The meat hit the grill with a hiss that sounded exactly like a sigh of relief.
Genma Shiranui rolled the senbon between his teeth, shifting it from the left corner of his mouth to the right, and watched the fat render. The air in Yakiniku Q was thick enough to chew—smoke, grease, and the heavy, humid weight of a village trying to drink its way through a funeral week.
"Eat!" Maito Gai boomed, slamming a pair of tongs onto the table. "We must revitalize our youth! Grief burns calories, and we are running on empty!"
Ebisu flinched. He sat on Genma's right, posture rigid enough to be used as a structural support beam. His sunglasses reflected the grill flames, hiding eyes that Genma knew were red-rimmed.
"Lower your voice, Gai," Ebisu hissed. "We are in public. Decorum."
"Decorum is for statues!" Gai countered, tears streaming freely down his cheeks as he flipped a slice of beef. "We are alive! We must burn bright to honor those who have burned out!"
He sobbed, loud and unashamed, and shoved a piece of meat into his mouth without waiting for it to cool.
Genma sighed, reached for his sake cup, and downed it in one go.
"He's right, Ebisu," Genma said, voice scraping a little. "Just eat the cow."
It had been three days since the invasion. Three days since Genma had stood in the arena with a toothpick in his mouth and watched the sky turn purple with a barrier he couldn't break. Three days since the Third Hokage—their Hokage, the old man who had signed their genin papers and handed them their first flak jackets—had died on a roof while they watched.
The guilt sat in Genma's gut, heavier than the cheap sake.
They were the elite guard. The Hokage's protective detail. And when it mattered, they'd been stuck on the ground fighting Sound fodder while the old man fought a god of death alone.
"It shouldn't have happened," Ebisu muttered, staring at his untouched plate. "We should have checked the roof. We should have anticipated the barrier team."
"We were busy trying not to let the stadium collapse on the feudal lords," Genma said.
"Excuses," Ebisu said bitterly.
Gai stopped chewing. He swallowed the meat with a audible gulp.
"Regret is a poison!" Gai declared, slamming his fist on the table. The plates jumped. "If we wallow, we insult his sacrifice! We must train harder! We must become the shield he was! We must—"
He choked up again, lip wobbling.
"—we must miss him with the ferocity of a thousand setting suns!"
Genma poured himself another cup. "Sure. That too."
He looked at his teammates. The Team Choza reunion nobody wanted.
Gai, who turned pain into noise because silence scared him. Ebisu, who tried to file pain away in a cabinet marked 'improper conduct.' And Genma, who just stood there with a needle in his mouth and watched it all happen, cynical and tired and alive when better men weren't.
"To the Professor," Genma said, raising his cup.
Ebisu hesitated, then lifted his own. Gai raised a piece of beef with his tongs.
"To the Professor," they echoed.
They drank. The sake tasted like water; the meat tasted like ash. They ordered another round anyway.
The night air outside was cooler, but it still smelled like smoke.
Genma walked with his hands in his pockets, senbon clicking softly against his teeth. Ebisu walked beside him, a little unsteady, obsessively straightening his dark glasses. Guy brought up the rear, walking on his hands because he'd decided his "tears were flowing too freely" and gravity needed to be reversed.
"You're making a scene," Ebisu whispered at the upside-down jōnin.
"I am making a statement!" Guy yelled at the pavement.
Genma ignored them. He was busy watching the shadows, counting exit routes, calculating threats that weren't there. Invasion habits died hard.
A large shape detached itself from the darkness of a side street.
Genma's hand twitched toward his pouch before he recognized the silhouette. Massive. Round. Solid as a fortress wall.
Chōza Akimichi.
Their old sensei walked out of the gloom carrying four grocery bags in each hand, looking like he was smuggling an entire produce aisle. Chōji trailed behind him, munching rhythmically on a bag of chips.
Chōza stopped. His eyes—sharp under the red markings—swept over his three former students. He took in Guy's handstand, Ebisu's tight jaw, Genma's thousand-yard stare.
