Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Food brings people together on many different levels. It’s nourishment of the soul and body; it’s truly love.” 

– Giada De Laurentiis

*****

“That’ll be fifteen ryō, please.”

Yusami blinked down at the baby that was shaking like a wet cat before her little cash register. She may have been living in Konohagakure for going on five years now, but this was the first time that she had ever come face-to-face with the ‘demon brat’ that so many of her customers liked to mutter and groan about when she was bagging their vegetables.

He sniffled and blinked back tears and the strong, strong wet cat vibes grew in intensity. “M’ sorry. I don’ have enough.”

Yusami looked down at the singular packet of ramen and then back at the boy. Pity, sympathy, and the barest sparks of a white-hot rage filled her gut but she pushed all of that back in favor of a small smile.

“That’s okay, sweetie. How about we figure out how much you have and then we can try and find something within your price range?”

The child (Naruto, Naruto, call him by his name not ‘child’ not ‘demon’ not ‘monster.’ Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto who is going to grow up and become Hokage, believe it!), fished two crumpled bills out of his pocket and placed them on the counter. Yusami had to catch herself from showing her shock at the amount. Hesitantly, she took one of the bills and the packet of ramen and rang him up.

“Here you go, sweetie,” she said, trying with all her might to keep her voice steady, “That’s one packet of ramen and your change.”

The boy eyed the money suspiciously. “Nice try, lady. ‘M not falling for that. ‘Ah know you’re just gonna say I stole it later.”

“No, sweetie, no. One ramen packet is fifteen ryō. You tried to give me two bills of five hundred, which is one thousand total. You keep one of the five-hundreds because I don’t need both. And then I take the other and break it up into smaller parts so I can take the fifteen ryō for the ramen. And then you get the ramen and the extra ryō. See? You get one five-hundred bill, four one-hundreds, a fifty, a twenty, a ten, and a five. Plus the ramen.”

“Nuh-uh. One ramen is three of the papers an’ I only gave you two.”

“It’s worth three of the five-hundreds? So fifteen hundred ryō? Do the other stores really charge you that much for one ramen packet?” At the boy’s nod, Yusami felt those sparks of rage build into an ember.

“Well,” she said, mentally seething while trying to maintain her smile and customer service voice, “That’s other stores. Different stores have different prices. And I say that one ramen packet is worth fifteen ryō.”

The boy (Naruto. Use his fucking name Yusami, it is the least you can do) looked between her, the bills, and the lonely packet of ramen. “Does tha’ mean I can get-- can I have another one? Please?”

“Yes. So long as you pay for it.”

At her words, he hesitantly grabbed the ramen and the bills and wandered over to the aisle. He returned shortly with another ramen packet. Slowly, he extended his hand with the second ramen and the second five-hundred bill.

Yusami took the packet and the bill, punched in the code for ramen in the register, and broke the bill into change. “One packet of ramen and four-hundred-eighty-five ryō is your change.”

A little less hesitant now, he returned once more to the ramen aisle and came back with a third ramen, this one shrimp flavored rather than chicken. He dumped all of his bills on the counter and slid them toward her. She could see it in his eyes that he was expecting to be rejected this time, but Yusami just plucked a ten and a five out of the pile of bills, rang up the ramen, and gave him the third packet.

This song and dance repeated for a while, with Naruto bolting over to the aisle where the ramen was stocked and dashing back with a new packet in hand. Yusami would ring it up and break the change. Naruto would then eye the bills before repeating the cycle.

By the time Yusami had to finally tell the kid that he could buy no more ramen, he had sixty-six packets, ten ryō, and it was one-and-a-half hours past when Yusami usually closed the store. She asked him if he would like a bag to carry it all, to which he nodded, shell-shocked. Yusami unfolded a brown paper bag and masterly stuffed all sixty-six packets into it. 

She passed the bag to Naruto and gave another smile. “Please, come again soon.” She said as she walked him out. 

He sniffled and nodded, leaving the grocery store with a bag almost as big as he was. Yusami flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED and went to go hurry through her usual closing duties. Knowing that she still had to rush home and make dinner for her and Daiju-oji, she puts the interaction out of her mind and mentally hashes out a recipe for dinner.

*****

“Oji-san,” Yusami says that night as she stirs vegetables into a simmering pot.

“Hm?” her great uncle asks, looking up from his book.

“Do you still have that book you had when I first came to Konoha? That one about proper nutrition, and… and treating malnutrition in a growing body?”

“On the left side of the third shelf,” Daiju-oji said simply. Then, “Would this have any reason with why you were late coming home today?”

“There was a boy. He slipped in right at closing time. I think it was intentional, so he wouldn’t catch the ire of the other customers. He says the other grocery stores charge him fifteen hundred ryō for a packet of ramen.”

Her uncle grumbled and mumbled. “Did he buy anything else?”

“No. Just sixty-six ramen packets.”

“How old was he?”

“About five? He looked younger and smaller than he should be, though.”

“Well, that won’t do. A boy needs his vitamins,” her oji-san said simply, flicking a page in his book, “But a boy like that’s going to be wary, Yusami. He won’t take nothing for free. If he slips in again at closing, ask to have him help with the restocking and pay him in the extra produce.”

“But would he even know how to cook extra fruits and vegetables? What if he just throws them out? Maybe I should limit the number of ramen he can buy--”

“And let him buy another from a different store at a five-thousand percent markup?”

Yusami sighed. “No, you’re right. I just hope he doesn’t waste away. The amount of sodium he must consume on a regular basis, my word--”

*****

Yusami doesn’t see Naruto for a little over a month.

The boy must have either been buying from other stores, or really, truly stretching out the amount he had bought from her. Forty-one days since he had last graced her shop, and he bought sixty-six packets of ramen. That would leave him a little over one-and-a-half ramen packets a day, and she just…

Yusami prays to the Kami, or God, or Jesus, or the Buddha, or the Sages. She prays to somebody, anybody, that this sweet, sweet, innocent child wasn’t living off of one-point-five ramen packets a day. Please. If one of the above beings had the power to plop her into another universe, surely they could do her a solid and keep this boy from starving.

Pretty please?

For her?

Regardless, forty-one days since their first encounter, Naruto slips into her store right before closing. He brings over a single packet of ramen and places his money on the counter. Yusami once again breaks one bill into change and Naruto dashes back to the ramen section and returns with another packet. She rings him up, breaks the new change, rinse and repeat.

There are some differences, though. For one, Naruto seems to be excluding some ramen flavors. No more of those novelty chocolate packets that rarely leave the shelves. No more mushroom or cheese ramen, either. Instead, more beef, pork, and chicken packets take their place. He had also come in with fifteen hundred ryō this time, so Naruto ends their song and dance with one hundred ramen packets and no change rather than sixty-six packets and ten ryō left over.

“Would you mind helping me with something?” Yusami asks him as she shoves all one hundred packets into a single brown paper bag.

“With wha’?” the boy asks, eyeing the bag cautiously, as if Yusami would steal it away if he refused.

“I need some help restocking,” Yusami said, clocking Naruto’s look and passing him the bag of ramen as she explained, “Just putting fruits and vegetables where they need to go. I can give you a few extra for your time.”

Naruto eyes the bag again and then eyes her. “Sure, ‘ttebayo. ‘S long as I can keep the ramen.”

“Of course! Here, come with me.”

Yusami ushers Naruto around the store for a solid thirty minutes. His presence doesn’t really help the restocking go any quicker, but it seems like he has a fun time picking out the best-looking eggplants and greenest celeries for the displays. When they’re done, Yusami picks out a small variety of fruits and veggies and bags them up for Naruto.

“Thanks for the help today!” she said with a smile, “I hope you enjoy your food.”

“Thanks! But, ugh… why aren’t they mushy?”

“Mushy?” Yusami asks, the question stopping her in her tracks.

“Yeah. And where are the splotches? Shouldn’t they have splotches?”

“Nooooooooo……” she said, “They should very much not be ‘mushy’ nor have ‘splotches.’ You might want some to ripen and soften up, but if they get to a texture I would describe as ‘mushy’ then it’s been too long and they’ve… rotted…” At Naruto’s confused look Yusami dug a fruit out of the bag. “Do you recognize this?”

The boy squinted, took a big whiff, and then nodded. “I think so, ‘ttebayo.”

“And does it look like how it usually looks like when you buy it?”

He shook his head. “Nuh-ugh. It’s way too orange. It’s supposed to be a greyish-bluish-greenish color with a white circle around the edge of the grey-blue-green.”

Yusami closed her eyes painfully before gently taking Naruto’s hand and cradling it in her larger one. “Sweetie, this is an orange. They’re supposed to be orange. That’s why they’re named that, see? And they aren’t mushy. Just firm, with a little bit of softness.”

His expression was disbelieving, as if he couldn’t tell if Yusami was lying or not. “But that’s… all the other places give them to me like that!”

“Well if they want to give you bad produce then there’s nothing I can do to stop them. But mine look better, don’t they? They smell better, I’d bet. And taste better, too.”

“I don’t know.”

“Here. Why don’t I prove it?” 

Yusami grabbed back the orange and started to peel it with her thumbnail. Once the peel was off, she broke off one juicy slice for herself and one for Naruto. She offered the second to the boy and held up her own. “Cheers.”

Yusami bit into her orange slice and saw as Naruto hesitantly chomped into his. She saw the moment the flavor hit as his eyes widened and he shoved the rest of the slice into his mouth, chewing happily as juice gushed down his chin.

“See? Much better than the other ones, right?”

“Mmmmhmmmm,” he nodded before swallowing hastily, “Can I ‘ave another one?”

Yusami passed Naruto another orange slice and just stood there with relief as the child had what was sure to be the first healthy amount of vitamin C in ages. As Naruto licked his fingers at the droplets of orange juice, Yusami offered to trade out the medley of fruits and vegetables that he didn’t know how to cook into two dozen oranges. He jumped at the opportunity and Yusami made the trade, rebagged the fruit, and sent him on his way.

“Buh-bye, sweetie,” she waved as he walked down the street, ramen and oranges in hand, “Come again soon!”

“I will, dattebayo! Believe it!”

Yusami watched him until he was out of sight before flipping the OPEN sign, locking the doors, and heading back home, satisfied with her day and once more planning out dinner.

(Unbeknownst to Yusami, the four ANBU stuck on jinchuuriki guard duty had witnessed the entire event, and because ANBU nin were all horrible gossips, the entire corps knew before sunrise the next day. Her simple acts of kindness had gotten her added to a plethora of lists, including the ANBU captain’s ‘Civilians Worth Saving When the End Times Come’ list, the head medic’s ‘Gets Free Health Care for Life’ list, and Team Ro’s ‘Protect at All Costs’ list.

The final one was truly a feat, as the list had, in its entirety, exactly six names on it. One was the Hokage, one was the aforementioned jinchuuriki, and now one was Yusami’s. And it may not be patriotic to mention it aloud, but over half of Team Ro, if forced to choose between Yusami and their Kage, well…

Let’s just say that Yusami had a greater than fifty percent chance of walking away from that hypothetical.)

(Shimura Danzou also added the name of the insignificant grocer to a secret list of his own. The list itself had no name, and if one were to find it, they would puzzle over why a civilian woman was listed alongside some of the most powerful and influential people on the planet. They would reread it again, but sure enough, Yusami’s name would still be there, penciled in between the heir to the Wind daimyo and an A-rank shinobi from Iwagakure.

Shimura Danzou was a very particular man with very particular views. One such view included that, to Danzou, there were no purely individual people: just tools to be used later and threats to be dealt with.

Whether Yusami had wound up on the threat list or the tool list, she wouldn’t know until much, much later.)

Chapter Text

Thankfully, Yusami doesn’t have to wait another forty-one days to see Naruto. She instead finds him twenty-four days later, on the dot, waiting for her outside the grocery store right as she came in to open. He smiles a blinding smile at the sight of her, and Yusami is suddenly way more awake and chipper than she usually is when she gets in at five.

“Good morning, sweetie,” she says, unlocking the doors and holding them open for him, “What can I do for you on this fine day?”

“Can I get more of those oranges? I tried to make ‘em last, but they started going squishy and I remembered you said not to eat them if they got like that so I ate them instead of saving them and now I don’ got any more."

“Sure, sweetie! That won’t be a problem. Now, would you like to pay per orange or per pound?”

Naruto cocked his head to the side like a confused dog. “Ne, ne, what’s the difference?”

“Well, if you buy one single orange, that’s twenty ryō. If you pay by the individual orange, then you will pay twenty ryō per orange no matter the size or the weight. But if you pay by pound, then you’ll pay one-hundred ryō per pound. It really just depends on how you want to spend your money. If you pay by the orange, then one-hundred ryō will get you five oranges every single time. But if you pay by the pound, then it depends on the size of the oranges.”

Yusami could tell she was losing him, so she grabbed a smaller grocery bag, gently took him by the hand, and brought him over to the oranges. “Pick out enough oranges to fill up this bag, and then come and meet me by the register, alright?”

Naruto nodded seriously and turned to the oranges, beginning to poke and prod and smell them to determine the best ones. Yusami smiled lightly at the sight and returned to her register. She pulled out the bag she brought with her and filled the till with the money and change she would need for the day. Then she swept the floors of the store to ensure that she hadn’t missed any messes when she closed last night. Finally, she made a quick walkthrough of the aisles, checking the displays and the produce as she went. Everything seemed to be in order, so she returned to her register in time to greet her second customer of the day.

“Good morning, Ueno-san,” Yusami says, “Is there anything I can help you with this morning?”

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself, Yusami-chan,” the older woman tittered, “Just picking up a few things for Friday. There’s a potluck and silent auction fundraiser for the school clubs and activities, and I was planning on making my specialty cupcakes.”

“That sounds lovely! Please save me one if there are any left.”

“We’ll see, dearie. We’ll see.”

Ueno-san bustled away and Yusami reviewed her little book of product prices, mentally flagging the whipping cream, instant pudding mix, and duck eggs Ueno would need for her recipe.

“I got the oranges, dattebayo!”

“Wonderful!” Yusami set the price book aside and pulled out five oranges from the bag. “Now, do you have your money, sweetie?”

Naruto nodded and hesitantly placed a one hundred ryō bill on the counter. Yusami smiled, grabbed five oranges, and set them opposite the bill. “Now, these five oranges are twenty ryō each, so that bill will buy these five oranges and these five oranges only. Does that make sense?”

Naruto nodded. “Five oranges is one light brown paper, got it.”

“Now, if we go by weight,” Yusami grabbed up the five oranges and placed them and a one-pound weight on a scale. She then added two more oranges until the scale was balanced. “We find that these seven oranges make one pound. So these seven oranges are also worth one hundred ryō.”

Naruto’s eyes widened as he looked between the scale and the bill. “Liar! You just said that that five oranges is one light brown paper! Not seven!”

Yusami burst into a light fit of giggles. “As I said, prices can vary and change based on the situation. Right here, would the deal be better to pay one hundred ryō for five oranges or seven?”

“Seven, duh!” Naruto said, pointing at the balanced scale.

“Now, what if we did this?” Yusami set the seven oranges aside and pulled out the three biggest oranges in the bag. They were large and ripe with juice, so the three quickly balanced out the one-pound weight. “These three oranges are also one pound and are worth one hundred ryō. But if you pay for the individual oranges, that’s just sixty ryō. In that situation, would it be better to pay by the individual orange, or by the weight?”

Naruto furrowed his brow. “That’s… it’s the same oranges, right? So if you can pay less money for the same oranges, that’s better. So not on the weight-thingy.”

“Right,” Yusami nodded, “When you’re buying groceries-- or anything, really --you have to keep in mind how different sales and payment methods can change the price or the amount you get. You want to get as much as possible for the least amount of money possible, so that way you don’t have to buy more later or you can save the extra money for something else.”

“So if I wanted to buy a ton of oranges, I would put all the small ones on the weight-thingy,” Naruto said, pointing at the scale, “And leave the big ones off to the side and buy those on their own?”

“Yep! I know it can be a little confusing at first, and not every store will let you break up an order like this. That is, they won’t let you pay some by weight and some by base price. A lot will make you choose one way or the other, so you have to think about how you want to pay before you get to the register. My advice is that if you buy in bulk, then you pay by weight. If you buy a small amount, pay by the orange.”

“Wha’s ‘buy in bulk’ mean?”

“It means you buy a ton of something, more than you can fit in your bare hands.”

“Does that mean I’m buying in bulk right now?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Huh,” Naruto said as Yusami rang up the rest of the oranges.

“Now, sweetie, I have to ask whether or not you’ll be able to eat all of these oranges by yourself before they go bad. I don’t want you to eat a bad orange and get sick, and I also don’t want you to buy a ton of oranges and have to throw a ton away later.”

“Last time I ate one orange a day ‘cause I wanted to make them last. Bu’ if I did that again, then the oranges might go squishy again?”

“Yes, exactly. If you want to eat more than one orange a day, by all means, buy more oranges. But if you want to eat only one a day, don’t buy more than twenty-eight. You have a fridge, right?”

“Right!”

“Then when you get home, put all your oranges in the fridge. That way they can last up to twenty-eight days, and you can eat one orange a day.”

“Then that’s what I’ll do, dattebayo! Twenty-eight oranges, please!”

Yusami counted out the best oranges Naruto had picked and bagged them, occasionally arranging them on the scale to figure out the pricing and setting aside the extra to put away later. Once she was done, she handed the boy the bag of oranges and stated the price.

“That’ll be three-hundred-and-sixty ryō, please,” she told him. He passed over the money and thanked her as she gave him his bag.

Naruto set the bag on the ground and pulled out a tiny little wallet/coin purse shaped like a frog. Yusami had to stop herself from squeeing at the cuteness as he contemplated the extra one-hundred-and-forty ryō she assumes he set aside for this little extrusion.

“Can I go ‘n buy something else, lady?”

“Sure! Just be sure to be polite and courteous to any of the other customers. Also, please don’t knock over any displays. I don’t want to set them back up.”

The boy wandered off, taking the bag of oranges with him. Yusami organized her work area for a bit before letting her thoughts drift near her newest customer.

‘Oranges are a good start, but I should also try and push him towards some vegetables. That’ll be hard, though. What’s a vegetable that can be prepared without having to chop it up or cook it? Baby carrots could work. Sugar snap peas, too. Celery with a little bit of peanut butter’s always nice, but that would probably involve at least one knife. If I got him one of those salad mix bags, would he be comfortable mixing it? Spinach is a great source of — ”

Yusami’s musings were abruptly cut off by the sound of shouting. Knowing that shouts should not be in a grocery store, Yusami locked her register closed and abandoned her station, rushing towards the sound.

She rounded the corner of the dried goods aisle in time to see Ueno-san slap a bag of rice out of Naruto’s hand. The woman’s hostile gaze softened a smidgen when she caught sight of Yusami, but her snarl was full of vitriol when she pointed an accusing finger at Naruto and said, “Yusami-chan, get this sniveling thief out of your store.”

“I ain’t stole nothing, lady!”

“I saw you place your stolen gains into that bag you’re carrying. Yusami-chan, I suggest you confiscate it, throw this boy out, and ensure that he does not. Come. Back.”

Yusami, caught like a deer in headlights, did some quick mental gymnastics to see how she could rectify this situation without totally alienating a regular customer and/or scaring the kid away from the (seemingly) only place in town he could buy decent food at a reasonable price.

“Sweetie, would you mind if I check your bag real quick?” Yusami asked, kneeling down and giving Naruto a soft look.

“But she’s lying, I didn’t—”

“Shh, shh. I believe you, sweetie. But when someone accuses you of something, and you can prove them wrong right away, you should. That way, they can’t as easily spread it around.”

“As if I would waste my breath speaking about this, this monster,” Ueno spat venomously. 

“Please, sweetie? I just need to take a quick peak.”

Naruto scowled right back at Ueno but passed the bag over. Yusami glanced at the contents, shifting the bag a bit and making a show of ‘searching’ for any ‘stolen goods.’

“Just as I thought. Twenty-eight oranges that are already fully paid for. Nothing stolen at all.”

“Yusami-chan, are you calling me a liar?” the older woman demanded as she passed the bag of food back to Naruto.

“Not at all, Ueno-san,” Yusami assured, saccharine-sweet, “I’m sure you only had the best of intentions in unnecessarily notifying me that one of my other paying customers was a thief. Luckily, it was only a misunderstanding. Thank you, truly, for looking out for my establishment. Now, is there any way I can assist you with your shopping this morning? If there isn’t, then I insist that you return to browsing and leave my other customers be.”

Ueno’s face was rapidly turning red from what Yusami was certain to be a strong combination of embarrassment, anger, and bruised ego. She gaped and sputtered like an out-of-water fish, and just as Yusami gave her one last smile and turned to usher Naruto away, she darted forward and grabbed his bag.

“Give me that!” Ueno yelled, sounding manic.

“Oi! Let go of that, lady. It’s mine!” Naruto shouted back, not letting go of his oranges.

“Ueno-san, you are making a scene,” Yusami pressed, trying to break the two apart but to no success, “If you do not stop this, this tussle, then I must ask you to leave.”

“I will not be made a fool of by the likes of him.”

“I assure you, you need no help whatsoever in that regard.”

Unfortunately, Yusami’s insult seemed to go unnoticed as the blond five-year-old and the fully-grown adult woman continued to play tug-of-war with a bag of oranges. 

“Give. It. Back!” Naruto grunted.

“Let. Me. Have. It!” Ueno shot back.

With one last great tug from both ends, the paper bag (which had held out longer than Yusami expected it to) finally ripped. Nearly thirty oranges fell to the floor and rolled away. Naruto fell on his butt with an ‘oof,’ a few oranges falling into his lap. Ueno wasn’t as lucky and instead fell into the shelf, breaking open a few bags of flour. The powder billowed out, covering Ueno and a large part of the surrounding area.

“Ugh! Look at what that demon did to me! Yusami-chan, I insist that you—”

“Get out.”

“Thank you! You heard her, boy, get—”

“I wasn’t talking to him,” Yusami said, voice steely.

“What?” Ueno said, giving her a dumbfounded look.

“I said get out. I told you, Ueno-san, that if you didn’t stop bothering your fellow customers and making a scene, then I would ask you to leave. You did not heed this warning and instead made a mess of my establishment. Look at yourself.”

Yusami gestured at Ueno, and then at herself. She wasn’t lucky enough to escape the fight unscathed. Her green work apron was now a snowy white; her dark brown hair was powdered like a French wig; her hands were dried and caked with flour that she didn’t even have the joy of baking with. Yusami wished desperately to return home and take a long bubble bath before crawling into bed, and it wasn’t even six in the morning. However, unfortunately for her, she had to deal with this bullshit.

“Get out,” Yusami insisted again, “Before I flag down a pair of patrolling Uchihas and make you.”

Ueno sputtered. “You can’t do this to me!”

“Actually, she can,” came a new voice, and Yusami, Ueno, and Naruto all looked at the end of the aisle to see a man with brown hair and dark brown eyes standing there with a grocery basket hanging from the crook of his elbow. “According to village law number sixty-one, a civilian business or employee retains the right to refuse service to any civilian customer so long as they have due cause. And I assure you, ma’am, that harassing another customer and destroying unbought goods more than qualifies.”

The man’s eyes glinted and his gaze turned challenging. “But if you really, really want to keep pushing this, then I’ll be more than happy to escort you to the Hokage’s office and seek his judgment on the matter. Though he may wonder why a tokubetsu jōnin is bothering himself with something so trivial as a civilian woman refusing to follow the damn law.”

Ueno returned to her fish-sputtering before pushing herself to her feet and storming off. Only when Yusami heard the opening and closing of the doors did she relax and return her attention to her other customers.

“Thank you, shinobi-san,” she said, “Please, enjoy your browsing and let me know if you need anything.”

“Not a problem, miss. Not a problem at all.”

The ninja walked away and Yusami turned back to Naruto. “You alright, sweetie? You’re not hurt, are you?”

“‘M fine, lady.”

“Good. Now, let’s get you a new bag so you can go back and pick out some new oranges.”

“Wah?! No way, lady! I bought those things, they’re mine!”

“Kid, they’ve been sitting on the ground for at least five minutes now. They aren’t exactly sanitary.”

“So?”

“So it’s the ‘mushy’ thing all over again. I don’t want you getting sick, and eating food off the floor is not a good habit if you want to avoid that.”

“But the oranges are still in their containers. They aren’t dirty, they just need to be cleaned before I eat them. Like my chopsticks before I eat a new bowl of ramen.”

“Containers… do you mean their peels?”

“Yeah, those.”

“Sweetie, those peels are still a part of the fruit. They aren’t containers.”

“But they protect the oranges and you aren’t supposed to eat them…. Are you supposed to eat them?”

“What? No. No, don’t eat orange peels.” Yusami realized that the longer this argument went on, the longer she went back and forth with a five-year-old about the semantics of orange peels, the longer she had to accidentally instill some very, very horrible habits into the universe’s main character. Once more deciding that it was too fucking early for this, Yusami ceded her argument and circled back.

“Actually, sweetie, you are right. The oranges should be fine to eat. You just have to wash their containers before you eat them.”

“Just like the ramen chopsticks,” Naruto said, nodding sagely.

“Just like the ramen chopsticks,” she agreed. “Now. Let’s get you a new bag and find your oranges, okay?”

That little chore was easy enough, and soon Naruto had his bag full of twenty-eight oranges again, along with the bag of rice Ueno had slapped out of his hands at the beginning of the fight.

“Hey, lady! Why’re you only taking one light brown paper and two green ones instead of two light brown papers? I thought the rice was two light brown papers.”

“There’s a sale, sweetie. One bag of rice is usually two hundred ryō, but since it’s thirty percent off, you only have to pay one hundred forty.”

“Oh. Okay! Thanks, ‘ttebayo.”

“You’re welcome! Buh-bye, sweetie.”

Yusami waved as Naruto exited the store and nearly jumped as a few bags of rice were slammed onto her check-out area.

