LISAN AL' GAMER
Sakura Haruno The Gaming Addict, and Her Gamified Life [Naruto]
- Thread starter Sendicard
- Start date
LISAN AL' GAMER
- Location
- Maine
- Pronouns
- They/Them/Theirs
And now I'm imagining Sakura, dead asleep, blocking a barrage of Chuunin level attacks. Snoring like a chainsaw, arms whirling to catch and discard a bunch of kunai while Kohonamaru or someone is just all "See! I told you!"
Ya know, I'm trying to recall if the memory transfer thing even existed before Shippuden. The Naruto Wiki didn't help; can anyone fact check me on that?
In any case, I saw a crack fic with what I think is an even better explanation of why Naruto doesn't (usually) suffer memory backlash. By the time most ninja have the chance to learn Shadow Clone Jutsu, they are paranoid, hyper-vigilant combat vets who have trouble turning off fight-mode. They have to pay attention to everything, right now! Even more so by the time they have the chakra for multiple Shadow Clones. Naruto pretty clearly has some kind of ADHD going on, on top of being a book-dumb shounen protagonist. So he's one of the only ninjas actually able to ignore the rush of memories and keep operating normally. He's the 'right kind of idiot' to abuse Shadow Clones.
Canon side-story: Ayame and Teuchi, what do you mean he got adopted?
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
We get an extra side story this week because one of the $10 patrons was pretty unlucky consecutively and uh, I happened to wanna write this one anyway.
Enjoy, I always make good for my supporters. Little longer than intended but I had fun.
Enjoy! Patreon/Discord link: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
"Naruto hasn't been around in a while." Brown eyes, brown hair, narrow features and a mature frame, Ayame's a beauty with a lot of eyes on her, especially while she's serving the food her father cooks, but there's only one set of eyes she wants on her right now and he's been missing for a while.
Innocently, she wants his eyes on her innocently, that's probably a big part of the difference too. Lechers are annoying, but her father runs the place so they know not to try anything weird. When your day brings a lot of intent filled gazes and perverts, there's something nice about eyes that aren't looking at her that way, and it helps she's become rather fond of the boy over the years he's been coming around. He used to call her big sister, who knows how he feels now. Ninja life changes a boy, changes them enough they stop coming to their favorite shop, apparently.
The last time he was here was with his team right after they got back from Wave, she paid them no mind but listened to him inflate the story quite a bit. He said they fought a vampire in a blood soaked dungeon underground, it was absurd, but that didn't matter, she didn't even try to get their story to figure out what really happened. If Naruto's stories have any truth to them, that Sakura girl has been hitting him for years and that Sasuke kid's a jerk. She'd rather just listen to her favorite customer, serve them their food professionally, and ignore the crap out of them.
"He might be on some long missions, they aren't common with rookie Genin but maybe that teacher of his is a specialist." Her father, Teuchi, a smiling man with a lot of pride in the shop answers her while passing her a bowl to give to a customer with a wave of his hand. "Maybe you should bring a few bowls to him to get his attention. It'll remind him that we miss him."
The first thing she notices when she gets to his apartment is the smell. One would think with twelve bowls of ramen in a bag at her side, she'd only smell broth, but the bowls are nothing compared to the stench emanating from inside. Things died in there, probably rats and the like but still. Naruto's been living worse than she thought, and she's not sure why he didn't say anything.
It's not like they're living with a whole family, they could spare a room for a few days while they help him clean up the place. Well, while she helps him clean the place, someone needs to run the restaurant and her father's back is a little too bad to be bending down cleaning up a kid's mess. She musters up the will to make the offer, raises her hand, and knocks on the door.
"What?" She finds herself a little stunned at the way the door swings open, falling off its hinges at her little tap and crashing to the floor with a loud thud. A dozen brown blotches blur by, and it takes her a moment to put it together, those are rats at her feet. She barely holds in a scream while her heart beats in her ears, even barely managing it is only because she's stunned still. Watching them rush away has her holding her breath for a little too long, and securing the bag of food at her side.
She doesn't have to enter to know Naruto's not here. The place is picked clean, there's nothing of his to tell her she should bother looking in further, and the dust is so thick she'd be cleaning it out of her clothes for days if she went in.
"I went to his apartment and found it empty." Ayame explains to her father, the man's expression shifting ever downard at the news. "The only things living there are rats and spiders."
"He must have been left quite a while ago then." Teuchi explains, that frown on his face forming into a firm grimace, "what did you do with the food?"
"I dropped it off at the orphanage on my way back." She says, slipping on her apron while gesturing to the empty bag at her side. "I figured we can't sell them to customers as cold as they'd be when I got back."
"Good," he gives her a small nod, eyes dancing over the customers to see just how comfortable he feels with this setup and her, "can you man the shop? I need to check up on this." He finds it's safe, safe enough for him to leave for twenty minutes at least.
The nod from his daughter is all he needs to put his apron up and get out there.
Hinata's hand strikes out to grab something just before it impacts her, her sight only telling her of it at the last second. It's odd, she should have detected anything like that well before it got so close to her, even if she is casually sitting on a rooftop and ignoring the world. It's the very fact that she didn't notice it earlier even with her Byakugan active, and that it didn't hurt her, which stops her from freaking out. No detection means no killing intent, no killing intent means… It only takes her a quarter of a second to see him with her magic eyes. The ramen guy of all people is down there in the street, waving at her while holding a pile of pebbles. She could ignore him, technically she could make a thing for assaulting a ninja but she knows he was trying to be quiet to not alert whoever she's watching, so she allows herself a smile instead and drops from the roof.
"Where's Naruto?" He asks the moment she lands, she hasn't even gotten within normal person hearing distance. He seems to know how much better a Ninja's ears are.
"Why would you think I'd know where… erm…" She begins, only to stop herself when she sees a no-nonsense look on the happy guy's face. He's always in such a good mood, none of that seems to be present right now. She straightens her posture. "He's been adopted by the Haruno household. I could lead you to him?"
"Adopted eh… No, that's fine, I'll look into it myself and figure out a good time. I was just worried when Ayame found his apartment empty." He admits, dropping the pebbles and scratching the back of his head, that smile returning to him quickly enough it'd fool her if she wasn't so used to watching fake expressions.
"That worried me as well." Hinata nods meekly, "How did you know I'd know where he is, am I that obvious?"
"No." Is all the ramen man says, before patting her shoulder and leaving her in the street.
"What was that?" Hinata blinks at his disappearing form, "so I'm not obvious? How did he know? How did he find me now!?"
"He's been adopted." Teuchi says, taking his apron back and getting back to stirring some noodles while Ayame jumps back to customers. "The Harunos."
"You mean that pink girl that keeps hitting him?" Ayame asks, "that's not good."
"The lone eyes seem to think it's good, or I didn't see anything in her expression that said otherwise." He says back.
"The Hyuga girl?" She asks, looking back at him from over her shoulder.
"Use code girl, her clan'd freak if they thought she was being that obvious." He gives her a slight reproach, stirring a little more aggressively.
"Ah, well, she is…" Ayame says, "we've seen her a hundred times."
"It's easy to spot someone when they're consistently watching your establishment, that doesn't make her obvious, it means we're not blind." He snickers, "once you're familiar with someone, they become a poor tail. Maybe she needs to learn that, but her hiding spots aren't bad."
"Well, forget about her, the Harunos?" Ayame asks, a deep frown working its way onto her narrow features with prominence. "I don't see how getting kicked while he's down is a good thing just because it's indoors now."
"Maybe she learned something." Teuchi says, "I never said anything to her because he wanted to do it himself, maybe he finally did? A real conversation about a problem fixes it more often than not."
"I don't trust it." Ayame takes a bowl from him and hands it to a customer. "Can I…"
"I'll figure out where they live tomorrow before opening, you can visit after classes."
"Thank you." Ayame takes the next bowl with a smile."
"This is awkward." Ayame knew - analytically - that Naruto's life would change once he became a ninja. Their interactions would change as well simply because ninja life is hard and stressful and stressed people act differently. Her father had friends that went to the academy when he was young, and he's told her about what that life entails. She assumes they're all dead now, they've never once visited. It's why she was never enrolled, that life is for the brave and the bold and the dead.
She expected Naruto to show up even more frequently, or to leave big tips with his new ninja money. She did not expect to have two blonde girls in her lap, and a Naruto in a suit massaging her shoulders from behind, while she sits at his dinner table. "It's not awkward for me. For my big sister, I think you deserve better." Naruto - no, Business Naruto as he introduced himself - assures her while finding just the right nerve. She can't complain about the massage itself, it's very nice. His fingers work like magic, settling her and almost instantly pushing her into a relaxed state she very much didn't expect when coming here. The ramen she brought isn't forgotten, the blondes in her lap are happily slurping it up. She wasn't aware clones could eat, they are clones right? This is a whole thing? She doesn't get this stuff.
Even if the message is great, she can't help but wonder how this even happened. Why does he think this is a normal way to greet someone? Above all else it's just the most incredibly awkward thing she's ever experienced. Is this him hitting on her? Is that even a thing? She's quite a few years older than him, and showing her even younger versions of him in small girl form is not helping the perception that he is a child.
Still, she leans back and enjoys the awkwardness. She deserves this, working at a ramen shop is hard and he's like thirteen, he's probably not even thinking like that yet. Trying to deny the treatment might tip him off that this is weird and then she has a whole host of other things to explain.
"He's fine." She says, swooping back into the ramen shop and donning her apron in seconds. She gets handed three bowls on the spot, of which she slides to customers after only a momentary glance at the numbers hanging above their head.
"Good to hear." Teuchi says, "we knew that though. You seem happy."
"I missed him, it's good to see him okay… It was weird though, he's definitely changed." She laughs a little, shaking her head while taking someone's order.
"Everyone changes when you're not looking. Sometimes it may be tempting not to look away so you can avoid that, but then you have a whole different problem. You'll think someone hasn't changed at all when they're very different now. It's good to look away, it gives you perspective." He explains to her while taking an order from her, and slipping back to the bowls.
"This might be a little more than you'd think," she titters awkwardly, "well, as long as he's happy."
Enjoy, I always make good for my supporters. Little longer than intended but I had fun.
Enjoy! Patreon/Discord link: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
"Naruto hasn't been around in a while." Brown eyes, brown hair, narrow features and a mature frame, Ayame's a beauty with a lot of eyes on her, especially while she's serving the food her father cooks, but there's only one set of eyes she wants on her right now and he's been missing for a while.
Innocently, she wants his eyes on her innocently, that's probably a big part of the difference too. Lechers are annoying, but her father runs the place so they know not to try anything weird. When your day brings a lot of intent filled gazes and perverts, there's something nice about eyes that aren't looking at her that way, and it helps she's become rather fond of the boy over the years he's been coming around. He used to call her big sister, who knows how he feels now. Ninja life changes a boy, changes them enough they stop coming to their favorite shop, apparently.
The last time he was here was with his team right after they got back from Wave, she paid them no mind but listened to him inflate the story quite a bit. He said they fought a vampire in a blood soaked dungeon underground, it was absurd, but that didn't matter, she didn't even try to get their story to figure out what really happened. If Naruto's stories have any truth to them, that Sakura girl has been hitting him for years and that Sasuke kid's a jerk. She'd rather just listen to her favorite customer, serve them their food professionally, and ignore the crap out of them.
