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

realized he had lost his Sharingan. The world had lost that hazy foreimage and the colour of chakra had added from sight. He tried to keep his eyes open, even as shadows crept at the corners of his vision and the occasional black flower bloomed and faded.
had faded from sight.
"I can't make you a keep struggling," Sakura had said as she knelt next to Hinata during one of those many, many times she had been on the verge of giving up. "The only one who can make you stand up is you. So if you want to stop here, I'll never hold it against you."
make you keep struggling

Didn't see Hazama and Sakura being different characters coming, I confess. Nor the sudden reveal from Kurenai, that was pretty great. Wonder what'll happen next?
 
New Years
I apologize but I was unable to finish the chapter for New Years. Real life stuff is mostly to blame as I was too tired to do much writing. I think I ran out of energy after pushing it for two months straight. I plan to continue, but maybe not at this breakneck pace. I hit Nanowrimo's goal of 50k words three times over in two months. Which was a good pace. I hope to do a chapter a week going forward.
 
No worries whatsoever from this quarter, friend. Take your time, there's no need to rush to churn out story like it's going out of style.

It's cool when that sort of thing happens, and someone just craps out a quarter million words of amazing story in two months. Realistically though, I'd rather have a steady flow of good content than a rapidly deteriorating mess followed by a dead story while the author crucifies themselves to the idea of some breakneck deadline. Noone (reasonable) is going to take issue with that.

Also, I don't believe I've commented before, so I just wanted to say I'm really enjoying this ride. I look forward to seeing where this goes. I find it interesting how much people's opinion on Hazama seems to have whiplashed just with a slight reframing of the character. Even I didn't like him when it seemed like he was just some asshole troll there to be smug, but reframing it in the context of "This is an eldritch horror and we're all going to die" instead of him coming off like "I'm thirty times more powerful than you but an asshole for no reason instead" had a really hilarious effect.
 
I am greatly, greatly enjoying this story. Thanks!

"What dice do I roll to rage?" Lee asked, holding up one of the tiny pyramids. "These are strictly inferior to caltrops," he observed.
Tsunade from off-screen: "Roll the dice to see if I'm getting drunk!"

Edit:
"Nononono, things are very much not going according to plan!"
I liked this (incredibly long) chapter. Really interested in Ino developing psionics, and all of the everything going with sakura. It's really cool to see a story that pushes Sakura's split-personality "ability" to the max. Hinata is done well, and I think everything Ino is going through is done very well. Thanks a bunch for the story!

Edit2: chapter 14 was great. Nice to see plans go awry. I think I'm following all the betrayals and doublecrosses; it's not quite to Pirates Of The Caribbean At World's End levels. I don't know why, but seeing Ino be a badass keeps being awesome. I hope she beats Orochimaru in a Battle of the Bodies in the climax of the story.
 
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With Aaron's passing, this story unfortunately lies incomplete, permanently so. As such, I figured I should explain what Aaron had planned, along with details that didn't have a chance to be revealed in-story. I was given permission to take some of these details from PM's. Let me begin. Ahem.

The story starts with an SI awakening in the body of a sickly child near the cusp of death. Some of this was already brought up and shown in-story, but not all of the details had yet to be revealed, and there was still a LOT left to play out. At some point during the beta-work where I was helping fix grammar and spelling issues, I asked Aaron if he would be ok with telling me what he had planned. He and I had a lot of discussions after that. Let me quote Aaron here on what he had planned.

Aaron Peori said:
Okay, so first off Sakura is not a crossover with much of anything. She's a Gamer. She lives her life like a game system. But unlike most gamers she didn't get some MMO knock off, she got GURPS, which is probably the most exactingly detailed 'realistic' game system ever. It has precise rules for everything from starvation to technological development so it allows almost no 'cheating'.

When 'she' started the game at birth she was allowed to do Character Creation but it was made clear once that was done she would only progress via the normal rules for GURPS, which is fairly strick. You can't just buy unlimited ranks of Strength until you can punch down mountains without first buying a bunch of advantages that allow you to do so and you can only get those advantages at character generation. The problem is those all cost points she didn't have, so she had to go for the cheapest options and give herself a bunch of disadvantage to pay them off. The goal was to play the long game.

