Beside a campfire on the riverbank.
"Smells good, doesn't it?" Little Nine-Tails held a fish and asked the two little fellows with a grin.
"Mm-hmm, it does!" The two little fellows nodded, each munching on a fish of his own.
"Tomorrow, I'll get you something even tastier," Little Nine-Tails said, eyes rolling mischievously.
Sui Ren gazed at Little Nine-Tails with stars in his eyes, as though he had found his mentor in life. Hiruho shook his head helplessly, still eating his fish. He always felt that choosing Little Nine-Tails as his boss back then might have been a mistake...
The beast and the two boys chatted and laughed, then headed home to their mothers after finishing their meal. Hiruho was an orphan, though, so he went back to stay at the internet cafe with Little Nine-Tails. Hiruho had suffered from a profound sense of inferiority since childhood and struggled to talk to others. It was only after meeting Little Nine-Tails a few months earlier and having this boss take them gallivanting around the village every day that he had started to improve.
In Hiruho's heart, Little Nine-Tails cared for him as attentively as a parent... Though the beast sometimes took him around the village stealing chickens and committing petty theft... and didn't seem like much of a good person... er... a good beast... overall, Little Nine-Tails was still pretty decent...
Suiren Hatake was one of the few boys in the Hatake Clan's younger generation. The clan had very few members. His father, Hatake Yingchuan, was the younger brother of Sakumo's father, making Sakumo his older cousin. Well... Little Nine-Tails had roped him into becoming a lackey a few months earlier...
Sui Ren's parents spent most of the year away on missions. They were mission fanatics, so he usually lived with