Sakura goggled at the crimson-coloured, goggle-wearing toad waving at her.
"Yo," said the red toad in a surprisingly normal voice, "I'm Kōsuke. How's it going?"
After hearing Naruto's panicked cry, she'd half-expected to find him stuck in so trap, with only his bottom half sticking out Frieren-being-eaten-by-a-mimic style or perhaps help--stepbro-I'm-stuck style. But no, he was completely fine. Just a bit startled by the sudden appearance of a Mount Myōboku toad in the middle of one of Orochimaru's secret hideouts.
"What, it's just a ssenger Toad!" Sakura sighed in relief. "Naruto, you got all worked up for nothing!"
"Aww," said Naruto, blushing and grinning stupidly. "Were you worried about , Sakura-chan?"
"Hem, hem," coughed the ssenger toad, scratching its head. "If you lot are quite done foolin' around, I've got a ssage to deliver."
Out of the corner of her eye, Sakura spotted Yamato-sensei and Sasuke entering the room. One look at the crimson toad sitting in front of Naruto told them everything they needed to know. And yet… Sakura didn't rember this ever happening in the canon.
What on earth was going on? Was this change due to the fact that they'd spent an entire day in Shikkotsu Forest and then got lost looking for the secret base?
"The Hidden Leaf received a missive from the Land of Demons yesterday," explained Kōsuke. "Soone has infiltrated the underground sepulchre where the otherworldly demon Mōryō's soul was sealed. Whoever they are, they've freed him and raised an army of ten thousand ghosts, and are now marching towards the Five Great Nations."
Naruto's face turned blue, and his teeth began to chatter uncontrollably.
"Ghosts are real?!" Sakura blurted out.
Then she rembered: the Sage of Six Paths's soul was still hanging around even now, so in retrospect, ghosts existing in this world didn't seem all that strange. Besides, she'd technically already died once— and she was doing just fine, wasn't she?
"G-g-ghosts? D-d-d-demons!?" Naruto stamred. "If t-t-this is your idea of a joke, t-then it's not funny, ya know!"
"What are our orders?" asked Yamato-sensei, going straight to the point.
"The Fifth Hokage's orders are the following," declared Kōsuke. "Forget your current mission, dealing with Mōryō takes priority. Captain Yamato is to rendezvous with the Allied Nations Coalition assembling in the Land of Iron, while the rest of Team 7 is to remain in Kusagakure and await reinforcents.
Once your backup has arrived, Sakura will take command of Team 7," ("All right!" cheered Sakura, pumping her fist in the air) "before heading to the Land of Demons to escort a V.I.P.: the holy priestess, whom you'll assist in sealing the demon again— details attached— bleargh."
The toad vomited up a scroll and handed it to Naruto with an extended tongue. He gingerly took the scroll, slick with toad saliva, and checked the seal— the orders were indeed real, much to his dismay. Having delivered its ssage, the toad weaved a hand sign and vanished in a puff of smoke.
…
And so, the four returned to the entrance of Orochimaru's hideout.
"Well, looks like this is where we part ways," Yamato said with a sigh, turning to face his three temporary charges. "Stay safe— and look out for each other, okay? Kakashi's had a hard life, and if he lost one of you… I'm not sure he'd be able to take it."
Sakura watched wistfully as Yamato's figure flickered and disappeared. If Kakashi had wanted them to survive, then he should have done a better job teaching them. As it was, Yamato-sensei was the best teacher she had ever had, and he hadn't even taught her any Wood Style Ninjutsu yet…
"So, what's the deal with this Mario guy, anyway?" Naruto asked brusquely. "Whoever, or whatever he is."
While Sakura had never seen any real demons when she had watched the ani, she had heard of this Mōryō fellow from Lady Katsuyu, so she was in a position to explain the situation.
"It's Mōryō, not Mario," Sakura corrected him. "So, a long, long ti ago, a demon appeared in the Land of Demons—"
"Wow, talk about a freaky coincidence, huh?" Naruto interjected. "Maybe if they'd picked a more auspicious na for their country…"
"Don't interrupt, numbskull," Sasuke said irritably. "The country was obviously nad after the fact."
Essentially, Mōryō was an extra-dinsional being who landed on this star, perhaps drawn here by so mysterious sothing-or-other. Whatever the reason, he tried to take over the world almost the mont he arrived— only to have his soul torn from his body, and both of those separate halves sealed away by the priestess of the Land of Demons, with help from the Honoured Sages of the Sage Regions.
Since then, every so often, so deluded soul would break the seal and let him out. The last ti it happened was shortly after the Third Shinobi World War, at which point the great nations upheld their pact with the Land of Demons and banded together to stop the world from ending.
"So, Mōryō used to be this huge threat," Sakura explained, "but after the Sage of Six Paths introduced chakra to humanity, he stopped being world-ending-level, because more people could fight back. But even so, the only thing that can seal him is this priestess's sealing magic, which is why everyone respects the Land of Demons so much."
Basically, Mōryō was a major pain in the arse.
Dangerous enough for the Five Great Villages to set aside their differences and unite against him— but not quite dangerous enough to justify paying high-ranking shinobi to guard his two tombs 24/7 for a thousand years.
Seriously, if the priestess hadn't sealed Mōryō's body all the way over in the Land of Swamps, two entire countries away from his soul sealed in the Land of Demons, maybe the villages wouldn't have minded coughing up a bit more tax money to afford proper security…
"Bureaucracy," Naruto spat out, as if the word were an insult.
"Bureaucracy," Sakura agreed.
"…Magic?" asked Sasuke after a while.
Sothing powerful enough to seal a real demon had to be worth knowing, if not mastering...
"The manipulation of pure nature energy," explained Sakura. "Lady Katsuyu told it used to be the power system before the Sage of Six Paths linked everyone's physical and spiritual energies. Just watch."
Sakura picked up a tree branch and waved it in the air.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" she exclaid, pointing her improvised wand at a fallen leaf.
Obviously, nothing happened. Naruto and Sasuke looked at her questioningly.
"Okay, so probably not sothing like that," Sakura admitted, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly. "But you know, our twelve modern hand signs actually originate from the nine seals used in the old sage system, way back when. Or so Lady Katsuyu says."
Now that she was thinking about it, Sakura found herself rather curious about this priestess. Would she be able to learn Taoist magic if she stole her breasts? She'd have to ask Lady Katsuyu for more details— after all, before being smushed together into one enormous slug hivemind, she'd been hundreds of shrine maidens.
"Nature energy?" echoed Sasuke.
"It's what powers that thing on your neck," explained Sakura, tapping her nape, where Sasuke's Cursed Seal of Heaven would have been on her own body. "Lady Katsuyu says it's sothing like the breath of the planet itself."
Now, even Sasuke looked interested…
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