Sennin : The tale of the utterly gutsy shinobi

by Livehak-san

Hiruzen died during Kyūbi's attack on Konoha. Twenty years later, the butterfly effect of his demise has reached unimaginable proportions. But if the death of an aging man can change history that much, can the simple life of a young hermit bring it back into the right path? Sennin, the tale of the utterly gutsy shinobi.

11. Opal and Obsidian, part 2

Note : It took me a little longer than expected, but here it is. Chapters are a bit bigger than previous ones, that's why it took me more time.

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Chapter size : 18000 words

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Opal and Obsidian

Part 2

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Hinata

July 31, 1013, 9 :12am

Land of Lightning, Kumo

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"Maybe one day you will be free to decide, to discover and even to love, who knows, no one can predict what tomorrow will bring. But if that should happen, let me give you one advice, little wolf. Be careful with your emotions, be careful with whom you give them to, they are the ones who shape your destiny. Believe me, you don't want a life you can't control."

She opened her eyes, and it all came back to her.

The forest, the snow, the flames. The blood.

Still, she stared at the extinguished light bulb that dominated the room. The color of the ceiling made her heart race, and it took her about ten seconds of not blinking to calm down and realize that she had not returned to the immaculate room.

What made the ceiling so white was the sunlight.

She brushed her fingertips over the thin blanket that covered her and lowered her eyes to the wallpaper on the dilapidated wall. A flutter of her eyelashes was enough for her to reach the window where the man with the endless white hair stood.

Dressed in the same outfit as in the forest, he was sitting on the wooden frame of the open window, one leg dangling in the empty space outside and the other gripping the sill. Silent, he was writing in the notebook on his knee, seemingly unaware that she had woken up.

At least, that was her first thought when she observed him, but she was no longer fooled. If the master-disciple relationship was as described in the books, as she remembered it, then the master was always more impressive. And impressed was a poor word to describe what she had felt on the banks of that river, in that forest.

Out of the corner of her eye, realizing that the master would not move, she looked for the disciple whom she hoped was not far away, and it took her only a moment to catch sight of the golden hair.

Sitting on the floor to her right, with his back to the wall and his arms crossed under his lowered face, he slept peacefully.

She inhaled as quietly as she could and turned her attention back to the soothing movements of the pencil scratching the paper. A question popped into her mind, but just as she was about to voice it, an unpleasant odor entered her lungs and took the thought away. A grimace distorted her features as she hesitantly brought her nose closer to the torn sweater she was wearing.

After so many days of not washing or changing - except for the dip she'd taken in the river - she could tell she smelled bad. Very bad. And that was a first for her.

For the past nine years, she had washed and changed every day without exception, she just wasn't used to the smell of sweat. A supervised shower from eight-thirty to eight-forty-five. Not a minute more, not a second more. Well, that was true if the guard had long hair and earrings. Otherwise, she often got a few extra seconds.

Sometimes much more.

She turned her face to the half-open door to her left, where the sunlight streamed in, and a very different request landed on her dry lips.

"Can I... use the bathroom?"

Despite the sounds of a small, bustling village outside, she transcribed her thoughts in a whisper. Being the cause of waking up the last sleeping person in the room was not what she wanted.

The first thing the man did, after stopping his writing, was to raise his inky-black eyes toward his sleeping disciple before setting them on hers, opaline and now raised on the bed.

As his only answer, and to maintain the silence, he simply nodded, letting her know that she could do as she pleased.

After his answer, he returned to his writing while she tilted her face to thank him. Gently, she removed the blanket that covered her legs and, not daring to look at the bicolored pants she wore, stood up on the sky-blue sheet with red stains.

On the sole of her left foot and the tip of her right, covered in bandages, she limped across the dusty floor to the bathroom. Using her scratched fingers, she pushed open the door and entered the room, bathed in darkness. Then, using her limited knowledge on the subject - a few descriptive lines from books whose names she had forgotten - she anxiously flipped the switch on the wall next to the door.

The bathroom lit up in every corner.

With a small smile and her aching leg, she opened the door wide. A loud creak replaced her proud expression with a sorry one as she looked out the window and was relieved to see the writer's indifferent back.

With her heart pounding against her chest, she walked past a pink shower curtain that was trying to compete with her pants to see which was dirtier. Her clothes won hands down.

Stepping forward again, she reached for the cracked sink and tucked her right hand into her sleeve. As gently as her growing excitement would allow, she wiped the last piece of mirror that was still intact, admiring her reflection and the spontaneous smile that appeared.

Everything was so... different.

She literally loved these colors, this dust. She was so excited about what she had left to discover that she almost forgot the situation she was in, the questions that plagued her.

Amazed by so much dirt, she turned her attention to the corner of the room and looked at the stack of colors on the wooden chair. Yellow, orange and black, the shorts, t-shirt and towel only stretched her cheerful look.

She immediately removed the two pieces of tape that were patching up her dull sweater and t-shirt and, stripping off her clothes, placed them gently on the sink, then ran her fingertips over the top of her pants.

"Close the door, kid."

With a start, she turned and looked at the man, who had not moved an inch.

Still ignoring her, he paused in his writing and pointed his pen at the sleepy teenager facing the wide-open bathroom door.

"Unless you want him to have a heart attack if he wakes up."

After a few seconds of hesitation, enough to understand the reason, she closed the door. The click of the handle was never heard. Leaving the wood open a few centimeters, she returned to the bathtub and opened the pink candy curtain.

The smell of soap stole another smile from her face.

She knew now where his scent was coming from. This scent close to the one that the south wind had brought to her at the beginning of every spring. This scent that had allowed her, with her eyes closed, to escape one last time.

What was his answer when she asked him where the smell came from? Gardenias? Maybe, to be honest, she couldn't remember. It had been many years ago, the first time he had come to her in the immaculate room.

Slowly, afraid to touch her wounds, she removed her dirty pants and placed it with the rest of her tattered clothing. Sitting on the edge of the white bathtub with a shudder, she carefully removed the bandage around her knee and, holding the yellowish mixture with the white glue, examined the four stitches just below her kneecap.

For the second time in a few seconds, she smelled a pleasant odor coming from the bandages, or more precisely, from the mixture of plants and flowers that she could not name.

Was it this writer who had healed her?

She shook her face vigorously and got up to put the bandage in the sink.

The cold tone he used every time he spoke to her was enough to give her the answer: "He would never do that.

Standing in the bathtub, she stopped in front of the shower head.

With a raised eyebrow and taking the time to analyze the water mixer, she turned the left side of it, but nothing happened. Then she turned the right side, and the water flowed over her long, tangled hair.

Icy, as she was used to it, the water ran over her body, awakening the wound on her skull and the one on her knee before soothing them. She leaned her forehead against the shower column and watched the winding red and gray trail.

Her sigh was drowned out by the sound of the water as the bandages slipped from her feet.

She had forgotten about them.

The seconds ticked by, then the minutes, and, cleansed, she realized she had never felt so calm. But like a biological clock she couldn't escape, she turned off the tap a few seconds before the nine hundredth.

There were no commands. No demands or sharp voices. Instead, it was a second sigh she let out.

She had forgotten that as well.

It was strange to think about it, to realize it, but she no longer had to count the time she was given. It was hers now, she could take it, her time.

She left the tub and sat back down on the edge. Removing the soaked bandages that encircled her feet, she placed them with her old clothes before grabbing the towel on the chair. Drying her long obsidian hair, she rubbed her porcelain face, then placed the black fabric in the sink.

So, finally, she did what she had been looking forward to for the last fifteen minutes: she put on the yellow shorts and the orange t-shirt.

The desire to jump with excitement flashed through her mind as the colors covered her, but the throbbing pain in her knee reminded her that she couldn't make that decision yet.

Taking a deep breath, she managed to channel her emotions and retrieve the towel, her dirty clothes, and the bandages to fold them properly. With the pile in her hand, she turned and paused at the half-open door.

Indiscreetly and curiously, she put her ear a few centimeters from the wood and listened for the slightest sounds in the room. Only sleepy breathing reached her.

Pulling the handle after a long breath that filled her with courage and jasmine, she stopped dead in her tracks, even though she had guessed it.

The writer was gone.

She didn't really know if it was with a touch of relief or disappointment that she crossed the room, but kneeling in front of the entrance with a grin of pain, she nevertheless managed to drop the clothes on the floor and get up in perfect silence. Then, for the second time, she stood still.

With a bewildered look on her face and swallowing her saliva several times to make sure she wasn't dreaming, she looked at the lunch tray on the clean sheet of the mattress.

She looked at the black bowl filled with hot broth and its companion overflowing with rice before admiring the two equally dark plates covered with three meat skewers with brown sauce on one and six crispy wheat paste ravioli on the other.

Her hungry pupils rose toward the sleeping face again, and it only took a moment for her to realize that he had nothing to do with it. That he had been sleeping peacefully all along. Then she looked at the open window, the one the red hoari had occupied until then, and could only address her questions to herself.

Her stomach rumbled, but it was not toward the succulent meal that she moved.

Skirting the mattress embedded in the floor, she stepped toward the golden hair and bit the inside of her cheeks as, lowering herself further, her knee cracked under her weight.

Her gaze, slightly crinkled with fear of having awakened him, was soothed by the pacified look he offered her.

Then she studied his delicate features for long seconds that quickly became a minute. A minute that ended, after two breaths of admiration, in three words that turned her cheeks scarlet.

He was beautiful.

She wanted to shake her face to chase away the dozens of thoughts that brushed her mind, but with her fingertips, it was the golden locks that she brushed.

She knew nothing about beauty, having seen, or at least remembered, only a hundred faces. On the other hand, she was sure of one thing: she would have liked to admire him more.

With breathtaking speed and a rush of adrenaline, the muscles in her hand tightened as she brought it back to her knee. The echo of the bells rang out their second warning through the open window.

Breathless, eyelids wide open and accompanied by a heartbeat that hit her eardrums violently, she waited for him to move, to open his eyes, but nothing. Once again, without her knowing how, he had not woken up.

