Sakura Haruno The Gaming Addict, and Her Gamified Life [Naruto]
- Thread starter Sendicard
- Start date
Sakura set Haku up as a successful video streamer. What do you think?
Sendicard
Spreading Smiles
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
Can't really blame you, there's a lot of situations where the internet should have made things easier but didn't. It's a background set piece at best because I as a writer frequently forget.
But yeah it comes up pretty often, Sakura plays MMOs for instance
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Well... It depends on what the Konoha internet actually looks like. It's entirely possible it's missing all kinds of information readily available on ours.
Krazyfan1
Worrying for the future.
- Location
- Australia
i mean, during most of Naruto there wasn't really co-operation between villages.
keeping Publically Available info to a minimum isn't that far fetched, it was only during Kakashi's time as Hokage that things improved.
Shadow Archon
Protoss Preserver
- Location
- Louisiana
The technology in Naruto has always been a tad schizophrenic.
They have VCRs, phones, computers, trains, email, wireless radio, video games, television, and satellites, which also implies they have a space industry.
They don't have cars, planes, most modern weapons, factories, or really any sense of industrialization.
There's a lot of technology but not what you'd expect as an industrial foundation for what that technology needs to exist.
It also seems pretty apparent that ninja villages are more technologically advanced than the rest of the countries they lie in.
Of course, instead of factories and tools they have Jutsus. Yamato built entire rows of houses with a single Wood Jutsu even. So that's probably why things are so odd.
Most electronics were probably invented by ninja with lightning release. Most healing is done by medical nin. Firefighting is done with water jutsus. Mining is likely done by different earth jutsus. And so on.
It's a neat aspect of the world that unfortunately Kishimoto just was never interested in exploring. Well, not until Boruto at least.
They have VCRs, phones, computers, trains, email, wireless radio, video games, television, and satellites, which also implies they have a space industry.
They don't have cars, planes, most modern weapons, factories, or really any sense of industrialization.
There's a lot of technology but not what you'd expect as an industrial foundation for what that technology needs to exist.
It also seems pretty apparent that ninja villages are more technologically advanced than the rest of the countries they lie in.
Of course, instead of factories and tools they have Jutsus. Yamato built entire rows of houses with a single Wood Jutsu even. So that's probably why things are so odd.
Most electronics were probably invented by ninja with lightning release. Most healing is done by medical nin. Firefighting is done with water jutsus. Mining is likely done by different earth jutsus. And so on.
It's a neat aspect of the world that unfortunately Kishimoto just was never interested in exploring. Well, not until Boruto at least.
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Krazyfan1
Worrying for the future.
- Location
- Australia
Cars and Planes are unneede my the speeds most ninja can get to.
Civilians? why would they need them? they have everything they need right in the village, no need to leave...right?
Chapter 121 - Arc 8 - Forest of Quest: Looking in the Mirror
New
Sendicard
Spreading Smiles
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
This chapter puts Sakura on the other foot, and explores Sasuke a little.
It wouldn't be inaccurate to say the entire chapter is about Sasuke in a way, even if he has very little screentime.
CH 138 hits Patreon today.
Sakura gets some answers, makes a deal, and finds out something terrifying.
Enjoy the chapter! Patreon/Discord link: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
What's going on there? Sakura wonders as she sees the prompt. Someone else is dealing with their targets. Did Ino get a similar quest?
Hunting the main quest targets down is easy with a Naruto clone here to point them in the right direction. The fact that they're riding a giant cat that's somehow better at navigating the terrain than they ever could be is also very awesome and efficient and makes Sakura smile deeply. She's doing that a lot more recently, maybe soon it won't feel weird. Sakura vows to never be without a mount again when traveling any distance worth noting, it's just so much better than walking. She'll have to train even harder with Gai and Lee to make up for the loss in cardio but it's absolutely worth it. Sure she thought the dog was great, but the way this kitty steps around trees as naturally as she breathes shows just how much potential as mounts her undead have. She doesn't need to train them. They seem to retain the knowledge of the terrain and how to move even after death which is great confirmation that their memories are at least partially intact. Now whether they can learn new terrain is another question she'll have to test sometime.
Though, as awesome as this is, It does bring up a potential line of questioning that she hadn't thought of before. If they retain a bunch of memories from life, was Tsume closer with her estimations than she thought? The trio of dogs needed to be used for her ally didn't seem to retain much of their past selves, was that the clash or were they just reduced to a puppy-like state and she doesn't know how to work with puppies?
Also, would an undead pet recognize someone who abused it in life? That could be useful as a side project. Konoha has a lot of different pet-based techniques and people who focus on the idea of animal allies, so as a culture the ninja population is very protective of them. Problems still occur despite that and in response both the village and its people take finding animal abusers and slitting their throats very seriously, but there's always the issue of detecting what happens behind closed doors. The idea of being useful like that makes her smile, but that smile quickly falls. The fact that she could only detect it after a victim was made hits her hard mid-thought, and that they'd have to find it within a few hours of death would also damper that situation into a depressing hellscape… Tsume's had a lot of impact on her, maybe she'll ask her for her thoughts on the matter. If nothing else, it could be a good project to explore if she gets that teacher position she spoke to Iruka about.
Kakashi might actually support her if she did something like that, he likes dogs. She's caught him petting hers quite a few times when she had her back turned. Though having this thought while riding an undead animal they literally just killed does sort of dampen the mood a little. It's different, she thinks, they're supposed to fight these.
"They're not too far ahead," Naruto says, "another clone just popped to tell me their location, and they should be within sight very shortly."
"They know we're after them by now," Sasuke says, looking at the two of them to ensure they are listening, "this'll be the first time we've ever intentionally walked into a trap. Are we sure about this?"
"We could get above them and scan them," Sakura suggests, "if they're too strong we can always back off. The loss for the quest to deal with them isn't death or anything."
"You got a quest?" Naruto asks, "then we should deal with them, they're significant."
"Yeah… Are you sure you want to see this though?" She palms Naruto's shoulder, "you were just crying like an hour ago. We can pop you and do it alone."
"I need to be ready to pop myself if you two run into trouble so the original knows where to go," he points out, "I'll stay behind, don't worry about me."
"If you're sure." A single look to Sasuke is all she needs to receive his signal, before they're jumping away from Naruto to get into the trees. She needs to prepare their attack, and figure out which group this is while she's at it. There's no reason to be merciless about it, she's decided that blood lust can wait. Hunger seems sated by all the monsters they've been killing and there's no reason to rush into lethal conflict over something stupid.
Probably, Sasuke looks like he's ready to murder. The malicious glint in his gaze is something powerful because she's never expected anyone to feel that protective of her. She hasn't conceptualized just how much of an impact she's had on her friends, and that stops now.
"When we're done, I want you to tell me what you're feeling," She says, "I've been in the dark a bit too long and it shows." She owes him attention, she can hold off on gathering summons for another hour or two.
Standing above the trio, Sakura can't help but feel a little pensive.
All three are like that, and that has her biting her lip instead of jumping in with her sword out. She holds herself back and signals for Sasuke to wait. She's not sure if the increase in charm has given her more compassion, or if it's that she was too numb to focus on what she already had inside and raised charm has made her more self aware of her own feelings, but she finds herself hesitating for a few reasons.
First, last time she checked the danger rankings were supposed to be relative to the world. It's possible they've been based on her since the Scan skill ranked up and she just hasn't recontextualized the qualifiers since they seemed generally fitting, but even if that's true, it's worth noting and somewhat confusing. If it's accurate, she could probably take all three of them down in seconds. She could discard them like salty tears in the pouring rain and never think about them ever again. This is good news for them, oddly enough, because it means she can afford a level of mercy with them. If they were seriously strong she'd be halfway through contemplating an ambush to make sure they died screaming, but as is, she can afford humanity. It also raises questions about how important this quest is. If this is the best they send at her at the current level of enemy, does it matter if it levels up to ten?
Could she be merciful, fail the quest, and just find the organization head with Tenten's old hammer at a later date? Like with any organization, only one person really needs to die in a gruesome display to destabilize the rest, and it doesn't look like any of these Genin are the head.
Second, that's not the scan page that arrives when she's staring at an enemy. That's the normal scan page, which means the system recognizes them as people instead of enemies. They're clearly here to kill her, they snuck into an entire Chunin exam with a - likely secondary - objective to jam an electrified kunai into her throat and get evidence of her convulsing corpse, but being her enemy does not mean they are enemies. Err, maybe that's an odd wording. To rephrase, there's a difference between someone placed in her path to test her, and someone who is placed in her path to test her sword. The two may seem similar, especially if she's not feeling very generous with her patience that day, but there is a very important distinction that she'd like to start making a big deal of. At least, she'd like to make a big deal out of it in a largely non-lethal test in the middle of Konoha.
The third and most important reason she pauses is that they're all orphans of war and violence, is that a common thing in Sound? Is the entire place some kind of bandit refuge and outcast masquerading as a haven? Getting information her village might not have on a budding organization like that is significantly more important to her than slaying some desperate and poor Genin who joined a shady organization to get food or necessities. Or got sold into it, can you really get sold to a village? How does that even work, wouldn't that result in missing-nin all over the place?
