By the time Jiraiya let him stop, Naruto's legs didn't feel like legs.
They were just two long, shaking complaints attached to his hips.
He half-stumbled, half-shuffled down the street, cloak torn, shirt damp with old river water and new sweat. The sun had already slid past the rooftops; lanterns were coming on one by one, giving Konoha's streets that warm, soft glow that made the village look less like a ninja factory and more like an actual place people lived.
His stomach had been empty for so long it had looped back around to full of pain.
"I'm dying," Naruto groaned.
"You're hungry," Jiraiya corrected, hands laced behind his head as he strolled along like the training had been a light walk. "If you were dying, you'd be quieter. Much quieter. And not asking for seconds."
Naruto opened his mouth to say he had never begged for seconds when dying, then realized he absolutely would.
"…I want ramen," he said instead, with all the desperate sincerity of a final wish.
Jiraiya smiled. "Good. Your sense of priorities is improving."
Ichiraku's stall came into view like palace gates.
The old canvas banner fluttered a little in the evening breeze. Warm, broth-heavy air spilled out from under it. Naruto practically lunged the last few steps and peeled the flap aside.
"Old man! Ayame! I'm ho—"
He stopped short. The place was almost empty.
Just Teuchi behind the counter, wiping down a big pot, and a single tired-looking chūnin nursing a bowl at the far end. Ayame leaned over the prep station, tying her hair back.
All three looked up when Naruto burst in.
"Welcome!" Teuchi boomed, face splitting into a grin. "Naruto, you look like you picked a fight with the weather and lost."
"Training," Naruto said proudly, even as his knees wobbled. "Very hardcore, secret, life-or-death… training."
Jiraiya ducked in behind him, giving a lazy wave. Teuchi's eyes flicked to him, narrowed, then smoothed out into something vaguely respectful and vaguely suspicious.
"Sit, sit," Ayame said, already reaching for bowls. "You look like you could eat the whole menu."
Naruto's eyes shone. "Can I?"
Jiraiya coughed. "We'll start with… three," he said. "Each."
"Three each?" Naruto echoed, stunned. "You're rich."
"I'm investing in a long-term weapon," Jiraiya replied, hopping onto a stool. "You feed weapons if you want them to work."
Teuchi chuckled. "Ramen as ninja fuel, huh? I like this man."
Ayame set water boiling. Naruto climbed onto the stool next to Jiraiya, every movement fueled by the promise of imminent noodles.
The first bowl landed in front of him like a miracle. Steam curled up in fragrant, salty ghosts. Fat glistened on the surface. The soft-boiled egg smiled up at him.
Naruto said a fast, earnest "itadakimasu" and then fell on it like he hadn't eaten in a week.
Ramen dissolved the day into something that didn't hurt as much. The burn in his muscles faded into a background grumble. The bruises felt less like proof he was breakable and more like proof he'd done something.
Halfway through the second bowl, Jiraiya finally said, "So."
Naruto slurped, then glanced sideways. "So what?"
"So," Jiraiya repeated, "how does it feel?"
Naruto blinked. "How does what feel?"
"The summoning," Jiraiya said. "The fox chakra. Standing on Gamabunta's back."
Naruto's chopsticks paused over the noodles.
He thought about the moment the red had rushed up through him. The bars. The eyes. The laugh.
He thought about how small he'd felt on Bunta's back. How huge the toad had been—how the ravine had shrunk around them like a toy. How every second had been an argument between gravity and his grip.
"It was…" Naruto groped for a word that didn't sound stupid. "Big," he settled on. "And loud. And like my skin didn't fit right."
Jiraiya took a sip of whatever was in his little ceramic cup. It smelled sharp and wrong to Naruto's nose—adult drink, the kind that probably killed taste buds on contact.
"But good?" Jiraiya prompted.
Naruto hesitated.
"Yeah," he admitted. "Good. When it wasn't trying to rip me in half."
Jiraiya's mouth curled. "You held it together," he said. "That matters more than the size of what you called."
Naruto hunched a little over his bowl, suddenly uncomfortable under the praise.
"I almost fell off," he said. "Like… a lot."
"You didn't," Jiraiya said. "You screamed and flailed and clung and nearly drowned, and you didn't fall off while it counted. That's better than more than half the grown ninja I've seen try to work with summons."
Naruto chewed a mouthful of noodles, swallowed, and made a face.
