Chapter Seven : The One Who Knows Keeps Getting Interrupted
"That's as far as you go, intruders."
At the unknown presence Minato, Kushina and Rin came to a halt.
"Who are you?" Minato demanded.
"That's not something you should be worrying about. But if I were you, I'd just surrender now." The voice drawled out.
"Forgive me, but we can't let that happen." Minato said as he gave an almost imperceptible flick forward with his fingers. Kushina spotted the signal immediately and the two of them charged forwards. To Minato's surprise, he suddenly realized that Rin was jumping up and diagonally, following the formation. That's not too surprising though, we used this with Kakashi and Obito. The surprise came from the fact that he could feel Rin's location. She has one of the strange-feeling Hiraishin.
Minato brought his full attention back to the fight just in time. He could see Kushina suddenly stop moving the moment she set her feet on the ground within the forest's shadows.
Minato couldn't exactly stop his fall an inch from the ground however. Not without Hiraishining, and his chakra was almost out. He hit the ground and found that he couldn't move, but more than that, he seemed to be mirroring Kushina's stance.
"Shadow Possession Justu, complete." The voice seemed familiar now.
"Shikaku?" Minato asked.
"Well intruder. Looks like you know your information."
"We're no—"
"Mind Transfer Justsu!" Inoichi's voice called out.
He's trying that on Kushina?! It only took a few seconds before Inoichi gave a shout and fell over unconscious. She's the jinchuriki of the nine-tails. Her head isn't exactly the most hospitable place. Then again, Inoichi had probably been certain that that wasn'tKushina.
There was an awkward pause of non-action, where Shikaku couldn't check on Inoichi for fear of losing his grip on Minato and Kushina. Then Rin struck. Her kunai flew towards Shikaku from her angle in the trees.
Shikaku dodged easily. Judging from the lack of motion or attack, Rin was also caught in Shadow Possession. "Shadow Strangle Jutsu!"
Oh great, now he'sactually trying to kill us. Their formation would have worked fine for most opponents aside from the Nara.
It was time to get out of here, and just suffer the chakra loss. The other two ninja they'd encountered earlier were catching up. Minato Hiraishined to Kushina and then took them over to Rin. He was a little surprised that he was able to pull on the strange Hiraishin seal, but that was good, since it meant he could likely take them far from their current location.
"I'm sorry for the trouble." He made sure to add before teleporting them away.
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Sakura let the red ribbon slip from her fingers and back onto the dresser. I've never seen it before, but other-Sakura wears it in every picture she's in.At least she did in all the ones lining the hallway.
Which reminds me, we had photo albums. No guarantee of it now, though.While her life didn't appear to be drastically different from before, she kept getting tripped up on the details, and as the saying went; a picture was the equivalent of a thousand words. Or maybe Rin-sensei only meant that for mission reports? Personally, Sakura would much rather have a written paragraph on her other's personality.
Sakura was relieved to find her family's album in the same place as she was used to. Once she was back in her room, she sat on her bed and started flipping through the pictures. The photos from her time as a baby to just before she started the academy lacked any notable differences. In fact, she even recognized a few of the pictures.
After other-Sakura started the Academy, the differences started to crop up. Other-Sakura went through a strange bangs-in-her-eyes faze that Sakura had no memory of going through. Then after a few more pictures, other-Sakura had her hair pulled back in that signature red ribbon.
And then suddenly Ino was in the pictures. If Sakura looked at them objectively she'd have to say that Ino and her other were friends.
Wasn't my other friends with Ami? Sakura could see the girl in their first year class photo, asymmetrical purple hair and all. Isuru wasn't in it, but that was expected, he hadn't come to the Hidden Leaf until they were eight. She kept flipping through the photos, skipping past the deluge of images with her and Ino. I don't thinkmymother was such an obsessive photo-taker. Although it could have been more that Ami and her had always played farther from home in the woods. Other-Sakura and other-Ino looked like they did a lot of crafts, which were ninja-related, but clean. Judging from the pictures they mostly practiced infiltration-aiding crafts, like bouquet making and art.
Much prettier for taking pictures. Sakura mused as she finally arrived at the Academy's second-year class photo. Nothing different. Again she skipped past the numerous photos of other-Sakura and her photogenic exploits.
