AN: I'm gonna be completely honest with you, the following like 5 or 6 chapters are probably the weakest part of the entire story. I still had fun making them, and I hope you have fun reading them, but try not to take it too seriously. I was going through a really rough time and it shows. If you really like them, good, making you smile is one of my main goals. If you don't, I know, shaddup. It gets better.
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It turns out that the innkeeper was quite knowledgeable about what was going on around here, and the moment Leaf ninjas arrived in the town the enemy kidnapped him and his daughter to stop them from being informed. That girl had been in charge of the job, and instead of seeking brutal efficiency she'd been rather nice to them and took a lot of extra time ensuring they were comfortable in their new confinement before she left. She'd even promised to come get them after the Leaf Ninjas were disposed of. This had meant she didn't leave before they got here.
This eventually led to a rather gruesome demise. Sakura had killed a good person. Or, no, she'd killed a less bad person. She's struggling to put her feelings into words, but it's not the death itself that's bothering her, she's figured that out.
If the innkeeper's info is to be believed, there are thirty different enemy ninjas in the village, at least, most of them Academy students who got flunked, a couple are even from Konoha, a solid group of the enemy are Genin, and the rest are all Chunin.
Which raises the question of what they do with them all. Konoha citizens being involved definitely complicates matters in a way she wasn't prepared for. It also explains the weakness of that girl, if she was a kind hearted genin missing nin, she likely wasn't very strong and just came off intimidating due to her hair ability. Where that came from, Sakura's not sure, it was probably a Kekei Genkai. Some people use theirs for everything, and never learn anything else. So when their ability is countered by a freaking table, they panic and use it more instead of thinking.
Looking at the info, Sakura can only come to one main conclusion. "We should probably go full out violence." She gulps at the looks she gets from half her new team, Neji is so stoic at all times it's kind of unnerving, she can't but think he's judging her too. "Look, I get why we'd want to avoid hurting them too much, but they're going to be executed if we bring them into Konoha proper anyway. The rules are pretty clear about missing ninjas."
"That's the phrase that makes it more complicated," Neji explains, "they're not all missing ninja. Academy students are never sworn in, and they're allowed to leave at any time. The students are just bandits."
"Which Konoha also executes," Sakura reminds him, "and transporting them all back would be impossible. I'm open to non-lethal suggestions, I'm just not seeing them."
"Lee is very strong, after we capture them all we could have someone run back to Konoha and rent a carriage, they bring it here and Lee brings it back like a horse." Tenten suggests.
"And then Konoha executes them, we've lost the money on the rental, and someone's back hurts." Sakura says, "we don't avoid death that way, we just prolong our suffering."
"Yeah but…" Tenten sighs, palming her knees and taking a deep breath. "Do you really want to have thirty-some-odd deaths on your conscience? You looked really ill earlier over one girl."
"I dunno." Sakura admits, frowning a little, nibbling her bottom lip. She would have said she wouldn't care just earlier today but watching that girl die like that… Is she developing empathy for the enemy? Why? Is it the charm? Does a higher charm mean a higher sense of connection to other people? She just assumed it meant she understood people better.
Actually, those might be the same thing. "But they'll be dead anyway, and one of us could get hurt if we try to take them lightly." Sakura finishes her answer after a long moment. "I would feel much more guilty over letting you get hurt, than them."
"As the least senior genin here, you're far more likely to be hurt than me." Tenten points out.
"Yeah, but I don't care about that." Sakura waves her off like that statement just didn't compute with her. Most of her wounds from the needles had been surface level, so she barely had to patch herself up at all, so them being missing in the morning shouldn't cause too many questions.
"We kill the genin and the chunin," Neji asserts, "we capture the academy students. We'll figure out what to do with them after, but it's not our job to determine whether their individual crimes make them bandits or misguided fools. You make a good point about it being dangerous to take them lightly, but that's not true with the academy students, they're weak, and we should be able to tie them together and make them walk back with us without much danger."
"I will take responsibility for guarding them." Lee finally cuts in out of nowhere. The boy is so quiet during tactical discussions, it's only when his enthusiasm is helpful that he appears, and it's probably the biggest thing that distances him from Naruto. It's a maturity that she didn't expect on first meeting him. She should get the two of them together, they'd probably learn and improve a lot from their friendship.
