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Chapter 85 - Arc 5.8 - Back In, Exploring Hunger - "Mom?"
🕑 Added 2024-09-15 18:36:56 +0000 UTCSakura needs an adult!
Thank you all for your continued support.
CH 64 saw like 50 words of small wording edits to make it flow better.
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“Why did I have to bring my sword?” Sakura asks, her palms down on her black sword, the red sigils glowing brighter at her touch as if it's responding to her. It’s been doing that for a while, she kinda just figured it was the same thing as her eyes, cosmetic but not doing anything in particular.
“Because daddy was very confused by my report.” Ino explains, the natural blonde is currently massaging Sakura’s shoulders as an excuse to get close to her. Sakura’s not completely sure why she bothers, they’re about to be going into her head, doesn’t get much closer than that.
“What about it?” Sakura asks, it feels weird, but Ino said it’d help her calm down and make all this easier. She’s not sure how much she needs to calm down, Hunger is very docile, as always recently. She’s not sure anything was truly caused by her sword in her last mission, besides maybe attacking Neji, and that’s debatable. She has anger issues she needs to work on, she’s actively doing that. She spent a big part of yesterday trying to make friends so she could vent to more people and therefore feel her anger less. That’s how that works, right?
“That it didn’t show up,” Ino explains eagerly, “he said that if the sword was what Kakashi said it was, it should be in the forefront of your mind. Even without being nearby, its infection should be in there, half of Kakashi’s consenting to having you interrogated like this was to make sure the sword wasn’t doing too much damage, and yet, it’s nowhere.”
“... Kakashi consented to having me interrogated?” Sakura whines, “seriously?”
“Yeah, he’s a jerk…” Ino grumbles to herself, “whatever the case is, we need to find Hunger’s place inside your mind. That’ll be easier to do with the sword here and in your grasp, since we’re going to try and jump right to it.”
“I thought we needed to explore more surface memories.” Sakura points out with a sensitive grunt. Ino’s hands are nice.
“Well, we figured out you for sure weren’t being manipulated, harmed, and you weren’t about to go treasonous, so if we can confirm the sword isn’t causing too much damage we should be able to have you back to taking missions in about two months.”
“Two… months?” Sakura looks back at her, squinting at her in indignant irritation, “why would this take that long?”
“Because no one wants you killing yourself mid-mission and now we’re concerned.” Her best friend pouts at her.
“I’m not suicidal, I promise!” Jeez, where was this when she was in school? Did they suddenly change standards drastically while she was off killing rebels?
“Technically, not wanting to live isn’t the same as wanting to die, but they’re largely considered the same thing when people are trying to kill you. What if you have a bad moment and decide not to dodge?” Ino scolds her with a fierce glare that makes her shrink a bit.
“Ino, I swear-”
“Shh…” Ino kisses her cheek from behind, stopping the rubbing with her hands so she can use them to hug her close, “self worth is important, Sakura, take my word for it, okay?” Ino’s getting real touchy feely recently, she probably should rebuke her, but it feels nice to have a friend’s warmth caring for her. She’ll figure out all that crap later, Ino knows they’re not in a relationship, that’s good enough for now. It’s not like she can even be mad at her when she’s said nothing about it. For the moment, she decides, she’ll consider it an expansion pack on basic friendly intimacy. As long as Ino doesn’t push any boundaries, she can pretend everything’s the same as it’s always been…
“... Fine.” This is blown out of proportion, massively, she has no desire to die, she’s definitely not suicidal, and wasting resources on her instead of someone who actually needs help feels like a huge waste. Buuut, it’s Ino asking, and it’s not like she can get out of this by complaining.
She’ll still get Genin stipend pay, and Naruto has his business, this shouldn’t be too bad… Doing the math, it seems like she’ll be allowed to go on missions again shortly before the upcoming Chunin exams, so that’s nice. All in all, she tried to cut a fellow Genin in half, there are worse punishments than an overdoing of mental health check-ups. It’s not like they’re barring her from training, they’ll still get stronger together as a team.
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There is no entrance, no bedroom, no strange memory surfing or core prodding. Sakura opens her eyes to see a giant metal door. It’s a deep red and an intoxicating black, the dark textures bump out and create little pictures here and there of their adventures.
Yes, theirs, her sword and her have made memories and they’re all here on this door in one way or another. The handle is a set of boney hands which respond when she places her own in between them. They cling onto her and begin to pull her through. She has the presence of mind to grab Ino with her free hand before she’s fully moved through the clearly less than tangible door, and her friend’s beam almost puts her at ease.
Almost, the wet feeling at her feet and the splash as she takes her first step make it pretty clear that this room is not making jokes. She doesn’t have to look down to see it, she’s stepped in a blood pool enough times. At this point, it’s not even concerning anymore. Maybe that’s her trait about not caring about having blood on her, because Ino looks incredibly bothered. Still, concerning or not, the fact that Ino is disturbed bothers her more than her words can convey. The weighty feeling and warmth on her toes is actually kind of nice if she has to give her input, which she does, it’s her brain.
