In the Leaf teams’ fort, the final night of the first event…

“If I am the filthy foreigner this time, Gōketsu, then why were you the one who spent most of your time cowering in the barracks like a rat while I was the one out on the streets inspecting your so-called village?”

Noburi inwardly winced. Hyūga was gradually improving. Not as a human being—even the Sage would’ve given up on that one as a lost cause—but his banter was getting to the point where in ten years’ time he might be a quarter as witty as he thought he was.

Noburi’s mind was blank, though. It was a horrible sensation. He couldn’t let Hyūga score a point here, not only because that would be like getting savaged by a limpet, but also because somehow or other the two of them had become the evening’s entertainment. Several bored genin were idly listening in, including girls, and Noburi couldn’t bear to lose face before an audience.

“Noburi,” Keiko, his angel of salvation, called out to him from behind. “Might I have a word with you?”

“Saved by the belle!” Noburi grinned. “Take note, Hyūga, this is what it’s like to have girls talk to you of their own free will!”

He followed Keiko, giving Hyūga no chance to retaliate.

“So what’s up?” he asked after Keiko led them to a quiet corner of the fortress.

Keiko shuffled her feet uneasily.

“Noburi,” she said in the even, Academy lecturer-like voice she adopted when using the Clear Communication Technique, “there is a matter I have been avoiding dealing with after it was recently brought to my attention. However, with events moving at unpredictable speeds, I believe it would be beneficial for us to address it now, both to clear a firm foundation for our futures, and to prevent one or both of us from being made to suffer by what those futures may contain.

“If you are not comfortable discussing this matter, I by no means intend to compel you to do so, and I would like to emphasise immediately that I am approaching it without any intent to judge. I also wish to apologise in advance for my inevitable mishandling of a sensitive topic, but please believe that I have only the best of intentions.”

Noburi was getting a very, very bad feeling about this.

“So what’s this terrifying topic of doom, then?” he asked, hearing bravado in his own voice.

“Noburi, do you have romantic feelings for me?”

Oh, hell.

From the bottom of his heart, Noburi wished Yamanaka Neira would die in a fire. Or rather, that she’d died in a fire years ago and not been there to stab her long fingernails into other people’s wounds in the name of Chūnin Exam preparation.

What was the point of talking about this? He already knew he didn’t stand a chance any more than Keiko herself had stood a chance with Mari-sensei. He’d known for a long time. He wasn’t even the right gender.

But Keiko was waiting. He wasn’t going to lie and say no. That would be stupid. She already knew—it was the only reason why she’d think to ask at all. And sometimes, when the chips were down and your escape had been cut off, even against impossible odds the only thing a real man could do was stand and fight.

He was doing this.

“Keiko,” he said, his voice filled with all of the strength and courage and forthrightness ever possessed by Wakahisa or Gōketsu Noburi, “I’ve had a crush on you ever since the Swamp of Death. Since just before the Swamp of Death, actually, when we were together in the Support Unit. I would sit outside the tent maintaining my barrel, and listen to you talking logistics with Sumie-sensei like you were holding the world in the palm of your hand and turning it back and forth until you found the angle you wanted.

“I wanted to see the world the way you did, from up high and taking in every detail, instead of being stuck down here where I was a mediocre kid with nothing to offer anyone except his bloodline. To be brilliant like you. Or at least to be next to you while you were being brilliant.”

The words were pouring out now, without effort, and without confidence that he could stop them if he tried.

“You have an incredible mind, Keiko. I knew that from the start. But you’re more than that. You’re brave. You’re rational under pressure. You don’t take nonsense from anybody, even if they’re a hundred times bigger than you and covered in armoured scales. You’re funny, and you have a deadpan most people would kill for. You’re caring to the core. And you’re crazy strong, to keep going the way you do even when you’re hurting.

“And you’re beautiful. I don’t think you have any idea how beautiful you are. You have a perfect slim figure. Deep, expressive eyes. Lips that—uh, forget the lips. You move with this effortless precision, like you know without thinking exactly where every part of your body ought to go, and once you’ve put it there, you don’t waste energy moving it any more.”

Noburi and Keiko gazed at each other silently.

“That’s it,” he said after a few seconds. “I’m done.”

“Noburi…” she said softly, eventually. “Thank you.”

