There would be no reinforcements. That much was abundantly clear. The guy that was supposed to deliver the message likely just sent it to whoever's brainwashing him, meaning they knew exactly where my parents were.

And I'd left them alone.

Big yikes.

I ran atop the rooftops, going as fast as I possibly could. I didn't really care who saw me, to be honest. If they found out I was spying it wouldn't matter either way. My parents were in danger. Sunhat #2 is gonna freakin' get it.

A few Hot Springs ninja gave me curious looks as I sped past them. Where were they this whole time?! Honestly if I wasn't super suspicious of them right now I'd ask for their help. When I made it out of the residential district I was in I could see that I might need it.

The inn was on freaking fire! I could see some of the members of our caravan running out of the building, arms flailing like chickens running from a fox in their pen. If they had arms anyway.

I stopped one of the least hysterical ones. The middle-aged woman who didn't eat her soup fast enough. They almost left her behind, too. "Hey! What happened here?!"

"I don't know! About five minutes ago the whole thing just went up in flames!" She yelled.

"Where are my parents?! Did they make it out!?"

"I didn't see them!" Aw heck. I jumped away from her and into the flaming building. This was not how I thought a trip to Hot Springs would go. I mean, water beats fire right? Ugh, nevermind.

Rolling through a broken window, I almost crashed into a nightstand before I reoriented myself.

On my peripherals Hot Springs ninja came up to the building and started making hand signs. Oh crap. Are they about to blast me!? Where's my cover?!

I hid behind a flaming bench, hoping it would hold. Did I just willingly enter a trap?

Nope. As it turns out the Yugakure nin were just putting out the fires, firing off low intensity Wild Water Waves at the building.

Phew. One less thing to worry about. Now to look for my parents. I think I'm on the third floor right now. If I remember correctly they were on the fifth.

I kicked down door after door on my way up, the fires not even a hindrance to me. I checked my HP to see if I got a debuff from the smoke, but nothing yet. Whether that's a ninja circulation thing or a gamer thing, either way I'm thankful.

I got to the door where my parents were sleeping and kicked it down. "Hey! Are you in here?!"

I found not two, but three people. A man with a black featureless mask and all-black shinobi clothing stood over my parents.

They were alive, huddled close together and holding their robes over their faces, protecting themselves from the smoke.

"Uuh sir? We didn't order any room service? I think you got the wrong room number."

I Observed him.

Name: ?

Lvl. 36

Designation: ?

Occupation: Assassin

HP: 7300/7300

MP: 2450/2450

Str: 24

Agi: 46

Cha: 2

Int: 25

Wis: 14

Luck: 9

Description: A mysterious assassin whose identity is unknown to anyone except him.

Current state: Done waiting.

Oh that's just fantastic. The perfect person to be fighting right now. And why was he waiting? He could have just set fire to the building and make my parents' death all look like an accident. Unless he wants me dead too? I mean, understandable. He probably knows I know he has an employer. Just that thread would be enough for someone to try to go after him.

That didn't mean I liked my chances. "Listen sir, if you don't remove yourself from my parents' room right now I'm going to have to call security. They're right outside, fixing the mess you made."

He looked out at the window. Sure enough, the Yugakure nin were there, still putting out the fires. They weren't getting much headway though.

If I wasn't watching for it I would have missed it.

A knife to my throat before I even saw his hand move. I didn't stay idle. I dodged to the right, swivelling into a kick for the follow up he was most likely going to attempt.

I guessed right and kicked the knife out of his hands. He might be faster than me, but Gamer's mind does miracles for my processing speed. And besides, I'm Sakura! No one's going to take me down on a surprise attack!

"Take this!" I punched him in the face with all of my might.

-651 HP!

Nice damage! My jubilation didn't last long. The sucker grabbed my punching arm and twisted, then took out my leg when I flinched from the pain, bringing me to the ground as he held onto my arm.

-629 HP!

"Ahh Timmy that hurts!" I could tell he was confused that my arm didn't break or anything. No matter the shinobi-enhanced strength, I was still an 11 year old girl. That should have snapped my arm in two.

Unluckily for him, it very much didn't. I took a katana out of my inventory with my other hand and tried to shank him, but he dodged me. He had to let go of my arm, however.

"Wow, Timmy. Your service is impeccable. If I actually wanted you here, I would leave a tip for you." I moved my arm around to get the kinks out. He got me good.

"Sakura! *cough!* Stop messing around and get him *cough!* out of here already!" Dad screamed at me.