Also like, how is she supposed to read three incredibly depressing backstories and immediately think 'lets get stabbing?' It's a mood killer, seriously. "Sasuke." She looks over to him with a little sadness in her eyes. She wishes she had Charm like Ino's, or Naruto wasn't in such a pitiful state. Naruto could probably do a great job at this, talking hostile entities down feels like something he'd be pretty good at, she should test that sometime. He deserves a chance to let his charm shine, it's probably a lot higher than hers. He's so compassionate he has issues popping his own clones.
Just not now, now it's time for her to try and test how far she's come. "I'm going to try and talk to them. Be ready to back me up."
"You don't think we should ambush them?" Sasuke asks, "or set traps? Didn't you learn trapping with Naruto? The two of you could set something up."
"They're just not strong enough to warrant it." She admits, the words taste a bit like acid on her tongue but she means them nevertheless. The teachings that school and Kakashi beat into her - sometimes literally - about never underestimating her opponent and always taking a decisive victory clash with her skills and traits quite handily. Her kit is weirdly built around trivializing easy fights enmass, and if she wants to get any use out of it she needs to ignore what she's been taught.
It's hard, but she's smart, she's figuring it out. Her feet take her down from the tree with a simple jump, and the next second she lands in the view of the three boys she met earlier. It's amazing how long ago meeting them already feels like. Hugging Naruto for several hours probably didn't help her perspective of time since it was just, ridiculously long. It was nice though, very nice. She'll have to do it again sometime.
"Ah, it's that girl from earlier." The big guy greets her with a raised hand. His hand was bleeding the last time she saw it, now it's bandaged. That's good, infections aren't common for ninjas but they're not impossible and this forest is probably filled with horrific bacteria. If a ninja was going to lose their limbs in the middle of Konoha to something like illness, it'd be in the forest of death.
"Doku." She greets, crossing her armor plated arms over her shiny red chestplate and nodding to him while leaning against a tree. There's a dozen roots sticking out between them and her, the visibility is low but the pathway is straight and clear, if not incredibly narrow. He seems to smile at being greeted but his two teammates, shorter in comparison and built for speed, narrow their eyes and fall into a combat ready stance. Their knees are a little bent, their arms are at the ready, lifting kunai and giving her sharp glares.
The man who she assumed was the leader looks behind himself at the sound of their quickened breathing, and furrows his brows. "You didn't tell her your name." One of them explains. With that Doku's already spun around and is dragging a pair of hand axes away from his side. They were covered in cloth a moment ago. She'd assumed they were very large kunai pouches, maybe for carrying Fuma Shuriken - Sasuke has some, they're basically giant spinny airborne wheels of death, it's great - but that's clearly not the case as their contents now gleam in what little light is pouring through the trees. She had assumed since it's the village of Sound that they would have some sound based attacks, but then she's not exactly bursting with leaf based attacks so that was probably dumb.
The make isn't anything she'd be proud of as a novice blacksmith, but she has the privilege of funding and good materials. It seems to her like Sound might not have those kinds of resources for their lower ranks. It's a shame, and just another reason to have compassion and be patient with them. They aren't a threat to her, that's important to remember. Aside from a stray Jutsu she walks into, they likely can't hurt her. She needs to watch out for hand signs, not their weapons.
She gets a stipend to cover living expenses and tool replacement, do they? It probably doesn't matter, it looks like she might have to kill them anyway. She'll try to subdue them but she's taken down stronger foes before because they underestimated her, she's not about to let the system mislead her into letting her guard down enough that slaying them is completely off the table.
She only has the option to spare them because she's still alive and her abilities are fine tuned to discarding trash in the dirt. Her heart's ability to continue to beat is more important than them, her attitude towards mercy will change at the slightest risk. "I'm Sakura," she explains, nodding her head at them, "let's talk."
"That's impossible, Sakura's a ninja, not a Samurai." Her eyes focus on the man who said that.
Her scan introduced him as, "Kazuo, I'm not a Samurai." She gets where he's coming from though. With the bright red armor Haku got her, and Hunger at her waist, her main style being sword based, and even her strongest custom Jutsu being a sword technique - she's a freaking Samurai isn't she? When did that happen? Maybe she should take a training trip to the land of Iron and see if she can improve her Kenjutsu there. They're probably better teachers to random girls than Kakashi is to his own students. He drops in to help her with her technique on occasion but it's not inaccurate to say Gai's her sensei now, and he doesn't know nearly as much about the blade as Kakashi does. She could also probably switch to a Jutsu focus now that her Chakra is up if she can get Kakashi to help for twenty seconds.
The boy takes a step back, shaking a little at her use of his name. That's good, unsettling them is somewhat the point. They aren't attacking yet, and that's important. "Look, this whole conspiring to kill me thing is very cute, but you need to understand that you can't succeed. You were sent after me to die because someone finds it funny." She kicks off the tree she's leaning against, and with a flicker of her agility trait to get her to top speed she's in front of Doku before he can blink. She doesn't draw her blade, she lets her instincts take over, and dances through his spooked flurry of slashes and attempts to hack her limbs off. The axe heads come within an inch of her face, and she shifts out of the way. He slashes at her neck and she tilts her head back perfectly, wasting no movement she can discern. Doku raises the axes and slams them down at her while she's bent over, and she presses her hand into the dirt to support herself while she twists, kicks her leg up, and catches his wrist with her foot. Genin Strength isn't a trait she uses very often, but its wording is misleading. It states that anyone below Genin strength immediately loses in a contest of strength with her, but that's not quite what it does.
What it actually does is calculate the force being applied, and if it's below Genin level it instantly loses without the slightest chance in hell. What this means is that by catching his wrist before it can fall towards her, she catches it before he can muster strength and he finds himself slamming his arm down on an immovable wall of the densest metal her system can come up with. His scream catches her by surprise and it almost covers up the sound of his arm shattering on the spot and his hand being pierced by his own bone shards. She does, however, hear it. She's sure his teammates do too.
The axe bounces out of his hand, and she switches to a full handstand, spinning in place and not even bothering to evade the axe in his other hand falling towards her with almost no force. She angles herself just right so that when she pushes off the ground and does a flip mid-air, she catches the flying weapon and lands with a sweeping strike that causes a shockwave of wind to blow leaves away and force the two in front of her to guard their faces with their arms and sleeves. Well, arm and sleeve in Doku's case, his arm looks really bad, it's already swelling and purple and there's blood leaking into the dirt. She'll have to remember not to use that trick against anyone in a spar.
She has several traits which make bullying the weak something she's actually good at. If dealing with them without killing them means abusing those traits, she'll do so with glowing red eyes and a smirk of malice aimed right towards them. Wait, two in front of her?
She barely has time to duck down and kick out behind her before a kunai slams deep into the space her neck just was. She finds her face covered in something hot and fluid, as her attack forces enough blood out of her opponent's mouth to drain a small animal completely. She's pretty freaking sure a kick to the stomach isn't supposed to result in that much of an impact, are Leaf Genin just built differently and Sound Genin are made of glass? She's absolutely hit Lee ten times that hard and he laughed at her. She's absolutely splattered with what he had inside, and that's before he takes a step back and collapses onto his knees, retching out a putrid mix of black and red.
"I didn't hit you that hard…" She can't take her eyes off his two enraged teammates, they're looking at her with murder in their eyes, but that just means getting behind him so that he's in between them and her. "Sasuke, please help with them," she calls out a little pathetically. The feeling of accidentally hurting someone always sucks, it's like her stomach is alive and angry.
The third boy starts some hand signs, which do catch her attention, but before he can finish them the two are wrapped in a river of ninja wire that flows from the trees, overtaking them and looking mightily like a sharp spiderweb. She has just enough time to kneel down and place her fingers on the downed boy's neck, starting to count heartbeats to ensure his heart didn't explode or something, before the entire area in front of her is bathed in hellfire. The heat hits her face first, shocking her into raising one of her armored arms to protect her. It scorches the land, engulfs the trees and roars loud enough to cut out the screams which erupt almost as rapidly as the blaze in front of her.
"Uh…" She trails, a hundred sixty beats per minute, that's pretty freaking high for a ninja but her heartbeat would be high too if she was watching her teammates burn to death out of nowhere. "Sasuke, I meant like, subdue."
"I knew what you meant." He answers her with a darkness to his tone as he drops down from the trees, holding up the two pouches they had on their waists before they, you know, "I got these before they went up in flames." He finds the time to mock her about her earlier mistake while the enemy turns to ash in front of her.
"If you knew what I meant then why…" She has to hold back tears, but they're dumb and meaningless and they don't matter so whatever. The sniffle she fails to stop is a little more awkward.
"I told you." he growls at her, red eyes spinning slightly in a way that accentuates his glare. It'd be very pretty if she wasn't pissed. He stands with one hand in his pocket and the other holding their bags, shadowed by a rising beacon of flame created by his own rage. "They're trying to kill someone important to me, I want to hurt them. You didn't ask me if I wanted to spare them, you just assumed I'd be okay with it."
