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Chapter 69 - Nice - Arc 4 - Brawling in the Streets: Sakura, Redeemed
🕑 Added 2024-08-10 00:05:50 +0000 UTCThe edits have been slow because work has been slowing me down. I was hoping to have them all done already but it's looking like it's going to go slower than intended.
So far I've largely rewrote CH 47, and fixed a ton of typos and badly worded text in 48. The edits are here on the patreon if you wanna go look, but nothing important has changed yet.
This chapter was fun, and I think this is how I shoulda done Fierro scenes to begin with. A random two hundred words here, another there. It works, and doesn't distract from the actual chapter.
Have fun.
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Aside from her head spinning, sleep is both nice and something she deserves. So much has happened in such a short time, and she’s not handling it as well as she likes. From attacking Neji, to going through a slaughter fest with him, wires are crossed and her head hurts. It feels like she needs to scream, but when she opens her mouth, she finds the silence so much louder than any noise she could possibly make.
A deep breath pushes away the encroaching haze, but it’s not gone for long. She picks herself up by the sword, and with one look towards her teammates and their ready expressions, she knows it’s time to strike again. One Chunin, three Genin, and Fierro. Assuming Fierro isn’t a Jonin or something, which wouldn’t fit with the level of the dungeon they were given, this will probably be one of their easiest battles yet.
So why is she shaking? Why does Hunger feel like it’s trying to tell her to leave this place and forget the mission? Its messages are so confusing, it’s supposed to speak of nothing but death and decay, right? Why does it seem like it’s as anxious as she is, like a child having panic attacks at every unknown variable.
Why does it feel like a caring teammate more worried about her than she is?
It doesn’t matter, what does matter is the glance from Tenten and Neji. They’re ready, and if Neji can willingly walk into a place that’s deactivating his Byakugan, if he can accept magic for what it is and deal with what he must without hesitation, she needs to be able to do the same. “I’m ready.” She announces, and she’s happy to say that they’re the same.
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“They’re coming,” Fierro’s words wash over them well. There’s not much else to say, all that’s left is her right hand and three Genin that’ve managed to escape the spiral of death by pure coincidence. It’s not the Leaf Ninjas that have killed them, it’s her, “you should run, there’s no point in staying. I have failed, and you will die for a cause with no meaning.”
She just wanted to go home, and she led them along like this.
She promised so much more than this, knowing that it would likely end just like this, she manipulated them and here they are. She sees defiance in their eyes at her suggestion despite it all being revealed a lie. They’ve seen her weakness now, watched her army fall, and been there to experience it all. “You’re idiots.”
Gita, Luminella, and Miel stand at the ready, lucky idiots but still just idiots nonetheless. They are children, about to be forsaken by their own lack of experience and understanding, they don’t yet grasp that you only make it to adulthood by learning how and when to run away. Honor is for the dead.
It’s too bad, if they were older she wouldn’t need to, but it’s time to betray them. Them and that foolish, childish trust. “Luckily I know of a way to make you all stronger for a short time, strong enough to defeat her at least, come with me.”
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Neji’s eyes deactivating forcefully is such a disturbing sight. His veins take a long time to revert to a proper position, and she can tell his vision is offset by that fact. It’s okay though, one slash of her sword after another, she puts down the undead monsters in their way. She takes the lead, kicking open the doorway and finding one of the monsters leaping at her.
She does nothing. It lands on her mid pounce and brings sharp teeth down on her neck, and she keeps walking without a care. It did nothing, it never could have. Every single zombie they’ve passed so far was meaningless to her, and she was too caught up in her own anxieties and thoughts to realize that she could have saved them all effort just walking through with her sword. She’s been stuck between reality and gaming and hasn’t accepted that it’s both.
Well, that’s changed now. She elbows the creature into the wall-
And it falls in half while she moves onto the next. Her sword probably doesn’t like all the coagulated blood it's slicing through, but she needs to save chakra so it’ll do its damn job. She doesn’t need to power it up for this, and the hammer is too large for hallways this small.
They agreed, she’d slash her way through while they follow limply behind. Tenten will protect Neji, and Neji will be ready to punch anything that gets past Tenten. He still knows basic hand to hand combat, and he’s still pretty strong, so he doesn’t need to be both of their concerns.
[3 Genin have escaped, Partial Dungeon Fail, rewarded Affection scores have been lowered from +1000 to +800]
Well that sucks, how was she supposed to stop that? They can escape? No one told her! Does that mean she could have been leaving some alive this whole freaking time?
At least punishment wise, it’s just affection scores, she hasn’t lost Gai’s recommendation.
She just has to hope she’s made a good enough impression in this dungeon to make up for the loss in points. She hopes all the bonding they’ve done has meant something, but she refuses to check. The scores feel wrong to look at for her friends.
“The Genin have disappeared,” she announces, “it’ll just be the Chunin and Fierro.”
“That makes things easier,” Tenten points out, “I don’t know about Fierro, but we can take out one standard Chunin, a missing nin Chunin should be a walk in the park.”
“Yeah…”
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The glowing circle fades in vibrance, and Fierro’s gaze lands on her Right Hand, her knight for as long as she can remember. She got to this land so suddenly, and there he was waiting and watching her wake up in a sand crater. She failed experiments, and he was there. She grew an army, and he was there. Now, he’ll be leaving her.
“Are you sure you should have sent them away?” He asks her, his voice gruff and practically hollow.
“The real question is why I didn’t send them all away when this started,” she denies him with a shake of her head.
“You needed to conserve mana,” he reminds her, a hand landing on the lance upon his back, he pulls it from its place with a sharp ringing sound, “I will go meet them, you should see about charging enough power to escape yourself.”
