"That's odd," Sakura said quizzically. "That's the fifth patrol we've come across in the past hour. Did something big happen while I was gone?"
"What, have you been living under a boulder?" Sāra sniffed. "There's a war going on. Of course we're going to run into patrols."
Sakura shook her head and gave a helpless, patronising sigh.
What, did these country bumpkins of the Kingdom of Lōran not know she had singlehandedly prevented the Fourth Great Shinobi War? Her face had appeared in the sky and everything; by this point, she was probably the most well-known kunoichi on the continent.
Still, it was rather strange that the patrols had not recognised her as the Fifth Hokage's disciple and merely returned blank stares when she showed them her shinobi identification card. She had taken to flashing her Sharingan at them, simply so they would stop flagging her down. Her irises turning red wasn't something that could be faked.
"Maybe Lady Tsunade ordered that security be heightened…" Sakura muttered to herself. "Getting stopped every five paces is annoying, but it's for the best— wouldn't want Pain waltzing into the heart of the Land of Fire in disguise and blowing up the village again…"
Sakura bent her knees and let Sāra clamber down from her back. The Hidden Leaf was only a few hundred metres away; she could walk the rest of the way. Soon, the village gates appeared beyond the thick foliage of the forest, and Sāra scoffed derisively. The vaunted Hidden Leaf was hardly comparable to Lōran's grand city of a hundred towers. They did not even have a single skyscraper!
…
Uchiha Fugaku stood at the village gates, as still as a statue, arms folded and eyes fixed on the empty road. The frightened gatekeepers lingered a safe distance away on either side of him, stealing the odd glance his way but pretending not to notice the rage simmering beneath his seemingly calm demeanour.
"How long do you intend to waste my time? How long does the Third Hokage intend to make a mockery of Wicked Eye Fugaku?" Fugaku hissed at the gatekeepers, even though it was pointless to ask them. "A highly suspicious Uchiha kunoichi with pink hair, whose most distinctive features are her enormous breasts, accompanied by a red-headed lass who claims to be a princess? And it is to verify the identity of said kunoichi that you waste the Uchiha clan patriarch's time on this laughable farce!?"
At this point, the Third Shinobi World War had been raging for six years already. The bloodshed seemed like it would never end, and these precious few moments away from the frontlines were Fugaku's only solace. He should be at his wife's and three-year-old son Itachi's side, not planted in the middle of the road like a scarecrow, awaiting some phantasmal girl!
Besides, it was well known that the women of the Uchiha clan were all prim and proper Yamato Nadeshiko types, with black hair and slender figures. If this busty, pink-haired girl was a spy, she was a thoroughly inept one… although she was probably quite adept at genjutsu, which was probably why the Hokage had ordered the Uchiha clan leader to help stand guard on what was supposed to be his day off…
Fugaku lost his train of thought as said busty pink-haired girl appeared around a bend in the road, followed by a noble-looking red-headed girl wearing a beautiful purple dress. He goggled at the pink-haired one. She was actually real!? Were those things actually real? They certainly jiggled realistically…
"Yo!" the pink-haired girl called, spotting the welcoming party ahead. "I've got the princess of the Land of Lōran here to see Lady Tsunade!"
The moment the two girls with brightly coloured hair crossed the village's Sensing Barrier, the gatekeepers stiffened as their radio transceivers crackled to life. The Barrier Team had just reported two unregistered chakra signatures entering right before their eyes— and judging by the intelligence about the suspicious pair making their way towards the Hidden Leaf, they were almost certainly not who they claimed to be.
"Lord Fugaku…" one of the two gatekeepers said timidly.
"Fine, I'll spare you the trouble," Fugaku sighed, his coal-black eyes turning scarlet. "Saimingan: Sharingan Genjutsu!"
The red-headed girl instantly keeled over at the sight of his three-tomoe Sharingan, but to his surprise, the pink-haired girl merely staggered. Almost instantly, she had seen through the illusion and caught her companion as she crumpled to the ground, before shooting him a furious glare with her own pair of three-tomoe Sharingan!
Fugaku's famed eyes bulged in shock.
Usually, he could trust his clan members to contain themselves around women, due to their immense pride in the purity of their blood, but he also knew all too well that the passion in his clanmates' veins often burned hotter than any sense of honour.
Clearly, one of the horny imbeciles he was responsible for had copulated with some alluring courtesan or prostitute, or raped some overly curvy peasant girl, during the— Fugaku estimated the girl's age and ran a few mental calculations— no, before the Second Shinobi World War, resulting in… this abomination.
After all, enough Dōjutsu of every kind had been stolen during the war for Fugaku to know all too well that those who had surgically implanted his clan's eyes could never turn them off. This girl, though, was clearly of Uchiha blood. It wasn't pure, so she must have been a prodigy to have already awakened three tomoe at her age.
Although, during wartime, having three tomoe was no longer really that rare or impressive.
"Is that your parent's forehead protector? Take it off," Fugaku said sternly. "Only shinobi of the Hidden Leaf who have graduated from the academy may wear that."
Fugaku shook his head as Sakura stared at him, mouth opening and closing like a startled fish.
Visibly, this half-blood and her little companion had come to Konoha seeking shelter from the war. Their parent— most likely the father— must have abandoned her with her mother, and with her mother's death, she must have come to seek out her sire. Such grief would also explain how she had evolved her eyes to such an extraordinary extent.
"Come, I'll get you registered," Fugaku sighed. "Follow me."
That prominent mouth… those dimply things at the corners of his mouth… that was definitely Uchiha Fugaku, wasn't it? What in the world was going on!?
"Er…" Sakura's mouth hung open as she stared at the square jawline of the man before her, resisting the urge to scream for her System to wake up. "Okay…?"
Fugaku once again shook his head forlornly.
Poor girl, he thought, watching Sakura's bewildered expression as she gaped at the three stone faces carved into Hokage Rock. She clearly wasn't very bright. Coming up with such a ridiculous cover story in the hope of being allowed into the village… it was obvious she hadn't thought things through.
His expression hardened.
Even so, he would have to keep an eye on her. Had she come to meet her father… or to kill him? Rage or sorrow, there was more than one way to obtain three tomoe…