Early the next morning, just as dawn was beginning to break,
Shin-chan was awakened by the sound of Guy shouting slogans outside the tent.
"Youth is push-ups at five in the morning! Youth is frog jumps beneath the rising sun! Youth is—"
Shin-chan pulled the pillow over his head.
"Guy, can't you go burn your youth somewhere else?"
Guy yanked open the tent flap, his eyes blazing with the flames of youth.
"Shin-chan! Come burn your youth with me!!!"
"I'm still growing. I need twelve hours of sleep."
"A growing body needs even more exercise!" Guy grabbed him and tried to pull him out from under the blankets. "Come on! We'll warm up with three hundred squats, then head out to find that monster!"
"No."
Guy's "youthful kidnapping" ended in failure.
Shin-chan wrapped both arms tightly around one of the tent's support poles and refused to let go no matter how hard Guy pulled.
"Shin-chan, you're wasting your youth!"
"My youth needs sleep." Shin-chan kept his eyes closed. "Not getting enough sleep affects the flavor experience of chocolate sticks. That's basic training for a gourmet ninja."
"What's a gourmet ninja?"
"I just invented it."
In the end, Jiraiya sent Guy away with a simple, "Let him sleep another half hour."
Sleeping in was a luxury on a battlefield.
By the time the sky had fully brightened, Konoha's temporary frontline meeting tent was already packed with people.
One battle plan after another was drawn up, only to be discarded.
After waking, Shin-chan sat cross-legged in the open space outside the tent, with his final three chocolate sticks arranged in front of him.
"Strawberry, matcha, original." He lined them up neatly. "Which one goes first and which one goes last... this is a strategic issue."
Jiraiya walked out of the command tent, saw what he was doing, then turned toward Hatake Sakumo.
"What is he doing?"
Sakumo remained expressionless.
"Probably making a battle plan."
"With chocolate sticks?"
"For him, they may be more effective than a tactical map."
Jiraiya shook his head and walked over to Shin-chan.
"Ready?"
"Ready."
Shin-chan picked up the strawberry-flavored chocolate stick and solemnly peeled open the wrapper.
"We leave after I finish this one."
"We've confirmed Satori's route." Sakumo unfolded a simple map. "We need to find it before Iwagakure begins moving large numbers of troops. Every additional day that thing remains loose means another day of danger for the Land of Grass."
Shin-chan took a bite of his chocolate stick.
"Then let's go."
Sakumo looked around at everyone present.
"Jiraiya, Shin-chan, and I will form the tracking team. Everyone else remains here on standby. Kakashi, you and Team Seven will handle security around the camp."
"Understood." Kakashi's voice was as calm as ever.
Obito immediately jumped up.
"Wait! Why does Shin-chan get to go while we have to stay? We're Konoha ninja too!"
"Because Shin-chan can fight Satori one-on-one."
Obito opened his mouth.
Then realized he had absolutely no argument.
He could only sit back down unhappily.
Guy patted him on the shoulder.
"It's alright, Obito. Protecting the camp is also part of youth."
"Can you stop connecting literally everything to youth?"
Morning sunlight spread across the hills of the Land of Grass.
The tracking team followed the direction in which Satori had fled. Sakumo led from the front, barely pausing along the way.
Shin-chan walked at the rear with a chocolate stick between his lips.
Sakumo stopped atop a high slope.
"It should be somewhere not far ahead."
"That direction..." Jiraiya frowned. "That's the abandoned mining area upstream of the Kusa River. Iwa reconnaissance units have been appearing there frequently lately."
The moment he finished speaking, four figures burst from the forest ahead and landed in a combat formation.
Four Iwagakure ninja.
"Konoha ninja?" The Iwa jōnin looked over the three of them. "This area is already under Iwagakure control. You've crossed the line."
Sakumo placed one hand on the hilt of his short blade.
"We're tracking Satori."
"Satori?" The Iwa jōnin's expression changed slightly. "You're looking for that monster too?"
"We're going to deal with it."
The Iwa jōnin sneered.
"With only the three of you?"
"More accurately..." Shin-chan poked his head out from behind Jiraiya. "Mostly me."
"A brat?"
"Out of the three of us, the only one who managed to have any real effect on Satori was this 'brat.' He used... uh, a kind of special genjutsu."
"What kind of genjutsu?"
Jiraiya was silent for two seconds.
"A ramen recipe."
The Iwa jōnin: "...What did you just say?"
"The proper way to make tonkotsu ramen." Shin-chan raised one finger. "You have to simmer the bones for twelve hours, you can't add water halfway through, and the broth needs to turn milky white—"
"Stop." The Iwa jōnin raised a hand. "Whatever method you used, the monster is currently deep inside the mining area. Our reconnaissance team confirmed its location last night."
His expression became even stranger.
"But its condition is... odd. The reconnaissance team reported that it has been talking to itself constantly, muttering all kinds of incomprehensible things."
"Is it reciting how to make tonkotsu ramen?"
The Iwa jōnin's expression became even more complicated.
"How did you know?"
"Because I taught it." Shin-chan looked proud. "I also taught it eleven ways to eat chocolate sticks, how to chill pudding properly, and seventy-two variations of curry rice."
The four Iwa ninja exchanged glances.
Their eyes all seemed to be asking the same question.
Is this Konoha brat insane... or a genius?
"In any case," Sakumo said, breaking the silence, "our objective is the same. How about a temporary ceasefire until Satori is dealt with?"
The Iwa jōnin stared at Sakumo for several seconds.
The name of Konoha's White Fang was known throughout the ninja world.
Temporarily cooperating with someone like him was certainly better than allowing that monster to continue rampaging through the mining area.
"Fine," the Iwa jōnin said. "But I have one condition. If we successfully deal with Satori, this must be included in the joint battle report. Iwagakure gets credit too."
"Agreed."
Shin-chan had already started walking deeper into the mining area.
Jiraiya grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back.
"What are you doing?"
"Going to find Satori." Shin-chan looked at him as though the answer were obvious. "It should have memorized the tonkotsu ramen recipe by now. I'm planning to teach it how to make miso ramen next."
"You are not going there to give it a cooking lesson."
The tracking team and the four Iwagakure ninja maintained a cautious distance between one another as they entered the mine.
The deeper they went, the clearer the voice became.
"...Soft-boiled eggs must be marinated for an entire day before the flavor gets in... the noodles need to be springy, slurp, slurp... chashu should be made from pork belly, with the right balance of fat and lean meat..."
The voice echoed through the tunnels with a mechanical repetition, as though someone had recorded the words and put them on an endless loop.
The Iwa jōnin lowered his voice.
"Our reconnaissance team confirmed it last night. It has been muttering those things continuously since then without stopping once."