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Chapter 87 - Arc 5.8 - Back In, Exploring Hunger - The Red Room
🕑 Added 2024-09-21 23:05:07 +0000 UTCThe last chapter before we head into the wrap up of Arc 5. Next chapter will involve, mostly, wrapping up a few small plots, doing some cleaning, and then setting up Chapter 89 which'll be the last chapter of Arc 5.
Then I'll take my week off to finish planning Arc 6, and we'll start into Arc 6 on the 4th. (There will be a side-story on the 25th and 2nd) I skipped it the last time because I did Arc 4 without a break and I figured I could do the much smaller Arc 5 without one as well. I have in fact noticed a loss in quality and structure from the lack of outline though, and I would very much like to make one for Arc 6.
Please enjoy another look at Hunger.
Changelog: CH 64 got incredibly minor touch ups to wording and grammar.
Ch 65 got a touch up on wordings and making things more clear, especially during the Ino and Kakashi moment.
Ch 66 got an extra couple hundred words, mostly around making paragraphs make more sense. I could really feel the 'I wrote this under stress' in its wordings and that needed cleaning. Nothing significant changed.
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“It turns out, you can’t just discover you have a sentient sword inside your head - possibly - get a bit eked out, play a small game with it and then leave like your life depends on it.” Ino explains from behind her. She’s playing with her hair today. Ino’s fingers feel nice in between her strands, and against her scalp.
“Is that why I’ve been called back to do a Sunday interrogation?” Sakura asks, getting an ‘mmhmm’ in confirmation from her mostly platonic friend. It’s a vibe, she’s working it and hopefully she can keep working it as long as possible. All she needs to do is keep them in a safe and comfortable place until either Ino gets a girlfriend, or she ends up figuring out how she feels about things. Either way would be amazing, actually, she really needs to let her and Tenten meet already. Tenten wanted to meet a lesbian, maybe tomorrow or the next day?
“If nothing else, we need to find out what that Red Room thing is, Daddy won’t get off our backs until we validate the sword’s desire to show you things.” Ino explains.
“Fine… but this feels like a bad idea, I want it in writing that I thought this was a bad idea.” Sakura grumbles, taking the offered pen and paper naturally, and beginning to write just that. She doesn’t even question Ino having a pen and paper within reach like that.
“Red room, red room~!” Her sword skipping along in boy form while dragging them through the ‘complex’ isn’t something she expected. It’s not a bad aesthetic, but it is odd. Everything so far has made it seem so demonic, and yet even with horns he’s basically the little brother she wants to fawn over. Point one for probably being a fake avatar she created. There’s no reason it should be going this well and glamorously.
“Here we are!” The room he leads them into is dark but very dry. No blood pool to mess with them, no screeching moans from the lives she horrifically ended. The boy wanders over and starts messing with something, while Ino looks around and Sakura pretends to do the same. The truth is that there could be a sword dangling above her head and she wouldn’t even notice. She’s too focused on him, he’s adorable! He’s doing the wiggle! He’s Haruno wiggling while he messes with the thing! He’s even doing it right, his whole body is involved, it’s making it hard for him to work his hands but he’s still doing it!
She’s lost raids because of it, it’s fitting. “Ino, it’s amazing.” Sakura can’t help but tear up a little.
“You have problems.” Ino says dryly.
“You have problems for not realizing how cute this is.” Sakura points out with a sniffle.
“We’re still not sure if that’s the real sword or your head.” Ino refutes, “for all we know this is the equivalent of a psychotic break, I can’t find that cute.”
“Well, more for me.” Sakura huffs, just as a light flickers on from whatever he’s messing with and it becomes clear exactly what’s happening. “Is that a projector?” Colored lights fill the room, as it reveals itself to be a projector with easily a dozen different projection points, pushing different images all over the wall in all directions. That’s crazy, she’s never even thought of something like that. Point one for this not being just her head.
“What is-Sakura?” Ino gasps in horror, and Sakura’s not exactly sure why, until she actually looks at the pictures. The ‘red room’ is a projector room with records of her bonding time with Hunger. There’s just one problem with that. “Ino noooo-” Sakura jumps behind her friend and uses her hands to cover her eyes. “Your poor innocent eyes, look away!”
“I can’t look away! I need to write a report!” Ino flails against her, “let me go!”
“Oh, right.” Sakura slowly releases her friend, knowing damn well how much she’d rather do anything but that. The frontal memories didn’t cover most of this, most of her violence is unimportant and easily discarded. It’s not something she fixates on or particularly cares about.
Because it’s just stuff she had to do in the moment. Even when it feels good, it’s mostly just making the best of a bad situation she’s stuck participating in. Someone’s always going to judge her afterwards, and she’s going to be poutily annoyed at them for treating her worse for making sure everyone on her side survived by being proactive.
Her sword however, seems to have favorites. “Hey, that one was cool.” Her eyes land on her deflecting seemingly a hundred projectiles a second. The memory of just how hot it was as the metal sparked and turned to slag against her sword is a nice one, exhilarating, and it’s not that terrifying. Warm and comforting maybe, she felt so powerful at the time. She did it to draw aggro away from Tenten and Neji, and damn did she do a good job of that. Being proud of helping your friends isn’t a crime.
