Much thanks to the audible drowsyivy and scientific Tavina for beta reading this chapter.
"—while I'm out, got it?" Jiraiya was standing in front of me, arms folded.
Not just me, but the kids as well; their expressions were more exasperated than anything else.
"We know!" Naruto insisted. "You've told us every day! We're genin, you don't need to repeat yourself that much!"
"I thought I didn't, except that turned out wrong, didn't it?" Jiraiya immediately shot back.
We were in another hotel room. This one was larger than the one from the last dream, but it was still tatami, the bedding put away for now. I couldn't tell how long it was supposed to be since the last one, but could only guess that Naruto had probably gotten up to something, going from his and Jiraiya's back-and-forth.
Jiraiya finally left, and Naruto grumbled. "We're in a real city, and we can't even go out and look around."
"He probably wouldn't have let us go out even if nothing happened anyways," Shikamaru said with a lazy shrug. "Asuma-sensei says they're different from even the towns near Konoha. They're all just civilians. We'd really just get treated like a bunch of dumb kids. Too much hassle when there's six of us and one of him."
"It's really easy to get lost in a city," Sakura spoke up, which gained her everyone's attention.
"Wait, Sakura-chan, you've been in a city before this?" Naruto looked shocked.
She nodded. "Mmhm! Before our class started the academy, we went to visit my dad's relatives that live near the capital. Konoha's a lot nicer. Everything was all built up or covered over in concrete, even the river." She made a face.
"Urban civilian areas tend to be," Shino commented. "They don't like nature that much. Tou-san and I traveled to one once. He told me to make sure to keep my hive closeby because of pesticides."
Shikamaru nodded, before flopping down onto the tatami. "Give me a forest and some deer any day."
Ino reluctantly nodded. "They might have a bunch of different things to do," she said, voice somewhat wistful, "but the older cities are just really ugly."
These were some wildly assertive opinions for imaginary middle schoolers to have.
"I thought there'd be more people who never left Konoha before we became genin... Am I really the only one?" Naruto made a face. "Wait, Sasuke! What about you?"
I shrugged. I had travelled a lot, and I vaguely remembered that Sasuke probably had, but I didn't feel like trying to say anything.
"Ah! That's not an answer!"
Sakura rolled her eyes. "He doesn't have to if he doesn't want to. Besides," she gave a meaningful look at me, and then at Naruto, "he probably doesn't want to."
"Huh?" Naruto looked between us, before eventually figuring out what the meaningful look was for, apparently. "Oh! Ohhhhhh. Oh. Yeah."
That could have been over anything from the assumed head trauma to the massacre to Naruto being Naruto.
Shikamaru tilted his head slightly, arms under his head. "Unless we're going to do anything, I'm going to sleep."
"Shikamaru, it's not even nine yet," Ino pointed out.
Shikamaru didn't look particularly convinced by that. If anything, he only stretched out further on the mats, making me wonder if he was going to bother to even get up to grab bedding or just fall asleep like that.
"Oh!" Sakura went. "We could see what's on the TV. The reception clerk said they have cable."
Just like that, every head turned towards her again. The looks on their faces suddenly threw me back to being a child, at my tío's during the peak of summer when it was too hot to even go outside. A whole pack of us cousins, and only one television we were allowed to use.
"There's supposed to be a documentary channel that we don't get back in Konoha," Shino started, contemplatively.
"All the movies we get come out months late," Ino said. "I bet some of those might be available. There's this one romance I read about that I want to see..."
Naruto made a face. "Anything but romance!" He took a step towards the television, only to get stopped by a small buzzing swarm in front of his face. "Agh!" He ducked the kikaichū, and grabbed the remote from the low sitting table.
A three-way scramble for the television remote commenced. I wouldn't have really thought that this sort of thing would play out between Shino, Naruto, and Ino, but while I was curious, I wasn't that particularly interested, Shikamaru was apparently unmotivated for that, and as for Sakura...
"I regret saying anything."
The scuffle migrated over Shikamaru, and in an attempt to avoid Ino's grasps and the bugs, Naruto stepped on him.
"Ow! Hey!" Shikamaru sat upwards, clenching his stomach. "Watch where you're going!"
"Sorry!" Naruto tripped backward, narrowly missing Shikamaru's head, and let out a wordless shout as a shroud of insects covered the hand gripping the remote. He dropped it.
Shino scooped it up.
Ino's shoulders slumped. "Fine," she started, "but after that, I want to see what they have for the pay channels."
Naruto pouted.
Documentary channel it was, then.
I had no idea what to expect, and judging from the fact the kids settled down nearly immediately to watch— Shikamaru had even moved around to face the TV— it looked like they weren't so used to watching TV that they weren't going to not watch something they didn't want to choose in the first place.
The documentary was a nature one, following several naturalists and an increasingly furtive and stressed-looking ninja who was clearly uncomfortable being taped at all, stress compounded by the fact that the naturalists were either incompetent at avoiding danger or overly confident in his skills to keep them alive.
