u/the_real_phantomxssj

The sun was starting to dip, painting the training grounds in long orange shadows. Most students had already gone home. The only sounds left were the distant calls of birds and the soft rustle of leaves.

Naruto sat slumped against a tree, staring at the empty coin pouch in his hands like it had personally ruined his life.

“Three days…” he muttered. “Three whole days without ramen. I know I shouldn't have brought that manga like it wasn't even that good This is cruel. This is torture. This is—”

A quiet voice came from the other side of the tree.

“…N-Naruto-kun?”

He froze.

Hinata was lying on her back in the grass, completely wiped out from training. Her jacket was half-unzipped, her hair messy, and there were leaves stuck to her sleeve. She must have been there the whole time and he’d been too busy complaining to notice.

She sat up slowly, still a little dizzy.

“I… I heard you talking. About money.”

Naruto’s face went red. “W-what?! You were listening?! That’s eavesdropping! That’s against the rules or something!”

Hinata looked down, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. “I wasn’t… trying to. I just… finished training and I was tired, so I rested here. And then you sat down and started talking to yourself...”

There was an awkward silence.

Then, very softly, she said:

“…I can give you some money. If you need it.”

Naruto’s head snapped up.

“No.”

The word came out sharper than he meant it to.

Hinata flinched a little.

He scratched the back of his head, looking away. “It’s not… it’s not that I don’t appreciate it. But if you give me money, your dad’s gonna find out. And then he’ll get mad at you. And I don’t… I don’t want pity money either. I’m not some charity case.”

Hinata was quiet for a long moment.

She stared at the grass, thinking hard. Her fingers twisted together in her lap.

Then, almost in a whisper:

“…What if… you earned it instead?”

Naruto blinked. “Huh?”

Hinata’s voice was still soft, but there was a tiny spark of determination in it now.

“You’re… really good at pranks, Naruto-kun. Everyone knows it. Even the teachers talk about it sometimes. So… maybe… other students would pay you. To prank people for them.”

Naruto stared at her.

The idea sat in the air between them for three full seconds.

Then his eyes went wide.

“Wait. Wait wait wait. You’re saying… people would \*pay\* me… to do the thing I already do for free?!”

Hinata nodded, cheeks pink. “I-if you’re careful… and don’t get caught too much… maybe.”

Naruto shot to his feet so fast he almost tripped over his own sandals.

“HINATA THAT’S GENIUS!”

She squeaked and covered her face with both hands as he started spinning in circles, already planning.

“I could charge by difficulty! Basic itching powder is cheap, but if they want something big—like swapping someone’s lunch or messing with a teacher’s scroll—that’s premium! And you can help me keep track of the money so I don’t spend it all in one day!”

Hinata peeked out from between her fingers, equal parts terrified and happy.

“…I can… keep a notebook?”

“Yes! You’re officially the business manager!”

And just like that, under a tree in the fading light, with one exhausted Hyūga girl and one extremely broke yellow haired gremlin…

\*\*Naruto’s Prank Commissions\*\* was born.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Naruto was still spinning in circles with the empty pouch clutched in his fist when the excitement suddenly hit a wall.

He stopped dead.

“…But who’d even want someone to get pranked right now?” he asked, scratching his head. “Most people are just trying not to fail the next exam. And nobody’s got money except the rich kids.”

Hinata blinked.

Then she actually started thinking.

Her eyes narrowed just a little as she quietly went through the class roster in her head.

“…Chōji-kun?” she murmured. “No… he doesn’t care about anything unless someone steals his food. And even then he’d just eat more too kind really.”

Naruto nodded. “Yeah, true.”

“Shikamaru-kun is too lazy. He’d rather take a nap than pay someone to cause trouble.”

“Also true.”

Hinata’s fingers tapped against her knee as she continued.

“Sakura-chan… she might want to prank Ino-chan. But if the prank goes too far, Ino-chan could get hurt… and then she’d never become a customer later. That would be bad for business.”

Naruto stared at her. “You’re really thinking about this like a real shop, huh?”

Hinata’s cheeks went pink, but she kept going, voice still soft.

