Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Meeting Kakashi on the roof is nerve wracking for her. Sasuke by her side, Naruto even further away from her. The half oval steel beams floating above, holding up a sign right above the trees. Kakashi stands leaning against the railing, not a care in the world. It’s odd, he’s so arrogant, she can already tell, and yet she finds his obvious experience alluring. He’ll make a great teacher, she’s sure of it, if a lazy one.

Her analytical mind spins a million times a minute, trying to figure out why he couldn’t talk to them in the room when they were the only ones left. Why was he late? Why seat them so far away from him, and why did they listen without question? A commanding aura, perhaps a high ranking even among jounin? Did they truly get someone special, or is it all a really well held together facade that’s about to come crashing down like a cascade of novelty. Their time has been wasted, but maybe that was a test on its own. Did they fail by pranking him, or did they succeed by being clever? He had to have let the chalk eraser hit him, but why?

She rests in her own little world, pondering endlessly and contemplating what his statistics must look like if they were put on a status screen.

Yes, a status screen. Sakura Haruno, top kunoichi of her class, official leader of the Sasuke fanclub and academic genius, spends her nights tirelessly playing games. Not even necessarily good games, mostly old RPGs her parents used to gush about when she was little. The odd action adventure, maybe the odd dating sim if she’s feeling especially romantic any given day.

Fawning over the boy by her side - a total dark and brooding anti-hero with a tragic past -, being aggressive towards her blonde aggressor, even fighting with Ino, growing out her hair, buying the odd perfume; it’s all to hide where her time and money really go. Everything is to hide that she has an obsessive gaming addiction that’s eating up her life, her sanity, and her ability to function in society.

Fangirl is one thing, but if they really knew what a loser she was… The loser she is.
Laughter would be the last of her worries.
Wait, why is Kakashi looking at her?

“Oh, is it my turn?” She asks, jumping in place, her big green eyes wide in surprise. Her cheeks glow a little red, and her palms land on her bare knees. “I’m Sakura Haruno.” She begins, looking between them all to make sure they didn’t realize she wasn’t paying any attention at all. “What I like… I mean, who I like is…” Her eyes move between Naruto and Sasuke, clarity coming back. Right, Sasuke, it’s Sasuke!

She likes Sasuke, definitely not whatever gaming hero is in her head on a given day, the broody prick that’s given her about as much attention as he has mastering that awkwardly pensive pose. Okay, that’s unfair, Sasuke has depth and an ocean of emotion hidden under that cold exterior, and she does appreciate it quite a bit. Buuuut, if she managed to snag him he’d find out she’s a gaming obsessed insomniac so fast his rejection would make her head spin so fast her neck snapped.
“And, my hobby is, I mean, I run the Sasuke fanclub.”

“That’s you!?” Sasuke finally looks at her with something other than disdain, that’s progress! Disgust is progress! “What the hell! You all stole my toothpaste yesterday!”

“In my defense, your toothpaste cost more than my conditioner.” She quips quickly.
“Errp-” Realizing she just admitted it, and flushing harder than any tomato ever has.

The boy sighs, looking away from her. “At least you can steal.”

That actually wasn’t her, but they did report it to her, and well it tastes a bit like ice cream. Who buys toothpaste that tastes like ice cream? Spoiled rich kids with too many problems deep inside to count, that’s who… She kinda wants to know where he got it.

“My future dream is-” She takes a deep breath, so she can get a nice screech in there. It’s really convincing, she’s sure of it, that look of pure disappointment Kakashi is giving her could not be fake. Even with that mask she can see actual sweat dripping down the side of his face.

She’s a useless fangirl, she definitely doesn’t spend her entire night grinding mats and leveling up, only to crawl out of bed unsure when she got there each morning and force herself to school. That’d be a very odd thing for her to do, and she’s very normal. She likes boys, she likes Sasuke, and she gets tons of sleep!

“My first thought…” Kakashi begins. “Is that you’re lying.”
He really does stare her down.

“Errr…”

“I’m just not sure about what.”
At least there’s that.

She doesn’t even bother listening to Sasuke’s intro, she knows everything there is to know about him. Maintaining this cover has been a full time job for years now.
Now if only her grinding had actual real world applications…

Sakura Haruno
HP: 72
Chakra : 24
Strength: 27
Constitution: 24
Dexterity: 25
Agility: 27
Mental: 93
Control : 200
Charm: 6

A lot of information appears before her very suddenly. She rubs her eyes to make sure she didn’t pass out sitting down again, before parsing it while Sasuke talks. Not her problem, this is.

A lot of that info is as insulting as it is accurate, but it raises a few questions.
If her charm is six, does that mean everyone knows she’s lying and not just the awkwardly perceptive Kakashi? Are they just too polite to mention it?

Why is her Chakra identical to her Constitution? Shouldn’t it be some equation based on her mental and constitution, what with spiritual and physical energies?
No… It’s a mixture of the two, which means when she runs out of physical energy there’s nothing left to mix and she has no chakra.

She needs to do push ups, to do jutsu.
Why is her control so high, is that even a high number or are all her other numbers just really low?

More importantly, if Chakra works on an exact value, why does Naruto have so much of it when his mental score has to be abysmal? Yes, she’s noticed. She’d have to be blind to miss him actively failing basic jutsu from too much energy.

His stamina is commendable, and his physical scores are great, but he’s dumber than a bag of bricks trying to do calculus while flipped upside down. Perhaps these stats don’t work this way for everyone else?

Or perhaps she’s an idiot, and she forgot to sleep last night while binging a new MMO, and is now hallucinating while all three members of her team wave their hands in front of her face trying to get her attention. “I’m awake!” She shrieks, falling back and waving her own hands in defense.

“... Right.” Their teacher says, standing over her with one foot bent on the bench and the other awkwardly back. “Did she really pass?”

“Yep.” Sasuke nods quickly, quietly, boredly.

“You betcha! She’s the smartest!” Naruto praises her, and she actively has to suppress the power overwhelming level timidness trying to out her across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Scarlett is a beautiful color, and also the screen name of a trans Olympic Esports champion; it is not the color she wants her cheeks to be while her team stares down at her.

“Well, we meet at five in the morning.” Kakashi says, disappearing in an actual puff of smoke.
Leaving her to look at her two teammates in surprise.

“What’d I miss?” She asks, and they actually do look at her like she ate the whole stupid tree bark and all.

“Sakuraaaaa!” Naruto whines quite loudly. It’s enough to make her wince.
It’s less that a headache started, and more like she woke up with it and Naruto can’t help but prod it with a stick. She really should've slept last night…

<---Witch--->

She has a day to prepare before this test or whatever, Naruto described it very loudly and her head was throbbing so she might have missed some of it.

She’ll be sure to get a good night's sleep tonight so she doesn’t screw up whatever that test is. Today was embarrassing, and she’s a ninja now. She’ll fall behind on her grinding but, sacrifices must be made for her future. Besides, her mom was super clear, if she fails to become a Genin her computer will get taken away and she needs that or she’ll die. She can lose some grinding to be able to grind at all.

Now she just has to figure out what to do with her day besides sleep, so she can be productive, prepared, and then sleep. Doing that in the wrong order could be a problem…

“Skills.” She mumbles to herself.

Academy Taijutsu Style
Studying
Gaming
Clone Technique
Transformation Technique
Body Replacement Technique
Lying Badly

That’s not a good list. Especially that last one.

“Traits.”

No Life Gamer
Chronically Underslept
Sasuke Trivia Expert
Unnaturally Good Chakra Control
Cram Study Master
Double Life
Disappointment

“Okay.” She nods to herself.
“I can live with that. That’s mostly positive.”

She can probably work off Chronically Underslept by, you know, sleeping…
That last one’s a bit of a sore blow for no damn reason but that just means when she becomes a genin people will be all the more shocked and believe in her!

She just has to figure out what to do with today, so that she can become a Genin tomorrow.
Fuuuuck, she needs a nap…

<--->

One nap later, she wakes up in a tree. Why nap in a tree? Because comfortable sleep would steal her entire day, and she isn’t prepared for tomorrow.

“Status.” She grumbles, and finds the same information from earlier appearing in front of her. “So it’s not a hallucination… Or if it is, it’s persistent.” A part of her wonders if someone’s messing with her. A genjutsu to screw with her head would be pretty effective all things considered. That being said, who would do that to her?

No one she can think of. Ino would be capable, maybe, but Ino’s not malicious enough to try to make her think she’s crazy. Kakashi? He wouldn’t have singled her out, that’d be pointless.
Her parents might come up with something to try and steer her away from games now that she’s graduated, but doing it right now would just sabotage her and they do want her to succeed.

“No, this is real.” She decides, rubbing her eyes and taking a stand here in the trees. This is the training round Naruto said they’d be at tomorrow morning, so now that she’s napped, she decides to scout it out and see if she can come up with any plans. Her stats say her mental is her only real strength. Well, control, but that’s useless to her with so little chakra.

She doesn’t have to understand how the numbers work to know that her constitution is low. If her constitution is low, and her chakra is linked to it, then her chakra is low and weak.
Actually, she can make a pretty good estimate of how the stats work right now.

She gets a stick and starts drawing them out on the ground.
Maybe in a few months she’d forget, but right now is perfect. Excluding the clan kids and their frankly absurd advantages, she can pretty easily compare herself to other academy students that passed. She’s on the higher end of strength for them, most of them being from civilian families or disadvantaged in some way. She’s about the same speed as most of them with her hand movements, but faster than them in raw speed. She has a little less stamina, but not much.

With that math, an average academy graduate probably has about twenty five in any given stat. Well, no one is truly average, but as a base.

That makes her pretty much where she’s supposed to be everywhere but mental, control, and charm. Work ethic actually wasn’t that important in the academy. You either passed or you didn’t, so by passing she had to be average, it makes sense.

Charm is probably her ability to convince people of what she’s saying, or maybe her likability? Probably not, people like her, she thinks… but then what if they’re just putting up with her? It’s not like she puts effort into other people. It’s something to think about. If statistics like charm have passive effects, she might be lowering her team’s capabilities by not being very friendly. Top that off with being paired with two freaking monsters in their own right, and this might be a terrible situation.

Control is taught in the academy, it’s the concept of being efficient with jutsu and applications of chakra. Being efficient also means being effective, and such a high and overblown number gives her a lot of perspective on what she could be doing. She did think it was weird how easily she learned the academy three. Even Sasuke had to try, but she just kind of did it.

Mental is probably not directly intelligence. While she had perfect grades, she frequently made very poor decisions. She didn’t even sleep last night, and off the cuff decided to sleep in the damn trees. She lacks foresight, but has great in the moment decision making, so perhaps it’s about off the cuff moment to moment thought processing?

This is too much thought all at once. She grumbles, wishing for some caffeine or maybe a longer nap. She kicks the dirt to hide what she drew, lest someone connect what she did to a game system. It doesn’t take a gamer to detect gamer habits. She’s put a lot of effort in over the years to evade detection. Now, looking at her charm, she wonders if anyone believed her in the first place or if people just kind of stared and moved on when she made an excuse?

Does she come off crazy?
She contemplates her skills while wandering around the training field in hopes of finding a good place to lay a trap or plan an ambush for tomorrow.

The Academy Taijutsu Style has zero chance of passing any advanced test of capabilities. She’s not especially strong, fast, skilled, or tough, and it’s only meant to provide a basic ground to work from. It covers every area a little so that you can find matters you’re proficient in, and you always have a move that could theoretically reply to the one sent to you.

Against a jounin, it’s an automatic loss.

Studying is useful if it applies to stuff like this field, which it appears to. She can’t tell if it’s mental skills or studying itself, but she very quickly grasps the lay of the land and understands intuitively exactly where they should position themselves tomorrow if they get trapped or cornered. The exact terms of the test were not given, but she can make an educated guess that Kakashi will likely try to pummel them. Why? Because he’s a smart ass, and pummeling them would be funny. She knows the type, she’s gotten into enough arguments with them in various guilds and raids.

Gaming isn’t useful here unless he’s about to challenge them to a team fight in CoD or something. Perhaps some RTS knowledge could be useful while knowing the grounds, but without having any clue about their enemy’s statistics or her teammate’s statistics, no real strategy can be made. The best she can come up with is having a Naruto kite while Sasuke uses range and she oversees and directs them.

Actually, that’s a good idea. She has a few headsets, she’s sure they have something which can receive her voice without Kakashi hearing it. She’ll get that ready, maybe meet them early tomorrow and get them familiar with the devices. It’d give her away a little bit, but they’re gonna find out. They’re her team. She’d rather be the useful loser than the idiot who decided not to be useful who is also a loser.

Clone technique isn’t useful against a Jounin. He’ll see right through it. Even if he can’t literally do so, the moment they move he’ll know better. It’d be better if he knew some of their skills, but aside from maybe cloning a Kunai or trying to copy one of Sasuke’s fire jutsu so Kakashi dodges something he doesn’t have to, there’s really not a lot there… She will probably do that. She’s got amazing control, she can probably clone it after seeing it once. This is important, because having him do it before the training would waste his chakra, and every resource is invaluable.

Transformation isn’t useful right out, nor is Body replacement. While she could probably pretend to be Sasuke when she uses the clone technique, he’ll catch on if there’s two of them and that might kill the gambit before it starts. Body replacement means getting hit, and she doesn’t trust her twenty seven agility to keep her alive if Kakashi actually tries to hurt her.

Lying badly… Actually.
She might have a plan.

<---Witch--->

Standing in a full out clearing, headset on, Sasuke’s voice whispering into her ear while Naruto sets traps with a surprising skill she didn’t know he had, well, she can’t help but smirk when Kakashi arrives in front of her. “Not even going to try and run or hide, Sakura?”

“Nope.” She lies, grinning like a loon. “I won’t play your game, you’re playing mine.”

“You know, I’ve played a few games myself over the years.” He stands with his hands in his pockets, not even a care in the world. “You’re communicating with headsets, that’s fairly basic although those are very bulky.”

“It’s more comfortable for long sessions.” She admits freely. “I imagine this is going to be long.”

“Really?” He asks, taking one step forward-

“I would totally do that if I were you, absolutely undefended.” Sakura lies through her teeth. “Not a single plan.”

“... Sakura, after I send you back to the academy I’m recommending they give you a trainer for deception.” He scowls, taking a step back.

“Nothing that way either, nope.”

“...” He looks around.

“Not there, or there, or there.”

“You’ve booby trapped the entire area.” He realizes. “Dangerous?”

“Noooooo, why would I want to hurt you Sensei?” She asks, reaching down and collecting a bit of dirt in her palms. “Hehe, let’s be real Kakashi-sensei, you’ll see through anything I do.”

“...” He decides to stare for a moment, see where she’s going with this, or maybe analyze to see where her weaknesses are. If nothing else, he’ll assume the dirt means something. Making him overthink is her only real shot here.

“Which is why I’m not doing anything.”

“Wha-” It’s at that moment that the ground erupts from all around. He tries to move, and finds he cannot, his body won’t let him, even as he’s grabbed by a hundred blonds and dragged to the ground. They hang off of him, holding him in place above a massive pit. It’s so simple, with his arms grabbed, and his legs grabbed, and his entire body suspended above a field of thousands of blonds in all directions, for a simple kunai to fly by and snag the bells, bringing them to Sakura’s hands.

“As a Jounin, you would instinctively recognise what was and wasn’t stable ground without even thinking about it. Subconscious skills are great, they keep you safe, they work so well that they become automatic. I can’t even imagine how powerful you must be, or how above us you are.” Sakura cites. “But if you don’t consciously recognize it, you wouldn’t catch up to why you landed on that exact spot, or why I’m standing here without moving.”

She spins the bells in her fingers happily. “You’d land exactly where I wanted you to, because the entire field was a trap.”

“What if I had landed on you?” He asks.

“What’s a game without a little risk?” She can’t help the cackle that leaves her lips.

“You missed one small problem with that plan.” Kakashi explains.

“Oh?”

“You’re still a genin.” He winks, one eye smiling brightly at her after a moment. “This isn’t just a trap for me, you’re also stuck on that spot.” He points out the fifty foot chasm all around her. “It’s a trap for both of us.”

“Well yeah, but I’m useless.” Sakura says, spinning in place and hucking the bells as far away as possible. “As long as none of us attack you, you can’t use replacement. We’re both stuck here, while Sasuke keeps the bell.”

“And when I get out of this?” Kakashi asks.

“Winning was never an option.” She shakes her head, telling the truth for once. “You were either going to cheat for us by not trying very hard, like a miniboss version of a later challenge, or you were going to give us an impossible fight we were supposed to lose. This is your time to reveal that, Kakashi Sensei. Was the game rigged from the start?”

“Yes.”

“Wha-oof!” Her vision goes black as a foot places itself directly in her nose.

<---Witch--->

“It’s broken.” Sakura groans, lying in a puddle of her own blood surrounded by Narutos

“We won though.” Sasuke says from a little to the side, “good work, Sakura.”

“Thank you.” Another her might have just died.
She really just wants a nap. She stayed up all night planning that!
It’s way too easy for her to forget to sleep. “If he was gonna let us win, why’d he break my nose?”

“Pissed him off.” Sasuke shrugs. “Woulda pissed me off.”

“Yeah…” She agrees. “Naruto, good work.”
The overly excitable boy does exactly what she expected, and hops. Not just him either, a hundred clones hop. It actually shakes the ground.

“Carry me to the hospital?” She asks Naruto, and finds he’s a very useful pack mule.

Chapter Text

“I have failed every single student that has taken the bell test under me.” Kakashi admits while staring them down. The moon is high in the sky, the hospital trip taking an awkwardly large amount of their day. They tried to blame Naruto until she explained it was Kakashi that did it, at which point they stopped asking questions entirely. It turns out Kakashi could just go around decking students and everyone would assume he had a good reason and ignore it. To have that kind of respect from even random hospital staff is so absurd it boggled her mind.

“Then it's not meant to be passed?” Naruto asks, raising a hand as if he’d been called on. “It’s a trick question or something?”

“It is.” Kakashi is very honest as he glares at Sakura, before looking back at Naruto. “The bell test is a trick question, to pass you have to put your teammates above yourself even in a situation where you should be doomed by doing so. It’s designed to pin you against each-other, then require self sacrifice. Sakura had no idea this was the case, and just decided she didn’t really need to pass anyway.”

“I figured either it was rigged in our favor and you were lying, or Sasuke was who Copy Cat Kakashi wanted.” Sakura shrugs. Her nose feels great now, thanks for asking. “In either situation, Sasuke’s the fastest and most agile of the three of us. Having him run away while we stopped you just made sense.”

“Right.” Kakashi actually has to visibly resist palming his forehead, he can already tell this team is going to test his patience. “That doesn’t explain why Sasuke got both bells, and Naruto didn’t grab one.”

“I forgot.” Naruto admits.

“... I hate you.” Kakashi looks up into the sky. “I hate you both. Sasuke’s been brutally traumatized since a young age, left with no adult supervision with more money than god, and told he can do anything, and he’s the only one I like.”

“That really says more about you than me.” Sakura quips.
“Oww!”

And finds that yes, Kakashi can just deck her without moving from a rather significant distance. How? Who knows, hopefully she’ll learn it someday. She rubs her nose and admires the work the staff put in to make sure it wouldn’t have cosmetic damage.

“With that settled, Team seven has officially passed the bell test. You will be reporting to this training ground every morning at exactly seven sharp.”

“So we get here at nine.” Sakura nods- “Ow, fuck!”

“Seven sharp.” Kakashi says sharply. “I will not be here. You will be physically training until around eleven, when we’ll take a D rank mission and get you familiar with mission structures and the way ninja are paid. If I find out any of you were not here on time, and training, I will hit you.”

“Because that’d be so dif-fuck, why!”

“Sakura, maybe you should be quiet.” Naruto tries to help.

“No shit, Naruto, I couldn’t have guessed that!” Sakura groans from her place in the dirt.

Naruto flinches away, and pouts rather heavily, causing her to instantly regret her words. Why couldn’t Kakashi have hit her before she said that? She'll find a way to apologize once her head doesn’t throb.

<---Witch--->

Bell test complete, she can’t help but ask her parents.

“Hey…” She asks, spinning her fork at dinner. It’s not much, but she’s actively trying to find new ways to train her dexterity. She wasn’t given a level up system, so her stats have to level up based on training. Her Mental and Control are incredibly high, which means they’ll be difficult to raise. This means that the main focus, at least for now, should be constitution so that being hit won’t hurt so much, dexterity as it’ll help her deflect hits, agility as it’ll help her avoid hits. and charm as it’ll stop her from getting hit in the first place. “Is it normal to get hit by your jounin sensei? A lot?”

“Nope.” Her mother pretty instantly responds, but despite her response, she doesn’t look very concerned. “Most students don’t get sensei, they’re thrown right into the genin program and given temporary chunin sponsors who take a cut of their mission pay for teaching them a thing or two every other week.”

“Okay.. But like, say you did get a jounin sensei. How normal is it to get hit?” Sakura stresses. “This feels like child abuse.”

“Sakura, you’re not a child anymore, it’s regular abuse.” Her father explains, softly, gently. He’s always understood her feelings, so it’s a little weird to have her correct her like that. “And I imagine it’s fairly common to get physical with your trainees if there’s something direct you need to teach them.”

She’s not satisfied with her parents telling her it’s okay. They never hit her. She took plenty of hits growing up, the academy is filled with them. Spars are very physical, and you can’t even train substitution without someone willing to deck you. Most people find being your training partner pretty fun, and in retrospect the amount of people who really wanted to punch her should have probably tipped her off that she wasn’t very charming. Most people got a few yesses, people lined up to help her train. She just thought they were being helpful…

But her parents?
Never.

“I guess you’re right.” She sighs, “I just don’t get what he’s trying to teach me, and it hurts. I was excited this morning and now, tomorrow is scary.” She allows her gaze to soften, to show them her fears.

It’s a little nerve wracking, seeing no sympathy.
“You should ask.” Her father says, tempering his breaths carefully. “You should definitely ask why one of the most talented ninjas of all time is doing something you find odd. You should ask all the time, every day, every minute. If you find the man is breathing oddly, you should ask. This is a man who can probably teach you more about breathing, than I can the entire ninja field.”

“So I should just shrug it off?” Sakura asks, visibly a little uneasy with that idea. “That sounds like enabling.”

“No, you should ask.” Her father stresses. “Kakashi Hatake is one of the most talented ninja of all time. There is nothing he does without a reason, because if randomness was in his skillset, he’d have died by now.”

“I… Yeah.” Sakura finishes her food, unsatisfied with both her parents and the hospital just accepting this. Even if Kakashi isn’t doing anything wrong, even if she is learning some lesson, even if he’s being a great teacher and she’s just missing it because she has a charm of six which implies a massive social deficit which’d include social understandings and comprehension of social situations.

It still means ninja like Kakashi could totally just get away with doing it unprompted just to be a dick, and everyone would blame her. It makes her stomach flop. She always knew that jounin were valuable, but that’s, well, her worldview is expanding rapidly.

It’s not a good feeling.

<---Witch--->
She couldn’t sleep.
Seven O-clock sharp - maybe add on a few minutes - she’s at the wrecked training ground, watching Naruto do push ups and Sasuke practice Kata expertly without a single extra thought running through her brain.

She’d been so nervous about today, she’d stayed up all night playing the Resident Evil 4 remake. It’d uh, calmed her nerves a bit, then she’d totally forgotten to sleep.

Here she is, bags under her eyes, reality a little fuzzy, and feeling chipper.
First thing’s first.

“I’m sorry.” It’s hard for her to say.
It’s hard for her to grasp the words, and she spent a good portion of her playtime racking her brain on how to make things up to Naruto.

Standing above him while he does push-ups, a foot rubbing against her ankle, a finger twirling her hair nervously, and the thickest blush she can’t deny is the best she can do.

“For what?” Naruto asks, not even looking up at her. The sweat dripping down his brow, he’s likely been at this for more than the few minutes she was late. She really hopes Kakashi doesn’t find out about that, her heart is already pumping thinking about it. At least it helps her stay awake.

“For um, yelling at you yesterday. I’m really sorry, you were just trying to help and…” She can’t continue, she doesn’t have it in her.

For willing up the courage to try and make amends, and recognizing your social fuck up, Charm has increased to 7.

Well that’s nice.” She can’t help the smile that works its way onto her face for that.

“It’s okay.” He says, his usual chipper smile has a crack in it, and she hates that she can see it.
Because it’s not a new crack, his smile has always looked that way.
It only took a charm of 7 to see it.

She was socially disabled. What’s everyone else’s excuse?
“No, it’s not.” She shakes her head quite forcefully. “I mean it, I’m sorry. I’ll try to be more considerate next time.”

“You think you’re gonna yell at me while laying in the dirt after Kakashi used a jutsu to punch you from a distance, again?” He asks.

“No-well yes, maybe?” She grits her teeth, why is this so hard?! “I more mean, the next time you make me angry, I’ll be less… mean.”

“You mean you’ll stop hitting me?” He asks.
And that makes her crack a little inside.
Could that be it? Has Kakashi watched them interact before?
Has he seen one of the many times she’s rejected him quite brutally? Could this be… No, that’s paranoia, she’s doing something to piss him off.

Naruto has never taken serious injury from her, he’s a stamina monster and she’s not even a genin in strength. It’s not like it really hurts him, is it?
She can’t take that risk.

“Never again.” She swears.

“What if-”

“Never.” She kicks the dirt, sternly. “Except for spars, I imagine Kakashi would get really mad at me if I refused to hit you in a spar.”

“So does that mean we can do that date?” He asks.

“No, Naruto, it does not.” Unlike Kakashi, she does facepalm, hard.
Hitting herself is better than hitting him, she decides.
<---Witch--->

When Kakashi arrives, she’s exhausted. Hours of working alongside Naruto have brought her to her limit multiple times. Luckily, as a ninja, those limits are high and her stamina regeneration is fast.

Unluckily, that means she has pretty much emptied her tank for the day when Kakashi shows up, and she feels like an idiot.

On the bright side, her constitution managed to jump to 25 already.
It seems training her stats is a lot easier now. Sure she’s never taken it this seriously before, but she’s also never progressed a solid twenty fourth in one of her abilities in one day before. At least, she’s pretty sure she hasn’t.

It’s with wobbly feet and a tired mind that she wanders over to him the moment he arrives.
He doesn’t even get to greet them before she’s bombarding him with her question, egged on by her father. At least, that’s what she tries to do.

In reality, from everyone else’s perspective, she gets up from a crunch.
Walks over to their sensei at a dead trudge, wobbling and staggering back and forth.
And then immediately collapses into his arms without saying a word. “Snnrrrgg-chest hard.”

“... Is she okay?” Kakashi asks, while her mind whirls and she takes solace in a place to rest her face that’s not the hard ground after a failure to complete the next set of whatever exercise Naruto pushed her on. “Did one of you do something?”

“Nope.” Is all Sasuke has to say.

“I might have pushed her too hard.” Naruto admits sheepishly. “It was fun, I got carried away.”

“Ah…” Kakashi looks down at the pinkette firmly passed out in his grip, shakes her a little, and then hands her off to a Naruto clone that spawns out of thin air. Naruto’s instinctive with those things, it’s scary. “You carry her while we go get our mission. We’ll be doing this hundreds of times, so it’s not like it really matters if she catches it this one time.”

“No problem!” Naruto seems very happy to get to carry his crush.
Sakura dreams of shooting ganados in the damn face with the red-9.

<---Witch--->

“Bang, bang, suck it loser! Double kill!”
It’s with those words that Sakura’s eyes snap open to find she’s staring directly into the raised eyebrows of the third Hokage. “Uhhhh-”

“Moving on.” Kakashi says, cutting her off. He can just do that.
Everyone in the room actually moves on. She’s never seen the third defer to anyone before, but he really does choose not to question her.

“As Team seven destroyed the training ground during their genin test, and that is official village property, we have two options.” The Hokage continues from wherever he was before, holding up a scroll. “This is the D-rank mission to repair your training ground. You can take it unpaid, or you can pay for someone else to take it. It matters very little to me, just that it gets done.”

Naruto really looks uncomfortable with that, Sakura can tell that much, which means everyone in a wide radius can. He says nothing, apparently even he understands that there can only be one crazy outburst within one Hokage statement before it’s a crime.

“It was my idea, Hokage-sama.” Sakura speaks up. “They should get to take a real mission while I clean it up.”

“No.” Kakashi bonks her! He actually smacks her in front of the damned Hokage. At least this time is incredibly light, it feels more like a rub than a smack. “Bad Sakura.”

While she is trying to figure out what the hell that was for, they accept their mission directly from the Hokage - apparently he likes to do all of the first few missions for teams, makes him feel youthful - and leave as quickly as possible.

<---Witch--->

“Kakashi.” She grumbles, rubbing her eyes.

“Yes, Sakura?” Kakashi asks right back, not a care in the world.

“Why are you carrying me?” She asks, looking down at her body in his arms. It’s a little awkward, really awkward actually. She’d really rather he not!

“Because when you tried to walk out of the Hokage’s office you fell on your face.” He explains patiently.

“Yeah, I got that, I mean, why are you carrying me? Why not Naruto or Sasuke?” At least he’s skilled enough that he’s sturdy, and she can close her eyes without being jostled around.

“Would you rather they do it?” He asks.

“No…” And that’s that.
She really can’t continue that train much longer.
So, she asks a different question. “Why do you keep hitting me?”

“...” He answers back easily.

It’s not the answer she expected.
Doesn’t really make her feel better.
When it becomes obvious he doesn’t intend to actually explain, she opens her mouth-
And he actually starts. “Do you really not know?”

He has the decency to look sheepish.
He genuinely does, she views it out of a lidded gaze and can’t help but be a little flabbergasted.
“The old proverb, I do believe, is “talk shit, get hit,” you shouldn’t intentionally antagonize someone you can’t defend against.” He explains. “That could get you killed, especially with the kind of ninja you’ll likely be interacting with as my students. If a few smacks breaks a dangerous habit and saves your life, I’m not going to apologize. If it doesn’t break the habit, you’ll at least get very good at taking a hit and that might save your life too.”

She doesn’t like that answer.
It doesn’t sit well at all.
But it is an answer, one she’ll have to take note of.

She can’t think of any time she’s been especially rude, but maybe that’s the point. She can remember getting hit. Maybe if she looks back on those times she can clue in to her mistakes and learn a lesson.

Or maybe he’s just an asshole covering for it.
He doesn’t feel like an asshole carrying her like this though. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He asks.

“I dunno yet.” She mumbles sleepily. “I think I’m gonna fall asleep again.”

“Sakura… did you sleep last night?” It’s a striking question, one she’s very much not happy to hear. “Because I’m getting the impression you don’t sleep.”

“I’ll work on it.” She groans. “I was distracted - hey, why are we going a different way?” She eyes Sasuke and Naruto heading off to the training ground, while he goes… towards her house? “Sensei?”

“You’re officially barred from team activities until you can get your sleep under control.” He says incredibly sternly. “No training, no missions, no lectures. Anything I could possibly teach you will be worthless if you’re half dead all the time.”

“But, the mission…”

“Naruto and his hundred clones dug the hole, they can undig the hole.” Kakashi quips. “You’re going to bed. You’ll report to the training ground when you’re fresh and awake, or you won’t at all.”

It’s not the move she expected from a dude she spent all night terrified of.
It’s not exactly great either. Missing out on the first D rank mission means she’ll be behind.
What if this takes more than a few days and she ends up really behind?
What if she ends up left behind entirely?
She finds herself tearing up at the thought.

“I’m not abandoning you, Sakura.” His voice cuts through her half delirious thoughts.
“I just can’t teach you if you’re so tired you don’t even realize you’re being a liability.”

It’s not a line she likes, but it makes sense.
That seems to be the theme of her life at the moment.

Chapter Text

A week passes in relative silence.
Gaming during the day, trying to sleep during the night. It’s difficult, incredibly difficult, and despite his orders not to train she does it anyway.

Strength has increased to 31, for reaching Genin Strength, you have unlocked the “Genin Strength” trait.

Genin Strength: You officially no longer tire from medium encumbrance, and when testing your strength against anyone below genin strength, you just win without a contest. Your state does not matter, winning is set to 1 and losing is set to 0.

Dexterity has increased to 29
Agility has increased to 29
Constitution has increased to 26
Charm has increased to 8

She exercises a good part of her day away in between gaming breaks, and takes special effort to exercise before bed so she can collapse into it exhausted and empty.

She learns to juggle.
She learns she can sprint around her city block, and no one questions a ninja running around.
She even intentionally runs into a few walls mid-sprint, for constitution and asks her father to help her spar so she doesn’t fall completely behind her teammates. That was emotionally difficult, she’d never been hit by her father before and even in an intentional setting it felt really bad. He didn’t seem to like it either, but she can’t just fall behind.
She can’t be abandoned.

Charm was harder.
“I bet you’re talking like that because things are really hard right now, want to talk about it?”
She had to actually talk to shittalkers instead of telling them she did their mom last night.
“Are you okay? I know things are hard, but I’m a person too. I understand you.”

Yes, she got these lines online instead of coming up with them herself, so they were worth less experience but… It helped. Charm 8 and she already feels like she understands what she did wrong a little better. She still thinks Kakashi was overboard, but she was antagonizing him. Nine? Just because she knew he wouldn’t be there at seven didn’t mean she wasn’t intentionally calling him out without an explanation. She challenged him, and he responded with a jutsu.

That’s what ninjas do. That’s what they’re taught to do. Ninjas aren’t like civilians, when you don’t have the tools to socially do something you have an alternate option, punch them in the face.
She still doesn’t like it, and she definitely can’t wait until the day she can deck him back, but that day isn’t today.

It takes a week, but…

Chronically Underslept Trait, Lost. Debuffs on all statistical applications removed.

She wakes up on day seven to that message. It’s a good message. She’s not sure how strong the debuffs were, but she’s happy to know they’re gone. Her actual statistics haven’t changed, so it must have been invisible.

And also this one.

Sleeping Skill Gained
At base proficiency, the Sleeping Skill increases the ease of getting to sleep, and shrinks the amount of sleep needed for a restore. You now awaken from a full rest with a reset state, meaning injuries, and debuffs, are removed upon waking no matter how severe.
HP and Chakra are set to max upon a reset.

A reset is accrued after a full 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep at this moment.

That's huge.
That one skill is so strong she spends over twenty minutes staring at it.
It doesn’t say she grows limbs back, but it might as well say that. Chakra is set to max, really?

They’re taught in the academy that your chakra pool is the effort of about three days of a slowly trickling force working its way into a pool. Unless you completely empty the pool like a dummy and accrue a debuff, you will get it all back within three days.

This means that she can use three days of chakra every day as long as she can get good sleep. This might be a real problem if she has to camp out behind enemy lines and has to sleep with one eye open, but in her daily life that means she’s actually working on almost three times her normal capabilities.

While she’s still limited by her chakra stat as to how much she can use in any one instance, her daily stamina overall just went up to incredible degrees.

All she has to do is get some sleep. Now if only she wasn’t bad at that.

Genin strength is cool too, but auto-winning a situation in which she already won doesn’t feel like a huge win. No longer tiring from medium encumbrance is huge, but she doesn’t carry equipment at the moment so until she has the money to get equipment, she’s screwed.

She has missed the last seven days of missions, so she’s broke. She actually had to cancel her sub to FF14, which was painful but daddy Yoshi did say to cancel it when you need to, that it’s not a job and it’s okay.

It’s time to take drastic measures. Further drastic measures, pausing her sub hurt her soul.

<---Witch--->
“Fanclub, I call you all here today, because I need money.” She hasn’t used her status as leader in a while, and she can already tell they’re thinking of replacing her. Being Sasuke’s teammate is bad enough, the entire club relies on them having equal odds or it falls apart; being gone for over a week without so much as sending a text?

Scandalous.

They’re all here, including Ino, that’s helpful. Ino doesn’t normally come to meetings, she’s more an honorary member than an actual member. She finds their methods too severe, too creepy, and has said she all around despises whoever stole Sasuke’s underwear that one time.

Sakura kinda agrees, actually, this facade has gone on too long.
But dropping it before she can dismantle it from the inside would be irresponsible, so she’s gotta take this opportunity to do that.

Sasuke deserves better than her just dropping it and letting some crazy run the club. She’s managed to keep things largely safe, and contained. Largely, sometimes things get out of hand and while she’ll accept that’s partially her responsibility, she can’t actually control every crazy girl twenty four hours a day so she doesn’t feel too bad.

Ino looks really worried about her, but that changes very quickly when she actually looks at her face. Something about looking at her right now reassures Ino, and she suspects it’s the lack of bags under her eyes.

Has Ino been that worried about her?
Has everyone been that worried about her?

“And because we’re becoming adults, and some of us already are… I know some of you failed to become genin, but I believe in your persistence, your capabilities, and your perseverance.”
Drafting up this simple speech took hours, which is more shameful than she’d like to admit.

But her parents are very against her and this club so asking them wasn’t an option.

“I’d like to gather the funds to throw one last party, and then disband the club. We can’t have harassing a person be a huge part of our identities as adults, and Sasuke has shown zero interest in any of us. Ever.”

“That’s not true, he looked at me that one time!” One girl shouts.

“He was looking in your general direction, Nemi.” Sakura has to hold back the snark, make it sound pleasant. It’s so hard. “Sasuke is anti-social, he’s not interested in any of us. I think he’s into mature women? Maybe we try again in a more, calm, collected manner in a few years.” She suggests. “But for now, let’s throw a party, and move on with our lives.” Sakura feels really proud of herself.

Until the throwing starts.
<---Witch--->

“That was really mature of you.” Ino praises her, patting her shoulder while Sakura checks over the new shuriken cuts on her face with a mirror. They’ll disappear tonight, she doesn’t really care that much. It’ll also be proof that she’s not hallucinating. She’ll finally have real, tangible proof that her abilities are real.

“Didn’t work.” Sakura points out.

“Sometimes it’s the effort that counts.” Ino shakes her head, leaning against her and dabbing one of her wounds with a cloth. It feels nice to be cared for.

By being removed from the Sasuke Fanclub, and being honest about your gaming with your team - at least kinda - you’ve officially lost the Double Life trait.
It has been replaced by Undercover Novice.

Undercover Novice: You receive bonuses to skill checks related to maintaining your cover when pretending to be part of an organization.

“I thought you were great.” Ino continues. Sadly Ino’s praise does not remove disappointment, but maybe enough of it from enough people will. “That organization has done terrible things to someone we care about, and trying to dismantle it was the right thing to do.”

“I, don’t even like Sasuke.” Sakura admits, looking into Ino’s cute eyes. They always struck her as so pretty, and the girl has the kindest smile. She looks so proud of her, it’s rejuvenating.

“I know.” Ino says. “Me neither.”

“Wha-”

“We were kids.” Ino actually giggles, shaking her head in amusement. “He’s kind of a dick. Like, a cute, very noble, broody dick, but still a dick.”

“Why pretend?” Sakura asks.

“Same as you.” Ino says.

“To hide something?”

“Mmhmm.”

Sakura doesn’t ask what, she doesn’t feel like she has that right.
“So are we friends again?”

“We never weren’t.” The hug from her bestie does warm her heart.
She hasn’t been this awake while talking to Ino in actual years. It’s so nice to actually feel the breeze, and feel her warmth.

“Thank you.” Sakura sighs happily.
Like a great weight has flown away.

“Now about you needing money…” Ino trails. “What are you doing with all your money? It’s not drugs is it?”

“I haven’t been able to do missions.” Sakura admits. “Kakashi gave me a private mission: learn to sleep. No missions means no pay.”

“...” Ino stares at her.

“What?”

“Sakura, you’re aware we get a salary for being Genin students under a sensei, right?” Ino asks. “It’s to stop students from starving if their sensei decides to postpone missions for a couple weeks.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Sakura instinctively salivates at the idea of money in her FF14 account, err, her pocket!

“Did you sleep through the Hokage’s briefing on it?” Ino laughs.

“Yes.”
Sakura hasn’t been reflexively slapped by Ino in a while.
It feels nice.
<---Witch--->
It’s a lot of money.
Like, far more than D ranks pay. She has two paychecks to cash at once because they got a paycheck on day one and it’s been a week. It’s so much money, she’s never held even remotely this much cash in her hands before.

It’s supposed to be used for living expenses, equipment, rations for extended travel, supplies, and to ensure their sensei cannot put them into a situation in which they can’t survive. Apparently Jonin used to do stuff like that, which means there are failsafes to prevent extreme sensei abuse.

Visiting a local blacksmith and a few other ninja shops - to be professional and responsible - nets her a traveling pack, an armored mesh undershirt, a freaking sword because swords are cool, and enough kunai to kill a hundred Naruto clones. She also now has a chain mesh netting on her legs, which draws a few eyes to them. It’s nice to be appreciated for being professional… She hopes that’s the case anyway. Freaking maybe perverts…

She doesn’t have the money to put in a special order to make the sword look like any famous blades from her favorite games, but to be fair she doesn’t actually know how to use a sword right now so getting all decked out in cool loot would just be a waste of money anyway. For now, the sword will hang by her side and on her wall until she can convince Kakashi to teach her how to use it.

Who knows, maybe he’ll tell her she’s an idiot and make her return it. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s called her out in recent times. Well, recently this week, he’s done it zero… It’s thinking about her team wistfully when she remembers something. Looking down at her paycheck, she can’t help but think about how uncomfortable Naruto looked at doing a mission unpaid. For her, it was whatever. One day of pay means nothing to her.

Sasuke’s rich, so it means nothing to him either.
But to Naruto, it looked like he was told to eat glass.

“I should go check on him.”
<---Witch--->
Finding out where her teammate lives was surprisingly easy. She had to formally tell Kakashi she’d be there at training tomorrow anyway, so asking him about Naruto was just a simple extra line. The man stared at her sword with a questioning gaze, but decided not to ask about it.

Standing in front of Naruto’s home, she’s actually pretty surprised. It’s okay.
She kinda figured he’d have painted it orange or something, but maybe his parents are very strict about the home life.

Knocking on the door, she’s met with a grouchy Naruto.
“I said I’d have it when I get my next stipend you-Sakura?”
His eyes light up from pissed to happy and practically glowing the moment he sees her.
She’s never seen him with that kind of face.
Looking behind him, she sees clothes stacked all over the place, dirty dishes, it looks like he hasn’t dusted in actual years…

“Naruto…” Sakura begins.
“Why is your home this dirty?”

“Well, um, I uh-”

“No, Naruto.” She places a hand on his shoulder, and spins him around to look at what she can see from the damn doorway. She can already smell mildew, and she’s sure there’s mold out of sight. “Why.”

“Well I don’t really know how to clean.” He admits.

“... Why not?”
<---Witch--->
It turns out Naruto’s an orphan in an overpriced home he moved to because he was annoying his neighbors with his boisterous attitude and loud training at all hours of the night and he was evicted.

She lives in a six bedroom house her parents purchased when young and in love because her parents genuinely thought they would have five kids, and then only had her.

It’s not a hard math equation.

“Mom, Naruto’s moving in.”

Announcing this at dinner may have been a bad idea.
Their faces are mixed, to say the least.

“Okay, let me rephrase that.” She takes a deep breath.
“Naruto lacks basic life skills, lives beyond his means, has no parents, is my teammate, and we have enough extra rooms to move my entire team in. What is the correct answer?”

“Ah…” Her mother takes a sip of her drink. A very long sip, super long.

“Honey, moving a boy in suddenly is uh…” Her father tries. “You have no idea why this is a problem, do you?”

“Nope.” She admits.

“...” Her parents share a look.
A very lengthy look.

Woo, matter settled! She praises herself for a job well done.
No rebuttal means she wins!
<---Witch--->

She’s not exactly sure what his neighbors complained about. Naruto is actually very quiet in his room, and sticks to himself. Maybe he learned the lesson but too late at his old place? Or, maybe he’s just older and smarter now.

That is before the whole family gets together and teaches him how to do laundry, how to clean his room, how to dust, and many other essential important factors he needs training on.

It was difficult at first, but once she explained it’s like training but for his life instead of his fists, he got really behind it. Watching him bond with her mother over small things like how to clean was really heartwarming.

Watching him create a hundred clones and suddenly clean their house to such a degree that the three of them can only stare in awe is a very different experience.
Phenomenal, might be a good word.

“Sakura.” Her mother says suddenly. “Naruto’s moving in.”

“I know.” Sakura nods slowly. “He already did.”

“Can he move in again?” Her father asks.

“Probably, he’s got clones…” Sakura trails, watching as their kitchen goes from normal to sparkling in seconds, and a roving band of house cleaners passionately turns the environment into something out of a fantasy novel. “He could make so much money as a cleaning service.”

“The world will be cleaner.” Sakura’s mother agrees. “We have made the world cleaner on this day.”

“Let the prophecy be fulfilled.” Her father croaks.

“So it has been foreseen, so it shall be.” Sakura finishes.
“Holy shit.”

Chapter Text

She’s practically vibrating when she arrives at the training ground at seven, it’s the fateful Monday where she’ll prove she really is wide eyed and bushy tailed and nothing can stop her. Which is odd, because before this gaming system she never woke up before noon without feeling like hell frozen over. The cuts on her face from kunai disappeared without medical treatment, which finally proved exactly what she suspected.

She’s probably not crazy. There’s always the possibility that the cuts are still there and she somehow hallucinated their disappearance, and no one’s reacting to open bleeding wounds…

But that’s absurd, and the most logical scenario is that she has gaming based super powers. It’s just what makes sense. She’ll be doing a mission today, so she spent a good portion of yesterday deep diving back into Streets of Rogue. As a mission based, objective based rogue-lite with a focus on hardcore consequences and fast reaction times in chaos, she figures the refresher’ll help in their hardcore missions. She also needed to remember how to get away from crazy nonsense in an emergency, because uh…

Naruto Uzumaki

Threat Level: Flee On Sight Order, Grade 2

She wishes she could say learning a new scan trait was a cause for celebration. Even if it's just “Scan Trainee” and all she can tell is someone’s full name and threat level, it’s an incredible proof of concept and that’s awesome?

But uh, Her parents were considered medium, the chunin she passed on the way here were dangerous, and Kakashi who is here early to make sure she’s okay and ready is uh…

Kakashi Hatake

Threat Level: Incredibly Dangerous

Remarkably less concerning than Naruto’s.
What the actual fuck is with her new roommie that whatever’s up with the world finds Naruto scarier than Kakashi?

It gets weirder, she visited the library on the way here. The only other Flee On Sight Order issued by the ninja villages was a Grade 1, as in the only person to ever be more terrifying than Naruto by law, was the Fourth Hokage.

Her genin teammate is only considered marginally less soul destroyingly, quake in your boots, piss yourself and pray for death terrifying; than the most dangerous man to have ever lived.

Minato Namikaze once killed three hundred men in one fight then announced his warm up was done.

Minato Namikaze single handedly turned the tides of a war by being so scary the enemy just didn’t fight battles he was at.

Entire armies shit themselves and fled important strategic objectives at the mere sight of blonde hair and a strange kunai. The entire Yamanaka clan did better in the war because people were too nervous at the sight of them and their hair to think straight, giving them a strategic edge for the first twenty seconds of every engagement.

Minato Namikaze killed the fucking Kyuubi. She’s not entirely sure the man died, it’s a popular myth in the academy that he’s just taking a nap because once you step that far outside the realm of human being you don’t sleep in the same timestream as everyone else.

And as far as her new powers are concerned, she should treat them as basically the same person.

Death itself lives a room down from her, and a room away from where her parents sleep.

So no, she’s not happy about Scan Trainee. It’s either lying to her or almost everything she knows about the world is a lie.

Naruto’s nice though, so surely that’s not important.

Eheh… Heh…

Fuck.

“Sakura, sword.” Kakashi points at her hip. Pulling her away from the other two while they got to work did make her cheeks a little puffy with indignation. It singles her out, and makes her look like a slacker. She wanted to get right to working out with Naruto, and showing that she’s gotten stronger.

Still, him taking notice of her new equipment is nice. “I thought I should get serious, and I figured, your bingo book entry mentions you used a sword so maybe you could teach me a few tricks?” Her smile is bright, her nose twitches, and she’s pretty sure he sees right through her. She thinks swords are cool. He’s totally going to tell her it’s not a toy and make her return it.

She’s waiting. Any moment now, anyyyy moment.

“I could.” He agrees.

She finds herself startled enough to blink a few times, before taking a step back, then taking it forward again. “Really?”

“Kenjutsu is not to be taken lightly, so I’ll need you to return that piece of scrap metal after today, but yes.” He says, eying the piece at his side with his one good eye. “I have dozens of much higher quality blades lying around, and I’d rather you practice with a wooden sword anyway. It’ll allow you to train with your teammates without worrying about holding back.”

“Don’t I need to learn the weight and stuff?” She asks.

“Yes, but as a ninja, learning to follow through is actually significantly more important than technique. Most of our fights are not resolved with a swift strike or a good parry, they’re decided in a moment of distraction. Catching your opponent off guard is how you should always be fighting, it’s your intent from moment one and you should never let it stop being your intent.”

“All that to say…” She trails, scratching her cheek a little.
She gets it, and it makes sense, but that doesn’t explain why she can’t use a sword to train, which sucks, because swords are really freaking cool and swinging them in the wind was half of the point.

“If you train against your teammates with an actual sword, you’ll learn to stop your strikes before they’re hurt. That means you’ll die.” He manages to say that without sounding too sarcastic.

He is quite blunt though. She appreciates it. “Like, die, die. No respawning.”

She does idly wonder if she can respond-”Ow!”

“Reality is not a game.” He scolds her, holding a wooden sword he got from who knows where. She didn’t see it, but that’s kind of cool. “You’ll train with an actual sword for kata and technique, you’ll use a wooden sword for sparring. Now, you’re going to repeat these next six movements for the next three hours straight. Watch closely.”

He takes a step back.
Takes hold of the hilt with both hands. Raises the sword, swings down until right around her thighs - a strike meant to bisect her but not go any further and waste movement -, he then spins on his heel and holds the blade up to block something that isn’t there, before spinning around and slashing from left to right, before spinning the blade just enough to change its direction, and using his grip to completely switch directions for a slash just as damn fast as the first.

He jumps forward a little, pretends to clash with another blade, then throws a textbook kick meant to hit someone’s hand,  before following up with a full on slash from top right to bottom left.

“Am I supposed to take special meaning from any of that?” Sakura asks. “That looked cool and all but a little strange.”

“No, none of that is important.” He says sternly, looking directly into her eyes.

“Then why, um, Sensei?” She gulps.

“They are marginally complicated movements that would be useful to know how to do, set up so that you can tell how to flow between one and another. I don’t care if you memorize those, or if you decide to go read a kenjutsu book and learn a bunch of basic techniques. What I do care about is that you can flow between a set of movements that are comprehensive and on the fly.”

“I appreciate the importance, but why learn that before actual technique?” She asks.

“Because I don’t have ten thousand hours with you, so I need to make sure you can actually learn Kenjutsu before I start. If you lack the flexibility to flow between a set of six movements interchangeably, every single thing I teach you is a waste of both our time. We’d both be better off just teaching you ninjutsu.” He pats her shoulder. “Now get to work, I have a date with my dead friends.”

His single eye makes a smile at her, before he poofs away like fainted pokemon porting back to its ball. There’s even a red light, making Sakura vaguely suspicious for a second.

Luckily having slept recently gives her the clarity of mind to recognize that no, Kakashi is probably not the Hokage’s favorite pokemon.

Well, time to get training and prove she can waste her time efficiently.

It was not a waste.

First, Dexterity rose to 30, that’s nice.

Skill Learned: Kenjutsu Basic

You officially know the basics of Kenjutsu. The weapon flows in your hand in a way it didn’t before, you no longer suffer as many negatives in combat for the awkwardness of a weapon you don’t understand, and you do half damage to yourself in the event of a sword accident. You are no longer more dangerous to yourself than the enemy with a sword.

Just the half damage to herself is incredible, but a few practice swings show that she just probably learned a few hundred hours of training in a few hours. She’s still bad at this, but there’s no way in hell that’s natural. Thinking about that led her to the discovery that she has traits she isn’t aware of.

Trait Discovered: Chunin Mental

Learn skills below Chunin level at 10x the speed. (Does not apply to Traits or Stats)

That’s bullshit, she feels like a cheater.
She doesn’t like cheating, but she can’t get rid of the ability so there’s not much she can do.

Trait Discovered: Jonin Control

Perfect Control of Chakra Techniques below Jonin, once learned to at least Medium proficiency.

That’s probably worse.

But it’s actually a pretty good time, now that she knows how to investigate skills and traits, to look into the skills and traits she doesn’t have a description for and figure them out.
Laying in the grass, sweating a river. She’s not pretty right now, but she at least needs to catch her breath before Kakashi shows up so he doesn’t send her home before her first mission.

Skills:

Academy Taijutsu Style: You are significantly proficient in the Academy Taijutsu Style. The groundwork has been completed for you to learn other, still low complication, Taijutsu Styles much faster.

Studying: You possess a great capability to amass knowledge on a specific topic you are in search of. You know where to look, what’s relevant, and understand a multitude of different study techniques.

Gaming: You are highly proficient in gaming, and improve significantly quicker than most at any game you put your mind to. You’re naturally more skilled than most, and are successful at most gaming avenues. You couldn’t go pro, but you could probably make a decent streaming career if this whole ninja thing doesn’t work out.

Clone Technique: You are highly proficient in the E rank jutsu, Clones Technique. You do not currently possess the chakra capacity to evolve this technique.

Transformation Technique: You are highly proficient in the E rank jutsu, Transformation Technique. You do not currently possess the chakra capacity to evolve this technique.

Body Replacement Technique: You are highly proficient in the E rank jutsu, Body Replacement Technique. You do not currently possess the chakra capacity to evolve this technique.

Lying Badly: You are really bad at lying.

 

Traits:

No Life Gamer: You put all of your efforts into gaming and you’re still only a few steps above a filthy casual. You’re who people on the internet joke about, and the worst part is they’re not totally wrong. 

[Negative], [Can Be Worked Off by either Getting a Life or Becoming a Professional Gamer]

Sasuke Trivia Expert: You know everything you think there is to know about Sasuke. His style, his interests, his mannerisms, you even know what his toothpaste tastes like. But have you actually had a conversation with the boy? You should.

[Neutral] [Can be Worked Off by either ignoring Sasuke for too long, or Upgraded by getting Sasuke’s Trust to Friend]

Unnaturally Good Chakra Control: You’re a freak of nature and no one is sure why. You have Jonin level chakra control as a Genin, and it’s not because of hard work.

[Positive], [Can be Upgraded through Hard Work]

Cram Study Master: Nothing says passing like shotgunning an energy drink and studying everything you need in the last thirty minutes before a test. You have shown an incredible proficiency to cram knowledge down your throat like a breakfast burrito, and gain big bonuses to last minute information gains. Events must be significant for this trait to take effect.

[Positive]

Disappointment: A significant portion of the people in your life find you are not living up anywhere near to your potential. You’re not impressive, you don’t stand out, and you need a shower.

[Negative] [Can be worked off through reputation gains and basic skills learnt]

Now she’s pretty sure she takes enough showers, but Disappointment still really hurts. Quite a few of her traits do. It’s not where she wants to be in life, and it feels like before today she didn’t even have the option to know what a screw up she is.

“That’s probably the point.” She jokes, while stabbing the air above her. “Hehe, point.”

Well, it’s eleven and Kakashi isn’t here yet so, time to go talk to Sasuke. Maybe her skill is right, maybe she does need to be friendly to people.

“Heya Sasuke, how’s the training going?” She asks the boy who’s currently doing some sort of exercise she doesn’t know the name of. His legs are hanging over a branch on a tree at around his knees, and he’s pulling himself up with his waist alone. At least, that’s what it looks like. There could be chakra involved in some crazy way.

She’s never seen him sweat before, but there’s so much. It makes his shirt a little see through, and she has to look away with a blush. He of course sees that blush, which means she’s already off to a great start.

“Same as yours, why?” He asks. Which is actually more acknowledgement than he gave her the entirety of the academy. “I can’t help but notice your rabid pseudo-clan has gotten worse in the past day.” 

She winces instinctively at that. “I tried to disband the club.” She admits. “They didn’t like that.”

“Too bad they didn’t hurt you.” He says aloofly.

“I’m sorry, what?” She blinks right up at his moving form. Forget the shirt, he’s an asshole. Always remember Sakura, he is an asshole.

Naruto is death incarnate but Sasuke’s a dick.

“Well, if they hurt you, we could both press charges.” He explains. “You’re a ninja, and the moment they’re a violent organization, they’re a violent organization that’s targeting both of us.”

“Harassment isn’t enough?” She asks, very suddenly wishing her powers weren’t real, if only for a moment. If she said they did attack her, evidence would be requested. She’s pretty sure Ino’s testimony would be enough, but then there’s the question of where the damage went. She didn’t go to the hospital, and her parents don’t know medical jutsu, so…

“No, you can’t actually harass a public figure in the same way you can a civilian. I’m the last Uchiha and a ninja, and you’re a ninja, so we’re both public figures. Violence is prohibited no matter what though, at least aside from training purposes.”

“Ah.” She stares a little slack jawed. “So you don’t want me hurt?”

“Why would I?” He asks, continuing what looks like the hardest exercise, in the freaking world. She is not happy to see that she’ll be doing that someday. That looks like the worst thing ever.

“Ah, right. Sorry.” She turns away and starts walking.

“Sorry for what?”

“Nothing!” He’s not an asshole, apparently. Her bad.

She flows from movement to movement like a natural, the air moving for her, a little dance making her feel alive. Performing has always been something she’s loved doing, and her traits were right, streamer was actually one of her back up plans if she failed the academy.

To have Kakashi’s eyes on her while she uses her blade to perfectly portray the movements he told her to learn, in random orders that shift perfectly, is magical. If she wasn’t so exhausted she’d be pretty sure she died and went to heaven. There’s nothing in the world that could make this better.

“She learned really fast.” Sasuke praises her to Kakashi. “It’s all gibberish, but she learned it.”

“It reminds me of some of your clanmates.” Kakashi says. “I had to show her once and now it’s rote.”

“That’ll be me one day.” Sasuke points out.

“But not today.” Kakashi pats him on the back, and for his credit, Sasuke nods to himself.

She genuinely managed to impress her sensei and teammate. If nothing else, it’s probably credit towards working off Disappointment. The description doesn’t say it has any real negatives to it, but she hella wants that off her sheet. It's a very sore point for her at the moment. “Today, Sakura’s the Uchiha with the magic eyes.”

“Wish I could argue.” Sasuke says simply. Admiring her in a way she really didn’t expect from him, ever. Why isn’t he being a dick?

There are two universal facts she knew before today.
Naruto can eat a lot of Ramen, like an absurd amount, like too much god damn ramen. And Sasuke’s a dick.

She’s gonna have to buy Naruto Ramen to make sure she didn’t warp dimensions in her sleep. Her poor paycheck…

Her first mission is simple. It’s also incredibly disappointing. Naruto made it sound awesome, like they were saving princesses and killing demons and conquering border territory.

As it turns out, Naruto is a much, much, much better liar than she is.

Her first mission is to pull weeds from a farmer’s potato farm. Large green roots and tops stand up to about her knees, and she’s pretty sure they’re not supposed to. She’s never seen a fresh potato plant, but she has eaten a potato, and these are huge.

These potatoes could probably end world hunger, if it was a big problem.

With chakra farming that issue kind of evaporated quite some time ago. Food bills are rather cheap, and there’s so much excess that the needy have no problems. Most farmers pay their taxes in excess food which is routed right to orphan and homeless mouths.

At least here in fire country, these potatoes are more weird than useful. The strange part is that she’s having problems finding actual weeds. “Naruto?” She asks, looking up to check with them all. Ten Narutos and not a single nod, just a lotta shakes and a pissy Sasuke. The boy looks like he’s about to use a fire jutsu and torch the whole farm, but that’d likely end up with another unpaid D rank mission to find some way to compensate the man. Possibly several, since it’s his livelihood and Konoha’s reputation would be at stake. They might end up unpaid servants for years… Or at least until Sasuke got fed up with it and dropped enough money on the man to make his roof collapse from the weight alone.

The air is warm, it always is here in fire country, but she can’t help but notice it’s a little warmer than it probably should be. “Sasuke, nooo!” She shouts.

Earning herself an odd look from eleven genin - err, two, and nine clones.

“What?” Sasuke asks. His hands are still resting by his side, and one of his brows is raised rather high. “I thought you said you were awake?”

“I am, I just, it’s hot.” Sakura admits with a flush, one that steams across her cheeks and torments the bridge of her nose like molten iron. “I thought um, fire chakra.”

“Why would there be fire-wholly crap!” Sakura for the first time in her life, witnesses Sasuke fall back and land on his tush with genuine fear in his eyes. In another setting she might clap. It’s a hilarious sight, and Sasuke’s superiority might genuinely be challenged if the now unofficial fanclub saw this. In another setting, in this one, she’s terrified.

She whips out her janky sword that Kakashi will probably scold her for using, and jumps to cut a giant potato in half. Why? Because that potato is six feet tall and just shot flame breath at her teammate.

Why?

How?

Who cares? She’s got her weapon half lodged in the monster from head to root, when her blade gets stuck, and she’s already kind of got a grasp on what Kakashi meant about her weapon. “Shit.” She jumps up in the air and kicks off of it, holding her weapon with both hands so that it flies away with her. A hasty flip is realized mid-air, and she lands just in time to realize she managed to cut into her leg during her kick.

It barely hurts, lucky her, another injury she’ll have to explain tomorrow morning when it’s missing. At least it doesn’t seem very deep. “Naruto!” She shouts. “The potatoes are attacking, make like a thousand clones and get weeding!”

“Alrighty Sakura!”

The fact that such a simple statement is said with the deafening power of a stadium filled to the brim is good enough for her to book it towards Kakashi, at the farmer’s house. A combat roll to the side - after being sure to put her weapon away to avoid mishap - is completed just in time to avoid a fireball that scorches the land and burns the devil crops.

As it turns out, lying about what your mission entails is a crime.

It’s also incredibly common, like, the main reason genin are required to have a higher up for any mission outside the direct confines of the village, common. Her first D rank is a C rank, she really hopes that’s not indicative of a pattern or anything. A girl like her thrives off plans. Having nothing go according to them really bothers her in a way she can’t quite describe. It’s why she doesn’t play a lot of team games, others add randomness she’s just not very comfortable with.

MMOs and run and guns are one thing, but if teamwork is actually required she’s probably trying it solo despite having a team, and even then, she’s got her mic on to trash talk her bad teammates into submission.

Which is why she’s doing just that tonight, playing a nice run and gun extraction shooter while enjoying the catered experience of the bayou. The thick swamps, the horrifying abominations, the sounds tickling her ears and the distant gunshots are identifiable because every single gun in this game has its own unique sound. If she liked teammates more she’d probably be really into this game. It’s fun, it’s gritty, it’s got excellent sound design and her footsteps feel real.

As is, going solo kind of sucks. You never know when you’re going to - “gaah, damn-it!” She groans as she’s shown her death screen, nice and red and oh great she’s being burned.

Her rando probably won’t even revive her.

She grabs her energy drink while looking at just who killed her.

[Go-To-Bed-Sakura]

That’s an odd screen name.

She looks at her hand, shakes the drink a little, and decides to put the rest in the fridge for the morning.

Best not to tempt fate.

Chapter Text

“Am I pretty?” She can’t help but ask herself while looking in the mirror. Dull eyes have turned colorful and vibrant, looking right back at her like little gems. The bags under her eyes are gone, her skin has cleaned up, even her forehead looks less big with giant bags no longer such a big part of her defining features. Her skin feels better cared for and the vibrance is back and alive. Yet somehow, she can’t help but feel like the mirror is saying no. Pointing out the places where her lack of efforts have resulted in dead or dying parts. Like the mats in her hair, for instance.

“Should I start caring?” It’s an odd question. She has no one she wants to impress. Making Ino compliment her looks would probably make her feel nice, but everyone else in her life either already thinks she’s pretty or doesn’t care in the least how she looks.

She could care for herself, and it might help her mood… “That’s it, starting tomorrow, I’m gonna stop procrastinating and buy quality hair products if nothing else.” She uses her brush for the first time in months, if not years, and finds she has her work cut out for her.

It’s going to suck fixing that, but she likes her hair enough she’ll spend the hours to fix it without removing it. It’s pink!

It turns out her Dexterity was low enough, and her constitution low enough, that spending three hours gently coaxing knots out of her hair without destroying it gave her a level in each.

Her Constitution is now 27 and her Dexterity is 31.

Here’s the thing.

Genin Dexterity

You officially no longer ever fail Academy Student Dexterity Checks.

You do not have to notice the dexterity check is required to pass it.
You do not have to make an attempt, your body will automatically react should it be a check that is considered positive to succeed, or negative to fail.

You can still intentionally fail, if the intentional failure is still an Academy Student Dexterity Check

She’s a fan of that. Trying it out in her bedroom she is officially significantly better with her kunai out of nowhere, and her sword feels more natural in her hands.

On the other hand, “Oh shit, it’s ten.”

Jumping out her window doesn’t count as a Dexterity Check, that’s Agility. Luckily, 29 is okay for a two story drop.

“What’d I say about seven?” Kakashi asks her at the training ground. “Did you oversleep?”

“I was training my dexterity and performing self care.” Sakura explains while standing rigid. “Please do not hit me.”

“Why do you think I’m - oh right I said that didn’t I.” She can almost see a laugh, not that the mask shows much. “You know what, I am going to hit you.”

She flinches instinctively, drawing her sword to deflect or block or maybe just not get hit in the face.

“With your teammates.” Kakashi explains. “I’m going to hit you with your teammates. You’re sparring before today’s mission. Here.” She finds a wooden sword suddenly appearing in her hands.

No, that’s not accurate. It’s more like she catches it out of nowhere without even knowing it was there. “And I’ll take that.” Kakashi uses the moment and her shock to take her crappy sword from her. “I’m going to go return this, since you clearly forgot. When I return in an hour with an actual sword, you better be worn out from your teammates' punches.”

“Understood, Kakashi Sensei.” She has to resist a salute, as he takes off whistling.

The wind in her hair, her feet firmly on the ground, her wooden sword in her hands and her eyes fully focused on her raven haired teammate; Sakura is scared.

Her hands shake, her boots feel too loose, her new armored equipment feels too heavy and her tunnel vision is screaming at her internally.

He’s better than her, she knows that. She wasn’t here to set up traps, she doesn’t have a plan, and she’s entirely sure he can work around a wooden sword. She hasn’t been training jutsu or taijutsu or even kenjutsu against real people so she has no idea how this is going to work. Her breathing is uneven, her heart is beating in her ears, and Sasuke just moved like a lightning bolt. Focus, think - she hears the slight crunch of a leaf behind her, and she moves automatically into the motion Kakashi made her memorize. Spinning on her heel and putting her wooden sword up to deflect behind her. She instinctively lowers the wooden blade just enough to match a kick that sends her skidding across the grass even without losing her stance. The force makes her hands throb, echoes and vibrations hitting her core through her bones.

“Good.” Sasuke says, foot still outstretched, his dark eyes focused right on her emeralds. “You aren’t as bad as back in the academy.”

“I fear that I won’t be impressing you for long.” She huffs, trying to control her breathing and calm the shaking of her hands. She knows he sees it, why isn’t he criticizing her?

“I don’t care.” He admits, lowering his foot and palming a kunai. He spins it with the ring in his fingers, giving it his attention over her. “You’re improving. With our team goals, that’s all that matters.”

“Team goals?” She can’t help but ask, racking her brain for when the hell that came up. It’s not like she’s been here every waking moment, but she has been here some while asleep, so she should know what he’s talking about. The fact that he doesn’t makes her nose scrunch, and she can’t help but notice the eagerness to Sasuke’s figure.

He’s shaking too, but not out of fear.

Naruto shouts out for her. He’s got a dozen gender altered clones with pigtails in cheerleading outfits cheering her on. It’s cute and makes her blush, even if it’s too stupid for her to give much attention. She can feel the way the air moves around her, he’s going to move soon, and she needs to intercept it.

Now.

Her step forward and slash is just in time for him to dart towards her. Their distance was great, but he’s incredibly fast, meaning that by the time her follow through is completed he’s had to jump to the side entirely. A kunai is thrown at her side, and she deflects it without even looking at it. Her hands move on their own, the blade of her wooden sword catching the ring of the kunai as it passes. Her next move is instinctive too, she spins just enough to get a nice additional motion to the sword, and she uses that attack to send the kunai flying back at him just as he charges at her.

All around, she’s not sure how badass that looked, but she really hopes Kakashi is secretly taping this so she can check. 

Thunk

“Gah-”

Thud

Her blinking at his form on the ground is only as awkward as Naruto’s cheering getting louder.

“What?” She can't help but ask, as he pushes himself off the dirt, a kunai embedded very seriously in his arm.

“That was awesome.” Also not the feedback she was expecting. “How’d you use enough force to knock me over?”

“I ate my wheaties.” She shrugs.

Just in time for him to glare at her and for the tone to shift in an instant.

He darts in and she is barely able to block one punch, block a second, and have to jump back before a kick would crush her ribs and send her out of the fight. Possibly the day. She’s pretty sure Sasuke’s not supposed to go that hard.

She’s also pretty sure she pissed him off. Was that not okay?

Talk shit, get hit? She thought he’d appreciate the joke!

Another kick lands right where she just was, her body only barely dodging to the side and sending her onto the ground. Rolling over is just well timed enough to get out of the way of a downwards kick that breaks the ground and kicks up dirt. “Shit!”
Yeah she pissed him off.

She throws her sword up so she can use both her hands to push her up when she rolls over. She has to use all her strength, which sends her a little in the air, which means flipping to get her orientation correctly. She manages to catch her sword on its way down, but not in time to avoid a kick to the side of the head that sends her spinning. She tastes iron, a little copper, and far too much rage to control herself.

She’s never been hit that hard before.
Not once.
Kakashi’s definitely holding back, and that makes her more angry than it should.

She manages to stay standing after her feet touch the ground and skid, just barely, blinking bleary tears from her eyes and ignoring the sting just as his foot tries to imbed itself in her face again. She barely has time to adjust her footing, sidestepping the kick, and slam the sword into the bottom of his knee. It’s enough to hear a crack, and more than enough to stun him.

He’s better than her. That much is clear.

What he’s not, is used to taking a hit.

She’s learned to do that pretty well recently. 

She takes his moment of being stunned to dart forward the small distance between his knee and his face, raising the sword, and smashing his nose with the handle of the sword.

The crunch she hears is definitely way too far for a spar, Kakashi’s gonna be pissed.

In her defense, Sasuke started it. Hot blood splashes her face and covers her arm, and she can’t help but feel really bad watching him squirm on the ground. He’s leaking like a pissy octopus, and she can’t help but look to Naruto for help.

“Sorry, Sasuke.” She finds herself slurring, her own words half gargled. She reaches up, and she’s bleeding a lot more than he is.

Her entire mouth is pouring.

“Kakashi’s gonna be pissed.” She groans. That’s a tooth. Who the fuck kicks their teammate that hard?

“Okay, now that we’ve all received medical attention.” Kakashi glares at them with his domineering single eye, but she can’t help but smile so brightly. Her smile’ll be better tomorrow, she’s sure, she’s not looking forward to explaining how her tooth is back.

She doesn’t care that she’s got a big fang missing, she’s super giddy. “Kicked Sasuke’s ass.” She is so proud of herself.
And oddly enough.

“You did.” Sasuke is too. “Sorry about that, you surprised me.”

“I noticed.” She titters.

She was gonna spar Naruto next, but uh… Ow. She is sad she didn’t gain any skill points from that, but she can’t get something every time she swings a sword. She’s sure she gained tons of experience towards Con, Agi, and Dex though.

“Sakura, here is a real sword.” Kakashi says as he hands her something incredible.

The bright red tassel tips her off, as does the dark red scabbard. It’s a rather plain design, but it’s one she recognizes easily. She unsheathes a blade, admiring how it's practically glowing with blood red markings and glowing symbols all the way from its tip down to a little before the two handed handle. It requires her full grip, and she has to admire it with a few swings quicker than reason would dictate for such a big sword.

“Did you get me the chaos blade?” She can’t help but ask, her cheeks hotter than a summer day, the flames spreading down her neck aggressively. “This is way too much…” She gulps, it looks so professional. It’s not just custom made to fit an iconic weapon from an iconic game.

It looks master crafted, and she can feel its weight in her hand like it’s an extension of herself. It feels good, really good. Incredible. “Why do you have this?”

She knows he didn’t get it for her, she showed up with a sword yesterday and having a custom made blade of this quality would take weeks at the least. Months even?

“I have my ways.” He winks at her with his one lone eye, and for once instead of annoyance at it she can’t help but feel a little spark of worship. “Now you have it. Be careful, I hear it’s thirsty.”

“Haha, Kakashi…” She has to wipe away some tears that threaten to flow from her, for the second time today, though this time is very different. “I’ll make you proud.”

“I’m sure you will.” He reaches out, and pats her, unable to miss the way she flinches even while smiling like a loon and holding his gift. “I should lay off on the smacks, huh.” He decides quickly. “Ready for your second D rank mission?”

“You mean my first?” She jokes.

“Yes.”

“I was going to ask for a C rank mission, since you all did so well last time.” Kakashi says, while holding out their D rank document for them. “But since I can’t trust you to spar without ending up in the hospital, I don’t want to know what happens when you fight bandits.”

Sakura wishes that wasn’t fair. Unfortunately as she’s learned a lot recently, reality doesn’t work that way. “I defended myself.” Sakura huffs, unable to look Kakashi in the eyes as she spouts some bullshit.

“I got a little carried away.” She really doesn’t like Sasuke being so agreeable.
Really scares her. “But she definitely broke my nose on purpose.”

“I mean, yeah but…” Her cherry cheeks are not helpful to her level of portrayed confidence.

“So a D rank mission, so we can train in some teamwork and basic respect.” Kakashi says. “It is only your second day as an actual team, it’s understandable.”

It’s not. They fucked up, bad, and Kakashi is being really nice. She mopes in being in the wrong, and reads their mission.

“We need to open a pickle jar?” She asks. “A jar.”

“It’s a hard job.” Kakashi says.

“So do we need to use a special technique or…” Naruto asks.

“Just a really tight jar.” Kakashi denies. “It’s enough of a pain that she paid for a D rank mission, so expect a fight.”

“... A jar?” Sasuke agrees with them in the only way possible.

Pure befuddlement.

“Do-do-dooo!” Kakashi is skipping behind them with all the childlike glee and wonder of Naruto in a candy store. He finds the concept of them coming all the way out here for a jar that exciting, that while they trudge like half dead corpses, he could not be happier without coming off cartoonish. He even has his own little jingle he keeps whistling and mumbling whenever they so much as look at him.

“This is ridiculous.” Sasuke grunts, glaring at the air in front of them like it insulted him personally.

“I bet it’s gonna be a really hard conquest.” Naruto is ever optimistic. “I bet she has multiple jars, and each one is harder than the last. Like some kind of jar based trial.”

“I wish I shared your enthusiasm.” Is all she can say. “But that’d be illegal, since she clarified one jar.”

“Not true.” Kakashi says. “Lying about the mission details is not a crime.”

“Wha-”

“It’s to prevent forgetful old ladies and terrified people with bad memories from being punished, and to stop ninja from abandoning missions if things go a little off plan.” Kakashi explains. “Mission details are to help you decide to do the mission, and to help you prepare for the mission. It’s only a crime when the omitted or lied about detail changes the rank of the mission.”

“Ah…” She can understand that, kind of.
Sounds kind of dumb though. Who buys a mission without being sure what the mission is?

“Part of your job on a mission is evaluating what you actually have to do, and determining if the mission is within the boundaries of that mission class.” Kakashi continues cheerfully. “It’s why you write reports. The village trusts you, you’re its private ninja, the village doesn’t trust them.”

“Does that mean Anbu don’t write reports?” Sakura asks.

“I hear they do-” Kakashi seems rather befuddled by everyone’s immediately snickering, but continues anyway “- but only to ensure the Hokage and direct superiors share all that important information from the super important mission. The reports are burned quickly thereafter, to prevent identities from being leaked if the stack of paperwork is ever discovered.”

“Right.” Sakura teases, “that makes sense, you totally just figured that out and heard about it.”

“I did.” He defends. “I heard that with my own ears.”

None of them decide to finish that sentence, specifically the part about how it was from the Hokage when learning about his new job.

“How many is a C rank?” Sakura asks.

“How many what?” Kakashi asks.

“How many jars before it’s a C rank?” She continues.

“...”

“It’s my job to evaluate, how many jars, Kakashi?”

Their sensei dead sprints away, causing them to run after him shouting “How many jars!!”

Things make a lot more sense once they get to the house. They’re met outside by an older lady with hair so gray it’s white, enough wrinkles to make a tree look smooth, and a cane that she’s putting most of her weight on. The house behind her is massive, and shows off a lot of wealth, wealth that Sakura can’t find the ‘how’ for. This isn’t a farm, it’s really outside town so there’s no way she’s a merchant, and there’s no evidence of hired employees or family anywhere around. In fact, if there were hired employees - implicating some business - she likely wouldn’t have hired them.

All this to say, an old lady alone in the woods with a lot of money hired them for something simple.

That makes sense, that’s what a D rank is supposed to be.

Sakura finds herself equal parts disappointed, and relieved. No flaming potatoes today. They chased her for a while, Naruto was not efficient at stopping their onslaught and Sasuke’s fire was meaningless.

Following the woman in, she’s clearly not hiring them just for a social moment as she leads them right to this demon jar. The jar of no-opening, the enchanted Plus three jar of never release. Some use glue, some use friction, and some use magic.

What’ll it be? No one knows!
She does, it’s friction. But she could be wrong! And that idea is very exciting. Naruto jumps right at the jar, while she tries to calm the customer with her potent social skills. “So, where are your kids?”

“Dead.” She rolled a nat one! She did it everybody!

“Dead as in, err, to you? Like-”

“Eaten alive by ferocious beasts.” The woman says quickly while someone bangs the jar around behind her. The objective was to open the jar, not shatter it, but the client isn’t speaking up so it’s not her job to stop them.

“Well that’s just sad.” Low charm or not, she’s pretty sure this one isn’t her fault, just bad luck. So she gives a sheepish laugh, rubs the back of her now smooth hair as of this morning, and cringes when she hears a glass thunk and kunai tear through flesh. She spins on a dime to see Naruto bent over on the floor out of breath and laughing at the last Uchiha like he just saw the funniest thing ever.

She gets why. “Sasuke, why?” She observes the now bleeding boy, observes his arm, observes the exact same spot she stabbed him earlier and notes the exact same kunai is embedded there again. He should probably throw that one away, it’s the friendly fire Kunai.

 She then stares at the undefeated jar that just assaulted him with his own kunai.

“I thought the kunai ring would shatter the glass.” He admits, blade still stuck in his arm. To his credit, he barely seems to notice it. “Naruto, wasn’t getting it.”

“Naruto, go clean Sasuke up in wherever this woman’s bathroom is.” She orders, and doesn’t think much of it when they both run off. Kakashi has his eye on her, but that’s okay. She’s been the limelight of his attention a lot recently.

“Please do not sword the jar.” Kakashi feels the need to say as she approaches it.

“I’m not stupid, Kakashi.” She snickers, while immediately moving onto Plan B. She settles her fingers on the jar, and gets a faint quirk of Kakashi’s fierce gaze when the lid begins to spin. She barely has to channel her chakra at all, isn’t even sure how she’s doing it until she takes a moment to pay attention and feel it flowing around.

Click.

Pop.

She lifts the jar up, admiring how her chakra has it stuck to her fingers, and smiles brightly as the old lady claps for her.

“Now I can eat my pickles!”

It’s a dumb victory, she can’t say she’s proud of herself, or that she made a significant impact on anyone’s life. But she did figure out a new technique.

She can now provide downward force, magnetic force, and swirling force with her chakra, and it really only took a few seconds to figure out all three. Two Hundred Control is no joke.

Now if only she knew how to explain that to Kakashi without sounding actively crazy.

Shit.

Chaos Blade
Epic

A blade that gets stronger the more awake and alive the user is.
It feeds off its users strength, meaning prolonged use could result in untimely demise.
Should be used with furious badassness, and excessive caution.

It’s thirsty.

 

Friendly Fire Kunai

Uncommon

Some say this Kunai thirsts for blood, but it’s actually just owned by a moron.

Chapter Text

"The next mission for Team 7 is, an errand to the neighboring town... to baby-sit the chief councilor's boy." She hears the Hokage speak, and while she cringes inside at yet another boring D rank mission, she can't deny that it's probably wise. It's only been a month since she and Sasuke put each-other in the hospital over a friendly spar, it's not like they can be trusted. Doesn't stop her from failing to hold in her disappointment in her air flow, but that's the price of being her.

"Enough! I want to do something exciting! We already did a C rank mission, remember, we can handle something like that!" Naruto shouts. His hand outstretches and points right to the Hokage.

"You fool, you're still bottom rookie, everyone moves up the ladder by gaining experience with simple missions!" Iruka of all people shouts, slamming his hands on the desk and standing right up to growl at them all in the instructor way he's known for.

Sadly for him, they're not his students anymore. They don't have to care, and she doesn't.

"But we've gotten experience, Sakura's not even wearing the same outfit anymore!" Naruto shouts. "That's development!"

She is in fact, not wearing the same outfit anymore. A fact that suddenly makes her rather self conscious as everyone looks at her. It's still pink, she wanted to keep that. Her bubblegum aesthetic is bright and happy and makes her feel good about herself when she looks in the mirror. But a long cloth almost skirt has been replaced with bright shorts and long armored mesh leggings. They came in fishnet or actual chainmail, and she figured fishnet was better because who the fuck wears chainmail openly as a design choice? Her shoes are of much higher quality, and her top, while still flowing over a little, has been changed to wear the Uzumaki, Uchiha, and Haruno crest in a triangle on her back and front.

She wasn't aware that the Uzumaki had a damn crest until she went to the library for a day with Naruto and he decided he wanted to learn about his past family. Apparently having a family now made him really want to know, so here she is, wearing the past sins and achievements of his family just like she does hers.

Her family crest? It's nothing special, it's a leaf with a carriage. They used to be merchants apparently, and when they switched over to ninjas to protect their home they kept the idea. She's vibrant, she's bubblegum, she's supportive of her teammates. A glance at Sasuke says he wants a better mission too. They've gotten so much better, and not just in skill. They've had an entire extra month of paychecks come in, and the quality of her gear has gotten a ton better if nothing else. There's not a single thing she wears today that she owned last month, besides her Chaos blade at her side.

She's found it actually does drain her life to use it. There's a lot of cool factors to it. Kakashi got her an actual magic sword, and by kami's word she intends to fucking use it!
"Naruto, let me enlighten you to the nature of missions." The Hokage says. "Requests pour into the village every day. They range from babysitting, to assassinations... A wide spectrum of requests are recorded on the request list-"

The Hokage continues explaining the rules of the universe to her teammate while she checks on her equipment, idly listens in on Naruto talk about his ramen order - she'll be joining him for it so it's kinda important - and thinks back on a conversation a couple weeks ago. It's technically rude to ignore the Hokage, but she already knows all this, and so should he actually since he passed the academy.

Team goals, Sasuke had said them so offhandedly, he expected her to know.
She didn't, and she was too afraid to ask and reveal that she'd slept through whatever lecture. It wasn't until she managed to corner Kakashi alone after training one day that she got an answer.

They're going to kill Itachi. She didn't know who that was, but they all agreed - her included - they'd help Sasuke murder some random dude. Naruto had probably misunderstood, she wasn't awake, and now they have an objective.

Looking into this man, they stand no chance. Sleeping or in full fighting gear, it doesn't matter to Itachi, the fight would go exactly the same. He would actually prefer they be ready for the fight because that'd be less walking from house to house.

But that's okay. Itachi's a missing nin, and without the help of a village, missing ninja don't tend to get better. They still can, they'll get stronger, and one day they'll kill a man she hadn't even heard of until not too long ago. It's sad she still has Sasuke Trivia Expert and not its enhanced version, but she's been talking to him more, she's been supportive, and she really thinks she's making ground.

She's been wrong about Sasuke for years. He's not an asshole.
He's an idiot hiding it by staying quiet. She has two idiots on her team, they're her idiots.
Hence the crest. That's the real reason she was assigned to this team, because she's an idiot too. At least social, and they're all supposed to become people together… Or at least one moderately functional person.

"Huh? Listen!" The Hokage shouts, while Naruto rambles about lunch.

And it occurs to her. No one was paying attention. Not even Kakashi. They might be in trouble.

"Maaaaan, you always lecture me, old man!" Naruto says. "But I'm not some little prankster like you think, we already did a C rank, give us a C rank! We didn't even need Kakashi's help."

"You destroyed an entire farm field." Kakashi points out.

"The farm field was attacking!" Naruto argues.
Sakura pulls a drink from her pouch, and has a sip. Fizzy and orange. Is it good? No, don't store soda in a flask, that's dumb. It makes her look distinguished though.

"Man, I'm gonna get scolded later for this." Kakashi sighs as he rubs the back of his head. Her gaze focuses on those fingers, she's found anytime he's doing something there's a secondary purpose. Kakashi never just does something. Her parents were right, he could probably teach her to breathe better.

Sadly she can't determine the reason for this action.

"Okay, fine!" The Hokage shouts with dignity only the hat could give.

"Huh?" It's not just Sakura.
Sasuke and Naruto all look up.

"If you insist, I'll have you do a C rank mission." The Hokage announces. "But it's gonna be terrible."

"I like terrible things." Sakura shrugs.

"Terrible does sound amusing at least." Sasuke agrees.

"Go terrible!" Naruto jumps in the air and throws a fist up.

"Gonna get scolded so much." Kakashi complains.

They find their charge, passed out outside of a bar, covered in piss. It's not exactly a dignified place for him to be, but his mission is in an odd place. It's long term so it's a C rank, and there is some danger, but it's mostly just an easy but long mission. This means people capable of doing C rank missions have turned it down because they'd rather have something quicker, and those not capable of doing D ranks weren't assigned it.
They're officially an in-between.

"This is who we're guarding?" Sakura asks, kicking the man on the ground. He rolls over just in time to vomit in response. "Really, this is our reward?"

"He needs guarding." Kakashi shrugs.

"Looks like he really, really, needs guarding." Sasuke quips. "Does anyone know a quick trick to get sober?"

"He's doing it." Kakashi points. "He'll be sober in a bit."

"It looks like he's projectile vomiting." Naruto's face turns a little green at the statement, looking away.

"Exactly, he's sobering up." Kakashi says. "I have a friend inside I should meet with. Someone get him cleaned up while I do that."

Sakura groans and rolls her eyes while Kakashi disappears, leaving the hard work to them as always. "Come on Naruto, it's not the first time we've been tasked with taking care of a drunk person." Her hands land on the guy and pull him back so he's sitting up at least. The man burps, before emptying his guts a little more. "Clean him up real quick." She orders. She lets go to palm her face, while her teammate gets right to it. He's gotten incredible this past month.

But so has she.
It's been a month, and she doesn't even feel like the same person.

She's worked her cute tush off every day. Spars that haven't ended up in the hospital, training with her gear, sleeping well, training with her sword, training with her practice sword.
Endless exercise, endless socializing - well for her at least it felt endless it was really more like a full conversation a day which is nuts - and so much more.

She hasn't had time to train techniques really, it's been fully the basics from sun up to sun down - and the odd game of course - and she feels better for it. She's also super happy they have a mission now and she gets to take a break. Her switch is held soundly in her pouch, and she's so excited she gets to use it!

She has gained a few traits and skills though.
She's happy about those.

Sadly she's still pretty far behind on Charm so she's not sure if there's a set bonus, but she's happy to be here so she doesn't have much to complain about there. The Constitution in particular makes her smile, and genin Chakra is really nice. Specifically, the part about equipment. Her Chaos Blade wasn't active until she got it, but holy hell is it active now.

She intends to use it on this mission.

It's not all amazing, but it is progress. Great progress.
Time to go kill Ita-wait, no, time to escort a drunk.

It's with her footsteps on the path that the warning appears. She has to look up from her Switch, and she dies in-game, but that's fine. Using a game mid-mission means she'll have to pause or blatantly drop it sometimes. She's a professional now, she won't miss things for the pause button.

She kinda wishes she'd missed this notification though. That's a terrible sign, but at least they're not going very far from the village. She can handle some basic Academy student level random encounters-

It's with a splash at her feet that her attention is drawn down. She's standing directly in a muddle puddle, and not one that's surface deep. It feels like it goes on forever, and only her skills and traits let her stand on the side of it and not get sucked deep in. "Ewww, I think there was something meaty in this." She rubs her foot a bit in the puddle, trying to wipe it off. "It's thick… Wait, it hasn't rained in…"

"Sakura, you're holding us up." Kakashi calls out to her.

"Right, sorry." She rushes after them.

They come for her. She's not sure what she did to piss these two off, but after a bright and brilliant display where Kakashi totally gets caught off guard by something she noticed - yep, uh-huh, not hiding in the trees at all - a chain made of shuriken appears in mid air flying towards her. She knows, analytically, that it's attached to something, but all she can see is blade and she doesn't have time to think about it.

Her skills don't activate, so it's not Genin level. That doesn't stop Genin Agility. She goes from standing to back first in the dirt in less than a second, and the chain passes over her. Jumping to her feet, she jumps away from everyone else and finds it comes back for her. Naruto and Sasuke are guarding Tabini, or, uh, Takuno, or, no, their drunk. Naruto and Sasuke are watching their new drunk, so getting away from them while the fight is focusing on her is the correct move. So she jumps back, again, and again, and before long she's made enough distance to see the two monsters chasing her. She keeps up the distance for just long enough-

She reads their bingo book entry in less than a second, her abilities really kicking into gear and letting her take in information like she's a savant. Their clawed gauntlets are poisoned, those chains can disconnect their links if needed, and both are specifically focused on fighting together.

She genuinely isn't that intimidated. It's not that they're weak. Despite the statement about it being a genin boss fight, she's sure they're chunin.
But they're also missing nin. They're defects, and they're in the wrong damn country.

She draws her sword, and charges.

"Idiot." She hears one chide her as they get close, planning to wrap around her and her sword and tear her to bits. Her sword glows a vibrant red, blood flowing from her hand and flowing up its sigils. The stench of copper fills the air in a way that once again gives away that Kakashi isn't dead. It should already smell like death, but it doesn't.

It smells like righteous fury. She goes right through the chain. Her sword doesn't even count it as a hit. The blood glows brighter as she moves onward, turning around to face them confidently as they realize their chain is dragging on the ground and slowing them down. Not a nick in her sword, just suddenly scared chunin mooks. She grins brightly, her bubblegum aesthetic playing very oddly with the bright red glow of a demonic blood sacrifice.

That doesn't stop them from charging. "Sasuke!" She shouts, and Meizu jumps to the side to avoid a fireball.

She's not worried about it. It's a genin attack. She charges through the fireball without an ounce of hesitation. Flames at her heels, clothes igniting, sword catching the chakra and sucking some of it up as her blood turns to charcoal on her blade. He's not expecting her on the other side, still halfway through the air with wide eyes. "You crazy bi-" He doesn't get to finish his sentence.

Her sword replaces his vocal cords too quickly, and her grin stains crimson before his corpse parts hit the ground. Ninja fights are all about moments like that. Kenjutsu for a ninja isn't like a normal sword fight, it's about becoming an opportunity and cutting a path true and hidden. Her skin hurts, her clothing is a little worse for wear, but she's standing on her toes watching the remaining brother stare with wide eyes and an agape mouth at the still falling remains of what was once a person.

She takes a step towards him with a vicious grin, and finds he chases towards her in a blind fury. "Naruto." She orders, and he finds himself surrounded by a hundred clones in an instant.
A hundred clones which hold him down just long enough for her to drag her sword across the ground. It scrapes with every step, loudly echoing a damned sentiment. The man claws clones left and right while she approaches, fear in his eyes fully realized as he grasps there's more clones than there is distance.

She lifts the sword at the held down man, her eyes glowing a bright red, and the world filled with lust for chaos sees a dark eclypse.
The sword drops.

"I don't really know what that was about." Kakashi admits. "I felt for sure they were targeting Tazuna, but they wouldn't leave you alone. I guess it really wasn't about him."

"I'm too pretty to ignore." She excuses, knowing damn well it was a random encounter. "At least our charge is safe."

"We'll have to take a look when we get back to the village." Kakashi says. "Ask around and make sure you're not wanted somewhere for some reason."

"I can look." Sasuke offers.
A month ago she might have hugged him for offering genuine help out of nowhere. It's so out of character she'd want to make sure he still wasn't into her. Now, it's just normal Sasuke, well, with caveats.

With that, Sakura mouths a silent apology to Tazuna for bringing her crazy into his life, and gets ready for a long journey. It should be fine from here though, right?

It's not like the encounters scale that quickly, it's only a couple days of walking.
She couldn't go anywhere if it scaled that rapidly. That'd be stupid.

Chapter Text

"This is stupid." Sakura thought the fact that they had to sneak into the village under a fog while being silent on a ship was kind of weird, but then being stealthy is good for bodyguarding someone so she hadn't said anything against it. The mist had felt nice in her hair, and she'd managed to sit around and go over basic tactics with Naruto and Sasuke while Kakashi kept an eye out. Tactics have become a passtime for them. It's given her time to correct certain problems, like Naruto thinking Chakra is pronounced Chatora. Chatora.
She repeats. Cha-tora. He graduated from the Academy. Being the best student in the Academy suddenly became meaningless because he passed while others failed.

A boy who didn't know how Chakra was defined passed the same test she aced. It's like finding out you're king of the idiots when you think you're a genius!

It makes sense though, ninja can't have a crazy high bar or there wouldn't be enough ninja. It just hurt to find out. Without her stats to prove she's smart she might have gone into a crisis over it. When Sasuke played along and pretended he didn't know how to pronounce it either, she almost drew her blade.

Back to the really stupid, that's not it, this is even dumber she's just easily distracted while panicking.

The fact that the hair that had burned off is back and the burns covering her skin from jumping through one of Sasuke's fireballs is fixed did seem to bother, well, everyone, but it wasn't the first time and no one had questioned it then either. A ninja is allowed to have secrets.

This is bullshit.

Naruto had almost killed a bunny, jealously trying to show off to her after she took charge during her previous fight. She hadn't even had time to really yell at him, before Kakashi's words clicked in her ears. "Get down!" He'd shouted, and for some reason, all she could think about were her boys behind her. She could hit the ground, but could they without Genin Agility?

Her heart pumping and her adrenaline coursing; she drew her sword and gave her all to block the force against them. It came from the sky, a masterwork blade sent to behead her and everyone with her. It was so huge, just its spin had her weapon grinding against it hard enough for sparks to fly. She knew she was losing though, even with the reflexive blood loss from the Chaos blade's activation, she was barely holding herself up against it. So she did something Kakashi told her not to do without good reason. She channeled more. She bled into the blade, begged for its power and let out a scream as agony racked her body from head to toe. Sipping her life force, it came to life in the split second between calling it and finding her target. This lesser, giant, needless sword crashing against hers.

Only half a second had passed but she'd let out a battlecry and she wasn't going to hold back when she had no way of knowing if Naruto and Sasuke had fallen to the ground behind her. No, it was up to her, and her vision saw red.

For all of that second. Before the titan of a weapon still forcing itself against her glowed. She barely had time to see what was going on, before the blood sucked right from her weapon into it. "Wha-"

She didn't even get a half a second to figure out what just happened, before she was gone.
Mission failed, and she didn't even have time to realize it and check on the boys before she couldn't see them anymore.
She felt bushes tear through her on the way back, the momentum kept her going through them like they were simply paper in the way. She felt grassy ground smacking against her feet, her attempts to stop herself by slamming her feet down meaningless against the insane momentum of the powerful attack. The world had kicked up, and just her feet trying to bleed off momentum destroyed her shoes within seconds and knocked enough dirt into the air to blind her.

Back to the present. The stupid bullshit.

"Fuaaa!" She doesn't get to grasp anything else.
Pure hatred flows through her, hatred and pain so great she can't comprehend it. Her vision goes white, red, black, and blue all at once. Her sense of color is destroyed in the moment it takes her to realize she's not blocking anymore and is instead slammed against a tree by her back.

It's not a flash of pain, that'd be exaggerating in the wrong way. Her barely lucid moments are so painful her vast vocabulary lacks a word for it. She doesn't know where it hurts, she can't tell, the system that tells her that information has left the building and dropped the keys in the trash on the way out.

It doesn't end. Ninja are trained to take pain and to block it out. Every Academy student knows how to ignore a punch, and by genin you can handle a pretty deep stab or cut with a kunai without locking up. She once blocked out the pain of Kakashi breaking her nose and took a nap in Naruto's arms. She invited Naruto into her home, she saw him get a mother, she saw him learn from a father. She saw that mother learn his nuances, and comfort him time and time again when he wasn't sure if he belonged in any given moment.

It's a faint smile at the fond memory that allows her eyes to close-
And then shoot the fuck back open as she realizes what that is, her recent life flashing through her eyes while she gives up at her core. "I refuse." She manages to get out, or at least she thinks she does between all the screaming. Her head pounds and she manages to blink through the tears to get a moment of her surroundings.

She hears the clashing of kunai, screams - those are hers -, Naruto's shouting something and Kakashi's barking commands. Naruto's alive, that's good, and since he's not catatonic she can assume Sasuke's still alive too.

She locks them out of her brain, they're her idiots but they're also her greatest distraction and her focus is fading really fast.

It's not in her shoulders, that'd be reasonable from the jar of trying to block that and failing, but it's not there. It's not from her back, that'd make sense having smashed into a tree full force, but it's not there either. It's when her hands land on a pool of her blood and the sparky power of the Chaos blade that she realizes exactly what it is.

Her sword is in her stomach, flaring to life and using her life force as power against her. A cool idea she'll need to try sometime against a superior enemy, but also a death sentence. She needs that out, and she needs it out now. Fuck conventional medical wisdom, she will die.

She bites her lip hard enough to draw blood just to try and distract herself, unable to do anything but whimper. That is until she hears another scream - this one not hers - and her desire to get back up and fight wins out over her overwhelming inner desire to give up and fade from this.

She'd thought the demon twins had made a lot of blood, and to be fair she had cut them both in half so they certainly did, but seeing a weak idiot taken down mostly by Naruto - she'd really only done the stabbing a held down person part - dead on the ground and seeing her own blood trail off far enough in the distance it disappears into the bushes… Well, they're different experiences.

She reaches around her to get her bandages and a chakra pill. It might not help much later, but the energy would be really helpful right now. That's what she tries to do anyway, before she realizes it's impossible. A quick look shows her why.

Her sword isn't 'inside her stomach,' her blade is speared through her and halfway into the damn tree behind her. Her pack is speared with it, making it impossible to slip it off or move and she's too crammed against it to cut it off using the stuck weapon. "If I get through this, haah, I'm getting a front pocket, and I'm putting medical supplies there!"

Her only saving grace is that the Chaos Blade is her weapon, which means it's only been one fourth the damage because of Kenjutsu Moderate. That's not a comforting thought, but it is helpful information. This'd suck four times more for anyone else. She quickly vows to force this on whoever did this to her.

She feels like she's on death's doorstep. If it had been anything else, well, she doesn't wanna think about it. Pulling up her stat sheet, she's happy to report she has about twenty health. Which is - nevermind, nineteen, it's lowering - more than enough for her to try and figure this out. She has a max of ninety six right now, which means she took almost eighty damage there. Just a month ago, she'd be dead right now.

"The only health point that matters is the last one." She grunts, while wondering about something very important. How does this HP thing work? She hasn't had a lot of chances to test it, or, more like she hasn't been insane enough to test it. Jumping through fire to freak out Sasuke, training new techniques, cutting herself on accident with Kenjutsu, none of that's given her a definitive answer.

If she pulls the sword out of her, will she bleed to death?
Eighteen life. She doesn't really have much of a choice. "Ghaa! Bullshit!" She shouts as the weapon inside her charges meaninglessly. She's really hopeful it doesn't do some kind of giant laser attack if it sucks enough of her blood. Leaning forward and lodging the piece into her a little strongly, so she can get at the hilt. "Fuck…" She pushes it away, and she does have some success, but that brings about another issue.

Now she has to lean more forward to push it.
And more. Every single inch another cause of agony, and another moment that might be killing her. She remembers basic first aid, there's a reason every ninja has to have bandages on them.
This is the dumbest idea ever, but while her hyperactive sword is inside her, she is going to die. Her team is too distracted by whatever the hell that was, and it's that thought that pushes her forward.

"Guh-okay, just-"
It's with another push that the overly long sword is out of the tree, the scrape rending wood well. She's grateful the weapon is so sharp or she'd be kinda screwed. allowing her to weakly push herself to her feet. Standing up allows her to push the sword out in a very different way, using gravity. Unfortunately, her life force likes following gravity too, and she feels the warmth overtake her feet just as the sword hits the ground completely. She holds one hand to the wound, and turns a little to try to get at her pack now that it's not stuffed under both the weapon and tree.

It's too much. "Okay I just need-" That's all she gets before she finds herself on the floor of a forest, forgetting her own name. Blearily, she tries to make out reality, she tries to save herself.
She tries to get through this now that the hard part is over. She can't. The adrenaline that coursed through her to get this far left with what little blood she had left to lose when the sword clattered helplessly to the ground. At least she knows she's one with the sword, as she mimed it just a second later. "Just a little more…" She mumbles to herself, watching her HP hit eight without anything she can do. None of her words reach her brain, and none of her desires or fears hit her body.

She got the sword out, now she's going to die. Question answered; yes, she will bleed to death.
Tears fill her eyes all over again, and she feels something touch her. It's vague, frozen.
It's so cold…

From what little her eyes can see, there's a mask peering over her. A white mask, with a red tendril around the middle. "Don't take me." She begs the specter peering over her in her final moments. "Not like it matters what I say." Against her will, her eyes close, and all she can do is hope the demon that has come for her soul is merciful.

Her dreams are filled with bloodshed and agony. The moment is so real even now that she replays it over and over. She was stuck against that tree for maybe thirty seconds, and yet she's sure that even without the sharingan she'll never, ever, forget even a single detail of her death. She was an afterthought in someone else's battle. One bad call and her own power destroyed her. Why did the blood she'd given her sword get absorbed by the giant horse chopper?

She has no idea, but it doesn't matter.
She'd have to be alive for it to matter.

"It seems I've overused my Sharingan." She hears Kakashi's beautiful voice, as her eyes slowly open. She's in a strange place, with a wooden plank ceiling. She can hear birds outside, and the world is so warm right now. It's not worth paying attention to though, because Kakashi sounding exhausted is much more important. Specifically, Kakashi sounding anything except pissed she got herself killed is important. "It's too bad I can't regenerate, unlike a certain someone."

"I died." She finds herself softly mumbling. "This isn't regeneration, this is some kind of unholy, possession kinda thing. People are supposed to die when they are killed. Am I a shitty ghost now? Was I ever alive?" Her thoughts race as her heart does. She doesn't give herself even a moment to take in the fresh smells of being alive before the panic from the dreams hits her at full force.

"Stop complaining about living." Kakashi scolds her, and she nuzzles her pillow with her full face, holding back tears and a retort in the same way one resists an angry 'I hate you' at their father. "Some of us have to deal with consequences."

"... Yeah, sorry." Letting your fellow ninja keep their secrets is a common rule of thumb in a ninja village. Even your students. The first time Kakashi noticed her healing was after Sasuke knocked her tooth out. She'd genuinely thought he was going to pin her down and torture information out of her, he hadn't. He'd just said when she was ready to tell them what was up, he'd be happy to listen.

Now, she's pretty sure she owes him an explanation. But not right now, now, this pillow is so comfy, and this world is so warm and real and not super fucking dead! Who knew not dying when you die felt good! "Who saved me?" She asks. "From the ground I mean, someone had to collect me."

"It was a ninja tracking unit." Kakashi says, using a hand to sit up and stare at her with his one good eye. "They bandaged you up… You didn't die."

"That's good news," Sakura mumbles. She has a hard time letting her joy cut through it all and hit her voice, let alone feeling it internally, but she is happy. She has to be. "I'm not a zombie."

"I wouldn't be so sure, with wounds like that, you should have died." He says. "Being undead would be less of a surprise to me than whatever the actual reason for all this probably is. Who would have thought Sasuke would be the normal one on team seven." He actually shivers at the thought. "You're troublesome."

"Sorry." She apologizes yet again, while he stretches a little. Reaching towards the air, and wiggling his body ever so gently.

"I think it'll be hard to move here for the next week." He admits. "I don't know what's up with this mission, but Jonin aren't supposed to just appear out of thin air."

"Yeah…" Her blood runs cold at the thought. Is that what happened? Did she summon a random encounter so strong it almost got them killed? Are Naruto and Sasuke okay?

"And once again, the attacker immediately focused on trying to take you out of the fight." He says. "This time, he succeeded. You definitely have a bounty on your head."

"I can't imagine why." She sighs, finally sitting up to give him real attention, only to dive back under the covers a moment later with red cheeks. Her clothes had been ruined, they changed her clothes, but her pack was stabbed through! So she's in someone else's nighty, and it's not exactly designed for dignity. "Don't look!"

"I hadn't intended to." She can feel the eye roll behind his mask and headband. "I'm not in the habit of peeking at my vulnerable students, regardless of what you might think of me."

"That's not what I, I'm sorry." She admits, flushily simmering back into her pillow.

"I'm going back to bed." She hears him thunk into his roll out bed. "Go get breakfast or whatever, your teammates are making a mess without you there to clean up."

Secretly, she's happy for the excuse to bug out of this conversation.
Realistically, she knows damn well Naruto's got the cleaning covered.
She'll just have to stop and find better clothes before she gets there.

"Howwwww." It's Sasuke's oddly elongated word that hits her ears first as she enters the kitchen. There's a stew of sorts that fills her nostrils, and the sight of a whole group of people at the table makes her smile a little. There's a small boy, unremarkable except for his big ol fisherman hat and a pouty attitude. There's a dark haired woman, also pretty unremarkable, except for the fact that she wears lots of pink just like she does. It's nice to see someone agree on the color.

Then there's the bridge builder himself, who's looking a little boozed out - what else is new - and her team, totally staring at her like she's a ghost. It doesn't help that she's raided someone's room to get those new clothes and the obviousness of that has the woman glaring at her too. "It was revealing." She explains herself.

"It's still rude." The woman scolds, and her tone is just no nonsense enough Sakura looks away from her to focus back on her team. There's no winning that one, but there was no way in hell she was walking out here in that to ask permission. Maybe in front of Naruto now that he's calmed the hell down, but she saw the way Sasuke was looking at her after she killed those Chunin. She doesn't want his pervy awakening to be about her. She spent way too long fakely trying to get his attention to accidentally get it now.

"How." Sasuke repeats himself, giving her the one two stare of death. "You were basically dead just a few hours ago." He actually points at her midsection. "Now you look like you just got up from a soothing nap."

"I did, actually." She says, finding herself a seat real quick, before scrambling over to find a bowl for some of that stew while she's at it. "It was a very nice nap, very pleasant. Much wow."

"That's not what I mean." Sasuke growls.

"I know." She says, filling her bowl quickly with a ladle. What, the woman's not gonna scold her for serving herself too? That's unfair, she realizes after a moment. Doesn't make her irritation bubble away, just tells her she's being moody. She gets to be moody, she just died. "But I don't have a good answer for you."

