The night air was getting cold. Not unbearable, but cold enough that it seeped through my clothes and reminded me that standing around fighting people all night was a terrible way to spend my time when I could be sleeping in a warm bed instead. So I decided right then that this whole thing needed to end soon before I fell asleep standing up.
Once I started spamming shadow clones, the fight stopped being a fight and became more of a cleanup operation. Turns out when you suddenly have twenty or thirty copies of yourself running around, the enemy's advantage disappears pretty fast. The smart ones ran. The ones who weren't smart enough or fast enough got cut down by my clones, Minoru's men, or Minato, depending on who reached them first. It wasn't pretty, but it was effective, and by the time we finished sweeping the area for stragglers, the village was secure enough that we could actually leave without worrying about it burning down the moment we turned our backs.
We headed straight back to the outpost after that, just a long walk back while my body kept reminding me that I'd been up all night and really, really needed to stop moving. Commander Minoru might have said something when we got back, some acknowledgment or debriefing or speech about something or other, but I was so tired I wasn't even sure it actually happened. Knowing him, it was probably just one of those "job well done, get some rest" speeches that commanding officers usually gave. By the time we reached the barracks, I was so sleepy I could barely stand. I made it to my bunk, dropped face-first into the pillow, and that was it. Sleep hit me like a brick. I was done.
...
I woke up hungry. Really hungry. The stomach-eating-itself level of hungry where ignoring it wasn't an option. My body had apparently decided that after spending all night fighting and then passing out for however many hours, it deserved real food as compensation.
The mess hall was serving breakfast, but mess hall food was mess hall food. Bland, boring, and barely warm on a good day. And after the night I'd had, I felt like I'd earned something better than whatever lukewarm slop they were serving today. So instead of heading to the mess hall like a normal person, I grabbed my fishing gear.
The river outside the outpost was maybe a ten-minute walk away, close enough that I could get back quickly if something went wrong, but far enough that nobody would bother me while I was trying to catch breakfast.
Perfect. The water was clear and moving at a decent pace, which meant fish and probably good fish at that. I set up on a flat rock near the bank, cast my line, and settled in to wait.
Fishing was one of those activities that people either loved or hated. You were either the person who understood the appeal or the person who thought it was the most boring waste of time ever invented. I'd always fallen into the love category. Something about sitting by water with a rod in your hand, just sitting there not thinking about much of anything. Meditation for people who hated meditation. Doing nothing as an active choice rather than a failure state.
The first fish came pretty quick. A decent-sized one too, maybe half a kilo. I pulled it in, added it to my catch, and cast again. The second one took a bit longer, but it was bigger, which made up for the wait. By the time I hooked the third fish, I was already mentally planning how I was going to cook these. Clay-baked, probably. Wrap them in clay from the riverbank, toss them in the fire, let the heat do its work. The clay would seal in all the moisture and flavor, and when you cracked it open the skin would peel right off with it. Simple as it got, and it tasted amazing.
That's when I felt it. That familiar presence approaching from behind, moving through the trees silent as death. And beneath that silence, I could feel bloodlust radiating off her. My instincts kicked in immediately, that automatic alarm system that told me someone dangerous was about to do something I wouldn't like. I'd felt it enough times to know exactly who it was. Tsunade-sensei, here to ruin my morning.
I immediately raised both hands in surrender without even turning around. "Not today, Sensei. I'm having breakfast."
Because of course it was Tsunade. Who else would it be? The woman had this habit of appearing out of nowhere whenever she felt like running a surprise training drill, which was her polite way of saying she enjoyed ambushing her students when they least expected it. Character building, she called it. I called it deeply inconvenient.
"Oh?" Her voice came from directly behind me now, closer than she'd been a second ago. "Did you think you could just tell me 'no' and I'd listen? How sweet."
I turned around, still holding my fishing rod, and found her standing there with her arms crossed. But then her eyes drifted down to the three fish I'd already caught, sitting in a neat line on the rock beside me, and her expression changed into something curious.