One trick GURPS has is its one of a few system that exactly codifies training. Two hundred hours of "training" equals one character point. But hours are not equal. Training with a true master (one who has a higher Skill than you and a good Teaching skill) counts double whereas self study counts half. "On the job" training counts at only one quarter the rate (ie if you work as a computer programmer you get one point in the skill every 800 hours you work).

Wanting to max skill acquisition Sakura did a few things to herself. She bought the cheapest but most wide "power acquisition" advantage; Magery which gave her access to all of the default Spells in GURPs. She also hoped to cheat the system by getting Qucik Gadgeteer which allowed her to build technology from the GURPS supplements; including the Biotech book for self augmentation, the Ultratech book for nanotech and hard light forcefield stuff and the Psi-Tech book for both genetic and mechanically augmented psychic powers. She also gave herself as many Compartmentalized Minds as she could afford, because every compartment can take separate mental actions and study is a mental action. So she could train at six times the standard rate (or one eight different things at once, anyway).

She also put points into an Ally; Anima Invictus which is an implant AI that gives her Mana Enhancer which raises the local Mana level for her and one yard/meter around her, reducing how much 'energy' spells take from her. And she bought a bunch of computer software as Signature Gear, including Tutorsoft programs that teach every skill and spell in GURPs as if she had a Master trainer for exactly one point in each, and virtual reality software and a complete set of every artistic work from her old world.

She also had a whole lot of disads including stuff like Terminally Ill and so on that really worried her parents at first. Because she could train so fast she learned Illusion spells first and used them to hide her various modifications from casual inspection and stuff like magical telekenisis to construct and charge up magic power sources and an extradimensional pocket she can go to and train and build in without being observed. She can use magic to conjure materials to build with.

Queue two and a half years old or so and she's nearing the end of her lifespan because of her disads. She managed to finish designing her racial template using her Quick Gadgeteer and design a magical ring that will instantly apply the template permanently (unless she wears the ting and wills it off). Her plans was to gain thousands of points worth of advantages and powers without having to 'train' them or needing the initial point investment involved. The 'system' messed with her, because it basically considered her in point debt from that body swap. So she needed to spend all that time as 'intensive training' to buy off all the points or she would have crippling pain. With the power of math this worked out to about three and a half years.

(Also at this time Sakura builds two more compartments into herself via wetware subpersonalities. One is Sakura Prime, who 'they' determined to grow up with a normal childhood. Two and half being about when a child starts to actually develop a personality. The other of which is a personality with Bloodlust and other negative mental disads that means it will go for the kill since Sakura knows she's a softy raised in a society where murder is not acceptable solutions and she needs to be able to 'pull the trigger' when it comes to certain assholes in the setting.)

She encountered Hizashi at this time and was, understandably, a little out of it at that point. Long story short, he decides to commit suicide. She decides this is dumb and narcs on him to Hiashi, who KOs Hizashi before her can go through with it. Sakura uses her knowledge of biotech to force grow a clone which they turn over to Cloud. Thus, the entire Hyuuga is in her debt. Hizashi goes into 'hiding' because Sakura uses an Illusion spell to conceal his Caged Bird Seal and he and Hiashi swap places every now and then. If people see two at once or in places they shouldn't be, well... shadow clones! Sakura also befriends Hinata and Neji and gives the former a boost of confidence and the later a kick in the teeth (it helps that Hizashi is, in fact, still alive and Sakura and Hiashi gave him a kick in the teeth as well). Sakura agreed to come up with a different solution to the Caged Bird Seal issue, a nanite colony in the body that would destroy the eyes of any Hyuuga who dies without having the side effects of making them into virtual slaves. She also provided them with nanosuit and hard light tech (Hinata survived the burial because she had on a nanosuit and a forcefield for the exam).

Working with Hiashi and Hizashi they devise The Plan. First, Hizashi remains in hiding to prevent Cloud spies from figuring out they have been duped. Also, this allows him to move around and accomplish feats such as allowing Hiashi to ambush Orochimaru when "he" was busy with the One Tail. The attack on Orochimaru mostly works out despite all the complications. (Orochimaru 'surviving' and everything that happened with Gaara and Ino were not part of The Plan, but they can be worked around.)