It became very clear why they had a ninja with them when the footage segued into the group coming across a giant monitor lizard the size of a truck that was not happy about humans showing up; for whatever reason, the people in charge of editing it hadn't cut it out, so there was the documentary voiceover talking about the lizard and its habits, which apparently included occasionally eating people at that size, interspersed with the naturalists yelling at the ninja to not kill said man-eating lizard.
Naruto had his eyes partially covered through this whole portion. "I hope he doesn't kill the poor lizard!"
"He's under contract," Shino pointed out, attention glued to the screen. "Since he's at least a chūnin, he should be able to subdue it without any issues, but if the civilians don't get further away he's going to have a hard time."
"His hitai-ate means that he's from Takigakure," Ino commented. "I didn't even know any of the hidden villages took missions that would have their shinobi get recorded."
"Waterfall is supposed to be small, isn't it? They might have different standards. Haku-sempai said that he and Zabuza-san took plenty of missions they normally wouldn't have if they were part of a village. It might be the same way with the smaller villages." Sakura looked thoughtful. "For all we know, their hired ninja doesn't look like that, and he hasn't really done anything that looks like an obvious specialty."
"I dunno, I think it'd be cool to be on TV," Naruto said. "Maybe not like that, though."
"You're too obnoxious for that," Sakura told him.
Ino made a strangled sound, and I wasn't able to resist snorting.
On the screen, the ninja finally knocked out the lizard.
After that, the documentary became more normal, though it was obvious what footage was probably shot after that because the camera became more focused on keeping the ninja in view any time they came across another animal in some of the footage, while in the beginning, it had mostly ignored him.
Eventually, it ended, and Naruto moved to grab the remote. Unfortunately for him, Ino already had it and had found the TV guide that was in the room, too.
"Sakura, look!" Ino said, voice eager. "There's a whole block of pay channels that have Forest First Kiss! We're not even supposed to get it in Konoha until October! It's supposed to be three hours long!"
Shikamaru groaned.
Sakura let out a delighted squeal and pushed past Naruto to look at the guide. "How much is it? I'll split it."
"Ooh, come down to the reception desk with me, they had some snacks and drinks for sale, too."
I did my best to tune out the overly excited planning, with limited success; this was giving me concerning flashbacks to being invited to a middle school sleepover for Titanic; I had fallen asleep during the middle of the third time we watched it, and woke up to it going for a fifth time. We had managed to keep it going for over fifteen hours.
Sakura and Ino left the room a few minutes later, after promising to bring things back for everyone else.
Naruto dragged his hands down his face. "We're staying somewhere with cable TV and I didn't even get to choose anything to watch… I didn't even have a TV before my apartment got destroyed."
"Why not?" Shino asked.
"I like ramen more than TV," Naruto said, with a shrug. "TVs are expensive, and so is the license. If I really wanna watch something I usually go to the movie theater since it's cheap and it's nice there." He made a face. "Except for when we couldn't go on missions and it was hot. That sucked."
"They aren't particularly worth it," Shino replied. "Especially if you are unable to pick what to watch."
Naruto gave him a skeptical look. "I live alone," he pointed out, before blinking. "Or at least used to?" He scratched the back of his neck. "I'm staying with Ero-sennin, but I dunno if I'm gonna stay there." Naruto's nose wrinkled. "It's kinda weird, living with someone."
Shikamaru shook his head, slowly standing up and meandering over to the open shelving where the blankets and things were stacked. "I'm laying my bedding out before they get here so I can fall asleep," he decided. "You guys should too if you know what's good for you."
"Why?" Naruto asked. "It's just a movie. Are they going to care if we do that while they're watching it?"
"That's not the problem," Shikamaru grumbled, yanking things out. "Ino always gets all soggy over the emotional parts of any movie, and that was before she wound up having her jutsu backfire on her. Her dad said it's going to take a while before she has more control again because her mind is still redeveloping." Someone wasn't exactly thrilled.
I exchanged a look with Naruto, who also didn't look very excited at the prospect of dealing with weepy girls, at least when it was over a movie.
We all got the bedding out and mostly laid out by the time Ino and Sakura returned, both girls looking giddy and eager, with a bag in Sakura's arms which she unloaded on the table. Already sweating glass bottles of soda were joined by a medium-sized bag of popcorn and other packages of different snacks I wasn't quite sure about.
While Sakura handled that, Ino grabbed the remote and changed the channel to one that was already showing ending credits. "It's supposed to start playing again in five minutes!"
Shikamaru only looked at us meaningfully, as though this was supposed to prove what he was saying earlier.
I just shrugged. Even I couldn't resist the occasional mindlessly sappy and questionable romance movie. Just not three hours of one.
Naruto dug around in his gear bag, before pulling out a pen, a cheap but newish-looking pad of paper that was already showing use, and, to my confusion, one of the three-pronged kunai his dad used to have.
Shino frowned as Naruto set the pad of paper and kunai on the table, next to the drinks. "Does Jiraiya-sama know you have that yet?"
Naruto pouted. "No. Don't tell him yet! I think I got it figured out, maybe."
