“I’m coming,” Ibiki agreed. He rolled his jeans up, exposing long, darkly-haired shins with enough tan to show he’d been wearing shorts at least some of the time this summer. Why he’d chosen jeans today he couldn’t really justify, except that maybe he’d been aware that Tsume would be here, and he didn’t want to look too much like a teenager in her eyes. Although he had hoped for an end to her animosity over that springtime interview, so maybe looking younger and unthreatening would have worked in his favor?

Too late now, anyway. He’d swim in the jeans if he had to, he thought, and shucked wallet and belt into the grass next to his sandals.

It was an entirely warm day, and the water looked more than inviting, with kids and dogs splashing and shrieking and yipping. Hana looked up with ripples spreading around her like a skirt and grinned at him. “Come on!”

Ibiki grinned back, stripped off his t-shirt, and loped down the river bank, stopping just at the edge. Hana looked up expectantly, and he could feel Idate’s and Kiba’s and half a dozen other childish eyes on him, with his crimson ANBU tattoo and his bare chest. The urge to show off, just a little, was irresistible. He grinned, stepped off the bank, and chakra walked across the undulating surface of the river to just beyond where Hana stood.

“Okay,” he said with a big grin. “How’s that?”