Dromeosaur
Feathery Raptor of snowy planes and frozen sea
- Location
- The land of Trees and Squirrels
So much better then canon ever could portray. Thank you for the fic!
Sakura Haruno The Gaming Addict, and Her Gamified Life [Naruto]
- Thread starter Sendicard
- Start date
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
Thank you.
It means a lot. I see a little backlash every chapter, nothing huge but enough for me to know I'm probably losing a reader here or there.
That's just the nature of stories, people lose interest, people don't like decisions, hell I'm ridiculously selective on what I read. I get it.
The fact that I get 100 positive ratings within the first 12 hours is proof that people like the story, (I had to turn off push notifications it was driving me nuts) but it's a totally different thing for a stream of people to come out all at once and say "This is good, I liked this."
I've had projects that went this far before, but this is the first time I've felt like I could make it last.
I actually have Ch 9 and 10 mostly written and just need to edit them, which is huge. I've never written anything in advance before.
It's fun, and I love it.
And I'm happy you love it too.
NexysDhyArchen
Throne Breaker
I feel like I should apologize at this point. I still hold some aspects as disappointing, but the vast amount of this story IS enjoyable. Especially the Team 7 dynamics of each member growing towards and from each other. I'm also noting down just how easily and readily Kakashi jives Sakura's Gamer lingo. Makes me wonder how much is just him being a Genius Shinobi, and how much is him also being a Gamer Otaku. The idea of his book actually being a hardback Game Guide...
Regardless, I'm now going to like bomb your thread. And again I apologize for how I came across with my last critique.
Regardless, I'm now going to like bomb your thread. And again I apologize for how I came across with my last critique.
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
You should probably have a little of my background.
As a teenager, I had over 4000 reviews on fanfiction, many of them hypercritical. Sometimes harmfully. I killed stories, I used to get a weekly message about someone who stopped writing because I showed them that they had no talent.
And then I decided I needed to learn how to give constructive criticism without hurting people. I had a pretty successful time after that.
A few years ago I went through the TVtropes for Naruto fanfics and had worked as an advisor for at least one chapter for easily half of the fics there. Some of which I helped them with their pieces for years.
I once found out a guy I was talking to at that moment was the hero of another guy who I was also talking to, and had them talking within five minutes.
I ran an actual network of high-profile writers, information gatherers, and once used it to get a gay teen getting kicked out of his house into another home within three hours. (Looking back I really hope they weren't murderers, teens shouldn't have that much power they don't think.)
And I did all of this, because I gave critiques and appreciated the value of constructive feedback, after I got a lot more nuanced about it because I wanted to stop hurting people.
So when you came out and called sue, my response was not "how dare he criticize me."
It was to think about it. I genuinely thought about whether or not my Sakura is a sue given the context, analyzed it, thought through it, and realized it was just flat out wrong from a critical perspective. Then I replied.
Most game style stories are based in settings where the majority of people involved are normal humans, and they receive broken abilities and powers on the daily. The meta is for them to build magic intelligence bullshit builds because they become so broken the "player" doesn't even have to do things to achieve their goals.
You called sue after a genin - who is still largely a genin after over a month - took out two of the weakest enemies in all of canon.
She took out people who existed, literally, to be mooks. In a setting where the average combatant is significantly stronger than her, actively.
There are numbers to prove and show that.
And you didn't do so in a constructive way, it was just negative.
Is she a sue in a normal work? Maybe, probably even. She's got magical gaming powers, that's pretty sue.
Is she a sue in a gamer work? No.
I don't want an apology for you criticizing my work. You're allowed to do that. I'd appreciate it if most negative sentiments were sent to my DM instead of the public thread, but I don't get to be mad someone didn't cater to my snowflake desires.
I want you to take a moment to think through whether what you're saying is helpful, before you throw out negativity.
Writers are fragile, and the desire to write is so precious.
I didn't sit here and think "Wow this guy's an asshole" I thought "Fuck, I've done that..."
And then I was sad you probably stopped reading when I had liked your feedback prior. I'm happy to hear you're still reading.
Much like Naruto, you're wanted, and welcome here.
NexysDhyArchen
Throne Breaker
I'm going to apologize for calling "SUE! >:[" because, yes, that WAS wrong of me. I was acting largely off of a frustrating day and letting myself post in a... let's say spurnful mood. I still have some criticisms, but I'll DM those later after I have taken time to be clear and complete.
Damn, wholesome stuff in the Story AND in out of Story, what a world. Now This does put a smile on my face.
AnantaAtman
I wandered, I watched, I judged
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is one of the best Naruto fanfics I have ever read period.
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
That's very sad.
Most of this is rough drafts given one edit pass because until very recently it was a passion project and aint nobody got time to edit a passion project.
That's less a statement on the quality of this and more a statement of the medium as a whole.
I hope you find other fics that make you happy.
Until then, hopefully this one will continue to make your day.
Writing is fun! Writing a little better than you've written before is fun and satisfying! Proofreading and editing is a long, boring slog followed by, if you've already posted, a highly tedious exercise in updating existing chapters.
This is a fun fic, and I do enjoy the premise and execution.
Other Naruto fics I've enjoyed include Retrograde Motion (also Sakura centric), which is quite good. Also some more guilty pleasures.
This is a fun fic, and I do enjoy the premise and execution.
Other Naruto fics I've enjoyed include Retrograde Motion (also Sakura centric), which is quite good. Also some more guilty pleasures.
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
It's worse for me. I've done my own editing in a professional setting for so damn long that I can't let anything be.
An actual edit basically involves rewriting entire segments, reversing the order of entire sentences, redesigns of entire segments.
Chapter 8 was the first chapter that got a proper edit, so you should notice a rather large difference between it and before it.
Or worse, you won't.
There's a fun little facet in writing, it applies to art too. It's a growth curve which shows two different aspects of a graph. Your ability to recognize quality improvements past a certain point, and your ability to create quality improvements past a certain point.
Studies have shown this as the reason why someone has brief periods while getting better where they aren't feeling progress, and why sometimes they feel like their work is terrible despite being objectively better than before.
Studies have also shown that this means a majority of readers can't tell the difference between two qualities after a certain extent.
What this means, is that I could spend 5 minutes editing a piece, or 2 hours, and there's a vast majority of the population that couldn't tell the difference.
I don't edit passion projects.