"What are you doing?" she asked, though the answer was pretty obvious given the fishing rod in my hand and the fish at my feet.
"Fishing," I said. "Like I literally just said a second ago."
Her eyes stayed on the fish for another moment, and I could practically see the gears turning in her head. "Are you planning to cook something delicious again?" She paused, and I saw the exact moment the memory hit her. "Like those rabbits you made last time?"
Right. I'd cooked rabbit for her a while back during one of our assignment together, and apparently she hadn't managed to forget about that experience yet. Her expression changed from just curious to genuinely interested in about half a second flat. She was trying to be subtle about it, but I definitely caught her swallowing like she was already tasting whatever I might make.
She looked at the three fish again. "That's not enough for two people."
I blinked. "Two people?"
"You and me."
"Okay, when exactly did you get invited to my breakfast?"
"I'm your sensei. I don't need an invitation."
"That's not how breakfast works."
"Sure it is. I show up, you cook whatever you caught, and then we both eat."
"That's just called mooching, Sensei."
"I prefer to call it quality bonding time with my student."
"While eating my fish."
"Our fish."
"I caught them."
"And I'm providing supervision to ensure my student's cooking skills are up to standard."
"I don't need supervision for this. I'm a better cook than you are anyway."
She smiled at that. "Want to bet on that?"
"Absolutely not. I know how this ends."
"Do you now?"
"With me being right and you being violent about it."
She smiled, not even denying it.
Great. So she was staying. My fish were now our fish, my breakfast was now our breakfast.
I watched the river for a moment, processing the fact that my quiet morning had just turned into a shared meal. Just the two of us by the river, cooking fish together. And when you can't avoid something, you might as well commit to it. May as well lean into the bit. I glanced at her. "So is this considered a date?"
"Nice try, but no," she settled onto the rock next to me. "I'm just here for the food. Don't read too much into it." She paused, looking at the fish again. "Besides, three fish? That's barely a snack. You need at least five. Maybe six."
"For you, maybe. I eat normal portions."
"Oh? And what exactly are you implying about my appetite?"
My survival instincts kicked in immediately. Or maybe not just survival instincts. I'd been in this exact situation before. Woman asks dangerous question, you either fumble and die or turn it into something that works. I'd learned that lesson enough times to know which option kept you breathing. I chose smooth over stupid.
"I'm calling you a person with a healthy appetite. Someone who knows what they want and isn't afraid to take it."
She opened her mouth, probably to say something sarcastic.
I kept going before she could. "Most women I've met pretend they don't eat, like enjoying food is somehow embarrassing or something they need to hide. They pick at their meals and act like they're doing you a favor by being there." I shrugged. "You're not like that. You're honest about what you want. I think that's pretty refreshing."
She closed her mouth, staring at me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
"That's attractive in a woman," I finished.
She blinked, caught off guard for half a second. For a moment, she just stared at me. Then she laughed, shaking her head. "Did you sit around practicing that line beforehand or does this kind of thing just come naturally to you?" She pointed at the water. "Just catch the damn fish already, would you?"
"Alright, fine," I said, picking up my fishing rod again. "But you're helping me catch the other six then."
"Deal. But I'm terrible at fishing."
"Of course you are."
"Hm?"
"Nothing. Here, take this rod and try not to scare all the fish away."
Time passed easier with company. Turned out Tsunade wasn't lying about being terrible at fishing. She managed to catch exactly one fish in the time it took me to pull in five more, and even that one looked like it had given up on life and just decided to attach itself to her hook out of pity. But we hit nine fish eventually, which was more than enough for two people even accounting for her appetite.
I gathered clay from the riverbank while she collected wood for the fire. The clay was good quality, wet enough to work with but not so muddy it would fall apart. I cleaned the fish, gutted them, stuffed them with wild herbs, and some seasonings from my personal collection, then wrapped each one in a thick layer of clay. The clay would bake hard in the fire and seal everything inside, keeping all the moisture and flavor locked in while the heat did its work.