"He might be on some long missions, they aren't common with rookie Genin but maybe that teacher of his is a specialist." Her father, Teuchi, a smiling man with a lot of pride in the shop answers her while passing her a bowl to give to a customer with a wave of his hand. "Maybe you should bring a few bowls to him to get his attention. It'll remind him that we miss him."
The first thing she notices when she gets to his apartment is the smell. One would think with twelve bowls of ramen in a bag at her side, she'd only smell broth, but the bowls are nothing compared to the stench emanating from inside. Things died in there, probably rats and the like but still. Naruto's been living worse than she thought, and she's not sure why he didn't say anything.
It's not like they're living with a whole family, they could spare a room for a few days while they help him clean up the place. Well, while she helps him clean the place, someone needs to run the restaurant and her father's back is a little too bad to be bending down cleaning up a kid's mess. She musters up the will to make the offer, raises her hand, and knocks on the door.
"What?" She finds herself a little stunned at the way the door swings open, falling off its hinges at her little tap and crashing to the floor with a loud thud. A dozen brown blotches blur by, and it takes her a moment to put it together, those are rats at her feet. She barely holds in a scream while her heart beats in her ears, even barely managing it is only because she's stunned still. Watching them rush away has her holding her breath for a little too long, and securing the bag of food at her side.
She doesn't have to enter to know Naruto's not here. The place is picked clean, there's nothing of his to tell her she should bother looking in further, and the dust is so thick she'd be cleaning it out of her clothes for days if she went in.
"I went to his apartment and found it empty." Ayame explains to her father, the man's expression shifting ever downard at the news. "The only things living there are rats and spiders."
"He must have been left quite a while ago then." Teuchi explains, that frown on his face forming into a firm grimace, "what did you do with the food?"
"I dropped it off at the orphanage on my way back." She says, slipping on her apron while gesturing to the empty bag at her side. "I figured we can't sell them to customers as cold as they'd be when I got back."
"Good," he gives her a small nod, eyes dancing over the customers to see just how comfortable he feels with this setup and her, "can you man the shop? I need to check up on this." He finds it's safe, safe enough for him to leave for twenty minutes at least.
The nod from his daughter is all he needs to put his apron up and get out there.
Hinata's hand strikes out to grab something just before it impacts her, her sight only telling her of it at the last second. It's odd, she should have detected anything like that well before it got so close to her, even if she is casually sitting on a rooftop and ignoring the world. It's the very fact that she didn't notice it earlier even with her Byakugan active, and that it didn't hurt her, which stops her from freaking out. No detection means no killing intent, no killing intent means… It only takes her a quarter of a second to see him with her magic eyes. The ramen guy of all people is down there in the street, waving at her while holding a pile of pebbles. She could ignore him, technically she could make a thing for assaulting a ninja but she knows he was trying to be quiet to not alert whoever she's watching, so she allows herself a smile instead and drops from the roof.
"Where's Naruto?" He asks the moment she lands, she hasn't even gotten within normal person hearing distance. He seems to know how much better a Ninja's ears are.
"Why would you think I'd know where… erm…" She begins, only to stop herself when she sees a no-nonsense look on the happy guy's face. He's always in such a good mood, none of that seems to be present right now. She straightens her posture. "He's been adopted by the Haruno household. I could lead you to him?"
"Adopted eh… No, that's fine, I'll look into it myself and figure out a good time. I was just worried when Ayame found his apartment empty." He admits, dropping the pebbles and scratching the back of his head, that smile returning to him quickly enough it'd fool her if she wasn't so used to watching fake expressions.
"That worried me as well." Hinata nods meekly, "How did you know I'd know where he is, am I that obvious?"
"No." Is all the ramen man says, before patting her shoulder and leaving her in the street.
"What was that?" Hinata blinks at his disappearing form, "so I'm not obvious? How did he know? How did he find me now!?"
"He's been adopted." Teuchi says, taking his apron back and getting back to stirring some noodles while Ayame jumps back to customers. "The Harunos."
"You mean that pink girl that keeps hitting him?" Ayame asks, "that's not good."
"The lone eyes seem to think it's good, or I didn't see anything in her expression that said otherwise." He says back.
"The Hyuga girl?" She asks, looking back at him from over her shoulder.
"Use code girl, her clan'd freak if they thought she was being that obvious." He gives her a slight reproach, stirring a little more aggressively.
"Ah, well, she is…" Ayame says, "we've seen her a hundred times."
"It's easy to spot someone when they're consistently watching your establishment, that doesn't make her obvious, it means we're not blind." He snickers, "once you're familiar with someone, they become a poor tail. Maybe she needs to learn that, but her hiding spots aren't bad."
"Well, forget about her, the Harunos?" Ayame asks, a deep frown working its way onto her narrow features with prominence. "I don't see how getting kicked while he's down is a good thing just because it's indoors now."
"Maybe she learned something." Teuchi says, "I never said anything to her because he wanted to do it himself, maybe he finally did? A real conversation about a problem fixes it more often than not."
"I don't trust it." Ayame takes a bowl from him and hands it to a customer. "Can I…"
"I'll figure out where they live tomorrow before opening, you can visit after classes."
"Thank you." Ayame takes the next bowl with a smile."
"This is awkward." Ayame knew - analytically - that Naruto's life would change once he became a ninja. Their interactions would change as well simply because ninja life is hard and stressful and stressed people act differently. Her father had friends that went to the academy when he was young, and he's told her about what that life entails. She assumes they're all dead now, they've never once visited. It's why she was never enrolled, that life is for the brave and the bold and the dead.
She expected Naruto to show up even more frequently, or to leave big tips with his new ninja money. She did not expect to have two blonde girls in her lap, and a Naruto in a suit massaging her shoulders from behind, while she sits at his dinner table. "It's not awkward for me. For my big sister, I think you deserve better." Naruto - no, Business Naruto as he introduced himself - assures her while finding just the right nerve. She can't complain about the massage itself, it's very nice. His fingers work like magic, settling her and almost instantly pushing her into a relaxed state she very much didn't expect when coming here. The ramen she brought isn't forgotten, the blondes in her lap are happily slurping it up. She wasn't aware clones could eat, they are clones right? This is a whole thing? She doesn't get this stuff.
Even if the message is great, she can't help but wonder how this even happened. Why does he think this is a normal way to greet someone? Above all else it's just the most incredibly awkward thing she's ever experienced. Is this him hitting on her? Is that even a thing? She's quite a few years older than him, and showing her even younger versions of him in small girl form is not helping the perception that he is a child.
Still, she leans back and enjoys the awkwardness. She deserves this, working at a ramen shop is hard and he's like thirteen, he's probably not even thinking like that yet. Trying to deny the treatment might tip him off that this is weird and then she has a whole host of other things to explain.
"He's fine." She says, swooping back into the ramen shop and donning her apron in seconds. She gets handed three bowls on the spot, of which she slides to customers after only a momentary glance at the numbers hanging above their head.
"Good to hear." Teuchi says, "we knew that though. You seem happy."
"I missed him, it's good to see him okay… It was weird though, he's definitely changed." She laughs a little, shaking her head while taking someone's order.
"Everyone changes when you're not looking. Sometimes it may be tempting not to look away so you can avoid that, but then you have a whole different problem. You'll think someone hasn't changed at all when they're very different now. It's good to look away, it gives you perspective." He explains to her while taking an order from her, and slipping back to the bowls.
"This might be a little more than you'd think," she titters awkwardly, "well, as long as he's happy."
Threnodist
occupying Haudenosaunee & Osage land she/her/hers
- Location
- Pittsburgh
my god the wisdom. Ramen fanfic man is forming neural connections in my brain right now
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
No, but he knew the guy.
Glad a piece of mine could provide a little help, in any way whatsoever.
Canon Side-Story: Otherworlders: Fierro was killed by a little girl?
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
This one is a pretty huge departure from the normal content and is completely optional. A lot of the canon side-stories are optional, but you miss something that could alter your understanding of events by skipping it.
This one will not be relevant for a long time and focuses mostly on introducing 5 characters that many will have forgotten about by the time they come up. It also has some heavily adult themes, as unlike most of the content, it doesn't star a 12 year old girl. In fact, Sakura's only mentioned in passing.
It's also the longest side story, period, at almost 3K.
I had fun writing it, and I hope you will too. If no one else, the $10 tier patrons that voted on it will presumably enjoy it quite a bit.
Enjoy! Patreon/Discord link: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
The lord sighs, her day is just beginning and it's already stressful. She's been resting on her laurels recently, but not anymore if the people in her life have anything to say about it.
The meeting hall is only for the truly important moments - at least when used officially - and hasn't been invoked in several years. Its use today brought her out of the bedroom - not a big loss - but more importantly, it brought the three Dark Knights from their stations all over the malignant lands. The first dark knight, Reaver, a lich that's dedicated two hundred years to martial combat. His prowess is undeniable, even if unconventional. His equipment, once golden and glorious, now shows its age as decrepit relics painstakingly cared for to the limit. She has no doubt he's just as dangerous as when her grandfather was in her position and his equipment was fresh, he may even be more dangerous. His armor guards his face, but she can see his glowing red eyes from behind the visor, she knows it's him sitting across from her at their rounded table.
The second dark knight, Samael of the cleansing flame. A woman with strong arachne genetics and sharp teeth. She's young for one of the three, but she felled members of the dragon clan as a child, as a lord she would not question her prowess nor her cold and distant way of speaking. Her voice is like a chilly breeze, and in all this heat, the lord finds it refreshing. Politics are annoying, someone like Samael who'll tell you to your face that you're an idiot is very refreshing. Her dress is what any young woman would conventionally call, a little revealing and shameless, but she's not going to mention it. If she needs her clothes to breathe, let them breathe. Vibrant red hair falls down her front, a spiral flowing over her shoulder, and sharp eyes take the lord in as if she's the threat here. It helps that she is.
The third dark knight, Akari of the Kagai clan, sits on the table with her miniature stature. She disrespectfully lets her feet kick off the table as if just a playful child, but not a single one of them is fooled. That bright smile exists on the black lips of a carnivorous shape shifter that looks at them all with the most innocently malicious eyes. They're a little wider than they should be, dark and pretending they won't light up a sadistic red that would brighten the night at a moment's notice. Malice seeps from her body, causing a miasmic aura around her. It's uncanny, and she'd be a lot cuter if she was actually trying to be. The message is clear, they've interrupted her playtime and she's not going to take them seriously until they apologize.
Sadistic, is a good way to describe their unhinged third. She won't be treating any of them lightly during this meeting, or the events that will likely proceed from it.
Lastly, entering the room after them all with a great smile on his green face, is the grand scientist. A goblin ten times older than most goblins ever get, with white hair on a frazzled head and dark beady eyes that misleadingly underplay his intelligence. A backpack twice his size rests behind him, showing his strength, and wrinkles remind them not to ignore his ancient wisdom.
"We have gathered." She calls out to him, "please begin before Samael starts breathing fire, or Akari twists the space around us into a funhouse for a giggle."
