"They're back, they're back—"
"That one's my brother. He made chūnin."
"Hmph. My dad's a jōnin. Where is he?"
The crowd outside Konoha's gates stood thick and restless, scanning the column as it came in, every face hunting for one face in particular. Those who didn't find what they were looking for told themselves it meant nothing — reassignment, a different gate, nothing worse. Further back in the ranks, ninja who did spot someone lifted a hand, called out a name, found their people.
"Report in, then you're dismissed. Go home. Stay ready — the war isn't done with any of us yet." Inoichi Yamanaka delivered it to the whole company at once.
"Yes, sir."
Tonbo watched it all from where he stood, in no hurry himself, since he wasn't sure anyone had come looking for him. A black-haired woman, heavily pregnant, broke into a smile the moment she caught sight of Inoichi, who crossed to her fast enough that it looked almost undignified for a captain, one hand already out to steady her before she'd so much as swayed.
Inoichi's wife. Ino, in there somewhere, if the timing was anything to go by.
Around him, the rest of his unit peeled off toward whoever had come to meet them. Tonbo was still working out whether anyone was coming for him when a broad-shouldered, one-armed man ambled up with a grin already fixed in place — somewhere near thirty, handsome despite the missing arm, or maybe a little because of it.
"Look at you. The battlefield's put some size on you."
"Don't act surprised, old man. I've made the Analysis Team, and I'm studying straight under Lord Inoichi now."
Tonbo couldn't help the grin that came with saying it.
This was his father — Tobitake Tōsei, once a classmate of Konoha's own White Fang, before the arm that had done his hand seals for him got taken in some fight long since forgotten by everyone but the two of them. No hand seals, no career; only after that had there been a son to raise instead.
It was Tōsei's own war stories, told and retold across a childhood, that had planted Inoichi Yamanaka's name in his son's head to begin with — long before the boy had any memories of his own to compare them to.
"Good lad. As expected. They didn't have to chew you out much, I hope?"
"Please. Like I'd turn out anything like you. The first time you tried Mind Reading, they had to carry you to the hospital." Tonbo let that land before adding, "Your son's a chūnin now, by the way."
"A chūnin! Ha — good genes will tell." Tōsei puffed up at once. "Damn it all, I was only a hair behind the White Fang himself, back in my day. Now my boy's only a hair behind his."
Registration done, Tonbo followed his father home — a two-story house built the old Konoha way, wood through and through, equal parts rustic and lived-in. Dragonflies made of woven reed hung from the eaves and along the entryway, dozens of them, turning gently in whatever air moved through the house.
This text was taken from NovelPhoenix. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He dropped his pack in his room and was asleep before he'd meant to be. Tōsei let him sleep. Only a man who'd worn a headband himself, and lived through what wearing one cost, understood exactly how much a quiet bed like that one was worth.
In his own room, working the reeds with a hand that had learned to be clever about everything it still could do, Tōsei tied off one more dragonfly and hung it beside the rest. He didn't need to count them anymore. He knew the number without looking.
A hundred and twenty-five, near enough — one for every stretch his son had come home from, going all the way back to the first one, small and clumsy, tied the week the boy first left for the Academy.
By the time Tonbo woke, it was already the next morning, and it had been longer than he could remember since he'd slept that well straight through. Breakfast came heavy with everything his father hadn't said out loud, and he ate all of it before heading out.
At Training Ground Ninety-Eight, a wide stream ran past, and Tonbo crouched over a palm-sized fish laid out on the bank. Do fish even have anything worth being sad about? Hard to say. He ran the technique anyway.
For a moment the fish's flat little eyes clouded with something that might have passed for sorrow. Then, just as quickly, they went back to being a dead fish's eyes.
Psycho Mind Transmission: Melancholy needed work.
Now that he'd settled back into the Village properly, Tonbo had started running his genjutsu ideas down one by one, and this line sat at the top of the list. Psycho Mind Transmission: Pain — built and proven on actual enemies out on the battlefield — worked because he'd learned exactly where a creature's pain lived: which nerves carried it, which part of the mind translated it into something the body couldn't ignore. Most of what he'd tried since had gone just as cleanly.
Melancholy was supposed to work the same way, aimed instead at whatever in a creature's mind produced despair — enough of it, in theory, to dull a body's reflexes just long enough to open a killing stroke. On a fish, though, it barely held for a breath. Something in the theory still didn't line up.
"Practicing your genjutsu on a fish, are you?"
The voice came from directly beside his ear, and Tonbo's heart nearly stopped in his chest. He spun, already pulling his headband and bandages aside to see who'd gotten that close without a single warning from his own senses.
An old man stood there, neat little goatee, watching him with open amusement.
"Third Hokage-sama."
It was him — Hiruzen Sarutobi himself, some years short of the deep lines age would eventually carve into him, but recognizable all the same.
"No need to stand on ceremony. Did I startle you?" Hiruzen waved off the formality, laughing.
"No, Lord Hokage." Tonbo kept his voice properly humble even as he thought, some Konoha sensor I turned out to be, if I can't feel you coming. "It's only that a sensory-type ninja who can't sense his own Hokage approaching has failed the Village's training."
Hiruzen laughed harder at that. "If a boy fresh out of the Academy could sense me coming, I'd be the one who failed his teacher's training. Don't you worry about it."
You could stand to find better things to do with your time than sneak up on genin, Tonbo thought, and kept it to himself.
"Something giving you trouble with that jutsu of yours?" Hiruzen asked. "I may be Hokage, but I can still offer an old man's opinion here and there."
So Tonbo explained it — the theory behind Psycho Mind Transmission, and exactly where Melancholy kept falling short.
"Ah. Genjutsu was never my strength, but I know this much: a fish's mind and a man's aren't built the same way. If you want this technique finished, you'll need a person, not bait."
Tonbo nodded — Pain, too, hadn't come together properly until he'd tested it on something that could actually feel what it was meant to do.
"It's been a long while since I've had reason to move much," Hiruzen said, something almost wistful in it. "Go on, then. Use me."
"That wouldn't be — Lord Hokage, that's hardly appropriate." Tonbo kept his face composed, even with the offer sitting there, tempting, in front of him.
Hiruzen only smiled. "Where the leaves of Konoha dance, the fire burns on. That's the Will of Fire the First Hokage left behind, and the one my own teacher raised me on. I've carried it this long. I hope you'll carry it a little further than I did."