Lunchtime soon arrived, and Takuma lined up at the mess hall with a tray to get his food. As he was waiting in the line, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked back to see the towering figure of Daiki standing behind him with a tray that looked tiny in his large hands,

“I enjoyed the fight in the morning,” smiled Daiki.

“I’m glad you did,” Takuma replied as the line moved up.

“I was thoroughly impressed by how you combated Miss Kameko. We spar regularly, and I’m always perplexed about how to overcome that sword of hers. The way you keep moving around the field to avoid her attacks was inspiring; it’s a feat of footwork not to stumble in the face of an unending assault,” said Daiki.

“Let’s just say not getting cut is enough motivation not to make a mistake.”

“On the contrary, don’t you think the pressure would push people to make mistakes?”

Takuma glanced back at Daiki. “Do you know what separates good fighters from great ones? The ability to operate under pressure. Between the two people possessing the same combat level, the one able to function the same under pressure will always be superior.”

His experience in the Ring had taught him that. Many fighters would buckle under the pressure when they had a long win streak on the line, when a lot of money was riding on them in the betting pools, or when they were scheduled for a fight on a special fight night.

Takuma preferred the pressure.

It was deeply uncomfortable, but that’s what kept him on the thin line.

“Well said,” Daiki nodded.

“So what does Team-9 do on a daily basis?” asked Takuma. In his attempt to build a good rapport with Anko by making himself look like a desirable shinobi, he had forgotten to ask her what they did in the camp.

“Most days, not much. Each team only gets deployed for missions once, at most twice a month. When we aren’t preparing for missions, the day is usually slow. If you don’t have patrol, guard, or other duties, you are usually free to do anything unless the team leader has something else planned for you…. Life at Camp Banana is slow until it’s not.”

“Is that so,” Takuma hummed. From the looks of it, they had ample free time, which was great for Takuma as he needed free time to go through and practice his newly bought genjutsu. “Well, Anko offered to train, so I guess I will have something to go to every day,” he said.

“E-Eh,” Daiko cleared his throat, “training with Anko? Did you, by chance, take her up on the offer?”

“Of course, it’s not every day one gets to train under a chunin,” said Takuma. He had been training genjutsu under a jonin for almost a year, but that didn’t make him desensitized to guidance from chunin.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Daiki’s eyebrow twitched.

“Would you like to join me for the training?” Takuma offered. “I would also like to train with everyone so I can familiarize myself with how everyone operates. I’m sure Anko wouldn’t mind. It would be good for our teamwork.”

“A-Ah, I appreciate the offer, Takuma. I truly do. But I very much prefer to train alone,” said Daiki.

Takuma was disappointed, but he understood that everyone had their own methods.

“No worries, the invitation will remain open; you can join me anytime.”

Both of them got their food and searched for a place to sit. The serving area of the Mess was a huge tent placed adjacent to a building used as the kitchen.

“There’s space there, let’s go,” Takuma pointed to a table with people that had two chairs free. He wanted to converse and introduce himself to people outside his team.

Daiki placed a hand on Takuma’s shoulder and shook his head. “Let’s go there,” he pointed at an empty table in the corner of the tent.

Takuma noticed Daiki’s expression and didn’t argue. But when they sat down, Takuma asked the question, “May I ask why?”

“Because our chunin lead is Anko,” Daiki said as he poked his food with the chopsticks.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Takuma.

“Most people here aren’t fond of Anko,” Daiki said, his voice barely above a whisper. “It’s…. are you aware of her jonin teacher?”

Takuma didn’t need to be told any further.

“Orochimaru, yes, I know,” he said, but unlike Daiki, he didn’t lower his voice. “No need to say anymore, I understand. It’s fucking stupid behavior by a bunch of mindless sheeple.” He didn’t bother looking back to see if anyone was listening to him.

He had grown in the era of social media. In the chronically online world, the concept of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ didn’t exist, and people operated on frontier justice—misinformation could ruin a person’s life because the internet full of people hiding behind their screens and handles assumed that everything on the internet was true and deem the person guilty even if they were not. Of course, not all victims of internet frontier justice were innocent, and the justice system wasn’t perfect, but the moronic people with brains full of internet rot would jump on pouring their hate on a person from the second they saw what resembled damning evidence. The stupidity could be quelled by researching for a few minutes, but no one was willing to do that much before making up their minds.

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This world didn’t have the internet, and if someone wanted to say something brain-dead, they could do so but, in turn, get punched in the face for it.

Takuma loved that.

And while he didn’t mind people being suspicious of a criminal’s friends and acquaintances—he, too, would be—but much time had passed since Orochimaru was declared a rogue, and Anko was declared innocent of any involvement in his dealings. But if people still thought that she was to blame…

“Fuck ‘em all. Let’s eat,” said Takuma. “After this, maybe we can go meet Iori? I wasn’t able to talk to her yesterday.”

“That’s a fine plan,” Daiki nodded.

———

.

After the meal, Takuma and Daiki went to meet Iori.

“Perhaps I should have coordinated with everyone so we could have lunch together,” said Takuma.

“Miss Iori doesn’t usually partake in lunch. You will only see her in the Mess during breakfast and the evening supper. She’s a light eater.” Daiki took out a pocket watch, which looked equally tiny in his hand as everything else. “I believe she will be awake by now.”