Last edited:
Hexcalibur
Not So Ordinary Sword
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- It
Just found this story and I like this it. Hopefully the MC (in this case Sakura) doesn't become an ass like many gamer MC. They often view life as a game after getting their gamer powers and lost touch with reality (either that or reality bend to their will).
It was funny how awestruck Sakura and her family were when Naruto used his shadow clones to clean the house.
It was funny how awestruck Sakura and her family were when Naruto used his shadow clones to clean the house.
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
I mean she is definitely losing touch with reality, but not in the way you're worried about.
Dromeosaur
Feathery Raptor of snowy planes and frozen sea
- Location
- The land of Trees and Squirrels
That makes sense. This should be fun for you! Thanks for the advise.
An Edgy Girl gets a Quest, and Finds her Old Gameboy!
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
"This smells, bad." Sakura enunciates, her nose wriggling and wrinkling while she tries to block out the offensive odor of the town before her. It's old, and run down, and she can't help but notice the poverty stricken homeless at every turn. Children, old men, strong men who could make a better life for themselves if they were just given an opportunity.
She's not exactly a prim princess, she'll admit how just a little while ago she wasn't even brushing her hair. Even by her standards, this is disgusting. She doesn't even want to lean against the walls when they stop for a break for Tazuna's sake, because the grime and dirt is so thick and malleable.
They're here to buy ingredients for dinner. Tazuna has the money - unlike most of these people - to splurge occasionally and having a bunch of ninja protect him has his hopes up enough he'd like to do just that. She can't fault him for it, living an okay life is not something to feel guilty about. It's not like he's got money overflowing and he's criticizing the homeless. He actually looks like he feels quite bad, but one cannot let themselves get distracted by those only a category below them. It's a good way to self destruct, and you're useful to no one when you helped so many people you yourself became a burden. For Tazuna, that number is probably three.
"What's happening here?" Sakura asks, after a very long walk where Tazuna hasn't said a word. "Tazuna." She finally asked his name last night, and by the way he perks up she's glad she did. "You know, right?"
"I, would rather not get into it." He sighs as they walk right into a run down storefront. There's nothing here. They're supposed to be buying ingredients, but there's a leek there, a rotten apple there, a cinnamon stick - not sticks, lone, one stick - and from what she can see there's a few spices in the back that are covered in dust. No one buys them anymore, they're too busy focusing on survival.
"You're going to have to." Sakura asserts. "Or I'm going to report this to Kakashi. This isn't about bandits." Bandits can't do something like this, bandits can harm the individual, bandits can harm trade, bandits would be murdered long before they could systematically dismantle a town to the extent that there's not even things to buy. The shopkeeper is here for no reason, none, they likely wouldn't even stop someone who came in and stole what was left.
It's something to do, in a life with nothing else. A precious relic of their past they can't let go of, now that the rest has turned to dust. "Please don't do that." Is Tazuna's response. Not denial, not begging, a simple request.
"I don't want to." She says. "I want to solve this. I'm not a pretty little girl, I'm a pragmatist." Her hand lands on her sword handle, and she can feel her rage bubbling up from deep. It helps her channel herself, feel centered, but she's also pretty sure it infects her with something in exchange. Her eyes changing a bright red every time she channels it, and sometimes without, cannot be mistaken for benevolence.
The moment she gets back to Konoha, she's finding a master smith and having him tell her what the fuck is up. For now, it's comforting and she needs it. For now, it's what she's relying on to get her message across to a stubborn old man who won't even look at her while denying her the information she needs. A little bit of blood makes her eyes glow, and that's what she needs for her words to really land.
"I don't want to walk away from something like this. A princess might be scared, but me, Tazuna, I'm pissed. There's a rage bubbling up from deep within me and it whispers into my head. It's saying to kill, it's saying to burn, it's begging me to find every single person responsible for what I've seen today and leave them in a pile of broken bones so that when I cast my first fire jutsu its to the sound of a hundred screams, each one just individual enough for me to make out the lingering loss of evil as it leaves this world." She needs to learn a fire jutsu now, because that sounded cool. She'll ask Sasuke after she gets the fire affinity training done.
She takes a step towards him, and watches as the man flinches. Her sword makes a slight shing as it begins to leave its sheathe for dramatic effect. She's watched enough dramatic cutscenes to know how to make a stage play. "You will tell me who did this, or you will be amongst the crowd as just another bystander doing nothing while a little girl came to the rescue. Can you live with that?"
"I…" He gapes. "Sakura, that man's robbing you."
"Tell me if my switch is broken!" She shouts while looking behind her at a man ruffling through her pack. He looks stunned, but flabbergasted is probably a better word for it. He's a bit older, and he's got his hands deep into her stuff. She'd really like him to answer so she can spare herself the horrifying check, but it really doesn't look like the older grizzled man is going to say explain the state of her recently sworded pack.
"What's a-"
"Fuck it." She spins on her heel, kicks out his knees, and then slams a hand into his chest as he falls. His crash into the wooden floorboards below are enough to shake the store. She held back, noting his age and not wanting to shatter him in places he couldn't possibly recover, but then if he didn't want to get hurt he shouldn't have robbed a ninja.
The fact that she's not obviously a ninja right now, what with all her armor and stuff still sworded in the pack, doesn't pass her by.
Back to her original stance, she glares at Tazuna. "That doesn't just happen, what the fuck is going on here you drunken bastard?!"
"You Konoha ninja are needlessly intense." Tazuna coughs, a hand over his mouth. "Wave's shipping prices are larger than its gains, we're slowly dying, that's why I'm building a bridge."
Her gaze softens, just a little.
But it doesn't fade completely. "You're hiding something."
"Aren't you?" He asks.
It takes her a second, but she fully hilts her blade, letting her beautiful eyes return to their pretty innocence. "Fine."
It's not five minutes later that she's observing the wreckage of a once vibrant town - it had to have been, it couldn't have gotten to this size if it wasn't - and angrily scowling at the remains of what once was. Color comes from creativity, creativity comes from joy and safety. Nothing here is safe, nothing here is happy, but the variance shines through to tell her of a once thriving community. She's staring at a graveyard of freedom, of peace, of prosperity in a way Konoha barely manages on its good days.
It's rotting, and there's nothing she can do about it.
She feels something behind her, and this time she's a little calmer, it's easier to pay attention to him, and get a proper measure. "It's a child." She says suddenly, looking behind her at a surprised boy, ensuring Tazuna she's not about to wreck this kid for fun. He looks relieved, which is enough for her.
