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Chapter 37 - Coming Home: Finale
🕑 Added 2024-05-21 14:01:18 +0000 UTCThat was a good chapter to write. I did have to edit it for typos like 4 times though, sometimes I just can't type, I dunno.
What I do know is that scroll isn't spelled skr';;
I loved this arc, it really reminded me what this story is about.
We've hit about 6 months, a few days off really.
I hope to go another 6 months.
As is policy, I'm going to take off a few days, most of a week.
During that time I will plot out at least a good portion of the next arc in detail, and hopefully create more wonderful content for all of you.
See you on the 27th.
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Morning training has gotten a little harder lately, and Sakura knows what that means. They’re leaving soon. Kakashi has a lot of patterns, and while she hasn’t been with him long enough to pick up on them all, it’s been almost three months so she’s not exactly lacking in experiences to pick up on his nuance.
He gets serious when things are about to change, it doesn’t even matter what the change is.
But there’s only one reasonable change at the moment, and that’s another mission. A C rank or higher this time, unlike all the D ranks he’s had them doing to try and buy time and bleed off some of their stress from all the nonsense. It’s apparently fairly common for those taking B and A rank missions to spend a few weeks cooling off after all the blood shed. It makes sense, though officially they only went on a C rank mission and they didn’t even get paid, so to say she’s antsy would be somewhat of an understatement.
“Hello!” Sakura greets the girl behind the shop counter as she steps into the familiar place that houses her damn sword. It’s finally time to come check on that. She was told a few days, she may have forgotten for a week, or two… Hopefully that’s fine.
“Hello.” It’s Tenten behind the counter. It makes her question it for a second, what if this is secretly her store and her dad doesn’t actually exist? Should she tip if that’s the case? Some orphans have it hard… She doesn’t have a lot of money, she shrugs that thought off. “You’re here for your sword?”
“Uh, and my bolt, yeah.” Sakura nods as she approaches the counter. “You remember me? I have blonde hair now and everything, how…”
“Yep, I remember the girl who delivered murder incarnate to my father’s store and asked my daddy to touch it, mmhmm.” That’s not a good sign. Maybe it’s having nineteen charm, but she doesn’t need a mood chart to see that Tenten would really like to strangle her and possibly bash her head against the counter a few times. The girl puts on gloves- then another pair - then another pair -
“Four pairs? Seriously? It’s a sword.” Sakura stares, before Tenten uses her four time gloved hands to lift her Chaos Blade up and set it on the counter like it’s a radioactive rod that needs to get as far away as physically possible from her right this instant. She drops the bolt a moment later with a lot less care.
“Daddy says your sword is cursed.” Tenten explains. “And not that baby curse you sometimes get from old blades that’ve been repaired too many times and have grown a thirst for blood. The kind of curse that you don’t fuck with. In fact, I’ve half a mind to report you for bringing that thing to my daddy’s shop in the first place.
Sakura can’t help but blink at the girl, “I uh, didn’t think it was that bad?” Sakura picks her sword up with her bare hands, rolling her eyes at Tenten’s look of horror. She can feel the glow enter her eyes immediately, welcoming her back. A deep part of her subconscious begs her not to part with it like this again, and she can’t help a little smile taking over her lips. It’s probably in her head, but it’s cute, like a pet that greets you at the door after a long day, “no worries, I have you.” She strokes it, to the clear horror of the genin in front of her. Tenten actually looks a little green. “You okay?”
“No! I touched that damn thing once and I’ve had nightmares ever since.” The older girl does look a little ill. “It fucking talked to me, how are you holding that? Why are you holding that? I held it for like five minutes tops and it told me to murder my parents. Daddy says it only gets worse the more you deal with it.”
“Uh, I dunno about that, I mean I get more intrusive thoughts when I hold it but I just thought that was because I have a sword.” Sakura points out. “You know like when you stand somewhere really high and your brain’s like ‘jump’? You don’t get those thoughts when you’re on the ground.” Sakura shrugs.
“Intrusive thoughts?” Tenten gawks, “You get intrusive thoughts about murdering people and eating their corpses?”
“You don’t?” Sakura looks down at her dark sword in confusion, then Tenten, then the sword, then back to the irate girl. “Huh. That explains a lot… well okay the eating their corpses part is new. I wonder what that’s about.”
“I don’t want to know what that’s about.” The elder Genin deadpans, glaring at her with quite a bit of force. “He asked that you get it the hell out of our shop, and never bring it back, ever. I second this, if I ever have to hold that thing again I will give into the thoughts and chop you into bite sized cubes.” She enunciates everything with clear vehemence. “You should talk to whoever gave it to you, they clearly hate you. In fact, report them for attempted murder several times over.”
“I will.” Sakura drawls a little at the thought. She has to have a conversation with Kakashi! “Talk to them, I mean, I don’t think he was trying to hurt me.”
“He was.” Tenten asserts. “I haven’t slept a full night in a week, he absolutely was.”
“And my bolt?” Sakura moves on, picking up the one she gave them, “what’d he find?”
“He said he can’t replicate them.” Tenten answers simply. “He can make something like them, but whatever these are, he’s never seen anything like them before. They’re running off an energy source that’s not chakra, and in his words, if he was qualified to understand and work with magic he’d be running a much bigger shop and he wouldn’t have time to take small orders like this from genin. Even magic swords run on Chakra, I have no idea what that is and neither does he.”
“So his basic prognosis is, he can’t help me with anything and I need to go away?” Sakura asks.
The mood chart appears beside the bun-haired girl’s head, but she’s still not sure what the hell she’s thinking. She wishes it was a little more helpful, maybe if it came with words?
“Can I at least buy some sealing scrolls here?”
“What size?”
