This time, Hazō did the smart thing and offered Akane the flowers first.

“Are these… for me?” Akane reached for them hesitantly. “Hazō-sensei, you shouldn’t have…”

“Of course they’re for you,” Hazō said, feeling warm inside at the expression of wonder on her face. “Who else could flame-of-the-forest suit so well? They’re a symbol of youth, fire and passion… and rebirth as well.”

Akane gave him a misty-eyed smile. “That’s… Hazō-sensei, that is the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me. Why are you so nice to me? Even after I…”

“Akane,” Hazō cut her off, “you did nothing wrong. It was an accident that doesn’t reflect on your abilities in any way.”

He paused. No. He wasn’t going to go down this track again. Low-stress conversation, that was what he was supposed to be here for.

“Leaf has been very interesting,” he said in a completely natural and unforced change of subject. “It’s huge. Certainly bigger than Mist, at least in terms of non-restricted areas. And it’s so cosmopolitan. It feels like you have everything here, and everyone. I’ve seen travellers of ethnicities I don’t even know the names for, and restaurants with cuisines I have no idea how to pronounce. To be honest, I’m a bit jealous. But I can see how such an impressive village could raise someone as awesome as you.”

“Hazō-sensei,” Akane’s face briefly lit up with an amused smile, “are you flirting with me?”

Hazō froze. “I, uh… I wasn’t trying to—I mean, it’s not that I—uh, that is…”

“I was only joking, Hazō-sensei,” Akane said softly. “Of course you weren’t flirting with me.”

Hazō had a distinct feeling he’d done something wrong, but he had no idea what.

“Nonono. Akane… I… I didn’t mean I’d never flirt with you—not that I’m making a promise to flirt with you or anything, but I’m not saying I’m ruling it out as a possibility either—oh, but I’m not trying to toy with your feelings by being ambiguous, uh, not to imply that you have any sort of feelings for me to toy with—wait, that makes you sound like an inanimate object, I don’t mean that at all...”

“Deep breaths, Hazō-sensei, deep breaths,” Akane said with a completely unreadable expression.

Hazō obeyed.

“OK,” he said. “Clear Communication Technique, activate.

“Akane, I don’t really understand what flirting is, so I don’t think I can flirt with anybody deliberately, including you. I also don’t fully understand the implications of flirting with somebody, so I wouldn’t try to flirt with you in case it hurt your feelings or changed the relationship between us in some undesirable way. You are very important to me, and I don’t ever want to hurt you by acting carelessly.”

Akane gave him a piercing look, as if trying to see through his eyes and into his very soul.

“You know, I thought the Clear Communication Technique was supposed to make things less complicated.”

“Sorry?” Hazō blinked.

“Never mind,” Akane sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry I ruined the mood.”

“Akane, no, I—”

“I’m sorry, Hazō-sensei. I think I need to go back to sleep now.”

Low-stress conversation. At this rate, he’d need to ask Noburi for tips.

o-o-o-o

“And that’s without even touching on parfaits, macaroons, cupcakes and shortbread!” Akimichi exclaimed, gesticulating as if to trace the forms of the desserts in the air.

“Kurosawa wanted you to tell him your favourite books,” Yamanaka said acidically.

“I just did! Those are a few of my top volumes from the Akimichi Lore line of cookbooks. They’re very beginner-friendly, and I can vouch for how delicious they are myself.”

Yamanaka cast a ‘please stop the world from descending any further into insanity’ look at Nara.

“How troublesome,” Nara muttered. “If you must know, I am fond of Yumehara’s Classical History of the Elemental Nations, volumes I, II and IV. Skip volume III—his epistemology takes a nosedive.”

“Thank you,” Hazō said. “I’ll be sure to check it out if I have the opportunity.”

Nara stopped and gave him a deer-in-the-lamplight look. “You will? You’re accepting a reading recommendation?”

“Of course I am,” Hazō said, frowning. “Why wouldn’t I?

“What about you, Yamanaka?”

