I slid the door shut behind me and let out a breath.
That had been rough.
Not the treatment itself. The treatment was actually pretty straightforward once I knew what I was dealing with. Sepsis at that stage needed aggressive intervention, constant monitoring, and a delicacy of touch that most iryonin just didn't bother developing. The hard part was knowing that no matter how good the jutsu was, the body still had to do its own work. I could kill bacteria. I could repair damaged tissue. But I couldn't force her organs to recover faster than biology allowed.
And biology was a stubborn bastard that didn't care how talented you were.
Madam Sumire was waiting in the hallway, hands clasped in front of her, looking like she hadn't taken a full breath since I went inside. The moment she saw me step out, she straightened up and closed the distance between us.
"How is she?" The words came out fast, like she'd been holding them in her throat.
"Stable," I said. "For now."
"For now?" Her expression tightened. "What does that mean?"
"It means exactly what it sounds like. She's not out of danger yet." I turned to face her. "The next forty-eight to seventy-two hours are critical. That's when we find out if her body can handle the stress of fighting off what's left of the infection. If she makes it through that window, her odds get a lot better."
Madam Sumire's face went through several emotions in rapid succession. Hope, then fear, then something that looked almost like frustration. "And if she doesn't?"
"Then she doesn't." I shrugged. "I'm not going to lie to you. This is serious. The infection had already spread into her bloodstream by the time I got to her. Every iryonin who came before me treated the symptoms without addressing the root cause, which means her body's been fighting a losing battle for weeks. Maybe months. That takes a toll."
She was quiet for a long moment. Then, in a smaller voice: "What are her chances?"
"Better than they were an hour ago. That much I can say for sure." I turned to face her properly. "I managed to sterilize the worst of the infection at the source and bring down the bacterial load in her bloodstream. Her vitals are more stable now, and the immediate danger of organ failure has passed. But I won't lie to you, the next few days are going to tell us whether it actually worked."
Madam Sumire blinked. "I'm sorry, you brought down the... what?"
"Bacteria. Tiny organisms that live inside the body. You can't see them with your eyes, but they're there, and when the nasty ones get into places they shouldn't be, it causes infections like hers." I waved a hand vaguely. "Think of it like invisible bugs swimming through her blood. I burned out a lot of them, especially around the original site. But some might still be hiding in places I couldn't reach, or circulating where I couldn't detect them yet. If they bounce back, we're in trouble again."
She looked at me like I'd just told her the sky was actually green and she'd been seeing it wrong her whole life. But after a moment, she seemed to accept that this was beyond her understanding. "I... see. Well, if you say so. So what happens now?"
"Now we wait and watch. The next forty-eight to seventy-two hours will tell us if her body can handle the rest on its own, or if the infection fights back. I'll need to come back every day to check on her, maybe do more treatment if things take a turn. If she makes it through that window without relapsing, then we can start talking about actual recovery. One to three months, depending on how much damage her organs took."
She exhaled slowly, like she'd been holding her breath without realizing it. "But she'll live?"
"If she survives the next three days, yes. Probably."
"Probably."
"Iryoninjutsu isn't fortune telling. I can only work with what's in front of me."
She nodded, though I could tell the uncertainty was eating at her. Not much I could do about that. Some things just couldn't be promised, no matter how much people wanted to hear the words.
"I'll continue the treatment tomorrow. Make sure she gets rest. Fluids, light food if she can keep it down, nothing too heavy. And don't let anyone else try to treat her unless they want to undo everything I just did."
"I understand." She bowed her head. "Thank you. Truly."
"Don't thank me yet. Thank me when she's actually recovered."
I left her standing in the hallway and made my way back through the sleeping quarters toward the garden.
The air outside was cooler than I expected, brushed with the mingled scents of crushed petals and spilled sake. Lanterns dangled from the branches above, their light breaking unevenly across the stone walkway in drifting pools of amber. From the main building came the low swell of voices, laughter rising and falling, broken now and then by the sharp knock of cups meeting.
