Chapter 138 - Arc 9 - Sending a Message, and at Least there's Good News... kinda

Sakura being horrendously out of her depth has always been one of my favorite parts of the story and even if I don't think this arc is portraying quite the way I wanted, I will say her being out of her depth has been a constant and fun theme. I think the arc itself would actually be awesome on a binge read, but in chapters like this I worry the pure amount of content and context relating to characters that are completely my own comes across as less fun creativity and more like an odd flexing.

That being said, tell me Kishi wouldn't have done this on a whim if he could and had the desire, just like, suddenly having an arc of new powerful characters and playing with the MC having to learn a new set of rules? This is so Naruto it's stupid.

Just needs more Rasengan and Clones, really.

I wanna try and wrap up this part of the arc in the next few chapters and then move onto the game, followed by the aftermath. Most of the information I want out there is out, and now it's just a matter of Sakura putting things together and making decisions.

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Retreating to her room - she’s read enough anyway - Sakura can’t help but notice several nobles are out and about. There’s a snake woman and a human trading verbal blows, over there is some kind of vampire lady, she might have actually made note of her during the meeting? She’s unsure. None of them seem to notice her or Akari, or if they do they go out of their way not to mention it. The king’s daughter is wandering around aimlessly and Sakura half expects her to come talk but once again, completely ignored.

If Akari wasn’t here she’d be listening in on conversations and trying to figure out who’s room is which so she could figure out who to take over with Ino’s jutsu, or at least have a real conversation, but she already has a guest so it’d be pointless and likely quickly called out.

Once actually in her room, the smol girl at her side whistles. “She gave you a really nice room. I knew she liked you but this might be a bit much.” It’s an odd statement, Sakura’s gaze tells her it’s old fashioned and lacking in modern convenience. It’s not particularly big for a supposed noble of some other world, and it even lacks a computer for her to game on. She can’t find an outlet to charge her handhelds for the life of her, not that she has any on her even if she could find an outlet. Everything she had on her was destroyed when everything exploded, but she could probably get someone to go grab some of her things from home if she had an outlet. Reaver was willing to sneak past Konoha’s forces and travel all the way to Sakura Country just to confirm it exists, stopping by her home is barely even a chore in comparison.

She wonders how much she’d have to bribe someone to go tell her mother she’s not dead.

“I could do it for you,” She jumps in place and looks down to catch the little girl giving her a bright smile, “your eyes tell a story I’ve seen a thousand times,” She explains, “you’ve lost everything, you’ve been captured by the enemy or etcetera, and you look like you’re homesick. You probably just wished you had a way to send a message back home, and you do so why bother pretending like I don’t know what you want? I can tell your parents any message you desire, but in return I need you to do me a teensy little favor.”

“Okay.” This is probably what Saruka was talking about when she told her to mingle and try different ideas. She also told her the people here would eat her alive if she showed weakness, did she mean this girl? She’s adorable though, she can’t intend malice…

Sakura can’t help but notice there’s not really anywhere to sit here except the one chair for the study and her bed, so she pulls that out and sits on it. Her intent is to have Akari jump onto the bed, but when she plops herself in Sakura’s lap she feels her entire body heat up in embarrassment. So much for not wanting to be called a kid!

She’s squeezing her, it’s happening, she’s wanted Hanabi to jump in her lap for months and she’s not passing up the opportunity. This is her life now. She’s warm at least, and if she just pictures her how she looks and not on what she says, it’s actually a perfectly normal interaction. She’s going with that. “What would you like?”

“Well, hmm…” The small albino girl taps her own nose with a sharp black nail, “what can you give me?”

“... you didn’t have anything in mind?” Sakura asks, blinking.

“I do but I’m curious what you think this favor is worth.” She explains, “mostly though, I just wanted to meet you. Your world seems to think you’re important, the Dark Lord is bowing down to it like a puppy, and I think your struggle is cute.” This girl thinks she’s cute?

