The smell hit me before we even made it through the door. That perfect combination of charcoal smoke, sizzling beef fat, and... something else that made my stomach growl embarrassingly loud.
"Table for three," I told the hostess, who looked like she'd been working here since the village was founded and had probably seen every type of shinobi drama play out over grilled meat.
She led us to a low table with tatami seating, the built-in grill already glowing with that perfect orange heat that promised good things. The restaurant was packed, mostly civilians celebrating something or drowning their sorrows in premium beef. The war announcement had apparently driven half the village to comfort food.
"I still can't believe they paid us that much," Tsume said, settling onto her cushion with a satisfied grin. "We basically just walked some farmers to a settlement and got jumped by a few Suna-nin."
"Don't forget the part where we had to play house with civilians for a week," Mikoto added. "That was..." She trailed off, making a face.
"It wasn't that bad. Besides, my domestic skills are actually pretty good," I said, trying to flag down a server. "You two just weren't ready for my level of immersive roleplay."
Tsume snorted. "Your immersive roleplay consisted of arguing with a fruit vendor for like twenty minutes. Over yams."
"That's called method acting. I lived that character."
A middle-aged server finally came over, looking tired but trying to be cheerful. "What can I get you folks tonight?"
"Everything," I said, then noticed my teammates staring at me. "What? We just got paid, right? Might as well spend it on something that's not trying to kill us for once."
Twenty minutes later, our table looked like a food cart parade had taken a wrong turn and crashed. Thinly sliced beef, chicken thigh, pork belly, and a brave little tray labeled premium offal filled every inch of space. We had three dipping sauces, a colorful pile of pickled vegetables, and enough rice to mount a siege.
I cracked my knuckles and started laying the beef strips on the grill. "Alright. This is gonna be so good."
The meat hit the hot surface with a satisfying sizzle, fat immediately beginning to render and fill the air with that smell that makes vegetarians reconsider their life choices. I watched the edges curl and brown, waiting for that perfect moment when the outside was caramelized but the inside was still tender.
"You know," Tsume said, tossing chicken on her side of the grill kind of randomly, "I have literally no idea what I'm doing here. Do I just... leave it? Until it's not pink anymore?"
"Pretty much," I said, flipping the beef. "Just try not to turn it into leather or something. You want it cooked, not... completely dead."
"This is so much pork belly," Mikoto said, arranging the strips. "We're definitely not finishing all this."
"That's kind of the point though," I said, watching the fat render and pop. "You order way too much, eat until you basically can't move, then feel bad about it tomorrow. That's just how you do yakiniku."
"Makes sense," Tsume said, already eyeing a piece that looked done. She grabbed it with her chopsticks, popped it in her mouth, and her eyes went wide. "Oh. Okay, that's actually really good."
"Told you." I transferred some beef to my plate, the meat all brown and crispy on the outside. "Sometimes the places that look kinda sketchy end up being the best."
Mikoto plucked a piece of chicken from her side and dropped it onto my plate. "Here, try this. I think I actually got it right."
"Thanks," I said, taking a bite. The skin had gone crisp without drying out the meat, which stayed juicy and perfectly seasoned, just enough char to add flavor.
"Yeah, you nailed it," I said, nodding. "Good timing on that."
"Good, because I was totally guessing," she admitted, then looked at all the meat covering our table. "But seriously, look at all this. This is like... we ordered enough for ten people."
"Challenge accepted," Tsume said around a mouthful of pork belly, already reaching for more chicken.
"I'm serious," Mikoto said, poking at a slice of beef with her chopsticks. "This is what, a week's worth of protein? I'm gonna gain ten pounds just from tonight."
"You'll burn it off on the mission tomorrow," I pointed out, loading more beef onto the grill. "Besides, when's the next time we'll get to eat like this? Might as well enjoy it."
"Easy for you to say," she muttered. "You probably have the metabolism of a hummingbird."
"Hey, I work for this. You think dodging assassins and stuff doesn't count as cardio? That's like, premium cardio right there."
