#he can do the rasengan

[inavagrant-a]

"Y'know, there was a more sparsely used ability among Anemo users I've come across in my time. Are you familiar with a technique called the Rasengan?"

Oh? Tetsuya holds his hand out and focuses all of his anemo energy in the heart of his palm. "Per chance, do you speak of this?" Yes he's showing off.

[orcelito]

FINALLY SEEING IT IN PERSON

THE LEGENDARY MOMENT. THE JUTSU NARUTO HAS "SECRETLY PRACTICING MORE THAN THE RASENGAN"

THE REVERSE HAREM JUTSU...!!!!!!

The reactions are SO fucking funny. Especially Sakura's hfkshfmsbd

"There's no way that jutsu will work on someone so god-like!" "It worked?!"

The fact that Naruto's gag jutsu makes an appearance in the finale, but NOT ONLY THAT, he's been practicing the sexy men version of this jutsu in secret. Truly embodying who Naruto is as a person hfkshfks the #1 most unpredictable ninja to the end!!!!!!

[mayskalih]

I chose nations based on the techniques: Sakura can easily crush the ground, Naruto's rasengan is air, Sasuke masters fire and lightning, and Kakashi can do them all, so to keep the balance - he's a (very hot) waterbender.

[brighteuphony]

On the way back from Tea Country with Chakra-poisoned Kakashi tryna "casually" fish for some info before Sakura comes in with the one-hit KO on accident.

So she's got some complicated feelings for Kakashi as well, though they're a lot milder than what she feels about Sasuke.

There's a moment in my AU where Sakura goes through a deep reflection ritual, in which she has to face Inner Sakura -who is representative of all the ugly truths her day-to-day self hasn't been able to face- and come to terms with who she is.

During that time, she's got to face the music.

The music:

Sasuke is the last prodigal son of a clan that was brutally butchered. He's a genius with one of the most powerful dojutsu out there (that he has no idea how to use) and is coming in hot with more baggage than an airport terminal.

Naruto is not normal. She doesn't know what he is (as in-canon, she finds out after the time-skip and the Sakura from above is right on the cusp of Shippuden), but there's nothing normal about a kid who can pull wild orange chakra and who can fight Gaara's tailed beast and come out on top. He's got the personal attention of the Hokage, but the entire village has banded against him for some reason. He's special.

Kakashi is a war veteran turned Jounin and an infamous ANBU captain (I headcanon that some ANBU names are leaked specifically to generate a healthy level of fear/caution among other villages- which is why we know of Itachi/Kakashi/Shisui very publically) and is ALSO the last prodigal son of an old noble clan.

(No way a bookworm like Sakura didn't consume every publically available scroll on Konoha clans).

It doesn't take the big brains to figure out that he got team 7 specifically to help deal with Sasuke's trauma/teach him about the Sharingan, and put a leash on Naruto (and in the future, when she finds out that Madara was able to control the Kyuubi with the Sharingan as well as the knowledge that Kakashi was Minato's student it becomes even clearer why he got the Sasuke/Naruto combo.)

And Sakura? Sakura is a civilian. No clan, no dojutsu, nothing to her name except great chakra control. She's the literal meat in the meat-grinder of the military machine of Konoha, the acceptable sacrifice in a group of otherwise invaluable shinobi. She's just a...girl. (And it doesn't help that she was obsessed with Sasuke instead of training, furthering the gulf between her and Kakashi.)

Kakashi was absolutely not built to handle her- in fact, Kakashi has NO idea how to relate who hasn't gone through a mountain's worth of trauma or someone who hasn't been ingrained in the shinobi-as-a-tool lifestyle, and even then, he's not fully equipped to handle people who have (lmao Sasuke). Not to mention the man is a prodigy- he has no idea how to teach people who have to work hard to get somewhere in life. How do you teach someone if you've never had to 'work hard' to get there yourself?

So, Sakura understands that Kakashi was put in one of the most ridiculous situations of his career- a situation he had NO idea how to handle. She can forgive him for that. BUT, she can't forgive him for not trying his best.

Sakura spent a lot of time coming to terms with the fact that she rushed into the Chidori/Rasengan combo without a single idea of what she would do, but...Kakashi was a big reason for that.

She was HIS responsibility, and he fumbled that bag. Whatever his reasoning, whether it was to 'protect' her, or whether he thought she was worthless, whatever: he should have TRIED.

Kakashi was an adult with resources aplenty. He recognized that she had stellar chakra control but never bothered to teach her genjutsu or direct her to teachers who could pick up the slack.

And after the accident, he abandoned her again. Being forgotten in lieu of Sasuke and Naruto hurt...but she could heal. Being abandoned as some kind of martyr to Kakashi's failures as a teacher? It's gonna take a while for Kakashi to make that up to her...if he can muster the courage to face her.

Sakura finally understands why he preferred the memorial stone to the living. He already failed the dead, and it's easier to wallow in self-flagellation than it is to try and step up for the living.

Sakura stopped being a coward some time ago, and when Kakashi finally does the same, she'll forgive him.

Thank you so much for sticking with this wall of text! And thank you so much anon for the question! Once again, I really appreciate all the kind words people have been throwing my way. <3 <3 <3

[dark-konohagakure2]

Can you do incest of kushina and minato training their small daughter to handle seducing villains that she can’t defeat.

tw: incest, father/daughter, mother/daughter, dubcon, size difference, infantilization, minakushi, butt plugs, anal training, blowjobs, praise, manipulation

All characters depicted are 18+

Minato and Kushina are very protective parents, especially of their daughter. She's always has been a tiny little thing her entire life, even as an adult she's small and helpless, and yet she still wants to be a shinobi despite all of that. Neither of the parents are exactly eager to have their babygirl go off and do dangerous work while being so small and weak looking, and without any proper training too. She doesn't know how to use any of her mother's Uzumaki Clan techniques, nor can she use any of her father's jutsu, but her parents agree to let her pursue her career on one condition: she let's them teach her some negotiation techniques.

Kushina has a few special 'ninja tools' that they can use for the training session, of course her innocent daughter has no idea what any of these toys are, but Kushina is gentle in explaining it to her, letting her know that these tools will help her with her currently very low endurance, and that they can start with the smallest one. Before the youngest Uzumaki can even ask what her mother means by any of that, Kushina is already lubing up the smallest plug and gently forcing it against her daughter's untouched rim.

While watching her squirm and whine is adorable, neither of them want their darling daughter to be scared and confused, so they'll gently explain to her the apparent reason for this perverse training. She isn't like her older brother, she doesn't have a Tailed Beast or a Rasengan that she can rely on when faced with powerful enemies, not to mention she's short and frail, so she can't beat up her opponents, instead she'll have to use that cute body of her's to get her out of sticky situations.

Kushina will up the ante on the girl's training, eventually replacing the smaller plug's with somewhat bigger ones until her body is able to adjust to larger penetrations. The red haired woman will let her sweet daughter know just how proud her mommy and daddy are of her progress, and how if she keeps this up she might just be the strongest kunoichi in the entire Leaf Village in no time.

"Good girl! I knew you could do it! And since you're such a big girl now, why don't we let Daddy join in on this little training session of ours~?"

Minato is more than ready and willing to help his daughter with her endurance training, and he'd be lying if he said that seeing his beautiful wife and daughter together in such a way didn't turn him on immensely. Kushina has already got the anal training covered, so Minato decides to giver his daughter some help on the other end by using her mouth.

He's going to be gentle about it of course, Minato can't stand even the mere thought of causing his sweet daughter any harm, he'll be slow and soft as he pushes his leaking cockhead past her plump lips, letting her get accustomed to the size and taste before slowly forcing more and more inches down her throat until he hits bottom.

Kushina won't let her slack on her backdoor training either, helping her adjust to the sensations or having two out of her three holes filled up courtesy of her parents. Maybe one day they'll help stretch out that sweet little cunt of hers, but for now her task is to take Daddy's cock down her throat while Mommy improves her delicate hole's capacity.

Their teachings might be long and hard, but the Uzumaki parents will insist that it'll be worth it in the end when she's charming her way out of an impossible fight in the future. Minato will especially let his daughter know how good a job she's doing at taking his cock all the way in and how proud he is of her as a father, even as he's cumming down her throat.