"Of course, my lady." The grand scientist kneels, not that it lowers him much with his already quite tiny stature. "I have called you all here because my devices have detected significant amounts of dark magic in a distant land. The land has no precedent for this type of signature, so I looked deeper, and it aligns with that of Fierro, the elven slaver our lady hunted down last year."
"Why was I called for something that simple?" Samael, the second dark knight, asks with a glare. "The lady handled it as a political showing, a group of ghasts could have dealt with it on their own."
"He means another world." The third dark knight points out with a melodic titter that puts the lady on guard. "We're here to discuss what to do about a now interdimensional criminal that's escaped our clutches and is terrorizing another world. It may not even have the forces to deal with her."
"Is that what you mean?" The Lady clears her throat, and gives their scientist her full attention. Akari seems to be in a good mood today, which is good, she wasn't looking forward to the cleanup if they had to fight.
"I do." The goblin's thick and old nose twitches, she swears goblin noses just get bigger and bigger as they age. "As you can imagine, this is bad."
"Quite." She grumbles, palming her cheek and resting her armored elbow on the table. "I do believe the apt word at hand is, shit."
"I concur," Reaver, the first nods his armored head at her, "shit indeed, my lady. Your eloquence reminds me of your grandfather's."
"It's called Fire Country, in the Elemental Nations." Their great scientist says with his palms on a quickly rigged display model of the land and its towns. He's still making little adjustments to the map while they're standing around and looking at it. "Fierro's building up an army there, I haven't figured out why but it can't be good."
"If she's building an army, we might need to do the sssame." Their lady says, her snake tongue accentuating a sound she'd rather it not have. She bites down on it gently, punishing it for daring to betray her. To their credit, the only sign anyone noticed is Samael's red cheeks.
"You're suggesting we invade?" The second asks her, eagerly trying to hide the flush by moving the topic along.
"I'm suggesting we might have to. We cannot let necromancy spread to another land with unethical roots, it could cause cataclysmic issues." The Lady's hot air huffs out, her armored arms crossing over her black metal breastplate. "Ending Fierro takes top priority, prepare the portals, I'll supply the crystals from my own vault."
"The crystals have charged the dimensional portal by sixty percent." The grand scientist reports to them the very moment he enters the room. The group sits around the round table, having convened in the recently used meeting hall for a very important discussion about what card game to play this Sunday. It has to be one that Akari can't cheat at with any sort of spatial distortion, but old enough Reaver still knows how to play it.
"It has only been a week, you must have provided very powerful crystals, my lady." Akari snickers at her, eyes gleaming with treacherous curiosity.
"This is important." The lord in the room points out.
"You could likely charge the rest yourself." Reaver points out, "we could be there tomorrow."
"And weaken myself enough that one of my siblings can stab me in the back?" She shakes her head, "if it wasn't you, I would consider the very suggestion an attempt on my life."
"My apologies, my lady, siblings didn't kill each-other so freely in my time." Reaver lowers his head, a flame puffing out through the visor slits in shame. "I do believe the given emotion back then was love, not hate."
"You're forgiven." The lady waves his statement off. "It is not a bad consideration, though even ignoring my siblings, I worry the elemental nations will react poorly to the sky opening up and spitting out undead monsters and hellish atrocities."
"Benevolent hellish atrocities." Their resident genius goblin points out, "I can't imagine why you would need to fight there. You could rest up before coming back and avoid the issue of your siblings entirely."
"You wouldn't know this, as your expertise is applicable science and not social science, but appearances matter a lot to the common people. Even should their army possess the flexibility to not reflexively attack with prejudice, their people will be caused great duress. I need my power to demonstrate my abilities if it comes to that."
"If I may ask, why would that matter?" Samael asks with the slightest expressive twinge to her lips.
"Because the best way to prove to a frightened animal that you will not hurt it, is to demonstrate the ability to do so without a thought, and then not do that. Trust is built on the threat of death, followed by kindness." The lady says. "To calm a public in panic, I must take their lives into my hands, and then pet them instead of crushing them."
"I feel like that's probably not a catch all for every species…" The second dark knight trails awkwardly and coldly. Her tone does not shift in the least even when trying to rebuke her.
"Regardless, brute forcing the portal is not an option. We will wait. Great scientist, please keep an eye on Fierro while charging the portals with the crystals I have provided. In the worst case scenario, let us not forget that a target for us or not, Fierro is merely an elven slaver. She is not worth war with an unknown force. Should we cross over to get her, we will need an escape route."
"My lady! My lady! My lady!" Wiping her eyes of a groggy glaze, she can't help but look to the door and its incessant banging. A dozen men and women to her side roll over and groan, and she barely spares them a glance. As fun as last night was, she doesn't know any of their names and she won't think about them again after an hour.
The individual banging on her door with a grouchy old voice however, is someone she will think of for another hundred years if they're both lucky enough to survive that long. They just don't compare, her bedmates are gone from her thoughts instantly. "Guh, I'm coming, you can stop!" She shouts, reaching over to her nightstand to grab a goblet. Its contents are a stale red, a glossy wine left out but one she doesn't hesitate to down with a grunt at its lukewarm state. " She reaches up and palms her forehead, while her door continues to be banged on by the grand scientist despite her already telling him she was on her way.
She hears someone open their mouth. "For a lowly goblin, he sure is a pain in the ass-" the wet splash against the wall stuns the rest of her bedmates into immediate silence, a simple wave of her hand and the voice is gone, what remains of their corpse thuds back into the bed a second later. She doesn't look back.
She doesn't explain her actions either, they all know why she removed him, and none dare to speak up again.
She stands, allowing a dozen flowing black tendrils to disappear back into her spine, and for her clothes to slither up her body from under the bed, conforming to her like living fabric. The pitch black plate armor comes from the wall, slapping into place on her body a moment later with just a flick of her wrist. "I'll be right there, great scientist, you can stop before you bother my respectful guests. Their heads are likely throbbing from last night!" Her laugh reaches through the door just as she gets to it.
"I'm sure much was throbbing last night." The scientist says from behind the door, and she holds in a snicker, sparing a single glance back at them as she approaches the door.
She ignores the blood which now bathes them. "I do apologize, use the guardian baths to cleanse yourselves of the stench. Lucky you, the process of taking in power from such precious baths should add a few years to your lives."
That handled, she opens the door, finding the goblin a panting mess, dripping sweat onto the floor while on his knees from exhaustion. He's a little old to be running around like that, she should get him something- "ah, and someone bring that body to the condensers." She pats the goblins head with her armored hand, feeling his white hair, it is getting rather rough.
"My lady, Fierro's been killed." He gasps out, around shaky breaths.
"... What?" She asks with a blink and a focused gaze.
"Her killer has inherited Necromancy." He continues, "I worry-"
"Let us talk outside of the ears of potential traitors, grand scientist." She picks the man up without ceremony, plopping his behind on her pauldron and making her way out of her room. A tendril slips out from behind her to close the door. "Enjoy the ride, thank you for rushing for my attention."
"Yes, my lady."
"This is a dungeon. How in the hell did that world get dungeons?" The lady growls, claws radiating hot mana as they scorch the war table the great scientist has set up for them. It shows the dungeons, starting with a manor of all things, then through tunnels, a broken apart town, a sewer system, another manor, all in a non-euclidean form. At the end of it, is where Fierro was killed. There's no mistaking this structure, this is a dungeon, Fierro would have recognized it and fled into it, but why is it even a thing?
"I do not know, my lady, but she was pulled into it along with a large group of undead, a small army mostly consisting of naive children, and a small force that inevitably killed her." The great scientist supplies three pictures that float up on the war table.
"Children?" The Lady stares at the pictures, committing them to memory, especially the golden haired one, that picture has a golden border indicating she's the one that killed Fierro and obtained her magic right. "You mean to tell me children of this land did what we were planning an entire invasion to do?"
"To be fair, invading a world for a low level necromancer might have been a bit of an overstep." The second dark knight points out with her common emotionless drawl.
"I can see that." The Lady growls ferally, reminding everyone of her family's background experimentation with lupine genetics. The sound reverberates throughout the entire room, but shakes no one. They did not get here by being unable to handle her. "The issue remains. This girl has obtained necromancy, but her only knowledge of it is Fierro's treacherous misuse of the dark art. If left alone, she may become a bigger problem than Fierro was. She may spread undead slavery to that world without even realizing what she's doing."
"You're suggesting we invade and kill her?" The grand scientist asks, "the portals are charged to eighty percent, with a magical donation split between each of you, the only limit to how fast we could deploy would be gathering the army."
"I would advise against that, why not watch her?" The second suggests, "or try to send a message? We could do so fairly cheaply."
A stroke of her chin with a clawed finger, the lady leans back and thinks.
"I wasn't thinking of killing her. Perhaps we can be a little lighter handed with this." The darkly armored head of state says, holding a focused gaze on the portrait of the blonde girl in the photograph, "figure out how to get into contact with whatever systems govern her world, and see if we can negotiate a subspace meeting with her. She deserves a reward, and perhaps a little guidance."
"By your will, my lady." The goblin kneels, and she rolls her eyes.
She'd kill a thousand people for him without a thought, but he's still kneeling just like when she first came across him fifty years ago.
"I'm having the vitality essence from a fool condensed, drink the damn juice you old coot." She orders him as she takes her leave. She has a meeting to plan with a little girl, and needs a lot of time to try and figure out how to make herself less intimidating. Maybe she should kidnap a few human children and see how much she has to change herself to appease them before she returns them, "and finish charging the portal, one thing from our world is a coincidence, two is an indication of a rift somewhere, we need to be able to react should something worse cross over."
"Like the lord of light?" The third dark knight asks with a playful titter, "he's fun, maybe we could invite him?".
"Humans invading another land for its natural resources and land? No, that's completely out of character, they would never do that." The lady jokes with a huge, face splitting deadpan, ignoring the dumb suggestion from the chaotic eighty year old lady dressing in a child's skin to mess with them. "I'm certainly talking about my long buried grandfather."
"Your grandfather wasn't bur-" the second dark knight begins-
"I know, my mother ate him, I was making a joke." The lady palms her face, "forget it, just keep the portal charged. If we're lucky, they won't even notice we were there if we need to cross over."
"If we are lucky, you will never need to cross over." The second dark knight points out.
'If I was that lucky, Fierro wouldn't have reincarnated." The lady growls again, before marching off to figure this out. Children, how to not scare children, there has to be a damn book somewhere.
This one will not be relevant for a long time and focuses mostly on introducing 5 characters that many will have forgotten about by the time they come up. It also has some heavily adult themes, as unlike most of the content, it doesn't star a 12 year old girl. In fact, Sakura's only mentioned in passing.
It's also the longest side story, period, at almost 3K.
I had fun writing it, and I hope you will too. If no one else, the $10 tier patrons that voted on it will presumably enjoy it quite a bit.
Enjoy! Patreon/Discord link: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
The lord sighs, her day is just beginning and it's already stressful. She's been resting on her laurels recently, but not anymore if the people in her life have anything to say about it.
