Chapter 123 - Arc 8 - Forest of Quest: Pervy Soul?

Things progress nicely, and we get a nice segment with the Jonin. Isn't that what's truly important?

Have fun ya'll.

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“Does Sakura possess the ability to add anyone to her party?” Asuma asks, looking up from the pamphlet in his hands to give Kakashi a stern stare. The information packet details more about Sakura than she’s freely given, a combined report from everyone in her life interviewed at different times and conglomerated in a concise, informational manner. It helps Konohamaru’s a gamer, which means Asuma has heard quite a few of the terms over the years. There’s also just not a lot to do as a guardian for the Daimyo, it’s boring most days, a handheld or good book is basically required. “I know video games often have teams of sorts, sometimes they’re called parties.”

“The closest I’ve heard to something like that is that dungeons have some kind of calculation based on who goes in with her, you can find the specifics of what we know on that on the third page,” Kakashi shrugs, “why?”

“Because Ino’s been acting very strangely ever since the interrogation with Sakura,” Asuma explains, “it’s like her entire motivation structure changed overnight. I’ve been worried, but it seemed pointless to pressure her about a good thing. It’d make sense if she suddenly had a direct connection with this ability.”

“Not really. Having numbers shouldn’t change her motivation if she’s not already inclined to want to get stronger. Even Sakura didn’t try that hard until she was cut in half by her own sword.” The dead stare he gets from Kurenai, and the glimpse of horror from Asuma leads him to believe he probably shouldn’t have said that.

“The other potential inciting incident is letting you train her for a week-” Asuma’s glare focuses in on him for a second-

“It’s totally Sakura’s fault.” Kakashi whistles while holding his hands up disarmingly.

Asuma deeply exhales, it’s probably a mixture of two motivations. He did ask Ino how Kakashi was, but he figured ‘he’s an asshole’ was just her reaction to actually being trained instead of coddled. Her improvements were very nice, and besides being a little tired and in need of some calories she seemed perfectly fine physically. There was a wound across her chest but that didn’t scare him much. Any good camping trip will cause exhaustion and Kakashi explained the wound by saying she jumped in front of an attack meant for Naruto. He’d agreed that scaring her was reasonable, what if she jumped in front of Chouji or something? The enemy likely wouldn’t hold back, so he’s glad the lesson came from someone who would leave her alive to hate them.

He probably should have overseen their training directly but he didn’t want to step on Kakashi’s toes and he was sure the man wouldn’t let her die so it didn’t seem particularly prudent to focus on the one student doing something with another Jonin when he had two Genin he had to motivate to do something while he was standing right there.

Being a guardian skewed his perspective, how does one forget that Kakashi really, truly, is inhuman in his standards of what someone can take. Some people are born different, and regardless of how much they might try, they don’t make very good teachers to fashion focused little girls. Or maybe they do, her taking things seriously is preferable, even if a little trauma is the price. Ninja life will cause trauma either way so it’s probably better to get it at home when she’s able to be cared for directly should something go horrifically wrong. He’s just not sure, why did his father force him to take a team again? Should he be furious or grateful?

“Does Sakura get quests?” Asuma asks instead of continuing to go over his thoughts, coughing into his fist and avoiding eye contact with the cyclops as he gets his bearings. “Maybe she let Ino in on some relevant objective?”

“Page four.” Kakashi gestures idly, “but why would a quest for Sakura have your team working harder? Shikamaru was notorious in the academy for his laziness, I doubt he could be motivated by some strange reward he wouldn’t even be the one to get.”

Asuma rubs his chin in thought, but it’s Kurenai that speaks up suddenly, drawing their attention.

“Terror.” She explains. Recognition slips through the three of them before the word is even fully enunciated.

“The quest itself would have to be terrifying enough to motivate Ino to act out of character. He wouldn’t self motivate, but Shikamaru is very empathetic. If the quest terrified her enough to force her to push them…” Asuma trails, turning to page four, “or what happens if they fail happens to be bad enough that she’d have no choice but to let them all in on it, that could easily motivate him.”

Kakashi groans out to the world, an annoyed groan that doesn’t fit with the gravity of the situation at all. He leans his head back and slips his hands into his pockets as he jumps to a stand with nought but a thought. “I guess I should inform the Hokage that something stupid is happening with Sakura.”

“You don’t sound too worried about it.” Kurenai’s gaze narrows. “I get it’s speculation on poor evidence, but it’s your student being in severe danger we’re talking about.”

“No, it’s yours.” Kakashi begins walking away with the same energy an indignant child has being told he has to do the dishes. “Sakura will be fine.”

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“So the three of you are here to tell me that you have reason to believe that the exams might be being actively warped by Sakura Haruno’s involvement, and that if we do not prepare to interfere, something terrible might happen.” The Hokage takes a puff of his pipe, “and your evidence for this idea is that Shikamaru has been working out.”

“When you put it that way it does sound preposterous…” Asuma gulps, having to resist taking a step back under his father’s scrutinizing gaze.

“No it doesn’t.” The old man denies, blowing out smoke with a talented stream that spirals on itself. “We already knew that the exams were going to be changed for her involvement. This is just confirmation that the plan worked. Jiraiya will be glad to hear it.”