"He's got a point," Tsume said, waving her chopsticks around. "We're about to go chase bandits through the countryside for who knows how long. This is probably the last real meal we'll have for weeks."
"That's... actually kind of depressing," Mikoto said, but her hand was already reaching for another piece of chicken anyway.
"Yeah, well," I said, lifting my cup of tea, "here's to eating like actual people instead of scavenging like forest goblins."
"To real food!" Tsume added, raising her cup.
"To still fitting in my clothes when we get back," Mikoto said dryly, but she was smiling as she joined the toast.
We clinked cups, and I couldn't help but notice how comfortable this felt. More than two week ago, we were just Academy classmates thrown together by team assignments. Now we were... well, actually teammates who'd figured out we worked pretty well together when people were actively trying to kill us.
"So what do you think the other teams are doing right now?" Tsume asked, loading more meat onto the grill.
"I don't know, probably depends on their sensei," Mikoto said, sipping her tea. "The teams with chunin instructors are probably still doing D and C-rank stuff. Only the ones with jonin get the actual dangerous missions."
"Lucky us," Tsume muttered, though she didn't exactly sound bitter. If anything, she sounded vaguely smug. "I bet most of them are still, like, carrying groceries for old people while we're out here doing actual ninja work."
"Hey, don't knock grocery runs," I said. "Some of those old ladies could probably take on missing-nin with just a broom and sheer disapproval. Honestly, I'd rather fight assassins. Less emotional damage."
Mikoto laughed into her cup.
"And knowing our luck," I continued, "our next 'simple investigation mission' might evolve into another missing-nin, an explosion, and someone getting stabbed in the leg."
"Worked out last time." Tsume chewed for a bit, then looked down at the table. "But seriously though, what do you think this whole war with Suna thing means for us? Are we just gonna keep doing what we're doing? Or are they gonna, you know... send us straight to the front?"
"Hard to say," I said. "They probably won't throw genin at the front lines right away, that's more for chunin and jonin. But if this gets bad, or if we start losing..." I shrugged. "Let's just say they might not be so picky about the whole experience thing anymore."
The conversation drifted as we focused on the serious business of grilling and eating. The restaurant had gotten louder as the evening wore on, filled with boisterous chatter from shinobi blowing off steam after long missions. At a nearby table, a group of chunin were deep in a very animated argument about how to counter Suna's puppet squads.
"You've gotta break the chakra threads," one of them said.
"Break the puppeteer," another said. "Threads don't matter if the guy controlling them is unconscious."
"Unconscious? Try decapitated. Worked for me last time."
"Yeah, well, easy for you to say. You're not the one heading back west tomorrow morning."
Further down, another group was making these loud, kind of drunk-sounding bets on how long the war would last.
"Six months, tops."
"You're insane. This is gonna be at least a year."
"A year? Come on. I just got back from the border yesterday and it's already completely fucked. I told my wife to just... stock up on everything. Rice, preserved stuff, whatever. I'm thinking this goes for five years, minimum."
"Must be nice to plan ahead. I literally just finished an assignment and they're sending me back out at dawn."
It was all pretty chaotic and kind of depressing, but also... I don't know, weirdly comforting? Like if everything was going to hell anyway, at least we weren't the only ones dealing with it.
"Did that guy just say 'try decapitated'?" Tsume asked, jerking her thumb toward the chunin table.
"Puppet users," I said, cutting another piece of beef. "Though honestly, those guys are kinda missing the actual problem."
"What do you mean?" Mikoto asked.
"They're all going on about breaking threads and killing puppeteers, but nobody's talking about the poison."
"Poison?" the girls' eyebrows went up.
"Yeah, Suna puppets are famous for coating their weapons with all kinds of nasty stuff. Paralysis agents, neurotoxins, slow-acting crap that waits until you're finally relaxing before it ruins your life. You get nicked, think you're fine, then three hours later you can't feel your lungs."
