Chapter 13
Unsurprisingly, they stay in for the rest of the day.
Naruto and Lee badger her to show them more of the “singy thing language”, so she writes out the alphabet for them.
It’s actually a bit difficult to translate individual letters back into the language of this world, which is based on grouping sounds that all involve vowels. The idea of singular consonants without that does take a bit for them to grasp.
Eventually she just grabs paper and some pencil and shows them how to write their names.
Lee’s name is easiest, and he delights in how quickly he masters the curves of the “r” and “e”s to write it out over and over again, each version getting a little bit more of a flourish.
Naruto struggles a bit more with his, given the larger number of letters in both his first and last names and his insistence on trying to write the cross of the “t” and then the stalk, like it’s a hiragana character.
“But why can’t I write it that way?” He whines.
“Because that’s not the way it’s written.” She replies primly, avoiding her mother’s knowing gaze and memories of being gently scolded for writing hiragana characters like they were “t”s.
Years of giving up pudding cups have proven that she’s weak to Naruto’s whining, so eventually she just gives up and lets him write it whatever way he wants to.
It’s not long until the adults join in as well.
Okaa-san’s handwriting is flawless like her calligraphy, producing the most legible iterations of her name once she’s got the spelling down.
Gai-sensei produces the most written versions of his name, though that’s probably her fault for telling him his name could either be spelled G-A-I or G-U-Y. He seems to have decided to claim both spellings for himself, if his dedication to making sure he can write each properly is anything to go by.
Otou-san is just worrying over whether his name looks better with or without the “u” on the end.
Gai-sensei is also very interested in directions as well, for some reason. He makes her go over «left», «right», «up», «down», «behind», «ahead», «go», and «stop» until he, Naruto, and Lee have them all quasi-memorized.
Then her mother asks her about English swear words.
It isn’t until she’s finished running through them all and Okaa-san sweetly says, “If I catch you saying any of those, you’ll be banned from cooking for a week, alright?” that she realizes she’s been tricked.
Otou-san and Gai-sensei are awful at muffling their snickers.
They end up preparing a very late lunch/early dinner.
Turns out divulging her biggest secret and trying to guide her family through the travesty that is the English language is long and hungry work.
A few filets of the lamb come out to rest for an hour, because Naruto asks about some of the dishes from her past life.
While the idea of making a Proper Roast Dinner on her own still turns her stomach, she figures she can at least adapt the meat into the “plate-2-bowls” format.
She crushes a clove of garlic and takes a generous donation from Habu-san to prepare a marinade. “So, any more questions?”
“What kind of training did you do in your Springtime of Youth?” Lee asks, eagerly.
She feels sweat trickle down the side of her face as she finishes marinating the meat and sets it aside to rest before grilling. “Ah, not much really. I was more the... scholarly type—I’d rather have my nose in a book than do much physical activity.”
The thought of her past self trying to tackle anywhere near the amount of exercise she does now...
“I would die.” She states. “That me would die even trying to do a half-lap around our training field.”
There’s a moment of silence that feels highly judgmental.
“...That’s kinda lame, Mayu-chan.” Naruto says.
“I know.” She hides her face in her marinade-covered hands. “Can we not talk about it please?”
“You were the one who opened the topic of conversation, sweetheart.” Okaa-san says, putting the rice on.
“Regardless of the folly of the past, your determination to fulfill your creed has allowed you to blossomed into the Springtime of your Youth!” Gai-sensei shoots her a thumbs-up and a reassuring beam.
She smiles back weakly as Otou-san starts wiping the bits of rosemary and garlic off her face with a wet cloth and a chuckle.
After the marinade is cleaned off and the meat is grilling, she’s left to puzzle over what side dishes to make.
Traditionally, the lamb would be served with root vegetables—potatoes or turnips or swedes, parsnips roasted in honey—but alongside the rice, that many carbohydrates in one meal would be far too heavy, especially for the others who are used to smaller, more balanced portions.
