Spoiler alert: slight spoilers for the upcoming anime story as of episode 208 onwards (& the manga from about June 2010 on, not sure which number)

Warning: May Contain Ramen (this warning is given in the same sense that the warning "May Contain Nuts" is often printed on the back of a packet of peanuts).

Note: Just a little idea set around the time just after Pain's attack on Konoha, before Tsunade has recovered from her coma but after the Five Kage Summit has taken place and Kakashi has been asked to be Hokage.

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto

20 Years of Ichiraku Ramen: Teuchi Remembers

"Has it really been twenty years...?"

Teuchi shook his head slowly and stared at the pile of rubble that had been his ramen shop not a week before. It looked like the left-over ramen toppings he had to throw into the bin at the end of each day; sad, forlorn and a terrible waste. He would have to have it rebuilt. Perhaps Naruto's team leader, that nice Yamato, might be persuaded to rebuild it with his wood ninjutsu once he was finished with the more essential reconstruction work in the Village. After all, Pain's attack had been truly devastating, and there were homes and essential facilities to take care of before a ramen stand. For now, Ichiraku continued to operate, and Teuchi and Ayame cooked and served their famous ramen in a large tent, feeding a good portion of the workforce rebuilding the Village.

Teuchi was sure that Yamato would be persuaded, as Ichiraku didn't really belong to Teuchi and Ayame, but to all of Konoha.

And Naruto wouldn't take no for an answer, of course. Teuchi chuckled at the thought. Naruto had been his best customer for so long, and he had watched the young man grow from an irritating but big-hearted little kid who was ostracised by most of the village to become the mature and powerful ninja he was today. Naruto had gone from being the naruto on top of the ramen to being more like the ramen noodles which filled out Teuchi's delicious soups, from something superfluous to become something of great substance and import which no one could do without. Teuchi chuckled at his own analogy, thinking how appropriate Naruto's name really was, given his love for ramen.

In fact, looking back over the two decades he'd been operating the business, Teuchi could scarcely believe the number of significant people who had eaten at his counter. He had served ramen to three of the Village's five Hokage... no, wait, he had served ramen to four of the six Hokage if he counted Kakashi, who he had heard was about to become the Sixth on his return to the Village. Not to mention of course at least two future Hokage in Naruto and Konohamaru, and many other influential and heroic figures who would go down in Konoha's shinobi history for their deeds.

No, Teuchi certainly could not claim Ichiraku Ramen as his own.

It belonged to Minato, the enthusiastic young man who's love for ramen was second only to his love for his Village, and later, placed third after his love for the beautiful Kushina. Teuchi recalled how even after becoming Hokage Minato had still frequented the shop, and had remained the same carefree, sparkling person he'd always been, as though the pressures of running the shinobi force of the Fire Country were nothing to him. He had always been good to chat to, and had eaten almost as much ramen as Naruto. Teuchi chuckled and wondered what the Village would have been like if Minato had survived to bring up his son. When he saw Naruto sitting at the counter in his usual spot, slightly to the left of centre, he couldn't help but imagine Minato, on his usual stool to the right of Naruto's, wolfing down his ramen just like his son, and the image made him smile.

Ichiraku belonged to the Legendary Sannin, Jiraiya, Tsunade and Orochimaru, and to their sensei the Third Hokage. They had come to the shop often in the early days of its opening, almost always together, for although they all had their own students they still liked to meet up as a team every now and again. Of course, it wasn't long before Orochimaru's experiments were uncovered and he was disgraced, and the Sannin would never eat ramen together again.

Of course, Jiraiya had continued to visit with his student Minato, and after the young Fourth Hokage's tragic death he had occasionally brought Minato's bright young student Kakashi along with him before he left the Village and took to roaming the lands writing romance novels.

And of course, Ichiraku Ramen belonged to Kakashi and his generation, who had been children when the shop had served it's first bowl.

Teuchi remembered that little group of young shinobi well, as they had frequented his shop from the opening day, and he had marked them out as being somewhat special as soon as he saw them. Just as Teuchi could pick out the choicest cuts of pork for his miso char siu special ramen that Naruto liked so much the moment he saw the piglet drop from it's mother's womb, he could pick out a good shinobi. It was surely no coincidence that most of of Konoha's finest shinobi liked ramen now was it?

Among those Teuchi had marked out for greatness, there had been the irrepressible and generous-spirited Maito Gai, the loud-mouthed and obnoxious but well-meaning Mitarashi Anko, the image-conscious but dependable Sarutobi Asuma, the ever-smiling Uchiha Obito, the two quiet and peaceful but strong-willed young kunoichi Yuuhi Kurenai and Rin and the older-than-his-years, desperately serious Hatake Kakashi.