“The way you worded that made it sound kind of sadistic.” Sakura manages a short laugh, short because Akari cuts it in half when she opens her mouth-

“Yeppers!” Sakura jumps a little in place at the quick and enthusiastic response. She looks down to find Akari’s head tilted back so she can see eyes that look like they want to devour her. That’s pretty normal here, what’s not normal is the sadistic gleam in them, or the way her sharp teeth shine with a smile that’s just too damn wide. She finds herself very unsettled very suddenly. “I think human suffering is delightful, and make no mistake, you share more with them than you do me.”

“Uhhh…”

“But the baby Dark Lord wants us to be friends, so let’s be friends.” She was trying before she said that! To think some people think she’s bad with people, this girl takes the cake. Despite likely having lower charm than her, the system isn’t saying she’s lying so…

“I don’t think I can be friends with someone that enjoys my pain… wouldn’t you be incentivized to cause it? What if I sent you to my home and you hurt my family, or if I told you who’s important to me in the game and you chose them specifically to let them die?”

“Mnn, that is a problem isn’t it.” There’s a little bit of mocking joy in those eyes, they sparkle with malicious delight, “here’s a tip, since the little girl posing as a big bad scary lady wants you to succeed. Trust in people’s self interest. I won’t kill your family because that would make the witty baby Dark Lord mad, I won’t kill your friends because that would be a waste of my time. I won’t kill you, because I find this funny… and again it would anger the Dark Lord.”

“I see, um… so, any ideas for the favor?” Sakura can’t help the way she gulps as the awkwardness sets in.

“Tell Saruka that I have made contact, that I was very nice, and that we’re friends. In return, I will go tell your mother that you are alive. I’ll even bring a picture to prove it.”

“You have cameras?” Sakura asks.

“I have a lot of things I shouldn’t.” Again, nothing tells her this girl is lying, which is concerning.

“It’s a deal.” Sakura decides with a long, painful sigh. Haku is probably losing it too. She does wonder if the Naruto clones are still around, can they operate while he’s dead? Also, how does the Kyuubi work in a soul crystal? Does that even work? How many layers of sealing are going on there that Naruto can be properly added into the game without blowing up the universe or something.

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“I had a thought.” Sakura enters Saruka’s chamber while closing her stats. 119 Mental, in one more she can upgrade her Necromancy, maybe she could even work with humans at that point? It’d be bad, probably just mindless husks, but the simple fact is that humans are possible, “you’re a much more skilled Necromancer than me.”

“This is true.” Saruka admits without looking up from her writing desk, Sakura bets she’s been working at it all day.

“I just mean, why couldn’t you resurrect my friends and let everyone else do the game? I know it’s selfish to request that but you clearly think I’m valuable, and I would owe you a lot…” Sakura tries, approaching the desk out of curiosity. She won’t look in on official business but what if it’s about the game? It appears to just be a letter, which makes her avert her eyes as quickly as they landed on the parchment. It seems parchment isn’t so rare that they can’t send letters.

“There’s a lot of issues with that method.” The lord of the chamber says, “but so you don’t go asking someone who’s a lot more likely to take advantage, let me go over them.” She pushes her letter away to face Sakura, and gives her attention in a way almost no one did for most of her life. Well, aside from her parents and apparently Ino. “I won’t make normal zombies for ethical reasons, you know that, so let’s consider intelligent zombies. They need mana to survive, and they’ll never get stronger. Their careers as a fighting force are effectively over, but being forced to run a shop or do manual labor isn’t worse than death. The issue there is they’ll always be reliant on my mana, which means they can’t go back to your world.”

“Err…” That would suck, but in Ino’s case maybe Inoichi would move? Sakura’d move, she could move here for her friends.

“They also wouldn’t ever truly be the same, it’d be a magical reconstruction of their brains, not actually their brains, and worse off if I die they would just drop dead permanently. My life isn’t exactly guaranteed, I’m the juiciest target for assassination in a war.” Saruka finishes, lifting her first finger.

“Ah…”

“Second option, I resurrect them as higher undead like Reaver. They can still gain strength, if anything they’re better off. They do maintain their memories, are their own people, and can go about their lives as normal. However, that would be of great cost to me. Enough cost, I wouldn’t allow them to leave my side, ever.” Saruka lifts a second finger.

