猿
飛
会
!

'Sarutobikai!'

A hand-drawn work of calligraphy by our fearless leader marks the entrance into our secret base.

Historically; The Sarutobi Clan was once Konohagakure's largest landholder, in large part thanks to the First Hokage's tendency to hand out political favors when the Five Villages were still in their infancy.

By the time the Third Hokage took power, however, most of his clan's holdings were vastly underdeveloped. Instead of letting them sit around in his pocket while he was too busy to economize any of them, Sarutobi Hiruzen turned most of his clan's private holdings over to the village for use as public land. Many of these would become the forests and training grounds that ubiquitously dot the village today—including the Third Training Ground, where my parents and a few other famous genin teams before them ended up taking the bell test.

Today, we're in the only forest that's still part of their private ledger. It doesn't have an official name, but we call it Monkey Forest after their clan's etymology. And that abandoned traditional-style house that I'm standing in front of? You can call that the Sarutobi Compound, reconstructed to look just like it did before the Shinra Tensei. Or—you could call it my friends' secret base—The Sarutobikai HQ. The current head, Konohamaru, lives in a modern house in town, and lets his daughter use this place along with her friends as a hidden getaway—provided that we keep everything clean and don't rack up the electricity bill.

I offered Tsunako-san the chance to come inside and say hi, but she turned me down. Something about how she needed to watch out for potential intruders. More likely—she probably just doesn't have any desire to socialize with anyone outside of Shinachiku's circle of friends and relatives. Seems a bit of a loner thing to do, but I guess it makes sense that an Anbu type wouldn't be warm and bubbly around strangers.

Well, whatever. Let's go inside and see who all showed up today.

I slide open the rice-paper shouji with the name of our collection of mishaps on it, kicking off my sandals at the wooden landing. The first thing that fills my sight is a banner hanging from the rafters, the Sarutobikai Creed written in vertical characters—

As I turn my back on the burning wasteland—

I see no miracles or light before me,

Only the Will of Fire to guide ahead.

I feed on the unwavering spirits of my friends—

And with my own power, in my own way—

I forge my own path, and push forward!

Man, it's been years since Koyoka came up with that…think even as a kid she was always trying to find ways to motivate us and make us try our best…I don't get how she can come up with this stuff and never get embarrassed.

When I step inside and undo the knot of my forehead protector, I'm greeted by a still heat that's hotter than outside. These old houses all have thin walls and single-glazed windows, so it's too expensive to put in central heating and cooling. Probably one of the main reasons the Sarutobi Clan lives somewhere else.

When we were little kids, we used to not have any running water or electricity here either. Luckily, I picked up a few construction ideas in my D-rank missions and managed to add them in during my spare time. With a bit of handiwork shared between myself and the seven other members in our group, some of the comforts of modern society have managed to pervade this haven of ours.

I hang my Konohagakure headband on a coat rack and see a mirror near the entrance when I do, my blue eyes locking in on themselves. To be honest, I'm really not a muscular or broad-shouldered kind of guy, I just look kinda normal…slim, I guess that's the word. I got a bit of Mom's forehead, and fake-blond hair that reaches a little long for a guy. It's fairly smooth in shape, not at all like the shape of Dad's. Shinachiku's the one who inherited the spiky, vibrant yellow-blond hair. I just got Dad's eyes.

I check to make sure none of my natural hair color is standing out right now. I don't like to really talk about it, but…let's just say I really didn't get Dad's hair. In more ways than one.

…Well, let's not think about it and just do a rollcall.

"Oiiiiii!" I put one of my palms next to my mouth and shout down the hall, calling all the girls' names first. "Anyone else show up today? Koyoka? Shino-chan? Nami…?"

It's probably a given that Nami isn't here. Shinachiku's assigned to watch her today, which means they're probably off somewhere training together to their heart's content.

And Koyoka—that fearless leader of ours—is on a B-ranked mission out-of-the-country right now, so it makes sense she's not here either. She likes to show up and disappear like the wind, though, so you can never really count her out.

"Jouji, Gajou, Taishi, Minato...why did I say my own name too?"

Not to mention two of the guys' names I just called aren't even in the village on a long-term basis right now...think I'm just saying everyone's name out of reflex.

I keep rattling off my friends' names as I walk by the numerous fusuma that Nami and Koyoka drew on and painted together, occasionally catching a peek into an ajar sliding door to see one of our messy tatami mat rooms. Looks like I'll have to get on them about cleaning up after themselves again.

I pass by the bathroom, the storage room—think Jouji has some weights in there and Gajou has some expired dry dog food from before he left for Suna…

Then the weapons room (kunai, shuriken, random ninja tools, scrolls carrying some or all of the above), the girls' room (it's a four-and-a-half mat room used for privacy when we need to split up and change, the guys' room is on the opposite side of the house for the obvious reasons)…

Eventually I come to the back-left corner of the Sarutobikai base. On one of those white-paper sliding doors; there's a stylized version of the character for 'Meal'/'Foodstuff' that looks like it was done by a noble whose passions are calligraphy and surrealist art, and underneath that is a crude drawing of a hungry-looking fox with big eyes and teeth.

I notice the shape of someone's shadow on the other side. 6 out of 8 of us are absent today, so by process of elimination, it's safe to say this is the guy who shows up every day—

"Inoi?"

"SHUT UP!"

Bulls-eye. Let's go screw with him.

I slide open the fusuma leading into the kitchen we have set up…this place has come a long way from the old microwave and instant noodle stash it used to be. We have a bunch of secondhand appliances that make it look almost like a real kitchen. We don't have a separate dining room, but we did manage to snag a pretty nice-fitting chabudai with some bedpillows in place of zabuton.