The meeting hall is only for the truly important moments - at least when used officially - and hasn't been invoked in several years. Its use today brought her out of the bedroom - not a big loss - but more importantly, it brought the three Dark Knights from their stations all over the malignant lands. The first dark knight, Reaver, a lich that's dedicated two hundred years to martial combat. His prowess is undeniable, even if unconventional. His equipment, once golden and glorious, now shows its age as decrepit relics painstakingly cared for to the limit. She has no doubt he's just as dangerous as when her grandfather was in her position and his equipment was fresh, he may even be more dangerous. His armor guards his face, but she can see his glowing red eyes from behind the visor, she knows it's him sitting across from her at their rounded table.
The second dark knight, Samael of the cleansing flame. A woman with strong arachne genetics and sharp teeth. She's young for one of the three, but she felled members of the dragon clan as a child, as a lord she would not question her prowess nor her cold and distant way of speaking. Her voice is like a chilly breeze, and in all this heat, the lord finds it refreshing. Politics are annoying, someone like Samael who'll tell you to your face that you're an idiot is very refreshing. Her dress is what any young woman would conventionally call, a little revealing and shameless, but she's not going to mention it. If she needs her clothes to breathe, let them breathe. Vibrant red hair falls down her front, a spiral flowing over her shoulder, and sharp eyes take the lord in as if she's the threat here. It helps that she is.
The third dark knight, Akari of the Kagai clan, sits on the table with her miniature stature. She disrespectfully lets her feet kick off the table as if just a playful child, but not a single one of them is fooled. That bright smile exists on the black lips of a carnivorous shape shifter that looks at them all with the most innocently malicious eyes. They're a little wider than they should be, dark and pretending they won't light up a sadistic red that would brighten the night at a moment's notice. Malice seeps from her body, causing a miasmic aura around her. It's uncanny, and she'd be a lot cuter if she was actually trying to be. The message is clear, they've interrupted her playtime and she's not going to take them seriously until they apologize.
Sadistic, is a good way to describe their unhinged third. She won't be treating any of them lightly during this meeting, or the events that will likely proceed from it.
Lastly, entering the room after them all with a great smile on his green face, is the grand scientist. A goblin ten times older than most goblins ever get, with white hair on a frazzled head and dark beady eyes that misleadingly underplay his intelligence. A backpack twice his size rests behind him, showing his strength, and wrinkles remind them not to ignore his ancient wisdom.
"We have gathered." She calls out to him, "please begin before Samael starts breathing fire, or Akari twists the space around us into a funhouse for a giggle."
"Of course, my lady." The grand scientist kneels, not that it lowers him much with his already quite tiny stature. "I have called you all here because my devices have detected significant amounts of dark magic in a distant land. The land has no precedent for this type of signature, so I looked deeper, and it aligns with that of Fierro, the elven slaver our lady hunted down last year."
"Why was I called for something that simple?" Samael, the second dark knight, asks with a glare. "The lady handled it as a political showing, a group of ghasts could have dealt with it on their own."
"He means another world." The third dark knight points out with a melodic titter that puts the lady on guard. "We're here to discuss what to do about a now interdimensional criminal that's escaped our clutches and is terrorizing another world. It may not even have the forces to deal with her."
"Is that what you mean?" The Lady clears her throat, and gives their scientist her full attention. Akari seems to be in a good mood today, which is good, she wasn't looking forward to the cleanup if they had to fight.
"I do." The goblin's thick and old nose twitches, she swears goblin noses just get bigger and bigger as they age. "As you can imagine, this is bad."
"Quite." She grumbles, palming her cheek and resting her armored elbow on the table. "I do believe the apt word at hand is, shit."
"I concur," Reaver, the first nods his armored head at her, "shit indeed, my lady. Your eloquence reminds me of your grandfather's."
"It's called Fire Country, in the Elemental Nations." Their great scientist says with his palms on a quickly rigged display model of the land and its towns. He's still making little adjustments to the map while they're standing around and looking at it. "Fierro's building up an army there, I haven't figured out why but it can't be good."
"If she's building an army, we might need to do the sssame." Their lady says, her snake tongue accentuating a sound she'd rather it not have. She bites down on it gently, punishing it for daring to betray her. To their credit, the only sign anyone noticed is Samael's red cheeks.
"You're suggesting we invade?" The second asks her, eagerly trying to hide the flush by moving the topic along.
"I'm suggesting we might have to. We cannot let necromancy spread to another land with unethical roots, it could cause cataclysmic issues." The Lady's hot air huffs out, her armored arms crossing over her black metal breastplate. "Ending Fierro takes top priority, prepare the portals, I'll supply the crystals from my own vault."
"The crystals have charged the dimensional portal by sixty percent." The grand scientist reports to them the very moment he enters the room. The group sits around the round table, having convened in the recently used meeting hall for a very important discussion about what card game to play this Sunday. It has to be one that Akari can't cheat at with any sort of spatial distortion, but old enough Reaver still knows how to play it.
"It has only been a week, you must have provided very powerful crystals, my lady." Akari snickers at her, eyes gleaming with treacherous curiosity.
"This is important." The lord in the room points out.
"You could likely charge the rest yourself." Reaver points out, "we could be there tomorrow."
"And weaken myself enough that one of my siblings can stab me in the back?" She shakes her head, "if it wasn't you, I would consider the very suggestion an attempt on my life."
"My apologies, my lady, siblings didn't kill each-other so freely in my time." Reaver lowers his head, a flame puffing out through the visor slits in shame. "I do believe the given emotion back then was love, not hate."
"You're forgiven." The lady waves his statement off. "It is not a bad consideration, though even ignoring my siblings, I worry the elemental nations will react poorly to the sky opening up and spitting out undead monsters and hellish atrocities."
"Benevolent hellish atrocities." Their resident genius goblin points out, "I can't imagine why you would need to fight there. You could rest up before coming back and avoid the issue of your siblings entirely."
"You wouldn't know this, as your expertise is applicable science and not social science, but appearances matter a lot to the common people. Even should their army possess the flexibility to not reflexively attack with prejudice, their people will be caused great duress. I need my power to demonstrate my abilities if it comes to that."
"If I may ask, why would that matter?" Samael asks with the slightest expressive twinge to her lips.
"Because the best way to prove to a frightened animal that you will not hurt it, is to demonstrate the ability to do so without a thought, and then not do that. Trust is built on the threat of death, followed by kindness." The lady says. "To calm a public in panic, I must take their lives into my hands, and then pet them instead of crushing them."
"I feel like that's probably not a catch all for every species…" The second dark knight trails awkwardly and coldly. Her tone does not shift in the least even when trying to rebuke her.
"Regardless, brute forcing the portal is not an option. We will wait. Great scientist, please keep an eye on Fierro while charging the portals with the crystals I have provided. In the worst case scenario, let us not forget that a target for us or not, Fierro is merely an elven slaver. She is not worth war with an unknown force. Should we cross over to get her, we will need an escape route."
"My lady! My lady! My lady!" Wiping her eyes of a groggy glaze, she can't help but look to the door and its incessant banging. A dozen men and women to her side roll over and groan, and she barely spares them a glance. As fun as last night was, she doesn't know any of their names and she won't think about them again after an hour.
The individual banging on her door with a grouchy old voice however, is someone she will think of for another hundred years if they're both lucky enough to survive that long. They just don't compare, her bedmates are gone from her thoughts instantly. "Guh, I'm coming, you can stop!" She shouts, reaching over to her nightstand to grab a goblet. Its contents are a stale red, a glossy wine left out but one she doesn't hesitate to down with a grunt at its lukewarm state. " She reaches up and palms her forehead, while her door continues to be banged on by the grand scientist despite her already telling him she was on her way.
She hears someone open their mouth. "For a lowly goblin, he sure is a pain in the ass-" the wet splash against the wall stuns the rest of her bedmates into immediate silence, a simple wave of her hand and the voice is gone, what remains of their corpse thuds back into the bed a second later. She doesn't look back.
She doesn't explain her actions either, they all know why she removed him, and none dare to speak up again.
She stands, allowing a dozen flowing black tendrils to disappear back into her spine, and for her clothes to slither up her body from under the bed, conforming to her like living fabric. The pitch black plate armor comes from the wall, slapping into place on her body a moment later with just a flick of her wrist. "I'll be right there, great scientist, you can stop before you bother my respectful guests. Their heads are likely throbbing from last night!" Her laugh reaches through the door just as she gets to it.
"I'm sure much was throbbing last night." The scientist says from behind the door, and she holds in a snicker, sparing a single glance back at them as she approaches the door.
She ignores the blood which now bathes them. "I do apologize, use the guardian baths to cleanse yourselves of the stench. Lucky you, the process of taking in power from such precious baths should add a few years to your lives."
That handled, she opens the door, finding the goblin a panting mess, dripping sweat onto the floor while on his knees from exhaustion. He's a little old to be running around like that, she should get him something- "ah, and someone bring that body to the condensers." She pats the goblins head with her armored hand, feeling his white hair, it is getting rather rough.
"My lady, Fierro's been killed." He gasps out, around shaky breaths.
"... What?" She asks with a blink and a focused gaze.
"Her killer has inherited Necromancy." He continues, "I worry-"
"Let us talk outside of the ears of potential traitors, grand scientist." She picks the man up without ceremony, plopping his behind on her pauldron and making her way out of her room. A tendril slips out from behind her to close the door. "Enjoy the ride, thank you for rushing for my attention."
"Yes, my lady."
"This is a dungeon. How in the hell did that world get dungeons?" The lady growls, claws radiating hot mana as they scorch the war table the great scientist has set up for them. It shows the dungeons, starting with a manor of all things, then through tunnels, a broken apart town, a sewer system, another manor, all in a non-euclidean form. At the end of it, is where Fierro was killed. There's no mistaking this structure, this is a dungeon, Fierro would have recognized it and fled into it, but why is it even a thing?
"I do not know, my lady, but she was pulled into it along with a large group of undead, a small army mostly consisting of naive children, and a small force that inevitably killed her." The great scientist supplies three pictures that float up on the war table.
"Children?" The Lady stares at the pictures, committing them to memory, especially the golden haired one, that picture has a golden border indicating she's the one that killed Fierro and obtained her magic right. "You mean to tell me children of this land did what we were planning an entire invasion to do?"
"To be fair, invading a world for a low level necromancer might have been a bit of an overstep." The second dark knight points out with her common emotionless drawl.
"I can see that." The Lady growls ferally, reminding everyone of her family's background experimentation with lupine genetics. The sound reverberates throughout the entire room, but shakes no one. They did not get here by being unable to handle her. "The issue remains. This girl has obtained necromancy, but her only knowledge of it is Fierro's treacherous misuse of the dark art. If left alone, she may become a bigger problem than Fierro was. She may spread undead slavery to that world without even realizing what she's doing."
"You're suggesting we invade and kill her?" The grand scientist asks, "the portals are charged to eighty percent, with a magical donation split between each of you, the only limit to how fast we could deploy would be gathering the army."
"I would advise against that, why not watch her?" The second suggests, "or try to send a message? We could do so fairly cheaply."
A stroke of her chin with a clawed finger, the lady leans back and thinks.
"I wasn't thinking of killing her. Perhaps we can be a little lighter handed with this." The darkly armored head of state says, holding a focused gaze on the portrait of the blonde girl in the photograph, "figure out how to get into contact with whatever systems govern her world, and see if we can negotiate a subspace meeting with her. She deserves a reward, and perhaps a little guidance."
