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Chapter 21: Awkward Goodbyes
🕑 Added 2024-04-05 10:49:54 +0000 UTCThis is the end of Wave, and I can't help but feel like it's also the end to a very large chapter of my life. I've never done a project this far out before, at least not well. In my adult life no series I've ever made has gotten nearly this big, and that makes Sakura my current "Masterpiece."
Which is why it's sad that it's not the best I could make it. The production schedule I've currently set is impossible. Between Patreon not making enough money to afford me the days off I need to get the extra work done, to having to figure out a move, the current cycle is unsustainable and the lateness of this chapter is proof of that. This was supposed to be a week off, and here I am on Friday morning posting CH 21 instead of last Sunday.
Something needs to change for the next arc, and I'm not sure what. I'll figure that out next week probably, might hold some polls. As of this moment though, almost a full two months in, Patreon is at $43, and that doesn't even give me one day off from my full-time schedule. The story is suffering from 'crunch' and it shouldn't. I'm burning out.
I still need the time off to plan the next arc, so instead of a chapter next week we'll probably get a few fun omakes. I have one from Ino planned, one from Sakura's parents, and maybe even one from the jonin squad. They'll be canon despite the word omake.
They should be a lot easier to write so I'll belt them out while planning. The first two at least.
Enough talk, enjoy the chapter.
Thank you so much for your support, and if you have any suggestions for the issues at hand, feel free to message me.
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For Sakura waking up in the field feeling refreshed and on top of the world comes with a lot of mixed feelings she’s not sure how to deal with. First, there’s fear. What if sleeping doesn’t heal crippling injuries? Could she even continue to be a ninja if she was blind? Eye transplants are a thing but as a genin she wouldn’t be on any sort of priority list for them.
Second, there’s confusion, she isn’t sure why Haku is rummaging his fingers through her hair, but it feels nice and she isn’t exactly about to complain. She’s hesitant to open her eyes for a long moment, a niggling doubt in the back of her head asserting that maybe, just maybe, she won’t see anything at all when she does.
The sun flashing in her eyes when she opens them might just be the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen, even if she quickly has to divert them lest she go blind for another waking period. “Why are you touching me?” She asks, now that she has the most basic of her bearings back and can grasp basic concepts like ‘this is weird.’
“Naruto remembered I was gathering herbs when we met.” Haku explains. “He brought you to me, so I could ease your pain.”
“I was asleep. It didn’t matter.” Sakura says.
“You don’t get to decide that.” Haku’s gentle words wash over her just like his fingers. “Naruto thought it mattered, so it mattered.”
“Mmm.” Sakura doesn’t have anything to say to that, just a swirling cataclysm of emotional turmoil. So much happened in so little time, even having her sight back and being without pain doesn’t ease her memories. Sasuke had his Sharingan active for all of that, the poor guy. At least in time she’ll be able to let it fade away, he’ll always remember every moment. “He’s very sweet.” She decides, after a long moment to herself. “Naruto, I mean. It was pointless, but he cared.”
“Caring is never pointless.” Haku says.
“Yeah… I guess not.”
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Alone for the first time in quite some time, she allows herself to look at the rewards from that dungeon. It’s been so very long since she’s been without the rush of training or the sound of her allies and their subtle breaths. In one way or another, whether it be clones, responsibility, or direct influence from others, she’s felt the presence of her team and the burden of what they’d have to do weighing down on her without fail.
Being alone with the crushing burden of an overwhelming objective isn’t being alone at all.
At one point in her life all she wanted was to spend her day in her dark room, playing games and only talking to others to shit talk or get a quick hug and good night from her parents. Where did that go? Is this even the same Sakura?
She doesn’t know, and she finds she doesn’t care either. She’s happier now, even if she would absolutely adore a chance to settle down under a blanket with a hand held and snuggle up with an adventure that doesn’t involve pain or life and death. She’s so starting a new animal crossing game when she gets home.
Her reward nestles into her hand very shortly after calling it. It’s the first object besides money to disappear into any sort of inventory, so she knew it was important, and holding it only affirmed that knowledge. The paper is old and fragile, an oily feeling rubbing off on her fingers as she grips it.
[Deed To Wave]
[Use?]
What does that even mean? Can you own a country? Could she?
Her power was going well beyond the normal and ethical boundaries she’d already witnessed it playing with. Could it even give her ownership of a place, and if it could, what would that ownership entail?
Using it is the only right thing to do, it’s not like she can just throw away the reward they worked so hard for, something that is supposed to save Wave, just because she’s anxious. But it’s also terrifying, what if she’s suddenly responsible for every person here? What if people become pawns, or toys, or the mere activation of it starts some crazy event she has to intervene in that takes her away from her mission or her team?