"Could you give us any answer?" It's Naruto's unsure tone that catches her off guard, and lowers it completely after a long second. "Sakura, you've been acting really weird lately… Some of it good, like you know, the whole, taking me into your home thing." The dumb blond speaks up awkwardly, hands intertwined with themselves, rolling over each-other a bit. Fear of rejection is a common expression for him, and she can recognize it instantly now that she's seen it in its native environment. Normally this'd be about the time where her mom would swoop in and make things better. She's not here to tell either of them that it'll be alright.

Naruto's a lot more used to this than she is.
She wishes that wasn't true. "But some of it's really scary." Naruto continues. "Like how you killed those guys who attacked us. You said you knew Kakashi wasn't dead, but you still went right for the kill."

"What's your point?" She asks a little coldly, sitting down and picking up a spoon, now that she has a nice steamy bowl to coax her grumbly stomach into its normal function..

"You didn't have to kill them, Sakura." Naruto says.

"And when Kakashi killed them, what would have changed?" She asks. She takes a nice bite, remembering her previous anger and deciding to do something right. "Thank you, this is very good." She immediately compliments the woman before the taste even really hits her.

"You wouldn't have bloodied your hands." Naruto says. "Why were you so eager to bloody your hands?"

"Why do you care?" Sakura asks, quirking her brow with no small amount of piercing, hot irritation. "They weren't people, forget about them." It's the moment she says it that she realizes what she said. The truth is they weren't.

As random encounters they were made entirely for her to fight. Their entire life a story told in a bingo book just for her to indulge in before destroying them. They were given pointlessly elaborate mission histories, and cartoonishly evil deeds on their record. They were bad guys spawned for her to crush, and that makes sense to her. Her power delivered exp bags to her, and she cut them in half and claimed the spoils.

But there's no way to explain that without sounding mental. "I mean, by leaf rules." She quickly tries to save it, even while Naruto gawks and Sasuke looks at her with genuine concern. "Don't you remember, from the Academy? It's a lot easier if you don't think of enemy ninja as people. They're clever enemies you need to exterminate at all costs."

"I don't remember that vocab." Sasuke snarks immediately. "I think I'd remember that."

"I'm paraphrasing." Sakura defends, crossing her arms over her chest. For a second, before she remembers she needs her hand for food and her stomach is gurgling like whispering madness. "They're dead, we got some cool loot, and we moved on."

"Yeah that's another thing." Sasuke winces at her sudden snappy glare. "You're the only one that looted their corpses. Even Kakashi didn't wanna do that."

"..." She opens her mouth.
"..." Then she closes it.

"Who does that?" Sasuke asks. "You cut two guys in half in five seconds and your immediate thought was to go through their pockets."

"I found a good amount of cash in there." She defends.

"We're just worried about you." Naruto manages to articulate. "And confused."

"I kinda figured 'I will jump through your fireball' was a technique we were training for emergencies." Sasuke says. "I didn't think you were going to pull it out on our first fight like it was meaningless if you got hurt."

"To be fair, it was meaningless." She says. "I was fine after a nap."

"That doesn't mean I like watching my friend burn while covered in blood and guts." Sasuke points out harshly, anger vibrating in his tone like a raging fire only kept under wraps by respect for what she's recently been through. She'll have to have a very real conversation with him soon, both of them. Just, not now. "Some of that burning blood was yours. Why are you so willing to give yourself to that stupid sword?" Sasuke has no idea how right he is, holy crap, it murdered her recently. "I watched my family die, Sakura, and you're making me watch you die too." Lucky for him, she'll die just out of sight, attached to a tree by her stomach.

"I just…" She finds there's nothing left in her bowl when her spoon scrapes nothingness. "I think I need to go think." She says, getting up, and walking towards the door with footsteps eerily reminiscent of a corpse walking. She can hear wet thwacks and bloody squirts with every step, her struggle to fight back the haunted memory of what was making her stop dead in her tracks. Her eyes close to try and block out the sights overlaying in her vision from her dreams.

She has to fight back her own reality trying to catch up to her. It turns out full healing doesn't cure her from mental status effects like pissed off or traumatized, really cool of it, maybe at a higher level. For them it's been hours, for her, it was minutes ago. It's the sigh from Naruto that snaps her out of herself for a moment. So pained, so drained, so disappointed.

She plays mom.
She turns on a dime and hugs him from behind. She wraps an arm right around him, holds him as close as she can with the chair in the way, plays with his hair with one hand and gives him a gentle kiss on the cheek. At the hitch of his breath, she takes his hands in both of hers, abandoning her objective to stop something she hates.

She splits his hands apart, intertwines their fingers, and whispers in his ear.
"You're wanted, okay? Nothing is going to change that." His warmth is all that keeps her from shaking, and her warmth is what soothes him.

A month ago she'd hesitate to give him any intimacy, but he knows what this is. It's a perfect copy of many nights in their kitchen, him making some mistake and falling apart. To think he was that torn apart inside, and no one at the Academy ever noticed. She can't help but feel like some of that was intentional, just another broken idiot to forget about and move on from.

Ninja villages are cruel.

There's no room for misinterpretation, and that makes it okay to comfort him with all the energy she has left. Sadly, she doesn't have much energy. As soon as her comforting touch gave in, it left. She doesn't even bother to elaborate to the very confused Sasuke. Naruto will explain it, or he'll think she suddenly has a crush on the blond; right now she couldn't possibly care less which.

She just leaves, and she's happy she does.
Because she has a lot to think about. Having just died changes things.

Chapter Text

What was she supposed to say? She’s not sure, but she knows it wasn’t the stuff she did say. Can she really be blamed for that though? One person is allowed to have a breakdown at a time and she’s pretty sure it was her turn with the breakdown stick, she fucking died! Who cares if some random ninja offscreen saved her, she ceased living. It wasn’t even a big fight where she didn’t measure up, or some final battle, she got thwacked out of existence by a spinning sword some guy threw. It was the equivalent of a giant kunai. Who dies from a kunai?

She was an afterthought, and she died. All her training, all her efforts, all her clever strategies and planning, gone in an instant on the whim of a random encounter she spawned by being a little too far from her village.

On that note, what the actual hell? Sure. Wave Country is another country, it’s in the name, but it’s not particularly far from Konoha. They’re a week from home, two days without Tazuna to slow them down, and Jonin are showing up?

She’d thought these powers were a boon, but it turns out they are going to kill her. The worst part is, she’s not sure if the ninja that saved her was a respawn mechanic, or if she just got lucky. It’d be so much easier to get over this if she had a respawn mechanic. Instead, she spends more than an hour out here in the rain, under tree branches and leaves, rocking back and forth with her arms around her knees and her knees held to her chest. Her face rests in her legs, and her breaths are as twitchy and broken as her tear stained gasps are.

“Sakura, you need to come inside.” Kakashi’s voice barely even reaches her, but she’s so used to quipping back at him it doesn’t even get to her brain before it leaves her mouth.

“It’s my turn with the stick!” She shouts.

“Sakura that doesn’t make, okay…” It takes him a moment, she doesn’t really care what he’s doing. She cares a second later though, when something pointy pokes her face. She looks up to glare, and finds he’s prodding her with a sturdy wooden pole.

A stick, to be exact. “You can have the stick, just come inside,” he says, “We can’t both be sick, Sakura, someone needs to keep those two from doing that dumb thing where they die.”

“Oh, so you care about when they die, but me, I’m just complaining?” She shouts, fire in her eyes. Even without the Chaos blade tainting her essence, she can feel the sting of red enter her eyes. It’s changing her, and she should probably get that checked out by someone that grasps how magic swords work, but that’s not a today problem!

“When you die, you’re annoying.” He says. “When they die, we’ll wish they could be.”

It’s a few seconds, just staring between them. A few seconds of honest contemplation.

Before it clicks, and just like that, she reaches up and she takes the stick.

“I’m not human anymore.” She says, a sniffle stealing her whole breath.

“I know.” He says gravely, and yet, she believes him.

She believes he knows, because he doesn’t look the least bit surprised by her emotional confession. He’s staring at a monster, and she understands that because she feels the same.

“My life’s a game now.” She tells the truth. She looks him in the eye and she tells the truth. “I have stats, and skills, and traits, and my money is held in an invisible prompt box so it doesn’t weigh me down, and, and, and I heal when I sleep.”

“I got that last part.” He says. The rain has drenched his hair, making him shiny. She’s never thought Kakashi was pretty before. Dignified, experienced, magical, but never pretty. Looking him over with the rain glistening off of him and his clothes clinging, he’s pretty.

Alternatively, after an hour out here in the mud and rain, she can’t even imagine how she looks. She doesn’t want to know what horse shit she has managed to take the visage of. “I’ve started carrying sedatives around in case I need to knock you out in an emergency.” He admits playfully.

“That’s smart.” She says, finally picking herself up, and stabbing the stick into the ground.

“You don’t have questions?”

“I could ask you one question per minute for the entire rest of our lives, and I don’t think I’d run out.” He says, helping her up despite his relative weakness. His hand is warm in hers. It reminds her that she’s not alone, just like Naruto, she is wanted. “I don’t like wasting my time with futility.”

“That’s a lot of minutes, Kakashi.” She points out.

“It’s a lot of questions.”

“Kakashi-Sensei, why are we getting ready to train on a mission?” Sakura asks. “You said we shouldn’t do that, because we’ll be tired when something comes up suddenly.”

They stand in a field of trees, not a particularly new field of trees either. She can see where she was crying just last night, and that unnerves her a little. Breaking down isn’t something she’s done in a few years now. She normally has her games to delve into, or trolls on the internet to make fun of to make the pain fade away.

Last night was the first time in a long time that she’s been pushed to her limit while too far away from her gaming systems to jack in and lose all concept of time. Her Switch died days ago, her battery packs were only really enough for three days of the week-long trip, and while she’s sure there’s a place for her to plug it in here… She’s also a little terrified to check on it. Her sword went through her, through her pack, and into the tree behind her. She hit the tree so hard that she’s pretty sure she broke bones despite the pack taking the brunt of it.

Her Switch might be dead, really, really dead.

No Ninja Tracking Unit is gonna save her Switch.

“Because I’m injured, and I need you all to be able to support me if Zabuza comes back.” Kakashi says.

“You didn’t kill him?” Sakura asks.

“He killed him.” Sasuke asserts.

“I watched you kill him.” Naruto agrees.

“Yeah, that’s the thing though, I didn’t kill him. A ninja tracking unit did.” Kakashi explains. “The same ninja tracking unit that saved Sakura.”

He says that as if they’re supposed to grasp something, but all she can ask is “What’s a ninja tracking unit anyway?”

“Not someone that saves random leaf ninja.” Kakashi deadpans.

“So…”

“So Zabuza’s alive.” Kakashi is very clear. “Do I need to repeat it?”

“Nope.” Sakura sighs.

The monster that killed her in one second is still walking around, and likely going to come back for more. She could not be happier to have this new information, it really makes everything better on her trauma cream sandwich. “I don’t think we can get strong enough to handle that in the time we’re here, Kakashi.”

“Why not? By my estimates, we have at least a month before the bridge is finished.” Kakashi says. “He’s probably not going to be quick to attack. He’ll wait until we’re complacent, which means we might have the whole month.”

“I don’t think a month is going to change the outcome of that fight.” Sakura’s surprised to see Sasuke nod along with her, but things have changed in recent times. Maybe not last night recent but, well, she needs to apologize about that when she gets the chance. It wasn’t fair how she treated them, and their questions are valid. It just sucks she doesn’t know how to explain it. She really needs to figure it out though, they deserve to know. Ninja are allowed their secrets, but her secrets are changing their odds of survival in drastic ways. She’s putting them in real danger, and they have no idea why.

“Not a normal month, no.” Kakashi agrees. “That’s why you two are going to practice a technique I think you’ll benefit greatly from, while Sakura and I do more one-on-one training.”

“That’s no fair, Sakura’s already pulling ahead!” Naruto shouts, throwing a fist up in the air. “Why does she get super special training?”

“Because she died yesterday.” Kakashi says it.

And no one has anything to say to that. Not even her, it lingers in the air like a bad smell. “She didn’t listen to me when I said to get down. She realized Tazuna might not be able to get down in time, and blocked something she shouldn’t have to protect the client, and she died for it.”

Their faces can’t fall, they already did, and Sakura resists the urge to point out that’s not what happened at all. She forgot Tazuna existed, it was all about her boys. She kicks herself internally for that. 

With her Genin Agility, getting out of the way would have been trivial.
She should have trusted them. They’d be so mad if they found out she got hurt because she didn’t trust them to take care of themselves. Just another secret to take to the grave. This one, actually, to the grave. Her new gaming powers, she just needs to find the right time.

“A little bit of competence is a dangerous thing.” Kakashi says. “You all knew to get out of the way because you understood instinctively that you were outclassed. Sakura didn’t, which means if she doesn’t get stronger, she’ll die when Zabuza attacks again.”

“I can learn to dodge.” She mopes, her head falling as well. “I promise.”

“Besides. We have a lot to talk about, and it’s a good excuse to be alone.” He says. “It’s not every day your student bleeds to death and is still walking around to talk about it.”

His eye smile is unnerving in a way it has never been before. Sakura is sure of it, this is going to suck.

“I need an adult!” Sakura shouts.

“Too bad there’s no one for a hundred clicks that could save you.” Kakashi answers back.

“Kakashi, that's really creepy…” Naruto trails.

“Too far?” Kakashi asks.

“Way too far!

“Why did you really pull me aside?” Sakura finds herself asking mid mope. He’d given them instructions on how to do something called tree walking, it looked interesting.

“To begin, you already know tree walking.” He says. “You used it on the jar mission with your hand. If you want to learn the technique, I have no doubt you could learn it on your own rather easily.”

His confidence in her makes her blush, but that doesn’t stop a flare of anger for being split from the group. Her dumb boys are hers now, she doesn’t like being singled out. She’s never liked being singled out. Her favorite type of project back in class were group projects, because she was smart so people would flock to her. She could do all the work while they pretended to take credit, taking focus off of her. It was nice for her anxiety, really nice. She did the work, someone else presented, simple.

“Then there’s this whole, your life is a game matter you said yesterday.” He says. “Was that serious, or hyperbole?”

“Serious.” She can’t look at him. “I have stats, and other stuff. I thought I was hallucinating at first but then I got a skill that heals me when I sleep and... You know, I keep healing when I sleep.”

“That’s not conclusive evidence, but I understand why you might take it as such.” He says, stopping suddenly. They’re in a field of trees and ground, not a lot of bush or anywhere to sneak up on them from. It’s big, wide and open, a friendly reminder of what nature will do if given time and a little bit of groundwork is done.

“What else could it be?” She asks, summoning up her stats box and moving it around with her hand. “I can see and feel it, and it’s altering my reality.”

“You could be in an elaborate genjutsu. Weeks can pass in such a thing, I might not be real.” He suggests. “Maybe you’re in a coma, or a deity beyond our comprehension has decided to mess with you.”

“If it’s a genjutsu I can’t break it, if I’m in a coma I can’t wake up, and if it’s a deity I have to work within the blessing given.” She says. “Nothing changes in either scenario, the only move is forward.”

“That’s one way to look at it.” He agrees, resting his hands at his side. “The boys will be training their chakra control and general movement over the next while. Working on the basics means a lot for boys like them who ran past the basics to try and get stronger faster.”

“You think what they know will mean more once they’ve practiced?” She asks.

“Yes… You on the other hand, learned too much of the basics and never strove for any greatness at all. Your new desire for Kenjutsu is impressive, but as you learned earlier, it’s not enough. It being your only option can even lead to being impaled by your own sword. Imagine if instead of a sword you had used a rock ninjutsu to block.”

She bites her lip, thinking about it, remembering. It hurt so much, and every single second is burned into her memory in a way she’d rather forget.

“Our goal for these coming few days is to learn what your elements are.” Kakashi says. “Then I will teach you how to waterwalk. If we still have time and aren’t in mortal danger yet, I’ll then teach you how to make your own jutsu.”

“I, what?” Her head spins at that. “I thought creating ninjutsu was restricted to Jonin for safety reasons.”

“It is.” He stares at her sternly. “We know exactly how much chakra any jutsu already made costs, we don’t have the slightest clue how much chakra a new jutsu could cost. Someone trying a relatively basic concept with an absurd cost could lose limbs, or wind up in the hospital for chakra exhaustion if they mess up.”

The stare is physical. She can’t help the sweatdrop that rolls down her cheek. “So what you’re saying is…” Her feet clack against each-other, the awkwardness taking a toll on her health and energy. There’s nothing worse for a gamer than a very, very awkward moment without a clear puzzle to solve.

“You got pinned to a tree by your own sword, ripped the sword out of your body on your own, and then passed out in a pool of your own blood.” The stare continues. He’s expecting something from her, but the words are stuck in her throat as a lump. “And then you got up and walked around six hours later. I think I can trust you’ll be fine learning how to shoot water out of your hands.”

“I’m gonna make pokemon moves.” She admits.

“Not yet you’re not.” He says. “Right now, we’re going to test your affinities.”

“I don’t have chakra paper.” She says.

“You don’t need it. You have a gaming system.” He prods her forehead suddenly, causing the slightest flinch but she doesn’t fear pain like she used to. She died yesterday, she fears death a lot more than a Kakashi hit. Luckily, he doesn’t see fit to give one. “I’m going to teach you a very basic jutsu for all five elements, and you’re going to practice them until you are alerted you’ve developed an element. Then we’re going to continue that, until it’s very obvious you’re not going to develop it for one of them.”

“And if I get them all?” She asks.

“Then I’ll accept that you have a gaming system in your soul.” He says rather bluntly. “That’s just not something that happens.”

The water jutsu is simple. She sits around meditating and controls her chakra until she can find the moisture in the air and turn it into fluids. She then has the fluids fill a flask that she drinks to replenish some of her energy, and repeats. She does this all of the first day. From the end of Kakashi’s speech to sun down, she gets progressively better at doing this droplet by droplet.

It’s not until nightfall that she manages to fill the entire flask in only a few seconds. She’d been pouring the water out for a while, too much hydration is a dangerous thing.

You have gained Water Affinity Level 1, all Water jutsu will be more effective and cheaper.

She expects Kakashi probably didn’t think she’d reach it in one day, but it sets a good precedent for the others. If any of them aren’t learned after two full days, she probably doesn’t have that element. With that she gets up, and decides the boys could use some water. She can still hear them, quietly arguing in the distance. The forest carries sound well, making her feel like she was right next to them. 

It’s not long before she sees them through the treeline, and not much longer after that before she’s standing at the bottom of the trees watching the two boys collapse onto the dirt on their backs. “Do you two need water?” She asks, jingling the flask.

She’s surprised to see them both nod, but neither move. “Are your legs not working?”

“Not much.” Sasuke says. “I’m exhausted.” It’s good to see Sasuke with humility, but it’s actually not that uncommon an occurrence recently. She thought he was growing as a person, but she knows better now that he’s expressed his concerns about her. He cares about her, and wants her to know that. Expressing weakness is a good way to show you trust someone, and she’s pretty sure someone told him that at one point.

He’s an idiot but he’s a sponge. If something is important, he’ll never forget it, and that means if she grinds her own social skills up she can probably help boost him too. “Then let me help.” Kneeling by his side, she brings the flask to his mouth and takes some joy in watching him drink.

“Hey no fair, I need water too, Sakura!” Naruto groans slash shouts from his place on the forest floor. “My legs aren’t working either.”

“Somehow, I feel like your issue is less from a lack of stamina and more from falling on your head so much you crippled yourself.” She quips, quickly refilling the flash with her palm after pulling it away from Sasuke.

“That’s fine, just let me sleep it off. What do I need, six hours?” He jokes.

She shakes her head, crawling over to help him. She rests his head in her lap, and brings it to his lips, helping him along. She’s gotten a lot more intimate with him over the past month. He responds very well to physical affection, and once he stopped badgering her about dates it became easy to see he hasn’t the slightest idea what a date is.

For years she’s thought he was sexually harassing her.
Turns out he’s an idiot and thought that’s what friends do. He’s also a sponge, and someone said the words ‘friend date’ around him once and quickly changed their dynamic for years to come. Not that he isn’t interested in her, she’s pretty sure he is, but he loves the gentle kindnesses far more than his puppy crush.

Who knows, maybe one day she’ll find she’s interested in him too.

It’s not today. “Have you two made any headway?”

“No.” Sasuke grunts. “Kakashi was too tired to teach us, so he disappeared back into the house almost right after he got back from you.”

“Baah, haah, well, we learned if we put too much chakra in we go flying.” Naruto says, pushing the flask away with a hasty draw of breath. “You might like that one. It hurts a little but…”

“I’ll try it.” She agrees. “And if you put too little in, you fall off. Is it just about the amount though?”

“Huh?” Naruto asks.

“I mean to say, is chakra quantity the only variable that’s important to sticking to the tree, or is there a secondary or tertiary objective like conforming your chakra to the shape of the bark, or trying to make the chakra sticky?”

“...” That’s the sound of crickets, crickets and silence.

Neither boy has anything to say to that, honestly, neither does she, the idea that they wouldn’t think of that, well, it sounds like Naruto and Sasuke.

“Fuck.” That’s Sasuke clapping his hands over his eyes.

“I promise, I tried really hard.” Naruto mumbles.

“Okay, let me figure this out and then teach you both, okay?” She gently rests Naruto’s head back on the grass, and gets to her feet.

She runs at a tree, and finds herself at the top a few seconds later. It was as simple as breathing, a technique she already knew instinctively. She started with a little too much chakra, but was able to adjust to match in real time until each step was incredibly easy and movement was simple. The issues didn’t begin until she reached the top, when momentum was canceled and suddenly she had to float there on her own merit.

She found she had to increase the chakra for a second to stop from falling, before she could flood the area under her with controlled essence and conform to the shape beneath her. It was less digging her chakra in and more creating a friction barrier that stopped her from falling. She imagines it’d be harder to do on a wall where the holes are microscopic, but it should be doable with some practice.

It’s all about feeling her chakra, and latching on graciously while ensuring it sticks.

“Oh, boys…” She sighs to herself, looking down at their jealous faces. “There’s a secondary and tertiary objective!” She shouts down.

“We got that!” They both shout up at her.

Chapter Text

“This smells, bad.” Sakura enunciates, her nose wriggling and wrinkling while she tries to block out the offensive odor of the town before her. It’s old, and run down, and she can’t help but notice the poverty stricken homeless at every turn. Children, old men, strong men who could make a better life for themselves if they were just given an opportunity.

She’s not exactly a prim princess, she’ll admit how just a little while ago she wasn’t even brushing her hair. Even by her standards, this is disgusting. She doesn’t even want to lean against the walls when they stop for a break for Tazuna’s sake, because the grime and dirt is so thick and malleable.

They’re here to buy ingredients for dinner. Tazuna has the money - unlike most of these people - to splurge occasionally and having a bunch of ninja protect him has his hopes up enough he’d like to do just that. She can’t fault him for it, living an okay life is not something to feel guilty about. It’s not like he’s got money overflowing and he’s criticizing the homeless. He actually looks like he feels quite bad, but one cannot let themselves get distracted by those only a category below them. It’s a good way to self destruct, and you’re useful to no one when you helped so many people you yourself became a burden. For Tazuna, that number is probably three.

“What’s happening here?” Sakura asks, after a very long walk where Tazuna hasn’t said a word. “Tazuna.” She finally asked his name last night, and by the way he perks up she’s glad she did. “You know, right?”

“I, would rather not get into it.” He sighs as they walk right into a run down storefront. There’s nothing here. They’re supposed to be buying ingredients, but there’s a leek there, a rotten apple there, a cinnamon stick - not sticks, lone, one stick - and from what she can see there’s a few spices in the back that are covered in dust. No one buys them anymore, they’re too busy focusing on survival.

“You’re going to have to.” Sakura asserts. “Or I’m going to report this to Kakashi. This isn’t about bandits.” Bandits can’t do something like this, bandits can harm the individual, bandits can harm trade, bandits would be murdered long before they could systematically dismantle a town to the extent that there’s not even things to buy. The shopkeeper is here for no reason, none, they likely wouldn’t even stop someone who came in and stole what was left.

It’s something to do, in a life with nothing else. A precious relic of their past they can’t let go of, now that the rest has turned to dust. “Please don’t do that.” Is Tazuna’s response. Not denial, not begging, a simple request.

“I don’t want to.” She says. “I want to solve this. I’m not a pretty little girl, I’m a pragmatist.” Her hand lands on her sword handle, and she can feel her rage bubbling up from deep. It helps her channel herself, feel centered, but she’s also pretty sure it infects her with something in exchange. Her eyes changing a bright red every time she channels it, and sometimes without, cannot be mistaken for benevolence.

The moment she gets back to Konoha, she’s finding a master smith and having him tell her what the fuck is up. For now, it’s comforting and she needs it. For now, it’s what she’s relying on to get her message across to a stubborn old man who won’t even look at her while denying her the information she needs. A little bit of blood makes her eyes glow, and that’s what she needs for her words to really land.

“I don’t want to walk away from something like this. A princess might be scared, but me, Tazuna, I’m pissed. There’s a rage bubbling up from deep within me and it whispers into my head. It’s saying to kill, it’s saying to burn, it’s begging me to find every single person responsible for what I’ve seen today and leave them in a pile of broken bones so that when I cast my first fire jutsu its to the sound of a hundred screams, each one just individual enough for me to make out the lingering loss of evil as it leaves this world.” She needs to learn a fire jutsu now, because that sounded cool. She’ll ask Sasuke after she gets the fire affinity training done.

She takes a step towards him, and watches as the man flinches. Her sword makes a slight shing as it begins to leave its sheathe for dramatic effect. She’s watched enough dramatic cutscenes to know how to make a stage play. “You will tell me who did this, or you will be amongst the crowd as just another bystander doing nothing while a little girl came to the rescue. Can you live with that?”

“I…” He gapes. “Sakura, that man’s robbing you.”

“Tell me if my switch is broken!” She shouts while looking behind her at a man ruffling through her pack. He looks stunned, but flabbergasted is probably a better word for it. He’s a bit older, and he’s got his hands deep into her stuff. She’d really like him to answer so she can spare herself the horrifying check, but it really doesn’t look like the older grizzled man is going to say explain the state of her recently sworded pack.

“What’s a-”

“Fuck it.” She spins on her heel, kicks out his knees, and then slams a hand into his chest as he falls. His crash into the wooden floorboards below are enough to shake the store. She held back, noting his age and not wanting to shatter him in places he couldn’t possibly recover, but then if he didn’t want to get hurt he shouldn’t have robbed a ninja.

The fact that she’s not obviously a ninja right now, what with all her armor and stuff still sworded in the pack, doesn’t pass her by. Back to her original stance, she glares at Tazuna. “That doesn’t just happen, what the fuck is going on here you drunken bastard?!”

“You Konoha ninja are needlessly intense.” Tazuna coughs, a hand over his mouth. “Wave’s shipping prices are larger than its gains, we’re slowly dying, that’s why I’m building a bridge.”

Her gaze softens, just a little. But it doesn’t fade completely. “You’re hiding something.”

“Aren’t you?” He asks.

It takes her a second, but she fully hilts her blade, letting her beautiful eyes return to their pretty innocence. “Fine.”

It’s not five minutes later that she’s observing the wreckage of a once vibrant town - it had to have been, it couldn’t have gotten to this size if it wasn’t - and angrily scowling at the remains of what once was. Color comes from creativity, creativity comes from joy and safety. Nothing here is safe, nothing here is happy, but the variance shines through to tell her of a once thriving community. She’s staring at a graveyard of freedom, of peace, of prosperity in a way Konoha barely manages on its good days.

It’s rotting, and there’s nothing she can do about it.

She feels something behind her, and this time she’s a little calmer, it’s easier to pay attention to him, and get a proper measure. “It’s a child.” She says suddenly, looking behind her at a surprised boy, ensuring Tazuna she’s not about to wreck this kid for fun. He looks relieved, which is enough for her.

“What do you want?” She asks the boy, girl, whatever, standing behind her as she fully turns around.

“Uh-” His voice cracks a little before a full word gets through. She’s decided he’s a boy, he can correct her if he feels like it.

“He wants money, Sakura.” Tazuna says gently, knowing this is just more evidence on the pile that something is wrong. The moment lingers. The child looking a little guilty at her gaze, but not running away. The very chance she might give him money instead of hitting him is enough for him to stay even with her hand on her sword.

Death by sword is preferable to starvation. She understands, she just doesn’t want to. She wants this to never have been an issue that would require understanding. Sadly, her life a game or not, she doesn’t seem to have control of the plot.

He holds out his hands. He looks so dirty, so scraggly. His hair is tangled, and his gaze is cold and burdened by pain despite the cutesy style he manages to fake. He’s in ratty clothes that cover down to his ankles, and she casually tries to pretend the holes littered through them wouldn’t make it worse at protecting him from harsh nights.

“This is all I have. Tell your friends if they try this again they’ll die.” She says, her insides squirming at the threat. It’s easy to threaten Tazuna and mean it, it’s easy to hit some older guy robbing her.

It’s another thing entirely to threaten a child, and she knows she’s bad at lying so she has to mean it for it to be taken seriously. She’s not sure she pulls meaning it off. She’s not sure she wants to have pulled it off.

He brightens up at her words, latching onto the implied concept that she’s going to give him something. So when she does, he’s over the moon. She plops a whole damn wallet in his hands. “Take it and run.”

There’s a silence after the kid runs away, a moment where she has to catch her breath and remind herself why she’s here. That she did the right thing there, and that the overwhelming coldness flowing through her from her heart is a defense mechanism, not guilt. “Why’d you give that kid a wallet?” Tazuna breaks the silence after a long moment.

“Wasn’t mine.” She admits with a shrug, its owner is dead, why shouldn’t it help someone live? It’s a ding that gets her attention, and without a moment of hesitance she looks up at her new notification. “Who’s Gato?”

“Huh?!”

[Quest Alert: Free the Land of Waves

Description: Clear Gato Tower Dungeon and Eliminate Gato.
Objective: 0/1 Gato Killed, 0/1 Gato Tower Dungeon Cleared
Bonus Objective: Clear Gato Tower 5 times to “find” his hidden treasure, and restore Wave with it]

“He’s responsible for what’s happening here, right?” Sakura asks, taking note of the quest alert. “You have to know something about him. Don’t lie to me, Tazuna, I spoke on this just a minute ago.”

“So you did know…” He looks away from her, reaching up to scratch the back of his head awkwardly, his demeanor shifting seriously. More serious even than back in the store. Perhaps it’s being small, or young, but even with blazing red eyes he couldn’t truly consider her a threat.

No, it takes her a moment to put it together, but he still believes Kakashi’s story. That she had gotten impaled to protect him, and not her boys.

He thinks she’ll die for him, why would he be intimidated by anything she does? If only she’d realized that before she probably gave the shopkeeper a heart attack.

“He’s a very bad man trying to keep wave like this. As a shipping magnate, he’s made it illegal for boats to leave that aren’t his, holding a huge tax on all exported goods, and on imported goods.”

“So you told the truth in the store, just not the whole truth.” She surmises. “Building a bridge will really help that much?”

“It’s either that or kill him, and I couldn’t hire assassins, that’s too much even for me. Principles are all an old man like me has.” She has to hold back a laugh at a drunk saying something like that. “Wave was barely holding on before he took over, we’d had a poor few years due to some internal strife and bad winters, so what you see around you now is a slow economic death brought about from years of breaking a little less than even. As people eat less, they work less, and slowly but surely…”

“So the bridge’ll help.” She asserts. “But money would help faster.”

“An influx of cash would be useful, but without the bridge, we’ll end up back here eventually no matter how much money we get. To be truthful, I imagine an influx of food would do us better than any cash.”

That’s fine, she thinks. Gato’s dead the first clear anyway.

Five clears… how does she justify to her team five clears of the same dungeon?

How does that even work, will it generate more people for them to fight? Probably, that’s how it works in every game she’s ever played. She does have to wonder how it’ll do that though.

But that kinda guy has to have real protectors, especially if his treasure is hidden there.

“Don’t worry, we’ll free this land. It’s what leaf ninja do.” It’s not. Historically there’s been very little freeing of anything, a ninja’s version of liberation is to blow it up. She’ll change that for Wave though, at least this time.

The earth release training technique is even more simple than the water technique. Instead of filling a flask with water, she touches the ground and moves it without strength. The idea is to channel her chakra into it, then move it with her hand. If it moves like air, she’s put enough chakra into it and converted it to the right chakra. It’s a low level ninjutsu mostly made to help builders fix foundations and make dirt roads, but it has a lot of utility. It’s mostly overshadowed by much better landscaping ninjutsu, but it’s where every earth based ninja starts.

A lot of ninja learn it just for a back up job for if they get crippled on a mission. She probably doesn’t have to worry about that though…

She masters it within a day just like water, and finds herself very happy to see the familiar alert.

[You have gained Earth Affinity Level 1, all Earth jutsu will be more effective and cheaper.]

It really isn’t even effort. It’s like her body was made for Earth.

“I really hope they all come that easily.” She looks hopefully at the box.
A lot of Ninja only have one element, she’s really lucky to have two.

She won’t be satisfied until she has them all.

“Inari.” She wanders into the boys room without the slightest care in the world. He looks up quickly, frightened but mostly distressed by something beyond her imagination.
Or it would have been beyond her imagination, before today. “You’re scared?”

His fragile nod makes her heart twinge a little. “Can’t talk about it because your grandpa told you not to?” The next nod makes it break.

“Tell you what, let’s calm us both down. I’m a little jittery myself.”

It only takes her a few seconds to pick the boy up, sit on his bed, and place him in her lap. Before he can ask what, she places a rectangular box of joy and justice in his hands. “This is a gameboy.” She explains. “Hold it like this, and press the buttons to make things happen.”

Going through her pack sucked, but she had to do it to make sure that guy didn’t get any of her essentials. The moment she’d gotten home she’d gone through it to count the casualties. Just like she’d expected, her clothes are fucked. They got cut in half, and torn to bits by her energetic, ridiculously angry sword. Her switch was comfortably cushioned by the clothes, thankfully it wasn’t sworded.

It was impaled by a little black box of metal she’d forgotten she’d stored in there just in case over a month ago. That box contained righteous glory, and her only salvation in a world without.

It contained her gameboy, and a ton of batteries. It’s not as high tech or stunning as her switch, and it definitely loses out on a sheer race of fun, but if it’s her gameboy or nothing, she’ll let Inari play some damn Mario while she watches.

Some might think Sakura’d wanna play, that she’d intrude on the boy’s first experience. She’s happy to watch, just like she’d be happy to watch any streamer’s first time playing a cool and exciting new genre or game. It’s fascinating how a newbie views the world, it’s more fascinating how much a child can struggle with something so simple as how to jump or run in a game. Simple concepts she doesn’t even need the most basic tutorial for now are so foreign she has to help him run through it. She’d always thought of games like Mario as very beginner friendly, so having to explain the controls to him again and again is novel. “I guess I’ve taken for granted what’s confounding to you, huh. I guess that’s this whole situation, isn’t it.”

At his awkward nod, she squeezes him.

“So you’re not always rude.” Tsunami’s voice catches her by surprise. Sakura thinks it’s Tsunami anyway, the older woman from dinner the other night. She didn’t really ask, she had to catch it in passing. And this boy’s name is, Inari, right? He responded to it earlier, it has to be something close.

Tsunami, Inari, Tamaru? No, no, Tsunami, Inari, Taazuma? Shit, she already forgot his name again!

“No, I am.” Sakura says after a long silence of thought. “I barged in here without asking. We just don’t respect the space of a child the same we do the space of an adult.”

“Don’t ruin the moment.” Tsunami says.

“Sorry.” She helps Inari jump onto a platform, showing him how, then jumps down and makes him do it.

She’s got a lot of smiles in her soul today, Today she’s gonna try to learn fire, but first, Naruto didn’t come home last night. He hasn’t come back since Kakashi started him on this damned tree walking jutsu slash technique. While he’s doing much better after she explained it to him, he’s still struggling to comprehend her explanation. Sasuke’s had it for a while now, which only makes the blond boy angrier. Luckily, it seems she’s his true rival in recent times, so he’s not taking that anger out on Sasuke. Siblings can be angry at each-other, it’s okay.

She’s got breakfast in her pack for him, and-

-she hides behind a tree. “Who…” There’s a cute girl talking with Naruto while holding a basket. Her outfit has some pink to it - something she appreciates - but she looks a little too nice for Wave. Wave is dirty, Wave is destroyed, Wave doesn’t even bathe that regularly despite literally being called Wave. This girl is clean, she’s kept, she’s pretty. She wasn’t even clean, kept, and pretty until recently and she wasn’t even in a destroyed village.

That’s five seconds.

[Haku: Chunin level Boss Fight

Threat Level: Notably Dangerous]

“Naruto get down.” She’s fast, she can give herself that much credit. Maybe she’s not a chunin, but with Naruto’s help it shouldn’t be that hard right? Drawing her blade as she runs is like breathing. It leaves its place in her sheath before the third step, and is in a full swing just before she reaches them. She’s not sure why a ninja is talking to Naruto, but if it’s not Naruto, Sasuke, her or Kakashi, they’re either a random encounter or with Gato or both and like hell she’s losing her teammate to some subterfuge bullshit! 

The sword flares to life with power before the swing is fully completed, and she’s happy to see it go right through the enemy and not Naruto. He can listen to hasty instructions like that, unlike her, so Naruto’s on the ground watching.

She wishes she didn’t have to warn Naruto like that and give her attack away, catching the enemy by surprise is very important, but there’s just not much she can do about that without a silent means of communication. She’ll need to work one out.

She has a brief instant to begin a smile at an easy victory, before she realizes how little resistance that gave. “Wha-” Water splashes her, and she has just enough time to turn on a dime before a kick lands right in her face and sends her flipping. This time she knows better, this time she doesn’t drop her sword. Instead, before she hits the ground she stabs it into the dirt and uses it to slow her down, skidding across the ground and cutting a brazen path of dirt and stone. This cool new technique lets her land on her feet instead of face first into a tree, even if it’s dramatic as all hell and probably bad for her sword. Her vision is blurry, but she can vaguely make out the ninja standing behind Naruto. She can’t speak, the words get garbled in her throat while the threat grabs Naruto by his neck, picks him up from the ground, and positions a senbon at his eye. “S-sakura we were just talking, could you both um…”

“Shut up, Naruto.” Sakura grunts, lifting the hungry sword vibrating with energy. She knows her eyes have changed again, but she doesn’t care. There are some heavy implications to Kakashi giving her this sword. Was he trying to teach her some lesson, or was he trying to get her killed? Is she lucky she happened to be given an incredibly powerful weapon that works well for her but wouldn’t most people, or was that the game system influencing Kakashi’s choice? How far does it go? At what point is it Kakashi being a dick, or Kakashi being helpful with a dickish choice her powers made him choose?

Is she a Diety’s plaything, or is she Sakura Haruno, leaf ninja and Naruto’s teammate?

She doesn’t have the slightest clue, but she does know is Naruto’s in danger, possibly because of her. She’ll die again before she lets him get hurt.

“You’re doing well.” The girl says with a voice that hits her as oddly androgynous. In fact, a look-

“Holy shit it’s a femboy.” Sakura’s eyes widen, and she manages to choke out an exclaim even she wasn’t expecting. “You should start a streaming career, I’d watch you.”

“... Sakura, is this really the-”

“Look how pretty he is!” Sakura gasps, sword’s power flickering a little as her excitement goes in an entirely different direction. “Would you like some fangirls? My teammate has a lot of them and we’d like to offload them, no refunds.”

“You’re not taking this seriously.” The femboy says, with that pretty face, those pretty lips, and those pretty eyelashes. “Trying to deescalate after you escalated?” Those pretty eyes look her right over, trying to figure out who she is, what she is, what her sword is. She sees right through her, she just has to hope they want the same thing. “We can do that. I’d rather not kill either of you. Especially not after I went through all the effort to save you.”

“It was you.” Sakura says, not letting the sword blaze out but lowering the power in it enough to let her own eyes return to their normal colorful innocence. At least she hopes she does, that’d really help matters. It has to have a minimum threshold, right? “Why?”

“We’ll trade info for info.” The femboy says with a simple smile, lowering the senbon from Naruto’s eye to his neck. He actually tickles Naruto with it, causing the boy to twitch awkwardly and hold back a laugh. She’s glad he can maintain comedic sense in a situation like this. She’s not sure if that’s her fault or if Naruto is just goofy by nature. “You were almost dead when I found you. How are you up and on your feet and looking fine?”

“My life’s a game and only the last hit point matters.” Sakura says without flinching. She can’t lie, Naruto’s in danger, she has to tell the truth and she doesn’t have nearly enough time to come up with a lie that’s technically true enough. She’ll have to work out a few, for future use. “I’ll always get back up unless you take me down permanently, and I’m actually not completely sure if I really die even then.”

“If you’re going to mock me-” The boy’s hands bring the senbon back up to Naruto’s eye.

“I think she’s serious,” Naruto gulps, “Sakura can’t lie.”

“... I see. I’ll explain here tomorrow, today’s mood is already too hostile,” with that Naruto’s thrown forward, Sakura drops her sword to rushes forward and catch him in her arms, “arrive alone.” 

Sakura holds him close, as the dangerous boy disappears into thin air. She squeezes him, sighing in relief and taking in how her own hasty actions almost got Naruto hurt. Is the sword influencing her aggression, or just helping her do what she would have wanted to do anyway? That was stupid.
That was really stupid.

“Sakura, that was really scary.” Naruto whines into her.

“I know, Naruto.” She rubs his back, as the sword loses the rest of its power on the ground. “Excited to do it again tomorrow?”

“Wha, no!”

Chapter Text

The fire jutsu is even more simple than the earth jutsu. It has three parts but they’re all stupidly simple and kind of the same action. First, she must convert chakra into fire chakra, then she has to layer her hand in fire chakra, then she has to send all the excess into some stones in her hand until they’re red. The important part is getting the stones hot enough that she needs to protect herself with what’s in her hand and then gauge how much of each is needed, and that’s the part she’s failing.

Six hours in, and she’s gotten them hot enough to feel uncomfortable. It’s progress, but she’s so used to learning everything almost instantly that it’s really disheartening. She doesn’t know how to keep herself motivated trying the same thing for hours. Even as a gamer she’s never tried speedrunning or anything, she’s just not used to this kind of failure. She succeeded with valor regardless of the challenge, and she wants to continue that pace as long as possible.
It turns out, as long as possible, is about until fire chakra.

“Which is why I’m asking for help.” Sasuke looks genuinely distraught with her explanation. She’d call it angry if she didn’t know him better, he just looks confused, a little worried, maybe even disturbed.

“So, let me get this straight.” He stares deep into her eyes around their campfire. Sneaking out of Tazuna’s house to hang around Naruto as he tries to get this tree walking thing perfected is automatic for them. He can do it now, they all can, but Naruto’s never been one to be happy with just being okay at something, and Sakura’s here for it.  “In one day, you’ve managed to go from never having molded fire chakra at all, to heating these stones enough that the air around them is visibly distorted.” Sasuke points at her hand, and the little waves in the air that signify her minor accomplishment.

“Yes.” She nods.

“And you’re discouraged?” He asks.

“Shouldn’t it be faster?” She asks, awkwardly rubbing her arm with the hand not holding stones and molding chakra. 

“No!” Sasuke palms his forehead quite forcefully. “No it shouldn’t! You know how long it took me? Months. It took me months to learn how to mold fire chakra well enough to cast my first real fire jutsu, and I’m a natural fire element. All Uchiha are natural fire elements.”

“That sounds painful.” She admits with a harsh wince. “Is there like a cheat code?”

“Yes.” She’s surprised enough by his blunt answer to set the stones down. “There actually is, it’s just stupid.” At her eager look, he realizes he’s spoken too much, and decides the rabbit hole should just be opened directly. “Forget the objective, and focus solely on generating fire chakra as an automatic response. You’ll do this by focusing on generating the fire chakra around your hand, and sticking it directly in fire. Either you’ll succeed, or you’ll get burned. Repeat until you can do it for long periods of time without getting hurt.”

“I thought you didn’t like me hurting myself.” She points out.

“I don’t.” His disdain is clearer in his tone than his eyes. He’s a scary boy. “But you’re going to do it anyway, you should probably be good at it.”

“Ah. That makes sense.”

“So, my life is a game.” It hangs in the air, resting there awkwardly. A team meeting in the woods at five in the morning wasn’t how she expected to make this reveal, but if she’s going to be giving it out to random strangers like this Haku, even if it’s to protect Naruto, then her team deserves the details.

“Sakura, I have a great guy I talk to.” Sasuke says, somehow even more awkward than her. He’s sitting in the grass, while Naruto stands sideways on a tree. He figured out how to just hang there last night, and now he’s using it as a core exercise. She should probably do that, the effort to stay sideways has to be an amazing work-out. The fact that he’s flapping his arms like a bird and making the occasional rooster adjacent sound only makes it better. His sense of humor hasn’t gotten a lot better since becoming a part of her family, but it has gotten a lot more bold. It makes her snicker. He’s able to be this happy almost directly after a senbon was held at his eye.

Actually, all things considered, he was stupidly calm yesterday. Has he been threatened a lot? She needs to investigate that too when she gets home. Sword, Naruto, how to get away with murdering people who threaten her boys, in that order.

“Unfortunately for us, I think she’s telling the truth.” Kakashi says. Injured or not, he’d never pass-up a team meeting when he can move. They brought his sleeping bag out here to the forest for him, and he’s resting in the fluffy blankets like a caterpillar about to change into a butterfly and destroy their enemies.

“Kakashi…” Sasuke sighs.

“I mean it. She’s gained two elements in three days, and learned how to mold fire chakra while she was at it.” Kakashi says bluntly. “Those three days were not peaceful village days under a powerful tutor either, they were a day after getting stabbed through the gut, with a teacher who was bedridden and couldn’t help her much.”

“So she’s a prodigy, she can still be crazy.” Sasuke points out. “In my experience, most prodigies are up the wall bonkers and chewing on a stick.”

“Oh believe me, I know.” Kakashi laughs pitifully under his blanket. “I know. But this is a different kind of crazy. She can’t lie, we know this. Either she’s telling the truth, or she believes she’s telling the truth.”

Sasuke doesn’t like it, she can see that much. But he stops arguing, and merely looks at her with great concern. “I have stats.” Sakura says.

“Everyone has stats, Sakura.” That’s Naruto, she’s recently gotten him into some fun co-op RPGs like dark souls, and while he’s very, very bad at it, it’s been a lot of fun teaching him cool new concepts like the statistics menu and leveling up. She figured it would be nice to help him understand before she had to spring this on him, now she’s not as sure. “We grow stronger when we do things to get stronger. Like um… push-ups give you strength, and thinking real hard gives you intelligence?”

“Yes.” She gives him an approving nod, she’s happy he’s learning, even if it’s a thorn in her side at the moment. If she could see his statistics, she’s pretty sure he’d be so much better than when she first got him. Kakashi’s been very helpful for her and Sasuke, but she’s been very helpful for Naruto. Watching him tremble and struggle to stay upright against the tree is hilarious, he looks like he’s going to fall apart any second, but he’s persevering in a way she likes to believe she’s contributed to. “But mine are different, I can see them, and they seem to be going up faster than they should be. I’m almost half again as strong as I was when I graduated from the Academy a month ago. Years of my life, nothing compared to recent weeks.”

“You’re also pushing yourself a lot harder.” Sasuke points out. “And doing psychotic things.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Sakura winces. She didn’t apologize, or even touch on his concerns the other night, and that eats at her in a way she wishes it didn’t. Life was so much easier before she grasped social convention enough to recognize when she’s done something wrong. Empathy sucks. “I’ll try to be more careful, your concern was valid, and I shouldn’t just forget you have feelings like that.”

Your Charm has raised to 11

Congratulations, you have achieved Academy Student Charm

Academy Student Charm: We didn’t think we’d have to make Academy Student Traits, but here we are. Someone’s mood will now appear beside their head in one of those mood chart pictures if you’re struggling to identify their expression.

It’s nice to see her efforts helping, though it’s sad that such a simple statement is enough. To think, her charm is almost double what it was a month ago. She’s starting to understand facial expressions now, and not just the monotone ones one sees in a game like ‘that guy is angry because he has an angry face.’ She hates to say it, but that skill will probably be really helpful. She’s such a lost cause, or was, now she just has to get better.

“I don’t have a good way to convince you.” Sakura admits, while Sasuke’s emotions flicker behind his eyes. “And it’s okay that you don’t believe me. I just felt like you needed to know. It’s not fair that I’ve been hiding something so big, when you were so open about your brother.”

She knows she hasn’t won, but she can see it now. Sasuke wants to believe her, he just can’t. He’s seen someone he believed in lose it before. “Now for the real reason I called this meeting.” Sakura stands up, just as Naruto loses his grip and crashes into the dirt in a sprawled penguin-like position. She has to hold back a snicker, this is serious but his groan is funny. He’s just flopping around over there trying to find purchase like his legs don’t work anymore. “Yesterday, I met the enemy. Today, I plan to meet the enemy again, and I really don’t want to be alone when I do that… I don’t want to die again. Help me.”

Her team is hidden. Naruto and Sasuke are pretty far away, because they’re not particularly stealthy, but Kakashi’s a jonin and is very good at stealth. He’s got a nice signal jutsu planned for if they have to fight, so the boys can join and they can handle this together. It’s with that knowledge that she allows her feet to walk into what might be a very dangerous scenario.

She hopes that if things go wrong, Kakashi’s in good enough health to turn the tide, but he looks so hurt even after all this time. It wasn’t until seeing Kakashi so injured for so long over something so small, that it really clicked with her just how overpowered her sleeping ability is.

To think she went so many years actively trying not to sleep.

Haku is waiting there for her when she arrives, standing tall and patient. It’s a little intimidating, when so shortly ago Haku had Naruto in his grip. She doesn’t believe she could have won that fight, reflection on it is pretty clear, Naruto could have died because she was impatient and reckless. She needs to learn patience, even if it means spending time away from her sword.

It’ll be easier once she knows exactly what it’s doing, and if it’s the sword at all. She could just be seeing her natural borne impatience in the field, and blaming it on magic because magic is a very convenient explanation. Knowing the difference will be very valuable.

“You actually came alone.” The boy stands in the same clearing, waiting for her while she approaches. “That was stupid.”

“I trust you.” She avoids saying anything that’s a lie. She genuinely does trust him. He could have killed them, he could have just not saved her. They’re still alive, this boy can be trusted.

“You shouldn’t.”

“But I do.” Sakura leans against a tree, sword still completely sheathed. “I owe you my life, I’m pretty sure that counts for something.”

“Without us you wouldn’t have been injured in the first place.” This Haku’s expression is so stone, she could learn a thing or two from those pretty cheeks and well formed face.

“That just makes it all the more confounding.” Sakura says. “Why save me if I’m the enemy? I’ve played enough games to know that you’re not evil.”

“You’ve what?”

“You’re the secret character you get by making all the right choices.” Sakura explains. “I don’t think I’m gonna get you, I’m not very good at making the right decisions, but… I do think you’re too good natured to hurt me unprompted. You wanted to talk, so I’m here, let’s talk.”

“You're different.” Haku decides. “I am Haku.”

“Sakura Haruno.” She introduces herself. “I believe you owe me an explanation?”

“I said we’d trade, you gave me nonsense.” The boy crosses his arms across his chest. “I do not like being mocked.”

“I’m not sure what to tell you.” Sakura shrugs, slowly, evenly. Her breath hitches harshly as she realizes that if Sasuke doesn’t believe her, why would a random enemy? “I told you the truth. My life is a game, and every step is another portion of a quest. Gato is going to die, and with him, Wave will be restored. It’s that easy.”

“Say I actually did believe you,” Haku begins, “what would that even mean for me?”

“It’d mean you’re doomed to fail. You’re the antagonist, and the whole system is based around a goal you’re actively fighting.”

“And if I killed you right now?” He asks.

“You won’t.” She doesn’t even reach down to her weapon at the threat, there’s no point. Even if he did, Kakashi would save her… probably. She hopes.

“Kakashi makes my skin crawl, Sasuke makes my heart beat faster every time he glares, even Naruto can raise my blood pressure when he’s in a bad mood. But I feel nothing from you, not the slightest presence of desire to kill. The anger that dwells within every ninja, ready to lash out at the enemy and commit atrocity for their village and their people, simply doesn’t exist within you. You’re a ghost.”

“You’re stretching.” Haku says. “And a bad liar.”

“Really bad.” Sakura laughs, “soooo bad.”

“But you’re right.” It’s that statement hanging in the air that allows Sakura to breathe.
The tension within her fades just a little with every filling of her lungs. “I believe you.” The boy nibbles his lip, looking down to her hip where her sword lays pointlessly. He seems to be remembering something, probably the same bloodbath that haunts her dreams. She’s had problems sleeping again lately, but luckily she only needs six hours so once she finally manages to get to sleep after a couple hours of laying there she’s good. “I saved you because I don’t want this.”

“Don’t want what?”

“This. Wave, all this suffering, all this death. The children can’t even afford to eat, and even if they could, the shopkeepers don’t have food to sell them.” Haku says, voice quivering ever so slightly. His eyes look damp in a way she hasn’t seen in quite some time. Ninjas don’t cry from emotions, not normally. That kind of reaction is trained out of them in the academy. Aside from when it was her turn with the stick, she can’t really remember the last time she cried. “You’re not strong enough to pose a threat, so why let you die? Why let another person fall pointlessly for a goal I don’t even want?”

“I feel like your master wouldn’t be happy to hear this.” Sakura says.

“He knows, he just… we need the money.” Haku says. “I won’t turn against him, you won’t have my aid. But… if you were to try to solve all this, I might be able to turn his attention away from your actions.”

“I’m not ready.” She says.

“Then get ready.” There’s a growl there, under his tone. An angry chart face appears next to Haku’s head, and she has to hold back a sweat drop. It’s so big and needless and colorful. The overly pronounced expression of the chart face looks nothing like Haku’s diligently held together features.

“I will return here every few days. You will leave a note for me when you are ready to accomplish this quest of yours. Once you have confirmed that I have collected your note, you will have a short time period to do what you want. I can promise no more, I will not betray my master.”

“Why even do that much?” Sakura asks.

“Because if Gato is gone, we can leave.” Haku says. “A mercenary’s word is all they have. Even if we wanted to, we couldn't go back on the mission while Gato is around.”

“But if he’s dead, then you can go. Why not kill him yourself?” Sakura asks.

“Are you deaf?” The femboy asks. “I said our word is all we have.”

Even Sasuke’s advice isn’t working.

Well, okay, it is. On the surface she’s made a lot of progress in just a few short hours, nut deeper, she really hasn’t. If her goal is to accomplish every element before she has to make the dungeon crawl, she has to hope lightning and wind are easier than fire. If they aren’t, it’s far more likely she’d benefit more from doing physical exercises like Naruto and hoping to etch out just enough extra advantage to go on the dungeon crawl.

The bright side is that now that she’s talked to her team, she doesn’t have to make the crawl alone. The relief that comes with standing by their side is palpable, it helps her breathe, it helps her think, it helps her exist. She’s very happy about it, and she probably should be.

“Now that I think about it, where is the dungeon?” The quest is nice and all but if she doesn’t know where she’s supposed to go, then things’ll be really complicated.

Tomorrow, she’ll train physically while searching the island for potential locations. It’ll give her a much needed stat increase - she hasn’t had a real one in a long time - and give her information she needs. Sasuke can help her search, he’s a good teammate. Maybe not a great friend, he’s a bit too blunt for that at times, but a good teammate.

Sitting with Inari and playing games with him really takes the edge off a day of training.
That she can do it while playing with the rocks is a bonus. He’s gotten somewhat good at this, and watching him play makes it really easy to zone out and fade into the background.

You have unlocked Proto-Fire Affinity, level 1. Reach level 10 to unlock Fire Affinity.

She jumps at the sight, startling Inari who drops the system. She catches it with her free hand, happy to help and deposits it back in his hands a second later. “Sorry about that.” She says, “I just got startled by something.”

Proto-fire affinity. That’s different to water and earth. It implies that if she doesn’t naturally have the affinity, she can earn it. She’ll need to tell Kakashi about this, and maybe Sasuke as well. Naruto’s getting rather jealous of her power, even if she feels like he’ll lay off now that he knows it’s actually magic, she has no reason to make his day worse by bragging to him.

It’s about respect, respect and a sense of comradeship. She will say with Naruto’s impossible stamina he really doesn’t get to be jealous, but it is what it is. “Oh wow you’re getting really good at this!”

“Thanks!”

Searching the island isn’t as simple as she’d like. Sasuke went one direction while she went another. The idea being that if he spots anything crazy and huge or out of place he hunts her down and tells her so she can check it out. She imagines the dungeon will tell her, but it won’t tell Sasuke, so it’s not as efficient as two of her but she has to work with what she has.

She’s been afraid to check her stats since she got impaled. What if she went up like six points in constitution, or worse, didn’t. In one way she has to accept that her power has been permanently stained by her untimely demise. In the other, she has to accept that all of that wasn’t even worth a stat point.

She’ll definitely have to check on her points tonight though, she needs to know if all this exercise is making her any better. High knees, latching onto trees and mimicking Naruto, swinging from tree to tree with her arms like a monkey, jumping around at a speed that’s borderline sprinting to get her legs an extra burn. It’s mostly strength and agility training, but any training is important. At her stats before this mission, a single point is only about a three to four percent increase, but getting multiple of those is a combat multiplier she can’t afford to ignore.

The perks at certain thresholds only makes it more tantalizing, and it helps that even when she messes up and hits a tree or something it does so little damage her constitution skill negates it entirely. She can train in a way normal people simply can’t, and she has to abuse that while searching.

It’s a nice thought that resonates through her wonderfully as she lands in a clearing and takes a moment to catch her breath and stretch.

Random Encounter Started: Goblin Horde

“I’m sorry, what?” She doesn’t have a lot of time to be startled by the notice before she’s dodging a rock thrown at her from a tree. The entire area around her morphs quickly, lighting up as little green men spawn into existence. There’s a fire, there’s a chest, there’s archers and swords and trip wires and pit traps and it’s all clearly meant to be against her.

“Fuck.”

Chapter Text

"Think Sakura, they're goblins." As more and more of the small creatures appear in the air like it's just a normal thing to do, they start to get a little more active. At first they were very static, as if loading in, but their patterns are getting more and more complex by the second. Twitchy is a good word she'd use to talk about their sporadic increase in animation.

She's right in the middle of their camp, which is probably the worst way a random encounter system could function. It also raises a lot of questions about her other encounters, like why is this the first time she's being given a notification about it, and why are they fantasmal creatures instead of nuke-nin? She reaches down for her sword, only to have a brief moment of quivering will. The sword is changing who she is, and it's doing it very fast. She can't blame the sword entirely, the system is impacting her ways of thinking and her experiences are also making huge changes, but she doesn't really want it to be her one and only option if the changes are even remotely what she estimates. Relying on a corrupting source is kinda how Siegfried turned into Nightmare.

The sword wants blood, but she can be more than that. Kakashi already scolded her about over reliance on any singular technique, and she's learned three jutsu already since she got here. Small and largely pointless, that doesn't mean she can't use them. That's it, she'll get through this fight without her sword. They're goblins, they're low level mobs in every game that's ever existed except maybe some of the less savory ones on the internet.

Challenge Alert: Eliminate all 26 goblins without drawing your sword.
Reward: 200% exp for any skills used during the dispatching.

That kind of solidifies her goal. Instead of her sword, she draws two kunai knives. She knows the theory, but was always below average on putting the kunai into practice. The difference between theory and reality is effort, and her efforts went towards games and hiding her true nature for so long it became a second nature entirely.

She doesn't even have a kunai related skill, so at two hundred percent exp in active combat, she should get one. With that resolve understood, thought through, and fully realized, it's time to move. She thinks very quickly, it allows her to take much longer thinking - to her time perspective - than most people, but even that has to end and it does with the sound of a bolt firing from behind her.

Goblins with crossbows? That's not fair. She spins on her heel, figuring out the angle based on the sound of its release and the way it wizzes through the air. Adrenaline, a quick mind, and a mixture of Genin Dexterity allows her to kick its side and send it off into the dirt without even having looked at it. Could she have done that before she got these powers?

Fuck no. Not a chance.

That was some nonsense, but it's just the first nonsense among a hundred other nonsenses to enter this fight. Sasuke is nowhere to be seen, Naruto's back with Tsunami and Inari, and Kakashi's likely napping like a babe in his dark dwelling.

Can she take on twenty six weak opponents herself?

No.

Can she do it with several conceptual skills giving her massive advantages against weak opponents, and a proactive go getter attitude?

Yeah, she imagines she can.

A quick blur of glances marks them all in her mind, a photographic memory helping her in a way she's pretty sure is cheating even without her powers. Eight in the trees, five with crossbows, three with rocks. Sixteen on the ground, charging at her from all directions.

A camp with a campfire, traps around the edges, a bear trap, wire traps- she's on the move. The ones she runs right towards are surprised for all of a second before they have their scrappy swords slashing at her. They're of no consequence, she speeds up from a mild run to full speed instantly using Genin Agility the moment she's within range and jumps right on over them. She uses her dexterity to roll as she lands, grabbing a bear trap and hucking it right at them. It snaps shut just as it lands on the face of a little green man, and the gruesome crunching of bone and rending of flesh is a little much even for her. "Holy shit." She's stunned just long enough for her Genin Dexterity alone to save her from another bolt, her head tilting aside just in time for it to miss and embed itself in a tree.

She wants to grab it and huck it back like a kunai, before her brain connects the dots and remembers that she just has kunai. "How long has it been since I've used these?" She asks herself, implanting one of the two already drawn kunai in the skull of the nearest green miniature trying to take out her legs. She jumps back, leaving the clearing entirely and entering the thick tree line so most of the shooters can't get a bead on her. Then it's simply a matter of running right up a tree and launching herself off of it with silent steps. She watches as they follow her into the trees, looking around all confused as to where she could have possibly gone.

She's happy to learn goblins are stupid, and starts to creep along the branches in an effort to get to one. She finds it's easy to get behind one without an issue. The remaining drawn kunai inserts itself in his throat. She takes just enough time to grab his loaded crossbow, before she lets him fall into the clearing below a bloody gurgling mess. It takes a moment longer than she'd like to figure out how to aim the crossbow, but luckily not so long anyone notices. She manages to get a bolt through one's forehead before the corpse she just made hits the ground with a wet smack. The next falls with his crossbow, removing that option, but that's fine. She just wanted to see if she could. She tosses the now ammo less weapon down below, and gets back to climbing so she can sneak up on the remaining six highly alert entities in the trees. They've clearly noticed the demise of their two friends, so she has to be careful.

It's not hard to get a shuriken into each and every one despite caution slowing her down. She gets above them in the trees, and simply throws down. She should have really trained shuriken throwing more than the academy required before this, with more alert opponents it wouldn't work at all, but her powers deemed it reasonable to give her an incredibly easy engagement. Throwing down works, and soon enough ranged support is eliminated like the joke it is.

An easy breath of relief leaves her. She could leave now if she wanted, but her quest notes she's only eliminated ten of twenty six, and she has the height advantage.

She reaches into her shuriken pouch, and channels fire chakra as strongly as she can into the metal. It's probably not good for the pouch, but she hasn't gotten it to the point where anything is catching fire so it should be fine.

After a few moments of catching her breath and focus, she does the most Naruto thing she can think of. "Shuriken jutsu, waste all the shuriken!" She announces with fervor, using her new technique name to grab and huck as many red hot shuriken down at the pissed off lemmings as she can before her pack is out.

That turns out to be more than she expected, but less than she wants. With all her ranged weapons gone besides one kunai she'd rather keep for fighting when she gets down there, she's reduced to six goblins. Most of which with horrific burns, and agonizing death screams she's happy she doesn't have to hear anymore now that they're very dead.

She imagines if she'd had a level system, this'd be worth a lot of experience at least. At least her skills are gaining exp. "Fuck it."

None of her jutsu are useful for range. The best she can do is drop down to the ground and engage them directly. She can't use her sword though, so it's best to try and get an advantage. That thought has her using the normal clone jutsu to create two versions of herself.

The clone jutsu is normally rather useless. It doesn't cast a shadow, it doesn't move grass, it doesn't smell or talk or make sound and attacks pass right through it because it's basically mist traveling in the wind. With goblins, she gets the feeling she'll fool them just fine. They idiots split up into groups of two to charge them each. Unfortunately clone jutsu does exactly what you do with no variance, so she can't make them be evasive while she eliminates her two. She just has to hope the brief delay until they figure it out is enough.

One takes a swing at her, and her dexterity kicks in without a thought. Her foot kicks out, slamming against the side of his sword and quickly overpowering it. The sword drops to the ground, held underfoot by her heel and a powerful application of tree walking keeps it there. Her second foot finds itself embedded in the creature's face, sending it rolling with more than enough time for her to react to the second's attack. She parries it easily with the kunai, sliding along the blade as she darts towards him. The sparks of the two blades dragging along each-other are vibrant and bright, but not as bright as the light that leaves his eyes. She finds herself several feet away, holding a severed head and holding back retching.

She doesn't have time for that.

She looks back at the four that remain with urgency and a readiness to create a wall to block them. She even has the earth chakra already built up in her hands.

Except, it's not needed, as she finds them still rapidly stabbing her non-tangible clones to death. If the situation were any less disgusting, she would sweat drop. "Oh wow, they really are that stupid. I have vastly over complicated this."

With that realization she walks up behind them, and jams the kunai into their spine one after another. "Yeah, waaay too overcomplicated. Next time I'll try stabbing first."

Congratulations, you've killed all 26 Goblins in this Random Encounter, and earned 200% exp for doing it without your sword! Please open the random encounter chest!

Looking for the chest, she can't help but be distracted by the messages popping up.

You have gained Novice Short Blade
You have gained Novice Throwing Weapons
You have gained Novice Stealth
You have gained Clone Technique Intermediate
You have gained Novice Crossbow
You have gained Trait: Neck Snapper

"... I didn't even snap any necks." She points out, sighing to herself before shaking her head and putting on a smile for all those skills. She doubts she would have gotten them all without the bonus, and she's not about to complain about progress.

As shown at the end, that didn't need to be as hard as it was. Her reliance on her sword alone is what caused that, and she could improve greatly from branching out a bit before she becomes an idiot impaled to a tree again.

She chooses not to check her stats yet. It's just not time. Her finger hovers over the button to check, but the fear inside her wells up physically, and she just can't.

She'll check them, she's sure she needs to.

Just, not now.

Her eyes catch onto a bronze glow, and her feet take her to it. It's a chest. A straight up game chest, like the kind you'd find in a dungeon or when raiding an enemy camp. Filled with jewels and magical gear, she can't help but shake in giddy excitement as her fingers land on the top and begin to pry it open.

"Is that…"

It's not much. The chest has exactly two items inside it.

A thick scroll with no small amount of ornate symbols on it and a golden lock shimmering with magical excitement waiting to stop her from prying it open, and a lockpick.

"You gave me a damn skill check!?"

Pocketing both items, she resigns herself to learning how to pick locks soon. Or getting Naruto to do it, she's pretty sure he can pick a lock. The lock on his door at home is a bit of an odd one, it likes to lock itself and then they have to get a bunch of tools and undo it when they need it. Naruto's never once had that problem, and it's kinda been a month. She was meaning to buy him a replacement lock, but he just hasn't brought it up so it slipped her mind.

Until now.

The bloody scene around her slowly disappears. It starts in glints of light, flowing upwards into the sky and evaporating as if it was never here. First it's the weapons, then it's the bodies, then the camp. She watches the fire flow away as a last vestige, not even the blood coating her left remaining to tell the tale.

It says a lot. This whole scene says so damn much and she likes none of it. The demon twins didn't dissolve, she wasn't informed of them, she didn't find a chest or get a rewarding quest while fighting them.

They just existed, and then she snuffed them out. Does that mean they were real, or that the system is changing to better understand games? The fact that the goblin encounter was technically weaker than them despite being this far out has a lot of say in which is which, and her blood curdles a little bit just thinking about it.

It's not killing them that bothers her. Enemy ninja deserve to die, they're taught that in the academy. Even if it's not explicitly true, enough training is given on the concept that she knows how to shut out any sort of guilt.

It's shrugging off her teammate's worries that bothers her.

If they were real, if they weren't created just for her, then Naruto and Sasuke must think she's batshit. Thinking on it, they don't believe her about the gaming system yet. Even if they weren't real, her teammates think she's batshit.

It's while she's collecting her shuriken and kunai from the ground and distracting herself with counting them and scurrying around, that feet appear behind her. "Found it."

"What?" She looks to the cool looking, not at all disheveled from a random ass goblin attack, Sasuke. "What do you mean you found it? How would you know?"

"It says dungeon." Sasuke clicks his teeth.

"... It what?"

"This is ominous." She says, looking at what amounts to a dark cave with an incredibly large entrance mined into the rocks that surround it. "I figured it'd be a tower or something."

"It looks like a secret entrance to a building we can't see." Sasuke says. "The neon sign saying dungeon is a bit of a nice touch."

"Yeah it's not neon for me." She says, having absolutely no idea what he's talking about.

Gato Tower Dungeon, Level Recommendation: 20
Please ensure you are on level and have equivalent quality gear that is in top condition. There will be no leaving to rest once you have entered.

"Gato Dungeon. At least we know it's the right place." She says. "Level twenty… What level do you suppose we are?"

"You're the one with the gaming addiction." Sasuke points out. "I wouldn't have the slightest clue what that even means."

"Right, remind me to at least invite you to Mario Party sometime." She sighs at the thought. A whole month with him and she hasn't included him in her hobbies. She's not a very good friend, she regrets that. She'll need to be better for them. "It says we can't leave until we complete the dungeon, so we shouldn't go in to check it out."

"That's too bad." He says. "But how could it possibly stop us from leaving?"

"Rock cave in, magic wall, portals, could even place level ninety nine guards with laser rifles intending to stop us."

"I don't want to know what those words mean." Sasuke admits. "We should probably ask Kakashi about this before we go into a strange place anyway."

"Agreed."

"We found Gato's dungeon." Sasuke has no sense of tact. She thought she was bad, and maybe there was a time when she was worse, but Sasuke manages to surprise her. "Or, its entrance. It's a cave to the north. It doesn't appear to go anywhere."

"How do we know it's the dungeon then?" Kakashi asks.

"It says dungeon." Sasuke blurts. "Sakura sees something different than I do."

"It declared the dungeon as level twenty." Sakura says, leaning against the wall while overlooking her team. Kakashi's almost back to normal, sitting around instead of laying back. Naruto's doing push-ups even indoors, not a care in the world in that one's head. He has a single-minded focus on getting stronger in a way she could never mimic. If she was even half as dedicated as Naruto, she'd be a Chunin by now. That thought makes her stomach waver a bit. Just how much is she disrespecting him with her power? How many others just like him exist, who she's surpassing with half the effort?

Poor Naruto. She decides she'll have to start training a bit more with him again.

"The issue," Sakura continues, "is that my system hasn't included levels yet. Skill levels, in small variations, ability tiers, sure, but even my scan ability only gives me a basic danger rating."

"You can check danger ratings?" Naruto asks, jumping right up from a push-up with one hand, she's pretty sure he'll be doing tongue-ups before long. The thought makes her flush for reasons she's not sure about. Darn internet, ruining her mind. "What's mine say?"

She's thought Naruto's danger rating was weird since the very first moment she's taken a look at it. It says he's a beast among men, a walking force of nature that cannot and should not be contained. It tells her to run, to hide, to scream and never stop her feet if it means just one more step away from the boy that sleeps a room away from her. She figured maybe the technique is malfunctioning, or maybe it's rating him higher because she promised never to hurt him again so maybe he simply cannot be beaten by her.

All doubts are lost when she catches Kakashi's eyes. Yes, eyes. She's never been sent a clearer message in her life. Even without the odd picture that appears behind his head of a very threatening Kakashi head, it's clear what he's trying to convey. The man raises his headband a little bit, to stare into her soul unbeknownst to the others with his Sharingan spinning to life. It's actually the first time she's seen it, and she can't help but find it mesmerizing. Sasuke'll have that? His poor fangirls are going to grow in numbers.

Even with the mask, she can tell exactly what his facial expression looks like. Strained, panicked, urgent and worried. He's contemplating if he can shut her up faster than she can speak, or if he should trust her.

Whatever is wrong with Naruto, Kakashi knows, and he's telling her with no uncertain terms that she will lie right now or face trial for treason. Which is a bit of a problem, because she can't lie.

"You're pretty scary." She laughs a little, "you're really getting a lot stronger, Naruto, I can see all those gains working for you." It's half true, and luckily for her, Naruto's not much better than she is socially. He believes her, or at least by that half-fake, half earnest smile taking up his excited face at her praise, she hopes he does.

Sasuke seems to catch on that something is up, but by the time he looks at Kakashi, the headband is back down and the man is acting like nothing happened. Her heart is still trying to beat out of her chest, but everything is back to normal.

"Have you tried going as a team?" Kakashi asks. "It may be a bit before your time, but a lot of older RPGs had teams of three instead of four or five. Maybe it'll change if you have a full party of three?"

"That's really stupid." Sakura rolls her eyes, even as she uses the moment to appease her own shattered nerves. Her sensei just threatened her, and she's not even sure why. She's happy for the excuse to flee. "Let's go Naruto, we have to check just in case."

"But you said it's stupid." Naruto says.

"My whole ability is stupid, he's probably right."

She could not be happier to walk out the damn door before she vomits all over Tsunami's nice floor.

Kakashi watches them leave with a little regret in his heart. He hadn't intended to do that, he'd panicked and overreacted. Sakura's not dumb, she wouldn't tell Naruto about it right in front of Sasuke even if she did know. She'd understand that village secrets are not to be spilled casually, and yet, when faced with being loyal to his village or her, he'd chosen without thinking. Those that abandon their village are trash, but those that abandon their comrades are worse than trash. Minato would be disappointed.

Not much to do now but be happy he hadn't done anything irreversible. He'll have to talk to her later, apologize, maybe figure out a way to make her understand the severity of the moment and that he wouldn't actually hurt her.

He'd be lying, but unlike her, he can lie. He lies to Naruto every day, just like it looks like Sakura is. Her face when Naruto asked revealed more than a thousand words ever could. Her ability has told her something about him, and that info alone proves her powers more than anything else she could do. "Tsunami!" He calls out. "Do you need any help with dinner?"

He needs to do something to get his mind off of this. He was Anbu for years, of course he'd overreact to village secrets a little, no one could blame him. Except him.

Chapter Text

Kakashi has a lot of time to think about things while he’s injured. Some of those things are simple. Naruto probably knows about his condition by now - the Hokage was oddly vague about that - but Sasuke doesn’t, and Sakura probably doesn’t, and keeping it that way a little longer so they can bond before the truth comes out would be quite nice.

Then there’s the issue of if he doesn’t know, how would he reveal something like that? He’s holding so many things from his team, so many from Naruto, it’s hard to remember when he’s lying and when he’s not.

Then there’s that sword Sakura has. The Chaos Blade, or as it was called originally, Hunger. It’s easy for Sakura, an obsessed girl who’s afternoons have been about games since she first entered the academy, to have made the assumption that he got her a replica Chaos blade. It’s very easy for him to pretend that’s exactly what happened.

She’d be wrong, and he’d be lying, but it would be easy for those events to happen.

The reality is much more sinister. Zoning out while helping Tsunami with dinner, he can’t help but remember exactly how that sword came to be in Sakura’s hands. The sword the Chaos Blade was based on.

“Junk.” He groaned, returning from the training ground with a grimace.  He couldn’t help but judge the garbage in his hands. He’d taken this ‘sword’ from Sakura just a few moments ago, a slab of metal that should have been illegal to sell as a novelty, let alone call it a real sword. As a kenjutsu master, his pride was damaged beyond repair that this passed for craftsmanship in this day and age, and his irritation was enough to cause his fingers to grind in and bend the weapon without much thought. That was fine, returning it was never really going to happen, it’s not like he needed the money.

“Maybe a normal masterwork?” He rifled through his old sealed weapons with one grimace after another. Nothing really fits Sakura, and that’s saying something because the girl doesn’t have a lot to fit with. She’s a fresh genin trying out Kenjutsu for the first time, anything should work, but nothing felt right. With a sigh, he pried prying open a floor board. Lifting a box out, he pulled a very unique weapon from it. He looked it over, recoiling from its sheer shine just like the first time he saw it. Bright and light, Beacon, was an enchanted sword of blinding light and was said to increase a wielder’s natural luck and prosperity. It’d be good to give her something like that, any genin could use a little luck, especially one with lofty goals like killing Itachi Uchiha. She’d need luck just to not get murdered by the man well before she was strong enough to hold a torch.

He was just about to leave with Beacon, when he heard a crash downstairs. Living in his own home, and knowing damn well no one was invading it, he couldn’t help but set Beacon down and continue down the steps with Sakura’s slab of garbage pretending to be a weapon. He’d use it to beat the intruder to death if there really was someone brazen enough to break into Kakashi Hatake’s home on a random Monday afternoon. It’d be a much better use of it than anything else he could imagine, a blunt instrument meant to make a brutal point.

“Is that…” His eyes took in the room and found it to be mostly the same it had always been. A mostly empty place with a simple shrine committed to three people. His old teammate Obito, who had given him the very eye that rests deep inside his skull.

His old teammate Rin, who’d suffered a very gruesome fate in a way that still haunts his nightmares to this day.

Most importantly, at the center of the shrine, was a blond man with spiky hair and an unnervingly enthusiastic smile. Confident to a fault even when marching to his death, his old sensei, Minato Namikaze. What caught his attention in that moment was not the shrine itself, but what was mysteriously resting on top of it.

Hunger. It didn’t sound particularly special, in fact it sounded like Naruto after someone offered to buy him a bowl of ramen. Hunger was a rather obscure sword, a few games had made similar designs or based a weapon off its concept over the years, but it wasn’t famous.

The one time it was used, it’d killed everyone who could have made it famous.

That was before Kakashi killed the one using it, sealed it in a scroll, then threw it in a vault.

It’d driven a man to madness, turned him into a puppet, used his very life essence to drive his rotting corpse onwards to kill more, and more, and more, never satisfied, always devouring, never-endingly violent.

“How are you-” Without a moment more to think about it the sword moved.

The weapon launched itself out of its sheath and flew towards him like the spirits the shrine commemorated were forcing an issue with sharp edges. He didn’t move, he didn’t need to. He knew exactly where the sword was coming, and with awe, he watched as Hunger ripped Sakura’s junk out of his hand, and impaled it to his wall. It spurred to life, grinding the piece of crap all on its own as if given a blood sacrifice it hadn’t tasted in years.

Kakashi had never been a particularly superstitious man. He believed in the true supernatural ridiculousness that permeated his world. He wanted to believe his team had gone to a happy afterlife of some sort, he had incredible respect for the dead, but it was not the fear of reprisal that caused him to spend hours of his day mourning those he had lost.
It was regret, and guilt that led those actions. Guilt at still being alive, while they rotted and disappeared.

But that?

“Yes, Sensei.” He bowed to the shrine, before grabbing Hunger, and going out to quickly get a new custom sheath made for it. If he was giving her Hunger, it’d need to look a little more like something from a game so she’d get excited and treat it with respect.

He’d also need to play with the sword a little to make sure the effects it had weren’t instantaneous or prone to actually take Sakura over. It’d overtaken a civilian, but at her age he was definitely capable of resisting a low level demon sword. She should be too, right?

Then he’d be watching her, to make sure the weapon didn’t destroy her anyway. He wouldn’t take his eyes off her for quite some time, ensuring she remained human in a way its previous owner simply hadn’t.

[Gato Tower Dungeon, Level Recommendation: 20
Level of current party: 18

Please ensure you are on level and have equivalent quality gear that is in top condition. There will be no leaving to rest once you have entered.]

“You guys seeing that?” Sakura asks. “I mean I assume no but-”

“Yes.” It’s Sasuke’s voice that cuts through her doubts and makes her gawk. 

“You mean like, the thing right, not the odd cave in front of us?”

“I mean the level notifier.” Sasuke says. “We’re eighteen.”

“I feel like we should be above eighteen.” Naruto says. “In the games Sakura and I have been playing, you reach level twenty in a couple of hours. We’ve trained our whole lives.”

Sakura chooses not to point out that she has not trained her whole life, unless training meant scaling buildings in Assassin's creed and stomping out Ganon like an old man needing to be taught the same damn lesson all over again. Not for the first time, she feels like a cheater. She shouldn’t be standing on their level, Naruto shouldn’t be jealous, Kakashi shouldn’t be giving her one-on-one training and Sasuke should be their team leader.

Doubts boil up until they’re an ephemeral layer of skin covering hers.

Sasuke’s hand on her shoulder snaps her out of it, and a simple nod from him calms her nerves.
It’s normal to feel a little overwhelmed from time to time, she knows that.

They need to get stronger. “I don’t think we’re ready.” She says. “Looks like we really need to train. If we can complete this before he attacks, we never have to worry about Zabuza.”

“Can we?” Sasuke asks. “Naruto’s right, we’ve trained our whole lives. Even if we assume levels are gained with similar efforts and there’s no sense of scaling to make matters harder.” Sakura chooses not to cut in that there probably is a rather significant one. “That’s still an eleven percent difference we’d have to gain in, what, a week?”

As surprised as she is to see him use math, it’s rather overtaken by the fact that it was incredibly unnecessary. Sasuke using math for no reason? She instinctively tries to break a genjutsu, and gives an awkward titter when Sasuke glares at her.

“Getting stronger is the easy part.” Naruto says. “We just have to push ourselves like we never have before.”

“Easy for you to say.” Sasuke scoffs. “There was an entire year in the academy where I set up a bed in the training field because I didn’t have the energy to get home each night.”

There’s that guilt. She doesn’t belong in this position. She’s never done anything close to that. Well, not because of training.

“See, that’s where you made your first mistake, one we won’t make here,” Naruto quips. “you slept.”

“Get to work making the race track, Sakura.” Kakashi orders her, as he begins giving the boys some quick one-on -one training to make up for a bit of her personal time. She finds it hard to complain, she’s gotten a lot of his attention since they got here while they’ve mostly been forced to climb a tree for hours on end. While it’s very good for their chakra control, she can’t help the nagging guilt that seeps into her blood while she works.

It’s hard work, using a lot of chakra she’d really rather not have parted with so early in the day. Despite the task draining her quickly, it’s very easy to watch them while she works, which she finds herself very grateful for. It looks like simple repetitive motion training, teaching them both how to run in place and correcting their running forms by making them try it again and again until he’s satisfied. What they could get out of that, she’s not sure, but he’s the jonin not her. She’s just a genin who lucked into some absolute nonsense. The fact that said nonsense makes her happy and stronger and shatters the laws of the universe under her foot like it’s nothing only serves to accentuate the difference between them.

If Kakashi had gotten this ability, as a true genius, Konoha would own the world by now. 

Oh well, it’s her ability and she won’t be giving it up. There’s no point to thinking of what ifs, not when they have so little time to get stronger.

At about halfway done with the replication of the Academy race track, Sakura can’t help but fall over and gasp for air. Three times her chakra in one day, and yet she can only do half. It’s stupid how much she can feel it inside her, how exhausted she is from such a simple action.

She finds herself fading, and accepts the nap for what it is. She’s with her team, she’s safe.

When she awakens, it’s to the team still working, and a notification about six hours having passed. The sky is a lot darker, but that’s not important. She gets back to her knees, and gets to work. Kakashi barely gives her a glance in her direction to approve of her actions, telling her she’s doing the right thing with an eye smile.

She’s only mostly exhausted when she finishes the track, which is odd because she really had only done exactly half before. Then again, she’d done a bunch of training before the goblins, so maybe the training plus the random encounter had tired her out more than she’d realized.

Whatever the case, it’s while she’s catching her breath and drinking from her flask that Kakashi approaches her. “Sakura.” He greets, a glint of seriousness in his eyes. “Are you ready to do something forbidden?”

“Not now Kakashi, wait a few years at least.”

“Wha-no.” Seeing her Sensei clap his hand over his face and grip the bridge of his nose is totally worth it. She can see an exasperated face appear beside his head, like she needed the help or something. “I don’t like that that’s your answer to that, but I’m going to move on because I only have so much energy in a day.”

She snickers out loud, at least letting him in on the fact that it was a joke. She can make those, she promises! “There are very specific rules on how hard a jonin can work their genin. These rules were put into place because clan era shinobi sometimes worked their students to actual death. They’d call them weak, and move on. It only took a few times before the reigning Hokage had to make a ruling.”

“Sounds dumb.” She says.

“It was, but clan era shinobi were a very different kind of insane.” Kakashi explains patiently. “You have to understand that In a ninja village, for every rule that sounds dumb, it was created because in its absence someone died. Normally that someone was a genin or academy student.”

“Yeesh.” She plops back, pouring some of the water on her face to cool her hot skin. Chakra exercise is still exercise, and boy does it suck. She hates it so much.

“I’m going to ignore the law while we’re outside of the village.” Kakashi says. “I’m going to work you so hard, anyone else would die. You won’t get strong enough in time unless I do.”

“I’m not gonna like what you say next, am I?” She asks, looking at the training field and already having a pretty good idea of what he’s about to say.

“Nope, but I don’t really care.” Kakashi admits. “You’ll be learning the lightning training jutsu while running the track with Naruto. You will be trying to outlast him.”

“That’s impossible.” She shrugs.

“I didn’t ask.” His ominous statement lingers in the air. “When you pass out, Sasuke will take your place until he needs rest. You’ll cut the affinity training and carry Sasuke as if he’s a wounded teammate while running, shortly before you run out of Chakra.”

“... Kakashi, that’s absolutely insane.” She deadpans from her place on the ground.

“Didn’t ask, get up and go!” It’s with that, that he does several hand seals and a nimble and bright lightning whip appears in his hand. It drips towards the ground, but the message is clear. Run or get the crop.

“Oh, screw you.”

“Less whine, more run!” The first whip hurts enough she doesn’t learn what the second feels like.

The lightning jutsu is a subtle jutsu to try and use lightning to alter the nervous system and accelerate its function enough to increase awareness. It’s incredibly taxing, and just not that effective for long term engagements, but is helping her get the gist of lightning chakra. 

Sakura had originally asked if fucking with her nervous system is a good idea, and Kakashi waved it off, asking her what the worst that could happen would be. He’d told her to take a nap if she collapsed, unable to move, like that wasn’t already what she was going to do.

Naruto’s naturally faster than her, but she’s getting the hang of lightning chakra somewhat quick and is capable of using it for a lengthy period of almost ten minutes. Using it allows her to keep up with him pretty handily. “You’re getting faster.” Naruto compliments her.

“I’m cheating.” She reminds, biting her lip hard to ignore a twinge of pain caused by a misfire from her jutsu. Talking makes it hard to concentrate on jutsu this complicated, at least without a real affinity. “It doesn’t really count.”

“We’re all cheating in our own ways, Sakura.” Naruto says, a knowing glint in his eyes. She recognizes that expression despite her relative difficulty with stuff like that. Guilt, it’s the same thing she’s been feeling about getting so strong. She can’t figure out what he has to feel guilty about though, it’s not like whatever makes him so dangerous is something he controls. If it was, they wouldn’t have been level eighteen at the dungeon, because she’s pretty sure anyone ranked ‘run away’ is above level twenty on their own.

“I guess so.” She decides not to pursue that line of questioning. Naruto probably doesn’t even really know about whatever it is, he’d have surely explained to try and impress her by now. Far more important, is Sasuke panting and exhaustedly sprawled out in the middle of the track. She disengages the lightning jutsu to swoop down and scoop him up as she passes. “Having fun, Sasuke?” She asks.

“Naruto’s exhausting.” He says from her back. The first time he’d taken the indignance with quite some difficulty, now he lays there and waits without much to say. You can only be yelled into compliance by Kakashi so many times before you just do what the crazy guy with the whip says. “How is he still running?”

“He really doesn’t have to sleep, I guess.” Sakura shrugs, knowing she’s falling behind her blond teammate, but also knowing there’s really not much she can do about it. Sasuke isn’t a heavy enough load to slow her down, but she hopes it still trains strength. Without the lightning coursing through her body, she has no chance of keeping up with Naruto. It’s just not possible and Kakashi accepts it so she’s certainly going to.

When it’s not running laps, it’s running up and down trees as fast as possible. When it’s not running at all, it’s push ups, it’s crunches, it’s weight lifting using Naruto clones as dumbbells. She’s not really sure how they have his weight being constructs and all, but she’s not about to question another teammate’s bullshit when her own is so prevalent.

Naruto supposedly sleeps during some of her rests, but she doesn’t see it, and she can’t help but let her mind wander. While Naruto and Sasuke are working within reasonable limits given by Kakashi, the two have a lot more stamina than her. They actually spend a few hours working at a time before the man uses what little he knows of medical ninjutsu to heal them.

The issue is, that’s not actually a lot. He’s an offensive ninja first, and his support level is far below average for a jonin. He’s still better than most chunin though, which leaves Sasuke receiving a lot of attention and Naruto almost none.

There’s a reason Sasuke’s almost always begrudgingly smooshed into the dirt somewhere whenever she wakes up.

She only tends to get a half an hour to an hour of this all out crazy training before she is taking a nap. Kakashi says it’s still more efficient than what the boys are doing, because she’s fully healing in between training sessions while they are very much still hurting from before and pushing themselves less.

It doesn’t really matter what he says, - besides the obvious - it only matters what her ability thinks. She’s not sure yet, she kind of wants to see all the training through and then check.

Sakura stumbles into Inari’s room, panting and holding the door. “You winning, kid?” She asks, watching the boy play her gameboy. He does in fact seem to be getting better, and he’s immersed too. It takes him a second to realize she’s there and jump up. “Oh, Sakura! You’re alive!”

“Well, duh.” She snickers, holding back a deep breath that seeks to push itself into her lungs. It turns out there is a limit to how much she can grind in a short period abusing the sleep before it argues with her. This time, she only woke up with half her stamina and chakra restored.

She can’t really complain though. Three days of straight training, she’s not actually sure how many training sessions it was but basic math says it was around ten. Even the most strenuous of missions should be completed before ten freaking cycles in a row. Then there’s the possibility that they lied to her about how long it was to make her feel better, and it was twenty or thirty cycles or something.

With that announcement, and having finally gained the lightning proto-affinity, Kakashi finally let her go. Everyone is kinda happy about that, Kakashi included. It was getting kind of ridiculous.

She collapses next to the kid, hugging him close while idly watching the game over his shoulder. He’d moved on to one of the other cartridges, and she’s much too tired to pay much actual attention to it. Someone warm that isn’t her training buddy is more than enough to try to lull her off to sleep again. Nope, she decides, now’s the perfect chance to check how much stronger she’s gotten. “You’re really taken to the gameboy.” She says, “I’ll have to come visit and bring you a real gaming system some time after we save this island.”

He says nothing at that, simply frowning. She knows he wants to warn her to run away, whatever this Gato did to this kid must have been rather personal. His grandfather asked him a lot when he told him to keep his mouth shut. It’s not actually necessary, now that everyone on the team is aware of the real situation, but she’s not about to disrupt the peace by announcing that. A ninja’s secrets are also their power.

First, her stats.

She can’t help but be impressed by her new statistics. Even for the hell she just went through, that’s an absurd boost, and for the fiftieth time she kind of wishes she could check the statistics of her teammates to make sure they are getting stronger too. She’d hate to find out she’s sapping their gains or something through cosmic scales.

Most importantly though, are the skill and Trait changes.

[Clone Technique Intermediate: You are extremely proficient in the E rank jutsu, Clone Technique. You do not currently possess the chakra capacity to evolve this technique.]

[Tree Walking: You have learned the ins and outs of walking on trees, walls, people’s weapons and various cave structures. Learn how to do it on Water to Evolve the Skill]

[Novice Short Blade: You have started on the path of the short blade. Self taught and without much training besides what you needed to pass the Academy’s not so strict criteria, you are very unlikely to cut yourself but earn little other benefit. Gain a 25% to Dexterity while trying to deflect with a short blade. ]

[Novice Throwing Weapons: You have started on the path of the throwing weapon. Self taught and without much training besides what you needed to pass the Academy’s not so strict criteria, you are very unlikely to cut yourself but earn little other benefit. Gain a 25% to Dexterity while trying to land a blow from short range with a throwing weapon.]

[Novice Stealth: You are learning how to sneak up on an enemy, and your academy days have made your footsteps light and bouncy. You can now see basic sight lines, and are aware of how much noise you’re making while trying to stealth.]

[Novice Crossbow: You can shoot a crossbow, and you’re willing to kill with it. You aim 25% faster and deal 25% more damage with a crossbow as long as you’re in an advantageous situation.]

Reviewing them all, she can’t help but feel her head spin a little. That’s so much, and it’s all technically useful. She’s not sure what crap it’s talking about the Academy, they required her to get quite proficient with kunai, though nowhere near as proficient as Sasuke. He had clan techniques though, so that’s not exactly a fair comparison.

Tree walking will have to be evolved the first chance she gets, sight lines are ridiculous enough to make her roll her eyes, but it’s the crossbow skill that has her gaping enough Inari looks over questioningly. “You’re just really surprising me with your new skills.” She manages to lie. Not convincingly, but enough a little boy doesn’t question her.

It’s not an incredible ability or anything, she has no intentions of using a crossbow and she isn’t even aware of what it would consider an advantageous situation. It’s just, crossbows aren’t used by Shinobi because they have a set strength. Academy student or Jonin, a shot to the face from a crossbow will do the exact same amount of damage. It’s a stable weapon without any influence from the user besides its aim. Many of her skills have had a phantasmal, fantasy effect on her. Her sword does less damage to her, her armor is calced in a strange way, she can smash into a tree and not care about the damage.

This is the first ability that directly influences someone else. It has implications, and she’s not sure she likes them.

She shakes that off, before getting to her traits.

[Sasuke’s Close Confidant: An Upgrade from Sasuke Trivia Expert, you’ve officially earned enough of Sasuke’s trust to be considered his friend. Romantic options are enabled, and the effects of teamwork are greatly increased while interacting with him. You’re at the top of the list for ‘people he wouldn’t mind rebuilding his clan with someday.’ It’s a very short list.]

She barely has time to gag a little before she realizes something.
The next trait is Neck Snapper, not Disappointment. She looks at the traits list over three times, it’s gone. She is no longer a disappointment, and while it doesn’t have any tangible benefits, it makes her kick her feet and squee like one of Sasuke’s fangirls after he did something broody. Inari shoots her another questioning gaze, and she points to the game. He’s suspicious, and she doesn’t really care. She’s not a disappointment!

[Neck Snapper: Deal 300% damage when attacking from behind while undetected by the target. Caution, do not use it against allies, they will die.]

No shit. She glares at the screen, she’s not an idiot. She has ninety eight Mental, which is a lot. Chunin rank mental, her traits have told her. With a shake of her head, she moves on.

[Sister to a Fox: The Prankster of Konoha has been likened to a sneaky little fox many times, and just like a sneaky little fox, you’ve gone and earned its loyalty so it’ll stick by your side until the day you die. Romantic options are enabled, and the effects of teamwork are greatly increased while interacting with him. You’re at the top of the list for ‘people he wouldn’t mind rebuilding his clan with someday.’ It’s a short list, but it’s longer than Sasuke’s!]

Okay, so both her teammates want to do lewd things to her someday. That really makes all that getting sweaty and running around with them kinda awkward. It also raises questions about Naruto having a clan.

Luckily it’s not her problem right now! She’ll revisit the idea when she hits that phase of girlhood where she’s fawning over every guy with chiseled abs. Everyone of her ex-classmates except Ino appear to have hit that stage a year ago, so she’s not actually sure she will hit it. Either way, she has something much more interesting to focus on, traits.

Or, she wishes she did. The remaining new stuff is just her Academy Student Charm and her affinities. Water Affinity and Earth reached level two, proto-fire and lightning are still on one.

She closes her eyes at that, saying screw it.
She’ll nap next to the kid, he probably hasn’t had a sleep over since all this Gato business, he probably won’t mind.

Chapter Text

Returning to the training ground bright and early in the morning, she’s surprised to not just find Naruto and Sasuke napping in the grass, but to also find a random Haku. The boy is rather impatiently tapping his foot against a stone while she approaches, looking like he has very little time for this and would rather be literally anywhere else.

“Are you here to take me up on that streamer idea?” Sakura asks as she approaches. “I really feel like I’d do a pretty good job as a manager.”

The boy’s expression - aided by the cute little Haku picture beside his head - tells her he’s about as impressed by her idea as Naruto would be. “No.” It’s simple, it’s direct, it’s Haku. His voice is so pretty though, it really does make her wanna record him and play him through her headphones while taking a nap. “Zabuza-sama is up and around. You’re running out of time, and testing my patience while you are at it.”

“We’re doing the best we can.” Sakura shrugs, looking at the boys to make sure they’re actually napping and not brutally murdered or something. She doubts it, but with enemy ninja it’s always worth a check. Their chests move up and down, and that makes her smile. “We’re not relaxing, we’re training our butts off in the hopes we can get strong enough fast enough. Besides, Kakashi’s almost better too, if he thinks he can take Kakashi, he’s welcome to come and waste his time.”

“Stupid girl…” Haku growls at her a little, balling his fists and holding back a rage that has so little killing intent to it that Sakura can’t help but find it adorable despite the difference in strength between them. 

“You get you’re more bishonen and less yandere, right?” Sakura teases him pointedly.

“I don’t know what that means, but I really feel like you just insulted me.” Haku takes a deep breath to calm himself, before stepping forward into Sakura’s personal space unprompted. Sakura chooses not to step back, if only because that’d be admitting she’s scared, and she’s kinda not. Haku really has left the threat stage of her thinking of him, and while her ability says he’s a chunin level boss, she’s kind of used to ignoring the threat level for harmless boys by now.

“A little.” She admits, her cheeks heating up just enough to admit to the world that she did wrong and got called out on it in the same breath. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you,” Haku’s face gets awkwardly close to hers, his expression pensive and aggressive, his eyes gazing directly into hers in a way she’d call romantic if she knew the first part of identifying romance. Statistically humans are very bad at figuring out whether someone is flirting or not, in fact, they’re below fifty percent, she’s not about to assume she’s above an average level, “to come up with a plan of action.”

“Is this when you kiss me?”

“Wha-no!” She finds two hands slam into her chest, sending her sprawling flat on her back. “I’m trying to intimidate you!”

“Oh!” She nods to herself, like this is a sudden realization. Haku clearly thinks she’s mocking him, but unfortunately she really is just now realizing this.

“You need to come up with a plan to stall my master, or I will kill you when he strikes.”

“The hell am I supposed to do to trick a jonin?” Sakura asks. “I can’t even lie to you.”

“Ehh…” The boy taps his cheek for a second, looking around. “What about your teammates?”

They ended up settling on a rather funny plan. There’s a hundred Naruto clones Henged into Kakashi running around Wave doing odd jobs and making everyone’s life easier. The idea is to try and convince Zabuza that Kakashi isn’t just better, he actually has that much energy to spare. Zabuza should wait until he is in tip top shape before he moves out to start engaging the clones, at which point they’ll have a pretty hefty warning when the clones start dying left and right.

The point is that it buys them time, and Haku seemed happy with the plan enough to listen to her gush about idols and streaming for almost a half an hour. The boy seemed to be actually interested by the end, if only he was extremely interested, or signing a contract. Sakura’d love to see if her gaming powers influenced contracts and stuff, given it’d be a second job she has to keep up with.

Sakura is spending her once again free time on the water, feet planted in it and focusing her hardest on not falling in. She can’t move yet, at least not while training the wind jutsu, but she has two goals and not a whole lot of time to do it so like hell she’s missing out on the chance to train them both. The issue she’s finding is that the wind jutsu seems to be even harder than the other four. It’s as if wind is the exact opposite of her natural inclination, it fights her like nothing else ever has.

Every hour of practice on the water makes her noticeably better at balancing on it. She hasn’t even fallen in the last hour, but she’s made about as much progress on the wind jutsu as she has keeping up with Naruto in physical training. That boy is a freaking monster, and this jutsu sucks. The idea is really simple, she has to create a circular wind going outward around herself. When someone in a movie has a breeze billow their cloak, or move their hair, or dramatically spin a tornado around them to flare their abilities, they’re using some form of this.

This makes it the ability she wants to master the most, because the ability to do a dramatic stage pose on command would add to her invisible coolness stat by several magnitudes over. Movie ninja pretty much all know the wind affinity training jutsu, which begs the question, how does one get a job as a movie ninja? That sounds a lot less stressful than all this Gato and Zabuza crap.

“Oh crap.” She realizes exactly how long she’s been lost in thought, as she loses her footing and splashes into the water. It only takes her a moment to climb out, but she wore herself out too much to dry herself off which sucks.

It means she’s passing out on the dock drenched.

Beats passing out in the water. Kakashi and Sasuke would scold her if they saw that little mishap she just had, so she’ll have to let it be her little secret.

“Change of plans.” It’s Kakashi’s announcement which gets her attention mid-race with Naruto. Practicing the wind affinity jutsu while she runs doesn’t make anything any easier, and she finds she’s pretty annoyed about that. 

Mostly because Naruto started to try it too after she explained how cool it is, and by the way she keeps having to use Genin dexterity to deflect twigs and stuff, he’s already got it down. It was like twenty minutes. He beat even her earth score by like a thousand percent. 

Worse off, instead of a small gust of wind, when he does it he creates a miniature tornado. She’s not even completely sure it’s the same jutsu! She’s been thinking about this the entire time she’s been chasing after him and constantly getting whipped in the face by branches and run-away clones swept up in the current of ridiculous Naruto shenanigans.

She can’t help but think about what she learned yesterday as she looks at her team. They both want to restart their clan with her? She’s not dumb, she knows what that means, it’s just, not something she can imagine with them. It’s not something she can imagine with anyone.

Is she weird for not having feelings like that? Is it weird that she’s more weirded out than flattered? At least they’re not treating her differently, or expecting anything from her. She’s not sure she could handle that if they did.

Regardless of her thoughts, she does have to stop her fierce, almost concerning amount of introspection to address Kakashi. She stops the race and approaches, just as Naruto cancels his showing off and lets all the twigs and branches and an awkwardly out of place and very confused squirrel fall to the ground. It scrambles off just as Naruto spots it and rubs the back of his head sheepishly.

“Yeah, Kakashi-sensei?” Naruto asks first, skipping over to him like he didn’t just let out enough chakra for ten minutes that Kakashi’s probably jealous. 

“Your plan was very creative, and I want to commend you.” Kakashi says to Naruto. Sakura chooses not to point out that it was her plan, she’d gain little and Naruto looks so proud of himself. She wouldn’t take that smile away for the world, let alone correcting her sensei. “But Zabuza won’t be fooled by it for long. We need to officially start guarding Tazuna when he leaves to work on the bridge each day.”

“That’ll cut into training.” Naruto points out.

“That’s a problem we’ll have to accept.” Kakashi says a little sternly, eying Naruto as if to try and will away any further objections, strangely enough it works perfectly. Naruto shuts up, and Sasuke doesn’t have anything to say either. The boy is eerily silent, Sakura actually has to check to make sure he’s listening and not napping in the grass again. “One of you will be coming with me each day, while the other two train. Your job will be to get Tazuna away and protect him from bandits while I deal with Zabuza.”

“That sucks.” Naruto echoes her thoughts perfectly, she chooses not to tell him that.

The next week passes by very quickly, training water walking and the wind affinity jutsu whenever she gets the chance. She gets down Water Walking pretty quickly, evolving Tree Walking and celebrating her victory with a box of pocky from her bag. Luckily a lot of her snacks weren’t destroyed, she doesn’t know what she’d do without a sugar boost every now and again throughout all this ceaseless training. Shove raw ground up sugar into her mouth, maybe?

It really does drag on in a way she finds makes her quite weary, especially now that she knows she can’t just do it constantly and spend most of the day passed out. It was like living in a haze, she barely had to actually experience the actions. It was nice, but also terrifying. It’s probably the difference between her photographic memory and actual photographic memory, the ability to fade out. She knows she can’t have actual photographic memory, it’s not in her traits list.

It reminded her of countless nights of grinding to fight super bosses, or learning cool tricks in a shooter and getting it down pat. The hunter training from L4D2 is a pretty good example, there was a modded map one could use to learn hunter tricks and perform an obstacle course to get better at lining up movement for the Vs mode. She spent a lot of time on that once, and it felt pretty much exactly the same as her few days of track training and lightning grinding. Though, the track grinding was probably worse, as she’d do the hunter training again but fuck that.

Unfortunately, her physical training has to be cut loose pretty hard. Naruto’s either with Kakashi, or Sasuke is, and they have to make occasional rounds to ensure no one attacks Inari and Tsunami in their home. She’s not sure what the likelihood is that they'd actually catch an attack, but Kakashi said the idea was to show the enemies that the home isn’t unguarded, and less trying to get lucky enough to intercept a mid-day slice and dice.

That and leaving a Naruto clone back at the home makes her feel a lot better. She’s grown rather attached to the little brat, and Tsunami’s done a whole lot of warming up to her too, even if she barely sees either of them enough for it to matter. She won’t see them at all soon, that’s a sad thought. She likes it here, even if she misses her mother and father a whole lot more. 

Homesick doesn’t begin to cover the feelings she’s had the last few days now that she’s slowed down enough to think.

It’s harrowing, she’s never been far away from her parents. Even when they were active ninja they took jobs just outside the village so they could always get back to her in a heartbeat. They also took jobs in such a way that one of them was always home should she need them. One would do in village D ranks, the other would do something like gate guarding or border patrol or bandit hunting.

She’s never gone more than a day without seeing at least one of her parents, even in her deepest gaming binges they’d slip into her room and give her a hug before they went to bed.

It’s been a couple of weeks now, she’s pretty sure. It’s hard to tell, what with several days in there being a blur of motion sickness and ugly stat grinding, and another being a moody panic after getting stabbed to a tree by her own sword.

Her days actually at the bridge are wasted. Inari lets her borrow her own gameboy back for the bridge since she can’t train, so she spends most of her day scanning everyone in sight in the hopes it levels up.

It does not. At least she can check Inari’s progress on stuff every few days.

Which is what brings her to this moment, walking in circles on the water while accepting that wind is beyond her for now. Even Kakashi can only use four elements, so she’s read, maybe she has to accept she’s not some super ninjutsu master in training?

Well, she is, but it’s going to take a lot more work than she wants and that’s saying something because all she has to do is move some wind around in a circle!

At least she can mold wind chakra, that’s a step forward.

“Hey.” It’s that sweet, sweet, cute bishonen voice that catches her off guard and makes her look up. Luckily her control is great enough with water walking that she doesn’t even dip a little bit into the water. She’s got it down. She already knew that since the notification to tell her she’d evolved Tree Walking into Water Walking came a day ago, but it’s very satisfying to have a real life example of something instead of words on a floating invisible page only she can read. “You’re out of time.”

“What?” Sakura can’t help but blink at the boy, looking as pretty as ever on the dock just a few short feet away. He’s in a dress today, she chooses not to question him. If he wants to embrace the femboy, he can embrace the femboy. “Kakashi’s actually at full strength now, is he crazy? He hasn’t even started killing clones.”

