Warped

Reasons

     To say that they had passed the time limit of noon was an understatement. They had achieved traveling the forest and evading all the dirt beasts in less than thirty minutes.

     The Wild, Wild Pussycats had only just arrived too from the roadside that was ways away. Honestly, Sakura thought they would be there already before them.

      Kaminari was in a daze, probably from all the pivoting and leaps that Sakura had to do, but it wasn't something that she couldn't fix with some simple medical ninjutsu.

       "You trained like this?" he sputtered once he could rationally think.

      "Mmn, " she answered with a weak smile, "It's a kill-or-be-killed world where I was from, after all."

      As Sakura went to go announce her presence, meaning that she completed the task, Hitoshi caught her by the arm. "... You better explain things better than before."

     "I will, but why don't we get settled first?"

     The three of them then approached the heroes, who were quite astonished that some hero kids already completed the course that was supposed to make the students travel well over noon-time.

     Pixie-Bob looked absolutely flustered at the fact that they were already there. "H-how are you three already done? My quirk-"

      "Shouldn't be able to detect us since you only see the dirt monsters you spawn, " Sakura interrupted with a smirk, "All we had to do was avoid them."

      She looked to Hitoshi, who in turn shrugged. "It wasn't that hard."

      The blonde looked like she was about to go through a stroke before Mandalay interrupted, "Since you all have already completed the course and lunch is nowhere near this time, would you like to go to the baths before everyone else arrives?"

     "No thanks, " Sakura declined, "We've done nothing worthy of taking a bath yet. All we did was find a loophole. I still say we have to earn it."

     She looked to Hitoshi, who in turn nodded, knowing that the pinkette was up to something. "We're going to train."

     It was probably something near what they were going to do, so Hitoshi had no problem in saying it. 

     Mandalay paused to look at them for a couple of seconds before sighing, "Okay, but make sure to be back by the time your classmates are here."

     "Alright, " Sakura replied, turning away to disappear back into the forest.

     Kaminari, who didn't really know what was going on, decided that it was better to follow Sakura around instead of lurking around the building. He didn't want to be the only one there.

     "What's the plan?"

     "We're meeting with someone, " she informed, "He's good with moving around and some coordinates were sent so he should be getting here by now."

     With a rush of wind, Sakura could already tell that he was there, just surveying and watching them. He was probably curious about why Tsunade had used a favor on her. She didn't mind if they were slighted connected, actually, she didn't mind if she revealed herself. Still, she rather liked playing a game of 'Guess Who' with Sterling, so she'd keep her mouth close.

     "Hitoshi, " she called out to him before a sinister grin appeared on her face, "Take care of it."

     The purple-haired boy took no hesitation in taking his sword out of his storage seal, unsheathing it, and swinging it down on the wind.

     The next moment came and a man suddenly appeared, tumbling out of thin air and falling on the ground. "Really... I'm not paid enough for this."

     Kaminari stood with his mouth agape. "What just happened?"

     "Oh, we just scared a coward of a black market info dealer. Nothing too big. He's just the right-hand man of the boss."

     The wind user gave her an unappreciated look. "Tsunade told you all of that?"

     "She didn't tell me your name."

     "I never told her my name."

     "Well, I'm glad that we have a conversation starter then. I'm Sakura Haruno, the person who you are supposed to protect and you are...?"

     "Just call me Ventus."

     At this, Sakura clucked her tongue, "It sounds too cool for someone like you."

    "Why are you being so rude to someone supposed to protect you?"

    "Because you don't have a choice. If the Boss finds out you chose not to do your job, you'll be spoiling their relationship."

     "... I hate that you're right."

     Sakura preened in her glory and then coughed into her hand, "I'm using this meeting to introduce you to the people that will be under me. This is Hitoshi and Kaminari. The one you will be dealing most with is Kaminari. You have your phone or comms, right?"

     He pulled out a communication device from his jacket pocket. "I have one."

     "Kaminari can mess with the channels and speak with you through it. I'm going to have him by my side."

     "Wait, wait, I'm supposed to protect you."

     "By protecting me, you'll keep an updated feed on what's happening, including moves that the League of Villains will make. If anything happens to me during that, well, that's on me."

      Sakura continued to go through the plans with them and then had Ventus leave to continue on the chakra-centered part. All of them planted bomb tags around the grounds and finished in a quick amount of time. Only an hour and a half passed and since they were sweaty and dirty, it was only necessary to take that bath.

     By the end of everything, Sakura knew that it had settled in between the Hitoshi and Kaminari what exactly she was so afraid of and what was to come. Each part of her plan of prevention was detailed to the point where they didn't have to question anything. It was all reasonable.

     Speaking of reason, Sakura couldn't help but be bugged on why she believed that she couldn't change the future. She had wasted a life as a fake-puppet without realizing it.

     What was it exactly that made her lose all hope, leading herself to believe that everything was set in stone? She already knew that she could change things as things she had seen in visions didn't happen. Back to the Stain encounter, she had changed things just by being there so why...?

      Why was there always a lingering sense of guilt and regret?

(A/N: Sorry for publishing late. I came down with something on Sunday that may or may not be Covid. I'm feeling a lot better now though so don't worry! )