Whatever works best for your writing habits. Authors are too individual, though personally I prefer around 10-20 minute read as the optimal reading experience, it can go hang if it blocks the muse.
Sakura Haruno The Gaming Addict, and Her Gamified Life [Naruto]
- Thread starter Sendicard
- Start date
Chapter 27: Arc 3 - Coming Home: A Talk with Iruka
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
Chapter 41 comes out on Patreon later today or tomorrow, not sure yet, the Sunday/Monday update always catches me a bit off guard because it's two chapters in two days. I feel like a father realizing Soccer practice is every Monday!?
Anyway, enjoy Chapter 27
This strangeness inside of her has gotten on her nerves for the last time. That conversation with her parents was incredibly embarrassing, and a little hurtful, but mostly it served to highlight just how different she views the world. In her mind, she did absolutely nothing wrong and feels less like a scolded girl and more like someone whose parents just turned against her out of nowhere.
She feels blindsided, scared, and stupid because she knows that's not the case. She clearly did something really bad for them to threaten her like that, her father's barely ever even raised his voice to her before. She once asked about moving out when she became a genin and he told her she couldn't leave until she was twenty-five! She's nowhere near twenty-five, and she knows it hurt him to threaten her like that because they still check in on her in her room every twenty minutes to make sure she hasn't somehow been torn asunder by her chair or something. They're feeling very overprotective right now, so to threaten her, well, it doesn't make any sense as she currently views the world.
Swirling emotions flow through her as she takes the steps needed to get answers, but it's not to Ino and her clan - a logical conclusion - that her feet take her. A hurt teenage girl would naturally seek out her bestie in most situations, that the clan is very good with mental states and her questions are related to that area would only serve to reinforce the assumption that she would seek out the Yamanaka when frustrated like this..
The actual place her steps take her is as familiar as her own home is. The stairs leading up deeper into the classroom, their desks, their chairs, it's all as comforting as the smell of unwashed dummies. That shouldn't be comforting, but it is, she blames spending years in tight confines with exercising brats who don't understand what a shower is.
That and her own personally bad hygiene. She knows she's clean now, that's all that matters, "don't get distracted Sakura." She touches her hair despite her floundering, ensuring it's still brushed and clean just like this morning when Haku sat outside the bathroom and threatened to come in if he didn't hear the shower. Jerk… He'd probably do it too.
"Iruka-sensei." She finally says, startling the young man enough he jumps in his seat. The scar on his face looks a little better than before, as does his complexion. She can't help but wonder if the stress from Naruto and her - possibly even the fanclub - had made his health worse for a time. She's relieved to see him in better health even if it was her fault, she can smile about improvements in people that are important to her. Iruka is important, very important, he made her feel normal when she got confused, and he made her understand things when she was struggling. He took time out of his day, every day, to ensure students like her weren't left behind when they got stubbornly stuck on something. Getting stuck wasn't exactly common for her, she'll admit, but it happened. Mostly around topics that didn't make a lot of sense, things like the Shinobi code. A lot of it only makes sense with outside context, and as a young girl she didn't have the slightest clue what context really meant, let alone outside context.
"Sakura, I didn't hear you approach. You've gotten stealthier." He compliments her, giving her his tell-tale smile. Most expressions confuse her, even happy ones can mess her up, but she's seen Iruka's expressions so many times they make sense. At least she hopes they do and she's not misinterpreting literally everything - thaaa'ts a panic attack waiting to happen.
She moves on.
"I've been told." By Inari, mostly, she snuck up on him on accident constantly back in Wave. It became a little bit of a game for them, it's a nice memory that brings a gentle smile to her lips.
"What brings you here? You know you don't have to come to school anymore." He says, scratching his cheek a little.
"What's wrong with me." She asks, staring into his darker eyes and watching them widen.
"Uh… you're going to have to be a bit more specific." She watches the man gulp as he answers.
"I can't. I don't understand." She admits, holding her hips a little, and tilting to the side awkwardly. Nervously. Fidgety, her fingers play an instrument on her hips. This is so hard. "I'm just different. It hurts."
"Okay, uh, few things that might lead to that." Iruka begins, shaking his head to clear it, and possibly to avoid her eyes while he talks. She watches him rub his nose with his palm, and wonders what that means. She's seen it before, but never with enough context to figure it out herself. "First, you probably don't remember him, but one of your old teachers introduced you to lowered sensitivity training from a very, very young age, and at a much worse degree than is normal."
"Mizuki-sensei." She ponders that. "I know he tried to murder Ino but, I don't remember training…" That was a whole fiasco, she still wonders how Ino managed to pull off a prank that crazy. That sounds more like something Naruto would do, now that she thinks of it. Maybe that's why all of Naruto's pranks are harmless. Maybe he saw Ino go way too far once and was like 'I don't wanna get murdered.' She could believe that.
"You wouldn't, the Academy starts extremely young, most of what we teach you at that point is muscle memory, not memorization," Iruka explains, "if you're noticing a lack of sensitivity to pain that is abnormal, it might be related to that. It's suspected he was abusing students for his own sick pleasures, but that's never been proven. He could have genuinely believed he was helping. Nothing he did wasn't normal during wartime."
"Okay, yeah, that is a part of my issue." She admits. "My team keeps getting weirded out by my lack of self-preservation."
"Yeah, see, uh… I really wish I wasn't put on the spot like this." Iruka rubs both cheeks, groaning to himself. "You're also, nuts?"
