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Chapter 84 - Arc 5.6 - Hyuga Drama - Getting Used to It
🕑 Added 2024-09-14 13:13:56 +0000 UTCThis was fun. I've had a lot of good times writing Sakura as of late.
I just wish that was true for everything.
Thanks for sticking around and supporting me.
Changlog: CH 61 got about 300 extra words. I fixed up a lot of wordings to feel better, and flow better. This did make Miel, Gita, and Luminella's bit substantially larger though so if you weren't a fan of that segment I wouldn't bother. I liked it.
CH 62 Tenten got her rifle as a drop, which is a huge change. Otherwise, I mostly just improved the details and description and moment to moment flow of text.
CH 63 Fixed up a lot of wordings, made the scene flow better, fixed a little logistics and altered the reaction to Tenten pulling out her looted rifle. It's maybe 100 words larger.
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This isn’t the first time she’s taken a random guy into her home, but it is the first time that it wasn’t her choice. It’s a little awkward seeing Neji over there, eating the food Haku made for him and looking at her with gratitude filled eyes. Haku didn’t do that, Haku never looked grateful. Haku still doesn’t look grateful, and she prefers it that way. This is so awkward, and she’s not even getting yelled at! If Neji’s allowed, why was Haku a problem worth yelling at her for? Does she really have to lie and pretend she wanted him here?
It’s not that she doesn’t want him here, but she didn’t before she saw the state he was in and when she thought her parents would be mad at her, how does she come to terms with that and accept his gratitude? Telling him the truth is a non-option, it’d change nothing but make him feel bad. The only reason to be honest would be to assuage her guilt, and she believes she’s grown up enough since she became a ninja that she can hold her problems in for other people.
Haku’s fawning over her as they eat dinner, Naruto and Business Naruto are eating from the same overstacked plate, and the two twin blonde girls he summoned are running around subsisting on snacks and sugar that her parents won’t stop sneaking them when she’s not looking. Which feels really, backwards, and also it’s still Naruto so like what’s the point of being stealthy? When they pop he’ll learn it all anyway, and it’s not like clones have to worry about their teeth or anything.
Then there’s the question of why he has the blonde twins running around in the first place. Why does she suddenly have two clone sisters that act completely different from their two male counterparts?
It doesn’t matter, she just shakes her head and enjoys her food. Some things aren’t worth thinking about for any period of time, they’re niggling thoughts and doubts and confusing metaphors and she’s just above that now.
“So, what’s up with the blonde hair?” Mebuki asks suddenly, pulling Sakura out of her thoughts. She has to look up to be sure she’s even talking to her. It’s been blonde for so long, and her mother has seen it so many times, asking now just feels foreign. Nothing’s changed about it so…
“I just felt like it.” Sakura admits.
“So it has nothing to do with Naruto?” Her mother asks, “it feels like it has to do with Naruto.”
“I mean, maybe a little bit.” She hadn’t considered the possibility, but then she changed her whole outfit to be inclusive to a Clan neither of them had ever really heard about shortly before she did it, just because it had his name. Maybe he was a part in why she didn’t protest the color Ino picked. “It wasn’t my sole motivation, but I could see it.”
“Should I change my hair?” Neji asks suddenly, “is that a thing here?”
Sakura can’t help the red tinge that flows up her cheeks at the idea, he’s already such a pretty boy, that’d be too much for her poor soul! She’d need to get him on a mic, and a camera in seconds, it’d be a managerial revolution! “Please do!” She can’t help it, she tries to resist, but she shouts!
“Don’t, she’s being weird.” Naruto decides to save Neji from her, the jerk.
“Are we still scheduled for later?” Haku asks Neji out of nowhere, and gets a subtle nod.
“What’s later?” Sakura asks with a sudden apprehension and glorious glee.
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This is everything she’s ever needed in life. She’s tuned right into their stream. Neji and Haku are commentating together, she didn’t even set it up!
Neji’s so stiff, and his attempts to feel the mood just do not work, and yet somehow the appeal is off the charts. The two are jumping off each-other and their feel good vibes, it’s a miracle on the screen! She doesn’t think Neji would function on his own like this, but with the two of them, mwah. She’s over the moon, she can’t get much prouder. She’s going to be manager of the year and her whole body shakes while seeing the stream, her feet kick, and she finds she’s rolling over from side to side on her bed in uncontrollable excitement.
That Haku did this without talking to her means he’s getting very into the streaming part of his day too, which makes her life so much better. She checks in on Wave while she watches them, and finds her owned land is thriving. Well, thriving as a phrase, it’s not like they’re a bustling community overfilling and in need of expansion lest resources and travelers start being turned away. It’s very firmly functioning without deficit, anything they need but don’t make, they’re having effortlessly imported while making profits off their export, and they’ve built another statue of her. That last part isn’t particularly important, but since it has a mustache she’s pretty sure that Naruto’s built it, which makes it worth appreciating.
