Chapter 41/42, Double Feature Time!

Sakura goes on an adventure and tries to figure out the complex team relations of another team with her now acceptably bad Charm, while Kakashi tortures the boys.

Sorry about the wait, but here you go, here's that delicious chapter.

Gonna try my hardest to ensure this Sunday/Monday cycle doesn't screw me up. Which'll be a lot easier than last time since I'm not moving in the middle of my writing week this time. All things considered, the move has gone a lot better than I expected. I keep waiting for the shoe to drop, and in a few ways it has, but nothing I couldn't fix. I do wish my internet was better... Oh well, I'll live.

----------------------------------------- Chapter 41 -----------------------------

“So, what’s this team normally like?” She finally decides to prod the green boy after a few hours on the road. It’s not very social, they’re kind of just silently darting forward on a pre-made path. No need to go through the trees when there is a road, and that means there’s not even casual tree based acrobatics to kill time.

“We strive to be the very best we can be at all times!” Gai’s Mini-me’s a little loud, but it’s better than nothing. They’re faster than her, so she can’t whip out a game and play while they run like she can with her team. Her boys are stronger than her, but Naruto’s the slow one in that group which normally affords her a lot of time to focus on both the game and movement, that’s just not the case here at all. “We are sure to impress you once the mission really starts.”

“Uh-right, but that’s not really what I mean.” Sakura hisses uncomfortably. “Do you uh, always just run silently while staring in the direction of your destination?

“Neji has put a ban on all unnecessary conversations.” The boy explains to her. “I am Lee Rock, it is nice to meet you, beautiful golden goddess!”

“... Holy shit.” That didn’t just happen. That definitely didn’t, was that, but-

She shoots a look to the other two visible teammates. Neji is forcefully looking as far away from them as possible, and Tenten, for the first time in their entire knowing of each-other, looks at her with pity. “Did you really just shoot your shot, right now?”

A single week ago she might have missed it, but that totally just happened! It helps that she also has a lot of experience being flirted with by boisterous guys, which means phrases like that click with her a lot faster than they should. He’s a little better spoken than Naruto’s old flirting, but it’s the same concept.

“Yes! I believe I should approach every engagement with honesty and my full foot forward!” The boy throws a fist into the air while giving her the brightest smile she’s ever seen. It reminds her of some of Naruto’s fake ones, which he’s admitted to her were a thing - her bad for missing them - and which stick out in memory quite well.

“That’s, I mean I appreciate it, really.” She’s flattered, truly, no one besides Naruto has ever said anything like that, and those were more annoying to her exhausted mind of ages past than invigorating like this is. If she hadn’t dyed her hair recently, and therefore it completely missed the mark and sounded like it was directed at Ino, she’d probably be a flushy mess. It seems raising her charm has made her more vulnerable, which is odd, none of her other stats work like that. She definitely doesn’t remember the period after raising her constitution where she suddenly got one-tapped by everything. Though, to be fair, if that had happened, she probably wouldn’t remember it from all the blacking out she would have been doing. Her healing reset upon sleeping would have fixed the brain damage, she thinks. It gave her back her freaking eyes, so, it can probably work on her brain.

On the topic of flirting - specifically the current situation -, she’s also pretty used to flattery from Ino so that’s another reason she’s able to stay standing at this boy’s random knockout attack. It’s not quite as effective as a defense, because Ino’s flattery is different, but, well actually now that she knows better it’s probably not. She hasn’t given the girl’s words credit up to this point. Friends compliment each other, that’s normal, that’s all she thought it was, and she was too blind to realize things were right in front of her face.

She feels nothing but embarrassment. Is that normal?

What do others feel when kind words are thrown their way? What is romance, is it supposed to feel nothing but awkward and imposing? What does this boy feel? His feelings clearly motivated him to speak to her like that. “But I’m already in a relationship of sorts.” Sakura lies through practically chattering teeth. She’s glad she lost that trait not too long ago, maybe he’ll really believe her.

It’s best to lie to him than to reject him, when he’s clearly a nice boy with a heart on his sleeve. Besides, by his interactions with her, he clearly already likes Tenten. Why flirt with her in front of her?

Is he playing a game?

