The new year crept toward Konoha like a tired messenger, and somehow, this bleak, blood-stained era decided to give us a festival.
Strange world. One moment you're gutting enemy scouts in the snow, the next you're listening to merchants argue about stall fees.
Konoha had grown into the dominant force of the central and northern regions, the kind of strength that made even the proud clans lower their voices. Once the dust from the Northern Campaign settled, traders swarmed the village gates like moths to a lantern. Gold, grain, spices, tools… all flowing in. Prosperity, people called it.
Prosperity mostly meant I had more paperwork than kunai these days.
I understood exactly how dangerous business could be. Release capitalism into a medieval village and watch it chew through everything like a chakra beast with no leash. But Konoha needed growth, needed stability. So I let the merchants in, regulated them, encouraged them. A village that relied only on farming was one bad harvest away from collapse, and this era's farming? Barely one step above hoping the soil felt generous.
Still, things looked better than before. Not perfect, but better.
Right now, though, I was supposed to be resting. Keyword: supposed.
Hatake Gintama got stuck with my paperwork. I got a rare nap in my courtyard, leaning against the wooden beam, eyes closed, pretending peace still existed in this timeline.
"Raizen."
My eyes cracked open. That voice. That hair.
Uzumaki Mito's red hair framed her face like a sunset burning through snow. Two years had passed since we'd crushed the Hyūga Alliance and launched our Northern Expedition. I was seventeen. She was seventeen. Somehow we'd grown up beside each other without meaning to.
She used to look like a stubborn child. Now she looked like trouble, wrapped in silk and quiet fire.
"I have something to tell you," she said softly.
Her clan had been pushing her for months. The Uzumaki were wary of how much sealing knowledge she had shared with Konoha, even if I tried to repay them with resources they pretended not to need. They didn't dare drag her home by force anymore, not after my strength grew… problematic for their comfort.
But pressure piles up eventually.
"I'll be eighteen next year," she murmured. "Father ordered me to return to Uzushio to train in clan duties. He wants me home before my coming-of-age."
The words punched harder than a chakra-reinforced blow.
"You agreed?" My voice came out lower than intended.
"…Yes."
Silence stretched between us, heavy as winter air. I had gotten used to her presence without realizing it. A person waiting after every mission. A quiet voice easing the weight on my shoulders. Something almost like… home.
I wasn't supposed to have things like that in this life.
At last, I answered, "If that's your decision, I won't stand in your way. But if you want to return in a year… then no one, not even your father, will stop you."
Her cheeks flushed, a soft, warm color in the cold air. She smiled.
Some things didn't need to be said out loud.
A few days later, she left under clan escort.
Konoha felt colder the moment she stepped past the gates.
My nap vanished with her.
I wandered through the clan district, listening to the emptiness. People bowed, stared, flinched, lowered their voices. Somewhere along the way, I'd become distant, revered, feared. The friends I'd grown up with had died one after another, swallowed by war. The older generation vanished, the younger one followed orders with wide eyes. The Amamiya Clan felt like a house I no longer recognized.
"Lord Raizen."
A familiar voice cut through the wind.
An older man, missing one arm, approached with the tired strength of someone who'd lived through too much.
"Hayato-san…"
Seeing him settled the storm in my chest. He'd carried the clan on his back while I was busy rebuilding Konoha and tearing down everything else.
"How about a drink with me?" he asked, nodding toward the glowing lights of the shopping street.
"Of course."
We sat in a small tavern owned by the clan. The silence between us was strangely comforting.
"Hard to believe," Hayato-san said quietly. "You used to be a kid running across these streets. Now you lead Konoha itself."
"Hard to believe it's been twelve years since that Uchiha battlefield," I replied, pouring us both a cup. "Feels like the memories are fading at the edges."
The sake warmed my throat. Strong, sweet, grounding. One of the few things in this era that reminded me of normalcy.
Hayato-san chuckled. "I was a prodigy in my twenties. Now look at me. Still single, missing an arm, too busy scolding brats to think about marriage."
We lifted our drinks at the same time, sharing the quiet that only survivors understood.
The kind that tasted like nostalgia mixed with grief.
Sometimes, living long enough was the cruelest jutsu of all.