When she reached their third-year photo—when most of them were eight—she scanned it for signs of Ami and Isuru. Ami was there, but concerningly, Isuru was still absent. But this is the year when his family moved to Konoha…This was also the year when they'd all been put on three-man squads. With a tightening feeling in her chest, Sakura jumped ahead to their next class photo. Isuru still wasn't there, and Ami was now gone too. They weren't in the fifth-year photo or their last-year photo either.
Did she not know Ami or Isuru at all now?
Sakura had to close her eyes for a second to hold back the tears. She wanted to see her team again. As terrifying as the reality-change was, with them she knew she could handle it. Alone it was a nightmare.
Sakura rubbed at her eyes and tried to focus. Her life in this weird new-reality differed more than she'd originally thought, and she needed to learn all she could before she interacted with anyone again.
Gritting her teeth, she started scanning the photos for outstanding details. She made note of the various events that seemed to be represented in the photos, like "a picnic-day at the park!" and any little captions that were included with the pictures.
Then she pulled out the class photos and laid them on the floor in order. Distressingly, Nanashi was never in the photos, and Fuki, like Ami, was not in any photo past their third-year. What happened to them?
Also, it looked like other-Sakura had started growing out her hair midway through their fourth year, judging by its length in the fifth-year photo. The students seemed to have been able to choose their seats for the picture—like her class had been able to—since they weren't ordered in any discernable way that Sakura could detect. Up until the fifth year, her other and Ino were sitting side by side, but in that second-to-last photo, they had a row between them.
Actually, the more she looked at the pictures, it looked like they—along with most of the girls in the class—were crowding around Sasuke. Huh?
That and almost all the girls had grown their hair long, except a few like Hinata. Come to think of it, her hair was short today.
In terms of class dynamics, Naruto was glaring at Sasuke in every photo but the first, and Hinata was giving Naruto shy sideways glances. Shikamaru appeared to sleeping in every one, so maybe his personality wasn't any different. Kiba had Akamaru, and Shino looked stoic like usual. But then again, even if he'd been sticking out his tongue she couldn't have seen it with his high collar and sunglasses. Tobio was there, albeit not by Fuki and Nanashi like Sakura was used to. She ticked her way through her classmates, and found that aside from Ami, Isuru, Nanashi and Fuki, about six others were missing.
Iruka still looked stressed, if less exasperated. And there was another teacher there with white hair that Sakura didn't recognize.
Sakura put the photos and then album back and went back to scanning her room. She didn't discover much, other than that her new set of field kunai that her parents had gotten her as an early graduation gift were missing.
Might as well do my homework and go to bed. Sakura thought, I don't think there's much else I can do right now.
While she worried her lower lip, Sakura scanned through her homework. This new reality was ahead by a couple weeks, so she was prepared not to comprehend the classwork.
After doing a few of the problems sets and review questions, Sakura had to admit that she'd worried far too much. The only concerning thing was that part of the work she had done supposedly covered all the different sections of their political knowledge.
Did they never learn about other villages? Or heck, our own village infrastructure and designation of missions assigned? Or departments?
Sakura had figured, after she'd discovered that Lady Hokage hadn't been made the Fifth in this village, that most of the reforms and political entities that the Fifth Hokage had put in place had never happened. But this was ridiculous.
I'm starting to think that they'd be surprised to learn about how important the Hokage is. Then she snickered in her head. Yah, right. Their education might be different, but there is no way they didn't cover at least that much. It was probably so obvious they didn't even put it on the test.
At least she'd come at a lucky time. With the review underway, she'd have a better idea of what the standard graduate knew, and how Konoha now worked. …Or didn't work.
Seriously? It's still the old crazy political system. The old system being an oligarchy, inside of which was a meritocracy combined with a monarchy but with parliamentary input from a meritocracy with democratic characteristics which was all run by the military within the greater structure of a federal state under a monarchy.
Lady Fifth had restructured…pretty much everything. Lady Hokage had distributed power so it was less centralized. The affectionate joke being that she had essentially ditched most of her paperwork. They had an independent judicial system (so it was less biased and less prone to corruption), citizens voted for representatives on a Council, that did more than just select a new Hokage, offer input and suggest proposals. The Council that Sakura was used to was divided into two groups with separate responsibilities, one part for ninja's representation, which handled almost exclusively military affairs and one part for civilian representation, which handled things on a more economic basis. They passed legislation and chose when to enact a War State (which required acceptance from both groups) and when to retract a War State (requiring one group).
They'd only had one War State, but there hadn't been a war. The Hidden Cloud had backed off on something or another.