"What do you want?" She asks the boy, girl, whatever, standing behind her as she fully turns around.
"Uh-" His voice cracks a little before a full word gets through. She's decided he's a boy, he can correct her if he feels like it.
"He wants money, Sakura." Tazuna says gently, knowing this is just more evidence on the pile that something is wrong. The moment lingers. The child looking a little guilty at her gaze, but not running away. The very chance she might give him money instead of hitting him is enough for him to stay even with her hand on her sword.
Death by sword is preferable to starvation. She understands, she just doesn't want to. She wants this to never have been an issue that would require understanding. Sadly, her life a game or not, she doesn't seem to have control of the plot.
He holds out his hands. He looks so dirty, so scraggly. His hair is tangled, and his gaze is cold and burdened by pain despite the cutesy style he manages to fake. He's in ratty clothes that cover down to his ankles, and she casually tries to pretend the holes littered through them wouldn't make it worse at protecting him from harsh nights.
"This is all I have. Tell your friends if they try this again they'll die." She says, her insides squirming at the threat. It's easy to threaten Tazuna and mean it, it's easy to hit some older guy robbing her.
It's another thing entirely to threaten a child, and she knows she's bad at lying so she has to mean it for it to be taken seriously. She's not sure she pulls meaning it off. She's not sure she wants to have pulled it off.
He brightens up at her words, latching onto the implied concept that she's going to give him something. So when she does, he's over the moon. She plops a whole damn wallet in his hands. "Take it and run."
There's a silence after the kid runs away, a moment where she has to catch her breath and remind herself why she's here. That she did the right thing there, and that the overwhelming coldness flowing through her from her heart is a defense mechanism, not guilt. "Why'd you give that kid a wallet?" Tazuna breaks the silence after a long moment.
"Wasn't mine." She admits with a shrug, its owner is dead, why shouldn't it help someone live? It's a ding that gets her attention, and without a moment of hesitance she looks up at her new notification. "Who's Gato?"
"Huh?!"
"He's responsible for what's happening here, right?" Sakura asks, taking note of the quest alert. "You have to know something about him. Don't lie to me, Tazuna, I spoke on this just a minute ago."
"So you did know…" He looks away from her, reaching up to scratch the back of his head awkwardly, his demeanor shifting seriously. More serious even than back in the store. Perhaps it's being small, or young, but even with blazing red eyes he couldn't truly consider her a threat.
No, it takes her a moment to put it together, but he still believes Kakashi's story. That she had gotten impaled to protect him, and not her boys.
He thinks she'll die for him, why would he be intimidated by anything she does? If only she'd realized that before she probably gave the shopkeeper a heart attack.
"He's a very bad man trying to keep wave like this. As a shipping magnate, he's made it illegal for boats to leave that aren't his, holding a huge tax on all exported goods, and on imported goods."
"So you told the truth in the store, just not the whole truth." She surmises. "Building a bridge will really help that much?"
"It's either that or kill him, and I couldn't hire assassins, that's too much even for me. Principles are all an old man like me has." She has to hold back a laugh at a drunk saying something like that. "Wave was barely holding on before he took over, we'd had a poor few years due to some internal strife and bad winters, so what you see around you now is a slow economic death brought about from years of breaking a little less than even. As people eat less, they work less, and slowly but surely…"
"So the bridge'll help." She asserts. "But money would help faster."
"An influx of cash would be useful, but without the bridge, we'll end up back here eventually no matter how much money we get. To be truthful, I imagine an influx of food would do us better than any cash."
That's fine, she thinks. Gato's dead the first clear anyway.
Five clears… how does she justify to her team five clears of the same dungeon?
How does that even work, will it generate more people for them to fight? Probably, that's how it works in every game she's ever played. She does have to wonder how it'll do that though.
But that kinda guy has to have real protectors, especially if his treasure is hidden there.
"Don't worry, we'll free this land. It's what leaf ninja do." It's not. Historically there's been very little freeing of anything, a ninja's version of liberation is to blow it up. She'll change that for Wave though, at least this time.
The earth release training technique is even more simple than the water technique. Instead of filling a flask with water, she touches the ground and moves it without strength. The idea is to channel her chakra into it, then move it with her hand. If it moves like air, she's put enough chakra into it and converted it to the right chakra. It's a low level ninjutsu mostly made to help builders fix foundations and make dirt roads, but it has a lot of utility. It's mostly overshadowed by much better landscaping ninjutsu, but it's where every earth based ninja starts.
A lot of ninja learn it just for a back up job for if they get crippled on a mission. She probably doesn't have to worry about that though…
She masters it within a day just like water, and finds herself very happy to see the familiar alert.
[You have gained Earth Affinity Level 1, all Earth jutsu will be more effective and cheaper.]
It really isn't even effort. It's like her body was made for Earth.
"I really hope they all come that easily." She looks hopefully at the box.
A lot of Ninja only have one element, she's really lucky to have two.
She won't be satisfied until she has them all.
"Inari." She wanders into the boys room without the slightest care in the world. He looks up quickly, frightened but mostly distressed by something beyond her imagination.
Or it would have been beyond her imagination, before today. "You're scared?"
His fragile nod makes her heart twinge a little. "Can't talk about it because your grandpa told you not to?" The next nod makes it break.
"Tell you what, let's calm us both down. I'm a little jittery myself."
It only takes her a few seconds to pick the boy up, sit on his bed, and place him in her lap. Before he can ask what, she places a rectangular box of joy and justice in his hands. "This is a gameboy." She explains. "Hold it like this, and press the buttons to make things happen."
Going through her pack sucked, but she had to do it to make sure that guy didn't get any of her essentials. The moment she'd gotten home she'd gone through it to count the casualties. Just like she'd expected, her clothes are fucked. They got cut in half, and torn to bits by her energetic, ridiculously angry sword. Her switch was comfortably cushioned by the clothes, thankfully it wasn't sworded.
It was impaled by a little black box of metal she'd forgotten she'd stored in there just in case over a month ago. That box contained righteous glory, and her only salvation in a world without.
It contained her gameboy, and a ton of batteries. It's not as high tech or stunning as her switch, and it definitely loses out on a sheer race of fun, but if it's her gameboy or nothing, she'll let Inari play some damn Mario while she watches.
