Hibachi?Most Genin were eager to write their names into legend. It happened when you were fed a steady diet of stories about the great heroes of the Hidden Leaf from a young age. How could any shinobi hopeful resist trying to live up to the tales of Hashirama Senju, the legendary Sannin, or the indomitable Lord Fourth?
To put it simply, you couldn't. At least, not for the average shinobi. But dreams were what you needed to sell young children to get them to buy into the structure, the overarching hierarchy, and all the sacrifices they'd inevitably make along the way. He couldn't begrudge the powers that be for making that cruel calculus.
He just didn't want any part of it for himself, beyond the bare minimum requirements to skate by.
It made Hibachi feel like a fraud, most of the time, when he pictured his future. He didn't have any yearning for fame, power, or privilege like so many of his peers in the academy. Most of the time, it was a challenge to get out of bed in the morning, and he'd have just been satisfied with a good, honest job in some part of the General Forces. He could have seen himself slowly building his body of work until he could hope to apply in the intelligence division.
That would have been a rather understated life, but a safe one. The kind of existence that'd have seen him determinately toiling away on D-ranks, then C-ranks, and probably avoiding anything too dangerous until the next war between Hidden Vilges broke out. Hardly the kind of gmorization they did in the academy, but something far more realistic to his capabilities and drive. To go home to his dad, his brothers, and make sure that he didn't die in the process.
Which was what made it all the more amusing and baffling that he'd passed the Jōnin's exam to train under a Jōnin-sensei. It seemed that someone in the Pure Lands was having a rk at his expense. He hadn't been expecting even to try all that hard when showing up for the test, not at first. But something strange began to happen as it was happening; it felt like he was getting swept away by personalities so much bigger than his own.
What was his luck in getting saddled with such boisterous people? Ami's big, bossy, and acerbic nature, concealing her true face of a girl deeply invested in the lives of her comrades. Tobio, with a vast dream, almost ughable when you considered the notion of a cnless orphan daring to rise so far.
Then again, Lord Fourth had been an orphan, as had Jiraiya of the Sannin. It wouldn't be unfair to say that something exceptional separated individuals with that drive, that burning ambition, from everyone else. Some people just had it in spades, but most humans cked that desire to reach the very top, even if they had to cw their way up the side of a sheer cliff to get there.
He didn't have it inside of him, but Tobio had it in spades. Enough to pull up Ami and Hibachi with him, as he did his best effort of a carp leaping up a waterfall. The spiky-haired boy might not have had much tact or common sense, yet that was probably for the best. No one important ever got to where they were by being like everyone else.
Something in him told Hibachi that his new friend had it in him to go the distance.
Given that the rest of his team had dedicated themselves to trying as hard as possible under Tekuno's tutege, he didn't want to be the odd one out. So, he threw himself headfirst into some of the most grueling regimens he'd ever seen. He might have been cking in some degree compared to the sheer progress that Tobio was making. Or maybe Tobio's baseline had just been so much higher than theirs to begin with.
That being said, it was daunting to see him blow ahead of them so soundly. It wasn't something that he thought Ami had noticed yet, but the only other boy on the team was just possessed of…something that drove him forward. To making progress leaps and bounds ahead of them. In school, he'd never thought Tobio was all that different, or unusual, until that fateful exam day when he'd trounced Kiba and Sasuke in a spar.
Maybe all of this time, Tobio had been trying harder than any of them had ever known. Though Hibachi had been quietly betting on his teammate having some degree of bloodline. He just hadn't expected that information to be confirmed in such an uncomfortable way.
The escort mission to Takigakure started innocently enough. Everyone in Team Eleven met the client, who, unfortunately, made them painfully aware of his cowardly ways and made their peace with his nature. All things considered, though, most of the journey went rather well.
Then, almost the moment their sensei disappeared, things went off the rails.
