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The sun had dropped below the horizon, leaving only a thin smear of orange-red across the sky.
Kitahara Kaede walked back toward the village with a paper bag of snacks under his arm.
Training had ended early.
Hiruzen had headed to the Hokage building for a meeting, and the three of them had scattered on the spot.
He was about to go home when his peripheral vision snagged on the street corner.
Orochimaru.
The guy who never wore anything but white was draped in a wide black cloak today, hugging the wall as he made his way toward the village outskirts.
Quick steps.
Head kept low.
Kaede bit into a dumpling.
That outfit, how was it any different from walking around with “I’m up to something” stamped on his forehead?
He chewed twice and followed.
He had nothing better to do anyway.
With his current perception range, 30 meters was plenty.
Orochimaru wouldn’t notice.
The two of them passed through the village gate one after the other and came out by the river.
Before he’d even closed half the distance, he heard Tsunade’s voice.
“Five thousand ryō!
A whole five thousand ryō!”
Tsunade was crouched by the water, clutching a deflated wallet, her face scrunched up like she’d bitten into something rotten.
“Gone without even a splash — those casino bastards were absolutely cheating!”
She snatched up a cobblestone and hurled it into the middle of the river.
Water sprayed.
Her anger did not subside.
Kaede found a good tree, flipped himself up, and settled into the fork of a branch.
He tore open the paper bag, pulled out a rice cracker, and watched while he chewed.
Across the water, Orochimaru was crouched behind a pile of rocks, head bent over a sheet of paper, checking something.
A moment later, he pulled on a black hood and fished a smoke bomb out of his ninja tool pouch.
His entire presence shifted.
Kaede’s chewing slowed for a beat.
He’s performing.
A thick cloud of smoke BOOMED across the riverbank.
“Who’s there?!” Tsunade was on her feet in an instant, instinctively falling back two steps.
“Heh heh.
Little miss, it’s not safe to be out here brooding all by yourself.”
Orochimaru stepped out of the smoke, voice dropped two registers, steps loose and deliberately lazy, a kunai spinning slow circles on his fingertip.
Kaede gave the performance a silent rating.
Eight out of ten.
The voice, the posture, the killing intent, all dialed in nicely.
The one problem was the target.
The woman standing across from him had just lost five thousand ryō and had spent an entire afternoon building up a head of steam with nowhere to put it.
Tsunade stared at this “rogue ninja.” She blinked once.
Then she smiled.
Not a normal smile.
It was the smile of someone the whole world had just swindled, suddenly finding a face that had walked up and volunteered itself.
“Perfect timing.”
Tsunade’s fist closed.
The cobblestones under her feet cracked.
“You can cover what I lost today.”
Orochimaru’s brow twitched.
This wasn’t in the script.
Jiraiya’s plan was for him to establish pressure, put Tsunade on the back foot, and then have that white-haired idiot come swooping in for the Hero Saves the Beauty moment,
Tsunade was already moving.
No stance.
No wind-up.
No wasted motion.
One punch, at a speed that had no business existing.
Orochimaru folded backward in the last fraction of a second.
The wind from her fist shaved past the tip of his nose.
The ground wasn’t as lucky.
BOOM!
Rock and earth detonated.
Debris blasted half a meter into the air.
The shockwave threw Orochimaru 3 or 4 meters.
He caught himself on one hand and skidded to a stop.
He looked back at the crater.
Half a meter deep.
Then he looked at Tsunade.
Her head was down, shoulders rising and falling, the pressure rolling off her dense enough to feel like it was pushing the river surface down by 3 inches.
Orochimaru quietly revised his read of the evening.
Something is wrong.
Very, very wrong.
“You dodge fast.”
Tsunade came again.
Right leg lifting, heel loaded, driving down with the force of someone splitting a mountainside.
Orochimaru stopped holding back.
He flickered sideways.
Tsunade’s heel hit the rocky shore and the entire riverbank shuddered.
She spun and chased.
He wove between the scattered stones with clean, fluid footwork, still elegant, but any pretense of calm had evaporated.
