NOVEL NEXT Chapter 14: Farewell, Konoha!
"Get this crazy cat offa me!" Naruto screamed, as he rolled in the dirt with an ugly old cat in his arms.
He was holding his catch at arm's length in an attempt to stop it from taking gratuitous swipes at his face, but that wasn't working out very well for him, was it now?
"Target confirmed," Sasuke spoke into his mouthpiece, totally unconcerned about Naruto's plight.
A few seconds later, Kakashi's voice rang out in their ear pieces:
"Mission accomplished!"
Sakura yawned. Another day, another D-rank mission. Weed-pulling, tutoring, rubbish collecting, dog-walking, and now searching for missing pets… did the village not have any more pressing concerns than searching for lost cats? Sakura and her team were supernaturally powered shinobi, for crying out loud. Why didn't the Konoha fire department take care of this sort of thing?
It had been about two weeks since she had first been thrust into the world of the ninja, and little by little, she had got used to her life as Haruno Sakura. After all, humans are adaptable creatures; no matter which world they live in. Dying and reincarnating as a girl had been a traumatic event, but the missions kept her busy and kept her mind off things.
And that is pretty much how D-rank missions and filler episodes had become a part of her daily life, to the point that Sakura wondered if the plot would ever actually start. But as she watched Naruto wrestle with the cat, she began experiencing a serious case of déjà vu.
"Hang on," Sakura told Naruto. "Would you mind letting me see that cat?"
"It's your problem now," Naruto said, relieved.
Sakura pretended not to notice as the deep scratches on Naruto's face healed before her very eyes.
She pinched the back of the cat's neck to trigger its instinct to remain perfectly still, before scooping it up in her arms once it had calmed down. She studied it closely, as she cradled it in her arms like a newborn: a ribbon on its right ear… that expression of hating its life… the name Tora….
"This cat seems awfully familiar," Sakura muttered to herself.
"Maybe because that's the missing cat we've been tracking for the past two days?" Naruto ventured.
"Ah."
Sakura had finally remembered the last time she had seen such a cat: in the Naruto anime; where else? From her perspective, her life as Tsutomu had been aeons ago. She couldn't remember every single detail about the Naruto anime perfectly, and she had only read parts of Boruto, so she was bound to miss certain details!
In any case, if she was remembering things correctly, this cat would become the straw that broke the camel's back for Naruto. When they would turn in this missing cat mission, Naruto would make a scene and ask for a real mission, which meant that the Land of Waves arc was coming up next!
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Just as she had predicted, half an hour later, Team Kakashi found itself saddled with an old drunkard named Tazuna. Apparently, he was an elite bridge builder, and Team Kakashi was being tasked with escorting the man to his homeland in the Land of Waves. According to the Lord Third, this escort mission was supposed to be a C-rank quest: the worst threats they would theoretically face would be ordinary bandits, highwaymen, pirates… people who hadn't 'awakened' their chakra, basically.
Except, old man Tazuna had withheld the fact that they would likely be facing enemy shinobi, raising the threat level of the mission to B and above! Although, the only truly dangerous enemies would be Momochi Zabuza of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, and the kid Haku, wielder of the Ice Style Kekkei Genkai…
And so, Team Kakashi and the useless baggage left the safety of the village and began wending their way southwards, since the Land of Waves was a tiny island off the southern coast of the Land of Fire.
"Another arc with no female enemies to drain," Sakura grumbled to herself as they walked. "Haku might look like a girl, but he's just a trap; this just isn't fair…"
Sakura was woefully unprepared for this mission; D-rank missions already didn't pay much, and with mission rewards being split four ways, she had barely turned a profit. Most of her income had been turned into food pills, kunai, shuriken and sealing scrolls in preparation for the journey to the Land of Waves. Forget about buying a sword, she couldn't even afford Explosive Tags!
Her plans for personal growth had also completely stalled. If before, Sakura had considered the Third Hokage a kindly old man, now, she could only see him as an old pervert. A few days ago, when they had reported on the Senju Park Cleaning Mission, the first thing he had done upon seeing her was leering at her chest.
And now that she thought about it, Naruto's Sexy Jutsu did work suspiciously well on him…
Now that the Third Hokage had his eye on her (breasts), the women's section in the bath house was no longer a safe place for Sakura's Breast Hunt. With the Telescope Jutsu and his crystal ball, there wasn't a single place in the village that was safe from his sight… And besides, the women in the baths weren't stupid; they were bound to establish a correlation between their own dwindling breasts and Sakura's own exploding breasts at some point…
As a result, Sakura was still stuck at a respectable D-cup and an 85 cm bustline; the size most people would think of when asked to think of big breasts.
"What gives, system?" Sakura whispered. "You gave me a reward for achieving the AAA-cup quest, but there haven't been any rewards since! When's the next reward coming?"
The host will begin to receive rewards upon hitting the bust size thresholds achieved by Manyuu Chifusa at different stages of her life. Achieving the bust sizes of other important characters will also grant their special abilities; fulfilling other conditions may also lower the required thresholds. And when the host surpasses Manyuu Chifusa's largest size, the host will be granted an extraordinary reward, once other requirements have been fulfilled…
"At least give me a sword!" Sakura hissed. "Chifusa's wielded a sword since childhood, so I can't believe there's no related threshold I've already surpassed at a D-cup!"
The system fell silent. And then…
Ding! The host is indeed correct, but the system cannot materialize objects directly into the physical world. As such, the system has taken the liberty of modifying one of the host's sealing scrolls to bypass the restrictions. Please take a look; the Summoning Jutsu formula for Chifusa's sword has appeared within it.
Sakura sighed. Well, at least she wouldn't have to buy a sword herself; chakra metal was prohibitively expensive. Personally, she couldn't wait until the Chūnin exams, where female participants wouldn't exactly abound, but would at least exist. And they wouldn't be traps, unlike Haku!
And then, it hit her like a ton of bricks.
"No way," Sakura breathed. "There's just no way that would work, would it?"
The ultimate reverse trap would be participating in the Chūnin exams: one of the Legendary Sannin, Orochimaru! At this stage in the story, he was occupying a female body, using the Living Corpse Reincarnation Jutsu…