Oh man, I'd almost forgotten how amazing it feels to be completely relaxed after a tough workout and a massage. As soon as I got home, I flopped onto my bed in just my shorts and stretched out like a cat, letting that pleasant, buzzy tingling unspool down my limbs and pool lazily in my hands and feet. I wasn't sleepy, but the ritual of lying still for ten or fifteen minutes after a shower felt sacred - like a small personal shrine you set up wherever you happen to be.
The sheets were cool, the room was quiet, and the last traces of steam drifted in a faint ribbon from the bathroom.
Aika, stretched out nearby, was fully committed to the moment. Her cute muzzle rested on her crossed front paws, lashes lowered, ears flicking once, then twice. Every now and then her tail gave a soft, contented twitch, like a metronome set to a very relaxed song.
What should I do today? Give in to laziness? Go to the park? Go to the park and be lazy there? The choices were profound, the stakes enormous.
"Hah, I should check in on my student and see how Mikoto's doing." And while I'm at it, I'll take a look at the house renovations, I finished thinking, nudging myself away from the altar of idleness.
Well… that's settled, I'll head out for a walk.
"Yip-yip?" Aika popped up at once. She caught the edge of my shorts with her teeth and tugged, not hard, just enough to make her point - stay, stretch, bask, keep me company, don't break the spell.
Trust me, Aika, I'd love nothing more than to keep goofing off, but duty calls.
"What, you want to come with me?" I asked, surprised, when she hopped off the bed and reached for my hands - or rather, stood up on her hind legs, bracing her front paws against my thigh, head tilted in hopeful inquiry.
I don't mind taking her along, but I know exactly what happens when I walk around with a cute animal in my arms. The effect on women is… statistically significant and repeatedly confirmed in field conditions. And I was hoping for a peaceful stroll. Oh well. She probably missed me too, which means she's glued to me today whether I plan for it or not.
To keep from overheating, I shrugged on a light kimono over bare skin. Traditionally there are layers under a kimono, but in warm weather you can get away with something simpler, so mine was basically just a robe. The weave was breathable, the collar soft, the belt loose. Pull the edge aside a little and my bare chest is right there for any curious passersby to enjoy - a built-in ventilation system with unintended social side effects.
****
And just as I feared, the combination of me and Aika had a devastating effect on every woman, girl, and… even old lady I passed. God help me, those gummy smiles weren't easy on the eyes. It reminded me of a guy I used to know - Jack, a born clown with a thousand dirty stories - who swore the best thing about oral from women over sixty is you don't have to worry about teeth getting in the way. Yikes.
Why did I remember that? Brain, I'm begging you, no visuals. I like mature women, yes, but mature, not overripe - unless we're talking about Tsunade, who breaks categories on principle and by practice…
"What a handsome young man," sighed one of the grannies at a stall, clasping her hands like she was praying for a discount from the heavens.
Sorry, granny, but my flower didn't bloom for you.
"Pfft, what's so special about that girly-looking guy? Not a hint of manliness." That jealous grunt came from some boyfriend trying to reel his girlfriend's attention back in, but her eyes were either glued to me or to Aika, hard to tell which, and in either case not to him. Rough day to be competing with a fluffy face.
Maybe I should dress down for walks with Aika. Or wear a mask, like ANBU. Is that even allowed? Maybe only they can wear masks. And wouldn't a mask just make me more noticeable, not less? So many questions, and here I was hoping this walk would clear my head instead of stuffing it with tangents and countermeasures.
Luckily, the overjealous boyfriends didn't feel like testing their luck; they stuck to grumbling, and the girls kept their drooling at a respectful distance. That counted as a win.
My route down the main street took me past a familiar confectionery. I planned to pick up a box of treats - I was going to visit my student, after all, and a teacher without sweets is a teacher who forgot how the world works.
The closer I got to the center, the wider the street became, and the more crowded it got - no surprise, lunchtime is rush hour in downtown Konoha. Despite the heat, people packed in around the stalls, bargaining hard for a few extra ryo. Vendors slapped price tags on crates, knives thunked through melons, oil hissed in shallow fryers.