Can a ninja of Konoha own property, or is that a conflict of interest?
None of that matters, she’ll figure it out later, they didn’t do this just to let it sit in an inventory, and she’s not sure if she could throw it back in there anyway. She could try, but that'd just be procrastinating.
Her finger hits the use prompt, and the piece of paper melts away like it was never there, dusty fragments blowing away into the wind and turning into ash that spreads every which way.
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“Guys, help!” She’s not quite sure which line of her new reality made her seek out her team, but she does know she’s panicked and her team is comfortable and safe.
Sprinting to them is all she can manage with such a recently scrambled mind, and it isn’t for who knows how long that she comes back into herself, head resting in Sasuke’s lap, Naruto laying beside her, Kakashi sitting off to the side clearly confused, and Haku humming a gentle tune while caressing her hair just like he was so shortly ago.
They have an odd dynamic, she wonders when they got good at this.
Did she melt down a lot like this during her time training? She doesn’t remember it.
She barely remembers anything.
What she does remember is that reward. “The reward is a new system.” She explains.
“The reward?” Kakashi asks.
“For the dungeon. The thing that’ll fix Wave.” She idly taps the air, opening it again for herself.
“I’ve been given the deed to wave, which appears to be a city builder system. I can assign jobs that need to be done, use resources from the coffers as rewards for completion or basic pay, I can see a birds eye view of the city and see general resource costs to fix or improve or even demolish them as well as the earnings and upkeep of the city.”
“That sounds like a good thing.” Sasuke points out, “why the reaction?”
“Because I don’t like city builders!” She groans, rolling over away from Haku and burying her face in Sasuke’s stomach. She’ll worry about the implications later, right now she has bigger worries. “I’m not good at them, I’ve spent dozens of hours on them and only ever barely succeeded at surviving the first winter or crazy disaster. Most of the time my people starve, or get eaten, or some other form of resource based destruction because I overlooked something simple and stupid.”
“So just, get better?” Naruto shrugs, “I don’t see the problem. Games are about practice, you told me that.”
“The problem is that getting better requires practice, and practice requires trial and error, and these are real people in a real place that’s already on the brink of collapse!” Sakura groans. “It means I need to grind city builders and get good when we get home, instead of relaxing, just so the people of Wave don’t die! Even if I do get good and make it flourish, I probably won’t see rewards for years!”
“That’s rough.” Haku says, clearly not grasping any of it but very happy to be here. “Anything we can do to help?”
“... Maybe.” Sakura mumbles.
“I didn’t catch that.” Naruto says.
“I said, maybe.” Sakura repeats, a little sigh to her breath as she finally picks herself up and removes herself from Sasuke’s lap. She brushes hair out of her eyes, taking solace in the moment of peace to get herself back on track. “Naruto has clones, he could at least help with the manpower before we go. It should help advance it a little out of a death spiral from moment one.”
“I don’t know anything about carpentry.” Naruto says, “or any of the things you’ll need…”
“No, but we do know where to find a mine, and how to transport it, and we can get Tazuna and the other workers to start building things from the stone and other resources.” Sakura realizes.
“Can we even go back into the dungeon?” Sasuke asks.
“Only one way to find out.” Sakura stands, smiling brightly when Naruto jumps up too, eager to help and ready to work.
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Yes, the answer to whether dungeons are accessible after they’ve been completed but haven’t expired is, yes. There’s nothing blocking the entrance, and they can walk right in. The mist is gone, the monsters are gone, the original fork between the two minion rooms and the path forward is just the two minion rooms, the boss room and everything up to it is simply missing.
While the dungeon expires very soon, so they probably can’t do anything major, a few clones craft a pickaxe from some twigs and a nice sharp slab, which they can then all use through the power of clone duplication nonsense. The pickaxes keep breaking but that doesn’t matter, because that clone just pops itself and Naruto replaces it with a new make-shift piece of crap.
Before they know it they’ve got the whole dungeon as one big empty quarry and they’re working on make-shift shitty wagons to try and bring it all into town where they’ll just kind of leave it until someone who knows what they’re doing can work with it.
It’s not enough to fix the situation, and looking at the status screen of Wave she can’t help but notice how many resources are in the red - morale is one of them - and groan to herself, but it’s the best she can do with this short of a time and her current knowledge. Some houses will have to be rebuilt and maybe this’ll work, or maybe it’ll get used for tools or maybe it can secretly be ground up for some kind of crazy spice that they can export for resources they do need. Whatever the case, they are providing a resource that can be used in some way to make up for a lack of another. It’s a very good use of their time, or more specifically, Naruto’s time. Because when she asked Kakashi for the shadow clone so she could help, he looked her right in the eye and told her she’d die screaming if she tried.
