"Junk, the lot of you."
Hiko gathered the kunai one by one and found several already cracked. No wonder his complaints kept piling up. With this much wear from simple drills, any smith would cough blood if he saw how fast Hiko burned through gear.
How many shinobi threw the same kunai and shuriken over and over like this? Of course they broke.
He wiped his brow, tossed the ruined blades, and glanced at the sun sinking behind the mountain. He stowed his tools, shouldered his groceries, and headed home.
The two stipends were not much, but enough to last until graduation. The problem was the cost of tools.
Two days and he had already replaced a batch. If he kept training at this pace, the expense would only climb. That was without explosive tags. Add those and his wallet would combust.
Crunching numbers in his head, Hiko drifted through the street. Should he graduate early? Even as a drifter or wild team, he could take D-rank jobs and make decent money, enough to cover his costs.
Drifter and wild team were the labels stuck on early graduates.
Graduate too soon and you might miss a proper squad, forced to wander and pick up low-level work. If you were strong enough, solo runs were fine. But then the village saddled you with tagalongs.
As a drifter, you survived alone. Grow stronger, and you ended up leading weaker rookies, protecting them, teaching them.
Rules were rules, even when they were annoying.
Konoha had plenty of mid or low-tier genin stuck in that gap.
Most fresh graduates disliked D-ranks, but if the village posted them openly, people would scramble to take them. Good missions went to squads as training.
To fund his training, more missions meant more money. Yet early graduation had risks. If he did not land the right team, being a drifter was worse than going solo.
Strangers tossed together did not hand each other their backs.
Hiko was not arrogant, but he would not stake his life on strangers either. That kind of thinking got people killed.
Let other villages preach trust and perfect teamwork. He would do what he could, but he knew his limits.
Lost in thought, he almost missed the girl waiting up ahead, arms akimbo, cheeks puffed with anger. The schoolbag said enough. Tsunade had not gone home. She had picked the road he usually took back to the Uchiha compound and blocked it.
"Huh?"
Hiko looked up and saw his path cut off. On reflex he reached out, palmed the girl's face gently to the side, and said, "Tsunade, be good, no fuss. When I have time, uncle will take you to see the goldfish."
"..."
Tsunade had searched for him and failed, so she lay in wait. She never expected him to drift past, realize she was in his way, and push her face aside with a single hand, while saying something only adults used to coax little girls.
Heat flooded her cheeks.
"Uchiha Hiko!!!"
Her roar shook the street. Hiko flinched, hopped aside on instinct, and a heartbeat later was very glad he had.
Wow. She really meant to kill.
You could not just kick a boy there, could you?
Typical Tsunade. No holding back. No wonder she had nearly flattened Jiraiya. He had asked for it, yes, but her hands were deadly.
It was the first time a man other than family had touched her face. Tsunade exploded. Her eyes said she could swallow Hiko whole.
"Uh..."
He stared at his palm, then at Tsunade's furious face, and wanted to crawl into a hole. He had been spaced out. Everything he did had been pure reflex.
Touching her cheek was one thing. Worse was what he had said next, the ridiculous line about taking her to see goldfish. That sounded like a creepy old man's line.
Luckily, people here did not share his world's slang. Otherwise she would have been even angrier.
"So, Tsunade... why are you here instead of going home?"
He tried to laugh it off and change the subject. He had learned her type. At this age, her attention could be steered.
"Uchiha Hiko, you touched my face!"
Not this time. She jabbed a finger at him and shouted for the whole street to hear.
"..."
Hiko pressed his hand to his forehead. Heads turned. Faces lit with shock, and some with admiration.
They were amazed someone dared do that to the Senju princess. Amazed that the princess was blushing. And yes, she had clearly been waiting here for him.
He, an ordinary Uchiha kid, was a nobody outside the clan. Tsunade was a magnet for attention. Her one line, You touched my face, drew eyes from every direction.
I touched your face? In the street?
Even Hiko was mortified at how that sounded. He was not that kind of creep.
She was a kid, for one thing. He had no taste for that.
Under the growing buzz of whispers, Hiko's head pounded.
"My little auntie, I surrender."
He smacked his forehead, grabbed her hand, and ran. The warmth of his palm and the light sheen of sweat froze Tsunade mid-step.
For once, Hiko was grateful his house sat on the edge of the Uchiha compound. If he had dragged her deeper inside, half the clan would have tailed them.
"Haah..."
They reached his yard. Hiko exhaled, then stared in disbelief. He had actually brought her home, and she had not resisted.
That made no sense. With Tsunade's temper, anyone who touched her usually regretted it. When had she gotten so docile?
He was dazed, and so was she. Somehow, she had let him tow her all the way here.
They stood in the small courtyard, staring at each other. After all that chaos, much of her anger had ebbed away.
"..."
I must be crazy.
Hiko swallowed. This was the Uchiha compound. She was the Senju princess.
Forget what the clan would say if they saw her here. How would the Senju react when she did not come home on time?
GURGLE...
The awkward sound broke the silence. Tsunade's cheeks flushed crimson.
"Forget it. Fate or trouble, it is here," Hiko said with a sigh. He glanced at her and added, "I was in the wrong earlier. I will cook you dinner."
"After you eat, you go home."
He made sure to spell it out. In return, she gave him a look that said she would do as she pleased.
He let it go. People said grown women were the most unreasonable creatures. They were wrong. Unreasonable little girls were scarier.