So even Hiashi himself had no idea his eldest daughter had already become that strong.
Hinata had been working hard in silence, all so she could someday catch up to that person's back.
Unfortunately, over the past three years, the two had barely had any chances to meet. On the rare occasions when they crossed paths in the Hokage building, she would blush and hide far away, never daring to approach him.
After Ino dragged Akira into the barbecue restaurant, Asuma spotted him and greeted him with a smile.
"Well, look who showed up. That's rare."
Although Akira was now a jonin and technically outranked Asuma in position, Asuma was still his senior.
Akira sat down with a smile. "Looks like I'll be troubling you tonight, Asuma-sensei."
Asuma looked at the half-grown crowd around the table and felt his wallet start bleeding.
This meal was not going to be cheap, especially with Choji, the bottomless pit, present.
He might have been the young master of the Sarutobi clan, but Asuma had his pride. He never spent the family's money.
Every expense came from mission pay he had earned with his own life on the line.
This meal would probably burn through the reward from a D-rank mission, maybe even a C-rank.
Still, for an elite jonin, money was just money. If it was gone, he could earn more.
The truth was, ninja expenses were high. Most of their income went toward weapons, tools, and equipment maintenance.
After all, one explosive tag alone cost several thousand ryō. Fighting was practically setting money on fire.
As for the legendary six hundred billion explosive tags Konan was said to have used, Akira had always treated that as pure nonsense. Even if every paper mill in the ninja world worked nonstop, producing that many would be absurd.
Ninja tools were the foundation of a ninja's survival. So while ninja earned a lot, few actually saved much.
Looking at the hungry teenagers devouring plate after plate, Asuma touched his shrinking wallet and smiled helplessly before calling the owner over.
"Ten more plates of pork belly."
There was a reason Asuma could often treat Shikamaru and those food-loving brats to huge meals. He definitely had a decent amount saved.
If they were talking about actual wealth, Kakashi was probably even richer than Asuma.
Unfortunately, that guy was a complete cheapskate. Getting him to pay for even the cheapest bowl of ramen was like asking him to cut off a piece of himself.
Of course, if it was a new ninja tool or the latest volume of a certain spicy bestseller, Kakashi could pull out money faster than he could form hand signs.
That said, Akira himself had not exactly been idle over the past three years. His private savings had quietly grown to a ridiculous level. A rough estimate put it somewhere around a hundred million ryō.
There was no way that kind of money came only from honest mission pay. Most of it came from trophies and spoils collected along the way during missions.
And ever since he started living alongside Tsunade, Konoha's famous losing gambler had stopped going to casinos to throw her money away.
One thing led to another, and Akira's savings became rather impressive.
Since he usually stayed at the Senju compound and lived there comfortably, he barely had anywhere to spend money.
There were rumors outside that Akira was living off the Senju clan, but he did not care in the slightest.
No one in the Senju clan dared gossip either. For someone like Akira, whose name now shook the ninja world, that small expense was not even worth mentioning.
The clan elders would have gladly let Akira live there for the rest of his life. Anyone with eyes could see that he was now Konoha's strongest fighter and almost certainly the future Sixth Hokage.
If they did not build a good relationship with him now, it would be too late later.
A starving camel was still larger than a horse. The Senju clan might look thin and faded on the surface, but the business network they had spread throughout Konoha was still astonishing.
In terms of wealth, they were likely no worse than a major clan like the Hyūga. What they lacked was simply a top-tier powerhouse to hold up the family's prestige.
At present, Tsunade was probably the last pillar and final glory of that ancient clan.
Akira's arrival, however, made the monk boy named Sora extremely unhappy.
That dislike came from nowhere, as if it had seeped out of his bones. From the first moment Sora saw Akira, he felt uncomfortable.
Once he heard this was the famous Akira whose name had spread across the ninja world, his expression turned even worse.
Akira ignored it entirely. As long as the kid did not lose his mind and provoke him, Akira could not be bothered to care what he thought.
Inside the barbecue restaurant, smoke and warmth filled the air. Ino sat right beside Akira with obvious closeness, and Sakura, sitting across from them, nearly ground her teeth.
The meal lasted more than two hours. Ino acted like the most attentive person at the table, constantly placing grilled meat onto Akira's plate until it piled up like a small hill.
If Akira had not finally stopped her, she might have tried to feed him the entire restaurant.
After everyone ate their fill and left the barbecue place, Akira did not linger. He walked straight back toward the Senju estate.
When he passed a dim street corner, a pink-haired figure stood quietly beneath the light, watching him with a complicated gaze.
Akira stopped and looked at Sakura under the streetlamp, then teased her with a faint smile.
"Well, Sakura. It's late. Shouldn't you be home asleep instead of standing here like a gate guard?"
Sakura did not answer immediately. She lowered her head, rubbing the toe of her sandal against the ground and kicking a small pebble aside.
After a long while, she finally seemed to gather her courage and looked up.
"You... what exactly is your relationship with Ino?"
Maybe she realized the question sounded too direct, because her cheeks colored slightly in the darkness and her eyes darted away.
Akira found the question strange at first, but after thinking about it, he understood most of what was going on. He smiled and shrugged.
"Friends. What else would we be? We're old classmates. Why ask that all of a sudden?"
Hearing that answer, Sakura's tense heart settled almost immediately, and the corners of her mouth rose before she could stop them.
She took a deep breath, leaned her back against the cold wall, and stared at Akira with bright, searching eyes.
"Then... do you have a girl you like?"
Akira's heart gave a quiet thud.
There it is.
This girl really was not giving up.
Though he felt a little helpless, his expression stayed calm, and he answered cleanly.
"Yes."
The expectation on Sakura's face froze instantly. She stood there as if lightning had struck her.
"You have someone you like?"
Akira nodded again without hesitation.
"What's strange about that?"
Sakura waved her hands in a fluster, her words stumbling over one another. "N-no, nothing. It's nothing... Then, can you tell me who it is?"
Looking at her dazed expression, Akira smiled and shook his head.
"No."
The little happiness Sakura had felt after learning Ino had no chance plunged straight to the bottom. Her mood crashed like a stone.
Unwilling to let it go, she asked, "Is it Ino?"
Akira shook his head again, his tone certain. "No."
Sakura frowned hard, running through every girl she knew in her mind. Then she asked carefully, "Then... is it Hinata?"
Akira still wore that calm smile.
"No."
Now Sakura was completely confused. Her brows tightened as she thought wildly.
If it isn't either of them, then who else could it be? Someone from another village?
She suddenly remembered that over the past three years, Akira had traveled outside the village often and seemed to have connections with several other hidden villages.
"Is it someone from Kumogakure? Or Sunagakure?"