"Naruto! Shikamaru, where are we going?"
On the main road leading straight to Konoha's gates, Shikamaru Nara, Ino Yamanaka, and Akimichi Choji walked at an unhurried pace. Suddenly, after finishing a bag of chips and licking every crumb from his fingers, Choji's face abruptly showed a look of realization, and the question slipped out.
"Wha—!"
At those words, Shikamaru Nara and Ino Yamanaka both stumbled on level ground at almost the same time, nearly falling over from sheer speechlessness.
Their stumble also brought the group to a halt.
"What's wrong?"
Seeing his two friends nearly fall beside him and then straighten up with strange expressions on their faces, Akimichi Choji asked in utter confusion.
"I'm saying, Choji..."
Hearing that, Shikamaru Nara glanced at the gates close by, then turned to Choji with a helpless twitch at the corner of his mouth.
"Didn't we say we were looking for that Japanese-style wooden house with a garden? Do you have the memory of a goldfish?"
At the same time, Ino Yamanaka's exasperated voice followed. She had one hand over her face, a vein throbbing at her temple, looking both helpless and on the verge of losing her temper for reasons she could not quite explain.
Choji, honestly...
He was the one who wanted to investigate this Strongest Ninja, and now he was also the one who had forgotten what they were doing—or rather, the one who had not been paying attention.
What was he even trying to do?
Still, she was not truly angry. She simply thought about it with considerable helplessness.
"Yeah! I know that, but why are we going to the gates?"
Choji nodded and spoke.
He knew they were looking for the Strongest Ninja's Japanese-style wooden house with a garden, but what he did not understand was why they