The transition from the Land of Wind to the Land of Rivers wasn't subtle.
One minute, the world was an endless, blinding sheet of sandpaper that scoured your skin raw. The next, the air turned heavy and wet, sticking to the inside of Naruto's lungs like cotton candy. The sky bruised purple, low clouds rolling in over the scrubland to choke out the sun.
Thunder rumbled in the distance—a low, grinding growl that vibrated the floorboards beneath Naruto's feet.
Inside the rear carriage, it smelled like feet, teenage sweat, and the aggressive barbeque seasoning of Choji's chips.
Condensation began to fog the windows, turning the outside world into a smear of grey and green.
Naruto sat squeezed between Sylvie and Asuma-sensei. His head was rattling against the wooden frame with every pothole, which was happening approximately every four seconds because the roads here were less "roads" and more "suggestions made of mud."
The carriage hit a particularly deep rut with a jarring KA-THUNK, knocking Naruto's shoulder painfully into Asuma's flak jacket.
He stared at the calendar tacked up on the carriage wall—a promotional item from a tea shop in Suna. He counted the days on his fingers.
'October.'
He blinked. He counted again.
"AH!" Naruto shouted, slamming his hand against the ceiling.
Asuma flinched, nearly dropping his cigarette. "Easy, Naruto. The structural integrity of this thing is already a suggestion."
"We missed it!" Naruto wailed, banging his fist against the wall separating them from the driver's seat. "We missed the Tenth! And the Twenty-Fourth! It's gone!"
"What's gone?" Shikamaru mumbled from the corner, where he was trying to sleep upright by wedging his head against a sack of grain.
"My birthday!" Naruto yelled. "And Ino's! We spent them digging in the dirt fighting rock-monsters!"
He hammered on the roof again.
"HEY! PERVY SAGE! ANKO-SENSEI! WE GOTTA STOP!"
"WHAT?!" Anko's voice roared back from the driver's seat, carried by the wind. She sounded like she was wrestling the reins of a particularly stubborn mule.
The snap of the leather reins cracked like a whip—tshh-crack—punctuating her anger.
"WE GOTTA GET CURRY!" Naruto screamed at the ceiling. "THE CURRY OF LIFE! FOR ME! AND FOR BUSHY BROWS!"
There was a pause. The carriage hit a rock, launching everyone three inches into the air.
"YOU WANNA TAKE CURRY TO ROCK LEE?" Anko hollered back.
"NOOOOOOOOO!" Naruto shouted, horrified at the logistics of transporting soup across two borders. "WE GO TO IT!"
"Aw," Asuma chuckled, ash falling onto his flak jacket. "I thought that would have been nice. Lee likes spicy food."
"NOOooOOoOOoOooOO!" Naruto groaned, sliding down in his seat until his chin hit his chest.
Asuma chuckled again, the smell of his clove cigarette smoke hanging heavy and sweet in the damp air.
"We missed the cake. We missed the presents. I'm legally the same age as I was last year until I eat the curry! That's how it works!"
From the roof, a muffled voice drifted down through the canvas.
"I could go for some curry," Jiraiya noted.
Sylvie shifted next to him. She was squinting, her hazel eyes unfocused behind her black glasses. The whites of her eyes were still bloodshot from the stress of the rift sealing, and she kept rubbing her temples like her brain was too big for her skull.
She winced as the carriage jolted, pressing her palms against her ears to muffle the sensory overload of the creaking wood.
She turned her head, looking vaguely in Ino's direction. Or rather, at Ino's left shoulder.
"Happy belated birthday, Ino," Sylvie said, her voice raspy. "I actually don't know how old most of you are... I just kind of assumed we were all 'small'."
Ino, who was braiding her hair to keep it from frizzing in the humidity, laughed. "I'm thirteen now! A real teen! No more 'tween' nonsense."
The scent of jasmine hair oil wafted from Ino, a sharp floral note cutting through the musty carriage smell.
"Of course you're older than me," Sylvie nodded sagely, adjusting her glasses. "You're so pretty, Ino. Only an elder could have hair that shiny."
Ino paused. She looked at Sylvie. She waved a hand in front of Sylvie's face. Sylvie didn't blink.
"...You're blind right now, Sylvie," Ino deadpanned.
"I remember what you look like!" Sylvie defended, looking indignant. "I have a mental image! It's very high resolution! At least now I know I'm younger. Respect your kohai."
Sylvie stuck her tongue out.
She aimed it directly at Shikamaru.
Shikamaru opened one eye. He looked at the tongue sticking out at him. He looked at Sylvie's confident, incorrect smirk.
