Disclaimer: I do not own any of the works of fiction of the authors whose story, characters, and setting I have borrowed to take on this mental joy ride of mine. Them's be facts.

"I cannot stress to you enough, gentlemen, the importance of the task I lay before you. I do not care what projects or on-going missions you must put on hold to accomplish this, I do not care if you must recruit the rest of your division to see it through, I do not care if you must turn the entirety of the Rukongai on its head and search for the next fifty years! You must accomplish what I ask of you today!

You are to track down a man last sighted within District 39 and request he accompany you to an audience with me. According to what little information I've managed to gather over the years, he is known to wander aimlessly throughout the districts with no known home or base of operations. He is an adept in masking his reiatsu signature, so I've included his description within the mission docket as well as all known locations that he seems to frequent. I'm afraid you'll have to depend on some detective work.

Truthfully my wish is to go and meet with him personally, but there is far too much to accomplish within the walls of the Seireitei, currently, to justify my leaving my post. Certain… third party influences, say, that belabor me with things I wish to otherwise… delegate elsewhere. Pah! It matters not! Find him and bring him to me!

I desire to make an offer to him."

"Okay. That was pretty weird. I don't think I've ever seen the old man that agitated over a single soul. What do you think, Juushiro? You're better at sensing things than I am, have you felt any above-average disturbances?"

"Not lately, at least, not anywhere near District 39. There was one about eighty years back strong enough to break me from meditation, but that was out near 57, and it died out almost immediately. Have you heard tell of anyone of great note from the patrons of the bars, Shunsui?"

"Well the grapevine did clue me in on this one girl who, and this is second-hand information, mind you, but who does this thing with her tongue that- oh come one, you don't have to look so offended! Alright, fine, sticking to business; no, none of my ears in the Districts beyond have picked up on anything or anyone one that sticks out. At least, none that are blonde and over six feet."

"A pity, that might have made for a better starting point than just tracking down his signature… oh well, beggars can't be choosers, I suppose."

"Aww come on, do you have to keep bringing that up? It was one time, Juushiro, one time!"

"Hey, I think I might see him! A year is certainly longer than I'd have liked but, hey, not so bad considering how large the Districts are. Excuse me, sir? Sir, yes you, sir, I'm Ukitake Juushiro, Third Seat of the 13th- hey, wait, don't walk away!"

"Juushiro, he's just a new soul, don't tell me you lost him!"

"I swear, he was right there!"

"Well where the hell did he go?"

"I'm not sure, he hit the crowd gathered around the persimmons stand and disappeared. Uh, gosh, I guess I'll go left and you go right? See if he cut to the street over through an alley, I'll check through the vendors."

"Hold up Juushiro, that's him, isn't it?!"

"He's certainly tall enough… yeah, and he's got that pipe that everyone sees him with! You're faster than me Shunsui, grab him! Quickly!"

"Alright buddy, we don't want any trouble we're just wanting to tal- wait, what the shit? What is… a scarecrow?! Juushiro, what do I do, he turned into a scarecrow!"

"That's not him, Shunsui, that's him crossing into the calligraphy shop!"

"But I- I had him- I just grabbed- hey! Hey, buddy! Wait up!"

"Okay, four years, still not bad, now we just need to…"

"… grab him! Grab him Shunsui!"

"Don't worry Juushiro, I chased him into this alley, it dead ends after a ten feet! Yeah, there he is, trapped like a rat, heh. Alright listen up, pal, I've had the old man breathing down my neck for ten damn years trying to find you. I don't care how interested you claim to be in finding or recreating this Mount Myo-whatever sake that you've been carrying on about, you're coming with us."

"Shunsui…"

"Not now, Juushiro, I'm making a cool speech. Besides, we've spent too damn long tracking this guy down, I haven't been able to just sit and relax in a decade!"

"Shunsui, he-"

"A decade, Juushiro! I haven't been able to talk to any of the ladies without the old man showing up and ruining the mood with his demands of finding this guy! Do you have any idea what it's doing to my reputation?!"

"No, look, Shunsui, I mean he's-"

"Can it, Juushiro! I'll fight him if I have to! You hear that, pal?! Come peacefully or else! Turn around, guy! Buddy! Friend? Wait, is that a…"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you! He was there for a second and in the next that scarecrow was here instead!"

"… Mother fucker."

"I told you that tacky hat would just get in the way…"

"I've got my eye on you now, fella! No running off now, you're coming with us!"

