Kushina's laughter broke into a cough halfway through.
She reached for the lemonade again and remembered, a beat too late, that she had already drained it. She turned the empty glass in her hands anyway, listening to the last piece of ice slide and tap the side.
"They really did lose it." She said, still grinning. "Old men and their pride."
Minato didn't react to the insult. He just held his tea like it was a small weight he preferred over nothing.
"The Hokage is trying to mediate." He said.
"Yeah, yeah." Kushina waved a hand. "The old man sat there with his pipe and let me talk. The elders kept looking at him like he'd gone soft."
Rimuru rested his elbow on the counter, relaxed in a way that wasn't lazy. His empty bowl had been moved aside. "You didn't get dragged straight into a cell, so that's already a win in my book."
Kushina's grin sharpened. "They tried to dress it up, though. Calling it 'Protective custody' like it will make it any softer."
Rin's eyebrows lifted. "They wanted to lock you up?"
Kushina glanced at the girl and softened without trying. "Not like with chains. Just… a room with guards who smile too much?"
Minato's eyes lowered briefly. "I agree it would have been a mistake."
"It would have been a problem." Claire corrected, simple and direct.
Her eyes then drifted towards Ludwig who walked closer to the bar with two plates in hands.
"Right." Ludwig answered as he put one plate in front of Kushina while he put the other one in front of Cless. "For the big fox inside you and for Hedwig."
Kushina took the plate before it disappeared, maybe into her inner world. Meanwhile, the little fox with ever-changing colour hopped onto the table and started digging into the plate like a hungry vulture.
"We have an agreement and they know the cost of breaching it." Ludwig put his hands on the counter. "If they went through with their plans, the council elders of yours, and maybe even Hiruzen will forfeit their life."
Ludwig kept his palms on the counter, fingers spread as if he was steadying the wood, not the room. The words had left his mouth in plain manner, like it was a note on a prep list. But no lies were uttered, Ludwig meant every word of it.
"Yeah, Lud is right." Claire added. "The agreement is the first agreement this restaurant ever signed, unless you need to sign something to open your restaurant?" Claire looked at Ludwig before getting a chuckle and a wave from him. "What I'm trying to say is, if the first agreement is breached and we didn't enforce the penalty strongly enough, it will become a precedent. We will be in a weaker position next time."
Kushina looked at Claire and blinked twice. In the meantime, Minato and the family from abandoned Earth just looked at the table like it had something interesting on it.
Thankfully, the silence only lingered for a few heartbeats.
"Well, at least no one died yet." Rimuru chuckled. "Kushina is here too, Minato as well. We can treat that as a win, no?"
Rimuru's chuckle hung in the air for a moment, light on purpose. It did not instantly fix anything. It just gave everyone a place to set their eyes that was not the agreement, not the elders, not the word forfeit.
Kushina snorted. "Yeah fine. What a low bar. Nobody died and we are happy."
Minato's mouth twitched, almost a smile, but he kept it in check. "Given what happened last week, it really is a win. For Konoha at least."
Claire exhaled through her nose and finally looked down at her bowl like it deserved attention again. Cless did the same, though she did it with the slow dignity of someone who had just been forced to admit the adults were talking about adult things.
At the edge of the counter, Hedwig made a sound that was half whine, half victory, and shoved her muzzle deeper into her plate. The fox did not care about precedent. She cared about meat.
Ludwig's hands stayed on the counter for another heartbeat. Then he took them off, reached for the towel, and wiped a spot that was already clean. Not to make it cleaner. To let his hands do something that was not violence.
Tsumugi and Momo did not speak. They watched the adults the way kids watched the weather. Not to understand the science, only to know whether it would rain on them.
Cless cleared her throat at that moment before glancing at Hedwig, then at Ludwig. "She is going to choke one day."
Hedwig lifted her head, offended, fur flashing gray. She chewed slower. It was a performance.
Claire's eyes flicked once toward Hedwig. "Do not encourage her."
"I didn't." Cless said, and then, after a pause, added, "I was warning you."
Rimuru leaned back slightly, the tension draining out of his posture like water leaving a cracked cup. He looked toward Ludwig. "See. Normal problems. Foxes with no table manners."
Ludwig's expression stayed neutral, but his voice carried the faint dry edge that meant the room was allowed to breathe again. "If she learns manners, I'll worry."
For a few minutes, the conversation thinned into the eating sounds of Hedwig and the gentle clinks of utensils. The kitchen returned to its usual pace. Bilo moved quietly behind the counter. Finka wiped down a board, then set it back with the calm precision of someone refusing to let the room tilt.
Then Kushina's eyes wandered. They drifted off the plates and bowls, past the separator and at the kitchen.
Then, she wiped her fingers and leaned a little toward Ludwig.
"Lud." She said, tone casual in the way only someone with zero shame could manage. "That… limb thing. The regrower potion."
