STIN: Chapter 52/54

Chapter 52: The Lonely Figure

Ryo strolled out from the shade at an unhurried pace, casual as a walk in the park, utterly out of tune with the tight, exam-day air. The grounds fell instantly silent.

Dozens of gazes pinned to him.

Some curious, some jealous, some looking for a spectacle, and others, like Mikoto's, quietly intent.

The proctor eyed the boy who radiated "couldn't care less" from head to toe and frowned deeper.

He had no fondness for problem students. Talent or not, you needed a proper attitude, weight and measure.

"Tested ninjutsu: Kawarimi no Jutsu," the proctor called, voice purposefully loud and cold. "Ryo, this isn't a stage for showing off. I want standard form. Perfect hand signs. Perfect chakra control. A clear substitution effect. Not a hair short."

He was laying down rules, plain as day, itching to nitpick.

"Heh…" A breath of a laugh, so soft and yet somehow exploding in everyone's ears, snorted from Ryo's nose. And on the tail of that single scoff, space itself seemed to ripple.

An invisible, crushing pressure burst outward from Ryo's position, not a flare of chakra, but the stillness born of absolute speed and power.

Ryo's figure, no one even saw him move. Where he had been standing, only a faint afterimage fluttered, thin enough to miss if you blinked.

A fraction of a fraction of a second later.

Tick. A soft click in the air.

Ryo's real body now stood, blank-faced, composed, specter-silent, dead center on the painted bull's-eye.

Fast. Breathtakingly fast. Fast enough to upend everything the onlookers thought they knew.

No hand signs.

No warning.

No puff of smoke from a substituted log.

Only an instant shift, as if he had stepped straight from one panel of a painting into another.

The exam field went corpse-still.

The proctor's mouth was still open. The reprimand he had preloaded jammed in his throat like a broken gear.

For a heartbeat he wondered if his old eyes were playing tricks. Had he fallen into a genjutsu?

"The point of Kawarimi no Jutsu is to 'take a different place,' isn't it?" Ryo's cool voice shattered the hush, like ice beads bouncing on stone, crisp and clean.

He lifted his lids lazily and looked at the petrified proctor, the corner of his mouth bending by the tiniest, almost imaginary fraction, maybe just a trick of light.

"I," he paused, voice not loud but cutting clear through every ear, "used substitution in a more direct way."

He let his gaze rest on the proctor's face, fear and confusion written there, and added, light as asking what was for lunch, "I directly replaced the log and stood here instead. Any problem with that?"

Thump.

Someone, no one saw who, couldn't bear the invisible pressure and sagged to the ground.

Then, after that dead silence, came a chorus of gasps and cries.

"G-good, god. H-how did he do that?"

"Where were the hand signs? I didn't see any!"

Jealousy, scorn, the mood for watching a joke, crushed to powder in an instant.

Only awe remained. And fear.

Mikoto clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from making a sound.

She stared at Ryo's casually upright back, the way he seemed to suppress the entire field just by standing there, and her heart slammed like it wanted out of her chest.

The heat in her eyes nearly overflowed. Strong. Too strong. Strength beyond understanding.

This, this was what she admired. The unmatched, the invincible. That absolute confidence and control beneath the cool exterior, she was lost.

She realized she was shaking, head to toe.

Kushina's face, meanwhile, was red with excitement. She shot to her feet, waving both arms, ignoring every glance around them. "See that? That's mine. Is he awesome or is he AWESOME? So freakin' cool." She looked a second from leaping up and clinging to him.

At last the dismissal bell rang, heavenly sound, freeing the crowd from the vast shadow Ryo had cast.

Kushina practically sprinted to Ryo's side, wrapped herself around his arm, tipped her face up, her eyes still sparkling with leftover thrill, and, just a little possessively, called over to Mikoto not far away:

"Right, Mikoto. We graduated today, how about we eat together after school to celebrate? Super important occasion."

She made a point of it, then added with shameless pride, "And listen, Ryo's cooking is amazing. Best in the world. Once you taste it, you'll never forget it. A hundred times better than any barbecue."

Thinking of the parting to come, a true shadow of loss and longing crossed her eyes. "After we graduate, everyone's gonna be busy with missions, it won't be so easy to be together."

Far off, Minato paused in the act of quietly packing up. A fierce yearning flashed in his eyes.

He wanted to go, so badly. To eat with Kushina. But his gaze brushed Ryo's unchanged, unreadable face, and the memory of that slash. Minato's hand slid up to his neck. A chill climbed his spine.

He had no doubt, if he asked to join them, that blade Ryo always seemed to keep in the dark would be at his throat in the next breath.

He didn't even have the courage to try.

Forget it. Staying alive matters more.