"Shunsui, calm down. You've never been quick to anger, don't let it control you now. We need to keep our cool here, we're just talking."

"There is no "cool" to be kept, Juushiro! Twenty years! Twenty years, and nine scarecrows! Twenty years, and not a drop of sake in ten of them! Twenty years with this reputation of a magically-appearing bearded cockblock showing up as soon as I step into the Lounge! He is not getting away this time!"

"Getting away from what? Give me a break, I thought the two of you would have got the message by now. I just want to be left alone."

"My apologies, sir, my friend here is just a little… frustrated that you've been so difficult to track down."

"Yeah, again, for a reason. Whatever it is you've been selling, I'm not buying. Find someone else to bother, I've got a sunset to paint."

"Oh-ho-ho no, nope, sorry friend, it's not going to work that way, not this time. See, sunsets are fine and dandy, but you've got a date with our Boss, see, and if the old man says he needs to be seeing you, well, you'll be going and seeing him."

"Shunsui! Not helping!"

"Your boss? What are you, some kinda wannabe-samurai yakuza? Sorry, let me correct myself, I am super not interested in hanging around with yaks. Especially if it involves dating an old man, hard pass."

"We're not yakuza, sir, we're actually Shinigami? From the Seireitei? And Yamato-taicho, he's really wanting to have an audience with you, so if you could just come with us and-"

"That's nice and all, Silver-san, but we're burning daylight here and sunsets don't just paint themselves. Ja ne!"

"What did I say about leaving, buddy?! You're coming with us!"

"Shunsui. Wait, don't stab him!"

"Take this! Wait. What the fuck?! Another scarecrow?! I'll kill him when I find him!"

"This is really starting to give me a headache. Shunsui, please, let me do the talking from now on."

"Look here, blondie! Feast your eyes upon a bonafide beauty of the Seireitei!"

"This is what you dragged me out to the 17th District for?! Shunsui, I have work and training to accomplish if I am to graduate. I appreciate your interest in scouting me from the Academy for placement within your division, but I am not going to stand for your showing me off to your degenerate friends!"

"Nanao-chan, my beautiful, my darling, I told you, this is work!"

"Did you really think I'd be convinced to come along with you by parading a stuck-up desk jockey with a nagging habit in front of me?"

"What did he just say?!"

"Better luck next time, Repressed-san!"

"Wait, no!"

"Team One, are you in position? Team Two? Good, good. Alright, stay frosty people; Team Three, keep sharp on those rooftops. Vice-Captain Kyotake and I are going to attempt to speak with him, but the target has a penchant for disappearing on us. We don't know what route he may take to escape and, personally speaking, I wish an end to this 50-year wild goose chase. Team Four, tighten up on the end there, I need those alleyways covered. Maintain current posture and remain vigilant! We're going in."

"Juushiro, you're a genius. Absolutely brilliant. There is no way he's getting out of it this time. Why didn't we think of this from the start?"

"Because neither of us wanted to make it public knowledge that two Fifth Seat officers were having trouble tracking down a soul in the Rukongai, and it only became more embarrassing when we were promoted to Third Seats."

"Oh. Oh yeah."

"Shunsui, I think this might be it. Look at him. He's just lying there, napping. I don't think that pipe is even lit. I usually don't want to preempt things with a toast but… get ready with that District 10 Special Reserve."

"Already cooling in my office, Juushiro-sama."

"Did you just salute me…? Never mind, doesn't matter, let's do this. Hey! Excuse me! Yes, a pleasure to meet you once more, sorry to interrupt your leisure time but you always seem to be busy when we meet. I humbly request that you hear us out."

"Hey Juushiro, you don't have to bow to the guy…"

"You two, again? I gotta say, fellas, this is really starting to get on my nerves. Look, I don't want any girls or noble duties or whatever you're peddling these days. I just wish to be left in peace. That Seireitei place you two go on about looks pretty posh, sure, but I'm a simple kind of Rukon-guy, you see what I'm sayin'?"

"Hey, I wasn't trying to sell Nanao-chan-"

"Shunsui, please, allow me. I understand your desire to remain a non-entity, honored sir, but I really must insist that you accompany us to the Seireitei. You are under no obligation to stay, we simply wish to take you to an audience with the Sotaicho. He has been waiting to see you for fifty-four years now and, as patient as he may be, he truly is not a man to be kept waiting so long."

"Well that's very kind of him, but if he's so interested in little old me, he can come and speak with me himself. Besides, you all seem to be doing a fine job of keeping the peace or whatever it is you yaks do. I don't see how my coming along with you is going to change much."