"By your will, my lady." The goblin kneels, and she rolls her eyes.
She'd kill a thousand people for him without a thought, but he's still kneeling just like when she first came across him fifty years ago.
"I'm having the vitality essence from a fool condensed, drink the damn juice you old coot." She orders him as she takes her leave. She has a meeting to plan with a little girl, and needs a lot of time to try and figure out how to make herself less intimidating. Maybe she should kidnap a few human children and see how much she has to change herself to appease them before she returns them, "and finish charging the portal, one thing from our world is a coincidence, two is an indication of a rift somewhere, we need to be able to react should something worse cross over."
"Like the lord of light?" The third dark knight asks with a playful titter, "he's fun, maybe we could invite him?".
"Humans invading another land for its natural resources and land? No, that's completely out of character, they would never do that." The lady jokes with a huge, face splitting deadpan, ignoring the dumb suggestion from the chaotic eighty year old lady dressing in a child's skin to mess with them. "I'm certainly talking about my long buried grandfather."
"Your grandfather wasn't bur-" the second dark knight begins-
"I know, my mother ate him, I was making a joke." The lady palms her face, "forget it, just keep the portal charged. If we're lucky, they won't even notice we were there if we need to cross over."
"If we are lucky, you will never need to cross over." The second dark knight points out.
'If I was that lucky, Fierro wouldn't have reincarnated." The lady growls again, before marching off to figure this out. Children, how to not scare children, there has to be a damn book somewhere.
Evaunit02mark1
S-s-smell the Prey, S-s-start the Hunt.
Wow, it's like looking at a maxed out Sakura without her squad or Ino.
I mean to be fair she's found her own but they seemed to have come too late to help with the formative years so to speak.
I mean to be fair she's found her own but they seemed to have come too late to help with the formative years so to speak.
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
They're not so much friends as uh...
The Lord, the 1st Dark Knight, the 2nd Dark Knight, and the 3rd Dark Knight are in that order, the strongest living entities in their lands.
There is a mutally assured destruction there, and they are required to get along lest the Light Lord and his territory find opportunity.
I've actually got a surprisingly massive amount of worldbuilding done for this, it just barely matters for this story. And what does matter, won't come up for a while.
So while I knew it probably wouldn't do well as a side story, I was excited enough for the chance to write it that I just kinda spent most of my day on it.
Chapter 99 - Arc 6 - Onward, To Suna! - Coming Home from Suna
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
Dealing with the aftermath of the previous chapter, Temari is quite traumatized.
Patreon just got CH 118. They're introduced to the KSH - a secret organization that totally doesn't want to kill her - , and Sakura learned how to hug better.
Enjoy! Patreon/Discord link: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
"They got her when she went to the bathroom." Kakashi explains, patching the elder girl's wounds. She's wearing so much shame on her face, but she won't stop looking at Sakura's hand.
Personally, Sakura's over it, but uh, she probably should bandage it. Or at least take the kunai out of it, shouldn't she…
"How did you know?" Temari asks her, "they obviously wanted me to kill you, and then for me to die in the retaliation. You don't even know me…" The downcast look on Temari's face makes her feel a little guilty, which is an odd feeling when it's about the other person trying to kill you. Feelings are stupid.
"I'm very smart." Sakura gives her a fake beam that she's pretty sure only partially manages to show on her face. She also waves her bloody hand away from Gaara, who is endlessly fussing over her. In reality she had an educated hunch that Temari was under a genjutsu, but uh, she's not going to admit that. Gaara might not listen to her next time if he knows she might be lying about the enemy being possessed.
"Right, um, are you going to…" Temari's stare at her bleeding hand only intensifies with every passing moment.
"It'll be fine." Sakura shrugs, "I'm going back to bed, wake me up in five."
"But-"
"Oh right, yeah you probably want this." Sakura dexterously removes the blade from her hand with a bit of a crunch to it, it must be in one of her bones, before she tosses the kunai by Temari's feet, returning it to the sand with a wet thunk. "Byeeee!" She waves at the girl with her bloody hand, letting it flop a little as she makes her way towards the restful tent of restyness. She can't help but notice an oddly sour look on Temari's face as she leaves. The pain will probably return in a minute, since now that the kunai is removed combat is officially over. Hopefully she can be asleep before then.
Far more importantly, poor Temari, she'd probably feel bad in her place too but it's not like they can undo it. Except oh wait, they can, it'll be undone in about five hours! Why wait to comfort her when she can make it disappear!?
"What the hell is wrong with that girl?" Temari gulps, watching Sakura disappear into the tent with a monstrous wolf corpse and a frantic Gaara behind her. "Gaara tried to kill me to protect her."
"Yeah, that's gotta sting…" Sasuke hisses, bending over to pick up the discarded kunai, and puts it in his pouch. "It's a collectible now."
"Collectable?" Temari's brow raises at him, her lips quirking to the side as her gaze lands firmly on him.
"Friendly Fire Kunai, it's a thing. Forget it." Sasuke shrugs, leaving her to ponder much while also disappearing into the tent.
"Got them." Kakashi says suddenly appearing behind her with just enough presence to cause Temari to jump in surprise.
"Got what?" The spiky blonde haired girl asks. She looks to Kakashi and is struck with the realization that due to chain of command it makes perfect sense that Sakura might leave punishing her to someone else. She's the mission escort, and Sakura is a genin, she can't get away with beating the shit out of her.
But Kakashi can, Kakashi can make executive decisions for his village, and as long he didn't permanently injure her it would likely be swept under the rug politically. Gaara would probably vouch that it was deserved or something, he was planning on turning her into a liquid earlier over that scary girl's hand.
"Them." Kakashi repeats, not making a single move towards her, even as her nerves peak. "I had to tend to you while your Sensei found the enemy, but he failed to find them so I found them instead."
"Ah… To think he would fail that easily." Temari muses.
"He wasn't trying." Kakashi says. "Why would he care about someone targeting a Leaf Genin?"
"They used me." She points out with a forlorn pout. "I feel gross."
"They wouldn't do it again, using the same trick twice on the same person is a good way to die," Kakashi shrugs his shoulders, looking off back towards where he came from, "you're safe."
"You have an unbelievably high assumption of enemy competence." Temari snarks at the scary man, regretting it a second later as reality catches up with her. She's antagonizing him, she should not do that.
"They're still alive." He explains simply without even a twitch to his masked expression. "Well, they were. Some lessons are required for continued survival, so you can confirm they have those lessons by the fact that they are still alive. For example, you certainly learned to breathe at some point."
"Ah… That does make sense." She nods, well past the point of caring about random death. Who cares if their attackers are dead? In fact, she's lived with Gaara almost her whole life, knowing the enemy was stomped into the ground is almost comforting in its familiarity. "You could have pumped them for information."
"Our mission is to protect you." Kakashi's lone eye pointedly drags his gaze across her face, "there will be plenty of other chances to capture the attackers, this is twice in a week, there'll be more. There is no reason to risk you for a recurring opportunity."
"Thank you." Temari's expression twists into something almost admiring at the realization that she is not about to receive a beatdown. Just how soft is Konoha? She expected the Jonin to be bastards at least.
"For?" He asks.
"Answering. Suna Jonin don't answer my questions, they just pass over me for Gaara." The upturn of her lips turns almost wistful at the thought.
"I'm informative?" He questions her, before disappearing in a puff of smoke as suddenly as he arrived. She knows he's still around though, because she can hear his hysterical laughter somewhere in the distance.
"I feel like I missed a joke." Her pout is missed by everyone as they too have abandoned her for the tent.
Arriving at Konoha is surprisingly cathartic for Sakura.
So much has happened the last few days. Well, okay, very little has actually happened but it was all super impactful! She's realized she needs to have a very real conversation with Ino, she's realized why she's been so bored lately, she got a random encounter, she got a stick, she almost got assassinated - twice -, she was attacked while sand boarding, and she made a new friend! She may have made several new friends if Temari counts, but she gets the feeling she doesn't. Temari's reaction this morning to her waking up and stretching out with a perfectly okay hand was to start screaming.
That girl is traumatized. She gets the feeling she's the cause of her newest nightmares, but uh, that's not her fault. Temari got genjutsu'd, not her, the girl has to get her shit together before she starts blaming her.
Oh, and she stopped Gaara from brutally murdering his sister, that's important too. It's not something she should have had to do, but the alternative is that he saw his sister was trying to kill her and turned her into a paste.
And uh… This is preferable. "I think they want you to go with them." Sakura says to the puppy at her side. No, not the undead one, "Gaara…"
"I don't want to." The boy says, looking very tired all of the sudden. He always looks tired though, perhaps that's a part of his burden? He does feel like Naruto… actually, should they be okay with two of those in their village? Is that okay?
She has so many questions and no way to get any answers. It's above her pay grade is probably the best way she can put it. "Well, I think you have to, for legal reasons? You're not allowed into the merchant district yet so it's not like I can let you stay at my house."
He perks up at the idea, and then nods his head slowly and methodically. "I will fix that." He says firmly.
She only has time to blink at him before he is off with his siblings, and Sakura is pretty sure that can't end well at all. She'll have to warn her parents at least, that might come up and Gaara's apparently violent to everyone not her so, she doesn't need them getting hurt for telling him no.
"Good boy." She reaches over to pat her actual puppy, huge as it might be, and is happy to find it is just where she wants it to be without even having to look or instruct it. There was an odd period shortly in where the nameless monster would wander around and scare people. The Inuzuka were very helpful during that trying time, mostly teaching her how to train it before someone shot the poor doggo with a fireball.
A quick talk with her parents, a hug from Business Naruto and the twins, and a pep talk later from Business Naruto of all people, and she is standing outside of Ino's house. She has much to contemplate, and she does all of it standing here. There was always the chance Ino was on a mission, but there was only one way to find out and now that she's outside of her house she can feel Ino's soul inside. Only one way to find out is actually something the suit wearing Naruto said, that she can only find out the answer if she actively seeks it out. He's getting smart, she uh, does have to break it to him that she has to kill him sometime though. She's getting the feeling Naruto's not ever going to pop him and she's getting super worried about it.
She can break it to him over lunch. Maybe.
Every step she takes towards Ino's house is a little painful, and has been for about half the walk here. That she's standing outside of her house doesn't change that, her legs don't want to move at all. Getting closer to Ino comes with the reality in which she might say or do something wrong and suddenly she's stuck at home again. But that's anxiety, and Ino's her friend. She just needs to explain why it hurts, and she'll never do it again. Probably.
But what if it's not anxiety? It's a legitimate issue, and she is a rational person. She wouldn't ever want to walk towards a threat, but is that how she wants to view her best friend? Two months of regular sessions and her brain did stop protecting Ino from her, but it didn't ever stop protecting Ino in general. So as deep as the betrayal feels, her core doesn't seem to think it's a big deal.
Feelings are complicated.
She takes a deep breath and forces herself through the flower shop door. The smell hits her first, floral - obviously - and overpowering. Great care is put into a flower shop so that the pieces on display do not clash particularly hard. This does mean certain flowers need to be fully wrapped instead of out and about letting off their scents, and that some aren't even on display and are instead represented by pictures. She imagines a world in which you could press a button or something and get a quick scent, that would probably help a lot, but their advanced technology focused mostly on the visual and sound parts of the senses so she got video games instead.
