Sakura wipes some of the last exchange's consequences off her hands onto her sword. Her shirt's covered in power now, that's cool at least, she probably would have taken more injury from herself during the fight so it's almost like she didn't get sneak attacked at all! It especially helps that needles are the one thing her chainmail isn't great with, type advantage, not what she wanted here. "I'm going to take a guess and say you're not the innkeeper."
"Whatever do you mean?" The girl asks, head tilting to the side ever so slightly. A finger lands on her cheek, and she gives Sakura a thoughtful look. "You were very rude, maybe you should apologize?"
"Uh…" What in the actual hell? It doesn't matter, she has an opponent in her face and they need to go down before the trio come down here and get sneak attacked too. Well, no, they'd probably be pretty helpful all things considered. To call them or not to call them… The choice is made a moment later when the girl's hair raises into the air on its own, and starts shooting needles at her from across the room.
"You can only have so much of that." Sakura grunts out as she dodges to the side, darting over and lifting a table to use as a shield. It works, dozens of thunks landing against it, but it's unwieldy, what with having four legs, so she takes a moment to crouch behind it and start snapping the four legs off of it, then with a nod to herself she rams one of them through its center. "Cool, strong enough to do dumb anime stuff like that now." She appraises herself with pride and joy flowing through her in equal parts like she's not even in a fight. She jumps back to her feet, pulling it up by her new handle just in time to block another barrage of hair needles that barely push her back at all and fail to break her stance. They're not sharp enough or shot with enough force to get through the table either, leaving Sakura wondering what she's actually doing.
"If you're thinking of outlasting me, think again." The fake innkeeper says with a creepy laugh that sends chills up Sakura's spine. "I can regrow them."
"Not forever." Sakura denies, "chakra isn't infinite, and doesn't come back very fast either, and creating matter like that is rather intensive." Her own earth affinity has taught her much, creating a single race track like at the Academy took her out of commission twice, and that didn't even involve creating matter so much as changing it. "Unless you secretly ate a tailed beast, I think you're bluffing."
"Ate a, what?" Good, she's got the girl confused, that's just what she needs. Measuring the distance between the two of them Sakura needs exactly one second to cross it. Measured, planned, got it.
"They're rather chaotic, try eating wood instead, it's high in fiber!" She drops the table mid-air, and spins around, using her full force to hit the single leg she forced through it with the kind of kick she'd send at Naruto during an especially heated spar, that should send the entire thing towards-
"Gkkll-guaah-buuu-" She hears it before she sees it. The wet explosion, the splatter, the gargled breaths. The table hits the floor, not having moved at all, and she finds it's lacking its leg.
"Oh no." She looks up, assessing her opponents actions and annoyed at herself for letting her thoughts wander and her gaze lose the enemy. Kakashi would have a field day with her, but she's too preoccupied staring at the scene she's created. The girl's clothes, covered in life, the counter, a horrifying mess, the girl she'd been fighting? Pinned.
"Fuck." Okay ,so killing her had always been the intention, or maybe at least incapacitating her with a few missing parts so they could interrogate her before bringing her to a medic or something, but she hadn't intended to kill her that particular way, and somehow that changes things.
Watching the confusing girl struggle to pull a wooden pole out of her chest reminds Sakura of something she'd rather not need to be reminded of. The fact that she's suspended a few feet in the air makes it all the worse.
She can't look. "I'm sorry." She finds herself mumbling despite knowing damn well she's not.
Well she is but, not in the way that's worth saying. A pang of guilt flows through her stomach, and something in her stomach does flips and flops at every wet gulp and spatter she hears.
"I'm just gonna go upstairs." For the first time in years, she finds tears stain her eyes for something not drama related or very personal, and she has no idea why. This was just another enemy, she didn't even give them her name, why does she matter more than the demon twins or Gato?
"I'm really sorry." Is it the sword?
Is it not actually that easy to take a life, and it's just that she's used the sword for every encounter so doing it without a slash is so much harder?