“And then… there’s Sasuke-kun.”

Naruto’s eyes lit up.

Hinata looked up at him, surprisingly serious.

“He’s perfect. He has… a lot of problems with girls. They’re always surrounding him, and the teachers keep trying to pair him with people. He’s rich. And if we somehow… let it slip that even \*he\* used the service…” She hesitated, then finished in a tiny voice, “…other people might want to hire you too. For the status.”

Naruto’s jaw slowly dropped.

“…Hinata.”

“Y-yes?”

“You’re scary when you use your brain.”

She immediately covered her face with both hands again.

Naruto threw his head back and laughed so loud a couple of birds flew out of the tree.

“Alright! Operation: Make the Tempered-Face Our First Big Client is a go!” He pointed at her dramatically. “You’re in charge of the master plan. I’m in charge of the pranks. Together, we’re gonna be rich!”

Hinata peeked through her fingers, equal parts mortified and strangely proud.

“…Please don’t get expelled on the first day…”

______________________________________

The Uchiha compound was quiet in the late afternoon. Most of the clan were either out on missions or inside their houses. The big main house sat at the end of the path like it was judging everyone who walked up to it.

Naruto stood in front of the gate, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“You sure about this, Hinata? This place looks haunted to me.”

Hinata nodded once, though her hands were tightly wrapped around her little notebook in which she had made a rough pamphlet for Naruto's business. “Ri-rightfully.. so..Naruto...but I-it’s the only place we know he’ll be after class… and if we talk to him here, there’s less chance someone else will overhear.”

Naruto grinned. “Look at you, thinking like a real boss already.”

She turned pink and pushed the gate open before she could lose her nerve.

They found Sasuke in the training yard behind the main house, working through a series of sharp, precise kata with kunais . He noticed them the second they stepped into view. The sword stopped mid-swing.

“…What are you two doing here.”

Naruto opened his mouth.

Hinata stepped forward first.

“S-Sasuke-kun,” she said quietly, keeping her eyes mostly on the ground. “We… wanted to talk to you about something.”

Sasuke’s eyes narrowed. “Spit it out.”

Hinata took a small breath.

“Don’t you… want to get rid of some of the fangirls?”

Sasuke went completely still.

Hinata continued, voice soft but steady.

“They’re always around you. They follow you after class. They try to sit next to you. Even some of the teachers keep trying to push you together with them. It looks… tiring.” She glanced up for half a second. “Naruto-kun is already kind of… a fangirl repellent. People avoid him when he’s nearby. So… maybe he could help you. On purpose.”

Naruto puffed his chest out proudly. “Yeah! I’m like a natural deterrent! And if you pay me good I'll prank the souls outta them wannabe miss Uchihas believe it."

Sasuke stared at them both like they’d grown second heads.

“…You’re offering to prank people for me.”

“Not just people,” Naruto said. “We can start with the biggest problem. Suzume-sensei. She’s the one who keeps putting you between Sakura and Ino on purpose, right?”

Sasuke’s jaw tightened just enough to confirm it.

Hinata opened her notebook and held it against her chest like a shield.

“We would need… some money in advance,” she said carefully. “For supplies. And so Naruto-kun can eat properly while he plans. The rest can be paid after the job is done.”

Sasuke looked at her for a long moment. Then at Naruto. Then back at her.

“…How much advance.”

Hinata flipped to a page she’d already written on earlier and turned the notebook around so he could see the number.

It wasn’t greedy. Just enough for a few bowls of ramen and the materials they’d need.

Sasuke clicked his tongue, reached into his pocket, and tossed a small pouch at Naruto. Naruto caught it with both hands, eyes going wide at the weight.

“That’s half,” Sasuke said flatly. “You get the rest when Suzume-sensei stops trying to play matchmaker. If this backfires and makes things worse, I’ll make sure you both regret it.”

Naruto’s grin stretched ear to ear. “Pleasure doing business with you, client!”