“I think he saw through the gambit.” Haku admits, chewing his lip a little. Her?
Should Sakura say her when Haku’s in a dress? She’s really not sure if cross dressing is indicative of a momentary gender switch or just a cute thing to do, and she’s not about to add that complicated bag of questions to her already broken social skills. She’s not gonna ask. Haku’s a guy until further info is given, simple. The point is Haku looks really pretty in red, that’s all there is to it. “Kakashi is not known for creating so many clones, perhaps you went too far?”

“Maybe I did.” Sakura grumbles, conceding defeat there. “So you’re here to kill me? Like you said?”

“No. I think I can delay him one more day, but you have to do whatever you are going to do now. Come tomorrow, if Gato still lives, I will kill you.” Sakura can tell two major things.

One, that Haku still lacks killing intent. There’s no desire to harm her, no inner rage, no bottled up seething hatred trained into him from the academy, ready to explode out in an instant like she did to the demon twins. She tries not to think about them, they're a touchy subject in her mind right now. She hates that, she’d do anything to avoid it.

Her first kills were real, and her boys judged her for it.

Two, Haku is totally serious.
They will kill her. She will die. Naruto will die. Sasuke will die.

Kakashi will probably be fine.

While Sakura would have loved for Kakashi to tag along for the dungeon, the reality is that someone needs to guard the damn bridged builder just in case Haku’s lying and wants to use this for a planned attack. So it’s the team of Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura standing in front of the dungeon that Sakura checks back in for. She’s been a bit dissociative lately.

She’ll need to fix that once they get home, and she can hug her mom and tell her all about this craziness. Maybe she’ll leave out the part about dungeons and numbers and blacking out only to train again the moment she wakes up. Maybe she won’t.

Her mother yelling at Kakashi about this sounds really soothing to her nerves.

[Gato Tower Dungeon, Level Recommendation: 20
Level of current party: 20

Please ensure you are on level and have equivalent quality gear that is in top condition. There will be no leaving to rest once you have entered.]

“Wow, we really got eleven percent stronger.” Sakura says.

“You, got eleven percent stronger,” Sasuke grunts, “I’m stronger, but I don’t think anyone can train as hard as you besides Naruto, and he’s already too strong to advance like that so fast.”

“Wouldn’t that mean she’s stronger than eleven whatevers?” Naruto asks, “since it’s probably averaged between all three of us?”

“Sakura, how much do you remember from the last time we looked at this cave to now?” Sasuke asks.

“Uh… we started training, and then I met Haku, and then I stood on a bridge a little, and then I met Haku again.” Sakura recites. “There was some training in between, I think.”

“You don’t remember the training.” Sasuke quirks his brow. “At all?”

“No, I remember some.” Sakura’s hand rubs her arm awkwardly. “I think.”

“Don’t you have a photographic memory?” Sasuke asks.

“I ran out of camera film.” Sakura jokes, watching as neither seem to get it.
Or maybe she didn’t tell it right. “It’s fine, I never have to do that ever again. What are the odds we get another A rank mission the next time we step out of Konoha?”

Naruto starts to open his mouth-

“Exactly, zero!” Sakura doesn’t let him talk. “We can train at a normal person pace back at home, and I can do that thing where I repress most of this mission directly after I give the Hokage my report, you know, like you do with a test or horror games you played as a child.”

“That explains so much.” Sasuke says, twitching quite visibly. She tilts her head to try and proc the facial chart, but it seems to think she should just get this one since it’s not helping.

It’s not important, what is important is they have a dungeon to clear. “You boys ready? I’m ready.”

“What are the odds this place is empty?” Naruto asks.

“None.”

Chapter Text

Stepping foot into the dungeon, Sakura can't help but take in how different it is than she thought it would look from outside. It's oddly structured, almost cave like but not quite. The walls are a lot more straight than a cave should be, and even the ceiling is barely a circle at all. The ridged rocky ceiling is more of a pattern than an actual random cave, and it's much better lit than a cave should be. She's not sure where all the light is coming from, but it's here and she can't help but take notice of it.

It doesn't feel like the manor it should be, that's for sure, it's more insidious and weird. "If I didn't believe you before, I do now." Sasuke says.

"You didn't believe me." Sakura points out.

"I do now."

Despite the apprehension built upon entering, they're met with silence for quite some time. Too alert to talk, too quiet to not talk, they're stuck in an awkward place where they won't even look at each-other. At least the rocks get a little more like chiseled stone and a bit more clearly not a cave as they go on. Eventually they're met with torches, and that gets rid of the old question of where the light is coming from. Well, it doesn't for that part of the dungeon, but she doesn't have to think about it anymore which is basically the same thing.

There's a crack that echoes behind them, then a rumble, and she looks behind her just in time to see a cave in. Rocks fall and slam into the rocks below, seemingly endlessly dropping until the space is taken up and it has reached the ceiling. There has to be several thousand rocks there, each blocking the way quite firmly.

She nods to herself, having fully expected this. Naruto and Sasuke, not so much, she can hear them arguing behind her about ways to get out should it come to it. Naruto brings up her new ability to manipulate earth, which makes her feel nice and tingly inside at the recognition, but most of the conversation is about their respective skills.

She lets them argue for some time while walking over to test her ability. Grabbing a stone in her hand, she can convert it to dirt, which means she could probably tunnel their way out of here. There's no saying it wouldn't just refill itself while she was at it, but it's an option to test in an emergency.

It's while she's testing this that Sasuke suddenly speaks up, ending their pragmatic argument very suddenly. "Incoming." It's all he has to say, before they're both alert and the sound has started. Skittering, scratching, stones being dug into and passed by rapidly. Creatures are coming from deeper in the cave towards them. "That doesn't sound human." Naruto gulps.

"Didn't say they were." Sasuke grunts, while she draws her shuriken, already applying fire chakra to some to make them hot to the touch. It's a relatively cheap technique, not very effective either but for a prolonged dungeon it's optimal.

That is until horrifying abominations appear from the walls. "Spiders?" She asks, not sure what the hell those are. They're like spiders, but they ooze black goop everywhere they step. They climb on the ceiling, on the walls, skitter across the floor towards them. They're huge, with dozens of eyes and pincers. They're covered in gray fur, and have so many legs she feels her whole body shiver instinctively. It's like if spiders also managed to cause an uncanny valley.

Sasuke prepares a fireball jutsu, and Sakura gets beside him instinctively, ready to throw at a moment's notice-

When spikes erupt from all sides, massive gluttonous blades jutting out and impaling dozens of creatures ahead of them. A wall of steel is erected, screeches and terrified screaming fills their ears as hundreds of monsters are torn to bits.

"Hey guys." Sakura clears her throat.

"I think there might be traps in this dungeon."

"Uh-huh…" Naruto says with a half breath.

Sasuke takes a moment to grunt, before dropping his hands and staring. The blades slowly draw back, disappearing and taking the corpses with them. Leaving only money littered throughout the ground, like drops in a game.

"I'm not picking that up." Sakura says. "Naruto, clones?"

"Hell no!" Naruto shakes his head furiously. "I remember all that stuff, remember? I don't want to die a thousand times for some money."

"That's fair…" She says. "I don't have a trap detection skill. Do either of you?"

"Not at that level." Sasuke says, hands dropping into his pockets as he realizes this might take a while.

"I do." Naruto says, heading ahead cautiously. "You two just stay back, I'll find the trigger and deactivate it for us, or at least figure out how to get past."

"Go Naruto!" She says. "But use clones."

"Right, right, forgot in the moment." He's clearly shaken, she can't imagine Naruto ever forgetting about his clones, but he quickly returns to her side and spawns a hundred physical entities to go do all that. Naruto's clones are interesting. The Shadow Clone technique, unlike the normal clone technique, creates physical clones which suffer none of the weaknesses of the normal clones. They can't be seen through as a genjutsu, they can't be ignored because they're not there, and they possess an actual ability to do damage to you so they're a force multiplier instead of taking from your chakra pool for very little effect.

If she could do the Shadow clone jutsu, the goblins wouldn't have even been a question. She could have beaten them all down bare handed, and gotten some cool taijutsu skill instead.

The issue is that the time she tried to learn it from Naruto, she woke up in Kakashi's apartment, being scolded by the man for being an idiot. It turns out just one shadow clone possesses more chakra than she has total, and Naruto just sent out twenty of them like it was nothing to go check for traps.

Stamina nut doesn't begin to cover it, and she is sure as hell looking into the Uzumaki when she gets home to find out what kind of crazy bloodline they possess to let him do that. She has a lot of stuff to look into at home, like the demon twins. She doesn't feel bad about killing them, even if they were real people, their bios really were so cartoonishly evil that it was natural to assume they weren't real, but she can't move on until she treats their deaths with some respect.

As for the trap and the money, he can have it he can deactivate the traps to grab it, because she's sure as hell not going anywhere near that while it's active, and if it's deactivate it's his spoil anyway.

It's remarkable how good Naruto is at that kind of thing. Sitting back with Sasuke while watching Naruto work is easy. She's never been good at spotting traps and the like in games, and puzzles have always bothered her despite her high intelligence. She's very good at thinking inside a box, and puzzles tend to try and push the boundary. If she had to guess, after a certain point, her intelligence stopped making her smarter and started making her faster. It's probably why she doesn't have jonin mind despite being incredibly smart, some of it is clearly personal aptitude, but on a stat level, it's about speed. She's just not as fast as Kakashi, and she's not sure she ever will be.

That's okay though, being as fast mentally as an average Jonin would be fine with her.

Naruto's hands blur along the ground, then the wall, eventually he walks up it and starts checking there too. He's looking for something, but what, she has no idea. It's not important, only one of them needs that particular skill. She's happy to let Naruto be useful, it'd be far better for her to focus on his weaknesses than getting jealous and trying to match him everywhere.

"The Dobe's checking for pressure plates." Sasuke explains after a moment, seeing something she's not. "That's far too elaborate a trap for it to only be intended to go off once, so it has to be a plate or something spring loaded, it can't be wires because wires have to be replaced."

"Where'd you get that from?" Sakura asks.

"He's played quite a few pranks on me over the years." Sasuke admits, "avoiding traps means learning a bit about them."

"So you're both trap masters?" Sakura asks.

"No. I just learned how to not get covered in paint. I never learned anything special because Naruto never did anything special. Traps can only go so far before they become dangerous, and he doesn't have a malicious bone in his body." Hearing that from Sasuke of all people leaves her with a lot to think about. He's not normally so verbose, but then, why complain?

Still, "that's rather wordy for you," Sakura points out, "I rather like the soft boy broody Sasuke."

"Right." Sasuke drawls, calling her on it the moment it leaves her mouth. Unfortunately for her, she doesn't know how to stop a blush, that skill just never came up before. "Complimenting my teammates is something I've been working on with a guy I talk to, back in Konoha." He explains. "He says that admitting competency in others helps you see it in yourself."

"And that's a problem for the great last Uchiha?" Sakura asks. "I thought you had an ego."

"Oftentimes, it's those who assert themselves the most, who have the least confidence." Sasuke lets that sit wordlessly, just as Naruto pressing something on the ceiling, and the spikes jut out again.

"Found it!" Naruto says.

"You can have the loot then!" Sakura calls out, waving at him. "To the victor go the spoils!"

Naruto is quick to pocket it all and put it into specially designated bags. He's got a marker he uses and a brown sack is officially labeled 'spider money'. She figured he'd add it to his wallet, a 'Gama-chan' if she recalls, but he doesn't.

Maybe he's worried the dungeon money will be different? It's not important, what is important is their feet soon take them to a four way intersection. Behind them is the entrance, so she knows that's not the way forward. Forward could be the way, but that could also be way too obvious, if the dungeon is designed like a real game dungeon it could be left or right.

She could use the maze method, which is following either the left or right wall until she reaches her destination. If she never changes her direction she can't get lost, it's not physically possible. The dungeon would have to be infinitely generated for her to not eventually reach where she needs to go, and she's pretty sure her power hasn't figured out the answer to entropy. Something that figured out entropy wouldn't have opened up giving her traits like 'disappointment,' it would be too far above it.

Smart people don't insult others, dumb people who think they're smart do.

She's just about to open her mouth and bring the maze method up, when Naruto speaks up, "it's forward."

"It is?" She asks.

"Look," Naruto points up towards the ceiling, at one very particular part. It's a little smooth, straight, well angled, and after a good look it turns out to be metallic. She would never have spotted that given a million years, and she kind of has to wonder whether there is a perception skill, trait, or hidden stat she needs to get a hold of. Naruto has it, she doesn't, Sasuke's not even pretending to look so clearly he doesn't have it either. "I don't see the activator, but that panel moves when triggered to release something dangerous. It likely goes off when we start moving forward, to try and stop us from going that way."

"Meaning someone doesn't want us going that way." Sakura concludes. "How do we get past it then?"

"We find the trigger," Sasuke says, "or we shoot it with a fireball and hope that sets it off."

"We could shoot it with a fireball," Sakura agrees.

"I say we shoot it with a fireball," Naruto repeats.

"Good idea, Naruto," Sakura reaches over and pats his shoulder, causing Sasuke to scoff and roll his eyes.

"So, left or right?" Sakura asks, after a moment to stare at the plate and hope it gives them its secrets. The reality is that she wouldn't have thought of that. She has a higher mind than Naruto but that's clearly not how cognitive function works, or at least not the only variable. Traits, skills, and some hidden stats have a huge impact on their thought processes and not just in that personalities are unique and experiences are a huge part of them.

Naruto is better than her in moment to moment thinking, that is obvious, but does that actually convert into stats or is it just his impulsiveness given form from a trait having a secondary benefit? Can she get better at that without a trait, or does she have to train it as a skill? As much as she's grateful to have Naruto there to advise her, it'd be nice to not totally suck when he's not there. There's always the possibility one of them gets promoted before the other, or she gets recruited into ANBU for her powers once Kakashi reports them. She sure hopes not, but it was always a risk when she revealed herself, she knew that.

"He said forward." Sasuke points out stiffly, showing the awkwardness on his face as both Naruto and her stare at him like he's an idiot. "Is it not forward?"

"The way forward is forward," Sakura explains patiently, slowly, deliberately, "but we want the loot."

"You want to purposely have a harder time with this because you might find spoils?" Sasuke asks, "that seems a little… crazy."

"It's not just that," she admits, rubbing her arm a little at the call out, "we don't have a lot of opportunities to get live combat training. The next clear of this dungeon will probably be more difficult, and I don't want to have to go through our oh so fun training arc again because we skipped out on combat right now."

"So… right or left?" Naruto asks, repeating her earlier conversation.

"Left." Sasuke says, after a moment, to ponder it as if it's a serious question with all the weight of the world on it. Without any further deliberation, Sakura shrugs and starts walking down the left path, smiling brightly when the two of them take their place behind her.

If she's the tank, Naruto's the rogue, and Sasuke's some kind of cross between a mage and a ranger. Rangers technically have magic in most settings, so maybe he's just a ranger? His clan techniques give him a lot of advantages with kunai and the like, so it's not an absurd concept.

After a rather long walk, the left side leads to a wooden door that's barely held together. It's as easy to open as it is to break, as Sakura finds out when she puts pressure on it to pull it open and hears the snaps. She's careful about it, trying not to alert whatever's on the other side, and she's relieved to see no one noticed when she has it open enough for them to peer through.

Armed men are walking around what appears to be a small campsite in the middle of a mining area. Veins are glittering and glinting in all directions, and she kicks herself internally for not thinking to invest in a pickaxe for her travel gear just in case. Despite being a mine, no one has any gear for it, and she can only think that's typical and unhelpful.

Instead of mining gear, they're in higher quality armor and have shiny swords and axes at their side that must have been polished and sharpened recently. "Gato outfitted them nicely, this must really be his cave dungeon leading to his tower." She mumbles, observing them a bit closer with a tilt of her head. They have red sight lines drawn on the floor, as well as circles around them to notify of their direct ability to sense someone entering their space. They're not very big, and no one seems to have great sight with the helmets they have on, but that doesn't stop her from noticing something interesting. "They're automated," Sakura says, "not people."

"Sakura…" Sasuke sighs.

"Not delusional, I'm serious this time, this is not a repeat of the demon twins." Sakura says, not liking the way her stomach churns at the thought. "They're moving in perfect patterns without any variation."

"Boy, I hope some action turns up soon." One of the bandits says.

"No kidding, I'm bored out of my mind, I can't wait to violate someone at the slightest provocation." Another says.

"Dude, have standards." A third says, before the entire group laughs.

"See? No one has a conversation like that." Sakura says. "It's a genre specific mocking of bandits, they're not real. We can kill them all we want."

"And if you're wrong?" Naruto asks.

"Then we kill some bandits and someone doesn't get violated at the slightest provocation." Sakura deadpans.

"Works for me." Sasuke is already making hand seals for one of his fireball jutsu before they finish talking.

"Wait, I have a stealth skill," Sakura interrupts him, placing a hand on his hands to stop his seals, "and I'm willing to bet Naruto does too."

Naruto nods.

"We can probably take two out before the fighting even starts. There's only six of them, so if you blow someone up the moment we're caught we're down to three only, whereas if you shoot now we have to fight five." Sakura holds his hand steady, seeing Sasuke contemplate it for a long moment, before he lowers his seals and takes a deep breath.

"I thought the whole point was combat experience." Sasuke says, while she can't fault him there, Naruto apparently can.

"Sneaking up on people is combat experience, it could save our lives at some point." Naruto says. "Besides, it's fun."

"Fine, go ahead." Sasuke leans against the wall with a click of his teeth, and they're through the door and trying to creep up on someone well before he can change his mind and get started with the fire apocalypse. Six men, four wandering around in a giant square around the room, two lazing about at the center camp laughing while having a quick drink. It's not complicated, and it doesn't have to be, they just need to get in and do it.

She has to put a bit of effort in to avoid overlapping sight lines and circles, but she uses that extra time she's navigating to pull a kunai and superheat it. While it's not as effective as if she had gotten an actual fire affinity, and she's still working on mastering the jutsu, it's still more than hot enough to steam if applied to water and she's pretty sure that's good enough to add some power. The moment she gets into the circle of her target, she sees it start to change color from red to yellow, then to green, implying that her stealth skill can allow her to circumvent it if she's careful and deliberate.

It's nice to see how mechanics work instead of having them explained to her in a wall of text, it makes her grin a bit, makes her feel a bit more like she's in a game and not in some dangerous situation. She sneaks up just a little closer, wraps her left arm around his neck from behind, pulls up and back to draw his head into the right position, and inserts her burning kunai where she's created an opening. The steam is first, the gurgle is second. His clunking to the ground is a bit loud, and it's only then that she realizes she should have coordinated that with Naruto.

Looking over to him, she finds his target is already on the ground, and he's got a hand on his forehead, as if questioning why she would let him drop. That was dumb, she now realizes that was really dumb. Dropping an enemy in a game has never caused a problem for her, and she really needs to get her head out of the game and into real life.

Of course the system would be different in real life, if games were completely realistic they wouldn't be fun. Naruto's adjusting better than her because his predispositions aren't nearly as strong, and that's something she needs to learn from him.

Sure enough, before she can make a move, she hears weapons leaving sheaths and sees the sight lines shoot towards her, just before Sasuke's voice cries out and flames bathe the area in hellish fashion.

"Time for a fight." She draws her own sword, and charges.

Chapter Text

Bright and powerful, Sasuke's flames bathe the room and force the remaining three enemies into a corner. The screams of their fellow nameless mook echo in everyone's ears, but no one's taking a moment of pause. It's just another hint that they're not real, and another reason she doesn't have to worry about it. Naruto engages two while Sasuke immediately gives ranged support, which means it's her time to take some aggro away from the duo. She wastes no time darting in at top speed, unsheathing her sword with a thick grin. It feels good to hold, to give into it just a little, but she's not dumb.

Something is wrong with this sword, and there's no point to giving it blood here, so she refrains and asserts dominance over it for a moment. She can use it without giving it a reward, and it'll just have to deal with that. It's not like wasting blood this early in the dungeon would be a good idea, and she doesn't just get her health back if she wastes it willy nilly. She can't afford a six hour nap in the middle of the dungeon floor anymore than she can afford to let it have her.

Once in Konoha, she'll have it checked, or maybe she'll corner Kakashi and ask him what the fuck. Whatever the case, she's quick on the offense because they have to clear this five times and that's gonna suck if they rush, if they take forever with each one it'll become their new day job.

She's pleased to see that instead of instantly spamming shadow clones against the two trying to skewer him, Naruto's dodging and getting a few hits off every quick round. Shadow clones are expensive, and having it as a trump card instead of a first technique is so much more valuable. Talking caution into him was difficult, but games helped her do it.

For every slash they make towards him, he's got a kick in one's face and a kunai embedded in another's arm or leg. It's the third trying to sneak up on him that she intercepts, arriving like hell is on her heels. With an intense flicker of her chakra, her sword glows a little with lightning, while Sasuke's flames continue to burn corpses and fill the air with the putrid smell of death.

She can't charge it much yet, proto-affinity is nowhere near as strong as she'd like, but like hell she's missing a chance to grind it in combat. Just as she'd expected, when she gets close he slashes out at her like he doesn't even see the sparks flying off her evil blade. A part of her wonders if it's because this is a dungeon and he's not supposed to adapt, but the sound of his screams rapidly inform her that he at least recognizes the effects of potent lightning chakra flowing down his weapon and shooting into his flesh through his grip. His body clenches, holding it all the harder and allowing her to channel more of her chakra into him like a river of poison. "That's enough." She grunts, releasing him from his newfound agony prison by spin kicking his weapon away from him with enough force to shatter his hands in the process.

"Better put you out of your misery, huh." She follows up by slashing her sword horizontally using her momentum to rend flesh, armor, and bone alike.

She doesn't even look at him as he falls in two pieces, quickly observing the other boys and their battle.

She's happy to see they're already successful. Naruto eventually did decide on using a couple clones, who are currently poking and prodding their unconscious enemies. Unconscious, not dead, Naruto's such a softie. It makes her smile even as her opponent's blood bathes her from his still spewing body..

She's less happy to see their disturbed, judging stares. "What? I wanted to try it. He's not real damn-it!"

"Uh-huh." Sasuke grunts.

"He's not!"

"Let's just move on." Naruto gulps, looking away and heading towards the door.

"There's gotta be loot here though!" She points out. "Let's look for a chest or something."

"Nope, I'm out, this room smells like burning flesh," Naruto does as he says and leaves without regard for her loot desires.

"Dobe's right," is all Sasuke says before walking away from her himself, exiting out the worn down door quickly enough, abandoning her to do the scavenging herself. Jerky teammates… You try one technique. She's not even the one burning people to death! That was Sasuke!

"So unfair!"

As they skipped out, she got all the treasure to herself. Which means she left empty handed because there was no loot. The only guy who looked like he had anything valuable on him was the guy Sasuke hit with a fireball, and even she wasn't poking through charred, sizzly flesh for a trinket.

Going back to the center and taking the right path instead of the left leads to a similar situation as the left had. Instead of a mine room, they discover a treasury, but its contents - beyond armed guards - are, well, peculiar.

"Why would they guard a room of blow up toys?" Naruto questions, smacking an inflatable hammer against his arm. It makes loud boppy noises every time it lands, making her smile quite brightly. "This is like the most random thing I have ever seen."

"It's completely useless." Sasuke sighs, eying a pile of inflatable shuriken. "Why?"

"Not necessarily." Sakura says, lifting a golden sword - well a balloon but it's gold trimmed and looking sweet - and waving it around. "I bet Inari would love this."

"You get he's not actually related to you, right?" Sasuke asks. "Are you going to get attached to every child we do a mission near?"

"Yes." She answers without even the smallest bit of shame. She's got a balloon, she's got a dungeon, she's happy. All she needs to complete the set is an energy drink, some cocoa, a bag of chips and a keyboard. "Besides, it's not just him, there's tons of bored kids in Wave with nothing to do. Just because something's not treasure to you doesn't mean it's not treasure. We could probably raise the average morale of Wave an entire percentile with this, maybe several. Adults might enjoy this stuff too."

"Sakura… How do we even get the toys out of here?" Sasuke drawls, "and please remember we had to take people down to get here, people who might wake up if we take too long." It's true, everyone that was taken down here is just unconscious. She stayed back and let them do it this time, since they were too busy being the judgment squad and turning their gazes towards her to do a dungeon properly. She just really wanted to use her techniques more and apparently using techniques is 'brutal' and 'intense' and 'maybe a little excessive.' No one cared when Sasuke shot a fireball… She doesn't understand, and maybe she will in time, maybe it's a low charm thing. She's working on it, she wants to get to Genin charm before the chunin exams, just in case their crazy teacher wants to shove them into it.

She sincerely doubts it, but Kakashi is Kakashi, and that guy is nuts.

It's gonna be a sore spot for a while, she's sure of it, these boys are just too moral. They've never done a full night binge grinding adorable creatures for special loot or burnt something cute and listened to it scream for an achievement.

Gaming is hell, and they just aren't ready for it.

"What are the odds there's a real sword underneath it all?" Naruto asks. "Like a mask for if anyone took out the guards?"

"Are you really going to make me search through childrens' inflatable bonking weaponry?" Sasuke already knows they are before he says it, so their expectant gazes only make him rub his face. "Fine."

"Told ya." Sakura gloats, skipping along happily while examining her new bright and shiny hand crossbow. It's got metal plates all over it, and the bolts are gem tipped like some kind of special game bolts. They're beautiful, but she's far more concerned with what kind of crazy nonsense they're gonna do when they shatter. They remind her of the old Runescape bolts, and those did not play around.

"This is awesome." Naruto's more than happy to spin his new nunchucks. She's not exactly sure if those are a good idea for him to have, but she trusts him not to knock himself out with them at least. Besides, hers is far more impractical, and she's pretty sure the loot was altered by her new skill. The odds just don't make a lot of sense otherwise, crossbows aren't exactly common. Hand crossbows even less so, though she does have to wonder why it's not more common among genin. Crossbows can ignore personal strength, and they're more than enough for an agile and determined genin to take down a bandit or two. They wouldn't even be that expensive to have made, so D ranks would pay for it quickly enough even if you had to use your entire stipend on living expenses.

"I hate you both." Sasuke managed to find a pair of goggles that have the strongest glass she's ever seen. Sasuke called dibs immediately, citing that an Uchiha's eyes are more valuable than their legs. She somehow doubts that's actually true, but the conviction he said it with was more than enough for her. If she'd known Sasuke wanted goggles, she would have bought him goggles. Or, maybe learned to make them? They can't be that hard, and she has been wanting to get into crafting. Once she gets home, she's checking on the sword, getting a hug from her mom, and buying crafting supplies to see if she can get a skill.

Besides, folding to his desire for goggles let them go ahead and grab what they wanted. She even managed to bargain with him until he was willing to carry around all the inflatables for her cooperation in ensuring Naruto didn't argue too much. He used to wear goggles and was quite attached to them, so it wasn't surprising to see him kinda want invincible glass.

The inflatables, much to Sasuke's ire, are stored in sealing scrolls they found underneath it all. They found two, and after using them to steal all the inflatable toys, they were only mostly filled up. The children of Wave are going to be so excited, and she gets to rub it in Sasuke's face!

Who's a good big sister? Not her, because she's not related to any of them, but they'll be calling her big sister after she's done with this haul! It's gonna be amazing. Her eyes sparkle just thinking about all that innocent fun. She's already planning on coming back to Wave sometime to check in on Inari and bring real gaming equipment, now she'll be the girl who also gave him and his friends a hundred toys.

"It is pretty stupid," she agrees, humming a little to herself as they hit the intersection once again, "so who's activating the trap so we can finally move forward?"

"Me." Sasuke's already halfway through the hand signs before she can say another word.

Flame leaves his mouth, the air itself ignites, and Sakura has just enough time to use her Genin Agility to full sprint tackle Naruto to the ground. The air burns above them, flames spreading like a toxin and coating the room with enough heat she can feel her clothes charing a bit above her. Tsunami is gonna be so mad about her top.

"I'm okay." Sakura shouts, after she finally feels the heat above dissipate and let her be.

"I'm under Sakura!" Naruto decides to inform them.

"It's just fire," Sasuke says, "I've been protecting myself from fire with my chakra since I was ten."

He really is standing valiantly like nothing happened, even as the walls, the floor, and the two of them are covered in soot. "Bastard." Sakura and Naruto manage to speak at the same time.

Their steps take them down a long hallway, and then another, and then another. It's long, it's awkward, but none of them are any stranger to walking. Especially recently, Sakura feels like she's taken more steps since coming to Wave than in the entire rest of her life combined.

Click. Click. Click.
The sound catches her ears instantly, something slotting into something else, and then with little to no warning, soaring through the air. She can hear the force tearing through the path on its way towards them, and without thinking she draws her sword.

She doesn't have to look to her right to slash thrice, and send three now in half arrows cut right down the middle to the floor behind her. Her gaze is instead focused on the left side, where she can see a dead end and several more arrows flying towards her. With a flourish they're dealt with too, her hands moving her blade like one might a gentle conducting pointer through the air during a musical. Then before her ears even pick up on it, she's dealing with a volley from the right side again - then the left side - then the right - like an automation, a neverending current of projectiles is dealt with and wood litters the ground in such a way that every step of her footwork makes a crunch beneath her feet.

"Sakura-jeez-" It's Sasuke's voice that breaks her out of her sudden stupor, and his hand that grabs Tsunami's burnt shirt and drags her across the intersection and out of the way of the arrows.

"That was cool." Naruto praises her.

"And completely needless." Sasuke chuffs. "It was a narrow path, we just walked across."

"Sorry, I don't know what happened there," she looks back, where arrows are still flying through a hallway she hadn't even fully looked at.

The funny thing is she does know what happened there. She got trapped in a loop of instant successes from Genin Dexterity. Surely she would have gotten herself out eventually, once she realized, but what if that had been more dangerous?

Could an enemy abuse a mental loop like that to trap her in place while they set up something scarier? "I'm just glad I have teammates that'll look out for me," she decides to say, "thanks, Sasuke, Naruto."

"Mnn.." Sasuke looks away from her, but Naruto.
Naruto gives her a big thumbs up and a grin that could make the gods smile.

Did the game system pick her teammates as well? If it did, she'll have to thank whoever gave her this ability. She wouldn't trade them away for anything, and they were just bonus! Well, maybe she'd change a few small traits here and there, but not the people.

"This is it." Sakura says, staring at a giant door at the end of the tunnel. It's silver, and shiny, and about as imposing as any door can be. It's the simplicity that gets to her. Between the traps, the spiders, the mine and the random toy room, she expected something equally ludicrous here. If the dungeon isn't seeking to make a lot of sense or be consistent, why is it trying to lull them into a sense of normalcy here at the end?

This is what a dungeon room's door should look like. Wide enough for all three of them to slip in at once, weighty enough to require more than one of them to open it, tall enough for them to stand on each-others' heads and still not touch the top.

"The boss room?" Naruto asks.

"No, the pre-boss room, room." Sakura says. "This'll hold Gato's elite, and likely the key required to access Gato."

"That's stupid." Sasuke hasn't been taking to all this very well. She gives him an apologetic smile, and wishes him luck internally. It's not his fault he's using real world logic. Why would they hide the key right in front of the door, with a horde of enemies? That doesn't make a lot of sense, but here, this is her domain.

It makes sense to her, and that's all that matters. "Get ready." She says, grabbing a handle on the massive door. "This fight is going to be a lot harder than the other two, and there might even be a trap or two in there."

It's Naruto who takes the other door, while Sasuke starts intertwining ninja wire with the loops in some shuriken. He's got an idea, and she's sure it'll be great, so she doesn't question him. Well, she doesn't question him until he pulls out a kunai she recognizes. "No." She asserts.

"Huh?" Sasuke looks up from his work to gaze into her demanding eyes.

"Do not use the friendly fire kunai in a dungeon semi-final room." She taps her foot on the stone floor to show she's serious, like a mother scolding her child for trying to wash the dishes with grease.

"Sakura, that's dumb." He glares at her.

"Different, Kunai." She points, and much to her relief, he does in fact put it away and grab another one. She lets out a sigh to say as much, before bringing her attention back to the door, and finding she left it at some point to scold Sasuke. It's still open though, "Naruto…" It turns out even his shadow clones are as strong if not stronger than her, as a single one was all that was needed to do her part. "I get you're a one man army, but you need to conserve your chakra."

"I don't think I do, Sakura." Naruto rubs the back of his head, and unlike with Sasuke she relents. She has no evidence Naruto doesn't have infinite chakra. She's never seen him run out, in any circumstance, ever. It raises a lot of questions, and his trait name is odd too, but she needs to research in Konoha before she comes to any strange conclusions like a crazy person.

"Let's go."

The only mandatory dungeon room is expansive. It's a stone floor just like the rest of them, but while every other room and pathway in this dungeon was a stone floor because they didn't make a floor and the cave happened to have a stone bottom, this one has inlaid stones and many of them. The stones glimmer with an odd light second to second, telling her there's some kind of enchantment on them, and the walls do much the same. The ceiling is the same as the rest of the cave, but that doesn't surprise her, which surprises her.

Most of the dungeon so far has worked off game logic, that normal logic she could instantly logic out applies to this room is a terrifying prospect. It'd be very difficult to replace the ceiling, and might result in cave-ins, it'd be better to just leave it. Which is why it should be different, because games like spectacle and flexing on that kind of thing is exactly what they'd do.

She gulps at that, slapping herself a little so her red stinging cheeks can bring her back to reality. This isn't a game. It's real life with game mechanics, she needs to get her head on straight.

There's several tables littered throughout, a few beds in a corner, what appears to be a research station and gold threaded green carpet overtaking about half the room right in the center. At the end of the carpet, she can see an even bigger, more imposing door than the one they just opened. That's the boss door, surely, which raises a question as to where everyone is here.

There's pillars around the room, seemingly randomly, holding up the ceiling while obscuring vision. It's possible the enemies are behind the pillars, but she can't see anyone. "Naruto, can you check?" She looks at him, and he nods without a word. He already made a shadow clone, so that entity runs out to the center of the room. He steps on the carpet, and walks over it while she watches eagerly, awaiting whatever madness is about to happen.

When nothing does happen, the odd tension building up inside her like a tidal wave refuses to leave. "Am I wrong?" She can't help but ask. The eerie silence doesn't answer her, and with more than a little trepidation she starts her walk towards the center of the room to meet her teammate's physical illusion. She grabs Naruto's hand as she passes him, dragging him along, and looks back to Sasuke to ensure he's following. "Be careful, this is probably a trap." She commands, squeezing Naruto's palm a little before bringing her attention back to the room. Every corner, every glinting tile, the curves of the pillars, the door, it's all terrifying. Something should have happened by now, and games didn't prepare her for the tension that a lack of release might bring.

It's not till she steps into the very center of the room and meets with the clone that she hears a click, followed by the sliding sound, that she finally gets to turn a little of that apprehension into jittery energy. "Be prepared." She asserts, eyes still scanning every which corner.

"Sakura, can you let me go?" Naruto asks, using his free hand to point towards the door, "it's the door, it's opening."

"You'll react to a trap better than I will." Sakura defends herself, while inwardly hitting herself for trying to use him to calm her nerves. Of course it'd be weird for him, they're siblings now, he has two reasons to misconstrue her intentions instead of just one. "It could be really bad if I get caught up in another loop like earlier."

"You were fine, we just needed to go." Sasuke scoffs. "Let him go or he can't react at all if something happens."

It's with no small amount of reluctance that she opens her hand and lets Naruto jump a few feet away with a red face. He doesn't have a long time to be awkward though, because he was right.

The imposing door makes another click, a clack, and begins to open towards them. She steels her stance, waiting for something like a giant snake to slip through. There were spiders at the entrance, and they've seen none since, it's a bit odd and she's not about to let her guard down and be surprised by more random nonsense.

Balloon weapons, spiders, men stationed to guard almost nothing?
This isn't even following game logic, it's just absurd. It's the eccentricity of a madman with too much money, twisted by an illogical system into a dungeon that's more mocking than difficult.

Anything could come through that door, and she's ready for it. So when what comes through is a short, well kept man in a business suit, a cane, and a mustache that frankly hurts her… It points out in both directions, less a mustache and more a whisker, and not a whisker in the same way Naruto's facial whiskers are. His hair reminds her of a mad scientist, bushy and wild in all directions.

She's unsure, nervous, and frankly a bit annoyed.

He looks out at them, well, she thinks he does. He has small circular sunglasses over his eyes so she can't see what he's doing with his gaze. "You have invaded my lands, killed my men, and now you're breaking into my tower." The man scolds with a stern voice that makes the jittery energy inside Sakura explode.

"It's the boss, it's Gato!" She cheers, vibrating in place while one hand rubs her still stinging cheek from earlier, and the other lands on her evil sword.

"Silence girl, silence all of you. Or better yet, talk all you want, it'll be the last words you ever speak." The man raises his canned hand to point at them with it, "get them."

"Minion boss!" She realizes, drawing her sword just in time for armored goons to come running out from the dark room behind him. They'll have to make this quick, or be overrun.

Chapter Text

Jumping back with her readied sword, Sakura can't help but notice that there's only three goons charging at them to start. She decides not to use any special tricks on this one, there's a whole boss fight and she needs to save lightning blades and bloody swings for him. It's strange that the boss fight started in this room, it kind of put a hole in her sails to be wrong about the entire reason for where she stands, but it's probably a balancer for their first clear. She'll need to expect more on the second run through, and if this is Gato, she wonders who'll be here then.

She trusts in her team to handle the other two while she darts into action. Kakashi taught her to be quick and decisive with the blade, it's no use stalling if you can take out the enemy in one swoop. That doesn't mean she never trains defensive combat, the time will come where she's overwhelmed, but it hasn't been incredibly relevant yet and she's hopeful it won't start here. She summons a little water onto the edge of her blade, slashing it towards his sword knowingly. An opportunity to use her techniques like this doesn't come frequently. The live fire nature of this dungeon has helped her grow in leaps and bounds she's sure, and she's not about to waste the chance to get in a little extra training.

Just like she thought, he doesn't take the water into account at all, finding himself surprised when instead of hardening her strike or pulling some kind of crazy jutsu, it harmlessly splashes off of their clash and hits him in the face. It's not a long moment of surprise, but it's enough for her to pivot to the right, leave their clash, and behead the man. She barely has time to take a breath, before another is approaching her, and she definitely doesn't have the chakra to do that forever. "Oh that's not good."

A third is out before the second even gets to her. "Taking them on one by one isn't an option." She declares, holding her sword heavily with both hands and glaring at the boss. "We need Ah Oh Ee."

"Ah Oh what?" Sasuke asks.

"Crowd control." She explains, dodging a slash and downing another weakling, just for two to take his place. Sparks fly as she moves and cuts, like the elements are guiding her movements and the elements are very pissed off. "I need you to try and bunch them up and take them out at once while I go after the boss."

"Or we could just outlast them." Sasuke says, as she hears the thud of one of his opponents hitting the ground. "They're not strong."

"He could have an infinite amount." Sakura says. "If we were in the real world I'd agree with you, but here in a dungeon they really could be endless, we can't take our understanding of physics for granted and assume they apply where they demonstrably do not."

"I guess they are fake." Sasuke grumbles, spearing another man with a threaded ninja wire and a swung shuriken. He's swinging it around in circles, having it flow like a river of blade and slit throats as easily as she slashes. "I don't like this."

"Neither do I." Sakura doesn't wait for him to say he'll do it, she takes one passing glance to ensure Naruto's holding his own before she's darting past the next group and closing distance on the boss.

She doesn't look behind her, she trusts in her team to be able to handle the horde. Instead she focuses all the stops on him. Her blade wreaths itself in lightning, weak or not, it should be enough for a man who doesn't look like much of a fighter. He stands still and watches her, eerily, uncaringly, like she's insignificant and small. It's unsettling, but nowhere near as unsettling as when nothing happened at the start of this room. Her nerves have already been fought back, so she's not about to falter here. "Die!" She lunges at him, swinging her sword with all her might in an attempt to decapitate and electrify him.

Clang.

She finds herself stopped still mid jump, hands shaking, electricity waning. His cane stands between them, and she didn't even see it move.

[Gato: Chunin level Elite, Bandit Lord]

"Oh shit." It's all she can say before he steps in towards her, pushing her off balance, and swings his cane just right for her block to send her skidding backwards across the glowing stones. Her hands throb from the vibrations of blocking a strike meant for someone several times stronger than her, and she stands steady, relenting on her own limiters and sending her life force into the sword.

It glows at first, before it shimmers to life in acceptance of her offering. It tints a mere moment later, reflecting the evil nature of their bargain. She's never really tested how far she can take it, or just how much of a force multiplier every drop of blood actually is in a quantifiable manner, but it makes her stronger and that's all that matters in a fight like this.

The ground beneath her scrapes against her footwear as she slides her footing into a proper defensive stance. Taking him out fast isn't going to work, she has to be tactical, and trust in her team to handle matters until she's succeeded.

She started this mission not trusting in them to take care of themselves, and she got hurt for that assumption. She'll learn from her mistakes, she has to. No one will suffer because she stagnated, not her teammates, not Kakashi, not her parents, not even Haku. She will grow, and she will tower above her foes if it's the last thing she does.

"That won't work, little girl," Her foe laughs at her with a toothy grin that would fit well in a horror game about surreal experiences. "You think a man like me deals with mercenaries without having insurance for if they turn on me? A man doesn't live very long with that kind of attitude."

He's not attacking, just using the opportunity to send more men towards her team. It's odd, he's not even trying to send them to her, like he doesn't care. It's irritating, but mostly it's telling. She's not strong enough to do this alone, or at least he doesn't think she is.

"I don't have time to listen to your prattling." She exits her defensive stance, knowing it was a wasted movement if he's not going to move, and launches herself back at him. The force of her steps alone crack the ground below her, and she brings her sword around for an overhead swing. "Block this!" With a mighty crash, the bloodied blade sends an haunting amount of malice into the air. Her eyes glow a bright red, and her hands grow stiff like iron, stopping her attack from bending or breaking despite putting her all into it.

There's just one issue. Gato swings his cane up to block her, and then doesn't move. Wind blows around her, a shockwave heating up the air around them as if an explosion has gone off. He doesn't move. She jumps back, channeling her chakra to her feet to help her next charge, and with everything she has she tries again, launching herself back into the fray to bisect the man.

He swings his cane to meet her with a bored expression, flame erupts from the force of their clash, but he doesn't move. Again, and again, he meets her all and finds her wanting, pushing her back with simple blocks that make her bones feel weary and her muscles tear.

He continues to gesture with his free hand, absent mindedly calling her a fool with his actions alone, and summoning more and more minions. "This is bullshit." She grunts, jumping away and readying herself.

There's no way Gato is this strong, this is a dungeon gimmick meant to be handled with teamwork. He's not repelling her with power, that'd cause his hands to wave or his body to strain, he's repelling her conceptually. It's the same concept as her Genin Strength, he's above her and she cannot harm him alone.

He's a minion boss focused on teamwork, the gimmick is obvious to an elite like her, it's also difficult. "I need help!" She shouts, digging her heels into her pride and ripping away for salvation. She's never liked teammates, she's always tried to solo, even in missions in real life she's done her part and let the others do theirs.

Their plans have revolved around everyone doing what they do best, working together only in theme. "I can't do this alone!"

It hurts, it stings her eyes and she feels her heartbeat race, but she has no choice.
It's fail, or be a team, and she really hopes no one teases her about being a damsel in distress when this is over.

She barely has time to get over herself before she feels a familiar hand on her shoulder. "What do you need?"

This really isn't who she expected, strong hands and supportive grip aside, Naruto should have come to her aid not Sasuke. Sasuke's got the AOE, and- a simple look back explains it.

There's not just a few clones, there's not even dozens, there are hundreds of her brother there in the mix beating on bandits and knocking them to the floor. She's not looking at a bar brawl, she's looking at a one man war made trivial in a way she can only call impossible. "He's truly inspiring." She gasps, catching her breath while Gato ignores them. He sends more men, again and again, she gets the feeling he would happily do that forever if given the chance. Attacking isn't on his agenda, and she's okay with that. It gives her time to recover.

"More like impossible," Sasuke grunts, "you ready?"

"Yeah." She sprints into action once again, this time without adding blood to the sword. If it's conceptual, the amount of power she throws into it isn't important, and a quick look at her life shows she wasted half of it during that last attack. She can't afford to just waste life force like that, even if her HP is significantly higher than when she came to Wave.

Despite her pragmatism, a twinge inside her looks to Sasuke for just a second, tempted to signal the sacrificial technique they'd practiced despite his complaints. It worked on the demon twins, and it is teamwork, but guilt reminds her exactly why she shouldn't. Sasuke let her into his feelings at that dinner table, and she can't trample on that. Not in the same fight she begged for his help.

Besides, she shouldn't be jumping into his flames casually, that should be saved for real emergencies. Instead, she clashes blade against cane, and finds the result is exactly the same. All the additional power in the world didn't help her before, and it wouldn't now. She made the right decision, and finds herself quite proud of her deduction as she clashes against him over and over. It's fast paced, and astounding he can keep up, but that's the nature of a dungeon. Like an enemy that's invincible during certain phases, or attack patterns, it makes sense and she wishes she'd figured it out sooner.

Sasuke sends a kick from behind him, and she's surprised when it lands on the man and actually tips him forward a bit. That doesn't stop Gato from spinning around and smacking Sasuke out of the way, before parrying her strike at his back by sending his cane under his arm. Another spin has her flabbergasted, before with an additional strike against her she's sent back.

He's not being taken down, but he's stopped summoning, and that's enough to give Naruto time.
That's all they need to do now, buy him time and maybe take him out if they find the opportunity.
Sasuke dives back in, and finds himself hit in the stomach by a kick, while the man flimsily strikes her sword and sends her back several steps all over again. He's sloppier, slower, but they're taking damage and that's not fair. This is a businessman! They're ninjas, Sasuke's trained harder than anyone she's ever known and he doesn't even look like he walks to his destinations!

"Grrr, eat this!" She distances herself from him again, hilting her sword in its scabbard and pulling out a forgotten relic from ten minutes ago. Shiny crossbow gripped in one hand, she slots in a blazing ruby tipped bolt, takes aim, and waits just a moment for Sasuke to make his starting hand seals before she fires.

It's clear the man isn't sure what to do, so in his moment of confusion he does the best thing he can, he uses a swing to knock the bolt out of the air. A smirk finds its way onto her face as the ruby shatters, and in game-like fashion, a jutsu emerges. Not a weak one, not even a strong one, a medium size and proud of it explosion of fire that overtakes the man the instant it lands. "Call me goldilocks because that was just right!"

"That was bad!" She hears Naruto shout from behind her, and she has just enough time to puff up her cheeks indignantly, before she hears it.

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!" Sasuke's shout feels like it should shake the room, and the lack of earthquake to accompany it tires her nerves. Instead of firming her footing, she watches as a giant fireball launches itself towards Gato. She's rarely gotten a chance to see the Uchiha rite of passage, he's never used it on her during training, and watching the devastation it brings on impact alone, she's grateful he cares about her enough to hold back.

For if the engulfing madness that captures the dungeon boss, charrs his flesh and makes her gem tip look like a match stick is to be understood, she would have died a lot earlier than meeting and being attacked by Zabuza.

"I guess we got him." Sakura sighs in relief, palming her knees and looking at her crossbow. That was simple, it just required teamwork and an uncharacteristic amount of violent intention from Sasuke. "See? Not even the one burning people to death." She blinks her eyes, wipes her face, and takes a deeper breath than she's taken in days. Even when training until oblivion, she didn't feel this exhausted. The tiredness that comes from victory engulfs her rapidly, adrenaline fading and a dopey smile overtaking her face. That is, until she looks up, just in time to see the smoke clear. "Well that's just not fair, or realistic." She grumbles pitifully.

Instead of the ash she expected, she sees a burly figure with ripped muscles. The business man is twice the size he used to be, and while his skin is bright red and suit is completely destroyed, that only shows off the raw power of his muscles. He looks like she imagines Maito Guy's student looks, underneath the spandex. The crazy man has caught her eye a few times in her training so far, and he's left about as much impact as this is about to.

The burly man poses dramatically, and despite her newly renewed fear, she can't help but notice it's not all bad. None of those poses are drawing in new minions, which means they seem to have passed the minion phase.

This idea is confirmed when she hears her teammate's feet hit the ground beside her. "Need help?" Naruto asks.

"Yeah, I get the feeling this is about to suck." She says.

Gato poses at them like an old man in an anime and places a hand on his bulging biceps. His grin splits his face from ear to ear, and she can't help but feel a little spiteful that her very first dungeon has this kind of crap. "Here I thought I was in an adventure but it turns out I'm in an overblown drama."

The man doesn't pay her anymore mind, in fact, he bolts away from them at top speed. It's enough to make her blink, "huh?" before she spots his fist about to embed itself in Sasuke's face. Her raven haired teammate is stricken squarely, throwing him back before Gato is back on the offensive and is forcing him from side to side like a chew toy in an enthusiastic dog's mouth. "Grr-" Sasuke barely manages to grunt in between attacks, being pushed back well beyond his limits in a very short timeframe. She can't use her crossbow for fear of hitting Sasuke, but at that speed of combat she's not sure she can get involved either.

She stills herself, takes a deep breath, and tries to send the lightning chakra she's been practicing through her limbs. Being faster is a requirement, even if it wears her out faster than she'd like. What's the point of being in tip top shape if Sasuke's hurt?

What's the point of even being a team if she's not willing to burden herself to help those she cares about? She sees Sasuke take another hit, harming her concentration but not shattering it. She just needs to focus, she just needs to give it her all.

She wills herself to be better, to pull off the jutsu to its fullest without spasming or hurting herself. She only has so much life to give, and this has to work for her to be able to contribute. She can't hastily waste even a drop of chakra or HP, and yet she still has to rush enough to get in the way and protect Sasuke before the worst happens.

She watches him with desperation, screaming inside her head to finish it so she can move her cute tush and knock that jerky shipping magnate into oblivion.

All her internal screaming does nothing at all to make watching Sasuke take a hit to the stomach any easier. She watches him ragdoll backwards, she watches him flip in mid air and slam into the stone ground below hard enough for it to shatter like glass. Glowing shards stick into his teammate from all angles. "Figured out what the glowing floor does." She hears Sasuke grunt like his life isn't in danger. He bleeds like any other, he loses HP like any other, just because they can't see his statistics doesn't mean she's not mentally calculating where he must be at after an attack like that.

Gato steps towards Sasuke, and Sakura sees nothing but red.

Chapter Text

For Sasuke, this whole fight has been nonsense. People die when they are killed, things burn when they are burnt, and there is no such thing as an infinite swarm of henchmen willing to run directly into the grinding meat hooks of Naruto's clones.

But here he is, standing just a little bit away from the fight, staring at a muscled giant of a man that poofed into existence from thin air and a tiny old guy. Even as he flexes, Sasuke can tell there's hate in the man's eyes, and that hate is directed towards him.

He breaths heavily, unable to keep up with the pace of what's been going on around him. Sakura, for all her earlier fangirl habits and all nighters playing games, doesn't seem to have lost ground at all despite his harsh training. He spent night after night pushing himself throughout the entire academy until his sweat turned to blood and only enthusiastic nurses could stop him from training more. He was never willing to rest on his laurels as the last Uchiha, he had goals, and those goals would require more tears than he could shed in a life-time. There wasn't time to slack off, because he didn't have enough time even if he didn't slack off. Itachi is incredible, Itachi was the pride of his clan while he, Sasuke, was worthless to everyone in comparison.

The girl on his team has more stamina than he does despite what she thinks. She's stronger too, depending on the situation. The only leg up he has on her is that his ranged abilities and Shuriken play is leagues above her, so of course she managed to get a hold of some magical crossbow that can shoot fireballs. That's fair, nothing weird about that at all!

It's not a bad thing for her to grow strong, especially when she's agreed to help him fight Itachi, but when her gains come out of nowhere it's enough to make him a little jealous. The last two weeks not withstanding - poor girl - she's spent her whole life playing games and treating training like a fun side activity.

Yet here she is, standing there, looking like she's ready for round two despite being in the same fight he's been in, she's enviable. She's a genius, and that terrifies him as much as he wants it. It won't be like that for long though, he'll just have to try harder until they're on equal footing.

He won't be pushed back. A lesser person might call it unfair, he calls it motivation.

It seems like Gato agrees he needs harsher training, because instead of rushing for Sakura or Naruto, the older man with the muscles to rival a body builder jumps into action in a dead sprint for him. He lifts his kunai, ready to deflect the cane, and finds it's a fist launching right towards his face instead. He barely sees it, he's too slow and it's too fast. He's sent flipping back, only landing properly because of years of training. Tears reflexively build up in his eyes, and he wipes them away without a second thought because he doesn't have a second to lose focus.

His vision clears just in time to dodge another stroke, and even dodging it, it still grazes his cheek enough to send him back a step, and the follow up blow is just as fast.

One after another, each strike stinging his body from near misses he doesn't have time to react to. It's intense, like sparring with Sakura when she's angry or a dozen Naruto clones, but unlike with them losing isn't acceptable.

Losing is death.

He hears lightning, Sakura's coming to save him, they don't trust him to handle this on his own and he's not sure he can blame them.

His stomach takes a hit strong enough to send him up in the air, and another strike hits his face hard enough to send him rolling back across the stone flooring before he has time to feel pain. It shatters like glass underneath him, shards littering his now bloody body. "Figured out, what the glowing floor does." He manages to grunt, as if he's not quickly losing control of his limbs. Twitches run through his body, and Gato arrives before he can fully look up, with a kick that's, oddly slow.

He watches it rush towards his face at a snail's pace. An oxymoron of combat mocking him. He tries to chide the man, prove that he doesn't need pity, but all he gets out is the slowest single sound imaginable. His words aren't coming, and the sound of Sakura's electricity has slowed too. His body isn't moving very fast, but he knows what he's reacting to with plenty of warning, and just barely manages to roll out of the way.

Getting to his feet is another story, but he doesn't need to do that yet. Sakura's jumped onto Gato's back, wrapped her legs around his waist, and started stabbing. Her blade has thrummed to life even as she sparks potent lightning chakra, she stabs down into him again, and again, and again, harshly bleeding power into their foe like she has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Gushes of life flow from the man, body mass cutting away without even the slightest dramatic flair. It's brutal, it's rabid, it's like what he's seen her do to a training dummy but a hundred times worse in every way. Her body twitches uncontrollably from misfired electricity, telling him she came before she had it fully prepped. Her sword glows with bloody hatred, and her eyes are so red he feels like he's staring into an old family member. There's an odd bit of nostalgia there, a consequence of losing so much blood he's sure, but what's important is that for all her brutality, for all the reckless inhuman malice she throws at the man, she's beautiful.

She's sacrificing what little she has left in her to give him time to get to his feet, and it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. She gets about eight massive stab and rips in before it happen. Like a light switch, he watches her eyes go dull, hears the electricity stop, and sees his teammate fall over.

The sword still in their foe, Gato doesn't hesitate to spin just enough for the back of his hand to strike Sakura's chin.

He's glad it's only a back hand, because in all his time with Sakura, he's never once seen her go flying like that. She probably did with Zabuza, but he sure as hell didn't see it, and Kakashi informed them just a little while later that she might have died.

It didn't make a lot of sense at the time, but now that her life is this nonsensical, maybe she really is immortal. He hopes so, because the crack that her neck makes upon hitting the floor face first fills his heart with fear. He watches every moment of it in slow motion, burns her dull, lifeless face into his memory, and feels his hatred erupt. Naruto's clones move to protect their downed teammate like they're not in danger, and that's the last thought Sasuke has before he's lifted himself up on one hand. His other hand is a little dangly, but that's fine. His kunai missing is a little more of a problem, but that's fine too. He reaches down to grab a shattered, sharp rock from his leg.

His eyes burn, and Gato looks back at him with a malicious grin.
That's okay though. "He's bleeding a lot." Sasuke announces to Naruto. "We just have to keep him still until he falls. Can you do it with clones?"

"You know it!" The world is bathed in orange.

"Damn-it," Sakura groans, "I got taken out again." She wriggles a little, before opening her eyes to find the oddly pleasant feeling on her forehead is Naruto's hand. "Kakashi's gonna scold me."

"I dunno, Sakura, Kakashi-sensei seems pretty happy when we act as a team." Naruto says. "He might let this one go."

"We just won't tell him." Sasuke scoffs. Her eyes dart towards him, apprehension growing in her chest despite knowing he's okay. She needs to be sure, and sure enough, the boy's standing just a little away with his hands in his pockets. He's trying to remain aloof, even now, but she can see how stressful that all was for him. He cleaned up the blood, he got a bandage for his cheek, but her eyes see something so much more indicative.

"Congrats." She mumbles.

"For what?" He asks.

"Your eyes look like mine when using my sword." She explains, smiling ever so gently. "You're finally a true Uchiha, Sasuke."

She can't read his expression, she never can, and no amount of mood chart is going to help her with that one. But, he's happy, she knows that much. He's not surprised though, just happy, he already knows. Doujutsu use a lot of Chakra, so he probably kept it on just for her. "I think it's more that your eyes look like mine, Sakura."

"Hehe, maybe," She snickers to herself, "now you get to cheat even harder than me, haah, between the three of us, you with the Sharingan, Naruto with infinite stamina, and me with all of this, we're gonna be a legendary team."

"Maybe." Sasuke says, as he lifts something into view for her. "His body melted, and this was all that was left. Any idea what it could go to?" A golden object, narrow and thin, with little ridges along one side. A key, just for them.

"Yeah. I think I have a pretty good idea."

Opening the way forward is a bit of a harrowing experience, if only because it lets loose the flood of it all into her brain. After that last room, they have so many questions and not a lot of answers. Was that actually Gato? Did her dungeon pull in someone from the real world and change them to act like a boss? Why was Gato even here, technically there are potential reasons but there's also plenty of reasons for him to not be here. What if he had decided to go on a trip after the dungeon was introduced but before she did it? There wasn't a time limit introduced on the dungeon, could she even fail or or make it disappear or was Gato always going to suddenly be here when she went through?

Thoughts like that swirl through her as they open the door forward, and find a small office. A nicely lit desk with a lamp, an organizer for tons of paperwork labeled by country and location, and a safe in the back with five holes. "Huh." It's Naruto that slots the key they got from Gato's corpse into one of the holes, and turns it. With a loud click, the key explodes, and the lock disappears, leaving four holes in the safe.

"That was magic," Sakura says, "that was just straight up magic, there's no denying it."

"Right, because this wasn't entirely magic up to this point." Sasuke snorts.

"Do you think I can pick it?" Naruto asks, and before Sakura can say anything he's pulling out a torque wrench and a classic lockpick, a little rusty but clearly well cared for. It's just old, not much you can do about that. "Let me just…"

"Naruto, I somehow doubt the magic safe has a-" Sakura begins, before the object inserted into the safe glows brightly. Naruto doesn't even have time to react before it explodes into a million tiny pieces. The hole is still there, ominously teasing them.

"That was expensive…" Naruto groans, looking mournfully upon the chest.

Sakura's hand lands on his shoulder, soothingly rubbing it and giving him a gentle squeeze.

"It's alright, Naruto, have another one." He was probably expecting a lot of things, but Sakura holding out a prim and shiny pick for him likely wasn't in that list. Watching him brighten up at the new tool gifted to him by one of his favorite people, that was absolutely in her list of expected outcomes. "I got it from some goblins."

"Right, hehe, goblins." Naruto laughs, reaching up to rub one of his eyes for some reason, and taking the pick. "I think I'll hold off on trying that again."

"We probably get a key from the boss every time. The quest did say to clear it five times." That does raise serious questions as to what's gonna be here next time though.

Will it be Gato again? That'd at least prove that it's not really him, as her power certainly isn't resurrecting people, or, at least it hasn't shown the capacity to do that for anyone but maybe her, yet. Even then, it used someone to save her as a convenient excuse, if she really did die and Haku didn't actually save her.

It's all very confusing, and she really doesn't want to think about it. It's crazy, it's odd, and the power is going to work how it's going to work whether she understands it or not. "Let's get out of here," Sasuke speaks up, and she finds she agrees with him completely.

The boys are practically skipping with excitement as they pass through a more normal route on the way home. The walk up to this point has been somewhat nervous and awkward, everyone expecting some dungeon trap or spawn to show up out of nowhere and reveal to them that it's not actually over and the dread is just beginning. The cosmic nature of what just happened doesn't seem to bother them, and maybe that's something she should mimic. She's too nervous these days, jittery to a fault she'd call it. Ino will surely notice if she doesn't manage to calm herself before she gets back home, and her mother will interrogate everything out of her the instant she arrives if she doesn't center herself. She needs a hug, and some gaming, the interrogation needs to wait a few days.

Dying changed things, but what really changed things was all the training. A few days or a week of pushing herself shouldn't have that huge an effect but for her, it made everything so much more real. She's never suffered before, not like that. She's never pushed herself through something so difficult it made her want to cry and never stop crying, and then when she couldn't push herself anymore, someone else picked up the slack and pushed her more. She's always known being a ninja was going to be difficult, but that really put things into a new perspective for her.

Seeing all that pain and perseverance - even if assisted - pay off in that dungeon run is so much more powerful than reading some numbers in a flat screen floating above her head or in front of her face. Her only regret is that she didn't know any earth jutsu that would have actually been useful. Even the ability to make an earth pickaxe would have been amazing.

"Oh." Her eyes catch something fairly new as they walk through their training grounds, well, not new in the chronological sense so much as the unexpected sense. Haku's been here before, it's not strange to see him here, but it's still a surprise. She figured the boy would be half-way outside the country by now, not standing around waiting for her with his beautiful black hair rustling in the wind.

"You two go ahead." She says to her boys, "Kakashi probably wants to know what just happened and I kinda like talking to Haku."

"You don't want us to stick by your side this time?" Sasuke asks.

"No, I really believe what I said, Haku won't hurt me." The uncertain look they share before taking off tells her many things. Things like, Naruto's probably sending shadowclones back to watch her, and Kakashi's hearing about this. Nothing she won't be self reporting in a few minutes. It feels nice to know her team is that worried about her, even if a part of her wonders if it's because she's a girl.

Probably not, she is engaging the enemy alone. It's difficult to avoid intrusive thoughts like that though, because sometimes it's true.

"You really did it." Haku's words catch her by surprise. Mostly, it's the excitement in his tone, that girly twinge to his voice that's just innocent enough to make him sound a little more pretty than her. Her own girliness, or lack of, isn't something she likes to do a lot of thinking about. She tries, a little, but it's never been a priority of hers and now she's not sure who to ask for advice. Maybe Haku can help, but, probably not. He's the type to be naturally cute and pretty. He's probably never played a game in his life, which is just another charm to that streaming idea! They can make a whole series about him learning basic concepts and then explaining his process!

"I did." She agrees, standing just a few feet away from him and looking out at the sea she's spent so long walking on. "Gato should be dead, assuming that I didn't kill a clone."

"He's dead," Haku confirms, "he was found collapsed in his quarters without a wound, no one's sure what happened, except you."

"Oh, I don't like that, I don't like that at all." Sakura grimaces, as a flood of questions comes running through her all over again. That says so much, but also so little. So he really died when they killed that demented version of him, that's an answer, but does that mean anyone could theoretically just die like that? Is that why people die for 'no reason at all' sometimes? She's read about that, that's a real thing. Were they butchered in a dungeon by some girl who didn't know what she was doing?

Probably not, as far as she can tell she's the only one with this power, but…

"Regardless, he is dead," Haku says, "and I am in your care."

"You're in my, I'm sorry, what?" Sakura asks, staring directly into the boy's tilted face, and those crooked, heavily amused eyes. "Could you roll that back for me?"

"A scourge of the planet has been removed from it, do not overthink it." Haku says as softly as the wind.

"N-no, I got that, um, the part after that."

"Care?" Haku asks.

"Including that but before." Sakura winces.

"Your care?" Haku teases.

"That's part of it." She gulps.

"In your care?" His eyes are filled with so much mirth, she wasn't even aware the boy had it in him.

"Most of it."

"I am in your care." He seems so pleased with himself as he says it, like a preening bird. He takes a step in towards her to send her off her balance, and this time it works.

"That, that part, yeah… Could you uh, explain that?" She asks, twitching at this point.

"My master decided he didn't need me anymore," Haku explains, "he said he was sure Gato's death was my doing, and he had no use for a broken tool."

It's those words which have Sakura moving on her own. It's not a step, or even two, it's her arms wide and wrapping around him before she even realizes what she's doing. She holds him tight to her, squeezing him, and barely takes notice of the heated red tint that overtakes his cheeks and covers his nose. It spreads down his face, takes over his neck, and highlights his ears. He's not used to touch, and in a way neither is she.

"A person can't be a broken tool," She mumbles in his ear, chin resting on his shoulder, "you have to be something to be a broken version of it."

"I-" His hand lands on her back, as he hesitantly accepts his new position and gives back what he can manage one second and one shaky breath at a time.

"It just sounds to me like you grew up, and he needed a child." She whispers softly. The decision is made before she's even let him go.

"Go get your things while I talk to Kakashi," Sakura says, scowling a little but trying to hide it by looking away from the soon to be streamer - if she has her way - she's practically kidnapped from his master. It's dumb that it went this way, even she can admit it. The whole thing feels too clean. Go into a magic dungeon, free a village from an evil dictator via magically enforced murder, skip the bigger boss fight and get the secret character all in one?

No game does stuff like that, well, no good game. Something's on the horizon, she can tell, this isn't over and she has her doubts things will just work out all wrapped in a convenient bow. If this Zabuza guy knows, then he probably knew all along, which means he's had a lot of time to think things over. She'll have to tell Kakashi of her suspicions, but chances are he already knows too. The man told them to look underneath the underneath once, and while that was a really stupid line as underneath is an adjective not a noun, it fits this situation perfectly.

Haku takes her order seriously, disappearing like a sad puppy to go get his things. She can't help but say her thoughts outloud the moment his back is all she can see in the distance. "I hope Zabuza at least waits until we're outside Wave to do whatever he's planning." Enough people have gotten hurt here because of Gato and his mess, waiting until bystanders are no longer a worry is better for everyone. She finds herself staring off into the gorgeous sky, happy to see it once again after that short but intense dungeon.

This time she'll actually get down when Kakashi says to.

Chapter Text

"So, let me get this straight." Kakashi starts, staring the two of them down like a true military officer might after an especially ridiculous report. "You were approached by the enemy after eliminating the target, and have decided to adopt the enemy."

"Yes, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura nods happily, seeing nothing wrong with this even while being scolded, "one bishie obtained."

"And you're just okay with this." Kakashi's lone eye travels over her new business partner's face. "This is not a ploy, act, or otherwise an attempt to infiltrate Konoha."

"Konoha has a front door." Haku reminds softly. "If I wanted to infiltrate Konoha, I would walk in."

The staring match between them is rather intense, but Sakura's too busy looking over the new contract they just wrote up to care that much. Her ability did get involved, helpfully giving her information on what each clause of the contract would do just before they signed it, and how to not get screwed over. It was pretty nice, if not incredibly blunt. The last hour of her life was spent sitting down with Haku and a pen, writing out contract after contract and scribbling them out over and over again as her system told her in no uncertain terms that this was a slave contract or that would do absolutely nothing.

Then there was the friendly reminder that Haku has a status called 'oath breaker' for leaving Zabuza's side, and any contract entered into is about as useful as a pile of hundred-year-old textbooks. It told her this every single time Haku got ready to sign one of the drafts and wasn't exactly useful for morale.

She's just glad it was a helpful series of prompts and not an entirely new system. That would have been a bit much for her so recently frazzled brain. She's also happy the system doesn't enable her to enforce a contract magically or anything, as that would be terrifying in a way she's just not ready to deal with. Murdering people through the veil is already enough for her head to spin and she's not recovering from that realization anytime soon. Haku may think it's a good thing, but the implications are severe. It means anytime she goes into a dungeon she might be murdering someone, and one of her friends could drop dead at any time from any other people with this power around. She's yet to find evidence others exist, but if she does, she might have to kill them on the spot to stop random leaf deaths if they happen to be from an opposing village.

"Fine, but as you are not an official member of team seven, you are not authorized to guard the bridge builder," Kakashi says with a sternness Sakura isn't used to from him, "you will remain at the home guarding his family, or with Sakura at all times."

"Understood." Haku raises a hand and salutes him.

"Are we supposed to be doing that?" Sakura asks, "I don't think I've ever saluted you. I'm going to start saluting you."

"Please do not." Kakashi's forehead ticks.

"It sounds fun."

"Do not."

"I think I'd enjoy that." Sakura beams.

"... I hope you don't think my word is law on this matter," Kakashi says, ignoring her and looking back to Haku, "the Hokage will decide what to do with you once we get to Konoha. He may even decide to turn you in for your bounty and give it to Sakura."

"I have thought of that possibility," Haku admits, standing tall, "I do not think that will be the case, Konoha is well known for being compassionate, and I am technically not a missing-nin."

"Oh?"

"To be a missing-nin you have to be a ninja in the first place," Haku explains, "I was taken in by Zabuza-sama well before I would have done that."

"That may well work in your favor," Kakashi says, "now go, having you here is a liability to our mission. Do not approach the bridge again, or I will consider you hostile."

"Understood." Haku salutes him again, and while he seems fine with that, Sakura notes he looks quite annoyed when she also does it. Oh well, they're leaving anyway, he'll forget by the next time he sees them. It makes her feel giddy!

What's he gonna do, train her harder? She's not worried.

For Haku, sitting around in this dinky old home isn't a bother. Today the boy has donned a purple skirt and gentle blouse, and is walking around barefoot enjoying the feeling of nicely laid hardwood beneath his toes. The people here are nice, that Tsunami woman made him a warm dinner and that Inari kid showed him all his progress in some game about some green guy with a sword. He hasn't spent any time with the bridge builder, Kakashi going out of his way to ensure they're nowhere near each other, but that's okay.

Their mission is to protect him from Haku and Zabuza. It makes sense Haku isn't allowed to help guard, even if he kind of wants to. It would allow all three team members to train while he accompanies Kakashi, and being of use to them would make him very happy.

"Haaah…" A cup of tea is nice, especially when it's made by someone else. The kind woman doesn't seem to hold any ill will towards him, even though he was originally here to kill her father. He wonders if they told her, or if she's just that forgiving. Maybe this whole area is forgiving. The heated liquid is like a warm welcome from the populace, and he can't help but feel guilty about their goal here all over again. So many people were hurt by Gato, and if he was going to get disowned anyway, would it have been better for him to kill the shipping magnate quite a bit earlier?

How much pain did his pointless compliance cause to the very woman in front of him, or those without homes to rest in?

Haku clears his head with another sip. Tazuna's safe, and Gato is dead, that's all that matters.
"It's too bad you're smaller than me." The woman speaks up, causing his trained and honed gaze to flicker to her. "I have a few dresses I think you'd look very pretty in."

"Ah." Haku nods slowly, softly, and everlastingly gently. "Thank you for your consideration. Am I to assume you gave the same offer to Sakura? All of her clothes were destroyed in a battle shortly before she came here."

"Nope, she just stole mine." The woman says. "Didn't even ask, she's ruined several sets of my clothes too, I hope she's willing to reimburse me before she leaves."

"You should mention it," Haku says, "she's a little odd, but she's a good person. She might not realize she should if you don't say anything, but she'll be happy to pay you back if you do."

"..." The woman cuts something over there, contemplating the world it should seem.

"I thought you already made dinner." Haku points out.

"I make a second dinner for their team and my father when he gets home," Tsunami explains, "they'd forget to eat if I didn't. Especially that Sakura girl. The others'll sneak something late at night but she'll go to bed hungry if I don't shove food in her face."

"You think she's habitually neglecting herself?" Haku asks, taking a sip of his drink with a soft smile. It is very good, or at least good for a humble household like this.

"I think she has a caring family at home and hasn't thought of things like food, hygiene, and rest as important yet," Tsunami says, "it's not that concerning, a lot of teenagers are like that. It's only an issue because she's a ninja, and her team isn't going to act like her parents."

"Huh." Haku stares into his cup, contemplating that. "I wonder if her village will let me come along with her on future missions, as her guardian."

"You'd like that kind of thing?" Tsunami asks, turning to give the boy a raised brow.

"I would go as far as to say that kind of work is my place in life." Haku says, pensively wondering how Zabuza will fare without him to wake him up on time every day, make sure he eats, and care for his wounds.

"Sakura," Haku greets his new contractual guardian the moment she arrives at home. The girl has wet hair littered with mud spots, one of her shoes is missing, and - "you smell."

"Ah, um, well, yeah." Sakura reaches back to scratch her head reminiscent of her teammate, they're made for each other, and Haku can't help but hold back an exasperated sigh. "Training is rough, I can't be perfect all the time."

"Will you be heading right for bed?" Haku asks.

"Well yeah, I -woah, what are you doing?" Sakura asks as her arm is grabbed, and she's dragged across the house with quick efficiency. Haku's done this before, and it shows, not a wasted step needed because he knows exactly where he's going. "Hey, that's-" Sakura groans as she's led into a bathroom. The bath is already drawn, and the steam hits her face in a way that makes her skin tingle nicely. "Haku?"

"Get in." Haku is already starting on her clothes, working on -

"Hey, I can undress myself!" Sakura eeps, jumping to the side with a face so red it feels like the boy poured magma on her.

"Are you sure?" It's the lack of malice or ulterior motives in Haku's eyes that does it for Sakura.

"Yes, go away!" Pushing him out the door is all she can do before the simmering red face takes over and she slides down the door to the floor, her back against the wood and her hands palming her cheeks. "What have I gotten myself into?" She groans. "That was so weird!"

"Why is Gato undead?" It's pretty disturbing, watching the man that was so scary before, point at them with a rotted bony finger and summon a horde of shambling undead. "Sasuke you think you can um…"

"On it." He shoots a fireball at the horde. Their burning corpses fill the air with a putrid smell, but they're pretty easy to clear out, nothing like the last time, and the key zombie Gato drops fits into the safe just fine.

[Zombie-Zombie-Gato]

"He's a Zombie Zombie now?" Sakura sighs, staring at the horror show without a head that wobbles around in the boss chamber.

"Well we have killed him twice." Naruto points out. "That'd make him double undead, right?"

"I don't like that that's a thing," Sakura grumbles, "like, really? Do you think he's stronger now?"

"I bet he's fire-resistant," Sasuke says. "Let's try it."

He was not.

[Zombie-Zombie-Zombie-Gato]

"Dude…" Naruto grunts. "Why is he red?"

"He doesn't even really have a body." Sakura points out. "Bone armor too, that's crazy."

The creature in front of them is red and almost spectral. Bone spikes stick out of him in every direction, armor plating covering every part of his body in a way that sends waves of dread down their spines. The previous two Gato have been a joke. Summoning a horde of undead may be a terrifying concept in a game, but when they all have ranged weapons and jutsu, it's kind of pathetic.

This one changes that. "Should we leave?" Naruto asks.

"We can't leave." Sasuke points out.

"What if I made a hundred clones and cleared the rocks?" Naruto asks and finds the silent, unknowing group doesn't answer him.

"He can't be that much harder," Sakura points out, "he's still dead. He's just a zombie zombie zombie now."

"You say that but he looks intense." Sasuke says.

"Well, we'll never know unless we try." With a wreath of lightning chakra around her sword, Sakura rushes in.

"That was stupid." Standing over the corpse of their bubbling, melting foe getting eaten by the ground in much the same way as someone from Resident Evil 5, she can't help but feel cheated.

It was intense, it was scary, she would even go as far as to call it very difficult, but there is no sense of accomplishment. They killed him again, and next time he'll be here as a zombie-zombie-zombie, and as terrifying as that is, it feels dull. "We got another key." Naruto points out, holding their fourth prize.

"That was a lot more difficult than the other two zombie Gato." Sasuke groans, kicking the red bubbling corpse.

"Well, he actually fought back, and his zombies were fast and strong this time." Sakura says with a lengthy sigh. "Next time will probably be as hard if not harder than the first boss fight since it'll be the final challenge."

"What do you think is in that safe?" Naruto asks.

"Something stupid," Sakura says, "it's supposed to recover Wave so it's probably not just money… Let's not be hasty. We should train before we come back here for the fifth fight."

"We've been training." Sasuke grunts.

"Yeah but like, for a while," Sakura explains, "we've been doing a run every day, and the bridge isn't finished yet so we're rushing through it with afternoon energy because someone has to watch the bridge during the day. We can hold off."

"Why not just bring Haku?" Sasuke asks. It's not the first time he's brought it up, but it is the first time she hasn't shrugged him off. She contemplates it, visibly bothered and willing up the words she needs to say.

"I don't want to." Is what she ends up with.

"You don't… want to." Sasuke stares quite dumbfounded.

"This is our team," Sakura explains, "I don't want to call in outside help and cheat our way to victory. Completing this dungeon was our first big accomplishment as a team, why taint it when I don't have to?"

"This isn't about us, it's about Wave." Sasuke reminds.

"And I'll ask Haku if we don't feel confident before we leave." Sakura relents. "But Wave is already recovering, kinda, now that lower-cost shipping is allowed. No one's starving to death, it's not urgent."

"Ahhh-" Naruto lifts a finger.

"No one who wouldn't starve to death anyway." Sakura rolls her eyes. "I'm not going to fix the homeless problem by opening that safe. Every civilization turns its backs on some people, it sucks but nothing in our power is going to change that. Not, just by fighting one battle…" Her expression falls a bit as she talks as if she doesn't want to believe her own words. "And if we're that worried about it, Naruto can distribute some soup or something with clones."

"That's not a bad idea." Naruto says. It does little to help the pit in her stomach, but her convictions are solid. Haku is Wave's enemy, and making him fight their battle for them will only tempt the boy to run off with whatever the prize is when they have access to it. And what right would she have to say Haku doesn't have a right to the prize if they only defeat the final fight because they were there?

It's not just about team seven, it's about Wave.

She just hopes she's doing what's best for everyone, and not speaking hollow words that never quite settled inside.

[Proto-Wind Affinity Level 1 Obtained]

It's enough to make her cry. Two days of sitting around doing nothing but training wind, and she has it. She finally has it. She can finally be a movie ninja intern! She can still only create a gust of wind from her hands, and even then her control over it's only enough to ruffle her hair or shake her clothes, and it's kind of expensive so she's unlikely to find it worth overcharging it with chakra to try and pull off some sudden but costly gambit.

But she officially has all five affinities, three of which only in the barest sense but still! Rushing to meet Kakashi on the bridge and show off isn't even the first thought she has, because that would imply thinking. One moment she's practicing water walking while trying to create a gust, the next moment she's on the bridge seeking out her mentor and ignoring a catcall. It's a little awkward for a grown man to do stuff like that, but it's not her fault their mothers never taught them better, and she's not about to play that part and teach them either. New hires are all over the place, meaning with Gato gone more are willing to help with the bridge, which should speed all this up. She just moves on and finds her damned sensei among the honorable men, perverts, and jerks, if only she was completely sure which he is.

Finding him reading porn instead of watching Tazuna doesn't fill her with confidence either way.

"Kakashi!" She jumps in place when he notices her, lifting a palm and sending up a miniature gale that blows her hair out of her face and sends some dirt off her bangs to the bridge below. "Look!"

"You did it." He says, eying the bridge more than her for a second before his eye focuses on her palm. "In less than a month you've accomplished something almost no one else has ever done."

"Well, it's only proto-affinity." Sakura points out, her free hand scratching her cheek. "It's not like I've mastered anything."

"I doubt all the jealous Jonin are going to care very much about the difference between a proto-affinity and a real affinity." He says. "Technically to be a jonin of the leaf you have to be able to perform at least one elemental jutsu of every type, showing an understanding of each chakra manifestation, even if only at its most preliminary level. But Jonin is a title for those in their twenties and thirties, and very few of them would claim to have even the most basic affinity in even four of them, let alone all five."

"But they can do it." She points out.

"With five to six times the chakra and ten to fifteen years of practice, yes." Kakashi appears to be trying to get something across to her that's just not clicking with her.

As is life. "So you'll show me how to make my own jutsu now?" She asks.

"Tonight, after Tazuna has gone to bed." Kakashi nods to her, "get some rest, you'll need all the chakra you can get." Get at least six hours, is the clear message there.

Chapter Text

Sakura meets her sensei fresh and lively at the crack of midnight thirty or something. She's not sure what time it is, just that it's really dark, everyone else is asleep, and she's got her training shoes on. Not to be mistaken for her normal shoes. They are technically the same thing, but it's a mentality, one decided when putting them on. One must always decide beforehand whether they are in their asskicking outfit, or in their go for a walk outfit. The clothes are about as important in that choice as the difference between an eight Kay television and a four Kay television, it's a mentality and unless you're truly in the top percentage of professional players it'll stay that way.

Does she believe Serral could benefit from a better visual setup than is normally humanly possible to benefit from? Yeah, totally. By the time you can spot an observer passing by your overlord by the shimmer it makes in the air during the eighth of a second you happened to scroll over it, human limits aren't in the equation anymore.
Could she?

Tangent aside, the point is she's here and she's ready for whatever absurdity Kakashi plans to throw at her. She won't falter, she hasn't before and she won't now. Somehow she's earned the respect of their teacher, and she's not immune to the fluffy feelings that creates in her gut. She won't lose hold of that, she'll work harder to keep it than she's ever worked before.

"Sensei." She greets, walking around the final tree line to get to their designated training ground. The boys aren't here this time, they're nestled in bed now that the urgent training is over and they can take things at a reasonable pace. No one wants to work themselves like that forever, it's mind breaking and not in that good way people on the internet talk about but refuse to elaborate on. She might be a little worried that Kakashi plans to punish her for her earlier shenanigans on the bridge. Later thought let her realize that was a little dumb, as he's taught her several times that he will hurt her for antagonizing a bigger beast.

Kakashi stands at the center of their race track, looking oddly thoughtful for once. The man is normally so confident in everything he does, this is one of the first times she's seen him question himself. She wouldn't call it pensive, that'd imply he's not sure he's about to teach her, but he is certainly going through the motions to figure out how best to implant the knowledge he must in such a way that she doesn't explode from it. Or, maybe he's trying to figure out the way to talk the absolute least while simultaneously giving the most poignant explanation. "You can have confidence in me." She asserts before he even says anything. "I won't do anything hasty."

"You say that, but you immediately went back into that dungeon the day after you all completed it." Kakashi says. "I didn't miss how you and Sasuke couldn't meet each other's eyes anymore, something scary happened in there. That's before I consider that he unlocked his Sharingan, which is an entire bag of worms on its own."

"Eheh, well, he got cornered when I wasn't ready." Sakura excuses, sheepishly able to look anywhere but at Kakashi. "And Naruto was busy I think, so… actually what was Naruto doing?" He'd already taken out the stragglers, right? Why weren't there a dozen Naruto's backing Sasuke up, why did it come down to her? She can't really remember, not with the head injury she took during the fight. It was all so fast even excluding the tiny gaps she has, and Naruto already had such an important job she wasn't thinking of him at all. It's hard to reflect.

"Naruto has gotten a lot better at knowing his limits, unlike the two of you." Kakashi says. "He was more than likely looking for an opening."

"Yeah…" He definitely wasn't letting Sasuke die or anything, that'd be absurd. They're a team, she needs to get that kind of thought permanently bleached from her head. She shakes it off, smiling to herself at the memory of how concerned they both looked when she woke up. "Jutsu, Sensei?"

"Jutsu." He agrees. "It's time to teach you how to make your own techniques. We call it a secret but it's not particularly hard to do." He lifts one hand out of his pocket, and begins slow, methodical hand signs. Funny shapes aside, they have meaning to her that she instinctively remembers from childhood. Ox, Boar, etc. "Do you remember why we make hand signs?"

"Because manually controlling your chakra takes an incredible amount of focus." Sakura recites, "and jutsu need to be formed very quickly, doing it too slowly will cancel out the effect and reset the formation. Hand signs are used as a way to form chakra in one moment, it's not that the hand signs themselves are important, technically anything could do it, it's that we are taught to mold our chakra in the way the hand sign indicates from a very young age so that later on making the hand signs and the chakra molding pattern to match is so instinctive that we can learn jutsu through that instead of a mechanical precision process for every part. It cuts training down from years to months, in some cases weeks or days." She looks proud of herself, she's sure, but she's prouder that Kakashi's stare only makes her flush a little bit. He probably didn't expect her to go off in such a long winded way.

Technically it's more than jutsu are written using the hand signs, so even if a more efficient method was developed, it would need to be painstakingly transferred over and would likely cause a skill gap between generations that'd only grow the more efficient or hard to learn the new method is. Skill gaps aren't great for the predictable nature of soldiers a nation needs to continue to confidently make the moves it needs to in its day to day.

"Correct," he says after a long second, "but if they're just shortcuts, does that mean someone could learn to cut out hand signs, or remove them entirely?"

"I've heard it's possible, and I bet Tsunade of the Sannin could do it with any random jutsu with practice." She says, "but the amount of control that would require for even basic jutsu you're not familiar with, I can't imagine it."

"That's funnier coming from you than I expected it to be." Kakashi teases. "Hmm, but that wording, not familiar with, do you think you could do it with a jutsu you were?"

"Given enough time." She says. "None of the techniques I've been learning recently require hand signs, just molding the chakra and commanding it to do something in a way I want."

"So you already know how to make a new jutsu." He says.

And waits-
And waits-
And waits-

"Wait…" Her brow furrows, as she thinks about it, running through her new skills she's gained recently. It's true, in none of the techniques has she used a hand sign, or any sort of formal instruction, each one was purely focused on learning how to mold and control the different types of chakra manually.

"I will leave you to that." He says, walking away faster than she expects, like he's worried the whole area is going to explode or something. "Good luck, have fun!"

"But, Kakashi! I don't know where to start!"

It's just like him to give her the first step of a task and then disappear, it's kind of how he teaches.

It's not really teaching at all, if she was the one who got to define it. Unfortunately she's not, and she's sure the Hokage is fine with this method as long as they get stronger and stay unhurt.

She bets her parents' Chunin mentors were more helpful.

"How did I not figure that out on my own!" She shouts at herself, tearing at her hair in frustration the moment he's out of sight.

The bridge's completion catches Sakura by about as much surprise as it does anyone. Even Tazuna looks incredibly unsure of himself as they lay in the last piece of the structure, looking around as if ready for something to attack and show them all that the effort was futile all along. Nothing happens, not even after several minutes of waiting. The eerie silence stretches on for quite some time, only broken by the ambient sound of lavender town. She probably could have chosen a better place to play around in, but it's Inari's save and he's the one who's save is here, it's not her fault! She chose not to move forward in his game, just grind a little, lest she ruin his first experience. It's not like kids like grinding, so he doesn't complain or even seem to notice the extra odd level on his side Pokemon. He's not leveling them up evenly, as is customary for someone's first playthrough, so she's just making sure they don't fall too far behind and become a burden.

The least she needs is him getting stuck and getting discouraged. Especially with all the new toys she brought him and his friends from the dungeon. He's so active now, playing outside and running around and bonking his friends when he's not hanging out with her and playing the game. It's enough to etch a permanent smile on her face, at least when she's watching him.

She'll be sure to harass her parents about why they never gave her a little brother to spoil, after she's done introducing them to Haku and getting lots of hugs for her and Naruto that is.

When nothing happens for longer than anyone can handle, Tazuna finally raises his hand. "I now declare our bridge, finished!" The roars of excitement deafen her, but she doesn't shy away from the celebration. Even if it is a little much for a hyper focused person with enhanced ninja senses like her, she's pretty sure it's the shut-in part of her that hates this kind of thing, and she's made an active effort recently to avoid letting that get the mood down. This is a huge moment for Wave, and she couldn't be happier about it. "From now on, Wave can export via caravan. Should Gato turn out to be alive and in hiding, he'll stay that way, as his reign of terror is over. He can hurt us no more, stifle us no more, the people of wave are free!"

She didn't take Tazuna for a man of speeches, but then, he hasn't had a lot of chances to show it off. He's been scared shitless by Gato for so long that even news of his death didn't make it disappear. There was disbelief in everyone, fear that she was lying and that the man was only silent because he was planning his next act of extreme cruelty. Even as shipments of food came in, and the people stopped starving, there was always that thought in the back of their minds that the looming threat could reveal itself any second.

For them, it was Gato, for her, it was Zabuza.

The man who killed her, and then the man who gave her Haku without a fight. He didn't even come to say hello, or threaten her into taking good care of his son or whatever they are to each other. It's so anticlimactic it doesn't feel real, and so while she knows Gato's dead for a fact - she's killed his zombie-zombie-zombie version - she can't blame them for their doubts and uneasy feeling of dissatisfaction.

It'd have been much better if she could have hung the man in town square, or let the children beat him with the inflatables like a pinata… Actually scratch that, that would have been horrifying.

"I now name it, the great Sakura bridge!" Tazuna shouts, and she hears a hundred shouts right after.

"I'm sorry, what?" She spins around on her heel, the news finally clicking after several seconds of brain fizzle. She's not used to that kind of spectacle, or the eyes that land on her as if she should have expected this.

"Is this because I announced Gato's death? Because I really feel like that was a team effort."

Her footsteps had been rather harsh. While the boys had thought ahead and gotten clean before arriving at the house, Sakura did no such thing. Sakura had gotten right to training the moment she was done introducing Haku to Kakashi, meaning she was still sweaty and drenched when she arrived at the home shortly after nightfall.

She opened the door quite forcefully, finding Tsunami setting a table for Tazuna and the boys, and both civilian gazes landed on her immediately, not even flinching away when the door she pushed open loudly smacked against the doorknob stopper. She tracked dirty footprints along the hard wood, and Sakura's gaze landed squarely on Tazuna with enough frosty focus to freeze the man's breathing in place.

"He's dead," She said, her tools clacking a little as she reached into her pouch to pull out the prize she'd had Haku go get her.

"Please don't do that." Sasuke gulped, seeing exactly where her head was going. He may not have known the exact details, but he'd gotten rather good at detecting when Sakura was about to do something very disturbing without thinking about it.

"Ah." She agreed, nodding to his superior experience, and put the fleshy object back in its wrapping inside her pouch.

"Who's dead?" Tsunami can't help but gulp.

"Gato." Dull red eyes from training with her sword so soon after that chaos reflected a sureness and blood lust that made the young woman twitch on the spot. "We killed him."

"Uh… Is that, um, him?" Tsunami asked, pointing at the young girl who shambled into the house, dreadful and weary. It was only then that Sakura looked down at herself and grasped what everyone's lack of celebration was about. Before this moment it didn't make any sense that despite her joyous news, everyone looked like they wanted to vomit.

She had person on her.

She was not sure if she borrowed a red outfit from Tsunami this morning, but she was sure it was red now, not a single spot of it wasn't painted by her glorious combat. Her footsteps tracked blood into the house, ruining someone's cleaning job with splattery madness that seeped into the wood further with every moment, permanently staining it with the death of their enemies.

Her hair was wet and weighed down, not with sweat like she thought, but enough matter she was pretty sure something physical remained tangled in her knots and she was too afraid to check.

"Yes." She asserted, realizing she had no recourse but to accept it as she stared out at the civilians and her judging team. "This is probably gato, I imagine this came from when I climbed on him and started stabbing."

"That was um, like six hours ago." Naruto pointed out with several twitches and green cheeks.

"Shut up about me, Gato's dead." She growled. "He's gone, the village can get food, the bridge is uncontested, celebrate!"

"Y-yeah, that's, I'll get the good tea!" She watched Tsunami run away, presumably to get the good tea.

"We should get Inari, he'll want to know," Sakura said, "we brought presents for him too."

"Shower first." Kakashi scolded. "Do not approach a little boy like that."

"Understood!" Sheepishly, Sakura couldn't help but agree that approaching Inari like this would be a terrifying thing to do. Even if she was pretty sure he'd appreciate the news of the bastard's demise a lot more than he was disturbed by the proof. Maybe she's not a master of child psychology.

"It's now or never." Kakashi asserts, standing over them at their training ground and tapping his foot pointedly on a hollowed out rock she made just the other day with yet another experiment. She's been using it as a water bowl to play with and wash up with, after that very weird event with Haku, she's gone out of her way to avoid a repeat and has been proud to show up squeaky clean lest he draw her another bath. The extra water control training doesn't hurt. "We leave in a few days, either you complete the fifth dungeon clear or you don't."

"I could always come back on vacation when I'm a chunin." Sakura points out, "I doubt it's truly now or never."

[Dungeon Expiry time: 3 Days, 2 hours, 32 minutes, 27 seconds]

"Nevermind…" Sakura sighs at that, "alright boys, we rest up tonight and attack tomorrow, since we need to be fully rested and prepared for the trek home in case of ambush or if Haku tries anything funny."

"You said you're sure he won't." Naruto points out.

"I'm sure, but Kakashi's not." Sakura pointedly points towards their sensei. "If we're not prepared he's gonna punish us."

"I will punish you." Kakashi explains, and despite repeating what Sakura just said, it couldn't be more menacing coming from him. Even with the mask on, they can tell he's grinning and happy about the prospect of a chance to enact some fearsome sadism on them.

"You hear that, he'll punish us." Sakura says.

"I feel like he might punish us." Sasuke says.

"I'm getting the feeling he might punish us." Naruto nods sagely, earning a pat from Sakura and a rub of his hair with her fingers. Watching him accept her soothing touch is always therapeutic for her. It seems every other day she's disturbing him in some way, some part of her lacking humanity in a way she doesn't grasp and probably never fully will. It's not intentional, she didn't ask to be desensitized by the academy in a way no one else seemed to be. They showed them horror, they showed them bloodshed, the academy made it clear every single day of their lives would be bathed in violence if they took this route and sought advancement instead of a cozy life guarding the wall or something.

She wouldn't say she took to it, she just internalized it in a way that she assumed everyone had. Gaming made it easier, she could use tactics she learned in the academy to get a one up or end a virtual life and while she wouldn't say that gaming makes taking a real life any easier, she would say that the combination of intentional desensitizing from her superiors and teachers and having a practical application of that knowledge made it all the more effective.

Naruto trusting her makes her feel a little more like a person, like she's not that different.
She'll need to hunt Iruka down and ask what the fuck when she gets home. Surely most students took to it like she did, and Naruto and Sasuke are different…

Surely.

Chapter Text

The wind blows kindly on her bubblegum hair, her two teammates standing directly behind make her feel like she's being escorted by an elite party and she's the hero approaching the end of a journey. To say she's been anxious about what lies in front of them would be accurate, but not the whole story. Nervous energy flows through her, setting her nerves alight and casting doubts on her accomplishments, but the anticipation inside of her is molten and sparking deep.

They've been in Wave for a little over a month, and in that time she's come a long way.

[Dungeon: Gato Tower Final Arrangement, Level 22

Party Level: Level 22

There will be no escaping]

The new claim is ominous, but she knows she has to do this. "We managed to get high enough level." She says, looking back at her team with joy in her eyes and a bright smile on her lips. "I'm not the only one who's gotten stronger, this time."

"Nope." Sasuke agrees, a smirk assuring her he's never been more ready.

"I would kick earlier me's butt." Naruto proclaims without a second thought. "We're so ready."

His confidence is infectious, he's their rogue, their bard, their crowd control, and in some ways he's their tank. Sometimes Sakura wonders why she's even here, but then the answer reveals itself in the little moments of vulnerability he shows.

She's here because he needs her to be. The first time they cleared this dungeon, Naruto revealed to them that his chakra is truly endless, but chakra is just one resource they need to persevere. "That's good because we need you to help clear the chafe so we're at full strength for the boss."

"You know it!" His fist pump is accentuated by the summoning of about thirty blonds that quickly rush into the dungeon before them.

"Let's do it." Sakura reaches out towards the illusion that is the entrance, and steps forward.

The scent of copper hits them before they take the first steps, the eerie red mist blocks their vision and the sound of bats scraping along instead of spiders catches them by surprise.

The layout appears to have changed too, which means they have at least two clones ahead of them at all times and their weapons are never not drawn as they go deeper. Her crossbow is hooked into a leather pouch tied around her shoulder, and her hands hold her sword in front of her like it's a sole lifeline. Traveling one step at a time only makes the nerves all the more frantic, and even the Naruto honor guard doesn't help her as they go deeper into their potential grave. She might come back if she dies, will they?

Ching

An arrow falls to the floor after an automatic deflection, not even having to see the attack is bullshit, but not as bullshit as the horde that falls on the enemies as soon as they reveal themselves. An orange tide surges, greater and more ferocious than the spiders they've led into the first area's traps time and time again. That it was bats this time didn't matter, Naruto just hucked cloned shuriken into the horde and it was dealt with like it never existed to begin with.

She doesn't even get to see the beasts they slay, the howls and roars from the thick mist chill her blood about as much as the curdling cries the monsters make as they're put down. They've avoided this kind of methodology the last few times through here, the combat experience was too valuable to lose out on, but this is no longer a training mission. It's a challenge they have to overcome, and there is no escape. The final key lies beyond a large door somewhere through this mist, and that key will open a safe thats contents will supposedly save Wave country.

She's not so sure, if her power wanted her to save this country it could have handed her the answer, there's no reason to go through all this nonsense. It sets her on edge, and not being able to see more than a few feet in front of her isn't helping with that.

"Hey." A hand lands on her shoulder, and she turns to see the original Naruto standing behind her with a big confident grin. "It's okay."

"I'm fine." She lies through her teeth as easily as breathing, sighing as a little pressure falls off her chest at his support, only for a loud screech in the mist to make her jump and bring it all back.

"You're shaking." He points out, and it's all she can do to look down and see her sword seeming to shiver in her grasp.

"Yeah." She admits. "Thank you, Naruto, I'll be fine."

"No." He doesn't normally put his foot down with her, but Sasuke's grimace behind him tells her all she needs to know. "We should stop."

They all need a moment, she's just an excuse, she can be their excuse. "Let's take a break." She agrees.

The mist only gets stronger as they approach the boss door, and she's not so happy to open the double door with Naruto and see exactly what lies beyond for them to face.

Barely visible above them, he hangs like a bat from the ceiling and glares down at them with gleaming red-orange eyes that match with the mist horrifically well. Sharp teeth glint, and a pale complexion unlike any she's ever seen stands out like a beacon of moonlight above the aura of doom surrounding them.

[Vampire Gato; Chunin Solo Elite]

At least it didn't say Jounin, they should be able to handle one elite chunin, right?

"Hey guys, that's uh…" Naruto begins.

"Not a brute corpse." She finishes for him. Every run since the first has been easy because Gato's been a mindless brute who attacked them immediately and was easily dispatched with overwhelming force. He wouldn't dodge, he'd walk towards them, then crawl towards them after they chopped off his legs. They'd burn him, crush his skull, eviscerate him, and shred him with techniques they wanted to test. They turned him into ribbons, and never felt even a little bad about it, afterall he was a mindless zombie.

This wouldn't be like that. This'd be like the first time but so much worse, because, well, as the man drops to the floor and his billowing red cloak disappears into the mist, they can't help but notice the lack of something that's been here every other attempt.

Minions.

"He's starting in stage two." Sakura says. "Naruto's not on crowd control this time."

"Then what am I doing?" Naruto asks, as Sasuke's eyes blur into red life and Sakura's mimic him with a trickle of power overtaking her from her hand on her sword.

His eyes do something, hers just hold back the fear bubbling up from her core and telling her that she's not enough, she'll never be enough, and this creature's here to prove it to her. "You're working interception. We're going to use substitution to replace ourselves with your clones until either we mess up and die, or he does."

"I don't like that plan." Naruto says.

"Neither do I." With a flicker of potent energy behind and soon to be in front of her eyes, Sakura runs into the mist, ignoring the cloud of smoke Naruto summons behind her in favor of trying to see a beast before it sees them.

"I can see a little with my sharingan active." Sasuke announces to her, they'd avoided testing it so far to save his stamina and she's now very glad they did because that might be a saving grace they so desperately need.

"I'm still blind." She calls back in jest, the attempt does nothing to loosen the knots growing in her stomach. "I'll follow your lead." She darts towards where she heard his voice, accounting for momentum a little bit and meeting up with him quickly. For the first time in a while she wishes she had something other than Tsunami's clothes. They've cleared this dungeon - except the boss - five times now, where's the good armor drops? She'd take anything better than heavy armor and crude.

When Sasuke swings to the side, she follows up with her own slash, finding her sword goes through nothing. "Illusions." Sasuke growls, making her scowl with him. What good is vision if he can still pull stuff like that.

"I thought the sharingan can see through illusions?" She asks, feeling something behind her and slashing automatically, tearing apart something that explodes into a dark mist that floods the red around them with an even harder to see through mirage.

"I haven't exactly gotten a lot of practice with that." He points out, "these are the first illusions I've seen since it awakened." She feels like an idiot for that, she has clones, why didn't she think to test that at any point?

Naruto's clones aren't really illusions, so they wouldn't work, she just took their clan power for granted and assumed it was omnipotent. By the little of Sasuke's shame she can see, he did too.

"Sakura!" She hears Sasuke shout, and she makes the hand sign she needs just as something flashes from out of sight and goes for her throat. A clone takes her place, and she whimpers internally at the quick scream and poof of smoke.

"Sorry, Naruto," she mutters a quiet apology under her breath for abusing Naruto in that way. He remembers that death, and it hurts her to hurt him. Without him she'd be dead though, and that'd hurt him so much more.

If she knew that it was either that or bringing Haku, she would have brought Haku, but they're here now, and surviving to apologize to him is more important. She has a moment to feel bad about how quickly she'd made that their defacto plan and wonder if there was something better they could have planned out in advance if she'd cared enough to do so, before something shiny flashes out at her, and she doesn't react automatically, telling her that it's too fast for her trait. She blocks with all she has, holding sturdy as it sends her sliding back across the floor. Sparks fly as some kind of long metal pole slides along her sword. She uses all her strength to pivot and send it to the side, and it arches past, slamming into the floor beside her and making it explode into glittering shards.

"Wait." Her eyes catch a glimmer of something amazing in a shard that flies into the air. It takes her all of a second to realize that she can see the wall behind it. Through the split second of glimmery magic, she's more sure of it than anything. The floor shards can be used to see through the madness. It's like there's no mist at all, and it puts a huge grin on her face.

"Sasuke, pass me your goggles! Naruto, cover me!" It's probably not what he wanted to hear in the middle of a fight so intense she can hear kunai clanging and explosions rocking the room from all around, but her skill lets her catch both a shard and his goggles at the same time. "This is gonna suck," Is all she says before she places it into the goggles, and straps them on.

She doesn't get even a full second before fragments begin to cut into her face, scraping off just from putting them on.

That's okay though, even if she loses her eyes, she'll get them back tomorrow. What's important right now, is that she can see. She uses a hand sign to replace with another Naruto just as the thing comes flying back at her. This time she can see it's a spear flying through the air on its own, steel and shiny in its own way and impossibly sharp.

She can see the bastard with silver hair and glowing red eyes. She can see his fierce fangs and the way he dashes around the room slaughtering Naruto clones and batting Sasuke around. She can even see the Naruto she just replaced with perish, and she can see her own morbidly guilty face reflected in the spear as it comes back for her. She's stood still for too long, and the monster launches itself at her like she's a sitting duck.

She puts her sword away, knowing that her role in this fight has changed tremendously quite suddenly, and begins hand signs. His claws take the place of where her face just was, a sidestep narrowly avoiding a beheading that's accompanied by the steel spear flying from the mist and trying to stab right through her stomach.

It has a mind of its own, and that means dodging it at the same time as a super speedy bastard requires her to call upon the lightning jutsu Kakashi taught her and canceling her hand seals.
She's gotten the lightning to the point where she doesn't have misfires nearly as often, and that's good enough for her since it's either that or abuse Naruto more for her own incompetence.

Bending over backwards to dodge a kick in her direction serves for more fragments from the shard to glide into her eyes and only the willpower of a ninja and her own lack of survival instincts stop her from breaking down crying on the spot.

Naruto clones get in the way a second later, allowing her to make some distance, but only enough to make a few hand signs before the spear flies toward her face again.

Her final hand seal is made, and she's ready. "Mud Shot!" She shouts, before spitting out one of her newest creations directly at the spear.

She wasn't joking when she said she was going to create pokemon moves, and choosing to shoot a heavy muddy load at it instead of dodging is a risk she's willing to take. The blade gets covered instantly, and while it still smacks against her, the fact that she's not dead tells her she did a good job. The spear hits her in the face with kinetic force only, meaning the mud has already hardened over the blade and made it largely inert, but not completely as she finds out when reality catches up with her.

She's sent backwards to the soundtrack of her nose shattering into a million parts, and her vision blacking out. She has just enough control to start a flip instead of smashing down, but that only serves to make things worse as the pain causes her to lose control of the lightning coursing through her and her spasmodic body shrieking in despair ragdolls mid-air. She slams into the floor face first, shattering so much of it that each roll along the ground fills her with so many shards she begins to feel like a pincushion. Her vision is blocked by red mist again, too much fragmentation of her shard has rendered it useless, and she has an answer for that.

She pulls the goggles off, shaking them off to the side to remove most of the broken tool, before reaching down with her free hand and tearing a shard right out of her chest. "That's big enough," she grunts approvingly, before slotting it right into the goggles. Her left eye is dull, and a single blink reveals it's not giving her vision at all. A hand landing over it reveals something is sticking out of it, and that's information enough for her.

She leaves it in for now, she learned last time that removing the sword didn't stop the bleeding, and she can't be out of the fight that soon.

She puts the goggles back on, pushing her hands into the shrapnel of the floor to push herself upright. Shambling for a second to accommodate the new injuries and figure out her footing, she can't help but feel like she's in an out of body experience. Muted, without focus, she takes a moment she doesn't have to center herself, only to fail and find she's still here without most of her senses.

With a deep breath and a sign, her lone eye locks onto the struggling form of the spear on the floor. It's having a hard time lifting itself under the vampire's powers alone, but it's slowly chipping mud off and that means she can't leave it alone. Each step towards it is another conquest to make against her rebelling body. Even when she makes it to the spear and slams her foot into it to keep it down, she finds her hands fighting her on making the needed hand seals. "Guh… Mud shot." She grumbles, spewing a powerful torrent from her lips that'd surely taste terrible if she could still taste anything at all.

Watching it harden out of one hazy eye makes her smile through the pain. It slumps completely, rendered useless and unable to move any longer, and she considers that winning a good portion of the fight. Gato surely has more tricks up his sleeve, but they don't matter, he's not a Jonin, so that had to have been a good portion of his power.

She can see Naruto fighting with a horde that keeps the man back while Sasuke catches his breath. She's in a lot of pain, a lot, a truly ridiculous amount of agony wafts through her in a way that'd make her regret this entire journey if it was happening to anyone else.

To her, all she knows is that she can use substitution like this if she's hurt even a little bit more. She shakes her head a little, feeling as the shard cuts deeper-

-And she's no longer near the spear, taking the place of a Naruto clone with all the grit and strength she can manage. "Grr-" her hand lands on her sword, drawing it and flashing it out to knock Gato's sharp claws aside in the same movement. "Fuck, you!" Before he can react to the change, she's slashed down with everything she has. A potent rage overtakes her hands as the life force her weapon needs to power seeps from them forcefully. Evidence of her success pours out from him, covering her sword in the power it needs for a second swing, and the onslaught begins just as his severed arm hits the floor with a wet thump.