It's a good trade, in her opinion. At least, she's always assumed that's why the Yamanaka flower shop is set up the way it is. She should research flower shops sometime, it's very important to her friend and she's been so busy researching stuff that's important to her that she's never bothered to be a good friend in that way.
Her charm is helping her discover herself and others, sure, but it's also making her seriously question Ino's tastes for being into her. She's always been a selfish, self centered girl. Even her best intentions have in some way revolved around her. For instance, why did she think she had to start the Sasuke fanclub to protect Ino? Ino could protect herself just fine. Ino could have run the club!
And, she's doing it again. A clap of her hands against her cheeks to center herself is all the noise she needs to make, before the man behind the counter runs out back. "Wait here!"
"That's weird." She ponders. Sure, she's Sakura, Ino's bestie, but uh, she could be here to buy flowers. Would it even be reasonable to go get Ino if she was? Making her wait could cost them a sale. There's also a non-zero chance Ino gives her the flowers for free, which is just not a great business model. She's not waiting long, she has just enough time to sigh before a blur comes right towards her as quick as lightning. Her body instinctively moves to deflect it, her trait activating, but she moves her hand out of the way instead. "Oop-" She gasps as she's sent backwards, landing on her back.
"I'm so sorry! It wasn't me!" That's an odd greeting to someone that just came back from a mission, but she rubs her friend's back in the most comforting way she can manage regardless. It's a bit odd to see the blonde girl crying on top of her but hey, Ino's been the comfort pillow for her many times so…
"Uh, okay?" She gulps, this is so awkward! "What wasn't you?"
Patreon just got CH 118. They're introduced to the KSH - a secret organization that totally doesn't want to kill her - , and Sakura learned how to hug better.
Enjoy! Patreon/Discord link: Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
"They got her when she went to the bathroom." Kakashi explains, patching the elder girl's wounds. She's wearing so much shame on her face, but she won't stop looking at Sakura's hand.
Personally, Sakura's over it, but uh, she probably should bandage it. Or at least take the kunai out of it, shouldn't she…
"How did you know?" Temari asks her, "they obviously wanted me to kill you, and then for me to die in the retaliation. You don't even know me…" The downcast look on Temari's face makes her feel a little guilty, which is an odd feeling when it's about the other person trying to kill you. Feelings are stupid.
"I'm very smart." Sakura gives her a fake beam that she's pretty sure only partially manages to show on her face. She also waves her bloody hand away from Gaara, who is endlessly fussing over her. In reality she had an educated hunch that Temari was under a genjutsu, but uh, she's not going to admit that. Gaara might not listen to her next time if he knows she might be lying about the enemy being possessed.
"Right, um, are you going to…" Temari's stare at her bleeding hand only intensifies with every passing moment.
"It'll be fine." Sakura shrugs, "I'm going back to bed, wake me up in five."
"But-"
"Oh right, yeah you probably want this." Sakura dexterously removes the blade from her hand with a bit of a crunch to it, it must be in one of her bones, before she tosses the kunai by Temari's feet, returning it to the sand with a wet thunk. "Byeeee!" She waves at the girl with her bloody hand, letting it flop a little as she makes her way towards the restful tent of restyness. She can't help but notice an oddly sour look on Temari's face as she leaves. The pain will probably return in a minute, since now that the kunai is removed combat is officially over. Hopefully she can be asleep before then.
Far more importantly, poor Temari, she'd probably feel bad in her place too but it's not like they can undo it. Except oh wait, they can, it'll be undone in about five hours! Why wait to comfort her when she can make it disappear!?
"What the hell is wrong with that girl?" Temari gulps, watching Sakura disappear into the tent with a monstrous wolf corpse and a frantic Gaara behind her. "Gaara tried to kill me to protect her."
"Yeah, that's gotta sting…" Sasuke hisses, bending over to pick up the discarded kunai, and puts it in his pouch. "It's a collectible now."
"Collectable?" Temari's brow raises at him, her lips quirking to the side as her gaze lands firmly on him.
"Friendly Fire Kunai, it's a thing. Forget it." Sasuke shrugs, leaving her to ponder much while also disappearing into the tent.
"Got them." Kakashi says suddenly appearing behind her with just enough presence to cause Temari to jump in surprise.
"Got what?" The spiky blonde haired girl asks. She looks to Kakashi and is struck with the realization that due to chain of command it makes perfect sense that Sakura might leave punishing her to someone else. She's the mission escort, and Sakura is a genin, she can't get away with beating the shit out of her.
But Kakashi can, Kakashi can make executive decisions for his village, and as long he didn't permanently injure her it would likely be swept under the rug politically. Gaara would probably vouch that it was deserved or something, he was planning on turning her into a liquid earlier over that scary girl's hand.
"Them." Kakashi repeats, not making a single move towards her, even as her nerves peak. "I had to tend to you while your Sensei found the enemy, but he failed to find them so I found them instead."
"Ah… To think he would fail that easily." Temari muses.
"He wasn't trying." Kakashi says. "Why would he care about someone targeting a Leaf Genin?"
"They used me." She points out with a forlorn pout. "I feel gross."
"They wouldn't do it again, using the same trick twice on the same person is a good way to die," Kakashi shrugs his shoulders, looking off back towards where he came from, "you're safe."
"You have an unbelievably high assumption of enemy competence." Temari snarks at the scary man, regretting it a second later as reality catches up with her. She's antagonizing him, she should not do that.
"They're still alive." He explains simply without even a twitch to his masked expression. "Well, they were. Some lessons are required for continued survival, so you can confirm they have those lessons by the fact that they are still alive. For example, you certainly learned to breathe at some point."
"Ah… That does make sense." She nods, well past the point of caring about random death. Who cares if their attackers are dead? In fact, she's lived with Gaara almost her whole life, knowing the enemy was stomped into the ground is almost comforting in its familiarity. "You could have pumped them for information."
"Our mission is to protect you." Kakashi's lone eye pointedly drags his gaze across her face, "there will be plenty of other chances to capture the attackers, this is twice in a week, there'll be more. There is no reason to risk you for a recurring opportunity."
"Thank you." Temari's expression twists into something almost admiring at the realization that she is not about to receive a beatdown. Just how soft is Konoha? She expected the Jonin to be bastards at least.
"For?" He asks.
"Answering. Suna Jonin don't answer my questions, they just pass over me for Gaara." The upturn of her lips turns almost wistful at the thought.
"I'm informative?" He questions her, before disappearing in a puff of smoke as suddenly as he arrived. She knows he's still around though, because she can hear his hysterical laughter somewhere in the distance.
"I feel like I missed a joke." Her pout is missed by everyone as they too have abandoned her for the tent.
Arriving at Konoha is surprisingly cathartic for Sakura.
So much has happened the last few days. Well, okay, very little has actually happened but it was all super impactful! She's realized she needs to have a very real conversation with Ino, she's realized why she's been so bored lately, she got a random encounter, she got a stick, she almost got assassinated - twice -, she was attacked while sand boarding, and she made a new friend! She may have made several new friends if Temari counts, but she gets the feeling she doesn't. Temari's reaction this morning to her waking up and stretching out with a perfectly okay hand was to start screaming.
That girl is traumatized. She gets the feeling she's the cause of her newest nightmares, but uh, that's not her fault. Temari got genjutsu'd, not her, the girl has to get her shit together before she starts blaming her.
Oh, and she stopped Gaara from brutally murdering his sister, that's important too. It's not something she should have had to do, but the alternative is that he saw his sister was trying to kill her and turned her into a paste.
And uh… This is preferable. "I think they want you to go with them." Sakura says to the puppy at her side. No, not the undead one, "Gaara…"
"I don't want to." The boy says, looking very tired all of the sudden. He always looks tired though, perhaps that's a part of his burden? He does feel like Naruto… actually, should they be okay with two of those in their village? Is that okay?
She has so many questions and no way to get any answers. It's above her pay grade is probably the best way she can put it. "Well, I think you have to, for legal reasons? You're not allowed into the merchant district yet so it's not like I can let you stay at my house."
He perks up at the idea, and then nods his head slowly and methodically. "I will fix that." He says firmly.
She only has time to blink at him before he is off with his siblings, and Sakura is pretty sure that can't end well at all. She'll have to warn her parents at least, that might come up and Gaara's apparently violent to everyone not her so, she doesn't need them getting hurt for telling him no.
"Good boy." She reaches over to pat her actual puppy, huge as it might be, and is happy to find it is just where she wants it to be without even having to look or instruct it. There was an odd period shortly in where the nameless monster would wander around and scare people. The Inuzuka were very helpful during that trying time, mostly teaching her how to train it before someone shot the poor doggo with a fireball.
A quick talk with her parents, a hug from Business Naruto and the twins, and a pep talk later from Business Naruto of all people, and she is standing outside of Ino's house. She has much to contemplate, and she does all of it standing here. There was always the chance Ino was on a mission, but there was only one way to find out and now that she's outside of her house she can feel Ino's soul inside. Only one way to find out is actually something the suit wearing Naruto said, that she can only find out the answer if she actively seeks it out. He's getting smart, she uh, does have to break it to him that she has to kill him sometime though. She's getting the feeling Naruto's not ever going to pop him and she's getting super worried about it.
She can break it to him over lunch. Maybe.
Every step she takes towards Ino's house is a little painful, and has been for about half the walk here. That she's standing outside of her house doesn't change that, her legs don't want to move at all. Getting closer to Ino comes with the reality in which she might say or do something wrong and suddenly she's stuck at home again. But that's anxiety, and Ino's her friend. She just needs to explain why it hurts, and she'll never do it again. Probably.
But what if it's not anxiety? It's a legitimate issue, and she is a rational person. She wouldn't ever want to walk towards a threat, but is that how she wants to view her best friend? Two months of regular sessions and her brain did stop protecting Ino from her, but it didn't ever stop protecting Ino in general. So as deep as the betrayal feels, her core doesn't seem to think it's a big deal.
Feelings are complicated.
She takes a deep breath and forces herself through the flower shop door. The smell hits her first, floral - obviously - and overpowering. Great care is put into a flower shop so that the pieces on display do not clash particularly hard. This does mean certain flowers need to be fully wrapped instead of out and about letting off their scents, and that some aren't even on display and are instead represented by pictures. She imagines a world in which you could press a button or something and get a quick scent, that would probably help a lot, but their advanced technology focused mostly on the visual and sound parts of the senses so she got video games instead.
It's a good trade, in her opinion. At least, she's always assumed that's why the Yamanaka flower shop is set up the way it is. She should research flower shops sometime, it's very important to her friend and she's been so busy researching stuff that's important to her that she's never bothered to be a good friend in that way.
Her charm is helping her discover herself and others, sure, but it's also making her seriously question Ino's tastes for being into her. She's always been a selfish, self centered girl. Even her best intentions have in some way revolved around her. For instance, why did she think she had to start the Sasuke fanclub to protect Ino? Ino could protect herself just fine. Ino could have run the club!
And, she's doing it again. A clap of her hands against her cheeks to center herself is all the noise she needs to make, before the man behind the counter runs out back. "Wait here!"