"Th-That's our good girl... Your training is done for today... But if you really want some more advanced training then you can always come to me and Mommy's room if you'd like..."

It's bittersweet for the couple to see their little girl already so grown up so fast, she's become an adult already before their very eyes, but it's not all sad, now that she's a big girl, her parents are better able to show her how much they truly care about her education.

[phantomchick]

Naruto and being the Underdog

Okay so recently I was discussing naruto's characterisation in the comments section of a fanfic and the author was explaining that they don't like/never vibed with Naruto's character (which is totally fair). But then they explained how they felt the supposed underdog setup was contrived and didn't really work because Naruto never actually starts at zero thanks to his jinchuriki powers and being the yondaime's son. (And so here I am, on my soapbox to discuss how Naruto and the concept of being an underdog relate.)

On a physical level perhaps this applies, but Naruto places an equal (if not larger) amount of focus on the emotional action as it does on its plot action.

On an emotional level he has to work for each and every one of his personal relationships.

He wants to be hokage a role he can only take if he is both respected by his village and powerful enough to protect it. It''s a twofold goal. And in terms of the social aspect this is clearly stacked against him due to the hatred and exploitation of jinchuriki as well as shinobi in general, achieving emotional connection and dialogue between people who are used to might makes right or who are pre-disposed to look down on him or want to kill him puts him firmly at a disadvantage narratively.

With the notable exception of Hinata whose love is unconditional, whether it's Tsunade, Neji, Sasuke or Gaara or even Kurama the respect and attention that naruto craves are things he actively pursues in both good and bad ways and he earns them through his own effort.

He does this both by striving to understand these very different people and where they're coming from as well as surviving all the shit the world throws at him. Emotional and physical tasks.

In terms of being a jinchuriki and getting the rasengan easily thanks to his shadow clone bullshit / birthright connections to the yondaime It must first be acknowledged that the jinchuriki power is more of a disadvantage than a boon to him at first. First, because of kurama actively going out of his way to mess with his chakra control as a kid while doing the leaf exercise he was unable to learn the regular clone jutsu; it also results in him experiencing the trauma of discrimination and isolation from a young age which could easily have led to festering self-hatred and alienation if not for Iruka's intervention, it results in multiple S ranks who are fully capable of killing even shippuden level Naruto targetting him, and while the trade-off of boundless energy and survive-ability is immense those same boundless resources have the potential to burn him alive if he loses emotional control/gives into his most negative emotions - that's basically making the subtext text at that point, the story is about his emotional development and growth, something his "OP buffs" don't earn for him. Let's talk about boundless chakra resources for a moment. At the end of the original series, he only knows the rasengan; the rasenshuriken, the shadow clone justu and sage mode/yinyang mode by the end of the series and that's like 5 justu tops if we're counting yin/yang/bijuu mode and sage mode as jutsu. The majority of what he learned from jiraiya for three years seemed to be taijutsu only with a side of failed bijuu control. Naruto has his jinchuriki chakra from the start but that doesn't translate to an ability to use it, he has to spend hours working out how to do the shadow clone, he did not figure out how to do the jutsu because of his chakra even if that was the reason he was able to use it at all, and when it comes to the rasengan I will cite [someone who deleted their reddit account] here:

Naruto completed the first stage in three days and one night. He figured out how his chakra needed to move to burst the water balloon (thanks to a cat) but because he didn't have the necessary chakra control, he improvised by using another hand. He completed the second stage in three weeks or so. The next day(?), Jiraiya gave him a hint to improve his focus which allowed him to finally complete it. And the third stage was completed seven days later to win his bet with Tsunade. Once again, Naruto didn't have the control to focus his chakra the correct way despite his continuous efforts. It wasn't until he came up with another improvised method by using a shadow clone to focus the chakra that he was able to complete the final stage.

Meaning he is the one who comes up with unorthodox methods, such as also using his other hand, or using a shadow clone to focus the chakra, to learn it in four and a half weeks but he still had to figure out how to do it all himself. The shadow clone would've been useless without his understanding of the jutsu or his ability to do the individual parts of the jutsu. He earns the jutsu and could conceivably have learned it the old fashioned way were he not under an artificial time limit as both Jiraiya and Kakashi, both without jinchuriki power, know it and can use it.

Now I'll talk about his supposed privilege as the yondaime's child: Sasuke gets chidori and later kirin thanks to HIS connections but that's never remarked on in the same way. And in fact most people in the naruto-verse learn a big jutsu from their clan or parent; see Might Gai, the genius of hard work, learning the eight gates thanks to his father. The rasenshuriken is something he's only capable of learning thanks to his chakra and shadow clones I hear you quote Kakashi, but it's again, something he couldn't do without actually putting the work in to learn the jutsu. Naruto is on a time crunch because of Akatsuki, the fact he is capable of learning the jutsu once he has advice on wind chakra from Asuma and has practiced forming the rasengan and doing windblades enough means he didn't need the extra chakra to do it, having the chakra didn't automatically make him capable of the rasenshuriken all it did was speed up his chakra control practice exponentially, it would have taken him more time practicing but he could have learned the jutsu eventually even if he wasn't a jinchuriki. Now summons. Being the Yondaime's child might get him an in with Jiraiya to let him have the toad contract, but Sakura and Sasuke also get summoning contracts thanks to personal connections with Tsunade and Orochimaru and Jiraiya only gets him the opportunity. It's Naruto who has to use his willpower to stay on Gamabunta's back and it's Naruto who has to form relationships with his summons like Gamakichi, (a bond that becomes instrumental toward the end of the 4th war). Additionally learning Sage mode wasn't just a result of Naruto getting the contract because neither Sasuke nor Sakura achieved it despite both having contracts (and despite Kabuto managing it where Sasuke didn't) Sasuke with the Hawks as well as the Snakes. And importantly Naruto was unable to use clones or his extra chakra to speed up his training in this. In fact the clones only come into it after he has successfully mastered sage mode and function as a limited extra resource that's can't go beyond three shadow clones meditating and this doesn't function as more sage powah but as a means of extending his sage modes duration, a workaround that's only needed because his being a jinchuriki gets in the way of him gathering sage mode in real-time with the toads on him. In conclusion while his chakra lets him practice jutsu to learn them faster, this is not the case in either his sage mode or the yin yang release and only applies to the shadow clone, rasengan and rasenshuriken - all of which he had to actually learn and understand the mechanics of otherwise the jutsu wouldn't have worked no matter how many shadow clones he had try it and that with the exception of shadow clone he demonstrably could've learned them without being a jinchuriki. And in the case of rasengan and rasenshuriken he is under artificial time-limits imposed by Orochimaru and the Akatsuki.

So that's shadow clone, rasengan, rasenshuriken and sage mode covered but what about bijuu mode. An overpowered special mode he only gets for being a jinchuriki, that B only bothers to teach him because he's a jinchuriki, surely that's LEGIT op bullshit. No? No. At least not in comparison to the Sakura's forehead seal from Tsunade, Sasuke's Mangekyou abilities like izanagi, giant purple warrior and amaterasu, Obito's mokuton, Madara's sage of six paths abilities or the rinnegan's everything, anyway. Not to mention what the edo tensei are capable of.

The only reason bijuu mode works is that he earns Kurama's regard on an emotional level, it's not something which being a kage's kid or having jinchuriki chakra levels actually does fuck all to contribute to. He was that all along but Kurama still hated him and tried to take over his body. It's Naruto himself who has to reach out and make that effort to understand this person who he's always seen as a burden or a curse or an annoying tenant who doesn't pay rent, a monster who tries to kill him and take his body. It's Naruto who has to put in the emotional labour and see Kurama as a person, no matter the harm he's done.