He didn't ask if they were okay. He knew better.
"Boys," Chōza rumbled.
"Sensei!" Guy flipped upright, landing with a pose. "It is a youthful evening for groceries!"
"It's midnight, Guy," Chōza said gently.
He shifted the bags, the plastic crinkling loud in the quiet street. He looked at Ebisu, who was vibrating with the effort of holding himself together.
"You look thin," Chōza observed.
"I am maintaining optimal weight for—" Ebisu started.
"You look like you haven't eaten since the funeral," Chōza corrected.
He jerked his head at Chōji.
Chōji blinked, swallowed his mouthful of chips, and understood the assignment instantly. He waddled forward, digging into the pockets of his jacket.
"Here," Chōji said.
He slapped a foil-wrapped bar into Ebisu's hand. Then one into Genma's. Then Guy's.
"Protein," Chōji explained seriously. "Dad says you guys get weird when your blood sugar drops. And you look... super weird right now."
Genma looked down at the bar. Nutrient Block: Chocolate-ish Flavor.
"Thanks, kid," Genma said.
Ebisu stared at the bar in his hand like it was a complex sealing array. His fingers trembled.
"I... I am not hungry," Ebisu whispered.
"Eat it anyway," Chōza said. His voice was warm, the kind of deep rumble that made you feel like the walls were thick enough to hold the roof up. "You can't teach the next generation if you starve the current one."
Ebisu sniffed loudly. He ripped the wrapper open with sudden violence and took a bite. He looked like he was eating drywall, but he was eating.
Chōza nodded, satisfied. "Go home. Sleep. The village will still be here in the morning."
He patted Chōji on the shoulder, and the two Akimichis lumbered off into the dark, a slow-moving mountain range of comfort and calories.
Genma tucked the bar into his vest.
"Come on," he said. "Let's get you two home before Guy starts doing pushups on a streetlight."
They cut through the district near the Ninja Tool Research offices. It was a shortcut, mostly warehouses and supply depots, quiet and shadowed.
Mostly quiet.
"I'm just saying, it's a valid strategy!" a voice argued ahead of them.
Genma looked up.
Naruto Uzumaki was marching down the center of the street, spinning a short bo-staff like a baton. He looked battered—bruises fading on his jaw, jacket scuffed—but he was moving with that boundless, annoying energy that seemed to generate its own gravity.
Behind him, struggling under a pack that looked heavy enough to kill a donkey, was the pink-haired girl from his team. Sylvie. She had both arms full of scrolls and boxes, her glasses were sliding down her nose, and she looked ready to murder someone.
"It is not a strategy," she was saying, breathless. "It is a felony. You cannot summon a toad inside a shop just because the line is long."
"Intimidation is a ninja tool!" Naruto insisted.
They almost collided with the jōnin trio.
Naruto stopped spinning the staff. "Whoa! Closet-perv sensei!"
Ebisu, who was halfway through his protein bar and looking slightly more human, froze mid-chew.
"Naruto-kun," Ebisu choked out, swallowing hard. "I am— I am not a closet pervert. I am an elite tutor."
Naruto pointed at the protein bar. "What are you doing? Eating candy in the dark? You don't have friends!"
Genma snorted. The kid really had no filter.
Ebisu turned a shade of red visible even in the moonlight. "What?! Of course I have friends! These are my— my teammates!" He gestured frantically at Genma and Guy.
"Yeah right," Naruto scoffed. "You were peeping at the hot springs! I saw you! You're a pervert!"
The silence that followed was absolute.
Sylvie adjusted her grip on the boxes, looking like she wanted to dissolve into the pavement. "Naruto, please stop talking to the adults."
"He was!" Naruto yelled. "He fainted when I did the Sexy Jutsu! That's proof!"
Ebisu looked like he was about to have a stroke. He turned wildly to Genma.
"Genma," he pleaded. "Tell him. Tell him I am a respectable shinobi."
Genma leaned back, popped the senbon out of his mouth, and smirked.
"I mean," Genma drawled, "you did faint."
