Breaking the world one step at a time
Omakes:
1.
“There’s other masks here,” Komori tells her, floating half-a-meter off the ground and pointing at Inu. “I’m bringing you here so that you can tell which masks are nice and which are under the bad guy. Besides, the mission Uzumaki-san gave you? Her son is here.”
“You’re an asshole, yeah?” Sakura whispers, eyes narrowed at him. Her hands going through the sign language for – is that a swear word? Whichever jounin taught her that is in huge trouble.
“I thought that was already common knowledge?”
(Inu looks so confused up there on the roof and Tori revels in the feeling.)
2.
“You thought of a way to lure ANBU here on purpose?” Tori gulps fearfully. “If the three know, we’re dead meat.”
Kushimaru, Rin, and Kushina. The three spirits who are always around young little Sakura had been dubbed the three from one of the dead older jounin, igciniting rounds of laughter from the other ghosts.
“No,” Komori corrects defiantly, “We’re already dead. And if the three know, I’m the one who’s going to be worse off.”
(Nothing can be quite worse than death. That is, unless you aren’t already dead.)
3.
“Sakura-chan…” Naruto trails off, eyes darting across the room. “Why’s y’ house so cold?”
Said girl looks at the four jounin simultaneously playing poker and go-fish on the ceiling, Kushina who tries hugging her son but phases through him, Kushimaru sitting vertically on the wall for no apparent reason, Komori and Tori feigning sleep, and holy is that the Shodaime and the Nidaime what the hell –
“Free air conditioner,” Sakura, already used to the low temperature and the crazy things her ghost friends do within her range of sight shrugs it off.
“O…kay?”
(Maki-chan across the road plays games with her while Miu-oba teaches her to cook.)
4.
“You want to teach Naruto the Shadow Clone jutsu?” Sakura’s eye twitches involuntarily. “Isn’t that some sort of forbidden jutsu?”
Tobirama squares his shoulders and looks down at her in the eye (she admits her height is subpar but this is an insult) and says that if Naruto can’t produce a regular bunshin he won’t be able to graduate and she knows it, leading to Sakura standing on a chair, eye to eye with the Nidaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato. Engaged in a staring contest.
“Am I interrupting something?” Shisui who pokes his head through the wall and into the room questions, seeing Sakura spawled defeatedly on her bed and Tobirama’s smug smirk. Someday she’s going to smack that stupid grin off his face, she just knows it.
(And she did, when she finally managed to slap a seal on him and smack the grin off his face.)
5.
“Momochi Zabuza is there,” Kushimaru informs her right after the Demon Brothers of the Mist are subdued. “Gato is going to kill them off after he’s done with them.”
“Any idea what to do?” Sakura asks. Her teammates are already used to her talking to the ghosts and lets her be, with the exception of Kakashi-sensei who knows close to nothing but he deserves nothing after playing dead. Not that it fooled her.
Kushimaru nods. “Bargain prices with Zabuza. After that, kill Gato and give him the money he wants and he’ll leave. He’s part of Terumi Mei’s rebel faction after all. And one of the Seven Swordsmen so I personally don’t want him dead.”
“Personally I think we should keep Gato alive.” Rin objects with her charmingly sweet smile. “I would hate to see him as a ghost, that motherfucker. We could starve him. Make sure the time frame of his death aligns with our leave. Revenge is a dish best served chilled. Bury him in a hole and leave him there until he dies. Leave a plant to grow with his body.”
Sakura nods slowly, ignoring Kushimaru’s shudder and Rin’s cheer. “That could work.”
(Kushimaru thinks that women should never be underestimated. They can dice you like meat while smiling.)
6.
“Suna and Oto are planning what?!” Sakura exclaims at one Gekkou Hayate’s ghost.
“I overheard the genin-sensei of the Kazekage’s children talk with Kabuto from earlier.” Hayate says under the scuntixing gaze of Rin and another Nara ghost. “They’re planning an attack. Something about Genjutsu’ing the audience was mentioned after they parted ways. Kabuto took some of my DNA.”
Rin realizes. “The Konoha-nin with the nin-info cards. Thankfully we told the boys to stay quiet and don’t talk to other contestants through the hive-mind seals.”
“Alright,” Sakura takes out a scroll and starts writing. “We’re sending a letter to the Hokage and hope he actually does something about it before shit hits the fan. No, don’t look at me like that. I can’t reveal my abilities or Danzo will want his hands on me.”
(It was only after quite a few months that Sakura remembered that DNA = Edo Tensei.)
7.
Orochimaru has not expected the Sarutobi-sensei he was talking to for the past few hours in the Kage box to be a Shadow Clone, of all things, and for a pinkette to alter his Edo Tensei seals expertly like she’s done this a thousand times over.
“Sakura-chan!” The Shodaime Hokage is smiling, laughter-in-a-bottle like the others say he is and the Nidaime Hokage, quiet and stoic, is smirkingat said pinkette and Orochimaru is confused.
He’s a researcher, first and foremost (nevermind the pathetic slavery seals on his heart and tongue respectively made from Danzo – what’s done is done) so not knowing anything about this situation he supposingly orchestrated is not a pretty feeling.
(He will soon search rumors for a Haruno family Kekkei Genkai and feel a shiver up his spine.)
8.
“You can see ghosts.” Sasuke balks at her but shuts up good-naturally as she tells him some tidbits no one should know. They’re in her house with Naruto, in her sealed room with various Uchiha ghosts all over. Sakura and Naruto invited him to her house after the academy let them out by baiting him with additional information.
She admits. “Yeah. My parents and Naruto know, that’s why they let me stay home by myself because there’s quite a lot of them.”
Sasuke demands. “Tell me everything you know.” And she does.
(Part of him doesn’t want to believe it but the other part of him knows that Itachi wouldn’t have done it without orders.)