Sakura (How to Obtain a Reverse Harem in Naruto)

Pinch, Pinch

"Survival training."

"Survival training?"

I smirked. "Oh?"

"Out of twenty seven graduates, only nine pass and become Genin. Eighteen will be sent back to the academy. So, in turn a roughly sixty-six percent dropout rate," Kakashi explained doing his best to appear very intimidating and ominous.

Of course that didn't work on me. I still remembered seeing the man turn fifty shades of red reading Icha Icha out loud to help decipher Jiraiya's message. Not to mention I knew for a fact that the man treated his summons like family (each had their own bowl, and he regularly groomed them). It was hard to find a man like Kakashi intimidating with all that knowledge, and so much more.

Still, I had to keep in mind that I was a fresh academy student and I should have been—

Ah, fuck it.

"I'm so going to pinch those cheeks," I cooed.

"What?" Kakashi asked, completely off guard.

"Did I say that out loud? Pretend you heard nothing," I insisted, then started to whistle innocently.

The Ex-ANBU captain distinctly scooted away from a little girl with pink hair. That only heightened my amusement, of course. It was hard to focus on what else Kakashi talked about because all I could think about was how shy and adorable the supposed badass was when it came to anything perverse.

Before I knew it, Kakashi was gone, Sasuke left in an awfully big hurry, and Naruto was nervously looking over at me.

I gave a woeful sigh before casting a glance over at my future teammate. "Wanna go get that ramen now?"

Naruto's nervousness faded away and he bounced up and down. "Yeah! I'll pay for whatever you want, Sakura-chan!"

"Drop the chan, you adorable boy," I teased. "We're friends now, so let's be on a first name basis. If you pay for our food this time, I'll pay for next time."

"Next time?" Naruto squeaked, his face illuminating with sheer happiness.

"Yep. So lead the way."

"Yatta!"

( ｡◕‿‿◕｡)

Lunch with Naruto went about as one would expect it to go. The ball of radiance was beyond happy and merrily chattered away about various and unimportant things. It felt relaxing and nice, and I was already comfortable around his presence. I was dead set on becoming Naruto's first best friend because clearly Sasuke did not deserve that right.

After I bid my companion farewell, I lugged my backpack across the village to my next destination.

I took the back roads instead of the main street, wanting to experience the village through my own eyes instead of Sakura's memories. There were moments where two different memories collided; such as there was a dessert shop at a corner, that used to be pawn shop and Sakura had memories of both of them in that area, and it was hard to tell which one was the more recent one until I actually had to go there in person to see for myself.

The actual journey took well over an hour and my shoulders ached something fierce from lugging the heavy backpack around. It was with great relief that I approached the Yamanaka's compound.

With Sakura's memories as my guide I deftly maneuvered through the bustling area until I reached Ino's front door.

I knocked politely on the door and a solid minute passed by before Ino opened the door. I grinned at her. "Hey, pretty lady!"