Sakura Haruno The Gaming Addict, And Her Gamified Life [Naruto]

Important AN/Notice: This is probably the coolest arc I've come up with for the entire story. It involves traveling into her mind, and exploring Sakura/Ino's friendship in a way almost no other story I've seen does.

It's also not coming here. This will be the last chapter I post on Webnovel. 90% of Webnovel is people complaining, the algorithm is so shitty the story is just never going to receive attention again once it's caught up, and frankly posting here is more effort than it's worth to me.

If you would like to continue the story on its public version, please head over to Sufficient Velocity or Space Battles. For the five of you that will, I would love to see you over there! For everyone else, this is goodbye. I hope you had fun!

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Her eyes flutter open to darkness. That's not surprising, she went to bed in darkness. What is surprising are the metal bars on the other side of the room, and the fact that her arm feels like it has a cold metal on it. A quick look shows she's in chains, which is definitely not how she went to bed. "What'd I do?" She groans to herself, flowing through her memories as quickly as she can.

She killed Fierro, they came home, they sent in reports and they agreed to only send info about the specific stuff directly to the Hokage. Specific stuff being like, the game stuff, her altercation with Neji, the dungeon… She went home, hugged her parents, hugged Business Naruto, and went right to bed.

She expected to be approached privately for some more details, but this is a bit much. It has to be something more… She groans to herself, and tries to sit up, finding herself surprisingly capable of mobility. She's in her pajamas too, so they didn't see fit to strip her which is a huge plus. Trying to get up causes a clank of the chains and for them to lurch back and force her against the wall. "Ow."

They cast a jutsu to restrict her suddenly when she tries to escape her small confinement? "That's not very nice." She sniffles a little, holding something odd back that's welling up inside of her. At least they gave her a comforting sleeping bag to peer down at, it's not the cold hard floor.

She hears footsteps approaching, and she does her best to look alive. A part of her wishes she had her brush, if only because the morning routine would be nice to revert to. It's not quite a comfort task yet, but she packs it on missions for the sense of familiarity, why not here?

"Why am I here?" She finds herself speaking the moment her cell door opens, and a tall figure stalks in. There's a hitch in her breath, but she ignores it, she won't show weakness. She's loyal damn-it, this is way too much! They could have made a house visit!

She supposes they did make a house visit, they just took her from it instead of staying to talk.

"Do you really not know that?" she's startled to hear a familiar voice. It's a source of much comfort, one that's always been very nice to her, "I thought you were pretty smart." Blond hair greets her eyes as he gets close enough for her to make him out. Strong features but an eternal smile, he's made her feel like she was okay when she felt so wrong so many times.

He's not doing that this time, he's looking at her with disappointment, and dragging a chair from the darkness. "Neji?" She asks, unable to look into his cerulean eyes. Yamanaka gazes hit her differently, she can't explain it. Maybe it's the lack of pupils.

He pulls the chair until it's only a little in front of her, flipping it around so its back is facing towards her, and then sits on it just right to lean over the back of it. His gaze continues to pierce her, like a sad father. "No, well yes, but, no," Her mostly platonic best friend's father answers her with a grimace, "you are in here because that happened, but it's not because of that."

"I'm not following." Sakura admits with an awkward shrug, at least the chains they're using on her are gentle when she's not moving anywhere, she feels less restrained and more put in place. They're probably not planning to torture her, or they wouldn't have given her a sleeping bag to nap in. Even if it is a little insulting to take her from her perfectly good bed for this.

"Genin attacking other Genin is very common, it's barely even a crime. You're extremely young when you enter the field, and you're taught to solve your problems with violence. You both resolved the issue, and completed the mission, so as far as we're concerned, your record is clear. Gai recommended it be ignored, Kakashi recommended it be ignored, even Hiashi - who was consulted as it was his family member - agreed Neji could probably use a smacking around. That one surprised me, but he'd know about smacking around family."

"The fuck?" Hiashi what? She'll admit she doesn't know about clan politics but that's not okay at all! She expected Neji's father or whatever to be paying her a visit to smack her around shortly, not agreeing that it was needed! "Err…" She flushes slightly at having slipped up like that and sworn in front of one of her role models, in chains or not. "So I'm not under arrest, but I'm in a cell?"

"I'm telling you that you're free of all charges, but you're not free from interrogation. The reality is that you've now spent a very large amount of time outside of the view of any superiors. Those dungeons of yours are unregulated, unsupervised, and outside of village intelligence. So when you start attacking teammates in a way that seems out of character for such a respectful young girl… We need to know what's going on."

