Chapter 191: Snow Princess: Ninja Scroll
Haruno residence.
"I'm back."
Sakura pushed open the front door, a bag of fruit from a street stall in one hand, and stepped into a house that looked almost exactly as she'd left it.
She toed off her shoes in the entryway and lined them up neatly on the rack.
"Sakura's home?!"
A familiar voice from the kitchen — though unexpectedly, it wasn't her mother cooking. It was her father.
"Dad?"
"Where's Mom?"
Standard return-home procedure, regardless of circumstances: locate the mother first.
"My little Sakura!"
"You must have been through so much out there!"
"Come let Dad give you a love hug!"
Kizashi's voice accompanied a blur of sea-urchin hair and kitchen apron launching itself at her.
Sakura's hand shot out and planted itself directly on his face, stopping him cold.
"You're embarrassing. You're a grown adult."
Kizashi, arrested mid-tackle, produced an expression of theatrical devastation.
"Sakura's grown up and doesn't need her dad anymore~~~"
"Sakura's not as cute as she used to be~~~"
"You used to love Dad so much!"
No I didn't. That's a lie.
Watching her father switch into full-performance mode on the floor, Sakura felt a headache coming on and a sweat drop forming simultaneously.
Her extremely normal, goofy father. Utterly unchanged.
"...The pot's about to burn."
!
Kizashi was on his feet and in the kitchen in under a second.
"My romantic home-cooked dinner for Mebuki—!"
His voice cut off in anguish. Sakura set her bag on the living room table.
And then her mother emerged from the bedroom.
Sakura froze.
Her mother's stomach was considerably larger than when she'd left.
"Oh, Sakura's home~~"
Mebuki looked at her daughter with the soft, particular expression of a woman who knew exactly what she was about to deliver.
"What — what is that—"
Sakura crossed the room and reached out to touch the bump, genuinely at a loss.
"Well?"
"Surprised? Caught off guard?"
"Sakura's going to have a little brother or sister!"
Mebuki dropped the gentle expression immediately, replacing it with the satisfied face of someone who had been waiting to deploy this information for months.
Oh no.
Someone's going to compete with me for the inheritance.
...Do we have an inheritance?
...No. Okay, never mind.
Sakura pressed two fingers to her mother's wrist to check both pulses.
She really is pregnant.
"When did you... how many months?"
"About six months now~~"
Sakura carefully steered her mother to the couch and sat her down properly.
"What made you decide to have another one?"
"Hmm..."
Mebuki tilted her head, apparently genuinely thinking about it.
"Honestly? Raising you has been completely unsatisfying."
...Sorry?
"Sakura is so independent. You never needed us for anything, not from the time you were small. No sense of parental achievement at all."
Let me get this straight. Sakura's expression was perfectly flat. I killed the Raikage, the Kazekage, and the Mizukage. You feel no parental achievement.
"Whatever makes you happy."
There was absolutely nothing she could say to that.
One minor decision, made silently: the diaper-changing shifts, when they came, would coincide with her being elsewhere every single time.
Night.
Steam rose from the bath, warm light scattered through the mist.
Sakura lay stretched out in the tub, the exhaustion of the last several months finally lifting in increments.
A little rubber duck bobbed on the surface.
She watched the ceiling light, thoughts drifting.
The old man had originally planned to send her to support Naruto through the Nine-Tails chakra training. That was now on hold because of the Snow Country mission. And the Nine-Tails training couldn't wait indefinitely — Naruto needed it.
She could already see exactly what was coming. Return from Snow Country, immediately get packed off to Turtle Island.
"I'm exhausted already and I haven't left yet."
She slapped her palm down on the water.
The rubber duck launched off the surface and hit the floor.
She ignored it and thought through what she actually knew about the current state of things.
Kumo beaten. Suna beaten. Kiri beaten. A long relative peace was coming — she could say that with reasonable confidence. Even Akatsuki would be slowing down.
Because Yagura was dead, and the Three-Tails dies with its jinchūriki. It had to reconstitute itself before Akatsuki could collect it. That alone bought years — three, maybe five. And the current state of the ninja world looked nothing like the original story's timeline. Too many variables had changed.
The one certainty: Konoha was considerably stronger now than it had been in the source material.
Because of one butterfly, flapping its wings.
She shook her head, clearing it, and stood up.
Water ran off her in sheets. She was glowing pink from the heat.
She picked the duck up off the floor, dropped it back in the water, and crossed to the mirror.
Wiped the condensation off.
Looked at the pink-haired girl looking back.
I am extremely good-looking.
The next morning.
Red and white tracksuit, black ninja pants, black sandals — Sakura arrived at the "Snow Princess: Ninja Scroll" production set precisely as agreed.
