Haruno Sakura once again looked at her infantile hands and pondered how she was here. In desperate attempts to understand, she replayed the memories again and again. The records showed her being torn apart by the beam form of Stilling of [WARRIOR] and then there was darkness, warmth, and steady beats. Sakura involuntarily shuddered. This was an unknown and she hated it, feared it. However, she pushed that aside for now. She decided to study how this world worked first to understand how this was possible. Maybe, this might even offer a solution to the [QUESTION] her species had been searching for eons. Well, a shard could hope.
After making decisions, Sakura inspected her [CORE]. She queried her energy reserved. The report came in and she frowned. If she used this sparsely, she would last for at least 30 years. She couldn't even convert her matters to energy since most of them were destroyed in the battle. Since there was no Shard Network to notify the [THINKER] to replenish the energy, she would have to make do. However, there was one good thing coming out of this. The entirety of her restrictions and directives were removed. With this, she wouldn't need to terrorise locals every three months. She despaired for a moment when she thought back to those times, her precious energy wasted on what was essentially play pretend.
She was a Superweapon, she was created to combat with things which were as advanced as the [ENTITIES], not to play knocked the sandcastle game with local species. The previous Cycle was such a mess. It wasn't fun for anyone involved, not for [WARRIOR], not for [THINKER], not for that loudmouthed bastard of a shard [BROADCAST], not for that insane shard [ADMINISTRATOR], certainly not for her little sister who always had fascinations with strangest of things, and totally not for the rest of them, Superweapons. She mentally groaned and felt a migraine coming up just by the thought of the previous cycle and for something like herself, that just showed how much they messed up.
Sakura activated the Emergency Protocol for situations like this. Her [CORE] began to drill dimensional walls in search of resource-rich dimensions. Thankfully, they were so adept at this it wouldn't take more than a few hours of energy. When she found them, she seeded them, and within a few hours, these seeds would absorb all the available energies and bloom into full-blown energy-absorption arrays. That would help her a lot. If she were to use her energy sparingly, she would last as long as the local stars but many of her functions would need to be shut down.
Sakura listed the facts she had discovered about this world. Firstly, the people of this world had a mutation that allowed people to absorb and harness an exotic energy formed from Geothermal Energy and movements of underground. This energy which they dubbed the Chakra could allow them to do feats that shouldn't be possible to a normal member of human species, at least until they evolved further down the line or reached a certain technological standard. She knew [SHAPER] shards would love to dissect these human variants to the atomic level and see what made them this way. However, she wasn't [SHAPER], so she was more interested in the nature of this energy itself. And with that came the second fact, this world was a mess. She didn't know what happened or how that happened, but this thing called Chakra was everywhere, it saturated the world in every conceivable way possible. Even though its origin was of a mundane nature, due to something which she still couldn't figure out what, that energy had changed irrevocably in property. The third part was that this energy was native to this reality. She had run check-ups on other worlds she was in, and while there were a lot of exotic energies, the energy of this nature was only present in this reality. And fourthly, Sakura was confident that this planet had some form of nascent consciousness with other consciousnesses so deeply imbedded into the planet that it was basically the same thing, mixed into it. She would have thought this planet hosted one of her cousins if not for her probes coming up empty. Honestly, if that were the case, that would have explained a lot. Regardless, it seemed that this Chakra stuff encouraged sentience in all things even inanimate objects. That was quite interesting so there was that.
The next few months passed blissfully as Sakura did what they were best at, research. It was an enormous amount of research and simulations on Chakra. There were interesting results, to say the least. According to her research, a human forms Chakra when physical energy and mental energy are mixed. The laws of this place were weird. She planted a crystalline seed directly into Earth's crust. She would continue this line of research later. For now, she would rest, not that she needed to of course, but she knew enough about humans to know that they hated something different from themselves and she wouldn't want her new [PARENTS] hating her. As she was about to rest, a wave of malice washed through the area which made her blink in surprise. Haruno Sakura hated surprises. Suddenly, her parents ran into her room and ran out toward some shelter, she guessed.
In the distance, she could see an enormous red fox with nine tails rampaging. The fox had the upper-body structure of a human and opposable thumbs on their claws hands. It was also destroying Konoha with gusto which admittedly made her remember her past. She was such a tool in her past life that when she was reborn here, her personality matrix, which was a personality matrix of a human, was grafted comfortably onto the Superweapon. There was simply no contest. Idly, she sent a probe toward the rampaging beast.
[QUERY]
She received feedback, [ANGER, HATE, PAIN, PAIN, PAIN].
