"Yuki! Tsume! You came!" Kushina yelled as we entered Ichiraku Ramen.
"Sorry I'm late, I had to drag a bitch away from a pair of mutts, you know how it is." Tsume greeted them while sending me a look and rolling her eyes, making both Kushina and Mikoto snigger.
I didn't even bother to get angry at this point.
Having been friends for years, there was no joke I hadn't heard a thousand times already.
Konoha didn't have one dog pun left I hadn't heard, and that was in a village with a dog-nin clan… so there were a lot of those puns around.
I wasn't so petty that I would go around slaughtering people wildly over a few jokes about being a bitch or fucking a mutt, I was better than that.
"Don't mind her, she is just running her mouth, as always." I said as I joined the others at the front.
"Oh, please, Yuki, we all know she is just running her mouth." Kushina agreed.
"And that everything she says, no matter how shocking, is all true." Mikoto added, earning her a glare from me.
"Now now, let's not bully poor Yuki too much here; she already gets bullied enough by my mutts back home." Tsume sat in the final seat and laughed.
"I don't get why I hang out with you guys." I muttered with a sigh.
"Because if you aren't with us, you are either gathering dust in the Hyūga clan compound or chained to a post outside in my clan's grounds," Tsume said with a smirk.
The others all laughed while I just rolled my eyes. "Alright, everyone makes fun of Yuki, haha, very funny. But I understand, I'm far too strong and badass for you to handle, so you use words as it's all you have."
"Ladies, ladies," Teuchi interrupted with a chuckle, wiping his hands on a towel as he leaned over the counter. "You're scaring away the other customers."
"There are no other customers," Tsume pointed out, smirking as she leaned on the counter.
"Details," Teuchi said, waving her off. "Now, what'll it be? Don't tell me you dragged these three all the way here just to bicker in my shop."
"Four miso chashu, extra pork," Kushina declared instantly, slapping a handful of ryo onto the counter. "And keep the tea coming."
Tsume arched her brow. "Great, but when are the rest of us going to order?"
Mikoto covered her smile with her sleeve, while I shook my head.
Kushina just grinned, utterly unbothered. "What? A future Hokage needs fuel. You all can share the tea."
Mikoto shook her head. "A bowl of the usual to the rest of us." She told Teuchi, who quickly got to work.
This wasn't the first time we had done this. Kushina, in particular, liked this place, as when she first arrived in Konoha, this was the only place that treated her well.
I was initially interested in the place, after all, in the story of Naruto, this Ramen place had been given legendary status.
The food of the gods, and Teuchi himself, a secret sage, and member of the Ōtsutsuki clan.
I knew it was doubtful, as a member if the Ōtsutsuki myself, I knew the clan, and the people from it, and while I couldn't say that I knew everyone, more so after having been gone for as long as I did, I doubted another one would come to the planet.
More so, one that just so happened to just make ramen.
It wasn't impossible, but I never believed it.
And the food… pretty mid.
It wasn't bad, and it was cheap, very cheap, and the serving sizes were large. Making it a favourite meal for those without much money to spend.
People such as Kushina.
Teuchi himself was also just a human, one without much chakra at all, a decently skilled chef maybe, but no secret boss.
The bowls arrived steaming, broth rich and fragrant, noodles piled high with pork. Kushina immediately dug in like a woman possessed, slurping so loudly half the street probably heard her.
"See?!" she said between mouthfuls, broth dripping down her chin. "This is the taste of Konoha! Fuel for the strong!"
Tsume leaned over, eyeing her mountain of noodles. "You mean fuel for pigs. Careful, Kushina, keep that up, and Minato might need to use that fancy ninjutsu of his to carry you into bed once you are married."
Kushina made a rude hand gesture without pausing her eating.
I tasted my own bowl — the noodles chewy, the broth salty, the pork a little tough. It wasn't transcendent. It wasn't divine. It was ramen.
And yet, as I watched the way Kushina's shoulders loosened, the way Mikoto quietly enjoyed hers, and even Tsume licking broth off her fingers with a grin, I realized why this place was special.
It wasn't the location itself, it wasn't the food, it wasn't even Teuchi; it was the people who gathered here.
It was when all those things came together that this place became something more.
"Yuki, you are hardly eating at all." Kushina said, breaking me out of my thoughts.
"What's wrong? You normally eat plenty?" she asked, concerned.
"It's even served in a bowl, so eating it should be fine, unless we need to put it down on the ground?" Tsume joked.
"I was just thinking, that's all, and now I'm thinking about whether I should help Koji become the Inuzuka clan's alpha." I shot her a glare.
Kushina was often just as bad as Tsume when it came to teasing her friends, and she wasn't slow on picking up any chance. "Trying to help strengthen your mutt's chance at winning your hand?"
"Hey Teuchi, if I start a fight here, will we be kicked out and banned from ever coming back?" I asked the man.