“I wanted to be sure to stock up. Since there’s a sale,” the shinobi from earlier teased.

“For customers that have to suffer a Karen with me? Of course there is.”

“‘Suffer a Karin’?”

“You know those ridiculous customers? The ones that make outrageous, self-centered, conceited demands? The ones that have egos larger than Hokage Mountain and throw childish temper tantrums when things don’t go their way? Those are Karens.”

The man snorted in amusement as Yusami rang him up. “Five-hundred-sixty ryō, please. And, again. Thank you so much, shinobi-san.”

“It was nothing,” the man dismissed as he passed Yusami the money, “Thank you for sticking up for another orphan like me. Does the heart good and all that other shit.”

“My, my. You’re quite the poet—”

“Genma. Shiranui Genma.”

“Thank you, Shiranui-san. Please, come again soon.”

The man grabbed his bags of rice and turned for the door. Yusami let out a breath, double-checked to make sure no one else was in the store yet and then darted for the bathroom to scrub the flour off of her hands.

As she was busy picking the powder out from under her nails and cursing Ueno to the Pure Lands and back, Yusami got struck with an idea. A beautiful, glorious, magnificent idea.

She went back to her station and checked over the ingredients she had been mentally flagging earlier. Mind made up, she smiled lightly to herself and pulled out a pen and a piece of paper. 

Whipping cream, instant pudding mix, and duck eggs. 

Now, what else did Ueno usually buy when she was making her specialty cupcakes?

*****

Daiju loved his great-niece dearly, but he wished he had cracked down on her flare for dramatics when he had the chance. By now, though, it was too late and he resigned himself to one day dying of a heart attack, most likely brought on by said dramatics.

“Daiju-oji!” Yusami (who was covered in flour and holding various shopping bags for some unknown reason) screamed as she kicked in the door of their home, “I need you to cover for me at the store for the rest of the week. I’m sorry that it’s so short notice, but I have three days to reverse-engineer a cupcake recipe and I can’t do that when I’m behind a cash register.”

“And why do you need to reverse-engineer a cupcake recipe?” he asked tiredly.

“Because Ueno Mikita is a bitch and deserves to have her entire month ruined.”

Daiju sighed.

“Please, oji-san,” his niece pleaded, “You were going to go in tomorrow anyway. I just need you to add on Thursday and Friday, and then I can take the weekend shift.”

Daiju sighed again. “You know, I offered you a job so I could take fewer workdays and ease myself into retirement. Not so I can flip-flop my schedule at the last minute.”

“Please. I’ll make okonomiyaki for dinner tonight.”

“How is a cupcake recipe even revenge? And why is revenge necessary in the first place?”

Yusami recounted her day at work and her plan to get back at the rude woman who had the audacity to treat a child in such a manner.

“Bury her,” Daiju told his niece by the time she was done. “I’ll take the shifts at the store. Just make sure that woman pays.”

Yusami beamed and shuffled off to the kitchen. Daiju sighed one last time and returned to his puzzle.

Despite the nearly five years that had passed, sometimes when Daiju looked at Yusami, he didn’t see the healthy young lady she was now. Instead, out of the corner of his eye, he’d spot the skin-and-bones wisp of a teenager she had been when she arrived on his doorstep.

There were moments, in the beginning, where he had been afraid that he would lose her too. That on top of having to recover from the loss of his wife, his store, and the countless other damages of the Kyūbi attack, that he would have to see Yusami vanish before his eyes.

Daiju had first-hand experience with what a lack of reliable access to food did to a person. And so he sat there, staring at his puzzle, curiously horrified at what sort of person would ever condone such a thing, in any capacity, against a child. Against a boy not even half the age Yusami had been when he sent a letter to his sister’s family asking for someone to travel across the Land of Fire and assist him in his greatest time of need.

So, yes. Daiju would work those two extra days for Yusami as she enacted her cupcake revenge. Because no child, no person, ever deserved to starve.

*****

At 1300 hours, Hound’s Squad returned to ANBU headquarters. Hound, Scorpion, Lynx, and Zebra all silently watched as Weasel cased the room and set up the privacy seals usual for their line of work. Once Weasel gave the correct all-clear signal and ran through the confirmation codes with all four of his fellow agents, the masks came off and the debrief began.

“You’re getting faster, rookie,” Shiranui ‘Scorpion’ Genma observed, “Thorough, too. I hate how much I agree with the fact that you’re going to be a star on the field.”

“My thanks,” Uchiha ‘Weasel’ Itachi said to the poison specialist, “It is only because of my many teachers and mentors that I am where I am today.”

“Oh, don’t play the demure card,” Namiashi ‘Zebra’ Raidou scoffed, “You’ve broken all of our honorable captain’s prodigious records. The least you can do is brag a little bit.”

“Gentlemen,” Uzuki ‘Lynx’ Yuugao snapped, drawing the room’s attention to her, “The debriefing, please. I have other things to do today.”

“What, got a hot date with Coyote?”

In the time it took for Hound to blink, Lynx had her sword drawn and the tip pointed against Scorpion’s throat. “Unless you wish to throw the first stone, I would not speak in such a manner. Especially when you stand tall in such a fragile glass house.”

Lynx very pointedly did not look at Zebra, and Scorpion’s teasing smirk fell from his lips. “Fine. Hound’s Squad relieved Puma’s Squad from jinchuuriki duty at 0400 hours.”

“The jinchuuriki’s alarm went off at 0430. He awoke, dressed quickly, consumed one orange fruit for breakfast, gathered the stipend Hokage-sama deposited yesterday, and found himself outside Bountiful Harvest Grocer’s in time for it to open at 0500,” Zebra continued.

“The jinchuuriki entered the store and was assisted by the store clerk in choosing and paying for his produce. He bought twenty-eight orange fruits and decided to continue browsing the store.”

“Civilian Ueno Mikita made contact and engaged the jinchuuriki in a physical and verbal confrontation between 0520 and 0525. The store clerk came to assist by 0527,” Lynx said, “The store clerk tried and failed to de-escalate the situation, and was forced to remove Ueno Mikita with the assistance of Scorpion. The jinchuuriki collected his oranges and bought one fifteen-pound bag of white rice at a discount.”

“The jinchuuriki returned to his place of living, stored his purchases, and left to travel through the village. He engaged twelve civilian and five shinobi locals in various humourous altercations before returning to his home to make and eat lunch. Gibbon’s Squad came to relieve us just as he finished eating his ramen,” Weasel finished before adding, “Agent Weasel would like to inquire something of the captain?”

“Continue,” Hound said with a nod.

“Why was Scorpion’s break in orders not a part of the report? We are ordered to never engage personally with the jinchuuriki unless absolutely necessary and to especially never allow our identities to be seen by the jinchuuriki. Should Scorpion not be punished?”

“Shinobi rule number seventy-three: if doing so does not endanger a mission, a shinobi is encouraged to assist any Konohagakure civilian in need. Civilian Yusami needed assistance in dismissing Civilian Ueno Mikita. Scorpion assisted her. Scorpion did not directly assist the jinchuuriki. No orders were breached.”

“While the letter of the mission may have been upheld, the spirit of it was not. Should there not be consequences for that?”

Zebra and Lynx joined their captain in silently glaring down Weasel, while Scorpion laughed. 

“I know you’re new at this, kid,” he said between chuckles, “But you’re going to learn very quickly that some shinobi, especially of our caliber, have got their own personal set of ninja rules. Never ask another shinobi to break them, especially if you’re already aware of their lines in the sand. Because trust me: once you’ve seen and done the shit we have, there’s a real fine line between loyal comrade—”

Between one breath and the next, Scorpion had thrown a dozen senbon right at Weasel. The younger ANBU agent dodged them, but Scorpion had predicted Weasel’s movements and thrown another dozen right where he would land. Weasel was now pinned, the sleeves of his shirt and the legs of his pants holding to the floor. Scorpion was there in a flash, a kunai held to his throat. 

“—and missing nin. Now. I haven’t crossed that line.”

Scorpion dropped the kunai and used chakra threads to pluck his senbon out of the ground. 

“I respect and appreciate all of my fellows, including you.”

Scorpion helped Weasel to his feet and dusted off his shoulder. 

“But—” Scorpion grabbed Weasel’s shoulder and squeezed. “—that can change real fast if someone starts an inquiry against me for indirectly assisting a kid who needed help. At the end of the day, the mission was completed, the jinchuuriki remains unaware of us, and the world keeps turning. So take my advice, Weasel, and let it go.”

Scorpion removed his hands from Weasel’s shoulders. The younger ANBU agent looked over Scoripion, took in Lynx, Zebra, and Hound’s continued silence, and then nodded. “Is there anything else for me, captain?”

Hound shook his head. “Dismissed. You’re heading to T&I to shadow Rhino and Mongoose next.”

“Understood,” and with a quick dismantling of the seals, Weasel was gone.

The four remaining agents waited a moment before activating privacy seals of their own.

“Did you have to be so intense with it, Scorpion?” Zebra asked.

“He’s an eleven-year-old asshole who thinks he knows how the world works just because he’s got the shinobi rule book memorized. Yes, I had to go that hard. Itachi’s naïveté is going to get someone killed. Or do you honestly believe the Sandaime wouldn’t have me thrown to Rhino and Mongoose’s gentle mercies if he thought I was fucking around with the jinchuuriki in any capacity? Even if it was just to help?”

“Are we sure he’s not one of Danzou’s?” Lynx asked. The entirety of ANBU had been wondering the same since the boy had been assigned to their corps two months ago. “No one that young should be here, no matter the innate talent. Not when he’s untested in any major missions nor has been faced with any truly tough decisions. And especially not when he’s a clan heir. A noble clan heir at that. A little extra pressure on the Hokage from the right man can go a long way.”

“Crow vouched for him,” Zebra countered, “And so did his predecessor.”

“Crow’s compromised and Weasel’s predecessor said that he would make a good agent when he was older. Not now.”

“And if his predecessor didn’t approve, why haven’t they come back out of retirement and kicked the kid back to the chuunin corps, huh? Sage knows we’d welcome them back with open arms.”

“And Sage knows they deserve to live out the rest of their days in peace. We’d have to drag them back kicking and screaming, and knowing them, we’d just get ourselves gutted for our efforts.”

“Enough.” Lynx, Scorpion, and Zebra clicked their mouths shut at the sound of their captain’s voice. “Regardless of the circumstances behind it, Weasel is one of us now, and I will not hear any protests against him.”

“Yes, sir,” the other three acknowledged petulantly.

“If Weasel’s one of Danzou’s, then Puma and I will handle it. You three are to spread the word that you are not to treat the kid with any suspicion. He is just like any other rookie recruit. If Danzou truly does have his claws sunk in already, then isolating Weasel will not encourage him to let us help. And if that old bastard doesn’t, then your childish behavior might just be the thing that pushes him into his waiting arms. At most, you are to sit, wait, listen, and come to either Puma, the commander, or me if you learn something. That’s an order.”

Lynx, Scorpion, and Zebra all straightened out and stood tall. “Yes, sir!” They said with much more enthusiasm.

Hound made eye contact with all of them before giving another stiff nod. “Dismissed.”

The three ANBU agents left their captain. In the silent bubble of privacy seals, Hatake “Hound” Kakashi finally removed his mask and cradled his head in his hands. He pushed his hands through his hair, leaned back, and sighed a deep, tired sigh in the empty room.

Kakashi wanted to crack open his copy of the newest Icha Icha novel and let himself get lost in the story.

He wanted to hunt down Gai and let himself get pulled into a stupid challenge, like which of them could traverse the Forest of Death the fastest with only five shuriken or who could perform the most one-finger push-ups in an hour.

He wanted, desperately, to see his father, his sensei, or Kushina-nee again and ask them their advice. To turn to the three wisest people he knew and spill out his problems with a whimpered ‘What do I do?’ before inevitably getting pulled into a tight embrace and being reassured that they would help him figure this out. He wanted Rin to give him a sweet smile and encourage him to take heart. He wanted Obito to slap him upside the head, call him a bastard, and tell him he’d solve the problem because ‘Baka-shi was too stupid to do it himself.’

Hatake Kakashi wanted a great many things, but he was a shinobi to his core and, for shinobi, the village always came first.

If Uchiha Itachi had gotten himself mixed up in ROOT, Kakashi would have to be there to pull him out, just like he did for Tenzō. He wouldn’t let another kid this young get mixed up in this aspect of the shinobi world. Not like he did.

The matter of Weasel, though, was a matter of patience. There was nothing he could do but wait.

His other problem, on the other hand…

Hound put his mask back on and made his way to the ANBU-clearance-level archives.

“Yusami, hm? Now, what’s made you so different from the other civilians of Konoha?

Chapter Text

"Take up good deeds only as much as you are able, for the best deeds are those done regularly even if they are few."

- Hadith on Habits.

*****

After six straight hours of baking and four hours of sleep, Yusami wakes up at sunrise the next morning smelling like a cask of vanilla. She drags herself out of bed, showers, gets dressed, and then packs up two dozen of the fully frosted cupcakes and heads out, intent on running her reverse-engineered recipe through the usual gauntlet.

While the revenge motivation is new, Yusami’s attempts to recreate a recipe are most certainly not. Yusami had grown up for a second time in a small, backwater civilian village that hadn’t had electricity or running water, let alone modern ovens, stoves, and the “regular” food that could be found in Konoha. Hell, until she was newly eight years old, Yusami had been convinced that she had been reborn into some version of feudal Japan, not the Naruto universe. If she hadn’t seen Chousaki that day, dressed in her chuunin vest, ninja fishnets, and hitai-ate, she probably would’ve continued to believe the feudal Japan theory until Daiju-oji’s letter arrived.

Coming to Konoha had been a culture shock in more ways than one. Honestly, little fifteen-year-old Yusami had been more blown away by the easy access to cranberry juice than she had the ninja stuff. After all, the existence of cranberry juice implied 1.) that the Naruto universe had access to cranberries, a fruit native to North America, 2.) the industrialization to process, package, and sell the juice, which was shocking for a girl who hadn’t seen plastic in over a decade, and 3.) an economy complex and stable enough to allow international trade, as Konoha did not have the right climate to grow cranberries. The ninja bullshit, on the other hand, was to be expected, and Yusami had barely batted an eye the first time she saw someone walk up a wall.

With the discovery of long-missed ingredients, Yusami had spent the better part of the past five years recreating dishes from her past life. She had damn near cried when she had perfected her tortellini recipe and had bawled when she finally got the alfredo sauce and garlic bread down. The five-course Italian dinner she made that week would’ve done her nonna proud.

Pulling herself out of her musings, she pulled down the ladder on the fire escape and started climbing up to her friend’s apartment. With a knock on the window, Yusami didn’t have to wait long before a bedraggled Iruka let her in.

“Did you fall asleep at your desk again?” Yusami asked as she passed him the containers of cupcakes and swung her legs through the window. “Your poor neck is going to give out one day if you keep up that habit.”

“I’ll stop once I’ve got a position at the academy—”

“No you won’t.”

“—and complete my fuuinjutsu mastery.”

“You know, most people are content to have one career, ‘Ruka. They don’t really need two.” Yusami rolled her eyes at his neutral shrug. “At least tell me you’re quitting that part-time gig at the mission desk.”

Iruka refused to meet her eyes, which was all the answer she needed.

“You’re going to work yourself into an early grave. Learn to take a break.”

“In case it escaped your notice, ‘Sami, a lifetime career as a ninja is not cheap. Every little ryō counts.”

“Just because you don’t have a fancy clan to back you up doesn’t mean you’ve got nobody, Iruka. Mizuki’s a little bitch, but Anko’s awesome. And there’s no way Daiju-oji and I would ever let you starve.”

“The shinobi life is my calling, Yusami. I couldn’t give that up if I tried.”

“If you don’t let up and let yourself rest, your body might decide to give up for you,” she grumbled before taking back one of the containers and cracking it open. “Cupcake?” she offered.

Iruka’s eyes lit up as he took one. “You spoil me, ‘Sami.”

“On a scale of one to ten, how much does it taste like Ueno Mikita’s secret recipe?”

“Wha’?” he asked around a mouthful of cake. He swallowed quickly and wiped at his mouth. “Who am I comparing this to?”

“Ueno Mikita. Wife of a merchant. Upper-middle class. Kind of civilian-famous for her kickass cupcakes. The type of woman to harass a five-year-old orphan right in front of me because she dislikes his general attitude. Ringing any bells?”

“Ah,” Iruka said, nodding at the description, “Only from afar. I think she’s got a son who would’ve been in my class if I stayed in the civilian school. Sorry, can’t help you. Never had any of those ‘civilian-famous’ cupcakes.”

“Damn it, ‘Ruka! What good does your civilian background do if you can’t help me screw a few people over?!”

“Sorry,” he said, taking another bite, “I can prank them if you want?”

“No, it’s fine. This is why the taste-testing gauntlet has more than one phase. Comparison aside, how are they, one to ten?”

“Twelve, as your usual stuff is,” Iruka said, grabbing another, “Don’t mean to presume, but…”

“You get four total. I’m swinging by Traveler’s Plaza, so I’ll need at least a dozen for that crowd and a few for Anko.”

“Got it.” Iruka grabbed two more cupcakes before closing the tin and passing the two containers back to her. “Thanks for waking me up. I’m student-teaching today and I probably would have slept through my alarm if you hadn’t.”

“You can thank me by quitting one of your jobs and fixing your sleep schedule,” she grumbled again, “But barring that, at least sleep in your bed next time. Your back will thank you.”

“I’ll try, ‘Sami,” he said with an eye roll, “I’d get going if I were you. T&I changes shift in less than an hour.”

“Thanks,” she said, hoisting herself back out of the window and onto the fire escape, “See you later, Iruka!”

And with that, she was off, traveling away from the ninja apartment buildings and into the heart of Konoha.

*****

Iruka finished off his second cupcake and put the remaining two in the fridge for later. He stretched out, fully trying to wake himself up, and stumbled into the bathroom, catching sight of himself in the mirror.

“Damn it, Yusami. You could’ve told me I had ink on my face,” he groaned, grabbing a washcloth and beginning his attempts to remove the highly classified seal from his cheek.

‘It’s what you get for falling asleep at your desk again,’ he could practically hear Yusami scold, ‘You wouldn’t have this problem if you didn’t overwork yourself.’

Iruka mentally told Yusami to put a sock in it as he scrubbed a little harder at the ink. While he highly, highly doubted any of his students could decipher the complex fuuinjutsu, Iruka knew if he walked down the street with state secrets inked on his face, he’d be rounded up and put in the wrong side of a T&I cell in minutes. 

‘Don’t blame Yusami,’ Iruka told himself, ‘She doesn’t know any better. And if she did, then she’d be a spy from an enemy village.’

Yusami and her uncle were, to date, the only purely civilian connections Iruka had in his life. After his parents died and he entered himself into the academy, Iruka had had little reason to maintain connections to his old life. To be fair, most of those connections he was supposed to ‘maintain’ had cut him out first. Once his parents were buried, all of his neighbors and other associated adults told him that he had their greatest sympathies before shuffling him off to the now extremely overcrowded orphanage.

Iruka couldn’t have signed up for the academy fast enough. The stipend allotted to perspective ninjas was added to his stipend for being an orphan. And while he had enough to purchase his necessary ninja gear, he had none left over for extra groceries that the usual academy student would require. So, he just had to make do with the truly pitiful amount of food the orphanage would serve at breakfast and dinner.

It was in his final year of the academy that Iruka met Yusami. He was thirteen, almost fourteen, and graduation was three months away. Iruka had been pushing himself to the limit trying to keep up with his peers. And while his quick wits had allowed him to skip the younger grades, he still had to master the Academy Three and pass the graduation exam. Which was…. difficult when he had civilian-level chakra and not enough food to fuel the production for more. Day in and day out, Iruka came back to the orphanage more and more exhausted. The screaming cries of the babies at night disrupted his sleep, and the orphanage food was too cheap and picked over to give him much sustenance. 

It all came to a head one day when Iruka and a few of the other older kids had been instructed by the orphanage matron to go pick up the weekly food donations. He had been directed towards a place called Bountiful Harvest Grocer’s, the building newly renovated after the Kyuubi attack. He hardly made it a few steps through the door before he was directed to a room in the back, told to wait, and passed out.

Iruka came to to the sound of sizzling and the smell of something sweet wafting through the air.

“Oh, good. You’re up,” came a voice. Iruka looked up to see a girl not much older or taller than him dressed in an apron and holding a wooden spatula in her hand. “You got any allergies?”

“No,” he croaked out, voice rough, “What happened?”

“Your scrawny ass passed out. Haven’t been eating too well, have you?”

“Like you’re one to talk,” he shot back, ninja-trained observation skills kicking in. The girl was much too thin, and her wrist much too bony, for the suspected age range she was in.

The girl just shrugged. “I know I need to gain weight. I just didn’t know if you knew you needed to. There something stopping you from eating more?”

“I’d like to see you try and get more than one scoop of rice each night with two dozen other orphans trying to steal it right out from under you.”

“Figures,” the girl drawled. She left the room for a moment and returned with a plate filled with cubes of brown-orange stuff on it. “I’m trying a new recipe. What’s the score, one to ten?”

Iruka took the offered plate and the matching chopsticks, and hesitantly took a bite out of one of the cubes. His mouth was met with a warm, soft bite of cinnamon and caramel. Iruka had to stop himself from racing through the rest of it and licking the plate clean.

“So, score one to ten?” the girl asked with a bit of a giggle.

“Twelve,” Iruka insisted, “What was that?”

“Glazed sweet potato,” she answered, taking the plate back, “I’ll get you another serving.”

Iruka ate the second plate more slowly, savoring the taste. The girl introduced herself as Yusami and told him about coming to Konoha to work for her uncle. Iruka told his sob story about the Kyuubi and the orphaning, playing on the tragedy just a little to see if he could get some more food out of it. Yusami’s eyes had gone wide as he talked, and she stumbled to the kitchen and back with more food, trying to give herself time to process Iruka’s info-dumping.

“You know,” she said hesitantly, “I’m supposed to be doing my fair share of the house chores, along with working in the grocery store. Would you mind letting me practice with you? I feel like bento-making might be a good way to get used to being in a kitchen like this.”

Iruka grinned, and went back to the orphanage that day with extra donations and a bento. Every day after he finished at the academy, he’d return the bento box to Yusami, who’d swap it for a new one filled with the next day’s lunch. Iruka would talk about what he had learned and the pranks he had pulled that day, and Yusami would smile and nod and beg him to tell her more. On graduation day, she and her uncle dragged him out to Icharaku’s for ramen, and she’d met him at the village gate the day he came back from the Yuki chuunin exams with a green vest around his shoulders.

So was Iruka surprised that Yusami was going to such lengths at the behest of a random orphan she didn’t even know? No, not in the slightest.

After all, she’d already done it once for him.

(Iruka did, in the end, set up a prank for Ueno Mikita before he got to the academy that day. The woman screamed like a banshee when she stepped out of the shower with sickening green hair and chunks already falling out. Iruka wasn’t mean enough to use permanent, damage-causing acid on a civilian, but that particular blend could only be countered by shaving the head completely and letting the hair grow back.

Iruka wondered if she would figure that out before the supposedly grand potluck on Friday.)

*****

Yusami’s next stop was T&I, a building that most civilians avoided like the plague.

For all that shinobi were hailed as the protectors and saviors of the village, there was still a level of fear to be had when a civilian encountered one in the ‘wild.’ T&I specialists, in particular, were unanimously considered to be the scariest subset of ninja there was. And if the other ninja considered them scary, the poor civilians were prone to wetting themselves in their presence. 

Yusami wasn’t immune to this fear, not by any means. It’s just that she had a level of protection, at least in Konoha. And that protection came in the form of the excitable, manic woman bounding towards her.

“Yusami!” Anko cried, picking her up and swinging her around in a hug, “What brings you to our humble lobby today?”

“Running the taste-testing gauntlet, and you’re up. Cupcake?”

Anko gasped in delight and almost dropped her. Yusami laughed and cracked open the cupcake tin, offering it up to the konoichi. She grabbed one, unwrapped it, and took a bite.

“Mm-mm-mm~” she groaned in ecstasy, “I’ve never had better. You’ve gotta’ try it, Ibiki!”

Yusami sheepishly offered up the tin to the stoic man approaching them. He nodded at her, picked up a cupcake, pulled a kunai, and cut it into even quarters. After carefully inspecting each quarter, he chose whichever one was his favorite and popped it in his mouth.

“Delicious,” he said, voice deadpan.

Anko squealed and tugged at his arm. “See! What’ve I also told you? Yusami’s the best damn baker in Konoha.”

Yusami blushed at the praise and shoved the tin of six cupcakes into Anko’s arms. “You ever have Ueno Mikita’s cupcakes?” she asked, trying to distract her friend.

“Once or twice,” she said, returning her attention to her, “Why, what’s up?”

“Revenge plot. Scale of one to ten, how similar are those cupcakes to hers?”

“Solid eight-point-four,” Anko said without batting an eye. “Yours are better, obviously. And Ueno does something weird with the texture. Adds sprinkles to the batter, I think.”

Yusami pulled out a pen and wrote ‘add sprinkles to batter,’ onto her hand. “Thank you. I heard from Iruka that you’re just getting off shift, so I’ll get out of your hair and let you rest.”

“Can I have some more cup—”

“You can have three more. I gave Iruka four, so you get four.”

Anko eyed the tin and then turned pleadingly to her. “Can’t I have the rest? ‘Ruka doesn’t have to know. And besides, I can indoctrinate the rookie and spread the tale of your kickass baking with the rest of the world.”

Yusami gave her an unimpressed look before turning to Ibiki.

“Is the rookie even real or is she just making them up to wheedle more treats out of me?”

Anko gasped. “Lies and slander! I would never, Yusami-chan—”

“The rookie exists,” Ibiki reassured her, “Though I don’t blame you for being wary. Something tells me she’s pulled something like this before.”

“Traitors, the both of you!”