We set up the fire together, placing the clay-wrapped fish around the edges for slow, even cooking. The flames caught fast and started crackling. I thought we'd just sit and relax, maybe chat about nothing important. Should have known better.
"So I've been watching your chakra control when you're using Mystical Palm," Tsunade said, settling down across from me with the fire between us. "Your foundation work is actually pretty solid. The internal cycling is clean, and your projection is stable." She leaned slightly. "That means you're ready for the next step."
"Next step? What next step?"
"Internal Shōsen Jutsu. The combat version of Mystical Palm." She looked at me seriously. "Standard Mystical Palm works fine when you have time and safety. You project your chakra externally, hold your hand over whatever wound needs treating, and you do the work from there. But when you're in actual combat, you don't really have that kind of luxury. The modified version is pure internal work instead. You cycle healing chakra through your own chakra network and direct it to injuries from the inside. Keeps both your hands completely free so you can keep fighting while you're patching yourself up at the same time."
I could see where this was going. Passive healing while keeping your hands free to fight? That was actually pretty neat. Useful too, especially for someone like me who ended up in close combat more often than most medics probably should.
"It's a lot harder than Mystical Palm though," she continued, apparently reading my interest correctly. "And it costs significantly more chakra to pull off. With Mystical Palm, you're projecting that healing energy outward where you can actually see it and control it pretty easily. This Shōsen Jutsu keeps absolutely everything internal, which means you're basically working blind and relying entirely on your chakra control to direct the healing to wherever it needs to go. Plus your body naturally wants to distribute chakra evenly throughout your entire network, so you're constantly fighting against that instinct the whole time you're trying to concentrate all that healing in one specific spot."
I glanced at her. "So you'd burn through chakra fast trying to use that in actual combat. Not really practical for most iryonin who stay back where it's safer anyway."
She smiled at that. "Good thing you're not most iryonin then."
I blinked. Was that a compliment?
"It does drain you," she said. "But being drained is better than being dead." She pulled out a kunai. "Watch first. I'll show you."
She made a shallow cut on her own palm, then went still. No green glow this time, no visible chakra projection, just her standing there with blood welling up from the cut. But I could sense something happening underneath. The wound closed itself clean and fast without her other hand going anywhere near it.
"That's what you're aiming for eventually," she said. "Keeping the healing completely internal like that means you can do it while you're still actively fighting. No hand signs required, no stopping to focus on it, you just heal yourself while you're moving around and doing everything else you need to do."
She gestured for me to try.
What followed was about twenty minutes of me failing repeatedly while the fish cooked. Tsunade would point out what I was doing wrong, I'd try to adjust, fail again in a slightly different way, and she'd correct me again. The problem wasn't my chakra reserves or even my control exactly. It was more about retraining instincts I'd already built up with the standard version. My body kept wanting to project the healing chakra outward where I could see it working, and convincing it to keep everything internal took conscious effort that made the whole process slower and sloppier than it needed to be.
But I was getting there. Slowly.
The smell of cooked fish finally pulled both our attention away from training.
The clay had baked hard around the fish, sealing everything inside like little edible packages. I cracked one open carefully, peeling away the clay shell. The skin came off with it, leaving just the perfectly cooked meat underneath. Steam rose up, carrying that smell of herbs and river fish that meant I'd done it right.
We ate in silence for a bit after that. The fish turned out pretty good actually, moist, flavorful, exactly what I'd been hoping for when I started this whole fishing expedition.
"Do you believe in talent?" Tsunade asked out of nowhere.
I looked up from the fire. "That's a pretty big question to drop on someone during breakfast."
"Humor me."
I thought about it for a moment, chewing on a piece of fish. "Yeah, I do. Some people are just naturally better at certain things than others. That's reality."
"Right, exactly." She nodded. "A lot of people like to pretend that talent doesn't actually exist, that everything comes down to just hard work and dedication. But that's complete bullshit. Talent is absolutely real."
"But?"
"But what?"
"There's always a 'but' when someone starts a conversation like this."
