"...Anyway, that's how it happened. Chinatsu, Miki, and I are teammates now!"
After classes at the Ninja Academy ended, Shingetsu gave a rambling explanation of what a chunin was and what the Chunin Ninja Exams were to the bewildered Chinatsu and Miki, along with Inari, who was always inseparable from her older sister Miki.
"Dear sister, Lady Shingetsu, are you really going to abandon me?"
Realizing that she hadn't been chosen for the team, Uchiha Inari immediately spoke in an ominous tone. Her dark eyes brimmed with the resentment and hatred of someone abandoned, and she gave the deeply uncomfortable Shingetsu and Miki a sinister smile.
"Aren't you afraid I'll die of heartbreak, then come back as a vengeful ghost to haunt you?"
"Uh, please don't..."
Faced with such a dark threat, Shingetsu and Miki felt their hair stand on end. Even imagining that scene made their scalps prickle, and knowing Inari, if she really became a ghost, she would probably haunt them forever.
"Th-this... This is all Tobirama Senju's fault!"
Shingetsu hurriedly dumped all the blame on Tobirama, absolving herself completely.
"I wanted to bring you along, but Tobirama Senju wouldn't let me!"
"So I was just a substitute?"
Chinatsu adjusted her glasses and quietly lowered her head, looking rather forlorn, as though Shingetsu's words had genuinely hurt her.
"Uh, of course not!"
Seeing that Inari and Chinatsu's resentment was about to take physical form and turn them into ghosts that would haunt her forever, Shingetsu went ashen. She scratched frantically at her hair, then finally decided to spend her way out of trouble.
"Okay, stop! Let's all go get cake! M-Miki and I will treat you!"
"What?!"
Dragged into this by Shingetsu, Miki blanched. Realizing her wallet was in danger, she immediately tried to protest loudly, only for