“I can’t quite decide if that’s a good thing or not,” she complained. “What did you do, anyway?”
So I explained. A few loops of scouting out enemy positions with Hinata made it easy to throw a monkey wrench into Orochimaru’s plans, and I was expecting my mortal self to be impressed with my ingenuity. Instead she frowned.
“If we’re really out of the loop you’ve blown our cover completely,” she pointed out. “Kakashi will know there’s no way we could have learned all those techniques you used in the arena in a month.”
I sighed. “See, that’s what I need you for. I suck at that kind of detail work. So stop sulking in here like a human and come help me fix things.”
She gave me a troubled look. “I can’t do that. Not yet, anyway. Look, I’ll admit you’re not as crazy as I thought, but that doesn’t make you sane. You’re living in a house of cards, and the loops were the only thing that kept it from collapsing. If we’re really out you’re going to be in trouble fast, but I don’t think we are. I can’t believe something as vast as the time loop could be ended so easily.”
“It could, if it was a wish,” I pointed out. “Once the terms are met those things can go away instantly. Besides, you can’t seriously be telling me you want to risk dying for real just to prove a point.”
“If we’re in danger of dying, call me out and I’ll do everything I can to help,” she offered. “I’ll even promise to go back here without a fight once we’re out of danger. And if I’m wrong, and we don’t loop again, of course we’ll have to resolve things at some point. But first I want you to live with the consequences of your actions for a few months, and see what happens.”
Obviously, the first thing I did was move out. I’ve been avoiding my mortal self’s parents for so long I barely remember them anyway, and mom’s lectures about ladylike behavior were definitely going to cramp my style. So I used my meager savings to rent a tiny little apartment and moved in with Hinata. Things would be tight for a few weeks until I started collecting mission pay at my new rank, but we’d get by.
Getting my girl a body to call her own was the second order of business. We were both getting sick of the clone act, and to be honest I was really starting to miss her real body. But merging her back with her younger self again would just get her father after us, so I had to make do with kidnapping a civilian girl for my Hyuuga hottie to posses.
“I’m not happy about this, Sakura,” Hinata had protested. “This body is weak, and slow, and it…itches, or something. I don’t feel right. Wait, is this a real person? What did you do to her?”
“Relax, girl,” I tried to reassure her. “She’s one of the civilians we caught spying for Sound, remember? I just sent her soul on to the afterlife without killing her body. Give me some time to work at it and I can make her body match yours, aside from the eyes. And that weird feeling will pass in a few days when her residual life force finishes fading.”
“So not only do I stay crippled, but now I’m a zombie. Lovely. I’m sure Naruto will be thrilled,” she grumbled. “Was this what you had in mind, when you promised to take care of me?”
I winced. “I’m sorry, Hinata. I promise, it really will get better.”
But it didn’t.
Kakashi grilled me intensively over my newfound skills, despite the fact that I was hiding virtually everything. I’d blown off Ebisu to train on my own in the last loop, so no one knew where I’d been, and I think the only thing that saved me from a trip to Torture & Interrogation was the fact that I was the one who’d brought the warning about the impending invasion. Instead of transferring me to someplace that needed a fresh chuunin I was left with team seven, no doubt so my old sensei could determine whether I was an imposter or something. But since my old teammates were still genin, that meant I was back to doing D-rank missions.
A few weeks ago I’d held the fate of the village in my hands, and now I was painting fences and picking up poop in dog parks. Kakashi watched my every move like he was waiting for a mistake, Sasuke contemptuously dismissed me as a weakling, and even Naruto was ignoring me in favor of a budding relationship with the younger Hinata. Not that having him follow me around like a lost puppy looking for attention would have been any better.
After a week of that I was ready to snap, and being sent to catch Tora was the last straw. Catching that stupid cat without giving anything away to Kakashi was nearly impossible, but after six hours of crawling around the woods collecting cuts and scrapes we finally managed it. But then on the way back Naruto suddenly decided he had to take a leak, and handed the thing to me to hold.
Have I mentioned that animals can recognize demons, and they don’t like us? How about the fact that a cat has five pointy bits, and I only have two hands? Ten seconds later my arms and face were covered in scratches, and Tora was leaping for freedom.
Whap!
I backhanded the furry menace into a tree before I even realized what I was doing. It struck with the distinctive crackle-snap of broken bones, and slid limply to the ground.
Needless to say, my superiors were not impressed. The Fire Lord’s wife went after my head when she found out her precious pet was dead, and I don’t mean that figuratively. By the end of the day I’d been busted back to genin, docked two months of pay, and put on probation for six weeks while an ANBU specialist decided whether I was stable enough to be employed as a ninja of Konoha. Then Kakashi went out of his way to point out that I was getting off lightly, since any other village would have cheerfully executed a chuunin stupid enough to piss off someone that important.
It was all I could do not to kill everyone involved. I didn’t have the money to pay the fine, so they’d dock my pay instead, and being on probation meant I couldn’t take any mission that involved leaving the village. It could be months before I cleared my debt doing D-ranks, and the rent was already late.
Hinata gave me a reproachful look when I explained the situation, and I almost cried. But she didn’t complain. “I suppose teaching myself to fight properly without my eyes will have to wait,” she said quietly. “Ino’s mother is looking for help at her flower shop. I’ll talk to her in the morning.”
“No!” I protested. “I won’t have it. You, spending all day smiling at customers and bundling flowers and calling random civilians ‘sir’? Fuck that. You’re better than that. Pack your things, Hinata, we’re done here.”
She glanced around nervously. “Sakura, that isn’t a good idea. Please don’t be rash.”
“I’m not rash, I’m assertive,” I informed her. “This is no life for a pair of S-rank badasses like us. We’re going missing nin. I know a couple of yakuza bosses who’d pay us ten times what I make here, and if that doesn’t work out we can always kill people and take their stuff until we find better work.”
“But Sakura—”
“That’s an order, Hinata,” I snapped. “I’m not staying in this shithole another night.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Hinata replied tightly, and rose to collect her meager possessions. Ten minutes later we were out the door.
A block down the street an ANBU team dropped off the rooftops around us.
“Haruno Sakura,” their leader said, “You’re under arrest for espionage, attempted desertion and harboring an unregistered ninja. You really ought to know better than to plot treason when you’re already under observation.”
I laughed. “You think you can stop us? All you ANBU guys are good for is dying dramatically. Step aside, and maybe I won’t litter the street with your dismembered corpses on my way out.”