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Sakura Haruno The Gaming Addict, and Her Gamified Life [Naruto]

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Canon Side-Story Shooting Training with Tenten, Traps with Naruto
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    • This is Wednesdays Side story - don't look at the day - and honestly, I like how it turned out.
    It's feels a little bit like events in a game. Self-contained, with a cool bonus at the end, uses my week's action points.
    I like little scenes like these, and I do think doing 2 instead of 1 was the right call. Instead of worrying about word count I could just make the scene, and have fun doing it.
    Takes place in Arc 5, spoiler alert, Sakura and Tenten don't die horrifically in Arc 4. Who'da guessed?

    Funded by Patreon, as always, if you have a few bucks to spare and would like to support the story or just read up on the 21 chapters the Patreon is ahead... Well.
    Here. Also has my Kofi. Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree

    "Like this, and here…" When she invited Ino to come practice marksmanship with Tenten, she had expected the three of them to spend most of their time throwing weapons and shooting off Tenten's prototypes. The special guns from the dungeon are too limited in ammunition for practice, though they do have hundreds if not thousands of rounds for missions. What she hadn't expected was for Tenten to get very hands on about her form and positions, and for Ino to spend most of her time moping while watching Tenten put her hands on her.

    How did she not realize Ino liked her? It's up there with the most obvious things to have ever transpired. The sky is blue, Chakra is awesome, tasty things are glorious, grinds are life, and Ino likes her. Still, it's nice

    She also totally understands why the weapons they found in the dungeon are a massive improvement. The ammunition difference on its own is massive. The weapon she's holding - a rifle with a few rounds able to be loaded in at a time - is using balls with pointed tips. They're not a good shape, they're not very aerodynamic, and they're not very fast. Maybe it's being a ninja with higher stats than any civilian could ever hope to achieve, but she can actually see the rounds fly through the air. In a lot of ways this makes it easier to figure out why her aim is off. She can see the whole process, which makes it easier to accommodate. Instead of guessing based on improper information and eventually getting it after hundreds of shots, she's already able to hit a target quite far away after just a few magazines. Most of the time.

    Again, these bullets suck, and there's only so much her aim can do when it doesn't shoot straight in the first place. She's surprised these function at all. She knows for a fact there are better guns in the world than these, she read about some in school! The capital has some so civilians can help fight in the event of invasion. Tenten may be better than her, but she's absolutely an amateur gunsmith, and it shows. She can tell from what she already knows, before even opening a book - and she very much plans to - that these'd be more effective without pointed tips. If they're going to be balls, they need to rely on their ability to roll and spin, if they're not going to be a ball, they should be more cylindrical.

    Still, that's not all bad. She's been trying to figure out a way to bond with Tenten, and her own analytical ability and study capabilities means she can work with the girl to advance her craft leagues. In a few months - maybe years depending on the tools available and just how crazy things are - they may be able to recreate the ammunition gathered from the dungeon. They could revolutionize the entire arms industry, and give the Leaf a massive leg up on the competition… Well, until the competition steals the data and uses it for themselves, they are ninja after-all. Now she just needs to figure out how to word the point.

    "Hey uh Tenten, no offense, but this is terrible and I don't know why you thought it was a good idea." Ino palms her face with both hands so forcefully the clap is almost louder than the weapon firing. "I can tell I worded that poorly. I mean that I'd like to help you figure this out, as clearly you have no idea what you're doing."

    "... Stop talking." Ino whines loudly.

    "I get what you mean because I feel the same, but wow." Tenten pats her shoulder, "we need to work on your confrontation."

    "I'm doing better in normal conversations." Sakura defends herself with a whine.

    "I know, I know." Tenten shakes her head with a snicker, at least she's not mad. "Thank you Sakura, I'd love the help."

    Marksman Skill Lvl 1 Obtained




    "Why are we still here?" Sakura asks, observing Naruto putting together some kind of mechanical contraption on her bed, "I mean, instead of out in the field or something."

    "You wanted to learn traps, not trapping." Naruto snorts, shaking his head while working a screwdriver into a notch of some sort.

    "There's a difference?" Sakura asks.

    "Trapping is the practical application of traps. It's all about location, timing, and prediction. You figure out what's going to happen, and predict it, or maybe predict a situation in which what you want is most likely. It's mostly luck based if you're not super smart. I'm, I do okay." He winces at himself. "I can normally figure out a few things, but most of my traps are about the start of an engagement, not leading someone into it or anything. That kind of forward thinking just isn't something I'm good at."

    "But it's something I'm good at." She points out.

    "Exactly, I don't think you need any help with trapping. If anything, I think after the first lesson or so, you're going to start teaching me." Naruto admits with a smile, he's not jealous of her, he's happy she can help him. It's nice to have such a warm and comfortable brother, it would have been really awkward if he was spiteful about her brains. It'd be especially awkward, since most of his experience with her has been watching her run sword first into their problems. It's really problematic how little of her mental stats are used during her normal combat style, but then, that's what she's trying to fix now. "But creating the traps themselves is totally different. That's experience, I know how each trap functions because I've used them hundreds of times. No matter how smart you are, you can only brute force experience with your brain so much, and if the tools you're working with are garbage…"

    "So you're showing me how to make the right tools." Sakura surmises.

    "Yes, there." He finishes screwing in whatever he was doing, before grabbing the metal and prying it apart until it's down. She hears a few clicks, and he nods to himself in admiration of his work. It's got so many sharp teeth on it that she's a little afraid of it. She finds she's giving it the same look as she did the first time she had to kill her own food. Eating something that had a face is different, especially when you beheaded it and it's still over there on a log, watching you eat its body. "This'll stop whatever steps on it, now I'm going to take it apart in front of you, I'd like you to make it again after."

    "I'm not really good at stuff like that," She admits, "I've barely been paying attention."

    "Yeah, I know, that's why we're doing this in your bedroom instead of outside. I bet we're going to be here for a while, it's comfortable here, and when you get bored we can take a gaming break." Naruto knows her so well!

    Best brother ever!

    It takes a lot of time, and patience, and twelve different gaming breaks, but eventually she gets it.
    Trapmaking Lvl 1 Obtained
    Trapping Lvl 1 Obtained
     
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    • Canon Side-Story: Making Friends Pt 2
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    • So this one takes place Arc 5, and actually does contain minor spoilers if you look way to into a few lines here.
    It's really hard to make good side-story options and content that can't spoil anything, but I think for most users it'll be fine.
    And if you are a little spoiled, at least it's nothing huge.
    The next side-story poll is in fact up, if you have $10 and wouldn't mind joining, you can find it here.
    Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
    Watching the clouds, phasing out, feeling the world move around him, or maybe feeling himself move with the world. Shikamaru can't help but feel at one with the universe at times like these. The understanding that he is just a small speck in the vastness of time and space is helpful in the way that it grounds him, though many of the people in his life would say he takes it a little too far. He feels nice, and there's nothing wrong with that. More people could take time out of their day to feel nice, and the world would only gain from it.

    There are people dying right now in senseless conflict, and he feels good, tell him, which is a better use of his time and energy?

    Choji understands, that's why he's just a little ways away from him, quietly trying to munch on his chips without disturbing him. It's considerate, but not particularly necessary. He's been able to block out that sound since he was three, and he doubts that's going to change now.

    What he hasn't been able to block out since he was three, is the click and clack of buttons. "When did you get here?" He wracks his brain to try and figure out that new conundrum, looking at the - recently blonde - girl to his side, and pondering her existence quite pensively. He doesn't remember Sakura being that sneaky. Given she's playing a game with headphones on and a handheld and laying without a care between them, he's pretty sure she wasn't trying especially hard to escape his notice either.

    Is he slipping, or is she just that good all the sudden? Ino has said she's gotten very impressive, but he didn't think it was like this. He'd heard she became a sword slinging maniac, not stealthy and passive. "Hmm? Is my being here a problem?" Her headphones are low enough she can hear him, that's good. Or maybe that's bad. Should he invest in headphones? At least then Choji would feel better about eating his snack. The best way to take in the world above and re-examine one's place in life is unflinchingly without senses in the first place. A void is good, headphones could be good.

    "No." He lays back again, tilting his eyes back up at the cosmos. "Just keep it down, please."

    "Sorry." To her credit, she does press the buttons a lot more gently, but there's only so much you can do when you're clacking system parts. He'll get used to it, easier than telling her to go away. That conversation sounds terrible.




    "Hey Kiba, wanna spar?" For Hinata, watching Sakura appear out of nowhere and challenge her teammate is a novel experience. She has a lot of mixed feelings about the normally pinkette. She's responsible for a lot of Neji's recent pains, but she's also helped him a lot, and that's nothing to speak of the current situation she's stirred up with the Hyuuga Clan.

