“Master Konohamaru! We came to visit ya!”
The door to his hospital room flew open. The first to come careening in was Uzumaki Boruto. He arrived empty-handed, despite the custom of bringing flowers or a gift to an injured teacher in the hospital.
“Boruto! You’re too loud! This is a hospital! Quiet!” Uchiha Sarada chided her teammate as she followed him into the room, holding a bouquet of sakura blossoms to her chest.
“How are you feeling, Master Konohamaru?” Mitsuki was the last to enter, carrying a paper bag and looking relaxed as ever.
It was only his first day in the hospital, but Konohamaru was bored senseless already. He very nearly—carelessly—smiled at the arrival of his beloved students, but managed to suppress the grin at the last second.
“Whoa, whoa,” he said coolly, careful to maintain his strict demeanor before his pupils. “What happened to your mission?”
“No missions today! So we were up bright and early making it happen!”
“Happen?”
“He means this.” Mitsuki pulled a square package out of the paper bag. The name printed on the wrapping was that of the most popular traditional sweet shop in the village. Their strawberry daifuku cakes were particularly popular. The shop only made four hundred a day, so they were impossible to get ahold of unless you were in line before the shop opened.
“Strawberry daifuku! We all lined up together!” Sarada sang happily as she arranged the sakura branches in a vase.
Boruto took the box from Mitsuki and ripped open the wrapping. Inside the wooden box, the strawberry daifuku sat neatly lined up, wrapped in washi paper.
You three lined up this morning for my sake? Konohamaru felt something warm rise up in his chest.
“I’ll make some tea,” Mitsuki said. “Where’s the kitchenette area?”
“Oh, it’s okay. I’ll do it.” Konohamaru held the boy back and grabbed the cane at the edge of the bed. “It’s too depressing to be in here all the time. I’m glad to get out of this room.”
As he stepped out of his hospital room, his students pulled out the round chairs stacked in one corner and sat down.
“I can’t believe a ninja like Master Konoha would be hurt badly enough to have to stay in the hospital.” Sarada sighed.
Mitsuki nodded. “It’s fortunate that none of the passengers were injured, though.”
Sarada turned on the TV. On the screen, a girl with golden hair was in the middle of an interview for the mid-morning news.
“Who’s that?” Sarada frowned.
“Himeno Lily. You don’t know her?” Boruto’s eyes grew wide.
“I don’t really watch TV. Who is she? Some kind of TV personality?”
“An idol. She’s really popular right now. On TV all the time.” As he spoke, Boruto picked up a strawberry daifuku and peeled the paper away.
As if led by his example, Mitsuki and Sarada also reached out for a small cake.
That girl’s an idol? Sarada gazed absently at the TV as she unwrapped her daifuku.
The girl on the screen was definitely cute. She wore white boots and a minidress with far more frills and ribbons than could ever be functional. Her golden hair had a gentle wave and reached down to her shoulders. Although she was probably at least fifteen, she spoke in a deliberately cute, innocent way that made her seem much younger.
An idol… I don’t really care about that stuff. Still, I wonder what kinds of songs she sings? Thoughts drifting, Sarada took a bite of the daifuku and then jumped up as though she’d gotten an electric shock. “What is this?! It’s so good!”
“It really is,” Mitsuki agreed.
“Mm, it’s great. But I like the zenzai my mom makes way better,” Boruto said cheekily, even as he reached out for a second daifuku.
Aah, this strawberry daifuku. Amazing… Wow… Amazing… The delicious flavor sent Sarada into a reverie, and as she sunk her teeth into the small cake, she was lost in bliss. For a moment, she thought she should wait until Konohamaru came back to have another one, but two seconds later, she reconsidered and reached out again.
Music began to spill from the TV. Apparently, Lily was debuting her new song, “Marchmallow Heart.”
Sarada looked at the song title displayed on the screen and felt a slight pain in her head.
Illuminated by colorful lights, Lily twisted her hips as she began to sing with a lisp.
Marchmallow Marchmallow Marshmalloooow ♪
Have a marshmallooow ♪ C’mon c’mon ♪
Go! Go! ♪ Go to ♪ Hell and angel ♪
“What even is this?!” Sarada cried out, unable to stand it any longer.