"Oh, but we do far more than that. We are not simple peace keepers, though that does fall amongst our duties. We are a force of balance, a force of good to the world below! It is the duty, nay, the honor of the Seireitei to venture forth and deliver vengeance unto the Hollows, foul spirits that they are, those that would prey upon the innocent and recently-deceased. Equally so to find and usher those same errant souls into the fold, to save them from the terrors they would become!"

"The world below? The world of the living, you mean? And what is it that you save those souls from?"

"From obliteration. Worse, from transforming into the same damned spirits that we so combat."

"These "Hollows", as you say?"

"Yes, the Hollows. Dread-masked beings that devour those unwary souls we are not able to reach. It removes them from the cycle of rebirth, nulling them from existence for the rest of eternity."

"Man that sounds pretty awful. I don't know guys, what if I'm not cut out for it? I mean that sounds like a mighty scary thing to do, I don't know if I could handle it."

"Hey, look at it this way. You get a cool ass sword and, so long as you have the backbone for it and aren't devoured yourself, damning you to non-existence, you get to drink all the sake and meet all the women you want!"

"Shunsui…!"

"… Yeah, you're right, I'm good, too much danger for me. Had enough of the fighting when I was alive, I'm kinda wanting to enjoy the peace I've found here."

"When you were alive? Wait, you can-"

"Ja ne!"

"Well. Fuck it. I give up."

"No, Shunsui, stop him! All teams, target has left the area, repeat, Code Scarecrow, Code Scarecrow! Team One, report! Team One? Team Two, respond! Team Three?! Anybody!"

"Hey Juushiro, he actually drew a face on this one, how cool is that? It's gonna look great next to that one with the rabbit ears and that other one that he dressed in that haori that looks like mine, you remember the one I'm talking about?"

"… god damn it, Shunsui!"

"Woah, Juushiro-chan is using the bad words!"

"Alright, you two are getting seriously annoying. You're tenacious, I can respect that. But there's a difference between tenacious and brazenly idiotic. I've told you, I'm not interested in joining your weird death god club. I mean seriously, "death gods"? You're not even wearing the masks and where are the tattered grey robes? Thanks but no thanks, get somebody else to do it. Hell, why are you still bowing anyway, you even have the loud guy in on it."

"We're beggin' ya here, buddy. Please, just go to the audience."

"I concur. My friend and I were promoted to Vice-Captains a few decades ago, you see, but our Sotaicho is still upset with us never having managed to bring you in. He is a very busy man and it seems he is never quite able to pull away from his office in order to meet with you, as per your request. We, Shunsui and I, are loathe to allow this blot to remain on our otherwise splendid records, and are here on a more personal visit. Call it pride, if you must, but truly, how bad could it be to simply visit the man?"

"How hard could it be for him to cancel a meeting or two if he wants to speak with me bad enough to have the two of you hound me for damn close to a century? I don't particularly care for your pride, and anyway, I don't see how not bringing in a random soul to meet your boss could be considered a "blot" at all. But I get it, I do. You're just trying to do your duty, follow your orders, all that crap. It's just, samurai and people like me? Yeah, we don't really mix."

"We are not samurai at all, we are-"

"Death gods, great, message received, still not caring. Now look here, I've been pretty damn patient with all this stalking shit you two have been pulling. Partly because I understand the whole duty thing and partly because, frankly, it's pretty hilarious to mess with the two of you. Or rather, it was. Forty years ago. These days, running into all your lackeys with the badges is just pissing me off. So, guys, gentlemen, kinda-not-really-friends, first and last warning: fuck off."

"Was that a threat, Hobo-chan? Look at us, trying to be nice and settle it with words, and you're spitting on our courtesy? You're not the only one who has been running out of patience, Newbie-chan."

"I believe what my friend is trying to say is that it would not be in your best interest to assault two Vice-Captains of the Seireitei. Forgetting the legalese that you would no doubt become entangled in, we're Captain-class Shinigami. That isn't something to be taken lightly, especially not by an untrained soul whose only talent appears to be in running away."

"Running away? Hey, Silver-san, careful now. I don't run from anything, especially not two bozos in black pajamas. I'm losing what little patience I have left."

"Yes, well, as to that patience, I shall return your own words unto you: I don't care. I have had more than enough of your rudely recalcitrant attitude. You will be accompanying us to the Seireitei. I am beyond tired of attempting to be polite. Willingly or not, we are bringing you to speak with Yamato-sotaicho."