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She got a lot of those, it turns out sealing scrolls are quite expensive but ninja get a ninety nine percent discount. This is to prevent civilians from screwing around with sealing willy nilly, but still ensure ninja get plenty if they need them.
Buying them for a civilian is a crime too. She’s not sure why they don’t just restrict the sale entirely, but apparently merchants need them sometimes. It makes sense though, it’d make stocking and transport really easy and might still be worth it if you’re making a high enough profit margin. It’s not like you have to replace sealing scrolls particularly often.
Packing her stuff, she can’t help but feel like her original packing was amateur hour. She learned so much from Wave and the mishap that happened there. First of all, she now has three different sets of her combat and travel gear in different scrolls in different parts of the pack, including one deep in her kunai pouch underneath a fake bottom so if her pack gets destroyed she still has that.
It feels good to finally wear their family crests again, all three of them combined and showing off what a team they are. That Naruto is now wearing the Haruno crest instead of his own won’t stop her from showing his family the respect they probably deserve.
Respecting Naruto’s heritage is also super important, now that she knows that heritage somehow led to him devouring the Kyuubi like a bowl of ramen. The image of the Kyuubi scrambling around the bottom of a bowl while an evil Naruto tries to loudly slurp it up makes her laugh quite loudly, and then she finds she’s got enough charm to realize how awkward that is and takes a moment to stop blushing in embarrassment for something no one saw her do.
“Stupid magical stats.” She grunts to herself, even as she smiles at the image popping back into her head. “Naruto’s such a glutton.”
Back into her shorts, back into her fishnet, hell it feels good just to eye her pink top and look in the mirror knowing she’s dressed to impress and compress her enemies.
She also had a proper belt made for the quiver for her bolts, and another bag to wear at her back with just the crossbow. She decided not to seal the bolts or crossbow for fear that magic might interact with the sealing arrays in scary ways. Actual magic… confirmed by a smith, her ability is creating magical artifacts. It’s not like magic is completely unheard of, lots of magical swords exist - even if they use chakra from the atmosphere or whatever - and actual demons exist out in certain places…
But to hold magic, to shoot it, to have it called from the abyss and placed into her hands as loot?
It makes her proud.
“Shit, I never had Naruto look at that thing!” She remembers the locked scroll that came with the lockpicks she gave him…
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“Sakura, I have no idea how to unlock that.” Naruto disappoints her quite soundly, shaking his head while examining the scroll. “Okay, that’s not true, I know how to open it, I need to put the lockpick in that first pin and then shift it to the right for that second oddly shaped pin, then I need to be careful as I wiggle it to the third or the first will relock and destroy the entire lock, making it unopenable and most likely shattering my pick.”
“Uhhh-”
“What I mean to say is, I know how to unlock it, but I’m not gonna try. You need a professional, or maybe uh, I could practice more first?” Naruto scratches the back of his head, ruffling his own hair apologetically while staring at her.
“Just a lot of ‘I can’t help you today,’ huh.” Sakura hisses, sucking her teeth before nodding to herself. “Thanks Naruto. Please practice, okay?”
“I will!”
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Back to her room, she can’t help but admire the final part of her new preparations. She got a new sheath for her sword. She got tenten to make it for her under the promise that she never, ever unsheathes the sword anywhere near her ever again. It’s a lot sturdier than her old sheath - which was half falling apart on her - and even has the sword’s name engraved on it.
Yes, it’s name, she’s decided to name it. Forget Chaos Blade, her sword is officially named Thirsty. It’s a little corny but it drinks her blood and enemy blood and never seems to get bored of the drink so, it’s Thirsty.
Okay, it’s a bad name, but watching Kakashi cringe when she introduces it will make it so worth it. The jerk gave her a monster sword!
She’ll talk to him about that, eventually, but for now she’s got a mission coming up and she can’t help but admire the fine work of the sharp edge while humming to herself. Tenten was definitely exaggerating, but it’s good to know the intrusive thoughts weren’t entirely in her head. Well, they were, but… She was right to be cautious, but if intrusive thoughts are all the sword can really do to her then she’s not going to complain. She’s always been socially awkward, not doing the first thing to jump into her head is natural. If she did that people would think she’s crazy…
A sword that helps motivate you to take out your attackers isn’t a bad thing, if it doesn’t control you, and she’s pretty sure it doesn’t do that. She’da found that out by now, at worst it’s made her a little cockier, but she can learn to get past that. She kinda already has.
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“Mom, dad?” She has one final loose end to tie up before Kakashi sweeps them away for whatever crazy nonsense he has planned for them. It’s simple, it’s dumb, it’s childish, and she’d rather chew glass than go without it.
Sakura ambushes her parents with a hug.
A warm, full enveloping, soothing hug.
She needs it so much, she’s needed it for almost two months now.
A comforting embrace from her family to wish her well on her journey and make it all feel worth coming back to. “Something feels off?” Sakura can’t help but ask herself out loud.
“There we go.” She mumbles, the feeling disappears the moment a fourth pair of arms enters the embrace. “Thank you, Naruto.”
Comments
Defracto
If the girl who has a romantic relationship with her weapons tells you a weapon is evil and to keep it away from her, I'd say that would be some fantastic advice.
Sly Bayesian Fox
"“Intrusive thoughts?” Tenten gawks, “You get intrusive thoughts about murdering people and eating their corpses?” “You don’t?” LMAO
Dopplerdee
I love Naruto just getting adopted. Also poor Ten-ten.
Damon Fitzgerald
I am just imagining the horror Tenten will experience when Lee asks Sakura out on a date in front of her. Although will Lee be interested in her when she has blonde hair? Also will Sasuke remember her name now she has blonde hair?
