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Jiraiya drifted through the forest, muttering to himself without pause.
“Hmph.
Top of the Ninja Academy.
Big deal.”
He glanced left, then right.
His brain made a rare full rotation.
Two bells.
One on Sarutobi-sensei.
One hidden somewhere in these trees.
Steal the one from sensei?
He wasn’t that brain-damaged.
The Third Hokage, going at him head-on was just asking to get flattened.
But the forest bell was a different story.
That one came down to search skills.
Came down to luck.
And Jiraiya firmly, deeply, completely believed his luck was better than Kitahara Kaede’s.
“Once I find that bell, let’s see Tsunade turn me down.” The more he thought about it, the better it got.
“Barbecue…
she’s probably pretty cute eating barbecue…”
He grinned to himself for a solid 2 seconds, then violently shook his head.
“No — find it first!”
He picked up his pace and wove through the trees.
3 minutes later, he stopped.
20 meters ahead, at the base of a large tree, half a red cord peeked out from under the fallen leaves.
A bell hung from the end of it.
Sunlight slipped through a gap in the canopy and landed right on it.
Jiraiya stared for one full second.
Then he erupted.
“HAHAHA!
The heavens are with me!”
He slapped his thigh hard enough to echo.
His voice was loud enough for the whole forest to hear.
“What was the point of running so fast?
I still found it first!”
He bolted.
Something snapped tight around his ankle.
WHOOSH, a rope snare burst up from under the leaves and clamped down.
The other end was tied to a branch overhead.
His whole body launched upward, flipped, and left him hanging head-down in midair.
“AAAAAAAHHH —!”
Jiraiya dangled in the air, upside down, all his white hair spilling toward the ground, face flooding red.
He thrashed wildly.
Like a fish on a hook.
His hands couldn’t reach the rope at his ankle.
His abs couldn’t hold a crunch long enough to close the gap.
After all that effort, he was just swinging back and forth.
“Damn it, what a stupid trap —”
The bell sat at the base of the tree, less than 3 meters away.
He could see it.
He couldn’t reach it.
Jiraiya sucked in a few breaths, gritted his teeth, and tried again.
This time he stopped thrashing.
His right hand found the ninja tool pouch at his waist, drew a kunai, and hacked at the rope around his ankle.
The angle was terrible.
Upside down, arm stretched to its absolute limit, the tip of the kunai barely grazed the outer fibers.
Face burning, he pushed harder.
The blade finally caught the edge of the rope.
He was halfway through cutting it,
“Lively.”
The voice came from above him.
Jiraiya’s hand jerked.
The kunai nearly flew out of his grip.
He looked up.
Or rather, down, since he was upside down.
Kitahara Kaede was crouched on the very branch holding him up, both hands resting on his knees, looking down at him with a blank expression.
Jiraiya’s face went even redder.
Not just from the blood in his head, though that was definitely part of it, but because he had almost cut through.
He had almost made it.
Almost.
“I found it first!” Jiraiya roared.
“First come, first served — that’s the rule!”
Kaede didn’t answer.
Let you down so you can grab the bell and take Tsunade on a date?
Not happening.
He dropped down from the branch, tossed a pebble across the ground near the bell, and waited a beat.
No hidden mechanisms.
He bent down and picked it up.
The bell gave a clean, crisp ding in his palm.
“You,” Jiraiya’s voice cracked an octave.
“Hagoromo Kaede, you bastard!
I found it first!
You’ve got no shame!”
The curses rang through the forest and startled a cluster of birds out of the branches.
Kaede looked up at him briefly.
Jiraiya’s face had gone nearly purple.
He was still gripping the kunai.
The rope was a third of the way through.
Give him another 20 seconds, and he genuinely would have made it.
What Jiraiya didn’t know was that his 20 seconds had been lost in his own mouth.
The moment he’d bellowed “The heavens are with me,” half the forest heard it.
Including Kaede.
About a minute later, the bushes rustled and Tsunade pushed through from the side.
Two leaves stuck to her ponytail.
Kunai in hand.
Expression sharp.
“What’s going on?
I heard Jirai, ”
She saw.
Jiraiya hanging upside down from the tree, face scarlet, kunai still in his fist.
Kaede standing beneath it, holding a bell.
Tsunade’s expression shifted from alert to something that had no easy name.
“…So this idiot walked into a trap.”
“Yeah.”
Tsunade didn’t say anything else.
Kaede held the bell out toward her.
“For you.”
Tsunade went still.
She stared at his face.
He was giving it to her?
Jiraiya’s voice was still echoing in the back of her head, grab the bell and go on a date with Tsunade.
He’d heard that.
So he’d run that fast because,
Heat crept up the back of Tsunade’s ears.
She cut off the thought before it could go anywhere.
Hard stop.
“Take it.” Kaede shook the bell once.
Tsunade kept staring.
Kaede frowned slightly and waved a hand in front of her face.
“Tsunade?”
She snapped back.
Realized she’d been staring at him for several seconds straight.
Her face went hot all at once.
“O-okay.”
She grabbed the bell.
The motion was so sharp she nearly fumbled it.
Her voice came out half a pitch higher than normal.
Even she could hear how wrong it sounded.
She dropped her gaze to the bell immediately and kept it there.