“The plan?” Kurenai asks, looking at Kakashi, who shrugs, “Jiraiya?”

“Jiraiya has evidence to suggest that something is amiss with the Suna alliance, and that Sound has something to do with it. We’ve been trying to orchestrate the right circumstances to reveal this using Sakura’s ability. Somehow, despite not trying to, she manages to draw in all the nonsense located in any area and turn it into fuel for her adventures and advancement. By allowing her to visit Suna, then observing her as she goes through the exams, we believe that we can confirm whether something is going on or not without having to risk more lives than necessary. You do remember your secondary objective when you visited Suna, right Kakashi?”

“I do.” Kakashi gives his commander a slight nod, “you wanted me to push them to interact with the Kazekage’s children and not show myself unless someone was in real danger.” Sakura had been rather indignant about his criticism about killing the assassin targeting her, but he saw her tell Gaara to deal with him. She’s a smart girl and anyone with the kind of data she had on him should have easily concluded that he’d rip the man apart.

Forcing her to take accountability is a part of being her leader. He was serious when he said he was sure the other two were ready for Chunin, but he wasn’t completely sure about her. Leading and understanding your team is a huge part of the promotion, if she can’t even realize a bloodthirsty killer reeking of blood and actively threatening to kill people is not going to take the enemy alive, then she simply isn’t ready. At least she seems to have learned her lesson, but the exams will show more than any idle observation will. More importantly, “So you have her being watched?” Kakashi asks.

“There are multiple spies intentionally placed into the exam,” The Hokage explains between puffs, “some are watching team seven and waiting for something absurd to happen, others are ensuring not too many others get caught up in it. We’ve already caught onto some treason by following her around, it’s working perfectly.”

“Treason?” Kurenai asks while bristling hard and giving her commander a very unimpressed glare, at least the closest she can get to one without being reprimanded for lacking respect in an official circumstance, “and you haven’t stopped the tests? We sent fresh rookies into that forest, this is something we should have been told.”

“It’s a matter of village security, any disruptions to the test could result in a far worse outcome than a few genin being in a little danger while surrounded by Jonin. As far as I’m concerned, they’re under more danger during C rank missions.” The older authority stresses, “you’re only hearing about it now because as of this moment you are also on standby. Henge into genin and get into the exams. Do not make contact with other teams unless absolutely necessary, absolutely do not step anywhere near team seven unless it’s life or death. You risk the entire operation if Sakura’s system gets even the slightest inkling that something isn’t as it seems.”

“You’re trying to trick a seemingly omniscient computer system functioning outside the boundaries of our understanding?” Kurenai asks.

“If it was omniscient, it would have already caught on to the fact that we’re watching her,” Sarutobi waves a hand at her, “now disperse, any longer and someone’s going to question why three Jonin in charge of teams are in my office when they should be watching their Genin through the cameras.”

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Meditating over her new traits - and getting back a little mana in the process, it’s surprisingly easy - Sakura can’t help but feel like things are a little too convenient. Some of it’s from the efforts of her and her team, like the perimeter being safe enough they can rest and relax or the summons keeping rivals from stumbling onto them.

Some of it’s a little weirder than that though. They already got all the balls they need for every team but Karin’s, and she has her doubts anyone can actually come get the objective from them without already being an active Chunin. There’s too much in the way, and each of them is far too strong. Her strength is another cause for concern for when she looks at it analytically. She didn’t do any work to get this strong, at least not as much as others have. Even Ino’s working super hard, and she’s just been doing what she wants and tripping into power left and right.

Something wants her to get strong and it wants her to do it fast. It makes her wonder about her system, and the strange recording of their death she received in her head before she even entered the forest. Is that important? She figured it wasn’t relevant to here, but what if it is? Ino’s quest is on a timer and she hasn’t given it much thought. She should prepare for that, just in case. She doesn’t want to, but she should. The thoughts quickly pass, much like they have every other time she’s felt uneasy. The dismissal probably isn’t artificial, she just doesn’t want to think about it, at least that’s what she thinks, what if it just wants her to think it’s her own whims dismissing important topics? How would she even know if she isn’t in control of her thoughts?

She shakes the dumb thoughts away, if it had mind control she wouldn’t be stumbling anywhere, she’d just do what it wants and get the powers it directs her to on a straight path. Her path is all wibbly wobbly and upside down sometimes. “You think too much.” Sasuke’s words drag her out of her thoughts somewhat forcefully, drawing her eyes to him and his efforts to create a shovel out of a twig, some vines, and a rock. Why a shovel? She’s not sure yet, but she’s happy Iruka told her to leave the make-shift tools to Sasuke. His tools look so much better than hers and while she could probably do better without too much effort to grind up the skill, that time could be better spent training a combat or survival skill.

She still wants to find a non-medical regeneration skill or trait to boost with Regenerator and she won’t do that by being a jack of all trades and taking things from her teammates. “I do,” she agrees, “I’ve been trying to do it less.”

“Well don’t do that,” Naruto lightly punches her shoulder, looking up at her from her side, “your thinking gets us out of almost as much trouble as it gets us into.”

