Chapter 148 - Arc 10 - The Game: Live a Little

I liked this one, I think this came out pretty okay.
Beta's mad they have to wait till next week.

Thank you for your support.

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Being desensitized to something doesn’t mean you seek it out, it just means you’re used to that thing enough that it doesn’t get a real emotional response from you anymore. It’s finding a normally abnormal thing so normal you just don’t care while others may freak out or even panic over it. A man that walks through fire every day will not bat an eye when the world goes up in flames, but he might care more about the rain.

That’s been the nature of Kankuro’s life to this point. He’s watched Gaara kill more people than he’s learned the names of. In fact, at one point he stopped learning people’s names because Gaara was probably going to kill them anyway. A vicious cycle has taken over his life for as long as he can remember, and it was never an option to run away or get another lot in life. People were going to die for every breath they made. A blood price has been made for every morning, and while he’s been thankful that it wasn’t his blood, that hasn’t stopped him from getting sprayed with the visage. He’s seen people crushed into a pulp, turned into mulch, and even spread out and used to try and grow a personal garden in the sand because Gaara was told human remains make great fertilizer. He’s seen someone who especially angered his brother killed one cut at a time by thousands of sand grains, he’s seen ninja and civilians alike flayed and burned to death by friction alone.

Sakura doesn’t bother him because as crazy as she comes off, his life has never been in more danger than standing by his brother’s side. When Gaara asked if they’d be okay, he cried. He’s not ashamed of it, he held it in just long enough to watch his brother teleport away but he struggled the whole rest of the journey to Sakura’s fight because he couldn’t see through his own tears. They fled his eyes endlessly, and to her credit Temari didn’t say a word to tease or mock him.

Whereas Temari has gone through some kind of personal journey coming to terms with the fact that Gaara’s been changing since he met Sakura, Kankuro has never been happier in his life. He didn’t need to come to terms with anything, he instantly started reprioritizing how careful he is in conversations, he stopped viewing death as the obvious solution to every problem they could come across.

So while he tore the first person apart while they were actively fighting, watching the second and third stumble around blinded and obviously struggling to walk in their own shoes, he hesitates. These people don’t need to die right now, there’s probably some kind of gimmick to this death game that he’s too dumb to find and if he just captures them smarter people might be able to figure it out. What if there’s a puzzle to figure out and he hasn’t even begun to solve it because he’s too caught up in his own head? Some of these Leaf ninja have to be smart.

The idiots that attacked them are teens just like him, they’re here for a test that went awry and while he’s quick to wrap them up in his bladed wire and pull them together, his hand halts on ending their struggle the way his brother would have made him do a thousand times before this.

If Gaara’s waking up from a long dream, can’t Kankuro wake up from a nightmare and smell fresh air? They may be dead but they’re not dead forever. That’s the kind of magnificent madness Sakura has brought into their lives. Death isn’t even permanent, do the rules even matter when he can take a breath and taste something besides the acrid stench of decaying remains in the air?

“I’m gonna get out of this, and when I do I’m gonna make that girl cry!” The guy on the left shouts with full force, a gutteral sound erupting from his throat with a deepness that Kankuro might find intimidating if he wasn’t literally holding the dude with a stringy blade on every side of his body. “By the time I’m done she won’t even be able to take pleasure from normal men-”

“Ah-” He pulls his hand back, and watches as the two prisoners are quickly torn in half. Their suddenly severed top parts fall to the ground and the splatter begins to flow over the sand like a river. “Nevermind.” Okay so maybe some people still need to die, he’s not a naive idiot.

“You doing alright over there?” He asks, tilting his head back to see the girl he helped struggling to even stay kneeling. She clearly exhausted herself with whatever technique that was. He probably could have just executed the one guy but she said there was some forceful body swapping going on and he’s not going to think about it, that’s Sakura level shenanigans and he’s a mere mortal. Just because he wants to cut down on all the corpse making doesn’t mean he’s suddenly not used to it, killing and watching people die is more natural to him than saying hello.

