Her first steps into the town of Chokuri aren't very impactful. It's a bit desolate and dirty, and she finds herself quite remarkably reminded of Wave. It's not any particular detail that brings the image to mind, and Wave looked much better when she left than when she got there so it's not like it's even a good comparison as of late, but the idea hits her quite firmly. "This place is screwed." She huffs, hoping internally that she's not going to end up in charge of this village too…
Oh fuck, please no. The very idea makes her shiver. She opens her Wave window to take a look and make sure her place is okay, and it is, it looks better than the last time she checked it actually. She can see there are Naruto clones running around doing odd jobs, which has her chuckle to herself, he seriously left some there?
Unfortunately for her, the rest of the team sorta missed the middle part of that interaction, so to them it's more like she announced the place is screwed and then chuckled ominously. This clicks with her a moment later, when she sees the three of them looking at her awkwardly and with no small amount of disgust. Okay, the disgust is mostly Tenten. "Out of context moment." Sakura tries to explain.
They clearly don't get what that means, so she decides to just move on. "We should do our best to ensure this place can recover, I'm prepared to begin the assault whenever you three are."
"No one needs to begin an assault." Tenten's nose wriggles, and her cheeks green a little, her eyes focused and intent on her, it looks like she's already lost some of that good will from earlier on the trip here. "We don't want a blood bath you fucking psycho."
"Well, I mean…" Sakura can't help but pout, before someone she really didn't expect to do so, comes to her defense.
"That's enough, Tenten." Neji growls at the girl, causing her to turn into an oddly meek looking fangirl with sparkly eyes as if a magic spell has been cast and suddenly everything is better.
"Sorry!" Tenten apologizes, but not to her. It seems there's a love line in this group. Lee likes Tenten, Tenten likes Neji, and Neji likes himself.
"We will hold off on that assault." Neji says to Sakura, ensuring she knows it's to her by catching her eyes with his own. "We need to see if we can discover and capture the leader first. If we can, we can likely avoid too much fighting at all. The more combat the more likely civilians suffer casualties, which I feel I shouldn't have to say, but those are frowned upon."
A part of her really wants to focus on why he felt the need to say that, even stating he shouldn't have to. Obviously she knows getting civilians killed is bad, she'd feel pretty guilty if nothing else, is Lee secretly a serial killer that needs reproach even when he's not a part of the conversation? It would explain the warning and clarification… "Ah, well, what if I end up in a fight with one due to no fault of my own?" Sakura asks.
"Kill them." Neji's words are fierce and forward, blunt and lacking in even the slightest form of delicacy. "I appreciate that you are more on board with the mission's reality than my teammates, but please refrain from provoking them. If it makes you feel any better, Tenten's not normally like this."
"Yeah, she's still shaken up from holding my sword." Sakura says, nodding at the boy and showing she understands. "I don't blame her, I just wish she'd be… nicer." Maybe a little less ridiculous, that would help a lot.
"You'll find very little, nice, on missions like this." Neji declares. "Come, we need to find our lodgings."
"Right." It's very clear that Lee and Tenten aren't super appreciative of being talked about like they aren't there, but they don't speak up. She can even see guilt on Tenten's face. She didn't mean to come across like that, Sakura can tell, so she decides to forgive her. She's just surprised that holding her sword messed with the girl that much, she's a ninja, she's killed people… Thirsty isn't even that proactive as far as intrusive thoughts goes, she's barely even noticed the difference now that she's looking for it. Then again, she hasn't put the sword down for well over a week, so maybe she would if she did a full factory reset. She has no intentions of doing that mid-mission though, maybe once she's back home.
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The inn they approach isn't particularly well kept either. It's dusty and several of the chairs at the front are broken. That table is in half, and she's pretty sure there's blood stuck to the ceiling. How it even got up there she's not sure, maybe someone else has figured out a technique to send potent chakra filled blood across the room… No, that's ridiculous. There's a set of stairs off to the side which look like they might fall in half if someone steps up them too hard.