"I'm not… scared of it," he said slowly. "The fox. Or… I don't want to be. I just—"
He remembered Sylvie's face, stark and pale on the riverbank, eyes too bright when she told him not to use himself like a disposable tag.
"I just don't want to freeze," he blurted. "Like, if something happens and it's— it's bad, and people need me, I don't want to be that kid who just… stands there. Or runs away."
The words sat between them like a dropped spoon.
Jiraiya's expression shifted. Some of the teasing went out of it.
"You freeze a lot as a kid?" he asked, not quite casually.
Naruto shrugged one shoulder, suddenly fascinated by his own ramen. "Sometimes. People didn't… y'know. Want me around. If I messed up, it was always 'Naruto ruined it, Naruto broke it, Naruto did it on purpose.'"
He twisted his chopsticks between his fingers.
"It's like," he went on, groping for the shape of it, "if I think too much, I start… hearing all that again. 'You're a screwup, you're dangerous, you're the fox, you're wrong.' And then I can't move right. So it's easier to just… not think. Just jump. Even if it's off a cliff."
He laughed, short and brittle.
Jiraiya watched him over the rim of his cup.
"You know," he said eventually, "people who say they don't care if they die are usually lying."
Naruto bristled. "I wasn't lying."
"No," Jiraiya said. "You were trying to sound like you weren't scared. That's different."
Naruto made a face. "Same thing."
"Is it?" Jiraiya leaned his elbows on the counter. "If you really didn't care, you wouldn't grab the rocks on the way down. You wouldn't claw your way back up when you hit the river. You would've let go."
Naruto opened his mouth, then shut it.
He remembered his fingers digging into wet stone. The way his lungs had burned, the way his body had kept moving even when his brain was screaming at him to just lie down and be done.
He remembered how Sylvie had said I'm not okay with that.
He remembered Iruka throwing himself in front of Mizuki's giant shuriken.
He put his chopsticks down.
"I do care," he said quietly, like he was admitting something embarrassing. "I just don't… I don't want to care so much I can't do stuff."
Jiraiya exhaled, slow.
"You think caring will make you freeze," he said. "That loving things will glue your feet to the ground, right when you need to move."
Naruto stared at the wood grain.
"Yeah," he whispered.
Jiraiya tilted his head back, looking up at the rafters as if there were answers written there.
"Listen," he said. "I've seen plenty of shinobi who ran forward because they didn't care if they lived or died. They burned bright, sure. Real flashy. Real short."
He looked at Naruto again, one eye more serious than Naruto had seen it all week.
"The ones who last," he said, "are the ones who run forward because they care. Even when it hurts. Especially when they're scared."
Naruto's throat felt tight.
"How do you not freeze?" he asked, and hated how small his voice sounded.
Jiraiya's lips quirked. "Practice," he said. "Messy, ugly practice. Screwing it up and trying again."
He poked Naruto in the forehead with two fingers, right above the hitai-ate.
"And knowing," he added, "that the scared kid you used to be is still in there. You just bring him along instead of leaving him on the side of the road."
Naruto scowled automatically. "I'm not a kid."
"You're twelve," Jiraiya said dryly.
"Thirteen almost?"
"Not how birthdays work."
Naruto huffed and snatched up his chopsticks again, mostly so he'd have something to do with his hands. The third bowl arrived; he started eating just to fill his mouth.
Jiraiya let it sit after that. He went back to "grading" aloud between bites—"Your aim with the seal sequence was a C-minus, but your falling form was very spirited, that's an A in enthusiasm"—until Naruto's brain stopped trying to chew itself and went back to chewing noodles instead.
By the time they were done, his stomach bulged pleasantly and his limbs felt like they'd been softly replaced with sandbags.
Ayame waved them off with a smile and one last "don't overtrain!" Teuchi gave Naruto a light clap on the shoulder that almost knocked him off the stool.
"Finals are coming," the old man said. "Give 'em hell."
Naruto grinned, some of the old, loud confidence sliding back into place.
"You know it!"
—
They stepped back into the night air. The village hummed around them—distant chatter, a dog barking somewhere, the clank of a late-working smith.
Jiraiya stretched, joints cracking audibly.
"Alright," he said. "One more thing before I let you crawl back to your bed to snore loudly at the ceiling."
Naruto squinted up at him. "If you say 'cliff' I'll bite you."