Shikamaru scoffed. "You haven't figured out anything yet. You've just been copying everything on the handle over and over again the last few nights. That's not figuring things out." His eyes flicked over at Ino. "She shouldn't have given that to you to begin with."
Ino shifted around before scoffing. "Well, it's not like anything can happen with those, right?" She didn't sound very confident despite the attempt at posturing.
"I don't think Naruto's going to blow us up, even if he should tell Jiraiya-sama," Sakura said. She grabbed Ino's arm when the other girl opened her mouth to say something and tugged her over toward the TV, in front of the table. "Stop arguing with the boys, let's watch the movie instead."
"Okay," Ino acquiesced.
Shikamaru speculatively eyed her, but gave up without saying anything, and instead left the room to change, coming back in pajamas. He promptly flopped over, pulling his blanket over him, but didn't close his eyes just yet. "Save me one of those sodas for tomorrow."
"They're going to drink it all if you go to sleep now." Shino experimentally poked him with the side of his foot.
Shikamaru grunted at the prodding and rolled over. "Fine. Then they drink it all."
Out of a lack of better ideas, I sat on the other side of the table next to where Naruto was focusing on trying to copy what was on the kunai's handle down on his paper.
As much as I was secretly curious, I couldn't concentrate on the movie. The nature documentary had been easier. Losing focus on it just meant that I didn't lose track of what was going on with that, because the voiceover was constantly explaining what was going on. Losing track of the movie meant that I was only vaguely sure that the long-haired man in red on the screen was supposed to be the leading actress's love interest and that the other long-haired man in green was supposed to be the one she was expected to marry.
Or was it the other way around?
At some point, Shino shook his head at everything and went to sleep.
It didn't help that the editing effects made everything a bit too bright and washed out, and that was starting to give me a headache whenever I looked at the screen for too long, which just reminded me how dumb all of this was.
After a while, I began to notice that Naruto kept looking between me and his concerningly overdrawn paper. "What is it?"
"Oh!" He was startled and said that loud enough to earn a "Ssh!" from Sakura. He rubbed the back of his neck and laughed, quieter. "Do you mind if I try doing something?"
I squinted at him. "Try what?"
"It's fine, it's dumb anyway." He visibly deflated, and I resisted the urge to wince. I didn't mean to sound dismissive. I didn't want to take my grouchiness out on kids, imaginary or otherwise, and unfortunately for me, the dumb magical ninja children were growing on me. Mostly.
"No, it's only dumb because you're not even telling me," I pointed out.
He held up his… whatever the hell it was supposed to be. I could sort of make out what I thought was supposed to be from the kunai's handle, but it was layered with a bunch of other random things I had no idea about, made more complicated by the fact that Naruto's handwriting was sloppy. Something about the whole thing gave me the impression of 'drunken generic Asian-inspired tattoo ideas'. "Can I draw this on you?"
I didn't like that my impression was a bit too on the nose, except for the drunken bit. I wasn't exactly thrilled by the idea, but there was something about Naruto's expression that made it clear that he was expecting to get shot down and dismissed entirely. That made me feel a weird amount of guilt mixed with something else I couldn't pin down. "I don't care. Do whatever."
He managed to cheer quietly rather than attract attention from the girls again and scrambled for his bag, where he pulled out to my confusion a small plastic bag, lumpy with toilet paper. Setting it on the table, he pulled out and unwrapped a bottle of black ink.
Naruto pouted when he looked at me. "Don't look at me like that, it's to make sure it doesn't leak and ruin my stuff."
"Uh-huh."
Sakura and Ino were completely focused on the movie, a fast-paced scene of something going on, with fancy choreographed fighting. At this point, I was totally lost on what was supposed to be happening in it, but it was very eye-catching. A jab, a dodge, a strike, dramatically falling from a rooftop while still fighting midair even though I was pretty sure it shouldn't have taken that long…
Naruto poked me. "Uh, Sasuke? Were you even paying attention to what I said? Take your shirt off."
What. I choked.
"Not like that!" he hissed, eyes darting towards the girls. "Ew!"
"Then don't say it like that!"
"I didn't say it like that to begin with! You weren't listening!" His eyes widened and he covered his mouth with both hands before letting them drop. "Oh no, is this what Iruka-sensei felt like whenever I messed around in class?"
"Probably."
"Ugh." He let an exaggerated shudder rock his shoulders.
"Just get it over with," I grumbled, and I flipped the back of the shirt up over my shoulders. It felt a bit too weird to just take it off entirely.
I felt a finger poke my back with something cool and liquid. I felt it drip. I straightened up. "Are you using your hand?"
"I don't have a brush," Naruto muttered. "Don't move too much, I don't want it to drip on the tatami. That'll really get us in trouble."
Sakura turned around, eyes narrowed. "Naruto, Sasuke-kun, stop being weird, you're distracting us and this is a really good part." She immediately turned around. Sakura's crush on Sasuke apparently didn't extend grace that far. I certainly wasn't going to complain.
