[SI,Naruto,NaNoWriMo] Go! Unashamed Reincarnation Protagonist Sakura!

[Aaron Peori]

Fuck it, we're doing it live!

Warning: severely out of practice. Not betaed. Not original.

C&A Productions Presents

A Work of Blatant Self-Insertion

Go! Unashamed Reincarnation Protagonist Sakura

Chapter 1

Trinity

"And finally, the young lady."

"Ah!" The young girl sitting at the far end of the little triangle his students had formed on the steps of the rooftop finally turned her attention to him. Kakashi had noticed how little she seemed to be paying attention to the proceedings. She was, if her expression was anything to go by, bored. Unlike Naruto and Sasuke, who had turned out to defy and fulfil his expectations respectively the girl was the one he knew the least about. Aside from her perfect scores on every theory class in her academy records there was almost nothing he could use as a clue to determine what she would turn out to be.

Not that he was expecting much.

"My name is Haruno Sakura," she said, her expression growing suddenly cheerful. He had to admit she had the capacity to flip on the cute. With her wide green eyes, shiny pink hair and effervescent grin she struck the perfect image of a cheerful young girl.

"My favourite thing is playing games with the voices in my head. My dream..." She surged to her feet and grabbed her bicep with one hand, holding her fist heavenward. "My dream is to defeat the evil moon rabbit!" She snapped her hands to her hips and her grin turned vicious. "The thing I hate the most is idiots who are too blinded by the desire for power to see how dangerous that power is." She nodded to herself and closed her eyes, obviously pleased. She sat down delicately and gracefully, settling her long red cloak around her body like a poncho. "My hobbies include the occult, psychic phenomena, sufficiently advanced technology and point maximization." She gave him a thumbs up to indicate she was finished.

Kakashi was not ashamed to admit he stared. He was not alone. Both Naruto and Sasuke were looking at the pink-haired girl in open astonishment.

"Oh man, I can't believe I missed a chance to prank him with my answer like that!" Naruto shouted. "Way to go Sakura, you really are cool!" Naruto rubbed at his spiky blonde hair, his eyes squeezed almost shut and his idiot grin entirely sincere.

"Hmpf," Sasuke said, recovering himself and going back to brooding as he stared at his interlaced fingers.

Kakashi resisted the urge to rub his forehead or sigh dramatically. Most kunoichi Sakura's age were more interested in boys than training or jutsu. It was just his luck that the one he got bucked that trend by being a complete airhead. He rested his chin on one hand and allowed a bit of his disbelief to leak into his posture and visible eye.

"Enough," he said. "I think we all know where we stand now." He waved one hand in front of his face. "Tomorrow we're going on our first official mission as a team."

"Yeah!" Naruto leaned forward in anticipation, his entire body practically vibrating. "Our first awesome ninja mission! Saving a princess or fighting an evil bandit king or learning super powerful jutsu!" His smile stretched his whisker-scared cheeks. "Come on, I can barely stand it, tell us our secret mission, sensei!"

Sasuke was paying more attention to him now. He had barely moved from his pose, elbows on knees and faced tucked in next to his entwined fists held above them. His eyes were focused intensely on Kakashi and his mouth had the merest hint of a smile.

Sakura was... staring off into the distance. Like she had been since she had joined them on the roof. Like she had been, Kakashi realized, when he had first seen her in the classroom beneath them. Naruto had been crowing about his prank, laughing as the cloud of chalk dust settled on Kakashi's shoulder. Sasuke had been giving him a startled and contemptuous look. But Sakura, she's just been there, her eyes distant and unfocused.

"Sensei!" Naruto slapped his thigh. "Tell us already!"

"This mission will just be for Team 7, your three man cell." He held up three fingers pressed together. "Your mission is... survival training."

"What? Survival training?" Naruto rocked back as if struck. Sasuke was just staring at him, barely making a sound. Sakura reacted as if he was reading a laundry list.

"Yes, but this is very special training and will be nothing like the exercises you did at the academy." He leaned forward and allowed a sliver of threat to seep out of him. The reaction from both Sasuke and Naruto was satisfying. He began to laugh to himself.

"Wh-what's so funny!" Naruto challenged.

"Oh, it's nothing." He stood up, stretching and letting the threat dissipate. "It's just... if you knew you'd be too scared."

"I ain't scared of nothing!" Naruto shouted. Sasuke grunted, as if he didn't want to dignify the insult with a response. Sakura continued to ignore him.

"There were twenty-seven members of your graduating class at the academy," Kakashi informed them. "But of all of them... only nine young ninja will actually have what it takes to become true genin. So we have to test you to see if you have what it takes."

"Another test!" Naruto was on his feet now, gesturing wildly with his fists. "That's a joke! I already proved myself! I'm a ninja!"

Sasuke was frowning, his expression hostile.

"Face it, Naruto," Kakashi said. "There are only so many high level jounin that the village can spare to teach young ninja. So we have to test you. But don't get cocky just because you passed some simple tests or proved you could do basic jutsu." He held up three fingers again. "Do the math. Only nine out of twenty-seven. That means there is a guaranteed failure rate of sixty-six percent." He watched with amusement as Naruto began to shake. "See, you're already getting scared."

"I'm not scared!" Naruto shouted. "If there is a one in a million chance of passing, I'll do it!" He smacked his fist into his palm. "Don't mess with me! I went through hell, no test is going to hold me back."

"Well..." Kakashi chuckled. "I guess you have heart, at least. Tomorrow morning we meet at the practice field so I can evaluate you. Bring all your ninja tools and weapons. Oh, and don't bother eating breakfast unless you feel like throwing up." He gestured flippantly. "Dismissed."

"Yes, sensei." Everyone, even Sakura, chorused. He used the body flicker to leave the roof, but deposited himself on a nearby roof to watch them for one final moment. Naruto spent the next five minutes ranting and kicking dust up. Sasuke just rose to his feet with a snort and stalked to the stairwell, his shoulders hunched. Sakura stood up, stretching languidly and adjusting her long cloak.

Then her eyes turned and stared across the gap between buildings right at him. He froze for a moment, impressed despite himself. He wasn't exactly going out of his way to conceal his presence, but then again he also wasn't suppressing his instincts. Years of ninja life had drilled into him the habits of concealment and stealth. Sakura waggled her fingers at him and stuck her tongue out at him.

She then leapt over the edge of the roof, running her hands and feet along the wall to slow her descent as she slipped down into the crowds below.

*

Kakashi wasn't certain who he was more disappointed in. He stood before his three man team, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his shoulders slouched. Naruto was struggling against his bonds, a coil of rope wrapped multiple time around his torso and arms and pinning him against one of the three targeting logs staked into the clearing near the Memorial Stone. Sasuke sat to his right, his body slumped on the ground. His blue short sleeved shirt and white shorts were torn and covered in dirt and his skin had small abrasions wherever it was exposed. He was doing his best to hide the fact he was exhausted. Sakura was standing to Naruto's left. Unlike the boys she wasn't so much as bruised.

He spent a few moments gathering his thoughts. He kept his face even, because the test wasn't technically over yet. Even so, he didn't expect them to pass. It tore him up inside. He felt like he was betraying them all over again. The legacy of his teacher. The last survivor of his dearest friend's bloodline. Both were so focused on their own ambition, they had never even thought to help each other.

As impressive as Naruto's use of the Kage Bushin jutsu was, everything else about him had been entirely trivial to deal with. He obviously had inherited none of his father's unpredictable genius or his mother's insane power. Instead it was only the father's disdain for traditional ninja tactics and his mother's insane bravado.

He flicked an eye towards Sasuke. He had the best performance of the three potential genin. Kakashi had seen more impressive performances by even younger ninja, himself included. However, unlike most ninja he had been forced to confront his own arrogance in the most harsh way possible. Kakashi didn't attribute his own meteoric rise to some unassailable difference in skill. He just knew that the world he grew up in, the life he lived, was a pressure cooker that children of Sasuke's generation would never have faced. But even for a generation that lived in peace, he was ahead of his peers. Even so, his attitude was pure ego.

He reminded Kakashi so painfully of himself when he was a kid.

Finally he switched his attention to the only girl present. After so promising a surprise yesterday, her performance today had been quite underwhelming. Like Sasuke, she had vanished the moment he began his exercise. It was a simple premise, two bells and three students. He told them whoever didn't have a bell by noon didn't get a boxed lunch like the one now sitting between the three of them. Create every incentive to betray and compete. See if they rose above it.

