“Heh heh…”
Yuuga gave a dumb little laugh, scratching his head with an innocent look on his face.
By the time all that was over, the sun was barely hanging on at the edge of the sky.
Its slanting light spilled across all of Konoha, but the Academy had come alive.
A gust of wind blew through, stirring the fallen leaves on the ground, lifting Yuuga’s black hair, and setting Anko Mitarashi’s baggy gray coat rustling.
The two of them standing together, one tall and one small, made an oddly harmonious picture.
Today’s school festival was split into two parts: the themed stalls each class ran during the day, and the bonfire party at night.
Sunset was the dividing line, so the themed stalls were wrapping up.
Anko liked lying up in a tree, and Yuuga leaned against the trunk below her, glancing up now and then to check on how the students were coming along with cleanup.
The younger students were small, but they had less to pack up, so it went faster for them.
When the lamps along the school paths first flickered on, when the last of the sunset vanished, the last themed stall was put away.
“Yuuga!
Anko!” Iruka appeared a hundred meters off, waving at Yuuga under the tree and Anko up in it, calling out, “The bonfire party is next, over at the training ground on the north side of the Academy.
Come join us.”
“Ah, right.” Yuuga called back.
“Iruka-sensei, you go ahead, I’ll be over in a minute.”
“Mm, I still have to look after the kids in my class.
You and Anko hurry up.”
Once Iruka had gone, Yuuga straightened up and stretched out his joints.
“Anko-senpai, the bonfire party’s starting, let’s go.”
Silence…
“Hmm?” It wasn’t what he thought it was, was it?
He looked up, and just then a sticky, gooey drop of drool landed on his forehead.
This lazy bum had actually fallen asleep in the tree.
Yuuga took a deep breath, gathered chakra in his right leg, stepped back slightly, then shifted his weight forward and lashed that right leg into the whole tree like a whip.
Since they were inside the Village, Anko was completely relaxed, essentially off the guard she kept on missions outside, so she had no way of anticipating this move of Yuuga’s.
“Aaaaaahhh?” Sprawled out across the fork of the branch sound asleep, Anko felt shock after shock run through her body, and her eyes snapped open in fright as she clung to the trunk and screamed.
Yuuga looked up at the “pale and shaken” Anko, barely holding back his laughter, and deliberately put on an annoyed face.
“Anko-senpai, your drool landed on my forehead.”
Clamped onto the trunk with all four limbs, Anko heard Yuuga’s voice and stared blankly down at him, still foggy.
“Was that my drool?”
“Of course it was.
Smell it if you don’t believe me, it even smells like dango.”
Still dazed, Anko raised a hand and touched the corner of her mouth, where a thin thread of drool was indeed hanging.
She thought about it, then flipped straight down out of the tree, landed beside Yuuga, pulled out her handkerchief and started wiping his forehead, looking apologetic.
“Sorry, Yuuga, I was dreaming about grilled meat.”
The handkerchief scrubbed back and forth over Yuuga’s head, and before long the drool was gone but his hair was a complete mess.
“Are you doing this on purpose, Anko-senpai?”
“…” Anko just grinned foolishly, trying to get away with it.
The Academy was the best school in the entire Village.
Compared to the ordinary schools, it held the best educational resources in the Village, in both facilities and staff.
Its training grounds alone were split into several.
And while the training ground inside the Academy was the smallest of them, it still covered a few hectares.
When Anko and Yuuga arrived, they saw twenty-five bonfires blazing fiercely, lighting the place up like daylight.
“Yuuga!
Yuuga!
The three of us are over here.”
Ino had been waiting a long time, and the moment she spotted Yuuga she jumped to her feet and waved hard at him, beaming.
That voice was far too familiar.
Yuuga’s attention was pulled straight over, and he caught sight of Ino’s radiant smile, the pale purple bellflower by her ear no match for her, as she waved at him with everything she had.
Yuuga smiled and shook his head at her.
“I see you.
Stop waving, you’ll snap that little arm of yours.”
“Let’s go, how about over there?
The S Class.” Yuuga tilted his head toward Anko, asking her opinion.
“Doesn’t matter to me.” Anko shrugged, breezy about it.
But it mattered to Ino.
Fists clenched tight, Ino watched the woman standing next to Yuuga and bit her lip, inexplicably irritated.
Nobody knew Ino better than Shikamaru.
He glanced at the slightly off-kilter girl beside him, propped his face on his hand, and couldn’t help muttering, “Women.
What a troublesome species.”
Yuuga came over, and before he could even greet Shikamaru and Choji, Ino tugged at him, shot Anko a look, and said quietly, “Yuuga, who is that woman?
I saw the two of you this afternoon…”
“Ah.” Yuuga pointed at Anko and smiled.
“Her?
Special jonin of Konoha, Anko Mitarashi.
We took the same mission, so we came over together.”
“Is that so…” Ino narrowed her eyes slightly, then took a step forward, smoothly putting herself between Anko and Yuuga, lifted her chin and smiled at Anko.
“Hello, I’m Yuuga’s best friend, Ino Yamanaka.
Pleased to meet you.”
So this little girl had come over to stake her claim.
“Best” friend was quite the thing to say.
Anko swept her gaze over to Yuuga, then crouched down, smiled at Ino, reached out to touch the little one’s chin, and said, full of amusement, “So you’re the young lady of the Yamanaka clan.
How cute!
Mm, what a coincidence, I’m Yuuga’s best big sis!”
Yuuga, who had just been quietly sitting down, heard “best big sis” come out of Anko’s mouth and stumbled, dropping straight onto the ground next to Shikamaru, a chill running through him.
Why did it feel like the air between these two women was about to go up in flames?
But he really didn’t know anything.
He just wanted to mooch some free food and drink, finish this mission cleanly, and go home to write his novel.
Life was too hard.
Yuuga needed a moment.
Shikamaru gave Yuuga a light nudge and said under his breath, “Any later and Ino would’ve gone out looking for you.”