"Ah… that's fair. I think we both need to work on our communication." She nods to herself as she pulls her hand away from the vomiting boy who's not getting any better. She stands, and draws her sword. "Sorry dude, but he's gonna burn you to death. I've weighed the numbers and this is the better result, uh, I hope you meet your friends again."
"Please, no-" Kazuo raises a hand towards her, and with a simple slash his actions stop. Hunger's satiated, and Sasuke has one less dude to torture. She hates torture
"The last time someone targeted you directly in front of me, you ended up pinned to a tree. I still remember taking turns carrying your lifeless body with Naruto after Kakashi passed out… I won't have that again." Sasuke clenches his fists and bends over to collect Kazuo's newly abandoned bag of balls.
"Death I didn't want always leaves a bad taste in my mouth." She grumbles, trying to mentally work around the acrid taste invading her mouth with vengeance. "But I understand."
"Good." He says confidently. No Sasuke, not good, they're not good at all. This is going to be a topic in group conversations for months to come. Ino is going to hear about this, Sasuke should never be in her conversations with Ino, he doesn't fit into their dynamic at all. But for now, they're in a test, and she'll not make him feel like Naruto makes her feel when he looks at her after she kills someone he thought he could spare.
For now, if he's going to kill them, they'll kill them.
No, that's a bad assumption, that's not talking again.
"That was the official team, the rest are merely bribed mercenaries," Sakura says, "can we spare them, or is blood what you truly want?"
"I don't know." He admits, pocketing the bags, and resting his hands in his short pockets. "I'll know when we meet them."
"No, Sasuke, I need to know." She looks into his red eyes with her own glowing gaze, challenging him without an ounce of mercy in her glare. "The mentality I go into the engagement with is important, I can't have you killing people I'm trying to be merciful with. I get the hypocrisy, but a part of growing up is being hypocritical. Death or peace, your choice."
"... If your system says they're not dangerous, we can spare them." He decides, stepping back from her with flushed cheeks. "Sorry."
"Me too. I know how you both feel now, and I'm sorry I ever made you feel this way." She sighs deeply, mournfully, and looks down at the corpse she was so recently trying to talk out of this.
Now she feels stupid. At least they got balls and quest progress.
They must have had a lot of balls on them, it implies they took down another team at some point, or that they scored incredibly well in the first exams. Either way, there's no way she can leave yet. There's a lot of other quests to complete, but it's nice to cover some of their bases. With this many balls, and the amount of balls the other three teams working with the KSH they have to hunt down will probably have, they can probably change plans and not spend tomorrow hunting balls.
Balls… that word is going to stop sounding like a word soon, she can already tell.
"Balls, balls, balls, balls-" it already kinda sounds like a Jutsu callout.
It wouldn't be inaccurate to say the entire chapter is about Sasuke in a way, even if he has very little screentime.
CH 138 hits Patreon today.
Sakura gets some answers, makes a deal, and finds out something terrifying.
Enjoy the chapter! Patreon/Discord link: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
| 2/4 KSH bribed teams dealt with |
What's going on there? Sakura wonders as she sees the prompt. Someone else is dealing with their targets. Did Ino get a similar quest?
Hunting the main quest targets down is easy with a Naruto clone here to point them in the right direction. The fact that they're riding a giant cat that's somehow better at navigating the terrain than they ever could be is also very awesome and efficient and makes Sakura smile deeply. She's doing that a lot more recently, maybe soon it won't feel weird. Sakura vows to never be without a mount again when traveling any distance worth noting, it's just so much better than walking. She'll have to train even harder with Gai and Lee to make up for the loss in cardio but it's absolutely worth it. Sure she thought the dog was great, but the way this kitty steps around trees as naturally as she breathes shows just how much potential as mounts her undead have. She doesn't need to train them. They seem to retain the knowledge of the terrain and how to move even after death which is great confirmation that their memories are at least partially intact. Now whether they can learn new terrain is another question she'll have to test sometime.
Though, as awesome as this is, It does bring up a potential line of questioning that she hadn't thought of before. If they retain a bunch of memories from life, was Tsume closer with her estimations than she thought? The trio of dogs needed to be used for her ally didn't seem to retain much of their past selves, was that the clash or were they just reduced to a puppy-like state and she doesn't know how to work with puppies?
Also, would an undead pet recognize someone who abused it in life? That could be useful as a side project. Konoha has a lot of different pet-based techniques and people who focus on the idea of animal allies, so as a culture the ninja population is very protective of them. Problems still occur despite that and in response both the village and its people take finding animal abusers and slitting their throats very seriously, but there's always the issue of detecting what happens behind closed doors. The idea of being useful like that makes her smile, but that smile quickly falls. The fact that she could only detect it after a victim was made hits her hard mid-thought, and that they'd have to find it within a few hours of death would also damper that situation into a depressing hellscape… Tsume's had a lot of impact on her, maybe she'll ask her for her thoughts on the matter. If nothing else, it could be a good project to explore if she gets that teacher position she spoke to Iruka about.
Kakashi might actually support her if she did something like that, he likes dogs. She's caught him petting hers quite a few times when she had her back turned. Though having this thought while riding an undead animal they literally just killed does sort of dampen the mood a little. It's different, she thinks, they're supposed to fight these.
"They're not too far ahead," Naruto says, "another clone just popped to tell me their location, and they should be within sight very shortly."
"They know we're after them by now," Sasuke says, looking at the two of them to ensure they are listening, "this'll be the first time we've ever intentionally walked into a trap. Are we sure about this?"
"We could get above them and scan them," Sakura suggests, "if they're too strong we can always back off. The loss for the quest to deal with them isn't death or anything."
"You got a quest?" Naruto asks, "then we should deal with them, they're significant."
"Yeah… Are you sure you want to see this though?" She palms Naruto's shoulder, "you were just crying like an hour ago. We can pop you and do it alone."
"I need to be ready to pop myself if you two run into trouble so the original knows where to go," he points out, "I'll stay behind, don't worry about me."
"If you're sure." A single look to Sasuke is all she needs to receive his signal, before they're jumping away from Naruto to get into the trees. She needs to prepare their attack, and figure out which group this is while she's at it. There's no reason to be merciless about it, she's decided that blood lust can wait. Hunger seems sated by all the monsters they've been killing and there's no reason to rush into lethal conflict over something stupid.
Probably, Sasuke looks like he's ready to murder. The malicious glint in his gaze is something powerful because she's never expected anyone to feel that protective of her. She hasn't conceptualized just how much of an impact she's had on her friends, and that stops now.
"When we're done, I want you to tell me what you're feeling," She says, "I've been in the dark a bit too long and it shows." She owes him attention, she can hold off on gathering summons for another hour or two.
Standing above the trio, Sakura can't help but feel a little pensive.
| Doku of Sound After bandits killed his parents, they kidnapped him and eventually sold him to Sound where he has thrived and quickly become a rising star Genin. In Sound this is kind of a raw deal because a Genin is still pretty weak and the weak die, quickly. Danger Level - Really just not a threat to you |
All three are like that, and that has her biting her lip instead of jumping in with her sword out. She holds herself back and signals for Sasuke to wait. She's not sure if the increase in charm has given her more compassion, or if it's that she was too numb to focus on what she already had inside and raised charm has made her more self aware of her own feelings, but she finds herself hesitating for a few reasons.
First, last time she checked the danger rankings were supposed to be relative to the world. It's possible they've been based on her since the Scan skill ranked up and she just hasn't recontextualized the qualifiers since they seemed generally fitting, but even if that's true, it's worth noting and somewhat confusing. If it's accurate, she could probably take all three of them down in seconds. She could discard them like salty tears in the pouring rain and never think about them ever again. This is good news for them, oddly enough, because it means she can afford a level of mercy with them. If they were seriously strong she'd be halfway through contemplating an ambush to make sure they died screaming, but as is, she can afford humanity. It also raises questions about how important this quest is. If this is the best they send at her at the current level of enemy, does it matter if it levels up to ten?
Could she be merciful, fail the quest, and just find the organization head with Tenten's old hammer at a later date? Like with any organization, only one person really needs to die in a gruesome display to destabilize the rest, and it doesn't look like any of these Genin are the head.
Second, that's not the scan page that arrives when she's staring at an enemy. That's the normal scan page, which means the system recognizes them as people instead of enemies. They're clearly here to kill her, they snuck into an entire Chunin exam with a - likely secondary - objective to jam an electrified kunai into her throat and get evidence of her convulsing corpse, but being her enemy does not mean they are enemies. Err, maybe that's an odd wording. To rephrase, there's a difference between someone placed in her path to test her, and someone who is placed in her path to test her sword. The two may seem similar, especially if she's not feeling very generous with her patience that day, but there is a very important distinction that she'd like to start making a big deal of. At least, she'd like to make a big deal out of it in a largely non-lethal test in the middle of Konoha.
The third and most important reason she pauses is that they're all orphans of war and violence, is that a common thing in Sound? Is the entire place some kind of bandit refuge and outcast masquerading as a haven? Getting information her village might not have on a budding organization like that is significantly more important to her than slaying some desperate and poor Genin who joined a shady organization to get food or necessities. Or got sold into it, can you really get sold to a village? How does that even work, wouldn't that result in missing-nin all over the place?