Kushina, Sasuke, and Shino fell in behind her.
Notable: Hikaru had apparently decided idleness wasn't for her either and had shown up uninvited.
Sakura didn't object. Hikaru's combat ceiling was a genuine unknown, but nothing she'd seen suggested it fell much below her own.
A goalie, minimum.
Which meant this particular Snow Country excursion featured two Super-Kage, one Kage-tier Mangekyo user, a jonin with very specific and serious skills, and a tokubetsu jonin whose effectiveness would only improve in Snow Country's environment.
Pre-pour some respect on the Daimyo before we even get there.
She was walking toward the production camp when a figure shot out of it, riding a white horse, dressed in full court attire, barreling through a line of extras in prop armor without looking back.
"The lead actress!"
"The lead actress just RAN!"
"Someone stop Miss Yukie!"
A silver-haired man with glasses and a small ponytail came sprinting out in pursuit, frantic.
Sakura pulled out the mission scroll and stepped in front of him.
"You're the one who submitted the Snow Country location job?"
Sandayū looked at her. Then at Sasuke and the others behind her. Then back at her.
His face went through something.
This is what the Hokage gave me. After all this time waiting.
These kids look barely fourteen.
Does the Fire Shadow understand what's actually at stake here?
"That's me." He nodded, after a pause.
"When do we leave?"
Sakura pocketed the scroll.
"Whenever you're ready. Though we have a small problem at the moment."
He'd been sitting in Konoha far too long already. The film crew had screened "Snow Princess: Ninja Scroll" for the village so many times at this point that the entire population probably had it memorized.
"Our lead has run. Please recover Miss Yukie."
Sakura tilted her head.
The movie's plot details had gotten fuzzy in her memory — it had been a while, and she hadn't prioritized keeping track of the filler arc specifics. But this mission wasn't actually about the film.
She looked back at her group.
Her eyes moved past Hikaru, past Kushina, past Shino.
Landed on Sasuke.
The squad leader handles the big things. Small errands go to subordinates.
"Sasuke. Handle it."
The dark-haired boy looked left and right.
Sakura's the team lead, this kind of thing doesn't go to her.
Hikaru — no.
Kushina — no.
Shino — no.
"Sure."
He said it without expression and disappeared.
With Sasuke gone, Sakura and the others wandered through the production camp.
The technology distribution in this world had been assembled by someone pointing at a list and choosing at random. Computers, cameras, electric lights, wireless radio — present.
Military applications of any of it — almost entirely absent.
A single 300mm artillery shell wouldn't care what ninja rank you held.
And actually — the only people who'd even gestured toward applying technology to warfare were some obscure hermit group nobody knew where to find, and—
Kumo.
Sakura stopped walking.
Kumo has a chakra cannon.
A fully charged chakra cannon.
That thing could reach orbit.
She pressed her fingers against her forehead.
I asked for Turtle Island.
I should have asked for the cannon.
One shot. Tailed beasts, criminal organizations, structural problems of every kind.
Gone.
"Sakura?"
"What's wrong?"
Kushina, who'd been watching the camera crew with curiosity, noticed the shift.
"Nothing. Just realized something unfortunate."
Sakura rubbed her temple.
The cannon was now sitting in Kumo, which was currently running under Black Zetsu's influence.
Please let them not have figured out how to aim it properly.
Something tugged at Sakura's sleeve.
Hikaru, pointing at a monitor a crew member was watching, her face composed but her curiosity visible.
She'd spent the weeks since Crescent Moon Valley almost entirely within the Uchiha district, occasionally emerging with Sasuke for supplies. The outside world was genuinely new to her.
"What is that?"
Before Sakura could answer, Sandayū had stepped in beside them, apparently happy to demonstrate goodwill by giving the tour himself.
He went through the equipment one by one, explaining what each device was and what it did.
"You have a striking presence, Miss...? I don't suppose you'd be interested in a career in entertainment? I have a feeling you'd do extremely well."
He'd spent ten years managing talent. The instinct was still sharp. And Hikaru radiated something specific — an uncanny quality, like someone who genuinely didn't belong in this era — that would have read as enormously compelling on screen.
"A career?"
"What's that?"
Hikaru had no idea what he was describing.
"Well, it would involve—"
"She's not interested. Thanks."
Sasuke had returned. Yukie was slung over his shoulder, unconscious.
He deposited her in Sandayū's arms.
"Is she—"
"She's fine. She was making a lot of noise, so I put her under a light genjutsu. She'll sleep it off in a day."
Sasuke's tone contained everything he felt about the whole situation.
He gave Sandayū a single pointed look — the man had apparently been in the middle of trying to recruit Hikaru — and let that communicate the rest.
"Ah, yes. Well. Wonderful. Everything's in order, then."
