With a splash, the pink Susano'o broke through the lake's surface, sending a spray of mist into the air. Sheltered within its half-formed ribcage, Sakura spat out a thin stream of water and coughed sharply. From the looks of it, the undercurrents had swept her around the prison island, leaving her clear behind the Cloud armada…
"Oof, I think I cracked my ribs," Sakura groaned, gingerly poking at her ribcage. "Good thing I've got a lot of cushioning in front…"
Sakura felt a sharp twinge of pain in her eyeballs, and she winced, holding a hand to her face. Twin lines of crimson blood trickled down her cheek, wetting her palm.
"Can't afford to waste ocular power just swimming home," Sakura muttered, glancing over her shoulder. The Land of Fire's shores weren't even visible from here. "Still, maybe my Cloud friends might be kind enough to offer me a lift…"
With a thought, Sakura dispelled her Susano'o. The pink chakra lost its shape and dissipated, dropping her into the freezing water once again. Teeth chattering and lips turning purple, Sakura gathered her strength and started swimming to the nearest ship.
Luckily, the few shinobi who had remained onboard to guard the ships were too busy staring at the gigantic, tentacled chakra monster tearing down the castle's walls to notice the dripping wet girl, diamond-hard nipples visibly poking out from under her soaking wet dress, climbing up the side of one of their ships and collapsing onto the deck.
"Ouch, my ribs!" Sakura gasped. "I definitely felt that!"
Her ribcage was cracked, and her lowest rib was pressing against her right lung. Moving too much could lead to a pneumothorax: a displaced fracture like that could easily collapse a lung if she moved too much, with the pointy bone pressing dangerously inwards. It wasn't an injury she could mend with the Mystical Palm Jutsu alone; she'd need somewhere quiet to set her bone properly first.
With some difficulty, Sakura staggered to her feet and looked up; she was in no state to be fighting anyone, least of all Kumo-nin, so she'd have to be a bit sneaky for the time being.
"Killer Bee and Gyūki…" Sakura muttered, gazing at the Tailed Beast in the distance. "So much for sinking the ship carrying the Box— they'd dive down to the lakebed and haul the weapon back to the surface…"
The Eight-Tails was gleefully rampaging through Hōzuki Castle, bringing down its watchtowers and turrets with punches and flattening its ramparts and its walls with tail slams, with Killer Bee loudly rapping to the beat of the Bijū's strikes as they went.
Sakura shuddered.
She was glad to see that infernal castle reduced to rubble, though she would hate to be on the receiving end of those tentacles. Eager to get out of sight, she spotted a ladder near the stern and climbed down into the ship's hold. Squeezing into a narrow gap between a stack of crates, she sat down in her hiding place and leaned against the wall.
"Don't do this at home, kids," Sakura mumbled to no one in particular. "I'm a trained medical professional…"
Even a trained medical professional back on Earth wouldn't attempt to set a displaced rib on their own… but then again, they'd never find themselves in a situation like this.
Sakura summoned a thin chakra scalpel at her fingertips and made an incision just under where the pain was sharpest. Gritting her teeth, she sterilised her hands with a brief gout of flame from a Small Fireball no Jutsu ("Ouch!"), then reached under the muscle and gently pushed her lowest rib back into place, careful not to scratch or puncture anything vital, like her lungs or any major pulmonary vessel.
"Mystical Palm Jutsu!"
A faint green glow filled the darkness as Sakura healed the incision she'd made through her skin and muscle. The sensation of her tissues knitting back together was distinctly unpleasant, like an itch that couldn't possibly be scratched, but she soldiered on through the discomfort.
Sakura waved her hand over the rest of her injuries.
Her chest had taken the brunt of the impact when she'd been slammed against the lakebed, and it was now mottled with blue and yellow bruises. As for her cracked ribs, bone always healed slower than flesh, but with her cells activated by the Mystical Palms Jutsu, Sakura was certain they'd be good as new after a day's rest…
…but unfortunately, Sakura did not have the luxury of resting properly. She popped the rest of Kazan's (now very soggy) Hyōrōgan into her mouth, crunched down on the food pills and swallowed them, before closing her eyes in concentration.
"Celestial Lotus Seal: Activate!"
Sakura directed her chakra avatars to begin filling the seal on her brow with all three energies. Lady Tsunade was in charge of absorbing nature energy, Ino took care of mental energy, while Sakura took over for the old grannies, manually charging up the seal with physical energy, careful not to draw any vital energy from injured areas.
Her physical and mental energies were unusually potent, owing to her dual Senju–Uzumaki heritage and her Uchiha–Kurama physiology. But, as she'd noticed before, her absorption of nature energy remained dreadfully slow.
"Too slow…" Sakura muttered to herself, opening her eyes. "But Lady Katsuyu might be able to help me with that, like those old toads and Jiraiya, or the Fox and Naruto…"
Sakura dabbed her thumb in the blood staining her dress, formed a quick series of hand seals, and slammed her palm against the wooden floorboards.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
A small, blue and white slug appeared in Sakura's lap in a puff of white smoke.
"Lady Tsunade told me not to accept your summons, Sakura-chan," Tiny Katsuyu said reproachfully. She glanced around. "You're supposed to be behind bars."
"Prison life didn't agree with me, so I broke out," Sakura said tiredly. "Anyway, Hōzuki Castle is no more, so it's not like I could go back even if I wanted to."
Katsuyu stared at her with wide eyes.
Or at least, that's how Sakura interpreted Katsuyu spreading her eyestalks apart. She wasn't sure the slug could even see in the conventional sense— their kind had notoriously poor eyesight, the little black beads at the ends of their stalks serving as little more than glorified light detectors.
"Don't look at me like that, it wasn't me!" Sakura said defensively. "Look, I need you to pass on a message to Lady Tsunade: the Hidden Cloud invaded Hōzuki Castle, and they're after the Box of Paradise. I dunno what they're going to do with it, but I'd wager it's nothing good."
"Oh dear," Lady Katsuyu said worriedly. "That's where it was hidden all this time?"
At that point in time, during the Sage of Six Paths' era, the Sages of Shikkotsu Forest had already gone mad and turned into a myriad slugs, but Katsuyu had heard an account of the crisis from the Boss Toad, and according to him, the Box was no less of a threat than the demon Mōryō.
"I'll have the main body Reverse-Summon Lady Tsunade and explain the situation," Katsuyu said after a moment's thought. "I'll stay here with you while we wait for instructions."
Katsuyu remained psychically linked to all her divided selves as long as they were in the same dimension, which was rather useful for long-distance communications.
"That's great," Sakura sighed in relief. "In the meantime, could you help me gather nature energy? You can also tell Lady Tsunade that I've mastered Shikkotsu Forest's Sage Mode, hehe..."
Katsuyu gaped at her.