fluffy clouds and a tinge of wonder; CH14: The trees look the same

notes: AHHHHH if you're in my discord you know how much ive written in the past two days. my hands. my brain. all melting. i went through like four versions of this chapter until i settled on a short time skip. best choice i could have made for sure. enjoy!

Weeks blur into a haze of training and missions. 

Jiraiya becomes moderately better at teaching the longer time goes on, combined with more grim, lingering looks on the group of us that bode ill. Whether or not he thinks we’ll survive the front I have no idea. I know we’re luckier than other teams. Some went straight onto the out of village courier roster. Those things are higher mortality than the pay would imply. 

Kushina can competently tree jump by our second month, we’re all capable of wall and water walking, and there’s been plenty of dodging practice between us. 

I turn eleven, and a few days later we’re dropped into our first bandit assignment unceremoniously. 

“Yes!” Kushina crows on our way out of the mission office, punching her fists into the air and jumping around. She almost knocks into a limping, dirty chunin probably showing up for report. Jiraiya grabs her by the back of her green shirt and pulls her out of the way. 

I distract myself with the practicalities. It’ll be our first real combat engagement, and luckily safer than most others. The threats will be starving farmers and maybe a few academy dropouts. C-Rank pay is markedly better than D-Rank and I need the money for new gear. I wet my lips, wondering where I put my camping kit—

“Ne, Seiko, are you excited?” Kushina asks, arm looping around my neck and pulling the back of my head into her. I let out a breath, the smell of her chakra surrounding me. I can almost smell the salt of the ocean again. I wonder if I’ll ever see the ocean in this life?

“Missions like this are serious, Kushina,” I reply, awkwardly trying to walk as Kushina drags me along. She’s still shorter than me, more now that I’ve really hit my growth spurt. “They’re not meant to be exciting.”

“Bandits are never exciting,” Jiraiya agrees boredly behind us. They aren’t exciting for him because he could kill a jonin without blinking.

“What should we pack, sensei?” Minato asks, walking on my other side. His hands are shoved into his jacket pockets, stance casual.

“Right, this is all of you’s first time out of the village, isn’t it?” Jiraiya says contemplatively. “We’re going four days south, so pack your camping kits and regular gear.”

How vague. 

“By regular gear, how many kunai would you suggest we bring? And what kinds of food?” I ask for Kushina and Minato’s benefit, already thinking back on the lectures Ryuu-sensei gave on mission readiness. Our other sensei had done lectures on it too, but Ryuu-sensei was a jonin and had been extremely active in the war prior to his injury. He had the most recent and trustworthy info. 

I think I have notes back at my house. I’ll have to look at them again. 

“Do we have to eat rations? I hate ration bars,” Kushina adds, still not releasing me from her arm. I bemusedly begin to pry her from my neck, thinking about if I’ll have to toss her over my shoulder in public. We aren’t meant to spar in civilian areas. It’s a citation from the police if they spot you, and it may get back to Ryuu-sensei somehow. 

Maybe if I’m quick about it…

“Yes, we have to eat rations. As for kunai, how many kunai do you have? I forget you brats don’t own sealing scrolls.”

I scan the area around us. We’re walking past a few weapons shops and the occasional restaurant. I spot an Uchiha police member across the road and scrap my throwing plan. I reach a leg over and kick Minato in the calf, giving him a pleading look.

“I have sealing scrolls,” Kushina says. Benefits of being an Uzumaki. I think she knows the basics of sealing too, she said Mito had been teaching her before she passed. Maybe I should ask for a scroll as a belated birthday gift. Then again, she’s already gotten me another nice set of kunai.

Minato eyes me from the corner of his eye, then Kushina’s arm, and finally to oblivious Kushina herself. I can practically see the gears turning in his head. 

“Not everyone has sealing scrolls, Kushina-chan. Damn, I should probably make some for you other two. Ahhhh, but they take an hour each,” Jiraiya complains, and I hear the sound of him scrubbing at his bristly chin. He needs to shave. “How much did the academy teach you kids about sealing?”

Is he trying to see if he can just make us do it?

“How to activate seals, how to recognize a container scroll and how to recognize an explosive one. We also made seals that make light,” Minato lists off. Then he looks over at Kushina and shifts his tone of voice. Almost innocently curious. It reminds me of Ayako. “You made yours explode, didn’t you Kushina-chan?”

Kushina frees my poor neck instantly, using her arm to point at Minato. “Hey hey, I wanted it to explode, dattebane! Don’t look at me like that!”

