#also i am using a different computer from normal so there might be Weird Typos that are not my usual brand of Weird Typo

[mixelation]

here i wrote more reborn au. this is the beginning of The Wave Arc Debacle as described previously. sakura POV

Sakura was shaking as the hunter-nin made off with Zabuza's body. She hoped no one could tell. 

There were a few moments of tension, all of them at attention as they watched the young man retreat. Then suddenly it was like Kakashi sagged over, his posture bending inward. That was everyone else’s cue it was alright: Naruto and Sasuke and even Tazuna immediately and visibly relaxed. 

“Okay,” Kakashi-sensei said, panting, limped-kneed and more exhausted than Sakura knew a Jounin could be. “I’m going to show you a secret technique. Only Naruto can learn this one.”

Naruto, despite all odds, perked up. Then Kakashi-sensei produced a three-pronged kunai and Naruto immediately deflated. 

“Oh, c’mon,” he mumbled. “My first C-rank, too…”

Sakura opened her mouth to ask what this technique was, but the Hokage was in front of them before she could get more than a word out. He seemed just as tense as they had been moments ago, eyes flicking around for danger, and Sakura snapped to attention. Behind her, Tazuna sounded as if he’d just choked on air. 

“What’s wrong?” Hokage-sama demanded. He aimed his command at Kakashi-sensei, but Sakura noted he was eyeing Naruto up and down out of the corners of his eyes. 

Of course, Sakura decided. Hokage-sama would obviously assume him being summoned meant his son was in danger. Most ninja couldn’t just summon Hokage-sama at whim if their missions went bad. But clearly Naruto would always get favoritism, even if Kakashi-sensei and Hokage-sama promised he wouldn’t, and even if Naruto himself got all bristly at the idea.

“The mission might have gone a teensy-weensy bit… wrong?” Kakashi provided. 

Tazuna shifted nervously. 

Kakashi-sensei’s report was short and succinct, skipping a lot of details to only hammer home the important parts. Hokage-sama tilted his head back, glancing over at Tazuna a few times. 

“I have every right to pull my shinobi out and detain you until you pay the price of an A-rank,” Hokage-sama told Tazuna finally. 

Tazuna held his gaze, consciously stopping his nervous shuffling. Sakura wondered if she could be that brave, if Hokage-sama told her off. 

“Oh, c’mon!” Naruto yelled, louder this time. “He couldn’t pay more because of this Gato asshole–”

Hokage-sama raised an eyebrow. 

“--this Gato jerk, and it’d be totally unfair if we didn’t help him just cuz he’s poor right now.” Naruto pointed determinedly at Tazuna. “I mean, he’s a jerk too, but at least he’s trying to help people.”

Hokage-sama studied naruto for a few moments, and Sakura wondered if Naruto was going to be told yet again that he needed to speak to his father like he was the Hokage when he was on the job. Instead, he sighed heavily, and a tiny smile tugged at his lips. 

“Kakashi,” he said, “you confirmed Zabuza’s death?”

Hokage-sama told them it was up to them if they wanted to continue or not. Naruto and Sasuke immediately said they wanted to. 

“Sakura?” Hokage-sama asked, and Sakura felt her cheeks go hot. She wondered if anyone would actually take her opinion into account if she said no. 

“Um, well…” That had been terrifying. But she did want to help Tazuna’s village; helping people wasn’t why she signed up to be a shinobi, but wanting to be a protector like Ino was certainly part of why she stayed. “Yes,” she said finally. “I want to stay too.”

After all, A-rank missing-nin were rare. What were the odds another one would show up?

“Alright,” Hokage-sama agreed. “I really can’t be teleporting around willy-nilly, though. I’ll send back up. Hold on…”

Hokage-sama patted himself down, eventually pulling a random piece of sealing paper out of a pocket. He handed it to Kakashi-sensei. 

 “Is that…” Kakashi started, eyeing it warily. 

“She’ll be here in a few minutes,” Hokage-sama answered cheerfully. Then he was gone. 

