Breaking In Louise (ZnT Discussion) Pt 3

Jack Skellington would be ... interesting

"So there I was, minding my own business, enjoying some opera. It was plain to see. Geddit? Because I crashed a plane. Ahahahahaha. Anyway, yes. I was minding my own business, killing a crazy Nazi vampire again, when suddenly I got grabbed through the portal by a big-tittied elf girl."

"... did you say elf?"

"Yes. I said elf. So, anyway, I'm in another world with two moons. See you soon."

"Wait. Why... what... get your pale corpse-like arse back here!"

"No, as I just told you, I'm in another world."

"Then why do you have mobile reception?"

"I don't know. It's not like I'm a telephone engineer. Though I did eat one once."

"Get back here now!"

"... can't hear you, breaking up, lots of love, Alucard."

For a bit of a change from Louise's summonings...

... Tifa summons Abridged!Alucard. Who keeps on referring to her as "the big-tittied elf-girl". And who goes on "enthusiastic walks" through the woods of Albion. And accidentally derails massive amounts of plot by acting like... well, Abridged!Alucard.

The story is everyone else trying to get used to the plot going off-skew because of his actions. With occasional side-chapters of him narrating what he's been doing back to Tifa or Integra over his miraculously-working inter-universe telephone.

That would be lots of fun. Abridged!Alucard doesn't have much of a personality beyond being snarky, liking big titties, and killing people, but I'd read it.

Reconquista would soon suffer a manpower shortage, I would think.

Don't forget the bits when the Pope and Julio and... well, basically any priest shows up. Because the Brimiric faith is rather Catholic in appearance. And... well;

Abridged!Alucard: "Oh my. Aren't you rather young to be the pope? Did you get the job because you were the cardinals' favourite little altar boy?"

Yeh gods. Such a thing... It cannot be!

Then louise sumons Abidged!Nappa.

"Hilariously derailing One Liner!"

I demand a link.

Here, masterfully executed Link...

Princess and bounty hunter switch bodies. The apparent Princess proceeds to defeat a mad scientist, a Sorceress, and the other heir to the throne in epic battles, and save the world.

The tribble came about as I finished the series and remembered the line from FOZ
“Only zero would summon a commoner!”

Have the ‘Zero’ summon royalty and let the Lolz begin

fitting sesta and Milano in would be interesting

You know, I searched all three of these threads and never saw this suggested... I was going to suggest it, but I thought I might as well write the prologue myself and see if people think it's interesting.

--

Sakura laughed cheerfully as she jumped from tree to tree. Talking while on a mission was technically discouraged among Konoha nin, but most squad leaders relaxed the restriction as their teams neared home. Sakura thought that Team 7 deserved some relaxation, coming back from a successful mission in which they not only saved the life of a friendly village leader but also defeated two S-ranked missing nin.

"Naruto, you id-" Suddenly there was a flash of green and the tree she was leaping towards disappeared, along with everything else. There was a moment of complete sensory deprivation before the world exploded before Sakura's eyes in a kaleidoscope of colors, and she was subjected to the uncomfortable sensation of feeling her body taken apart, piece by piece. After another timeless moment she felt herself being put back together again, and the world mercifully faded to black once more. Just as Sakura was beginning to relax, the process repeated itself.

Sakura soon lost count of how many times the entire series of events was repeated, and she was seriously starting to wonder if it was ever going to end when there was an explosion that slammed her flat on her back into the ground, momentarily stunning her.

When Sakura regained her senses, she found herself staring into the face of a girl around her age, with pink hair that looked much like her own. The odd sensation of looking into a mirror faded when she noticed the girl's brown eyes, which were focused on her with a look of irritation.

"Where am I? What just happened?" Sakura asked, raising a hand to massage her temple.

Instead of replying to her question, the girl leaned back and babbled something incomprehensible, before turning around to speak with somebody outside of Sakura's line of vision. Since she obviously wasn't going to learn anything by eavesdropping on people speaking a foreign language, Sakura levered herself up into a sitting position to take a look around.

