“Two servings of the Golden Deluxe Pork Cutlet Ramen, please,” Sakura Haruno waved a discount coupon, her face beaming with a brilliant smile.
Teuchi had a deep impression of this super-kawaii little girl who came every few days. He smiled warmly and said, “Alright, just a moment. No dried kelp.”
She didn’t like the broth cooked with kelp, so Teuchi had long since switched her soup base to pure pork bone broth.
Naruto lay slumped over the table, looking at Sakura Haruno with a resentful expression. “Sakura, how come you suddenly like someone else? That guy looks so full of himself.”
Come on, you two are going to have a bond in the future—the kind of brotherly bond that can’t be severed for the rest of your lives~ Right, Kishimoto?
Sakura Haruno broke apart a new pair of chopsticks and handed them to Naruto. “Eat your ramen. I’m treating today since I have a discount coupon. Don’t go home and eat instant noodles.”
Naruto was still brooding over Sakura’s sudden confession. Although he didn’t quite understand why he was feeling down, it didn’t stop him from straightforwardly expressing this bad mood.
Sakura Haruno, familiar with his antics, karate-chopped him on the head. Naruto yelped, sat up straight while clutching his head, and all his gloomy feelings vanished.
“Don’t think about irrelevant people. Hurry up and eat. After we finish, we’ll do homework.”
Sakura Haruno scooped all the pork cutlets from her bowl into Naruto’s, adding extra noodles as well, then pushed the overflowing bowl in front of him.
Naruto saw this and flailed his arms anxiously. “Sakura, you don’t have to keep giving me all the meat.”
Sakura Haruno took a sip of the delicious broth, exhaling happily as if expelling the gloom from confessing to Sasuke. “I’m on a diet. You eat it for me.”
Naruto glanced at his bowl. It wasn’t just the meat—Sakura had piled all the nutritious toppings into his large bowl. He knew she wouldn’t accept him putting them back. Ever since she first treated him to ramen, she’d always given him extra meat.
She said she couldn’t eat that much, but Naruto knew she just wanted him to eat his fill.
Naruto’s eyes grew misty from the steam, blurring his vision. To hide his embarrassment, he quickly lowered his head and started eating.
In the future, he would definitely protect Sakura and treat her to even bigger pork cutlets.
After finishing their bowls, Sakura Haruno took out her homemade textbook and began teaching Naruto new characters and previewing the theories they would learn in school.
Although Naruto was persistent, his brain capacity seemed to go on strike. He frantically tugged at his hair while solving problems and writing characters. When it came to studying, Sakura was especially patient.
She taught him over and over until it grew dark and the lights in the ramen shop flickered on. Only then did Sakura Haruno put away her book and stuff a newly written homework notebook into Naruto’s backpack. “This is your homework for tonight. Remember to do it. I’ll check it tomorrow.”
Naruto grew a bit downcast. “Are you leaving already?”
Sakura had a home to return to, so she really should go.
Seeing his drooping head and his unruly blond hair, Sakura Haruno couldn’t help but reach out and ruffle it.
Naruto looked up in surprise, only to see Sakura Haruno pick up her schoolbag and smile. “See you tomorrow, Naruto.”
Under the warm lamplight, the adorable girl’s eyes were like spring fields, where flowers seemed to bloom all at once.
Naruto immediately chased after her. “Wait for me! I’ll walk you home, Sakura.”
He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he last felt that lonely emptiness of returning home in the evening. Sakura would often drag him out to play, eat ramen, or study characters. Even when he went home, he could hold onto his homework notebook, and with something to look forward to, he was no longer afraid of the lonely little house.
It was so good to know Sakura. He wanted to be her best friend.
After her bath, Sakura Haruno pulled up the Mission Screen and opened her various attributes.
Lifespan: Fluctuating
Stamina: 35 (out of 100)
Memory: 60 (out of 100)
Analytical Ability: 40 (out of 100)
xx Ability: …
Beauty Value: 88 (Bonus feature: Automatically awards points as you age. A score of 100 makes you the most beautiful woman in the Shinobi World!) No option to disable. Press + for detailed data.
Beauty value was practically worthless in the world of Naruto. Could being beautiful make someone spare your life even once? No! Whether it automatically leveled up or reached ten thousand points, it was still a useless attribute. Sakura Haruno habitually ignored this un-disableable stat.
Propping her chin on one hand, she frowned as she looked at her remaining points: eleven points (ten for confessing to Sasuke Uchiha, half a point for treating Naruto to ramen, and half a point for helping Naruto learn characters).
In the end, she allocated six points to Memory and five points to Stamina.