Kakashi stared down at the piece of paper, defeated. 

“What’s going on?” Sasuke asked. 

“This is from Tori,” Kakashi said flatly, like that explained anything. 

“Oh,” Sasuke replied. He didn’t sound thrilled. Even Naruto made a face. Sakura had never heard of anyone called Tori at all. 

Sakura concentrated very hard on not fidgeting. She hated when the team got like this: all three of them knowing something she didn’t. It made her feel like even more of an outsider. 

Tori turned out to be a teenaged girl. She appeared out of nowhere, much like Hokage-sama, although she teetered uncertainly at her landing, her arms windmilling. She was wearing a pink tank top with lacy straps that Sakura thought was a bit cute, tucked into a baggy pair of black standard-issue slacks. A belt with a handful of scrolls was at her waist, but she wore no weapons pouch. A convenience store bag swung from her hand. 

“Hey!” she greeted, once she was balanced again. “So what, uh– what are we doing?”

“He didn’t tell you?” Kakashi-sensei asked, voice stressed. 

“No?” Tori replied. “I was literally buying lunch.”

She held up the bag. 

“Ah, well,” Kakashi-sensei replied, swaying in place. “Unfortunately for you, I’m about to pass out.”

And then he did. 

“Oi, oi,” Tori yelled, diving forward to catch him. “What the fuck?”

Sakura winced at the language. It wasn’t that she was offended; it was that this was basically giving Naruto free reign to swear as much as he wanted. 

Tori laid Kakashi-sensei out in the grass, assuring them she was “technically” a medic, which was an oddly ominous way to word it. Naruto attempted to fill her in on their mission as she poked chakra into Kakashi. His story wheeled around in a disorganized fashion, the way all Naruto’s stories did. 

“No offense, kid,” Tori told him. “But you’re not really making any sense. Anyone else want to try?”

After only a moment of hesitation, Sakura stepped forward. She described their mission objective and then the series of events and decisions that led them to the current circumstances. Tori nodded along, eventually standing and pulling a packaged curry bread out of her bag. 

“Interesting,” she said, taking a bite of her bread. “So are we in Wave?”

“We’re close to the crossing,” Tazuna replied. “Do you… do you not know where you are?”

Tori blinked back innocently at him, shoving more bread into her mouth. 

Tori finished her bread, assured them Kakashi was just chakra-exhausted, and then pulled out an apple. Tazuna volunteered his home to them, and Tori directed Naruto and Sasuke to carry Kakashi between them. 

“If you mess it up,” she said, smiling at them, “he’ll feel it when he wakes up.”

She produced a can of some sort of sparkling juice drink from the convenience store bag. It fizzed over its side when she popped the top. 

Sakura assumed Naruto and Sasuke got put with Kakashi because they were boys. As it turned out, Tori wanted Sakura by her side so she could quiz her on details of their fights. She wanted to know everything the Demon Brothers and Zabuza had said, whether it seemed important or not, and what techniques they’d used and what strategies they seemed to be implementing. 

Being a ninja involves so much information, Sakura thought. She had a very good memory, luckily. She had a lot to say. 

“Zaubza had no pulse,” Sakura explained twice for Tori on how they knew he was dead. “Kakashi-sensei checked.”

Tori was squinting off into the distance, like she was doing a complex math problem in her head. Her hair was tied back in a loose braid, but over the course of their trip, several curls had escaped and now framed her face at strange angles. Sakura couldn’t decide if it was pretty or not. 

Striking, Sakura finally decided. Only one-third of shinobi graduates were girls, and the proportion of kunoichi got smaller and smaller as rank increased. There had to be something amazing about Tori if she was a Special Jounin at her age. If she wasn’t pretty, she had to be something.

“But the hunter-nin took the body? You’re sure of it?” Tori asked. Sakura nodded. “Did you see what part of the neck he hit? With the senbon?”

Sakura hadn’t really seen much of the specific attack, but she could narrow it down to a side and a general area. Tori’s lips thinned. 