Naruto is the underdog in spite of being "the chosen one" and having the strongest bijuu and a kage father because emotional labour is never easy and in a world like his it seems insane to even try. It's why everyone except him was prepared to give up on Sasuke, Naruto recognises his anger at Itachi and desire to avenge his family as valid, Naruto when he finds out the truth about Itachi from Danzo tells Sasuke he gets it, why he wants to destroy the village, why he's so angry, when Sasuke changes his mind and decides to become hokage instead of destroying it so he can change it, Naruto understands WHY even if he still wants to be kage himself. The problem with Sasuke is that his anger is self-destructive and self-isolating, not that it exists, it's when Naruto fights him one last time and makes Sasuke realise that he's only hurting himself and his loved ones at this point, that "talk no jutsu" finally works and Sasuke is able to listen to Naruto and come home.

It's also why Naruto earns being hokage; in a world full of killers, someone who is capable of acknowledging the harm done and not ignoring or forgetting it (like how he tells pain he can't forgive him), but who is also capable of looking past that and understanding the motivations and feelings of the person he's dealing with and talking to them on that level as equals hits so hard. It just felt like a fantastic set up for a diplomatic hokage capable of dealing with other kages and achieving a peace in spite of the fact they're all to the last, untrustworthy ninja mercenaries who are generally very ends justify the means. In a world of kill or be killed Naruto is still willing to kill, but he's also willing to understand and to talk. And he wasn't born with that, he worked for it and failed often, especially with Sasuke, it was never easy, it often appeared hopeless but he kept trying.

And we rooted for him because of it.

[sueske]

sp completely missed the point of vote2. vote2 was a 'battle' between naruto and sasuke only, yet for some reason sp tried to bring outsiders into it. and they also took liberties and made other changes too.

in the manga sasuke screams as he punches naruto. it's a callback to vote1 - "can you kill me calmly sasuke?" because sasuke can't kill naruto calmly. it's also sasuke taking out his hatred on naruto (kage summit arc callback) as naruto lets sasuke take his anger out on him. but for some reason sp took the decision to silence sasuke during the anime version of this scene.

sp made a show of naruto dropping his leaf headband and seeing his eyes reflected in metal alongside sasuke's chidori, when in the manga we don't even see when naruto loses the headband. the anime even made a show of naruto putting the headband back in his pocket (wow... all the symbolism here). but in the manga naruto keeps constant eye contact with sasuke with the narrator saying 'there's no escaping those eyes'. 

again, vote2 is naruto and sasuke, not naruto and sasuke and everyone else. all those additions to naruto and sasuke's rasengan and chidroi were for what exactly? kishimoto even put kurama asleep inside naruto because their emotional heart to heart in 698 was just between THEM. 

in the anime naruto lamented the fact that he broke the promise to tsunade, saying how he wouldn't die before he became hokage. but again this did not happen in the manga. it was reiterated by naruto throughout the series that sasuke was more of a priority than becoming hokage, to the point that during the kage summit arc naruto looked relieved and happy at the prospect of dying together with sasuke.

in the manga sasuke never referred to naruto as a brother in any capacity, yet for some reason sp thought it prudent for sasuke to say this, even though from vote1 sasuke knew it was nothing like that from the start?

maybe it's sp that doesn't get it... or maybe they do and that's the problem.

so I think this scene can be interpreted in a few ways actually... but from the way I see it (and I'll give sp the benefit of the doubt here), it shows how after everything there is still a sasuke-shaped space next to naruto - the camera zooms in on them together, it's this that affects sasuke. but this scene still rubs me the wrong way because of the way it's set up and the implication of sasuke being affected by joining in with all the other konoha pals. it's been made clear many many times that, after everything, it's only naruto that matters to sasuke to the point that he needs to kill him to be truly alone. no one else factors in here. sasuke also doesn't care what everyone else thinks. and even for naruto, the fact of the matter is, even with all those konoha pals standing behind him, it's only sasuke that would make naruto turn his back on everything. putting sasuke on the same level as everyone else doesn't sit right. they even put tobirama in there...

sp completely dropped the ball on this. vote2 was the promised fight from the kage summit arc - "if we die you won't be an uchiha and I won't be a jinchuuriki - we'll meet again in the afterlife". vote2 was literally them on the brink of death trying to understand each other, too beat up to even move their bodies... all they could do was talk. kurama was asleep, there were no leaf headbands in sight, sasuke had his sharingan off, etc, cuz even if at that moment they were still uchiha and jinchuuriki, kishimoto stripped them as bare as much as he could as they finally faced their feelings and reconciled... a happier version of the outcome predicted by naruto at the kage summit arc, but close to it, dangling on the edge. nothing else mattered except naruto and sasuke.

and then afterwards sp really showed sasuke in prison, restrained in every possible way even though this never happened in the manga. the cherry on top.

[the-real-sasuke-uchiha]

Sasuke, what do you think of Kakashi?

1-He was clearly biased against me when Naruto and I fought at the hospital rooftop, he only lectured me for pulling the chidori against Naruto, while he never reprimanded Naruto for using the rasengan against me. Which, I remind you, he pulled first and I only used the chidori as a legitimate self defence. He only asked me if I wanted to kill Naruto because, apparently, I have no right to defend my life.

2-Then he goes and ties me to a tree. See, this is very recurrent for these people, I apparently never have a right to decide where I want to go or who I want to be with. So he ties me to force me to hear his petty speech about revenge and friendship, because revenge (JUSTICE, YOU IDIOT) is apparently so wrong (but only when I seek it, ahem, because if it is Shikamaru then everyone is supporting him).

3-He dismisses my feelings, I apparently have to let go because he let go? He compares himself to me, as if losing comrades heroically because they wanted to protect their village is the same as losing your family because they were brutally murdered. As if losing your father to suicide is the same as losing your entire family, people, culture, because, allegedly, your brother, your most loved person, killed them all on a whim. I am apparently not the most unfortunate person because I have "friends"? This is not drama Olympics, Kakashi, but if it was, you and I would be in totally different leagues and you know it, quit the bullshit.

4-He learns the truth about the massacre, he knows the village committed genocide, and first thing he does is tell Naruto to shut up about it. He knows the village committed a genocide and still makes up his mind to kill me so I am not a liability for the government. He treats me like a terrorist and a mad person when he knows my rage is totally legit. Never even once he tries to hold the village responsible for what they did, never even once he faces the elders or demands any explanation. He never even acknowledges it was wrong.

5-He has the guts to blame me for defending my life when Sakura tries to kill me and pretends she is the victim. He pretends she was trying to kill me to "save me" instead of getting rid of a problem for their government. I repeat, he knew the truth here.

6-He never respects me and he treats me as if I am responsible for what Sakura feels for me. He never respects my right to decide about my own life and my own body. He validates her emotional blackmail and adds to it, pretending I have to do whatever makes my friends happy regardless of what I want or feel. He pretends I am a monster for responding roughly to continuous blackmail and harassment, which I am suffering since I can remember. Apparently I am not my own person, I have to be Sakura's love toy or else I am evil.

So, in summary, I despise him and I want nothing to do with him.

[leportraitducadavre]

Let's get something out of the way, the "Sasuke as a medic" AU has nothing to do with Tsunade being more "suited" to mentor him; there's nothing she can teach him that he'd find useful in his quest (why would he, who has an enormous amount of chakra at his disposal, need to learn to delicately control his energy as Sakura canonically needs to as her chakra pool is small?), nor helpful. Tsunade would never even consider taking him out of the front lines to use him as a medic either, as doing so would be a waste of his immense power and capabilities in the field.

No. This AU isn't about Sasuke, it's about Sakura and how her stans want to disguise their ultimate desire for her to have more jutsus at her disposal than what Tsunade taught her.

Hate to break it to you, but being the student of a powerful ninja doesn't mean copy-pasting the abilities of the mentor down to the disciple. What they learn has all to do with their personal capabilities, desires, and natural strength. Naruto, while he used mostly his teacher's jutsu, quickly outgrew his teachings by taking the Rasengan further than his father and Jiraiya, Sasuke surpassed both Orochimaru and Kakashi, as Kabuto did with the Sannin by the end of the series.

Orochimaru knowing kenjutsu doesn't translate to Sakura being able to be even remotely good at it. Her "agility" (which isn't even canon as there's no mention of medics being agile, rather them staying away from danger) has to do with her being a medic-nin, and I'll reiterate, Orochimaru isn't a medic in a similar manner Tsunade is, that one is Kabuto. Why would Orochimaru take Sakura with him when Kabuto, a 19-year-old, devised a technique like Tsunade's without even meeting her before fighting her?