She smiled slightly. "Yes, there's a but. Talent definitely exists, but it's really not as important as most people seem to think it is. What actually matters more in the long run is whether you're disciplined enough not to get yourself killed before that talent has time to develop into something genuinely useful."
"Well, that's a comforting thought."
"It's a realistic thought." She leaned back slightly. "Natural ability gives you a head start, nothing more than that. What matters is whether you're smart enough not to waste it doing something stupid."
"Like what?"
"Like medics fighting on the front lines." She let out a short laugh. "I don't believe medics should be there. It's inefficient. A medic staying alive in the back can save dozens of people. A medic dying in combat because they tried to fight saves no one."
I could hear the 'but' coming.
"But," she continued, meeting my eyes, "I'm also not stupid enough to think that rule applies to everyone equally. Some people are built differently. Natural fighters who have the fine control needed for iryō ninjutsu. You're one of those people, apparently." She didn't sound entirely happy about admitting it. "So I'm not going to tell you to stay off the front lines when we both know you won't listen and you'd probably be fine anyway. I'm just going to make sure you're trained well enough that 'probably fine' becomes 'definitely fine.'"
"Is that what all the ambushes are for? Making sure I don't die?"
"Pretty much, yeah." She smiled slightly. "You're talented, Shinji. Don't waste it by being careless. And don't let it make you arrogant. Talent gets you in the door. Everything else is work."
"Yes, Sensei."
I turned my attention back to my fish, ready to take another bite, and that's when I noticed something was wrong. Very wrong. The pile of clay-wrapped fish we'd cooked together had shrunk significantly. I counted quickly. Four gone. Four entire fish had vanished while we were talking. I was still on my first one.
I looked at Tsunade.
She was currently working on what had to be her third fish, eating with obvious enjoyment. I stared at my single half-eaten fish, then at the pile of empty clay shells beside her, then back at her. She smiled at her tender fish, and took another slow bite. The fish flaked apart perfectly in her hands, steam still rising from the tender white meat.
She chewed slowly, savoring it, and I could see the moment the herbs and the perfectly cooked fish hit her lips because her eyes closed just slightly, and when she swallowed, her tongue darted out to catch a bit of juice on her lower lip. She let out a small, satisfied sound that made it very clear she was enjoying this way too much.
I finally found my voice. "How are you eating so fast?"
She looked up at me, mid-bite. "What?"
"You've already had three of these things." I was genuinely kind of impressed by the speed. "Do you even taste them when you're going that fast?"
She swallowed and gave me a look that said I'd asked a stupid question. "Of course I taste them. That's exactly why I'm eating so many of them. They're really good." She pulled apart another piece of fish. "I can't stop eating these."
"I can see that." I watched her take another bite, the way she closed her eyes slightly when the flavor hit, too absorbed in the taste to notice me staring. "I'm glad you like it."
"Like it? This is the best breakfast I've had in weeks." She was already reaching for her fifth fish. "You should cook more often."
"Well, I definitely won't say no if you're offering a dinner date, Sensei." I smirked. "Just ask anytime. I'm always available."
She choked. Actually choked on the piece of fish she'd just put in her mouth. Coughed twice, hand coming up to cover her mouth as she tried to get air back. After a moment, she swallowed hard and cleared her throat. "Don't get cocky, brat. You keep doing that and I'm going to hit you."
"Doing what?"
"You know what." She pointed at me with a piece of fish. "The flirting. Every other conversation with you lately."
"I'm just being honest about my availability, Sensei."
"You're being a menace." But she didn't sound actually angry. More like resigned. "I spar with you regularly. I know exactly how hard I can hit you without causing permanent damage."
"Is that a threat or an invitation?"
"It's a warning." She ate more fish, shaking her head. "One of these days you're going to say something like that and I'm going to put you through a tree."
"Pretty sure you've done that already."
"And I can do it again. Just so we're clear on my options here."
"Noted, Sensei." I grinned at her anyway. "The dinner date offer still stands though, just so you know."
She threw a small piece of clay at me. I caught it.