"Yeah, Blondie-chan, you don't even have to walk there on your own! I'll gladly carry you there myself, after I've broken both your legs!"

"… Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you.

Let's get wild."

"… Ugh. I haven't been kicked like that since… I haven't been kicked like that. Think I broke my hand when I punched his stupid mug, too. Juushiro, you alive over there?"

"Ah. Ah. I think he dislocated both of my shoulders. Ah. How did he move like that?"

"No clue, but I think I finally get why the old man is wanting to meet him so badly. Here hold still, I'll get them back into place. Alright, ready? On three: one, tw- oh! There you go, better, yeah? Stop crying, ya big baby, it hurts less if you're not expecting it.

Anyway, you wanna try again? Because I'm pretty much done with this bullshit, let someone from the 11th have a go at him, they're the fighting freaks. Besides, I have spent too much damn time over one stupid soul, I don't care how powerful he is. Come on, Juushiro, let's just throw in the towel. We should have done it forty years ago, after Operation Scarecrow."

"… He said that "people like him" don't mix well with samurai. Yes, yes, I know we're not actually samurai, you don't have to remind me. But how is he to know otherwise? We certainly look somewhat the part. But it was the way he moved, it reminded me of someone. Or rather, a group of someone's."

"You can't mean…? Come on Juushiro, she's good, she's damn good, but she's still just a kid. She's hardly a match for either of us, and you know she'll be working around the same restrictions. Maybe in another hundred years she'd have a chance, but-"

"I don't mean for her to fight him, Shunsui. But perhaps he would be more willing to speak with someone of the same practices? Someone more relatable, with a similar doctrine, perhaps."

"Anyone tell you that you use fancy words in your sentences needlessly, Juushiro-chan?"

"Oh stuff it. Let's get back to the Seireitei, we have to ask her if she'd be willing to do it first. And yes, if she declines, we shall stop any further attempts at bringing him in. Yamato can just deal with that until the Central 46 relax a little, and then he can go find that man himself."

A light wind tousled his blonde locks, the wild spikes dancing with it, the calm waters of the pond he sat before rippling as the breeze met the surface. He rested, cross-legged, on the far bank of the pond, away from the walking path that bordered its other side. The path and the pond both belonged to a residential park within District 12, a quaint place where most recognized him by sight, though none knew his name. He preferred it that way, content to be an observer and keep only the occasional passing acquaintance. A bamboo pole was propped lazily within the crook of his knee with its line running from the loop at its end into the water, and he held a long-stemmed pipe in one hand, the tip clenched lightly between his teeth. The people walking on this crisp afternoon were few, but those who saw him smiled and waved at the strange man whose name none knew but all could tell by sight. The one that the Shinigami were asking about all the time. Well, they used to, anyway, it had been many years since they had done that.

Various creatures of the surrounding wood of the park, those small critters that were allowed to stay in the controlled environment, gathered around him, lounging for awhile before moving about their business. A wren alighted upon his knee in order to rest its wings. A ferret snuffled curiously at the empty sake bottles discarded by his side and then at him, before slinking away. Even a stray dog curled against his leg for warmth for a time before loping off to do whatever it was dogs did in the afterlife.

Uzumaki Naruto breathed a sigh of contentment before languidly opening his eyes and stretching a broad, well-calloused hand down to scratch behind the ear of his most recent visitor, a small cat. It lay curled upon itself, just near enough to touch, its sleek black coat shining in the afternoon light, and before long it began to purr beneath his ministrations. A small smile twitched at his lips, and he leaned backward upon one hand to stare at the clouds, the other not ceasing in its slow, rhythmic motions behind the ears of the feline. Oh yes, this was the life. This made all that slog and struggle so very much worth it. He had fought for his precious people all of his life. They were what had kept him sane, defined him, through all of the hardship, the blood, the loss. He had become a legend. Slain a god! He had united the Elemental Nations in a peace that lasted nearly three generations, the longest ever recorded in the bloody histories of their people!

