Seriously… I thought, coming home and realizing one of my boxes of treats was missing from the bags. Itachi might be from one of the most powerful clans in Konoha, but she acts like she grew up in a traveling circus and has a couple of gold teeth.
Itachi… could someone like you really wipe out your entire clan? Your own family. I don't want to believe it - duty to the village or to your clan? How can you even choose between family and everyone else? You don't choose your family - but they always come first.
A person who could kill their own relatives for the sake of others… someone like that can't go on living, not really. They die inside. In the anime, whenever they show Itachi, he's always got his Sharingan activated, but I remember… there was a moment when you could see his eyes without all the epic tomoe. I remember his gaze was empty, like a dead fish - and it wasn't just the blindness from overusing the Mangekyo Sharingan.
You see that same look in war veterans when they talk about the heroic deaths of their friends. Back in school, a classmate once brought her dad, a veteran of the Afghan war, to visit. He answered our questions with a smile, but as someone who pays close attention to people, I couldn't bring myself to ask a single thing after seeing what was hidden behind his eyes.
And really… there are probably people in this world who've been through even worse than Itachi from the anime. The shinobi world is a brutal place - it turns people into monsters or soulless machines. I think, in the whole Naruto world, the only ones who are even close to mentally stable are the Yamanaka clan, and that's only because they know how to work with the mind. But as we all know, The darkest secrets aren't in the patients' lives - they're in the therapist's. They just know how to recognize and control them.
This world… it's broken, and Madara understood that. He wanted to change it, and if he hadn't gotten so obsessed with his idea of plunging everyone into a global illusion, maybe he could've actually done something.
Could I ever chan… no, that's impossible. Only overwhelming power can change the way people here live, and even then, it's only temporary - as soon as that powerful person dies or disappears, a few generations later, everything goes back to how it was. You don't need to change the world or its rules - you need to change the people living in it.
****
The next day, I heard a loud noise from the bathroom. I eyed the door warily, set down my mug of tea, and went to see what happened.
The moment I saw the shattered ink bottle, I barely stopped myself from wringing my clones' necks.
"All right, what happened here?" I sighed. One of the clones was scrubbing at the mess, only making the stain spread further across the tile.
"Well, we can already hold a regular leaf from a tree on our forehead for ten minutes. So the third one decided to try walking on the walls. We helped him stay up by holding his back, but with just one hand… you get it, we couldn't hold him properly and he fell, knocking over the ink bottle."
"I see… So, how's it going?" I asked the third clone, who was already on his second dirty rag.
"Yeah, I get the principle." He said, dunking the rag in a bucket of water. "But we still don't have enough control - we have to concentrate really hard. Maybe we should make the leaf exercise harder, or spend more time practicing wall-walking."
"Wall-walking on tile." The second one tried to joke.
"Man… I was hoping we'd have Tsunade-level chakra control to go with our perfect body."
"Don't sweat it, boss. Rome wasn't built in a day. You didn't seriously expect to become unbeatable after just a month of training, did you?" the first clone encouraged me.
Damn, you'd think the Shadow Clone Jutsu just makes copies with a chunk of my consciousness, but every clone is a little different. Their behavior depends a lot on my mood when I make them. If I create a clone right after waking up, at best they'll just slack off, at worst they'll fall asleep right there in the bathroom. That's why, when using the jutsu, it's important to put not just chakra, but the right emotions and intent into it.
The Second Hokage, who invented this technique, was a real genius. Sometimes these clones feel so real that I try not to interact with them too much. They get it - they know that when the jutsu ends, they're gone for good, but when I dispel them and I'm nearby, they just smile at me. I know they don't want to disappear - if they did, they'd just dispel themselves after finishing their daily quota, but they never do, even though they could.
"Ahem. All right, thanks for the effort. I'll think about how best to keep working on chakra control." I left the bathroom and quickly shut the door.
I drained my mug and sighed. My throat still felt scratchy.
"A wonderful and at the same time terrifying technique."
****
"More! More! MORE!" the crowd in the restaurant chanted as I tried to squeeze my way inside through the rings of people.
What I saw made my jaw drop. I started counting the crumpled burger wrappers with my finger, but lost track a few times.
At the table sat a HUGE guy. To get a sense of just how big he was, you only had to look at Chouza - who, at 120 kilos and 183 centimeters, looked like just a slightly big guy next to him. Can my chairs even hold that much weight? Where did Chouza even find this guy? Is this his older, mutated son?
Shikaku and Inoichi were standing off to the side, pretending they had nothing to do with what was happening. Only Chouza stood nearby, laughing and giving the giant a hearty slap on the back.
"Ninety-one!" the crowd shouted as the guy finished off another burger, and he looked like he could easily eat twenty more.