Yusami rolled her eyes fondly at the woman. “Fine. But give at least one to the rookie. Ibiki-san will tell me if you don’t.”

“Fine,” she huffed, taking the half-dozen cupcakes out of the tin and gently placing them into a side bag Yusami suspected to be sealed in some way. “We have to catch up soon. Wine & Icha Icha sometime this weekend?”

“I’m picking up Daiju-oji’s shifts. I’m free Tuesday, though.”

“Tuesday it is!” 

Anko hugged her one more time and then ushered her out the door. “Just remembered, gotta take care of something real quick, byeloveyoubye!”

Yusami laughed as she was all but shoved out the door of T&I.

Two phases of the gauntlet down, one more to go.

With a smile and a bit of a skip in her step, Yusami made her way to Traveler’s Plaza.

*****

Anko scowled at the rookie as she traded her second bonus cupcake for the incident report Weasel had been filling out.

“You are too fucking young to be a hardass,” she griped, mentally bemoaning the sweet, sweet cupcake she had lost.

“Shinobi rule number eighty-one: never trust a foreign source of food without testing it first.”

“Oh, you don’t have to recount that rule to me, you trippy bitch.”

“And yet you still made an elementary mistake.”

Anko gnashed her teeth, knuckles whitening as the Cursed Seal thrummed under her skin, pushing her to tap into that power and put the Uchiha upstart back in his place. That impulse quieted as she felt a strong hand brush against her shoulder.

“Take a walk, Mongoose,” Ibiki said, his voice tipping past the Rhino threshold, “He doesn’t know. I’ll straighten him out. Go enjoy your next few days off. Don’t forget the cupcakes.”

Anko let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, spun on her heel, and stalked out of T&I.

Rationally, Anko knew that Weasel hadn’t meant anything by his comments. The kid hadn’t even been out of the academy a month before Sensei up and abandoned the village. He had had zero part to play in the shitshow that followed, but his words had still hit a little too close to home.

Before Sensei left, Anko had been the darling of Research and Development; the personal student of one of the Sannin; the bright-eyed chuunin who was going to invent a dozen jutsu, synthesize twenty new poisons, or push the biological capabilities of shinobi to its limit. She knew every scientist in that lab by both name and specialty, and could be relied upon to be a second brain/soundboard/assistant to whoever needed it. Anko had been preparing to take on her first ever project by herself: the creation of a poison specifically crafted to deal with poison specialists. She had been waiting for the seal of approval from the Hokage, but Sensei assured her that both her idea and methods were sure to pass board.

And then Sensei was gone.

Sensei abandoned the village, leaving a trail of children’s corpses in their wake, and Anko’s life was over.

She had spent three months in a T&I cell cut off from anybody she ever knew. She hadn’t known why was she was there, at first. Hadn’t even known it was Konoha that had her, even. For the first week all anyone ever asked her were ‘where was Orochimaru?’, ‘what was Orochimaru planning?’, ‘what has Orochimaru taught you?’. Anko honest-to-Sage thought she had been nabbed by Iwa, Kumo, or Kiri, and that it was just an enemy village wanting to squeeze a Sannin’s pupil for all they were worth.

And then after that first week, Sarutobi-jiji came down into the cells, pulled Anko out, brought her to his office, told her what had happened, and poured her a cup of tea.

“Please, Anko,” the wizend old man had told her, “Help us find your teacher before he does something even worse.”

“They,” Anko corrected automatically, before she could stop herself, “Sensei uses they/them.”

“Priorities, Anko-chan,” he berated. And then, “More tea?”

He refilled her cup, sweetening it with copious amounts of sugar and honey, just how she liked it. He passed the cup to Anko, who sipped at it before saying, “I’m sorry, Sarutobi-jiji. I really am. But I don’t know anything about what Sensei was planning.”

“Nothing?” he had pressed, “Not even about children he kidnapped and experimented on?”

Anko shook her head. “I’m sorry, but no. Nothing.”

“That is a shame,” he had sighed, “I thought you would be smarter than this, Anko-chan.”

“Sarutobi-jiji?” she asked. She noticed, quietly, that there was a small tremor in her hands. She placed the teacup back on the table before she dropped it.

“Take her back to the cells,” the Hokage said, turning away from her, “Let us see if she’ll be more willing to talk after the new dose.”

“Sarutobi-jiji, I really didn’t know!” Anko cried as the Hokage guards barged in and started to pull her away. 

“I don’t believe you,” he said as she got dragged away, “But who knows: maybe your interrogators will.”

That started the cycle. Anko would spend a few days in the cells, undergoing what she would later learn to be the ‘usual’ stages of escalation, Yamanaka mind techniques included. After the T&I specialists were done with her, they’d send in a medic to patch her up and let her rest for a day. And then they would pretty her up and the Hokage would call her to his office to gently ask her about what Sensei had planned. Inevitably, she insisted that she did. Not. Know. The Hokage would then hem and haw before slipping her a new poison or drug and sending her back to the cells.

Anko stopped eating in the Hokage’s presence after a while. This was quickly observed by the interrogative peanut gallery, and the next time she was pulled, she was met face-to-face with another R&D member.

Anko had been so relieved to see another familiar, sympathetic face that she, like a fucking fool, hadn’t even noticed the poison being sprinkled like salt onto her chili rice. That nice little sampler had contained a solid amount of castor bean. Anko could tell by the way her head went light, her pulse went heavy, and her circulatory system went into shock.

The next time she was pulled, new R&D member, new poison. Rinse and fucking repeat.

The nail in the coffin, though, was when they had to pull a bright-eyed medical-science genin (she hadn’t known that Kabuto kid, but she thinks she might just kill him if she ever sees him again) to give her a sample of her own fucking poison. While Anko had been trapped in hell, letting her comrades pick her apart as she spouted nothing but the Kami-damned truth, the Hokage had let someone else construct her first masterpiece.

They must have followed her instructions to the letter, to, because that milliliter of liquid death had taken her out of commission for two weeks. Not even the medic-nins could pull her out of it. Anko had been trapped in her own body, unable to move and unable to make the pain stop. 

When she finally, finally came back to herself, she scowled at the interrogators and medics that rushed her. “Let me the fuck out of here.”

“You dare make demands of us—”

“I specifically designed that poison to weaken an enemy-nin enough for the Yamanakas to have easy pickings. It makes the victim a mental sludge who can’t do so much as think about begging for the pain to stop. I was out for a week, at least. If you didn’t have half-a-dozen mind-walkers cataloging my every spark of imagination, then I’ve been held and tortured by the most incompetent shinobi on the planet.”

Anko was released within the hour.

“I do regret wasting your, and everyone else’s, time,” the Hokage said to Anko as she was waiting for someone to bring her her things, “You do understand that there was nothing personal about it, don’t you? We had to be thorough, and ensure that no threats remained within the village walls. We can’t have ninja that sympathize with traitors.”

“I understand completely, Hokage-sama,” she said, with a dead tone, “Now, if you please, I would like to take my six months of leave to recuperate to the best of my abilities.”

“Of course, Anko-chan—”

“Mitarashi, if you please, Hokage-sama. I am a chuunin, not a genin, in case you’ve forgotten. I feel it is more… appropriate.”

Anko collected her things and walked home by herself. 

When she learned a few months later that the Hokage had the chance to kill her Sensei and that he let them go out of sentimentality, Anko punched a hole through her wall.

‘Can’t have ninja that sympathize with traitors’ her ass.

After that, Anko couldn’t return to R&D. Science, after all, was a collaborative affair, and she could no longer trust any of her associates. Nor could she find her footing in the chuunin corps. She may have been proven innocent and released with a clean record, but the damage had been done. She was now the student of a traitor and a potential sleeper agent. No regular chuunin wanted anything to do with that.

The worst part of it all, though, was that Anko just… couldn’t eat. She couldn’t go and get takeout, she couldn’t buy a stick of dango, she couldn’t even accept an unopened ration packet from a fellow ninja. She couldn’t even eat spicy food. She loved spicy food, and now….

And now the only things Anko could stomach, the only things she could trust, were the things she hunted, gathered, and cooked with her own two hands.

A week-and-a-half before her fifteenth birthday, Anko found herself in a civilian grocery store, staring at the reusable dango sticks on display. The inconspicuous box brought forth memory after memory of Sensei taking her out for dango after every time she mastered a new jutsu. Of the days she could just sit in the shade with her head on Sensei’s lap as they read through a dusty scroll they had dug up from somewhere.

(Sage, how she missed Sensei.)

(Sage, how she loathed them.)

“If you’re going to make dango, I’d go for the sweet rice flour over the normal stuff,” a voice said from Anko’s left. She turned her head to see a nondescript civilian woman stocking shelves. “It makes them taste even sweeter.”

“Just, just looking,” Anko said with a pathetic sniffle, “I don’t even know how to make dango, anyway.”

“Oh,” the civilian said before she shrugged, grabbed a few more boxes, and placed them on the shelves. “Would you like to learn how?”

Anko, somehow, got corralled back to the civilian’s kitchen to get a crash course on dango-making. The dough balls were wonky and lop-sided on the skewers, but she hadn’t tasted anything so sweet in a long, long, long time.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” the civilian woman asked.

“Yeah,” Anko said. She pulled another piece of dango off a skewer with her teeth. “‘M just… tired.”

“If you say so,” the civilian said, washing her hands in the kitchen sink. 

The two let the silence hang heavy before Anko asked, “Do you know how to make onigiri?”

The civilian woman paused. “Yes.”

“...can you teach me?”

“Is there anything else you’d like to learn?”

Anko’s mind flashed to Sensei and the few times they had both collapsed in their private library, only to wake up with a sore back and Sensei cooking breakfast in the other room.

(Why hadn’t Sensei stayed?)

(Why hadn’t they taken her with them?)

“Tamagoyaki?”

“Sure. Sure, I can teach you how to cook onigiri and tamagoyaki.”

And that’s how Anko got cooking and baking lessons from the best chef in the village. 

Watching Yusami dance around her kitchen reminded Anko of Sensei in the labs. She was so wholly in her element that if felt like she could do anything, create anything. Yusami would pile the most random ingredients onto her countertops and emerge an hour later with a dish Anko could never have dreamed of.

And Anko… she could eat it.

It started with, of all things, a plate of squid ink ravioli. Anko had never heard of ravioli before, and while she knew some crazies in Kiri put squid ink in their food, she had never tried it. It had a clean taste to it: salty and briny and light. She’d never tasted anything like it, and the one cautious bite borne of pure curiosity turned into an entirely devoured plate.

“You know, the species the fishmongers have to extract the ink from is apparently venomous.”

“Why would you tell me that?!” Anko screeched, spitting out her last mouthful of food.

“You deserved to know,” Yusami shrugged, “‘Sides, it’s not like the ink’ll kill you, just the actual venom. It’s better to know sometimes, you know?”

Anko contemplated those words for a few days until she hunted down Ibiki.

“I want to shadow you in T&I.”

The man didn’t say anything, just looked her over and shrugged. “Why? Figured you’d want to avoid it, given your… history.”

“I want— I need —to know about what happened to me, about what your merry men get off on doing. I can’t remember half of my time in that cell, and I need to understand. I need to be able to look at your methods and be able to say ‘Well that’s fucked up, but I survived it. Save it for the therapist and move on.’ You and your people stole so much from me and I just… maybe, this way, I can steal something back.”

Ibiki looked her over again before pulling out a scrap of paper and writing a date on it. “Swing by then. Let’s see if we can’t get you some answers.”

Anko found her answers, alright. What’s more, she found her groove.

Nothing could replace inventing in the labs with Sensei, nor could it replicate Yusami teaching her the difference between frying and sauteing. But the kooks at T&I were just her brand of crazy, and innovating with them was fun, even if she didn’t trust most of them farther than she could through them.

She was good at her what she did, and when Ibiki approached her one day with a job opportunity, she found that she was even better in ANBU, and that she could trust them a whole lot more.

Anko still couldn’t buy a skewer of dango off the street. She still couldn’t stomach spicy food. But that was okay.

Because Puma could grow her honeysuckle to snack on when they were stuck on jinchuuriki duty.

Because Owl drew her a sealing matrix that goes off whenever it notices poison in her drink.

Because before every shared assignment, Scorpion hands her an antidote to every poison he’s carrying.

Because Hound lets her borrow his books whenever she wants to have a Wine & Icha Icha night.

Because Rhino can slip her an unopened ration packet and she can eat it without a care.

Because Yusami can swing by at the end of her shift to drop off a fresh batch of cupcakes.

(So, yeah. Weasel can take his half-finished incident report and fuck right off. Anko doesn’t need to cut open a sweet just to prove her best friend would never poison her.)

*****

Yusami darts through the doors of Traveler’s Plaza right when it opens at eleven. 

“Welcome back, Yusami!” 

“Thank you, Chouei-san,” she says with a bow, “Are Chousaki, Inochin, and Shika in yet?”

“Oh, you know you’re too early for that crowd,” Chouei said with a wag of his finger, “What’s got you all distracted today?”

“Running the taste-testing gauntlet!”

“Oh, wonderful! What’ve you got for us?”

“The closest recreation I could get to Ueno Mikita’s cupcakes.”

“Now that’s a pretty ambitious recipe. And speaking of recipes…”

“Sorry to disappoint, but I’m paying with money today, Chouei-san.”

“Ah, well. A man had to try. What can I get for you?”

“Can you do a chicken-bacon-ranch panini?”

“One of your specialty sandwiches, coming right up!”

Yusami took a seat as Chouei got to work. Traveler’s Plaza was one of the many, many  Konoha restaurants owned by the Akimichi clan. Rather than dedicating to one specific menu, such as Yakiniku Q did with barbeque, it instead focused on a rotating menu serving food from various different elemental nations. This made Traveler’s Plaza a very popular dining establishment for visiting dignitaries and traveling merchants, and the small but wealthy customer base easily kept it afloat.

This all meant, of course, that Traveler’s Plaza was out of Yusami’s usual price range. She, however, had a very good system with Chouei, the owner. One ‘original’ recipe for one cooked meal. And if it was good enough to add to the menu, Yusami got a permanent discount. The system worked out real well for her.

After all, it was easy to come up with something ‘original’ when she had recipe book’s full of dishes from another world.

She felt a stocky, warm weight bowl into her legs, and Yusami laughed even as she had to catch herself on the bartop to keep upright.

“I see you’re on nibling duty again,” she said with a smile and a wave to the three adults and two kids that walked through the door.

“Sorry. My nephew saw you through the window and insisted that we stop and say hi,” said Chousaki, nodding down at Chouji, who was still hugging her legs.

“That and he knew you’d have food.”

“What have we talked about in regards to tact, nephew mine?” Shika asked Shikamaru, who was holding onto her hand.

“Hn. Troublesome.”

Shika sighed and met Yusami’s eyes, giving a very clear ‘what can you do?’ look. Yusami giggled at her plight.

“Do you have food today, Yusami-san?” Little Ino asked from her place on her uncle’s shoulders.

“Food? No. Dessert? Yes.”

The three kids lit up and started begging their respective adult for permission to ask Yusami for whatever treat she had made.

“Hm,” Inochin considered thoughtfully, “Would your parents be alright with this development?”

“Yes!” they insisted. 

“Are you sure?” Chousaki grinned, having caught on to her friend’s idea and deciding to play along.

“YES!”

“Are you really, really, really sure?” Shika asked.

Shikamaru snapped first. “Just let us have the dessert, woman!”

Shika gave him an unimpressed stare. “Just for that, the answer is no.”

“Shika!” Ino wailed, climbing down her uncle like a monkey, “You moron! Now we can’t have any of Yusami-san’s awesome dessert!”

The adults laughed as Ino started to chase Shikamaru around the restaurant. Yusami heard a giggle at her feet and knew Chouji found it funny, too.

“What did you make, anyway, Miss Yusami?” he asked.

“Cupcakes. Maybe you can get one after lunch.”

“And only if you eat all your vegetables,” Chousaki said, “Just to balance out the sugar.”

Chouji nodded at his aunt. “Okay.”

Yusami thanked Chouei when he came over with her panini. “Care to join me?”

“You know it,” Chousaki said, ushering them all over to a free table, “Let’s just let the kids get their energy out, first.”

There was a holler and a yelp as Ino tackled Shikamaru to the ground.

“You know children: so excitable.”

*****

Chousaki couldn’t believe her eyes as she took in the thin girl standing at the village gate.

“Chousaki. Chousaki,” Inochin called, bumping elbows with her, “What gotten into you?”

“It’s her,” Chousaki said, breathless, “Sage, Buddha, and Kami, it’s really her.”

“Who?” Shika asked, looking up from her book.

“Her.”

Chousaki’s tone caught the attention of her friends, who immediately stopped what they were doing to follow her gaze.

“Are you sure?” Inochin asked.

“Positive. I’d recognize her anywhere.”

The three of them rushed up to the gate to see that the chuunin guards were trying to give the girl the run-around with her papers.

“These papers are incomplete. I can’t let you in.”

“I… how would I even fix them? Uh, sir?”

“You’d have to go to the capitol city for that.”

The girl squeaked at the guard’s words. “But that could take months! I… how would I even get there, or pay for new papers for that matter?”

“That’s not my problem, miss. Now leave. You’re holding up the line.”

“Let her in,” Chousaki protested.

The chuunin caught sight of Chousaki’s jounin vest and saluted. “Ma’am, I apologize, but the law states—”

“This woman is here under my personal invitation as the second heir to the Akimichi clan.” Chousaki didn’t like to throw her political weight around, but as a jounin and a member of one of Konoha’s few noble clans, she knew her words held weight. And besides, this was important. “So unless you want to be hearing from my brother, Lord Akimichi Chouza, you best let my friend through.”

The chuunin weighed is options before relenting and waving the girl through the gate. She bowed and babbled her thanks first to the guard and then to Chousaki, blindly weaving through the crowds, obviously trying to cover ground before someone could change their mind and push her back out.

“Thank you,” she said, once she stopped to breath and noticed that Chousaki, Inochin, and Shika had followed, “You didn’t have to do that, you—” the girl looked up and met Chousaki’s eyes. “It’s you,” she said with wonder, “You’re that kunoichi from the market that day.”

“And you’re the civilian that saved my life,” Chousaki said.

“What? No. All I did was give you a few radishes.”

“And sweet potatoes!”

“And sweet potatoes. Nothing much.”

“You’d be surprised to learn that sometimes, that’s all it takes.”

Chousaki shuddered as she imagined what would’ve happened if the girl hadn’t interfered as she did. If she had starved that day instead. If she never got the chance to refuel herself after using her family’s technique. If she hadn’t been able to find herself back on that battlefield just in time to bail Inochin and Shika out of an ambush.

No, it was better not to dwell. The past was passed, and Chousaki and her teammates were here.

And so was the girl.

“What are you doing in Konoha, anyway?”

“I’ve come to work in my uncle’s shop. Bountiful Harvest Grocer’s?”

“We know where that is,” Inochin offered, “Let us show you.”

“Sure, if it won’t be much trouble.”

“No trouble at all. I’m Inochin.”

“Shika.”

“Chousaki.”

“Yusami,” the girl offered.

“Welcome to Konoha, Yusami. Let’s get you settled into your new home.”

(Chousaki’s friendship with Yusami is an unexpected one, though completely welcome. They compliment each other well: the chef and the hungry soul; the lover and the fighter. It may not be a friendship like her other ones, those relationships Chousaki writ in blood, sweat, and tears, but it will be no less special because of it.

And to think, it all started because of a few radishes and sweet potatoes.)

Chapter Text

“Revenge is sweet and not fattening.”

- Alfred Hitchcock

*****

Yusami leaves Traveler’s Plaza with ten fewer cupcakes and almost two pages of notes on how she can tweak her recipe until it is identical in taste to Ueno Mikita’s.

Chouei-san had the chef equivalent of an artist’s eye; he could tell in an instant things Yusami wouldn’t have ever thought of, like the temperature and time used to cook the cupcakes, or guesses at where Ueno bought the few ingredients Daiju-oji’s store didn’t stock. These suggestions weren’t usually very welcome when Yusami was recreating her own recipes (she didn’t like being ‘corrected’ about dishes that she had learned at her father’s knee, especially when she knew there was no Naruto-world equivalent), but now, when she had to recreate this one-for-one? It was very welcome indeed.

Even without Chouei’s input, the taste test at the restaurant had done wonders. Yusami knows that there is no better judge of sweets than children, and Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji’s gushing about how the cupcakes were ‘soooo gooooood!’ had done wonders to reassure her.

By noon, Yusami was heading home ready to whip up her second batch, daydreaming about her grand plans, when a small weight barreled into her knees for the second time that day.

“Whoah, kid, where’s the fire?” Yusami asked as she regained her balance. She glanced down to see a frightened Naruto staring up at her, looking like he was one moment away from a panic attack.

“Where is that fucking demon?!” a voice thundered from down the street.

“They after you, sweetie?” Yusami asked.

Naruto sniffled and nodded wetly, not really looking her in the eye. “Please,” he whispered, “Please don’t tell them you saw me.”

“I’ll do you one better.” Yusami took Naruto by the hand and corralled him over to the nearby house and gestured under the porch. “In you go.”

Naruto tucked down under the structure, and Yusami swung up to sit above him, letting her legs, skirt, and apron dangle over the side of the porch and block him from view. She then pulled out a handkerchief, plucked a bobby pin out of her hair, and began to mime an imaginary embroidery pattern into the fabric.

She had just enough time to get her ‘innocent, innocuous civilian’ face on before a band of six adult genin and two chuunin barge down the street covered in neon paint and mahogany brown glitter. 

Before Yusami could puzzle over who would make brown glitter, let alone buy it, the seething men started fanning out, stirring up a torrent of indignities between themselves, and gaining many judging looks from the passerbies on the street. 

“When I get my hands on that monster, I’ll kill him,” the apparent leader of the group, one of the chuunin, growled. He seemed to have been the worse off, the blinding red and putrid green combining with the glitter to give the overall impression of a saturated, bedazzled Christmas tree.

Yusami had to hide her snort into her handkerchief, trying desperately not to catch the attention of the murderous ninja, when her eyes trailed down and caught sight of the banana yellow paint and bronzed glitter splattered all around her ankles.

‘Shit,’ Yusami thought, ‘Busted. If they draw attention to it first, they’ll look under the porch and Naruto won’t be able to escape. Okay, stay calm. All you have to do is spin the narrative before they have a chance to spin it for you. Breathe in, breathe out, customer service voice, and…’

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Yusami called, “I hate to interrupt important shinobi business, but are you looking for that rapscallion that ran through here earlier?”

The eight ninja all snapped their heads at her, and Yusami gave her best ‘fuck off Karen’ smile.

“Uh, yes ma’am,” one of the genin stuttered, “Did you happen to spot him?”

“Oh, yes. He made such a mess of my clothes. Laundry tonight will be a total pain,” Yusami whined before pointing down the street. “He ran down the street, took a left, and then ran back here and rushed right. I think he figured out that his clothes stuck out like a sore thumb because he had gotten rid of his jacket and shoes between the direction change.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” the leader said with a nod before taking off down the street, calling back over his shoulder, “We’ll make sure he learns how to respect a lady such as yourself. Come on, boys!”

The seven remaining ninjas rushed off after him. Yusami waited a moment to make sure none would circle back before she swung off the porch and onto her feet. “You can come out now, sweetie.”

Naruto crawled out from under the porch, cobwebs now added to his already unrivaled amount of disarray.

“Thanks, lady!” he chirped, wobbling to his feet, “You sure tricked them good!”

“It was no problem. If you don’t mind me asking, why’d you paint and glitter-bomb them?”

“‘Cause they deserved it.” Naruto nodded his head, as if agreeing with himself, and Yusami couldn’t help but laugh.

“Pssh. I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said at Naruto’s little pout, “You just reminded me so much of my brothers. They would always say something like that whenever they tried to get one up on the others.”

“You got brothers, lady?”

“Yep. Eleven of them.”

“Eleven?!” Naruto shrieked, “That’s practically an entire army!”

“It’s certainly more kids than anyone in Konoha has,” Yusami agreed, “But that’s just how it is in the country. More kids means more workers, and more workers means more rice can be harvested. It helps that I’m the only girl, to, so my father doesn’t have to bankrupt himself on a dozen doweries.”

“Wha’s a dowry?”

“It’s a treasure the bride’s family gives to the husband when two people get married. For princesses and samurai and people like that, it’s usually a bunch of big stuff like land or alliances or actual treasure. But for regular people like my family, it’s usually stuff that helps the happy couple get set up at home. Practical things like furniture, or clothes, or livestock.”

“Do you miss them?”

“My brothers? Of course. It’s hard not to when I haven’t seen them in five years. But we send each other letters. My brother Riku actually just got married. He and Tsubame have been dancing around each other for forever, so I’m glad I didn’t have to suffer through their terribly embarrassing courtship.”

At her words, Naruto turned a little melancholy. “Yeah. They probably would’a been all lovey-dovey and gross, right?”

“Yeah,” Yusami agreed, before reaching for the cupcake tin. “It’s a shame I didn’t get to make the wedding cake, though. Tsubame’s notoriously bad in the kitchen, and let’s just say there’s a reason my chores around the house were cooking and not draining the rice fields. I guess these cupcakes will just have to do.”

She opened the container, passed one cupcake to Naruto, and grabbed the last one for herself. “I made them myself, so be sure to tell me what you think.”

Yusami unwrapped her cupcake, and Naruto copied her after a moment. They took a bite at the same time, and Yusami almost choked on a laugh when she saw the awe that lit up on the boy’s features.

“You made this? Is’sh so good!”

“Better than ramen?”

“Close second,” Naruto answered after a long moment of consideration, “Really, really close second.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Yusami said, stealthily reaching out her handkerchief to Naruto’s face and wiping it clean while he took another bite, “Swing by the grocery store on Fridays sometime. That’s when I bring in treats to share on my lunch break. I’ll be sure to save you one. Just not this Friday.”

