The takoyaki slid down the white lapel of the man's suit with a slowness that felt personal.
It left a greasy, brown trail of sauce and mayonnaise that looked like a jagged scar on the pristine fabric. The man—Gantetsu, according to the whispers rippling through the crowd—stared at it. His bodyguards stared at it.
The music didn't stop, but it felt like it had pushed us into a bubble where the only sound was the wet plop of the octopus ball hitting his shoe.
"My suit," Gantetsu whispered.
"Uh," Naruto squeaked. "Five second rule?"
Gantetsu looked up. He didn't look like a ninja. He looked like money wrapped in violence. He adjusted his tinted sunglasses, his lip curling in a sneer that exposed gold-capped teeth.
"Grab him," Gantetsu ordered his goons.
"Hey!" Naruto shouted as two mountains of muscle stepped forward. "It was an accident! The guy bumped me!"
"Accidents cost money, kid," Gantetsu growled.
Then his eyes slid past Naruto. They landed on me.
I was standing ten feet back, flanked by Anko (who was eating a skewer of squid and watching this like it was a matinee) and the wreckage of the crowd. I froze.
Gantetsu's sneer widened.
"Or maybe," he drawled, "your little girlfriend can pay the damages."
He looked me up and down. It wasn't a threat of violence. It was dismissive. Like I was an accessory Naruto had brought along to carry his wallet.
"Clean up your boyfriend's mess, sweetheart," he spat. "And maybe I won't have my boys break his legs."
The air pressure dropped.
It wasn't me. It wasn't Anko.
It was Naruto.
The frantic, flailing energy of the prankster evaporated. His chakra spiked—not the red, bubbling rage of the Fox, but a sharp, clear blue flare of genuine indignation.
"She's not my girlfriend," Naruto said. His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the din of the shamisen. "She's my teammate. And you don't talk to her like that."
He stepped forward, placing himself between Gantetsu and me.
Gantetsu laughed. "A teammate? You kids playing ninja? How cute. I—"
"Enough."
The voice came from above.
We all looked up.
Jiraiya was standing on the railing of the VIP platform. The festive headband was gone. The sake bottles were gone. The red flush on his face had vanished, replaced by the stony expression of a Sannin who had decided the party was over.
He dropped.
He didn't fall; he descended like a hammer.
"You threaten my students," Jiraiya rumbled, landing in a crouch between Naruto and the thugs, "you threaten the Toad Mountain Sage."
Gantetsu blinked. " The Toad... who?"
"UNcultured swine!" Jiraiya roared.
He opened his right hand.
Blue light swirled. It screamed into existence—a condensed sphere of chakra spinning so fast it distorted the air around his palm. The sound was a high-pitched mechanical whine, like a jet engine starting up in a library.
"Rasengan!"
Jiraiya thrust his palm forward.
He didn't hit Gantetsu directly—that would have turned the man into a red mist. He hit the air three inches in front of Gantetsu's chest.
KRA-KOOM.
The shockwave was visible. A ripple of distorted pressure blasted outward.
Gantetsu flew backward. He didn't just fly; he was launched. He skipped across the cobblestones like a stone across a pond, screaming, until he slammed into a wooden cart filled with colorful water balloons.
CRASH.
The cart exploded. Wood splintered. Water sprayed everywhere. Hundreds of balloons burst in a chaotic rainbow shower.
Silence.
The nearby Ren dancers stopped mid-step. The drummers froze, their sticks hovering over the taiko skins. The shamisen player choked on his pick.
For five seconds, the only sound in the entire festival was the dripping of water and the groans of a man buried under a pile of wet rubber.
Then, something fluttered down from the VIP platform, drifting on the wind like a cherry blossom petal.
It landed at Sylvie's feet.
I looked down.
It was a small, pink card. The Golden Geisha - VIP Stamp Card. 9/10 Stamps Collected.
I looked at Jiraiya.
He cleared his throat loudly, snatching the card off the ground before Naruto could see it.
"Ahem," Jiraiya said, straightening his vest. "Behold! The power of the Sannin!"
The spell broke. The crowd gasped. The thugs looked at their boss, who was currently groaning in a puddle, and decided that they weren't being paid enough for this. They bolted.
Gantetsu pushed a piece of the cart off his chest. He was soaked, his suit ruined, his sunglasses missing. He looked terrified.
