>>5880928He’s a pretty good cook so the two of you manage to wrap up the whole process in a little under an hour with a minimum of confusion. After that he takes your money to get sake and leaves, before informing you that the bonfire is going to be located at a little clearing near the waterfall. Since you know exactly where that is (You used to live there.) you tell him that you’ll be able to find the place easily.
After that, you get a cold shower, get dressed, and kind of just laze around for a while waiting for Masami to come back so you can leave together. When that doesn’t happen, you go by yourself.
There’s no way to help it, you do get lost. Since your experience running out of chakra your mental map of Konoha seems to be frazzled. You still remember what exists, just not how the picture fits together. When you try to remember walking through Konoha you end up with nothing except flashes of recognizable places interspersed with the vague sensation of cool mist and moist stone. You shake it off and try to not think about the obvious implication.
You get there eventually, a little late. It’s sunset, orange glow shining low over the treetops. There’s a fucking HUGE bonfire where your campfire used to be, practically the size of a small tree by itself. Your eyes immediately dart to the spot your shrines used to be, and you’re pleased to note that there’s nothing there and the spot remains undisturbed. Not that there was anything to disturb.
Since you showed up a little late, there are several other people already gathered:
Katsuro is sitting on a log, a smug expression on his face while he tunes a shamisen.
Yuna is sitting next to him waiting patiently for him to start playing. Yuzuki is there as well, flipping a kunai up and down.
Daigo and Junpei are having some kind of heated debate about politics. You don’t tune in for the entire thing, but it seems Daigo is pro-diplomacy with the village’s enemies, at least insofar as that he thinks honorable declarations of hostility should be made before doing anything too overtly aggressive, whereas Junpei believes in merciless alpha strikes with no warning.
Shizuka is with them as well, but she looks like she’s half asleep until you walk past, at which point she abandons them to start hovering near you and the scent of your meatbread.
Masami and Naoki are flanking some blonde guy you don’t know. He’s a little older, maybe about 15 and is smoking a pipe. Judging by the hacking cough he lets loose as you approach, he’s not exactly used to it.
Naoki has a dumb smirk on his face, visible since he’s not wearing a mask. You assume the reactions to that happened before you arrived. Dammit. When he notices you, he makes eye contact and immediately says “Daigo.”
Daigo immediately drops his conversation with Junpei and blows a gout of flame into the bonfire, setting it ablaze in roaring fashion as the last light of the sun slowly dips below the tree line.