Sakura copy-pasted the techniques taught to her, she improved them in no manner:

Do you see where I'm going with this? Kabuto even has a larger pool of chakra as he was able to learn Senjutsu mode which Sakura will never be able to do (Tsunade and Sakura having a small chakra pool is the whole reason why the Yin Seal -that actually uses Yang, as that's the only chakra nature Tsunade possesses even exists).

Kabuto knew medical ninjutsu outside of Orochimaru's teachings as those were the reasons Orochimaru sought him out, the Sannin even admitted to looking for extraordinarily talented people to take "under his wing", and at no moment he even looked in Sakura's direction (I implore you to read yourself the whole Orochimaru vs. Team 7 fight, from Chapter 46 to Chapter 49, and tell me how many times Orochimaru even glances at Sakura's direction. He knows both Naruto and Sasuke's names, yet never mentions Sakura's).

I don't even understand why "being an expert at Genjutsu" has her fandom in such a chokehold, normal genjutsu became almost obsolete when the Sharingan (Yin Release at its finest) was introduced and the more the story unfolded the fewer regular genjutsu experts, of the likes of Kurenai or Shee, were introduced, as the strongest characters either used kekkei genkai genjutsu (which can't be broken by a single person as the chakra needs to be disturbed by someone else) or ninjutsu/taijutsu skills. Regular genjutsu can be broken by the target if they realize a genjutsu has been casted, it's mostly used as a quick diversion for an attack or to escape, and most ninja have that tool at their disposal.

[And if you think Sakura would be able to pull off a Genjutsu like Shee does and attack with the speed at which A attacked Jügo you're out of your mind, she used not a single remarkable genjutsu in the whole manga, having Sasuke do that for her during FoD and dispersed a single basic one. She fell for Kakashi's genjutsu on the bell test, had to wait for Sasuke's reassurance that an illusion was in place in the chünin exams, fell for Orochimaru's own genjutsu in FoD, and was fooled by a henge twice in the same chapter and once by non-other than Naruto who pretended to be Sasuke. She had four encounters with the genjutsu technique, and three out of the four times she fell for it and still, some of you still hold Kakashi's words as "proof of her wasted potential" when he's the same man who couldn't care less if she dropped out of the exam.]

And as a quick addition, why is Mokuton!Sakura so insanely popular? Her having Earth and Water releases (Ino also has those nature releases, what's your point?) means nothing as she'll need a huge amount of chakra (which she doesn't possess) and few ninjas are even capable of mixing the two.

While any ninja can learn to transform their chakra’s nature, and even transform it into different natures consecutively (which Sakura was never even shown to do as she only used her medical skills to fight), it is impossible for them to transform two at the same time.

And he could perform such a special jutsu because he was of a kekkei genkai bearing clan

Only those with the genetic abilities of these kekkei genkai have a chakra system capable of double-nature transformation.

Canonically, no one but Hashirama could naturally have such nature release (for god's sake, Naruto and Sasuke both have water and earth nature and they can't even use Mokuton!). Let me remind you the reason why Hashirama having Mokuton is so important thematically:

Mokuton is the expression of Yang (Life) at its finest; Yang Release uses chakra that is two parts physical energy and one part spiritual energy. It governs vitality and manipulates the body, breathing life into form to animate that which lacks life of its own, which is in direct opposition to the Sharingan that expresses Yin (creating form from nothing); Yin Release uses chakra that is two parts spiritual energy and one part physical energy. It governs imagination and manipulates the spirit, creating form from nothingness to give shape to that which has none (which is why the Sharingan is the ultimate expression of Genjutsu).

[Used Sasuke's chart to exemplify, as Madara has both Yin and Yang Releases as he modified his body using Hashirama's cells].

Yamato was experimented on by Orochimaru by using Hashirama's cells, so the only way Sakura could have such power is if she is experimented on by Orochimaru, and why on earth would he do that? Furthermore, Hashirama's cells would eat her alive in seconds, she couldn't handle a scratch amount of Kyuubi's chakra, how would she handle Hashirama's? This is the same man whose chakra was so vast and potent he healed himself unconsciously!

Sakura having delicate chakra control isn't a wild card you can use as you see fit to fulfill your fantasies, it means nothing outside her medical work. This notion that "Sakura has precise control of her chakra! That means she can learn any jutsu she wants!" is completely false.

First of all, Kakashi outright claims this idea of "no Jutsu should ever be beyond you," is "in theory, anyway." At no point does he say you'll be capable of learning chakra-draining ninjutsu with this skill alone as not a page after he claims this:

If you think this looks hard, it's even more difficult to maintain your chakra when using ninjutsu

Delicate chakra control in a portion of one's body (like fists when using Sakura's Cherry Blossom Impact) used to enhance one's strength (chakra enhancement is a feat used by every shinobi ever, like Lee and Gai themselves, albeit with different levels of expertise) isn't as chakra depleting as using Ninjutsu, which is why Sakura and Tsunade use it as their main fighting technique since they don't have a vast chakra pool as Hashirama had.

[the-sprog]

thinking about Naruto MHA crossover where post Shippuden but pre Boruto Team 7 end up in the world of MHA and have to choose a hero name for themselves for whatever reason and this conversation happens

N: "... You know what would be funny?"

Sasu: "You're not going around calling yourself "The Jinchuriki", Naruto."

N: "oh cmon why"

Saku: "We're not letting you call yourself a human sacrifice."

N: "but think of how funny it would be!!"

K: "I'm with him on this one. It would be hilarious."

Saku: "Why not... something related to the Ninetailed fox? Kyuubi or something?"

N: "do you want Kurama to eat you? Because if you suggest that again he's going to eat you"

Saku: "Ok ok. tell him to chill out"

Sasu: "I think he can hear you. Also don't tell the demon that lives in Naruto's stomach to chill."

K: "Yeah sakura. That's rude."

Saku: "I hate you all."

N: "... so I'm gonna go ahead and use jinchuriki-"

S&S: "NO"

N ":C"

Sakura decides on Medic-nin, very basic, she's the first that chose and didn't think everyone else was going to go take it THAT seriously.

Kakashi decides to repurpose his ANBU name and goes by Hound.

Naruto wants to use Jinchuriki because he thinks it would be HILARIOUS and is not letting anyone tell him otherwise.

Sasuke didn't want to do this, wanted to use Uchiha but got outvoted. He gets bullied into choosing Amaterasu. Him and Tokoyami would get along here.

I thought about how they'd go about the quirk thing. They can't attract too much attention using all their abilities, so they plan out what to use.

Sakura thought calling herself the Medic of the group would get her underestimated as the sideliner, but she uses her strength to shatter people's bones while naming them.

Naruto mostly stays within Shadow clones and Henge techniques, as well as speed. He allows himself the occasional Rasengan if things get real touch and go.

Kakashi goes all copy nin on them. I'm going to say he can use chakra to copy emitter quirks, so he goes with that and predicting people's moves and general taijutsu.

Sasuke goes all genjutsu on people. Allows himself the occasional chidori too though. Once they get a reliable way to care for them, he also starts sword fighting people.

In my head the first chapter of the fic would be a pov alternation between Aizawa telling a task force of heroes about the new vigilantes on the rise, all serious and gloomy, and team 7 having the above conversation

I was thinking of why this could've happened and I can very well blame the aliens still. I mean, they make a comeback in Boruto. But I want to ignore that show and make up my own ideas post Shippuden. But I mean. If the aliens have a time traveling device what's stopping me from saying they also have a universe traveling one?

So my idea is that team 7 accidentally activated it and it's got this ENORMOUSLY long cool down because it uses a ridiculous amount of chakra. This was only possible because Naruto was there essentially. So they're mostly chill. It's long enough after the war that the biggest issue is Kakashi isn't there to be Hokage, but I mean. Yamato can fill in for a few. So they're only biding their time and making sure the aliens don't come cause problems. Hence the double identities. They wanna make sure they can both spy around and hang out in public places without being constantly Henged.