Under the pain of her feet, she rose silently and went to the window, where the outside temperature, slightly higher than that of the room, had been caressing her face for several minutes. Her wrinkled eyes admired the street about ten meters below, while the sunset rays warmed her cheeks and made her long wet hair sparkle.

She admired the rectangular buildings made of wood for the older ones and concrete for the newer ones, before turning her attention to the carts and other small, clandestine stalls set up in every available alley and section of sidewalk.

She marveled at the earthy ground, dotted with buried stones, and the colorful flora, ranging from simple fruit bushes in the middle of the alley to huge leafy trees that covered the surrounding area.

She admired the baggy pants of the carpenters and the leather, straw, and cotton hats that protected the merchants from the hot sun. She admired the bare legs dipped in the nearby river and the yukatas gathered under the umbrellas that hid them.

She admired the men, the women, the children... the old, the young, the couples and the independents, before inhaling the strong smell of the resinous trees and the pure air that the forest offered.

The bells rang for a third time, and she admired the red hoari and white hair emerging from the wooden building.

Her wondering eyes met those of the writer about thirty meters away, who began to walk down the sidewalk toward her perch.

Reluctantly and with a step back, she left the sunlight and walked back to the center of the room. Almost falling backwards as her heel hit the mattress, her gaze moved slowly along the wall that overlooked the street. Her gaze, linear at first, traced the path of the getas through the grooves of the wallpaper before stopping, like the writer, just below the window.

For a fraction of a second, thousands of bluish silhouettes filled her vision, before a terrible pain that spread from her spine to the back of her skull brutally sealed her up.

Her jaw clenched, her eyes closed, the ordeal lasted a few seconds before it stopped.

Taking a long, habitual breath to keep her chest from betraying what she had just felt, she opened her eyes again and watched, breathless, the fifty-year-old crouching on the windowsill.

She overcame her impassive look for what seemed like an eternity before he caught a glimpse of his student out of the corner of his eye. Eyebrows furrowed, he finally stared at him for several seconds before returning his attention to the untouched tray.

"You haven't eaten anything."

Though his tone was not a question but an observation, she answered in the negative with a movement of her head.

Moving from a crouched position to one leaning on the wooden ledge, he placed a light brown paper bag at his feet and, crossing his arms, observed her.

"You're even paler than yesterday, you look like a ghost."

Before pointing out the food tray with a quick movement of his head.

" Eat or you'll end up becoming one."

Vision fleeing, she nodded awkwardly, a little ashamed.

This meal was indeed coming from him.

Walking around the mattress, she sat down in front of the tray and grabbed the wooden chopsticks under the pressure of the intimidating ink black eyes. Pulling them apart, she grabbed one of the ravioli and took a small bite.

Warm and crispy, the appetizing dough widened her eyes as she chewed it a dozen times, savoring the mixture of pork and vegetables before swallowing.

Without waiting, she raised the ravioli to her lips again, and this time she put the whole dough in her mouth. With her mouth full and her eyelids still stunned, her playful little smile accompanied the movements of her jaw and bulging cheeks.

It was the most delicious thing she had ever eaten.

"Dip them in the broth, it's even better."

She raised her appetite and paid no attention to the slight smile the writer gave her. At that moment, only one thought dominated all the others and prevented her from being rational: even better...?

Chewing as frantically as ever, she pointed to the bowl filled with warm, dark brown broth to make sure she wasn't mistaken, and following the nod near the window, she rushed to the second ravioli and dipped it in. She brought it to her mouth and... it was even better.

The ravioli succumbed in less than a minute. And the rice didn't last much longer. Mixed with the broth, she ate it in no time. The meat skewers, on the other hand, though appetizing, remained intact. The gag she felt was enough to make her understand that she was no longer hungry and that finishing this tray would only be greed.

A choice she had never been able to make within the white walls. Her body had to have no deficiencies, it had to be ready at all times. She had to finish all her meals, without exception.

"Don't worry, he will finish."

Immobile in front of the meat, she admired the golden hair out of the corner of her eye before the crumpling of the paper drew her attention back to the window.

Bag in hand, the fifty-year-old approached her and knelt in front of the mattress. He moved the tray to the floor and dipped his hand into the bag. Once again she understood that she had made a mistake.

Decidedly, she did not understand anything.

"Do you know the way?"

Busy removing the bandages and opening the two white boxes containing bottles of the same color as the broth, he raised his eyes to meet her silence.

It was indeed this man who had treated her.

Intimidated by his stature, nearly two meters when he was standing and as tall as she was when he was kneeling, she shyly moved her face from side to side.

She had literally never been injured until the last five days. If she hadn't read a few books on the subject, she wouldn't even know that bandages existed. The stabbing pain that ran through her feet in the forest, after only two hours of running, was a first for her. And of course, the scarlet trail she had left behind was the reason the Clouds had found her so easily.

Watching him soak a compress with one of the bottles, she took the lead and positioned her legs on the edge of the mattress.

"Try not to move."

She let him as he lifted her left ankle.

Don't...move? Why would she try to mo…

No sooner had he placed the fine fabric on her foot than a terrible burning sensation stifled the least of her thoughts.

In a reflex she had no control over at all, she half rose with her hands and tried to pull her foot back brutally, but the grip on her ankle tightened and she could only move it a few millimeters.

Her tormentor stopped at once and, accompanied by an umpteenth grimace that allowed her not to howl, she shot him a look, overcoming at the same time the impassive face he addressed to her.

Considering the movement she had just made with her leg, she could count herself lucky that it was her left one. There was no doubt that the stitches in her knee would never have held if he had started with her right.

She could almost believe he had done it on purpose.

Seeing her clenched jaw and fists, he sighed.

"I'm doing this to heal you, so take it easy, it won't take long."

Without warning, he pressed the cotton against her skin once more, leaving no wound untreated, and the pain was only more vivid, but she took it upon herself, as he had just asked, and fell on the mattress with her hands over her mouth to stifle her screams.

The agony lasted a full minute before the burning slowly subsided, becoming nothing more than an unpleasant tingling sensation. Calmly exhaling, she closed her eyes and relaxed.

"Why didn't he give you shoes?"

Still in emotional shock and somewhat dazed, she only managed to half open her lips.

A feat in itself.

"He didn't have the..."

A jolt opened her eyelids and brutally lifted her chest onto the mattress.

The innocent look on his face, busy covering her foot with bandages, she could almost have bet that he had not heard her, but she knew that it was not so, that it was only an appearance. He had taken the opportunity to try to get some information, and he had succeeded.

Tying the bandage with adhesives, he laid her freshly healed ankle on the floor, and she lay still as he retrieved another pad to soak.

"You still don't want to talk ab..."

"No."

Inevitably, her dry, foreboding answer drew the full attention of his dark irises.

Whether it was fake or sincere, she didn't know, but the red tattoos stretched into a smile nonetheless.

"Okay."

With delicacy and picking up where he left off, he lifted her other ankle.

The pain that coursed through her knee and reached her pelvis was excruciating, but in the face of the gentleness he conveyed in his gestures, she did not show it. Gritting her teeth, she endured it in silence, respecting, as he had just done, what he had asked of her.

Above all, not to move.

The exact pain she felt as the cotton made contact with her skin again made the pain on her knee seem almost pleasantly ticklish.

The hardest part was not keeping still. She had become an expert at that in one try. The hardest part was not to make any noise. Not to scream, shout, or even squeak, or she would wake him.

Just like her left foot, he stopped cleaning her wounds after an interminable minute, and just like her left foot, he covered it with the white gauze strip.

"When was the last time you had your period?"

Concentrating on the hypnotic movements, she did not expect to hear his hoarse tone, and it startled her slightly. His face lowered, he did not look at her, letting his interrogation pass as a most banal question.

She had to admit that she knew very little, if anything. If it wasn't mentioned in the books she had read, then she didn't know, it was as simple as that. On the other hand, if there was one thing she knew, it was the reason why she had been torn away from Konoha.

In fact, he didn't really want to know when her menstruation started, he didn't even care. He just wanted to know one thing.

"Kumo does not have the Byakugan."

Seemingly trying to read her thoughts, he watched her without blinking and remained silent before finally lowering his gaze to the bag and pulling out another box. Longer and more voluminous than the previous one, this one was the color of the ocean. He handed it to her and, despite not understanding the reason for his gesture, she took it between her hands.

Examining the drawings on the cardboard, she squinted at the small writings and became even more confused.

Discreet, eight-hour protection, chlorine-free, hypoallergenic, easy to insert... the words without meaning went on and on. She didn't even know where to put her head.

"What's a tampon...? Is it for my knee?"

Stowing the bandages and the bottle in the bag, he chuckled at her question. This had no other effect than to raise her eyebrows.

Had she said something funny?

"There's a notice inside."

Eager to know, she wanted to open the box, but the hoarse voice rose again and stopped her in her tracks.

"I'm going to be gone for a while, so you should go back to sleep."

Leaving the bag next to the mattress, he stood up as she tried to stop him with a sudden movement of her arm.

"Wait, I have a lot of questions."

Despite her words, the getas clattered three times on the wooden floor.

With both hands clasped on either side of the window frame, the writer finally turned his attention to her as she opened her lips again.

"I won't be able to sleep if I don't have answers."

With his chin, he immediately pointed at his disciple.

"In that case, you can ask him, he will be able to answer them."

She looked at the six perfectly arranged whiskers, skeptical about the idea.

"He's... asleep."

The dry, comical sound of breathing at the window gave her the answer before she even looked back at the man.

He... was... surely not...

"He woke up while you were in the bathroom."

The golden color moving in the right corner of her field of vision made her inspiration go from calm to jerky before bringing her to a halt. The ocean box buckled under the pressure of her hands as the fifty-year-old climbed onto the windowsill with a grin and disappeared faster than she could spell the word embarrassed.

The suffocating seconds that followed were similar. She did not move and did not breathe, he did not move and did not breathe. At least the pounding temples on her head could only lead her to believe that this was the case.

He... had been awake since... which meant... when she...

She couldn't even think about it.

She had never understood why the feeling of shame was so difficult to experience in stories. She had never felt it, and now that she had, she finally understood. It was a terrible feeling, one you wanted to make go away. And denial seemed to have been specifically designed for that purpose.

