“They know about the scroll,” Hazō confidently told Inoue-sensei. “Every single one of the adults looks ill-at-ease when I ask too many questions about how the village was founded. But they all say their founder just happened to want to retire here.”

Inoue-sensei nodded. “We’re going to have to be more subtle. I’ll give it some thought. Now, you said you had something else you wanted to show me?”

“Yes, Inoue-sensei. Right this way.”

It was an open question whether the jōnin was actually surprised by the “Happy Birthday, Inoue Mari!” banner slung across the Multiple Earth Walls of the mini-fort, but she certainly acted like she’d never expected anything of the sort.

“You guys!” she said gratefully. “You remembered!”

Hazō cleared his throat. He’d requested, then insisted, then finally begged that somebody else make the speech, but for some reason the rest of the team had an iron-hard conviction that he had to be the one to do it. Well, he’d have his revenge at the next planning meeting.

“Inoue-sensei,” he began, “ever since we met you’ve always been by our side. You’ve supported us in our times of need, you’ve taught us much of what we know about being a ninja, and you’ve risked your life more than once to save ours. For many if not all of us…” Hazō hesitated. “You’ve… you’ve become not only a friend and a teacher, but you’ve become something like a big sister…”

Was he just seeing things, or did Keiko flinch?

“You’ve become family,” Hazō concluded.

Inoue-sensei blinked rapidly. “I… I… that is…

“You guys!” she finally said, having apparently given up on anything more coherent.

It was possibly the first time anyone had seen her so flustered.

“And in honour of that bond,” Hazō went on, “we have a present for you.”

Keiko stepped forward, holding out a round iron pendant with a spiralling pattern reminiscent of the common symbol for genjutsu. Three gemstones were set into the pendant, following the curve of the spiral.

A garnet with the traditional character 赤 inscribed above it. Then a white moonstone with the character 毛. Then a blue moonstone with the character の. And finally, in the middle of the pendant with no stone, the character 刃.

The gems had been the hardest part to obtain, Hazō recalled. Had it not been for Kagome’s mineral knowledge, Noburi’s persuasive abilities, Akane’s natural charm and Hazō’s ice-cold intimidation, there was no way they’d have been able to find an affordable set without being cheated three ways to Sunday. As for the design, once the team had established the basic parameters, the rest had all been Keiko.

And since Keiko had been responsible for the final design, there was also a carefully-made (and thus unreasonably expensive) cover, for when Inoue-sensei didn’t want anyone to know there was an inscription on the pendant, or (as Keiko had observed) when she didn’t want to be a woman walking around poor areas wearing jewellery with sparkling gemstones. Nobody looked twice at a plain iron pendant.

Inoue-sensei stared down at the gift. “Akage no Ha,” she said. “Redheaded Blade. That’s so…”

Then she looked down at the characters again, and sounded them out individually. “Aka. Ke. No. Ha.”

She looked up, and her voice probably wasn’t really trembling.

“Line up in order of age. Now.”

“Wait, Inoue-sensei!” Hazō exclaimed quickly. “There’s one more thing.”

He nodded to Kagome-sensei, who had been lurking in the shadows looking increasingly awkward.

Kagome-sensei slowly shuffled forward, then held out his cupped hands to Inoue-sensei.

Inoue-sensei reached in and pulled out a very slim wooden chain, hand-carved and sized—of course—to fit the loop of the pendant. As she held it up to the light, the team noticed something Kagome-sensei hadn’t warned them about—fine black tracery running through the chain in a complex pattern. If that was what Hazō thought it was, it must have taken weeks of work to adapt it to the new form.

“Didn’t want to put my name where someone might see it,” Kagome-sensei muttered. “Used my signature seal instead.”

Inoue-sensei simply stared.

“Five-metre-radius implosion, variable timer. Happy birthday.”

Inoue-sensei didn’t respond, but merely waved him in the direction of the queue.

Noburi, first in line, turned bright red at Inoue-sensei’s sudden and intense hug, right around the moment he came into contact with her chest, but then seemed to relax into it (the hug, not the chest), and gave a happy smile.

Hazō was second. Somehow he didn’t feel as uncomfortable being hugged by Inoue-sensei as he'd expected. It was warm, and affectionate… and surprisingly tight. He could sense a brief twitching motion, which he suspected was Inoue-sensei reaching up to ruffle his hair and then resisting through an epic feat of willpower. Either that, or it was a hallucination brought on by increasing oxygen deprivation.

“Ino… sen… can’t… breathe…”

Inoue-sensei finally disengaged, and moved on to her next target.

Keiko was third, and that made Inoue-sensei hesitate. Instead, she leaned over and whispered something in Keiko's ear. Try as he might, Hazō couldn't overhear a syllable (curse that infiltration-spec training), but he could see Keiko's eyes glint in response.

Akane was fourth, and when Inoue-sensei opened her arms for a hug, she bounced over in an enthusiastic fashion that somehow made Hazō think of a very friendly dog. Their hug was passionate, from both sides, though not very long.

Last came Kagome-sensei, who looked like he had no idea what to do with his hands while being hugged, or indeed with the rest of him. Finally he ended up holding Inoue-sensei around the waist, which didn’t look wholly comfortable due to the height difference.