Meanwhile the hero commission is in shambles because Naruto is physically incapable of minding his own beeswax, especially when children are being mistreated. He's honestly one fist fight away from befriending the LoV let's be honest.

[tozettastone]

can we get Maddie and Sakura meeting?

We can get Maddie and Sakura meeting. There was meant to be a little more to this but it does meet the brief.

This will make the most sense if you happen to be up to date on current Maddie lore but it only makes real reference to this short. (https://www.tumblr.com/tozettastone/755394950148096000)

---

Maddie preferred not to take jobs referred by her father. The first and only time she had, she'd managed to get her throat cut for her efforts. (She'd been poisoned, too, and the memory of trying to vomit up bile from her empty stomach through the massive slice in her throat had really lingered.)

Once burnt, twice shy and all that.

Unfortunately, what she was doing now, tracking Takahashi Ichiro through the most miserable season in Fire Country, wasn't a job "referred" by Kakuzu, exactly. Rather, he'd spotted Takahashi from a distance while recovering from, like, you know, death? And then he'd imperiously set Maddie the task of tracking his bounty while he staggered off to collect another four hearts in case he had to fight him.

At the time, Kakuzu had simply presented her with a page from his bingo book over tea.

He pointed. "This one."

His fingertips were bare, and they were still kind of black. Some of his nails had fallen off. It turned out that even a ragdoll monster needed a little chakra circulation. He was damaged.

Not as damaged as Hidan, mind. Hidan had been sewn back together as neatly as Maddie knew how, but he looked like Frankenstein's monster and was still spending most of his time either asleep or simmering himself in Maddie's bathtub. He complained about the cold a lot, but she had the sense that the cold was more psychological than physical. Sure, he'd lost a lot of blood and been in the cold earth. But he'd also been cut into pieces and buried alive in the dark. That one was going to leave a mark.

His current state did make the farmhouse quiet, though.

Maddie caught the bingo book page under one finger, careful not to touch Kakuzu, and slid it across the table.

Takahashi Ichiro was the first born son of a ninja family in Mist. No bloodline limit, flawless service record, started to show symptoms of what might be diplomatically called 'losing faith in village administration,' in his early twenties. He'd been a missing-nin for five years and groups of hunters sent after him had typically turned up stiff and blue-faced in a river.

He was a swordsman, a water technique master, and an elite front line combat specialist. He had stupid spiky hair and a birth mark on his jaw.

"A jounin, huh... He looks like he might be pretty scary," she said, dubious. She could feel the chakra signature Kakuzu meant though, a big watery knot off on the next nearest island of Wave. Bold of him to come back to what was nominally Mist territory, but the big bridge meant Leaf got to contest it. Maybe safer than four or five years ago, huh?

"You can't beat him. So don't get caught," Kakuzu advised, with zero sympathy.

"...Right." Maddie hesitated. She felt like, actually, Kakuzu owed her a lot more than she owed him, right now. But... he was still recovering from getting a rasengan to the face and lying around with no heart for two days before she crammed a new one into his body, so he wasn't at his best. And she could — technically — do this task, as long as nothing went wrong.

She was sentimental enough that she didn't want to disappoint her ailing father. Somehow.

God.

"Um... Sure," she said weakly, leaving Kakuzu looking as satisfied as he ever did.

And so Maddie left her cosy farmhouse in Wave and followed Takahashi at a distance of about six miles, cautiously pacing her away along the outer edge of her own sensing range. Whenever she got the opportunity, she left a message for Kakuzu with whatever dubious contact was available at the local town or outpost, keeping him apprised of the bounty's location as she went.

And she'd been at it for six weeks now, because Kakuzu was taking his sweet fucking time.

And, horribly, Takahashi had just stopped dicking around on the border of Wind Country. As far as Maddie could tell, he'd picked up a job that was taking him not just into Fire Country, but on a beeline for Leaf Village.

It was a terrible job, as far as she was concerned. Takahashi was not always within six miles of a comfortable inn, and the ones he WAS within six miles of were frequently too expensive for Maddie to justify spending the money, even though it was the beginning of winter and there was frost every morning. The foliage was dying back in this part of Fire Country, making foraging a pain in her ass. The rain dripped miserably from her nose as she trudged through the countryside, keeping Takahashi well within her range.

Maddie had spent a very long time living in the wilderness, but she'd had a permanent camp, which came with luxuries like a cute lean-to supported by trees, and a strong knowledge of where to lay her traps. Now, she tripped in the mud, viewed the towering Hashirama trees with a grim suspicion, and had to set new snares and hope for the best every bloody night.

Do you love your dad this much? she asked, every morning when she opened her eyes to grey skies, skeletal trees, numb toes and the vague sense of Takahashi's chakra signature travelling southwest, inexorably towards Leaf. This much? Like... Really? Is he this loveable?

Since the answers to these questions were up in the air, the sunk cost fallacy carried her forward.

She tried keeping herself warm with the thoughts of how many new techniques she could wheedle out of Kakuzu as payment for services rendered. Historically, he'd been pretty willing to exchange ninjutsu for her help, and while Kakuzu might not have collected techniques like Kakashi or Orochimaru, he'd been an active ninja and a ninjutsu specialist for eighty years. He knew a lot.

That particular morning, Maddie got up, brushed away the frost that had made itself at home on her bedroll — gross — and spent some time moving around and trying to get the blood back into her swollen toes. There was almost certainly a chakra circulation trick that could keep her toes warm overnight, but she didn't know it. Her snares had come up empty, so she ate some strips of dried fish and cheese and warmed up some drinking water.

She felt out Takahashi's chakra. He was still en route to Leaf.

His motives didn't make sense to Maddie. As far as she had heard, Senju Tsunade was running a tighter ship than her predecessor. And Leaf was a big village. Lots of manpower, robust systems, scary kage, you know?

It seemed like suicide.

She rubbed her face. She didn't get it and she didn't like it. But it wasn't her job to get it or like it. She was just tracking the guy. She was ten kilometres away. She was sneaky, and quiet, and probably safe, and... still kind of nervous. What was she meant to do if a Leaf-nin got to Takahashi first? Steal his body? Futilely message Kakuzu, who was likely days away? Ugh.

Because Maddie had chakra to burn, she used the incredibly chakra-inefficient corpse preservation technique on her bedroll to prevent microbial growth, then wicked all the water out of it with a little twist of water-nature chakra. It was relatively clean and bone-dry when she rolled it back up. No matter how miserable the weather was, she still had some advantages — sure, the elements worked hard, but Maddie's chakra tricks worked harder!

The frost turned to water as the sun heated the landscape (heated it infinitesimally, but still, it was above freezing) and by midmorning the terrain had turned to a slippery mix of sucking mud and wet, dead grass. She spent that day using her water-walking skills to make it over the muck, steadily following her quarry across the countryside. She didn't go far that day — he wasn't that far from Leaf Village itself now. But his stopping early at least made her hopeful that he wasn't going to go in.

Maddie paused at the familiar town of Tanzaku-gai to send another message to Kakuzu, using one of the messenger birds held by the temple to get it to another sleazy contact in the capital. (She had no particular fear that any of the monks might recognise her from her escapades five years ago. Hidan had... addressed that problem.) Despite Tsunade's depredations, the old castle had bounced back as a tourist attraction, and the owners had taken the perspective that, hey, now it was the ruin of an ancient castle destroyed by a really famous ninja! Wow! But at this time of year, the town, which was usually colourful and filled with tourists, was instead grey and brown and deserted. It was hard to get people drinking in the streets and gambling when they were freezing and ankle deep in mud, she guessed.

Maddie had received no response to any of her messages so far, and she knew Kakuzu was perfectly capable of getting her one, no matter where she was.

So she gritted her teeth and kept following.

Takahashi took her in a broad and unhappy circle around Leaf Village. She had no idea what he was doing. Was he waiting for a particular ninja to emerge so he could collect their bounty? Was he — Christ, was he communicating with the narrative black hole that was Danzo? Who knew about that, really. Shimura Danzo had made no sense to her in the original Naruto manga, and she barely remembered all of what he'd gotten up to now, but over the years she had retained only a powerful impression best summed up as 'some real fucking bullshit.'

