Title Here: Multi-fandom Writings

Chapter Sixteen!
School is ending!​

The second week of January was the most important week for all us ninja hopefuls. Five days in which we were all evaluated and tested on the various facets of being a ninja.

Combat, taijutsu only or using jutsu, against our teachers and between ourselves.

Accuracy, basic weapons standing, crouching, running, under fire, into static or mobile targets.

Jutsu, demonstrations of our mastery of the techniques taught, handseal speed and recognition.

Theory, from geography to maths, logical tests, tactics and large scale strategy.

Of course, I was sure we had been continuously evaluated throughout the year. Namely, things like survival, awareness, social exercises and the like… or endurance and fitness. This week was just to put our feet to the fire, and determine who really couldn’t make it.

I, like Lee before me, had different criteria for certain tests. Namely, nobody ever asked me to perform the Henge, Bushin or Kawimari. I just couldn’t be taught those jutsu. It would be like asking a blind man to describe color. Instead, I’d been told plainly, I needed to do exceptionally well in other areas. And, of course, demonstrate what I could do with my own special techniques.

My taijutsu and my theory scores were great. They’d been my focus for years, and I had Lee and Gai-sensei to help me. Ninjutsu and genjutsu were a breed apart, but I knew I would be able to impress with some of my moves. Weaponry was where I faltered a bit. I was more than handy with kunai in hand, especially in close-quarters. Hikkaku no Waza in particular had required me to invest in better knife-fighting. But throwing kunai and shuriken?

Well.

For one, pulling more pokemon meant I had less money to use on tools. So I practiced less with those I had, which were of inferior quality. For another, something in my schedule had to give to accommodated for my jobs. My friends had been very helpful and put me through my paces the last two weeks. I was no longer mediocre. I could pass as average. I hit the targets at the regular distance but had trouble with anything further away.

The final test was saturday and, fittingly, was about ninjutsu.

Any of the three ‘true’ ninjutsu they taught at the academy could be selected for the final test. This year it was Bushin.

For everybody else.

I was the last person to go by design. Iruka and Mizuki were behind a desk, a few headbands primly displayed in front of them.

“Sakura.” Iruka greeted me with a smile. He had a sheet of paper in his hand. “You already know how this goes. Bushin no Jutsu is, like you wrote in the theoretical, used as a complementary technique in offensive or evasive actions. Please demonstrate a technique that could be used in the same role.”

I’d thought hard about this one. There were two possibilities when it came to this test. Either Bushin or Kawimari would be tested for. Kawimari, defensive, I could emulate with a Quick Attack or Barrier. Bushin was a bit trickier. I had plenty of offensive techniques, and I wasn’t doubting I could pass using them, but Iruka was a professional. He’d dock me some points.

So instead I used something that, properly channeled, could have that effect. “Doku-ton: Sumoggu no Waza!”

Inhaling through my nose, I expelled a cloud of toxic fumes from my mouth. The handseals for this technique had one slight variation, one more seal than it normally would. I’d been working on Sumoggu for years, and I’d long since feared poisoning Lee in a spar… so this version was deliberately weak. The dark grey cloud that I aimed at my feet billowed into an impressive smoke screen, however.

When it blew away, I saw Iruka and Mizuki-sensei smiling. “Congratulations. You pass, Sakura.”

I received a forehead protector and was, finally, an official ninja. I tied the band around my neck for now, and left the room with a bow to my teachers and a smile I couldn’t quite contain. I threw Ino a victory sign and returned to my place, briefly touching Hinata's elbow as we crossed each other. It was her turn after me.

When I plopped down, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I felt nauseous and my eyes stung. Despite my best efforts, I’d still inhaled just a bit of Smog. A poison-type move with a status chance.

“Ah… Really had to go poison yourself, didn’t you, idiot?” Was I going to need to pass by the hospital after this? Lame.

I couldn’t wait for the rest of my ninja career. Getting a team and a jounin sensei, finally going on missions, getting paid… it was just a bit daunting.

Well, I think I was going to do ok.

---

So this is where the first or second "chapter" would end. The end of the Academy phase. Might start crossposting this now. At least onto Wattpad (ah the place where shame is but a fictional concept).​

I set graduation at January 15, Japan's hm, adult Day? It's an important enough date that currently defaults to the second week of Jan but before 2000 (when Naruto was first published) it was on the 15th. By the by, I've been setting the Naruto timeline as if it was set in 1997 in regards to week days and moon phases. 1997 because that's when the original Naruto one shot was published. It also fits the one day of the week we have been given according to the timeline.​

 

Chapter Seventeen!
Introducing Team Orphan, I mean Seven!​

And on the sixth day she rested. (It did turn out I had a light case of poisoning.)

I met up with Ino, and her guys, and we celebrated graduating. A nice lunch at a restaurant, the last paid for by their parents. We were about to start becoming financially independent. Lee and his team were out of the village for a couple of days, but I knew I would be aggressively congratulated as soon as they returned.

I was a bit short on money, on account of pouring all my reserves into as many pulls as I could for the past few months. Graduation deserved something special so I treated myself to a proper 'ninja outfit'. Like Lee and Gai-sensei had their thing. Well, parts of one. I'd been thinking about adding an emblem to my clothes for ages, as an homage to pokemon itself. The uncolored version of the pokeball logo. So I ordered a shirt with it, Rayquaza green with the yellow sigil. Rayquaza was my favorite, and his shiny form was just plain awesome. My clothes were all going to be patterned after it.

Black with yellow patterns, green and-or pink as tertiary accents.

Well, when my income improved. I went to Lee’s house so his mother could help me turn my forehead protector into a belt like his. But pink to match my hair, which I now wore short like a guy because it became such a pain to maintain it on my own. Black pants, for now unadorned, and a dark green sleeveless hoodie completed the look.

I went to the Academy to take a picture for registration at the time I was told to, and then spent the rest of the day finishing up with my clients. I wasn’t going to be able to do small jobs anymore, as a genin. I had quite a few people to say farewell to.

Monday rose bright and early. It was weird to not have to do a newspaper run. It was just like any other day, except we all had our headbands and we all knew this was the last day.

One single surprise: Naruto, who had failed the final graduation test, had somehow managed to pass… somehow.

Iruka-sensei was definitely doing the fond fatherly-brotherly smile, so I stopped wondering about it too much. Instead, I asked Hinata. If anybody knew the tea on Naruto-related news, it was her. Unfortunately for my curiosity, she had no clue either. But she was undeniably happy.

Good for them? Hm, I wondered if Hinata would survive being on the same team as her crush.

“Alright, pay attention!” Iruka-sensei yelled from the blackboard. “I will be announcing the teams, and I won’t repeat myself!”

A gaggle of twelve years old, and me, leaned forward in anticipation.

“Team Seven: Haruno Sakura–” So I was lucky number seven, nice. “–Uzumaki Naruto–” I retracted that statement. “–and Uchiha Sasuke.” Oh, come on!

I dragged a hand over my face and peeked between my fingers at my new teammates. Several seats ahead, both were too busy glaring murder at each other. Had I offended the Hokage somehow that night? Was that it? Did he have something against me? Who had thought this combo was a good idea?

Two random orphans and Uchiha Sasuke, who was –a lightbulb went off in my head– also an orphan.

“Are you kidding me?” I whispered to the gods. “Team Orphan, really?”

Nobody answered.

I used my lunch time to get mentally prepared. Uchiha, Sasuke I supposed, would be easy enough to work with. Probably. He was a quiet but intense person. Naturally. It was just super awkward to be on a team with the guy whose defining life moment, and tragedy, had been the thing that made me take life seriously. Not that I was ever going to tell him that. Now Uzumaki Naruto… I was probably going to snap at him within the week. I could handle joking and cheerful people. I could even handle loud people in a world where earbuds were the height of technology, and thus too expensive for me. I could not handle the jokester archetype. There was a limit of seriousness, and Naruto better hit it quick.

I returned to our old classroom, steeled for anything.

And I waited. And waited. And waited some more.

Actually, we three schmucks waited for… several hours.

Everybody had already been picked up by adult ninjas that looked cool or professional. At least, none of them looked as eccentric as Gai-sensei. Which was a worry in and of itself.

Five minutes in Naruto was fidgeting. Sasuke was brooding. And I had not brought any books to entertain myself. The only thing that kept us from leaving was Iruka-sensei’s assurances that no, somebody would come for us, sooner or later. Much later.

Doodling in my pocket notebook it was. This sort of doodling in organized patches had had a name in my past life. Triangle something? Should I start doing push-ups? Not training or working or doing anything was getting to my head.

We weren’t talking with each other either. If I talked to Naruto first, it would feel like leaving the emo in the corner too alone. If I talked to Sasuke first, well Naruto would get jealous or rowdy. Plus, I was female, I was not going to initiate a conversation with the king of preteen crushes. Pass. And addressing them both… yeah, I wasn’t that bored yet. To be frank, I wasn’t hopeful about the guys, so I wanted to see who our teacher would be first.

“Why is our teacher so damn late!” Naruto exploded. Like he had every five minutes since Iruka-sensei had left.

“Naruto, I will pay you to shut up.” “You can’t buy me!” “Urgh.”

“I know…” He snickered to himself and started rummaging around. Sasuke and I followed him with our eyes as he giggled to himself and started setting up the most basic of door traps. If a regular door had water bucket pranks, then sliding doors had wedged erasers.

“Like a jounin would fall for that.” Sasuke rolled his eyes, but I noticed he was smiling behind his brooding and planning pose. Did the kid actually have a sense of humor?

“You should probably take that down.” I said. “We might get in trouble.” Not all jounin were Gai-sensei, after all. Only Lee was like Gai, but my point stood.

“No way, he deserves it!” Naruto raised his chin, hands behind his head in his classic confident pose.

The noise of footsteps stopping in front of our door quelled us. I hadn’t been paying attention, shit. I got up from my seat but it was too late. The door opened and the eraser fell on the ground, missing the ninja by scant millimeters. No, from the tiny plume of chalk dust, it had brushed his hair on the way down.

Naruto was pouting, Sasuke was cringing and I… I was probably pale. The man let an eye rove over us in the silence. “How do I put this… I don’t like you.”

---

Me, being original? not today
Team Orphan will be the joke of the arc, I'm telling you. It's even funnier if you consider Kakashi also counts but will never tell them.​

 

A listing of the mysterious gacha pulls Sakura has at the end of each chapter.

Rarity (frame): 1* Common / Bronze , 2* UnCommon / Silver , 3* Rare / Gold , 4* SuperRare / Diamond

Level (bottom right corner): increments of 5, each allowing for more transformations and move usages​

Chapters 1-2 : Sad, weak, powerless.
Chapters 3 :

Spoiler

Chapters 4-6 :

Spoiler

Chapters 7-8 :

Spoiler

Chapter 9 :

Spoiler

Chapter 10 :

Spoiler

Chapter 11 :

Spoiler

Chapter 12 :

Spoiler

Chapters 13-14 :

Spoiler

Chapter 15 :

Spoiler

Chapter 16-24 :

Spoiler

Chapter 25 :

Spoiler

 

Chapter Eighteen!
Let’s all get to know each other!​

“Follow me.” And just like that the jounin left.

We scrambled for the door but the man was lazily walking down the hallway. He was nothing like Gai-sensei. The energy was simply not the same. Not even there for this man. He looked absolutely done with life. Done with us, I couldn't help but think. This was very much not a good start.

Did Naruto chatter and try to ask why he was so late? Did Sasuke snipe back at him? Rhetorical. They did. All my mental preparation was fraying. I was going to open my mouth and get weird and sarcastic. It was such a headache-inducing struggle.

We got taken to the rooftop, a nice little area that followed Konoha’s motto of ‘there is always space for more trees’ by having an entire miniature park on top.

Finally there, the jounin did something rational and had us sit down. “Let’s start with some introductions, hm?”

“Who the f-heck are you? You haven’t even told us your name yet.” I immediately blurted out. That had been bothering me.

My teammates assented, Naruto demanding. “Yeah, introduce yourself first.”

“Oh, me? My name is Hatake Kakashi.” He leaned against the railing. “I don’t particularly care to tell you about my likes or dislikes. My dream for the future’s… hm, well, I have a lot of hobbies.”

Almost every word in those sentences sounded a bit like a question and an affirmation at the same time. I examined the lazy-looking dude. He wore a basic uniform, the sort that you could buy several of at a discount, but it looked like the high quality stuff. A jounin vest and a leg holster that had usage marks but looked well-stocked. Equipment wise, he looked the part. Now his face… I’d like to describe it but I could only see one ear, one eye, the respective eyebrow and half a nose. He had shaggy gray hair. Instead of using his headband on his forehead, he had it tilted over one eye. He also used a half-face mask that covered everything below the bridge of his nose. Maybe he was heavily scarred.

Still, something about his name sounded vaguely familiar. I was certain I’d heard it somewhere before. But where?

“Alright, now it’s your turn. Let’s go clockwise.” Hatake pointed at Naruto.

“Ahah! I’m Uzumaki Naruto!” The blonde jumped in. He was dressed, as always, in a rough orange jumpsuit. He’d traded his goggles for a forehead protector but he was still the same as ever. Short, loud. “I like ramen! Cup ramen but even better, Ichiraku’s! And I love it even more when Iruka-sensei’s the one to pay! I dislike… the time it takes for ramen to be done.”

I liked ramen too but wasn’t this…

“My dream is to be the greatest Hokage ever! Everybody is going to acknowledge me!” He boasted, tapping his forehead protector. “Believe it or not! My hobby is pranks, I guess.”

Odds were against him but at least he was consistent. I was sitting in the middle, somewhere between keeping the boys separated and keeping an eye on the situation. I was next.

“My name is Haruno Sakura.” Tho, if that was who I was, was up for debate. “I like dragons, ninjas and girls. Get any and all hopes out of your head because I’m competition. If I ever marry I want a beautiful wife.” These sort of things were best said right out of the gate. “I dislike asinine bullshit and gambling.” Yes, the gacha was why. “My hobbies are photography and self-improvement. My dream…”

Maybe children thought about things like dreams. Or wanting to be astronauts or volcanologists or circus performers. But my soul was old. In the end, what I wished for, at the end of my life…

“My dream is to face death without regrets.”

On a bed or in the battlefield, I wanted to be able to die without panic, without fear. Without a last moment of agony where all one can think of is why me why me why is this happening I still had so much things I wanted to do–

“Whoa, that’s kinda…” “Hmm.” My teammates were looking at me askance.

“Whatever, Uchiha’s next.” I pointed with my thumb to the person with an actual tragic backstory.

Uchiha Sasuke dressed in blue. A dark blue shirt with a high collar he could hide his face into, contrasting nicely with a light pair of shorts. All his accessories, arm and leg guards, were of those colors too. I’d say he did have a pretty face, but the way he kept it neutral or neutral-displeased all the time ruined it for me. I was not, a, straight, b, an actual preteen girl.

“My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I dislike many things and I don’t like a lot of things.” He didn’t have to imitate Hatake. “I wouldn’t call it a dream, but my ambition is the revival of my clan. And to kill one man.”

I suppressed a sigh. If you knew, you could almost see the ghost of Konoha’s most infamous missing-nin hovering over his shoulders. That was something I wasn’t willing to touch with a twenty-foot pole.

“Ok, that’s enough.” Said Hatake. “We will start properly tomorrow.”

I supposed, since the sun was already starting to set. January days were short and this guy had been three hours late!

“First we are going to do a little something just the four of us.” He nodded to himself. I had the distinct impression he was smiling. At Naruto’s hurried questions, he continued. “Survival training.”

---

I will write a Kakashi perspective one day. But I won't put it under this threadmark, maybe.​

You really get a handle of your character when doing these introductions. Sakura is not a kid in a lot of ways and it's reflecting in certain things in her life. Namely, now that we'll see her in more action scenes, the death trauma and claustrophobia might return here and there. Just because one did mental process it several years ago doesn't mean trauma is gone. Boy, I wish...​

 

Chapter Nineteen!
The very fishy survival exercise commences!
​

The morning of the sixteenth of January, my first proper day as a genin, dawned in increments. It was stupidly early. I was munching on a light breakfast as I stared at the printout Hatake had given us yesterday. According to him, this could also be my last day as a genin.

