[Naruto] All My Guests Are Dangerous People

Also known as "I Sell Oden in Konoha"

Asao Rio, the pale girl from Konoha's Oden Shop, has a forbidden technique called "All Things in the Universe" dwelling within her.

It can grant any wish: heal wounds, nullify ninjutsu, even resurrect the dead. But the price is "rainbow dissolution": each time she uses it, her body becomes a little more transparent, evaporating from her fingertips until she is erased from the world entirely, with no one remembering she ever existed.

With fragments of modern memories, she watches Naruto Uzumaki, too poor to buy more than half a serving of daikon, and Sasuke Uchiha, practicing Shuriken by the river until both his hands bleed. She knows the blond boy will one day become Hokage, and she knows the black-haired prodigy will lose his entire clan tonight.

But she doesn't dare save them.

Because changing the night of the massacre would cost her complete erasure; because saving that white-haired teacher would make her forget who she is.

"Don't look at me." She always lowers her eyes as she offers a kelp roll, her voice fainter than the steam rising from the soup. "I'm just an ordinary person who's about to disappear."

Until the boy who is always so passionate sees the transparent fingertips beneath her gloves and stubbornly grabs her wrist. "Then don't disappear. I'll protect you."

Until the prodigy burdened by a blood feud stares at her coldly. "The way you look at me, it's like you're looking at a dead man. But you're trembling. You want to save me, don't you?"

Only then does Rio realize that while she thought she was coldly waiting for the end, the bonds she was afraid to touch had already become the last ropes anchoring her to this world.

This is the story of an onlooker who knows everyone's bad-ending script but doesn't dare spoil it, and who ultimately chooses to hold on to herself in order to keep those who are destined to die.

Reader's Note:

• The heroine is the second Host of Shinra Bansho from Nabari no Ou, Haseyo. The price is the rainbow dissolution of her life force, memories, and existence. This is not a wish-fulfillment story, and it blends angst with sweetness.

• Two storylines run in parallel: healing everyday moments as she offers daikon to the future Hokage, versus the suffocating helplessness of watching the future avenger descend into the abyss.

• At first, she is a bystander who indifferently waits to die. Later, she becomes someone who fights for her bonds. The ending is happy, but there is heartbreak along the way.

• No System, no golden finger, only the cruel equivalent exchange of "trading your existence for a wish."

Theme: 1