"Hmm? Chiba? What are you doing here?"
Through the drizzling curtain of rain, now heavy enough to obscure his vision, Chiba was walking toward the Hokage Building when someone suddenly called out to him.
"Who are you?"
Stopping, he looked toward the source of the voice. Through the rain, Chiba could only make out a vague figure some distance away, seemingly a teenage boy.
"It's me. Don't you remember? Namiashi Raidō. You even helped me prepare poison."
At that moment, the boy who had called out to Chiba jogged a few steps and stopped in front of him.
"So it was you!"
Seeing the boy before him, a look of realization crossed Chiba's face, and he hurriedly spoke.
The wrinkles on the boy's face—whether they were a birthmark or scars—stood out especially clearly. Though it was rude to think so, those wrinkles quickly helped Chiba recognize him as Namiashi Raidō, who, together with Genma Shiranui and Iwashi Tatami, formed the Fourth Hokage's guard platoon.
He was also the one who had previously asked Chiba to prepare a very weak-acting poison.
"I remember you should be on vacation right now. Why are you here?"
Then, seeing that Chiba recognized him, Namiashi Raidō asked with slight confusion.
Uh...
If I'm on vacation, isn't it normal for me to show up anywhere?
Why does the way Namiashi Raidō put it make it sound as though I shouldn't be here—or wouldn't be here while on vacation?
Hearing that, such a thought involuntarily flashed through Chiba's mind.
"Is... there something wrong with that?"
That was what he said aloud.
"No! Sorry. It's just that you're on vacation, and it's raining so heavily right now. I thought that at a time like this, someone like you would be training at home. I didn't expect... Sorry, I