Disclaimer: I have not obtained the intellectual property rights to the naruto franchise since I last posted a chapter, and even if you think intellectual property law is bogus (and as an internet user you probably do), I still don't have enough confidence in my lawyer to simply ignore it.


Chapter 9: World-Building through Bedtime Stories

The fog-lantern seals had taken less than an hour to redesign: Setting a sharp angle on the light emitted was trivial at this point for her, making it easy to have a tag meant for a vertical surface meant to illuminate the ground rather than the particles of water that made up mist. Changing the color had take a while, and she'd needed to switch from 5 Elements syntax to 8 Trigrams syntax to make it work. (Odd that the color of light would be more related to it's interactions with space than its source. Ishi had laughed when she gave up trying to use 5 Elements and took his advice to switch syntax, only to have most of her problems immediately resolve themselves.)

The barrier tags, she already had designed, she just needed to make break out some of her manual trigger interfaces so Tazuna, Tsunami, and Inari could activate their barrier tags without chakra. Making alarm seals was easy, she just made several torch tags, with an independent supressor. When the supressor tag war broken (easily achieved by tearing the paper), the warning tags corresponding to the suppresor heated up, then she simply gave a suppresor to Tazuna and kept the torch tag to herself. Preparing these tags took most of her chakra, so she was pretty wiped out, but all that was left was to hand out the tags (with a smoke signal to act as a locator for each person)

Sakura then learned an important lesson: The human element is, and always will be, the weak link of any form of security.

"I don't care what you say, this is a waste of time. You're just going to die"

Inari was the only brat she'd ever met more irritating than Konohamaru back in Konoha.

"Oh really, Inari-chan? What makes you say that?" Sakura asked, baring her teeth in an expression that might be recognizable as a smile to someone with a degenerative ocular condition and absolutely no understanding of how people express and emotions.

"Gato's too strong, he's just going to kill you too. You should leave before he gets the chance."

"Your concern is-" *inhale*,"-touching," Sakura managed to hiss, "but these tags are for your benefit, and your mother and grandfather's benefit, not mine. Now take the seals or, so help me, I will cut the seals into your skin to make you take them."

Inari saw death and fire in the seal-users eyes, swallowed his complaints, and took the tags before retiring to his room in a dignified manner. He wasn't running away, he just didn't have any reason to talk to the crazy girl who would be dead soon.

"Sakura, no threatening clients or their families with mutilation, even if it's in their best interest" Kakashi swatted her head as a reprimand.

"But Kakashi-senseeeeeeeiiiiii, how else am I supposed to get that passive-aggressive, little pustule to cooperate with the measures put there for his own safety if he doesn't find his continued wellbeing to be enough motivation?" She whined, rubbing her head, ensuring her hair wasn't messed up.

"Getting a child to do what he's told is typically the job of his mother, you should have just told Tsunami that her son didn't care if he lived or died."

"And you call me devious? That's crosses the line into sadistically manipulative."

"Eh, if it works"

"Sadism aside, would you happen to know of a better way to make a locator seal than just making it a chakra beacon? I'm to tired to charge them today, but I can still try to design some that won't broadcast our clients location to every ninja on the island." Sakura asked.

"Nope, that's typically why people don't use locator seals, except to keep track of prisoners."

"Use a radio signal."

'What?'

"Your team has used radios, so you should be familiar with the principles that govern them. Make one seal that emits radio waves of a known frequency, it shouldn't take much more energy than a lantern tag. Then make a receiver tag that measures radio waves to tell if it's gone off."

'But that would just tell you if it's gone off, not where it is.'

"Then use the strength of the signal to estimate the distance, and have a receiver measure from two points with known relative location and triangulate."

'That's actually would work. Any given signal would be traced to one of two possible points in opposite directions, paying attention should eliminate possibility immediately, very few ninja take radio equipment into the field, and all we need to do is pick a frequency in a range that isn't used for communication to prevent anyone from following the signal unless they know to look for it already.'

"You know, Sakura," Kakashi stated calmly, "When you zone out like that, I'm not sure whether the result is going to make me laugh or cry."

"Sorry, Kakashi-sensei, but I had an idea for a better mouse-trap" Sakura answered absently, her eyes flickering back and forth between figures and formulas that only she could see. "I can't finish them till tomorrow, but that's fine, because working out the math will take a while. If it works, we'll have locators that don't just belch chakra into the air."

"Well then, I guess its time for both of us to hit the books," Kakashi giggled.


The next day, Sakura escorted Tazuna to the bridge while Kakashi stayed with Tsunami and Inari, who'd had some argument with Naruto apparently. The boys focused on their training. Both could walk in horizontal and vertical surfaces without problems as long as they focused, but they refused to give up until it was effortless, and both wanted to figure out how Sakura and Kakashi had used a 10' pole and crutches to stick to trees instead of their feet. Each boy refused to give up first.

The first thing she did was set up a perimeter alarm array. She had more time, now that she wasn't panicking, so the alarm could be reset remotely without needing to set up a new tag, and the alarm corresponded to a set of lantern seals on a compass, which would light up to point the direction of the incursion; the intensity of the light would increase to indicate how much charka was near the tag in a given direction, and the directions would rotate with the compass to make it easier to interpret.