“... Yeah, something is very fishy about this.”

There were a myriad of issues with what we’d been told yesterday. I wasn’t discounting the possibility entirely, because this was sort of the military and Hatake was effectively our commanding officer. He sure could make things unpleasant for us. But.

Anyway, I hadn’t had time to consult with Ino yesterday. It wasn’t a coincidence. We were instructed to be at Training Ground Three at five-thirty. (An interesting choice of where to train.) We had to scramble home to get good enough sleep. There were two possibilities, either Hatake was going to be as late as yesterday, or that had been a feint and he would be on time today. Or, if he was a bastard, he’d be watching who was late and who wasn’t and adjust his strategy. Mind games.

Well, I could play the game too. He said to bring all of our tools, but that was stupid because everybody had way too many tools. Couldn’t disobey an order like that… or a person could be like me and not have that many tools. Ahah, I’d gotten him there. The breakfast thing sounded like plain intimidation and, product of my active lifestyle, I needed to eat a fair amount. I would honestly rather vomit than have my stomach hurting me, so I ate something light.

Sasuke was there at the same time as me, right on time. Naruto was five minutes late.

And then… we waited. Yeah, no, screw that.

The meeting spot was open and fairly wide. I started with a warm-up jog, then moved on to stretches. At some point Sasuke started meditating and Naruto was running through some katas, being loud and obnoxious. Possibly on purpose. And still, warm-up done, time spent… Hatake wasn’t there.

“I’m going to take a nap while I can.” I told the boys. “Would one of you stand watch and wake me up when he finally appears?”

“You’re going to sleep?” “It’s called efficient time management.” Naruto and I argued. Sasuke grunted. “Go ahead, I’m not lowering my guard.”

Shamelessly, I did. I had a very nice nap in the morning sun, like a cat. Did it matter? No. Because it was ten in the morning when Hatake appeared, calmly walking.

“Hey guys, good morning.” I suppressed the urge to curse him out. Almost five fucking hours. “You’re late!!” Naruto didn’t.

The jounin brushed him off and started setting up our exercise. He took out an alarm clock and set it for noon, then showed off two bells like the ones people tied to cats. “Your objective is to take these two bells from me before noon.” He continued. “If you can’t get a bell before the clock rings, you get no lunch. I’ll tie you to those posts and eat it in front of you.” He pointed at three stumps at the edge of the training grounds.

“So that’s why he told us to eat no breakfast.” Naruto was cringing and clutching his stomach. I’d eaten, sure, but it had been over five hours. I was hungry too.

“You only need to get one bell. There are only two, so one of you will definitely go hungry. And the one that doesn’t get a bell… fails. So at least one of you will get sent back to the Academy.” Hatake shrugged. “You can use your weapons freely. You won’t succeed unless you come at me with the intent to kill.”

No, we wouldn’t succeed anyway. A jounin was a completely different beast from the chunnin teachers we had at the Academy. Naruto and Sasuke might not know, but I had trained with Gai-sensei… A genin defeating a jounin was impossible. Not if he took us seriously… unless… I felt my eyes narrowing in concentration. No, something was definitely fishy about this.

“Ah!” Naruto scoffed. “Easy then! You barely dodged my trap yesterday!”

Hatake blinked once. “The talentless bark the loudest. I’m going to ignore Mr. Dead Last over there and–”

Naruto growled and launched himself at him, kunai in hand. He got one step in. Then Hatake was there, holding him by the head, arm twisted so his own kunai was pointed at his nape. I hadn’t seen him move, was barely even able to react to his sudden appearance by getting into a fighting stance.

“–start when I say start. Calm down.” His voice was as still and calm as ever. “The initiative is good, so I guess you aren’t entirely hopeless. Ready?”

Absolutely not.

“Start!”

---

These chapters get a bit long because of the dialogue (not this one yet). Also wanted to have the bell test go a little different towards the end, because this is not the same Haruno Sakura, and her experience and maturity will have an impact on the team dynamics. This is not Team Minato/etc reborn... but the Sandaime saw something there nonetheless, and it's up to Kakashi to evaluate the hokage-wannabe deadlast, the arrogant prodigy and... another sort of prodigy. Wondering if she'd remind him of Itachi with her uncommon maturity and outlook, even if hidden beneath a foul mouth and a weird sense of humor.​

 

Chapter Twenty!
A jounin predictably kicks my first teammate’s butt!​

I didn’t travel far. We scrammed from the jounin’s immediate vicinity but I knew that he could catch up to us in a matter of instants. As I circled his position from the trees, I pondered my strategy.

Brute force wouldn’t do it. Weakening him with status moves was an option, but I wasn't confident that it would bring him down to a manageable level. Hatake was going to hold back. He was testing us somehow. I wasn’t sure what he wanted to see.

There was a lot of emphasis placed on there being one failure no matter what.

Well, Naruto had decided not to hide at all and was instead challenging him head on, so I stopped on a tree branch. I would wait and see for a bit, to get a measure of what Hatake would do. If Naruto distracted him enough, I would even nail him with some of my weakening moves.

And in response to Naruto’s challenge, Hatake took out from his pouch a book. And started reading it nonchalantly. A taunt and a showing of his skill, as he effortlessly dodge any and all of Naruto’s attacks. Nothing for it, I supposed. I moved my hands to prepare a focussed version of Growl that wouldn’t also catch Naruto in its area of effect.

“Nômaru-ton: Nakigoe no Waza.” And I yelped, power in my voice. Both of the combatants' eyes moved in my direction. I was already moving, and cursing Naruto for getting distracted.

“Looks like you had some help there.” The jounin loomed over Naruto, who’d turned his head away. “But a ninja should never get caught from behind.” And thus Naruto was sent flying into the lake.

Ah, my bad, Naruto… There’d been no way I could warn him, anyway.

I prepared another Nakigoe no Waza, my second and last use of it for an hour. Naruto was attacking from underwater so I was free to strike without hitting him. Hatake didn’t even turn his eye towards my position this time. Still no sign of Sasuke either. Suddenly, several Narutos attacked from the water. Not just the regular Bushin either. When had that clown learnt something like that? I struck Hatake with Nakigoe, seemingly without effect again.

Hatake replaced himself with one of the clones and Naruto’s clones began… fighting among each other. …maybe they were a bit too independent?

The problem is that I had lost track of the jounin. I did not curse out loud.

“A bell!” Naruto cried and got caught in the most predictable trap ever. I got the feeling that it was retaliation for yesterday’s attempts.

Hatake returned to taunt him and that was when Sasuke struck. Blood spurted… genjutsu, of course. This was a jounin we were up against. But if I’d gotten a handle on his general position, so had Hatake. Our position had been reversed and now we were the hunted. I jumped out of the shrubs and approached Naruto’s position, eyes carefully watching out for an attack.

"Sakura! Hey! Scary Pink Demon! Get me down!" A blond midget yelled as he contorted himself.

Why did Naruto have to remember that embarrassing nickname? "Ugh, keep your voice down." I told him and pulled out a kunai. "And don't move around so fucking much."

A pinch at my ankle. Fuck. He'd boobytrapped the ground around Naruto. Two mint fresh genin hung from a tree.

"Nice job, weirdo." "See the kunai in my hand? Shut up."

I cut us both down. This confirmed Hatake had to be holding out on us. This sort of trap was too simple and easy to get out of.

Naruto patted himself down. “Alright. I could’ve gotten out myself, but thanks for the save!”

“You were the one who asked for my help…” I muttered. Our foe was probably chasing Sasuke right now. “We need to come up with a plan– Hey!”

Naruto was facing away from me, squinting at the distance. "Our lunches are still over there." He grinned. "Kakashi-sensei said that a ninja is supposed to look underneath the underneath, ehe. So I’m looking underneath this survival exercise!”

How did that make any sense? "I’m fairly sure that’s not how you’re supposed to interpret that saying. No.”

He stuck his tongue out. “Suit yourself scary weirdo, I’m hungry!”

“Did you really not eat anything before coming?” “You did?” “Something light just after waking up, yes.” “Bah, I can’t fight when I’m this hungry, so I’m going!”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m telling you it’s a bad idea!” I thought to tell him we should find Sasuke instead, but he was already on his way. As if on cue, a distant rumbling was heard. Ninjutsu being used. “Ah, screw it.” I bounded over into the trees.

If I could find Sasuke and support him like I had Naruto before, we might have a chance.

---

Not a great teamwork start, but that was predictable. Since most of Sakura's nin-genjutsu are ... well, weak, she prefers hitting people with a lot of status moves. She wasn't going to waste the opening Naruto gave her either. Fighting fair is for tournament arcs and chumps!​

 

Chapter Twenty-One!
My second teammate watches me fight neck-deep in the dirt!​

I found Sasuke’s head. There is a saying about ostriches burying their heads in sand. Uchiha Sasuke was currently a very grumpy-looking reverse ostrich.

“What the heck happened to you?” I said as I knelt down.

“He came from the ground. Ninjutsu.” Indeed the earth around him was disturbed and not packed tight. Good, he could have suffocated if it hadn’t. He could dig himself out eventually, but I started taking a kunai to the ground to help him out. Jounin were scary. What if Hatake was swimming beneath the earth right now. Sasuke flinched. “Look out!!”

“Mamoru!” I had just enough time to make a handseal. A green barrier sprung into existence inches away from my skin, deflecting away the kick aimed at my back. Opportunity missed, I tumbled away, setting into a fighting stance a distance away from Sasuke’s head.

“Oho. That’s an interesting jutsu.” Hatake retracted his leg, only briefly looking away from his book.

“You can use ninjutsu?” Sasuke was boggling at me from the ground, a fact I’d find amusing and vindictive, if Hatake hadn’t put his foot on his head like it was a football.

“That’s a misconception.” I told them, hands held in front of me ready to move. “I can’t use regular j–Hinoko no Waza!” I spat a blast of fire, forcing him to dodge back.

“Fire as well… not on the level of Sasuke’s Gôkakyû.” Bitch I don’t care! “What about taijutsu?”

Hatake jumped towards me and I found myself in a familiar position, facing a superior opponent ready to plummet me. Thankfully, I’d had the forethought of raising my toughness with as many Hardens and Defense Curls as I could. He was going at it stronger than Lee did, but nothing like Gai-sensei, I could withstand that. Every blow that looked like it would matter, he would skillfully deflect, taking no actual damage.

I was being tested.

If he wanted killing intent, I could give him that. I herded him away from Sasuke’s struggling form so it wouldn’t hit him. Point-blank, I screeched. Nômaru-ton: Iya na Oto no Waza! I rarely used this one because it required too many handseals to focus on a single target, but this should be far away enough. Hatake actually winced at that and I took the opportunity to grab his wrist, do a half Electric seal and unleash a shock, or rather, a thunderwave. “Denki-ton: Denjiha no Waza!”

My body sparked up, before shooting a weak but paralyzing shock in the area around me. Hatake was no longer in my grasp. In the blink of an eye, he’d twisted his arm away and substituted. I’d lost him again.

“Sakura!” Sasuke’s voice came from– My legs were swept away and I slammed into the ground, breath leaving my body. I rolled, crouching and glaring at the jounin carefully opening up his book again. He was immaculate and I was panting harshly.

“Is that it?” He asked.

“Well… I have one more trick.” I had no idea if this was going to work. I didn’t bother with handseals. I just pushed my power to act in its most natural form, chakra flaring around me.

Niramitsukeru. Nenriki. Four Leers hit him in the space of a second, my eyes glowing dementedly, before my mind rushed forward as an invisible, intangible hand. It grabbed the bells, ringing sound echoing, the threads holding them snapped.

Hatake grabbed them, disrupting my weak Confusion. He sighed. “That’s twice now. Maybe I should be taking you more seriously too.” His hands flashed. “Magen: Nara–”

The ground rumbled. Not thunder, something else, something more dangerous– I had to get to cover, a wall, a doorstep, a table– Away from the trees– I tripped, covered my head and waited for the worst to pass. Whatever came, it was too late!

“-kura! Sakura! SAKURA!” A hand shook me.

I gasped, eyes opening. Half into the ground, Uchiha Sasuke was holding onto my shoulder. “What–”

“You got caught in a genjutsu.” He let go of me and made quick work of releasing the rest of his body from the ground as I caught my breath. Of course it had been a genjutsu. Konoha didn’t have earthquakes. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, still on the ground. I didn’t feel like my legs were steady yet. “Y-yeah. Just, never been caught in a genjutsu like that.”

The dark-haired boy frowned. “You should have been able to release yourself. Your grades were good in that area.”

I chuckled. “Kind of. My chakra flow makes it that regular genjutsu are less effective on me. The things they had us break in the Academy only ever half-worked on me.” What Hatake had hit me with had been the real deal. Had he overpowered the thing because of my resistance? That was a jounin for you.

“I thought you couldn’t use ninjutsu or genjutsu.” There was a question there.

I pushed myself up and tested my limbs. “Like I said, that’s a misconception. My chakra pathways are distorted, so the handseals and jutsus everybody can use just don’t… work for me. But it’s not like I can’t use chakra. I just had to find my own way of doing it.”

Now Sasuke was looking at me somewhat contemplative. Probably. He had a good poker face. “I see. I’m going to try again. Are you coming?”

“Let’s go. Hey,” I remembered, “Naruto decided to go for the lunches. If Hatake hasn’t taken care of him yet, we should get him on board.”

Sasuke scoffed. “That idiot. What do we need him for? We have a better chance with the two of us.” He didn’t say what we were both thinking. One of us three was going to fail… so Naruto…

Something was really bothering me. “Look. Don’t you think there’s something suspicious about this–”

The clear sound of an alarm clock rang in the distance. I checked the sun’s position. We had run out of time. Sasuke cursed.

---

Really need to get a Kakashi perspective written because it's hard to convey Sakura's wack fighting skills from her own perspective. Fortunately, Sasuke didn't see the Leers she used, but Kakashi is inwardly a) intrigued, b) confused, c) having a nagging feeling of familiarity.​

Next chapter is where I switch things up.​

 

Jumping off the stage at Kiyomizu​

She hated Maki. Hated, hated her.

If she hadn’t left, Mai wouldn’t be in this position.

She tripped on a root and was sent sprawling. She let go of her borrowed weapon, catching herself on her arms before her chin could hit the dirt. A whimper cut through the night. She scrambled for the fallen naginata and did her best to ignore the aches and bruises that grew with each passing second.

A stray, delirious thought: This would be so much worse if Maki hadn’t left her uniform behind.

No, Mai clenched her jaw until it hurt, panicked breaths hitting the back of her teeth like animals trying to break free. She wasn’t going to give her sister anything. This was all her fault. Maki left to be a sorcerer, so Mai had to become a sorcerer too.

The crunching of wood, like bone, approached from behind. She dug the butt of the polearm into the ground, heaved herself up on doe legs. The multi-track voice that was chasing her grew louder, the only clue she had of the curse’s position in the darkness. She turned the edge of her weapon towards the sound, trying her best to copy a stance she’d seen her sister use.

Her entire body was trembling. The point of the blade shook so much it was surprising it hadn’t already fallen from her death grip. She didn’t know what she was doing.

Mai had barely been given enough time to get dressed in Maki’s abandoned clothes and to pick a weapon from storage, before being bundled into a car for her first mission. She wasn’t strong or fast. She’d never picked up a weapon before, much less trained with one. She still avoided the weak curses skittering in the corners of the estate, so weak nobody would ever assign them a grade. She cowered and clung and she'd been thrown into the deep end.

The Zen’in didn’t care. Maki had exorcized a Grade Three curse. Mai had to do better. And if she died, they’d just dangle her rotten corpse in front of her sister so they could laugh at her. She was an accessory to Maki, a by-product, something she had to drag around. She’d been discarded like offal but their blood wouldn’t allow that. So now she hung on her leash, strangling with each step Maki took forward.

Gods. It pissed her off so much. The anger was acidic in her stomach, burning her from the inside.

The cursed spirit breached the edge of her vision, lopping on three legs. Saw-teeth gargled begging words (help help me i’m lost mama help it's dark dark) and spit bubbling drool. It had no eyes to see Mai but numerous orifices on its bulbous head opened and closed, taking in her fear and disgust like delicacies. A curse from lost hikers and abandoned children, Mai remembered with a touch of irony amidst the apprehension.