With no news from her dad, Maddie kept on the trail. Her nerves steadily deteriorated. Eventually, she knew, she basically had to run into a Leaf ninja. And as far as she knew, there wasn't any rule against strange women with overly developed chakra systems wandering around outside the village, but... like... it didn't look great, did it?

After eight weeks, she decided she had to put an end date on this excursion before the warring sensations of anxiety, misery or boredom ended their grand melee inside her head and the victor finally killed her. She'd give it ten weeks, she decided, and she'd leave immediately if a Leaf ninja showed up to question her. She promptly dropped into a nearby village and sent Kakuzu a message letting him know this.

This message, he responded to at last. Of course.

A chakra monster of thumping black threads stumbled out of copse of evergreens at three in the morning, waking her up and scaring the piss out of her, to deliver his message.

It was one line in aggressive, old-fashioned calligraphy: Twelve weeks.

Kakuzu was, Maddie thought, really fucking pushing it.

She yanked the letter out of the monster's thready little claws and ignored the way its pulse thumped so hard she could feel it in her feet. It was the lightning heart, a thing of crackling static that made her heart beat erratically. At least that meant that he had more than one heart already — she'd given him an earth one.

Fine, she scrawled on the other side of the scrap of paper, in equally aggressive writing, and then she sent the monster packing with a glower and a wave.

It said nothing. They never did.

Twelve weeks. Three months. God. Her face scrunched up in a snarl.

Maddie watched it go, then crawled back into her bedroll in a foul temper and muttered angrily to herself about ungrateful family members instead of sleeping. In the morning, she would get up and find that her hair was a frizzy cloud from all the static.

Twelve weeks. Fine. That wasn't so much worse than ten, anyway, was it? She'd be okay. Twelve weeks.

Naturally, it was week eleven when it all went to shit.

--

"Hey," said a sweet and girlish voice. "Hello? Can you hear me?"

Maddie startled awake.

There was a ninja crouched in the mud a only a few metres away from her. She was an older teen, limbs still a little too long, and her eyes were so green that the colour was noticeable even in the moonlight. The darkness bled most of the colour out of the rest of her, but left the impression of pale but warm tones.

Maddie looked for a forehead protector. It was tied into her hair, but when Maddie shot out of her bedroll she was immediately tall enough to see — it was a Hidden Leaf symbol. Dammit.

The ninja stood up too, but she was pretty short. Maddie had half a foot on her. "Are you okay? You really shouldn't sleep here with just a bedroll, you'll freeze."

Maddie squinted at her. Green eyes. Short hair, tied up with her forehead protector. She had an apron skirt and dark shorts.

Jesus fucking Christ, thought Maddie. That's Haruno Sakura.

She had the chakra pool of a kid, and it was so controlled and placid that it didn't register as any particular affinity to her senses. This was probably why she hadn't woken Maddie from her sound sleep until she'd called out to her. Unlike almost every other ninja on the planet, this girl would almost certainly be able to disappear to Maddie's senses. How unsettling.

"I'm fine," she said, licking her lips nervously. "Thanks for your concern."

Sakura's eyebrows knit together in her forehead. "It's not healthy to let your body get so cold." Yyyeah, Maddie was pretty aware of that. But she had the advantage of being mostly comprised of chakra spaghetti, on the inside. It wasn't the same. "You should really consider going to one of the villages near here. There's one only three miles away. Do you need directions?"

"No, I don't need directions. Thank you. Sorry to put you to the trouble, shinobi-san."

Sakura rocked back on her heels. She chewed her lip. "I really think you should."

"Are you going to make me?" She almost certainly could.

"What? No, I'm not going to make you do anything." She looked offended.

"Okay."

She sighed. Fists clenched, she said, "But I advise against it. It's unsafe for you to be sleeping out here in this weather. I'm a medic, I'd know."

Maddie hummed. Clearly, despite what she said, she wasn't going to give up.

"Oh, well, if you're a medic," Maddie said, feigning a change of mind. "I guess you must know best. Where's the nearest village then?"

Smiling in relief, Sakura provided her directions: "Hitoko village is two miles due east of here. Once you get to the road, you really can't miss it."

"Great, thank you," said Maddie, who knew exactly where Hitoko was and who had ruled it out on account of the expense. With a deep sigh, she started rolling up her bedroll under Sakura's supervision.

She let her herd her all the way to the road and set her off in the right direction. Then, the very moment Sakura smiled brightly and continued on her way back to Leaf Village — was she coming back from a mission? out on a patrol? — Maddie turned right back around and went to find a new, better hidden sleeping spot.

Who knew Sakura would be so nosy and insistent?

She wondered: did this brief meeting with Sakura constitute 'being questioned' by Leaf nin? Was she permitted to pack up and go home now? She had never missed her seaside cottage so much as she did right now.

Leaf already knew about her. She didn't expect they knew very much, but she'd previously been under their surveillance as a person of interest in relation to Kakuzu, who was a big enough problem all on his own to justify that use of manpower...

She tried to imagine defending her choice to Kakuzu.

...Probably it did not count. Sakura thought she was a lost civilian, which meant she was flying well under the radar. Ugh.

At least Takahashi felt like he was sleeping peacefully, and not liable to go anywhere...

--

Maddie was startled awake less than an hour later by a gangly teenaged presence at her bedroll.

Because the moon was bright and the trees had no leaves, she could just make out how Sakura's eyebrow was twitching. Her glove creaked as her hand curled into a fist. "Aah... You know... you didn't have to lie about it..."

Clearly, thought Maddie, I did.

Great. Now how was she going to get out of this?

[maoam]

Something about this scene;

I know some people have naturally used this scene to argue Naruto is straight because of his reaction. But I think the scene is more nuanced than that. As we can see Sakura reacts with nosebleed to this jutsu, which symbolises arousal.

But Naruto doesn’t have a nosebleed towards the girl-girl jutsu, he’s just excited over Konohamaru’s new ability, as he explains this is a friendly competition between them. So he’s not excited in that way. Why not just make him react like Sakura? Because their reactions aren’t the same.

We do know Naruto finds Sasuke attractive even if he is hesitant to admit that (like he knows it might be inappropriate) and does the reverse harem jutsu later which he practiced more than rasengan. But somehow the Sai/Sasuke jutsu is too much in his opinion. In my opinion the obvious explanation is just that he doesn’t want to see Sasuke like that with someone else. I mean:

It’s not like he doesn’t dislike Suigetsu (and Taka) for no reason other than that they used to hang around Sasuke... and it’s not like he doesn’t react dramatically concerning Sasuke any other time...

I remember seeing even Japanese men who said Naruto sounded like a jealous boyfriend in that 4-tails moment. 😭

[mixelation]

okay i think the mood for (a)synchronicity is

minato needs constant enrichment or else he gets bored and upset. professionally he fulfills this mostly with little jutsu development projects. this man is like "guess i'll just figure out this nigh-impossible teleportation technique. oh no what if my childhood friend gets bullied? i'll just invent the rasengan" and because he is in a village at war they're like "hey what if your job was more murder?" and like. a bunch of unchallenging murders is fine enrichment, he guesses. but it's also sort of like chomping down on iceberg lettuce when you're hungry

however, minato is also a certified Wife Guy In Training. his enrichment needs can be like 90% met with eating pussy a girlfriend. i think i'll also toss in the detail that they keep sending him places alone so he doesn't even have a mission partner to talk to

meanwhile tori just abruptly went from live-in dungeon gremlin to unhoused wandering scam artist abruptly and completely against her will. oto and akatsuki gave her insane trust issues, but she also had a mildly stable life with unhinged maniacs, but they were predictable unhinged maniacs. now she's cold and wet and tired all of the time, and worried about her physical safety even more than before, and he has no friends or allies, and so OBVIOUSLY a pretty man showing concern about her wellbeing one (1) time drove her insane. obviously. except then the next time they meet, he clearly doesn't remember her, and also he just talks like that to everyone and doesn't actually care. tori is frustratingly attracted to him but also he is (unintentionally) playing with her heart and her conclusion is that she should brutally murder him

