Petrichor.
The 'divine blood of stones'.
It was the rather distinct and oh-so nostalgic smell that rises from the ground when the rain falls on hard soil; caused by the release of plant oils and geosmin into the air.
Both of the individuals who formed Yohei loved it like little else in the world, and they both found it rather unfair how uncommon it was to be graced with it in the places they lived.
That's why he had decided to take a break in order to fully appreciate it for all it was worth.
With an improvised 'blindfold' over his eyes - really just his shirt rolled up and tied around his head - he luxuriated in the feeling of the cold air brushing his skin and causing goosebumps, as well as the sound of the chirping birds who were coming out of their refuges against the water.
Despite the energy surging underneath his skin because of his Bloodline, he couldn't help but feel rather lazy…
And, dare he say, almost inspired?
'Rain has arrived here,
Summer will be coming soon,
This is a haiku.'
Yohei snorted.
'Come on, I can do better than that.' He thought playfully. 'Hm…'
With a smile on his face he pushed his bare feet against the table, tilting his seat back a bit more with the sound of creaking wood as he proclaimed with faux-serenity:
"Rain has arrived here,
Summer will be coming soon,
Bringing doom and gloom."
"Doom!" Repeated Kara with childish severity in her high-pitched, distorted voice.
Yohei let out a startled chuckle, lifting the blindfold over one eye to look at his little shadow.
She had manifested her form above his bare chest, though it looked different than usual. More rounded all around, even going to the point of blunting her horns. Her eyes hand become wider and rounder, giving her a more childish, cutesy look.
'My poor eldritch baby,' Yohei thought in amusement, 'Ren really went and turned you from nightmare fuel into a ghost-type pokemon.'
Despite her appearance, all of her many eyes were moving independently in multiple directions - such that they kept her constantly alert and aware of everything in the surroundings. This habit had been born from Hayama's teachings, who had decided that since Yohei kept her summoned all the time, she may as well be another member of Team 5.
"Worried, papa?" She asked with a tilt of her head.
Yohei went silent.
'Am I?' He questioned himself. 'We managed to achieve the minimum of missions required for the Chunin Exams, and Hayama-sensei has already confirmed that he's going to recommend us for it when the time comes.'
He pulled his shirt away from his head, pursing his lips.
'It won't be long now… in less than a month I'll have to deal with all of the trouble and danger that's coming to ruin my idyllic life. No matter what plans I've made with mom, no matter how prepared I am and how many surprises I have under my sleeve - it is still completely possible that either I or someone I care about is going to die.'
Yohei sighed.
'Of course I'm worried.'
…
Kara's mental 'nudge' got him looking back at her, seeing that her form had shifted back to the more draconic and demonic look she usually held. Her shadows stretched to cover his entire body and beyond - tentacles of dark matter swaying threateningly in the air.
Her eyes were sharper, and glowed dangerously to his sight.
"I'll protect you, papa." She promised seriously.
He blinked in surprise, then smiled widely
"Well, now I'm feeling silly for worrying!" He told her, both hands going up to pet her head but passing straight through - though that didn't prevent him from keep trying all the same, much to her amusement as she fell in giggler, her 'body' retracting back to his shadows.
Huffing, he straightened up and stretched his arms above his head, letting out a yawn despite not really feeling tired in the least.
Cracking his neck to the side, he decided that was enough of a break, turning his sight to his table and what he had been working for the last several hours.
In the middle was a rectangular sheet of paper about the size of his hand with two kanji carefully and meticulously painted on it, as the ink stains in his hands could attest.
The first, 火 - hí, simply read as 'Fire', while the second, 暴 - bõ, meant something like 'Violent', 'Sudden', or even 'Rampant', which together became 爆 - baku, meaning the command: 'Detonate'.
The characters were surrounded by a circle of much smaller symbols and letters that had been a severe pain in his ass to accurately write in the right places and sizes - and each of the two bigger words had a straight line over them that went from their center to the borders of the paper and further beyond, continuing over the wood of his table until each reached a different target.
The line on the 'Fire' kanji led into a portable stove connected to a gas canister, while the line on the 'Violent' kanji led to a closed glass bottle that was filled with a pale yellow liquid.
The first thing he did was turn on the stove and set it to the max, making it burn with a tall blue flame. After that, he uncorked the glass bottle, which immediately filled his room with a strong and pungent smell not unlike that of burnt sugar or caramel.