“Really?” It’s not Lee that talks, it’s Tenten, looking back at her with wide eyes. “I heard about that but I didn’t think it was real! You’re really dating the Yamanaka heiress?”

“Uh-erm, well, she kissed me in public, that’s a dating thing to do.” Sakura says with as much confidence as she can manage. She didn’t intend for this to become a thing, she was just trying to be nice! “Right?”

“We have so much to talk about, I’ve never met a lesbian before!” Tenten appears to have gotten over her aversion to her, for at least a minute, and Lee’s back to quietly blushing so, maybe this is a win? Neji looks annoyed but he can sit her sword for all she cares, the stick up his ass would likely form a new sheath for her instead of cutting him.

“Ah, me neither, erm, I mean until the other day, or I guess I knew one but didn’t know uhhh, I'm a bad friend.” Sakura beams with tomato cheeks and a little bit of a clumsiness to her step. What has she gotten herself into…

She hopes the boys are okay, Kakashi said the training was going to get even crazier with her gone…

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“This is training ground forty-four.” Kakashi says, introducing them to the massive gate in front of what is quite possibly the largest man made structure they’ve ever seen. The entire forest is intentional and manufactured instead of just having appeared over years. It all has that distinctive Konoha specialty vibe to it, and while he’s sure Naruto’s missed it, Sasuke clearly notices this place is unnatural right away. “It’s otherwise known as the forest of death, and it’s very good at killing genin.”

“I’m pretty sure you stop getting paid if you kill us!” Naruto shouts, throwing a fist in Kakashi’s direction.

“Don’t be a baby.” Sasuke scolds, both hands in his pockets, and a keen eye on their training ground. He spots an animal rushing around back there, something ferocious and hungry for his kunai. Sasuke is sure he’ll do fine, and that’s unacceptable in Kakashi’s eyes.

“This will be your new home until Sakura gets back.” Kakashi stresses with no small amount of dramatic flair to his demeanor. “Her mission should take her out of Konoha for a couple of weeks at the minimum, and knowing her and her ability to get into or cause trouble, I would be surprised if she’s back this month.”

“Wait, we’re going to live here!?” Naruto points at the forest with a waving finger, shock and possibly awe written on his features for the cyclops. Kakashi can’t tell exactly what he’s feeling when it comes to Naruto, the boy is so used to hiding his emotions behind others that even when he’s being genuine it can be difficult to figure out exactly what’s going on. His face makes reflexive motions in ways he doesn’t mean it to, and his indignation comes off like he’s secretly happy about it.

He’s possibly better at hiding his emotions than actually emotionless soldiers, Kakashi’s met a few of them and he absolutely prefers trying to decipher their thoughts via their body language and subtle twitches than trying to figure out exactly what’s going on with a boy who’s own body doesn’t display what he means accurately.

Something broke Naruto at some point, and his recovery isn’t so much fixing the problem as it is making him forget about it. He wonders how Mebuki deals with it… He’ll have to ask sometime. He hasn’t checked in on that family since he learned that Mebuki heard about Wave.

No one wants to get yelled at by a pissed off mom, not even Kakashi.

At least he knows it could be worse, Sakura is probably completely lost at all times with the boy. “Yes, you’ll be going through a cycle. You’ll rely on each other to survive while trying to find hiding places from me. I’ll give you an hour's head start, and then I will come find you. The consequence for being found is a beat down, followed by an hour to recover. You will then head out again, where I’ll give you an hour headstart before I come and find you.”

“That doesn’t give us time to sleep.” Sasuke says, “with how important a theme proper rest has been on this team, that feels sudden.” The cocky boy tilts his head a little, taking Kakashi in anew, “is that whole thing just a show for Sakura?”

“No.” Kakashi denies, “I would like you to get as much rest as you can whenever you can, because you won’t always have the opportunity to get rest in the field. You never know when your next meal or wink of shut-eye is, so you find and force it. Consider matters like that a part of your training.”

“How are we supposed to run from you and sleep?” Naruto growls.

“That’s for me to know, and for you to figure out, my cute genin.” Kakashi’s lone eye smiles at them in a way that sends shivers up and down their spines in rhythm. They’re certainly not ready for it.