"No cliffs," Jiraiya said. "We'll call this a pop quiz."
He jerked his chin toward a patch of open ground near the edge of the street, where a little shrine sat half-hidden under a tree.
"Summon something," he said.
Naruto blinked. "Here?"
Jiraiya spread his hands. "Summons don't only work over ravines, brat. You'll need them in alleys, rooftops, living rooms, you name it. Try a small one. No fox cheating. Just your own chakra and the contract."
Naruto's first impulse was to protest that he was out of juice.
But he wasn't, not really. Tired, yeah. Scraped low. But there was still a little left, a thin orange residue sloshing in his coils.
"Fine," he muttered.
They moved over to the shrine clearing. The little stone fox statue there watched them with chipped eyes. Naruto knelt on the packed dirt, rolling his shoulders.
His fingers flashed through the now-familiar sequence. He bit his thumb almost tenderly—tiny sting, little bloom of warmth. He slammed his palm down.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
Smoke poofed, smacking him in the face.
When it cleared, he looked down.
A very small toad looked back up.
Orange skin. Blue markings. Band around his neck. Little arms folded like he owned the place.
"Seriously?" the toad said.
Naruto's face fell. "You again?"
"Oh," the toad replied, utterly flat. "It's you."
Jiraiya snorted behind him.
"Hey!" Naruto snapped. "What's that supposed to mean?"
The toad sighed like a put-upon office worker.
"I was asleep," he informed Naruto. "Nice pond, good moss, no idiots falling on me. Then poof, yanked right into the middle of your drama. Again."
"This is not drama, this is crucial fight training!" Naruto said, feeling his ears heat. "And it's not my fault you're the one who keeps showing up!"
"Who else is gonna answer a kid with ramen breath and terrible chakra handwriting?" the toad shot back.
Naruto sputtered. "My chakra handwriting is amazing."
"Your signature is like a drunk tadpole," the toad said. "It's a miracle you got Boss once. I'm Gamakichi."
He jerked his thumb at his own chest.
Naruto paused.
"…Gamakichi?" he repeated, tasting the name.
"Yeah."
"That's a pretty cool name," Naruto admitted grudgingly.
"Obviously," Gamakichi said. "Anyway, if you're gonna keep calling me, you better have snacks."
He held out a tiny hand.
Naruto gaped at him. "Snacks?"
"Compensation," Gamakichi said. "Summons are a two-way street, you know. You want my expertise, I want whatever you grabbed on the way here."
He sniffed audibly.
"Smells like pork broth," he added. "You've been holding out on me."
Naruto threw a betrayed look at Jiraiya.
"You didn't tell me I had to pay them!"
"Didn't I?" Jiraiya said innocently. "Summons fight for partners. Partners take care of each other. Ramen tax is standard."
Naruto dug in his pockets, came up with a slightly squashed rice cracker Ayame had slipped him "for later," and, after a moment of agonized internal conflict, broke it in half.
He offered one piece to Gamakichi.
The toad took it, inspected it with exaggerated care, then started munching.
"…Not terrible," Gamakichi allowed. "You keep this up, I might not complain so much next time you drag me out of my nap."
Naruto felt a weird flutter in his chest, like this was some kind of important diplomatic victory instead of bribing a tiny amphibian with snacks.
"Next time," he said firmly, "I'm gonna summon Boss again. And he's gonna completely listen to me. And we're gonna beat Neji and sand-weirdo and anyone else who shows up."
Gamakichi flicked crumbs off his fingers. "Sure you are, kid."
Naruto looked down at him, then up, past the roofs, to where the moon hung, pale and distant.
For a second, in his mind's eye, he saw Gamabunta's silhouette against that same moon—massive, hunched, pipe glowing, eyes like twin lanterns. The weight of the pact felt like standing next to a mountain that had grudgingly agreed not to fall on him.
Not for him, not yet. Just… not on him.
It was something.
"You keep eating and not dying," Jiraiya said, breaking into his thoughts. "Keep calling those toads. Learn when to use the fox and when to rely on your own two feet. Do that, and you might make this old man's life work worth something."
Naruto snorted. "Your life work is peeping on baths."
Jiraiya clutched his chest. "The disrespect."
Gamakichi snickered. "He's got you there, Pervy Sage."
Jiraiya pointed at him. "Whose side are you on?"