“Anything by Konaya and Tamamono. If you’re a beginner, start with something light like Nine Tales of the Kitsune, or The Harem Technique if you’re a little more adventurous. My personal favourite is Snake Oil: The Untold Story of the Leaf Three.”

“Snake Oil is factually incorrect,” Inoue-sensei told her. “On many counts.”

Yamanaka looked at her blankly. “How would you—oh. Ohh.”

Inoue-sensei grinned.

Hazō opened his mouth to ask what they were talking about—

“Onwards, Lee!”

“Yes, Gai-sensei! If I don’t cross the finish line first, I will do one hundred press-ups without using my arms!”

“That’s the spirit, Lee!”

“Gai-sensei!”

“Lee!”

“Gai-sensei!”

A pair of men in all-too-familiar green spandex crossed the road in front of them, walking on their hands. After a second’s disorientation, Hazō realised this was his chance.

“Excuse me!”

“What is it, my friend?” the older one asked.

“Could I speak with you in private for a second?”

o-o-o-o

“I have a friend who’s in the Leaf General Hospital after being severely injured on a mission,” Hazō explained, “and I was hoping you could help cheer her up. She’s a great believer in the Spirit of Youth, you see.”

Gai and Lee exchanged glances.

“How is it that a foreign ninja like you knows of the Spirit of Youth?” Gai asked with a faint frown.

“Um,” Hazō said. How to handle this? Well, if these people were Akane’s original inspiration…

“The Spirit of Youth transcends the boundaries of nations! A better question would be: why doesn’t everyone know of the Spirit of Youth?”

Gai nodded sagely. “Indeed. Where did you say you were from again?”

“My mission here is classified,” Hazō explained. “You should talk to Captain Sarutobi, since he’ll know your clearance level better than me. My friend’s name is Ishihara Akane. Will you help her for me?”

“Of course,” Lee said without hesitation. “We shall help restore her to the Springtime of Youth no matter what it takes!”

“Indeed. Onwards, Lee!”

“Gai-sensei!”

“Lee!”

“Gai-sensei!”

That was Akane’s crush? Hazō was feeling a little dizzy just from being in the same room as him.

o-o-o-o

“It doesn’t do any good to merely dispel every hour on the dot,” Nara argued patiently. “Your enemy will notice the pattern and time their genjutsu to follow immediately. Stagger it by randomly adding or subtracting five to fifteen minutes and you get equivalent coverage without the predictability.”

“But if you’re in a high-stress environment, it’s easy to forget a more complicated pattern, which would leave you vulnerable. The advantage of the hourly dispel is that it can quickly be made into an ingrained routine.” Hazō reached for his chopsticks. “You agree, don’t you, Kagome-sensei?”

“Actually, I’m with the Nara kid,” Kagome-sensei said. “Never let the stinkers figure out what you’re thinking. I thought I’d trained you better than this.”

Hazō felt a flush of shame. “I’ve been meaning to ask,” he smoothly switched topics, “didn’t you guys host the Chūnin Exams not that long ago? What were they like?”

“I think the technical term is ‘crazyawesome’,” Yamanaka said. “Ninja from every corner of the world, all putting aside their differences and coming together in the spirit of beating the crap out of each other. Enough weirdos and wacky techniques to fill up a hundred Bingo Books. It was enough to make Shikamaru get serious.”

“Don’t exaggerate,” Nara looked down into his bowl. “It was their own poor strategy that cancelled out their three-on-one advantage.”

“Right… So is it true that the Fourth Hokage’s son fought the Kazekage’s son in the finals? What was that like?”

“Nobody really knows,” Akimichi confessed.

“Huh?” Noburi said. “How can you not know? Wasn’t it in that huge arena over there? That thing must seat hundreds of spectators.”

“Well, within about two seconds, the entire place was a sandstorm. Visibility was down to zero. There was a bunch of explosions, and lots of shouting, like there was an army at war in there. Screaming, too. After maybe thirty seconds, there was an enormous blast of wind that wiped the air clear—nearly wrecking the audience’s defensive screens as it did—and there was Gaara of the Desert, floating away from the arena on this big cloud of flying sand. Naruto chased him into the woodlands, and none of us are sure what happened after that, except that they eventually came back and declared a draw.”