"... What?" She deadpans at her favorite teacher.
"I think that's the word." He nods to himself, "We don't have strict criteria for how we figure out students are different from each other, but students are undeniably different from each-other. Naruto's overly energetic to the point getting him to take anything seriously was a nightmare, Sasuke's got serious trust issues making it a nightmare to get him to take me seriously, Ino's an incredibly brilliant girl who'd rather use her smarts for literally anything but what's useful, and you? You're absolutely deranged, just, out of your mind." He puts his hands on his head and then pulls them away into the air making a blowing sound with his lips.
"Really? That's, not what I was hoping to hear." Sakura admits, one hand raising from her hip to her other arm, rubbing her elbow. "That's, a bit disheartening to hear."
"Good, because that's nonsense." He says with a roll of his eyes that would make Ino happy to see, it's just so damn diva. "Sakura, the fact that you just believed me is your problem. You took everything we said to heart, everything. Some people respect authority, you worship it. There's nothing wrong with you, if there was we would have pulled you from the ninja program back when we started screening for future Itachi's, at least for a year or two to make sure…"
"I don't remember that." Sakura admits, "was that really a thing you did?"
"Yeah, we didn't actually remove anyone, we just had to check to make the Hokage happy." Iruka admits. "But you didn't set it off, you're fine. You just took war phrases that haven't been removed from the curriculum, way, way too seriously. You want to talk to someone about fixing yourself, talk to Kakashi. That guy's spent years getting over the exact problem you currently have."
"I don't want to talk to Kakashi though." She admits, frowning gently at the thought, "Kakashi's a dick."
"Yeah, but if you don't talk to Kakashi, you're gonna be a dick." Iruka's always been blunt with her, he's one of the few teachers that realized she needed that, possibly because Naruto also needed blunt.
"Aww man, I don't wanna be a dick." She whines lowly.
"Then talk to Kakashi!"
"I don't wanna talk to Kakashi-" Legend says they went in this loop for days.
"Hehe, it's gonna be so great." Naruto rubs his hands together, helping Sakura fill in details on a piece of paper. "You really think we should spend some of our money like this though? Isn't it um, irresponsible, I think was the word you used?"
"Sometimes irresponsible is best." Sakura throws her hands up to about chest level, palms up, and shrugs with both her shoulders and hands. She's trying to learn new body language, she's not sure about this one. "Pranks are irresponsible in general, if we're throwing a prank, we're being irresponsible."
"So it's okay when you do it?" Sasuke asks, staring blandly at the two of them while scribbling on his own piece of paper.
"Yes, no, err, it's okay when we do it, like as a group." Sakura lands on, after a moment of quick-witted thought. "He's gonna be so mad, hehehe~!"
Sasuke is silent and stoic, but she can see that subtle smirk on his lips. Naruto seems excited to be alive right now, and she, well, she couldn't think of a better use for their pocket change if she tried.
Anyway, enjoy Chapter 27
This strangeness inside of her has gotten on her nerves for the last time. That conversation with her parents was incredibly embarrassing, and a little hurtful, but mostly it served to highlight just how different she views the world. In her mind, she did absolutely nothing wrong and feels less like a scolded girl and more like someone whose parents just turned against her out of nowhere.
She feels blindsided, scared, and stupid because she knows that's not the case. She clearly did something really bad for them to threaten her like that, her father's barely ever even raised his voice to her before. She once asked about moving out when she became a genin and he told her she couldn't leave until she was twenty-five! She's nowhere near twenty-five, and she knows it hurt him to threaten her like that because they still check in on her in her room every twenty minutes to make sure she hasn't somehow been torn asunder by her chair or something. They're feeling very overprotective right now, so to threaten her, well, it doesn't make any sense as she currently views the world.
Swirling emotions flow through her as she takes the steps needed to get answers, but it's not to Ino and her clan - a logical conclusion - that her feet take her. A hurt teenage girl would naturally seek out her bestie in most situations, that the clan is very good with mental states and her questions are related to that area would only serve to reinforce the assumption that she would seek out the Yamanaka when frustrated like this..
The actual place her steps take her is as familiar as her own home is. The stairs leading up deeper into the classroom, their desks, their chairs, it's all as comforting as the smell of unwashed dummies. That shouldn't be comforting, but it is, she blames spending years in tight confines with exercising brats who don't understand what a shower is.
That and her own personally bad hygiene. She knows she's clean now, that's all that matters, "don't get distracted Sakura." She touches her hair despite her floundering, ensuring it's still brushed and clean just like this morning when Haku sat outside the bathroom and threatened to come in if he didn't hear the shower. Jerk… He'd probably do it too.
"Iruka-sensei." She finally says, startling the young man enough he jumps in his seat. The scar on his face looks a little better than before, as does his complexion. She can't help but wonder if the stress from Naruto and her - possibly even the fanclub - had made his health worse for a time. She's relieved to see him in better health even if it was her fault, she can smile about improvements in people that are important to her. Iruka is important, very important, he made her feel normal when she got confused, and he made her understand things when she was struggling. He took time out of his day, every day, to ensure students like her weren't left behind when they got stubbornly stuck on something. Getting stuck wasn't exactly common for her, she'll admit, but it happened. Mostly around topics that didn't make a lot of sense, things like the Shinobi code. A lot of it only makes sense with outside context, and as a young girl she didn't have the slightest clue what context really meant, let alone outside context.