“Does that mean something?” Sakura asked. 

“Maybe,” Tori allowed. 

Wave was… wet, and smelled like wet garbage. It looked like it might have been pretty once, but the buildings and roads had suffered years of disrepair. Whatever waste collection had once been in place was gone or inadequate now, and rubbish clogged the drains and caused gross, stinky puddles to form in the cracks of what was left of the pavement. People looked at them with distrustful eyes, even with Tazuna there. 

Tazuna’s house was the same. It was probably comfortable once, but lost roof tiles and cracked windows had not been replaced. Someone had been maintaining the yard, but the vegetable plot was pathetic in the number of plants it contained versus the size delineated by a low stone wall. The inside was roomy, but the rugs were threadbare and there was much less furniture than the size would allow. 

Tazuna’s daughter, Tsunami, apologized again and again that they only had one guest room. 

“Inari can sleep with me,” she offered, “so the young ladies–”

Tori held up a hand. “Aw, don’t kick the kid out of his room. We shinobi don’t care about gender like that.”

This was a lie– Sakura felt like the only time her being a girl didn’t matter was when people were telling her off for noticing it did matter– but it made Tsunami hesitate. Tori flashed her teeth reassuringly. 

“Besides, Kakashi and I are basically siblings,” she said. 

The statement made Naruto wrinkle his nose, and Sakura felt there was a joke there she didn’t quite get. 

They rolled Kakashi out onto one of the thin futons Tsunami left them, and Tori poked him with more chakra while Naruto very haphazardly tossed a blanket over him. Sakura did her best to chide him with her eyes while she fixed it. 

“I think he’ll be awake by morning,” Tori decided, sitting back on her heels. “Make sure he eats something when he wakes, even if it’s just broth.” She frowned. “Even if he insists he’s fine.”

Tori then sat back on her butt and started unrolling scrolls and pulling out little jars of ink. 

“What are you doing?” Sakura asked curiously. 

“I was interrupted during my lunch break for a lab shift, so I don’t have any weapons on me. I’m going to see what I have sealed away,” Tori replied. 

“Aren’t shinobi always supposed to have weapons on them?” Sasuke wondered. 

“Technically, yes,” Tori replied. Then she pointed accusingly at him. “Ask your brother what I can do without them, though.”

Tori explained that she kept weapons stored away “just in case,” and all she needed to do was remember which storage seal to draw. Sakura was… well, right up until this moment, she had been sure this was not how storage seals worked, because you couldn’t put a kunai in one scroll and expect to retrieve the same kunai from another scroll. But neither Naruto nor Sasuke blinked an eye, and a few minutes later, Tori had a pile of metal in front of her. 

“What are you going to do with all of those?” Sasuke asked. 

“What are we doing to help you?” Naurot asked, excitement in his eyes. 

“You three are going to watch over Tazuna and Kakashi,” Tori said calmly, picking up a bent kunai and turning it over with a tiny frown on her face. “Hokage-sama didn’t give me any specific instructions except to babysit you while Kakashi is down, but it seems to me…” 

She dropped the bent kunai and picked up another one and then another. 

“It seems to me the easiest way to solve this is to just assassinate Gato.”

[kawaiianimeredhead]

Oh right I wanted to rant. Im still on my phone so there might be typos but oh well

Edit: this got way longer and rambly than I expected oops. I hope this read more works, i never actually checked yesterday when I used it to see if it still worked on mobile so if it doesnt oops and sorry

Anyways. In september a new company took over our contract and thats a whole rant on its own. The previous lead (my dad but not important) left before the new company came and he left Sam in charge. Sam has been there for like four or five years and he's a pretty good guy. When the new cobtract started he was very quickly overwhelmed with the bs and also with the paper abd computer stuff he had to do so he stepped down. Hes still there and actually was still in charge for a bit after he stepped down because we didnt have a new lead.

