Water Country. A mist-soaked field.
A sheet of green stretched endlessly, beads of fog clinging to each blade of grass. A soft breeze drifted across the field, carrying a coolness that soothed even the most irritable of the assembled ninja cats. The midday sun was veiled behind a thin curtain of mist, turning its glare into something gentler, almost sleepy.
A ring of ninja cats kept quiet watch around two figures:Yakura, lying motionless on the grass…And Uchiha Tobika, kneeling beside her, weaving seals with calm, steady hands.
A few cats exchanged nervous glances.
One finally whispered:"Fuyu… is Uchiha Tobika performing a forbidden jutsu?"
The orange cat didn't even try to be snarky.It simply nodded.
"Yeah."
Its voice carried none of its usual venom.Only tension.
They all felt it.Tobika's life force was ebbing away like water slipping between stones.
"What forbidden jutsu is this?" a smaller tabby asked.
Fuyu closed its eyes.
"Chiyo-ba's masterpiece.Forbidden Jutsu: Self-Rebirth Transfer Technique.A technique that gives the target another's life—completely.It's the greatest medical jutsu ever created in the ninja world.Life for life, no discount."
The cats stiffened.
"Chiyo is insane… why would she even teach that?!"
Fuyu exhaled, whiskers trembling.
"The technique is so difficult that only a few medics in all history could ever perform it.And even if they learn it, most would never sacrifice their own life.Chiyo knows this. Teaching it costs her nothing."
"And Tobika?" a calico whispered.
Fuyu looked at Tobika, then away.
"He's the same type as Tsunade.They won't trade their lives for just anyone…Not even for the Hokage."
A beat.
"And yet… he didn't hesitate for Yakura."
Silence thickened.
Then—
"Tobika," Fuyu called, stepping forward, "your chakra's dropping too fast—"
"Fuyu," Tobika muttered without looking up, "have I ever lied to you?Relax. I'm far too attached to being alive to die."
Fuyu wanted to believe him.
It placed its paw on Tobika's hand.
Seconds later, the cat felt Tobika's chakra plunge.
"Tobika—! Don't you dare die on me!"
"I won't."
His final whisper…and then his body toppled backward.
"Tobika! Tobika!!"
The cats swarmed him.No pulse.No breath.
A ginger cat swallowed. "H-he's… broken. Even his face… look at that dried blood trail. He's—"
One older ninja cat bent forward, pried open one of Tobika's eyes, stared…
Then pointed at Tobika's thigh.
"Fuyu. Bite his balls."
"WHAT?!"
"You heard me."
Fuyu's eyes trembled.But the old cat wasn't joking.
"He's not dead.He used Izanagi."
A ripple shot through the group.
The ultimate Uchiha genjutsu:Make death itself "never happened," rewrite reality, choose life.
"But the cost is—""Blindness," the old cat finished, staring at Tobika's pale right eye. "One eye per use."
Fuyu looked at Tobika's ruined right eye and broke into trembling relief.
"So he… he fooled the jutsu?"
"No," the older cat said. "He simply refused to die."
Fuyu scoffed, teary."That's Tobika."
Tobika groaned awake a moment later, catching Fuyu mid-attempt to bite.
"You actually tried it?!"
"You told me to!"
"No I didn't!"
He shoved the cat away, glaring.
The cats cackled.
Yakura stirred.
Her eyelashes fluttered.Her fingers twitched.
Her consciousness—returned like a rising tide.
A sea of yellow sand.A child training beneath a desert sun.A life lived through war.A mission.A betrayal.A knife between her ribs.Darkness.
Then—
She gasped awake.
"Tobika…"
She stared at his bald head, ash-darkened face, and burned eyebrows.
"You… died too?"
"…What?"
She blinked rapidly.Her voice went soft.
"If we both died… then this must be the Pure Land."
Tobika frowned so hard his face creased like a drying scroll.
The cats collectively held in their laughter.
Yakura stared at her hands, then at the grass around her.
Then at Tobika.
"I want… a story."
"A what?"
"A story," she whispered. "About a young kekkei genkai kunoichi who died before ever falling in love."
He stared at her.
"…You hit your head?"
But Yakura only hugged her knees, smiling faintly.A real smile, rare as desert rain.
Tobika sighed, sat beside her, slipped an arm around her waist—Paused.Waited.
She didn't reject him.
So he continued.
"Ahem.This is the tale of a girl who trained until her fingers bled, who became one of Sunagakure's strongest, who burned through every battlefield like a phoenix…and who died on a stupid secret mission she never wanted."
Yakura closed her eyes.
"And then?"
"And then," Tobika said smugly, "the greatest medical-ninja prodigy in the world—me—kicked down Death's door, grabbed her by the collar, and dragged her back."
Yakura laughed softly.
Then she looked at him, eyes glistening.
"My lips hurt."
"You told me to—wait, what? How is that my fault?"
"That was my first kiss!"
"…Oh."
"And yours too! And you were terrible!"
"…Oh."
Ten minutes later, Tobika sat on the grass with three swelling lumps on his head, steaming like a kettle.
The cats were dying.
One wiped tears."My eyes hurt!"
"Jealous," another muttered.
"No—his shiny bald head is literally reflecting sunlight. It's painful."
Fuyu sighed."…We seriously need to crowdfund him a wig."
By the time Yakura finished cooling her lips at the riverside, she turned back to see Tobika sitting stiffly, looking like he'd survived three wars and a lightning strike.
"Get up," she said, tapping her cheek. "I'm not mad anymore."
"You were very mad."
"You deserved it."
She knelt beside him.
"I… liked you first," she said quietly. "Back in Konoha. But with our positions… I never let myself show it."
Tobika stilled.
Her cheeks warmed.
"But now? I'm alive because of you. I—"
"I accept repayment," he cut in immediately.
She stared.
"Of two kinds," he continued with deadly seriousness, "according to my dream world:Either you work like a horse for me for life, or—"
She grabbed his ear.
"You shameless Uchiha! Imagining me offering myself up?!"
"That's not what I—OW OW OW—"
Their bickering eventually melted into silence.
"Where will you go now?" he finally asked.
Yakura looked toward the distant mist that hid two villages.Her past.
"…I want to see the world. I've sold myself to the village for half my life. The rest—"
"You sold the rest to me," Tobika reminded, biting into a senbon.
She rolled her eyes.
"Yes, yes. I'll come find you in a year or two.But first—sign me a contract with that stupid cat so I can send messages."
Fuyu froze."…I'm not stupid."
"You are absolutely stupid," Tobika said.
Yakura smiled.
Then:"Tobika. That story. The first half ends here.How does the second half go?"
"Oh, easy. Volume Two: The Tale of the Uchiha and the Scorch-Release Heroine.Chapter One: The Girl Escorts Konoha's Top Medic Back Home."
"Idiot."
They began walking.
And the ninja cats, watching their silhouettes shrink across the grass, muttered:
"…We really need to buy him a wig."