After releasing Kagome, Inoue-sensei took a few steps back, and looked at them all in turn.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Kids,” she eventually said, “and Kagome. I think I must be going crazy, because you’re making me feel glad that I became a missing-nin. Thank you.”

After a few seconds, Noburi broke, or at least shifted, the mood. “Say, Inoue-sensei, I’ve got an idea for one more thing that I think would fit your birthday very nicely.”

o-o-o-o

The team watched Takahashi the village ninja’s expression with glee as he took in the scene he encountered at the edge of the camp.

Inoue-sensei reclined on a padded Earth Wall chaise longue as Hazō gave her a shoulder rub while Noburi massaged her feet. To the side, Keiko and one of Noburi's clones gently wafted cool air over her with a single humongous palm leaf (which was to say Akane under the Transformation Technique), while Kagome fed her freshly-gathered berries from a wooden bowl.

Inoue-sensei turned languorously towards Takahashi and gave him a lazy smile. “What’s wrong? Is this not how they treat off-duty senior ninja in your village?”

It was Day Zero of the cultural revolution in the Village of Isan.

o-o-o-o

Noburi paused in his treatment of the injured ninja. “We’re nearly done. Hand me the yellow vial from my medikit, would you, Shō?”

The young boy snapped out of his fascination with the magical green glow coming off the medic-nin’s hands. “Here you are, sir!”

Noburi nodded approvingly. “Good. Now, this bit is going to be really sensitive, and I mustn’t be disturbed, so we want as few people around as possible. Can you go stand outside and make sure nobody comes in until I give the all-clear?”

Shō nodded excitedly. “You can count on me, sensei!”

Noburi allowed himself a smile. Then he carefully poured a third of the vial’s contents into his patient’s mouth and waited.

Two minutes later, there was still no change in the patient’s condition. Noburi held his breath. After three, you’d know something had gone wrong. Could he have prepared the mixture incorrectly? Were the herbs the wrong degree of potency? Maybe the patient had some obscure condition with no visible symptoms?

Thirty seconds. There wasn’t supposed to be any actual risk to the patient’s health. Noburi had checked his notes several times over.

Twenty seconds. Oh, hell. He was going to die. The patient was going to die, and Noburi was going to have failed as a medic-nin and all hell would break loose in the village.

Ten seconds. Come on, you can do this. Please.

Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

The ninja groaned as he drifted awake at literally the last possible safe moment. “Isss ev’thin’ okaaaay, doc?” he slurred.

Noburi nodded reassuringly, hiding the overwhelming relief from his face. “Everything’s fine. You’re nearly ready for the last step, but it’ll take a little time for the medicine to take full effect. Why don’t we chat for a bit while we wait?”

“Yoouuu knowww bessst, doc…”

“So tell me about your village,” Noburi said. “When I was down in Tonaki, they said you guys were sacred guardians, but I still don’t really get what that means.”

“Ohh…” the ninja said after a little thought. “Youuuu meeean the sssscroll, riiight? We beeeen guaaarding the ssssscroll forever. ‘s a ssssseeeecret, though. Youuu won’t tell no-oooone, right, doc?”

“Would I do that to you?” Noburi asked in his most trustworthy voice, praising the heavens for a village where no one bothered with (or perhaps knew about) anti-interrogation training. “So this scroll must be very well hidden in case someone tries to steal it, right?”

“Ha,” the ninja barked. “’s juuuussssst in the sssshriiine near the peeeak, y’know. Sssuuuure, there’s traaaapssss, but the guaaard’s a joke. ‘s nothin’ but sera… sero… oh, yeaaaah, ceremoniiiiial nooow. They ssssaaaay in the old daaays they’d keeeep a dozen ninja guaaaarding it at aaaalll times, y’know.”

“Is that all?” Noburi said with emphatic surprise. “Aren’t there any other defences to protect anything so important?”

“Weeeeelll,” the ninja said, “those sssstuck-uuuup pigs in the eeeelder council don’t think I’m sssseeeenior enooough t’ know all the sssecrets, but’s not liiiiike anyone can uuuse it even if they steeeeal it. Ssssseeeealssss, y’know. Beeeeen working on them generaaaaations, but no idea hoooow…”

The patient lost consciousness, but that was all right. Noburi had everything he needed.

o-o-o-o

“Amazing job, Noburi,” Inoue-sensei congratulated him as the team finished listening to his report. “Also a bit scary. I had no idea you’d progressed so far with your training.”

Noburi shrugged. “My master was a contact of Jiraiya’s. It’s not surprising she knew some tricks designed for spycraft.

“You know,” he added, looking contemplatively in the direction of the girls, “having a kid help out with the treatments made my life a lot easier. I know we couldn’t take one from the village, but—“

“Noburi, stop,” Inoue-sensei said quietly but firmly, somehow appearing right next to his ear.

“But I was just—“

“Noburi, I am a highly-trained master of reading and predicting social interactions. I know every possible way you could end that sentence, and trust me, none of them work out well for you.”

With that, Inoue-sensei began to walk away.

“Is something the matter, Wakahisa?” Akane asked curiously.

Behind her, Inoue-sensei turned around, looked down at Noburi’s groin and put her index and middle fingers in an ambiguous shape that might have been the Seal of Reconciliation, or might not. Then she made a sharp slicing motion that wasn’t ambiguous at all.

Noburi gulped.

“Not a thing, Ishihara. Not a thing.”