Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Today was the most important day of Yūma's life. Well, maybe the second most important, after the day Hyūga Hiroi visited Hosaki and told Grandpa that his only grandson was going to be a ninja, and to have their bags packed within the hour, in the same matter-of-fact tone that Grandpa reminded him to close the windows at night so the flesh-eating ravens wouldn't get in.

No, the third most important, after the day the Yokoyari home was wiped out by those whoresons from Hidden Rock and the Gōketsu had charged in to the rescue. Nobody said important days had to be good.

Originally, the third most important day had definitely been the day Akiko finally agreed to go out with him. Then it had been the day Emi did. Then Mai. Then Eiko. Then Saori. Or was Saori before Mai? Sometimes it was hard to keep these things straight.

Oh, but there was also his Academy graduation. You know what? Never mind. Yūma wasn't the kind of man who got bogged down in details.

The one detail he wished he had got bogged down in was the time. He shouldn't have taken an extermination mission right before the scheduled hour. Not even if Lady Yuno was on it. Yes, watching Lady Yuno flail helplessly when he flirted with her was almost as much fun as killing dangerous chakra beasts by her side, which in turn was almost as much fun as listening to her stories of incredible faraway places. But there was this thing Captain Yamanaka talked about that she called delayed gratification, and maybe Yūma should ask her to explain it again, ideally over dinner.

"My bad," he wheezed as he skidded to a stop just inside the interview tent. "Seriously, my bad. It must be an hour past my interview time. I know I screwed up, but maybe we can still reschedule?"

Lord Noburi chuckled as he poured a cup of water from the pitcher by his side and slid it across the table. "Don't worry about it. I just arrived myself. You know how it is."

Yūma gulped the water down greedily. Some things took priority over etiquette. Lord Noburi, one of the chillest men in the history of masculinity, could be counted on to get that much. It was part of the reason why Yūma was, despite everything, much more relaxed than if he'd been facing the imposing Lord Hazō, who could turn kind, fierce, inspiring, or distant at the drop of a hat. Yūma doubted that even Lord Hazō's Yamanaka girlfriend could guess what he was thinking.

"Are you ready to get started?" Lord Noburi asked.

"As I'll ever be," Yūma said with a confidence he didn't feel. "Hit me with your best shot."

"Great," Lord Noburi said. "Can you give me your name for the record?"

"Yokoyari Yūma," Yūma said. "Just to check, I'm not too covered in chakra beast blood for you to recognise me, right?" Looking back, maybe it would have been worth being a few more minutes late to chuck himself at the nearest body of water first.

"No worries," Lord Noburi said. "Saying I'm used to it would be an understatement."

"It was largely your lady wife's enthusiasm that got me this way," Yūma admitted. "It wasn't acidic, though, and none of it got in my eyes or mouth, so it's all good. Plus I got some great tips for getting the stuff out of clothing on our way back."

Lord Noburi winced. "Sorry about that. I know she can lose track of her surroundings a bit when she's… in the swing of things."

"I do wish she'd be more careful," Yūma said. "She's very good at what she does, but it sucks watching a girl put herself in danger and not being able to do anything about it because axes are made for wading into the thick of it and spears… aren't."

Lord Noburi raised an eyebrow. "You do know she's one of the youngest special jōnin in Leaf history, right? She's closer to Captain Hatake territory than she is to you and me, minus cheating eyeballs."

"It's not about how strong she is," Yūma insisted. "My grandpa always taught me—"

Wait, did he really want to have this argument in the middle of a make-or-break interview that had nothing to do with Lady Yuno at all?

"Never mind," he said. "My bad for distracting you. Yokoyari Yūma, chūnin of Hidden Leaf, which I assume you already know since I got a note inviting Yokoyari Yūma to an interview—which, by the way, I am super excited for. Thanks for shortlisting me, Lord Noburi."

"Hey, you made it here all on your own merit," Lord Noburi said. "I'm just here because slots are limited, so I have to look for the tiniest differences between awesome ninja so I can help decide who gets adopted now and who gets adopted later.

"Now, check me: your affinity is Wind Element, right?"

"That's right."

"Any cool stuff you can do with that?"

"Sure," Yūma said. "I've got this ninjutsu to speed me up so I can get in close, and another one to shove people away to open up space, and that one's really nice because it works on missiles too. I'm working on another one I just got from the KEI exchange which extends my spear reach with this pointy wind thing, but I'm still working on making it actually pointy. Right now, it's like punching someone with a cushion. Great for comedy value; less great for not getting your face eaten."

"That checks off the third question too," Lord Noburi said. "You're a spear expert, right?"

"Sure am," Yūma said. "Leaf's not big on spear training because everyone thinks spears suck when you're fighting in the middle of a bunch of trees. Let me tell you, that everyone's never had a rendclaw with claws this big try to slice them into salad. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, better than a spear for keeping chakra beasts off you while you look for a weak point. Also, ranged fighters love you because you can keep the enemy pinned in place without forcing them to fire into melee. They say there's nothing more terrifying than knowing a teammate's going to die if you don't back them up, but they'll also die if you miss and hit them in the back.