    At least Hanabi seems to like her, oddly enough. "Here, hold this, but uh, don't unsheath it or anything." Holding her weapon for her isn't too strange, while she and her teammate punch each-other in the face, but she's heard horrific things about this weapon. Neji told her that it could steal her soul… it seems so harmless, docile in her fingers. She finds she does unsheath it, just to see, curiosity getting the best of her, and still nothing. Even as the spar drags on, and she watches the two brutally take the term 'spar' a little further than she ever would, the weapon seems harmless.

    "Why are you glaring at Kiba?" Shino asks her out of nowhere.

    "Huh? Well he's hurting Sakura." Hinata explains. Something seems to be weird in the way he looks at her, even with sunglasses she can tell. You get used to Shino, his expressionless expressions begin to mean so much before long, unlike most people's. The slightest twitch means so much on his face, especially around the nose area. She has such a hard time with most people, she's a little jealous of Sakura, being so outgoing and good with this stuff…

    "Shouldn't it be the other way around?" Her teammate asks, and her gaze trails to the sword.

    "This is very powerful." She compliments the weapon, rubbing the back of the blade softly with nimble fingers. "Good sword, protecting your master."

    "Hinata, that's not normal either." Shino points out.

    But it is normal! She would want to do that with any weapon! She wants to pet Akamaru all the time for being such a good boy! The simmering in her cheeks doesn't leave quickly, even though Sakura does.





    "How is this reasonable? I'm gonna die!" Sakura groans, running along as fast as she can. Lee, to his credit, is pretending to run even though it's really obvious this is a light jog for him.

    "You just need to burn brighter than the air around you!" Lee explains with a full shout, while she barely managed to get words out of her lungs in the first place.

    "What about, haah, the burn, gak, in my lungs?" She whines, only not falling onto her hands and knees because he wouldn't mock her. Yes, mocking her would be preferable to the enthusiastic, overly gleeful motivational speaking he would likely do at her the moment she fell over. She knows this because of the last time!

    "It only hurts at first, Sakura, soon you'll love the burn!" He explains to her in the most normal way possible.

    "How long, hah, away, oof, is soon? I mean far, far away, ugh-"

    "Maybe a year!" Lee pats her shoulder, then runs around her like it's nothing to pat the other. Equal opportunity motivational shoulder pats, yay!

    "Nope, screw this, just let me die." She relishes the way her face slams into the dirt. Broken nose? Who cares, it'll be better tomorrow.

    "Be the you that you want to be, Sakura, get up and feel the glory of the sun on every joint you have! Gai can get you some delightfully form fitting spandex if you want, it'll help with your training I promise!" This would go on for another hour, before she got up and ran for another period.

    Making friends is hard.
     
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    • Canon Side-Story: Necromancy, Due Diligence
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    • Disclaimer: I think I've been misled by fanfiction about who Tsume and Kiba and Hana are, I've always thought they were very important to the clan, if not at the top, but I actually can't find anything official stating that at all. So, because I'm on a deadline, I'm writing this scene as if that's true. But uh, do understand I'm definitely working on fanon here. Since I'm already working on fanon, I'm not gonna bother doing two hours of research to figure out Tsume's personality, just gonna write her as I've seen her written a thousand times.

    This is PT 1 of a probably 2 or 3 PT side-story series. When those come out depends on the votes I imagine.

    Disclaimer 2: This is technically spoiler territory but like, come on, we knew she was going to talk to the Hokage in Arc 5 and we knew she was going to mess around with the Necromancy.
    I did my best to leave out certain details explored in Arc 5, without harming the quality noticably.

    Have fun ya'll! Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
    A trip to the Hokage's office wasn't particularly in her docket for the day, but there's only so much one can do when they begin working on trying to understand a scroll about Necromancy of all things, and the very first line of the scroll says "everyone around with any experience with essence will more than likely pick up on your experiments immediately," the older man reads out, looking it over.

    "I'm worried it means sensors," Sakura explains, poking and prodding her knees from her chair. She feels small every time she's in here, even if she is allowed to see him whenever - assuming he's not busy - and is always met with a polite smile, "that could be bad."

    "It could." he agrees with her, stroking his chin and contemplating the scroll, it makes sense he'd have no problems understanding it. Her Mind isn't high enough yet, but his surely is, and she's not about to question a ninja so smart he's nicknamed The Professor.

    "So what do I do about it?" She asks. "I could put off the beginning experiments until later, but I kinda figure when the system says I can't understand it, it means like, the actual execution? I figure the words aren't going to get all jumbly and jump out at me or anything." She also figured that experimenting with it might help raise her Mind, which would somewhat fix the problem on its own. Working with complicated issues is supposed to be helpful for growth, right?

    "They might indeed jump at you," he says, "but no, I imagine this is fine. Even if sensors do pick up that you are doing something strange, no Konoha ninja is going to break into your house or anything. Well, besides Anbu, but if Anbu is in your house it likely has to do with Naruto and you can safely go back to sleep or work…"

    "And if a spy notices?" She asks with a gulp.

    "Then maybe they'll give themselves away, and we can catch them," he suggests, "or maybe they'll think a Konoha ninja is doing something strange. That is not abnormal."

    He sets the scroll down on his desk, pushing it back over to her, "how about this. Schedule your experiments with my secretary outside, use the code word 'making friends.' That way I'll know to put someone on watch when you're doing this."

    "Understood." She sighs in relief, that's nice to have. Here she was worried he might take it, or tell her not to mess around with forces beyond her comprehension.

    "And keep Naruto away from your experimentation area, at least while you're working on this, even ignoring the Kyuubi there's been a lot of powerful death in his life and I don't need some of them rising from their graves on a whim to come smack me around." The older man shivers at the thought.

    "Is that a real concern, Hokage-sama?" Sakura can't help but wince at the idea.

    "You bet it is." He looks so serious!





    "Did you say necromancy?" Tsume Inuzuka asks, sitting across from the Hokage with a very stern expression on her face. She's always a bit like that though, it's not particularly indicative of her mood or thoughts, and as Hokage, he's always been pretty good at understanding her anyway and moving past that. "As in, eternal soldiers, serving after death, transcending tragedy, Necromancy?"

    "From what she's told me, it's unlikely the souls used maintain their memories from life," he says, folding his hands on the desk in front of him, fingers intertwined to show how serious he is, "it is more than likely akin to recycling."

    "But the theory is there." The strong willed woman leans forward, a clawed finger scratching at her tattoo'd cheek. "Those that have been nobly sacrificed can be allowed to serve Konoha again."

    "Currently, she believes it would be more, serving her directly. Let us not forget that she is a land owner of some size, she does not yet realize how big a deal that is." That statement on its own lingers in the air. No one in Konoha owns land in Konoha, not really. The entirety of the village very distinctly belongs to the government, more specifically, the current Hokage. People purchase the right to construct, live in, and co-exist on buildings constructed on that land, and sometimes unused land is leased with very low to no cost to Jonin or others that they need to keep away from the public areas.

    Functionally it's the same as owning land, as the government rarely does anything that would contradict that, and in his lifetime the only real use of this difference has been giving him the final say in land disputes instead of needing to use a lengthy process.

    Some own land outside of Konoha, but even that's under the jurisdiction of the Fire Lord.
    To say Sakura Haruno might be one of the only land owners in Konoha at all, would be very accurate, and to say she's the biggest landowner that resides in Konoha bar none, is somewhat of an understatement. Wave may not be huge, but it is not small, and the second place runner up is a farmer to the north that descends from the rulers of the fire nation, his ancestors given the land generations ago to shut up and go away after a succession dispute. He also doesn't live in Konoha, which sorta makes the comparison moot.

    "That girl is loyal to a fault, and you know it." Tsume almost allows herself a snicker, shaking her head at him. "Serving her is serving Konoha. My question is, could she get it to a point where they could operate away from her?"

    "You mean reunite your clan members with their lost Ninken, allowing a retirement?" Hiruzen asks. The unfortunate reality of the Inuzuka clan is that Ninken are still dogs, and no matter how well they're trained, no matter how much chakra they are fed, one day they will die and the clan members will retire and form some other role in society.

    "Even if they can't fight, even if they're not quite the same, to allow them the same reward for service their partner is allowed…" She trails pointedly.

    "I do not know, is that something you would find worth investing your resources in?" He asks, "perhaps you should speak with her directly?"

    "Perhaps? That's my next stop, I'm going straight from here to her." The shaggy haired woman rolls her head back and lets out a laugh. That's good news at least, he was worried she might find the idea horrifying. He'll admit, he only told her because he was worried the Ninken might react to this 'essence' thing, and the least he needs is the Inuzuka clan storming Sakura's house after he just told her it'd be fine. "Serving after death? Hokage-sama, my clan would like nothing more."
     