Teuchi had watched them grow from lively (for the most part) and talented children to become the elite shinobi of the Village, and he felt great pride in all of them, almost as though they were his own offspring. The Will of Fire was strong in all of their hearts, and Teuchi knew he was priviledged to have had the chance to watch this exceptional group grow from children to become great warriors.

Of course, watching young ninja grow up and go out to fight will always have it's terrible and unavoidable downside, but Teuchi was not naive having been a ryouri-nin himself in his younger days. He knew that by allowing himself to grow attached to his ninja customers he was only setting himself up for heartbreak. The risk of a precious customer never coming back was high, but worthwhile, he thought, as he had got to know some wonderful people.

Teuchi had attended the memorial services for many of his precious customers, and had watched many more return from missions with their bright smiles gone forever having lost dear comrades and friends.

One of the hardest deaths to take had been Obito's. He had been the only Uchiha to eat regularly at Ichiraku as the rest tended to be rather aloof and keep to themselves most of the time. But Obito had been so different to the rest of his clan, a noisy Uchiha, which, like a flavoursome aubergine, was a very rare thing indeed. Obito was full of life while the Uchiha were generally so cold, and he was always at the centre of the group, usually arguing good-naturedly with Anko or Gai, trying to annoy Asuma, wingeing about Kakashi or flirting shamelessly with Rin.

He was a one-of-a-kind shinobi, or so Teuchi had thought until he met Naruto. The two shared a wonderful innocence and a belief in the overriding goodness of human beings which was very rare indeed amongst ninja, who all too ofen lost their innocence far too young in Teuchi's opinion. Yes, Obito was like a perfectly-prepared noodle tragically taken off the boil far to early.

Teuchi shook his head sadly as he surveyed the rubble and more memories came back to him.

One shinobi who had lost his innocence at a sickeningly young age and who had really had no childhood at all was Hatake Kakashi. The soon-to-be Hokage, the old man thought with great pride, thinking of all he'd seen Kakashi come through, and how well-rounded and collected he was nowadays in spite of it all. Teuchi's earliest memory of him was of a terribly quiet and serious child who was occasionally dragged into the shop by his team, but rarely ordered anything and was never seen to actually eat. Over the years Teuchi had watched many people he cared for disappear, like ramen toppings going down a hungry customer's throat, one by one, leaving Kakashi alone to face the future bravely, like the last noodle in the bowl. He had been deeply shaken by the recent deaths of Asuma and Jiraiya-sama, Teuchi had noticed, although he had tried to hide how he felt of course. He had always been like that, never opening up, and Teuchi thought that most shinobi were probably like that to some extent, just he hadn't come to know many of them as well as he did Kakashi. Not that he knew him very well, of course, but he had spent more time around him than he had most shinobi.

There had been something about Kakashi as a child that had caught Teuchi's attention, and he had felt a great surge of affection for him from the moment he saw him. He was a tiny, waif-like thing with such deep sad eyes, and Teuchi remembered wishing he would come in more often so that he could feed him up on ramen and try to drive away the sadness within him with his kindness. He had always asked the other kids about Kakashi's whereabouts, but they rarely knew, and always complained that he was probably training or on a mission.

Following Obito's sad death, Kakashi had changed somewhat, becoming more laid-back and talkative and had visited Ichiraku at least once a week when he could in honour of his lost teammate. He had taken off his mask to eat, and had even told Teuchi and Ayame (who had nearly swooned over seeing his face) the story of how he came to have Obito's sharingan. He and the rest of Minato's team had come in quite often, and because Minato was now Hokage and Kakashi and Rin had been through so much, Teuchi offered them free ramen. Well, he offered them one free bowl each per visit, as a man can only be so generous, and no business could have survived Minato's voracious appetite for ramen.

Although Kakashi had all but disappeared into ANBU shortly after the Yondaime's death, he had still dropped by to see Teuchi whenever he could, always alone. Teuchi presumed he continued to visit because he had no one else he could trust, and Teuchi, being a civilian, was far less likely to be killed in the near future than anyone else Kakashi may have been friendly with. Although Kakashi didn't really appear to have any friends as such. He seemed to be well-respected and popular enough amongst his peers, judging from the way they spoke of him, but he never socialised with them, as though he wished to keep all of his relationships on a strictly professional basis. Teuchi felt honoured to be an exception and made the most of the time he spent with Kakashi, as he really did enjoy the young man's company, and as Kakashi grew older Teuchi had found more and more to talk about with him as he matured and became, if not more open emotionally, at least more open to general conversation, although he still kept his cards close to his chest especially when it came to any discussions of a political nature. But Kakashi's dark eyes were still sad, even now, and he still seemed to carry with him an immense weight of guilt about what had happened to his team and his sensei.