Before a disaster could happen, he quickly proceeded to press his thumb against the tip of one of his fangs until the skin broke, letting out a bead of blood.
As he grimaced and spit aside the saliva mixed with ink, he also concentrated chakra on the finger and pushed it down on the seal, activating the fuinjutsu.
The kanji immediately began shining in a bright turquoise color that spread in no time at all to the rest of the script and the lines.
From there, all Yohei had to do was watch as the 'magic' went into work - the sight of it filling him with just as much amazement as he had felt the first time he had witnessed it.
The flames coming from the portable stove bent in the air, almost like a fluid, and started being sucked into the seal. And on the other side of the table something similar happened - the line of ink crawling over the glass bottle like a serpent and 'drinking' the liquid before returning to the paper.
The entire process took only a few minutes, and was over when all the gas that was left in the canister was used up, and all the liquid in the flask had been sucked as well.
Yohei had to admit, he had something of a mistaken impression of how the Sealing Arts worked when Ren had started teaching him.
His confusion was born of the fact that in his head, he had mixed in what a Fuinjutsu - a Sealing Technique, and a Jutsushiki - a Formula Technique, were.
To be fair, to the laymen they were pretty much the same.
A Jutsushiki was the written form of a Ninjutsu, which used kanji, 'runes' and personalized symbols to enact their effects in either a more controllable, replicable or stable form.
Fuinjutsu on the other hand was a branch of the Ninja Arts which worked through the restriction or storage of something inside of an object, barrier or individual.
Most forms of fuinjutsu were done through the use of jutsushiki, yes, but not all of it. The Adamantine Sealing Chains and the Reaper Death Seal, for example, were both done without the use of the written word.
In the same way, while the most common of the Formula Techniques were for sealing, there were also some exceptions, as is the case of the Flying Thunder God Technique.
Not that the distinction mattered overmuch for Yohei in practical terms as of this moment - after all, he was only barely able to make bomb tags, and even then only the simplest and most widely used variation of it, which consisted of crudely storing an explosive and a trigger inside of a seal that was programmed to 'mix' their 'information' and release them together.
There were, of course, many other ways to achieve similar and even superior results.
A direct parallel to this was to simply store pure chakra, creating a seal that released an explosion of 'force', rather than fire, similar to that which came about from a poorly executed Tree-Walking.
The base for it used the 'hatsu - 発' Kanji instead, which meant 'blast', or 'discharge'.
Of course, following that same line of thought, someone trained at Fire Release could do much the same to superior effect by sealing their Fire Chakra. And the same was therefore true to someone with Explosion Release, to much more extreme and effective outcomes.
'A Bomb Tag filled with the entire chakra reserves of someone with Explosion Release, made using their bone instead of paper and their blood instead of ink…' Yohei considered, shivering at the mental image, 'Jeez, the ninja of the Hidden Stone sure are scary.'
Shaking himself off of those thoughts that wouldn't be out of place in Demiurge's or Kiritsugo Emiya's head, he focused back on his work.
The paint, which previously extended over the wood table, had now retracted to cover only the span of the paper used for the seal; and the circle of script which he had written had morphed into unreadable and fluid symbols that… didn't actually mean anything anymore, merely signifying that they had been used up to store the materials he wanted.
Checking it all up for mistakes and not finding anything, Yohei smiled in satisfaction and placed the newly-made bomb tag alongside the small stack of fresh ones he had been making through the day, all of them set inside a metal box that he locked securely.
"Now for the cleanup…" He grumbled, standing up from his chair with a stretch of his back.
The ink pots and brushes were quickly cleaned and properly stored, and it was a matter of a couple of minutes to disassemble the stove and store it while setting the empty canister beside the other half dozen he had used beforehand.
The same was done to the glass bottle, though with this one he was a lot more careful, lining up all of the used ones before sealing them inside a storage scroll.
The creation of the bomb tag had likely drained all of the explosive fluid that was inside, making the bottles themselves completely safe. But really, why would he place himself under the risk of something happening?
Which brings the question to mind: should he really have been doing something so volatile and dangerous in his room?
'Nope,' he answered promptly with mirth, 'I really shouldn't.'
After he was finished he sat back down on his chair with a huff, hands behind his head and foot pushing the table to make him tilt back once more.