Some women fanned themselves with folded paper; men used broad straw hats for shade or just trudged through the heat, wiping their faces as they went. I had it easy. Unless I'm training, my body handles the temperature just fine, and every now and then a stray breeze carried the mixed scents of street food, steamed rice, ink from a signmaker's brush, and cheap perfume that thought very highly of itself.
"What the hell is that?" I muttered, stepping aside to let… a palanquin pass? First time I'd seen one here.
Four big guys in plain clothes hauled the long poles without looking the least bit strained. The little carriage between them was hidden by solid blue curtains, the fabric heavy enough to hold its shape, the edges neatly weighted so they wouldn't flap open with every gust. Sandals thudded in a steady cadence. Whoever rode inside preferred privacy to spectacle.
"Probably a relative of the Daimyo," I decided, drifting past and catching a faint whiff of sandalwood from within.
****
Carriages and any other horse-drawn transport were banned on Konoha's streets. The rule kept the village clean - sure, everyone swept the stretch in front of their home or shop, but nobody wanted to sweep up after every horse, and nobody was eager to hire a whole crew just for that.
If you needed to deliver goods to a shop, you used a handcart. If you had a lot, you got a special permit from the administration - and you basically babysat your load with a dustpan, because if someone complained, that next permit might never arrive. The system kept the streets passable and the tempers of shopkeepers only moderately frayed.
Mezumi liked comfort but hated hassle, so when she arrived in Konoha she left her personal carriage in storage and rented a palanquin carried by her four burly bodyguards.
This time she'd come to negotiate with the Nara clan about supplying or purchasing recipes for special medicines and ointments to help fight a wave of illness spreading from a port city in her prefecture. The disease wasn't new - Nashhiri.
The symptoms weren't deadly and any medical-nin could treat both the rash and the underlying cause. But it still needed dealing with; a rash could inflame, infection could follow, and infection, given the wrong luck and the right neglect, could kill.
She had a few other errands in the village, nothing urgent but worth her attention. She also wanted to visit the Center for the Arts and meet someone whose skills might prove useful back home. A portion of governance is optics, and optics love artists.
She'd been in Konoha six days now and had finished everything but one thing.
"Yeah… the second book is just as good as the first. Too bad the author isn't in the village," Mezumi said with a shade of regret, closing the leather-bound volume and glancing at her personal servant - and, truthfully, her friend.
"As far as I know, thanks to my informants, he's busy building a market. That's all I've heard," Nekorin replied calmly. Just the other day she'd had to slip into a printing warehouse to procure a book that wasn't on sale yet, all because her mistress was curious. As for those informants, they were just ordinary townsfolk she paid for news from Tanzaku - not professionals, which is why they hadn't learned much about Akira's activities beyond the loudest rumors.
"Hm, interesting… And his restaurant is surprisingly decent, both in design and food quality," Mezumi said. She'd already sampled McDonald's. The nuggets especially stuck with her; her estate's chef would have to add something similar to the menu. A ruler's palate sets trends faster than any proclamation.
"Probably a relative of the Daimyo," came a quiet male voice from behind the palanquin's curtain - pitched low enough that only Nekorin, trained as a shinobi, caught it.
Mezumi noticed the flicker of change in her servant's expression and raised an eyebrow in a silent question: *What is it?*
Not fully certain, Nekorin eased the curtain aside and peeked out for a heartbeat. "Ahem, my lady, Akira-san just walked past us," she said, a touch embarrassed. The reason wasn't a secret to Mezumi - moments ago her servant had said he was in Tanzaku. Still, there'd be no scolding. Mezumi had never actually ordered her to track his location; it was idle curiosity, nothing more.
"I see," Mezumi murmured, tapping one finger on the book's spine. "Stop." She didn't raise her voice, but the palanquin halted at once, the bearers dropping to a practiced, minimal sway.
Understanding her mistress's intention, Nekorin stepped out and helped Mezumi down.