I mean, yeah fair. The smoke might not be affecting me, and seemingly not my opponent either, but if I dallied any longer my parents might suffer for it.

I already know I can't take this guy in a close quarters fight. He's too fast, and I mostly got lucky just now. He almost had me dead to rights in that grab.

If I use ninjutsu I might end up collapsing the building on top of us. My parents wouldn't appreciate that, and it might not even do anything to him.

The only option is to somehow get the Hot Springs nin in here and have them fight him. But how do I get their attention if I can't use ninjutsu?

The answer? Don't use ninjutsu.

"Open! Gate of the Storm! Naomi!" There weren't any hand signs, and no chakra was molded, so the attacker realized too late I was performing a summoning.

He rushed me just as the blinding yellow light shone through the room. He then backed off warily, instead choosing to throw the knife in his hand at me.

I couldn't dodge the knife because I had to keep molding the triangles together. It got stuck somewhere in the abdomen, and I flinched, almost dropping my arms and failing to open the gate.

-1089HP!

Oh that's not a normal knife! That took away wayyy HP more than I'm comfortable with. Naomi launched out of the triangles as I about keeled over.

"Naomi! Use Thunder!" Unlike the video game, Naomi wasn't a Raichu, so she wouldn't be casting down unholy vengeance in the form of lightning from the sky onto us.

"Okay!"

Instead, she clapped her hands together, creating an absolutely deafening thunderclap inside the house.

I, as the summoner, wasn't affected all that much. But my parents and the assassin clutched their ears.

He had initially aimed at trying to jump at me to stop whatever I would make Naomi do, but he couldn't get off the ground until he was writhing in pain on it.

My parents were in a worse state. I could see blood coming out of their ears. Ooof. My bad. She went way overboard. At least it's impossible for the bozos outside to not have heard that.

Sure enough a squad of Yugakure nin came to the window and looked upon the peculiar scene of a fairy-like creature floating over two civilians and a mask-wearing shinobi while two meters away a girl was seemingly bleeding out.

"Uuuh. Hey guys? Can you help me? This guy is trying to kill us and stuff, and that's super awkward for us, since we like living. Soooo a bit of help?"

They stared at us for a bit, until one of them, a guy in a fancier looking vest (the leader I'm assuming) addressed me. "That's a hell of a big mess you got yourself into, kid."

His gaze shifted to the assassin. "Don't let him escape! Class B containment protocol!" He announced.

The other guys all shouted their assent and started forming hand signs. The assassin didn't take that lying down, however, forming hand signs himself.

Before the containment squad could do anything he shone with yellow lightning all around his body, crackling and enveloping his limbs as he shot out of the window. Up, up and away he went, shooting off of rooftops almost faster than my eyes could track, catching one of the guys on his shoulder on his way out.

Rude. He was going fast enough to just swerve around him.

"He's gone." The boss said, at a loss for any other words. That guy just yeeted himself out a window. He defenestrated himself.

The ninja in the room just kinda blinked. No one moved to chase him or anything. "Wow. You're all useless."

"Sakura, are you touched in the head? I don't remember raising you like this!" Dad ranted at me.

To be fair, you didn't raise me, and I did in fact get touched in the head. That probably would start a different kind of rant, so I didn't say that. Instead I made to answer, but he kept going.

"Completely irresponsible! Leaving us with an assassin and playing around with him while the building was on fire!"

Is this the famous scolding? Interesting. Can't say I'd rate the experience. "What were you thinking?!"

To be honest I was thinking: 'How the heck am I gonna beat someone thrice my level?! Is this because I'm on hard mode?' And, 'God that mask is ugly. Also, how did those ninja just see a civilian girl jumping 6 meters into the air into a flaming building and not do anything about it?'

"Umm.."

"You're lucky the resident ninja here had a healer! They say I might have lost my hearing entirely if I didn't get any treatment! What was that, Sakura?!" He yelled, absolutely incensed.

We were currently in one of the police outposts in an extra room they kept around for just this kind of purpose. Stash the people involved in a crime (that aren't suspects) while the after effects are ongoing. Mom was sitting in the corner, not watching us, just absently listening.

He stopped talking. It seems he did want an answer now, apparently. "Umm. That guy. He was stronger than me."

"And? That didn't stop you from taking out any of those bandits, did it?" He looked at me like I was insane.

"No, I mean—" How do I explain tiers of ninja strength to a civilian?