"Now that I'm done with this, what the hell should I do with the rest of my day?" He mused idly.
Today being a weekend, he was supposed to be resting. Training with Hana on fighting alongside a Ninja Dog would only be tomorrow, and he had already resolved to himself - for the third time this month - that this time he wouldn't be doing any physical training.
"Read!" Kara suggested immediately in a peppy voice.
Yohei looked down at her with a flat if amused stare.
The little shadow liked to push him into doing intellectual activities like reading, meditating, writing, and so on, because the spiritual energy he produced while doing them was like candy to her.
In response, his eldritch daughter only gazed back at him with honest eyes. She wasn't even trying to be sly or sneaky about it - if he didn't want to do so, she would just accept it and happily go along with whatever he decided.
… That was probably why he rarely resisted the urge to do what she asked.
Yohei chuckled.
"Read, huh?" He mumbled, looking to the side at his bookstand, filled with volumes and volumes of medical and biological texts.
While they had all been 'scanned' by him through the use of the Chakra Circuits, his mother was right in warning him that only being able to access that knowledge when he could use said Circuits was a rather severe weakness that he had no reason to subject himself to.
Therefore, it would have been a rather sensible use of his time to go back to them now, perhaps even with a Shadow Clone or two to help along and cover more.
However…
'I'm tired.' He thought. 'I'm really, really tired of only working, studying and training, no matter how fun it is. I just want to take a bit of a break from it.'
He pursed his lips, eyes flitting through the titles of the books and finding that less than five percent of them weren't academic works.
'How long has it been since I last read something for pleasure?' He asked himself with furrowed brows.
The answer wasn't hard to find.
'Far too long.'
Having made up his mind, Yohei let his chair fall back into place and stoop up.
'Guess it's about time I finally check up on Jiraiya's works and find out if it really is all that.' He decided, 'Before that, though…'
Yohei looked at his hands, all blotted with paint and smelling like gas and explosives.
'I should probably take a bath.'
Taking a towel from his wardrobe, Yohei tied it around his waist and stepped out of his room, walking through the corridor.
"Sweetie," he called, turning to look at Kara's head on his shoulder, "Can you go stay with Mom for a while?"
"Okay~" She sing-songed, sliding down his body and melting into what he imagined to be a shadow on the corner of the floor, quickly disappearing from his view.
He crossed the door at the end of the corridor, which led to the biggest bathroom in the house - which also happened to hold the biggest bath tub.
The first area of it was the datsui-jo, the changing room, where he took off his clothes - which was really only the shorts he was wearing - and hung up his towel. This zone was the buffer between the 'dry' areas of the house and the 'wet' bathroom. There was still another door on the side that led to a smaller space, which was the toiled room.
Looking at himself in the mirror, Yohei couldn't help but smile at his reflection, comparing it to the sight that greeted him months ago when he was 'born'.
Thanks to how much time he spent outside, his already olive skin had gotten even more of a tan, an effect that was only really held back because he was also usually covering his whole body in his 'costume'.
And speaking of his body, it wasn't hard to notice how much it had changed.
Compared to the athletic build he used to hold, he was now firmly in the miniature body-builder zone, with wilder shoulders and muscles that were big and defined enough that someone from his other world would be more than a little suspicious of the use of hormones.
'Which.. I am using,' he admitted to himself sheepishly, 'Kind of.'
Perhaps because of that, he also wasn't sure for how long the 'miniature' prefix would hold, considering how quickly he was growing in height.
'Not a single facial hair in sight, though,' he grumbled, fingers sliding through the smooth skin of his cheeks. 'I may need to come up with something for that… is there even such a thing as ninja minoxidil?'
His attention was then taken up by the most eye-catching of changes - his inhuman features.
In the months since he had first gained them, his horns had grown from the little nubs they used to be, to the point where they had become long enough to go past his head, and there was no sign of them stopping growing, which… For now? Not really a problem.
'Except for how many times I had to resize my forehead protector.' He grumbled.
But if the trend held he would have to do something about it, eventually.
Leaving future problems for future-Yohei, he ignored the issue and struck up a pose, flexing his muscles while puckering his lips and raising a brow, before snorting and breaking down in chuckles.
"Alright, that's enough admiring myself," he decided, opening the door to the bath proper - the ofuro - and stepping inside.