Some might think Sakura'd wanna play, that she'd intrude on the boy's first experience. She's happy to watch, just like she'd be happy to watch any streamer's first time playing a cool and exciting new genre or game. It's fascinating how a newbie views the world, it's more fascinating how much a child can struggle with something so simple as how to jump or run in a game. Simple concepts she doesn't even need the most basic tutorial for now are so foreign she has to help him run through it. She'd always thought of games like Mario as very beginner friendly, so having to explain the controls to him again and again is novel. "I guess I've taken for granted what's confounding to you, huh. I guess that's this whole situation, isn't it."
At his awkward nod, she squeezes him.
"So you're not always rude." Tsunami's voice catches her by surprise. Sakura thinks it's Tsunami anyway, the older woman from dinner the other night. She didn't really ask, she had to catch it in passing. And this boy's name is, Inari, right? He responded to it earlier, it has to be something close.
Tsunami, Inari, Tamaru? No, no, Tsunami, Inari, Taazuma? Shit, she already forgot his name again!
"No, I am." Sakura says after a long silence of thought. "I barged in here without asking. We just don't respect the space of a child the same we do the space of an adult."
"Don't ruin the moment." Tsunami says.
"Sorry." She helps Inari jump onto a platform, showing him how, then jumps down and makes him do it.
She's got a lot of smiles in her soul today, Today she's gonna try to learn fire, but first, Naruto didn't come home last night. He hasn't come back since Kakashi started him on this damned tree walking jutsu slash technique. While he's doing much better after she explained it to him, he's still struggling to comprehend her explanation. Sasuke's had it for a while now, which only makes the blond boy angrier. Luckily, it seems she's his true rival in recent times, so he's not taking that anger out on Sasuke. Siblings can be angry at each-other, it's okay.
She's got breakfast in her pack for him, and-
-she hides behind a tree. "Who…" There's a cute girl talking with Naruto while holding a basket. Her outfit has some pink to it - something she appreciates - but she looks a little too nice for Wave. Wave is dirty, Wave is destroyed, Wave doesn't even bathe that regularly despite literally being called Wave. This girl is clean, she's kept, she's pretty. She wasn't even clean, kept, and pretty until recently and she wasn't even in a destroyed village.
That's five seconds.
"Naruto get down." She's fast, she can give herself that much credit. Maybe she's not a chunin, but with Naruto's help it shouldn't be that hard right? Drawing her blade as she runs is like breathing. It leaves its place in her sheath before the third step, and is in a full swing just before she reaches them. She's not sure why a ninja is talking to Naruto, but if it's not Naruto, Sasuke, her or Kakashi, they're either a random encounter or with Gato or both and like hell she's losing her teammate to some subterfuge bullshit!
The sword flares to life with power before the swing is fully completed, and she's happy to see it go right through the enemy and not Naruto. He can listen to hasty instructions like that, unlike her, so Naruto's on the ground watching.
She wishes she didn't have to warn Naruto like that and give her attack away, catching the enemy by surprise is very important, but there's just not much she can do about that without a silent means of communication. She'll need to work one out.
She has a brief instant to begin a smile at an easy victory, before she realizes how little resistance that gave. "Wha-" Water splashes her, and she has just enough time to turn on a dime before a kick lands right in her face and sends her flipping. This time she knows better, this time she doesn't drop her sword. Instead, before she hits the ground she stabs it into the dirt and uses it to slow her down, skidding across the ground and cutting a brazen path of dirt and stone. This cool new technique lets her land on her feet instead of face first into a tree, even if it's dramatic as all hell and probably bad for her sword. Her vision is blurry, but she can vaguely make out the ninja standing behind Naruto. She can't speak, the words get garbled in her throat while the threat grabs Naruto by his neck, picks him up from the ground, and positions a senbon at his eye. "S-sakura we were just talking, could you both um…"
"Shut up, Naruto." Sakura grunts, lifting the hungry sword vibrating with energy. She knows her eyes have changed again, but she doesn't care. There are some heavy implications to Kakashi giving her this sword. Was he trying to teach her some lesson, or was he trying to get her killed? Is she lucky she happened to be given an incredibly powerful weapon that works well for her but wouldn't most people, or was that the game system influencing Kakashi's choice? How far does it go? At what point is it Kakashi being a dick, or Kakashi being helpful with a dickish choice her powers made him choose?
Is she a Diety's plaything, or is she Sakura Haruno, leaf ninja and Naruto's teammate?
She doesn't have the slightest clue, but she does know is Naruto's in danger, possibly because of her. She'll die again before she lets him get hurt.
"You're doing well." The girl says with a voice that hits her as oddly androgynous. In fact, a look-
"Holy shit it's a femboy." Sakura's eyes widen, and she manages to choke out an exclaim even she wasn't expecting. "You should start a streaming career, I'd watch you."
"... Sakura, is this really the-"
"Look how pretty he is!" Sakura gasps, sword's power flickering a little as her excitement goes in an entirely different direction. "Would you like some fangirls? My teammate has a lot of them and we'd like to offload them, no refunds."
"You're not taking this seriously." The femboy says, with that pretty face, those pretty lips, and those pretty eyelashes. "Trying to deescalate after you escalated?" Those pretty eyes look her right over, trying to figure out who she is, what she is, what her sword is. She sees right through her, she just has to hope they want the same thing. "We can do that. I'd rather not kill either of you. Especially not after I went through all the effort to save you."
"It was you." Sakura says, not letting the sword blaze out but lowering the power in it enough to let her own eyes return to their normal colorful innocence. At least she hopes she does, that'd really help matters. It has to have a minimum threshold, right? "Why?"
"We'll trade info for info." The femboy says with a simple smile, lowering the senbon from Naruto's eye to his neck. He actually tickles Naruto with it, causing the boy to twitch awkwardly and hold back a laugh. She's glad he can maintain comedic sense in a situation like this. She's not sure if that's her fault or if Naruto is just goofy by nature. "You were almost dead when I found you. How are you up and on your feet and looking fine?"
"My life's a game and only the last hit point matters." Sakura says without flinching. She can't lie, Naruto's in danger, she has to tell the truth and she doesn't have nearly enough time to come up with a lie that's technically true enough. She'll have to work out a few, for future use. "I'll always get back up unless you take me down permanently, and I'm actually not completely sure if I really die even then."