Nobody ever did. He certainly hadn't. It had been a boy Kakashi held in nothing but contempt that had really carried him through his sensei's test. Though Kakashi had not quite understood it at the time. He hadn't understood it until it was too late.

Ah. He did it again.

Forcing his mind back to the more recent past he considered Sakura's performance in the test. Or her lack thereof. Like Sasuke she had hidden herself well. Unlike Sasuke, she hadn't even attempted to take the bells currently tied to his right hip. He had found her in the underbrush, barely even paying attention. To snap her out of it, he'd dropped a small genjutsu on her.

The Hell Viewing Technique showed the subject the worst image their own mind could conjure up. As an illusion technique it was really quite rudimentary. Nothing so horrible could be real. The trained ninja mind would know to disbelieve and how to defeat it.

For the briefest moment, he thought she had. Genjutsu was an intimate art. It required the user to infiltrate their own chakra into the victim's. He had felt his chakra enter the girl's body and seek out her mind. He had almost lost his grip. It was like there was... an entire world inside her. Then the chakra had latched onto something and her eyes had widened theatrically before she foamed at the mouth and fainted.

So was he more disappointed in the son of his sensei, for failing to be the heroic icon his father had hoped he would be seen as? Or maybe the last survivor of the clan of his dead best friend, who despite being a better ninja did not measure up to his ideals? Or the girl who had intrigued with one step and failed spectacularly with the other?

Or himself, because he was rapidly coming to believe he was going to have to fail them all. He had flunked dozens of young ninja hopefuls without batting an eye. At first reluctantly, then eagerly and finally with stoic indifference. He had hoped this team, so obviously put together by Lord Hokage to tug at his specific heartstrings, would finally see through the test to the real one.

A loud growl jarred him from his thoughts. Right, enough of the preliminaries.

"My, listen to those stomachs grumble." He waved a hand dismissively. "All that effort and none of you ended up with a bell." He gestured to his right hip, though both Naruto and Sasuke gave him queer looks before glancing to his left. "Well, I have an announcement about today's exercise. The good news is that none of you have to worry about being sent back to the academy."

Naruto's frown turned into a hopeful grin and Sasuke's into a knowing smirk. "All right I knew it! Nothing can keep me from being a real ninja! I'm gonna be-"

"A failure," Kakashi interrupted harshly. "All of you are. None of you has what it takes to be a ninja. You should all give up right now."

"What? No way!" Naruto struggled futilely at his bonds. "Give up? Just because I didn't grab a stupid bell! No way, why should we give up?"

Kakashi gave them a level stare. "Because none of you are capable of becoming a ninja."

Sasuke made a disgusted sound and sprung to his feet. He sprinted at Kakashi. The confrontation was short and decisive. Kakashi leaned into his hold, pressing Sasuke against the ground. He glared at the other students. "This is pathetic. Did none of you even understand the purpose of this exercise?"

Naruto dithered and Sakura just stared at him. Her expression was focused but unconcerned. Sasuke shifted slightly in his grip but made no effort to escape.

"It was teamwork," he said. "The whole reason we put you in squads is because three ninja together are stronger than one ninja alone. But only if they act as a team. None of you even tried to work together to get the bells."

For a moment, there was an uncomfortable silence. Then Sakura's face suddenly twitched. "Ah, that's right. This is the part where I ask why you only had two bells. You told us that if we didn't get a bell we wouldn't eat."

Kakashi focused his glare on her. "Of course the scenario was designed to foster dissension among you." He briefly considered a provocative demonstration but he wasn't convinced Sakura would care if he threatened Sasuke's life. "In the field, a ninja squad may be forced into a dangerous situation and only if they are willing to sacrifice for each other can they accomplish their mission. They may even need to make the ultimate sacrifice for each other."

Sensing the fight had left Sasuke, Kakashi released him and turned his back. He walked towards the squat stone obelisk that had hovered in the background of their entire conversation. "Did any of you ever see this stone before?" He placed his hand on the top. It was barely large enough to reach above his waist. The front of the stone was packed with tightly packed writing in the kanji dialect.

"This stone is for heroes of this village. Real ninja who knew more about teamwork then you three ever have."

"Heroes!" Naruto jerked against his board. "Yeah, one day I'm gonna have my name on that stone! Then everyone will know who I am!"

Sakura slapped her face with her hand. "You hear the stories but you don't really believe them." She lowered her hand and gave him a glare. It was the most expressive Kakashi had seen her yet. "That's the Memorial Stone. On it's faces are the names of ninja who have died in service of the village. I don't care if you are an idiot, but have respect for the dead if no one else."

Kakashi gave Sakura a fractional node, which she acknowledged by tilting her chin up slightly. "Sakura is right. This is where those who have shown what sacrifice really means are honoured." He ran his finger across the stone and stepped away. "All of my best friends have their names on this stone.

"Think about what that means and then compare it with your own performance.

"Naruto..." Kakashi gestured sharply at the trussed up boy. "You were so interested in showing off and proving yourself better than Sasuke that you never even thought to ask for help.

"Sasuke, you were able to see how much trouble Naruto was in and when I had him caught your first thought was to attack me rather than to help him. You were so focused on winning that you didn't care what happened to any of your teammates.

"Sakura..." He dropped his hands. "You didn't even try."

Sakura crossed her arms over her chest. "Hey now, I don't think you should be that harsh, sensei." She smiled absently. "I mean, hypothetically if a pretty young girl collapsed under a harsh genjutsu in the middle of sensei's test, then it's only natural for the gruff acting but secretly softy sensei to come and check on the seemingly helpless girl to make certain the girl was okay. That would put sensei within arms reach of me... I mean, the girl." She winked. "Hypothetically."

Kakashi gave her a long look. He stepped forward. Despite himself he was reassured by the soft jingle of both bells. Except... they were coming from his left hip. He could have sworn he'd tied them to his right. Slipping in his old age.

"Hypothetically, you still didn't even attempt to help your teammates."

Sakura shrugged. "I had faith."

He shook his head as he walked towards them. "Faith? Interesting choice of words. Okay. I'll give you a demonstration of faith, then." He pointed at the two box lunches. "After lunch we're going to try this exercise again. Sakura, you and Sasuke can both have one of the lunches. But!" He held up one hand, his fingers curled into an aggressive hand sign. "Naruto tried to steal them both earlier, and that was clearly undermining both the letter and the spirit of the exercise. As such, he will be forced to watch you two eat.

"If either of you let him eat so much as a single mouthful, I really will have no choice but to fail you all back to the academy." He put some good old fashioned bloodlust into his next words. "Do. Not. Disappoint. Me. Again."

With that he body-flickered away, leaving nothing but a cloud of smoke and leaves in his wake. He arrived in a tree not too far away, an excellent vantage point. This far away, not even trained chunin level ninja should have been able to see him. He had considered staying closer but after Sakura's little taunt yesterday he thought better of it.

His hands flicked through a series hand signs before he released a pulse of chakra. The Eavesdropping Technique was not flashy but it was effective. He could hear the sounds of one of the boxed lunches being torn open and the snap of the chopsticks being split. There was a few moments of chewing.

Kakashi slumped against the tree. It looked like there wasn't going to be a pass this year after all.

The chewing slowed and then stopped. "Why aren't you eating?" Sasuke's voice had a tinge of accusation in it.

"I'm not really hungry." Sakura sounded faintly amused. "I wasn't all that interested in getting my hands on a boxed lunch. That's why I didn't try to take a bell for myself."

"Ugh!" Naruto's stomach growled. "Don't talk about food too loud."

"You have to eat," Sasuke insisted. "You'll need your strength if we're going to beat Kakashi at this exercise."

"I don't need to eat, Sasuke."

For a long moment there was silence. Then finally Sasuke spoke with obvious disgust. "Fine, if you won't eat. Here, you take it."

"Wh-what? Sasuke?" Naruto gasped.

"I know you need to eat. They can probably hear your stomach all the way back at the academy."

"Woah! What about Kakashi!" Naruto sounded shocked more than anything.

"He's miles away by now," Sasuke said calmly. "We need your strength."

"He's right, Naruto. There's enough here for both of you."

"But... but..."

"Are you still worried about the rules now?" Sasuke was taunting now.

"No... I... uh... can't use my hands. Someone will have to feed me."

"And that's where I play my part." There was a snap as Sakura separated her chopsticks. "Don't think I'm going to make a habit of this, but as long as I have this useless lunch. Now open your mouth."