Lifespan wasn’t under her control—it was just a mystery.
The System said lifespan was a complex calculation problem, with particularly intricate operations. It depended on her completion of the Sakura Haruno character setting and the progression of the plot. If she deviated too drastically, she would be kicked out of this world. And since she had already died and been sent to the crematorium in her original world, being kicked out here meant death.
After this setting was revealed, she asked, “When I was little, you insisted I go to the Uchiha household and propose to Sasuke in front of his parents and older brother. That was also pretty out of character for Sakura. Weren’t you afraid I’d die?”
The System replied, “That’s a very complex calculation problem. Besides, missions don’t count as breaking character, let alone the fact that you never actually went.”
Alright, so the lifespan issue essentially depended on whatever the System decided to give her.
She could slack off and coast along, but she couldn’t let things completely fall apart. Everything revolved around completing System missions. Honestly, she was just a damn tool—go to hell!
As for the other attributes, she couldn’t just randomly allocate points either—there were age restrictions. If she were only two or three years old, even if she had points, she couldn’t add them to Stamina, claiming it didn’t align with human growth patterns.
Talking about growth patterns in the Naruto world? How many people on this stage actually followed normal patterns?
The System wasn’t just a simple-minded, argumentative trash can that only knew how to bicker with her. It felt more like her damn shackle in this world.
For example, her Sakura Haruno character setting. While she didn’t have to copy the original Sakura one hundred percent, she also couldn’t deviate so much that she became like Hinata. That, in the System’s eyes, was the bottom line.
She also couldn’t freely and casually change the main plot of the Naruto world.
Any changes had to be earned through points.
Fortunately, before transmigrating, she had been a Sakura fan (though she stopped being a fan after Naruto got married), so she had a fairly deep understanding of Sakura Haruno. Plus, Sakura Haruno’s main personality traits happened to align with her own—just a bit more outgoing, and it would be her original self in action.
The character setting wasn’t too much of a problem.
The hard part was pretending not to know.
Pretending not to know that Konohagakure was under constant surveillance everywhere.
Pretending not to know that the Uchiha clan was about to be wiped out.
Pretending not to know that Naruto was a Jinchūriki.
And pretending not to know about Root, Orochimaru, the Akatsuki, the moon, and all the other information.
Especially after getting close to Naruto and entering the Third Hokage’s line of sight, where she was constantly observed and analyzed, she couldn’t afford to expose secrets like her transmigration System.
She also needed to present herself as slightly more capable and three times more talented than others—a cost-effective package—on the Hokage’s desk.
This way, she wouldn’t be directly tossed into the mediocre list at the ninja academy, only to graduate and be thrown away as expendable.
Just think about it—the new generation of powerhouses she’d face upon graduation were essentially a gathering of privileged “official second-generation” kids. Even those without backgrounds, like Tenten and Rock Lee—one was a wealthy heiress with a “mine at home,” and the other had Master Guy’s exclusive favor.
Her commoner status among classmates with formidable Kekkei Genkai and family backgrounds made her stand out glaringly alone.
She had even specifically asked the System: Didn’t the original Sakura have a Clan Crest? How could she be a commoner?
The System replied: Any settings the author scrapped should be treated as nonexistent. The setting is that she’s a commoner.
Fine, she’d still have to rely on herself to survive safely.
The worldview of the Naruto universe was relatively brutal among shonen manga, especially when the author, halfway through, suddenly introduced all sorts of dark, deep, and tragic conspiracies, piling up a messy heap of damn settings that intensified the chaos of the ninja world and diluted the initial sense of joyful hot-bloodedness.
Sakura Haruno wasn’t sure if she could survive until the end. One of the System’s tasks was precisely “Ensure Sakura Haruno survives until the conclusion.”
The reason was that after her transmigration, all of the protagonist survival halos on the original Sakura had vanished.
Meaning if she went out now, jumped off a roof, and suddenly slipped, there’d be no “Naruto can’t die from falls” setting to save her—instead, she’d crack her head open on the ground, brains splattering, and be sent straight to the afterlife.
“What a malicious, ghostly world,” she collapsed on the bed, expressionlessly sighing.
The worst part was, without the protagonist halo, she still had to find a way to enter Team 7 on her own and complete Sakura Haruno’s own storyline.
The original Sakura had an author-given path, but after she arrived, while the path was forced upon her to follow, the System offered zero assistance. She had to strive to push the plot forward herself, not just lie back and wait to tread Sakura’s original route.
Even entering Team 7 wasn’t a hundred percent certain for her.