The room has four stone walls that rise about a dozen times her height before stopping. The ceiling is bare and without design, that is until it converges on a singular point at the top where a ray of light is coming through. The light is crooked, angling down until it shines on a point at the center of it all. Stone steps rise out of the crimson pool and lead to a small platform where a sword rests in some burning grass. How long has it been burning? Probably forever.
She takes a deep breath, and drags Ino along after her. “Eek!” Her head snaps back to see Ino’s leg grabbed by a pale hand coming out of the ‘water’. She pulls her out of its grip, just in time to see one grab her own foot. She crushes it beneath her free heel, and continues to move on. “Sakura, these are probably people you’ve killed!”
“Then they can stay dead.” Sakura finds herself growling while pulling her best friend along. She makes her way forward without a care in the world beyond ensuring Ino gets out of this and onto dry land as quickly as possible. A kick here, a slam there, she shatters bones and knocks her previous foes away without pause. The harsh sounds of hands splashing out of the water and being kicked aside fill the room with a slightly disturbing melody that she could probably enjoy listening to as a game soundtrack.
That is until they step onto the small stairs, and the world around them becomes incredibly silent. She reaches for her sword in front of her, only to feel the air shift, and the need to step back overcome her. She should meet the steps she came up with as she tries to step down, but she finds solid ground surprising her. The platform they’re on is expanding to cover the horrific below now that they’ve made it into the most inner place. Support above the bloody madness is what her sword means to her, or perhaps what she means to her sword. She’s not sure about all the fuzzy details, that’s really more Ino’s thing, but she does know the shimmering light Hunger is giving off isn’t normal.
That is until the blade poofs into smoke.
“Sakura why-guk-it’s in my face!”
“Does your sensei not do that to you?” Sakura asks, pulling Ino away from it, “just don’t breathe in.”
“No, my sensei doesn’t gas bomb me for the fun of it, what is wrong with Kakashi?” She doesn’t answer, but that’s fine because Ino doesn’t expect her to. The smoke is fading, and as it clears, they get a good look at her sword in a very different form. Standing a little over four feet, with blond hair done back in a ponytail and shimmering strands that frame his face, a boy stands in an incredibly pink Hakama. It straight up sparkles, flashing Sakura with its potent adorableness. The top is more samurai, but she can’t help but notice a converging three crested grouping right at upper chest level, the Haruno, Uzumaki, and Uchiha crest in particular. Atop his head are pink horns, growing out and forward before curving back and ending in sharp points.
Gentle cheeks, shiny red eyes, the palest complexion in the world, and pointy ears.
She’s staring at- “Sakura, why does your sword look like a little boy?” Well, Ino has the gist.
“Uh, well, I’m Good with Kids.” Sakura explains quickly, “maybe I’m infantilizing it? It’s clearly based on me, the blond hair is because of my dye, the crest is because of my outfit, the pink is, well obvious…”
“Mother?” The sword asks with a soft voice, taking a step towards them.
“Mother-seriously, Sakura, it’s a sword!”
“I didn’t call it son! How is this reflecting on me?” Sakura defends herself with a wave of her hand and an incredibly awkward smile. It’s nice to be recognized, she takes good care of her sword.
“It’s in your head!” Ino shouts at her, “okay, yeah, this report is going to be long and suck a lot.”
“Mother, is that you?” The sword boy continues his trek towards them, largely unnoticed.
“Don’t ignore him.” Ino sighs, long and pained, she’s in some kind of agony Sakura doesn’t understand but she’s pretty sure she can’t protect her from this one. Inoichi warned of this, some things would hurt Ino regardless of what she did.
“Uh, hey, Hunger… Interesting design you have.” Sakura gulps, she’s twelve, she’s not ready for this! Someone save her, preferably an adult! Errr, an adult that’s not one of the ones in her life! Her mother’d try to adopt it, her father’d probably do the same, Kakashi’d give bad advice about stabbing her problems probably, and Iruka’d tell her to figure it out! And Inoichi, oh, well, Inoichi led to this mess.
“It’s based on you.” He explains what she already said with what looks like a fake smile, but the mood chart by his head tells her it’s genuine. The sharp teeth and uncanny valley effect going on just fills her with dread. “Thank you for coming to visit me.” His words are accompanied by a full out beam, toothy and sharp but oh so genuine. Her sword is very happy to see her. This is very concerning.
Comments
Michael Zalesny
This is both welcome and EXTREMELY concerning...plz, carry on
Dopplerdee
I love the murder baby.
Readgold2000
I can just see in my mind Gaara ranting about "Mother want's your blood" and Hunger screaming "No it's MINE!"
Christopher Cummins
Not entirely, but also kinda. Gaara was in my thoughts when I set up this mini arc, and I do plan for Sakura to have a lot of interaction with Gaara in general.
Readgold2000
Is there an intentional similarity to Gaara here?
Christopher Cummins
Sometimes a demon sword calls you mom and you're like, totally not ready for that.
Damon Fitzgerald
Ok did not expect that. All the people reading Ino's report are going to be weirded out. They probably have quite a bit of experience with strange things but I am guessing this will be abnormal even for them. Also Ino is really wearing Sakura down? At this rate there will be so many expansion packs to their friendship they will be married.