Up in the tree, Kaede finished his rice cracker and switched to a rice cake.
He spotted a flash of white in the distance, barreling this way at full speed.
Jiraiya.
Clutching a bouquet of wildflowers.
“Stop!
Do not harm my comrade!”
His voice boomed across the water.
He came charging into the scene and found it about a billion miles from what he’d imagined.
Tsunade was chasing.
Orochimaru was running.
Every punch that connected rattled the ground.
Orochimaru blurred past Jiraiya.
In the instant they brushed shoulders, he didn’t even break stride.
He threw out three words.
“You’re done for.”
Then he flickered and vanished into the dark.
Two people left on the riverbank.
Jiraiya still had the wildflowers in his hands, bent sideways by the wind.
Tsunade turned around slowly.
She didn’t move immediately.
She looked at Jiraiya.
Then at the direction Orochimaru had disappeared.
Then back at Jiraiya, the floral shirt, the fresh hairdo, the bouquet of flowers, and the stupid grin of a man who thought everything had gone exactly according to plan.
“Ji, rai, ya —”
“Tsunade, just let me explain—”
“Explain what?”
She ripped the wildflowers out of his hands, stems and all, and crammed them into his nostrils.
“You had Orochimaru play the rogue ninja so you could swoop in and save me?”
Jiraiya’s face went white.
“You think I’m an idiot?”
Tsunade threw a punch.
Clean hit.
Jiraiya became briefly airborne, carving a long, graceful arc through the night sky.
He came to rest in the branches of a tree.
Less than 10 meters from the one Kaede was sitting in.
Kaede looked across at Jiraiya, hanging upside-down from the branch opposite him.
Both wildflowers still plugged into his nostrils.
White hair hanging straight down.
Two silent tracks of tears running up, down, his face.
Kaede lowered his head, finished the rice cake, and brushed the crumbs off his hands.
About right.
He dropped out of the tree.
Tsunade was still at the water’s edge, breathing hard, fists clenched, chest heaving.
She heard the footsteps behind her and spun around fast, then saw who it was, and the murder drained out of her expression, replaced by something closer to mortified.
“Kaede?
You, when did you, ”
“Just got here.”
He walked closer and glanced at her hand.
The skin over her right knuckles was scraped raw.
Not deep, but bleeding.
She’d hit too hard on those last few punches.
Hadn’t pulled back in time.
He didn’t say anything.
He reached into his pocket and handed her a handkerchief.
Tsunade looked down and seemed to notice her hand for the first time.
She took the handkerchief and wiped at it quickly, muttering, “Two idiots…”
Quieter than before.
Kaede walked to the edge of the bank and bent down to pick something up.
A wallet.
Jiraiya’s.
That punch had sent him and everything on him airborne.
The wallet had landed in the rocks.
Kaede flipped it open and looked inside.
Stuffed full.
He turned around, weighing it in his hand.
“How much did you lose today?”
“Five thousand ryō.” Still bitter.
“Why?”
He tossed the wallet to her.
Tsunade caught it without thinking, looked inside, and her expression shifted.
“This is, ”
“His.” Kaede tilted his chin toward the tree.
“Probably what he saved up for tonight.”
She counted it.
A lot more than five thousand ryō.
She was quiet for 2 seconds.
Then she tucked the wallet into her own pocket, crisp and matter-of-fact.
“Call it compensation for emotional damages.”
Kaede couldn’t quite stop the corner of his mouth.
Tsunade caught it.
“What are you smiling at?”
“I’m not.”
“You clearly are.”
“Come on.” He turned toward the village.
“Dinner.
You’re paying.”
“Why am I paying?”
“You just came into a windfall.”
Tsunade shot him a look.
But her mouth was already losing the fight.
She took two quick steps to catch up and fell into pace beside him.
The street lamps came on one by one, scattering light across the surface of the river.
From somewhere behind them, a distant wail drifted through the dark.
“Hey…
at least get me down from here…”
…
➤ Next: Baptism