I shrugged and grabbed more beef. "So breaking the threads doesn't really matter if you're already dying from some scratch you didn't even notice."
"Did you read that somewhere?" Tsume asked, still chewing.
"Yep, puppet fights aren't about overpowering the puppeteer. They're about not getting touched. At all."
"Great," Tsume muttered. "Another fun way to die. Just what I wanted to hear while eating."
"You're welcome."
By the time we'd worked our way through most of the meat, the restaurant had begun to empty out, and the server had refilled our tea twice.
"Okay," Mikoto said, setting down her chopsticks. "We should probably talk about tomorrow."
"Right." I pulled the mission scroll from my jacket and unrolled it on the table, shoving aside some empty plates and this one sad pickle dish nobody had touched. "Let's see what we're getting into this time."
The scroll was longer than I expected. Not your usual bullet points and vague instructions. This was the deluxe edition. Maps, incident reports, casualty counts. Someone in the chain of command was clearly sweating over this.
"So... neutral states are asking for help," I said, scanning through the scroll. "There's been this spike in bandit attacks. Hit-and-run stuff, going after merchant convoys, supply lines. Basically anything that's worth money and can't really fight back."
Tsume leaned over, squinting at the map. "Okay but why are we babysitting neutral states when we're literally at war? Shouldn't we be, I don't know, trying not to lose to Suna?"
"Yeah, fair point," I said, tapping one of the red marks on the map. "But look, these aren't just random places. They're our suppliers. Iron ore, hardwood, textiles, food... like, half the stuff keeping Konoha running comes through here."
"So if they get cut off..." Mikoto said slowly.
"We start running out of... everything, basically," I finished. "Weapons break, no replacements. Armor's gone. Can't even feed people properly. It's a pretty clean way to screw us over without actually fighting."
"You think someone's doing this on purpose?" Mikoto asked. "I mean, the timing is suspiciously convenient. We declare war on Suna, and suddenly all our supply lines and the nearby neutral states start getting hit?"
"Could be coincidence," I said, though I didn't believe it. "Or it could be other villages playing smart, taking advantage of the distraction to bleed us dry. Hit our economy, mess with supply chains, make us fight with one hand tied behind our back."
"That's... really messed up," Tsume muttered. "God, I want to punch someone."
"Yeah, well." I rolled up the scroll and stuck it back in my storage seal. "That's probably why the higher-ups are freaking out. Look at all these team assignments, they've got multiple squads on this. They've even got Jiraiya working it instead of sending them to the actual front."
Mikoto's eyebrows went up. "Wait, Jiraiya? Like, Tsunade-sensei's teammate? The guy from our last mission?"
"That's the one. Which is what's weird about this whole thing. You don't pull someone like him off the war front just to deal with some bandits. Unless you think the bandits are either way smarter than normal... or, you know, not actually bandits."
A brief silence settled over the table.
Then I caught the server's eye and waved her over. She showed up looking like she'd been waiting for us to finally ask for the check all night, with that tired-but-polite face you get after dealing with too many tables of overstuffed shinobi.
Mikoto and Tsume both reached for their wallets, but I waved them off and handed the server a large bill, plus a tip generous enough to earn an instant, glowing smile.
She bowed really deep. "Thank you, honored guests."
"Alright," I said, standing up and stretching. Everything still hurt from the trip home. "We're leaving tomorrow morning, so... you know, get some sleep. Pack light but bring the stuff you'll actually need. We don't know how long we'll be out there."
"Great," Tsume muttered. "More camping in the dirt."
"Hey, at least we're getting paid decent money to sleep outside this time," I said as we headed for the door.
"True," she admitted, then grinned. "Thanks for dinner, by the way. That was actually really good."
"Yeah, no problem."
The night air was cold against my face as we stepped outside, a welcome change from the smoky warmth of the restaurant. The streets were mostly empty, just a few distant silhouettes moving between lantern-lit homes. Most people were probably inside, keeping their heads down, watching the war updates with apprehension.
"See you tomorrow," Mikoto said, pulling her jacket tighter. "Try not to oversleep."