Mikoto was carefully adjusting her new protector, trying to make it sit neatly and elegantly amid her black hair.

At Kushina's invitation, her heart skipped, and joy flooded in.

Eat with Ryo-kun?

This, this wasn't a dream, was it?

But the next second, that bright flame dimmed a notch.

She stole a look at Ryo's face.

Dinner with him? Would he agree? Would he think she was intruding?

Would he find her annoying?

A thread of timidity and inferiority she couldn't stop bubbled up.

In front of the one you like, anyone becomes small.

Hesitating, Mikoto twisted the hem of her clothes, head ducked, voice soft and unsure. "I, I'd really love to… I just… wouldn't it be… bothering Ryo-kun?"

Her voice dwindled, smaller and smaller, until it was barely the buzz of a mosquito, cautious, testing.

Ryo's gaze skimmed over Mikoto, head bowed, pitiful in a way that mixed acting with something painfully real.

"Mm, it's alright."

Molten sunset spilled along the road to Ryo's place, and across the three walking shoulder to shoulder.

The air still held a trace of the graduation bustle, but around them a quieter warmth was settling.

Kushina took the middle, hooking one arm through Ryo's and the other through Mikoto's, steps light and bouncy, humming off-key, already having tossed her earlier threat to the wind.

"Hurry, hurry. I'm starving. My stomach's protesting." She jostled Ryo's arm, all pretense of poise gone.

Ryo's face stayed blank as the red-haired tagalong tugged him forward, but he didn't slow. He could feel the heat of Kushina on his right arm, and, on his left, Mikoto's careful, micro-trembling touch.

Being looped so openly through Ryo's arm set Mikoto's cheeks pink again, but she kept her surface grace and smiled along. "Mm… I'm really looking forward to it."

"Don't worry." Kushina thumped her chest. Thud, thud. Then winked at Mikoto. "Prepare to have your jaw drop. He plays it cool, but when he takes a knife to the board, now that's speed."

She talked with her hands too. "And when he cooks, the aroma floats down two streets. Eat it once and, who needs barbecue."

Inside, Mikoto was a knot of curiosity and nerves.

She wanted to know everything about Ryo. And now, step into his private space, taste food he made with his own hands? Perfect.

Outwardly she nodded with a smile. "Mm. You've praised him so much, I'm excited."

But her eyes kept drifting to Ryo's stark profile, and her heart beat faster.

At the door, Ryo slid out a key and clicked the lock.

He pushed the door open on a room so simple it was almost bare.

A low table. A few floor cushions. The only real feature was the kitchen, spotless, precisely ordered.

A clear, clean scent, like him.

"Sit wherever," Ryo said at last.

He toed off his shoes and walked straight to the kitchen.

"Make yourself at home, Mikoto. For real." Kushina, obviously an old hand here, kicked off her shoes and bolted to a cushion, patting the spot beside her.

Moments after they had gone in, a gold-haired shadow flickered into being in the alley's shade down the way.

Minato leaned against the wall, chest tight.

He had followed from a distance the whole way, terrified of getting too close, terrified Ryo's awful sensitivity would catch him.

Now he stared at the closed door. Kushina's clear, happy voice leaked faintly through. His heart felt dunked in lemon water, sour and stinging.

"A get-together, at Ryo's place." The thought chilled his fingertips.

Go in?

He hadn't the guts. He could picture too clearly how awkward, how unwanted, his appearance would be.

The thought of giving up wound around him like a vine.

Minato's mouth twisted into a bitter half-smile. Even his golden hair seemed dimmer in the sinking sun.

He took one last look, long, reluctant, at that shut door, as if he could see through it to the red-haired figure inside.

Forget it. Kushina's happy right now. That should be enough. Right?

A great emptiness washed him under.

He didn't hesitate anymore. He turned and slipped away into the deepening dusk, almost like fleeing.

His back looked indescribably lonely.

(To be continued.)

Chapter 53: Hokage Does

While the little group at Ryo's place was happily savoring their graduation night, elsewhere…

Hokage's Office.

Moonlight outside was so white it hurt, cold as a sheet in a morgue.

Inside, a human sauna crossed with a secondhand-smoke gas chamber.

The stench of smoke, sweat, and the mildewed rot of old paperwork mixed into something cloying enough to make a man drunk.

Under the dingy lamp, files were stacked into swaying towers, ready at any moment to deliver the Hokage a "buried alive" ending.

The Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, the "ninja hero" of Konoha, had no "hero" in him now.

He was slumped in his oversized chair like his bones had been pulled out. The ravines in his old face were carved deep with dread and resentment.

His brows were cinched so tight they had knotted.