Hinata quickly wrote in her notebook:

**Client: Uchiha Sasuke**

**Advance: Received**

**Target: Suzume-sensei (first priority)**

**Note: Do not let Naruto-kun buy only ramen with the advance money.**

As they turned to leave the compound, Naruto threw an arm around Hinata’s shoulders (she immediately went scarlet ) and whispered loudly,

“See? I told you coming here was a good idea. We’re basically professionals now!”

Hinata clutched her notebook tighter and muttered,

“…Please don’t get us banned from the Uchiha compound…”

Sasuke raised a eye brow. "I wasn't aware they were that close."

______________________________________

**Planning Night + Prank Day (Updated)**

---

**That same evening – Ichiraku Ramen**

Naruto was already on his second bowl, chopsticks moving like a blur. Hinata sat across from him with her notebook open. Between them on the counter sat a small arsenal: itching powder, a bottle of concentrated stink solution, a jar of pure ethanol, two small hand mirrors, a few blank scrolls, and a packet of special flower seeds that reacted… interestingly… to body heat.

Teuchi raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He’d learned not to ask questions when Naruto looked this excited.

Naruto swallowed a huge mouthful and pointed his chopsticks at Hinata.

“Okay, partner in crime. Hit me with the plan.”

Hinata flipped a page. Her handwriting was neat, but there were already several nervous doodles in the margins.

“S-Suzume-sensei’s next class is flower arrangement. She always uses the same special vase for demonstrations… the one she keeps on her desk. First, we replace the water inside with the stink solution. Then we swap her backup jar of clean water with pure ethanol. And we mix a little itching powder into the flower petals she always hands out…”

Naruto’s eyes sparkled. “And then what?”

Hinata’s voice dropped even lower.

“We swap her lesson scroll. The one she reads from when she starts talking about ‘the language of flowers and the bonds between young hearts.’ Replace it with… something else.”

Naruto leaned in. “Something else like what?”

Hinata’s face turned bright red. She wrote two words in the notebook and turned it around.

Naruto read them.

Then he started laughing so hard he almost fell off the stool.

“HINATA YOU’RE EVIL!”

She covered her face with both hands. “I-it’s just so she gets embarrassed enough to stop focusing on Sasuke-kun…!”

Naruto wiped a tear from his eye, still grinning. “Okay, but what’s with the mirrors?”

Hinata peeked through her fingers, looking equal parts terrified and determined.

“When she panics and pours the ethanol into the vase to try and fix the smell… we use the mirrors. From opposite sides of the room. Reflect sunlight straight into the vase. The ethanol vapor should… react.”

Naruto stared at her.

“…You’re gonna set the vase on fire with sunlight.”

“…Just a little,” Hinata whispered.

Naruto slammed the rest of the advance money on the counter, laughing like a maniac.

“Teuchi-san! One more bowl for me, and whatever Hinata wants! We’re celebrating a future masterpiece!”

---

**The Next Day – Flower Arrangement Class**

Suzume-sensei stood at the front of the classroom, smiling brightly as always. Her favorite demonstration vase sat proudly on her desk.

“Alright everyone~ Today we’ll be learning how certain flowers can express hidden feelings! Especially useful for young shinobi who have trouble saying what’s in their hearts~”

Her eyes lingered on Sasuke for a second too long. Sakura and Ino both sat up straighter. Sasuke looked like he was mentally preparing for war.

In the back, Naruto and Hinata sat on opposite sides of the room. Each had a small mirror hidden under their desk. Hinata looked like she might pass out. Naruto looked like it was his birthday.

The class began.

Suzume reached into the vase to pull out the first flower—

*PFFFFT.*

A horrible stench exploded outward. Rotten eggs mixed with old fish. Half the class gagged. Kiba howled. Akamaru sneezed so hard he fell off the desk.

“W-what in the world?!”

Flustered, Suzume grabbed a handful of petals and started handing them out so students could “feel the emotions.”

The itching started almost immediately.

Sakura scratched her arm. Ino scratched her neck. Even Shikamaru sat up and muttered, “What the hell…”

Still trying to save the lesson, Suzume snatched up her scroll and unrolled it with a flourish.

“Now, as the language of flowers teaches us, the bond between—”

She froze.