"Me? I'm always on time," I protested.
"Yeah, sure," Tsume laughed. "Night, guys."
I watched them disappear down opposite streets before turning around myself. Hands stuffed into my pockets, I wandered through the quiet lanes, actually enjoying the peace for once. No screaming civilians. No exploding trees. Just a full stomach and the simple luxury of walking home without a weapon in my hand.
The village felt different at night now. More patrols. Fewer people lingering outside, and that underlying tension you could almost taste in the air. But it was still home. Still the place where, not long ago, my most pressing concern was whether the sake shop had restocked my favorite brand, or if I'd be stuck drinking the one that tasted like regret.
I was almost there, just a few doors down, already imagining the blessed gurgle of that first glorious pour, when something flickered in the corner of my eye. A flash of red, visible through the swaying flaps of Ichiraku's entrance curtain.
My pace slowed, curiosity dragging at my heels like a nosy old aunt.
Only one person in the village had hair like that. Bright as a firecracker and just as loud when provoked. I drifted closer, peering through the gap in the fabric.
Yep. Red hair flowing down her back. A pair of chopsticks gripped like the ramen owed her money. And that slight forward lean that meant she was probably complaining about something to poor Teuchi.
'Well, well.'
I hadn't seen Kushina since before the mission, over a week now.
I pushed through the entrance flaps.
"—telling you, the pork belly in tonight's batch is way too fatty," she was saying, poking at a piece of char siu with her chopsticks. "I can barely taste the meat under all this grease."
"Kushina-chan," Teuchi said patiently, "you say this every time you get the deluxe bowl."
"Because it's true every time I—" She turned at the sound of my steps, and the rest of her sentence hit the brakes so hard I could practically hear the tires squeal.
"Shinji?"
"Hey," I said, sliding onto the stool next to her. "Two shinobi walk into a noodle bar, right? What are the odds?"
Her whole face lit up. "You're back! When did you— how long have you been back?"
"Couple hours. Just finished the whole debriefing thing with the team." I nodded at Teuchi. "The usual, if you don't mind."
"Coming right up," he said, already starting on the broth.
"So," Kushina said, turning toward me, "how was the first real mission? You look... I mean, you're still in one piece."
"Mostly," I said, noting the way her eyes immediately did a quick scan for injuries. "Though I've got some stories that'll probably make you question my decision-making skills."
"More than usual?"
"Way more than usual."
"Well, you're still breathing and you've got all your limbs," she said, giving me another quick look. "So it couldn't have been that bad."
"Fair point." I took a sip of the broth Teuchi had just put in front of me. "What about you? What've you been up to while I was playing escort?"
"Training, mostly." She twirled some noodles around her chopsticks. "Grandma Mito's been... god, she's been working me to death with fuinjutsu. Did you know there are seventeen different ways to anchor a chakra containment array? Because I do now. All seventeen."
"Sounds fun."
"Oh, it gets better. She's got me doing storage seals over and over until my fingers basically give up. Apparently my brush control needs 'work' before she'll let me near anything actually interesting."
I took another sip, nodding. "Storage seals, huh? That actually sounds pretty useful." Then I lifted my gloved hand like I'd just remembered something. "Speaking of which, what do you think of this?"
Her eyes snapped to my palm like they were magnetized. "Huh, where'd you get that?"
"Tsunade-sensei gave it to me for the mission." I flexed my fingers a bit, watching her lean closer. "So what's the expert verdict?"
"Expert?" She laughed, but she was already studying the seal patterns. "I mean, I'm not exactly Grandma Mito, but... Can I?"
I held out my hand and she took it carefully, turning my palm up to get a better look. Her fingers were warm, barely touching as they traced along the seal without actually pressing on the leather.
"This is really good work," she murmured. "The anchor points are clean, structure's pretty efficient... there's even some anti-tamper stuff built in here."
"So nothing too fancy?"
