Chapter 43/44 - Sakura's going through some things.

Another double feature. Here's Sunday and Monday's chapter, I hope you all enjoy.
43 is a little gruesome, it's a short moment and as always I was vague but if you're squeamish, fair warning.

Everyone have a happy day! See you Wednesday for the What If.

----------------------------------- Chapter 43 ------------------------

Sakura wipes some of the last exchange’s consequences off her hands onto her sword. Her shirt’s covered in power now, that’s cool at least, she probably would have taken more injury from herself during the fight so it’s almost like she didn’t get sneak attacked at all! It especially helps that needles are the one thing her chainmail isn’t great with, type advantage, not what she wanted here. “I’m going to take a guess and say you’re not the innkeeper.”

“Whatever do you mean?” The girl asks, head tilting to the side ever so slightly. A finger lands on her cheek, and she gives Sakura a thoughtful look. “You were very rude, maybe you should apologize?”

“Uh…” What in the actual hell? It doesn’t matter, she has an opponent in her face and they need to go down before the trio come down here and get sneak attacked too. Well, no, they’d probably be pretty helpful all things considered. To call them or not to call them… The choice is made a moment later when the girl’s hair raises into the air on its own, and starts shooting needles at her from across the room.

“You can only have so much of that.” Sakura grunts out as she dodges to the side, darting over and lifting a table to use as a shield. It works, dozens of thunks landing against it, but it’s unwieldy, what with having four legs, so she takes a moment to crouch behind it and start snapping the four legs off of it, then with a nod to herself she rams one of them through its center. “Cool, strong enough to do dumb anime stuff like that now.” She appraises herself with pride and joy flowing through her in equal parts like she’s not even in a fight. She jumps back to her feet, pulling it up by her new handle just in time to block another barrage of hair needles that barely push her back at all and fail to break her stance. They’re not sharp enough or shot with enough force to get through the table either, leaving Sakura wondering what she’s actually doing.

“If you’re thinking of outlasting me, think again.” The fake innkeeper says with a creepy laugh that sends chills up Sakura’s spine. “I can regrow them.”

“Not forever.” Sakura denies, “chakra isn’t infinite, and doesn’t come back very fast either, and creating matter like that is rather intensive.” Her own earth affinity has taught her much, creating a single race track like at the Academy took her out of commission twice, and that didn’t even involve creating matter so much as changing it. “Unless you secretly ate a tailed beast, I think you’re bluffing.”

“Ate a, what?” Good, she’s got the girl confused, that’s just what she needs. Measuring the distance between the two of them Sakura needs exactly one second to cross it. Measured, planned, got it.

“They’re rather chaotic, try eating wood instead, it’s high in fiber!” She drops the table mid-air, and spins around, using her full force to hit the single leg she forced through it with the kind of kick she’d send at Naruto during an especially heated spar, that should send the entire thing towards-

“Gkkll-guaah-buuu-” She hears it before she sees it. The wet explosion, the splatter, the gargled breaths. The table hits the floor, not having moved at all, and she finds it’s lacking its leg.

“Oh no.” She looks up, assessing her opponents actions and annoyed at herself for letting her thoughts wander and her gaze lose the enemy. Kakashi would have a field day with her, but she’s too preoccupied staring at the scene she’s created. The girl’s clothes, covered in life, the counter, a horrifying mess, the girl she’d been fighting? Pinned.

“Fuck.” Okay ,so killing her had always been the intention, or maybe at least incapacitating her with a few missing parts so they could interrogate her before bringing her to a medic or something, but she hadn’t intended to kill her that particular way, and somehow that changes things.

Watching the confusing girl struggle to pull a wooden pole out of her chest reminds Sakura of something she’d rather not need to be reminded of. The fact that she’s suspended a few feet in the air makes it all the worse.

She can’t look. “I’m sorry.” She finds herself mumbling despite knowing damn well she’s not.

Well she is but, not in the way that’s worth saying. A pang of guilt flows through her stomach, and something in her stomach does flips and flops at every wet gulp and spatter she hears.

“I’m just gonna go upstairs.” For the first time in years, she finds tears stain her eyes for something not drama related or very personal, and she has no idea why. This was just another enemy, she didn’t even give them her name, why does she matter more than the demon twins or Gato?