"I could have just told you," Sakura points out, "I'm going through some things and Kakashi gave me a demon sword," she finishes with a slightly annoyed grimace, "oh and Neji's an asshole. Not as much as this Hiashi though, I guess…"

"I believe that," The older man holds up his palms for her in surrender, chuckling softly, "Ino goes through something twice a month, and I wouldn't put it past her to smack one of her teammate's around, least of all a pissed off Hyuuga. I cannot state this enough, you're not in trouble… We just need to know for sure, because you're not a normal Genin. You're special, and you've proven that twice now. Neji's report went into quite some detail about how extraordinary you are, it was honestly a little poetic."

"He's not interested in me, is he?" Sakura instantly has to put up her guard on issues like this, her own teammates wanna restart their clans with her! Her best friend wants her! She's a magnet and she very much wants to hide under the covers from all of that. As far as she's concerned, that issue can just go away.

"No, I don't think so, but he did have praise," Inoichi assures her with a snicker that fills the room with a slightly better vibe than the ominous silence it had before he arrived. "You're important, and that's why they allowed me to do your evaluation when I asked despite the conflict of interest. Since I'm in charge of your case, and you're such great friends with my daughter… I've asked her to do it."

"I'm sorry, is it important, or is it not important?" Sakura asks, "I'm not following. Why would you want her to do it instead of you if it's important?"

"The truth about our techniques is that they aren't gentle," Inoichi explains, "as a Jonin, I can definitely get into your brain, rip out anything I need, and have us all back home before lunchtime. Your parents wouldn't even know you were gone or that anything was wrong, you know, until you ate your food with your face instead of your fork."

"They might not realize for a few days, actually, that wouldn't be the first time I did something weird." Sakura jokes with a pitiful whimper to her tone.

"Believe me, I know." The older man laughs a little, his chipperness almost overrides the mood chart beside his head that says he is very sad. She almost wishes she didn't have it, because he'd be so much more comforting in this darkness, if she could trust his smile and promises that she'll be okay. "The thing is, if you trust us, like really trust us, not the considerate kind trust you might have for me, we can get in without hurting you at all. The more you fight, the worse you are. I think Ino could probably walk right in like she owns the place. So, if you're willing to work with me…"

"Ino's been free to test her jutsu on me since we were eight," Sakura deadpans, "she used to use my body to test fragrances she didn't want touching her own body."

"No, Sakura, I think she just wanted to know how your body would think they smell so she could find her scent." Inoichi's own deadpan in response catches her off guard, and she can't help but admit that's probably true. Darn-it Ino, always one step ahead of her…

"Ahem," Inoichi clears his throat, before clapping his hands together, "so this'll be really simple if she can enter you that easily, thank goodness. No one wants to hurt you, the Hokage's even willing to pay Ino for this."

"Go him." She gives a fist pump- well most of one, before her hand clanks against the chain and is wretched back against her own momentum. "Ow."

"Yeah, try not to move too much, okay? Let Ino do her thing, and I'll tell your parents you spent the night at my house." Inoichi gives her a pleading look, begging her to agree, and despite a niggling part of her brain remembering Fierro's rant, remembering the very idea that this could have consequences, she nods.

Ino's her friend, her best friend, she trusts her. That doesn't stop her nervousness from flowing through her like a river, she finds herself shivering at the reality ahead of her. "Ino doesn't know," she points out, "about the game system, about any of what's happened recently, how will she react?"

"That's true," he agrees, "Ino's still an innocent girl, and you're a killer without remorse. That will change things." His tone contains no judgment, just the truth, and he can even see approval in his gaze. Some would find that absurd, but this is a ninja village, and she can tell her superiors are proud of her. At one point that would have been a source of comfort, now she can't help the screams in the back of her head that she needs to run. She silences those screams, this is Inoichi and Ino, she can let it happen.

Killer without remorse might not be entirely true, the thought of the girl she killed at the inn still makes her feel really bad. She might have been savable, and killing her the way she did was an accident. It haunts her more than anything she's ever done with intent, and the very person who'd be best to talk about that is currently looking at her knowing damn well he's about to pry her life open for her best friend like it's a TV show.

"You should prepare yourself, your friendship will likely come out different, but I doubt it'll be bad." He assures her, and the mood chart does change, he's got a smile there too. That warms her heart enough to allow her a slow and awkward nod.