AFTER she attempts to kill him, the dynamic switches. an unenriched minato has just found the most interesting woman in the world. he's obsessed. and he FUCKED UP because tori doesn't trust him. like she trusts him in that he can convince her he's not going to kill her or injure her, but also he has to convince her he is emotionally safe and he does care about her, which is what she has secretly desperately desired this entire time. so minato killing hundreds just for her and then tenderly wiping blood from her face is meant to be the emotional pivot of this murder romcom. he does care! aaaw!!

after they hook up, i think minato immediately transitions into "i am committed for life, we will get married" and tori is like, "....what?"

like for her she's imagining this as just a fun thing she does to make her feel better until she figures out how to get OFF the continent*? or reverse time travel? which ever comes first

BUT. also. consider. minato trying his best to date her feels really good. what the FUCK is she supposed to do with this. also she's like, "you canNOT get seriously injured, if you do that i will have to kill SO many people" and minato just. smitten. help him

*i decided her roadblock here is a combo of financial and not having her own connections. which is why she keeps entering into weird scams and lies

[team7-headquarter]

The fact that it is a trope in Naruto that Kakashi saves Sakura before Sasuke can or when Sasuke is in a position to do so himself is so unhinged.

What was Kishimoto trying to do there?

The first time it happens (just outside of Konoha while traveling to the Land of the Waves), Sasuke very clearly thinks Kakashi is showing off. It's one of those funny moments where you can see how both Sasuke and Kakashi like being dramatic.

From that point, the story somehow establishes that it's Kakashi's job to protect Sakura as Sasuke and Naruto fight. At least Sasuke thinks that's the case...

It happens during the fight with Haku. I know that Sakura screams and Sasuke immediately wonders what Kakashi is doing when Sakura is in danger. I don't think he'd wonder the same if it was Naruto out there, since he'd probably criticize Naruto and not Kakashi for Naruto's own safety.

When Kakashi saves Sakura from both the chidori and the rasengan, they don't mention it at all, like it was natural for Kakashi to be there and for him to save / protect Sakura. At the time, Naruto was panicking because he couldn't stop, in the sense that he knew he didn't have the skill to do so, but Sasuke was more shocked that it was Sakura he'd hit. Once Sakura was safe and the thing was over, Sasuke went immediately back to thinking about how he was weak compared to Naruto.

He wasn't worried about Sakura not because he didn't care, but because that moment reassured him about Kakashi being there to protect her.

(It's worth mentioning Sasuke was upset over Naruto being the one who rescued her from Gaara because Sasuke was too used to having the role of second protector of the team, since it signaled he was the second strongest around).

Then, in Shippuden? Sasuke doesn't see Sakura as a real threat. He did mean to kill her during the Land of Iron, but the narrative again placed both Kakashi and Naruto there to protect her life. As soon as Kakashi and Naruto appeared, Sasuke forgot about her.

That encounter was the farthest Team 7 had been from the old days and the roles they had at those moments. Teamwork was absolutely gone.

During the Fourth Shinobi War, things went back a bit to what they were. Sasuke and Naruto tried to protect Sakura by telling her to stand behind or step back, except Sakura refused to be protected. They worked seamlessly for a few minutes, until it all went to hell and Kaguya appeared.

Kakashi spent almost the entire battle protecting Sakura. Understandable, since the first thing she did was run to get impaled like she didn't care at all about her own life. (Kakashi was scared shitless that something would happen to her).

TWO TIMES during the Kaguya fight Sakura was in danger and Naruto pointed out (commanded, really) that Sasuke could help her and Sasuke did move to do so, he did face her to act, before his mind could process what he was doing. In both cases, Kakashi was faster and had her safe and sound before Sasuke could even reconsider.

First in the lava world, where Kakashi had Sakura and Obito already secured, so Sasuke moved to protect Naruto. Second when Obito gave both his eyes to Kakashi and he decided to go all Susanno to pull Sakura out of danger, to Sasuke's surprise.

Time to mention that the narrative of the manga makes explicit the petty rivalry between Kakashi and Sasuke. Sasuke does hate him for having the sharingan, you know, and Kakashi would not stop when recriminating how Sasuke decided to use the things he taught him, like the chidori, to hurt his comrades.

Anyway, Naruto decides to use that moment to tell Sasuke that Kakashi's susanno was cooler and talk about how the Copy Nin was amazing and all of that. If I had to guess, Naruto was more than a bit irritated because Sasuke was rude to Kakashi and Sakura and called them useless. It is a good guess if I'm allowed to say so, since Naruto also made a point of telling Sasuke to thanks Sakura for helping Obito bring him back from another dimension.— After all, Naruto did also complain about Sasuke being the leader, since he thought Sakura and Kakashi were better at making plans.

It kinda reached its limits when Sasuke put her under a genjutsu (of getting hit with a chidori to the chest, of all things) and Kakashi lost his cool. He was so visibly frustrated with Sasuke and the feeling was mutual.

It was call back to sooo many moments between Sakura and Sasuke:

When Sakura cried and calmmed the cursed mark back at the Forest of Death, when Sakura tried to prevent Sasuke from competing with the cursed mark during the Chuning Exams preliminaries and Sasuke told her to shut up, or when she tried to stop him from leaving Konoha to find Orochimaru and Sasuke knocked her out. It was an echo of the way Sasuke did almost hit her with a chidori back when they were kids without meaning to and then years later when he did mean to kill her; it was the memory all the times she worried about him and rushed to put herself in danger for his wellbeing when he didn't want her to.

When Sasuke left to fight Naruto, Kakashi was the one who stayed with her. When Sasuke left on his journey for atonement, Kakashi was there to tell him to behave, but also he was there next to the girl he had been protecting for years now. I don't know what all of that was supposed to mean...

I guess that Sakura played a part in Sasuke and Naruto's rivalry as much as she played a part in Kakashi and Sasuke's animosity.

[brighteuphony]

I LOVE your Sakura AU, thank you so much for making it 🥹

Even though her ending is supposed to be “good”, I always thought that canon didn’t do her justice and threw any character development she had out of the window so she can be with Sasuke

I SO wanted her to finally move on and just let go

And I don’t have anything against Sasusaku

But I think it’d be much more beautiful if Sakura long let go of her feelings by the time Sasuke came to his senses and they developed their relationship TOGETHER from the START

And, once again, your work is AMAZING and I can’t wait for next pieces ❤️

Btw, can I ask a question?) Will we see Naruto’s and Sasuke’s reaction to her condition (maybe flashback to before she left the village?), if not, can you please tell me a bit about it? I can’t imagine them to ignore her after the incident, especially considering that they are at fault as usual

Thank you so much for the kind words! I've also never been a fan of how Sakura ended up. I have no beef with SasuSaku, but my biggest issue was that we never saw Sasuke try to make up/connect with Sakura in the same way we saw him do with Naruto, so their romance in Boruto just felt so...abrupt?

As for what happens to Sakura and her friends....

Sasuke was essentially put on probation/jailed, but broke out and defected to Otogakure as canon. This devastates Sakura, as she's both in deep denial about his contribution to her injuries and also the fact that she basically threw herself in there for nothing. Kakashi shuts down completely. It's a nightmare replay of his own past, including the female team-mate being horrifically injured by the chidori. The guilt of everything is eating him alive so he basically withdraws into himself and uses her demotion to civilian status as a way to trick himself into thinking that if he just 'rips off the bandaid' and cut ties, she'll be able to move on more easily.

Naruto is the only person who is really able/willing to face justice. After the incident, he was basically also put on probation/awaiting trial but busted himself out to join Jiraya.

So for context, Sakura got clapped hard by the Rasengan/Chidori combo (hearing gone, nerve damage, eyes shot etc) and basically had to be put in a coma to try and stop the damage from getting worse, but unfortunately none of the medics in Konoha had the ability to reverse anything but the most superficial damage. So Naruto joined Jiraya in an attempt to find and bring the only person in the world who could give Sakura a sliver of hope.