"Sakura, I didn't hear you approach. You've gotten stealthier." He compliments her, giving her his tell-tale smile. Most expressions confuse her, even happy ones can mess her up, but she's seen Iruka's expressions so many times they make sense. At least she hopes they do and she's not misinterpreting literally everything - thaaa'ts a panic attack waiting to happen.
She moves on.
"I've been told." By Inari, mostly, she snuck up on him on accident constantly back in Wave. It became a little bit of a game for them, it's a nice memory that brings a gentle smile to her lips.
"What brings you here? You know you don't have to come to school anymore." He says, scratching his cheek a little.
"What's wrong with me." She asks, staring into his darker eyes and watching them widen.
"Uh… you're going to have to be a bit more specific." She watches the man gulp as he answers.
"I can't. I don't understand." She admits, holding her hips a little, and tilting to the side awkwardly. Nervously. Fidgety, her fingers play an instrument on her hips. This is so hard. "I'm just different. It hurts."
"Okay, uh, few things that might lead to that." Iruka begins, shaking his head to clear it, and possibly to avoid her eyes while he talks. She watches him rub his nose with his palm, and wonders what that means. She's seen it before, but never with enough context to figure it out herself. "First, you probably don't remember him, but one of your old teachers introduced you to lowered sensitivity training from a very, very young age, and at a much worse degree than is normal."
"Mizuki-sensei." She ponders that. "I know he tried to murder Ino but, I don't remember training…" That was a whole fiasco, she still wonders how Ino managed to pull off a prank that crazy. That sounds more like something Naruto would do, now that she thinks of it. Maybe that's why all of Naruto's pranks are harmless. Maybe he saw Ino go way too far once and was like 'I don't wanna get murdered.' She could believe that.
"You wouldn't, the Academy starts extremely young, most of what we teach you at that point is muscle memory, not memorization," Iruka explains, "if you're noticing a lack of sensitivity to pain that is abnormal, it might be related to that. It's suspected he was abusing students for his own sick pleasures, but that's never been proven. He could have genuinely believed he was helping. Nothing he did wasn't normal during wartime."
"Okay, yeah, that is a part of my issue." She admits. "My team keeps getting weirded out by my lack of self-preservation."
"Yeah, see, uh… I really wish I wasn't put on the spot like this." Iruka rubs both cheeks, groaning to himself. "You're also, nuts?"
"... What?" She deadpans at her favorite teacher.
"I think that's the word." He nods to himself, "We don't have strict criteria for how we figure out students are different from each other, but students are undeniably different from each-other. Naruto's overly energetic to the point getting him to take anything seriously was a nightmare, Sasuke's got serious trust issues making it a nightmare to get him to take me seriously, Ino's an incredibly brilliant girl who'd rather use her smarts for literally anything but what's useful, and you? You're absolutely deranged, just, out of your mind." He puts his hands on his head and then pulls them away into the air making a blowing sound with his lips.
"Really? That's, not what I was hoping to hear." Sakura admits, one hand raising from her hip to her other arm, rubbing her elbow. "That's, a bit disheartening to hear."
"Good, because that's nonsense." He says with a roll of his eyes that would make Ino happy to see, it's just so damn diva. "Sakura, the fact that you just believed me is your problem. You took everything we said to heart, everything. Some people respect authority, you worship it. There's nothing wrong with you, if there was we would have pulled you from the ninja program back when we started screening for future Itachi's, at least for a year or two to make sure…"
"I don't remember that." Sakura admits, "was that really a thing you did?"
"Yeah, we didn't actually remove anyone, we just had to check to make the Hokage happy." Iruka admits. "But you didn't set it off, you're fine. You just took war phrases that haven't been removed from the curriculum, way, way too seriously. You want to talk to someone about fixing yourself, talk to Kakashi. That guy's spent years getting over the exact problem you currently have."
"I don't want to talk to Kakashi though." She admits, frowning gently at the thought, "Kakashi's a dick."
"Yeah, but if you don't talk to Kakashi, you're gonna be a dick." Iruka's always been blunt with her, he's one of the few teachers that realized she needed that, possibly because Naruto also needed blunt.
"Aww man, I don't wanna be a dick." She whines lowly.
"Then talk to Kakashi!"
"I don't wanna talk to Kakashi-" Legend says they went in this loop for days.
"Hehe, it's gonna be so great." Naruto rubs his hands together, helping Sakura fill in details on a piece of paper. "You really think we should spend some of our money like this though? Isn't it um, irresponsible, I think was the word you used?"
"Sometimes irresponsible is best." Sakura throws her hands up to about chest level, palms up, and shrugs with both her shoulders and hands. She's trying to learn new body language, she's not sure about this one. "Pranks are irresponsible in general, if we're throwing a prank, we're being irresponsible."
"So it's okay when you do it?" Sasuke asks, staring blandly at the two of them while scribbling on his own piece of paper.
"Yes, no, err, it's okay when we do it, like as a group." Sakura lands on, after a moment of quick-witted thought. "He's gonna be so mad, hehehe~!"
Sasuke is silent and stoic, but she can see that subtle smirk on his lips. Naruto seems excited to be alive right now, and she, well, she couldn't think of a better use for their pocket change if she tried.
| You have gained One Charm |
PrognosticHannya
Far Too Enthusiastic About Etymology
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Wait Sakura has a way to grind social skills by doing pranks?
May the Shinigami take mercy on the people of Konoha.
