The written exam was boring as shit, but the thing in the forest was kind of interesting. Unlike a mortal my Sharingan never turns off, and it was easy enough to run a little genjutsu to make my eyes look normal, so I got to pick up all sorts of interesting little techniques from the other ninja in the exam. I had a bad moment when we met Orochimaru, and realized the Snake Sannin had enough demonic power to punch through my cloak and see my real nature with ease if he wanted to. But he was so focused on Sasuke that he never bothered.
Taking care of the boys that night wasn’t much fun, especially since Naruto was too much of a dork at that age to interest me. But the next morning I got to kill those idiots from Sound, which was just enough of a fight to be fun. The boys woke up while I was hanging the mangled bodies from a tree.
“Busy night, Sakura?” Sasuke asked mildly.
“Nah. These bozos thought they were going to kill us, but I talked them out of it.” I finished the last knot, and stepped casually off the branch I’d been standing on. It was thirty feet to the ground, but I barely disturbed the leaves when I landed.
“Whoa! Sakura, when did you get so badass?” Naruto exclaimed. “Wait, have I been in a coma for a year or something?”
“Dork. No, you healed overnight just like you always do. You guys want breakfast? We need to get moving before those bodies attract predators, but I’ve got some spare ration bars I can share.”
Naruto’s eyes went wide and he pointed at me while shouting, “Wait, wait, how do we know you’re really Sakura? You’re acting all weird and stuff! What was that password, Sasuke?”
I rolled my eyes, and smacked him almost hard enough to knock him out again. “Cut it out, dumbass!”
Sasuke snickered. “It’s really her, Naruto,” he declared.
The pre-finals went pretty much as expected, which was just what I needed for the plan I’d been developing. Kakashi took Sasuke off for advanced training the next day, and Naruto didn’t make it through, so after I ditched Ebisu that left me with plenty of time to myself.
I made a beeline for the hospital. The other players in this little drama could be tricky, but the key to Hinata’s soul is obvious to anyone with eyes.
“What do you m-mean, you can get me N-Naruto?” She asked in that hesitant, please-forgive-me-for-breathing tone of hers. Fuck, but that was going to drive me nuts if we didn’t fix it quick.
“I mean I can get you Naruto,” I repeated. “You’ll have to share him with me, and I’m definitely going to be the alpha bitch because you’ve got less backbone than an amoeba, but if my plan works you get to be Naruto’s hot little Hyuuga fuckbunny for the rest of your life.”
Her blush was bright enough to read by. “B-b-but f-f-father—”
“Won’t be able to stop us,” I interrupted. “Look, we both know you’ve never had the strength to get Naruto’s attention, and probably never will. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I’ve been involved in some secret stuff I can’t tell you about right now, but as a result I’ve had a unique chance to find out exactly what each of us could be in the right circumstances. I could be the best medic-nin in the elemental countries. You could be the most lethal assassin Konoha has ever produced. Naruto could be, not just a Kage, but the Kage who unites the hidden villages. And I have a jutsu only a handful of people in Fire Country know, that can make that reality instead of just a distant possibility. Are you in?”
She looked like she was trying to decide if I was crazy or not. “B-but you d-don’t like N-Naruto…”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t like it when he pretends to be an idiot, Hinata. I hate it when he lets me hit him, and follows me around trying to get my attention like some whiny little loser. But I know I’d be a lot worse if I’d been through what he has, and more importantly I know it doesn’t have to be that way. I’ve seen a Naruto who can handle everything I can dish out and more, and that’s the man I want. So yeah, I’m a bitch, but if this works I’ll be a bitch who’s on your side.”
She considered this for a long moment. “It s-sounds too good to be t-true,” she finally said. “Are y-you sure you’re not a d-demon in d-d-disguise?”
“Oh, sure,” I drawled with all the sarcasm I could muster. “I’m actually a demon of misery, and I’m trying to trick you into selling me your soul. Damn, Hinata, where do you get this stuff?”
“S-sorry,” she stammered. “F-father always s-said…n-never mind. W-why me?”
“It’s complicated,” I replied. “I might be able to make things work without you, it’s just that the odds aren’t as good that way. But if you aren’t interested I guess I can give Hanna a try…”
“No!” She gasped. I chuckled. We both knew what her answer was going to be.
“I’ll b-be strong?” She asked pleadingly. “N-Naruto will…l-l-love m-me?”
“Yes,” I reassured her. “I promise.”
“And you…you’ll…t-take care of m-me?”
The way she blushed made it clear she was aware of the double meaning on some level. I gave her my best cat-got-the-cream smile. “You bet I will, sweetie.”
“A-alright,” she agreed. “W-what do I h-have to d-do?”
The angular seals of my spell-work lit the empty bunker with a harsh ruby glow as I worked. Konoha has dozens of underground shelters that never see use unless the village is under attack, and thanks to a few hundred invasions I knew every nook and cranny of them. It took hours to draw out the seals that formed our contract, but when it was done Hinata eagerly signed her name in blood.
Ninja are so used to doing that for their summoning techniques that they tend to forget what else blood signatures are used for. I felt the warm rush of power as the contract was recognized, and knew I’d already won this round. I just had to deliver on my end of the bargain. Hinata sat obliviously in her wheelchair, waiting for me to finish the ritual with that superhuman serenity the Hyuuga are so famous for.
“Nidhog command line voice control mode activate,” I chanted in the First Tongue. “User name Sakura, demon trainee third class provisional, requesting access to Soulforge program.”
A ripple in the flow of chakra through my spell indicated that my request was granted. Which was a good thing, since I wasn’t sure what permissions the system admins were actually going to let me keep considering my fucked-up situation. I took a deep breath, and pressed on.
“Let my workspace be configured for local human profiles. Designate target as the subject of my spell circle. Identify target and cue anomaly detection.”
An upper-level god or demon could do this kind of thing with her own power, bending reality itself with the song of her soul. As a mere trainee I had to rely on system calls for anything significant, and I’d barely started to find my voice. My song wavered erratically between the sullen defiance of the Fallen and a cheery depravity I’d picked up indirectly from Anko, with random bursts of other emotions. I’d be lucky to light a candle on my own in this state, but fortunately the infernal system is set up with a lot of utility programs for young demons to use. You just have to have the right permissions.
A coded series of pulses echoed through my spell, indicating that target acquisition was complete and no anomalies had been detected. This would be so much easier if I could just call up a terminal, but I’m sure Hinata would catch on if I did that. She almost had me when she asked if I was a demon — we aren’t allowed to actually lie about that.
I called out the memory bubble I’d stolen from my mortal self, and placed it in the spell’s secondary focus. “Activate merge template subsystem,” I sang. “Let the merge template input be the contents of my spell circle’s secondary focus. Load template and initiate compatibility check.”