She had to stop running. She couldn’t physically run anymore. Mai was lost, lost like all the children who’d died in these woods. There was a weapon in her hands. It wasn’t what she wanted, but it was all she had. So she’d use it. She didn’t want to die.

She braced herself, pushed forward with the polearm. Her half-hearted charge caught her hunter by surprise, somehow managing to sink the blade on its body. It moaned and pulled back, wounded. A giggle escaped Mai. She’d done it? No. The edges of the tear closed like it’d never existed and Mai realized with a sinking feeling she’d forgotten to imbue her cursed energy into the blade.

A step back, another almost fall as she felt around for the oily thing inside herself. It was never easy to grasp it, the energy wanting to exist away from her, in another place.

The curse pounced from the corner of her eye. She shrieked, flailed with the naginata, the weight of it escaping from her weaker hand and pulling her down. This time, she hit the ground shoulder first, the pole of her weapon wedged somewhere between her ribs, her arm and stones. Hooks pulled at her clothes. Something cold lanced through her bones before the pain hit, burning needles that exploded from her thigh and rolled across her body, freezing her breath with its intensity. It was worse than anything she'd felt before, worse than broken bones or burns or the cursed scratches from the basement ones.

The curse released its jaws to bite down again higher up on the fatter meat of her leg. Mai screamed. She bucked, dislodging its jaw, atavistic terror in every convolution. There was something solid in her hand and she grabbed that lifeline with all she had. Her vision was flashing with yellow-edge black spots, but the naginata moved as lightly as a bamboo broom in the surge of adrenaline. The curse flew back, but it righted itself on its three legs, teeth red. It wasn’t even wounded, so unbothered she might as well have hit it with an actual broom. She clambered onto her knees, heartbeat so fast it drowned out all sounds and signs that her body was sending.

An explosion rent the air.

Lightless, a burst of air crashed and rebounded, the soundwave slamming into Mai like a slap. Her ears rang and tittered as she blinked, refocusing on the forest. Mind blank with dread, she looked forward. Her blue eyes, pinprick small in their orbits, saw the curse first, charred and flopping around. Half-caught in the blast, it was missing half its limbs, gaps opened between the holes in its head, yipping in its approximation of pain. (hurts dark hurts hurts mama)

Like she’d been.

Everything spilled from her, fear and anger and hatred, the oil bubbling, roiling and rising to the surface. Mai wasn’t in a state to care about the numbness that wrapped around her hands, the sizzle of her energy as it dripped from the space inside her bones. The tool in her hands popped and frothed with all the pain of tonight. Wood and metal struck the spirit and again and again and again and again and again and fell from her trembling arms.

A mess of black and purple and red spread across rock, congealed like old, disgusting natto. It smoked into ephemeral black particles.

She felt nothing anymore.

The inside of her head was stilling, storm gone, waves lulling. When it became mirror smooth and clear, she noticed her body was beyond feeling as well. No legs, no arms, no heartbeat and no pain. The circles floating around her overtook her vision before her body hit the ground.

---

Why, you might ask. Ahah, I can't not iterate on my ideas again and again... and I read a cool F/SNxEragon xover while Zen'in Mai was (and still is) living rent-free in my head. An ooold variation of Arya sends Saphira's egg through dimensions (a classic magical mistake) that I first envisioned like a decade ago for a Familiar of Zero xover. I am enjoying writing Mai (suffering) way too much and the thought of mental bond dragon basically imprints on girl with huuuuge abandonment issues is ripe for co-dependency !! I love it.
Title from a recently discovered factoid about a buddhist temple dedicated partially to the azure dragon in kyoto. Means the same as "taking a leap of faith/a plunge" and it will be relevant both to Mai's actions after a thoroughly traumatizing experience and 'Saphira''s choice regarding her rider.​

 

Jumping off the stage at Kiyomizu​

She remembered who she was in increments. Grains of sand were washed away, taken by the waves. She remembered who she wasn’t and the bitter shock of it all, a week or so old, roused her with a sob. She was alone.

The physical world returned in skips, low resolution. Her lousy uncle’s voice resonated in her head, low fps, blurred background art, and her headache increased. Then the aches sharpened into excruciating clarity. The ground spun and she managed to vomit what little she had left to the side. Her leg throbbed with such intensity she wasn’t sure it was really there. Painstakingly, she got up on her elbows and assessed the damage.

Ugly, vertigo-inducing rents were marked on her trousers and the skin beneath. Red spread over, staining the white fabric close to her waist. It wasn’t entirely dry, she comforted herself, so she mustn’t have been unconscious for long, right? The February cold and humidity that soaked her through told another story. How much blood had left her body?

She let her head fall, panting. The pain refused to leave, like always. She almost wished she could die. Dying in the jaws of a curse was scary, but it wouldn’t be so bad to just fall asleep, would it? Her leg pulsed every time her heart kept on beating. “Stupid. Trying to take the easy way out after everything you did to not die.” She admonished herself, crying.

Truly, she didn’t want to die. She just dreaded the next steps of surviving.

Full-body quakes staggered her as she fought to rise to her knees. There was nobody to hide from here, so she voiced out every renewed hurt and anger. Curses spilled from her lips, certain to birth a spirit or two to haunt these woods once again. She found the handle of her weapon in the faint moonlight. The blade was clear of any remains, dissolved back into the world.

One good thing going for her, at least she’d been unconscious when she’d hit what was left of the curse. She didn’t think she could stomach that thought.

Looking for a tree to hold on to, her fingers found burnt bushes, crackling and breaking at the softest of touches. The light was scarce, but even in her dim and blurring vision, the circle of burnt nature was visible. At its very center, something glimmered. A blue and white surface revealed itself, polished like the inside of the glazed ceramic cups back home. A smooth, oval object, something like a stone. It must have been what produced the blast that had crippled the cursed spirit and saved Mai’s life.

Was it some sort of technique? It wasn’t a curse. Mai was not a good sorcerer, bordering on mediocre only by virtue of having a cursed technique rather than nothing at all. She had no power, very little control, and abysmal reserves. But her senses had always been good, her nerves alight with terror at the things she felt on every pore. Like prey, she’d learned how to recognize the feel of cursed energy, from spirits and from humans, and what it transmitted to her. An invaluable survival skill that had kept her safe from the darker moods her family could take. She’d even chased down the oil within Maki and realized what it meant.

The stone didn’t have cursed energy. Her palm hovered over it. It did not even feel like the forest, steeped in the negativity of the neighboring villages. Perhaps it had discharged all its energy in the explosion, but Mai felt like she should at least be seeing residuals. The clearing burned into existence was free of those. Or maybe everything was too out of focus, eyelids heavy with dangerous lethargy.

Her fingers grazed its surface then pushed lightly. The stone was moved without resistance, rolling happily at her touch. Curiously, she picked it up. It was light. The length of her forearm and as wide as a temari ball at its thickest, it was light like bamboo rather than stone. Turning it this way and that, it was a rich azure color, with delicate pearl white veins running across its surface. It looked like a good omen, even if she did her best not to believe in such things. It had undoubtedly saved her life, appearing as it had.

Mai had always liked shiny things. It often got her into trouble, but the only lesson she’d taken from it was the need to not get caught.

She tucked the stone inside the folds of her jacket. It was pretty, and it wouldn’t slow her down any more than the holes in her leg or the bruises she had lost count of. She had a long way to go, so she would take this little thing. Mai was good at taking the little things life offered. She didn’t need to reach for more, not like Maki.

She shook herself and forced her body upright, a half-scream coming from too weak lungs.

In running away from the cursed spirit, she’d embroiled herself into the woods. Not too far, she hoped, but more than enough that the brute that had driven the car wouldn’t look for her. Some sorcerers were looked for, even if just to find their bodies and exorcize their predators. The one Kukuru that had dragged her to the mountains surrounding Kyoto would check where she should be, if she was lucky, and assume she was dead.

And if she wasn’t yet, the mountain would soon take her.

In the best case scenario, they’d send another man to hunt down the curse spirit in a day or two. Regardless, he was long gone by now. Mai would have to find her way to the closest road on her own. She was lucky, she’d hit a wire fence as she ran, an almost invisible cage in the dark. Backtracking until she found it would certainly lead her to other people, or at least a road. It wasn’t worth thinking about the other possibilities. She wasn’t far from the city, she thought. Humans or roads, she’d find one or the other. She would.

She did not think about bears or foxes or other curses, tracking her down like an injured deer. She didn’t think about how thirsty she was or how her entrails ached. She didn’t even think about the heat of the bite, sawing at her bone with each step. She thought about all the times Maki had helped her up, or when she’d carried her on her back after she’d twisted her ankle. She longed, she cried, and that was all she could do.

There was no more energy to spare on feelings.

---

Guess who's nooot coping with deadlines. Also, continuing this scene was real easy. I've got a good progression in my head of where I want Mai to be at, physically and emotionally, until Saphira hatches. Then it's anooother story, because //politics//. But the next part is an outsider pov (poor man working at the gas station/konbini meets either a ninja, a youkai or a yakuza, takes pictures and unknowingly acts better than 100% of the people in her life) which will be fun.
Hm, also undecided on a new name for Saphira, because the japanese words is... safaia and, hm, no.
Should end with, "bc i am not coping, it got posted on ao3" D:​

 

Jumping off the stage at Kiyomizu​

​

Everybody wanted a more exciting life. It was why isekai manga existed.

​

Shinichi slumped even further in his seat at the register. Night shift was so boring. It paid well, but it was so, so boring. It wasn’t like anybody came by. If he was lucky, he’d get a couple of trucks per night. And they just paid by the pumps.

​

He turned up the volume on his phone and changed to another game.

​

Absorbed in tapping out the correct rhythm, he didn’t notice anything until an ad popped up and he quickly lowered the volume. He glanced up to check the pumps, more habit than anything else, and froze.

​

There was a girl in front of him.

​

1, he had absolutely not noticed her entering. 2, Great Buddha, was that a real weapon!?

​

“Please forgive my rudeness by asking,” the apparition said, bowing just slightly, “would it be possible to make a phone call from your telephone?”

​

“Hm…” Shinichi raised his phone. The ad had run its course and the link for a puzzle game was colorfully lighting up his screen. Internally, he was screaming.

​

The girl stared at his phone like she didn’t understand.

​

“There’s a payphone…?” He cleared his throat, shoved his phone into a pocket and got up slowly. Polite. He could be polite to an anime character come to life. He was a service worker. He bowed. “I’m very sorry, but this store only has one payphone. Would that be acceptable?”

​

The girl frowned, but nodded. “Yes, thank you very much.”

​

He politely indicated where the payphone was and settled back with a practiced smile. Nailed it.

​

The moment she turned away from him, he had his phone out and was closing his game. This was so weird, he had to take a picture or nobody would ever believe him. The girl… She wasn’t some sort of weirdly intense cosplayer, right? That blade looked way too real and sharp. And now that he wasn’t under pressure, he was noticing other things too. Like the blood.

​

The white karate jacket she had on, and the leg wraps on the same side, were definitely stained red.

​

Maybe he should call the police, discreetly? Or an ambulance, on second thought? She looked rough. There was mud, dirt and leaves staining her ninja outfit, and maybe she was clutching the naginata like that because she was using it as a walking stick. Yeah, he thought as he surreptitiously took a series of pictures. She was limping.

​

She didn’t look dangerous… well, she looked dangerous but with low health points. He didn’t feel in a lot of danger.

​

Only the danger of the girl possibly being a yokai.

​

The girl turned back to him. Shinichi totally didn’t fumble with his phone. “I am terribly sorry to continue to impose, but would you please do me the favor of buying a phonecall for me?”

​

She bowed more deeply, shaking even. Shinichi suddenly worried she might fall or pass out or something. So he reflexively said ‘sure, no problem’. What’s this, since when had he become such a… bland person? He was blaming his weak attitude on the possibility she could actually gut him.

​

Trying not to be seen hovering, he strained to hear her conversation as he opened LINE. Wait, nobody he knew was on at this hour. Twitter? His old account. More anonymity.

​

> [img1] [img2] help , what do you do if a yokai ( ? ) visits your konbini ?

​

“It’s been taken care of. Yes. Nothing pressing.” The girl was talking in a very respectful tone to whomever on the other side. She covered the phone’s receiver and asked him. “Excuse me, where is this in relation to Kyoto?”

​

Shinichi racked his brain before giving her a vague direction and the name she could use to find it on a gps. He hoped whoever was possibly picking her up knew how to use a gps. He hoped he wasn’t inviting more trouble. Maybe he should have called an authority.

​

>> crazy good cosplay
>> girl looks like she needs a hospital
>> run

​

Yes, he knew. There were other responses to his various panicked tweets with a variety of hashtags but, well, otaku freaks did not deserve attention. What were these people smoking?

​

>> be nice to the yokai .
>> man living the anime life when warrior goddess picks his konbini

​

He shouldn’t have posted anything.

​

There was a click as the girl ended her phone call. For the first time since she’d entered, her face wasn’t a variation of polite neutral. She scowled at the payphone like it’d offended her and Shinichi felt a frisson.

​

“The fucking worst.” But she took a deep, painful-looking breath, and her face returned to a vague placidity. “Thank you very much. My family will be picking me up shortly. I will ensure that your generosity isn’t unpaid.” And with a final bow, she limped outside. And half-leaned, half-sat against the old guardrail, clearly in pain.

​

Shinichi went back to his spot behind the register. He tapped his fingers on the back of his phone. Looked outside. Still there.

​

February was cold. And humid. She was shaking. Maybe that was being hurt and not the cold… Shinichi wasn’t an asshole. Anymore. He’d left that person behind after highschool.

​

He got up and moved just until the automatic doors opened, standing on the threshold. “Would you like me to call an ambulance, miss?” The closest clinic was like, a five minute drive away.

​

She looked at him, then scoffed very lightly, shaking her head. “No, that would only make it worse.”

​

Right. He walked back in.

​

> what kind of offerings do urban legends like ?

​

Five minutes later, he walked back out with several goodies in his apron’s pocket. “Hm, would you like a rice ball, or like, a chocolate bar?”

​

The girl stared at him. Shinichi did his best to not blink.

​

“... Chocolate?”

​

She almost tore into the chocolate bar he presented. It was a bit worrying, but also cute to see the girl light up as she ate something sweet. Definitely a good choice. Now he felt a little bit less worried about the hurt kid standing outside. Because with some time to observe her, she definitely looked younger than him.

​

Weren’t all the secret combat magic whatever societes in anime based on highschools? That was otaku reasoning, but the other option was supernatural or… some sort of cult?

​

After she was done, she stared at him suspiciously from under her fringe. He supposed it was fair that she wasn’t trusting a random stranger like him. Shinichi walked back inside, feeling a little bit proud of himself. Offering giveth, offense not giveth.

​

It took at least another tense fifteen minutes before the car stopped at his station. Several cars had passed by, making both of them perk up, but none had stopped. Shinichi supposed that was a blessing because he did not want to deconflict whatever would happen if a trucker asked the girl about her very obvious weapon.

​

This car was different. Shinichi’s throat went dry at the sight of the big, black, sleek, shiny Mercedes with tinted windows. It was definitely a yakuza car. His brain went over the last half an hour with a completely different perspective.

​

He bowed to the Buddha. If he’d called the cops…!

​

The girl had stood up, straightening her back fully for the first time. From his spot at the register’s window, he could see her unclench her jaw and exhale before she was back to eerie politeness. This was some movie shit. He carefully closed Twitter, set his phone down and tried to look like he hadn’t been considering filming the whole thing.

​

A man left the car first, dressed in the same get-up as the girl. A gnarly scar split the side of his face and his face-mask was pulled up. He was also even taller than the girl, who herself had to be about as tall as Shinichi. He looked down at her, and he didn’t look pleased. But he just stepped to open the back door of the car, letting a woman step out.

​

She wore a traditional kimono, looking like she’d stepped straight from a tv show. What kind, Shinichi wasn’t sure. He just felt like he was in the presence of somebody who could and would ruin his life. He hoped she didn’t notice him.