I let out a soft breath, stretching my shoulders and neck. Minato puts on an appropriately abashed face, lifting his hands in surrender as Kushina sets up to start an argument. To be fair to Kushina, she definitely did make the seal explode on purpose. It was pink, loud, and perfectly placed to hit one of our teaching aids in the back with paint. 

“I don’t think we can make storage scrolls yet, sensei. Maybe after our mission,” I say, looking back at a bemused Jiraiya. Always so bemused. Isn’t he supposed to be the most unserious sannin? 

“You’re going to be very bored when we start camping. Shouldn’t you be excited to learn sealing from a master? You love training!” Jiraiya teases, reaching forward and ruffling my hair. I resist the urge to groan. Why is everyone touching me today? I should start hitting them in retaliation as soon as we aren’t near any Uchiha police.

“I don’t love training, I like being good at things,” I disagree, already planning my revenge as Jiraiya’s hand leaves my head. I could bite him next time. I have very sharp teeth.

“Sensei, could you look at what I pack before we leave?” Minato asks, dodging Kushina’s attempt to grab him by the shirt with quick feet. This time I grab her with an arm around her neck, ignoring her grumbling complaints. 

The Uchiha police member gives Jiraiya a judgemental look as we pass him. It’s very severe with his prominent eye wrinkles. Jiraiya seems to ignore it. Maybe he doesn’t respect fancy dojutsu eye wrinkles since he has his own weird eye marks.

Jiraiya sighs. “Yes, Minato-kun. I guess I’ll do you too, Rookie, since you live right by him. And Kushina-chan will be on the way to the gate anyway.” 

With that, we start towards Minato and I’s apartment building. Konoha wakes around us, bodies slowly filling her streets. The sky is blue. The stalls are emptier than they were a few months ago, and emptier still from a few months before that. 

“Don’t you need to pack, sensei?” Kushina asks after I’ve released her from my hold, turning around to walk backwards and stare at Jiraiya. The road isn’t so full that she’ll run into anyone, yet. 

“I always have my mission supplies on me,” Jiraiya says. I look back and see him pat his dark jonin vest. He must have his scrolls under it. None of his pouches seem to be big enough for a scroll. “Which is why you brats need to start carrying around container scrolls.”

Always mission ready, always wearing his uniform. The hypervigilance must be why he’s always spending his nights drinking or in the occasional brothel. How often did he get called into missions at random before he was given us as a team? Will that be our life?

Jiraiya locks eyes with me. “You’re making that face again. Share your thoughts with the class, Rookie.”

“I don’t make faces,” I disagree. And the thoughts I have are often treasonous. They’re far better served inside my skull. “I’m eleven. Most of the things I think aren’t very interesting.”

Hm. Kushina’s birthday will probably fall right after we get back from this mission, maybe during the mission if we’re unlucky. Should I pack her birthday present?

We turn around a street corner and get closer to Minato and I’s apartment building, more sleepy shinobi appearing around us than civilians. This is a pretty shinobi heavy area. You can tell because all of the roofs or railings have scuff marks from careless sandals.

“Uh huh,” Jiraiya says, thoroughly unconvinced.

“Do you keep the scrolls under your vest? Or is it sewn into the fabric?” I ask.

“You can’t sew a seal. The properties of the ink are important.” 

“But couldn’t you coat the thread in ink?” Kushina chimes in, practically skipping as she walks backwards. I’m sort of impressed. “Seals are seals, dattebane, you just need ink and the right matrixes. You could paint onto silk, like a fancy kimono.”

“Can you put a container scroll on yourself? Like a tattoo?” I ask. If I put one on my forearm I would never need a backpack again. I hate how the straps dig into your shoulders. 

“The Hyuuga tattoo seals onto themselves,” Minato adds contemplatively. Ah. He was good friends with a branch member in our year, Hyuuga Hideki. I bet they’d talked about the caged bird seal at least once. 

“None of you are ever putting seals like the Hyuuga use on yourselves,” Jiraiya says bluntly, before looking around to check if he’s been overheard. A pair of kunoichi drinking coffee outside their front door pretend not to hear us. The coffee smells bitter, and I think I can smell milk too. “This is a good discussion, though. We’ll table it till after we leave the gates. I don’t want any of you saying anything that’ll get me in trouble.”

I have a feeling he has negative opinions about caste system torture seals that he’d rather not cause political drama. The guy did write The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi. I still have the copy Kushina gave me on my little bookshelf, by my plants. The prose is fine. The novelty of a book that critiques the shinobi system at all is why I keep it around.