"If you're going to mock me-" The boy's hands bring the senbon back up to Naruto's eye.
"I think she's serious," Naruto gulps, "Sakura can't lie."
"... I see. I'll explain here tomorrow, today's mood is already too hostile," with that Naruto's thrown forward, Sakura drops her sword to rushes forward and catch him in her arms, "arrive alone."
Sakura holds him close, as the dangerous boy disappears into thin air. She squeezes him, sighing in relief and taking in how her own hasty actions almost got Naruto hurt. Is the sword influencing her aggression, or just helping her do what she would have wanted to do anyway? That was stupid.
That was really stupid.
"Sakura, that was really scary." Naruto whines into her.
"I know, Naruto." She rubs his back, as the sword loses the rest of its power on the ground. "Excited to do it again tomorrow?"
"Wha, no!"
She's not exactly a prim princess, she'll admit how just a little while ago she wasn't even brushing her hair. Even by her standards, this is disgusting. She doesn't even want to lean against the walls when they stop for a break for Tazuna's sake, because the grime and dirt is so thick and malleable.
They're here to buy ingredients for dinner. Tazuna has the money - unlike most of these people - to splurge occasionally and having a bunch of ninja protect him has his hopes up enough he'd like to do just that. She can't fault him for it, living an okay life is not something to feel guilty about. It's not like he's got money overflowing and he's criticizing the homeless. He actually looks like he feels quite bad, but one cannot let themselves get distracted by those only a category below them. It's a good way to self destruct, and you're useful to no one when you helped so many people you yourself became a burden. For Tazuna, that number is probably three.
"What's happening here?" Sakura asks, after a very long walk where Tazuna hasn't said a word. "Tazuna." She finally asked his name last night, and by the way he perks up she's glad she did. "You know, right?"
"I, would rather not get into it." He sighs as they walk right into a run down storefront. There's nothing here. They're supposed to be buying ingredients, but there's a leek there, a rotten apple there, a cinnamon stick - not sticks, lone, one stick - and from what she can see there's a few spices in the back that are covered in dust. No one buys them anymore, they're too busy focusing on survival.
"You're going to have to." Sakura asserts. "Or I'm going to report this to Kakashi. This isn't about bandits." Bandits can't do something like this, bandits can harm the individual, bandits can harm trade, bandits would be murdered long before they could systematically dismantle a town to the extent that there's not even things to buy. The shopkeeper is here for no reason, none, they likely wouldn't even stop someone who came in and stole what was left.
It's something to do, in a life with nothing else. A precious relic of their past they can't let go of, now that the rest has turned to dust. "Please don't do that." Is Tazuna's response. Not denial, not begging, a simple request.
"I don't want to." She says. "I want to solve this. I'm not a pretty little girl, I'm a pragmatist." Her hand lands on her sword handle, and she can feel her rage bubbling up from deep. It helps her channel herself, feel centered, but she's also pretty sure it infects her with something in exchange. Her eyes changing a bright red every time she channels it, and sometimes without, cannot be mistaken for benevolence.
The moment she gets back to Konoha, she's finding a master smith and having him tell her what the fuck is up. For now, it's comforting and she needs it. For now, it's what she's relying on to get her message across to a stubborn old man who won't even look at her while denying her the information she needs. A little bit of blood makes her eyes glow, and that's what she needs for her words to really land.
"I don't want to walk away from something like this. A princess might be scared, but me, Tazuna, I'm pissed. There's a rage bubbling up from deep within me and it whispers into my head. It's saying to kill, it's saying to burn, it's begging me to find every single person responsible for what I've seen today and leave them in a pile of broken bones so that when I cast my first fire jutsu its to the sound of a hundred screams, each one just individual enough for me to make out the lingering loss of evil as it leaves this world." She needs to learn a fire jutsu now, because that sounded cool. She'll ask Sasuke after she gets the fire affinity training done.
She takes a step towards him, and watches as the man flinches. Her sword makes a slight shing as it begins to leave its sheathe for dramatic effect. She's watched enough dramatic cutscenes to know how to make a stage play. "You will tell me who did this, or you will be amongst the crowd as just another bystander doing nothing while a little girl came to the rescue. Can you live with that?"
"I…" He gapes. "Sakura, that man's robbing you."
"Tell me if my switch is broken!" She shouts while looking behind her at a man ruffling through her pack. He looks stunned, but flabbergasted is probably a better word for it. He's a bit older, and he's got his hands deep into her stuff. She'd really like him to answer so she can spare herself the horrifying check, but it really doesn't look like the older grizzled man is going to say explain the state of her recently sworded pack.
"What's a-"
"Fuck it." She spins on her heel, kicks out his knees, and then slams a hand into his chest as he falls. His crash into the wooden floorboards below are enough to shake the store. She held back, noting his age and not wanting to shatter him in places he couldn't possibly recover, but then if he didn't want to get hurt he shouldn't have robbed a ninja.
The fact that she's not obviously a ninja right now, what with all her armor and stuff still sworded in the pack, doesn't pass her by.
Back to her original stance, she glares at Tazuna. "That doesn't just happen, what the fuck is going on here you drunken bastard?!"
"You Konoha ninja are needlessly intense." Tazuna coughs, a hand over his mouth. "Wave's shipping prices are larger than its gains, we're slowly dying, that's why I'm building a bridge."
Her gaze softens, just a little.
But it doesn't fade completely. "You're hiding something."
"Aren't you?" He asks.
It takes her a second, but she fully hilts her blade, letting her beautiful eyes return to their pretty innocence. "Fine."
It's not five minutes later that she's observing the wreckage of a once vibrant town - it had to have been, it couldn't have gotten to this size if it wasn't - and angrily scowling at the remains of what once was. Color comes from creativity, creativity comes from joy and safety. Nothing here is safe, nothing here is happy, but the variance shines through to tell her of a once thriving community. She's staring at a graveyard of freedom, of peace, of prosperity in a way Konoha barely manages on its good days.
It's rotting, and there's nothing she can do about it.
She feels something behind her, and this time she's a little calmer, it's easier to pay attention to him, and get a proper measure. "It's a child." She says suddenly, looking behind her at a surprised boy, ensuring Tazuna she's not about to wreck this kid for fun. He looks relieved, which is enough for her.
"What do you want?" She asks the boy, girl, whatever, standing behind her as she fully turns around.
