The sun dropped behind the sea walls, but the stone streets of the Mercantile District held the day's heat, radiating a dry, lung-stifling warmth.
My black tank top felt fused to my skin, and the salt-spray smell of the docks had turned heavy, weighing against my skin like wet lead.
Kakashi didn't look up from his book, his sandals clicking a steady, languid rhythm against the pavement. "Since we're heading to dinner," he said, his voice muffled by the dark navy mask, "this might be a good time for a brief lesson on the economy of a shinobi."
Anko's violet eyes glinted. Before Naruto could register the shift in the air, she lunged. I followed, diving for his left side. We seized him simultaneously, our fingers digging into the muscle of his bare arms.
"Wh-what?! Hey!" Naruto's bicep knotted under my hand, a hot, sweat-slicked cord of tension. His head whipped back and forth, shoulders hunching as he tried to yank his elbows inward. The strain in his shoulder joints pulsed against my palms as he fought the restraint. "What did I do? I didn't touch anything! I haven't even seen a ramen stand yet!"
"Naruto," I said, leaning in. I could feel the heat radiating off his shoulder, mixing with the sharp scent of his own salt-baked skin. "Do you actually know where your ryo comes from?"
Naruto's face went blank. He stopped struggling for a heartbeat, his center of gravity shifting as his mind hit a wall. "The... the old man used to give it to me? Like an allowance?"
I nudged him, feeling the fabric of his mesh tank top bunch and pull under my grip. "Missions, Naruto. They pay us. Well, they pay you."
The realization hit him. He didn't look happy; he looked terrified. He began thrashing with a renewed, desperate intensity, the heavy orange fabric of his shorts snapping as he tried to kick free. "NOOOOO! NO SCHOOL! NO LECTURES! My brain is already full! I'm on vacation!"
"Oh, calm down, kid," Anko snorted, her grip iron-tight. The metal rings of her chainmail bit into his other bicep as she shifted her weight to anchor him. "He isn't talking about history. He's talking about that pile of coins you're sitting on."
I tugged his arm, forcing him to keep pace. "Yeah, Naruto. It's not math. It's about how much beef you can buy tonight. You've been getting paid this whole time and didn't even know it."
Naruto instantly went limp. He let out a sigh so massive it whistled through his teeth, his shoulders dropping with a heavy, defeated slump. "Oh. Money. Well, why didn't you say so? I'm an expert at money! I know exactly how to use it!"
"Well," Kakashi chirped, finally closing his book with a soft thud. He didn't look at us, but his visible eye curved into a smile. "It involves a little math. Mission percentages, equipment deductions, health insurance withholdings..."
Naruto didn't scream. He just stared into the middle distance, a single, silent tear tracking down his cheek.
Naruto disengaged from us, rubbing the red marks on his arms. He moved with a slight stiffness in his shoulders, grumbling about the injustice of "hidden percentages." As we turned off the main thoroughfare, the noise of the market was severed. We entered a roji—a secluded tea garden where the air turned stagnant and heavy.
I felt my heart rate spike, my fingers drifting toward the notepad pouch at my hip. The civilian density had dropped to zero. The path narrowed, constrained by cedar fences and bamboo thickets that cut off my peripheral vision. I scanned the overhanging eaves and the dark notches between the bamboo. No shadows shifted. No silhouettes broke the line of the teal roof tiles above us. The roar of the port vanished, replaced by the dry, rhythmic rattle of ginkgo leaves.
"Voices," I whispered, tapping Anko's elbow.
Kakashi stopped reading. He didn't put the book away, but his head tilted three degrees to the left, his gaze tracking a disturbance I couldn't see yet.
Up ahead, a muffled curse and the heavy scuff of sandals on stone broke the silence. A man stumbled backward out of a small square doorway. I saw a flash of a deep teal haori and a pale slate-blue sash before his heels skidded on the hard-packed garden soil.
A massive man in a charcoal samue stepped out of the shadows. He didn't just walk; he occupied the entire entrance with the dense, immovable bulk of a veteran. He radiated a dry, searing heat, a byproduct of the glowing charcoal grills behind him that mixed with the heavy scent of woodsmoke and rendered fat.
