Kikyō-yama, mountainside, a hunter's lodge.
The wooden cabin was simple, dimly lit.
Soon, the hall brimmed with over a dozen people. Beside a round table lay a bandaged wounded, resembling a mummy.
"Hahaha, Captain Tsukikage, please, sit!" Yakari exclaimed, beaming, pouring tea for the Uchiha at the table, urging Tsukikage to take the head seat. "It's been five years since you saved us. Time flies!"
Tsukikage sat, Mikoto beside him studying his profile with curious eyes.
She assessed him silently.
In the forest, the Uchiha could've eliminated those five rogues, but Tsukikage, recognizing them, spared them.
On the run, exposing their position invited trouble. The best solution: kill them, dispose of the bodies, and slip away silently.
"He's a man with principles," Mikoto mused.
Sensing Tsukikage's glance, she calmly looked away, maintaining her noble lady's elegance, sipping tea.
"Hiss… hot!" Her delicate white hand recoiled from the cup, her poise faltering in Tsukikage's eyes.
Since being force-fed, her remaining dignity trampled, Mikoto felt like she was back in her youth after Ninja Academy, unsure how to face a man who dismissed her pride, his aloofness overshadowing hers.
He was younger, yet she couldn't help noticing him, especially under the Uchiha's misconceptions.
With Fugaku's death so recent, her willow brows dipped, sorrow clouding her face. She tugged her kimono hem, lost.
Tsukikage looked away, noticing the other Uchiha staring.
They averted their eyes, curious about their captain's ties to the patriarch's wife and these Kirigakure rogues.
"Heh heh!" Yakari grinned broadly.
Tsukikage's gaze softened, meeting Yakari's.
Memories surfaced.
These "rogues" were refugees from the Land of Frost, displaced during the Third Great Ninja War.
Their homes were razed by the five great nations' conflicts, their grain seized by Konoha forces occupying their land. Fields trampled by ninja squads yielded no harvest. Of Yakari's family of five, only he survived.
Five winters ago, he reached the Land of Fire's border, gathering a dozen followers.
Led by Yakari, these war-torn survivors, desperate, planned to rob other refugees.
That year, the border teemed with rogues, prompting Konoha to send even the Police Force captain to quell them.
By chance, Yakari's group, posing as rogues for their first raid, met Tsukikage, then undercover as a civilian but the Police Force captain.
Tsukikage didn't kill them, instead listening to their tales of woe.
Take Yakari: he'd fled with money, only to be swindled by a neighbor into investing in a Kirigakure bank's sham financial product, hoping for war profits—a ninja world financial scam.
The neighbor fled with the funds, leaving Yakari destitute. Resentful, he planned to rob merchants as a bandit.
But, wielding a kitchen knife in a shop, he found a frail, filthy mother nursing an infant as small as a monkey.
Gritting his teeth, Yakari caught a rat, cooked a pot of rat-meat soup for them, and left, heart heavy.
Later, at the Land of Fire's border, Yakari aimed to rob foreigners to ease his guilt, planning to grow his band, only to encounter Tsukikage's team.
"Still living like before?" Tsukikage asked after a pause.
Yakari set his Kirigakure rogue headband on the table, laughing heartily. "No way, Captain! After your guidance, we settled here, becoming hunters, living off the mountain's bounty. It's rich with game—we're thriving, thanks to you!"
"Wait, Yakari-san, start from the beginning. We're lost!" Izumi mumbled, hesitant.
The other Uchiha nodded, puzzled by the Kirigakure headbands and hunter life.
Too convoluted.
Izumi wouldn't question Tsukikage directly, but knew he wouldn't mind her asking Yakari.
"Alright, from the start!" Yakari said eagerly, pausing to frame his tale, then recounting it vividly.
Meanwhile, Tsukikage ordered Minamikaze to take two teammates to Kikyō no Sato, to "invite" a doctor before midnight, and procure medicine, preserved food, essentials, and a map of the Land of Fire's border mountains.
Minamikaze, reluctant to miss the story, left with his team.
Over a cup of tea, Yakari finished, proud, fancying himself a director or screenwriter.
The Uchiha learned of Yakari's impoverished, luckless life, treading on thin ice.
With a sidelong glance, Mikoto added to her assessment of Tsukikage: "Kind?"
The others thought Yakari was fortunate to meet Tsukikage. Any other Konoha ninja would've slain them as rogues, claiming the bounty.
Tsukikage was truly gentle and kind.
"So, your Kirigakure headbands were scavenged from battlefields? With all that bad luck, what's with the pride?" Izumi teased, her willow brows raised, likening Yakari's poor choices to her own.
Always picking the worst option until meeting Tsukikage.
"Captain, you're leaving soon?" Yakari asked, sobering. "It's dark—stay tonight, I'll cook dinner, and you can leave at dawn!"
Tsukikage scanned the table. The Uchiha, dusty and sleepless, fleeing for three days, showed fatigue, their eyes yearning for rest.
"Thanks, but we must go," he said calmly, meeting Yakari's gaze.
The Uchiha's longing faded, but none protested.
They were fugitives, not on a picnic.
Lingering risked trouble, endangering these refugee hunters, already unlucky.
Tsukikage hated burdening others. In the forest, he'd planned to part ways with Yakari.
But Yakari's insistence and their need for a brief rest brought them here.
"Rest while you can. When Minamikaze returns, we move," Tsukikage said evenly.
"Alright, I'll prepare food," Yakari said, smiling, heading to the kitchen.
Izumi asked, "Yakari-san, why wear Kirigakure rogue headbands while hunting?"
Tamao, weak on the floor, piped up, "What else? To scare off enemies!"
The Uchiha turned, startled, nearly forgetting Tamao.
Yakari laughed. "He's right! Nearby war refugees are fierce. Without rogue headbands, we can't deter them on the road."
Yakari entered the inner room.
Suddenly, a loud infant's cry pierced the night, echoing in the cabin.
The Uchiha flinched.
Mikoto's eyes snapped to the bedroom, memories triggered, her sorrow deepening—she missed Sasuke.
Izumi frowned.
Tsukikage, unmoved, sipped tea. From the start, he'd noted the cabin's shoes, furniture, and infant seat, deducing a family of three.
"Sorry, sorry!" Yakari said, rushing from the bedroom with a woman, anxious not to alarm his guests.
The woman, refined, wore a red scarf, her waist-length black hair framing a clean face, soothing the swaddled infant in her arms.
"Captain Tsukikage, this is my wife, Miri, married last year. Our son's unnamed—a boy!" Yakari said, beaming, introducing his family.
Tsukikage smiled back.
"Hmph, you, so unlucky, still got a wife and kid? I proposed to a Hyūga nurse at Konoha Hospital—she ignored me, told me to scram. Just 'cause I'm a whimsical guy? Who's she looking down on?" Tamao grumbled.
(End of Chapter)