Which was, ominious, to say the least. Naruto doesn’t just have more chakra than her. If she can’t make one clone, he has thousands more chakra than her. She’ll have to rethink her saving resources argument for him, and, also hit the books to try to figure out what’s so strange about him. Her power predicts him to be stronger than anything she’s encountered before, including the third Hokage, and she has no doubt in her mind that the Uzumaki bloodline is not that good. If it was, well, the Hyuuga and Uchiha would never have been such big names. The sheer weight of a hundred people like him would trivialize every ninja system ever.
Never before has she regretted leaving management sims and city builders to the wayside in favor of shooters, Real Time Strategies, Role Playing Games and the like. Now, she’ll have to learn quickly. The first realization upon calming down is that game system or not, it follows real-world logic. She doesn’t have to get good at city builders, she has to get good at city planning, like real city planning. This is good because it means she can read a book instead of wasting hundreds of hours getting mad at beavers or whatever. She’s sure they’re very good beavers, she’s bad at directing them, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. She will still use some of her money to buy a few city builders and sims and play them casually for practice but, the planning and research should help her much more.
She’s always been a very good study, and Wave isn’t starting from the ground up. She already has the road structure, where the buildings need to go, a trade route established and many other foundational needs like a bridge to export and import and ships.
So getting great big slabs of stone from the aether right now is amazing, and learning how to use that stone later is also amazing. She doesn’t need to fix Wave right now, she needs to get it started while she’s here, and figure it out when she’s home.
It sucks to have a second job, but she can pull it off if it means these people can return to their lives.
She’s not sure how all this is going to work, but she is sure of one thing, Gato will never happen again. First, because she killed him, like five times.
Second, because she’s in charge and she’ll notice if something like it starts again. Wave is only a week away, less if they sprint, there’s no time to undermine the entire country without her being able to check in and see why things are getting fucky.
Her power was right, this’ll save Wave.
It’s just also going to suck, all the time, possibly for years.
At least she can retire here someday if she lives long enough.
Shit, this is three jobs, she’s Haku’s manager now!
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“Guess there’s no denying my system now, is there?” Sakura asks her sensei, as a flurry of Naruto clones walk by covered in stone dust and happy to be done with it. The dungeon expired a minute ago, and what’s gathered has been gathered. The entire area is missing now, leaving grassland and trees in its place. Now they have to haul all the stone, and she’s not looking forward to that part.
“Nope…” Kakashi drawls. “How in the hell do I explain this in my report?”
“We could not.” Sakura titters.
“No, treason isn’t on the menu today.” Kakashi shakes his head.
“Yeah…” That’s true, lying would be an act of undermining the village, which is not a good look for any ninja’s career. Not undermining their own village, anyway. She’s pretty sure Kakashi would get patted on the back and paid a bonus if he managed to successfully undermine another village.
“How much of my own money do you think this’ll cost me?” Sakura asks. “I don’t think Wave’ll do well as it is, it needs capital.”
“A lot.” Kakashi says. “Luckily, you’ll be getting a rather large payment from the A rank mission we just completed.”
“Guh, yeah.” Sakura rubs her forehead, “wait, A rank? I thought this was a C rank.”
“... Sakura…” Kakashi stares at her like she’s an idiot. She feels like one, he’s good at that, stupidly good. “Tazuna lied, this would probably be a B rank mission since fighting Zabuza wasn’t necessary, but lying about a mission comes with an instant rank up to the price should it be found out. This is effectively an A rank, and the Hokage might deem it an A rank in truth because Zabuza was fought.”
“Wait, but if it goes up a rank automatically, and it might be an A rank, wouldn’t that make it an S rank?” Sakura asks. “I don’t think Wave can pay for an S rank, that might bankrupt my new system on its own… aww crap, I’m gonna get paid from my own resources!”
She smacks herself in the face, hissing at the ground for the fate she has been dealt.
“Well, I doubt you have access to all the wealth of the place.” Kakashi points out, “Tazuna still has money.”
“That just makes it worse, because Tazuna doesn’t have the money for an S rank.” The thing about missions is that each step up is ten times the price. Tazuna had to lie about the mission because he could only afford a C rank, which means an A rank is a hundred times what he can pay, and an S rank… “It’s so coming out of my coffers.”
“Sucks to suck.” Kakashi shrugs.