Her first impression was that it was a beautiful mid-summer day, with a clear blue sky just beginning to darken as evening set in. Since it had been well into fall back in Konoha, this was a cause of some concern. Turning to her surroundings, she saw a lovely countryside, the grassland that she was sitting on disappearing in a large forest off to her right, and turning to rolling hills off to her left. A rather large fortification was built on top of the hill nearest her, although she couldn't see what it was defending from her vantage point.

Of more immediate concern to the kuniochi was the group of people gathered around her. They all seemed to be around her age, other than an older man who seemed to be in charge. All of them were dressed in a variety of outlandish colors and styles. Most of them were wearing cloaks, which just didn't make any sense at all. Only the strongest ninjas could wear such impractical clothing in the field, but no hidden village that she knew of could boast of a class of thirty prodigies around her age.

None of them seemed poised to attack her, so Sakura took a moment to think through her sudden arrival. She had been in one place, and was now clearly in another. She didn't think she was under a genjutsu--any technique that would last through the sensations she had suffered in transit... well, if her team was up against a ninja capable of such things they were already dead. The only logical explanation for what had happened was some kind of human summoning, although the logic was undermined by the fact that human summoning was thought to be impossible.

Sakura had read up on summoning after learning that her teacher was considering allowing her to sign the Slug Contract. She didn't understand all of the theory behind summoning, but she knew that the summons were believed to hail from an entirely separate plane of existence, allowing them to appear wherever they were summoned. Human summoning was something of a Holy Grail for seal masters. A nation that mastered human summoning would be able to extract its ninja from the field at will--or summon its enemies into inescapable traps. Geniuses from the Niidaime to Jiraiya the Sage to the Yondaime had all taken a crack at it, and had all failed. Some of the scrolls speculated that the Hiraishin technique developed by the Yondaime had involved a sort of self-summoning, but he had taken the secret of that technique with him to the grave. And in any event, even the Yondaime had never been able to summon another person.

So for her to have been summoned to a new place was also impossible... and yet, here she was. Looking at the situation from a tactical perspective, Sakura had to admit that it was not good. She had a few of her knockout gas pellets with her, but she didn't think their effect would spread to the whole group in front of her. She could try taking a hostage--she didn't speak the language, but a kunai to the throat had a certain universal meaning--but the kind of people who could perform a human summoning were unlikely to be inconvenienced by a knife to the throat. For now, Sakura decided to watch and learn as best she could.

The conversation between the foreigners continued, but Sakura still could make little sense of it. It seemed that the group of younger people would occasionally taunt the girl who had first drawn Sakura's attention, drawing an angry response from her while she continued to engage in what looked like a contentious argument with the older man. Finally the argument seemed to end as the girl turned away from the older man in a huff and made her way back to Sakura.

Sakura held herself still as the girl said something formal-sounding while waving a stick at her. She was taken completely by surprise when the other girl leaned in and kissed her on the lips. Despite her earlier resolution to watch and wait, Sakura couldn't control her instinctive reaction to slap the other girl in the face.

"How dare you attack a maiden's virtue! Have you no shame?" Sakura asked, incensed.

The girl stumbled back, holding her cheek gingerly while glaring daggers at Sakura. When she had regained her balance, she said something to the kuniochi, again in that incomprehensible language.

Sakura was distracted from her frustration at her inability to communicate when she felt a sudden burning sensation in her hand. The pain was intense, but she had been through worse in counter-interrogation training. She kept her eyes on the girl who had kissed her the entire time, refusing to show any effects from her technique. The burning pain faded away, much more quickly than Sakura had expected.

"I hardly felt that! Don't you know any better torture techniques?" Sakura asked, unable to restrain herself from taunting the other girl.

"Don't be ridiculous." The girl replied, snorting. "That was the Contract Servant spell, not some sort of torture."

The two girls continued glaring at each other, before they both did a double take. "I can understand you!"

"Yes, the Summon Familiar spell is said to improve understanding between a mage and her familiar." The older man broke into their conversation. "It appears that you performed the spell correctly on your first try, Ms. Valliere, despite your troubles with the Summon Servent spell."

