Four thousand ryo.

‘How did it come to this?’ Harue thought to herself as she held in her hands the passbook from the Konoha Bank. It was pulled tautly apart, as if trying to rip the passbook up would magically make her debt go away, yet it ironically only made the four digits stand out even more in their black print against the yellowing paper.

She hadn’t been staying in Konoha for much longer than three months, yet her supposedly meager rent had already drove her debt through the roof. It hadn’t been much. The first month had been just a simple one thousand ryo debt, which she diligently paid down to a hundred. Her second month didn’t even result in any debt, as a passing merchant had offered to pay for it in her stead after she helped him recover a piece of priceless jewellery. The interest from the bank wasn’t much either.

In retrospect, she supposed that she could maybe work her debt down if she decided to forgo her weekendly lavish meals. Furthermore, she was still awaiting pay from the last few missions she had gone on, so that would do wonders in grinding down her debt. Maybe that would be sufficient to work her debt back down to the hundreds, but the entire issue that came with how little she was receiving from D-ranks and the occasional C-ranks made sure that she would never completely write off what she had desperately borrowed from the bank.

“I need to get a promotion soon,” she groaned as she entered a small tea shop.

“Can I get you anything, miss?”

“Just water,” she sighed.

“Coming right up, young miss!”

Harue rested her arms on the wooden table in front of her, ignoring the uncomfortable, wooden and rough texture she felt scraping against her elbows, and proceeded to rest her forehead on the back of her palms. She looked silently down at the bare table in front of her, blinking a few times as she tried to surmise a way to make quick money, before finally just letting her eyes close in deep contemplation.

“I really need a break,” she said to no one in particular.

WC: 372

“What’s on your mind, kid?” a sharp voice asked, breaking her out of her train of thought.

She looked up for a while, taking a split moment to recognise that the voice originated from her right and turned her head accordingly. She was greeted by the sight of a single purple eye, as penetrating as it was unusual, darting furiously around her face and drinking in the details of her appearance. Harue’s shoulders instinctively stiffened as she herself returned the unspoken favour, taking in this stranger’s appearance, though she had to give up very soon after her eyes scanned his yellow straw hat, white cloak, and matching hair - bizzarre but not exactly unwelcome - which obstructed his remaining eye from view.

Subconsciously, her eyes wandered, tracing the outline of his clearly well-toned body, starting with his broad shoulders and shamefully ending there, as his white cloak and sitting posture left almost everything else to her imagination. It was only when she realised she had been staring - how rude of her, she silently admonished - that she blinked her eyes in rapid succession before meeting the man’s piercing gaze. His one eye easily bore into her pair, not really declaring to whoever was paying attention that he wasn’t to be trifled with, but not exactly hiding that subtly veiled fact either.

“I’m sorry, it’s nothing,” she replied, slightly abashed. A blush formed on her cheeks as she scratched the back of her head absentmindedly in a futile attempt to diffuse the tantamount tension and awkwardness that had risen during their silent exchange. She wasn’t used to speaking with people older than her. Those of her age she was very used to - the teens of Takara’s village had practically gravitated towards her, most of them with honest and non-underhanded intentions. Yet the age of her audience had almost never exceeded her own, so interacting with her seniors did hold a sense of unfamiliarity to them.

“Your water, young lady,” the waiter informed as he sat a glass of cold water, vapour already condensing on its outer surface, on the table in front of her.

“Thank you,” she replied, facing him. Her hands closed around the glass of water, mentally thanking him for his thoughtfulness, given the recent heatwave that had been plaguing the village. Then again, the weather in Konoha was probably always like this, and the fault lay with her for having still failed to adjust to the local environment. She returned her attention to the man in front of her, tipping her head slightly in apology for having sidelined him momentarily to express her gratitude to the waiter-slash-owner. “It’s just a small debt that’s been piling up. I haven’t been able to pay it off lately, but I think it’s just because I haven’t really settled in yet.”

Her eyes then flashed across his figure once more - or at least what was visible of it from the table up. Now more focused, she was able to properly register and process the visual feedback, however little it still was. His sturdy built suggested physical labour was frequent in his line of work. But what kind of work though? Her face scrunched almost unnoticeably as her brain churned. She had a feeling he was invested more into the professional line of work, rather than simply being someone’s muscle when they needed it, if the presence he exuded was any indication. She remembered idly of someone who used to carry himself similarly - Takara Uzumaki, may he rest in peace - and it was distinctly different from the hunters and blacksmith who made up some of the other occupants of Takara’s village.

“I’m sorry, what’s your name again? Where are you from?” she finally managed, hoping that her single second of silence hadn’t discomforted him too much, her debt now the last thing on her mind with the new arrival having monopolised most of her concentration.

