"Welcome back, Sakura, so how did it go? Did you become a real genin or not?" her mother Kimiko Haruno asked. Kimiko was a woman that looked almost exactly like her daughter only she was around her mid thirties with black hair, blue eyes, and did not have a large forehead. The pink hair, green eyes, and the forehead she was so sensitive about seemed to be the only things that she had inherited her father Rasui Haruno.
"Mom, you knew that the test I passed was not the real genin test?" her pink hair daughter asked shocked that her mother did not tell her that.
"Of course dear, I was a genin at one point too, you know," her mother told her.
"Then you could have told me that test passed to get my hitate was the real genin test!" Sakura huffed. She could not see what was wrong with that.
"It is against the rules to tell anyone about the real genin test, even your own family when they are taking it. Besides, each one is different depending on what the Jonin sensei picks for the test." Kimiko told her. "On another note, your father left already, but he wanted to give this."
Sitting on the table beside Sakura's mother was a medium size box wrapped like a present with bow and Sakura's name on it.
"What is it, Sakura?" asked as she went to see what her father left for her. While her mother was Chunin, her father was not a ninja at all but programmer that worked for a company that was outside Kohona. CC Corp she believed it was called. From her understanding, he was the head of the Elemental Countries' Branch and very important person over that their headquarters in Japan. However, it was because of this that he was not home a lot, but came home for some weekends, his vacation and important days like her birthdays, holidays, her graduation from the ninja academy, etc.
"Why do not you take it upstairs and open it up after you get clean up. What every Kakashi used as his real genin test has cause you to have lingering outdoor odor" her mother said.
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Twenty minute later…
After taking a shower and changing into a fresh pair of clothes Sakura looked at the package that was sitting on her bed and began to go about opening it.
'I wonder what he got me. Probably something electronic,' Sakura thought as she looked over to her computer which was the last gift she had gotten for her father. It was his birthday present to her and it was the latest model too.
'Having a father working at CC Corp sure does has perks' Sakura thought as she remebered showed off her new computer to Ino-pig who still had to use a five year old computer that she shared with her entire family.
"Wow! How do dad know that I wanted this?" Sakura said
Upon removing the wrapping paper from her father's present, she found herself looking at the box for the MMO RPG The World R:2.
She had heard a lot about this game for a friend of hers that was playing it. According to them, it was really popular, realistic, and unlike any other online RPG that they had every played before. Checking the game out from herself, she decided that she liked and tried it for herself yet they were sold out in every store that she had checked. The store clerk at the last store said that they wouldn't be getting any more till the end of the month and even those were sold out. Apparently, the game was selling like crazy not only in the Land of Fire but all over all the other elemental countries as well and the demand for them was so great that the Elemental Branch of CC Corp could not keep up with the demand for them, thus the reason for the shortage she was running into now.
'How did Dad...' Sakura thought then remembered he worked for the company that made the game, so of course he could get one of these if he wanted too. 'Having a dad that works at CC Corp really does has it perks,' she thought. This was something else to rub in Ino's face, since the blond girl wanted The World R:2 as well yet was being forced to wait like she had, at least until today, that is. Upon opening the box, she saw that there was note inside address to her.
Dear Sakura,
I am giving you this game as present for you becoming a real genin which I sure that you have and even if you have not do not let this get you down there this always next year. Also I heard from your mother over the phone that you were interested in playing The World R:2 yet could not get your hands on it because of the current shortage. So I giving you this one I brought with me from the Elemental CC Corp Branch office. To save you some time I have already set up an account for you. (The next line is her account name, password, and how he already paid for a year worth of play.) All that is left is for you to decide on what your character looks like, what class they are, and their name. Please enjoy and I hope that I am able to make it back spend my birthday with you and your mother. Work here is starting to increase so I can not come home as often for awhile.
Love your father, Rasui
"I am really going to have to thank Dad for doing this," Sakura said to herself as she began removing the wrapping covering the game so she could get started playing right away. She had to meet with Kakashi and her teammates early the next day. If she started now, than she would be able to at least have enough time to play for a few hours before having to go to bed.
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Once the game was out the package and inside her computer, Sakura sighed and looked at the character creation screen and the number of classes to choice from.
'Okay, just what class do I want to be?' the pink hair girl thought as she looked over her choices.