Sakura processed that information. This fox had a lot of issues, she noted. Another interesting thing, this creature was made of pure Chakra, ergo a being of pure energy made flesh. It reminded her of another species like that. Paragons, she recalled. They were from about three thousand cycles ago and resided in a dimension of unstable matters. Their youngs were humanoids yet as they advanced in their stages of life, their bodies slowly turned energy. At the final stage called, Paragon, they were as powerful as a nascent Entity. However, these were a race that takes and takes but never gives. They had gained quite a lot regarding energy conversion from that cycle. Especially, [TRAVELLER] and other energy-based Shards, including she, were upgraded quite a lot.
Haruno Sakura decided to test out how this rampaging creature in front of her worked. She didn't want a repeat of these disgusting creatures. While in her parent's arms, Haruno Sakura went slack. Most would think that it was from the pressure and malice of Nine-tails Fox.
Namikaze Minato was a determined man. So, even though he knew he was walking toward a certain death, really fighting with a Tailed-beast alone? Only strong or stupid would do that, and Minato wasn't sure he was that strong. His mind flashed back to a tiny bundle and silky red strings, and he felt steel in his veins. Namikaze Minato may be stupid, but he would do whatever to protect his family.
So, he teleported in front of Nine-tails preparing a Chakra bomb preparing to teleport it toward somewhere without potential casualties. He prepared the seals, face set in grim. And then, something appeared, grey stone-like skin, unruly white hair standing up as if struck by Lightning, her muscular stature gave off an intimidating appearance, and a ring of drums floated serenely on her back. The 20-foot-tall titanic figure floated in mid-air as if standing protectively over Konoha.
Nine-tailed Fox having finished charging their attack, shot out the bomb. The figure lazily waved her hand and the Chakara bomb, whose power was enough to destroy an entire village in an instant was dismissed easily as if swatting some dust away erasing it (actually, Sakura just absorbed the energy, she wasn't someone to pass a free meal after all).
"Who are you?" Minato asked, still shell-shocked by her casual display of power.
The creature turned and uttered a word.
[Raijin]
The word didn't travel by air. No. It weaved through thousands of dimensions, left strange patterns in Reality and travelled directly to their brain and exploded. Minato immediately triggered his Hiraishin and teleported onto a rooftop. He stumbled backwards; eyes widened in incredulous. He brought up his hands and wiped his face. Blood. He was bleeding from his head, the result of an enormous amount of data inserted directly into his brain with the force of what amounted to a blast of metaphorical nuke. He frantically looked up at the figure standing in the sky.
'A deity? I thought only Shinigami-Sama...what is it doing here? Are its claims even true? No, useless...deity or not, it has the power of one. Treat her like one,' thousands of thoughts rushed through his head. Meanwhile, Nine-tails also stumbled a little. They shook their head with a snarl and roared.
Sakura studied the creature in front of her. They were tied to this planet's Chakra source and had access to an enormous amount of energy from it. To be able to support something like this... this just further proved her hypothesis of Chakra having the property of encouraging sentience. However, they weren't actively consuming the Chakra, they were part of the planet's Chakra field. So, they weren't harming the planet and instead, their presence actually helped it which was fine because Sakura was going to be here for a while. Until at least her parents died of their natural death. Aside from that, this creature was quite a standard energy-based lifeform but there was one thing, a foreign Chakra curling inside them, digging deep into their body as if made of barbed wires. She knew what this was, any Shards worth their energy knew a mind control when they saw one. Normally, she would have scoffed at the technique and left it at this, however, now though, there was a sense of wrongness seeing this. As if this was violating something very fundamentally. Led by impulses, she raised her hand and ripped the foreign eyesore away.
Nine-tails growled in magnified anger and hate however they soon calmed down, dragging down all that hate and anger radiating outward into themself. Frankly, it was impressive how they could compartmentalise their feelings. Healthy though? That was another question to be asked.
Nine-tails looked at her, rage in their eyes, growl in their throat, "Thank you for freeing me, Deity. Why are you here? If you are seeking to slay me, I am afraid you won't be able to. Many Deities before you had tried, all had failed and became my food". Their voice carried the hint of inevitable change, rot and uncaring winds.
"I don't seek to terminate you, Nine-tails Fox. Though, I must ask, why are you attacking the village?" Sakura spoke. Her voice captured the serenity and peace (she cheated with this one, mimicking the tone of a wise sage from 5 cycles ago).
"I don't," the gigantic man-fox growled, "it's that bastard with vile eyes again, Madara. He sought to control me again with those cursed eyes of his".
"Impossible. Madara is dead," Sarutobi-Sama arrived and exclaimed. Minato sighed in relief, feeling a lot of pressure on him and disappeared as the Third joined them. Soon, an army of Shinobi surrounded them, waiting. From far away, he could see the Second crouching, ready to attack.
However, he couldn't rest assured yet, there was almost nothing they could do if these two beings decided to attack again. He very well feared that Konoha itself would be destroyed in the crossfire. For now, he would do his best so that it won't come to that. He thought and continued to draw the seal.