“Why not?”

“Because I won’t be working,” Yusami said with a smile, “I’ve got a potluck to attend.”

*****

On Friday afternoon, Yusami pulls out one of her grandma’s kimonos and gets to work.

A few months after Yusami had landed in Konoha, her family had sent Amatu-oba-san’s trousseau along after her. She still remembers meeting Riku, Arata, and Hiro at the village gate, and almost being crushed to death in the bear hug that followed.

“As eldest, I am declaring a new family rule,” Arata had avowed, “If someone is forced to flee halfway across Fire Country, they are not allowed to go alone, and they are definitely not allowed to go in the middle of winter without any supplies.”

“You won’t hear any arguments from me,” Yusami had agreed before a note of somberness slipped into her voice. “Did Taichi ever…”

“It’s been dealt with, Yusami,” Hiro assured her.

“But what if he comes back? What if he—”

“That’s not a problem you have to worry about anymore, imouto,” Riku said, “Your nii-sans have got it covered.”

And that had been the last of that. The three of them had stayed in Konoha for almost a month, helping Yusami get settled and telling her about all she had missed back home. They talked with Daiju-oji about Amatu-oba’s last will and testament, and then let Yusami dig through her inheritance.

“She can’t have really left me all of this,” Yusami gasped in disbelief as her eyes raked over the contents of her grandmother’s chest. “Arata, what about Fumi and Emiko? Shouldn’t they have something to remember their great-grandmother by?”

Arata shook his head. “Have you seen my daughters? Kinko’s image, the both of them. Mark my words, they’ll have her broad shoulders and strong arms before their first Auntie’s Visit. Besides, Grandmother wouldn’t have bequeathed this to you if she didn’t want you to have it.”

They had left soon after, leaving Yusami with nothing but her grandmother’s chest, a new job in a new place, and what felt like a whole other world at her fingertips.

And now here Yusami was, feeling wholly like a little girl playing dress up as she dug around the chest and picked out an outfit for tonight. She settled on a silk kimono—one of five that her grandmother had passed on to her. Yusami often wonders where Amatu-oba-san had gotten them. Growing up, while she and her family had never (consistently) starved, they were nowhere near wealthy. It makes grandmother’s trousseau all the more puzzling, as Amatu’s family would’ve provided the trousseau and associated dowry, and Amatu’s son— Yusami’s father —owned little more than the land he and his family cultivated. It makes her wonder where her grandmother had gotten the money for things like silk kimonos and silver hand mirrors, and all the other heirlooms in the chest.

Regardless, Yusami is thankful for the treasures and lands on the beautiful sage green kimono with intricate floral embroidery. The bodice and sleeves have showers of sakura petals drifting in the wind, while the hem is full of clusters of white water lilies and chrysanthemums. It’s a truly beautiful dress, and Yusami can’t help but twirl around her room a bit after she’s tied the patching pink obi and silver obijime around her waist.

Once she’s dressed, she stands in front of the bathroom mirror and puts on her makeup. For this, she does not use her grandmother’s products, but rather her own. Excluding the fact that her oba-san’s cosmetics are most likely horribly expired, Yusami knows that she and Amatu-oba had had vastly different tastes in makeup. She still chuckles every once in a while at the memory of cringing away from her grandmother as she offered to let her try her teeth-blackening powder.

Yusami opts for a clean, modern look instead. Light pink lipgloss, foundation that matches her skin tone, the barest hints of eyeshadow, and a dusting of blush. The look she’s aiming for is ‘respectable, well put-together but frigid young lady’ but lands on ‘Hallmark love interest’ instead. It’ll still work for what she’s going to do, which is why Yusami isn’t taking out the makeup remover and trying again, but she’s a little put out that she might have to deal with a few unwanted flirtations tonight.

It’s as Yusami is throwing her hair into her best attempts at a ballerina bun (she does not have the patience nor time for a shimada) that she stops and contemplates whether or not putting her hair up is a good idea.

Yusami is, on the whole, remarkably ordinary for an anime world. She’s got dark brown eyes, dark brown-almost-black hair, and decently tan skin. The only real exception to this is a single streak of white hair growing out of the back of her skull.

Yusami didn’t have poliosis in her past life, but it seems to run in the family in this one. Riku, Arata, Hiro, and Kaito all have it, and if Amatu-oba was to be believed, they all inherited it from her father, Yusami’s great-grandfather. The white streak isn’t usually visible— Yusami likes to wear her hair down at home and a high ponytail at work or in the kitchen, which usually hides it —but if she wears her hair up in a bun like she is, it’s on full display.

With a sigh, Yusami grabs a green ribbon and weaves it into her bun, hopefully hiding the white hair. It usually doesn’t bother her, but for tonight, Yusami has to look as innocent and perfect as possible if she wants to pull this off.

“Are you ready, Daiju-oji?” Yusami asks, stepping out of the bathroom and into the hall.

“Yes. You look lovely, my niece.”

“Thank you. Have you got your containers?”

Her uncle held up the two tins as Yusami grabbed her three.

“Then let’s get going,” she said with a smile, “To the potluck!”

*****

Mikita drops her cinnamon apple pie off at the auction’s donation table and tries to ignore the tight smile Shion gives her as she tells her to enjoy the night.

Mikita is so fed up about this cupcake thing! She knows she promised weeks ago that she’d make two dozen for the potluck and a dozen for the silent auction, but it’s not her fault that that Yusami chit had been so unreasonable! Mikita was honestly trying to do the girl a favor; how she had no clue what that demon looked like was beyond her, but there was no other explanation for as to why she allowed him in the store. Mikita had even had the good faith to go back the next day and air her entirely reasonable and well-founded concerns to the girl’s uncle, but Daiju had summarily ushered her out the door and informed her that she was no longer welcome. 

Her! No longer welcome! After years of loyal customer service!

Either the demon had possessed that family, or Konoha was truly going to the dogs. 

Well, even if that hussy got on her knees and begged, Mikita wasn’t ever going to return to Bountiful Harvest Grocers. That’ll show her not to be so irrational with her customers.

It was just… so embarrassing to have to turn up almost empty-handed to the event. Even Suzuki Kanon was able to scrape together an almost proper-looking cake for the dessert table. To be outperformed by Suzuki Kanon, who once brought burnt cookies to the Quiz Bowl bake sale, was truly the height of shame. 

If it wasn’t for the fact that the entire community of parents would be looking to her to lead the night, Mikita would’ve just skipped the potluck entirely. Alas, she had a duty to her neighbors and so here she was.

Mikita spent a good hour and a half making the rounds with her daughter, letting her husband and her boys go off and mingle with their friends. Mikita loved her husband, but she knew he was hardly interested in the usual chitchat and that her sons should enjoy their free time with their friends. Natsuki, though, she kept a tight grip on. Her lazy fool of a daughter would surely wander off and cause trouble, so she kept a hand on the girl’s shoulder and maneuvered around the crowd.

Just after Mikita had begun regaling a small group about her husband’s latest business trip to the Land of Tea, she noticed that Natsuki had been lost from her sight. With a few apologies and promises to finish the story later, Mikita circled the room only to find her daughter stuffing her face at the dessert table.

“Oh, Ueno-san,” Suzuki Kanon exclaimed as her pig of a daughter stuffed another brownie down her throat, “I thought you said you weren’t able to make your cupcakes tonight.”

“I couldn’t,” Mikita seethed, “There was no way to get the ingredients on such short notice—”

“So these aren’t yours?” Suzuki interrupted. “How odd. I could have sworn that they were your recipe.”

“Probably some cheap imitation. I’m insulted you’d think I’d make something like that for such an important night.”

“But Mom, these taste just like yours!” Natsuki said, raising up her half-eaten treat.

“Nonsense, they couldn’t possibly be anywhere close. And as for you, young lady, I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself because you won’t be having sugar for a month! You know the two of us are on a diet! And you’ve just lost all rights to any cheat days.”

“But Mom —”

“A diet is not very ideal at such a young age,” Suzuki said, “And your daughter has only had one cookie and half a cupcake besides. That’s hardly an egregious amount of sugar.”

“Well it adds up, doesn’t it? I’d think you and your daughter are very aware of that.”

Suzuki seemed to take great offense to this, and Mikita was ready to fire back all of the facts she had picked up from her cousin in the daimyo’s court, when she felt something get stuffed in her mouth.

Mikita barely registered Natsuki bowing in apology to the two Suzuki women as she chewed around the half cupcake. 

The half cupcake with a very, very familiar flavor. Mikita’s eyes glanced down at the little sign next to the tower of fifty or so cupcakes.

Baked by: Yusami. Sponsored by: Bountiful Harvest Grocers. 

Mikita tore through the venue in a fit of rage until she found herself face-to-face with the chit who was wearing an outdated kimono.

“How dare you?!” Mikita spat, “Did you steal my recipe?”

“Hello, Ueno-san,” the bitch said with an angelic smile, “Are you having a nice evening?”

“You stole my recipe!”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” she said innocently, the corners of her smile quirking down a tick, “I mean, yes, I spent days in my kitchen inspired by you and your magnificent goodies, but I haven’t stolen anything.”

“Then how do you explain those cupcakes?”

“Well, I can hardly expect people to bid on my work if they don’t know what they’re paying for.”

“You entered my cupcakes into the auction?”

“Oh, no, certainly not.” Mikita relaxed the slightest bit before being hit by a bombshell. “I entered the recipe.”

“....come again?”

“I entered the cupcake recipe into the silent auction,” Yusami said before giving a smile that was all teeth, “I figured it might drum up more money for the Orphanage Education Fund that way. After all, what good’s a dozen cupcakes compared to the knowledge of how to make them for yourself?”

Mikita could do nothing but stare, sputter, and shriek in rage before she stormed off, intent on finding that recipe amongst the auction prizes and bid before someone else could buy her recipe for themselves.

*****

Shion quietly approached Yusami at the end of the night to give her her winnings.

“Congratulations, and thank you for bidding,” she said as she slipped the young lady an envelope, “One year’s worth of free ramen from Ichiraku’s is now yours.”

“Thank you,” she said, smile soft, “I know exactly who I’m going to treat once the new year’s upon us.”

“I’m sure it’ll be a cozy little date spot.”

“Oh, no. I don’t have anyone like that in my life,” Yusami waved away, “But a few friends of mine love ramen, so this will surely be put to good use.”

“That’s good to hear. And I know I’m not supposed to mention anything, what with this being an anonymous auction, but your entry was the highest bid item of the night.”

“Really? That’s so good to hear. Thank you, again, for letting me enter last minute.”

“Of course,” Shion assured her, “Anything for the kids.”

“And, I ugh, know it’s still anonymous, but is there any way to find out who won my recipe? Just out of curiosity.”

“Now, I can’t tell you that,” Shion scolded lightly, “But on a wholly unrelated note, I have a suspicion that Suzuki Kanon will be bringing cupcakes to the next bake sale.”

The young lady smiled a blindingly bright smile, and Shion quietly looked her over in her tasteful updo and her elegant, classical kimono.

“You know, if it’s not too much to ask, maybe you could also bring something for that bake sale,” Shion offered, thinking of ways to get her sons to man the register, “I’m sure they’d sell out in a flash.”

“I’ll be sure to think about it. But for now, I think it’s high time I escorted my uncle back home. Excuse me.”

“Thanks again for coming!” Shion called after her.

Kind, dutiful, polite, good in the kitchen, beautiful, and more than willing to put Ueno Mikita in her place.

Honestly, what else could Shion ever need in a daughter-in-law?

Chapter Text

“Drinking good wine with good food in good company is one of life’s most civilized pleasures.”

- Michael Broadbent

*****

“Oi, Hound!” Mongoose cries as she pops her head into the room, “Stealing your Icha Icha stuff for the night.”

“Return it in one piece or on your head be it,” Hound answered, not looking up from his research.

“Yeah, yeah. Same shit as usual. You want dog walks or miso for your payment?”

“Walks, please. The Pack is getting a little stir-crazy.”

“Can do, Scarecrow Man. When do the doggos want the walkies?”

“Hm. Now should suffice.”

Before she could protest, Hound’s summons materialized. Bull and Shiba pounced to draw Mongoose’s attention away while Hound whispered orders to Pakkun.

“Observation only. Civilian pet behavior. Return to me with any significant findings at midnight.”

“Got it, Boss,” Pakkun nods before trotting over and joining the dog pile on Mongoose.

“Bastard!” she spits, “What am I supposed to do, watch eight dogs all night while my friend gets wine drunk?”

“Hm. Sounds reasonable.”

Hound answers Mongoose’s screech with a nonchalant glance away, returning to the scrolls he had been analyzing earlier. “If you’re so worried about it, you can just leave my books with me and find a different supplier.”

All that got was another screech.

He sighs softly. “Be a bit quieter, Mongoose. We are in a library.”

*****

Yusami opens her back door that night to find Anko with a stack of books under her arm and eight dog leashes in her hands.

“I’m so sorry!” she cries, “A coworker is out of village on a mission and I forgot I’d promised to pet sit. Please don’t kick me out, Yusami! I need a night to relax so bad.”

Yusami, however, was paying her absolutely no attention. She was instead too preoccupied with kneeling down to the dogs’ level and letting them sniff at her hand, stars in her eyes. 

“Puppies!” she squealed. The dogs immediately perked up and started pulling at the leashes like any dog does when they sense excitement in the air. “Oh, who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy? You all are!”

“Oi! What am I, an Iwa nin’s diced liver?”

“No, you’re Anko. Come on in, all of you. Are the dogs well trained enough to go off leash and not cause havoc?”

“They’re all field-certified ninken, so if they aren’t, I get to stab the bastard who owns them. And I will stab him, mark my words.”

The dogs all drooped their ears at the reminder, and Yusami giggled. “They seem quite intelligent. Who’re you dog-sitting for? A bunch of Inuzukas?”

“Something like that. Anyway, I got the goods!”

“And I’ve got mine! Salmon sashimi paired with a black forest cake and a syrah red wine.”

“Sweet Sage, you spoil me, ‘Sami. I’ve got Icha Icha: Bliss and Icha Icha: Glory, both of which have been described by my male coworkers as ‘peak fiction’ which means—”

“—that this is going to be a fun, fun night.”

The two woman shared a grin and Yusami pulled Anko inside. An hour later, the two were lounging together on the couch, each with a book in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. Yusami was vigilantly guarding her plate from the hungry dogs, trying her best not to give in to the puppy eyes, when Anko shrieked in laughter and began reading a section of her book aloud.

“Pinned beneath him, Ririko was crushed beneath Junzo’s weight. Surrendering to her base desires, Riri spread her legs and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her nails tearing into the silk smooth skin of his back. Junzo filled her, pulsating within her; moving; thrusting; shoving; propelling —”

“Goodness, was the author trying to meet a set word count, or something?”

“—forcing; driving—”

“There’s more?”

“—ramming—”

“That doesn’t sound comfortable.”

“—pushing within her. He moved and shoved—”

“Still not sounding very fun for poor Ririko.”

“—until there was nothing left to her senses but him. Nothing but the feel of his strong manhood buried within her. Nothing but that glorious length that somehow felt both strong as iron and soft as velvet.

‘Riri,’ Junzo mewled, ‘Ririko, I want— I need—’

‘Jun-Junzo,’ she keened, ‘Junzo, Junzo, Junzo!’

‘Riri,’ Junzo said, steady eyes staring into her glittering orbs. —”

“Not the orbs!” Yusami yelled before she broke down into laughter. The bulldog she was fending off took his chance to swoop in and steal the rest of her sashimi.

“‘Together,’ Junzo commanded with his gruff voice.

‘Together,’ Ririko agreed with a warble.

Junzo growled in answer, sinking his teeth into the pale flesh of Ririko’s shoulder. His ministrations quickened, matching the ‘thu-thump’ of her pounding heart. They joined together, breathing in time until Ririko felt it. Felt the growing flood that continued to build behind the dam of sensation; felt the pressure build and build and build. Until…

‘Hah, henh!’ she cried.

Junzo met her flood with one of her own, and Riri felt something within her—

Ignite.”

Anko put all the weight she could behind that last word before she, too, cracked up. Yusami hastily set her glass of wine down before she sloshed it all onto the couch and rug below, leaving her with a bitch of a stain to clean in the morning.

“Oh my god, ooooooh my god,” Yusami wheezed, “I can’t bre-he-he-he-heathe.”

“What? Can’t handle Junzo-san’s ‘strong, long pink meatstick’ ?”

“Anko!”

“What? I’m just curious and want to know if it was the imagery or the vocabulary that finally did you in.”

Yusami buried her face into a throw pillow and pounded her fist into carpeted floor, still dying of laughter.

Wine & Icha Icha night began when a curious nineteen-year-old Yusami asked a seventeen-year-old Anko if she had ever heard of a book series by the name of Icha Icha. Anko had come to her next cooking lesson with the first book, Icha Icha: Paradise, in hand. She had left the book for Yusami, and the second Anko had stepped through the door for the next week’s lesson, Yusami began reading the most offensively horrible sections aloud for Anko’s miserable entertainment.

As a general rule, Yusami was not a very big fan of smut. It came with the territory of being on the ace spectrum, and while sexy fun times did not necessarily make her uncomfortable by rule, it was never something she sought out intentionally.

Icha Icha had been a major exception to that, for obvious reasons.

Come on, now, don’t be silly. If you somehow ended up in the Naruto universe and had the means to read Icha Icha, you did so, regardless of circumstance. Just out of pure curiosity to see what all the fuss was about, if nothing else.

And while the series wasn’t well-written in any sense of the word, Yusami still found immense enjoyment in reading it. 

Even if a good eighty-five percent of that enjoyment came from trashing the series with her friend.

“Who writes this shit, honestly?” Anko asked.

Yusami was about to fire back with ‘the perviest Sannin’ before she bit her tongue and said, “Probably some bored noble lady in the daimyo’s court,” instead.

Even if Anko was tipsy, Yusami had to tread lightly about things she might not be expected to know. Jiraiya hadn’t ever put his name on the books, instead publishing them under a pseudonym. If Yusami, a civilian, suddenly declared that she knew Konoha’s spymaster masqueraded as a popular romance novelist, it’d be her head on a pike.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she said. “Did you find any good parts in Bliss?”

Yusami smiled and cracked open her book. “Oh, tons. Here: ‘Waka stretched out her arm to cradle Io’s cheek, intimately aware of Niou’s gaze following them.’ ”

She continued to read until they were both rolling with laughter again, and fell back into the rhythm of the rest of the night, enjoying the good food, good wine, and good company.

*****

Kakashi stared intently at the forms sitting before him, willing them to reveal countless secrets about the grocer girl and why she acted so differently from the other civilians in the village

“What’d you learn?” he asked as Pakkun trotted into view.

“Not much. The woman kept us in the living room to ‘make sure we didn’t go off on our own and wreck her house.’ Just simple personal observations.”

“Such as?”

“She doesn’t skimp when she’s buying fish,” Pakkun said.

Kakashi sighed. “We already know she’s a good chef. Anything new?”

“Besides the fact that she thinks Icha Icha is horribly written?” the ninken asked, “The girl’s either a hundred percent civilian with absolutely no ninja training whatsoever, or she’s such a well-trained infiltration specialist that she can trick ANBU and jounin-level operants for over five years without slipping. Make of that what you will.”

“I can’t exclude the second possibility entirely, but right now it’s leaning towards the first,” Kakashi murmured, looking back at the papers, “Her story is simple enough. She grew up in a purely civilian village composed of rice farmers. The most significant detail to note is that her father successfully petitioned his noble lord to allow their village to cultivate Wagyu beef alongside the traditional rice fields. It was very likely that she could have lived and died without stepping foot from her home. That is, if it wasn’t for a few minor events.”

Kakshi laid out Akamichi Chousaki’s final report from the Third Shinobi War, alongside two sets of immigration request forms.

“Yusami offered necessary resources and information to Akamichi Chousaki, inadvertently saving her life and the lives of her teammates. A few years later, her grandmother Amatu died in early autumn, right before a letter from Daiju was sent, requesting that one of his great-nephews come to Konoha and take up work at his grocery store. He even offered to pass on the store to the one who came to work it, and sent immigration papers along with his offer. Yusami, in the end, was the one to accept it, which is why Daiju had to refile the papers to account for a female heir rather than a male one.”

“The girl wasn’t supposed to come to Konoha. Strange,” Pakkun noted thoughtfully.

“I thought so too. There’s no reason as to why she came and not one of her brothers. Surely, with eleven of them, at least one would have been interested in taking up the position. So why did the single niece come to the village instead?”

“Does it matter?” Pakkun asked, “The fact that she’s in the village isn’t the mystery. It’s why she acts as she does. Don’t beat around the bush: no other fully civilian entity treats the pup with half the care she does. What gives?”

Kakashi gave a non-committed hum of thought and squinted at the papers a little more. 

There was something he was missing. 

He flipped through the forms again until he settled on the original immigration papers, the ones that had almost barred Yusami from entering the village. His eyes lingered on the top of the document, right where a little ‘x’ sat next to the word ‘male.’ Kakashi let his eyes slide over the rest of the paper until he froze. With one hand pointing a finger to the old immigration document, and the other grabbing the new one, Kakashi’s eyes flickered between the two, ensuring that the dates truly did line up.

“I’ve found it,” he said, confidence growing as the mental puzzle pieces slotted into place, “Daiju sent the immigration forms and the letter on October 25; fifteen days after the Kyuubi’s attack. Yusami traveled by foot and arrived in Konoha a few months later on January 15. She missed the entire Di-Legal Affair.”

The Di-Legal Affair was the very pretty nickname given to the absolute political shitshow that happened a month into the Sandaime’s reinstatement.

The Kyuubi attacked October 10. That very night, Minato-sensei and Kushina-nee had sealed the tailed beast into their son in the hopes that he would be seen by the village as a hero. By October 31, Jiraiya had returned to Konoha, checking that the seal was stable and making any minor adjustments necessary to ensure it would continue to be so. By November 6, Jiraiya was storming out of the village in a huff, a list of Hokage-ordered missions in hand and a godson left in the Sarutobi compound. The Sannin’s departure had been the first and last time Kakashi had ever seen Orochimaru and Jiraiya gang up and yell at the Sandaime together rather than pick each other apart as the Hokage looked on.

By November 10, the Sandaime Hokage made an impressive speech about the strength of the village, the Will of Fire, and announced that the one-month-old babe cradled in his arms was the new jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tails.

Said jinchuuriki’s parentage was notably left out of that little speech.

The fact that the beloved Yondaime and his equally beloved wife had sacrificed themselves for it’s creation was not.

The first assassination attempt was stopped before the sun set on that very same day.

It took less than a week for the entirety of the civilian population to know that the ‘Evil Nine-Tailed Demon’ had ‘been reincarnated into that child ’ and that they should stay strong and not ‘fall for its devilish illusions’ lest they allow it to rampage again. By December 10, the Saindaime had retracted his announcements and struck the word ‘jinchuuriki’ from Konoha’s vocabulary, offering a few show trials and appropriate executions to drive in the point. And while the village got the message about the Hokage’s stance on legitimate deadly threats against the vessel of the Kyuubi, the more subtler, less-lethal threats?

“To fucking little, too fucking late,” Kakashi seethed. 

The damage had been done. There was not a single civilian in Konoha who didn’t know about Naruto’s connection to the Nine-Tails. And with the Hokage’s edict in place, there was no way to properly explain that a jinchuuriki and the Tailed-Beast within were not, actually, one and the same.

There was not a single person in Konoha who didn’t know why ‘Uzumaki Naruto’ was synonymous with ‘monster.’

Not a single person, except for one. Except for Yusami.

Yusami, who learned about Konoha before the Di-Legal Affair began, and didn’t arrive in the village until it had already ended.

Yusami, who had no way to know why the blond orphan with whisker marks was universally despised.

Yusami, who didn’t know Naruto held the Nine-Tails just beneath his skin.

Yusami, who saw the village abuse a child for seemingly no good reason and decided she would not partake in such horrible, horrible behavior.

Yusami, who was kind and a civilian and thus didn’t have a million ninja rules standing between her and her capacity to share that kindness with a child in need.

Yusami, who might just be his best shot— Naruto’s best shot —at getting said child the home he deserves.

“Does she have any civilian friends? Fully civilian,” Kakashi demanded, looking at Pakkun.

The pug shook his head. “No. The closest thing is her uncle and maybe Umino Iruka. Otherwise, she seems to be most familiar with the secondary clan head Ino-Shika-Cho team and Mongoose.”

“So no civilian friends to warn her away and poison the well. Good. Continue monitoring her, and start trailing the uncle and Umino. Come to me with any new developments,” Kakashi instructed.

“Got it, Boss,” Pakkun answered before disappearing out the door and no doubt rushing back to join the rest of the Pack.

Kakashi let out a stiff breath and began carefully returning the scrolls to their proper shelves. 

Kakashi wasn’t a religious man— never had been —and was as skeptical as any ninja that had survived as long as he had. But for one moment, he wished he was. He wished he believed in something so strong that all he had to do was fall to his knees and beg for this half-cocked hope to bear fruit.

“Please,” Kakashi prayed to anything that would listen, “Please let this work. I don’t know how much longer I can sit by and let the pup be beaten and starved by the hand that’s supposed to feed it. I’ll pay whatever price is stated on the tag, I’ll burn whatever bridge, swing whatever blade, take whatever suicide mission. I’ll never question, never falter, just… please. Please.”

Kakashi rubbed at the tears forming in his eyes and shunshinned out of the archives and to the streets of Konoha. Within seconds, he was perched in a tree outside of Naruto’s window, silently looking on as the young boy rearranged the two dozen oranges tucked safely in his fridge. He then turns around and grabs a pork ramen packet out of his pantry, and Kakashi nearly goes breathless at the full, genuine smile that splits the boy’s face like the sea.

Kakashi thinks, fleetingly, that he might be willing to burn the village— the same village that every single one of his precious people has died for —to ash if it meant Naruto kept smiling like that.