Just as she’s wondering what to do, a bunch of green onions appears on the counter in front of her.
Her mind ticks over possibilities. They’re not leeks, but maybe roasted and served in miso soup...
She grins and grabs a knife.
The onions are diced into perfectly even rounds, sizzling to a perfectly browned texture before the dashi comes to a boil and tofu is cubed and dropped in alongside the onions and some dried seaweed to mellow the flavor.
Somehow a red cabbage appears under her knife, and is chopped into manageable slivers, joining orange slices without the skin and a light vinaigrette that tastes a little sharp, like lemon, on the plate.
The lamb filets come off the grill, each one a warm pink in the middle when they’re sliced against the grain.
The scent of cigarette smoke is barely noticeable under the delicious smells of food.
The cuts of lamb are arranged against the little piles of salad, the umami of the meat and its marinade balanced by the more refreshing flavors of fresh fruit and vegetables.
The miso barely splashes as she pours it into six bowls, onion and tofu bobbing merrily as she spoons generous portions of rice into the rice bowls.
She turns around, ready to serve—
Only to find the other occupants of the kitchen staring at her, frozen.
Gai-sensei’s mouth is hanging open. Otou-san has a hand on his bokkem.
Lee’s eyes are wide and starry. Naruto’s mouth is curving into an excited grin.
Her mother swallows and takes a breath to compose herself. Her voice is slightly strangled.
“Mayu. Let’s talk about boundaries for y—for those deities to follow when they’re interacting with my little girl, alright?”
A shiver goes down not-her spine at the look in Okaa-san’s eyes.
Late lunch/early dinner is delicious, even with the revelation that she had had help (Sanji’s help!) for cooking a lot of it.
According to Lee and Naruto’s enthusiastic descriptions, he’d actually appeared behind her, washed out and slightly blue and see-through, like an underdeveloped photograph, but there. He’d nudged ingredients towards her, steadied her hands while cutting and pouring, then looked over to them with a press of his fingers to his lips and a wink before vanishing just as she turned around.
She has to cover her face with her hands and turn to the side in her chair so she can kick her legs wildly at the thought of receiving Sanji’s unseen aid, let alone him actually touching her.
Her cheeks feel like they could melt snow, they’re so hot.
Gai-sensei volunteers to search all over Konoha in order to find Sanji for her mother, who is not very happy that the chef escaped before she could Have A Word with him.
To be fair, if she were Sanji, she’d probably run away before her mother could Have A Word with her too.
Lee is also on board with this plan, though both he and Gai-sensei are stumped when Naruto asks where to start looking.
Otou-san suggests they build a shrine for the StrawHats in the back garden.
“After all,” He says, swallowing a bite of lamb. “Providing these deities with a place of worship might help...ground them, somewhat, lessen anything nasty if they’re accidentally offended. It’ll give us a sure way to contact them whenever we want too, rather than just waiting for them to pop up willy-nilly.”
“An excellent idea, Jirou!” Gai-sensei cheers. Her father flushes bright red and shoves more food into his mouth.
On Monday, she goes to the Academy flanked by Naruto and Lee.
The masks are in the branches of practically every tree they pass.
She keeps her gaze on the ground and clutches Lee and Naruto’s hands a little tighter in her own.
Lee doesn’t seem to want to let go when it’s time for them to go to their separate classes. She gives him a hug, and that seems to placate him a little.
Naruto just doesn’t let go.
For the entire morning.
Even when it becomes difficult to write down notes for Iruka-sensei’s lectures, he holds on tight to her hand or her wrist.
She feels a bit bad for feeling grateful when they take their usual places at either end of the lunch table, but she was beginning to get worried he wouldn’t even let go if she needed to use the restroom.
Everything seems to pass as normal, even with Sakura’s strange behavior and Chouji’s continual bouts of summer flu. She’s getting quite worried about his health at this point.