All she wanted at that moment was to go back in time and slap herself. Nothing else. Even knowing the answer to her questions had taken a back seat.

After an interminable struggle that resulted in nothing more than refusing to believe the scene that was replaying in her mind, she slowly turned her wide eyes to her right and saw a welcoming face and a bright smile.

She swallowed her saliva hard, and the stammering she let out covered her face even more with shame.

"Y-Your master is right, I-I am tired, I..."

With her thumb, unable to find the words as much as the look he gave her destabilized her, she gestured toward the pillow.

"I-I'm going back to sleep."

She dropped the box on the floor and slowly made her way back to her only escape route. She had to hang on, a few more seconds and she could hide under the blanket.

"I thought you couldn't sleep without answers... did I hear wrong?"

Leaning on her left knee and her right hand on the mattress, her right leg stretched out and her left arm hanging down, the astonished tone he addressed to her put an end to her every movement.

It was true, she had said that... and she already regretted it.

Sitting down again, she managed, after an immense effort, to overcome the azure gaze.

Less tired than he was in the forest - the disappearance of the redness in his eyes was proof of that - he seemed very amused by the turn of events.

"Did I say that? I don't remember."

The complexion redder than ever, the speed with which she unleashed her tirade caused a most awkward silence.

He opened his mouth and... finally closed it.

I...

At that moment, she would have given anything to read his thoughts, to know what he was trying to say. But not having that gift, she was content to simply transcribe the way he looked at her, and that was enough for her to understand.

She didn't have to be embarrassed.

"Ask me your questions Hinata, I'll answer them without tongue in cheek."

At the mention of her name, a strong heat ran up her spine. To make it disappear, she repositioned herself on the mattress and the first question came to her quite naturally.

"Where did your master go?"

Pondering, he watched the twilight streaming in through the window.

"He went to pick calendulas, at least I hope for his sake."

"Calendulas?"

She had read tens of millions of words, but she had never read this one.

"It's a flower, for your knee."

Watching the sunset through the window, she nodded mechanically. She now knew the name of the yellowish mixture that had helped her heal.

Another word he had used piqued her curiosity. Enthusiastically, she took her eyes off the orange beauty to look at the golden one.

"Why do you hope? Did he not go there?"

Just as the herbalist had done a few minutes earlier, he expelled his amusement, or rather irritation, with a dry breath through his nostrils.

"I gave him my purse to buy the necessary things for your wounds. It will be dark soon and he left with it... I have a feeling that I will never see my money again."

His smile faded with a distraught breath and he lowered his sad expression to his feet.

Surprised that a simple question could shake him so much, she immediately felt guilty.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to..."

In no time, and at the sound of her first word, he stopped her with a wave of his hand.

"You didn't do anything, don't apologize."

Faced with the return of the dazzling smile, she opened her own to change the subject again.

"What's the name of this beautiful village?"

"Minamata."

Surprised, her back suddenly stiff, she pointed to the floor of the room.

"Are we... in Hot Water?"

Yu no Kuni, she... couldn't believe it.

"Do you know geography?"

With a quick shake of her head, she answered in the negative. She didn't know much about it. She had never had a map in front of her, she only knew stories and that was obviously not enough to make her a connoisseur.

The Land of Hot Water was simply a place she had always dreamed of visiting. A culture she had fallen in love with from the first sentence she had read in The Rock and the Leaf by Kenjirō Shimei, a historian of Lightning who was certainly her favorite.

Narrating the twists and turns of the Third Great War, The Rock and the Leaf told the story of the influx of migrants from the countries bordering Fire and Earth into Yu during the three years of the war.

The hidden village of the Hot Water nation, Yu no Satō, had, at the end of the Second Great War, left the ninja path to follow the peace one, even renaming itself Ikusa o Wasureta Satō, the village that had forgotten war. And during the Third Great War, a large portion of the refugees, mainly from Rain, Grass, and Waterfalls, had crossed the peninsula to get there. As a result, the population of Hot Water had literally doubled in just three years, and despite being the least militarized, it had become the most populous minor nation on the peninsula in the year of its birth, thirteen years earlier.

"I just read the name of this village in a book."

It took him only half a second to make the connection. There was only one logical conclusion.

"Kurikoma Volcano?"

This time, she nodded.

Along with Seijō and Tatebayashi, Minamata was one of three villages at the foot of Kurikoma Volcano, one of the largest and oldest active volcanoes known. Its last eruption, at a time when only Fire, Earth and Wind reigned, plunged the peninsula into a volcanic winter. The resulting famine led directly to the Hai War, better known as the War of Ashes, which pitted the three great powers against each other for decades, well beyond the rumblings of the volcano.

Some writing from before the First Great War explained that the next eruption of Mt. Kurikoma would be soon, and that it would be much more impressive than the previous one because of the time that had passed. They said that if the peninsula was not at war when it happened, it would be within a month or a year.

Her first instinct, which became a habit over time, was to look at the sky through the bars every morning to see what color it was. She still remembers her terror when, after a month of repeating this gesture, she saw a gray and dull sky. First panicked, she quickly realized that the real winter had arrived and that this was just a passing storm.

She didn't know back then that the Fourth Great War was taking place, and now that she knew about it, knew the trigger, she found it both strange and absurd that she had managed to compete with a volcano.

"How many books have you read?"

Sitting cross-legged with his elbows on his knees, he watched her with fascination. Her life, if one could call it that, seemed to be of real interest to him, and that touched her deeply.

A shy smile inevitably appeared under her opal eyes. She knew the exact number of books, maybe even the pages if she used her memory, but wouldn't she look like a crazy person if she made him understand that boredom had made her count everything she had done?

Difference was often frowned upon, all the writing implied it, and she didn't want to feel judged, especially by him.

"Over a thousand... maybe two thousand."

Two thousand three hundred and eighty-nine.

After starting to count on his right hand, he stopped his calculations and stared at her, stunned.

"T-Two thousand?"

Scratching the back of his head, he laughed at her for the first time.

"Hahaha, just like me, exactly the same... three zeros away."

Muffled by the fact that she was biting the inside of her lips, her laugh was barely audible. But the way he looked at her after his joke left no doubt in her mind: he had not missed it.

Embarrassment covered her porcelain cheeks once again, and the urge to hide under the sheet reached a desire never reached before. Swallowing, she miraculously managed to express something, let's say... coherent.

"I can recommend you books... or even authors, if you like. Just tell me what you like most."

To the delight of her heartbeat, he averted his gaze to stare at the light bulb hanging from the ceiling, thinking.

A few seconds passed without an answer, then a flash of clarity crossed his irises, distorting the features of his face. He seemed to blame himself for not having thought of it right away.

Crossing his arms under his nod, sure of himself, he turned his attention back to her.

Did he like looking at snowy landscapes, watching the sun rise, or even counting the stars? Did he like talking to his friends, learning from the elders, or making friends with complete strangers? Did he like...

"Ramen."

Perfectly still and blinking several times, she gave an amused grin, then regained her seriousness and waited. Waited again. Until he raised an eyebrow and she realized it wasn't another joke.

"Ramen?"

The tone of her voice was unmistakable, she doubted he was making fun of her.

"What you like most in the world... is... pasta?"

Without meaning to, she had just done exactly what she didn't want him to do to her: she had judged him. But to say that she hadn't expected this response would be an understatement. She had expected anything but that. She knew the word and what it meant, but she couldn't tell which book she had read it in. So she couldn't recommend any of them to him, and that bothered her to no end.

"What do you mean, pasta?"

It was his turn to wrinkle his eyelids, and she knew even before he continued his indignant voice that she would have been better off keeping her mouth shut.

"These are not simply pasta. These are noodles cooked over a low flame in a succulent broth, surrounded by so many accompaniments that it would be impossible for me to list them all even if I wanted to... the chāshū, eggs, ginger, mushrooms, garlic, narutomaki, and on and on... how can you call this pasta?"

His hand on his chest, a grimace materialized on his face as he seemed to exhale his last molecules of oxygen.

"My own name... sullied... I can't believe what I just heard... my heart... argh..."

Eyes wide open, mouth half open, she did not even dare to move a finger in front of the scene that was unfolding before her. In a gesture of the most caricatured, he lowered his head to the ground as if he were having a heart attack.

Could it be that one of the accompaniments to these noodles was some kind of drug?

"You don't have any other..."

She fell silent in an instant.

The palm of his right hand still resting on his chest, he raised his left in her direction, putting an end to her request. Then he raised his upper body and, his eyelids closed at first, finally gave her a condescending look.

"No... no... please... there... there's no need to apologize... you have every right to be a heretic."

Again, sitting with her legs straight and her feet facing the now disillusioned expression, she remained stoic.

What was he talking about? She had not wanted to apologize in any way. And then, a heretic, her? Wasn't that an exaggeration?

Still seeming to be a victim of tachycardia, she watched as he struggled to get up and helped himself against the wall.

Was she, for the first time of her life, attending a theatrical performance?

"No choice. I must eat about thirty bowls to wash away this affront."

The aside continued, and he walked, head bowed and airy, toward the synthetic light of the street. The solar star having just drawn its awe, the backlight of the street lamps through the open window allowed her to watch the escape of the half-golden, half-orange hair.

Her anxious tone did not wait.

"Are you going to leave me all alone?"

The aside continued and he walked, head bowed and face defeated, toward the synthetic light of the street. The solar star having just drawn its awe, the backlight of the street lamps through the open window allowed her to watch the escape of the half-golden, half-orange hair.

Her anxious tone did not wait.

"Are you going to leave me all alone?"

Still dressed in his gray jacket, black pants, and shoes of the same color that came to the bottom of his calves, he finally stopped and turned back to her. With an innocent look on his face, his azure eyes lifted to the ceiling as he continued his scene.

"I would have asked you to come, but you don't seem to appreciate ramen for its true value."

Understanding from his tirade and demeanor the line he was trying to get her to say, she in turn put her hand to her chest and, smiling broadly, threw herself body and soul into what seemed to be the outcome.

"I never said that, I love ramen, it's one of my favorite dishes."

She had never eaten it.

She had already forgotten half of the ingredients.