May the Shinigami take mercy on the people of Konoha.
Stratagemini
Totally a Fire Ferret.
- Location
- Central Park
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
it might be by convincing people to do things unrelated to ninja stuff?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well, Iruka gave it a solid shot.
Lol. Yeah, Sakura, that is indeed the right response to that one.
Sakura to Pain: Where is the fun in that?
Convinces Pain to change jobs and become a circus artists that runs multiple circuses over the world using his bodies.
@Sendicard what would a level 10 laundry folkind skill look like, or a level 10 ice cream scooping skill? Level 10 dabbing?
He is doing fairly well, for a man who's job is to simultaneously mound young minds into child soldiers and stable healthy citizens.
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
I'm gonna say that she wouldn't get a skill that specific.
For a lot of reasons, the biggest one that I don't hate myself.
She'd probably get a dance skill instead of dab, since it's, technically, a theatrical performance move. Maybe perform or something.
Instead of Laundry, she'd probably get a more generic "Housewife" skill, which would piss her off for several reasons, most notably that Haku's level is higher in it, and honestly that makes me smile. The sexism would be lost on her I imagine. I love the idea that she just cooks until in the middle of nowhere she can do laundry in twelve seconds flat.
Ice cream scooping, I just don't think she'd ever get a skill in it. It's one of those things that just doesn't take a lot of effort. Don't get me wrong I'm sure anyone working at an icecream shop has much more experience scooping icecream than I do, and probably creates better scoops quicker, but I really don't think it would take more than a day of learning and practicing to get as good at it as anyone else. I just, you know, probably spent a total of thirty minutes of my life scooping icecream at this point.
I could see a more broad skill that includes ice cream scooping that eventually gets her to supernatural icecream levels by association, but like, we're talking about scooping here.
Maybe like desert handling?
No, I'd probably go with food handling, super broad.
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MaimakteriAnn
(Verified Sleepy)
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Dr
HAHAHAHA, right like a stat. That makes sense.
Not like, the first step on the path to Creation Slaying Oblivion Kick. Hahaha that would be silly.
Creation slaying oblivion kick only works because exalted 1rst edition awareness charms are silly¹. The world is safe, for now. Well, not safe safe, since moon tsukuyomi exists somehow, a equivalent infinite effect (somehow).
1. How silly? I think the example I've seen mentioned was a exalt taking their brunch, with a "you dare attack me junior?" suite of charms activated that triggered and allowed a "counterattack" when a attack on any "character sheet resource" (obviously intended for HP or stats, but not saying so), including "reputation" happened, regardless of distance, leading to a situation where a solar exalted could just know where someone was shit talking them (or defacing the wall of their property with a graffiti, etc) half a world away and then activate one of their nonsense thrown\archery charms and decapitate them with their "readied" tea cup.
1. How silly? I think the example I've seen mentioned was a exalt taking their brunch, with a "you dare attack me junior?" suite of charms activated that triggered and allowed a "counterattack" when a attack on any "character sheet resource" (obviously intended for HP or stats, but not saying so), including "reputation" happened, regardless of distance, leading to a situation where a solar exalted could just know where someone was shit talking them (or defacing the wall of their property with a graffiti, etc) half a world away and then activate one of their nonsense thrown\archery charms and decapitate them with their "readied" tea cup.
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Scooping is ultimately forming icecream into shapes you desire. Faster, more precisely, into more complex shapes and so on. Until you can do it in more than three dimensions, to icecream made out of exotic matter on Jupiter at the bottom of one of its hydrogen oceans.
Treat it like prerequisite skill for "N-dimensional shaping".
Remember that scene from Rick&Morty with "True Level"? Like this. A true scoop, that is a perfect sphere in 11 dimensions.
Isn't this just JoJo spin...
Speaking of spin, uh, a omake of Jiraiya putting on some anime for kid Naruto to watch during the timeskip and going what the fuck when a anime shows a S-class leaf secret explanation of the rasengan jutsu (if not a equivalent training method) would be funny.
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Great Greedy Guts
Ceterum censeo Vigilam esse delendam.
Has Mizuki almost murdering Ino been brought up before and I just forgot, or is this just a new revelation being passed over by the characters because they already know about it and/or are Sakura?
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
Yes, it's in sidestories.
Just realized how confused Ao3 and Fanfiction is going to be when this comes up.
They don't get the side stories.
What If: Sasuke Had Gotten Hunger Instead
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
Patreon is over $70 again this week so here you go.
Made a fancy new What if. This one was my Fiance's idea, which was kinda cool. I love cooperation.
Patreon's getting a double feature this Friday probably because I missed Monday due to complications from moving and everything. You know my bath has been clogged since I moved in here? I can't take a bath... I'm kinda pissed.
"Here." A blade clatters to the ground at Sasuke's feet, Kakashi not even bothering to hand it to him so much as toss it in his general directly. Kakashi's always treated him with a little less respect than the others. He can't blame the man, he doesn't give Kakashi as much respect as the others do either. It's less a dislike thing and more a mutual understanding that neither of them need all the bells and frills that come with motivational teaching and teachering.
It's still annoying to be blatantly disrespected though, there's a difference between casual acknowledgment and co-existence without worship or praise, and throwing shit at him randomly. "I thought Sakura was the one trying to learn Kenjutsu." Sasuke objects, looking down at the thing with the ominous aura. It's so dark and broody that even he's sensing it, and he's yet to touch it. "Give it to her."