"Let me get ahead of question four, because I can see where this is going," Yūma added, because one of the things he needed to show off today were his smarts. The Gōketsu loved smart people. Lord Hazō was a top sealmaster and he ran a whole bunch of crazy projects that nobody else would ever think of and he was always visiting Lord Nara to plan ways to turn the entire shinobi world upside down. Lord Kagome, another great sealmaster, was so smart he couldn't understand normal people, and vice versa (not that Lord Hazō didn't have some of that going on either). Lady Mari had her fingers in a dozen pies, and plans within plans within plans. Lady Kei… enough said. Even the Gōketsu's top civilian, Master Gaku, was said to be a once-in-a-generation genius who knew everything about everyone and could tell you what the clan's money was doing down at any given time to the individual ryō.

"My thing is chakra beast extermination," Yūma went on. "Don't get me wrong—if you need an enemy ninja poked full of holes faster than you can say 'Screw Hidden Rock', I'm your man, but the love of my life is taking all those big, brutal monsters and teaching them that there's only room for one apex predator in this world, and it ain't them."

"Could you tell me more about that?" Lord Noburi asked casually.

"My parents got killed by chakra beasts," Yūma said with no particular feeling. "So did a bunch of other folks. I can't do anything about people starving when there's a bad harvest, and I don't have the aptitude to be a medic-nin. But it turns out I can keep the villages safe by killing everything that threatens them, and, honestly, it's satisfying as hell. Between you and me, I think there might be something about chakra that makes ninja enjoy violence."

"There are those," Lord Noburi said carefully, "who'd say that it's a waste of a ninja's time to care about civilians because civilians aren't really people the way ninja are. I'm sure you've heard comments about how civilians are just inferior, or how there are always more where they came from, or how a ninja's job is to protect Hidden Leaf and promote its interests, not worry about some random farmers out in the sticks, or how if Lord Hokage thought there was something wrong with treating civilians the way everyone does, he'd say so. What's your response to that?"

Yeah, Yūma had heard all those comments. Those and a thousand more. When he was still a kid, he'd tried arguing back. All it had got him was to be called a termite, just because he was first-generation, and a civilian-lover, as if that was an insult, and even the nicest people just told him he'd understand once he got a bit older and saw more of the world. There were some things you just couldn't argue about, he'd learned. It was like arguments didn't go in. People would just repeat the same dumb answers, over and over, no matter what you said, until they got fed up and told you to shove off.

"I can't speak for Lord Hokage," Yūma said. "His wisdom is beyond the likes of me to understand. But I know my grandpa, and he's as civilian as they get, and he's also the bravest man in the Fire Country. He used to be a hunter, and that meant that every day, he'd go into chakra beast-infested woods and look for food for the village, knowing that if he ran into anything deadlier than a doomvole, that would be the end of him. There's nothing a ninja can do to measure up to that kind of courage. We don't even go into battle without orders. So if a man like him is subhuman, then what are we?"

Lord Noburi nodded thoughtfully.

In any other clan, Yūma was pretty sure, he'd have been laughed at if he was lucky, or chased out and told never to come back. Saying a ninja could be inferior to a civilian was nothing short of blasphemy. But the reason Yūma had stuck with the Gōketsu, instead of joining Ami in the Uchiha District (which was orders of magnitude nicer than the Gōketsu temporary accommodation), was that this was the one place where they understood. Yūma was as loyal to the ideals of the KEI as any clanless ninja who'd been given hope for the future where there had been just the endless grind until death, but the coordinators were fighting other battles. He could trust them to bring justice to the shinobi world. In the meantime, people were dying.

"You must get it, Lord Noburi," Yūma said. "You've been to Isan. Lady Yuno's told me all about how Isan treats its civilians as different, not worse. Isan ninja are protectors, not overlords, and everyone's happier for it. Why is Leaf, the beacon of civilization, the greatest village in the world, so far behind them?"

"I think you may have a slightly idealised picture of Isan," Lord Noburi said wryly, "but you're not wrong. If a ninja went around behaving towards civilians there the way our ninja behave towards civilians here, I think he'd be up in front of his clan head pretty sharpish. Hurting a civilian hurts the village that civilian serves. It should be a no-brainer, right? And I guess this also answers the next question, which was going to be why you want to join the Gōketsu."

"Yeah," Yūma said. "You have no idea how weird it is that there's a clan that just gets it. There's still part of me that thinks it's got to be a facade, and the actual reason you care about civilians is economic or something. But then I talk to Lady Yuno, and she says the Gōketsu are for real, and I don't think she could lie to save her life."

"You're good friends with Yuno, are you?" Lord Noburi asked.