A pipe hung at the corner of his mouth. The ember had long since died, leaving only a smear of stale tar.

His fingers tapped the wooden armrest, tok, tok, tok, monotonous and edgy, a death knell in a room too quiet.

"Team assignments… damn these graduation team assignments…" he forced the words through his teeth, each one chewed to pulp and spat out, hot with temper.

A dull thump.

His palm smacked a scroll hard enough to make the desk jump.

The name on the header blurred from the impact, Uzumaki Kushina.

"Uzumaki Kushina," Hiruzen growled around the cold pipe, a volcano muffled under his voice. "Which squad do I stuff her in? Which thick-skulled Jōnin wants this burning potato?"

There was no one else in the office. Even his personal ANBU had been pressed back into the shadows by the heavy pressure in the room.

He didn't need to mind his image. A "ninja hero's" pent-up frustration spilled out in very civilized words.

Nine-Tails jinchūriki, original sin stamped on the birth record.

A responsibility, and a live explosive.

One hiccup on a mission and the team leader will be blown sky-high on the spot.

But isolate her, treat her differently?

That sort of long-accumulating loneliness and resentment, the kind that could corrode diamond, would rot her out.

Hiruzen dragged on his pipe. Only the cold taste of tar hit his tongue, sending him hacking, face turning red.

No one wanted to take this one, but someone had to.

Vines of hassle ran rampant through his head, knotting his temples into a pounding ache.

And at the root of that throb was another name, Ryo.

At the thought, his tapping hand jerked. The pipe nearly slipped from his teeth.

The blank, near-empty look of that boy at the training ground slammed into his mind with a palpitation of pressure.

The next instant, the one scene he least wanted to recall crashed back, the chasm torn through the earth, bottomless. The slash, crimson as lava, condensed to substance. And all he did was flick a scabbard.

That instant of destruction, that pure, unreasonable crushing, was carved into Hiruzen's memory at bedrock depth.

"Combat power comparable to a Kage," he muttered. The knuckles of his pipe hand blanched and creaked.

A twelve-year-old Kage?

That was a monster walking on two legs.

The problem was that this guy was like a block.

Ryo didn't need any "squad support." He was a one-man, self-propelled disaster.

"Hah…" Smoke puffed out. Hiruzen remembered that toe-curling fiasco on Hokage Rock.

He had nearly sung the lines like a chant.

Result?

Ryo never even lifted a lid.

That stare said plainly, Are you trying to teach me how to live?

The brat was a block of ice.

No sense of belonging. No bonds.

The only exception, the Uzumaki hellion, Kushina, equally lawless. She alone could chip a crack into that glacier.

And everyone else, in Ryo's eyes?

Just obstacles while alive. Wasted space after they are dead.

"Bonds… we need to pile on the damn bonds," Hiruzen bit down on the pipe stem. It was a wonder the thing didn't snap.

With someone like Ryo, extinction-grade potential and a perverse temperament, you can't just sit back.

You need something to tie him down.

Tie him tight.

Uzumaki Kushina was a steel cable looped around one of that primordial beast's legs.

Not enough. Nowhere near enough.

The more cables, the better. The thicker, the better. A thousand threads to mire the beast in a warm bog.

"Sigh… say what you will, Jiraiya's the easy one. Obedient. Likes smut like I do. His pupil, Namikaze Minato, the obedient type too. Good heir to the Will of Fire. A proper disciple. A proper grand-disciple." The comparison soured his mood further.

Kushina and Ryo?

They were the ceiling of the problem-child world.


Chapter 54: Teammates

Hiruzen's head throbbed. He massaged the hammering temples and dragged a team-sheet scroll forward.

It unfurled. Inked names shone under the light.

Most had notes and lines drawn, first-pass assignment ideas.

Only at the very top, two names stood alone, like sharp icicles catching the eye, Uzumaki Kushina and Kamiyama Ryo.

Below them, the "prospective leader" he had filled in after long thought, Tsunade.

Memory pulled him back to a certain late night.

On the eve of her departure for the meat grinder that was the Ame front, Tsunade had slammed the desk and bellowed words that now rang with painful clarity, each one like a heated kunai chiseling at his skull. "That little Uchiha girl. Uchiha Mikoto. You will put her in my squad. In my student's team. You hear me?"

Uchiha Mikoto?

Add her to Tsunade's squad? Put her with Ryo?

You are the bona fide Senju princess, granddaughter of the First, Hashirama Senju. Tobirama is your grand-uncle.

And the Uchiha? The Senju's thousand-year enemies, on-and-off war and blood-feud.

Konoha's been around nearly forty years. The unwritten rule among the top brass is, be wary of the Uchiha, keep your distance, keep them pressed. It's political gospel, marrow-deep.

