Sakura Haruno The Gaming Addict, and Her Gamified Life [Naruto] (2024)

Spoilers, read the piece before the Author's note:

I try to avoid doing Sakura's failure. It can feel like nothing happened if she didn't accomplish her goal, and we have so little time in most chapters, that can just compound. But sometimes it's important for a main character to not immediately succeed, and I think a perfect subject to foil her has arrived.
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In theory, working on the Escape Rope idea is a great use of her time. The One-shot dungeon had multiple points where she would have liked the option to leave, even if she didn't take it, and if she had enough it's possible she could have offered some of the enemy a chance to escape. She hadn't thought of it at the time but the quest was apparently a lot more lenient than she realized. Three Genin escaped and all she lost was a little reputation gain. The lecture she got back home about chain of command, how she shouldn't have killed Fierro, and the idea of the escape rope combined in her head pretty heavily when she had time to play her switch and decompress under a warm blanket.

She slaughtered them, and that doesn't bother her, but what if she could have spared some? Sure she got lesser rewards for those that escaped but life isn't a game. She's not spiraling towards the next checkpoint and treating people like bags of EXP. She's okay with killing the enemy because it's what the mission entails, and it's what she's required, and she's been taught to think of the enemy like they're not people.

But she wasn't contracted to kill every genin in that dungeon, and her quest didn't have a penalty that would have stopped her from letting some go if she had the option, besides lesser rewards. Even excluding that logic, the option to leave if it turns out the boss is too crazy is something she just kind of wants to have. Which brings her to her current conundrum, how to even get the recipe for the escape rope? It's a conceptual item, it's not something she can just throw a few pieces of metal together for and it'll unlock. She knows because she tried, the rope and ladder over there by her crafting table - she bought it with some of her cut from managing Haku - are proof enough. But it's also obvious.

So her experimentation needs to take a different route. Dungeon items, she needs to figure out a dungeon item she can figure out the basic recipe for and recreate it. If she has a base, maybe she'll get a dungeon crafting skill and from there leveling it up might unlock the escape rope. Even if she doesn't get it today, the progression route could be massive.

The issue is that no matter how much she wracks her brain about it, she keeps circling back to the escape rope. It's like she's so focused on one thing that she can't open her brain and come up with anything else. "Is this what creatives call a block?" She ponders from bed, rolling over, "I have an idea."

"I know this was my idea but are you sure this is helpful?" Sakura asks, her hands on her thighs, her lower legs underneath her, her eyes closed and her breaths even. The grass underneath her feels nice, as does the air on her face.

"This would never work for a normal person." Gai's manly voice can be surprisingly calming after you get used to it. It's deep but enthusiastic, and easy to zone into when you're trying to be a little zen. "It can take years to properly learn how to escape yourself, but meditation is easy once you grasp it. My hope is that should you focus long enough your system will pick it up and give you the first level. From there…"

"Right." She remembers the goal in his words. It's just a little hard, because they've already been at this an hour and her brain doesn't like this kind of thing at all. She'd rather be training with Lee, but she can't clear her mind unless she figures this out. Plus, she heard meditation helps anger issues, and she wants Tenten to play games with her! "I know that, it's just…"

"If you stopped talking, you would have an easier time." He chides her, and she gives him a gentle nod. Focusing on where he is in her space, and then focusing on her breaths. They're heavy and the air is nice this time of year. There's fresh dew beneath her because they did this in the morning, she's technically still up from yesterday. A new expansion dropped and uh, they don't have team training today so…

It's hard, how is she supposed to calm the wandering thoughts when they never stop? Can she truly focus on just her breathing and feel what's around her when even that causes her to think about doing it?

"Phew…" Just a little more, there's a beetle nearby, wriggling around in the grass. That's distracting, what if it touches her? She's never been bothered by insects but she doesn't want them on her unless they're Shino's.

His insects are cool. They all got a little used to them when he was younger and had less control of them, they would just wander around the classroom and it was taboo to hurt them so, you just got used to one in your hair. Shino could probably keep one on her at all times and she'd never notice. "This is stupid, want to train?" She asks, noticing how Gai has already given up meditation and has at some point moved on to aggressive flexing.

"You should continue to practice this on your own time." He instructs, "you never know when this could be useful. But neglecting your body is also ill advised, let us run."

"I'll sit around and do nothing proactively the next time I end up in the hospital and can't do anything." She snorts at the thought, she'll be fine the moment she takes a nap, why would she be in a hospital long enough to learn this?

Still, she wishes she had learned it. She can't get everything on the first try, sadly. "What's an item you want specifically for if you're spelunking?" Sakura asks, getting up so she can stretch before the run.

"Chakra pills?" Gai suggests.

"Recovery items, maybe if I focused on the not so medical aspect of that concept."

So recovery items are a bust. Maybe she should just focus on the anger issues? Conceptual items are something she very much wants, but it's seeming like she's struggling on the main point somewhere.

She bets its mana. Looking at the rings she got from Fierro, she can't help but wish she had more control over and understanding of mana. That's something she fiercely needs, but she'll have to wait because there's no instructor for freaking mana around. She imagines once she has a use for mana it'll be a lot easier because she'll learn how to manipulate it. As is she's just kind of waffling about.

All this to say she's wasted pretty much all of today and is incredibly frustrated. So why isn't she mad? She didn't fix her anger issues with one hour with Gai, but maybe the experience gave her a slightly better perspective?

"Maybe today wasn't a total waste." She murmurs with a soft smile as she climbs onto her bed, and returns to practice. She won't learn it right now, she's come to terms with that, but maybe some time to think can help her more than she knows.