In return, he paused his work and looked at me, really looking at me hard. "Nahh, I can see it in your eyes. You want to get all of you banned to spite Kushina-san, so I won't do it."
"Tch," I clicked my tongue.
"Yuki! I can't believe you would do something like that. Ichiraku ramen is the food of the gods! If I couldn't eat that, I might as well just die!" Kushina said dramatically.
"That was the plan," I said, rolling my eyes as she did as I continued to eat.
Kushina thumped her empty bowl on the counter, already waving for another. "Teuchi-san! Round two!"
"Round two?" Tsume stared at her. "That was round four."
"Details," Kushina said, grinning wide.
Mikoto sighed, setting her chopsticks down neatly. "One day, you're going to eat yourself sick."
Kushina shot her a mock glare. "Then you can heal me. That's what friends are for, right?"
"If you continue to eat like that, even all three of us won't be able to carry you to the hospital." I said with a snort, making Tsume burst into laughter.
"She got you there." She laughed freely.
Kushina was halfway through another bowl, Tsume licking broth from her fingers, when Mikoto finally set her chopsticks down with a soft clink.
"Fugaku took Itachi to the frontlines," she said suddenly, voice quieter than usual.
That stilled the table. Even Kushina's slurping slowed.
"He's a child," Mikoto continued, smoothing her sleeve as though the motion might calm her. "Barely old enough to be in the Academy, and already Fugaku insists he needs 'experience.' Experience with what? Watching grown men die?"
Tsume whistled low. "Damn. That's harsh, even for the Uchiha."
Kushina frowned. "Isn't he only four?"
"Almost five," Mikoto corrected. "Which doesn't make it any better."
I leaned back slightly, feeling the weight in her words. Of all of us, Mikoto was the quietest, the calmest, the one who played her role without fuss. To hear even a sliver of anger in her tone was jarring.
"That's harsh, I know he is the clan heir and all, but I would be damned if I allowed Hana anywhere near the frontlines before she is at least an Elite Chuunin." Tsume muttered.
Kushina pushed her empty bowl away, her grin gone. "Minato's been saying the war could end anytime now… with his victory over Iwa… surely Kumo will bow out soon as well, right?"
"Who knows," I whispered. "Iwa still has strength left to rejoin the war; we all know how much those peace agreements are worth when it comes down to it."
The war was indeed starting to calm down somewhat. Minato had already achieved his legendary feat of slaying one thousand Iwa Jōnin in a single day.
Such a loss was immense; normally, such a loss happened over many months of fighting, or even a full year. Yet Minato was able to deal that blow in a day, which was enough to finally break Iwagakure.
Their losses were truly staggering, likely the village with the most. This was in large part thanks to the tactic of using a lot of weak forces to take down superior enemy ones, like when they took down the Third Raikage.
That fight alone cost them thousands of lives, putting them ahead of Konoha as the village that suffered the most. Yet despite this, they did have some strength left, and it was likely still more than Suna had, making them a potential player.
Though I knew they wouldn't rejoin the war, the very threat still weighed heavily on the shinobi of Konoha.
In truth, the war was nearing its end, with only Kumo still fighting Konoha without slowing down.
"Peace is coming," Kushina said suddenly, almost too brightly. She slapped the counter and grinned wide again. "And when it does, I'm going to eat so much ramen, Teuchi's going to have to build me my own stall."
"Don't tempt me," Teuchi muttered from behind the counter, but there was a smile tugging at his lips.
Tsume chuckled, Mikoto finally exhaled, and I allowed myself the smallest of smiles. The war hadn't ended yet. Maybe it wouldn't for a long while.
But for this one moment, in a little ramen shop that smelled of broth and laughter, it was easy to believe it could.
After eating, we went off to hang out somewhere else, so as not to take up half the ramen stand. And we continued to chat and joke around, helping one another forget about the dark times that might be ahead of us.
And taking Mikoto's mind off Itachi, and the things and risks he was exposed to while out there.
Given the current state of things, the war would likely end in less than a year from now… that meant that every day could be my last in Konoha.
I, too, clearly needed this time to relax, to gather enough happy memories to last me through the next many years, those which would be devoted to my plans.
"Why don't you try it, Kushina-chan? Maybe you will like it?" I teased her.
Her face became as red as her hair, and I laughed as I quickly ran off.
"Come back here, Yuki!!" I heard her scream just moments later, and felt her start chasing me.
"Admit it, Kushina, you want to try being chained up naked outside, with nine tails up your ass, I mean, I normally only use one, but it's really no surprise you would go for nine." I teased her and instantly ducked under a Kunai.
"I will kill you!" she howled as I jumped to avoid a chakra chain.
"Even brought your own chains already, you really are kinky. Even I didn't do that, Koji was the one to bring some." I continued teasing her, just like how I continued to dodge her attack.
(end of chapter)
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