The petite mage flushed at his comment, although it was hard for Sakura to tell if she was blushing at the praise of her most recent "spell" or with anger at the reminder of earlier failures. Before she could say anything, the man had turned away from them to face the rest of the group.

"Well, let's go back to class, everyone." He directed them.

Without any further orders, the class all rose into the air as one and began to fly back to the castle together, leaving Sakura alone with the other pink-haired girl. She could only watch the group fly off in shock. The strongest wind element user she knew was Temari, and even she needed the help of her giant fan to catch the wind currents in order to fly. What was more, she hadn't felt so much as a stray breeze from her position. An entire group of people with such power and control... Sakura was suddenly very glad she hadn't made any aggressive moves.

After a moment the other girl began to walk back to the castle, gesturing for Sakura to follow. Sakura weighed her options briefly before following. With flight techniques like that at their disposal, she was never going to get away from these people just by running for it.

"Well, now that you're bonded to me as my familiar, we ought to get to know each other." The other girl said after a moment, breaking the silence that had built up between them. "My name is Louise de la Valliere. Who are you?"

"Haruno Sakura, chuunin of Konohagakure, ID number three five six seven one." Sakura replied automatically, before she processed what the other girl had said. "Wait, a 'familiar'?"

"Where do you come from, that you don't know this?" Louise asked rhetorically, before she sighed and explained. "All mages summon familiars to assist and serve them. When I performed the Summon Servant spell you showed up, so now you're my familiar."

"Don't I get any say in this?" Sakura asked. She wasn't sure whether to be horrified, outraged, or terrified, and for now had settled on a sort of artificial calm.

"Of course! Those marks on your hand... they're like a stamp that says you're my familiar." Louise said, very matter-of-fact.

For the first time Sakura looked down to her left hand at the source of her earlier discomfort. She was shocked to see a strange array of foreign seals that had been burned into her hand, apparently by the kiss Louise had given her. For a moment the forest around her disappeared, replaced with an image of the Forest of Death. She remembered when the horribly powerful missing-nin Orochimaru had placed a seal on her teammate simply by biting him. Over time that seal had warped Sasuke's personality, granting him power but also luring him away from his home village into the service of Orochimaru. To have what was to all appearances an improved and refined version of the technique used on her by such an innocent looking girl... it was just too much. Sakura stopped walking.

"Who are you people?" She asked. Even now, engrained training kept most of the utter terror that she was feeling out of her voice.

"We are students at the renowned Tristain Academy of Magic!" Louise spoke with pride. "The greatest school of magic in Halkeginia."

Sakura tried to ignore the implications of the existence of a school full of such powerful students. "And where are we? How do we get to Fire Country from here?"

"We are in Tristain, of course." Louise replied, then paused to think. "I've never heard of this Fire Country."

"So there's no way for me to go home?" Sakura asked.

"No, of course not, you're my familiar now." Louis said, sounding surprised at the idea, before giving Sakura a sympathetic look. "Don't worry, as long as you serve me faithfully and take care of me, I will take care of you too. The master-familiar bond is a two way street, you know."

"Couldn't you, maybe, just send me back and get a different familiar?" Sakura asked, trying her best to negotiate a way home without provoking the other girl. She guessed from the reaction of Louise's classmates that her summoning had not been particularly impressive. "It looked like you were hoping for something else..."

"No, it's impossible. The familiar bond is for life. I have no idea where you came from and the Summon Servant spell is strictly a one-way spell." Louise replied, looking at her evenly. "Even if it weren't... the only way Summon Servant can be used again is if the familiar you first summoned has died."

"I see." Sakura said, subdued.

Nothing more was said as the pair returned to the castle. Louise seemed uninterested in Sakura's background, and Sakura felt she had learned enough about her new master. Apparently the mage was not the type that would kill her out of hand in hopes of summoning a superior familiar--or at least not the type who would do so without her teacher's approval, as Sakura thought she had an idea of what the earlier argument with the old man had been about. However, it was pretty clear what would happen if Sakura proved to be a useless familiar.