Ryouma was still where I'd left him, stretched out near the koi pond with a sake bottle resting loose in his grip. The young master act hadn't slipped, relaxed posture, tailored silk, money worn as carelessly as confidence, just minus the two women usually clinging to his sides.
I dropped into the seat across from him and reached for the spare cup on the table.
"How'd it go?" he asked, pouring for me before I could do it myself.
"She'll probably live."
"That good?"
"Better than the alternative." I took a sip. The sake was smooth, well-aged, probably expensive. My clone had developed decent taste during his time here. "Where's Konan?"
Ryouma's expression slid somewhere between amusement and exasperation. "Gone."
"Gone where?"
"Into the city. She got bored while you were playing doctor and announced she was going to explore." He lifted his cup and took a slow drink. "But not before trying the sake, spitting it out, and declaring it was the most disgusting thing she'd ever tasted."
I stopped halfway through my sip. "She actually said that?"
"Those exact words. Well, almost. I think she actually said it tasted like 'fermented garbage that someone forgot to throw away.'"
A laugh slipped out before I could stop it. "Sounds about right."
"The youth these days have no appreciation for refined pleasures." He shook his head in disappointment. "Honestly, the look on her face when the taste hit her tongue. You'd think I'd offered her poison."
"You basically did. She's still new to the finer things in life. Give her time." The amusement faded as I remembered she was out there wandering alone. "Did you at least assign someone to keep an eye on her?"
"Of course I did." He looked almost offended at the question. "What do you take me for? I'm not naive. There's a clone tailing her right now. She can wander around the city all she wants, but she won't be wandering alone."
"Good."
I leaned back, letting the tension drain from my shoulders. The treatment had taken more out of me than I'd expected, not in the body, but in the mind. Sustaining that degree of focus for so long, shaping chakra fine enough to isolate living contaminants without scarring healthy tissue, demanded absolute attention. There was no room for habit or instinct. One lapse, and the line between healing and harm blurred.
The sake helped, heat blooming in my chest, easing the rawness the treatment had left behind.
Ryouma watched me for a moment, then spoke again. "Is it really okay for you to be here?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean the war." He set his cup down. "I've been hearing things. Rumors from travelers, gossip from customers. Word is the frontlines are getting busy again. Suna's been pushing harder lately. River Country's a mess. And apparently Ame's been causing trouble too, shutting down their borders and attacking anyone who crosses without permission."
"Yeah, I know."
"So shouldn't you be... out there? Doing whatever it is you do?"
"I left clones to handle things." I poured myself another cup. "They've got their orders, they know the situation, and the front won't collapse just because I stepped away for a few days."
He raised an eyebrow. "And if something goes wrong?"
"Then they'll figure it out. That's what clones are for." I took a sip. "Besides, I'm a Konoha shinobi. It's in my best interest that Konoha doesn't lose this war, for obvious reasons. Once I'm done with my business here, I'll head back to the front."
"If you say so."
We drank in silence. The garden spoke for us, the quiet slap of koi against the pond's surface, leaves whispering as the wind moved through them, the low murmur of voices drifting out from the building.
At a nearby table, four civilians were deep into their cups, faces loose with drink. End-of-day workers, most likely, here to bleed off the stress they couldn't afford to take home.
"You hear about Ame?" one of them said "They've gone crazy over there. Started attacking anyone who tries to cross their borders. Merchants, travelers, doesn't matter. If you're not Ame, you're not welcome."
"Bullshit," another one replied. "Why would they do that? They've always kept to themselves."
"I'm telling you what I heard. A merchant I drink with sometimes does business near that area, and he said Ame shinobi have been stopping caravans at the border. The ones that didn't turn around got attacked. Two groups last week alone. Nobody came back."
"Maybe they just got lost. The roads through Rain Country are a nightmare even in good weather."
"Lost my ass. We're talking about traders who've been running those routes for years. They know Rain Country better than their own wives. But suddenly they just vanish into thin air? Nah, Ame's cleaning house out there. Anyone dumb enough to push their luck ends up feeding the fish in one of those rivers."