Also like, how is she supposed to read three incredibly depressing backstories and immediately think 'lets get stabbing?' It's a mood killer, seriously. "Sasuke." She looks over to him with a little sadness in her eyes. She wishes she had Charm like Ino's, or Naruto wasn't in such a pitiful state. Naruto could probably do a great job at this, talking hostile entities down feels like something he'd be pretty good at, she should test that sometime. He deserves a chance to let his charm shine, it's probably a lot higher than hers. He's so compassionate he has issues popping his own clones.
Just not now, now it's time for her to try and test how far she's come. "I'm going to try and talk to them. Be ready to back me up."
"You don't think we should ambush them?" Sasuke asks, "or set traps? Didn't you learn trapping with Naruto? The two of you could set something up."
"They're just not strong enough to warrant it." She admits, the words taste a bit like acid on her tongue but she means them nevertheless. The teachings that school and Kakashi beat into her - sometimes literally - about never underestimating her opponent and always taking a decisive victory clash with her skills and traits quite handily. Her kit is weirdly built around trivializing easy fights enmass, and if she wants to get any use out of it she needs to ignore what she's been taught.
It's hard, but she's smart, she's figuring it out. Her feet take her down from the tree with a simple jump, and the next second she lands in the view of the three boys she met earlier. It's amazing how long ago meeting them already feels like. Hugging Naruto for several hours probably didn't help her perspective of time since it was just, ridiculously long. It was nice though, very nice. She'll have to do it again sometime.
"Ah, it's that girl from earlier." The big guy greets her with a raised hand. His hand was bleeding the last time she saw it, now it's bandaged. That's good, infections aren't common for ninjas but they're not impossible and this forest is probably filled with horrific bacteria. If a ninja was going to lose their limbs in the middle of Konoha to something like illness, it'd be in the forest of death.
"Doku." She greets, crossing her armor plated arms over her shiny red chestplate and nodding to him while leaning against a tree. There's a dozen roots sticking out between them and her, the visibility is low but the pathway is straight and clear, if not incredibly narrow. He seems to smile at being greeted but his two teammates, shorter in comparison and built for speed, narrow their eyes and fall into a combat ready stance. Their knees are a little bent, their arms are at the ready, lifting kunai and giving her sharp glares.
The man who she assumed was the leader looks behind himself at the sound of their quickened breathing, and furrows his brows. "You didn't tell her your name." One of them explains. With that Doku's already spun around and is dragging a pair of hand axes away from his side. They were covered in cloth a moment ago. She'd assumed they were very large kunai pouches, maybe for carrying Fuma Shuriken - Sasuke has some, they're basically giant spinny airborne wheels of death, it's great - but that's clearly not the case as their contents now gleam in what little light is pouring through the trees. She had assumed since it's the village of Sound that they would have some sound based attacks, but then she's not exactly bursting with leaf based attacks so that was probably dumb.
The make isn't anything she'd be proud of as a novice blacksmith, but she has the privilege of funding and good materials. It seems to her like Sound might not have those kinds of resources for their lower ranks. It's a shame, and just another reason to have compassion and be patient with them. They aren't a threat to her, that's important to remember. Aside from a stray Jutsu she walks into, they likely can't hurt her. She needs to watch out for hand signs, not their weapons.
She gets a stipend to cover living expenses and tool replacement, do they? It probably doesn't matter, it looks like she might have to kill them anyway. She'll try to subdue them but she's taken down stronger foes before because they underestimated her, she's not about to let the system mislead her into letting her guard down enough that slaying them is completely off the table.
She only has the option to spare them because she's still alive and her abilities are fine tuned to discarding trash in the dirt. Her heart's ability to continue to beat is more important than them, her attitude towards mercy will change at the slightest risk. "I'm Sakura," she explains, nodding her head at them, "let's talk."
"That's impossible, Sakura's a ninja, not a Samurai." Her eyes focus on the man who said that.
Her scan introduced him as, "Kazuo, I'm not a Samurai." She gets where he's coming from though. With the bright red armor Haku got her, and Hunger at her waist, her main style being sword based, and even her strongest custom Jutsu being a sword technique - she's a freaking Samurai isn't she? When did that happen? Maybe she should take a training trip to the land of Iron and see if she can improve her Kenjutsu there. They're probably better teachers to random girls than Kakashi is to his own students. He drops in to help her with her technique on occasion but it's not inaccurate to say Gai's her sensei now, and he doesn't know nearly as much about the blade as Kakashi does. She could also probably switch to a Jutsu focus now that her Chakra is up if she can get Kakashi to help for twenty seconds.
The boy takes a step back, shaking a little at her use of his name. That's good, unsettling them is somewhat the point. They aren't attacking yet, and that's important. "Look, this whole conspiring to kill me thing is very cute, but you need to understand that you can't succeed. You were sent after me to die because someone finds it funny." She kicks off the tree she's leaning against, and with a flicker of her agility trait to get her to top speed she's in front of Doku before he can blink. She doesn't draw her blade, she lets her instincts take over, and dances through his spooked flurry of slashes and attempts to hack her limbs off. The axe heads come within an inch of her face, and she shifts out of the way. He slashes at her neck and she tilts her head back perfectly, wasting no movement she can discern. Doku raises the axes and slams them down at her while she's bent over, and she presses her hand into the dirt to support herself while she twists, kicks her leg up, and catches his wrist with her foot. Genin Strength isn't a trait she uses very often, but its wording is misleading. It states that anyone below Genin strength immediately loses in a contest of strength with her, but that's not quite what it does.
What it actually does is calculate the force being applied, and if it's below Genin level it instantly loses without the slightest chance in hell. What this means is that by catching his wrist before it can fall towards her, she catches it before he can muster strength and he finds himself slamming his arm down on an immovable wall of the densest metal her system can come up with. His scream catches her by surprise and it almost covers up the sound of his arm shattering on the spot and his hand being pierced by his own bone shards. She does, however, hear it. She's sure his teammates do too.
The axe bounces out of his hand, and she switches to a full handstand, spinning in place and not even bothering to evade the axe in his other hand falling towards her with almost no force. She angles herself just right so that when she pushes off the ground and does a flip mid-air, she catches the flying weapon and lands with a sweeping strike that causes a shockwave of wind to blow leaves away and force the two in front of her to guard their faces with their arms and sleeves. Well, arm and sleeve in Doku's case, his arm looks really bad, it's already swelling and purple and there's blood leaking into the dirt. She'll have to remember not to use that trick against anyone in a spar.
She has several traits which make bullying the weak something she's actually good at. If dealing with them without killing them means abusing those traits, she'll do so with glowing red eyes and a smirk of malice aimed right towards them. Wait, two in front of her?
She barely has time to duck down and kick out behind her before a kunai slams deep into the space her neck just was. She finds her face covered in something hot and fluid, as her attack forces enough blood out of her opponent's mouth to drain a small animal completely. She's pretty freaking sure a kick to the stomach isn't supposed to result in that much of an impact, are Leaf Genin just built differently and Sound Genin are made of glass? She's absolutely hit Lee ten times that hard and he laughed at her. She's absolutely splattered with what he had inside, and that's before he takes a step back and collapses onto his knees, retching out a putrid mix of black and red.
"I didn't hit you that hard…" She can't take her eyes off his two enraged teammates, they're looking at her with murder in their eyes, but that just means getting behind him so that he's in between them and her. "Sasuke, please help with them," she calls out a little pathetically. The feeling of accidentally hurting someone always sucks, it's like her stomach is alive and angry.
The third boy starts some hand signs, which do catch her attention, but before he can finish them the two are wrapped in a river of ninja wire that flows from the trees, overtaking them and looking mightily like a sharp spiderweb. She has just enough time to kneel down and place her fingers on the downed boy's neck, starting to count heartbeats to ensure his heart didn't explode or something, before the entire area in front of her is bathed in hellfire. The heat hits her face first, shocking her into raising one of her armored arms to protect her. It scorches the land, engulfs the trees and roars loud enough to cut out the screams which erupt almost as rapidly as the blaze in front of her.
"Uh…" She trails, a hundred sixty beats per minute, that's pretty freaking high for a ninja but her heartbeat would be high too if she was watching her teammates burn to death out of nowhere. "Sasuke, I meant like, subdue."
"I knew what you meant." He answers her with a darkness to his tone as he drops down from the trees, holding up the two pouches they had on their waists before they, you know, "I got these before they went up in flames." He finds the time to mock her about her earlier mistake while the enemy turns to ash in front of her.
"If you knew what I meant then why…" She has to hold back tears, but they're dumb and meaningless and they don't matter so whatever. The sniffle she fails to stop is a little more awkward.
"I told you." he growls at her, red eyes spinning slightly in a way that accentuates his glare. It'd be very pretty if she wasn't pissed. He stands with one hand in his pocket and the other holding their bags, shadowed by a rising beacon of flame created by his own rage. "They're trying to kill someone important to me, I want to hurt them. You didn't ask me if I wanted to spare them, you just assumed I'd be okay with it."