“They left the arena?” Hazō said. “Don’t you normally get disqualified for that sort of thing?”

“Only if you’re fleeing because you’ve lost,” Nara told him. “After Orochimaru vs Morino, the Hokage made a rule allowing battles to extend outside the arena where it was necessary to ensure spectators’ safety and/or minimise collateral damage. Nobody was willing to argue that it applied here after they saw what was left of the arena floor.”

o-o-o-o

​ “So what kind of training were you thinking of, Inoue?” Sarutobi asked as they entered the vast, sprawling splendour that was the Leaf Training Grounds.

“Hmm. Some sparring would be nice. I could really do with blowing off some steam. But I think it’s more important for my team to get some stealth training in—these last few missions, they’ve been like an all-singing, all-dancing theatre troupe.”

“That sounds great,” a new voice came from the direction of the gates before Hazō could object. “Mind if we join in?”

Before Hazō could turn to see who it was, Kagome-sensei screamed.

“The Hyūga are here! I’ll kill you all before I let you hurt my team, you stinking stinkers!” He reached feverishly for the seals he wasn’t carrying.

Hazō spun around.

“Byakugan!”

A Hyūga, with the unmistakable white eyes, and bulging veins all around them, stood facing them, his hands still in the seal he must have needed to activate his Bloodline Limit.

Next to him was a girl—non-Hyūga—with a wickedly curved sword held over her head in what Hazō thought was preparation for a lunge.

And next to her was Rock Lee, also ready for combat but looking rather confused.

Behind them all, Maito Gai stood with his arms crossed, watching to see what happened.

Sarutobi sighed. “Allow me to introduce Team Gai, who as far as I know aren’t here to kill you. That’s Maito Gai over there, and his students,” he pointed, “Hyūga Neji, Tenten and Rock Lee. They’ve been cleared to know about you guys, though that doesn’t explain what they’re doing here.”

The three genin(?) relaxed. Kagome-sensei didn’t.

Gai laughed. “We couldn’t not come and see a foreign team driven by the Spirit of Youth, could we, Lee?”

“Of course not, Gai-sensei!”

Keiko gave Hazō a look that could have frozen a Great Fireball Technique.

“Now if you’re after stealth training,” Gai went on, “that’s something my team could do with as well. Why don’t we use a routine I developed with my rival many years ago? Asuma, you don’t mind if we have first go with the new guys, do you?”

Sarutobi’s shoulders slumped. “Do as you like, Gai.”

“Great!” Gai smiled. “The idea is simple. Each of you get given a sticky tag. Your objective is to plant that tag on your partner’s back before they can do the same to you, within, let’s say, two hours. It’s a training exercise that teaches you to channel the flames of Youth into a more subtle form, and it’s a load of fun to boot.”

​ o-o-o-o

​ Hazō eyed Rock Lee warily. Rock Lee beamed back at him.

“I knew you and I were going to be partners, Kurosawa! I can’t wait to deepen our manly bonds by exhausting ourselves against each other in our Springtime of Youth!”

“Yes,” Hazō agreed. “Let us go and do that thing which you just said.”

​ o-o-o-o

​ “Hmm,” Gai considered Hyūga. “I suppose you’ll have to go with Inoue, or perhaps this Kagome fellow.”

“Hold on,” Noburi objected. “That’s going to throw all the numbers off. Why isn’t he getting paired with one of us?”

Hyūga sneered at him. “Is your brain as messed up as your insides, foreigner scum? I am a Hyūga. I know all and see all. It would take a jōnin to have even the slightest chance of challenging me at stealth. As for you, you would be better off sitting this one out altogether. What kind of pathetic excuse for a ninja goes around with no spare chakra in their body?”