"Okay, you're exaggerating," another guy at the table spoke up. "It's not that bad. From what I heard, Ame's only going after people hauling weapons or suspicious amounts of supplies. War material, basically. Or idiots trying to sneak through back roads to avoid being seen."
"Exactly," the fourth one chimed in, sounding annoyed. "You guys are talking out of your asses. Ame already put out a statement about this. If you want to cross their borders, you use the proper routes, check in at their border posts, and hire Ame-nin to escort you to wherever you're going. That's it. Follow the rules and you're fine."
"And pay through the nose for the privilege, I bet."
"Better than getting killed, isn't it?"
"Easy for you to say. You're not the one losing half your profit margin to some Rain Country escort fee."
The conversation devolved into grumbling about costs and tariffs after that, same old complaints merchants had been making since the beginning of time. Nothing new there.
Ryouma met my gaze. "You know anything about that?"
"Some." I swirled the sake in my cup, watching it catch the lantern light. "Probably fallout from what's been happening in the region. Suna and Konoha have been clashing in Ame's territory for a while now, and fighting like that always leaves scars. Villages get destroyed, civilians get caught in the crossfire, and then there's the raiding on top of all that."
"Raiding?"
"Supply lines get stretched during war. Troops need food, medicine, equipment. When official channels can't keep up, some units start taking what they need from wherever they can find it. Villages that happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." I shrugged. "Ame's probably fed up with foreign shinobi treating their country like a free buffet."
Ryouma was quiet for a moment. Then: "Was Konoha involved in the raiding too?"
"I don't know for certain. But it'd be strange if they weren't." I drained my cup and set it down. "Every village does it when resources get tight enough. Nobody likes to talk about it, but that's how war works. You do what you have to do to keep your people alive, and you worry about the moral implications later. Or you don't worry about them at all."
"War's shit like that."
"Yeah." I reached for the bottle and poured another round. "And somewhere out there, a kid named Nagato is growing up hating Konoha because our shinobi broke into his home and killed his parents over a bag of rice. Canon always made it sound so distant. Just another tragic backstory to explain why the villain turned out the way he did. But this is the war that creates Pain. We're watching it happen in real time."
Ryouma stared into his cup for a long moment. Then he exhaled.
"Makes you wonder how many other 'villains' started out the same way," he said.
"Too many, probably." I lifted my cup and clinked it against his. "To the cycle of violence, I guess."
We drank long into the night, two versions of the same man beneath lantern light, choosing silence and sake while the world beyond the walls continued to come apart.
....
Something was poking my face.
I ignored it. Tried to, anyway. The poking continued, persistent and annoying, like a mosquito that refused to take the hint. I pulled the blanket over my head and burrowed deeper into the futon.
"Sensei."
Go away.
"Sensei, wake up."
I'm dead. Come back tomorrow.
"You said we were going to look for a house today."
The poking intensified. Now it was accompanied by shaking. Aggressive shaking, disorienting enough that the room spun behind my eyelids.
"Mmrgh." I pulled the blanket tighter. "Way too early for this, everyone's still in bed and no one's gonna be open yet. Let me sleep a bit more."
"It's almost noon."
"Lies."
"It's not lies. The sun is literally right there."
To prove her point, she yanked the curtains open.
Light slammed into the room. I hissed and threw an arm over my eyes, recoiling like a vampire caught at sunrise. Konan watched me flail around for a moment, and I caught the slight upturn at the corner of her mouth before she schooled her face back into disapproval.
"Sensei, you're being ridiculous."
"I'm being murdered. By sunlight. My own student is trying to kill me."
"Give me some credit, sensei. If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't see it coming. Certainly wouldn't be something as boring as sunlight."
"Noted. I'll sleep with one eye open from now on." I flopped back down onto the futon and pulled the blanket up to my chin. "But first, five more minutes."
"You said that twenty minutes ago."
"Did I? That doesn't sound like me."
"It sounds exactly like you."
I cracked one eye open, just enough to glare at her. She glared right back, completely unintimidated. Somewhere along the way, my student had gotten way too comfortable around me. I'd created a monster. A very persistent, curtain-opening monster.