"Ah… that's fair. I think we both need to work on our communication." She nods to herself as she pulls her hand away from the vomiting boy who's not getting any better. She stands, and draws her sword. "Sorry dude, but he's gonna burn you to death. I've weighed the numbers and this is the better result, uh, I hope you meet your friends again."
"Please, no-" Kazuo raises a hand towards her, and with a simple slash his actions stop. Hunger's satiated, and Sasuke has one less dude to torture. She hates torture
"The last time someone targeted you directly in front of me, you ended up pinned to a tree. I still remember taking turns carrying your lifeless body with Naruto after Kakashi passed out… I won't have that again." Sasuke clenches his fists and bends over to collect Kazuo's newly abandoned bag of balls.
"Death I didn't want always leaves a bad taste in my mouth." She grumbles, trying to mentally work around the acrid taste invading her mouth with vengeance. "But I understand."
"Good." He says confidently. No Sasuke, not good, they're not good at all. This is going to be a topic in group conversations for months to come. Ino is going to hear about this, Sasuke should never be in her conversations with Ino, he doesn't fit into their dynamic at all. But for now, they're in a test, and she'll not make him feel like Naruto makes her feel when he looks at her after she kills someone he thought he could spare.
For now, if he's going to kill them, they'll kill them.
No, that's a bad assumption, that's not talking again.
| 1/1 Official KSH team dealt with |
"That was the official team, the rest are merely bribed mercenaries," Sakura says, "can we spare them, or is blood what you truly want?"
"I don't know." He admits, pocketing the bags, and resting his hands in his short pockets. "I'll know when we meet them."
"No, Sasuke, I need to know." She looks into his red eyes with her own glowing gaze, challenging him without an ounce of mercy in her glare. "The mentality I go into the engagement with is important, I can't have you killing people I'm trying to be merciful with. I get the hypocrisy, but a part of growing up is being hypocritical. Death or peace, your choice."
"... If your system says they're not dangerous, we can spare them." He decides, stepping back from her with flushed cheeks. "Sorry."
"Me too. I know how you both feel now, and I'm sorry I ever made you feel this way." She sighs deeply, mournfully, and looks down at the corpse she was so recently trying to talk out of this.
Now she feels stupid. At least they got balls and quest progress.
| Total Balls: 220, Rookie 9 and the Exams Ball objective completed. You can now distribute the balls and leave as a group of nine. |
They must have had a lot of balls on them, it implies they took down another team at some point, or that they scored incredibly well in the first exams. Either way, there's no way she can leave yet. There's a lot of other quests to complete, but it's nice to cover some of their bases. With this many balls, and the amount of balls the other three teams working with the KSH they have to hunt down will probably have, they can probably change plans and not spend tomorrow hunting balls.
Balls… that word is going to stop sounding like a word soon, she can already tell.
"Balls, balls, balls, balls-" it already kinda sounds like a Jutsu callout.
An Akimichi Clan member has probably used that before, most likely one with a summon contract for tanuki summons.
Oh, definitely.Does the Tanuki summoner have a flying jutsu? Concerned readers want to know
Don't worry about that covering you see overhead. That's just a, uh, parachute.
Chapter 122 - Arc 8 - Forest of Quest: Introspection, Traits, and some Surprise Bullshit
New
Sendicard
Spreading Smiles
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
So I've officially put a note at the start of the story about the fact that this story takes a hard AU turn later in.
As in pretty shortly here. If the idea is a hot button for you, it'll likely be your last stop here pretty soon. That's okay, you should read what makes you happy just like I write what makes me happy.
I thought the AU tag and the constant foreshadowing would be enough but my patron count is basically lit on fire and one of my supporters has made it very clear that when they see AU they think like "Sasuke's blonde" not "that."
So this is official notice.
---
So there is a reference in this chapter to a side story, if you haven't read them you might be confused.
It's largely a status update chapter, we need those sometimes.
Patreon just hit CH 139, they're on the last chapter of a mini-arc that hasn't even started here yet, when did things get so far.
Enjoy the chapter! Patreon/Discord link: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
Sasuke being annoyingly familiar to her past self aside, Sakura finds she's rather reflective on their way back to camp. She's always a little reflective, in fact going on accidental introspective rants is something she's trying to stop doing, but a lot of new thoughts have occurred to her recently and she hasn't given them any time so self reflection is probably the best path at the moment. Moderation in all things, as some dude said in a book once.
Firstly are her thoughts on her team. She clearly needs to approach them with a more socially competent avenue than she has in the past. They need to figure stuff out, and she hasn't allowed them to benefit from her recent social improvements because she's too comfortable with them. Sasuke's downright protective of her quirks, and in Naruto's case she's thought that as long as they bond as siblings and she avoids killing stuff in front of him, they're great.
They clearly have independent thoughts, concerns, and motivations. A higher charm means she understands their individual agency better which means she can't just hide behind their team motto 'let's kill Itachi' and use it as a shield to avoid talking about awkward things. She had a real conversation with Neji and Tenten after Tenten almost died, she even had a real conversation with her parents about her new life and what it means; she needs to have a real conversation with her team.
Second are her thoughts on the organization that's after her. She's somehow managed to go beyond a simple bingo book entry. It's not bounty hunters after her, she's managed to cause an actual organization to try and behead her and her team is getting caught up in that. Clearly something about the way she does things is, or was, terribly wrong. Sasuke killing the Genin she was trying to save just a few moments ago showed her just how annoying her 'just kill the enemy' attitude really is, and maybe attempting to actively demoralize and scare the enemy shitless in that dungeon wasn't a great idea either. She needs to be more careful because it's not just her life she can screw up. At least, she needs to be careful until they're Jonin and any organization actively trying to kill her can just be blown up with sheer awesomeness. Death and terror makes enemies, and she's not strong enough to put up with the consequences of her own behavior.
That's not to say she'll never take out the enemy when it's required, but it shouldn't be her default response unless her team is on board. Their lives are at stake too.
Third, and probably most importantly, are her thoughts on this exam. Things are getting away from her, and Ino's quest is very concerning. That needs to be given a real discussion, probably tomorrow when it's looming and ominous and Naruto's starting to shake from anticipation. She's thinking of having him make a clone based explosive tag contingency, she figures either that'll be awesome or it won't work at all and she'd love to know which it is.
With a forlorn sigh she enters the camp, makes her way over, and plops down directly next to Naruto without a comment. She quickly pulls him into a side hug - this time for her - and starts looking through her traits. She's gained new ones, and it's about time she pays attention. No more of this finding out later garbage. Enemy eight is too much of a jump, and there's not even a lot of reason to put it off besides anxiety.
She can be better than that.
She wishes she'd seen that level up one at a time from two, she likely would have gotten this quest chain earlier. She should have checked it when she was attacked in Suna, it should have been obvious it was them that ruined her fun in the sand village if she'd just thought to get out of her own head and look at the world around her. By the look of that description, they'll be ruining her activity everywhere until they're gone. They're at the top of her list for problems to deal with as soon as she's out of this exam. Well, it's at the top of the list assuming the Hokage won't just let her hire a Jonin to deal with it for her, that'd be really cool. She's definitely asking him about it.
She imagines that was when Konohamaru blew them all up. That's a little much but she's not going to complain. Thank you Konohamaru.
… She kinda thought he like, literally meant his mother's soul or something. A freaking Biju likes her? Like personally? Well, she already knew the Kyuubi was okay with her since she checked the relationships and saw him there but… She shakes her head to move on, she'll be here all day if she doesn't move on. She doesn't have the slightest clue why that would be a thing, but she knows it's not some kind of murder frenzy related nonsense. If anything, Gaara's killing has gone down since he met her, if it was that she smells of blood, the Biju would hate her guts by now.
That's unsettling, but sweet. Very sweet. In that older brother that sorta scares you kind of way.
That's just insulting… Okay the bonus is really nice, but come on she's not that bad. If she had to take a guess she got that when she tried to protect Tenten before the exams, but like, they were bullying her friend. Anyone would have stepped in. Anyone that wouldn't have stepped in is a bad friend, that's just how the rules work.
She already saw Genin Charm and All-rounder during the exam, so… Three back to back traits catch her eyes.
The three of those are a little confusing. What does it mean by normal penalty? She was under the impression Inuzuka and Yamanaka clan techniques could technically be learned by anyone, and she has in fact learned a few small things from Ino. They even have a duo technique, albeit a small one, they used it during the first exam test. Does that mean those not raised into the clan have a harder time learning anything from them, or does it mean that any technique has a penalty of sorts if you're not attuned to it and those skills will have less penalty for her? Then there's the Hyuga skills, those require magic eyes! She does not have magic eyes! Is there some price she can pay for magic eyes? Because she would love magic eyes.
If nothing else, pranks with Konohamaru would be a lot easier without trying and failing to convince Hanabi to join.
She already kind of knew this after a certain… incident. It involved a lot of clones and a lot more property damage. She's still mad about that, Naruto will rue the day, rue it! The fact that she got to attend the exams and isn't in a cell was a pretty clear indicator that she is not a normal Genin. She's pretty sure any normal Genin involved in an incident that caused half a street block to be evacuated would not immediately be up for promotion. Luckily, since she is up for promotion, she just has to impress a third Jonin throughout the entire exam. That sounds rather easy, especially when she's helping the other Konoha teams pass. Technically it's the Hokage's final decision even if she has ten recommendations, but she's pretty sure if she gets the minimum three, the awe inspiring old man is going to promote her.
