Chapter 90 - Arc 6 - Onward, To Suna! - Class Is Out

I had a lot of fun planning this chapter. This arc has an actual plan to it, maybe not scene for scene but more than enough that I don't think it'll have a lot of the issues Arc 4 and 5 did. I mean, I did have plans that came to fruition in them, but they themselves weren't structured like this one.

I do owe 2 Side-stories, and I hope to at least get one done today, maybe one tomorrow. Been busy, sorry about that.

Woo, Arc 6. We made it to Arc 6 people, you have no idea how excited I am to finally get back on my plan with this story. This Arc shouldn't be super long, and we should be ready for the Chunin exams soon. As with all time-skips, there's a lot of expo to get through, I hope I can make it exciting.

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“You know you can’t bring that in here right?” An authoritative voice scolds her, “Sakura, come on.”

“Why not?” She palms her hip and glares at the refined looking woman pointing at the space just beside Sakura vehemence.

“Well it’s… uh.. Scaring the other students.” The woman looks a little taken aback at being questioned. Sakura doesn’t do a lot of that, but then they nicknamed her Little Red despite not wearing a single piece of red, so it’s on them if they can’t handle slightly erratic behavior.

“It’s scary?” Sakura asks, looking to that very space at her side and questioning things.

People have different places in life. Sasuke finds himself at his primary element in the fields, burning something, training, getting ready to kick ass. Naruto finds himself at element in her home, doing chores or discussing business with her mom while in five to six different forms. For Sakura? Being back in the classroom makes her feel alive, it’s too bad today’s her last day of classes for a while.

“Grak. Grak. Grak.” She pats the being at her side while it makes disappointed noises at her.

“Sorry buddy, I wanted to bring you in for my accelerated graduation but I think you have to wait outside.” Torn flesh, black fur, and the full skeletal structure of some kind of devil beast, her main summon stands at almost five feet on all fours and has to go through the door first because she can’t squeeze through at the same time unless she crawls under it. As it’s just short enough to be difficult to crawl under, a logistics error arrives every time they want to go anywhere.

“Why would you think…” Her teacher’s mouth is agape while she once again takes the two of them in. She can tell the instructor is questioning herself, which Sakura appreciates. Favoritism is her favorite kind of tism, after-all.

“Well, because classes helped me get smart enough to make him.” She explains, looking her teacher right in the eyes with a bright smile that Ino would say makes the world better, but as her favorite summon leaves, the students here would probably call it menacing or some other crock of nonsense. Non-ninja are annoyingly finicky.

“Sakura.. You can’t bring a bear to class, living or dead.” The woman explains, slowly.

“Awww…” A part of her wants to argue that technically it’s a dog, several different Inuzuka contributed the parts and souls, they wanted their Ninkin to continue serving Konoha, so when the opportunity was revealed to them they jumped on it and wouldn’t take no for an answer. The Otherworlder told her not to make zombies under any circumstances, but they probably weren’t expecting an entire clan to willingly throw corpses at her, souls and all, for accelerated experimentation and necromancy success. Best she can tell it’s somewhere between a zombie and an intelligent being. It’s capable of situational awareness and she didn’t tell it to leave, it just got that it needed to. But it can’t talk to her, not really, and she’s pretty sure that counts as in the area the monster lady didn’t want her to make. In time she hopes she can improve it, the least she needs is to get eaten or something because she pissed off the salt mine lady.

Still, despite wanting to argue with her, she understands that the teacher isn’t against bears, she just doesn’t want an undead creature in the classroom. “Fine, Ma’am, I’ll just take my seat.” Instead of arguing, she will mope the rest of class, that’s her right as a Haruno!

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[Sakura Haruno

Party Contribution Level 30

HP: 180

Chakra: 60

Strength: 57

Constitution: 60

Dexterity: 60

Agility: 62

Mental: 112

Control: 223

Charm: 28]

Looking over her stats outside of the civilian school she enrolled in - she had a lot of extra time and really needed to get her Mind up, it helps she was sponsored so the classes were free - she pats her favorite summon and contemplates.

Aside from constitution, her physical stats have largely taken a back burner to city planning, streaming management research, working with Naruto, and studying. Constitution is easy to train over long periods of time, she just tires herself out until she passes out, but the rest is a lot harder and requires dedicated effort.

Otherworldly power? Necromancy? Legitimate management? Sign her up, and sign herself up she did. It was a lot of work, but going to school was the right move for her ‘vacation’.. She signed up for advanced classes, so technically all the students were much older than her, but she quickly became the class’ beloved mascot. Well, she hopes that’s why they made hurtful nicknames for her. Like a positive kind of mean, right? That’s what Ino said.

“Glad to be out of classes?” She’s getting pretty used to Sasuke just appearing beside her, and while she could raise her ability to spot him and go through a whole complex arc of training, she’s happy to just let him have the victory. It’s not like she really has to worry about it, her summon notices him, and if he was trying to hurt her, her skills would come into play and she probably wouldn’t get one-tapped. Especially not with 180 life, she’s come so far! Her healing canisters don’t even fully heal her anymore, which is crazy. They do fully heal her in Ino’s hands, but that’s because Ino’s gone hard into learning healing recently. She doesn’t gain skills as quickly or as easily as Sakura, but real hard work and rigorous effort is still rewarded with conceptual abilities.