Ebisu made a sound like a teakettle boiling over. He wheeled around to Guy, tears of betrayal streaming down his face.
"Guy!" he wailed. "You know me! You know my youthful spirit is pure! Tell them!"
Guy's face was shadowed by the streetlamp above. He stood very still, green jumpsuit glowing ominously in the gloom. The grief from earlier, the manic energy, the tears—it all coalesced into a heavy, solemn gravity.
He stepped forward and placed both hands on Ebisu's shoulders. His grip was firm. Comforting.
"Ebisu," Guy said, voice deep and resonant.
Ebisu looked up, hopeful.
"We are all perverts," Guy said.
Naruto threw his hands over his head. "NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Sylvie just closed her eyes and kept walking. "I'm leaving. I don't know any of you."
Ebisu collapsed into Guy's arms, sobbing. Genma put the senbon back in his mouth and chuckled.
The village was broken. The Hokage was dead. The war was probably just starting.
But the idiots were still idiots.
And somehow, that made Genma feel a little bit better.
Fifty feet away, in the shadow of a darkened alleyway, a lighter flicked.
Click.
The flame illuminated a bearded face, scarred and tired, before vanishing as the cigarette caught. Asuma Sarutobi exhaled a long plume of gray smoke that drifted up toward the power lines.
"They're loud," Kurenai observed softly.
She was leaning against the brick wall beside him, arms crossed. She wasn't looking at him; she was watching the chaotic retreating forms of Team Guy, Team 7, and the jōnin trio.
Asuma huffed a laugh as the faint echo of "We are all perverts!" drifted down the street.
"They're alive," Asuma corrected. "Loud is good. Loud means they aren't scared enough to be quiet yet."
He took another drag. The smoke burned his lungs, a familiar, grounding ache.
Kurenai's lips quirked into a faint smirk. "Ebisu is going to file a formal complaint about this in the morning."
"Let him," Asuma grunted. "Keeps the paperwork clerks busy."
They stood in silence as the voices faded, leaving the street empty again. The quiet rushed back in, heavy and oppressive. It was the silence of a village missing its center.
Asuma tilted his head back. From this angle, through the gap between the buildings, he could see the Hokage Monument.
The Third's face was shadowed, the stone eyes staring eternally over the village he had built, defended, and died for.
Asuma's hand drifted to his waist.
His fingers brushed the fabric of the sash he wore—the distinct cloth of the Twelve Guardian Ninja. He traced the weave of it.
Years ago, he had left Konoha wearing a sash like this because he couldn't stand the Old Man. He had hated the politics, the compromises, the endless lectures about the "Will of Fire." He had thought the King was the Hokage—the piece on the board that everyone else had to die to protect.
He had been so stupid.
He looked at the empty street where Naruto and Sylvie had just walked. He thought of Konohamaru, weeping in the training ground.
"The King," Asuma murmured, the ash from his cigarette falling to the pavement.
"Hm?" Kurenai asked, turning to him.
"The old man always asked me who the King was," Asuma said. "I thought he meant himself. Or the Daimyō."
He gripped the sash tighter. It wasn't a symbol of rebellion anymore. It was a reminder of duty.
"It's the kids," Asuma said. "The ones who are going to grow up in the village we rebuild. They're the King. And we're just the pawns standing in front of them."
He took one last drag and dropped the cigarette, grinding it out with his heel.
"He left me a hell of a board state to manage."
Kurenai pushed off the wall. She stepped closer, invading his personal space in that way only she was allowed to do.
She didn't offer platitudes. She didn't tell him he was a good man. She knew he wouldn't believe it tonight.
Instead, she reached out and placed her hand over his, right where he was gripping the sash. Her fingers were cool against his skin.
"You don't have to move the pieces alone," she said.
Asuma looked at her. Her red eyes were steady, unblinking in the gloom.
He turned his hand over, lacing his fingers through hers. He squeezed, just once.
"I know," he said.
They stood there for a long time, holding hands in the dark, while the stone face of his father watched over them from the mountain.