-~=~-
Around half an hour later, Yohei was back in his room and finished dressing up.
Predictably, he had opted for an almost entirely black outfit, including his boots - which he was holding in his hands for now - pants and hoodie, with only an - obviously - blue shirt to add some color variation to it.
Well, that, and the white of his Clan's crest, which was stamped both very widely on the back of his hoodie and much smaller in the chest of his shirt, over his heart.
To complete the look, rather than wearing his forehead protector, he had opted instead for a wristlet with the symbol of the leaf inscribed on metal.
He looked back at himself in the mirror and gave his reflection a wink and finger guns, closing his makeup kit before making his way downstairs.
What he found there was a scene that warmed his heart at the same time as it brought a smile to his lips.
His mom, dressed in the lighter clothes she preferred when on leave from work, was laying on the couch watching what seemed like a generic romance movie on their boxy TV.
Despite the disinterested look on her face, it was obvious to anyone who knew Nanami how focused she was on the screen.
In front of her, laying on the floor was Mugetsu, who was maintaining the Transformation Jutsu in order to make herself stay in a form that looked exactly like herself - if she was merely a very big dog instead of dinosaur sized killing machine.
Occasionally, she would tilt her head back and Nanami would feed her a kernel of popcorn.
'She doesn't even like popcorn,' Yohei thought dryly, 'She just wants to be pampered.'
Rolling his eyes, he walked over to the back of the couch and leaned in to give Nanami a kiss to the side of her head, making her giggle and turn to pinch his cheeks.
"Kara-chan told me you were going out." She noted, looking critically at his clothes.
Yohei gave her a thumbs up and a nod. "I'm going to get some books and snacks. Do you want me to bring something?"
She tilted her head, humming in thought as she pulled up the zipper of his hoodie to close it.
"I'm kind of craving some karaage, can you get the chicken and the potato starch on your way back?" She asked, playing with his hood and giggling once more as she saw his horns stopping it from fully covering his head.
He'd have to make some more alterations to his clothes…
"Sure," Yohei shrugged, then looked at Mugetsu, who had raised her head to stare at him since he started talking, "What about you, girl? What to come for a walk?"
Her ears perked up and she raised herself on her front paws.
But then Nanami, with a smug smile, laid back down on the couch and started scratching between her eyes, making Mugetsu's leg beat on the ground like a rabbit's and her tongue loll out as she fell down again.
Yohei snorted at the scene, "If she pisses inside the house, you're cleaning it."
"Mu-chan is a good girl, she wouldn't do something like that." Nanami waved off the threat.
Yohei looked doubtfully at the two of them, knowing precisely just how much Mugetsu liked to 'mark her territory', no matter how inconvenient or messy the results may be.
Still, he decided it would be a good lesson for both, and so with a shrug and a barely hidden grin he turned and made his way for the door, pausing only to put his boots on at the entrance.
As he did that he felt Kara's chakra against his own as she slided up his clothes, multiple blue eyes appearing inside of his hood to look at him.
"Coming along, sweetie?"
"Mhm~!"
Yohei chuckled, standing up and opening the door, "Alright, then."
-~=~-
The smell of rain, the petrichor, wasn't the only one Yohei was graced with once he stepped out of his house. Along with it came the fragrance of the Yamanaka's flowers, carried by the wind. Definitely one of the highlights of living so close to their compound.
It made the entire place feel like someone had carefully gone spraying perfume on the walls.
Looking up, Yohei noticed that the sky was still cloudy, though he sincerely doubted that another rain like the one from this morning would fall. At most a drizzle, but he wouldn't be surprised if it only stayed as some gray sky before the winds blew the clouds away.
Though, 'gray' isn't really the world he should use to describe this kind of weather anymore.
With the sun covered, the world looked almost as bright to him right now as it usually did during the night. Every single person in the street and all the objects and buildings around were shining with their own colors - and even better, none of that was covered by the yellowish filter that sunlight put on everything… he wished it could always be like this.
'Maybe it would have been better if I was born in the Cloud," he thought sardonically.
It didn't take long for him to start laughing at the very notion of giving this life of his away for anything else, much less rainy weather.
Still, as he walked towards the bookshop he did start musing how he might go about changin the climate more to his liking
'It would obviously be much easier with Storm Release,' he noted, 'But it's… probably not a requirement. I mean, the Hidden in the Mist Jutsu doesn't need anything besides Water Release, so a technique to make clouds should be the same, right?'