They were ambushed, with only scant warning from Tobio's preternatural senses, and during it…Hibachi felt useless. He'd been useless, while Ami got off a Genjutsu at the very least, and Tobio had employed his full strength against their attackers. The fact that it'd included a new jutsu he'd never seen him use before, one he'd probably developed without hand seals, only made it all the more a bitter pill to swallow.
Stumbling onto an in-progress attack on the vilge by a bunch of nukenin was certainly grounds for them to leave. It would have been the rational thing to do, given how little they knew about the situation inside of the Hidden Vilge. This wasn't their home, these vilgers weren't their people, and more coldblooded, Hibachi didn't think they could spend the likely profits of the new mission if they were dead.
And yet…
When the time came to air out his grievances with the pn, he didn't do so. Hibachi agreed. It'd baffled him to no end after the fact, when Ami, Shibuki, and Tobio went off to go survey the situation inside of the vilge. Even in the midst of his trapmaking to secure his position, he was forced to contend with one painful realization.
He wasn't devoid of that ambition for something more after all. Or maybe it was just by the dint of being around Ami and Tobio, who burned bright, that made him feel that way. The notion that he was warming himself at their fire felt painfully accurate in some ways.Thankfully, he didn't have much time to do much introspection. Being ambushed had a way of crifying your priorities very, very suddenly. It was nice of most of the ninja who tried to rush him to walk straight into the explosive tags, tripwires, and other traps he'd had the scant amount of time to set up.
Besides that, there was one bastard with the bandanna covering his mouth. He'd had to get up close and personal to take him out, and admittedly, Hibachi was willing to concede he'd relied heavily on his leftover traps even to manage that. But it did make it painfully clear that his teammates needed him, rather than outside, guarding the children and their mother.
One brief set of directions ter, and he'd made his way along the same route he suspected his initial attackers had taken. Getting into the vilge was surprisingly easy. Everything that came after?
Not so much.
As expected, when he entered into the fray, Tobio's raw lethality continued to be a truism. What was less expected were the extremely high-ranking shinobi the rest of Team Eleven was facing off against. The smart thing to do would have been to run. But that nagging feeling inside of him, a desire to prove himself that he hadn't even thought he'd had, rose to the surface once more.
And then there was no more time for talk. It'd been a hectic, frantic fight, that saw Ami taken out, and Hibachi alongside Tobio, facing off with a Jōnin. By all metrics, they should have been dead within a few moments. Instead, they pulled off a trick that he'd been half-convinced would see them dead in seconds, as Tobio sped up that explosive technique of his.
Faster and faster, until he was unched toward the Jōnin…and took the bastard with him, as he flew. Up into the sky, past the thick branches of the massive tree at the center of Takigakure, until they were out of sight. The amount of chakra it must have taken Tobio to propel himself up that high baffled the mind, let alone how much it would have taken to propel someone else with him.
Yet even so, all things that went up had to come down. This was one of the world's truths, and the two of them plummeted like a falling star. The Jōnin, Suien, screaming like the cowardly scum that he was. Tobio roaring defiance, bloody, arms locked tight around his opponent, as they hit the water at terminal velocity.
It was all Hibachi could do for a few pregnant moments to remember to learn how to breathe. He found his legs moving forward, running to the edge of the water, wading it, as he saw the floating body of Tobio on the surface of the water. And to call it a ruin was an understatement.
In every sense of the word, Tobio's physique had been brutalized. He didn't know where the bruises, cuts, cerations, and fractures began, and undamaged flesh ended. Hell, Hibachi wasn't even sure if there was anything that had been left unscathed in his friend's descent from the sky. Falling from that height, at that speed…it was a lethal drop. At that moment, he was sure that he was looking at the corpse of a friend who'd sacrificed everything to save their lives.
A real hero, in a way he could never be.
…Until Tobio breathed. It was a disgusting, ragged sound, like a clogged vacuum cleaner, his chest rising and falling in fits and starts. But it meant that he was alive, mangled chest rising and falling like a stuttering film reel. And the tears that Hibachi had been holding back flowed freely in that moment.