The next step of The Plan is to lure out Danzo by dangling the magic ring in front of him. With that ring he could create an army of super nin! The Plan is to make it seem as if Sakura is too connected to Hinata to resist if she is placed in danger, so Danzo would move to kidnap her and put her under his power to force Sakura to work for him. The hope is he'll move in a way that opens him to direct retaliation from the Hyuuga but Danzo is a clever bastard.

Danzo's plan is to trick the Sound, specifically the Sound Four(or Five with Kimimaru) to kidnap Hinata as part of a plan to get back at Hiashi for murdering their lord. Danzo then plans to intercept them at their hideout and take Hinata from them with his Root operatives and himself as trump card. Sakura and Team Kakashi (plus Neji, Lee and TenTen who were with them when the kidnapping happens) end up pursuing because Sakura has been released, Naruto et all have finished training and Sakura is the only one who knows Hinata has been kidnapped because of the transmitters in her gear. Queue running fights and stuff. Konoha uses this as an excuse to declare open war on Sound and sends a small army of jounin/Anbu to wipe out the village (including Hizashi posing as Hiashi and Might Guy).

Team Kakashi manages to defeat the Sound Five and a bunch of disguised Root operatives and get to Hinata but Danzo shows up at the last moment to take her. He unleashes Shinsui's eye on everyone there and rewrites their memories to make him a hero and convince them that Hinata is dead. This doesn't work on Sakura because her immunity to genjutsu. They fight but Sakura is at a disadvantage because everyone believes she's attacking Danzo for no reason.

Hiashi and Guy arrive by leaving the Anbu/Jounin behind to fight the Sound nin. Guy avoids being mindfucked because of his training to defeat the Sharingan but Hizashi does not. They fight. Queue Paragon Interupt as Hiashi comes out of nowhere and cold cocks Danzo, cutting off the power to Shinsui's eyes. He is forced to use the Caged Bird Seal to KO Hizashi, a process Sasuke sees through his Sharingan so he knows what is happening now.

Between Guy and Hiashi they put Danzo on the back foot enough he is forced to use Izanami. Sakura was waiting for this, despite her massive injuries from her fight she uses Control Illusion to seize his now Illusonary Body in place and then, before it wears off, she uses Dispel Illusion to dispel him.

RIP Danzo.

Unfortunately the rest of the Konoha forces arrive just in time to see her kill a trusted and revered elder ninja, and only two of the ones present could speak up for her. Everyone else, including her teammates are convinced she went over to Sound and assassinated him. Sakura is 'rescued' by Kabuto and declared Missing Nin.

"Just as planned," she says. After all, her Golden Ending isn't just for Konoha. She needs to save all the victims of Cloud, including Sasuke's squad, the test subjects and so on. With Kabuto's 'help' she can do that.

Back at Konoha the jig is up and Hizashi is forced to reveal all the backstory up above to Team Kakashi and the Hokage. Sakura is actually fine with this, as she has eliminated all the reprehensible elements of Konoha and now they can start working towards the Golden Future. She knows that Kabuto plans to betray her and try to dump Orochimaru into her body (by now, Kabuto has figured out that she is unaging and thus, the perfect body) or at least a body modified with one of her rings. She plans to use the ring Orochimaru has to lure in Sasori in three years (when Sasori think Kabuto will become his pawn again) and from there kill him and lure out Akatsuki. From there, she can lure out Black Zetsu and use an antimatter explosion to vaporise him. (She has access to various dimensional magic and tech that will hold him in place long enough if she can just get one shot at him. And if Obito needs to die alongside him, such is life.) From there, it's just moping up.

There is a complication, however. And it goes right back to Sakura's initial arrival in this world. You see, by making the decisions she did she didn't just alter herself. She altered the campaign setting. GURPS is a system about building towards any kind of setting, and the kind of setting is determined by the advantages the gamemaster allows. By selecting magery and high tech level and downloading the tutors on stuff like nanotech, reality travel, hard light, psychic powers and so on she was retroactively changing the world.

So it turns out History Has Changed. Thousands and thousands of years ago, long before Kaguya at the fruit of the scared tree, there was a precuesor civilization. Think Al-Hazard from Nanoha. They had plentiful magic, and sufficiently advanced tech that might as well be magic, and combined the two to rule the galaxy and nearby dimensions. Then Things Went Wrong.

