Chapter 146 - Arc 10 - The Game: Plans Always Seem To Burn

This was a good one. I like this.
That's about it, great time, good start, good mid twist, good ending with Kiba.
Yeah I'm happy. Enjoy.
Thanks for the support.

-------------------------------------------------------

Making dinner has always soothed Haku’s nerves, it’s too bad recently there’s so much nervous energy going through them that it’s not enough. He scoops the rice out and settles it in a bowl, all eight portions. The sauce comes next, as well as a little bit of chicken cut up and marinating in juices. It takes him a moment to pat two of them, before six of them go on a tray and are delivered to the table. One for Mebuki, Kizashi, Business Naruto, both Twins, Hanabi, and lastly himself. The air is somber, unlike the spice radiating off the rice and chicken. It’s a basic meal, Haku hasn’t felt like being extravagant recently.

The two extra portions he made steam into the air behind him, waiting on the counter to be claimed by no one.

Hanabi’s been here every day since the explosion, no one questions her presence. She’s been a lot quieter and they don’t need to ask why. It’s depressing, but no one’s sure what to say to her. She was getting rather close to Naruto, was friendly with Sakura, had become close to Neji, and even her sister was caught in the catastrophic accident that happened during the Chunin exams.

The rest of them are grieving, especially Mebuki and Kizashi, but they’re adults. She’s just a little girl. That in her grief she’s actually better behaved concerns Mebuki more than anything. Defeat only leads to falling in line when it’s accompanied by trained fear.

She’s not settling into having lost family, she’s expecting more to disappear. It breaks the mom of the house’s heart. Still, would the girl react badly to being pulled into a hug? Why is it that she’s fled her home and started staying here after a tragedy like this? She’s officially the heiress to the Hyuuga clan, it was announced yesterday, yet here she sits, eating lazily made rice with a straight expression that doesn’t brook emotion or thought.

The twins frame her side by side, but they’re clones and she knows that better than most people. Hanabi can see through the constructs, and knows they’re a shadow of the boy she was getting to know. They technically serve as proof that Naruto’s not dead, at least they most likely do, but they’re still just fragments of a person lost and alone somewhere out there, blown to pieces, likely crippled and hiding out.

“I heard from the Hokage again today.” Mebuki breaks the silence only previously broken by the sound of rattling against their bowls. “The levels of dangerous energies near the center of the explosion have finally died down enough that the Byakugan can see through it, so… maybe they’ll find them.” She knows they won’t. They all know they won’t, but she knows even more.

Having been approached by a visitor from another world, she’s sure Sakura’s fighting her own battle somewhere else, but a visit would be nice. Even if just to set their nerves at ease and prove that they weren’t lied to. She wants to believe the spectre was telling the truth but she knows well what listening to a foreign creature can lead to. She’s chosen not to talk about it, not to get their hopes up with potential lies. Only Kizashi knows, and she’s had to stop him from going out and finding the portal every single night since. It’s only a matter of time until he slips away, he probably already has, it can’t be easy to find a rift made so hastily in a quarantined area he’s not allowed to be in.

“To think our eyes would be so useless until now, just because of some smog.” Hanabi’s tone is biting, but it’s partially internally focused, which makes Mebuki have to hold back a hitch in her breath. “Pathetic.” There’s more unsaid, but then it’s not really unsaid. It was just already spoken with vehemence and hate unbecoming of a little girl. The moment Hanabi was told she couldn’t march into the forest herself to search for her family, she balled her fists and spoke with rage. The noble Byakugan, reduced to a worthless trinket when it matters most. The heiress saying such words probably didn’t go over very well, that might be part of why she’s here.

“He talked to me too, and asked me if more memories had come from anywhere.” Business Naruto sighs, shaking his head. Of course they didn’t. Naruto should have sent a message by now, but not a peep. Only his existence lends them hope, he should have popped.

But then what if he’s gained his own place in the world? Clones aren’t supposed to be around this long, no one knows what that means or just how useful the information of his survival is.

“Lots of things can block transmission like that.” Mebuki reminds him.

“I know.” The suit wearing Naruto says, “that doesn’t make me feel any better. It doesn’t make anyone feel better.”

This isn’t a special dinner, nothing about this conversation is new, it’s been like this ever since the accident wiped out the forest of death completely. At least that’s the public story. Mebuki knows damn well that was magic, magic took her daughter someplace else and only now does she regret letting her skills fade away like she did.