And now we do have a new lead. This was apparently a Process from what ive heard. Nobody really wanted the job and im not sure how the Boss from the company even went about hiring but i heard that a couple people he considered weren't interested and then I was told that someone was hired or was going to be hired and quick before she even started. I heard these from two differenr people because one told me she qas being walked around and woukd start soon and another said she wasnt coming a day or so later. Someone was hired though and the first night he was there so was the Boss showing him around kinda. I spoke with him a bit and he seemed nice. Def better than the Boss who I cant stand beinf around for long hes got weird and annoying vibes around him.

None of this is actually particularly relevant or necessary for this rant but it came out anyways.

So this new lead has tried all thr different shifts/jobs out and and has been with us for like a month or so now maybe? The first schedule he was properly scheduled on was such a SHIT week/schedule because I went from working 5-4 days a week to 3 and instead of doing bathrooms which is 3 hours or 4 depending on if I'm also doing trash to working 2 hours one day, 2 or 3 the next, and 3 or 4 the last. And it sucks. Then, the first schedule to come out that he made (with the help of the Boss) had ALL of us on less days and hours and HE now working every day but one and working both in the morning AND at night. Now I'm not convinced this was soley his decision because I know he made this schedule with the Boss and i have a suspicion that the Boss encouraged him or persuaded him or some other kind of bull shit to do the schedule like this. And then the week after was the same schedule copied again and this week coming up is the same minus a few small changes.

Now all this is annoying and bull shit on its own but not even the main fuel to this rambling rant. With this schedule, hes scheduled to clean the bathrooms and trash every day except Sunday, which is when I am scheduled on them. Last week was the first week of this and besides the day I'm specificed to do bathrooms im not given a specific job. Imbonly told to do "extras" so ive asked Sam and hes told me to do offices one day and some windows the other. I come in Saturday ready to do the windows which ive been dying to do because they look awful and they used to be my Thing so I get really annoyed about them often but then I notice the trash hadnt been done. So I start doing that thinking maybe that was what I was supposed to be doing. Then while doing this I notice the main breakroom doesnt look particularly clean, breakrooms are a part of the bathroom persons job. This was annoying but because it wasnt Bad I left it. I then go to the next break room which is smaller and always messier because more people stay in it for longer, this one also looked dirtier than it should be. In addition, the bathroom's trash hadnt beeb taken out which is a part of the bathroom job. Bathroom trash is separate from trash trash as far as jobs go, theyre usually done together but if someone is doinf "extras" and someone else bathrooms, bathrooms normally gets bathroom trash abd extras the rest. Something felt really off about the bathroom as well and combined with the breakdowns I had a suspicion that bathrooms hadnt been done. So I decided to check the costumer bathrooms for their trash and their cleanliness. When I got there they absolutely had not been done. Which ! I hadn't planned for. I was taking my time on trash and now I had to do bathroom s.

Nobody had been called or texted about the lead not being at work. And he absolutely has our numbers. We used to sign in on a time sheet and that would have helped us noticed but we recently got a finger print time clock which, as far as I know, we cant check other peoples hours on. So we had no fucking clue he just hadnt been in the previous night.

Then this week comes along. Friday talking with Sam he mentioned something along the lines of not checking the bathrooms. Mentioning that its not really our fault if we dont abd they havent been done because since were not scheduled for them, we have no reason to assume they wouldnt be done. So I hadnt looked in the bathrooms but I did notice the break room looked a bit messy and which had me a bit concerned about a repeat of the previous week. But I didnt wanna do them and I knew Sam didnt either so I left it be but texted nick to ask if hed seen the lead the previous night. Nick confirmed hed been in and was seen cleaning the bathrooms. Yesterday, I briefly looked into the main break room and it looked not great, and then later I went to the bathroom in the smaller breakroom's bathroom (they have really nice soap they buy themselves thats not really importantto this tho) and noticed that one looked AWFUL. It absolutly hadnt been swept and I felt bad but it wasnt what I was scheduled for so I just kinda left it... Their bathroom also had 1ply toilet paper in it, which is what we had when the company first took over it its AWFUL everyone complained so we switched but the unused rolls are still in our closet. Nobody told our new lead this so he had put some of this in the bathrooms. Then later on in the morning, I noticed several trash cans had stuff in it. Not trash but like residue from trash? Like sticky spots of soda oe coffee, some gum, things like that. Basically things that pointed to him only dumping out the trash and not changing the bag. The bags dont always get changed everyday, thats not really an issue, but if theres something still kinda in them they normally are changed because thats gross and why would it just be left like that... I also noticed that up front by the entrance door none of the trash had been got. The busiest area for trash (from customers) and it was still ! There! And I had actually heard Friday or last Friday that this wasnt the first time. Again I left it because I had other things to do.