"Fine," I groaned, forcing myself upright. The room tilted, my head pounding. Whatever brilliant idea it had seemed at the time, drinking deep into the night with my clone was now collecting its debt.
"Fine," I muttered. "You win. I'm up."
"Finally."
"But I'm getting breakfast first."
"It's lunch."
"I'm getting lunch first."
She rolled her eyes. "Just hurry up."
...
One hour, one meal, and one surprisingly pleasant walk through the city where Konan pointed out every interesting shop we passed, we arrived at our destination.
The house was modest, two stories of wood tucked into a quiet street, far enough from the entertainment district to stay peaceful. It wasn't impressive, but it wasn't rundown either. You could walk past it without a second glance, which was exactly why my clone had chosen it.
Konan studied the building with a curious expression, and when I fished out a key from my pocket, her eyebrows shot up.
"Wait. Did you already buy a place?"
"Rented. No point in buying when I don't know how long you'll need it." The key turned smoothly in the lock. "Consider it yours for the next year at least."
"When did you even have time to do this?"
"I have clones for a reason. One of them's been here long enough to know which neighborhoods are worth living in." The door swung open. "Anyway, let's take a look inside."
The inside was about what you'd expect from a rental in this part of town. Nothing fancy, nothing broken. A main room when you walked in, a kitchen through a doorway on the left, and stairs going up to where the bedrooms were. The previous tenant had left some furniture behind, which saved me the trouble of furnishing the place from scratch. A bit dusty, and the air was stuffy from being closed up too long, but a few open windows would take care of that soon enough.
"This is where you'll be staying for the foreseeable future," I said, gesturing vaguely at the space around us. "Already paid a year's rent, so you don't need to worry about that. The neighborhood's quiet, the neighbors mind their own business, and it's close enough to the main streets that you won't have trouble getting food."
Konan took her time looking around, running her fingers along the dusty table, peeking into the kitchen. Then she turned to face me, and I could tell from her expression that she'd already figured out where this conversation was heading.
"Sensei... this sounds a lot like a goodbye speech."
Perceptive as always.
I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms. "Not goodbye exactly, but... yeah, I'm going to have to leave soon. You remember what I told you before, right? I'm a Konoha shinobi, and Konoha's in the middle of a war with Suna and River eight now. I've been away from the frontlines for a while now dealing with personal matters, but I can't keep putting it off forever."
She didn't say anything right away. Just stood there in the middle of the room, looking at the floor, not moving. I watched her and tried to figure out what was going on in her head, but her face wasn't giving me much to work with. She wasn't angry. Wasn't crying. If anything, she just looked... small. Smaller than usual, standing alone in an empty house that was about to become hers.
"Can I come with you?"
She said it so softly I almost missed it. And the way she was standing there, shoulders slightly hunched, eyes not quite meeting mine... she already knew what my answer was going to be. She just had to hear me say it anyway.
And I had to say it.
"To the front?" I shook my head slowly. "That's... not really possible, unfortunately. You're not affiliated with Konoha, so I can't just bring you along to an active warzone. The higher-ups would start asking questions about who you are and where you came from, and that would make things complicated for both of us.
"Oh." She nodded, but the disappointment was obvious. "Right. That makes sense."
Neither of us said anything for a while. She nodded along, doing her best to look like my answer hadn't bothered her. Watching her stand there, pretending everything was fine, was when the idea started to take shape in my head.
"But," I started, then stopped.
She looked up. "But?"
I didn't finish the sentence. My brain was too busy chewing on an idea that had just surfaced, turning it over and examining it from different angles.
What to do with Konan. That was the question I'd been wrestling with ever since I decided to take her as my student. Training her was one thing. Keeping her safe was another. But what came after? What was she supposed to do with her life once I wasn't around to watch over her?
She was attached to the shinobi lifestyle. That much was obvious. She'd been fascinated by jutsu ever since I started teaching her, and she'd taken to the training like a fish to water. Telling her to settle down in Tanzaku Quarters and find normal work would be like telling a bird not to fly. She'd go along with it because she didn't have other options, but she'd be miserable. And miserable people made bad decisions.