Idly pushing some chakra into his feet, he casually did a Jesus impression by walking on a large pond rather than skipping past or around it.
'I guess the first step for that would be learning the Hidden in the Mist Technique, and then modifying it to create denser masses of vapour that rise up in the sky and stay fixed in place. But how the hell would I even go about doing that? Not to mention how much of a chakra hog it would be… I'm pretty sure that's a Kage-level feat.'
Which is to say, no matter how he looked at it, this was well past his capabilities as of this moment. But the train of thought did serve to remind him that he should finally get started on training his Water Ninjutsu.
For the past months Yohei had mainly been focusing on the many forms of Yang Release available to him and 'mastering' the skills that he had been provided with by the Chaos Scroll.
Which, objectively, was the best course of action to take since the learning boost he gained for those made him reach a level of power that he most definitely wouldn't have reached had he relied purely on his natural talent.
'The bookstore was just around this corner, right?'
But he had gotten to a point where new rewards had become somewhat… scarce. After the jutsu he had gained from defeating Team 10 - which, to be fair, was absolutely amazing - nothing new had come up, which… Well, it both bothered and worried him in equal measures, despite him knowing that soon enough there would be plenty of opportunities for more.
In any case, this did mean that it now made sense for him to expand his repertoire some, especially with how well Water Breathing complemented Water Release.
'I should talk about it with Hayama-sensei.' he decided, finally seeing the storefront he was looking for, 'Thinking about it, hadn't he said that he talked with someone to teach me Water Ninjutsu all the way back when we started training? Geez, now I kind of feel bad about it-'
He was interrupted from his thoughts when his hands brushed against someone else's as he moved to open the door to the bookshop.
Looking up, he was greeted by the sight of the widening blue-green eyes of a surprised Ino Yamanaka.
For a moment, neither of the two seemed to know what to say… but as her surprise dissolved into a glare and she pulled out the headphones covering her ears, he couldn't help the grin that formed on his face.
-~=~-
"You're such a cheater!" Ino accused as she slammed down the cup in her hand on the table.
They were sitting in a booth in the cafe next to the bookstore, both of their purchases in bags upon the table - though Yohei had changed his mind about buying Jiraya's books for obvious reasons.
'Why is she treating the tea like it's alcohol?' He wondered with a chuckle. 'Hm… is there even such a thing as alcoholic tea? I bet I could get some money off Tsunade with that. Well, that's if she doesn't try to pull a fast one on me.'
"Are you even paying attention!?" Ino demanded with a twitching brow.
Yohei blinked, going over what she had been saying for the past seconds.
"Of course I am," He lied, "You were telling me how I'm a cheating cheater who cheats."
He sighed, putting on an offended and hurt expression, "Honestly, I don't know what I did to deserve such an egregious attack on my character."
She glared harder. "We weren't supposed to prepare the field before the fight."
Yohei nodded in agreement, raising a finger, "And my Team didn't, we only had some jutsu already active when the match started."
Ino scoffed, "Then I guess I should have used the Mind Body Switch on one of you, huh?"
"You should have." Yohei agreed once more, which only got her more annoyed. He shrugged, "Honestly, I was expecting that you would, which is why we were together the whole day, constantly keeping an eye on each other."
"Hmph!" She scorned, turning her head to the side, "Well, we didn't do it, because we are not cheaters."
Yohei stared doubtfully at her.
"Shikamaru and Choji were too lazy to help, weren't they?" He guessed in a dry but amused voice.
Privately, however, he thought that rather than laziness, it was more probably that Shikamaru, and maybe even Ino herself, had understood that the real purpose of the match was to gather information rather than winning.
She tsked, deciding to take a sip of her drink rather than answer him.
"She's cute," Kara 'whispered' to him, the words delivered through an illusion instead of sound.
Yohei nodded involuntarily before he could catch himself, quickly picking up his own cup of coffee to disguise the slight blush in his face.
Still, Kara's words remained in his mind as he surreptitiously watched the annoyed blonde.
It seemed like she had been of a mind with him today, because rather than being dressed in her usual 'ninja outfit', the girl had decided on something a bit different.