Kakashi smiled. He waited for the sound of Naruto biting down to echo through his jutsu, then body flickered back to them and conjured a giant cloud of chakra smoke as he appeared. "YOU!" he shouted.

"Pass."

He waved jauntily as the smoke cleared.

"We... we did it!" Naruto wiggled in his bonds. "Ah yeah, the next step on my path to becoming Hokage is complete! Suck it! I never doubted it for a moment!"

Sasuke was smirking to himself. Even Sakura looked pleased.

"But wait..." Naruto calmed down after a couple of minutes. "Didn't you tell us that if they let me eat, we'd all be failed."

"Correct!" Kakashi patted him condescending. "But to be a ninja is to see underneath the underneath. By showing they were willing to risk losing everything to help you they demonstrated the true quality of a ninja.

"It is said that among ninja that those who fail to fulfil their mission are trash." He turned to face the memorial stone. "But those who fail to protect their teammates, are worse than trash.

"All three of you have shown what it takes to be a true ninja. And you're all full of surprises. Just maybe, you can begin to grow on me."

"Alright! This is awesome!" Naruto grinned. Then his grin dimmed slightly. "Uh... can someone untie me?"

"Let me," Sakura said and slashed him free with one of her kunai.

"Right. I want you all to go home and get a good night's sleep and get plenty to eat. Tomorrow, we go on our first mission together as Team 7."

Naruto barely paused to rub his arms back to life before running out of the clearing, whooping and cheering. Sasuke left more sedately, his hands stuffed into his pockets, but his self-satisfied smirk said all that needed to be said.

"A moment, if you will, Sakura."

The girl paused and waited until both boys were well out of earshot before turning to him. "Yes, sensei."

He gave her a long considering look. "Sakura Haruno. Parents, two career chunin. No particular clan association. Second generation ninja on your father's side, fourth on your mother's. Your class marks were at the top in every academic and theoretical course at the ninja academy. No, that would be underselling it. Your marks were literally perfect in every category. Ciphers, languages, intelligence analysis, geography, chakra theory, history and the ninja code of conduct.

"Yet despite that, your performance in practical exams was suboptimal. Your technical skills were praised by all your teachers as being well above your peers... but your mastery of chakra was almost nonexistent. Formal testing showed your chakra was at the very bottom percentile of all students ever tested. Medical evaluations discovered no obvious genetic or physiological issues.

"It is noted that you suffered a great deal in early childhood. In infancy, you displayed symptoms of dozens of different ailments and illnesses, many of them either invariably lethal or crippling for life. Despite this, you recovered from all your symptoms by the time you were three years old."

"You did your homework," Sakura said. She rocked on her heels.

"So let me ask... when did you take the bells from me?"

She grinned. She held up her hands in the Kai sign. Kakashi looked down to his hip as the bells there dissolved into a clouds of phosphorescent particles and ash before vanishing. "When did you figure it out?" she asked.

"I double-checked them when I went to away to spy on your decision regarding Naruto's lunch," he admitted. "I have to admit, I'm impressed." He crossed his arms. "You do deserve the title of genius if you can get past me with so little chakra. What was it, a genjutsu?"

"I cheated," Sakura said with a shrug.

"Was it when you collapsed?" he asked. She only grinned. He hummed thoughtfully. "So... why did you not declare victory when you took the bells, and where are they?"

"One is in Naruto's pouch. The other is in Sasuke's." He raised his one visible eyebrow. She shifted and looked down at her heel.

"You gave them away?"

She considered her response. "I wasn't lying at the stumps. I wasn't interested in eating." She grinned again. "And I did have faith in Naruto and Sasuke. And also in you. I knew you'd give them a fair chance and they would be up to the challenge. So I wanted them to win based on their own talents and determination." She laced her hands behind her neck and her grin grew wider. "But it's possible for things to go different than I expect sometimes. Did you ever hear the story of the butterfly flapping its wings in Water Country causing a hurricane in Cloud? It's kind of like that. So I thought I should be prepared, just in case they, or you, didn't turn out the way I believed you could.

"But you did and I didn't have to do anything. Which is great, because I have a lot riding on things turning out the way I believe they can. I've waited twelve years for my chance to fulfil my dream and I didn't want to screw it up now."

She glanced up at him slyly. "And to tell the real truth I did it for the ultimate reason every human does anything. To see if I could get away with it."

Kakashi chuckled. "Well, I'm glad you opened up to me. Welcome to Team 7, Sakura. I hope your faith isn't misplaced."

 

[Tarantio]

As first chapter goes I liked it.

I always liked Sakura in theory because she was the only real underdog in Naruto cast of characters who had any significant screen time beside Lee.(and she was legitimately good in the Gaara rescue arc without being op for no reason)
Naruto and most of the rest always win because they have op genetics or unearned op skills they develop as the plot demand, she was one of the only normal characters who wasn't also a genius when and only when the plot demanded it or a cronical hardworker.

I didn't like her in pratice because Kushimoto never did anything with her potential and her character became progressively more boring as the series went on.

So I liked that it doesn't seem you are making the fact she is an SI mean she have all the power, all the chakra, all the jutsus and certainly not all the understanding of how chakra work by watching a kid show one time years ago.

Its still early but as it seem she only stole the bells because she used stealth or a low level jutsu instead of flashy jutsu (or at least that was the impression I got) there is hope that this could be a badass normal!SI witch is more in line with what Sakura could have been as the only member of Team seven with a normal background (man it seems that every character that kishimoto slightly liked needed to be a tragic character so tragic that their story almost seam like chunibus teenage goths fake backgrounds) and without op genetics, rencarnation deals, pet pokemon in the stomach, etc etc.

 

[Dropbear]

Always interesting to see a Sakura that isn't a little girl stereotype.

 

[Mizu]

"Yet despite that, your performance in practical exams was suboptimal. Your technical skills were praised by all your teachers as being well above your peers... but your mastery of chakra was almost nonexistent. Formal testing showed your chakra was at the very bottom percentile of all students ever tested. Medical evaluations discovered no obvious genetic or physiological issues.

"It is noted that you suffered a great deal in early childhood. In infancy, you displayed symptoms of dozens of different ailments and illnesses, many of them either invariably lethal or crippling for life. Despite this, you recovered from all your symptoms by the time you were three years old."

Click to shrink...

Wonder what caused all this? The SI insertion could be the reason for poor chakra control, but the ailments and illnesses stuff I have no clue on. Quite different to have a Sakura who isn't defined for her excellent chakra control, regardless.

 

[Blazinghand]

Looks promising! I'm eager to read more.

 

[Felius]

Wonder what caused all this? The SI insertion could be the reason for poor chakra control, but the ailments and illnesses stuff I have no clue on. Quite different to have a Sakura who isn't defined for her excellent chakra control, regardless.

Click to shrink...

Maybe it was at that time that the SI got inserted into Sakura (Urgh, that sounds so wrong... ) after the original kinda passed away? Maybe it was some weird reaction to Chakra messing with her immune system?

 

[Aaron Peori]

So I liked that it doesn't seem you are making the fact she is an SI mean she have all the power, all the chakra, all the jutsus and certainly not all the understanding of how chakra work by watching a kid show one time years ago.

Its still early but as it seem she only stole the bells because she used stealth or a low level jutsu instead of flashy jutsu (or at least that was the impression I got) there is hope that this could be a badass normal!SI witch is more in line with what Sakura could have been as the only member of Team seven with a normal background (man it seems that every character that kishimoto slightly liked needed to be a tragic character so tragic that their story almost seam like chunibus teenage goths fake backgrounds) and without op genetics, rencarnation deals, pet pokemon in the stomach, etc etc.

Click to shrink...

If you're here for a weak or badass normal protagonist, I'm afraid you will be disappointed. Sakura is, in her own way, very powerful.

She does not, however, know any jutsu or chakra control except theoretically. She scored so low because her chakra was too low to measure. It turns out "zero" is too low to measure.​

Wonder what caused all this?

Click to shrink...

You know all those reincarnation SIs that start with the MC at birth and go through the entirety of their childhood in exhausting detail discussing how they slowly earned all their various OP powers and abilities?

I skipped all that, because its basically watching someone work a spreadsheet for 12 years.

 

[oliverwashere]

Maybe it was at that time that the SI got inserted into Sakura (Urgh, that sounds so wrong... ) after the original kinda passed away?

Click to shrink...

"My favourite thing is playing games with the voices in my head.