Setting it up had take most of the day, and she had to take breaks while charging it to prevent breaking the rules on limiting her chakra usage. By the time the entire perimeter was set up and activated, it was time to head home for the day. It had been a calm day, and done much to repair her frayed nerves after the hectic fights with missing nin.

Tazuna and Sakura's arrived at home base to the sight of Sasuke and Naruto forcing themselves to eat enough food for 5 men, each. Inari seemed to be in a better mood today (though he flinched whenever she got to close to him), and Kakashi-sensei and Tsunami kept shooting each other discreet glances when they thought no one was looking. Desperate to stop her sensei from seducing the client's daughter, Sakura blurted out, "Kakashi-sensei, could you help me check my locator tag designs and test their radius if they work?"

"Sure, Sakura," Kakashi answered, his voice tinged with a barely detectable hint of disappointment.


The trip into town the next day to buy groceries really illuminated exactly how poorly Wave's economy was doing.

"Such a waste."

'I know, what kind of person would drive a place to this?'

"So much idleness, they have nothing, do nothing, and make nothing. The entire country seems to have just stopped, all because of one man's stupidity."

Sakura had a run in with some street urchins, and was moved by their plight, so she started passing out candy to the various children they passed on the way home, amusing the more curious one with a few basic card tricks, using a deck Kakashi had given her to work on dexterity and sleight-of-hand.

But other than one bad pickpocket (never try to con a conwoman, kids), the day was peaceful. The thugs that roamed the town saw her forehead protector and instantly knew better than to try starting trouble. She may only be a genin, but she was still a ninja: to bandits and mercenaries, ninja were the monsters that hid under your bed after killing the demon that had previously lived there, and were often identifiable by their distinctive hats, which tended to resemble the heads of demons that lived under beds.

The shopping didn't take very long (unsurprising in a market practically devoid of goods to sell), so she had plenty of time once she and Tazuna returned home to practice walking on the surface of the ocean adjacent to their home base. Stationary water was trivial, barely harder than tree walking, essentially an inversion of the paint blob trick she had discovered when painting fences so long ago. (Had it really only been a month since then?) Standing on water with small waves was harder, but a little focus and she could adjust her chakra flow to compensate for the unstable surface. Walking on a water was more difficult, because she had to keep her balance on an unstable surface, adjust her chakra at a split second.

She could rely on herself to get a sudden cool-down whenever the strain of the activity got her focused, even if the water did ruin her hair and soak her dress and pants.

'I should get Sasuke-kun to do this.'

"Ew."

She started to run low on chakra just as she started running through taijutsu katas on the water, so she decided to dry off, producing a towel from hammerspace to do so, and head inside.

"I told you, always have a towel."


Kakashi was proud of his genin, they were learning not to rely on gimmicks and fancy jutsu, patching up the holes in their abilities at a phenomenal rate, and Sasuke and Naruto had made excellent progress on tree walking. Both had already gotten down the basics, but were dedicated to reaching mastery, meaning reflexive usage even through intermediaries and when distracted; having been inspired by Sakura's display the first day. While Sakura had shown a remarkable creativity in combining basic seals to achieve a variety of practical effects. Admittedly, Naruto had scared him when he stayed out all night training yesterday, but he hadn't been hurt in any way. If the three kept up progressing at this rate, they might not be his cute little genin for much longer.

More important than their physical development was their mental growth. Sasuke had started trusting his teammates, even if the indication were subtle, viewing them as more than simple baggage, recognizing that they each had some unique skills. Naruto was starting to learn to work with a team, and happily adjusting to having comrades he could rely on, it helped that his teacher wasn't trying to kill him this time. Sakura seemed dedicated to helping her teammates grow, overcoming both her and their limits, and it showed in everyone's progress.

Tomorrow was the most likely day for an attack, so he should probably stop Naruto and Sasuke from working themselves into the ground today, they already had shown better improvement then he expected them to develop this week. His team was going to be juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust fine.


There were cicada's chirping outside her window.

Cicada's she was sure hadn't been that loud yesterday.

There was only one possible explanation: A rogue member of the Aburame clan, working for a subversive militant group to undermine the Hokage had trained the Cicada's from back home to follow her and chirp as loudly as possible on important nights to prevent her from being well rested while on missions. That made sense, right?

"Trouble sleeping ? I didn't think your teammates snored that loudly."

'Zabuza is supposed to attack tomorrow, this time his partner the hunter nin should be there. We barely won the last fight as it was.'

"Would you like me to tell you a story?"

'Why not?' thought Sakura tiredly

"Mmmm, well, last time I told yyou the story of Madara and the Kyuubi, so I suppose I could tell you where the bijuu come from this time.

Ahem. The world is older than you know, Sakura, and all life on it is connected. Over many thousands of years, the energies of life coalesced into one force, containing the drive of all living things to grow and feed: the demi-urge. The demi-urge gathered together and gave itself both form and substance, becoming a sapling. It grew quickly, as all life gave it strength to grow, and all life demanded it survive. In time, it towered over all the other plants and animals around it, and life flourished. It's mighty branches touched the clouds, it roots and trunk grew thick and strong; so mighty was the form of the demi-urge that all people who saw it came to call it the Shinju, tree of god, and at the center of its branches, there grew a fruit, containing the true essence of life made manifest.