A lilac turtleneck underneath a dark purple baggy coat with loose sleeves that almost covered her hands. Combined with the walkman-like thingie on her neck, she looked a lot more 'modern' than he'd expect from someone in Konoha.
But then again, if anyone was going to dress like that, he'd expect it to be Ino.
"How did you even manage to trick me?" She asked with pursed lips, though from the tone of her voice it sounded more like she was questioning herself rather than him.
Yohei raised an eyebrow, "I know I'm not the sharpest tool in the box, but is it really so unbelievable?"
She shook her head, "No, that's not- Look, I'm a Sensor. I should have noticed your little trick with the clone, but I didn't. Why?"
Again, she didn't sound like she actually expected an answer from him.
To be fair, there was no reason at all for him to reveal it. It was a proven advantage that he and his team could use again should they face hers once more.
… But he was still going to do so.
'It's not like it's that hard to notice it,' he justified to himself. 'Actually, chances are that by the time we face each other again they'll have figured it out already.'
Both were fair points, but he knew deep down that the truth was simply that he was a sucker for sad girls.
"Making Sensor Chakra takes a lot of concentration," he started, making her look at him with surprise, "And how well you can use it to actually sense things depends on how much you can focus on it."
Ino narrowed her eyes, as if confirming something she already suspected "So you are-"
"A sensor? Yep." He confirmed with a shrug. Then, pointing a finger in her direction he continued, "I already knew you were one too, and while I didn't know how good at it you were, since it's you we're talking about I decided to go with 'really good'. Just to make sure."
She huffed, trying to put on a cocky smile that said 'obviously', but the slight blush on her face gave her up.
He did his best not to smile at it.
"That being the case, I knew that just a few moments would have been enough for you to find out about the whole plan, which is why we made our strategy around it." He raised a finger, "First, we assumed that you would have no reason to be using it right from the start, but made contingencies in case you were. Thankfully, we were right."
Ino groaned, letting her head fall on the table with a small 'thump' , before looking up to pout a glare at him. "It was a small, open arena with no walls or obstacles, I didn't think there would even be a reason to look for someone hiding!"
Yohei chuckled, pushing his finger on her forehead until she batted it aside, "Well, now you know better. The second thing we did was keep you distracted."
"By being annoying." She completed sharply but without heat while looking to the side in thought.
"Yep~!" He agreed merrily, taking another sip from his coffee.
"And you were using throwing weapons to leave Shika and Choji within my line of sight." She said in realization.
"You got it," He confirmed with a fingergun, relaxing back in his seat, "No reason for you to use sensing when you can clearly see everything that's happening in the fight, right?"
"But that still doesn't explain how you tricked me once I did start molding Sensor Chakra after we started fighting hand-to-hand." She pointed out.
"Right…" He drawled, drumming his fingers on the table and sighing, "Okay, look, for the record? I had no idea this was going to work. Plan A was to make sure you wouldn't use your Sensing at all, but Shikamaru is a slippery bastard and my clone ran out of shit to throw."
He rested his hands on the table and inched closer. "What did you feel when you started sensing around?"
"Your chakra," she said immediately, "covering… well, everything."
Yohei nodded, "Try using it right now."
Without asking why, Ino closed her eyes and did the Ram handseal.
Immediately, her eyes opened wide as she 'looked' around, once more feeling the entirety of her surroundings covered by his signature.
Yohei grinned at her reaction. "That's the Chakra Highlight Jutsu, a technique that I made some time ago. I used that to cover Ren over so that you wouldn't feel him, while he covered my clone in invisible flames, so you felt his chakra over it."
She looked intently down at her own hand, eyes narrowing in focus.
A victorious smile spread on her face as she turned to look at him. "I can feel my own chakra underneath."
Having expected that, Yohei wasn't surprised, "I thought you would, which is why we didn't want to depend on that."
She hummed, a smile still on her face as she picked up her cup. "You put a lot of thought into how to deal with me, didn't you?"
Yohei laughed, "Of course I did. You're a really troublesome opponent, you know?"
"Now you're just sounding like Shikamaru," she teased, drinking her tea.
Yohei rolled his eyes, amused but unsure how to answer that.
Ino as well didn't seem in a hurry to continue the conversation, letting her gaze wander as she fell in thought.
Finally, after a few minutes during which Yohei had started looking at the menu for something to eat, she finished contemplating whatever was on her mind, letting her head rest on her palm as she looked at him and murmured, "You three became a lot stronger."