Click to shrink...

I think the voices in her head means at least Inner Sakura is still with her, possibly Outer Sakura too since she said "voices" plural.

 

[Czlyydwr Llrngwl]

Good to see you back in the saddle, Aaron. I'll definitely be watching with interest, though possibly not, you know, all the time. I'm in the middle of a Disgaea gaming kick, and they basically have no ending, just an open post-game after exploring the half dozen or so endings to each one with NG+ laps.

 

[Tarantio]

If you're here for a weak or badass normal protagonist, I'm afraid you will be disappointed. Sakura is, in her own way, very powerful.

She does not, however, know any jutsu or chakra control except theoretically. She scored so low because her chakra was too low to measure. It turns out "zero" is too low to measure.​

You know all those reincarnation SIs that start with the MC at birth and go through the entirety of their childhood in exhausting detail discussing how they slowly earned all their various OP powers and abilities?

I skipped all that, because its basically watching someone work a spreadsheet for 12 years.

Click to shrink...

Oh well... you win some, you lose some.

Still if its written right even an op character can be entertaining to read (I'm not really against OP characters, just against OP characters who don't seem to have earned their skill) so we'll see, it's really too early to tell.

Anyway the fact you aren't giving her jutsu she pulled out of her ass and you are not giving her a bigger chakra pool because reincarnation somehow means more chakra plus you are eliminating the only advantage original!Sakura had means you are already ahead of the curve no matter how op you make her later.

 

[Akasui]

Sasuke and Naruto will wonder when did they have the bells and might realise that Sakura is more than they think she is.

Really, if she can put a bell in their pocket while they never know when, it's going to do wonder, to Sasuke at least.

In canon, even Kakashi note that Sakura is perfect to learn Genjutsu but Kishimoto never let her learn any even after all those years.

 

[oliverwashere]

In canon, even Kakashi note that Sakura is perfect to learn Genjutsu but Kishimoto never let her learn any even after all those years.

Click to shrink...

Was that even genjutsu? If so I'm curious where she'd learned it from. My first thought was that she transformed a normal clone into bells and stuck it on him.

 

[Akasha]

Question: If Sakura has literally 0 Chakra, or so little of it that it can't be measured, even in comparison to her already abysmal canon amounts, how can she be powerful, or in any way equal to any of her teammates, in a setting where everyone and their grandma can shit out meteors, craterize cities, teleport, piss waterfalls, fart tornadoes and pull armies of undying dead out of their hats, without the story turning into a Badass Normal/SCIENCE wankery?

 

[SynchronizedWritersBlock]

Possibly either manipulating other people's chakra, for example when they cast a genjutsu on her (which could explain the bell genjutsu she used on Kakashi - that doesn't work with normal+science). Or possibly ambient chakra, I imagine nature chakra is the holy grail for her once she can use it. It seems to me that she still can manipulate chakra even if she has none...

 

[Akasha]

Possibly either manipulating other people's chakra, for example when they cast a genjutsu on her (which could explain the bell genjutsu she used on Kakashi - that doesn't work with normal+science). Or possibly ambient chakra, I imagine nature chakra is the holy grail for her once she can use it. It seems to me that she still can manipulate chakra even if she has none...

Click to shrink...

The first option basically makes her a perfect counter against Genjutsu and nothing more, which is a problem, because nobody of any importance uses Genjutsu. Itachi and Infinite Tsukiyomi are the only real exceptions, and the former merely supplements his skills with Genjutsu, while everyone using the latter is one of the godlings shitting meteors left and right.

Nature Chakra, on the other hand, isn't an option, because it is canon that you need a shitload of Chakra to use it without killing yourself via animal petrification; you need to perfectly balance and mix Nature Chakra with your own. Too much of the latter, and you die. Too much of the former, and it is useless. Seeing as Nature Chakra is potent enough that Naruto's bullshit Chakra actually helped him learn something for once, and he still needed Clones (which require shitload of Chakra) to pull it off, and still nmwould have died a whole bunch of times if the toads hadn't had the Mighty Rod of Convenient Power Up... Sakura, with her abysmal Chakra, will die the moment she touches Nature Chakra, instantly overwhelmed.

Furthermore, in order to control someone's Chakra, you need to not only have amazing control, but also more Chakra than whatever technique you're trying to take control of. Kinda hard for someone who has 0 Chakra and, assuming the reports Kakashi read are correct, little control over whatever she has, if there is anything. Sakura might have managed to yoink Kakashi's Genjutsu, but he was half-assing it hard, and didn't even know she could do that. Anyone would catch it within a few tries and no-sell her with their sheer power afterwards.

 

[Czlyydwr Llrngwl]

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what Epsilon has cooked up for us this time; he's not the sort to half-ass it even if he is, as noted, "doing it live."

 

[SynchronizedWritersBlock]

The first option basically makes her a perfect counter against Genjutsu and nothing more, which is a problem, because nobody of any importance uses Genjutsu. Itachi and Infinite Tsukiyomi are the only real exceptions, and the former merely supplements his skills with Genjutsu, while everyone using the latter is one of the godlings shitting meteors left and right.

Nature Chakra, on the other hand, isn't an option, because it is canon that you need a shitload of Chakra to use it without killing yourself via animal petrification; you need to perfectly balance and mix Nature Chakra with your own. Too much of the latter, and you die. Too much of the former, and it is useless. Seeing as Nature Chakra is potent enough that Naruto's bullshit Chakra actually helped him learn something for once, and he still needed Clones (which require shitload of Chakra) to pull it off, and still nmwould have died a whole bunch of times if the toads hadn't had the Mighty Rod of Convenient Power Up... Sakura, with her abysmal Chakra, will die the moment she touches Nature Chakra, instantly overwhelmed.

Furthermore, in order to control someone's Chakra, you need to not only have amazing control, but also more Chakra than whatever technique you're trying to take control of. Kinda hard for someone who has 0 Chakra and, assuming the reports Kakashi read are correct, little control over whatever she has, if there is anything. Sakura might have managed to yoink Kakashi's Genjutsu, but he was half-assing it hard, and didn't even know she could do that. Anyone would catch it within a few tries and no-sell her with their sheer power afterwards.

Click to shrink...

I don't think that's enough to discount any of those options. They simply may not work like you think they do.

Another option might be that Sakura has no chakra because it all went to the entity inside her or whatever, so she shows up as zero when tested but one of the voices in her head can do chakra things.

 

[Altena27]

Sakura in Meta Knowledge conected directly to Akashas server.

Spoiler: The force be With her

Now she needs to harass Sabusa and ask about his relation Mai Terumi and keep pestering with other nonsense with a double meaning in its interpretation.

 

[pancakes]

Sasuke and Naruto will wonder when did they have the bells and might realise that Sakura is more than they think she is.

Really, if she can put a bell in their pocket while they never know when, it's going to do wonder, to Sasuke at least.

In canon, even Kakashi note that Sakura is perfect to learn Genjutsu but Kishimoto never let her learn any even after all those years.

Click to shrink...

It makes sense for her not to learn Genjutsu though. Without some type of hax using purely Genjutsu I don't see it being possible to break into S-rank. When her real training started she was being trained with the Akatsuki in mind as opponents, and Genjutsu gets no sold by pretty much all of them.

 

[Aaron Peori]

Did someone order some backstory? I have some hot backstory here.

C&A Productions Presents

A Work of Blatant Self-Insertion

Go! Unashamed Reincarnation Protagonist Sakura

Chapter 2

FATE

Hiashi Hyuga took some time to consider the man before him. It was an unusual situation for a number of reasons. Hatake Kakashi had made a career out of avoiding anything that might even be tangential to politics, and visiting one of the great clans was perhaps not tangential. Not to mention how wrought with meanings under the meanings Hatake, of all people, coming to visit him, of all people, could be considered to have.

He raised his tea cup and took a decorous sip. Kakashi had yet to do more than inhale the steam rising from his own cup and declare it 'magnificent.' Hatake was almost a prototypical ninja. His tall, lanky body was covered almost entirely with a completely standard jounin uniform. Even his face was concealed by a mask. And of course, only one eye was visible, the other hidden behind a jauntily tilted hitai-ate such that the Hidden Leaf emblem was positioned where his eye should be. His only affectation toward individuality seemed to be his shock of dirty grey hair which rose like a brush from his head.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance in a social setting." Hiashi began, placing his cup to his side and folding his hands politely in his lap. He sat seiza style. Kakashi had opted for a slightly less formal yoga style posture. Even here, in the center of the Hyuga compound, his attitude was irreverent. A brave front for a man with his reputation. Considering how highly sought after the Hyuga eyes were-

No, even before that, considering Hiashi's own history with those who could be called 'the people who steal eyes' it was brave of Hatake to come here alone. He wasn't certain if it was bravery or foolishness which made him adopt a dismissive and casual attitude despite Hiashi's formality.