So shinobi work, then. But that came with its own problems.
She wasn't affiliated with any village. Couldn't be, really, not without going through official channels that would raise too many questions. Konoha wouldn't just accept a random orphan from Ame on my recommendation alone, and even if they did, putting her in the system meant putting her under scrutiny.
Too messy. Too many ways for it to go wrong.
But there was another path. One that didn't require village affiliation at all.
Bounty hunters.
The thought had occurred to me before, back when those idiots had tried to collect on my head a few days ago. Bounty hunting was about as close to neutral ground as shinobi work got. You operated independently, took jobs from whoever was paying, and answered to no one but yourself. The targets were usually missing-nin, criminals, people who'd been disavowed by their own villages and marked for death. Going after them was fair game. Nobody would complain if you killed a rogue ninja that their home village had already condemned.
The key was knowing who to hunt. Missing-nin and wanted criminals were safe targets. Active shinobi on duty were not. That was the line you didn't cross, not unless you wanted every major village in the world gunning for your head. Those bounty hunters who'd come after me had made exactly that mistake. Even if they'd succeeded in killing me, Konoha would have tracked them down eventually. It was a matter of rep. You couldn't let people think your shinobi were easy prey, or you'd give every blade-happy nobody a reason to feel bold.
But if you played it smart, stuck to legitimate targets, built a reputation as someone who followed the rules... bounty hunting could be a viable career. Dangerous, sure. But so was everything in this world.
And Konan was going to be dangerous eventually. Might as well point that danger in a productive direction.
"Sensei?" Her voice pulled me out of my thoughts. "You were saying something?"
I looked at her, trying to gauge whether she was ready for what I was about to suggest.
"How do you feel about bounty hunting?"
Konan blinked. Bounty hunting. She turned the idea over in her head. It wasn't what she'd hoped for, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. A bounty hunter could go anywhere. No village tying her down, no borders she couldn't cross. She could get stronger at her own pace, build her skills, travel wherever the work took her. And once she was good enough, once she was strong enough... well. Shinji could run off to whatever frontline he wanted. He could go to the ends of the earth if he felt like it. It didn't matter. She'd find him.
"But," I added quickly, before she could get too excited, "this doesn't mean you get to follow me to the frontlines. That's still off the table."
"Of course, sensei." Konan smiled sweetly. "I wouldn't dream of it."
Technically true. She wasn't going to dream about it. She was going to make it happen.
I nodded, satisfied. Good. She was being reasonable about this. The alternative wasn't great, and she was smart enough to see that. If she wanted to be a shinobi without bounty hunting, her only real option was to go back to Ame and join up under Hanzo. Become an official Ame-nin. And if Ame and Konoha ever found themselves at odds... that was a future best avoided.
"So..." She tilted her head. "How do I actually get started? Do I need to find clients somewhere, or do I just... start hunting people?"
I opened my mouth to answer.
Then closed it.
Because I had absolutely no idea.
The silence stretched on for an uncomfortable few seconds. Konan stared at me. I stared back at her. Neither of us said anything.
"Sensei." Her voice was flat. "Do you actually know how this works?"
"Of course I do." I cleared my throat and looked away. "I was just... thinking about how to explain it properly."
She didn't look convinced.
"Look," I said, quickly changing the subject, "the details aren't important right now. What matters is that bounty hunting is dangerous work. You're going up against missing-nin, criminals, people who've already proven they're willing to kill. You can't just jump into that with your current skill level."
"Then what level do I need to be?"
"Elite chunin, at minimum. Ideally higher. Anyone with a bounty on their head got there for a reason. They're dangerous. If you go after someone you can't handle, you won't get a second chance to learn from the mistake."
"Elite chunin, huh..." She seemed to be calculating how long that would take her.
"So for now," I continued, "focus on training. Master what I've taught you, keep improving, get stronger. Once you're ready, we can talk about the specifics of how to actually get started."
She nodded, apparently satisfied with that answer for now. Or maybe she just didn't want to embarrass him further by pointing out that her sensei was clearly making things up as he went along.
....
After that, we fell into a routine.