Nonplussed, Yohei simply nodded.
It was the truth, after all. Compared to themselves from the Academy, the difference between the Team 5 of now and then was like that of night and day
'And we're still nowhere near the truly strong people in this world,' he reminded himself, 'Borrowing from the idiom of cultivators, the difference between all of us together and a member of the Akatsuki, much less the actual elite, is like that of Heaven and Earth.'
Ino smiled for a moment, but then huffed.
"You're still not as good as Sasuke-kun, though," she declared, tossing her hair back.
Yohei groaned, covering his face and his own smile.
'Why is it always Sasuke with these girls?' He grumbled.
Dragging his hand down, he looked dryly at her smirk. "I guess we'll find out for sure in the Exam. But I told you before, didn't I? I don't plan on losing."
'Not to Sasuke, not to Naruto, not Rock Lee or Gaara. I'm going to beat them all and prove to myself that I can do this.'
The look she gave him was both amused and disbelieving. Almost patronizing, really, like an adult seeing a kid saying they can fight a bear.
Normally, this wouldn't bother him.
Even when it came to Yohei himself, half of him had grown up seeing Sasuke as some kind of invincible figure.
When it came to anything martial, no one could really compare to him, no matter how much they tried - and they did try.
Not only Naruto and Kiba, but pretty much every single boy in the class had gotten annoyed at the girl's and teacher's favorite at some point and decided that they'd be the one to beat the smug out of his face… and none of them ever even came close.
Sasuke Uchiha was just on another level.
It was natural that most people, especially someone like Ino, or Sakura, would find the idea of him beating the prodigy to be ludicrous.
And Yohei was okay with that.
Not because he agreed with them, necessarily, but because he really looked forward to seeing their faces once he did it.
For some reason though, right now he was feeling a seed of annoyance rapidly growing on his chest.
Before he could think too much about it, he found words he hadn't meant to say spilling out of his mouth.
"Why do you even like Sasuke so much, Ino?"
She looked at him with about as much surprise as he was feeling himself at the moment.
And then she grinned eagerly.
"Well, to start with, Sasuke is the strongest, but you already know that," She pointed out teasingly, "He's also the most mature boy I know. He's always working hard while the others are lazing around and sleeping in class. He's not noisy, and takes good care of himself. He's also responsible, knows how to cook, is really smart and totally has a soft side."
"Really." Yohei drawled dryly.
Ino nodded firmly, leaning in and covering her mouth as if to tell him a secret. "Did you know that Sasuke-kun loves cats?"
He kind of remembered something like that. But honestly he wasn't sure how much of it was Sasuke liking them, per se, and how much it was him just enjoying spending time together with Itachi.
She sighed dreamily, "He's definitely the kind of guy who's tough on the outside and soft inside. I bet he'd be really protective of his girlfriend."
"Besides," she completed with an impish grin and a shrug, "he is the most beautiful boy in the Village."
Yohei hummed, "Is that so?"
"That is so," Ino confirmed happily.
"And how much of it actually influences you liking him when compared to, say, your rivalry with Sakura?" He asked nonchalantly.
She looked at him with narrowed eyes.
Ignoring the imminent danger, he continued running his mouth.
"I mean, last time we talked about this subject I said that I didn't know why you and Sakura stopped being friends because of a crush. But thinking about it, that doesn't really sound like you, does it?"
That was complete and utter bullshitting on his part.
The Yohei from this world had never batted an eye to it all, because when it came to Sasuke, all the girls in the Academy acted like it was a full-out war.
But the time he had spent with his mom trying to remember as much as he could from the 'canon' reminded him of a little tidbit he hadn't given much importance before now.
It wasn't Ino who had broken up their friendship because of Sasuke.
"You really don't know when to shut up," she told him with a flat stare, mimicking her words from back then. He was surprised, however, when said flat stare turned into a grin, "But it seems like you do have some idea of how a woman's heart works. Just a little."
'Yeah… no.' He denied immediately in his mind.
He wasn't going to tell her that, though.
Instead, Yohei asked another question.
"Do you think Sakura will ever give up on Sasuke?"
Ino immediately shook her head.
'Yeah, I don't think so either.' He agreed, thinking about how she was even willing to abandon the Village if it meant staying with him.