If there was one thing to be said for the Gōketsu Clan, Yūma believed, it was that the late Lord Fifth and Lord Hazō had both known what they were doing when it came to women. Lady Mari was an extraordinary 9/10, only a single point docked because Yūma generally liked them tall and willowy. Like every other male on the Gōketsu estate, he'd had his share of pleasant nights spent contemplating Lady Mari's various merits. In the end, though, like any chakra beast hunter who lived long enough, he had a well-developed predator sense, and he knew deep down that if anything ever happened, the confident, experienced, seductive older woman would eat up the likes of him in a single bite (and not just in the good way).

Lady Akane was about a 6/10—pretty and fit rather than beautiful—but then she smiled and you had to instantly add a couple of points as everything that was wrong with the world went quiet just for a little while. Death by Lord Hazō aside, Yūma couldn't see himself dating someone quite that unsophisticated and naïve, but on the other hand she was sweet to a fault, the kind of person he wouldn't hesitate to set up a friend with.

Lady Kei was an 8/10 for Yūma, as she ticked the willowy box very well, and also had the distant, mysterious vibe that was like catnip to many men of good taste. Unfortunately, for all the pros—KEI coordinator, crazy smart, perfect deadpan, equally sexy twin sister—there were some pretty massive cons, notably the fact that "distant" also meant "hard to approach", her lack of interest in men (and especially in casual flirting with men—he'd learned that the hard way), and the fact that he couldn't open his mouth around her without making a fool of himself.

As for Lady Yuno, she might not be willowy, but she was tall with a good figure, and her exotic foreign looks alone put her at an equally respectable 8/10. She definitely broadcast a "hot but crazy" vibe when you first met her, but in some ways Yūma thought she was actually more little sister material—cute and innocent, but also prone to violence and occasionally an incredible pain in the ass (particularly any time Satsuko got involved).

Not that Yūma was going to share any of this analysis with Lord Noburi, in case those who ranked women on looks and dateability weren't the kind of person the Gōketsu wanted in their clan.

"We don't really hang out outside missions," Yūma said. "I mean, clan ninja, KEI ninja, different worlds, y'know? But I guess we get on well. I love listening to her stories, and she's hilarious when you try to flirt with her."

Lord Noburi's eyes narrowed.

"You do know I'm her husband?"

Suddenly, there was something in his expression Yūma didn't like at all.

"Do you?"

"I'm sorry?"

Something that had been simmering unseen at the back of Yūma's mind finally crystallised. He leaned forward a little.

"I'm not the kind of asshole who'd go after somebody else's wife, Lord Noburi. Let's be clear on that. But for assholes like that, of which there are more in Leaf than the Sage could count? Lady Yuno is easy pickings. She doesn't know what to do when you flirt with her. She gets flustered when you pay her a compliment. She has no idea where her boundaries are and her self-esteem is through the floor. She has to rely on her axe as a chaperone. Does that sound like a description of a happily-married adult woman to you?"

Lord Noburi went bright red, with some mix of anger and humiliation, and that was when Yūma realised that he had just mouthed off to his prospective superior during an interview and was going to be a KEI ninja for the rest of his life.

Well, if he was going to get banned from the estate anyway, he might as well say his piece.

"It seems to me like you've taken the wrong message from the fact that your wife can kill a gannetbear without using demolitions-grade explosives and list more shades of colour than an interior decorator as long as they're all blood. She's still a woman. She still needs to be supported and protected and made to feel special. She still needs to learn a whole bunch of stuff that you only get from dating experience, including how to be confident in her womanhood, and if you've taken her out of the dating pool early, that means all of that is now your responsibility. If you want to make a big deal of your rights as her husband, Lord Noburi, then make a big deal of your responsibilities too."

That was as far as Yūma got before the righteous annoyance petered out, leaving behind the fact that he'd stuck his nose in the marriage of a much more powerful man—and Yuno would probably be mortified if she heard any of this either.

The two men stared at each other in silence. Lord Noburi was probably trying to decide whether kicking Yūma off the estate was enough, or whether he was prepared to risk stirring up trouble with the KEI by taking more extreme measures. He was, after all, Lady Kei's brother.

…

"Next question," Lord Noburi said, "do you have any hobbies?"

"Sorry, what?"

"Do you have any hobbies?" Lord Noburi repeated. "Do you read, or cook, or fish, or whatever?"

"I like the theatre," Yūma said woodenly while his brain tried to catch up to what was going on. "I try to catch at least one play a season, two if I get lucky and snag some B-ranks."

"Snowflake likes the theatre too," Lord Noburi said. "Maybe you two should swap recommendations. Next, I wanted to ask you about your views on…"

Oh, right, Yūma thought as he answered question after question in a daze. He'd forgotten that the Gōketsu were the crazy clan.


What do you do?

Voting closes on Jun 25, 2022 at 1:00 PM