Sakura's gaze hardened as she walked into the women's baths that very evening… or at least, attempted to. The sides of her hips caught on the narrow doorframe as she attempted to pass through, stopping her dead in her tracks.
"Great," Sakura sighed. "My butt is so big I can't even walk through doors any more."
She took a step back and edged out of the doorway, her cheeks wobbling like pudding. She then turned sideways and began to shimmy through the wooden frame, wiggling and squeezing herself through with some difficulty before popping out on the other side, free at last.
"Phew…"
Sakura took a deep breath and surveyed the baths with an analytical eye. The people of the Land of Fire valued cleanliness, so the hot spring baths had thankfully been amongst the first buildings to be restored.
It was just as well Naruto was not here, and not only because he would have had his face smashed in if he tried to enter the women's side… because, if she wanted to recover her powers as soon as possible, she would have to become a demon!
Like it or not, Sakura was still Hokage, and being Hokage meant making difficult decisions. Even though time moved much more slowly in the Spiritual Plane than in the Physical Plane, her disappearance could have disastrous consequences for the Hidden Leaf Village… the one in the real world, the one she was responsible for, not this fake-real one, no matter how realistic the people here were.
Even so, Sakura felt a twinge of guilt as she rinsed herself at the shower stations, tipping a bucket of water over her head before shaking the droplets from her hair and glancing over her shoulder at the young women frolicking in the soaking tubs behind her. Many of them were familiar faces she had seen about the village… those were the faces of the very people she had sworn to protect.
For instance, that woman with the mole on the outer curve of her chest, near her armpit… well, Sakura did not know her name, but she had a pleasant pair of large breasts, firm and supple, and attached to her chest for almost their entire length. And that younger woman who had brought her brat into the baths; she had slightly smaller breasts, but they were rather pendulous and sagging, the base of them, the part actually attached to her chest, being quite short… Sakura did not know her name either.
Sakura was getting distracted again, but she couldn't quite remember if this was normal for her. Was the Infinite Tsukuyomi infecting her mind, or had she always been like this…?
"Oi, if it isn't dead last!" Hinata called as she stepped into the baths, flanked by Tenten and Ino. "Still as flat as ever, I see!"
For some reason, Sakura suddenly felt far less guilty about the prospect of stealing her breasts.
"Eeep!" yelped Tenten as she stepped on a stray bar of soap and slipped. Her feet flew into the air as she flipped a full three hundred and sixty degrees before banging the back of her head against the unforgiving floor of the baths. "Ouch…"
Ino winced sympathetically, while Hinata sashayed closer and thrust her large breasts in Sakura's face.
Inverted nipples, Sakura noted. So, that's why she hides them in the baths, in the real world…
"I heard you spent last night with Menma‑kun," she snarled. "I warned you to back off my man, but it looks like you've got wax in your ears… and now, you're gonna pay."
"Please don't fight," Ino said anxiously as she twiddled with a lock of her hair. "The last time you two got into a fight in the baths, we all got kicked out, and I wasn't done rinsing the shampoo out of my hair… I had to ask an old lady to take me home… my eyes were burning, I couldn't see anything…"
This gave Hinata pause. She didn't particularly like missing baths, and with half the village destroyed, this was one of the last places where a girl could clean herself… other than Naka River, or Senju Pond. And Menma didn't like stinky girls… or did he?
Better to stay on the safe side of things.
"Fine," Hinata growled. "Bath first… then we kick the ever‑living shit out of the home-wrecking bitch."
Hinata and her two flunkies sat on either side of Sakura at the showering stations, as if to prevent her from running away. When Sakura got up to soak in the large bath, they followed her into the tub; Hinata still glowering at her, while Ino and Tenten shot her apologetic glances.
Sakura gulped nervously. She hadn't lost her fighting experience, so she could still use Chakra Enhanced Strength to fight with taijutsu, but she had next to no stamina at her disposal, around 0.8 KK's worth of potential chakra, which would severely affect her fighting prowess.
…
In the original timeline, Sakura had divided her chakra like so:
95% went directly to the Yin Seal, no matter what; because she needed to completely fill the Yin Seal to construct it; afterwards, she would be free to activate it even if it wasn't fully topped up.
The remaining 5% she conserved for battle and daily life. This 5% of 0.8 KK was further divided between empowering her body and performing jutsu.
Effectively, this meant that whenever Sakura was moving, jumping, kicking and punching normally, she was using 5% of her chakra to enhance herself… which would explain her ridiculously poor reflexes. When a ninja is running out of chakra, all of their stats take a nosedive, including their reaction speed.
Similarly, whenever Sakura used medical ninjutsu or Chakra Enhanced Strength, she had to cease enhancing her body to ensure that this 5% represented enough chakra to power her techniques… meaning she had to run up to an enemy at a normal teenage girl's speed to smack them with her super‑strength, effectively making it nearly impossible for her to hit any ninja with a working pair of legs.
Without chakra, the only fate awaiting Sakura, when faced with three skilled kunoichi of the Hidden Leaf, was to have her teeth kicked in… unless she temporarily stopped feeding her Celestial Lotus Seal, which was capable of independently gathering physical and spiritual energies; as well as nature energy, so long as she was standing still.
Unfortunately, entering Sage Mode was out of the question; for one, it was excessive for what would amount to little more than a street fight, and for another, Sakura had once again run out of senjutsu chakra. After all, during her fight with Pain the day before, she had been forced to fully restore her body after being mangled by Naruto's Big Ball Rasengan.
…
And so, Sakura stopped throwing energy into her Celestial Lotus Seal.
Naturally, if the Sakura of the original timeline had constantly taken breaks in filling her Yin Seal, she would never have completed it in time for the Fourth Shinobi World War, but for this Sakura, that was a moot point; the full value of those 0.8 KK was better invested in helping her augment her stamina pool... by stealing breasts!
"Oi, what are you doing that for?" Hinata said, taking up a defensive stance, sensing that Sakura was beginning to mould chakra. "You're not really planning on fighting us in the baths, are you, Big Butt?"
Sakura clicked her tongue in annoyance. This wasn't going to work if Hinata kept watching her like a hawk...