Now this morning. I worked bathrooms and trash. Trash went ok, I changed a lot of the bags becsuse I prefer to do it regardless and it was just normal overall. Then bathrooms. The bathroom cart is a mess. Which started my mood. The top is all unorganized and theres dirty water in the mop bucket. When I went go get new water, I had set the mop off to the side assuming it had already veen run out and dried because it had been in the part of the bucket where you ring it out and it had been there since yesterday morning. I finished filling the bucket and then look over and notice the puddle forming under the mop because my assumption had been wrong and worse, it smelled like pee. ! Carring on The first two bathrooms were ok, not great but fine. Then I got to the main breakroom and noticed itd clearly been cleaned, Sam worked the day shift Saturday so I assume he swept and mopped. I also swept and mopped. Then, the small break room. Sam didnt clean this one. Which is fair on his part because I think throughout the whole day at least one or more people are sitting in it with no time for someone to clean. So I start and its just the whole thing, even the bathroom floor, was so bad. Aside from the floor the bathroom part was ok, but the floor really didnt seem to have been swept. And the main floor absolutely hadnt been swept. This was obvious from the start but it kept making me madder and madder as I swept and saw how much trash was on the floor. It absolutely put me behind because I wanted to get as much as I could. The cutomer bathrooms also looked pretty bad which is had to tell who thats on, but wheb I got to them it was apparent somethibg else I hadnt fully thought of as a problem until then. Behind all the toilets, like on then but behidb the seat part, there was so much DUST. I had noticed before in the other bathrooms but didnt really think about it because of things plus i see the dust more often collect in the orher bathrooms than that one for some reason and I didnt even realize this but because it was something New in the costumer bathroom it was really noticeable now. Which made ne even madder. Its not hard to clean, were supposed to be cleaning the toilet seats anyways so getting just behind them isnt anything!

And its just so aggrivating. The longer at work i was this morning the more it pissed me off. Especially because in addition to what I was seeing, the things I had heard from others over the last couple of weeks started piling on.

With my own eyes i had seen how bad the cart had been and from sam I heard that the water in the bucket had been in there all week, he suspected that he wasnt changing it. He also commented on the rags all over the cart thinking that he wasnt using paper towels to clean and instead used the rags. I heard about how a couple of times now hed forgotten or ignore the front trash cans and some others. I heard from someone in the meat room that when he cleans it he doesnt do that grear a job and even broke a couple small things. Which is all very concerning to hear since thats a fucking sanitation issue!? And I heard from nick yesterday that he thinks that the lead isnt cleaning all thw bathrooms every day and is instead only cleaning them when they look dirty. Which I'm a bit inclinded to believe because the underside of some of the seats seemed much dirtier than id expected.

And its all infuriating! The Boss is the one who showed him all the jobs, none of us showed him any of what we do it was all the Boss. So like, did HE tell the lead not to do this or that? To do some of it to save time? I dont know but some of it is common sense regardless of what hes beeb told hes still fucking it up and hes our fucking boss. And the main one doing everything!

The store hasnt looked as clean from the start of this new contract and now it's even worse and its awful!

And I dont have a way to end this rant it got really long snd feels like it needs a good closer but I dont have one...