She wasn't even hungry.

Leaning against the windowsill, his hands in his pockets, he stared at her in silence until her sigh brought him back to seriousness and ended the comedy.

"Decidedly you lie very badly."

Bringing her hand back down to the sheet, her chest turned toward the window, her smile fading to a vexed pout as she moved closer to the mattress.

A lousy lie, perhaps, but a successful lousy lie, nonetheless.

Stopping in front of her, he took his hands out of his pockets to crouch at her level.

"Can you walk, or shall I carry you?"

The rhetorical question, with the sole purpose of confirming that she allowed him to touch her, elicited her embarrassed response.

"I can't w..."

He didn't wait for her to finish and slid his forearms under her legs and back, cutting her off in her response as he grabbed her hip and ribs. A most satisfying feeling distilled inside her as he lifted her, as she tried to convince herself of her embarrassment, but finally realized that he was right.

She was a terrible liar, even to herself.

Wrapping her arms around the black collar, she breathed in and just like the first time, his scent intoxicated her.

He moved toward the window and she felt him crouch down, preparing to jump out.

Preparing to feel her stomach spinning again, she closed her eyelids as tightly as she could. Strangely, the sensation of free fall was not felt, so she opened her eyes again and watched him.

The slight and successive contractions of his right eyelid told her very clearly that he was trying to contain some anger she did not understand.

"I forgot. I don't have any money."

As he spoke, he let his anger explode through his voice.

"Damn, he pisses me off."

Before he clung to the windowsill, trying to miraculously see the endless white hair.

Horizontally above the window and still in his arms, she scanned the street below.

Much quieter than when she had watched it half an hour earlier, the street had not been emptied of its population.

"If he has used everything, I swear I'll sell one of his kidneys."

Now that the garlands of lights and other fixtures lit up the aisle, the counters, and the inside of the stalls, she could even tell that there were even more people. This did not fail to amaze her.

One of the few things she could remember was true. People were much more social after dark.

The sigh that caressed her forehead brought her attention back to the golden hair.

"Alcoholic as he is, I won't get anything out of it..."

She wanted to ask him to enlighten her on what he was talking about, since she had barely listened to his monologue, but her field of vision was drawn to another source of light.

Her eyes opened wide and she admired the cloudless sky.

During the nine years she had spent in captivity, she had developed a boundless admiration for the twinkling stars. It was one of the few things that, when she wasn't holding a book, had allowed her to think about something else, to imagine herself far, far away from her waking nightmare. And that in spite of the small, dirty window that had allowed her to see only a small part of the starry sky.

Now that she could distinguish the galaxies and star dust clusters, she could not help but admire them.

"Can you see anything in this light?"

In an instant, almost startled, she shifted her gaze to the right.

With his chin raised to the sky and his eyes squinted, he too was watching the stars.

" You can't see much."

Inevitably, she raised her eyebrows at his words.

Was he nearsighted? She had never seen the sky so clear.

She opened her mouth to ask him orally, but the abrupt movements closed it. A second later, under the swirl of her obsidian hair that tickled her lips, it was her eyelids that did the same.

She felt him land on the dirt floor of the street, and the laughter of the surrounding stalls reached her immediately. Several surprised hiccups could be heard around her, shouting words she did not understand. The streetlights tinted her closed eyelids orange, and she was forced to plunge them further into the darkness as he took a second leap. The wind whistled in her ears, drowning out the conversation in an instant.

Fresh and regular, the gust of wind created by their movements penetrated her clothing and made her shiver with her whole being. He landed an eighth time, then a ninth, and finally stopped.

She knew where she was even before she opened her eyes. The smell of the breeze had given her the information.

A forest.

Lush, abundant, and at her back, the wooded expanse only caught her eye for the duration of a breath. What caught her attention and even took her breath away was the cliff she was standing on.

On which they stood.

Measuring more than thirty meters and overhanging the continuity of the forest, it offered an incredible view of Kurikoma Volcano. At least, the immense size of the mountain at less than a kilometer, as well as the faint lights of the two villages illuminating its sides, let her assume that it was indeed the volcano.

Porous, flat at the top and embedded in the cliff, the coolness of the huge granite rock stole a second shiver from her as he placed her on it.

He crouched down next to her and, taking away his body heat, turned his attention back to the sky.

"You can see much better from here."

Having to force her eyes to see the beauty beneath the golden hair, so much darkness surrounded them, she finally looked at the starry night in her turn.

Under the singing of the cicadas and her half-open mouth, she finally understood what he had meant.

In fact, he had been right and she had been wrong, the lights of the village prevented from seeing anything.

The seconds passed as her retina was exposed to the canvas of a thousand sparks, as the flames of the fading stars were soaked into it. Lost in her thoughts, in this milky way that split the infinite, her opal irises hung on so many shooting stars that she lost count. The dazzling myriad of starry nebulae made her travel to unexplored and fiery lands, and she felt herself leaving far from this rock, far from this forest. Far from this time.

He brought her back in an instant.

"When I have trouble thinking, when I don't know what decision to make, I just look up at the sky and everything falls into place. Feeling so small, so insignificant, helps me put things into perspective."

She lowered her gaze to the azure and was surprised at the ease with which she recognized his grin. Her eyes, now accustomed to the half-light, could see him almost as well as in daylight. No wonder she noticed the disappearance of his gray jacket.

Dressed in a black t-shirt and still crouching, he lifted his admiration to the glitter of the galaxies, and she lowered hers to the lukewarmness that surrounded her orange t-shirt and shoulders, where the gray fabric now lay.

With rosy cheeks, she watched him as he lay down next to her. A question immediately came to her mind, and she wanted to ask him, but embarrassment prevented her from expressing it.

Why are you so caring?

There had to be a deeper reason than just being a good person. Did she remind him of anyone? Did she remind him of something? Did he feel sadness, pity?

The lack of an answer reminded her of the one he had given her when she first woke up.

It's complicated.

Her first thought was the most predictable: Why is it so complicated to bring her back to Konoha?

She was sure that if she asked him right now, he would give her an answer. But now that she thought about it, that was not what she wanted to ask him. She no longer wanted to know why it was complicated.

"In the forest, you said it was complicated... but for whom?"

With his eyes still fixed on the sky, his hands clasped behind his head and lying down, he watched her out of the corner of his eye.

Was it complicated for her... or for him?

It really fascinated her. She was curious.

"I thought you'd forgotten."

A long silence followed, and as he seemed to think of an answer, she understood from the tone of his voice that it was not the case.

He had not searched for his words. He was simply saddened by the mere thought of it.

"Sometimes it's better not to know, you know."

She paused for a moment, understanding exactly what he meant, before reminding him of his words.

"You said without tongue in cheek."

He sighed and turned his attention back to the nebulas. After a few seconds of hesitation, during which he opened his lips several times, he closed his eyelids and finally remained silent, which tested her patience.

Was he really not going to answer her?

Accompanied by her aching knee, she repeated his gesture and lay down in turn.

She had all night, and even the next if necessary.

"I was five years old when I first heard about you."

Fortunately for her patience, a few more seconds were enough for him to break the silence.

"It was a few months after the war began, in early winter. We were in the land of the Fang, in a small village like this one, between the borders of the Claws and the Wind."

Slowly, she turned her face to him. Her vision half obscured by her obsidian hair, she admired the sparkle in her azure irises that contemplated the infinitely great.

"An informer from my master's network had given him an appointment not far from..."

Completely obsessed, she was disappointed to see him stop in the middle of his story to laugh.

It was not a banal grin, he seemed to be... mocking himself?

He took one of his hands from behind his head and rubbed his eyes, making his falsely amused expression disappear for good.

"What's the point of dithering, I'll get to it in the end... without tongue in cheek, are you sure?

His gesture finished, he returned his impenetrable gaze to hers, certain.

Drowning in her hair, she nodded.

"You were sacrificed so that the Fourth Great War could be declared."

At first, it was a faint whistling that covered the songs of the cicadas.

He had not answered her question.

"You were a pawn on the chessboard of Konoha's leaders."

Then she felt a strong heat at the back of her neck.

But she could not even think about it anymore.

"The head of the Hyūga clan, Hiashi Hyūga, your father, was one of those people."

Before the pins and needles itch on her fingertips.

Her mind was so busy trying to convince herself that he was lying that she was unable to say anything. Still, with an impassive expression, tears came to her eyes. It was only when one trickled down her nose that he opened his mouth again.

"Do you understand why you can't go back? You wouldn't have time to set foot there that you'd disappear."

As she had done since she met him, she copied his behavior to the letter: she laughed nervously.

All her short life, she had not stopped believing in that name, her name. All through her long captivity, she had not stopped imagining the joy of the villagers, of her clan, when she managed to return to Konoha. Even if she had forgotten the face, the voice, the smell of her mother and father, she had not forgotten their smiles. The one she received when she hugged them. She had not stopped imagining a thousand and one face to her little sister that she had not been able to meet. A thousand and one expression, a thousand and one emotion. She would have given anything just to talk to her for five minutes. Even her life.

Was he telling her she was wasting her time?

Breaking the complicity of their gaze, she straightened so quickly that the jacket fell from her shoulders. Her lack of oxygen forced her to inhale loudly, and under the annoying noise of the surrounding fauna, she lowered her gaze to the yellow shorts she was wearing to formulate the one thing that still gave her a little hope.

"Why... should I believe you?"

This time, even though her dismay prevented her from seeing the expression on his face, the silence made her understand that he was indeed thinking about the answer he was going to give her.

She really wished he had thought about it more.

"You shouldn't. If I were you, I would have tried to return a long time ago."

She turned her attention back to him and was surprised to see him sitting down. She didn't know why, but she had hoped to see a look of apology or even sympathy, but instead it was a calm look he gave her.

"In nine years, you must have thought about it at least once."

She didn't have time to understand what he was getting at before he continued.

"How did they do it? How could there be so many of them? What were the chances that I would be in this very place, at this very moment, and that they would be waiting for me? What would have happened if I had made a different decision, if I had not wanted to see the fireworks that day? The answer is simple: nothing. Everything was planned."

She stared at him, stunned.

"H-How... do... you... know... all this?"