​

“Mother.” The girl said.

​

Oh. Ooh.

​

The woman was frigid. “At least, you accomplished your mission. Let’s go, you have wasted enough of our time tonight.”

​

Shinichi kept his face turned towards a magazine randomly opened on the counter. It was upside down. But neither the woman nor her bodyguard seemed to notice him. It was like he, thankfully, didn’t exist. From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the bloodied girl give him a look before she disappeared into the dark depths of the car’s leather interior.

​

Only when the car had pulled away and disappeared did Shinichi relax. He slumped on the counter and let out a very big, very loud curse. His life had finished flashing before his eyes.

​

He needed a beer, who cared about work regulations.

​

The girl would not leave his mind for the rest of the night. And probably the week. As much as the night’s mysteries bothered him, Shinichi hoped to never see the girl again. He was more certain than ever that he’d actually made all the right choices by being polite and helpful, but not too inquisitive or meddlesome.

​

At the very least, he had increased his karma, paying for a phone call and a chocolate out of his own pocket. Maybe that was the only thing he should take from this.

---

The legendary outsider POV! poor SS-Konbini Shinichi. Man has liminal encounter, worries it's yokai or cosplayer, ends up with the not-incorrect assumption it's fucking yakuza. (it's supernatural yakuza) Honestly, this whole part should be done in one or two chapters. Next should be Mai getting home, and making her decision, and the one after should be arriving at Kyoto Tech and "Saphira's" hatching beginning.
Me this weekend: *i should be working the database* *doesn't really do it* *researches japanese turns of phrase instead*​

​

 

Chapter Twenty-Two!
I, the third teammate, am forced to explain things!​

Ten minutes later, our stomachs rumbled as we sat, awaiting Hatake’s judgment. Well, Sasuke and I sat down. Naruto was tied to the post. Moron. We were at the very edge of the training ground, and several meters in front of us, the stone monument

I wondered again why this training ground in particular. Was it because we were Team Orphan?

“Maa~, you guys look really hungry.” He smiled beneath his mask. None of us deigned to give him an answer. “So, about this exercise. Sakura, get up.” He beckoned me closer.

Crap. Whatever trick there was to this, it looked like time had run out. Still, me? What had I done wrong? I’d fought no worse than Naruto. Had I not been proactive enough? No, something about this was still niggling at me. What was he trying to do. Nevertheless, I got up, ignoring the guys’ looks and walked to the jounin chin up.

Let’s say he did fail me… somehow. I’d get an apprenticeship with Gai-sensei or something, a job, whatever. This was not the end of the world.

Hatake looked somber as he patted my shoulder. “Of you three, Sakura is the one who will have to go back to the Academy.”

I ignored the cries of joy as Naruto celebrated behind me, shushed by Sasuke. My own eyes narrowed and my mouth opened to retort, but I stopped myself. It was still bothering me… how…

Hatake met my eyes, something I couldn’t read in his face. “The two of you,” he addressed the boys behind me, “must quit trying to be ninjas.”

What? “What!?” Behind me I heard Naruto yell. “Quit being ninjas? We didn’t get a bell but isn’t that– why do we have to quit!?”

The jounin put a hand on my shoulder. He was looking over my head, speaking to them directly. I didn’t dare take my eyes off him. “Because you’re both little punks who don’t deserve to be ninjas. Nothing more than bratty little children.” He was calm as he said it.

I could believe Naruto was a punk but Sasuke–? “Ghk!” The hand on my shoulder tightened unexpectedly and suddenly Hatake had turned me around. The cold, sharp edge of a blade dug into my neck. I stopped myself from swallowing. Over my carotid. He was serious. Now in front of me, Sasuke had stopped several steps into charging at us.

“And that’s what I mean.” Hatake sighed behind me. “Try not to relax too much.”

I blinked, still stunned. That last part had been subvocalized, said only to me. The kunai dug in with a dull pain and a warm drop of blood started beading on my skin.

“Sasuke. Back off or Sakura will get hurt.” His tone was so cold that I had to repress a shiver. Theoretically I had a way out of this but… no, I had no choice but to trust a Konoha jounin wouldn’t just kill a genin in front of two witnesses.

Sasuke held his hands to the sides. His face was twisted in a grimace and our eyes met. He backed off. I let out a breath, slowly. I knew he would back down. Totally. Neither of them is stupid.

The kunai moved away from my skin, but Hatake scoffed. “You’re all underestimating what ninjas are. You think this is a game. Did you ever even think about why you were all split into teams and are doing this exercise?” That was when it all clicked together. I sucked in a breath. “Did you think about what this exercise was all about?”

“What… it was all about? Wha’ddya mean?” Naruto was almost meek as he asked.

“Sakura.” I glanced up to see the jounin looking at me. “Why don’t you tell your teammates what the answer is?”

I wasn’t entirely sure, but… I licked my lips and steadied myself not to make it into a question. “It’s about working together.”

He nodded. “That’s right. Teamwork. Sakura was the only one who showed even an ounce of teamwork, assisting Naruto and coming to Sasuke’s help. That’s why, at least, she deserves to go back to the Academy. She understood that only by working together you might be able to get the bells.”

Doubtful. But I could see the outline of Hatake’s thoughts now. What he wanted us to show him in this test.

A beat later, Naruto’s thoughts completed whatever trajectory they did in there and he restarted his struggle. “Wait, wait! But you said one of us would fail! There are only two bells!”

“Of course. This exercise was designed to make you fight among yourselves. Its objective is to see if you can overcome your own self-interest and work together even in these circumstances." His voice was derisive. "Yet Naruto, you just did everything on your own, like a fool. And Sasuke, you assumed from the start your teammates would get in your way. Arrogant. That sort of mindset is unacceptable in a mission and can even get you killed."

The kunai he'd pressed to my neck was waved around for emphasis. Finally, he let go of my shoulder and patted me on the back before pushing me gently towards the boys. I looked over my shoulder but he just told me to get back to my place with his chin. My legs were still a bit shaky as I sat back down next to the stumps. Sasuke joined me on the other side of Naruto. Both kids were frowning and quiet, but Sasuke in particular seemed to be biting the inside of his cheek.

"While individual skills are important, teamwork is even more important. Missions are done by squads. That's why the Academy teaches you formations and group tactics. An individualistic mindset can and will disrupt the team and put your comrades in danger." Hatake continued speaking. He'd straightened up, shoulders less slouched than when he'd been fighting us, and was looking out at the memorial monument.

He set a careful hand on the monument and my imagination started making all sorts of inferences before I forcefully shut it down.

"The many names carved in this stone… are all heroes to this village."

I couldn’t help the sardonic twitch of my lips. If to be a hero you only had to die…

"Alright! Hey hey!" Naruto started yelling again and I glared at him. Ineffectively. "I'm going to get my name on that stone too! I want to be a hero too! That's what I'll be!"

Somebody choked and made a high-pitched noise somewhere between a whine and a deflating balloon. Then I realized that was me, face frozen in a rictus and eyes bug-wide as I glared at Naruto. I just… He couldn’t… Just…

"Oh? These aren't just any kind of heroes. Sakura, you know this stone, don't you? Would you like to explain it to Naruto?"

I whipped my head back to Hatake. Why was I the exposition girl?! He met my eyes over his shoulder. This one time, what I could see of his face was softer.

"What is it? What is it? Just tell me already!" The blonde fucking ignoramus was wriggling against the ropes.

I took one deep breath. Why not? I was about to ruin Naruto’s day. I turned to him with a fake smile. “I know this memorial very well. My parents’ names are engraved there.”

Sasuke flinched a little bit, where he sat behind Naruto. Smart kid, I thought as he averted his gaze. Naruto did not connect the dots. “Whoa, your parents were heroes? How come I never heard of it!”

“Well, they’re dead.” I stated simply. “That’s the memorial stone for shinobi killed in the line of duty.”

Dead silence. Naruto paled slowly as he processed my words.

“Sakura’s parents, members of the Uchiha clan, even the Fourth Hokage… My best friend’s name… they are all carved into this stone.” Hatake spoke softly, looking at the stone. “They understood what teamwork was and how important it was.” He turned back to us. “I’ll give you three one last chance.”

---

Really wanted Sakura to not figure it out until the last moment. The scene in which Naruto declares his wish was a lot more hostile and Kakashi was pushier, but I felt this flowed better. I think it's better than people immediately knowing what the exercise is about. Sakura does adequate helping out her teammates, but never is put in a situation where she has to choose among them, so Kakashi tests her resolve a little bit.​

 

Chapter Twenty-Three!
Team Seven’s first exercise concludes!​

I opened the lid of the bento box. Simple but nutritious. Also, I was ravenous. Om-nhom-nhom!

"Ah, I needed that." A stomach rumbled. "You hungry Naruto?"

"Urgh. No! Ahaha, I can totally handle it!" He was sweating, trying to speak over the sounds coming from his middle. "... I'm fine."

"I see. I see." I picked at the rest of my rice. I glanced at Sasuke, who was looking uncomfortable. Not yet, I see…

Then. "Hm, Sakura… I, uh, sorry." Naruto mumbled. "About your parents."

I blinked. Uh, guess the kid wasn't so bad. "It's fine." I'd been more pissed off that I'd been the one put on the spot. Also, how didn't he know about the memorial? He was an orphan too, right? "They’re only there on a technicality anyway."

“A technicality?”

“You know the Nine-Tails attack when we were babies right?” At least that, please. “Every ninja that died last night got their names added to the memorial, even if they were off duty.” There had been too many casualties to determine what exactly had happened. Who’d run, who’d fought. During a village-wide emergency like that, a catastrophe, a ninja had the universal mission to preserve the village, no matter who they were or what they were doing before. I guess my father was there legitimately. My mother, well, she’d been on maternity leave. She had only saved one single life…

“Oh.” I looked back at Naruto, who had hung his head, biting his lips. That had hit him hard… were his parents maybe here too?

Well… I wasn’t going to pry. “Don’t stress it. Really. It’s not like I remember them or anything.”

Still, an uncomfortable silence hovered over us now. Surprisingly, Sasuke was the one who broke it.

“Hey.” He addressed me. I only knew because he was actually looking at me. “How did you figure out the goal of the exercise?”

I snorted. I could tell him, but well… wouldn’t that be undermining this exercise? Well, on second thought… “Well, have you figured out what this afternoon’s exercise will be about?”

“Wait, it’s not going to be about teamwork?” Naruto cried out. His stomach rumbled louder with his sudden movement. “Urgh!”

“Hn.” The Uchiha grunted, looking away. “Here.” His bento was thrust under Naruto’s nose. “You’ll just be a liability if you don’t eat. So, eat.”

“Wait, but–” Naruto was dumbstruck. There was a hint of a blush on his cheeks. “Sensei said…” “I can’t sense him. We should be safe.” “Eh. Thanks.”

I pulled out a kunai and started sawing at his ropes. The kid couldn’t feed himself without his hands. And I wasn’t going to feed him either. “I sorta knew something was fishy about this exercise from the beginning.” Two-thirds of all graduates failed back to the Academy and we, Academy students, never saw a hint of them? Fishy. “But it was the way Hatake worded the exercise that made me think teamwork was the answer. He put too much emphasis on there only being two bells and somebody always failing.”

Something exploded. Scrambling, yelling, we reached for our weapons only for the voice of the devil itself to boom. “YOU–!!”

Hatake Kakashi loomed over three twelve year old genins. I prayed I was right.

“Pass.” You could hear the unspoken ‘Tee-hee’ in his expression.

I heaved a huge sigh. Tension that had accumulated in my limbs drained away and I plopped down. I’d been right. All the posturing and instructions he’d given us about following the rules, that he was the law, to not feed Naruto… this exercise had been about whether or not we were capable of breaking the rules to help each other out.

“You guys are the first.” He said, confirming my hypothesis. “All the others were morons who couldn’t look underneath the underneath. Those who break the rules are trash… but those who leave their friends behind are worse than trash.” He smiled down at us. “Today’s training is over. You all pass. Tomorrow Team Seven will begin their duties, officially.”

“Yeah!” “Fuck yeah!” “Ah!” This trio celebrated. We were ninjas, stamped and certified. “Team Orphan is a go!”

Three and a half pairs of eyes stared at me. I lowered my arms, then crossed them. “What, it’s true.” I pointed at myself. “Orphan.” At Naruto. “Orphan.” And Sasuke. “Also an orphan.”

Hatake Kakashi sighed. “I’m not going to comment on that. Off you guys go, dismissed.” He shoo-ed us. “One moment Sakura.”

I paused, the boys paused. They looked over at me, suspicious, but Hatake waved them off. I didn’t blame them for being suspicious. Hatake shot a look at the trees after they were gone, and then they were really gone. He huffed. “Took the lesson to heart.” I told him.

He nodded, and to me it seemed fond, or happy. “We need to treat that.” My neck, that was. It was already scabbing, but several droplets of blood had run down into my new shirt. “May I?”

Well, he looked… contrite? Responsible? “Hm, yeah, sure.” But I was still being asked to present my neck to him after he’d put a knife there.

“I apologize for the deception back there.” He told me as he opened up a field first aid kit. “I didn’t intend to hurt you, but I scared you.”

I nodded. It was true. “I’ll get over it. Soon-ish. We got into worse scrapes at the Academy.” None of them with knives so close to my carotid.

“Still. I won’t do it again.” And I appreciated that, and that he’d apologized. After he was done disinfecting the little cut, he asked me to elaborate how my thought processes during the exercise. “Sasuke might be the overall better ninja, but you display an outlook that’s uncommonly mature for your age.” He said at the end.

So I’d been told before. I shrugged. “‘Tis who I am. Are you concerned that I didn’t really… hm, pass the teamwork exercise?” The trick to the exercise fell apart if the people under scrutiny knew about it. If you knew you had to work together and that you might not get failed, the pressure that made the exercise so effective was lost.

He made a thinking pose. I was starting to learn that Hatake liked to take things leisurely… on the surface at least. “Aah, that’s hard to tell, right? Mm, alright. Why don’t you evaluate yourself, give me your own perspective of your suitability to work with Naruto and Sasuke?”

“Well…” I thought about everything I knew from before, and had learnt today. “I can work with them. Naruto is very disruptive, but he’ll probably grow up with a bit of guidance. Hopefully. It’s not my favorite dynamic, but I’m… kinda used to a similar person already. I just need to establish some boundaries and let him run roughshod otherwise. Sasuke’s a bit of an incognito, but he is professional most of the time. Just being competent around him will probably be enough.”

“I’m more worried that he and Naruto will clash. They’re… like complete opposites, and on top of that they’re preteen boys.” I grimaced. Good thing I’d made it clear I was not into guys. “I don’t think I can do anything about it. I don’t think I should. I’m not their babysitter.” That was Hatake. “I’m not going to sacrifice my own well-being to play peacekeeper between two brats.” I met his eye, aware of the importance he apparently gave to being there for your comrades. “Not if they aren’t making at least the tiniest bit of effort. If a team is three people, one single person can’t be making all the effort to keep it together.”

To my relief, he nodded. “No, you are correct.”

“Right. Of course, all of this… I mean…” I stopped my hand from coming to rub at my neck. “This is all for normal situations. We’re ninjas, like you said. We’re going to face life or death sooner or later and to be honest: I don’t know how I’ll react. I wanna say I’ll… live up to my dream and do the right thing, but I also don’t like lying. I don’t know.”

A hand ruffled my short hair. “Maa~ You’re a very dependable kid, aren’t you?” Hatake Kakashi told me then. “Don’t worry so much. I have faith in you.”

---

Bell test complete! Wanted to get a bit of Sakura's overall thought process described here, from her initial suspicions to what cinched it. But also to get some Kakashi bonding (and a responsible Kakashi). As an adult, she's going to be more likely to feel comfortable talking as an equal to him over Naruto and Sasuke. For his part, Kakashi is getting that his 'clever kunoichi' is a breed apart although he'll only really understand how much until later.​

 

Chapter Twenty-Four!
Introducing the important parts of being a ninja!​

Hatake, well, Kakashi-sensei's stamp of approval meant that Team 7 was cleared to take on missions. It didn't mean that the man learnt what punctuality was. Once was normal, twice was a coincidence. Thrice was enemy action.

