Chapter 357 - Sakura Haruno
Since Sasuke Uchiha left the village three years ago, Sakura Haruno has sunk significant amounts of time into training. She was going through her training to become a medical ninja that was given to her by Tsunade and an additional training program she worked out by herself, based on the vast knowledge she had acquired about the human body during her apprenticeship.
Just like in canon, it was Sakura's goal to bring Sasuke back to the village, but unlike in canon, Naruto was not simping on her and Sasuke, so she had to do so with her own strength instead of hoping that Naruto would do it for her, which resulted in her putting significantly more effort into training that her canon counterpart.
She was currently relaxing in the room assigned to her after reaching the skill level necessary to consider a full-fledged medical ninja. Strictly speaking, it was not her break-time yet, but she had to perform an extensive surgical operation a few minutes ago and succeeded, so she decided to take her break a little early.
Moments later, there was a knock on the door, and after getting Saskura's permission, a nurse entered her room.
"Sakura-sama, there is someone important that would like to talk with you."
After establishing herself as Tsunade's apprentice, many people started talking to her respectfully, which she simply couldn't get used to but had already given up trying to change it.
As for those so-called "important people", Sakura could only roll her eyes at that. Her master was known as the greatest medical expert in the nation and was the current Hokage as well, so there were a lot of boot-lickers that wanted to suck up to Tsunade, using Sakura as a medium.
At first, Sakura had no idea how to deal with someone like that, but she had pretty much stopped giving a sh*t by now.
"Haa~, so what? Just tell them I'm stuck in an important procedure and have no time for them like always. Seriously, can't these people leave me alone? I have enough on my platter, and I don't have time to deal with all that political nonsense."
Instead of leaving, the nurse started fidgeting, causing Sakura to raise her eyebrows.
"Is there something else?"
"Errr…That person is Yuna Uzumaki-sama."
*PUH*
Sakura performed a splendid spit-take before glaring at the nurse for talking in such a roundabout way.
Sakura was just about to complain to the nurse about her behavior when the door opened again, allowing Yuna, Naruto, and Karin to enter the room.
Yuna casually slipped a small bag into the nurse's pocket, which caused a beaming smile to appear on her face and caused her to leave the room hastily. Meanwhile, Sakura could feel her eyebrows twitch due to what she had just seen.
'Did she bribe that nurse to deliberately talk in such a vague manner just to mess with me?'
While Sakura spent a moment thinking about the nurse's behavior, Yuna and Naruto lifted their hands and gave Sakura a thumbs up.
"Nice spit-take!"
"Excellent form!"
'Yup, she definitely did that to mess with me. Guess the rumors I heard about her are true, huh? I guess it was a good thing that I hadn't any opportunities to meet her over the course of the last three years.'
Yuna's outrageous conduct aside, Sakura couldn't help but be slightly intimidated by the twins. That was not because they tried to intimidate Sakura in any way, but simply because of what they represented. As Tsunade's apprentice, she had access to significantly more information than most people, so she had a relatively good grasp of Konoha's current situation.
Not only were Yuna and Naruto Konoha's greatest military asset by a massive margin, but they also were the leaders of Konoha's strongest and most influential clan, the Uzumaki clan.
That kind of position was easily reflected by their demeanor as well. Well, since Yuna's was, like almost always, utterly unreadable to Sakura, it was only Naruto's demeanor that showed it. His steps were leisure, yet assured. His back was straight, causing his whole body to radiate confidence, while his blue eyes were deep and revealed an impervious will. Additionally, over the course of the last three years, Naruto's face has slowly lost its childishness, which was replaced by more mature features.
However, if someone were to ask her whether she developed a crush on Naruto, she would deny that notion. Rather than a crush, it would be more appropriate to call it some minor form of hero-worship. Even now, three years later, Sakura couldn't get the image of Naruto fighting the Ichibi while standing on top of the Kyuubi out of her head. Well, the Kyuubi was just a henged toad, but the image was still there.
Another thing that felt incredibly weird to Sakura was Naruto's relationship with Ino. When Sakura first heard that Naruto was not only dating Ino but another woman as well, she was sure that it was just a weird rumor, but after asking Ino about it, it actually turned out to be true. To make the whole story even more unbelievable, Ino got along well with Haku, and Sakura even saw the duo shopping together.
Out of curiosity, Sakura looked through Konoha's laws and found nothing that would forbid a man from marrying more than one woman. In fact, there was even a law that forced someone to take in multiple spouses if they are from an almost extinct bloodline. Sakura could only grit her teeth in anger when she realized that Sasuke undoubtedly fell into that category. Well, before Sasuke wasn't back in Konoha, there was no point in bothering about that anyway, so Sakura decided to shelf that topic in the depths of her mind.
Sakura shook her head to get rid of her idle thoughts and focused her gaze on Yuna, who just sat down in front of her.
"Why where you looking for me?"
Before answering, Yuna took out the scroll she received from Tsunade and threw it towards Sakura, who caught it easily.
"We have a mission."
Sakura's eyes widened when she saw the big black S on the side of the scroll and quickly opened it. The more she read, the more severe her expression became, and after she was done reading, a look of pure determination appeared on her face.
"Very well, I have everything I need with me, so we can leave right away."
Yuna nodded in approval and immediately stood up.
"Very well, let's go."
Then, she put her hand on Sakura's shoulder and teleported away, followed by Naruto doing the same with Karin.
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