She managed to hold back her impassivity as he brushed his thumb across his left forearm, and managed to hold back her fear as the cloud of smoke dissipated in the moderate breeze. But she could not contain her disbelief when he handed her a small black scroll.

"This is the report my master has received. You can form your own opinion and make your own choice.

She blinked several times, but did not take the scroll. She was not interested in it anymore. Whether it was true or not was irrelevant at this moment.

"My... choice? What choice?"

Sighing softly, he folded the scroll in his lap and lowered his eyes to it.

"I don't know if I know the truth about what happened, to be honest, I don't even know this Nara who wrote this report, so to say that I trust him would be an exaggeration."

He looked at her again and gave her what she had hoped for a few seconds before: a sorry look.

"However, my master knew him and trusted him. And I trust my master. He told me everything was true, so everything is true. What I told you really happened, and I am deeply sorry. From my point of view, it would be suicide to go back there. You will die for sure."

He moved his hand forward and placed the scroll on the granite a few centimeters from her own.

"But I'm not one to tell you what to do, so you can make whatever choice you want. If you want to go back, I will take you back. You just have to ask me."

She opened her mouth and the answer came to her in a clear manner, but he went on and... put an end to every single one of her beliefs.

"I was born in Konoha, just like my parents and my master. This is the village where they were born. This place, even if I don't know it, I don't forget it, I will never forget it, it is and will always be a part of me."

Pulling her hands away from the cool granite, she lowered her face and tangled her fingers in her hair.

His master... was born in Konoha?

Tugging at her hair a little more, her thoughts turned inside out.

How could she not have thought of that before?

He was tall and wrote all day.

"You read reports during the incident, don't you remember?"

He had received reports about her kidnapping.

"My master knows many people."

He had made his way through the Konoha outposts in no time.

"By the way, my name is Naruto..."

He had a disciple with that name.

She lifted her porcelain face and the tears flowed.

She... was the dumbest person on this entire peninsula. The dumbest, the most atonic, the most naive person on the entire planet.

A sob shook her throat and she immediately covered her mouth with her hands. Her vision blurred, she could only catch a glimpse of the worried look under the golden hair.

It was all true, no one was waiting for her.

She could not confirm the truth of this report, let alone trust this Nara. But to believe the great Sannin Jiraiya... did... did she have a choice?

Why did she have to keep this hope inside her? Now, it was tearing her apart.

She brought her left hand down from her mouth to her chest and clutched her shirt with all her might. A sob inevitably escaped between the fingers of her right hand.

She had nothing left.

"Stay with me."

Her chaotic thoughts came to a screeching halt as the echoes of the second choice washed over each of them.

Eyes wide and lost, she stared at him.

"Even though my master is a bit of a pervert, he is a good man who will protect you as much as I will. You will travel with us and we will tell you our best jokes along the way. We'll show you everything you want to see, so you'll forget the years they stole from you. Then, as soon as I know I can, I will bring you back, that's the first thing I will do. I will bring you back to Konoha, I promise you. I don't know how long it will take for me to become that strong, but in the meantime, stay by my side, Hinata."

Despite the sad look on his face, despite the feelings she was going through, the bright smile he gave her put an end to her crying, but more importantly, to her fears.

---

Hinata

April 6 1014, 9 :12am

Mount Myōboku

---

"The good remains in our memory and the bad in our dreams, little wolf, that's why we forget and make the same mistake over and over again."

She didn't really know how to explain it, or even where to begin. In fact, she was just beginning to understand where she was.

"I'm hungry Obāchan!"

She had already heard stories about them, they had not stopped talking about them during the journey, especially him. Master Jiraiya, for his part, had not been euphoric about the idea of crossing the peninsula and getting away from women.

A month, no more.

It was not an order the old Sannin had given them, but a warning, and the tone of his voice had been unmistakable: If they balked at the idea of leaving at the end of the month, he would simply abandon them... and without remorse.

Fortunately, and with time, she had come to understand the former Sannin's strange sense of humor. Well, she hoped she had.

"At your age, you should be a little more patient, you're not five anymore, Naruto."

Small, green and purple-haired, the named Obāchan and her high-pitched voice drew her attention in the kitchen.

Even though she had prepared for it, it was still strange to see them in person, especially the bigger ones. How big was the sky-blue one they had seen at the entrance? About twenty meters?

Staggering.

The large ones were stunning, the medium ones were imposing, the small ones were... cute.

She wanted to hug and cuddle the old toad so much that she could hardly stand still. Exactly the same feeling she had felt with the giant teddy bear at the big market in the Waterfalls.

"Exactly, I'm almost fifteen, so my stomach is even bigger than before... by the way, what are you cooking?"

Sitting on the floor in front of a table far too small for her to put her legs under, and in a house far too small for her to stand, she shifted her shy gaze to the one to her right, smiling and hungry.

If nine months ago, when she had agreed to follow him, to follow them, he had told her where she would be at this moment... she would have believed it, for she loved far-fetched stories, but... still.

"Slugs and larvae from the underwater caves of Lake Fuhen, along with a juicy snail slime that has been fermenting for over five years. It's been so long since we've seen you, I had to make a proper meal."

Leaving the rebellious golden curls behind, she looked at the purple ones with disgust.

A... joke?

She inhaled the air, and the smell brought back the miso soup they had eaten at sunset.

No, it was not. Now, she understood why Master Jiraiya had been so enthusiastic not to come to this mushroom.

She was ready to immediately go back and eat the spicy yakitori from the Birds, and even the funazushi from the Claws if it would make her instantly disappear from this giant mushroom.

"Then I'm even hungrier!"

Livid, she scanned the movements of the living stuffed animal in the kitchen, and when she saw her taking two bowls from a small cupboard, panic made her do something she had only practiced in training: she sent her elbow into the ribs of the disgustingly hungry being sitting next to her.

The muffled complaint she heard, told her that she had perhaps gone a little too hard.

"Oi?!"

Frowning, he stared at her and she did the same, but with a look that was both open and authoritative, ordering him to be quiet.

The bulging eyes across the room turned to them for a moment, but were too far away to hear the whisper.

"Why are you hitting me? Is it because of your buns again? I've already told you that I'm sorry... besides, you shouldn't have put them in my seal, it's a bit of your fault too."

Grimacing, one eye closed, and holding his ribs floating, he waited for an answer which did not wait. Moving her head from side to side, she stopped her gaze toward the kitchen.

"What? You want to go back to training... again?"

"It's ready!"

The horror of the news paralyzed her spine. She shook her frightened expression a second time, and he immediately made the connection.

"Oh... oh!"

She let out a breath of relief... which ended jerkily as he sketched a smile. Reflexively, she raised her hand to his lips, but he managed to catch her wrist halfway.

She was going to kill him, plain and simple... and without remorse.

"Obāchan, Hinata doesn't dare tell you this, but she loves slugs, she'd like a double portion."

She glared at him and he bit the inside of his lips to keep from bursting out laughing.

As he let go of her arm, all she could express was a pleasant, beautiful, fake smile toward the little batrachian who approached them with two bowls in her hand.

"Don't be shy, you are the wife of our little Naruto, this is your home. Eat, and if you want more, I will serve you with pleasure."

A slight hiss in her inner ear prevented her from hearing the sound of the bowls on the small table.

The matriarch's words could have demoralized her, as it often did when she thought of home, but strangely, the term she had used to describe her overwhelmed her even more, especially her cheeks, which had turned scarlet.

The fist that hit the table and made the cutlery jump made her immediately regain a livid complexion.

"There you go again, Obâ! Stop embarrassing her with your insinuations, she is not my wife."

Shifting her attention to the annoyed, insolent tone, she wondered if he meant what he said. Was he reserving the right to embarrass her? Did she not have the right to be embarrassed by whomever she wanted?

She opened her mouth, but managed to hold back her venom. Strangely enough, she didn't know if it was that particular word that had put her in that state or some other reason, a certain negation.

Sitting on the other side of the small table, the matriarch let out a laugh.

"Come on, come on, considering how you met, it can only be fate. If she's not your wife yet she will be one day that's a certainty, she can even be your cherry tree."

The exasperated breath of her future husband did not prevent the cheerful voice of the batrachian from continuing its way.

"And moreover, it rhymes, if it is not a prophecy, I wonder what it means… oh, there I go once more, I have to stop before I take the place of the old boor."

Unfortunately, the toad's last rhyme made her laugh, which inevitably drew the wrath of the azure irises.

"I'm trying to defend you and you laugh?"

In a most childish manner, he crossed his arms and turned his face to one of the small windows of the giant mushroom.

"Jiraiya-sensei is definitely right, women are bipolar."

Just like the last fifty... no, the last hundred times, she forgot where she was and what her name was, and again it was not her fault.

Impassively, she ran her index finger over her opal eyes.

"Bipolar... me?"

After all, what did a crowded restaurant in Tajimi, a packed movie theater in Fujioka, a hotel lobby in Yachimata, and a giant mushroom in the middle of Mt. Myōboku have in common?

The answer was simple: the idiot in front of her had been in it every time.

"Yes, you do. You're bipolar and that's an understatement."

She smiled... or was it a grimace? She didn't know, but one thing was for sure: he was going senile.

"Tell me... is it me who runs around and never gets tired? Is it me who talks all the time without stopping? Is it me who trains all day long and asks for more even after Jiraiya-sama beats me up?"

Not surprisingly, she got his full attention.

"No, I'll grant you that, but this is quite normal behavior for my age, and I remind you that I made him bite the dust during the last training."

Ignoring the absurdity of what he had just said, and even forgetting that what he had beaten was a clone of a clone, she continued.

"Is it me who says I'm not hungry and eats ten bowls on a whim, even if we're late?"

Squinting, he stared back at her.

"Are you kidding me? Have you gone senile? It was your fault we were late in the first place, ma'am I'm sleeping in a hotel I'm paying for. No wonder I'm hungry after waiting another hour for you to get out of the shower. Besides, this pervert who spends all night in weird places was even later than we were.

"You are right about weird places. Was it me who was so lost in my thoughts that I got lost in the streets of Himeji and came back the next morning soaked, penniless, and hungry? Where were you? What were you doing? I still don't know."