I wasn’t going to give a grown man brownie points for only being an hour and a half late. My professional senses were tingling, my piggy bank was raging at the wasted time. I wasn’t even spending the couple of hours I waited for him having fun! I was having to endure an awkward silence with two kids with whom I had very little in common. Not helped by the fact that Naruto was the ADHD kid that didn't like reading, so I couldn't even give him a book so he wouldn't be terminally bored.

Bored Naruto attrited at Naruto’s base concepts of personal space, boundaries and ability to read the mood.

Kakashi was probably the sort to know and let us have it if we were the ones late. Urgh.

"Independent training while we wait for lazy-sensei tomorrow?" "He's always so late!" "Might as well."

Regardless, “Yo.” “You’re late!!” ““...”” he eventually showed up.

As an introduction to actually being a genin, Kakashi-sensei took us on a small tour of places we were now authorized to be in. Some we’d already seen as part of the later Academy curriculum, but others were new. Like where we would have to file some paperwork or where we could collect our payments, or an expanded library. Most of this was in the facilities attached to the Hokage tower that the Ninja Academy was behind.

We got fitted with a set of short-range communicators. The secure, expensive kind. How nice to see that Konoha too was improving in its technology. Maybe one day we would actually have TVs!

Then we took a picture.

This I liked. Another picture to add to my wall. We put Naruto in the middle, because he was the midget among us, and he looked adorable raging at the camera. Kakashi was leaning down to our height, each hand ruffling mine and Sasuke’s hair. The difference was I was smiling and he was scowling. The boys looked so much like kids, I was going to hang this one in a place of honor.

The morning done, we headed to the Mission Desk.

A mission! A paycheck!

I was almost skipping. I hadn’t worked a day since before my registration as a ninja. Five days. I was getting twitchy about not getting any money. It was probably a bad sign considering my mentality. The gacha was a slow, strangling struggle. I wasn’t on the edge of poverty or anything. Although I would stop receiving village funds in three months, a period of grace after my graduation, I still had my parents’ money. Unfettered access to it at last too. I was going to keep withdrawing only enough for basic expenses the rest of the year, because I didn’t know how my costs were going to evolve.

On the one hand, I would now be getting paid a fair amount. On the other, I needed to get my equipment to genin standards, I would need to replace it more often, to improve it and finally, I was going to need to eat more as my body and chakra grew.

A not-inconsiderable portion of a ninja’s income was spent on food. The highly-caloric, nutrient packed meals we could buy and that the restaurants in Konoha specialized in were expensive. Or maybe that was just for taijutsu-based fighters like me. The rest was weapons, weaponry and weapon-like tools.

Anyway, the Hokage, to us presented that day… a D-rank mission: trash collecting in a sector of Konoha.

Did you know that trash cans in Konoha were collected and cleaned by genin? No? Well, it explained a few things. Who handled sanitation concerns, for one. We were just going to pick up free trash in the streets. The can were handled by night-shift ninjas.

A thought occurred to me. “Do trash ninjas have to check the trash for bodies or explosive tags?” I asked Kakashi.

Naruto yelped. Sasuke made a weird face. Kakashi blinked. “Yep.”

“Hm, that makes sense. Ok, that was all the questions I had. Let’s go!” I pumped my fists in excitement.

“Scary Sakura, you want to go pick up trash?” Naruto was baffled.

“Kakashi-sensei already explained the rationale behind low-level missions. And, fellow orphan of mine,” I grabbed him by the shoulders and imposed on him the gravity of our mission, “they’re paying us each a fat one thousand and five hundred ryou. For a single afternoon of hard work.”

“Ack, Kakashi-sensei, save me from the Greedy Demon!!” “Get your butt in gear Orange Orphan. You move too Blue Orphan. We have money to earn.” “... don’t call me that.”

Naruto in a headlock and Sasuke following us sedately, we headed out for our first paycheck!

I paused suddenly. My team looked at me. “I need to review Konoha tax laws.”

---

Starting to catch up to my buffer. Also gonna put up the first part of Kakashi's perspective sometime later.​

After a brief dynamic entry interruption and a talk with Kakashi about her powers, we should be moving on to the ever present ever important c rank mission in wave. Because I will not be expending too many of my brain cells trying to be original for a self indulgent fic.​

 

(Hatake Kakashi 1)​

It was January again and Hatake Kakashi was invited to take a stroll with the Third Hokage. Another year, another genin team. Lord Hiruzen assured him that this year the candidates were interesting.

He couldn’t deny that. Minato-sensei’s son… he hadn’t been expecting him to be such a slob. And Uchiha Sasuke. He was almost expectable, considering his bloodline.

Now, he entered the apartment of the third one. A kunoichi… “She lives by herself?” He surveyed the apartment, smaller than even Naruto’s. Not that his looked that bigger, considering the atrocious degree of clutter the boy had.

Naturally more organized than boys at that age, Sakura’s apartment was very bare nonetheless. It appeared busy, with pictures decorating a folding screen, and small plants giving it color, but the amount of actual things she owned was small. Plates, bowls, tools, furniture, all of them presented signs of great use and various repairs, but also care in how they were treated.

If he had to give it a one-word description, it would be practical.

“Haruno Sakura.” The Hokage huffed. “Daughter to Haruno Mebuki, chunnin rank, and Kizashi, a genin. Both deceased the night the Nine-Tails attack, twelve years ago. She left the village’s care at the usual age. ”

“And you're putting her on a team with Naruto?” That wasn’t a great outlook. He wouldn’t have a genin team with that kind of feud, it made him very uncomfortable to even think about.

The Hokage smiled. “There’s no need to worry. Sakura harbors no hatred for the demon fox. I verified it myself.” They left, not before Kakashi caught sight of a picture depicting two adults instead of children, randomly scattered amidst all others.

What a team this year: A hopeless fool, a skilled protegé and a clever kunoichi. It was painting a very familiar picture. He asked the Hokage about it, because it couldn’t be a coincidence that he was jounin assigned to them.

“Very much like Minato’s own team, wouldn’t you say?” The Hokage chuckled.

“So you did choose me on purpose.” Kakashi fiddled with his drink. He couldn’t disagree with the Third’s rationale either. Between Naruto’s status as the Jinchuuriki and Sasuke’s Sharingan, he was obviously the best, if not the only teacher. He could only trust the Hokage’s knowledge of these genin hopefuls was also accurate about their ability to work together.

He watched the children, real tiny kids that couldn't be more than six or seven, run around the playground. One thing was bothering him.

“What about the girl? Why put her in this team?” It was still a large gamble to trust teenagers, not even grown ninjas, to overcome their hatred and base emotions, even in the face of a shared history and comradery. It could break the team when, not if, she found out about the Nine-Tails. He said as much.

But the Hokage laughed. “Kakashi, I believe Sakura will surprise you in many ways. She is a very interesting child. We had a very interesting conversation, where I remembered again that one is never too old to learn new things.” His eyes were playful, if one knew the Hokage.

“Really?” What kind of Academy student was he talking about here? “Is she some sort of hidden prodigy?”

“Hmm, while Sakura’s scores do not reflect her own ability, due to a medical condition…” He was going to have to look it up himself, said the Hokage’s look. “It is more that she possesses an outlook on life that’s unbefitting of her age. A maturity, perhaps from working as she has… I was unsure if she would be the best fit for this team, but in the end I decided to believe her teacher and teammates will provide what she needs."

It was a lot of trust the Hokage was putting in Kakashi to not completely ruin these kids' chances. He was not meant to be a teacher, one could see from the last times he’d been put in charge of genins.

Well, he’d take it one step at the time, as always. First, they’d have to pass his test.

---

The older I got the more I liked Kakashi and his traumatized ass. As a character, I really like his depection of being a semi-functional adult.​

These scenes are not entirely compliant with Eps 360-361 of the anime, as (you will later see) Gai is not informed of Kakashi's future team. I cut a lot of canon conversations because I didn't feel like re-hashing them when I'm already going to re-hash my own chapters.​

 

Chapter Twenty-Five!
The eternal rivalry!​

Lee and Gai-sensei returned to Konoha two days after my team's first mission. I knew because my morning run was interrupted by a green blur.

"Sakura-chan!" Lee hugged me.

"Lee! You're back!" I hugged back.

If Ino was my best girl friend, Hinata was my reliable possibly-neuter friend, and Lee was my little brother friend. Last year he’d apparently asked Ino for help asking me out… yeah. But he bounced back from that heartbreak like a champ. I’d offered his crying face a hug, because he looked like he needed it.

I had not noticed how touch-starved I was until then. Funny fact.

It was different with Ino because I was starting to notice girls again and I did not want those feelings about my best friend. I could hug Hinata, if the environment was quiet. Hinata was a shy animal. Possibly just as touch-starved as me, but that was a topic I hadn’t wanted to barrel in. I just made sure I was always there, available for a hug.

Lee was a great hugger. So was Gai-sensei but common sense was about the only thing I’d ever give Gai-sensei a bad grade on.

“You have graduated! I believed in you! Tell me everything!” He jumped in excitement.

“I’m in Team Seven with Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke. They’re… well they’re okay.” “Sakura-chan, do not let your world-weariness keep you from forming bonds with your comrades! Neji has become my most dear rival despite our first impressions!” “Fairly sure that’s not reciprocated. Anyway, our jounin sensei is Hatake Kakashi–”

Then Lee gasped. “Gasp!” His eyes shone, sparkled even. He was getting to the squeeing point. “Sakura-chan, you’re in a team with Gai-sensei’s best rival!?”

I blinked. Was there where I had recognized Kakashi-sensei’s name from? “Gai-sensei knows him?”

But Lee wasn’t really listening anymore. He had a dangerous look on his face. A look that said he was happy, full of energy, and ready to drag whoever off into shenanigans. “We must tell Gai-sensei!!”

His hand closed over my wrist and then all thoughts flew from my head. I needed all my brain and muscle power to keep up with Lee as we bounded across the village.

“Lee-kun! Sakura-kun! Good morning!” “Gai-sensei! Sakura-chan is on a team with Kakashi-san!!” “Gasp! Sakura-kun, Kakashi passed your genin team?”

I took a breath, wheezed. “Gimme a moment.” My lungs! “Yeah, he did. You know Kakashi-sensei, Gai-sensei?”

The flames of youth and passion let up behind Gai-sensei. I immediately regretted opening my mouth. “Yes, Kakashi and I entered the Academy together. We have been eternal rivals ever since, and competed against each other in many contests! To think that Kakashi would become your sensei…” His eyes teared up. “Kakashi! Your heart has finally opened up to the passion I knew resided in you!” Whoa. Was I getting the sordid but heart-warming backstory of my lazy and mysterious teacher?

Suddenly, Gai-sensei was by my side and picking me up like a bag of rice. Or less. He struck a pose, pointing at the horizon, and I was slung under his other arm. Wait, wait, wait–

“Let’s go! We must find Kakashi!” “Yosh, Gai-sensei!”

The landscape blurred into indistinct shapes as we accelerated. I just gave up. In record time, we were back at Training Ground Three and heading towards the memorial stone. Hmm?

“Kakashi!” The Blue Beast of Konoha greeted my teacher enthusiastically. “You too have decided to foster the flames of youth in the next generation!"

From where he’d been paying his respects to the fallen, my teacher turned with a sigh. “Gai…” He blinked, eye wide, as he took in our party of three, which was about as much of an about-face as I'd ever seen him make. "... Why do you have one of my students?"

I lifted one palm in close imitation of his customary greeting. "Yo."

Gai-sensei dumped me on the ground, letting me land in a crouch. He approached Kakashi-sensei and threw an arm over his shoulders. "Sakura-kun is a good friend of Lee’s and I have given her some guidance on taijutsu while she was still in the Academy. I had no idea she was going to be in your squad this year. What a coincidence!”

“Ah.” Said Kakashi-sensei.

“Kakashi, I was teaching Sakura-kun some basics, but I will leave her in your capable hands.” He clapped my new teacher on the back. “Hokage-sama is truly wise! The man who knows a thousand jutsu”, whoa, what, “is the perfect teacher for Sakura-kun!”

I looked at the gray-haired man in the unforgiving grasp of Gai-sensei’s friendship. Kakashi-sensei looked right back at me. I’d say… curious?

“How so, Gai?” He asked his friend.

“You haven’t told him, Sakura-kun?” The noble beast of Konoha gasped!

I shrugged. “I’ve known Kakashi-san for less than a week. You’re the only other person I’ve told aside from my friends.”

“Told what?”

I looked at Gai-sensei. He gave me a wink and a thumbs-up. Well, I supposed if he was truly friends with Kakashi-sensei, then my teacher couldn’t be a bad person. Actually, he looked… a lot more human and soft in Gai-sensei’s arms. Uh. I’d subconsciously relaxed just now.

“Okay.” I nodded. “How my chakra system and jutsus actually work. Well, the term that applies the best is hidden technique.”

My power wasn’t quite a kekkei genkai, a bloodline limit like Hinata’s Byakugan, because I had no clue whether or not it would be inheritable. I also had no desire to have kids, so that point was moot. It was definitely something closer to the secret techniques passed down within certain clans like Ino’s Yamanaka Clan. Those hidden techniques might or might not have a genetic component, I didn’t know what was the real difference between that and bloodline limits.

“My,” said Kakashi-sensei, “that’s interesting."

He had no clue. I was going to break this man’s worldview so bad.

---

If Kakashi wasn't ace, he'd probably be doing (and being done by) Gai, tbh. Men be platonically married for seven years, yo. This be the point where Kakashi be: oh, oh that makes sense, of course my weird genin knows Gai, that's why the taijutsu felt familiar.​

Two more before this arc is done, one an exposition session for Kakashi that I'd like to see explored more in his POV and one mini-epilogue to tie loose ends before the pre-Wave timeskip. .... there were lot of pulls done between those times.​

 

Chapter Twenty-Six!
I wish I could make a power point presentation!​

If I made a chart, I would be able to track Kakashi-sensei’s punctuality improving. Amazing. He was only… regularly between fifteen to twenty-five minutes late by the end of our first week.

After Gai-sensei had, thankfully unsuccessfully, badgered Kakashi-sensei about a team competition, our teacher had taken one of us at the time for a talk. Getting a good idea of our complete strengths, he said. Naruto complained a lot that he had gotten a quiz of all things, and ambushed, but I thought he was just salty that he only had the Kage Bushin to show off. Sasuke was happy that our training was being given some consideration, but it was hard to tell with him.

I knew what it was really about. Not to be a narcissist, but it was because of me.

My day arriving, I followed our jounin to a training ground, armed with a pen, a notebook, and two-thousand ryou I had saved up from the missions we’d done this week.

“Alright, this should do.” Kakashi-sensei sat down on a log in a corner of a wide clearing.

It didn’t have water for my fish transformations, but otherwise it was ok. I nodded. “So, do you want me to explain what’s going on with me?”

“That would be helpful.” He pulled out his orange book but kept it folded on his knee. “Your files say your chakra pathways are displaced and so you are incapable of learning ‘standard jutsu’. But you had good ninjutsu and genjutsu scores in your last years of the Academy.”

I could work with that.

“Okay, so the problem is twofold and connected.” I started sketching on my notebook. “But I’ll start with the obvious one. My chakra pathways are not standard. And I don’t mean the natural variation of tenketsu positioning between individuals. I mean, my Eight Gates aren’t in the right places.”

He blinked. I knew that blink. It was the ‘that’s impossible’ blink and the ‘how are you still alive’ blink.

“Ask a Hyuuga. Lee can’t use ninjutsu and genjutsu because his output and modulation are screwed.” Apparently? It was more medical theory than I’d ever needed to learn. “I can’t use ‘standard jutsu’ because all jutsu in the modern era were developed from the teachings of the Great Sage, and all of those are based on humans having regular chakra pathways. Handseals change the way our chakra flows and surges in and from those pathways. Different pathways equals known handseals useless.” I circled that in my presentation sheet. “More deeply, focus and control exercises like the forehead-sticky-leaf were optimized based on the tenketsu position of normal people. I have a different structure, so I have more trouble or more ease focussing chakra in different places. Questions?”

“Yes, Sakura-sensei!” He raised a hand, cheeky bastard. “So you can use jutsu. You just can’t be taught jutsu.”