Her face went from professional pink… to deep red… to pure horror.

Instead of her usual poetic lecture, the scroll contained a long, overly dramatic love confession addressed to “my dearest Uchiha student,” complete with far too many hearts and flower metaphors.

Suzume slammed the scroll shut, face burning.

Panicking, she grabbed the backup jar of “water” and poured it into the vase to try and fix the smell.

That was the signal.

Naruto and Hinata tilted their mirrors at the exact same time.

A concentrated beam of sunlight shot across the room and hit the vase dead center.

*FWOOSH—*

A bright blue-orange flame burst upward from the vase for three full seconds, just long enough for the entire class to scream. The special flower seeds reacted to the heat and started popping like tiny fireworks. Suzume shrieked and dropped the entire thing. The vase shattered. The flame died instantly.

Silence.

Then chaos.

Suzume stood there, hair slightly singed, face scarlet, staring at the mess like her entire career had just flashed before her eyes.

“…Class dismissed,” she whispered.

She practically fled the room.

The second the door closed, the classroom exploded with noise.

Naruto leaned back in his chair, looking extremely pleased with himself. Across the room, Hinata had both hands over her face, but her shoulders were shaking with what might have been laughter or pure terror.

Sasuke stood up, walked past their desks, and without a word dropped the second half of the payment onto Naruto’s desk.

Then he kept walking.

Naruto picked up the pouch and grinned at Hinata.

“Partner in crime… we’re eating good tonight.”

Hinata peeked through her fingers and whispered,

“…We are never speaking of the fire part again.”

The sun was starting to dip, painting the training grounds in long orange shadows. Most students had already gone home. The only sounds left were the distant calls of birds and the soft rustle of leaves.

Naruto sat slumped against a tree, staring at the empty coin pouch in his hands like it had personally ruined his life.

“Three days…” he muttered. “Three whole days without ramen. I know I shouldn't have brought that manga like it wasn't even that good This is cruel. This is torture. This is—”

A quiet voice came from the other side of the tree.

“…N-Naruto-kun?”

He froze.

Hinata was lying on her back in the grass, completely wiped out from training. Her jacket was half-unzipped, her hair messy, and there were leaves stuck to her sleeve. She must have been there the whole time and he’d been too busy complaining to notice.

She sat up slowly, still a little dizzy.

“I… I heard you talking. About money.”

Naruto’s face went red. “W-what?! You were listening?! That’s eavesdropping! That’s against the rules or something!”

Hinata looked down, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. “I wasn’t… trying to. I just… finished training and I was tired, so I rested here. And then you sat down and started talking to yourself...”

There was an awkward silence.

Then, very softly, she said:

“…I can give you some money. If you need it.”

Naruto’s head snapped up.

“No.”

The word came out sharper than he meant it to.

Hinata flinched a little.

He scratched the back of his head, looking away. “It’s not… it’s not that I don’t appreciate it. But if you give me money, your dad’s gonna find out. And then he’ll get mad at you. And I don’t… I don’t want pity money either. I’m not some charity case.”

Hinata was quiet for a long moment.

She stared at the grass, thinking hard. Her fingers twisted together in her lap.

Then, almost in a whisper:

“…What if… you earned it instead?”

Naruto blinked. “Huh?”

Hinata’s voice was still soft, but there was a tiny spark of determination in it now.

“You’re… really good at pranks, Naruto-kun. Everyone knows it. Even the teachers talk about it sometimes. So… maybe… other students would pay you. To prank people for them.”

Naruto stared at her.

The idea sat in the air between them for three full seconds.

Then his eyes went wide.

“Wait. Wait wait wait. You’re saying… people would *pay* me… to do the thing I already do for free?!”

Hinata nodded, cheeks pink. “I-if you’re careful… and don’t get caught too much… maybe.”

Naruto shot to his feet so fast he almost tripped over his own sandals.

“HINATA THAT’S GENIUS!”

She squeaked and covered her face with both hands as he started spinning in circles, already planning.