He raised both of his hands halfway to demand her composure, which was becoming less and less present, and nodded.

"Well, I have a very good explanation, I assure you... but it would take too long to tell, and right now I'm starving."

He moved his hands toward the bowls on the table, but she stopped him with a slightly annoyed voice.

"Is it me who is so incapable of concentrating on one thing at a time without losing focus that I forget that the buns in my seal are not mine, that I eat them, that I don't apologize, and that I offer a five-month-old pot of ramen instead?"

He gave her a big smile, which made her even more angry.

"The expiration date wasn't up, and I already told you I mistook them for bread, your horrible sugar buns."

After his usual hearty laugh, she offered him her usual pat on the head, and the chuckle he gave was all the more amusing.

"They were made with cinnamon and they were delicious, don't make a fool of me."

Sighing in displeasure, she turned her attention to the other side of the table, and slowly, shame covered her face.

The matriarch looked at them, stunned.

"S-Sorry, I didn't mean to be disrespectful in your home."

With her head bowed, she glanced to her right to see the mocking look she had suspected. She didn't really know what look she was directing at him, but he immediately bowed to the batrachian.

"Forgive her, oh great Shima-sama, it is the bad period of the month, she is not in control of her emotions."

For the second time, she struck the golden hair.

- Ouch!

And the laughter on the other side of the table raised her head in surprise.

"Hahaha... only the wedding... is missing... hahaha..."

After a few seconds of laughing and struggling to catch her breath, the old toad brought her wondering eyes back to hers, more embarrassed than ever.

"I am reassured. I was afraid that he would go to the same places as his master, but now that you are here, my dear Hinata, I am sure that will never happen. Please continue to take care of him."

Hesitantly, she lowered her head a second time as a sign of respect... sideways to the arm movements of the person in question.

"Oi, last time I checked, I'm the one taking care of her."

She chuckled at the thought of such nonsense. Unfortunately, the opening of the giant mushroom's entrance prevented her from answering.

"Finally you're here, Pa', it's been over an hour since I sent Gamaiwa to warn you."

Following the toad's gaze, she turned to observe the batrachian who had just made his entrance.

Just as small and green, he was dressed, like the matriarch, in a dark gray cloak that covered his entire body except for his head, where a bald spot and large white eyebrows bristled.

With an exhausted gasp, the newcomer closed the door and walked over to the table.

"I told you before I left, Ma', I was with Jiraiya and the Great Gama. Kami-sama be witness, this kid is beyond repair."

She looked at the old toad in surprise. Apart from the fact that his voice was much deeper than she had expected, had he just called Master Jiraiya... kid?

His answer given, the batrachian observed them, before concentrating only on her. At first he said nothing and sat down at his wife's side - if she had followed everything well - before scrutinizing her from top to bottom, which had no other effect than to make her uncomfortable.

Her obsidian hair pulled back in a bun, and dressed in a black tank top as simple as her white jogging suit, she bitterly regretted her choice of clothing.

She had this strange feeling of overcoming the look of a parent... was it... normal?

To her delight, the toad decided to shift his gaze to the azure who had already begun to eat.

"Aren't you going to introduce me, you cheeky boy?"

With his mouth full and an orange larva the size of his hand bent over his chopsticks, the cheeky one to her right swallowed hard as he slapped his chest and, coughing slightly with a smile, turned his gaze to her and his hand to the toad.

"Hinata, this is Fukasaku, he is just like Obāchan, the Dean of Mount Myōboku, but he has an even more honorable title than that. To this day, he is the greatest, most incredible, and undying grump this place has ever produced."

The proud look that the toad had shown at the beginning of the presentation vanished as quickly as one could say shamelessly. And the murderous look he gave off vanished just as quickly as the game of looks and hands was exchanged.

"Ojisan, this is Hinata."

Smiling amiably at the dean, she waited for her introduction. The tinkling of chopsticks on the bowl furrowed her eyebrows as she watched the worst introducer this place had ever seen.

She opened her lips, ready for a second round of verbal jousting, but the old toad's voice called her out.

"Hinata... so you're the wife of that weirdo? Isn't that too hard to live with every day?"

Peony red and with her mouth still half open, she turned back to the parents, speechless. Fortunately, the chopsticks bouncing on the table to her right attracted their attention, but that did not stop the man named Fukasaku from looking at his son.

"The kid said that you two are going to mate soon. I'm warning you, little troublemaker, I don't want another screamer like you."

The heavy silence made her curl her head and watch the ridges of her hands. She didn't know where to stand anymore.

Fortunately for her, the choking, the spitting, as well as the piece of larva that passed through her field of vision prevented her from thinking any more about what the old batrachian had just said... no, she could only think about it, and the images that followed were even harder to forget.

"I'm only fourteen years old! I never in a million years want a child! It's that fucking pervert who's talking all that bullshit?!"

The batrachian crossed his arms under his cloak, revealing his small green belly.

"Bullshit!? At your age, eighty-three of our children were already born. If you..."

"One hundred and eleven."

Cut off by his wife, who did her best to keep her composure, the old toad closed his eyelids and nodded.

"Exactly, as I said, one hundred and eleven. So be careful, or we'll end up with more whiners like you. Or worse, female whiners."

Maybe with a little willpower she could slip under the table...?

"Don't listen to that old sourpuss Hinata, I will keep your children as long as you want."

Accompanied by a smile that was at once kind and desperate, she left the eyes of the matriarch and watched the inevitable future father of her inevitable future children, looking for the slightest help, but he did not watch her at all.

As she had done before, he pointed his index finger at his azure and impassive irises.

- Hey, both of you, did my skin turn green during the night? Did I lose control of my Senjutsu? Do I look like a toad? Do you think humans come in packs of twelve?

Without waiting for the rhetorical questions, he stood and grabbed one of her two hands, before dragging her toward the exit.

"Where are you going? Wait a minute, she didn't even have time to..."

"Next time Obā, I gotta go kick that pervert ass."

Lowering her head a few times to apologize for the behavior she was engaging in and over which she had no control, she lowered her face one last time and stepped under the doorframe. The clattering behind her did not prevent her from hearing the polite discussion between the two deans.

"Couldn't you keep your mouth shut, you old grump?! Because of you she didn't even taste my food!"

"Don't shout in my ears old skin! You are not innocent in this story!"

"I'll scream if I want to, old fart! Let go of that bowl! Even in your dreams you won't taste it!"

"This is my house, I do what I want... give me back that spoon!"

Still focused on the giant red mushroom, she almost stumbled as he led her down the small path.

"You owe me a week's worth of ramen."

Still moving, trying in vain to see sarcasm on his face, so monotonous was the tone of his voice, she contented herself with observing the white t-shirt he was wearing.

"I don't have any money.

"I'll give you some."

Before laughing yet again.

Nothing seemed to stop him from eating ramen, not even his dignity.

"And why do I owe you this?"

He stopped and she walked past him. Giving him her most beautiful smile, she reversed the roles and dragged him with her.

She knew the reason, or rather the reasons, but poking him was far too tempting.

"I'm kidding, thanks."

She put on a charming air and, she had to admit, he was much more talented than she was at this little game. The smile and the look he gave her were the best proof.

"It's nothing, don't worry, I will do anything for the mother of my future children."

Her blood ran cold, yet it managed to warm her face before she even has time to look at the colorful flora.

A landscape she had been admiring for the last five hours and which strangely reawakened a strange fascination in her.

"D-Don't joke about that."

She had never seen such a beautiful, breathtaking shot, not even in the movies they watched togeth...

"Why do you think I'm joking?"

In the middle of the path that led down a small hill where the house of the two deans was located, in the middle of the mountain that held a huge lake and dozens of small villages in its midst, he tugged at her wrist and, the next moment, she found herself pressed against his chest.

She half-opened her mouth, but he caught her off guard and placed his only free hand under her chin, closing it instantly. His azure and dilated pupils left her in no doubt as to what was about to happen.

For the two hundred and forty-seventh time, her heartbeat quickened, playing havoc with her eardrums. Bathed in the orange of a spring afternoon, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath... then another. Seconds ticked by, drying her lips, and incomprehension made her miss a heartbeat... then another.

Confused, she opened her eyes again as the hormones brought her painfully back to reality. She stared at his playful expression above her and realized that her lips would remain as dry as the dunes of Wind

"Sorry my bipolarity has made me...

Offended, she pushed him away without bluntness and turned toward the horizon. Her arms crossed beneath her breast, she contemplated the horrible landscape.

"Perfect, after what you ate, I didn't want to anyway."

Without giving her time to think, he slipped behind her and embraced her warmly. Both hands strapped around her pelvis, she felt his warm breath in the hollow of her neck and the scent of jasmine intoxicated her almost instantly.

Aside from her anger, which, as always, was fleeting, one thing was certain: she would never manage to be angry with him for more than an inhalation.

"Sorry, that wasn't funny."

The sincere tone definitely extinguished any form of anger in her. However, even though her temporary mood was gone, her pride never left her, and it went without saying that the blood flowing in her veins made it immeasurable.

"He said after laughing twice.

"She said in a merciful voice."

She smiled at the retort, which made her defeat official.

With a calm eye, she admired the orange sky and the mountain range on the horizon that hid the sunset, and tenderly placed her warm hands on the forearms that encircled her waist.

"I forgive you if you pay me back my buns."

She felt him move, but did not dare to watch him. To meet his gaze now would be tantamount to surrender, and that was not an option.

She was willing to do anything for her buns.

"Wasn't it me who paid for them?"

She stiffened, and the way he tightened his embrace, there was no doubt that he felt it. He nuzzled her neck a little more and the tickling made him laugh.

"I'll buy you double... no triple."

Her hilarity over, she nevertheless continued to smile at the magnificent victory. The old batrachian's voice came back to her memory and erased it at once.

"By the way, what did Ob... Shima-sama mean when she joked that I was your cherry tree? Was it a metaphor?"

The soft sigh warmed her jugular again.

"You really do remember everything, don't you?"

Her smile returned and he replied in a weary voice.

" It concerns a prophecy that was told to me a long time ago."