He’d grasped that fast, as expected. “Correct. All my jutsu are… well, I’d say I figured them out myself but that connects to the second point.”

“Your secret techniques.” He was interested.

I reminded myself that Gai-sensei wouldn’t be friends with a bad person. It was hard to trust people with this. Especially adult ninjas. Gai had been the only person I’d told about the gacha part of my powers. I’d eventually had to tell Lee, but that was it. Even Ino thought I just figured out my transformations somehow by experimenting around.

“Right. So. You’re going to think it’s cheating.” I prefaced. “It’s not. Not anymore than bloodline limits are. And I worked hard for it, yeah?”

He nodded. I couldn’t get much from his body language.

Deep breath. I started drawing a grid on my notebook, and a button. “As long as I can remember, I’ve had this in the back of my head. I can’t explain the feeling more than a ninja can explain the feeling of chakra to a civilian, or colors to a blind man. I just, have these two things up here.” I tapped my forehead, at the corner of my scar. “There’s a storage grid, and there’s a lever.”

“I use the lever and it gives me the power of a monster. Randomly. The power then is stored in the grid. I can use that power to transform into the monster, or to use any of the jutsu, the moves, that the monster knows. Doing it drains the power temporarily and I can’t use it anymore for a period of time. Finally, using the lever means I have to pay for it. That’s the basics. Should I elaborate or do you have questions about this part? I’ll demonstrate later.”

Kakashi-sensei was staring at me. I stared back.

“Monsters?” “Best name I got for them.” “You pay.” “With money.” “To whom?” “I assume the gods because it just vanishes from my hands.” “I thought you didn’t like gambling.” “Yeah, might be the fact that my personal development is dependent on a gambling mechanic.” “I think you should elaborate now.”

So I did. The proportions, the levels, the rarities, my experiments, why I trained my custom handseals, how my chakra interacted with everything. And I showed him. Not just all of my moves. I demonstrated all of my transformations. He saw tiny Natu, physics defiant Solrock, scary Shuppet, regal Absol, massive Snorlax, creepy Mr. Mime, gigantic Onix, and all the others. I flopped on the ground as Goldeen, trying to breathe, I set the grass on fire as Slugma. It was the most intensive session I’d ever done. I’d never deprived myself of all of my daily transformations before. I discussed my forms with him, tactics I wanted to use, ways I wanted to use my power to its maximum efficiency.

Finally, I pulled on the gacha. Once with my money and once with a couple of bills provided by Kakashi-sensei. Just like I’d expected, the money vanished from my hands like a greedy god and come down and snapped its fingers, leaving no trace it had ever existed.

I got Feebas again.

And then, then, then! “OOOOOOOHHHHH!!!!” I pulled a five-star, ultra-rare pokemon. A Legendary. My first. Regirock. I needed to use other people’s money more often!

And Kakashi-sensei? From the way he was dragging his hand over his face, he was grasping very well what my secret techniques meant.

---

Again, I do want a more detailed view of several moves and pokemon but, hm, well, not in the main story. It would drag along sooo much. This is more to set up the Kakashi POV of whatever the fuck a transmigrator's power looks like from out of context.​

Fortunately this bit of exposition was in the second arc right? Right? ahahahah aaaa, sorry.​

 

Jumping off the stage at Kiyomizu​

Mai remembered the stone as she sat down, the weight settling against her ribs. Sitting down inside the car, her body folded in an unfamiliar way, she fumbled a bit with the naked blade she carried. The weapon was big, barely fitting in the confined space, and its covering long lost. The seat molded itself to her muscles, relieving her injury and the rest of her tired legs.

When they had been younger, Maki and Mai had dreamed of having a car like the ones parked at the estate. Maki would drive, making the machine rumble and carry them away. Mai would sprawl on the huge, heated seats and turn on the music, drowning out everybody outside. They had pretended to drive a car once, left unlocked, and Mai had pressed the horn hard, giggling. The blare had scattered birds in a wide radius and sent the both of them flying before they were discovered.

The door slammed closed behind mother, jerking her out of the past. Her mother was a knife in the dark, a patterned kimono bright in the darkness of the car, straight-backed and facing forward unblinkingly. As the wife of the head’s brother, she commanded a certain respect from the Kukuru assigned to protect her, even as a woman. If she hadn’t given birth to them, she would not need to endure the heckling of other women and inferior men. She would have been honored and envied, she’d always told Mai.

“You were injured.” Her mother’s voice cut through the silence like the car’s horn, startling Mai from her semi-conscious state again. There’s an edge of disapproval in her voice and Mai was too tired to be polite and confirm her mother’s observations.

Yes, yes, yes she was, in some many ways and so exhausted besides. Her mother’s silence was just a prompt for her to answer as was proper, because mother did not comment on Mai’s bruises. She knew where they were from and Mai knew better than to expect to be soothed, when the only reason she was hurt was because she wasn’t following her elder’s teachings well enough.

Maki used to ask who’d hurt her. Then she stopped asking and just glared in silence. Then she stopped looking. Fuck her.

“Mai.” She opened her eyes again, having closed them without conscious thought. Her mother was talking. “Will the doctor be necessary?” Was it going to be necessary to wake up the old man?

“No.” She lied. “It’s not serious.”

She hated the old man and the piercing eyes behind his glasses. Hated his touch the most.
She had feared the relief he brought even when she was younger, the way he both dismissed and dissected them when they were hurt enough to warrant his intervention. Grown, matured, she didn’t want him examining her more than necessary. A little discomfort from everyday hurts was better than his hands, insistent and encroaching like the curses from under the eaves. The ones that liked to climb into their rooms at night, to drape themselves around their victims.

“I’ll take care of it myself.” She’d taken care of her sister’s injuries more times than she could count. She could take care of it.

“See that you do.”

And that was it.

She blinked, head resting against the glass. Everything was blurred, streaks of golden and ruby lights like shooting stars running next to her. Mai was blurry at the edges, warm, numb. She floated in a black sea, the star shower reflected on the water mirror her face rested on. Every now and then, the waves rocked her body one way or the other.

The door slammed.

Heart hammering, she fell back down into her body. Muscles tensed in anticipation and she hissed, vision flashing. Her hands twisted the coarse fabric over her legs, trembling, and she had to fight herself not to touch her thigh. It would only hurt more. This was going to hurt so much.

The world narrowed down to her very immediate surroundings. The blunt edges of the door, the stone steps to their house, the engawa where she had to remove her sandals, the hallways she knew by heart and the feeling of the staff in her hand, a third leg replacing the raw mass of nerves on her right side. Like a dream she could not escape, only breathe through, always aware of her mother in front of her, the many eyes on the shoji waiting for her to slip.

Without conscious thought, Mai closed the door to the washroom behind her and shook herself. She had arrived at her destination. All she had to do was clean her leg and then she could fall on her futon. She let go of the weapon and clung to the sink, waiting for the ground beneath her feet to stop swaying.

Strip, clean, disinfect, cover. She repeated the steps to herself. She’d done it dozens of times. She raised her gaze to the mirror and told Maki, “You’re an idiot.”

Maki’s face had never been so full of weakness. “I’m an idiot.” It repeated back to her.

Wait. “Maki’s gone.” The one in the mirror was the spare. Dressed in her older sister’s clothes, carrying her older sister’s tool, doing her older sister’s job, and failing worse than her stupid older sister ever had.

Tears she thought had been shed weeks ago resurfaced. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.” She was so tired. Everything hurt. It was cold, she’d walked for hours, ran and fought a curse, the cursed spirit had almost eaten her!

A muffled ring echoed and Mai realized she’d leaned forward so much, her hairs were brushing the scuffed surface of the mirror. She pulled the offending stone from within her tunic.

The washroom’s light was artificial and weak, but the bright azure of its surface was revealed in full, a glow to it that overtook the lamps’ pathetic efforts. It wasn’t smooth like porcelain, but more perfect than the most masterful lacquer work the clan flaunted. Brushing her fingers atop it, she felt the transferred warmth of her body, the only thing from this world that clung to it. There wasn’t another single mark, no scuff or scratch or imperfection, not even a smudge of dirt from her hands, its veins of pear white blending in with the royal blue like reflections in water. If it was a stone, it was a precious one.

Its arrival had saved her life, but now she saw the curiosity from the forest’s darkness as it truly was, almost sacred.

“You saved my life.” She told the thing. Maybe it was a sign. “I don’t suppose you could also heal me?” She thought she heard something, but nothing happened. Just the ringing in her ears that had been coming and going in waves. “Too good to be true.” That was fine, the stone hadn’t promised her anything.

Instead, she braced herself and reached for the medicine box in the corner, stocked with what was needed to treat wounds or alleviate the monthly bleeding. Dressings and disinfectant and painkillers, things she’d bargained and worked for in the shadowed corners of the servants’ rooms. Mai had always made do, always survived without Maki’s ridiculous strength. She was the clever one, who used her brain and got out of trouble rather than into trouble.

She’d survive this as well. She just had to figure out how. She couldn’t count on miracles either way.

---

I struggled with the mother, truly. Ended up relegating the announcing of Mai's decision for next chapter (i think). Is Mai setting herself up for an infection? Yeeeeaaaah, but if one overconfident 20+yo can underestimate a cat bite, so can a 14yo underestimate a cursed bite. (i was fine)​

I did finally settle on a name for our little dragon! As well as Mai's strategy (lie) and thoughts when she hatches. I'd totally forgotten tamed cursed spirits were actually a thing! This will be fun, especially when Miwa gets brought in. She has a lot of energy. It's more troublesome figuring out exactly how magic and cursed energy will or not work together, considering one human will have CE and one dragon will have magic.​

 

Chapter Twenty-Seven!
We are Genin!​

“Hey, Sakura, over here!” Ino called out to me. I raised my arm back in greeting and squeezed between tables to reach them. “Hello people.”

Most of teams Seven, Eight and Ten were here. Kiba hadn’t made it, he had something with his family, apparently, and Naruto had tried to convince Sasuke to come as well. Thankfully, he hadn’t succeeded, so I could spend time with my good friend, Ino. She was the one who had decided we were owed a graduation party lunch as the teams that had not only graduated but also kept their senseis.

I’d been right. It was hard to un-genin a genin. Jounin, however, were freer to determine which students actually deserved to learn directly from them full-time. It made sense. All the time they were spending baby-sitting genin was time they weren’t spending on better paid, more exciting missions. I suspected genin baby-sitting got paid, but I wasn’t sure. Kakashi-sensei took a cut from our missions and, well, he spent them reading his little adult books.

“You’re in a good mood.” Chouji greeted me.

“I have a well-paying job.” I grinned.

“““Ah.”””

You guys could say whatever you wanted! I’d gone from pulling once every two weeks to pulling twice a week! And that was because I was slowly replacing my weapons and getting a good set of armored clothing! One day, I was going to renovate my house! Or maybe even move into a better place!

“We’re having boring missions every day.” Naruto complained. “It’s all clean this, babysit, clean that, urgh!”

“These are the sort of missions we genin start with.” Said Shikamaru, slumped on the table. He hadn’t changed a bit. “They’re easy.”

“Well, I want to get to the exciting missions now, not later!”

“Your sensei having you do missions every day is strange. Why? Because our team has days allocated solely to training.” Aburame Shino interjected. He seemed more lively than usual.

“It’s because our team is really not good at teamwork.” I explained. “The boys keep getting into trouble during our D-rank missions, fighting each other, the clients, random animals…” Naruto shrank under my observations. “It’s pointless to train together if we can’t even do chores correctly as a team.”

“Hey–” “Shadow Clones. Fence. Paint.” “Urk!” Critical hit.

Next to me, Hinata tried, and I mean tried, to encourage Naruto. The words wouldn’t leave her mouth. But hey, she hadn’t checked out yet, so she was improving. Get him girl, at least you like a guy for his personality, even if it’s a completely incomprehensible choice to me!

“Sasuke-kun’s not coming?” Ino pouted.

I resisted the urge to sigh. “Nope, he had stuff to do, apparently. Hey, tell us about your sensei, he looked cool. Ours was five hours late, five hours.” Please Ino, take the bait.

“Eh!?” “Gods.” “That is unprofessional. Why?” “Kuren-nai-sensei wouldn’t ev-ver do that.”

I was vindicated, vindicated I say!

Ino rolled her eyes. “Asume-sensei smokes like a chimney, it’s disgusting. Did you know he’s the Hokage’s son?”

No, I had not known. I had not known the Hokage had children. I vaguely remembered he was married, because he had told me so himself, but kids? Then Naruto revealed he knew Konohamaru, which was… a name, who was the Hokage’s grandson. A vast conspiracy of gossip unraveled as we tried to determine if Konohamaru was Asuma’s kid from a previous marriage because apparently the Team Ten jounin had the hots for Team Eight’s jounin… Who was a very pretty lady that I had not girl-crushed on, no sir.

At the end of lunch we were almost kicked out for being too loud, see Naruto, and had to split an enormous bill. I was trying not to blame Chouji here. And we also got laughed out of trying to split more than one single beer between us. That had been Ino’s idea but Shino’s execution.

“That was nice!” Naruto was smiling widely as we walked home. We lived more or less in the same direction, although my house was much closer than his. “We should meet up more often!”

“It’s only going to get harder to get all of us together.” I told him, thinking of my friendship with Lee. “The moment we start taking out of village missions, even just a farming D-rank, we’re going to keep missing each other.”

“Man, that sucks.” He put his hands in his pockets. “Hey, do you think that bastard is never going to come?”

“Don’t call Sasuke a bastard.” I reminded him again. “I hope not, but you can’t make people like to hang out. Some people just like their alone time.”

“That’s so weird.” “Not everybody’s an extrovert like you, Orange. If I don’t get my daily dose of peace and quiet I get real cranky too, ya know.” “Ok, ok, I get it! Why do you have to be so scary like that?” “Gotta keep you boys on your toes.”

Life was good. I was getting stronger, my friends were growing up, the village was at peace. Sooner or later, we were going to get into the hard part of being a ninja, but for now, I was going to enjoy the sun.

---

Tiny epilogue to the second arc. Wanted a friendship moment between these kids who all know each other from years together and are now separated while they start their new job.​

We're basically jumping right into the Wave Mission next chapter, because my brain is not processing and just reacting irl rn tbh.​

 

Chapter Twenty-Eight!
Taking the next big step in my ninja career!​

To his credit, Naruto almost made it three months.

Between February and March, our team settled into a routine. Before we met up each morning, we usually trained by ourselves, then we relaxed for fifteen to twenty minutes as we waited our our chronically late jounin. Most days we did D-rank missions, usually short missions that didn’t pay much, but also longer, full-day missions that fed my wallet. On the rare days we didn’t do missions, we trained as a team, under the lazy but sadistic eye of Kakashi-sensei.

We did do a lot of missions. A lot, more than other teams, apparently. I took full credit. Kakashi-sensei arrived and asked us something along the lines of ‘what do my cute little genin want to do today?’

Missions. I wanted missions. Unless the boys managed to interject, that was how it went.

And interject they (Naruto) did. Loudly and physically. Training days happened because Naruto attacked Kakashi-sensei or got into a fight with Sasuke, or with me. So instead, it was sparring time, or competition time, or race time, or jutsu demonstration time or Kakashi-sensei has the novel idea to have us work in formation to do… whatever. Buy him groceries. Help an old lady cross the road for shits and giggles.

We did end up learning stuff, like radios and signals and practicing formations, I suppose. I had opportunities to practice my moves and show my transformations to the guys. Such was sorely needed with the amount of times I was pulling on my power.

And maybe, just maybe, helping out counted as learning charity and an open spirit. Kakashi-sensei had his depths… but he was also his own sort of lazy.

So inevitably, Naruto literally sat his ass down in front of the Hokage and demanded a C-rank.

I wasn’t surprised. I was already ready to apologize on behalf of the team. He’d had to do it on one of the days the Hokage himself was in the mission room too. He couldn’t have thrown a tantrum in front of a chunnin or something, no.

I was surprised the Hokage acquiesced. “I’ll give Team Seven a C-Rank mission.” He smiled from beneath his hat and veil.