A regular person, they saw ninja as a sort of monolith. All of them had power you couldn't imagine, and all of them wielded it at the same level, because they were ninja. They did ninja things.

Someone like my dad, who hired them, understood that there was a hierarchy, and that the quality and types of service you get varies from village to village, but they didn't quite understand either. When they heard the difference between a chuunin and a jounin, they didn't hear strength, but rank..

The concept that one ninja alone could be far stronger than an entire squad baffled them. Intellectually, they would know that there are ninja that are stronger than others, but the sheer scale of difference was completely lost to them.

"What I mean is that guy was a better ninja than I am. I'm still an academy student. He probably would have killed me easily if he wasn't restricted on what he could do."

That seemed to catch his interest. His expression morphed into confusion. "What?"

"He wasn't there just to kill us. He wanted to make it look like an accident. The building wasn't on fire for no reason. He probably planned on killing us and then making it look like it was the flames that did us in."

A perfect murder. Too low on the scale for anyone not in the know of what went down to catch on to what actually happened.

"He had to try and off us without tipping off any authorities as to our real cause of death. If he really tried, he could have just electrocuted us and left."

But that would cause burn marks way too distinct to be from anything else but a lightning jutsu.

"But he didn't do that. Likely, he'll either double down and try to kill us out in the open, or flee the assignment entirely, now that the police are involved. Depends on his pay, really." I shrugged.

When I finished talking they just kind of stared at me, and I wondered if Sakura ever alluded to her actual smarts before in the original timeline. Her parents are way too surprised at basic deductioning skills.

Mom stared at me some more, but dad just sat down on the floor and sighed. "So? What should we be doing next?"

"Send out a hawk personally. Not through the ninja here, and not through an underling. Make absolutely sure it gets delivered. Hide out in the police station for now, preferably around other people. Cut off contact with anyone and everyone else, no one has to know where we are. Let them think we're dead, just in case someone tries to follow up by interrogating any of your employees. If we do that, then..." We'd have a shot at staying safe from whoever's trying to kill us.

"Alright. We'll do it your way then. Just… never do something that reckless again, understand? Your mother is still shaken up about it." Yup, she's still staring.

I might not have that choice next time. Not gonna tell him that cheery answer though. "I'll try my best." I smiled cheesily.

So, we did just that. We hid out at the police station for the next two days. The Yugakure nin were surprisingly hospitable. Apparently, besides breaking up the fairly common bar fight and the regular assortment of crimes that came with tourism, there wasn't all that much for the ninja around here to do. Anything super serious or organized is scared away by the entire shinobi force being the law enforcement, leaving them with relatively little crime.

After all, if you knew that the people coming after you didn't need arms, nor legs, to kill you faster than you could think to run, well. You'd start behaving a lot better too.

The Yugakure nin were actually somewhat excited about us. They haven't had an assassination plot happen in the village in quite a bit. Considering it's still technically a ninja village, that was baffling to me. You'd think they'd be happening every other month or so.

This one guy spilled his morning coffee when he was debriefed on the situation, he was shaking so much. The receptionist told me it was from anticipation.

He told me he hadn't worked a "fun" case in over three years, and only now finally got the opportunity to do so. I decided then and there that he was going to be the one to escort us to take the hawk out to Leaf.

He asked me a bunch of questions regarding my status, since I was technically shinobi-trained, and from another village, even if not a shinobi yet. It was a legal gray area that they didn't really know what to do with, so they just let it be for now. Super handy for me.

Anyway, I delivered the message by hawk myself. Another handy thing we learned at the Academy that Sakura barely paid attention to, so guess who got some claw marks on their arms now! And face. He was not friendly. Ow.

-159HP!

Looking in the mirror, they were not pretty. At all. I really hope these go away when I go to sleep. I'm a girl now! I gotta start caring about my appearance. I could get a free dessert or something! That's how it works, right? Pretty privilege? No idea.

Come to think of it, is Sakura pretty? By this world's standards I mean. She does have pink hair. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing? It looks like cotton candy to be honest. That's a good thing to me, but maybe bad for everyone else. I wonder—

"Sakura, what are you doing?"

I turned around to my mother's question and swiftly pushed the hair out of my mouth. "Nothing."

She looked at me with eyes of worry. My parents haven't really done much these last few days. Mostly just stayed in the room provided to us at the police station. It had a futon and a desk with a chair, along with a small dresser, but that was about it. It was still a police station, so this is pretty luxurious really.