-------------------------------------------------------

In another room, although metaphorically sitting opposite of Rosalia, is a wraith of sorts. No one’s really sure how or when Akari came into existence. As far as the books say, she suddenly popped up one day and started killing people until the Dark Lord gave her a position to get her to stop. It’s likely a fabricated story meant to ensure all fear screwing up and pissing her off, but that doesn’t stop the people in the room with her from giving her a wide berth.

She sits in an older form for the moment, a few wrinkles on her forehead and boney hands worn from time moving pieces on a board. “My lady, shouldn’t you check on your people?” She’s asked as pieces move, she doesn’t have to grab them, they just slip across on their own while her opponent scrambles to keep up with the fast pace of a constantly moving game that should be taken one turn at a time.

“Mnnn, no,” The woman’s white hair shakes even though her head doesn’t, “I don’t see much reason to play at all when I want my opponent to win.”

“Not to question you, but if you’re willing to answer a question from insignificant air, why would you want that?” Her day’s attendant asks, wiping sweat from his brow while doing his best. Chess games should not be played in under a minute while an impatient creature that’s state shimmers between lines one moment to the next looks at you hungrily, daring you to think before you act. It’s no wonder she wins every time, but then that shows a sort of merit on its own, she’s thinking that fast so why can’t they?

“I stole a recording device from their lands while I was visiting on an errand.” The woman explains, her voice with two tones to it, one higher and giggly, the other dark and serious. Cleverness does not shine through anywhere, for she does not find her plan something to be proud of, merely the correct route to take. “I’m recording my lack of care. By presenting Konoha with a show of intentionally saving their people their lordship will give my attempts at diplomacy more weight.”

“But not doing anything at all isn’t really helping them, it’s staying out of it, how does that earn favor?” He asks, a twitch to his voice and a rapid understanding that he’s made a mistake by questioning her. Too much is going on at once, he’s not sure exactly why but he does know he should be afraid.

Luckily she seems to be in an okay mood at the moment, for she laughs in an older woman’s raspy voice. “You may be right, perhaps I should make this more interesting. It is about time to make the day four shop, let me ensure things go my way. Begone.” She smacks the board off the strategy table and places her index finger to her lips, gently nibbling with sharp fangs and drawing blood without a care as she looks the mountain over.

“What if I burnt it all down? Leaf ninja are good at that right? I saw an entire clan of fire users.” She nods to herself, “that’ll do.”

-------------------------------------------------------

“Sakura what do I do, the mountain is on fire?” Rosalia drags her from her thoughts with a shout before jumping up and latching her arms around Sakura’s own. The girl presses her nonexistent chest against her and looks up at her face with watery eyes.

“The what?” Sakura asks, looking away from her own board where she’s observing Samael’s team’s newest purchases. She went all out with what she could today, she gave Ino a temporal distortion field, which sounds cooler than it is but should still help her quite a bit. A simple look over at Rosalia’s table shows that her mountain is indeed on fire. And it’s spreading into the desert, sweeping across the sand like it’s grass to be burned. “Ohhhh, that’s not good.”

“Sakuraaa! Help meee!” Rosalia whines, a sniffle to her breath.

“How though? We’re permitted to give shop items and make a one minute speech, there’s not much else, I’m not even sure how Akari did this.” Sakura drawls awkwardly.

“I didn’t give my speech yet and they’re not done shopping yet, procrastination saves the day again! Help!” Rosalia begs her with tears in her eyes and Sakura gets up to make a speech, this is going to be very awkward. She’s not sure why Rosalia is placing so much weight in saving leaf ninja but maybe she’s never watched people die before?

“As you may have noticed, your temporary world is currently on fire.” Sakura explains through the video feed. She can see the nine leaf ninja that remain making quick purchases in the sole cabin they have - which is really inefficient she has no idea why they still haven’t split up - “which is really messed up. I don’t know what to say, or how that happened. It does set a precedent that certain people have privileges to mess with the game that others don’t though which is very concerning-”

“Sakura, on topic!” Rosalia’s voice rings out behind her, and she nods to herself, quickly reevaluating her words and setting off on a new more proper course. Meditation has helped her slow her time and figure out what to do faster but she’s still winging this.

She doesn’t apologize, there’s no time, she has a minute and change if she wants to possibly save her country’s Genin. “From what I can tell the fire is mostly normal fire despite spreading across any surface, I think video games call this napalm? Sticky liquid fire, it’s not chakra or magic based is what I mean.” She’s not actually sure how napalm works, maybe it’s not similar at all, regardless the message is across. It’s sticky, it’s spreading like fluid, and it’s not magic or chakra, that’s all anyone needs to know. “Because of this you should be able to walk through it with fire affinity and fire chakra covering. So we’ve filled the shops with fire resistant clothing, fire affinity boosting trinkets, and chakra pills just in case you run low. I urge you to spend as much of your money on it as possible before you die horribly, Rosalia here would very much prefer not to hear your screams in her dreams.”