"Head back to the residence and wait for me," Mezumi instructed. The residence in question belonged to her cousin Torio, Konoha's chief administrator. Naturally, he provided lodging for the Daimyo's granddaughter, with the better tea and the quieter courtyard.
"But my lady… perhaps we should at least escort you? This is still Konoha." One guard couldn't help protesting. Konoha was one of the safest places in the Land of Fire, yes, but when something did happen here, it tended to be on a different scale. The Nine-Tails attack. An entire clan wiped out. Safety is a relative term.
"Nekorin will be enough." The guards knew firsthand how strong Mezumi's servant was - she'd tested their skills herself during hiring, and the memory still made their shoulders itch. With nothing else to say, they let their mistress go.
Mezumi quickly discovered a flaw in her plan to 'accidentally' meet Akira - she couldn't catch up.
She wanted to walk a little and bump into him by chance, but her clothes didn't allow for a fast or long stride, and Nekorin refused to leave her side for even a second. So it was no surprise that long-legged Akira, even at an easy pace, was slipping farther ahead, the crowd making way for him and his ridiculous cuteness multiplier.
*Maybe I should just throw a rock to get his attention? Actually… no.* Mezumi dismissed her own 'brilliant' idea at once and smiled at the absurdity.
Fortunately, luck intervened - Akira stopped.
****
"Excuse me, you're Akira-san, right?" A brunette, twelve or maybe fourteen, hurried over from her fruit and vegetable stall, apron flapping, a strand of hair stuck to her cheek with sweat.
So… when did I get famous enough for random villagers to recognize me on the street?
"Yeah… and how do you know me?" Aika, lying in my arms, leaned forward and sniffed in the girl's direction, trying to catalogue the scent like a tiny customs officer.
"It's just… I've been to your restaurant a few times and saw you there once," the girl said, blushing hard enough to rival a ripe peach. "Could you wait a second? I wanted to thank you."
I didn't even get to ask "for what?" before she sprinted back to her stall. She snatched up a woven basket and started filling it with fruit. It wasn't large, so it piled up fast - apples, plums, two pears for the corners, a fearless tangerine on top. She returned and offered it with both hands and a bow.
"Akira-san, thank you for helping my father."
What the hell? How did I manage that? Did a Big Mac cure his constipation? Or did his wife's libido spike after seeing me? Cause and effect are slippery in the wild.
"Uh, you know, I try to help everyone every day, so I might not remember exactly how I helped your father. Can you remind me?"
Trying and helping aren't the same, of course, but who's counting? Certainly not me right now.
"Oh, no wonder - you're such a good person." Her eyes sparkled; her cheeks flushed deeper, the kind of blush that doubles as free advertising for her stall.
Turned out it wasn't me personally but my charity fund. A few weeks ago, a crew was demolishing a dangerous old apartment building. Someone messed up, and two floors collapsed at once. How they managed to bring down multiple floors with hand tools alone, I have no idea.
Five workers and one civilian were injured - the civilian had the bad luck to be walking past and got clipped by a falling chunk of wall. Small piece of brick, big enough speed to break several bones in his shoulder. Poor guy. The street had been closed off with a single ribbon, and he decided to slip through to save time. Time, it turns out, can be expensive.
My fund covered all medical expenses for the injured.
Right - I remember asking Ayumi to find an office for the fund and hire staff, and she did report back that it was done. That day I must have been too lazy to go anywhere, and then the whole Danzo mess happened and it slipped my mind. When I donated from the fund to the Uchiha, it was easier to handle it myself at the bank, a quick in-and-out with fewer witnesses.
Well, if the fund is actually working and handling things like this, Ayumi did a great job. I should probably show my face at that little office at least once, where all the employees know me but have never seen me, a ghost who signs the checks.
****
"Should I call out to him?" After watching the scene and seeing Akira move on, Nekorin glanced at her mistress.