Sitting cross-legged at the low-table is a dangerous-looking delinquent with platinum blond hair and two pierced ears. He was cleaning a number of gleaming shuriken and kunai he had sprawled out on the table.

Yamanaka Inoichirou—you can call him Inoi for short, or Inocchi if you're Shino-chan, or 'Ino-chan' if your name is Nara Asuma and you're his older brother (different family names due to clan inheritance issues, but both are full-blooded siblings).

A lot of people assume he bleaches his hair blond like I do to look cool, but it's actually his natural hair color.

"Yoooo. Cleaning your ninja tools?"

"It's none of your business. I just happened to pick up Shinoko's ninja tools and decided to clean them for her since they were filthy." He tells me off and then subsequently answers my question.

"Mmm? Shino-chan's here?" I take a seat next to him and imitate his slack cross-legged style. Seems like only five out of the eight of us are absent today.

He stands up with some sort of indignation on his face—

"Who cares? Go bother someone else and die. Shinoko's lying down in the mission room in the back."

You might have noticed one of those three sentences above is not like the other. This is normal.

Inoi walks over to the fridge and grabs a jug of barley tea, sealed with wax wrap he put over the cap to keep it fresh. Then, he hands me a cup and pours.

"Here, you're sweating. Take this." He says, with some unfitting scowl on his face.

"Ah, cool…thanks, Inoi." I take a sip and feel the dry path down my throat rejuvenate back into life. He always makes tea just the way I like it.

"Don't get the wrong idea." He pouts as if he were a girl with blonde twintails in some manga. "I just made too much and didn't want to dump it all in the sink."

"Uh-huh. Yep." I keep my thoughts to myself as I sip. Chances are he noticed how hot it was and decided to make enough for everyone.

"Yeah, and here's a slice of cake if you're hungry." He pulled out another self-prepared item from the fridge and served it in front of me with a clean fork and plate. "But I'm not doing it for you or anything. I just made too much and it'd be too much of a pain to eat it all myself."

I quietly take a bite, completely unsurprised by this whole turn of events. This is pretty typical of us.

The cake's flavor is vanilla with lemon-buttercream icing. Kind of a sweet-sour-sweet-sweet taste.

"Ku, oishiii…" I put an elbow on the table and bury one of my cheeks into my free hand. I like to think I'm pretty good at cooking, but Inoi has me soundly beat on the baking front. "I love you too, Inoi-kunnnn. Can we get married, already?" I exaggerate a fake-girlishness in my voice and put both my palms on my cheeks, two upward streams of pink hearts emanating around my face.

"What the hell?!" He stands up with an open mouth and gritted teeth. "Don't be so disgusting, moron. I'm gonna go water the flowers since you're being so annoying. Later." He turns a cold shoulder to me a bit haughtily. That paled blond hair of his and those two earpiercings really make him look the part of a local gang leader with the reigns over a back alley and a few punkish teenagers.

I snicker a bit at him getting pissed off. I don't swing that way either, but it's fun to mess around with him at least.

He grabs a watering can with a bright sunflower emblazoned on the side and slides open another rice-paper shouji leading outside. The cicadas were dying down, the late-day sun making its last round on Fire Country before night.

…So, what would you say about a delinquent that always tries to help his friends, always shows up fifteen minutes early for missions, and likes watering flowers?

Well, that's Yamanaka Inoichirou—the second child of Shikamaru-sensei and Yamanaka Ino, the resident Sensor Type of Sarutobikai, and one of my former genin-teammates. The path of the male tsundere can be a rather arduous one indeed, but he seems determined to cut his own way through this unknown darkness of his.

Since he's here, I might as well put his personality to use.

I get up and grab another cup from the cabinet—

"Hey! Inoi!" I shout at him through the open sliding door while I'm pouring another cup of tea. "Remember Tsunako? You know; dark hair, creepy Anbu mask, kinda short, built like a stick, wears festival clothes and follows my older brother around all the time…? She's out front standing guard. Could you give this to her?" I held up the cup of tea between cupped palms.

"Whatever" Inoi said with a furrowed brow like he wanted nothing to do with me, before doing exactly what I asked him to do.

Tsunako's the passively considerate type, which means she'd refuse something as simple as something to drink for fear of somehow being imposing. However, Inoi's the aggressively considerate type, which means he's going to hand her something first, then say 'but I'm not doing this for you or anything' before walking away with his back turned to our local Anbu guard's bewilderment. And thus, the world will keep spinning.

I pour a third cup of cold tea into a fresh glass. There's a certain art to dealing with stubborn people. Most people just give up and give in, since it's easier to avoid the problem than to deal with it—but I've been around stubborn people my entire life. And believe it or not, out of the genin that were assigned to the dysfunctional Team Shikamaru, Inoi's actually the most normal one out of the three of us. He's pretty smart, too, he just doesn't like to show it off.

Unfortunately, there's someone here that's worse than either of us—

A/N: Lemme know if you want me to insert a glossary at the end of any chapter for the Romanized Japanese words (e.g. fusuma, shouji/shoji, chabudai, etc). I try not to go too crazy with inserting romaji words from my beloved moonrune language, but there are certain terms I can't find an English equivalent for/don't sound right in my head when replacing. A Google Image search of anything you don't understand will probably do a better job explaining it than I could.

Also, I apologize in advance for a particular line that is going to pop up two chapters from now. You will understand why I am sorry when you see it (EDIT: This particular line has been postponed, you are safe for now).