And now you want to enlist an Uchiha into your inner circle squad?

"Add? Add your—" He had nearly shouted the rest in her face. But Tsunade's golden-brown eyes had bored into him, silent, merciless.

This hellcat had smashed the Hokage's desk before. If she wanted her way, she would happily give the whole building a renovation.

And she was about to lead a unit to the rain-soaked meat grinder.

No matter how stifled he felt, Hiruzen wasn't going to break a commander's heart on the eve of war.

"Uchiha Mikoto… Kushina's best friend," he muttered, forcing the boil back down. His clouded eyes turned quick behind the smoke.

Intel on the Uchiha girl flashed past, talent above average, temperament gentle. Among her year she was near the top, but not a once-in-a-century prodigy.

The critical point, she was extremely close to Uzumaki Kushina. Inseparable. Widely known besties.

Hiruzen's pipe hand froze.

A clear, crucial link snapped into place.

Uzumaki Kushina, Ryo's only evident bond. The only warmth in that mass of ice.

The only one who left a mark on that glacier. And Uchiha Mikoto, Kushina's most intimate, trusted partner.

If he stuffed Mikoto into Tsunade's squad, into Ryo's team, what did that mean?

It meant that beside Kushina, beside Ryo, there would be a fully controllable "anchor" tied directly to the Hokage's line.

A secondary cable tied to the primary cable named Kushina.

It would reinforce a chain of bonds that was shaky to begin with. Is she not Kushina's most trusted sister? Sisterhood, perfect for a bundle-tie.

Hammer her into the Hokage's core team, and that vine would wrap Kushina, then inevitably climb Ryo's towering trunk.

"Is Tsunade's demand dumb luck, or is that brain of hers sharper than it looks?"

Kushina, the "warhead," must go into a team.

Ryo, the "glacier," needs his bonds thickened.

Tsunade's ridiculous demand to add Uchiha Mikoto? It just might kill two birds with one stone.

And Tsunade was marching to war. Could he really deny her and expect her not to flip a table?

Besides, none of these four were easy.

Kushina, special status and born hot-headed. Ryo, broken-tier strength and icy, hard to handle. Tsunade, willful, reckless, and a drunk to boot.

Tired of the mess? Then bundle it.

Dump all four walking troublemakers, Tsunade, Ryo, Kushina, Uchiha Mikoto, into one basket.

Let them torment each other.

Tsunade is the designated team leader. The Nine-Tails candidate belongs best with her. Ryo, that bristling spike, gets the only hammer that might dent him, results not guaranteed. As for Uchiha Mikoto? You wanted her? Fine. Have her. With a bow on top.

"Heh-heh… Tsunade, Tsunade…" Hiruzen leisurely relit his pipe. The spicy smoke rolled into his lungs with the sweet sting of revenge.

He could almost see it, Tsunade facing this chimera of a squad, one baby-tailed-beast time bomb, one glacier of a prodigy, and a girl from the ancestral enemy clan.

What face would the Senju princess wear?

Shock? Fury?

Or bleak despair before she remade the training field with a single monstrous punch?

You made an outrageous request, now shoulder this gigantic black pot.

Pressure? Good. You handpicked them. Bite down and swallow. You are Konoha's princess. You are its greatest medical ninja.

He could even picture her booting his office door open, bottle in hand, cursing him blue.

"As for the Uchiha?" Hiruzen's gaze drifted out the window, as if it pierced eaves and landed on the district set a little apart behind high walls, the Uchiha compound.

He had no prejudice against the Uchiha.

The core extends a hand.

The cleanest political signal you could send.

Especially now, in wartime.

Konoha's string is drawn taut. Every drop of blood is precious.

The Uchiha's Sharingan is a weapon.

Offer a sweet, soothe them, let them think the Hokage favors Uchiha. They will spill more blood, push harder, plug more breaches, fill more trenches.

As for the girl's ultimate destination?

Hiruzen's mouth tilted around the pipe, worldly-wise.

Women marry, don't they? And then their hearts tilt toward home.

A little Hokage-line gilding, so what? After children, power and glory are just embroidery on the wedding robe.

"Tsunade, grow a teacher's spine and keep these three headaches in line," he told the lingering scent of pork-bone broth in the air, tapping the pipe as if lecturing a disciple already crossing into Ame. "Out of sight, out of mind for me. You can carry this pot."

The smoke didn't feel as choking anymore. Hiruzen sank deeper into the chair, blowing slow rings. He picked up a brush and, beneath "Team Leader: Tsunade," wrote three names in a bold hand:

Team Leader: Tsunade

Members: Kamiyama Ryo, Uzumaki Kushina, Uchiha Mikoto

(To be continued.)