He paused in his explanations, which inevitably attracted her opalescent attention.

Thinking, he looked at the landscape. The moderate breeze blew his rebellious golden locks and brought him back to reality. A reality in which he offered her a bright smile.

"I'll tell you next time, okay?"

Disappointed, she nodded.

He would never talk to her about it again, that was for sure, and it was the very first time that he didn't want to talk about something that bothered him.

They had exchanged so much, talked so much in the last nine months, that for the first time she had stopped counting the hours. She had thought she could claim to know everything about him, absolutely everything. But she had to believe that she was wrong.

He had certain subjects he did not wish to discuss, just as she did.

Trying to think of something else so as not to insist, she brought up her disappointment at the myriad colors and textures of the flowers, if she could call them that way, since they were so unique.

This place, this vegetation, really made her feel like a parasite.

Every square centimeter, every tree, every plant, every blade of grass, every living thing was endemic to it. Everything but them.

Even though she had paid attention to the landscape they had passed through to get here, she had absolutely no idea how to get back to this place if she had to go there on her own. And that was a good thing.

Mt. Myōboku was a place cut off from the world, the entrance to which could only be found if one knew where it was. A paradox that she hoped would protect these toads for another two millennia.

"Can you see him?"

She didn't have to ask who he was talking about to begin her search. It wasn't the first time he had asked her, but it was the first time she wasn't afraid to look for Master Jiraiya. She was the only woman for hundreds of miles. This time she was sure she would not see scenes that would haunt her in her nightmares.

As always, the white became black, the black became white, and the thousands of creatures showed her their position.

In a split second, she saw him, beyond the hill, the forest, and the small village of thousands of souls, in a huge wooden structure. He was standing with his arms crossed, leaning against a shabby pillar, talking to... no one?

"Eight o'clock, seven hundred and sixty meters, in a tree. He's talking to himself, do you think he's gone crazy?"

Gently, he released his embrace and took a quick look behind their backs at eight o'clock. Then, with an amused gasp, he brought his attention back to hers.

"I keep forgetting that even your field of vision is no obstacle."

Flattered was the only word that came to her mind.

It was true that since he had removed the seal of Kumo that had prevented her from using her eyes during her childhood, she had practiced a lot to make up for the lost time. And receiving a compliment from him about her progress was surely what she appreciated most in the world.

After his smell... and the cinnamon buns.

"I think he's talking to Ojiji."

She watched him without blinking.

Among all the talents he possessed, there was one that stood out, and it wasn't his learning speed or the black hole in his stomach.

"Ojiji...?"

He managed, without her knowing how, to find an appropriate nickname for everything that could bear one. Fortunately, she was the exception to the rule, and she really hoped that would not change.

"The Great Gama or the Great Sage, depending on who you ask. He is revered by the entire mountain for his wisdom and age."

She nearly choked on her own saliva.

His... age?

She knew that the two deans were over four hundred years old, and just thinking about it was surreal. From that title, she had thought that they were the oldest, but there were even older than them...?

"When you say their age... how old do you mean?"

"More than a thousand years."

"That's not possible."

Her statement had come out on its own...as did her skeptical expression.

"I assure you, it is true, there are autographed books in his library from before the Sengoku era and even before the formation of the three great elemental nations. I think I once saw a newspaper written by the Ri..."

Library, books. These two words were enough to convince her. This toad was over a thousand years old, and she hoped for nothing else now, or her thirst for reading would not be quenched.

He laughed out loud as she dragged him down the path to the tree, to the library. Everything indicated that he had done it on purpose, and it was a great success.

It had been a few weeks since she had been able to read a new book. That was how long it had taken them to reach this place from the Fang Nation, so she could only be happy about this news.

Let Kami be a witness, a few more days and she would have fallen for Master Jiraiya's writings, even if it meant that she would have been traumatized.

"How many books are there? ... Thousands? Are you kidding? Why didn't you tell me before? ... Wait, I don't follow you, what do you mean most of them are my size?"

"What language are they in? I don't know the ancient language very well... Will he let me read them? ... Will you please ask him? I don't want to impose myself."

"Do you know if he has The Art of Living? It's my favorite book... No, it was written by Senju Tobirama... Yes, but this place was connected to Konoha, it's possible that he has it, don't you think?"

The journey down the hill and through the mushroom forest was interrupted by her countless questions and she asked her last one as they entered a small village.

"Why can't I see him, this great sage? Are you sure that he is with Jiraiya-sama?"

If she concentrated hard enough and knew what she was looking for, even an insect several hundred meters away could not escape her sight, so she found it really hard to imagine that a toad, no matter how big it was and only six hundred meters away, could escape her sight.

"Certainly because Ojiji has become one with his surroundings. In the five years I have lived here, I have only seen him come out of his palace when he wanted to play a game of Go with Gamabunta. The rest of the time he sits in his chair, motionless, absorbing Senjutsu. He has attained such mastery that he is able to replace his own chakra with the one of nature."

Although she could only imagine what he had just said, she nodded in understanding. It was not the first time she had heard about this chakra.

During her first training sessions with him, she had asked him why he spent several hours meditating after each session, and he had explained what Senjutsu was.

An infinite source of energy that is everywhere and in each of us, but that we cannot see or touch.

In other words, if you didn't know how to feel this energy - which was nearly everyone who lived on this planet, with a few exceptions - it was just another myth that few shinobi believed.

"What about you? Can you do that?"

Too obsessed with the conversation, she only noticed the tens, no, hundreds of eyes all around them. Whether on the ground, on the tops of plants, or in the houses within the flora, the entire street they crossed had stopped its activity to observe them, well, especially her.

The murmurs she heard clearly indicated this fact.

"Is that a female? I've never seen one before."

"How did she get in? Is she with Naruto-kun?"

"Look, look, they're holding hands... that must be the human that Master Jiraiya was talking about this morning."

"Did you see her eyes...? Doesn't it remind you of something?"

"No, I am still far from Ojiji's mastery. But one day, I will surpass him, that is one of my goals. I surpassed Jiraiya-sensei in just a few weeks, even though he trained for decades. What's a thousand years to catch up? It's no..."

Without her knowing why, he suddenly paused in his boasting to observe an imposing yellowish form about ten meters away, and without her knowing why, he released her hand to walk toward it.

"Don't move, I'm coming back."

With a smile, he greeted the batrachians he encountered on his way, leaving her alone in front of curious eyes. She could not see very well the face of the batrachian he was trying to wake, but half hidden by a conical and purple plant, the yellow toad had two back legs with black spots as well as a unique snoring.

At each exhalation, he was expressing a request for food.

"Oi."

"Another bowl please Mother..."

"Oi Gamatatsu."

"Yes, more fish, please..."

"You're going to wake up fatty!"

Causing a literal earthquake, the imposing two-meter toad jumped before crashing heavily to the ground.

It was really hard for her to hold back her laughter, unlike most of the toads in the village who did not hold back at all.

"I swear it wasn't me who ate it, I wasn't even... Oh, Naruto, hello, how are you? Are you okay? Why are you here?"

The toad lifted one paw to the orange sky, and under the sigh of the questioner, the toad offered his greetings as if nothing had happened.

"I'm looking for your brother, you don't know where he is..."

The thread of conversation slipped from her mind as something soft and warm touched her hip. Almost jerking, she turned to look at the small, young toad at her feet.

Measuring less than fifty centimeters and dark blue in color, the animal immediately lowered its head to greet her. Respect she returned with a bit of delay.

The strange fear in the batrachian's eyes disturbed her more than she wanted to admit.

"S-Sorry for bothering you like this, but... what's going on that made you come down here?"

She blinked several times, thought for several seconds, but nothing helped. She understood absolutely nothing of what the female toad had just asked her.

Her answer was no different than her thoughts.

"I don't understand."

The animal frowned and turned her attention to a group of toads about ten meters away, who waved at her to continue.

It was at that moment, with her field of vision raised over the flowery village, that she noticed that the entire street was paying attention to the exchange.

The little batrachian cleared her throat and, gathering her courage, continued where she had left off.

"Your eyes are... they are the ones depicted in the legends. The pupils of the Guardians, the Spirits of the Moon, the ones who make sure the Plague doesn't wake."

Her single thought summed up the thinking silence very well.

... What?

Still not knowing what to say, since what she had just heard made no sense, she was relieved by the fingers that slipped between hers, making her forget the hundred toads waiting for an answer.

"Stop bothering her with your tales Gamakoji, or I'll tell everyone where you get your drill caterpillars."

Having finished his discussion with this Gamatatsu, he had returned to take hold of her hand as well as the conversation.

She didn't know how important this caterpillar thing was, but in less than a second, all the audible whispers around her had changed the subject from Moon Spirits to cooking recipes.

Those toads were... unbelievable.

- Y-You wouldn't do that, would you?!

The toad's retreat was marked by fear, and he used the space created to draw her back to the path.

Leaving again a conversation that was not of her making, her wish, she pointed with her thumb, after a few steps, to the street that she had just left.

"I would have liked to know what she meant."

Despite her insinuation, he didn't stop.

"Don't worry, you'll have a chance to talk to her again if you want. But I wouldn't advise it. When she starts talking about these... legends, nothing can stop her, not even sleep. And yet she is the least energetic of her family. Gamaribe, her father, could talk for weeks without stopping."

Picking up the pace, she positioned herself at his level to stare at him.

"Do you really know the names of all these toads?"

He offered her a smile.

"No, I am far from it, only a fool would try to learn more than fifty thousand names. But of the twenty or so villages on the mountain, this is the one I grew up near, the one closest to Oba and Oji's house."

She looked at him, speechless.

Fifty thousand.

They could literally invade a country if they wanted to, and that was without counting the fact that some of them were the size of a building.

"How many are the size of that big blue one we saw at the entrance? The one with the two huge katanas on his back."

This toad, if she could call it such, was literally twenty times her size. If only a dozen of them looked like her, they could subjugate the entire peninsula.

"Are you talking about Gamahiro? I would say a hundred. But he's not the tallest, Gamatoko is over twenty-five meters tall and his father Gamatake is around thirty. And that's nothing."

He held his breath, and she could only hold hers.