In the default rules for Magic Sakura is using there is a 1 in 256 chance of a magical botch on any spell cast. Sakura normally avoids this because she got herself an advantage that allows her to reroll the outcome of a 'roll' for magic once per hour after it. If you critical fail, there is a 1 in 256 chance that the spell will summon a Demon, an extradimensional horror "sufficient to threaten the player."

The original civ fell apart when the existence of demons "sufficient to threaten the players" of people who casually terraformed planets and created pocket universes began to run amock. The only solution they could come up with was to destroy magic. So they went to every planet in their empire and planted a tree, a tree that would absorb all the mana in the world and render the location unsuitable for the existence of Demons. This, unfortunately, also destroyed their civilization which relied on magic as part of their infrastructure and they vanished into history, with only a few derelict habitats floating in space and/or the void between worlds.

And on this world, Kaguya fucked everything up by eating the forbidden fruit. This infused her with the 'purified' magical energy which is what became chakra, a power as potent as magic but without the possibility of summoning demons... because it made people into demons. This is why Kaguya went insane and ninshu fell apart and so much of the jutsu requires horrible sacrifices and terrible things to happen (seriously, why the hell does the sharingan require you to kill your best friend to evolve to mangekyo, that makes zero sense unless you presume a malicious deity behind it).

When Haguromo spread chakra among the people he wasn't just hoping to promote peace, he also wanted to eliminate the potential for Magic in the populace. Chakra nature devours and destroys magical potential. Effectively it removes Magery and replace it with a similar advantage called Chakra. This, by the way, is why 'natural chakra' can only be used by a select few Sages. Natural chakra isn't chakra, it's mana that has been slowly building up in the world since the chakra tree was sealed away in the moon. Normally the human chakra system purifies it and transform it into spiritual energy but if you overpower it the person is 'purified' by their chakra system. Sage Mode allows you to store mana and convert it into chakra safely to get a boost of having two game breaking rulesets at once in your favor.

This is also why Sage Mode is normally incompatible with Tailed Beast Chakra. Tailed Beasts are demons, the remain of demons absorbed by and digested by the chakra tree (ie, the Ten Tails). Haguromo split them up and gave them names because Names Mean Things to demons and he hoped they could overcome their nature of "opponents sufficient to threaten the magic user" and become helpful to mankind. (Things did not always work out as he intended.)

SO! Long story short, what Sakura did was turn herself into a throwback. She doesn't know it, but she is now a precursor human. The only one with the capacity for Magic rather than Chakra. This was all okay, until she was forced to use so much magic in her fight with Orochimaru. She was slinging more spells per second than ever before. So not only did she get that 1 in 256 chance, she got that 1 in 256 chance o f failing on her reroll and then her 1 in 256 chance of getting the worst botch result.

You see, remember that part where Naruto and Sasuke experienced each other emotions while under the effects of all Sakura's spells? That wasn't supposed to happen. That was her magic going chaotic. And when they all connected to the tailed beasts through Sasuke's genjutsu just as he ran out of chakra it created enough of a crack that a demon slipped through into the world, a demon "sufficient to challenge the caster" which is Sakura. It also supped a bit on the energy of Kurama and Shukaku so its more powerful now.

It takes on a human form and name, one taken from Sakura's memories of the "most reprehensible manipulative bastard in fiction". Hazama.

Though that isn't his real name or form. During the chapters leading up to the fight with Danzo it befriends Sasuke. After the battle, it approaches him and Sasuke it turns out Did Not Take Things Well. You see, he's smart enough to put two and two together. If Sakura knew the future and intervened to save Hizashi then she could have done the same and saved his entire clan. Further, without access to her power his progress is stymied and an encounter with Itachi convinces him he needs more strength. Enter Hazama.

One of the things GURPS demons can do is enter into contracts with people. The demon sets terms and in exchange the human gets the ability to use magic even if they don't have Magery. Turns out, Sasuke's Sharingan eyes are good enough to copy magic as well as jutsu and he witnessed Sakura's entire fight against Danzo and her teammates where she pulled out all the stops. The bad news for him? The more demonic power he draws on, the more he needs to as it diminishes her 'non demonic' powers. Hazama's goal is to have him interfere with Sakura and ensure that Kaguya gets reincarnated: because Hazama plans to destroy the chakra tree and release all restrictions on magic again so he and all his demon buddies can run amok.

