January

It turned out Chiba had been wrong. Not only did Kakashi, Obito, and Rin come by every day, they even brought a whole group of friends with them. Chiba's house had completely become a place for the kids to revel.

Genma Shiranui, Ebisu, Kurenai, Asuma... As long as the children from roughly the same class were off duty and had no missions, they would casually make their way to Chiba's cabin on their own. Sometimes they held gatherings or shared meals; other times, they simply sat in Chiba's cabin for a while, enjoying the feeling of being surrounded by woods and far from the crowds.

Even the training maniac Might Guy occasionally came over to compete with Chiba over who had trained more. Their current win rate was fifty-fifty, an even match. What Guy did not know was that whenever Chiba competed with him, he never included his sword-swinging practice.

In short, Chiba's cabin was no longer ignored as it had been in the past. It had basically become a place for his peers to relax and have fun, and it was quite lively now.

Even Hyuga Yukyō occasionally came by to look around. Of course, his purpose definitely was not to see Chiba, but from his behavior and words, he seemed to regard the cabin like everyone else did—as a place where he could experience freedom and ease his stress. Although every visit always sparked some incompatible friction between him and Chiba, sometimes escalating straight into a fight, that never stopped him from coming. He did not care about Chiba's sarcastic remarks at all, either. Of course, he always mocked Chiba back in the end, and things generally concluded with a brawl.

Still, as though it had become an unwritten rule, everyone consciously avoided disturbing Chiba while he trained,