"What about you?"
She scoffed in amusement, "And let her win?"
There it was.
At the root of it all, their conflict wasn't really about Sasuke at all.
For Sakura, it was about proving herself. For Ino, it was about acknowledging Sakura and accepting the challenge laid out. To be the best.
Frankly, it wasn't his business to meddle on their rivalry - same as it wasn't his business to interfere with Hinata and Naruto's whole thing.
He took a sip of his coffee.
…
"You know, I was kind of sloppy in the Academy." He admitted. "But since graduation, I don't think there has been a single day where I have taken it easy instead of training and studying."
She tilted her head, raising an eyebrow in a silent question.
"While I can be rather loud sometimes, especially when I'm fired up, I'm usually a calm and quiet person," He continued, shrugging with a 'what can you do' expression on his face, "Honestly, I'm an introvert who acts like an extrovert out of necessity."
"Oh, really?" Ino asked dryly.
Yohei nodded overly seriously with his eyes closed.
"Also, not to brag, but I'd say that I do take care of myself nicely. I mean, my make-up's better than yours," He pointed out with a grin, enjoying the creaking sound of the porcelain cup in her hands, "And those curls don't just maintain themselves up, you know? Not to mention how hard it is to keep my fangs pearly white."
Despite her flash of irritation at his comment, Yohei noticed how Ino was actively smothering a smile as he continued his little… whatever this was.
"I think the way I approached our match is also very telling of how responsible I am. And while I can't prove it right now, I am a great cook."
'Not as good as Souma, though.'
But he didn't need to mention that.
"About a soft side…" He murmured in thought, his finger tapping on the rim of his cup. Then shrugged helplessly, "Sorry to say, but I'm not much of the brooding, bad boy type. I'm all soft sides, to be honest."
Ino, unable to hold herself, started laughing. "Alright, spit it out, where are you going with this?"
"I have no idea," He admitted shamelessly, making her break out in laughter all over again, "But I'm sure I'm sure I'm getting somewhere. Look, if I do defeat Sasuke, then that'll mean I'm the strongest of our generation, right?"
She nodded, rolling a hand for him to keep going.
"Well, in that case, then, from a purely objective point of view, of course…"
"Of course," Ino repeated teasingly.
"Then, well, I would be the best, right?"
She didn't answer him, only drinking from her tea with twinkling eyes as she let the silence stretch on.
Not for the first time since he started talking, Yohei wondered why he was even doing this.
Nonetheless, before he could give up and run away in embarassment, he leaned in on the table, extending a hand with a grin that was much bolder than he felt.
"So let's make a deal. If I do beat Sasuke in the Chunin Exams, then you owe me a date."
Slowly, Ino set her cup down on the table, her eyes moving from his own to his extended hand.
She grinned.
-~=~-
It had been over an hour already.
Her movie had finished, and Nanami was starting to wonder if Yohei had somehow managed to get lost on his way to the bookshop.
She got up from the couch with a sigh.
'No, knowing him he probably got himself distracted with something and forgot what he had even gone out to do.'
She just hoped he wouldn't get into trouble with whatever it was.
'… Well, not too much trouble, at least.'
After she was done washing the popcorn bowl, his words from before came to mind, and she decided to go for a walk with Mugetsu-chan now rather than risking having to clean the titanic mess the transformed monster dog could make.
Before she could do that, however, she heard the front door being opened in a rush, and it was only Yohei's hurried 'I'm home!' that made her relax from the alert state she had gotten in.
'Speak of the devil,' she thought with a smile, shaking her head, 'Just for this fright, he can go and take Mu-chan out while I soak in the bath.'
"Welcome home-" she started, but stopped when he saw him rush back down the stairs, having changed from his civilian clothes into his armor.
"I'm going to train!" He told her in a hush, a wide grin on his face as he gave her a kiss on the cheek and moved past, already making his way to the door.
Multiple scenarios passed through her head about what could have caused such a reaction on her son, but while her mind worked on that, her mouth acted independently to deal with what mattered the most at this moment.
"Yohei!"
He stopped, his hand already on the halfway turned doorknob.
"Yeah?!" He asked, jumping from one foot to the other in nervous energy.
She gave him a glare, her hands closing in fists on her waist.
"Where's the chicken!?"
He froze.
…
"Fuck!"