A Friend I Shared a Meal With

Dozens of Kumogakure's elite arrived one after another and gathered around Lao Da again. Every one of them looked grim, and none was in a good mood.

They were disappointed in themselves, and even more worried about Lao Da. This was already his second major defeat in recent days.

He had first been thwarted by Minato Namikaze at the border, and now Jiang Feng had defeated him too. This latest failure was worse by comparison: they had lost more than a dozen elite fighters.

This was not just Lao Da's failure, but Kumogakure's as well. The plan, painstakingly laid by the advisors and involving nearly a hundred elite fighters, had fallen apart because of this defeat.

People often said failure was the mother of success, but how many could stay true to their original resolve after suffering major setbacks time and again?

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Repeated failure was a mire. No matter how spirited someone had once been, getting bogged down in it could leave them unable to recover.

So, was Lao Da the kind of person who would give up?

He wasn't. Absolutely not.

He might blame himself for the failure and regret that the plan had fallen through, but he would never let defeat break him!

Everyone failed sometimes. No one could win forever.

As long as you didn't get too carried away when you won, a defeat or two was nothing.

Lao Da quickly rallied himself. After assessing the situation, he made his decision. "Though our plan to ambush Tsunade failed, we've already made it deep into the Land of Fire. It'd be a waste to slink back to the village without doing anything.

"From here on, we'll join forces and advance toward Konoha.

"But we're not going to attack Konoha directly. Our first task is to clear out the scouts along the way and use our numbers to kill as many Konoha Ninja operating on the outskirts as possible..."

"Yes!"

"Yes!"

"Yes!"

Everyone was inspired by Lao Da and didn't waste a moment lamenting their recent defeat. Lao Da quickly rallied the troops and reorganized them into a vanguard, leading them toward Konoha.

With a Kage Level fighter at their head and two or three dozen Jonin among them, the vanguard was naturally unstoppable. They killed many Konoha Ninja along the way.

It wasn't until they were more than seven hundred kilometers from Konoha that Lao Da and his men finally encountered resistance: a large force led by Minato Namikaze and Jiraiya, hastily assembled and sent out from Konoha.

Ninja weren't full-time soldiers, and the concept of guarding the border didn't really exist. Even if some people were stationed there, at best they could serve as an early warning system when an enemy launched a large-scale attack.

Nearly a hundred Cloud Shinobi weren't an especially large force, but they weren't small either. Breaking into smaller groups, they could follow merchant caravans or take back roads into the Land of Fire, then gather in Tanzaku Town. It wasn't especially difficult.

But now that nearly a hundred of them had joined forces and were sweeping through the Land of Fire without restraint, there was no way Konoha wouldn't notice.

Whether you counted Kage Level fighters, Jonin, or Ninja overall, Konoha's hastily assembled defensive force was at least twice as large as Lao Da's unit. It could easily crush Kumogakure's vanguard.

But the Cloud Shinobi weren't crushed. The moment their sensory Ninja detected the enemy force, Lao Da decisively led his men in retreat.

They were deep in enemy territory, outnumbered, and had neither the time nor the terrain nor public support on their side. Only a fool would fight under those conditions.

The Konoha force pursued Lao Da's men until it drove them out of the Land of Fire. Once the situation within the country had stabilized, they left Jiraiya to guard the border for the time being and sent the more mobile Minato Namikaze back to Konoha ahead of them.

Minato Namikaze returned in triumph. He hadn't yet seen his girlfriend to let her know he was safe when he ran into another man's almost-girlfriend, who immediately pressed him for news about that man.

"Teacher Minato, have you heard anything about Jiang Feng? Did you run into him on the way... Is he still alive?"

The sobbing Kurenai Yuhi blocked Minato Namikaze on his way home, tears streaming down her face.

Minato was at a loss. He was terrible at dealing with women—not in the way Jiang Feng claimed to be, but genuinely terrible at it.

"Jiang Feng is alive, and almost completely unharmed... We also heard plenty about him while pursuing the Cloud Shinobi.

"Not long after he got you all to safety that day, he defeated the Raikage's son, A, and fought his way out with Lady Tsunade. I don't think it'll be long before his name is on everyone's lips across the Ninja World."

Minato Namikaze was full of emotion. Having fought the AB Brothers, he knew exactly how strong Young Bro was.

Jiang Feng had managed to defeat Lao Da and fight his way out while carrying Tsunade, a burden who couldn't fight. It was practically a miracle. Perhaps his friend's strength was already on par with his own.

Not only was Bro completely fine, he'd also defeated the Raikage's son and was about to make a name for himself in the Ninja World?

Kurenai immediately stopped sobbing, overjoyed. She had always believed that one day Bro would make a name for himself as great as Minato Namikaze's—not for his good reputation, but for his fearsome one.

She had never imagined that day would come so soon.

No woman could fail to love a strong man, just as no man could fail to love a beautiful woman. The overwhelming surprise nearly left the girl reeling.

It took her a long while to recover. Then she asked Minato one last question. "If Jiang Feng is all right, why hasn't he returned to Konoha?"

"Because he's Jiang Feng."

As he said this, Minato Namikaze instinctively looked northwest. He had a vague idea where Jiang Feng was now, and understood why he had gone there.

He wasn't the only one. Jiraiya, who knew Jiang Feng well, along with the Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Uchiha Clan Head, Fugaku, and others had also guessed where Jiang Feng would go and why, after learning what had happened that day.

The Land of Rain, thousands of kilometers from Konoha.

This country was shrouded in rain all year round. The remnants of the Second Shinobi World War were everywhere, and the crumbling ruins made the whole place desolate.

Holding Tsunade, whose face was still pale and limbs weak, Jiang Feng walked through the rain with quiet resolve. He answered her question without changing expression.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a real oddball?"

"You're not the first to say that, and I doubt you'll be the last."

"You really are a strange kid. No one else would escape a life-threatening situation only to immediately travel thousands of kilometers just to return a stranger's body to the country where she was born."

"She wasn't a stranger."

"You only met her once. How does that make her not a stranger?"

"She and I ate at the same table. I bought her two bowls of noodles. That makes her a friend I shared a meal with."

"Traveling thousands of kilometers just to return the body of a friend you've only just met is still a strange thing to do—something only an oddball would do."

Jiang Feng looked toward the village ahead, barely visible through the rain. "But what if I just want to visit a few friends in the Land of Rain, and happen to bring the bodies of a pretty girl and her companion along?

"Then it wouldn't be something only an oddball would do, right?"

You have friends in the Land of Rain too?

This time, Tsunade wasn't surprised. She already knew what kind of person Jiang Feng was: strange, and handsome—handsome enough that even Tsunade had to admit he was a very charming young man.

A kid who was both strange and handsome was bound to be able to befriend anyone.