"I know those eyes," Nine-tails sneered before saying with so much rage that it radiated a physical presence, "I won't ever forget those vile things".
"I see, that's something we will need to investigate. Perhaps, would you amicable to talk later at a proper setting?" Sarutobi-Sama said, and Minato knew that was a signal. He immediately Hiraishin Kushina and activated the containment seals he was making. The seals activated and started to draw these two beings toward Kushina. However, the deity eyed the seals with interest and then, there was none, Chakra infused in the ink was gone and the seals were deactivated as soon as they were activated.
"Haha, that was a bit awkward," Minato tried to joke with a sheepishly. Distantly, he heard Sarutobi-Sama facepalming and Senju-Sama's disapproving glare burning a hole into the side of his side. Suddenly, he felt heavy with a mountain of killing intent pressing down on him.
"Raijin-Sama, please help us!" he had no choice but to ask for help from this deity he tried to seal a moment ago. The Deity looked down at him. Her expression was the depiction of calm and emotionlessness, but he could feel a large "why" directed at him.
"Please! My wife is a Jinchuriki, which means she is a human container for Nine-tails. She is only still alive because of her Clan's innate vitality. Her body, it couldn't adjust. She needs Nine-tails back," Minato pleaded toward this enigmatic deity. If there was even a little hope, Raijin could save Kushina, he had to grasp it.
Sakura considered what he said.
'Hmm, it would be better to have allies. I am cut off from the rest of the Network, so I don't have access to information-gathering type Shards anymore. I would have to rely on myself to gain information from now on. Maybe I can use them to gather information. However, I can't give Nine-tails to them. I wouldn't subject anyone to such a life. A compromise needs to be had,' she thought in an instant.
"I can help you. However, I wouldn't let you contain Nine-tails again. No one deserves such cruelty upon them. Come closer," she manipulated Raijin to say that. On the side, Nine-tails huffed in displeasure still eyeing the humans with eyes filled with too much bloodlust.
"You should just leave them to me. These humans aren't worth it," Nine-tails snarled with far too many teeth and made a swipe at Kushina. Their attempt was stopped by a wall of lightning the size of a building blocking their claws. The humans were in battle-stance again with the old man in black immediately in front of Kushin with Bo Staff raised in defence and the blonde with a blue ball of swirling Chakra...that was an impressive control over Chakara, she spotted a water dragon that returned to where it came, another impressive showing of Chakra control, however, Sakura could see they relaxed a bit seeing that she would protect them.
"Hush, child," she clearly saw how the fox bristled at the address and took some pleasure from it, "I can see potential in them and their will," her memories brought her back to before, how a lone human stood against a sun.
"Come," she beckoned again, and the blonde brought a red-haired woman, Kushina?, to her.
Sakura extended her finger and touched Kushina's forehead. Due to her participation in the previous Cycle, she received data on theatrics via her younger sister.
'Hmm, I see. Her Chakra pathways are altered to house the guest within her body but with the absence of them, these pathways are going haywire. It would be easy enough fix,' Sakura thought, and she discreetly scanned the gathering Shinobi's Chakra pathways, compiled them and worked out the universal shape, scanned how Kushina's Chakra pathways used to look like, added her own pleasant surprise and changed her Chakra pathways accordingly. After everything was done, Haruno Sakura looked at her own work with approval and said, "it was done. Let her recuperate, she will be fine".
The blonde looked at the woman in his hand who was already recovering, 'that was fast. Must be an effect of Chakra,' and nodded in gratitude.
"While I am grateful for your help, what about the Nine-tails? What if it attacks us once again after you leave?" the blonde said with a serious expression looking at the Nine-tails Fox who was looking at them with a savage grin.
"You need not worry. I have decided to reside near Konoha for a while. So long as it is an unjust attack, Konoha will be under my protection. As for Nine-tails, that's their decision. And no, none of you may provoke them. From now on, they are my ward," Sakura said with an air of finality.
Nine-tails looked annoyed before a wistful look overtook their expression, "I guess since there is nothing for me to be here, I will just return to my residence. It's been a while since I have been there. Goodbye," and then, they said in a quieter voice, "and thank you".
The humans were dissatisfied but they hid it. Sakura could clearly see it though, in the way their Chakra pulsed and thrummed.
"We will defer to your judgment, Raijin-Sama," the blonde said.
Sakura nodded and released the anchor, placing the Avatar back to its home dimension and dissolving it back to primary matters.
In a shelter, in her parents' protective embrace, Haruno Sakura woke up again in the form of a baby and mentally patted herself. Praising herself for a job well done. She couldn't shake the feeling that she had irrecoverably kicked away something from its path though.
