"I hate bugs…" Tsubaki groaned as she ran face first into a cobweb. She waved about her electric torch to clear the spiderwebs, before placing it in an empty sconce to free her hands. "Blergh…" she added, sticking out her tongue as she pulled the ancient silk from her face and mouth with her hands. "This is so gross…"
Did Tsubaki know that spiders weren't bugs? That she did, but she didn't care.
Things that crept and crawled were all bugs in her book. If she hadn't absolutely needed to find an ancient, well-read corpse to resurrect, she would never have descended into the royal catacombs, a network of tunnels and underground chambers that ran down into the very heart of the mountain.
Tsubaki picked up her torch and ventured down the path before her… only to walk straight into a dead end a few hundred steps later. There was supposed to be a set of stairs here, but instead, she found herself facing a smooth wall. She retraced her steps, but instead of finding herself back in the cobwebbed room, she found herself in a completely different chamber filled with canopic jars.
"Don't panic, don't panic…"
Okay, maybe she was lost, but that didn't mean she couldn't find her way out again.
"Area Scanning Jutsu!"
Tsubaki slammed her palms against the ground, sending waves of chakra and electricity into the earth… and in the next instant, the feedback came rushing back. Images of monsters with sharp, gnashing teeth the size of bananas, inconceivable geometric shapes and bright blobs of aggressive colour flashed before her eyes in an epilepsy-inducing nightmare sequence.
"What the hell was that!?"
Tsubaki had memories of Sakura using the jutsu, so she knew the signs and the chakra circulation method… but she lacked the knowledge to interpret the results. After all, she was just a dream inhabiting a half-baked clone of the original, without the Yin Seal, the confidence to enter Sage Mode, and now, not even a harmless sensory jutsu.
Tears started dripping from her eyes. "What even am I…!?"
For all intents and purposes, Tsubaki was Sakura; for what else could she call something that possessed the sum of her being, Sakura's memories? She was Sakura, yet she couldn't do any of the amazing things that Sakura could do. She could remember seeing through walls with the Byakugan, throwing people around without touching them with the awesome powers of the Rinnegan, receiving the love and admiration of the people, pining after an impossible love…
"Should I ask Sasuke for help…?"
Tsubaki shook her head vigorously. She still possessed Sakura's dignity, so she refused to allow herself to become a damsel in distress, even if she was weak. She would just have to try again… it was a good thing that she was only a Shadow Clone, or she would have been in big trouble. Even the real Sakura would have found it troublesome to blast her way out from under a mountain.
…
Moments later, Tsubaki's main body, who was standing at the entrance of the catacombs in the palace's basement, received the Shadow Clone's memories, along with a good deal of her depressive thoughts.
"Aww, now I'm sad too," Tsubaki sniffled as she crossed her fingers. "Shadow Clone Jutsu… sniff."
Poof!
"Damn it, why did you bring me into existence? Just so we could be miserably together?" cried the new Shadow Clone, her upper lip wobbling dangerously. "I'm just a copy of a copy of a copy!"
"That's one too many," Tsubaki sighed.
"I guess so," the Shadow Clone mumbled. "I just felt like there was one more layer, for some reason…"
Original Sakura-> Reincarnated Sakura-> Tsubaki-> Tsubaki's Shadow Clone!
And so, Tsubaki sent her Shadow Clone off on her merry way, and she began tracing the path her doppelganger's predecessor had taken upon a large sheet of paper with a piece of charcoal, updating the incomplete map of the catacombs as she went. It turned out that clone number five had taken a wrong turn after getting a faceful of cobwebs, and had wandered into a side passage that led nowhere. The entrance was so narrow that she had completely missed it while trying to backtrack.
Pop!
A dozen minutes later, a brand-new set of parallel memories entered her mind. There was something down there, and that someone had just attacked her Shadow Clone and killed it with a single blow. She hadn't seen their face because her torch lamp's battery had gone flat, but if they were strong enough to take down a Shadow Clone, then they were clearly no ordinary opponent, especially since this was a country where most people believed chakra to be only a myth…
There was something seriously wrong with these catacombs. "Time to leave!"
Filled with foreboding, Tsubaki hurriedly packed up her map and charcoal rubbings before hastening up the stairs to the safety of the palace. Not ten seconds after she had slammed the door behind her, a pair of yellow eyes appeared in the darkness of the catacombs' entrance, then quickly vanished.
…
Tsubaki reflexively mumbled an apology as she hurried up from the catacombs and into the palace's entrance hall, only to bump into a maid rushing past her. The maid kept her head down, pushing past her without a word before leaving through the palace's main entrance… or rather, exit.
"Sakura…!?"
Moments later, a different maid screeched to a stop before her.
"No, it's Tsu… Sasuke? Wait, is that you?" Tsubaki said, squinting at him. "Cute miniskirt, it suits you."
"Keep it down!" Sasuke hissed as he dragged her out of sight, in a nook under the grand staircase that led from the entrance hall to the grand hall. "What were you thinking, exposing yourself like that!?"
Tsubaki reflexively glanced down at her chest, but her breasts were as covered as they were ever going to be. At the very least, her nipples weren't showing, which was the important part.
"I meant this whole affair with the play about the Sixth Hokage," Sasuke sighed. "You've given us away to the enemy… Orochimaru and his people are here."
"Orochimaru? What could he possibly want from this place? I thought this was supposed to be a peaceful country!" Tsubaki said, startled. "Also, I was only doing this to gain access to the royal library, and I'll have you know my plan panned out very well!"