Because who knew what unexpected incident might suddenly pop up, causing her to lose both her spot in Team 7 and her life.
If not for being pushed by the System, she’d rather break down crying on the first day of school, roll on the ground throwing a tantrum, and finally faint, directly giving up on becoming a ninja.
Be an ordinary person, and once she reached her teens, she could run off to work as a waitress at Ichiraku Ramen. In her spare time, she writes novels similar to the Icha Icha Paradise series, competes with Jiraiya for readers, and uses the manuscript fees to live a stable, smooth, and beautiful life.
That would still be better than living in terror now, constantly calculating how much lifespan she had left.
Thinking about how Jiraiya traveled everywhere yet still had piles of savings, she was genuinely envious. Little x-rated novels really are a money-maker. With all her online experiences from her previous life, writing a few naughty stories would be a piece of cake.
The System suddenly remarked, “I told you long ago to save up points to save your life, but you gave up so many Sasuke-related tasks—you’re blind, aren’t you.””
Still holding a grudge.
Sakura Haruno turned over, showing no emotion as she retorted, “You don’t even consider Sasuke’s current status. Before the clan massacre, he was practically the epitome of high status, wealth, and charisma. Forget about his brother, who’s a lunatic with a mind only for his younger sibling. Just think about the Uchiha clan’s Copy Eye—with their sensitivity that makes them unable to even pee when someone’s standing behind them—do you think they’d let me freely approach Sasuke?”
Once she got close to the current Sasuke Uchiha, she’d fall under the scrutiny of the Uchiha clan. Even her ancestors eight generations back would have their graves dug up and investigated.
Then she’d be under surveillance day and night for any suspicious behavior.
She had a System hanging over her, along with all sorts of bad habits that didn’t align with the Will of Fire. It was fine if she kept a low profile, but if she were constantly observed day and night, who could withstand that?
Even more terrifying was the possibility that interacting with Sasuke a few times might arouse the suspicion of that deranged, brother-obsessed Itachi.
He might even kill her on the night of the clan massacre, using the excuse that her closeness to his brother was suspicious—that she was a spy from a neighboring village sent to covet his brother’s eyes.
It was entirely possible. He could even kill his own parents, the elderly, women, children, and the disabled in his clan. Just thinking about it made it clear that Itachi Uchiha was utterly psychologically twisted.
If you put Naruto in Itachi’s position, no matter how tragic his circumstances or how justified his reasons for turning dark, Naruto’s personality would never allow him to raise a blade against children or the elderly.
So, forget about approaching Sasuke Uchiha. Even with Naruto Uzumaki, if it weren’t for the fact that she got into a fight with a few brats who dared pull her pigtails, and their parents came knocking, causing her to flee and accidentally run into him, knocking him into the river…
She would have had no reason to suddenly show Naruto any warmth.
Did the System think the Anbu were just slacking off and freeloading?
The System fell silent for a moment before saying, “So, you’re afraid of being suspected, which is why you don’t dare take on Uchiha-related missions. Did I issue the mission too early?”
Sakura Haruno yawned lazily and said, “The main reason is that Sasuke and Sakura have to be split up. Just thinking about Sakura Haruno being with Sasuke Uchiha gives me goosebumps.”
The System: “…”
You damn Sasuke-Sakura hater, are you willing to risk your life just to break them up?
Sakura Haruno pulled up the covers and finally revealed her true thoughts before falling asleep. “Forget it, I’ve figured it out. Points are indeed important, and I’ll do missions properly from now on.”
Once Sasuke enters the academy and sits in front of or behind her, interacting with him will be easier and less suspicious.
The System was moved to tears. Host, you’ve finally come to your senses.
But then it heard Sakura Haruno mutter to herself, “Once I accumulate enough points, it seems I can change the marriage ending for Sasuke and Sakura. Using the points earned from dating to break them up… hehehe, I’m such a genius.”
As a Sasuke-Sakura fan, the System wanted to smash the display screen. Aaaaaah, you cunning Sasuke-Sakura hater! Wanting to break them up? No way! Sasuke and Sakura must, immediately, right now, get married and be together.
Never to part!
Today was another day of the System and its host getting along lovingly. How wonderful.
The next morning, Sakura Haruno woke up with puffy eyes and was brushing her teeth when she heard the ominous notification sound—ding~
Ugh. Sakura Haruno rinsed her mouth expressionlessly, washed her face as usual, and then went to eat breakfast. Only after she entered the classroom, sat down, and put down her backpack did she open the mission.
【Please complete the mission of holding hands with Sasuke Uchiha before the end of class today. Duration: no less than xxx seconds.】