"No, you know… I want to keep following him for a while. It's actually kind of fun. When I get bored, I'll let you know." Mezumi smiled. She'd found a bit of entertainment in this game of tag that had drifted into tailing and eavesdropping. What amused her most were the villagers.
Every woman or girl who passed Akira turned to look at least twice, faces twisted into a gallery of expressions: some blinked dumbly as he walked away, some froze with their mouths open, others actually drooled, and one girl tripped because she stopped watching her feet and introduced her knee to a crate of cabbages.
Mezumi knew that reaction well - it was the same one men had to her. But seeing it from the outside was new. Amusing. She managed to catch his face in profile and had to admit she liked what she saw. Bone structure. Calm eyes. A mouth that looked like it had a private agreement with trouble.
*Nekorin wasn't exaggerating when she described his looks,* she decided.
*If he were a woman, he might actually be serious competition for me.*
When she was a child, she devoured novels and old tales where the beauty of certain women supposedly started wars. In her mind, Akira was precisely that kind of man - the kind women might actually fight over. Realizing that made her want him under her command even more. Power appreciates talent the way flame appreciates dry wood.
*My lady, you look so tired. Perhaps I could help you relax a little?* Yes, Mezumi had a vivid imagination. The scene she conjured made her flush for a few seconds and bite the inside of her cheek before it showed.
"Oh, he went into the arts center," Nekorin noted, and they followed him inside.
At the entrance, behind a wide desk, lounged a member of the Nara clan, gifted with the astonishing ability to sleep upright and speak without actually committing to words. He barely acknowledged the new visitors, gave a limp gesture toward a sign on the wall, and returned to the serious business of counting sheep and possibly clouds.
The sign listed the rules and the entrance fee - 100 ryo for adults, free for kids under ten. A hundred ryo was pocket change, about the price of the cheapest ramen at Ichiraku, so this place - part gallery, part museum, part civic pastime - was seldom empty.
The first hall was filled with paintings, but most people didn't linger, drifting toward the sculptures and antiques beyond. Akira, though, studied every canvas carefully, moving from piece to piece like a patient critic, chin tilted, eyes narrowing, then softening.
Nekorin and Mezumi, standing not far off, found themselves looking too, letting the variety of landscapes and calligraphic splashes wash past, the pigments bright under skylight, the shadows cool on the polished floor.
"No spark, no potential, where's the idea? And what, are shadows a joke to you? Boring as death." The echo carried Akira's critique across the hall to the two women, and a nearby couple pretended not to hear.
Suddenly, a clone appeared at his side and peeled off toward the exit.
"He can make clones without hand seals?" Mezumi whispered, surprised, glancing at Nekorin. She already knew Akira wasn't a shinobi, but that he knew a few jutsu.
"Mm, no, he did a seal, but with one hand," Nekorin murmured. Trained eyes don't miss much; she'd seen him cross index and middle finger on his right hand, quick and tight against his palm.
Why Akira had made a clone remained a mystery.
It took five minutes to figure it out.
"Yeah, put it here. I've got to make my own contribution to the art world," Akira said, pointing his clone to the center of the hall. The clone set up an easel and stretched a fresh canvas. From a bag he produced every tool an artist could want: brushes fat and thin, a palette, tubes that clicked softly when set down.
"He's… going to paint right here?" Mezumi shot Nekorin a puzzled look. Nekorin only shrugged. Mezumi glanced at the Nara clerk, who should have been in charge, but he merely cracked one eye open. Apparently it was too much effort to open both, let alone stand up from the desk he'd melted across.
Meanwhile, Akira drew a stool and a basket of fruit from a storage scroll, then glanced around, looking for something.
Not finding it, he wandered to the Nara. "Excuse me, do you have a stool or a chair? Even a small side table would work."
"Ah, kids these days, you have to teach them everything," grumbled the Nara, a man who might have been forty or fifty - hard to say with that level of horizontal dedication. He tugged a storage scroll from under the desk, one not unlike Akira's.
"Take your pick," he waved.
"Oooh." Akira looked at him with new respect as the man unsealed three stools, one of which was practically a chair thanks to its backrest.