“I’m really sorry.” Is it the sword?

Is it not actually that easy to take a life, and it’s just that she’s used the sword for every encounter so doing it without a slash is so much harder?

No, it can’t be that, was it the suddenness and unexpectedness of not intending it that way?

She’d always intended to cross the distance and slash her while she was distracted by the table, so it can’t be the act itself. Whether the girl choking on her own life fluid over there would have died would have entirely depended on how well she could dodge, Sakura wasn’t going to hold back the slash for mercy.

She’ll ask Iruka back home maybe, unhelpful as he was before, he probably has tons of experience with this exact thing.

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“So we leave you alone for ten seconds and you’ve already killed someone.” Tenten scolds her, arms crossed and buns up in a fuss. The blacksmith shop worker slash ninja doesn’t look very happy with her, but it’s a different kind of unhappiness. It’s not ‘you psycho’ and more like a jest.

Did Neji have a conversation with her instead of coming down to fight?

“Hey, she attacked me.” Sakura sighs, looking at the sight. At least there wasn’t a lot of property damage. Well, okay, there’s a new hole in the wall. “I’m surprised you guys actually left me, she was kind of obvious. I kinda thought you’d take a few steps out of sight and wait.”

“Yes, she was obvious.” Neji states calmly. He’s gotten real close to her, lifting the corpse by its hair and gazing into its dead eyes. “We were planning to investigate as soon as you came up, we were having a team meeting in our room. If you have a plan like wait until your allies are just out of sight and then start a confrontation, maybe communicate it directly instead of assuming a completely new team will predict your actions and mannerisms.”

“Ah…” Sakura trails. That’s a pretty accurate, reasonable, and harsh criticism actually. Neji comes off like a complete pompous ass but he’s not dumb. She’s smart, really smart, but she’s not thinking about other people enough. She’s forced her team to work with her by memorizing the kind of thing she’ll do and predict her, but that’s not how a healthy teamwork should go.

Inwardly, she wonders if half of her team being so brutal with her about death is because she isn’t giving them enough insight into her plans and thoughts? Would they be less freaked if she had a conversation with them? Probably not, but she’ll try it when she gets home. “I guess you can grab your money back,” she jokes with a sheepish grin.

“I didn’t give her money, I gave her Gai coin,” Neji answers, “it’s a whole thing.”

“Gai sensei has the most valuable of currency minted in his honor! It’s a collector’s dream!” Lee shouts, unphased by the uh, destruction of a person half a dozen feet to his left.

“Uh-huh…” Sakura trails, “well, we should probably explore and figure out what even happened here.”

“You killed someone with a table leg.” Tenten answers helpfully.

“No I mean…” Sakura doesn’t even finish her sentence, Tenten’s smirky smile lets her know that’s a joke. Why in the actual hell did offing someone make Tenten less afraid of her?

No matter how much higher her charm gets, Sakura gets the feeling she’ll never understand some women.

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It turns out finding people takes exactly ten seconds when you have Neji around. He activates his Byakugan, and they’re in the mead cellar moments later untying an older man and a woman in her early twenties. With Naruto and Sasuke this would have been a whole thing, but with this group it’s in, out, and they’re sitting down at the counter drinking booze on the house moments later.

Well, staring at it. “Is it really okay to drink this?” Sakura asks, “we’re on duty, and I’ve never had it before.”

“It would be rude to refuse,” Neji says, “and it is one cup, if you can’t handle one measly glass of alcohol then the Academy poison resistance training standards have fallen tremendously. I have already looked into it with the Byakugan to ensure it’s not poisoned further, do not worry yourself over trife nonsense.”

“Ah, that is true…” Hyuuga can just do that, they’re crazy. Having eyes like that must make everything convenient, maybe one day she can get a trait that’ll give her something like that. Technically they’re bloodlines and those can’t just be gained out of nowhere, but her game system doesn’t try to pretend it’s beholden to her world’s rules so…

Besides, Neji’s right. There was that whole year where one of their extra classes just kind of poisoned them every day. Not a lot, just enough to give them a good idea of what being poisoned feels like, and to raise their natural tolerances. It was normally during chakra training, so that their bodies could get used to manufacturing a chakra response to illicit substances.