"Yep, this is standard stuff. Functional, but not flashy." She looked up at me. "It's well-made though. Whoever did this knew what they were doing, even if it's just basic storage."
"Yeah, Tsunade-sensei said the same thing," I admitted. "Said if I wanted anything better, I'd have to get an Uzumaki to do it."
Her whole face just lit up.
"Well, when you want the good stuff, you know where to find me," she said, grinning. "I mean, assuming I haven't accidentally blown myself up trying to figure out Grandma's advanced scrolls or something."
She paused with her chopsticks halfway to her mouth. "Actually, wait... didn't we have some kind of... before you left, we had that deal, right?"
I raised an eyebrow. "Deal?"
"You know." She waved her chopsticks around vaguely. "I teach you fuinjutsu, you teach me how to actually cook? Something that's not instant ramen?"
"Oh, right." I grinned. "Our little arrangement. I figured you'd forget about that."
"A deal's a deal," she said, then made a face. "Though, uh... fair warning, I tried to make yakitori last week. It was... not great."
"How not great?"
She looked at me. "My kitchen still smells burnt. Like, really burnt."
"Ah," I nodded. "You discovered charcoal."
Her face scrunched up in this pouty expression before she leaned over and pinched my side, right where it counts.
"Ow— okay, okay, no charcoal jokes—"
"I'm being serious. You've been gone for like a week, which means I missed at least two lessons. I'm falling behind on my whole... domestic skills thing."
"Your domestic skills thing?" I rubbed my side, still feeling the pinch. "Is that what we're calling it now?"
"Shut up, you know what I mean." She waved her chopsticks at me. "We had a deal, and now I'm behind schedule."
She leaned in, dropping her voice. "So how about we make this work for both of us? You give me that cooking lesson tomorrow, and I'll help you upgrade that storage seal on your glove."
"Upgrade it how?"
"Well, right now it just dumps everything out at once, right? I could make it so you can grab specific stuff instead of having everything fall on your head."
My eyes went wide. "Wait, seriously? That would be amazing."
"Grandma Mito's been making me practice all week. I could use something that's not a practice dummy."
"Deal," I said immediately. Then reality hit. "Oh wait. Shit. Tomorrow? I can't, we're leaving on another mission in the morning."
She deflated a little. Not dramatically, but enough that I felt kinda bad.
"Oh. Well, when—"
"Actually, you know what? I'll just tell them we're leaving in the afternoon. Or the next day. It's fine."
Kushina blinked. Then just started laughing. Like, really laughing. "Are you seriously gonna reschedule a mission just to hang out with me?"
"Why not?" I shrugged. "They can wait a day. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Oh, I don't know," she said, still giggling. "Maybe the Hokage decides you're definitely not getting that chunin promotion you were never getting anyway?"
"See? Nothing serious."
We finished our bowls and set them down. Kushina dropped a pretty hefty bill on the counter, way more than needed, but considering all the empty bowls she'd stacked up, probably about right.
"So," I said as we walked out into the cold, "what were you thinking for breakfast? Something easy, or you wanna go straight for the hard stuff?"
"What counts as easy?" she asked, walking beside me toward my apartment.
"Eggs, maybe some rice, things that won't explode if you start daydreaming about ramen."
"Hey," she protested, "I don't get distracted that much."
"Kushina, you'd forget you're boiling water because a bird showed up at your window."
"That's... okay, yeah, probably," she scrunched her nose. "Birds are pretty though."
"Uh-huh." I turned down the street to my building. "How about tamagoyaki? It's basically just a rolled omelet. Pretty hard to mess up. You can make it fancy or keep it simple enough that nothing catches fire."
"Catches fire?"
"I'm trying to stay positive." I unlocked the door and held it open, doing this stupid little bow. "After you."
She walked in and stopped just inside, looking around. "For the seal stuff, I'll need somewhere flat to work. And decent light."
"Kitchen table's good. Plus you can, you know, get familiar with where everything is. Meet the ingredients."
