The midday sun scorched the Konoha Ninja Academy.
Hot wind blew through the classroom after lessons ended.
Orochimaru and Tsunade sat together sharing lunch, but Jiraiya was absent today.
The classroom was noisy during lunch break.
After portioning out the food, Orochimaru watched Tsunade dig in with gusto and couldn't help asking, "Where's Jiraiya?"
"He went to run an errand," Tsunade answered indistinctly through her food.
Remembering Jiraiya's goofy grin, Orochimaru frowned. "An errand? Where?"
It had been three months since he met that idiot Jiraiya.
It was now May, with summer approaching, and the weather was getting hotter by the day.
Orochimaru didn't like Konoha's weather. During his "childhood" in Yanbai's Dōjutsu World, his family of three had lived in a seaside home overlooking the ocean, where the winters were never too cold and the summers never too hot.
Konoha was different. Summer temperatures could approach forty degrees Celsius, while winter brought bitter cold and endless snow.
The winters here made Orochimaru drowsy with cold;
the summers here made Orochimaru irritable with heat.
Now a sense of foreboding rose in Orochimaru's heart. That idiot Jiraiya had been away from their group for an unusually long time, and Orochimaru couldn't help worrying.
"He went to the school cafeteria, of course," Tsunade said casually. "He said he felt bad about eating our lunches lately, so he insisted on buying us something to drink."
Students at the Konoha Ninja Academy didn't have to pay tuition, but that didn't mean their education came without a price.
Every child in Konoha Shinobi Village had to attend the Ninja Academy once they reached the appropriate age.
They also had to work at the Konoha Hot Spring Baths every weekend of the month, as a class.
The administrators of the Konoha Ninja Academy also managed the