----------------------------------Chapter 42 ----------------------------------------

Her first steps into the town of Chokuri aren’t very impactful. It’s a bit desolate and dirty, and she finds herself quite remarkably reminded of Wave. It’s not any particular detail that brings the image to mind, and Wave looked much better when she left than when she got there so it’s not like it’s even a good comparison as of late, but the idea hits her quite firmly. “This place is screwed.” She huffs, hoping internally that she’s not going to end up in charge of this village too…

Oh fuck, please no. The very idea makes her shiver. She opens her Wave window to take a look and make sure her place is okay, and it is, it looks better than the last time she checked it actually. She can see there are Naruto clones running around doing odd jobs, which has her chuckle to herself, he seriously left some there?

Unfortunately for her, the rest of the team sorta missed the middle part of that interaction, so to them it’s more like she announced the place is screwed and then chuckled ominously. This clicks with her a moment later, when she sees the three of them looking at her awkwardly and with no small amount of disgust. Okay, the disgust is mostly Tenten. “Out of context moment.” Sakura tries to explain.

They clearly don’t get what that means, so she decides to just move on. “We should do our best to ensure this place can recover, I’m prepared to begin the assault whenever you three are.”

“No one needs to begin an assault.” Tenten’s nose wriggles, and her cheeks green a little, her eyes focused and intent on her, it looks like she’s already lost some of that good will from earlier on the trip here. “We don’t want a blood bath you fucking psycho.”

“Well, I mean…” Sakura can’t help but pout, before someone she really didn’t expect to do so, comes to her defense.

“That’s enough, Tenten.” Neji growls at the girl, causing her to turn into an oddly meek looking fangirl with sparkly eyes as if a magic spell has been cast and suddenly everything is better.

“Sorry!” Tenten apologizes, but not to her. It seems there’s a love line in this group. Lee likes Tenten, Tenten likes Neji, and Neji likes himself.

“We will hold off on that assault.” Neji says to Sakura, ensuring she knows it’s to her by catching her eyes with his own. “We need to see if we can discover and capture the leader first. If we can, we can likely avoid too much fighting at all. The more combat the more likely civilians suffer casualties, which I feel I shouldn’t have to say, but those are frowned upon.”

A part of her really wants to focus on why he felt the need to say that, even stating he shouldn’t have to. Obviously she knows getting civilians killed is bad, she’d feel pretty guilty if nothing else, is Lee secretly a serial killer that needs reproach even when he’s not a part of the conversation? It would explain the warning and clarification… “Ah, well, what if I end up in a fight with one due to no fault of my own?” Sakura asks.

“Kill them.” Neji’s words are fierce and forward, blunt and lacking in even the slightest form of delicacy. “I appreciate that you are more on board with the mission’s reality than my teammates, but please refrain from provoking them. If it makes you feel any better, Tenten’s not normally like this.”

“Yeah, she’s still shaken up from holding my sword.” Sakura says, nodding at the boy and showing she understands. “I don’t blame her, I just wish she’d be… nicer.” Maybe a little less ridiculous, that would help a lot.

“You’ll find very little, nice, on missions like this.” Neji declares. “Come, we need to find our lodgings.”

“Right.” It’s very clear that Lee and Tenten aren’t super appreciative of being talked about like they aren’t there, but they don’t speak up. She can even see guilt on Tenten’s face. She didn’t mean to come across like that, Sakura can tell, so she decides to forgive her. She’s just surprised that holding her sword messed with the girl that much, she’s a ninja, she’s killed people… Thirsty isn’t even that proactive as far as intrusive thoughts goes, she’s barely even noticed the difference now that she’s looking for it. Then again, she hasn’t put the sword down for well over a week, so maybe she would if she did a full factory reset. She has no intentions of doing that mid-mission though, maybe once she’s back home.

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The inn they approach isn’t particularly well kept either. It’s dusty and several of the chairs at the front are broken. That table is in half, and she’s pretty sure there’s blood stuck to the ceiling. How it even got up there she’s not sure, maybe someone else has figured out a technique to send potent chakra filled blood across the room… No, that’s ridiculous. There’s a set of stairs off to the side which look like they might fall in half if someone steps up them too hard.