Still, they kind of just sat around and fretted. About everything. It got kind of annoying being in the room with them, so I just started training my Water Clone technique while I was here.

Water Style: Water Clone (Active) lvl: 4: The user creates a copy of themselves entirely made out of water. They have physical form, but only a fraction of the strength of the original. Current MP use: (225-27% =) 164 MP.

It's level four now! I got a level in Water jutsu too.

Elemental Jutsu: Water (Passive) lvl. 22: Allows for the use of water natured jutsu. Higher levels allow for more power, control, and jutsu. Modifier: -5%(+1 per lvl.) MP cost to Water Jutsu. Current: -27%

Decent progress for just a few hours of training. Where was I? Right, my parents.

Seeing me train to perform the Clone jutsu better made something in their attitude towards me change, though I couldn't tell exactly what. It was weird.

"Sakura, are you doing okay?" Dad asked, sitting in the only chair available. Mom was standing over him, facing me.

"Uhh yeah. Why?" Shouldn't I be asking you that question? It was you two that almost died after all.

"It's just. Recently you've become a bit more… what's the word? Honey?" Dad looked to Mom.

"I… Sakura, you don't hug us anymore." She said.

"What?" I stood there dumbfounded. That's not where I thought this conversation was going to go.

"I mean, ever since a few months ago when you threw yourself into training, I feel like you barely talk to us anymore. Every day you just walk out of the house without a word and then come back late at night flushed with mud and dirt. At first I thought you were finally taking your training seriously, this being your last year in the Academy, but. It's more than that."

Are they onto me? Oh no, that's not good. That's very not good. Obviously the change was stark and abrupt, but I thought I had at least done a good job at building a rapport? But— no I really didn't.

Once I came to this world, I really did whatever I liked, not really caring about whatever Sakura had going on at that moment. Sure, some changes were good, like not lusting after Sasuke and actually trying to be a good ninja, but in doing so I completely ignored her other interpersonal relationships.

There were still some people in her class she was friends with, however casually. But they weren't relevant to the plot, so I just discarded them. Ignored everyone, really. Ino had to come to me to get that fixed. Others, due to my cold shoulder, stopped trying long ago.

Sakura's parents were an afterthought until this trip.

"Sakura, did something happen?" Dad said. "You've become very distant lately. And your actions on this mission I thi—" He held back whatever he was going to say next, folding his hands as his arms were leaning on his knees. "It almost feels like you've become a different person."

I really, really tried not to flinch when he said that. They picked up on it anyway, and my mom separated from my dad's side and walked over to me.

She held a hand out to my face, right where the claw marks from the hawk were. There was no blood anymore, but it was still an angry red. "Whatever is going on, Sakura, you know you can always tell us right?"

I planted my feet firmly in the ground so they wouldn't try to run. The moment her hand touched my cheek however, they still quivered in repressed action.

"I can't—" These—no matter how much I would wish for it, were not my parents. They were Sakura's.

I had, for all intents and purposes, stolen this body from her. I don't know where the original Sakura was. If she was absorbed into my consciousness or whisked away somewhere else, or maybe even in my body in the other world somewhere I didn't know.

Maybe I had even killed her when I came here. If I was completely honest with myself, I had avoided thinking about it as much as possible until now, to spare myself from the things I would have to eventually face.

I focused on the goal. Get stronger, find a way out of here, figure out what The Gamer System actually wanted from me. So I ran away from everything else, which included her(my) parents.

It was shockingly easy actually. The disconnect from not actually having had parents before made it easy to keep the distance I had created. But when they came to me—

"You can't what, sweetie?" I looked into her eyes, so close to mine now.

Bad mistake.

I made a run for it.

About a mile or so out of the police station I leant down to catch my breath. Whoooo that was a strong case of feelings right there.

Not doing that again, no sir. From now on, we're social distancing. Six feet at all times please.

Yes. That's what we're going with.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!*

A loud explosion echoed from one of the corners of the village a good few dozen kilometers away.

The fact that I could almost feel the displaced wind from here was not a good sign. What was that about? Does it have something to do with the assassin? Or is it unrelated?

I climbed up on top of the rooftops from the street to get a better look. As soon as I did, a black blur headed straight for me in a blitz of lightning, knives out.

Oh great.

A/N. Sorry about the slight cliffhanger. Just wanted to make sure I got the chapter out. Yes, you can throw your tomatoes now. I'll need them for the pasta I'm planning on making for Christmas.