Orochimaru: Teacher, This Is My Gift to You!

There weren't many people at Akimichi BBQ Restaurant at noon. It was rare for the place to be so quiet.

"Teacher, did everything go smoothly for you today?" Kenichi Amamiya asked curiously, casually placing a slice of beef onto the griddle. It sizzled at once.

"More or less. My relationship with my teacher is still rather tense, but there has been some progress," Orochimaru said with a gentle smile. Nothing seemed amiss in his words.

Kenichi Amamiya nodded thoughtfully. It seemed that what his teacher wanted to do had not gone very smoothly, but there had been some results.

"The Third Hokage will surely understand your feelings, Teacher," Kenichi Amamiya said with an innocent look.

After all, they were out in public. Although the Third had stepped down, he still had considerable influence. To avoid ears in the walls, they needed to be cautious.

"Feelings..." Orochimaru sighed. Then teacher and student both smiled happily. That token of feeling was truly far too heavy. It was hard to say whether the Third could bear it.

Seeing that the beef on the griddle was already cooked, Kenichi Amamiya hurriedly picked it up with his chopsticks. If he waited any longer, it would burn.

Yet staring at the slice of beef between his chopsticks, Kenichi Amamiya simply could not bring himself to eat it.

"...Teacher, didn't you invite Anko?" Kenichi Amamiya felt a chill run down his back. The resentment was far too intense.

"...I thought you had invited her, Kenichi." Orochimaru remained as composed as ever, as though he had not seen the person at the doorway clinging to the doorframe with only her head showing.

Kenichi Amamiya's lips twitched, but he still turned his head awkwardly and called Anko Mitarashi in from the entrance.

While they had been grilling meat earlier, Kenichi Amamiya had already felt an intense stare and noticed Anko Mitarashi at the door.

Come to think of it, his teacher had only ever invited him to eat at the Akimichi Clan's barbecue restaurant. Anko Mitarashi really had not come here much.

"Senior Brother Amamiya." Anko Mitarashi looked at Kenichi Amamiya pitifully, wondering whether she was truly her teacher's disciple.

They were both their teacher's disciples, yet their teacher treated Senior Brother Amamiya so well while being so strict with her.

"Cough, cough... I was just about to go to your house and invite you," Kenichi Amamiya said, coughing awkwardly twice.

Fortunately, the girl was not difficult to placate. With both Orochimaru and Kenichi comforting her, Anko Mitarashi quickly let go of her earlier feelings and happily began eating.

For a while, the atmosphere in the barbecue restaurant became warm and cozy.

"Teacher! Can we take a picture together?" Anko Mitarashi looked at Orochimaru expectantly before gazing pleadingly at Kenichi Amamiya.

Kenichi Amamiya scratched his head. A group photo? He did not mind.

"Of course." Orochimaru smiled gently. He had been in quite a good mood today.

So by the time Kenichi Amamiya was ready to head home, he had an extra photograph in his hand—a group photo of himself, his teacher, and Anko Mitarashi.

"Come to think of it, Konoha seems to have a tradition like this." Kenichi Amamiya looked at the photo in his hand. It was a picture of the three of them.

Minato Namikaze's team had a photo like this too. He and his teacher had one as well, and in the future, Kakashi and Naruto would have similar photos.

Speaking of Kakashi...

Kenichi Amamiya scratched his head. Kakashi had been away this whole time, and he had no idea what mission he was on. Asking Kakashi to teach him Chidori would have to wait.

When he passed a bento shop, Kenichi Amamiya went inside. He planned to buy some boxed meals to take home for dinner.

The moment he entered, Kenichi Amamiya ran into two familiar faces. Strictly speaking, they were not really acquaintances; they had merely met once.

The two Uchiha Clan brats, Shisui and Itachi.

They had clearly noticed Kenichi Amamiya as well, so he could only nod in greeting.

"Hello. Thank you for taking care of Itachi last time." Before Kenichi Amamiya could walk over, Shisui Uchiha approached him and spoke very politely.

Kenichi Amamiya had clearly been acting out of kindness, yet Shisui had suspected him of harboring ulterior motives. That was why he was especially sincere in offering thanks this time.

"It was nothing, nothing. I think this kid is pretty cute." Kenichi Amamiya waved his hand with a smile.

He preferred to keep his distance from the Uchiha Clan. Although the Third had stepped down, Danzo was still around.

For now, though, Minato Namikaze's impression of the Uchiha Clan seemed neither good nor bad. At the very least, he was not like the Third and Danzo, who enjoyed suppressing the Uchiha Clan.

Minato Namikaze's attitude toward the Uchiha Clan was perfectly normal. Unfortunately, Minato Namikaze would not live long. Otherwise, the Uchiha Clan's fate might have been different.

Once the Fourth died in battle and the Third returned, life only became harder for the Uchiha Clan. Their ending was then inevitable.

Watching Shisui leave the bento shop with Itachi, Kenichi Amamiya scratched his head. He wondered whether he should make backups of Shisui and Itachi's DNA information and clone them for fun someday.

Orochimaru's research projects included cloning. Kenichi Amamiya knew that very well, but current Cloning Technology had not yet reached such an advanced stage.

Of course, even if the chance of failure was high, it did not matter. He could save the samples first.

"But getting samples from those two would be troublesome. It's not like I can just walk up and pull out their hair, right?" Kenichi Amamiya scratched his head. Shisui and Itachi were both quite vigilant.

"And they aren't girls, either. Otherwise, maybe I could..." Kenichi Amamiya mused.

When he had collected Kushina Uzumaki's DNA information before, he had considered rummaging through the Namikaze household's trash.

After all, although Kushina Uzumaki was a Jinchuriki, she was also a girl. And girls above a certain age had that monthly relative.

So shops in Konoha actually sold sanitary pads.

DNA information was easier to extract from blood, but Kenichi Amamiya had given up on that idea because it was a bit perverted and he had other methods.

But from that perspective, if Kenichi Amamiya wanted to, he could even collect the DNA of most people in all of Konoha.

After buying the bentos, Kenichi Amamiya returned home and continued refining the development of his ninjutsu.

He had bought quite a lot of cigarettes lately, to the point that the Boss at the shop suspected that he had picked up bad habits at such a young age and had tried to talk him out of it several times.

It left Kenichi Amamiya torn between laughter and tears.

Moreover, nicotine had major limitations, forcing Kenichi Amamiya to put gathering Radioactive Material on his agenda.

Of course, Kenichi Amamiya knew that this stuff was not easy to collect. He could only take it slowly, step by step. Fortunately, he still had plenty of time.

Naruto had not even been born yet.