"Ino, why do you look so at home?" Getting a mission from her father specifically meant for her team is a nice feeling. Daddy is still looking out for her, even if he has been a little awkward recently after Sakura turned out not gay. She guesses he was hoping for that to work out really, really, really hard. It still might, but they need time to figure that out, and Sakura needs time to learn what it means to be her before she starts thinking about romance. Ino gets that, her father probably does too, somewhere deep.
Technically a C rank mission, going into the forest of death to collect some rare flowers and herbs that only grow there is one of those quick and dirty missions that could be a B rank, or could be more of a D rank, depending on how well you know the area.
For Ino, who's been coming here for ingredients with her family since she was a little girl, it's a glorified D rank. It sounds a lot scarier than it is, literally, the forest makes horrifying screeches and roars constantly. In fact, she's pretty sure a giant nightmare bird is getting devoured not too far from here and won't stop screaming. "Well, most of the danger here comes from the big monsters," she explains to her team, "they're easy to trigger and very aggressive if you do happen to make them angry at you."
"Which is scary," Choji agrees, the boy's taken to munching on jerky this afternoon while looking around the plants in all directions with frantic precision and paranoid apprehension, "we could get eaten."
"Not really…" Ino shakes her head, her boys can be so dramatic. She can see Shikamaru wants to turn back already but they've only collected one small bag of the flowers and they won't get the full pay - let alone the bonus pay - unless they do three full bags. Technically none of them need money, not explicitly, but Sakura's been spending money like she's betting on races recently and she'd love to have some extra cash to throw at her friend if she comes begging and while completely broke. She's concerned to say the least. "Just don't piss them off."
"And we do that, how?" Shikamaru asks, "sounds like a real pain in the neck to me."
"Mostly, you just pay attention, don't sneak up on anything and don't let anything sneak up on you," Ino says, "we're not their natural prey so they're not hunting us."
"Uh-huh… is that, Team Seven?" Shikamaru's words catch her by surprise, and she turns just in time to watch an orange blur flying through the sky. It takes her a moment to focus on it enough to confirm that it is indeed Naruto getting dragged through the air by a giant bird. He's frantically stabbing at it… Covered in black feathers bigger than her entire torso, with talons thick enough to bisect her, and with glowing red eyes, she can confirm that the nightmare bird was likely fighting Naruto, not being eaten.
"That is Naruto," Ino confirms, "I'd know that dummy anywhere."
"He's 'dummy' now?" Shikamaru asks, "that's an upgrade, what'd the poor guy do to deserve that?"
"He helped me with a thing, um, we should probably help him?" she suggests, only to get a shrug from Shikamaru, and a munch from Choji, "let me rephrase that, we're helping him.."
And so they helped out Team Seven in the Forest of Death.
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"It's been a day," Sakura says, adding yet another piece of furniture to the door to their safe room. It even has a typewriter, though she sincerely doubts they can use it to save their progress. The constant thudding of monsters bashing themselves against the door in increasing numbers is as unsettling as this entire adventure has been. "We haven't seen one genin, let alone a chunin or whoever the dark meister is."
"I'm glad we swapped to using the hammers, I would have run out of throwing weapons and ammunition hours ago." Tenten admits, wiping some sweat from her brow and seating herself on a table. The fact that said table is covered in documents doesn't matter to her, though Neji is rapidly reading through them as if they mean something.
She didn't even read them in game, she's sure as hell not reading them here. "The fact that you only would have run out hours ago and not half a day ago is a testament to the absurdity of the armory you employ," Sakura praises, "you're amazing."
"Big words for a little girl." Tenten teases.
Sakura rolls her eyes.
"The horde is certainly endless." Neji says, after a long pause to think and skim through yet another document, this one was between Tenten's legs. Oddly, that didn't seem to bother him. "They are not providing any loot or other matters of substance either, so they're an endless horde, the kind that we're expected to run from not fight."
"Uh, that was oddly savvy of you," Sakura can't help but gulp, "do you play games, Neji?"
"I can neither confirm nor deny whether I would partake in such a shameless waste of time." The stoic Genin says with a bit of a snideness to his tone that manages to make Sakura's skin crawl.
So yes, Neji plays games, but he's a dick so he has to complicate it. Sakura understands boys and their pride… To be fair to him, she didn't admit her gaming until very recently, and even then she's mostly come out to her team and not random people. He at least didn't deny it, which makes him better than she was… Then again he's had a year to grow, she hopes she's nicer in a year.