"Great, I'll introduce myself to the spices," she said, walking further in. She was looking at my bookshelves, the sake collection, the sink. "I forgot how clean you keep this place."
"Some of us have standards."
"My place is clean too."
"Never been there," I said, kicking off my sandals. "So who knows. Your kitchen could be condemned for all I know."
I sat down across from her, folding my arms and stretching out a bit. She was already spreading her stuff across the kitchen table, different sized brushes, this shiny inkstone, and some paper that looked pretty expensive.
"Just so you know," she said, opening a bottle of sealing ink, "this is gonna take a while. Modifying a seal that already exists isn't... it's not like just drawing something new. If I mess up, this could blow your fingers off. Or mine, which would be worse."
"Take your time," I said, resting my chin on my hand. "I'm not going anywhere."
She dipped her brush and began tracing careful lines along the perimeter of the seal inked into the fabric. Her strokes were slow but confident, not the hesitant hand of a beginner, but more like someone who had spent enough hours with ink and chakra to ruin a dozen tables and still come out the other end.
Watching her work reminded me of something I'd been meaning to bring up.
The scroll jutsu.
I'd asked for it as a mission reward, turned down the money, argued my case to the Hokage like a bureaucratic maniac. Something about "wartime skill acceleration" and "making the most of our talent pool." Pretty sure he only said yes because I was annoying him. Or maybe he just wanted me out of his office.
Either way, it was mine now. And I had a feeling Kushina would lose her mind when she saw what it could do.
"Hey Kushina," I said casually. "You ever hear of something called Kage Bunshin?"
She stopped, brush hovering over the seal, and looked up. "No? Is it like... some kind of clone thing?"
"Yeah, but it's way different from the Academy stuff." I leaned back in my chair. "Instead of just making illusions, these are actual solid clones. They can think on their own, fight, train, screw up... just like the real person."
Her eyes widened like I'd just invented ramen that refilled itself. "Seriously? How the hell does that even work? The chakra cost alone would be massive."
"Yep," I agreed. "Which is exactly why most people can't use it. But here's the interesting part, when the clones dispel, all their memories and experiences transfer back to the original."
She just stared at me.
"Wait. All of it? So you could make like ten of yourself, have them all train, and then just... get all that training at once?"
"Pretty much. You could spend an afternoon doing ten different things and it'd be like training for a week."
She blinked a couple times. Then sat back.
"...I need this jutsu."
She was already doing that thing where she's calculating stuff in her head. "Shinji, this is... the training possibilities alone are just... You could speed up learning by however many clones you can make."
I nodded. "Exactly. But it takes enormous chakra reserves to be remotely practical. Reserves most people just don't have."
I gave her a thoughtful once-over. "Though I suppose someone with, say, absurdly large chakra reserves might find it… extremely useful."
She froze. Then slowly started grinning.
"Are you saying I could—" She stopped herself, grinning even wider. "Okay, we're definitely working on this together. That's cool, right?"
I shrugged. "Sure. Though actually... I've been wondering about something. Do you think it'd be possible to make shadow clones that, I don't know, explode when they're destroyed?"
She blinked. "Explode? Like actually explode?"
"Yeah. Like, add a seal to the clone that triggers either on command or once it takes enough damage. Tactical self-destruction. You know. For the greater good."
"...I hate that I think that's a great idea," Kushina said, grinning in a way that was kinda concerning.
She went quiet, tapping her fingers on the table. I could see her working through it in her head.
"Maybe," she said finally. "You'd need the right trigger, some kind of seal that activates when the clone breaks or responds to your chakra. But I don't know if it'd work. Clones aren't exactly... stable."
"But it's possible?"
"In theory?" She tilted her head. "Maybe. Actually doing it? I'd have to do a lot of research. And probably get Grandma Mito to let me work with explosive seals, which..."
She made this face.
"Let's just say she has opinions about what she calls 'reckless fuinjutsu.'"
"Fair enough. Just curious."
Which was mostly true. I wasn't actually planning to turn myself into a walking bomb factory.
Not yet anyway.