Sakura did her best to calm herself as they reached the end of their walk. She reminder herself that the situation could have been much worse, and certainly would have been much worse if any of the S-rank ninja hostile to Konoha had mastered a human summoning technique. These mages didn't seem interested in torturing her for information, and didn't really seem to care about her at all except for her position as Louise's familiar. Surrounded by more powerful people her own age, desperate to prove herself useful... it was almost enough to make her nostalgic.

This line... this is the second best line ever proposed to be used in the setting.

Once again at the bottom of the barrel, or is it

Nice. Now ~would you kindly~ continue

Is this interesting? Sure. I dunno. Write more.

Guiche will be slaughtered...

Cattelya will be healed and assuming she has near perfect chakra control even without Gandalfr...

Sakura's reaction about the situation seems a bit contrived. Write more, we will see.

Yeah. She knows that summons can go back to wherever they were summoned from. Seems to me she'd be pretty insanely suspicious of the whole situation (it's not like genjutsu can't trap you in extremely vivid hallucinations, after all), and she'd be pretty determined in regards to getting back to Konoha, at least at first. Especially given her experience with people who put seals on others without permission.

It's a pretty nifty idea, and I think Sakura (or, really, most genin that aren't Gaara, probably even most chunnin) fit in well from the perspective of 'what can slot into ZnT without breaking everything'. They just wouldn't go meekly along with it; I'd expect them to try and dispel the 'obvious' genjutsu through a chakra pulse or stabbing themselves at the least, for example, and probably them acting like they've been abducted and taken prisoner (which they have, after a fashion) for a while after that, until it becomes obvious that it isn't an illusion, and they probably aren't getting home. Given that most of that time would probably be them sitting in a room refusing to talk, you could probably gloss over it; end one chapter with them trying something in the way of 'escape and evasion' and being shut down by Colbert, and start the next with Louise bringing them a meal in their room two or three weeks later.

that, and in the settinf there is human Summoning. Other than the fourth, the scrolls of the Chuunin exams would summon a proctor if opened. Granted, such a thing probably has some kind of restrictions, maybe sakura is unaware of it.

Well, the most obvious one is that you need a scroll, but I guess there's a ritual circle for the summoning ceremony.

ETA: Good points by the recent comments, I appreciate the factual nitpicking. Like I said before, I want the paranoia to stay, I think it's entertaining.

Thanks for the comments. One of the things that inspired me is that it seems like the summoned familiars seem to be way too blase about their situation (even in canon). It's either a reaction like "Oh, magic works. That's interesting." or "I won't kill all of these people right now because I find them amusing." I think people from the Naruto-verse are in a position where they know stuff like what you see in the first chapter of FoZ is possible, but it's supposed to only be possible for serious S-ranked badasses to pull off.

Also, from a certain point of view once she says "the only way I get another familiar is for you to die", the constant bellyaching about what a lousy familiar Saito (or his stand in) is takes on a pretty dark tone.

Re: Sakura's reaction, one thing that might help explain it is I am taking the dark-ish view of the Narutoverse supported by the pre-timeskip manga (where there's a torture department in the nice ninja village and Shino gets a high five for blowing somebody's arms off in a ranking exam) rather than the post-timeskip attempt to turn Naruto into Ninja Jesus. Her not hearing anything to allay her paranoia before the translation spell kicks in is a bit of a contrivance, but I hope I get one mulligan.

I want the culture clash to be there, but I want it to be believable, so please tell me if it rings false.

Next part:

--
Louise's room was large, especially considering that it was located in a fortified building. A four poster bed was placed facing the window on the far wall, while the other side of the room was dominated by a large wardrobe, next to which was a writing desk. All of the furniture was decorated with beautiful carvings, and looked to be made of expensive materials. Overall, the effect was impressive.

When Sakura said as much, Louise drew herself up into what was quickly becoming a familiar, haughty stance. "Of course the room is impressive, I am after all the daughter of the Valliere family."

Louise paused, waiting for a reaction. When none was forthcoming she sighed before continuing her lecture.