“Yeah, sorry to worry you.” The blonde coughs into her fist, red spilling from her lips. He watches it drip through her fist and stain the ground, and he also watches her bright eyes widen in fear.

“Don’t panic, it’s just mana exhaustion.” He assures her and begins making his way over to her. “I’ve seen it a few times already, Temari does not know how to hold back when grinding.” He really hopes Sasuke keeps her in check, but that’s not something he can worry about right now. He’s here and they’re there and that’s that, if he wanted to worry about Temari he would have gone with them. “Even if it seems like it, we’re not using chakra here, we’re using magic, it comes from your life force directly. There’s no mixing process; it's raw, unfiltered life force.” He explains, “you can probably die from using too much of it, let me help you up.”

[Three members of the enemy team have been eliminated, their loot will be redistributed to their team.]

“Thanks.” She grumbles. He takes just enough time to pull his wires back and slip them back up his sleeve before he’s bending over to help lift her arm over his shoulder. “Let’s find somewhere to rest before we head inside, I want to be a little more here when we tell those idiots they were so unobservant they got trapped in a spell and almost talked through my death.”

“Yeah, I get that.” He’d chuckle but the topic is a little somber. One thing’s for sure though, he’s super glad he decided to stay back and reinforce the others. This girl was latched onto Sakura with Gaara, and Gaara didn’t kill her for encroaching on his territory so chances are they’ve accepted coexistence in some strange way he doesn’t even want to think about. Which means she’s probably important to Gaara now, and he’s not letting anything happen to anyone that might be contributing to his new brother.

[All Hero Shards improved by 15%]

“So they weren’t lying about that,” Ino stares at the prompt that appears in front of their eyes, “I guess that means we got the first kills. Sakura’d be proud.”

“Gaara said she got the first kill in the exam.” Kankuro snickers, leading her to the porch of the cabin. There’s chairs there, “which did mean he was spying on her.”

“You’d think she’d care about that but she’s actually assuming she’s being watched, it’s like a part of her confidence.” Ino admits, flushing in embarrassment for her best friend. “She even planned for Shino to have been spying on her during the exam.”

“Was he?” He asks, and gets a nod, “not sure how I feel about that, but if Gaara’s not creeping her out I’m happy.” These soft Leaf Genin are crazy, he’s just not sure that’s a bad thing.

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Sakura can’t help but clap, her eyes are glued to the display available to them. Kankuro and Ino wasn’t a teamup she expected but she’s super glad the ragtag version of his kit she could come up with is working for him. Ino’s too, that mind transfer array was such a cool idea and she’s glad to see it in action. The idea is simple: push the concept of the mutual mind-transfer they created - which is actually a temporary soul transfer of sorts - into a forceful seal on the ground that encompasses everyone in the area and randomly switches them around. Blinding them is an unexpected bonus but she’s not going to complain.

She’s also just super happy to see such massive progress already happening on day four. Here she was worried they wouldn’t be able to adapt to the brutal nature of the game but they’ve already eliminated thirty percent of the enemy. The reality is that this game, for all its bells and whistles, is a fight between twenty people. Eliminating three of them just like this is a huge deal, and that Ino’s a part of the success has her wiggling in her chair. “Go Ino, go Ino~!”

She’ll be thanking Kankuro as best she can after they’re out of this. She owes him big time for being there for Ino while the others are distracted and taken out of the fight. She was really worried when she saw that area based Genjutsu go up, but it’s not like she can do anything. This game sucks.

“So I see your girlfriend’s safe.” Samael teases her from just behind her, it appears the woman was observing the fight over her shoulder. “You should be more preoccupied with strategies instead of watching them so closely. You already know a lot about them don’t you? What do you hope to learn here that’s of use?”

“I already know everything I need.” Sakura says, “at this point I’m just bleeding off anxiety.” It’s true, sure she can get a little bit of data from how they’re adapting or handling tactical situations but largely speaking what to put in their shop is a matter of her creativity not anything they’re going to do. Maybe she could advise them if she saw them do something really stupid but there’s an easily accessible summary of encounters and gains available to them and she could probably figure out what to say from that alone.

