Patreon's been really kicking off lately. I'm in a much better headspace and it shows.
I know I said "The average chapter will be 2400 but only two updates-" for Patreon but uh...
I'ma be real I've already written an extra chapter in overwords if I include the unreleased Monday chapter.
As for this chapter, get some family bonding!
Enjoy. Patreon/Discord link:
Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
"They ruined my fun." Sakura huffs, channeling her will in an effort to resist throwing a shoe at their captures. She stands by the fact that she doesn't want to hurt them, well she does actually she wants to hurt them quite a bit, but she doesn't want to see them hurt. Her emotions are complicated, okay? "I bought a freaking sand board and I can't even use it."
"That's your concern?" Sasuke asks her, a little bit of amusement in his tone. She's always a source of comedy for him, it's so rude. At least someone's smiling. "There's an organization of assassins after you."
"Well, yeah, I've kinda gotten used to people trying to kill me after the dungeon runs. Ooh, you think there's a dungeon in Suna?" She asks excitedly, her eyes glimmering with sudden glee. "I could bring Gaara, I bet he'd have fun."
"Don't even think about it." Naruto scolds her from wherever he's sitting, somewhere out of her sight, who even knows. She's too busy moping to check on him... "We're way farther than Wave, it'd probably be like level thirty-something."
"Yeah…" Sakura can't deny that, Suna's dungeon would probably be ridiculous. That's a part of her sadness about being trapped indoors though, she was looking forward to seeing what high level random encounter loot is like! She got that cool stone from goblins of all things, Suna's probably got like giant sand worms or something! They probably have a cool new sword, or a hammer, or maybe even a drill! Excitement aside, the reminder of the original dungeon is enough to remind her to check on Wave. It's doing fine as always, everything's in the positive. Resources are building, food's stabilized, imports have increased as have exports, and while a good amount of their consumer goods are still coming from outside and are therefore a huge expense, the fact that most of their food is gotten from the natural resources around is a huge relief on import costs. At this point she can start taking from the coffers if she absolutely needs something, though she can't touch them for wants. Maybe in another few months she'll feel comfortable using her land for personal gain, but even then, shouldn't she build up a savings so she can handle emergencies?
She's had them exporting wooden sculptures and the like, they even have a replica of the great Sakura bridge which other places apparently buy up like candy. It's odd, but she can't help but appreciate it. Maybe she should check around Suna and see if there are any stores that sell one? If she can get away from Gaara to find a craft shop, that is.
Oh, then there's the stature of her they've built in town square, which is just way too much. But upgrading it increases the rate at which her and Wave's fame increases, which is apparently an important mechanic later on. So she's already got it upgraded to stone. Given most of Wave works in carpentry and not stone, upgrading it was kind of expensive. That being said, she should probably upgrade it again soon, if not now. The resources are technically available, she just has to liquidate some things they don't need and have them imported from the trade… How that works, she has no idea, she should look into that sometime. It's gotta be using real world systems, since it's altering the real world on a grand scale. Her little thing with Wave is probably in the logbooks of a hundred different lords across the elemental nations. They'd have no idea it's the work of a genin girl from Konoha.
"Hey, Naruto, I've been meaning to ask you." She finally wills herself to look over at the blond boy, only to find him doing a handstand on the table.
"Yeah?" He asks like he's doing nothing odd, and honestly, she gets it. She spends exactly one second judging him before she too is doing a handstand, though hers is on the floor like a normal person.
"Did you leave some clones in Wave?" She asks, using her finger to move the map over to an odd cluster of workers that live in a freaking cave. It's difficult to handstand on one hand, but nowhere near as hard as it should be. Her body feels almost weightless recently, her stats are broken and she's getting the feeling that their increases aren't linear. She doesn't feel three times stronger than when she started, she feels several magnitudes stronger.
"Yeah," he admits with a bit of a sheepish expression that catches her off guard, "why?"
"Well, it raises mechanical questions. They get a lot done, they're really efficient, but I can't give them orders like everyone else," She explains, looking over the Wave map with a pensiveness that she's found herself with a lot recently, "thank you by the way."
"No problem, it was important to you." He beams at her, giving her a thumbs up that would make all her woes go away if her main woe wasn't insidious levels of boredom. It seems that he too can do a handstand with one hand, that makes sense though, he's probably still stronger than her.
"I can't influence them," she explains, "which raises questions to what constitutes someone I can influence. I thought it was just people in Wave but I can't do anything to tourists, then I thought maybe it was inhabitants of Wave, but your clones would count at this point. It's been months."
"They're not living in Wave though, just a cave," He points out while bending his lone supporting arm's elbow to show off just how much motion control his body has, it's ridiculous, "maybe if you expanded the town until it included where they are?"
"Maybe…" She ponders that, nibbling on the side of her lip in thought. "They're helpful, but since I can't direct them, they're not nearly as helpful as I'd like. Maybe if I could communicate what I need…"
"Maybe you should learn clones and leave one to direct them." Naruto teases her.
"I wish, not everyone can slurp up infinite Chakra like you can." She shakes her head, her hair not liking the mix of movement and gravity, and falling in her face. "I bet I could make a shadow clone at this point but making it semi-permanent? No way."