So. Noburi might have known it would be like this. Hyūga was a ninja from one of the noble clans. Probably another clan heir, even. It should have been no surprise that he’d turn out to be yet another bully.

Noburi had seen hell this last year. He’d fought monsters and murderers, and learned to give life with one hand and take it with the other. He was damned if he was going to roll over for another bully ever again.

“In that case, Hyūga,” he said in a casual voice, “I suppose you wouldn’t mind taking me on with a little handicap?”

He turned to Gai. “How about we do this in a difficult environment? There’s more to sneaking around than knowing where to go, after all. You still need to be clever and quiet. I don’t suppose you have some dense forest around?

“Hmm, no. Too easy. A lake, or maybe a swamp?”

He gave a thoughtful pause. “Actually, scratch that. A swamp is probably a bit much for you, Hyūga. Why don’t I let you pick where we compete?”

Hyūga’s eye twitched. “Know your place, outsider. There is nowhere that I can’t defeat the likes of you. I’ll deal with you within minutes, and then there’ll be plenty of time left to come back and challenge a jōnin.”

“Well, then, sir,” Noburi signalled Gai, “please show us the way.” He flashed a mischievous grin at the rest of the team as they stared after him in bewilderment.

​ o-o-o-o

Mari, Sarutobi and Gai finished assigning partners.

Keiko was paired with Tenten. The two girls gave each other long, measuring looks, nodded to each other, and headed off into the woods without a word.

Yamanaka and Akimichi followed in a slightly different direction, chatting as they went.

Nara gazed apprehensively at Sarutobi.

“Shikamaru, you’re in charge of timekeeping.”

“Thank you, Asuma-sensei.”

“So,” Sarutobi addressed Kagome, who was gradually starting to calm down. “Want to go train with me?”

Kagome gave him an incredulous look. “Go off into the forest alone with one of you Leaf assassins? You must think I’ve gone mad.”

Sarutobi nodded. “Yeah, I thought you’d say that. Well, I can’t say I mind having a couple of hours off. Looking after you guys full-time is pretty draining.”

Kagome eyed him suspiciously, clearly uneasy about the sudden agreement. Then he went for his kunai as Sarutobi pulled something out of a pocket.

“Easy, man,” Sarutobi rolled his eyes. “It’s just a book. I always carry one with me so I have something to do when my team are making asses of themselves and I don’t have the energy to stop them. It’s a habit I picked up from a friend.”

“A book?” Kagome repeated with what Mari thought was a touch of longing in his voice.

“Sure. Want to borrow it while we wait?”

“It has been a very, very long time since I last read a book,” Kagome reflected.

“Then again,” Sarutobi said slowly, “it’s only Ambushes and Counter-Ambushes, fifth edition. A bit dry for my tastes. I don’t know if you’d—”

“I suppose I wouldn’t mind giving that a read, if you insist,” Kagome said, snatching the book out of Sarutobi’s hand with the speed of a pouncing panther.

Sarutobi lit up a cigarette and took a drag, giving Mari a smug wink.

Meanwhile, Mari was more interested in Gai. After giving his flawless musculature a satisfied and none-too-subtle up-and-down look, she stepped closer.

“Looks like it’s just you and me left to… pair off.”

“Indeed. Will you show me the full depths of your youthful passion, Inoue Mari?”

“Catch me if you can!” she grinned as she ran off into the forest.

​ o-o-o-o

Timing his moment perfectly, Hazō dropped down from the tree canopy, his hand zooming towards Rock Lee’s exposed back.

In a flash, Lee spun around, blocking the attack with a sweep of his forearm.

Hazō leapt backwards, out of strike range.

The two watched each other.

Finally, Rock Lee raised his hands in the air. “Truce!”

“Truce,” Hazō said, not sure where this was going.

“Kurosawa, I understand why your heart isn’t in all this sneaking around. To be honest, mine isn’t either. You and I both know that there’s only one thing we want to do to each other.”

“There… is?”

Lee stepped forward unexpectedly, and clasped Hazō’s hands in his.

“Lee?”