Kakashi doesn’t linger, not on his perch nor on the thought (he’d likely be killed for treason if he did either). But as he rushes from the boy’s apartment, leaving his gift behind, he lets that whispered prayer of a hope build into something more solid.

Kakashi learned long ago that it’s not necessarily the village that’s worth dying for, but the people that call it home. Naruto hasn’t found that yet, but if this goes as planned, he will soon. That little pup will find his home in the den of the village’s biggest golden retriever with a heart of gold to match.

And Kakashi will remain as he is; a lone wolf standing protectively in the shadows, waiting to tear apart any threat that comes for the pack.

*****

Right after he pulls his ramen out of the microwave, Naruto shivers a bit and notices that one of the windows had been left open. He sets the bowl of noodles onto the counter and scurries over, hoping to close it shut before all of the warm air escapes.

He slams the window shut, the fluttering curtains falling limp with the cut-off wind. Naruto locks the window tight to make sure it doesn’t open back up, and then starts bending down to pick up the leaves that had been swept in by the breeze.

“Huh? What’s this?” he asks as he picks up a small book of flashy, colorful paper. He can’t really read the letters and numbers that are printed on the booklet, but there are some pictures of the store the nice Grocery Lady works at.

Naruto flips to the cover of the book, squints his eyes, sticks out his tongue in thought, and tries to remember the handful of kanji the Old Hag from the orphanage had tried to teach him.

“What the heck’s a ‘cou-pon’?”

Chapter Text

The week after the potluck, Yusami wouldn’t say that work was necessarily busy, but it wasn’t not busy.

After her little stunt with the cupcakes, Ueno had sworn bloody (social) vengeance and had refused to step foot into Bountiful Harvest Grocers. She had also taken it upon herself to diminish the store’s reputation as much as she could, but in a world without Yelp and other such websites, Ueno’s words were limited to her social circle. Yusami will admit that she had noticed that most of Ueno’s claimed friends were taking their business elsewhere, but this was almost completely counteracted by the new customers who had the store recommended to them by Suzuki Kanon and Shion-san.

Yusami didn’t mind the new faces. Truly, she didn’t. Customers were customers, and she honestly felt that there were fewer Karens frequenting her establishment, so all was well there. It’s just that she’d also noticed a not-so-slight uptick in shinobi customers, too.

Now, Yusami was self-aware enough to acknowledge that her own social circle was almost completely comprised of ninjas. Chousaki had been the reason she’d stepped foot past Konoha’s gate; Iruka had a standing invitation to crash in her guest room; she and Anko had a regular ritual of drinking wine and reading smut; she traded Chouei-san recipes and meals and treats. Yusami knew her dearest friends were all shinobi. She knew, to the other shinobi of the village, she was just a regular civilian not worth batting an eye at.

Absolutely none of this helped soothe her nerves at the dozen-odd flak-jacketed, hitai-ate-wearing, fully armed ninja that were in and out of her grocery store all before eleven o’clock on a Friday.

Yusami will reiterate: she’s used to having shinobi in her life. She knows that she lives in a Hidden Village and that ninjas and ninja-adjacents make up a not inconsiderable percent of the population. She’s also aware that the various strange ninja she’s seeing now aren’t even existing in her presence for more than a total of ten minutes a piece. It’s just that she’s a little too aware of the many, many state secrets floating around in her noggin to act completely normal about it.

Her smiles are tighter, her posture straighter, and her hands shakier for the Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday following the potluck, worried out of her mind that she did something to tip off the shinobi population that she’s a little more knowledgable than the average villager.

Once she took Tuesday night to relax with Anko and had her usual Wednesday off, however, Yusami began to calm down. She trusted that if there was something sinister afoot, Anko would’ve either given her a small head’s up, or she would’ve tried to drive the conversation towards whatever answers Yusami could give. The fact that neither of those things happened assured Yusami that whatever was going on to attract the shinobi, it wasn’t anything involving her and her past life.

That left her pondering what could possibly have changed to cause—yeah, she didn’t even need to pretend to finish that question. It was very, very obvious. 

Now Yusami was left with two options: either bar Naruto from her store and gently push him out of her life, or get used to the crowd of ninjas.

And what was she gonna’ do, not feed the itty-bitty whiskered baby?

Yeah, right. She’d sooner develop the mokuton and punt Madara into next week.

With that internal debate settled, Yusami threw together an extra-large batch of chocolate chip cookies and opened Friday morning with a smile on her face. As she expected, more people than usual stopped by to try her treats, and while Suzuki-san and her darling daughter made sure to try a sample, Yusami knew that the lion’s share of the crowd were ninja. They were at least polite ninja, though, making small talk about their plans for the upcoming Festival of Remembrance and teasingly badgering her about what she’d added to the cookies to make them taste so good. Yusami just smiled, nodded, and waited out her day. Sure enough, right before closing, a blond little munchkin made his way inside.

“Hey, lady!” Naruto said, smiling wide, “Ya’ got some more cupcakes t’day?”

“No cupcakes, sorry. But I do have cookies!” Yusami replied cheerfully, pulling the now much-depleted cookie tin out from under her cash register, “They’re chocolate chip. Try one!”

Naruto grabbed a cookie and chomped into it. Yusami swore she saw his eyes get anime sparkles, and she couldn’t help but chuckle as he quickly ate the rest of the cookie before reaching for another.

“That’s enough for now, sweetie,” Yusami said, closing the tin back up, “I don’t want you eating too many and then getting sick.”

“Buh th’re sah ghood!” the boy said around the mouthful of cookie. He quickly swallowed and asked, “Can’t I have another, twenty or so,” he mumbled under his breath, “To save for later? I’ve never had them before”

Yusami willed herself to not give into the puppy dog eyes being launched at her full blast before an idea popped into her head. “Why don’t you help me restock again, but instead of sending you home with oranges, I head back with you and teach you how to make the cookies? That way, if you want them again, you can just make them on your own.”

Naruto lit up at the suggestion. “Really, you’d do that? Thanks, dattebayo!”

“No problem, sweetie. Now, let’s get to it. We sold a lot of taro today, and they’re bigger than you’d think. I could use the help grabbing the boxes from the back.”

Yusami sped through the restocking, occasionally grabbing the necessary cooking ingredients to bake the cookies. She contemplated whether or not she was going overboard, but then just shrugged to herself and rationalized that if Naruto happened to already have a certain ingredient, it wouldn’t hurt anything if she gave him extra.

Soon, with a brown bag of ingredients in one hand and an excited five-year-old dragging her along by the other, Yusami was led away from the inner streets of Konoha and closer and closer to the….

“Sweetie,” Yusami said, smile tight and voice tense, “Do you live in the Red Light District?”

“Yeah,” Naruto said, unphased, “Jiji set it up for me. Said it was the best he could do.”

“Is that so?” Yusami asked, giving herself five seconds to indulge in the fantasy of slamming the Hokage’s head through a brick wall. Or twelve. “How…. quaint. Do you, by chance, have anyone that checks in on you? One of the, er…. neighbors?”

“No,” he said, before thinking a bit, “Jiji stops by every month or so to give me money, but that’s it. You’re the first guest I’ve ever had over!”

“Really?” Yusami asked, trying to match his excitement while she internally panicked. Who the fuck let a five-year-old live on their own, without even a daily check-in? How was Naruto surviving on his own? Yusami literally taught him about buying in bulk less than two weeks ago. How did he manage his savings? Who paid his bills? Did Naruto have to pay taxes? Did the five-year-old orphan have to figure out how to audit his taxes on his own?

“Yeah!” Naruto said, ignorant of her plight, “Thanks for coming over, lady!”

“It is an absolute pleasure, sweetie. Now, would you mind too much if we sped up? I don’t like some of the looks we’ve been getting.”

Yusami tried her damned hardest not to let stereotypes cloud her judgment, but Naruto was leading her further and further into the Red Light District, passing the larger, more popular, well-protected brothels. At this point, she would’ve had to have been both blind and stupid to not notice the leers being directed towards either her bag of ingredients, Naruto, or herself. Naruto must’ve caught the looks as well because he sped up his pace and led Yusami further through the streets.

Thankfully, they reached the apartment block soon enough, and Yusami was relieved to find that— at least on the outside —it appeared to be a sturdy, respectable apartment building, if a bit on the older side. Naruto led her up two flights of stairs, and then pulled a key from under the rug and unlocked the door.

“What’d’ya think?” Naruto asked, swinging the door open, “Pretty cool, huh?”

The first thing Yusami noticed, to her horror, was the smell. Even without her cook’s trained nose, she could tell that the stench of mold was coming somewhere from within the apartment. The second thing she noticed was the frayed cord of rope bisecting the room. On the rope hung a handful of dried garments, most of which were wrinkled, stained, fraying, torn, or some combination of the above. Old newspapers, wrappers, and empty ramen cups littered the ground, and the small sink in the kitchenette was filled to the brim with dirty dishes. And, strangely, there was a half-filled plate of cheese sitting on the counter.

“Wow,” Yusami heard herself say, “It really is something!”

Naruto beamed. “Thanks. I really like it. It’s a lot cooler than the orphanage.”

“I’m sure it’s at least quieter,” Yusami allowed. “Do you know where that smell’s coming from, sweetie?”

“Huh? Oh, that’s the bathroom smell,” Naruto dismissed, “It always gives me a headache, so I just go to the woods if I need to go.”

“If it’s the bathroom smell, then what about baths?”

“River,” Naruto said, “That way I can wash me and my clothes.”

“Good, good, very resourceful of you. And the plate of cheese?”

“Oh, that’s for the rats. I don’t want them to eat my shoes again.”

“Rats?!” Yusami screeched, “Rats that ate your shoes?!”

“Uh-huh. But it was summer so I just went barefoot. Anyway, lady, how do we make the cookies?”

Yusami just stood there, gobsmacked. 

‘This!’ Yusami mentally screamed, ‘This is why you don’t let fucking five-year-olds live on their own! They shouldn’t have to deal with this shit!’

There were just so many things wrong with this situation that she didn’t even know where to start. The mold and the rats aside, the apartment was in desperate need of a deep cleaning, and someone needed to teach this boy how to do laundry and wash dishes. But first the rats and the mold.

“Sweetie,” she began, smile tense, “How does a sleepover sound?”

Naruto’s expression lit up. “You mean you wanna’ sleep over here? With me?”

“Actually,” Yusami gently corrected, “Since you did such a good job showing me your home, I think it’s only fair that I get to show you mine. What do you say?”

The anime sparkles were back. Naruto cheered and threw his arms around her legs in a hug.

“Great, sounds like we agree. Now let’s get you some pajamas and a few changes of clothes. Grab whatever else you think you’ll need.”

The kid began racing around his apartment, throwing together a few things on the foot of his bed. Yusami began searching for a bag to carry it all in, and soon they were locking the apartment back up and heading back down the way they came. 

It was later, now, and the drunks, gamblers, and other such regulars were beginning to flood the street. Naruto led Yusami away from a few alleys, making sure to always stay under the streetlights. 

It was then, with Yusami tense and frazzled, that a man walking in the opposite direction made a truly crude remark and moved to block their path. 

“He-he-heeeeyyyy, sweetheart,” he said, breath stinking of sake, “Why don't you lose the kid and we can head back to my place for a bit of fun?”

“No thank you,” Yusami said, trying to push past the man. She barely got a few steps before her shoulder was being grabbed and she felt her center of gravity lurching backward.

“I said,” the drunk man slurred, “That we sh-ou-ou-ld have a little fun. ’m a gen’leman so I invited you back to my place. Bu’ if you keep ignoring me and losing your manners, ‘m gonna stop using mine.”

Yusami slowly turned around, shoving the drunk man’s hand off her shoulder. “Sweetie,” she said gently to Naruto, “Cover your ears.” The blond boy, most likely spooked at her serious expression, smacked his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut.

To understand what exactly happens next, five things must be stated. 

Firstly: Yusami is deceptively strong. Not strong in a taijutsu-practitioner way, but in an ‘I have to constantly haul around huge sacks of flour, sugar, and boxes of heavy vegetables’ way. In other words, Yusami is strong in a way easily hidden by a layer of chub and loose, flowy clothing. 

Secondly: before Yusami was a grocer in Konoha, she was a farmer in the middle of Fire Country. If years of harvesting rice with stone hoes and reaping knives didn’t teach her how to maneuver her body well, then five years of corralling the Wagyu steers certainly did the trick.

Thirdly: Yusami has spent the majority of her second life in the company of eleven brothers. Eleven rowdy, wilful, rough-and-tumble brothers with no access to electronics or even many books. The number of days occupied by twelve-way wrestling matches was numerous, and a fight over the last serving at dinner was a more common occurrence than not.

Fourthly: all of her friends are shinobi, and four out of five of them have direct access to children constantly asking for help developing their ninja skills. She is not unaccustomed to playing living mannequin for Chousaki, Inochin, and Shika as they walk their niblings through the Academy taijutsu style and other such E-rank skills, nor is she a stranger to being the hapless know-nothing to Iruka’s patient teacher.

And fifthly: the man is drunk. Piss-drunk. Panpipes-playing, tits-out, joined-the-cult-of-Dionysus drunk.

So the final equation looks a little something like this:

Yusami’s secret strength + knowledge of how to maneuver around things and creatures much larger than her + a background of grappling with her much older and stronger brothers + vague skills in basic ninja training + the attention of a rude, drunken slob who can’t take no for an answer + any other aforementioned factors that used up her last ounce of tolerance for bullshit = one hell of a punch and an enraged grocer spitting cusses at the toppled man.

“Now listen here, you puss-sucking fuckwit,” Yusami seethed, bending at the waist to look over the man. She was more than a little pleased to see that a large, bruised, egg-sized bump was already swelling on his face. “I’m not fucking interested. All I want to do is get the hell home, let the kid sleep in a place that’s not entrenched in black mold, cook enough fettuccine alfredo to go into a food coma, and pass the fuck out. Nowhere in that order of events is there time to waste on the likes of you. Do you understand me, you small-cocked shit-gibbon?”

A miserable whimper was Yusami’s only answer.

“Good,” she nodded to herself before straightening back up and turning towards Naruto. He still had his hands over his ears and his eyes screwed shut. Yusami couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

“Hey, kiddo,” she said softly, ruffling the boy’s hair. His eyes snapped open at the contact and he slowly lowered his hands from his head, “Let’s get home, yeah? I don’t know about you, but I am starving.”

Naruto’s eyes landed on the man, and he took a moment to gawk before his expression lit back up and he took Yusami’s hand and led her back out of the Red Light District.

“How’d ya’ do that, ‘ttebayo? You must be a super secret ninja!”

Yusami’s chuckle turned into a sharp bark of laughter. “Ha! Me, a ninja? No way. I’ve just learned a few things over the years, that’s all. Now, let’s get back to my place, yeah? Don’t want these ingredients to go to waste.”

Naruto smiled brightly and skipped down the street at her side, never letting go of her hand. As they inched further and further away from Konoha’s nightlife, Yusami swore she could hear the distant sound of her friends laughing themselves silly at her actions.

*****

“Will you shut up already?” Owl groaned.

Instead of answering, Mongoose and Gibbon just continued to howl with laughter.

“They’re both lost causes,” Coyote coughed out. If that cough was genuine or an attempt to hide similar laughter, Owl couldn’t say. “You have to admit, though, the girl’s got a good arm. Should we be worried about infiltrators?”

“Not if you want your dick to remain attached to your body,” Owl nonchalantly dismissed, leaping a few rooftops over to keep eyes on the jinchuuriki and his companion.

“Now, now, Owl. Don’t get bitchy. I like my dick exactly where it is, and so does Lynx. I imagine we’d both have something to say if it was summarily removed,” Coyote snarked back, joining Owl on the rooftop not a second later. The ANBU agent then grew very serious. “But I shouldn’t have to impress upon you the reality we’re dealing with. By some miracle, the jinchuuriki has found the single tolerant civilian in the village? Bullshit. As the old saying goes: if something is too good to be true, then it probably is.”

“Unless that something has been already looked into and cleared,” Mongoose said, breathlessly landing between the pair. Gibbon, who had hopped a ride on her shoulders, just continued to laugh. “I know we’re all paranoid bastards, but sometimes good people are just good people, Coyote.”

“Uh huh, sure. And was that investigation cleared by someone who didn’t take personal offense when we all took a sample of her cookies and tested it for drugs?”

“You all ruined edible masterpieces,” Mongoose lamented before her tone grew smug, “And yes, actually. I might have a few screws loose, but even I know when there’s a conflict of interest.”

“And who cleared Yusami, then?” Owl asked, eyes still fixed on the duo walking below because someone had to actually do their job.

“Oh, you know,” Mongoose said idly, “Hound.”

Gibbon’s laughter cut off, and Coyote and Owl both silently let that information sink in before Coyote let out a whistle and said, “Damn. Alright, then. The grocer is cleared. Any plans going forward?”

“Hound wants to push for Yusami to get full custody. Don’t know how it’ll land politically, but I know for sure that the woman herself will be down,” Mongoose explained, “Other than that, just watch and see for now. Now if Shit-Gibbon could get off my back—”

“What’d I do?” Gibbon squawked as they were unceremoniously dropped off Mongoose’s shoulders. 

“I shouldn’t have to explain why a shinobi half a foot taller than me and at least twenty pounds heavier doesn’t need to piggyback across a single set of rooves!”

Coyote and Owl just shared a look before they both jumped to the next block and caught sight of the jinchuuriki and the grocer laughing merrily together, leaving the other two to their squabbling.

Sometimes, it was exhausting being the only competent people on the mission.

*****

“Daiju-oji, I’m home!” the nice grocery lady called as she led Naruto into the warm, clean-looking house.

“I was wondering where you were,” an old man said, looking up from a squashy chair where he was sewing patches of squares into a blanket, “Another half-hour and I would’ve had to start on dinner, and I don’t think either of us should be subjected to my cooking.”

“It did the job when I first came to the village,” the grocery lady said with a chuckle, walking forward to kiss the old man on the head, “Oji-san, I’d like you to meet someone. This is Uzumaki Naruto. He’ll be staying the night. Naruto, this is my great-uncle, Daiju.”

“Ne, ne, how’d you know my name, lady?” Naruto asked.

“What do you mean?” the lady asked back.

“I never told you my name! A good ninja doesn’t give out their name to strangers.”

“I…” the lady said, face looking exactly like one of those fish heads Naruto sometimes pulled out of the garbage, “That surely can’t be right. You must’ve told me your name at some point.”

Naruto thought hard. “Nope!” he said, nodding his head, “I’m sure I never told you. But it’s not like you ever told me your name, so why should I ever tell you mine?”

The grocery lady’s face went red. Naruto panicked for a second, thinking he must have done something wrong, but then the old man started to laugh. “That’s my niece, alright, always getting ahead of herself. Uzumaki Naruto, meet Yusami, my beloved heir and the best cook, baker, and grocery store worker in the village.”

“I’m Naruto, nice to meetch’ya!”

“It’s nice to meet you too, sweetie,” the grocery lady, Yusami, said with a smile, “I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself properly when we first met. In my defense, I was wearing a name tag at the time.”

“Is that what that was?” Naruto asked, “I thought it was just a sticker or somethin’.”

“Nope. It was a name tag. Do you… know what a name tag is?” Yusami asked, voice being weird and a little spacey.

“Hmmm….” he thought, “Not a clue!”

“It’s a little piece of wood that I wear on my work uniform that makes sure everyone knows my name,” she explained.

“Wouldn’t it be easier if you just told people your name?” Naruto asked.

“Maybe, but that would get tiresome if people already know me,” Yusami said with a shrug, “But enough about name tags. Let’s get you settled in the guest room.”

She then took him upstairs and showed him a clean, empty bedroom. “You can stay the night in here, and then tomorrow we can see about getting your apartment cleaned up.”

“Okay. Are you going to see the bakemono and get them to clean my place again?” Naruto asked.

“No, I was just going to commission a D-rank. Or maybe a C-rank if the mold was bad enough. Do bakemono usually clean your apartment?” Yusami asked back.

He shrugged. “Sometimes. I don’t usually get a good look at ‘em, but every once in a while I’ll see one with a painted facing doing the dishes, or something.”

“Huh,” she said, thoughtful, “That explains that. Anyway, I think I’ve kept Daiju-oji long enough. I’ll head down and make some dinner, and then we can get started on the cookies. Does that sound good?”

Naruto almost nodded and agreed, before a thought snuck up on him. “Hey, can you make the cupcakes again? Not today, but in a few days. I want to throw a party, and you can totally come, but you don’t have to ‘cause I know people are gonna’ be really busy.”

“A party sounds fun, actually,” Yusami said, smiling, “What’re you celebrating?”

“....my birthday,” Naruto said sheepishly.

Yusami’s smile dropped. Naruto hastily began explaining, “It’s totally okay if you can’t ‘cause you’re busy or ‘cause you don’t want to. I just never had a birthday party before and I know you’re supposed to have cake ‘n stuff, and maybe people’ll be nice ‘cause everyone likes cake and…. Forget about it, you don’t need to make the cupcakes. ‘s not like anyone would even wanna’ come—”

Naruto was, without warning, pulled into the tightest, warmest hug he had ever had.

“I,” Yusami said, “Am going to make you the absolute best birthday cake in the entire village. And yes, sweetie, I will absolutely come to your birthday party.”

Naruto just buried himself further into the hug, happy to savor it as long as he could, knowing that it probably wouldn’t last.

*****

Yusami was very, very thankful that she had the weekend off. 

After inviting Naruto back to her place, and getting her heart absolutely crushed by the kid, she knew she had a lot of planning to do. And nowhere is she better at scheming than in an undisturbed kitchen cooking recipes by muscle memory.

“The first order of business, as always, is breakfast,” Yusami said aloud, “Then the birthday party, and then the apartment.”

The breakfast was the easiest part, as to be expected. Omelets with cheddar, tomato, and spinach, with rice simmered in chicken broth for taste was easy enough to whip up, and she knew the fridge was stocked with milk and juice.

The birthday party was a little less easy. She imagined she could probably host it in her house, or possibly in Traveler’s Plaza or the park if the weather held. That, however, was dependent upon which places would be available, what with the overlapping Festival of Remembrance. She also knew that buying a gift would be fairly easy, and that come hell or high water she would bake that child the best cake she’s ever baked. Yusami did not know, however, what the guest list would look like. 

Ideally, Naruto would have at least one friend his own age there. The problem was making those friends in only two weeks, which was ultimately why she cut up a couple apples last night, drizzled them with caramel and chocolate, and put them in the fridge: get to the heart through the stomach, and all of that. Yusami would spend the next two days with Naruto in the park, first, and then head to see Chousaki, Inochin, and Shika whenever they next babysit Chouji, Ino, and Shikamaru. Worst comes to worst, she knows she and Daiju-oji will be at the party and they will make it as wonderful as possible.

The apartment, however, was easily the biggest challenge. Yusami’s funds, while not endless, were more than enough to commission a team of genin to deep clean it. The real problem lied with making sure that it stayed clean. She imagines she needs to thank the ANBU for trying their best, but evidently, their best was closer to slapping a band-aid on a bullet wound than it was anything else.

“Not that you won’t be doing the same exact thing,” Yusami murmured, “At least they have an excuse to interact with the kid on a regular basis.”

Yusami could pay for Naruto’s cleaning all she wanted. She could cook him daily meals and keep giving him tips about budgeting and fun little treats whenever he swung by the stores. But the fact of the matter is that it won’t. Be. Enough.

At the end of the day, Uzumaki Naruto was still a five-almost-six-year-old who lived on his own. He was still a child shouldered with the responsibilities no child should have to handle. Yusami remembers that in her first life, her parents didn’t want her to turn on the stove by herself until she hit double digits. In her second life, she couldn’t go swimming in the nearby pond without supervision until she was twelve. 

In comparison, Naruto was expected to magically prepare all his meals, wash all his clothing, keep his living space clean, teach himself vital life skills, and budget his own money. And manage said budget while being fleeced by possibly every other store in the village.

Yusami sucked in a deep breath and let it out as she flipped the omelet into a neat fold. The world of Naruto was a mean one, with more problems than she could count. But this was just….

In a perfect world, somebody would adopt Naruto. They would let him spend his limited childhood being a child, and then ease him into being a proper adult (and ninja) as necessary. Yusami would gladly be that person. She would volunteer in a heartbeat. But she was no fool. Yusami knew exactly who and what she was, and that was an adult, civilian woman with no real political clout. 

Oh, sure, she was close with the siblings of the Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi clan heads, but it wasn’t Shika, Inochin, and Chousaki leading. Anko was a well-known tokubetsu jounin and a student of one of the Sannin, but her sensei had turned traitor and burned every one of Anko’s bridges on the way out. Iruka, with his various jobs and friendly manner, might be the most well-recognized shinobi in Konoha, but he was also a clanless chuunin with no special bloodline to guarantee his survival.

What was any of that to someone like Danzou? Danzou, who would sooner set a ROOT agent on her head than let anyone like her have such unequal control over the jinchuuriki, Konoha’s greatest weapon?

“Band-aids on bullet wounds are far from ideal, but they’re better than nothing,” Yusami finally settled on, plating up the omelets, “I will do what I can, when I can, and hope it’ll make a difference. That’s all I can do.”

“Who’re you talking to?” a sleepy voice came from behind her.

“Oh, just thinking out loud,” Yusami told Naruto, “Pull up a seat. Breakfast is ready.”

“‘Kay,” the blond boy said, yawning and rubbing his eyes tiredly.

“Milk or juice, sweetie?” Yusami asked, opening up the fridge. She eyed the apple slices, still sitting neatly on their wax-papered cookie sheet.

‘Surely Naruto can make one friend, right?’ Yusami thought as she grabbed the juice, ‘I mean, he’s already met Hinata, right? That should be one little future kunoichi that’ll be willing to come to his birthday party.’