No, it can't be that, was it the suddenness and unexpectedness of not intending it that way?
She'd always intended to cross the distance and slash her while she was distracted by the table, so it can't be the act itself. Whether the girl choking on her own life fluid over there would have died would have entirely depended on how well she could dodge, Sakura wasn't going to hold back the slash for mercy.
She'll ask Iruka back home maybe, unhelpful as he was before, he probably has tons of experience with this exact thing.
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"So we leave you alone for ten seconds and you've already killed someone." Tenten scolds her, arms crossed and buns up in a fuss. The blacksmith shop worker slash ninja doesn't look very happy with her, but it's a different kind of unhappiness. It's not 'you psycho' and more like a jest.
Did Neji have a conversation with her instead of coming down to fight?
"Hey, she attacked me." Sakura sighs, looking at the sight. At least there wasn't a lot of property damage. Well, okay, there's a new hole in the wall. "I'm surprised you guys actually left me, she was kind of obvious. I kinda thought you'd take a few steps out of sight and wait."
"Yes, she was obvious." Neji states calmly. He's gotten real close to her, lifting the corpse by its hair and gazing into its dead eyes. "We were planning to investigate as soon as you came up, we were having a team meeting in our room. If you have a plan like wait until your allies are just out of sight and then start a confrontation, maybe communicate it directly instead of assuming a completely new team will predict your actions and mannerisms."
"Ah…" Sakura trails. That's a pretty accurate, reasonable, and harsh criticism actually. Neji comes off like a complete pompous ass but he's not dumb. She's smart, really smart, but she's not thinking about other people enough. She's forced her team to work with her by memorizing the kind of thing she'll do and predict her, but that's not how a healthy teamwork should go.
Inwardly, she wonders if half of her team being so brutal with her about death is because she isn't giving them enough insight into her plans and thoughts? Would they be less freaked if she had a conversation with them? Probably not, but she'll try it when she gets home. "I guess you can grab your money back," she jokes with a sheepish grin.
"I didn't give her money, I gave her Gai coin," Neji answers, "it's a whole thing."
"Gai sensei has the most valuable of currency minted in his honor! It's a collector's dream!" Lee shouts, unphased by the uh, destruction of a person half a dozen feet to his left.
"Uh-huh…" Sakura trails, "well, we should probably explore and figure out what even happened here."
"You killed someone with a table leg." Tenten answers helpfully.
"No I mean…" Sakura doesn't even finish her sentence, Tenten's smirky smile lets her know that's a joke. Why in the actual hell did offing someone make Tenten less afraid of her?
No matter how much higher her charm gets, Sakura gets the feeling she'll never understand some women.
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It turns out finding people takes exactly ten seconds when you have Neji around. He activates his Byakugan, and they're in the mead cellar moments later untying an older man and a woman in her early twenties. With Naruto and Sasuke this would have been a whole thing, but with this group it's in, out, and they're sitting down at the counter drinking booze on the house moments later.
Well, staring at it. "Is it really okay to drink this?" Sakura asks, "we're on duty, and I've never had it before."
"It would be rude to refuse," Neji says, "and it is one cup, if you can't handle one measly glass of alcohol then the Academy poison resistance training standards have fallen tremendously. I have already looked into it with the Byakugan to ensure it's not poisoned further, do not worry yourself over trife nonsense."
"Ah, that is true…" Hyuuga can just do that, they're crazy. Having eyes like that must make everything convenient, maybe one day she can get a trait that'll give her something like that. Technically they're bloodlines and those can't just be gained out of nowhere, but her game system doesn't try to pretend it's beholden to her world's rules so…
Besides, Neji's right. There was that whole year where one of their extra classes just kind of poisoned them every day. Not a lot, just enough to give them a good idea of what being poisoned feels like, and to raise their natural tolerances. It was normally during chakra training, so that their bodies could get used to manufacturing a chakra response to illicit substances.
And most ninjas do drink… "Alright, I guess."
The moment the liquid hits her lips, she vomits.
It's not even a little vomit, it's everywhere.
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