Kaede watched her for a second.
Ears red.
Eyes darting.
Tripping over a single syllable.
Nothing like the usual Tsunade, the one who stood with her arms crossed and looked sideways at people like they weren’t worth her time.
For just a moment, he thought she was a little cute.
His hand almost moved on its own.
He’d nearly reached out to ruffle her hair.
“The other bell is on Sarutobi-sensei.
I have a plan.
I need your help,”
No response.
He looked over.
She was staring at his face again.
“…What are you looking at?”
“Nothing!” Tsunade whipped her head away.
“Go ahead.
What’s the plan?”
Still half a pitch high.
Up in the tree, Jiraiya had watched every single second of this.
Tsunade’s ears, red.
Tsunade’s voice, flustered.
And Tsunade’s eyes.
Bright.
Shining.
Touched with something that looked a lot like not knowing what to do with herself.
She had never once looked at him like that.
Not once.
Jiraiya’s nose started to itch.
Like something red was threatening to appear.
“Hey, stop chatting, someone get me down,”
Nobody moved.
…
Half an hour later.
Three wooden posts.
Sarutobi stood in place with his pipe, the bell at his waist already gone.
He looked at Kaede and Tsunade standing before him.
Something shifted in his expression.
“Your teamwork…” He let out a slow breath of smoke.
“…exceeded my expectations.”
“Kaede.
Your tactical awareness and real-time judgment are already beyond what a genin should have.”
A pause.
“Tsunade.
Chakra control and taijutsu explosive power, top tier among your peers.”
Tsunade’s chin came up a fraction.
She pressed her lips together to keep from smiling.
But her eyes gave her away completely.
Sarutobi tapped his pipe clean and tucked it away.
“Both bells recovered.
Test over.”
“Actually.” Tsunade suddenly remembered.
“Sensei, where’s Jiraiya?”
Sarutobi pointed over his shoulder.
On the middle post, Jiraiya was tied up with enough rope to gift-wrap an ox.
Head drooping, white hair exploded into something resembling a bird’s nest, wearing the expression of a man who had given up on life.
“He got himself down eventually,” Sarutobi said, perfectly calm, “but I used a clone to bring him here.
Given that a ninja of his rank keeps falling for traps this obvious, I felt some additional reflection time would be beneficial.”
Tsunade walked up to the post.
She raised the bell and shook it right in front of Jiraiya’s face.
Ding.
“Jiraiya.” Her smile curved all the way to her eyes.
“I won.”
“As expected, you’re the one who’s out.”
Jiraiya’s face twitched.
Then he detonated.
“Shut it!
You flat-chested washboard!”
Silence.
A full, complete second of silence.
Tsunade’s smile froze.
Then it disappeared.
Slowly.
Piece by piece.
What replaced it dropped the surrounding temperature by 3 degrees.
“What.
Did.
You.
Just.
Say?”
“YOU DAMN PERVERT!”
Her fist hit the wooden post.
The post cracked down the middle.
Jiraiya, ropes, post, and all, lurched a full inch off the ground, nearly getting uprooted entirely.
Sarutobi sighed from behind them.
“Alright, alright.
Enough.”
He pressed two fingers to his temple.
“Kaede, Tsunade, head home.
Jiraiya.” He looked at the dangling, trussed figure on the post.
“Stay and think about what you’ve done.”
Tsunade shot Jiraiya one last glare that could have curdled milk, then turned and walked.
Two steps out, she glanced back and gave the tied-up post a cheerful little wave.
The meaning was perfectly clear.
Bye, idiot.
Kaede fell into step beside her.
They walked the road home side by side.
After a while, Tsunade went quiet.
Kaede glanced sideways.
She’d lowered her head, gaze settled somewhere around her own chest.
Not looking at him.
Looking at herself.
She stared at her flat chest for 2 seconds.
Her brow furrowed.
They kept walking.
A small fruit stand sat at the side of the road, baskets piled with fruit of all different sizes.
Tsunade’s steps hitched.
Then she spoke.
“Kaede.”
“Yeah.”
“When you buy fruit, do you go for the big ones or the small ones?”
Kaede didn’t think about it at all.
“Big ones.”
Tsunade stopped walking.
Kaede made it two more steps before he noticed.
He turned back.
She was standing exactly where she’d stopped, and her expression held three things at once, anger, hurt, and the very specific urge to hit someone.
They fought each other for a moment, and then all three collapsed into a single stomp of her foot.
“Jerk!”
She turned and walked away.
Fast.
In the complete opposite direction from home.
Kaede stood in the middle of the road.
He looked at the fruit stand.
He looked at her retreating back.
, Why wouldn’t you pick the big ones when buying fruit?
He thought about it for 3 seconds.
Then he remembered what Jiraiya had shouted.
Flat-chested.
Washboard.
Then he thought about Tsunade staring down at herself for those 2 seconds.
Then he thought about big ones or small ones.
A very rare expression crossed Kaede’s face.
Confusion, edging into realization.
Realization, edging into something that sat uncomfortably close to guilt.
He reached up and scratched the back of his head.
“…She wasn’t asking about fruit?”
In the distance, Tsunade turned the corner and disappeared.
The tips of her ears were red enough to bleed.
…
➤ Next: Five Days — Heartbreak