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    • Canon Side-Story: Hinata's Observations
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    • This one was really fun, so it's just straight up chapter length.
    My $10 patrons unanimously agreed on this one, so, no coin flip today.
    Technically this all takes place in Arc 3/4 so there's no actual spoiler here.
    Enjoy. Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree


    Watching the house of another person without their permission is a crime. Well, there's about a hundred fifty caveats that make it okay, and technically as a Hyuuga there's even more for her, but she still shouldn't be doing it. She could get in a lot of trouble with her clan if the Anbu watching the house decided to report her, but mostly they just let her know they see her with hand signs and ask the occasional question about her intentions. Today Fox is asking about her morning, and she's signing back with a smile. It's nice, but the fact that there is Anbu in the first place is concerning.

    To be clear, she's watching Sakura's house. Sakura Haruno, village gaming addict, Genin, and most recently; Naruto's little sister. He's technically a few months older than Sakura, so, the term is applicable, though they're close enough it's probably more spite than detail that makes her deign her as lesser in some way. She wasn't doing that until very recently, after-all.

    See, Hinata likes Sakura. She's always liked Sakura. She's outgoing in the weirdest ways, she's not afraid to speak her mind, and her priorities have always been very clear. She would rather play games than care about anything going on with anyone else, and she runs a good natured club specifically designed to lower the amount of damage Sasuke's stalkers can cause by containing them in her control. It's brilliant, and admirable, and even helps her escape criticism for only caring about video games. As evidence of her intentions, she disbanded the club the very moment Sasuke should otherwise be safe.

    Most people don't notice it, but Hinata can see through walls and bags so the game system in her backpack is always visible, her several systems at home are very visible when she's passing by and curiously peeking in on her classmate, and she's caught her in her glance many times ignoring people while pressing buttons. Some would call it unhealthy, but Hinata doesn't feel that way. She loves people watching, Shikamaru loves sky watching, Sakura loves games.

    She'd love to be her friend, but Sakura's too zoned in most of the time to notice her requests, and she's too shy to make the request blunt enough. It's neither of their fault in particular, it's just that their particular social dysfunctions happen to align just right to make communication actually impossible.

    But while Hinata likes Sakura, she like likes Naruto, and that wasn't a problematic distinction until very recently. "She just adopted him into her family by force, who does that…" Now to watch Naruto, she has to watch Sakura, and with four ninja under the same roof, apparently it's a concern for Anbu. At least, that's the only reason she can think of for why there is always an Anbu, if not two, watching their house.

    Which again, is a problem, because watching the house is a crime, and Anbu is now catching her doing it all the time! How long until someone reports to her father? Should she just stop? Watching Naruto has been a pastime of hers for years now, it's so ingrained as a habit she finds herself following him from a distance automatically. Could she stop? Should she stop? What are the consequences?

    Sakura's made his life better, and she loves that for him, but why did she have to do it in a way that makes her life so much harder? On the bright side of things, as his sister, a Sakura and Naruto ending is officially off the table! One less competition does mean she's got a higher chance, and that's very important because their dysfunction also aligns in just the right way for it to be physically impossible to talk to him.

    One needs a lot of legs up when the goal is marriage and the obstacle is basic conversation.
    She finishes signing about her breakfast to Fox, and sends a request for information about the Anbu's morning as is polite and customary, and ponders whether she's ever seen Naruto smile like that before all this…

    She doesn't think he has. It's so sad…
    She's grateful, but really she wishes Sakura had made his home better instead of moving him into hers. But then that's called a relationship, isn't it, and that'd be bad on its own…


    Business Naruto scares her. He looks more and more real by the day, he's becoming his own entity. Would he pop with one strike anymore? How long until the actual organs spawning inside of him from chakra density become organic and functional? Is that even possible, or is it just a realistic mirage placed on him by the sheer amount of chakra flowing around and in him at all times?

    He doesn't even have a name, but he's more real than most babies are. What does she even do with that? How does one internalize there being two of someone they love?
    Even ignoring the philosophical questions, which are way more than she's prepared to handle on any given day, what's it say about her when a clone is more outgoing and socially competent at forming new bonds than she is? Business Naruto has friends that regular Naruto has never met!

    It's like he found the perfect way to kick her into the dirt and stomp on her feelings, and he did it without even knowing it would. Would she feel jealous if Business Naruto started a relationship? Would Naruto still be available in that event?

    Love hurts, she hates Business Naruto, Sakura's a freaking lunatic.
    These are all realities she has learned recently. Oh, and Naruto holds the Kyuubi inside of him, which is why Anbu is watching him now that he's moved into the residential and merchant district. She learned that because of Sakura too. She already got sworn into secrecy over it, being escorted to the Hokage's office at knife point after watching their conversation about the Kyuubi diddling his mom was honestly kind of pleasant.

    She got to talk to Fox and Neko with her actual voice! They're really nice…


    "What are you reading about?" It's not abnormal for her to visit the library. It's a great resource for information that's not filtered by their clan, as their clan library is, and there's other people here which at least slightly helps with her socialization. She's making an attempt!

    It's not that the clan library is actively censoring information, it's just that any information which could shed a negative light on the Hyuuga clan, or anything that could empower the branch family in some way, is minorly edited or sometimes outright removed. Information is generally empowering, so at its core, you'd think that would mean everything is altered but that's really not the case. Things like 'how to murder your better in their sleep and get away with it' would be completely gone, but then books on critical thinking aren't. She's not particularly sure how the censor logic works, it seems weirdly weak for such a strict clan. It's almost as if somewhere along the line they agreed that there needed to be something in place to stop a coup beyond the caged bird seal, but then they couldn't agree on what that meant.

    She's also heard the censoring didn't even start until the Uchiha Massacre, so maybe it's just so fresh and new that the rules aren't really defined? It's dumb, and she's avoiding Kiba's question. The point is, she would rather be here.

    "Adoption." She explains as fully as she can imagine anyone would need.

    "Uh…" That clearly wasn't enough!

    "I'm looking into the terms, stipulations, and precedence for a child of a clan to be adopted into a civilian family, and what the consequences for that are." She explains a little more fully, flushing ever so slightly at screwing up the initial statement.

    "You don't think that's somewhat concerning for an heiress to be reading about at the public library?" Kiba asks, wringing his hands together while looking around, "you're not thinking…"

    "No, this isn't for me." She shakes her head, even she's not that crazy! One day she'll be the clan head if she doesn't screw it up, she can marry Naruto then, she doesn't need some weird nonsense getting in the way. "I feel like it might be relevant soon."

    "Just a hunch?" Kiba asks. "That's a weird hunch."

    "The best hunches usually are…" She flips a page. "Kurenai-sensei has taught us to trust our gut, and mine says this information is important."

    "... Okay, uh, don't do anything crazy." Her protective teammate requests of her, and she nods.

    "I have no intentions of doing anything concerning, please pay my research no mind." It's true, as far as she can tell. She's not sure why she's so interested in this all of the sudden, but she kind of just woke up this morning feeling like someone will need this knowledge, and soon. She would have ignored it as anxiety, as she is prone to do, but Kurenai gave them a lecture just the other day about not ignoring human instinct. It's incredibly powerful, and often great at picking up patterns and differences in the environment that the conscious mind isn't.

    Besides, in the absolute worst case, - maybe best given the context - this information ends up good for her to know when she's Clan Head.

    "I guess I'll read up on that too." He shrugs, and sits down next to her, opening the book she was reading before this one about inter-clan politics. Initially she had wanted to know about inter-clan adoption, but somehow learning about that didn't kill the urge to learn more. So, here she is. At least Kiba's reading, Kurenai will be happy.
     
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    • Canon Side-Story: Ino's Charm, Tenten's Expertise
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    • So this is Wednesdays. I went through a bit of a depression spike for a few days there, that sucked. Uh, I feel better now. Have a side story. I'll probably post Friday's chapter later today, then Sunday's Chapter on Monday, Monday's chapter on Tuesday, then the Wednesday side story. Wow that'll be a lot in a row, maybe this isn't a bad thing.

    I got a 3rd $10 patron to vote on the side stories now so, I've decided to start doing it like a wheel, you know the spinny websites the streamers use and stuff.
    I figure that way every vote matters, we don't have that weird thing that happens when you only have a few voters where the same group always wins and everyone else can get fucked.
    So you know, if you were worried about that, don't. Also you know, if the thrill of the wheel calls to you, join us.

    Enjoy, I know I did, this was a fun side-story to write. I just wish I had more ideas and could have made it crazier, sadly Ino's wholesome and Sakura's adorable.
    Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
    "Sakura, this just feels like more of the same." Tenten stares at Sakura a little awkwardly as the pinkette now blonde practices stabbing forth with a shiny dagger. She's been smithing practice weapons recently, mostly for experience but also because Kakashi has given her a lot of crap about learning new styles. It only makes sense to try some of them out.