“That’s still a net loss.” She snickers, but she leans against him regardless, taking in his comforting warmth. Think less, but not too much less, she can try to do that. Maybe avoiding it isn’t the best method anyway, she should just try to direct her thoughts more. “We need to talk more.”

“We do.” Sasuke agrees, and she feels Naruto nod against her.

She can’t help but notice that they do not in fact take this opportunity to talk more. They let the time pass away instead, until Sasuke gets up and walks away without saying anything. It’s time to hunt more, she can get behind that. Screw all this thinking. She’ll warn Sasuke about the whole bite thing before it comes up, she’s sure. It’s just too awkward to broach out of nowhere.

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Sakura wishes she could say the day was eventful but it really wasn’t.

Hunt, kill, resurrect, repeat. It’s gotten to the point where it’s so repetitive and lacking in variance that she’s stopped fully taking it in.

She wishes her clothing was the same and wasn’t taking in every single moment. Even metal needs to be cleaned when you’re constantly covering it in guts, and that’s double for the parts of it that aren’t metal. Her outfit is very refined and well put together, but it’s no legendary self cleaning paladin gear. She has to take it off and clean it in the nearby river just like any other mortal equipment. Theoretically she could probably clean it with a lot of water Chakra and focus and she’d get to train her water affinity at the same time but she can’t afford to use all her Chakra in this exam like she can training at home.

Why is it that the best times to train are always the worst times to train?

Her eyes dart to the side as something pricks her senses. Not her eyes or ears or anything simple like that.

Necromancy, specifically soul sense. There’s something strong nearby, she can feel spectral eyes gazing at her in her bathing suit and the power behind them is enough for her to pick it out in a forest filled with the dead and the soon to be dead.

Said bathing suit is a bright pink and has straps over her shoulders that lead into a little dress like cloth that flows down from her chest to her waist. It ends in a frilly skirt that falls halfway between her thighs and her knees. Until recently she washed her clothes in the nude, as she did on her mission with team three, but Tenten tattled on her about that and Ino did that thing where she kidnapped her for an aggressive shopping trip. She believes Ino called it a very conservative tankini or something? The weird words barely matter to her, what does matter is that she has clothing for getting wet which seems ridiculous but what does she know about clothes?

She was rather irritated about the forceful addition to her already quite large amount of stuff to pack for missions, but now she finds herself extremely grateful. She’d be giving whatever’s watching her a very embarrassing show if not for Ino. It’s enough to make her light up red and thank Ino repeatedly under her breath. She needs to treat her to lunch sometime, or maybe go to a slightly more expensive place where her small portion of the bill feels like she’s treating Ino.

The problem is that whatever is watching her is evading her ninja senses. She’s not sure if it’s an exam proctor that’s just gotten a little too close while unaware she can sense souls - understandable really - or if it’s something to worry about, and that’s bothering her more than she’d like to admit. She quickly seals her equipment for transport, she’ll dry it at camp, and starts walking in the direction of the soul. Ideally, if it’s a proctor it should realize she sees it and quickly flee to not mess with the test.

When it doesn’t move, she keeps closing in.

For several minutes she gets closer and closer, walking around in a partial circle to not let on that she’s going somewhere directly, and she can’t help but notice that it still doesn’t move even as she gets closer by the second. Its eyes stay on her, so it's aware she’s approaching, but it seems completely unaware that she’s caught onto it.

Leaning back against the tree the soul is hiding high up in, it still doesn’t move. That changes things. The implications are very heavy. A proctor would have left a long time ago. Something aggressive would have attacked by now and forced her to flee. She senses nothing around besides the soul and even this close, her actual ninja senses still show her nothing at all. If not for Soul sense she’d be completely unaware something is standing right above her and has been watching her for a while. This close up, it almost feels like the Hokage, and that soothes her a little despite the clear and obvious danger.

“You’re so arrogant you don’t think I could ever notice you, do you?” She asks the air, and the moment her voice calls out, the soul is gone. It moves so fast she doesn’t even pick up on it leaving, it just ceases to exist. She is very glad it’s not hostile, approaching it was dumb. Antagonizing it was dumb. She pinches herself in irritation, she needs to be more careful.

[Quest Alert - Being Watched

Description: You are being watched by a mysterious yet powerful soul, and you can’t help but notice that it seems a little pervy. Despite that, you’re almost sure it’s friendly.

That raises a lot of questions, you should get answers.

Objective: Confront the mysterious pervy soul

Reward: ???]

Yet another random quest, this time the reward isn’t even specified.

She decides to worry about that tomorrow, she’s already at sixty summons and she’s pretty sure she can level up meditation before she has to sleep if she really grinds at it.

If the improvement is like it is for a lot of skills, she might get good enough at rejuvenating mana to be able to get to the full one hundred summons before tomorrow night with mana to spare.

That’d be really cool, and lower the danger of whatever Ino is worried about dramatically. She’s starting to worry about that, reality is setting in and it’s occurring to her that Ino probably won’t succeed in that quest.

Two levels is a lot, even for her, and Ino’s not crazy like she is. She isn’t progressing at over ten times the normal rate either.