WC: 372 + 672 = 1044

“I come from a far away place, too far to remember, but I feel at home anywhere and everywhere.”

“I come from… far away,” a familiar voice echoed from a long, long time ago.

Harue forced herself to stop that train of thought. Nothing good ever came from thinking of those days long past. Even as she impelled her mind to sideline such thoughts already flashes of red were filling her vision, and screams, however muffled they now seemed, rang out in the distance. She caught Shibirin’s one purple eye staring intently at her, and his sharp look helped her rein herself in. She consciously steadied her uneven breath and relaxed her grip on the glass of water that otherwise remained untouched, lest she accidentally damage the owner’s wares.

Still, even with that slight distraction, Harue’s socially attuned mind helped catch the frown that adorned Shibirin’s features, as well as the small hint of weakness that he most doubtless loathed showing when his hands visibly writhed. He likely didn’t have a pleasant past, and Harue could empathise with having to face one’s demons more than she would like to admit. It wasn’t easy, and she was definitely learning that lesson again, the hard way, as the demons she once thought she had made peace with threatened to bring back a surge of not only evocative memories but also vehemently excruciating emotions that threatened to–

“And you?” Shibirin asked, with a sudden smile plastered to his face.

Too sudden, too soon did the smile come. It wasn’t natural how quickly he had donned it, despite how natural it just seemed to see the gentle upturns of his lips. Just something else to solidify Harue’s thesis. She knew better than to prod in a stranger’s past, though, given what she had done to–

A slap. One, loud resounding slap rang across the village, demanding everyone’s attention. Everyone turned to look at her – at her, always her, why her why her whyherwhyher – with shock. She wasn’t surprised. She was horrified herself. Her right hand had just shot out. She looked at her right palm, as if trying to confirm whether she had actually slapped someone. It stung and pulsed red. Oh no, she did slap him. She did slap him. Now they were going to hate her. They wouldn’t let her stay in her village. They would kick her out. They would leave, just like her parents.

She felt fear – fear of the attention she was currently at the center of. It was rare, but she felt terror well up as the entire village gathered around the two of them. Her, looking at her hand in fear, and Yoshifumi, who was on the ground nursing his left cheek which now stung with equal amounts pain and shame, and an entire flood of disgust. Disgust, directed at her.

She felt a firm hand on her shoulder, and she turned to see Takara’s concerned face. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear it. She could see his lips move, though. ‘Calm down,’ he seemed to be mouthing. Calm down? What did he mean? Wait… Was she… was she hyperventilating? When had she collapsed onto the ground? Why was her eyesight suddenly dimming? Why were black spots appearing in her vision? She looked around. The villagers were closing in on her. Like a predator stalked its prey, before going in for the kill in the end. They were everywhere she looked. Everywhere, everywhere, everywhereohgodpleasehelpher–

“And you?”

Shibirin’s question shook her out of her stupor. She sucked in a deep breath, and she pushed aside the rest of her dreadful past by shaking her head. She smiled sheepishly about him. “Sorry about that.”

She then placed a finger to her chin in thought as she looked up, trying to recall the name of the village that had taken her in and nursed her back to health, both physically, mentally, and emotionally, before giving her a second family to love like no other. What was the name of the village again? Did Takara’s village even have a name? She couldn’t seem to recall. She and the villagers had always just referred to it as ‘the village’.

“I don’t really remember the name of the village, to be honest. I just know it’s to the south or southwest of Konoha. It’s not really a village as much as it’s a group of people who got fed up with civilisation, but it did trade with some of the bigger cities around it to get by. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have heard of anything like that though,” she ended with an embarrassed smile. “So why is someone from a far away place, too far to remember, but feels at home anywhere and everywhere doing in Konoha?” she asked teasingly, ignoring the very strong urge to puke in the toilet as her memories once more fought for dominance in the present where they didn’t belong.

WC: 1044 + 850 = 1894

Harue was confused at his rhetoric, yet she was glad for it as well, as it gave her a much-needed respite from the painful, haunting memories that had been unusually disruptive in her day. She had thought she had managed to move past most of the negative ones, or at least suppress them so they didn’t prove too much of a hindrance in the present, but her recent episodes with the more painful flashes of her past had proven otherwise.

She let her attention drift back to his words. What did one do when they had run out of checkpoints? What did they do then, when they hadn’t quite reached the end? It was clearly a metaphor, and Harue was glad that the elder back at Takara’s village had educated her enough that she would be able to understand some form of indirect talk. She guessed that he meant that one’s goals in life had been completed prematurely, leaving him with nothing more to spur him forward. She couldn’t say she empathised, as such a concern had never been a primary worry for her. Her life had always been full of things to keep her attention off the very idea that she would have nothing to occupy her mind anymore - her ninja training, the village’s economy, Takara’s health, and now being a ninja in Konoha.

