Joint Celebration

After finishing her practical combat training, Utsusemi lay sprawled on the training ground, every inch of her dark training clothes soaked with sweat.

But she hadn't passed out as she usually did. Thanks to the improvement in her mental strength, she no longer lost consciousness so easily.

She turned her head to watch the silver-haired man recording data on a scroll.

Sunlight filtered through his eyelashes, softening even the lines between his perpetually furrowed brows.

White hair and red eyes really were wonderful, Utsusemi thought admiringly.

"Tobirama," she said suddenly, "how are you planning to spend your twenty-first birthday? It's only one day before Itama's."

She stretched her limbs like a lazy cat, completely ignoring Hashirama's nagging beside her: "You should walk around after training."

"I know my own body," she said, rolling her eyes impatiently at the Senju clan head. "Medical Ninjutsu can take care of any circulation problems in three seconds."

Hashirama Senju wilted like a rain-soaked dandelion, even his sleek black hair losing its shine.

Ever since Utsusemi had seen through the God of Shinobi and realized he was an airhead in private,

the reverence she once felt for him had shattered completely, making their interactions more natural and easygoing instead.

For example, she was now prodding the gloomy, mushroom-growing Hashirama with the tip of her shoe from time to time, just to provoke him.

Tobirama, who was marking up a training plan in red ink, paused. To a shinobi, a birthday was nothing more than a bowl of longevity noodles between missions.

At this time last year, he had been on an infiltration mission. A Military Rations Pill swallowed down with rainwater had been the extent of his celebration.

"More importantly," he said, lowering his head to resume writing, "Itama's eighth birthday matters more."

"Those are two completely different things!" Utsusemi sprang up and snatched the scroll from Tobirama's hand. "Should we ignore you just because Itama is younger?"

When the scroll was taken from him, Tobirama instinctively reached for his Kunai pouch, then sighed as he realized what had happened. Utsusemi waved her prize triumphantly.

Hashirama Senju had recovered from the blow, and his eyes lit up. "Why not hold a joint celebration? We can celebrate on both the nineteenth and the twentieth!"

"Like staying up to see in the New Year?" Utsusemi asked, brushing dust from her sleeves.

Seeing Tobirama's puzzled expression, she added, "I mean staying up on New Year's Eve."

She pressed her palms together, her eyes shining with excitement. "We can stay up at your house after the dinner on the nineteenth, celebrate Itama's birthday right at midnight, and have another party on the evening of the twentieth!"

Hashirama Senju laughed and slapped his brother on the back hard enough to send Tobirama stumbling forward two steps. "That's a wonderful idea! The ceasefire agreement is worth celebrating too!"

Tobirama, who had nearly bitten his tongue, sighed helplessly. "Whatever... makes you happy."

But only the Tenseigan noticed the fleeting curve of his lips as he put away the scroll.

It was like a ray of sunlight passing over the snow, gone before one could get a good look at it.

Utsusemi smiled. It really was true that white-haired men were tsundere; she would have to tease him more to see how he truly felt.

As night fell on February nineteenth, Utsusemi came to visit with Itama.

Hashirama Senju opened the wooden front door himself, beaming. "You're finally here! Come, take your seats."

The food box she carried gave off the delicate fragrance of moonlight pears. She knew Tobirama was fond of them, so she had made a point of mixing the flesh of several pears into the cake batter.

She handed over the gift box and looked at him expectantly. "Open it now?"

The brass microscope captured Tobirama's full attention. Utsusemi smiled and explained, "It has enough magnification to observe cell walls."

She tapped the stage lightly, and Tobirama quickly mastered the delicate adjustments of the focusing knob.

The silver-haired shinobi ran a trembling hand over the objective lens turret, eager to rush into his laboratory with the precision instrument at once.

After all, the glassmaking techniques of the Warring States era were nowhere near capable of such precision.

Even with the glass technology Utsusemi had given the Uchiha, they couldn't produce glassmaking schematics of such high precision.

This microscope, taken from the Spacetime Tower, was an epoch-making research tool in the Warring States era.

She had long since given up pretending, and the Senju brothers had clearly already guessed something.

Though she had no intention of explaining, deliberately concealing it also seemed unnecessary.

Hashirama Senju held down his brother, who was itching to leave the table. "How can the birthday boy miss his own feast?"

He pointed to the moon in the courtyard, which had yet to sink in the west. "We agreed to stay up until dawn to celebrate your birthday and Itama's."

