"I heard you completed your first mission earlier today, Haruka," Father struck up conversation amidst the clinking of plates at the dinner table.

Hinata, ever the adorable one looked up at me from her meal with sparkling eyes, mouth slightly open in open admiration. I smiled back at her a little bit awkwardly. To her, nearly any action that I took was an incredible feat of heroism. Such was the adoration of the younger sister.

"Yes, Father," I responded, nodded slightly.

"I heard you completed three missions today, Haruka," Father continued.

"That is correct."

"Would you please tell us how exactly that came about?" Father's face twitched in maybe what was supposed to be a smile, "Most new genin struggle to complete a single mission in a day."

"Are you certain, Father?" I asked, adjusted my posture slightly. Training had left me sore, "I'm afraid that the details are not of particular interest."

"I am," he responded, placing his chopsticks down and leaning forwards slightly towards me, "Besides, I rather would like to hear about my son's first day as a genin."

"Very well," I nodded. "Maruboshi-san and I were selecting our first mission together..."

It wasn't that I was afraid of the work so much as it was that I was afraid for Kosuke's health. The man was in his sixties at least, ancient and nearly immortal by ninja standards. Despite being a ninja, I didn't want to strain the man with strenuous and physically demanding missions unnecessarily.

"Come on! I haven't done one of these ones in a while. They're quite a blast, you know," Kosuke smiled widely at me, his eyes squinting as his entire face smiled along with his mouth, "Don't you worry about me, Haruka. I might be old, but I'm still good for a bit of old-fashioned fun!"

Apprehensively, I watched as the aged man took the mission scroll, reviewing it one final time before talking to the desk chunin, speaking to him for a bit about a few last details, and then signing off on it.

"And we're off!" Kosuke said to me, "Your first mission as a ninja of Konoha, isn't that exciting, Haruka?"

"I suppose so."

The elderly man laughed and ruffled my hair a little bit, "Always so serious, Haruka."

I shot a bemused look at him as we walked out of the missions office and into the bright sun. Right now it was, what, nine in the morning? I had already been awake for five hours now. And my day wasn't even a quarter over yet.

As we made our way further into the village, I couldn't help but look around in slight awe. Most of my childhood being spent training in the compound, I had never really been able to appreciate Konoha for what it was.

It couldn't a candle to the cities back home in terms of scope. But it held a certain quality to it that made it endearing, far more than those concrete jungles were. The grand trees that gave Konoha its name cast gentle shadows over nice little buildings that were just close enough to feel cosy without being suffocating. I rather liked it.

There was all manner of things to see as Kosuke and I walked through the village. Some areas were residential, quiet streets. Others were noisy and crowded, marketplaces and vendor stalls and whatnot. The village was thrumming with life and activity.

And, after a little while of walking, we arrived at our destination.

It was a house of a noticeably old style, a sign of construction long ago. The creeked and sighed like an old man and sat droopingly and tiredly on its crumbly foundation.

This was very clearly a house that needed to be put out of its misery.

I unfurled the mission scroll to take a look at the blueprints to the house that had very helpfully been given to us for the mission. I studied the blueprints for a moment, committing important bits to memory.

My Byakugan flickered on and I used my eyes to scan the house and compare it to the blueprints. There appeared to be a few key areas that could be struck down for a clean demolition, as clean as one could be, at least.

A few well-placed and clinical strikes, aided by chakra, would more than suffice to bring it down.

"What're you just standing there for, Haruka?" Kosuke asked me, "Aren't you gonna get into it?"

"I'm examining the blueprints, Maruboshi-san." I explained, "From the looks of it, if we strike cleanly from--"

"Oh, foo," Kosuke snorted, "You're one of those types."

"Pardon?"

"There are some times in life where you've gotta plan things out and careful, sure," Kosuke said, giving me a light tap on the shoulder with the back of his hand, "But, I mean, learn to have some fun, kid! You don't have to plan everything out all the way, sometimes just discover it as you go and enjoy!"

"But Maruboshi-san, this is a demolition."

"It'd be one thing if it was a house in the middle of the village," Kosuke said, waving his hand dismissively, "But this old thing's out in the middle of nowhere. We can just have a grand old time tearing it apart!"

"I do believe that--"

"Oh here, I'll start."

A bit anxiously, and a bit curiously, I watched Kosuke unstrap the huge cooking pan that was strapped to his back. Without it on his back, he looked quite a bit smaller than I had first thought, like a turtle without its shell.

"Maruboshi-san, what exactly...?"

He held the massive pan in his hands and then threw it.

The pan span through the air, picking up dust and dirt and kicking up a wild wind as it blazed towards the house. Collision with the dilapidated home was inevitable, and when it did hit, it was cataclysmic.

The wood groaned and cracked and protested, and then gave in to the unyielding and unstoppable force that was the pan. The building buckled under the force of the cooking implement, screaming all the way as it broke down.

The house became a veritable explosion of splinters and sawdust and all sorts of things as Kosuke's pan ground and reduced it to nothing more than a messy bit of litter on the ground.

All that was left after the dust settled were woodchips and splinters, things left from a period of wanton and gratuitous destruction.

I looked at Kosuke, who was still smiling away, speechless.

And then I laughed.

It'd been a long time since I've laughed. A long time since I've experienced that belly-aching sort of elation that came from an event so ludicrous that it was genuinely hilarious. Perhaps the first time in this life.

"Oh dear, oh dear. It appears that I've gotten too excited and did the entire job already." Kosuke said, worriedly, "And you didn't even get to try! That won't do. We'll get another, okay Haruka? Maybe even two would be nice, right?"

And so we did.

I giggled.

Hinata quietly laughed as I concluded my account of the day.

Father looked at me with a raised eyebrow, then nodded, "As expected."

I wasn't certain if he was being serious or not.

"But Haruka, about your teammate, Maruboshi Kosuke?"

"Yes?"

Father stared at me with that disconcertingly blank face of his, "I suppose you wouldn't know it, but Maruboshi is rather well known in Konoha as the Eternal Genin."

I wasn't certain where he was going. Maruboshi-san was old, but it was a little mean to call him something derogatory as Eternal Genin. Despite his few eccentricities, I rather like the man already.

As if reading my mind, Father spoke up again, "The moniker Eternal Genin is not an insult, rather, a title that he took on himself. There are... events in the man's past. They are his stories to tell. But suffice it to say that those events caused him to forever refuse promotions and remain a genin in a sort of self-imposed penance."

Wait. I had heard this before.

"Maruboshi is easily skilled enough to be jounin-rank," Father said, his face serious.

Ah, I remember now.

That guy. I suppose my memories of the series have gotten fuzzier than I would like to admit. I would have to find a way to keep track of what I had left in my head then, I hadn't thought about it in a while.

"Be certain to apply just as much effort in learning from him as your ordinary lessons," Father explained, looking down on me, an aristocratic sort of look to him, "It was no mere coincidence that you were partnered with such a valuable asset, after all."

Ah.

Of course.