"That's weird." She ponders. Sure, she's Sakura, Ino's bestie, but uh, she could be here to buy flowers. Would it even be reasonable to go get Ino if she was? Making her wait could cost them a sale. There's also a non-zero chance Ino gives her the flowers for free, which is just not a great business model. She's not waiting long, she has just enough time to sigh before a blur comes right towards her as quick as lightning. Her body instinctively moves to deflect it, her trait activating, but she moves her hand out of the way instead. "Oop-" She gasps as she's sent backwards, landing on her back.
"I'm so sorry! It wasn't me!" That's an odd greeting to someone that just came back from a mission, but she rubs her friend's back in the most comforting way she can manage regardless. It's a bit odd to see the blonde girl crying on top of her but hey, Ino's been the comfort pillow for her many times so…
"Uh, okay?" She gulps, this is so awkward! "What wasn't you?"
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
I mean, kinda, but there's also the fact that Orochimaru ate the fuckin Kazekage and took his place.
Did that already happen here? Because I remember that the Kazekage was intercepted near the border on his way to the Chunin exam finale. Chronologically, he should still be alive unless butterflies changed that.
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
I dunno, wiki is vague.
Ultimately it doesn't matter, he's Orochimaru by the time he shows up in the story.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Motherfucker could pull gold out of sand and didn't share it or spend it on unfucking their business, I doubt he was very popular.
To be fair, you only tend to get gold near mountain ranges because it forms in areas that are tectonically active. The terrain of Wind Country looks anything but, lots of old worn-down plateaus and slot canyons, few 'living' mountains.Motherfucker could pull gold out of sand and didn't share it or spend it on unfucking their business, I doubt he was very popular.
So even if he can pull gold out of sand, there's probably not much around to be pulled. And the wiki says when the village was in dire economic straits he did trade some of it away. (Apparently mentioned in canon Naruto chapter 547?)
I can't imagine gold being a very convenient weapon to utilize though, theft probably was issue at some point and it wouldn't shock me to learn when times were better the Kazekage bought gold from Iwa at a hideous price.
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Gold is pretty heavy, so I imagine it was actually quite effective at crushing people.
It definitely makes sense that he's such a weak Kage though, his main technique is "hit people with money" and his village is poor.
If RPGs have taught me anything, it's that literally throwing money at people is the best weapon in the game if you're richer than god, but kind of terrible otherwise.
Chapter 100 - Arc 6 - Onward, To Suna! - Clearing up Misunderstandings
Sendicard
Writer of Sakura
- Location
- New Mexico, USA
- Pronouns
- YouPick
We've made it, 100 chapters.
In celebration, you should give me $5. You don't even have to read the extra chapters, honestly. I'd prefer you don't, my optimal scenario is that people give me $5 for no reason whatsoever. If I could just have like 1000 people do that.
Jokes aside, this is the last chapter in Arc 6, I hope you enjoy.
Monday we start the uh... preamble, for the Chunin Exams.
Two hours.
It takes two hours to calm Ino down enough that she can make coherent words. It's somewhat awkward watching someone break down while she hasn't the slightest clue how to help, but since it's Ino she deals with it the best she can.
There's blubbering, an awkward amount of time brushing her hair - Ino is very peculiar about it so the hope is she'll snap at her and stop crying - and eventually Sakura abandons that entirely and pulls out her cooking skill instead. She makes soup, chicken and noodles and a thick creamy broth. It's what her mom used to do when she was having a very bad no good day, and while it doesn't work here, she does her best.
Ino has comforted her dozens of times, and she can return the favor for her best friend. She hasn't been a very good friend most of her life, so as out of place as she feels, she jumps at the chance to do something fo there.
When Ino does finally seem to come around, it's while resting her head in Sakura's lap. Sakura's palm is rubbing Ino's back in calming circles, and the weeping girl finds herself blinking up at Sakura with rosy cheeks and no small amount of meekness to her gaze. "You um… can we agree to forget about all that?"
"Forget about what?" Sakura asks, working in a slightly higher pressure into her hand's circling now that Ino's more awake. She gives Ino a gentle smile she's pretty sure she couldn't have managed two months ago. It's nice, but it's nicer to see Ino bury her face away from view without doing so to try and hide tears.
Sakura's used to overwhelming anxiety and blistering embarrassment, it's a massive improvement she's glad to see, when compared to catatonia. "Do you want to tell me what this was?"
"I thought you just said we could forget." Ino points out in a grumbly mumble directly into Sakura's leg..
"Well yeah, the events but the reasoning is probably pretty important." Sakura argues gently, prodding her cheek with a finger, "what's wrong?"
"You think I kidnapped you and now you hate me." Ino mumbles.
"Isn't that something I'm supposed to cry about?" Sakura asks.
"You said you'd forget!"
"So the official paperwork that was supposed to be sent to me was this." Sakura says, sitting in the Hokage's office with a nice cup of tea and several forms which detail quite a bit of information. Like several other recommendations that say what Ino said, but with more details, and even guided notes for how she should best use her time at home. For instance, Anko - someone she met during her sessions with Ino - suggested she work on baking. She's not sure why that would matter, but now she wishes she had worked on learning how to bake. "Why wasn't this sent to me?" There's even a recommendation directly from the Hokage in here, that she use the time to make friends with Chunin and learn about the exam coming up, as he very much wants her in the finals.
"It's not unheard of for the clerks to make a mistake, but in this case I think someone deliberately swapped the forms to try and create a rift between you and Miss Yamanaka." The Hokage says, lighting his pipe with a quick jutsu from his finger.
"Who would do that?" Sakura gasps, eyes widening immensely. First of all, that's a cool application of fire chakra she hadn't thought of. She doesn't smoke, she doesn't intend to smoke, and she doesn't know a whole lot of people that do smoke, but the concept of using elemental chakra to make everyday tasks easier like that is rather perspective changing. It's such a cool idea, and it fills her with inspiration. Crafting inspirations mostly. If she gets her fire chakra up she can cook and smith without the need of so many tools! She needs to grind that after the exams, it's a need now. "They'd have to be stupidly bold since you have the original forms."
"I have a pretty good idea." The Hokage grunts, looking away from her as if at a ghost. In this particular case, she's pretty sure he's looking at an Anbu. This is likely him signaling them to go check up on his hunch.
What his hunch is, well, they know but she doesn't and she's getting the intention that… "You don't intend to tell me?" She asks, furrowing her brow, twitching her nose, and falling into a pout that quickly overtakes her face. "I thought I was trusted."
"It's not that I don't think you deserve the information." He assures her quickly, using one hand to show her his palm, to stall her, signify peace, or maybe just buy himself a second to think. "I just value you, and I think you'd get yourself killed with it."
"Ah…" She has to readjust her thoughts at that. He values her? He's said stuff like that before but, being honest with her like this is trust too. So it's not that she's lowly, or useless or, maybe it is but he's not framing it that way. "Just a couple of months ago you had me interrogated. When did our standing change that much?"
"Sakura, you will know when you've been interrogated." The old man has the gall to laugh at her, "you can consider that a check-up."
"A check-up where I got kidnapped, chained to a wall, and then the diagnosis from that check-up was extended house arrest." She points out, poking the very papers he just handed her.
"That's a bit of an exaggeration, it was village arrest at worst." Hiruzen jokes with a little bit of a flippant tone, but the mood chart beside his head tells her he's feeling rather tense so the joke is most likely meant to mislead her, "it was determined that you could use the downtime. Most Ninjas go years without seeing the kind of violence you did in a very short period of time, and at your age, with the nature of the memories you made with that violence, we wanted to ensure you were safe and weren't about to do anything rash. A couple of months is nothing, you have a very long future ahead of you."
"Do anything rash?" She asks, "sir, I don't understand what you mean… Aside from the glass - which was very much with a goal - I've never harmed myself."
"There's an old phrase that's survived quite well into the modern age. I do not want to die, but I do not want to live either." He huffs his pipe, the tobacco glowing a bright red. "There is not a lot of difference between turning a kunai on yourself, and not moving out of the way of one flying towards your neck. We had reason to believe that if we continued to push you without a pause, you would reach a point where you might not move out of danger. If you recall your own mind didn't move out of the way and stabbed you. Two months to ensure you live and serve for tens of years, that's not even a trade, it's a steal. I would make that decision every time."
"But…" She doesn't have a lot to say to that. She wants to, she has so much to scream, but so little to say.
"You didn't lose those two months either. You took classes, trained your abilities, made friends, you even made allies with the Inuzuka and summoned an incarnation of their dead. You achieved more in those two months than most do in years, and that again, brings us back to one of the very reasons I signed off on making you stay in Konoha. You're experiencing an accelerated frame of time, every day is huge for you. I want you to have as many of those massive days at home as you can."
"I'm a ninja, not a kid." She points out with an indignantly pouty puff of her cheeks.
"We're not at war, Sakura, not today. If that ever does come to pass, I would like someone as strong and loyal as you to have fond memories of home to look back on. I do not need your forefront memories to be about killing vampires, going blind, or hurting yourself in your own head. I stand by the decision. You matter."
"But if you stand by it… it can happen again." She holds back a soft sniffle. "I can't… I can't accept that."
"You don't have to. Continue to take care of yourself, maintain your friendships, keep a healthy mind, and I'll never order such a thing again. Not for that reason at least. Besides, once you hit Jonin you're allowed to go crazy, so if it worries you that much you just have to advance. Your sensei once did multiple years of consecutive suicide missions for fun."
"You mean because he didn't want to live." Sakura points out.
"You're paying attention! Good." He claps for her. "Go home, make-up with miss Yamanka, and let me take care of this security breach for now. Someone has hell to pay."
He's such a nice old man.
He does scare the absolute fucking shit out of her though.
"So, I wanna play a prank on the boss." Konohamaru approaches her during one of her rare times at the dinner table where she's not there explicitly for eating food. Admittedly it has gotten less rare as of late. Sometimes she just likes to hang around, especially with her house being as crowded as it is on the regular now. She doesn't actually talk to anyone, but she feels like being around so many people is probably grinding her charm and why not grind charm while reading a book?
She's very quickly learned that while the exp requirements for increasing a stat do go up with each level, the actual ease with which you grind a stat also goes up as the stat does. She can do a lot more exercise now than she could when she started, so she's getting a lot more experience a lot faster, so her actual effort to reward ratios aren't actually completely separated. It's like how in most games stronger enemies give greater experience but the experience to next level increases too. The higher costs are largely there just to stop you from grinding to max level on low difficulty enemies. Challenge is reward, and while that challenge is framed differently as you get stronger, and it normally doesn't perfectly even out…
Well, there's just no way she could have done this with her starting charm, and she's warming up to people being around her. She's pretty sure she'll always be more comfortable in her room, in the dark, curled up with a book or a handheld or something, but this isn't so bad either.
In fact… "That's stupid." The girl at the other end of the table doesn't bother her at all. "Why would you prank him? I thought he was your friend." Hanabi has become somewhat of a fixture in her life. She's under the impression this might be forced. If the Hyuga want her favor that much, and Neji screwed it up enough in their opinion that they sent him to her house with expedited shipping - or slapping as the case may be - then why not send the spare heir to hang around her? The worst she can do is teach her uncultured things, and she's sure they have classes to fix that. There's no way the Hyuga don't have training to be as stuck up as they are.