Yusami nodded to herself, setting the juice on the table and pouring Naruto a cup. Things will be fine. And even if Naruto can’t make a friend, at least he’ll have a nice snack.

*****

Yusami unpacked the bento box with the candy apples as Naruto continued to explain how he had made a lifelong friend in the ten minutes it took for Yusami to wait in line at the mission desk and request her cleaning D-rank.

“—and then I told those mean old big kids to beat it! We got a few good hits in, but then we had to make a, a…”

“A tactical re-retreat,” the girl next to him offered, awkwardly fidgeting with her hands.

“Yeah, one of those,” Naruto beamed, “That’s when you have to run from a fight ‘cause you know you’re not strong enough to win. But don’t worry! When I’m Hokage, I’ll be strong enough to kick anyone’s butt, and I’ll never have to run away from a fight again, dattebayo!”

“Well, in the meantime, I think our brave ninjas deserve a reward for being so brave. How do apple slices sound?”

Naruto cheered while the girl next to him gave a small smile.

“I’ve got chocolate, caramel, chocolate and caramel, and just regular apple slices, if you’re not a fan of sweets,” Yusami explained.

“Do you have any without the skins?” Naruto asked, “The skins taste weird, I don’t like ‘em.”

“But that’s where all the healthy parts are!” his friend argued, “You should still eat them.”

“She’s right,” Yusami said, “And no, all the apples still have their peels.”

“Fine,” he groaned, “Chocolate and caramel, I guess.”

“Sure thing. And for you?” Yusami asked, turning to the girl.

“Um, plain please,” she settled on.

“Sure thing.” Yusami passed the apple slices to the girl and patted the large picnic blanket she had laid out. “Why don’t you join us, honey?”

“Okay,” she said, sitting down next to Naruto, “Thank you for the food, miss….”

“Yusami,” she said with a smile, “And you?”

“I’m Sakura. Haruno Sakura,” the girl said, bowing her head.

“It’s very nice to meet you Sakura-chan. Let’s dig in.”

Well.

It wasn’t the future kunoichi she expected, but as she saw Sakura giggle at Naruto’s over-exaggerated expressions when eating the apple peels, Yusami decided she would gladly take the win.

Chapter Text

“Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be their own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression for opening Friendship would be something like, "What! You too? I thought I was the only one."”

 - C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

*****

Haruno Sakura didn’t have friends.

It wasn’t for a lack of trying, nor a lack of want. There was just something… odd about Sakura that stopped her from fully connecting with other children. It was as if a bird had dropped a camellia seed in a field of azaleas; from afar she seemed no different than the others, but the second anyone truly grew close enough to tell, it was obvious that she did not belong.

Sakura is four-and-a-half the first time this difference is observed, and it all starts with a doll. 

Sakura loves her dolls. They’re beautiful, with long, glossy hair that is perfect for brushing, braiding, and tying all sorts of ribbons into. Most of the dolls are clad with silk gowns in the widest range of cheerful pinks, sunny yellows, and gorgeous pastels, and their features delicately painted to reflect the current court style.

Sakura’s favorite doll is a pink-clad brunette that she had named Hiori-hime. She plays with Hiori-hime constantly, and when Kaa-san takes Sakura to visit with the other important wives of the neighborhood, Sakura usually gets to take Hiori-hime with her.

It’s at one of these visits that the truth of Sakura’s strangeness becomes known.

Once they arrive at the Ueno household, they are directed by a butler to the tea room. Sakura and Kaa-san both make their polite introductions to the gathered women, and Sakura is cooed over and her manners complemented before she is shuffled off to the backyard where all the other children are playing.

Sakura notices immediately that there are three general groups of children. There’re the girls around her age who are all quietly sitting near each other and showing off their dolls, there’re the boys around her age, who are on the opposite side of the yard and are running and shouting, and there’s the group of big kids sitting on the steps and talking with each other.

She makes for the circle of girls first. “Hi, I’m Haruno Sakura!”

The girls all stop what they’re doing and look up. They all stare long enough for Sakura to get nervous before one of the best-dressed girls decides to say, “Hello.”

“Hi!” Sakura says again, “What are you all playing?”

“Ladies,” the girl says.

“Can I join you?”

The other girls all whisper together before the same girl turns and says, “Only if you share your doll. Not all of us have one.”

“That’s fine!” Sakura says. She’s used to sharing her dolls with her cousins anyway. “This is Hiori-hime!”

The girl, and apparent leader of the group, snatches Hiori-hime up. She looks at the group of gathered girls before pointing at one and saying, “Kao. You can have the new doll first.”

Hiori-hime is handed off to Kao and Sakura takes a seat in the circle of girls. None of the others say anything to her, and instead return to playing.

The way the other girls play with the dolls is…. strange. When Sakura and her cousins play, it’s by trying to recreate the kabuki productions they see at festivals or by weaving more threads into their long-standing mimicry of the daimyo’s court. Occasionally, they would reenact historical events, too, but they hadn’t done that since Osuke accidentally answered his history exam with a long, detailed report on how the Uchiha and the Senju used to fight over who had access to the secret chocolate waterfall that flowed under the village.

The other girls don’t do that. They instead have the leader girl and her doll be the daimyo's seishitsu, while the other girls and their dolls are ladies presenting themselves before her. Each girl would bow and complement the seishitsu, and if their words were acceptable, they would remain for another round. If their complements were not pretty enough, however, they would be executed and the doll handed over to another girl of the seishitsu girl’s choosing.

Sakura found this to be extremely boring. It was made even more boring by the fact that she was never chosen to play. It seemed the head girl had her favorite friends, and those friends either always had a doll, or would soon get one. When Sakura finally, finally was chosen to become a new lady of the court, she hatched a plan to make the game more fun.

The other girls and their dolls bowed and complemented the seishitsu, leaving Sakura for last. When it was finally called for Hiori-san to present herself, Sakura made her doll bow before shoving her toy towards the seishitsu doll.

“Your days of tyranny are over! Too long have my people suffered! I, Hiori-hime of Lantern Country, shall ensure that you can never harm anyone ever again!” Sakura then made Hiori-hime hit the seishitsu doll. “I have succeeded in killing the wicked witch in disguise. Now the daimyo can choose a new wife to lead the court.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” the leader-girl asked, expression fuming.

“I’m making the game more fun,” Sakura said, “It was really boring before when we all complemented the seishitsu over and over again. Now the seishitsu’s gone and someone else can be the new one!”

“Well no one else seems to think it was boring. Did you?” All the other girls exchanged looks before happily agreeing that they were having loads of fun. “See! So why’d you go and ruin it?”

“I— I—” Sakura stuttered, suddenly feeling very off-footed, “I didn’t mean to ruin anything, I just thought that—”

“Well you thought wrong. If you can’t follow the rules and are going to act like a pest, go over and play with the boys. We don’t want you here.” The girl finished her rant by literally turning her nose up at Sakura and refusing to speak with her. The other girls, just like every other time, followed suit. Sakura looked around for anyone to agree with her, or even to offer an apologetic look, but no one did. Eventually, she just stood up, offering nothing else but a soft ‘sorry’ as she walked away.

Before she even took five steps, Sakura heard the other girls begin to whisper about her.

“Did you see how rude she was to Aiko?”

“Has no one taught her manners?”

“—and right in front of everyone, too—”

“Dad would spank me if I acted like that.”

“Mom’s right, she really must be a—”

Fighting back tears, Sakura walked right up to the group of boys who were wrestling on the ground and said, “Hey! Can I play with you?”

Half the boys didn’t even look at her before saying, “No.”

“Why not?” she demanded, trying to make herself seem brave. Maybe if she pretended, she could trick herself into thinking it was true.

“‘Cause you’re a little girl, duh,” one boy said.

“And you’re going to cry and scream the second we touch you, and then we’ll get in trouble,” another added.

One of the bigger boys, who had just shoved another to the ground said, “But if you really want to play, you can. But only if you can beat me first.”

“Okay,” Sakura agreed before doing exactly what her cousin Takeru said to do if a bigger, older boy tried to fight her.

All of the other boys winced as her foot made contact right between the boy’s legs. The boy gave a high yelp before cradling the injured area, buckling at the knees, and flopping over face-down into the dirt. Sakura smiled and turned to the rest of the group.

“It looks like I won!” she said cheerfully, “Can I play with you now?”

*****

“I told you to watch your younger siblings!” Ueno-san screeched at her eldest daughter, “How could you let this happen?”

“Aiko’s a spoiled brat and Ikki more than deserved it,” Natsuki rebuffed, “Frankly, they’re both bullies and I’m glad someone tried to put them in their place.”

“How dare you insult them! They are angels compared to the likes of you—”

As the hostess continued to rant and rave at an exasperated girl, Sakura was suffering her own scolding right in the middle of the neighbor’s backyard.

“There was absolutely nothing wrong with how the other girls were playing. You should have silently followed the rules instead of trying to act out. And you especially shouldn’t have gone over and played with the boys. You are not a boy, Sakura, you are a lady. And what do ladies do? Do they orchestrate assassinations to get rid of their rivals?”

“No, Kaa-san,” Sakura said.

“Do ladies discover scientific innovations that change the world?”

“No, Kaa-san.”

“Do ladies go off on grand adventures?”

“No, Kaa-san.”

“Do ladies kiss other ladies?”

“No, Kaa-san,” she answered.

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me,” Kaa-san snapped, startling Sakura, who hadn’t thought she had moved her eyes at all. “What is the duty of a lady, Sakura?”

“To obey her parents, husband, and future sons.”

“Again.”

“To obey her parents, husband, and future sons.”

“Again.”

“To obey her parents, husband, and future sons!” Sakura spat out, almost shouting the words.

Her mother nodded. “Good. You will be a lady one day, Sakura, and then you won’t have time for these silly little fantasies. It’s bad enough that you’re still clinging to them now, despite almost being five years old. Until you prove you can act like a young lady instead of a hooligan with no parents to guide you, no more playing with your male cousins.”

“But Kaa-san—”

“Manners, Sakura.”

“Yes, Okaa-san,” the young girl said, bowing her head, but in her mind, she was fuming.

Kaa-san all but forced Sakura to give an apology before dragging her out. As she was marched out of the yard, Sakura heard the adults whisper things amongst themselves.

“Poor Mebuki, to be saddled with such a child.”

“It’s her own fault. We all make our choices, and she certainly made hers.”

“Given the circumstances, I’m surprised she isn’t wilder.”

“Even still, I’d cut her loose and wash my hands of the whole ordeal as soon as I could. Wouldn’t you?”

“—but what can you really expect from a girl like that, considering who her parents are?”

“That’s assuming we even—”

Both Sakura and Kaa-san left the meeting red-faced and embarrassed. Sakura wasn’t allowed to play with Osuke, Takeru, and Shoujiro for two weeks. Nene tried her best to make it bearable, but her older cousin was more interested in her recent betrothal than she was with the made-up politics of their pretend court.

The punishment was lifted eventually, but by the next neighborly get-together, it became evident that Sakura had sealed her fate. Ueno Aiko had deemed her unsuitable to play with, and all the girls followed suit. Similarly, the boys didn’t want anything to do with Sakura either. They loudly claimed that it was because she was a girl who liked pink and dolls and flowers, but she suspects that at least one of them doesn’t want to risk getting kicked between the legs.

That just left Sakura with the big kids who liked to sit together and talk. There wasn’t much interesting conversation to be had there; she had no interest in school news and community gossip, and none of the big kids wanted to know about Hiori-hime or whatever historical drama Sakura and her cousins were obsessing over that week. So for the next year and a half, whenever Kaa-san drags her to one of the get-togethers, Sakura makes sure she has something to read.

(Because if Sakura’s reading, then she’s choosing to be alone. She’s choosing to have no company besides herself and the words on a page. She’s choosing — not being excluded —choosing to be quiet and friendless and not-at-all-wanting to chase after others and scream and shout until they finally acknowledge that she is there and she is good and she is worthy of their time; their attention; their friendship; their love. )

((There is a small voice inside her head that says she is mistaken. That they aren’t worthy of her. Sakura tells that voice to shove it, that it’s wrong. Because even if they aren’t worthy of her, she’s still alone.

And Sakura….

Sakura wants, more than anything, to stop being alone.))

(Please.

Please.

She can’t be alone anymore, she can’t, she can’t, she—)

Sakura is rarely without a book or scroll in hand.

The words, the stories, are her closest companions. They teach her a lot: wise, impressive things written in unique, remarkable words.

(Remarkable: likely to be noticed, especially as being uncommon or extraordinary. Worthy of attention; striking.

Sakura’s greatest wish is to one day be remarkable.)

Sakura reads much on a variety of topics, from books across all ranges of difficulty. She gobbles up play manuscripts and long-winded commentaries on the play manuscripts. She dives head-first into philosophy and law, and the differences between the daimyo’s court and the Kage’s village. She parses through mathematics and science and medicine just as often as she dissects poetry and great novels. But her favorite, her treasures, are the histories.

Sakura loves history. It feels real in a way that nothing else does. But that might just be because she seems to find herself in history again, and again, and again.

It’s fitting, then, that her first true friend is a hero sprung directly from her beloved pages.

Sakura meets her first friend, her best friend, at the park. Her father and uncles are out leading another caravan. Osuke, Takeru, and Nene are all with tutors or clubs. Aunt Mioka is trapped in her family’s quarters caring for a feverish Shoujiro. Kaa-san had been invited to take tea with some families up the street. Sakura had almost, almost been forced into going with her, but she had been able to raise the appropriate amount of fuss to get out of it. She had sworn she wouldn’t wander farther than the library, and that she would only speak to ‘acceptable’ children that approached her first.

(Sakura was alone again. Even if she didn’t have to suffer obvious snubbing or ignore not-so-subtle whispers, she was still alone.

Sakura is sick and tired of being alone.)

Regardless, Sakura finds herself in the park on one of those rare autumn days where the sun actually seems to work. She intends to find a nice, tall tree to sit under and read beneath the shade. But she is stopped by a gang of kids that seems to take offense at her presence.

“Look who it is,” Ueno Ikki crows down at Sakura, a smug smirk on his face, “I didn’t know mannerless bastards were allowed in our good neighborhood.”

Sakura wants to ask if Ikki-kun even knows what ‘bastard’ means, as he clearly isn’t using the term correctly. Her parents are married, thank-you-very-much. But she bites her tongue and tries to shy away further into her book. Kaa-san made it very clear that she would be punished if she ever hit Ikki-kun again, and his sister and their gathering friends would surely report her actions to their parents.

“Awwww, are you trying to ignore us?” Ikki droned, “I don’t think you get that luxury. I was always taught that even the sorriest waste of a person was still to bow to their betters.”

“My mother said that if I could not act like a lady and speak as a lady should, then I shouldn’t speak at all. Until you start acting worthy of a lady’s attention, I shall continue to withhold mine,” Sakura said, eyes scanning the page, though she wasn’t retaining any of the words. She was too focused on the older children who were encircling her like a pack of street dogs.

A fierce giggle catches Sakura’s attention. She finally looks up from her book to see Ueno Aiko and a pair of her favorite lackeys standing next to her brother.

“As if Sakura-yaro knows how to act like a lady. She’d first have to have the proper blood for that. She isn’t like us,” Aiko tittered haughtily. The two girls behind her snickered in agreement.

Sakura bit her tongue again. ‘It wasn’t as if Aiko is of better birth than me,’ she internally seethed, ‘We are both the daughters of traders, and neither of us have noble ties. She would’ve long since bragged about them if she did.’

“I do pity you, you know,” Aiko continued to taunt, “Nothing to your name but an unseemly face and a bad temper. I wonder what will become of you when your uncle passes and his generosity isn’t carried on by his sons. With a forehead that big, I don’t think even your mother’s old—”

Sakura didn’t quite get a chance to hear the end of that sentence. Without warning, a burst of smoke and sparks flared from the ground, and a short figure lept from the tree branches above right between Sakura and the Ueno siblings.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size!” the blond figure, a boy, roared, throwing something at Aiko’s feet. More smoke and sparks flared up, and the girl jumped back with a screech.

“And just who do you think you are?” Ikki demanded.

The boy squared his shoulders and stood tall under the scrutiny. With the confidence of a grown man and the sureness of a samurai, he said, “I’m Uzumaki Naruto, the future Hokage! Believe it!”

“Like the demon?” Aiko shrieked.

‘Like the princess?’ Sakura wondered.

Sakura loves history. It feels real in a way that nothing else does. But that might just be because she seems to find herself in history again, and again, and again. And when Sakura examined that mirror of ink and time, the first face she always saw staring back was that of Senju Touka.

Senju Touka was an extraordinary shinobi during the Warring States Era. She was renowned in genjutsu, an amazing feat considering the woman had battled and survived against Uchiha for years. But of what little was recorded of her, she was also a lonely woman.

The only kunoichi of the Senju clan during that time, Touka was too much of a lady for the other shinobi, and too much of a shinobi for the other ladies. The only solace she found was amongst her cousins, whom she advised closely until their deaths. Senju Tobirama noted that Touka was a scholar of some renown, though she lacked the innovative drive of the Nidaime.

And then Senju Hashirama was betrothed to the third princess of the Whirlpools.

‘I had feared that coming to the Land of Fire would tear me apart, but in truth, it has made me whole,’ Uzumaki Mito once stated in one of the fragments of her unrestricted writings, ‘Hashirama has given me the other half of my heart, his brother the other half of my mind, and his cousin Touka the other half of my soul.’

Touka had spent her last days at Mito’s side. The two women were the only shinobi of their generation to die of old age.

And Sakura thinks of the kunoichi she saw so much of herself in, the princess that gave that kunoichi her first true friend, and the boy before her that shared the princess’s name.

It felt a little bit like fate.

It felt a little bit like hope.

The blond boy snarled, throwing another thing on the ground that exploded into sparks. Aiko and her two friends ran away screaming, while some of the other boys swore. With the benefit of distance, Sakura could better see around the slight smoke screen, and thus had just enough time to jump to her feet, rush past the blond, and send another practiced kick at the bigger boy who was about to lunge forward and take them by surprise.

“I thank you for your help, Uzumaki-hiko,” Sakura said, ignoring Ueno Ikki clutching the area between his legs and face-planting to the ground, just like last time.

“Hah? Oh, don’t mention it,” he said, “I hate bullies. When I’m Hokage, I’m gonna make a rule saying no one can ever bully anyone else ever again.”

“A wise decision, Uzumaki-hiko,” she agreed, “The village would be better off with such a rule in place.”

“Thanks?” Uzumaki-hiko said, turning to throw another object behind him. This time, though, Sakura could see that his hands were full of an old roll of festival crackers, the kind that Osuke would always pass out. Sakura loved to play games with them, tossing them down at her cousins’ feet to make them dance away, and getting bombarded with them in turn. She had only ever thought of them as toys, never as weapons.

Uzumaki-hiko growled with frustration as the cracker refused to explode. “Stupid duds! Now I know why Rikio threw them away.” He tossed another, this one luckily bursting and making one of Ikki’s friends jump around cradling his slightly singed foot.

Sakura eyed the dwindling roll of firecrackers, and then the larger boys that were still circling closer and enraged at being bested.

“Uzumaki-hiko, I believe it is imperative that we make a tactical retreat,” she said.

The blond boy blinked stupidly at her. “Wha?”

Sakura pulled him out of the way as one of the boys dove forward in an attempt to tackle them to the ground.

“Oh, for Buddha’s sake. Run!”

That, at least, the boy seemed to understand. He threw the last of his firecrackers on the ground, where about half of them exploded. Sakura grabbed his hand, and through the cloud of sparks and smoke, they ran.

“Wha’d ya’ even do to make them all so mad at you for?” Uzumaki-hiko asked.

“I kicked one of them. About a year ago. They’ve been saying mean things and ignoring me ever since,” Sakura explained as the blond boy led her back through a cluster of trees.

“Well that’s stupid,” he said, pulling her behind a tree trunk, “Why didn’t he just kick you back so you’d be even? If he didn’t even care enough to try and make you even, then it’s stupid for them to still be mean about it later.”

Sakura shrugged. “I guess I broke some cardinal rule of being a lady.”

“A what?”

“A cardinal rule,” Sakura said, though Uzumaki-hiko’s dumbfounded expression didn’t lessen, “A cardinal rule: a fundamental principle, law, or rule that is so important that it should always be followed and breaking it can have serious consequences.”

‘Way to sound like a dictionary!’ something screamed in her mind.

Sakura blushed in embarrassment, but to her relief, Uzumaki-hiko just nodded.

“Oh, so it’s like one of the ninja rules, like never showing weakness and always being prepared. I get it now. I always forget about the rules and I don’t know all of them yet. But Jiji always explains it to me, even if he sighs and says I should know them all by now. Did someone explain the rules to you after so you don’t break them again?”

“....well, no. But everyone already knows them, so they’d probably think I’m dumb if I asked.”

“Did you think I was dumb for not knowing what a, ah…. you just said it…. oh yeah! Did you think I was dumb for not knowing what a cardinal rule was?” Uzumaki-hiko asked.

“No,” Sakura said, shaking her head.

“Did you think I was dumb for needing you to explain it?”

“No,” she agreed, a little less hesitant.

“Then why’s it any different for you?” he asked, “If the rule’s so important, then they shoulda’ explained it to you so ya’d know it. But if no one’s explained anything, and they’re still mad that you broke it, and they always say mean things about ya’ and pick on ya’, then the broken rule’s just an excuse and they’re just being mean.”

“Really?” Sakura asked with a sniffle.

“Yeah! That’s on them! How can they expect you to know something if no one’s ever explained it to you?” Uzumaki-hiko growled angrily, “The same thing happened with me. I used to always get my food from different grocery stores, and no matter what, they would always give me yucky food or make me spend all my money to buy one packet of ramen.”

“That’s horrible!” Sakura gasped, thinking about what could happen if her father and her uncles ever did that to their customers. “That’s— that’s fraud and, and surcharging! That’s against the law! They should be arrested for that!”

“Yeah, well I didn’t know that was bad because everyone did it to me. I thought it was because I was me, and everyone says I’m a demon, so….”

‘You’re a prince!’ that voice in Sakura’s head insisted, ‘They should be begging for your forgiveness, or at least thrown into the tidepools of your homeland! Uzumaki Mito-hime’s relative deserves better!’

“Do they still do all of that?” Sakura asked instead. Causing a scene, no matter how justified, was unladylike. Kaa-san was already going to yell at her enough. She didn’t need to add to it now by yelling at a prince.

“They would if I went back, but I don’t go back anymore. One day I was really hungry, but it was late and none of the stores would let me in. So I went to a store I never been to before, and the grocery lady was really really nice. She let me buy tons of ramen and sold really tasty food and even gave me some for free if I helped her around the store. She explained some things about food and groceries that I didn’t know, and now I know that everyone else was being a meanie.”

“Well that’s good,” she sighed.

“Yeah. And now I can get plenty of tasty food! Anyway, I think the mean big kids left, so we don’t have to hide anymore.”

“Oh, did they? I didn’t even notice,” Sakura admitted.

“Yep! So you can go back now and I’ll stop bothering you. Bye!”

“Wha– wait!” she called, rushing after the boy, “I didn’t even get to properly thank you. I should at least treat you to breakfast, or something.”

“You don’t need to do that. Bye!”

“It’s only proper that I—”

“Look,” Uzumaki-hiko said, “It was really really awesome that we could fight the bullies off ‘n stuff, but I’m not stupid. I know that I’m a demon. Once people know that, they go back to being mean. Or other people are mean to them until they start being mean to me. I’m already pushing my luck with the grocery lady and her jiji, I don’t need to push it even farther with you. So bye, it was fun, and I understand if you have to be mean to me later.”

“You might say you’re not stupid, but you’re certainly acting like you are. Uzumaki-hiko—”

“My name is Naruto!” he snapped, and it was then that Sakura noticed he had tears in his eyes, “I don’t know what ‘hiko’ means, but I don’t like you calling me names. Just because I don’t know it doesn’t mean it’s okay.”

“Uzu– Naruto, it wasn’t an insult. But if you don’t like me calling you that, I won’t call you that. I just….”

‘C’mon, do you think Senju Touka would cower away from a conversation? Get over yourself already!’

Deciding that the voice was right for once, Sakura squared her shoulders and said, “I’d like to be your friend. Please.”

Mental streamers and confetti were tossed even as Sakura flinched at her awkwardness and Uzumaki…. Naruto’s eyes widened in amazement.

“You… ya’ do?” he asked, voice soft with hope, as if even saying the words was enough to break the fantasy of someone wanting to be his friend.

Sakura nodded. “Yes. You don’t need to be worried about people being mean to me, because as you saw, they’re already mean to me and being your friend can’t possibly make that worse. You’ve already been nicer to me than anyone else, and I just thought—”

Naruto tackled her. But instead of grappling and wrestling with her, the smaller boy just clung onto her in a tight hug.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” he chanted into her shoulder, “I’d love to be friends, ‘ttebayo! We can play ninja together, and join the academy together, and we’ll become the strongest ninja in the world, and, and braid each other’s hair and you can come to b\my birthday party and—”

“I’d love to come to your birthday party!” Sakura exclaimed, quickly hugging the boy back, “I’ll wear my best kimono and get you a present! And then you can come to my birthday party and I’ll show you my dolls. And we won’t have to play that stupid lady court game with seishitsu Aiko. Instead we’ll play games that make sense, like Poison Dagger and Lady Assassination and Hiori-hime and whatever doll you pick can always win.”

Sakura and Naruto shared a warm look. A look between friends; first friends; best friends. A look that said ‘I didn’t think I’d ever meet someone like you, but I am so so happy I finally have.’

They stayed in the hug for a few moments before Naruto finally pulled them to their feet.

“Is there anyone waiting for you, dattebayo? Do you have to go home soon?”

“No. When Kaa-san goes to neighborhood parties by herself, she isn’t back until after dinner. Sometimes not even until after bedtime. I don’t have to go back home today until I want to.”

“Then do you want to spend the day with me and the grocery lady?”

“I’d love to.”

