The morning air over the village administrative building was crisp, carrying the faint scent of roasting tea leaves from the market district below.
Ren stood in the queue on the third floor of the mission assignment hall, hands tucked loosely into the pockets of his dark trousers. Around him, the room was a storm of noise—fresh Genin squads squabbling over chore rosters, Chūnin team leaders arguing over hazard pay, and Jōnin casually ignoring everyone while leaning against the railings.
Ren took a slow, deep breath through his nose. His lungs expanded fully, clean and painless. Every morning for the past two weeks, he had taken a few seconds just to enjoy that.
"Next," a dry voice called from behind the long wooden desk.
Ren stepped forward to Window 4.
Behind the counter sat Izumo Kamizuki and Kotetsu Hagane, surrounded by towering stacks of stamped parchment, cold ceramic teacups, and the visible exhaustion of men who had spent four straight hours dealing with twelve-year-olds crying about lost pets.
Kotetsu didn't look up, his quill scratching furiously on a requisition form. "Name, rank, squad number."
"Ren. Reserve Genin. Unassigned solo track."
The quill stopped.
Kotetsu blinked, raised his head, and exchanged a quick glance with Izumo.
"Ah," Izumo said, pulling a ledger from the bottom of a pristine wooden tray. "The ghost."
"I have a pulse, Izumo-san," Ren said. "Checked it twenty minutes ago."
Izumo huffed through his nose — not quite a laugh, but close. He tapped the ledger open with two fingers. "You'd be the first Genin this week to confirm that. We had one yesterday insist he was too emotionally exhausted to complete a weed-pulling assignment."
"How did that go?"
"He cried for eleven minutes and then went home," Kotetsu said flatly, still not looking up. "Into his mother's arms."
He set his quill down and leaned forward on his elbows. "Could've fooled us." He eyed Ren with genuine curiosity. "You registered on the solo reserve pool twelve days ago after the border incident. Since then, you've turned in fourteen D-rank facility patrols, six perimeter boundary sweeps, and three supply cache inventories. Every single report is written in clean, standard military shorthand. Zero property damage, zero civilian complaints, and you don't hang around the lobby screaming for B-ranks."
Kotetsu tapped the desk once with his knuckle. "Do you know how unnatural that is for a teenager in this village?"
Ren considered that. "I suspect you're about to tell me."
"It's deeply unnatural," Kotetsu said. "Borderline suspicious. Izumo and I spent ten minutes this morning debating whether you were a sleeper agent from Sand."
Izumo didn't look up from the ledger. "I said Mist."
"Either way," Kotetsu continued, gesturing vaguely, "the point stands."
"I like quiet mornings and steady work," Ren replied, reaching into his inner pouch. He placed three neatly rolled scrolls on the polished wood. "North irrigation gate cleared of river sediment, eastern grain storehouse lock-wards inspected and resealed, and the southern weapons stockpile audit. All three signatures from the district quartermasters are on the back."
Izumo unrolled the first scroll. His eyebrows lifted slightly. "You reinforced the structural binding on the grain warehouse wards while you were there?"
"The old seals were peeling at the corners from damp rot," Ren said. The same way someone might mention they had wiped down a counter. "I scraped the mold, reapplied three grams of cinnabar lacquer, and stabilized the baseline geometry. Took about five minutes. It'll hold for another three years."
Kotetsu stared at him. A long, flat stare. "You did unpaid maintenance work on municipal storage seals."
"Bad seals are an eyesore," Ren said. "It offended my sense of engineering."
A beat of silence.
Izumo let out a soft snort — the kind that escapes before a man can catch it — and shook his head as he reached for the clearance stamp. "Definitely not Sand," he muttered.
Kotetsu pinched the bridge of his bandaged nose. "If half the Genin in this village had your work ethic, Izumo, we wouldn't have grey hair at twenty-four."
"We already have grey hair at twenty-four," Izumo said, pressing the stamp down.
"My point exactly."
Izumo slid a small linen pouch of ryo across the counter alongside Ren's stamped registration card. "Total payout: sixteen thousand ryo. Standard D-rank disbursement."
"Much appreciated." Ren picked up the pouch and checked the weight.