    Tenten is of course all for that idea, since she would love for more people to be so varied they're an expert of nothing at all. It evens the playing field, and makes the world less like a sword fight and more like a complex game of ever changing rock paper scissors. She can kinda get into that. "Well yeah, it's just another stabbing tool." Sakura says, "I could probably get this effect by just using a kunai."

    "Yep, so let's try something a bit different." The blacksmith says, pointedly handing her another of her practice weapons. A metal staff, it has thick ends and grip points built into it so that she can feel comfortable grabbing it wherever. The idea of a good staff would be to ensure it's smooth so that you can properly flow with it from movement to movement, but Sakura's a bit clumsy and at least while getting a feel for it she would like to not accidentally kill someone.

    So she made it with grips, and she has no regrets. Feeling it in her palms, it's natural and weighty and doesn't feel like it'll slip and go through a wall or someone's skull at all. She's happy with it, and spinning it around at Tenten's instruction feels good too. Swing it this way, slash it like a sword that way, she finds it only smashes into her hip a little bit which is an improvement on how she figured this would go. "I may need to practice this."

    "That is what we are currently doing." The weapon mistress says dryly, pulling out her own staff to show off a few practice motions. "Just repeat after me, it should feel natural soon enough."

    "Okay… Can we do the hammer after this? I really liked it during that dungeon but it always felt awkward. I bet with a little bit of instruction it would feel awesome."

    "Yes, Sakura, we can practice with the giant hammer."

    "Yay!"

    Short Blade Moderate Obtained
    Great Hammer Expert Obtained
    Staff Novice Obtained


    "So, I've called you here today because I'd like to test out how the charm mechanic actually functions." Sakura explains, sitting behind a fancy desk she borrowed from Business Naruto and placed in the middle of her room. It allows her to clasp her hands together in front of her face while looking very natural, resting her elbows into the wood feels good too.

    "Sakura, you don't have to call me to your house, we're friends, you can just say 'let's hang out,' it's not that significant." Ino snarks, giggling at her in a way that most would consider rude but Sakura likes the sound so she lets it pass uncontested. Ino should giggle more, it's pure.

    "Yes, well, I have a goal today. I do not just want to 'hang out' with you." Sakura declares, lips twitching upwards and fingers creating air quotes.

    "But you do want to hang out." Ino points out.

    "That is besides the point." Sakura allows, not denying Ino's words at all. Why wouldn't she want to hang out? Time spent with her friends is time well spent, especially if she can keep reading or playing a game or just zoning out to the right music while doing so.

    True friendship is existing next to someone and finding it okay if you forget to talk for a while, it's not awkward or strange, it just is. At least, she thinks that's true friendship, others probably find that weird. At least Shikamaru probably agrees with her. She should talk with him more, or maybe not talk with him more, he'd like that.

    "It has come to my attention, mostly through recollection, that your charm score is a hundred ten. Mine is twenty three." Sakura explains.

    "Oh, yeah, that would have some implications…" Ino trails, looking away towards the floor as if she has much to say, but no desire to say it. Sakura decides to let that pass. Ino's tact probably means there's many things left unsaid in a given day, and it'd be very rude to pressure her about that. It would defeat the purpose entirely, and the least she needs is to accidentally lower Ino's charm by rubbing off on her somehow.

    "I think the best way to figure out the mechanic of Charm is to try and manipulate these two extremes. It'd be better if mine was still in the single digits, but I've put a lot of effort in and I'm too happy with the results to start regretting that now."

    "You really have gotten so much better." Ino admits, sheepishly rubbing her wrist with her other hand. "I haven't wanted to say anything but it really shows. Like a lot… like every single interaction with you is better."

    "Quite…" Sakura chooses not to say the other things on her mind, she's learning. Truly.

    "So we're going to have you convince me to do things you don't think I'd normally want to do. We'll see how far the difference can push me past my normal will." Sakura explains, thumping the inside of the desk with her foot. It's so huge, it takes up like a solid third of her room, getting it in here sucked but it was so worth it for Ino's giggle, which was probably half because of the giant desk. Why Business Naruto needs something like this, she has no idea.

    "Sakura… I don't think you've ever said no to me." Ino points out, "and I don't think that's because of my charm."

    "Well, we'll be testing that today, now won't we."


    "So let's go over the list." Ino does not seem very impressed with her, which is odd because she's done everything Ino's said, so she should be very happy with her. It's almost like she's forgotten something along the way…Oh well, it can't be too important.

    "I have gotten you to delete your saves and start over on several games, including an RPG," Ino starts, poking a paper with her pencil, "not a great start."

    "Sometimes it's nice to start fresh." Sakura shrugs.

    "I got you to intentionally make bad food, and then I got you to eat it in front of Haku til he pouted." Ino cites.

    "That was funny, I wish I'd thought of that myself… Pouty Haku would probably be very popular, I should hire someone to make it an emote for his stream."

    "I made you challenge Lee to an exercise-off."

    "That was painful, but nice. He was very happy." Sakura sighs happily to herself, wiggling her noodly arms. At least they feel noodly, after all that nonsense.

    "You flirted with Shikamaru." Ino says, "notice I didn't say 'I made you,' I didn't, that was weird."

    "You implied he needed a pick-me-up, I just complimented him a bunch." Sakura gives her an indignant glance.

    "That's flirting, Sakura." Ino bites her lip.

    "Since when is being nice flirting?"

    "... Okay, that's fair. I need to get you a few books on the subject but I can see why you'd make that mistake. Just uh, future reference, six compliments in twenty seconds is flirting." Ino holds in a difficult breath.

    "Five is okay?"

    "... No." She has to resist laughing, it's incredibly hard. Sakura is so cute sometimes.
    "Well, I think we can conclude that you're a push-over when it comes to me, but we haven't figured out if that's charm related or not… I'm going with not, I can't make Sasuke do anything and I bet he's worse than you at this point."

    "Oh yeah, that's probably true. That means we need to test it with Sasuke next." Sakura points out.

    "No."
     
    Last edited:
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    • Canon Side-Story: Necromancy 2, The Inuzuka Arrive
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    • Sometimes I like the side-stories because they let me setup and give context to the arcs.
    For Patrons, Arc 6 had a lot of informed jump from timeskip. For public people, well SV and SB, the side stories help mitigate that effect by providing context before the jump. Is it perfect? No, but I'm grateful the supporters let me flesh out the in betweens of the story like this.
    Enjoy, Patreon and Discord: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree

    "Yo, Sakura!" Sakura has just enough time to spin around and try to get a glimpse of the excitedly aerodynamic object flying towards her at top speed while possibly upside down and spinning, before it slams into her.

    "What is-oh!" She finds herself sliding across the ground, something weighty and bigger than bringing her along for a ride in the dirt she neither expected nor signed up for. It takes her a few seconds to get her whirling mind and sudden vertigo to come under check, and allow her to stare up at an older woman on top of her. The markings on her cheeks are very telling, as is the messy hair, but she's left at a bit of a loss as to what the actual hell?

    Contemplating where her life has gone that this kind of thing just happens sometimes leaves her equal parts confused and frustrated. Ino's interrogating her, the Hokage's impressed with her, and she can just get glomped so hard by a woman she's never met that she slides across the dirt in public.

    "Hey…" She allows herself a squawk, just as heat takes over her cheeks. She looks around and finds that people are in fact staring. That is when her gaze takes in an older dog beside her, and the info she collected a second ago frames itself a little better. "Oh, you're an Inuzuka. This makes a little more sense now. Not a lot, but every bit counts."

    "Not just any Inuzuka, I'm Tsume Inuzuka, you know my son." The woman explains, lifting her hands off Sakura's shoulders to pat her own chest.

    "Right." Kiba, that would make this the clan head? Maybe? Is Kiba an heir? She always assumed he was… Is it normal to get tackled to the ground by a clan head? She's pretty sure it's not, and yet here she is. "Should we be talking elsewhere?" She looks around, already knowing damn well the answer is yes.

    "Why?"

    "... Let's talk somewhere else." She is not comfortable being the socially aware one in the conversation! Nooooo!
    Using her cooking skill to make the older woman tea is just a delightful way to show her hospitality while also flexing on her newfound abilities. She's proud she can show off what Haku taught her at any time, and she can feel good about herself at a moment's notice without even having to get her sword. Getting Hunger out, while probably something he'd enjoy, is just too impolite for normal conversations.

    That being said, despite her relative glee over it, her system also quite firmly shows off its weaknesses with the cooking skill.

    Framing her thought process on it is somewhat hard. From what she can tell, there's three different types of skills she gets.

    Skills that focus hard on practicals are mainly focused around doing the thing better, easier, and faster. That is what Blacksmithing is, she uses less materials than when she started and she's having a much easier time than Tenten when it comes to making stuff she can craft. Despite the girl's rightful chagrin, neither of them can deny that spending ten seconds with half the materials to make the same craft is a lot more convenient than the wasteful several day long process her friend has to go through.