They stay behind after the Academy day ends to ask Iruka-sensei about shrine-building. While he personally doesn’t know much about it, he very helpfully points them towards a few stores that do specialize in that sort of thing.
Okaa-san and Lee are waiting outside the gates to walk them home.
She sleeps in the big bed with Okaa-san and Otou-san like she did over the weekend.
A week goes by.
Nothing out of the ordinary happens.
She trains with Gai-sensei in the mornings, they all eat breakfast together, she, Lee and Naruto go to the Academy, she and Naruto eat with their friends at lunchtime, either Okaa-san or Gai-sensei escort them home, the saga of convincing a store to sell them the components for shrine building continues, they eat dinner together, and she sleeps in the big bed.
The problem isn’t that shrine components aren’t available for sale. They are. There are even little kits for mini home shrines that people can build.
The problem is that those shrines are all designed to be dedicated to this random sage guy or to dead people. And she doesn’t really think it’ll be well received if they make a dead person shrine for any of the StrawHats except maybe Brook.
But making one of those for him and a different one for everyone else would also be discriminatory and break his heart. Except he doesn’t have a heart to break.
Yohoho, Skull Joke.
Only Otou-san finds that funny. She sulks a little, but digresses.
Even the store owners who make personalized shrines get suspicious when they hint that maybe they would like something for worship that wasn’t dedicated to the sage guy.
They’ve been turned down in three stores so far, and outright banned from one.
In her defense, she wouldn’t have said anything about the owner’s mother if he hadn’t called Naruto a demon and those other awful things.
She gets another cooking ban anyways.
By the start of the following week, her parents don’t quite look at her like she’ll disappear if they take their eyes off of her.
Naruto and Lee stop keeping a death grip on her hands as well, though they do still hug her a lot more than they used to.
She likes the hugs, so she doesn’t bring it up. She’s mostly just glad she gets to sleep in her own bed again.
Chouji’s illness seems to be clearing up too, slowly but steadily. He still has a few hot flushes, but he’s a bit more alert now. When her current cooking ban is over, she plans on making him some chicken noodle soup to help speed up his recovery.
Shikamaru keeps laughing when she tries to enlist his help in identifying if there’s any flavors he particularly likes or doesn’t like, which is beginning to irritate her a little bit.
Sakura’s...not getting better. At all.
Ino’s face seems to be set in a smiling rictus these days, desperately trying to bridge the growing distance between her and Sakura.
Shikamaru and Chouji have been doing more stuff with her, like partnering up for group projects and walking home together, which helps a bit she thinks.
Naruto and Kiba are just on eggshells. Naruto is tiptoeing around them, trying not to do anything that sets off another scolding.
Kiba’s reached the stage where he’s yelling back in self-defense the moment Sakura turns to him and opens her mouth, though every argument leaves both of them looking even more miserable than before.
Hinata’s tried having a word with her, but she just reported back that Sakura either genuinely doesn’t seem to think there’s anything wrong or is doing a very good job of pretending.
She’s putting money on the latter, because the idea of the former being true is too unpalatable for her to swallow.
The weirdest thing is that aside from Ino, Naruto and Kiba, Sakura’s been treating the rest of them like normal.
It does throw her off kilter somewhat. Still, she, Hinata and Shino do their best to adhere to their plan of “be civil, but shut down any attempts to belittle Naruto and Kiba before it gets too bad”.
Uchiha has surprisingly been the best enforcer of this particular policy. All it takes is one disapproving look from him, and Sakura freezes in the middle of what she was saying like a rabbit in front of a hunter, then quickly turns to talk to Hinata about something.
She’d never thought she’d say this, but borderline assaulting chunin together may’ve been the best thing to happen for the three of them.
Still, Sakura is their friend after all. They’re not just going to abandon her. Even if she’s going through...whatever this is.
She’s asked Okaa-san and Otou-san covertly, but apparently all is well in the Haruno household according to Kizashi and Mebuki Haruno, so she’s at a bit of a loss as to what could be going on.