The aftermath of the battle was something of a haze. He didn't remember it clearly, if he was being entirely honest, blurry-eyed and frantic to bring Tobio to the shore as he was. Ami was knocked out, and most of the vilge's inhabitants had been blessedly unharmed and kept in one pce. It made it easy to free them after the fact, when he needed help to get his friends proper medical care. Or whatever passed for it in this podunk vilge.
Who would have thought that the thing Hibachi would have missed the most about Konoha in that moment was the hospital? Certainly not him, yet life had a way of throwing curveballs at you, when you least expected it.
Shibuki showed up with a gss bottle of some kind, but the Genin barely paid it any mind. Hibachi was pretty sure the coward made some excuses for his absence, for why three fresh Genin were left to face impossible odds while the Chūnin and vilge leader fled to safety. He didn't entirely remember what scathing, hurtful thing came out of his mouth then, but it was enough to make Shibuki scurry off with his tail between his legs.
A hawk was sent to Konoha to inform them of what had happened. The scant few doctors and medics in the vilge gathered to help their friends and themselves. Ami was, blessedly, just suffering from a broken arm and a concussion and would be fine with some solid medical techniques. They were…less hopeful about Tobio's condition.
"...What the fuck do you mean there's nothing you can do?" Ami's voice was ft, head bandaged, her arm in a sling, and her dark eyes staring straight ahead at the overworked, tired doctor in front of them.
With a sad expression, the man gestured down at Tobio, his entire body bandaged, attached to an IV drip and a blood bag. "Young dy-"
"That's Genin Kato to you," she snarled, falling back on rank and privilege, the moment that her feelings were too raw to be exposed.
"...Genin Kato," the man corrected, looking like he'd swallowed a lemon. "Let me be frank. Outside of pumping medicinal chakra into your friend, his condition is not one a vilge of our size has the resources to evaluate and treat properly."
Hibachi frowned, finally taking his eyes off the slowly breathing, wholly bandaged form of Tobio. He gnced at the doctor, eyebrows furrowed together. "What do you mean by that?"
"Where do I even begin?" The older man reached out for a clipboard, flipping through the pages present. "The dosages of drugs required to put out your teammate would kill most grown men. If we didn't have him in a medical coma, I'm almost positive the amount of pain he'd be in would be beyond belief, as his bones seem to be…putting themselves back together, with minimal effort on our part. And his flesh is actively reshaping itself underneath our efforts."
He gave a baffled sound, sounding more incredulous with each passing second, eyes flicking to the nearby prone Genin. "Whatever bloodline he has is the only reason he's still breathing, and at best, using our medical techniques is the most we can do while he heals by himself. Outside of that, pray whatever bloodline he has continues those autonomic processes, because every time we try anything, we're unsure if we're making it better or worse."
It was a problem that the tired Genin could recognize immediately. Konoha, outside of Kiri, was the Hidden Vilge with the highest amount of bloodlines in the world. Unusual, aberrant physiologies were not just expected, but almost certainly par for the course when you had bestial Inuzuka and hulking Akimichi in one pce, or the reams of medical research that had been done when Tsunade of the Sannin was still present in the vilge. Expecting a small vilge like Takigakure to have its skills and resources was unreasonable.
Hibachi couldn't help but stare at the exhausted-looking man, who obviously seemed to be having just as much trouble with the situation as he was. Ami opened her mouth to mbast him even further, but stopped once Hibachi put his hand on her shoulder. Then, she closed her mouth and clenched her jaw.
"We understand," she spat out through clenched teeth, eyes wrenched shut. "T-Thank you for what your medic-nin have done for us so far, though."
"It's our honor. You saved my sister and her children; I'm trying to repay the favor. I just…wish it wasn't so hard." With those words, the doctor nodded and left the room, leaving the two of them alone.
With their friend, who may or may not have been dying.