    Then there's skills that focus hard on passive bonuses to a conceptual process and work to make her better than any normal person should ever be able to be with that tool. These are commonly things that require less fiddly attention to details, and more ten billion hours of mastery, like her sword skill. She has trained a lot with it, and she's very good practically in a way her system skill doesn't seem to boost very much if at all. Every slash she makes is all her, and instead it gives her bonuses, like less self damage. Her hammer skill also applies under this banner by passively allowing her to ignore enemy armor to some extent if the weapon she's using is bigger than her. Skills that focus on conceptual bonuses instead of giving her actual technical skill are really cool, and they're probably her favorite. She doesn't mind putting in effort to be good at something, and getting rewarded for that with magical awesomeness is exactly what she wants out of a system.

    Then there's the third, where she naturally has her actual skill boosted by doing the thing over and over again. She's a fairly competent cook, at least in her opinion, and while it does add a few conceptual bonuses - like making the food taste better - the most noticeable part is just ensuring that she is getting better at cooking as she grinds. It's a little bit of the first part too now that she thinks about it, but the point is that the main bonus Cooking gives her is just getting better at Cooking.
    Which is cool except cooking is a science she can just naturally get better at by reading up on it. What's the point? Sure, having a skill for it means she could probably become fairly experienced by just chopping a million onions, but she could just as easily actually practice the skill and get good at it like a normal person!

    It feels like the cooking skill is just there to dangle a carrot in front of her face and trick her into practicing by watching the exp bar go up, and being baited makes her feel small. She holds in a sigh as she finishes up, and places the cups down at the table. They're nice cups, Tsume has a lot of nice things, and the older woman showed off a lot when marching her over to her house. Yes, it is awkward that she made Tsume tea in her own house, but she wanted to and no one objected so like hell she wasn't going to take the opportunity. How often do you meet clan heads?

    About as often as you get tackled to the ground by them in the middle of the street.

    "So you had something you wanted to talk about?" The scraggly haired older woman and her dog look so weirdly excited. She's been enthusiastically vibrating the entire time Sakura has been making the tea, and she's not afraid to admit it has her a little scared. Adults being excited like that is almost always a bad thing, especially when they can't stop staring at her. "Please tell me you don't want me to do something weird, I get my missions from the mission board like everyone else."

    "Nothing like that." The woman shakes her head quickly, and Sakura notes with a little flair of excitement and 'daww' factor that the elder dog to her side mimics his master. He's so big and fluffy and shows his loyalty in the way he's glued to the woman's side. She's got such a wild look to her, Sakura can't help but admire it. She clearly puts a lot of effort into that look, and it shows off so well. For someone that recently looked incredibly wild and messy because she didn't care, the difference is stark and as visible as the difference between night and day. "You had a meeting with the Hokage recently."

    "I did." Sakura seats herself, pulling her own cup over and blowing on the liquid. It flows around her cup, steaming away from her pleasantly.

    "In it, you discussed something I am very interested in." Kiba's mom finally decides to divulge a little of what she's thinking. Sakura doesn't get people like this, she clearly wants to talk about it but she's being cagey. In a Hyuga she would grasp it immediately, it's about pride. Neji's just like that, and she has put a lot of effort into getting him to open up to relatively little success. Not none, just you know, she's learned medium competence with entire weapons quicker than it takes her to have a full conversation with Neji. It'd help if they could have the conversation all at once instead of needing to pry out part two: the second thought, at a later date.

    But Neji's pride won't let him show excitement either. This is a woman that's so giddy she's out there tackling people on sight, but actually having the conversation is still difficult. She's lost, and the mood chart just shows a happy puppy so how is she supposed to interpret that? "We did, yes." She nods slowly, prodding her with her gaze.

    "Necromancy." The woman chirps.

    "Yep." Sakura nods.

    "As in life after death for the lost." She's pressed-

    "Ye-er, no." Sakura has to correct herself before she finishes, as her brain evaluates that thought process. The look she gets tells her that she's not being very clear. "From what I can tell, souls have to be gathered. I can't just approach a corpse and bring its soul right back to it. The Shinigami would have objections even if I could do that."

    "Okay, so the lost might be the wrong word then." Tsume ponders that, "but what if someone just died?"

    "I'm not sure how long a soul stays in a body, I need to test- am I safe in assuming you know about my thing?" Sakura asks.

    "I was informed five minutes after the Hokage got the initial report about it." The dark haired woman says, "all the clan heads were." That has so many freaking implications it's not even funny. Should she be expecting meetings from other clan heads? She hopes they're a little more tactful than Tsume is, holy crap that was embarrassing. Her cheeks are still hot just thinking about it.

    "Okay, so um, have you played a game?" She asks.
    The woman begins to nod- "A video game?"

    And it becomes a shake.

    "So basically, my abilities require me to meet certain requirements before I can use them. With Necromancy, I need to be smarter than I currently am. I don't have any details about how it'll work in my hands, or how it'll differ from the original user's abilities, because I can't test it yet."

    "So you need to be smarter to raise the dead?" The woman asks with a glimmer in her eyes.

    "Yes?" Sakura holds in a shaky breath of exasperation.

    "Then I'll be paying for you to attend classes at your next convenience." The offer catches her by surprise, she sits back in her chair and drinks her still very hot tea to give herself a moment to think. It's fine, could be better, she probably needs to raise her skill to learn how to use higher quality tea. The garbage bin stuff in her cupboard doesn't compare, and that'd be an issue if she was a refined drinker but she's not. Tsume probably isn't either, despite the product being in her cupboards. She hasn't even touched it, it's just sitting in front of her, which makes sense but for some reason she expected the woman to rashly burn herself on it.

    "Once you have the skill, we will test how long you need directly. When one of our dogs is going to die of old age, we allow it to do so surrounded by its loved ones. We will simply invite you to one of those ceremonies and see what you can do."

    "That seems like a bit much…" Sakura gulps.

    "If anything it is too little, even ignoring us, you could sit on the side lines of battles and change the course of wars. Even in the worst case scenario where you cannot bring our loved ones back as themselves, you can allow them to protect others from the same fate by allowing them to be a shield once more. Sakura, this isn't a small skill you picked up, it changes everything. The Inuzuka stand behind you as one, we will spare no expense helping you get this up and running, not even a single Ryo. You need a workshop? We'll buy a house. You need bodies, we'll drag them to you. You need allies at two Ay Em? We'll stand by your side and bark at the moon."

    "That's a lot." She can't argue, but she can't agree either. As Fierro was using it, it was basically worthless. That monstrous woman with the sharp teeth said that she could raise vampires and stuff, but is that reasonable? There has to be a reason Fierro made zombies, it can't just be incompetence. Now she has a whole ass clan she's going to disappoint and she didn't do anything!

    Wait, does that make Kiba her friend now? Things weren't super clear after their last spar…
     
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    • Canon Side-Story: Making Friends Pt 3, Houseparty!
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    • This was fun to write. Like really fun.
    Sometimes writing something dramatic soothes the soul, not gonna lie.
    I think this is a higher quality than a lot of my recent writing. So if this is fucking terrible, uh, good sign the meds are fucking me.
    If it's good, good sign the meds are helping.

    Either way, have fun Ya'll. This is the end of the "Making Friends" tree of side-stories.
    Vote on Side Stories on Patreon. Patreon and Discord Link: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree

    Bullying Sakura was fun, for a couple of years. Then the Sasuke Fanclub kicked off and that gave them something to bond over. She started to feel bad, she treated Sakura better, she began to even like her a little bit. There's something charming about the way she can space out in any situation, how her single minded focus is always aimed towards something else that never seems to be in the same room. Shy, determined, aloof, intelligent, Sakura possesses a lot of traits she's a little jealous of.

    Jealousy quickly became Envy, and soon enough simply liking the same boy wasn't enough for her to get along with Sakura anymore. She started bullying Sakura again, she tormented her and made every meeting hurt her. She dug her claws in whenever she could, she put Sakura down and pointed out how Sasuke would never like her. Still, despite her greatest efforts, she never did manage to make Sakura cry. As a child it didn't bother her, the reaction wasn't important, just the action of bullying her was satisfying. However, as an up and coming possible Genin graduate, Sakura's unwavering will and lack of fucks to give very quickly began to grate on her.

    She got worse, she put her all into things, she attacked her several times and even pushed their pursuits of Sasuke to crazy extremes so that Sakura would have to react to reel them in less it become criminal. If it did, surely Sakura would face the consequence as their leader. Sure enough she did react, she did reel them in, but she never reprimanded them. It was like Sakura didn't even notice what she was doing, she just continued blissfully unaware that her own club was conspiring against her.

    Slowly, little beads of something else began to grow in Ami; respect.

