in Sakura's eyes— a thousand red-hot pinpricks, which gradually cooled and converged into a single spot in her iris, turning into an ice-cold torrent of yin chakra. Sniffling, Sakura blinked, causing the teardrops pearling at the corners of her eyes to slip down her cheeks.
And when she reopened her eyes…
"Wha— Sakura!?" breathed Sasuke, frozen as he stared into her eyes. "This can't… how is this even possible…?"
Somehow, Sakura's irises had turned scarlet, with a single black tomoe slowly revolving around each pupil. This wasn't like Kakashi-sensei's Sharingan— the one he'd received as a birthday gift from a dying friend and couldn't turn off. No, Sasuke knew for a fact that he had just witnessed the birth of a brand-new pair of Sharingan.
How? There could be no other explanation: Sakura must have Uchiha blood. And since it was pure enough that she could awaken her Dōjutsu, then she truly was Uchiha.
Just.
Like.
Him.
Sasuke knew he shouldn't have felt this way when his only friend and rival had just died, but in that moment… warmth bloomed across his chest, thawing his frozen emotions. He felt truly happy, because he knew he was no longer alone— but at the same time, he reaffirmed his all-consuming hatred for his brother, the man who had robbed him of the ability to feel such love.
He had a family once again, but as long as his brother was around… Sakura would never be safe. The moment Itachi learned he had missed one of his kin, he would undoubtedly return to finish the job...