As Naruto drew on my back with his hand, I slowly started to wonder how smart this was to do. Probably not very, but I still felt more guilt than I reasonably should have over the fact that Naruto was resorting to questionable art since he couldn't go out and explore a 'real' city. Clearly guilt on my part for not being a good older half-sister, or something, even though they stayed with me in the summer to visit dad's side of the family.
This was still probably less dumb than cutting more than a foot of my hair off in a girl's bathroom at school right before my freshman year photos, though. My mother was still regularly reminding the rest of the family about it, and if she wasn't letting up now over a decade later, I didn't think she ever would.
There was a weird tingling sensation that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on edge. I twisted around. "What was that?"
"Chakra. Nothing bad! Ero-sennin didn't tell me how to do the thing with chakra to begin with yet, just how to add it afterward. It should be dry now?"
I squinted at him, trying to remember why that was raising alarms before it occurred to me. I yanked Sasuke's shirt back down. This wasn't dry at all, and now the shirt was plastered against me, partially wet in spots. "This is just like with the dirt."
"That was only one time," Naruto said with a sulky pout. "I did it better every time since."
"I'm going to sleep," I decided. I wasn't interested in dealing with Naruto's antics anymore, especially with the growing headache I could feel, and that was the quickest way to skip dealing with anything from what I had figured out. No dreams inside the dream. Just instantly knocking out and waking up until it ended.
"Yeah, I should change, too," he agreed.
I stood up and tried to ignore the headache spiking from moving too fast.
Naruto gathered his pajamas, toothbrush, and toothpaste and got to the door first, opening it, stepping outside, and then quickly rushing back in and scrambling for the bottle of ink left on the table in a way that got Ino and Sakura's attention. "Ero-sennin's coming back!"
Before any of us could ask what he was doing, he took a panicked look at the door, pried off the lid, and chugged the ink, stuffing its container and the kunai down his shorts. The sheet of paper he had originally put the design on got shoved into his mouth, and he began to chew it. Naruto's face was contorting in disgust the whole time before he started to rub at his mouth and tongue, stopping the second the door opened.
"I'm back," Jiraiya grunted, as he pulled off his sandals. He took one look at us: Shino and Shikamaru were asleep, Naruto looked like he was about to throw up, and my, Ino, and Sakura's attentions were divided between him and Naruto. He directed his attention to the television, and let out a laugh. "Don't like romance, brat?"
Naruto forced himself to swallow behind his hands and bolted out the door.
I shrugged, picked up what he had left behind, and took them with me to follow.
I found Naruto in the men's bathroom sink area, alternating between scrubbing his mouth with soap on one hand and spitting everything out in black and grey bubbles. His lips were black from the ink still. It was totally self-inflicted. "Ppppftbbbtt! Ugh! That was so gross!"
"Why did you do it, then?"
"I didn't want him to know what I was doing!"
"You could have said you had an interest in drawing." Sai used ink to draw with, after all. That was his whole gimmick.
Naruto stared at me for a moment, dead-eyed in clear disbelief. "I drank a whole bottle of ink for nothing…"
I offered him his toothbrush, and he gave me a dirty look before snatching both it and the toothpaste out of my grasp. He squirted a giant clump of toothpaste onto his brush before shoving the whole thing into his mouth.
"Don't eat the toothpaste," I said, feeling helpful. I wasn't entirely sure why we brought our own toothpaste or toothbrushes, because right next to a bench meant to be used presumably for people changing, there was a little wall-mounting vending machine for free ones.
He scowled at me, but didn't say anything, too busy brushing the ink out of his mouth.
Sasuke's toothpaste was still weird to me, completely unflavored, and I did my best to keep my eyes focused on the sink in front of me instead of the mirror. I didn't like looking at Sasuke's reflection in the mirror if I didn't have to.
When we returned to the room, Jiraiya was sitting at the table, watching the movie as well.
Naruto looked like he wanted to say something, but instead, he just made a face, sticking his tongue out at Jiraiya's back, before quietly putting the three-pronged kunai into his bag.
I went to sleep, ignoring the still-playing movie.
When I woke up, it was still running, at a quieter volume, which almost distracted me from the fact that Naruto's arm was flopped out on top of me. He had set up his bedding near me. I shoved his arm away as I sat up. He let out a snort and turned over, still asleep.
Jiraiya was looking at me, sitting at the table again, though this time he had a stack of books out and a writing pad. No one else was in the room, bedding already folded up in a mostly neat pile. "The rest of the kids are getting changed," he said, idly, writing something down with a normal pen. It looked ridiculously out of place compared to the rest of his usual getup and the giant scroll holder leaning against the wall next to his bag. "We're leaving the hotel when everyone's ready."
I poked Naruto with the side of my foot. "Wake up." To my extreme dismay, he wrapped his arms around my ankle instead. He was cuddling against it.
Shino entered the room to this, and he tilted his head down to look at Naruto and then up at me. "Good morning," he said, once he was done staring, and walked right past us to go over to his bag.
I shook my leg until Naruto woke up, blinked at what he was doing, and shot up, escaping the room with his clothes without even saying anything.
