Chapter 24: Orochimaru
Teuchi brought the bowls out one by one — each one generous, each one set quietly on the table in front of Ryū with a pleasant smile. "Enjoy your meal!"
For the Ryū who hadn't yet spent 2,000 Points on physical enhancement, three bowls of Ichiraku ramen combined would have been enough food for an entire day. A single bowl constituted a full meal on its own. Drink the broth and even someone with a modest appetite would end up uncomfortably full.
For a ramen stand that had outlasted the entire history of the Hidden Leaf, the portions and the quality were both, in all honesty, very solid.
"Smells good. Come all the way to Konoha and not eat Ichiraku ramen — it'd feel like you'd visited a fake version of the place."
He murmured it to himself, picked up the black chopsticks, and was just about to start eating when something at the edge of his vision made him stop.
A slender figure had settled into the seat beside him. Unhurried. Unannounced.
Then a voice — familiar in a way that took a moment to place.
"Teuchi-san. One bowl, same as usual — extra coriander."
He knew that voice. He definitely knew that voice. Where from, exactly — a plot character from the source material? Had to be. An ordinary background extra wouldn't have stuck in his memory like that. Whoever this was appeared often enough to have a distinct voice attached — someone like Kakashi, or Jiraiya, or the Third Hokage.
He turned, already wearing a startled expression.
The person beside him seemed to sense it. They turned their head and met his gaze.
A face of faintly pallid complexion. An expression of mild, curious interest. A pair of slit pupils that held a slight puzzlement — something almost amused.
"The young man sitting next to me seems to recognize me. Have we met?"
"Hard not to recognize one of the Three Legendary Sannin."
He'd managed — barely — to keep the words "Lady Orochimaru" from coming out of his mouth. That particular phrase was a one-way ticket to consequences he didn't need.
Ryū's internal state was significantly more rattled than his expression let on. Running into Guy had been one thing — they were neighbors, seeing each other in passing was normal. But going out for a bowl of ramen and landing next to one of the Sannin? The Sannin with more screen time than Jiraiya and Tsunade put together?
Was his luck just that good?
Was Konoha just that small?
Possibly both.
Konoha genuinely wasn't large — smaller than a rural county back on Earth. And Ryū's luck was, objectively, not bad. At least compared to a certain shameless purple granny whose RNG he didn't want to think about. Combine the two factors and running into a plot character while grabbing lunch became statistically less surprising.
The more pressing question: why was Orochimaru still in Konoha?
He'd defected, hadn't he? Or — had he not defected yet?
Ryū ran through the timeline quickly.
Around Konoha Year 44 to 45 — roughly two years ago — Yūhi Kurenai and Asuma Sarutobi had passed the Chūnin Exams. And Mitarashi Anko had graduated that same year, becoming Orochimaru's student around that time. Anko had been sixteen when Orochimaru had given her the Cursed Seal and then abandoned her.
If she'd become his student at twelve, she'd be at most fourteen or fifteen right now. The Cursed Seal was still about a year away.
So Orochimaru hadn't left yet. This timeline hadn't diverged there. Which meant his defection had come after the Nine-Tails incident — after Minato's death. That made sense: it was the Third Hokage who had exposed Orochimaru's human experiments. Minato, as the Fourth, hadn't personally moved against him. Which implied Minato was already gone by the time things came to a head.
Orochimaru had defected not long after Minato's death, and then joined the organization with the famously lethal dress code.
"Is it my identity that makes you recognize me, young man?"
Orochimaru had grown uncomfortable under Ryū's stare. There was something about this unfamiliar boy's gaze — it felt like being seen through. Like someone was looking at him with eyes that could read what was underneath.
It was deeply unpleasant.
The question snapped Ryū out of his thoughts. He let it go. Whether Orochimaru was in Konoha or not was irrelevant to him — a research-obsessed fanatic like this had no interest in anyone who wasn't a shinobi. Everyone Orochimaru had ever fixated on was a ninja. A civilian didn't register.
His actual reason for staring was something he absolutely could not say out loud. Because the thing was — Orochimaru was reportedly capable of changing sex. Reportedly even capable of bearing children.
Before transmigrating, Ryū had read a Naruto fan novel where the protagonist had ended up romancing Orochimaru — fully, unmistakably as Orochimaru-hime by the end.
The implications.
The deeply unsettling implications.
Ryū quietly slid his stool a few centimeters sideways. He knew perfectly well that the current Orochimaru had zero interest in a non-ninja civilian who'd never attended the Academy. But the knowledge that this person was capable of a full gender transition had activated something in his brain that he wished he could switch off.
This was too stimulating. Far too stimulating.
But what he needed right now was to develop quietly and without incident. A plot character this volatile was someone to stay well clear of.
The atmosphere between them settled into an odd silence.
Orochimaru didn't read much into it. He simply filed Ryū away as a peculiar stranger and moved on.
Which was, as it happened, exactly the correct read. A civilian who wasn't a shinobi held not even a sliver of interest for Orochimaru.
Three full bowls of Ichiraku ramen later, Ryū had filled the hollow in his stomach to something approaching satisfaction. He looked at the now-empty stool beside him and shook his head with a slightly rueful expression.
He really didn't want too much contact with plot characters right now. Not until he'd genuinely grown into his strength. Poking at these people before that point was asking for trouble.
The Naruto world was a dangerous place — dangerous in a different way from the One Piece world. The average intelligence level in One Piece was not high. In Naruto, everyone was a scheming veteran with layered motives and long memories. Orochimaru was a perfect example.
"Orochimaru's still in Konoha… which means the other two Sannin — Tsunade and Jiraiya — are they here too? Probably not. If both of them were around, what kind of wave could the Nine-Tails actually make?"
He tapped the solid wooden tabletop, still mulling it over, and raised his voice toward Teuchi's busy figure.
"Teuchi-san — three more bowls please. Actually — make it six. Three isn't enough."