"And don't come back until you can settle your tab without threatening my staff!"
The giant's tree-trunk arm flexed. Scar tissue rippled across his forearm—discolored patches where the skin had fused and smoothed over past burns—as his grip tightened on the man's collar. With a sudden displacement of air that I felt against my face, he launched the thug—Uwaba. I recognized the Wagarashi insignia on the teal vest only as he went airborne.
Uwaba hit the dirt with a sickening thud, his body bouncing once off the unyielding, sun-baked earth. A plume of dust rose into the air, coating his blue sash as it unraveled behind him. He scrambled to his feet, eyes wide with a frantic, animal terror, and scurried off into the darkness.
I didn't relax. I watched the shadows where Uwaba had disappeared, then scanned the dark lines of the roof ridges again. Behind me, Anko's stance remained low, her weight shifted to the balls of her feet. Only when the garden settled back into the quiet rattle of leaves did I turn my attention to the giant.
He stood with his arms crossed over a massive chest. I watched the rise and fall of his torso—slow, deep, and steady despite the exertion of the throw. He didn't reset his stance; his center of gravity stayed low, his weight distributed evenly across the balls of his feet. He was anchored, not aggressive. A heat-resistant canvas apron draped his frame, sporting the circular Akimichi kanji for "Food" (食) with a golden "T" integrated into the rim.
"Whoa!" Naruto's jaw dropped. "He threw him like a bag of flour!"
I adjusted my glasses, finally letting my hand drop from my weapon pouch. The giant smelled of garlic-tare and old woodsmoke, but his eyes—heavy with deep bags—flicked between us, tracking our weight and center of mass with the micro-adjustments of a man whose gaze didn't stop at our faces, but swept the fencelines for anything else that might be breathing.
Kakashi's posture relaxed, and I took a final look at the rooftops before fully uncurling my fingers. We both stepped forward at the same time, our assessments converging. Even as I closed the distance, I stayed two paces wide of the giant's reach, my eyes tracking the placement of his feet until the tension in my own shoulders finally began to uncoil.
"Yo, Torifu," Kakashi said. He tucked his book into his flak jacket.
Torifu Akimichi turned. His face split into a wide, genuine grin. "Kakashi-kun!"
Torifu lunged with the deceptive, quiet speed of a brawler. He swept our sensei into a crushing bear hug. Kakashi's feet left the ground, his olive-green flak jacket creaking as the air was forced out of his lungs.
"You're all grown up! Haha! Still as skinny as a rail, though!" Torifu roared, the vibration of his voice rattling the bamboo fence.
"Can't... breathe... Torifu-sama..." Kakashi managed, his voice strained and muffled against the charcoal linen of Torifu's shoulder.
The rhythmic clack of wooden sandals sounded behind us. Jirōchō Wasabi stepped into the garden light, his shaggy grey hair messy in the heat. Beside him stood Idate Morino, his dark navy tunic layered over an off-white undershirt. Idate's eyes darted between the massive chef and our half-pulverized jōnin, his posture guarded.
"Wagarashi trash in the garden again?" Anko asked, her hands on her hips. She watched Torifu with a smirk, but her eyes continued to sweep the shadows. "Is this a regular thing now, or are they getting desperate?"
Torifu laughed, finally setting Kakashi down. "They're trying to choke the garden, Anko-chan. This is the third time this week they've sent an enforcer to 'inspect' the tab. They're testing the perimeter and trying to scare off the patrons before the race officially starts."
Anko's jaw set, her smirk sharpening into something colder. "Testing for gaps. If they're hitting the grill, they're planning to cut the supply lines before the first leg even starts."
"They're blockading the entrance," I muttered, looking at the nijiriguchi—the tiny, square door we had to crawl through. It was a tactical choke point, a hole that forced everyone into a bow. "If they control the roji, they control who Jirōchō talks to."
Kakashi's eye sharpened as he looked at the narrow entrance. "A political siege in a tea garden. Efficient."
The umami-heavy scent of woodsmoke and garlic-tare wafted from the hearth inside, mixing with the stale heat of the port.