Every day started with a trip to the Lotus House to check on Hana. The first seventy-two hours had been tense, but she'd made it through, and after that it was just a matter of keeping the infection from returning while her body did the slow work of repairing itself. Madam Sumire thanked me every single time. I told her to save it until Hana was actually recovered, but she never listened.
The rest of the morning belonged to Konan. Training, drilling, and sparring. She soaked up everything I taught her and came back hungry for more.
Afternoons and evenings, I spent with Ryouma in the workshop.
The distillery setup was exactly what I'd asked for. Copper pot stills, fermentation vessels, all the essential equipment for producing spirits. My clone had spent weeks putting this together, and now it was finally time to see if all that effort would pay off.
It didn't.
Well, that's not entirely fair. We did produce alcohol. It just wasn't good alcohol.
The first batch came out with a smell that reminded me of paint thinner. Harsh, chemical, enough to make your eyes water just from sniffing it. We'd messed up the distillation somehow, probably cut too early or too late, and ended up with a product that was technically alcohol but not something any sane person would want to drink.
The second batch gave us hope. It smelled less like industrial solvent and more like actual grain. We got excited. We shouldn't have. The aftertaste was like swallowing a lit match. Whatever we'd done wrong, the alcohol remembered, and it wanted us to remember too.
Third batch. Fourth batch. Fifth.
Each one came out slightly different. Some were flat, lacking any real character. Others had a sour aftertaste that wouldn't go away. A few were almost drinkable, if you were desperate enough and didn't mind your throat feeling like it had been rubbed raw with steel wool afterward.
By day three, the optimism had completely drained out of Ryouma. He was slumped against the wall, staring at our latest attempt with the hollow eyes of someone who'd seen too much and tasted worse.
"This isn't working," he said, pushing the cup away with a grimace. "Neither of us knows what we're doing here, we need an expert. Someone who won't produce liquid regret every time they touch a still."
"Where exactly are you planning to find this 'expert'?" I raised an eyebrow at him. "Nobody in this country has ever made whiskey. It doesn't exist here. Any 'expert' we bring in is going to be just as clueless as we are."
"Then what do you suggest? Because I hate to break it to you, but what we've been producing isn't whiskey. It's barely even alcohol. It's more like... concentrated suffering in liquid form."
"You're exaggerating."
"Am I? I took three sips of batch four and my tongue went numb for an hour. An hour, boss. I was starting to worry it might be permanent."
"...Okay, you might have a point there."
I leaned back against the wall and crossed my arms. Honestly, this wasn't surprising. We were working off scraps of knowledge I'd brought over from my previous life, trying to invent something neither of us had ever actually made before. I knew what whiskey was supposed to taste like, sure. I knew the general concept of how it was made. Or at least I thought I did. But knowing what something should be and knowing how to actually make it were two very different things.
"Here's the thing," I said. "We don't need an expert. What we need is more attempts. More experimentation. More data on what works and what doesn't."
"We've been experimenting for three days straight."
"Three days is nothing. This stuff takes time." I walked over to the still. "We've got shadow clones, remember? More hands, more experiments, faster results. We'll get there."
He looked skeptical but didn't interrupt.
"There's also the aging issue," I said. "Whiskey needs years in a barrel to mature properly."
"Already thought about that." Ryouma leaned back. "Fuinjutsu seems like the obvious answer. Some kind of time acceleration seal, maybe. Nobody's made a seal for aging alcohol before, but that doesn't mean it can't be done."
"Great minds think alike. I was going to suggest asking Kushina and Minato to look into it."
"Makes sense. She's an Uzumaki, he's a genius. Between the two of them, they could probably crack it." He paused. "Assuming they're willing to spend their time helping us make alcohol."
"I can be very persuasive."
"Uh huh." He didn't sound convinced. "And if they say no?"
"Then I'll tell them it's not about the alcohol. It's about pushing the boundaries of fuinjutsu. Time manipulation research. Think about it, if we can figure out how to accelerate aging in a barrel, who knows what else that could lead to?"
He raised an eyebrow. "You're going to pitch world-changing seal research to justify making booze."