It’s like Ino got her ability but worse, and she’s okay with that. It’s better than not having the ability at all. She got to share the most important thing in her life with her best friend, and she’s not going to complain about it even if the system thinks there’ll be “consequences.”

“Nope,” she admits, “I love it here, in another life I became a scholar and advanced the entire medical system or something.”

“So you have regrets?” Sasuke asks with a gentle smirk to his features. In another world she probably found those worth swooning for, here she barely notices the changes in his composure.

“Nope…” She ruffles the fur beside her, mournful of the time lost in the field. Two months.

Ino kept her off the best job in the world with her team for two freaking months! Just thinking about it makes her want to scream. If Ino was any less of a great friend, she’d be on her shitlist.

“Not even that you haven’t named that thing yet?” He asks her with a tease to his tone, “most people name their pets.”.

“I don’t want to name him something stupid, like Hunger, or Thirsty.” She explains, looking her beast right in his hollowed out, black eye holes and fluffing the fur on his face. “I’m sure the Inuzuka will come up with a nickname at some point, and then I’ll just call him that. It’s their dogs, after-all.”

“Fair… Let’s go, Kakashi’s getting antsy.” Sasuke kicks off the wall he’s leaning on, jumping to an enthusiastic stand.

“Kakashi’s been antsy for a month and a half.” Sakura huffs at him.

“Yeah but now he’s really antsy.”

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“As you are aware, Konoha is hosting the Chunin exams this year.” The Hokage barely wastes time with greetings before he’s into mission mode and explaining their private assignment. She had originally thought they were going to be sent to the Daimyo for something small so she could collect her reward for taking down Fierro - well her third reward - but it turns out that’s not the case at all. Something more urgent has come up, and Kakashi’s the best to send for it, which means they’re the best to send for it. “It’s tradition to send a team to escort one of the more high profile teams your ally is sending you. In this case, Gaara, Kankuro, and Temari are coming to the Chunin exams held soon. As the ones we will be escorting are the Kazekage’s children, we have decided to send a team with similar ages to Gaara. I trust that things will go smoothly…”

“Yes, Naruto?” Naruto’s hand shoots up faster than lightning like he was back in class. What has Kakashi been doing to them while she’s been barred from proper activities by her best friend?

“What’s a Kazekage?” Naruto asks, “is it like the Hokage but for Suna?”

“Yes, Naruto.” At least the Hokage is patient with him, though Sakura does wonder if a part of their mission assignment here is actually because of her. She’ll be able to do a lot with Scan in a foreign country. She leveled it up recently at school, grinding it out is one of the few things she could do skill wise while watching the lectures. It’s not like she could practice her slashes or bond with Hunger much while in class. They made her stop doing that on day two. Though if the Hokage doesn’t tell her to, she’s not going to scan a damn thing. The least she needs is to set off some kind of conceptual alarm and piss off a foreign Kage off orders.

[Sarutobi Hiruzen

Title: God of Shinobi

Danger Level: The Second Most Dangerous Being In This Country, and only off First place by a little.

Narrative: Surviving through multiple wars, and coming out on top no matter what, the grandfatherly figure before you could erase you by accident. He seems to like you, don’t screw that up.]

She can pry for more information but she’s pretty sure trying to pry into his secrets is treason, and she bets he’d know somehow.

“I warn you, Gaara is well known for being very touchy, and you should approach the Kazekage’s son with caution,” the Hokage continues, pointedly looking at her, “especially you, Sakura. In the event you should manage to anger him, I suggest you simply return to Konoha instead of trying to make amends.”

“Why are you looking at me specifically?” She grumbles, while the old man stares at her knowingly. That her whole team is doing it doesn’t help. If she’s that bad, why are they sending her at all!?

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Packing up her things for her trip, she can’t help but smile at the supportive presence in her room. Ino’s gotten a lot more involved in her life recently - who’da guessed - and it’s nice to see her sitting on the bed, kicking her feet while being completely unhelpful. “I really like the new outfit.” Her blonde friend says. Blonde is an important distinction now, because Sakura’s hair is a different color now! She decided to shift to a full, almost samurai look and figured if she’s going to be an awesome Samurai she has to have blood red hair! Well, Ino decided, and she went along with it.

Her armor is less efficient chainmail mesh now - though there is still some of that in all the weak spots - and more full out dark red stained plate armor from the land of iron. Haku had it imported for her as a gift for his twenty thousand sub special, and since it was specially customized to be easy to move in for her, she hella wasn’t denying it!

She’s not a fan of wearing metal footwear, but she’s getting used to it. Okay she’s cheating a little, she hollowed out the bottoms and replaced them with wood, but like, crafting has to have an effect on her life and that’s where she decided it was best used. The cloak on her back is a slightly brighter red, more of a pink mixture that makes it stand out amidst her hair and garb, and it hugs her warmly. As long as she doesn’t go anywhere too hot in the near future, she’ll be - “oh my word, I’m about to go to a desert.”

“Yeah?” Ino tilts her head, “you should probably wear something else.”

“You think!?”

She decides to save this outfit switch for the Chunin exam, lest she die.