    Watching eyes as red as scorching flame and as bright as the eyes of a demon from a movie focus on her, that respect turns to a rapidly beating heart and a nervousness that fills her blood with ice. Panic is an easy word to say but a difficult one to describe. The way her fingers curl up into instinctive fists, then fall limp again as they realize there's no chance they could ever do anything no matter how hard they tried. The way her legs shake, and she struggles not to collapse. Every breath is more difficult than the last, and her brain won't stop screaming at her.

    Every part of her body tells her to run as the girl she tormented for years approaches her with the eyes of a devil, and a grin that promises malice. The only reason she doesn't move is because of a lecture she barely paid attention to years ago, beasts and predators love it when you run. Between the girl approaching her in shiny armor, the sword at her side, and the horrific monster walking alongside her like it's perfectly normal for a dog to be five to six feet tall and titanic in stature; it's Sakura that fills her with unending terror.

    The beast'll tear her throat out, the sword'll rip her in half; Sakura has reason to make her suffer. She knew it was coming, she understood she was going to die when the girl she tormented became a genin and she herself failed, she grasped intrinsically that one day she would reap what she sowed. She stands tall, does her best not to crumble or tremble. "For-forehead." She forces herself to speak, but finds she has to retry the first and only word she manages, her voice is too choked up to get it out the first time even with all the will she can muster in the world.

    Sure Sakura can't kill her, as a ninja attacking a civilian she'd be protected from death, but as she sees that grin widen oh so much further, and seemingly sharp teeth become visible, Ami can't help but feel like the law doesn't matter when someone with a personal grudge has the ability to hide the evidence. What if she eats her? Could Sakura eat her? She's heard she's become a monster in recent times, she could feed her to that dog or- "Ami." Sakura says, her voice sweet and gentle, like a mother that's had enough and needs you to shut the fuck up now.

    She says nothing, she just looks into Sakura's eyes, unable to look away from a predator's malice. Sakura holds out a document towards her, "take it, please?"

    Her hand shakes as it grips the page offered out to her, and as much as every part of her screams not to look away from her once victim, she looks down at the page because it might hold her salvation. "House party?" She finds her voice wavering, but as her eyes look at it over and over again, she can't help but feel her brain pause.

    "I'm inviting all the club girls, I miss you all." Sakura admits, reaching up with a sharp fingernail attached to a gauntlet to scratch at her oddly durable cheek, her gaze looks away from Ami towards the grass at their side. "Sasuke'll be there, but um, I'm going to suggest you stay the hell away from him."

    "Yeah, no problem." Ami gulps, clammy hands already wetting the invite with her sweat. "Just show up and don't bother him?"

    "I mean, if he talks to you, feel free, but he won't. I really want to know how you're all doing. Can I expect you there?" Sakura asks, giving her a deadly glare from fire filled eyes that light up the park a little despite it still being mid-day.

    "Yes! I'll be there!" Ami stands stiff as a board.
    The moment Sakura and her dog are no longer in sight, Ami's knees hit the dirt, shivers tear through her body like it's a chilly day despite the sun being high in the sky, and tears drip down her face to stain her legs below. "What the hell was that? A party? I need to warn the others."




    Weirdly enough, Ami was the only one she could find to invite outside of her main friend group. Still, most of the people she did manage to invite came, which is super cool. She's never been to a party before, and her house isn't that big so it's kind of crowded in her opinion.

    Neji, Hinata, and Hanabi are all over there in the corner talking too quietly to be heard. She'd give him crap for being isolated but as far as she can tell, Neji talking to Hinata is an improvement? She always got the impression they didn't get along, Hanabi literally telling her that didn't help that impression.

    Konohamaru brought his two little friends, and they're bothering different Narutos all around and that's great. Watching them run around so energetically makes her smile. She does wonder how his clones participate in physical games without worrying about popping, but she guesses they could just get resummoned so it's not a big deal.

    Shikamaru and Chouji are technically here but they've hidden away in her living room, which sucks for them because she's about to make use of it for the sake of the party.

    Her parents and Haku are making snacks, Kiba is hitting on Ami weirdly enough, Sasuke is standing as far away as he can from Ami, Tenten and Lee are both wandering around getting used to the place for some reason, Shino's taste testing the snacks with her parents - who knew he had a sweet tooth - and she's getting popcorn ready.

    Ino is of course stapled to her side, that just makes sense. It's a good place for Ino.
    Ami is ignoring Kiba to stare in awe at Haku for some reason. Right, wasn't she one of his subscribers?

    Just describing them is a lot of effort, but making all the chairs for everyone to sit in for the next part was so much worse. Still, with a sigh of relief at everything coming together, she walks into the living room and turns on the light. "Everyone in, it's movie time!"

    It's probably best that the club couldn't be found, and that Kakashi, Gai, Anko, Ibiki, and Tsume turned her down. There's already going to be so much crowding.

    She sits down with a smile, and then remembers one very important thing. "I forgot to rent a movie."
     
    Last edited:
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    • Canon Side-Story: Escape Rope? Meditating with Gai
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    • Spoilers, read the piece before the Author's note:

    I try to avoid doing Sakura's failure. It can feel like nothing happened if she didn't accomplish her goal, and we have so little time in most chapters, that can just compound. But sometimes it's important for a main character to not immediately succeed, and I think a perfect subject to foil her has arrived.
    Enjoy. Patreon/Discord link: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
    In theory, working on the Escape Rope idea is a great use of her time. The One-shot dungeon had multiple points where she would have liked the option to leave, even if she didn't take it, and if she had enough it's possible she could have offered some of the enemy a chance to escape. She hadn't thought of it at the time but the quest was apparently a lot more lenient than she realized. Three Genin escaped and all she lost was a little reputation gain. The lecture she got back home about chain of command, how she shouldn't have killed Fierro, and the idea of the escape rope combined in her head pretty heavily when she had time to play her switch and decompress under a warm blanket.

    She slaughtered them, and that doesn't bother her, but what if she could have spared some? Sure she got lesser rewards for those that escaped but life isn't a game. She's not spiraling towards the next checkpoint and treating people like bags of EXP. She's okay with killing the enemy because it's what the mission entails, and it's what she's required, and she's been taught to think of the enemy like they're not people.

    But she wasn't contracted to kill every genin in that dungeon, and her quest didn't have a penalty that would have stopped her from letting some go if she had the option, besides lesser rewards. Even excluding that logic, the option to leave if it turns out the boss is too crazy is something she just kind of wants to have. Which brings her to her current conundrum, how to even get the recipe for the escape rope? It's a conceptual item, it's not something she can just throw a few pieces of metal together for and it'll unlock. She knows because she tried, the rope and ladder over there by her crafting table - she bought it with some of her cut from managing Haku - are proof enough. But it's also obvious.

    So her experimentation needs to take a different route. Dungeon items, she needs to figure out a dungeon item she can figure out the basic recipe for and recreate it. If she has a base, maybe she'll get a dungeon crafting skill and from there leveling it up might unlock the escape rope. Even if she doesn't get it today, the progression route could be massive.

    The issue is that no matter how much she wracks her brain about it, she keeps circling back to the escape rope. It's like she's so focused on one thing that she can't open her brain and come up with anything else. "Is this what creatives call a block?" She ponders from bed, rolling over, "I have an idea."


    "I know this was my idea but are you sure this is helpful?" Sakura asks, her hands on her thighs, her lower legs underneath her, her eyes closed and her breaths even. The grass underneath her feels nice, as does the air on her face.

    "This would never work for a normal person." Gai's manly voice can be surprisingly calming after you get used to it. It's deep but enthusiastic, and easy to zone into when you're trying to be a little zen. "It can take years to properly learn how to escape yourself, but meditation is easy once you grasp it. My hope is that should you focus long enough your system will pick it up and give you the first level. From there…"

    "Right." She remembers the goal in his words. It's just a little hard, because they've already been at this an hour and her brain doesn't like this kind of thing at all. She'd rather be training with Lee, but she can't clear her mind unless she figures this out. Plus, she heard meditation helps anger issues, and she wants Tenten to play games with her! "I know that, it's just…"

    "If you stopped talking, you would have an easier time." He chides her, and she gives him a gentle nod. Focusing on where he is in her space, and then focusing on her breaths. They're heavy and the air is nice this time of year. There's fresh dew beneath her because they did this in the morning, she's technically still up from yesterday. A new expansion dropped and uh, they don't have team training today so…

    It's hard, how is she supposed to calm the wandering thoughts when they never stop? Can she truly focus on just her breathing and feel what's around her when even that causes her to think about doing it?

    "Phew…" Just a little more, there's a beetle nearby, wriggling around in the grass. That's distracting, what if it touches her? She's never been bothered by insects but she doesn't want them on her unless they're Shino's.