She doesn't feel, she attacks. She bleeds into one movement after another, using crimson life as a source of destruction just like the being in front of her. Of all her battles, she's yet to use someone else's life to fuel the sword in anything but an accident. Something in her didn't let her do that intentionally, for some reason it felt like a line she couldn't cross.

Using a vampire's blood feels too poetic to deny the sword's craving, and she gives in. He tries to jump away and Naruto clones grab his legs, and shoulders, they hold him still while she slashes him again and again and again. With each attack she severs them and splits him, only he regenerates, and new Narutos have to grab hold of him all over again.

If replacing with Naruto clones to take hits for her felt like a betrayal of her promise to never hurt him again, cutting him in half over and over again breaks her heart a hundred times over.

That the boy willingly lets her do it just to hold their opponent still for a few seconds would make her weep if her eyes were not already leaking bloody tears. It stings so much it feels like the despair will never end.

She's not sure when it's over, she's pretty sure no one else does too.

All she knows is that her sword is so bright and so potent, that one final slash at the no longer resisting figure sends a shrieking blast across the floor that carves a tunnel all the way to the wall, and its force sweeps the mist aside like it was never there.

"Got him." She groans, falling to her knees and dropping her sword. "Is the mist gone? I can't see."

"Sakura, you're bleeding." Naruto says.

"Yep," She agrees, "That was a given."

"No, I mean you're covered in blood." Naruto says, a potent fear in his voice that she can barely pay attention to.

"That happens when you turn someone into porridge." She says.

"No I mean, the goggles-" She feels someone's hand land on them, and pull them away, and the sound of a waterfall hits her ears. She still can't see, and before she has a grip on herself, she's fallen to the floor for a rest that'll fix everything. She just has to hold on for six hours, she can do that, right?

"Can't she do anything without crippling herself?" Sasuke grunts, it's his broody voice filled with dread and exasperation in equal parts that let her know she's alive.

"I still can't see." She says as someone's hand lands on her shoulder, shaking her awake.

"It's only been a few hours," Naruto answers her immediately. "You're still blind."

"Ah." She knows she should care, but she doesn't. Instead, she pushes herself up, stretching and not liking how her shoulder feels at this exact moment. They went ahead and removed the shards from her body, she can feel that, she can also feel the wrapping someone did to help hold in her insides so that they, well, remained insides.

"You tore it with how hard you were swinging." Naruto explains, presumably at her grimace, she's not sure though as she can't see.

"Ah." She nods, regretting it immediately from the flash of pain her eyes remind her of. "Did we open the safe yet?" She asks.

"Yes." That's Sasuke.

"What was in it?" She asks.

"Nothing." Sasuke says.

"We assumed it was something your power took immediately, and ever since we opened it monsters have been spawning and trying to break in." Naruto continues from where Sasuke thought it was adequate to stop talking. "I've been holding them off but I'm starting to get tired, they're really strong and keep killing a few clones a piece."

"You said it's been hours?" She asks, "how in the actual- Naruto that goes beyond ridiculous stamina, there's something wrong with you."

"I know," Naruto says, and she can tell from his tone that she hurt him.

"I didn't mean it like that…"

"I know." That doesn't matter, she broke her promise again, she just hit him again.

She'll find out how and why later. What's that, fifty times in one day? A hundred?
A thousand? She'll need to atone for this, and next time she'll make sure they have a better plan. By the time they realized they needed one, it was already too late and the boss had activated. It was do or die, and she'll tell herself that as long as she needs to.

"We need to go." Sasuke is always curt and to the point, she's happy for the moment of normalcy.

Chapter Text

For Sakura waking up in the field feeling refreshed and on top of the world comes with a lot of mixed feelings she's not sure how to deal with. First, there's fear. What if sleeping doesn't heal crippling injuries? Could she even continue to be a ninja if she was blind? Eye transplants are a thing but as a genin she wouldn't be on any sort of priority list for them.

Second, there's confusion, she isn't sure why Haku is rummaging his fingers through her hair, but it feels nice and she isn't exactly about to complain. She's hesitant to open her eyes for a long moment, a niggling doubt in the back of her head asserting that maybe, just maybe, she won't see anything at all when she does.

The sun flashing in her eyes when she opens them might just be the most beautiful thing she's ever seen, even if she quickly has to divert them lest she go blind for another waking period. "Why are you touching me?" She asks, now that she has the most basic of her bearings back and can grasp basic concepts like 'this is weird.'

"Naruto remembered I was gathering herbs when we met." Haku explains. "He brought you to me, so I could ease your pain."

"I was asleep. It didn't matter." Sakura says.

"You don't get to decide that." Haku's gentle words wash over her just like his fingers. "Naruto thought it mattered, so it mattered."

"Mmm." Sakura doesn't have anything to say to that, just a swirling cataclysm of emotional turmoil. So much happened in so little time, even having her sight back and being without pain doesn't ease her memories. Sasuke had his Sharingan active for all of that, the poor guy. At least in time she'll be able to let it fade away, he'll always remember every moment. "He's very sweet." She decides, after a long moment to herself. "Naruto, I mean. It was pointless, but he cared."

"Caring is never pointless." Haku says.

"Yeah… I guess not."

Alone for the first time in quite some time, she allows herself to look at the rewards from that dungeon. It's been so very long since she's been without the rush of training or the sound of her allies and their subtle breaths. In one way or another, whether it be clones, responsibility, or direct influence from others, she's felt the presence of her team and the burden of what they'd have to do weighing down on her without fail.

Being alone with the crushing burden of an overwhelming objective isn't being alone at all.

At one point in her life all she wanted was to spend her day in her dark room, playing games and only talking to others to shit talk or get a quick hug and good night from her parents. Where did that go? Is this even the same Sakura?

She doesn't know, and she finds she doesn't care either. She's happier now, even if she would absolutely adore a chance to settle down under a blanket with a hand held and snuggle up with an adventure that doesn't involve pain or life and death. She's so starting a new animal crossing game when she gets home.

Her reward nestles into her hand very shortly after calling it. It's the first object besides money to disappear into any sort of inventory, so she knew it was important, and holding it only affirmed that knowledge. The paper is old and fragile, an oily feeling rubbing off on her fingers as she grips it.

[Deed To Wave]

[Use?]

What does that even mean? Can you own a country? Could she?
Her power was going well beyond the normal and ethical boundaries she'd already witnessed it playing with. Could it even give her ownership of a place, and if it could, what would that ownership entail?

Using it is the only right thing to do, it's not like she can just throw away the reward they worked so hard for, something that is supposed to save Wave, just because she's anxious. But it's also terrifying, what if she's suddenly responsible for every person here? What if people become pawns, or toys, or the mere activation of it starts some crazy event she has to intervene in that takes her away from her mission or her team?

Can a ninja of Konoha own property, or is that a conflict of interest?

None of that matters, she'll figure it out later, they didn't do this just to let it sit in an inventory, and she's not sure if she could throw it back in there anyway. She could try, but that'd just be procrastinating.

Her finger hits the use prompt, and the piece of paper melts away like it was never there, dusty fragments blowing away into the wind and turning into ash that spreads every which way.

"Guys, help!" She's not quite sure which line of her new reality made her seek out her team, but she does know she's panicked and her team is comfortable and safe.

Sprinting to them is all she can manage with such a recently scrambled mind, and it isn't for who knows how long that she comes back into herself, head resting in Sasuke's lap, Naruto laying beside her, Kakashi sitting off to the side clearly confused, and Haku humming a gentle tune while caressing her hair just like he was so shortly ago.

They have an odd dynamic, she wonders when they got good at this.
Did she melt down a lot like this during her time training? She doesn't remember it.
She barely remembers anything.

What she does remember is that reward. "The reward is a new system." She explains.

"The reward?" Kakashi asks.

"For the dungeon. The thing that'll fix Wave." She idly taps the air, opening it again for herself.

"I've been given the deed to wave, which appears to be a city builder system. I can assign jobs that need to be done, use resources from the coffers as rewards for completion or basic pay, I can see a birds eye view of the city and see general resource costs to fix or improve or even demolish them as well as the earnings and upkeep of the city."

"That sounds like a good thing." Sasuke points out, "why the reaction?"

"Because I don't like city builders!" She groans, rolling over away from Haku and burying her face in Sasuke's stomach. She'll worry about the implications later, right now she has bigger worries. "I'm not good at them, I've spent dozens of hours on them and only ever barely succeeded at surviving the first winter or crazy disaster. Most of the time my people starve, or get eaten, or some other form of resource based destruction because I overlooked something simple and stupid."

"So just, get better?" Naruto shrugs, "I don't see the problem. Games are about practice, you told me that."

"The problem is that getting better requires practice, and practice requires trial and error, and these are real people in a real place that's already on the brink of collapse!" Sakura groans. "It means I need to grind city builders and get good when we get home, instead of relaxing, just so the people of Wave don't die! Even if I do get good and make it flourish, I probably won't see rewards for years!"

"That's rough." Haku says, clearly not grasping any of it but very happy to be here. "Anything we can do to help?"

"... Maybe." Sakura mumbles.

"I didn't catch that." Naruto says.

"I said, maybe." Sakura repeats, a little sigh to her breath as she finally picks herself up and removes herself from Sasuke's lap. She brushes hair out of her eyes, taking solace in the moment of peace to get herself back on track. "Naruto has clones, he could at least help with the manpower before we go. It should help advance it a little out of a death spiral from moment one."

"I don't know anything about carpentry." Naruto says, "or any of the things you'll need…"

"No, but we do know where to find a mine, and how to transport it, and we can get Tazuna and the other workers to start building things from the stone and other resources." Sakura realizes.

"Can we even go back into the dungeon?" Sasuke asks.

"Only one way to find out." Sakura stands, smiling brightly when Naruto jumps up too, eager to help and ready to work.

Yes, the answer to whether dungeons are accessible after they've been completed but haven't expired is, yes. There's nothing blocking the entrance, and they can walk right in. The mist is gone, the monsters are gone, the original fork between the two minion rooms and the path forward is just the two minion rooms, the boss room and everything up to it is simply missing.

While the dungeon expires very soon, so they probably can't do anything major, a few clones craft a pickaxe from some twigs and a nice sharp slab, which they can then all use through the power of clone duplication nonsense. The pickaxes keep breaking but that doesn't matter, because that clone just pops itself and Naruto replaces it with a new make-shift piece of crap.

Before they know it they've got the whole dungeon as one big empty quarry and they're working on make-shift shitty wagons to try and bring it all into town where they'll just kind of leave it until someone who knows what they're doing can work with it.

It's not enough to fix the situation, and looking at the status screen of Wave she can't help but notice how many resources are in the red - morale is one of them - and groan to herself, but it's the best she can do with this short of a time and her current knowledge. Some houses will have to be rebuilt and maybe this'll work, or maybe it'll get used for tools or maybe it can secretly be ground up for some kind of crazy spice that they can export for resources they do need. Whatever the case, they are providing a resource that can be used in some way to make up for a lack of another. It's a very good use of their time, or more specifically, Naruto's time. Because when she asked Kakashi for the shadow clone so she could help, he looked her right in the eye and told her she'd die screaming if she tried.

Which was, ominious, to say the least. Naruto doesn't just have more chakra than her. If she can't make one clone, he has thousands more chakra than her. She'll have to rethink her saving resources argument for him, and, also hit the books to try to figure out what's so strange about him. Her power predicts him to be stronger than anything she's encountered before, including the third Hokage, and she has no doubt in her mind that the Uzumaki bloodline is not that good. If it was, well, the Hyuuga and Uchiha would never have been such big names. The sheer weight of a hundred people like him would trivialize every ninja system ever.

Never before has she regretted leaving management sims and city builders to the wayside in favor of shooters, Real Time Strategies, Role Playing Games and the like. Now, she'll have to learn quickly. The first realization upon calming down is that game system or not, it follows real-world logic. She doesn't have to get good at city builders, she has to get good at city planning, like real city planning. This is good because it means she can read a book instead of wasting hundreds of hours getting mad at beavers or whatever. She's sure they're very good beavers, she's bad at directing them, and that's not going to change anytime soon. She will still use some of her money to buy a few city builders and sims and play them casually for practice but, the planning and research should help her much more.

She's always been a very good study, and Wave isn't starting from the ground up. She already has the road structure, where the buildings need to go, a trade route established and many other foundational needs like a bridge to export and import and ships.

So getting great big slabs of stone from the aether right now is amazing, and learning how to use that stone later is also amazing. She doesn't need to fix Wave right now, she needs to get it started while she's here, and figure it out when she's home.

It sucks to have a second job, but she can pull it off if it means these people can return to their lives.

She's not sure how all this is going to work, but she is sure of one thing, Gato will never happen again. First, because she killed him, like five times.

Second, because she's in charge and she'll notice if something like it starts again. Wave is only a week away, less if they sprint, there's no time to undermine the entire country without her being able to check in and see why things are getting fucky.

Her power was right, this'll save Wave.
It's just also going to suck, all the time, possibly for years.
At least she can retire here someday if she lives long enough.

Shit, this is three jobs, she's Haku's manager now!

"Guess there's no denying my system now, is there?" Sakura asks her sensei, as a flurry of Naruto clones walk by covered in stone dust and happy to be done with it. The dungeon expired a minute ago, and what's gathered has been gathered. The entire area is missing now, leaving grassland and trees in its place. Now they have to haul all the stone, and she's not looking forward to that part.

"Nope…" Kakashi drawls. "How in the hell do I explain this in my report?"

"We could not." Sakura titters.

"No, treason isn't on the menu today." Kakashi shakes his head.

"Yeah…" That's true, lying would be an act of undermining the village, which is not a good look for any ninja's career. Not undermining their own village, anyway. She's pretty sure Kakashi would get patted on the back and paid a bonus if he managed to successfully undermine another village.

"How much of my own money do you think this'll cost me?" Sakura asks. "I don't think Wave'll do well as it is, it needs capital."

"A lot." Kakashi says. "Luckily, you'll be getting a rather large payment from the A rank mission we just completed."

"Guh, yeah." Sakura rubs her forehead, "wait, A rank? I thought this was a C rank."

"... Sakura…" Kakashi stares at her like she's an idiot. She feels like one, he's good at that, stupidly good. "Tazuna lied, this would probably be a B rank mission since fighting Zabuza wasn't necessary, but lying about a mission comes with an instant rank up to the price should it be found out. This is effectively an A rank, and the Hokage might deem it an A rank in truth because Zabuza was fought."

"Wait, but if it goes up a rank automatically, and it might be an A rank, wouldn't that make it an S rank?" Sakura asks. "I don't think Wave can pay for an S rank, that might bankrupt my new system on its own… aww crap, I'm gonna get paid from my own resources!"

She smacks herself in the face, hissing at the ground for the fate she has been dealt.

"Well, I doubt you have access to all the wealth of the place." Kakashi points out, "Tazuna still has money."

"That just makes it worse, because Tazuna doesn't have the money for an S rank." The thing about missions is that each step up is ten times the price. Tazuna had to lie about the mission because he could only afford a C rank, which means an A rank is a hundred times what he can pay, and an S rank… "It's so coming out of my coffers."

"Sucks to suck." Kakashi shrugs.

"Wha-"

The masked bastard somehow manages to smile from his eye instead of his lips, ensuring she doesn't need the mood chart or to see his face to get he's mocking her.

When did Kakashi learn that phrase? She doesn't want her sensei knowing that phrase.

"It's fine, Sakura-chan, I'll just open that cleaning business and help out." Naruto beams as he walks up to her, the real Naruto, the only one not covered in dust and rock. What she'd do for her own private 'go get me a sandwich' force. Perhaps it's best it's in Naruto's hands, she'd use it to be lazy.

"Thanks, but this really feels like something I should do on my-" She begins, only to get cut off.

By Sasuke. "No." Sasuke denies. "I'll help too, my clan funds aren't doing anything, and we're a team."

"I'm already helping, what's the difference between helping with clones here and helping with clones back home?" Naruto asks. "Don't be a dummy, Sakura."

"Y-yeah…" Looking down at her lap, she can't argue with them. Besides, the people of Wave really do need the help, turning them down wouldn't just be screwing herself over it'd be hurting these people they've come to know and, well not love but, point affection towards. There is the small issue of the people about to get paid from Wave coffers offering to put money in Wave coffers, which really means they all just did a free A rank mission. Which is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. Except Kakashi, who-

"I don't need the money," -shrugs. "It's a nice idea to have something the entire team can contribute to, something with visible progress to boost morale, and put context to our efforts."

She doesn't like it, but Kakashi's right. Or maybe she does like it, she doesn't know anymore. She just wants to get home, hug her parents, read a book, and log Haku into a computer.

"What the…" Sakura and Naruto trail at the same time.

"Master-er, I mean, Zabuza!" Haku calls out, rushing towards the man.

He's not alone, err, well he is, at least when it comes to the living. He is, however, standing on a mountain of corpses. Bandits, so many of them it's absurd. Hundreds if not thousands of brigands are pooling their lives into a massive gluttony of destruction, just a few dozen feet from Tazuna's house.

"You're an idiot." The man grunts, as a hand lands on Haku's shoulder, the missing nin as rugged as and brutal looking as the pile he's made. It's technically Sakura's first chance to look at the man who took her out, and she's happy to say he's imposing. It'd be embarrassing if he was some chump with a good throwing arm. He's covered in bandages, and has a sword on his back that's so large and ridiculous she can't help but be in awe that it has no blood on it whatsoever. Of all this killing, it wasn't even splattered. The man is incredible, or his sword drinks blood. She's pretty sure it's the second, after a moment of thought, given it drank the blood from her sword when she blocked it.

"Zabuza-sama…" Haku looks down at the man's feet.

"Only a soft hearted brat like you would think that taking out one man would solve the problem." He scolds, "where are the bandits going to go without an employer?"

"Into your sword, it looks like." Sakura says, just before Naruto can say something snappy. This is her battle, or, well it's Haku's but Haku is hers now so… "Thank you for your help."

Kakashi's suspiciously quiet, but that makes sense. He's too busy making sure they're not about to die, and being prepared for it, to partake in the witty banter. He's a good sensei, when he wants to be.

"I just didn't want to waste Haku's sacrifice." Zabuza says, his voice deep and almost echoing atmospherically. He looks down and glares at the boy with a sense of clear purpose. "You grasp the choice you made, don't you? If I ever see you on the battlefield again, it'll be the last time I see you, ever."

"Ah, thank you, Zabuza-sama." Haku's demeaner takes a bright turn at that, bright enough to stun Sakura. Some hidden message was passed between them there, and she imagines with double her charm she'd have missed it so she doesn't even try. She's just, stunned…-

-For a second. "Hey, don't you go threatening him!" She lunges forward, pushing Haku back and standing on her tiptoes to glare at the man right up close. She can smell his dirty almost rotting breath, and glare right into his eyes. "Stay away from my femboy streamer you knock off good for nothing Cloud wannabe!"

"..." The silence around her makes her wonder if she did something dangerous, for a long second. She did, now that she thinks about it, she needs to start thinking more, way more.

She worries she's about to be in a sword fight, until the man's head falls back a little and a thunderous laugh fills their ears. He takes a step back, shaking his head and miming wiping a tear from his eye. "You win," He says, "but don't think I won't be checking in on the two of you. I better hear good things."

She holds firm as he walks away, leaving them to their own devices, and their own impending journey. "What do we do about the corpses?" Sasuke asks.

"Naruto, get the shovels!" Sakura shouts, she has to go say goodbye to Inari and friends, she'll leave that nonsense to him.

Thankfully, this time next week, she'll be in Konoha, sipping tea, reading a book on cities, and yelling at Haku to stop doxxing himself every thirty seconds on stream.

"Wow, they really like the toys we got. Best loot ever." Watching out the window with Tsunami by her side, Sakura can't help but feel nice about everything she's done here.

The boy she's taken an attachment to is playing 'swords' with other kids from around, golden blades and red blades, and that guy's got a bouncy hammer. It's adorable, and she can't help a little tinge of joyful heat overtaking her while watching them. There's some girl with a toy crossbow, which they didn't bring back. It has to have been handmade, and it looks a lot like the one attached to her own shoulder. "That's so cute," she sighs happily, "I have an admirer."

"Maybe." Tsunami agrees. Well, 'agrees'. Tsunami hasn't looked kindly on her the entire time they've been here, and while it bothers her that the woman seems to have a problem with her, it's not her business. Sometimes people don't like you, and if Sakura knew how to fix that, well, she'd be one of the smartest people ever. People not liking you for their own reasons outside your agency is just a fact of life, like microtransactions and joycon drift. Sometimes you can do everything right to the best of your ability and people hate you, and she'll be the first to admit it, she has not done everything right with Tsunami. She's stolen her clothes - and destroyed them -, she's gotten weirdly close with her son without talking to her first about it, and she's been a witness to several incidents she's not particularly proud of.

Of all that, the only thing she can make better is the outfits, so maybe she'll make that up in the future. She could come visit with a bunch of Konoha's latest fashions in her size?

"I should go." Sakura sighs, pushing off the railing of the overlooking balcony.

"You don't want to say goodbye?" Tsunami asks.

"They're having fun." Sakura points at the kids. "I never got to do that, why would I want to ruin it for them?"

"I think he'll be a lot more hurt by you disappearing without a word than he would be cutting short one game of, whatever that is." Tsunami rolls her eyes at her. "I get there's something wrong with your head, but don't hurt Inari because you're too dumb to get children."

"..." Nevermind, she's never paying the woman back anything, she saved her country, a few outfits is barely a cost. "Fine."

"Inari," Sakura cuts in from the side, leaning against the wall of the house down with the kids, and waving him over. Sneaking up was easy, and allowed her to be a lot cooler than just talking over the balcony, it was a no brainer. The kids all run to her within a moment's notice, focused and with wide eyes. That girl definitely has admiration written on her features, that toy crossbow is so made after hers. Well, it's admiration or confusion, she's not great with those two but she's pretty sure the chart is showing admiration so she's choosing it.

"You're leaving." The boy grasps instantly, as he gets close. Maybe it's something on her face she doesn't know she's showing, maybe it's just that he's smarter than she gives him credit for, but he can tell what she's about to say before she says it.

"The mission's over." Sakura says, reaching out with a hand to shake his. He answers by launching himself against her, and wrapping his arms around her unprompted. "Erm…" She pats his head awkwardly, unsure of how to deal with this but equally unwilling to speak that thought. "Your grandfather is safe now, and I know you will be too. I have to go home."

"Couldn't you stay here?" He asks, "I'm sure you could get a job here really easily, what with everyone thinking of you as our savior and all."

"Err-hehe, how do I explain this, um, that's called a missing-nin." Sakura says. "The village sends people out to kill those. I'd die like, next week, if not ten seconds after I announced my plans from my sensei's hand through my chest."

"He'd touch your chest?" The little girl speaks up. "Mommy says men aren't supposed to do that to little girls like us."

"...Snrk." She can't help but snicker, palming her face and shaking her head. "I have to go, but, I do want you to keep the gameboy as collateral."

"Collat-errr-el?" Inari asks, squinting up at her.

"It means 'reason to come back.'" Sakura says. "I promise I'll come get it someday, so keep it safe for me okay?"

"Okay…"

With that, every obligation here has been met. She will have to ship some batteries to him though, so she'll put it on her list.

It's time for her to leave, before another social encounter appears out of nowhere to make her day any worse and this any harder.

Chapter Text

Spotting the puddle in the middle of the road as abnormal was as easy as breathing for Kakashi, it was mid-day on a relatively hot day, it hadn't rained in a few days, and even ignoring that the dirt around the puddle was still dirt, meaning the water hadn't had time to seep in and start turning its surroundings to mud. He half expected Sakura to see it too, he knew Naruto wasn't going to, and whether Sasuke is paying enough attention to his surroundings at any given time is a coin flip at best. The boy's too stuck in his world, too muted, and just as he expected the only person who gave the puddle any more thought than instinctively stepping around it was Sakura. Mostly, because instead of stepping around it, she paid even less attention and drove herself foot first into it.

He was ready to react instantly, it took everything he had not to already have a jutsu completed before the splash. What was about to happen relied entirely on whoever made that puddle. If they were especially skilled and not after them, nothing would happen, she'd have stepped on someone's face and they'd grumble about it over a drink later.

If they were especially skilled and after them, they'd come out swinging in a moment pissed off and with a shoe mark on their face.

If they were bad at this, Sakura just killed two people, and their bloodied remains would explode into the world in a fest of gore so vivid and traumatizing he'd have to knock out all three genin before they memorized it like the idiot children they are.

Nothing happened. He sighed in relief, he kept walking and kept an eye on them.
That's when it happened, when they revealed that yes, they were pissed off and after them.

Specifically, they were after Sakura and their face on her shoe only made it worse.

Watching Sakura quickly and efficiently put down the demon twins was more astounding than anything. He knew she was getting stronger fast, and he even knew she'd made vast improvements since the start, and it's not a secret that missing nin get stale pretty quickly for a vast number of reasons including unstable food procurement, desperation, and a lack of professionalism.

He had all the parts to get the correct answer, but seeing it come together and watching his students not just defeat but butcher two other living beings in live combat… He wasn't prepared for that.

At their age he'd already killed people, it wasn't special for him, and in a way he'd never left the war so the child in him wasn't phased at all. But before he could take this team they'd made him take several lessons on the modern day genin, what was expected, what they'd be capable of, what to try and drag out of them and what was too far.

Sasuke's not an average Genin because he's traumatized beyond all reason and there's no sparing him the pain of reality. He had feared Sasuke might pull ahead of his teammates in a very real way, taking things much more seriously and leaving them in the dust in a way he couldn't help with. He'd be watching the past repeat itself, and he'd be doomed.

Naruto's not an average Genin because Naruto's, well, let's just say lineage is a huge part of your capabilities as a ninja and having almost infinite chakra only made him more capable. He didn't expect Naruto to take it super seriously, and he definitely didn't expect greatness from the boy, but with a kunoichi's below average chakra pool by nature, her lack of a clan, and her general failure to take life seriously, he expected Naruto to outpace Sakura by leagues. Even if he didn't have a murderous bone in his body, he'd surely strive ahead of her because he had infinite potential and tons of time training, and Kakashi had to get good at her favorite games just to harass her into sleeping.

He figured Sakura would be a Rin situation, but somehow so much worse. That he'd be watching history repeat itself in the bloodiest way it could without a war hanging over their heads and the need to grow up so fast the growing pains started when the maturing stopped.

Watching Sakura stand over the corpses of two Chunin, one burning and the other severed into bite sized chunks he's genuinely worried she might take a bite of just to prove a point, it occurs to him that he's had them all wrong.

Sakura's him. That was before he watched her steal a wallet from the remains, count the coins before the body cooled, and do a happy wiggle-giggle at the loot. "Wallet obtained!"

"I do believe this belongs to you." Standing in front of him was a boy with a white mask over his face, and lustrous black hair that trailed down his back. It's a common tactic among ninja that need to hide their identity, finding different ways to confuse those in front of them to basic details like their age or gender. Standing with a bit of a slouch distracts from their height, and made it hard to get a good idea of how much they might weigh.

He'd be forgiven for not thinking much of the boy, because what he held was Sakura, bandaged, covered in blood, her face was cut down the middle and her chest was partially caved in. She looked dead, very dead, only the slightest raise of her chest at her breath took his attention away from her pale blue lips and the limpness of her limbs. He took her, holding her in his arms and nodded to the hunter nin. "I trust you'll take care of the missing ninja?"

"Of course." That's all he needed to hear. He barely took notice of the sword and pack handed over as well, split and damaged at its core. He recognized the cuts on the pack, and on her body, her own sword went and betrayed her. A part of him wondered if it was his fault somehow, for giving her that sword instead of leaving her with the piece of crap she'd originally shown him. That sword would have likely bounced off her when she got sent flying.

The fact that she'd have been torn in half by Zabuza's sword instead when it went through her old one made him feel better when he thought of it. The relief was just enough for him to forget about his jello legs for a second.

"Is she…" Sasuke asked, his steps took him to them a lot quicker than Kakashi expected. It seemed that after an intense battle, with tensions in the air and a moment to get his bearings, Sasuke can in fact express himself about them in something more than a complaint.

"She's breathing." Kakashi said, "Naruto, I need clones to carry us, I'm gonna pass out."

"Pass out, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked, just before his limbs gave in, and he fell over. Kakashi only had the energy left to cradle her before he landed, so she didn't hit her head. "Ah."

"Oh, so you care about when they die, but me, I'm just complaining?" Sakura's words hit him differently. Even if there wasn't fire in her eyes, even if Hunger's influence wasn't still ruminating in her body enough for her anger to take a physical form - luckily cosmetic only at the moment - she'd still have just punched him in the face. Sometimes someone says something that makes you redefine how you see them, how you treat them, a few words can change an entire person in the blink of an eye.

For Sakura, she probably didn't think of those words as meaningful, for him, he realized an unintentional bias that's slightly altered every interaction with her so far. He had to resist reaching out to pat her head, or ruffle her hair, or squeeze her cheeks to remind himself she's alive and not one of the fallen on the stone. He could see more than one of his dead friends in her, the trouble is, one of those was the long dead him.

He's always hated that guy.

"When you die, you're annoying." He managed to articulate through an airway that fought him, and sludge in his stomach. Did she actually die? Does it matter? Who cares what actually happened, she's here in front of him and his words matter to her.

"When they die, we'll wish they could be." He offered out the stick he held upon her request all the more firmly, you're ours Sakura, we can't lose you, the path you're on is dumb and I'd like to help you, all words he'd like to have said instead.

It doesn't matter, the girl who's first choice is self sacrifice, and who's second choice is to lash out about it, took the stick and seemed to understand the unspoken words just this once. "I'm not human anymore."

He watched the girl sniffle, watched her whole world crumble as she said words that are too hard to say. He wished he could do the same. She grabbed the stick, at her own words, and at least that was one step forward in a puzzle he's never been prepared for.

"I know." He answered back, he'd known for a while. It's not the sword, Hunger never did to a person what seemed to be happening to her. What was different about her was foreign, and seems more demonic than any weapon he could ever hand her. Insidious was its middle name, and if he could reach into her and rip out whatever's causing her to actively seek death at so young an age that she'd literally jump through her teammate's fireball for an advantage, he wouldn't hesitate.

"My life's a game now." She looked into his lone eye, and he wished he could have his sharingan out just to remember the vulnerability in her face. This was Sakura, not a dead friend, not someone who he'd watched suffer atrocity, this scared little girl was Sakura and he needed to remember that above all else. "I have stats, and skills, and traits, and my money is held in an invisible prompt box so it doesn't weigh me down, and, and, and I heal when I sleep."

That's not what he expected to hear, but those that snapped so young tended to have delusions connected to their interests. That's not what's happened here though, he knows that, because she was still alive and in front of him at that moment so shortly after taking injuries that'd take a jonin out of the fight for weeks. "I got that last part." He said from the bottom of his stomach, refusing to explain to her that something evil is masquerading as a power to her.

Something wanted her to view her life as a token in an arcade's money slot, something replaceable and without value. She was vulnerable, she was scared, she was still alive. He doesn't say anything about that, at best he'd scare her, at worst he'd sever her trust in him permanently. "I've started carrying sedatives around in case I need to knock you out in an emergency." He admitted, forcing the most playful smile he could manage. He doesn't reveal he's palming one of those sedatives right that moment.

"That's smart." So many dead, so many by his hands, and he still has to use every skill in his body to talk to a little girl.

He'd been looking forward to this. That dungeon was just the excuse he needed to torture his students like they would have back in the good ol days. Normally village rules would say he couldn't even risk pushing them on the path towards Itachi, or Orochimaru, or any of the other crazy village traitors, but they asked for it which meant this was totally okay! Watching Sakura run around a track while carrying Sasuke's unconscious form had him so giddy he couldn't even begin. He'd skip and clap and play if he had the energy, and wasn't a grown man with much better things to do, like nap.

Six hours between sessions, about an hour before she passed out, she'd been getting a little more - statistically - than three hours of brutal all out training per day. It was harsh, and the fact that it was all she'd done for four days is harsher. Gai would be mad at him, this wasn't how you train someone to be stronger, it's how you get someone used to working on their last legs for as long as possible. Gai would say someone should burn out like a star, bright and then gone, they shouldn't work on suffering through the hardest times, they should seek the best times at all costs and always ensure every moment is spent working towards being one step ahead of the enemy.

Kakashi knew better. Naruto was getting brightness training, in between Sasuke and Sakura he's been spending a lot of his time learning soft skills. Clones can be used to teach him proper reading, writing, he's even started him on the first step to seals - he had to do right by his parents - but he won't tell him that. He needs to get his hand writing down before he tells him he's training him to blow stuff up with paper he made. Monster inside or not, he's not Sakura, he's not possessed by some evil spirit that tells him it'll all be alright no matter what stupid self sacrifice he makes. He could be trained on tomorrow, Sakura needed to be trained on today.

And Sasuke? Sasuke appeared to be getting sensitivity training.

"Is this reasonable?" Sasuke asked, carrying Sakura over to the grass next to him so she could plop down like the sleepy girl she was. "This has been going on far too long, Kakashi."

"She's getting better." He said.

"What if she snaps?" The boy looked more angry than concerned, but that was natural for a guy. It's hard to express worry when the entire world has told you that's weakness, and you're better off glaring at the problems until they're too afraid to approach.

"She already has." Kakashi pointed out, unraveling a scroll and pulling out a long wooden stick from it. He kept it, of course he did, Sakura found it important for some reason. He then poked her cheek with it, and watched as she tilted her head and began to chew on the damn stick. "See? She's even chewing on a stick."

"Kakashi, don't stick things in girl's mouths while they sleep, it's creepy." The deadpan on the boy's face made a shiver run up Kakashi's spine.

"Is it?" Kakashi asked, "what about boys?"

"Yes."

"... Huh. That explains more than I'd like." Kakashi nodded to himself. "Okay, but you get the metaphor."

"She's still chewing on it." Sasuke's dead tone only got worse.

"Well I'm not gonna take it from her." Kakashi pointed out, dropping the stick, "she's already crazy, at this point she either snaps or becomes great, the impact we have on her is all that matters."

"So pushing her towards madness is…" Sasuke's stare never ends, it's his one defining character trait, one that Kakashi would like to avoid, but it seemed if it's not Sakura, it's Sasuke, the boy had called him out about Sakura relentlessly over their last few days together.

The boy might have had a crush, which was funny because Naruto definitely had a crush. Naruto's crush was only made worse when she moved her blond teammate into her house like that was a perfectly normal thing to do. "Sometimes the cure is worse than the poison. At least right now, she's diving into it for your sakes, it's the best time to push her forward."

Sasuke doesn't like it, but he lets it go, for now.

Kakashi got the feeling he'd be hearing from Sasuke about Sakura a lot more in the near future.

Too bad, little Uchiha, Sakura's not just some cute girl with an ounce of talent. She'd never fall to Hunger, because something much worse had a hold of her, and he can't do anything about that but give her the tools she'll need to keep going when all is lost. Everyone else on the team already has that skill, and they'll need it, she will too.

"Besides, maybe after this dungeon is over you can ask her for a congratulatory kiss." Kakashi teased the boy, watching him fight back a genuine flush and flip him off instead.

He left Sakura with her stick.

"Where'd you get the goggles, Sasuke?" Kakashi asked, as heavy footsteps approached the house. They sounded wet, and he didn't like that, best to move the conversation to where Sakura could sneak past without notice and get clean. Besides, he'd rather know why he's staring at another Uchiha with goggles. The painful memories would overtake him, if that wasn't every moment with this team.

"The dungeon." Sasuke said curtly, allowing his Sharingan to spin to life. "I unlocked my birthright while I was at it. For a silly little diversion, I am happy we did it." Kakashi had known about the Sharingan the first time he'd laid eyes on him after the dungeon, there was a new confidence to him, like reality had manifested itself the way it should. Either he'd gotten that kiss, or he'd unlocked his Sharingan, and he had his money on the Sharingan because the boy being sociable enough to ask for the former was practically impossible.

"That's nice. Just remember not to look at anything you wouldn't want to memorize, with those eyes of yours." Kakashi said.

"Speaking from experience, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked.

"Oh yes." Kakashi nodded, rubbing his hands together to draw their attention just as Sakura got to the door, the least he needed is for everyone at this table to -

Bang!

Suddenly look at Sakura the moment she came through the door because she kicked the door open like a pissed off and drunk protagonist. Seeing a girl covered in blood wasn't surprising for him, let alone Sakura like that. The pieces of person in her hair and sinew coating her were a new aesthetic, but he couldn't say he was surprised. He thought perhaps they'd fight monsters in that dungeon, but humans aren't an absurd concept when it was about taking down the shipping magnate himself.

Unfortunately what he'd rather avoid happened, Sasuke looked at her with his eyes full and powered on. That he didn't seem surprised enough for it to matter hurt him deeply, but they were ninja, he couldn't hide the world ahead of them forever even if he wanted to.

One day this would be normal, and Sakura was likely skewing when 'one day' was by years.

"He's dead." Sakura said, as her eyes locked onto their charge, Tazuna. She reached into her pouch, and before Kakashi could realize she was about to pull out a finger or something, Sasuke beat him to it. He was getting very good at predicting their teammate.

"Please don't do that." Sasuke spoke up, warning his teammate about the horrifying trauma she was about to inflict on everyone at the table. That she didn't care or get it, but still followed his words filled Kakashi's soul with a bit of soothing balm.

She was measured madness, they can control her. One step at a time, maybe they'd turn her into a person with enough time. His job was to make sure she lived long enough to become a happier him… Did that even exist? The thought threw him through a loop, who was he? He's not prepared for all this, this is not what he signed up for.

"Who's dead?" Their caretaker, Tsunami asked.

"Gato." Sakura said, her eyes still gently glowing, the evil enchantment of a powerful sword trampled underfoot like it never mattered in the first place. "We killed him."

"Uh… is that, um, him?" Tsunami asked, pointing at the girl tracking gore onto her floor.

Sakura took a sole moment to look down at herself, look a little guilty, then shrug it off, "yes, this is probably gato, I imagine this came from when I climbed on him and started stabbing."

"Why does Sakura need to be told things like 'don't approach the child while covered in person?'" Naruto asked Kakashi, as he ate his second bowl of food lovingly crafted by Tsunami "isn't that like, obvious? She's really smart…"

"Sometimes being smart makes you dumb." Kakashi said. "Our brains can only track so many things at once, no matter how advanced they are. They prioritize what they understand and discard what they don't. For Sakura, violence is unimportant, Inari and telling him the good news is."

"I'm happy she loves my son, but isn't that a bit much? She's known him for a bit over two weeks." Tsunami pointed out, "I found her passed out and snuggling him the other day. Should I be worried?"

"No." Kakashi shook his head. "Yes… Maybe… Not about anything you're worried about." The Jonin decided after a long moment to think. "She's latching onto someone innocent because her world shook recently. It'll pass, or it won't, but even if it doesn't she's not going to hurt him."

"She just tried." Tsunami pointed out with a bit of annoyance in her tone, not a lot but, it was there. A scorned mother is not a weapon he wanted aimed at Sakura right now, if he could help it.

"Think of it more as an idiot trying to help your son." Kakashi said.

"That's worse!" Tsunami groaned loudly and pained.

"Maybe, but the alternative is that he didn't learn about Gato's death and kept being anxious," Kakashi pointed out, "and Sakura found that unacceptable." It only took a moment, but he watched the woman scramble out of the room to go share the good news now that it had clicked with her that Inari still didn't know.

"She's so dumb." Naruto groaned. "And so smart. I'm confused."

"What else is new?" Sasuke said, the closest thing the Uchiha had to laughing, a little mirth in his tone. "The dungeon was… bad."

"Did you get beat up by an old man?" Kakashi asks with a laugh.

"Yes."

"So much." Naruto agrees with a groan.

Chapter Text

"So, now that we're moderately close to the village, please fill out your reports." Kakashi says suddenly one morning as they're just getting up and out from their tents, making all their heads raise in surprise. It's Sakura who's the most surprised, as standard operations are to create your reports while waiting to be debriefed, those reports are then copied, and filed, and a version of them is sent to the Hokage if anything is found to be of top-level importance. Her special memory helps inconsistencies like that pop out a lot more than they do the boys, at least she thinks that's the reason they start writing while she has so many questions.

"But Kakashi-sensei…" Sakura's nose twitches, and she can't help but give him a stern yet questioning glance. "Why now?"

"Because I need to doctor them, and I can't do that in debriefing." He explains without a care in the world. He says that like he's not shattering her world, and twisting her gut with a sharp jagged knife.

"Doctor them? But… That's definitely against the rules." Sakura says, pointing at the man with an awkward glare she can't quite manage as well as she'd like. She's too good-natured, it just feels wrong. Even with Tazuna, she had to rely on the sword's red eye effect to be intimidating, with Kakashi it feels pointless.

"Yes and no," Kakashi says, "as long as the Hokage is notified of the modifications, and the modifications are signed off on by a Jonin, there's no issue with the mission record being a little off."

"Ah, so, what are you modifying?" Sakura asks, earning a subtle nod of approval from Sasuke for asking his question for him so he didn't have to speak. She's liking that she's beginning to understand body language like that. A part of her is so proud of how far her charm has come, another part of her thinks it's just that she's getting used to the other shut-in and she'd have just as difficult a time if it was the first time she'd seen the gesture.

"First, we need to remove all mentions of Tazuna's crime of lying about the mission. This way Wave's coffers aren't penalized. The Hokage will likely not find many problems with this, as most of the mission pay goes into the ninja's hands anyway, so if we don't accept pay for the mission he won't lose much if anything. As a jonin, part of my job is figuring out what the Hokage would value more in any given instance, and I think he'd value Wave as an ally more than a few extra Ryo in the village. We're not struggling financially at the moment, so global politics matters more."

"Ah…" Sakura nods, slowly.

"Next, we need to remove any mentions of your abilities. There is no reason the office jonin handling our mission reports need to be aware that your perception, surroundings, and life are being altered by some chaotic deity masquerading itself as a gaming system." He points out while kicking out the campfire from last night. It's not needed anymore and only continued to burn so long in the first place because he'd had Naruto use his chakra as a fuel source for Sakura to convert to fire chakra for training.

There was just so much of it, and working with someone else's chakra is insanely harder. It took a couple of hours, but, well, they had warmth throughout the night and Naruto was happy to help her training. The process involved holding his hand and, well, it was embarrassing. She's glad that's not how Kakashi had her learning back in Wave, but he said that she'd have never figured it out if it was. Working with someone else's chakra requires you to have a bond of sorts, as chakra has a feeling center of its own and can either fight you or help you. From there, it requires a persistent flow that's rather large, and it's almost impossible to control. She doubts she'd ever be able to do a jutsu with it, even with his full cooperation, but it's how they'll be handling campfires from now on so she'll be getting used to it.

His chakra fought her so much on turning into fire, she's pretty sure he's got an anti-affinity for it.

"So why make us write them at all if you're gonna do stuff to them?" Naruto asks, looking proud of himself when he looks at the now puffed out fire. "Sounds like you should just write them."

"Because I still need to give your original reports to the Hokage." Kakashi says. "By the time you're a Jonin you frequently make two reports, because the Hokage needs to know what you're hiding and he needs to know the story you're telling everyone else so he doesn't blow your cover."

"So you're going to tell him about my um, condition?" Sakura asks.

"Surprising a Kage is probably the dumbest way to die." Kakashi says. "You're safer if he knows."

"Okay." Going out of her way to lie to the Hokage does seem like a bit much, and he has a point. It just feels odd that a few weeks ago no one knew, and now there'd be five people, and none of them are her parents. She doesn't like hiding things from her parents in the first place, them being the sixth and seventh to know? It makes her feel guilty inside and not in that somewhat exciting way when you're stealing a cookie from the jar.

"Halt." The gate guards stop them in their tracks before they're even halfway through the massive gates to Konoha. Kakashi had warned them they would, with Haku being an unknown entity hanging onto them. Sensor ninjas are rare, but there's always one working with the gate guards so that spies and infiltrators can be detected if they're not good enough to completely hide their presence. In this particular case, Haku's not trying to hide their powers at all. They're high chunin, possibly even low jonin, and they can probably be felt for quite a ways away. Chances are these guards have been waiting to stop them for at least a few minutes, if not half an hour.

Kakashi heads up to talk to them while she looks Haku right in his pretty eyes. "So they're going to take you into that building over there." She points towards a small outpost built right into the wall. "They'll take a few pictures of you, write your information down, and make an ID which'll let you access places outside the explicit visitor pass area of the village. It'll take a little longer, since you're trying to be a citizen."

"Why can't I just get a visitor pass?" Haku asks. "It's not like I have many intentions here."

"Because you can't live in my house if you can't visit my house." Sakura explains. "We live in the merchant area, because we have a lot of merchants in our family and it's very convenient. Also, you're going to be paying rent and making lots of money, so like, you need to be allowed to do that too."

"Paying rent?" Haku asks. "You are aware I am, as some would say, broke." His smile is patient with her, but the tick in his brow says a lot that she manages to pick up. Given she can pick it up without the chart, she's pretty sure it's really obvious for everyone else.

"I'm covering your first month, and possibly your second." Sakura says. "Besides, your landlords are my parents, it's not like we couldn't strike a deal if we had to." She rolls her eyes at the boy, patting him on the shoulder and pushing him onward. "Go on, Kakashi wants you." She points out how the man is beckoning him, not a care in the world and a proud smile on her lips.

That was so managerly of her! She waits until the boy is gone to do a happy wiggle, shaking her arms and legs and allowing herself a giggle, not caring in the least that her teammates can see her girlish self. It's not like she tries to hide it, it just doesn't come up much.

"Go on." She gives them a side-eye.

"It was cute." Sasuke shrugs both shoulders, hands in his shorts and glancing sideways himself. "Finally going to switch into your clothes?"

"It's not my fault there wasn't a functional clothing shop in Wave." Sakura huffs, looking down at Tsunami's travel wear. It's nice and efficient, but it doesn't fit her very well. None of her clothes have for the last month or so in Wave. She went through all the effort of getting combat clothes and travel packs and tools and then her sword chopped her and them practically in half. It sucked, and then she had to do that entire mission with a bitchy woman complaining about her stealing her clothes while she had no options, and with inefficient, not even fitting wear.

To put it shortly, "it sucked," she sighs to herself, "I am so glad to be near my wardrobe."

"Do you think your parents will let you get to your clothes without making you tell the entire story?" Naruto asks. "What do you even plan to tell them? Are you leaving stuff out?"

"Probably a lot of things." Sakura admits. "They don't need to know I went blind, or that I got stabbed to death by my own sword, or that Haku was originally an enemy. I'm not sure what I'm going to say, but I'm likely leaving out more than I'm leaving in… That's going to suck, I don't think I've ever lied to them."

Chapter Text

"What the…" Naruto saw her off and ran in a random direction, screaming about getting some damn ramen. She's always wanted to join him for that, but not today. Today she needs to get home before Haku gets there, so she can get some family love in before getting yelled at. Sakura skips to her front door, only to see the door to open, and for Naruto to walk out. It's not her Naruto, she's gotten pretty good at noticing the subtle differences in demeanor, but the biggest hint is the suit, tie, and combed hair the blond boy sports.

"I have to meet with investors." The boy explains, leaving quickly with a briefcase as if he didn't just shatter her world and shake her to her foundation.

"I don't…" Sakura gawks, unsure, but knowing she has more to do than bother with that for now. "Where are our parents?"

"At the investors meeting." He explains with a bit of a sideways glance, like that should have been obvious for her. "You'll have the place to yourself for a bit, enjoy." He tips a bowler hat at her, and walks away, disappearing into the sea of people that is the Konoha market district.

It's a few moments later that the real Naruto slides right up to her with a big grin on his face. "Did you see him? He looked all official." The boy rubs his hands together, "I bet he got a ton done while I was gone. I'm going to have to wait until bed to pop him, because I bet he's going to knock me out with all he has to share."

"Naruto." She stares for a short moment, unable to take her eyes away but also unable to keep looking at him for long, eye contact is hard for her, okay? "Did you leave a clone here for the entire mission? And what about your ramen?"

"Yeah?" He says with a question to his tone, as if she's the crazy one. She's inwardly happy to have heard the question, she's come so far in such a short time. "Ichiraku told me to come back in the morning, I guess they have some celebration planned for my return and need time."

"R-right." She slaps her cheeks, shakes her head, and enters the house to go upstairs to get out of this stupid outfit and into something comfortable enough to be worth wearing. She'll save the outfit so she can give it back to the woman the next time she visits Wave, it's not like she won't be going there semi-frequently due to her third job. Her world has gotten crazier for introducing Naruto to it, she doesn't regret it, but damn does he manage to throw her for more loops than Zabuza did.

In fresh clothes and happy about it, she has a few things she absolutely has to do today. She wanted to see her parents and get those hugs and that reunion done first, but her new brother went ahead and monopolized their time so it's onto the checklist. First, she needs to go to a PC shop and get Haku a kick-ass setup. Luckily for her, the stipend from being a genin continued to hit her account while she was gone - she set up direct deposit - so she should have enough for Haku's first month rent and the basic setup. She'll have to upgrade later when she has the money, but it's either spend the money on that or let Haku sit around doing nothing all day and be a burden. She's pretty sure Haku would revolt if she let that happen, the boy is nothing if not active, and the little while in Wave where he was supposed to sit around and twiddle his thumbs was obviously torture. He begged Kakashi to let him go to the bridge no less than ten times. Even after Kakashi threatened to hurt him if he asked again, he kept asking and merely learned to dodge.

The poor boy was stir-crazy, she can't imagine what'd happen if she let him be like that here.

That purchase is easy, quick, and surprisingly efficient. She's in and out of the shop within half an hour and she's pretty sure she was only moderately swindled. That's good business if she has anything to say about it.

Next she has to go to the library and get books on city planning. That goes even quicker, get in, grab the books, check them out, leave. It turns out there's an entire shelf about the topic and she starts from the beginning, so picking her homework is a joke and as a ninja she doesn't even need to go through the old process of running all the books by the librarian and personally having an awkward conversation. She writes what she's taking down on a slip of paper, signs her ninja ID number on that piece of paper, and puts it in a box of other slips before leaving. It turns out a ninja's time is valued significantly more, and as government workers they're also trusted significantly more. It's not just a matter of efficiency, it's an entirely different system because the old system isn't felt like it's needed. The fact that a better system existed and she didn't have to waste so much time up to this point irritates her almost as much as the new system relieves her.

Not having to talk to the judgy lady asking why she's studying flowers or perfumes or fan clubs is a gift heaven sent, and she's not about to second guess it when she can quickly skedaddle the hell out of there. To say the fanclub was more embarrassing than helpful would be accurate, so much effort went into being convincing to hide a hobby that it seems everyone always knew about.

Last on her list is her sword and the bolts for her crossbow, which means stopping by a smith. Since Kakashi was so adamant about the garbage of her previous weapon that he gave her some kind of twisted evil in blade form, she decides to go to a different smith than the previous one. Specifically, she asks around and finds herself directed to Higurashi's, a mid-level smith that mostly specializes in ninja tools and weaponry. He's not for those on a budget, but he's also not for those seeking extreme extravagance or paying for the appearance more than the utility, so he fits perfectly into exactly where she wants to be.

Which is why it's odd she sees another girl only a little older than herself when she enters the shop. She has a leaf headband on, and is dressed in a simple top unlike any she's ever seen before. It lacks sleeves, and fits snuggly on the girl accenting her figure without drawing away from her maneuverability. Sakura can't help but smile at it, given how pink it is. She's stocking the shelves with kunai.

She also can't help but notice that there's no one manning the front, and she stands around awkwardly, waiting for someone to approach her. It's, "awkward…" She mumbles to herself.

"Hmm?" The girl looks back at her with big brown eyes. "Oh, if it isn't the head of the Uchiha Sasuke fanclub. We don't take fliers for meetings…"

"Uhhhhhhh…" The flush that spreads across Sakura's face cannot be understated. "That's been disbanded." Sakura gulps to herself, "it turns out it's illegal to stalk a genin, since they might be doing something top secret."

"Uh-huh. So why are you here?" The girl asks, stylized brown hair buns atop her head seem to twitch at her words, leading Sakura to idly wonder if she's secretly a catgirl or something. That thought quickly passes as absolutely insane, she's seen too much crazy nonsense recently, it's screwing with her head.

She will have to check. Just not now. She reaches up and flicks the metal plate on her own headband pointedly. "I need some things looked at, and the professional opinion of the smith here. My sensei got mad at me the last time I went to a budget smith so I figured it'd make sense to ask around and that brought me here. Do you work here?"

She regrets her question instantly, as it's so obvious the girl works here it hurts. Some people say there's no such thing as stupid questions, but no one told the girl with the pink top in front of her, as she lifts the kunai in a box set up to her chest and deadpans, "no, I'm just impersonating a worker for kicks."

"Oh, that's um, an interesting hobby." Sakura reaches up to rub her cheek, the heat coming from them is almost enough to burn her fingers. "Do you know when the smith'll be back?"

"..." The girl sighs, and does what must be done, facepalming somewhat hard before turning away and stocking the box. "Just put whatever you need looked at on the counter with your ninja-ID number on one of the slips to the side, add any details to the notes section. He'll look you up and be ready for you in a few days."

"Okay." Anything to get out of this conversation, Sakura quickly scrawls the details on the paper.

She needs her sword looked at, expressing caution and asking for a full identification if at all possible. She also needs her bolt looked at, and to know if she can have any duplicates made. She has a super limited amount of them and she kind of needs more made after she's done with them, if not extras made in advance. "Is there a standard fee I should leave for an identification or?"

"No, just leave it and go." The girl's eye roll can be heard. "Jeez…"

She could not leave fast enough if she tried. The missing weight of her sword - left on the counter - makes her steps a little awkward as she goes.

Chapter Text

Returning back to her home, Sakura can't help the awkward feeling overtaking her. The dread she feels when approaching the door alone is more than she felt the first time she stared at the dungeon entrance. She loves her parents, she loves them more than anything, she would have given the world to visit them after her first clear of the dungeon, or when she got stabbed by her own sword, or even had them whisper nice things in her ear while she was recovering from being blind. To say she was terrified when all she could see was black would be just a little too nice. She felt alone in a world that wanted her dead, and she had to rely on everyone else to keep her safe. That it was only for a little while made her feel true empathy for all those that are disabled like that permanently.

The fear that it might be permanent was mostly irrational, but it was so strong it shook her to her core. She's a different person than before, imperceivable so but the difference is real, she can feel it deep inside. New insecurities have blossomed, and some fears have been conquered. Every hardship she faces manages to make her grow up just a little bit, and she'll be honest, she wishes she could go back and never have grown up in the first place. Quitting the ninja program isn't in the cards, nor was it ever in her hand, but if she could go back and never have applied to the academy in the first place, she might just do that. Being a ninja sucks, and nothing made that more clear than laying there on a dungeon floor, blinder than a bat, and having her team tell her about monsters outside trying to kill her. She was more terrified than she'd ever been in her life when she woke up still blind, and if they hadn't told her so quickly that it hadn't been six hours yet she would have cried. If she even could, given the state of her eyeballs.

All of that is practically nothing, compared to standing outside of her home knowing she's about to get yelled at by her parents on their first meeting after so long. She knows this because she can see Haku's shoes in the still slightly ajar doorway. They wouldn't have left it open if they weren't caught by surprise, and being surprised by their new tenant is more than enough to where she's pretty sure when she walks through that door it's going to be accompanied by dodging a well-thrown shoe from her mother.

She will dodge it, as it won't be meant to hit her, but it will be meant to prove a point. She's pissed them off this time. She sighs to herself, rubbing her arm at the twisting feelings in her gut. She wants nothing more than to go hug her parents, but she doesn't get to have that right away. She gets to be scolded for inviting a random boy into the house. They were argumentative about Naruto, albeit concedingly, because he was her broke teammate. Haku's a foreigner with no relationship to her, and that's assuming they don't know he was their enemy. Haku's not known for his subtlety and Naruto's far worse.

She quickly comes up with a story, about how Haku saved her life in Wave and how everything went downhill and Naruto likes him too so that's a plus, before she takes her shoes off and slips into the home.

Right into warm arms wrapping around her and picking her up. "My little girl's home!" Her father's cry of joy makes her blink, waggle, then melt into her father's grasp. She can worry about their anger later, right now they seem to understand what she needs more than anything. Her mother's arms join right after, and for the first time in a while, she doesn't mind feeling helpless. Her father will protect her from all the bad feelings, wash away the pain, and make her remember just what it feels like to be home.

"Oh, right, Sakura's moving in a very pretty boy from Wave." Naruto said, sharing lunch with Mebuki and Kizashi and Naruto 2.

"I'm sorry, what?" Kizashi asks, raising his brow at the orange-clad boy. Having two Naruto at the dinner table is a bit of an experience, but not one as strange as it could be. He's somewhat used to clones at this point, the boy throws them around like small change. "She's doing it again?" Sakura not coming down for meals is so common it's natural to eat without her and have an extra plate made for her. Currently she's out on errands, so she'll get it when she comes back, hopefully soon enough that they don't have to take it off the warmer. It's a struggle getting her to eat sometimes as it is, the least they need is dried out food they have to stuff down her throat by force.

"This time's a little different." Naruto 1 says, fist-bumping his suit-wearing clone unprompted. The act raises questions but nothing is out of the ordinary for the boy. He has his own little language going on with the clones, it means something, it's not their problem. "He saved her life, and needs a place to stay, so she figured she could give him a job and a place to stay when we got back. I imagine he's probably getting done with the Hokage about now so he'll be here soon."

"Saved her life?" Mebuki asks. "I thought this mission was supposed to be easy, when did the opportunity for her life to be saved come up?"

"When a jonin showed up and cut her in half." Lack of Suit Naruto shrugs, "oh, wait, uh, forget I said that I dunno if she wanted to share that."

"When a jon-I'm sorry what happened on this basic bitch C rank mission?" Kizashi can't help but gape, the thought stunning him as much as the wince at what happened.

"Missing ninja, corrupt businessmen, hunter ninja. I think we fought a vampire?" Naruto looks at his clone to see if he thinks he should be sharing this.

He gets a resounding thumbs up. The clone is right, he should never lie to his new parents, that makes sense. "It was really foggy, I couldn't tell."

"That doesn't sound like a C rank mission." Mebuki says dryly.

"It wasn't, but that's a secret." Naruto says. "Anyway, Haku went and saved her while we were fighting the jonin. He's really good at that kind of thing, and showed up out of nowhere. I don't think she'd be alive without him, so, made sense to me when she offered."

There's a knock at the door quite suddenly. "That's probably him right now."

"You're never allowed to leave again!" Kizashi shouts, carting Sakura around the house mid hug. Haku is doing something to the food on the warmer, she can see him, but she trusts him so that's not her concern. What is her concern is that her family appears to have lost their damn minds while she was gone.

"Gonna have to give that sensei of yours a piece of my mind." Mebuki says. "Cut in half, really? He let that happen?"

"It was really more internal organ damage, it never actually severed me in either direction it just turned my insides into sou-" Sakura begins, only to see Haku shaking his head at her quite fervently. "-err, and it was totally superficial, I'm fine!"

"Nope, you're never leaving your room again, you'll have to find a new career." Kizashi orders, already dragging her up the stairs. "I'll have to buy new locks, and if those don't work I'll buy more locks, and if those don't work I'll turn your room into a bolted shut panic room!"

"I kind of need to leave to see people." Sakura points out.

"People are dangerous, Sakura, you should rest and recover forever." They drag her into her room, plop her down on her bed, and leave. She can actually hear them readying a new lock they must have had a Naruto clone get before she got here, which is funny because Naruto's lock is still broken.

"They're overreacting, huh." She hears from her side, and she turns her head to see another Naruto, this one with pink hair and wearing some of her clothes and… female? "Awkward." She's sitting beside her on her bed, and has the audacity to look prettier than her. Are those curves? Who allowed her to have boobs!?

"Did he take over my life while I was gone?" Sakura questions her new… roommate?

"Kinda." The girl admits, she has emerald eyes too! Come on! The whiskers look so nice on feminine cheeks, she can't help but be a little jealous. "It was a funny gimmick and he forgot to dispel me."

"So you've just been kind of living up here while we were gone?" Sakura asks.

"Studying biology from your books mostly." She points. Sakura's not happy about that. Those were books she got on female puberty to try and understand all her friends and their strange activities all the sudden last year. There's a lot of info in there she'd kinda rather Naruto not know.

It's too late now. "Has that made you a better clone?" Sakura asks.

"No, but I bet the next female clone will be. I've learned a lot." They stare at each-other for a minute, a quiet minute, before Sakura silently reaches over and flicks her, dispelling her and leaving her to her happy silence.

Downstairs she can hear Naruto suddenly vomiting. Job well done.

Chapter Text

Haku's first interaction with the Hokage after being allowed to enter his office, is to bow so deeply his forehead touches the floor. This is normally done by getting on one's hands and knees, Haku does it standing straight up.

Kakashi, standing to the side as Haku's Jonin voucher and escort, isn't sure how to deal with that and if the Hokage's awkwardly tilted expression is anything to go by, he's not sure either.

"Don't tell me." Hiruzen Sarutobi forces a cough, breaking up the moment and giving himself a quick breath while the ninja in front of him returns to a more normal ensemble. "You're here because of Sakura Haruno."

"How did you know?" The boy asks, tilting his head ever so slightly.

"Oh, just a hunch." The Hokage is a master of many faces, and Kakashi finds a new one almost every time he enters this office. That is not the case today, that is exactly the bemused expression he's given his pink-haired student almost every time they've met. It all started with, 'boom headshot', he's pretty sure.

"I am here to explain my situation, and request permission to reside at Sakura Haruno's address as her tenant." The boy says. "I am Haku."

"You are an orphan?" The Hokage asks the good-natured student, already readying paperwork with the mystical ability that all high-ranking office ninjas possess to ensure the proper forms appear from mid-air. What chunin don't know, is that it's not a genjutsu, their clothes have paperwork-based seal work. The best ninjas in office-based professions have multiple copies of each seal, but for normal Jonin desk workers and the like one copy of each normal form is far more reasonable.

Kakashi still has the Anbu 'redaction' paperwork up his gloves, it was easier to keep it than to get new gloves.

"I am." Haku agrees, hands resting at his side in clear view. It's polite to leave your hands out in the open when dealing with other ninjas, not that it matters much in the face of the Hokage. Even if Kakashi wasn't here, there's a dozen different Anbu around, the boy's head would be in a box before he made a single hostile hand sign, behind his back or not. "I am also citizenshipless, not a wanted criminal, and I possess the Yuki Bloodline, Ice Release."

"You're from Kirigakure?" The Hokage asks, causing the boy to slowly nod.

"Approved, report to the Identification Office tomorrow at noon to get your civilian ID, you may apply for a Genin status and Ninja ID after one year without an incident. You are dismissed." Hiruzen is quick enough about it Kakashi can't help but gawk, even as the boy nods respectfully and takes his leave before the old man can change his mind.

"That was surprisingly simple," Kakashi says, leaning against a wall a mere foot away from the hiding spot of another ninja, subtly kicking him to tease him. "I've been worried over this for weeks."

"What did you expect?" Hiruzen asks him with a hearty, good-natured laugh. "A chance to spite Kirigakure and obtain a bloodline for the price of signing some paperwork? Why would I hesitate?"

"I dunno, security risks, inspections, the fact that he's going to live with one of your genin…" Kakashi trails.

"When you have been Hokage as long as I have, you learn to differentiate the crazy from the harmlessly crazy." Hiruzen strokes his beard, eying Kakashi, then signaling the teased ninja by Kakashi's feet that he can move. The man is clearly disappointed, leaving hiding to go sulk by the window. When an ex-Anbu commander feels the need to point out how obvious you are, you're probably getting a scolding later, and he knows it. "The boy is harmless. He likely won't even apply for that ninja opportunity next year. He'll get so into whatever craft he picks up in the meanwhile that he'll stick with it."

"I could see that." Kakashi agrees, "but why even offer that? You don't normally afford random-walk ins with that much, value."

"Well, Kakashi, you lack certain perspectives that I have. Through no fault of your own, you have lived so much bloodshed with hardly a break, that you fail to see the obvious in front of you. You're too busy looking for a much bigger trick." The Hokage pulls a pipe from his desk, lighting it with a hearty chuckle and admiring the gentle crackle of dried-out tobacco igniting. "A male bloodline without meaningful prior village attachment in any sense - a bloodline from Kirigakure has more stories about how much they hate their home than fondness - has walked into our home begging to be allowed to stay with a cute girl who will grow into a fine young woman someday."

"So you want ice babies?" Kakashi can't help but phrase it keenly.

"Yes Kakashi, I want ice babies." The Hokage admits with a smirk.

"You do realize she's already got two clan heads looking at her out of the corner of their eyes." Kakashi deadpans.

"Harem ending?" The Hokage asks. "Like in Icha Icha seven, the hard decision gone horribly right?"

"Life doesn't work like that." Kakashi groans. "That was a good book though."

"My student's genius aside. The boys have many other targets for their affection as they grow up, and I am sure this Haku will too. It doesn't matter who they make babies with, what matters is that they make babies." The Hokage snickers to himself and takes a puff from his pipe. "The village needs more super-powered babies, I can't be Hokage forever, someone needs to get ridiculously strong and take over."

"You think it'll be Naruto?" Kakashi asks.

"I sure hope not, I hope it's someone who can do it like, next year. If I'm still Hokage this time next year, I am going to start making mock holidays to mess with people… Like, give me ice babies day." He chuckles at that idea, puffing idly. "So now that we're alone in every meaning of the word that matters, give me the real report, that crap you sent in through the official channels didn't even fool the chunin."

"Will that be an issue?" Kakashi asks.

"They know better than to ask questions when the great 'Kakashi Hatake' not so subtly tells them that it's above their paygrade. I still need to know what happened to my cute genin."

"Well it all started when Sakura got bisected by her own sword, or maybe it was when she stepped on that guy's face? I'm not sure they're connected events-"

"So this boy you allowed to live here." It only took about twenty minutes for her parents to calm down enough to allow her to leave her room, and she very quickly finds she regrets doing just that. They sit her down at the table and immediately start asking awkward questions.

At least Haku's nice enough to give her the warm food he'd been messing with. It appears he made a cheese glaze while she was stuck upstairs, that was nice of him. "Haku." She answers. "He saved my life, and in doing so got fired. I offered him a new job and a place to live."

"You get this is our house, right?" Her father can't help but ask. "You can't just offer a place without asking us."

"How was I supposed to ask?" She asks. "I mean, now I know Naruto left a clone here and he probably could have sent a message somehow but at the time, I was a country away and someone had just saved my life."

"Then, don't offer?" Her mother frowns.

"Wasn't an option, saved my life." She repeats. "Fed me too, a lot, he brought quite a few meals out to me while I was working." That said work was mostly walking on water and practicing nonsense Pokemon moves in jutsu form, doesn't need to be said, lest her parents pick that apart."

"Are you being intentionally obtuse?" Mebuki asks bluntly.

"Yes." Sakura nods, enjoying this nicely warmed and cheesified bite. Haku's the best! "But you can't deny you wouldn't have at least wanted to meet him."

"Well yes, but…" Mebuki trails.

Hizashi takes over. "Sakura, if you invite another random boy to live with you without asking us, they'll be taking your room."

"That'd be fine, I barely use it besides gaming and sleeping, I could add another bed pretty easily." Sakura shrugs.

"I mean we'll kick you out." Hizashi asserts, sternly.

"Wha-"

"The first was one thing, you were clearly misunderstanding the issue, and we raised you to have empathy. We weren't going to punish you for making a mistake, but you're an adult now, you make enough money to afford your own apartment, and if you insist on treating our home as a hotel you can do that with your own." Kizashi continues.

"..." It's not often Sakura tears up, she's very good at holding things like that back.
The Academy trained her well. This is one of those times. "So when you say boy." She asks for clarification, softly. "What if I found a homeless girl?"

"I could have a second daughter." Mebuki admits.

"Don't encourage her!" Kizashi is not impressed.

"I can pay Haku's rent." Sakura offers, "I planned to anyway, at least until they're on their feet."

"The fact that you understand how rent works kind of only proves my point." Hizashi says sternly, crossing his arms boldly and glaring her down. He makes her feel like a little girl, but he might have a point here. "Don't, do it, again."

"Now now, I really could use another daughter-"

"We will discuss that in private." Kizashi growls under his breath through grit teeth. "Don't give her room to misinterpret the point, we've been over this, most of the time it's you scolding me about it so I know you get it."

"You're right, sorry." Mebuki sighs with raised hands. "Dumb Daughter Problems First."

"DDPF." Kizashi nods.

Chapter Text

This strangeness inside of her has gotten on her nerves for the last time. That conversation with her parents was incredibly embarrassing, and a little hurtful, but mostly it served to highlight just how different she views the world. In her mind, she did absolutely nothing wrong and feels less like a scolded girl and more like someone whose parents just turned against her out of nowhere.

She feels blindsided, scared, and stupid because she knows that's not the case. She clearly did something really bad for them to threaten her like that, her father's barely ever even raised his voice to her before. She once asked about moving out when she became a genin and he told her she couldn't leave until she was twenty-five! She's nowhere near twenty-five, and she knows it hurt him to threaten her like that because they still check in on her in her room every twenty minutes to make sure she hasn't somehow been torn asunder by her chair or something. They're feeling very overprotective right now, so to threaten her, well, it doesn't make any sense as she currently views the world.

Swirling emotions flow through her as she takes the steps needed to get answers, but it's not to Ino and her clan - a logical conclusion - that her feet take her. A hurt teenage girl would naturally seek out her bestie in most situations, that the clan is very good with mental states and her questions are related to that area would only serve to reinforce the assumption that she would seek out the Yamanaka when frustrated like this..

The actual place her steps take her is as familiar as her own home is. The stairs leading up deeper into the classroom, their desks, their chairs, it's all as comforting as the smell of unwashed dummies. That shouldn't be comforting, but it is, she blames spending years in tight confines with exercising brats who don't understand what a shower is.

That and her own personally bad hygiene. She knows she's clean now, that's all that matters, "don't get distracted Sakura." She touches her hair despite her floundering, ensuring it's still brushed and clean just like this morning when Haku sat outside the bathroom and threatened to come in if he didn't hear the shower. Jerk… He'd probably do it too.

"Iruka-sensei." She finally says, startling the young man enough he jumps in his seat. The scar on his face looks a little better than before, as does his complexion. She can't help but wonder if the stress from Naruto and her - possibly even the fanclub - had made his health worse for a time. She's relieved to see him in better health even if it was her fault, she can smile about improvements in people that are important to her. Iruka is important, very important, he made her feel normal when she got confused, and he made her understand things when she was struggling. He took time out of his day, every day, to ensure students like her weren't left behind when they got stubbornly stuck on something. Getting stuck wasn't exactly common for her, she'll admit, but it happened. Mostly around topics that didn't make a lot of sense, things like the Shinobi code. A lot of it only makes sense with outside context, and as a young girl she didn't have the slightest clue what context really meant, let alone outside context.

"Sakura, I didn't hear you approach. You've gotten stealthier." He compliments her, giving her his tell-tale smile. Most expressions confuse her, even happy ones can mess her up, but she's seen Iruka's expressions so many times they make sense. At least she hopes they do and she's not misinterpreting literally everything - thaaa'ts a panic attack waiting to happen.
She moves on.

"I've been told." By Inari, mostly, she snuck up on him on accident constantly back in Wave. It became a little bit of a game for them, it's a nice memory that brings a gentle smile to her lips.

"What brings you here? You know you don't have to come to school anymore." He says, scratching his cheek a little.

"What's wrong with me." She asks, staring into his darker eyes and watching them widen.

"Uh… you're going to have to be a bit more specific." She watches the man gulp as he answers.

"I can't. I don't understand." She admits, holding her hips a little, and tilting to the side awkwardly. Nervously. Fidgety, her fingers play an instrument on her hips. This is so hard. "I'm just different. It hurts."

"Okay, uh, few things that might lead to that." Iruka begins, shaking his head to clear it, and possibly to avoid her eyes while he talks. She watches him rub his nose with his palm, and wonders what that means. She's seen it before, but never with enough context to figure it out herself. "First, you probably don't remember him, but one of your old teachers introduced you to lowered sensitivity training from a very, very young age, and at a much worse degree than is normal."

"Mizuki-sensei." She ponders that. "I know he tried to murder Ino but, I don't remember training…" That was a whole fiasco, she still wonders how Ino managed to pull off a prank that crazy. That sounds more like something Naruto would do, now that she thinks of it. Maybe that's why all of Naruto's pranks are harmless. Maybe he saw Ino go way too far once and was like 'I don't wanna get murdered.' She could believe that.

"You wouldn't, the Academy starts extremely young, most of what we teach you at that point is muscle memory, not memorization," Iruka explains, "if you're noticing a lack of sensitivity to pain that is abnormal, it might be related to that. It's suspected he was abusing students for his own sick pleasures, but that's never been proven. He could have genuinely believed he was helping. Nothing he did wasn't normal during wartime."

"Okay, yeah, that is a part of my issue." She admits. "My team keeps getting weirded out by my lack of self-preservation."

"Yeah, see, uh… I really wish I wasn't put on the spot like this." Iruka rubs both cheeks, groaning to himself. "You're also, nuts?"

"... What?" She deadpans at her favorite teacher.

"I think that's the word." He nods to himself, "We don't have strict criteria for how we figure out students are different from each other, but students are undeniably different from each-other. Naruto's overly energetic to the point getting him to take anything seriously was a nightmare, Sasuke's got serious trust issues making it a nightmare to get him to take me seriously, Ino's an incredibly brilliant girl who'd rather use her smarts for literally anything but what's useful, and you? You're absolutely deranged, just, out of your mind." He puts his hands on his head and then pulls them away into the air making a blowing sound with his lips.

"Really? That's, not what I was hoping to hear." Sakura admits, one hand raising from her hip to her other arm, rubbing her elbow. "That's, a bit disheartening to hear."

"Good, because that's nonsense." He says with a roll of his eyes that would make Ino happy to see, it's just so damn diva. "Sakura, the fact that you just believed me is your problem. You took everything we said to heart, everything. Some people respect authority, you worship it. There's nothing wrong with you, if there was we would have pulled you from the ninja program back when we started screening for future Itachi's, at least for a year or two to make sure…"

"I don't remember that." Sakura admits, "was that really a thing you did?"

"Yeah, we didn't actually remove anyone, we just had to check to make the Hokage happy." Iruka admits. "But you didn't set it off, you're fine. You just took war phrases that haven't been removed from the curriculum, way, way too seriously. You want to talk to someone about fixing yourself, talk to Kakashi. That guy's spent years getting over the exact problem you currently have."

"I don't want to talk to Kakashi though." She admits, frowning gently at the thought, "Kakashi's a dick."

"Yeah, but if you don't talk to Kakashi, you're gonna be a dick." Iruka's always been blunt with her, he's one of the few teachers that realized she needed that, possibly because Naruto also needed blunt.

"Aww man, I don't wanna be a dick." She whines lowly.

"Then talk to Kakashi!"

"I don't wanna talk to Kakashi-" Legend says they went in this loop for days.

"Hehe, it's gonna be so great." Naruto rubs his hands together, helping Sakura fill in details on a piece of paper. "You really think we should spend some of our money like this though? Isn't it um, irresponsible, I think was the word you used?"

"Sometimes irresponsible is best." Sakura throws her hands up to about chest level, palms up, and shrugs with both her shoulders and hands. She's trying to learn new body language, she's not sure about this one. "Pranks are irresponsible in general, if we're throwing a prank, we're being irresponsible."

"So it's okay when you do it?" Sasuke asks, staring blandly at the two of them while scribbling on his own piece of paper.

"Yes, no, err, it's okay when we do it, like as a group." Sakura lands on, after a moment of quick-witted thought. "He's gonna be so mad, hehehe~!"

Sasuke is silent and stoic, but she can see that subtle smirk on his lips. Naruto seems excited to be alive right now, and she, well, she couldn't think of a better use for their pocket change if she tried.

[You have gained one Charm.]

Chapter Text

Kakashi arrives at the Hokage Tower, having been summoned by a courier ninja. It's not common that he gets called directly to the tower and not some discreet meeting point where he and a dozen other Jonin listen to the Hokage brief them. He dropped what he was doing immediately, having a drink with a few old ANBU buddies, and raced here on the off chance he has a top secret S rank mission to disappear at a moment's notice.

Bursting into the Hokage's office with as much tact as a sprinting and out of breath jonin can have, he stands at attention and gives the man with the hat all the respect and energy he deserves. "Kakashi Hatake, reporting."

"You're late." The Hokage holds a stopwatch in his slightly wrinkled hand. "One minute and six seconds, just a year ago you would have been here in one minute flat."

"My sincerest apologies, Hokaga-sama, I have slipped a little in my time away from missions." He chooses not to point out to the man that he was removed from them on his order, and he was totally willing to get back into the field and get his killing on.

"It's no matter, this isn't time-sensitive." The Hokage waves it off, depositing the stop watch back on his desk. He blatantly ignores Kakashi's twitch, or the irritated glare he has to hold back lest he disrespect his supreme commander. Questions run through his mind, like for instance, why use a high priority courier ninja then?

He's not Sakura or Naruto though, outbursts like that tend to be a lot less cute once you're a Jonin. He keeps his mouth shut.

"You have a mission, paid for by someone who asked to remain anonymous who named you directly," the Hokage informs him, "you need to accept it before I give you the details though."

The thoughts on what that could be race through Kakashi's head at a thousand times a second. There's so many people that might want to order a secret mission with his name. Even ignoring his ANBU history and that his status as a captain is almost as poorly kept as a secret as Naruto's burden, he's the Copycat Ninja and his skillset is wide and varied. He's allowed to take all kinds of missions that many ninjas would be restricted from, and his resume would put him in line for the Hokage position if the old man happened to die an unfortunate and random death. Hopefully that never happens, certainly not anytime soon, he's not sure he could handle the hat if everyone tried to force it on him in some form of expression of camaraderie.

Then there's people that might order a mission specifically to get him killed, and the Hokage might have a side mission for him to eliminate them, or maybe he needs to scout something out with his Sharingan that no one else could possibly do because, well, unless they're hiring Itachi…

Sasuke's awakening of his copy eyes is new and unknown, he's been ordered not to show it off until the perfect time for dramatic effect. Matters like that are best hidden until you can shock and awe your opponent. The reality is that a lot of being a ninja is a spectacle, because you need to distract your enemy for just one moment, that's what a ninja fight is, one distraction after another until one side makes a mistake. It's why Doujutsu are so strong despite being just another advantage. Extra senses to improve your chances of lasting longer without slipping up are practically the ultimate advantage you can bring into any fight, besides maybe speed, surprise, and violence of action.

"And my team?" He asks.

"It's a quick mission, they won't be put out." The Hokage says, holding the mission out.

He grabs it with a hint of uncertainty but knows denying it was never a real option. The Hokage sent for him because it was approved, he wasn't asking him, he was telling him.

Despite his trepidation, the moment it's in his hands Kakashi quickly opens the mission, unsure what to expect, fear flowing through him. He gets a flashback about another time he got a mission just like this, and the Hokage's stone-cold expression doesn't help differentiate the two anymore than his shaky hands do.

"Your mission is to answer one question." The Hokage says with perfect timing.

The mission has four words in bold. "How many Jars, Kakashi."

"Hokage-sama, I cannot accept this mission." He gulps.

"I am ordering you to accept it." The Hokage says proudly, daring him to object. "Because I too, want to know how many jars, Kakashi." The man in charge of their villages says this with all the seriousness any trained and practiced old man can manage, pulling out a pad of paper and clicking a pen with pronunciation to it that somehow echoes around the entire room. "How am I supposed to make the jar principle if I don't have a good answer to write into law?"

"You could make one." Kakashi says as respectfully as he can while still clearly getting across the 'I hate you' vibe he's so well known for.

"It's your mission, not mine." The Hokage teases. "You're hesitance is duly noted," he actually does write something down, "now answer the question."

They're so dead to him.

Sasuke felt like something was off the mere moment he entered his apartment.
Many would think he'd stay at the Uchiha compound, but that place is littered with memories he'd rather scrub from his memory if at all possible. It's hard to talk about what his brother did to him, but even ignoring the gruesome murder of everyone he knew and loved - a pretty big detail to ignore if you asked him - the mind fuckery was so much worse. Watching him do it, over and over, for what felt like years? He broke inside. Merely stepping near the compound brings back all the pain, but worse, it brings back the desire. The parts inside of him that never grew up, even as the world changed around him and his clan was rapidly forgotten.

The desire to kill, to slaughter, to cut into Itachi and not stop until all that remains is shredded chunks of what was once a demon in disguise as a person. One thing he doesn't talk about, is Itachi didn't just make him watch, sometimes, every once in a while, he'd spice the illusion up by switching it to his big brother's eyes and making him do it. He'd feel every movement, every calculated thought, every twist and turn of his body as he slaughtered everyone in sight. Itachi had felt good when he'd done it, he'd felt like he was on top of the world. Itachi felt powerful.

That power was intoxicating, and even setting his eyes on his old home brings it all back. His emotions would mix, get confused, he'd want to kill as much as he'd want to run.

All that to say, Sasuke Uchiha steps nowhere near the compound, never, not even once in the last few years has he even approached the street it's on. It could be a crater in the ground for all he knows at this point, it's not important to him. He hired a few ninja to get things from there for him, like jutsu scrolls, and the banks handled the transfer of finances, that was good enough for him.

The unsettled feeling of disruption in his home passes quickly, all it takes is spotting that a set of cupboards are closed with his sharp eyes. He doesn't normally close his cupboards, he'd rather see every spot everywhere in his entire house at a glance. He must have been feeling off earlier.

"It's fine." He mumbles, walking over to it, and grabbing the handles of the doors to his cup storage. "Just forgot."

Pulling the cupboards wide open-

Crrshhhh!

He's immediately bowled over by hundreds of tiny attackers. He doesn't have the time to activate his Sharingan and figure out what they are, he just knows they're falling for him and they're already on him so he doesn't have time to roll or bounce or attack. He lifts his arms to cover his face, ensuring that whatever took cover in his home can't gouge out his eyes before he has a chance to slit their throat and punish them for attempting to disrupt his calm once again.

His heart races, flashbacks hit him hard, blood stains all over the walls and mangled corpses. Sakura's never scared him with her brutality, she's scared him with the lack of emotion she shows while doing it. He sees his brother in her, the perfect embodiment of what an Uchiha should be, but also a chaotic monster that can turn in an instant.

He pants, covering his eyes when he doesn't find himself attacked further, and centering himself. "Fuck…"

It's a lot, it always is. He much prefers missions, he found on their latest mission that he hates home and loves the fields where he can see both his teammates at all times.

He activates his Sharingan as he looks down, swiping the offending objects off of him. They're not people, they're jars?

"Three hundred, sixty two." He hears from his side, looking up and seeing his sensei standing there with a notepad and a pen. "That's how many jars before a D rank becomes a C rank. Any thoughts?"

"What the fuck." The boy huffs, deactivating his Sharingan and groaning deeply. "You broke into my house for that?"

"You wanted to know." Kakashi says. "Time to go inform the Harunos."

"... You could have left a note!"

Chapter Text

Alone in her room, reading about city building, Sakura can't help but sit around contemplating the world around her. Others had to do this right on the first try without a manual, or places like the villages wouldn't exist. Every settlement before the villages era had to work without step-by-step guides, so she shouldn't stress about it, but she still does. She's not very good at this kind of thing, and the nerves alone make it hard to sit still long enough to learn how to be good at it.

Oh how she stresses about it. One would think knowing the answer and pushing herself into it would reduce the stress and let her mind calm her, but that doesn't work at all. She gets more stressed at every single word she doesn't quite understand, or terminology the book uses. How dare it use terms it hasn't explained yet? She doesn't care if there's a glossary that's just bad writing! She shouldn't have to stop reading to go to the back of the book, find a page number, go read an explanation, then go back. That's absurd, that's ludicrous, how do people study this kind of stuff for fun?

"I should check on myself." It's been a long time since she's decided to give herself a look, and she can't help but feel like her mildly depressive mood would be heavily lifted to find she's made serious progress somewhere.

First, her stats. She looks at them with hope in her eyes and a thirst for progress!
She's not getting meta progression in any games tonight, she should look at her own basic improvements.

[Sakura Haruno

Party Contribution Level: 22

HP: 138

Chakra: 46

Strength: 43

Constitution: 46

Dexterity: 42

Agility: 46

Mental: 101

Control: 220

Charm: 15]

That's a lot. She can't help but smile at all that. When did she get so much charm? So much chakra, her health is so much greater than the last time she checked!

She's grown a lot, and a sense of peace crawls over her. The only thing that stands out as weird is the Party Contribution Level, she didn't have that before, that's completely new. Is her system changing, or is it because she's cleared a dungeon now? She's on level with the dungeon they just cleared, and they were on level at the time. So either she's on par with them now, or one of them is weaker and she's on par, or she got a lot stronger from the dungeon clear and she was holding them back.

It doesn't feel like she could have gotten stronger from it, she spent so much of it injured and trying her hardest not to fall down and cease. It was terrifying.

It's an interesting statistic.

She moves onto her Skills, it's the only way. One step at a time. The first thing that catches her eye is that Lying Badly is gone. She's now in that awkward area where she can't really lie, but weaponizing it doesn't really work. This is technically a debuff, but she's happy to see it gone.

[Skills:

[Body Replacement +: You've used the Body Replacement Technique in a live combat situation with enough proficiency you can now do it without hand signs. This skill can be Evolved, please ask your Sensei about the "Whispering Goddess" Technique.]

[Sleeping++: You've slept enough that you find it a lot easier to get to sleep, and need a lot less sleep. You awaken from a full rest with a reset state, and gain moderate buffs for the first few hours of being awake.
A Reset is Accrued after a full 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep.]

[Crossbow Moderate: You are now less likely to hit your teammates or yourself, and may find that things just happen to work out even if you should do just that. You don't suffer an aim penalty at medium-short range anymore.]

[Kenjutsu Skilled: You officially know enough about Kenjutsu to get in there and brawl with your blade out and our soul at your fingertips. The weapon flows in your hand like a set of longer arms, and you have significant bonuses in combat when using your sword. You find it very easy to channel your chakra into any chakra-receptive sword, and you do an eighth of the damage to yourself in the event of a sword accident. You are very dangerous.]

[Mudshot: C Rank Earth Ninjutsu where the user generates mud from their stomach and then shoots it from their mouth, covering the enemy in mud and slowing/weighing them down.]

[Water gun: D Rank Water Ninjutsu where the user generates some water from their stomach and then shoots it from their mouth, hitting the enemy with a pressurized blast.]

[Rollout: C Rank Earth Ninjutsu where the user covers themselves in a ball of stone covered in spikes, and rolls around. Fragile]

[Water Shuriken: D Rank Water Jutsu where the user generates water into specific sharp shapes in between their fingers for throwing purposes. Does not hold up to pressure.]

[Mental Mapping: When accessing a new area, you are very good at mentally mapping it for later use.]]

All in all, her new skills are about where she expected them, even if the skill upgrades catch her by surprise. Some of them have more implications than others. Sleeping and Body Replacement + in particular have her eyes shining with glee.

She already knew about her new ninjutsu, and she had already felt better with her sword during practice earlier, even if it had been with a wooden sword because Higurashi still has her real weapon. It is good to know if she gets a Chakra blade instead of a demonic life sucking jerk, she can use her chakra with it instead of kunai.

Crossbow moderate implies reality warping, which makes her iffy on if it actually does anything, but the flavor text feels nice so she allows it without too much thought.

Back into the breach for her traits!

[Traits

[Land Owner: You own at least one significant portion of land, and therefore gain 10% increased rewards from any and all forms of Rent Payment]

[Water Affinity Lv 3

Earth Affinity Lv 3

Proto-Fire Affinity Lv 2

Proto-Lighting Affinity Lv 2

Proto-Wind Affinity Lv 1]

[Dungeon Hunter: You have hunted down and completed a Dungeon. You will find it easier to spot them in the future. You also possess a Contribution Level in your statistics. Dungeons are intended for 3 person parties, so all three people should be on level or greater than the dungeon to even it out.]

[Dungeon Completionist: You have completed a Dungeon to its limit, and received a completion reward, all Dungeon Completion rewards require 1 less clear. This bonus excludes 1 Shot Dungeons.]

[Savior of Wave: You are known in Wave as their savior, you receive discounts at Wave shops, gain favor faster with Wave citizens, and will find Wave citizens 50% more likely to fight for you.]

[Named Hero: You have a landmark named after you. You officially generate 25% more renown.]

[Good with Kids: You have befriended one too many kids for it to be normal. It's officially abnormal, meaning you are 25% better with children than you were before! Make your social checks with confidence!]

[Petty Thief: For stealing a lot of petty goods like clothes, food, or materials, you are now able to sell stolen goods more convincingly and are less likely to be caught.]]

Yeah so, some of that is nice. Some of that feels nice.
Some of that not so much. The most notable are Savior of Wave, Named Hero, Good with Kids, and Petty Thief. Petty Thief is probably almost exclusively from Tsunami, and isn't a particularly valuable trait. She doesn't intend to make stealing a big part of her career, she just needed clothes and the woman wouldn't hand them over willingly and no one in Wave could make her clothes! Not in a reasonable time and with their resources…

She doesn't even really consider it stealing, they weren't paid for the huge mission they should have been paid a lot for, she saved them possibly hundreds of thousands of Ryo, she took a few outfits. Cry her a river. The alternative was fighting nude and uh, fuck that.

Good with Kids is good, but she wishes it hadn't worded it like that. Instead of being proud of her accomplishment, she feels a little icky and she's not even sure why. Also, if she can magically make them like her more, do they even really like her more?

Named Hero is probably a bad thing, because renown is what gets you in the bingo book. Kakashi is probably looking into it to ensure she's not wanted somehow given the early events of Wave, but she's pretty sure she's not. She'd have a 'wanted' trait or something, maybe bounty?

Lastly, Savior of Wave, it makes it sound like she's gonna turn Wave into an army and that's just, not happening. They're broke, hungry and poor. She wouldn't accept a discount if they tried to give her one… Them liking her more is nice, even if it brings up the same issue as Good with Kids.

She can't complain about her new traits and status and skills, she likes what she sees, she just wishes there was more. She'll have to spend some of the free time trying to get a few more skills or traits. It can't be that hard to train specifically to learn something new, and they give magical bonuses so it can't be a bad thing to have more. Her main worry is how much time they have. Kakashi has them running boring D ranks again that she barely even remembers because she's spending the entire time reading. Naruto's making more money on this business of his so he's not all there because he's thinking about how many clones he needs to send where, and Sasuke's not all there because Sasuke's never all there.

Eventually, Kakashi will drop another C rank mission on them, hopefully an actual C rank this time. It probably will be… Maybe.

"I'm done reading." She grumbles, hopping back on her PC to play more city-building games. The routine differentiation between games and reading keeps her sane, even if she'd rather it was just gaming. It's hard, and her people keep dying, it makes her worry enough about Wave she finds she opens the status page for Wave periodically just to calm her nerves. They're doing fine, well, they're improving at least. They're not going to do any better or worse in the few minutes between checks but she's still tapping the button and hoping for a miracle all of a sudden.

"I hope this doesn't end up invading my dreams."

Little did she know.

Chapter Text

Sakura opens the door to Naruto's room, knocking gently just in time to catch the boy's eye open. "Sakura, what's going on?" Ninja are good at that, even with their close friends or family. She's never been snuck up on in her sleep from what she can tell - not that she'd know if she was truly snuck up on - and she's pretty sure she couldn't ever sneak up on Kakashi no matter what his state. That guy could be put into a chemically induced coma and he'd still shoot up to greet her if she was trying to sneak up on him. In fact, she's going to hold that in her tool box for if he ever does get seriously injured and needs to wake up.

"I had a bad dream but I'm mad at my parents so I decided to bother you instead." Sakura admits. Their scolding the other day, and subsequent threatening is still heavy on her mind. It's sad she's spending so much of her time home not hugging her parents, but she just can't bring herself to get over it as quickly as she wants. Iruka didn't help much, she wanted help understanding why her parents threatened to put her out on her ass and he just told her to talk to Kakashi.

Why would Kakashi have the faintest clue what her parents are thinking?

"I don't think teenagers do that, Sakura." Naruto says, eying her a little, in the doorway. One eye is still closed, the other is halfway open and not happy about it.

"How would you know? You're not normal either." She refutes, crossing her arms a little and walking into his room without invitation. She's got on bunny pajamas, she thought they'd be cute, they even have pointy long ears. She likes them enough that she hella won't be bringing them on a mission. She has learned, clothes don't last even a few days on a mission. She's not sure how the boys managed to keep their outfits the entire freaking time. She's also looking into sealing scrolls so she can have tons of back-up outfits in random places so if she gets stabbed again her pack isn't the only refuge of her items. She's learning, one tragedy at a time.

"That's… yeah." Naruto palms his face a little, blowing out air.

"Besides, this dream was relevant to us." She plops down on the bed beside him with a titter to her tone, her charm is high enough she can hear a little of her own playful nuances. You know how bad you have to be to miss that you have nuances? She does. "I dreamt I messed up badly, and Wave died from drought…"

"Sakura, Wave is an island nation, they have water." Naruto points out between groans of, well she's not exactly sure what, but it's not a smiley face on the chart.

"Yeah but… do they have enough water?" She asks her teammate, looking directly into his crystal blue eyes with her own emerald gems.

"Yes!" He throws his hands up, then lets them fall and smack him in the face again with a thwack.

"Huh, so maybe Timberborn is a bad practice module." She decides. "I thought it'd be cute because of the beavers but they keep dying!"

"Have you made progress on the reading?" Naruto asks.

"Yeah but, it turns out city planning is really complicated and a random girl - even a smart one - can't just learn everything there is to know in a week at the library… Especially not with all the procrastination I've been doing."

"Why are you procrastinating, I thought this was important to you?"

"I'm procrastinating because it's important to me, jeez, it's like you've never struggled…" She says, the blush hitting her because of how ridiculous that is before she's even done her sentence. "Motivationally, I mean, obviously you've struggled in a real sense."

"Sakura…" Naruto grumbles, "please go back to bed."

"Nope, too late, passing out here." She teases, closing her eyes and taking in just how comfy his sheets are. She needs to upgrade hers. Technically he has the better bed because she hasn't changed hers in like ten years so it's all worn out and slightly broken, and they bought the guest room beds like last year.

"Fine, I'll go back to your bed." He grunts, slipping out.

"That's not fair!" She mumbles to herself, grabbing onto his arm before he can flee. "Come back to me!"

"Noooo!"

The two new siblings with extra quotation marks arrive at the new job site with a set of bright smiles and their tools in tow. "This was a good idea." Sakura admits, referring to Naruto's suggestion this morning. Mainly, it was that she should get out of the loop of going to the library and staying home to read and play games and struggle with all her new nonsense. Wave isn't going to die in a day, and learning to clean with him at the job site could be really good for her mental health. Her entire life lately has been read, relax, D rank mission, game, train, sleep. It's nice to have more than two items on that list, but that's not impressive anymore.

She can't help but be thankful that so many of the people in her life are looking out for her. She'd be a little suspicious that he's trying to use her for free labor if it wasn't Naruto. If he really wanted an extra set of hands he'd just make one, it wouldn't be hard for him. It was harder to convince her to come help than it would be for him to make a hundred extra hands.

The gray tiles and black outer wall makes her blink for a moment before checking the mail slot beside the door. "Wow." Sakura says, "I've seen this address."

"Yeah, so have I." Naruto huffs as suddenly as she says it. He claps two hands over his mouth, before spreading them apart to create a funnel. "Sasukeeeeeee!" He shouts.

Only for a window upstairs to open, and for the boy in question to lean out of it, smirking at them with one of his telltale smirks. "Yes?" It's about this point that Sakura puts two and two together, and has to take a step back to admire the sheer audacity.

"Did you hire me to clean your freaking house?" Naruto shakes a broom at Sasuke..

"I did," Sasuke says, "it needs to be cleaned, and I have training to do."

"You just think me cleaning your house is funny," Naruto accuses, "bastard."

"That too. I didn't expect Sakura, that's a nice bonus." Sasuke says in the most monotone way a boy could possibly manage while holding back uproarious laughter. "Enjoy your day."
At that, he gives her a wink, and closes the window.

"Oh, I'ma get him later." Sakura grunts, nodding to herself.

"Already way ahead of you." Naruto says, making his now infamous in their group, shadow clone seal. "Though, first, we have to clean his house."

The first thing Sakura had to do to set Haku up properly was have all the equipment delivered, that was the easy part. Next, she had to teach Haku how to smile properly. The boy's expressions are soft and gentle but they don't feel genuine, it's too reserved, too simple. She feels sorrow when she looks at his upturned lips, not joy, and that has to change. She's not sure she's the best person to teach someone how to properly move their face when she so recently learned she has basic nuance, but it's her second job now so she does her best.

Then she has to teach Haku how to play games in their most basic form, which does require being there. She wants his first sessions to be streamed which means that teaching him requires leaning over his shoulder and being included in the initial streams. It's not a huge issue, but it does feel really awkward for her when someone asks about her in the chat. She's extremely surprised to find how quickly he gets viewers, she's heard most people who try this go weeks before there are people chatting, but here he is, an hour in, getting fangirls. It's fitting.

She's never wanted to be a streamer, she's never felt envious of them either. It's taxing to be in front of a camera, and the idea of participating with an entire chat feels socially overwhelming. She's a bit of a wimp to social pressures like that, and she imagines she'd end up in a worse place very quickly. Haku's much better than her, almost instantly taking to a calming vibe that makes the entire stream feel great even while he's struggling with basic mechanics. He learns slower than Inari did, but his charisma more than makes up for it.

That was a week ago.
She's had him streaming every day for a week, and checking up on him now…

"Holy shit." Haku's got his own cute little fanbase, complete with more than a couple fangirls. "Haku… How have you already made this much money?"

It's a lot. It's more than they're charging Haku for rent. Sakura had already paid his first month rent to her parents, and she expected to have to pay the second or third too to fudge the numbers and pretend Haku was doing great so they'd get off her back, she's not going to have to do that.

Haku is, incredible. "You make more in one day than my weekly stipend." She trails.
"And you just started. What the actual hell…"

"Is that a bad thing, Sakura-sama?" Haku asks. That's another thing, Haku's taken to showing her the utmost respect. He cares for her, he shows her attention all the time, he's even taken to making her dinner if he finds she's spent too much time researching or gaming or participating in whatever misadventures have overtaken her recently.

He's a real friend, or at least a real caretaker. Her parents seem to appreciate her having someone to look out for her. She imagines they probably thought he'd be a second Naruto they've have to look after, and maybe that was a part of their problem with him living here, but they've taken to liking having someone they can depend on to brush her hair, force her out of bed, force water down her throat, force her to eat, basic stuff. It makes her feel a little bad for being such a hot mess most of her life, but that's life.

Charm has Increased by 1

Feeling empathy is a desirable trait in Charm, who would have guessed. Not her.

Either way, she's grateful Haku is fitting in so well, even if she does need him to stop calling her by her name on stream lest someone recognize her and doxx him.

More than likely not for the first time, if she's honest. Using his name is fine, he doesn't really leave the house, and as he's explained it, most people don't know him at all. Using her name? That's bad, she's done stupid stuff like run a fangirl club. Hey there's Ami in his chat!

Chapter Text

Sitting at the library, her fingers can't help but tap the table. She's taken a day off from researching city building, something much more important has been on her mind. Trying to pry a little has never been her thing, she doesn't have the basics of subtlety, but sneaking into the academy and stealing a copy of Naruto's records was super easy. Sticking to her skills works a lot better than trying to be social about complex issues.

"October tenth…" She mumbles, looking through a records book. "Why do I recognize that date?"

First she'd looked up the Uzumaki clan, but all she could really get is their bloodline and that they're super dead. They used to be allies with Konoha, known for their sealwork and endurance so great it was considered a bloodline, but that's not particularly useful information. Naruto does have enhanced endurance but his endurance definitely isn't from his clan. If it was, they wouldn't be dead, and he'd have parents. Konoha would just be called Uzumaki, and there no one would give a flying fuck about Doujutsu it'd be all about that infinite chakra bloodline.

"Right, the Kyuubi attack." She mumbles as she finds the tenth in the records book, "same year too, wow… What an unfortunate birthday, I imagine he doesn't get a lot of celebrations." Birthdays probably already suck being an orphan, she'd have to make this year's birthday great for him. Maybe she'd learn how to bake, or more likely, beg her mother to make him a cake in her place. "That's on me, I should have known that." She hadn't put the two dates together before, but the knowledge was there, everyone knows about the Kyuubi attack. Still, she reads through it a bit, only to realize a few things very quickly.

The Kyuubi is an infinite being of Chakra.
Naruto has infinite chakra.
The days coincide.
And her ability went and called him a fox. She opens the trait right away to reread it, "sneaky huh… like a kitsune."

That's too much coincidence for one Sakura, she has to ask.

"Naruto!" Naruto looks up from his place wiping down a counter, only to spot Sakura walking in like she owns the place with muddy sandals and a book on the Kyuubi attack in her hands. It puts him on edge right from the start, firstly because he just mopped there, second, because he knows where this is going and he's hella not liking it.

"Sakura?" He winces instinctively, eyes not moving from the book and its illustration of the horrifying beast.

"This is important, no lies." Sakura asserts with a very straight expression, "did the Kyuubi fuck your mom?"

"... What?" He can't help but blink at her as she manages to ask that with seriousness, and it's enough to make his facial expression contort in ways he wasn't prepared for. Her eyes shine with brilliance, like she's found out some crazy new concept.

"Did you spawn into existence from the last Uzumaki getting railed by a demon beast? It'd explain so much." She nods to herself, her hands jittering a bit.

"Sakura… No." His brow furrows, and he has to drop the sponge he's currently holding. "Where did you even get that idea?"

"Well the Uzumaki were known for incredible endurance - as in they can just handle pretty much anything - and the date coincides, and I imagine Kyuubi based seed would work instantly, and for some reason the Uzumaki don't have a lot of records so I thought maybe the Kyuubi went and diddly'd them all and you're not super well liked or cared for because you're the spawn of a massive city destroying tragedy. It makes sense, people have gotten blamed for the deeds of their parents all throughout history."

Every word sinks into his gut, reminding him of the wonderful fact that Sakura is an incredibly smart person, whose brain works sideways. No one would come to that conclusion, no one! And yet, she came to it, confidently, with ideas and even a little evidence to back it up. "Sakura, no.. I am not the Kyuubi's rape baby."

"I didn't say it was rape, maybe your mother was a furry. It could be a happy union." Sakura says, crossing her arms with an accusing pout. "Do you have proof your mother wasn't diddlied by the Kyuubi?"

"Do you?" Naruto asks.

"What?" Sakura's brow furrows.

"Do you have proof your mother wasn't um, done, by the Kyuubi?" Naruto asks. "It's a trickster, I bet it has a human form."

"Oh, no, huh… I mean, I bet I'd have better stamina if that was the case." Sakura ponders.

"Sakura, no…" Naruto's expression cracks a little.

"Okay, I did think that was far fetched but you know, anything to make your existence a little happier." Sakura sighs a little, waving a hand to the side. "Okay, sorry to bother you." She turns away.

A million feelings well up in his chest, and he knows now is time. Well, maybe not time, but, there's significantly worse times and she was just A-okay with 'spawn of Kyuubi.'

"He's in my belly." He says, his voice tries to stop him and causes a nervous waver, his body cramps to prevent it, he gets the words out because Sakura is his friend. He speaks because he has to.

"Wha-" She spins on her heel wide eyed, just enough surprise in her to make him regret his decision, for the one moment it takes her to send an accusation - "you ate the Kyuubi?"

Just not the one he expected. She points right at him. "That's a lot more than some Ramen, you were a gluttony baby!"

"Wha- no…"

"I know, I just thought it was funny, um." She scratches her cheek. "So are you the Kyuubi incarnate or…"

"Why do you seem okay with that idea?" He narrows his eyes heavily, frowning at her.

"Well you're my brother, that'd be kind of cool." She admits.

"No, Sakura, I have it sealed within me, like a sane person." He stares, unsure of how to even properly respond to that.

"Are you sure?" She asks. "Wasn't even aware we could seal sentient beings, the Kyuubi's sentient right? If it's not we have to change some books, it can't be a villain if it's not a person. No one says lions are hilariously evil."

"No." He lets that sit. "That's just what I've been told, I do not know enough about sealing to say with complete certainty, that I am not the Kyuubi." It's a little more refined than what he'd wanted to say, that phrase being 'what the fuck Sakura' but with great friendship comes the desire to see things work a little better.

"Good enough for me." She approaches quickly, fast enough that his threat senses tingle, but he stands still because it's Sakura and she promised - and he feels a sting on his face, followed by warm arms around him.

"Did you just slap me? You promised!" He grumbles, melting into his sister's touch.

"I confessed my reality was an illusion and you couldn't tell me about a demon inside you." She points out, resting her face on his shoulder. "I'm mad at you. We could have done that dungeon so differently."

"... You're mad about the tactics?"

"I'm mad you didn't trust me." She huffs into his shoulder.

"Trust you with… Sakura, our situations aren't the same. It's not like I didn't let you in on a secret hide-out, I have the Kyuubi inside of me and I know nothing of sealing."

"No, it's not the same." She admits, "but secret for secret, that's the sibling rules! I just assumed you didn't have any." She scolds. "It doesn't matter if they're equal, if you have any you have to spill when I spill!"

He rubs her back, because what the hell else is he going to say to that.
At least it wasn't Sasuke confronting him, that'd be so much worse. "You're still not supposed to hit me." He points out.

"You hit me first, with your rule breaking, that's how it works." She mumbles. "Sorry though, you're right."

"Mom, why don't I have a little brother?" Sakura asks her parents, marching into the living room that evening with a book about parenting and reproduction in her hands. "Making one is easy, this book said so, I want a little brother."

"Uh-Sakura that's-" Mebuki trails, staring, "you know where babies come from, why did you get a book?"

"I wasn't sure if you knew, maybe I was some kind of overly active slipping accident." Sakura admits, "why aren't you and dad having enough sex to give me a little brother?" She points at them, dramatically leaning backwards and looking at the both of them with accusing eyes. "Go back in time and do it more!"

"I-um." Her mother flushes up a storm the likes of which she's never seen her mom flush. It's a lot, and she seems really, really embarrassed for some reason if the mood chart beside her head is any indication. "Sakura, you can't just ask someone that. Especially not your mother."

"But I want to know." Sakura crosses her arms and leans against a wall for dramatic effect.

"You've withheld divine providence from me for too long!"

"What does that mean?" Mebuki asks with a snort.

"I dunno…" Sakura shrugs.
"But it sounded cool… And I wanna snuggle buddy."

"Why not Naruto?" Mebuki asks.

"..." Sakura can't help but stare at her awkwardly, luckily she's staring back so their eyes match and it feels nice and not awkward. "He ran away last time I tried." Sakura admits.

"Pfft-wha-hahahahaah!" That's her father's first contribution to this discussion, and Sakura can't help but cross her arms harder at them with a thick and gloomy pout. "Sakura, your mother can't have children. You wrecked her coming out."

Sakura watches her mother punch her father's arm. "I what?" Sakura asks.