“Wha-”
The masked bastard somehow manages to smile from his eye instead of his lips, ensuring she doesn’t need the mood chart or to see his face to get he’s mocking her.
When did Kakashi learn that phrase? She doesn’t want her sensei knowing that phrase.
“It’s fine, Sakura-chan, I’ll just open that cleaning business and help out.” Naruto beams as he walks up to her, the real Naruto, the only one not covered in dust and rock. What she’d do for her own private ‘go get me a sandwich’ force. Perhaps it’s best it’s in Naruto’s hands, she’d use it to be lazy.
“Thanks, but this really feels like something I should do on my-” She begins, only to get cut off.
By Sasuke. “No.” Sasuke denies. “I’ll help too, my clan funds aren’t doing anything, and we’re a team.”
“I’m already helping, what’s the difference between helping with clones here and helping with clones back home?” Naruto asks. “Don’t be a dummy, Sakura.”
“Y-yeah…” Looking down at her lap, she can’t argue with them. Besides, the people of Wave really do need the help, turning them down wouldn’t just be screwing herself over it’d be hurting these people they’ve come to know and, well not love but, point affection towards. There is the small issue of the people about to get paid from Wave coffers offering to put money in Wave coffers, which really means they all just did a free A rank mission. Which is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. Except Kakashi, who-
“I don’t need the money,” -shrugs. “It’s a nice idea to have something the entire team can contribute to, something with visible progress to boost morale, and put context to our efforts.”
She doesn’t like it, but Kakashi’s right. Or maybe she does like it, she doesn’t know anymore. She just wants to get home, hug her parents, read a book, and log Haku into a computer.
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“What the…” Sakura and Naruto trail at the same time.
“Master-er, I mean, Zabuza!” Haku calls out, rushing towards the man.
He’s not alone, err, well he is, at least when it comes to the living. He is, however, standing on a mountain of corpses. Bandits, so many of them it’s absurd. Hundreds if not thousands of brigands are pooling their lives into a massive gluttony of destruction, just a few dozen feet from Tazuna’s house.
“You’re an idiot.” The man grunts, as a hand lands on Haku’s shoulder, the missing nin as rugged as and brutal looking as the pile he’s made. It’s technically Sakura’s first chance to look at the man who took her out, and she’s happy to say he’s imposing. It’d be embarrassing if he was some chump with a good throwing arm. He’s covered in bandages, and has a sword on his back that’s so large and ridiculous she can’t help but be in awe that it has no blood on it whatsoever. Of all this killing, it wasn’t even splattered. The man is incredible, or his sword drinks blood. She’s pretty sure it’s the second, after a moment of thought, given it drank the blood from her sword when she blocked it.
“Zabuza-sama…” Haku looks down at the man’s feet.
“Only a soft hearted brat like you would think that taking out one man would solve the problem.” He scolds, “where are the bandits going to go without an employer?”
“Into your sword, it looks like.” Sakura says, just before Naruto can say something snappy. This is her battle, or, well it’s Haku’s but Haku is hers now so… “Thank you for your help.”
Kakashi’s suspiciously quiet, but that makes sense. He’s too busy making sure they’re not about to die, and being prepared for it, to partake in the witty banter. He’s a good sensei, when he wants to be.
“I just didn’t want to waste Haku’s sacrifice.” Zabuza says, his voice deep and almost echoing atmospherically. He looks down and glares at the boy with a sense of clear purpose. “You grasp the choice you made, don’t you? If I ever see you on the battlefield again, it’ll be the last time I see you, ever.”
“Ah, thank you, Zabuza-sama.” Haku’s demeaner takes a bright turn at that, bright enough to stun Sakura. Some hidden message was passed between them there, and she imagines with double her charm she’d have missed it so she doesn’t even try. She’s just, stunned…-
-For a second. “Hey, don’t you go threatening him!” She lunges forward, pushing Haku back and standing on her tiptoes to glare at the man right up close. She can smell his dirty almost rotting breath, and glare right into his eyes. “Stay away from my femboy streamer you knock off good for nothing Cloud wannabe!”
“...” The silence around her makes her wonder if she did something dangerous, for a long second. She did, now that she thinks about it, she needs to start thinking more, way more.
She worries she’s about to be in a sword fight, until the man’s head falls back a little and a thunderous laugh fills their ears. He takes a step back, shaking his head and miming wiping a tear from his eye. “You win,” He says, “but don’t think I won’t be checking in on the two of you. I better hear good things.”
She holds firm as he walks away, leaving them to their own devices, and their own impending journey. “What do we do about the corpses?” Sasuke asks.
“Naruto, get the shovels!” Sakura shouts, she has to go say goodbye to Inari and friends, she’ll leave that nonsense to him.