"Oh, you know me, I drift like a leaf on the wind," Kakashi said. He smiled behind his mask, an expression on visible in the crinkling of his left eye. "I get so lost that I hardly have time for social niceties."

Hiashi kept his expression solemn. "It is perhaps understandable." He made a flowing gesture with one hand. "It has been many years since we have seen a member of the Hatake clan in society. Not since your father, in fact." Hatake continued to give him a cheerful look. "Though as the last surviving student of the Fourth, we were all surprised you never showed an ambition to rejoin us."

For a long moment, Hatake didn't respond. Perhaps he wasn't used to this kind of combat. The kind of cuts that were delivered with polite words behind poisoned smiles could sometimes be devastating as a kunai in the back.

"I'm sorry, did you say something? I was entranced by this magnificent tea." Hatake displayed his empty cup. "Do you have another?"

Hiashi hadn't even seen him take so much as a sip. He allowed himself a tight smile. "Of course." He gestured and the screen door opened with a his of oiled runners before a young Hyuga genin of the Branch came in and refreshed their drinks. Once the girl was gone, Hiashi took another sip before placing his cup to the side.

"So, I can see these formalities disturb you. Allow us to bypass all the social norms." He lifted his chin. "May I ask to what my house owes the pleasure of your presence?"

Hatake set aside his own cup. Hiashi didn't hear any liquid inside. Did he drink it, or dump it somewhere? It was interesting to see that he could still be challenged when it came to seeing through deception. Of course, if he wanted to he could peel away all of Hatake's illusions and sleight of hand. He could even see straight through that hitai-ate.

But that would not be polite.

"I suppose you've heard that I have taken on a genin team."

"Yes. The last of the Uchiha. Also, the young Uzumaki." The connection between Hatake and both was obvious. He was, perhaps, the only one in the entire village who could train the Uchiha in the use of his bloodline. He was also the only one Hiashi knew of who might have a chance to restrain Uzumaki if he should get out of control.

"And Haruno Sakura." Hatake looked at him from beneath his eyebrow.

"Ah. Well, that explains this meeting." Hiashi kept his face expressionless.

"As a concerned sensei, I of course did a full background check on my new wards." He flipped a scroll out of one of the pockets on his flak vest. "Including a full medical history of Haruno Sakura." He turned the scroll around, showing the seal emblazoned across it. "Or that was the plan. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the records were sealed."

"Yes." Hiashi looked at the seal. The Hyuga clan crest dominated, of course, but the manji shape of the Caged Bird was also prominent. "Of course. I underestimated your curiosity. Most sensei would stop at the officially published records available to any jounin. Few would go straight to the medical archives and read the original."

"I was reminded that assumptions are dangerous in our profession. So I looked underneath the underneath.

"So as far as I was aware, the Haruno clan was no particular notereity. No bloodlines or special holdings, no history of exemplary service or wealth. No connections or techniques." Kakashi rolled the scroll in his hand. "Parents served with competence but no special distinction." He tossed the scroll. Hiashi caught it with a snap of his wrist. "So why would one of the biggest clans in the village seal the records of a girl who, for all intents and purposes, is a nobody."

Hiashi turned the scroll around. "I can see why you would be interested."

*

Nine years ago

*

Hizashi Hyuga needed air. He struggled to retain his composure, to keep his expression placid as he moved through the crowds of Konoha. It was difficult. His head still felt like it was splitting. The light was especially hard. The beautiful sunlight that everyone else was enjoying felt like it was stabbing through his eyes, burning away his brain. Yet he kept his expression placid and stoic, as befits a proper Hyuga.

Even a Branch member.

His fists curled. That he could do. His arms were crossed, his hands hidden in the long sleeves of his long green overcoat. The taste of his placidity was bitter on his tongue.

Neji deserved so much more. Neji did not deserve this fate. Neji...

He needed to stop thinking about that. It was just causing his killing intent to rise again. He focused his attention on the crowds. There was a festive atmosphere among the civilians and more than a few of the shinobi as well. Merchants had opened stalls on the street and people moved between them, enjoying sweets and laughing with each other.

Today, a war was ending. No more would the civilians watch their shinobi fathers and brothers leave to fight a distant enemy for distant reasons. No more would kunoichi leave their children so they could die for a handful of dirt or a piece of paper. Friends would no longer say goodbye to friends. There was every reason to be celebratory. Leaf and Cloud, bitter rivals for generations, were finally giving peace it's chance.

So why couldn't he breath?

With a flicker of pseudo-motion he moved himself to top of a radio tower, balancing easily from the precarious perch on one foot. He needed to master this hatred. It was burning in his veins like poison. It turned food to ash in his mouth. Yet no matter how much he meditated or prayed, it would not leave him.

Every night, when he was training Neji in the secrets of their style it would build. Neji was progressing at an amazing rate. Faster even than Hizashi had, or even Hiashi his twin brother. For almost a year now, he had been filled with wonder. Yet ever since his niece's birthday, that wonder had dissolved.

Now he ended every training session feeling nothing but anger. Worse, he could see the effect it was having on Neji. Hyuga were trained in decorum and self control. Only once, in the months since he had begun to feel this way, had his killing intent manifested enough for anyone but himself to sense it.

Yet Neji was a genius. More than that, Neji was his son. It was impossible for him not to sense, on some subconscious level, his father's true feelings. Hizashi had long since become at peace with his own fate. But the fate of his son? Worse, everyday that Hizashi spent with Neji he could feel Neji's own hatred growing.

It was a cycle he could not see a way out of. His love for his son twisted his feelings of peace into hatred. His hatred twisted Neji's love for his family. He needed a solution. A way out.

He took a deep breath. The air here was crisp and clean. The scent of the trees was pleasant. It was also bitter.

He was distracted by a commotion near the gate. It appeared that the ambassador from Cloud and his entourage had arrived. He was not officially part of the security but every extra eye helped. It would also hopefully keep his mind off the intractable problems.

His hands flashed through hand seals he no longer needed, but it focused his mind. "Byakugan!"

His eyes truly opened. The veins around his sockets bulged. The white pupils and irises expanded. The great bloodline of the Hyuga. With this, he could see everything. Walls faded, secrets were revealed and distance collapsed. The entire world was open to him now. Better still, with this art he could see the chakra of all things, from the pathways of spiritual and physical energy in the human body to the sluggish energy of the natural world all around them. He breathed out, expanding his awareness in all directions-

He barely caught one of the support struts on the radio tower. His presence of mind was only now returning. "What is... this awful presence!" he hissed. His neck twisted painfully as he turned to face it.

He had never seen anything like this before. There was no way such a thing should exist. It was like no chakra he had ever even heard of. It wasn't even like an emptiness in the chakra. He had encountered places where chakra had been depleted or destroyed. Some jutsu he had seen were so terrible they left entire fields as blasted wastelands until the natural chakra slowly recovered.

His mind struggled to make sense of it. His body recoiled from it. His eyes bulged from their sockets, a reflexive fear reaction he should have been able to control. His fingers shook, his chakra grip slipped and he landed on a roof beneath him with a crunch, barely having enough presence of mind to absorb fall with his chakra. He could feel his flesh crawling, awful waves of gooseflesh beginning at the small of his back and creeping up his spine and down his arms. His guts shriveled.

If he kept looking, he was going to go mad.

"Release!" he shouted, his voice hoarse. His vision dropped back into the human spectrum. Before it had even fully changed he was moving. Rooftops blurred by beneath his feet. He flashed across gaps, over alleys and thoroughfares. Once or twice he sprinted along the side of a building to cut a few seconds off his journey, trusting his chakra to keep him adhered to the walls. It took less than a minute for him to reach the location that had been burned into his perception.

It was atop the Hokage Monument that he found it. The four great carved stone faces of the Hokages that oversaw the village from the mountain that protected its back. To the ninja of Konoha, the mountain protected them from attack from that direction. The mountain was like the Hokage himself, a symbol of safety. For that horrible cloud of unreality to be on it... it was an insult to the village Hizashi loved!