That confirms that Hunger's avatar in her head is real. That's nice, she wasn't really doubtful but the additional confirmation is good to have, and she really could have gotten that so much sooner if she'd just checked. Never again, she swears it now, she will not falter, she will not fail, she will check her status page every few days!
She's guaranteed to have gotten that in a moment she'd rather not think about if she can help it.
She vaguely remembers seeing it pop up in the corner of her vision, but unchecked prompts are only there for like two seconds and she was dealing with more important things. Dead dogs are not her ideal afternoon, but it was her afternoon for quite a while there. The Hokage thought she needed a vacation, Tsume thought she needed to work at a vet clinic. She reaches her hand out to the side, and her big undead dog pushes its snout into her palm. She's grateful it's learning so well, she's also grateful Tsume has stopped throwing her face first into doggy hospice and pretending it's a favor.
It certainly didn't feel like a favor.
That's alright, she doesn't mind it now and that's what matters. Though she's pretty sure she's only thought of that internally, did the system inject that into people's heads? Can it do that? Could she come up with any phrase and suddenly give it widespread use? That'd be awesome.
Given the last time she talked to her the teen walked away while doing everything she could to not flip her off, she's not sure why Temari gets a trait for this and Tenten doesn't. Would Tenten not consider it a life debt? She'd never cash in a life debt from her bun haired friend so it doesn't really matter but the difference is confusing. Do they have to dislike her for it to count, because a friend would just help her debt or not?
She'd step in front of Tenten infinite times out of ten, she's even got a trait to prove it.
Well that's… nice. Does that mean she got special treatment during the first exam, since it was run by Ibiki? Probably not but a lot of the seating was somewhat weird. Ino had suspiciously easy vision to the back of her head, and the route to Naruto from Ino's desk was entirely too easy and unlikely to be stopped. Was that intentional? Did Ibiki plan her actions before she did them? That'd be ridiculous, there's no way. She'd say she should ask when she's out but the odds she'll remember are fifty fifty, it's just not that important and there's a lot going on.
It's like six kids, not counting family, Inuzuka children, Yamanaka children… Hanabi. How many does a normal person befriend, like five? Why is that too many? This is ridiculous, she'd like to normalize knowing your neighbor's kids and sneaking them snacks. It's the only way a polite and just society should function.
As she explained to Iruka, that's a good thing. She is not changing her habits, she is happy about this.
That's scary, but she already knew that. At least she can officially get some documentation of her ownership now. Having it clear and official who owns Wave - err, Sakura Country - will make a few things easier. Like getting leave to go there and visit Inari, setting up a cool workshop to use Sakura Country's excess resources for her whimsy, and finding an excuse to visit the fire lord Daimyo as a diplomat. Afterall, she still needs to collect that reward from killing Fierro from the Daimyo.
She does need to ensure the KSH doesn't throw too many spies at Sakura country now that they're officially allied with her, but any infiltration attempt will likely be of the 'sit and wait for her to arrive so they can stab her a lot' variety, so it's not urgent. If they become residents they might actually help her, who cares if her willing minions hate her, they're still minions.
Their rival finds her cute. Is that demoralizing or is it a reason to make a cosplay costume for when they inevitably hunt him down? Maybe he'll let his guard down if she arrives with lace and a pretty pink bow. Whatever the case, they clearly need to get stronger before he'll take them seriously. It also means Itachi has spies in the exam, which is something she needs to write down and try to get to the Hokage at all costs. Unfortunately with Sasuke right there and being unhinged she can't just drop 'Itachi's possibly around' right now.
That's the last one, but also it's the one that has her blinking at it the most.
What in the Elemental Nations could that mean? Who has she inspired? Maybe it's months of sessions with Ino about her self values and how bad her previous ones were, maybe it's things like even Kakashi warning her not to piss off Gaara like she's some kind of time bomb, but the idea that she's inspiring people is about as shocking as suddenly getting mauled by a bear while having a picnic.
She focuses on it, and really thinks about the trait. When it doesn't pop up with a new system or window to tell her who she inspired or how to use it, she instead tries to figure out at least one person through deductive reasoning.
Maybe she could try Gaara? He's mentioned twice in her traits, there has to be a reason for it, and he is being a better person because she told him to be a better person.
What does it mean by reach out, is it a messaging system?
"Message Gaara." She sends a request to the air, getting an odd look from Naruto.
"Reach out to Gaara for help."
"What are you doing?" Naruto asks, just in time for her vision to fizzle.
The world tunnels into darkness at her peripherals, swirling her gaze into an out of bounds place far away. After a moment to clear some fog with a blink, only static remains.
For a small moment.
Well before she has to blink again, she finds her vision opens back up and she's staring at an older Blonde with spiky pigtails, and a guy in more make-up on than Ino's craziest day. Temari and Kankuro, Gaara's siblings. They're resting up in a tree, eating rice balls and watching another team wander by below. It's a Konoha team, in fact it's the one that ambushed her yesterday. Gaara shakes his head, informing them that they will not be attacking. It's good to know he's keeping up his promise to her even when she's not around, even if she's pretty sure she didn't explicitly say he couldn't take out any Konoha teams, just not mush them.
Maybe he doesn't know the difference.
… She.
She uh…
She isn't sure how to respond to this.
She can't do the third option, she's like one hundred percent sure she would explode if she borrowed even a notable amount of Gaara's chakra, assuming all Jinchuriki are even remotely the same in Chakra content. Maybe the system would give her some restraints or ways to not die, but she hasn't made it this far by taking dumb risks for no gain. Maybe she'll test that kind of thing sometime when she has a way to expel it quickly, and on someone less insanely powerful. She could get help designing a seal specifically to suck up excess chakra, maybe she could store it as fire chakra or something? That'd be a great way to train her fire affinity, which is the one she uses the most despite it being her second worst. It's Hunger's fault, he reacts positively to fire chakra and not a lot else besides more blood. She should use her personal jutsu more, she doesn't want to be reduced to a samurai role, she's a ninja!
Pulling Gaara away from his siblings would be bad for them and awkward for him which means the first option isn't viable. If he wanted to find her, he would, and if she wanted to find him, she has a summon not too far from him to direct her. The scroll said at later levels she can do things like attune to her summon's senses or blow them up from a distance, but for now she has nothing like that.
As for the second option, she's not even sure if sand would be useful here in the Forest of Death, since she's not in Suna and doesn't have Gaara's Gourd with her. What does it mean by watered down? Does it mean like mud, or does it mean weaker. How much so? She needs to test that once they're done with all this and there's no potential for backlash.
She has a lot of questions and she's not answering them right now because like, what if she takes his sand control and he doesn't have it and someone kills him or something?
She's not doing any of those right now, but the theory is solid, and if nothing else being able to look through the eyes of her allies is something she would like to learn outside of the one time she can use this trait per rest.
Suddenly having her vision back, she finds Naruto's staring into her eyes with a concerned look in his bright blues. "I tested a new thing." She explains. He doesn't look impressed. She needs to start communicating before she does crazy things, but that's right along the same lines as 'communicate more in general' so, baby steps.
That trait goes beyond her normal traits, she finds herself wondering just how far this system goes. Is her world a game it can interact with, or is it limited in some way?
As in pretty shortly here. If the idea is a hot button for you, it'll likely be your last stop here pretty soon. That's okay, you should read what makes you happy just like I write what makes me happy.
I thought the AU tag and the constant foreshadowing would be enough but my patron count is basically lit on fire and one of my supporters has made it very clear that when they see AU they think like "Sasuke's blonde" not "that."
So this is official notice.
---
So there is a reference in this chapter to a side story, if you haven't read them you might be confused.
It's largely a status update chapter, we need those sometimes.
Patreon just hit CH 139, they're on the last chapter of a mini-arc that hasn't even started here yet, when did things get so far.
Enjoy the chapter! Patreon/Discord link: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
Sasuke being annoyingly familiar to her past self aside, Sakura finds she's rather reflective on their way back to camp. She's always a little reflective, in fact going on accidental introspective rants is something she's trying to stop doing, but a lot of new thoughts have occurred to her recently and she hasn't given them any time so self reflection is probably the best path at the moment. Moderation in all things, as some dude said in a book once.
Firstly are her thoughts on her team. She clearly needs to approach them with a more socially competent avenue than she has in the past. They need to figure stuff out, and she hasn't allowed them to benefit from her recent social improvements because she's too comfortable with them. Sasuke's downright protective of her quirks, and in Naruto's case she's thought that as long as they bond as siblings and she avoids killing stuff in front of him, they're great.
They clearly have independent thoughts, concerns, and motivations. A higher charm means she understands their individual agency better which means she can't just hide behind their team motto 'let's kill Itachi' and use it as a shield to avoid talking about awkward things. She had a real conversation with Neji and Tenten after Tenten almost died, she even had a real conversation with her parents about her new life and what it means; she needs to have a real conversation with her team.
