The two of them walked together in silence for a while before Toko finally gathered the courage to speak.
"Yoruha, what do you think of Ino?"
Yoruha blinked, glancing at her curiously, not quite understanding why she would ask such a question.
"What do I think of her? What do you mean?"
Toko's face turned as red as if she had a fever, but she still managed to ask the question that had been weighing on her mind.
"I mean… do you think she's pretty?"
"She's from the Yamanaka clan, after all. You boys must like that kind of girl, right?"
In truth, Toko was even prettier than Ino — and much quieter by nature — the sort of girl most boys found more endearing.
But Yoruha had no idea what she was getting at.
He had always thought that Yamada Jumoku and Toko had some kind of special relationship.
He'd only walked her home that evening because Jumoku had said he had something urgent to take care of.
After thinking for a moment, Yoruha replied,
"Well, Ino is definitely pretty."
Toko tensed immediately, turning to him in a hurry.
"Then… then do you like her?"
Yoruha paused for a second before answering,
"We're friends. Of course I like her."
"That's not what I mean! I'm asking if you like her — like, between a boy and a girl."
Toko's voice trembled slightly as she asked.
"Oh, that? No, of course not. I only just met her today."
"Why are you asking me that?"
Yoruha looked at her with genuine curiosity.
Hearing his answer, Toko let out a quiet sigh of relief and smiled faintly.
"Because I thought she was treating you differently than the other boys."
"I could tell she seemed to like you."
Yoruha chuckled.
"You're overthinking it. Ino acts that way toward every good-looking guy."
Toko blinked in surprise — she hadn't expected Yoruha to joke like that.
Then she playfully patted his shoulder.
"So, you're saying you think you're good-looking, huh?"
Yoruha grinned.
"Well, am I not?"
"You are."
Toko laughed.
Their eyes met for a moment before both of them burst out laughing together.
Under the streetlights, their smiles and easy laughter looked so natural that anyone passing by would have easily misunderstood the scene.
At that moment, their relationship truly grew closer.
To Yoruha, Toko was someone he could relax around — someone he could joke with.
To Toko, she saw a new side of Yoruha — realizing he wasn't actually as distant and hard to approach as he seemed.
Chatting and laughing, the two soon arrived at Toko's home.
Looking up at the tall gates and grand courtyard before him, Yoruha teased,
"Wow, this really is a mansion. Guess Jumoku wasn't kidding — you really are from a rich family, huh, Toko?"
Owning a manor this large in the heart of Konoha, where every inch of land was precious, was no small matter.
That wasn't just wealth — it was real wealth.
In Konoha Village, besides the shinobi, there were also many ordinary people.
After all, shinobi didn't engage in production or trade — the village still relied on civilians for most of that.
Some of the Fire Country's wealthy merchants and nobles even chose to live in Konoha for safety, which was also why there were so many low-level missions available for hire.
Of course, Konoha's largest source of income still came from the military budget allocated by the Land of Fire.
Hearing Yoruha's teasing, Toko suddenly grew anxious — afraid he might distance himself after learning about her family background.
Flustered, she even forgot her shyness and grabbed Yoruha's hand tightly.
"Yoruha, you… you don't dislike me because of my family, do you?"
Yoruha glanced down at her hands — pale, soft, and delicate — and for a brief moment, he was distracted.
But soon he spoke calmly.
"Why would you think that?"
"Having a rich teammate sounds like a good thing to me. Why would that make me dislike you?"
Hearing that, Toko exhaled in relief.
She smiled faintly and said,
"It's just that… when people find out I'm from the Motonoya family, they don't really want to play with me anymore."
"The older I get, the worse it becomes."
"They're all afraid of hurting me."
"Since entering the Academy, only Jumoku has stayed by my side."
As she spoke, her mood dimmed.
Yoruha patted her shoulder lightly and said,
"Well, starting from today, you've got one more friend."
"Since we'll be fighting side by side from now on, I hope I can trust all of you with my back."
Feeling the sincerity in his words, Toko nodded earnestly.
"Yoruha, I'll do my best — I won't drag you down."
She knew very well that her own talent wasn't outstanding.
Compared to Yoruha, who seemed so strong, she could only hope to work harder so she wouldn't become a burden on their team.
Yoruha smiled.
"You won't. You and Jumoku are both doing great."
"All right, I'll head back now. It's late — you should go in."
Toko nodded, her heart already seeing Yoruha as someone important.
Children's hearts were simple — they fell in love easily, and they hated easily.
As for Yoruha, he still saw her as nothing more than a child.
After Yoruha left, Toko remained standing at the gate, staring at his disappearing figure until it vanished completely from sight.
"So that's your teammate?"
A voice suddenly came from behind her, making her jump in fright.
She turned around quickly — it was her mother.
"Mom! You scared me — you walk without making a sound!"
Her mother's name was Senju Mei, and Toko resembled her quite a bit.
She was about 1.7 meters tall, with long golden hair tied back in a ponytail.
Although she was nearly forty, she looked no older than her twenties — graceful, elegant, and strikingly beautiful.
Most importantly, her surname was Senju.
If Yoruha had been there, he would have been astonished — because, to his knowledge, there were no people in Konoha who still bore the Senju name.
Still, he didn't believe the Senju clan had been wiped out.
They were once one of the most powerful clans in the village, with enormous prestige — it would be impossible for such a family to have gone extinct in just a few decades.
And if they had been wiped out, people would talk about them as often as they did the Uchiha.
But Yoruha had never once heard anyone in Konoha mention the Senju clan.
So he suspected that the Senju had simply assimilated into the rest of Konoha over time.
After all, even Tsunade no longer used the Senju surname — most likely, many members of the clan had abandoned it.
And indeed, that was the truth.
Many members of the Senju clan had given up their family name to integrate into Konoha.
Only a small portion still retained it.
However, it was also true that after Hashirama and Tobirama, the clan had produced few who could compare to their brilliance.
While some Senju chose to blend into the village and live ordinary lives, others kept their surname and quietly served in various key departments of Konoha.
Yoruha hadn't noticed this before simply because he'd interacted with very few people in the village.
It was perfectly normal — he had barely met anyone from the Sarutobi clan either.
Over all these years, he'd only ever seen Asuma and the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi.
It wasn't until the Fourth Shinobi World War that members of the Sarutobi clan appeared in droves.
Back in peaceful times, clan members rarely appeared publicly unless directly involved in important affairs.
Even in the storylines one heard about, most characters were those tied to major events — the rest of Konoha's countless shinobi were simply busy with their own lives, and naturally went unseen.
After all, there were over ten thousand ninja in Konoha — and tens of thousands more ordinary civilians.
The village was so vast that it was more like a city than a village.
Just one training ground alone spanned a full twenty kilometers in diameter — that alone spoke volumes about Konoha's true size.
Motonoya Toko's mother was one of the remaining Senju clan members.
Although she had kept the family name, she herself was not a ninja.
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Advance chapters at Ko-Fi (currently at Chapter 120)
https:// ko-fi.com/sami27