“You know in our culture there are many ways to relieve yourself of emotional burdens, most of them do not involve creepily stalking others.“ Samael laughs at her a little, there’s a melodic chime to her normally deep voice. “Come on, think about it. Either she gets through this fine, which it seems pretty likely she does, or you watch her die. In neither situation does staring at her change the outcome. If you have time to waste, spend it strategizing or on self care.”

“Yeah, that’s true…” Sakura sighs, leaning back, her gaze still on the screen but her head tilted a little bit to show she’s listening. She thinks that’s a good sign, most people seem to understand.

“Let’s go for a walk, all this sitting around is bad for your body. When was the last time you killed something?” Sakura finds herself blinking at Samael’s rather odd question, who just asks that. Who exactly did she sign up to serve for three months?

“Uh…” She thinks back, not because she’s some kind of addict that actually thinks it’s bad to have gone a while without killing, but because despite her words Samael does seem to have her interest at heart. “Before I got here?”

“That’s so long ago! Come on, Rosalia you too, all you two do is sit there and watch the display. Let me show you some of the Dark Lands, it’ll be fun.” The Dark Knight’s hands come together to form a sort of satisfied clap in front of her own face. “Maybe we can get into a random encounter, that’d be emotionally relieving right?”

“I’m not sure decrepit death pits are fun.” Rosalia huffs from her seat, wriggling her nose a little in disgust.

“Yes well, this isn’t either. Come on.” With that, Samael grabs Sakura’s chair and starts dragging it towards the door. On the way, she grabs Rosalia’s, and while the spiral blonde haired teen loudly argues with her, Sakura can’t help but close her eyes and let it happen.

“We’re not even walking, you’re dragging us!” Rosalia shouts, and Sakura snorts, she could just get up. They’re not tied to the chairs. Then again Rosalia’ll die if they leave her alone, that much is almost certain. So the small girl that is in fact older than her is somewhat required to follow them despite her protests.

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The mountain itself is oddly cool despite the desert surroundings, even in a place like this, height matters and it matters a lot. Temari finds snow beneath her feet, it crunches in a way that she can seemingly feel at the edge of her teeth, it makes just the right sound to send her senses to weird places. “I’ve actually never seen snow before.” She says, jumping back and forth on each foot and feeling the different ways it moves around with the pressure of her stance. “It’s odd, and cold, very cold.” Chills run up her dress, and she regrets wearing a dress, even if it’s a tight knit combat dress that looks incredibly cool and sparks with flare.

“I haven’t either.” Sasuke admits, giving her an odd look while standing there without the slightest look of concern. The way it bites at her skin is cruel, and she wishes she had an outfit like his. A part of her wonders if he’ll offer her his coat, but then this isn’t a date it’s a mission and that’d be stupid. “It helps to channel fire Chakra to your skin.” Technically it’s not Chakra here it’s like some kind of magic optimized to feel like Chakra but like, no one likes a no-it-all.

“I can’t do that.” She deadpans, glaring at him a little in indignance. A big coat and fire chakra? Some people have all the luck.

“Here.” He reaches into a pack he brought - and she finds a big bundle of cloth smacking into her face hard enough to knock her onto her tush, right into the snow. “What is - is this a coat?” She holds it up and finds it looks identical to his, like some kind of game protagonist for the edgiest game alive but, “why do you have two?”

“Because it’s a mountain and you’re wearing a dress.” He scoffs, “I’m used to thinking ahead for my teammates, they’re both idiots.”

“You know, funnily enough, me too. I bet I would have thought that you were coming up here dressed like me…” She has to shake her head to push away thoughts of dressing Sasuke up in girly outfits. For some reason, she feels it might actually work on him if they did his hair a little differently. “But when it’s me I just don’t think about it.” She pushes herself to a stand, wiping herself off - grateful none of it melted on her - and slipping the big fluffy coat right on as quickly as she can. The inside is fur, and it is incredible. “Wait, if it’s this warm, won’t it suck once you get down to their desert? How did you wear this our entire walk to the mountain?”

