Kazuma's Story: The Black Flash (OCxIno)

Part 2 Chapter 5

In just a couple months, the village had been nearly completely rebuilt all thanks to the ninja, Yamato, who could use wood style jutsus. When everything was complete, the village held a celebration in which Kazuma didn't partake in. He simply teleported back to his little tree shack and waited until all the partying was over which lasted a good three days.

After that, more ninja began leaving the village once again to go on assigned missions. The new teams, jonins, and chunins alike were all ready to once again start making some money for the village while also showing off its newfound vigor.

Now, it was time for Kazuma to find a job.

He walked through the village, looking for somewhere he could possibly work but couldn't find anywhere at all. No one was hiring even during a time like this.

It was almost like fate was forcing him to take his place as a ninja once more.

Unfortunately, Kazuma couldn't and didn't want to go back to that life.

He searched the farms outside the village, but none of the farmers were looking for a new protégé. The leaf village didn't have any fishermen, as they got fish delivered for their other allied villages.

This realization landed him as a logger and he was satisfied with the job. His strength allows him to carry the logs from one area to another while his quick learning made it easy for him to remember the swinging technique of the axe.

The teen even made a few friends who were much older than him, yet they were welcoming.

It was time for them to deliver some of the wood to their neighboring allied village, but to do that, they needed a ninja escort. The escorts were none other than Ino's team ten.

Shikamaru.

Choji.

And Ino.

Kazuma wasn't thrilled to see how things had turned out, but he had to job to do and was going to carry it out no matter what.

"Woah! Kazuma, is that you man? I didn't know you were a logger now!" Choji said as he smacked Kazuma on the back, causing the teen to jump forward a bit.

The teen smiled and rubbed his back to ease the little bits of pain her felt. "Y-yeah. I like the quiet life."

Choji laughed while stating "I'll say" before opening a bag of chips and stuffing a single chip into his mouth.

"What Choji meant to say was that it's good to see you. How are you?" Shika asked while looking bored as always.

"I'm fine. Just taking things one day at a time. How are you?"

"I've been good. I figured it was about time to take a mission and this was the one that seemed the easiest to help us ease back into the flow of things."

Kazuma laughed a bit while picking up the last large log and throwing it into the carriage.

Ino watched him carefully as it seemed they weren't going to speak to each other. They went from being in love, to not even being friends. She hated it, but she wanted to give Kazuma his space.

Unfortunately, she didn't want space. She wanted to be near him again, or at least exchange a few glances but there was nothing. Kazuma was treating her as if she wasn't even there.

The worst part was... she still had his mark on her shoulder. She had told Sai and everyone else that it was a tattoo, however, she always knew that it was her connection to him. Sadly, the mark seemed to remind her now of what used to be, instead of what could be.

"All right, let's not lose any daylight," Asuka said as he got on the carriage. Bart finished checking the horses and also got into the carriage, leaving Kazuma to walk outside of the carriage with the ninjas.