With a cheer of laughter, Naruto grabbed her hand and Sakura was pulled away by her friend.

(Her friend.

It’s nothing concrete, not yet. But Sakura hopes….Sakura knows…. her days of being alone are behind her.)

*****

Naruto leads the two of them across half the park to where a woman with tan skin, dark brown hair, and brown eyes is sitting on a ginormous quilted blanket.

“I was wondering when you’d be back. You stayed in the park, right, sweetie?” the woman said, smiling at Naruto.

“Uh-huh,” he said, running up to her. “What’d you do at the mission desk?”

“I submitted a mission to clean your apartment,” she told him as he sat down next to her.

“Aren’t the bakemono supposed to take care of that?”

“It seemed to me that the ‘bakemono’ needed a bit of help. Luckily, though, once a genin team takes the mission and completes it, you’ll be able to go back. In the meantime, though, would you like to stay with me and Daiju-oji?”

“Like last night?”

“Exactly. Just, you know, for a few more days. Or weeks. Or months. Or however long it takes for the ninja of the village to finish up the job.”

“Okay! Can my new friend come over and visit?”

It was only then that the lady looked up and noticed Sakura. A look of surprise, and somehow, recognition flashed across her face, before the woman gave Sakura a glowing smile.

“Absolutely. Why don’t you tell me about your new friend, sweetie.”

Naruto burst into an excited account of their scuffle against Ueno Ikki and his friends. The lady nodded along at the words as she turned and started digging bento boxes out of the picnic basket beside her.

“—and then I told those mean old big kids to beat it! We got a few good hits in, but then we had to make a, a…”

“A tactical re-retreat,” Sakura offered, awkwardly fidgeting with her hands.

“Yeah, one of those,” Naruto beamed, “That’s when you have to run from a fight ‘cause you know you’re not strong enough to win. But don’t worry! When I’m Hokage, I’ll be strong enough to kick anyone’s butt, and I’ll never have to run away from a fight again, dattebayo!”

“Well, in the meantime, I think our brave ninjas deserve a reward for being so brave. How do apple slices sound?” the woman asked, popping open the lid of one of the bentos to reveal four even sections filled with apple slices, “I’ve got chocolate, caramel, chocolate and caramel, and just regular apple slices, if you’re not a fan of sweets.”

“Do you have any without the skins?” Naruto asked, “The skins taste weird, I don’t like ‘em.”

“But that’s where all the healthy parts are!” Sakura protested. It wouldn’t do for her new friend to not be healthy. Then he’d die of–of scurvy or something, and then where would they be? “You should still eat them.”

“She’s right,” the woman confirmed, “And no, all the apples still have their peels.”

“Fine,” Naruto groaned, as if he was making the greatest concession in the world, “Chocolate and caramel, I guess.”

“Sure thing. And for you?” the woman asked, turning to Sakura.

“Um, plain please,” she said, knowing that it was a bit too early in the day for chocolate.

“Sure thing.” She passed Sakura a few apple slices and patted the large picnic blanket she had laid out. “Why don’t you join us, honey?”

“Okay,” Sakura said, sitting down next to Naruto, “Thank you for the food, miss….”

“Yusami,” she said with a smile, “And you?”

“I’m Sakura. Haruno Sakura,” the Sakura answered, bowing her head politely.

“It’s very nice to meet you Sakura-chan. Let’s dig in.”

Yusami grabbed a caramel-drizzled apple slice. “So, Haruno—”

“Just Sakura is fine. Naruto wants me to call him by his given name, so you can call me by mine. If you’d like.”

“Of course, Sakura,” Yusami said, “So you and Naruto met when you were being picked on?”

Sakura blushed in shame and nodded.

“I’m sorry you’ve been having to deal with that. Do your parents know?”

“I haven’t really mentioned it to Tou-san,” she admitted, “But Kaa-san just says to ignore it.”

Yusami frowned. “And have you? Been ignoring it, that is?”

“Yeah. But that hasn’t really….”

“No, I don’t expect it has,” she agreed, “Well, if you ever want help telling your father, or you need someone to speak on your behalf, or even just need something like a treat or a hug to feel better, you’re more than welcome to ask me. Okay, honey?”

“Okay,” Sakura agreed, “It really shouldn’t be much of a problem. I don’t really see the other kids that often. But when school starts….”

“Then you’ll be in the ninja academy with me!” Naruto said, swallowing his big bit of apple, “So you won’t have to see them unless they’re also gonna’ be ninjas! And if they are, then I’ll be there to help scare them off.”

“Oh, you want to be a ninja, Sakura? That’s wonderful!” Yusami exclaimed.

“Really?” Sakura asked. It was the first time she ever voiced her wish to go to the Academy, and it was nice for someone to reassure her. Sakura knew that if Aiko or her friends knew, they would laugh at her. Even Osuke and Takeru would share one of those ‘is she serious’ looks, and Nene would ask why she wanted to constantly be in danger rather than enter a betrothal like her.

“Of course it is. Do you have a dream or goal you’re set on completing, like Naruto? He’s going to become the Hokage.”

Naruto beamed at the sureness in Yusami’s words, as if she knew for a fact he would one day achieve his dream.

“Well, I don’t have anything like that, but I do know I want to be strong like Senju Touka, and graceful like her friend Mito, and ruthless in battle like Ameyuri Ringo, and smart like Honorable Chiyo of the Sand.”

Sakura spent the rest of the morning munching on apples and telling her new friends (friends!) about all of her favorite kunoichis. And as Naruto took the time to outline why he wanted to lead the village and what he would do once he did, Sakura decided then and there that she would become strong enough to be the type of ninja that could stand at his side.

But first, she would have to decide on what she was getting Naruto for his birthday.

Chapter Text

“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”

 - A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

*****

“And then we can add the stickers! Thanks for letting us use them, Dai-ji!”

“Of course, young man! It’s gladdening to see these put to good use,” Daiju-oji said. 

Yusami smiled as Sakura showed Naruto how to turn a sheet of paper into a lavender-purple crab. After the two had hit it off at the park, they spent the rest of the day and the following Sunday attached at the hip. The weekend was a blur of the two kids running around, playing ninja, and tasting Yusami’s cake samples to find the Perfect Birthday Cake.

Yusami smiled and kissed her uncle on the cheek. “Thank you for letting them get into your scrapbooking supplies.”

Daiju-oji waved her off. “It’s as I said: it’s nice to see them be used by somebody. Buddha knows I have more stickers and ribbons than I could possibly need in this lifetime. Kazue would’ve tanned my hide for buying so many in the first place.”

The two shared a sad smile at the mention of the aunt Yusami had never gotten to meet. 

From what Daiju-oji had told her over the years, Kazue-oba had forever been a down-to-earth, practical woman. As a shinobi that had served the village for over thirty years, Yusami couldn’t dream that she’d be anything but. She would have despaired at her husband’s dozens of crafts and hobbies that he seemed to pick up, drop, and then wander back to at random.

“She would’ve told me ‘Just pick one already and stick with it, my lovable oaf.’” her uncle had told her one night. Yusami had barely been in Konoha three months, and hadn’t yet gotten the nerve to ask about Kazue-oba directly. But her uncle’s thoughts had veered towards her all the same. 

How could they not? Throughout his life, he had spent more days waking up at her side than he had in an empty bed.

“And then, and then I would say,” Daiju-oji continued, laughing through a spring of tears, “I would tell her, ‘You know, you could always pick up a hobby that didn’t include weapon management or trouncing your students in the training yard.’ And then she would laugh and say, ‘But my love, that’s my favorite pastime.’ And we would laugh together and she would tell me to just give up everything else and focus on calligraphy, because she loved my handwriting and would insist on using my kakejiku as wallpaper.”

(Over the five— closing in on six —years Yusami had lived with him, her uncle has never removed his calligraphy set from his desk.

Daiju-oji has a weekly habit of thoroughly cleaning his wife’s wakizashi before returning it to its position of honor above their mantle.

Grief is love with nowhere to go, but people don’t tell you that sometimes you pick up others’ love in favor of your own.)

Their reminiscing was cut off by Naruto carefully placing three origami invitations in the middle of the table.

“So, ah,” he said sheepishly, “Would ya’ like to come to my birthday party?”

Sakura beamed while Yusami and her uncle’s smiles turned happy.

“We would love to, sweetie,” Yusami said. Naruto gave an excited giggle before pushing the invitations towards them. Sakura’s was a pink square of paper folded into the shape of a tiger with various squiggles of glitter glue acting as stripes. Daiju-oji’s was a green bear that had been adorned with some orange pipe cleaner whiskers. Yusami had to bite back a laugh as she was handed the teal paper that had been turned into a biblically accurate, googly-eyed turtle.

Still smiling, she carefully unfolded the paper to see her own handwriting staring back at her.

You are hereby invited

to help celebrate

Naruto’s 6th birthday.

It will be hosted at Traveler’s Plaza

on October 10th from 11-2.

Food will be provided.

“I’ll be sure to mark it on my calendar,” Yusami agreed, folding the invitation back into shape as carefully as she had unfolded it. She then eyed the dozens of origami invitations and asked, “Who else are you planning on inviting?”

At her question, the bashfulness returned.

“I was kinda hoping you’d know?”

Yusami blinked dumbly at the question before it hit her.

‘Ah,’ she thought, ‘Most parents would set playdates up for their kids, wouldn’t they? But with no parent in sight, I’m probably the next best thing.’

“If you’d like me to invite my friends to your party, then that’s okay. But we would need to talk about a few things,” she agreed, “Firstly, Naruto, you do not have to invite anyone to your party that you don’t want there, okay? It’s your birthday. You get the final decision on who’s there and who’s not. So if you don’t like someone for any reason— and I do mean any reason. It could be as simple as you don’t like the way they smell —then they don’t have to come. Okay?”

Naruto nodded. “Okay!”

“Okay, good. Second thing: once you invite them, you can always uninvite them. If you meet someone today and think they’re cool, but then they come to your party and start acting like a jerk, you can always ask them to leave.”

“But wouldn’t that be mean?”

“Not at all,” Sakura piped up, “If people are invited to stuff, they agree to be nice and polite to everyone there. If they can’t be nice and polite, then they have to leave.”

Yusami nodded. “It’s basic manners to listen to the host of a party, especially if the host is providing entertainment or food like we’ll be doing.”

“But what if people start being jerks and they refuse to leave?” Naruto asked.

“Then one of the other guests will make them leave. And that leaves me with the last thing: all of my friends are shinobi.”

The two kids shared a star-struck gasp. “Really?!”

“Yes. But you have to understand that sometimes when shinobi have been in enough fights, they have some bad memories. Bad memories that make them really, really sad. Bad memories that make them really, really angry. Bad memories that make them confused and not know that they’re here instead of in the memory. So to make sure my friends can keep from thinking about the bad memories, I’m going to have to ask you to do a few things.”

Naruto and Sakura shared a look before turning back to her. “Like what?”

“No loud, unexpected noises,” Yusami began, “I know the party is going to at least partially overlap with the Festival of Remembrance, but no firecrackers like you told me about from the park.”

“Ya’ aren’t even supposed to use them inside, anyway,” Naruto said.

“That’s right. No balloons, or party poppers, either.” At their accepting nods, Yusami continued. “If you want to pull any pranks, please avoid red paint. I know red paint doesn’t always look like blood, but if a person’s caught in the bad memories, they might not be able to tell. Don’t be afraid to ask about things, but if someone refuses to answer or elaborate, do not keep grilling them about it. People do not owe answers to your every question. And for the love of everything do not mess with the food.”

Sakura and Naruto readily agreed, which Yusami was beyond thankful for. She didn’t really know how to say ‘I met two of my dearest friends by saving them from starvation, and another friend is so paranoid about poison she might actually go on a killing spree if you so much as sprinkled salt in her coffee.’

“Alright. Good, great. Now, with that all said, is there anyone you already know you want to invite?”

“Yeah, I wanna give this one to Jiji!” Naruto said, holding up a yellow and red monkey with scribbled on wrinkles.

“Naruto, sweetie,” Yusami said, voice strained, “Am I right in thinking that when you say Jiji, you’re talking about the Hokage?”

“Yeah! He’s the only one who ever celebrates my birthday with me, dattebayo. Last year he took me out for ramen and got me a set of real kunai! But one of the bakemono stole them all and said I won’t get’em back ‘til I passed the weapons test at the academy.”

It took everything in Yusami to keep her smile sugary sweet while inside she cussed out the most powerful man in Konoha. Deciding that she had better things to do than dwell on old goat fuckers that banished kids to mold-riddled apartments and gave knives to unsupervised five-year-olds, she said, “That’s mighty nice of the Hokage to visit you every year on your birthday. Do you think he’d like that others are joining you?”

Naruto shrugged. “Dunno. I hope he can actually come this year, ‘cause usually he gives me my present a few days before or after. He says making sure the festival goes smoothly is a big job, and that it’s a shame I always have ‘ta miss it ‘cause of my birthday.”

“Awwww, that’s so—” spectacular “—sad that he’s always so busy and can’t come the day of. Why don’t we drop that invitation off and leave a note that it would be—” a million times better “—okay if he couldn’t make it.”

“Sounds good!” Naruto said. Sakura nodded her head in agreement, not questioning in the slightest as to why the God of Shinobi would take the time to help a random orphan celebrate his birthday. Yusami wasn’t going to push too much there, either, because she also didn’t want to try and explain state secrets to kindergarteners.

“If that’s all, then get your shoes on and grab the invitations,” Yusami instructed. It was Wednesday, so that means her Ino-Shika-Chou’s on babysitting duty. “I think it’s about time we went out for lunch.”

*****

Yusami ushered Naruto and Sakura into Traveler’s Plaza, directing them over to the counter.

“Yusami! Welcome back, welcome back!” Akimichi Chouei merrily called, “And who’s this you’ve brought with you? Another pair of hungry souls taken under your wing?”

“Chouei-san, meet Naruto and Sakura, some new friends of mine. Sakura, Naruto, this is Akimichi Chouei-san, the owner of the restaurant, and one of the best cooks in all of Konohagakure,” Yusami introduced.

“A pleasure, an absolute pleasure,” Chouei said, warmly shaking Sakura’s hand, before doing the same to Naruto. “Oh my, you’re the birthday boy, aren’t you? You must go through the menu and tell me what you’d like for the party. Don’t be shy about choosing: the food will be my present to you. Two, no, three appetizers, two main course options, and one dessert. I’d offer two, but if I know Yusami, she’ll have a masterpiece of a cake already planned.”

“Gee, thanks, mister!” Naruto said, “Would ya’ like to come?”

“I’d be delighted to,” Chouei-san said, happily accepting the invitations in the shape of a popsicle-stick-boned hummingbird. As Naruto grabbed a menu and started to flip through it, with Sakura leaning close to help him read the options, Chouei leaned his head closer to Yusami. 

“Now, what’s the flavor profile of the cake? The lad can pick whatever he wants to, of course, but we should at least steer him in a complimentary direction.”

“Matcha, vanilla, and white chocolate,” Yusami said, “I’ll try leading him towards fruity appetizers and desserts, but I’m a bit lost on the main courses.”

“Something with plenty of sesame seeds would be best,” the Akimichi man said, “A bit of an unconventional choice for a cake, though.”

“It’s the one he liked best. And speaking of which,” Yusami said, pulling a few folded pages of paper out of her bag, “The final version of the Ueno cupcake recipe, as promised. And as payment for lunch today, three cake recipes that Naruto thought were ‘totally awesome but not birthday cakes.’ ”

Chouei-san flipped through the recipes with glee. “Red velvet cake? Now that’s a new one. I’ll have to throw it together tonight. Enjoy the lunch, my dear. I, unfortunately, have to check on a few others before the rush truly picks up.”

Yusami waved as Chouei bustled over to other tables, checking in and jotting down orders as needed. She quickly scanned the menu, picked what she’d like to have for lunch, and then turned to the two kiddos and helped them hammer out what they’d like. Chouei had just returned and gotten their order down when the bell above the door rang and Yusami heard a cheerful call of her name.

“Long time no see,” Inochin greeted her, swinging his niece off his shoulders and plopping her down on the stool next to Sakura, “I was wondering if we’d have to raid the grocer’s to stop Chousaki’s pouting.”

“Oi!” the jounin said, elbowing her teammate, “Don’t say that like I’m the only one who’s missed seeing her. She’s friends with all of us.”

“But you’re the only one my brother has to scold whenever we’re taking long missions outside the village,” Shika mumbled tiredly.

“Auntie’s right. Dad says it’s troublesome,” Shikamaru agreed.

Chousaki squawked in indignation as the two Naras gave identical, uncaring yawns. Chouji, Ino, Inochin, and Yusami all laughed.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been around so much. I’ve been helping some new friends,” Yusami said, “This is Haruno Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto. Sakura, Naruto, the adults are Akimichi Chousaki, Yamanaka Inochin, and Nara Shika, jounin of Konoha. The three around your age are Akimichi Chouji, Yamanaka Ino, and Nara Shikamaru. They’ll be starting at the Ninja Academy next year, just like you two.”

Ino gasped and grabbed at Sakura’s hands. “Oh this is wonderful! I finally have a classmate that can take the kunoichi classes with me! Please tell me you aren’t a lazy bum like Shikamaru and Chouji.”

Chouji tried to protest that he wasn’t lazy, he just liked to eat. Shikamaru just shrugged his shoulders, murmured ‘fair,’ and leaned up against his aunt, the both of them looking two seconds away from falling asleep.

For her part, Sakura’s eyes lit up and she squeezed Ino’s hands back. “It’s good to meet a future fellow shinobi. I look forward to taking classes with you, and can promise that I’ll give it my all! If I want to help Naruto achieve his dream of becoming Hokage, I’ve got to get as strong as I can.”

Ino clapped excitedly. “Perfect. I was getting worried. With no other clan girls besides Hinata in our grade, I thought Top Kunoichi was just going to be handed to me. Now I might have some small amount of competition.”

Everyone bristled as Sakura’s excitement rippled into fury. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh don’t get your panties in a twist,” Ino dismissed, completely oblivious to the mood of the room, “It’s just that everyone knows civilian-born ninja aren’t as strong or valuable as clan ninjas. They don’t climb as high in the ranks, and they don’t get the important missions, and they’re always retiring early because they can’t handle the shinobi lifestyle. I’m sure you’ll do your best, but your best isn’t going to be as good as mine.”

“You’re right. My best and your best aren’t going to be the same. Because my best is going to be a million times better!” Sakura declared.

Ino sputtered offendedly. “You clearly don’t know much about being a ninja—”

“And you clearly aren’t as smart as you think you are,” Sakura said, cutting her off, “Or did you not know that Namikaze Minato— the Fourth Hokage, the God of Shinobi, the most powerful man of his generation —was a clanless orphan? If he can be that strong, then I know I can kick your butt everyday at the Academy.”

“No,” Ino tried to deny, “No, he was a member of the Namikaze clan—”

“There is no Namikaze clan,” Inochin barked, scooping the girl out of her seat, “Haruno-chan is right. The Yondaime was born a civilian.”

“But Midori-san said—”

“Midori-san is just bitter that a civilian woman married your grandfather and became the wife of the clan head. I’m going to tell your father what you said and remind him exactly how much shi–stuff our mom had to deal with. That way he might remember to teach his daughter a lesson on being a part of the village, and that he shouldn’t let jealous old hags babysit. Also, no dessert today.”

Ino immediately began to protest as Inochin marched her down to the far end of the line of stools. The Shika-Chou’s shuffled their seats around to make room, leaving Shikamaru next to Sakura, and Chouji next to him.

“Don’t listen to Ino,” Shikamaru said tiredly, “Otousan says tons of respectable shinobi come from civilian backgrounds. You only ever hear about the clans because the clans are the only ones that care about fame. They need to appear strong because if a clan looks weak, they might get targeted for bloodline theft.”

Sakura huffed but straightened herself back up. “Thank you, Nara-kun. That’s good to know. Naruto.”

The blond boy snapped his head towards Sakura, allowing Yusami to see that he also was seething a bit with rage.

“I didn’t care too much about class ranking so long as I did my best to get stronger. But now that’s changed. I still don’t care if I can’t get the Rookie of the Year, because I know you’ll be going for it and that you’ll be the Hokage and so you’ll need to be the best. But I’m promising you now that I’m going to get the spot of Top Kunoichi, and that no matter what, you and I are both going to be stronger than her.”

“Right!” Naruto agreed with a shout, “Nobody can say things like that about my best friend! Let’s show ‘er what two ninjas without a clan can do, dattebayo!”

The two shook on it, sealing their pact just in time for Chouei-san to come out with their food.

*****

Despite what Yusami feared from the rocky start, Chouji, Shikamaru, Sakura, and Naruto got on like a house on fire. Naruto and Chouji bonded over food, Sakura and Shikamaru over books, Chouji and Sakura over boring social events, and Naruto and Shikamaru, surprisingly, over pranks. While the Nara heir was too lazy to pull one himself, he was, apparently, a great admirer of Naruto’s work.

“It’s funny to see some of the ninja chase you down after you get them with water balloons or a bucket of paint,” Shikamaru said, “It’s a nice alternative to cloud watching, especially on clear days.”

He then went on to ask about Naruto’s capabilities and offer suggestions that had Naruto starry-eyed, and Sakura diligently taking notes on a growing pile of napkins. 

‘If his strategies in the field are half as thought out as his prank ideas, then I can definitely see why he’s the future jounin commander,’ Yusami thought, ‘I feel sorry for whoever’s pranked next.’

The meal ended with the two Naras and Akimichis each receiving their own origami birthday invitations. Inochin got one as well, and after a snippy, half-hearted apology from Ino (and a reaffirmation that her uncle would discuss her behavior with her father, and that Naruto could rescind invitations at any time for any reason), so did she.

After everyone made their goodbyes, Yusami took Naruto and Sakura to the park to burn off some of their energy. She played a few rounds of tag with them, but once she was sure of the time, she hustled them over to the Ninja Academy.

While dozens of ninjas-in-training and their associated parents slipped out of the yard, Yusami led Naruto and Sakura further in. She spotted her target in an instant and once she was sure he was done shooing away the students, she pounced.

“Iruka!” she called, the two kids following at her heels.

“Yusami, what a surprise!” he said with a smile, “Hope you’re not here to lambaste the cafeteria staff again.”

“Not the goal today, but thank you for reminding me that I need to make my yearly petition for that free lunch program.” Yusami ruffled Naruto and Sakura’s hair and said, “I’m actually here for a different reason. Kids, this is Umino Iruka. He’s learning how to be a ninja teacher and might even be your sensei. Iruka, these are Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura, two of your potential students.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Iruka said, kneeling down to the kids’ level, “Have you got any questions for me about the academy? You’d be starting next year, yeah?”

Yusami had to hold back a wince as Naruto and Sakura burst into a flurry of excited words. If her friend’s posture and fake smile didn’t show his discomfort, his tone certainly did; Yusami certainly knew a customer service voice when she heard one.

Thankfully, though, neither child seemed to notice. They spent a good ten minutes going over everything from course curriculum to required gear to how often ninjas were expected to guard princesses. By the end of it, Naruto was passing over an invitation disguised as an origami fish, and promising Iruka-sensei that he would be the best student ever, believe it!

There were smiles all around. Yusami told Sakura and Naruto to go play for a bit: she had to talk to Iruka real quick. She just wanted to get that petition form and tell the school that they would do well to provide free lunch to any student who needed it. It’ll just take a second, pinky promise. They were running off towards a swing, claiming that the last one there had to push the other. Yusami watched on, smiling, smiling, smiling, until—

“Don’t even start,” Iruka cringed, already shying away from her glare. “I know you’re going to say—”

“What the hell, Iruka?”

“—but I assure you, it is just a small hiccup from an issue that’s already been resolved.”

He relaxed his posture and sighed. “Look,” he explained, voice swelling with emotion, “When I was younger and closer to my parents’ friends, I heard some…. rumors about Naruto and his…. pranks.”

“To which you have absolutely no leg to stand on,” Yusami scoffed.

“I know. Trust me, Yusami. I know,” he stressed, “But sometimes. Sometimes first impressions die hard. And that’s not on Uzumaki-kun. Not in the slightest. It is totally on me and I take full responsibility for that. Just please trust me when I say I’m aware of it, I’m working on it, and I want to go into any interaction with Uzumaki-kun with an open mind. Especially if we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other in the coming years.”

Yusami wanted to play the stern and disproving hardass, but she didn’t have it in her. Not when Iruka’s words and expression were filled with such sincerity.

“It’s fine, I guess,” Yusami sighed. It wasn’t like she couldn’t fully understand it. The Nine-Tails had killed Iruka’s parents and destroyed his life. She couldn’t expect him to be fully on board with anything Tailed-Beast related. At the very least, Iruka seemed to be making a genuine effort, which was more than she could say for most. “So long as you know and are aware of it. But for the love of the Sage, drop the customer service voice.”

“I’ll try. And trust me, you won’t be the only one giving me shit if I slip,” he chuckled, “You might want to head back before they bust that swing.”

Yusami followed his gaze to see that Naruto and Sakura were desperately contorting themselves trying to fit together on the singular swing. She laughed, gave her friend a quick hug, and then headed on out before one of the kids could break something.

*****

“And what’s the big rule while we’re in this building?” Yusami asked.

“No wandering off,” Sakura and Naruto answered.

“Good,” Yusami nodded, giving each of their hands a squeeze before she used her hip to bump open the door to T&I headquarters.

She smiled at the blank-faced receptionist before making her way over to the small waiting area and sitting down on a slightly-cushioned chair. Yusami let go of the kids and carefully riffled through her bag of goodies. After gently brushing the various origami invitations to the side, she grabbed the blank sheets of paper and the box of crayons and handed them to the pair.

T&I headquarters was not a place destined for a comfortable waiting room. In fact, Yusami would say it was intentionally uncomfortable and meant to make Konoha enemies squirm as they tried to deduce if they would be able to escape back to the streets of the village, or if they would be dragged further into the building’s maw.