Second are her thoughts on the organization that's after her. She's somehow managed to go beyond a simple bingo book entry. It's not bounty hunters after her, she's managed to cause an actual organization to try and behead her and her team is getting caught up in that. Clearly something about the way she does things is, or was, terribly wrong. Sasuke killing the Genin she was trying to save just a few moments ago showed her just how annoying her 'just kill the enemy' attitude really is, and maybe attempting to actively demoralize and scare the enemy shitless in that dungeon wasn't a great idea either. She needs to be more careful because it's not just her life she can screw up. At least, she needs to be careful until they're Jonin and any organization actively trying to kill her can just be blown up with sheer awesomeness. Death and terror makes enemies, and she's not strong enough to put up with the consequences of her own behavior.
That's not to say she'll never take out the enemy when it's required, but it shouldn't be her default response unless her team is on board. Their lives are at stake too.
Third, and probably most importantly, are her thoughts on this exam. Things are getting away from her, and Ino's quest is very concerning. That needs to be given a real discussion, probably tomorrow when it's looming and ominous and Naruto's starting to shake from anticipation. She's thinking of having him make a clone based explosive tag contingency, she figures either that'll be awesome or it won't work at all and she'd love to know which it is.
With a forlorn sigh she enters the camp, makes her way over, and plops down directly next to Naruto without a comment. She quickly pulls him into a side hug - this time for her - and starts looking through her traits. She's gained new ones, and it's about time she pays attention. No more of this finding out later garbage. Enemy eight is too much of a jump, and there's not even a lot of reason to put it off besides anxiety.
She can be better than that.
| Enemy level 8 An organization with a small amount of global power has risen from the ashes and for whatever reason, they really don't like you. You can expect to regularly see them meddling in your affairs until they are removed or amends are made. |
She wishes she'd seen that level up one at a time from two, she likely would have gotten this quest chain earlier. She should have checked it when she was attacked in Suna, it should have been obvious it was them that ruined her fun in the sand village if she'd just thought to get out of her own head and look at the world around her. By the look of that description, they'll be ruining her activity everywhere until they're gone. They're at the top of her list for problems to deal with as soon as she's out of this exam. Well, it's at the top of the list assuming the Hokage won't just let her hire a Jonin to deal with it for her, that'd be really cool. She's definitely asking him about it.
| Blast Survivor You've been face to face with a powerful explosion and survived. You now take 25% less damage from explosions.] |
She imagines that was when Konohamaru blew them all up. That's a little much but she's not going to complain. Thank you Konohamaru.
| Shukaku Tamer For Whatever Reason, Shukaku of the sand adores you enough to be too busy wriggling in its mental sand space when you're nearby to poison its Jinchuriki's mind. |
… She kinda thought he like, literally meant his mother's soul or something. A freaking Biju likes her? Like personally? Well, she already knew the Kyuubi was okay with her since she checked the relationships and saw him there but… She shakes her head to move on, she'll be here all day if she doesn't move on. She doesn't have the slightest clue why that would be a thing, but she knows it's not some kind of murder frenzy related nonsense. If anything, Gaara's killing has gone down since he met her, if it was that she smells of blood, the Biju would hate her guts by now.
| Gaara's Most Precious Person Gaara's not just willing to kill for you, he's eager to. He would like to kill for you. Please give him people to kill for you. |
That's unsettling, but sweet. Very sweet. In that older brother that sorta scares you kind of way.
| Overprotective You've protected those you care about to your own detriment one too many times for it to be normal. You gain a 50% bonus to defensive stats if you're defending someone you care about, but you are overbearing and should probably back off a little. |
That's just insulting… Okay the bonus is really nice, but come on she's not that bad. If she had to take a guess she got that when she tried to protect Tenten before the exams, but like, they were bullying her friend. Anyone would have stepped in. Anyone that wouldn't have stepped in is a bad friend, that's just how the rules work.
She already saw Genin Charm and All-rounder during the exam, so… Three back to back traits catch her eyes.
| Honorary Hyuga Regardless of why, you now live with a Hyuga as your family. Should you be given the chance, you may learn Hyuga arts at only half the normal penalty.] |
| Honorary Yamanaka You are used to the Yamanaka arts. Enough so that should you be given the chance, you may learn Yamanaka Skills with only half the normal penalty |
| Honorary Inuzuka You have spent a lot of time at the Inuzuka compound, and have your own Ninken, kind of. Should you be given the opportunity, you may learn Inuzuka Skills with only half the normal penalty |
The three of those are a little confusing. What does it mean by normal penalty? She was under the impression Inuzuka and Yamanaka clan techniques could technically be learned by anyone, and she has in fact learned a few small things from Ino. They even have a duo technique, albeit a small one, they used it during the first exam test. Does that mean those not raised into the clan have a harder time learning anything from them, or does it mean that any technique has a penalty of sorts if you're not attuned to it and those skills will have less penalty for her? Then there's the Hyuga skills, those require magic eyes! She does not have magic eyes! Is there some price she can pay for magic eyes? Because she would love magic eyes.
If nothing else, pranks with Konohamaru would be a lot easier without trying and failing to convince Hanabi to join.
| Hokage's Protection The Hokage has taken a great liking to you, your political immunity is not great but it is not insignificant. |
She already kind of knew this after a certain… incident. It involved a lot of clones and a lot more property damage. She's still mad about that, Naruto will rue the day, rue it! The fact that she got to attend the exams and isn't in a cell was a pretty clear indicator that she is not a normal Genin. She's pretty sure any normal Genin involved in an incident that caused half a street block to be evacuated would not immediately be up for promotion. Luckily, since she is up for promotion, she just has to impress a third Jonin throughout the entire exam. That sounds rather easy, especially when she's helping the other Konoha teams pass. Technically it's the Hokage's final decision even if she has ten recommendations, but she's pretty sure if she gets the minimum three, the awe inspiring old man is going to promote her.
| Mother of Blood A Demon Sword calls you mom. You should probably be worried about that. |
That confirms that Hunger's avatar in her head is real. That's nice, she wasn't really doubtful but the additional confirmation is good to have, and she really could have gotten that so much sooner if she'd just checked. Never again, she swears it now, she will not falter, she will not fail, she will check her status page every few days!
| In Tune With Death You have both failed and succeeded in the art of death. Your ability to understand the cycle of life and death inherently has been increased. |
She's guaranteed to have gotten that in a moment she'd rather not think about if she can help it.
She vaguely remembers seeing it pop up in the corner of her vision, but unchecked prompts are only there for like two seconds and she was dealing with more important things. Dead dogs are not her ideal afternoon, but it was her afternoon for quite a while there. The Hokage thought she needed a vacation, Tsume thought she needed to work at a vet clinic. She reaches her hand out to the side, and her big undead dog pushes its snout into her palm. She's grateful it's learning so well, she's also grateful Tsume has stopped throwing her face first into doggy hospice and pretending it's a favor.
It certainly didn't feel like a favor.
| Murderbunny This Nickname will stick way longer than you want it to. |
That's alright, she doesn't mind it now and that's what matters. Though she's pretty sure she's only thought of that internally, did the system inject that into people's heads? Can it do that? Could she come up with any phrase and suddenly give it widespread use? That'd be awesome.
| Life Debt Temari Of Suna owes you a life debt, and would acknowledge it as such. |
Given the last time she talked to her the teen walked away while doing everything she could to not flip her off, she's not sure why Temari gets a trait for this and Tenten doesn't. Would Tenten not consider it a life debt? She'd never cash in a life debt from her bun haired friend so it doesn't really matter but the difference is confusing. Do they have to dislike her for it to count, because a friend would just help her debt or not?
She'd step in front of Tenten infinite times out of ten, she's even got a trait to prove it.
| Interrogation's Pet Haruno Everyone needs a pet Haruno. As far as they're concerned, you're the interrogation department's.] |
Well that's… nice. Does that mean she got special treatment during the first exam, since it was run by Ibiki? Probably not but a lot of the seating was somewhat weird. Ino had suspiciously easy vision to the back of her head, and the route to Naruto from Ino's desk was entirely too easy and unlikely to be stopped. Was that intentional? Did Ibiki plan her actions before she did them? That'd be ridiculous, there's no way. She'd say she should ask when she's out but the odds she'll remember are fifty fifty, it's just not that important and there's a lot going on.
| Great with Kids You have put time and effort into becoming friends with just way too many kids. You are now 100% better with children than you were before! Make your social checks with confidence! But seriously, maybe make friends your own age. |
It's like six kids, not counting family, Inuzuka children, Yamanaka children… Hanabi. How many does a normal person befriend, like five? Why is that too many? This is ridiculous, she'd like to normalize knowing your neighbor's kids and sneaking them snacks. It's the only way a polite and just society should function.
| Predictable At Home You largely follow a strict schedule when in Konoha. Others have a much higher chance of guessing where you are at any given time while you're on schedule. |
As she explained to Iruka, that's a good thing. She is not changing her habits, she is happy about this.
| Lord of Sakura Country You are now the known and renowned lord of Sakura Country, previously known as Wave. This will have political consequences. |
That's scary, but she already knew that. At least she can officially get some documentation of her ownership now. Having it clear and official who owns Wave - err, Sakura Country - will make a few things easier. Like getting leave to go there and visit Inari, setting up a cool workshop to use Sakura Country's excess resources for her whimsy, and finding an excuse to visit the fire lord Daimyo as a diplomat. Afterall, she still needs to collect that reward from killing Fierro from the Daimyo.
