Today’s training was pretty light on account of our mission. It was meant to keep up routine and nothing more. We didn’t have to report back in the afternoon—Asuma told us to get our affairs in order, like preparing camping equipment, buying mission-specific clothes… and writing wills. They made us practise writing wills in the Academy, but it was different back then.

No one was actually at any real risk of death at school.

Writing a will was standard procedure when going on an out-of-village mission, no matter what rank. Who knew what might happen after leaving the walls of the village? The world was a dangerous place and even though we weren’t leaving the country, any number of tragedies could be lying in wait between the Leaf Village and Tenka Village.

And while I was writing my will, I was confronted with the fact that I didn’t have much to leave behind or many people to leave my possessions to. All my savings would go to Ayame and Teuchi—which at this point was no more than 600,000 ryo after years of saving—and my house, alongside anything inside besides a diary written in English, would go to whichever orphan needed it.

The experience at least helped get my head on straight. My attitude to death was anything but cavalier. There was nothing quite like the feeling of your life slipping away, but then again, it wasn’t exactly common to die by stabbing back on Earth.

However, it was just Tuesday here and an occupational hazard in my line of work.

My job was to avoid that hazard as best as I could, which meant making sure my knives were as sharp as possible to avoid an encore of my first death. Since money wasn’t a concern, I’d had the bright idea to have a separate stash of weapons for missions, which I used for training—plus, my equipment was already pretty worn after years of use.

So, that afternoon, I ventured to the village's western side under my disguise as Totsugi. I’d struck up something of a rapport with the blacksmith under that disguise ever since I revealed Asuma had recommended I shop there for my “son”. Just the assurance that I—who had come under a jonin’s recommendation—would recommend the smithy to others was enough to get a further reduction when buying things in bulk.

And buying things in bulk was exactly what I was there to do.

I greeted the front-of-house worker and the owner’s apprentice. “Heya, Miss Kuwahara.”

“Lay off with the formality, goddamn it,” she grunted with a roll of her eyes. “At this point, you’re as good as family.”

“Will calling you by your first name get me a discount?”

She snorted and adjusted her apron, the movement sending ripples across her impressively muscled arms. “Nope, you’re already buying things discounted as is, but it might get you something nice if I like how you say it.”

“Goddamn it, Hotaru!” Seto came grumbling from the open-doored forge, and his thick grey beard shuddered with every word. “Stop flirtin’ with anything that moves and get to work—and hello, kid. You look well.”

“Thanks, Mr Seto. My son’s been sending me on errands all week, but I’ve been alright besides that.”

“Believe me, I know how that feels.” He shook his head and sent his daughter a look. “She turns twenty-one this year, and I’m still going about this damned village buying things for her. At my age? She’s got no shame, I tell you. If she wasn’t a half-decent smith…”

Hotaru skipped back out of her father’s path with a cheeky grin; their dynamic was strange but amusing. Seto Kuwahara was a strange old man who didn’t seem to care much about anything besides smithing and his daughter. The story goes that he found her on his doorstep one night with no explanation.

He was going to take her to one of the nearby orphanages but somewhere along the line, he had a change of heart and decided to raise her instead. The local community disapproved of someone like him raising a girl, but he did it anyway, and she came out perfectly fine and turned out to have a knack for metalworking.

Even if she was a notorious flirt.

It also helped to have someone easy on the eyes as your front-of-house staff rather than a crotchety, old man. The only reason he’d eased up on me was because of Asuma and my being a repeat customer.

Even then, getting under his titanium exterior was difficult enough.

“You here for your son again?” Seto asked, wiping the sweat from his brow with a worn rag.

“He goes on his first C-rank tomorrow. I thought it’d be smart to have a separate set of weapons for his missions and training, so I came to you.”

“Roger that. You’ll be wanting the full set of shuriken and kunai?” At my nod, he relayed the order to Hotaru louder than needed, considering she was less than four metres away. “Know what, I’ll throw in a complementary set of senbon for the occasion—free of charge.”

I eyed him across the counter. “That’s out of character.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Oi.” He looked away but couldn’t hide the slight flush on his face.

“You can’t blame me,” the grin slipped on my face without thinking, “I’m just saying, all my other attempts at weaselling a little extra out of you were met with a resounding, “Screw off, kid.”

“Had to make a decent number of senbon for an order, but I hadn’t made ‘em for a while, so I decided to make more than needed to get back into shape.” He looked at the clock on the wall. “They should be arriving today to collect it.”

Right on cue, the smithy’s old door creaked open.

“Totsugi?”

I mirrored the look of surprise on the entrant’s face.

“Rukia?”

“Uh…” I floundered for a few seconds but managed to collect myself before she did. “How’s your father’s farm doing? Last time you were here, you said he’d managed to expand, right?”

She smiled. “That’s right.”

“That’s good. What brings you to the Leaf this time?”