"Uh-" His voice cracks a little before a full word gets through. She's decided he's a boy, he can correct her if he feels like it.
"He wants money, Sakura." Tazuna says gently, knowing this is just more evidence on the pile that something is wrong. The moment lingers. The child looking a little guilty at her gaze, but not running away. The very chance she might give him money instead of hitting him is enough for him to stay even with her hand on her sword.
Death by sword is preferable to starvation. She understands, she just doesn't want to. She wants this to never have been an issue that would require understanding. Sadly, her life a game or not, she doesn't seem to have control of the plot.
He holds out his hands. He looks so dirty, so scraggly. His hair is tangled, and his gaze is cold and burdened by pain despite the cutesy style he manages to fake. He's in ratty clothes that cover down to his ankles, and she casually tries to pretend the holes littered through them wouldn't make it worse at protecting him from harsh nights.
"This is all I have. Tell your friends if they try this again they'll die." She says, her insides squirming at the threat. It's easy to threaten Tazuna and mean it, it's easy to hit some older guy robbing her.
It's another thing entirely to threaten a child, and she knows she's bad at lying so she has to mean it for it to be taken seriously. She's not sure she pulls meaning it off. She's not sure she wants to have pulled it off.
He brightens up at her words, latching onto the implied concept that she's going to give him something. So when she does, he's over the moon. She plops a whole damn wallet in his hands. "Take it and run."
There's a silence after the kid runs away, a moment where she has to catch her breath and remind herself why she's here. That she did the right thing there, and that the overwhelming coldness flowing through her from her heart is a defense mechanism, not guilt. "Why'd you give that kid a wallet?" Tazuna breaks the silence after a long moment.
"Wasn't mine." She admits with a shrug, its owner is dead, why shouldn't it help someone live? It's a ding that gets her attention, and without a moment of hesitance she looks up at her new notification. "Who's Gato?"
"Huh?!"
| Quest Alert: Free the Land of Waves Description: Clear Gato Tower Dungeon and Eliminate Gato. Objective: 0/1 Gato Killed, 0/1 Gato Tower Dungeon Cleared Bonus Objective: Clear Gato Tower 5 times to "find" his hidden treasure, and restore Wave with it |
"He's responsible for what's happening here, right?" Sakura asks, taking note of the quest alert. "You have to know something about him. Don't lie to me, Tazuna, I spoke on this just a minute ago."
"So you did know…" He looks away from her, reaching up to scratch the back of his head awkwardly, his demeanor shifting seriously. More serious even than back in the store. Perhaps it's being small, or young, but even with blazing red eyes he couldn't truly consider her a threat.
No, it takes her a moment to put it together, but he still believes Kakashi's story. That she had gotten impaled to protect him, and not her boys.
He thinks she'll die for him, why would he be intimidated by anything she does? If only she'd realized that before she probably gave the shopkeeper a heart attack.
"He's a very bad man trying to keep wave like this. As a shipping magnate, he's made it illegal for boats to leave that aren't his, holding a huge tax on all exported goods, and on imported goods."
"So you told the truth in the store, just not the whole truth." She surmises. "Building a bridge will really help that much?"
"It's either that or kill him, and I couldn't hire assassins, that's too much even for me. Principles are all an old man like me has." She has to hold back a laugh at a drunk saying something like that. "Wave was barely holding on before he took over, we'd had a poor few years due to some internal strife and bad winters, so what you see around you now is a slow economic death brought about from years of breaking a little less than even. As people eat less, they work less, and slowly but surely…"
"So the bridge'll help." She asserts. "But money would help faster."
"An influx of cash would be useful, but without the bridge, we'll end up back here eventually no matter how much money we get. To be truthful, I imagine an influx of food would do us better than any cash."
That's fine, she thinks. Gato's dead the first clear anyway.
Five clears… how does she justify to her team five clears of the same dungeon?
How does that even work, will it generate more people for them to fight? Probably, that's how it works in every game she's ever played. She does have to wonder how it'll do that though.
But that kinda guy has to have real protectors, especially if his treasure is hidden there.
"Don't worry, we'll free this land. It's what leaf ninja do." It's not. Historically there's been very little freeing of anything, a ninja's version of liberation is to blow it up. She'll change that for Wave though, at least this time.
The earth release training technique is even more simple than the water technique. Instead of filling a flask with water, she touches the ground and moves it without strength. The idea is to channel her chakra into it, then move it with her hand. If it moves like air, she's put enough chakra into it and converted it to the right chakra. It's a low level ninjutsu mostly made to help builders fix foundations and make dirt roads, but it has a lot of utility. It's mostly overshadowed by much better landscaping ninjutsu, but it's where every earth based ninja starts.
A lot of ninja learn it just for a back up job for if they get crippled on a mission. She probably doesn't have to worry about that though…
She masters it within a day just like water, and finds herself very happy to see the familiar alert.
[You have gained Earth Affinity Level 1, all Earth jutsu will be more effective and cheaper.]
It really isn't even effort. It's like her body was made for Earth.
"I really hope they all come that easily." She looks hopefully at the box.
A lot of Ninja only have one element, she's really lucky to have two.
She won't be satisfied until she has them all.
"Inari." She wanders into the boys room without the slightest care in the world. He looks up quickly, frightened but mostly distressed by something beyond her imagination.
Or it would have been beyond her imagination, before today. "You're scared?"
His fragile nod makes her heart twinge a little. "Can't talk about it because your grandpa told you not to?" The next nod makes it break.
"Tell you what, let's calm us both down. I'm a little jittery myself."
It only takes her a few seconds to pick the boy up, sit on his bed, and place him in her lap. Before he can ask what, she places a rectangular box of joy and justice in his hands. "This is a gameboy." She explains. "Hold it like this, and press the buttons to make things happen."
Going through her pack sucked, but she had to do it to make sure that guy didn't get any of her essentials. The moment she'd gotten home she'd gone through it to count the casualties. Just like she'd expected, her clothes are fucked. They got cut in half, and torn to bits by her energetic, ridiculously angry sword. Her switch was comfortably cushioned by the clothes, thankfully it wasn't sworded.
It was impaled by a little black box of metal she'd forgotten she'd stored in there just in case over a month ago. That box contained righteous glory, and her only salvation in a world without.
It contained her gameboy, and a ton of batteries. It's not as high tech or stunning as her switch, and it definitely loses out on a sheer race of fun, but if it's her gameboy or nothing, she'll let Inari play some damn Mario while she watches.