Despite Neji being the leader, Tenten and Lee both have their gaze on her, pleading and wide eyed. "I am not going to argue against killing," Sakura huffs with no small amount of furious indignance, "I would like to not kill them. I just don't want anyone getting hurt."
"I will ensure nothing happens!" Lee shouts.
"Though, in a crazy hypothetical, where it's kill one of the students or let a civilian die…" Sakura trails.
"They die." Neji says with no small amount of coolness to his tone, like talking about the weather. "It is not our job to determine the fate of criminal civilians unless otherwise specified in the mission terms, which it is not. It is our job to ensure the civilians in this village are able to continue paying taxes after we are done. Collateral damage is strictly prohibited, do what you must to protect village assets."
"Ah, well, hopefully, it won't come up. I just really needed to know." Sakura lets out a long breath she didn't realize she was holding in. "That's the kind of thing my team would likely get mad at me for."
"Your team are rookie genin, death is necessary, bloodlust is not." Neji speaks.
Tenten nods.
And Lee looks away, but it's clear he understands. "I'll do my best." Sakura slaps a palm in her lap, giving them a big smile.
"Your best resulted in vomit being added to the mess our hosts have to clean up downstairs." Tenten teases her.
"I didn't know it'd be that bitter!" Sakura defends herself.
"It's alcohol!" Tenten laughs.
"I've never had it!" Sakura can't help but feel the conversation flow out of control. She finds them getting into a cycle of laughter and banter that keeps going for a lot longer than she expected. She didn't expect killing someone and then vomiting all over the bar to be the icebreaker she needed with this team, but if it works, it works.
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The night's plan was to get some rest while Neji took watch for half the night, and Lee the other half. It felt weird to Sakura to split the watch up, but Neji said he had training in his clan to work on much less sleep, and Lee only ever needed four hours, he just had too much energy to contain.
Sakura pointed out that she only needs about five hours, but she was told Lee had it and unfortunately as the new team member they wouldn't trust her to keep watch without reserves anyway. It might be necessary on a mission in the field, but out here in a small village they're fine using their normal methods., So here she is at like three AM, wandering around outside the Inn scoping out the basic area.
There's a general store, a massive building that's likely a town hall for administration, dozens of small alleys built into the structure plans specifically so ninjas could navigate in secret despite the fact that the place wasn't big enough to need stuff like that.
There's so much here, it's desolate but it also has a strange type of beauty she's not used to taking in. Konoha and Wave were different. One was a half dead shipping village, and one's a fully structured ninja institution where every decision is made with exacting reason and nothing is left up to chance.
To see a normal place without so much thought, structure, and design, it's honestly relieving. The odds she screws up Wave are a lot lower if someplace just haphazardly put together with a few guidelines can survive.
Nevermind that it's been taken over by missing ninja, that could happen to pretty much anyone except an actual ninja village. It's something she'll have to prepare to defend Wave against eventually. Wave is actually further from Konoha than this village, so odds are it has to deal with something like this eventually if she just leaves it.
Technically it already has, that's what they saved it from. Is Sakura just a liberation force now?
For once she doesn't find trouble, which is nice, but it does set her nerves on edge.
This place is about to become an active warzone, she can feel it, tomorrow they will be brawling in the streets. Will this mission be only a few days, or will they be at this for a while? Kakashi seemed to think this mission would be pretty long, but they could probably finish it tomorrow and start heading back if they went in as brutally as possible.
They won't, but if they did…
There's always the chance they get reinforcements, but given they sent only one girl to deal with the Inn, it's unlikely they're that organized.
Looking at all the buildings, it occurs to her that avoiding collateral damage may be impossible despite it being prohibited, so she takes care to create a mental image of how it looks now. It's mostly bad, dirty, damaged, but people worked hard to create these buildings and this road and knowing they might destroy some of it tomorrow feels oddly cruel.
This place should be respected to the best of their ability.
Maybe it's running her own place now that has her respecting other people's stuff, or maybe it's that lecture from her parents about treating their home like her own.
A lot swirls through her head, and once again, she can't help but wonder how Naruto and Sasuke are doing.
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