One should always put effort into admiring work their sibling puts into messing with her. She’ll tell him she loves it later, for now, Neji just deadpanned and said something to Haku in the most toneless voice possible, and she has to hold in the giggles.
It seems like running a city from the sky is a lot easier than an actual city builder, because the people have autonomy and horrific disasters aren’t coming every week or so to try and mess up her day at any cost. That’s not to say it’s not complicated, and she’s pretty sure she’d be failing horribly without the system to keep track of everything. If nothing else, she’d have to live in Wave so she could respond to things in a quick manner, which’d be a no-go situation.
Meeting him at the training ground for the first time in several weeks, Sakura can’t help but notice how weird things are with just Sasuke. Naruto’s not here yet, he’s got business to deal with so Kakashi’s letting him arrive an hour late. Which does mean this is the first time the two of them are together alone in possibly forever. “Sasuke.” She nods slowly, looking deep into his eyes with her own sharp reds.
“You.” He greets back with a nod of his own.
“...” The stare doesn’t end, they just keep the moment going with a few odd breaths. He clearly expects her to give up, but she didn’t do the Deep Dungeon solo and get her favorite title because she gives up easily!
“...” Which does mean they’re trapped, eternally so. Naruto’ll arrive eventually, that’ll be nice, but she can’t help it, something about his response really bothers her so she has to give in a little herself first.
“You?” She asks.
“Mmhmm, you.” Sasuke agrees like nothing is wrong.
“Sasuke… What’s my name?” She twitches a little.
And he stares, “do you not know your name?”
“Sasuke!” She snaps at him, a twitch in her toes making her wiggle them randomly, that’s a lot of nervous energy she has no idea what to do with.
“No, that’s my name.” He points towards himself.
“What’s my damn name!” She growls at him, already shaking a fist at him.
“I feel like that’s something you should know.” He rolls his eyes at her like the damned diva he is.
“You don’t know my name!” She reaches up to touch her twin tails, there’s no way in hell… There’s just no way! Her expression changes quickly. “Just say it.” A cheshire grin embodying her lips, taking it over like a cloak has fallen over her. She reaches down for her sword, feeling its confidence enter her, and make her gaze all the creepier.
“I’m not participating in whatever weirdness you have going on.” He deadtones at her.
“What’s my name, Sasuke? I was joking with Ino but now I’m sure of it, you remember my name because of my hair color!” Sakura shouts at him.
“And what color was that?” He teases her, he has to be teasing her. His smirk is shit eating, and he rolls his shoulders, “I know your name.”
“You don’t! You totally don’t! Say it!” The bridge wobbles a little as she stomps on it.
“No.” He says coolly.
“Prove you know my name!” She stalks over to him, getting right in his face.
“You’re being ridiculous, so no.” His hands rest in his pockets, and he shows he has no fear of her when he blows on her nose pointedly.
“Sparring time, now.” He doesn’t have the chance to get his hands out of his pockets before her fist has him flying off the bridge towards the water below.
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“What’s my name you bastard!” The landscape is destroyed, and her complaints fall on relatively deaf ears. The two of them have been going at each-other for about two hours now. Which brings Naruto and Kakashi to sitting up in a tree, watching them fight. Naruto’s got a juice box, and Kakashi stole his second one so he too has a box of juicy goodness.
“Should we tell her that he totally knows?” Naruto asks.
“This is good anger management training.” Kakashi shrugs, slurping obnoxiously.
“How?” Naruto asks him, gazing up at him with one shiny blue eye.
“Sakura’s not going to get what she wants until she calms down and accepts that there’s nothing she can do.” Their sensei explains, watching as blades clash and another pit of dirt gets displaced. “Are you ready to do a mission to fix all this later?”
“Aww, why me?” Naruto grumbles, watching the idiots be idiots with a smile. It’s great when it’s not him.
“Because Sakura is barred from missions until she’s been cleared by interrogation as safe to operate, and while I could make her do it unpaid, I feel like she’ll learn better if she has to watch you suffer for her mistake,” Kakashi shoots him a one eyed smile, “complain really loud for me when you do, okay?”
“Sure… He does know her name, right?” Naruto asks.
Kakashi shrugs.
Comments
Mest450
Haku gonna have to add a deadpann neji emote to the stream.
Readgold2000
I'm sure he remembers her name after that first punch...the hair is distinctive, but the unrestrained violence should have been memorable enough to remind him. Everything after that first punch was just messing with her.
Christopher Cummins
Fixed.
Damon Fitzgerald
Small mistake here 'Which brings Naruto and Sasuke to sitting up in a tree,' which was a bit confusing. Should be Kakashi instead of Sasuke. I feel like Naruto is maturing really quickly due to have essentially years worth of memories at this point. And memories doing non battle stuff. Also I really want to know if Sasuke actually knows her name. Quick get Ino over to read his mind.
Dopplerdee
I feel like Naruto is speed running having multiple personalities. Also Sasuke is the world's funniest man.