Thankfully, this time next week, she’ll be in Konoha, sipping tea, reading a book on cities, and yelling at Haku to stop doxxing himself every thirty seconds on stream.
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“Wow, they really like the toys we got. Best loot ever.” Watching out the window with Tsunami by her side, Sakura can’t help but feel nice about everything she’s done here.
The boy she’s taken an attachment to is playing ‘swords’ with other kids from around, golden blades and red blades, and that guy’s got a bouncy hammer. It’s adorable, and she can’t help a little tinge of joyful heat overtaking her while watching them. There’s some girl with a toy crossbow, which they didn’t bring back. It has to have been handmade, and it looks a lot like the one attached to her own shoulder. “That’s so cute,” she sighs happily, “I have an admirer.”
“Maybe.” Tsunami agrees. Well, ‘agrees’. Tsunami hasn’t looked kindly on her the entire time they’ve been here, and while it bothers her that the woman seems to have a problem with her, it’s not her business. Sometimes people don’t like you, and if Sakura knew how to fix that, well, she’d be one of the smartest people ever. People not liking you for their own reasons outside your agency is just a fact of life, like microtransactions and joycon drift. Sometimes you can do everything right to the best of your ability and people hate you, and she’ll be the first to admit it, she has not done everything right with Tsunami. She’s stolen her clothes - and destroyed them -, she’s gotten weirdly close with her son without talking to her first about it, and she’s been a witness to several incidents she’s not particularly proud of.
Of all that, the only thing she can make better is the outfits, so maybe she’ll make that up in the future. She could come visit with a bunch of Konoha’s latest fashions in her size?
“I should go.” Sakura sighs, pushing off the railing of the overlooking balcony.
“You don’t want to say goodbye?” Tsunami asks.
“They’re having fun.” Sakura points at the kids. “I never got to do that, why would I want to ruin it for them?”
“I think he’ll be a lot more hurt by you disappearing without a word than he would be cutting short one game of, whatever that is.” Tsunami rolls her eyes at her. “I get there’s something wrong with your head, but don’t hurt Inari because you’re too dumb to get children.”
“...” Nevermind, she’s never paying the woman back anything, she saved her country, a few outfits is barely a cost. “Fine.”
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“Inari,” Sakura cuts in from the side, leaning against the wall of the house down with the kids, and waving him over. Sneaking up was easy, and allowed her to be a lot cooler than just talking over the balcony, it was a no brainer. The kids all run to her within a moment’s notice, focused and with wide eyes. That girl definitely has admiration written on her features, that toy crossbow is so made after hers. Well, it’s admiration or confusion, she’s not great with those two but she’s pretty sure the chart is showing admiration so she’s choosing it.
“You’re leaving.” The boy grasps instantly, as he gets close. Maybe it’s something on her face she doesn’t know she’s showing, maybe it’s just that he’s smarter than she gives him credit for, but he can tell what she’s about to say before she says it.
“The mission’s over.” Sakura says, reaching out with a hand to shake his. He answers by launching himself against her, and wrapping his arms around her unprompted. “Erm…” She pats his head awkwardly, unsure of how to deal with this but equally unwilling to speak that thought. “Your grandfather is safe now, and I know you will be too. I have to go home.”
“Couldn’t you stay here?” He asks, “I’m sure you could get a job here really easily, what with everyone thinking of you as our savior and all.”
“Err-hehe, how do I explain this, um, that’s called a missing-nin.” Sakura says. “The village sends people out to kill those. I’d die like, next week, if not ten seconds after I announced my plans from my sensei’s hand through my chest.”
“He’d touch your chest?” The little girl speaks up. “Mommy says men aren’t supposed to do that to little girls like us.”
“...Snrk.” She can’t help but snicker, palming her face and shaking her head. “I have to go, but, I do want you to keep the gameboy as collateral.”
“Collat-errr-el?” Inari asks, squinting up at her.
“It means ‘reason to come back.’” Sakura says. “I promise I’ll come get it someday, so keep it safe for me okay?”
“Okay…”
With that, every obligation here has been met. She will have to ship some batteries to him though, so she'll put it on her list.
It’s time for her to leave, before another social encounter appears out of nowhere to make her day any worse and this any harder.
Comments
Dopplerdee
I think it's important to remember that Perfect is the enemy of Good. I've seen alot of stories stall because they kept trying to be perfect when they where already good. That's not to say improving is bad, but trying to force perfection doesn't really work. This story is Good you don't need Perfection, perfection happens on its own. Also I'm pumped for the side story Omakes.