Before he could turn away, the heavy double doors at the end of the hall flew open with a deafening crash.
"I AM NOT DOING IT! NOT AGAIN, DATTEBAYO!"
The entire mission hall went dead quiet.
In stumbled Team 7.
Naruto led the charge, looking like he had personally fought a mud elemental. His bright orange jumpsuit was soaked in stagnant pond water, leaves were stuck to his spiky blond hair, and angry red scratch marks covered his cheeks. Held tightly in his hands was a massive calico cat wearing an absurd pink ribbon, which was currently attempting to gouge out Naruto's eyes with its hind claws.
Behind him, Sasuke walked in with his hands in his pockets, clothes scuffed and a deeply irritated tic in his left eyelid. Sakura trudged behind them, looking entirely hollowed out by life.
Bringing up the rear was Kakashi Hatake, casually turning a page of his small orange book.
"Ah," Kotetsu groaned, sliding down in his chair until his bandaged nose nearly touched the desk. "Madam Shijimi's runaway cat, Tora. Mission accomplished, I see."
"That thing isn't a cat!" Naruto screamed, holding the thrashing feline at arm's length while dodging a swipe. "It's a demonic beast disguised as livestock! Look at its eyes! It wants to eat my soul!"
"You were the one who kept trying to pet it," Sasuke said, flat. He stared at the ceiling like he was cataloguing every life decision that had led him here.
"I WAS BEING FRIENDLY—"
"Naruto, stop yelling in the administration office," Sakura hissed, grabbing his sleeve. "You're embarrassing us in front of every Jōnin in the district."
"But Sakura-chan—"
"Stop."
Naruto's mouth snapped shut. He shot a furious glare at the cat instead.
"You wouldn't have gotten clawed if you hadn't tripped over your own feet in the bushes, idiot," Sasuke muttered, jaw set, eyes still distant. Both shoulders sat slightly lower than they should have.
"WHAT DID YOU SAY, TEME?!"
"Enough, you three," Kakashi said mildly, not looking up from his book. "A successful mission is a successful mission. Though next time, Naruto, try to secure the target without diving face-first into the municipal compost heap."
Naruto's face went scarlet.
He was about to launch into a full-throated rant when his eyes darted sideways — and locked onto the counter.
His jaw dropped. The fury drained out of his face.
"REN-NIISAN!"
Naruto dropped the cat into an empty wicker basket on a nearby clerk's desk, slammed the lid down — ignoring the offended yowl — and sprinted across the hall, skidding to a halt in front of Ren with a squeak of sandals on polished wood.
"Niisan! You're here!" Naruto bounced on the balls of his feet. A streak of dark silt was smeared across his cheek and a small twig was lodged in his hair. "Look! We finished the cat mission! Well, technically I caught it, even though Sasuke tried to steal the credit when I had it pinned by the tail!"
Ren reached into his vest, pulled out a clean handkerchief, and wiped a smear of pond silt off Naruto's forehead.
"You smell like duckweed, Naruto," Ren said. "Good job on securing the target. S-rank feline combatant, clearly."
Naruto lit up. He puffed his chest out, chin rising. "Right?! I told them it was high-level stuff! Sasuke just stood there looking cool while I did all the actual work!"
"I located it," Sasuke said from three paces away, dry. He had moved closer without appearing to move at all. His dark eyes were already on Ren — not sizing him up, exactly. Calibrating. "You pointed at a bush," Naruto shot back.
"I pointed at the correct bush."
"That's not—"
"Naruto." Ren's voice was mild but settled. Naruto's mouth closed. Ren glanced at Sasuke. "Your left shoulder is sitting half an inch lower than usual. Bruised from the riverbank?"
Sasuke's jaw tightened slightly. Then he let it go. "It's nothing. Just a bad landing."
"Ice it for twenty minutes before you do kata tonight," Ren said. "Inflammation in the rotator cuff ruins your blade trajectory by four degrees."
Sasuke didn't argue. He made a faint, reluctant sound in the back of his throat and looked somewhere else.
Naruto blinked between them. Then he leaned toward Ren and whispered, loudly enough for half the hall to hear: "He does that when he doesn't want to admit you're right."
"I know," Ren said.
Sasuke's eye twitched.