A C-rank? I schooled my face back into neutrality and searched my brain for details on the higher grade. Those missions could actually involve combat, that was the biggest difference between D and C-ranks. It didn’t mean combat was certain for all C-ranks but… I looked between my teammates. Sasuke was reliable, Naruto was… being generous, he was improving, ok. I was starting to have to try to beat him in taijutsu. And Kakashi-sensei was apparently very strong, if Gai-sensei wasn’t exaggerating about his rivalry.

“It’s an escort and bodyguarding mission. Personal protection for a certain individual.” The Hokage had picked up a scroll lying on his desk and was signaling to an attending ninja. “Calm down,” he said to a suddenly very energetic blonde teammate of mine, “I’ll introduce your client in a moment.”

Just a few moments passed before we heard somebody being led from one of the reception areas. As a whole, Team Seven turned to see who we were going to be protecting. My first thought was ‘old fisherman’, with a rope tied around his head and strong, scarred arms. My second thought was ‘dead drunk by midday’. The man stank! He already had a bottle opened!

“It’s a bunch of brats?” He squinted behind a pair of oval glasses. Amazingly, he wasn’t slurring his words. “Are you really ninjas? Especially the short one with the stupid face… can they really keep me safe?”

I preemptively put Naruto on a chokehold. Kakashi-sensei ruffled my hair and bonked Naruto. Sasuke snorted.

“They are, although they are only novices.” Kakashi-sensei said. “But I am a jounin. Don’t worry.”

I would take umbrange at the uncertain look on the client’s face, but I was fairly busy keeping Naruto restrained, Sasuke was pretending he didn’t know us, while our teacher, well. Hatake Kakashi didn’t look like the most reliable jounin at a first glance. The Hokage cleared his throat and we got back on track.

Mission details: Tazuna, the client, was actually an architect and bridge builder. He needed escorting to return to his village. He would also need to be protected while he finished building a bridge. He’d been harassed at his construction site by local thugs who thrived off smuggling and threatening local fishermen. The pay was fairly generous. Eighty-five thousand for a bit under two weeks of work.

Math done, I was convinced.

We headed out this afternoon, and our destination was the Wave Country. I checked a map while packing. Wave country was a small island nation off the coast of the Land of Fire. They’d probably avoided being annexed into the Land of Water by being so close to us instead. Regardless, it was so small I didn’t remember it appearing in any meaningful way in our geography lessons.

More importantly, the route we were going to take was fairly typical of the Land of Fire, forested and hilly at most. Weather was predicted to be sunny but not warm for the next week. It was spring and we were going to be lodging near the coast, so it was better to take clothing for wet days.

I packed appropriate rations, tools, and changed from my comfortable but worn sleeveless hoodie combo. My first mission outside the village, I might as well take what was shaping up to be my typical outfit. Finally in a green so dark it was practically black, with Rayquaza’s designs in yellow, I had a set of trousers and a tunic. Pink undershirts, pink gloves, pink ankles wraps and forehead protector. That last item not on my forehead, but tight over my waist sash, I was ready to go.

“Oh, no, wait.” I was a dumbass. I hurried to remove my training weights. I was so used to having them on for D-ranks I almost left with them still on.

---

Beginning of the arc I think I'll call Wave kicks Sakura's ass, although, we've caught up to my buffer so much that I haven't written or decided most of it. The perils of rolling the dice as I write and dealing with it.
A lot of this will probably be familiar and I'm trying. I'm trying so hard not to copy dialogue and scenes so much. The more time passes the easier and more divergent this will get. Also, I need to decide if I include some fillers or not, hm.... Anyway, set up chapter done, we're caught up to Sakura and Team 7's misadventures: lots of bickering, some growth, but mostly just people getting used to working with each other. Sasuke's still distant, Naruto is still annoying, but both are slowly getting better. Sakura is also kinda distant, but at least she tries??​

 

Chapter Twenty-Nine!
Ambushed by a taste of the real ninja life!​

“How long ‘til we get to the Land of the Waves again?” Three guesses as to who had asked.

“Still two days. And it’s Wave Country, not Land of the Waves.” I told Naruto.

“Uh? Why?” “Only nations with significant geopolitical influence get to have pretentious names like Land of the Whatever.” “Has anybody ever told you that you’re too honest?” “You’d be the first Blue.”

We were a day off from the village’s gates and the excitement of traveling outside the country, outside the village outskirts to be honest, had mostly faded. The only violence we’d had to stop, and to implement, was to keep Naruto from Tazuna-san. I couldn’t blame the kid too much. The man was a drunk who occasionally made condescending comments in his direction. If he wasn’t so blatantly alcoholic, I would have told Naruto to be more professional. Or, well, I would be less gentle about it.

We kept a rough formation as we walked. Us three at the front, the client behind us and Kakashi-sensei bringing up the rear. We were in charge of scouting while he read his little books, and occasionally we talked to the great architect Tazuna-san.

Of course, Naruto was getting bored so… There was a metallic rustle. From behind.

We spun, just in time to see Kakashi-sensei be snagged by chains, two shinobi, two enemies on either side of him. “One down.” The chains pulled and there was the rip of cloth and squelch, like a chainsaw, and blood was flying everywhere. “Two down.” I flinched. They’d already run inside our formation and their chains were going around Naruto–!

I fumbled for my kunai. Sasuke jumped in. With pinpoint accuracy, his throw had shuriken hitting the chain. He didn’t stop, using kunai to pin the chain to a tree, and the rest of his movement to get into the men’s guards and nail them with a spin kick.

Not that easy, they disconnected their chains from their gauntlets. These were Kiri missing-nin, I noted, settling in position automatically. They were coming for us, no– the client! The handseals were–

The thing about a real fight, the sort of fight that has adrenaline sharpening everything, is that training makes all the difference. And I had one maneuver trained for this.

Tokubetsu Waza: “Iwâku no Henge!”

I coiled, my rock body turning into a barrier around Tazuna. Get away! I screeched. The enemies flinched. They didn’t stop, too professional for that, but between my transformation and move, they hesitated. A two-stage debuff like Screech was something you felt.

And then Kakashi-sensei was there. “Yo.”

My stone eyes briefly took in the logs where Kakashi’s body should have been. Again, a genjutsu. Our sensei was really good with that, he’d gotten us all believing his gruesome death. I glared at him, unable to speak. Had that been necessary? Was he testing us again? In one move, he’d taken out both missing nin, and even slung them casually under his arms.

“Nice job, Sasuke, Sakura. It’s okay now.” He said.

Sasuke nodded, putting his hands in his pockets nonchalantly. I gave a big, rock snake sigh and de-transformed. Suddenly behind me, our client staggered. Well, he’d just been surrounded by me, a giant rock snake.

“Naruto, sorry for not helping right away. I got you hurt.” All of our eyes turned to Naruto, who blinked. Shellshocked. There were several scratches on his hand. The enemies had targeted him after apparently killing sensei, Sasuke had interrupted that. “I didn’t think you’d freeze like that.”

I hadn’t been expecting him to freeze either. Sasuke snorted. “Hey, are you alright, scaredy-cat?”

“Really, Sasuke, really?” I snapped at him over Naruto’s indignant cry.

He blinked at me, somewhat surprised at my tone. “Sakura?...”

“All of you, save it for later.” Kakashi-sensei’s commanding voice made us all stand down. “Naruto, their claws are poisoned. We need to take care of that quickly, don’t move too much or you’ll spread it through your body.” He turned to me. “Sakura, you alright?”

My teeth were chattering. My whole body was shaking. I forcefully clenched my every muscle, held it and exhaled explosively. “Adrenaline crash. I’m good.” I hated when this happened. I was fine, but the chemicals in my body made me look so pathetic.

“Good.” Kakashi-sensei nodded, then turned his eye towards the fifth element of this entire equation. “Tazuna-san. I need to talk to you.” Right, of course. We’d just been attacked by missing-nin. “These are chunnin originally from Kiri.”

“Whoa.” Kirigakure? I had noticed their headbands but now I registered it. The Hidden Mist? That was one village with a nasty reputation. Brutal ninjas particularly known for never retreating and, more recently, for an ongoing civil war and purges. Purges of all sorts and kinds, all excuses for the Mizukage in charge.

I was glad I hadn’t been reborn there. I would have left immediately… or died trying.

Kakashi-sensei tied them to the nearest tree with frankly frightening expertise, no fuss. I kept my eyes on the enemy even then. In my mind, they had become far more scary the moment I’d stopped to think about their origins.

“How did you discover us?” One of them asked. Their rebreather masks distorted their voices, likely on purpose. Along with the custom headbands they had, with a horn, their clawed gauntlets, the chain they’d used… it was all geared towards intimidation, but the fact that they had also laced their weapons with poison… lethal. These men were cold-blooded killers, no doubt.

“It’s a nice sunny day, hasn’t rained the whole week… a puddle of water like that shouldn’t exist.” Our sensei said, and I felt like smacking myself. Now that I thought about it, I could remember seeing a puddle. I hadn’t thought anything of it. Suzume-sensei would kill me for my inattention.

“Then why let the kids fight?” Tazuna asked.

“I could have killed them instantly, if I wanted to.” Our sensei, the lazy jounin, said. There wasn’t an ounce, a gram, a speck of emotion in his voice as he spoke. It was merely the truth. He’d had these men’s lives in his hands the moment he’d noticed them. “But I wanted to find out their real target.”

“W-what do you mean?” The client said, and even through the alcohol I sensed his sudden tensing.

“They were either after us, or you.” He said simply. “And we weren’t told shinobi would target you. That exceeds missions parameters, and is not as simple as protecting you from thieves or gangs. It’s at least B-rank, a much more expensive mission. Was that why you lied about the mission details?”

“I… I didn’t know they would send ninjas…” But he’d suspected, went unsaid.

Fuck. I rubbed my forehead. What a shitshow. Wrong mission details, a poisoned teammate, enemy ninjas above our rank…! And clearly, Kakashi/sensei was also thinking the same.

“RaaaA!!” Naruto stabbed himself. He screamed and stabbed himself in his already injured hand.

“What the fuck! Naruto!” What the hell. I dashed forward to get the knife away from this child.

“We’re continuing this mission!” He yelled again, teeth grit in a bloody smile. “I’ll protect the geezer, I swear it on this kunai!”

That was all well and good… but he still stabbed himself! If this didn’t kill him, I was going to!

---

I'm kinda lost on the road of life rn tbh. Once again bad coping mechanisms.
The adrenaline crash is an SI element I've wanted to incorporate for a while. Also, turning into Onix as a defensive measure. It's a scene I've had in my head for a while now. Sakura's arsenal allows her to do some really impressive things, so long as she's willing to expend their use for the whole day.
As to why she won't loot the guys... well, she's sorta worried about her idiotic teammate right now lmao.

 

Chapter Thirty!
There had to be a tragic backstory involved!
​

“Let’s continue the mission!” Naruto railed. Kakashi-sensei was bandaging his hand.

I stood next to him. “Why?”

“Huh? ‘Cuz we have to! We accepted the mission!” “We accepted a fake mission!” “The old man needs protection!” “Which we aren’t able to provide.” “We can’t run away with our tails between our legs now! I’m not giving up!”

“Okay kids, break it up.” Our sensei put a hand on both of our shoulders. “First we need to know exactly what’s going on.”

As a unit, we turned our eyes to the man with the answers. Tazuna was looking back at us. The man I’d taken as dead drunk was clear eyed but resigned. “You’re right. Let me explain the situation. There’s a terrible, dangerous man after me.”

And explain he did.

Gatou. I hadn’t known the name, but Kakashi did. A shipping magnate. And magnates were never good. He was this world’s equivalent of a super-rich, and on top of it all, Tazuna claimed, unsurprisingly, that he was even richer and more powerful than people thought because he was a criminal. Shocking, truly. A great deal of his illegal dealings had been rerouted through Wave Country, due to its geographic position and the fact that nobody gave a fuck about that tiny island. Gatou had basically taken over, going full feudal overlord. The current daimyo, or the real feudal lord, was the weak son of the last lord, conveniently dead.

Tazuna was his target because Gatou’s full control of Wave was based on his takeover of Wave’s shipping lanes. And Wave had no bridges connecting it to the Land of Fire, its closest neighbor. When I’d heard Tazuna was a bridge builder, I was thinking about regular bridges, not the kind of straight-spanning, sea bridges that I used to see in documentaries. This man was actually building a mega bridge. A thing many kilometers long and wide enough for an army to go over.

This wasn’t just another bit of civil architecture, this was a game changer.

A game changer that had to have the approval of the Land of Fire’s own daimyo. It seemed, however, that Wave was too tiny and far away. The project had financial backing but Tazuna’s requests for protection had been dismissed… or something more sinister was at work here.

So Tazuna had gone directly to Konoha for protection. He’d gathered enough money for a C-rank, but not quite enough for a B-rank. Gatou’s violence and taxes had impoverished the country to that point. I could see why he hadn’t pulled the tragic backstory on the Hokage. Ninjas weren’t mercenaries above all else, not since villages had formed and allied themselves to nation-states, but our reputation from the Warring Eras wouldn’t disappear just like that. Especially for civilians of countries without any ninja of their own.

He’d gambled on Gatou sending weak fodder after him, a single man, that we wouldn’t make too much of a fuss. Then we’d gotten two Kiri chunnin thrown at us. That was not weak fodder.

“It’s fine, I can go on on my own.” He said. “My cute grandson will cry, he’s only ten too. And my daughter, who knows what will happen to her if Tazuna’s goons appear. The people of our village will probably be punished for my defiance, but that’s just how life is.”

Hey. Hey, that was blatant. You were almost begging us on your knees and now you pulled this?

But he was serious. Dead serious.

“What do you say, Sasuke, Sakura?” Kakashi-sensei asked us.

“I don’t care either way. We might as well.” Sasuke tried to pretend to be unaffected.

Me, I was more conflicted. I could mentally detach myself from the situation. “Realistically, can we do it or is it a suicide mission?”

“Don’t you trust me?” Kakashi-sensei asked.

I smiled. Yeah, if he wasn’t confident in our survival, this wouldn’t even be a choice. It really was up to me. He’d respect my decision, I had the feeling. “Ah well, in that case…” I’d decided years ago what I wanted to become. It was the sort of decision you made everyday, if you wanted to get stronger. If you wanted to die without regrets. “I wonder how much I’ll get paid, hm?”

---

Been kinda busy. This one has been written for a while. Tried to go for some worldbuilding and a justification of Gachakura's spproval to continue the mission. She's the holdout in this world, bc she has, well, a rational female brain most of the time. (men and their pride, let's prove ourselves nonsense).

 

(Hatake Kakashi 2)​

He was lost in his head when he arrived at the Ninja Academy. If Kakashi was honest with himself… well, he wasn’t so it didn’t matter. Ah, he had a trio of genin that didn’t need explanations as to why he was a bit late.

He opened the door to the classroom. A board eraser started falling from where it’d been wedged. A classic prank. If he’d stuck his head in, he would let it hit him to gauge their reactions… Sasuke was the prodigy of the batch, he might notice if he purposefully hunched over now, hm.

Oh well, he watched the genin as the would-be prank dropped to the floor, just touching the edges of his hair.

“Darn it, almost got him!” Naruto spoke up without fear. The obvious perpetrator.

But had he had help? Sasuke was in a corner against the window, pretending he hadn’t seen the whole thing. Sakura was on her feet, an open book on her desk. Posture set to intervene, turning fearful. Her lips pursed but she said nothing, observing Kakashi carefully.

“Hm…How do I put this…” He couldn’t see any teamwork at all. “I don’t like you.”

Hatake Kakashi did not derive joy from watching the faces of his would-be, maybe-so, probably-not squad fall. Not a lot anyway. Before they could process it, he turned on his heel and bid them to follow him.

However, he hadn’t been lying about his first impression. Lord Hiruzen was devious. It didn’t take a lot of effort to start interposing his team over these green hopefuls, particularly the boys. Naruto was confident, loud and bold in a way that reminded him so much of Obito it hurt. He could see his young, foolish self in Sasuke too. A genius that didn’t believe the others could offer him anything. He was already creating a distance between himself and his teammates. Fortunately, Sakura didn’t remind him too much of Rin. She was quiet and diligent, at a first glance, but there was a hint of roughness there, a survival streak that could get in the way of teamwork.

