The "Curry of Life" shop didn't look like a restaurant. It looked like a shipwreck that had decided to become a house.
It sat in the middle of the "Green Wall"—that suffocating, vibrant tangle of mangroves and ferns—raised fifteen feet off the ground on thick, moss-slicked teak stilts.
The wood was dark, almost black from moisture, and slick to the touch, feeling like the skin of a wet amphibian.
The roof was thatched with wide, sloping eaves designed to shed the monsoon rains, giving the whole structure the appearance of a mushroom squatting in the swamp.
To get there, we had to traverse a questionable wooden walkway hammered into the silt, the boards groaning under our boots.
Suck. Pop.
Below us, the "liquid earth" of the delta shifted, bubbling with methane and mud.
Bubbles rose to the surface with a wet bloop, releasing wisps of gas that smelled of ancient decay and sulfur.
But the smell...
The smell hit us fifty yards out. It cut through the scent of rotting vegetation, wet earth, and fish like a hot knife. It smelled of caramelized onions, heavy beef stock, and enough cayenne pepper to weaponize the air.
My eyes watered instantly, the air tingling in my nose like I had just inhaled a cloud of ground chili powder.
"Smells like chemical warfare," Anko-sensei noted, sniffing the air appreciatively. "I like it."
We pushed through the noren curtains. The interior was dark, lit by oil lamps that struggled against the humidity. It was hot—hotter than outside—and filled with steam that tasted of iron and spice.
The sound of bubbling liquid was thick and heavy—glug... glug... glug—punctuated by the sharp hiss of oil hitting a hot pan.
"Welcome!" a voice boomed.
An older woman stood behind the counter. She had a kind face, a bandana tied back over her hair, and forearms that looked strong enough to strangle a bear. Sanshō.
"You lot look like drowned rats," she observed, wiping her hands on her apron. "Sit. Eat. You need vitality."
"We're looking for information," Jiraiya said, sliding onto a stool. "And lunch."
"Information costs extra," Sanshō said, ladling a thick, black sludge into a bowl.
It plonked into the ceramic with a viscous weight, smelling heavily of roasted cumin and beef tallow.
"But for Konoha ninja? I'll talk. You friends of the Bowl Cut boy? The one with the eyebrows?"
"Bushy Brows!" Naruto cheered, slamming his hands on the table. "Yeah! Is your son okay? Did he come back?"
Sanshō's smile faltered. A shadow passed over her face.
"He was here last year," she said softly. "Lee... he tried to help my son, Karashi. Karashi was... mixed up with the wrong crowd. Lee-kun tried to straighten him out."
She looked out the window, toward the distant, jagged peaks of the Katabami Gold Mine.
"Karashi is working at the mines now," she whispered. "He hasn't written in months. I worry the bad crowd found him again."
"We'll find him, Granny!" Naruto promised, giving her a thumbs up. "We're heading that way!"
"Good," Sanshō nodded, her resolve hardening. "Then you'll need strength."
She placed a bowl in front of Jiraiya.
It was the Curry of Life. It was black. It bubbled sluggishly, releasing wisps of red steam.
"Special recipe," Sanshō warned. "It wakes the dead."
She wiped a sheen of sweat from her brow, the humidity in the room turning the kitchen into a sauna of flavor.
Jiraiya stared at the bowl.
He wasn't looking at the curry. He was looking at the reflection of a failure in the black broth. He was thinking about three orphans in the rain who he had taught to survive, only to leave them behind.
He picked up the spoon.
"Waking the dead sounds nice," Jiraiya murmured.
He took a bite.
I watched the Sannin.
His face turned red. Then purple. Then a color I didn't think human skin could achieve—a sort of bioluminescent alarm-orange.
A visible wave of heat radiated off him, steaming his glasses instantly.
Steam literally shot out of his ears.
"Hot," Jiraiya wheezed.
He didn't stop. He ate the curry like a man drinking whiskey to forget a war.
The crunch of raw cayenne pepper seeds between his teeth—crack-crack—was audible over the bubbling stew.
He shoveled it in, bite after agonizing bite, tears streaming down his face, mixing with the sweat pouring off his forehead.
"Sensei?" Naruto whispered, terrified. "You okay?"
Jiraiya slammed the empty bowl down.
"More," he rasped.
"That's the spirit!" Sanshō cheered, refilling it.
By the third bowl, Jiraiya's chakra system was doing something I'd never seen before. It wasn't circulating; it was vibrating. The capsaicin overdose was hitting his nervous system like a genjutsu.
"Na...gato..." Jiraiya slurred, swaying on the stool. "Mina-" He burped. The stoole spun.