It takes her a moment to realize the gravity of the words she said so casually, but Naruto grasps it instantly. He grows deathly still for a moment before looking at Sasuke, who's been silently reading a book and making no notice of them whatsoever. "You have infinite chakra, what about it?" Sasuke asks, matching Naruto's gaze with one of his own, "was I not supposed to notice?"
"Err…" Sakura can't help but feel like that's fair, but what about Naruto? Now she feels bad for letting that slip so casually, and everything is awkward.
"Over here, no you- ugh…" Tazuna's found his work is a lot harder recently. While the thriving of his home giving him too much work is a good problem to have, and he would be hard pressed to complain, it's been sixty hour weeks consistently for a while now. He could take a break, but who knows when work will be this plentiful again? The opportunity cost to sitting down and relaxing is tremendous, besides, he's in his third prime.
"Why do you even want to turn the statue gold?" Tsunami asks, standing by Tazuna's side and looking up at the giant stone statue of Sakura in the center of the village. It's glorious, if not a little dramatic. That demonic katana is six times the size it should be, and she's broader in stature than she was, and that mustache. The request to turn it to stone even included a line about making sure the big comical mustache on her face stayed… It was actually the hardest part of the statue. "That feels a little excessive."
"It just feels like the right thing to do." The old man shrugs, looking up at it.
"Seriously?" His daughter's brow raises while she clearly questions his sanity.
"No," his laughter fills the air, "I got a work order for it."
"Who commissioned that?" She asks, "there's no way that girl has that much money."
"That, I don't know." The bridge builder shakes his head, looking over his materials as they're dropped off next to the statue by big burly men that arrived at the docks not too long ago. To think it only took two tries to get them to find the right location. His old joints can't be dragging materials all over the place, let alone gold, it needs to be right here. He's also worried about how gold will handle the elements, but he supposes that's not really his problem. "But it is fully paid for, and the materials have been delivered, so…"
"The commission form has no name?" Tsunami asks him.
"It does, it just says Lord." He shrugs, shaking his head. "It's like someone went to make their character in one of Inari's games, but forgot to actually put their name when prompted."
"Huh." One of Inari's games, referring not to the gameboy Sakura gave him, but to the games on the computer they bought him. They've had a lot of money recently, let it not be said that things have been bad in Wave. "It's totally Sakura." Tsunami contradicts herself with a sudden decision, before wandering off.
"What do you mean it's totally Sakura? How?! She's like twelve!"
"Naruto, can you read?" It's a left field question, but sometimes Sakura's feeling left field, and the issue has been bothering her for a while. Ever since he called Chakra, Chatora, the possibility that he is illiterate has sat rent free in her mind. Sure he seems to pick up on words when they play games together, but it's not like those are complicated.
"What-Sakura, yes, you've seen me reading, multiple times!" The boy gawks at her, mouth halfway ajar.
"No, I've seen you look at text before, I've never seen you relay the information to me." She says, crossing her arms to give him a stern gaze. "There are two parts to reading, looking at it, and comprehending."
"Kakashi's been teaching me." Naruto admits, looking away awkwardly.
"Like he taught me how to make my own jutsu?" She rolls her eyes at that idea.
"Or how he's taught me advanced Kenjutsu?"
"He did, didn't he?" Naruto asks, "you seem pretty good at it."
"No, he gave me the bare minimum and then disappeared like the world's most underpaid tutor." She deadpans at him with all of her willpower. "Naruto, I'm gonna ask again, can you read?"
"I know the basics… I already did before he started, he uh, put a beginners book in my hand and walked away."
"Oh, honey…" Sakura sucks in air through clenched teeth, slowly trying to figure out how to even respond to that. A lot of their game based communication issues make a lot more sense now. She genuinely thought he kinda just sucked. She's just been happy to have someone to play with! "Okay, let's go find a book so I can fix that."
"Sakura, I can read." He groans as she drags him away by the hand. "We play games all the time, there's tons of reading in games, I barely mess it up."
"I don't want 'I can read the tooltips', I want 'I can read well enough to come up with advanced strategies'!" She scolds, using her fingers on one hand for the quotes on the fly. "We're learning today!"
"Well I mean, do I really need to know all that fancy stuff? Business Naruto does." He says.
"Business… Naruto." She whirls around and stares at him, truly, takes him in for a moment. From the shape of his nose, to the way his eyes sparkle, she takes him in with a new light. He might be the world's biggest idiot, this is a monumental moment for her. "If he knows it, shouldn't you know it?"
"Well, errr, he's been alive for months, I'm scared to pop him." Naruto admits.
"What do you mean you haven't popped him!?" Sakura shrieks, true fear enters her eyes for a moment. He's her brother, not the biggest dumbass to ever live! She needs to remember that! Except she's not remembering that, she's just scared for him. When did his last brain cells leave? Can they find them? Maybe they haven't fled the country yet!
"Well I mean, then he wouldn't be there to do Business Naruto stuff?" He says, using the hand she doesn't have in her grip to tickle his whisker marks a little.
"So remake him after you pop him." She shudders. "That's what I thought you've been doing this entire time!" Never mind, his ability to read is not the biggest concern right now. He's both a dumbass and her brother! She's still going to teach him some comprehension and vocab with her time here, since they're both trapped with little to do, but first she needs to teach him common sense use cases with his own freaking jutsu!