Oh, sure, it had eventually ended. It had to. Either the peace ended or the shinobi way of life did, and the shinobi damn sure weren't going to give up a thousand years of culture and tradition just for something as small as Naruto's ideals. Well, yeah, they'd said that he was as sharp a politician as the Sandaime had been before him, with two times the power and three times the heart to back it up with. And he'd gone gray long before his long-lived genetics should have permitted running around putting out the small fires that sprung up with the second generation that came after the Fourth Great War. And yeah, he'd made so many concessions that Shikamaru had cried blood, literal blood, from the stress of trying to maintain the quality of life that Konoha had become so accustomed to, just to hide the fact that his Hokage was bleeding the country out to try and maintain a dying peace. He had even read the reports of his first sons, fine men both, killed in an ambush by "shinobi with no allegiance" in as blatant an attempt at provocation to war as possible, and swallowed his wrath. Swallowed tears and pride, screaming only in the silence of his own home. Buried his boys and continued to plaster on a sad smile and give speeches, lamenting publicly that rogue shinobi, not angry Iwa shinobi, had stolen his sons from him so young. So, so young.

Naruto calmly lifted a fish from the water, setting it within the basket behind him.

But no, the peace could not last. He had sacrificed and bled and, a hundred years from now, when those files finally became unsealed describing exactly how much of Konoha's wealth and life that he had willingly sacrificed in the hope of staving off the inevitable, he knew that he would be called a traitor of the highest caliber. He would be hated in the histories of the village he loved, if it even stood long enough for them to find out. Hated by the village he loved and ridiculed by every other. He would be a laughingstock long after his bones became dust. Just as he was in life. The idiot. The worst.

Damn it, he had tried though. Succeeded, even, at least for those first fourty years. The stirring of the powers readying again for war hadn't really started until the fifty-eighth, and hey, they didn't kick off the Fifth war in earnest until well over three years after that! He had been eighty-six and four months exactly. Could still beat any of those Uchiha clan sprouts in a race, could beat any one of the Rock and Maito family, so intermarried at that point that they may as well have been their own singular clan, in an arm wrestle. He thought he was fast enough and strong enough to maintain it just a while longer, but he had been wrong. So, so wrong.

My boys. Your mother has been worried sick! Where are your eyes? What has happened to your teeth, your legs? My god, what trouble did you get into out there?

Sorry, Nagato. Sorry, Jiraiya.

When things had begun in earnest and the flames of war began to consume the Nations once more, with Konoha as the focus, then had he taken to the field with a terrible wrath. The current generation of shinobi had read stories of him, heard his exploits spoken of by the last surviving shinobi of the Fourth Great War, but ink on paper held little testament to the steel and fire that he rained upon them in those first four years. Three of the Big Five had fallen upon Konoha separately, weakened by his concessions as it was, and Konoha had beaten them back. The Howler, they had called him. Dreadwind. Naruto had bathed the northern borders of Fire Country in so much blood that it had still stained the earth five years later when Suna finally fell and the western front was opened in earnest.

Naruto caught sight of a cloud above the pond that looked like a two-legged horse and laughed, the cat stirring under his hands at the sound.

He remembered being glad that some of his friends had died during peacetime, largely of natural causes, so that they had not been forced to witness what became of the Nations at that point. What became of Konoha. It had not fallen, no. But that once-laughing and vibrant community situated beneath the protective gazes of their stone-faced Hokage had turned into something born of a nightmare. Grim faces, hunger, more orphans than they knew what to do with, turn them into weapons, but they are only children, yes, and the children will keep dying unless we send the children to battle, it is the only way, where is your arm, child? And truly, were Naruto to really look within himself, he knew he had given up on it.

Oh yes. Uzumaki Spit-In-The-Eye-Of-Fate Naruto had given up on it.

Laugh, O Universe! Point your damning fingers, O Spirits! Uzumaki Vim-and-Vigor Naruto abandoned his ninja way! He has caved to the reality of his own making, the reality that, no matter his ideals, no matter his grit, no matter his staunch refusal to abandon hope, such things as a "new and peaceful era" were beyond his power! Hear now they cry, "I told you so! I told you so!"

Bah! I was but a man in a world gone mad! No, our world was mad from the start. Perhaps a man gone mad in a mad world gone madder? That sounds stupid, have I become stupider? Oh Testsuo, Uzumaru, where will you run without legs? Hey that one looks like a monkey!

Sorry, Mother. Sorry, Father.

Perhaps he could have kept fighting, carving his way through the other nations in order to maintain Konoha's standing as an elite super power, hell just to keep it standing. But he had fallen like the rest of them among the ashes of that peaceful dream he'd struggled for so long to hold together with blood-soaked hands. Perhaps if he hadn't paused to smile and marvel at that lightning bolt that streaked through his chest and punched out his heart, he could have dodged it. Perhaps, if he had dodged it, he would have been able to lead Konoha to triumph over the other villages, in their ruins, and brought, once again, a lasting peace to the land under one banner. Perhaps had he then united them in a single nation, he could have spent his remaining years putting out the rest of the fire and preaching some more about unity and fellowship, so that the next generation might not repeat the mistakes of the last. But he didn't and he hadn't and he wouldn't. Because one thought stood strong among the rest, over-ruling what the other voices had cried in his head at that fateful moment before the lightning bolt.