Shikamaru entered the room not long after that, in the middle of tying his hair up. "What's with Naruto?" he asked.
"Don't ask," I said, collecting clothes to wear. The shirt from yesterday was a no-go, I decided, but at some point, a normal t-shirt in a steel grey had mysteriously joined the others. Probably because every single other shirt Sasuke owned had the red and white uchiwa on the back and needed to be covered up. I pulled that one out, slipping the bottle of painkillers into the pockets of the shorts.
Naruto sped up getting ready when I joined him and fled. For whatever reason he had, he was embarrassed at cuddling my leg. Which, fair. I wasn't exactly thrilled either.
I tried to not think while getting washed up and changed in the bathroom.
To my confusion, when I returned to the room, the table was cleared off of Jiraiya's things, everyone's bags were gone, and Jiraiya tossed a scroll at me. "Seal your bag up," he said.
I grabbed it out of the air. "What?"
"Unfurl the scroll, put your bag on the center, and push chakra into it," he told me. "When you're done, hand it over."
Glancing at the kids, they looked as unsure as I felt, Shikamaru shrugging.
I followed the instructions, taking a step back when the bag actually disappeared. I tentatively picked it up, rolling it back up and handing it off to Jiraiya, who tucked it out of sight.
Unexpectedly, Naruto cheered. "It worked!"
"I let him make it," Jiraiya said, smirking.
"He said it wouldn't do anything if it didn't work," Sakura spoke up, sheepish.
We left the hotel, with only a short pause while Jiraiya paid.
The street outside was paved over with cement, and the whole area was more built up and modern looking than anything I remembered from the series.
"We didn't even get to look around," Naruto grumbled. "At this rate, I'm never going to have a chance."
"We aren't leaving just yet," Jiraiya told him, rolling his eyes. "I have something else to do first. It shouldn't take too long; an hour and a half, two at most."
"What's that?" Naruto asked.
"He's probably not going to tell us," Sakura said.
Jiraiya laughed. "A book signing!"
"You took our things because of a book signing…?" Shino sounded baffled.
"As far as my publisher's aware, I'm here alone. I told them I was going to be here, and they arranged a book signing and fan meet and greet at a store nearby." He shrugged expressively, but he didn't look apologetic. "It's part of my publishing contract, so I have to do it."
"But you're—" Naruto cut himself off. "They can just make you do things?" He looked completely baffled, but he wasn't the only one. All of the other kids looked varying amounts of confused and mystified at the idea.
Jiraiya only laughed.
"What are we supposed to do, then?" Shino asked.
Jiraiya flapped a hand. "There are a bunch of restaurants that have all kinds of food near the bookstore, even foreign ones. Go eat, stay in the area, don't wander off, and go into the bookstore when you're done." He squinted at us for a moment. "Stay away from where it's happening, I'm not into getting into trouble with anyone's parents."
"What about me and Sasuke?" Naruto loudly asked.
Jiraiya made a face. "Do you really think any of their parents are going to be fine with either of you snooping around when you're hanging with their kids?"
"Maybe?"
Shikamaru grimaced and shook his head. "Don't get me lectured because you decided to be stupid."
With that handled, we walked after him at a short enough distance to not get lost but far enough that we didn't look like we were with him until he disappeared out of sight— joined by a man in a suit and tie— into a large, three-story bookstore with multiple entrances crammed between two even larger buildings.
The scale of the buildings on the street was almost overwhelming, reminding me of trips to cities that had more built-up downtowns than mine, and even then it was still clear from the skyline that we weren't even in the densest part.
The kids looked almost dazed from everything available.
"How are there so many places that have so many different foods?" Naruto asked. He was slowly turning around in place, trying to look at every single restaurant available. "Can't we just get—"
"We're not getting ramen," Sakura said, cutting him off.
"Some of these foods aren't sold anywhere within a day of Konoha," Shino quietly added.
"I'm not choosing, but we're definitely not getting ramen."
Next to Shikamaru, Ino's eyes went wide. "There's a pancake place."
To my complete confusion, this resulted in more excitement than I would have expected over pancakes from a bunch of kids this age. Getting excited over pancakes like this was for five-year-old children or spectacularly drunk twenty-something-year-olds after a night of binge drinking. Not middle schoolers. They were supposed to be occupied with starting to pretend they were mature.
It wasn't until we were in line to be sat that I saw why they were— even Shino— partially giddy over it. The pancakes being served to people who had already ordered were thick, fluffy, jiggly things stacked in pretty-looking towers.
I wasn't sure which of the blonds was more thrilled. Ino had suggested it, but Naruto bounced in place right up until he had a plate in front of them, and I was only fairly sure that his were pancakes as well because it was roughly the same size as mine, just completely covered by toppings. I was the only one who had gone with the plainest ones available; everything else just looked too sweet.
When I tried to stand up, both Shikamaru and Shino immediately yanked me back down into my seat.
"We're not going through that again," Shikamaru said, voice short.
"Through what?"
Shikamaru aimed a disgruntled look at me. "You're a pain like this. I should have sat by Ino instead."
I didn't bother to ask for clarification.