If Jiraiya wasn’t the student of the Hokage it’s the sort of thing he’d get a nice visit to T&I for.

We finally get to our apartment building and head to Minato’s first. Minato usually comes over to mine, so I don’t see his very often. 

“You kids are lucky you get apartments, back in my day if you didn’t have a family you had to live with your sensei till you had enough cash,” Jiraiya comments as we head up the concrete stairs. Kushina says something about racing Minato, and then starts taking them three at a time. Minato hurries to catch up, laughing. 

“Don’t say “Back in my day,” Jiraiya-sensei, it makes you sound old,” I reply. I can’t imagine living with Jiraiya. It sounds horrible. I bet he barely cleans and would make us do the dishes as “training”. 

Wait. Does this mean Jiraiya and Orochimaru lived with the Hokage when they were younger? Sage, no wonder he kept letting them do whatever they want, he was practically their dad.

We get up to Minato’s floor as Minato is unlocking his door. Kushina apparently won the race from her smug expression, but she's a good enough sport not to brag loudly. Probably because it's early enough in the morning that one of our neighbors may try to throw a kunai at her.

“It’s not very big,” Minato says as he lets us all in, face a little pink. I pay him no mind, pulling off my sandals and tucking them neatly to the side. 

“You’re a little kid, you don’t need big,” Jiraiya says with a chuffed laugh, ruffling Minato’s hair. Finally, I’m not the only one getting my hair messed up. 

“My house is too big,” Kushina agrees with a huff, hopping with one foot as she takes off her last sandal and sets her pair haphazardly beside my own. “I get freaked out walking down the hallway because of the empty rooms, and I never use the dining room.” 

My chest aches at the sound of that. I should start asking her if she wants to do sleepovers more. I know Mikoto comes over as often as she can, but with her clan obligations and her new team she’s pretty busy.

“I still can’t believe Tsunade-hime is keeping you in that big ass house,” Jiraiya grumbles under his breath. 

I step into the living area with silent taps of my feet. The layout of the apartment is the same as my own, but the decorations are a bit different. Minato has our team photo on the small kitchen counter and a few notebooks at his kitchen table. I peer off to the right, seeing the hallway and knowing the right door is his bathroom, and the left is his room. 

“I keep my gear in my room. I’ll bring it out now,” Minato says, before hurrying down the hall and into his room. 

I take a seat at the kitchen table, helping myself to his notebooks. I’ve seen him bring them to training before. I flick through a few pages, smiling when I see its detailed notes about different jutsu he’s seen people use. Minato has such neat handwriting, far better than my own.

“Ne, what is it, Seiko?” Kushina says, leaning over my shoulder. She groans once she reads skims through the words. “You two are so boring!” 

“Diligent, you mean diligent Shina-tan. Not everyone can just brute force their way into techniques,” I tease, closing the notebook and tapping her with it on the forehead. Kushina sputters. 

“No fighting indoors,” Jiraiya orders preemptively, coming up to the table and picking up one of the notebooks for himself. Nosy spymaster. He makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat at whatever he reads.

I pick up the rest of the notebooks and shove them into Jiraiya’s hands. “Put these on the counter, sensei, so Minato can lay out his gear on the table.” 

Jiraiya grunts, distracted, but does as I ask. He keeps the one in hand, flicking through it. 

Kushina leans her forearms on my shoulders and her chin on top of head while we wait. I glance out the window. The apartment smells like Minato, and a little bit like cleaning supplies. He must be very tidy naturally since he wasn’t expecting us over. I can smell what he ate last too. Tteokbokki. Where did he get tteokbokki? The only stand I know of that sold it has been closed since the owner’s daughter passed away a month ago. Maybe she reopened it yesterday. Now I’m craving it.

Jiraiya mutters something that sounds a little like “jutsu prodigy” under his breath, and then makes an indistinct complaint about the academy. The clouds roll outside, the sun’s warmth turning them to shades of orange and yellow. 

Minato finally comes out of his room with an academy standard backpack over his shoulder and a few pouches of what must be shuriken and kunai. 

“I have rations,” Minato is already explaining, distracted by adjusting his grip on his pouches. “They’re just in my kitchen cabinet.”

He blinks when he looks up and sees Jiraiya with his notebook in hand, but I wave him over to the table.

“You always take notes like these on jutsu you see, Minato-kun?” Jiraiya asks as Minato sets all of his bags down. 

“Seiko-kun and I do it all the time,” Minato says, before pausing and giving me an apologetic look. I sigh. 