    His insects are cool. They all got a little used to them when he was younger and had less control of them, they would just wander around the classroom and it was taboo to hurt them so, you just got used to one in your hair. Shino could probably keep one on her at all times and she'd never notice. "This is stupid, want to train?" She asks, noticing how Gai has already given up meditation and has at some point moved on to aggressive flexing.

    "You should continue to practice this on your own time." He instructs, "you never know when this could be useful. But neglecting your body is also ill advised, let us run."

    "I'll sit around and do nothing proactively the next time I end up in the hospital and can't do anything." She snorts at the thought, she'll be fine the moment she takes a nap, why would she be in a hospital long enough to learn this?

    Still, she wishes she had learned it. She can't get everything on the first try, sadly. "What's an item you want specifically for if you're spelunking?" Sakura asks, getting up so she can stretch before the run.

    "Chakra pills?" Gai suggests.

    "Recovery items, maybe if I focused on the not so medical aspect of that concept."

    Failure: You need an alchemy lab to learn Alchemy, you may not use your kitchen
    So recovery items are a bust. Maybe she should just focus on the anger issues? Conceptual items are something she very much wants, but it's seeming like she's struggling on the main point somewhere.

    She bets its mana. Looking at the rings she got from Fierro, she can't help but wish she had more control over and understanding of mana. That's something she fiercely needs, but she'll have to wait because there's no instructor for freaking mana around. She imagines once she has a use for mana it'll be a lot easier because she'll learn how to manipulate it. As is she's just kind of waffling about.

    All this to say she's wasted pretty much all of today and is incredibly frustrated. So why isn't she mad? She didn't fix her anger issues with one hour with Gai, but maybe the experience gave her a slightly better perspective?

    "Maybe today wasn't a total waste." She murmurs with a soft smile as she climbs onto her bed, and returns to practice. She won't learn it right now, she's come to terms with that, but maybe some time to think can help her more than she knows.
     
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    • Canon Side-Story: Inoichi's Perspective, His Daughter's Crush - A Reality Warper
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    • This was unanimously voted on so I put a little extra effort into making sure I did my best to meet expectations. it's not often the $10 patrons agree.
    Enjoy. Patreon/Discord link: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
    "That's true," he agrees, "Ino's still an innocent girl, and you're a killer without remorse. That will change things." Looking at the pinkette - currently blonde - chained against the wall and gazing back at him with such blank eyes, he can't help but wonder when she turned into this.

    As a ninja, he approves. As a Jonin, Inoichi's seen the worst this world has to offer. He's seen war, and people like Sakura were more common in his time than anyone would ever care to admit. Kakashi's not screwed up because he had bad parents - though his father's suicide probably didn't help - or because he was asked to be screwed up, he's a mess because that's what was required to survive. Every step in a warzone bleeds humanity away from a child, and soon enough cold eyes are all they've ever known.

    But as the father of this girl's best friend, as someone who's daughter is madly in love with those cold red eyes, he can only wonder when it went wrong. Was it when she first got her ability? He's read the reports on that, he was given them shortly after the Hokage was, one day she simply had the ability to twist reality around her. Systematic annihilation and rewriting of the rules in a way that has very little to do with her will. It was dangerous, they contemplated bringing her in immediately to try and get to the bottom of it. Only his pleading on her behalf stopped them from doing just that, and he has to wonder if that was his first mistake.

    Was it when Kakashi handed her a demonic artifact? Though rare, it's not like Konoha has never dealt with demons before. There's a whole country with them, and it was foolish for Kakashi to assume she'd be able to properly handle power like that as a fresh Genin. Should they have stepped in then, or was it already too late?

    He watches a flicker of emotions on her lips, doubt, guilt, something far between. It's good to see she's still alive in there, and not just in the way she expresses herself. Sakura wasn't grown in a warzone, she shouldn't have eyes like that, and he needs to get to the bottom of them no matter what. He watched this girl grow up, and he'll take that sword and plunge it through Kakashi's heart himself if he finds out it's his fault.

    "You should prepare yourself, your friendship will likely come out different, but I doubt it'll be bad." He assures her, even if he himself is unsure of the next turn of events. What will Ino think when she looks inside the love of her life and finds a wasteland filled with blood and dissolving corpses? Will they even have faces, or did Sakura fail to bother taking them in before she struck?


    "You're sure? That's what you saw?" He asks her, looking at his darling daughter with doubtful eyes. "Her very first memory was of the two of you being silly children?"

    "Uh-huh, why is that surprising?" His naive daughter asks him, "is something the matter, daddy?" Her eyes are so innocent, nothing like Sakura's, and he can tell she'd never lie to him. The report in his hands says much the same as she does.

    "You said the entrance was unlike any you've ever seen, a desert and a worm tunnel? I've never heard of something like that before, it's not a defense technique I'm aware of." He looks it over again, and again, scratching his well groomed head.

    "Me neither, but it was undoubtedly not her defense." Ino asserts, her foot patting the floor between them, "it moved out of the way of me but did nothing to protect her. It felt like it was meant to stop her from getting in, or to discourage her and make her leave after getting hurt."

    "But not to kill her," Inoichi summarizes," why would it protect you if it wasn't hers?"

    "How would I know?" She crosses her arms and shrugs. "Maybe because if I couldn't get in you'd be there to crack it open? If there's a defense on her brain, why would it want that?"

    "Thank you, Ino, that'll be enough for today." Shooing his daughter off, he can't help but scratch his chin and look over the documents again. So the system has created a fortress at the front of her mind, that means it's deep and ingrained somewhere in her soul. He hadn't even considered that possibility, and he finds himself allowing a shaky breath after realizing just how badly that could have gone.

    Should he even allow Ino a second session? There's nothing in here that's particularly bad, in fact it almost sounds like the Sakura he watched grow up is still very much alive and intact. Is the coldness fake? A surface level facade taught by Kakashi, or maybe a face she's learned to put on so that no one suspects she's in pain? She has very loving parents, they'd catch on quickly if her eyes were always filled with agony. "It didn't touch her." He ponders, fingers threading through the pages. Either way, Ino thinks she can get in through a backdoor next time, no need to go through the system's defenses again.

    Sakura's brain wants her to stay out, but has no issues with Ino there. What's he even supposed to take from that? Does her system want to push the two of them together? It rewrites reality on a whim, at what point will it try to spread its influence over his little girl and eternally bewitch her for Sakura's gain?

    What is a father to do about that?
    His hand opens his desk, and a flask full of bitter relief touches his lips before the next breath.
    He's too close to this issue. He can't tell if Ino's in utter danger, or if she's the safest she's ever been in her entire life, including in his arms.

    He's read the report, Sakura's system rewrote her own death. There's no doubt that Haku person saved her because it forced them to, what kind of enemy would go out of their way to patch her up like that?

    If it likes Ino, would it do the same for her? Is there a force in this world that matters when that kind of power is in the mix? Could he even separate them, or would that just make the forces that be want her more?


    "The demon sword is a child." Inoichi's eyes twitch, staring at Ino with a disapproving glare the moment he's done with her report. She's standing there skittishly, and he watches her gulp when his gaze intensifies. "Sure, why not, let's get the jokes out of the way. Were there clowns too?"

    "Just a lot of dead people." Her cheeks turn green at the thought, her voice too soft to be fully heard by the normal ear.

    "You're serious?" He looks down at the pages again and watches his daughter nod out of the corner of his vision. "So a blood pool, corpses trying to drag the both of you under - of which she didn't blink at - and at the end of it a child played patty cake with you?"

    "It was similar but not quite that, um, we're not really sure who started the game. Sakura thinks it was me but I think it was him. It just kind of happened, I was pretty out of it." She admits her failing with clear shame. Her hands rest behind her back, one of them gripping her arm right under her elbow. "It is my official opinion that either Sakura's far more damaged than we thought, or the entity I met was the sword's real avatar, in which case it's invaded her mind quite prominently and Sakura's far more damaged than we thought."

    "No, this might be a good thing." He feels a spark of glee enter his body for the first time in days. She even infantilized the weapon of death? Killer without remorse, sure. He's got this all wrong, she's a child. Like a real child. She's turned her trip with Ino to see her sword into a game of house, she's just a child playing with a sharp doll.

    The only conclusion he can make from that data is that she's not dead inside, she has a screwed up understanding of what death is, and that's much easier to work with. They might not even have to work with it, that's something that they can mark down in a notebook before sending her on her way. It was right in front of his eyes this entire time, the curriculum. If there was a wartime book left in the academy somehow, maybe Sakura got ahold of it?

    No, maybe that bastard Mizuki gave it to her directly. He'll need to do some research, they might need to increase his sentence. "It says here you left before seeing the red room?" Inoichi asks, pointing to the words on the report. "Bring her back tomorrow and do that, whatever's in that room might be important."