"Just eat your damn breakfast already."
"Yes, Sensei." Still smiling.
....
The days at the outpost fell into a routine. Except when they didn't, which was often enough to keep things interesting in the worst possible way.
Perimeter patrol was the most common assignment. Walking the outer edge of our territory, checking for tracks, looking for signs of enemy activity, making sure nobody was trying to sneak up on us while we slept. Boring most of the time, which was actually good because boring meant nobody was dying. I got paired with different people depending on who was available. Sometimes it was Minato, sometimes other chunin I barely knew. We'd walk in silence or make small talk about nothing important, eyes constantly scanning the treeline.
Watch duty at the observation posts was worse. You just sat there on a platform built into a tall tree, staring at the same stretch of forest for hours, trying not to fall asleep while also trying not to think too hard about how exposed you were if someone decided to lob an explosive clone at you. The boredom was the real enemy. That and the fact that your relief didn't always show up on time.
One night my replacement didn't show up at all. I waited an extra hour past my shift, then two hours, getting more irritated and more worried with each passing minute. Turned out he'd gotten killed during a skirmish near the western perimeter. Nobody thought to tell me until I finally climbed down and went looking for answers. So I'd been sitting up there on that platform, annoyed about being late for dinner, while the guy who was supposed to replace me was already dead and cooling somewhere in the woods.
That was a fun realization to have.
Scout missions were more interesting, which was another way of saying they were more likely to get people killed. Small teams, usually three or four people, sent out to gather information about enemy movements or check on reported activity. We'd move through the forest by relying on stealth to avoid detection. Sometimes we'd spot enemy patrols and have to hide until they passed. Sometimes we'd find nothing and come back with useless information about empty clearings and abandoned campsites.
And sometimes we'd get ambushed.
I didn't know if I was lucky or unlucky that it kept happening to me. On one hand, getting ambushed was objectively bad. People died in ambushes. On the other hand, I was still alive and everyone I'd been responsible for protecting was also still alive, so maybe I was doing something right.
The most recent one had been during a reconnaissance run near the border. It was just the four of us, picking our way through the trees, thinking it was just another quiet border patrol. Then eight of them came crashing in from three directions at once. Classic ambush setup. They'd probably been tracking us for a while, waiting for the right moment to spring the trap.
They picked the wrong team to ambush.
I had shadow clones already deployed as eight enemies coming at us from three directions, clearly thinking they had us cornered.
They didn't.
I triggered the first wave of clones. Just regular shadow clones programmed to run at the enemy and detonate themselves. Small explosions, nothing fancy, just enough force to make the enemies panic and pull back. They scattered like I knew they would, trying to create distance from what they thought was the main threat.
That's when I triggered the second wave.
The clones I'd hidden in the perimeter, the ones loaded with explosive seals, came in and chased down the scattering hostiles like hunting dogs cornering prey. Then they detonated.
The explosions were massive. Trees didn't just fall, they splintered into fragments. The ground didn't just shake, it opened up into fresh craters that hadn't existed seconds before. Fire spread fast through the dry underbrush, catching on everything combustible. The force of the blasts threw debris everywhere, chunks of earth and wood and other things I wasn't thinking too hard about.
My teammates were doing their best impression of people in a hurricane, wrapping themselves around tree trunks and holding on for dear life as the shockwave tried its best to send them flying. One guy had both arms and legs around a branch like he was hugging it for emotional support.
When the smoke started to clear, the forest looked wrong. Sections of it were just gone, replaced by scorched earth and burning vegetation. The enemy patrol wasn't a patrol anymore. They were scattered pieces in various locations, most of them unrecognizable as human if you weren't looking closely. A few were still technically intact but very obviously not alive, thrown against trees or into craters by the force of the explosions.
My teammates just stood there looking pretty shell-shocked by the whole thing. One of them was holding his ears, clearly bothered by the ringing that was probably still going on in his head from all those explosions.
The other two were just staring at the destruction. "The rumors didn't do it justice," one of them muttered, eyes wide. "They said you were crazy with explosive clones but this is..." He trailed off, gesturing at the craters.