“Do you now?” Jiraiya asks, and I can feel his eyes on me. I ignore him. 

“Seiko is really smart, dattebane. She learned henge in ten minutes!” Kushina says proudly, shifting her arms to grab me by the shoulders and shake me a little, back and forth. It was not ten minutes. It was more like an hour to be serviceable, and a day to have a proper grasp of my chakra output.

“I love packing. Let’s do packing,” I say blandly, pointing at Minato’s dark blue bag. He has a cute little frog patch on it. 

“We have to work on your communication skills, Rookie,” Jiraiya says in a huff. 

We do not work on my communication skills. We start packing, thank the sage. 

By the time we get to my own apartment I already have an idea of what I should pack. The only thing I’m really worried about is someone watering my plants while I’m gone. 

I unlock my apartment door for the others and then wander a door over, knocking. 

There’s a muffled curse, then the door opens a sliver. The faint smell of tobacco and, uh, other activities fills my nose. I can only see about half of Higashi’s sleepy face. All it takes is a breath to sense that there’s another chakra pulse inside of his apartment. 

Hm. That makes sense. He’s usually a pretty early riser. 

“Higashi-san, can you water my plants while I’m gone for my mission?” I ask very politely, not mentioning how he’s absolutely very undressed behind the door. 

Higashi sighs, rubbing at his eyes and opening the door slightly more. I can see his whole face and a bare shoulder now. Scandalous.

“Yes, kid. How long is the mission?” Higashi asks, voice rough. I must have woken him up. He really needs to lay off the cigarettes or he’ll sound like an old man by the time he’s thirty.

“About a week and a half at most. We’re killing a bunch of bandits.” I hold out my key to my apartment. I have an extra I keep in my thigh bag. 

Higashi wakes up a little at that, blinking. He reaches an arm out and takes the key from my hand. Bare arm! The horror. I should shut my eyes and save my virtue. “You are? I didn’t realize you graduated already. Be careful, some Jonin are sh— uh, awful teachers.”

“Rookie, why are you loitering outside? I want out of this damn village before nightfall,” Jiraiya complains, stepping out my door and wandering into view. Higashi chokes on air. 

“What the fuck,” Higashi says very astutely. 

Jiraiya looks distinctly unimpressed by the door-covered teenager in front of him. 

“My neighbor Higashi-san is going to water my plants while I’m gone. Bye bye, Higashi-san. Tell your friend I said hello!” I grab Jiraiya’s sleeve and start tugging him back towards my apartment. Higashi turns bright red. 

“You’re too young for a boyfriend,” Jiraiya says, still glaring back at my very nice neighbor even as I drag him away. Higashi shuts his door soundly.

“I’m eleven. Stop talking,” I say blandly. Shinigami save whoever would have had this oaf of a teacher in another life. It’s hard enough a burden for me and I have reincarnation cheats. 

“Such a rude student.”

We step inside my apartment and Kushina looks up from where she was raiding my fridge. Minato is looking at my windowsill plants. 

“Were you talking to Higashi-san?” Minato asks curiously. “You should stop asking him if his teammates are alive. It’s not very polite.” 

“I didn’t ask this time, I was embarrassing him instead.” I drop Jiraiya’s sleeve and head towards my room to grab my things. I already have pretty much everything packed except for my rations. 

It takes me only a few minutes to neatly pack all of my mission appropriate clothes into my bag and check that I didn’t leave any water in my water flask. I didn’t, thank goodness. 

I come wandering out with my bag on my shoulders to—

Kushina and Minato drinking juice boxes at my kitchen table, and Jiraiya staring at my small bookshelf. Okay. That’s not bad. 

“Where’d you get this book, Rookie?” Jiraiya asks, pulling out one and holding it up for me to see. 

The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi. Ugh. He does not need the ego boost of knowing I like his book.

“Kushina gave it to me, it’s an alright read,” I reply, going to my tap to refill my water flask. 

“Oh, just an alright one?” Jiraiya asks, teasing. “You know who wrote it, don’t you?”

“It’s boring,” Kushina chimes in, waving her apple juice box.

“It’s not written for kids! It’s meant to be philosophical. Do you know what philosophical means?” Jiraiya asks indignantly.

I fill my flask, listening to the water hit the bottom. “Philosophy is the study of questions related to life, existence, knowledge, and reason, Kushina. It’s a little bit like a nindo if you squint. Or maybe like questioning a nindo? Discovering a nindo?”

