"Mm — the old man's cooking really is good. And the young lady's not bad to look at, either." Tonbo said it around a mouthful of noodles, entirely unbothered by his own manners.
"Ha! Of course it's good." Teuchi's eyes creased further shut with pride. "Learned my craft from a master back in the Land of Fire."
"That's right. My dad's the best there is," Ayame put in, pleased on his behalf.
"You're a ninja, aren't you?" Teuchi nodded at the forehead protector, the bandages. "Why aren't you out on the front somewhere?"
He didn't so much as blink at the wrappings — not the strangest thing he'd seen walk through that door, evidently.
"This?" Tonbo tapped the bandages over his eyes. "Logistics. Just back from the Iwagakure front, actually. Made a decent name for myself out there, if I do say so."
"Big brother, I'm Ayame. What's your name?" She tilted her head at him. "And why do you keep yourself all wrapped up like that? Something under there you don't want us seeing?"
"Insulting. Deeply insulting." He counted the competition off on his fingers, warming to the subject as he went, entirely too pleased with where this was headed. "I happen to be the best-looking boy the Academy's ever turned out. Might Guy, for all his taijutsu. Kakashi, the so-called genius. Uchiha Inabi. Shirakumo Hayama, model student and all. Every one of them, beaten on looks alone. I only cover up so the rest of them don't have to feel it every day."
"Sure you are." Ayame didn't bother hiding her smile. "I haven't seen Kakashi's face, but I've seen Inabi's and Hayama's, and I'm not convinced."
He finished the last of the noodles before answering that, then reached up and began working the bandages loose.
"Since you clearly need proof — just this once."
The wrappings came away layer by layer, and what they'd hidden was a narrow, pale face: eyes a faint, clouded blue, white lashes, white hair, a mouth that curved as though it always meant to smile even at rest.
"Oh—" Ayame leaned in without meaning to. "Your eyes are lovely."
Even Teuchi paused mid-stir behind the counter, caught off guard by the kid's face.
Before either of them could look their fill, Tonbo had the bandages back on, headband settled over them.
"Told you," he said, entirely satisfied with himself. "Best-looking man in the shinobi world, and I've checked a mirror to confirm it."
"Right, and I never got your name properly." Ayame folded her arms.
"Tobitake Tonbo."
"Very handsome, Tobitake Tonbo. Most handsome man I've ever fed." She pointed at his empty bowl. "Now pay up."
He paid without argument and left to a chorus of come-again from behind the counter, grinning the whole way down the street. There it was — his target, found. Ayame would make a fine wife.
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Warm face, family business, and if his fragmentary foreknowledge proved reliable, that business only grew from here — a beauty, by any account he'd ever heard, and one who'd stay exactly that pretty while everyone around her aged into the war. Better still, Ichiraku Ramen sat well outside whatever storm was coming; she was the sort of person who simply survived these things, no effort required on his part, no dramatic rescues, no tragic detours. Looks, safety, prospects, a business that would only get bigger — she checked every box that mattered to a man whose entire ambition was a quiet marriage and a house full of children. The famous names destined to stand at the center of future disasters were nothing but trouble wearing a pretty face. Ayame, and only Ayame, would do.
Settled, then. His list of favorite foods — grilled skewers, grilled rice balls — had just grown by one more entry: Ichiraku Ramen.
Figures broke across the rooftops above him without a trace of stealth, masks flashing in the sun, moving with the particular haste of people who didn't care who saw them.
That would be whatever intelligence the ANBU had brought the old man earlier — Konoha was moving again. Hiruzen had clearly meant to say more to him before that summons cut things short; whatever it was, it had the smell of the front lines on it.
The war ran like a grinder these days, and every fresh report meant plans redrawn somewhere. By what he remembered, only three fronts were left standing — Sunagakure, Kumogakure, Kirigakure — and with Iwagakure settled and the Raikage's death likely landing right about now, the whole thing couldn't have much longer left in it. Which meant some of the moments he remembered best were coming due within the year: Might Duy burning through all eight gates to buy his son's life, Genma and Ebisu somehow cutting the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist down to a lucky few, Kakashi's blade finding Rin with Obito watching, and whatever that did to him afterward. Minato taking the hat. Even Orochimaru's break with the village, if his memory of the timing could be trusted at all anymore.
Good thing none of that was his to carry. When these events had existed only as borrowed impressions, he had imagined that foreknowledge would let him fix everything. Now that he was actually standing inside it, breathing the same smoke as everyone else, all he wanted was to survive — no clever advantage handed to him, no shortcut, just his own two hands and whatever he'd managed to steal from other people's memories.
A few days later, back at the Analysis Team.
"Captain Tonbo! Finally decided to show up for work." Shimon caught sight of him the moment he stepped into the halls and came over grinning, eyebrows working. "Nice long vacation at home, was it?"
"Quiet, you. What's urgent enough to send the ANBU after me?"
He'd been halfway out the door for another crack at Ayame that morning when a cat-masked ANBU had appeared in his room instead, relaying the Hokage's orders directly. A mission before a wife — hardly his preferred order of operations, but he went without complaint. The posting was safe, it paid well in the ways that mattered, and it was doing more for his growth than he liked to admit.
"Captain Inoichi's got the details. This way." Shimon led him deeper into the base, past the guards, down corridors where the light thinned and something that might have been screaming echoed faintly from somewhere below, until they reached the Analysis Team's main floor.
A crowd was already gathered by the time they arrived, a mix of familiar and unfamiliar faces, Inoichi Yamanaka standing at the center of it with a list in hand.
"Everyone's here, good. Assignments: Yamanaka Tanko, Interrogation Room 101. Hijiri Shimon, 102. Tobitake Tonbo, 404. Dokuraku Meguri, 405—" Inoichi worked through the list without pause.
The pattern was plain enough — chūnin and genin split cleanly, and the higher the room number, the more seasoned the ninja needed to be to walk out of it with something usable.
Tonbo followed a runner deeper still, down a corridor lit brighter than the rest by torches spaced along the walls at even intervals, the stone underfoot damp with whatever seeped through from somewhere above. Room 404 held only a head — nothing else, no body attached to it, set upright on a stand — resting beside a helmet-shaped device.
"Mental amplifier," the runner explained. "Boosts a ninja's spiritual output. Helps with perception, and with reading. Put it on, then run your jutsu as usual."
Something in Tonbo's chest lit up at that.