"I already gave her something." Kakashi says, kicking some dirt in his direction, and getting some on the sword as if to say 'this is yours, and so is this dirt'. "But as an Uchiha, you'll benefit far more from this particular sword than she will.
"What's it called?" He asks, reaching down, and gasping for air the moment his hands land on it. It's Itachi, or, rather what Itachi would feel like if he was a sword. Memories come rushing back, blood stained hatred and an eternity trapped in an emotional loop. He finds himself on his hands and knees, grasping at the sword and the dirt, anything to feel something in his nerves besides the agony that's never passed no matter how many days he waits for it to fade.
"Haaah-what-unholy-I-" His words don't make any sense to him, his consciousness fades into memory. A clash of blades, blood-soaked pages and misfortune given form. He can feel a cloak of madness surrounding him, and the sun fading until all he can see is the darkness, and the pool that surrounds his nightmares. Forced to watch, over, and over, never able to get involved and stop it no matter how strong he is.
Sasuke hasn't truly slept in years, but holding this sword in his hands, he feels slumber take him.
"Soooo, we're just not gonna talk about that?" Sakura asks, standing next to the unconscious Uchiha who'd just tried to cut her in half with a sword Kakashi has decided needs to rest for another hundred years in his basement.
"Nope." Kakashi asserts, kicking the downed boy, "don't give Uchiha cursed items, I guess."
"No kidding… And when he shot all that black fire around, can Uchiha just do that?" Sakura asks.
"Nope, that's new." Kakashi lies, knowing damn well that's going to be a conversation with the Hokage, possibly a conversation with them down the line as well.
Naruto is just over there by the tree shivering, it's the first time anyone has ever truly tried to kill him, and he's not handling it well. Technically it's the first time for her too but uh, somehow, she's not bothered. Kakashi gave him a cursed sword because he's a dick, not their teammate's fault.
"I will bear that in mind." Sakura says, inwardly glad for the test here and not later when she rolls a cursed loot drop in the field. "At least his eyes had looked really cool…"
Made a fancy new What if. This one was my Fiance's idea, which was kinda cool. I love cooperation.
Patreon's getting a double feature this Friday probably because I missed Monday due to complications from moving and everything. You know my bath has been clogged since I moved in here? I can't take a bath... I'm kinda pissed.
"Here." A blade clatters to the ground at Sasuke's feet, Kakashi not even bothering to hand it to him so much as toss it in his general directly. Kakashi's always treated him with a little less respect than the others. He can't blame the man, he doesn't give Kakashi as much respect as the others do either. It's less a dislike thing and more a mutual understanding that neither of them need all the bells and frills that come with motivational teaching and teachering.
It's still annoying to be blatantly disrespected though, there's a difference between casual acknowledgment and co-existence without worship or praise, and throwing shit at him randomly. "I thought Sakura was the one trying to learn Kenjutsu." Sasuke objects, looking down at the thing with the ominous aura. It's so dark and broody that even he's sensing it, and he's yet to touch it. "Give it to her."
"I already gave her something." Kakashi says, kicking some dirt in his direction, and getting some on the sword as if to say 'this is yours, and so is this dirt'. "But as an Uchiha, you'll benefit far more from this particular sword than she will.
"What's it called?" He asks, reaching down, and gasping for air the moment his hands land on it. It's Itachi, or, rather what Itachi would feel like if he was a sword. Memories come rushing back, blood stained hatred and an eternity trapped in an emotional loop. He finds himself on his hands and knees, grasping at the sword and the dirt, anything to feel something in his nerves besides the agony that's never passed no matter how many days he waits for it to fade.
"Haaah-what-unholy-I-" His words don't make any sense to him, his consciousness fades into memory. A clash of blades, blood-soaked pages and misfortune given form. He can feel a cloak of madness surrounding him, and the sun fading until all he can see is the darkness, and the pool that surrounds his nightmares. Forced to watch, over, and over, never able to get involved and stop it no matter how strong he is.
Sasuke hasn't truly slept in years, but holding this sword in his hands, he feels slumber take him.
"Soooo, we're just not gonna talk about that?" Sakura asks, standing next to the unconscious Uchiha who'd just tried to cut her in half with a sword Kakashi has decided needs to rest for another hundred years in his basement.
"Nope." Kakashi asserts, kicking the downed boy, "don't give Uchiha cursed items, I guess."
"No kidding… And when he shot all that black fire around, can Uchiha just do that?" Sakura asks.
"Nope, that's new." Kakashi lies, knowing damn well that's going to be a conversation with the Hokage, possibly a conversation with them down the line as well.
Naruto is just over there by the tree shivering, it's the first time anyone has ever truly tried to kill him, and he's not handling it well. Technically it's the first time for her too but uh, somehow, she's not bothered. Kakashi gave him a cursed sword because he's a dick, not their teammate's fault.
"I will bear that in mind." Sakura says, inwardly glad for the test here and not later when she rolls a cursed loot drop in the field. "At least his eyes had looked really cool…"
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Dopplerdee
Accident Prone(Yes the caps are necessary)
- Location
- Happy Place
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well that was pretty damn obvious to everyone but you dude.
Not_Interesting
The Munchkin of Megastructures
- Location
- In your walls(the walls between realities)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Honestly? If the thing could force Mangekyo on Uchiha this young? Give it to them and take it away using a seal or something, shit would absolutely slap.
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
No I, the Mangekyo is activated upon watching someone you truly care about die.