Oh, and his true name is Nyarlathotep, so his buddies are bad news.

More bad news is that when Danzo fucked with Hizashi's head Hazama intefered and used his powers to erase all foreknowledge from him. (Something he blames on the genjutsu twisting his mind.)

Thankfully there are exactly two people who Sakura Told Everything to. The other one is well in place to secure the second part of her plan. The second one is Itachi.

So with access to Orochimaru's resources and with Itachi as a man on the inside working against him, the plan is to lure Black Zetsu into an inescapable ambush. Queue Sasuke showing up, seeing that Sakura and Itachi are working together and going fucking ballistic.

Sakura is caught completely off guard because she presumed Hizashi told him and the Hokage the truth (that was The Plan, after all). Sasuke puts his hand through her chest, rips her in two and goes after Itachi. Black Zetsu and Obito escape. Kabuto grabs half of Sakura's body and absconds with it. Kabuto, Zetsu, and Hazama trigger the Fourth Ninja War with the goal of becoming a demon god, releasing Kaguya and trapping everyone in Infinite Tsukiyomi and releasing the Old Ones and destroying the entire planet respectively.

Somewhere in here Naruto does his training to unlock Sage Mode and the Nine Tails Chakra Cloak.

Sakura is only saved from dying because Ino intervenes (Ino having been forced to go Missing Nin with her because she can't be more than 15 km from Sakura for three years). Naruto manages to intervene in the fight between Itachi and Sasuke long enough to space Itachi's life (Itachi was long ago cured of his illness by Sakura though he continued to fake it. Oh, and his degraded eyesight was fixed as well). Itachi serves as Nigel Exposition and tells what is going on and Sasuke and him kind of make up.

Sakura manages to repair herself and she, Naruto and Sasuke go to take out Kabuto before he can ressurrect all the dead ninja and, more importantly, Madara and his Rinnegan eyes that could lead to Kaguya being returned. Kabuto, however, used his DNA jutsu to absorb all "sakura's power" and is now a powerful mage on top of a broken ass villain. They manage to defeat him and Naruto convinces Sakura and Sasuke to spare his life. Good thing, because Kabuto was able to work out what Hazama actually is thanks to his experiments with magic (and Hazama trying to tempt him with power now that Sasuke has turned on him). He also points out that the only one with any hope of defeating Hazama is Naruto, who has gained the ability by combining Sage Mode and Nine Tails Cloak to purify mana into chakra and remove all the negative energy from it in the process. Because Naruto just rolls that way.

Sakura also reveals her trump card. See she reached the "peak" of her abilities way back when she fought Danzo. No amount of training will have a significant impact on her combat performance anymore, because that's just how GURPS works (she's bought all the skills and advantages she can, and higher skills). So in the time between her going Missing and the ambush of Zetsu she was busy playing Supreme Commander. Because she knew the Ninja War may still happen.

The coalition forces now have armaments from her extradimensional factory, so we have Ninjas With Magic Power Armor versus white zetsu and the undead. Hazama is okay with this because the more magic exists the stronger he gets (he taunts Sakura with this several times).

Going into endgame, Madara gets returned to life by Hazama instead of Kabuto (because he rolls that way). He also reveals that his contract with Sasuke allows him to control him and tries to use him to assassinate Naruto, since he knows Naruto is the only threat to his plans. They fight but Itachi intervenes and uses... some sharingan thing I forget but it allows you to force another sharingan to use Izanami. This turns Sasuke into an illusion and Sakura uses Control Illusion to purge the demonic taint from him. Itachi is out of the fight because he's blind now. That's okay, Sakura exists to pump up the heroes with mad support magic he doesn't need no demon shit anymore.

While they were distracted Madara completes his plan, becomes the ten tails jinchuriki and is promptly betrayed by Black Zetsu who resurrects Kaguya only for them both to be betrayed by Hazama who tainted Madara's body with demonic energy and things start ging straight to hell. He then reveals his true name and nature and the tentails/kaguya starts turning into a fetal Outer God that will devour the world.