“Hello! Welcome to the Chokuri Main Road Inn.” A woman behind a split counter greets them with a beaming smile. It’s so bright it reminds Sakura of Naruto’s smile but in a very different way to how Lee’s reminds her of it. There’s a moment of affection by association that floods her at that thought before the reminder of the nature of his smile flows back into her mind. The woman has incredibly long golden hair with red tips that are clearly unnatural. Her clothing is also a little loose for a business owner representing their business, even if she does stand tall and natural behind that counter.

“We need two rooms.” Neji says, tossing a sack with a little money on the counter.

“Give me a second…” The woman has to ruffle around for them, but she soon provides him with two keys.

Neji holds them up for her, “you’ll be sharing a room with me, while Tenten shares with Lee.”

“Ah, um…” Sakura contemplates that, while Tenten looks overjoyed. Maybe their love isn’t quite a secret unrequited thing? She doesn’t understand this team. “Shouldn’t it be girls and boys?”

“Tenten won’t be able to sleep if you share a room.” Neji explains, reminding her of a very awkward situation during their one and only camping session on the way here. Tenten stayed up watching the entire night and refused to take a turn to sleep. She’s probably quite exhausted at the moment, Sakura knows that feeling.

“R-right…” Sakura sighs. She didn’t do anything! Tenten seems perfectly reasonable and cordial at everything else, even her if it doesn’t involve the sword.

Just how traumatized is she by the blade that rests comfortably at her side?

Lee told her about just how obsessed Tenten is with weapons like it, so why are they different from hers?

It doesn’t matter, because she has something to do. “Sure, I’ll meet you in the room in a bit, I want to get a drink.”

“Right.” Neji leaves to walk up the crooked steps to the side as soon as she says so, and the others are already sprinting up much faster than him the moment he moves. She’s quickly left alone in the run-down ground floor that has no business being like this.

It’s so obvious, how come they didn’t notice?

“How much do I have to pay you to tell me what actually happened here?” Sakura asks, leaning against the bar.

“Whatever do you mean?” The innkeeper’s voice is very sweet, high pitched, and faker than Naruto’s female clone… Which probably isn’t very fake anymore, now that she’s read all her books. She’ll need to get Naruto to make her again, she’d like to girl talk with someone who’s not trying to not so secretly figure out if she’s gonna eat her. Or someone trying to eat her, if she thinks about Ino… That’s how lesbians work, right? She knows it involves a tongue.

“You needed to find the keys, you’re pretending to smile, your voice reminds me of Haku’s, and I’m pretty sure-” She doesn’t get to finish her sentence before her skills kick in and her sword is drawn. She didn’t intend to turn this into a fight, but she’s got one as Genin Dexterity is activating whether she likes it or not.

She finds her sword hurtling towards an attack her eyes aren’t fast enough to spot yet.

One thing she’s learned while training is that Genin Dexterity will activate even if the check isn’t academy student level, it just only works at academy level. This has resulted in a lot of wounds during training time where an attack she could have totally deflected caught her by surprise and her movements were so automatic she didn’t think to accommodate them with her actual skill.

No such thing here, she’s learned, the moment her sword is slashing out her second hand lands on the handle and she uses all the skill she has to cut through the attack. “Fuck-” She doesn’t have to call upon her power to fuel her sword, enough of her blood sprays onto it from whatever just hit her regardless of her defense. Before she can even grasp what happened, she’s got several dozen wounds and needs to jump back from another attack that flashes for her eyes. She blocks that attack mid jump by throwing her arm up and getting hit in her arm instead of her eyes.

Safe and secure with some distance between her and the motionless enemy, red eyes sharp and focused, she gets a good look at what she ‘deflected’ and realizes she didn’t deflect a damn thing. The woman’s hair attacked her, all she did was split some ends. A simple look down allows her to see just how many ‘blades’ are stuck in her body, all of them red-tipped with little golden strings attached to them.

“Okay, understood.” They don’t seem to be poisoned, and that’s all that matters as Sakura lifts her now powered-up sword and readies herself to go on the offensive. The girl’s just standing there behind the counter, smiling at her like she did nothing wrong. Her smile is so wickedly long and malicious, Sakura can’t help but throw the earlier Haku comparison away, Haku’s never looked at anyone like that in his entire damn life.

Well, Neji did say to kill them if someone attacked her.