"I almost forgot, you are from so far out in the middle of nowhere that you don't know how anything works. There is a saying, 'nobles make magic, and magic makes the noble.' My family is known for producing some of the strongest magicians in Tristain." Louise said, proudly. "My mother is probably the strongest witch outside of the royal family."

Louise continued on in this vein for some time, explaining the structure of Tristainian society. Sakura did her best to take it all in. It seemed that, to put it simply, magicians in Tristain, and in all of Halkeginia, occupied the position of both Hokage and Daimyo. Mages ruled over the entire country, while those without magic were commoners, consigned into the service of the mages. Sakura had sometimes wished that Konoha had such power when she was forced to deal with asinine requests from the Daimyo as the Hokage's assistant, but she couldn't help but remember the terror that had been sown in Rice Country under Orochimaru's rule. An entire country--and entire continent--under such a system for centuries was something she could hardly imagine.

When Louise finally finished speaking, Sakura was able to ask the question that had been bothering her since learning of her new position. "So mages are important, and familiars are important to mages, but what does a familiar do, exactly?"

"Firstly, a familiar is able to grant its master an enhancement in vision and hearing; what the familiar sees, the master can also see." Louise said, then appeared to break off from a prepared speech. "It seems like that doesn't work with you, I can't see anything.

"Anyway," she continued, "a familiar will also retrieve items that its master desires, like reagents."

"Reagents?" Sakura asked. Even with the translation technique active, she didn't understand the term.

"Catalysts used when casting certain spells, like sulfur or moss." Louise sighed. "But you don't even know what kind of reagents are out there, so you probably won't ever find me stuff like that.

"The third thing," Louise continued, "and this is most important of all... A familiar exists to protect its master! The task of protecting them from any and all enemies is a duty of the highest priority! But-"

"You have enemies that would attack you, even here at school?" Sakura interrupted, glancing at the door in alarm.

"No, no. Well, maybe Kirche." Louise said. "The red haired girl with the dark skin. Watch out for her."

Sakura cast her memory back to the time of the clearing, trying to remember any students who had stood out. After a moment it came to her. "Oh, the one with those ridiculous udders on her chest?"

"Exactly! I don't know how she even walks with those things." Louise exclaimed. The two pink haired girls shared their first moment of camaraderie in their shared anger at the unfair distribution of nature's bounty. The moment passed and Louise snapped out of it, drawing back again into her lecturing pose.

"Kirche isn't a Tristainian, she's a noble from Germania. My house, Valliere, has estates on Germania's borders, so we're the first on the field against Germanians the moment any war starts. Even worse, right opposite to us on that border is Kirche's birthplace." Louise ground her teeth together. "So basically, the Zerbst family is our sworn enemy."

"And you go to school together?" Sakura asked, amazed. The chuunin exam had brought students from nominally allied nations together in a competition that barely lasted a month, and the results had been brutal. She couldn't imagine going to school with enemy nins. Louise was in her second year of such education, and must have honed all of her instincts to a razor's edge to be so relaxed in an environment filled with enemies.

"Yes, but don't worry, I can handle her. I'm only going to make you do things I'm fairly certain you can do: laundry, cleaning, and other miscellaneous tasks." Louise said, smiling reassuringly at Sakura.

Sakura understood the message with crystal clarity. She would be given useless tasks for however long it took for Louise to convince her teachers that she was saddled with a useless familiar, and deserved another try at the Summon Servant spell... Well, there was no need to dwell on it. She actually appreciated that the mage was taking the trouble to give her makework tasks in order to take her mind off of her fate, but she was no less determined to prove herself useful as quickly as she could.

Sakura was brought out of her thoughts as a blouse hit her in the face. "Hey!"

"All this talking has made me sleepy." Louise explained as she finished disrobing. "You can clean those clothes tomorrow."

"But where am I going to sleep?" Sakura asked. Wordlessly, her master pointed to the floor next to the bed. Sakura couldn't fully repress the eyebrow twitch she developed in the face of such treatment.