Our heroes get a visitation from Haguromo who reveals that he tried to warn Sasuke about the demon when he felt it in their shared vision way back and he uses his powers to grant them both Six Paths Sage Chakra and all the bullshit that goes with it, oh and also to purify Sakura's mana so she is using chakra now (her powers remain intact) and gets awesome six paths sage chakra stuff of her own.

Our power trio confront Hazama/Nyarlathotep and Black Zetsu. Naruto defeats Hazama's physical form but Nyarlathotep combines with the fetal outer god. Sasuke defeats Black Zetsu who is also consumed in the aftermath. Our trio has no idea what to do about the god monsters but Ino (who is among the small group they saved) used her mad super telepathy skills (turns out psionic enhancement technology plus ninja telepathy powers combine really striongly) to reach out to the spirits of everyone in Tsukiyomo and connected them to Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke.

Via the Power of Friendship they purify all the mana in the world, banish the outer god and save the world.

The end.

That was the basic framework. However, there were a LOT of smaller details and side conversations that took place as we were writing as well. For example, we had discussions like this:


Robo Jesus said:
Have you considered Sakura herself ending up being considered the "Big Bad" due to her overall actions and tryng to get the "Best Ending" for everyone involved? People don't know what exactly she is working towards, she'd be messing with a lot of different groups and players, and her power makes her easy enough to fit into the 'unexpected big bad'. Afterall, people can only act and react to what they know and believe, and Sakura is an Out Of Context Problem. As she is Out Of Context and the other groups don't know it, they would try and fit her into the contexts that they do know and understand, which is where I feel it would be easy for her to end up considered an 'enemy' to a great many people. There would be a lot of Orchimaru vibes, comparisons, and contrasts to some people looking to make sense of things and not realizing what is actually going on.:p

But that's just an idea off the top of my head at the moment. That said, yeah I do understand things much better, and appreciate you telling me things so I can better help out.

Anyways, throw me a gdoc link soon so we can both do work on it.:p
Aaron Peori said:
That's what's behind the whole missing nin arc. Everyone is convinced she's a Big Bad by that point.


And this:

Robo Jesus said:
Out of curiousity, and given how Sakura's mind and body can host multiple personalities at once, I have to ask. Is this going to result in Orochimaru and the mind/souls of his previous hosts ending up awakening inside of Ino's body? A sort of Jekyl and Hyde situation, with a few tag-alongs for the ride? And is so, do you have plans for the other hosts and their personalities and likes and all that once they are stuck in Ino?
Aaron Peori said:
Upgraded bodies can hold compartments, though only a maximum of three at one time and one is a dedicated 'combat mind' which is a ruthless combatant by default. If Orochimaru wanted he could shuffle his captured souls into the other compartment. I doubt he 'wants' to do so, however.

Sakura's body can hold more because she has Anima Invictus, a magical mainframe (think a Nanoha style Device) which can run six full personalities (plus simulated worlds, and a variety of other less 'real' personalities like gamma forks or NPC programs).

EDIT: You could 'reprogram' the combat mind but you'd need Sakura's level of knowledge of advanced neurology, computer programming and nanotech engineering to do so.
Robo Jesus said:
Hmm, while that answers some things, it doesn't actually answer the question, and don't think I didn't notice that.:p

I'm just curious what you're doing with Orochimaru and Ino here. It's a wonderful complication, but I can see a few different ways you can take it, and I'm curious about this. ^_^
Aaron Peori said:
I'm honestly up in the air whether Orochimaru is even going to take the body at all. The trick, or way out, is that not all bodies are compatible with the curse mark. I dropped that bit of knowledge earlier in the fic for a reason. If Ino's body 'rejects' the mark, Orochimaru will need to go to another body (Kimimaro sans whatever disease he has).

Kabuto is basically running an experiment here. Hey, if Orochimaru can take the body, great. If not, well, he has five backups that just arrived.

Danzo thinks what Kabuto is after is the reactor because he wants to power the rings without having to bring them near Sakura (and thus risk a confrontation which is outside his MO). He's half right. Kabuto does want to test the reactor idea. That probably shouldn't work by the letter of the rules (the rings are magical, even if their effect is 100% 'mundane' once activated) so you can't activate them without access to Ai or a similar Magical Device. I have an out there as well, since Hazama can cheat if he needs to and it would be impossible to justify Sakura letting the sound five 'ambush' her and don the rings s I can move into the series of endgame fights of this arc.