“I could charge by difficulty! Basic itching powder is cheap, but if they want something big—like swapping someone’s lunch or messing with a teacher’s scroll—that’s premium! And you can help me keep track of the money so I don’t spend it all in one day!”

Hinata peeked out from between her fingers, equal parts terrified and happy.

“…I can… keep a notebook?”

“Yes! You’re officially the business manager!”

And just like that, under a tree in the fading light, with one exhausted Hyūga girl and one extremely broke yellow haired gremlin…

**Naruto’s Prank Commissions** was born.

______________________________________

Naruto was still spinning in circles with the empty pouch clutched in his fist when the excitement suddenly hit a wall.

He stopped dead.

“…But who’d even want someone to get pranked right now?” he asked, scratching his head. “Most people are just trying not to fail the next exam. And nobody’s got money except the rich kids.”

Hinata blinked.

Then she actually started thinking.

Her eyes narrowed just a little as she quietly went through the class roster in her head.

“…Chōji-kun?” she murmured. “No… he doesn’t care about anything unless someone steals his food. And even then he’d just eat more too kind really.”

Naruto nodded. “Yeah, true.”

“Shikamaru-kun is too lazy. He’d rather take a nap than pay someone to cause trouble.”

“Also true.”

Hinata’s fingers tapped against her knee as she continued.

“Sakura-chan… she might want to prank Ino-chan. But if the prank goes too far, Ino-chan could get hurt… and then she’d never become a customer later. That would be bad for business.”

Naruto stared at her. “You’re really thinking about this like a real shop, huh?”

Hinata’s cheeks went pink, but she kept going, voice still soft.

“And then… there’s Sasuke-kun.”

Naruto’s eyes lit up.

Hinata looked up at him, surprisingly serious.

“He’s perfect. He has… a lot of problems with girls. They’re always surrounding him, and the teachers keep trying to pair him with people. He’s rich. And if we somehow… let it slip that even *he* used the service…” She hesitated, then finished in a tiny voice, “…other people might want to hire you too. For the status.”

Naruto’s jaw slowly dropped.

“…Hinata.”

“Y-yes?”

“You’re scary when you use your brain.”

She immediately covered her face with both hands again.

Naruto threw his head back and laughed so loud a couple of birds flew out of the tree.

“Alright! Operation: Make the Tempered-Face Our First Big Client is a go!” He pointed at her dramatically. “You’re in charge of the master plan. I’m in charge of the pranks. Together, we’re gonna be rich!”

Hinata peeked through her fingers, equal parts mortified and strangely proud.

“…Please don’t get expelled on the first day…”

So I got a commission from someone who wants a time travel fic with solid logic. So I'm interested in knowing what you think will happen.

For anyone who doesn't know : Moguro Fukuzou (the Laughing Salesman from Warau Salesman / The Laughing Salesman) would treat Naruto and the Konoha crowd the way he treats every desperate, flawed, or hypocritical human: with a wide, unblinking grin, a briefcase full of “solutions,” and the cheerful certainty that their wishes will cost them everything they actually care about. Moguro Fukuzou is the main character in 'The Laughing Salesman,' a horror manga and anime. As 'The Laughing Salesman,' he acts as a karmic punisher, engaging in the soul business. Moguro makes deals with people, leading them to their downfall for his amusement.

Now I'm thinking of having him meet Naruto and CO. In part one.

Here's how I think he'd sell his solutions to some of our beloved and maybe not so beloved characters.

Naruto : Moguro would wait until one of those classic lonely nights—Naruto sitting on the Hokage Monument or outside Ichiraku after another day of being ignored, insulted, or treated like a walking prank. The salesman would sit down beside him like they were old acquaintances and speak in that soft, amused voice:

“You just want them to notice you, don’t you? Not the way they notice a nuisance. Really notice.

Feel what you feel. Know you’re there the moment you walk into a room. No more invisible orphan. No more talking to yourself because no one else will listen.”

He’d open the briefcase and offer something deceptively simple: a permanent, passive effect. From the moment the contract is signed, every person in a wide radius becomes instinctively aware of Naruto’s presence and the emotional weather inside him. Joy, loneliness, excitement, frustration—whatever he’s feeling leaks outward like an aura. People can’t ignore him anymore. They feel him.