"Well, it's not like I thought I would be having another person sleeping in my quarters." Louise said, somewhat defensively. "I wish I had summoned something cool like a gryphon or a dragon, they wouldn't need a bed..."

Suitably chastised at the reminder of her position, Sakura held back her immediate response. At least she had been summoned while she was in the middle of a mission, so she was carrying a reasonable amount of supplies. She unsealed her bedroll from its storage scroll and began preparing for bed, when she suddenly found her master at her arm.

"What? Where were you keeping that?" Louise asked, undisguised interest in her voice.

"It was just in a storage seal." Sakura answered, showing her the scroll and then indicating the runes on her left hand. "It's nothing like as complicated as the seal you put on me, but it helps me pack light for missions. What do you use to carry bulky items?"

"Servants." Louise sniffed, apparently losing interest in the topic.

As she prepared for sleep, Sakura pondered the implications of that final conversation. It seemed that high powered nins in comfortable positions turned up their noses at simple "utility" techniques--she couldn't help but wonder what other simple techniques they might overlook. She didn't think she'd ever want to be in a straight up fight with any of these magicians, but then, she hadn't spent all of her time as a ninja just learning how to win straight up fights...

It was with such hopeful thoughts in mind that Sakura drifted off to sleep.

--

Sakura woke up four hours later, ready to take her turn on watch. Shortly after she shook off the haze of sleep she realized that she was sleeping indoors, and then all of her memories of the previous day came back to her. Laying back in bed, Sakura pulled out a kunai and began twirling it around her fingers in an old nervous habit that sometimes helped her to think.

She very badly wanted to leap out of the castle and start running back to Konoha. Of course, she had no idea which way to go to get to Konoha, but that would be something she could sort out on the way, if running were an option. But it wasn't. If she ran, she would only be bringing trouble back home. As long as she lived, Louise could never summon another familiar. The girl was ambitious and apparently politically powerful, and she would never stand to let her familiar disappear.

She could always kill Louise before making her escape, but that hardly seemed likely to improve the situation. Although she would no longer have one person who would dedicate her life to Sakura's death, she had a feeling that the death of a mage at the hands of a commoner was something that the school would react to with great vengeance. If she were able to dispose of the body perfectly it might be written off as a simple disappearance, but Sakura didn't want to take that chance. And of course that entire line of thought assumed that she was able to her master. Sakura glanced over at the bed, from which she could her soft snores coming from the sleeping Louise.

The girl's behavior so far had shown a complete disregard for the threat that Sakura posed to her life. Louise was either blindingly naive, or overwhelmingly confident in her own abilities. Considering the environment she was learning in, Sakura wasn't prepared to bet her life on Louise's naivete. With the level of power all of her peers had shown... it would be like trying to attack Kakashi in his sleep, an attempt that could only lead to grief for the attacking party. And that wasn't even accounting for the effect of the seal on Sakura's hand.

No, Sakura decided as she got out of bed, there would be no murder this morning, which meant that she should start doing the laundry. Once her bedroll was put away and she had changed into a clean set of clothes, she set out to do just that.

--

On her return from her errands, Sakura was somewhat surprised to see that Louise was still asleep. Checking the position of the sun, she figured that it must almost be time for breakfast, and so set about the task of waking her master.

Waking high level nin safely was always a tricky business. Sakura eventually decided to use one of the extra coat hangers to poke Louise on the shoulder from what she hoped would be a safe distance. It took a few pokes before the girl mumbled and began to stir, slapping at the coat hanger in annoyance.

"Wh-What? What's going on?" Louise asked, blinking sleep out of her eyes.

Although her master appeared to be quite thoroughly disoriented, Sakura was not fooled. Feigning weakness to provoke an opponent into a rash attack was one of the oldest tricks in the book. Obviously Louise had been forbidden from proactively disposing of her familiar, but if she could present it as a case of self defense, there would be nothing for it but to try to summon a better familiar next time. Sakura hadn't thought her master capable of such things, but then Kakashi had always said that she had trouble seeing underneath the underneath.