However, she was certainly not a stranger to a similar yet slightly different concept, that of having nothing to live for. It wasn’t so much that one had completed their goals as much as they had their goals ruthlessly ripped away from their reaches. No, she was definitely not a stranger to that. She had lost her mother at the young age of ten. She had woken up expecting a small surprise birthday party by her parents, yet by the end of the day, neither parent was longer breathing, and she didn’t feel so much of an innocent child any further. She could still remember excruciatingly vividly the details of that horribly morbid night in her home, where her mother had bled out as her killer pinned her by the neck against the wall, slowly opening new cuts along her body as he relished in her bloodcurdling screams of agony, which then died down to whimpers of defeat, before giving way to eery silence. She had lost all reason to live on that day, and had actually embraced the thought of death, dying in a cupboard, trapped, and she probably would have been delivered to Shinigami’s shores had Takara not saved her.

Yet, Harue didn’t feel as if that was what Shibirin had meant through his words. He didn’t seem to be the type where his life had its course unfairly changed because someone had taken something precious from him. Or, at least, he didn’t seem to be suffering from it at present. No, he seemed to be the type of person who had surpassed expectations placed on his shoulders and completed every assignment given to him, either by his superiors or himself. Shibirin seemed like someone who had walked the halls of hell and back, seeing equal amounts pain and misery as he had joy, and had completed so much of the impossible in his life that little served to strive him to polish his blade further.

“Well, how do you know if there aren’t any more checkpoints in your life?” she asked. “Checkpoints don’t always come readily. Maybe you just have to search around for them.”

Harue didn’t know what she was saying, or where the words were coming from beyond her lips. She had never really taken that well to philosophy, and it was an unfortunate fact that had greatly infuriated the village elder back at Takara’s village, especially every time he had attempted to educate her on the matters of life and womanhood (though that latter one had been slightly weird learning from an elderly male). His use of metaphors and personifications served little to improve her experience, bar supplying a source of comedy, especially watching the old man throwing the same kinds of metaphors and personifications at Takara, which she supposed summed up the fact that she was an utter tomboy. Of course, what made it all the more humorous would be Takara agreeing unanimously that she was hopelessly lost as an actual girl, yet would not stop grooming her tomboyishness during their training sessions in the ninja arts.

“Wouldn’t the point where you lose your checkpoint simply be another checkpoint in itself? One where your goal is to help other people with their own checkpoints?” Harue asked, surprising even herself.

Harue then registered his following words regarding his reason for travel. So, it seemed that Shibirin was merely a traveller for the wanderlust of it, little different from her dabbling in the ocarina or the kendama. The only difference was that his travels took him from the far west to the far east, while her hobbies were just a simple way of entertaining herself, and sometimes other people, while she was bored in her own backyard.

“I’ve always wondered what it’s like to just travel wherever you want,” Harue said. She had never gotten to explore that option, particularly because she lacked the time to do so, having had to come to Konoha immediately after her departure from Takara’s village. However, a more practical reason had also been the danger that was omnipresent in the shinobi world, even during relatively peaceful times such as these. That Shibirin could do so at his own leaisure spoke either of his wealth or prowess, or both, and she did not know which was more intimidating. “I’ve never actually had the chance to do so.”

When he asked her for her debt, however, she got slightly more hesitant. Four thousand ryo was not exactly a small amount, with her standard and meager paycheck at least, and if she gathered anything by his state of dress, it was that he was at least financially well off. She didn’t want to assume, but she wanted even less to have someone just fork out the money like that. “It’s..” she started hesitantly, “It’s four thousand ryo.”

The answer came with a sigh, as if she was disappointed. And she was. Very. When she had first received the admonishment from the bank manager about her debt, she had been worried, yes, but it wasn’t until she verbally admitted it to someone else that the weight of it seemed to fully crash down on her shoulders, forcing her to realise how deep of a hole she had dug for herself. It had seemed like something so trivial, something she could handle if she just tweaked the small spending habits she had here and there. Yet, she had to admit, it wasn’t a simple at all.

“It’s four thousand ryo,” she repeated again, once again sighing, though this time in defeat. She quickly perked up however, knowing that she wasn’t the only individual in their conversation. “It’s okay, though. It’s nothing I can’t water down myself if I spend judiciously,” she said before taking a gulp from her cool glass of water. Yeah, she could work down that debt.

For some reason, though, the water didn’t seem as cooling anymore.

WC: 1245 + 1894 = 3139

Click.

Harue heard the door lock behind her, and she surveyed the state of her apartment, just as was habit every time she came back at the end of the day. It was a beautiful apartment to take in, to be sure, and it was still difficult to believe that such an amazingly furnished apartment was just average by Konoha’s standards. It spoke highly of how lofty Konoha’s living standards were.