The two of them were silent for a few moments, taking seats on either side of Tobio's bed. It left the only sound in the room the sound of his breathing, shallow and raspy, yet steady all the way through. A part of Hibach was more amazed that his friend held onto life with a dogged stubbornness that defied the odds, more than anything else. But then, this sort of defiance of fate and common sense was par for the course for Tobio.
Eventually, their silence was broken by Ami, who looked down at Tobio with an expression he couldn't even begin to scrutinize. "He's too stubborn to die. So, he won't."
"Ami…"
Something in the tone of his voice must have set her off, must have been pitying or cautious, because then she rounded on him. Eyes shining wetly and filled with indignation. "Shut up! Stop listening to stuff like common sense or logic, and just…believe, alright?"
That got a rueful chuckle out of Hibachi. "I'm kind of an awful cynic and pessimist, y'know."
"I know," she nodded. "And normally, that's fine. But try to be optimistic for once, please? For me?"
His throat felt tight as he looked at that pleading expression on her face, before Hibachi gnced away, nodding softly. "...Fine. Just this once, I'll be an optimist."
He said those words. Much to his surprise, Hibachi wasn't disappointed. Day by day, it was as if Tobio was being mended before their eyes. With each infusion of medicinal chakra, he was being healed, his body coming back together at the seams. It was fascinating to watch, if in a more macabre sort of way.
What was more amusing was seeing his sensei enter into the Hidden Vilge. For all of the bluster that Shibuki had given them about entering into the vilge before, or the entrance being a secret, he'd been awfully willing to acquiesce to Tekuno-sensei when he'd arrived. Though given the stormy look on the man's face when they saw him, it was understandable.
Neither Ami or Hibachi could recall seeing their sensei so haggard. He'd looked as if he'd traveled hard, and slept little, as he made his way back from Konoha. Hibachi couldn't even fathom how swiftly the Jōnin must have been going to make that trek in any appreciable amount of time.
Entering the hospital where the three of his students had been staying, he cast his gaze of the mildly wounded duo. Every injury was catalogued and filed away somewhere in the back of the man's mind, before he spoke. "Are the two of you okay?"
"...Just a broken arm," Ami shrugged, softly. "But I'll be better soon."
"I've had enough of Takigakure for a lifetime," Hibachi admitted. He wanted to be home, in Konoha, where most of the houses had electricity, and he could be zy and take some time off to sit in front of the television with his dad.
Being in this backward, shitty vilge was the st pce he wanted to be.
"That's good, that's good," their sensei nodded, huffing out a soft sigh. "...Where's Tobio?"
Both Ami and Hibachi shared a look, before Ami meaningfully cleared her throat. "Ah, sensei, maybe you should rest a little befo-"
"Ami." There was an uncomfortable, unfamiliar ftness to his voice, as he looked over at the girl. "Don't try to soften things for me. Take me to Tobio."
With a nod from Ami, the duo took him to Tobio's bedside. He looked better than before, which was to say that with all of the casts and bandages off of him, their teammate no longer looked like a corpse. Instead, he just looked like he'd picked a fight with a mountainside, and the mountain won. All things considered, from how it'd been in the beginning? This was a noticeable improvement.
Slowly, Tekuno walked to the side of the bed and looked down at Tobio. This time it was easy to read the pin regret that was writ rge across his features, as he softly spoke. "...I should have been here."
That felt more foreign than anything else to him, admittedly. Hibachi wasn't used to his sensei like this. Big, rger than life, jovial? It was easy to picture the man like that. But this was something else, something more reserved. Seeing that almost defeated expression on his sensei's face was like watching the sky turn green.
It felt like the world's natural order was being overturned before his very eyes.
"Sensei, this wasn't your fault. We wanted to help them," Ami protested.
If only to have Tekuno gnce over his shoulder at the girl, sighing. "In the end, it was my responsibility to see you kids home safely. To ensure you were trained enough for whatever trouble you may have encountered."
