Chapter 677 - 677: Catching Up With Old Frenemies

Annoyingly, that Ino-pig had not turned into a sow as Sakura had hoped she would.

Yamanaka Ino had remained in excellent shape these past two years, and even though Sakura had pumped her full of Akimichi clan breast chakra, the transplant hadn't turned her into a total hog. Though she had suffered from a little bloating in the following days, the breast chakra had rapidly denatured, transforming into Ino's own flesh shortly after the massage.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem as though Sakura could simply donate Kekkei Genkai to whomever she wished by giving them some of the breast chakra she had stolen from other kunoichi. Only a special kind of environment could preserve the foreign chakra's unique characteristics; Sakura's unique breast tissue was what allowed her to reproduce stolen abilities at will.

"There we go, red bean paste daifuku from Amaguriama," Ino said as she set down a pink box decorated with a small ribbon and a piping-hot pot of black tea on Sakura's desk. She drew up a chair and sat next to Shikamaru. "Got any cups?"

Sakura produced three teacups from under her desk.

"So, how is Chōji?" Sakura asked snidely. "Is he still able to walk around on two legs just fine?"

After getting shot by Ōnoki's particle beam in their giant forms, Sakura had assigned Chōji and his father Chōza plenty of bed rest... and Chōji appeared to have taken her advice to heart. With no need to work and food having become free, he had become a permanent resident of his bed, and the last Sakura had heard, he'd grown to the size of a small mountain.

"He's fine. He's oddly proud of completely losing his mobility, in a morbid sort of way," Ino sighed as she unpacked the sweets she had brought. "C'mon, Sakura, you've gotta give us some work," she added. "We're going stir crazy cooped up in here... there's nothing to do, and I've already dated, like, all of the boys we've got here."

"Not all of them," Shikamaru said dryly. "Sasuke's back,"

"He is!?" Ino said excitedly.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch," Sakura said, scowling. "I've already sent him off on another mission outside."

"Oh," Ino said dejectedly.

She then began pouring everyone tea, but as she was serving Sakura, she shot her a strange look.

"By the way, what's this weird thing you three have got going on?" Ino said pointedly. "You're dating Naruto, but don't think I'm the only one to have noticed you and Sasuke making googly eyes at each other! Like last year's Rinne Festival for instance, that dance—"

"How about none of your business?" Sakura said in a huff. "I've got it under control."

Sakura, Ino and Shikamaru each blew on their steaming tea a few times to cool it down.

"Got a girlfriend yet, Shikamaru?" Ino asked casually. "Want me to introduce you to one of my friends?"

"You know very well I don't have one… and no thanks, I think I'll just wait for the clan to assign me one of my cousins," Shikamaru replied lazily, taking a sip of his tea. "Women are more trouble than they're worth, if you ask me."

Sakura and Ino scowled at him. Arranged marriage, really? That wasn't romantic at all…

"What if she's ugly?" Sakura asked pointedly. "And don't you want someone you can get along well with?"

"Then I'll close my eyes when it's time to make babies… keeping the bloodline going is all that matters to the clan elders," Shikamaru said lazily. "As for clicking together... I don't really care. I plan to be asleep whenever I'm not doing anything particularly important."

It was then that Ino took out a picture of a pretty girl with a rather generous bust and slid it across the table.

"Who's that?" Sakura asked curiously.

"Oh, nobody…" Ino said dismissively. "…only Chōji's new girlfriend."

Sakura and Shikamaru choked on their tea in perfect sync, spraying the brown liquid from their mouths all over each other.

"I'm sorry, what!?" Shikamaru coughed.

"Didn't you say Chōji was the size of a small mountain the last time you saw him!?" Sakura spluttered. "That hot chick is his girlfriend!?"

Ino tut-tutted them.

"Don't you know love is blind?" she sighed. "That's the red string of fate at work… so romantic."

All of a sudden, finding himself a girlfriend had jumped to the top of Shikamaru's list of priorities. He couldn't let Chōji, of all people, get a girlfriend before him, could he? That would just be plain wrong! Well, technically, it was already too late to beat him to the punch, but still, he ought to at least close the gap!

"I wouldn't be so sure," Sakura suddenly said. "That girl… looking at her, I'm guessing she's from the Manyū clan, isn't she? I bet she's just after his body."

Had the entire world gone crazy!? That's even worse, Shikamaru thought to himself!

Although he wouldn't go crying it from the rooftops, he had a penchant for women with more than a little meat on their bones. Women needed cushion for the pushin', they were supposed to be soft to the touch… but the same didn't apply in reverse, damn it! Looking purely in terms of physique and disregarding everything else, women didn't like soft, pudgy men; they liked bulging, rock-hard muscles, and maybe even big, pulsating brains… didn't they!?

"That's not what I meant," Sakura explained. "Like the Nadeshiko clan, the Manyū clan only very rarely produces male offspring, so they usually seek out strong shinobi to marry into their clan. I'm guessing this one was very impressed after seeing Chōji grow to the size of a mountain during the war."

Sakura wondered whether Chōji was able to make the Ame-no-Murakumo sword in his trousers expand as well… and now that she was thinking about it, couldn't she also do the same with the little, bean-sized tanto dagger in her panties?

"Right, I almost forgot!" Ino added, remembering what Shikamaru had asked her to say. "There's this tradition amongst the Ino-Shika-Chō main family where members of the same generation try to have their children at around the same time, so they're all the same age and can grow up together to become part of the same team... and since we Konoha 12 are practically family at this point, I was wondering if you and Naruto were planning to try for a baby any time soon, so our kids can all attend the Academy together…?"

For the second time that morning, Sakura spewed tea all over Shikamaru, who had only wanted to gauge her reaction to the mention of baby-making, hoping to determine whether she actually knew that some of her offspring were currently living in the village, which might have allowed him to deduce whether she had ordered Kakashi to commit the massacre of the higher-ups.

"I hadn't given it much thought, honestly, I've been kind of busy," Sakura spluttered. "We're not even twenty yet, isn't it a bit early to be thinking about that kind of thing?"

Well, that certainly explained the mystery of why the Konoha 12's children in the Boruto era were all in the same school year...