"Hello! Welcome to the Chokuri Main Road Inn." A woman behind a split counter greets them with a beaming smile. It's so bright it reminds Sakura of Naruto's smile but in a very different way to how Lee's reminds her of it. There's a moment of affection by association that floods her at that thought before the reminder of the nature of his smile flows back into her mind. The woman has incredibly long golden hair with red tips that are clearly unnatural. Her clothing is also a little loose for a business owner representing their business, even if she does stand tall and natural behind that counter.
"We need two rooms." Neji says, tossing a sack with a little money on the counter.
"Give me a second…" The woman has to ruffle around for them, but she soon provides him with two keys.
Neji holds them up for her, "you'll be sharing a room with me, while Tenten shares with Lee."
"Ah, um…" Sakura contemplates that, while Tenten looks overjoyed. Maybe their love isn't quite a secret unrequited thing? She doesn't understand this team. "Shouldn't it be girls and boys?"
"Tenten won't be able to sleep if you share a room." Neji explains, reminding her of a very awkward situation during their one and only camping session on the way here. Tenten stayed up watching the entire night and refused to take a turn to sleep. She's probably quite exhausted at the moment, Sakura knows that feeling.
"R-right…" Sakura sighs. She didn't do anything! Tenten seems perfectly reasonable and cordial at everything else, even her if it doesn't involve the sword.
Just how traumatized is she by the blade that rests comfortably at her side?
Lee told her about just how obsessed Tenten is with weapons like it, so why are they different from hers?
It doesn't matter, because she has something to do. "Sure, I'll meet you in the room in a bit, I want to get a drink."
"Right." Neji leaves to walk up the crooked steps to the side as soon as she says so, and the others are already sprinting up much faster than him the moment he moves. She's quickly left alone in the run-down ground floor that has no business being like this.
It's so obvious, how come they didn't notice?
"How much do I have to pay you to tell me what actually happened here?" Sakura asks, leaning against the bar.
"Whatever do you mean?" The innkeeper's voice is very sweet, high pitched, and faker than Naruto's female clone… Which probably isn't very fake anymore, now that she's read all her books. She'll need to get Naruto to make her again, she'd like to girl talk with someone who's not trying to not so secretly figure out if she's gonna eat her. Or someone trying to eat her, if she thinks about Ino… That's how lesbians work, right? She knows it involves a tongue.
"You needed to find the keys, you're pretending to smile, your voice reminds me of Haku's, and I'm pretty sure-" She doesn't get to finish her sentence before her skills kick in and her sword is drawn. She didn't intend to turn this into a fight, but she's got one as Genin Dexterity is activating whether she likes it or not.
She finds her sword hurtling towards an attack her eyes aren't fast enough to spot yet.
One thing she's learned while training is that Genin Dexterity will activate even if the check isn't academy student level, it just only works at academy level. This has resulted in a lot of wounds during training time where an attack she could have totally deflected caught her by surprise and her movements were so automatic she didn't think to accommodate them with her actual skill.
No such thing here, she's learned, the moment her sword is slashing out her second hand lands on the handle and she uses all the skill she has to cut through the attack. "Fuck-" She doesn't have to call upon her power to fuel her sword, enough of her blood sprays onto it from whatever just hit her regardless of her defense. Before she can even grasp what happened, she's got several dozen wounds and needs to jump back from another attack that flashes for her eyes. She blocks that attack mid jump by throwing her arm up and getting hit in her arm instead of her eyes.
Safe and secure with some distance between her and the motionless enemy, red eyes sharp and focused, she gets a good look at what she 'deflected' and realizes she didn't deflect a damn thing. The woman's hair attacked her, all she did was split some ends. A simple look down allows her to see just how many 'blades' are stuck in her body, all of them red-tipped with little golden strings attached to them.
"Okay, understood." They don't seem to be poisoned, and that's all that matters as Sakura lifts her now powered-up sword and readies herself to go on the offensive. The girl's just standing there behind the counter, smiling at her like she did nothing wrong. Her smile is so wickedly long and malicious, Sakura can't help but throw the earlier Haku comparison away, Haku's never looked at anyone like that in his entire damn life.
Well, Neji did say to kill them if someone attacked her.
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