Chapter 15: I Am a Salted Fish
The sun was already high overhead when we finally dragged ourselves back to Konoha the next day. Nothing quite says "successful mission" like limping home at noon with the enthusiasm of a funeral procession.
I shuffled into the mission office, doing my best impression of someone who'd been through hell and back—which, technically, wasn't entirely inaccurate. "Mission complete," I mumbled to the desk clerk, dropping off the three Konoha ninja corpses like I was returning library books. "Intelligence Department can have their fun with these. I'll be back for them later."
The beauty of bureaucracy is that nobody questions you when you look sufficiently miserable and have the right paperwork.
When Yuhi Shinku and the Third Hokage inevitably cornered me about the mysterious earth-style powerhouse who'd turned Kaguya Chiren into abstract art, I gave them my best bewildered victim act. "Powerful what now? Sorry, I was unconscious for most of it. Head trauma, you know how it is." I tapped my temple for emphasis. "Doctor says I might have selective amnesia. Very convenient, that."
Sarutobi Hiruzen took a long drag from his pipe as I shuffled away, the smoke curling around him like he was some sort of contemplative dragon. I could practically feel his suspicious gaze boring into my back.
"Shinku," the old man said once I was supposedly out of earshot.
"Hokage-sama?"
"You really think it wasn't him?"
Yuhi Shinku chuckled, though there wasn't much humor in it. "Qifeng's a good kid, but come on. The boy can barely tie his shoes without getting distracted by a butterfly. That Mist chunin, maybe, but Kaguya Chiren?" He shook his head. "That would require actual competence."
The Third Hokage let out a rueful laugh. "Ah, the paranoia of old age. Sometimes I wish we had more prodigies hiding in plain sight. God knows we need them."
The weight of Konoha's current predicament settled between them like an unwelcome third party. The other villages were getting bolder, testing boundaries like teenagers seeing how far they could push before getting grounded. The Mist's recent probe was just the latest example of everyone wondering if Konoha still had teeth.
If Hatake Sakumo were still alive... but that was a thought that led nowhere good. The White Fang's death had left a hole in Konoha's deterrent force that even the legendary Sannin couldn't quite fill. Different kinds of scary, sure, but not the "I will personally hunt you to the ends of the earth" kind of scary that kept entire villages awake at night.
Yuhi Shinku cleared his throat, seizing the moment. "Actually, Hokage-sama, I've been thinking. I want to leave ANBU."
Sarutobi's eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. "Come again?"
"The whole skulking-in-shadows thing isn't really working for me anymore. I'm thinking more along the lines of... educational terrorism."
"Educational what now?"
"Teaching! Training the next generation. You know, turning wide-eyed genin into slightly-less-likely-to-die chunin. Someone needs to pass on the fine art of 'how not to get yourself killed in the first five minutes of combat.'"
The Third considered this, pipe smoke wreathing his weathered features. "Ninja academy seems like a waste of your talents. How about this—we set up a specialized training camp. You'll be the chief instructor, responsible for cramming battlefield wisdom into our greenest recruits. Think of it as intensive therapy for the chronically naive."
"Perfect. And I know exactly who I want as my assistant instructor."
"Let me guess. Maruyama Qifeng?"
"Bingo."
---
"Training camp? Absolutely not. No. Nope. Not happening."
I was sprawled in my favorite rocking chair, perfecting my impression of a professionally unmotivated sloth, when Yuhi Shinku dropped this particular bombshell on me.
Are you insane? You want me to *train* the little suicide machines? My entire career is built on cleaning up after their inevitable mistakes, not preventing them. It's like asking a funeral director to become a life coach—technically possible, but fundamentally counterproductive.
The worst part is, I know myself. Get me around a bunch of starry-eyed kids for more than five minutes and I'll start caring. Next thing you know, I'm actually *trying* to keep them alive, which completely defeats the purpose of my carefully cultivated career in post-mortem customer service.
"Think of it as an opportunity," Shinku said, settling into the chair beside me and offering a cigarette like we were old war buddies. "I could teach you advanced techniques, share combat experience that might keep you breathing longer."
I gave him a look that could wilt flowers. One cigarette? That's your bribe? What am I, twelve?
Also, experience? After absorbing the memories of Jonin Miura Ichigo and quasi-Kage Akagi Tsukasa, I probably had more combat experience than half the teaching staff. But explaining that would require revealing my little corpse-touching hobby, which seemed like a poor life choice.
"Still no." I shifted into an even more aggressively comfortable position. "I'm a salted fish, Shinku-sensei. I've embraced my destiny as a professionally unmotivated bottom-feeder. It's very zen."
"Why me, anyway? Konoha's crawling with eager young achievers. Kakashi's available, and he actually has that whole 'prodigy' thing going for him."
Yuhi Shinku's eye twitched in a way that suggested he was reconsidering his life choices. "I think we're... compatible."
"Ew."
"Not like that! I mean—"
"Look," I interrupted, "I'll give you a freebie to make you go away. Your daughter's being pursued by a certain someone with daddy issues and a cigarette addiction."
The temperature in the room dropped about ten degrees. "Asuma?"
"I said what I said."
Yuhi Shinku was on his feet and gone before I could blink, probably to go have a very awkward conversation with the Third Hokage about his son's romantic inclinations.
I settled back with a satisfied smirk. Poor Asuma. Kid never stood a chance once Shinku found out. But hey, I was doing him a favor in the long run. Puppy love at that age is like a sugar rush—feels amazing until the inevitable crash leaves you questioning all your life choices.
"Another crisis averted through strategic honesty," I murmured to myself, closing my eyes against the afternoon sun. "Truly, I am a master of conflict resolution."
There was something nagging at the back of my mind, some loose thread I'd forgotten to tie up, but the warmth was making me drowsy. Whatever it was, it probably wasn't important.
Somewhere outside the Land of Hot Springs, Kakashi was dragging an unconscious Ito Itsuki toward the Fire Country border, periodically stopping to wonder why his backup had never showed up.
---
Evening arrived with the subtlety of a cold slap, jolting me awake as the temperature plummeted. There's something particularly cruel about how afternoon sun can make you forget that nighttime exists, right up until it punches you in the face with hypothermia.
I stumbled inside, teeth chattering, but my heart was doing that excited flutter that meant it was time for my favorite part of the day.
Corpse lottery time.
The morgue was quiet and cold, exactly the way I liked it. I carefully retrieved the bodies of Kaguya Chiren and Kurishimaru Yamato, handling them with the sort of reverence usually reserved for religious ceremonies.
"Alright, gentlemen," I addressed the corpses with professional courtesy, "let's see what you've got for me. I'm about to find out if my investment strategy of 'murder expensive ninja and hope for the best' is financially sound."
Before the main event, I performed my usual ritual of making the bodies presentable. Death is ugly enough without adding insult to injury, and I've always believed in treating my clients with dignity. Even Kaguya Chiren, whose remains looked like they'd been processed through a particularly vindictive blender, deserved my best effort.
As midnight approached, I rubbed my hands together and prepared for the moment of truth.
[Yellow corpse detected. Success rate: 30%. Attempts remaining: 3/3 today, 9/9 total. Proceed with corpse touching?]
"Here goes nothing," I whispered, and reached out to discover my fate.
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