And most ninjas do drink… “Alright, I guess.”

The moment the liquid hits her lips, she vomits.

It’s not even a little vomit, it’s everywhere.

--------------------------------------------- Chapter 44 -------------------------

It turns out that the innkeeper was quite knowledgeable about what was going on around here, and the moment Leaf ninjas arrived in the town the enemy kidnapped him and his daughter to stop them from being informed. That girl had been in charge of the job, and instead of seeking brutal efficiency she’d been rather nice to them and took a lot of extra time ensuring they were comfortable in their new confinement before she left. She’d even promised to come get them after the Leaf Ninjas were disposed of. This had meant she didn’t leave before they got here.

This eventually led to a rather gruesome demise. Sakura had killed a good person. Or, no, she’d killed a less bad person. She’s struggling to put her feelings into words, but it’s not the death itself that’s bothering her, she’s figured that out.

If the innkeeper’s info is to be believed, there are thirty different enemy ninjas in the village, at least, most of them Academy students who got flunked, a couple are even from Konoha, a solid group of the enemy are Genin, and the rest are all Chunin.

Which raises the question of what they do with them all. Konoha citizens being involved definitely complicates matters in a way she wasn’t prepared for. It also explains the weakness of that girl, if she was a kind hearted genin missing nin, she likely wasn’t very strong and just came off intimidating due to her hair ability. Where that came from, Sakura’s not sure, it was probably a Kekei Genkai. Some people use theirs for everything, and never learn anything else. So when their ability is countered by a freaking table, they panic and use it more instead of thinking.

Looking at the info, Sakura can only come to one main conclusion. “We should probably go full out violence.” She gulps at the looks she gets from half her new team, Neji is so stoic at all times it’s kind of unnerving, she can’t but think he’s judging her too. “Look, I get why we’d want to avoid hurting them too much, but they’re going to be executed if we bring them into Konoha proper anyway. The rules are pretty clear about missing ninjas.”

“That’s the phrase that makes it more complicated,” Neji explains, “they’re not all missing ninja. Academy students are never sworn in, and they’re allowed to leave at any time. The students are just bandits.”

“Which Konoha also executes,” Sakura reminds him, “and transporting them all back would be impossible. I’m open to non-lethal suggestions, I’m just not seeing them.”

“Lee is very strong, after we capture them all we could have someone run back to Konoha and rent a carriage, they bring it here and Lee brings it back like a horse.” Tenten suggests.

“And then Konoha executes them, we’ve lost the money on the rental, and someone’s back hurts.” Sakura says, “we don’t avoid death that way, we just prolong our suffering.”

“Yeah but…” Tenten sighs, palming her knees and taking a deep breath. “Do you really want to have thirty-some-odd deaths on your conscience? You looked really ill earlier over one girl.”

“I dunno.” Sakura admits, frowning a little, nibbling her bottom lip. She would have said she wouldn’t care just earlier today but watching that girl die like that… Is she developing empathy for the enemy? Why? Is it the charm? Does a higher charm mean a higher sense of connection to other people? She just assumed it meant she understood people better.

Actually, those might be the same thing. “But they’ll be dead anyway, and one of us could get hurt if we try to take them lightly.” Sakura finishes her answer after a long moment. “I would feel much more guilty over letting you get hurt, than them.”

“As the least senior genin here, you’re far more likely to be hurt than me.” Tenten points out.

“Yeah, but I don’t care about that.” Sakura waves her off like that statement just didn’t compute with her. Most of her wounds from the needles had been surface level, so she barely had to patch herself up at all, so them being missing in the morning shouldn’t cause too many questions.

“We kill the genin and the chunin,” Neji asserts, “we capture the academy students. We’ll figure out what to do with them after, but it’s not our job to determine whether their individual crimes make them bandits or misguided fools. You make a good point about it being dangerous to take them lightly, but that’s not true with the academy students, they’re weak, and we should be able to tie them together and make them walk back with us without much danger.”

“I will take responsibility for guarding them.” Lee finally cuts in out of nowhere. The boy is so quiet during tactical discussions, it’s only when his enthusiasm is helpful that he appears, and it’s probably the biggest thing that distances him from Naruto. It’s a maturity that she didn’t expect on first meeting him. She should get the two of them together, they’d probably learn and improve a lot from their friendship.