"It's not that uncommon, and as a genin she wasn't given priority in the hospital when we went so we had a normal doctor." Her father explains. "They messed up, and you did a lot of damage, and she's such a small woman it just didn't work out."

"Couldn't you get that fixed?" Sakura asks, looking between them.

"Yes." Her mother admits, "but that's a lot of money, and we've never had it."
Sakura can't help but feel bad about that. Not for wrecking her place, she didn't ask to be born, that's not really her fault at all.

She feels bad because her parents don't have a lot of money because they've never had the free time to take missions simultaneously with any distance. She's held them back by being incredibly dependent on them, and for being a problematic shut-in that needed the care instead of staying over at Ino's house.

"Ah… Sorry." She looks down at her feet, smacking them together.

"No-Sakura, that's not…" Mebuki sighs, "it's not your fault, besides, adoption is a wonderful option I should have pursued sooner."

"Maybe if I was less of a handful you would have thought of it." Sakura mumbles.

"You, a handful? Yeah, okay." Mebuki snorts. "Oh no, I had a quiet child who stuck to herself and stayed in front of a screen all day. Woe is me, my life was so hard needing to make sure you ate. Look, you're a pain but you stay out of trouble, I could have been dealt much worse. Our neighbor's daughter once chased their son around with freshly sharpened kunai."

"It was training day." Sakura points out. "We got new kunai."

"We had to bribe you to open the pack." Her father deadpans.

Chapter Text

Waking up this morning, Sakura had a plan of action she was ready to enact from word go. She was going to get back into research after her short breaks for other important matters like finding out about Naruto's Kyuubi Diddled mom and cleaning Sasuke's house - she hoped Naruto got him good by now, she'd have to ask about that - and she'd run out of excuses not to hit the books. It sucked though, everything she's had to do for a while now has revolved around Wave and she didn't even ask for this.

Technically any knowledge she gains can be applied elsewhere, she's not dumb enough to think this is a one-off, she'll surely take ownership of some other place or whatever god is playing with her wouldn't have gone through the effort of making an entire system for it. It's the first complex modification of her ability she's seen, and she's sure that has severe implications.

But holy shit does it suck!
It's like her life revolves around them and she's not even there anymore! You do one good deed and suddenly an entire country is your responsibility. No good deed gone unpunished, though maybe that's being dramatic.

She looked longingly at her PC, and her consoles, and another thought hit her. Would they have had the money to adopt if she wasn't always asking for the next-generation console right away, and all those cool games on release? What if she was one of those discount buyers that waited a year before asking? Probably not, but her parents had cut her off the moment she became a ninja and could buy them herself, so they were clearly a large strain on the finances. That hurt to think about, so she shook her head to clear her thoughts and took a breath before slipping out of her warm and cozy sheets.

They still smelled a little like the Naruto clone - Naruko - who had slept in them for a month. She decided that wasn't a bad thing, the smell of her teammate and brother was comforting, and he wasn't an unclean person so it probably didn't make her smell worse for sleeping in it. She should still clean her sheets soon… Eventually it stops being comforting and cute and starts being really creepy, and the line isn't well drawn it's just there and you don't know you crossed it until you did. It's better to be safe with things like that.

All her plans were dashed the moment her feet hit the floor, which brings us to now.

[The Melody of Hearts Event is has started. A festival will be held tonight, and you need to decide which date to bring! Procuring a date will result in a bonus of +1000 affection for whoever you decide on, as well as a unique bonus depending on the date. Failing to procure a date will reduce your Charm by 5]

"Re-reduce my charm?" She squeaks. She'd just gotten it to, what, sixteen? She idly checks that. She'd be back so far, weeks of work vanished in seconds by an event she's surprised by? "What the fuuuuuuuuu-"

To say her morning plans are ruined is a bit like saying her beavers are dead again.
They are, and you're just being cruel for pointing it out. She's not thinking about it, but she'll be trying Rimworld soon. It won't actually help her like she thinks it will, very different style of play, but she will find she enjoys it and that'll make Kakashi annoyed when she forgets to sleep. That's a later concern though, right now…

Sakura is looking through the list, hoping the rewards will make this a logic decision and therefore take it away. Like how in Remnant two a player's first action upon finding the Ravager and the doe is to look it up, because like, duh. That's also how she found out that the Ravager never stops talking, and tabbing out doesn't mute him. He just repeats himself forever.

Mostly, looking through the list logically is to distract from the fact that if she didn't make it about logic she'd be spending her entire morning under her bed, looking out and pinching anyone that comes to check on her while pretending to be her own emotional support monster from beneath. It doesn't make a lot of sense but it makes her feel better.

First, the list itself.

[Naruto
Lee
Sasuke
Ino
The Third Hokage
Kakashi

Tenten
Hinata
Ami

Haku]

That's not a big list, so it didn't choose at random, which makes her really question why some of those options are on there.

Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi, and Ino all make perfect sense if it's doing it by the amount of time she's spent around someone in her life while automatically excluding her parents. That doesn't hold up though, she's never met this Lee, she's only spent about five minutes talking to Tenten - in fact she needs to get her damn sword - she fuckin hates Ami, she's had a few passing conversations with Hinata, and she's spent almost no time with the third.

It can't be talking about actual love interests because, well, Kakashi, The third, Tenten, Ino, Hinata, Ami- maybe Lee's a secret admirer but that's highly unlikely as well. Kakashi and her have shared a few moments of banter but she has serious doubts he has any interest in her, the very thought makes her shiver a little in disgust. He's probably shivering too from the implication alone, and he doesn't even know why, poor guy.

She decides it doesn't matter, there's some logical puzzle here she's not going to solve, and that's okay. She'll just assume it's mostly random with some weighting, or her ability is trying to mess with her, both are valid. The five charm loss and randomly springing this on her somewhat aids the theory that it's messing with her.

She gets a piece of paper, writes their names down, and before even looking at the rewards she removes a few options.

Kakashi, the Third, Ami. She hovers over Tenten, she was kind of rude to her, but that was one interaction, that's not fair.

Okay, new list.

[Naruto

Lee

Sasuke
Ino
Tenten
Hinata
Haku]

That's seven options, that's already a lot easier. She's not bringing Naruto because he'd get the wrong idea, same with Sasuke, which leaves her with five. Also, she's not sure how much 1000 affection is but she's not about to put that on two people that already want to start a clan with her. The mind-breaky nonsense of that has some unsavory implications she doesn't want to see the outcome of. And now, she can look at the damn rewards.

[Lee - +1 STR, +1 CON, +1 AGI

Ino - +3 CHA

Tenten - +3 DEX

Hinata - +1 DEX, +3 AGI, -1 CHA

Haku - +2 DEX, +1 CHA]

"Nope." So Hinata's stripped immediately, she can grind four stat points a lot easier than she can grind a charm. She'd rather die. Just no.

She doesn't even know Lee, and those stats don't look particularly enticing. That's kinda how she feels about Tenten. That leaves her with just Ino and Haku, and if she's honest, hitting Haku with a sudden surge of liking her sounds like a bad idea, the guy already acts as a house husband for her. Not intentionally, he's just taken those duties for seemingly no reason, the least she needs is for him to start pursuing the other part of that.

"Ino then…" She taps her pencil on the paper, circling her childhood friend's name, underlining it, twice, going over her name a little with her pencil to make the name a little fancier and bolder- she is procrastinating. She checks, and the event has another ten hours before it's active.

She's wasted a good portion of her morning on this already, most of it stunned in place and not moving because the embarrassment got to her so badly she blinked out of reality. She imagines she had steam coming out of her ears for a bit of that, she's glad no one came into her room.

"Okay, Ino…" She rewrites the girl's name a few dozen more times, idly chewing on the eraser of her pencil. "Damn-it." She groans to herself, realizing she's doing it again.

"I don't wunna…" But that five-charm loss, it's too much.
Ino'll understand, she won't even have to explain it, that's a huge plus. It's the whole asking someone out on a date problem but without the embarrassment because she'll just get it!

What'll that thousand affection score do to someone who already loves her as a friend though? Is this an ethics issue? Is her ability forcing an ethics issue onto her first thing in the morning - well it's like noon so maybe not but it's morning for her! They didn't have training today, or D ranks, so she had so many plans. Now it's all ruined by ethics and threats of point losses and roasty cheeks. "Ino won't be harmed." She decides. It'll probably just undo some of the loss from their recent absence in each other's lives, that'd just set them back where they were. There's nothing wrong with that, she decides, getting up to start selecting a date outfit.

"Crap." She looks into her closet, and notices a huge problem. All of her dresses - besides Tsunami's and she's not getting back into that - are for when she was like eight. It's all efficient combat outfits and loungewear.

"To the clothing shop." She grumbles, knowing this is going to cost money. She could possibly ask Ino for a dress but that'd ruin the entire point of the dress! Another option is going in lounge because it's just Ino, but a date has rules right? She doesn't want to lose five charm because her ability hit her on a technicality for wearing loungewear.

If she's honest, she'd rather wear full plate mail to hide her face!

Chapter Text

AN: Fanfiction will always be 2 Chapters behind SV and SB.

If you don't mind waiting for me to get around to it, FF is fine. If you do, Sufficient Velocity and Space Battles are publically accessible forums, finding the story is as easy as typing it into google.

You can also access the Discord or pa tre on through my profile.

The clothing store surprises her on entry. Not because it's got clothes - obviously - or because it's nice, but because it's too nice. She'd gone to a ninja store for her main outfits, and now standing here in a fashion department she's so far out of her depth she'd rather try to sprout wings and fly away than actually talk to someone and ask for help.

Unfortunately, the alternative is possibly losing a ton of charm, even more if one considers the loss from not getting Ino's bonus as a part of the net loss. "I hate this, I hate this, I hate this so much-" She begins to whine under her breath while walking around, feeling more and more out of her depth the more blindingly overpriced and strangely nice clothes she passes.

She doesn't have a lot of money, unfortunately after Haku's streaming setup, Haku's rent, the Wave contributions, not getting paid for Wave, and the money she had to set aside for Higurashi for when he inevitably asks for money, she's barely got enough left to buy a pair of bra and panties from this place. Why does a bra even need to be stylish, it's under her clothes!

She's just about to leave and go find good clothes at some discount store when she hears a snooty voice give her an 'ahem' from behind her. Turning towards him, she can already tell he doesn't like her. Maybe wearing her ninja outfit and headband here wasn't the smartest decision, but she didn't think the place where you get fancy clothes would have a fancy clothes dress code - as then how would you get the clothes for the dress code - but she's the only one here looking like this and people have noticed. "You don't belong here." He says, scoffing at her.

She takes a deep breath, reaches into the pack at her side, uses her money inventory to pull out everything she has minus a tiny bit since she's probably going to have to pay for something at the festival, and throws it at him as slow as her jittering body will allow her. "I know it's not a lot but make me as pretty as you can with this!"

The cash explodes off of his chest, flutters to the floor, some gets in his hair, and he stares at her with no small amount of awkward disdain and boiling contempt, his lips twitching upwards as if he's found the best joke he's ever seen. She expected him to catch it, why didn't he catch it? Why is it freaking everywhere when she had it all bundled up so that it was easy to catch! "I don't work here." Her face pales, and she lifts a finger to ask a question, before thinking better of it.

For a moment, before her nerves get the best of her and she asks anyway. "Can you… still make me look pretty?" She asks, finding her mouth dryer than it has any right to be.

"Even if I did work here, which I don't." The well dressed man in a suit that likely costs a month's stipend glares at her, "even I can't make that, look pretty." He points at her, as if he's talking about a turd on the ground.

"Ah, sorry to bother you." She begins picking up her money, holding back tears.
Why did she even come here!? She shoulda hit up a discount store in the first place!

Looking a little prettier in a long red dress she got from a hand-me-down thrift store, she can't help but feel a little confidence enter her blood. It's not the top-of-the-line threading she would find at that previous place, but she'd rather die than go back there so it'll have to do until she's rich enough she can pay someone else to shop for her. Of course, before that happens she needs to be rich enough to buy her parents an adoption, get Haku better equipment, get herself better equipment, fix up Wave to a standard where it can operate in the positive entirely on its own, impress Kakashi, become a jonin, do- when did this become her life goals?

She finds herself blinking in surprise and shaking her head to clear her mind, directly in front of her destined destination. The Yamanaka clan, Ino's home. There's a large part of her unsure if she wants to go in there. She's sure to be recognized, and dressing like this, she can't help but imagine the stares. She even did her hair back and found herself a black flower to put in it, the stem going behind her ear to hold it in place. It's a bit much, she feels awkward and out of place, but Ino's probably going to overdo it and she can't have her ability denying that she went on a date because she was too underdressed in comparison. Ino loves events like this, she probably already has an outfit picked and everything.

She sighs to herself, looking down at polished nails with heart symbols drawn on them in pink, and reaching up to feel the earrings dangling from her ears. They're clip-on, she's not about to introduce holes in her ears for some jerky enemy to stick an object in and rip… Or worse, go through that entire process only to find out her sleeping ability undoes piercings.

"The worst that can happen is rumors start." Sakura chides herself through grit teeth, the high heels she'd found just for this, feel incredibly uncomfortable on her feet and only make this worse. "I feel like standing out here awkwardly is already starting some rumors, I'd be better off going in!"

It's hard though, the man's words from earlier ring in her ears. What if she's not pretty?
What if her attempt to dress up for this only made her look worse somehow, out of depth and not-

"Sakura?" Her thoughts are interrupted by the girl standing in the doorway to her compound. Always at the best time, Ino knows how to interrupt her doubts and make her smile. "You look incredible, what's the occasion?" She can already see a faint pink arrive on her friend's nose and start to spread across her cheeks. She'd probably feel pretty awkward complimenting another girl too, so she doesn't make much note of it.

"You," Sakura explains as best she can with jittery lips and a jumbled tongue trying to tie itself mid word, "i'd like to take you on a date, to the festival." She manages to steel herself to say it correctly. "You know, as friends?"

"Uh-huh…" Ino stares her up and down, making her feel seen in ways she really doesn't want to. "Right, this is how you dress up for a friend date."

"Well, um, it's you, so it's special?" Sakura tries, reaching up to feel her own burning cheek. "I didn't want to make you look bad, coming with me looking all scraggly and half dead."

"Sure." Ino visibly holds back a laugh, Sakura's surprised to note she sees it, which means it's very poorly hidden. "Let's go inside, I have to get ready."

"So you'll go with me?" Sakura asks, immediately rushing to her side, only to feel her feet give out beneath her. She watches in mild fascination as the ground gets closer, unable to stop herself before her nose digs into the dirt below.

"Did you just…" Ino trails.

"I fucking, hate, heels," Sakura explains from the ground below.

"I guess we'll redo your make-up inside." Ino giggles to herself. Sakura can't help but notice that when she lifts her head, it's to the sight of Ino offering out her hand to her, with the brightest smile imaginable. She wishes she could keep that smile on her forever, it's so pure, and makes all the bad feelings from earlier turn to bubbles.

"Oh, ho, ho, Sakura! Looking cute!" Being told that by an older man would normally make her feel a little gross, but hearing it from Inoichi feels nice. It tingles her toes, makes her hair feel a little alive. She holds back a wiggle because that'd be awkward.

Inoichi's always been very kind to her. In the hundreds of times she's visited Ino over the years, he's never made her feel bad, even when she's down he's found a way to uplift her. She'd call him like a third parental figure, but that's probably not true, it's likely she just doesn't have a lot of adult role models in her life and she's latched onto one that's nice.

The important part here is that he sees hundreds if not thousands of other Yamanaka all the time, so a compliment from him feels good. And he's got a gorgeous wife, truly, ridiculously good looking, so-

What she's trying to say is that the complement feels uplifting from the blond man with the heart warming grin, not creepy. It shouldn't be that hard to convey that to herself but she's a bundle of nerves right now and earlier today someone made her cry soooo!

"Thank you, Inoichi!" She jumps in for a hug, her turn to make him feel a little awkward. Unfortunately he's so used to having a daughter who's super giving with affection he doesn't pause for a moment before patting her back.

"So, you're finally taking Ino out on a date?" He asks, "can't imagine another reason why you'd be here." He's so earnest, it makes Sakura's cheeks alight at the very idea.

"F-finally?" She asks. "Why finally?"

"No reason." Inoichi chuckles to himself. "I just imagine you wouldn't dress up like this for a casual meeting, I've seen you show up with leaves in your hair before."

"I was tree climbing." She pouts at the thought, before melting into the hug for a moment.
She hasn't been hugging her own parents enough recently, she's been too mad at them. She should fix that, hugs feel good, and who knows when Kakashi's gonna scoop them up for the next mission.

"You should go check on Ino." He says, "if she caught onto what this is, which she did, I imagine she's going to be getting ready for hours if you don't help her."

"Ah-r-right!" It's that thought which causes her to leave the warmth, and sprint to Ino's room. She has to clean her face in her bathroom anyway.

Chapter Text

"I don't get why you're so happy…" Sakura whispers to herself, trying not to let Ino hear her lest she invoke some kind of ephemeral wrath. She's never seen Ino this excited about anything.

Her blonde bestie is dancing around her room, darting from place to place in a frenzy that Sakura can barely understand let alone contribute to. This outfit, that outfit, she's seen her friend in seven different dresses, six different tuxedos - she's not even sure why the girlie girl has those - and what can only be described as the elegance of a goddess given form around a human girl. Specifically a very fluffy goddess, maybe just a big animal, whatever the case it's the fluffiest white dress she's ever seen and she can't help but twitch when she realizes it sparkles.

Ino's humming a strange tune while moving in and out of outfits like Sakura's not even here. She has the decency to look away when in the 'out of' section of that, but it doesn't stop her from questioning why it's necessary in the first place. "You've looked good in everything so far." Sakura says. "You look good in things, why's it matter this much?"

"You would say that if I was dressed as a beggar on the street, dirty cheeks and moldy gloves and all." Ino calls back from her closet where she appears to be questioning if she should dress up in a costume and forgo fashion entirely.

Sakura can't help but imagine the pair of them, going full on movie, train jumping, hobo beggars with hats that look like bites have been taken out of them and boots that are falling off. "That's fair, I think you'd look amazing like that." Somehow, she can't help but imagine how Ino's hair would manage to loop right around to looking great, smattered in a bit of dirt and mood lighting. She sighs to herself, Ino can look good in anything but she can't even shop for clothes without getting insulted.

Of the two of them, one of them is definitely bringing down the theatrics, she just hopes her ability doesn't penalize her for it.

"Exactly my point." Ino comes out, dressed as an anime character.
Which one, Sakura's not sure, but she's pretty sure normal girls don't carry tiaras and wands and those are definitely wings.

"You look good in that too." Sakura says.

"That's, my, point!" Every word Ino swings the plastic wand at her, the thing making a squeaky noise revealing it's some pet toy. "I need real feedback Sakura, you can't be the only one dressed up!"

"I can go home and get a basic outfit if that's the problem…" Sakura trails.

"You're missing the point, difficult girl." Ino groans at her, disappearing back into her closet.

This went on for two hours.

Lazing about on Ino's bed eating snacks - Ino's mom arrived with them about thirty minutes ago - and listening to Ino grumble over this outfit or that, Sakura can't help but contemplate the meaning of life… Specifically the meaning of this.

Why is Ino so happy? Did she really, really want to go to the festival but didn't want to go alone? Sakura hadn't even heard of this festival until this morning but it would be reasonable for Ino to find out about it earlier.

Or, maybe she's excited to spend time with her friend after so long? They haven't hung out since the Academy, it has been some serious time. The last time the two of them even spoke was at the shut-down of the fanclub, and so much has changed since then Sakura can't even fathom how to bridge the gap in what Ino knew about her and what she should know as her best friend.

Should she tell her about the game? No, probably not, she'll think she's mocking her or worry she's crazy. Maybe once she has better proof. Ino would lose it on her if she injured herself to nap away the injury to prove a point, so it's just not a viable option.

Ino normally hangs out on her bed while she plays a game two to three times a week, and drags her out to eat someplace at least once. It's normally with money Ino stole from the register of their shop. 'They don't pay me, so I pay myself' she'd always say. They clearly didn't care, there is no way she was sneaking that around them, she probably just didn't take enough to matter and they figured it was better than formally discussing pay for her efforts.

The way Sakura saw it, her friend was probably getting a bad deal for her work, because she was trying to be careful, and her parents knew that so they didn't catch her. Either way, it was funny, and Sakura enjoyed being treated.

"I think I can pay for once." Sakura says, knowing damn well that's not going to fly. She can be subtle!

"Don't be silly." Ino shoots her a gentle glare, the first glance in her direction in almost an hour. "My first date? Daddy's gonna pay for the whole thing."

She's really taking this whole date thing seriously. She figured Ino would understand her intentions but now, she's getting the feeling she's about to be on an actual date with her best friend. If her bestie felt this much about spending time with her, why haven't they spent any time together? Has it been her fault? Did she say something wrong?

Maybe she insulted her without realizing it back when her charm was worse, Ino has always been a bit sensitive.

Or… Holy crap, did the thousand affection reward already apply to her? Did it proc on asking?
Oh no, that's going to be so awkward! She'll have to do what she can to look out for her best friend tonight, to ensure she doesn't do anything she'd regret. Then… maybe lay off for a while, until the score is lowered to a natural level again. Ino definitely wouldn't have romantic feelings for her normally…

Right?

But what if she would?
What if the score hasn't applied at all, and by trying to protect her she'd be trampling on her feelings instead of acknowledging them?

It's an absurd concept but, Sakura can't help but think about how they've never been normal friends. What if Ino's got a crush on her, and she's been the dummy protagonist in a really bad game?

"... No." Sakura decides to herself, quietly, shaking her head.
Even she's not that dumb, she'd notice if that was the case.
Ino's just being overly enthusiastic about this festival, and is possibly under attack by magic feelings unethically shot into her via a gaming system event she didn't ask for and hella doesn't want.

"Are you almost ready?" Sakura asks.

"We're not even at the part where we redo your make-up!" Ino shouts from her closet.

"Ugh…" She can't help but accept that this is probably how Kakashi feels when she's doing something crazy and weird.

Sakura had planned ahead and shown up at Ino's house very early. In part, this was so that she could go ask someone else if Ino had turned her down, but the biggest reason was that she knew the getting ready process for Ino was going to take a very long time. Her friend's always been eccentric in different ways, and while she'll admit she probably didn't spend enough time on this, Ino's far exceeded the other side of the problem.

So finally having her out of the house and looking good in the very first dress the girl had put on, well that's just normal Ino. It's a combo dress, red as flowers as Ino had put it, and very similar to Sakura's own. Ino had taken the flower from Sakura's hair and put it in a vase, so, without it they really do match something fierce.

Sakura isn't sure why, but something about them going to a festival together in a pairing outfit has her smiling like a loon. She can't help but notice that Ino can't look at her directly, and that her bestie's eyes dart away every single time she tries. "Come on, we're going to be late." Sakura's eyes roll at the pace they've been wandering around. A part of her knows it's for her benefit, Ino's giving her more time to get used to the damned high heels, but her patience ran out an hour and a half ago. She takes Ino's soft hand in her own, leans against the girl to ensure she's balanced enough to be dragged, and takes off. If she focuses her chakra on the heel and treats this like tree climbing, it's almost like it's not the dumbest, cruelest device ever made!

"Wait-Sakura!" Her protest is quickly lost in the wind as the two of them begin the world's easiest game of tag, already touching each-other kind of defeats the purpose but if it gets them to the festival on time so she doesn't lose all that damned charm, she's pretty okay with that.

Besides, it's not all about her, Ino seems really excited for this festival, why else would she be so over the moon every time the reality of the date hits her all over again?
She'd be a terrible friend if she didn't push her to be on time for something she's that excited about.

"I don't know how you're doing that!" Ino scolds, "you fell on your face just walking earlier, how are you running?!" Something feels wrong, and that feeling leads Sakura to turn back just in time to see her pull taking Ino off her feet.

She reacts on instinct, footwork shifting on a dime. She raises the hand Ino's already holding so that she has a balance in the air, and intercepts her friend's face with her soft dress-covered chest. Her free hand wraps around and holds the small of Ino's back, to hold her steady and provide support. She can't help but look down at her before the blonde beauty can properly stand again.

Ino's hands rest against her chest, and her gaze lifts to meet Sakura's own. Her face has the most elegant rosy infection, spreading at an alarming rate that makes Sakura twist her face just a little to get a better look and maybe get some first aid insight.

Ino does something weird with this position - only even functional because she's not fully on her feet since they're basically the same height - her eyes fill with shimmer, before she lifts her face, grips Sakura's firm shoulders with both hands, and easily forgotten about and chapped lips touch expertly cared for and glossily sparkling red ones.

'Those thousand points definitely hit already' is all Sakura can think, as her best friend of six years kisses her in the middle of a crowded street dressed in a matching outfit. 'Am I a bad friend? How do I even make up for this?'

Chapter Text

Electrical, overwhelming, confusing?
It took Sakura more than one moment to realize what was happening, and she didn't react immediately when reality did finally click with her. She held Ino against her, letting her lips strike fire into her friend's heart, and outrage in many that looked on, for a solid twenty seconds. She let the world twist around them, and felt a flutter deep through their connection. Ino was alive, and she couldn't take that away from her.

For Ino it felt like an eternity, for Sakura, it felt like an ethical dilemma.
She is definitely under the influence of magical affection points. What does she even do with this? This is public! People are watching!' The issue isn't just the lack of clarification, as she's pretty sure she just got that, it's that she feels… nothing. Nothing but guilt and shame. Shame at being so lost, and guilt at not seeing it sooner.

This is her best friend, someone more important to her than anyone in the world, baring her feelings to her in the most public way imaginable. There are love poems less blatant, songs less genuine, and romcoms with a less clear plot. Either her powers have somehow managed to go beyond her domain and enforce potent affections on her friend that are far, far stronger than she had initially guessed, or Ino's secretly been in love with her for years.

She has no clue which. None. She'd have a better idea if she could remember anything but the soft touch of Ino's love pouring into her and tingling her senses in a very similar way to Sasuke's fire on her skin. She can't. She doesn't remember anything at this moment, can't think, can't feel, can't care. At some point in their friendship the answer to the question sat on a pedestal and waited for her to pick it up, and she never did. She never cared enough to pay attention, and she didn't even know she had to.

She can blame the system for many things, but her charm is a representation of her own efforts, her own abilities, her willingness to care and the attention she gave those around her. It's not some mythical number made from nowhere, and every point she gains makes that all the more obvious.

Shouldn't she be ashamed, to find her best friends searing hopes flowing into her, and find herself confused?

All she can do is hold Ino closer, let her take control for a long moment, and plead internally that she's not somehow undoing years of work to make Ino feel better about something that she didn't know she needed comfort for until just now. She has one friend that can truly stand her at her worst, and support her at her best, and here they stand confused and intertwined. All Sakura wants to do is flee, but she won't abandon Ino, she'd fight an endless tournament just to see her smile, luckily nothing like that exists.

Ino does exist, and her wavering thoughts don't distract her as much as she'd like. She has to part, she has to touch on this, she has to look her friend in the eyes and say 'no.' She pulls away, breathing heavily and grasping for ground that's crumbling beneath her. "Haah-Ino, that was um…" She doesn't even wait for the saliva trail between them to break before trying to say something, anything at all.

"I know." Ino mumbles against her, burying her face in Sakura's shoulder and holding onto both sides of her with greedy fingers without so much as waiting for her to finish her rotted convictions. Ino could press, she could push her back, take control and tell her what's going to happen, and Sakura would have nothing. She's not a push-over but when it comes to the girl in her arms, she's made of paper. "Believe me, Sakura, I know." Ino shakes a little in her grasp, seems so vulnerable and yet, resigned. "You're not gay, I know that, I don't think you're straight either, you're just, you, and it's weird."

"So then that kiss just now…" Sakura trails.

"I was a little overwhelmed in the moment." Ino admits.

"So you don't like me?" Sakura can't help but feel a little relieved, even if it is odd if Ino is going around randomly kissing people just because the position is right.

"Wha-obviously I like you!" She feels Ino's fist smack against her chest, bouncing off what little assets she has. Sakura can't help but notice how little she notices the hit. Ino's gotten weaker, no, it's more fair to say she's gotten a lot stronger, and Ino hasn't changed much at all. They used to be so similar, if not equal, to think her powers would make that much of a gap in such a short time, and then turn around and try to fuck with her friends because what, it finds it funny? With every passing moment she begins to wish her powers are from a mortal origin, so she can one day punish it for its wicked whims.

Should she cancel the date and just accept the loss in charm?
Ino's more important than that, and if she's already feeling like this before she's confirmed the numbers… But how strong are the numbers, what do they mean, how does she even think about this when her best friend's tears are staining her dress? They're not even at the festival yet!

Worst, date, ever! "I love you, Sakura, I've loved you for so long and, and, you showed up to ask me out and, we haven't talked in so long it just made me feel like maybe something during your time away made you realize how much I mattered and maybe, just maybe, you'd realized you were secretly gay and… Mixed messages, Sakura, do you have any idea how much mixed messages suck when you can literally read minds?" Ino's eyes glare into hers fiercely, tears brimming at the corners of such lovely baby blue eyes. She lacks pupils, Yamanaka just don't have them, and somehow it just makes them look all the more gem-like when stained with pain.

"No, I don't think so." Sakura admits awkwardly. She wants so much to sheepishly scratch her cheek, but she dares not let go of her friend for even the slightest moment lest she disappear into a mist she'll never get back. "I can't read minds so I wouldn't have the slightest clue… Kinda wish I did though, since um, I would have been more clear if I knew this was a possibility…"

That's not actually true, she would have gone with someone else entirely.
Ino's Ino to her, nothing different. Ino is, well she's her Ino.

There's probably plenty of girls named Ino throughout the Elemental Nations, this one's hers, and she's in pain, and she wishes nothing more than that it was her.

"Do you still want to go on this date?" Sakura asks. "People are staring."

"Yes!" Ino shouts, smacking Sakura's chest again, before finally breaking her hold on her- well, she tries. "Sakura, let me go." She finds Sakura's in control, and she has other plans.

"You can't break out?" Sakura teases her, she's not even holding her that hard just, firmly enough that she wouldn't fall backwards if she'd somehow gotten surprised by her own kiss and tried to jump away. She's rather protective of her friends, even when they're being weird.

"No! I can't, and you're so warm and, damn-it." Once again, she finds the girl resting against her, her heartbeat fast and her breathing synced with Sakura's own. Ino smiles blissfully, wishing this moment didn't ever have to end.

"Well, I can't say the things you want me to say." Sakura admits, "I want to, as that'd make you smile, but I can't."

"I know…"

"But because this is a date, I can at least play into it for you a little, would you like that?" Sakura asks, wracking her head for tropes she can use, if only for today. Like hell she knows the right thing to do here, but Ino opened up to her, and it's been so long since they've been vulnerable together, and they're in public so it's not like they can just pretend this didn't happen. Everyone and their mom will know what the clan heiress of the Yamanaka clan had done come an hour from now.

"Yeah…" Ino trails, looking anywhere but at her.

"Thought so." Without a moment's pause, Sakura breaks her hold on the girl, crouching a little low, so she can grab her in a very different way.

One hand under her knees, the other behind her back, she tilts, fixes her footwork and pivots, and before Ino knows it she's lifted into the air by two strong arms. "You said play into it not carry me bridal style!" Ino hisses to her, covering her face with both hands, while Sakura holds her close to her chest.

"This is playing into it. We're on a fancy festival date and you just kissed me and we're gonna be late." Sakura points out. "This is what any protagonist would do."

"Our lives are not a sim-date!" Ino groans, with the world's biggest smile revealing her true feelings better than even that cherry tomato complexion.

"I dunno, I get the feeling at the moment, they kind of are." Sakura grins down at her similarly sized friend, and then takes off, eager to get to the festival and leave all the probing eyes around them.

Besides, once they're actually at the festival, no one will find this weird. Sakura and Ino doing crazy things is normal, that's the way they've always been.

Arriving at the festival, she can't help but be taken aback by the signage.
She thought 'Melody of Hearts' was the name of the event, but it seems there's an actual festival named that going on here and, well… "I owe you an apology, these really are some mixed messages I was sending."

"Right?!" Ino can't help but laugh. She's in such a good mood, resting in her arms. She wriggled to get comfortable at first but, before long she settled in and now she lives there.

The name signage has rosy hearts painted alongside it, and every single attraction she can see is couple based. There's a boating love tunnel she can see from here, a Ferris wheel, with heart shaped seating, there's a drink and food shop over there with nothing but couples shareable meals which has a firm and bold signage saying it won't serve groups of one, three, or more, just two.

A part of her wonders why this festival is being so rude to groups of three but, well, she'll never get romance and she has to accept that.

"What do you want to do first?" Sakura asks, realizing she fits in really well here like this. They're not even the only girl-only couple around, though they're definitely rarer than all the guy and girl pairings, a lot rarer. Everyone's going to think they're for real… Except Ino, who seems to understand her in ways she doesn't understand herself.

Who pulls away from a kiss and says 'I know?'
There's something wrong with her, with both of them, and if having a fun date where she lets Ino have her fantasy for a bit will save her friendship… She's ready to have fun.
She just hopes she's doing the right thing and this isn't going to make everything so much worse.

Poor Ino… If only the enemy between them was something she could stab.
She'd stab a lot of things for Ino.

Chapter Text

One of the questions Sakura asks herself on each ride is how she feels about this.
When the boat brings them into darkness and lovely music plays, Ino leans against her and breathes softly.

When they go on the Ferris wheel, the same thing happens. There are tea cups, they share a meal, and there's even a game of 'ninja' where they act as teammates and get kicked out for being actual ninjas and therefore unbeatable by civilian couples.

The festival itself lasts hours, and yet, Sakura barely takes it in. How long has Ino liked her?
Is she making things worse? Were these feelings real or magically orchestrated? Is she a terrible friend or a great one? More importantly, Ino took her first kiss earlier today. Does she care? Why doesn't she care?

It just seems that if she had to give that kiss to anyone, her best friend doesn't feel like such a bad choice. She's never understood the sentiment over a first anyway, and Ino, well Ino's amazing. There's a splash to the side which draws Sakura's attention away, "Oh, what-hey!" Ino shouts at a couple passing by on the boats. A glance at the irate blonde and Sakura can't help but admire how Ino looks soaked. Her hair's dripping, her expression is so pouty… It's cute.

Not in the way Ino wants her to find her cute, but cute. She can appreciate it in the way a friend can… But what is a friend? What's the difference? What is this feeling everyone else has that makes an invisible difference she can't grasp?

She loves Ino, so why doesn't she love her like she wants to be loved? What is the crazy difference that she can tell is there, but can't comprehend? "It's our fault for walking this close to the water." Sakura points out.

"That was Ami!" Ino growls, "she did that on purpose."

"Probably, but she's simping after my roommate now so I can't be mad at her…" Sakura titters at the thought, "she's donated so much money…"

"Naruto?" Ino asks, blinking several times at her in confusion, even as a little dark makeup slips down her cheek with a droplet of bitchy vengeance from, who knows. Ino did something to piss the girl off, she's sure.

"No, I uh, picked up a new roommate in Wave." Sakura admits. "My parents were pissed."

"I'll bet, you can't just invite random people to live in their house." Ino says, holding Sakura's arm to her chest for comfort and warmth from the dreaded water. Also possibly to subtly wipe her hair on Sakura's shoulder to dry herself a little. "Don't you understand how ninjas work? You don't sleep near anyone you wouldn't trust with your life."

"Ah…" Sakura can't help but think about that, it's a nice distraction from the current issues at hand… "You think that's the issue? They were really mad…"

"Yes!" Ino giggles, before leaning in and stealing Sakura's cheek with her lips for a brief moment.

"You get, tomorrow we're just friends again." Sakura says. "Don't get too used to that."

"Shhh, that's tomorrow's issue." Ino says. "Wanna spend the night at my house? We can continue the game until morning."

"Uhhh…" How to answer that?! What if the affection score hits her after the date and Ino's all 'time to bathe together Sakura!' or something absurd like that! She already gets enough of that nightmare from Haku… Okay he's never tried to bathe with her but he's hella chased her into the bathroom with a brush!

Telling her no would create an odd precedent in their friendship too. No more sleepovers just because Ino was honest with her about her feelings? That's the opposite of what she wants, she just wants things to return to how they were.

But they can't, can they?
Can they? She wished she had the slightest clue what was going on. Dozens of books on the subject, not one straight answer. It's almost as if everyone in charge of teaching this concept doesn't know themselves.

"Yes." Sakura decides, after a long moment. "We should get going anyway, your uh, clothes are soaked."

"My fault for letting a civilian of all people get the best of me." Ino sighs, throwing her head back to loudly exhale.

"She didn't pass?" Sakura asks.

"Wha-how could you not know? No, she didn't pass!" Ino shouts, "she's a failure! She spent way too much time going after Sasuke and well, that's that."

"Sasuke doesn't even know her name," Sakura smirks, "I'm not even completely sure he knows mine, I think he uses a word game."

"Yeah?" Ino asks, stealing another quick peck on her cheek, the girl really is taking to this a little too well… Is this going to be their new norm? She's not, not, comfortable with that, but that feels cruel to Ino.

"Well, I think he looks at my hair and then sees pink, and then remembers Sakura blossoms are pink, and then he's like 'right, Sakura.'" Sakura says.

"You think if you dyed your hair he'd have no idea who you were?" Ino asks, "we should do it."

"Dye my hair?" Sakura asks, scrunching up her expression a little at the thought.

"Yeah! We'll pick up some products on the way back to my place and do it tonight, what do you think, blonde like Naruto and me?" Ino asks. "You keep calling him brother, why not mess with him too?"

"I think I'd like that."

Things'll feel normal in time, she just has to accept that boundaries have been broken with Ino.
What's the right thing to do? She has zero clue, and honestly, that's okay.
She's been clueless most of her life, at least Ino's smiling.

She looks odd in the mirror. She's changed her hair into pigtails, because she felt it would work better blonde, and she looks a lot more innocent if nothing else. "This is going to really screw with Naruto." Sakura inhales, unable to completely place the face staring back at her in the mirror. It doesn't help that she still has eyeliner on, among other things, and how they managed to dye her hair without messing up her makeup she has no idea. Ninja magic, she assumes, Ino did it she just sat in a chair and looked pretty while playing her back-up Ino's house gameboy.

"And what about Sasuke?" Ino asks, caressing one of the tails beside Sakura's head. They're really long, and she's probably going to keep this look for a little while, so she's got to get used to moving with that additional consideration to her sword play.

Otherwise she'll end up with a lot shorter hair after she accidentally swords it. Which is a reminder, she needs to go get her sword tomorrow.

[Ding! You have successfully completed the Melody of Hearts Event by taking Ino out on a date!

You have been awarded: +3 Charm!

Ino has been awarded 1000 affection score, bringing her affection score with you to 9,320 out of 10,000

Ino has moved from [Deeply In Love With You and Sad She Can't Have Your Babies] to [Might Create a Jutsu to Get Your Babies Someday].]

Oh… That's not a lot at all then. Well, it is but, it's not in the same way she was worried about it. She blinks her pretty eyes and pretty lashes up at the box. She figured Ino'd be at like 1300 and was worried it'd boost her through a ceiling, that's not even an eighth boost. It's not like it broke ten thousand, that might have been an odd barrier.

Also, that brings her to nineteen charm! She checks her stats before doing a happy Haruno wiggle, wavy arms included.
She's almost a functional child!

"Hey Ino, you don't feel any different, right?" Sakura asks.

"What, no, why would I?" Ino gives her an odd look. Not at the wiggle though, they're besties, she probably just assumes she really likes the dye job. It is so well done, Ino's a professional.

"No reason… You know you could probably open up a beauty shop?" Sakura says, "my hair feels so silky too, what'd you do?"

"Herbs." Ino pops her lips.

"That's all?" Sakura asks.

"How am I supposed to open up a shop if I give away all my secrets?" That twinkle in her besties' eyes tells her everything is going to be okay.

"So apparently Ino likes me." Sakura says, dealing with the dishes for her parents, her father's off doing something with Naruto while her mother sits and drinks some coffee while watching her. One day she'll be trusted to wash dishes on her own, but not today. Go on missions, fight dungeons, kill bandits, yes. Dishes? No. "I never noticed, but that's not too bad, she must be really good at hiding her feelings because no one else noticed either."

"Sakura…" Mebuki sucks her teeth behind her, "the girl dyed her hair pink once and wore a matching outfit with you, for like, two months straight of the academy."

"That really made me feel like I fit in." Sakura admits, "she's such a good friend."

"Sakura, she once wrote you a poem about how much you mean to her." Mebuki's tone shakes a little.

"It was really sweet, I was feeling so down about myself, it really picked me up." Sakura nods.

"For your eleventh birthday she made you heart frosted cupcakes, when you asked her what she put in them she just answered 'love.'" Sakura can hear the quotations in the air behind her.

"She made them for Sasuke." Sakura reminds, "she only remembered it was my birthday after I reminded her."

"And how many did Sasuke eat?" Mebuki asks.

"Um, zero, but he's a jerk." Sakura shrugs, rubbing down the awkward crevice at the bottom of a closed top cup. Why do they make these? Why did they buy them? These suck.

"... I give up." Mebuki throws her hands up suddenly, and storms out of the kitchen as dramatically as Naruto after no one liked his joke.

"Wait… but Ino didn't like Sasuke." Sakura ponders to herself, now alone to do a duty she's apparently shifted to 'trusted to do' in the last five minutes without notice. "Why'd she make cupcakes?"

Chapter Text

Morning training has gotten a little harder lately, and Sakura knows what that means. They're leaving soon. Kakashi has a lot of patterns, and while she hasn't been with him long enough to pick up on them all, it's been almost three months so she's not exactly lacking in experiences to pick up on his nuance.

He gets serious when things are about to change, it doesn't even matter what the change is.
But there's only one reasonable change at the moment, and that's another mission. A C rank or higher this time, unlike all the D ranks he's had them doing to try and buy time and bleed off some of their stress from all the nonsense. It's apparently fairly common for those taking B and A rank missions to spend a few weeks cooling off after all the blood shed. It makes sense, though officially they only went on a C rank mission and they didn't even get paid, so to say she's antsy would be somewhat of an understatement.

"Hello!" Sakura greets the girl behind the shop counter as she steps into the familiar place that houses her damn sword. It's finally time to come check on that. She was told a few days, she may have forgotten for a week, or two… Hopefully that's fine.

"Hello." It's Tenten behind the counter. It makes her question it for a second, what if this is secretly her store and her dad doesn't actually exist? Should she tip if that's the case? Some orphans have it hard… She doesn't have a lot of money, she shrugs that thought off. "You're here for your sword?"

"Uh, and my bolt, yeah." Sakura nods as she approaches the counter. "You remember me? I have blonde hair now and everything, how…"

"Yep, I remember the girl who delivered murder incarnate to my father's store and asked my daddy to touch it, mmhmm." That's not a good sign. Maybe it's having nineteen charm, but she doesn't need a mood chart to see that Tenten would really like to strangle her and possibly bash her head against the counter a few times. The girl puts on gloves- then another pair - then another pair -

"Four pairs? Seriously? It's a sword." Sakura stares, before Tenten uses her four time gloved hands to lift her Chaos Blade up and set it on the counter like it's a radioactive rod that needs to get as far away as physically possible from her right this instant. She drops the bolt a moment later with a lot less care.

"Daddy says your sword is cursed." Tenten explains. "And not that baby curse you sometimes get from old blades that've been repaired too many times and have grown a thirst for blood. The kind of curse that you don't fuck with. In fact, I've half a mind to report you for bringing that thing to my daddy's shop in the first place.

Sakura can't help but blink at the girl, "I uh, didn't think it was that bad?" Sakura picks her sword up with her bare hands, rolling her eyes at Tenten's look of horror. She can feel the glow enter her eyes immediately, welcoming her back. A deep part of her subconscious begs her not to part with it like this again, and she can't help a little smile taking over her lips. It's probably in her head, but it's cute, like a pet that greets you at the door after a long day, "no worries, I have you." She strokes it, to the clear horror of the genin in front of her. Tenten actually looks a little green. "You okay?"

"No! I touched that damn thing once and I've had nightmares ever since." The older girl does look a little ill. "It fucking talked to me, how are you holding that? Why are you holding that? I held it for like five minutes tops and it told me to murder my parents. Daddy says it only gets worse the more you deal with it."

"Uh, I dunno about that, I mean I get more intrusive thoughts when I hold it but I just thought that was because I have a sword." Sakura points out. "You know like when you stand somewhere really high and your brain's like 'jump'? You don't get those thoughts when you're on the ground." Sakura shrugs.

"Intrusive thoughts?" Tenten gawks, "You get intrusive thoughts about murdering people and eating their corpses?"

"You don't?" Sakura looks down at her dark sword in confusion, then Tenten, then the sword, then back to the irate girl. "Huh. That explains a lot… well okay the eating their corpses part is new. I wonder what that's about."

"I don't want to know what that's about." The elder Genin deadpans, glaring at her with quite a bit of force. "He asked that you get it the hell out of our shop, and never bring it back, ever. I second this, if I ever have to hold that thing again I will give into the thoughts and chop you into bite sized cubes." She enunciates everything with clear vehemence. "You should talk to whoever gave it to you, they clearly hate you. In fact, report them for attempted murder several times over."

"I will." Sakura drawls a little at the thought. She has to have a conversation with Kakashi! "Talk to them, I mean, I don't think he was trying to hurt me."

"He was." Tenten asserts. "I haven't slept a full night in a week, he absolutely was."

"And my bolt?" Sakura moves on, picking up the one she gave them, "what'd he find?"

"He said he can't replicate them." Tenten answers simply. "He can make something like them, but whatever these are, he's never seen anything like them before. They're running off an energy source that's not chakra, and in his words, if he was qualified to understand and work with magic he'd be running a much bigger shop and he wouldn't have time to take small orders like this from genin. Even magic swords run on Chakra, I have no idea what that is and neither does he."

"So his basic prognosis is, he can't help me with anything and I need to go away?" Sakura asks.

The mood chart appears beside the bun-haired girl's head, but she's still not sure what the hell she's thinking. She wishes it was a little more helpful, maybe if it came with words?

"Can I at least buy some sealing scrolls here?"

"What size?"

She got a lot of those, it turns out sealing scrolls are quite expensive but ninja get a ninety nine percent discount. This is to prevent civilians from screwing around with sealing willy nilly, but still ensure ninja get plenty if they need them.

Buying them for a civilian is a crime too. She's not sure why they don't just restrict the sale entirely, but apparently merchants need them sometimes. It makes sense though, it'd make stocking and transport really easy and might still be worth it if you're making a high enough profit margin. It's not like you have to replace sealing scrolls particularly often.

Packing her stuff, she can't help but feel like her original packing was amateur hour. She learned so much from Wave and the mishap that happened there. First of all, she now has three different sets of her combat and travel gear in different scrolls in different parts of the pack, including one deep in her kunai pouch underneath a fake bottom so if her pack gets destroyed she still has that.

It feels good to finally wear their family crests again, all three of them combined and showing off what a team they are. That Naruto is now wearing the Haruno crest instead of his own won't stop her from showing his family the respect they probably deserve.

Respecting Naruto's heritage is also super important, now that she knows that heritage somehow led to him devouring the Kyuubi like a bowl of ramen. The image of the Kyuubi scrambling around the bottom of a bowl while an evil Naruto tries to loudly slurp it up makes her laugh quite loudly, and then she finds she's got enough charm to realize how awkward that is and takes a moment to stop blushing in embarrassment for something no one saw her do.

"Stupid magical stats." She grunts to herself, even as she smiles at the image popping back into her head. "Naruto's such a glutton."

Back into her shorts, back into her fishnet, hell it feels good just to eye her pink top and look in the mirror knowing she's dressed to impress and compress her enemies.

She also had a proper belt made for the quiver for her bolts, and another bag to wear at her back with just the crossbow. She decided not to seal the bolts or crossbow for fear that magic might interact with the sealing arrays in scary ways. Actual magic… confirmed by a smith, her ability is creating magical artifacts. It's not like magic is completely unheard of, lots of magical swords exist - even if they use chakra from the atmosphere or whatever - and actual demons exist out in certain places…

But to hold magic, to shoot it, to have it called from the abyss and placed into her hands as loot?

It makes her proud.

"Shit, I never had Naruto look at that thing!" She remembers the locked scroll that came with the lockpicks she gave him…

"Sakura, I have no idea how to unlock that." Naruto disappoints her quite soundly, shaking his head while examining the scroll. "Okay, that's not true, I know how to open it, I need to put the lockpick in that first pin and then shift it to the right for that second oddly shaped pin, then I need to be careful as I wiggle it to the third or the first will relock and destroy the entire lock, making it unopenable and most likely shattering my pick."

"Uhhh-"

"What I mean to say is, I know how to unlock it, but I'm not gonna try. You need a professional, or maybe uh, I could practice more first?" Naruto scratches the back of his head, ruffling his own hair apologetically while staring at her.

"Just a lot of 'I can't help you today,' huh." Sakura hisses, sucking her teeth before nodding to herself. "Thanks Naruto. Please practice, okay?"

"I will!"

Back to her room, she can't help but admire the final part of her new preparations. She got a new sheath for her sword. She got tenten to make it for her under the promise that she never, ever unsheathes the sword anywhere near her ever again. It's a lot sturdier than her old sheath - which was half falling apart on her - and even has the sword's name engraved on it.

Yes, it's name, she's decided to name it. Forget Chaos Blade, her sword is officially named Thirsty. It's a little corny but it drinks her blood and enemy blood and never seems to get bored of the drink so, it's Thirsty.

Okay, it's a bad name, but watching Kakashi cringe when she introduces it will make it so worth it. The jerk gave her a monster sword!

She'll talk to him about that, eventually, but for now she's got a mission coming up and she can't help but admire the fine work of the sharp edge while humming to herself. Tenten was definitely exaggerating, but it's good to know the intrusive thoughts weren't entirely in her head. Well, they were, but… She was right to be cautious, but if intrusive thoughts are all the sword can really do to her then she's not going to complain. She's always been socially awkward, not doing the first thing to jump into her head is natural. If she did that people would think she's crazy…

A sword that helps motivate you to take out your attackers isn't a bad thing, if it doesn't control you, and she's pretty sure it doesn't do that. She'da found that out by now, at worst it's made her a little cockier, but she can learn to get past that. She kinda already has.

"Mom, dad?" She has one final loose end to tie up before Kakashi sweeps them away for whatever crazy nonsense he has planned for them. It's simple, it's dumb, it's childish, and she'd rather chew glass than go without it.

Sakura ambushes her parents with a hug.
A warm, full enveloping, soothing hug.
She needs it so much, she's needed it for almost two months now.

A comforting embrace from her family to wish her well on her journey and make it all feel worth coming back to. "Something feels off?" Sakura can't help but ask herself out loud.

"There we go." She mumbles, the feeling disappears the moment a fourth pair of arms enters the embrace. "Thank you, Naruto."

Chapter Text

Up, down, up down- Sakura's a big fan of push-ups these days. The stark contrast between when she started and now is astounding. Back then she spent just an hour with Naruto and it was enough to practically put her in a coma. Now, she's actually lost count of the pyramid she just completed. She's just following Sasuke's count because it's easier for her. Supposedly they just completed twenty seven? That means, what, a few hundred more pushups to complete if they're going down?

It's ridiculous, but what's more ridiculous is just how much of a lull she's entered with it. She doesn't care, it's nothing, it's as simple as breathing and as easy as numbing her mind and moving on to the next time she'll need her attention.

Kakashi's standing there, tapping his foot on the dirt while watching them impatiently. He's pushing them to go faster and faster with every session, trying to push every ounce of strength into them he can with all of his ire and demonic might. Tenten's worried about her sword, well she's worried about Kakashi. Then again, he gave her the sword so maybe the issue is one in the same.

When the push ups are done, it's running, when that's done it's climbing the trees, darting from one to the other on targets with precision that collapse and make you restart if you miss the mark. When that's done, it's weapons training. When that's done, it's pain training, back to weapons training, acrobatics, terrain, even some first aid and she has nothing but a blurry memory of the past several days.

They're doing something crazy soon, she's sure of it. It's not nearly as bad as the hell training back in Wave, but then she's fitter now than she was back then so it might be identical and she wouldn't know. She feels powerful, like a hidden boss that's erupted onto the scene out of nowhere. Nothing Kakashi can throw at her now matters, muahahahaha!

Except it does.
"Oof." Her face hits the dirt for the fourth time today.
"Kakashi, fucking, why?" She groans, while a Naruto clone splashes her with a bit of water just in case she falls asleep.

"Why what?" The madman asks, kneeling down so he can pick her head up by her hair and look directly into her red eyes with his singular gaze. "Is there a problem, Sakura?"

That's another change recently. Two, really. He's been treating her more brutally, and her sword's influence just won't leave her eyes anymore. She hasn't had pretty greens since before she got her sword back from Tenten.

It's sad, she kind of misses how her eyes looked. She didn't appreciate it before, now she does, but she hasn't wanted to let the sword go from her side either. She even sleeps with it, letting it go feels like a crime now. Tenten made it seem so bad that she's got an irrational fear that someone might try to steal it and seal it or something.

It's absurd, but she can't shake it, and it's not messing with her thoughts like it did Tenten so she's not particularly worried about it. Well, okay, it might be messing with her thoughts to protect itself but not in a bad way, she'd pick up on wanting to eat people all of the sudden.

"Yeah, you're being a dick." She's surprised to find she's not decked for that.

"That's fair." The man drops her, sliding to his feet and clapping her hands. "Everyone, lunch in twenty minutes. We're going to a BBQ place so have your manners."

"We're covered in dirt." Naruto reminds.

"That's why I gave you twenty minutes." He says, and the boys leave to go clean up, while she's stuck laying there feeling bad about herself. Yeah okay so she's not totally strong enough to handle this, but she's getting there!

Meeting Kakashi and the boys at a BBQ while still covered in dirt feels a little awkward, but it's dirt borne from her efforts so she has very little to complain about. She's proud of herself, and she won't be deterred from that.

The place is nice, and she stands out quite a bit in training gear. The scent of fresh food in the air makes her body practically vibrate in anticipation. Working up an appetite is hard to describe for her, but Haku's made sure she hasn't missed a single meal recently so she's starting to get used to feeling hungry.

It's funny how little parts of being human like that disappear if you ignore them long enough.

She catches the eye of someone at another table, who immediately grins at her and shoots a thumbs up her way. That's another thing, recently, going anywhere public has resulted in one extreme reaction or the other. It seems there's no getting away from kissing Ino in a public place before picking her up bridal style and running through the village with her.

It's so awkward. It only takes a moment to order before the food is out, and it's one of those places they have to cook the food themselves so, she readies herself to figure out what she wants before Kakashi starts putting out their meats in orderly manners along the hot plate. "I'm not doing that bit." He says starkly, "we have much more important things to discuss without one of you three giving yourself food poisoning."

"I feel like we can cook some meat…" Sakura trails.

"Can you?" Kakashi challenges her, and her flushing cheeks and awkward sideways gaze is enough for him. "As you may have noticed recently, our training has been stepped up." Sakura can't help but wonder if she'd get a cooking skill if she put her all into it. Could she get really good at it and show him?

That's what she's gonna do. On whatever this next mission is, she's going to learn how to cook so she can stick it to Kakashi. She'll blow his mind!

"We noticed," Naruto says, "Sakura's been wondering if the village is about to be invaded or something."

She has the shame to not look back yet, just let that one wash off her.

"Kind of." Kakashi says as if he's talking about going for a brisk snack.

"I'm sorry what-" She can barely start before he's got a finger up in front of her face, waggling from side to side. He's so mean to her…

"The chunin exams are in a couple of months." Kakashi explains, leaning back while watching meat sizzle. It should be done very soon, this stuff is cut so thin that it cooks in seconds. "You'll all be going since it's hosted in Konoha, so many other nations will be arriving to try and show us up. We need our best and brightest at the forefront."

"Isn't it a little soon to be sending us?" Sakura asks, "I thought the exams were for second years at the least."

"Yeah, Sakura, if you think your team is normal…" Kakashi lets that one sit, and lets her complete it in her head.

"Eheh-fair…" She scarfs some delicious protein down when Kakashi expertly brings the meat to their plates with ninja precision. It's not something that should look better just because a ninja did it, but it sure does, ninja drama is just great in all places.

"The issue is that because enemy nations may participate, some will be out to kill you, and killing is completely allowed," Kakashi begins, "the chunin exam is a substitute for war plain and simple, and I want you all ready for war."

"Mm.." Sakura gets that, nodding to herself mid bite, it's so good! It's all juicy and meaty and the savory flavor overtakes her mouth. Well, maybe she just needs something in her mouth after all that training.

"I see where this is going." Sasuke says, his eyes flashing with recognition.

"Correct, I need to give two of you one-on-one training to prepare you for a death game. The other is already more than ready, and needs some more hands-on experience in a very different way."

"I dunno if Naruto is ready for that." Sakura ponders, "I guess he has infinite lives with his clones, that'd make it a lot better, is it Sasuke?" It's not for several seconds, that she realizes there are three male gazes focused directly on her. "Did I get something on my face?"

"Ahem, sooo, who wants to explain it to Sakura?" Kakashi asks, faking a cough.
She watches her boys play rock paper scissors out of nowhere while she looks between them, feeling very left out of something.

"So not fair…" She grumbles, "my charm is high enough for me to be embarrassed now but not high enough for me to understand. This is bullying."

"Right, so, take this." Kakashi slips a note across the table to her.

"Is no one going to explain it to me?" She asks, while the boys get on with their sixth game of rock paper scissors.

"Give this to Gai Maito, understand?" Kakashi asks.

"Like right now?" She looks down at the food, all the sizzling meat that's, all on her side how did she miss that?

Kakashi then plates it all in a tupperware he got from somewhere- "go, now, yes."

"Erm, okay…" She's not sure why she feels like she's on a walk of shame but she's not going to a famous jonin covered in dirt, she'll hit up the shower at home first before figuring out where he even is, most likely? Screw them for still playing rock paper scissors! They're so mean to her. "I just, could I get a little explanation?" She whimpers pitifully with wide vulnerable demon eyes and the best version of a puppy-like pout she can manage.

"Fine, I'm going to be giving the boys one on one training to make up a bit of the gap, while you needs to see how more advanced ninja your age deal with varying tactical situations, preferably, observing methods that don't involve running up with a sword and chopping the problem in half and then coming home covered in blood."

"So…" Sakura trails.

"You'll be joining team three for a Low B rank mission. It should take you out of the village for about two weeks, prepare accordingly. You'll find them at training ground thirty seven."

"Team three…" Sakura trails, thinking- "weren't they a veteran genin team?"

"And yet." Kakashi starts with no small amount of exasperation, "the amount of times they have climbed onto a guy with a sword and 'started stabbing'," he uses his fingers to give her quotes, "is probably less. I'm sure you'll have plenty to bond about."

At least hell training is over.

Chapter Text

Her shower was quick, her packing was already done beforehand, all that was left was to give her parents a goodbye kiss, give Business Naruto a hug since she won't see him for a while either, and hit the road.

Well, hit team three's training field. She had Kakashi's note in her kunai pouch, but somehow she doubts it'll be needed. Hence, the kunai pouch. She'd never store anything actually important with all the sharp objects.

She arrives quickly after her shower, and climbs a tree so she can watch the team from what she assumes is perfect ninja cover. She's quite proud of herself for finding a use for that stealth skill she got back in Wave. There's three boys to watch, one in green spandex, the other a powerful looking pretty boy Hyuuga, and one… she recognizes, she was wrong, there is a girl.

It's just odd to see two clearly taijutsu focused male genin with a taijutsu focused male sensei, and then find a girl over there swinging blades around. It's genre confusing, and very off putting.
It's even more off putting once she places the girl. Tenten, the girl from the store. She's actively fending off the Hyuuga pretty boy's fanciful looking pokes of death with the side of a thick staff she's swinging around like it's as light as a feather.

She observes them for quite a while, watching spandex boy do what appears to be an endless amount of push ups if his current count of seven thousand, three hundred forty six, is to be believed. Tenten and the Hyuuga's spar just wasn't that interesting to watch, it was like paint drying the movie. Tenten stands no chance, and when she gets knocked on her ass, Sakura doesn't even fake a clap because it was so obvious it was going to happen. Gentle fist is nonsense, and it's obvious the taijutsu specialist sensei is going to teach the taijutsu specialist students better.

Basic math foretold that outcome, it just… didn't interest her.

"Come out." The pretty boy announces the moment Tenten is fully faltered, "your spying is becoming annoying."

Dressed in her full combat outfit, she didn't exactly expect to stay hidden for long, but it's still annoying that it wasn't actual detection that caught her and was instead cheating eyes. She wonders if there's a level of the stealth skill she could get to before the Hyuuga couldn't spot her. Does it alter reality like that, or just with meaningless affection scores and dungeons and stuff?

She sighs to herself regardless, the world isn't fair sometimes… She's an example of that.
Tenten looks very alert all the sudden, like she didn't notice her, that makes her feel a little better. She jumps out of the trees with a flip, looking elegant as she falls - she imagines - and landing perfectly a little to the side of spandex boy.

"Holy shit!" Tenten's immediate reaction to seeing her is to reflexively throw a kunai in her direction, which is probably not a great reflex given they're about to go on a mission together. She knows it's on seeing her, because she didn't throw kunai upon finding out someone was there. She didn't think she pissed the girl off that much…

No, it's not one Kunai, her high mental lets her observe it and it becomes clear it's three. Two are in the shadow of the other, and there's a tag of some sort on the third. Well, she can't risk the tag by just dodging, the boy next to her could get hurt by Tenten's reckless nonsense. She'll be sure to lecture her later. Right now… Her sword releases from its new sheath with a whirr like shing, the sound of a machine coming to life. She'd feel her eyes redden but unfortunately they never unreddened, what she can feel is her senses straighten, and her blood leave her to flood the blade for her next move.

It's a technique she's wanted to try out in real combat - well sorta - since she came up with it the other day - err stole it from a game - and mastered it in careful practice.

As she slashes towards the Kunai, she charges the blood with her Chakra, and uses the tree walking technique a little too powerfully while using the enhancement of the sword to increase the power of the initial kinetic force.

To put it simply, she slashes at the kunai early, and while her sword comes up short, her blood flows away from her like a crimson wave and rips right through the Kunai and the tag, splitting them all in two and causing them to harmlessly fall to the ground behind her in multiple parts.

The attack continues for some distance, getting very close to Tenten before the pretty boy shifts his stance and slides in front of the shocked girl, poking and prodding it a hundred times a second until he's splattered in harmless red. It's steaming a little, which is odd, she doesn't remember throwing fire chakra into that. It's a good idea though, if nothing else it'll help harden up the fluid by flash drying it. She'd rather do it with something a little more effective but the sword likes her kool-aid, what's she gonna do about it?

"Errr, in my defense, she attacked first." Sakura says.

Tenten has the decency to look sheepishly between them all, just in time for a much older, stronger, faster man to suddenly appear out of nowhere with a hearty laugh that causes her head to spin from the volume alone. Someone wasn't taught to avoid pissing off a gamer girl with a headache… Actually, does she even qualify for that term anymore?
The headache just started too, mostly from his appearance, so maybe it doesn't count either.

The man's hand lands on the very irate boy's shoulder, before he begins, "It looks like Neji will need a change of clothes, welcome Sakura, you're our backup?" The man's bowl cut hair has Sakura mesmerized. It's technically a very efficient way for a ninja to do that. Her own hair is a little longer than it probably should be due to carelessness, Tenten's is in buns but has to be quite a bit longer, and this Neji guy, well, he'd look like a girl if he did his hair differently and wore something cuter.

Yeah, all around, the jonin's more sensible than them, it makes sense. The boy by her side has the same doo, so, you know, it's a pragmatism over fashion virus. It explains the spandex they both wear too… unless they're related?

"Backup?" Tenten asks. "Oh hell no, we're not bringing miss possessed by a demon and happy about it on a mission specifically about killing people." Tenten gets to her feet quickly, brushing Gai Maito, one of the strongest ninjas this village has ever seen, aside while stalking over to her. "Nu-uh, you go home. I'm refusing."

"Now now, Tenten." The older man says, "I happen to know that sword, it's harmless in the hands of someone with enough youthful energy and good will."

"Good will?" Tenten's forehead visibly ticks.

"I'm a good girl." Sakura grins.

"Your eyes are glowing with evil!" Tenten points accusingly.

"Haven't grown horns yet." The pinkette - now blonde from her recent adventures with Ino - shrugs. "I'm not the one randomly attacking people."

"Oh, how about you piss the hell off?" Tenten groans, looking back at her sensei pleadingly.

"She's coming along on the mission." Gai says with certainty, and Tenten has to accept it, because Gai' way of deflecting a jutsu is to punch it, and it works. "My eternal rival, Kakashi, has said she would be a great boon to young Neji here on this mission, and Kakashi's not the type to lie."

"He totally is." Sakura can't help but sweat drop, "but I do have a note from him." She reaches into her pouch and pulls out the half shredded note no one cares about. Much to her surprise, no one cares.

"She's killed before, so you won't have to worry about her freezing up in battle." Gai begins-

"I know she's killed before!" Tenten grabs her hair and pulls a little, shouting an aggravated growl into the sky in frustration. "She came to the shop to get that sword looked at because it made killing too easy!"

"I didn't say that." Sakura mumbles softly to herself. Though, that's technically not incredibly far off.

"She's also very strong." Gai backs her up, a compliment that makes her flushier than a tomato, mostly because hearing a compliment from someone that scary who hasn't backhanded her casually - ahem, Kakashi, ahem - is just great for the ego. "My rival says she's even killed a vampire before!"

"That's so obviously a lie." Tenten scowls.

"It was a team effort." Sakura defends her team's honor, "I just did the stabbing part, really couldn't have done it without Naruto."

"It's final, Tenten." The man throws a hand out, so he can clench his fist and give a lone thumbs up, a tooth twinkling for all to see with a charming smile that likely makes quite a few girls down at the bar swoon knowing what he can do with that body.

"The man does push-ups without hands, I'd just accept what he says." Sakura advises. "I hear when he wants woman time he does acrobatics with his tongue. I'm not even sure how to imagine that statement, but I know it's terrifying and when I told it Ino she almost passed out for some reason."

All through this, the mini-spandex gai has continued to do pushups… Without pause.
For even a second. He's fucking incredible.

Chapter Text

"So, you're in charge." Sakura can't help the incredulous expression that overtakes her - as she's recently learned is somewhat cute - face. Her finger points towards the Hyuuga pretty boy, but she can't believe what she just heard for a second. "You're actually being put in charge of this mission? I don't think my team could agree on a mission leader no matter what the stakes were. That includes Kakashi." Officially he's obviously the mission leader, he's the jonin sensei, but the reality is that he doesn't give a lot of direction at all. They can't count on him to actually lead anything, it's mostly them doing what they think is best individually.

The only thing they've really cooperated on was that dungeon, and even that was kind of just them all thinking it was a priority at the same time.

"Yes, well, we're far superior to a rookie team, and I would appreciate it if you would recognize and respect that." The boy scoffs at her, putting up airs in a way that makes her feel somewhat gross just to be near. She didn't agree to have to put up with him, but it seems she has to anyway. She'll definitely be reporting his attitude to the Hokage in her mission report, maybe he'll care, maybe he won't, not her place to decide that. "Tenten doesn't like you, that already puts you on thin ice as far as I am concerned." He huffs at her, as if reading her mind.

She knew the Hyuuga had wrought iron poles up their poop chutes but she had no idea it was this bad. To say she's surprised would be, well, accurate is a pretty good word for it. It turns out the mission she's been assigned to is not going to be run by Gai Maito and his absolutely stunning smile, no, that's being relegated to Neji Hyuuga, the team's resident dick. "Yes Master, my apologies for daring to compare you to the likes of lowly me." She mocks him, rolling her eyes while they walk from the training grounds towards the front gate of Konoha. "I just meant, I thought your Jonin sensei would be leading."

"He will be around." Neji answers, a tick mark clearly appearing on his forehead at her reply. It's quite visible, and somewhat violent. He should maybe get that looked at. "He is taking the opportunity to observe while training his rusty stealth skills. By law, a superior officer does still need to be present whenever a mission is taken by genin that will leave the village proper."

"But he won't be doing anything." Sakura clarifies.

"He will not." Neji's at least willing to answer her. When she had originally started trying to ask questions, Tenten had hissed at her, and Lee - as she'd found out mini spandex was named - wouldn't stop blushing and looking away from her. It's kinda hard to answer her question when he's practically catatonic because she looked at him.

Months ago she would have had no idea what was going on, she'll admit a week ago she would have been confused, but finally reaching nineteen charm has done wonders. There's a lot of cool concepts that she wasn't aware of before that suddenly smacked themselves into her brain full force. Like how people's emotions on entirely different matters than what is currently happening can alter their reactions, or how someone is not necessarily talking about the thing they're currently talking about.

Basically, she's deciphered that this boy is in love with Tenten but feels bad about how his love is treating her. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, the boy has chosen to check out. It's the honorable thing to do if she's fair. "And our mission is?" Sakura asks.

"Your sensei didn't even bother to tell you what we were going to be doing?" Neji growls.

"Oooh, yeah, I'm with you there, he's a dick." Sakura agrees with a nonchalant wave of her hand at the air itself, as if expecting it to respond in likeness. She can kind of imagine what a wind nod would look like. "My sensei wouldn't tell me what was going on if there was a reward for doing just that. I'm still not sure how many jars… mostly because instead of telling me he put the exact number in my closet and I'm not counting that. Still, answer given…"

"What are you prattling on about?" Neji looks back at her mid-stride, clearly he's not very happy with her. "Forget I asked, it is no matter. We are heading to a village by the name of Chokuri. It's been taken over by missing ninja and it is our job to get it back by any means necessary so they can start paying their taxes to the firelord again. This kind of thing happens a few times a year, genin and academy students from foreign lands decide the Leaf is weak and set up shop somewhere without much protection. As we've already discussed, our team is rotating leadership on low Bee rank missions to prepare for when we become chunin, and Gai Sensei will not be there to lead us."

"Ah…" She trails, "um, so wait, are we sure there won't be chunin or jonin? What do we do if we encounter some?"

"You can consider missing nin, on average, to be about half a rank lower than their rank would normally indicate, due to a lack of village resources to upkeep their training, and poor nutrition and breaks." Neji answers. "The four of us should have no issues if we encounter one or two chunin."

"And if there's more?" She asks.

"Gai sensei is still there." He reminds her. "He will get involved should anything, irrational, occur." Despite his condescending attitude, Sakura can't help but feel pretty great about actually having someone that explains things. It's kind of awesome if she were to admit it. Not that she would admit it, at least not to this asshole. "Besides, that is why we have back-up, so that there are four of us and not three. Gai Sensei wouldn't have said you were strong if you wouldn't be helpful."

If nothing else, he's very honest with his opinions. They seem rationally bound too, if a little presumptuous. "And uh, we're completely sure it's acceptable to just head out on this mission?" She asks.

"Why wouldn't it be?" He glares back at her.

"Well, uh, shouldn't we report my involvement to the Hokage?" She can't help but ask, a little nervous about it all.

"Your sensei will have already done that." He points out. "You should not worry about pointless things."

She is gonna worry, oh hell she's gonna worry. Kakashi, actually being helpful?
Legal requirement or not, she's willing to bet she gets taken into custody and interrogated when she gets back because she got labeled a missing ninja over Kakashi forgetting…

Well, no, probably not. But only because Kakashi will have been interrogated before that about where his ninja went, and he'll spill then to get out of the conversation.

Probably.

Hopefully.
Maybe.

"So, uh…" Naruto's more than a little unsure about this. It feels weird getting ice cream without Sakura, even if the chocolate flavor hits his tongue in a way he can't deny makes him very happy. "Sakura…"

"She needs time with other ninjas." Kakashi explains, slurping on some mint chocolate chip through his mask like some kind of monster. "You two are way too hard on her, she needs to understand that it's okay to be herself."

"We're not that bad…" Naruto looks at Sasuke, who shakes his head at him. Sasuke's got some vanilla, the boring bastard. He seems to be enjoying it though, maybe Naruto'll try it next time. "Are we?"

"You've made her feel guilty for being different." Kakashi explains.

"It's something I've been worried about." Sasuke speaks up, stunning Naruto for a long second. "She's brutal, and disturbing, but Wave got out of our hands very quickly. We likely wouldn't have survived if she was a different person. I don't know if she knows that we appreciate her."

"But…" Naruto ponders, looking into the soul of his ice cream. "I don't want her to feel bad, I just, she scares me. I don't want to be scared."

"That's part of learning to be a ninja." Kakashi says, "everyone worth fearing is valuable. If another ninja doesn't scare you, either your ego went to your head, or they're not fit to be a ninja."

"Wait, so I scare you?" Naruto asks.

"Nope." Kakashi shakes his head.

"You bastard." Naruto growls.

"Besides," Sasuke decides to continue out of nowhere, "if she is to kill Itachi with me, I'd prefer her as she is, not as she pretended to be back in the academy."

"That's true." Naruto sighs a little, remembering the deranged girl that passed by each day like a ghost. He remembers crushing on her quite hard, if only because she was able to hide her true self better than he ever could. Her mask was a hundred times better than his, and not because it was showing off some powerful fake emotion like he tried, but because it seemed so completely dead most days. He admired that, and felt like she was something to aspire to be.

Finding out it was because she never slept and was just really, really tired was a bit of a reality check that threw his brain for a loop the likes of which he'd never expected to be thrown. It was a weird reason to like someone in the first place, but now he's grown to like her for a hundred other reasons.

Too bad she's his sister now, he's not exactly sure how to deal with those feelings.
Or maybe it's a good thing she's his sister now. It kind of simplifies it all for him. She's not his love interest, she's his cute sister who's slowly becoming a person right before his eyes.

Not that he wouldn't mind it differently.
He shakes his head, and licks his ice cream.

"You're all going to undergo training to get used to people like Sakura." Kakashi says. "The next few weeks I'm going to treat you with the most killing intent you've ever felt, you'll be put in what feels like real life or death situations constantly until you grow to appreciate how she's handled them for you up until now, and you'll grow less sensitive so the chunin exams don't pose a threat."

"Do I need that?" Sasuke asks.

"If you want to have even the slightest chance of killing Itachi, yes." Kakashi affirms. "The training will start when we're done with our ice cream, and end when Sakura gets back. You'll be happier to see her than you've ever felt seeing anyone in your entire life."

Chapter Text

"So, what's this team normally like?" She finally decides to prod the green boy after a few hours on the road. It's not very social, they're kind of just silently darting forward on a pre-made path. No need to go through the trees when there is a road, and that means there's not even casual tree based acrobatics to kill time.

"We strive to be the very best we can be at all times!" Gai's Mini-me's a little loud, but it's better than nothing. They're faster than her, so she can't whip out a game and play while they run like she can with her team. Her boys are stronger than her, but Naruto's the slow one in that group which normally affords her a lot of time to focus on both the game and movement, that's just not the case here at all. "We are sure to impress you once the mission really starts."

"Uh-right, but that's not really what I mean." Sakura hisses uncomfortably. "Do you uh, always just run silently while staring in the direction of your destination?

"Neji has put a ban on all unnecessary conversations." The boy explains to her. "I am Lee Rock, it is nice to meet you, beautiful golden goddess!"

"... Holy shit." That didn't just happen. That definitely didn't, was that, but-

She shoots a look to the other two visible teammates. Neji is forcefully looking as far away from them as possible, and Tenten, for the first time in their entire knowing of each-other, looks at her with pity. "Did you really just shoot your shot, right now?"

A single week ago she might have missed it, but that totally just happened! It helps that she also has a lot of experience being flirted with by boisterous guys, which means phrases like that click with her a lot faster than they should. He's a little better spoken than Naruto's old flirting, but it's the same concept.

"Yes! I believe I should approach every engagement with honesty and my full foot forward!" The boy throws a fist into the air while giving her the brightest smile she's ever seen. It reminds her of some of Naruto's fake ones, which he's admitted to her were a thing - her bad for missing them - and which stick out in memory quite well.

"That's, I mean I appreciate it, really." She's flattered, truly, no one besides Naruto has ever said anything like that, and those were more annoying to her exhausted mind of ages past than invigorating like this is. If she hadn't dyed her hair recently, and therefore it completely missed the mark and sounded like it was directed at Ino, she'd probably be a flushy mess. It seems raising her charm has made her more vulnerable, which is odd, none of her other stats work like that. She definitely doesn't remember the period after raising her constitution where she suddenly got one-tapped by everything. Though, to be fair, if that had happened, she probably wouldn't remember it from all the blacking out she would have been doing. Her healing reset upon sleeping would have fixed the brain damage, she thinks. It gave her back her freaking eyes, so, it can probably work on her brain.

On the topic of flirting - specifically the current situation -, she's also pretty used to flattery from Ino so that's another reason she's able to stay standing at this boy's random knockout attack. It's not quite as effective as a defense, because Ino's flattery is different, but, well actually now that she knows better it's probably not. She hasn't given the girl's words credit up to this point. Friends compliment each other, that's normal, that's all she thought it was, and she was too blind to realize things were right in front of her face.

She feels nothing but embarrassment. Is that normal?
What do others feel when kind words are thrown their way? What is romance, is it supposed to feel nothing but awkward and imposing? What does this boy feel? His feelings clearly motivated him to speak to her like that. "But I'm already in a relationship of sorts." Sakura lies through practically chattering teeth. She's glad she lost that trait not too long ago, maybe he'll really believe her.

It's best to lie to him than to reject him, when he's clearly a nice boy with a heart on his sleeve. Besides, by his interactions with her, he clearly already likes Tenten. Why flirt with her in front of her?

Is he playing a game?

"Really?" It's not Lee that talks, it's Tenten, looking back at her with wide eyes. "I heard about that but I didn't think it was real! You're really dating the Yamanaka heiress?"

"Uh-erm, well, she kissed me in public, that's a dating thing to do." Sakura says with as much confidence as she can manage. She didn't intend for this to become a thing, she was just trying to be nice! "Right?"

"We have so much to talk about, I've never met a lesbian before!" Tenten appears to have gotten over her aversion to her, for at least a minute, and Lee's back to quietly blushing so, maybe this is a win? Neji looks annoyed but he can sit her sword for all she cares, the stick up his ass would likely form a new sheath for her instead of cutting him.

"Ah, me neither, erm, I mean until the other day, or I guess I knew one but didn't know uhhh, I'm a bad friend." Sakura beams with tomato cheeks and a little bit of a clumsiness to her step. What has she gotten herself into…

She hopes the boys are okay, Kakashi said the training was going to get even crazier with her gone…

"This is training ground forty-four." Kakashi says, introducing them to the massive gate in front of what is quite possibly the largest man made structure they've ever seen. The entire forest is intentional and manufactured instead of just having appeared over years. It all has that distinctive Konoha specialty vibe to it, and while he's sure Naruto's missed it, Sasuke clearly notices this place is unnatural right away. "It's otherwise known as the forest of death, and it's very good at killing genin."

"I'm pretty sure you stop getting paid if you kill us!" Naruto shouts, throwing a fist in Kakashi's direction.

"Don't be a baby." Sasuke scolds, both hands in his pockets, and a keen eye on their training ground. He spots an animal rushing around back there, something ferocious and hungry for his kunai. Sasuke is sure he'll do fine, and that's unacceptable in Kakashi's eyes.

"This will be your new home until Sakura gets back." Kakashi stresses with no small amount of dramatic flair to his demeanor. "Her mission should take her out of Konoha for a couple of weeks at the minimum, and knowing her and her ability to get into or cause trouble, I would be surprised if she's back this month."

"Wait, we're going to live here!?" Naruto points at the forest with a waving finger, shock and possibly awe written on his features for the cyclops. Kakashi can't tell exactly what he's feeling when it comes to Naruto, the boy is so used to hiding his emotions behind others that even when he's being genuine it can be difficult to figure out exactly what's going on. His face makes reflexive motions in ways he doesn't mean it to, and his indignation comes off like he's secretly happy about it.

He's possibly better at hiding his emotions than actually emotionless soldiers, Kakashi's met a few of them and he absolutely prefers trying to decipher their thoughts via their body language and subtle twitches than trying to figure out exactly what's going on with a boy who's own body doesn't display what he means accurately.

Something broke Naruto at some point, and his recovery isn't so much fixing the problem as it is making him forget about it. He wonders how Mebuki deals with it… He'll have to ask sometime. He hasn't checked in on that family since he learned that Mebuki heard about Wave.

No one wants to get yelled at by a pissed off mom, not even Kakashi.

At least he knows it could be worse, Sakura is probably completely lost at all times with the boy. "Yes, you'll be going through a cycle. You'll rely on each other to survive while trying to find hiding places from me. I'll give you an hour's head start, and then I will come find you. The consequence for being found is a beat down, followed by an hour to recover. You will then head out again, where I'll give you an hour headstart before I come and find you."

"That doesn't give us time to sleep." Sasuke says, "with how important a theme proper rest has been on this team, that feels sudden." The cocky boy tilts his head a little, taking Kakashi in anew, "is that whole thing just a show for Sakura?"

"No." Kakashi denies, "I would like you to get as much rest as you can whenever you can, because you won't always have the opportunity to get rest in the field. You never know when your next meal or wink of shut-eye is, so you find and force it. Consider matters like that a part of your training."

"How are we supposed to run from you and sleep?" Naruto growls.

"That's for me to know, and for you to figure out, my cute Genin." Kakashi's lone eye smiles at them in a way that sends shivers up and down their spines in rhythm. They're certainly not ready for it.

Chapter Text

Her first steps into the town of Chokuri aren't very impactful. It's a bit desolate and dirty, and she finds herself quite remarkably reminded of Wave. It's not any particular detail that brings the image to mind, and Wave looked much better when she left than when she got there so it's not like it's even a good comparison as of late, but the idea hits her quite firmly. "This place is screwed." She huffs, hoping internally that she's not going to end up in charge of this village too…

Oh fuck, please no. The very idea makes her shiver. She opens her Wave window to take a look and make sure her place is okay, and it is, it looks better than the last time she checked it actually. She can see there are Naruto clones running around doing odd jobs, which has her chuckle to herself, he seriously left some there?

Unfortunately for her, the rest of the team sorta missed the middle part of that interaction, so to them it's more like she announced the place is screwed and then chuckled ominously. This clicks with her a moment later, when she sees the three of them looking at her awkwardly and with no small amount of disgust. Okay, the disgust is mostly Tenten. "Out of context moment." Sakura tries to explain.

They clearly don't get what that means, so she decides to just move on. "We should do our best to ensure this place can recover, I'm prepared to begin the assault whenever you three are."

"No one needs to begin an assault." Tenten's nose wriggles, and her cheeks green a little, her eyes focused and intent on her, it looks like she's already lost some of that good will from earlier on the trip here. "We don't want a blood bath you fucking psycho."

"Well, I mean…" Sakura can't help but pout, before someone she really didn't expect to do so, comes to her defense.

"That's enough, Tenten." Neji growls at the girl, causing her to turn into an oddly meek looking fangirl with sparkly eyes as if a magic spell has been cast and suddenly everything is better.

"Sorry!" Tenten apologizes, but not to her. It seems there's a love line in this group. Lee likes Tenten, Tenten likes Neji, and Neji likes himself.

"We will hold off on that assault." Neji says to Sakura, ensuring she knows it's to her by catching her eyes with his own. "We need to see if we can discover and capture the leader first. If we can, we can likely avoid too much fighting at all. The more combat the more likely civilians suffer casualties, which I feel I shouldn't have to say, but those are frowned upon."

A part of her really wants to focus on why he felt the need to say that, even stating he shouldn't have to. Obviously she knows getting civilians killed is bad, she'd feel pretty guilty if nothing else, is Lee secretly a serial killer that needs reproach even when he's not a part of the conversation? It would explain the warning and clarification… "Ah, well, what if I end up in a fight with one due to no fault of my own?" Sakura asks.

"Kill them." Neji's words are fierce and forward, blunt and lacking in even the slightest form of delicacy. "I appreciate that you are more on board with the mission's reality than my teammates, but please refrain from provoking them. If it makes you feel any better, Tenten's not normally like this."

"Yeah, she's still shaken up from holding my sword." Sakura says, nodding at the boy and showing she understands. "I don't blame her, I just wish she'd be… nicer." Maybe a little less ridiculous, that would help a lot.

"You'll find very little, nice, on missions like this." Neji declares. "Come, we need to find our lodgings."

"Right." It's very clear that Lee and Tenten aren't super appreciative of being talked about like they aren't there, but they don't speak up. She can even see guilt on Tenten's face. She didn't mean to come across like that, Sakura can tell, so she decides to forgive her. She's just surprised that holding her sword messed with the girl that much, she's a ninja, she's killed people… Thirsty isn't even that proactive as far as intrusive thoughts goes, she's barely even noticed the difference now that she's looking for it. Then again, she hasn't put the sword down for well over a week, so maybe she would if she did a full factory reset. She has no intentions of doing that mid-mission though, maybe once she's back home.

The inn they approach isn't particularly well kept either. It's dusty and several of the chairs at the front are broken. That table is in half, and she's pretty sure there's blood stuck to the ceiling. How it even got up there she's not sure, maybe someone else has figured out a technique to send potent chakra filled blood across the room… No, that's ridiculous. There's a set of stairs off to the side which look like they might fall in half if someone steps up them too hard.

"Hello! Welcome to the Chokuri Main Road Inn." A woman behind a split counter greets them with a beaming smile. It's so bright it reminds Sakura of Naruto's smile but in a very different way to how Lee's reminds her of it. There's a moment of affection by association that floods her at that thought before the reminder of the nature of his smile flows back into her mind. The woman has incredibly long golden hair with red tips that are clearly unnatural. Her clothing is also a little loose for a business owner representing their business, even if she does stand tall and natural behind that counter.

"We need two rooms." Neji says, tossing a sack with a little money on the counter.

"Give me a second…" The woman has to ruffle around for them, but she soon provides him with two keys.

Neji holds them up for her, "you'll be sharing a room with me, while Tenten shares with Lee."

"Ah, um…" Sakura contemplates that, while Tenten looks overjoyed. Maybe their love isn't quite a secret unrequited thing? She doesn't understand this team. "Shouldn't it be girls and boys?"

"Tenten won't be able to sleep if you share a room." Neji explains, reminding her of a very awkward situation during their one and only camping session on the way here. Tenten stayed up watching the entire night and refused to take a turn to sleep. She's probably quite exhausted at the moment, Sakura knows that feeling.

"R-right…" Sakura sighs. She didn't do anything! Tenten seems perfectly reasonable and cordial at everything else, even her if it doesn't involve the sword.
Just how traumatized is she by the blade that rests comfortably at her side?

Lee told her about just how obsessed Tenten is with weapons like it, so why are they different from hers?

It doesn't matter, because she has something to do. "Sure, I'll meet you in the room in a bit, I want to get a drink."

"Right." Neji leaves to walk up the crooked steps to the side as soon as she says so, and the others are already sprinting up much faster than him the moment he moves. She's quickly left alone in the run-down ground floor that has no business being like this.
It's so obvious, how come they didn't notice?

"How much do I have to pay you to tell me what actually happened here?" Sakura asks, leaning against the bar.

"Whatever do you mean?" The innkeeper's voice is very sweet, high pitched, and faker than Naruto's female clone… Which probably isn't very fake anymore, now that she's read all her books. She'll need to get Naruto to make her again, she'd like to girl talk with someone who's not trying to not so secretly figure out if she's gonna eat her. Or someone trying to eat her, if she thinks about Ino… That's how lesbians work, right? She knows it involves a tongue.

"You needed to find the keys, you're pretending to smile, your voice reminds me of Haku's, and I'm pretty sure-" She doesn't get to finish her sentence before her skills kick in and her sword is drawn. She didn't intend to turn this into a fight, but she's got one as Genin Dexterity is activating whether she likes it or not.

She finds her sword hurtling towards an attack her eyes aren't fast enough to spot yet.

One thing she's learned while training is that Genin Dexterity will activate even if the check isn't academy student level, it just only works at academy level. This has resulted in a lot of wounds during training time where an attack she could have totally deflected caught her by surprise and her movements were so automatic she didn't think to accommodate them with her actual skill.

No such thing here, she's learned, the moment her sword is slashing out her second hand lands on the handle and she uses all the skill she has to cut through the attack. "Fuck-" She doesn't have to call upon her power to fuel her sword, enough of her blood sprays onto it from whatever just hit her regardless of her defense. Before she can even grasp what happened, she's got several dozen wounds and needs to jump back from another attack that flashes for her eyes. She blocks that attack mid jump by throwing her arm up and getting hit in her arm instead of her eyes.

Safe and secure with some distance between her and the motionless enemy, red eyes sharp and focused, she gets a good look at what she 'deflected' and realizes she didn't deflect a damn thing. The woman's hair attacked her, all she did was split some ends. A simple look down allows her to see just how many 'blades' are stuck in her body, all of them red-tipped with little golden strings attached to them.

"Okay, understood." They don't seem to be poisoned, and that's all that matters as Sakura lifts her now powered-up sword and readies herself to go on the offensive. The girl's just standing there behind the counter, smiling at her like she did nothing wrong. Her smile is so wickedly long and malicious, Sakura can't help but throw the earlier Haku comparison away, Haku's never looked at anyone like that in his entire damn life.

Well, Neji did say to kill them if someone attacked her.

Chapter Text

Sakura wipes some of the last exchange's consequences off her hands onto her sword. Her shirt's covered in power now, that's cool at least, she probably would have taken more injury from herself during the fight so it's almost like she didn't get sneak attacked at all! It especially helps that needles are the one thing her chainmail isn't great with, type advantage, not what she wanted here. "I'm going to take a guess and say you're not the innkeeper."

"Whatever do you mean?" The girl asks, head tilting to the side ever so slightly. A finger lands on her cheek, and she gives Sakura a thoughtful look. "You were very rude, maybe you should apologize?"

"Uh…" What in the actual hell? It doesn't matter, she has an opponent in her face and they need to go down before the trio come down here and get sneak attacked too. Well, no, they'd probably be pretty helpful all things considered. To call them or not to call them… The choice is made a moment later when the girl's hair raises into the air on its own, and starts shooting needles at her from across the room.

"You can only have so much of that." Sakura grunts out as she dodges to the side, darting over and lifting a table to use as a shield. It works, dozens of thunks landing against it, but it's unwieldy, what with having four legs, so she takes a moment to crouch behind it and start snapping the four legs off of it, then with a nod to herself she rams one of them through its center. "Cool, strong enough to do dumb anime stuff like that now." She appraises herself with pride and joy flowing through her in equal parts like she's not even in a fight. She jumps back to her feet, pulling it up by her new handle just in time to block another barrage of hair needles that barely push her back at all and fail to break her stance. They're not sharp enough or shot with enough force to get through the table either, leaving Sakura wondering what she's actually doing.

"If you're thinking of outlasting me, think again." The fake innkeeper says with a creepy laugh that sends chills up Sakura's spine. "I can regrow them."

"Not forever." Sakura denies, "chakra isn't infinite, and doesn't come back very fast either, and creating matter like that is rather intensive." Her own earth affinity has taught her much, creating a single race track like at the Academy took her out of commission twice, and that didn't even involve creating matter so much as changing it. "Unless you secretly ate a tailed beast, I think you're bluffing."

"Ate a, what?" Good, she's got the girl confused, that's just what she needs. Measuring the distance between the two of them Sakura needs exactly one second to cross it. Measured, planned, got it.

"They're rather chaotic, try eating wood instead, it's high in fiber!" She drops the table mid-air, and spins around, using her full force to hit the single leg she forced through it with the kind of kick she'd send at Naruto during an especially heated spar, that should send the entire thing towards-

"Gkkll-guaah-buuu-" She hears it before she sees it. The wet explosion, the splatter, the gargled breaths. The table hits the floor, not having moved at all, and she finds it's lacking its leg.

"Oh no." She looks up, assessing her opponents actions and annoyed at herself for letting her thoughts wander and her gaze lose the enemy. Kakashi would have a field day with her, but she's too preoccupied staring at the scene she's created. The girl's clothes, covered in life, the counter, a horrifying mess, the girl she'd been fighting? Pinned.

"Fuck." Okay ,so killing her had always been the intention, or maybe at least incapacitating her with a few missing parts so they could interrogate her before bringing her to a medic or something, but she hadn't intended to kill her that particular way, and somehow that changes things.

Watching the confusing girl struggle to pull a wooden pole out of her chest reminds Sakura of something she'd rather not need to be reminded of. The fact that she's suspended a few feet in the air makes it all the worse.

She can't look. "I'm sorry." She finds herself mumbling despite knowing damn well she's not.
Well she is but, not in the way that's worth saying. A pang of guilt flows through her stomach, and something in her stomach does flips and flops at every wet gulp and spatter she hears.

"I'm just gonna go upstairs." For the first time in years, she finds tears stain her eyes for something not drama related or very personal, and she has no idea why. This was just another enemy, she didn't even give them her name, why does she matter more than the demon twins or Gato?

"I'm really sorry." Is it the sword?
Is it not actually that easy to take a life, and it's just that she's used the sword for every encounter so doing it without a slash is so much harder?

No, it can't be that, was it the suddenness and unexpectedness of not intending it that way?

She'd always intended to cross the distance and slash her while she was distracted by the table, so it can't be the act itself. Whether the girl choking on her own life fluid over there would have died would have entirely depended on how well she could dodge, Sakura wasn't going to hold back the slash for mercy.

She'll ask Iruka back home maybe, unhelpful as he was before, he probably has tons of experience with this exact thing.

"So we leave you alone for ten seconds and you've already killed someone." Tenten scolds her, arms crossed and buns up in a fuss. The blacksmith shop worker slash ninja doesn't look very happy with her, but it's a different kind of unhappiness. It's not 'you psycho' and more like a jest.
Did Neji have a conversation with her instead of coming down to fight?

"Hey, she attacked me." Sakura sighs, looking at the sight. At least there wasn't a lot of property damage. Well, okay, there's a new hole in the wall. "I'm surprised you guys actually left me, she was kind of obvious. I kinda thought you'd take a few steps out of sight and wait."

"Yes, she was obvious." Neji states calmly. He's gotten real close to her, lifting the corpse by its hair and gazing into its dead eyes. "We were planning to investigate as soon as you came up, we were having a team meeting in our room. If you have a plan like wait until your allies are just out of sight and then start a confrontation, maybe communicate it directly instead of assuming a completely new team will predict your actions and mannerisms."

"Ah…" Sakura trails. That's a pretty accurate, reasonable, and harsh criticism actually. Neji comes off like a complete pompous ass but he's not dumb. She's smart, really smart, but she's not thinking about other people enough. She's forced her team to work with her by memorizing the kind of thing she'll do and predict her, but that's not how a healthy teamwork should go.

Inwardly, she wonders if half of her team being so brutal with her about death is because she isn't giving them enough insight into her plans and thoughts? Would they be less freaked if she had a conversation with them? Probably not, but she'll try it when she gets home. "I guess you can grab your money back," she jokes with a sheepish grin.

"I didn't give her money, I gave her Gai coin," Neji answers, "it's a whole thing."

"Gai sensei has the most valuable of currency minted in his honor! It's a collector's dream!" Lee shouts, unphased by the uh, destruction of a person half a dozen feet to his left.

"Uh-huh…" Sakura trails, "well, we should probably explore and figure out what even happened here."

"You killed someone with a table leg." Tenten answers helpfully.

"No I mean…" Sakura doesn't even finish her sentence, Tenten's smirky smile lets her know that's a joke. Why in the actual hell did offing someone make Tenten less afraid of her? No matter how much higher her charm gets, Sakura gets the feeling she'll never understand some women.

It turns out finding people takes exactly ten seconds when you have Neji around. He activates his Byakugan, and they're in the mead cellar moments later untying an older man and a woman in her early twenties. With Naruto and Sasuke this would have been a whole thing, but with this group it's in, out, and they're sitting down at the counter drinking booze on the house moments later.

Well, staring at it. "Is it really okay to drink this?" Sakura asks, "we're on duty, and I've never had it before."

"It would be rude to refuse," Neji says, "and it is one cup, if you can't handle one measly glass of alcohol then the Academy poison resistance training standards have fallen tremendously. I have already looked into it with the Byakugan to ensure it's not poisoned further, do not worry yourself over trife nonsense."

"Ah, that is true…" Hyuuga can just do that, they're crazy. Having eyes like that must make everything convenient, maybe one day she can get a trait that'll give her something like that. Technically they're bloodlines and those can't just be gained out of nowhere, but her game system doesn't try to pretend it's beholden to her world's rules so…

Besides, Neji's right. There was that whole year where one of their extra classes just kind of poisoned them every day. Not a lot, just enough to give them a good idea of what being poisoned feels like, and to raise their natural tolerances. It was normally during chakra training, so that their bodies could get used to manufacturing a chakra response to illicit substances.

And most ninjas do drink… "Alright, I guess."
The moment the liquid hits her lips, she vomits.

It's not even a little vomit, it's everywhere.

Chapter Text

It turns out that the innkeeper was quite knowledgeable about what was going on around here, and the moment Leaf ninjas arrived in the town the enemy kidnapped him and his daughter to stop them from being informed. That girl had been in charge of the job, and instead of seeking brutal efficiency she'd been rather nice to them and took a lot of extra time ensuring they were comfortable in their new confinement before she left. She'd even promised to come get them after the Leaf Ninjas were disposed of. This had meant she didn't leave before they got here.

This eventually led to a rather gruesome demise. Sakura had killed a good person. Or, no, she'd killed a less bad person. She's struggling to put her feelings into words, but it's not the death itself that's bothering her, she's figured that out.

If the innkeeper's info is to be believed, there are thirty different enemy ninjas in the village, at least, most of them Academy students who got flunked, a couple are even from Konoha, a solid group of the enemy are Genin, and the rest are all Chunin.

Which raises the question of what they do with them all. Konoha citizens being involved definitely complicates matters in a way she wasn't prepared for. It also explains the weakness of that girl, if she was a kind hearted genin missing nin, she likely wasn't very strong and just came off intimidating due to her hair ability. Where that came from, Sakura's not sure, it was probably a Kekei Genkai. Some people use theirs for everything, and never learn anything else. So when their ability is countered by a freaking table, they panic and use it more instead of thinking.

Looking at the info, Sakura can only come to one main conclusion. "We should probably go full out violence." She gulps at the looks she gets from half her new team, Neji is so stoic at all times it's kind of unnerving, she can't but think he's judging her too. "Look, I get why we'd want to avoid hurting them too much, but they're going to be executed if we bring them into Konoha proper anyway. The rules are pretty clear about missing ninjas."

"That's the phrase that makes it more complicated," Neji explains, "they're not all missing ninja. Academy students are never sworn in, and they're allowed to leave at any time. The students are just bandits."

"Which Konoha also executes," Sakura reminds him, "and transporting them all back would be impossible. I'm open to non-lethal suggestions, I'm just not seeing them."

"Lee is very strong, after we capture them all we could have someone run back to Konoha and rent a carriage, they bring it here and Lee brings it back like a horse." Tenten suggests.

"And then Konoha executes them, we've lost the money on the rental, and someone's back hurts." Sakura says, "we don't avoid death that way, we just prolong our suffering."

"Yeah but…" Tenten sighs, palming her knees and taking a deep breath. "Do you really want to have thirty-some-odd deaths on your conscience? You looked really ill earlier over one girl."

"I dunno." Sakura admits, frowning a little, nibbling her bottom lip. She would have said she wouldn't care just earlier today but watching that girl die like that… Is she developing empathy for the enemy? Why? Is it the charm? Does a higher charm mean a higher sense of connection to other people? She just assumed it meant she understood people better.

Actually, those might be the same thing. "But they'll be dead anyway, and one of us could get hurt if we try to take them lightly." Sakura finishes her answer after a long moment. "I would feel much more guilty over letting you get hurt, than them."

"As the least senior genin here, you're far more likely to be hurt than me." Tenten points out.

"Yeah, but I don't care about that." Sakura waves her off like that statement just didn't compute with her. Most of her wounds from the needles had been surface level, so she barely had to patch herself up at all, so them being missing in the morning shouldn't cause too many questions.

"We kill the genin and the chunin," Neji asserts, "we capture the academy students. We'll figure out what to do with them after, but it's not our job to determine whether their individual crimes make them bandits or misguided fools. You make a good point about it being dangerous to take them lightly, but that's not true with the academy students, they're weak, and we should be able to tie them together and make them walk back with us without much danger."

"I will take responsibility for guarding them." Lee finally cuts in out of nowhere. The boy is so quiet during tactical discussions, it's only when his enthusiasm is helpful that he appears, and it's probably the biggest thing that distances him from Naruto. It's a maturity that she didn't expect on first meeting him. She should get the two of them together, they'd probably learn and improve a lot from their friendship.

Despite Neji being the leader, Tenten and Lee both have their gaze on her, pleading and wide eyed. "I am not going to argue against killing," Sakura huffs with no small amount of furious indignance, "I would like to not kill them. I just don't want anyone getting hurt."

"I will ensure nothing happens!" Lee shouts.

"Though, in a crazy hypothetical, where it's kill one of the students or let a civilian die…" Sakura trails.

"They die." Neji says with no small amount of coolness to his tone, like talking about the weather. "It is not our job to determine the fate of criminal civilians unless otherwise specified in the mission terms, which it is not. It is our job to ensure the civilians in this village are able to continue paying taxes after we are done. Collateral damage is strictly prohibited, do what you must to protect village assets."

"Ah, well, hopefully, it won't come up. I just really needed to know." Sakura lets out a long breath she didn't realize she was holding in. "That's the kind of thing my team would likely get mad at me for."

"Your team are rookie genin, death is necessary, bloodlust is not." Neji speaks.

Tenten nods.

And Lee looks away, but it's clear he understands. "I'll do my best." Sakura slaps a palm in her lap, giving them a big smile.

"Your best resulted in vomit being added to the mess our hosts have to clean up downstairs." Tenten teases her.

"I didn't know it'd be that bitter!" Sakura defends herself.

"It's alcohol!" Tenten laughs.

"I've never had it!" Sakura can't help but feel the conversation flow out of control. She finds them getting into a cycle of laughter and banter that keeps going for a lot longer than she expected. She didn't expect killing someone and then vomiting all over the bar to be the icebreaker she needed with this team, but if it works, it works.

The night's plan was to get some rest while Neji took watch for half the night, and Lee the other half. It felt weird to Sakura to split the watch up, but Neji said he had training in his clan to work on much less sleep, and Lee only ever needed four hours, he just had too much energy to contain.

Sakura pointed out that she only needs about five hours, but she was told Lee had it and unfortunately as the new team member they wouldn't trust her to keep watch without reserves anyway. It might be necessary on a mission in the field, but out here in a small village they're fine using their normal methods., So here she is at like three AM, wandering around outside the Inn scoping out the basic area.

There's a general store, a massive building that's likely a town hall for administration, dozens of small alleys built into the structure plans specifically so ninjas could navigate in secret despite the fact that the place wasn't big enough to need stuff like that.

There's so much here, it's desolate but it also has a strange type of beauty she's not used to taking in. Konoha and Wave were different. One was a half dead shipping village, and one's a fully structured ninja institution where every decision is made with exacting reason and nothing is left up to chance.

To see a normal place without so much thought, structure, and design, it's honestly relieving. The odds she screws up Wave are a lot lower if someplace just haphazardly put together with a few guidelines can survive.

Nevermind that it's been taken over by missing ninja, that could happen to pretty much anyone except an actual ninja village. It's something she'll have to prepare to defend Wave against eventually. Wave is actually further from Konoha than this village, so odds are it has to deal with something like this eventually if she just leaves it.

Technically it already has, that's what they saved it from. Is Sakura just a liberation force now?

For once she doesn't find trouble, which is nice, but it does set her nerves on edge.

This place is about to become an active warzone, she can feel it, tomorrow they will be brawling in the streets. Will this mission be only a few days, or will they be at this for a while? Kakashi seemed to think this mission would be pretty long, but they could probably finish it tomorrow and start heading back if they went in as brutally as possible.

They won't, but if they did…
There's always the chance they get reinforcements, but given they sent only one girl to deal with the Inn, it's unlikely they're that organized.

Looking at all the buildings, it occurs to her that avoiding collateral damage may be impossible despite it being prohibited, so she takes care to create a mental image of how it looks now. It's mostly bad, dirty, damaged, but people worked hard to create these buildings and this road and knowing they might destroy some of it tomorrow feels oddly cruel.

This place should be respected to the best of their ability.
Maybe it's running her own place now that has her respecting other people's stuff, or maybe it's that lecture from her parents about treating their home like her own.

A lot swirls through her head, and once again, she can't help but wonder how Naruto and Sasuke are doing.

Chapter Text

"Sasuke, take front!" Naruto shouts as a dozen clones jump on the monstrosity trying to eat their brains, or body, or whatever it is giant snakes eat. It's huge, huge might be an understatement, Naruto's never seen something living that's so big and he's pretty sure it's not going to be the biggest thing he meets in this forest. Boss fights don't normally act as the opener.

Its scales alone are bigger than his head, and it's got thousands of them layering up and down its body in all directions. They're cerulean, they remind him a lot of Sakura's eyes back before she got possessed by a demon sword and now walks the mortal coil looking for souls to devour.

"I can't take front, I die when I die!" Sasuke shouts back at him, jumping over the snake's tail as it lashes out at him.

"My clones aren't infinite, Sasuke!" Naruto shouts back, "they die when they die too!"

"Your clones are too infinite!" A kunai bounces off the monster, so he takes a move from Sakura's book and charges it with fire chakra before stabbing into it again. It'll damage his poor kunai, but he's got thousands at home sitting in a box, he can lose a couple to the Forest of Death, as he's sure this won't be the last time he does this.

"Got it!" Sasuke shouts as the creature lunges towards Naruto. He has to hold on tight to the blade, because the air pressure against him alone from such a powerful movement sends him back and down its body. Luckily the knife that's embedded in it is red hot and steaming, so it cuts through the scale and flows down its body with him. His grip is firm and unfettered by the heat, protecting his hands with fire chakra is as easy as breathing for him, it's not his fault it was so difficult for Sakura.

With an open hole in the beast, he sets his feet down firmly, and uses the tree walking technique they learned back in Wave to power up his grip. He's happy to see it works, as he's learned during training it's hard to use on skin, but something as hard as these scales make it a cinch.
"Ready!" He shouts at Naruto, before with a quick set of hand seals, he's pouring fire into its open wound, focusing all his efforts on cooking the thing alive inside.

It thrashes hard, testing his grip with all its might, before as suddenly as it began it stops. He feels it drop into the dirt, and the shockwaves flow up his legs, making it harder to hold on. "Jeez." He looks up from the creature to watch Naruto's pop from flames shooting out the beast's mouth, and the original Naruto wiping sweat from his forehead. He did warn him, not his fault.

"Alright." Sasuke grunts, before depositing a kunai in his pouch, and pulling out a stone, a stick, and a little bit of grass to tie it all together. He starts cutting, slowly, and deliberately, working around the scales sucks.

"Why not use a Kunai?" Naruto groans as his steps take him to Sasuke's side, watching the jagged cuts, as well as the sprays of gore the poorly crafted knife is unnecessarily causing.

"Kakashi's trying to teach us how to live off the forest, if we use Kunai to butcher our meat, he'll probably show up and torture us as a lesson."