“What’s the book about? What is it questioning?” Minato asks. 

“Well—!” Jiraiya starts, puffing up his chest and looking proud. 

“Don’t spoil it for him, Jiraiya-sensei. Hand him the book, he can borrow it,” I cut in, shutting off my tap. This book would be important enough to Minato that he names his son after the main character. Kushina doesn’t really give a shit about it right now, but she probably will eventually. 

Jiraiya sighs, handing the book to an intrigued Minato. “We can talk about it after you read it, then.”

I tuck away my water flask. Onward to Kushina’s house and then we’ll be free.

—

It's midday by the time we get to the gate and the sun seems to be scorching the earth in its humid rage. Cicadas scream, there’s barely a breeze to speak of, and sweat is starting to gather at my headband.

I’m being dramatic mostly because we’re stuck in a line to leave. I hate long lines. 

I start practicing hand signs as we shuffle along behind a group of merchants, fingers swift. Kushina is explaining how hard it is to clean her kitchen to Minato, who’s nodding along dutifully. Jiraiya is flicking through our mission scroll. He shuts it with a quick shhk, and then swats at my moving hands. 

“Don’t do that, you’re going to freak out the civilians,” Jiraiya says. I swat at him back. 

“The civilians aren't paying attention,” I argue, gesturing at a couple of them fanning themselves by their wagons and complaining. None had noticed me doing hand signs yet. 

“Your file said you were such a good kid. Never mouthy. Those academy teachers are liars,” Jiraiya complains. 

“Ne, Seiko, do you think Taro-sensei is still alive?” Kushina asks out of the blue. 

I blink. Taro-sensei. I’d forgotten about him, he left the academy rotation a year and a half ago. 

“None of our old classmates have mentioned it yet, and our academy teachers would have gossiped about it during the school year when we were there,” I say, rolling through different gossip and rumors I’d heard in my mind. Mostly stuff about people’s new jonin sensei, drama about teams, drama about being shuffled into the genin corps. Nothing about Taro-sensei.

“He was nice. Not as good as Ryuu-sensei, but nice,” Kushina says, frowning thoughtfully. “His hands didn’t work because of poison, right?”

We shuffle forwards in line again. One of the merchant caravan’s oxen poops. 

“It was nerve damage from an Ame nin. They didn’t get the antidote fast enough. That’s why his hands would shake. I think he was getting regular treatment for it, and that’s why his hands stopped shaking as much at the end of the year.”

“Do you kids talk about all your sensei like this?” Jiraiya asks dryly. 

“A good shinobi—” I start, and Minato and Kushina quickly catch on and follow with, “—is a nosy shinobi.” 

Jiraiya goggles his eyes, experiencing the adult nightmare of children suddenly saying the same things at once. Always creepy. 

“What the hell.”

“We learned that in our second year, Jiraiya-sensei. They make us sing it in the shinobi rules song,” Minato explains, taking pity on him.

We shuffle forwards. The merchant caravan is finally heading through the gate at a faster civilian pace. They’re probably excited to finally be leaving. 

Our team probably could have skipped them in line on account of being shinobi and having a student of the Hokage with us, but Jiraiya apparently likes following rules only when it’s most inconvenient. 

Finally we reach the gate guard, and I’m happy to see it’s Maboroshi-san from our mission a few weeks ago. We’ve done a few more D-rank deliveries since then, and only two involving the gate. 

“Good afternoon, Maboroshi-san,” I say politely in greeting. The gate guard smiles, the motion pulling at the small scar on his cheek. 

“Good afternoon, Seiko-kun. Are you finally joining the gate guards?” Maboroshi says, joking. 

Jiraiya puts his hand on my head and maneuvers me half behind him. “Stop trying to poach my students. Mission one-one-three-six-two-eight for Team Seven, leaving on a C-rank.”

“Technically, gate guards have to be chunin. She’ll have to rank up first,” Maboroshi says, writing down our travel details nonchalantly. One of the other gate guards looks amused at a sannin trying to hide his student from them. “We’d never try to steal from the honorable Hokage’s student’s team.” 

Jiraiya rolls his eyes, flashing our mission scroll at the man and already walking out of the gates. I’m dragged along by my shoulder. So rude. 

“Wow, sensei, you do care about me,” I say wryly. His hand smells like weapon oil and ink. 

“Stop talking to strangers. Those gate guards could be perverts,” Jiraiya, notable pervert toad sage, future hotsprings peeper, says once we’re far enough away. He glances back to make sure Minato and Kushina are close behind. Minato makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat.