"I'm going to pitch world-changing seal research that happens to also make booze. See the distinction?"
"If I squint, maybe."
"The booze is a bonus. A delicious, profitable bonus."
....
Miles away, Minato sneezed.
Then sneezed again.
Then a third, just to really drive the point home.
"That's three in a row." Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. "Either you're getting sick, or someone's really going at it talking about you."
Minato wiped his nose, bewildered. "Who would be talking about me?"
If only he knew.
Jiraiya glanced over from where he was poking at the campfire. Without a word, he reached into his pack and tossed a small med pouch in Minato's direction.
"Catch. You're probably worn out from the journey. Lightning Country's a long way from the western front."
Minato caught the pouch but didn't open it. "I'm fine, sensei. It was just a sneeze."
"Sure it was." Jiraiya turned back to the fire, adjusting one of the logs with a stick. "But take the medicine anyway. Better safe than sorry especially out here."
"You worry too much."
"I prefer to call it being cautious. Worrying is for old ladies." Jiraiya scratched his chin. "Did I ever tell you about the time I caught a cold in Earth Country and tried to tough it out? Ended up sneezing in the middle of sneaking into an enemy camp. Very embarrassing. Almost got stabbed."
He settled back against a rock. "Anyway, I pulled you from the western front because my work here is going to take a while. Weeks, probably. Maybe longer. Would've been a waste to let you sit around back there when you could be learning something useful here."
"Are you sure it's okay for me to be here? I could have stayed back and trained on my own. I'd hate to be a burden and get in the way of your mission, sensei."
"A burden? Please. You're my student, not some random tagalong." Jiraiya waved off the concern. "Besides, don't look so glum about leaving the western front. It's not like you'll be sitting around doing nothing here."
"What do you mean?"
"Things are about to get busy around here. We're preparing for a major operation against Kumo and there'll be plenty of real combat coming your way."
"Understood." Minato gave a small nod. "I'll do my best not to slow you down, sensei."
"That's what I like to hear." Jiraiya grinned, then tilted his head. "Though I have to ask, you seemed pretty glum a moment ago. Was leaving the western front bothering you that much?"
Minato hesitated. "I just didn't want to fall behind, that's all."
"Ha! That's so like you, always worried about progress. Relax a little, would you? You're already ahead of most shinobi your age."
Minato nodded, but his expression said he didn't quite agree. Jiraiya had a pretty good idea why. The kid was probably comparing himself to someone again. Probably Shinji. Those two were around the same age, but Shinji had already racked up enough accomplishments to make most jonin look lazy. Minato didn't have a jealous bone in his body, but he hated falling behind. Honestly, it was probably a good thing. Having someone like Shinji to measure himself against would only make Minato grow faster. Nothing pushed a shinobi harder than trying to catch up to someone running ahead of them.
Jiraiya stretched his arms above his head, joints popping softly. "Anyway, I need you to run an errand for me."
"An errand?"
"There's an inn about two hours east of here, near the town we passed through yesterday. One of our people is staying there." Jiraiya's lips twitched, like he was holding back a smile. "Tell him that Kumo's moving ahead with the bijuu sealing sooner than we thought. The mission's starting, so he needs to get himself over here."
Bijuu sealing. Minato didn't recognize the term, but from his sensei's tone, it was clearly important. He tucked the information away for later. "Understood. Who am I looking for?"
"Oh, you'll know him when you see him." Jiraiya was definitely smirking now. "Trust me."
That was suspiciously vague. Minato narrowed his eyes slightly. "Sensei, is there something you're not telling me?"
"Plenty of things. A man's gotta have some secrets." Jiraiya waved a hand dismissively. "Just go. You'll figure it out."
Minato didn't push further, though the evasiveness was setting off alarm bells. "Is there anything else I should tell him?"
"Just that. He'll know what it means." Jiraiya yawned and scratched his chin. "Oh, and if he offers you a drink, say no. Trust me on that one."
"...Noted."
With that, Minato disappeared into the trees, still wondering what exactly his sensei found so amusing.
...
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