Some might think Sakura'd wanna play, that she'd intrude on the boy's first experience. She's happy to watch, just like she'd be happy to watch any streamer's first time playing a cool and exciting new genre or game. It's fascinating how a newbie views the world, it's more fascinating how much a child can struggle with something so simple as how to jump or run in a game. Simple concepts she doesn't even need the most basic tutorial for now are so foreign she has to help him run through it. She'd always thought of games like Mario as very beginner friendly, so having to explain the controls to him again and again is novel. "I guess I've taken for granted what's confounding to you, huh. I guess that's this whole situation, isn't it."
At his awkward nod, she squeezes him.
"So you're not always rude." Tsunami's voice catches her by surprise. Sakura thinks it's Tsunami anyway, the older woman from dinner the other night. She didn't really ask, she had to catch it in passing. And this boy's name is, Inari, right? He responded to it earlier, it has to be something close.
Tsunami, Inari, Tamaru? No, no, Tsunami, Inari, Taazuma? Shit, she already forgot his name again!
"No, I am." Sakura says after a long silence of thought. "I barged in here without asking. We just don't respect the space of a child the same we do the space of an adult."
"Don't ruin the moment." Tsunami says.
"Sorry." She helps Inari jump onto a platform, showing him how, then jumps down and makes him do it.
She's got a lot of smiles in her soul today, Today she's gonna try to learn fire, but first, Naruto didn't come home last night. He hasn't come back since Kakashi started him on this damned tree walking jutsu slash technique. While he's doing much better after she explained it to him, he's still struggling to comprehend her explanation. Sasuke's had it for a while now, which only makes the blond boy angrier. Luckily, it seems she's his true rival in recent times, so he's not taking that anger out on Sasuke. Siblings can be angry at each-other, it's okay.
She's got breakfast in her pack for him, and-
-she hides behind a tree. "Who…" There's a cute girl talking with Naruto while holding a basket. Her outfit has some pink to it - something she appreciates - but she looks a little too nice for Wave. Wave is dirty, Wave is destroyed, Wave doesn't even bathe that regularly despite literally being called Wave. This girl is clean, she's kept, she's pretty. She wasn't even clean, kept, and pretty until recently and she wasn't even in a destroyed village.
That's five seconds.
| Haku: Chunin level Boss Fight |
| Threat Level: Notably Dangerous |
"Naruto get down." She's fast, she can give herself that much credit. Maybe she's not a chunin, but with Naruto's help it shouldn't be that hard right? Drawing her blade as she runs is like breathing. It leaves its place in her sheath before the third step, and is in a full swing just before she reaches them. She's not sure why a ninja is talking to Naruto, but if it's not Naruto, Sasuke, her or Kakashi, they're either a random encounter or with Gato or both and like hell she's losing her teammate to some subterfuge bullshit!
The sword flares to life with power before the swing is fully completed, and she's happy to see it go right through the enemy and not Naruto. He can listen to hasty instructions like that, unlike her, so Naruto's on the ground watching.
She wishes she didn't have to warn Naruto like that and give her attack away, catching the enemy by surprise is very important, but there's just not much she can do about that without a silent means of communication. She'll need to work one out.
She has a brief instant to begin a smile at an easy victory, before she realizes how little resistance that gave. "Wha-" Water splashes her, and she has just enough time to turn on a dime before a kick lands right in her face and sends her flipping. This time she knows better, this time she doesn't drop her sword. Instead, before she hits the ground she stabs it into the dirt and uses it to slow her down, skidding across the ground and cutting a brazen path of dirt and stone. This cool new technique lets her land on her feet instead of face first into a tree, even if it's dramatic as all hell and probably bad for her sword. Her vision is blurry, but she can vaguely make out the ninja standing behind Naruto. She can't speak, the words get garbled in her throat while the threat grabs Naruto by his neck, picks him up from the ground, and positions a senbon at his eye. "S-sakura we were just talking, could you both um…"
"Shut up, Naruto." Sakura grunts, lifting the hungry sword vibrating with energy. She knows her eyes have changed again, but she doesn't care. There are some heavy implications to Kakashi giving her this sword. Was he trying to teach her some lesson, or was he trying to get her killed? Is she lucky she happened to be given an incredibly powerful weapon that works well for her but wouldn't most people, or was that the game system influencing Kakashi's choice? How far does it go? At what point is it Kakashi being a dick, or Kakashi being helpful with a dickish choice her powers made him choose?
Is she a Diety's plaything, or is she Sakura Haruno, leaf ninja and Naruto's teammate?
She doesn't have the slightest clue, but she does know is Naruto's in danger, possibly because of her. She'll die again before she lets him get hurt.
"You're doing well." The girl says with a voice that hits her as oddly androgynous. In fact, a look-
"Holy shit it's a femboy." Sakura's eyes widen, and she manages to choke out an exclaim even she wasn't expecting. "You should start a streaming career, I'd watch you."
"... Sakura, is this really the-"
"Look how pretty he is!" Sakura gasps, sword's power flickering a little as her excitement goes in an entirely different direction. "Would you like some fangirls? My teammate has a lot of them and we'd like to offload them, no refunds."
"You're not taking this seriously." The femboy says, with that pretty face, those pretty lips, and those pretty eyelashes. "Trying to deescalate after you escalated?" Those pretty eyes look her right over, trying to figure out who she is, what she is, what her sword is. She sees right through her, she just has to hope they want the same thing. "We can do that. I'd rather not kill either of you. Especially not after I went through all the effort to save you."
"It was you." Sakura says, not letting the sword blaze out but lowering the power in it enough to let her own eyes return to their normal colorful innocence. At least she hopes she does, that'd really help matters. It has to have a minimum threshold, right? "Why?"
"We'll trade info for info." The femboy says with a simple smile, lowering the senbon from Naruto's eye to his neck. He actually tickles Naruto with it, causing the boy to twitch awkwardly and hold back a laugh. She's glad he can maintain comedic sense in a situation like this. She's not sure if that's her fault or if Naruto is just goofy by nature. "You were almost dead when I found you. How are you up and on your feet and looking fine?"
"My life's a game and only the last hit point matters." Sakura says without flinching. She can't lie, Naruto's in danger, she has to tell the truth and she doesn't have nearly enough time to come up with a lie that's technically true enough. She'll have to work out a few, for future use. "I'll always get back up unless you take me down permanently, and I'm actually not completely sure if I really die even then."