Yet, when he arrived, he found himself stunned once more.

"A child?" he gasped under his breath. She couldn't have been older than his niece; barely old enough to walk. Though he standing on her own was not a surprise. In a ninja village, children developed quickly. She was tiny, wearing a red one piece jumper. Her hair was a bright pink, like bubblegum and fell to her shoulders.

She was staring down at the front gate. Her eyes were intensely focused. She obviously had not seen him, which was not surprising as he had taken pains to arrive without disturbing so much as a single pebble or leaf. He crouched in the shadow of a tree that grew on the back slope of the monument, studying her.

He flicked his eyes towards where she was looking and resisted the urge to enhance his vision with the Byakugan. Even without it, his eyes were sharp enough to easily figure out what she was watching. The delegation from Cloud. Was she some kind of spy? An infiltrator under some sort of transformation or genjutsu?

He turned his attention back to her. Her pretty young face was twisted into a tormented expression. Her hands were clenched and her elbows bent, her entire body rigid. It was a disturbing contradiction between her toddler's body and her tense stance. Her chubby fists clenched so tightly he could see tiny drops of blood dripping between them from where her nails had cut into her palms. Her hair was in disarray and he saw why when she reached up and ran her fingers through it in frustration, leaving tangles and cowlicks caked in blood behind.

He breathed long and deep, silently focusing himself. If she was some foreign nin in disguise perhaps that explained that disturbing presence. A transformation could have deceived the physical sense. A genjutsu could have fooled most chakra sensors. The Byakugan, however, would see beneath those to the chakra inside. Any disguise would have been instantly revealed. Konoha was one of the five great ninja villages, famous throughout the elemental nations, and as its greatest clan the Hyuga would surely be well known. It might just be possible to have developed a technique that foiled chakra sight. He wasn't certain how the Sharingan worked, but it might have a similar effect on them as well.

It almost made sense... except it also stood out across an entire village. As a weapon to foil his senses in combat, it had utility. As a support for a disguise, it was a complete failure. Maybe the technique was flawed? That made sense to him. After all, how could they test such a technique. It was literally like a blind man trying to build a visual camouflage.

He nodded to himself. If it was a flawed technique, then it could be overcome. He made the entire series of silent hand seals and then kept the focusing sign as he slowly eased into the Byakugan. He hadn't activated his bloodline this slowly since his first days of training, barely younger than his own son.

As he did, he kept his focus on the girl, noting the changes and looking for a weakness. The difference was like jumping into an icy lake versus sitting in a tub of slowly cooling water. With mental preparation and gradual effort the nature of the baleful presence became bearable.

It was like a fracture. He had seen techniques that devoured chakra and others that collapsed it into extremely dense concentrations. This was not like those. It was like the chakra around and throughout her body was being ripped into threads and twisted all round. It was as if some immense force was bubbling out of her body, a violent and chaotic energy that pushed chakra away and apart. There were gaps around her body and through it where chakra simply... wasn't.

It was as if the laws of physics around here were changing. No, they were being changed. Something inside her was twisting reality itself?

Yet even so, there was still chakra. Whatever was inside her, it was some sort of spiritual force. The air around her, in her lungs, on her skin it was suffused with the natural chakra of the world. Her skin was made up of matter, like everything else. The natural chakra was still there, but his perception of it was distorted in a sickening manner.

Still, it could be compensated for. And was he not the brother of Hiashi? The famous twin geniuses, they were called. He worked his way through it, allowing his perception to expand more and more as he compensated for whatever unnatural presence the girl had inside her.

Pleased he changed hand signs and then focused on piercing whatever illusions or disguises she may have wrapped around herself.

"She... she's not human," he said, too low for even himself to really hear.

Hizashi had seen all kinds of bizarre body modifications in his life. There were ninja who embedded tools into their body, either to reinforce it or to give themselves undetectable weapons. Others had their body extensively operated on. You could build artificial chakra pathways, change the way joints worked, replace organs or entire limbs.

This girl, almost her entire body was modified. Extensively. Her skin wasn't skin at all. It was... some kind of metal? Her bones were made of some substance he had never encountered before, and their shapes had been modified. Her entire organ system had been changed - every vital organ had been reinforced with some sort of plastic. Multiple redundant organs - heart, liver - existed. There were organs he couldn't even guess the meaning of. To make room her entire digestive system had been removed. Her muscles had been rebuilt. The entire body was threaded through with a vastly different nervous system than normal, and alongside it was a series of wires whose purpose he couldn't even speculate on.

Even more shocking was her head. Her eyes had been replaced with some sort of mechanical devices. Her ears, under whatever illusion she had cast, were long and funnel shaped with extensive wire hidden just under the skin. Even her striking pink hair was not hair, but some sort of wire. Beyond that, her brain had been operated on.

Hizashi had never heard of any ninja who had the audacity, much less the skill, to operate on the human brain. This was leaps and bounds beyond even medical theory. Her entire neural structure was different, there were extra lobes and implants all throughout it.

Worse than all that, her chakra system was just... gone. Not atrophied, or malformed. It was missing entirely. That was impossible. In its place there was some bizarra... twisted space. In the navel where the chakra store was placed there was some sort of device that made his eyes ache just to look at. It was like someone had taken something the size of a refrigerator and twisted and compressed it to the size of a heart. Filaments of anti-chakra twisted out of it through where her chakra system should have been. Where the eight Gates should have been located where more strange pockets of unreality.

"Impossible," he whispered.

He released his Byakugan and stood up. He needed answers.

He flickered in front of her, appearing in a cloud of smoke. His hand snapped out and grabbed her collar, lifting her off her feet and up to his eye level. Her eyes widened in shock. They were clear and green. They were the eyes of a frightened child. Yet all he could see was those cold mechanical devices he had glimpsed through his vision.

"Who are you?" He shook her once for emphasis. "What are you?" He had lost his Hyuga decorum, but found he didn't care. This thing... this infernal machine in the shape of a innocent girl, she could not be allowed to threaten his village! His family!

Neji!

The girl stared at his face, her eyes wide and shaking. Her chubby child fingers shivered and all the muscles on her face and limbs seemed to jerk and twitch at once. Finally she coughed, and blood trickled from the side of her lips and her nose.

"H-Hyuga?" Her voice had the high pitch of a child but none of a child's inflection. "Wait... wait..." Her eyes unfocused for a moment. Then she began to laugh. It was a broken, tormented sound. "Hiashi? Hiashi Hyuga! Haha! I can't believe it... haha... Hyuga... saw right through me." Her eyes focused on him again. "No. Not Hiashi... Hizashi? Of course. You're still alive, aren't you?"

Hizashi tightened his grip and withdrew a kunai with his free hand. "Is that some kind of threat?"

"Threat?" Her eyes rolled around and she continued to laugh. Tears began to trickle from her eyes. "A threat? From me? I'm not the one who kills you." Her smile was tight, forced, shaky. Her body was twitching. "Or am I? Oh god... I can change it all, right now, can't I? It really is in my hands...

"I... I..." She clutched her hair, pulling at it. Her pupils had shrunk to pinpricks but her eyes had widened almost impossibly wide. "I can't... I can't do this... The gemu masuta is a bastard... I can't... why me? I'm not qualified!" She was shouting now, her pitch and volume increasing at a feverish pace until she was shrieking. "I can't make these decisions! But I have to. I just can't! Who else can do it? I'm not a messiah, I'm not a god!"

Hizashi had regained most of his composure by the point she grew increasingly hysterical. Either she was a master of emotional manipulation and an actor the likes of which he had never seen, or she was having a genuine complete nervous breakdown in front of him. A little girl, hiccuping and sobbing and babbling insanity to herself as if he wasn't there at all. As if she didn't really see him.

He lowered her back to the ground. He found his mind turning slowly and methodically from thinking about what she was and to who did this to her. He found his killing intent rising again.

He frowned as she collapsed to her knees to moment he released her. She was shaking and convulsing. Hizashi's years as a field medic were well in the past these days, but he found himself diagnosing anyway. The way she acted spoke of traumatic stress and the way her body moved, as if all her muscles were triggering at random. Even without his Byakugan he could see the strain on her body as she lost all control over it.

Two or three times he had the displeasure to treat those shinobi who had mastered the release of the Eight Gates. Releasing the Gates in sequence could multiply the shinobi's chakra by anyway rom double to a hundredfold, but the body was not meant to use that full potential. It would tear the user apart. The shinobi who learned those techniques always claimed they just wanted a trump card for a situation sufficiently desperate. In his opinion, such shinobi had a capacity to find themselves in desperate situations all out of proportion to their fellows.