“Do you really think so, sensei?” Minato asks, sounding aghast. 

“They’re not. I can smell that sort of thing,” I say blandly, eyeing our surroundings. 

Outside the village is much like inside. There’s a perimeter of no trees about fifteen meters from the village walls, likely as a fire safety precaution. But past that is a deep forest of Hashirama trees, oaks, birches, and all sorts of fauna. It looks just like inside the village, really. 

Jiraiya lifts his hand from my shoulder, raising his eyebrows. “Can you really? Your nose is like an Inuzuka’s then?”

Ah, I never really explained my sense of smell to him. I suppose I can be less cagey now that it’s mission relevant.

“I can smell weapon oil on your hands, and the shampoo you use. It’s the scentless kind, so it’s harder to smell unless you're close and doesn’t leave a trail. I can sense your chakra through smell, too.” 

I also can smell when people are horny, or on their periods, or any other more TMI smells. I try to keep that to myself, though. Nobody wants anyone to know private things like that. So I can absolutely tell that the gate guards aren’t perverts. I’d have told Jiraiya and let him dole out justice.

“Does it get overwhelming?” Minato asks. 

I hum. “Sometimes. My sense of smell grew with me, so I’m fine in most situations. I don’t like when I can smell a lot of blood. That gets to me.”

“You’ll have to get used to that too,” Jiraiya says grimly. 

There’s a lull in conversation at that. Kushina and Minato catch up and walk to my right, all four of us making a line in the road. Far ahead is the merchant caravan, along with what seems to be a team of genin guarding them. None that I can recognize by sight at this distance, but they smell a bit familiar. I think they were in a different class than us.

“I can’t believe we’ve left the village,” Kushina says, looking around like she’s going to miss something important. 

“It’ll get boring eventually,” Jiraiya snorts. Then, he says something more useful. “I want you kids to walk at a normal pace today so I can get a feel for your endurance. Tomorrow we’ll tree jump and I’ll check how fast you can go at a shinobi speed.”

“And the bandits, do we know very much about them?” I ask.

“Maybe three dozen at most. They’ve been harassing the civilian farms and villages nearby, along with the occasional merchant. The local lord finally put in a bounty on them after enough complaints.” Jiraiya waves a careless hand, as though farmers being robbed and killed is typical. Maybe it is.

“Are there any shinobi?” Minato asks next, frowning. 

“Unknown, but the bandits are poorly organized and have no noticed jutsu users yet. If they do have shinobi, they’re genin level. Easy pickings for a team like you brats. You’re annoyingly competent.”

“Any genin aren’t a match for us, dattebane! We’re the best in the village!” Kushina says proudly, punching the air above. 

“And we’ll be the best chunin, and the best jonin. And then Minato will be Hokage, and nobody will ever tell us to do anything,” I add, ticking off my fingers. 

“Ah, Kushina-chan can be Hokage, Seiko-kun,” Minato says. He sounds just a little bashful. What a liar, I know he wants it bad.

“No, you’re going to be a great Hokage. Kushina is better as a clan head so she can still throw you around. And I suppose I can be an advisor, since Shikaku-senpai will be your jonin commander,” I explain simply. Jiraiya laughs. 

“Do I get to be an elder?” Jiraiya asks. 

“You, Tsunade-sama, and Orochimaru-sama would be good advisors,” Minato says with a serious nod. 

I really doubt they’ll still be in the village by then, but we’ll see. I think Orochimaru stays until after Minato dies, right?

Well. Minato won’t die this time. So perhaps Orochimaru won’t leave or do evil experiments. A girl can hope.

Tsunade is probably a lost cause though. Someone should really try to become her apprentice. Not me, though. I have no interest in being grounded in the village while learning healing and then forever being forced on the backline in any mission. Tsunade can do otherwise because she is a Senju, a clan head, and monstrously strong. I am not any of those things.

Well. Maybe I’ll be one of those things one day. I want to be as strong as Minato after all. 

“We’ll be better than the sannin,” Kushina declares, pointing at Jiraiya and almost hitting Minato in the face. For a moment I expect a “Believe it!” to follow that statement. “You’re going to get old and be so jealous. We’ll even kill that Hanzo guy you guys fought.” 

Jiraiya gets a sort of distant look in his eye even as he stares at Kushina. Then he grunts. “Be careful what you wish for. And don’t repeat that again outside the village.”

Everyone but the sannin had died in the fight with Hanzo of the Salamander. I don’t think I would want my students to experience that either.

—