“You’re all dead.” She hears her other self inform in an ominous tone.
“Oh right… Well most of these aren’t that dark, right?” The reality is that she hasn’t used her katana for a whole lot of actual killing. Yes, it’s gone through some people, but most fights with the blade are few and far between and even then they tend to be over in seconds. While the room does hold a lot of memories that clearly get Hunger excited, as far as Sakura’s concerned there’s really not that much here. She vows to do a lot more combat with it, if Hunger’s going to take it all this personally. The boy is sat down on the floor, looking around in awe. She can tell he spends a lot of his time here, and she kneels by his side, stroking one of his horns automatically like one might pet a cat.
“Sakura…” Ino’s tone is a lot more stressed, but what is she supposed to do about that? She told her to let her go, she tried to stop her from looking. Respecting Ino is a big part of their friendship, when Ino says stop, she stops.
“Yes?” She looks over from the boy, taking in Ino’s pale features and horror filled eyes. They’re wide, taking in everything that plays with no small amount of trepidation. “You told me to let you see.”
“But this is… Sakura, we’re genin.” Ino’s tone is a little hoarse, which is odd because she sounded fine a minute ago.
“That is our rank, yes, what about it?” A tilt to her head is all she can manage. It’s not like she’s completely confused, she grasps that her fights seem to be problematic. But even now she has no idea what’s actually wrong with any of it, except maybe her panics. She’s pretty sure it’s the panic that causes her to get very stabby. Regardless, what their rank could have to do with anything misses her completely, and while she’d love Ino to explain, she gets the feeling she’s not going to.
It always hurts to be judged by someone you love, her friends, her family, whatever category Ino is in, but Kakashi said it’s a good thing. Ino can judge her because she doesn’t understand, and that’s great. It means Ino’s safe, and nothing’s hurt her. So she lets Hunger go, and approaches her friend.
The step Ino takes away from her hurts, but she pushes through it. She grabs her friend, and she pulls her in, wrapping her arms around her and holding her close. “I’m not sure why you need comfort, but when friends need a hug you give them one.” Sakura explains, glad no golden shields showed up this time to stop her.
Ino nods into her, slowly, softly, and Sakura feels her best friend’s arms converge behind her. Ino squeezes her tightly, Ino sobs, and Sakura pats her with her palm along her back.
“I don’t get it,” Sakura hears from the side, and one look reveals her sword watching them confused, “what’s the problem? Why’s she sad?”
“I don’t get it either, but…” Sakura admits, trailing off in thought, and the smaller boy joins the hug out of nowhere. She doesn’t need to finish, he gets it as much as she does.
He feels like he fits here nicely. She’ll never look at Hunger the same again.
Demon sword her ass. She needs a little brother, damn-it. Does he count?
---------------------------------------------------
She should have another week before her next session, which means Sakura has very little to do. Barred from missions, not even allowed to go get her bounty from the Daimyo… She can train, and she will, but mostly she decides she needs to figure out what’s next.
It’s easy to lay back and let two months pass, and she’s sure she could, but creating a plan of action is so much more valuable. She’s only been a genin for a few months, so she’s barred for practically the same time she’s been an active duty ninja! Her team is allowed to take others with them temporarily if they want to go on a mission, but they’ve both agreed they don’t need the money and Kakashi’s more than happy to lazily train them and lay around.
Wave seems fine, Haku’s doing amazing, Neji’s fitting in weirdly well with Haku.
“Hey Sakura, remember this?” Naruto entering her room is a nice and welcome change of tone from her notebook and her planning. Her gaze raises, and she takes in the scroll from so long ago.
“That was the reward from the goblins, yeah.” She remembers. She needs to learn how to raise her Mind a little, which is odd because her training has been entirely physical for a long time. She can’t touch Necromancy until she does though, which is probably pretty powerful and cool. Her physical stats can be raised in the field, should she focus on her mental stats while stuck at home?
“Well I’m confident I can open it now.” Naruto explains, sitting on her bed, and pulling out the lockpick she gave him. “I’ve been practicing on something very similar for a little while now.”
“Well then do it.” She says, “not sure why you waited.”
“Didn’t you want to be here to see it open?” Naruto asks, and she shrugs.
Not really, why would she? The contents are important, not the process…
“Just open it, Naruto.” Sakura rolls her eyes, and awaits her prize with baited breath. She watches his hands move, slowly working their way through the lock on the scroll. He totally could have done this before telling her, all she gets now is an awkward anticipation that she’d rather have skipped entirely! Was he worried he might break it and she’d get mad because she wasn’t there? Because that’d have been fine. She didn’t even remember it existed until right this moment, he could have buried it in the backyard and she would have been none the wiser.
“Hurry up!” She huffs, plopping down on the bed beside him.
“Got it.” The click from the scroll makes her look up, but it’s Naruto’s enthusiasm that makes her care.
Comments
Dopplerdee
I love Sakura's mental trail about not understanding why its wrong but knowing Ino thinks it is.
Christopher Cummins
There was a chest with a lockpick and a locked scroll from the random encounter, few months ago.
Mest450
Goblin loot? You get goblin ears, string, and a dirty loincloth.