It wasn't until everyone was finished and ready to leave that I was allowed to get up.
We crossed the street into the bookstore, and Naruto came to such a complete and sudden pause that I almost walked into him.
On the other side of the front of the store, still visible beyond the display tables, was Jiraiya, hamming it up in front of a crowd that had far more women than I would have expected. It was mostly women, one of them in the middle of getting her photo taken with him. A tall cardboard cutout with images of the book illustrations was closer to the doors over there, with an employee next to it holding a sign saying there was a book signing today.
"Isn't— Wha— Aren't those the books Kakashi-sensei reads all the time in public?" Sakura slowly asked as she tried to process what was happening over there. She had come to a stop as well, stunned.
"Yeah," Naruto said.
"He writes those?"
"Didn't I tell you?"
"No!"
I gently pushed them forward, towards the stairs.
This was a very large bookstore, and the first time I had serious regret over all of this just being dreams. A three-story bookstore, and not just that, but past the initial strip of shorter display tables and the registers at the front, the shelves were deep and stacked. So many books, and unfairly not real.
I had ended up staying in town instead of doing a trip like I considered for spring break, which meant if I wanted, I could pour all of that extra money into books, and Laila Lalami's new book was supposed to be coming out soon. Then again, my bookshelf needed to be arranged if I was going to try and stuff anything else into it. I wasn't allowing myself to get another one until I either graduated or moved.
I ended up following Shino around when it became clear that for whatever reason I wasn't going to be allowed to look on my own. He ended up heading right for the shelves with all of the science books, eventually coming across the section for bugs. For the life of me, I couldn't remember the proper name for it, and the white placard sticking out with the characters for 'insect' and 'study' wasn't helping, only making me annoyed that I knew what it said.
I tried to not be visibly grumpy about it; Shino was looking happy enough at the large selection in front of him and I didn't want to ruin his mood. I was an adult; crushing the feelings of kids wasn't something I particularly wanted to do. Instead, I just looked around without having any real idea of how the shelves were organized.
Sinking time into hanging around bookstores meant that it felt like no time at all had gone by when the store speakers crackled, and an overly polite woman's voice announced that the book signing event was now over. I looked over at Shino, who was frowning slightly at a door stopper of a book. The thing was a few inches thick; a reference guide on insects.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"We don't have this one at home yet," he said, slowly turning it over. "But I don't have enough space for it in my bag without removing things."
"Can you afford it?"
Shino's lips narrowed for a moment, and he bit down on his lower one. "I save most of my mission pay," he quietly answered. It was probably because the kids weren't supposed to make it clear they were ninja. "I have more than enough."
"Then get it," I told him.
He tilted his head at me, just the slightest. "Sasuke, I have no space." His words were a bit too patient for my liking.
"Where are our bags right now?"
It got through to him immediately. "Oh, I see now. And since Naruto has learned how to seal things away on his own..." He pushed his sunglasses up, letting the sentence fade off instead of finishing it, heading for the registers on this floor.
He wasn't the only one who had the idea of buying something; Sakura, Naruto, and Shikamaru were ahead of him in line. What looked like a couple of teen girl magazines in Sakura's hands wasn't surprising, and the wooden writing box for traditional calligraphy wasn't too strange for Naruto with his new interest, but Shikamaru had a thick cookbook.
"It's for Chōji and his mom," he said when he noticed I was looking at it. "Ino and I are splitting for it."
"You're not getting anything, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked.
I shook my head. I had no problem with enabling, but I didn't see any point in buying dream books I wouldn't be able to read.
Jiraiya walked past us just as Shino was done paying, shaking one hand out. Probably from all the writing he had been doing; even if it wasn't completely a solid hour, that was still enough to cramp your hand up, especially if it was repetitive like a signature.
He didn't say anything, just nodding his head towards the doors.
We ended up meeting him outside, or rather, being led away by him for a couple of blocks until he led us down an alleyway, which turned out to be a surprising tangle of them, messier and more out of sight of the main streets than I expected— and smelly, considering he stopped us right next to a row of trash cans.
"Decided to do a bit of shopping?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I bought a writing box with ink and brushes and stuff!" Naruto said, holding up his bag. It was a bit too loud, and almost a bit too strained, but Jiraiya didn't appear to notice.
"Really? Lemme see." He took the bag from Naruto and pulled the box out, slowly opening it. Jiraiya picked up the contents to examine them, mostly the brushes and a thick black stick which he set back in slowly. "Not too bad to get in a place like that," he finally decided. "Not the best quality, and it's better to work with liquid ink if you're practicing and not trying to do anything fancy or ceremonial, but it'll do. Just don't try anything using chakra when I'm not around, got it?"
Naruto nodded his head with a bit too much effort.
Jiraiya pulled the much smaller scrolls out from where he had put them away, quickly releasing everyone's bags in rapid succession, before flipping one of them to Shino. "I figured a couple of you would get a bit too eager. Go on, you can reuse this kind of scroll as long as the seal or too much of the scroll doesn't get damaged."
