Early the next morning, Shin'un met up with Minato Namikaze, ready to take their respective teammates to the large tent at the very center of camp to meet their teachers.
"Ah, damn it, I ate way too much last night!" Yūichi clutched his stomach, grumbling as he trailed behind the group. "Wait for me!"
"That's what you get for eating too much last night." Hearing Yūichi, Shiina Kō turned around.
"I told you last night to eat some greens to help your digestion, but you wouldn't listen. You stuffed yourself with greasy grilled meat, stewed meat, and other things that are hard to digest. Who can you blame for your stomach hurting now?"
"How come even you've started lecturing me? Wasn't that logistics ninja the one who said we could eat as much as we wanted last night?" Watching Shiina Kō lecture him, Yūichi was surprised, but also felt a little wronged as he brought up the logistics ninja.
"Leave that logistics ninja out of this. He told you to eat as much as you wanted, not to eat nothing but meat. Get yourself in shape. We're about to meet our team leader." Hearing Shiina Kō and Yūichi talking behind him, Shin'un turned back from the front of the group to warn him.
"I know..." Watching the largest tent in the center of camp draw closer and feeling the upheaval in his stomach, Yūichi gritted his teeth. "Whatever. I'll bear it..."
A few minutes later, they stood before the tent flap.
Shin'un and Minato Namikaze exchanged a glance, took a deep breath, and lifted the flap to walk inside.
Directly ahead was a long table of considerable size. More than a dozen people were gathered around what looked like a map on a round table, heatedly discussing something. They seemed to be arguing about developments in the Land of Rain and Konoha's next moves.
Among the dozen or so people surrounding the round table, Shin'un spotted a familiar face.
Shikaku's father, Nara Shikahito.
"Do you children need something?"
While Shin'un was taking in everything inside the tent, a bespectacled ninja who looked like a dedicated administrative worker noticed the group coming through the flap.
"We're here to find the team leaders assigned to us," Shiina Kō answered immediately from beside Shin'un.
"Teachers?"
"You're here to find your team leaders?"
"Could it be?"
"..."
"Oh, Shin'un. Are you here for Jiraiya and Orochimaru?" Nara Shikahito, who was surrounded by people at the head of the round table, seemed somewhat tired. Amid everyone's discussion, he finally noticed Shin'un and the others coming through the entrance.
"Yes, Uncle." Since Shin'un got along well with Shikaku and occasionally went out with him, it was hardly surprising that Nara Shikahito recognized him.
"I see." Nara Shikahito drew a deep breath and piled together the assorted, complicated intelligence reports beside him. "Go ahead. They're at the back of the tent."
"All right. Thank you, Uncle." Seeing how tired Nara Shikahito looked, Shin'un bowed slightly in thanks, then led the others farther inside.
It seemed that Nara Shikahito's daily life as Konoha's chief strategist in the Second Shinobi World War was far from easy.
"Shin'un?" With their meeting with their team leader approaching, Shiina Kō seemed a little nervous. She moved closer to Shin'un and asked uncertainly, "What do you think our teacher will be like?"
Glancing at Shiina Kō with her arms folded beside him, Shin'un couldn't bring himself to describe Orochimaru's image to her just then. Instead, he asked, "What sort of person do you hope our teacher will be?"
"Me? If we're talking about what I hope... I hope our teacher is gentle, kind, friendly, and the sort who can make friends with students." Shiina Kō looked full of longing as she imagined the teacher she was about to meet.
"Uh..." Hearing Shiina Kō's answer, Shin'un was momentarily speechless.
Gentle, kind, friendly, able to make friends with students... those descriptions felt strangely out of place when applied to Orochimaru.
Combining Shiina Kō's descriptions with Orochimaru's portrayal in the original story, Shin'un had already conjured up another version of Orochimaru in his mind.
Orochimaru was easygoing, draping his arms around his students' shoulders as he told jokes. When he got excited, he would open his mouth wide, his snake-like tongue sticking out to lick his lips. Every so often, he would stretch his neck in defiance of human anatomy and unexpectedly bite someone on the neck, gifting them a Cursed Seal made by Orochimaru, with guaranteed quality...
"Ugh..." Just imagining that scene sent a chill through Shin'un's entire body. Orochimaru really was better off being aloof.
"What about you?" Shiina Kō's hopes for her teacher had thoroughly shattered Shin'un's worldview, and he couldn't help turning to Minato Namikaze on his other side. "Do you have any hopes for your teacher?"
"Me?" Minato Namikaze was visibly startled by Shin'un's question. Clearly, he had never considered it.
His brow furrowed, and after some serious thought, he voiced his hopes.
"Ideally, someone serious, conscientious, reliable, very responsible, powerful, and old-fashioned, who can patiently guide his students."
After speaking, Minato Namikaze turned to Shin'un and scratched his head. "It's a lot to ask, and I know it sounds a little greedy, but students with teachers like that usually grow very quickly."
"..."
After hearing Minato Namikaze's description of his ideal teacher, Shin'un couldn't stop the corner of his eye from twitching.
A serious, conscientious, reliable, very responsible, powerful, old-fashioned... Jiraiya?
That was as absurd as spicy honey.
Now Shin'un could only hope that when Minato learned his teacher was so unreliable that he would take his students to peep on the women's baths, then leave them behind to buy time after being caught, his world wouldn't come crashing down and make him lose hope for his future...
"Hm?" Just as Shin'un was imagining these two different versions of the Sannin, Minato suddenly stopped ahead of him.
Looking up, he saw that their group had found who they were looking for.
Orochimaru sat in the main seat, radiating an atmosphere that chilled the room as he frowned over the scroll in his hands. Meanwhile, Jiraiya had pulled up a little stool and was quietly writing something with a serious, focused expression, yet still somehow gave off an air of unreliability.
"Are you here to find your team leaders?"
Noticing the children in front of him, Jiraiya looked up and asked.
"Yes!"
Knowing that one of the two men before him might be his team leader, one of Minato Namikaze's teammates hurriedly puffed out his chest, trying to make a good impression.
At that answer, Jiraiya's feigned seriousness immediately crumbled, and his face lit up with a smile. He put away the little notebook in front of him, which looked only half-written, then stood and headed out of the tent.
"Team 6, follow me!"
Hearing this, Minato Namikaze turned back to say goodbye to Shin'un, then hurried after Jiraiya toward the exit.
Watching Minato leave, Shin'un turned toward Orochimaru, who sat in the main seat with a cold expression, silently reading the scroll in his hands.
"Teacher?" After a moment's thought, Shin'un called out tentatively.
Orochimaru did not react to Shin'un's voice, not until Shin'un called out for the third time.
"Teacher!"
This time, Orochimaru reacted. At last, he lifted his gaze from the scroll for the first time and looked over the three children before him, finally resting his naturally rather sinister gaze on Shin'un.
"Please be quiet. Thank you."