Either way, it meant that there wasn’t much to the waiting area besides just-barely-comfortable seats and blank walls. Yusami had learned quickly that if she was ever going to meet Anko from work, she had to bring her own entertainment. So Naruto and Sakura got papers and crayons, while Yusami pulled out a novel and got as comfortable as she could.

A little over half an hour later, Yusami’s light was cut off by a looming shadow.

“Ibiki-san!” she exclaimed, snapping her book closed, “Hello. Is Anko around?”

“She’s taken the day off, actually. Training. Are you looking for her?” the scarred man asked.

“Yes, I am. Two new friends of mine would very much like to meet her.”

The shinobi glanced at the two kids sprawled out on the floor, and then back at her. “I’m sure she’d be happy to meet them. Let me finish up, and then I can escort you to the training grounds.”

Ten minutes later, Ibiki was leading the three of them through the village and towards the outskirts of Konoha.

“Hey, mister!” Naruto said, swinging his (and Yusami and Sakura’s, who he was holding) hands, “If this Anko lady is a really strong shinobi, why’s she training?”

“You can always work to become stronger,” Ibiki said, “But Anko in particular wants to perfect a new jutsu. Some… coworkers of ours are helping her out. And by the sound of it, they’re still at it.”

Yusami hadn’t wanted to assume, but as they drew closer and closer to training ground twenty-three, it was becoming much more evident that the screams and explosions were most likely her friend’s doing.

“A new jutsu?! Can we see?” Sakura asked, her little inner academic beaming out.

“I don’t think that’d be safe,” Yusami said, “Best wait until everyone’s done practicing lethal techniques.”

“Although you can’t go into the training ground itself, it would be perfectly safe to watch from the gate,” Ibiki said, “The perimeter of every training ground is encircled in containment seals. No nature transformations should be able to touch us, and no weapons should be thrown our way. If any are, I will be prepared to deal with them.”

Upon hearing this, the two kids turned their most pleading expressions on Yusami. She gave a dry look before scoffing away a laugh and shaking her head.

“If either of you so much as step a toe into the training grounds while the shinobi are still fighting, the only birthday cake I’ll be making is one made of broccoli and green peppers.”

Sakura and Naruto both cheered. Ibiki led them forward to an open entrance in the thick, sturdy fence. Once she was sure that neither child was going to bolt, Yusami let her eyes finally land on the symphony of danger and chaos taking place before her.

There was tons of dust still in the air from the last explosion, blocking most of their view. From within the cloud of dirt, Yusami could hear, but not see, the clashing of blades. A familiar war cry cut through the clanging, and a knock-off Kakashi was launched out of the dust cloud. He flew back against the opposite wall, carved a small, person-sized crater into the stone, and then fell to the ground with a groan, not moving to rise.

A shrill whistle cut through the noise. The sound must have signaled something, because in an instant, a rush of wind swept the dust away, revealing three ninja standing back-to-back-to-back in a tight circle.

From what Yusami could tell, it was two men and a woman. The woman had greenish-blonde hair and was tightly clenching long, deadly senbon between her fingers. One man with black ashy hair slammed his hand into his shoulder, and pulled a sparking sword out of a tattooed seal. The other man, who also had black hair and wore sunglasses, raised his fists and watched his surroundings carefully.

Without much warning, the ground began to rumble. Yusami had to fight to keep her balance, while Naruto and Sakura both tumbled over. Ibiki, it seemed, was unaffected.

The three ninja in the training ground lept impossible high into the air. Where they once stood, a giant sinkhole opened up in the ground before a figure rapidly launched out of it. The figure launched themselves even higher than the others, and turned in mid-air to face them. 

It was Anko.

She flashed through a few hand signs, preparing to cast a jutsu, but the man in sunglasses beat her to it.

“Heavenly Illusion: Lover’s Heart!”

Anko blinked dazedly, smiling dopily at whatever genjutsu she was seeing. But then her smile turned bloodthirsty. 

She slammed her hands together in a seal, shouting, “Release!” Anko was resuming her string of hand signs before she even opened her eyes to reality. 

The other three ninja hit the ground, rolling to their feet as quickly as they could. But they were too slow. Anko dove forward, punching the epicenter of the sinkhole.

“Magnet Release: Constricting Viper Coil!”

Two giant snakes— one living and one made of earth —burst out of the ground. The Living one guided the earth snake into a wide circle, ensuring the other ninja were inside. They circled once, twice, thrice: each spiral tighter than the last. Anko’s opponents tried to escape, but there were no gaps in the coils.

Eventually, the two snakes were standing in the shape of a rounded pyramid with Anko standing on top. She breathed heavily for a few moments before she shouted another “Release!” and collapsed the earth snake. The real snake poofed out of existence, most likely back to the summons realm.

“Ugh, I was so close!” Anko wailed, “Stupid Wind Release! Why’s it so hard to mix with Earth?”

“I still say you could just pivot into an A-rank Wind technique,” one of the men said, returning his sword into his shoulder’s seal, “Performing a dual transformation isn’t a requirement, nor is inventing your own jutsu. The fact that you’re already doing one on top of the mastery of your general skills should mean you’re exempt from the other.”

“Maybe for your average shinobi whose sensei didn’t turn traitor against the village,” Anko interjected, shaking her head, “Any rapport I’ve had with the Sandaime’s been flushed down the toilet. And don’t even get me started on the advisors. Those old hags have been begging for a reason to make me disappear into the mission desks, never to be seen again. If I want any chance at passing the jounin exams, my attempt has to be perfect. Komachi, you’re the Wind expert. What am I doing wrong?”

“Fuck if I know,” the kunoichi said, carefully sticking her senbon into her hair, “I know you’ve got the hand signs down and that I’ve drilled plenty of Wind techniques into your head these past months. Best guess? Something about how you’re mixing the chakra natures isn’t right. You might need a different ratio of Earth and Wind than what you’re giving this jutsu.”

“Like I haven’t already thought of that. Well, let’s clear this out and go again.”

“Yeah, no, I’m calling it for today,” the sunglasses guy said. He was holding up the Kakashi knock-off with his shoulder and slowly inching towards the group. “I’ve got to get Toriichi to the hospital and make sure he doesn’t have a concussion. And you,” he said, pointing at Anko, “Are one E-rank away from chakra exhaustion. Besides, you’ve gathered a bit of an audience who looks like they’re dying to congratulate you.”

Anko followed his gaze to the gate, and to them. Naruto was the one to break first.

“That. Was. So. Cool!” he yelled, jumping up and down in excitement, “You were all ‘blam’ and they were all ‘ah!’ and I didn’t know you could do ninja stuff with a snake!”

“How did you reorient yourself so quickly after breaking out of that genjutsu?” Sakura asked, equally as eager as her friend, “The ninja guides at the library say it can sometimes take over an hour to even realize you’re in a genjutsu, and even longer to regain your full mental capacity after you break yourself out of one.”

“I didn’t know you were planning on taking the jounin exams. I would’ve made you study bentos, if I had,” Yusami said, smiling at her friend, “I don’t know why you’re so stressed, though. You’ll have it in the bag.”

Anko blinked stupidly at them, not saying a word. She then turned to glare at the man in sunglasses.

“What gives, Aoba?!” Anko barked, “We didn’t agree to any genjutsus higher than a C-rank. Can’t believe the nerve of some people, using uncalled for illusion techniques just to get me to throw in the towel….”

Without any further preamble, Anko pulled out a kunai and immediately stabbed herself in the thigh.

“What the fu—” Yusami slapped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from swearing in front of the kids. Anko’s head swiveled back to the gate, her expression even more confused than when she noticed them the first time. “Why would you—? Are you okay?! Do you need a doctor?!”

“Why aren’t you….” Anko’s eyes widened. “Oh. Oh, you’re not a genjutsu. Oh shit. Oh shit!”

The blonde kunoichi and the tattooed shinobi began howling with laughter.

“That’s a lot of blood. Do you feel okay, are you hurt?” Yusami demanded, rushing to Anko’s side.

“It’s fine, I’m fine. Totally fine,” Anko said, her expression bashful and her cheeks flushed red. “I just nicked an artery, that’s all.”

“Excuse me, you cut an artery?!”

“Nicked. I nicked an artery. Totally fine. I’ll be good in three minutes, five tops.”

“You’ll bleed out in five minutes!”

“Yeah, that’s kind of the plan,” Anko murmured. The other ninja were still laughing their asses off.

In a fit of pure panic, Yusami swept Anko into her arms and started running out of the training yard and towards the nearest hospital.

“I swear to every Kami you don’t believe in, if you bleed out on me, I am going to kill you,” Yusami growled in frustration, barely noticing Ibiki, Naruto, and Sakura running after her.

Anko buried her face into Yusami’s shoulder, muffling a noise of some sort. As Yusami was slowing down just long enough to read the street signs and figure out where she needed to turn, Naruto ran up and tucked a glittery paper snake into Anko’s hands.

“You’re really cool, Snake Lady! If you don’t die, would ya’ like to come to my birthday party?”

The kunoichi gave a thumbs up. “Sounds great, kid. Let’s just hope Yusami lets me live until then.”

“You better,” Yusami grumbled, “And you better bring the greatest birthday gift any six-year-old could dream of, I swear to God.”

Chapter Text

They get to the hospital in time to keep Anko from bleeding out.

The shinobi that were training with her came soon after, backing up Anko’s very sheepish ‘training accident’ excuse that initially had the medic-nin nurses raising their eyebrows in disbelief. Said nurses eventually let the explanations drop as they got to work on patching up Anko and Toriichi, the Kakashi knock-off. Sakura was enthralled by the iryou ninjutsu, as to be expected, and kept further inquiries from being made by firing off questions of her own.

Naruto gushed about how cool the fight was, complimenting the ninja who were there and insisting that they looked ‘like real shinobi, dattebayo!’ . He handed out birthday invites with aplomb, getting promises of attendance from Ibiki, Aoba, Komachi, and the tattooed ninja, Towa. Toriichi was still knocked out, but he got a little origami snail all the same.

Once the healing-jutsu specialists were finished, and Anko’s emergency blood transfusion was complete, Yusami decided to be merciful and agreed to check Anko out under her care rather than allow her to languish in the hospital for the night.

“Drink plenty of water and get a hearty meal,” one nurse said as Anko and Yusami both signed the release form, “If you vomit, get any dizzy spells, fever, chills, or feel faint, come back immediately.”

“Hai, sensei,” Anko agrees, more subdued than usual. Yusami feels zero sympathy. If Anko didn’t want to wallow in embarrassment, then she shouldn’t have fucking stabbed herself in the thigh.

“Alright, let’s get home, make dinner, and get settled for the night. I’ve got pizza dough rising in the fridge. Would any of you like to join us?” Yusami asked the group of shinobi.

“What’s pizza?” Sakura and Naruto asked in unison.

“Oh you’re in for a treat,” Anko laughed, “Rule of thumb: if Yusami offers to make a dish you’ve never heard of, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it’s a recipe she invented. And Yusami’s food is the best. Her pizza? Magic, I tell you. Magic.”

Yusami rolled her eyes, but smiled. “Pizza’s not exactly the most difficult recipe in the world. It’s just a bread-like base with tomato sauce, cheese, and your favorite meats and vegetables baked on top.”

“Magic.”

“Sure, I’d be down for the magic pits-sa,” Aoba, the ninja in the sunglasses, agreed.

“Pizza,” Anko corrected.

“Piss-a.”

“P-ee-tsa.”

“Pate-saa.”

“So is that a yes on dinner?” Yusami asked as Anko and Aoba continued their back-and-forth attempts to pronounce an amalgamation similar to the word ‘pizza.’

“Komachi and I’ve got a mission bright and early tomorrow morning, so we’ll have to pass,” Towa said, “Thanks for the invite though. Hope we can make it a rain check.”

“I’ll be more than happy to come,” Ibiki said, “I’m curious. Anko’s always praised your cooking. I want to see if it lives up to the reputation.”

“I like to think I’m a good chef, but like I said, pizza isn’t the most complicated of recipes. If you’re looking for a ‘feast fit for the gods’ or whatever else Anko’s claimed, you’ll have to dine with us some other night,” Yusami said.

Ibiki gave a sharp smile. “I think a casual dinner will do just fine.”

Komachi and Towa made their goodbyes. Ibiki and Yusami guided Naruto and Sakura back to her place, both of them ignoring Aoba and Anko’s ongoing bickering. That bickering stopped, though, the second the group walked through the front door and found Daiju-oji standing in the kitchen, green apron tied around his neck.

Anko threw herself in front of the others and gasped in horror. “No. No! Say it isn’t so! Daiju-san, you haven’t—” Anko clutched at her heart and swooned “—you aren’t trying to cook, are you?”

Daiju-oji rolled his eyes. “Now listen here, young lady. Just because I don’t have the talents of my niece doesn’t mean I’m an ignoramus who can’t work the stove. I’ll have you know I cooked for my wife for over forty years, to which she never complained."

Anko pouted at his scolding, but Yusami frowned for a different reason. “Why the green apron? The store’s closed today. You should be resting.”

“A shipment came in early and I had to go and meet them,” her uncle explained, “Thought you’d appreciate it. Especially once I gave you this.”

Daiju-oji pointed to the pot sitting on the counter and tilted it towards her. Yusami gasped in delight once she saw the bright green bean pods soaking in the water.

“Edamame!” Yusami cheered, “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! With the harvest starting soon, I’d thought there wouldn’t be any more until next summer.”

“Almost a whole case was freshly picked. I’ve already put a few in the freezer for you, but I thought you’d like some as a treat tonight.”

“Ne, ne, what’s edamame?” Naruto asked.

“It’s soybeans,” Sakura answered, making a face, “Boiled soybeans and salt. Kaa-san always said hostesses who serve it are cheap since it’s peasant food.”

“It’s delicious is what it is,” Yusami defended, “My brothers and I would pray for the days in summer when the soybeans would turn green. We’d hike over to Old Man Fuji’s place and barter for baskets of the stuff. He’d always be so mean about it, too. Half-a-dozen daikon for one basket of beans is highway robbery. But it’d always be so worth it. Mama would boil them soft and then put ‘em in the cellar to keep ‘em cool. Me, Arata, Hiro, Riku, Norio, and Shig tried to beg Papa to let us turn the dry fields into soybean planting ground. We’d swear up and down that we’d do all the work and not complain a lick, but Papa always refused. We didn’t know, then, that he was asking Lord Nakatomi for permission to raise cattle. There was no way he would’ve let us take over the fields he’d promised for grazing.”

“How can ya’ like something like veggies?” Naruto made a disgusted face that had Yusami giggling. “They’re all so gross!”

“You don’t have to eat them. In fact, I’ll keep them all to myself, thank you very much,” Yusami said, pulling on her own apron and redoing her ponytail. “I’d much rather you stay cute and tiny forever.”

“Oi, what’s that supposed to mean?!”

“Don’t you know that eating vegetables is what makes you big and strong? Cutie-patootie kids like you should stay far, far away from them. Otherwise, as the years go on, you’ll grow taller than me and ten times as muscular.”

Naruto’s arguments turned on a dime, and he began bartering with Yusami about how many soybeans he was allowed to eat. Sakura, still looking queasy at the beans, brightened up considerably when Yusami asked Daiju-oji to toss up a salad before she shoved him out of the kitchen.

Yusami swapped the salad bowl for the bowl of pizza dough in the fridge. She directed the kids to wash and dry their hands like she had, and then plopped them down at the table she had just taken a clean washcloth to. 

“Just like any dough, before you bake it you have to shape pizza into the right form,” Yusami explained, sprinkling flour onto the table and caking a bit of it onto her hands, “But you can’t just take a bit of dough and start flattening it. First, you’ve got to knead it so the texture gets smoothed out.”

Yusami grabbed a clump of dough out of the bowl. She rolled it between her hands until it formed a round ball. Then she whacked it onto the table before pushing on it with the heel of her palm, pulling it back towards herself, and folding it over.

She rolled out another two dough balls before setting them down in front of Naruto and Sakura. “Go ahead and get at it. I’ve got to talk to Anko and the other grown-ups, okay?”

The two enthusiastically began kneading their dough while Yusami dusted off her hands and popped into the living room.

“Would you two mind helping Anko get back to her place and pack a night bag?” she asked Ibiki and Aoba, “I’ve got to stay here with the kids and I don’t want my friend fainting from blood loss along the way.”

“We’ll look after her,” Ibiki promised, smirking down at a pouting Anko, “We always do.”

“Thank you,” Yusami said. Before she could turn back to the pizza table, Naruto snuck past her.

“Wait a sec, dattebayo!” he cried, darting over to Yusami’s bag and rifling through it, “I got way too many invitations. If you know any other cool ninja who would, ya’ know, maybe want to come, you can invite them for me?”

Naruto sheepishly offered up another three invitations. Before he even got the chance to second-guess himself, Anko, Ibiki, and Aoba were all profusely thanking him and promising that they would invite the coolest ninja they knew.

Yusami mouthed a ‘thank you’ as Naruto beamed and dashed back into the kitchen. 

“Wash your hands before you get back to the dough,” she said after she showed the three shinobi the door. “Once we’re done kneading it, I can show you how it’s supposed to be tossed,” Yusami continued, completely missing the others sharing a heavy look before they were shunshining away, white masks materializing on their faces.

*****

Lynx returned to ANBU headquarters in chaos. 

She stiffens, expecting to find a skirmish or word of an invasion or outbreaking war. But instead, the chakra and mood of her comrades feels…. happy? Definitely intense, with more than a few agents twinging with nerves, but the overall attitude seems to be anticipation.

No, not anticipation, excitement.

But that didn’t make any sense. Excitement was a very, very rare emotion in their line of work. The only thing that would cause that feeling on such a wide scale would be….

Lynx rushed through the hallways of the base, narrowing in on Coyote’s chakra signature. She found him at the back of a crowd growing around a smug Raven and a bouncing Mongoose.

“Did Hound get the grocer to adopt the jinchuuriki already? He must’ve worked fast,” Lynx said.

Her boyfriend shook his head. “Not yet. If that was the news, Gibbon would be stealing Wasp’s honey wine and ringing out a toast. Nah, this madness is the fight to get an invite to the biggest social event of the year.”

Lynx frowned. “But the daimyo’s new year’s celebrations are so dull. All we do is stand guard and make sure drunk partiers don’t break their necks falling down the stairs.”

Coyote shook his head. “Not for the daimyo, babe. The grocer’s throwing the jinchuuriki a birthday party. And somebody’s gotten their hands on extra invites.”

Mongoose let out a shrill whistle, gathering everyone’s attention.

“Alright, people, you know the drill,” she called, “We’ve got one hell of a prize, and only an hour until the Commander makes it back from lunch. My starting price is free access to someone’s Icha Icha collection for three months. Does anyone have a match?”

“Match!” Gibbon cried. A few more ANBU agents copied him, similarly waving their hands and agreeing to the bid. Inevitably, though, someone raised the price.

“Raise!” Heron called, “Six months with my Icha Icha books and I’ll cover your next two courier missions. And I’ll teach you that C-rank water jutsu you were asking about.”

That set off another round of ‘Matches’ and a couple more ‘Raises’. A few bids later, Coyote was raising his hand and shouting, “Due! This’ll make up for the souvenir ingredients you had me hunting down in Kumo!”

“Not good enough!” Mongoose called back.

“The fuck it isn’t! My team’s cover was almost blown because you wanted to stock up on pumpkins and tomatoes for your girl crush!”

Puma, Crow, and Owl all began backing up their teammate and heckling Mongoose into giving in. Eventually she relented and allowed the bid to stand.

The shouts and bids continued, each ANBU member that had even a shred of love left for the Yellow Flash, the Red-Hot Habanero, or their son putting up increasingly higher prices for the birthday invites. And considering exactly how beloved those three figures were to the masked shinobi, the going price quickly climbed to life debts, S-class missions, and hours of Tora-hunting.

It didn’t take long before Lynx had to bow out. She and Mongoose didn’t share many hobbies, and because their specialities didn’t overlap much, Lynx hadn’t covered many of the kunoichi’s missions, either. That left her with a frankly pitiful amount of resources she could bid with. Coyote faired a bit better, having been in ANBU longer and thus had more time to accumulate favors, but he also had to stop bidding once people started bringing up suicide missions. It was getting down to the wire with Crow and Scorpion trying to inch each other out with B-ranks when a new voice cut through the crowd.

“Due,” Hound called, “Put me down for the trifecta of Iwa S-ranks missions, my clearance to file #002300, the six A-ranks between February and May of last year, the four techniques I taught you in preparation for your jounin exams, and just for you Mongoose, I’ll add in those original three months of Icha Icha you were asking for.”

“Sold to the suicidal workaholic who none of us could ever hope to outbid!” Mongoose agreed, passing over a piece of paper folded into the shape of a turtle and covered in sparkly beads.

Raven stepped forward. “Alright, my turn. Let’s start off with a nice dinner at some Akimichi—”

“I raise you two S-rank missions, a dozen B-ranks, three jutsu of your choosing, dinner for a week at whichever restaurant you want, and I’ll tell you how Crow got ahold of the corvid summoning contract.”

Most of the ANBU operatives began protesting. While none of them would begrudge Hound the first invitation, everyone demanded to know why he needed a second. Raven, though, wasn’t deterred in the slightest.

“DEAL!” Raven cried, shoving his piece of paper (this time a dog with a very dopily scribbled smile) into Hound’s hands. “What did that bastard bribe my birds with?! I can’t summon Kiyoko for more than five minutes before she’s giving me shit.”

“It’s not my fault you don’t give them their deserved attention,” Crow snapped, “Some of us know how to properly treat our comrades.”

“And some of us aren’t Uchihas with unlimited funds and sticks shoved so far up our asses that—”

“I would recommend rethinking that statement before you continue.”

Everyone, even Hound, jumped and turned to the new voice by the door. Lynx nervously swallowed as the ANBU Commander made their way forward.

“You weren’t going to suggest that you knew the identity behind a fellow operative, were you, Raven?” the Commander asked.

“No sir, uh, ma’am, uh—”

“Good,” the Commander cut him off, “Because as we all know, the Hokage has not authorized any active agents to reveal their names to their fellows.”

Lynx had to stop herself from rolling her eyes behind her mask. While it was technically true that no one in ANBU was supposed to know another’s identity, such a rule was impossible to enforce. 

Even discounting any ninja with half-decent sensor abilities, the second a fellow agent pulled out a special move tied to them, or heaven forbid a kekkei genkai, it was only a matter of time before others started piecing together the puzzle. Granted, there were definitely agents who were more secretive (Lynx herself was only “out” to Coyote, her team, and a few close friends, and rumor had it that no one knew the identity of the Commander, not even the Hokage himself), but it was inevitable, no, quietly encouraged that at least one ANBU agent not on your team know your identity behind the mask. If worse came to worst and an entire team didn't make it, someone needed to be there to inform your family and deliver your last will and testament.

“Now I also hope I haven’t stepped in on anything treasonous, such as the hypothetical discussion of hypothetical missions that were not completed by the shinobi the Hokage assigned,” the Commander continued, tone steady but warning, “It is my duty, after all, to report such treason should I find probable cause. Do not give me probable cause.”

That particular warning was much more heeded by the room at large. ANBU often dealt with critical S, A, and B-rank missions. While everyone tried to adhere to the mission parameters the Hokage outlined, there were a million reasons both personal and professional that some agents just flat-out couldn’t take certain missions. In cases such as those, it wasn’t uncommon for agents to go out drinking the night before the mission with a comrade, ask for “professional advice,” and then have that comrade report to the Commander with a mission scroll they “helped fill out.” The Commander looked the other way so long as the mission got done, but the Hokage….

Let’s just say no one was ready to test if their economy of favors and mission trades counted as disobeying direct orders or flat-out treason.

The Commander gave the crowd one last, sweeping look before waving them out. “Get back to work. Those who have time off for the festival, have a nice break. And those who’re still pouting about a lack of invitation: if you really want to go, coordinate with Uchiha Mikoto and get some extra seduction practice in.”

Lynx turned to scatter with the rest of the crowd, but not before Rhino grabbed her and Coyote by the shoulder.

“Can I speak with you two for a moment?"

Lynx shot Coyote a look before they nodded and followed the hulking man into a private bunk room. Rhino activated a privacy seal on the door before taking off his mask and turning to them.

“I knew at least one of those invites would go to Hound, and suspected that the other would go to whoever Hound will drag along as emotional support,” Ibiki said, holding up a paper butterfly whose wings looked like two little hearts, “But I wanted the third to go to a healthy shinobi couple and you two were the first ones I could think of.”

“Really? Thank you,” Yuugao said, ripping off her mask and accepting the paper butterfly.

“Why a couple, specifically?” Coyote asked, not moving to take his mask off.

“Well, firstly, the kids should know that contrary to the rumors, being a ninja does not doom you to a lonely existence. Secondly, I don’t think either of them have any examples of what a healthy romantic relationship looks like, and Sage knows Mongoose isn’t going to grow the balls to ask out the grocer anytime soon. Therefore, someone needs to be that example.”

“And does the jinchuuriki have a secret twin or something? Why do you keep mentioning ‘kids’ as in plural?”

“There’s no secret twin or anything,” Ibiki assured, “But he did find himself a friend. Sweet girl, civilian-born but wants to be a shinobi. And from the sound of it, she’s spent the entire day with the jinchuuriki and the grocer, and hasn’t once mentioned checking in with her parents. If she doesn’t end up staying the night, I’ll pass on dessert and let Mongoose duel me to defend a cookie’s honor.”

Yuugao hummed in acknowledgement. “Fair enough. We’d love to come.”

“Great,” Rhino said, placing his mask back on and making for the door, “I’ll see you on the tenth, then. If you need me, I need to help Mongoose back a night bag. We’re having pizza with the grocer.”

Lynx similarly put her mask back on and gave her boyfriend a questioning look.

“What the hell is piss-tsa?”