“Uchiha burn hotter than most, it’s something to do with our affinities.” He explains idly, looking anywhere but at her for some reason, “that isn’t happening here, so I’ve actually been very cold when not channeling Chakra to my skin. I’d be in a very bad place right now if Sakura hadn’t added a fire affinity to my shop.”

“She was pretty thoughtful about adding wind to mine…” That would have been easy to miss given Sakura’s never seen her fight and only had the fan to go off of. She takes in more details about others than she looks like she does. Funnily enough she hadn’t seen Kankuro fight either so how did she know about the puppet enough to apologize about it? She does a little spin in the coat, watching it move, and feeling the ground beneath her feet. Her legs are still cold but this is nice.

“She’s an idiot about herself, not others, you two might have that in common.” He muses aloud.

“Maybe.” Temari can’t help but flush at the thought of being similar to the girl Gaara has a crush on. That’d be so awkward! She has heard guys date girls just like their mothers, and she is kind of like Gaara’s mother when you think about the role she takes in his life.

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Mebuki’s feet take her through the forest as easily as any animal’s would. She grew up in a forest, she’s spent her whole life surrounded by forests, she’s been an active ninja for longer than her children have been alive. Tracking her husband through the greenery would be easy even if she didn’t have a hundred extra methods and contexts which make it obvious where he is.

Her feet stop her in a clearing. She’s silent on her approach, even using a Jutsu to make sure no one normal could ever detect her. That doesn’t stop Kizashi from sighing as she lands right beside him, nor his small nod of recognition and lifting of his shoulders in tense despair. “You need to stop coming here.” She says, looking out at the sight he’s no doubt been staring at for the five hours he’s been missing.

Not that long ago they’d be staring at chain link fences and trees taller than the imagination would reasonably allow. None of that exists anymore. The fence is destroyed and littering the ground with its discarded pieces. The trees - what’s left of them - are much the same. What’s not ash is chips, hopefully in a few generations this’ll be lush and green again but for now there’s just scorched earth and enough piles of ash to create an artificial white desert. There’s still embers floating around even after all this time which implies the fire was magical, which Mebuki regrets noticing because it puts a lot of context on the problem at hand. It’s devastating. Only the efforts of countless Ninja has stopped it from spreading to the actual Konoha forests or spreading out to ruin the air quality of Konoha proper.

“She’s in there.” He says almost tonelessly. There’s something deep inside trying to get out, there always is, but he does an incredible job holding it back. She wishes she could provide him the emotional stability to feel comfortable falling apart, but she can’t.

They can’t both break at the same time, it’s a rule they set up a long time ago. They had some bad weeks raising Sakura, it was always the worst when they were both broken. He’ll have his time. She’ll be better soon, she has to be, for him. The problem is, she’s not sure he’s truly following the rule, so she can’t either.

They both have to be a little stable because neither of them can truly be fully stable right now. Their daughter is just out of reach, and in danger, it’s too much.

“I know she is,” She allows herself a long, sorrow filled breath, “but she’s not going to come out just because you spend half your day watching ash.”

“We could go,” he reminds her. “I know you can tell exactly where the rift is. How long would it take us to get what you need to open it? A day? Two? Tell me what you need and I’ll go get it right now.”

“I know you would…” She reaches up to rub tears out of her eyes, “but we’re not kids anymore, we could die, and then Sakura wouldn’t have a family to come back to.”

“So we should just wait for her to die instead?” He growls, “that’s just okay with you?” He watches her flinch back, and he holds out a hand, “sorry, I know that’s not what you mean.”

“I get it, just… We agreed,” She reminds him, “our main priority is always to make sure she has a home to return to, remember? Dumb Daughter Problems First Protocol? No matter what the world throws at her, no matter how much she seems out of place, we have to be there to smile at her and tell her it’s okay. We have to trust her.”