Despite Neji being the leader, Tenten and Lee both have their gaze on her, pleading and wide eyed. “I am not going to argue against killing,” Sakura huffs with no small amount of furious indignance, “I would like to not kill them. I just don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

“I will ensure nothing happens!” Lee shouts.

“Though, in a crazy hypothetical, where it’s kill one of the students or let a civilian die…” Sakura trails.

“They die.” Neji says with no small amount of coolness to his tone, like talking about the weather. “It is not our job to determine the fate of criminal civilians unless otherwise specified in the mission terms, which it is not. It is our job to ensure the civilians in this village are able to continue paying taxes after we are done. Collateral damage is strictly prohibited, do what you must to protect village assets.”

“Ah, well, hopefully, it won’t come up. I just really needed to know.” Sakura lets out a long breath she didn’t realize she was holding in. “That’s the kind of thing my team would likely get mad at me for.”

“Your team are rookie genin, death is necessary, bloodlust is not.” Neji speaks.

Tenten nods.

And Lee looks away, but it’s clear he understands. “I’ll do my best.” Sakura slaps a palm in her lap, giving them a big smile.

“Your best resulted in vomit being added to the mess our hosts have to clean up downstairs.” Tenten teases her.

“I didn’t know it’d be that bitter!” Sakura defends herself.

“It’s alcohol!” Tenten laughs.

“I’ve never had it!” Sakura can’t help but feel the conversation flow out of control. She finds them getting into a cycle of laughter and banter that keeps going for a lot longer than she expected. She didn’t expect killing someone and then vomiting all over the bar to be the icebreaker she needed with this team, but if it works, it works.

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The night’s plan was to get some rest while Neji took watch for half the night, and Lee the other half. It felt weird to Sakura to split the watch up, but Neji said he had training in his clan to work on much less sleep, and Lee only ever needed four hours, he just had too much energy to contain.

Sakura pointed out that she only needs about five hours, but she was told Lee had it and unfortunately as the new team member they wouldn’t trust her to keep watch without reserves anyway. It might be necessary on a mission in the field, but out here in a small village they’re fine using their normal methods., So here she is at like three AM, wandering around outside the Inn scoping out the basic area.

There’s a general store, a massive building that’s likely a town hall for administration, dozens of small alleys built into the structure plans specifically so ninjas could navigate in secret despite the fact that the place wasn’t big enough to need stuff like that.

There’s so much here, it’s desolate but it also has a strange type of beauty she’s not used to taking in. Konoha and Wave were different. One was a half dead shipping village, and one’s a fully structured ninja institution where every decision is made with exacting reason and nothing is left up to chance.

To see a normal place without so much thought, structure, and design, it’s honestly relieving. The odds she screws up Wave are a lot lower if someplace just haphazardly put together with a few guidelines can survive.

Nevermind that it’s been taken over by missing ninja, that could happen to pretty much anyone except an actual ninja village. It’s something she’ll have to prepare to defend Wave against eventually. Wave is actually further from Konoha than this village, so odds are it has to deal with something like this eventually if she just leaves it.

Technically it already has, that’s what they saved it from. Is Sakura just a liberation force now?

For once she doesn’t find trouble, which is nice, but it does set her nerves on edge.

This place is about to become an active warzone, she can feel it, tomorrow they will be brawling in the streets. Will this mission be only a few days, or will they be at this for a while? Kakashi seemed to think this mission would be pretty long, but they could probably finish it tomorrow and start heading back if they went in as brutally as possible.

They won’t, but if they did…

There’s always the chance they get reinforcements, but given they sent only one girl to deal with the Inn, it’s unlikely they’re that organized.

Looking at all the buildings, it occurs to her that avoiding collateral damage may be impossible despite it being prohibited, so she takes care to create a mental image of how it looks now. It’s mostly bad, dirty, damaged, but people worked hard to create these buildings and this road and knowing they might destroy some of it tomorrow feels oddly cruel.

This place should be respected to the best of their ability.

Maybe it’s running her own place now that has her respecting other people’s stuff, or maybe it’s that lecture from her parents about treating their home like her own.

A lot swirls through her head, and once again, she can’t help but wonder how Naruto and Sasuke are doing.