A woman, named Ootsutsuki Kaguya, seeing that people fought and killed senselessly, that they crawled in the dirt in a mad scramble for joy and power, decided that they needed a ruler to impose order and bring meaning to their ugly little lives. She saw the Shinju, the avatar of the triumph of life over adversity, and was inspired. She climbed the tree, with her bare hands, slowly making her way to the top of that monarch of life, and there, in the heart of the shinju, where the branches were so thick around her she could no longer see the sky or ground, she saw a fruit. Taking it, she ate of the fruit, and understood. The power in the fruit granted her something that had never been in human hands: chakra. Thus Kaguya gained power, and the shinju allowed its power to be stolen, knowing that when the thief died, the chakra would be returned to it.

So shocked was she by the alien energy infusing her being that she fell, and though the ground mercilessly broken her bones, she was alive. Her wounds healed supernaturally fast, and so Kaguya set out to bring order to the peoples of the world. With chakra, she was an army unto herself: the elements were hers to command, and no weapon had the power to slay her. Everyone feared her power, until the entire world worshiped her as a god.

For a time, there was peace, and Kaguya had a son, who she named Hagoromo. Conceived of a woman with the power of a god, he was unique. He had chakra that was truly his, rather than a gift from the shinju, and his eyes had the power to breach the barrier between the pure and impure worlds. Later, Kaguya had a second son, named Hamura, and while he did not have power over death like his brother, he was strong beyond mortal men in his own right, and had true control over nature itself.

But over time, Kaguya grew cruel to the people, cruelly punishing them in response to perceived slights and the smallest disobedience. Was if not natural, for the people to bow before their queen and god? Did they not crave the meaning that subjugation brought to them? She was their god, and as such her word was law, any who did not bow to her will was as foolish as King Canute, who demanded the tides turn back on the beach.

Hagoromo and Hamura saw the pain that their mother caused, and together, with Hagoromo's divinity and Homura's mortality, the cast down their mother. She was sealed in a stone tomb, her powers suppressed, which the brothers tore from the earth and cast into the sky, where it became the moon. And again, there was peace. The brothers spread there chakra across the world, teaching others how to use it, and a new age began.

But the shinju saw this, and was angered. Its chakra had been stolen by Kaguya, some passed on to her sons, and the rest was now bound to the heavens, where it could never return to its master. In its anger, it sought to reclaim what chakra it could, growing out and devouring all the people within it's grasp. Thousands were killed before Hagoromo stepped forward and did battle with the avatar of nature, using his own potent chakra to protect the world from destruction. He triumphed, after seven days and seven nights, sealing the shinju into his own body, the power of his sacrifice forging an unbreakable cage. He became the first jinchuuriki.

But he knew that the monster would be released to devour all mankind when he died, so he sought to break its power.

He could not simply divide its chakra and disperse it, for it simply coalesce again. So he sundered the beast, taking the drives that gave birth to it and giving each its own body.

From its hunger, he crafted a tanuki, and while the Shinju's hunger was greater than a normal creature's, it had little need for nourishment, so the tanuki had only a single tail.

From its lust came a cat, and while the Shinju had no mate, it grew fruits, marking its lust as greater than its hunger, thus the cat with two tails was greater then the tanuki with one.

From its stubbornness cam a turtle, while it's honor gave birth to an Ape, its bloodlust a kirin, its fear a slug, its joy a beetle, and its generosity an ox.

Each portion of the Shinju was greater than the last, and each beast was stronger than its predecessor, and so Hagoromo came to the last piece of the shinju: its understanding,for the Shinju understood all creatures as they understood themselves, and from its empathy. Hagoromo crafted a fox with nine tails.

Instructing his creations to go forth, learn, and grow so they may never be brought back together to recreate the monster that had terrorized the world, Hagoromo finished his work and finally allowed himself to rest in the pure world, where he now remains."

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

"Good Night, Sakura"


Author's Note: Sorry for not posting this on Wednesday. I've been swamped recently, and I think I'll be better off posting on weekends then my original plan of Wednesdays.

But Good News, everyone, we're finally coming to the conclusion of the wave arc, which means team 7 will be faced with a serious enough event to justify some character growth and divide S&Sakura from canon!Sakura. I have rough drafts of the next two chapters, but they're both very short and still need some editting. As an apology for taking a week and a half to update again, I plan to post chapter 10 next Saturday and chapter 11 next Sunday.

Thanks for sticking with me so far, so have an omake:


Omake: What would happen if Ishi had been the voice in someone else's head

*drip*

In a sewer, a fox pondered the bars of its cage, just as it had for the past several years.

*drip*

"..."

*drip*

"Goddammit this is so boring, if something doesn't happen soon I'm going to go postal."

*drip*

"I'm going to kill someone: maybe myself, maybe someone else, I haven't decided yet, but death will be involved somehow."

*drip*