She fell silent, her expression focused. Probably choosing her words. Even though Noburi knew exactly what was coming, part of him was still cold with fear.

“You are a precious friend to me,” Keiko finally said. “You are one of a tiny handful of people who have earned my loyalty and trust—across my entire lifetime. I could not have imagined, even a few months ago, that the whims of fate would bestow me with brothers by adoption, but I do not regret that one of them was you.

“But however much I appreciate your feelings, Noburi, I cannot return them. I am sorry.”

“It’s OK,” Noburi said, feeling the finality of it wash over him. “I always knew.”

“Is there anything I can do to help you get over me?” Keiko asked anxiously. “I could… I could present you with a categorised list of my major and minor flaws! Perhaps if you became aware of the many ways in which your perceptions of me are inaccurate…”

“Keiko,” Noburi found himself laughing despite it all. “For somebody with a brain the size of a planet, you can be really dumb sometimes. And besides, trying to solve complex interpersonal issues by making lists is Hazō’s shtick.”

Funnily enough, maybe Keiko being Keiko was what he’d needed to hear. Like a reminder that the world hadn’t changed after all.

“I do feel better now,” he told her. “Lighter, almost. Funny, huh?”

“You are a stronger person than I, Noburi,” Keiko said wryly. “Do you recall how I behaved in the aftermath of my unplanned confession to Mari-sensei?”

“How could I forget? But you were in love with Mari-sensei. That’s like playing your first game of Yōkai Tales on Hell Difficulty. You’ve got the board filled up with evil spirits eating your face before you’ve even figured out the rules.”

“Do not remind me,” Keiko muttered.

“Eh, we got Hazō back for it, so it’s all good. My point being, if I was in love with Mari-sensei, and accidentally confessed to her, and had a convenient otherworldly hole ready to open up and swallow me, you can bet I’d dive in headfirst.

“Anyway, Keiko, thanks for asking, and thanks for listening. I feel like I need some time to myself right now, but after that… maybe I’ll be able to start moving on.”

“I hope so,” Keiko said. “If you ever do need that list, I assure you it would only be the work of a few minutes, at least for the major flaws.”

Noburi gave her his finest despairing look, Keiko responded with an innocent “Just saying…” shrug, and that was when Noburi started to believe that maybe being “just friends” could be the first step to being “friends for real”.

​ -o-

​ Meanwhile, in another corner of the fort, two girls leaned back against a wall, looking up at the stars. Akane’s arms were folded behind her, as if trusting more of her weight to the solidity of Hazō’s walls, while Ino was more upright, one foot crossed over the other.

“Do you remember the conversation we had that night, Ino?”

Ino snorted. “How could I forget? I know we’d sort of been dancing around it all along, but still, way to blindside a girl.”

“Sorry,” Akane said. “I’ve got as far as being able to bring up hard topics. Knowing when and how to do it is a work in progress.”

“No big, Akane. And I backed off, didn’t I, just like you asked?”

Akane nodded. “You’re a good friend, Ino.”

“C’mon, don’t start gushing on me now,” Ino rolled her eyes. “I got where you were coming from, that’s all.”

“No, I mean it.” Akane looked down from the heavens to Ino’s face. “You kept visiting me in hospital so I wouldn’t be alone after Hazō was banned from Leaf. And you kept hanging out with me even after I was discharged.”

“You make yourself sound like a charity case, Akane. So I came by a few times. After the way Gōketsu fucked up, somebody had to pick up the pieces. I just happened to be someone who knew how tight you two were and had some time to spare. And then maybe I figured out that you’re decent company now you’ve chilled out on all the youth stuff. I wasn’t doing any of it because I was trying to be nice to you.”

“Of course you weren’t,” a small smile tugged on the edges of Akane’s lips. “What was I thinking?”

“So,” Ino said more cautiously, “if you’re bringing up that talk we had, does that mean…”

“Things have been very… stable since Hazō came back to Leaf,” Akane said. “Peaceful. Consistent. Happy. I don’t mean the world, I just mean him and me.

“Not that I’d mind a little change,” she added. “There is such a thing as being too much of a gentleman.” She glanced at Ino. “Oh, sorry, TMI.”