“I’m here for more tools. We’ve managed to hire some extra hands, which means more equipment—one moment.” Rukia approached the counter. “I’m here to collect Order No. 356, sir.”

Seto backtracked into the smithy but stopped mid-step. “Hotaru!”

“What?” she yelled back.

“I’m handing the kid over to you.”

He vanished into the smithy, and I left Rukia at the counter to walk across the room.

Hotaru smirked. “I ain’t complaining.”

“Right.” I chuckled. “The order was one set of kunai and shuriken plus a free set of senbon. I didn’t get a discount, but an extra set of weapons for my kid is just as good.”

“That’ll be 25,000 ryo.” She boxed the weapons up for me and placed them into a bag. “Come back again sometime, by the way. I haven’t seen you around for months.”

“By your tone of voice, a guy might think you’ve missed him.”

“Maybe I have,” she said with a wink

I grinned and swiped the bag. “Not making any promises, but I’ll try.”

Rukia watched the exchange between us and fired off a question the minute I reached her. “Are you and her…”

“A thing?” I snorted. “No. She likes to flirt is all.”

She accepted my reply with a thoughtful nod and Seto returned with various tools bundled into his arms and a case placed perilously on top. I helped by plucking it off the uneven metal mountain and putting it on the counter. Rukia slid a weathered bundle of notes across the table and shrugged off the open straw backpack slung across her shoulders.

She placed the farming tools inside and Seto opened the case, revealing a set of senbon.

“It’s for treating my father,” she said when she caught me staring. “I do acupuncture for my village to make some extra money. I don’t have a licence from one of the fancy schools in the capital, but I study under the village’s doctor when I can spare the time.”

I accepted her reason with a quiet nod.

She placed the case into a cloth bag and bowed slightly to Seto and then Hotaru.

“Thank you very much.”

“No, young miss, thank you for buying my wares,” the old man said with a grunt.

Her gaze travelled around the room and returned to me, obvious regret twisting her smile. “I’d love to catch up, Totsugi, but I’m travelling back with a merchant caravan that will pass through my village and they’ll be leaving soon.”

I waved off her concern. “Don’t worry about it, Rukia. Go catch that caravan.”

She shot me a grateful smile and ran out of the shop as fast as her burden would allow. I left at a slower pace, enjoying the late afternoon breeze as I eyed the stalls. Eventually, I went home and dropped off the stuff before changing clothes and heading to Ramen Ichiraku.

I hadn’t broken the news to Ayame and Teuchi yet.

Seeing that it was later on in the afternoon, the shop wasn’t so busy—in fact, it was empty, so it made sense why Ayame was taking the opportunity to wipe down the countertop.

“Ayame!”

Ayame looked up and a radiant grin exploded across her face. She dropped the rag on the countertop and emerged around the building. “Look who’s finally decided to show his face around here. Your last shift was a few days ago, you know, but no one said you couldn’t stop by.”

“I know, I know.” I relaxed into the hug. “But I’m not a kid anymore—I’m a shinobi now. I can’t spend the day as I’d like, and believe me, there’s nothing I’d love more than to spend time with the two of you.”

Her face softened at my words—but only until the gears started turning in her head. “The jury’s still out on the not-being-a-kid part.”

“I’ll have you know that I’m a legal adult.”

“Grow taller than five-foot-six, and I’ll believe it.”

“I’ll get there… eventually.”

We entered the building through the back entrance and went upstairs to the living area, bickering all the way. I couldn’t help the pang in my chest as we walked down the familiar, creaky hallway. While my apartment was legally my home, Ichiraku felt more like home than anywhere else.

Teuchi was in the living room, flicking through a novel over half-moon glasses. The window was open all the way to allow some air in, and the portable fan was on full blast and placed in a corner of the room.

“Dad, look who’s here.”

“Hello, Naruto!” The cheer in his voice was more than obvious in the way he was grinning. “Give me a moment to finish this chapter. I’ll have your favourite whipped up before you can say your name.”

“Ramen would be nice, but we need to talk first.” Slipping off my shoes before the carpet, I took a seat on the couch. “I think you might want to sit down for this, Ayame.”

The two shared a glance and the fan in the room was especially loud for some reason. I let out an internal sigh as the awkwardness set in—I hadn’t even said anything yet!

“Uh… I’ve got an announcement to make.” I winced at my voice crack. Ayame and Teuchi—bless their souls—hid their smiles at the sound but didn’t tease me about it. “I’m going on a mission tomorrow.”

I paused to let the weight of that sink in.

Ayame gave me a blank stare. “So? You go on missions all the time.”

“That’s not what he means,” said Teuchi, looking uncharacteristically serious. “Naruto was over the moon when he told us about going on his first mission, even if it was a menial D-rank. You’re going on your first mission outside of the Leaf, aren’t you?”

I nodded grimly.