“Nightmares!” Rosalia shouts, “how could you call that a dream?”

“Wait, you don’t hear screams in your dreams?” Sakura asks, looking back at the girl with a quizzical expression.

“What the fuck?” Rosalia swears at her, and Sakura steadies herself to finish the speech.

“Either way, that’s about all our time, please find somewhere high to get away from the tide and buy what you can. Also please split up already, this is embarrassing.” WIth that, the red light that says she’s recording goes off. “They’ll have to make due with that… I need to ask Saruka what happened here.”

“We did our best… I just hope it’s enough.” Saying they filled the shops with that stuff is technically a lie, one of the biggest reasons Sakura even did her speech is because Rosalia is the only one that can actually input shop items and she needed to do so frantically, she’s finishing about now. “This is messed up, I thought this game was fair?”

“Why would you think that?” Sakura asks. “People aren’t made equal even before you consider the base stat system which changes based on each person. Ino’s better with people than most, Shikamaru naturally has control over people from shadows naturally and years of training with it so he’ll take to the powers of darkness I’ve been giving him better. Chouji knows how to find food better than anyone - what I’m saying is that life and fairness are mutually exclusive, nothing about this game was ever going to be fair because it’s a battle for life itself.”

“... I think I know what you mean, but you could sound a little less jaded.” Rosalia sighs, closing the shop interface as she fills in the final item, a flame retardant coat Sakura quickly drew up schematics for “Any idea how she did that?”

“As far as I know we only have two ways to alter the game. Shop and recorded messages, so either she fit some kind of flame assault into her side’s shop…”

“Or she just plain has excess privilege granted by the world. Great.” Rosalia groans, “that’s just not right… I hope it hit her side too.”

“Me too.” Sakura agrees, “I guess that could have been a random event, you think the game has random events?”

“Jeez, I hope so, or maybe I hope not. I don’t know, I’m panicking, hold me.” Sakura’s not sure what to do as the blonde jumps into her arms, but she’s small enough she can walk away with her so it’s not like it’s an inconvenience. She’ll need to ask Ino about this later though, she’s better with people and she needs to know why this feels so incredibly awkward.

-------------------------------------------------------

Back to her board after that awkward distraction, Sakura’s happy to note that her game is in fact not on fire. In fact, aside from Rosalia practically shivering in her lap while holding back surprised and shellshocked sobs, there’s not a lot of sign that happened at all. Neither her real game or Samael’s - the one she actually cares about - seem to have any difference from normal. She does have a notice that some of the enemy team have crossed over to her side but that doesn’t really matter. Maybe she’ll fit it into tomorrow’s message if they haven’t already noticed but she’s sure that Shino’s bugs already got a hold of them. She believes in him, he’s a very capable guy. It’s that very capability which likely got him killed in her explosion, he believed himself a welcome aid to her and was caught off guard by devastation that breaks the boundaries of skill or logic and sunk their land into a miniature apocalypse.

Not to say he made the wrong call. Sometimes you do everything right and the world blows up in your face anyway because of unforeseen circumstances. She’s learned that recently, wisdom isn’t making the correct call, it's knowing how to adapt when that call goes wrong because reality says so. The woman in the tower of clocks said she’s not the only Sakura. She’s one Sakura in an endless stream of attempts to accomplish some goal and every one was worse than her.

Yet even still, Orochimaru showed up and ruined her perfect run by singling her out. Her own success made him target her directly instead of Sasuke. Even the system predicted that Sasuke was the target, but he wasn’t, Orochimaru acted like it was always her. She relied too much on her plans and the system and when they crumbled she desperately clung to every variable she could pull until she pulled the plug and blew it all to dust. That’s the best her?

Possibly hundreds of Sakuras and the best her’s solution to the same problem was to rely on a gift from an outside source and use it to kill everyone around, herself included? That’s proof on its own that she can’t rely on instinct alone, or plans, or even the system. She has to give them the tools she can and hope they can pull through on their own because no matter how clever she is, no matter what she does, it won’t matter if the enemy is better at adapting. “What do you think their odds are?” She asks, looking at the Dark Knight leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and her cloak drooping below her.

“Without any information on the enemy it would be hard to say, but I don’t think you would have faith in them if they were incapable.” Samael answers her with a tilt of her head, a hunter’s eyes focused on the display. “They’ve impressed me so far. I look forward to working with them to free my people.”

