บท 5: Sakura Picks her Last Cheats

"What in the world am I supposed to do with ōdachi Kenjutsu?" Sakura shouted. "Nobody in the village uses anything but katana and tantō! Am I supposed to pull an ōdachi out of my butt? Is that it?"

Greatswords were rather rare in the ninja world; due to the speed of combat and the need for mobility, most people used small ninja tools like shuriken, kunai; or short swords, at most. Swords were mostly used by the samurai, and by the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist.

"Hang on," Sakura said to herself thoughtfully. "Doesn't a certain ninja carry an ōdachi very early on in the plot?"

"Who're ya talkin' to, Sakura?"

Sakura started upon hearing Naruto's voice. She slowly turned towards the boy who had just spoken in her ear; he was squatting on the table, right next to her. Sasuke had also returned to the classroom at some point, he was sitting a few rows further in the back.

"I was just talking to myself, that's all," she said, trying to sound innocent.

That was otherworldly! She hadn't neither heard nor seen him arrive, and Naruto was the flashiest and noisiest ninja around! If that had been an enemy, she'd have been dead for sure! Sakura's eyes flew to her status panel: she still had a little over 800 points to invest into her cheats.

Immediately, the Namikaze Minato's reflexes button on the interface was brutally and repeatedly assaulted by her index, and 500 Karma Points were deducted from her account, leaving her with 300 KP. At most, she'd be able to pick two more choices: fire affinity, as well as anything priced under 250 KP.

Sakura hesitated as to what she'd pick next: Tsutomu had never seen Sakura using elemental ninjutsu in the anime, so her elemental chakra affinities had to be abysmally low. However, since she could master Iryō ninjutsu such as the Mystical Palm Technique, she had to have an aptitude for yang chakra, which governed over the body and physical energy. And since she could master Lady Tsunade's Yin Seal, the Byakugō no In, she also had to have yin chakra aptitude, which governed over the spirit.

It seemed as though the system was pushing her towards a melee fighting style, so after a moment of thought, she purchased Might Guy's bone durability for 150 KP, as well as fire nature transformation affinity for 50 KP, since there was nothing else on the list that she could afford.

Guy's bones had to be made out of jade, or at the very least, adamantium, to be able to withstand his incredible muscles, so Sakura considered this to be a good purchase. However, fire style, especially the Great Fireball Jutsu, was notorious for almost never killing anyone. It was useless in anyone but Madara's hands…

Sakura sighed inwardly; wind, lightning and earth were the best natures to have, in her opinion. They were easily accessible, so they were the most convenient. Lightning was the coolest, but wind was the deadliest and most versatile: a Gale Palm or a Great Breakthrough could easily break an enemy's neck if they were pushed against a wall. Furthermore, when it was coated on a sword, wind nature chakra could exponentially increase its cutting power. And in a pinch, wind style could very easily raise a cover of dust to serve as a smokescreen to make a quick getaway.

As for water, it was like wind, but better; except you needed to have water nearby to perform at maximum efficiency. That is, unless you were on Senju Tobirama's level.

Meanwhile, Naruto had grown bored of watching Sakura staring into the void, so he decided to play a prank on their Jōnin-sensei, who was apparently a fan of arriving fashionably late. He picked up an eraser from the blackboard at the front of the classroom, and dragging a chair to the door to use as a step stool, he jammed the eraser in between the sliding door and the door frame.

"There's no way a Jōnin would fall for such a simple trap," Sasuke scoffed, as he watched Naruto setting up his prank.

And as fate would have it… A few moments later, their Jōnin-sensei finally showed up. As he slid the door open, the eraser fell on his head, showering him with chalk dust and causing Sakura and Naruto to burst into laughter.

"Hmm," said their silver-haired Jōnin-sensei thoughtfully. "Based purely on first impressions, I'd have to say… that I hate you all."

And upon saying so, he turned around and left.

"Should… should we follow him?" Sakura asked tentatively.

In the manga, the scene would cut to the next panel after the eraser prank, and in the anime, the scene would just cut to the title card, so she had no idea what to do now. But this was real life, so she couldn't just wait to get teleported to the next scene!

Wordlessly, Sasuke got up and left the classroom, so Sakura and Naruto quickly followed suit. Kakashi led them up the stairs and to the roof, before leaning against the railing. He nodded to the trio, indicating that they should take a seat in front of him, which they did.

"So, I'd like you all to introduce yourselves, so we can get to know one another a little better," he said lazily. "No need to go into too much detail; things you like, things you dislike, dreams, ambitions, hobbies, things like that."

"Why don't you go first, sensei?" Naruto said curiously. "We don't even know your name yet."

"Oh, me?" said Kakashi lazily. "I'm Hatake Kakashi, and I'm the kind of person who doesn't feel like sharing personal details with complete strangers. It's none of your business, really…"

Sakura's brow twitched. Was this guy for real? She remembered him being a lot nicer on the show. Was she going to be all right? She wasn't going to be sent back to the academy, right? The Genin Corps wasn't a real thing, right? RIGHT!?

"Well, I don't want to stand here all day," Kakashi-sensei continued, "so we'll go from right to left. Orange kid, you're up."

If there was one thing Naruto loved to talk about, it was ramen. Cup ramen, Ichiraku ramen, he could go on about it for days. Speaking of which, this reminded Sakura about the theories that she had read in her past life on message boards.

Teuchi, AKA the Ramen Guy, never opened his eyes; was that perhaps because he was hiding the Rinnegan…?