    "I got the impression it probably had to do with all the dead bodies." Ino points out, discomfort clear in her voice. Unfortunately, as much as he'd like to shield his daughter from this, it's her best friend and the love of her life, at least so far, and ninjas do not often change their mind on that. Unlike civilians, most ninjas marry their early Genin or Chunin sweetheart. Like it or not, the reality-bending murderbunny will likely be his daughter in law one day. Ino should know what's deep inside of her. At some point they'll need to figure out a way to make that relationship a little more equal because no way in hell is he raising the kind of girl that'll happily enter an unequal relationship, but that's not today's problem.

    "All the more reason you should look into it." He sternly asserts, giving her a forceful look. It's not an order, but it might as well be, she's not going to refuse it.

    "Right, I'll do it." He watches his little girl mope out the door, but he knows he made the right call.
     
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    • Canon Side-Story: Necromancy 3 - Studying the Dead and Trouble in Class
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    • This doesn't necessarily finish up the Necromancy tree, but I want to do most of what's left of it in the main story. So this'll be the finale for the Necromancy tree for a while at least. Everything else is the kind of hard hitting, important stuff you don't want in a side story, especially since the grand majority of readers don't read them.
    Side stories don't just get less likes than main chapters - although they do - they also aren't even on 3 of the 6 platforms this story is posted on, and one of the three with the side stories is Patreon which obviously has less people than the others.
    I try to avoid making side stories too important, even if I kind of want them to be bigger at times, because most people who do get around to reading side stories don't do so until they're caught up on main chapters. This means that if a side story is integral to the story, a grand majority of people aren't getting that context.

    That doesn't mean I don't love a good hard hitting moment though, and this side story deals with a topic I wish I could have delved more into in the main story way before I did. (Patreon is just now starting to really get into Necromancy during the exams)
    Enjoy. Patreon/Discord link: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree

    Necromancy is unique in a few ways, at least as far as her skills go. It's the first skill she's run into that has a prerequisite for learning. It's not the only skill, after learning that was even possible she asked Kakashi to get her some Jonin technique scrolls, and despite her assumption that she'd get flicked in the forehead and told no, her crazy sensei actually did it. It wasn't even a conversation, he just left and came back a few minutes later with a bundle of scrolls. She's pretty sure she's not even allowed to learn Jonin techniques, so that was kind of confusing.

    She could learn none of them, and that sucks, but that was also very different. The weakest scroll he gave her required a mind of 151, everything else was higher. This is implicative of a multitude of things. First, it means that stat requirements seem to universally be attached to difficult and powerful skills, and aren't normally applied to skills that have lower requirements like what she would naturally try to learn with her lower chakra reserves.

    Necromancy is the only thing in this range she can find that she can't learn, and that implies something huge. Specifically, it implies that it's not Necromancy itself that has the requirement, it's mana usage. If mana is entirely related to the mind stat, will she boost mind by learning and mastering mana? Should she be actively trying to find ways to interact with mana for a better stat boosting method?

    The second thing Kakashi getting her the scrolls implies is that if there's ever a technique she wants to learn, Kakashi's just on board. He'll move the earth itself if it means he can pass off teaching her onto something like a scroll or Guy. She gets the feeling if she starts trying to learn Genjutsu he might just up and transfer her to another team with a clap of his hands and a stoic 'fuck that shit.' He'll break the rules faster than she can blink if it means getting out of work. She can use that.

    The second way Necromancy is unique is that she's learning it in parts. As it progresses towards the requirements to learn it she's able to understand more and more of the scroll, which does give her unique insights. It turns out necromancy is about taking hold of a soul and redefining its purpose. The more similar to the soul's original purpose, the less resistance it has, which means she'll have a higher success rate on trying to reanimate a corpse with its own soul than she will putting that corpse into something else. This means when she finally does gain the skill she should practice on trying to resurrect those that have just died and- "Sakura, are you listening?"

    "Huh?" Sakura blinks herself out of her own thoughts, looking up at the board at the front of the room. A woman with long glossy blue hair is pushing up her glasses while huffing at her in barely held back rage. Civilians dress very differently from ninjas, she can't imagine seeing a ninja in a dress that goes down to their ankles, but this woman considers that a part of her daily uniform. It's so long, and restrictive, and all of her movements are distractingly poor. Maybe it's that she grew up in a family of ninjas? Do all ninjas have this issue? "I am paying attention."

    "Can you repeat what I just said?" The teacher's stern stare from behind those glasses doesn't do her any favors. She's a hardass without any of the power and skill to back it up. She used to respect teachers so much - and she still does to some extent - but it's so hard to take them seriously when there is zero chance whatsoever that they pull a Kakashi and punish her. Sure she feels a little guilty deep inside for annoying someone taking their time to teach her, but what's the woman going to do, kick her out of class? Her tuition for this class is paid for by the Inuzuka clan, good luck teach. She much prefers the more lax teachers that understand she's a ninja and stay out of her business.

    That's not a reason to be disrespectful though, it's just a sad factor to all of this for her that she didn't used to have. She loves class, but it's so slow and boring and they've been going over the same thing for over an hour. "I wasn't listening, but I do know what you were saying, do you want me to take this loss or embarrass you?"

    "..." The woman's face flares into a hot volcano, Sakura can almost see the steam come out of her ears, and not in that cute way Ino manages sometimes.

    "I am realizing I should have said 'no Teacher, I'm sorry.' Can I take back my answer?" Her hand reacts instinctively before she even realizes it, catching a piece of chalk out of mid-air a second before it would have impacted her forehead. Staring at it for a second, she realizes something. She crashes it against her forehead and falls over out of her seat. "Oh no, you got me!"

    She chooses to take figuring it out as a win. It's not like any of them are ninjas, they probably didn't even notice her catching it. She'll send the woman some fruit, teachers love fruit right?


    "Why is there a dead squirrel on your desk?" The man unfortunate enough to be seated next to her eyes her with a bit of a deadpan. "I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to bring dead things into class, Little Red."

    "Well, through rigorous testing I recently figured out that classrooms actively giving a lecture give an extra hundred percent exp progress rate towards analytical skills and statistics, it doesn't have to actually be what the lecture is about. What this means is I can work on something that gives a greater Mind exp rate while in class instead, and it'll still work." She cuts into the fuzzy creature. She caught it this morning, fed it a good meal with some sleepy pills, and killed it instantly with a quick stab a few minutes before class so it wouldn't rot before lectures. She'll admit killing an animal just for intellectual training bothers her, so Haku's cooking squirrel stew tonight. She'll have to catch a few more before heading home, which works just fine for her purposes.

    "Errr, what?" The man squeaks at her, watching her knife cut into the deceased with wide eyes.

    "Oh right. It's a game thing, don't worry about it." One of the cool things about civilian classes is that you can kind of say literally anything and people will forget it ten seconds later. It's a game thing, it's a ninja thing, it's a crazy person thing. They don't know, they don't care, and aside from one guy that she now does the occasional raid with, they don't follow up.

    A shrill voice catches her ears, and she looks up just in time to see sharp eyes behind glasses, focused right on her from the front of the room. "Sakura, are you dissecting a squirrel during my lecture?"

    "Am I not allowed to do that?" She asks, reaching up and scratching her cheek, only to realize she's smearing blood along her face a moment later. "The rules didn't say I couldn't do-ack!"

    This time she puts in the extra effort to get hit by the chalk in the first place.
    She's not sure what she did wrong, she wasn't disrespectful this time she swears!


    "Sakura you look like death." The stuck up and quite mean teacher interrupts her before she can even get past the door of the classroom, looking her over with concerned eyes and a full lipped frown. Most of the class is looking at her, so all she can do is sigh. She can feel the bags under her eyes, and she can see from her arm that she's very pale, so she doesn't have to make many guesses as to what the teacher means.

    "I failed." Sakura admits, reaching up and rubbing her eyes. Holding back tears is something she's never gotten that good at, because very little hits her that hard emotionally. She's learned how to distance herself from problems for years in the academy, and that has served her well. Not the last few days though, it's a struggle not to break out into tears with every other breath.

    "Not my class, you're doing pretty well… Did you mean something else?" She asks, looking to the students to see if they have any idea. There's a lot of shrugs, but Sakura doesn't notice them. She hasn't paid attention to anything in a few days, she even missed last class.

    "It's not important to classes, forget it." She trudges to the back of the room, thanking the stars that no one decides to sit next to her today. She didn't just get to 110 mind, the immediate research and necromantic attempts, some of which even successful, got her to 111. It was so fast and powerful.

    But she failed the first real test, and she's not sure when she'll be okay again. Next week, the week after? Will it ever be okay? For once the teacher says nothing when she zones out of the lesson and stares out at the fields. She's already read this lesson in the book anyway, what's it matter? What's anything matter if those she gets close to stay dead when it's important? What good is Necromancy when she can fail?

    She's taken a step forward in the world, and found the ground beneath her feet collapsed to punish her for her hubris.
     
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