"Yeah, I'm not nearly as lazy as I thought - I've got a lot to learn from the masters," Akira mused, and after thanking the old man he returned to the center of the hall. The extra stool turned out to be for the basket of fruit, a perfectly dignified pedestal for grapes.
He decided to revisit school art class and enrich the local scene with a still life - a genre where the object itself earns center stage instead of serving as accessory. He also wanted to warm up for something harder, something with teeth.
Volume, shadow, highlights - it all came together under his hand, building an image that flirted with photorealism. The brush danced, barely pausing. A grape caught a point of light like a tiny moon; the pear's skin turned from green to gold; the shadow under the apple anchored the whole arrangement to the world. In under an hour, the painting was done.
Mezumi and Nekorin, standing just behind him and watching every movement, were surprised at the quality - good enough to hang in a feudal lord's mansion and not look out of place near the family crest. But Akira didn't seem particularly attached to the result. He handed the finished canvas to his clone, who passed him a new one with the economy of long practice.
"All right, now..." He cracked his knuckles, rolled his shoulders, and settled in, the air around him shifting from casual to focused.
****
An idea. I need an idea for a painting - no, a theme. Nature? Fine, but the environment's fine right now. Politics? Better not, I like sleeping at night. Conflict… maybe, but what kind? Good and evil - too cliché. Man versus society?
No one will get it and the few who do will argue loudly and for free. I need something simple, right on the surface, something people see and immediately understand without a guidebook. Hero… life and death… THAT'S IT. A spark caught, flared, and I locked onto the canvas like it had started calling my name.
****
Mezumi, unlike Nekorin, knew a bit about art. As soon as she saw a figure taking shape - a person lying in a field, a woman with outstretched arms standing over him as if shielding him with her body - her first thought was: *A woman protecting her beloved. It's a painting about love. The man's face is out of frame so any man can imagine himself there, and the woman's face is turned away to make her everyone and no one.*
But she soon realized she was wrong. The details clarified. The woman was a medical-nin: the gloves, the sash, the pouch where the salves live.
*Sacrifice. It's about medical-nin who give themselves up in war to save comrades. I liked the love reading better, but this is strong too.* Wrong again. Akira began sketching in a face looming in the background, a shadow with intent.
"That's… a yokai?" Mezumi said aloud, but Akira, completely absorbed, didn't hear.
"N-no," Nekorin murmured a few minutes later, her voice a little unsteady, confirming the second guess was off. By then Mezumi could see it, too. The figure raising a huge tanto over the blonde woman wasn't a demon or a ghost.
"It's a Shinigami," came a voice from behind. The Nara elder was now fully awake. "Very bold, I must say, and the theme is just wonderful." He kept his voice low so as not to distract the artist, but even his whisper had the weight of a verdict.
"I see… so it's a painting about medical-nin fighting against death to save lives, but… painting the Shinigami?" Mezumi breathed, eyes tracing the arc of the blade and the clean line of the medic's posture.
Their surprise was justified. If you looked long enough, you could find caricatures of the God of Death, but real paintings were rare. Superstition kept most hands from trying. Depicting a yokai risked angering it, bringing misfortune to the artist or the eventual owner. Mezumi even remembered a scary story about a cursed painting that supposedly housed a yokai, the frame warped from the inside. Very few dared such subjects, and fewer still dared the God of Death. To paint one was to shout to the world, "I'm not afraid of death," and to whisper to yourself, "I know exactly where he stands."
"Swear to the Shinigami, this is one of your best works," Akira's clone said as the painting reached its final strokes, having kept Aika entertained the whole time by offering her the stem of a grape and then apologizing when she rejected it with regal disdain.
At those words everyone went a shade paler, and a chill walked neatly up their necks like a cat exploring furniture it didn't own.
I felt it too. I shuddered and, on reflex, flicked my brush into the clone's forehead to be safe and dispel him, a neat dot of paint left behind as the only evidence he'd ever been there.
🔥~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~🔥
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