Chương 46: Salty apple
POV Tsunade
POV Tsunade
It can't be. I refuse to believe what I'm reading, but the evidence is detailed right in front of my eyes, and these records in my hands are impossible to fake, thanks to some small measures invented by Tobirama. At first, the deaths I saw made sense, a bit of bad luck, and a mission that was mistakenly classified as C but turned out to be B—it's uncommon but possible at the end of the day. But as I went through the next and the next, a pattern emerged.
A simple escort mission ending with all clan members dead, but the merchants and goods mysteriously arriving intact at their destination, as if they were never the real target from the beginning. An assassination mission for a target in a remote location that turns out to be an ambush by ninjas from another village. Patrols with leaked routes, spies whose identity was accidentally revealed, cases where a squad is attacked, and only the Senju clan member dies, and so on. Not only were there too many mistakes to be considered mere coincidences, but I was even more alarmed by the number of times these same mistakes repeated themselves without drawing any attention from the clan.
If this wasn't a conspiracy to eliminate my people, then what was it? Did the village my grandfather founded turn against us to eliminate us? No, according to the information from Enel, it was those people. And according to the data, everything seemed to accelerate after my grandmother's death. So, what was on my grandfather's grave...
I don't care about the eyes that are watching me. I run to the clan cemetery and check the seals on several members' graves, including my grandfather's and his brother's. I need to see if they really had the nerve to desecrate the dead of my clan.
Broken.
The secret security seals are all broken?
How did I not feel it?
The seals should have alerted me even if I were on the other side of the world! The only people who have knowledge of the seals used are me, my grandmother, and... Tobirama's disciples. Danzo and Hiruzen.
The realization and understanding hit me so hard that I suddenly feel unreal. Strange, I don't feel angry. I thought I'd go crazy if everything was real, but what I feel is more like... a void in my heart. Perhaps I knew that these people would be capable of it, but seeing that it's real, realizing that they really DARED to do it... it disappoints me. Disappointment? No, it's not that simple. It's more like... as if...
As if I no longer feel anything for this place.
I kept telling myself that I loved the village my grandfather founded, I felt it, but...
This isn't the village my grandfather founded; it feels completely unfamiliar. Even the faces carved on the Hokage Rock exude an aura of strangeness, as if they weren't the ones I saw almost every day during my life since I was a child.
...
Looking back, it doesn't seem like I left anything behind to stay in this village. Sure, I have the scrolls in the clan complex and the members of my family in the clan cemetery, but... it's not like I can't take them with me. The ones that are left, at least.
But I don't have anywhere to go. Maybe that's why...
Wait.
"I would like you to join my village. But considering your love for the village your grandfather founded, I know that wouldn't be possible. How about you leave it as if you owe me a favor and I'll use it when you become Hokage?"
"Enel extended an invitation to me..." I murmured as I ran my hand through my hair. He seemed sincere... but I know nothing about his village, except that it was founded recently.
But that might actually be a good thing from many perspectives. Haku seemed happy, much happier than I've seen the genin from my... from this place.
Take a deep breath, Tsunade, suppress your emotions outwardly, focus, and... go back to Enel. I need to talk to my new friend. Perhaps the only one I truly have right now.
I leave the cemetery, and now that I've calmed down, I realize that the repression seals at the boundary are still intact. It would be more accurate to say they were broken and then put back. I can tell, so what I did in the cemetery wasn't seen by anyone. Not even Hiruzen's crystal ball can observe anything inside the clan complex.
When I return to the clan complex, I see Enel lazily leaning on one of the wooden beams while eating an apple. He's sitting on the edge, swinging his legs, enjoying the air without hurry or anxiety. For some reason, just seeing him makes me relax.
"Hey," I call to him, and he looks at me. "Give me one of those apples," I ask.
Eating something sweet might help me stabilize my mind. If I were to drink alcohol, I'd probably do something truly foolish and regrettable.
"Sure," he tosses me another apple seemingly out of thin air.
How in the world does he do that? Is it some kind of space-time ninjutsu? Oh, right, he doesn't even have chakra pathways. Yet he founded his own ninja village...
I bite into the apple in my hand with force and start laughing, but I feel something warm trickling down my cheeks. It's the first time I've tasted an apple with a salty aftertaste.
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I know that many people have the idea that Tsunade has a very short fuse when it comes to anger, but in my opinion, her other emotions also influence her greatly, and her aggressiveness is just one facet of her personality, not the whole thing.
So instead of the tantrum that anyone would be able to write and would be incredibly predictable, I preferred a wake-up call for her that could give us more room for unexpected consequences.
Do you agree, or do you think she would have been carried away by anger?
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