The symptoms here reminded him of the release of the Gates.

"You will come with me," he said. He placed a hand on her shoulder and they flickered away.

*

Hizashi still had admitting privileges at the hospital. Getting the girl into a room was surprisingly easy. Avoiding any questions was more difficult. Still, here he was happy to play on the unstated prestige of his family. For the Hyuga, the difference between Main and Branch were all encompassing. For the rest of the village, they were irrelevant.

He had cleaned her and replaced her clothes with a green hospital gown. She had broken down into a series of sob, incomprehensible babbling and cries of 'it hurts, it hurts...' in alternating and random cycles. He didn't even know where to begin treating whatever had happened to her.

He spent the next few hours running a series of tests and attempting to calm the girl down. He was frowning at a read out on her blood test when the girl finally sat up in the bed he had placed her in.

She held herself unnaturally still. Her rigid posture gave her an almost Hyuga like air. He tried to smile reassuringly, but from her expression it wasn't helping. Bedside manner was for hospital staff anyway. Field medics were more a 'on your feet soldier' type.

He turned to face her, folding his hands behind his back. "Are you feeling better."

"I'm in control again," she said. Hizashi raised an eyebrow. She sighed softly. "No. It always hurts. It's always hard to concentrate." She made a sound between a snort and a laugh. "Hormonal regulators, wetware personality grafts, nervous system implants and none of it prevents me from breaking down like a child."

"You are a child," Hizashi said. "You seem less emotionally disturbed then before."

"Trust me, there are at least seven people having constant freak outs in front of you right now." She smiled, her lips quivering fragilely. "I was the calmest one." Hizashi raised an eyebrow in a delicate arch. "I'm sorry, I'll stop talking about things you don't understand now." She looked at the wall. "So, is the Hokage himself on the other side of the wall? Or are we going over this again with him later?"

"Nobody knows this is anything but a regular medical emergency," Hizashi said. He wasn't even certain why he had not done his duty and reported all of this. But his mind kept going back to that phrase
(You're still alive, aren't you?)
kept floating up in his mind again and again.

"You... don't believe I am a threat to the village?"

"I didn't say that," Hizashi said. He considered his response. "What happened to you is beyond anything even speculated on. There is no enemy of of Konoha that could have access to the techniques needed to produce your body."

She laughed and then winced. Her limbs shuddered and her neck seemed to spasm. "Fuck!" She whimpered. "It hurts..." Hizashi wanted to help but he had no idea how. He settled for placing a hand on her shoulder. She seemed to calm down at his touch.

"It wasn't supposed to be this way," she said. The admission seemed to humble her. "But what choice did I have?" She looked at him. "Have you ever thought about fate, Hiz... Hyuga?"

His mind flashed back to last night, his body flopping over in an undignified heap as his twin brother punished him for allowing his killing intent to leak from his body. He closed his eyes and sighed. "I have thought a great deal about it."

"Well, imagine you had the fate of the world, the literal world, on your shoulders. Not some ideological conflict between economic systems. Not some petty border dispute. Not some meaningless struggle over pride." She looked down. "Imagine becoming aware that the only thing standing between every living person in the world and a fate worse than death... is you. That you have one job, one task you need to do, and if you don't do it at precisely the right place at the right time, everyone, everywhere, loses."

Hizashi moved his hand down to her back.

"And then imagine that you know you aren't the kind of person who can perform it. For some reason, you can't be that person, no matter how much you want to be. So you try to prepare yourself. To be if not the right person, a person that may be the right person. To be the One Punch Woman."

She seemed to find the turn of phrase amusing, despite the tears dripping from her eyes again.

"And one day, in your preparation you look out into the real world again and you see a thing that reminds you there is more than just the world at stake." She looks at him and her eyes are full of horror. "You also have the fate of one man in your hands as well. One good man, who dies out of love." Her voice developed a hitch. "But if you save this man, you could put the world at danger. Because if everything doesn't go just right, if the plan doesn't go exactly the same... then the happily ever after you know can happen might be gone, forever."

You're still alive, aren't you? Hizashi clenched his free hand into a fist.

"But what right do I have to make that choice? I'm not any kind of authority. Nothing can prepare you for this. One man's life, or the life of an entire world? How do you make that choice?" She smiled. "This isn't some hypothetical trolley, after all."

"I..." Hizashi nodded. "I would die for my village, for my family."

"I'm not talking about you." Her smile became bitter. "I'm talking about your son."

Hizashi stared into her eyes. He found no lie there. "Tell me what you mean," he kept the threat out of his voice with effort. So she did.

She told him everything.

*

Hizashi collapsed into a chair, all thought of decorum and composure fled. He clutched at his forehead protector, wanting to throw it through the delicate silk walls. His eyes stared around at the familiar surroundings of his own room, not seeing them.

His tongue felt bitter.

"When will this happen?"

"I don't know, exactly. As early as tonight."

Did he believe her?

As early as tonight.

How else did one explain the fantastic things he had seen. No jutsu, no chakra technique, no forbidden surgery could have accomplished what he had seen. Once he had gotten sample away from her aura of unreality his Byakugan had been capable of seeing so much more.

As tonight.

The blood. There had been machines in her blood. Tiny machines. Smaller than cells. Working machines. They had been fixing damage and building more of themselves. No technique available to ninja arts could produce something like that, especially as they did not run on chakra.

Tonight.

"Do you believe me?"

"Yes, I do."

He turned his eyes up to the ceiling. What would his ancestors think if they saw him now? His own smile was bitter. He could change the world now. Intervene in coming events. If he prevented the kidnapping attempt she had warned him about, then he might prevent the death of the Cloud shinobi. With his death prevented, there would need to be no sacrifice to appease the wrath of a Great Village and keep the peace.

He could live. In the fullness of time, Neji could live.

But...

"He dies surrounded by friends. He dies willingly. He dies with a smile on his face. He dies protecting his friends and Hinata. He dies a hero."

"Byakugan!" he hisses, and the Hyuga compound opens up around him. He could interfere now. Perhaps as little as standing guard over Hinata's sleep would be all that was needed to deter the attempt to kidnap her. He looked at his tiny niece.

He felt his killing intent rise in him, and ruthlessly crushed it.

Yes, there was the but. The last few months had show him that. The rise of his dissatisfaction. He had long thought he was at peace with the Caged Bird on his forehead. But was he really? Was this anger he felt solely for the death of Neji's dreams... or the death of his own? Was the hatred he felt for his clan's archaic laws... or for his beloved brother?

How can one man defy his own fate?

"Neji," he breathed. His attention turned to the boy. He was in his room as well. Unlike Hinata, who was asleep all unaware of the weight of destiny turning around her, her cousin was not. He sat lotus in his room, his eyes closed and his expression troubled. Hizashi could see the chakra swirling inside him. Even now he was training, seeking to perfect his gift.

Hizashi's heart swelled so in his chest that he thought it would burst. His pride and love unmanned him. He wept into his hands.

He could also see the hatred on that face. The hatred he had placed there. He wanted to blame it on the Caged Bird. Yet he could not. It was him. It had always been him.

"You're still alive, aren't you?"

"As early as tonight."

"He dies with a smile on his face."

"Yes, I do."

How can one man defy his own fate?

*

"It is done."

Sakura was alone in the clearing. Her body moved with a jerky kind of pseudo-motion. It was like watching a movie with the Byakugan active. The shutter speed of the film was not rapid enough to maintain the illusion of motion, so he felt as if somebody had cut out pieces of reality. The perception collapsed and her movement returned to normal.

Or normal for her, at least. She still moved with the exaggerated care of an invalid. He moved over to her. He knew the movement pained her.

"You... really did it?" she asked, her voice half hope and half terror.

"No." He turned his face away for a moment. "Last night the Cloud ninja commander attempted to kidnap Hyuuga Hinata. Her father, my brother, killed him in the attempt."

She stared at him in disbelief. "Why?" she finally croaked out. "I told you everything. You believed me. Why!"

"I can not be the man you think I could be." The admission pained him.

She threw herself at him, swinging her tiny fists. She was fast and strong, especially for a child. But she was still a child. He would have a few bruises. but no more than that. He held her wrists and knelt before her. She was crying, her breath coming out in hiccuping sobs.