It had better not be a weird, warped form of puberty, courtesy of parasitic chakra somehow turning people into jerks. She’ll—she’ll—she doesn’t know what she’ll do if it is, but she won’t be very happy, that’s for sure.
To add to this confusion, this year boys and girls get split up for lessons after lunch.
The girls are taught by a different teacher to Iruka-sensei, a mousey woman with glasses who tells them that they will be learning how to blend in to civilian society as kunoichi.
She had no idea what that word means.
When she asks the teacher, the woman looks like she might burst into tears for some inexplicable reason. She then refuses Hinata’s offer of a tissue violently, as if the poor girl had offered her a bomb instead of something to blow her nose on.
It does not get better from there.
She’d anticipated that getting The Talk from Otou-san and Okaa-san, or from Gai-sensei, would be awkward enough. She thinks that even Gai-sensei would do it better than this teacher though.
At least he wouldn’t cry at every mention of the word “sex”. Probably.
She makes a mental note to give her friends the less confusing version later.
Hinata is constantly praised in this class for her ability to appear harmless and ladylike, while Ino is chastised for being too overtly “ninja”, whatever that means.
She gets told that, while her feigning ignorance is extremely credible and will serve her well on intelligence missions and under interrogation conditions, she needs to work on being less... memorable.
She’s...fairly certain that’s positive? Relatively certain. Kinda.
The way the teacher’s lower lip is set to a permanent wobble makes it hard to tell.
Something’s got to give eventually.
She just never expected it would be her.
It’s lunchtime, and they’re trying to navigate the strange, new dynamics that come from Ino trying to gain Sakura’s attention rather than the other way round.
She’s noticed that, despite bringing her normal lunchbox, Sakura has been picking at her food recently. As though she somehow finds it all somehow unappetizing.
It’s beginning to get a little worrying, so she brought something she knows the pink haired girl enjoys, just to make sure her blood sugar stays up at least.
She wordlessly holds out a skewer of dango to the pink-haired girl.
“Oh, no thank you.” Sakura says. “I’m on a diet—got to watch my figure you know!”
What.
“What?” Ino asks.
The wooden dango stick splinters in her fingers.
“What.” She says.
Over the blood rushing in her ears, she faintly hears someone go “oh no”.
“What do you mean, diet?” Her voice is as calm as she can make it.
Sakura flinches back, so she wasn’t as successful as she hoped she’d be.
Her tone is clipped when she replies, “You know, it’s not attractive to eat so much food, especially not unhealthy stuff. I’m working on fixing that. You should too, Mayu-chan, Ino-chan! We could be so pretty if we just lost a teeny bit of weight!”
No wonder you don’t have a boyfriend yet Tamara, the way you scoff down food like a pig.
She stands up, chair skittering away from her. She doesn’t grab Sakura’s collar, but it’s a near thing.
“Do you know when it’s acceptable to be on a diet?” She hears herself asking. “If you have food restrictions that it will kill you to violate, like diabetes or lactose intolerance. If your religion has foods that it’s not acceptable to eat, like pork or beef or animal products. If you want to improve your health by eating food to supplement an increase in activity, to build up protein for your muscles and iron in your blood. But thinking it’ll improve your looks...”
She hisses, “Open your mouth.”
“Wh-what?” Sakura leans away, hand coming up to try and cover the mentioned body part.
“M-Mayu-chan, hold on—” Naruto tries to caution.
She grabs Sakura’s hand, yanking her forward.
At this distance, her teeth don’t seem discolored and her breath doesn’t smell like bile...
“At least you’re not «bulimic».” She grumbles, dropping the limb. “So it’s just «anorexia» we’ve got to deal with. Shit.”
“W-what are you talking about, Mayu-chan?!” The pink-haired girl demands. “Those—those words, wh-what do they even mean?”