Odds are her worries are a mixture of being shaken and her own insecurities. It’s all had so much time to come together and create a perfect storm inside of her. But she can’t shake the feeling that something sudden will happen and change the game. It’s happened too often to her. Vampire Gato, Zabuza, Fierro, the invisible skeletons, Orochimaru, even the fire in Rosalia’s game just now. So many times she’s had a pretty good idea of what’s next, thought she understood the rules, and found she understood nothing and was forced to speculate. “I hope you’re right.” She says, it’s up to them a lot more than it is up to her right now, hopefully that’s a good thing.

Because she kind of sucks at this.

-------------------------------------------------------

“Hinata, how much further?” Kiba asks her, following behind her with his hands in his pockets and a bit of a nervous energy to his step. Walking across the sand like this doesn’t suit him very well. He’s used to the wilds, the trees and animals and bushes. He’s used to seeing green in all directions. Everytime he crosses the desert he finds himself a little more homesick and a little more angry that he was snuffed out so easily. He came to the aid of his clanmate just as he was trained to. His mother would be proud of him for rushing to Sakura’s aid, and yet she’s likely cursing him for being there in the first place.

What lesson is he supposed to take from all of this? Don’t help Sakura in particular because she might blow you up?

“How should I know? Ask Shino?” Hinata asks, a little bit of an edge to her tone, likely for similar reasons. She hasn’t gone into detail, but Kiba can tell she wants to scream. She tried so hard, endured so much, got so strong, and none of it mattered because of circumstances beyond their control. That’s not to say her chipper attitude is completely gone. She’s a gentle soul and it shows. Even in her rage, she cares about them, and can look at them with kindness. He tries to use the energy she gives off to calm himself. She’s faithful that they’ll make it through this, and hasn’t let doubt stop her for even a second.

A simple look in Shino’s direction has him reaching up to touch his sunglasses. “We are approaching a midway point between Sasuke’s group and Shikamaru’s group. We should probably prioritize which one to warn based on how likely we think they are to be ambushed.”

“We should warn Shikamaru’s group then.” Kiba says, and Akamaru gives an affirmative yip of agreement above him. The movement causes a little bell to jingle. It was very cheap and he seemed to want it so Kiba wasn’t going to argue.

“Oh?” Shino asks. His body language is blank, but Kiba knows he’s being prodded for information, so he relents.

There’s no reason to make his teammate speak up anymore than is needed, a part of being a good leader is not expecting more from your pack than they’re comfortable with. Even if they should grow, growing is about being prodded at the right time, not a constant barrage of expectations. One step at a time. Not that Kiba thinks he’s the leader, that’s actually probably Hinata if he had to take a real guess. She’s the only one he’s scared of at least, and fear is probably the biggest indicator that someone’s word has the most weight. Well, fear in a good way, he has no doubt Hinata would die for him just like they did Sakura, he’s not afraid she’ll ever hurt him. Respect might be a better word for what he means. “Sasuke will expect an ambush. That guy’s a dick but he’s also the only one of us used to bloodshed like this. Even ignoring the massacre, he’s used to Sakura who is just a whole can of crazy.”

“That’s true,” Shino agrees quietly, “she got the first kill in the forest.”

“That sand chick looks brutal too, they’re probably in more danger of being ambushed because there’s three of them but I don’t think they’re the ones in danger of being caught off guard. I think that’s Ino and Chouji and that redhead.” Kiba explains.

“Not Shikamaru?” Hinata asks, looking back over her shoulder for their benefit - or maybe for real at the moment, it’s so easy to forget she can’t look in all directions right now. It’s very natural for her to look at them to make them feel at ease anyway so, the difference doesn’t really matter much. It’s the little things that make her feel like a leader, that’s one of them.

“Shikamaru’s smarter than a dozen of me, he’s expecting the ambush. Issue is, he’s quiet and likes to feel like a hero. If he’s like he was back when we hung out in the academy he probably won’t say anything so he can look cool. Guys like that need to lose someone to realize that they can’t just plan their way out of anything… let’s make sure that lesson isn’t learnt right now when it’s our friends on the line.”

“I agree.” Shino murmurs, and Hinata nods.

Another thing that makes her a leader, she’s willing to listen, consider, and even ask questions despite all the ability in the world to ignore him and press on. She could easily dart off in whatever direction she wants and they would likely fall in line without a thought because that’s the natural state of things.

Despite that, she makes him feel listened to which makes him want to speak, and that makes him want to follow.