"He's already going to show up and torture us." Naruto says, "I think he broke my arm last time…"

"Your fault for healing so fast he can go all out with you," Sasuke says, knowing damn well Kakashi's hitting Naruto harder than him. It's obvious that the man is holding back with him. When Kakashi hits him there aren't shockwaves, when Kakashi hits Naruto, there are. "It's pretty clear he's not trying to find us very hard, or we would never last more than the hour he gives us," Sasuke says after a second. "He's probably watching us right now, waiting for us to fail some criteria of hiding that he can use as an excuse to come down and lecture us."

"You think he's that clever?" Naruto asks, "I mean, he's not-ommfff!"

"Hi, Kakashi." Sasuke grunts, working through a bit of muscle with both arms forcing it. He barely takes note of Naruto flailing in the man's arms, a hand over his mouth, the other focused on choking the life out of him with an arm crushing his windpipe. "Could I at least finish cutting this up?"

"Nope, consider that a part of your recovery hour." Kakashi asserts.

"This is ridiculous." Naruto groans, jumping from branch to branch while looking down at all the massive monsters below and trying to figure out quite how much of a fight they'd put up. "We weren't that bad to Sakura, were we?"

"No, we weren't," Sasuke agrees with him, secretly doing the same thing Naruto is, "but we weren't very nice either. Girls care about that."

"This seems excessive for not being nice." Naruto points out with a wrinkle of his nose and a growl at his features. "It's gotta be more than that, since when has Kakashi cared about being nice?"

"It is more," Sasuke agrees, "we're making her hesitate, that's bad for the team."

"She's the one whose first instinct is to stab people." Naruto's face contorts into quite a green one. "I didn't see that coming back when I liked her."

"You don't anymore?" Sasuke asks.

"Well, um, not in the same way. It's different now." Naruto admits, frowning at the lack of a good answer. How does he feel? Why is it different? Is it just the violence? It can't be, she was violent back then! Worse, the violence back then was directed at him!

"I think, whatever Kakashi is trying to say, is something we're supposed to learn here," Sasuke says, "he's crazy but he's also lazy. This is a lot of work for him. He's not just getting his rocks off."

"What does that even mean?" Naruto asks, only to see the raven-haired boy shrug.

"We should probably get some rest." Sasuke asserts after a moment, coming to a stop on a tall branch high in the air.

"You're tired?" Naruto asks.

"No, but I will be in twelve hours when Kakashi won't let us sleep," Sasuke says, "let's use the time. Make some clones."

"How do you think Sakura's doing?" Naruto's question lingers in the air for a long moment, almost acidic and insidious. The kinds of thoughts such a question brings aren't suited for darting through a forest like this, and yet they don't go away after they're spoken. They can't leave, the thought of Sakura and her likely predicaments roam rent-free in their heads.

"Poorly." Sasuke mumbles, before they both bristle at the sound of Naruto's laughter escaping unbidden. "Be quiet."

"Sorry, sorry, it's just, I'm more worried about her teammates than her." Naruto laughs to himself. "They're going to panic so hard the first time she gets hurt!"

"I do worry about that," Sasuke admits, visibly uncomfortable. It's clear to anyone who could see that he's not used to feeling compassion yet, not of that kind anyway. "For both of them. What if someone who doesn't know tries to put her out of her misery after something happens?"

That thought sours both their moods in an instant, before Naruto breaks the ice again, "I'm sure they'll mostly just be super freaked out and go through a bunch of medical supplies and effort only to be mad in the morning."

"Probably." Sasuke agrees coolly, taking a deep breath-

"Grruaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!" Before the sound of a roar breaks through the depressing air, and catches both of their attention.

Naruto dives to the side just in time to avoid a massive bear that jumps from the trees. It's colossal and breaks the tension created as easily as it breathes, which might be slightly hard given how huge its lungs probably are. "I guess it's time to fight," Sasuke says out of nowhere, already readying hand seals.

"Are you crazy? We can't fight this thing!" Naruto shouts, summoning a dozen clones out of thin air on a hair's breadth of time.

"We fought a vampire." Sasuke argues, already moving to shoot a fireball the likes of which this bear's never seen. "I don't see the issue." With a deep breath-
He exhales and bathes this part of the artificial forest in flame.

"That was loud." Kakashi scolds them over their still bodies. Their groans give him the info that they're still alive, which is all that matters to him. "You couldn't kill it any quieter?"

"It started the fight at top volume!" Naruto shouts from his place under Kakashi's foot.

"Then you should have killed it before it did that." Kakashi points out, kicking him again, lighter this time though. Just a bit lighter… "You allowed a giant bear to sneak up on you because you were too preoccupied with your conversation. If it had been a ninja of even Sakura's calibur you'd both be dead."

"What about Sasuke's?" Naruto asks.

"You might be tied up, and then Sakura would have to save you," The cyclops teases, "you couldn't even beat yourselves as preoccupied with your concerns as you are. The entire point of this training is to put a stop to that. You will not be a burden on this team by the time she gets back, whether that's because I killed you and you're not on the team anymore, or because you learned, is yet to be seen."

"We messed up," Sasuke admits, "don't be so dramatic."

Kakashi has very little to say to that, simply observing the two boys trying to crawl to safety.

"Well, you have an hour to recover, during that time I'll watch over you. Then you have an hour to get hiding again and rest if you can manage it. I'll be right here waiting." He says before disappearing into thin air.

"The bear yelled, not me…" Naruto groans from his place on the ground.

"Shut up dumbass, that's half of the problem." Sasuke mumbles into the dirt.

"Do you think we survive?" Naruto asks, "he seems serious about all this."

"I think he sends a convenient medical ninja our way every few days that happens to be passing through," Sasuke answers, taking a deep breath, "and the rest is on us."

"Mnn… that sounds like him. I bet we're supposed to take notes and the ninja stops showing up halfway through." Naruto groans.

"Mnn…"

Chapter Text

The birds are tweeting, the sky is bright, and the smell of a rural village just coming to life hits Sakura as she sits around downstairs. The innkeeper has given her a bowl of stew to chew her morning over with, so she doesn't have a lot to complain about as far as breakfast goes. She had worried that without Haku she might forget to eat, but they're making damn well sure here by shoving food in her face whenever they can. There's a tankard of mead to her side, but she won't be touching that. The alcohol can go to someone else, anyone else, once they get down here.

Looking towards the door, she can admire how it's half off its hinges but still manages to function just fine. The craftsmanship is magnificent, she would like that kind of thing in her village, should Wave ever get off the ground and become a bustling trade hub. It's unlikely anyone but them will be using this establishment anytime soon, and they're getting their stay and food for free for saving their lives, so, this place is probably not long for this world business-wise.

Maybe she'll tip them off that Wave needs a new innkeep? There wasn't one there when she was last there, and a quick check of her system tells her that they are in fact missing an inn. She'll wait until they're about to leave to mention it, when the others aren't watching. The least she wants is to be accused of treason for stealing someone from a Konoha village. Wave, technically doesn't count as one, even if she's a Konoha ninja and it's hers.

But if they're already going to go out of business, what's the harm?

Tenten sits beside her quite suddenly, spooking her from her thoughts, and Neji steals her mead without so much as a word. It seems he doesn't want her drinking any more than she wants to drink. That does of course mean he's also drinking his tankard a few moments later when his meal and mead are delivered for the morning. If she didn't know any better, she'd say that the way he's drinking it without a thought implies he might have a drinking problem.

Probably not, there isn't exactly a lot here, but to start the day with two tankards without a word? When on a mission? When leading the mission? Perhaps dealing with Lee and Gai's energy has taken more of a toll on the boy than he's willing to admit. Or, maybe the Hyuuga clan just drinks and her standards are off because she'd only ever had her first sip yesterday and she doesn't plan to have another anytime soon.

"So what are we doing today?" she asks him, "team leader sir?"

"Shop," Neji says simply, looking into his drink with a thoughtful look on his stoic features, "they're likely to ambush us. If we're lucky, we can finish this today by luring them all out."

"If we're not?" Sakura asks.

"This might take weeks. Once they're properly spooked, routing out the individuals is going to take forever, and if we leave they'll just get back to ruining the village the moment we're gone. So, slow investigation and damage control is our job, if we can't finish it today." He sighs to himself, clearly not liking his own answer.

She's actually kind of okay with that. A longer mission means a higher payment, since the village pays by the day on missions like this, with a big bonus for completing the mission. It's an incentive to take your time and be careful and not damage the reputation of Konoha, but since you aren't actually paid until the mission is complete, you still do in fact want to finish it.

Thing is, she's still collecting her stipend, and she still needs to save the money to get herself better gear when she's back home, and even beyond that she'd like to get Haku a better setup, so, any money is good money.

The enemy clearly knows who they are, and what they are, so why go investigating when they seem very eager to make themselves known? Neji's got a good point, and Sakura can't help but relate to it. Attacking her at the inn was a clear indication that they aren't well trained, a better ninja would have disappeared after disarming her suspicions. Or they at least would have tried. That girl just pretended everything was fine before stabbing her. She's happy no one questioned her wounds being missing this morning, ninja have tons of different techniques so, maybe they didn't notice or maybe they didn't care enough to interrogate an ally.

Whatever the case, Lee and Neji are out in one group while she and Tenten are going about in another. Yesterday Neji seemed sympathetic to Tenten's aversion to her but he decided to brook no argument today, so, here they are at a general store looking through all the goods. It's packed to the brim, which is a huge relief for her. Up to this point, she's been comparing it to Wave, but Wave's general store had some dying veggies, a rifle behind the counter, and not much else going for it except an older man with nothing to do with himself except pretending to run a store.

Here, there's an older lady that greeted them politely and told them to take all the time they need. "You think there's anything we need?" Sakura asks, prodding a clay pot with one hand while weighing a water canteen with the other. It's hefty, it might be nice to have a second container specifically designated for water jutsu.

"No." Tenten denies her firmly. "If we needed something we would have packed it."

"He said to shop, not window surf," Sakura points out, "they might know something's up if we don't buy anything."

"They're going to know something's up either way, we're not particularly good at this subterfuge stuff." Tenten refutes.

"You're not particularly good at it, I pretended to be in love with a boy I didn't like for seven years." She drops on her with a deadpan, "I ran a fan club, there's an entire gaggle of fangirls lusting after my femboy roommate because I cultivated their desires so well they couldn't let go when I disbanded the club. I think I can fool a few invaders into thinking I'm blissfully unaware of what's happening around me."

"... Wow," Tenten blinks, looking at her anew. It's nice to feel a little respected, even if she had to lay it out like that to get it. "You planned that?"

"Wha-no, I just, it worked out." Heat hits her cheek, "fine, I'm gonna buy this canteen and then let's hit up the tool store across the street, I bet it's got some nice stuff."

The tool shop has a narrow opening that leads down a long hallway. There are various mannequins made of straw down the hall, which makes it even harder to walk side by side, and the tools they're all 'holding' fill in the space further until Sakura is, in fact, walking in front of Tenten instead of beside Tenten. It does mean she doesn't get to observe the pitchfork very well as she passes it, but that's fine she wasn't going to buy a pitchfork.

Maybe she should get a shipment from this shop for Wave once she gets paid. Being the savior of this town will likely afford her a discount, and Wave is lacking proper tools. So far she's had some craftsmen making some and had a few loggers working on some other stuff to get the proper poles and such but these look astounding. Into the shop proper, there's a lot more space, but she can't help but look at that deathtrap they called a walk-in with a held breath.

"Ooh, you're interested in the hand scythe?" A portly man asks as she stops to look at a set, scurrying over to her like he belongs there at her side. "It's crafted with local woods, so the timber was properly treated while it was fresh, resulting in-" he regales her for a bit, letting her sink in the useful info she might need later on, while the back of her mind puts together what those sounds outside are. Her senses aren't super heightened yet, she needs to work on a few techniques to boost them, that's her bad, it'll be something for when she gets home, and needs to figure out what to force Kakashi to train her. But she still has a high mind, and her perception is still perfectly adequate. She can hear footsteps approaching the shop, and with that entryway-

-she picks up the merchant by the waist, and jumps, flying right over the counter he has and dropping him on his knees behind it. With a flourish of her hands, she has her crossbow readied, and she aims right over the counter, towards the door at the end of that long, needless hallway…

When the door slams open, dozens of kunai come flying their way. She fires a flame-tipped bolt to intercept and smirks evilly when she watches her bolt tip smash into one of the kunai and explode. The remaining projectiles are sent in every which way but at them, and the entirely too close-together room is bathed in flames.

"My shop!" The man shouts, "my mannequins!"

"Sakura what the fuck." Tenten growls at her from her side, and all it takes is one look to see that the bun-haired girl also took cover behind the counter, and is currently laying out a scroll. "This shop is made of wood."

"Exactly, they won't charge through that door now." Sakura rolls her eyes at her doubter, "And it's magic fire, it doesn't burn wood it burns on top of wood, the shop'll be fine."

"You're making that up," Tenten says, laying out a third scroll, then a fourth. At first, Sakura thought she was doing something special but now it's clear she's looking for a specific scroll. This girl isn't very prepared, too much weapon variety maybe?

"Only kinda," Sakura says, looking over, and ducking when another row of kunai flies by her head. "It's not spreading, see? Just blocking the way, and I figured as a ranged specialist you'd be at a huge advantage this way."

"Holy shit, you're right, huh." Tenten nods, after a long moment to observe the fire not spreading, just, lingering there in the hallway blocking off the enemy. "Well, I guess I did already know those bolts were special."

"It's time to put those Leaf Ninjas in their place!" They hear shouts from outside, and Tenten's eyes practically glow in excitement. Sakura can tell before Tenten is even finished pulling something out of her fifth scroll that the weapons girl, really, wanted them to say that.

"Nah, kids," she lifts the device she pulled from it up into the air, a solid hunk of metal with a cool grip and a metal cylinder on top she pulls back with her free hand. It makes a decisive click, "it's Glock-o-clock, get it right."

"I'm sorry, what?" Sakura has just enough time to ask before things get really loud.

Chapter Text

"Cover your ears." Tenten orders, and Sakura for her credit does exactly as she's told.

She doesn't even look at Tenten as the girl sticks her head up over the counter and takes aim.
She sticks her fingers in her ears, and says a silent prayer to the Kami that this isn't going to mess with her too badly.

Bang-
Bang-
Bang-
Bang-
Bang-

It just keeps going, how big is that weapon's magazine? She doesn't check, she doesn't look, she just knows that her ears hurt. Even with them covered, her enhanced senses as a ninja almost make her pass out.

"Why do you have a gun?" She says it the moment the shooting seems to be done, but she doesn't hear herself say it, and has to look up at Tenten to read her lips for her response. She's not sure when the older girl got earmuffs on, but she did, and that's probably for the best.

"I'm a ranged specialist." Tenten explains, coming down so her head isn't in the firing zone and it's easier for Sakura to read her lips. "Guns aren't great for the field where ninja have full mobility, but they're amazing for situations like this, why wouldn't I have one?"

"But-" Sakura doesn't bother to finish her own statement, Tenten's right. She looks at her crossbow with a bit of shame. They both operate under the same concept, not getting stronger based on the user but being very good for low level enemies. Why is she carrying around a crossbow instead of a pistol or something, fire bolts be damned.

Maybe she'll see if Higurashi's can get her one when she gets back, just for situations like this...

"Look, do you scoff at weapons because they're a little unorthodox, or do you take them just in case they're useful? I love kunai, but we're in a closed shop and they're down a narrow passage towards the exit. Guns shoot straight, that's what they do." Tenten continues, clearly not noticing Sakura got her point already.

"Ah…" Sakura gulps, nodding to herself in a show of understanding. "Are we sure they weren't the academy students?"

"Nope. But I'm sure we can check after we investigate. Body shots don't normally kill those with ninja training that easily." Tenten shrugs.

"And if they did?" Sakura asks.

"Well, they were throwing attacks into this guy's shop…" Tenten ponders, "Neji might be mad, we executed the wrong targets, but I'm okay with this."

"Me too." Sakura agrees, before getting up to go check on the enemy.

It turns out there were four of them, and they are badly injured.

She can see Tenten is expecting a lecture, but Sakura doesn't have anything like that in her. She inwardly wonders why she'd think she'd get yelled at for taking down the enemy? Even her team doesn't yell at her.

"We should patch them up," Sakura says, dropping by one of the four downed boys and searching in her pack for medical supplies while he groans.

"Right!" The girl with the gun cries out, getting right to work beside her.
It's a lot of work, but she's sure this will help her to know in the future, so Sakura doesn't complain, she just treats the wounds in the best she can with the sub-part medical supplies she could afford after wasting so much of her money. She'll need to add that to her list of stuff to get better quality supplies for. It seems medical is where you want the good stuff, or it becomes far more of a pain in the ass than she expected.

As she finishes treating the second, and finds Tenten's right behind her with her second, Sakura can't help but smile at a pop-up that arrives.

[You have earned the First Aid Skill:

You now have hands-on experience with first aid and treating wounds. Healing items applied by you are 10% more effective, you will never forget how to use a healing item after you first learn, and healing items are more likely to show up in loot.]

That's nice, too bad she didn't have that back in Wave. She might have been able to treat her eyes a little instead of going blind, maybe she'd have a potion or something.

It says healing items, so it probably counts magical ones. She hopes magical healing items exist, that'd be very convenient.

"They're academy students." Sakura says, after a bit, "there's nothing on them that indicates the preparedness of a real Genin."

"It's too early to be taking captures, Neji wants the academy students later." Tenten points out, "what if they're just bad Genin?"

"You want to kill them?" Sakura asks, already drawing her weapon from its sheath.

"No I just… right, let's rope 'em up and bring them to him, see what he thinks." She doesn't look happy about that decision.

Sakura can already tell something bad is about to happen by the nervousness in the way Tenten ties them up to chairs for Neji. Her hands are skittish, and awkwardly fumbly for a dexterous girl like her. Sakura lines them up in a proper row so that when he comes back from his part he can see them easily.

She's not disappointed, bad things do happen.

From the moment Neji enters the room she can see the frown on his features is one of unbridled rage. He's a stoic boy, the kind that rarely shows his emotions in a way that's readable for someone with low charm like her, but the mood chart helpfully expresses the murderous chart image for her right beside his head.

"Tenten, you understand we still have weeks on this mission, correct?" Neji scolds, looking at them and the gags Sakura tied up on their mouths to prevent needless annoyances. They just wouldn't stop whining about how Tenten shot them.

"Yes." Tenten looks a little ill, guilt showing in her eyes, shame too. Neji probably isn't a very good teammate. She couldn't imagine feeling that guilty even if Kakashi called her out on something.

"And we do not have the supplies to take care of four extra people," Neji asserts, "you are aware of that."

"But you said not to kill them…" Tenten pouts, looking anywhere but him, she rubs her arm nervously, and Sakura can't help but relate her to an abused girlfriend in a video game. It's odd because Neji doesn't look like the type… She decides to keep her mouth shut and observe, maybe she can learn something about profiling.

"I said they weren't a threat, there was no harm in letting them regroup and capturing them later when they would be less of a burden. Now they know where we are." He points out, practically shaking despite standing so very still, it's an odd oxymoron that has Sakura's keen eyes focused. She's happy her hearing is back, otherwise she'd be missing the practical hissing under his breath, which provides a lot of needed context here.

"They probably already did know where we are." Tenten defends herself. The look on her face makes it very clear she didn't intend to say that, because now she looks scared. Should she get involved? She feels a little rage at seeing him treat Tenten like this boil inside of her. She agrees with him but Tenten's right, he did ban killing the students. If Sakura had her way, this conversation wouldn't even be happening.

"Probably is not a guarantee." Neji makes a hand sign, and just as suddenly as he made it, his veins protrude around his eyes. It's possibly the most visible Doujutsu ever. Sasuke's eyes turn red, but Neji's do a whole circus act. His eyes gain definition in a way they didn't before, and Sakura knows something is about to happen.

"Wait, Neji!" Tenten moves to stop him, and freezes in place mid-shuffle when his glare turns towards her. The Byakugan allows you to see a full range around you, which means that glare was very intentional, and had nothing to do with focusing on Tenten, which is something Sakura grasps immediately thanks more to mind than charm. She's grateful the two overlap sometimes or she'd be even more of a lost wreck in life.

It's then that he does something which matters very little to her, but changes the world for Tenten. He walks down the line of prisoners, and gently pokes their foreheads one at a time while maintaining a false eye contact with the weapons girl.

Sakura watches Tenten's expression waver and crack. She ignores the dying boys entirely, they don't matter, but Tenten does. She whimpers, as they die, she begs for him to have mercy. They can keep one, maybe two, surely it wouldn't be that big a deal.

The second dies with an odd gurgle, Tenten's eyes fill with tears-

He kills a third despite her clear and obvious pain, and that's all Sakura can take.

She sees flame, a whispered madness takes over her vision as quickly as her rage ignites deep inside. Before Sakura even knows what she's doing, Neji's dodging to the side and her sword is where his head just was.

"What are you-" He shouts at her-

She doesn't hesitate to move in while he talks, forcing the elite boy to jump back and fall into a combat stance. She doesn't know what she's doing either, if she's perfectly honest, moderate treason maybe?

What matters is Kakashi's words, that she shouldn't hesitate or she'd die. Her sword goes through one of the dead, and it flares to life from its place inside them within a second. Neji's focus on her is clear, and she can tell he's surprised. "Can't you tell how much you're hurting her?" Sakura's voice comes out more trembling than angry, and even she has to double take at that.

"You're hurting a teammate intentionally to make a point, you're disgusting, the Leaf doesn't need ninja like you in charge." Sakura's voice echoes in on itself. She pulls her sword from the dead student strapped to a chair with a flick of her wrist, and notes the absence of a splash. Everything that needed to be pulled from him was, extracting a massive amount of power in such a short time, it all feeds her rage. "So I'm stopping you."

"Tenten was right about you, I'll put you in your place and let the Hokage decide what to do about this." He doesn't look bothered, his smirk seems satisfied, happy about this. It looks like he's been waiting for someone to try and stop him for some time, and that only makes her all the more eager to be the one to do it. Her second hand lands on the hilt, and she lets out a primal growl, before her feet take her across the room to him in an instant. He pushes a hand forward-
She slashes towards him-

The loudest clang she's ever heard rings in her ears before the vibrations hit her. It's so much so fast, she finds she's smashed her weapon directly into a brick wall that appeared out of nowhere.

Sparks fly, her power is sent out and is intercepted entirely, her momentum is halted and she's pushed back from the force of her own attack coming back towards her with equivalent energy. It's a law of physics she doesn't normally have to deal with because normally that part of the energy is bled off by the strike continuing through her opponent and her own controlled deceleration.

Here she finds she's sent back across the floor hard enough to burn it, boards are torn up beneath her feet and her whole body is wracked with untold agony that threatens to rip her apart. Her sword stabs into the floor just to give her something to hold onto as she falls to her knees.

Looking up, she finds Neji's in the same condition, sent backwards hard enough there's blood on his cheek and the floor is destroyed. He's still standing, better off than her, but still clearly worse for the engagement.

Standing between them, having taken the entire impact, is none other than the push-up master. Looking like a green hero, his short hair billowing, and looking none the worse for it but a little dirt caught on his clothes and the waver of his expression. "Enough." The boy says, but he doesn't need to, the both of them have already lost all sense of rage that filled them just a moment before. They're too shocked by what just happened, and in Sakura's case at least, happy about it. Killing an ally is probably frowned upon by Konoha law. Sakura's weapon is depowered, and as a show of faith in his teammate, Neji deactivates his Byakugan. The blood that her blade had held in it that was discharged is everywhere, splattering the walls, the dead, Neji, her, Tenten, Lee's the only one who looks untouched.

Standing in a field of consequence without a single blemish besides a little dirt, he looks like a hero in a strange land. She's never felt less like the protagonist before, he's clearly standing in front of her.

"Perhaps I went a bit far." Neji asserts, taking a breath to visibly calm himself.

"The Hokage will decide my punishment." Sakura says as calmly as she can manage herself, working herself to a shaky stand so she can sheath her sword. "I shouldn't have done that, and will understand if I'm to be removed from the mission."

"No," Neji says out of nowhere, shocking her attention back to him instead of the boy between them. "Lee would not have stepped in if your attack would not have seriously harmed me, because if he stepped in, it means Gai was about to step in but allowed him to instead to avoid getting in the way of the mission. I thought you were a nobody, but if you could harm me, then you are not here to learn how to fight from professionals, you are here to learn temperament."

"What's that have anything to do with this?" She growls at him, feeling her hand twitch, but knowing not to let it go anywhere near her weapon right now. She's in so much fucking trouble, holy crap. She's going to be on D ranks until she retires.

"It means that my duty here was to teach you how an adult conducts themselves, and I have failed. If you agree not to write about this in your report, I will do the same." His offer has her taking a step back, but it's nothing if not generous.
Aggressively generous.

"I agree, on the condition that you apologize to Tenten, and let me kill the final captive while she is not here to see it." It feels a little odd to negotiate when he is definitely doing her the favor, but, his nod is more than enough for him.

"This was too far, I am not handling command very well and I lashed out. I apologize, and will endeavor to learn from this." She watches the boy bow to Tenten, and that has her reeling more than anything.

She definitely misunderstood him, and she'll need to observe his character more from here on out. The him she's observed would have sent her home just now. Kakashi would probably approve of her actions, even if he'd put her in the dirt a bit before bringing her to the Hokage to make her beg for forgiveness. The fact that he'd be intentionally hurting her to prove a point doesn't escape her, but there's a difference here, she thinks. She's not sure what, but she's sure it's different.

Bottom line though, she needs to test just how much of her rage is her and how much is Thirsty, because holy shit, talk about a firing offense. Maybe she needs to talk to Sasuke's guy?
He's mentioned a guy.

Chapter Text

Sakura's head is still pounding from the adrenaline when they decide to go back out. Sharing reports was quick, and Tenten handled them so that Neji and Sakura didn't have to have a conversation so soon. She's sure it'll be fine, he doesn't seem like the type to hold that kind of grudge - weirdly enough - and he promised to look the other way. She's still quite embarrassed about flying off the handle like that, but with a calm mind, she can determine that it probably wasn't the sword that caused her to lose it, even if it didn't help.

Neji hit a button of hers she didn't know she had, she's been so much more vulnerable to other people's feelings since her charm started rising and she hasn't been put in a stressful situation where it mattered yet. Turns out she's empathetic all of a sudden, and that's difficult to deal with for a girl who didn't truly understand others even had feelings just a few months ago. Well, she did, analytically, but it's one thing to know something and another to understand something.

She understands now, and it hurts. She's just lucky it was Neji that set her off and not some poor rookie Genin Inuzuka training with his dog too hard or something.

"Thank you." Tenten's words cut through her thoughts, and drag her back to reality. Her tone is stiff, her body language false and only there in the hopes her dumb ass can't tell the difference. A few weeks ago she might have been fooled, as is, it's a pretty poor thank you, but as sheepish as Sakura feels at being lied to so blatantly she can't help but understand.

This is probably what lying badly looked like. Tenten wants her to understand she appreciates what happened but doesn't know how to communicate that with the understanding that she isn't actually grateful to her. Which makes sense, Sakura probably just made their team dynamic worse, not better. If she wants to make changes she needs to talk to Gai, not attack Neji with a sword in broad daylight.

There's also the part where she cut one of the dead in half, to get the power to punish Neji, for killing said corpse. There's no way Tenten viewed that as a positive. She looked like an axe murderer, and still feels a little like one too since she hasn't had time to get clean.

"Do you think we'll complete this quickly or long term?" Sakura asks.

"It's gonna be a while, Neji's hot-headed but he's too reserved at the same time to make use of his temper productively." Tenten explains. "It's better than him being mad all the time, but without leaning into it, there's no way we can complete this mission quickly."

"I noticed," Sakura admits, "he's clearly grappling with his own motivations. He wants it done, and wants them dead, but he's not willing to give an order like 'hunt them down and kill them all.'"

"I'm kind of happy about that," Tenten admits, "but, maybe that's dumb."

"I don't think it's dumb to be happy that your teammates are people you want to be paired with." Sakura says, "but I also think he needs to choose one. You can't be flippy flopping on something like that, you'll just make both sides angry with you and get little done except arguing. Murders or captures, doing both is just dumb, and I'm pretty sure no one that chooses captures without practical motive is ever getting to Jonin. Maybe Chunin…"

"You're one to talk about picking a path, you just went at him then apologized." Tenten points out.

"I'm twelve." It's her only defense.
She doesn't have many of them, but that's a good one she should use more often.

"Yeah, well…" Tenten's cheeks puff up a little at her reasoning. "I dunno about promotions, Gai doesn't go on killing sprees just because it's more practical, and he's a Jonin."

"Hmm…" She doubts that fact. He's probably just being less violent in front of them because it'd be very hard to train them if they were terrified. The man's goofy attitude has a practical purpose, but then, Kakashi's not killing people all over the place either and he doesn't care about scaring them even a little bit.

Is she wrong?

She needs to talk to Kakashi when they get home. He'll probably have a better answer for her than anything they'll come up with, even if he is a dick.

Their steps take them in circles around the village. It's not particularly large, and it's barren so there's no one to run into or bother. She would love for a brawl to break out in the streets any moment now so she could bleed off some of her anger at Neji and herself - literally - but as is it doesn't seem like the enemy is taking things lightly. There's caution in every breath, and Sakura is becoming very aware, very quickly, that they're not advancing this mission without going inside somewhere.

Which is why her feet take her to the town center. She doesn't plan to charge in, but maybe standing at the enemy hideout - it only makes sense to pick the biggest most important building - will draw some aggro and bring a few to them.

No such luck. She feels a little dumb standing here, waiting for nothing to happen and still being disappointed.

"What in the hell?" Tenten shouts, just as Sakura gets reading. She ignores her, this is more important.

[Dungeon: Rebel Base, Level 26

Party Level: 17

Warning: Your Party Level is being averaged to a party of 3, but you only have 2 members.

You will die if you enter this dungeon.]

She checks her own party contribution level, and finds she's hit level 23, which means Tenten - by quick math - is 28. Jeez, Tenten appears to be the weak one on the team, which means she started a fight earlier with someone who's like level 30, easily. She's lucky to be alive.

"What the, what are you doing? Why are you not reacting to this?" Tenten hisses. "What the hell?"

"Huh?" Sakura tilts her head at the girl, still doing calculations and pondering just how much work she needs to do to prepare for this dungeon if they decide to tackle it, when Tenten grabs her head by force, and shifts her view to look at the dungeon screen. "What?"

"Are you not seeing this?" Tenten asks, a tremble to her voice making it warble like she's got a little water in her lungs.

"Seeing what exactly?" She tries to look around it, maybe-wait, didn't Sasuke see the screen? "Oh, you can see it."

"Yes I can see the, is that supposed to be news?" Tenten hisses hard, the s sound travels, "Wait just a moment, you've seen this before?"

"Oh boy." Sakura sighs to herself, somewhat long and mournful. It seems like anyone she goes on a mission with might just be shown her game system. Dungeons are just visible. "This is a dungeon, it's a space outside of reality that contains our targets." She'll need to talk to Kakashi about this, maybe the Hokage, action needs to be taken before all of Konoha knows about her. Perhaps they should limit her partners, or only let her go without her team to very close places without much potential exploration?

It's dumb in hindsight, but she'd genuinely thought that Naruto and Sasuke could see the first dungeon's entrance because they were her teammates officially, and her power accepted how much she trusted them. Now she feels stupid, and Tenten knows.

[Quest Obtained: Clear the Rebel Base

Your party has noticed that no one but academy students are out and about, and determined that the brass of the problem are inside the rebel base dungeon.

It's your first time with a One-Shot Dungeon, so be prepared as they are very different. One-Shot Dungeons are self-contained adventures that are normally significantly longer, contain multiple parts, and are more brutal than normal dungeons. Expect to spend several days clearing it.

Of course, if you're too scared, starving them out over a few weeks will likely work too. Assuming no one's sneaking them goods, like a ninja.

Rebel Base Dungeon Cleared: 0/1

Reward: Mission Completion, +1000 Affection score with Neji Hyuuga, +1000 Affection score with Tenten Higurashi, +1000 Affection score with Lee Rock, Recommendation of Sakura Haruno for Chunin from Maito Gai during grading phase of next Chunin exam]

Those rewards are great. She's not completely sure what affection scores really do but she can say with certainty that she needs every point after the crap she pulled earlier. The more this team likes her, the less likely they are to make a big deal about it and put it in the mission report despite what they said.

She's not dumb enough to think Neji won't go back on his word in an instant if she screws up again. He might have been lying in the first place, her charm isn't high enough for her to trust her own instinct that says he won't. He probably just wanted to keep the peace while they are on an actual mission together and didn't want to lose her fighting strength by sending her home right away. But if she can make friends and mingle and make them very much like her, it's possible her actions only get to the Hokage in a private report - of which she's sure everyone will be honest with because lying to the Hokage is really stupid - which would mean that the Hokage would be the only one that knows. If the Hokage is the only one that knows, it means he can deal with it with his own discretion instead of having to worry about what kind of statement forgiving her or being lenient might bring about.

Next there's the mission's completion - which is amazing, obviously - and Gai's promotion recommendation. It's said you only need 3 Jonin recommendations - four if you count your sensei - to promote after the exams are finished, that'd be a third of the promotion before she's even entered the exams. Your own Jonin sensei's recommendation is required, assuming you have a Jonin sensei, but by even sending you to the exams they are recommending you and it's rare that they get rescinded so she can assume she'll already have his.

There's just one problem. Dungeons are rated for three people, there are four people on this team. What even happens if she tries to bring a fourth? And does she want Neji to know about her power? Does she want Lee to know? Does she even want Tenten to know?

"Outside reality? Like inside a sealing scroll?" Tenten asks, musing her from her thoughts in an instant.

"Yes, kind of exactly like that. We'll find our targets, loot, and a challenge inside. Think of it like a living structure trying to answer our mission on its own.

"That's… What the fuck." Tenten says.

"You pulled a Glock, I still think that's the most distressing thing here."

"It was Glock-o-Clock though."

Chapter Text

"Can I get you all to agree to go on an adventure with me without me explaining anything?" Sakura asks in the middle of nowhere, "I kind of need that faith right now." That's the start of her plan, making an outrageous request so her actual request that they keep questions out of her personal life and just on the mission seems a lot more reasonable. It's a sound plan in her mind, that being said, talking to the room is solidly awkward. Neji still looks pissed at her, even if he's hiding it well, the mood chart is clear enough she's not confused. Asking them for a favor is even more awkward knowing they're about to tell her to get-

"-Yes." Neji's voice cuts through her thoughts like they're made of butter. His stoic expression doesn't change, nor does the mood chart telling her how mad he is, but his words contradict it all in such a way that she's left gawking.

"Huh?" She blinks mid-gawk, several dozen times in fact. She just stands there blinking at him, waiting for him to take mercy on her unfortunate lost soul and explain himself.

"Gai Sensei and I had some words, after you left." Neji says, crossing his arms in his lap. He rests against the wall, looking every bit the sight of a statue. He's actually quite pretty, she'd love to be his manager and start a whole house of pretty boy streamers. Too bad that even if that was on the table somehow, she already beat that idea over the head with her sword. "He said you have an A-rank village secret, and if I investigate you once we're back home I will likely find myself in the middle of a diplomatic incident between the Anbu and Hyuuga when I am arrested. I assume that applies to whatever you are about to ask us to do as well. Just know that if you abuse this privilege I'll punish you."

"... Well, that's… what do you mean A rank?" She can't help but squeak with wide eyes, and a hot roll of red that spreads up her nose. His threat passes by her like it doesn't exist, because as far as she's concerned it doesn't exist at all. She has no intentions of abusing his trust, let alone blanket trust thrown on her by the one here that's the most pissed off at her. She was just going over mental plans on how to win him over, not piss him off.

"You were not aware?" Neji asks her with a quirked brow, and Lee, with a vitality that comes naturally to him, claps her on the back of the shoulder. How he got there, she doesn't know, she's not questioning the likely level thirty-five that managed to dart in and block her strike so hard she got hurt. She hadn't seen him move then either, and that terrified her more than Kakashi does. Nothing Kakashi's done has been invisible to her. Not to say he couldn't do invisible things just, he hasn't. Kakashi has been considerate in a lot of ways she didn't realize, and she probably owes him more faith than she's been giving him.

Lee could have likely solo'd Vampire Gato without breaking a sweat, that's the kind of monster thats hand is on her. He could do anything to her and she'd be forced to plead for mercy despite not having done anything. And yet, somehow, she finds his presence calming instead of terrifying. Maybe it's that he's overly bright and enthusiastic and comes across as completely innocent. Maybe it's that Gai is watching over them.

Maybe, it's that the feeling he gives off reminds her of Haku.

But the normal fear that should come with having an absolutely terrifying man physically touch her in a way that holds her in place, restrains her, and dictates her future to his whims, just isn't here. She may not find the appeal of the boy and girl thing particularly persuading, but she does know what sexual assault is, and with the sheer innocence this boy that's actively pursing her manages to scare the absolute shit out of her, she can tell he doesn't.

Because if he did, he wouldn't be able to do stuff like that without knowing she's terrified and why! Which is calming, weirdly. She doesn't get it either, but it is. So she chooses not to jump or scream or punch Lee in the face for suddenly appearing behind her and grabbing her shoulder with enough force that she couldn't run if her life depended on it. Instead, she takes a deep breath, and smiles at him.

She just has to accept that he's so innocent, she should probably ensure Haku and him meet up and become friends after this mission. "Sakura has been too busy getting stronger with all her might to worry about secrets," Lee asserts for her, "how else could she already be so strong despite being so young? Her youthful energies are burning like a sun, and inspiring me to do my very best!"

Well that's inspiring, she decides. Being inspired is better than being panicked, it's a good replacement emotion and she's getting good at choosing those. She decides it's finally time to continue this conversation and get out of her nervous head for a moment. "I need you all to follow me into a deep dungeon that'll likely last several days and result in us fighting horrific monsters in our search for the rebels."

"Rebels?" Neji asks, "they're bandits and missing-nin at best."

"The dungeon is called the rebel base, I don't know what to tell you," Sakura says, already knowing this is going to suck. It's one thing to say he's not going to question her. It's another to enter a dungeon with her and say nothing.

Holy shit he really hasn't said anything! As they stand there reading the text right in front of the steps, trending up towards the dungeon's glowing red entrance, no one says a word. They clearly see it, their eyes dart towards it, she even sees Neji and Lee gape a bit, but actually asking is off-limits. It seems for all his attitude, Neji respects the law, possibly a lot more than she ever could. Her life is hectic, and Kakashi's teaching has included lying on mission reports intentionally, there's just no way she could ever achieve the same level of professionalism Neji manages. Well, when he's not being an irate dick and sadistically executing people just to take out his sadism on his vulnerable teammate. That being said, she has to say something.

[Dungeon: Rebel Base, Level 26

Party Level: 40

Warning: Your Party Level is being averaged as a party of 3 but you have 4 members. The Dungeon will be scaled to your Party Level if you continue with this group.]

"Yeah, I'm going to die instantly, if we go in with the four of us," Sakura asserts, "which will then lower the party average and get you killed one at a time. I'm needed for it to activate, which means we need to pick someone to hold down the base with Gai and look after the innkeep, possibly round up any stragglers that try to escape…" "I will be going in with you, as mission leader taking out the enemy is my responsibility," Neji says, asserting his place with some vehemence, "leaving someone behind does not sit well with me, but if we must, it should be Lee."

"I will protect the Inn with rigorous effort!" Lee shouts to the side. "Why Lee?" Sakura asks, "He's very strong." "Because no matter what happens, he will be fine," Neji says, "besides, the two of us are close range fighters, and we are both required for this, which means the choice is Tenten or Lee. Tenten alone is a bad move tactically, she is strong but her skills allow her to be easily ambushed when alone, and she performs well supporting a team. If you had any thought in that head of yours, you would not have even asked."

"Errr… yeah, that's fair." She can't help but admit it, but he's right. She just wishes he could be right and not a dick at the same time. For some people that seems impossible, she wonders if people are born that way or made that way. It'd really help her understand humans more if she could grasp why some can be gracious, and some have to be an ass at all times. Do their lives depend on it? Is it actually required and she's the weird one for getting bothered?

"Well, let's head in then." Sakura gulps, before Neji starts walking up the steps ahead of her. It's easy to fall in line behind him, and Tenten takes her place behind her, already holding a few kunai in between her fingers as if ready to kill something or someone at a moment's notice.

She's not too bothered by the fact that Neji has decided to force himself in front of her despite her being armored and him being in looser gear than what she graduated the academy with, because when Lee left their level dropped back to twenty eight.

She's level twenty-three, Tenten is twenty-eight, which makes Neji a level thirty-two close range fighter which means that yeah, he can walk in front of her. She bets attacks that would tear her in two will barely hurt him.

She just hopes that the three levels above her this dungeon is doesn't result in her untimely demise. She also hopes that Neji can forgive her for her conduct earlier, and won't turn on her and kill her deep inside the maddening depths of the horror show she's taking them into. It's not like anyone would find out, unless Tenten told on him, and based on how she was acting earlier, Sakura's pretty sure Tenten'd let him get away with burying her in a shallow grave in an instanced reality outside their own.

She takes a deep breath, as they step through the red door and into what she will later refer to as 'fuck me, dear god why, what the fuck.'

Chapter Text

One might say this is 'Into the breach', but for her it's more like into the horrifically overleveled dungeon with horrifically overpowered teammates that are going to look down on her. She's clutching her sword for dear life, she's had it drawn since the moment they enter the glowing red entrance, and she can tell her own nervousness has hit them too. They're not as jittery as she is, but when a teammate is lacking in confidence it tends to show in an entire team. While she's never been particularly into team games, she's played quite a few of them, and fraying nerves can destroy morale even through a shitty bargain bin mic. She can't help it though, it's too much.
The last time she was in a place like this, there was mist everywhere, and blood, and she went blind, and she was on level at the time. This time she won't have an infinite Naruto supply to save her, and Tenten's weaponry is very unlikely to be helpful against actually strong enemies and powerful dungeon created challenges unless she's truly mastered a few of them and she's getting the impression she's more of a variety kinda girl!

It's nerve wracking, and she finds it hard to breathe as she takes it all in. The darkness they're greeted to doesn't help, she just wishes she could see. What if there're traps like the other one? What if she's dead before she even realizes it?

The truth is both her teammates have very high levels compared to her. Their levels are much higher than the dungeon's requirements, so, if she can find it in her to trust and rely on them this probably won't be that bad. But she can't, it feels like twenty minutes ago that she just tried to kill Neji!

It's a different form of dungeon, it's supposed to be longer, so it's unlikely there's just some massive boss at the end that's going to shatter her world and murder her where she stands. If it's just a ton of small challenges and an endurance test, their power might actually get her through this unharmed and with all of her limbs. Her own ability to recover might make an endurance test a joke, that's something to consider to maybe make her stop shaking in her nifty footwear.
On the other hand, she has no idea what she's walking into and she is in fact, absolutely petrified. It's weird, she's never worried about dying before, but something about dying away from her team hits differently. She gets the feeling these two wouldn't even tell Ino about it, she'd probably find out by asking Naruto who would find out from Kakashi, and no one deserves to find out she died via Kakashi. She can imagine him showing Naruto a Genjutsu of her gruesome death and going 'it was something like that, from what Gai tells me.'

The bastard. She'd come back to life and haunt him for that.

The dungeon they're in looks like it's just a huge house, which puts her on edge for a hundred different reasons. There aren't a lot of places to go in a house, why would this take days?

There have to be gimmicks here, dozens of gimmicks, all as terrifying as the last.

"Would you stop?" Neji scolds her, and it's his words that break her out of her daze and make her realize she's been shaking in place uncontrollably, not just in her footwear. She thought she at least had her nerves contained on the outside for the most part, but her sword in her hands is swaying to and fro uncontrollably even as she tries to concentrate on stopping it.

"Sorry I, trauma," she decides to land on, "and I miss my team."

"I would rather have Lee than you as well, but whatever this is, Gai said to go along with it, so here we are." Neji doesn't seem very happy with her, but if Gai told him to listen to her, well, that means Kakashi spilled the beans to him. Then again, Gai Maito is probably privy to several S-rank secrets, it's unlikely hers would truly be above his pay grade in any sense. She's just a genin, a special genin, but still just a genin. Does that mean every Jonin was informed of her system, or just those that would be directly involved with her?
She should tell her parents already, if every Jonin knows then they should, and they probably deserved to know in the first place. Where's a Naruto Clone to relay information after popping when you need one? She would love to skip that conversation and make him do it… actually that might be the optimal play, maybe she'll take a vacation after she gets home and let him do it while she's gone.

She hasn't known life without her brother for a while, and it's showing. It's showing so much that even with concentrated effort, her sword still isn't completely still in her hands. It's probably better to say her hands aren't still around her sword.

She rubs her face to get the heat back into her cheeks, and takes a deep breath.
[Quest Notice: To Clear this Dungeon you will need to kill 20 Genin, 10 Chunin, and eliminate the Dark Meister Fierro.

Should you flee the dungeon, all eliminated foes will return as stronger undead.]

"Well that's informative." She gulps, knowing damn well they don't see that. "We have thirty-one targets, a special enemy, ten chunin, twenty genin, and we're not allowed to leave."

"Why not?" Neji asks.

"Well, unless you want the town to be overrun with zombies…" She trails.

"Zombies do not-right, forget it," Neji decides to honor his promise not to ask after a moment of consideration, before looking back at the exit, "so we do not leave, understood. Can our enemies leave?"

"I don't think so," Sakura denies, shaking her head slowly, "I think the entire idea of the dungeon is that it traps both parties, allowing a quick conclusion. This house is more like an arena than a dungeon." She steps forward, leading them - which is awkward with Neji in front of her - into a main room, where several different staircases lead up in different directions towards different rooms, and several different - "This is a resident evil mansion," she sweat drops. "what the fuck."

"Grraaaaauuhhhhh-" They hear from upstairs, before several objects clang around and thuds ring out uncontrollably. A horde is coming, they've woken up a nest. "Tenten, get the gun!"

"Why is it always fucking zombieeeessss!" Sakura finds herself screeching as she drives her sword through a skull and into the wall. She finds the red skinned figure moving itself along her blade, shambling towards her despite the clear and powerful damage she's doing to its brain.

A red zombie, who would have figured. She can't actually be in the first Resident Evil, right? But then, they already killed this one when it just looked dead, and here it is, trying to eat her face despite the only thing in mouth range being her weapon. Its skull falls apart with every movement, and it'd be enough to bring bile to her lips if she didn't already have a ton of experience with zombies.

"What do you mean, always!?" Tenten asks, shooting countless bullets down a hallway over and over again, the ranged focused Genin's eyes watching her target bob back with every shot but never fall. Long hallways are what guns are for, she said, so she doesn't question the use of ammunition.

"I don't, fuck!" Sakura slashes to the side, tearing through its brain and allowing her foe to fall towards the floor, hopefully permanently this time. "It just, it was zombies last time too okay, and I've had about enough of this theme! I don't even like the earlier Resident Evils that much!"

"So what, you were a huge fan of five or something?" Tenten asks, still backing up while shooting, at least her target is down but, well there's more coming through a door at the end. The horde seems truly endless, and has been for at least a half an hour now. She's not sure how many bullets Tenten has, but…

"I was a huge fan of the fifth game, actually, I used to join random people with my new game plus plus plus loadout and, well, I get it had a few awkward connotations but it was a really good game okay!"

"People didn't like it very much." Tenten denies as she sidesteps a face that leaps out at her from the side, how it got there who even knows anymore, but the bun haired Genin with a gun does something completely unexpected. She unfurls a seal as she sidesteps, and out comes a giant hammer, one that immediately turns that thing's head from an 'is' to a 'was.'

"People have bad judgment in matters of taste!" She steps in front of Tenten to tear another zombie in half just as one lunges at her friend from the side, there's just so many it's hard to keep track. "You can melee? Why didn't you tell me you could melee?"

"I'm a weapons mistress!" Tenten shouts, "it's in the name!"

"When would I have heard that?" Sakura defends herself, stabbing another just as it begins to turn red, putting its third life - counting when it was presumably alive for real - to an end prematurely.

"Would you two shut up?" Neji looks, well, he's completely unmarred, untouched, and looking like a dream over there on top of what can only be called a flow of corpses. It turns out the Jyuuken is perfectly suited for destroying brains, which does make him possibly the most terrifying being she's ever swung a sword at. Mostly because she's never taken a swing at Kakashi, well, yet, she might once she gets back home. How dare he get her into this mess?

This is ridiculous, and despite the impossibility, somehow she just knows Kakashi planned this crap. "Can I have a giant hammer? My sword is great and all but their blood is too coagulated to use and there's no way in hell I survive if I start using my own blood as power in the middle of a zombie horde."
"Oh, yeah, sure." Sakura is very surprised to find that Tenten has two giant hammers. The head is bigger than Sakura's entire torso, and she's actually more surprised to find she can lift it than she is that Tenten has two because like, why only have one when you're going this colossally absurd?

Chapter Text

"Ino, why do you look so at home?" Getting a mission from her father specifically meant for her team is a nice feeling. Daddy is still looking out for her, even if he has been a little awkward recently after Sakura turned out not gay. She guesses he was hoping for that to work out really, really, really hard. It still might, but they need time to figure that out, and Sakura needs time to learn what it means to be her before she starts thinking about romance. Ino gets that, her father probably does too, somewhere deep.

Technically a C rank mission, going into the forest of death to collect some rare flowers and herbs that only grow there is one of those quick and dirty missions that could be a B rank, or could be more of a D rank, depending on how well you know the area.

For Ino, who's been coming here for ingredients with her family since she was a little girl, it's a glorified D rank. It sounds a lot scarier than it is, literally, the forest makes horrifying screeches and roars constantly. In fact, she's pretty sure a giant nightmare bird is getting devoured not too far from here and won't stop screaming. "Well, most of the danger here comes from the big monsters," she explains to her team, "they're easy to trigger and very aggressive if you do happen to make them angry at you."

"Which is scary," Choji agrees, the boy's taken to munching on jerky this afternoon while looking around the plants in all directions with frantic precision and paranoid apprehension, "we could get eaten."

"Not really…" Ino shakes her head, her boys can be so dramatic. She can see Shikamaru wants to turn back already but they've only collected one small bag of the flowers and they won't get the full pay - let alone the bonus pay - unless they do three full bags. Technically none of them need money, not explicitly, but Sakura's been spending money like she's betting on races recently and she'd love to have some extra cash to throw at her friend if she comes begging and while completely broke. She's concerned to say the least. "Just don't piss them off."

"And we do that, how?" Shikamaru asks, "sounds like a real pain in the neck to me."

"Mostly, you just pay attention, don't sneak up on anything and don't let anything sneak up on you," Ino says, "we're not their natural prey so they're not hunting us."

"Uh-huh… is that, Team Seven?" Shikamaru's words catch her by surprise, and she turns just in time to watch an orange blur flying through the sky. It takes her a moment to focus on it enough to confirm that it is indeed Naruto getting dragged through the air by a giant bird. He's frantically stabbing at it… Covered in black feathers bigger than her entire torso, with talons thick enough to bisect her, and with glowing red eyes, she can confirm that the nightmare bird was likely fighting Naruto, not being eaten.

"That is Naruto," Ino confirms, "I'd know that dummy anywhere."

"He's 'dummy' now?" Shikamaru asks, "that's an upgrade, what'd the poor guy do to deserve that?"

"He helped me with a thing, um, we should probably help him?" she suggests, only to get a shrug from Shikamaru, and a munch from Choji, "let me rephrase that, we're helping him.."

And so they helped out Team Seven in the Forest of Death.

"It's been a day," Sakura says, adding yet another piece of furniture to the door to their safe room. It even has a typewriter, though she sincerely doubts they can use it to save their progress. The constant thudding of monsters bashing themselves against the door in increasing numbers is as unsettling as this entire adventure has been. "We haven't seen one genin, let alone a chunin or whoever the dark meister is."

"I'm glad we swapped to using the hammers, I would have run out of throwing weapons and ammunition hours ago." Tenten admits, wiping some sweat from her brow and seating herself on a table. The fact that said table is covered in documents doesn't matter to her, though Neji is rapidly reading through them as if they mean something.
She didn't even read them in game, she's sure as hell not reading them here. "The fact that you only would have run out hours ago and not half a day ago is a testament to the absurdity of the armory you employ," Sakura praises, "you're amazing."

"Big words for a little girl." Tenten teases.

Sakura rolls her eyes.

"The horde is certainly endless." Neji says, after a long pause to think and skim through yet another document, this one was between Tenten's legs. Oddly, that didn't seem to bother him. "They are not providing any loot or other matters of substance either, so they're an endless horde, the kind that we're expected to run from not fight."

"Uh, that was oddly savvy of you," Sakura can't help but gulp, "do you play games, Neji?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny whether I would partake in such a shameless waste of time." The stoic Genin says with a bit of a snideness to his tone that manages to make Sakura's skin crawl.

So yes, Neji plays games, but he's a dick so he has to complicate it. Sakura understands boys and their pride… To be fair to him, she didn't admit her gaming until very recently, and even then she's mostly come out to her team and not random people. He at least didn't deny it, which makes him better than she was… Then again he's had a year to grow, she hopes she's nicer in a year.

"So assuming we need to run from them, where do we need to go?" Sakura asks.

"My Byakugan shows quite a few of them right outside that door, yet they're not breaking the barricade or making any sort of progress in relieving us of our protection. The game's rules apply, which means we need to get from one safe house to the next. Am I to assume these typewriters are the signifiers for these rooms? I haven't seen them elsewhere and they are quite out of fashion. They stand out."

"They are," Sakura says, looking through a few cupboards in search of healing items.

"Yessss!" She hisses in delight when she finds exactly what she was looking for, a first aid spray. Now does this actually work? She has to resist the urge to immediately try it despite having no meaningful injuries. "If you can pinpoint the next room we can fight them after we're done resting and rush there. We might have to go through a few puzzles or get very forceful with some doors, though."

"I believe these rooms have a logic to them of their own," Neji explains, "there's no reason to include them if they aren't important, and if the enemies aren't significant besides to push us to where we might need a reprieve, then it's likely their entire existence is meant to push us from safe room to safe room along our way until we find what we are here to find."

"And if we're just wandering around pointlessly?" Sakura asks.

"We packed enough food for a month, and we are being paid to subjugate the invaders." Neji asserts, "if they are truly trapped here with us, then we are doing our job as long as we are still here and trying to find them. It is fine if we waste a few days testing theories."

"Really? I expected more urgency from you…" Sakura can't help but admit she had a wrong judgment of his character. Perhaps she's quick to judge, or maybe people just have more than the one or two dimensions they like to show off. If nothing else, he has a good head on his shoulders she can respect. She hopes people get less confusing, not more confusing, as her charm increases, and that this particular confusion was caused by getting a lot of charm very quickly. She finds it's quite painful to just suddenly have more issues with people when she's supposed to have less.

"Urgency is for when time is being wasted. There is nothing wasteful about being careful when the entire world is playing tricks on you," he asserts sternly, "you would be wise to remember that there is a large difference between playing games and being played with. We are currently in the latter category, and while we are not in control of the situation, we must play by the rules of the game forced on us."

"That game being Resident Evil," Sakura sighs, "jeez, I wish I'd known in advance."

"What would you have done differently?" He asks.
"Nothing, I just would have liked to prepare myself a bit more mentally. The last dungeon was generic nonsense, I didn't expect to actually enter a game." She scratches her cheek in thought, opening yet more cupboards and being rather disappointed to find ammunition. Tenten can probably use it, but it's not any help to her, and Tenten probably already has plenty of ammo. She passes it to the grateful girl anyway, and watches a bit stunned when she rubs her cheek against the box. She also says something that catches Sakura off guard.
"These are game bullets," Tenten says while taking one from the box, "these won't work in any of my weaponry. They're designed with advanced technology I don't quite understand."

"They have a chemical reaction and some metal, right, what's the difference?" Sakura asks.
"The power, one of these would blow my pistol apart, but this is good news." Tenten chimes to herself, spinning one of the bullets in her hand with a big grin.

"Why?" Sakura can't help but ask while admiring the dexterity on display.

"It means guns that use this will likely spawn here, we can get game guns. I always knew I'd have to abandon weaponry like that eventually, but that might not be true with fantasy guns." The older girl caresses one of her gifts with a shake in her place and a rocking from side to side.

"Are we actually in the game, or is this a mere representation, twisted for the amusement of whatever dark entity generated this playground for fools?" Neji asks suddenly, drawing Sakura away from a display that she can't help but admit did something deep inside her brain. Maybe not attraction per-say but, it wasn't normal. Not normal is good, right?

"Uh… not sure, I think it's mostly new, I didn't play a lot of the first game but I don't recognize much of it so far… Uh, quick question, with how many are amassing at the door. Even if they can't break through, how do we break out?" Sakura answers and asks a question in kind.

"Explosive tags," Tenten cuts in, "I have a few already worked into some metal, they should work as fragmentation grenades, which'll help us get out."

"And you have enough of those to get us through probably dozens of rooms like this?" Sakura asks.
"I have enough to level a village." Tenten's assurance of this fact does very little to calm Sakura's nerves, but at least they have an answer for the endless horde trying to rip the barricaded door off its hinges and finding itself sadly lacking.

Chapter Text

[Item Appraisal Skill Obtained:

Through hard work and dedication trying to determine the attributes of several different items, you've gained the ability to appraise items just like you could a person. Unlike a person though, you'll need a solid minute of concentrated observation to get any more than the basic name of an item. More info and faster speeds will unlock as you level this skill by determining the status of more varied and stronger items.]

She got it trying to figure out how much a First-Aid Spray would heal, so it immediately procs, which is something she finds very convenient and nice. Her system is normally more prickly than that, and it's appreciated.

[First-Aid Spray

Consumable

Uncommon

Spray on wounds and watch them go, heals a base health of 150, one use]

So the first thing she has to say to that is, well, awesome. It's not a ton of information, but it's more than enough for her to be super happy about it. Name, quality, type, and a brief description with a mechanics blurb is far more than she was asking for. She was just reading the label to hope it'd start spouting numbers! She wasn't even sure she'd understand the numbers that it started spouting!

With her First Aid Skill, 150 becomes 165, and given a quick check puts her at 144 HP, well it's a full heal just like in the games. Funnily enough, she'd completely forgotten she had the ability to observe other people, it just hasn't come up as something she does manually in quite some time. It appears to happen automatically with significant enemies, and it'd just slipped her mind. She doesn't have time to feel like a dumbass though, there's more stuff to check!

First thing's first, her sword.

[Hunger Weapon

Epic

At this moment, you can tell that it's a sword that uses blood to empower itself.]

At this moment? So it has further description but she can't read it yet. This does mean descriptions are somewhat personalized, which raises a lot of questions on its own. Far more importantly, "Hunger?" she questions the sword, giving it a look over. She named it Thirsty, if anything should be overriding that, it's 'Chaos Blade', why Hunger?
Logical deduction states it must have an overriding name, an origin name one could say, that precedes both Thirsty and Chaos Blade. If that's true, there's probably research she can do into the weapon, and Higurashi's being a dead end isn't a-

"Did you just say Hunger?" Tenten cuts in after a moment, "like the Hunger?"

"Yeah, I can read its name now, it's not Thirsty like I had engraved on the scabbard… That's awkward, I'm misnaming my sword, is that as bad as misgendering? Ino had a rant about that once, I didn't really get it but I listened! I always listen…"

"How would I know?" Tenten snickers at her, "I know swords, not identities… If that sword is named Hunger, a lot of things make a lot of sense very suddenly, and I like none of it."

"So you know of it? You told me you couldn't do anything back at the shop…" Sakura holds her shiny blade up, looking at the glowing sigils on it with a gentle smile. Her sword is such a good girl, boy, shit now she's misgendering it too. "Do swords have gender? Ino says it's important to get those right."

"No…" Tenten coughs into her fist, "I told you we didn't know anything at the shop because you gave us the wrong name. You wrote 'Chaos Blade' on the sheet, which as far as I could tell came from a game, I just thought you were quirky, and kind of a bitch for not giving us a warning."

"I genuinely didn't know, Kakashi just gave it to me one day," Sakura admits with a pained sigh. This sword has been the greatest gift she's ever been given, and also the biggest hassle. Was he trying to hurt her, or did he believe in her that much?

"Hunger is an obscure Be Plus ranked Demon sword, in the short time it wasn't locked away by - well presumably Kakashi - it claimed the lives of several small villages just like this one. It's said holding it whispers dark things into your head, but upon your first kills with it, it takes over your mind like an infection and commands you to keep killing until you can't anymore, at which point it has you turn the sword on yourself. It'll then wait at your corpse for the next victim to come across it and see its power." Tenten sounds oddly excited while recanting that, and Sakura's just happy to not have her fearing her for the moment. It's a cool story too, fairy tales do get out of hand, but they're always cool.

"Yeah that uh, didn't happen." Sakura points out with a mild sweatdrop, not to discourage her just, it feels a little awkward to have that kind of misconception out there. "I've killed with it several times, not just including the zombies from earlier, and the most I've gotten is these red eyes." She gestures to her permanently red eyes pointedly, "which Sasuke thinks are hot. I dunno why I said that, just like, he said that once and it came to mind all of a sudden."

"You should get boys out of your mind if you're in a relationship with the Yamanaka Heiress." Tenten teases her, and she almost quirks her brow and asks 'wha' like a dummy before she remembers.

"N-no, Ino and I are just friends." She can't help the sudden need to rub her arm, but she doesn't look away, she needs just another moment before her scan skill kicks in and-

[Tenten Higurashi

Threat Level: High]

- it seems Tenten isn't that much stronger than her. That also confirms the threat levels are relative, as in the grand scheme of things Tenten is probably moderate at best universal threat level. "I just said that to get Lee to stop bothering me without hurting his feelings. I um, didn't want to make the mission awkward."

"Aww… I really thought I'd met a lesbian." Tenten gives her an odd pout, finally jumping off the table she's been sitting on for, well, ever, so Neji can get to the documents under her ass without using Byakugan and risking getting an eyeful while he's at it. When you have the ability to look through things like clothes, actively avoiding doing so is probably a lot of effort and it's only reasonable for people to try and help you out.
Either that or they're just peeping twenty-four seven and no one knows so no one says anything… or worse they do know and don't say anything because the Hyuuga are that important. This isn't something she wants to think about, Tenten meeting Ino, is something she can smile about.

"Well, I can introduce you to Ino if you want to meet someone into girls." Sakura says, "She does love me, I'm just not sure how that works in my head… Maybe I like her, maybe I don't? Maybe I really like rocks? Rocks are cool."

"Rocks are cool…" Tenten agrees, "I can't believe I touched Hunger and didn't murder anyone, I'm awesome."

"That you are." It's really not that big a deal, the legend is obviously fake if this is actually that sword, but anything to make Tenten like her a little more without having to be manipulative or do strange missions or be weird and reputation-hungry. Being nice is just an easy thing she can do. She finds she enjoys the smiles she creates when she's being genuine, they make her smile too.

[Charm has raised by 1]

Twenty charm? That's incredible. Soon she'll rule this world.

[Neji Hyuuga

Threat Level: Very High]

What about her crossbow?

Picking it up, she gives it her focus. Zoning out and into the wood, she finds it's pretty and remarkably smooth.

[Crossbow of Magic

Weapon

Rare

Capable of shooting and activating bolts with magical energy to initiate spells on impact. Should it be used to fire normal bolts, the bolts will explode immediately and deal damage to the user.]

Well, that's inconvenient, she only had like thirty of those bolts to begin with and she's already used several of them. She'll either need to figure out a different everyday use ranged weapon, or figure out how to enchant bolts herself. Probably that first one, though perhaps picking up a crafting skill or two when she gets home isn't a bad idea. But what tree would enchanted bolts even be under? Fletching? Probably not, though maybe… How does one even make a magical weapon? Tenten's family doesn't do it, they said as much quite rudely. Well, Tenten said as much quite rudely, but she was supposedly quoting her father.

[Notice: Before you can unlock crafting skills you will need to do the crafting tutorial, would you like to start it?]

No, fuck no, not right now. Maybe once she's home… That does explain why she hasn't gotten any random crafting skills yet though. She's moving that up to an urgent objective once she gets home.

"We should probably get going." Sakura finally says, picking up the hammer Tenten gave her earlier from where she left it against a counter. "I'm recovered, and there's no reason to spend hours trapped in the first safe room."

[Tenten Higurashi's Greathammer

Uncommon

Unlike a normal warhammer which is actually quite small despite common belief due to a desire to take advantage of the velocity squared part of the force equation, this thing's comically large. It's also smithed by Tenten Higurashi herself. Despite being weighty and cumbersome, it's well cared for and balanced as well as any ridiculously humongous greathammer could possibly be, making it ideal for when you really, truly, absolutely, need something smooshed.]

"Wow, you made this?" Sakura asks.

"You can tell that?" Tenten asks, "Jeez, whatever that secret you have is, it's nuts."

"It's also none of our business." Neji huffs at Tenten, glaring lightly, "Let's head out. Get those grenades ready."

"You got it, boss." Tenten gives him a salute of all things, before pulling a big metal ball from her pouch.

"That's not a grenade, that's a whole underwater mine." Sakura deadpans.

"I didn't say they were small." Tenten sticks out her tongue a little and gives Sakura a wink.

Chapter Text

"Okay, I guess it's time." Sakura stands in front, Neji falling into a stance, while Tenten readies the giant bomb that she calls a 'grenade' like she has no idea what a grenade actually is. Lifting the hammer in one hand, ready to grip it with the other the moment the door is actually open, Sakura turns the metallic knob of the door and jumps back in an effort to pull it open while getting the hell out of the way.

Palms smack against metal, and the sight of an endless horde arrives for all. It's so thick, they're trampling over each-other. The horde falls over itself, pressing onwards and charging them like they hold the key to their undead curse.

The thing is, they're not actually moving. The corpse hands press against where the door was, and they bang against absolutely nothing without making even the slightest progress inwards. In fact, they find the shuffling dead are repelled like there's actually a door there, "uh-huh."
Sakura takes only a moment to realize what's happening, this room has some kind of spawn protection. She readies the hammer in both hands and swings it with full force towards the first group of zombies in front of the barrier-

-cling-

-clang-

Sparks fly at her and her entire body shakes. One does not normally slam their weapon full force into an indestructible wall, and her arms ache in a way that makes her wonder if she broke something. She falls back on her ass without ceremony, and she finds herself staring at the unharmed apocalypse with wide eyes.
"Oh, that's not good." Sakura gulps.
"So the barrier is on our side too. I wonder how we are to get out then, slow graceful movements? I could try to slow down Jyuuken?" Neji ponders.

"That would probably work, but I worry about that moment where your fingers are outside the barrier, since they could grab you and drag you through," Sakura says, "I have a better idea."

Experimental jutsu normally shouldn't be a kunoichi's first instinct when on a mission, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Since Kakashi taught her how to make her own jutsu, she's experimented with quite a few concepts. More Pokemon moves, for sure, but most of it's been wasted efforts that only barely manage to contribute to anything but her affinity training.

One thing that wasn't a complete waste of effort was her work on alternative versions of the clone jutsu, and working with Ino a little helped that effort a lot. She makes the hand seal for the basic clone jutsu, and calms herself. It's more difficult to do it this way, to focus outside of reality and exist in a way that rejects it all and sinks deeper into the pool that is the subconscious. But Ino would whack her with a stick if she wasn't zoning out properly, which did in fact make it harder to zone out, who'da thought being whacked might not be the best way to learn meditation. Regardless, she's gotten pretty good at this for fear of getting smacked in the name of training and possibly not so repressed rage. Ino has things to work through, just like she does. It's all one balancing act centering her in her place in the universe.

It's that kind of thought which allows her to distance herself just enough that the beings that pop into existence beside her are not normal clones. They're more see through, less there, and when they march through the barrier they do not immediately dispel upon being grabbed by the horde. To be truthful, they're not even grabbed by the horde, they flow right through them and keep going down the hall.

The mass of rotting flesh that follows them has Neji and Tenten celebrating, but for Sakura, it's hard to find her way back. She can't just dispel them which'd cause the monsters to come back, and she can't very well maintain it while thinking, so she just kind of exists.
"I thought clones dispelled on being touched?" Neji questions her. And when she doesn't answer him, he places a hand on her shoulder, and shakes her.

She hears them pop outside the door, and shoots back into focus to see him looking at her with a confusing amount of concern. "Huh?"

"What was that?" Neji asks.
"I modified my chakra in the process to focus more on the illusion aspect, so that they could go through them." Sakura explains. "It took a lot of work, and the Yamanka clan's specialty is probably mostly who should take credit but…"
"You can do that?" Tenten gasps, "you can modify jutsu?"

"Your sensei hasn't taught you how to make your own jutsu yet?" Sakura asks, and finds stares from the two elder genin. "We need to go, I can hear them approaching as we speak."
She doesn't have to tell them twice, they're outside of the safe room before she finishes her next breath, her own now sluggish and slow heart beat only makes her trail behind them by a little.
It's then that Tenten does a spin, "hup!" and one of her giant metal sea mines flies over the enemies' head, landing on a group and disappearing into the mass.

"Should we get back in the safe room?" Sakura can't help but ask, but her voice falls on deaf ears. Deaf mostly because of the shockwave loud enough to bring static to her vision and make her question if reality is really reality. Her legs quiver, her body shakes, she loses balance, and shredded limbs fly into the air ahead of them like they're at a very gruesome concert. She finds it hard to stay on her feet even while leaning against the wall, but that's okay, because the enemy has shrunk tremendously.

There's so much devastation, so much horrific was-possibly-human-once-sludge, it spreads through the hallway like a cleaning service working in reverse. "What the hell." Sakura gulps, watching the few remnants that weren't blown to shreds get taken down by an overeager Neji and his graceful death touch.
"Gruuuuuhhh-" A quick look behind them shows that another monstrous group is shambling towards them from the opposite side of the hallway. Whether they're attracted to the sound, or whether they're just evil and can detect humans is not for her to figure out right now.
Right now, her priority is to follow Neji to the next safe room.

"Well this is freaking awesome." Tenten and Sakura find themselves staring at each-other with reddening cheeks, as the realization sets in that they're not so different. After-all, that was both of them just now.

Neji rolls his eyes at the two while they contemplate their jinx, and who indeed owes the other a soda, but no one can deny that what's in front of them is in fact, freaking awesome.
On the surface it looks like a normal metal box, painted green for seemingly no reason but very much just a box that happens to be made out of metal. There's some strange words on it no one can read, and the quality of the box is very good, but it is in fact just a metal box. There's nothing magical about the box, there's no crazy decals on it or warnings or even a sci-fi mechanism for opening it that would require them to sacrifice something in return for its boon.

It has a latch, and it opens, and that's it. What's inside the box though, is mind boggling. Cylinder, pump, slides and a graciously smooth grip, Sakura finds herself staring at a combat shotgun from a modern video game. It's black and militant, like the kind you'd find in a proper FPS with an emphasis on gritty realism despite almost nothing about it being realistic.

It has three boxes of ammunition, and even an instruction manual on how to operate it, which is also written in a language none of them can decipher so it doesn't matter at all.

"You want it?" Sakura asks Tenten, giving her a quirked brow and an awkward smile, "I don't think I need another close range option."

Sakura finds herself lacking in oxygen almost immediately, an issue that doesn't dissipate quickly. The older girl inexplicably, and without warning, wraps her in the tightest hug possible and is refusing to let go.

In fact- She trusts her, she just kind of closes her eyes and lets the lack of oxygen help her nap.

At the next safe house, Sakura decides to stay outside and stand guard, waiting for Neji to get reading. Tenten also seems to want to guard, meaning the two of them stand on each side of the door, crushing zombie skulls with a hammer to each of them at every opportunity. They don't need a break yet, and they don't need a horde growing outside the door, gnawing at it, just because Neji wants to read the documentation they've been given.

He says it's important for the mission, and that the info he's gathering on this Fierro person is very important, but she's not so sure.
What she is sure of, is that Tenten is still giddy and jittery from getting her new weapon. "What's the difference between that shotgun and your gun?" Sakura asks, "they look different but they both shoot, right?"

"As I said earlier, my gun couldn't shoot these rounds," Tenten begins to explain mid swing at an encroaching creature, "my gun is practically a black box with some rudimentary powder inside. The concept is the same, but there's so much distance between what entertainment shows us, and what we can really do."

"But you called it a Glock." Sakura reminds her.

"Glock doesn't actually exist, Sakura, my gun can't even break the sound barrier. It's just a fun phrase I came up with, it's a brand you see in games and movies a lot." Tenten actually snickers at her, like she's the dumb one.
"Well, sorry, I didn't know that." Sakura huffs a little, but quickly brightens up at her next thought, "you play games? Do you want to play sometime when we get home?"

"Uhhh, sorry, I don't play with people who have anger issues." Tenten gives her a pitying gaze that makes her skin crawl a little.

"I don't have-errr, I guess I do, but…" Okay so attacking Neji cost her a potential gaming buddy, that really sucks, but at least she didn't say no forever, she just has to learn to control her temper!

Soon enough Neji steps out of the room, and she marches into it before they leave so she can loot what he didn't grab. Which appears to be everything, as even with the Byakugan he appears to suck at finding items. She finds another First-Aid Spray and some more ammo for Tenten, the mystical bullets, as the girl puts it. The dungeon is being quite generous with these healing items.

Tenten wants to stand guard alone at the next stop, so Sakura finds herself in the safe room taking a breather and stretching out a little. It's so dull, this trek is just move and read, move and read, crush a skull and loot. That might be kind of cool in a game, but in real life she's finding it lacks the same looter shooter grind dopamine rush that keeps her going day after day. The loot is nice, but it's not an endless armory or thousands of bolts for her crossbow, so she feels like she's rolling poorly in a gacha.

Tenten got a good roll, that was nice.

"Why are you reading all of this?" Sakura asks the focused boy, "does it matter at all?"

"It does." Neji says with vehemence, "these are the research notes of that Dark Meister, he is clearly the one summoning the horde."

"So, these weren't people?" Sakura asks before allowing herself a sigh of relief, "that's good."

"No, they were… he's summoning their souls back to their bodies and then repairing the bodies so that they're only mostly dead instead of completely decayed. He's been using the endless horde of the dead this village had in its graveyard. This note says he also went to other graveyards of nearby villages, so this is the result of generations of dead from multiple places. It's been a several year project where he's grave robbed basically every corpse around, and has been storing them in an underground facility he stumbled across. He believes it may have been one of Orochimaru's research facilities."

"Seriously?" Sakura groans to herself, she's not even going to question Orochimaru, that's the boogeyman of Konoha, if something nefarious is happening it has to do with him every time. It's only fitting he's involved here somehow, even if only indirectly. "What's that have to do with genin and chunin and rebels and stuff?"

"I haven't read enough yet to know, but this is probably a test run. If a few small villages can give him this much power, and it works, with some help and the graveyards of Konoha he could probably take down the village. Or at least cause enough damage we struggle to recover for a while. Every death would add to his army, while we'd lose power."

"You think he might seriously have eyes on Konoha?" Sakura asks.
"No, probably not, a single Jonin would just have to get lucky and find him to kill him, that's too much heat for a guy who's probably only chunin strength himself. Still, no chakra techniques we've ever found can raise the dead like this, he's achieved actual magic, and that's far more interesting than a few zombies and the threat they pose to civilians."

"He's also probably not a real person, but a simulated one made so there's a boss to this dungeon," Sakura says, "so why are the main objectives, the genin and chunin even here?"

"Padding?" Neji suggests, "content is hard, and giving us a good fight or six on our way to him would add a lot of it."

"No, no, not from a design perspective, I mean like, why are they involved? Like as people, if he likely doesn't exist, how did they get roped into this?" She questions with an irritated flailing of one of her hands, "we know they're real." Unless they aren't, what if the genin and chunin are out and about in the real village and they're killing fake versions like back with Gato?

"That entire question hinges on an assumption that is flawed at its core," Neji says, "if we assume he does exist in the real world, the entire experience makes sense. It's simple, we should keep it simple."

"But then magic exists." Sakura points out.
"Sakura… we're in a dungeon. An actual dungeon. We have already moved significantly further in this house than there was space for us to move, this home is bigger on the inside than the outside. There were levels at the front, and threats of scaling, and we're locked in here behind magical barriers and an endless horde that is likely much bigger than the actual amount of zombies at hand. Magic exists." Neji looks away from his reading to stare her down.

And something cracks in her a little. Something important.

Her bolts are magic, this system is magic, the dungeons are magic, magic… exists. And not just as a cool phrase to describe unexplained chakra, they are in a magic place, trying to fight a magic person. Despite seeing proof right in front of her at every turn, her own rationality has actually stood in the way of it properly clicking. She's assumed her system is localized, but what if it's not? What if there are other forms of magic in this world, and she's merely one pawn in a much larger game of magic nonsense?

What if she's not the protagonist? She might need to take things even more seriously than she has, and that's terrifying.

She gets up to start searching for loot again, and finds nothing but ammo, and a bar of chocolate.

She thinks she'll eat it now. She could use some comfort.

Chapter Text

So magic exists, and abusing that fact quickly becomes the meat of the entire day. It seems all she needs to surpass her previous control of her custom made jutsu is to truly understand that the rules are optional. Even the rules she made are optional, all that's required is a sufficient understanding of the effect she wants and she can make it happen with enough focus, determination, and control. Or, well, she'd like to say that, but "Rollout!" Spinning through a hallway of undead as a giant spiky ball of death is the best she can do with that knowledge right now. She'd originally followed the rules of jutsu she'd made and what her sheet said, that once it was formed there was nothing she could do, it was already in its natural state and it would last until it broke - rather quickly at that - and she'd have to make another.
This fact has stopped her from using this ability before now in practical scenarios. It wasn't useful, what point is there in a crushing technique that explodes on impact, especially one that would likely explode inward since force would push it towards her when she smashed it against something away from her. Rollout was more dangerous than useful, and she needed to respect that by simply not using it.

Turns out that's not how it works, that term on her skill, Fragile? It's entirely able to be worked around by ignoring the nature of normal jutsu. If she keeps supplying it with chakra to reform it mid attack and reinforce it, it just keeps being a rolling ball of death destroying all in her path. Chakra creates a flame dragon, or a spear of wind, or some other form that's really cool and theatrical and awesome, but these things aren't meant to be modified after the fact. Chakra isn't infinitely manipulatable, it does what it needs to and then you make it again.
Whether it's because her ability is more magical than chakra based, or because chakra just doesn't work the way she's been led to believe, she's not sure. Rigid rules might be completely flexible to the S rank ninjas of the world, maybe understanding their flexibility is a part of getting that strong and she's less marching through untreaded ground and more rediscovering the overpowered wheel. Whatever the case, her realization that magic is real has led her down a rabbit hole which has resulted in her cleaving through hordes in seconds as a spike ball while Neji and Tenten trail behind her, waving flags around and saying 'I helped!'

It's exhausting, but she has time to rest in between excursions, the safe rooms allow them to read and talk and snack and rest. Like now.

"I've lost track of time." Sakura says, plopping down into a chair next to a type writer and letting those two do what they want. They don't need to stand guard anymore, because while in the ball she can exit the safe room slowly and just crush them to mulch underneath her. She rubs some sweat off her brow, she's a little exhausted. Earth jutsu are harder for her than water, though she's great with both. "What's our progress?" She pulls out a notebook she found at the last safe room, and a pen from two safe rooms ago, and gets back to theory crafting just what she can do to modify her jutsu and techniques with the understanding that the rules work sideways for her.

It's not abnormal for her to change her methodology to a new understanding. Fighting Vampire Gato changed her perspective on how Hunger worked. She doesn't need to sacrifice her own blood if she can get her sword in someone else first. If Hunger relied on her, she would have died in front of Gato, instead she did a Revengeance on her way through him. It was awesome, if not something she hardly remembers since she was blind and dying from blood loss.

"It's been eighteen hours, we're in safe room thirty four." Neji says. "If not for all these documents varying from room to room, I would be willing to say we are in a loop."

"There was a warning that this would take multiple days." Sakura sighs to herself, writing about another potential modification to her clone jutsu.
Mindwalker adjacent clones, something applying Ino's insight let her make. They do not dispel until she forces them too, and can pass through objects freely without worry of popping, but she's forced into a stupor when using them. The focus is next level and even with all her Mind and Control she's not handling it well.
Illusionary clones, the normal Academy jutsu which leaves no shadow and makes no true sound. Attacks pass right through them, but upon being grabbed or being forced to phase through something for more than the split second it takes a kunai to pass through, they dispel. It has something to do with disrupting the chakra flow, and they can't handle the strain.

What if she applied other concepts to it? What if she took the original illusionary clones and used her water? Could she make the water clone all on her own without someone teaching her?

"Are you seriously trying to make a new jutsu right now?" It's Tenten's voice which wakes her up from her focus, "Sakura, you'll exhaust yourself."
"We're about to sleep." Sakura points to Neji, who's already unpacking sleeping bags from a seal. "I'll get my chakra back while we rest."

"I don't know if they forgot to teach you this in the academy, but it takes days to fully recharge your chakra pools. We can't afford that." Despite a part of her understanding the older girl's concern, most of her can't help but find Tenten irritating. Where does she get off being condescending and patronizing?

"Ugh…" Sakura sighs to herself, before spinning her pen in her fingers while forcing a smile. She lifts her free hand up to be adjacent to the spinning pen-

And she moves, smashing them together.

Hot red splashes her face, as well as Tenten's, and she can't help but notice that said girl seems to be caught by surprise. "See?" Sakura prompts her, before she removes the pen from her hand, and waves her gushing palm around. She watches as the elder genin takes a step back and stares with wide shaking eyes. A hand lands on the bun haired girl's mouth, and Sakura quirks a brow at her. With a decisive movement, she plops the pen back onto the desk, her blood dribbles onto the wood nicely like bright pink ink.

"Why would you, what the hell is wrong with you?" The weaponmaster slams her foot into the floor, "I just said we can't afford that kind of reckless action!"

"This is proof," Sakura says, going through the effort of unsealing the first aid kit she'd found pre-dungeon, and bandaging her hand swiftly and simply, "tomorrow when we wake up, you'll find this wound completely gone and my chakra reserves completely restored, I will then explain myself. Until then, discussing this is fruitless." With that, Sakura allows herself an excited wiggle and gets right back to her notebook, picking up her bleeding pen and drawing with a sweet new color. "Didn't Neji say to just trust me?"

"Right, because I'm getting so much sleep after seeing you do that with a smile." Tenten grumbles, but a signal from Neji has her wandering over to her sleeping bag to climb in.

Good, she needs time to think. Today has been eye opening. She just has to remember to actually get to sleep or she won't be able to prove anything. Magic is real, and there's so much to do with that knowledge!

"You could have bit your lip or something." Tenten fusses over Sakura's hand first thing in the morning. It went 'welcome to the living' then 'show me your hand', in that order with no time for play or quirky conversation.

Unwrapping the bandages and discarding them in a conveniently provided waste bin is simple, convincing Tenten to give her back her damn hand is another thing entirely.

"Neji, did I overdo it?" Sakura can't help but ask, a neutral third party is important for matters like this.

"You did." Well screw you too Neji. "Tenten is not accustomed to watching comrades hurt themselves to prove a point. You truly concerned her with your actions."

"Oh… sorry." Didn't Naruto and Sasuke say something similar once? But this was such a small injury, why does it matter? "I guess I'm still trying to understand others. To me, my injuries will disappear when I sleep, so they don't matter."

"Pain still hurts." Tenten says, intertwining their fingers together and pressing her palm against Sakura's. She makes her feel her grip, and squeezes her in just the right way to draw her gaze to where she feels every touch. "You shouldn't smile when you're in pain, and you shouldn't cause it yourself. You didn't even ask me to believe you first, you just jumped right to doubting me and hurting yourself. Neji's my teammate, weird blood lines are normal for me."

"There is nothing weird about the Byakugan." Neji huffs.

"You keep telling yourself that, Mr. pervy eyes." Tenten smirks, looking back at him, and smiling a little brighter at her joke when he crosses his arms and gives them an indignant glare that could wilt flowers.

"Good news is I figured out the water clone last night." Sakura says, stretching out with the one hand Tenten doesn't have, pushing it up well above her head.

"You what? You can make water clones now?" Tenten's sudden stark focus is a bit frightening, but Sakura breathes through it and reminds herself that talking to people with too much energy isn't a chore, it's something she wants to do and isn't scary at all. Excitement is exciting, not terrifying, now if only she believed that a little more…

"Clone, I can make a water clone. It doesn't look like me, it doesn't have my equipment, and it dispells upon hitting anything which I feel like it's not supposed to do. But… I can do it. I just need to work on it."

[Proto-Water Clone Level 1] was a skill she got last night, so if she grinds it up she can get it high enough level it becomes normal, right? She can probably create any skill like that.
She's been too focused on reality, and hasn't tried to move past it before this. That was dumb, she's better than that. If she can do anything she wants to, well, she should get started doing just that. She's been too caught up in the systems presented to her, like she was expecting a tutorial, and never looked past it. She's supposed to be smart, so, well, now she has to be smart.

"Ready to get going?" Sakura asks, "I'm sure you've read all the documents."

"I have." Neji says, nodding to her assertively. "I have also been taking these documents for later reference, in the event Konoha wants them with my report."

"Do yourself a favor and pass them into the Hokage directly, Chunin don't need this crap." Sakura warns.

"Ah, A rank secret, right…" Neji looks a little ill at the reminder. "You should read through some of this yourself, it's remarkable. Fierro is very strange, it's possible they're not even from this world."

"What makes you say that?" Sakura asks him, giving him a slightly tilted head and a focused gaze with half closed eyes.

"The notes mention wanting to go home many times, and even cite going home as the reason for experimenting with the plane between life and death. It's possible this entire escapade is because someone died and was forced here. It's only natural they'd want to travel back the same way." He explains, pulling a few papers from his pack, and putting them back when Sakura shakes her head and waves them away.

"Wouldn't they not have a body back where they came from then? They'd be researching suicide." Sakura points out.
"Wanting to rest where you belong is not that abnormal a whim." Neji says, and decides to let implications lie where they've landed.
Sakura doesn't feel the need to stir it up any further. All she knows is that's not a normal whim at all, and Neji might need to talk to Sasuke's guy too.

Chapter Text

Boredom is an odd concept. It can happen to anyone, at any time. It's considered one of the most potent problems in an apocalyptic situation, right behind things like basic survival. Maybe it's the lack of being with her team causing her to be hesitant to whip out her new switch and make the opinion of the already not super liking her people drop even further, maybe it's that they're only really staying at each place for an average of half an hour, maybe it's that at this point killing the undead is basically just walking through them with Rollout active or sitting back while Tenten thwacks them like moles.

Whatever the reason, Sakura is bored. One-shot dungeons suck, they're not like Gato's tower at all! They're long and awkward and the enemies aren't dropping good loot and it's just so boring! At first she was relieved, but the hesitance to dive into hell because of trauma only lasted so long, and now she'd truly like to stab something to death, if only to feel something… Not like that, that didn't come out right.

So far in this dungeon they've explored fifty safe rooms, fifty, five oh, it's monotonous and the novelty wore off so long ago that she's no longer scared of the zombies, she's treating their mangled corpses like playthings. Currently, she's using a severed head as a ball to kick around while they walk, and even that's becoming boring very quickly. There aren't even a lot of the zombies anymore because while the corpses themselves are probably generated by the dungeon, the dark meister is running out of magic to animate them or something. This last trip she didn't even use Rollout she just walked down the hallway with her sword and sliced a few heads off while Tenten complained about a cramp of some sort. Poor girl, they're far away from any chocolate… Shit, they found chocolate and she ate it!

Okay, her bad. Tenten gets the next bar.

So far in this dungeon, they've looted enough ammunition for Tenten's shotgun that she will likely never run out, which is good because she's not completely sure she can reverse engineer these rounds. Something about unknown chemical compounds and explosive testing being dangerous.
They've also started finding another ammunition type by the buckets, specifically rifle rounds. They're long cylinders which catches Sakura by surprise, but of course it really meant Tenten got hugging the bullets again. "There's a chance, Sakura, there's a chance!" She had done a lot of excited shouting, Sakura for her part, had waved it off and started the look out for the gun the rounds go to.

She appreciates that her dungeon generating powers - assuming these are caused by her in some way - is profitable for the girl with the big hammers. She just wishes it was her that is getting all the love.
They've found twenty-seven First-Aid sprays. Which are full heals by the way, she's not a fan of the implication that she needs this much healing for this dungeon, but they might save lives later so she can't complain. She's probably going to save them for allies who get seriously injured since they can't just nap it off.

They've found a bunch of gemstones seemingly poofing out of thin air, like so many she has not one but two sealing scrolls designated just for them. If nothing else, if the stones stick around, she'll be upgrading Haku's setup back home. What she wouldn't give for a Naruto clone to talk to right now, these two are so stiff and boring…

And keys. So many keys. So many damn keys… She's not even sure if they actually go to any doors! She's under the impression the dungeon read a loose game concept from her memories and generated this long ass hallway that never seems to end and implies a comically large mansion. She's held onto the keys though, for the same reason Neji's holding onto all the documents, they might come up.

Speaking of Neji, he's going a little mad. He clearly thought they'd be done by now, and if the lack of foes is any indication they're probably done this part soon. They still haven't found even one genin or chunin, let alone the final boss, so the fact that this is already becoming an endurance test for her patience is hella not a good sign, and despite his earlier words, Neji seems to have less patience than her.

At least she has all these cool systems she's never played with.

It turns out there's a database for her reputation system. The way it works seems to be 1-10000, with 1 being, well she doesn't know because even Ami has 2,000 out of 10,000, and is labeled [Hates your Guts] so like, maybe the 1,000 that Ino got was more significant than she thinks if it's capped at 10,000 and there's a curve of bad to good in the middle of the scoring rubric.

She doubts it's important though, for Ino at least. It's been made pretty clear that Ino's loved her for a good long time, so becoming more in love with her probably isn't a huge detriment, even if Sakura would rather the system not mindfuck her friends in the first place.

The important people - besides Ino, obviously - are Tenten, Neji, Lee, Sasuke, Naruto, Haku, and Kakashi

Tenten is 6200, which is [Friendly]

Neji is 4200, which is [Negative with a friendly leaning]

Lee is 7000 which is [Very Friendly with a casual leaning]

Sasuke is 7500 which is [Crushing a little]

Naruto is 8000 which is [Unsure if Dumb Sister that's Cute or Cute Dumbass that happens to be his Sister] - which at least tells her that these are custom and not necessarily on a romantic bell curve, it's possible someone could be at 10,000 and not be interested in her, which she likes the implications of because she's not interested in anyone but she likes to think people have high reputations with her.

Ino was 8300 before the 1000, so her feelings were likely less overwhelmingly powerful and more that they were long-standing and potent via time, care and good experiences reinforcing their friendship. It does raise a lot of questions as to how this even works. Maybe turning the complex emotional state people have for each other into numbers just isn't a very accurate way to portray them without nuance.

Whatever the case, the system is being helpful, so she's not arguing.

Attached to Naruto is Kurama, at 7000, which is [My Master's Pet Dumbass] which has a lot of implications and she's not really sure what to do with them, but context clues tell her the Kyuubi has a name, and enjoys laughing at her. Maybe she should start mocking the Kyuubi in conversation, and get him in on the vibe of the conversation if he's going to participate behind a screen like that.

She should probably be flattered but she's honestly just miffed, and a little sad. She's watched a lot of interactions over the years while feeling left out, what if the Kyuubi feels the same?
Haku is 8000, at [Honored Manager] which is cute, and she appreciates the confirmation that high scores don't mean romance and that her people are more complicated than that.

Kakashi, is 5000, which is [My Favorite Student] This tells her that he's not a fan of them, but, to be fair, she doesn't think he's a fan of anybody. He's shown genuine care for them, so maybe certain people have different ways of being interpreted by the system and Kakashi's 6000 is Naruto's 9000.

Ultimately, as cool as this system is, she probably won't be putting much weight on it. Even without Kakashi making the system weird by having a positive outlook and a low score, it just doesn't feel good to look at.

Cheat codes are fun but when all they do is turn your friends into numbers, well, she'd rather be hated by everyone than win that way.

She closes that with a sigh, and gets back to contemplating recipes in her head for when she starts a cooking skill the moment she gets home - she hasn't forgotten her mental promise to surprise Kakashi - while slashing heads off. "Have they gotten weaker?" Sakura asks.

"Yeah, for sure." Tenten agrees, "I haven't seen them go red in like thirty rooms either, I think they're running on some sort of power source and are running out of it." Glad to see Tenten agrees, even if she doesn't use the same lingo. The Dark Meister is running out of mana, and she's under the impression this part of the dungeon likely stops when he completely runs dry. From there, either he'll receive a powerup right at the end, or the dungeon will become about clawing their way through real opponents to get to him and end his life.

It's a hot take on the 'clear the castle to get to the master' idea a lot of older games went with, but she's here for it, both literally and figuratively.

They didn't even rest at the last three safe houses, they just stopped in, grabbed the documents and loot, mostly gemstones, and kept walking. She's glad the system took the later Resident Evils into consideration with the loot. While she'd love an awesome magnum or something, she can definitely get into gems.

They've seen a grand total of twenty zombies, and this last trek they haven't found a single one.

"I think we're almost done." Sakura says, "at this point the biggest threat is these floors on my poor feet."

"Aww, poor things, I bet they're cute." Tenten says, "We should dress you up in cute shoes when we get back, see what stands out."

"That's kinda weird, Tenten." Sakura points out, "That's a weird thing to say."

"What can I say? I like shoes." The older girl shrugs, giving her a smirk.

Does she need an adult? Is Tenten one of those people? No, probably not, she needs to stop applying her small charm - 20 by the way, super proud of it - to real-life situations and assuming that just because she notices something now means it's a big deal. That's how it used to be, not anymore, and things she notices will become even smaller deals as her charm gets even higher because she'll notice more things and do it more easily.

Either way. "Ino'd probably like that," she decides after a long moment, "she has a lot of shoes too."

"Oh, see? We don't even have to break the bank, your girlfriend can dress you up." Tenten teases her, and all Sakura can do is gulp.

They're almost out of this part, it's so close, now if only there was a real indication that the ending was near besides their assumptions and the lack of enemies. There are so many documents too, like, what could they even be saying at this point that's new? Neji's basically read an entire novel.

Chapter Text

The musty smell of the mansion is so familiar now that Sakura can't help but feel relieved that it'll be over soon. Three days they've been here, collecting, killing, walking, the grand majority of it has been walking if she's completely honest. This home is dreary, and she would have loved it if it had ended a day ago, but here she is, finally staring at the end gate to this horrific place and getting excited that soon she won't have to smell all this damned rotting flesh.

"I can't believe this." Observing the door brings about a dawning horror. It's massive, with a gold archway and a crescent top. She could probably punch through it with enough time and a willingness to destroy her hand, but she doesn't have to do that. Down lower on the door, there's hundreds of symbols, emblems, jewels, pictures of animals and even some just straight up shapes like a circle. Beneath each of those is a keyhole, and it's all Sakura has in her to take a breath before she makes a hand sign and more hers appear beside her. Well, kind of her, there's a few of them but they're not fully formed or properly physical. They get to work taking the keys out of her bag and inserting them one at a time, turning once fully in and making her proud with their coordination and cognitive functionality.

They needed every freaking key. Every single one. If she'd decided not to pick up any one of them they'd be trekking back hours if not days. It also means every single safe room was necessary after about five hours in.

"I thought you were crazy for holding onto all those." Tenten says, shaking her head while watching her poor excuse for water clones get the job done for them. They're nothing like Naruto's shadow clones, and they likely never will be, but Naruto's not around and she can't always depend on him to be there for her. It's not even his fault, reality just doesn't work that way and sometimes you need to stand on your own and have the capabilities you need. She also can't help but feel a little awkward using Chakra on a menial task when she's given Naruto so much crap about saving his infinite pool, but like, water clones aren't that expensive and her patience for this place ran out yesterday.

Naruto's not here to slave away, which makes her really appreciate both him and her own independence. Not to say there's anything wrong with relying on your team, just, she's not satisfied with Proto Water Clones level 3 and would like to become even more self-sufficient. Yes, level three. When they rested last night, Sakura, no longer having to prove anything, spent every drop of chakra she had practicing the jutsu until it was good enough to at least assist her with basic water jutsu and do menial labor like slotting in the ruby key into the ruby slot.

A proud smile slips over her lips at the thought that some people can't even do this. She didn't have instructors for this, she just did it, just like she'll do so much more once she has the time and opportunity to think uninterrupted.
Like that'll happen anytime soon, a girl can hope though.

"The only crazy I am for keeping keys is crazy smart. I'll never discard a key item as long as I live. I still have a piece of wood Inari handed me just in case it comes up when I go back to Wave."

"... What?" The lack of context must be too much for Tenten, but it's not her problem. She was open and clear with what she said.

"It's in my nightstand. It's a piece of wood, he asked me to hold it for him then never asked for it back." Sakura clarifies, just in case it helps, it clearly does not.

"Most of these keys were found near, if not in a safe room." Neji says, "It seems we truly were led here."

"You said it looks like the next step after us is an attack on official Fire Nation property, they want to attack the Daimyo next and test run the graveyards at the capital without intrusion from Ninjas," Sakura recites something Neji told her earlier today, "it makes sense they would lead us here, getting rid of us quickly is the only way anything like that is happening."

Neji nods thoughtfully, "the documents lead me to believe that the Dark Meister thinks that samurai would have a poor time dealing with a zombie force because their direct confrontation method plays well into the hands of mindless brutes."

"I doubt they'd be an actual threat to capital samurai, let alone the Daimyo's protection detail, but as Leaf Nin we kind of have to stop them don't we?" She asks.

"Yes, and they are aware of that, which means through this door is a trap." Neji confirms her suspicions, eyeing it thoughtfully. "Whatever happens, do not hold back. We cannot assume that the Dark Meistro is out of mana just because the zombies stopped after this morning."

Neji using gaming lingo has her giddy. He's losing his edge on her, slowly, maybe if she's lucky she'll have a gaming buddy when she gets back to Konoha.

Or maybe he'll deny the interactions entirely and pretend he's never even heard of a game before. Whatever the case, she didn't teach him terms like mana, he just knew them, and things like that make his stuck up attitude a little less convincing.

She's sure he's a dick, and she's sure he's stuck up, and she's sure he's refined, but she's also sure he's rocking an RPG the moment they get home. Tenten on the other hand looks remarkably out of depth. She knows that games exist, and even seems to have a grasp on what's popular and what's not, and she clearly plays them as per their earlier discussion, but she lacks any sort of input into the mechanics discussion. Even for this dungeon she has seemed lost at every corner. She clearly doesn't play much, and certainly nothing complicated. Tenten probably follows a streamer or two instead, ooh, she wonders if Tenten follows Haku.

She somehow doubts her observations on these two are connected though, even if the thought of Neji playing something while Tenten acts as his Ino and comments has her mildly shipping it… Mildly, because Neji's an asshole and Tenten deserves better.

"We're still in the dungeon, right?" She opens up her quest menu with a furrowing of her brows and a pouty frown that Ino would tease her about if she was here. The system still says the one-shot dungeon is active and that none of their objectives have been completed. It has her scratching her head.
As to why she's scratching her head, well…

"It seems so, but this is the village we are here for." Neji confirms it for her, as if she needed to be told that they're staring at exactly what they came here for. She remembers this walk from a few days ago, when they first got to the village. The dungeon has recreated the outside world, down to the details of the way they came in. Sakura can even see the inn they're staying at up ahead, it has the same oddly shaped door and the same dirty exterior. That being said, she sincerely doubts they'll find Lee or Gai there.

Walking around she can hear the crunch of rocky dirt beneath her feet, and her attention reminds her that the roadways into the village haven't been maintained or repaired in any recent time. It feels so real, so vivid, she can even taste the fresh air that comes with an inactive land away from the bustling streets of her home. It feels nice to smell and taste air that's not filled with rotting flesh, as their last three days have been, but the elation at such a small victory is very short lived. This place somehow manages to look even more desolate than the original village, and that gives a grand yet depressing indicator as to exactly what'll happen to the original if they don't succeed here.
It won't just be here either, they'll likely slaughter countless villages on their way to the Daimyo, and that can't be allowed. They have to stop this here, or, well they don't have a lot of options, at this point the exit is so far away that they'd have several days of walking back and she'd rather die trying. Maybe she should develop an escape ability for future dungeons, just in case, or maybe figure out crafting and make escape ropes? They're customary to almost every game, they have to exist.

"You know what this means, right?" Sakura asks as her feet land in front of the inn Lee's settled at, the one where she impaled that girl to a wall, and fought Neji, and most remarkably, the one with the odd doors. It's so stupid, doors should be frame fitting! "The dungeon has seen to it to provide us with an artificial playing field. We don't have to worry about destroying buildings, or livelihoods, or civilians, we can just destroy things with reckless abandon." Sakura doesn't pull her sword from its sheath, she has much better ideas. She lifts the Hammer Tenten lent her, and strikes it down on the inn door, watching its stupid structure cave way.

"Let's go!" She charges in without hesitation, looking for the first of the enemies, and already destroying property with a spinning strike that has her flowing through the place and undoing years of effort to maintain and build it like she finds construction a waste of time.

"Should we explain to her that we should still avoid damage just in case this uh, translates outside?" Tenten asks.
"No." Neji denies, "either we will see a civilian, and she will figure it out herself before too much damage is done, or we won't, and her method is correct." Tenten only requires one look at his serious expression to know she shouldn't argue with him.
That what he's serious about is property damage and cathartically watching Sakura break stuff for him, doesn't change that fact. "You should start too." He suggests, "The Hyuuga pride would not allow me to participate, but just between the two of us, she looks like she is having fun. You deserve it, after that nightmare."

"Yeah, I bet she is." Tenten's hands grip her hammer with both hands, "and I do, thanks." She takes a deep breath, and she charges in after Sakura.
Neji stands guard, ready at a moment's notice.

This is good, because he's dodging out of the way of a fireball from behind a mere second later.

Chapter Text

Excitement is a new commodity as of late, so feeling the wood crunch and dust under her hammer has a flurry of emotions spiking up through her with every swing. One would think the constant crushing of zombie skulls and the putting down of one of the media's most famous enemies would have her skipping around but the musty smell of the mansion and the constant feeling of squishy rot had her reeling. To put it simply, it was not a pleasant time. It was surprisingly bad.

Over the mansion's entertainment, what she has out here has her skipping, each bounce of her body is rev'd and ready to go and she revels in the chaotic desire to destroy more infrastructure with every second. She'd smashed a few walls in the mansion, they didn't even break, but here, well, she made an assumption and it worked! It's all crumbling, like they've switched game genres entirely and now they're playing Red Faction or Teardown. It's destructive, it's senseless, but it's fun and who hasn't wanted to tunnel through a wall in real life instead of using the door?

The guilt that would normally come from such an act is entirely off her shoulders here in a dungeon, and the evil smirk that she finds permanently plastered on her lips is as delightful as it is malicious. Her sword is probably jealous of the hammer, as she's been using it so much more, but in her defense, it's a giant hammer. She's jealous too, it's huge and destructive and knows its purpose in life! She also just… attacking Neji put some things into perspective. Kakashi's right, she needs to get good with multiple weapons, especially when her main weapon is trying to make her attack teammates. Or, well, it's not helping her desire to attack teammates.
She just hopes the Hokage is lenient about that… She gets the feeling he's not going to be lenient at all unless Neji downplays the hell out of it in his report. Issue is, she has to put it in hers, because if she doesn't and Neji does she's screwed. So if Neji doesn't, she's going to tattle on herself… If only it was her team and she could trust them.

The worry isn't enough to get her down though, she'll deal with it later, right now she's on a conquest and she's searching around! Nothing, nothing, nothing-

She finds her feet pick up on it before she does. Maybe it's instinct, maybe it's one of her traits, maybe she's just that good, but she jumps out of the way just in time for the area she was standing in to be bathed in flame. The wall she was next to explodes inwards, blocking her vision with dust. Everything around her ignites, beautiful and remarkably sparkly as the very air itself is awash with cleansing heat. A quick look around reveals she's alone, except for a boy around her age walking towards her from outside the building. The giant hole he made serves well enough to let them see each other, which is odd because he definitely should be running around now if he can see her fully. He must have figured out where she was by approximation from all the noise she was making, which means her fun time is up.

She expected to get through a couple more buildings before being attacked, but if that's all the leeway she's been granted for fun, it'll have to do. "That was rude, you could have hit me!" She shouts at him, waving with one hand and holding the hammer in the other. It's a bit heavy, and she couldn't swing it that way, but maybe the appearance will terrify him. She can hope so, a terrified enemy is an easy enemy.
He's got darker hair, a bit spikey, and his clothing looks to be of very high quality despite the whole missing ninja vibe this dungeon is about. His top is almost robe-like, and his baggy leggings rest at his hip, tied properly with a separate cloth that intertwines both items. He captures the idea of a wannabe samurai, looking less like a ninja and more like a reject from the capital's forces. She's not sure how to feel about his visage, but she does know that he thinks he's the protagonist. He's got gold trim all over his dirty garments, which implies he's a merchant's son, or maybe he really is disgraced and from a powerful family.
There's no reason to allow nice clothes like that to fall to ruin unless you think you're one turn away from getting new ones. He thinks he's the leader of this story, those are the rules.

Despite her powers, her clothes are sensible, even if pink probably isn't a great ninja color. She's gone out of her way to avoid protagonist syndrome, and yet he walks up to her just like that, it's enough to cause her pause. This could be a bad thing, people with confidence like that fall into two categories. Dumb, and justified, and that was kind of a big fireball that just tore through the wall.

"My apologies." He gives her a wicked grin as he gets just close enough for her to see his expression well. He then takes a combat stance and begins on a new set of hand signs. "Leaving you alive to think about this wasn't my intention, maybe don't dodge this time?"

Twenty genin, ten Chunin, and one boss enemy. If they have to fight them all here, they're dead. Even if the chunin are only as strong as normal genin, and the genin are all only as strong as academy students, and Fierro is entirely out of magic and stays out of the fight, they'd die. They would die screaming.

Luckily though, that's probably not the case. Neji's insight is clear, they need to have a force to fight with after this is done which means they'll try to retreat the moment they start losing people. So all she needs to do is prioritize a few brutal kills, and hopefully, Neji will prioritize a few brutal kills, and Tenten will too, and they'll quickly do exactly what's needed to trigger the enemy retreat. It's more than likely an event trigger and not something they can force by being especially brutal and destroying morale, but it doesn't hurt to give it her best shot anyway just in case. Her life somewhat depends on her showing here, so, she takes a deep breath to steel her nerves and takes off running-

- She charges at him, actively concentrating her fire chakra to her clothes to create a coating as best she can. It covers her like a layer of oil, or perhaps a protective guardian that only she knows. Her fire affinity isn't great, but it should be enough.
With both hands on the hammer for the run, she can't make the seals needed to create a water clone. It's too bad, it'd be useful for this. "Haaaauuu!" She shouts, making sure to look plenty intimidating, and dumb, and too brutish to think anything through. The enemy must always underestimate you, if she's learned anything from Kakashi it's that.