“By now?”

It was already past noon. Takuma, in his previous life, had times when he considered opening his eyes before noon as blasphemy, but all the people were active shinobi on a battlefront. He had woken up at six in the morning and was going to do so every day unless he had night guard duty.

“Miss Iori’s sleep schedule is unusual. She sleeps four to five hours twice, so while it may appear as though she is lazy, Miss Iori may as well be the hardest worker in this entire camp.”

“If I remember correctly, she is a fuinjutsu specialist,” Takuma looked at Daiki.

“Indeed. Miss Iori is an incredibly knowledgeable person with great skill when it comes to the sealing arts. Anko was quite happy with Miss Iori’s assignment to the team.”

Takuma nodded. A fuin-nin had great utility, and were one of the most sought after shinobi for their services—moreover, they earned the same if not more than iryo-nin if they were good at their craft.

“Speaking of our teammates, it’s shameful on my part, but I never got the name of our final teammate,” said Takuma. Anko’s Team-9 had five genin— Takuma, Kameko, Daiki, Iori, and the final unnamed one.

“Ah, Miss Rikku. She was there in the morning to witness the fight.”

“I couldn’t’ve recognized her,” said Takuma. “What is she like?”

“Miss Rikku… is stubborn. She means well, but she can be quite stalwart when it comes to her own opinion. There’s no gray—only black and white. But do not worry, she is a straightforward kunoichi who doesn’t like, as she would put it, ‘bullshit’— so as long as you don’t do that, I believe both of you will get along splendidly.”

“And what is this ‘bullshit’ she doesn’t like?”

Daiki scratched his cheek. “That I believe you will understand when you meet her,” he said.

Takuma quirked his brow before shrugging.

They reached the girl’s house, and unlike Anko, who shouted in the streets, Daiki properly knocked on the door. The one who opened the door was Iori. Unlike yesterday, when the dark circles were as dark as charcoal, today they were lighter and seemed as though she had gotten some well-needed sleep.

Iori smiled upon seeing Takuma,

“It’s nice to meet you, Takuma. I apologize for yesterday; I was simply not in the mental and physical condition to greet you properly,” she said.

“Please, there’s no need for apologies. I heard from Daiki that your sleep schedule is unique. May I ask why?”

“To be honest, I don’t know. It somehow ended up like that when I came here. I’m trying to get it back to normal, but there’s this entire thing where I work better at night,” she sighed, “they give me too much work. I’m going to complain about it to Anko.”

“Your work?” he asked.

“Primarily helping the quartermaster with the production of explosive tags,” she said. “It’s tough and tiring work, but in return, I don’t have to do any of the usual duties. It’s probably not a great trade-off, but hey, at least I get some serious practice.”

According to Iori, Camp Banana got the majority of its supplies from the village, but because they had fuin-nin and iryo-nin on site, the supplies included raw materials to turn into supplies they desired, depending on demand.

“I wasn’t there to watch the fight, but congratulations on winning. I’m impressed that you were able to win against Kameko.” Iori giggled as she pointed back to the house. “She’s in there sulking. It’s the second time I saw her like this…. Would you like to talk to her?”

Takuma shook his head. “I already talked to her in the medical house…. However, I would like to meet Rikku if she’s available. I haven’t been able to introduce myself.”

“Ah, Rikku is out training. Maybe you can find her during the dinner service?” she said.

“If I’m not mistaken, Rikku is a combat-forward shinobi. Seeing that she’s training must mean she takes her job quite seriously,” said Takuma.

Takuma knew a lot of people who didn’t train regularly.

Iori laughed. “That she does. But it’s more like she can’t stand still and needs to use up all the energy in her small package.”

Daiki smiled as he nodded.

It was little, but Takuma was able to imagine his final teammate. And he was able to properly introduce himself to three of his teammates even if one of them didn’t like him much (the feeling was mutual).

Only one remained.

However, Takuma wasn’t able to meet Rikku that day.

———

.

Early in the morning, Takuma stood in a farm field. It was six-thirty in the morning; the sun was up, but the air was chilly. Being a resident of the Hidden Leaf, which had a much warmer climate, Takuma felt the cold seep into his body. He had packed some warm clothes, but because he was training, he only wore a shirt and shorts.

Standing in front of him was Anko, dressed in a similar fashion, but unlike him, the cold didn’t seem to bother her. She had a smile on her face and had her arms folded in front of her.

“Are you ready for training, Takuma?” she said.

“As ready as I ever will be,” he replied.

“Good.”

Anko leaned down and picked up something beside her, and threw it towards him. As it flew towards him, Takuma recognized it to be an armor-vest along with something else that he wasn’t able to pinpoint. Before he could guess, the armor vest landed on the ground near his feet.

Thud.

“Hmm?” The sound was wrong.

Takuma leaned down to pick the vest up but wasn’t able to because it was unexpectedly heavy. As he put in more strength, his eyes widened, as his arms strained as he lifted the vest.

And he realized what Anko meant by giving him the vest.

“No way, you gotta be kidding me,” he said to her.

“Step-One, you will not remove those as long as you’re awake and not on missions,” she said.

Takuma looked down, and beside the vest, Anko had thrown what were clearly ankle and wrist weights.

Before they even covered an hour of training, Takuma took back what he said about being ready.