"And that's how things came to be," bitterly said Korega, the captain of the Land of Moon's military. "By the time we confronted Shabadaba and the other ministers about their plans to overthrow the monarchy, they had already hired powerful foreign shinobi, and we were powerless to resist…"
It was a tale as old as time: as death approached, the elderly would grow preoccupied with their legacy and how future generations might remember them— and King Tsuki Kakeru was no exception.
In their youth, King Kakeru, Prime Minister Shabadaba, and the other ministers had transformed their poor island into a prosperous land by shifting much of the local fishing industry toward tourism— becoming ludicrously rich in the process. Yet, despite the influx of wealth, the general population saw little improvement in their own living standards, and some were even evicted from their homes to make room for hotels and casinos.
King Tsuki Kakeru wanted to improve life for his people by redistributing tourism revenue to the less fortunate and limiting the casinos from blaring music at all hours of the night, but his reforms threatened the ministers' bottom line. Having grown accustomed to their vast riches, they had responded by seizing control of the military and staging a coup!
"Is that why Papa sent us away on a tour overseas?" cried Prince Michiru, kneeling at his unconscious father's side. "Because he saw this coming!?"
This knowledge did nothing to change Sakura's first impressions of the royal line. With the two princes' lavish spending habits, it was obvious the king had denied them nothing growing up. In her eyes, these new proposed populist measures were just the delusions of a mad old man on his deathbed— this country was still rotten down to its very core.
Still, this dirty money paid her bills, so Sakura kept her mouth shut about her opinions— and that's how the system works!
"Sakura," said Kakashi, "can you do anything about the king's injuries?"
By sacrificing a great number of men to Shabadaba's hired shinobi, King Kakeru had managed to flee to this hideout in the mountains with Captain Korega's help, but in the process, he was injured by the shinobi's leader, an Earth-Style user.
"I see," said Sakura, nodding as Korega explained the circumstances. "You have to brush off, er… mushrooms that are sprinkled onto you, you know?"
(Furikakeru kinoko wa harawaneba naranu)
"That's not quite right," said Sasuke, shaking his head. "It's, you have to brush off sparks that fall onto you, isn't it?"
(Furikakaru hinoko wa harawaneba naranu)
'Well, so sorry I died before I could finish secondary education!' snapped Inner Sakura. 'It's not as if training day and night as a shinobi's been helping much with my Japanese!'
The actual expression that Sakura was trying to use meant that King Kakeru had to take measures to protect himself against any possible dangers, but she just got a bit mixed up, that's all… It was a slip of the tongue for the mushroom bit, but transitive and intransitive verbs are difficult, okay?
"This isn't the time to be making shitty puns with the king's name," said Kakashi in a measured tone, feeling his blood pressure rising. "Sakura, can you heal him, or not?"
Sakura lifted the bedsheet draped over the king and looked underneath. His arm and the sleeve covering it had turned grey, taking on the appearance of stone.
"Just a slight case of petrifaction," said Sakura cheerily. "As long as nothing important's broken off from his body, I'll have it reversed in a jiffy."
Thanks to Tsunade's insistence that she complete her training as an Iryō-nin, Sakura hadn't fallen behind her original-timeline self in the medical department. In fact, it was eating up all her cool Ninjutsu training time— which partly explained why she was struggling so much with the Lorentz Gun Jutsu.
Or at least, that's how Sakura liked to see it.
…
Time passed, and day began turning into night…
A bead of sweat slid down Sakura's forehead and fell onto Kakeru's body as her glowing palms hovered over his injured arm.
"Still not done?" yawned Naruto. "I thought you'd be done already… zzz… y'know…"
Even though she had said she'd be done in a flash, reversing petrifaction was not as simple as splashing a Mandrake Restorative Draught onto the affected area— getting the bunched-up proteins to let go of each other was easy, but it was taking much longer than she'd initially thought!
"There, I'm done," said Sakura at last, shaking her tired arms to get the blood flowing again. "But as you can see, Kakashi-sensei, petrifaction takes some time to undo, so I won't be able to perform emergency treatment on the battlefield."
"Then, is Papa going to be fine?" asked Prince Michiru hopefully.
Sakura was troubled. How could she put this lightly?
"The shock was too much for a man his age," said Sakura tactfully. "I've done everything I can… but you should start thinking about what final goodbyes you want to tell your father."
King Tsuki Kakeru stirred in his makeshift bed on the floor, so Sakura and her companions took a step back to allow Hikaru and Michiru a final moment together with him.
The king talked briefly about how having a prosperous economy did not necessarily mean the people would be happy, and how he'd seen many more happy faces when the common folk had all been simple fisherman rather than employees in the hotel and casino service industry.
Ahh, the power of nostalgia…
"You talk just like Amayo," sniffled Prince Michiru, tears dripping from his eyes. "She told me I didn't understand what was truly precious…"
"That's very shrewd of her, as usual," coughed King Kakeru. "I thought it would all work out if she kept nagging at you, but how could I have expected that she would get tired of you first?"
'Called it— it was an arranged marriage,' said Inner Sakura, snapping her fingers. 'Did the old man really think such a flimsy relationship would fix years of shitty parenting?'
Finally, the king asked for the Leaf shinobi to step forward, as he had something to request of them.
"My son must inherit the throne," King Kakeru gasped. "I know it's asking much, but this is my final request… please continue protecting Michiru and Hikaru."
It was one thing to protect the princes against highwaymen, but it was quite another to ward against assassins and shinobi while they mounted a counter-revolution!
"We shall," said Kakashi gravely. "Even at the cost of our lives."
'Kakashi-senseeeeeeei!' howled Inner Sakura. 'Please don't give away our lives so easilyyyyy!'