Chapter 344: Two Background Extras?
In the end, Ryū — a planet-cracking powerhouse who'd otherwise happily rot away as an idle homebody — headed out anyway. The girl had already said she wanted to treat him today, and it would've been rude to turn her down. Besides, it wasn't costing him a cent either way.
The clock still read early morning, somewhere past seven, the sun hidden behind clouds, its light too weak to melt the snow on the ground with any speed.
Most of the roadside snow had already been cleared away — the cleanup crews moved fast, though to be fair, a single night's snowfall could only pile up so much no matter how hard it came down.
The two of them walked side by side down the street. Glancing over at Anko out of the corner of his eye, Ryū caught the faint nervousness on her face and let out a small, resigned laugh.
Barely thirteen, Anko was still young enough that most of what she felt showed plainly on her face.
However hard she tried to mask it, her acting simply wasn't up to the task — anyone with a decent read on people could tell at a glance whether she was happy, upset, nervous, or anything in between.
"Um... Ryū-oniisan, would it be okay if I invited some friends along?"
Something seemed to occur to her partway down the street, and she asked in a small, tentative voice.
"Sure, no problem. You're a Chūnin, sure, but you're also just a kid — nothing wrong with wanting company."
"Thank you for understanding, Ryū-oniisan!"
"You don't have to be so formal about it."
"Right!"
"..."
Honestly, Anko was getting more nervous by the minute. She'd genuinely meant to invite her friends along from the start — figured since she was treating everyone anyway, might as well make it a group thing.
But nerves had made her forget to mention it, and it wasn't until they were halfway there — right about now — that it came back to her.
They're really just friends I made back at the academy, close to my own age — the oldest one's maybe two or three years older, or was it three or four? Anyway, they're all around my age.
Drawing a breath to steady her nerves, Anko explained, "It's just that they treated me to dango before too, so I wanted to pay them back at the same time. That's really all it is!"
Ryū nearly pointed out that she didn't need to explain herself quite so thoroughly, but seeing how earnest she looked about it, he let the comment go.
Honestly, he couldn't quite figure out why she was so on edge. As he recalled from canon, Anko was supposedly one of Konoha's most dangerous kunoichi — the kind who never left a fight without a body count.
But looking at her now, "most dangerous" was about the last thing that came to mind.
Maybe it was just nerves about a new social situation — hanging out with someone well outside her usual circle. Ryū let the thought go without digging any further into it.
"By the way, Ryū-oniisan, aren't you cold? It's the dead of winter and you're in short sleeves — that has to be freezing."
"My body's just built different. Doesn't register as cold to me — feels pretty refreshing, actually."
"Huh? Oh..."
"..."
The two of them walked on for another ten-odd minutes, trading the occasional bit of small talk, until — a couple of minutes later — they both came to a stop at the same moment.
Looking at the dessert shop in front of them, Ryū felt his face twitch involuntarily. Just how much did this girl love dango and sweets, exactly?
Not that he minded — he was rather fond of sweets himself, so no complaints there.
Stepping inside, Anko let out a heavy breath of white vapor, her face relaxing. "Ahh... they've got the heat running in here, thank goodness. So much warmer than outside — feels great!"
She pointed to a table in the corner. "That's our reserved spot, Ryū-oniisan. Let's head over — it's my treat today."
Following where she pointed, Ryū saw two girls already seated at the table, at most two or three years older than Anko.
One had long black hair and eyes that looked distinctly red.
The other had long purple hair, a short ninjatō resting beside her.
Both were dressed as Chūnin, the same rank as Anko.
Fair to say, Ryū didn't recognize either of them — looked like a couple of nameless background extras from canon, most likely.
At a glance, they seemed thoroughly ordinary — ordinary enough, in fact, that "relegated to background extra" felt about right.
As he and Anko walked over together, the two girls seemed to notice them approaching.
The moment they spotted Anko, both stood up in greeting, speaking practically in unison: "Anko, you made it!"
Anko gave a small nod, then made introductions. "Kurenai, Yūgao, let me introduce you — this is Ryū-oniisan. Don't let it fool you that he's not a shinobi — he's even on good terms with the Fourth Hokage himself!"
Then she turned to Ryū. "Ryū-oniisan, this is Yuhi Kurenai — a friend I made back at the academy. And that one's Uzuki Yūgao, also a friend from school."
"Shame we never got put on the same Genin team, and even after making Chūnin we've barely gotten missions together. So with the shinobi world staying reasonably peaceful for once, we finally managed to get together."
Seeing her friends seemed to give Anko a bit of moral support — she looked noticeably less on edge than she had walking here alone with Ryū, considerably more at ease.
Ryū, meanwhile, turned a curious eye on the two unfamiliar girls.
He'd assumed at first they were just a couple of background extras. Turned out that wasn't quite right.
Yuhi Kurenai. Uzuki Yūgao. Both names he recognized instantly.
☆☆☆
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