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They only walk for a few minutes before they reach the bamboo grove. It’s small, but quite impressive – the forest is dense, the bamboo very high. They enter the grove along with dozens of people wishing to enjoy its peace. They’re supposed to stay on the busy pathway, but after just a few minutes Karin wanders off to the side and casually hops over the fence. No one seems to notice. She gestures for them to do the same.
For a second he almost protests, as countless signs remind the visitors not to wander off the path. Then it occurs to him how stupid that is, as if a sign could restrain them from entering a forest. That’s preposterous.
He follows her. Naruto’s been teaching him, not to be invisible as much as to go unnoticed, for the humans to look away, to dismiss them. He’s quite proud to see that no one bats an eye at his jumping airily over the fence. Sakura and Ino follow suit.
They find Naruto quickly. The grove is thick, the bamboo massive – they are not so far off the path, but it’s quiet here, eerie and peaceful. The place is infused with benevolence and warmth, and he finds it admirable, for such a small grove in such a busy corner of the land.
Naruto is sitting on the forest ground, feeding berries and nuts to a swarm of kudagitsune.
There are a least a dozen of them, climbing the boy excitedly under his carefree laugh. The larger of the pipe foxes have the size of a small cat, the smaller could fit in a teacup. They do good to their name, as they have more the shape of a snake than a regular fox, slithering among the dead leaves and wrapping around Naruto’s wrists as he pats them on the head and speaks to them softly.
“Are you done?” Karin asks once the boy has spotted them. “We have to be on time for lunch.”
The kidagitsune whine as he stands up, sad to see him leave. He promises he will be back soon.
“If we don’t tend to them ourselves, they tend to wander off and pledge themselves to a human family,” Karin explains. “It rarely ends well.”
It happens that humans are worthy of the help and loyalty of a yokai. But it’s almost never treated as the gift it is. The humans turn greedy and arrogant, abuse the power they have been granted until karma brings disaster upon their family, or the yokai takes revenge. Kudagitsune are prized familiars, but rare are the ones who can deal with their kind in the long run, as they multiply quickly and grow wilder and hungrier the more the humans draw on their power.
They are surely better off here, both appeased and kept in check by the bamboo and their aggressive endurance.
“Alright, let’s go!” Naruto claims, taking the lead back to the path.
They pay a visit to Suigetsu, though he is heartbroken that they didn’t bring him any snacks. They go to eat some dango as well. Ino gets in trouble with the azukiarai when she tries to steal some of his red beans – Sakura ends up counting them all with it until it’s pacified and lets them go.
They wander the city then, visiting some other yokai they know of, or meet by chance. They find a funny karakasa kozo hopping around in the Shosei-en garden and decide to bring it back to Kushina, to see if she can fix some of the tears and holes in the paper of the grimacing umbrella. They also discover a pillar of one of the tea pavilions ridden with sakabashira screeching angrily at their predicament, hanging upside-down on the wood. Nothing to do about them, apart from tearing the thing down and replacing the pillar in the right direction. A nearby sign indicates that this particular pavilion almost collapsed twice. No wonder. Maybe the third time will work out for the little spirits in the wood.
All in all, they just waste the day away.
Sasuke never had any friends his age, being the youngest and latest member of his coven to come to life. They were always hard at work in the mountains, there wasn’t much time for distraction, and even with time, limited things to spend it on. Sasuke knew all the yokai and spirits that lived around them, knew every tree, every stone, every noise of the leaves rustling and the water running down the stream.
He never tired of this life, but he can’t deny that this… This is nice. They talk and laugh, and a lot of the things his friends say fly over his head – people, places, stories, games. He doesn’t get it, but he finds that he wants to. Wants to know more, wants to discover more.
He wants to call Itachi. He has so many things to tell him, and he wants to talk about these new feelings too.
It’s late in the afternoon when they decide to call it day, exhausted but happy. Ino and Sakura bid them farewell and take the direction of the woods up north, near Mount Hiei. Karin, Naruto and Sasuke walk back to the ryokan, the karakasa kozo in toe.
Their good mood vanished the second they step in.
Sasuke doesn’t know who the people sitting with Kushina are, doesn’t recognize them, yet he tenses up as the foxes do, aware that the strangers don’t belong here, are as hostile to this place as its hostile to them. A man and two teenagers, a boy and a girl. The three with matching long dark hair and clear white eyes. They are not enemy spirits though, nor evil yokai or…
They’re humans, he realizes with a start. They’re humans, despite the slight shine of mystical power glowing above their skin.