I spotted Ayumi, who was watching the whole thing with a smile. I was about to call out to her, but she caught my eye, turned, and quickly made her way through the crowd to me.
"Ayumi-san, I need you to run to the bookstore in the center and buy my book, and also pick up a canvas board and some watercolors from the shop nearby. Can you make it before he finishes the hundredth?" She nodded and dashed out of the restaurant. Even with a damaged chakra system, I'm sure she runs way faster than I do.
While she was gone, I paced circles in the empty part of the dining room, and with every shout from the crowd, I hoped Ayumi would show up any second.
Damn, I really didn't expect someone to eat a hundred burgers this soon. I should've thought ahead about what to give someone with such a… broad talent.
Good thing I decided to eat here today - otherwise, it would've been awkward to make the winner wait while I got myself together and came over.
Crowds attract crowds. By the time the ninety-ninth burger was eaten, the restaurant was so packed you could barely move. There was even a small crowd outside, peering in to see what was going on.
"One hundred! Hahaha, well done, Ryota-kun, you didn't let our clan down!" boomed Chouza's deep voice.
Well, since Ayumi wasn't back yet, I had to stall for time.
It was tough to push my way to the center of the crowd, but by focusing, I managed to stoke my chakra and boost the flow through my body, which let me squeeze my way to the round table.
"Oh, Akira-san, you're here already," Chouza said loudly when he saw me.
I moved a chair aside, stood on it, and cleared my throat loudly, drawing everyone's attention. Thankfully, the crowd quieted down quickly, waiting to hear what I'd say.
"All right, welcome, my dear guests. My name is Akira, and I'm the owner of this establishment." I paused while a little burst of chatter died down, then continued. "Honestly, I didn't think this day would come so soon - one hundred burgers! Can you imagine someone eating thirteen kilos of food in one sitting? I couldn't. Ryota-san, right? How are you feeling? Are you sure you don't need to go to the hospital?"
A wave of laughter rolled through the restaurant, and even the big guy himself was laughing along with Chouza.
"Konoha never fails to surprise - you can run into the most amazing people on the streets every day. Some of them might seem a little odd at first, until you get to know them, but I've noticed there's one thing that unites everyone in this village, shinobi and civilians alike."
"A love of food?" someone in the crowd called out.
"Yes! Exactly. Some might say I'm wrong, but isn't it for good food that we work for the good of the village? Sure, you could eat plain rice every day, but what's the point of such a dull life? We all have different needs - we need to drink, sleep, and eat. You can drink any clean water, you can sleep on the floor if you have to, but FOOD should be delicious. That's why I opened this restaurant - I tried to combine the best taste with the lowest prices, so even the poorest person could enjoy the best burgers. And you know what? I haven't heard a single complaint about the taste or the prices, but that doesn't mean I won't keep trying to make my food even better, and your time here even more enjoyable."
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Ayumi waving from the far end of the restaurant, and I smiled. "Let's give a round of applause for the first person in the world to eat a hundred burgers in one sitting."
The crowd burst into applause, and to my surprise, the big guy, instead of laughing along with Chouza, looked away shyly from all the attention.
"I spent a long time thinking about what to give the winner - two minutes, yeah - and I figured just hanging his name on the wall wasn't enough. Today, Ryota-san, I have two prizes for you." I almost fell off the chair when I saw the book flying at me, but not only did I not fall, I managed to catch it.
"First, I'd like to give you a book I wrote myself - it's called 'In Search of Truth.' No, no, don't rush to judge me. It's actually a pretty good book, especially considering that Kakashi - the Copy Ninja - read it all in one night. If that name doesn't mean anything to you, let me tell you a secret - even the Hokage has read it."
Pure bullshit, since I'm not a hundred percent sure about that. "It's so popular that the print shop can't keep up with the demand from stores. So if you're interested, I suggest you buy it soon, because with demand this high, it'll be out of stock and the price will skyrocket."
The crowd started buzzing again, talking about the book's title, and only after a while did the restaurant quiet down.
"And the second prize is even better. Ryota-san, I'll paint your portrait. You can take it home or let us hang it in the restaurant."
Even though I was still in a cast, after eleven days, moving my fingers and wrist didn't hurt anymore.
Ryota didn't turn down the portrait, so I politely asked the crowd to leave if they weren't planning to eat. Since I didn't have an easel with me, I made a makeshift stand out of a chair.
Unfortunately, the lack of free tables didn't bother most people, so the restaurant was still a bit cramped, but if you ignored the inconvenience of the cast and the people weaving back and forth, it wasn't so bad.
In the end, half an hour later, Ryota left happy with his portrait and book, and the crowd left with good memories of the contest and my little art show.
I thought I'd finally get to eat, but then I saw the Ino-Shika-Cho trio heading my way, looking pleased.
Oh man, are they going to drag me out drinking again?
🔥~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~🔥
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