He couldn’t deny that his interest had been piqued, both by the legacies the boys represented, and the curiosity that was the girl.

“Let’s start with some introductions, hm?” He observed the children arrayed confrontationally against him.

Sakura was surprisingly the one to speak up, biting off a curse. She’d been so very quiet until now. “You haven’t even told us your name yet.”

“Oh, me? My name is Hatake Kakashi.” He leaned against the railing. It was kind of cute how they leaned forward to listen to him. Too bad for them. “I don’t particularly care to tell you about my likes or dislikes. My dream for the future’s… hm, well, I have a lot of hobbies.”

Watching their expressions fall was, again, fun.

Well, they were ninjas, they could stand to learn how to work for intel.

Naruto went first. “I like ramen! Cup ramen but even better, Ichiraku’s! And I love it even more when Iruka-sensei’s the one to pay! I dislike… the time it takes for ramen to be done. My dream is to be the greatest Hokage ever! Everybody is going to acknowledge me! Believe it or not! My hobby is pranks, I guess.”

Kakashi had learned more from visiting his apartment. Naruto had a tendency to shout who he was to the entire village. Still, it was interesting that he’d turned out like this.

His eye moved to Sakura, who’d heard Naruto with a facial expression somewhere between exasperation and disappointment.

“My name is Haruno Sakura. I like dragons, ninjas and girls. Get any and all hopes out of your head because I’m competition. If I ever marry I want a beautiful wife.” She confidently proclaimed, almost in defiance towards the boys. “I dislike asinine bullshit and gambling. My hobbies are photography and self-improvement. My dream…” And then she paused and her gaze moved from the bridge of Kakashi’s nose to over his shoulder, far away. “My dream is to face death without regrets.”

That wasn’t the discourse of a normal Academy student. There was an ease to the girl's bearing that came with experience, and not the cockiness of a graduated kid. Her declaration regarding her sexuality (something fairly novel at their age, and definitely impactful on the usual dynamics in a mixed-gender squad) had been overshadowed by her dream.

Facing death with no regrets? A near impossible dream, if he took her words seriously. Kakashi had seen many, many ninjas die. Almost invariably, they died in pain, torment, full of regrets and unsaid, undone things. For the tiniest moment he wondered whether— he killed that line of thought and shoved it deep down.

Well, less than ten sentences into knowing this child and he was already having… Interesting thoughts. The Hokage had been right about her.

The boys were also staring at the girl, who quickly deflected to Sasuke.

“My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I dislike many things and I don’t like a lot of things. I wouldn’t call it a dream, but my ambition is the revival of my clan. And”, ah, there it was, “to kill one man.”

As expected. But how would that single-minded ambition of his mesh with the other two? Naruto was looking scared, but he wasn’t grasping what Sasuke was talking about, unlike Sakura. That girl knew exactly who the Uchiha meant, and seemed to pity him, if anything.

Kakashi sighed. Well… he still hadn’t seen any teamwork. Nothing so egregious that he could dismiss the squad out of hand, gods knew Obito had gotten in serious scuffles with him, but nothing that gave him confidence either.

Now, if Kakashi had a favorite part about this process, it would be this one. “Ok, that’s enough. We will start properly tomorrow. First we are going to do a little something just the four of us.” He nodded and allowed himself a smile. “Survival training.”

---

A note on Kakashi's comment about Sakura's sexuality. It's not that the GAYS don't exist in Narutoverse (my executive decision), it's just that at 12yo, the majority of girls are boy obsessed and those that are not, aren't likely to know or announce their own sexuality to the world. In my own experience as well, unless you know what a lesbian is, it takes a few more years until you figure it out. Until then, you're more likely to just feel like you're 'not like other girls'. (i wanna pinch my younger self's cheeks and whisper, no, you're genderqueer sweetie)
Hopefully, I got the Kakashi voice down. Man got blindsided by Sakura's dream, but he's great at compartmentalizing! (did obito face death without regrets?)​

 

(Hatake Kakashi 3)​

Naturally, they were confused. “Naturally, this isn’t normal training. This time, I will be your opponent.” And Kakashi allowed himself to chuckle as the genin stared at him in confusion. “Eheheh.”

“What’s so funny, huh!?” Naruto burst. In a team with two quiet and respectful teammates, he’d become their voice. Not that Sasuke disagreed, he was just the type to not involve himself unless absolutely necessary. And Sakura, well, that one was far too cautious, observing him with clear suspicion.

“Ah, well, don’t mind me. It’s just, eheh, after I tell you this, you guys are totally going to freak out.” He lowered his voice to explain while maintaining a happy facade. “Of the twenty-seven academy graduates, only nine will actually become genin. The rest will be sent back to the Academy. This training has a failure rate of 66%.”

Naturally, all of his maybe-squad paled. Sasuke’s eyes widened and his entire frame tensed for a moment before he deliberately loosened it. Sakura downright twitched, mouth loosening in shock before tightening, a suspicious glare in her eyes. Naruto didn’t have their control.

“W-what!? No way! You’re lying! What was the point of graduating in the first place then!!” He rose to his feet.

Kakashi shrugged. “That was just to select those that had a chance to even become genin.” To be honest, the Academy’s standards were fairly lax in the current times. To be fair, on the other hand, Konoha wasn’t at war. Not all genin needed to be battlefield ready the moment they graduated. The current prosperity allowed for the rank of genin to have less restrictive meaning and functions. “Anyway, tomorrow you’ll have the chance to prove your skills to me. Bring all your tools and don’t be late. The details are all in this printout.”

“Oh, and skip breakfast, you might throw up.” He smiled at them. Finally, he checked the psychological state of the three before walking away. Sasuke was determined, Sakura was pensive and Naruto was anxious.

Perfect.

Before the day was over, Kakshi had only one last thing to do. Reading the kids’ files.

Usually, the files kept by the Academy weren’t worth much. He’d had some flags raised previously, especially the first team that had been shoved onto him. Those he knew from the paperwork that they wouldn’t make the cut. But as a rule, a quick read would only tell him which were their best and worst areas, or which buttons to push to better put them under pressure.

He had a feeling, knew it almost, that these three would be different.

He spread the three folders he’d gotten from the Academy’s archives on his kitchen table, plus a few others. “Now let’s see…” He’d go in the order the Hokage had taken him through their homes.

Naruto’s files were… thick. He leafed through them. Disciplinary notice, disciplinary notice, absence notice… from the Academy, they painted a grim picture. Barely adequate grades, a lot of cooperation and authority issues, only his psychological profile redeemed him. That and the village’s need to have the Nine-Tails under control. Umino Iruka had done a detailed breakdown of what Naruto was, pretended to be and needed. He mentally jotted down the name of the chunnin. According to him, Naruto would flourish with guided care and proper attention.

Well, Kakashi would sort of agree. There were issues but, if the team did somehow prove themselves worthy, they were correctable.

The other pile of files were the highlights of his surveillance records. The last three years only. Those files were actually less telling about Naruto, but more about his environment.

So, he could work with Naruto, maybe. His profile was good for teamwork, as long as he surpassed the attention-seeking behaviors he was conditioned to.

Uchiha Sasuke, Kakashi was less certain about. He was familiar with the mentality the twelve-year old was exhibiting, personally so even. His files also contained surveillance, but unlike Naruto’s there were less personal details in the Academy files. He was a very well rounded ninja, top grades in almost everything. No issues with his classmates, absolutely none baring a note that he’d been the target, but not involved, of several schoolyard scuffles. Girls at that age, it seemed, were always the same.

Sasuke was unlikely to pass his real test, Kakashi surmised. At best, he was probably going to act like he had when Minato-sensei had tested them. The impulse was going to have to come from outside, from Naruto or Sakura. On the other hand, he wasn’t likely to fail the test… probably.

Sasuke’s career as a ninja was going to hinge on his teammates. Pretend teamwork could evolved very naturally into real bonds.

Finally, Sakura, the mysterious one. She didn’t have surveillance records, but a lengthy medical file instead. He decided to start there. First record of note was from eight years old and… oh, well. Chakra pathway defects? He read on, interested. It seemed she was like Gai’s student, but… he cross-referenced the medical and school records. So she’d become able to use ninjutsu later, that was something.

If anything, Sakura was an anomaly. Unable to use ninjutsu, she’d become a taijutsu specialist, then started showing strange but remarkable progress in the other ninja disciplines. Her files were all over the place. Taijutsu second only to Sasuke, ninjutsu and genjutsu that had to be evaluated separately and had little comparison to her peers, near perfect theory, a bland psychological profile and… he leafed through a series of records, a kid holding a minimum of three part-time jobs since she was nine. He could see where the rough edges she had came from.

So she was reliable and mature, but had lived as an independent for years. Almost like an adult. Kakashi was going to have to put her on the spot. The distant attitude she’d taken towards both the boys and himself had him leaning towards her being more likely to fail the second part of his test. A good ninja, perhaps, but not the kind Kakashi… wanted to nurture in his, hypothetical, team.

He didn’t want to repeat his generation’s mistakes, true. But it wouldn’t do to make entire new mistakes as well.

---

More Kakashi POV.​

 

10.

Killing the prey before eating it gives me more bang for the buck, more fireworks per… ehm… more power per literal pound. Of flesh. One day I shall stop being uncomfortable with my power. ‘Tis not the day!

In reality, how this translated was that what blood I had drank from Victor’s still warm corpse and the… well, I’d ended up taking my blade to his elbow and stabiddy stabbed and sawed until I’d liberated an entire forearm. I wasn’t sure if I’d dissociated or depersonalized because all of this was very theoretical knowledge of what had happened. My brain had registered all of this (hence the nightmares these last nights) and shoved it under the socks in the deepest drawer and closed it shut.

Anyway. I’d bit the bullet (and arm) and choked down Victor’s ar. It involved a lot of crying and almost puking. Eating bugs was almost better. A fat lot of good my ability to eat anything was, when the psychological impact of killing and eating people still made me nauseous!

Again, anyway! I hadn’t been in the right mental framework to direct the power I was gaining. Without me, it apparently followed whatever subconscious cues I was giving out. At the time, namely, it went something along the lines of: 1 oh my god I killed Victor; 2 the Empire is going to come after me; 3 I’m going to get Victor’s power; 4 somebody is going to connect the dots; 5 Kill Order; 6 Birdcage. That train of thought blew through several stations without pausing.

Thus, power nº4, Victor’s skill vampirism, was all geared towards subtlety. I’d traded quantity for range with Skitter’s, sacrificed speed with Panacea’s, flexibility with Marquis’, and with Victor’s I’d ended up trading speed and power for range and flexibility. I was now not a skill vampire but a skill sponge. I passively absorbed the skills of people just by being near them. That sounded better than Victor, but it wasn’t quite like that. For one, my version was slow. Barely better than actually putting in the effort to learn the skills. I’d say I got, per person, about a fraction of a percent per hour. Plus, I couldn’t turn it off, I couldn’t focus it on specific people, and I didn’t choose which skills I was absorbing.

The upsides? The range was good, like several dozen meters. And because it was so weak and slow, it was basically undetectable. People just naturally regained what little they lost to me. It as perfect.

It ended up turning out quite well, you know for a fuck up of a night that basically reignited several gang conflicts.

Oh yeah, I haven’t mentioned that yet?

Riiight.

So, long story short, Victor was killed. And mutilated. The police were the ones who ended up as the first responders, and they called the PRT but somewhen during that kerfuffle somebody definitely told a reporter or seven. The next morning, I turned on the TV as I packed what little I had from my motel room, and front page news, Victor was dead.

Who done it? Well, the nazis were blaming the “barbaric” asians. The immigrant coalition was not of one voice but had not taken responsibility. Vigilantism was a possibility. Or a rogue Teeth member.

I’d ended up dropping a grenade in Brockton Bay and now several groups were locally prodding at the Empire’s borders, the Empire was being extra aggressive towards everybody, the ABB was matching them, and several other groups were chomping at each other and the territories of bigger gang powers. It wasn’t quite a gang war yet, but tensions were definitely up there.

Ahaha, mea culpa?

Ugh, Coil was definitely going to use this to expand his influence, ‘hire’ more people… and that control freak was definitely going to have Tattletale investigate what had happened. I was precog immune, there was a good chance that I’d crashed his timelines like a bull in a china shop.

Fuck didn’t begin to express my feelings about this.

The current ‘mood’, for lack of a better term, was going to end sooner or later. I predicted a Sonner’s Rock meeting with concession and battle lines drawn anew. The ongoing mystery of Victor’s killer was likely to stay unresolved for a while because I was going lay the fuck low.

I’d amassed enough money from my nightly wallet borrowings that I got myself a room at a slightly better motel for a week. Then I used my disposable funds to buy myself a few art supplies, parked myself in a coffee shop close to an office with a nearby ATM machine, and bugged that thing. Ants underneath the ATM’s keys, a few marked individuals, and two days later I was much richer.

Did Taylor know how good her powers were for subtle operations? Because damn. Between taking money from people’s wallets, stealing credit cards and codes, and just plain finding coins on the ground, if there was an issue I wasn’t having, it was money.

---

i basically only write this when i'm on the verge or just past a mental crisis. oh yeah, i discovered i had failed a class six months after the exams bc i keep fucking up!​

 

11.

I tested Victor’s power by spending the day near the arts building of Brockton Bay’s community college. It was always so nice to look like a college student. But, well, I discovered it worked. I got fractionally, eclectically better at several things. Several instruments, drawing and painting techniques, art history and critique… I could see myself having a future like this.

These were good skills to have.

However, I knew from recent experience that what I needed were combat applicable skills. Oh, and forgery. Spending the day near a police station, however, was not an option. Not a good option anyway. I was trying to avoid suspicion, not cause it.

If I had a job, this would be so much easier. I could just spend my day working and passively leech skill points from people. Janitorial work was the best option, followed maybe by warehouse work or retail. A salary would be a nice bonus too.

My biggest hurdle was the lack of a valid id. Nobody had bothered me until now, but Brockton Bay did have a big immigrant community. Mostly illegal. People were willing to look the other way for cheap work, and motels probably knew better than to press. I was, however, really white. People were going to expect me to have the proper papers sooner or later.

Getting those was going to cost a lot of money. And getting the contacts to get those was also going to cost money.

I could feed myself just fine and hop between motels, but I was aware that my theft carried, you know, an ever increasing risk of discovery.

I needed to find, like, a drug house or another criminal enterprise that I could rob. If I couldn’t do that within the next two weeks, I was going to hit that casino the Undersiders had hit. I didn’t feel an ounce for casino owners and their profit margins. Bug recon team go!

In the meanwhile, I was alternating between the university, local music schools and trying out classes at gyms and so. I took coffee and read some book (Earth Bet had fascinating fantasy books) near the back of a couple of police stations. Skill Get was an ongoing project by virtue of, you known, me being unable to shut it down.

My other big project was mapping out how I was going to get at Fleur’s grave.

So, thankfully, it seemed she had been buried and not cremated. New Wave must have been sufficiently WASP! However, her gravesite was not public. It was taking a lot of library work to get a location. I got the date of her death, her burial, and pictures to geo-locate where it might have been. That combined with obscure but existing fan sites and cape tourism info, had led me to where I was probably going to find her.

There were two hiccups. One, did you know that cemeteries are surveilled? Yeah, I wasn’t surprised to learn that. And Fleur was buried in an ‘upper-class’ cemetery. But that was fine, I was sure I could bypass that with the power of remote controlled bugs. Two, the remains had likely been vaulted, that is, the caffeine was inside a burial vault of metal or concrete. That didn’t make it inaccessible… I had the Skitterpan combo. But it was going to slow down the operation.

I needed to have my bugs dig little tunnels to the right grave (ants time). I needed to concoct whatever substances were needed to eat through the vault (abomination time). And then I was going to have to have my bugs carry a dead body piece by piece through a small hole and several dozens of meters of underground tunnels.

The things I was ready to do for power… Kind of a meh one too.

Anyway, acids, caustics. Answer my prayers oh not-wikipedia.

---

this story either moves very fast or not at all. uhm. time to roll for random encounter. i should make a list of skills they are mooching.​