My idea here is that Sasuke already has that trauma, to activate it he merely needed to relive it hard enough.
Which the sword did.
I remember hearing some thing about Sasuke already secretly having it unlocked or some shit and blah blah but I can't find it anywhere and I researched to reply to this comment.
Oh well, it's a What if, just glad I didn't follow anything weird for the real story.
Chapter 28: Arc 3 - Coming Home: How many, Kakashi?
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
The Patreon randomly hit $90.
Was pretty sure it was eternally at $40 the other day but I guess that's a thing. I don't really expect it to stabilize here, but if it does, fuckin awesome?
Chapter 42 hit them today. Sakura's getting into shenanigans.
Onto why you're here, Chapter 28. In this chapter we discover what the prank was, I'll admit I was waiting actual months to write this so feel my smile and laughter.
A lot of you probably don't even remember what this is referencing, it was that long ago. Oh well, I'm happy.
Kakashi arrives at the Hokage Tower, having been summoned by a courier ninja. It's not common that he gets called directly to the tower and not some discreet meeting point where he and a dozen other Jonin listen to the Hokage brief them. He dropped what he was doing immediately, having a drink with a few old ANBU buddies, and raced here on the off chance he has a top secret S rank mission to disappear at a moment's notice.
Bursting into the Hokage's office with as much tact as a sprinting and out of breath jonin can have, he stands at attention and gives the man with the hat all the respect and energy he deserves. "Kakashi Hatake, reporting."
"You're late." The Hokage holds a stopwatch in his slightly wrinkled hand. "One minute and six seconds, just a year ago you would have been here in one minute flat."
"My sincerest apologies, Hokaga-sama, I have slipped a little in my time away from missions." He chooses not to point out to the man that he was removed from them on his order, and he was totally willing to get back into the field and get his killing on.
"It's no matter, this isn't time-sensitive." The Hokage waves it off, depositing the stop watch back on his desk. He blatantly ignores Kakashi's twitch, or the irritated glare he has to hold back lest he disrespect his supreme commander. Questions run through his mind, like for instance, why use a high priority courier ninja then?
He's not Sakura or Naruto though, outbursts like that tend to be a lot less cute once you're a Jonin. He keeps his mouth shut.
"You have a mission, paid for by someone who asked to remain anonymous who named you directly," the Hokage informs him, "you need to accept it before I give you the details though."
The thoughts on what that could be race through Kakashi's head at a thousand times a second. There's so many people that might want to order a secret mission with his name. Even ignoring his ANBU history and that his status as a captain is almost as poorly kept as a secret as Naruto's burden, he's the Copycat Ninja and his skillset is wide and varied. He's allowed to take all kinds of missions that many ninjas would be restricted from, and his resume would put him in line for the Hokage position if the old man happened to die an unfortunate and random death. Hopefully that never happens, certainly not anytime soon, he's not sure he could handle the hat if everyone tried to force it on him in some form of expression of camaraderie.
Then there's people that might order a mission specifically to get him killed, and the Hokage might have a side mission for him to eliminate them, or maybe he needs to scout something out with his Sharingan that no one else could possibly do because, well, unless they're hiring Itachi…
Sasuke's awakening of his copy eyes is new and unknown, he's been ordered not to show it off until the perfect time for dramatic effect. Matters like that are best hidden until you can shock and awe your opponent. The reality is that a lot of being a ninja is a spectacle, because you need to distract your enemy for just one moment, that's what a ninja fight is, one distraction after another until one side makes a mistake. It's why Doujutsu are so strong despite being just another advantage. Extra senses to improve your chances of lasting longer without slipping up are practically the ultimate advantage you can bring into any fight, besides maybe speed, surprise, and violence of action.
"And my team?" He asks.
"It's a quick mission, they won't be put out." The Hokage says, holding the mission out.
He grabs it with a hint of uncertainty but knows denying it was never a real option. The Hokage sent for him because it was approved, he wasn't asking him, he was telling him.
Despite his trepidation, the moment it's in his hands Kakashi quickly opens the mission, unsure what to expect, fear flowing through him. He gets a flashback about another time he got a mission just like this, and the Hokage's stone-cold expression doesn't help differentiate the two anymore than his shaky hands do.
"Your mission is to answer one question." The Hokage says with perfect timing.
The mission has four words in bold. "How many Jars, Kakashi."
"Hokage-sama, I cannot accept this mission." He gulps.
"I am ordering you to accept it." The Hokage says proudly, daring him to object. "Because I too, want to know how many jars, Kakashi." The man in charge of their villages says this with all the seriousness any trained and practiced old man can manage, pulling out a pad of paper and clicking a pen with pronunciation to it that somehow echoes around the entire room. "How am I supposed to make the jar principle if I don't have a good answer to write into law?"
"You could make one." Kakashi says as respectfully as he can while still clearly getting across the 'I hate you' vibe he's so well known for.
"It's your mission, not mine." The Hokage teases. "You're hesitance is duly noted," he actually does write something down, "now answer the question."
They're so dead to him.
Sasuke felt like something was off the mere moment he entered his apartment.
Many would think he'd stay at the Uchiha compound, but that place is littered with memories he'd rather scrub from his memory if at all possible. It's hard to talk about what his brother did to him, but even ignoring the gruesome murder of everyone he knew and loved - a pretty big detail to ignore if you asked him - the mind fuckery was so much worse. Watching him do it, over and over, for what felt like years? He broke inside. Merely stepping near the compound brings back all the pain, but worse, it brings back the desire. The parts inside of him that never grew up, even as the world changed around him and his clan was rapidly forgotten.
