Chapter 94: Relieving Stress

"Why am I being punished for recognizing you?" 

Kakashi followed Red and Green along a Konoha road, walking on his hands with the exhausted stare of a man whose day off had been stolen. 

"You knew too much," Tonbo said. 

"Exactly," Guy agreed. "Knowledge carries responsibility." 

Kakashi had tried to leave. Guy and Tonbo had answered with enough rough persuasion to drag him into the race. He had not yet learned to ignore embarrassment, and now all three former classmates were traveling upside down together. 

A few days earlier, for Kakashi's eighteenth birthday, a package from Jiraiya had reached him. Inside had been a fresh copy of *Icha Icha Paradise*. He had intended to read it after training, alone and without commentary. 

That plan lasted until the book vanished from his pouch. "Looking for this?" Tonbo asked. 

Kakashi twisted toward him. "Give it back." 

Guy plucked the orange volume from Tonbo's hand before Kakashi could reach it. "A book? What kind of training does it contain?" 

"It is a study of human relationships," Kakashi said quickly. 

"Love!" Guy landed on one foot and opened it while hopping forward. "A splendid subject. Understanding the heart is part of youth." 

Kakashi lunged. Tonbo blocked him with one hand and continued the race with the other. 

Guy read several grand declarations aloud, giving every sentence the volume of a battlefield speech. The early pages appeared sentimental enough. Then he turned farther into the book. His voice faltered. Color climbed from the collar of his jumpsuit to the tips of his ears. 

He shut it with both hands. "This training is too advanced." 

"You were not invited to begin it," Kakashi said. 

Guy threw the book to Tonbo. Kakashi reached for it again, but Tonbo shifted just beyond his fingers and skimmed a page while balanced on one palm. 

Jiraiya's reputation made the subject unsurprising. The occasional line of genuine insight did. "There may be a useful thought buried in here," Tonbo said. "Sacrifice does not always diminish affection. Sometimes what one surrenders is what gives a bond permanence." 

Kakashi seized the book during the pause and tucked it into the deepest pocket of his vest. 

"It contains lessons relevant to shinobi," he said. "Neither of you is mature enough to appreciate them." 

"The essential quality of a shinobi is inexhaustible youth," Guy declared. "Train with me instead." 

Tonbo laughed. "You two are still trying to understand love in theory. I have already married, produced heirs, and begun transmitting the Will of Fire. Tenyu and Maki are remarkably well behaved, exceptionally perceptive, and—" 

Guy and Kakashi accelerated. "Wait. Ayame knows several excellent women. I could arrange introductions," Tonbo called after them. 

They went faster. "Children are Konoha's future! The sooner you begin, the sooner—" The two men fled with such determination that Tonbo had to work to keep pace. He wanted his old classmates to possess lives beyond missions and graves. Whether he also enjoyed their discomfort was a separate question. 

The five laps ended near the training grounds. Tonbo released his Transformation in a puff of smoke, stood, and stretched aching shoulders toward the sky. 

"What a day." 

Sweat cooled on his skin. More importantly, the pressure he had carried out of Amegakure had loosened. The impulse to make a spectacle of himself had been sound, even if his dignity had paid the cost. 

Shinobi learned to function under dangers that would break ordinary routines: isolation, false identities, the expectation of violence, and decisions made before grief could catch up. Chakra strengthened the body but did not make the mind invulnerable. Unreleased strain accumulated. Some veterans sought injury severe enough to justify retirement. Others abandoned their villages and sold their skills because they could no longer endure the structures that had trained them. 

For women, pregnancy offered another route to retirement in most villages, and many took it. Those who remained found rituals. Guy exhausted himself through impossible challenges. Kakashi disappeared into books. Jiraiya peeped at women and wrote books. Tsunade gambled against odds she understood too well. The habits looked eccentric from outside, but each imposed a familiar shape upon pressures that otherwise had none. 

Tonbo was talented, but talent did not keep pressure from accumulating. Making a fool of himself behind an unfamiliar face had helped him release it. 

Even the Will of Fire served a purpose beyond indoctrination. Like Iwa's Will of Stone, it gave shinobi a belief that could ease the pressure of their work. Tonbo did not believe in it himself, but he taught it to his students and juniors. It gave them purpose—and, besides, it worked. 

Guy dropped beside him, defeated by a narrow margin and deeply offended. "I will never race you again while you wear that color. Your disguise disrupted the purity of my concentration." 

"Your green suit is the real offense," Tonbo said. "No wonder you cannot find a girlfriend." 

Guy clutched his chest. "My romantic prospects have nothing to do with practical training clothes. They breathe exceptionally well." 

Kakashi joined them and flexed his wrists. "The clothes may be a contributing factor." 

"Kakashi!" 

Tonbo examined Kakashi with exaggerated concern. "You should not advise him. That hair and mask hardly make you an authority. Even a ninken might reconsider your presentation." 

Kakashi's visible eye narrowed. "You wrapped your entire head in bandages and still found someone willing to marry you." 

"I remove them at appropriate moments." 

Guy made a strangled sound. Kakashi looked away. Tonbo let the joke settle, then his amusement faded. 

"There is something I actually wanted to ask." 

Kakashi heard the change in his voice. "Naruto is alone almost every day," Tonbo said. "I know you watch him sometimes. Why don't you visit him openly?" 

The name stopped all three men. Hiruzen had never forbidden Tonbo from approaching the jinchūriki. Kakashi, Minato's student, had more reason than most to care for the child, yet Tonbo had seen no sign that he did anything beyond distant surveillance. 

Kakashi's hand rested over the pocket containing Jiraiya's book. His eye no longer looked bored. 

Tonbo waited for an answer.