“They’re shitty eating disorders.” She tries to keep ahold of her temper. If she doesn’t know any better, it’s okay. She can be taught, she can be helped. “«Bulimia» is where you compulsively overeat and then throw up the meal. «Anorexia» is denying yourself food altogether. Both are symptoms of mental disorder, and done under the delusion that shitty starving will somehow lead to beauty. So why are you wasting food for this shitty delusion?”
Sakura flinches at the words “mental disorder”.
“T-th-that all sounds made up!” She blusters. “E-everyone knows that boys like thin girls best! My mom and Ino’s mom and all of Ino’s mom’s magazines say so!”
She throws her hands up. “What are you even talking about?! What boys?!”
Sakura’s eyes glance to Uchiha and away.
“Oh. Oh Sakura, no.” She says, despairing. “You’re—”
“What?!” Sakura cuts her off. “Do you not think I’m good enough?! Is the sidekick too presumptuous for trying to catch up to the heroine and the rival?!”
Okay, now she’s just completely lost.
“Sidekick?” Ino says, hands held up placatingly. “What do you mean, sidekick?”
Sakura laughs, a high and shrill sound. “Don’t pretend you don’t know! That’s all I’ve ever been to you! Just-just following you around, with no strength of my own! If it weren’t for you, nobody would even notice if I disappeared! Nobody would care! They’re all your friends, not mine!”
Ino shrinks back. “That’s-that’s not true Sa—”
“DON’T LIE TO ME!” The pink-haired girl’s chest heaves for a moment before the all rage in her expression and posture just...vanishes. Like she’s slipped on a mask.
It’s more than slightly disturbing.
Sakura exhales, a sweet smile on her lips. “I’m going to be a strong, ladylike kunoichi heroine on my own terms. Strong enough to beat all of you. If any of you have a problem with that, you can just keep your stupid mouths shut.”
So saying, she picks up her things and flounces to an empty table at the back of the room.
She pulls out a chair and resolutely turns her back to the rest of them.
There’s a moment of silence where they all stare at each other.
“...What just happened?” Naruto asks in a hoarse whisper.
She shrugs. It started out with vile words about diets and beauty that still set her teeth on edge, then went to Sakura’s awful taste in boys, then something about her not having friends?
That last one stings, honestly.
Ino curls into herself, looking miserable.
“She’s not a sidekick, she’s my friend, my best friend, but why, why—” The blonde girl looks up, pupil-less eyes lost and sad. “Am I a bad friend?”
“Nah.” Shikamaru says. “You’re fine. She’s just being troublesome.”
Chouji nods, reaching over the table to squeeze Ino’s hand and making gentle hushing noises as Ino’s shoulders hitch with sobs.
Sakura’s back twitches.
So she’s listening in then.
“I don’t get it.” Kiba complains, hugging Akamaru to his chest. “Why wouldn’t we want Billboard Brow to be strong? Isn’t she already strong anyway?”
“Ask Uchiha.” Shino says, stabbing a straw into his juicebox. “Why? Because he has repeatedly expressed disdain for Haruno’s abilities on the basis of her civilian status.”
“I have not!” Uchiha snaps. “It’s not my fault that civilians aren’t as prepared as clan ninja!”
“I rest my case.” Shino mumbles around his straw.
She massages the bridge of her nose. “Look, playing the blame game is not what we need right now. Not when she’s so intent on starving herself to death.”
“Is she?” Shikamaru asks, almost carelessly. “Our friend, I mean.”
There’s a quiet inhale around the table.
Sakura’s posture is tenser than a set tripwire.
“Of course she is!” Naruto slams his hands down on the table. “What kinda question is that?!”
“A rough patch is nothing to jump ship over.” She scoffs, biting into the spurned dango. “Usopp and Nami and Robin all had them, didn’t they?”
“And they all literally jumped ship.” Shikamaru mutters, though with less heat behind it.