His friend let out a shaky laugh. "Crazy? That's seriously what people have been calling it? This isn't crazy, this is genuinely fucking terrifying to watch, man."
They looked at me like I'd stitched the sky together with fireworks, and I felt a tiny, inconvenient urge to roll my eyes. Sure, big booms were flashy. Sure, it was memorable. But this whole explosive clone ambush only worked on people who didn't see it coming. I could already picture the future where every enemy I faced would hear about my clones and stay the hell away from me, making the entire jutsu useless through reputation alone.
The whole thing was over in maybe thirty seconds. My teammates were fine. The enemy patrol was very much not fine. We searched what was left of the bodies for intelligence, found nothing useful except confirmation that they were dead, and reported back to base.
Commander Minoru gave me this look when I delivered my report, like he was mentally updating a file in his head labeled 'Shinji: Potential Asset or Future Problem?' I had no idea which category I was falling into, but judging by his expression, he wasn't sure either.
"I'm not going to say anything about your use of exploding clones," he said finally. "You were ambushed by superior numbers. Excessive force is understandable in that situation." He paused, and I could feel the 'but' coming. "However, were you at least able to identify which village the enemy shinobi belonged to before you... dealt with them?"
I looked away, suddenly finding the wall very interesting. "Suna, I think."
"You sound unsure. Are you?"
"I mean, I'm pretty sure. Some of them were wearing Suna headbands if I remember right. I vaguely remember seeing those before everything kind of exploded."
"Vaguely remember."
"The ambush happened really fast, sir. And then there were a lot of explosions. So yeah, some of the details got a bit fuzzy after that point." I was absolutely not mentioning that most of those details got fuzzy, because I'd turned the enemy patrol into debris. Hard to identify village affiliation when they'd been blown into pieces too small to have distinguishing features.
Minoru closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Right. Suna. Vaguely identified. That's what I'll put in the official report then."
"I appreciate your understanding, sir."
"I'm not understanding, Shinji. I'm documenting." He waved me off. "You're dismissed. Just try to leave at least some evidence next time this happens, alright?"
"I'll definitely do my best, sir."
I left before he could change his mind.
...
When there was nothing to do, which happened more often than you'd think even during wartime, or maybe especially during wartime, since war is ninety percent waiting and ten percent wishing you were still waiting, I'd hang out with Minato and whoever else was around. We'd play cards, complain about night missions, tell stories that were probably half lies. Actually, they were definitely half lies. Maybe three-quarters lies. The question wasn't whether we were lying but whether we were lying to each other or to ourselves. Stuff that made the waiting feel less like waiting. In other words, Minato was good company. Quiet most of the time, but he'd open up when the conversation interested him. We'd talk about jutsu theory sometimes, or compare notes on combat techniques. He was stupidly talented, which meant talking to him about shinobi work was actually educational instead of just killing time.
One afternoon I spotted him near the food stalls, standing there with his coin pouch open, staring at the contents with an expression showing he was doing math he didn't like the results of. He'd pull out a few coins, count them, put them back, pull them out again.
The vendor was waiting patiently, probably used to this scene, probably saw it a dozen times a day. Minato wasn't buying anything. Just standing there calculating whether he could afford snacks—no, not whether he could afford them, but whether affording them was worth not affording something else later.
That was when it clicked. Actually, it didn't click so much as slot into place like a puzzle piece I'd been ignoring on the table. Money during wartime worked differently than peacetime, and Minato was getting hit harder by that difference than most people.
During peacetime, shinobi made their real money from mission contracts. Clients paid for services, rich clients, usually, because poor clients couldn't afford shinobi rates and made do with hiring thugs or hoping for the best, clients who needed bodyguards for their convoys or protection for their businesses or escorts through dangerous territory. Those missions paid well because the clients had money and incentive, two things that make people generous. A successful C-rank escort mission could pay more than a month's salary depending on the client and the risk involved.
