The morning sun hit Tsunade like an accusation.
She shoved a silk kimono into her travel bag, not bothering to fold it.
"We're leaving," she announced. Her voice was rough, scraping against the edges of a hangover that felt less like a headache and more like a premonition.
Shizune stood in the doorway of the hotel room, Tonton clutched to her chest.
"But Lady Tsunade," Shizune protested, "we just got here! You won a fortune last night! We paid off the debt to the Tea Country syndicate. We have actual liquid assets for the first time in three years!"
"That's the problem," Tsunade snapped, throwing a hairbrush into the bag. "The streak. It's too clean, Shizune. It feels... heavy."
She looked at her hands. They weren't shaking this morning. They were steady. That terrified her more than the tremors.
"It's just luck," Shizune tried to soothe. "Maybe the bad cycle is over. Besides, we can't leave yet. I promised Tonton we'd see Tanzaku Castle. It's a historical landmark!"
Tsunade zipped the bag shut with a violent riiiip.
"The castle is a pile of rocks. We go. Now. Before the bill comes due."
She slung the bag over her shoulder and marched out of the room, storming down the hallway. Shizune scrambled to catch up, her sandals slapping against the floorboards.
They burst out of the inn and onto the street.
The festival was in a lull—the morning calm before the evening storm—but the street was still crowded with tourists and vendors setting up for day two.
Tsunade moved fast, weaving through the crowd, eyes locked on the town gates.
Just get out, she thought. Get to the next town. Keep moving. If you stop, it catches you.
She rounded a corner near the old stone bridge.
And stopped dead.
A figure was standing in the middle of the path. He wasn't a tourist. He wore a purple tunic, a Konoha hitai-ate, and round, wire-rimmed glasses that caught the sunlight, turning his eyes into blank white discs.
He stood perfectly still, like a stone in a stream, letting the crowd part around him.
"You're in a hurry," the young man said. His voice was polite, smooth, and utterly chilling.
Shizune skidded to a halt beside Tsunade. Her grip on the pig tightened.
"You..." Shizune breathed. "How did you find us?"
Kabuto Yakushi smiled. He adjusted his glasses with one finger.
"Fortune or folly," he said. "You make a lot of noise wherever you go, Lady Tsunade."
Tsunade dropped her bag. It hit the dust with a heavy thud.
"Orochimaru's errand boy," she growled. "I should have known. The winning streak... it wasn't luck. It was bait."
Kabuto's gaze drifted to Shizune. He looked at the pink pig wrapped in a pearl-studded vest.
"You're also carrying a, dare I say, well-dressed swine," Kabuto noted dryly. "Hard to miss."
OINK!
Tonton snorted aggressively, wiggling in Shizune's arms. Even the pig understood sarcasm.
"What does he want?" Tsunade demanded. "If he sent you to fight me, you're going to die here, kid."
"No fight," Kabuto said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Just a conversation. Lord Orochimaru is waiting just outside the town limits. By the old shrine. Away from the... noise."
He gestured vaguely toward the festival drums starting up in the distance.
"He has a proposition for you," Kabuto said. "One that concerns the things you have lost."
Tsunade froze.
The noise of the street faded. The vendors, the tourists, the bright colors—it all turned gray.
The things you have lost.
She felt the phantom weight of a necklace against her skin.
"Fine," Tsunade whispered.
"Lady Tsunade!" Shizune warned. "It's a trap!"
"I know," Tsunade said. She picked up her bag. Her eyes were hard, but behind the anger, there was a terrible, hungry curiosity. "But I'm going anyway."
DOOM-DOOM. DOOM-DOOM.
The drums were back.
Naruto stood in the middle of Fun Fun Avenue, holding a small blue water balloon.
"This is impossible!" he yelled.
The ground was literally vibrating. He could feel the Zomeki rhythm traveling up through the soles of his sandals, shaking his knees, rattling his teeth.
"It's just sound," Jiraiya said. He was walking ahead, parting the crowd with his sheer size and a festive paper fan he was waving around. "Ignore it."
"I can't ignore it!" Naruto argued, jogging to keep up while trying to maintain the rotation in his hand. "My chakra is dancing! It keeps skipping a beat!"
Step Three. The final step.
Pop the water balloon (rotation). Pop the rubber ball (power).
Now, he had to take a regular air balloon and create the spinning shell without popping it. He had to contain the storm inside a skin as thin as paper.
If he used too much power, it popped. If he used too little, the shape collapsed. And if the drummer smashed the taiko particularly hard, Naruto flinched and the balloon exploded.
POP.
"Dammit!" Naruto threw the rubber shred on the ground. "That's the tenth one!"
