Bonus for 100 PS
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"So…" Hiruzen's voice dropped suddenly, rich with enticement. He leaned in slightly, gaze pressing on Ryo like something with weight.
"Do you want to grow faster? To show your gifts on a broader stage? To shoulder a greater purpose?"
He cast out the bait.
"Come, join the ANBU. I will teach you personally. Even the Hokage's Restricted Jutsu Archives will become a treasure vault for your power."
He watched Ryo's face.
Still no reaction.
Ryo felt nothing inside. If anything, he wanted to laugh.
Direct-entry ANBU? Trail after you like a guard dog? On call at all hours with brainwashing on the side?
A flicker of annoyance crossed Hiruzen's heart.
Temptation like this would make any young shinobi's eyes shine.
Private tutoring from a Kage-level mentor. The Hokage himself tilting the village's resources your way.
And he was not interested at all?
Hiruzen's smile tightened at the edges.
Ryo curled his lip and cut him off. "Hokage-sama, is there anything else?" The subtext was clear. If not, stop talking. I do not have time to listen to you drone on. I am not keeping you company.
Hiruzen's throat bobbed, he swallowed his irritation. "Heh. This old man is being long-winded."
So you do know you are rambling, huh. Ryo groused inwardly.
"Farewell." Ryo turned on his heel, the wind at his back.
Watching Ryo's departing figure, Hiruzen did not get angry.
Enough. You cannot rush a recruitment. The kid is ultimately Tsunade's student, call him a grand-student of mine.
A temperament like his needs more bonds to guide him.
Time hurried by, and the day of graduation from the Academy arrived.
"Next. Uzumaki Kushina."
The proctor's voice rolled across the training field, carrying a touch of ritual fatigue.
The sunlight was a little harsh, throwing mixed looks of nerves, anticipation, and schadenfreude across the faces of the watching examinees.
Today would decide whether they could wear a forehead protector and become genin.
In the center of the field, a giant bull's-eye had been painted on the ground, with a few crude wooden posts nearby for substitution practice. The air felt tacky, as if sweat and unease had congealed in it.
Red hair blazing like fire, the girl swaggered into the center, chin tipped up, yet her eyes kept straying to the side, to the figure leaning in the shade beneath a tree at the edge of the grounds, arms folded, as if none of this had anything to do with him.
Ryo.
Red hair, silver eyes, gaze deep enough to show nothing.
Others were sweating through their palms and drumming heartbeats on the exam field. He looked like he was sunning himself in the backyard, maybe even bored.
A simple black training outfit set off his straight posture. Yet he radiated a chill that warned strangers away.
"Tch, laying it on cool again," Kushina muttered inside, her cheeks heating for no reason.
This guy, he is easy on the eyes. Why wear that dead-fish face all day?
Although, seeing that profile of him against the tree just now, maybe—
"Focus. Uzumaki Kushina." The proctor tapped his clipboard, impatient.
These cohorts get more and more unruly every year.
"Ah? O-okay." Kushina snapped back to herself, cheeks flushing, and hurried into stance.
She drew a deep breath. Her hands flashed, chakra surged.
"Ninja Art, Substitution."
Bang.
Smoke burst. A wooden post stood where she had been, and Kushina's real body landed neatly on the far side of the bull's-eye.
Crisp execution, deft chakra control. Even the arc her red hair carved through the air had a fierce snap to it.
"Pass." The proctor ticked his notes.
A sprinkling of applause sounded, along with a few audible inhales from some boys. Red hair might mean Uzumaki, but a pretty face is still a pretty face.
Kushina's face bloomed into a broad grin, bright as a sunflower.
She bounced toward the sidelines, straight for that strip of shade beneath the tree.
"Ryo. Look, does this forehead protector look good on me?" Her voice arrived before she did.
Kushina all but collided into Ryo's field of view, standing pertly in front of him, head tilted just so. The brand-new Konoha protector she had just tied to her brow caught the sun and flashed.
Sunshine, clean sweat, and a girl's bright scent washed over him, fresh and dizzying.
