Naruto: Reborn as Sakura with Manyuu Chifusa Template

To be perfectly honest, Sakura didn't think there was much any filler enemy could do against the elite line-up of Team 7— who would, after all, go on to pretty much single-handedly save the world. After all, standard operating procedure dictated they couldn't undertake missions unless their roster was complete. But thankfully, they didn't have to wait too long for their replacement teammate, because within a day, a familiar figure dropped out of the sky before them.

"Hinata-chan, yahallo~!" said Sakura brightly.

She held up both hands for a double high-five.

"Um," said Hinata in bewilderment as she landed, "…y-yahallo, Sakura-chan?"

…

Hinata was rather surprised to be greeted so warmly.

After all, she had barely spoken a single word to her fellow Konoha Twelve members (apart from Kiba) over the past two years. It had all begun two and a half years earlier, when her cousin Neji had rearranged her guts, and she started seeing and hearing voices.

'Rejoice, for I'm your great-great-great-great-grandpa!' the mysterious, big-breasted and white-eyed figure had declared. 'Do you wish for the power to overturn your fate, great-great-great-great-granddaughter?'

Naturally, Hinata's enigmatic mentor was Ōtsutsuki Urashiki, shamelessly pulling the old trope of the Fortuitous Encounter: Grandpa in the Ring scam, claiming she'd lost all her powers to an evil shinobi and slumbered in her descendants' blood until she conveniently awakened just in time to save her descendant from certain death.

Unfortunately for Urashiki, she had met Tenten immediately after implanting her Kāma— a compressed backup of her soul and accumulated genetic data— inside Hinata. Recognising the Kāma, Tenten had ordered Neji to kill his cousin and eliminate this hidden threat in advance… but in doing so, they had inadvertently saved her.

Despite knowing that regenerating Hinata's dying body would cost her so much compressed information that it would make forcibly taking over Hinata's body impossible, Urashiki had still gambled on using the Kāma to save her— knowing that if she died, her chances of survival would be exactly zero. The same thing had happened to Boruto and his parasite Momoshiki, just before he was forced to flee the Hidden Leaf Village, blamed for the murders of the Seventh Hokage and his wife.

But what Tenten didn't know was that, although Boruto had maintained control over his body in the same way Hinata had, he would later willingly hand it over to Momoshiki in exchange for his help, culminating in the ruinous future Tenten had escaped…

…

"You're getting pretty big," Sakura said admiringly, reaching out to give Hinata's chest a playful squeeze. "How big are they now? I'd say ninety-eight centimetres, at a glance."

At almost a metre in circumference, that would make her an even G-cup. Not too big, not too small— for Sakura's tastes, that is.

"Please, not so suddenly, Sakura-chan!" Hinata squeaked, her face turning as bright red as a tomato. "N-n-not while Naruto-kun's watching…"

"So, what you're saying is," Sakura cooed, "it'd be fine if his eyes were closed?"

Noticing Naruto staring at them, Hinata's poor brain promptly overheated, and she keeled over in a dead faint. Sakura turned around, and upon seeing Naruto's lecherous eyes, which looked as though they were licking Hinata's body all over, she couldn't help but feel an irrational twinge of jealousy.

"Naruto, you perv!" Sakura snapped. "Look at what you've done to poor Hinata!"

"Me!?" exclaimed Naruto, aghast. "But you were the one feeling her up, ya know!"

Sakura was in turmoil.

What exactly was she feeling jealous about? Was it because she wanted Hinata all to herself? It couldn't be because Naruto was looking at someone other than her, right? Right!? Her body still being physically attracted to Sasuke's appearance was one thing, but Naruto, of all the idiots!?

Sasuke watched as Sakura doubled over in a standing foetal position, clutching her head and groaning. She was doubtlessly tangled up in some incredibly stupid or nonsensical thoughts again— but this was hardly the moment to be wasting time.

"Ahem," he coughed. "Team Captain?"

The pink-haired girl opened her eyes and stood up straight.

"That's right, everyone's relying on me!" Sakura gasped in realisation, rummaging in her pouch for her world map. "Um…"

First things first: they had to reach their destination. The Land of Demons lay far to the west, but the farthest west Sakura had ever been was the Land of Honey— a few countries past the Land of Birds, sandwiched between the massive Lands of Earth and Wind.

"It'll take us a few days to get there," Sakura said, tracing a wiggly line on the map from Kusagakure to the Land of Demons. "I'll take point and lead the way. Naruto, you stay in the middle— you'll be in charge of guarding the V.I.P. once we reach her— and Sasuke, you carry Hinata until she wakes up."

If Hinata woke up in Naruto's arms, she'd just faint again, and they'd be back to square one.

…

And so, Team 7, plus Hinata, set off for the faraway Land of Demons, making sure to give the Land of Rain a wide berth as they skirted through the Land of Earth, their temporary ally on this expedition.

Along the way, Sakura summoned a miniature Katsuyu to massage her shoulders while questioning her about the demon Mōryō and the sealing spells the priestess of the Land of Demons was said to be able to use.

"Forgive me for asking, Mistress Sakura, but why would you want to learn sage spells?" Katsuyu inquired. "You're already quite proficient with your chakra, so there's no need to trouble yourself with such antiquated methods."

Just because something was old didn't mean it was any good. There was a reason why the Ōtsutsuki's chakra-based system had replaced the Sage Regions' nature-energy-based sage spell system: it was way more convenient and much less perilous.

"Well, you told me I only had one shot at becoming a Slug Sage," Sakura said, explain her reasoning. "So, before learning Sage Mode, I thought it would be wise to practise manipulating nature energy outside my body before attempting to take it inside my body to mould Senjutsu Chakra with."

Upon hearing Sakura's proposal, Katsuyu was stunned.

Unlike Mt Myōboku, which liked to meddle in the affairs of mortals and boasted a well-established system for teaching Sage Mode to humans, the reclusive Ryūchi Cave and Shikkotsu Forest had no such safety net. Fail to become a Snake Sage on your first try, and you'd be swallowed whole; fail to become a Slug Sage on your first attempt, and you'd be absorbed into the Katsuyu hivemind.

"That's… a surprisingly good idea, Milady," Katsuyu said. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try, but please keep in mind that perfectly balancing the three energies will still be incredibly difficult for someone like you… but still, what's so bad about becoming a slug?"