"Snack side," Gamakichi said. "Always."
Naruto laughed. The sound felt weird in his own ears—lighter than it had all day.
Jiraiya clapped him on the back. "Go home, brat," he said. "Sleep. Tomorrow we polish what you've got. Finals aren't going to wait for you to catch your breath."
Naruto squared his shoulders.
"Good," he said. "I'll just breathe faster."
"Not how breathing works," Jiraiya muttered, but there was a smile in his voice.
They split at the main road—Jiraiya disappearing in the direction of the hot springs, Naruto turning toward his apartment.
The village felt different on the walk home.
Same streets, same worn cobbles, same laundry lines and flickering windows. But now there was a tiny weight on his shoulder—Gamakichi had climbed up there without asking, crumbs dusting Naruto's jacket.
"Hey," Naruto said once, halfway down the block. "You gonna stay?"
"For the night," Gamakichi said around the last of the rice cracker. "Until the snack supply runs dry. Then I'll bail. Summon contract doesn't say I gotta put up with your snoring."
"I don't snore," Naruto said.
From somewhere in his memory, Iruka's voice said, Yes, you do.
He scowled. "Shut up," he told both of them.
Gamakichi yawned, unbothered, and settled in like a smug, warty parrot.
Naruto shoved his hands in his pockets, head tilted back, eyes tracking the stars.
Dread and excitement tangled in his chest like wires.
Neji. Gaara. The arena. The stands full of strangers, some of whom still looked at him like he was a bomb on legs. The fox in his gut. The toads. Sylvie's words about not treating himself like disposable paper.
He was tired. He was scared.
He was also… weirdly, stupidly ready.
"Hey," he said quietly, more to himself than the toad. "Finals."
His heart kicked.
He grinned into the dark.
"Bring it."
Gamabunta sat on the lake like it owed him money, massive legs folded, pipe clamped between his teeth. Smoke curled up into the dim orange of sunset over Mount Myōboku, drifting past the stone spires and lazy clouds.
He exhaled a long plume that smelled faintly of oil and swamp water.
"Humans, eh," he muttered to nobody in particular.
The portal shimmered at the shore, then popped like a soap bubble. A small orange blur tumbled out, hit the dirt, and rolled twice before staggering upright.
Gamakichi.
He was damp, flecked with mud, and breathing hard. One cheek had a fresh scrape. His little blue vest was crooked, and there were leaf fragments stuck to his headband.
He trudged over and flopped down beside Gamabunta's leg, rubbing his shoulders as if they ached all the way into his bones.
Gamabunta snorted.
"Humans, eh?" he repeated, louder this time.
Gamakichi peeled off a bit of grass that had somehow fused itself to his forehead.
"Yeah," he said, halfhearted, nodding once and giving a tired half-shrug. "That one especially."
Gamabunta took the pipe from his mouth, eyed his son sideways.
"The brat wear you out?"
Gamakichi wiped at his face with both hands, dragging the exhaustion down and off like a mask that wouldn't quite come loose.
"He's… a lot," he said. "He fell off the cliff, like, three times. Then he laughed about it. And then he tried again. And again. And—" He let his hands flop into his lap. "I'm tired just about him."
Gamabunta huffed, amused despite himself.
"Ninjas, eh," he said, smoke leaking out with the words.
Gamakichi snorted a laugh and immediately regretted it, shoulders sagging.
"Jiraiya-sama kept yelling about 'guts' and 'youth' and 'believe it' or something," Gamakichi grumbled. "Naruto kept yelling back. My ears are still ringing. Do humans ever do anything quietly?"
Gamabunta slid the pipe back between his teeth.
"Only when they're dead," he said.
Gamakichi rubbed his face again with a little groan, then slumped sideways until he was leaning against his father's ankle like it was a boulder.
For a while, neither of them said anything. The waterfalls roared in the distance; strange birds called out over the plateau. Somewhere far away, faint and tinny through the summoning link, Naruto whooped as he tried another attempt at whatever insane training Jiraiya had dreamt up.
Gamakichi's eye twitched.
Gamabunta snorted again, a deep rumble in his chest, smoke puffing out in a lazy ring.
"Humans," he said.
Gamakichi closed his eyes.
"Yeah," he mumbled, already half-asleep. "Humans."
Gamabunta let the silence settle over them again, pipe ember glowing in the foggy light, and didn't bother to disagree.