“Sarada, shut up.” Boruto turned around, looking annoyed. “This is a hospital. You gotta be quiet.”
“Th-these lyrics don’t bother you at all? Like ‘hell and angel’ or ‘Have a marshmallow, c’mon c’mon’? They don’t even mean anything!”
“I don’t care about the lyrics,” he replied, finishing off his daifuku in a single bite. He was more interested in eating than the song.
“I mean, it’s not like I especially care or anything,” Sarada protested. “But, it’s like, I can’t help but get upset when they’re actually putting these ridiculous lyrics on TV.” She shot an angry glance at the screen. Lily was quite passionate in her performance as she crooned the nonsensical “Marchmallow puffy puffy puff puff puffaaaaa ♪.”
“Aah! It’s too much! I can’t listen to this anymore!” Sarada brought her fist down on the remote control and the TV screen turned black.
“I guess. I thought it was a pretty interesting song, though.” Mitsuki started to hum the melody.
I don’t get boys. Still, this daifuku really is delicious. She nibbled at a strawberry daifuku while the three of them chatted until Konohamaru returned. He leaned on his cane, deftly carrying a tray of teacups in one hand.
“Ah?! You all just went ahead and ate without me?” Konohamaru laughed and handed each of his students a cup of tea.
“You find out anything about the guys who attacked the Thunder Train?” Boruto asked, sipping his tea. “Like the reason for the bombing? They committed multiple crimes, yeah?”
“Still nothing worthwhile,” Konohamaru replied. “About the only clue we have is that they were wearing purple outfits. Also, they had excessively large holes in their ears.”
“Holes?” Mitsuki asked, dubiously. “Do you mean like piercings?”
“Mm-hm. According to the medical team that examined the bodies, they each had five piercings in their ears, running from their ear lobes up into the cartilage.”
“Is that to show they’re part of a group? Like our headbands?”
“Can’t say.” Their team leader shrugged. “This is just the impression I got from fighting them, but I don’t think they were all that threatening in terms of fighting power. Other than their boss, they were about at the chunin level. The tricky part about these guys was—”
“That they didn’t hesitate to sacrifice themselves?” Sarada guessed.
“Exactly.” Konohamaru nodded solemnly. “They chose death with their comrades over being caught and forced to give information. Trying to take guys like that alive is tough. Way more so than just killing them.”
“It bugs me that they went out of their way to use actual bombs when they could have just used ninjutsu,” Boruto remarked.
If this mysterious group’s objective was an indiscriminate attack on villagers, there could be serious damage ahead if they didn’t figure out some kind of countermeasures soon. If there was a bombing in the new city in the middle of the day when it was thronged with people...
There just wasn’t enough information available to them. They couldn’t know how urgent the situation was. At a loss for words, all four fell silent. The air in the hospital room was still.
“Maybe I’ll have a strawberry daifuku!” Konohamaru said brightly, trying to lift their spirits again. He lifted the lid, but the inside of the daifuku box was empty. “What?!”
Stunned, he checked the inside of the box four more times. But no matter how many times he looked, there was nothing in there.
“Y-you… What happened to the daifuku?” A tremor bleeding into his voice, he looked at his students.
“I only had two,” Mitsuki asserted.
“I only had three,” Sarada said.
“I only had four, okay?” Boruto noted casually.
“That adds up perfectly then, doesn’t it?!” Konohamaru shot daggers at them with his eyes. “There were only nine of them! Come on!”
“Well, you know…” Sarada did feel guilty, but the daifuku really were delicious, so she didn’t actually regret eating them. “W-we’ll go get some more.”
“No thanks. If you got the time for that, you should be training…” Although Konohamaru tried to put on a brave face, his shoulders were slumped.
“When will you be getting out of the hospital, Master?” Mitsuki said, changing the subject.
“The thing about that…” Konohamaru’s face suddenly stiffened, and his eyes dropped to the cast on his right ankle. “The injury itself was no big deal, but I guess the bomb was rigged with a poison that induces a light paralysis. I have to stay here until the antidote does its work. Three weeks.”
“Three weeks?” Sarada replied, concerned.
“What’s gonna happen to our team in the meantime?” Boruto asked.
“Right. About that.” Konohamaru glanced toward the door and smiled. “I’ve got a substitute taking over for me.”
“A substitute?” Mitsuki asked.