Naruto, being twelve and starving for acknowledgment, would hear the part he wants to hear. He’d think, “Finally. They’ll understand.”

The Catch (the part Moguro never has to hide)

The moment the deal takes effect, the village doesn’t just feel Naruto’s loneliness or his loud determination.

They feel everything he’s been shoving down since he was old enough to understand the glares.

The buried resentment.

The low-grade, constant bloodlust that comes from being treated like a monster for years.

The quiet, ugly fantasies of making the people who hated him hurt the way he hurt.

The nine-tails’ influence that he’s never fully separated from his own emotions.

It wouldn’t be a dramatic red-eyed rage aura all the time. It would be worse: a constant, low-level psychic static of “this kid is dangerous and he knows it.” Civilians would flinch when he walked by. Shopkeepers would freeze mid-sentence. Other Academy kids would suddenly find excuses to leave the room. Even people who were starting to warm up to him (Iruka, Teuchi, the rare kind civilian) would feel that undercurrent of suppressed hatred and instinctively pull back.

Naruto would get exactly what he asked for—everyone is now painfully aware of his presence and his feelings—and the result would be that the village’s fear and rejection of him becomes even more intense and now has a rational-feeling justification. “We always knew there was something wrong with that boy. Now we can feel it.”

Hinata : A small glass jar of ordinary-looking white pills. Moguro Fukuzouuro would present them almost casually, like a vitamin supplement.

“These will make your body do what you want it to do. Strength. Skill. Recognition. The life you keep imagining when no one is looking. You won’t even have to suffer through the training or the rejection. Just take one when the gap between what you are and what you want becomes too wide.”

The catch is stated clearly, because Moguro prefers the victim to understand the terms:

You will black out.

Your body will continue.

You will wake up later with the results already written into muscle, memory, and circumstance.

You will never experience any of it.

### How It Would Actually Work on Early Part 1 Hinata

She takes the first pill one night after another failed training session and another day of Neji’s contempt. She wakes up in her room the next morning. The floor is covered in advanced Gentle Fist scrolls she has no memory of studying. Her hands and arms ache with the specific fatigue of having practiced the same forms for hours. When she stands, her body already knows the sequences. The soft, hesitant movements are gone. The precision is simply *there*.

A few days later the clan is in an uproar. Hanabi has been formally defeated in a private spar that Hinata does not remember. The elders are suddenly speaking of her as the proper heir again. Hiashi looks at her with something closer to respect. Neji’s hatred has sharpened into something colder. Hinata only knows what happened because people keep congratulating (or resenting) her for a fight she never lived through.

She takes another pill when the loneliness becomes unbearable.

She wakes up with a simple matching ring on her finger. Naruto has one too. The village is already treating them as a pair. There are memories that exist only in other people’s heads: a confession, a promise, quiet moments on the monument, the exact way Naruto looked at her when he said yes. Hinata has none of those memories. She only has the ring, the changed way people look at them, and the hollow knowledge that the one thing she wanted most happened while she was absent from her own life.

Further pills would keep rewriting her existence in the same way:

- She becomes the strongest of her generation without ever feeling the strain or the pride of getting there.

- She earns the village’s respect without ever hearing the first sincere “well done.”

- She builds a life with Naruto in which every meaningful milestone occurred during blackouts. The first real conversation, the first time he chose her over the noise in his own head, the quiet domestic pieces that should have been hers—all of it happened to a body that was running on her will while she was gone.

### The Real Horror

Hinata gets every external result she ever wanted.

She is never present for any of it.

The body improves. The status improves. The relationship materializes. But the girl who wanted those things is repeatedly erased from the process. She becomes a passenger who occasionally wakes up to a better résumé and a life that no longer feels like it belongs to her. The more she uses the pills, the less continuous her own existence becomes. Eventually there would be long stretches where “Hinata” is just a set of outcomes other people remember and she can only read about after the fact.