"You..." he wheezed. "You're a ninja."
"Astute observation," Anko drawled, stepping up beside me. She finished her squid and tossed the stick at Gantetsu. It bounced off his forehead. "You owe the kid an apology. And a refund on the takoyaki."
Gantetsu scrambled backward, crab-walking away from Jiraiya.
"I didn't know!" he stammered. "I'm just... I'm just trying to get by! The Iwa-nin... they're squeezing the loan sharks! I needed the money! I thought you were tourists!"
"Iwa?" Jiraiya's eyes narrowed. "Rock ninja are operating this far south?"
"They're everywhere!" Gantetsu cried. "Looking for someone! Collecting debts! I was scared!"
He looked pathetic. A bully stripped of his bluster.
Naruto looked confused. "He was scared?"
"Fear makes people stupid," Anko said. "It makes them mean."
I looked at Gantetsu. I thought about Sasuke's note. Make the shaking cease.
"Get up," I said.
Gantetsu looked at me.
"Your past doesn't matter," I said, my voice steady despite the adrenaline shaking my hands. "It doesn't matter who you owe or who you're scared of. What you do now does. You can pay the vendor for his cart, or you can find out what the snake lady does to people who annoy her."
I pointed at Anko.
Anko smiled. It was a smile full of teeth and implied felonies.
Gantetsu turned pale. He fumbled in his wet jacket, pulled out a thick wallet—much thicker than Naruto's—and threw it at the feet of the cart owner, who was cowering behind a barrel.
"Keep the change!" Gantetsu shrieked.
He scrambled to his feet and ran, vanishing into the crowd as the drums, hesitantly at first, then with renewed vigor, started the Zomeki beat again.
DOOM-DOOM. DOOM-DOOM.
The festival swallowed him whole.
"Well," Jiraiya said, dusting off his hands. "That was dramatic."
"You destroyed a cart," I pointed out.
"Collateral damage!" Jiraiya dismissed. He walked over to the wreckage of the stall. The vendor was staring at the pile of cash Gantetsu had thrown. It was definitely enough to buy three new carts.
"Sir!" Jiraiya beamed at the vendor. "Since you have been compensated, I'll be taking these!"
He reached into the wet debris and scooped up a handful of un-popped water balloons. They wobbled in his large hands.
"What are those for?" Naruto asked, still staring at the spot where Gantetsu had been launched. "Wait—Pervy Sage! That move! The spinny thing! You blew him away without touching him!"
"The Rasengan," Jiraiya said, tossing a yellow balloon to Naruto. "It's all about rotation and power containment."
He tossed a blue one to me.
"And you," he said. "This will help with your shape control."
I caught the balloon and tilted my head, "Control?"
"Water balloons?" Naruto asked, squeezing his. "We're fighting with toys?"
"That's what these are for," Jiraiya said, holding up a red balloon. "Step one: Rotation. Make the water spin until the balloon pops. If you can do that, you're one step closer to blowing guys through walls."
Naruto's eyes lit up. "Awesome!"
"Can I try?" Anko asked.
She didn't wait for an answer. She plucked a long, thin balloon from the pile—the kind used for twisting into shapes.
Her hands moved in a blur. Twist. Pinch. Twist.
In three seconds, she held up a perfect, purple balloon snake.
"Cute," she deadpanned.
She held it out to Jiraiya.
"For you. To match your personality. Full of hot air and prone to snapping."
Jiraiya chuckled. "Now, Anko, don't be jealous of my—"
POP.
Anko squeezed. The balloon didn't just break; it detonated. The sound was a sharp, violent crack that cut through the restarting music.
She didn't blink.
"We're wasting time," she said, wiping water off her hand. "The Iwa rumor is troubling. If they're hunting near Tanzaku, they might be looking for the same person we are."
Jiraiya's smile dropped. The Sannin was back.
"Tsunade," he muttered.
"Let's move," Anko said. "Before the local cops decide to ask why we blew up a balloon stand."
We moved out, leaving the chaos behind us.
Naruto walked beside me, staring at his yellow balloon, rotating it in his hands.
"I stood up for you," he whispered, almost shyly.
I looked at him. At the fierce, knuckleheaded determination in his blue eyes.
"I know," I said, bumping his shoulder with mine. "Thanks, Naruto."
He grinned, the whiskers on his cheeks stretching.
"Anytime, Sylvie. Anytime."