Somebody isekais into Haruno Sakura, an orphan from the Ninetails' attack on Konoha. Life is tough when your isekai powers mess with your chakra, but full of opportunities. Now if only the system wasn't intent on bankrupting her!
Gacha Pokemon power...
Hatake, well, Kakashi-sensei's stamp of approval meant that Team 7 was cleared to take on missions. It didn't mean that the man learnt what punctuality was. Once was normal, twice was a coincidence. Thrice was enemy action.
I wasn't going to give a grown man brownie points for only being an hour and a half late. My professional senses were tingling, my piggy bank was raging at the wasted time. I wasn't even spending the couple of hours I waited for him having fun! I was having to endure an awkward silence with two kids with whom I had very little in common. Not helped by the fact that Naruto was the ADHD kid that didn't like reading, so I couldn't even give him a book so he wouldn't be terminally bored.
Bored Naruto attrited at Naruto's base concepts of personal space, boundaries and ability to read the mood.
Kakashi was probably the sort to know and let us have it if we were the ones late. Urgh.
"Independent training while we wait for lazy-sensei tomorrow?" "He's always so late!" "Might as well."
Regardless, "Yo." "You're late!!" ""..."" he eventually showed up.
As an introduction to actually being a genin, Kakashi-sensei took us on a small tour of places we were now authorized to be in. Some we'd already seen as part of the later Academy curriculum, but others were new. Like where we would have to file some paperwork or where we could collect our payments, or an expanded library. Most of this was in the facilities attached to the Hokage tower that the Ninja Academy was behind.
We got fitted with a set of short-range communicators. The secure, expensive kind. How nice to see that Konoha too was improving in its technology. Maybe one day we would actually have TVs!
Then we took a picture.
This I liked. Another picture to add to my wall. We put Naruto in the middle, because he was the midget among us, and he looked adorable raging at the camera. Kakashi was leaning down to our height, each hand ruffling mine and Sasuke's hair. The difference was I was smiling and he was scowling. The boys looked so much like kids, I was going to hang this one in a place of honor.
The morning done, we headed to the Mission Desk.
A mission! A paycheck!
I was almost skipping. I hadn't worked a day since before my registration as a ninja. Five days. I was getting twitchy about not getting any money. It was probably a bad sign considering my mentality. The gacha was a slow, strangling struggle. I wasn't on the edge of poverty or anything. Although I would stop receiving village funds in three months, a period of grace after my graduation, I still had my parents' money. Unfettered access to it at last too. I was going to keep withdrawing only enough for basic expenses the rest of the year, because I didn't know how my costs were going to evolve.
On the one hand, I would now be getting paid a fair amount. On the other, I needed to get my equipment to genin standards, I would need to replace it more often, to improve it and finally, I was going to need to eat more as my body and chakra grew.
A not-inconsiderable portion of a ninja's income was spent on food. The highly-caloric, nutrient packed meals we could buy and that the restaurants in Konoha specialized in were expensive. Or maybe that was just for taijutsu-based fighters like me. The rest was weapons, weaponry and weapon-like tools.
Anyway, the Hokage, to us presented that day... a D-rank mission: trash collecting in a sector of Konoha.
Did you know that trash cans in Konoha were collected and cleaned by genin? No? Well, it explained a few things. Who handled sanitation concerns, for one. We were just going to pick up free trash in the streets. The can were handled by night-shift ninjas.
A thought occurred to me. "Do trash ninjas have to check the trash for bodies or explosive tags?" I asked Kakashi.
Naruto yelped. Sasuke made a weird face. Kakashi blinked. "Yep."
"Hm, that makes sense. Ok, that was all the questions I had. Let's go!" I pumped my fists in excitement.
"Scary Sakura, you want to go pick up trash?" Naruto was baffled.
"Kakashi-sensei already explained the rationale behind low-level missions. And, fellow orphan of mine," I grabbed him by the shoulders and imposed on him the gravity of our mission, "they're paying us each a fat one thousand and five hundred ryou. For a single afternoon of hard work."
"Ack, Kakashi-sensei, save me from the Greedy Demon!!" "Get your butt in gear Orange Orphan. You move too Blue Orphan. We have money to earn." "... don't call me that."
Naruto in a headlock and Sasuke following us sedately, we headed out for our first paycheck!
I paused suddenly. My team looked at me. "I need to review Konoha tax laws."
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