"Because pranks are fun! The boss loves pranks!" Konohamaru fist pumps in the air, and Sakura can't help but nod along.
"So what were you thinking and how can I help?" Sakura asks.
"I was thinking we'd make a fake rock and follow him around." The boy explains, "and you seem smart, I figured maybe you could help me with the rock."
"... Yes." Time to learn carpentry or stone working or craftsmanship or something! Crafting time, crafting time, everybody gather for crafting time! She's already doing a Haruno wiggle, she can feel it without looking down. The mortified stares the kids are giving her only further confirm it.
In celebration, you should give me $5. You don't even have to read the extra chapters, honestly. I'd prefer you don't, my optimal scenario is that people give me $5 for no reason whatsoever. If I could just have like 1000 people do that.
Jokes aside, this is the last chapter in Arc 6, I hope you enjoy.
Monday we start the uh... preamble, for the Chunin Exams.
Two hours.
It takes two hours to calm Ino down enough that she can make coherent words. It's somewhat awkward watching someone break down while she hasn't the slightest clue how to help, but since it's Ino she deals with it the best she can.
There's blubbering, an awkward amount of time brushing her hair - Ino is very peculiar about it so the hope is she'll snap at her and stop crying - and eventually Sakura abandons that entirely and pulls out her cooking skill instead. She makes soup, chicken and noodles and a thick creamy broth. It's what her mom used to do when she was having a very bad no good day, and while it doesn't work here, she does her best.
Ino has comforted her dozens of times, and she can return the favor for her best friend. She hasn't been a very good friend most of her life, so as out of place as she feels, she jumps at the chance to do something fo there.
When Ino does finally seem to come around, it's while resting her head in Sakura's lap. Sakura's palm is rubbing Ino's back in calming circles, and the weeping girl finds herself blinking up at Sakura with rosy cheeks and no small amount of meekness to her gaze. "You um… can we agree to forget about all that?"
"Forget about what?" Sakura asks, working in a slightly higher pressure into her hand's circling now that Ino's more awake. She gives Ino a gentle smile she's pretty sure she couldn't have managed two months ago. It's nice, but it's nicer to see Ino bury her face away from view without doing so to try and hide tears.
Sakura's used to overwhelming anxiety and blistering embarrassment, it's a massive improvement she's glad to see, when compared to catatonia. "Do you want to tell me what this was?"
"I thought you just said we could forget." Ino points out in a grumbly mumble directly into Sakura's leg..
"Well yeah, the events but the reasoning is probably pretty important." Sakura argues gently, prodding her cheek with a finger, "what's wrong?"
"You think I kidnapped you and now you hate me." Ino mumbles.
"Isn't that something I'm supposed to cry about?" Sakura asks.
"You said you'd forget!"
"So the official paperwork that was supposed to be sent to me was this." Sakura says, sitting in the Hokage's office with a nice cup of tea and several forms which detail quite a bit of information. Like several other recommendations that say what Ino said, but with more details, and even guided notes for how she should best use her time at home. For instance, Anko - someone she met during her sessions with Ino - suggested she work on baking. She's not sure why that would matter, but now she wishes she had worked on learning how to bake. "Why wasn't this sent to me?" There's even a recommendation directly from the Hokage in here, that she use the time to make friends with Chunin and learn about the exam coming up, as he very much wants her in the finals.
"It's not unheard of for the clerks to make a mistake, but in this case I think someone deliberately swapped the forms to try and create a rift between you and Miss Yamanaka." The Hokage says, lighting his pipe with a quick jutsu from his finger.
"Who would do that?" Sakura gasps, eyes widening immensely. First of all, that's a cool application of fire chakra she hadn't thought of. She doesn't smoke, she doesn't intend to smoke, and she doesn't know a whole lot of people that do smoke, but the concept of using elemental chakra to make everyday tasks easier like that is rather perspective changing. It's such a cool idea, and it fills her with inspiration. Crafting inspirations mostly. If she gets her fire chakra up she can cook and smith without the need of so many tools! She needs to grind that after the exams, it's a need now. "They'd have to be stupidly bold since you have the original forms."
"I have a pretty good idea." The Hokage grunts, looking away from her as if at a ghost. In this particular case, she's pretty sure he's looking at an Anbu. This is likely him signaling them to go check up on his hunch.
What his hunch is, well, they know but she doesn't and she's getting the intention that… "You don't intend to tell me?" She asks, furrowing her brow, twitching her nose, and falling into a pout that quickly overtakes her face. "I thought I was trusted."
"It's not that I don't think you deserve the information." He assures her quickly, using one hand to show her his palm, to stall her, signify peace, or maybe just buy himself a second to think. "I just value you, and I think you'd get yourself killed with it."
"Ah…" She has to readjust her thoughts at that. He values her? He's said stuff like that before but, being honest with her like this is trust too. So it's not that she's lowly, or useless or, maybe it is but he's not framing it that way. "Just a couple of months ago you had me interrogated. When did our standing change that much?"
"Sakura, you will know when you've been interrogated." The old man has the gall to laugh at her, "you can consider that a check-up."
"A check-up where I got kidnapped, chained to a wall, and then the diagnosis from that check-up was extended house arrest." She points out, poking the very papers he just handed her.
"That's a bit of an exaggeration, it was village arrest at worst." Hiruzen jokes with a little bit of a flippant tone, but the mood chart beside his head tells her he's feeling rather tense so the joke is most likely meant to mislead her, "it was determined that you could use the downtime. Most Ninjas go years without seeing the kind of violence you did in a very short period of time, and at your age, with the nature of the memories you made with that violence, we wanted to ensure you were safe and weren't about to do anything rash. A couple of months is nothing, you have a very long future ahead of you."
"Do anything rash?" She asks, "sir, I don't understand what you mean… Aside from the glass - which was very much with a goal - I've never harmed myself."
"There's an old phrase that's survived quite well into the modern age. I do not want to die, but I do not want to live either." He huffs his pipe, the tobacco glowing a bright red. "There is not a lot of difference between turning a kunai on yourself, and not moving out of the way of one flying towards your neck. We had reason to believe that if we continued to push you without a pause, you would reach a point where you might not move out of danger. If you recall your own mind didn't move out of the way and stabbed you. Two months to ensure you live and serve for tens of years, that's not even a trade, it's a steal. I would make that decision every time."
"But…" She doesn't have a lot to say to that. She wants to, she has so much to scream, but so little to say.
"You didn't lose those two months either. You took classes, trained your abilities, made friends, you even made allies with the Inuzuka and summoned an incarnation of their dead. You achieved more in those two months than most do in years, and that again, brings us back to one of the very reasons I signed off on making you stay in Konoha. You're experiencing an accelerated frame of time, every day is huge for you. I want you to have as many of those massive days at home as you can."
"I'm a ninja, not a kid." She points out with an indignantly pouty puff of her cheeks.
"We're not at war, Sakura, not today. If that ever does come to pass, I would like someone as strong and loyal as you to have fond memories of home to look back on. I do not need your forefront memories to be about killing vampires, going blind, or hurting yourself in your own head. I stand by the decision. You matter."
"But if you stand by it… it can happen again." She holds back a soft sniffle. "I can't… I can't accept that."
"You don't have to. Continue to take care of yourself, maintain your friendships, keep a healthy mind, and I'll never order such a thing again. Not for that reason at least. Besides, once you hit Jonin you're allowed to go crazy, so if it worries you that much you just have to advance. Your sensei once did multiple years of consecutive suicide missions for fun."
"You mean because he didn't want to live." Sakura points out.
"You're paying attention! Good." He claps for her. "Go home, make-up with miss Yamanka, and let me take care of this security breach for now. Someone has hell to pay."
He's such a nice old man.
He does scare the absolute fucking shit out of her though.
"So, I wanna play a prank on the boss." Konohamaru approaches her during one of her rare times at the dinner table where she's not there explicitly for eating food. Admittedly it has gotten less rare as of late. Sometimes she just likes to hang around, especially with her house being as crowded as it is on the regular now. She doesn't actually talk to anyone, but she feels like being around so many people is probably grinding her charm and why not grind charm while reading a book?
She's very quickly learned that while the exp requirements for increasing a stat do go up with each level, the actual ease with which you grind a stat also goes up as the stat does. She can do a lot more exercise now than she could when she started, so she's getting a lot more experience a lot faster, so her actual effort to reward ratios aren't actually completely separated. It's like how in most games stronger enemies give greater experience but the experience to next level increases too. The higher costs are largely there just to stop you from grinding to max level on low difficulty enemies. Challenge is reward, and while that challenge is framed differently as you get stronger, and it normally doesn't perfectly even out…
Well, there's just no way she could have done this with her starting charm, and she's warming up to people being around her. She's pretty sure she'll always be more comfortable in her room, in the dark, curled up with a book or a handheld or something, but this isn't so bad either.
In fact… "That's stupid." The girl at the other end of the table doesn't bother her at all. "Why would you prank him? I thought he was your friend." Hanabi has become somewhat of a fixture in her life. She's under the impression this might be forced. If the Hyuga want her favor that much, and Neji screwed it up enough in their opinion that they sent him to her house with expedited shipping - or slapping as the case may be - then why not send the spare heir to hang around her? The worst she can do is teach her uncultured things, and she's sure they have classes to fix that. There's no way the Hyuga don't have training to be as stuck up as they are.
"Because pranks are fun! The boss loves pranks!" Konohamaru fist pumps in the air, and Sakura can't help but nod along.
"So what were you thinking and how can I help?" Sakura asks.
"I was thinking we'd make a fake rock and follow him around." The boy explains, "and you seem smart, I figured maybe you could help me with the rock."
"... Yes." Time to learn carpentry or stone working or craftsmanship or something! Crafting time, crafting time, everybody gather for crafting time! She's already doing a Haruno wiggle, she can feel it without looking down. The mortified stares the kids are giving her only further confirm it.
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- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/They
oh hell yeah. gotta love when something motivates the old man to get off his duff and go break heads. Beware an old man in a profession where most die young, and all that.
It's a shame he'll be long dead by the time we have clearance for the story, because it will doubtless be a highly entertaining one.
Eh, it's probably Danzo, Hiruzen will go over to arrest him, Danzo will mindfuck him with sharingan, and the endless cycle repeats itself. For all the awe and fear that Sakura holds for the Hokage, it's telling that Sakura still got chained to a wall on his order as opposed to something more sane and Danzo felt he could get away with the changing orders bullshit. He's a deadly ninja and a brilliant military leader but I'm dubious as to his political talent.
Shadow Archon
Protoss Preserver
- Location
- Louisiana
It would be fun if Sakura beats Sasuke to the punch in killing Danzo here.
Heck, Itachi might not even need to die if they figure out what happened through Sakura's power. A Root dungeon that has a ton of documents lying around listing out everything Danzo ever did would go far in helping with that.
Heck, Itachi might not even need to die if they figure out what happened through Sakura's power. A Root dungeon that has a ton of documents lying around listing out everything Danzo ever did would go far in helping with that.
Danzo, you punk bitch...