Chapter 6 (Sasuke Retsuden)

Posing as a laborer at the excavation pit, Sasuke keeps a hidden clone probing Zansuru's basement, where caged birds and peculiar stones baffle him, and he dismisses the double the moment the warden approaches. A dispatch from Kakashi reports that Redaku's Prime Minister has launched an assault on Nagare Village, prompting Prince Nanara to move toward rebellion. Sakura suspects the warden's mysterious assets are meant for that campaign and forwards everything the pair has learned so far.

Unable to find her husband at supper, Sakura falls into conversation with the inmate Ganno, who notices her wedding band and draws out warm praise of the man she wed. Naming no one, she still gives herself away, as Ganno recalls that a certain prisoner used to stare longingly at a courtyard tree until she began working there. Later, while sorting imported fruit beside Jiji, Sasuke learns of a meteor-carved lake whose rainwater mirrors the heavens so cleanly it looks like the night sky. The detail sparks an idea, and he slips off claiming illness.

Sakura works out that the Hoshinarabe cards encode hand seals in addition to constellations, guessing that the Star and Earth figures point to the sequence needed to expose the polar particles. After dark, Sasuke guides her past the Institute walls to the reflective lake, which he calls the fallen sky where the particles should rest. Beneath the mirrored stars he admits he never doubts their bond, only mourns the small changes at home he keeps missing, and Sakura reassures him. She completes the seals, drawing a light from the water and retrieving a container thick with chakra. Sasuke refuses to linger, having pieced together that the odd basement stones are dragon fossils, moments before an explosion signals reptiles reborn through Impure World Reincarnation.

Like the other Jump+ installments in this run, the chapter arrived in two halves, with the second portion published on January 15, 2023. It belongs to the Sasuke Retsuden adaptation collected in the second volume.