Moguro would find this elegant. He didn’t corrupt her with power or force her into monstrosity. He simply removed her from the story of her own improvement and her own love, then left her awake in the finished product. That is a far more precise cruelty than making her dangerous or hated. She gets the dream, and the dream is empty because she was never allowed to be inside it.

And because the pills only activate when *she* chooses to take them, every new blackout is a fresh act of self-erasure she can never quite stop committing.

Sakura : ### The Product

A plain metal thermos, the kind any genin might carry on a mission. Inside is a clear, slightly sweet liquid. Moguro would hand it over with the usual soft laugh and the terms spoken plainly:

“One measured dose, given regularly. While it is in his system, Sasuke Uchiha belongs to you alone. His attention, his presence, his choices will orient around you. Miss a dose, and the effect lifts. When it lifts, what returns is not only the boy you know. The older memories surface with him and each time they do, his anger at *you* will be sharper than before. He will not know why. You will.”

No fine print hidden. Moguro prefers the victim to understand the leash they are putting on someone else.

### How It Functions on Early Part 1 Sakura

At first it feels like pure victory.

She manages to get Sasuke to drink (mission canteen, shared water, a moment of trust, whatever small opening she can force). The change is immediate and intoxicating. Sasuke stops ignoring her. He stays near. He listens. He even prioritizes her in small, visible ways. The cold distance collapses into something that looks like attachment. For a girl whose entire emotional world has been organized around being chosen by him, it is everything she ever wanted.

Then the maintenance begins.

She has to keep dosing him. Regularly. Without him noticing the pattern, or eventually with him noticing and still accepting it because the drug makes acceptance easier. Every successful dose buys her another stretch of the Sasuke-who-is-hers. Every missed dose—or deliberately delayed one—brings the other version back.

When the effect drops, Sasuke returns with the weight of previous lives bleeding through. The hatred is older, colder, and specifically angled at her for reasons he cannot name. He does not remember the thermos. He only knows that something about Sakura feels like a chain, and the fragments of Indra and Madara supply plenty of ancestral rage to pour into that feeling. Each relapse is worse than the last. The anger compounds. The look he gives her grows heavier with something that is no longer just teenage disdain.

### The Spiral

Sakura is now trapped in a cycle she created:

- Keep dosing him → she gets the obedient, attentive Sasuke she wanted.

- Miss a dose (or hesitate, or get caught, or simply run out) → she gets a version of him that is angrier, more ancient, and focused on her as the source of a violation he cannot fully articulate.

- The longer the arrangement continues, the more she has to dose him just to stay safe from the version that appears when the drug fades.

- The boy she wanted is only present while the liquid is in him. The rest of the time she is managing a growing, directed hatred that she herself keeps reawakening.

Moguro would find this elegant. He did not rewrite Sasuke’s soul permanently. He gave Sakura a temporary, renewable claim on him and made the cost of maintaining that claim escalate. She gets exactly what she asked for—“Sasuke hers alone”—and the only way to keep it is to keep violating him on a schedule. Every dose is a fresh act of control. Every missed dose is a reminder that the control was never free.

The real horror is that early Part 1 Sakura is desperate enough, and single-minded enough, that she would almost certainly keep going. The first taste of being chosen is too strong. By the time the anger starts compounding and the older memories begin leaking into Sasuke’s eyes, she is already too deep in the maintenance loop to stop without losing the one thing she has organized her entire personality around.

Naruto and Kakashi would notice the shifts—the sudden unnatural closeness alternating with periods of cold, disproportionate rage aimed at Sakura—but proving a contract is difficult when the evidence keeps dissolving back into ordinary teenage volatility though since they're adults in universe this might not be like that instead I can see some snooping around by Kakashi and then it's only a matter of time really. Moguro would simply watch from a distance, thermos long since handed over, and wait for the moment Sakura realizes she is no longer sure whether she is keeping Sasuke or whether the need to keep dosing him has started keeping *her*.

That is the salesman’s favorite shape of tragedy: the wish granted, the leash placed in the wisher’s own hand, and the slow discovery that they can never put it down.

https://youtu.be/XuHVuwQfUVQ?si=nCStIxWBwZoTByE5