She grimaces a bit in advance when he finishes his final seal, and announces he's got a nice big fireball coming her way. He didn't need to say anything though, the huge wall of flame shooting towards her at rapid speed has her just terrified enough to have some doubts. It's huge, it's so hot it hurts a little just approaching, and she can hear the roaring of the flame well before she meets it. The air steams, matter smokes, and she meets it running.
She makes it one step into the blistering inferno that bathes her skin, before she jumps, flying right through it. She accelerates herself with all her might, ignoring the painful blisters spawning all over her skin as his fire chakra overwhelms hers and continuing to reinforce herself the best she can knowing damn well that it'd only take a single second's pause for this to turn very lethal. "Guaaaah!" She pushes herself just that much further, flying out the other side of his wall of flame with a flair filled spin that has her accelerating rapidly. Flames continue to trail after her weapon as it glides through the air, and she allows its path to guide her onward like she and it belong as one. Its weight pushes her further forward as she moves, the upswing in her spin overtaken by the aid of gravity on the downswing and her own forceful movements glide her gleefully towards her opponent's shocked form.

"What the-" It's all he manages to say, before he's interrupted by a horrifying crunch, and Sakura's splattered with bone fragments and other assorted squishy matters she's become very accustomed to in recent times. She hits him hard enough that the ground craters around them, and the whiplash from her own attack makes her own bones ache, the searing burns make it hurt to breathe but the shockwave flowing through her makes it hard to get any air at all.
That was dumb, maybe assuming his fireball would be weaker than Sasuke's wasn't smart. Only the fire chakra in her hands and the water chakra rapidly working to try and cool it stops her from dropping the metal hammer that is currently steaming and trying to fry her. Thinking of her HP as a resource to trade for opportunity hurts far too much, she needs to come up with better plans than this. That being considered, standing on her opponent's freshly cooling corpse and admiring the hole she's made in the ground where his head used to be, she can't help but accept that this time in particular was probably a good trade. Especially with all the healing items she has, even if they probably take a bit to use or have a cooldown or something.

She looks around to ensure she's alone, before taking a moment to check on her status.

"I only lost thirty HP?"

Tough talk or not, that was likely only a genin with a high-fire affinity and a missing-nin genin at that. It's unlikely the fights with the harder opponents will end in one move.

[2/20 Genin killed]

The notification informs her that someone else has also taken down an opponent. She's relieved to see that someone else has the same idea, though it bothers her that she didn't get the third kill. They're stronger than her, substantially so, so if they're being attacked now she should be the one falling behind, not in second place.

Being in second place has a lot of implications to it. Their third could be fighting a Chunin and therefore not be on the scoreboard yet - which'd be bad because they'd be alone - or their third could be being merciful, which is almost worse. They need to take the enemy out, and take them out fast.

"Fuck, Tenten," She bites her lip, already knowing it's her that's still fighting for one reason or another. Neji's decisive, it makes sense he'd take out his opponent before her, but Tenten seems almost benevolent. Shelooks down at the freshly made body. She'll have to abandon it for now and hope it doesn't despawn so she can loot it when she gets back. They have to force the enemy to retreat, which means she has to get killing, but most of all she needs to back up the soft-hearted weapon mistress.

Luckily for her, she's good at exactly one thing in a situation like this, if her teammates have anything to say about it, and that's scaring the actual hell out of people. "Ow, my shoulder…" She groans, the joint sending her a searing pain as she takes off running towards where Tenten probably is. She probably did more damage to herself with that crap than the fireball did!

The dirt path between them is over quickly, and she gets herself on top of a building to observe with a quick jump onto a wall, and a kick off of it to send herself over to the next.

"Tenten, Tenten, where are you…"

Chapter Text

A tendril of smoke curls into the sky like a beacon, alerting her to exactly where Tenten probably is. It leads right to the heart of chaos, and Neji's not one for chaos. He's deliverance, he's tactical and powerful, Tenten's the one that would cause mass property damage and send a smoke signal for all to see that she is destructively in charge of all that is within her range. Even if Neji's opponent had been the one to cause it, it would have likely been preceded by an immediate blood curdling scream as he tore them apart for making a mess. That's the kind of guy he's come off as up to this point, and she's not about to second-guess him. Her legs start to move, but it's not towards Tenten's mess.

Even as her heart races, and the ominous crackling of flames tells her she needs to aid her teammate, she finds herself jumping back on the roof and landing flat on her back without any control over her actions. "Owww…" Her shoulder screams at her, having crumpled to the ground only made her injury worse. Tenten should have warned her not to do any cool gaming spinny maneuvers with the giant hammer! Everyone knows she'll do the cool thing if she can! The hammer discarded to her side, she decides to leave it there for a moment while she catches her breath, and takes in the whole reason she jumped back in the first place.

The reason for her hasty retreat stands at the edge of the building, silhouetted against a sun that probably shouldn't be setting but sure as hell is. She blames the dungeon's sense of awe and epic timing. His hand is still outstretched, the kunai he had thrown at her glinting malevolently in the fading light exactly where she was just standing. He'd intended to impale her foot to the roof, and then slash her with the long sword at his waist. Beneath a massive fur mantle that billows dramatically, his form is obscured, only his silver hair and piercing red eyes are visible to her. He is a vision of both beauty and terror, a delicate porcelain doll adorned with razor-sharp features and a potent hatred that flows off of him like water does a waterfall.

He's beautiful, like a pure soft boy with satin skin, or a coy demon attempting to trick her and tell her it's safe while not even caring to hide the evil that ignites behind his eyes. That hair of his rests on his shoulders, and those sharper features make her want to take him home and set him up beside Haku, not kill him.

Too bad, unlike with Haku, she senses the malice that exudes off of him like a tortured miasma. It's palpable, malice radiating from him in a thick, dark aura that chokes her like a noxious fog. She can sense the darkness within him, taking in the light from his surroundings and snuffing it out for fun. "Fierro?" She asks, her voice trembling slightly as a deep and primal excitement overtakes her. She can feel it, someone truly strong is in front of her, and his hatred will let her go all out without having to feel bad. No accidentally killing him with a table leg, or thinking of them as NPC, or worrying what her teammates will think. As her fingers land on her own malevolent sword and the killing lust allows her to feel her own hunger in her teeth, she knows something overwhelming is about to happen. Something that Sasuke, Naruto, Neji, Lee, Tenten, even Ino, none of them would ever approve of.

A low, mirthless chuckle escapes his lips and sends prickles of flavorful excitement down her neck. Every hair on the way down stands up, and she's here for it. "No, she's much too preoccupied to spend even a moment dealing with trash like you." Even his voice is like a velvet-wrapped dagger, laced with as much venom as disgust. It's so perfect, if she manages to not kill him, she has to get him on the camera, she's a manager now damn-it! They're both filled with malice, and she can't help but shiver in her footwear. She's going to get to fight someone that truly wants to kill her!

That's awesome! "Oh, I think this is going to be fun," she replies, her voice comes out unsteady, the need to move shaking her to her core and getting in the way of basic thoughts and actions like speech. "Don't scream too much, okay? I'd hate to be judged by my teammates." Lifting her sword, and tilting it towards him, she finds she's ready to kill. Three days of that stupid manor, and now she can finally let loose her bloody rage!

"Owww, gentle, don't hurt me more than Kakashi did!" Naruto's cry of pain is met with a roll of Ino's pretty eyes, and an application of ointment deeper against a wound that's healing quickly but not quickly enough. He's losing a lot of blood, and while she doubts he'll die, he needs to be up and about soon or Kakashi's next beating will send him right back to this state.

"Shut it freak," she scolds him, holding him still, "you'll draw him back if you don't shut up and then even your stupid freakish healing powers won't be enough." It only takes one look at his face to see she fucked up, "what? Freak's a trigger word for you, seriously? What else would you call this? Your arm is reattaching as we speak!"

The thrashing limb seems to have a mind of its own. Surrounded by so much orange chakra it's visible, tendens are reconnecting in real time as she takes note of just how it does so. It's incredible data for her to gather for the medical field, which wasn't a field she cared about until the other day. Now medicine is all she thinks about, she needs to give a single minded dedication to the creed, Naruto'll fucking die if she doesn't! It's all she can do to try her best not to vomit, it doesn't help that the chakra surrounding his arm itself makes her feel ill just being close to it. There's something wrong with him, but the thing is, she's grateful for it.
Let demons possess Sakura's teammates, if it'll keep them alive to protect her.

Kakashi severed his arm to prove a point just a few minutes ago, and she deeply regrets watching when she realized what he was going to do. Witnessing a sensei slashing up his student with a look of pure detachment, it was something straight out of a nightmare. It was like Naruto was nothing, just another leaf in the wind to be discarded if he can't get stronger fast enough to satisfy some sick desire within the older man. As much as she'd love to report this kind of brutality to daddy, or to the Hokage, or to anyone really, the fact that Sasuke's injuries are always superficial and Naruto's body can reattach limbs are definitely connected. It's likely this training is indeed meant to improve them, and the Hokage will lecture her about sticking her nose into other people's business instead of doing anything about it.
She is still going to report this, but she's not expecting anything to come of it but that lecture. She's prepared to accept that, if it means the possibility that she could stop this. "Why do you keep coming out here to help us?" Naruto asks, unable to look at her at the moment.

Yeah, she fucked up, she'll be sure to treat that word with some distance in the future, even if he is being ridiculous. "Because Kakashi lets me," she explains, "he knows I'm doing this. I haven't been subtle, and I've even found money and a shopping list for medicinal ingredients in my nightstand and I sure as hell know daddy didn't put them there. You need it, and he knows it, so I'll keep coming. You're important to me."

"He's training you too?" Sasuke asks, sitting against a tree and catching his breath. Kakashi's so much easier on him, and he clearly resents that. He wishes his arm was severed, which is just, how much of an inferiority complex can you have to want to literally lose limbs? "Figures."

"I don't get it, you want to explain?" She asks.

"He wants Sakura to have a medic, that's all," Sasuke spits some blood to the side, "you're a tool to ensure our dummy doesn't die."

"Good, she needs a tool…" Ino mumbles to herself, and uses a pair of tweezers to remove a stick in the way of Naruto's steamy healing. "Do you think you'll survive this training? These injuries are getting worse every day."

"I think we'll be fine, as long as you keep getting better at treating them." Sasuke says, rubbing a little dirt off his hands on his pants, and digging into his pack to get out some food. The one time she tried bringing them something to eat from the outside world, it suddenly disappeared from her pack, which told her to not do that again. They'll have to survive with what they catch and prepare. The thought that Kakashi probably ate her homemade egg salad sandwiches with glee and then teased them about them the moment she was gone, only makes her a little pouty. She won't let that asshole win, not if she can help it. Sakura's right, Kakashi's a dick, she wouldn't talk to him either.

"I'll try my best." Ino watches as Naruto's arm seriously just reattaches completely, and the seam of his flesh froths over with a foam, before it's completely healed. All she has to do is wipe away the foam with a cloth, and admire a job well done. She barely did anything, but she learned so much, every one of his injuries is like that.

Ten minutes at max, that's all he needs with that orange chakra, he's getting so much better at using it too. Maybe that's what Kakashi's trying to teach him? Whatever the case, she hopes they'll live through this… Sakura needs to get back quickly, and not just because she wants to kiss her again.

Chapter Text

Her heart races, a powerful and enticing mixture of feral rage and hormonal excitement coursing through her veins like she imagines flows through Amy when she looks at Sasuke. Except she's not staring at a brooding boy with questionable fashion sense and a justification for that fashion sense in the form of a missing family. She should probably take a class on that sometime so she can help him out, two birds with one stone since she'll learn too.

She's staring down a monster, and her sword is itching to actually be used. Even ignoring the sheer malice radiating from his gaze, this man works for someone that's raising the dead and plans to sick that dead on innocent civilians. There's no saying they haven't already with this village, it's possible some of the seemingly dead village's vibe wasn't from the missing nin at all, but from the actual living dead walking around killing everybody. There's no excuse. This man needs to die, everyone with him needs to die, his boss needs to die, and when she's done with him she'll be that much closer to stopping a tragedy.

And she's going to have fun doing it. It's been so long since she's really let her sword run wild, that was back in Wave when it hadn't even been called Thirsty yet, let alone Hunger. That was before that whole Tenten incident - mostly her forgetting about her sword in Tenten's hands for like two weeks while Tenten neglected it - so she's been meaning to show it some love. She has to give it separation, and she can't let it be her only weapon, but there's no reason she can't use it to have fun. Especially when her left shoulder is killing her, and a lighter weapon would be, well, significantly preferable to picking the hammer back up.

She's done justifying it now, time to do that part where she kills this guy. She's already internally fist pumping.

He steps off the edge of the roof onto the roof proper, and she lunges forward before he's even landed, her sword raised high to strike him down. He effortlessly sidesteps the slash meant to cut him in two from above, and counters with a flurry of kicks that send her reeling backwards. He's not using the weapon at his side for her, which is a bad sign, but then if he's going to underestimate her like that, blocking kicks with her sword and cutting up his shoes is the least she can do. It's during one of those kicks that she charges her sword with some of her blood, and lets it loose, shooting towards him mid strike. It's not good enough for a fully charged swipe, not enough time, and she doesn't get a full slash off so it's not like the technique is all there, but it's enough to cut right through his footwear and splatter her with blood.

Unfortunately, the man moves just right, like he's made of lightning, so the cut's only a little more than skin deep and most of the splatter is from her own attack, but it does cause him to jump back and discard his shoes, knowing now that one of them is destroyed, wearing the other would be a liability to his balance. "So you do have a trick or two." He chides her, like he's talking to a child.

She rolls her eyes, ignoring the man's attempt at banter, before charging in again to try and catch him off guard. It doesn't work, but this time she is met with a clang of steel, the clash of blades echoing into the sky and alerting both their allies to where they are. This'll have to end quickly, she doesn't believe for a second that her allies are more helpful than his are, there's just that many of them on his side and so few on hers. Even if her allies are stronger, they're preoccupied, so she'll need to finish this herself. Her attacks are deflected and redirected, and his are easily dodged by just going with the flow of her weapon's whims and her own battle instincts. He's too fast for her traits to take over, which means he's too fast for her to just overwhelm with mechanics too, but that doesn't mean he's fast enough to get a good hit on her. She's never put into perspective her skills before, and she's always assumed that her offensive abilities are greater than her defensive, but that doesn't seem to be the case. She's left wastefully attacking and making him waste just as much energy doing the same. Or, maybe it's that her offense is strong enough that he's not able to go fully on the attack, and therefore she doesn't need as strong a defense.

Whatever the case, she steps back mid strike to throw him off balance, and readies a set of water shuriken in an instant. She only takes a fraction of a second to aim before throwing them at his face, only to find him tilting impossibly backwards, proving his spine is just better than hers. That doesn't mean much though, when she uses the opportunity to close the distance between them. She brings her hands down, trying to bisect him from his top to his feet with all the force she has. Their blades meet again, but he's tilted backwards towards the roof, and she's standing upright. Slashing at his legs probably would have been better, but she can regret her decision making later. She's too focused on the kill, she'll need to fix that.

Even though he's stronger than her, even though he's clearly more skilled than her, physics gives her a distinct advantage, and she's happy to have something she learned in school for a test actually come up. He can't overpower her like this, which is why she's happy to see him smash back first into the roof hard enough to crack it in all directions. "Guh-" She doesn't let up. She kicks his sword to the side, and climbs on top of him, bashing him in the face with the hilt of her blade. It's not elegant, but the time it would take to flip the sword around would be more than enough time for him to turn this around on her. One smash, two smash, she goes for a third and is caught off guard when he manages to tilt his head to the side just in time for her to miss and embed her weapon partially into the broken roof. It's just enough time off guard for a right hook of his to slam into her chin and knock her off of him, her only grace is that she manages to hold onto her weapon despite the way her head spins. It seems he abandoned his sword for a moment for mobility, maybe she should have done the same. She'll have to take note of that for the next time she's on top of a guy and punching down.

Either way, she doesn't intend to befall the same fate he did, she rolls to the side and is on her feet well before he's on her, and his fluid and graceful movements only manage to push her back instead of taking her out of the fight. Her chin stings, but most of her current damage is from the fireball and her own attack from earlier, if she can just keep it that way she'll win this eventually.

Is what she'd like to say, but being pushed back is a lot more of a problem on a tiny roof like this. She finds herself at the edge of the building quickly, and without good footing it's only a matter of time until the sword he took the time to retrieve - part of why she had time to get up - is going through her.

Fear grips her heart, but she refuses to back down. She doesn't have time to take a deep breath to strengthen her resolve, she has to strike with all her might and pour all her rage into each blow. The clash of steel and the sparks that come from it are almost blinding, but they don't send her backwards, she just has to hold her ground-

She finds her sword clattering to the ground below her, sent off the edge of the building by a blow that… took her hand? She can't see it, it's missing, it's just an arm and then, blood. The moment of confusion is met with not a single sympathy from her opponent, who's raised sword comes crashing down towards her unprotected face. She tries to fall back, to go off the roof with her weapon and evade the strike intended to end her, but he's much too fast. She's not dumb enough to close her eyes and accept death, but that doesn't change anything with his sword entering into her cheek and working its way through her quicker than it has any right to. She doesn't speak, doesn't have the time, she just accepts that it's going to keep going through her like she's made of hot butter.

That is, before a blur of tan appears, and the man attacking her is sent flying across the roof like a tin can. The sword currently in her face goes flying off to the side too, allowing her to not die horrifically. Many would call this very lucky, she's beginning to wonder if she has plot armor.

Already falling off the roof, all she can do is kick her foot out and attach herself to the side of the building using wall walking. Frantically, she scurries for her pack with her free hand, scrambling around while she hears a clash of bodies and blades up above. "Come on, come on…" It's hard with her left hand, she's not that trained with her left hand and it shows. It's something she'll have to work on when she's done here. Pulling out a can of First-Aid spray, she uncaps the lid with the best dexterity she can manage, only narrowly not dropping the thing, and gets spraying.

Her face first, it closes up instantly. She gets a little in her eye, but it doesn't sting, thankfully. It has a mint flavor, and an odd texture to it that makes her skin feel tingly. She tries her hand next. "Awww," and watches as it stumps over instead of giving her the hand back. Maybe if the hand was attached? She'll have to reopen the wound down there and try it.

"She's under my protection for the length of this mission, you'll fight me, cretin." Neji's stance is solid, and his attention is focused on the man. It's hard to do that when Sakura's doing insane stuff in the background of his Byakugan's vision, she's currently sawing at herself and he doesn't even want to know why, but he knows better than to get distracted when the opponent that took her out is on his feet and staring him down stoically, like none of this matters.

"Is this the best Konoha can do?" The man asks, looking relatively unharmed despite the fight with Sakura, and Neji's own powerful kick. It would have been better to get into position and use the drop to get a tap or two on his spine, he could have taken him out in one attack and ended the battle. But then, he would have watched Sakura die to do it. He somehow doubts that her healing cures split in half and dead, and none of them are good enough medics to keep her stabilized for the five hours she'd need to rest if her power truly works that way.

No, he needed to sacrifice his advantage to save the cute but stupid genin they stuck on him with no consideration for his time, and now he's staring down a powerful opponent. "Don't compare me to her, let me show you what I can do." Bravado aside, Neji can't help but admit it.
Sakura's scary and got her ass kicked.

This fight's going to suck.

Chapter Text

Trading blows with a sword isn't Neji's idea of a good time, but he's used to it. Tenten uses a sword all the time, she uses hammers, axes, and kunai, and sometimes even bombs. He's very used to someone trying to kill him in a gentle spar, so he's used to putting his foot forward and meeting the enemy's blows head on no matter how terrifying they can be. It's a common mistake when fighting a weapon user, to try and put some distance between yourselves and avoid getting cut or stabbed or torn in half is only natural.

That's a good way to get killed, a weapon gives the enemy reach. In a battle with a Hyuga, where his touch is as deadly as a sword, the best move he can ever make is towards his enemy. To give in and let fear dictate his movements would give this guy a massive advantage that he could use to treat her just like he did Sakura. Unlike her, it's unlikely he'd be fine in the morning if he lost a limb or part of one. A weapon is an extension of your hands, so he closes in to control his opponents movements and take advantage of just how extended his opponents field of lethality is. This guy can't even stab at him because he doesn't have the room, and his deflections are on point and send his opponent aside. Sakura lost because he is strong, but they're stuck in a fight with a Hyuga without a ranged option. "You are in the range of my Divination."

There's a lot of his moves he hasn't tried against Tenten, because he doesn't hate her. He plans to use them against the mainline some day, but today, he can flicker forward and create a sphere of carnage against his opponent one tap at a time. It's untested against a weapon, but he'll push in and believe in himself, his confidence is all he has in this world and it's all he ever will if the bastards above him have their say. He'll charge until he loses his legs, and then he'll crawl until they take his arms, and then he'll bite until they muzzle him.

He moves so fast he gets a dozen hits off before they've even reacted. It's all he can do to smirk, up until his opponent turns into Sakura's sword. "Oh no." He stops mid movement, knowing damn well that means the bastard is down there with her. He darts to the edge of the roof, wondering how he even pulled off that substitution without him noticing. Are they facing an old jonin? He hopes not, they're dead if they are, but then her objectives said chunin and Fierro and this doesn't seem like a freaking necromancer.

"It works, holy crap!" Watching her hand reconnect as the spray works its magic makes her so giddy, next is her shoulder, then her face again, then her whole body. She does a little dance under the spray, feeling her HP restore back to full. Then she sees it.
Her sword disappears- And her foot imbeds itself in that asshole's face before she can even realize what's happening. Her skill taking charge, and giving her initiative in a fight she didn't start. He rolls back from the force, but she's already on him.

She runs along the wall of the two buildings she's between, kicking off at last second just as she catches up to him and he manages to get to his knees, and spin kicks him so hard his face smashes right into the second wall before he can even blink his awareness back. He goes half way through it, and she's on him, pulling his sword from the dirt where its landed from the scuffle, and stabbing-
Again-
And again-
And again-
She doesn't stop, he's a threat to both of them and he could be pretending, she won't let him get back up and hurt her, or Neji, or Tenten, or anyone!

It's somewhat relieving to see Sakura stab the corpse below. They got him, even if it was luck, and circumstance, and her happening to reflexively react. That's all a battle is sometimes, a lot of being outplayed until you get lucky, or vice versa. His arrogance was his downfall. It's easy to say, but for Neji it's something meaningful. It's an internalization of something horrific. His Byakugan gives him a close up on something that makes his gut flop, even when he hides his head behind the wall.
She's still going. The first made sense, the second and third was pushing it, each a lethal strike on its own but theoretically needing a finisher to seal the deal.

The next ten stabs into his flesh, rending and tearing and turning his corpse into a pincushion? Every second there's another wet slash, another meaty stab, the ground and wall and everything including her - it looks much worse than even clearing the zombies did. Back then they were coagulated, they didn't spray blood, they didn't make that much of a mess, they didn't tear apart and crunch and break and- They were gross, but they were largely destroyed and moved on.
He's never seen any stand over a body and just-
Half of their enemy slumps to the ground, severed from the top half still embedded in the wall. She's stabbed so many times he's been cut in half and she's… she's still going. An Uchiha would be permanently scarred, and for the first time in his life he's felt bad for another clan. Because for all the incredible close up detail his powerful chakra infused eyes give him, at least he can try to forget this. Someone with the Sharingan has her on his team, and he's sure she was worse the first few times she had a problem.

He can't hold it back, he falls back onto the roof on all fours. His heart beats in his ears, but he can't look away. Their shitty lunch hits the rooftop, his stomach convulsing but he barely pays it any mind as a thought races through his head, that could have been him. He'd pissed her off earlier, he arrogantly assumed she was nothing, just like their opponent had, and yet given just one opportunity, one flickering moment of weakness anyone could have, she's drained his form of blood like a vampire does a girl out on her own at night.

She's not stopping, he can still hear it over the rooftop. He looks to her real sword, discarded to the side, and he suddenly understands Tenten's fear of the blonde girl. She doesn't need a demon sword to be that brutal, what would have happened to him if Lee hadn't gotten in the way of her when she had the possessed blade?

Gai said it was harmless to them in her hands. How drunk was he when he came up with that idea? "Tenten's still fighting." He surmises to himself, justifies getting up from his place and getting out of his own head.

Another wet thump as another part of the man down there is severed by stabs alone, it's all he can do to hold back powerful retching and a whirling mind. "I need to get to Tenten, Sakura'll be fine." He doesn't touch the demon sword with his bare skin, he kicks it off the ledge back down there for her, she'll need it, maybe, if she meets another strong opponent.

He gets it, she's terrified, it's her first time losing a limb or facing death in such a real way, maybe her second at the absolute worst, most people don't do that multiple times and survive, let alone have limbs left after multiple severings.

But fear is all it takes for her to lose her cool like that?

Would it be enough for him to do the same?

No more thoughts, Tenten probably needs him. He'll say that at least, he needs to not be here.

Sitting against the wall, gasping for air, Sakura can't help but look away from the carnage she caused. She destroyed his mantle, that much sucks, it was probably high quality gear. Looking over his body, what's left of it, she finds some higher quality kunai, some money, some nice ninja wire, nothing of note.

That mantle looks so damn nice, she decides to put what she can get out of it into her pack, and see if someone back home can make something out of it. It'd look great on Haku if she could get it fully repaired.

Far more importantly is the sword she used to butcher him. It shimmers in the light, even drenched in its master's blood. It's far more powerful looking than any normal swords she's found in recent times. She can't feel any odd effects from it either, nothing deep inside her that swirls to life or enchants her. It's magic, maybe, it's probably a drop from a dungeon, but it's not special in the kind of way she's used to a sword being.
Picking up Hunger, and putting it in its Thirsty sheath - she's okay with the mix-up now, she likes Thirsty a little more anyway, who came up with Hunger? What a hack.

She wields the blade, and takes a real look at it.

[Noblesse Oblige
Weapon
Rare
Sharpens itself and strikes conceptually based on the power of the user's Ideals, especially noble ones.]

Why is Hunger Epic but that's Rare, that's fucking awesome? It's probably the demon sword thing.

Problem is, she doesn't have ideals… She should change that, she has so much to work for, but currently she just wants to survive and make it and maybe not get so freaked she does that shit again. Looking at the carnage she caused, she's sure Neji's going to judge her like her team did.
No, forget that, he's going to judge her so much harder than they ever did.

On the bright side, "I bet Sasuke'll love this." She swipes the blade to the side as hard as she can, ridding it of grim tidings, and looking at its shimmery shine. Sasuke's the only person she knows that has ideals, but his ideals are very strong, and she considers avenging his clan as pretty freaking noble.

She contemplates giving it to Tenten, as she'd probably appreciate it too. One does not forge a massive hammer, then forge a second one just in case, and forge bombs for fun, if they do not love cool magical sword nonsense, but Sasuke's the better pick in the end. She'll have to get it a nice clean sheath and wrapping and maybe get it engraved for him.

She's distracting herself, she knows she is. The reality is that what she just did was beyond reasonable.

The enemy died, that's all that matters, is what she'd like to tell herself.
But that's not true is it? What if someone had snuck up on her while she did that?
And she didn't even have Hunger to blame it on. She has problems.
She needs to talk to Kakashi. "When I get home." She swears to herself, picking up and readying herself for the next battle.

[3/20 Genin killed]
[1/10 Chunin killed]

Her system's partially to blame. There's no ambiguity there, no defeat, no incapacity, kill.

It wants her to strike them all down and bathe in the bloodshed as a master of dark demise.
And who is she to deny it, when she wants much the same?

"Just for now, I'll talk to Sasuke's guy or Kakashi or someone, when I get home."
This was probably what Kakashi was trying to show her, when he sent her to this team.

Chapter Text

Equipment, check.
Personal charms, check.
Everyone present?

His dark eyes roam over his two allies, ready to descend upon the darkened version of the village they’d taken refuge in from the leaf ninja. A gate had opened and Fierro had ordered them all to follow her into this horror show version of the village they’d taken over days ago. She’d called this a Dungeon, said it would help them and hurt their enemies. So far it just seems like it lacks vibrance. The structure is unfamiliar, and it makes quickly navigating harder. Despite that, they did what Fierro said, so here they are.

Gita and Luminella, brunette and of the grossest green hair imaginable respectively, are both strapping in their leather gear and using every extra crevice their girly bodies allow them to strap on other equipment where their opponent likely won’t look. Mostly places like their inner thighs, under shorts. A spear rests in Gita’s hands, a set of personal kunai, twisted with hooked ends rest in Luminella’s, they look pretty ready to go out and fend off the invaders that have been chewing through the necromancer’s experiments as of late.

Comrades check, they seem pretty ready. “You two done wasting time?”

“Shove it where I asked, Miel,” Gita’s attitude is always well appreciated, especially when it doesn’t make any sense.

“No, I asked, that was a question.” Miel sighs at her, and shakes his head when his teammate glares at him with dark, brooding eyes.

“We should go after Maestro, he gave me headpats this morning.” Luminella’s rather immature, but that makes sense, she’s ten, passing the genin test early is supposed to be a huge accomplishment but when you immediately use your success to run off and do your own thing it’s a bit diminished. That she uses all that childlike glee and wonder to worship all the Chunin around only makes it a little weird. He’s not about to complain, it gets them free snacks when the Chunin come back from missions. Well it did, before they came to this hellhole out of fear. 

“We can do that, just don’t let him notice we’re following him or he’ll give us another training session.” Miel rubs his cheek in phantom pain, a memory of just yesterday coming to the forefront of his mind.

“Are you three ready?” It’s not one of them that speaks up, it’s a round glowing ball at Miel’s side, resting loudly in a satchel. He lifts it quickly, readying himself to speak. “Reporting in, Fierro, we’re ready to move out.”

“Good, I need as many of you searching as possible, stick together okay? I already have reports of deaths in our troops.” The ball responds. Fierro’s voice is a little deep and regal, but she’s forcing it. They all know she’s forcing it. It’s comforting, knowing she’s putting in all that effort for them. Fierro’s about as formal normally as they are employed.

“You what?” Luminella gasps at the stone, grabbing it from his hands, “they’re already killing our people? How dare they!?”

“Just get out there and back someone up, okay?” The ball orders, and Luminella hands it back, ready and invigorated to destroy the invaders. They’ll not be late!

“Ugh-bluuuhh-What the-why-why would anyone-guuuh-” Luminella’s not handling the sight very well, then again neither is he. His hand rests on the young girl’s back, rubbing circles and using his need to comfort her as an excuse to override his own desire to run out there and attack that bitch. “Maestro…” Luminella’s tears well up for all of them, it’s a lot, and he… 

“Why is she doing that?” Gita asks, rage sparking in her eyes as she stares across the street and down two alleys away. It’s not some random act of violence, or a comrade’s death they’re witnessing.

They saw his death, but that was quick and easy, that was fine. This is a rebellion, people die. It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last time they witness a friend’s body slump over.
It’s after his death that has them on their toes and ready to go die with him.

The meaty stabs are still ringing in their ears a solid minute after his execution, mostly because they’re still going on so they can still hear them quite actively.

“He was so nice to me…” Luminella whines, a hand over her mouth, now that she’s run out of things to reject. The green haired kid is now aggressively dry heaving.“Why like this, why is she?”

That’s when Maestro's body, having twitched and rocked with every jab, falls in half, and slides down the wall to the ground with a wet thump.

“Guuhhhhh-” Luminella found something deep inside her, to continue her conquest against everything she’s ever eaten.

“Okay… Retreat.” The crystal ball from their side orders them.

“What?” Gita asks, gripping her spear with both hands, and clenching her teeth.

“Retreat, you’re not equipped to handle that.” The ball explains.

“She seems pretty distracted.” Miel says, pointing the ball towards the demon that has no right paying that much attention to their fallen comrade, their sometimes mentor, someone that made sure they had food when they were lost and afraid. Maestro’s who found them, starving and full of regrets, and now… Now, the one that gave them purpose is without an arm, they watch it slide down the wall leaving a streak of red following along it as it slowly moves to the ground. Asking it to just fall after severing is apparently too much of an ask..

“Look at that, take a deep look.” The ball says, unfazed, or possibly too fazed to show it. They stare, unable to look away less because they’ve been ordered, and more because they can’t. No matter how much they want to, they can’t pull their eyes away from a monster.

“That’s you if she notices you sneaking up. Come back to me, Maestro wouldn’t have wanted that for you. I’m signaling the retreat of all Genin, the Chunin will cover your retreat and join you shortly.”

“But-” The girl with the spear clenches it hard-

“But nothing Gita!” Fierro snaps at her through the stone. “That’s someone who’s given into madness and allowed themselves to live in darkness. My homeland was filled with forces of nature like that, you will die if you step towards her even one step, retreat. I’ll prepare an ambush later, I’ll send thanks to my homeland that you’ll be alive to see it.”

“As you wish, Fierro.” Miel doesn’t like it, but orders are orders, and there’s nothing they can do for him. It’s a shame, after he did so much for them…
That girl will pay.

Despite searching thoroughly, Sakura can’t find anyone. Technically, silence is a good thing, but what it really means is that most of the enemy has left and they’ll need to fight them later. It’s not so much a positive as it is a matter of perspective, and her perspective is that taking them out one at a time here is so much better than the alternative.

Unfortunately, they’ll see that alternative, Sakura’s not looking forward to getting ambushed.
[4/20 Genin Killed]

She’s glad their kills count towards the counter, it’d be so awkward if it just kept generating dungeon enemies for her to execute. She’s pretty sure they’re real people in this dungeon, so would it draw in more real people in that case? Could they depopulate an entire area of traitors like that? She’s not sure she’s comfortable with that idea. A kill or two here or there is one thing but at what point are they doing something much worse than saving the capital from zombies? Luckily, that’s Neji’s problem to figure out, she’s just tagging along. Well, it’s not his issue either, since it’s hypothetical.

The idea bothers her, is all she has to say on that. If she’s to wage a proper war, there better be others there to shoulder the blame, lest she end up Kakashi.

It’s a needless thought meant to distract her from just how much gore she’s covered in. She’s not in a good place, she can feel it, she needs a bath, maybe a palate cleanser. She could go for some chips and maybe a soda? They’re bad for her but nothing beats a nice gaming session with a bag in one hand and a drink in the other, and she gets constant exercise, so it’s not like… Actually, can she even get fat? Would her system consider that a status condition and reset-

Again, she’s distracting herself from her own actions. Enough of that.
She stumbles into where the smoke was before, and follows a trail, until eventually she’s stepped on and crushed enough smoky gravel and what was path beneath her feet, that she can see her bun haired bestie - of the moment - in an axe fight with some crazed looking maniac. Neji is standing to the side, giving him threatening glares, so she finds herself walking right up to him instead of intruding. “Is there like, a reason, we’re not getting involved?” She asks her temporary teammate, watching as Tenten narrowly avoids being bereaved, and watching her strike back in a display that causes her ears to ring from the sheer scrape of metal against metal. 

“She doesn’t need our help,” Neji says, “our time is much better spent watching our surroundings and making sure no one else joins the fight or sneak attacks her.”

“Oh wow, that’s advanced.” Sakura whistles, a part of her truly means that. Her team would never just let her fight something without assisting in some way, and they’d definitely not think about watching the surroundings. “Is that standard Hyuga practice or like, ninja practice?”

“Ninja, though, being a member of the Hyuga clan does make me more comfortable with just watching. A lot of our childhood is spent mastering observational techniques, as it is the role we will take in the group more often than not. It pays to pre-train in our niche.”

“Oh wow… I think I get why Kakashi sent me here, well, one of the reasons, there’s a lot of them.” She sighs to herself, watching the fight with renewed vigor. She too, could learn to just watch when necessary, and only get involved if she has to. “But what if you see a good opportunity to take them out?”

“That depends on if your ally is struggling,” Neji answers with an odd patience seemingly conjured up just for her, “if they’re not, chances are they see the opportunity too and you’ll just get in their way. If they are, well, I cannot speak for your teammates, but Tenten’s my top priority in the field. I never want to get in her way, or mess her up, but I also do not want her to get hurt because I missed a chance when I should have acted.”

“Because she’s weaker than you and Lee?” Sakura asks.

“Because she gets too excited,” Neji shakes his head for her, “excitability in a combat situation is a liability. I need to ensure that she does not overextend herself in the heat of the moment. I believe that you may have the same problem.”

She doesn’t need to look down to know he’s referring to her clothes and her, everything really. “I do,” She agrees, “thank you for saving me earlier.”

“You can thank me by never doing whatever that was, again.” He growls at her, lowly, it’s almost missable but she can tell she lost some respect from him for that. She lost some respect for herself too, she’s genuinely not sure what happened there. She did that with Gato as well, both times really, it seems her response to fighting a superior opponent is to just kind of lose it and get stabbing. They’re going to start calling her ‘Sakura, Stabby Stab, Haruno’ at this rate.

So instead of defending herself, she sighs openly and concedes, “I’ll ask Kakashi how I can improve on that,” and then answers with an honest, earnest desire to do better, “Lee doesn’t need help? He seems like the kind to get excited and overextend too.”

“Lee is very durable, he can survive a mistake or two. Tenten, might not. So Tenten is my priority.”

“I bet that guy was durable and could survive a mistake or two.” She mumbles to herself, thinking back to the guy she just so recently killed. He talked to her, he acted like a real person, he didn’t seem like a dungeon bandit or a fantasy Gato at all, his teammates probably also thought he was invincible.

Despite saying it only for her, she finds Neji nods at her statement, a wistful look taking over his features at the thought. Perhaps she should just stop talking before she ruins his day anymore.

Chapter Text

[4/20 Genin Killed]
[2/10 Chunin Killed]

The numbers themselves aren’t very high, which tells her this dungeon is nowhere near complete. Buuut, those are probably people, so complaining that they haven’t killed enough is probably the kind of tone deafness which’d really make Naruto and Sasuke squirm. It’s not that she’s frothing at the mouth in desire of violence for violence sake, but the people they’re trying to kill are themselves trying to kill a lot of people, mostly innocents, so it’d be nice if she could just be done with them already. 

Frothing at the mouth in hopes of extreme violence is what Tenten’s doing. Her final slash on the Chunin that dared to stand in front of her proved that the drops aren’t necessarily based on the enemy. Whereas her opponent had dropped his sword, and she’s yet to get an off-theme drop, Tenten’s not having anything about logic and rules and reasonable drop tables.

“Look how pretty she is, Sakura look, look!” Sakura has to tilt herself to the side so she’s not staring down the length of an absolutely massive barrel.

[Tenten’s Dragunov SVD-63
Epic
Developed to provide long precision long-range engagement capabilities to ordinary troops, it now serves as a personal Fuck You button for Tenten Higurashi. Its scope has been modified for increased precision in a multitude of weather conditions, and it’s been magically reinforced so that normal use will never require significant repair. Can fire Magical 7.62 rounds, or normal 7.62 rounds without discrimination, well, except for all the discrimination flying down range.

Deals 200% bonus damage to targets not currently in active combat with Tenten.
Maybe don’t step in front of it ]

“I see it, Tenten, you can have that one too,” Not that she has a choice in the matter, it’s anointed specifically for her. Talk about getting lucky with her drops, “try for sneak attacks.”

Despite the fun moment with the rifle, she finds herself very exhausted. She needs a break, so it sucks she can’t just swap out with Lee. She’d love to do that for a day or two while she plays a game or learns some cool Taijutsu from Gai.

“So I know Gai’s a legend, but is he that great a teacher?” Sakura asks, her clothes muddying a stream they found not too far out. Getting naked in front of Neji was a disturbing prospect for the three seconds it took Tenten to say ‘he’s seen you naked a hundred times, his eyes see through clothes.’

And you know, that probably shouldn’t be comforting, because it implies there is an entire clan of potentially perverted crazy people who can disable your ability to move at a touch, and honestly the more she thinks about it the more horrifying it is. Whatever goddess or god designed them definitely has a problem, and definitely leaned into their interests. Genetics just, aren’t normally that precise.

But it is comforting. There’s something weirdly nice about knowing someone’s seen you naked a hundred times in the last few days, and they still hate you. Like it’s so invigorating to know he’s not shallow like that. Everytime he glares at her has a new context to it, and she can appreciate it. There’s probably something wrong with her head, but she’ll take the victories she can get when it comes to this insane mission.

“I wouldn’t know.” Neji answers her question, the graceful bastard only needed a small dip to get clean, so he’s just waiting for them now. Tenten got covered after her axe went through that guy and Sakura, well, she’d rather not think about it. Neji doesn’t seem to have told Tenten about her little panic attack slash puddle creation mishap either which is such a nice saving grace. “He’s my sensei, but almost all of my training is done at the Hyuga compound. He seems very capable for Lee.”

“What about for you, Tenten?” Sakura looks to her other teammate, giving her a quizzical look while the girl awkwardly scratches at her cheek.

‘Uhh, well, I mostly train with weapons,” Tenten admits, “and he’s very good with them, don’t get me wrong. But he specializes in Taijutsu, so while he’s very good at teaching me how to use a new weapon, he’s not so great at teaching me the unique aspects of each weapon.”

“So why not get a dedicated teacher and train in only one or two weapons?” Sakura asks, “Is the shop so poor you can’t afford that?”

“Guh-we were having such a nice conversation,” Tenten huffs, leaving Sakura to wonder what she said wrong, “I don’t want to. Is that a good enough answer for you?”

“If it’ll make you less mad at me, it’s the best answer you could possibly give.” Sakura finds herself giving the irritable brunette a thumbs up.

She’s on such a hair trigger sometimes… A shop like that should easily be able to afford a tutor, what’s the issue? Is she right? Does Tenten secretly not have parents and totally runs the shop all on her own? That wouldn’t make a lot of sense given that’d mean the shop doesn’t function during missions, but then hiring someone else for those times would take a lot of money on its own and keeping the cover could prevent her from having the money for a tutor!

That’s complete nonsense, her brain informs her, but hey, it’d make Tenten more understandable.

She quickly finishes cleaning her clothes, knowing damn well that Neji’s about as interested as Lee is malicious, well, it’s nice. What with Naruto and Sasuke and Ino and Haku’s weird obsession, she was starting to think she was the main character in a simdate. The actual simdate event didn’t help with that.

She’s just so relieved! “Thank you, Neji!”
The boy seems very unamused by her thank you.

“That’s enough, Gita.” Sitting on a throne made of bone, an ethereal flame sparking to life behind her, only to be snuffed out an instant later, their lord sits with a fist on her chin and an arm resting on someone else’s arm bone. “I understand why you’re being disobedient, but you will die if you leave now.” 

Gita, standing with her boney spear held in one hand and pressed against the ground so hard it’s cracking, the blade of an old thigh sharpened and given a coating that turned it hard as steel and wreathed it in poison, bites her lip. “You understand nothing, if you did you would have had us ambush her immediately and put an end to that beast before it comes for us.”

Gita’s opinion isn’t just a voice in the crowd, it is the crowd. It’s an issue she’s had to deal with since the leaf ninja entered the village and killed all those weaklings. It’s not that Fierro doesn’t care, it hurts her just as much as it does them. They've been serving her for a while now and while using the dead as disposable tools is easy for her, the actual living breathing human beings that follow her around are a different matter.

But as deaths are starting to pile up, and they’ve made it through the damn trap mansion, time’s running out and that’s just adding to all this. “And lose more of you?” Her statement rings true, but she finds so much doubt in their eyes. It’s not her fault the leaf sent a savage. A Jonin was always a possibility, they knew that, but a Jonin would have killed them so fast they wouldn’t have had time for this. That was an acceptable outcome, at least no one would have had to suffer with the harrowing eyes they show her now. Were her ambitions ever worth those looks? How many second thoughts are required to make this okay? Does saving them all from their poverty stricken lives as outcasts even count as a good deed if they all die?

She holds all that in though, because she’s a leader, and, well, that’s what matters. That’s what has to matter for them to get through this. “They’ll be entering the catacombs soon, we’ll set an ambush for them there. No Genin, just the Chunin, there’s no way they can take eight of them at once in close quarters.”

“You mean to leave us out then?” Gita’s teeth clench. She’s as pretty as she is defiant, that frosty glare doesn’t suit her well at all, but what can one expect when your friends are dead? “It’s not just Maestro, we lost six of our friends in minutes, no one is willing to sit back and do nothing while we lose more, either you send us or we’ll go on our own.”

“You’ll die.” Fierro says, the words simple but so powerful they ring in the ear. Much to Fierro’s shame and fear, no one seems to care, and they filter out to go die a horrific and painful death against her commands. Should she change her plans, or keep the Chunin back for the ambush as expected? If they won’t listen to her, should she cover for them or let them fall?

More importantly, should she stop them? It’ll take magic power from her to stand against them, which is a precious and scarce resource at this point, but she can save their lives right now by summoning enough monsters to beat them to submission. The power rests at her fingertips, flaring to life uselessly. She could order the Chunin at her side to restrain them too, that’d save her magic.

What’s the point if they all die anyway, because she can’t protect them anymore?
What’s any of it matter, if she starts ordering them to fight each-other?
They all followed her willingly…

The Chunin are loyal, she thinks, they’ll stay, but that’s an issue on its own. It’d be better if a few of them ditched her and followed them, but then does that mean she should order them to do just that?

“I wasn’t born for leadership, I was born for science!” Her hand smacks a bone on her throne, and she’d be amused by the way the stuck together hand wiggles after she smacks it, if she wasn’t gripping her forehead in rage, “gruaaaaahhhhh! Fuck you!”

Who she’s even shouting at, she’s not sure, but whoever he is, he needs to go fuck himself.
Damn the leaf, she needs to think, hopefully before sixteen Genin walk into a shredder… No, that’s too generous, there’s no way every Genin is following Gita, some will just return to their chambers annoyed but not willing to jump the gun.

“But that makes it even worse!” Because at least some can escape if more go, but if only a few go they’ll surely all get torn to shreds, they can reduce casualties by sending more!

So she should send more intentionally - but then she’d be undermining her authority by giving in to what they want after telling them they’ll die and demanding they stay. But does she care about her authority? But then that very authority is the only reason she can keep them alive…

“May I suggest you send the rogues?” A voice at her side jumps her out of her stupor, and she finds her palm is on her chest, and her heart rate is higher than it has any right to be.

“Why?” She asks, eying him, her right hand, a man that’s been with her for so long. He stands so stoically, so powerfully, ready to enact her will no matter what. If only the Genin were like that.

“They wouldn’t win, but if they attacked at the right time they could give the weak ones a chance to escape.” His words are always so reassuring, and his fake smile warms her heart as much as a real one could.

“And since they’re already summoned, they won’t take mana, yeah,” she agrees, “I’ll send the rogues.”

Chapter Text

The ground quickly leaves the territory of the town as they continue walking in the direction the dungeon leads them. The world behind them fades, and the path in front of them twists into colored sand. The colors fade from the world with each step, until eventually she’s overcome with a feeling of nostalgia, and the land around them has turned sepia. She can’t help but notice ghostly images passing them by.

“Why are you following me?” Sakura turns, but it’s not Tenten or Neji talking, it’s a ghostly figure with long pointy ears, and a hateful scowl on her face. It’s the ghost of an elf, but elves don’t exist, so it’s not important. Even as the figure, and another continue to talk, she forms a Genjutsu release seal and tries to tune them out when that doesn’t work. She has to focus on the important details. They’re in enemy territory, and she has no time to pay attention to illusions or dynamic storytelling.

“Neji, are you paying attention?” She asks with exasperation when she notices the boy looking behind them, leave it to him to not be the type to skip boring cutscenes.

“I do believe that’s Fierro,” he explains, “her manner of speaking is accurate to the way the text has been written on the research papers.”

“Fierro’s a freaking elf?” Sakura can’t help but shake her head, “you get how stupid that sounds?”

“She’s currently threatening to murder a guy and then resurrect him as her slave if he doesn’t leave her alone, pay attention.” He scoffs at her.

“No!” Sakura huffs, looking at Tenten for support, only to find her clearly hanging on every word with bated breath.

If the dungeon wants to regale her with the story of their enemy, it can do it in a way that matters to her. Illusions and shadows are bad enough in games, especially when they slow you to a walk and stop your progress while they play around you. Luckily for her, they’re not slowed at all, and she can sprint away from them!

Neji’s listening, he’ll tell her if something important happens.

Still it’s very good to know that this dungeon is sympathetic to Fierro’s tale, or at least wants her to be. There’s something more to this than a crazy resident evil plot. Giving her a success objective that relies on killing them all is very confusing though, is it having a change of heart?

It won’t stop her from removing her head from her shoulders though, the evil mastermind needs to die, it’s that simple… Unless Neji tells her otherwise, then it’s not that simple. Maybe it’ll change her quest if that happens?

But Neji’s not gonna do that, because he’s spent the last several days straight reading the ramblings of a madwoman, he’s not about to care that she’s having some illusionary lovers spat in front of them.

Well, not enough to change his mind on their duty. She chances a look back, and sees neither of them have caught up to her. “You’re both seriously watching that!?”

“Up ahead, sixteen people.” Neji throws his hand out to signal them to stop mid-step, just as they come into view of a set of six tall and square buildings side by side - three to each side of the walkway - where an ambushing group is more than likely to be waiting on the roofs.

“Sixteen- how in the actual hell do we deal with sixteen people?” Sakura spins in place, taking a look around just in case there’s more. There’s not, Neji’s good enough, but her nerves are on fire. “They could be academy students, we’d still be overrun and beat to death.”

“Trash is trash,” Neji shakes his head, “we can deal with an endless horde of trash.”

“That you can say that with confidence terrifies me.” Sakura allows her tone to fall into a bit of an exaggeratedly dead one. She looks to Tenten with begging eyes, “be a voice of reason, will you?”

Tenten, is already readying something from a large scroll, pulling out what looks like- “the freaking rifle? That’s your answer?”

“I can probably take out a few before they even realize they’re under attack, if we can find a good vantage point. Then I can continue to take some out while you two take aggro.” The weapon mistress says, holding up her recently looted glory. “If it works how I think, I don’t think this’ll be a problem at all.”

“... Okay then, sure.” Sakura looks down at her armored clothes, smoothing out the wrinkles and taking some comfort in the way the chain mesh clinks oh so gently when she shakes it. “So we need to be huge distractions while Tenten takes them out, does she even have it in her to kill this many people?”

“No, but she doesn’t have to, neither of us have any problems eliminating attackers, and even if she only kills a few, the morale loss will be substantial. Many will duck for cover in fear, and ducking behind cover matters very little when two melee fighters are also behind your cover.”

“You have a point, let’s get into position I guess.” Sakura shrugs, knowing damn well this is about to suck really, really bad.

“You walk into the trap, I’ll try to sneak onto the roofs first, you join me once they turn on me.” He says.

“Understood, but where is Tenten going to-” A look back reveals she’s already quite far away, running towards a set of buildings about half a minute back.

Walking into a trap intentionally feels so awkward, but she has to do it. While Neji trusts his speed, she trusts something else entirely, her trait. The moment the very first kunai flies down at her, she can feel her sword react on its own and knock it out of the air.
Then the next.
Then the next.
Then the next-
“Oh fuck.”

It’s horrifying, the air is converted to metal in a second. They clearly anticipated this and decided to take her out before she could possibly react. She’s the priority above all else, that much has been made clear, and that she’s only finding out so late sucks. It’s so fast she can’t even change her mind and reorganize her plan of action. She can’t see the sky past the volley of death flying at her, the world turning to darkness within an instant. 

She prepares to be turned into squishy substance as the massive weight comes crashing down on her, but the only thing that touches her are sparks from metal on metal. Her body moves automatically without strain or care. She feels like some kind of mech from a game, reacting to the attack with scanners and precision that no human could ever match. She can tell the people above on top of the building are very confused, and that causes her a wicked grin through her own crippling fears. 

The thing about having a volley of attacks thrown at you like this, is that blocking them all should be basically impossible without extremely high level skills. Her sword needs to be in multiple places at once, and with every block she should lose enough force that even if she was fast enough, the weight alone would eventually crush her. The screech of metal is deafening and puts Tenten’s weapons to shame, but her ears don’t hurt, and her senses are somehow sharper for the molten red mulch she’s creating above her. Every automatic movement reorganizes reality, superheating the air and breaking the sound barrier hard enough she’s not surprised when the sand beneath her is sent flying in all directions and she’s left falling as if she was standing on a trap that’s now been released. She’s moving so fast she can’t see her own movements, and she’s awed by her own impossible reflexes taking form and forcing her reality upon the world.

She didn’t think her skill worked this way, she thought it considered context and reacted to an instance of attacks. What she’s dealing with is definitely a Jonin level problem, so her skill shouldn’t be able to react to it at all. None of this should be happening. Their plan failed, they didn’t consider that they might try to kill her above all else, even checking their surroundings. They were supposed to throw a few attacks on her while her teammates took a few out, and then she’d dart in to get up top and start taking them out too. Instead, she should be finding out if she truly has a respawn mechanic. This is everything Kakashi told her not to end up in, and yet here she is.

But her skill doesn’t work that way. It’s considering every single one of these kunai individual attacks, and reacting to them on a conceptual level. She’s not deflecting one conglomeration of academy grade throwing weapons, she’s not even blocking one massive cooperative technique, she is individually responding to thousands of attacks in rapid succession that are below the bar of automatic success, and therefore she is succeeding. Reality, intentions, teamwork, physics, none of that matters.

It’s that realization that makes something else occur to her.
They can’t hurt her.

Thousands of movements in less than one second, and she’s not winded. None of these attacks are high enough level to matter, so her stamina isn’t altered. None of these attacks are strong enough to hurt her, she doesn’t even have to block.

So she doesn’t.

A hint of madness takes over her, as she lets her sword fall, and she lets the rain of burning slag land on her face. She stands still, while enough metal and fire falls upon her to level a street.

She laughs out to the world, unharmed and without the slightest out of place strand of hair, as their greatest efforts are washed aside and the very ground beneath her turns to glass from the heat of her movements kicking in and the displacement of everything she moved slamming together at once.

They focus on her, throwing more kunai and tools uselessly and ignoring Neji. Hundreds more blades fall on her, and she smiles.

She watches with a grin, while a lucky kunai slams directly into her eye, and bounces off like it never existed.

She’s forgotten about Genin Constitution, she’s forgotten the very reasons she was confident in the first place. Gato messed her up, the dungeon level skewed her mind, the fight with Neji, that guy that took her hand, it all made her forget that Neji’s right; trash is trash.

She likely could have walked through the zombies like they were nothing.

She didn’t, she wasted energy, she wasted time, she let her old skills fade away because she had a cool hammer, and a cool new team she wanted to impress, and cool new ideas to play with. Suddenly people mattered to her because her charm was higher, and somehow that shifted her priorities. She became superficial, she forgot her strengths.

She’s not a twisted person, she’s effective, and her goal shouldn’t be about changing who she is, it should be about recognizing the impacts she has on others and not being a jerk when she wants to be nice.

Right now, she recognizes what she’s causing. She can see the faces of those looking over the rooftop down at her. She can feel it in the air, with every attack, with every worthless waste of breath. She can hear it as they scream and beg her to die, and their ragged cries become hoarse and painful and they bargain with the universe to just let her die.

Terror, she is causing Terror. Standing in the magma caused by their failed attempt to kill her unharmed and uncaring, she is terrifying them.

That’s a good thing. She raises her arms, and splays them out for all to see, laughing just a little harder, and drawing every panicked eye to her. She watches as they shake, one guy even turns his blade on his own throat, as if expecting her to do something worse to him than kill him. He’s right, she might.

Heads explode from Tenten’s shots, and bodies slump over and fall off the roof while Neji has his way.

“You’re all dead.” She proclaims, telling them the truth with a glint in her glowing red eyes. They believe her. She watches resignation come over some of their gazes, cloudiness and a loss of will to even move, a disease of shattered morale and broken fools. She doesn’t bother to knock aside the few desperate weapons still thrown at her from the walking corpses about to be shown the wrath of a pissed off Hyuga. They’re so focused on her for some unknown reason that they’re not responding to the guillotine behind them. They’re so sure she’s the only real threat, that they’ll all fall before they take their eyes off of her. She’ll never need to touch any of them, the splatter will never reach her.

But that’s fine
She just cleaned her clothes anyway.

Chapter Text

They come out of thin air. Maybe they would have been visible if the air around her wasn’t already littered with weapons and wavy from the heat she’s ignoring below her. Maybe if she’d been watching anything but the people she was freaking out, she would have spotted their hazy reflections in the dimming light.

Maybe it’s Genjutsu, maybe they have magical stealth, whatever the case, she’s surprised to find three daggers slamming into her from multiple different directions.

She’s also surprised that they hurt. Feeling an invincible high, it’s shocking to suddenly notice a piercing of her flesh out of nowhere. In front of her, and two behind her, forming a triangle of pain that shocks her core for the moment it takes her to react. She doesn’t even recognize what they are before she’s punched one in the face hard enough to shatter it and send bone fragments in all directions. It’s not human, gray bone tinted with age to be a little darker than one might find in class falls to the ground in front of her. She destroyed one with a single blow, watching what was a moving skeleton stop in an instant makes her feel strong again, but not as much as the pain makes her waver. She spins on her heel, using a move kakashi forced into her to pick up her sword on the way and slash it all the way around. She’s happy she dropped it in such a way it stuck into the ground and stood straight up for her, otherwise she’d be swinging air.

They’re gone, instantly. Weak and lacking in agility, the skeletons are sliced in half like nothing, and for good measure she throws a stomp down to crush their skulls when they hit the ground, smooshing their faces directly into the hot magma below. She’s not sure when that’ll stop being an attack and start being a natural force that can very much hurt her, so maybe having a need to move now is a blessing in disguise, that could have truly sucked. “Alright.” She checks herself over, removing the three daggers stuck into her flesh, and noticing they’re all high quality blades. She pockets them all with a little smile. They hurt, which means that despite their weakness, those skeletons are greater than the foes up above.

They didn’t hurt much though, barely even getting through her armor and catching her by surprise, which implies they’re genin power, and she takes half damage from those attacks.
All in all, a check reveals she’s only lost like twenty HP, which is almost nothing in the grand scheme of things for an entire battle like this. Sneak attacks normally do extra in games, she has to wonder if that’s accurate here.

Neji sounds like he’s still fighting, but the weapons have stopped coming her way, which implies either the weak enemies are in retreat and he’s fighting more of these skeletons - something she is sure he is more than capable of - or he’s finally gotten their attention. She’s sure he’s more than capable of handling that too. She’s just not worried about him, and chasing down fleeing enemies isn’t something she’s feeling at the moment, so she stretches instead of rushing in to help her superior. It feels good to feel strong for once. Confidence runs through her veins. It makes her blood run hot and turns her smile into a beam of self assurance.

“Aaahhhh!” Tenten’s scream on the other hand, ruins all of that and has her sprinting
Tenten doesn’t have any magical durability tricks, and she isn’t in armor. Neji can probably see through whatever made them invisible, but Tenten can’t, and they only need a few lucky shots to kill her. She finds herself moving onto a trash can, onto a wall, kicking off onto another wall, and then pushing herself up to climb on top of the roof. It’s ridiculous, but she’s a ninja, screw civilian standards.

A look around reveals that yes, some of the genin are escaping.

[14/20 Genin Killed]

And Neji is fighting skeletons, six of them in fact, and doing a very good job of it. It seems that unlike the Genin, which were hard targeting her, the skeletons decided to stop Neji and Tenten from killing the Genin, mostly.

There’s two more already dead by his side, which means he started the fight with eight, and he’s dancing through it like he’s at a show and approaching a beautiful display to be applauded from all around. She still has almost zero worry about him. Taking him in took half a second, she can thank her crazy high Mind for that.

Turning towards the scream, she can see Tenten is a lot worse off. She’s clutching her throat, blood spilling from her lips, the roof covered in what she’s lost, while three more skeletons stab at her, again, and again-

She recognizes this scene all too well, Tenten’s dead. There’s no one but Tsunade in the world that could save her in the time she has with the tools at play, medical ninjutsu just isn’t advanced enough for anyone else.

Luckily, Sakura doesn’t need medical ninjutsu. She has cheats.

She’s in her pack for a quarter second, and hucking a canister at Tenten the next, while darting over on footsteps made of wind. It hits the poor girl in the face, which’d normally be considered a bad thing, but that means it gets her attention when it lands in front of her and rolls back to her after clanking off the side of the roof. Tenten grabs at it, while Sakura’s feet land on the roof, and a moment later her feet are through a skeleton.

Offensively her targets are terrifying, but defensively, sword rends through bone, muscles crush them, and her body moves on its own into a spin kick that would probably have made Lee mildly appreciative if he was here to see it.

He’s not though, it’s her, and a bunch of dead skeletons, and Tenten bleeding out while scrambling to try and get the canister working. Sakura crouches low, grabs her from behind, pulls her against her chest, and uses her hands to grab the girls’. She does her best to steady her friend’s shaking grip, and ignores the slippery nature of the flowing fluids spattering the canister. She can’t focus on the fact that Tenten has seconds at best, she won’t think about the fact that she is dying in her arms while she tries to help her. One finger lands on the top of the canister, the other holds it in place with Tenten’s help-

And the spray begins. Green and floral, it smells distinctly of flowers, and strongly too because Sakura shouldn’t be able to smell anything but decay and heat and blood. She helps Tenten focus it on her throat, but that’s not enough.

Even as her jugular closes, she knows there’s a dozen other stab wounds that’ll kill her just as fast, and they already used the entire canister on just that.

Wandering minds make her wonder just how much HP Tenten has, and if having higher HP can actually make you easier to kill from things like blood loss, but that wandering mind is forsaken a moment later when Sakura pushes the girl onto her stomach, forcefully pinning her beneath her, and reaches for another canister.

She sprays, desperately.
Empties it, tosses it to the side-
And grabs another.

“I think she’s fine, Sakura…” Neji’s hand lands on Sakura’s shoulder, shaking her out of her stupor. “I am grateful to see you can lose your cool and overdo it when it comes to healing your allies as well.” The scene is oh so similar to just that of earlier today, and yet, he finds himself smiling instead of wanting to vomit.

Seven canisters lay on the roof to the side, and Tenten’s genuinely never looked healthier. She’s practically glowing. “Are you sure?” Sakura asks him, red eyes wavering, brimming with tears that make her look both so vulnerable, and so innocent. If he hadn’t been her teammate for the last week, and hadn’t seen all the carnage she can create, he’d think she was just a little girl.

“Yes, Sakura.” He can’t help it, his fingers land on her scalp, and waywardly brush through her silky hair. She’s taken good care of it in recent times, nothing like how she looked when he visited her class to check on Hinata that one time. She had been scraggly to a fault, not a bit of girly nature in her. She’d been an outcast in her own friend group, and was so busy chasing after that Sasuke guy that she didn’t even realize Hinata wanted to be friends. Of course she wouldn’t have had to realize anything if Hinata would stop being a pathetic whelp not even worth her own air, and be forward with something for the first time in her entire life.

He hates her so much.
But seeing Hinata in Sakura in some very real ways, he can’t help but think that maybe it’s not Hinata he hates, it’s what she’s cost him.

It doesn’t matter right now, he’ll have time to consider much after this mission. So much has happened, and he’s done so much thinking. Sakura is a force of nature, every team should take her on a mission once. He’ll be saying as much to the Hokage during his report.

“Some got away,” he says, as Sakura lowers her head and accepts the nimble touches like they make sense and aren’t at all a weird part of his brain malfunctioning, “I was thinking of giving chase while you and Tenten make camp. She’ll need time to recover from this, mentally.”

“No.” Sakura denies, shaking her head at him.
“No one goes alone, for anything. That was too close.”

“Sakura, I feel like I’m a lot less likely to get snuck up on than-”

“No one goes alone, for anything.” Sakura growls at him. A feral animal deep inside of her refusing to even listen to him for a second. Those pained eyes dare to glare at him, and he finds his airway tightening.

He’d like to scold her, remind her that he’s the team leader, but he can’t.
Not while looking at those tear filled eyes, mournful over his teammate, over his friend.
She saved Tenten’s life, he can allow her to disrespect him this once.
“Fine, let’s set up camp, Sakura.”

Chapter Text

Heya, normally don't put notes here but, I accidentally posted chapter 68 instead of 64 last chapter. This has been fixed, if you were confused or accidentally read that chapter, uh, go back and reread 64. Whoops.

Sorry that probably didn't make any sense whatsoever.

“We have sight,” Naruto announces, “a shadow clone deer just died.”
Ino nods. Sasuke ducks for cover.

Hiding in the trees, using henge to appear as twigs and branches and such is the easy part, the hard part is Ino’s. Her mission is much more important, and much more difficult than anything they have to do. She has to play with Kakashi.

“Where are they?” The Cyclops asks her.

“Uh, where are who?” Ino asks, placing a hand on her hip, “whom maybe? I’ve never been very good with linguistics, I bet Sakura’d know, you should ask her. Oh wait, you sent my love out on a mission without any of her friends, I remember now… fuck off? Dick.”

“That’s how this is?” He asks, hands landing in his pockets, while his eye glares her down.

The plan is simple. Naruto leaves a close grasshopper in Ino’s jacket, so he can talk to her. Sasuke and he hide while she abuses a legal loophole. “Duh?” She gives him a smirk. “The moment I get a good date with her, off she goes, you didn’t even follow her.” She clicks her teeth and shakes her head. “I’d think it was discrimination but let's be real here, you’re so much pettier than bigotry. You’re mad she got a date when the only date you’ve had in recent years was with your left hand and a book some old guy made. I bet he smells, can you make out his gross pungence with every page?”

“I’m not sure my personal life is your business, but I have no problem picking up women, Ino.” Kakashi’s eye rolls, but that’s the point. She’s succeeding.

The glimmer in Ino’s eyes gives the game away, but it hardly matters. “Sure, sure, because men getting laid defend themselves to little girls, I believe you.” She lifts the hand not at her hip, and looks at her pink painted nails. It’s the little things that make a play feel real, “regardless, you’re abusing my patients too much, they need another hour.”

“Bold,” their sensei praises her, “though you know you can’t stop me. I could always beat the info out of you…”

“You can’t touch me, I’m not your student, and I have legal authorization to be here. Sooooo…” She shakes her head, “threats won’t work here, you’ll have to actually hurt me, Kakashi. I’m sure you’d get away with it, but would you break the rule in the first place, or have your years enforcing them made you respect them too much to fuck around for a game?”

“I know where they are, I just want you to tell me. It’ll be a good lesson for them to never rely on people who aren’t a part of their mission.” Mostly, this entire gambit relies on Kakashi being too willing to argue with someone over pedantic bullshit, to buy them another few minutes to rest.

“You say that but I’m pretty sure I’m holding you up right now,” she says, “unless you don’t think you’ve been stopped?”

“I’ve stopped you, maybe-”

The weirdest part is that it works.
No one, not even Ino, expected it to work. She already administered painkillers several minutes ago to numb the beat down that doesn’t seem to be coming.

It seems Naruto and Sasuke get a few more minutes of rest.

Sitting around the flickering campfire, she hasn’t let go of Tenten once. Holding her close, she’s clearly making the older girl uncomfortable, but she’s sitting here stunned and a little shocked, her fingers are vibrating on Tenten’s recently torn skin. She hasn’t said a word, and neither has Tenten, the reality of it all crashing down in an instant has her shaken. Being invincible herself is one thing, but what’s it matter when she leaves the ranged unit alone? She didn’t even need to do that.

She could have left a water clone with Tenten, what was the point in learning a jutsu if she doesn’t use it?

She trusted Tenten’s power, and the artificial levels the system has attributed to people, and she forgot that being stronger than her doesn’t mean she doesn’t have strengths they don’t.

[Contribution Level is a calculation made using base stats, skills and abilities are not counted.]

She knew that, she knew that!
She knew Neji’s clan training made him physically stronger, and Tenten would naturally be faster and stronger than her from her extra year of weapon training.

She knew Tenten would be less durable by the very nature of being a cannon, being tanky isn’t how a gunslinger works, and even if it was, would it matter? Her abilities create artificial rules, but reality still exists adjacent to her. Tenten doesn’t need to lose all her HP, and she won’t get her hand back tomorrow if she fails to put it back on. Lethal injuries are lethal to everyone but her, and she needs to remember that.

“Next time, I’ll leave you with a water clone.” She promises, Tenten’s body is still jittering from the extra healing it received.

“And what good would that have done?” Neji asks her, stoking the fire with a fresh piece of wood in their almost sepia landscape. This dungeon is mystical alright. It probably shouldn’t even be evening yet, but the entire sky is dark and the crescent moon stands out. It’s orange, which is not a color a moon should be, but then this isn’t a real moon anyway so what’s it matter? “You got stabbed too. I was only spared the sneak attack because the Byakugan saw them.”

“Then why didn’t you alert us?” Sakura scoffs.

“It’s one of the weaknesses of the Byakugan,” it’s Tenten who speaks up in his defense, while Neji looks away with a scowl that seems turned inwards, “just because he can see something doesn’t mean he can see that we can’t see it. To him they were walking right up to us. He only realized we couldn’t see them when we got stabbed.”

“That must be… harrowing,” Sakura gulps at the thought, internalizing that kind of horror in an instant. It’s something she can get behind, that’s up there with knowing she’ll recover and they won’t. Logically she should take every hit for her team, but then when her team scolds her for doing that, what is she supposed to do? At least Neji’s issue is more straightforward.

“It rarely comes up,” Neji says, “actual invisibility like that is magic, and magic rarely exists in any form in the outside world, if at all. Normally it’s just not realizing they’re in a Genjutsu that I saw through automatically, which is easy to tell when they start reacting to things that don’t exist.”

“Genjutsu is the addition, not the absence, normally,” Sakura nods to herself, “I should learn Genjutsu. I bet it’d be easy for me…”

“You, using subtle arts?” Neji laughs at her, a sound that takes some of her tension by force. It’s nice to hear it, Tenten’s little giggle helps too. She came so close to never giggling again. She strokes her side, feeling something well up in her chest. That coulda been Sasuke or Naruto, or Ino somehow. What if she’d been so busy feeling good about herself, that someone actually did die?

Would she ever have forgiven herself?
“I know you have an A rank secret, but can you tell me what that was?” Neji asks, “none of that made sense.”

“My reality is conceptual.” Sakura decides to admit to him, after a look between him and Tenten. They’ve been through enough at the moment, they deserve to know a little something. Especially when she’s pulled them into her reality, and dragged them through this nonsense and almost got Tenten killed. “They weren’t at Genin capabilities, so they couldn’t hurt me. Their attacks were too sloppy, so I couldn’t miss deflecting them. The aftereffects of it all weren’t strong enough, so they couldn’t touch my HP bar.”

“Your HP?” Tenten asks, “that’s why you’re healing. You’re not really hurt, your numbers are, and numbers can be restored.”

“It’s theoretically possible I won’t die if they hit zero,” Sakura admits, “back in Wave, my first real mission, I lost consciousness when I only had a few seconds left to live. I still woke up later perfectly fine, and while I had received medical attention between falling asleep and waking up, there’s no proof it mattered. Analytically, I think it shouldn’t have survived, unless I stopped bleeding once I lost consciousness.”

“So you might be invincible, but have no proof, and no good way to test it,” Neji surmises, just before tossing what’s left of the stick into the fire and watching the flame rise for them, a humble summoning under their command providing warmth and gracious light to their gray reality, “that sucks.”

“If I am, I should be jumping in front of attacks meant for others,” Sakura says, “but if I’m not, well I won’t find out until I’m dead.”

“I’d forget about it,” Neji says, “death comes for us all someday, but if you seek it actively you won’t be there to save the next Tenten… I owe you, I would like to be able to repay you in some way other than delivering your corpse to your team.”

“...” Sakura doesn’t have a response to that.

“Your magic is the only reason Tenten’s still alive,” Neji says, “I looked, I never found a single canister of that stuff, even in areas you later checked and found some. You summoned them into existence merely by looking, and they saved Tenten.”

“That magic is the only reason we’re here at all,” Sakura argues, “without this dungeon, invisible enemies wouldn’t have existed to hurt her.”

“There’s no proof we wouldn’t have met Fierro outside of this place,” Neji shakes his head, “magic exists, deal with it. I thought we already had this discussion?”

“It’s different now that someone’s gotten hurt.” Sakura mumbles.

“No, the difference is that the person who got hurt wasn’t you,” Neji asserts, glaring right into her eyes, “I know your type well, and your system isn’t helping you. Everyone signed up to be a ninja knowing that this day might come, that their demise was magic or jutsu or just bad luck doesn’t change what we all agreed to.”

“But not today, Tenten’s safe.” She squeezes the girl to her.

“Not today for us, but all fourteen of the dead Genin died today.” Neji says, “you’re not feeling bad about them, are you?” His question hangs in the air for her. The answer is no, but why not? Why does Tenten matter so much more than them?

Chapter Text

Ultimately, she decides she doesn’t care about the dead genin because she doesn’t care. It’s a bit of a circular logic, but it works for her. The fourteen genin were the enemy, and they tried to kill her with vehemence. None of them particularly deserved to die, but they challenged a force that was stronger and paid the price. That’s how ninja work, and when you go missing ninja you kind of have to double the anticipation of death, possibly triple it. She doesn’t understand why anyone would go missing ninja, but then maybe that’s privilege, she’s privileged to be in a family that loves her enough she never had to have doubts about her place in the world. She’s privileged to be born into a village that is known for its fairness and mercy. Maybe in time, she’ll come to understand them, but that time is not now. Now, she thinks they’re very stupid, and she’s willing to put her sword to that thought and cut them down for it.

Zabuza wouldn’t have felt bad for killing her if she’d actually died when he took her out like a fly, and Kakashi wouldn’t have cared if Haku had stood against them and he’d had to take him out. Death is a part of being a ninja, and whether she’s the one to do the killing or if she’s just a tool to aid in the destruction, it doesn’t matter to her at all.

She’ll give caring a try if any of them surrender, she’ll at least try to figure out if she can fail the quest partially to spare a few, but at the moment none of them have tried and it’s likely none of them will. She’ll just keep slashing until it’s done.

The Genin that fell were likely friends, and they watched each-other die, and from that perspective it must have been horrifying, but from her side it was just what was needed to complete the objective. She hasn’t been given a reason to have an emotional response about what is - to her - nameless opposition. Civilians can afford to spend hours worrying about the enemy, and some low level ninjas probably can too, but she’s decided she doesn’t want to be a low level ninja.

Naruto, Sasuke, her, they’re going to kill Itachi. They’re going to chop him up into little bits and savor their victory in whatever way Sasuke needs to feel human again. They may destroy thousands of lives on their journey, but that’s the price they’ll have to pay to accomplish their goal.

She has to rise above this, which means she cannot afford to create false feelings just to appear normal.

She doesn’t care, at all, and she’s not going to pretend she does. She feels nothing, so she will feel nothing, it really is that simple. Either her teammates will accept that, or they will fall behind while she sprints ahead. Itachi’s their goal post, and from what she’s read, Itachi wouldn’t care. Itachi would strike out and destroy his enemy, so she needs to do the same. Perhaps that’s why Hunger isn’t so dangerous in her hands, because she’s already treading a destructive path it would not dare interfere with. Perhaps it’s proud of her, she’s proud of her.

They need to be the same calibur of ninja as Sasuke’s clan killing brother, and she can walk that path without changing herself. Like she’s come to realize, being her is fine, it’s not understanding the impacts she has on others that are the problem. She doesn’t want to be normal, she wants to not freak out her friends. She wants to learn what’s normal, so she can hide in the shadows when she needs to, and know when it’s appropriate to strike out and destroy all that’s in front of her. She wishes to become a tool for Sasuke’s and Naruto’s goals, and maybe one day she too will request they aid her in conquest. That’s what being a team is about, Kakashi would approve.

That’s why she’s spent the entire night creating a new jutsu. The burning construct in her hands has three elements to it, showing off her incredible control. A long blade and handle making a katana out of earth, giving her a sword just like Hunger but without the burning desire to destroy. It’s a sword that won’t influence her thoughts or drain her life force with every swing. It’ll be better for weaker foes, or tests of endurance where tact is needed. Second, there’s a layer of water on it, creating a sharp aqua blade and allowing her to flex her control by keeping the flow stable and structurally sound.

Third, an activation feature, where she ignites the entire blade in a layer of flame chakra, boiling the water and creating a scorching slash that’ll flow off and burn her opponent even if they block her weapon. She’s proud she managed to create it and two other variations with just one focused night of effort. That she even could is probably a mixture of her mind, control, and system at play helping her. The two other versions are a one handed variant so she can use two, they’re shorter and lighter and don’t fit her body as well but they’ll work when she needs to fight defensively and block a thousand strikes again.

And the second alternate version, much more importantly, “is that flying?” Is one that even impresses Tenten. It floats right over her shoulder, utilizing a little wind to keep it upright and pointed in the right direction.
. 
“Yep,” with a snap of her fingers a clap of thunder shakes the world before a powerful discharge from the base of the blade sends it flying off where it points, in this case stabbing it into a sepia colored tree. Within a second, the flame spreads throughout the bark, crackling and igniting it, while the steaming water flows up and burns the leaves above it to a crisp. “I based the design off one of your bullets, a little ignition switch is built into the base and is set off by a snap of lightning chakra, and then the wind helps keep it steady while it flies. I’d like to make it spin like a drill, but currently using all five elements in one jutsu makes the whole thing suck, so I haven’t figured out how to do cool stuff like that.” 

It’s smaller, weaker, requires a lot of concentration, and is probably only practical for a sneak attack at the moment. Still, she’s proud of herself, she made an illogical thing, and her ability helped her do it like it was normal. Conceptually speaking, this attack is proof that she was dumb for ever trying to work with normal restraints.

“I know of no one else who can use all five elements in one jutsu,” Neji says, watching her antics with a clear bemusement, “it is safe to say that is more magical than it is practical chakra usage.”

“I am sure any seasoned Jonin could do that,” she denies, “but you’re right, that I can pull it off is probably more due to the magical conceptuality of my existence.” She doesn’t have to follow the rules, in fact it’s probably better if she doesn’t. Jonin are incredible because they break the rules in their own ways, working reality like a malleable clay.

“No,” Neji says, shaking his head and laying back down, “that did not even require hand signs, that’s akin to a bloodline.”

She lets him sleep without reply, after-all it is her watch, he has to be up in an hour so she and Tenten can sleep so it’s best to let him rest if he can. It’d be nice if Tenten would sleep too, but it’s also nice to not be alone so she isn’t going to start a fight over it. Besides, if it was just her, she couldn’t mess with jutsu and experiment, she wouldn’t be able to risk missing something on her watch because she was too focused on what she was doing. With Tenten doubling up, she has all the time in the world to expend most of her chakra before bed.

She can’t help but feel a little twitchy. The desire to use her new jutsu has her excited at her core. She’d also love to use Hunger to strike a few enemies down, but nothing beats the idea of watching a new practical application to something that was previously just theoretical.

[0/1 Fierro Killed]
[2/10 Chunin Killed]
[14/20 Genin Killed]

Checking her objectives, she can’t help but feel a little sorrow that they didn’t manage to get a Chunin in that group, or finish off all the Genin. Currently they still have fifteen enemies left to defeat, and the bigger portion are real threats. It’s a problem she can’t help but pout about. They could get hurt again, or worse, they can’t even say they’ve made significant progress because most of what they’ve eliminated can’t hurt her. Going days without real progress is painful! She can’t imagine how Neji is so patient.

“Any idea how long we’ve been here?” She can't help but ask, and finds the other two shake their heads, “you think Lee is bored?”

“Lee has probably gone insane,” Tenten says, “Gai is likely no longer hiding and they’ve both paved new roads with their feet alone from all the running through the town they’ve done.”

“That’s good for the infrastructure,” Sakura says, “I’m glad they could find a way to be productive in a time like this. You have a good team.”

“That is not what I would call that, but yes, I suppose that is true.” Neji nods to himself. He’s stiff, always is, but somehow the idea of a positive spin to their energy is so foreign to him he has to reboot a little. 

“I would love a bath, mnn-” Sakura smells some of her hair, and immediately regrets it, recoiling slightly at the strong, errr, fragrance, “I bet they’re having the time of their life with all the enemies trapped in this dungeon. They’re still getting paid for this as if they were with us.”

“No, I imagine they are stir crazy as can be and making it everyone else’s problem,” Tenten argues with a shake of her head, “as I said, they are paving new roads with their running.”

“What’s that?” Sakura leaves their current topic behind as her eyes focus on a new structure up ahead. No matter how open their environment looks, it’s actually very narrow and with a sort of ‘invisible wall’ built into it. No matter how they walk, they end up on this single path eventually, and she’s not one to argue with magical forces that want to direct her one way or another. What this all means, is that the thing is important, and likely where they need to go even though it feels like they’re finding it in the middle of nowhere.

The structure ahead is thick and massive and round, a metal grate with a flow of dirty water coming out of it and forming a small stream that quickly disappears into the sand like a poorly placed mesh. It’s like a graphic built in a map editor and then plopped down without thought, and she notices the jankiness immediately.

The map designer got bored, and the structure quickly turns to stone inside past the grate, framing a flow of water in the middle with two pathways. To put it simply, “it’s a sewer,” Neji answers her, “the next part of this dungeon enters us into a sewer system.” His nose wrinkles at the thought, and she has to take a deep breath in relief at the realization that the smell that hit her a moment ago might not have been her hair at all. She takes another more concentrated whiff- And immediately regrets it. Nevermind, it’s her, it’s definitely her.

“This is going to suck, I bet we get to fight an alligator.” Sakura says, chipper despite her words. Her hands twitch in anticipation, she might get to test out her new jutsu sooner rather than later.

“That’s ridiculous… which means yes, more than likely.” Neji agrees with her stoically.

Chapter Text

The first steps into the sewer system are the most impactful. Sakura’s nose dies instantly, but Neji and Tenten are clearly bothered if the looks on their faces are anything to go by. It’s pungent, and Sakura hates to admit that it’s just not that big a deal for her. So she won’t, they don’t need to know, she makes a gagging face herself to throw them off the trail of her degenerate years. She’s beginning to think the many times Ino made her try a perfume or a product weren’t about finding her ‘scent.’

It goes to show that love is dumb. The thought makes her smile brightly to herself even in encroaching darkness. It’s so damp around, the stream isn’t sticking to just the center between the two paths. 

Ino's so good to her. Her entire team is. Neji and Tenten are good to her now too, maybe she can make friends if she’s given a good chance? She just needs time to show that she’s a good person, or, maybe that’s the wrong phrasing.

“Ambush up ahead.” Neji’s words catch her off guard and cause her to stumble in place.

“Ambush?” She asks, quirking her brow between him and Tenten, and then following Tenten’s leading gaze down a tunnel to their left after Neji makes some hand signs she doesn’t personally recognize. She can appreciate having a translator, but she doesn’t understand why he’s not using Konoha basic when an unfamiliar team member is around. Perhaps he’s worried about Konoha missing nin catching his signs? But then, if Tenten tells her anyway why not just say it? She chooses not to question Neji further at the moment, there are far more important things about. “Why down there?” she points down to the darkness, “that’s not even the right way to go if we follow the conventional path the dungeon has pushed us on so far.”

“That is true,” Neji agrees, nodding slowly while his Byakugan vision swirls and fills him with a world of information, “we could walk right past them if we wanted, and that is likely their intent. They probably plan to come from behind and pincer us with the rest of their forces later on.”

“So it’s bumble into them and fight now, or deal with their planned ambush later,” Sakura surmises, taking a deep breath of the stagnant, stale, almost acidic air, and placing a hand on Hunger’s handle for confidence. There’s something magical about the way it’s capable of making her feel safe in any situation, and it’s probably not the part of the sword that’s magic. If Tenten is to be believed, Hunger brings about despair and destruction, it breeds hatred and unease, paranoia blossoming until the sword is turned on anyone in sight.

She feels comforted in a very real way. It makes her wonder if it’s not that she’s immune to it in some way, but that it’s genuinely not treating her the same as it does everyone else. What if it’s one of those, the sword chooses its owner, situations? Could it have been made by some celestial smith thousands of years ago, roaming around the world in search of its one true master, and it just kinda lowered its standards over all that time until she was good enough?

All self doubts aside, her system chose her for some reason, maybe she is special. Whatever the case, she lets go of Hunger a moment later. She’ll draw it if things turn bad, she wants to get used to using other sources of power for now. A few hand seals pass, and she has two water clones forming to her side. Because water is one of her main affinities, she’s learning Water Clones as naturally as one might learn to swim. Figuring out hand seals for them shot her ahead, but the important fact is that she’s getting better at them every single time she summons them. She’d have water clones mastered by now if she hadn’t spent so much chakra on other matters, or if she was home and could use every bit of Chakra she has and then pass out for a few hours.

They’re not quite the full version of the jutsu yet, but at Proto-Level 5 she recognizes herself in them. They are one step away from being so realistic it’s awkward they don’t have clothes. They might already be there, but Neji hasn’t said anything… Then again, Neji can see through clothes. 

She’s just about to ask Tenten if it’s weird yet, as a good sense of progression, when Neji makes a few random hand seals. “Look alive,” Tenten says, “the front group has entered the sewer system, it seems we’ll have to deal with both if we wait too long to engage the first group.”

If Naruto were here she’d suggest they set traps, as is, she needs to train that skill for future situations like this. The list of things she needs to learn is getting so long she’s not sure when she’ll ever find the time. “Let’s go then.” Sakura says, already lifting her hands and summoning her multi-elemental sword to her hand, before summoning a few more to float around her. Three, four, five, six-

She finds her body violently rejects the idea of a seventh, it’s too much for her to control at once and she stumbles in place, feeling nausea for even trying. It’s also a lot of chakra to expend, and she can’t help but want to smack herself upside the head for forgetting that. “Yeah, that makes sense.” She grunts to herself, shaking her head as she approaches the path they need to take. 

Tenten’s already got a scroll ready. Neji starts pointing out targets for them with quick and nimble hand movements, and before long she has a pretty good idea of what they’re up against. Four Chunin and three Genin spaced around the dark corridor in front of them. They likely can’t see either, and are using some form of communication to know when they need to rush ahead and meet them from behind. Seven enemies, four of them a higher caliber, that’s not a great number for three genin to fight, but the element of surprise is very useful. They trusted that they wouldn’t be seen so much that they put themselves at a huge disadvantage, which means they somehow don't know about Neji.

With a count to three, she lets loose the swords floating above her with a snap of lightning that blows up the charges on their backs and sends them shooting forward like bullets. A mere moment later, Tenten lets loose a horde of weaponry from her scroll that looks more like a river of metal than anything she’s ever seen in her entire life.
.
The pathway in front of them is flooded with attacks, the darkness meaningless before the light provided by the sparks and igniting swords she’s sent down it. They shoot down towards where Neji pointed out the Chunin were, and while she watches two slam into hastily put up stone walls - a consequence of not having figured out how to make them spin - she hears several sickening thuds and slams, and even sees one person pinned to the floor. They don’t last long there, their screams drowned out only by the roar of the flames that overcome them from her activation of the sword jutsu’s flame element.

[16/20 Genin Killed]
[3/10 Chunin Killed]

On their initial attack, they’ve made their problem a lot more even, and she’s already sprinting down the hallway to continue the attack before they get their bearings.

[4/10 Chunin Killed]

Tenten’s volley picks off someone else before her third step. Even if that’s her sole contribution to this fight, she’s done more than any Genin should be expected, now they just have to do a whole lot more or get buried in this dungeon without any hope of anyone recovering their bodies.

If these are real people, that’s the fate they’ll meet too. She finds an odd comfort in the fact that leaving them all in a puddle of rubble doesn’t bother her. She’s already halfway down the pathway into the darkness by her third breath, and her sword has automatically slashed out and knocked several kunai away even though she couldn’t see them, like they were simply winds to be swept aside.

She sees it the moment it starts, the very nature of a dark corridor like this is that when a giant flame starts snaking its way down the way and filling the tunnel with scorching chakra, it’s visible to all, especially someone like her who’s actually deep in the dark tunnel. They probably intended a giant spiraling flame filling the land with cleansing rage to be intimidating, but for her, all it means is she slams a hand down on the stone and is suddenly engulfed with the powerful reinforcing sphere of Rollout. She continues flowing down the path, the spiky dirt around her getting hardened by the heat instead of broken, and she doesn’t slow for anything.

Having Neji’s eyes would be super helpful here, maybe she should research some way to see outside of her direct vision, especially with how dark it is inside of Rollout, but such thoughts hardly matter to her right now. What does matter-

[17/20 Genin Killed] is the crunch her ball makes as it treats someone like just another part of the terrain. A shot of lightning pierces the ball at her side, and she releases her protective circle of dirt just in time to move out of the way of another shot. She scoops up some of the dirt from Rollout and finds herself creating a second smaller sword from it as instinctively as breathing. The first one from earlier still rests in her palm, a little too large for the two sword style, but then she’s not trained in using two weapons anyway. She quickly adds the extra two elements to the short sword needed to make it her flying version, and flings it off with a snap of her fingers. She hears it clang against a weapon, and activates its fire, using it to light up the area enough for her to see her enemy. The steam that flows off of it is enough to force them to drop their own weapon, good, she thinks, she moves in.

Two enemies left, both with headbands have slashes through them. Suna and Konoha, it seems the alliance between them is strong enough even their missing Nin work together. A girl and a guy, brown and black hair respectively. It hardly matters to her enough to take in any more detail, because the reason she made the two water clones arrives, late but better than never. They’re so damn slow…

One after another, water blades begin to impact the two in front of her, forcing them to divert their attention from just her. It’s a fairly low effort use of her clones, but it’s more than enough to push them out of their comfort zone and stop the one girl from grabbing her discarded equipment. If that’s the only use she gets out of the Water Shuriken Jutsu, she’s happy. The next part is even more important, Tenten joins in on the barrage, forcing them back just as she cancels the flame and removes their vision.

This part is important, because she’s no longer needed. She stands with her sword at the ready to automatically react to things. Even if she fails the reaction test, it’ll still tell her where the attack is coming from, and she trusts herself enough to finish the reaction herself against two enemies being swarmed with projectiles in the dark.

It’s not her job anymore.

“Gurkha-”

“Tomok-gllu-”

Their bodies thumping to the wetness below is more than enough for her to know the job is done.

[6/10 Chunin Killed] The actual tracker is a pretty good secondary indicator. She discards her stone construct, cutting the power to it to conserve energy for the next batch, “good work, Neji.”

One of them can see in the dark, and kill via basic touch.
She doesn’t need to do everything, she just has to make it look like she’s the main threat long enough for him to cut off what made them human from the rest of their body.

She summons a tiny spark of flame so she can see, as she gets looking through the corpses.

“Are you sure now is the time for that?” Tenten asks, despite using the light to gather her own volley of weapons up.

“There’s another group coming for us, right?” Sakura asks, “I need to find out if they have anything worth taking before we possibly have to run for our lives. Besides, the last time I put off looting I forgot to go back!”

Chapter Text

Very Important In Chapter Note! If you feel like you've read this chapter before, you have. It was posted instead of Chapter 64 originally. if you weren't aware of this, go back and read CH 64, it has been fixed.

Lots of high quality gear is gathered from their fallen foes. Some goes into her bag, some gets sealed, most of it’s just armors and kunai and such but she’ll go through it when she gets home and possibly sell some of it for some money. She’ll also need to hand some over to Tenten, after she goes through it. Tenten already got the best loot of this dungeon, no reason to not be discerning, but she still deserves a portion. Neji’s rich and has no use for weapons and armor, he can get screwed on loot rolls. Poor girls gotta stick together.

Haku is probably doing fine so maybe she should treat herself with the money she gets. She does want to pick up a training set of cookware so that if she destroys it her parents aren’t super mad at her. She also wants to get a little into blacksmithing, which will probably let her bond with Tenten. She wants to learn better stealth skills and trapping and possibly shooting with Tenten. If nothing else, it’ll give them something to bond over. She has to have a way to practice, and the marksman skill will probably help her at least translucently in several other skills. She sincerely doubts being able to get an amazing shot with a rifle wouldn’t help her with her crossbow. Maybe she’s wrong but like, marksmanship is marksmanship, right?

She’s going to need money, so yes, she does totally loot all their money and daydream about bathing in the riches. She allows herself a little cackle while letting coins fall through her fingers.

“I’d love to just set up an ambush down here and lead them into their own trap, but unfortunately, no one but you can see in the dark,” Sakura mumbles, looking over at Neji, “we’d be in the same situation they were, and well, see how well that worked for them.”

Badly, it worked badly. There’s evidence all around, discarded and forever lost bodies making more of a display with their deaths than they did anything of consequence with their lives.

Seven enemies plus Fierro left, they made more progress in the mission objective in two minutes than the entire rest of this several day dungeon. This was just a bad idea, the enemy shouldn’t have done this, their tactical mastermind is a dumbass.

“This was probably Fierro’s work,” Neji says, “she can see in the dark and wouldn’t think about it.”

“She what?” Sakura moves on her heel, pocketing the last wallet while giving him a wayward glance.

“She talks about it in her notes, she can see in the dark, and so can all her summons,” Neji explains, “she likely didn’t even think of what would happen if they were engaged here, since she could see, her summons could see, and they weren’t supposed to engage here.”

“That would imply she’s a terrible commander.” Sakura points out, leading the way out of this deathtrap and up the walkway back to where they came from. They still need to set up a trap of any sort for the coming group.

“Command skills are frequently not a part of the criteria that puts one in command.” Neji says.

“Correct, sometimes people do leadership on rotation,” Tenten teases him, smirking up a storm.

“Grim it up you two, we’re about to kill people.” Sakura says, coming to a stop in front of a long narrow pathway the enemy will have to come through. “Tenten, set up with your rifle, I’ll cover you this time.”

On one hand, the forward group isn’t very intimidating. Three Chunin - not even all four - without a single Genin to fill the ranks. That means the final fight will likely have Fierro, a Chunin, and three Genin, unless she decides to send another force after them and lose the rest too.

On the other hand, Sakura just spent a ton of chakra on the first fight, and she’s feeling pretty lacking. She would even use the word dazed. Standing near Tenten with two water clones to guard her other sides, she is at the ready in a triangle trying to intercept more stealth units while Tenten lines up a potential shot with her new-fangled rifle. The rifle worked well on the Genin during the first ambush, but is it strong enough to even scare proper Chunin? She doesn’t know, and she won’t know after this fight either unless one of the enemies really shows off his stuff. The game system can tell her they’re Chunin all it wants, if they were real Chunin, they wouldn’t be able to go toe to toe with them like they have been.

Sakura’s sure she’s not that strong. 

Neji is standing up front, quite a distance away, trusting Tenten not to hit him while drawing attention to himself with flashy movements and just generally being a Hyuuga. Tenten can see him through the scope, so she has a firm grasp on the situation through him, and Sakura gets to take a breather. 

“How is that, anyway?” Sakura asks, “I don’t know a lot about weaponry like that, just stuff from games.”

“Well, proper rifling is hard to integrate into a gun by hand - not impossible just, hard - so most of the prototypes I’ve made have been nowhere near this effective at long range, making it far better than anything but my most recent builds on that matter alone. The scope is straight up sci-fi tech at the moment, and these numbers on the glass generally do not operate meaningfully in real life, which puts this years ahead of anything I intended to build. By the time I would have made this, I would have been strong enough that I didn't need it. There’s also the ammunition situation, and how most of my stuff uses significantly less advanced rounds, these are very different and I can’t wait to take a look at them back home. Then there’s the marking enemies thing, it remembers who I’ve tagged and allows me to look back at them with the triangle tags still over their heads, even through surfaces.”

“Well that’s just straight-up game logic.” Sakura laughs a little, shaking her head at the fact that she brought magic into reality and handed it to Tenten, “So it didn’t like, redirect your world or anything but it’s a huge improvement.”

“It changed everything, at least for today. I have a shot, but Neji’s too close,” Tenten says, “I haven’t fired this off enough to feel comfortable shooting over his shoulder.”

“I guess I’ll go tell him to move.” She sends one of her low power water clones to do just that. Well, they can’t talk so they’re just gonna drag him aside but, same thing. Being low on chakra is so exhausting, she finds herself having to struggle not to doze off. She needs to control her usage a lot better, even if it did work very well for that ambush.

[9/10 Chunin Killed]
They died. It turns out that drop is bullshit, and she’s salty. Tenten lined up one shot after another, and turned the ground into a graveyard. Watching the kill counter raise without doing anything makes her a little introspective. It’s a little sick, if she’s honest, turning people’s lives into a game.

At one point turning life into a game is basically all she wished for, but here, now, months after receiving her gift, she’s not sure she should have wished for this. Without her powers she would have been dead several times over by now, so she doesn’t regret having the powers, and she also doesn’t regret killing these foes, but something is to be said for gamifying conquest. Instead of just not feeling bad about putting down the enemy, she feels good about gaining rewards. It’s insidious, and it’s probably far more harmful to her mental state than Hunger’s ever been. She’s not okay with it, and it goes into the list of things to figure out once she’s back home.

“It’s another mansion.” She finds their path after the looting and discarding of this latest batch brings them to another building much like the first. This one looks much smaller, but they can see zombies wandering around outside it, and it has that old haunted vibe that is even reflected in the spooky nighttime foggy weather behind it. Sakura can’t help but scratch her head while looking at it, unsure if she wants to go in or not. “It’s probably got lots of zombies, the three Genin, the remaining Chunin, and Fierro. Can you locate the targets, Neji?”

“No,” Neji’s immediate answer catches her off guard, causing her to take a step to the side, and give him a sideways glance, “something about this area is stopping my Byakugan from activating.”

“... I’m sorry, did you just say Fierro has Bloodline cancellation technology?” She looks at her hands, having lost one of them so recently, would her powers even work inside a field like that? Can she heal from wounds she gains here? She checks on the quest and finds it’s still tracking, she checks her stats and they seem accurate- “wow I am really low on chakra. Maybe we should leave the cancellation field so we can rest?”

“That is probably advisable, it would be foolish to charge in without an understanding of what we are up against, there is also no guarantee that the field will stop me from seeing in, should I activate it outside and still have the range to peer inside.” Neji helpfully agrees with her.

Somehow, she feels like she just got verbally head pat, and she has to resist a Haruno Wiggle at the kind words that were only kinda sorta meant for her. Neji is not generous with praise, it’s very meaningful. The Hyuga continues a moment later, interrupting her introspection, “If my Byakugan does not work, neither does Gentle Fist. I will be a lot less effective in the coming battles.”

That’s not something she had thought of, but is very good to know. It’ll be up to her and Tenten for the most part, they’ll have to take active care to protect him from the machinations of their enemy. 

Her major concern is, can she protect him? Can she take up the slack? She is going to learn real soon whether or not her powers are a bloodline. It could be up to Tenten almost entirely. What if the effect gets stronger as they get closer, and she finds herself brought back to before she even got the system? Could she handle that type of weakness?

The break to rest couldn’t be more welcomed, she’d like to put this off forever if she can.
She takes a shaky breath, and readies herself to go head back-

- that is until her hearing rings and she stumbles mid step. Her eyes dart over just in time to see a zombie's head explode quite gruesomely all over the doorway of the mansion. A look to her side reveals Tenten pumping her new toy, specifically the shotgun, reminding her in as friendly a way as possible that Tenten’s shotgun has classic pump action and slugs the size of her fist. “Tenten, could you like, warn me?”

“It’s fun though!” The girl thought to put earmuffs on herself, but they can get fucked.
Guuuh, she shoulda really thought things through before giving her a shotgun.

With a rub of her eyes, and a middle finger raised, Sakura heads back to go set up camp where Neji can use his powers and she can get a five hour nap.

Chapter Text

Aside from her head spinning, sleep is both nice and something she deserves. So much has happened in such a short time, and she’s not handling it as well as she likes. From attacking Neji, to going through a slaughter fest with him, wires are crossed and her head hurts. It feels like she needs to scream, but when she opens her mouth, she finds the silence so much louder than any noise she could possibly make.

A deep breath pushes away the encroaching haze, but it’s not gone for long. She picks herself up by the sword, and with one look towards her teammates and their ready expressions, she knows it’s time to strike again. One Chunin, three Genin, and Fierro. Assuming Fierro isn’t a Jonin or something, which wouldn’t fit with the level of the dungeon they were given, this will probably be one of their easiest battles yet.

So why is she shaking? Why does Hunger feel like it’s trying to tell her to leave this place and forget the mission? Its messages are so confusing, it’s supposed to speak of nothing but death and decay, right? Why does it seem like it’s as anxious as she is, like a child having panic attacks at every unknown variable.

Why does it feel like a caring teammate more worried about her than she is?

It doesn’t matter, what does matter is the glance from Tenten and Neji. They’re ready, and if Neji can willingly walk into a place that’s deactivating his Byakugan, if he can accept magic for what it is and deal with what he must without hesitation, she needs to be able to do the same. “I’m ready.” She announces, and she’s happy to say that they’re the same.

“They’re coming,” Fierro’s words wash over them well. There’s not much else to say, all that’s left is her right hand and three Genin that’ve managed to escape the spiral of death by pure coincidence. It’s not the Leaf Ninjas that have killed them, it’s her, “you should run, there’s no point in staying. I have failed, and you will die for a cause with no meaning.”

She just wanted to go home, and she led them along like this.
She promised so much more than this, knowing that it would likely end just like this, she manipulated them and here they are. She sees defiance in their eyes at her suggestion despite it all being revealed a lie. They’ve seen her weakness now, watched her army fall, and been there to experience it all. “You’re idiots.”

Gita, Luminella, and Miel stand at the ready, lucky idiots but still just idiots nonetheless. They are children, about to be forsaken by their own lack of experience and understanding, they don’t yet grasp that you only make it to adulthood by learning how and when to run away. Honor is for the dead.

It’s too bad, if they were older she wouldn’t need to, but it’s time to betray them. Them and that foolish, childish trust. “Luckily I know of a way to make you all stronger for a short time, strong enough to defeat her at least, come with me.”

Neji’s eyes deactivating forcefully is such a disturbing sight. His veins take a long time to revert to a proper position, and she can tell his vision is offset by that fact. It’s okay though, one slash of her sword after another, she puts down the undead monsters in their way. She takes the lead, kicking open the doorway and finding one of the monsters leaping at her.

She does nothing. It lands on her mid pounce and brings sharp teeth down on her neck, and she keeps walking without a care. It did nothing, it never could have. Every single zombie they’ve passed so far was meaningless to her, and she was too caught up in her own anxieties and thoughts to realize that she could have saved them all effort just walking through with her sword. She’s been stuck between reality and gaming and hasn’t accepted that it’s both. 

Well, that’s changed now. She elbows the creature into the wall-
And it falls in half while she moves onto the next. Her sword probably doesn’t like all the coagulated blood it's slicing through, but she needs to save chakra so it’ll do its damn job. She doesn’t need to power it up for this, and the hammer is too large for hallways this small.

They agreed, she’d slash her way through while they follow limply behind. Tenten will protect Neji, and Neji will be ready to punch anything that gets past Tenten. He still knows basic hand to hand combat, and he’s still pretty strong, so he doesn’t need to be both of their concerns.

[3 Genin have escaped, Partial Dungeon Fail, rewarded Affection scores have been lowered from +1000 to +800]

Well that sucks, how was she supposed to stop that? They can escape? No one told her! Does that mean she could have been leaving some alive this whole freaking time?

At least punishment wise, it’s just affection scores, she hasn’t lost Gai’s recommendation.
She just has to hope she’s made a good enough impression in this dungeon to make up for the loss in points. She hopes all the bonding they’ve done has meant something, but she refuses to check. The scores feel wrong to look at for her friends.

“The Genin have disappeared,” she announces, “it’ll just be the Chunin and Fierro.”

“That makes things easier,” Tenten points out, “I don’t know about Fierro, but we can take out one standard Chunin, a missing nin Chunin should be a walk in the park.”

“Yeah…”

The glowing circle fades in vibrance, and Fierro’s gaze lands on her Right Hand, her knight for as long as she can remember. She got to this land so suddenly, and there he was waiting and watching her wake up in a sand crater. She failed experiments, and he was there. She grew an army, and he was there. Now, he’ll be leaving her.

“Are you sure you should have sent them away?” He asks her, his voice gruff and practically hollow.

“The real question is why I didn’t send them all away when this started,” she denies him with a shake of her head.

“You needed to conserve mana,” he reminds her, a hand landing on the lance upon his back, he pulls it from its place with a sharp ringing sound, “I will go meet them, you should see about charging enough power to escape yourself.”

“You know I can’t do that,” she denies him with a shake of her head, and a hand over her heart, “I should go down there with you.” He doesn’t answer her, he simply leaves her while she’s too weak from magic exhaustion to stand. “You idiot…”

One last slash and the final monster in front of them falls. It barely hits the ground before she is stepping over its discarded corpse. They enter a much bigger room than should exist. It’s tall and white and with marble pillars that stretch up impossibly high. Sakura’s footsteps are a little louder than she’d like on the squeaky floor, but that’s the least of her concerns.

There’s a man in here, one in bone armor with a skull mask on. He has red hair flowing behind him in a mane, and he holds a lance in both his hands. Lance, as in, the kind one would use on a horse. It has a spiral tip that flows back round and round until it’s so big it covers both his arms from view. It’s also shiny, polished and boney, which feels odd to her because bone isn’t exactly a competitor for hardened steel of any sort. It must be magically reinforced, or maybe they’re just dealing with an idiot. Whatever the case, he exhales and a sparkly mist escapes from his mask, flowing across the room towards them. Sakura waits for it to do something, watching it get closer, unsure of herself.

A bang erupts from behind her, Tenten firing that damn shotgun again, but this time it doesn’t seem like it’s for fun. A quick look behind her reveals a horde is trying to flood into the room from behind them.

With Neji practically disabled and struggling to deal with zombies, and Tenten preoccupied keeping him safe, it seems this fight is hers and hers alone. She swipes at the dust flowing towards her, and isn’t at all surprised to see it ignite. Metal fragments inside it sparking from the collision with her blade. The entire room in front of her erupts in flame, and she’s already jumping back towards her teammates before the sparks have finished going off. She finds the room filled with smoke, and gets into a refined combat stance taught by Kakashi.

A thousand possibilities flash through her mind at once, but only one stands out as almost guaranteed. She shifts her footing so she’s in front of Neji, firms her stance, charges blood onto her sword and slashes forward to meet what she’s sure of.

Sparks fly in all directions as a spinning lance meets her demonic partner. It’s not the first time a superior force has met her head on while she blocked an attack for her teammate. Last time was back in Wave, when Zabuza had thrown his sword and she’d disobeyed a direct order because she didn’t trust Naruto to move. She’d been discarded, destroyed, left to bleed to death and only saved because the enemy was too kind hearted to let her die in the dirt.

Haku’s come a long way since then, and so has she. She holds her ground and lets out a calm hiss while countering every vibration running through her hands like she was born to push through them. She steps forward despite the pressure threatening to make her collapse. She charges more and more power into Hunger, and this time instead of some legendary blade stealing the blood from her swing, she’s got nowhere to go but up.

Half a second passes, and in that time the mist is cleared by the sheer shockwave caused by their clash. There’s a single crack, but it’s not her sword. She takes another step as she feels the pressure bearing down on her lessen. Within an instant his lance is torn apart under the pressure of his own attack meeting an unstoppable force. The bone crumbles into dust with her step, and that’s all she needs to know what must be done. She dashes forward, slicing forward and letting Hunger guide her. She trusts in her blade, and herself in his face within the same breath she started this clash. Halves of bone lance fall around her, and she has one chance before his own reaction takes him out of her grip. She releases everything in her sword outward.

Hunger’s power and her blood cut through bone while it was held to her grip.
Released out into the world directly in the face of her opponent, she finds it lives up to its name.