"So assuming we need to run from them, where do we need to go?" Sakura asks.
"My Byakugan shows quite a few of them right outside that door, yet they're not breaking the barricade or making any sort of progress in relieving us of our protection. The game's rules apply, which means we need to get from one safe house to the next. Am I to assume these typewriters are the signifiers for these rooms? I haven't seen them elsewhere and they are quite out of fashion. They stand out."
"They are," Sakura says, looking through a few cupboards in search of healing items.
"Yessss!" She hisses in delight when she finds exactly what she was looking for, a first aid spray. Now does this actually work? She has to resist the urge to immediately try it despite having no meaningful injuries. "If you can pinpoint the next room we can fight them after we're done resting and rush there. We might have to go through a few puzzles or get very forceful with some doors, though."
"I believe these rooms have a logic to them of their own," Neji explains, "there's no reason to include them if they aren't important, and if the enemies aren't significant besides to push us to where we might need a reprieve, then it's likely their entire existence is meant to push us from safe room to safe room along our way until we find what we are here to find."
"And if we're just wandering around pointlessly?" Sakura asks.
"We packed enough food for a month, and we are being paid to subjugate the invaders." Neji asserts, "if they are truly trapped here with us, then we are doing our job as long as we are still here and trying to find them. It is fine if we waste a few days testing theories."
"Really? I expected more urgency from you…" Sakura can't help but admit she had a wrong judgment of his character. Perhaps she's quick to judge, or maybe people just have more than the one or two dimensions they like to show off. If nothing else, he has a good head on his shoulders she can respect. She hopes people get less confusing, not more confusing, as her charm increases, and that this particular confusion was caused by getting a lot of charm very quickly. She finds it's quite painful to just suddenly have more issues with people when she's supposed to have less.
"Urgency is for when time is being wasted. There is nothing wasteful about being careful when the entire world is playing tricks on you," he asserts sternly, "you would be wise to remember that there is a large difference between playing games and being played with. We are currently in the latter category, and while we are not in control of the situation, we must play by the rules of the game forced on us."
"That game being Resident Evil," Sakura sighs, "jeez, I wish I'd known in advance."
"What would you have done differently?" He asks.
"Nothing, I just would have liked to prepare myself a bit more mentally. The last dungeon was generic nonsense, I didn't expect to actually enter a game." She scratches her cheek in thought, opening yet more cupboards and being rather disappointed to find ammunition. Tenten can probably use it, but it's not any help to her, and Tenten probably already has plenty of ammo. She passes it to the grateful girl anyway, and watches a bit stunned when she rubs her cheek against the box. She also says something that catches Sakura off guard.
"These are game bullets," Tenten says while taking one from the box, "these won't work in any of my weaponry. They're designed with advanced technology I don't quite understand."
"They have a chemical reaction and some metal, right, what's the difference?" Sakura asks.
"The power, one of these would blow my pistol apart, but this is good news." Tenten chimes to herself, spinning one of the bullets in her hand with a big grin.
"Why?" Sakura can't help but ask while admiring the dexterity on display.
"It means guns that use this will likely spawn here, we can get game guns. I always knew I'd have to abandon weaponry like that eventually, but that might not be true with fantasy guns." The older girl caresses one of her gifts with a shake in her place and a rocking from side to side.
"Are we actually in the game, or is this a mere representation, twisted for the amusement of whatever dark entity generated this playground for fools?" Neji asks suddenly, drawing Sakura away from a display that she can't help but admit did something deep inside her brain. Maybe not attraction per-say but, it wasn't normal. Not normal is good, right?
"Uh… not sure, I think it's mostly new, I didn't play a lot of the first game but I don't recognize much of it so far… Uh, quick question, with how many are amassing at the door. Even if they can't break through, how do we break out?" Sakura answers and asks a question in kind.
"Explosive tags," Tenten cuts in, "I have a few already worked into some metal, they should work as fragmentation grenades, which'll help us get out."
"And you have enough of those to get us through probably dozens of rooms like this?" Sakura asks.
"I have enough to level a village." Tenten's assurance of this fact does very little to calm Sakura's nerves, but at least they have an answer for the endless horde trying to rip the barricaded door off its hinges and finding itself sadly lacking.
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