About a hundred. Thirty meters.

It was... truly unbelievable.

She had feared that one day humans would learn of the existence of this place and that they would try to monopolize its benefits, as usual. But now she thought the opposite. It was no longer for the lives of the toads that she feared such a tragedy, but for the life of the country that would engender it.

"Gamashin, Gamakoji's youngest sister, once told me the story of Gamaheki, who had grown to over forty meters in height six centuries earlier. He was the descendant of a line of mighty warriors who had survived the wars with the serpents. A warrior in his soul and blood."

Indeed, she had been wrong all along. The paradox that surrounded this place was not there to protect the souls that lived within, but to prevent anyone from coming into conflict with it.

Continuing his walk, he pointed with his only free hand to the north of their position, past the flora, the dwellings, and the curious eyes.

"There is a place called the Creeping Graveyard, where tons of bones still lie. This is the place where Gamaheki single-handedly fought off more than a thousand snakes that had burrowed their way into the mountain. Unfortunately, his injuries from the battle were severe, and he voluntarily let his Senjutsu take over."

He stopped and she did the same, only now realizing that they had reached their destination.

"Since that day, his statue has watched over the entrance of the tunnel with a mischievous smile, and in six hundred years, no snake has dared to come out. He has sacrificed his life to save his family, to save the mountain, and even after his death, he continues to watch over it. I love this story, it reminds me a little of the story of my parents."

She looked admiringly at the ridge several miles away and smiled tenderly under the caress of the warm wind.

She forgot all the time who he was.

Until he told her, she had always thought that he didn't know the names of his parents, only that they lived in Konoha. Since he had no name, since he was Naruto, just Naruto, it was logical to think that.

Yet another mistake on her side.

Kushina Uzumaki and Minato Uzumaki.

If he didn't take his parents' name, it wasn't for any reason. He just didn't want to draw attention.

She still remembered the first thing she asked him to repeat: his father's title. She still couldn't get over it.

The Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze Uzumaki, the Konoha's Yellow Flash.

His father... was the Fourth Kage of Konoha. The one who even his opponents, in this case Kumo, had praised for his deeds during the Third Great War.

He was the son of a Leaf legend, but he lived as far away from it as possible. Why?

That was the question she had asked him, and he had answered her without the slightest hesitation, without the slightest emotion. Even now, nine months later, she remembered it to the last word.

I am the host of Kyūbi, and the current ruler of the leaf wants to get his hands on it. Both my life and the demon.

Inside him, a titanic creature slumbered that could make Gamahiro's katanas look like common toothpicks. She still didn't know what to do with this information, but even with it, nothing had changed.

He was Naruto. Just Naruto.

"Is this where you saw him?"

Pulling herself away from her thoughts, she lifted her opalescent gaze to the huge tree that now towered over them. At least what was left of it, a huge trunk. She didn't know the original size of the tree before it was cut down, but from the sheer size of the trunk, it must have been over a hundred meters tall.

She brought her vision back to the huge, sprawling roots and scanned the human figure inside the dead tree.

Her eyebrows furrowed inexorably.

She didn't feel it. She could make out Master Jiraiya, but she felt nothing to indicate that he was actually behind the two huge wooden doors. If her eyes hadn't told her where he was, she would never have suspected his presence.

"This is the place."

As soon as she had confirmed it, he moved toward the huge bark entrance and, clutched to his hand, she had no choice but to follow.

She expected him to knock or announce himself, but he did neither. Pushing open one of the two creaking doors that must have weighed several tons with ease, he led her inside.

The door closed in a strange silence, but she did not care. The surrounding scenery had already robbed her of that ability.

Even if she had been asked to imagine the interior for hours, she could never have imagined this.

It was big. Very big. Too big. So big that she couldn't see the walls, neither the ceiling nor the bearer, only the concrete slabs allowed themselves the luxury of reflecting light. A source of light that was nowhere to be found. No matter how hard she looked, she could not find it. Everything seemed to be illuminated by the magic of the holy spirit.

Blinking several times as he led her a little further inside, it was her own spirit that she recovered.

Considering the size of the trunk, it was impossible for the room to be that big. This place could not be real, and with this realization, two new pieces of information came to her mind.

The first was that, without knowing how, she could observe the dimensions that the seals formed. And that was another example of how little she knew about her own body.

The second was even more surprising: she was in a seal.

As a result, she lost her balance slightly, but not enough for the two pairs of eyes in the room to notice.

She wasn't claustrophobic, just that this was the first time she'd entered another dimension, and just knowing that made her uncomfortable. Combined with the fact that she couldn't see the ends of this seal, the dizziness suddenly became quite logical.

Luckily for her heart rate, she looked at what had brought her here and, immediately, the fear disappeared.

About twenty meters to her right, the shelves of books climbed to the point where she could no longer see. Reaching heights that the darkness swallowed, they stretched for more than a hundred feet and contained several tens of thousands of books, more than she could ever read.

The library containing some books larger than she was ended right in front of twenty perfectly arranged scrolls, each about ten meters long and one thing in common: three identical kanji were written in black ink on their visible sides.

Gamamaru's diary.

Inevitably, she focused her curiosity on the long white hair next to one of them and understood why she had thought she had seen a pillar half an hour earlier: There had never been one. Master Jiraiya's warm aura inevitably reached her as she concentrated on the movements of his pencil.

Then the warm breath caressed her face.

Wide-eyed, she watched the huge purple toad sitting between the rollers as a shiver ran down her body.

She hadn't felt him. She had looked in his direction three times and yet she had not seen him.

Mechanically, she let go of his hand and took a hesitant step toward the giant beast.

She... didn't feel him. It wasn't something she was used to. A creature of more than fifteen tons and seventeen meters was in the same room as her, in front of her and less than twenty meters away, but she could not sense it, and this time the seal was not involved.

For the second time in less than half an hour, darkness became light and light became darkness, and the two bluish figures surrounding her confirmed her fears. It was not eye strain or lack of chakra.

The toad was simply not there.

Master Jiraiya's husky voice woke her from her lethargy and she took the opportunity to say a word. Just one word, but it frustrated her to no end.

"Nothing."

She was willing to admit that the natural chakra was not in the spectrum of the visible, even to her byakugan, that she could only feel it, but here this chakra was literally hiding the appearance of the Great Sage from her.

It was unimaginable.

For the first time in her short life, her eyes had become a disadvantage. If she used them, she would lose everything she had left to know the position of her target.

"Can you really see nothing? Not even his pathway system?"

She moved her face from side to side. It was frustrating, very frustrating, but she really couldn't see anything, even though the toad was sleeping.

"You!"

She literally gasped as the ranting whistled in her right ear.

"You think you can say all that crap and get away with it? Seriously!?"

After stopping writing for more than a minute, the accused, still present beside the scrolls, raised two innocent hands.

"It was not a lie, I was only reporting what Ōgama Sennin had seen in his vision."

Filled with uncertainty, the arm on her left came down and she used the silence to put the last piece of the puzzle together.

The prophet was none other than the Great Sage. Something she had suspected, but which Master Jiraiya had just confirmed. This meant that it was this toad who had predicted the prophecy he did not want to talk abo...

What she had just heard replayed in her mind and immediately blocked each of them.

What the Great Sage... saw... in his vision? He... so... with...

Peony red, she watched the arm on her left rise again, but this time in the direction of the still sleeping Great Gama.

"Oi! Ojiji, wake up you pervert!"

She took a step back. Then two. Three and the Great Sage opened his eyes.

Now more than ten meters away and with her vision increased to more than seventeen, she felt ashamed. Even Master Jiraiya's eyes were wide open.

He had literally just called a creature that was over a thousand years old and could see the future a pervert... and she was the bipolar one?

She was taking absolutely no responsibility for the situation. The truth was that she didn't know him. She had just met him on the street corner, between a snail and a turnip.

What was his name again? She had it on the tip of her tongue... Na... Naru...

"Is it true what pervert number one says? Did you really have a vision of Hinata and me?"

Disoriented and having lost the thread of reality, the Great Gama observed the emptiness in front of him before casting his glassy gaze on the golden hair.

"So? Is it..."

She followed the movement of Naruto's arm toward Master Jiraiya and observed the small trunk that had replaced the scrolls and the smiling face that was drawn on it. A long silence followed, during which she watched the Great Sage who was even more lost than she was.

"I will kill him, I swear."

She could also swear that she didn't do it on purpose. But it was an amused smile she was wearing as he turned to her. A smile that she wiped away abruptly, but still too late.

The sigh he let out did not surprise her.

"I've told you before, don't laugh when he does that, it just makes him think he's funny."

She giggled and immediately put her hand to her lips. It was true that she often laughed at Master Jiraiya's jokes, but...

"It is kind of funny, though, isn't it?"

He tried as best he could to keep his seriousness after her muffled tone, but when he looked at the wood again, he chuckled and shook his face.

"Oji is right, he really is beyond repair."

She lowered her hand and smiled even wider. Master Jiraiya was truly unique and that was why she liked him so much.

"I was wondering how... we would meet... so this is it."

In unison, they turned their attention to the Great Gama and raised an eyebrow in unison.

- What do you mean, meet Ojiji? Don't you remember me? I am Naruto, your favorite, you couldn't forget me, could you?

She was paralyzed on the spot.

"If it's because of the way I called you, I'm sorry, it's because of Jiraiya-sensei. You're not going to make a big deal out of this, are you?"

He didn't seem to notice yet, but she did.

The Great Gama looked her straight in the eye, and it frightened her.

"You are... younger than l... remember..."

The golden hair turned toward her, and it was at that moment that he understood, it was at that moment that he asked the question that she had been dreaming of asking.

"Do you know Hinata?"

His azure eyes crinkled as he returned it to the toad.

"Oi, Ojiji, I hope that pervert wasn't telling the truth. You didn't have such a vision, did you?"

A long silence followed before the toad's cavernous voice broke it.

"It wasn't... a vision..."

"Then what is it? Spit it out, how do you know her? You're starting to worry me now."

Taking a deep breath, the Great Gama continued to stare at her.

"It was over... six hundred years ago now... she came to visit me... in my dream."