The owner of the entire apartment complex, Yoshiaga Gakusha, had been very forthcoming with renting this apartment to her. Part of the reason had been because the previous owner (or current owner, since the apartment was never sold nor did the owner move out officially) had already been placed on field duty for several months without returning, and was slated for field work for the next few years, leaving her apartment to gather dust. The more major reason, though, was because of her connection to Takara Uzumaki, who Yoshiaga himself was familiar with and owed several favours. That latter fact had been what lit up the spark in Yoshiaga’s eyes when she had discussed searching for an apartment, and Takara’s name held enough sway with the man to cause him to lower the absurdly sky high rent to something that she was just barely able to afford.

Said rents were truly starting to build up, though, and Harue doubted her luck would hold out; eventually, she would drown in it enough for Yoshiaga to actually demand his payment or take legal action against her. Takara’s name wouldn’t save her forever, she knew. Maybe she should’ve accepted that offer to pay off her debt from Shibirin, instead of turning it down and engaging in small talk with him before they both left the shop and went their separate ways? He had offered to pay off her piling debt, and it was nothing close to a buff considering the nonchalant yet serious tone he had adopted with those words. With how well dressed he was, it was also not too big of a stretch that he could possibly not only pay off her apartment’s rent, but also buy it over altogether, along with all the furniture. Of course, she didn’t know how Kochiyo would feel about having her apartment just sold like that, but Yoshiaga seemed to be someone who could be tempted to do anything with the right amount of money, even releasing Kochiyo from her lease.

Harue stretched her arms upwards, the set of keys still in her right hand. She then threw said keys onto the carpet, not caring too much about the condition of her living room, as she would tend to it during the weekends when she was less exhausted. Nikko trotted up to her and gave her a small welcoming bark. She scratched underneath his chin humorously and went over to her couch, where she plopped down horizontally, feet dangling over one end as she kicked off her ninja sandals, while letting her head and hands drape off the other end. She stared at the ceiling blankly, faintly registering the feel of Nikko’s fur against her shoulder and neck as he rested his head on her shoulder with an affectionate whine.

Life in Konoha was so much different than in Takara’s village, she reflected, even if this wasn’t the first time such thoughts passed her mind. Drastically higher living standards aside, the people in Konoha were also so much more materialistic than she was used to, and than she was comfortable with. It had taken her three months in the major village just to meet someone who was less materialistic. The offer to pay off her debt notwithstanding, he had also advised her to live the rest of her life debt-free, whether financially or not. While she was doubtful that she wouldn’t be wrapped up in debt once again with the absurdly inflated monthly rent had Shibirin paid it off, it was still a relief to find someone like him. However, disappointment then welled in her chest when she realised that Shibirin, while the first person in Konoha who had acted differently, was also not from the village they met each other in, leaving her pondering whether the entire population of Konoha, and in extension the other major villages, had their minds buried six feet under grandeurs of ryo.

If this overbearing and paradoxically philanthropic village really was the birthplace of Takara’s ninja career, she could respect how strict and disciplined he had had to mould himself before his untimely death, not that she didn’t already have considerable respect for him. It also explained in part how he was as strong and experienced as he was; no amateur would be able to live as long as he had, not just as a shinobi but also one from a hidden village. The costs were still unimaginably high, and Takara had gone through all that and retired from active duty before settling down in the countryside. It also highlighted the huge gap between them that she always took for granted. Sure, she’d been knocked out in three seconds flat without Takara even moving an inch, a lesson for impatiently demanding to learn ‘more impressive ninja work’ when she was tasked with Fuuinjutsu basics, but to be shown her shortcomings in other aspects of her life that Takara had handled more than adequately was another story.

Still, this was what being a life was, much less being a shinobi. One tended to see their own shortcomings, and as a shinobi it was doubly important to patch them up before they cost her.

She was interrupted in her pondering when she felt the weight of Nikko on her stomach, having pounced on her after realising he wasn’t doing enough to get her attention. She looked at him incredulously, and he only made himself comfortable before drifting off to sleep, and Harue gave a small laugh. He always knew how to calm her down and break her from her more unproductive musings, even if he didn’t mean to. She looked at the door once more to double-check that it was locked, and she closed her eyes, resting her left hand over her eyes as another layer of protection against the light. She could turn it off, yes, but that would mean getting up and disturbing Nikko, and he looked far too peaceful to disturb.

Her shortcomings could wait for tomorrow. Her rent could wait for tomorrow. Her problems could wait for tomorrow.

Tonight, sleep.

[Exit Thread]

WC: 1104 + 3139 = 4243