"How many of your readers are women?" Sakura asked, squinting at him, while Shino carefully placed his new book in the middle of the scroll and sealed it up.
"The women love me," Jiraiya insisted.
Sakura only made a face.
Everything got packed away again, and it was only once it was in order again that we started walking.
The buildings decreased in height faster than I expected, and it wasn't long at all until we were in what was undeniable countryside, dotted with the occasional building in the distance away from the terraced fields around the still-paved road.
Jiraiya kept up an ongoing chattering flow of conversation that managed to be about everything and nothing all at once, though, unlike Naruto, it was clearly on purpose, and very now and then he would glance at me, or Shino, or even Sakura, as though daring any of us to try and say something, as busy as the road was.
Eventually, we turned off on a dirt side road that had far fewer people on it dotted with the occasional house and farmland near it, and from there, one that was even less used, barely a worn path surrounded by long grasses that led into a thick barrier of trees.
The trees were much thicker than any of the others in the nearby vicinity that had been providing shade over the road or the small groves that were left dotted near the buildings out here. The path was narrow and hemmed in by trunks and branches.
While they weren't gargantuan in the same way as the ones in the Forest of Death, they still made me feel uneasy. Suspiciously leafy.
Were trees able to be suspicious?
Jiraiya looked over at me and snorted. "I see someone's already started to catch on," he said.
"Catch on to what?" Naruto asked.
Shino let some of his kikaichū flow out from one of his sleeves; unlike with his normal jacket, the sleeves of the shirt he was wearing was close enough to the skin and thin enough that it was possible to see it move around from the bugs as they emerged from wherever they were hiding. It was interesting to see, if kind of gross, as they left and flew back to him. "These trees have more stored chakra than they should for how old they are," Shino murmured. He sounded disconcerted.
"That's the Shodai's work for you," Jiraiya told us. As if to emphasize this, he slapped the trunk of a nearby tree as we started to walk again. "This used to be an old Senju base." He scratched at his chin for a moment. "Still is, I guess."
Naruto poked at a nearby tree branch and gave Jiraiya a confused look. "Like a hideout or something? This close to a city?"
"Most of the old compounds used to be even farther away from anything than Konoha is," Shikamaru said, speaking up "Tou-san took me to where the Nara one used to be. It was all just forest and deer." He looked disgruntled. "No plumbing or electricity, for that matter."
Naruto made a face. "Your clan used to poop in the woods?"
Shikamaru gave him a dirty look. "No."
"Clans used to take missions back then, too, but you didn't let strangers into where you lived if you could help it," Ino added. She had her arms wrapped around herself.
"So places like this were used for that?" Naruto was glancing around, both at the trees surrounding the path and everyone else.
Jiraiya nodded. "Close enough to be found by civilian messengers without putting the rest of the clan at risk, and being this close to a city usually meant no attacks from rival or enemy clans."
"I still don't understand why," Shino commented. "Tou-san mentioned that as well, but if places like this had less shinobi, doesn't it make sense to eliminate them if they're your enemy?"
"Ignoring the fact that that's a great way to cause or escalate feuds, the nobility don't like it when shinobi pull that sort of crap where they can see it or be immediately affected by it. That would have been a great way to get in a lot of trouble back then."
"But how would the nobles do anything? Especially back then? Civilians can't do the same things shinobi do."
Jiraiya shook his head a bit. "You're an Aburame, you already have the answer to this. It's plenty more complicated than 'this group is shinobi, this group isn't' or 'these people are more powerful than these people'. You're stronger than your little bugs, aren't you?" he asked, getting a hesitant nod in return. "But you rely on them. And your genin teammates have different skills from you to back you up and you do the same for them, right? Everybody's got different capabilities, and sometimes sheer numbers are quality all their own. Just because a noble might not be able to fight a shinobi on their own doesn't mean they can't hire someone else, or complain to the daimyō and clear out your compound or make it illegal for you to buy anything or offer missions or whatever else you can think of.
"There's always things like that, and there's always going to be someone stronger, smarter, or luckier than you around, even if you don't know it yet."
"I see," Shino answered, and he went quiet, and no one else spoke up to fill the immediate silence.
It was probably a bit too much for a pile of twelve and thirteen-year-olds to take in all at once.
"Do you really think luck plays that much of a role?" Ino asked, after several minutes of no one saying anything. "And not something else?"
"It's not that I think it does, I know it does," Jiraiya said, but he didn't expand on it further. Instead, he moved to fully take the lead, and we entered a break in the trees. There was a large clearing.
In the middle was a sprawling traditional building with a wide walkway around it, visibly old, possibly older than the trees surrounding it, from what Jiraiya had said. There was a visible generator set a short distance away from the building that looked like it had been recently installed, between the sharp-edged concrete foundation under it and the fact that the paint and metal still looked new, next to an equally new looking side building in a much plainer style than the traditional-looking main one that was still connected by a covered wooden walkway.
Naruto gave a relieved sigh at the sight of both.
This was different, but I had given up on expecting the dreams to follow the story by now.
We didn't make it to the building before Tsunade walked out.