“Gi-give her time.” Hinata murmurs diplomatically. “It’s-it’s awful, to be ho-hounded. Let her ha-have room to breathe.”
Ino blows her nose noisily on a napkin. Her eyes are bloodshot.
“Anything.” The blonde says shakily. “Anything she needs.”
Chouji leans over the table to give her a hug.
“Anything she needs” turns out to be close to two weeks of pointed silences and increasing misery.
Poor Lee has it bad, because he wasn’t even there for the big blowup. Sakura will at least be civil towards him, but the tension between his crush and Naruto and her with no remedy in sight upsets him, though he does his best not to show it.
At least they’ve finally found a store that will sell them the materials and instructions on how to build twelve smallish shrines that can withstand the elements, so silver linings.
They just need to buy the right colors of waterproof paint and some offerings and it’ll all be ready.
Just in time too.
Now at lunchtime, she feels increasingly keyed up at the sight of Sakura’s steadily diminishing portions, getting more and more agitated until digging her nails into her legs is the only thing stopping her from marching over there and— and—
And at this point she’d almost be more worried if this was all her than if it wasn’t.
It gets to the point where she pours it all out to Gai-sensei one morning during training, while Naruto and Lee are busy sparring.
Gai-sensei’s eyebrows furrow, and he’s quiet for a long time.
“Sometimes,” He says eventually. “My most cool and hip rival does not feel very youthful. There are days where he is fighting many battles in his head. So many that plenty of tasks become like perilous trials in his already burdened state. Do you know what I do?”
She shakes her head
He smiles. “I try to see what he needs. Some days, he needs privacy and time, so I give that to him. Others, he needs a reminder of the present, that the battles in his mind need not impede the Springtime of our Youth, so we undertake most youthful challenges together.”
He claps a hand on her shoulder. “Your rival is trying her best to blossom as you and Naruto and Lee have done. You merely need to be there as best you can for her, to judge whether it is prudent to give her time or to test her mettle against yours. Do not try to force it. A rival is an equal, someone who you trust to stand alongside you rather than someone you need to protect.”
“I’m not sure if Sakura’s my rival.” She admits, rubbing the back of her neck. “...but I thought we were equals. I just don’t know why she thinks that I don’t think she’s my friend.”
“You did say that her attempts to improve herself, however ill-advised, meant she was insane.” Gai-sensei points out.
What?
Oh.
Oh.
“I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” She says miserably.
Gai-sensei ruffles her hair. “Not to worry, Mayu-chan! Admitting you have a problem is the first step to being able to rectify it!”
She thunks her head against her knees and groans.
So she’s made mistakes and needs to make up for them.
The only problem now is working out how.
It’s something she puzzles over for most of breakfast, and on their walk to the Academy.
Gai-sensei said to let Sakura “test her mettle” if she’d had enough time to herself.
And those terms she keeps using—sidekick, heroine, rival—sound like something out of a comic book or cheesy novel.
Wait.
Narrative roles.
The part of her that’s been trained to break down literature and rebuild it into a coherent thesis begins ticking over the possibilities.
She cautiously grins to herself. “I think I know how to help Sakura.”
Naruto and Lee look at her with naked hope in their eyes.
It’s like her favorite quote says: The value in fairy tales isn’t that they tell us dragons exist—but that dragons can be beaten.
Fortunately for her, today is a sparring day.
Even more fortunately, her first opponent is Shikamaru.
He can see she’s up to something so he forfeits in record time.
When Sakura stands opposite her, she gives her best innocent smile while they lock fingers.
“Y’know, I still don’t get why you’re even interested in that guy. You’re about a million times prettier than him, you know.”
So that’s what pink hair looks like against a red face and thERE is a punch.
It’s wimpy compared to what she’s previously seen, no real force or form behind it.
“A-are your eyes working?” Sakura sputters, trying to regain her composure. “Of course he’s prettier!”
She grins, making no move to fight back beyond blocking or dodging. “Eh, you’re a ten out of ten, he’s a five on a good day.”