This is so tiring.

Naruto was tired. Yeah, that Naruto. So he had retired. Rather forcefully, really, without the possibility of being recalled like the Sandaime had been so long ago. And he couldn't have been happier with his decision. Granted, he had desperately hoped to see his family again, his friends. He had hoped they wouldn't be too afraid of what he had become, too ashamed of those things he had done for his thrice-damned "peace". His earnest hope was that they would see beyond it, see the man that lay underneath it all, the loyal friend, the loving husband, the proud father. That was not to be, however, as the Shinigami – the ghastly, oni-masked, grey-cloaked one that had poked him in the forehead while he lay staring at the sky all those years ago; not the hakama-wearing wannabes that followed him everywhere- had deigned him worthy to be reborn. At least, that's what he had thought at first, still half mad and laughing at the sight of the sprawling Districts and smiling townsfolk of what he would come to know as the Rukongai.

Who are you kidding, you're not half anything. Slipping in and slipping out, in and out, in and out; hey Kurama, what do you think of my sons, chip off the old block eh? Kurama?

The reality was that this place – the "Spirit World" as everyone called it – was neither the Pure World he'd believed came after life nor the continuation of the world as he knew it. This world was something familiar but new, like the murals painted on the sides of the shops in Konoha before the Fifth War. The commonfolk were happy, the military power dressed largely in black, but now messages to strangers were delivered by sword-carrying goons and soul-sucking monsters made random appearances to terrorize the outer "Districts". Well, maybe the messages part wasn't so new. Standard kit for the ANBU included well-worn swords as well; however, they had been the elite fighting force of a Hidden Village, dressed in gray armor, and had only ever been Naruto's messengers. Not that that mattered any more, good riddance to responsibility!

Naruto let out a sigh and reached into a pocket within his haori to remove a packet of tobacco. He flexed his thigh to check for a bite with no result which left his attention free to repack his pipe. Removing his hand from the cat's head drew a protesting meow that turned into a sneeze when he tapped the upturned bowl into his palm to empty the burnt leaves that remained. Naruto chuckled at the noise and began to stuff the new leaves in, but a motion at the corner of his eye drew his attention.

There was an old man feeding a family of ducks from his seated position on a bench across the pond. A woman laughed at some secret joke that the man whose arm she'd looped hers through had whispered in her ear. Another woman sat upon a blanket and read a paperback book beneath a tree on the other side of the path and to the right of the man on the bench. The laughter of children resounded somewhere around the bend, and a tree branch creaked within the copse of trees at his back.

"Oh-ho! I gotta be outta practice for it to get this close. Have they still not given up?"

"The two from before won't bother you again, Uzumaki-san. However, now that you're dealing with the Onmitsukido, it may become more difficult for you to decline your appointment."

The black cat at his side rose languidly from its relaxed position and padded slowly in front of him, sitting on its haunches and staring into his eyes with a too-intelligent gaze for an animal. The man threw another handful of breadcrumbs to the ducks. Another couple strode along the path arm-in-arm but heading the opposite direction, the woman laughing at whatever the man had said. The woman with the paperback book tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and turned the page.

At least the game hadn't changed. They might be amateurs profiting from his own Drift and inattention, but they might have got the jump on a lower-Chunin. Jiraiya would have run circles around them, pissing himself laughing all the while. Naruto simply did his best to withhold the laugh threatening to bubble from his throat.

"Just when you think you got the message across by handing two guy's asses to 'em," Naruto took a moment to remove a matchbox from his robe and light his pipe, taking a long draw upon it before blowing the smoke in a ring toward the cat, "they get a cat to deliver the same spiel. Don't suppose I could just give you a fish and you'll leave me alone, eh?"

The smoke ring drifted lazily toward the unblinking cat, widening and framing its head in an ephemeral portrait. Naruto knew that cats couldn't smirk, but the voice that responded carried a smirk all the same, "decidedly not, Uzumaki-san. There isn't enough gold in all four noble houses to buy us off when we receive a mission directly from the Sotaicho. Let's talk."