Mission Cleared, S-Rank Rating!

After Sakura accepted Hyde's job offer— to temporarily figure what kind of trouble she had managed to get herself into— she was made to wait in a lavishly decorated hall, which was quite unlike the rest of the building. Hyde hadn't personally accompanied her there, but he had assured her he would be with her shortly— as soon as he had taken care of some 'business.'

And so it was that Sakura found herself trapped in some sort of trophy room, which was guarded by two of Hyde's hulking Hollow Knights. One of the armoured guards had then approached Sakura and clumsily served her some complimentary tea, before returning to its post by the exit, leaving her to her own devices.

Left with nothing else to do, Sakura walked up to one of the tapestries hanging on the wall with her cup in hand; as she pretended to admire it, she discreetly tipped the contents of her teacup into a flowerpot, fearing it might have been spiked with something. But as Sakura prepared to move on to the next tapestry, a seemingly out of place red blotch on the fabric caught her attention…

"Blood?" Sakura murmured to herself, giving the red spot a sniff. "Fresh too, by the looks of it…"

The tapestries depicted humans prostrating themselves in supplication, offering gifts of fruit and shiny things to some important-looking figures in fancy clothes, in exchange for what appeared to be teal-coloured carved stones. Strangely enough, the same important-looking figures appeared again and again, even as the people around them changed…

Sakura glanced over her shoulder at the Hollow Knights guarding the exit. It was clear that before these works of art had ended up in Hyde's collection, these tapestries and wall reliefs had been stained with the blood of their previous owners, murdered in cold blood. If they were valuable enough to kill for, then they must hold some deeper meaning, Sakura told herself...

Suddenly, the intercom flared to life.

"Haruno Sakura, Master Hyde requests your presence in Cell Block A," a female voice rang out through the hall. "Someone will be with you shortly in order to guide you."

Sakura whirled around as the exit door slid open— but to her surprise, her guide wasn't one of the mindless Hollow Knights, but rather a beautiful, buxom blonde-haired woman wearing plate armour. She looked just like one of the female knights from Sakura's erotic doujins— the kind that would have her armour pieces torn off her body one by one until she was nearly naked, as she valiantly put up a futile act of resistance… before getting assaulted by goblins.

And it was a good thing that goblins didn't exist here, because Sakura just happened to look just like the sexy kunoichi from her past life's erotic doujins!

'She's wearing a breastplate,' Inner Sakura remarked. 'Manyuu sword techniques will just bounce off the metal— we'll need to strip it off if we want to steal her breasts.'

Sakura's Manyuu blade, when used in conjunction with the clan's special Kenjutsu, could phase through clothes and flesh, but not through metal.

"Yo, girlie!" the female knight sneered. "Get your arse over here, I've got better things to do than to babysit newcomers!"

Sakura followed the female knight out of the room and trotted after her, struggling to keep pace with the tall woman's long legs. Together, they travelled through a veritable maze of metal tunnels, until they arrived at their destination a dozen minutes later, with Sakura having completely lost her bearings.

"Ah, excellent work, Ranke," said Hyde, who was waiting for them next to a closed door. "Now, Miss Haruno, was it? Do shinobi have any experience extracting information from prisoners?"

"Information gathering is our speciality," said Sakura, thumping her sizeable chest with her fist, causing it to ripple. "What would you like to know from this prisoner of yours?"

"The location of the mine of Gelel," said Hyde, "but please try to leave the man alive, if you cannot obtain an answer."

Ranke opened the door to Cell Block A.

"After you," she said mockingly.

After a moment of hesitation, Sakura entered the room. These people didn't know how to seal her chakra, which meant that she didn't need to fear getting tricked into a prison cell. As long as she had her strength and her chakra, no metal bars could hold her.

Once Sakura had entered the cell, Ranke slammed the door behind her, and Sakura found herself face to face with an old man chained to a wall. His face had turned purple from the beatings, he was missing a great number of teeth, and his white hair and beard were matted with blood.

"You'll never get the location of the mine out of me!" the old man hollered deliriously. "Not as long as I… eh? Nerugui…?"

Upon getting a whiff of the old man's scent, Nerugui the ferret had leapt out of Sakura's cleavage and landed on his shoulder, nuzzling his cheek affectionately.

"Wait, you're not one of them," said the old man, squinting at Sakura through his puffy eyelids. "That headband… you're a shinobi from the Leaf!"

Unlike Naruto, Sakura actually read mission parameters from start to finish. Even though his face was covered in bruises, she recognised the man in front of her as the person who had posted the ferret-location mission!

"Kahiko-san, correct? Here's your missing ferret, which means my mission is complete," said Sakura, as she pulled out a document from her scroll pouch. "Please sign here, and as for the payment…"

"Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait! You can't just drop Nerugui with me and leave us here like this!" Kahiko screeched, rattling his chains. "Does it look like I've got any money on me? Get us out of here first! And besides, I asked for Nerugui to be delivered to the next village on our caravan's route, which means that your mission isn't over yet!"

Due to a few changes to the timeline, Sakura and her group had taken this mission a bit later than they originally would have. As such, the caravan made up of the descendants of the inhabitants of the country destroyed by the power of Gelel had already been attacked by Hyde and his group, by the time Sakura had arrived at their base. Thankfully, most of the wandering caravan had managed to get away safe and sound, but Kahiko himself had got captured, which is why he was now here, at Hyde's mercy!