There were eleven classes for her to chose from, and before she making her choice, she wanted to take a close look over the each one of them carefully. According to the manual, once she had decided on a class, she would not be able to change it again. Adept Rogues sounded interesting to her because she would like to be able to switch weapons in mid combat and have variety of different skills; however, she did not like the fact that she would learn skills at a slower rate then all the other classes and would have master each one of her weapons separately. Macabre Dancers, Shadow Warlocks, Harvest Clerics learn spells incredibly fast, but they did not learn any attack skills. Lord Partizans, while they have good medium range attacks and very high defense and physical attack stats, were weak against magical attack and were more monster-oriented classes. Edge Punisher has power and defense close to Lord Partizan but is slower then most classes. Tribal Grapplers have very high HP but low defense and lack of variety in attack skills. Flick Reapers were another class that interested her like the Adept Rouge class had. Though, she did not like how they had almost no attacks meant for long range and that a good Steam Gunner or Lord Partizan could overpower them from afar easily.
So out of the eleven choices, Sakura had narrow the choice for her character's class down to three. Those three begin Twin Blade, Steam Gunner, and Blade Brandier. Twin Blades while extremely versatile had attacks that were somewhat weak. Their high agility, attacking with two short swords, and their ability to make combo easier come overshadow their attack power. For Sakura, however, that was not enough and Twin Blades were crossed off the list of possibilities for her character class. Steam Gunners had the greater range than any other class minus the magic orientated ones and their physical attack stat progress faster then any of the other classes. However, melee damage was similar to that of the magic orientated classes making them seem like the physical equivalent of Shadow Warlocks.
So the only class left from her to choose from was the Blade Brandier class as the stats seem to be in between for everything. So after twenty minutes of carefully looking over each class, she had finally decide on what her character's class was going to be; however, soon after she had done so something she did not expect had happened. She was then prompted to pick a sub-class for her character though according to the direction she did not read anything that say anything about any character having more then one class other then Adept Rogues. When she tried to get more information on why she was being asked for a sub-class despite her chosen class being a Blade Brandier instead of an Adept Rogue, she got was a message from her father.
'You are probably wondering why you are being asked to pick a sub class despite not chose Adept Rogue as your chosen class. Well the reason is because this is special gift from me that why I set everything up before hand. This was something I personally programmed into your character, Your father Rasui' the message read.
'Well, if dad put in there, then it must be okay. He runs the Elemental Branch of CC Corp after all,' Sakura thought as she picked Steam Gunner for her sub class. The reason that she went with this as her sub class was because she wanted to be able to attack from but short and long range if needed be.
With her classes decided, Sakura was now starting at her basic default character for Blade Brandier, trying to decide what her character clothes should look like after deciding that her character would be female. This took another twenty minutes before she had finally come to a decision on what her character was going to look like.
She wanted her character to look different for her so she gave her character brown hair that done up in ponytail that stopped at the middle of her character's back. (Her character's face is similar to that of BlackRose complete with the marks under her eyes however her character's eyes are brown instead of red.)
Her character wore a shirt that had sleeves that went to her elbow and had on a pair of gloves (the gloves look similar to Mia's from original .Hack game). The bottom half of her character has armor (similar to BlackRose's) around her hip with white cloth hanging down in the front. Her character legs are completely covered in solid stockings and while she had on boot that stops just short of her ankles.
With all this done, the final step was to choose a name for her character and then she would be done with the character selection process. It took a lot longer then she had expected it would, but once she had decide on a name then it will all be over and she finally get started on playing the World. Typing in the name Yumi, Sakura was finally ready to enter The World for the first time as her character Yumi.
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As Yumi(Sakura) open her eyes, she noticed that she was standing within what was known as the Dome area of Mac Anu was also known as the Eternal City and was led by the Ishmael leader of the Arvakv fraction which was one of the three fractions that exist in The World's backstory. Yumi looking herself over as she could belive how realistic this game really was. Though this did not last long as she could her other character around looking at her strangely while talking yet she could not hear anything they were saying. Yumi simple guess it was on of the mode of commuincate available in R:2 as stated in the manual.
So she stopped what she was doing and walked outside to Dome Area to go explore the city some before heading out into the field. Though once she was outside, the brown hair girl was once again standing in shock at the sight before her very eye was like nothing she had ever seen before. The image she had seen of this place on the Internet did not quite capture the just how amazing this place was.
'Pull it to together or else you will make yourself an easy target,' Yumi thought as she mentally slapped herself as Player Killers or Pkers were a large part of this game and it was a well known fact that certain Pkers like to go after newbies like her and her reactions to her surroundings could be broadcasting to the wrong sort of people that this was her first time ever logging into this game.
'So, where will I go first?' Yumi then thought wondering weather or not to take a look around Mac Anu before heading out into an area or just jumping straight in an area start leveling up.
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I would like to thank King Hawke for beta reading Chapter 01