The desire to kill, to slaughter, to cut into Itachi and not stop until all that remains is shredded chunks of what was once a demon in disguise as a person. One thing he doesn't talk about, is Itachi didn't just make him watch, sometimes, every once in a while, he'd spice the illusion up by switching it to his big brother's eyes and making him do it. He'd feel every movement, every calculated thought, every twist and turn of his body as he slaughtered everyone in sight. Itachi had felt good when he'd done it, he'd felt like he was on top of the world. Itachi felt powerful.
That power was intoxicating, and even setting his eyes on his old home brings it all back. His emotions would mix, get confused, he'd want to kill as much as he'd want to run.
All that to say, Sasuke Uchiha steps nowhere near the compound, never, not even once in the last few years has he even approached the street it's on. It could be a crater in the ground for all he knows at this point, it's not important to him. He hired a few ninja to get things from there for him, like jutsu scrolls, and the banks handled the transfer of finances, that was good enough for him.
The unsettled feeling of disruption in his home passes quickly, all it takes is spotting that a set of cupboards are closed with his sharp eyes. He doesn't normally close his cupboards, he'd rather see every spot everywhere in his entire house at a glance. He must have been feeling off earlier.
"It's fine." He mumbles, walking over to it, and grabbing the handles of the doors to his cup storage. "Just forgot."
Pulling the cupboards wide open-
Crrshhhh!
He's immediately bowled over by hundreds of tiny attackers. He doesn't have the time to activate his Sharingan and figure out what they are, he just knows they're falling for him and they're already on him so he doesn't have time to roll or bounce or attack. He lifts his arms to cover his face, ensuring that whatever took cover in his home can't gouge out his eyes before he has a chance to slit their throat and punish them for attempting to disrupt his calm once again.
His heart races, flashbacks hit him hard, blood stains all over the walls and mangled corpses. Sakura's never scared him with her brutality, she's scared him with the lack of emotion she shows while doing it. He sees his brother in her, the perfect embodiment of what an Uchiha should be, but also a chaotic monster that can turn in an instant.
He pants, covering his eyes when he doesn't find himself attacked further, and centering himself. "Fuck…"
It's a lot, it always is. He much prefers missions, he found on their latest mission that he hates home and loves the fields where he can see both his teammates at all times.
He activates his Sharingan as he looks down, swiping the offending objects off of him. They're not people, they're jars?
"Three hundred, sixty two." He hears from his side, looking up and seeing his sensei standing there with a notepad and a pen. "That's how many jars before a D rank becomes a C rank. Any thoughts?"
"What the fuck." The boy huffs, deactivating his Sharingan and groaning deeply. "You broke into my house for that?"
"You wanted to know." Kakashi says. "Time to go inform the Harunos."
"... You could have left a note!"
Was pretty sure it was eternally at $40 the other day but I guess that's a thing. I don't really expect it to stabilize here, but if it does, fuckin awesome?
Chapter 42 hit them today. Sakura's getting into shenanigans.
Onto why you're here, Chapter 28. In this chapter we discover what the prank was, I'll admit I was waiting actual months to write this so feel my smile and laughter.
A lot of you probably don't even remember what this is referencing, it was that long ago. Oh well, I'm happy.
Kakashi arrives at the Hokage Tower, having been summoned by a courier ninja. It's not common that he gets called directly to the tower and not some discreet meeting point where he and a dozen other Jonin listen to the Hokage brief them. He dropped what he was doing immediately, having a drink with a few old ANBU buddies, and raced here on the off chance he has a top secret S rank mission to disappear at a moment's notice.
Bursting into the Hokage's office with as much tact as a sprinting and out of breath jonin can have, he stands at attention and gives the man with the hat all the respect and energy he deserves. "Kakashi Hatake, reporting."
"You're late." The Hokage holds a stopwatch in his slightly wrinkled hand. "One minute and six seconds, just a year ago you would have been here in one minute flat."
"My sincerest apologies, Hokaga-sama, I have slipped a little in my time away from missions." He chooses not to point out to the man that he was removed from them on his order, and he was totally willing to get back into the field and get his killing on.
"It's no matter, this isn't time-sensitive." The Hokage waves it off, depositing the stop watch back on his desk. He blatantly ignores Kakashi's twitch, or the irritated glare he has to hold back lest he disrespect his supreme commander. Questions run through his mind, like for instance, why use a high priority courier ninja then?
He's not Sakura or Naruto though, outbursts like that tend to be a lot less cute once you're a Jonin. He keeps his mouth shut.
"You have a mission, paid for by someone who asked to remain anonymous who named you directly," the Hokage informs him, "you need to accept it before I give you the details though."
The thoughts on what that could be race through Kakashi's head at a thousand times a second. There's so many people that might want to order a secret mission with his name. Even ignoring his ANBU history and that his status as a captain is almost as poorly kept as a secret as Naruto's burden, he's the Copycat Ninja and his skillset is wide and varied. He's allowed to take all kinds of missions that many ninjas would be restricted from, and his resume would put him in line for the Hokage position if the old man happened to die an unfortunate and random death. Hopefully that never happens, certainly not anytime soon, he's not sure he could handle the hat if everyone tried to force it on him in some form of expression of camaraderie.