Ino sighed. She reached out, gently grabbed Sylvie's chin, and rotated her head thirty degrees to the right until she was actually facing the Yamanaka.
"I'm over here, dummy," Ino said softly.
Sylvie blinked. She flushed bright red. She brought her hand up and pretended to knock on her own forehead.
"Oops. Calibration error."
Sylvie's hand brushed against Shikamaru's mesh armor—zip—the rough texture startling her.
"Troublesome," Shikamaru sighed, closing his eye again. "Blindness looks like a lot of work."
Crunch. Crunch.
Choji was unbothered by the chaos. He was methodically working his way through a bag of 'Limited Edition Desert Spice' chips.
The crunch was deafening in the small space—CRUNCH-CRUNCH-SWALLOW—a rhythmic destruction of snacks.
"Mhy dayd says—" Choji paused, swallowed a massive bolus of potato, "—I eat like an adult now. Growing boys need calories."
Naruto looked at him. Choji wasn't just eating; he was inhaling. The bag was disappearing at a rate that defied physics.
"You eat like Gamabunta," Naruto observed.
Choji blinked, pausing with a chip halfway to his mouth. "Gama who?"
Naruto pointed at the roof, where the Sannin was currently using his weight to keep the luggage from flying off.
"Gamabunta! Jiraiya-sensei's giant toad summon! He's HUGE!"
Choji's eyes lit up. The word triggered a primal response in the Akimichi brain.
"Oh yeah?" Choji leaned forward. "How huge?"
"Like..." Naruto stood up, or tried to. He crouched in the cramped space, eyes wide. "He's like a mountain! He wears a jacket the size of a house! He's..."
Naruto exploded outward, stretching his arms to their absolute limit to convey the scale.
"HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE!"
Naruto's shout echoed in the small cabin, booming loud enough to make the glass windows rattle in their frames.
WHACK.
His right hand slapped Sylvie's glasses askew. His left hand chopped Shikamaru in the neck. His elbow dug into Ino's ribs.
"OW!" Ino shrieked, shoving him. "Watch your limbs, you spaz!"
"My glasses!" Sylvie grasped blindly at the air. Her glasses clattered to the floor with a distinct clack, sliding under the seat as the carriage banked.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU BRATS YELLING ABOUT NOW?!" Anko screamed from the front, sounding like she was about to turn the carriage around and drive them all off a cliff.
Naruto rubbed his head, grinning sheepishly as rain began to drum against the roof.
Tip-tap. Tip-tap.
"Just... big toads, Sensei!" Naruto yelled back. "Really big toads!"
The rain didn't start slow. It didn't sprinkle. It fell in heavy, cold sheets, washing the dust of the Wind Country out of the air and replacing it with the smell of wet earth and iron.
The rain hissed as it hit the canvas roof—shhh-shhh-shhh—a constant white noise that drowned out the world.
Jiraiya sat cross-legged on the roof of the moving carriage. He didn't use a chakra shield to deflect the water. He let it soak into his white mane, matting it down. He let it run in rivulets down the red lines under his eyes.
A single drop landed on his nose, cold and startling, tasting of ozone and distant smoke.
The water felt cold. It felt familiar.
Below him, the carriage rocked with the muffled sounds of the Genin arguing. Naruto's laughter—bright, loud, and unbroken—filtered up through the wood.
Jiraiya looked north.
Through the curtain of grey rain, he could see the silhouette of the mountains that marked the border of Amegakure. The Land of Rain.
The world always cried here.
He adjusted his position, the wood creaking under his weight. The wind howled past him, tugging at his vest, chilling him to the bone despite his internal fire.
He rested his chin on his hand, staring at the dark clouds roiling overhead.
It masked the regret. It always did.
The rain feels colder today, he thought.
He remembered a small cave. He remembered three hungry kids stealing food. He remembered bright orange hair and eyes that rippled like water.
He didn't wonder where they were. He thought he knew.
Buried in some unmarked muddy grave in the Rain, casualties of a civil war he taught them to fight but couldn't teach them to survive.
He rubbed his thumb over the scroll on his back, the rough paper familiar and grounding against the slippery wetness of the rain.
He had left them there.
He had walked away, thinking they were strong enough.
Thinking he had done his part.
The laughter from below stopped, replaced by the rhythmic sound of the wheels churning through mud.
Jiraiya closed his eyes. The water ran down his face, indistinguishable from anything else.
Did I make the right choice, Nagato? he wondered, the old ache settling in his chest. Or did I just teach you how to die faster?
He opened his eyes. The road ahead was blurry, washed out by the storm.
"Keep driving, Anko," he whispered to the rain. "Just keep driving."