She does need to ensure the KSH doesn't throw too many spies at Sakura country now that they're officially allied with her, but any infiltration attempt will likely be of the 'sit and wait for her to arrive so they can stab her a lot' variety, so it's not urgent. If they become residents they might actually help her, who cares if her willing minions hate her, they're still minions.
| Itachi's Rival You announced to a large group of people that you and your team are going to kill Itachi. Itachi now knows this and is aware of your intentions. He finds your declaration, and you, adorable. |
Their rival finds her cute. Is that demoralizing or is it a reason to make a cosplay costume for when they inevitably hunt him down? Maybe he'll let his guard down if she arrives with lace and a pretty pink bow. Whatever the case, they clearly need to get stronger before he'll take them seriously. It also means Itachi has spies in the exam, which is something she needs to write down and try to get to the Hokage at all costs. Unfortunately with Sasuke right there and being unhinged she can't just drop 'Itachi's possibly around' right now.
| Hero The definition of a Hero is hotly debated, some think it's someone who does brave acts without ever thinking of themselves. Some think it's a title to be bought. Some believe it's someone that inspires others. That's you. You have inspired at least 10 other people to be better, and not just a little bit better. Once per full rest, you may reach out for help from someone you've inspired. They may help you in various ways depending on variables like distance, powerset, and the difference in stats between you and them. |
That's the last one, but also it's the one that has her blinking at it the most.
What in the Elemental Nations could that mean? Who has she inspired? Maybe it's months of sessions with Ino about her self values and how bad her previous ones were, maybe it's things like even Kakashi warning her not to piss off Gaara like she's some kind of time bomb, but the idea that she's inspiring people is about as shocking as suddenly getting mauled by a bear while having a picnic.
She focuses on it, and really thinks about the trait. When it doesn't pop up with a new system or window to tell her who she inspired or how to use it, she instead tries to figure out at least one person through deductive reasoning.
Maybe she could try Gaara? He's mentioned twice in her traits, there has to be a reason for it, and he is being a better person because she told him to be a better person.
What does it mean by reach out, is it a messaging system?
"Message Gaara." She sends a request to the air, getting an odd look from Naruto.
"Reach out to Gaara for help."
"What are you doing?" Naruto asks, just in time for her vision to fizzle.
The world tunnels into darkness at her peripherals, swirling her gaze into an out of bounds place far away. After a moment to clear some fog with a blink, only static remains.
For a small moment.
Well before she has to blink again, she finds her vision opens back up and she's staring at an older Blonde with spiky pigtails, and a guy in more make-up on than Ino's craziest day. Temari and Kankuro, Gaara's siblings. They're resting up in a tree, eating rice balls and watching another team wander by below. It's a Konoha team, in fact it's the one that ambushed her yesterday. Gaara shakes his head, informing them that they will not be attacking. It's good to know he's keeping up his promise to her even when she's not around, even if she's pretty sure she didn't explicitly say he couldn't take out any Konoha teams, just not mush them.
Maybe he doesn't know the difference.
| You have Reached out to Gaara of the Sand for help, he is within range for maximum benefits. What would you like to do? 1. Summon Gaara to your side 2. Borrow a watered down version of his Sand Control for 1 hour 3. Borrow Chakra |
… She.
She uh…
She isn't sure how to respond to this.
She can't do the third option, she's like one hundred percent sure she would explode if she borrowed even a notable amount of Gaara's chakra, assuming all Jinchuriki are even remotely the same in Chakra content. Maybe the system would give her some restraints or ways to not die, but she hasn't made it this far by taking dumb risks for no gain. Maybe she'll test that kind of thing sometime when she has a way to expel it quickly, and on someone less insanely powerful. She could get help designing a seal specifically to suck up excess chakra, maybe she could store it as fire chakra or something? That'd be a great way to train her fire affinity, which is the one she uses the most despite it being her second worst. It's Hunger's fault, he reacts positively to fire chakra and not a lot else besides more blood. She should use her personal jutsu more, she doesn't want to be reduced to a samurai role, she's a ninja!
Pulling Gaara away from his siblings would be bad for them and awkward for him which means the first option isn't viable. If he wanted to find her, he would, and if she wanted to find him, she has a summon not too far from him to direct her. The scroll said at later levels she can do things like attune to her summon's senses or blow them up from a distance, but for now she has nothing like that.
As for the second option, she's not even sure if sand would be useful here in the Forest of Death, since she's not in Suna and doesn't have Gaara's Gourd with her. What does it mean by watered down? Does it mean like mud, or does it mean weaker. How much so? She needs to test that once they're done with all this and there's no potential for backlash.
She has a lot of questions and she's not answering them right now because like, what if she takes his sand control and he doesn't have it and someone kills him or something?
She's not doing any of those right now, but the theory is solid, and if nothing else being able to look through the eyes of her allies is something she would like to learn outside of the one time she can use this trait per rest.
| You have used your Hero Bonus, please rest before trying again. |
Suddenly having her vision back, she finds Naruto's staring into her eyes with a concerned look in his bright blues. "I tested a new thing." She explains. He doesn't look impressed. She needs to start communicating before she does crazy things, but that's right along the same lines as 'communicate more in general' so, baby steps.
That trait goes beyond her normal traits, she finds herself wondering just how far this system goes. Is her world a game it can interact with, or is it limited in some way?
I think it was pretty clear that it was a major au, no worries. It's already been shown that there are DND Style worlds somehow connected to Naruto-land that have regularly interacted with it for a long time, and Shikamaru implied Minato and another unnamed historical figure also had the gamer power.
Sendicard
Spreading Smiles
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
Yeah well when I lose $40 a month over the course of a week I have to blink and go "shit did I not warn enough? I feel like my supporters should be the most aware this was happening, and the least blindsided. I've gone on extensive rants in the discord."
BethofDeath
Girls just wanna have pun
- Location
- Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Remember how... unintelligent the average person is.
Then realize half are dumber than that.
Then remember the deleterious effects of a intentionally-dysfunctional public education system in the US, combined with portions of the Internet designed to inculcate foolishness, upon those levels.
People in the US have somewhere around a 6th/7th grade average reading comprehension level, after all. And there are mean jokes about the Naruto fandom, beyond that. There's guaranteed to always be some jerk on the interwebz making a fool of himself with a whiny demonstration of Missing The Obvious.
The loss of income sucks, for sure, but I for one enjoy it when the stations of canon get razed to the ground. I would be a Patron if not for my poverty-level income and the need for saving to flee somewhere safer, there's nothing wrong with your writing that I can see and plenty right with it. ^_^
Edit: Oops, I misremembered, it's worse than that: "(54%) of Americans between the ages of 16 and 74 read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level"
Then realize half are dumber than that.
Then remember the deleterious effects of a intentionally-dysfunctional public education system in the US, combined with portions of the Internet designed to inculcate foolishness, upon those levels.
People in the US have somewhere around a 6th/7th grade average reading comprehension level, after all. And there are mean jokes about the Naruto fandom, beyond that. There's guaranteed to always be some jerk on the interwebz making a fool of himself with a whiny demonstration of Missing The Obvious.
The loss of income sucks, for sure, but I for one enjoy it when the stations of canon get razed to the ground.
I would be a Patron if not for my poverty-level income and the need for saving to flee somewhere safer, there's nothing wrong with your writing that I can see and plenty right with it. ^_^Edit: Oops, I misremembered, it's worse than that: "(54%) of Americans between the ages of 16 and 74 read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level"
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Sendicard
Spreading Smiles
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
Thank you.The loss of income sucks, for sure, but I for one enjoy it when the stations of canon get razed to the ground.
It's fine. I've said many times that if every single patron left, the only consequence on this story would be that updates would go to once every other week.
Which would suck for everyone, myself included, but I would need to work on another project.
I honestly need to figure out another project anyway, I am falling further into debt every month XD
I'm more worried that I'm apparently blindsiding people than I am about the money.
I'm kinda late to the party here but the title of the story itself should be a very obvious sign that it's AU af.
Once you're past the first few chapters it becomes glaringly obvious that canon can not happen anymore because Sakura butterflied most of it away already.
If anyone gets surprised by the fact that the story is AU at this point, then that's totally on them.
Once you're past the first few chapters it becomes glaringly obvious that canon can not happen anymore because Sakura butterflied most of it away already.
If anyone gets surprised by the fact that the story is AU at this point, then that's totally on them.
Sendicard
Spreading Smiles
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
Yeah, it swerves though a little bit.
You'll see.
We're approaching the awesome shit. I'm so excited for the next few chapters. Practically vibrating ya'll.
Sendicard
Spreading Smiles
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
That sounds amazing.
I happen to know quite a few people who would adore that.