Kiboku-dō

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"Slurp..."

Akio took a big mouthful of ramen and nodded in satisfaction.

As the first customer to try it, he was quite pleased with the flavor. Glancing toward Teuchi, who was busy behind the curtain, Akio figured the man hadn't expected such a huge crowd on opening day. A long line of villagers had already formed outside the small ramen shop, which only had five seats—clearly not enough.

Over the years, Akio had sampled just about every delicacy in the Shinobi World thanks to his status. Compared to those, Ichiraku Ramen wasn't anything extraordinary, but when you factored in the price, it was unbeatable.

A large bowl of miso char siu ramen in front of him cost just 150 ryo. With Asuma's bounty, you could buy 20,000 bowls.

"Huh... Why do I keep using Asuma's head as a unit of currency? That's kind of messed up," Akio muttered. "Come to think of it, Asuma should have been born by now, right?"

As Akio looked around, the line behind him started to get noisy. People were already in a hurry, and he was clearly holding things up.

Urged by their voices, Akio blinked, then smiled and began slurping the noodles one strand at a time, visibly savoring them. He was using the Transformation Jutsu, after all—no need to worry about appearances.

Teuchi had already served the other four customers inside and stepped outside to calm the crowd. He even asked the people at the front what they'd like so he could prepare it in advance.

Akio, ever the troublemaker, turned and gave a couple of fake coughs.

"Sorry, I'm getting old. Gotta chew slowly… cough cough," he said, feigning a choking fit.

Teuchi, still all smiles, replied, "No problem at all, sir. Please take your time."

Akio continued eating slowly, thinking to himself, "What a nice guy."

From morning until noon, Akio stayed there eating. The other customers came and went in waves, and the long line outside gradually disappeared. Aside from the lack of seating, Ichiraku Ramen received rave reviews.

His noodles had gone cold and been reheated several times. Just as he was finally finishing, Teuchi's movements slowed down, clearly exhausted from making ramen all morning.

"Hmm?"

Akio sensed three familiar chakra signatures approaching.

"Boss, three bowls of ramen!" came Jiraiya's loud, boisterous voice.

Akio glanced over at the trio. They looked like they had just returned from a mission. Jiraiya was his usual carefree self, but the other two looked a bit worn out.

"Where have these three been lately?" Akio realized he hadn't been paying attention to them for the past two weeks.

With only the four of them now in the shop, Teuchi served them and finally took a break, wiping the sweat from his forehead before preparing a bowl for himself and sitting down in the remaining seat.

The three Sannin didn't recognize Akio in his transformed state and began eating without a care. Akio also turned his attention to Teuchi.

"Business is booming on the first day, huh? Looks like you'll need to hire a waiter."

Teuchi took a bite and shook his head. "There are only five seats. I can manage it myself."

Akio blinked. "You're really planning to stick with just five seats? That's not nearly enough."

Teuchi gave a wry smile. "Maybe later. Right now, I don't have the money to expand."

Akio's eyes lit up. "If expansion's off the table, why not do delivery instead?"

Teuchi looked puzzled—delivery wasn't a thing in this world. Akio began explaining the concept in detail.

"You could even hire ninja to do the deliveries," he added at the end.

"That's actually a good idea," came a raspy voice before Teuchi could respond—Orochimaru had spoken.

Akio turned back, smiling. "You think so too?"

His casual tone triggered a strange sense of familiarity in Orochimaru.

"You are…?"

"Ninja-sama, Uncle Hagoromo here owns the shop next door," Teuchi quickly interjected.

"Hagoromo?" Tsunade looked up mid-bite, slightly puzzled. The name reminded her of something from the ancient Senju texts about the Sage of Six Paths. Thankfully, she wasn't much of a reader, so it only rang a vague bell.

"Slurp…"

Only Jiraiya could make such a loud noodle-slurping noise. While Tsunade and Orochimaru were only halfway through, he had already finished his noodles and the soup.

"Boss, that was great—one more bowl!"

Teuchi got busy again. Jiraiya, meanwhile, turned to Akio.

"Hey, Uncle Hagoromo, what does your shop sell? Is it food too?" he asked curiously.

Akio paused—he hadn't actually decided what to sell. Selling food didn't really appeal to him.

"My shop..." he said after a moment, smiling, "is called the Kiboku-dō Shop. I sell wooden figurines."

The mention of wooden figurines immediately piqued the trio's interest.

Akio had just come up with the idea. Back in his previous life, there was something called anime figures, but he had never bought any. Now that he thought about it, he had Level 10 carving skills and lived in the Naruto world. Selling handcrafted figurines of famous characters sounded like a lot of fun.

His explanation intrigued the three. A few days later, they became his shop's very first customers.

Unlike Ichiraku Ramen, the sign outside Akio's shop simply read " Kiboku-dō Shop"—no one had any idea what was sold inside.

"Is that… my grandfather?" Tsunade's surprised voice rang out. Akio, being most familiar with Hashirama, naturally carved him first.

"It really looks like him…" she muttered.

Orochimaru glanced around. "Jiraiya, there's one of you too."

Jiraiya rushed over and took a look. "Ugh, the one of me doesn't look cool at all."

He muttered that and immediately started looking around again.

"Is that Uchiha Madara? And there's Grandpa Tobirama!" Tsunade continued inspecting. "There's one of Lord Hiruzen, Orochimaru, Jiraiya…"

"Hey boss, how come there are figures of me and Orochimaru, but none of Tsunade?" Jiraiya asked aloud.

Tsunade froze, realizing she hadn't seen one of herself either.

Akio gave Jiraiya a knowing look—he had expected that question.

"I only carve male characters for display. Female characters can be custom-ordered, but they must be purchased in person. Otherwise, with someone like you buying eight or ten of them, I'd be in trouble…"

Jiraiya turned bright red. Tsunade caught on a second later.

"Ji…rai…ya! Go die!!"

Akio sighed, glancing at the hole Tsunade just punched into the wall. The shop had barely opened and was already in need of repairs.

"Boss, how much for my grandfather? Uh, wait, that sounded weird…" Tsunade trailed off awkwardly.

"One million ryo per piece."

"That expensive?!"

Akio nodded with a smile. Opening the shop was just a way to kill time—he had no intention of getting tied down. So he set the price high on purpose.

"Since you're my first customers, I can offer a discount…"

A distinct aura of shrewd businessman radiated from him.

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