Rimuru's gaze sharpened again. Claire's expression didn't change, but everyone instatnly knew she became attentive again.
Kushina pointed with her thumb, vague. "I heard about it. Not like, details. But the Old Man is already talking to old shinobi. The ones who retired. Asking if they're willing to come back."
She shrugged, like it was just another village rumor, like she hadn't noticed what it meant. "So I thought. You know. You'll probably get busy soon."
Minato's eyes closed briefly at her words.
Then, as if he knew it was now his mess to deal with, he opened his eyes with renewed vigor. "The Hokage has indeed talked with those who can no longer fight due to losing their limbs. But we have not said anything about the potions, just saying we might have a solution for that."
Rimuru nodded, maybe he understood something. But it's not him who spoke next. "Seems like you are in need of combatants. Just how close is the war from happening?"
Minato looked at Claire before his face twitched. He seemed to be weighing whether to tell them the truth or not. But it only lasted a fraction of a second. "It's too close for our comfort. Every elemental nation is already moving."
Claire let out a hum before passing her glass to Ludwig. "Whiskey, please."
"Just don't forget to remind your Hokage that the treatment will be carried here." She said as she looked at Minato.
"We will never forget that." Minato nodded.
As the heavy part of the conversation finally came to an end, Aoki who had been silent for the most part of it finally opened his mouth.
"May I ask a question?" Aoki said.
Ludwig's eyes landed on the father of the three daughters, then a smirk appeared on his face. He knew full well what he would ask next.
"Sure." Claire nodded.
Aoki's gaze stayed steady. "In my world, no medicine could regrow the arms and legs of humans. Even animals. We can repair it. We can turn it into a scar. In some rare cases, a fingertip can regrow partially. But not an entire limb."
Rin had stopped listening at 'In my world" and was now busy trying to get Hedwig to sit without bribery. Hedwig refused on principle. Cless was fully occupied with looking offended on Hedwig's behalf.
Aoki kept going anyway. "So if a potion regrows limbs, it isn't normal healing made stronger. It's a different category. It has to reintroduce instructions. Patterning. Growth control. Nerve mapping. Vascularization. And it has to stop at the right time."
He paused, then added, careful. "What does it do and how…"
Ludwig didn't answer right away. He let the question sit, not to be dramatic, but because questions like that had a habit of turning into requests. Requests turned into expectations. Expectations turned into men showing up with polite smiles and bad intentions.
Well, not like Aoki would have anyone to heal beside his daughters.
"You're still thinking with Earth's way of thinking." Ludwig said. "Which is fine. It's just not the correct way."
Aoki's gaze stayed steady. "Then what is?"
"Mana." Ludwig said.
Kushina didn't blink at the word. She'd heard it often enough here that it barely counted as a new subject. If anything, she looked mildly annoyed that the conversation was returning to something complicated.
Rimuru's mouth curved. Claire's expression stayed flat. Minato remained still, listening.
Aoki nodded slowly. "Mana again… Let me guess, the potion uses mana as energy?"
"Yes. But not only that." Ludwig corrected, "The potion also used mana as access."
Aoki's brow tightened, just a fraction. "Access to what?"
Ludwig leaned his forearms on the counter, posture loose now. The room had already started to drift back toward ordinary. Hedwig chewed, tail flicking. Cless watched her with suspicion so intense it counted as supervision. Rin, more interested in the fox than the adults, slid off her stool and started trying to make Hedwig sit without bribery. Hedwig refused on principle. Then sat when Rin looked away, just to prove she could.
Ludwig kept his eyes on Aoki.
"Bodies aren't just meat." He said. "They're networks. In my world at least, every body has mana pathways. Some are thick. Some are thin. Some are so clogged you'd swear they don't exist until someone forces them open."
Minato's fingers brushed the rim of his tea cup once. That part, at least, translated cleanly into chakra logic.
Aoki's attention sharpened. "So the potion is using existing pathways as a scaffold."
"Yes." Ludwig said. "It can't rebuild into a void. It needs a route. The potion floods the pathways, pushes them into overdrive, and uses them to carry the reconstruction state through the wound. That's the trick. Not 'more healing.' Not wishful thinking."
Kushina tore off another piece of meat and chewed, then waved her chopsticks vaguely, mouth full. "So it's like… the body already has roads, and the potion sends a ton of people to it."
Ludwig looked at her. "That is the least offensive metaphor you've used today."
Kushina grinned, pleased with herself.
Aoki didn't smile. He was already moving to the sharp part. "If it rides the existing pathways, then the stop condition matters even more. If it doesn't stop, it will keep pushing."
"You are wrong on that one." Ludwig smiled. "Mana is… smart. It knows when to stop. At least, it knows because the path closes. And if you think it didn't make any sense… Well, shooting fire or crossing through the void also didn't make any sense."
Aoki looked at Ludwig for a second before he sighed. "Right… Magic, not science…"
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