"Average. Tighten the knot, it is crooked."
At the edge of the open ground, under a spill of hair bright as the sun, Namikaze Minato held his freshly earned protector. The smile on his face cracked, then froze, like ice breaking over a winter lake.
He watched Kushina lean so close she might as well fall into Ryo's arms. He watched the light in her eyes blaze for Ryo alone. He compared it to Ryo's cool reply.
The metal plate in his palm should have been cold, yet it burned like a brand.
"Heh…" Minato's mouth twitched at his own expense, the smile bitter. Forehead protector? Wear it or not, what does it matter.
A sourness named jealousy and loss wrapped his heart like a snake.
"Tch." Kushina eyed Ryo's return to his ice block act.
Then she spun on her heel and marched off.
"Mikoto. Mikoto. Quick, am I cool or what?"
Kushina looped her arm through that of the black-haired girl just walking down from the other side of the exam field.
Uchiha Mikoto, gentle bearing, sleek dark hair, a delicate face wearing a soft smile like moonlight on a spring. She had just finished her own test, elegant, precise movements, earning a nod from the proctor.
Yet in this moment, her gaze had, without a trace, slipped back from Ryo's direction, carrying a dimness even she had not noticed, and longing.
At Kushina's call, Mikoto startled like a fawn, yanking her eyes away. Something flickered fast in their depths.
She smoothed her skirt on instinct, a flawless gentle smile blooming at once as she cupped her tone in playful praise.
"Wow. My Kushina is obviously the cutest in the whole world." She cupped Kushina's cheeks, her eyes almost entirely pure. "Look at that protector, paired with your red hair, it is dazzling. Like, like the brightest flame gem."
"Of course." Kushina's confidence, dented by Ryo, refilled to the brim in an instant.
"Kushina."
"Do you think, after we graduate, we might end up on the same team? If I could do missions with my best friend, that would be wonderful." Hope glimmered in her eyes. Her voice was gentle.
She truly wanted to be with Kushina.
The words were like a pin, pricking the balloon of Kushina's joy.
Her radiant smile hesitated visibly, then turned a little stiff. Team assignments?
Fighting side by side with your bestie?
For most shinobi, that was a natural hope. For her, it bordered on a fantasy.
Kushina's gaze flickered. The corners of her mouth fought to keep their curve, and still a thread of bitterness crept in.
"Mikoto, I…" she trailed off, ducking the truth as a cold river sluiced through her chest.
That she was a Nine-Tails jinchūriki candidate was top secret. It doomed her path to one starkly different from the average genin's.
A cage, watchful eyes, perhaps a future of never leaving the village for dangerous missions, these shadows never quite went away.
After the bustle fades, loneliness is the deepest undertone.
"I actually hope I am assigned with Ryo." Kushina blurted the truth in a half-sulky tone.
If anyone could make the solitude a little warmer, a little more bearable, it was the guy who scowled beside her day in and day out.
She thought of the favor she had wheedled from Tsunade months ago. Had that perpetually tipsy woman remembered…
"Eh? With me?" Mikoto's heart leapt, like fireworks going off in her chest. A joy she could not name washed away the shame and awkwardness of being seen through.
On the same squad as Ryo-kun?
The thought kicked her heartbeat up again.
She pressed a palm to the near-escaping thing in her chest and kept her face composed, adding a touch of playful sisterly loyalty.
"Well, if we are that lucky, I will make sure to keep a close eye on your treasure for you. I will not let anyone steal him, especially certain…" She left it hanging, then leaned in to whisper, switching with Kushina to the encrypted channel of girl talk, conspiratorial and sugared.
Murmur, murmur. Chirp, chirp.
The two girls huddled together, temple to temple. One snuck shy peeks at Ryo. The other flushed, eyes shining, nodding and smiling and nodding again.
The picture was youth itself.
Ryo snarked at it in his head, but his mood, inexplicably, lifted.
At least that silly girl Kushina had her smile back.
"Next, Kamiyama Ryo."
(To be continued.)