I couldn't help staring. She was unfairly beautiful. The dumb dream ninja weren't supposed to look like they walked off a modeling photo shoot. Was it possible for something to be too unrealistic for a dream? I tried to remind myself that she was Jiraiya's age and that she made herself look that way on purpose. It didn't completely squash the bit of envy— at least not until Naruto elbowed me and I realized Tsunade was smirking in my direction before she turned her attention on Jiraiya, expression serious.
"So it's true, then?" she asked, crossing her arms. "I can't see why you would have dragged a bunch of kids along with you for any other reason."
"Yeah, it's true," Jiraiya answered, after a while. "You heard already, then."
Tsunade took a breath in, squaring herself. "No point asking why you're here. I need a few days to get everything settled here and close the building up. Then I'll go back with you. Are you going to tell me who all these kids are, or should I start giving them numbers?"
That was it? Nothing else? This was so completely anti-climatic compared to what happened with the series it was a bit disappointing.
"—Uchiha Sasuke," Naruto finished, and I realized I had completely missed the introductions.
Tsunade glanced at me and turned her attention towards Jiraiya again. "What's with the Yamanaka and Uchiha kids?" she asked him.
"If it weren't for everything going on, those two would probably still be in the hospital right now," he told her with a shrug. "Inoichi said his kid just needs time to recover from a mind jutsu gone wrong, but the Uchiha had a bad concussion."
"And you dragged him out here with you?"
He held both his hands up towards her. "Hey, this wasn't my idea. I have no interest in dragging six brats after me for no reason. There were plenty of good ones, that's the only reason I agreed." He jutted a thumb out at me. "The kid's doing better, the medics just didn't fix it back in Konohagakure."
"Are they really that incompetent these days?" Tsunade huffed and was suddenly in front of me faster than I expected, one hand on the back of my head as she leaned over. "Hold still," she said, holding up the other hand. "This should be quick."
Just barely visible past her shoulder, Jiraiya blanched. "Wait a second, that's not why—"
My chest suddenly felt cold.
I jolted awake.
There was ice down my shirt, and suddenly sitting up resulted in freezing cold water and already slightly melty ice cubes sliding the rest of the way down past my chest and down my belly as I flailed at getting it out. "Ah, ah—"
"Rise and shine," Xochitl's voice crooned.
"What the fuck!" I scooped an ice cube up and flung it in the direction I had heard her. "Saying to show up wherever doesn't mean show up when I'm sleeping, you weirdo. Once this week was enough."
"Ew, I don't want your tit ice," she said, blocking it with her hand. Her usual smile turned into a frown. She was already dressed to go out, wearing the bright green halter top I remembered she had texted me about the moment she found it. It went with her makeup meant for tonight. "It's almost six, Socorro. I was texting and calling you for hours."
I rubbed my eyes of the remaining gunk and looked for my phone. It really was almost six PM. I had been asleep for almost a full day. There was an embarrassing number of missed calls, and I grabbed it to make sure none were from my mother, or worse, Abuela, as I scratched my back. It felt tingly, probably because of the ice. "Shit."
"Are you alright?" she asked. "I know grad school's supposed to be difficult and all but—"
"No, I'm good," I insisted as I stood up and headed for my dresser. "I've just let myself get a bit too stressed and missed a bunch of sleep. It's fine, it's spring break. Give me like half an hour to shower first, okay?"
"Okay," Xochitl told me, but she didn't look convinced. "If you say so. Food first, food later, or both?"
"Both." I scooped one of my white bras out, but the remnant thoughts from the dream— of Tsunade— lurked, ugly. I put it down and grabbed the single red one I had instead. The nice one. While this was just going to be an outing with friends— to the lesbian bar downtown because Xochitl wanted to make new bad choices for the weekend she was in town— I deserved to feel and look good too. I wasn't going to allow myself to feel weirdly shamed by my dreams.
She gave me a thumbs up in approval at the choice, before shoving me towards the bathroom.
"But I haven't picked out clothes yet!"
"I'll pick for you," she said. "We're not letting the sexy bra go to waste."
"What's sexy about scars or a limp?! I use a cane!"
"Hey, don't kink shame." She pushed me through and closed the door behind me. "How does sushi sound?" Her voice was muffled through the door.
I shuddered. "No Japanese. Or pancakes."
She laughed. "I could use the taco food poisoning anyways."
I showered, and when I was done drying and doing my hair, I grabbed the tattoo concealer. Better to figure that out first.
It didn't just cover the curse mark that wasn't supposed to be there, but some of the scars, too.
Slightly a bit late, but wild weather and life reared their head.
I hope everyone who was dealing with the heat wave this past week made it through with minimal suffering; here we ended up with hard rains and plenty of flash floods thanks to monsoon season coming in with a bang.
Some fascinating developments seem to have showed up in this chapter, haven't they? :)
On the docket (hopefully for the next few weeks), besides trying to get another chapter out for the middle of this month are PiaGs for other people who had guessed right for the Chunin Exam tournament, namely the Ino one and hopefully the Haku Zabuza one.