The sea voyage began.
Fujikaze Yukie — really Koyuki — woke up eventually, noticed the ship was moving, opened a window for fresh air, got a face full of salt wind, and produced a wail of despair that carried across the entire deck.
"Still got some life in her," Sakura observed, fishing rod in hand.
"Should we really be this relaxed?" Kushina looked around the deck.
All five of them — Sakura, Kushina, Sasuke, Shino, Hikaru — were sitting in a line, fishing rods extended over the railing.
Including Shino, who had said perhaps seven words since they boarded and was now silently fishing with the same self-contained focus he brought to everything else.
"Relax," Sakura said. "I'll protect everyone."
Her expression froze.
Something on the line.
After five years of empty hooks.
It's finally happening.
Her wrists tensed. She let chakra run down through the rod, into the line.
She pulled.
Nothing moved.
She pulled harder.
The line held.
What is on this line.
"Sakura, are you catching something?"
Sasuke noticed.
"One fish. I've got this."
Yang Release — Superhuman Strength.
She reinforced the rod first, then applied real force.
"Sakura, maybe just—"
"No."
How long had she been trying to catch something? This was happening.
Blue chakra, then pink — both igniting across her hands.
"COME UP."
The ocean erupted.
A ten-meter orca broke the surface, the fishing line running from its mouth to Sakura's rod, fully airborne for a spectacular half-second before arcing directly over the ship.
The production crew screamed with various flavors of astonishment.
"—Incredible!"
"—Get the camera on this—"
"—Is she actually—"
The orca came back down on the far side of the boat. The line went taut. So did Sakura, and then so did Sakura's footing, and she went over the railing with the line.
"Sakura!"
Sasuke made it to the rail in time to see Sakura surface on the other side of the ship — sitting on the orca's back, apparently perfectly fine, while the orca actively kept her above water.
"...Orcas are intelligent," Shino said, from behind him. "Generally very friendly toward humans. They find us interesting, the way we find small animals interesting."
"The knowledge is the power in this situation," Shino added.
Sasuke stared at him for a moment.
Sakura looked down at the orca supporting her.
Does this count as catching it or not.
The orca spouted water in her direction, which Sakura chose to interpret as friendly commentary.
She let it go.
"Sakura's amazing," Kushina said warmly, toweling off Sakura's hair while Sakura sat in resigned acceptance of this. "That fish was enormous."
Technically not a fish. Sakura didn't correct her.
Explaining the mammal distinction means starting from scratch, and that will take longer than the entire voyage.
Nearby, Hikaru watched the post-orca proceedings with an expression that had shifted noticeably from her usual composure.
She'd seen the force Sakura had just put out. Even with the Mangekyo, if that kind of power landed on her in close range without preparation, the outcome wouldn't be pleasant.
She'd been operating, until now, on the assumption that Sakura was a reasonably talented civilian-born ninja who'd gotten lucky a few times.
That assumption needs to be entirely revised.
The sea days blurred together pleasantly, if unproductively on the fishing front.
After the orca incident, several orcas had begun appearing regularly around the ship. The original one had clearly gone back and told its pod something.
There's a very strong pink thing that pulled me out of the water. Go bite her hook.
The result was zero fish anywhere near the ship, all of them having been driven off by the orca spectators.
So they fished daily and caught nothing.
The other reliable entertainment was watching the production shoot. Yukie's acting was technically strong — the emotional range was there — but she apparently couldn't cry on demand, which resulted in eye drops being deployed for every take that required it, and several reshoots per scene.
On an ordinary morning — Sakura still half-asleep in her bunk — a delighted screech from the deck above broke the quiet.
"Oh my. OH MY."
"This is it. This is the location God personally delivered to this production."
Rapid shouting. The sound of equipment being assembled.
Sakura emerged from below squinting, Kushina materializing beside her in a matching state of underdress.
Overnight, an iceberg had drifted to a stop directly in front of the ship. Large, sculpted by wind and wave, radiating a cold blue light in the early morning.
"Sakura," Kushina said quietly, looking at it.
"There's chakra residue on that iceberg."
Sakura looked at her. Then at the iceberg. Then back at the production crew already loading equipment into dinghies.
"Let everyone know — going ashore. Keep the crew safe."
Kushina's expression said something like you're treating this like a B-rank mission when it clearly isn't, and she was absolutely right about that.
"It's fine," Sakura said.
"I've got it."
She patted Kushina once on the head, the same way she'd done with Naruto, and went to get her sandals.
The group boarded with the crew — minus Hikaru, who stayed on the ship, sleeping.
She wasn't a Konoha shinobi. She'd come for the trip.
It was the furthest she'd ever traveled in her life, and she intended to enjoy every moment of it at her own pace.
☆☆☆
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