For the most part, the Council was really in place for two reasons. The first reason was because merchants and shop-owners knew a lot more about the economy than career soldiers.
The second was to prevent another Danzo.
Sakura was too young to remember it, but her parents had told her of the terrifying five months of Danzo's rule. He'd taken over right after the death of the Fourth, and he'd never officially been declared Hokage, but that hadn't stopped him from acting like a dictator. Her parents had glossed over most of the details, but from what Sakura had gleaned, the conditions had been brutal.
He would never have left the seat of power if Lady Fifth hadn't suddenly made a miracle recovery from the brink of near-death. (Rin-sensei had been instrumental in that, to Sakura's never-ending pride as her student.)
Initially it had been as the wife of the late-Fourth Hokage—who was much-loved in Konoha—that she had garnered support, and after she took the seat as the Fifth, she'd made a lot of Lord Fourth's intended changes. Like instituting teams at younger ages, and raising the minimum age for entering into the Chunin Exams to fifteen. This consequently would have affected the age genin could fight in a war, if they'd had one since the law.
Konoha's enormous population had made caution like that possible, and as a result of fewer deaths to inexperience, their ranks had ballooned a bit, which had made the previously controversial law fairly popular with Konoha ninja, especially parents concerned over their progeny's well-being.
The daimyo hadn't been thrilled with the increased power of the Hidden Leaf, and he'd wanted the Fifth replaced. So he'd "gone away" and now his child was the daimyo, and she thought very highly of the Lady Hokage.
The coup d'état had greatly unsettled the other daimyos, so they'd cut back on their respective Hidden Villages out of fear, further catapulting the Hidden Leaf into greater power, simply because of fewer capable enemies.
Sakura had spent months studying all of the various reforms and historical events that had taken place since the leadership of Kushina Uzumaki.
And all these guys had to learn was "The Hokage is the big leader. Of everything. End of story now go out and play."
Then again, she'd still much rather be in her reality.
"Ugh. That's it. Bedtime." She muttered. Sakura put her books away, shut off the light, got into bed, and blinked.
And then it was morning. The sun is so annoying! Sakura officially missed sleeping in; she turned a groggy head towards her beeping alarm clock, and smacked the snooze button as hard as she could.
It cracked. Well, I know I'm not a morning person…
"Sakura! Hurry or you'll be late!" Her mother's voice called.
"Uh…thank you! I'll be down in a minute!" She called back.
She yanked on her clothes, but one look at her hair in the mirror had her grimacing. How do I even go about hacking off this mess? Her hair was tangled through with rat's nests and snarls. Other-Sakura had amazing hair-maintenance skills.
I don't have time to fix it; I'll just have to deal with it. She crept down the stairs to find the kitchen empty. What a relief. I'm not ready to meet new-reality parents. Meeting warped versions of people you barely knew was creepy enough. Sakura didn't want to experience that with her mother and father.
She grabbed something edible out of her fridge and flew out the door and down the street.
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"Good morning Ino!"
Ino spun around to see Sakura, nervously raising a hand as she huffed over.
"Good morning forehead." Ino muttered flatly. She couldn't quite muster any enthusiasm for her taunt with Sakura giving her a genuine-looking close-eyed smile. Her hair looks terrible…
Sakura caught up with Ino, her serenely happy expression at definite odds with her hurried run, and raced on past.
"Ino, we've got to hurry or we'll be late!" Sakura shouted without even turning her head back.
"Uh, Sakura…" Ino could've sworn she was sweatdropping, "We've got a good half an hour."
"What?" Sakura spun around with wide eyes, "Really?"
"Yeah…" Ino narrowed her eyes, Sakura was still acting bizarre, "How come you didn't know that?"
"My clock broke this morning." Sakura grinned with an edge of mischievousness and pride, "And I'm sorta the one who broke it."
"Oh…" Ino felt her brow involuntarily furrow. Is that something to be proud of?
There was pause before, "Say, Ino?"
"Hmm? What?"
"I have a favor to ask."
"Oh? And what do you want forehead?"
Sakura glanced towards the ground, biting her lip in nervousness before she looked up with a surprising amount of determination.
"Would you please help me cut my hair?!"
Author's Note: Hello! Took me a little bit to update, but here it is! Also, this story now has a cover that isn't a cat! Wohoo!
Took me forever to draw it and it still looks odd, but you know what? It's not a cat. And if you squint, you can appreciate that it's colorful.