“You know I can’t do that,” she denies him with a shake of her head, and a hand over her heart, “I should go down there with you.” He doesn’t answer her, he simply leaves her while she’s too weak from magic exhaustion to stand. “You idiot…”
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One last slash and the final monster in front of them falls. It barely hits the ground before she is stepping over its discarded corpse. They enter a much bigger room than should exist. It’s tall and white and with marble pillars that stretch up impossibly high. Sakura’s footsteps are a little louder than she’d like on the squeaky floor, but that’s the least of her concerns.
There’s a man in here, one in bone armor with a skull mask on. He has red hair flowing behind him in a mane, and he holds a lance in both his hands. Lance, as in, the kind one would use on a horse. It has a spiral tip that flows back round and round until it’s so big it covers both his arms from view. It’s also shiny, polished and boney, which feels odd to her because bone isn’t exactly a competitor for hardened steel of any sort. It must be magically reinforced, or maybe they’re just dealing with an idiot. Whatever the case, he exhales and a sparkly mist escapes from his mask, flowing across the room towards them. Sakura waits for it to do something, watching it get closer, unsure of herself.
A bang erupts from behind her, Tenten firing that damn shotgun again, but this time it doesn’t seem like it’s for fun. A quick look behind her reveals a horde is trying to flood into the room from behind them.
With Neji practically disabled and struggling to deal with zombies, and Tenten preoccupied keeping him safe, it seems this fight is hers and hers alone. She swipes at the dust flowing towards her, and isn’t at all surprised to see it ignite. Metal fragments inside it sparking from the collision with her blade. The entire room in front of her erupts in flame, and she’s already jumping back towards her teammates before the sparks have finished going off. She finds the room filled with smoke, and gets into a refined combat stance taught by Kakashi.
A thousand possibilities flash through her mind at once, but only one stands out as almost guaranteed. She shifts her footing so she’s in front of Neji, firms her stance, charges blood onto her sword and slashes forward to meet what she’s sure of.
Sparks fly in all directions as a spinning lance meets her demonic partner. It’s not the first time a superior force has met her head on while she blocked an attack for her teammate. Last time was back in Wave, when Zabuza had thrown his sword and she’d disobeyed a direct order because she didn’t trust Naruto to move. She’d been discarded, destroyed, left to bleed to death and only saved because the enemy was too kind hearted to let her die in the dirt.
Haku’s come a long way since then, and so has she. She holds her ground and lets out a calm hiss while countering every vibration running through her hands like she was born to push through them. She steps forward despite the pressure threatening to make her collapse. She charges more and more power into Hunger, and this time instead of some legendary blade stealing the blood from her swing, she’s got nowhere to go but up.
Half a second passes, and in that time the mist is cleared by the sheer shockwave caused by their clash. There’s a single crack, but it’s not her sword. She takes another step as she feels the pressure bearing down on her lessen. Within an instant his lance is torn apart under the pressure of his own attack meeting an unstoppable force. The bone crumbles into dust with her step, and that’s all she needs to know what must be done. She dashes forward, slicing forward and letting Hunger guide her. She trusts in her blade, and herself in his face within the same breath she started this clash. Halves of bone lance fall around her, and she has one chance before his own reaction takes him out of her grip. She releases everything in her sword outward.
Hunger’s power and her blood cut through bone while it was held to her grip.
Released out into the world directly in the face of her opponent, she finds it lives up to its name.
It devours everything..
The person in front of her evaporates into a mist, his essence joining the overflowing swing that sends out an airborne apocalypse. Marble is replaced by dust, the room is devoured by the oncoming storm. The snap of creation is louder than anything Tenten could shoot, and her own cry of blistering agony is eaten before it leaves her lips.
She finds she’s on her knees, the entire scene in front of her reduced to ash and what was once room is missing. There shouldn’t have been any fire, and yet everything is burnt. So much is lost, and yet nothing of value was ever here. She hears Neji bash in the final skull behind him, and looking out at the carnage, Sakura can’t help but feel redeemed. She stood her ground for a teammate, and this time, she didn’t die.
Tears well up in her eyes, but whether it’s due to the pride simultaneously welling up within her, or a look at her scorched and torn apart hands is another question entirely.
“I would have dodged.” Neji places a hand on her shoulder, and she knows he’s probably not lying. Unlike before though, this wasn’t a lack of trust that made her move, it was compassion. So weak and without his eyes, he deserved help, and she was there to give it. She has no regrets, well, besides attacking him earlier in this mission. She shoulda chewed him out instead, he’s probably as unstable as her and doesn’t even know why he did what he did. She knows better, it’s not easy being different.
“This hurts.” Sakura admits, shaking the sword in her palms, and finding some of her skin stuck to it. She let out so much power at once it fused to her, and they’re not done this mission yet so she cannot rest. “Whoops.”
[10/10 Chunin Killed] [Objective Complete]
[17/20 Genin Killed, 3/20 Escaped] [Objective Partially Complete]
[0/1 Fierro Killed]
“We’re almost done.” She nods to herself, prying her hands apart with a wet shlick and pulling out a first-aid spray with numb fingers lacking skin. She smears herself along it, but that hardly matters, a moment later the green spray makes it all better.
“Just Fierro left.” Neji agrees, while Tenten palms her other shoulder and shakes her a little with a gratitude that Sakura can feel flow through her.
She can feel a real thank-you in there.
Silent, but powerful.
Unlike the previously spoken but empty words outside of the inn, after she’d made things worse by attacking Neji.
“Ready when you are.” Tenten says, ready to help her up at a moment’s notice.
Comments
Dopplerdee
Neat chapter. The targets being able to leave is really intresting.
The Human
"It feels like she needs to scream, but when she opens her mouth, she finds the silence so much louder than any noise she could possibly make." is a fantastic line, it's going in my quotes note