Ino gave her an ironic look. “You haven’t told him that you feel that way? And here I thought your whole thing was that you put everything into words where normal people just use signals.”

“So I’m embarrassed,” Akane said with a tinge of annoyance. “Nobody’s perfect. And I wouldn’t count on signalling where Hazō’s concerned anyway. Can we move on?

“What I want to say is that I trust our relationship more now. It feels grounded. And I trust you more. I think I have a better handle on the kind of person you are now, and as I say, you’re a good friend.”

“Seriously, quit it, Akane. You’re making me blush.”

Akane took a deep breath. “And I trust myself more as well. You remember what a sorry mess I was in hospital. I feel like I’m still missing a lot of pieces, but I know that the Power of Youth hasn’t gone anywhere just because I’ve lost touch with it. And I know that when I need it, I’ll find a way to tap into it again without losing sight of who I am or who I want to be.”

Ino gave her a look of mixed awe and sarcasm the way only Ino could. “I’m never going to get used to the way you can say this stuff with a straight face. You’re like Maito Gai if he was more grown-up and less batshit crazy.”

“I think I’ll take that as a compliment,” Akane smiled. “What I’m trying to say, Ino, is that I think you can… un-back off now.”

“Are you sure?” Ino asked seriously. “Because hurting you? Not on my agenda. If I start having things to feel guilty about, I’ll end up as gloomy as Shikamaru, and then you might as well kiss Team Asuma goodbye.”

“Yes,” Akane said, gently but without hesitation. “I’m sure.”

“You know this might not change anything, right? Gōketsu and I are just playing around. Maybe we’ll decide we’re OK just playing around. Maybe I’ll decide he’s not my type. Or maybe he’ll have his brain eaten by chakra parasites and decide I’m not the hottest, most amazing girl in the Elemental Nations—no offence.”

“None taken,” Akane said with a resigned familiarity. “I’m not trying to poke my nose into your and Hazō’s business, not more than I have to. But if you two do decide to date, all three of us are going to have to face a metric tonne of complications. I’m nothing on the political scale, but you’re a clan heir, and Hazō’s either heir or second after Noburi. You probably know better than I do how much trouble we’ll be in if either of your clan heads decides they don’t want us together.

“If you two end up dating, if we end up facing that, then I want our relationships with each other to be rock-solid when it hits. That’s what I’m trying to set up for now. That’s why I’m putting everything out in the open. Maybe you two will decide you’re better off as friends, and then none of this will matter. Maybe the three of us will try to do the thing, and it just won’t work. Maybe it’ll turn out there was no need for me to take everything so seriously. But to me, I think being youthful means doing the best job I can, so that no matter what happens, I won’t have any regrets.”

Ino stood there for a while, saying nothing, thinking.

“You know,” she said eventually, “until you guys came along I never thought I was a sucker for the serious types. I mean, look at what I had to work with. Shino? Sasuke? Shikamaru? Ugh. Well, Sasuke’s smoking hot, so there’s that, but I couldn’t date a guy who doesn't know how to smile.

“I’m not going to make any promises. Gōketsu’s cool, but, no offence to you as his girlfriend, he can be such a dork. And as Leaf’s most eligible bachelorette, I’ve cool guys queuing up to date me by the dozen.

“Still,” Ino turned to face Akane full-on, “it’s a good feeling, knowing that you’ve got my back.”

​ -o-

​ Kei was crossing the exact middle of the fort to see if Hazō had a better whetstone she could borrow when the most troublesome of troublesome men, as Shikamaru would doubtless have it, intercepted her like a green anaconda intercepting a tapir.​ ​ “You know, Gōketsu,” Rock Lee addressed her out of nowhere, “I’ve taken far too long to congratulate you.”

“Congratulate me?” Kei repeated uncertainly. “On what?”

“Why, you and Tenten, of course!” he beamed.

An icy hand of horror began to close around Kei’s heart. “Wh—What about me and Tenten?”

“I want to congratulate you on the development of your relationship!”

Behind Lee, Tenten had frozen in place, like an animal not knowing whether the rustling in the bushes was predator or prey.