"It's nearly time for breakfast, master." She replied, voice level.

"Huh? Oh... wait, who are you?" Louise asked, confusion written all over her face. Sakura had to admit, it was a convincing act.

"Haruno Sakura." Sakura was careful to keep her amusement out of her voice.

"Oh, the familiar. That's right, I summoned you yesterday, didn't I?" Louise still appeared not to have fully awaken.

"Correct." Sakura replied. "Your laundry has been cleaned and is put away in the wardrobe."

Louise requested her underwear and clothing, which Sakura provided. When her master had finished putting on her undergarments, she directed another order at Sakura.

"Dress you?" Sakura couldn't keep the incredulity out of her voice.

"You must not know because you're a commoner, but nobles will not dress themselves if a servant is available." Louise's voice was firm, and Sakura moved to comply.

Sakura was of course required to move well into her master's personal space in order to help her dress. As she was putting on her blouse, Louise even turned her back on her servant, practically daring her to strike. Sakura couldn't help but stare at the space between her third and fourth vertebrae. She could form a chakra scalpel in an instant, and at this range the attack would take no time at all. She shook herself out of it as Louise finished donning the blouse and turned to allow Sakura to button it up. In this situation, she couldn't afford to act rashly.

Once Louise had been dressed, Sakura made the request that had been on her mind all morning. "Since I finished your laundry already, may I take the rest of the day to explore the countryside? I may be able to find some of those reagents you mentioned yesterday."

Louise looked at her blankly for a moment, before nodding. "Very well. Be sure to return before the evening meal is over. I won't have the others thinking my familiar has abandoned me."

Sakura expressed her appreciation and made her way out of the castle, leaving Louise to her pre-breakfast preparations.

--

Half an hour later Sakura jumped down from a tree near the outskirts of Tristain's capital. Louise had told her that the city was three hours away from the Academy on horseback. Sakura could only assume that her master set a pretty leisurely pace when she rode into town.

Her first impression of the sprawling city was that it reminded her of the capital of Fire Country. The white cobblestone streets were packed with throngs of people and with merchants plying their wares. Overall it gave an impression of being a prosperous city in a prosperous country, which fit Louise's description to a T.

One difference from her last diplomatic mission to visit the Daimyo was that no honor guard waited to receive her at the gate. Not that she looked like she deserved one. Dressed in plain traveling clothes, Sakura looked every inch the commoner. Even her distinctive hair was tucked under a plain scarf. Once she made her way into the city, she would simply vanish into the crowds. Of course, this was by design.

After all, she had learned very early on in the Academy that it's a bad idea to stand out when you're scouting out the target of a burglary.
--

I don't think they use the term "witch" when referring to women who are mages.

You do a great job jacobk.

A familiar that overestimate the danger and underestimate his power is a fun idea. The cultural clash is great and I would love to see the reaction to some of Sakura stories (like summon contract).

And Sakura is great. Already scouting potential target, she must have scouted the Academy while doing laundry like a good nin.

It has great potential.

Sakura is, at that point an experienced combatant. She would realize that the students... are not. That many, or even most don't have much combat experience or even training and that this school is at best something like the ninja academy. Which means she is mostly dealing with green kids which she doesn't really have to worry about.

Their teachers on the other hand...

Also Colbert would probably recognize the way Sakura moves as well. Though Sakura might not see him for the thread he is, since he's hiding it.

I think she's expecting too much from the students really. They don't have chakra either and she should notice that too. Which tells her they operate on different rules, which means she shouldn't make any assumptions. Assumptions are too dangerous. So she should play it close to her chest an collect much more informations before she gets any theories about the power structure beyond what she is told.

---

Continued reading:

Also Louise would not react like that to a seal like Sakura showed. It means she summoned a mage! From a foreign country! This either means she summoned something way more awesome or that she summoned somebody of equal social standing! Actually it means both! And it means that she might get into trouble. She should not dismiss it just like that.

Well, I appreaciate your writing, it's not bad.

Good sir, you earn a cookie. Remember that Sakura has only a few years under her belt and that she can make errors too.