“We did, but this isn’t the same this… Damn-it Minato, why’d you go and freaking die?” Kizashi grunts, looking up at the sky and its ashen rain.

“Damn-it Minato.” Mebuki echoes him, leaning in to rest her cheek on his shoulder. “If he was here, we could charge in and go get her right now.”

“If he was here, she wouldn’t be there. He would have seen Orochimaru coming and stopped it before it began. No, she wouldn’t have even been chosen in the first place, none of this would have happened.” He growls under his breath, but he mostly holds it in. Snapping at her unfairly once is more than enough for one day.

“Well, I wouldn’t go placing all of it on his back, the man’s dead.” She giggles lowly, trying to force a smile while her heart rips itself in half. “But at the very least, we could go get her if he was here.”

“How mad do you think Sarutobi would be if we opened the portal and sent Haku?” Kizashi asks her, side-eying the top of his wife’s head.

“Is that an option?” She hears from behind her, and she bristles, looking back to see the boy. He’s always dressed so nicely, like he’s just a civilian chef who likes chores and streaming and wearing a sparkly smile. Now she sees him with his arms crossed, looking much the same but with a coldness in his eyes that reminds her that he is in fact a Jonin. Or at the very least a Chunin with some special Jonin qualifying skills, it’s hard to tell without seeing him fight.

“No.” Mebuki denies, shaking her head as she moves herself away from her husband’s side.

“It is,” Kizashi nods despite her answer, giving the boy a meaningful look, he ignores her very furious and hot glare, “but you’ll probably die before ever even finding out where she is so we’d both advise against it.”

“I am only alive because Sakura is willing to do stupid things for others. I should never have even been allowed close to her after they realized I was the enemy, but here I am. I’ve had the happiest months of my life because of her, if I can go get her… Besides, I’m strong.”

“There’s only three people who could feasibly open that portal in Konoha and two of them are working to try and keep it closed. I’m not agreeing to rip it open either so it’s not happening,” Mebuki argues, beginning to walk back the way she came with an upturn of her nose. “End of discussion.”

Haku and Kizashi watch her leave, the older man sighing gravely the moment she’s gone. “I’ll talk to her, you just prepare for war. Maybe say some goodbyes, that is if you’re truly serious.”

“I am. Why is she so worried? What could possibly be behind that? If Sakura can manage it, it should not even be a question for me.” Haku asks, giving him a curious tilt of his head. He doesn’t question her statement about apparently being a premier portal expert out of nowhere.

Mebuki is a wonderful woman that took him in without question, he’s not about to start questioning her.

“She’s worried about the portal, not just what’s probably on the other side.” He explains, “worlds have a governing system, and that system decides who gets in. She’s not strong enough to override its will from all the way over here so if you get to the other side and that system says no, you’re not getting in. Worse off, there’s no way she can hold the portal open for long, which means you might not be able to get back if you’re denied entry.”

“She’s worried she’ll kill me by not being strong enough.” Haku whispers in understanding.

“Bingo.” With a pat on Haku’s shoulder, Kizashi shakes his head, “now’s the time to back out. Once I convince her, there’s no going back.”

“You’ll find I’m not one for pointless discussion.” Haku rebukes him, “if you think you can get her to agree, please do so. I’m worried about Sakura too, and the house feels very cold with her missing. I just don’t understand why she wouldn’t trade me for a chance to get her back, I’m just some random guy, Sakura’s her daughter.”

“You are family now.” Kizashi denies him with a very serious tone, the only sign Haku’s surprised is the slight shift of his lips, but he is surprised and they both know it. “We’re talking about sacrificing one family member to maybe help another, she’s never going to look on that favorably… Just give it some thought instead of instantly agreeing, you have that right.” With one more pat on Haku’s shoulder, Kizashi too walks into the forest, leaving Haku alone amongst the ash. Some of the ash lands on his head, smoldering there.

He looks up at the sky, unsure of what could have caused this madness, or when his place in life changed that drastically, but a small smile forms on his lips despite his confusion. “I’m family? I’ve never had a family before, not really.”