But during wartime, there were no clients. No mission contracts. Everything became military assignments instead, and military assignments paid differently. Every shinobi got a monthly salary based on rank. Genin got genin pay, chunin got chunin pay, and so on. There was also hazard pay if you were deployed to active combat zones, which I'd gotten during the Suna clashes and the outpost raids with Tsunade and Sakumo. That helped, but it wasn't the same as peacetime mission contracts.
And then there were other payments I vaguely knew about. Death benefits for families if a shinobi died in service, though how much and under what conditions, I had no idea. Injury compensation maybe. Medical coverage probably, though whether that meant full coverage or partial coverage or coverage-but-only-for-specific-injuries-that-meet-certain-criteria was beyond me. The village administration handled all that, buried it somewhere in paperwork and policy documents that I'd never read and probably never would read. Honestly I didn't know the details because I'd never needed to ask. Ignorance as luxury. Not knowing because you don't have to know.
But looking at Minato standing there counting coins, I could guess his situation pretty easily. Orphan, same as me, which meant no family sending money, no inheritance to fall back on, no safety net. Just whatever the village paid him monthly for being a genin on active duty. And genin base pay was probably not great even with hazard bonuses.
I had money because I'd been running various hustles around Konoha before deployment. Side jobs, favors for the right people, knowing where to sell things and who to sell them to. Minato probably had whatever small amount the village deposited into his account each month, and that was it. His entire financial situation summed up in one monthly deposit that disappeared almost as fast as it arrived.
Being a good friend meant not pointing out that I'd noticed his financial crisis. Not asking if he was okay. Not offering help directly, because that would force him to either accept charity or refuse it, and both options were terrible. Pride isn't stupidity. Pride is self-defense. So I walked up to the stall, ordered enough food for three people, maybe four people if they had normal appetites, definitely three people if one of them was me, paid without looking at the price, and then casually turned to Minato like I'd just noticed he was standing there.
"Oh, hey Minato. You want to help me with this? I think I ordered way too much food."
He looked at the amount of food I'd just bought, then at me. A small smile crossed his face. He knew exactly what I was doing, and we both knew he knew. "Well, good timing on my part then, I guess." He paused for a second. "Thanks."
We left the food stalls and took the usual path toward the pond. On the way, I started noticing something odd. A few chunin passed us, and their eyes lingered on me just a moment too long. Not unfriendly, just… curious, like they were trying to confirm something. Then a couple of jonin walked by, and they did the same thing. Looked at me, looked away, looked back.
It was starting to get weird.
"Hey, Minato," I said once we'd put some distance between us and the last group. "Do I have something on my face or is there a reason people keep staring at me?"
He didn't answer right away, which was answer enough that something was definitely going on. We kept walking, and I could see him working through how to explain whatever he was about to explain.
"There's been some talk going around in the barracks lately," he said finally. "A rumor, really. Someone said they heard from someone else that your name showed up in Suna's bingo book."
I stopped walking. "Wait, my name is in a bingo book?"
"Maybe. Like I said, it's just something someone heard from someone else. Could be completely wrong. You know how barracks gossip works. Someone mishears something, passes it along, and suddenly everyone thinks they know something they don't actually know."
"But people are treating it like it might actually be true though."
"Well, people like gossip more than they like facts. It could easily be nothing. Just something for people to talk about to pass the time between assignments when they're bored."
Right. So either I was important enough that Suna wanted me dead specifically, or the rumor mill had decided to make me interesting without any basis in reality. Both options were annoying in different ways.
"Well," I said after a moment, "that explains the staring at least."
We kept walking toward the pond.
We found a spot near the water, away from the main camp where people wouldn't bother us. The food was simple street food from the stalls. Dango on skewers, some senbei crackers, a few pieces of taiyaki still warm from the grill. We ate slowly, watching the water ripple in the breeze. The war was still happening. My name might be in a bingo book. Minato was broke. But right now none of that mattered as much as the dango in my hand and the friend sitting next to me. Tomorrow could deal with tomorrow's problems.
...
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