"You're letting the outside world dictate your internal flow," Jiraiya lectured, stepping nimbly around a group of dancers. "Spatial awareness, Naruto! A ninja doesn't need silence to focus. A ninja focuses despite the noise."
He grabbed a takoyaki skewer from a passing vendor (leaving a coin on the tray with a sleight of hand) and took a bite.
"We keep moving," Jiraiya ordered. "Tsunade's trail is getting warm. She was at the Golden Dragon last night. We missed her by hours."
"We haven't been moving at all!" Naruto complained, stuck behind a wall of tourists taking pictures. "We've been walking in circles!"
"We are canvassing!" Jiraiya corrected. "Keep spinning the chakra! Don't let the rhythm break your concentration!"
Naruto gritted his teeth. He pulled out another balloon.
DOOM-DOOM.
He focused on his palm.
Ignore the drum, he told himself. My heart has its own beat.
He pushed the chakra. It swirled. The balloon inflated.
DOOM-DOOM.
The vibration hit his hand. The chakra wavered.
Don't pop. Don't pop. Don't—
A dancer bumped him.
POP.
"ARGH!" Naruto screamed at the sky. "I HATE FESTIVALS!"
The private room at the back of the tea house was small, smelling of tatami and expensive incense. The noise of the festival was muffled here, reduced to a distant, thumping heartbeat in the floorboards.
But inside the room, the rhythm was faster.
A geisha sat in the corner, plucking a shamisen. Ting-ting-tong. Ting-ting-tong.
It was the song for Konpira Fune Fune.
I sat on my knees at a low table. Across from me, Anko sat in a relaxed sprawl, grinning like a shark that had found a new game to play.
Between us sat a small, lacquered wooden box.
"Ready, Pinkie?" Anko teased. "Don't cry when you lose a finger."
"I don't cry," I said, adjusting my glasses. "I calculate."
The geisha picked up the tempo.
Konpira fune fune...
The game was simple. You tapped the box to the rhythm. If the other person tapped it, you tapped it. If the other person snatched the box away, you had to tap the table with a closed fist (Rock). If you tried to grab a box that wasn't there, you lost. If you hesitated, you lost.
Anko moved first.
She tapped the box. I tapped the box. She tapped. I tapped.
The rhythm accelerated.
Oite ni hokakete...
Anko snatched the box.
I slammed my fist on the table. Thump.
She put it back. I tapped it.
My eyes were open, but I wasn't really seeing the box. I was seeing the intent.
Every time Anko's muscles twitched to grab the box, I saw a flash of purple chakra in her shoulder. A micro-second telegraph.
Purple flash. Fist on table.
No flash. Hand on box.
It was easy. It was too easy.
The music got faster. The shamisen player was sweating, her fingers flying over the strings.
Tap. Tap. Snatch. Thump. Tap. Snatch. Thump.
I entered a flow state. The world narrowed down to the box and the purple signals. My hand moved on its own, guided by the silver hum in the back of my head. I wasn't thinking. I was reacting before the action even happened.
Anko's eyes narrowed. She leaned forward. Her speed ramped up to jōnin levels—a blur of motion that should have left a genin in the dust.
I matched her.
Tap. Tap. Snatch. Thump.
It felt like the water training. The world was slowing down, becoming heavy and readable. I couldn't miss. I literally physically couldn't miss. It felt like gravity was on my side.
"I'm winning," I whispered, entranced by my own hands.
"Are you?" Anko asked.
"I haven't missed a beat," I said. "It feels... slow. Are you letting me win?"
The shamisen reached a crescendo.
Schura-schu-schu...
I saw the purple flash. She was going to snatch it.
I prepared my fist.
But she didn't snatch it.
She didn't tap it.
Anko's hand moved faster than my eyes, faster than the chakra signal, faster than the silver hum.
She grabbed the box and slammed it down on my hand.
CRACK.
"OW!"
I yanked my hand back, clutching my fingers. They throbbed.
The music stopped.
Anko held the box. She wasn't smiling anymore. She looked cold.
"You were reading me," she said. "You were watching the chakra flow in my arm."
"I..." I rubbed my knuckles. "Yes."
"And you got cocky," Anko said. "You thought because you could see the future, you owned it."
She tossed the box onto the tatami.
"Never trust a streak, kid," she said softly. "When it feels too easy? When you think the house is on your side?"
She leaned over the table, poking me in the forehead.
"That's when the house corrects itself. And the house always wins."
I looked at the box.
The silver hum in my head faded, leaving behind the dull ache of bruised bone.
"Right," I whispered. "The house wins."