Then there's people that might order a mission specifically to get him killed, and the Hokage might have a side mission for him to eliminate them, or maybe he needs to scout something out with his Sharingan that no one else could possibly do because, well, unless they're hiring Itachi…
Sasuke's awakening of his copy eyes is new and unknown, he's been ordered not to show it off until the perfect time for dramatic effect. Matters like that are best hidden until you can shock and awe your opponent. The reality is that a lot of being a ninja is a spectacle, because you need to distract your enemy for just one moment, that's what a ninja fight is, one distraction after another until one side makes a mistake. It's why Doujutsu are so strong despite being just another advantage. Extra senses to improve your chances of lasting longer without slipping up are practically the ultimate advantage you can bring into any fight, besides maybe speed, surprise, and violence of action.
"And my team?" He asks.
"It's a quick mission, they won't be put out." The Hokage says, holding the mission out.
He grabs it with a hint of uncertainty but knows denying it was never a real option. The Hokage sent for him because it was approved, he wasn't asking him, he was telling him.
Despite his trepidation, the moment it's in his hands Kakashi quickly opens the mission, unsure what to expect, fear flowing through him. He gets a flashback about another time he got a mission just like this, and the Hokage's stone-cold expression doesn't help differentiate the two anymore than his shaky hands do.
"Your mission is to answer one question." The Hokage says with perfect timing.
The mission has four words in bold. "How many Jars, Kakashi."
"Hokage-sama, I cannot accept this mission." He gulps.
"I am ordering you to accept it." The Hokage says proudly, daring him to object. "Because I too, want to know how many jars, Kakashi." The man in charge of their villages says this with all the seriousness any trained and practiced old man can manage, pulling out a pad of paper and clicking a pen with pronunciation to it that somehow echoes around the entire room. "How am I supposed to make the jar principle if I don't have a good answer to write into law?"
"You could make one." Kakashi says as respectfully as he can while still clearly getting across the 'I hate you' vibe he's so well known for.
"It's your mission, not mine." The Hokage teases. "You're hesitance is duly noted," he actually does write something down, "now answer the question."
They're so dead to him.
Sasuke felt like something was off the mere moment he entered his apartment.
Many would think he'd stay at the Uchiha compound, but that place is littered with memories he'd rather scrub from his memory if at all possible. It's hard to talk about what his brother did to him, but even ignoring the gruesome murder of everyone he knew and loved - a pretty big detail to ignore if you asked him - the mind fuckery was so much worse. Watching him do it, over and over, for what felt like years? He broke inside. Merely stepping near the compound brings back all the pain, but worse, it brings back the desire. The parts inside of him that never grew up, even as the world changed around him and his clan was rapidly forgotten.
The desire to kill, to slaughter, to cut into Itachi and not stop until all that remains is shredded chunks of what was once a demon in disguise as a person. One thing he doesn't talk about, is Itachi didn't just make him watch, sometimes, every once in a while, he'd spice the illusion up by switching it to his big brother's eyes and making him do it. He'd feel every movement, every calculated thought, every twist and turn of his body as he slaughtered everyone in sight. Itachi had felt good when he'd done it, he'd felt like he was on top of the world. Itachi felt powerful.
That power was intoxicating, and even setting his eyes on his old home brings it all back. His emotions would mix, get confused, he'd want to kill as much as he'd want to run.
All that to say, Sasuke Uchiha steps nowhere near the compound, never, not even once in the last few years has he even approached the street it's on. It could be a crater in the ground for all he knows at this point, it's not important to him. He hired a few ninja to get things from there for him, like jutsu scrolls, and the banks handled the transfer of finances, that was good enough for him.
The unsettled feeling of disruption in his home passes quickly, all it takes is spotting that a set of cupboards are closed with his sharp eyes. He doesn't normally close his cupboards, he'd rather see every spot everywhere in his entire house at a glance. He must have been feeling off earlier.
"It's fine." He mumbles, walking over to it, and grabbing the handles of the doors to his cup storage. "Just forgot."
Pulling the cupboards wide open-
Crrshhhh!
He's immediately bowled over by hundreds of tiny attackers. He doesn't have the time to activate his Sharingan and figure out what they are, he just knows they're falling for him and they're already on him so he doesn't have time to roll or bounce or attack. He lifts his arms to cover his face, ensuring that whatever took cover in his home can't gouge out his eyes before he has a chance to slit their throat and punish them for attempting to disrupt his calm once again.
His heart races, flashbacks hit him hard, blood stains all over the walls and mangled corpses. Sakura's never scared him with her brutality, she's scared him with the lack of emotion she shows while doing it. He sees his brother in her, the perfect embodiment of what an Uchiha should be, but also a chaotic monster that can turn in an instant.
He pants, covering his eyes when he doesn't find himself attacked further, and centering himself. "Fuck…"
It's a lot, it always is. He much prefers missions, he found on their latest mission that he hates home and loves the fields where he can see both his teammates at all times.
He activates his Sharingan as he looks down, swiping the offending objects off of him. They're not people, they're jars?
"Three hundred, sixty two." He hears from his side, looking up and seeing his sensei standing there with a notepad and a pen. "That's how many jars before a D rank becomes a C rank. Any thoughts?"
"What the fuck." The boy huffs, deactivating his Sharingan and groaning deeply. "You broke into my house for that?"
"You wanted to know." Kakashi says. "Time to go inform the Harunos."
"... You could have left a note!"