It devours everything..

The person in front of her evaporates into a mist, his essence joining the overflowing swing that sends out an airborne apocalypse. Marble is replaced by dust, the room is devoured by the oncoming storm. The snap of creation is louder than anything Tenten could shoot, and her own cry of blistering agony is eaten before it leaves her lips.

She finds she’s on her knees, the entire scene in front of her reduced to ash and what was once room is missing. There shouldn’t have been any fire, and yet everything is burnt. So much is lost, and yet nothing of value was ever here. She hears Neji bash in the final skull behind him, and looking out at the carnage, Sakura can’t help but feel redeemed. She stood her ground for a teammate, and this time, she didn’t die.

Tears well up in her eyes, but whether it’s due to the pride simultaneously welling up within her, or a look at her scorched and torn apart hands is another question entirely.

“I would have dodged.” Neji places a hand on her shoulder, and she knows he’s probably not lying. Unlike before though, this wasn’t a lack of trust that made her move, it was compassion. So weak and without his eyes, he deserved help, and she was there to give it. She has no regrets, well, besides attacking him earlier in this mission. She shoulda chewed him out instead, he’s probably as unstable as her and doesn’t even know why he did what he did. She knows better, it’s not easy being different.

“This hurts.” Sakura admits, shaking the sword in her palms, and finding some of her skin stuck to it. She let out so much power at once it fused to her, and they’re not done this mission yet so she cannot rest. “Whoops.”

[10/10 Chunin Killed] [Objective Complete]
[17/20 Genin Killed, 3/20 Escaped] [Objective Partially Complete]
[0/1 Fierro Killed]

“We’re almost done.” She nods to herself, prying her hands apart with a wet shlick and pulling out a first-aid spray with numb fingers lacking skin. She smears herself along it, but that hardly matters, a moment later the green spray makes it all better.

“Just Fierro left.” Neji agrees, while Tenten palms her other shoulder and shakes her a little with a gratitude that Sakura can feel flow through her.

She can feel a real thank-you in there. 
Silent, but powerful.
Unlike the previously spoken but empty words outside of the inn, after she’d made things worse by attacking Neji.

“Ready when you are.” Tenten says, ready to help her up at a moment’s notice.

Chapter Text

This isn’t what she expected.

The path inwards into the final chamber has no opposition. No undead knights or magical sigils meant to scare them off. Despite some kind of magical seal designed to stop Neji’s bloodline, the enemy doesn’t show their proficiency in any other way. It’s almost as if they’ve used every bit of power they had up to this point, and are so tapped out they’re just laying down and dying for them.

Their footsteps press onwards, confidence growing as they find absolutely nothing in their way. They soon find a lonely throne room where the stones are more worn and scratched than any self respecting kingdom has any right allowing. The throne itself is made of bones and skulls, but it's mostly stuck together through kinetic pressure, ground paste, and sharpened pieces that stick through others. It can’t be comfortable to sit on, and one look at it has her frowning. This isn’t what she expected. A final battle with some evil boss, sure, but this doesn’t look like the work of a rich crazy person seeking world domination.

This is the scuffed and scraped together height of the desperate. Songs are made about this kind of movement, and they don’t end well. She’s the righteous hand of authority in this instance, and the feeling makes her gut spin a little. The ‘red carpet’ leading to the throne has never been cleaned, and there’s so much dust in the air that there’s no doubt in her mind that not a single functional adult existed in this entire group. It’s a resistance alright, a rebellion of sorts, but did it ever have even the slightest chance?

Are they heroes squashing a force that stood against their village, or just executioners putting down sickly dogs that dare to bite at the heels of their masters?

That question is answered for her, when a wall to the side begins to glow, and lights begin to draw upwards from the floor. Like shiny chalk made purely of sun, she finds the drawing rising up in a line until it curves, reaching a nice midway point along the wall, before curving towards a center point up high. A door made with pure magic appears before her, drawing itself like it’s meant to be there. Sparkles shave off and fall towards the floor, until without much more ceremony, the door creaks open from its center and reveals itself to be a set of double doors with normal door size. It’s the world’s most pathetic magically constructed pathway, go the enemy.

Go her, she’s managed to crush the hopes and spirits of the pitiful.
In her defense, they’re the bad guys. They took over a town, and are actively rebelling.

What comes through the shitty undersized double doors isn’t some herald of dark tidings, or a cursed monarch with whispering nothings surrounding them. There’s no misty miasma, or ancient tattered mantle glowing as brightly as it once held brilliance. It’s a small girl.

She’s older, maybe her mid-twenties, but she’s tiny for her age. Sakura finds herself surprised that she doesn’t have to lift her head to stare into her eyes, they’re identical in stature, Sakura might even be a little bigger when one considers mass. It doesn’t look like this girl has eaten much recently. She has long once elegant purple strands flowing down her back, matted but showing what once was so vibrant. It’s marred by ash and looks like it hasn’t seen a brush in forever. Her ears are striking, pointing and elongating out to the side. Her dark eyes look so hollow and match her boney cheeks which lack in even the slightest bit of life. She’s wearing a robe, but it’s too big for her and drags across the floor, it’s in tatters and hasn’t been washed in weeks. Her shoes are real shoes, but scratched and stubborn, and she’s walking with a thick stick clutched in both hands. It shakes as she bangs it across the floor with every step, holding onto it like her life depends on it. It probably does, if her state is anything to go by.

Some of her zombies look better than her, Fierro isn’t a boss fight, she’s a morality choice.
This game sucks.

“You won’t get them, I sent them away,” Her voice rings with discarded authority, she’s looking at a queen who hasn’t just given up her throne, she’s welcomed its absence, “it’s just us, you’ve killed everyone you can kill, you’ll find your bloodlust won’t be sated here.”

“I have questions.” Sakura says, clutching her sword, wondering if she even needs it. A look down tells her the sword seems to think the same. Should she disrespect it with this woman’s head?

“I have no reason to answer you,” the sickly girl in front of her says, her dark void filled eyes wavering, her stance unbalanced even with the stick to hold her up, “we could have been friends if you’d come to me in a different timeline. I see magic inside of you, it’s swirling around unnaturally. It’s gifted by something dark, something evil that encases you in foregone tragedy. Your path is that of a butcher, and you’re not just not trying to escape it, you’re welcoming it.”

The woman takes another step towards her, her eyes glowing with a dim light that's lost its brilliance somewhere along the way. “It’s trying to find any excuse to escape and change the world. You’ve chosen to give that magic to a village, you’ve given up your loyalty without a thought, just like those kids did with me.”

“I’m twelve.” Sakura finds herself falling back to a defense that feels right, even if she instantly regrets using it the moment it leaves her lips. She won’t be feeling strong and big today, she’s just going to kick a small girl into the dirt and leave with her spoils. It makes her feel a little sick, and yet, she’s sure it’s going to happen, and she’s not going to hesitate.

“I lied to them,” the woman says, “I told them I wanted to topple the villages, that I wanted to free them from their shackles, I promised them a new world, when all I wanted was what every one of them secretly wanted, I wanted to go home.” The woman takes another shaky step towards her, and Sakura hears a crack. She watches as the woman’s support snaps in half, and purple hair graces the floor with a smack of stone against flesh. Fallen and without firmness to her, the woman pushes herself up onto her knees in front of Sakura, looking up at her without an ounce of soul left in her. She doesn’t care about the blood flowing down her cheek and dripping onto the floor, from her newly made wound.

All of Sakura’s sins weigh on this woman as if they’re her own, and the truth is they are.
They’re both complicit in all this death, and unlike this pathetic figure of so much more experience, Sakura’s handling it so much better. “Why are you telling me this?” Sakura sighs, “you said you weren’t going to answer.”

“Your questions are irrelevant, but your fate is everything. You’re so much stronger, you have so much potential. You need to understand that all leaders look like me, past their power. We’re all just manipulating the small so that we can get what we want.” The woman’s hand lands on Sakura’s leggings, and pulls at them, looking up at her with a gaze filled with as much earnestness as it is hate. This tragedy, lost and alone surrounded by a field of previous friends she got killed, hates her.

Sakura feels nothing. She looks into those eyes and has nothing to give her, nothing to make her feel better. She lifts her sword. “You’re just an idiot who started something she couldn’t follow through with,” Sakura grumbles, “I think I’ll take my career advice from people who aren’t on their knees, thank-you.”

“You need to understand, it’s not just me, it’s everyone, it’s all one big lie meant to collect people like you and use them to change the world. It’s not even just this world, there’s so much out there and you’re walking through blind-” Sakura brings her sword down, and doesn’t flinch when the voice stops as wetly as the woman’s followers did.

[1/1 Fierro Killed]

“We’re done here,” Sakura says, looking over her shoulder at her teammates, who look a lot more ill than they probably should, “our mission is complete.”

“Yeah,” Neji looks worse for wear, but Tenten’s expression says so much. If only her charm was high enough to understand it. Even the mood chart is shifting too quickly for her to get a real grip of it, conflicting emotions is the best way for her to describe it.

“If you’re unhappy with how I dealt with that, you should have taken charge instead of leaving it all to me.” Sakura says, coldly looking down at the body. It’s melting like a monster in a game. She takes a step away, as the elf’s body slowly turns into a black ichor that spreads across the floor, filling in the space between stones and slowly but surely coming around until it fills a full circle.

A circle that begins to glow.
[Congratulations, for executing wanted Criminal [Fierro], you have a bounty to collect at the bounty service in Konoha. You also have a bonus reward to collect from the Fire Daimyo. Please do so at your nearest leisure.

Please step into the teleportation circle to leave the dungeon.]

“The circle is a teleport,” Sakura informs them, before kneeling down to look through the elf’s belongings. What did she mean by wanting to go home? Was she a part of a village that kicked her out? Is there some secret land of elves hidden somewhere she’s never heard of? Is she really some villain from another world, discarded from even her old life? She finds rings under the now empty robe, they glimmer and glint in her grasp.

[Ring of Souls
Rare
Allows the wearer to collect souls for use in Necromancy]

[Ring of Mana
Rare
Allows the wearer to store up to 200 points of Mana for later use]

[Ring of Mana Generation
Rare
Allows the wearer to generate Mana if they have Mana capabilities but cannot naturally generate it]

They’re all cool, but seem very specific, and all something to mess around with later. The least she needs right now is to put them on and go into a coma or something because she’s messing with forces she doesn’t understand.

Stowing away the lost woman’s robe in her bag, she finds a scroll tucked away in it.

[Scroll of Beginner’s Necromancy
Epic
Allows the reader to understand Necromancy, Requires Mana, Requires 110 Mental]

She does not have that, her Mental is 101 and it hasn’t gone up in some time.
It seems she’ll need to figure out how to raise it if she wants to get any use out of this reward.
With a sigh, she stands, and finds Neji and Tenten both standing on the circle, clearly as ready to leave as anyone has ever been ready to do anything.

“Did you have fun?” Neji asks her, his arms crossed and his gaze as cool as he can manage when he looked sickly just a few moments ago.

“You have to loot the boss, Neji.” Sakura rolls her eyes at him, skipping over what would be a cooling corpse if it wasn’t melted into black goopy nonsense.

“That’s true.” Tenten agrees with her, giving Neji a stern look that she assumes means ‘cut the blonde dummy some slack.’ Being blonde is still weird but she’s starting to identify with it, she needs to at least keep it long enough to screw with Sasuke.

“Hold hands when we step through, I don’t want to find out this magic warps us to different places.” Neji says, grabbing both of their palms and intertwining their fingers in a way that’d make Sakura blush if they weren’t covered in blood and dripping Fierro remains.

“Let’s go, we won.” With one step forward they step in, and are immersed in a powerful light that makes her feel lighter than air.

Chapter Text

“Smile my protegee, you were left behind because you were strong.” Gai’s voice in his ear has him beaming, but his heart is pouting. They left him. They found their first challenge and immediately dropped him and made him watch the town. It’s not an unimportant job, these people have already been attacked several times 

It’s just, so much of his life has gone into being prepared for anything, to be the first and final line of defense for his allies. The very situation they walked into should have had him at the forefront, and yet he’s stuck here doing sit-ups and jumping around and working his muscles on the ground instead of in the field. He’s a whole damn machine, and they’re treating him like a cog.

Tenten would have been fine with this assignment, but then, she would feel bad too.

His stroll through the village is as it always is. Days have passed and nothing has changed, his team is still gone and no one has attacked or even committed a crime. The truth is that such a small disturbance in their problems was all the small village needed to kick off. Without issues to keep them from living their lives, the place is back to bustling and everyone is happy. It’s nice, and walking around with his headband on, he’s quickly becoming a fan favorite in this small area. “Free stew for you Lee, keep up the good work!” An older lady says as he passes.

“Thank you!” Free food is a regular, as is giving a thumbs up while he grips a bowl of stew in his free hand. His eyebrows are strong, and his enthusiasm is infectious. They’re feeding off him, and he’s feeding off them, a loop of greedy happiness making everyone around all the more joyful. Some misunderstand him, they think he’s stupid. Spreading acidic tastes in the back of one’s throat, and perpetuating bad moods by spreading yours to all around, that’s stupid in his opinion; he’d rather fill everyone around him with sugar and brightness. He’ll take a few dumb moments here or there to fill the world with sparkling glee, that’s how a real man goes about his day.

There’s no such thing as a bad mood when Lee’s around, he’ll fight it for you, he’ll punch your bad mood in the face and make it surrender, that’s the kinda boy he is. “This is very good,” he compliments, munching down on his gift as he walks through the street. He’ll return the bowl on his second patrol, “she’s such a nice lady.” 

So lost in his enjoyment of the simple things and his fifth walk around the entirety of the village of the day - one must break between exercises when on mission, they need recovery time to be prepared for anything - that he doesn’t realize the world is glowing until he’s almost stepped onto the shining beacon beneath him. Jumping backwards, he takes it in, watching a shining beam appear in the dirt and spread into a giant circle that shimmers and spins. Lights glaring and jumping and drawing something eerie upon this world. The smell of scorched earth fills his nostril, and he prepares.

“I might need this.” He’s nothing if not ready to prepare in an instant. Unlike Neji, he must do his best to prepare himself for anything, because he’s gained everything through hard work and doesn’t just have an automatic option always available at a moment’s notice! He’s paying for the rope he needs before the creation is even finished scarring the land behind him.

For once, he knows exactly what this is, and what is going on. “Gai-Sensei, this is a summoning circle!” He shouts outside of the shop, holding his rope up high, and watching the circle before him spin and orchestrate itself to the rhythm of its own artificial heart, “what should I do?”
It’s unorthodox, and odd, and not at all what he’s seen before, but he recognizes his Sensei’s technique well. This circle will call something else from somewhere else, and when it does-

Well, he doesn’t have time to get Gai’s answer, for three figures spawn out of thin air. They hold weapons, and tattered garbs reminiscent of poor bandits, and Lee’s moving before the smoke clears. His feet cause him to blur, and a spinning kick slams into the chest of a girl, sending her up in the air, before his fist is implemented in another’s, sending her off-

The final, a sturdy looking guy, finds Lee’s foot in his face, slamming into him harder than the other two combined. He’d never hit a beautiful woman in the face like that, but this guy is fair game. He doesn’t have time to be too sparing though, pretty or not, for summons are strong! He’s never even heard of summoned people, what if they come with grim tidings and power outside of this world?

While they’re all three still in the air, only a fraction of a second having passed between each movement, the rope comes out. He darts around, tying their arms mid-motion, then their legs, and then he does a final lap around them like it’s an exercise, connecting them all by their stomachs.

He slaps his hands together to mark a job well done, as the three slam into the dirt below, tied  together in a ball of rope and groans.

It’s only then, that his sensei appears in his own puff of smoke. Unlike with them, his sensei’s arrival isn’t a summoning, he just moved so fast the ground couldn’t accept his appearance and the dirt parted so fast it caused a chemical reaction. His sensei is so cool!

“Lee!” Gai shouts, posing in a dramatic way that makes the world brighter, as one should.

“Yes, Gai-Sensei!” Lee runs up with his arms outstretched, preparing himself for a hug of the century!

“You idiot!” Lee’s face takes a sudden downturn as the back of his head explodes in pain, before his nose impacts into the dirt hard enough to create a crater, “you can’t just attack people because they spawned out of thin air and look poor!”

“Gai-Sensei!” Lee whines from his place in the dirt.

“Untie these people and let them go until they do something wrong! Otherwise, it looks like you profiled them based on their poorly kept clothes and weapons!” Gai stomps the ground hard enough to bounce Lee back to his knees from the shockwave and risen dirt alone.

“Yes, Gai-Sensei!” Bowing down by shoving his face back into the dirt, then up, then down, then up, is the best Lee can do in a moment like this. Shining stars in his eyes, and tears of shame define his world. “I was wrong to attack them! I will atone for this sin by giving them some of our supplies so they can journey wherever they must go!”

“That is an excellent idea, my young protegee! I approve!” The shining thumbs up fills the disturbed area with a glimmer of golden justice.

The young captures would never quite know what just happened, but they would leave immediately, narrowly missing Sakura exiting the dungeon and being captured by the trio.

Chapter Text

Ino's body moves on its own. Her hand whips down and pulls a kunai out from her pack, and her hands fly up to block an attack. Her feet plant themselves in front of a Naruto who was off balance half a second ago, and she glares defiantly at his attacker. Almost imperceptibly, she notices Kakashi slow himself down at the sight of her well cared for blonde hair replace Naruto’s unkempt blond mane as his target. This attack would be worse if it was for Naruto, which means she can handle it. She holds her ground as Kakashi’s hand forms a sword-like chop and flies directly towards her chest. She lifts the kunai with confidence, and finds the next flash doesn’t compute.

His hand goes through her Kunai like it’s butter, and the pain rings through her like a song sung entirely by her nerves. Red flows out of her mouth and nose, sent upwards from the force of an attack she’d blocked. Her legs give out, and she falls to her knees. A single bleary look down reveals that her life force is quickly pooling onto the dirt beneath her, turning it into an acrid mud.

He did it, he followed through. She’d thought he’d hesitate a bit more, or maybe she could use her immunity to his lesson as some sort of shield, and yet-

She finds his foot in her face a second later. The crunch of her nose is loud enough to stir her thoughts, but not enough to stop her shaken brain from shutting off. The pain of her chest having been cut through and her face being smashed is too much for her to comprehend.

She crumples to the ground, discarded and forgotten as their sensei moves on and attacks the others. Her last thoughts are simple yet elegant in their own way.

“How is Naruto handling a stronger variant of that?”

“Hey, dummy.” She finds herself rousing from a kick in the ribs. It’s oddly gentle, but it’s more than enough to aggravate her wounds and make her eyes shoot open. Her scream is ignored by the cyclops standing ominously above her. “There’s no rule against killing the support, if you do that in the field, you’ll definitely die. The enemy doesn’t slow down, they go through you.”

She knows that, she just, she didn’t think he’d… “I’ve had permission to hurt you since you first arrived here, or did you think Asuma just wasn’t aware of what you were doing? Jonin talk, Ino, especially about their students. He’s not that dumb.”

Her chest is on fire, but a look down reveals she’s been fully bandaged. “You helped me?” She asks.

“I said I have permission to hurt you, not kill you,” he grunts at her, “this is training, not the field, you’ll learn the difference with experience.”

She feels cold, she definitely lost a lot of blood. In fact, a look over there shows just how much. The entire ground is changed, dirtied with her loss. There are wild animals sniffing at what she bled out and lapping at the drying mud, trying to get any nutrients they can out of her wound’s left-overs. She shouldn’t be conscious, he did something, but then he is a legendary ninja. It’d be weird if he didn’t know some way to recuperate a fallen genin.

“Don’t do that again. Ever.” He kicks her again, gentle still this time, but the message gets across regardless.The enemy won’t care about how much it hurts, they’ll torture her while she’s down to mess with her team and destroy morale. She could get everyone killed because she didn’t think. “Leave that kind of dumb to brawlers like Naruto, he’d already be back on his feet if he’d taken that hit.” He disappears like he was never there, leaving her to her thoughts, unable to argue with him. She picks herself up crudely. A look to the side reveals a gruesome sight she didn’t want to see, but is now glad she did. The other two boys are badly injured and still bleeding out into the mud themselves. It’s then that droplets of cleansing rain fall from the sky, and she looks up to take in the oddly timed phenomenon.

“Oh, you asshole.” He prioritized her so that she could do her job in the pseudo team, instead of caring for them all. At least they’ll all be fine with a bit of rest… Hopefully about two hours of it.

“Why are you still here?” Sasuke’s words rouse her from a state of half sleep. It’s so cold with everything she lost, and she can’t help but feel like a burden. Still, they need her, and it was her mistake which put her in this state. “You can go home, and you’re hurt, neither of us want you here like this.”

“I don’t care,” she mumbles under her breath, knowing damn well he can hear her, “about what you want.”

“This isn’t your mission,” Sasuke grunts at her, glaring her down with a look that would have sent quite a few of his fangirls screaming and running away. Unfortunately for him, she’s never truly been one of them. “I’m not going to like you if you get hurt for me, that’s stupid.”

“I don’t want your love.” She grumbles, picking herself up a little so her place resting on a branch and against a tree feels just a little more comfortable. She’s been sleeping in such odd places recently, she misses her bed.

“Then what do you want?” Sasuke huffs, a scratch against wood catches her eyes, and she looks over to see him shaping sharp sticks with rocks again, he’s been doing that to fill in Naruto’s traps. They’ve been working very well, she has to say she’s rather proud of how well they’ve been working together the last few days. When they first got here they were a mess, and she witnessed at least the latter half of it. It was horrible.

“I want my friends to be safe.” She says, and when he doesn’t immediately respond, she lets her head fall and her world drift away again.

At some point, she stopped going home.
She’s not sure when it was, she’s not even sure if it was a choice, but she’s spent the last two days here in the forest without leaving. Sakura’s been gone a week, and Ino’s so tired. These boys have been here the whole time without breaks, how could Kakashi force that on them?

It’s not so dangerous to her, she knows the area, she knows the creatures, she’s familiar with the herbs and makes great use of hiding places; but there’s a difference between sleeping here and visiting. The Forest of Death is named that for a reason, and sitting around waiting for Kakashi to show up and beat them senseless again is harrowing.

Specifically, beat them, she’s been left untouched for the most part. Kakashi’s not saved her from attacks that would hit her in the crossfire, and she’s taken a few wounds, but he’s left her alone. She’s watched him torture her friends, and she has to wonder if he’s this brutal when Sakura’s around. “He’s coming,” she hears through a miniature Naruto on her shoulder, and she readies herself to intercept them when they get injured and drag them to safety.

Her nerves are active, her sluggish body is running on adrenaline, and she’s ready.

“What?” Kakashi lands in the middle of a clearing they can all see, and waves at them individually. This reveals to them that he’s always known where they were, and their attempts to hide were secretly worthless, but he let them stay in hiding at times so maybe they were good enough for the exercise?

More importantly, it reveals he wants them to approach. She moves in first, he’s less likely to take her out instantly if it’s a trap, and the two boys could use another moment to recover if he is planning something devious.

Her feet hit the dirt in front of him, and she has to stop herself from falling over. She still hasn’t completely recovered from losing so much blood the other day, and the wounds she’s gotten since haven’t helped. She’s on shaky feet, and her toes still feel numb. “What’s going on?” She asks, watching the cyclops shrug for a moment before looking right into her eye with his own.

“Sakura’s back.” Those words shake her a little, for a lot of reasons. Excitement swirls through her, affection, relief, it’s all so raw and fresh and eats at her in wonderful ways. She lets out a long cool breath, and smacks the Naruto on her shoulder to dispel him, so he knows it’s safe to come out.

Then Kakashi says something she really didn’t want to hear. “You’re to report to the Hokage, he has a private mission for you.”

“Uhhh, could you repeat that?” A private mission? What could possibly be-

“Bring a change of clothes, food, and a chakra pill. Take an hour to get a shower and center yourself first, you’ll need to be in a good state of mind or you’ll regret it.” She nods to herself, panic has invaded her blood but she’s dealt with bigger scares. It doesn’t seem to be that big a deal if she’s allowed to rest a bit first.

Naruto arrives a moment later, Sasuke on his heel. “So we get to go see Sakura?” Naruto asks, “it feels like it’s been years. I can’t wait.”

“You’re going to have to,” Kakashi says, a hand on his hip and a wistful tone to his lips, “Sakura’s being interrogated.”

“Don’t you mean debriefed?” Sasuke asks.

“Nope.” Suddenly, Ino’s pretty sure she knows what her mission is, and she kinda wishes she didn’t.

Chapter Text

Her eyes flutter open to darkness. That’s not surprising, she went to bed in darkness. What is surprising are the metal bars on the other side of the room, and the fact that her arm feels like it has a cold metal on it. A quick look shows she’s in chains, which is definitely not how she went to bed. “What’d I do?” She groans to herself, flowing through her memories as quickly as she can.

She killed Fierro, they came home, they sent in reports and they agreed to only send info about the specific stuff directly to the Hokage. Specific stuff being like, the game stuff, her altercation with Neji, the dungeon… She went home, hugged her parents, hugged Business Naruto, and went right to bed. 

She expected to be approached privately for some more details, but this is a bit much. It has to be something more… She groans to herself, and tries to sit up, finding herself surprisingly capable of mobility. She’s in her pajamas too, so they didn’t see fit to strip her which is a huge plus. Trying to get up causes a clank of the chains and for them to lurch back and force her against the wall. “Ow.”

They cast a jutsu to restrict her suddenly when she tries to escape her small confinement? “That’s not very nice.” She sniffles a little, holding something odd back that’s welling up inside of her. At least they gave her a comforting sleeping bag to peer down at, it’s not the cold hard floor.

She hears footsteps approaching, and she does her best to look alive. A part of her wishes she had her brush, if only because the morning routine would be nice to revert to. It’s not quite a comfort task yet, but she packs it on missions for the sense of familiarity, why not here?

“Why am I here?” She finds herself speaking the moment her cell door opens, and a tall figure stalks in. There’s a hitch in her breath, but she ignores it, she won’t show weakness. She’s loyal damn-it, this is way too much! They could have made a house visit!

She supposes they did make a house visit, they just took her from it instead of staying to talk.

“Do you really not know that?” she’s startled to hear a familiar voice. It’s a source of much comfort, one that’s always been very nice to her, “I thought you were pretty smart.” Blond hair greets her eyes as he gets close enough for her to make him out. Strong features but an eternal smile, he’s made her feel like she was okay when she felt so wrong so many times.

He’s not doing that this time, he’s looking at her with disappointment, and dragging a chair from the darkness. “Neji?” She asks, unable to look into his cerulean eyes. Yamanaka gazes hit her differently, she can’t explain it. Maybe it’s the lack of pupils.

He pulls the chair until it’s only a little in front of her, flipping it around so its back is facing towards her, and then sits on it just right to lean over the back of it. His gaze continues to pierce her, like a sad father. “No, well yes, but, no,” Her mostly platonic best friend’s father answers her with a grimace, “you are in here because that happened, but it’s not because of that.”

“I’m not following.” Sakura admits with an awkward shrug, at least the chains they’re using on her are gentle when she’s not moving anywhere, she feels less restrained and more put in place. They’re probably not planning to torture her, or they wouldn’t have given her a sleeping bag to nap in. Even if it is a little insulting to take her from her perfectly good bed for this.

“Genin attacking other Genin is very common, it’s barely even a crime. You’re extremely young when you enter the field, and you’re taught to solve your problems with violence. You both resolved the issue, and completed the mission, so as far as we’re concerned, your record is clear. Gai recommended it be ignored, Kakashi recommended it be ignored, even Hiashi - who was consulted as it was his family member - agreed Neji could probably use a smacking around. That one surprised me, but he’d know about smacking around family.”

“The fuck?” Hiashi what? She’ll admit she doesn’t know about clan politics but that’s not okay at all! She expected Neji’s father or whatever to be paying her a visit to smack her around shortly, not agreeing that it was needed! “Err…” She flushes slightly at having slipped up like that and sworn in front of one of her role models, in chains or not. “So I'm not under arrest, but I’m in a cell?”

“I’m telling you that you’re free of all charges, but you’re not free from interrogation. The reality is that you’ve now spent a very large amount of time outside of the view of any superiors. Those dungeons of yours are unregulated, unsupervised, and outside of village intelligence. So when you start attacking teammates in a way that seems out of character for such a respectful young girl… We need to know what’s going on.”

“I could have just told you,” Sakura points out, “I’m going through some things and Kakashi gave me a demon sword,” she finishes with a slightly annoyed grimace, “oh and Neji’s an asshole. Not as much as this Hiashi though, I guess…”

“I believe that,” The older man holds up his palms for her in surrender, chuckling softly, “Ino goes through something twice a month, and I wouldn’t put it past her to smack one of her teammate’s around, least of all a pissed off Hyuuga. I cannot state this enough, you’re not in trouble… We just need to know for sure, because you’re not a normal Genin. You’re special, and you’ve proven that twice now. Neji’s report went into quite some detail about how extraordinary you are, it was honestly a little poetic.”

“He’s not interested in me, is he?” Sakura instantly has to put up her guard on issues like this, her own teammates wanna restart their clans with her! Her best friend wants her! She’s a magnet and she very much wants to hide under the covers from all of that. As far as she’s concerned, that issue can just go away.

“No, I don’t think so, but he did have praise,” Inoichi assures her with a snicker that fills the room with a slightly better vibe than the ominous silence it had before he arrived. “You’re important, and that’s why they allowed me to do your evaluation when I asked despite the conflict of interest. Since I’m in charge of your case, and you’re such great friends with my daughter… I’ve asked her to do it.” 

“I’m sorry, is it important, or is it not important?” Sakura asks, “I’m not following. Why would you want her to do it instead of you if it’s important?”

“The truth about our techniques is that they aren’t gentle,” Inoichi explains, “as a Jonin, I can definitely get into your brain, rip out anything I need, and have us all back home before lunchtime. Your parents wouldn’t even know you were gone or that anything was wrong, you know, until you ate your food with your face instead of your fork.”

“They might not realize for a few days, actually, that wouldn’t be the first time I did something weird.” Sakura jokes with a pitiful whimper to her tone.

“Believe me, I know.” The older man laughs a little, his chipperness almost overrides the mood chart beside his head that says he is very sad. She almost wishes she didn’t have it, because he’d be so much more comforting in this darkness, if she could trust his smile and promises that she’ll be okay. “The thing is, if you trust us, like really trust us, not the considerate kind trust you might have for me, we can get in without hurting you at all. The more you fight, the worse you are. I think Ino could probably walk right in like she owns the place. So, if you’re willing to work with me…”

“Ino’s been free to test her jutsu on me since we were eight,” Sakura deadpans, “she used to use my body to test fragrances she didn’t want touching her own body.”

“No, Sakura, I think she just wanted to know how your body would think they smell so she could find her scent.” Inoichi’s own deadpan in response catches her off guard, and she can’t help but admit that’s probably true. Darn-it Ino, always one step ahead of her…

“Ahem,” Inoichi clears his throat, before clapping his hands together, “so this’ll be really simple if she can enter you that easily, thank goodness. No one wants to hurt you, the Hokage’s even willing to pay Ino for this.”

“Go him.” She gives a fist pump- well most of one, before her hand clanks against the chain and is wretched back against her own momentum. “Ow.”

“Yeah, try not to move too much, okay? Let Ino do her thing, and I’ll tell your parents you spent the night at my house.” Inoichi gives her a pleading look, begging her to agree, and despite a niggling part of her brain remembering Fierro’s rant, remembering the very idea that this could have consequences, she nods.

Ino’s her friend, her best friend, she trusts her. That doesn’t stop her nervousness from flowing through her like a river, she finds herself shivering at the reality ahead of her. “Ino doesn’t know,” she points out, “about the game system, about any of what’s happened recently, how will she react?”

“That’s true,” he agrees, “Ino’s still an innocent girl, and you’re a killer without remorse. That will change things.” His tone contains no judgment, just the truth, and he can even see approval in his gaze. Some would find that absurd, but this is a ninja village, and she can tell her superiors are proud of her. At one point that would have been a source of comfort, now she can’t help the screams in the back of her head that she needs to run. She silences those screams, this is Inoichi and Ino, she can let it happen.

Killer without remorse might not be entirely true, the thought of the girl she killed at the inn still makes her feel really bad. She might have been savable, and killing her the way she did was an accident. It haunts her more than anything she’s ever done with intent, and the very person who’d be best to talk about that is currently looking at her knowing damn well he’s about to pry her life open for her best friend like it’s a TV show.

“You should prepare yourself, your friendship will likely come out different, but I doubt it’ll be bad.” He assures her, and the mood chart does change, he’s got a smile there too. That warms her heart enough to allow her a slow and awkward nod. 

Chapter Text

Meat patties drenched in cheese and shoved in between or sometime inside of bread is a recipe that exists everywhere in some form or another, and Sakura can’t fault its existence when her stomach is gurgling and it’s sitting in front of her. It’s a little overdone, she's bought something leaking more grease than the paper it was delivered on can handle too, so it looks quite gross…  “I know you’re not a fan of stuff so messy you can’t play while eating, but I didn’t have a lot of time, we’re not at your computer, and you would not believe my last week. I deserve this.” The pretty girl sitting across from her eating her own greasy abomination looks a little worse for wear. It’s odd, of the two of them she’s the one chained up, but Ino looks like she’s been through something indescribable. She has dozens of cuts. Her face is scratched, her cheeks are pale, and she has deep bags under her eyes that remind Sakura of herself not too long ago. That’s all just what’s visible, she’s wearing very baggy clothes at the moment, it makes Sakura suspicious of why she’s hiding her chest so well.

“Are you okay?” Sakura can’t help but ask her interrogator. The setting and context doesn’t truly matter to her, Ino’s her best friend and she’s grateful for the opportunity to sit and eat with her. That they’ll be cracking her open and looking deep inside of her soon is secondary when Ino looks like she’s trying to hide so much pain. It invokes rage in her, and if she was allowed to have her sword in here, she has no doubt she’d be up and about trying to hunt down whatever asshole dared to touch her friend.

“I’m fine, I just volunteered for something that I maybe shouldn’t have.” The blonde mindwalker shrugs, taking a generous and greedy bite of her food. She looks so hungry, it seems that Sakura was eating better in a dungeon than Ino was with whatever she was partaking in. “I learned how to heal though, well, somewhat. I learned the basics. Herbs, methods, medical tools, and how to use a little medical jutsu. How not to get taken out so you can provide care. It’s not much but… it should be enough. Worth a week of my life, at least.”

“Oh… That sounds great, you should teach me sometime,” Sakura gives her a timid grimace, not liking the implications that come with Ino looking like this while knowing healing jutsu, “um, when we’re both free, I mean.”

“Yeah, I figured, uh…” It’s awkward. Ino’s coming off so tired, and that’s not a very good sign for her near future. They have a journey to go on together, and it’s not going to be pleasant. “So they said I just needed to make sure there’s nothing too concerning on the surface level of your brain, and make sure you haven’t been tampered with, so it should only be a few hours.”

“What if I have been tampered with?” Sakura asks.

“Could be a lot longer…  If I need to rest, it could be a couple of days,” Ino answers her with a little grimace at the thought, “I’m pretty tired, it might be a couple of days either way.”

“They pulled you out of something crazy for this, huh, are you sure Inoichi shouldn’t do it?” Sakura asks, “I promise I trust him, it’ll be fine.”

“You don’t trust him like this,” Ino shakes her head at her, taking another bite between partial scoldings, “we have two main ways of interrogation. We can walk in peacefully, or we can brutally break in. In the second way, we’re safe, in the first, you’re safe.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sakura asks her, giving her a frown that says more than it should, she can tell Ino doesn’t see it. Ino’s too tired for this. She’d like to send her home, but…

“It means we’ll get hurt if your mental defenses activate and we can’t get out in time. You could close down and trap us in there, or attack with monsters or something else just as stupid. It has to be someone you’d never hurt, or they need to go in full force and break things.” Ino explains softly, giving her a trusting and patient look that in no way gets across the gravity of what she’s saying. Luckily for Sakura, her words are very clear. She might end up having a fistfight with herself over Ino.

“I’ll protect you.” Sakura’s promise seems to lift Ino’s spirits a little, but it doesn’t cut the tension in the room in the way she would like it to.

“It’s that attitude which tells me that you won’t have to.” Ino gives her a beam that brightens her heart. There’s a flutter there, it’s so nice to see her friends happy. She’d give anything to graft that smile onto all of them permanently. She doesn’t remember the last time she smiled like that, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t, she’s not particularly self aware, and she’s self aware of that.

“Ino, you’re not going to look at me the same.” Sakura warns her.

“I didn’t think I would.” The tired girl says, brushing Sakura’s hair with a high quality brush in one hand, and with roving fingers in the other. Supposedly they need to lull her into a comfortable place with her, or else Ino won’t even be able to enter. It’s working so far, she just wishes it could work after Ino got some damn sleep. She looks so tired, it’s painful to see her neglecting herself for her. She wonders if that’s how she looked for everyone before recently, and if so, just how long did everyone want to say something? Did anyone want to say something at all?

Is anyone grateful to Kakashi, or is everyone? Do people care about her like she cares about them? She hopes they do, but either way, she finds she’s grateful to Kakashi for putting his foot down and forcing her to change and grow. “I mean it, like, I’m not the same girl as I used to be, I’m damaged and things are different and…”

“Sakura, you have red eyes, the only good and well adjusted situation where that suddenly happens is the one where you find out you’re secretly an Uchiha… And if records are true, that’s not a good and well adjusted situation either. The Uchiha were nuts.”

“Sasuke’s much saner than me.” She admits, and watches Ino grimace at the thought quite hard, before turning her tone around entirely and pushing forward.

“Regardless, no one thinks things are going well for you.” Ino laughs, genuinely tittering at her with a melodic tone that rings in Sakura’s ears nicely. “You’re currently being interrogated after attacking a teammate mid mission, because you’ve been deemed potentially unstable or tampered with outside of your sensei’s gaze. I know you’re in a strange place, I would have said no if I wasn’t willing to see every part of you.”

“Even the scary parts?” Sakura asks, leaning her head back, so red eyes can gaze into pretty greens.

“Especially the scary parts, Sakura, I love you. You being a ninja isn’t going to change that.” A hand on her cheek soothes her in an odd way. It’s not news to her that Ino feels that way, and she can’t deny Ino makes her feel good about herself, but it’s just not the same. It hurts to hurt her like this, she’d love to love her back, to make everything right in the world.

But all she feels is pity and shame, and that’s not how one should feel about their best friend’s feelings. She feels even guiltier about it every time it comes up, and she has to wonder if one day she’ll feel the same way back and not realize it, or if she’s just incapable. Whatever the case, she feels good at her best friend’s touch after such a long and painful mission. Ino’s assurances gnaw at her anxieties, but in a good way, severing tendons and letting her fears trip and bleed out. 

Ino’s comforting and powerful and poignant, but actually opening up her head and letting her best friend dig around is a huge ask. The possibilities hurt, and she finds herself resisting the idea itself, but not Ino. She could never resist Ino’s guiding touch, which is ultimately what lets her in.

“Sakura, what the fuck.” Ino’s immediate reaction to her mind’s gates gets a snort out of Sakura.

“For someone who was all like ‘it’s fine Sakura, we know you’re not normal,’ that’s not the reaction I was expecting.” Sakura teases her, gently punching her shoulder and looking out at the vast sands in front of her. It’s not what either of them expected, but it seems pretty fitting to her. Ino’s given her details before, about minds. Some people have pearly gates, some have the entrance to their home, some have a comfort place right at the entrance.

Sakura’s mind palace gate is in the middle of a desert plane with nothing around for as far as the eye can see. Well, except one small hole in the sand, with teeth. It’s just a cavern that falls seemingly forever, with thousands of sharp tooth-like rocks sticking out all the way down. They slowly shift and twitch, alerting the both of them that this pit is probably alive.

“Are we supposed to climb down using those?” Sakura asks, pointing into the dark hole. It stretches forever, “I don’t want to climb down into what is possibly a giant worm.”

“Neither do I!” Ino throws her arms up, “your mind’s entrance is supposed to be something you’re comfortable with! What does this even mean? Who has a mind entrance they don’t want to traverse?”

“I mean, it’s a dark and cozy pit with a defensive entrance to keep others out, seems pretty self explanatory to me, Ino.” Sakura snickers, kicking a stone into the pit-

- And watching the pit slam shut and tear the rock to a terrifyingly fine powder that puffs up and about a moment later. Even without the opening closing suddenly, the horrific mandibles moving to shred it paint a disturbing picture. “Seems pretty safe to me.” Sakura nods, giving Ino a thumbs up and a big grin.

“Eh, I trust you.”  Without a moment of hesitation, Ino takes a step forward, and falls into the pit just as it opens back up. 

“Wait, that’s not-” Cold insidious fear runs through Sakura’s soul as she watches her best friend disappear into the hole, and she moves on instinct. Her hand latches onto Ino’s just in time for gravity to drag her in too, and before she can grasp the moment she’s hurtling down the pit’s depths. A sharp tooth gets dangerously close to Ino’s face, but before she can even shout a warning the rock shifts out of the way and lets the blonde pass by untouched. The dirt around them is alive, and avoids Ino like she’s infected with something, refusing to come into contact with her at all costs.

“Ow!” She can’t help but notice it doesn’t do the same for her, a sharp lance of agony flowing through her leg as a knife like stone tears through it on the way down. It’s fierce, it’s hot, and it takes all of her attention just long enough for her to suddenly find they’ve come to a stop at the bottom without having any idea how they got there.

Laying on a bed, staring into the eyes of her best friend for the second time in a very short period, the pink dusting on Ino’s cheeks is the most obvious thing in the world. The second most obvious is the way Ino goes for her lips.

She does what any normal girl would do in this situation, and throws herself off the bed as fast as physically possible, slamming her leg into the floor and collapsing as blood gushes from it.
“Damn-it!”

She hopes her mind’s version of her room has her First-Aid Kit.

Chapter Text

“You can bring anything you want, just summon some bandages or something-” Coaching her through how to fix her wound probably isn’t how her best friend expected to spend the first few minutes in her mindscape, but Sakura can’t help but be very grateful for the generous and kind help. It only takes a little focus and a lot of visualization before she finds she’s holding a First-Aid Spray. 

The cold can is dragged into her mindspace by her mental focus as easily as she breathes the imaginary air here. Uncapping the bottle and getting to work with the mystery spray brings about much needed relief in the form of a misty breeze. The curing mist itself is green and potent, covering her wound with a powerful enough barrage of chemical goodness that she gets to watch her leg fix in real time under her ministrations. Her flesh bubbles, and is soon enough formed back into exactly where it needs to be. It doesn’t fix her clothes, but she gets an idea a moment later, and with a little focus on the concept of summoning what she’s wearing over the missing parts, she finds those are restored to perfection in the same way a tailor’s mastery would allow.

“Wow, you took to that incredibly fast.” Ino’s gasp of fascination draws her attention away from her busy work. She finds Ino staring at her, having found yet another reason to show her the utmost admiration. It’s awkward and unprecedented, but their faces are nowhere near each-other so at least she doesn’t have to flee again.

One would think Ino would have a little more self control, but maybe she’s just that in love with her? This is a pretty intimate act, she hopes this doesn’t skew their friendship any further… It will, it absolutely will.

“I’ve kind of been in my own head for a while now,” Sakura admits, tossing the empty can away and stretching out her previously wounded leg, “it’s easy.”

Ino shakes her head at her, but doesn’t press the issue. Instead of pushing her, she grabs a brush from the sink and gets to work running it over Sakura’s locks. Apparently falling down a giant hole and getting sliced messed up the style of her hair. It doesn’t feel like a particularly urgent matter, but Ino’s the expert here so she just lets it happen.

“Self care is important inside too!”

“We’re searching through your important memories, the stuff at the forefront is heavily influential,” Ino explains as they exit the bathroom, “my main job is to ensure nothing particularly weird and damaging is there. No treason, no psychotic snapping, no torture, no alterations… I’m especially worried about that third one.”

“Why?” Sakura asks, bumping into Ino when she stops mid-step to stare back at her, “Ino?”

“Nothing,” Ino shakes her head, only to look out at the room, “oh, wow we’ve walked into one such forefront memory already. I wonder what it’s about.”

Taking in the room, Sakura can’t help but note how simple it is. It’s changed a lot over the years, this was back before she had her own dedicated PC. It only takes a few moments of looking around for Sakura to place exactly what this is, the hint is in the girl standing in front of her bed. Little Ino is fumbling about while little Sakura is nowhere in sight. “This one’s good.” Sakura giggles to herself.

“What’s this-oh, it’s one of these.” Ino’s flat glare is a lot stronger than Sakura’s giggle, but she’s not to have her joy ruined. What she gets to see in front of her is a very young Ino dancing out of the way of a very young Sakura’s hand as it darts at her from under the bed. It comes once, then again, and even again.

“Oop, she got her,” Sakura teases Ino, watching as the younger blonde gets pinched by the younger pinkette, “given your extra training from your family, that had to be embarrassing.”

“Ow! Sakura stop!” the younger Ino’s cry catches their attention, “guh, you suck!” It’s then that young Ino does something that would normally be considered odd. The small blonde girl intentionally steps into a pinch, forming a hand seal-

And suddenly the bed is high in the air, falling to the ground out of place and to the side. That’s not the important part though, even if it crashing to the floor fills the room with loud clunks and thuds. The important part is that young Ino falls from where the bed previously was, landing on young Sakura with a decisive growl and slam on top of her. “That’s cute,” real Ino rolls her eyes, “but why is me substituting with your bed a frontal memory?”

The two girls roll around on the floor, young Ino trying to restrain young Sakura’s hands and avoid getting pinched. “Sometimes little stuff is a lot more significant than it seems,” real Sakura answers, smiling at the two fighting girls, even as a few punches get thrown, “to you this is violent and awkward and probably a pretty bad memory, but to me this was one of my worst mental breakdowns. I was being kind of a bitch and you just refused to leave. I don’t even remember what it was about, but I remember you.”

The kids roll into a wall, then back, slaps ring out and fill the room. Despite her words, this is a lot more violent than Sakura remembers it. To be fair she barely remembers anything from this time period, let alone how often the two of them might have traded blows. They were ninja in training, fighting was probably pretty constant.

She takes real Ino’s hand into her own, and rests her cheek on her best friend’s shoulder. “This was the first time I remember looking up at you and thinking you were pretty cool. The substitution jutsu only works when you take damage, you got hurt intentionally to get to me while I was actively trying to push you away.”

“Being that forceful isn’t necessarily a good thing, Sakura.” Ino points out with a frown that frames her features so poorly, Ino should never do anything but smile, Sakura’s sure of that.

“For me it is,” Sakura says, “you know that well.”

“I do.” Ino sighs to herself, while young Sakura gets a punch off on Ino’s face. Sakura flinches at the sight, but Ino seems to find this entire event so unremarkable… She finds her friend rolling her eyes at the scene.

“You were my hero here.” Sakura admits to her best friend.

“You get I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t like you, right? This was purely selfish.” Ino points out with a bored grunt.

“I don’t think that matters.” Sakura gives her a small beam, squeezing her fingers, just as she watches young Ino kick her while she’s down “wow, you were a lot more violent when we were younger.”

“Yep…” Ino trails awkwardly, “kids suck I guess. I don’t remember this at all. I mean, I remember you pulling this stunt a dozen times throughout our childhood but I couldn’t tell you which time this was.”

“I think you’re why I started hitting Naruto?” Sakura admits, “I don’t blame you, very different situations, I just think I took lashing out violently as okay because of stuff like this. The Academy training didn’t help.”

“Well, uh, it’s not okay, glad we figured that out as we got older.” Ino gulps, looking anywhere but at the scene. “Right now we need to move on, not only is this memory fine by the criteria I’m searching for, but I’m not sure I like that one of your first core memories is me literally beating you into submission. It’s a little awkward to watch.”

“I needed it.” Sakura points out.

“There were other ways.” Ino grimaces, watching as the two girls collapse against each-other, panting and worn out from a bedroom brawl.

“Not for me.” Sakura shakes her head. “I’m broken, and I don’t even know how to express it. I’m hoping this whole adventure will show you everything I need to tell you, so my lack of words won’t matter. Maybe that way some good can come of all this.”

“I don’t like that either,” Ino winces, pulling away from her to look into her eyes and give her disapproval in a way that Sakura can only call stunningly visual, “why do I get the feeling this entire thing is going to suck?”

“Speak for yourself, I hope they’re all this tame.” Sakura shrugs, finally letting her go and walking towards the doorway on her own.

“How is me beating you senseless tame!?” Sakura doesn’t answer her savior. She opens the door and moves onwards.

“No, you’re right, that was tame.” The spot they find themselves in next is as violent as it possibly could be. There’s a pool of blood that’s up to their ankles, and despite the mist that overtakes the room, they can see everything clearly. Sakura can remember perfectly well how blind she felt in this chamber, so seeing it all so openly is nice. Even if being back here for any reason has her heart trying to pound out of her chest. They can see all the hatred flying around and the lethality of it all. Gato truly wanted to kill them with everything he had, and to be fair, the memory of taking him out is almost sensual. She gave it everything she had, and they came out alive, while he didn’t. That’s all that matters at the end of the day, the strongest survived while the bastard fell. This could have gone so much worse.

“Yeah, this sucked,” Sakura admits, “I went blind here.”

“You-what? Sakura you can see, you can’t just go blind in random places and still see.” Ino scolds her, she’s about to launch into another rant when she sees the Sakura in the memory grab a shard of broken floor and put it into a pair of goggles. “Sakura, you’re uh, you’re not gonna wear those ri-oh dear.”

“You can see through the glass,” Sakura explains, “this mist is normally too thick to see through but that let me know when the attacks were coming, and where the enemy was. The glass in those goggles actually broke several times, so I kept having to replace it.”

“Sakura, that’s probably the most unhinged thing I’ve ever seen.” Ino deadpans, giving her an odd look that says so much with so little.

“We needed it, this was life or death, like hard life or death,” Sakura explains, “we killed a vampire in Wave, this was that.”

“Vampires don’t- you know what, I’ll just watch. Let’s just, watch.” Ino regrets watching shortly when blood starts flowing out of Sakura’s goggles, well, technically they’re Sasuke’s.

Chapter Text

Veiled in darkness, Sakura and Ino find themselves a little lost. The feel of fluid on their toes tells them they’re still in the boss room, but neither of them have much they can say for sure about their surroundings.

Pitch black is pitch black, it’s that simple. “Sakura uh… darkness isn’t a normal core memory.” Ino finally decides to contribute to the moment, after a little bit of awkward splashing with her toes. Something wet lands on Ino’s face, and Sakura just kinda sighs at the sound of it splattering on her.

“Yeah, well, this is different. I wasn’t taking a nap or something, I was blind. This is the end of the fight, we should probably step back if we don’t want to get covered.” Sakura explains, grabbing Ino’s hand and dragging her back. She doesn’t have to see her to know where she is, after-all, with all this violence flying around and Vampire Gato’s damned living spear in the air, neither of them has wanted to move from their safe space.

“You were blind for the end of the fight?” Ino asks, “but you can see…”

“I have new eyes.” Sakura admits, “I was so scared because I wasn’t sure I’d get new ones, but I did. The whole fear of permanent blindness and the relative recency of the event probably made this traumatizing enough it’s forming a part of my surface memories. It’s important for all the wrong reasons.”

“Why would you do this?” Ino asks, “you didn’t have to go blind, who shoves glass into their eyes!?”

“It was life or death,” Sakura repeats herself from back when she could see, “Naruto or Sasuke might have died if I didn’t.”

“But not you?” Ino asks, and Sakura can feel her gaze on her, even though the darkness is too consuming for either of them to see each-other. She doesn’t answer Ino’s question, she just looks around at the darkness. “You couldn’t see, Sakura, how would you have dodged an attack at you?”

“I actually charged towards him.” Sakura shrugs, not that Ino can see it.

“Why!?”

Her eyes open, and with it comes light. They find they’re at school, a much younger Sakura is writing in a notebook while young Ino sits to the side gazing out the window. There’s nothing out there of note, in fact it’s not filled in at all. In all her years at school, Sakura has no idea what the outside of the classroom looks like. She just, never bothered to look. It’s like Ino’s looking out into a sketch, and not a very well done sketch.

“What’s this?” Ino asks, looking around at their empty classroom.

“I think this is when I came up with the Sasuke Uchiha Fanclub.” Sakura says, looking through the room herself, as if searching for an easter egg or a rogue Iruka.

“What makes you think that?” Ino asks.

“Lots of important moments happened here at the school, but only a few would be considered really important, and you said we’re in my core memories right now,” Sakura says, walking up to her younger self, “and if I look closely, I can see that my hair is wet, not a lot of times that happened… I’m referring to outside of class too, by the way, washing my hair is new to me.”

“Why was your hair wet?” Ino asks, choosing to sidestep that admittance swiftly and skillfully. She quickly walks up behind Sakura’s younger counterpart to look, and spots the same as her crush. Young Sakura’s got little water spots throughout her hair, and on her shirt. 

“I said I didn’t like Sasuke, so the other girls beat me up, then poured dirty water on my head,” Sakura explains, “they said I was stuck up and didn’t know my place.”

“And that made you think you should start a fan club?” Ino asks with a little snicker, “why wasn’t their cruelty a more important memory then?”

“I never cared about what they did, but I thought that maybe if I pretended that I had been lying, and was secretly a super fan, they’d leave us alone.”

“Us?” Ino asks, “they never bothered me.”

“And I wanted to keep it that way.” Sakura says, observing the notebook, and its poor drawings. She was never very good at drawing, it required too much practice, too much dedication, and the only thing she had energy to put into outside of her school work was her gaming time. 

“You started the entire club for me?” Ino asks, “that’s very sweet of you.”

“Well, it would have been nice if they’d left me alone too, but that was the goal. I figured if they kept tormenting me, eventually they’d turn on you, but if they liked me…”

“They’d like me too.” Ino nods, understanding quickly, “I’m surprised I didn’t think to do it myself.”

“Well, it was a lot of work. It was the first time I’d ever been outgoing towards other people and tried, even if it was a lie… I wanted to hide a lot more than not liking Sasuke, I was worried if it got out how much I liked games and stuff like it, that might turn on you too. Games have gotten a little more accepted over the years but the stigma was really bad back then.”

“And at some point you started trying to hide from me as well…” Ino trails, “you did a really bad job.”

“Trying and succeeding are different things,” Sakura defends herself, “we should probably move onto the next memory. There’s nothing interesting to take from this, it’s just me planning for an hour while you sat there bored. Eventually we went home.”

“I bet this was very interesting for me, you look so intense right now, like out of nowhere you suddenly gained life. There’s no way I didn’t notice back then, you just weren’t paying enough attention to see me looking.” Ino says, walking up to herself, and touches her own head.

Within an instant, the girl changes, her view focused on Sakura instead of the window. “I bet I couldn’t take my eyes off of you for a moment.”

“So my memory is wrong,” Sakura shrugs, “what’s it matter?”

“It matters because it means you missed when people cared about you.” Ino huffs, “in your core memories you feel alone when I was right here!”

“Yeah, well… not sure I can do anything about that.” Sakura says drolly, “my eyes were locked on the page, not you.”

“And my eyes were locked on you, never noticing the page.” Ino says.

“And this is a frontal memory becauuuuseee?” Ino asks, elongating her final word while Sakura looks around and largely ignores her. A smaller her sits behind a make-shift desk made of cardboard and stationed in an abandoned building. It was a good building, even if it’s currently dark and painted darker shades. She hardly remembers it like this, empty and forgotten, and it’s vaguely possible it never looked like this at all and she just filled in the blanks for this. There’s some rotting garbage on the ground, a few newspapers over there, the whole thing looks stereotypical.

She has a lot of different papers she’s sifting through while looking rather annoyed.
There’s several other girls in front of her, each waiting their turn to pass over the next page.

“It’s the first time I had to arbitrate a dispute in the club,” Sakura explains, “we had just found this place, and gotten permission to use it after a rather large debacle involving village permits and a whole lot of puppy eyes, and everyone had different ideas on how we should decorate it.” The memory of the entire club standing around an administration desk, fluttering their lashes and giving the poor chunin adorable gazes is a strong one, but it seems it’s not strong enough to be what they’re exploring.

“And that’s important because…” Ino trails.

“It was the first time someone expected something of me.” Sakura shrugs, “I know the whole club was stupid, and I never truly cared about what it was for, but it felt nice to have other girls seeking my opinion instead of stomping on it. I had to collect everyone’s ideas and figure out a compromise that left no one out. I was smart enough to do it too, so I got to feel accomplished.”

“The club looked horrible.” Ino points out with a bit of a deadpan to her.

“Well, yeah, it was an amalgamation of like thirty different ideas from completely different girls with completely different tastes. It was never going to look good if I was fair, and I was.” The setting doesn’t wait for them to move, it swaps on its own, showing off the club as it’s been for years.

Colorful yet covered in blots and black ink squirts like a squid attacked.
There’s a bookshelf but it’s covered in snacks instead of books.
There’s a painting that’d normally fit well, but it’s hanging from the ceiling. Not hung up on the ceiling, it’s hanging by a string in the frame and basically floating above their heads.

They used church pews for seating, but they’re painted rainbow, and her cardboard desk turned into a cardboard podium with an iron frame to hold it up, which is really all that was needed, the cardboard is aesthetic. 

“You get this is terrible.” Ino points out.

“Yeah but it was ours, and even if I thought they were all crazy, they were my friends for a while.” Sakura admits with a big grin, looking around the place that became one of her homes for a few years. “It’s easy to look back on this with negativity, and I feel really bad for how this club made Sasuke feel, but… This place was important to me.”

“You tried to get them to give you money, then disbanded it.” Ino snickers at her.

“We all show our love in different ways.” Sakura titters, giving a mysterious waggle of her brows.

Chapter Text

“Sakura, what is this?” She shouldn’t know what’s in front of them, but she does. It couldn’t be anything else.

There’s a sphere floating in the center of the room, held aloft by air alone. The air glows blue, and is insightfully pulsing. The stone flooring and walls and even the ceiling is lit up by bright blue runic lines that travel all around in every direction. Pipes are built into the infrastructure, flowing towards the sphere, and the best she can tell, the entire world all converges on this point. Some would falter, some would be confused, some might consider a room like this a malus and a sign of a wretched curse from ancient times. Sakura?

“This is my new life.” Sakura answers with all the weight on her shoulders, footsteps taking her to it quickly. Anticipation, trepidation, none of it matters before the circular object that holds everything. She should probably bow, but she won’t, that’d really freak Ino out and it’s probably not sentient anyway.

“What does that mean?” Ino follows after her, approaching it with a different sort of caution. She doesn’t know, Sakura doesn’t want her to know, and yet in a moment she will. The room has no door so to leave they definitely need to interact with it. It’s a core memory in a different kind of way, a representation of a journey started without her consent, and yet the most precious part of her existence.

She’s not a normal Genin anymore, and this is why. Her palm lands on the object, cool to the touch, and yet so bright it should feel like the sun. She feels a surge of power flow through her, before she’s classified as just another object in this world.

[Sakura Haruno
Party Contribution Level: 28
HP: 165
Chakra: 55
Strength: 54
Constitution: 55
Dexterity: 58
Agility: 60
Mental: 102
Control: 222
Charm: 22]

Her stat screen pops up in full view, showing itself to the world. More importantly, it shows itself to Ino, letting her see all she’s accomplished and all she is. She’s not sure when she got so strong, it must have all been in that dungeon, but she didn’t feel herself grow that much inside it. She’ll admit she should check on herself more, but it feels so nice to suddenly look at her status and find she’s grown a lot. It’s not like she doesn’t grow between checks and it’s all applied at once, so there’s no harm in staggering out her attention. Well, not much harm. She has no idea when she got to twenty two charm, but it’s beautiful. To think not too long ago she wasn’t even able to recognise basic conversational convention. She was intentionally antagonizing a Jonin and then getting surprised when he hurt her. She’s a little ashamed to admit that one, actually…

And now-

[Ino Yamanaka
Party Contribution Level: 15
HP: 90
Chakra: 26
Strength: 33
Constitution: 30
Dexterity: 32
Agility: 32
Mental: 60
Control: 70
Charm: 110]

Sakura looks to the side, to see Ino’s hand on the sphere, and the most important revelation in recent history clicks in her head for her. “It’s not locked to just me.” Her reality swirls a little.
That’s good to know, not bad. She knows it’s valuable info, knows it’s a good thing, and yet it’s hard to breathe. She finds a pressure building inside of her, swarming her from all directions and cutting off oxygen as much as it clouds her vision. She’s always had to deal with moments like these, when the world is too much and she’s not sure how to deal with it all.

She thought she was special, but what if she’s not? What if this power could be harvested from her? Would the Hokage realize? Would he tear her apart to take it if he found out? Anxiety is like a plague, black and insidious, and it swallows her whole. It hurts, but it’s easy to move past when she knows at the end of her attack she’ll always find herself on her knees, knowing life moves on and it was all in her head.

In this world deep inside her mind, that’s not true. She finds the room beneath her filling up with a shadowy mist. The stones beneath her feet shake and tremble, Ino’s lifted up from the danger by a light that protects the girl, and that allows Sakura to focus on herself. The darkness surrounds her, attacking her, giving a physical component to the panic beyond the tightness of her chest and the desire to vomit. These moments have always been painful, but they’ve never burnt her skin and shredded her flesh. She’s never found herself in an unwinnable battle. Yet here she is, begging it to stop while helpless to do anything but curl into a ball.

It’s stupid, it’s not that big a deal, it’s a good thing probably! But that knowledge doesn’t make it hurt any less. Her pains don’t care about rationality, only what’s deep inside. Reality only gets her so far when the world vibrates around her and rocks fall out of nowhere, landing on her stagnant form from above and bruising her fragile body. She’s about to close her eyes and ride it out, when a ray of light cleanses the air in front of her. She looks up to see what’s battling the miasma, and finds it’s golden and beautiful. It shines with a radiance that forces the darkness away from her. Ino’s wreathed in solidified purity, her desire to protect her crafted into a golden light that envelops her fully. Shields float around her, scribbled into existence with shimmering power and an obsession with yellow shades that cannot be understated. “I didn’t make these.” Ino points out dryly, despite the mood, and despite Sakura’s amazement.

“I know.” Sakura shakes her head, pulling herself out of her trembling place on the floor and forcing herself to stand. It’s shaky, unbalanced, but she can’t focus on what just happened or it’ll start again. Instead, she takes in Ino’s statistics hanging damningly above the power sphere. A better friend would express gratitude, she knows that, but it feels so natural for Ino to be there supporting her that thanking her for it feels so awkward it threatens to push her down again just thinking about it.

She’s spoiled by her best friend being, well, her friend. She’ll fix that later, she’ll make an active effort outside of the hellscape where her anxieties are razor blades.

Ino’s stats are remarkable in that they’re very bad. Well, she’d trade so much of her power for that much charm, and yet, she can’t help but look down on her friend after just a glance. She’s thought how dumb turning her friends into numbers is before, and she does her best to move past it, but it bothers her seeing her statistics that low. Just how much time has she been wasting? Why is she so weak? She’s barely better than an academy student! She’s spent her last week butchering people as strong as Ino like they weren’t even there.

Why is a clan heiress pathetic?
No, that’s not the right question. Ino’s not pathetic, she could be weaker than a baby and on her deathbed, and Sakura would consider her greater than a titan.That’s the physical manifestation of her anxiety bubbling up and making her think things she doesn’t mean.

A better question is why is her Ino weak? It’s harder to move past after her rather awkward moment, just a few seconds ago. The tightness in her chest hasn’t actually left yet, nor have the racing thoughts and the overwhelming need to latch onto anything sturdy and strong.

Seeing Ino as weak doesn’t help, even if she understands analytically that for the terms of their friendship, it literally doesn’t matter.

“As in, you made these.” Ino explains, the tone of her voice still dryer than sandpaper.

“Yes, I’m aware.” Sakura looks Ino’s sheet over again. Contribution level fifteen? She’s as weak as she was in Wave, weaker maybe if it counts Charm highly. Sakura’s been focusing on her physical stats because she started with high mental stats, it seems like Ino’s been doing none of that. She’s stronger, smarter, better in every way except the one thing that matters in society, Charm.

If Ino was a merchant, she’d be overwhelmingly happy for her. Her best friend could serve an empowered life at the top level of some trading guild and happily make her life meaningful in the safest way possible. But as a ninja, that’s a death sentence, and that hurts her deep inside in ways she can’t fully describe. Will Ino be okay? Should she learn a way to protect her at all times? Should she ask to be transferred to her team in some way, maybe she can stay with her until she’s strong…

“Why did you make equipment for me but not you?” Ino asks, “no, forget the sword, why did you make shields for me but not you? We were both attacked just now…” There’s a tremble in her voice that Sakura chooses not to acknowledge. Ino knows the answer to her question, it doesn’t need to be said aloud.

“Ino, have you been training?” Sakura asks.

“Yes! I just got out of some crazy nonsense before I came here.” Ino scoffs at her, “answer the question.”

“I don’t want to,” Sakura admits, “I’m far more concerned with why you’re so weak.”

“Because I don’t hate myself!” Her blonde friend shouts at her, stomping on the stone beneath her feet and splashing some of the dark fluid aside with a beam of light that spreads all around her. Her presence is a balm for the darkness, Sakura can understand that. “I love me, and I love you, and I push myself but I do it in a way that’ll let me stay happy. Whereas you consider pushing yourself beyond reason so important you won’t even protect yourself in your own damn mind! I’ve seen you get attacked by spikes at the entrance, an earthquake that sent you to your knees, and some sort of evil misty bitey nonsense isn’t enough cause for you to do anything but give up. Your skin is burnt, Sakura, and yet despite being right next to you, I stand here perfectly fine. Better than fine even, I’m being cradled by the love deep inside you that should be reserved for you.”

“I don’t hate myself.” Sakura scoffs at her, raising her arms to cover her chest and think about all this..

“You shoved glass into your eyes for a small advantage!” Ino shouts in retort, her voice echoing in the now broken stone room.

“It had to be done, you would have done the same.” Sakura argues with her, trying not to look at her, she doesn’t want to see that disappointed face.

“No I wouldn’t have!” Ino throws her hands into the air, clenching her fists in clearly formed irritation. It’s enough to draw a little of Sakura’s gaze, but nowhere near as much as the rage that sparks inside of her.

“Then you would have died!” Sakura growls at her, glaring with her shiny reds. Weak stats is one thing, that just means she hasn’t trained, but hearing she wouldn’t do what she needs to for survival? She boils inside, her gaze taking in her best friend wilting behind shining shields. She takes a step towards her, but finds she can’t move any closer than that, the floating barriers she automatically created to protect Ino from her panic attack earlier converge in front of her and block her path to her friend.

“I’d rather die than hate myself so much that my own mental protections consider me an invader,” she can hear Ino sniffle behind the glowing shields, but she can’t see anything beyond them, “some numbers inside your head tell you that you’re strong, but you’ve never seemed weaker to me.”

“...” Sakura has nothing to say to that. The frown on her features speaks louder than her voice ever could. She looks back to the sheet, looking into Ino’s abilities, and finds she barely has any traits or skills, and what she does have is taken up by stuff like “Bold and Confident, Incredibly Cute, Fashion Nerd… What is this?”

It feels wrong to judge her friend’s character sheet, she’ll admit it feels dirty to change the subject, but when that friend is in the same dangerous line of business as her and could meet a fucking vampire on a random mission, it feels justified to at least panic a little.

What does she do with this information though?
Discard it? Forget it?
Use it despite the clear violation?

She’s distracting herself, she does that too often, she needs to learn to focus on what’s important. She shakes her head, vowing to ignore the sheet until they’re out of here. For now, she needs to figure out what to do about these damn shields still blocking her off from seeing Ino.

She wonders if there’s a clear bright side here. What if she can use this to bring Ino back here regularly and help her figure out what to work on? She could fix the issue easily that way, and they could support each-other! The thought almost makes her smile, before less than a few seconds after vowing to focus on the shields, she realizes she’s already managed to distract herself again with the issue she’s trying to ignore. None of that matters while Ino’s standing behind a wall of her own making. “I’m sorry.” She croaks out, letting out a hiss through her teeth.

“To who?” Ino asks, a well earned quiver in her speech that Sakura can’t help but pity.

“I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you about something that you don’t even understand,” Sakura explains, “it’s one thing to say something but it’s another to actually experience it, and you don’t have the same experience so why would you get it?”

She actually watches her Charm raise to 23, and yet.
“That’s so not the problem that it’s not even funny.” Ino tells her she’s wrong.
Does that mean Charm isn’t related to being right about social things?
She’s thought it was, which has implications she’ll need to explore.

“Then what is the problem?” Sakura asks, palming the angry shields and trying to push them aside, only to watch them get bigger to make up the gap she’s creating.

“That these exist, that they’re here, that they consider you a threat in the first place,” Ino explains, “none of that is okay.”

“Well, how am I supposed to fix that?” Sakura grumbles, knocking on the metal that spawned from the depths of her mind..

“I have no idea.” Ino’s never sounded so downtrodden before, let alone so distant.

Chapter Text

“Hey, so this is concerning, right?” Ino asks with no small amount of waver to her reassuring voice. Her fingers poke and prod the status menu floating in front of her face with a curiosity unlike anything she’s seen grace Ino’s countenance. Ino’s always been smart, but she’s never been the curious, exploratory type. She knows what she wants, and she’s headstrong about it.  She’s got the full screen in front of her, and lays both palms along it, pressing against the oddly cool texture and taking it in for the first time. Sakura can admit she spent a bit of time doing that as well, truly just, getting into the vibe that this is her reality now.

Ino has the advantage of knowing this isn’t a Genjutsu, or a mind art, because it’s her specialty to know that stuff.

“A bit.” Sakura admits, nodding along while very focused on the moving box in front of Ino. Anxiety is one feeling she has while looking at the break in reality. Gratitude is another, Ino knowing her weaknesses will help keep her alive. Any tools Ino can get to keep herself safe is something Sakura would move the world for. She also can’t help but feel a strong desire to go to sleep and let someone else think over the implications of all this, as she’d very much like it to be someone else’s problem.

Whatever the case, things have changed drastically. Like astronomically so. The world isn’t the same as it was before, and she has no idea how to deal with it or its insane implications.

Because they’re not in her head right now. They had to leave, the shields wouldn’t stop getting in between them and they couldn’t move onto the next memory with them there. Her entire mind locked down and refused to let Sakura go anywhere near Ino, which was necessary for them to move on through the same gates, and it was required for Sakura to be there for Ino to be sure of what she was looking at going forward. There was also the issue that the odds are high that her brain would have considered Ino an invader and attacked if Sakura wasn’t there to contextualize the mindwalker being there and having free access to where she needed to go. 

Or, more accurately, it might attack if Sakura wasn’t contextualizing ‘this is Ino’ for her depths in real time. She’s pretty sure that part about her being there isn’t really the issue with how fiercely protective her mind seems of the girl.

“What do I even do with this?” Ino asks, moving it around in front of her, looking at all the numbers, contemplating her relative level. So many things are clearly running through Ino’s head, but Sakura can only really think of one thing.

“Well, my life is over.” It’s simple, and yet despite her earlier panic, she finds she barely cares. Looking at the status screen, she finds she’s barely lucid. “Your dad’s going to rip me open and let all of Konoha enter my head to touch that thing. I’m going to be drooling frothy braindead juices.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Ino rolls her eyes, “that’s not going to happen.”

“Really? Why not?” Sakura asks, giving her best friend a furiously doubtful look while contemplating her own doom.

“Because I’m not going to tell anyone about this.” Ino says, using her fingers to loop-de-loop the status box and admiring the way it moves up and around and side to side. It’s so customizable, Sakura can’t help but feel a little awkward; she never tried to resize the boxes. She just assumed the UI was fixed! “Also, because this proves nothing. I can see my statistics, so what? It doesn’t mean it’ll function for me like it does you, and even if it does, there’s no guarantee that it’d work for anyone else.”

“There’s a chance.” Sakura points out.

“There’s also a chance that we could figure out how to give everyone the Byakugan if we tore the clan apart and gave the data over to Tsunade and Orochimaru in a joint research endeavor.” Ino snickers at her. “We don’t do that because, well first of all it’d set a bad precedent which would cost us a lot, second because we don’t like human experimentation, and third, because losing the Byakugan isn’t worth the attempt.”

“...” Sakura has to think about that. Really think, it’s a lot to take in. That bit about Orochimaru is true, they kicked him out for experimentation, it’s unlikely they would turn around and decide that’s the way to go now. Too much is racing through her head, and it’s not all necessarily valid or reasonable. Panic and rationality smash together as quickly as physically possible, pressed on by her high mind stat and her willingness to doubt even herself.

“All we know right now is that I, your best friend, was able to march into uncharted territory and press my hand to a hidden device that revealed itself to us because you trust me enough it didn’t care that I was there. I can also now see a few little meaningless tidbits about myself. We have nothing else.” Ino explains, expertly attacking Sakura’s nerves with years of practice. 

“There’s a chance it self destructs if we force our way in, there’s a chance this info isn’t even usable, there’s a chance it doesn’t work on literally anyone else. There’s a chance it can only work on two people, and there’s a chance it’s hereditary but won’t be passed down if we screw you up and ruin everything. Even beyond all that, it even being a problem to solve relies on me spilling the beans about this. I don’t plan to do that.”

“Wouldn’t not telling anyone about a valuable asset be treason?” Sakura asks.

“Ninjas have secrets, Sakura, we’re allowed to keep them. What goes on inside your head, unless directly a danger to the village, is a Yamanaka clan secret because we have to use our arts to access your head,” Ino shakes her head, “so stop worrying about a stupid status screen and tell me what all this means. I never did get into games and stuff like you did. Almost everything I know is from listening to you talk.”

Ino tabs into her skills and traits, looking through them. “And why does whatever this thing in your head is look down on me so much? I do more than look pretty, you know. Are we even sure this information is accurate? This could just be what you think of me.”

“Impossible,” Sakura denies with a firm shake of her head, “you’d be a lot stronger than that if it was what I think of you.”

“That’s… flattering.” Ino decides to land on, after a few seconds of looking around.
“Well, I didn’t see anything on the surface that’d be considered treason or dangerous, so I’m going to have daddy sign a few papers and release you for today. We can meet back here on the weekend.”

“... What?” Sakura squeaks in surprise.

“You’re a citizen of Konoha, you were only held against your will because we had reason to believe that you might be a danger to yourself, others, or the residents of Konoha. Now that your frontal memories have been investigated and don’t seem to hold anything extremely concerning, you are to be given your rights back.” Ino clarifies for her. “You’ll be required to report back here this Saturday so we can continue. Do not take any missions that would take you outside of the village until we are done.”

“Ah… Your father made it sound like I’d be stuck here.” Sakura admits, her fingers scratching at her arm.

“We thought you would be,” Ino admits with a shrug, closing her statistics screen to look into her eyes, “we thought we’d find something incriminating or disturbing enough we’d have to investigate, not a bunch of childhood memories and a game system.”

“Errr. what’d you expect to find?” Sakura can’t help but ask with a wince at the implications that they genuinely thought she’d be some kind of loose cannon. 

“Something,” Ino shrugs, “literally anything besides what we found. We didn’t expect to discover you’re a little girl with a gaming problem… We probably should have though. That’s just kind of how I would have described you before being given this mission.”

“But um, you made it seem so much worse inside…” Sakura trails a little pitifully, giving her a long and effort filled pout..

“Oh, no, as your friend I am absolutely terrified.” Ino clarifies, throwing a hand up to stress the statement, “make no mistake, your issues are far worse than I could have possibly imagined. We need to do something about that before whatever it is inside you that’s malfunctioning causes you to snap and kill yourself or worse.”

“Worse?” Sakura asks, only to watch Ino shake her head and not answer her in the slightest.

“But, as far as the village goes, you’ve passed the preliminary testing and are allowed to go back home with restricted rights. Please use them.” Ino hops out of her seat, stretching lightly before approaching quickly and pulling a key from her pocket. She wastes no time inserting it into the lock on Sakura’s chains. “Go home, hug your mom, take a shower, and please tell Kakashi you’re free. I fear he’s continuing their training while you’re in here and I’ll move the underworld itself if it means getting in the way of that asshole.”

“He is kind of a dick, yeah.” Sakura agrees with a smirk.

“Kind of?” Ino asks with a loud scoff, “give me five minutes and then you’re free to go.”

Sakura’s left wondering what any of all this means while watching Ino go.
And also like, what to do about Ino seeing her stats and skills?
Will the others see it the way Ino does if they find out? Should Ino even hide it? She said it’d be fine but, Kakashi said surprising the Hokage was the dumbest way to die.

She has so much to think of, but for now, she needs to do some stretching and then go take a long shower.

Chapter Text

Being released on terms of ‘probably not being dangerous’ isn’t the feel good moment she was expecting to have when she left the facility. There’s a lot to be said about her friend expressing deep concern for her while also reluctantly letting her go. She knew it’d be bad, but her conversation with Ino inside of her head won’t leave her alone. She doesn’t hate herself, she swears she doesn’t hate herself.

Why does her head consider her an enemy? It’d be one thing if it attacked Ino too, then it’s just a very hostile landscape and maybe they need to figure out what’s up with that. Protecting Ino proves that her brain is capable of recognizing that something belongs, and it’s also very capable of considering that thing benevolently. So why did those shields refuse to leave? Why did she get cut up on entry to her mind in the first place? Why did her nerves attack her directly, and is there anything more to Ino possessing the glowing sword which free’d her from the attack?

Symbolisms have never been her forte, and now she’s expecting herself to decode her actual brain. That’s dumb, she’s being dumb. She could never do that, she needs to leave that to Ino and her father and people that actually know what they’re doing.

She has people to visit, but first she needs a shower and a long nap.

“Sakura!” Naruto greets her the moment she steps out of the bathroom, the boy practically attacking her with a hug that slams her back first against the wall with a thud. She doesn’t miss two other blonde entities joining the hug almost immediately, or the suit the main boy has on. “Business Naruto,” she greets, patting his back with a surprised rub while looking down at the other two and finding Naruto’s experimenting with clones of different ages and genders, “where is the real you?” She has two little sister clones now, that’s very interesting, she should figure out if it’s weird to treat them that way later when she has a good chance.

“He’s with Kakashi, I haven’t seen him the entire time you’ve been gone, but I’ve gotten a lot of memories sent my way. The amount of clones that have died…” Business Naruto pouts quite visibly for her.

“I suppose it would be more meaningful to you to lose what could have been you.” Sakura ponders, thinking of whether Business Naruto would have experienced her substituting with normal Naruto’s clones to avoid Gato’s attacks in Wave. It was very far away, can the memories travel like that? She should ask, or maybe look into it, but not now.

Now, whatever Ino was referring to needs to be stopped. “Where?”

“Sakura.” Kakashi greets her as her feet step onto the perimeter of the Forest of Death. He’s not even trying to hide where they’ve been, he affixes her with a smile behind the mask like he’s done nothing wrong. He looks like he’s been on vacation the entire time, clean and in fresh clothes and looking very well fed.

“You hurt Ino,” Sakura accuses him, stomping her foot into the dirt and packing it in, red eyes shine brightly at the man with her inner malevolence, “Naruto and Sasuke make sense, but you should know Ino’s not ready for your crap.”

“Her sensei signed off on including her in their training.” Kakashi defends himself, hands in his pockets, he walks up to her without a care in the world. She bats him away when a lone hand slips out of that pocket and speeds towards the top of her head. The smack is loud and resounding, the man symbolically letting her smack solidly connect. “I never put her in any real danger, Sakura, I promise you.”

Her glare focuses itself, staring right into his eye with a swirling heat that threatens to overwhelm her at any moment. This time, she lets his palm land on her head and rub the ‘cute Genin’ he’s been ‘put in charge of.’ “You really promise?” She asks, a feeling she can’t explain makes its way up her esophagus, and she finds her voice cracking and wavering, like something heavy and solid is blocking the way of her words. It’s thick, and hurts more than she’d like to admit.

“None of them were ever in any real danger, nothing in the Forest of Death could pose a threat to me, and I have a medic ninja on retainer in the event I need to race them somewhere. At this point they’re just doing basic survival training, I haven’t touched them since Ino left.” Kakashi confirms, rubbing in circles that make her feel like a little girl. To him, she is, so it makes sense. She can accept that. “I hear you were detained and interrogated, how did that go?”

“You say that like you weren’t already given a report.” She grumbles lowly.

“I want to hear it from you,” he dismisses her point, “do you feel okay, Sakura?”

“I don’t know.” She has to admit, because it’s Kakashi, and she’s supposed to be talking to him even if she doesn’t want to. “Ino thinks I hate myself, and I don’t think I do, but what if I just don’t know it? How do I deal with that? How do I deal with any of this? And why is one of the most supportive feeling people in my life my freaking demon sword?”

“Okay, there’s a lot to unpack there.” Kakashi admits, taking his hand away finally, he looks away a little, frowning, biting his lip, looking back and giving her a serious gaze. Shifting from the playful man she’s used to, to someone who’s giving her focus. “Why is Hunger a person now?”

“Ah, well, um…” She looks down at her hands, she doesn’t really know how to answer that.
Slip of the tongue maybe? “I dunno, it doesn’t make me feel bad, while everyone else does. I’m always wondering what’s wrong with me or trying to step around eggshells when I talk to people, but the sword doesn’t do that. It tells me I’m right, and supports my decisions, and makes me feel strong. I feel good about myself with it, and without it I’m always so worried.”

“Okay, uh, gonna nip that one in the bud. Sakura, that’s not how people feel like, that’s how drugs feel like.”

“What?”

“Drugs.” He explains, poking her in the forehead. “Drugs make you feel good, and right, and strong. People make you feel scrutinized and judged, that’s just how they are. Never confuse the two. If people don’t make you feel a little bad sometimes, that’s called a hallucination, sometimes it’s a Genjutsu.”

“Ah…” She nods to herself, glumly but understandingly.

“Any relationship worth keeping is going to have disagreements, and sometimes those disagreements are severe enough they can come off harshly. When you’re messed up there’s added layers to it too, like that they want you to be less messed up. It’s hard for someone that has a brain that works right to accept that it feels good when you slit a throat, or understand the excitement of Henging into the corpse you just made to trick their teammates and execute them when they look away.”

“Err-” She gulps as he keeps talking.

“They won’t get what it means to lay back in a puddle of blood and let it seep into your clothes so you can feel at one with your actions, or how good it feels when the blood on your hands is real for once so you don’t have to question yourself.” Kakashi gives her a solid thumbs up that clashes heavily with his words, “and that’s okay, that’s good for them. They judge you because they don’t understand and they want better for you. Their judgment means they’re healthy and you should be happy about that. Misery loves misery, you shouldn’t wish that they understand you, you should cherish that they don’t. Their judgment feels good, Sakura. You just have to change your mindframe and accept that not understanding can be a good thing. Because the less they understand, the better a job you’ve done ensuring they never can.”

“Okay, I think I can do that.” She takes a deep breath, hissing through her teeth only to take another. “So they’re judging me because they want me to be better, not because they think less of me?”

“It’s a bit of both.” He says.
And she expects more.
He doesn’t give more.

“Oh, okay, um… So the sword is drugs, and the bad feelings people give me are good?” She winces at the thought, she really doesn’t like that.

“Yep.” He lets his answer hang just like that.

“... Why did you give me drugs?” She can’t help but ask, after a long moment of awkward silence.

“Dead people told me to.” He answers her with a deathly seriousness, in fact it’s more firmness than such a statement should ever contain.

“Ah… Iruka’s right, I think I did need to talk to you.” She remembers her little conversation with Iruka, her old teacher said she’d end up like Kakashi. Kakashi’s batshit and she doesn’t want to end up that way. She needs to figure her shit out before that happens.

“And I thought you could handle it,” Kakashi continues, after a long moment to let her doubt her everything, “I’ve kept watch. You’re handling the sword better than anyone in history. Besides, you could use some validation when in combat, doubting yourself is fine at home, it’s terrible when you’re in a life or death situation. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen you confident about anything besides when you hold onto that sword, so, I don’t regret giving it to you. Just, measure it and ensure you form meaningful bonds while you’re at it. The kind of bonds that make you feel good because they’re judging you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Yep, Kakashi’s batshit. That sounds a little better though, she can kind of accept that.

“You’re amazing Sakura, keep on the path you’re going and one day you won’t need a sword like that to feel strong, you’ll get everything you need from those around you, and from deep inside,” he turns towards the forest of death, “at least that’s what Gai’s message about you said. He likes you a lot, you should see if he’ll train you any.”

“You think he would?” She shifts her feet a little, clacking her toes together.

“I know so.” He nods.

“And he’ll be better at helping me feel okay than you?” Sakura asks.

“Oh no, Gai’s crazy.”

Chapter Text

She’s exactly where she wants to be after all that nonsense; back home, napped, and at her desk. She can’t help but think about everything that’s happened recently, but the thoughts are quick to pass for once. Far more important than her time with Tenten, or her revelations with the sword, or her small adventure with Ino, is the to-do list. She made a great list of things she needs to do to improve, and it’s time she starts doing that stuff before it grows and overwhelms her. Which means stalking over to her desk, sitting back, and figuring out what she wants.

She gets writing and quickly has a small list of things written out on paper.

Crafting Tutorial
Cooking Skill
Escape Rope
Ambidextrous
Ranged Training
Medical Skills
Other Weapons
Necromancy
Mind Training so she can do Necromancy
Make Friends
Work on her anger issues so Tenten will game with her

It looks like a lot, but she can probably get like half of that done in like a week… probably.
First though, she’s got new skills and traits since the last time she checked on those, and they’re rather prevalent. She went through a whole damned dungeon, and it was so much she has a hard time remembering it all. One-shot dungeons kinda suck. She got a lot stronger statistically, so why not skillswise? She couldn’t check on them when she was with Ino, there was too much going on and Ino’s stats were far too distracting for her to think about herself for even a second, but now that she’s alone in her room…

First she looks to her skills, and finds that despite her efforts there aren’t many changes. 
Item Appraisal and First Aid she already knew of, Water clones got to Proto Level 5, Scan leveled up to Moderate - but she might have already known that - and Great Hammer Moderate is, while awesome, not particularly practical outside of a zombie infestation situation. She is happy to report Tenten let her keep the hammer though, so maybe she’ll train with it. It could be really cool, and she’s going to ask Gai to help her with it at her nearest convenience. As much as she wants to focus on the jutsu aspect of her skills for the near future, Gai’s a great teacher that she can’t pass up. She especially can’t ignore Gai when Kakashi has told her that he wouldn’t be offended by her seeking help elsewhere, which was something she was worried about.

As cool as that dungeon was for her stats, she didn’t gain a lot of skills. She could have tried harder, or worked towards more things, but she’ll just have to be happy with what she did advance. Learning that she doesn’t have to follow the rules with her abilities is probably better than a bunch of upgrades anyway. Magic rules. She will have to be okay with that. Is what she thinks, but looking at her Traits tells her she won’t have to be okay with anything, there’s so much here! Whereas she gained very little in skills, her trait list exploded. Her Water Affinity is level five, her earth is level six, and fire’s proto-affinity has hit four. That’s where the basic upgrades stop, and the crazy begins.

[Brutal
You haven’t just killed people, you’ve done so in such a horrific, gruesome way that your allies fear you and your enemies wake up in chills. You strike terror into the hearts of all that oppose you, and you’ve made it clear; there are fates worse than death, one is facing you.]

That feels a little much, she stabbed one guy a bunch of times. She was having a panic attack, it’s not like she ate his insides while giggling. Still, if the flavor text’s implication is true, she does more morale damage now, and that’s huge. Well, it’ll be huge if she ever ends up in a war or anything, which is super unlikely. It’s also unlikely she gets assigned another mission to kill an entire rebellion and needs to demoralize them internally.

[Walking Nightmare
You’ve killed enough people that it’s clear it wasn’t because you had to. You’re not going to stop killing until you’re forced to, and you’ve chosen your path in life. Some people are gentle, some are stained, you’re a walking nightmare. Your intimidation checks now use Strength instead of Charm. Blood no longer makes you look dirty or feel dirty, it looks like it belongs and feels like it too.]

Well that’s awesome. Her strength will likely always be higher than Charm, but the far more important part is the implication that she can circumvent Charm for certain checks if she gains the right traits. She’s not sure how often she’ll be making intimidation checks, but she loves the idea. She also loves the idea that blood will no longer feel gross. She gets covered in it a lot, and she’s pretty sure she can place exactly when she got this trait in the dungeon. It was when she killed that guy right before Fierro, she got covered and she didn’t care in the least. It felt nice, actually.

[Regenerator
You’ve healed a lot of damage without proper medical means. Your ability to heal from any source that is not medical in nature is now 1.2x stronger.]

Unfortunately, the only non-medical method of healing she has is sleep, which is a full heal, but the skill does bring plenty of build ideas to mind. What if she figured out a proper way to gain sustain? Like a life-steal weapon or maybe some kind of blood drinking power like her sword has? She needs to spend time on that, her list is getting very long. The concept of adding regeneration - now improved - to her arsenal is also huge. One of the few things stopping her from being immortal - besides instant kills - is the time she needs to recover. Five hours is fast enough she can ignore sickness, a lot of poisons, and even some critical injuries if she can get the care. But even low regeneration might be able to fight off blood loss while she rests.

[Tank
You’ve taken enough damage while still standing that you no longer feel pain during combat. You’ll still notice hit locations and be aware of damage, but it will not hurt unless you are severely injured all at once. Pain will resume the moment combat is over, try not to get wrecked by the wave hitting all at once.]

That just seems useful, not that pain has ever truly bothered her much. She’s just good like that.

[Purger of Undead
You have killed countless undead, far more than any normal mortal is capable of. You now do Passive Holy damage along with your Normal damage.]

“Oh, okay, sure.” She nods at that, for many reasons. The most noticeable being that she’s not even sure what that means in the context of the Elemental Nations. Does holy damage even apply to normal people, or does it only matter if she fights undead again? Extra damage is cool but if it doesn’t actually do damage, what’s the point? She’ll need to investigate.

[Rebellion Quasher
You’ve killed them. You took on your duty and slaughtered without a second thought. You put down an organization without even knowing its greater purpose, and in doing so you’ve ensured that your way of life can survive thoughtlessly another day. You’re a real hero, promise, no one’s judging you at all.]

Yeah, that sounds a lot like the system is judging her. Cool. There was probably some kind of secondary meaning she was supposed to interpret in that dungeon, but as far as she’s concerned, expecting her to betray her country for a freaking necromancer and her band of weak followers is dumb. She’ll take the judgment. Too bad it doesn’t seem to give any bonuses…

[Enemy Lvl 2
A group of largely non-threats - to you - has made it their new life goal to stop you from breathing. If left alone, they will grow, and you may have to eradicate a force of some note eventually.]

That’s easy to place, three of the Genin escaped from the dungeon. It’s interesting that they’re not a threat to her at all even when not cornered, but it’s not that crazy to think they want revenge on her. It sucks that it’s specifically on her, but she did go out of her way to intimidate and scare the enemy. Every great ninja eventually has a bounty of some sort, Kakashi’s wanted in like three countries at least. Having a few random kids that want her dead isn’t that big a deal. You can’t make everyone love you, in fact, some people will hate you just for existing. Plus, there’s always the possibility that she could meet them when they come to fight her and she can go all super sensei and train them to defeat her, creating several awesome underlings that slowly lose their hate and become loyal… Probably not.

[Sharing is Caring
You’ve let someone else touch the Core. In doing so, you’ve added them to your System Registry. This will have Grave Consequence.]

That’s an issue, that’s a huge issue. She doesn’t like that at all, and she can’t help but chitter her teeth at the sight of those words. System Registry? What does that mean in this context? More importantly, what kind of Grave Consequence? Why did it capitalize those words in the middle of a sentence? Half of her wants to sprint to Ino and tell her about this right now, but the other half of her would kinda rather avoid her for a few days. She’ll meet her on Saturday, and obviously Ino won’t be leaving the village before then either.

It makes sense to put it off, especially when it’s not like that gives her any real information. She should investigate, Ino deserves the best she can give her, not small and concerning scraps one thing at a time.

Finally, she has just one more trait.
[Killer of Fierro
You have killed an Otherworlder, and have been marked with their essence. Should anyone wish to find them, the trail will lead to you, and should you ever wish to travel outward, their essence will aid you in opening the door]

There’s a lot to process there, but before she can think about any of it, a prompt arrives with the blaring force of Tenten’s rifle.

[Quest Notice: A Requested Meeting
You went and killed an Otherworlder that had a bounty back in their home world. It just so happens that a high authority there would still like to make due on that and has invited you to meet with them at your next convenience. If you would like to meet with them, eat a lot of salt before Resting

Reward: A Very Temporary Meeting Outside the Veil
Trait: Otherworlder]

“What?” She can’t help but gasp in surprise at that. She thought that otherworlder crap from Fierro was just a dungeon flavor text! She smacks herself on both cheeks, huffing, and feeling like a real idiot for still not internalizing that this is all real.

“Guess I better go ask for something salty for dinner…” Like she’s passing that up!
That’s so stupidly ominous!

Chapter Text

The first thing she smells is salt, there’s just so much salt. It’s an oddity, but she doesn’t question it much. The quest told her to eat something salty to help the transition, so there being salt on the other side isn’t that weird.

She is on the other side, right? She opens her eyes and looks around, pushing herself up on her bed - which is still definitely hers - and spotting the surrounding walls. They’re made of salt crystals, tall and imposingly jagged looking. She always figured salt was gotten purely from salt water, to see walls of salt, it makes her question. Do they mine salt? Is that a thing? Are there children with pickaxes getting the seasoning for her meal? It has to be children. Adults would use it all, they couldn’t be trusted to mine it. 

Regardless, much less important than the walls and their sodium content, is a woman sitting at a mahogany desk to the side. It’s placed against the wall, strictly adhering to best use of surface area in the small sharp room. The woman’s in a chair that’s turned away from the desk, looking at her with a smug expression. So maybe saying she’s sitting at the desk is the wrong wording, but she’s there next to it, and there’s papers and bags on top of it so she’s been using it.

She’s in thick black plate based metal armor, with points on the pauldrons and knees that look like bat wings. It’s an ominous look, trimmed with silver that draws her eyes upwards until she’s looking at a red eyed monster with long magenta hair and teeth that look like razors. All around, the woman looks very dangerous, and her gear - especially those razer clawed gauntlets - gives her ideas she might pass on to Tenten.

“Okay, I’m actually in another world,” Sakura nods to herself, accepting that this could get weirder, “somehow, I wasn’t expecting that.”

“You’re not,” The woman’s voice is deep and commanding, “that would be very hard to accomplish. You’re at a transit point, they’re characterized by incredible amounts of salt, as salt has been found to be plentiful in almost every world. It makes the temporary connection easy, which is good, because what you’ve done is worth rewarding, but it’s not worth building an entire portal relay to make an attempt to maybe connect to your world formally.”

“... Uh- could you maybe put that in plain language?” Sakura winces, not really sure how they’re even speaking the same language, but willing to put that aside in the bin with the many other problems currently going on. 

“Aint nobody got time for world travel to give you money.” The otherworldly monster lady deadpans at her, and Sakura is happy to note that somehow, she understands the expressions of non-humans better than humans. The way her incredibly sharp teeth hide to accentuate the nothingness of the mocking expression is just, very helpful for her. If she could give everyone long sharp teeth so large the mouth doesn’t close unless forced, it’d probably help her social skills quite a bit.

“But they could travel worlds if the motivation was strong enough?” Sakura asks, “that girl, she wanted to go home above all else.”

“Sure, it requires a few thousand souls turned into crystals and then used to operate a relay but it’s absolutely possible to connect worlds temporarily, though most travel is done completely by accident during grand battles or tragedies,” The woman explains with a kind and gentle tone, “you’ve probably seen the consequences of it a few times. Don’t you have any technology in your world that doesn’t necessarily make sense how you came up with it? Maybe it doesn’t fit your tech progression, or maybe it does fit but the way it fits is weird? That’s almost always caused by someone who crosses over, they instinctively try to get back the things they had at home, and end up adding to the culture in odd ways that don’t fit. Like a jigsaw but with pieces from another box entirely.”

“Uh…” She can’t think of anything of that sort, but there probably is some stuff… Maybe she’ll look into it, maybe she won’t, what’s more important right now is that she’s been offered a reward and she seems to be interdimensionally confused at the moment. The reality is that if there was something odd and out of place in her world, she probably wouldn’t be able to spot it because she grew up in her world so it’d seem normal to her.

“Your reward.” The woman picks up a big bag on the desk, and throws it to her. Sakura watches as the bag flies through the air, and seems to hit an invisible wall. It stays there for a moment, and very slowly wriggles through until it lands on her bed with a massive clink.

That implies her bed is still in her world, maybe? Was that the crossover point she just saw, or a magical forcefield intended to protect her sodium levels from the surrounding minerals? She opens the bag quickly, looking into it to find glowing crystals. Hundreds of glowing crystals, all at least the size of her finger, and all shining with a powerful energy that makes her skin crawl just looking at it. “What is this?”

“The reward for taking down Fierro the slaver,” the woman says with a pointed glance at the bag, “necromancy’s not illegal in my land, I’m a necromancer, some of my best friends are necromancers, but there’s ethical standards when you’re dealing with the undead. Wraiths, vampires, liches, creatures of intelligence, are all fine. Trapping a sentient soul in a mindless flesh beast like a zombie? That’s the kind of fucked up bullshit a selfish human would do. We were very disappointed to find that after we ripped her still beating heart from her chest and ate it to prove a point, her soul managed to latch onto a nearby plane of existence and flee there. She couldn’t even die ethically.”

“Uh… I see.” Sakura finds herself palming a crystal.

“You don’t seem to. It’s slavery, okay? It’s just an attempt to avoid paying workers by making mindless slaves. If you find any other necromancers like that in your world, I’ll pay you to kill them too.” The woman explains, waving her sharp gauntlets around, they catch Sakura’s eye and make her quite interested all over again. Maybe Lee would like those, she doubts her own crafting skills will be capable of creating anything like that anytime soon, but Tenten has to have a basic idea, right? Maybe she could create a group project.

“You want to pay for cruelty done in another world?” Sakura can’t help but blink at the woman like she’s grown two heads and started talking out her behind.

“Our worlds are a lot closer than you think, with enough firepower you could probably skip the normal process and just tear a hole between them… Don’t try that,” the woman coughs into her palm, “what I’m saying is that your world’s problems aren’t that far off from being my world’s problems. Hopefully that never becomes relevant, I’d like to never see you again.”

“And if we do meet again?” Sakura asks.

“Maybe next time I’ll eat you, maybe I’ll pay you, it heavily depends on why we’re meeting.” The woman gives her a toothy grin, one that shimmers in dull glowing salt based light. 

“Uh-huh, and um, again, what is this?” She raises a crystal, peering through its mostly see through structure.

“Soul crystals, they’re filled with ethically sourced goblin souls. You can use them for spells, freeing the souls when you do, or use them as a catalyst for your own necromantic research without having to kill anyone or disturb intelligent life. Goblins are just smart enough to count, but not smart enough for it to be unethical to mess with them, so consider it a research grant, or maybe a donation to keep you out of the whole mad scientist, evil slaver route. Just don’t put them in fucking zombies, and we’re gucchi”

“What does that word mean?” Sakura can’t help but ask.

“Which one?” The sharp woman tilts her head at her, possibly contemplating how Sakura tastes.

“Nevermind… What if I have zero use for them because I didn’t pick up Necromancy?” Sakura asks, “it’d be a worthless reward.”

“But you did pick up necromancy,” The woman crosses her legs, and gives her a bright, almost hungry stare. “bye-bye, Sakura.”

“Wait, what’s your name-”

“Byeeee!” The last image Sakura sees before she loses consciousness is a wave from both gauntlet covered hands in front of a smiling, inhuman face.

Sakura finds herself jumping up in her bed, looking around her room in a cold sweat.
The only evidence that even happened being the bag of glowing crystals in her lap, and the prompt on the screen.

[Congratulations, you have earned the Trait: Otherworlder]
[Otherworlder: You’ve officially crossed over from your world, even for just a moment. Your soul is scarred and changed, you can now speak and understand any spoken language. You have gained a basic affinity for space time techniques, and will no longer be affected by anything that stops time.]

[Space/Time Affinity Lv 1]

“Well that’s… cool, I guess.” Sakura shakes her head, deciding to avoid salt for a while, and hoping to never experience that again. Her brain can’t help but try to figure out the puzzle she was given. What kind of technology or ideas and concepts could possibly be from another world? Was any of that even real, or was it just a crazy technical hallucination fueled entirely by her power to justify the gift of the crystals?

Is any of her life real these days?

She shakes her head again, smacks her cheeks, and decides none of that matters. She’s not going to figure that out anytime, so why care?

Instead of pondering pointless nonsense, she gets up, does a few stretches, saunters over to her desk, puts on her headphones, and boots into FF14. Nothing clears the mind like morning dailies.

At least, if the woman is to be believed, every zombie she killed was a soul released. That makes her a good person now, rig?ht

Chapter Text

Opening her front door with intentions for a stroll - and not at all because she’s spent the last two days binging FF14 and refusing to leave for any reason and Haku threatened to freeze her PC in a block of ice if she didn’t touch grass - she’s surprised to find a fist about an inch from her face.

It just kind of hangs there, frozen in time, and it isn’t until Sakura looks around that fist that she sees the cherry tomato holding it up. Black hair that frames her face, pretty white eyes, a demure body and enough hesitance that if they managed to harness it they could possibly tranquilize a giant monster.

Hinata Hyuga stands in front of her door, clearly having been about to knock. “Hinata? Are you here for something?”

“Yes, you.” The girl squeaks, continuing to stand there as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.

“You don’t have to knock, it’s open, um…” Sakura watches the still stunned girl for a moment, before nodding, “ah, you’re caught in a malfunction. Okay, give me a second, I know how to deal with this.” She steps backwards behind the frame, and closes the door.

She waits.
A few seconds pass, her brow furrowing before she finally opens it back up, “uh, Hinata, you have to knock to complete the um, where’d you go?”  Hinata is nowhere to be seen. Sakura’s nothing if not resourceful though, she knows how to deal with this, she just has to go get a special item.

It doesn’t take long to find her, she just looks around at bushes and random items around her house, using Scan until something shows up. Tracking Naruto down during training has taught her well.

[Hinata Hyuga
Very Dangerous
Kidnapped at a young age, Hinata has been ruthlessly trained to ensure she can protect herself. Heiress to the Hyuga Main Clan, it’s really less a question of ‘can she’ kill you, and more ‘will she.’ The answer is no.]

Well that’s informative. “Hey, uh, have the talking stick.” Sakura takes a momentary chance to appreciate that this might be the last time she holds out a treasure of hers, but if this is how the key item is meant to be used then she’s not going to question it. She holds out a prize from a bygone era towards the bush, and finds she’s a little surprised to see Hinata actually grab it, and pull herself out of the bush with a smile. She’s still flushing up a storm, but she imagines she’d be a little red if she just got called out for hiding in a bush too. Despite having her talking stick, Hinata doesn’t say anything. That’s not right, if the stick isn’t going to be used then she’ll have to get it back later, it’s clearly not the key item for this situation.

“Did you want to come inside?” Sakura asks, prodding her.

“That’s what she said!” She hears one of the small girly Narutos shout from inside the house, an open window revealing she can hear them, he? Is it she when Naruto’s a girl? She’ll have to ask Ino later.

“You don’t even know what that means!” She shouts back at the window.

“That makes two of us!” Sakura can’t help but admit s/he’s got her there. The heiress frowns deeply, implying she gets it, but Sakura’s well past asking.

“I uh, no, I don’t want to go inside. That’s where Business Naruto is.” Hinata says with a knowing glance at where the clone was making waffles just a few minutes ago when Sakura passed him. Chances are he’s probably still there.

“You know him?” Sakura asks.

“No.”

“Then how do you know he’s… whatever.” She shakes her head and decides to not question the Hyuga.

“It’s like Naruto but not Naruto.” Hinata explains, “I don’t like it.”

“Yeah, our parents have just kind of decided that too.” Sakura admits with a bit of a pout that takes over her features, “they say they have two sons now. I pushed for three but they’re not budging on Haku being too adult for that.” She really tried to get Haku accepted! They like him, he’s just not part of the family, which is sad but also Haku’s really weird about intimacy so maybe they’re just respecting his choices? She’s been told she needs to respect people’s choices more.

“I’m here for you,” The Hyuga heiress clarifies, stepping forward towards her on footing that somehow manages to look graceful despite being half in their garden, the girl’s foot directly on a vegetable, “it’s about Neji.”

“Yeah, we should go elsewhere then.” Sakura crosses her arms in thought and nods to herself, knowing just the place.

Skewers was a good choice. It’s good on protein, close enough to her house that it’s barely a walk but far enough that Haku can’t complain and say she didn’t actually leave, and it’s expensive enough that Hinata’ll feel bad and pick up the whole check. She’s a genius.

She wasn’t expecting her to dig in, but hey, she brought her to a very normal restaurant, expecting the princess to have a ton of manners might actually be rude. Plus, she’s a ninja. If she comes here with her team, eating normally might be a habit.

“So you said it’s about Neji?” Sakura asks her, taking a gracious bite of juicy meat.

“Mmhmm,” Hinata nods slowly, looking her over real quick, “he’s in a lot of trouble for antagonizing you on your mission.”

“I’m sorry, wut?” Hearing that Hiashi person wasn’t pressing charges was one thing, hearing Neji’s in trouble for her attacking him? Absurd. She has half a mind to call Hinata a liar right out, but that’s probably inaccurate, Hinata’s never lied to her before… has Hinata talked to her before this?

“You have become an extremely important person lately,” the freaking royalty at her table says without a bit of irony, “my father is furious that he managed to damage relations with you before a meeting could be arranged. If I was to guess, and I’m not very good at that kind of thing, please forgive me…” The girl takes a shaky breath, clearly forcing herself to run through what sounds like a very rehearsed statement, “it sounds like he had intended to try and marry you to someone in the branch family when you reached marrying age. Now he believes that will be impossible.”

“Ah…” Her secret is that big a deal? She thought the Hyuga was all about pure bloodedness… Well, it is just a branch family position, maybe they’re open to experimentation on people they can discard on a whim. That’s a sour thought.

Still, it’s a little weird to have all this attention on her. She doesn’t see anyone trying to marry anyone to Naruto, and he’s got the Kyuubi inside of him! Okay, talking to the Hokage about this has officially jumped on her priority list to the ‘immediate’ category. The whole, went to another world a couple of days ago part is pretty big too now that she thinks about it.

“I am asking on behalf of my beloved cousin, that you take him into your home as a show of goodwill. I’m scared.” Both hands clap on the table, and Hinata lowers her face to touch it with her nose.

Sakura’s, really just not sure how to respond to that. “Uhh, does he even want that?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t been able to talk to him since he got back.” Hinata admits, still face first into the table.

“This is so awkward…” Sakura can’t help but say out loud, “I can’t just do that. There’s clan politics and-”

“I can make it happen, I promise.” Hinata asserts, finally pushing herself up to look her right in the eyes with flaming determination the likes of which she’s never seen from the girl. She seemed so shy in class, she wonders just how far the Hyuga has left her comfort zone for this. “Anything to help, Neji.”