“Yes,” Lee said, eyes blazing. “We must plumb the very depths of our youth with a perfect union of minds and bodies, and embrace the profound impact of each other’s manhood. That is true youthfulness as Gai-sensei has taught it to me.”

“Lee?” Hazō asked with increasing alarm.

“That’s right,” Lee proclaimed. “Let us engage in full-contact taijutsu sparring!”

​ o-o-o-o

​ Neji took careful step after careful step, watching every ripple that followed from his movement on the water to ensure that none of them were great enough to alert his prey. Wakahisa truly was incompetent, taking an exposed position that made Neji’s approach almost effortless. After all his blathering about how difficult it was to sneak through a swamp, he had left Neji with a path that granted him the virtually complete silence of water walking, rather than having to work his way past tiresome tree roots and noisy animals. Foreigners.

Even now, the fool was facing the other way, scanning the treeline while leaving his back shamefully open. Only a few metres left between them, and the movement of Wakahisa’s muscles showed that he had no intention of turning around. This would be as trivial a victory as he’d expected.

Two metres… One metre…

Neji stopped. Was that his chakra, moving in a narrow stream through the water?

That couldn’t be good.

Neji lunged—

And Wakahisa released his water walking, plunging into the depths.

Before Neji could pull back from his suddenly overextended stance, a hand grabbed his ankle, pulling him down as well.

Neji burst into a flurry of disoriented motion, trying to regain his footing and defend himself against an attack with his water-slowed movements.

The attack never came. Instead, as Neji finally gathered himself enough to mount a counter-offense, Wakahisa put his hands together and began to form seals.

That was where Neji’s chakra had been flowing.

As Neji desperately tried to charge at Wakahisa to interrupt, a whip of water lashed out, twisting around him as he tried to evade. He both saw and felt the tag as it was slapped on his back.

​ o-o-o-o

​ Kei lay back on the thick tree branch, out on the far edge of the Training Grounds. She luxuriated in the peaceful silence as her eyes lazily tracked the movement of a hawk circling around the thermals.

“Rock-paper-scissors?” she asked the girl relaxing on the branch below.

“Mmm.”

Kei yawned and shifted into a more comfortable position.

​ o-o-o-o

​ “Witness the power of Righteous Face Punching Style,” Hazō declared, shifting into stance and preparing his best Roki feint.

“Leaf Strong Fist Style,” Lee replied, raising his arms into a classic sideways blocking motion. “Allow me to begin!”

Lee charged.

“Leaf Whirlwind!”

Hazō readied his block—

Lee disappeared.

What?!

His mind already in feinting mode, Hazō saw through Lee’s technique just in time, ducking to avoid the spinning mid-air kick from behind him.

“Universal Problem-Solving Technique!” Hazō rose with a precise uppercut, knowing his opponent couldn’t evade in mid-air and that committing his arms to a block would leave him helpless as he came down.

Lee tanked the blow with his face.

As Lee landed in his defensive stance, sliding backwards a little with the force of the attack, Hazō stared in disbelief.

“That’s impossible. Shouldn’t you at least have a broken nose or something?”

“A most youthful technique,” Lee said. “But as Gai-sensei always says, when life punches you in the face, you make (non-alcoholic) punch!”

“You… get punched in the face a lot, then?”

“Of course,” Lee said proudly. “I have been conditioning myself to endure blows to the head since I was little.”

“That… actually explains a lot,” Hazō said. “Either way, it’s my turn!

“Subtle Manipulation Technique!”

He let his muscles move into the beginning motions of a punch to the face, then paused fractionally as Lee registered the tell, realised it was a fake and moved to block the hit to his solar plexus. Then Hazō punched him in the face.

Of course, even that was a bluff. As Lee once again absorbed the blow, Hazō threw his body weight forwards instead of pulling back to reset, pushing Lee’s head back and down. At the same time, he hooked his left leg around Lee’s calf and forced the knee to bend. Lee began to fall, helpless and with his arms in front of his abdomen, unable to break the fall in time. Hazō moved his left arm into position for a brutal elbow strike, timed to connect just as Lee hit the ground.