She thinks she hears Uchiha screech from the sidelines as Sakura tries to force her emotions back under the mask. She darts in and pokes her opponent’s cheek before darting away again.
The pink-haired girl makes a sound not unlike a whistling kettle and begins to chase her around the ring.
“You honestly think you can beat me as you are now?” She taunts, mentally cringing at the line. “You can’t win if you keep half-assing it. You’re better than this Sakura, I know you are.”
“No. I’m. Not.” The next kick actually whistles past her ear. “I need to get stronger so he’ll look at me. I need to get stronger so you and Ino-chan don’t get hurt again!”
She darts forward to flick her opponent’s arm. “And this is the best way? Constantly putting yourself down, starving yourself, playing weak to look “ladylike”? Could you even protect Akamaru by hiding your strength like this?”
A growl emerges from Sakura’s throat. “You wanna see strength? I’ll show you strength, shannaro!!”
She spreads out her arms, grinning. “Finally. C’mon heroine. Stop holding back and show me what you really can do!”
Sakura’s punch connects so hard stars burst behind her eyelids.
She stumbles back a step or two and spits the excess blood into her palm.
She blinks at the small white things that come with it, poking experimentally around her mouth with her tongue.
Chopper’s Rumble Balls.
Sakura’s actually knocked her front teeth out.
They’re only baby teeth, but still. She can’t really help her burst of slightly incredulous laughter.
And this—this bubblegum bruiser thinks she’s just the sidekick.
Whispery boisterous laughter echoes in her ears.
She feels like her grin is going to split her face in two.
The pink-haired girl is babbling, horror clear on her face. “Oh my gosh, Mayu-chan, are you okay?! I’m so—”
She holds up a warning finger. “Don’t. Don’t you dare apologize for that, Haruno. If you do, I’ll kick your ass, I swear to Luffy.”
Haruno Sakura stares at her, bewilderment, guilt and irritation flashing across her face.
Then she squares her shoulders.
“As if you could.”
Iruka-sensei calls off the match then and there before they can really get into it, unfortunately.
He sends her inside to wash the blood out of her mouth once he’s reassured that it was only her baby teeth she’s lost.
He seems perturbed when she mentions putting the teeth under her pillow for the Tooth Fairy. Telling him that the Tooth Fairy gives good children money for more than one tooth doesn’t appear to help matters.
She gets back outside in time to see Sakura rush at Ino with a grin that bares all her teeth.
Ino, for her part, stares at her friend with something like amazed awe in her eyes, and only very narrowly dodges a black eye at the last second.
Their fight can only be called “dance-like” in the sheer synchronization of throwing blows. Otherwise it’s nothing that can be called elegant, or Nami, Robin and Vivi forbid, dainty.
It’s one of the most beautiful things she’s ever seen. She thinks they might even surpass Naruto and Uchiha’s fights in terms of passion.
And now she sounds like Gai-sensei.
Maybe time to quit her musings while she’s ahead.
She sidles up to Naruto. “How‘s Sakura?” She lisps quietly.
“So awesome.” Naruto breathes almost without realizing it, transfixed on the girl in the ring.
She pokes him in the side. He jumps and scowls at her.
“Kaa-san’s gonna ban you from cooking again, believe it.” He informs her.
“Not if you don’t tell she won’t.” She replies, doing her best imitation of his puppy-eyes.
“I’m gonna tell.” Naruto says immediately, the traitor. “And I’mma tell Tou-san and Gai-sensei that you stood there and let Sakura-chan hit you.”
She breaks out in a cold sweat at the thought of all the extra kata her father and Gai-sensei will put her through when they hear that she was messing around in a spar.
She flops forward at the waist. “Ugh.”
Naruto snickers.
She straightens up when Sakura and Ino begin screaming at each other about protection and supporting even really bad romantic endeavors and what sounds like the plot of a romance novel and standing side-by-side instead of in front or maybe in front is okay if they fight for it?