Their relationship? Kei did not even know if it could be called that. They had not put a name to it, the ephemeral bond weaving itself into place between them. It could come to nothing. It could dissolve itself into simple friendship. It could plunge further into uncharted waters. It was unlike anything Kei had experienced before. She did not even know how much of it existed and how much was her imagination. She and Tenten were dancing, magically synchronised so far, but neither of them knew what would happen when the music stopped.

Around them, everybody else was watching, silent, staggered at the revelation. Hanging onto Rock Lee’s every word. It was known, after all, that Lee’s more questionable antics were directed solely against fellow men, and that gave his words a perverse kind of credibility here.

“I could tell the potential for it was there the first time we all trained together,” Rock Lee went on, each word another tongue of flame in her cremation. “It was in the way you stood, in the way you two looked at each other. I am so happy that you ended up following your instincts in this most youthful direction!”

She could deny it. It would be the easiest thing in the world. Her word against Rock Lee’s. She was the serious, level-headed one. He was the hyperactive clown. A few well-chosen words, and this incident would dissipate into eye-rolling and friendly exasperation.

It was the most sensible course of action. She was not ready to bare it to the world, this connection she did not understand herself. Not ready to come under scrutiny, or be bombarded with the weight of other people’s expectations.

She could not even predict how they might react. Two girls. It was something you could laugh about. Inappropriate pairings were a common source of humour at their age. But actually outing oneself as deviant to the entirety of Leaf?

Someone like Mari-sensei could be casual about her preferences, with her force of personality and her gift for navigating the swirling chaos of the social world. Indeed, that kind of flexibility was only a boon to a seduction expert, and many sexual adventures could be dismissed by the public as her simply keeping her hand in.

Neither Kei nor Tenten were Mari-sensei. They would be judged by the standards of their peers, which a social invalid like Kei could grasp nebulously at best. What if they faced contempt? Bewilderment? Revulsion? They might lose friends, and the ability to make any more.

But then she looked at Tenten, whose stony, emotionless expression she could somehow recognise as concealed panic. What would a denial do to her? If Kei rejected her, even temporarily, even as a lie, how much damage might be done that she could not undo? How much might she hurt her? How deeply might she cut? Kei, herself pitifully fragile, knew that some words remained like stingray barbs embedded in your mind. They were beyond the reach of apology or forgiveness. There were words that could not be forgotten, could not lose their venom, as long as even a tiny part of you believed that they were true.

So she made her choice. She walked past Rock Lee, walked to Tenten, chose a position at her side. She crossed her arms.

“Any matters between Tenten and myself are our private business, and I will thank you to keep your unsolicited speculations to yourself,” she said with a fierce glare, telling him that if he pushed further it would be open war. Kei did not know what she was protecting, did not truly know that there was anything there to protect, but with Tenten weaponless in the social arena, it was Kei’s responsibility to fight for them both.

Rock Lee did not back down.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed,” he said cheerfully. “I know this might all be new to you, but as your seniors we would love nothing more than to guide you.”

Kei blinked.

“Why, Gai-sensei has decades of experience which he has kindly shared with me. And Neji and I were in a similar relationship for years before our interests took us in different directions.”

“Lee,” Hyūga said wearily, “I’ve told you time after time that I dislike that phrasing.”

By now everyone was goggling at Rock Lee except Hyūga and Tenten (who had a look of dawning understanding).

Lee looked at Hazō. “You and I must step up our pace, Gōketsu. At this rate, we will be the ones left behind while the others revel in the Springtime of Youth!”

Hazō choked as the stunned gazes shifted to him.

“This is a better outcome than I could have hoped for when we first met,” Lee concluded. “Now every member of Team Gai has a true rival in Team Gōketsu!”

You could have heard a pin drop.

One… two… three…

“Sage damn it, Lee!”

“I can’t believe I wasted precious energy listening to that.”

“Dude, what is wrong with you?”

Yamanaka, not bothering with words, simply strode over and smacked Lee upside the head before returning to the rest of her team.

Kei, meanwhile, interpreted the situation as a shinobi would. Rock Lee had to be eliminated. He knew too little.

She was turning away with deliberate nonchalance, ready to resume her duties, when Tenten moved so as to be within her line of sight.

In Tenten’s eyes, she saw a primal thunderstorm of disparate emotions, compacted down to a single message for her.

Yes.

The world stopped spinning on its axis as she understood.

Kei had just gone and made it real.