Either way, whichever body Orochimaru ends up in its a mixed blessing. You can use Sage Chakra to overcome the pain effect (I'm going to drop the exposition in this chapter that Level 2/Sage Mode negates pain as one of its functions, though more as a required secondary power since channeling sage chakra is unnatural and thus hurts like hell since its constantly mutating your body so you have to be able to shut down pain to operate in that mode). But you can't keep Sage Mode going 24/71 so Orochimaru can only be 'active' for a few hours at a time before needing to rest and recover in whichever new body he ends up in.

Since Sakura is going to end up forced to flee the village at the end of the arc due to everyone thinking she set all this up to assassinate multiple high ranking elders (Hazama is going to kill Koharu and Homura 'for justice' while Sakura herself kills Danzo) and because, you know, her claim to fame turned out to be apparently a lie (Orochimaru is 'fine') she will be 'joining forces' with him.

This, handily, gives a 'three year time skip' period during which the heroes back in Konoha have to figure out how to stop Orochimaru from gaining full control of his body, and possibly even going a step further and taking Sakura's body as well since obviously he would not be content with an entire branch of jutsu he couldn't ever master.

I do know that after this arc there will be a short arc of the 'find Tsunade' arc during which Naruto learns a Yang Release version of the Rasengan. Orochimaru wants to recruit Tsunade in the hopes she and Kabuto can 'fix' his body to give him more than a handful of hours at a time in it while the heroes want to recruit her because Hiruzen wants to step down and they need to heal Kakashi and Guy (who just went 7th Gate and is in pretty bad shape himself).

During this Naruto and Sasuke will encounter Sakura and she doubles down on defecting. She delivers a scathing rebuke to Naruto, saying that while he is capable of 'bringing peace' it was never because he actually solved the world's problems. All Naruto did was identify a monster bigger than the ninja world to fear and fear created the peace of his new era. Fear that must end when overpowered bullshit people like Naruto and Sasuke die and there is no one left to enforce it through that fear. A world of a benevolent tyrant is only marginally better than an illusion created by a mad tyrant, both are doomed in the end.

Then she says that if the ninja world needs a villain to unite them, she'll give them that villain. She'll go full Ozymandias on their asses. And the world she will create in the wake of that unity will be a true peace, built on an infrastructure that Naruto and Sasuke for all their chosen one bullshit powers could never accomplish because they never solve the problem of inequality and hatred.

1: Unless you are Kabuto but he is a cheating cheater who cheats harder than Sakura.

Edit: Of course, if Ino's body is rejecting the mark that is because it is dying.


And this:

Aaron Peori said:
Hmm. Well, one thing to keep in mind with Kiba is that he dislikes Sakura because to him she really does stink. It turns out pheremones keyed to make her trustworthy to human have adverse effects on non-human tuned senses. That's also why Shino reacted the way he did when Sakura used a pheremone blast to calm down everyone from Tayuya's genjutsu earlier. He figured out she's using controlled scents on people. It's also why people like Kakashi trust her a hell of a lot when speaking directly with her only to question their judgment later. Kakashi's senses are just off human standard enough that he is still effected but he's vaguely aware of being effected.

Why yes, manipulating people to like you by basically drugging them is morally questionable. Yes, that is something that will bite Sakura in the ass.


And even this:

Robo Jesus said:
*nods*. Amusingly, I could see your Nyarl making a smaller pink-haired copy to create further issues for Sakura while his normal mask is running around doing its thing. Afterall, he did point out that there were two characters he found in Sakura's mind that were so effective, and making it seem like he didn't do something when he actually did is the sort of thing I'd expect from him, and he is the sort to use Sakura's own face as one of his masks given the amount of trouble it would cause her. Especially as both she and he are the only ones with access to her techniques.
Aaron Peori said:
Amusing maybe, but probably not good for the story. One of the thing to get clear by the end of this arc is that while Nyarl is powerful he's not all powerful in this avatar. It's pretty clear in the lore of the Mythos that an avatar of Nyarl is limited to the powers inherent in that avatar. For instance his "watcher in the darkness" can only move in the dark, which is a pretty silly limitation for an all powerful god-being. But the "overmind" of Nyarl is all powerful, the avatar is something that can (and has) been defeated.
Robo Jesus said:
*nods*. I meant more in a "I'm purposely causing you problems for amusement" sort of way, but I do understand the issue there. I imagine that when Naryl wears a "Mask", the mask defines him in various ways for the play that is playing out. Doesn't matter if he technically "Could" fuck people over at all, at that point he's wearing a mask and he isn't going to break the play just so he can 'win'.
Aaron Peori said:
Indeed. One of the limits of the avatar is that it compels him to act in a certain way as well. He not only can he must be the biggest troll asshole in existence because the character he picked is a big troll asshole. Sure it gives him the ability to exist in multiple timelines simultaneously and reject magical influence and make anything he 'observers' an immutable fact of existence if he wants but he still has to basically fuck with people for the shits and giggles.
Robo Jesus said:
...now I'm imagining an avatar whose 'trolling' is being the kindest, gentlest, better-as-a-person version of Sakura done in a way which only serves to piss her off.
Aaron Peori said:
Well, he'd more try to make someone else into that role to piss her off, but yeah, possible.
Robo Jesus said:
"Magical Girl Anko!" is an honestly terrifying mental image. Yeah, Ino is already a "magical girl", but I mean Anko as a senin magical girl. A "Cutesy" magical girl. As Anko. THAT is why the mental image is terrifying.:p
Aaron Peori said:
More magical girl Ino. Oh hey, did he mention that one of the powers GURPS psychics can do is astral project? Oh did he mention that you can astral project into the "inner universe" when you do so? Oh hey, did he mention that the inner world in the Naruto-verse is that purgatory-like world where souls who have not yet passed on hang around? Did we mention that Rin's spirit, the girl the principle big bad of the series death is motivated by is doing that waiting for him to pull his head out of his ass right now?
Hazama: "So let me get this straight. You spend a dozen years building yourself a sweet kung fu android magical girl body with psychic powers so you could Xanatos speed chess everyone and enjoy punching evil guys in the face. I gave Ino psychic powers and she resolved the entire plot in five minutes by reuniting Obito with his dead girlfriend. You suck at this."


So this was the basic framework and details of what would have happened in-story. I figured you good people deserved to know where things would have gone, to at least help give this story some closure. I thank you good people who read this story for your time and attention. Farewell Aaron.
 
I've read (and loved) Hybrid Theory, and it really is reminiscent of the batshit insanely awesome worldbuilding he does.

May he shine even greater than the craziest diamond and continue kicking evil outergod ass in the great beyond.
 
Thank you for the information.

with the whole "everyone thinks Sakura was the big bad" thing, how was that going to be resolved? and what would the ramifications/outcome of that be? i.e those that thought she used and betrayed them, who began to....rather dislike....her, finding out that she didnt do that after all? those that believed her all that time being verified and relieved? e.t.c
 
Thank you for the information.

with the whole "everyone thinks Sakura was the big bad" thing, how was that going to be resolved? and what would the ramifications/outcome of that be? i.e those that thought she used and betrayed them, who began to....rather dislike....her, finding out that she didnt do that after all? those that believed her all that time being verified and relieved? e.t.c

If I know my Aaron - and as much as anybody did, I do - the answer to your question is "ANGST".

But more seriously:

From my own discussions with him, I know that Sakura being a ruthless manipulator and Kinda Bad Friend was bound to keep catching up with her until she finally learned something from it. She wouldn't just be forgiven immediately because she kinda DID still use and betray everybody, just not quite the way they thought. My suspicion is that her relationship with Hinata would be key to her redemption, because Hinata would keep believing in Sakura even when she manifestly didn't deserve the benefit of the doubt.
 
I read Hybrid Theory and didn't really like it much, too dark for my taste. This story was pretty cool, though, and the summary makes it seem like it could have been amazing if he'd been allowed to finish it. Shame what happened to him. :(
 
Sorry to hear of his passing :(

I had hopes for this story. Thanks for letting us know, as i had not actually heard before your post.
 
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