“Ah…” Saruka isn’t her friend, Sakura needs to remember that. She’s just so honest with her it feels like companionship. People don’t just say what they mean, and when they do they aren’t normally so easy to understand. It feels like talking to Sasuke or herself, except not on her side.

“The third option is a formal resurrection, like is planned for the game. The amount of mana I would need to expend to resurrect anymore than one person would be massive. Either I would need to give up valuable resources I can’t afford to lose while at war, or I would have to give up a great amount of my personal power while again, in the middle of a war.”

“But one would be fine?” Sakura asks, her heart starting to race-

“That was you.” And at the Dark Lord’s words she feels her heart crash. “I suppose since their souls are preserved I could resurrect one every two months or so, but anytime one of my generals died I might need to resurrect them instead. A few bad events - and again, we are at war - and suddenly you’re dead of old age, you’ve gotten two friends back, and I’ve stopped caring.”

“Right…” This was a bust, this was just a huge waste of time. “So if I gained the power to resurrect them as greater undead, uh, would that work?”

“Do you think you can do that before tomorrow?” Saruka asks, giving her a pitying look, “I’m sorry, Sakura, but I’m not in a position to give you charity. I want to, I can’t. So unless you think you can negotiate a peace treaty for a while…”

“You know what, it’s worth a shot.” Saruka’s awkward squeak as Sakura marches out of her chambers brings a grin to the redhead’s lips. She kind of wishes her hair wasn’t dyed, it’s going to become pink halfway through living here and people are going to question it- “Actually, wait, first, Akari said everyone sees through my secret identity, is that true?” She turns just as she’s about to walk through the door.

“No, you’ve done a great job so far. You should ignore anything Akari says, she completely lacks an understanding of how other people see the world. Imagine you existed in several different places at once, and all of those yous shared the same mind. Except, it’s not just several different places, it’s also several different realities, and they aren’t even necessarily connected.”

“I think I’ll just take your word for it and not think about that.” Sakura decides, before continuing on her journey to see the king, only to stop mid step and turn back again “oh and uh, Akari was friendly, helpful, and we’re friends now.” The older woman laughs loud enough she can hear it through her door as it closes, Sakura finds herself wondering what the point of that was if Saruka’s not going to believe her.

“Wait a minute-” She once again walks into Saruka’s room, her cheeks ablaze with embarrassment at having to interrupt her own sudden departure yet again. At least the lady of darkness seems amused, “so um, Naruto has a sealed being of incredible power inside of him.” Even if it’s relevant it does feel bad to just spill his secret like that, oh well, “how is his soul crystal stable? Does that even work? Gaara too, actually.”

“I actually did notice that,” The violet haired woman rolls her broad shoulders, “how can I explain this, does your world have durability systems?”

“Err, let’s say yes.” Technically they do, things do break when stressed enough so like, it’s not just in games.

“Soul crystals are not infinitely capable, they slowly wear down depending on their grade and the souls contained within them. In their cases I had to use significantly higher grade soul crystals, and I also had to capture the two souls separately.” The devilish woman explains with a bit of a grin, lecturing seems to make her happy.

“You mean to say Naruto does not have the Kyuubi sealed within him,” She says, “to be clear, you have the Kyuubi in a completely separate gem.”

“That and some sand creature, the issue is, their crystals are degenerating really fast. Hence the speed of the game, I need it resolved within the week or they’re going to explode and take this entire area with it.”

“Ah…” So they’re a nuke, there are two tactical nukes nearby. She has already died from explosions once and she’d rather not let it happen again but… “Could you just throw the crystals into enemy lands and forget about it? I don’t think either Naruto or Gaara would actually want them back.”

“That would destroy an absolutely massive amount of land and piss off the elementals beyond belief. Maybe if I was a few hundred years older, as is, they are going right back inside your friends when they revive.”

“Isn’t it only a sixty six percent chance they revive?” Sakura asks.

“If those two somehow manage to lose, I will pay the extra crystals for them. I need those souls back inside them pronto.” That’s good to know actually, that’s two people she doesn’t have to care about. In fact, rigging their loss might actually be a good thing…

She’s not sure how she feels about this, but finally she has nothing more to ask and a King to hunt down.