"If you're going to mock me-" The boy's hands bring the senbon back up to Naruto's eye.
"I think she's serious," Naruto gulps, "Sakura can't lie."
"... I see. I'll explain here tomorrow, today's mood is already too hostile," with that Naruto's thrown forward, Sakura drops her sword to rushes forward and catch him in her arms, "arrive alone."
Sakura holds him close, as the dangerous boy disappears into thin air. She squeezes him, sighing in relief and taking in how her own hasty actions almost got Naruto hurt. Is the sword influencing her aggression, or just helping her do what she would have wanted to do anyway? That was stupid.
That was really stupid.
"Sakura, that was really scary." Naruto whines into her.
"I know, Naruto." She rubs his back, as the sword loses the rest of its power on the ground. "Excited to do it again tomorrow?"
"Wha, no!"
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Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
So few notes:
1. Not actually 100% sure I did the final edits this chapter. I fixed a lot of errors after posting, and it looks a little, line to line to line.
2. This is the first week I didn't manage to get 2 chapters done. Work is kicking my ass. I need to move in a few months so I need to pick up more work than I can really handle mentally, and it's colliding with my schedule hardcore. Which is dumb, but true.
This is why I didn't open the Patreon right away, I knew there'd be a mishap like this before long, and I'd be able to use the mishap to recalibrate.
The Patreon will launch on the 18th (barring more issues)
And will launch with 3 extra chapters.
It'll get 1 chapter ahead every 2 weeks from that point on.
If it manages to make $300 (it won't) it'll change to 1 chapter ahead 3 weeks of every month.
If it manages to make $600 (it hella won't) it'll change to a chapter every week, and I'll be able to take enough time from contracting to actually get that done achievably.
If it manages to make $1200 (Hahahaaa!) it'll change to 2 public chapters every week, and 1 chapter ahead a week.
I estimate, between all three sites, the discord I'm going to open for it, attentativeness...
It makes $100.
1. Not actually 100% sure I did the final edits this chapter. I fixed a lot of errors after posting, and it looks a little, line to line to line.
2. This is the first week I didn't manage to get 2 chapters done. Work is kicking my ass. I need to move in a few months so I need to pick up more work than I can really handle mentally, and it's colliding with my schedule hardcore. Which is dumb, but true.
This is why I didn't open the Patreon right away, I knew there'd be a mishap like this before long, and I'd be able to use the mishap to recalibrate.
The Patreon will launch on the 18th (barring more issues)
And will launch with 3 extra chapters.
It'll get 1 chapter ahead every 2 weeks from that point on.
If it manages to make $300 (it won't) it'll change to 1 chapter ahead 3 weeks of every month.
If it manages to make $600 (it hella won't) it'll change to a chapter every week, and I'll be able to take enough time from contracting to actually get that done achievably.
If it manages to make $1200 (Hahahaaa!) it'll change to 2 public chapters every week, and 1 chapter ahead a week.
I estimate, between all three sites, the discord I'm going to open for it, attentativeness...
It makes $100.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is a rather entertaining story.
Would you believe, I've never read a story, much less a half decent one, where Haku is engaged when they first encounter Naruto/a genin of Konoha in their first meeting?
Would you believe, I've never read a story, much less a half decent one, where Haku is engaged when they first encounter Naruto/a genin of Konoha in their first meeting?
Dopplerdee
Accident Prone(Yes the caps are necessary)
- Location
- Happy Place
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Naruto has realized he is the sane team member.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Their friendly intimacy is heartwarming.
Omake: Pitch Meeting - By The Stormbringer
The Stormbringer
Worm Fanfic & Crack Connoisseur
- Location
- Spaaaaace~!
Sakura skips sleeping to prepare for the next encounter with Haku...
Haku: You've made it. Let's talk.
Sakura: I've got the information you wanted.
Haku: Excellent, now we should--
Sakura: So here's how much the average top tier streamer makes. I think you could hit this category in record time. With a ground campaign we could spread your popularity like wildfire. Seriously, you have no idea how many girls would drool over you. Guys too, honestly. You probably don't have experience with games or streaming, but I'd be happy to train you and even operate as your manager if you really want. And again, we have loads of fangirls who would throw themselves at you. Here's the expected expense reports and a timeline of how quickly we can get you working.
Haku: ...this is not what I expected.
Haku: You've made it. Let's talk.
Sakura: I've got the information you wanted.
Haku: Excellent, now we should--
Sakura: So here's how much the average top tier streamer makes. I think you could hit this category in record time. With a ground campaign we could spread your popularity like wildfire. Seriously, you have no idea how many girls would drool over you. Guys too, honestly. You probably don't have experience with games or streaming, but I'd be happy to train you and even operate as your manager if you really want. And again, we have loads of fangirls who would throw themselves at you. Here's the expected expense reports and a timeline of how quickly we can get you working.
Haku: ...this is not what I expected.
Dromeosaur
Feathery Raptor of snowy planes and frozen sea
- Location
- The land of Trees and Squirrels
Ok, sword is weird. I am pretty sure that it was supposed to be a normal sword. Then a gamer got her hands on it.
Its been leveling with her
First clear perhaps, but the first task is to find the target. Gato is a shipping magnate, other than plot convenience he has no reason to be in Wave. And quite a number to not be in Wave.
Perhaps not always, but very frequently.
Best of luck with moving. It is always troublesome, but often worth it.
- Location
- Italy
heh, it looks like she WILL get all 5 affinities after all. Considering the only people I can think using all five elements would be Hiruzen "God of Shinobi" Sarutobi and Pain/Nagato "borrowed Rinnegan" Uzumaki...
I imagine Madara could too, but then again he (and Pain) cheat with their doujutsu.
...She already told Kakashi about the system. Surely she could just tell him of the quest, and convince him that way as it's a way of taking advantage of her powers to train the whole team?
Also Kakashi is pretty soft-hearted as far as elite jounin with a dark past go. If Sakura (and Naruto) pushed to help Wave, I think he'd fold. And it seems like Sakura wants to tell Narut and Sasuke anyway, so she can explain the quest thing as well.
...why?! Wasn't she trying to keep it a secret?
She could have just gone "I heal really fast. works a bit like a bloodline". It wouldn't even have been a lie!