But Lee twisted his body with impossible agility, landing side-on so that Hazō’s elbow went past him. There was no time for Hazō to fully abort the movement, and his elbow slammed down, sending waves of incapacitating numbness and pain (how did those two even combine?!) through his arm.

Lee rolled as Hazō reeled. One leg swept out behind him to arrest his sideways movement, leaving him on all fours in a scorpion stance.

In that pose, he waited politely as Hazō recovered.

“Lee… what are you doing?!”

“Giving you a chance to catch your breath,” Lee explained. “That was a very unlucky fall.”

Oh, that was it. Hazō ran through a list of his most devastating techniques as he moved in. This time, he’d let Lee commit himself first, and pick one that had no room for failure.

Lee moved in. “Leaf Rock-Splitting Axe Kick!”

His left leg began to come up for the blow.

Hazō, with the smooth sideways movement born of a thousand almost-dodged hair-ruffles, began to slip left, past the leg. An axe kick locked your centre of mass while it was in progress. It was a very powerful move, but it left you incredibly vulnerable.

Lee’s leg stomped down again without rising even as far as his waist, the motion so fast it must have been planned all along. The momentum transferred to his left fist—which slammed into Hazō’s face in a roundhouse punch, amplified by Hazō’s own movement.

The last thing Hazō saw was a tree which appeared to be flying towards him very fast.

​ o-o-o-o

​ “What the heck happened to you, Hazō?” Inoue-sensei asked, staring at him as he limped into sight, holding Lee tightly so as not to fall over. “Weren’t you supposed to be training stealth?”

“Lee won,” Hazō slurred. “Much sneakier.”

Noburi and Hyūga were next in.

“He cheated!” Hyūga pointed his finger at Noburi.

“Neji,” Gai said carefully, “are you saying you lost?”

“He cheated,” Hyūga repeated petulantly.

“Ah,” Inoue-sensei said, ”you mean he competed like a ninja. Gotcha. Nice job, Noburi.”

Hyūga glared.

Keiko and Tenten showed up shortly afterwards.

“She overcame me in a masterful display of subterfuge,” Keiko stated in a deadpan voice. “My incisive strategy worked on paper, but against Tenten it hit the rocks.”

Yamanaka and Akimichi were last.

“He won,” Yamanaka complained. “As usual.”

As for Kagome-sensei, it took the concerted efforts of the entire team, and little short of physical force, to tear him away from his book.

​ o-o-o-o

​ “Thank you for training with me today, Kurosawa,” Lee said his goodbyes. “I respect your skill and creativity. When you wrapped your body around mine and threw me to the ground, I knew you were a man worthy of the full power of my burning youth, and I apologise for the intensity of what came after. I forget that not everyone is as conditioned for these things as I am. I hope you will be my partner again sometime.”

“I… uh… you too, Lee.”

Hazō risked a glance around.

Keiko and Yamanaka’s mouths were open in awed fascination. Inoue-sensei was smirking.

Akimichi had his head turned slightly sideways, as if trying to figure something out. Nara and Sarutobi looked tired of life.

Noburi was giving him a ‘really, Hazō? Really?’ look.

Hyūga was goggling at him in undisguised horror, while Tenten ignored them all in favour of adjusting her hair.

Finally, Gai’s expression hadn’t changed from its general contentment, nor Kagome-sensei’s from its general suspicion.

“It’s been a pleasure, Inoue Mari,” Gai broke the awful, awful silence.

“It sure has,” Inoue-sensei said. “Let’s do it again sometime.”

Keiko and Tenten nodded to each other wordlessly and went their separate ways.

“This isn’t over, Wakahisa,” Hyūga delivered a parting shot as the rest of his team began to leave.

“Is that right?” Noburi replied. “Guess I’d better take your word for it. After all, you’re the one who knows all and sees all.”

Hyūga gave Noburi one last glare and stormed out of the Training Grounds.