"Shouldn't we be hurrying this up?" said Tenten, watching as Sakura angrily picked at her noodles. "I mean, I'm not opposed to eating ramen once in a while, even if it is a little fattening, but Lady Tsunade did give us a job…"
"It's tradition for Team Seven to have ramen before and after a mission," Sakura said with a sniff. "We can't leave the village until we do— it's the rules. And besides, I wanted to treat you for finally taking off that Flying Thunder God jutsu formula you slapped on my back while I wasn't looking. That thing was giving me anxiety."
Tenten shrugged.
"If you insist… but now that I'm thinking about it, shouldn't we be following Team 3's traditions instead of Team 7's?" she pointed out. "With me and Karin here, we outnumber you two to one."
Captain Yamato pointed a finger at his head, indignation written clearly across his face. What was he, chopped liver? He had led Kakashi-senpai's Team 7 once before; in his eyes, that surely entitled him to at least honorary membership! But no one paid him any mind.
"I'd rather not," Karin said queasily. "If I have to run a lap around the village with a tummy full of ramen, I'm going to throw up."
"I am Team 7, and Team 7 is me!" Sakura declared. "In Naruto's and Sasuke's absence, it's up to me to uphold our sacred traditions! And that means ramen!"
"You certainly have a high opinion of yourself," Tenten sighed. "Getting this strong this fast gave you an ego the size of a blimp…"
Overhearing their conversation, Teuchi abandoned his stove and ambled over, leaning over the counter with a broad smile.
"Well said! If it were up to me, I'd have everyone eating ramen for breakfast, lunch and dinner!" he said, laughing. "Here— take these…" He pushed a few coupons across the counter. "…I'm giving these away to all my most loyal customers to celebrate the shop's twentieth anniversary, so pass them on to your teammates if you see them, all right? It's been quite a while since I last saw Naruto and Sasuke, come to think of it…"
Sakura mechanically pocketed the coupons and returned to slurping her noodles.
"Twentieth anniversary, eh? Congratulations!" Captain Yamato said evenly. "No wonder your ramen is so good, if you've been cooking for so long."
"Actually, I've been at it for thirty-four years," Teuchi said modestly. "I once wanted to be a ninja, but after years of training I realised that I wasn't suited to that life. I knew I would fail the final examinations, so I dropped out a few days before graduation and begged my father to take me on as his apprentice… and after years of preparing ramen, my efforts finally paid off and I opened my very own shop!"
It was precisely because Teuchi understood how hard a shinobi's life could be that he strove to make the very best ramen possible, to nourish the villagers' minds, bodies and souls when they returned from the field of battle, weary and hungry.
"Ah, that hit the spot," Sakura sighed, patting her belly. "Now, just need to make a quick detour to Granny Sanshō's place for curry ration balls, and we'll be good to go!"
Tenten rolled her eyes.
…
A few hours later, the new Team 7 were crossing the mountain range that separated the Land of Wind from the Land of Rivers.
"I still don't see why I have to follow you around on errands," Sakura whined. "With the invincible Flying Raijin Jutsu, it's not as if anyone could ever catch up to you, Tenten. You could be in and out of this Lōran place before Suna even realised we were here."
Speaking of which, the name Lōran felt vaguely familiar to Sakura, but not for the reasons she was imagining. Loran was a series of chalice dungeons in Bloodborne, and those were just as dusty and sandy as the real place in the Land of Wind.
"Anything can happen while you're outside the village," Captain Yamato chided. "That's why shinobi always travel in squads of four, even on the easiest of missions. You of all people should know that, after what happened to Lord Jiraiya."
Yamato, Sakura, Karin and Tenten burst from the foliage and landed upon a stony outcrop at the edge of a cliff. Before them stretched dunes of sand as far as the eye could see, and a towering structure that scraped the skies shimmered in the distance like a mirage…
"Those are the ruins of Old Lōran," Yamato said, pointing ahead. "The Land of Wind's borders are far too long for Sunagakure to guard properly, but even so, we shouldn't linger here for long. Our goal is simply to ascertain that the Lord Fourth's fūinjutsu is still holding strong. If the seal is intact, we leave it alone, and if it isn't, Tenten will try to repair it."
Apparently, the seal's matrix was based on the Flying Thunder GodJutsu's formula, which was precisely why Tenten was the star of the show this time. Even though she couldn't even manage jumps longer than a few metres without Karin's help, she was still an expert in seals and space-time ninjutsu.
Or at any rate, she was a more capable practitioner than Shiranui Genma, Namiashi Raidō and Tatami Iwashi, who could only perform the simplified Flying Thunder Formation Jutsu when all three of them were present.
"I've looked over the documentation again and again, and I think I should be able to recognise any faults, if there are any," Tenten said confidently. "No problem."
In her past life, Tenten had never even heard of this place called Lōran, let alone the Ryūmyaku, or Dragon Vein, that supposedly slumbered beneath its ruins. She could only assume that those sent to inspect the Ryūmyaku in the original timeline had found nothing amiss with the seal, since the Land of Wind had not, in fact, exploded.
"All right, everyone ready?" said Captain Yamato. "Yes? In that case, let's move!"
Four shadows slipped down the cliffside and landed soundlessly upon the sand below, before flickering towards the ruins in the distance. It was growing rather dark, so Sakura could not make out the architecture clearly as they made their approach, but as they passed beneath the entranceway's archway and into the depths of the ruins, a strange feeling began to wash over her…
[Beep.]