Teuchi sighed sadly as the his thoughts dwelt yet again on the friendly young Fourth Hokage and his once-vibrant team of students. The memories of his favourite customer were what had forced him to keep talking to Kakashi when he came in after the rest of the team was gone even though at first it had hurt him to look at the boy, for seeing Kakashi alone at the stand was to Teuchi like being served a bowl of ramen without any noodles. It just wasn't ramen. It was the same memories which had allowed him to tolerate Naruto for so long when he was younger. Kakashi had told him years earlier that Naruto was Minato's son, and had asked him to keep an eye out for the boy whenever he could. Teuchi had taken this to heart, and had started offering the skinny young Naruto freebies at first simply to honour his promise to Kakashi and his memories of Minato. But as time went on, Teuchi couldn't help but develop a fondness for Naruto, and he had soon found himself looking forward to the mischievous boy's visits. In fact, to encourage Naruto to come by, Teuchi had started giving Umino Iruka a coupon for a free bowl whenever he was in knowing that the kindly teacher would more than likely give it to Naruto. Teuchi was no fool, and he knew that Naruto had barely anything at all and could never have afforded to buy himself ramen more than once a week at best on his meagre orphans' allowance. Naruto had reminded Teuchi of the young Kakashi in his appearance, being far too thin to be healthy and always looking wide-eyed and tired, but that had been where the similarity had ended. Naruto always had a bright smile for Teuchi, and he was so easy to cheer up no matter how sad he seemed to be. In fact, a bowl of ramen seemed to be all it took to cheer him up or, failing that, a complimentary egg or extra piece of pork never failed to raise a smile from the boy. Naruto was like a cup-ramen in many ways; easy to prepare and predictably the same every time, but yet he was also far more subtle and complicated underneath; like a gourmet cup ramen, perhaps, if such a thing existed.

These days Naruto was Teuchi's best customer, and it seemed only fitting that it should be so, thought Teuchi. He felt pleased at the neat nature of the way things wrapped around and worked out in life sometimes, just like the way a perfectly-mixed batch of noodles would fall into shape just so with little effort.

Ichiraku had first belonged to the Sandaime and his student Jiraiya, then to Jiraiya and his student Minato, then to Minato's students Obito and Kakashi and their friend Asuma. Now they were all dead save Kakashi, and Ichiraku now belonged to Minato's son and Kakashi's student Naruto, and to Asuma's nephew and the Sandaime's grandson Konohamaru.

Ichiraku had once belonged to the great protectors of Konoha, and as the Village was due to be passed on to Kakashi, Ichiraku had now been passed down to the next generation of great Konoha shinobi in Naruto and his age group.

Teuchi looked around himself, surveying the wreckage of the Village and the huge numbers of shinobi and civilians alike, all going about their work helping with the rebuilding, and he smiled. And here was Konohamaru, running up the hill towards the mess tent, being followed by a less-enthusiastic but smiling Iruka. One of the next generation of ninja to protect the Village. Teuchi hoped that this generation would fare better than the last, and that war would not rip so many of them away too soon, their precious young lives wasted like fine fresh eggs being dropped on the way to the boiling pot.

Like the rest of the Village, Teuchi would have to put his faith in the Rokudaime Hokage, who knew as well as anyone how devastating war can be, and in young shinobi like Konohamaru here, who did not yet know war so did not carry the same cynicism and mistrust in other nations that their elders did.

And Teuchi hoped that Ayame would continue to run the stand when he was gone, and that she might one day marry and produce heirs to continue it into perpetuity. For he had a secret dream, and that was that each new generation of Konoha shinobi should inherit not only the Will of Fire, and a love for the Village, but each generation of young shinobi of Konoha should also inherit the Ichiraku Ramen stand.

Teuchi smiled at Konohamaru and Iruka and gestured for them to come into the mess tent. He didn't know how long he'd been standing outside dreaming his dreams but he did know that it had been long enough, as the saying goes, for the ramen to go cold.

Little does Teuchi-san know that war has already been declared and 40,000 out of the 80,000-strong Joint Shinobi Army sent to the front lines of battle will be lost within the space of the first day of the War.

End Note: Not very inspirational, I know, but I started this and had to finish it off somehow without getting too carried away delving into the whole entire history of everything Naruto, which I almost did at one point!

Anyway, just a little piece of nonsense to hopefully clear out the blockage so I can hopefully get on with updating my other stories...!