I felt like this worked well with canon and the desperation to get Tsunade to be hokage and Naruto basically begged her on his hands and knees to help Sakura. Tsunade made it there in the nick of time managed to save everything but her eyes.

But Sakura's life has fallen apart, her career is over, her parents dead from Konoha Crush and her eyes gone...and Naruto is the most convenient and available person to take out all her rage on, so...while he deserves a lot of that rage..she is essentially punching down on who she perceives to be the cause of all her problems.

Lee is in the same boat as her, but while he tries very hard to be there for her, Sakura can't stand to be with him right now, as it just makes the reality of life hit that much worse- especially when she finds out there's a surgery that might give him a better chance than she'll ever have.

And Ino visits often at first, but then it's awkward...and painful as the weeks go by. They have lunch and gossip but at some point, there's not much a shinobi and civilian have in common, especially after the shortage of manpower post Konoha-crush has Ino entrenched in the shinobi life more than ever before.

I hope this answered some stuff! Thank you so much for the questions and the interest! I love Sakura and I just wanna give her the development and power she deserves!!

[themidnightguardian]

Day 1: Panic Attack & Race Against the Clock -- Kakashi (ft. Team 7)

gen | AU of the hospital rooftop fight | Warnings: panic attacks, hints of PTSD, referenced childhood trauma, referenced child deaths, canon-typical violence, Kakashi's guilt complex, brief suicide idealization (specifically with Kakashi feeling he can only be redeemed in dying)

Whumptober 2024 Masterlist

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Kakashi knew something was wrong by the increasingly familiar trickle of dread down his spine that he had come to associate with his students’ lives being in danger. It wasn’t anything tangible, nothing he had proof of. It was just a gut feeling, but nothing good had ever come of ignoring his instincts.

(He might have managed to save Obito if he’d learned to listen sooner. Might have been able to stop Itachi from slaughtering his clan. Might have fought harder to keep Naruto from going to an orphanage, instead of into Kakashi’s care, like Minato-sensei would have wanted.)

Instinctively, he changed his course from the Memorial Stone back towards the hospital. He’d just been discharged half an hour ago, and he’d left Naruto and Sakura at Sasuke’s bedside where he was still recovering from Tsukuyomi. He’d thought they’d be safe there.

Had something gone wrong medically? It wasn’t like Tsunade to make mistakes, and besides, Sasuke seemed fine when Kakashi left, if grumpier than usual.

What if Orochimaru is making another play for the sharingan? he thought, picking up the pace. His own chakra reserves were still drained from his last fight with Itachi and the weeks he’d spent in a coma, but he pushed himself faster, using shunshin to cross rooftops in the span of seconds. What if the Akatsuki have sent someone else to collect the kyuubi?

Another twenty seconds—so slow, too slow, why couldn’t he move faster—and the hospital was finally in view. The hospital, which had a lumpy mass of orange on its roof.

Naruto’s shadow clones. Fuck.

Faster. His gut had been right; there was a problem. Some kind of fight was happening on the hospital rooftop, and Naruto was involved. And if Naruto was involved, then Sasuke would have followed him, too determined to not get left behind. And if Sasuke had gone, then Sakura would be there, and if they were facing down an S-rank nin—hell, even an A-rank or B-rank nin—then they were all going to get wiped out.

Kakashi refused to let that happen. He’d made a promise to himself when Sarutobi made him take on Team 7 that he wouldn’t fail them the same way he’d failed his own genin teammates. That he would do anything to keep them alive.

(It was a promise he couldn’t hope to keep, not in the world they lived in. But he knew if he lost any of the kids, it would destroy him in a way none of the other deaths of his precious people had managed. His father’s death had been crushing. Obito’s had ripped him in half. Rin’s had shattered him into a million pieces, and Minato’s had left him a shell of a person.

But if Naruto or Sasuke or Sakura died, Kakashi didn’t think he had any pieces of himself left to lose to grief.

If the kids died, Kakashi was certain he would follow them one way or another.)

He was one building away when the clones dispersed rapidly, and the crackling chirp of chidori filled the air. He launched himself forward. If Sasuke needed to pull out an attack of that caliber, then they were in danger, they needed him, they—

Kakashi landed on the edge of the hospital rooftop, momentarily frozen in place.

On one end of the roof, Sasuke ran forward, chidori a bright burst of lightning in his palm. On the other end, Naruto, racing towards him, arm outstretched with a swirling rasengan.

Aimed at each other.

And Rin Sakura—always forced to play peacemaker between the boys—was trying to step between. As if she could stop them. As if they might stop for her.

(Brown hair. Purple marks on her cheeks. A smile. Blood on his hand, warm and wet. Blood, spilling from her mouth. Dead. Dead, dead, dead.

Everyone was always dying, and it was always his fault.)

He was moving before the image in his head fully faded. He was faster than Sakura, faster than Naruto or Sasuke. Faster and stronger, and he would stop them, he had to, he had to—

It was easy. They were inexperienced, and they were too focused on each other to see him coming. He wrapped his hands around their wrists, wrenched them apart just as Sakura went stumbling past.

(Too close. Too close. Too close.)

The rooftop fell silent, but Kakashi could hear his own heartbeat thundering in his ears, smelled the lingering singe of lightning, and he suddenly he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t—his lungs wouldn’t work, too heavy, weighed down, like they were being crushed, crushed like Obito—

Black creeped in at the edge of his vision, and suddenly the heaviness in his lungs felt less like crushing and more like stabbing, like they’d been torn through, like Rin—

(God, like Rin, when Kakashi killed her.

He killed her.

He killed her. He killed her. He killed her.)

“Ka—”

He tried to breathe in, but it didn’t work, or maybe it did but it didn’t matter, and the dark creeped closer anyway, and maybe that was what he deserved. Yes. It was what he deserved, and when he died, maybe then Rin and Obito could forgive him. When he died, maybe that would be enough.

“Kakashi—”

It would never be enough, but it would be a start. And he was dying—he had to be dying, because he couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t see past the darkness, and everything was heavy, and his body must finally be quitting on him. He’d known it would, one day.

“Kakashi-sensei, please!”

There was a sharp slap to his face, and the shock of it yanked him abruptly back to the rooftop. For a moment, all he could see was pink-orange—the sunset, he thought, until something blue-black edged in, and no…those were his students leaning over him. Sakura, face wet. Naruto, eyes wide and frantic. Sasuke, white-knuckled grip on Kakashi’s vest.

Kakashi inhaled, and the air in his lungs hurt, but it was there. He became aware of the pavement under him. Somehow, he’d ended up on the ground. He must have collapsed.

“Sensei?” Sakura asked, voice wobbling.

“Hm?” He couldn’t manage more than that, his throat still tight enough he worried a single word would be enough to choke him.

But instead of asking a question, she let out a sob and all but tackled him, Naruto following a second after. It was a good thing he was already on the ground, or else they’d have knocked him over.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Naruto said, and now he sounded like he was crying too, face half-buried in Kakashi’s shoulder.

Slowly, carefully, and with his arm still feeling like it weighed a hundred pounds, Kakashi lifted a hand and patted the top of Naruto’s head. Then Sakura’s. And then, because Sasuke had always been pricklier about that sort of thing, even if he needed the same reassurances the others did, Kakashi reached out and clasped his shoulder.

“Me, too,” Sasuke said, much more quietly and without the tears. But there was a heaviness to it. Shame, Kakashi thought. “I’m…sorry.”

Kakashi nodded as much as he was able, and then let his head thunk back down on the pavement.

(Later, when the crying finally stopped and Kakashi was back in the damned hospital again—because apparently he’d re-drained his chakra reserves and also passed out, and that required inpatient care—he’d tear them all a new one, Sakura included. The boys were in the most trouble for fighting each other like that, but to get between two deadly jutsus? It was suicidal.)

(And if, when Kakashi was done lecturing from his hospital bed—and Tsunade was done yelling, twice as loud and with significantly more swearing thrown in—the kids refused to budge from the hospital room, clustering around Kakashi’s bed and taking turns maintaining a point of contact like they thought he would disappear if they let him go for even a second…well.

This wasn’t the way Kakashi had wanted to make them all act like a proper team, but he wasn’t about to argue with the results.)