Utsusemi stifled a laugh. "I know you're eager, but don't be so eager."

Itama stood on tiptoe and offered him the ink-black Yugao flower he had cultivated himself. "Second Brother, this flower will wilt tomorrow, but the microscope isn't going anywhere."

Tobirama Senju accepted the flower and stroked his youngest brother's black-and-white hair.

He politely accepted the Ninjutsu scroll his elder brother gave him, his thoughts still fixed on the microscope.

Seeing Tobirama's transfixed gaze, Utsusemi chuckled. "I gave you the gift to make you happy. How did it end up making you look so troubled instead?"

"The observational precision of this microscope is far beyond the craftsmanship of our time..." Tobirama caught Utsusemi by the wrist, his voice growing quieter until he was talking to himself. "The calculations for the curvature of the optical lenses..."

Utsusemi turned her hand and rested it on the back of his. The moment their skin touched, her cool fingers were enveloped by Tobirama's warm palm.

Hashirama Senju stepped in at just the right moment, putting an arm around each of their shoulders and leading them into the dining room.

Utsusemi found that dinner was sukiyaki, with premium beef from the Land of Lightning prominently arranged on a plate.

She knew perfectly well how difficult it had been to obtain.

The Uchiha still had former associates in the Land of Lightning, making it relatively easy for them to purchase such things, while the Senju Tribe had to go to much greater lengths to obtain an ingredient like this.

Faced with such thoughtfulness, Utsusemi smiled without a word and gladly accepted the special care.

As the sukiyaki bubbled, Tobirama used the serving chopsticks to spread marbled beef across the surface of the pot.

Utsusemi noticed his obsessive precision when portioning out the meat, down to the gram. He piled it into little mountains for her and Itama, but gave Hashirama only three thin slices.

"Don't just serve everyone else. You should eat more too," she said pointedly.

The white-haired young man's wrist went stiff, and he adjusted his knife work as if nothing had happened.

Hashirama Senju puffed out his cheeks and protested the unfairness, while Itama quietly chewed his beef.

It was his first time eating it, and his life seemed to have begun anew only after he met Utsusemi.

Candlelight flickered over the cake. As Tobirama looked at the three people urging him to make a wish, his chest filled with satisfaction and an undiminished urge to experiment.

Utsusemi tapped her plate with a silver fork. "Tobirama, it's time for the birthday boy to blow out the candles!"

Tobirama Senju took a deep breath and blew out the flames. As the light and shadows vanished, he noticed Utsusemi's mysterious smile.

Like the unsolved puzzles she left behind every time, that smile troubled him and drew him in for reasons he couldn't explain.

Like a formula he could never finish calculating, it occupied a corner of his mind.

Yet, to maintain harmony, he couldn't probe too deeply, and his gaze kept following her of its own accord.

By the relit candlelight, Itama placed a folded cardboard crown on the birthday boy's head.

As Hashirama cut the cake, he noticed his brother tracing patterns in the cream with the tip of his fork.

He stuffed a large piece of cake into Tobirama's mouth. "Try it! We never tasted anything this delicious in the first half of our lives."

As the sweet cream melted on his tongue, Tobirama finally set his experiments aside and allowed himself to sink into the warmth of the moment.

He realized that the flickering light and shadows before him were far more worthy of treasuring than any set of data in his laboratory.

After the meal, the four moved to the sitting room, where Utsusemi and Tobirama launched into an animated discussion about the idea of a joint trading company.

Young Itama did not join the conversation. He curled up quietly in a corner and leafed through the storybook Utsusemi had given him.

It was a picture-book edition of Secret Records of Tokaido Merchants. Every now and then, he looked up to steal a glance at the arguing adults, then quickly buried himself in the illustrations again.

Tobirama stopped Utsusemi's pen and silently added several lines to the drawing to improve it.

Utsusemi blinked. "Extracting essential oils with bamboo tubes really isn't as efficient as using a glass still."

Tobirama's pupils suddenly contracted. "So you calculated it all along..."

He suddenly understood: Utsusemi had given the glass technology to the Uchiha and the essential oil formulas to the Senju.

In truth, she had made the two tribes' technologies into precisely interlocking gears. Utsusemi was controlling the entire game from above.

Utsusemi smiled without a word. Talking to smart people was always less work.

She gently held the back of Tobirama's hand. "Let's move forward together, for our shared vision of peace."