"Now nothing will change!" she hissed. "You'll still die, Neji will still suffer, everything will go the same as before..." She slumped in his grip. "I told you everything and the future didn't change..."

Hizashi allowed a bitter smile to form. "No. You can't blame yourself for this." She looked up at him, blinking away tears. "I refuse to let you do that. This was not your decision to make. You did the right thing. You gave me a chance to confront my fate. The fate I had been avoiding all my life." He pulled her into a hug. It was stiff and formal, but it was all he had to give.

"But you must promise me something in return," he said into her ear. She stiffened but he could tell she was listening closely. "You must protect the precious things I can not."

He held her at arm's length. "I will teach you the ultimate secret of the Hyuga style. This lesson will prepare you for what is to come."

He released her and stepped back. He assumed a teaching posture, one arm crossed behind his back and the other held up so he could make a seal of release in front of his face. She slowly lowered to her knees.

"The secret philosophy of the Hyuga Clan is this. One move, one kill." He opened his eyes. "Do you understand?"

"I... I'm sorry..."

"In battle, as in life, the situation is constantly changing. Position, perception, morale, knowledge. All of these things are like swirling leaves. One must wait and endure. Eventually, the pattern will settle into one you can understand all the pieces of. Then you must strike, and strike true.

"Too early, and you will reveal your strength and expose your weakness. You enemy could exploit it, or worse yet they could fade away and disappear. Then they could return later... even generations later to threaten the peace you had thought you had created. A patient enemy, one who is willing to act on a long enough time frame, could wait even until a singularly great threat to them has passed.

"Too late, and you will only achieve futility. For the enemy has already put their machinations into motion such that all your efforts are wasted.

"No, one must wait to the perfect moment. To find the exact right time to strike, and in that moment strike with everything they have, holding nothing back. That is the philosophy of the Hyuga clan.

"Do you understand?"

"...yes."

"Then there is nothing more for me to teach you." He paused and relaxed his body with some effort. He could almost feel the bags under his eyes growing, the despair in his shoulders and limbs. "I ask in exchange, only that you use this knowledge to save that which is precious to me."

"I will. I'll save everyone I can."

*

"When my daughter, Hinata, was three years old there was a treaty signed between the Village Hidden in the Leaves and the Village Hidden in the Clouds. We had fought a long and bitter war, and many died on both sides that only served to grow the cycle of hatred."

Hatake did not interrupt him, although he probably knew this story better than most others. He probably understood that Hiashi could only approach this obliquely.

"The head delegate of the Cloud Village that came to us to finalize the treaty was the second most powerful ninja of their village, second only to the Raikage himself. In the shadows of the night, he attempted to kidnap my daughter. Long has the Cloud been jealous of our doujutsu.

"I discovered him and slayed him. In time we realized who he was, and the Cloud made demands of us to honor the terms of our treaty by turning over the killer to them. It was a bold move and one we could have refused... but our people were tired of war. In my place, my twin brother Hizashi choose the sacrifice himself - over my objections - so that when he died his Caged Bird Seal would render his Byakugan eyes useless to our new... allies."

A moment of silence followed. Twice the bamboo water fountain in the nearby garden sounded off.

"You brother was a good man," Hatake said. "He saved many lives as a field medic. Mine and Might Guy's among them, on a mission during the early days of that war."

Hiashi nodded. "Before my brother died, he asked two things of my father. One, was to seal the records of a single village girl on the highest authority he had. To affix a cursed seal on them such that any tampering would destroy them."

Hatake nodded. "I spoke with Sakura's parents. They told me how one day Hizashi came to them saying he had found Sakura in the woods, suffering from her ailments." Hatake took a moment to compose his thoughts. "He told them he had treated her and that he problems should resolve themselves as she grew. They were enormously grateful, of course."

Hiashi allowed a brief smile. "The other thing he asked, was that I be given this." He produced another scroll from the folds of his jacket. It bore and identical seal to the one he carried in his right hand. Hatake did not point out the fact that Hiashi already had the second scroll on him meant he knew about the purpose of this meeting before it began.

"What is it?"

"A letter, to me, written by him." He contemplated it. "With explicit instructions that it should only be opened in the event of the confirmed death of Haruno Sakura and that if it should ever fall into untrustworthy hands, the seal should be used to destroy it immediately."

"I see."

"I am afraid I can not answer the questions you have, Hatake Kakashi." He allowed the fountain to sound again before he continued. "All I can say is that my brother was a wise man, wiser than I would have been in his place." He flicked the medical records back to the other ninja, who caught it so quickly that to his unaugmented eyes there was only a flash of motion.

"Perhaps it is fate that placed Haruno Sakura with you, of all people."

"Perhaps." Hatake stood up, sliding his hands into his pockets. The scroll had disappeared onto his person somewhere. "I enjoyed your hospitality, Hyuuga Hiashi, such as it was."

He turned to leave and stopped, his hand lashing out-

-and caught the scroll Hiashi had thrown to him. Hatake looked from Hiashi to the scroll and back again. There was no seal on this one.

"And this?"

"Before he died my brother did one final thing. He produced a series of exercises on the development of the Byakugan." He gestured at the scroll. "Purely theoretical exercise, of course. The phenomena described in that scroll are impossible to believe. But my brother was a genius and he sometimes spent his time working on purely hypothetical problems."

"Impossible... to believe," Kakashi said mainly to himself.

"If I understand correctly, there is a belief that the Sharingan eye and the Byakugan eye both descend from the same bloodline. That techniques developed for one may be adopted for use by the other.

"Hypothetically."

Hatake rolled the scroll in his palm contemplatively. "Underneath..." He looked at Hiashi and smiled, his visible eye squeezing shut. "Maybe I should learn to look at my students with new eyes, is what you are saying.

"Thank you, Hyuuga Hiashi." He waved over his back as he stepped out of the room.

 

[RichardWhereat]

I'll never understand SI's that have that breakdown about changing shit, as if canon is all that matters. Their being there at all changes canon.

 

[Orez Lanrete]

So in short to explain her abilities in two simple words

NANOMACHINES SON!

 

[Felius]

I'll never understand SI's that have that breakdown about changing shit, as if canon is all that matters. Their being there at all changes canon.

Click to shrink...

Being fair, the issue is not so much about changing in itself but making things worse, which is particularly relevant in Naruto, because ultimately things did end well but it took a lot of incredibly lucky breaks at key moments that can get butterflied away by the SI. As such, a bit of panic about fucking up the "good end" is perfectly appropriate, specially if the SI is the type to take the weight of the world on their shoulders.

 

[Arngeirr]

I'll never understand SI's that have that breakdown about changing shit, as if canon is all that matters. Their being there at all changes canon.

Click to shrink...

It's not so much the changing of events that causes the breakdown, but instead the realization that it isn't a story, and that the changes they make will have actual consequences for actual people. Or at least, that's how I see it.

Food for thought in the rhetorical sense: If someone you knew was going to be shot to death protecting someone else from a mugger, would you warn them, thus potentially dooming the person being mugged? What consequences for that person and their family could arise from that? Etc...

I think it would be quite overwhelming to realize you literally have to decide who lives and who dies in order to get a "good end." Which is why I would never envy someone in a position where that kind of decision making is needed (i.e. a general, or equivalent).

Edit: On another note, Sakura's using The Human Path, right? And does this mean she has access to others? Any ideas on how/why she has access to it in the first place?

 

[Aaron Peori]

So in short to explain her abilities in two simple words

NANOMACHINES SON!

Click to shrink...

"My hobbies include the occult, psychic phenomena, sufficiently advanced technology and point maximization."

Click to shrink...

It's not so much the changing of events that causes the breakdown, but instead the realization that it isn't a story, and that the changes they make will have actual consequences for actual people. Or at least, that's how I see it.

Food for thought in the rhetorical sense: If someone you knew was going to be shot to death protecting someone else from a mugger, would you warn them, thus potentially dooming the person being mugged? What consequences for that person and their family could arise from that? Etc...

I think it would be quite overwhelming to realize you literally have to decide who lives and who dies in order to get a "good end." Which is why I would never envy someone in a position where that kind of decision making is needed (i.e. a general, or equivalent).

Edit: On another note, Sakura's using The Human Path, right? And does this mean she has access to others? Any ideas on how/why she has access to it in the first place?

Click to shrink...

Chapter 3 will be mostly canon compliant for pretty much the reason you outline here. Chapter 4 will be where Sakura takes Hizashi's advice.

And, no she is not running any existing chakra technique from Naruto.