"Rasen... rain...gan..." He held a single finger, then-
Thud.
He face-planted onto the table.
Silence filled the shop, broken only by the buzzing of a dragonfly hitting the lantern.
"Is he dead?" Naruto poked the Sannin's arm.
"He's drunk," Anko diagnosed, lifting Jiraiya's eyelid. The eye was rolled back, twitching. "On spice. His brain just short-circuited. He's out for at least an hour."
She looked at her own bowl of curry. She slowly pushed it away.
"I'll stick to the rice," Anko decided.
"Yeah," I agreed, watching the black stew bubble threateningly. "Rice is good."
The peace didn't last.
The door to the shop burst open, banging against the wall.
Rain sprayed in, cold and clean, clashing violently with the warm, savory air of the shop.
A young man stumbled in. He was soaked to the bone, his clothes torn, his face smeared with delta mud.
He smelled of river silt and panic sweat—a sour, metallic odor that cut through the curry smell.
He held a rusted hoe in his hand like a weapon.
His hands shook so hard the metal tool rattled against the floorboards—tink-tink-tink.
"Sanshō!" the man screamed. "They took the village! They took everyone!"
He froze when he saw the headbands.
"Leaf..." the man breathed, his eyes widening. "Leaf Ninja!"
He dropped the hoe and fell to his knees, crawling toward Anko.
"Please! You have to help us! I'm Rokusuke! From the village downriver!"
Anko stepped back, her hand hovering near her kunai pouch. Her eyes narrowed, shifting from relaxed diner to Jōnin commander.
"Calm down," Anko ordered. "Who took the village?"
"The Kurosuki family!" Rokusuke grabbed the hem of Anko's trench coat. "Raiga Kurosuki! He calls it a funeral! He buries people alive if they disobey him! He took my friends... he took everyone to the mine!"
"Raiga," Anko repeated, the name tasting sour. "One of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. Wielder of the Kiba blades."
Anko's fingers traced the scar on her neck absentmindedly, a reflex to the mention of Orochimaru's former associates.
She looked at Rokusuke, then at the map on the wall.
"Kid," Anko said, her voice hard. "This is the Land of Rivers. Technically, this is Kumogakure's sphere of influence. Or neutral territory. If Leaf ninja engage a Mist missing-nin here, and Kumo finds out..."
"Kumo isn't here!" Rokusuke cried. "Nobody is here! We sent birds to Mist, to Cloud... nobody came! You're right here! You have to help!"
Anko pulled her coat free. "We have a mission. We're escorting a VIP. We can't get involved in a local coup."
Naruto stood up. The stool scraped loudly against the wooden floor.
"We're helping," Naruto stated.
"Naruto," Anko warned. "Chain of command."
"He buries people alive," Naruto said, his fists clenched. "That's what Haido did. That's what Orochimaru did. We don't walk away from that."
He pointed to the door.
"And Bushy Brows... Lee... he has friends here. If Karashi is at that mine, and this Raiga guy is there... Lee would go. Even on his bad leg, he would go."
Anko looked at Naruto. She looked at the desperate man on the floor.
"Sylvie?" Anko asked. "Logic check."
Sylvie adjusted her glasses. She looked at the Sannin drooling on the table.
"Ideally, we wait for Jiraiya-sama," Sylvie said, her voice calm. "But Raiga is a missing-nin. He has a bounty. If we engage him, we can claim we were... 'securing the border' against a rogue element. Kumo can't complain if we take out trash they were too lazy to pick up."
Outside, thunder rumbled low and long, shaking the dust from the rafters into the bubbling pots.
She looked at Rokusuke.
"And if we leave them," Sylvie added quietly, "there won't be a village left to argue about jurisdiction."
Anko sighed. She looked at the ceiling, as if asking the universe why she was cursed with moral teenagers.
The oil lamp flickered as a draft swept through, casting long, dancing shadows that made the simple curry shop look like a war room.
"Fine," Anko groaned. "We scout. If it's too hot, we pull back. Understood?"
"Yes!" Naruto cheered.
"You," Anko pointed at Rokusuke. "You stay here. Watch him." She gestured to the comatose Jiraiya. "If he wakes up, tell him we went to find a funeral. And give him water. Lots of water."
Anko turned to the door, her coat swirling.
"Let's go," she commanded. "Before I change my mind."
Naruto grinned, pulling his headband tight. He looked back at the sleeping sage one last time.
Sorry, Pervy Sage, Naruto thought. But heroes don't wait for the hangover to wear off.
He bolted out the door, into the rain and the mud, ready to crash a funeral.