"We were trained, though," Hibachi pointed out.
"Not enough to take on as many ninjas as I'm told you fought, and realistically, how far do you think you would have gotten if Tobio wasn't such a prodigy? Or didn't have a bloodline limit?"
That drew the two of them up short, but for Hibachi especially. Mostly because he'd never associated his goofy, headstrong, surprisingly good cook of a friend with the word 'prodigy'. It had so many dangerous expectations and connotations that surrounded it, he'd always tried to avoid it like the pgue.
When people heard the word prodigy, it brought to mind the absolute legends of the Hidden Leaf—people who, for better or worse, were going to be someone someday. And even if he'd never admitted it to himself, Tobio qualified. Hibachi had just never let himself connect his friend with a future division head, cn leader, or war hero.
Maybe that was his failing.
When you could tear apart numerous higher-ranking foes as a Genin, and take out a Jōnin in a vicious, suicidal move…and survive it? That meant that you were going pces. If it'd just been Ami and Hibachi, they'd have been dead countless times over. Ami had almost died, only narrowly managing to walk away with a broken arm from the periphery of that water dragon she'd gotten hit with, rather than full-on.
Painful as it was to realize, Tobio was outpacing them with each passing month. Even so…even if it was dangerous, and would put him far more in the spotlight than he'd ever desired, there was a part of him that wanted to be there for his friend. To support him, when the world was inevitably going to be too much to bear.
"Then we'll get stronger," Ami stated, determination and fire in her eyes. "We'll get stronger until we're able to beat up and fend off however many ninjas as we need to."
"Just like that?" Tekuno asked, gncing between the two of them.
"Just like that," Hibachi agreed, nodding back at his sensei. "We're a team, through thick and thin. Besides, Tobio's gonna need someone to watch his back and keep him alive."
Kami knew the guy wasn't going to be concerned for his own sake. So, as his friends, they'd try to keep him alive from the threats that he couldn't see, when he was cutting through people like a Kiri berserker.
"He's not that bad," Tekuno responded, before pausing at their expressions. "...Did something change?"
"All I can say is that his fighting style against us, in a spar, is a lot less…aggressive," Ami commented. "Which makes me feel a little inadequate, if I'm being honest."
Hibach shrugged at those words. Given what he'd heard from Ami, Tobio had punched a guy so hard his neck snapped from the impact. He was pleased with the force used in their spars, given he was already walking away with all sorts of bruises.
"Everyone's got something they're good at," Tekuno consoled her. It wasn't as if Ami would ever be Tsunade of the Sannin. It was a good dream, sure, but there was a reason no woman had ever walked in her footsteps to become as famously strong as her.
She scoffed, gncing away. "I know. I'm just a little jealous he gets to mix it up into the thick of things so easily."
"I'm not," Hibachi freely admitted. "It looks and sounds terrifying, painful, and dangerous." The results of doing so were lying nearby, pin to see for anyone who wanted to.
The conversation wound down a little from there, as the three of them filed out of the room. Neither Ami or Hibachi were present for the conversation their sensei had with Shibuki, but they did see the smile that Tekuno had given the older boy. It wasn't much of one, though, as the smile didn't entirely reach his eyes, as they went off to talk elsewhere.
When they came back, Shibuki looked frazzled, and Tekuno was beaific. But, it was made clear that Team Eleven would be receiving an A-rank payout of 200,000 ryo, in addition to their previously negotiated rewards of 50,000 ryo for the C-rank, and 10,000 ryo for the D-rank trash cleaning. All in total, they'd be clocking in at around 260,000 ryo overall for the mission. A real windfall, but especially for Ami and Hibachi, who still lived at home with their parents. It wasn't anything compared to the payouts some of the crazier A-rank missions could deliver, let alone S-rank, but for them…it was priceless.
Maybe that'd be enough to cheer up Tobio, whenever he woke up.
