Patreon starts Arc 4 today as well. It's called "Brawling in the Streets"
So you know, that's an exciting name.
Please enjoy another chapter!
Returning back to her home, Sakura can't help the awkward feeling overtaking her. The dread she feels when approaching the door alone is more than she felt the first time she stared at the dungeon entrance. She loves her parents, she loves them more than anything, she would have given the world to visit them after her first clear of the dungeon, or when she got stabbed by her own sword, or even had them whisper nice things in her ear while she was recovering from being blind. To say she was terrified when all she could see was black would be just a little too nice. She felt alone in a world that wanted her dead, and she had to rely on everyone else to keep her safe. That it was only for a little while made her feel true empathy for all those that are disabled like that permanently.
The fear that it might be permanent was mostly irrational, but it was so strong it shook her to her core. She's a different person than before, imperceivable so but the difference is real, she can feel it deep inside. New insecurities have blossomed, and some fears have been conquered. Every hardship she faces manages to make her grow up just a little bit, and she'll be honest, she wishes she could go back and never have grown up in the first place. Quitting the ninja program isn't in the cards, nor was it ever in her hand, but if she could go back and never have applied to the academy in the first place, she might just do that. Being a ninja sucks, and nothing made that more clear than laying there on a dungeon floor, blinder than a bat, and having her team tell her about monsters outside trying to kill her. She was more terrified than she'd ever been in her life when she woke up still blind, and if they hadn't told her so quickly that it hadn't been six hours yet she would have cried. If she even could, given the state of her eyeballs.
All of that is practically nothing, compared to standing outside of her home knowing she's about to get yelled at by her parents on their first meeting after so long. She knows this because she can see Haku's shoes in the still slightly ajar doorway. They wouldn't have left it open if they weren't caught by surprise, and being surprised by their new tenant is more than enough to where she's pretty sure when she walks through that door it's going to be accompanied by dodging a well-thrown shoe from her mother.
She will dodge it, as it won't be meant to hit her, but it will be meant to prove a point. She's pissed them off this time. She sighs to herself, rubbing her arm at the twisting feelings in her gut. She wants nothing more than to go hug her parents, but she doesn't get to have that right away. She gets to be scolded for inviting a random boy into the house. They were argumentative about Naruto, albeit concedingly, because he was her broke teammate. Haku's a foreigner with no relationship to her, and that's assuming they don't know he was their enemy. Haku's not known for his subtlety and Naruto's far worse.
She quickly comes up with a story, about how Haku saved her life in Wave and how everything went downhill and Naruto likes him too so that's a plus, before she takes her shoes off and slips into the home.
Right into warm arms wrapping around her and picking her up. "My little girl's home!" Her father's cry of joy makes her blink, waggle, then melt into her father's grasp. She can worry about their anger later, right now they seem to understand what she needs more than anything. Her mother's arms join right after, and for the first time in a while, she doesn't mind feeling helpless. Her father will protect her from all the bad feelings, wash away the pain, and make her remember just what it feels like to be home.
"Oh, right, Sakura's moving in a very pretty boy from Wave." Naruto said, sharing lunch with Mebuki and Kizashi and Naruto 2.
"I'm sorry, what?" Kizashi asks, raising his brow at the orange-clad boy. Having two Naruto at the dinner table is a bit of an experience, but not one as strange as it could be. He's somewhat used to clones at this point, the boy throws them around like small change. "She's doing it again?" Sakura not coming down for meals is so common it's natural to eat without her and have an extra plate made for her. Currently she's out on errands, so she'll get it when she comes back, hopefully soon enough that they don't have to take it off the warmer. It's a struggle getting her to eat sometimes as it is, the least they need is dried out food they have to stuff down her throat by force.
"This time's a little different." Naruto 1 says, fist-bumping his suit-wearing clone unprompted. The act raises questions but nothing is out of the ordinary for the boy. He has his own little language going on with the clones, it means something, it's not their problem. "He saved her life, and needs a place to stay, so she figured she could give him a job and a place to stay when we got back. I imagine he's probably getting done with the Hokage about now so he'll be here soon."
"Saved her life?" Mebuki asks. "I thought this mission was supposed to be easy, when did the opportunity for her life to be saved come up?"
"When a jonin showed up and cut her in half." Lack of Suit Naruto shrugs, "oh, wait, uh, forget I said that I dunno if she wanted to share that."
"When a jon-I'm sorry what happened on this basic bitch C rank mission?" Kizashi can't help but gape, the thought stunning him as much as the wince at what happened.
"Missing ninja, corrupt businessmen, hunter ninja. I think we fought a vampire?" Naruto looks at his clone to see if he thinks he should be sharing this.
He gets a resounding thumbs up. The clone is right, he should never lie to his new parents, that makes sense. "It was really foggy, I couldn't tell."
"That doesn't sound like a C rank mission." Mebuki says dryly.
"It wasn't, but that's a secret." Naruto says. "Anyway, Haku went and saved her while we were fighting the jonin. He's really good at that kind of thing, and showed up out of nowhere. I don't think she'd be alive without him, so, made sense to me when she offered."
There's a knock at the door quite suddenly. "That's probably him right now."
"You're never allowed to leave again!" Kizashi shouts, carting Sakura around the house mid hug. Haku is doing something to the food on the warmer, she can see him, but she trusts him so that's not her concern. What is her concern is that her family appears to have lost their damn minds while she was gone.
"Gonna have to give that sensei of yours a piece of my mind." Mebuki says. "Cut in half, really? He let that happen?"
"It was really more internal organ damage, it never actually severed me in either direction it just turned my insides into sou-" Sakura begins, only to see Haku shaking his head at her quite fervently. "-err, and it was totally superficial, I'm fine!"
"Nope, you're never leaving your room again, you'll have to find a new career." Kizashi orders, already dragging her up the stairs. "I'll have to buy new locks, and if those don't work I'll buy more locks, and if those don't work I'll turn your room into a bolted shut panic room!"
"I kind of need to leave to see people." Sakura points out.
"People are dangerous, Sakura, you should rest and recover forever." They drag her into her room, plop her down on her bed, and leave. She can actually hear them readying a new lock they must have had a Naruto clone get before she got here, which is funny because Naruto's lock is still broken.
"They're overreacting, huh." She hears from her side, and she turns her head to see another Naruto, this one with pink hair and wearing some of her clothes and… female? "Awkward." She's sitting beside her on her bed, and has the audacity to look prettier than her. Are those curves? Who allowed her to have boobs!?
"Did he take over my life while I was gone?" Sakura questions her new… roommate?
"Kinda." The girl admits, she has emerald eyes too! Come on! The whiskers look so nice on feminine cheeks, she can't help but be a little jealous. "It was a funny gimmick and he forgot to dispel me."
"So you've just been kind of living up here while we were gone?" Sakura asks.
"Studying biology from your books mostly." She points. Sakura's not happy about that. Those were books she got on female puberty to try and understand all her friends and their strange activities all the sudden last year. There's a lot of info in there she'd kinda rather Naruto not know.
It's too late now. "Has that made you a better clone?" Sakura asks.
"No, but I bet the next female clone will be. I've learned a lot." They stare at each-other for a minute, a quiet minute, before Sakura silently reaches over and flicks her, dispelling her and leaving her to her happy silence.
Downstairs she can hear Naruto suddenly vomiting. Job well done.
Let's just hope she doesn't get mind whammied by Hunger while indulging her love of all things sharp and pointy.