She doesn’t quite get what they’re saying.
Judging by their faces, neither do most of the Lunchtime Group, the rest of their class, or Iruka-sensei.
Well, even if it doesn’t quite make sense to her, Sakura looks a lot happier, if bruised and bloody.
That’s more than worth losing her front teeth and a week of cooking over, no matter how much the latter pains her.
She fiddles with the teeth in her palm, running her thumb over the root. They’re always so much smaller than it feels like they should be.
“Did people of your world really believe there’s a fairy that collects teeth?” Naruto mutters to her as Sakura lands the decisive blow.
“Kids were taught to.” She lisps back, doing a bit of mental math as the pink-haired girl throws herself into the arms of her downed opponent, the pair of them sobbing their eyes out. “You’d get, like, one ryō for three teeth.”
Naruto pulls a face that manages to be disgusted and delighted at the same time. “Your world is so weird, Mayu-chan.”
She tilts her head to the side and nods, as Ino and Sakura limp out of the ring and Kiba takes some of her weight as they head to the nurse’s office. “That’s fair.”
Sakura doesn’t join them for lunch that day, but she does move one table closer from the back.
The next day it’s two tables closer, despite the grumbles from some of the other boys in class as she perches at the end.
It continues in this pattern until Sakura’s sitting at the table behind them, pretending badly that she’s not interested.
She doesn’t quite understand why. The way Shino tells it, Kiba apparently broke Sakura’s window the evening after the spars by throwing a first aid kit through it.
Sakura’s parents thought it was a sweet gesture. His Ma was Not Happy.
Despite that, the pair of them came to school the next morning looking happier than they had for weeks. Ino and Sakura have been walking home together too.
Hinata turns around. “U-um, Sakura-chan?”
Sakura cocks her head, but no more than that. “Hm?”
“I-if it’s not too much trouble, w-would you like to si-sit with us for lunch?” Hinata says.
There’s a tense silence as Sakura tilts her head, considering.
The pink-haired girl exhales gustily. “Yes please, Hinata-chan.”
Naruto cheers as she gathers her things and sits back down in between Hinata and Ino.
“Hey, hey, Sakura-chan, do you wanna come over to Mayu’s this weekend? We’re gonna be painting shrines for the StrawHats, it’ll be really fun, believe it!” He asks eagerly.
Sakura’s brow furrows, but the smile she gives to Naruto is genuine. “I-I’d love to. Thank you for inviting me, even after...I-I’m really sorry I said...”
Naruto just beams at her. “S’okay! You’re our friend after all!”
She grins into her cherries as Sakura gets up to give him a great big hug.
That afternoon, they don’t have their usual lecture.
Instead, Iruka-sensei leads the class down the hall for a sneak peek at a new addition to the Academy curriculum that would be implemented next year.
“Now this comes from a new company based in Yukigakure.” He lectures. “They were kind enough to sell these weapons to Konoha at half the price they were selling to other hidden villages.”
There’s several large wooden crate, with heavily stylized kanji and a logo of four thin diamonds arranged in a strange pattern printed on its sides.
The kanji reads: Tsuruku Industries.
She’s not sure if that’s supposed to be a pun or not.
Iruka-sensei carefully lifts the lid off of the crate, and pulls out some of the packaging covering what’s inside as everyone crowds around.
“The Council has decreed that all Academy students from next year onwards need to be at least proficient in these as they are in kunai and shuriken to graduate. You all will still be on the old graduation plan, so your jounin-sensei will probably be the ones teaching you how to use them.” He explains.
Uchiha asks him something, but she can’t hear what it is.
She’s frozen at the sight of rows of gleaming black handguns and clear cases of bullets neatly packed into the styrofoam, all decorated with four thin diamonds.
She doesn’t think she can breathe.
«What the fuck.» She wheezes, before the world goes wobbly and sideways.