Sakura's body became stiff. She refused to either sit down or walk. She just lowered her head and immersed herself in her own world. She herself didn't know whether she was comforting herself or numbing some kind of cognition.
Just when Satoru felt that he was too cruel and wanted to change his answer with a milder statement, Sakura raised her head.
There were tears in her eyes, but there was a smile on the corner of her mouth, but that smile could make people feel more distressed.
Satoru frowned.
She said, "Sensei, are you telling me this to make me accept the reality?"
"I'm not asking you to accept the reality, I just want to tell you what should be said. Sakura, you can be willful because you are still young, but I am an adult, and I cannot make mistakes with you."
Satoru stretched out his hand, trying to touch Sakura's head like before, but she turned her head away, and avoided it.
She was angry, but Satoru naturally couldn't be angry with her, so he could only take back his hand and said, "I hope you can think about it carefully."
Satoru decided to give her the space inside his home to let her calm down.
As soon as he got to the door, Satoru heard her say, "If I could, I wish I hadn't come today."
"Yeah." Satoru said without looking back, "Learning about self-deception is also one of the ways to grow up."
When the door was closed, Sakura stomped her feet angrily.
No matter what she said, she felt that it was as if she had punched cotton with her fists. She tried so hard but she couldn't even cause any fluctuations in his emotions.
An indescribable sense of frustration hung over Sakura, and she didn't know what was going on with her anymore.
Self-deception?
No! She couldn't go back on it.
So some thoughts came to Sakura's mind.
…
This day, when Satoru heard several children near the school chatting with each other with candy apples.
Originally, he didn't like to eavesdrop on people, but after he heard a sentence, he stopped unconsciously.
"Hey! Have you heard? There are ghosts in the school!"
'Ghost?'
'Are there ghosts these days?'
While it was undeniable that these things might actually exist, but how would these children know about them?
"I've heard of it, but I haven't seen it with my own eyes. What's going on, what version of it did you hear?"
"What I heard was that a child died by jumping off a building at school, and his grievances lingered in this school and he became a ghost."
"Tch, when did someone jump off a building in our Konoha School, it's just these two floors, so how could someone die jumping off from here?"
"What I heard was that a female teacher died while performing a task, and her soul was trapped in the place where her deepest resentment was. If we are not obedient, maybe that teacher will come out to educate us!"
"Wahh, it's so scary! Don't tell me anymore I'm getting scared!"
"Tch, some parent must have made it up to deceive their children who don't like to study? I don't believe these words!"
Hearing this, Satoru had lost interest.
As long as there were different versions of a single "ghost", it meant that none of them was real.
He won't believe unless all the clues point to one particular direction.
"Satoru-sensei!"
After seeing Satoru, a kid came holding a candy apple.
"Sensei, can you help me catch the ghost?"
Hearing this, other children also came and surrounded him one after another.
Being hugged by several children on the thigh, Satoru was a little dumbfounded.
"Children, catching ghosts is not my job."
"But you are so powerful, as long as you go and see, that ghost will definitely not dare to come out!"
"Okay, okay, I will do it when I'm free."
Satoru took a lot of effort to coax these children away. Initially he thought he would fool around and wait a few days for the children to forget.
But unexpectedly, an accident came very quickly.
The next day, word spread throughout Konoha village that a child had died at school late at night.
It was said that the child fell down in the middle of the classroom, bleeding from all seven orifices, his eyeballs had turned white, and the word "death" was engraved on his chest by piercing his own skin.
The medical department had taken away the body, and the parents of the student knelt in the school and cried for more than an hour, but no one could give them an explanation, so they blocked Tsunade who had just returned from drinking at the nightclub.
The grief-stricken parents were crying so much that they couldn't even choose words that they could to say. When Satoru reached the place, the father grabbed Tsunade by the collar and said, "You are the Hokage, but you are drinking and gambling every day. There is such a big problem in the village. You are to blame for everything!"
Tsunade knew she was wrongly blamed but she understood the other party's emotion well, so she didn't fight back or made a sound and let the parents vent their anger silently.
Satoru walked over, pulled the father away gently but resolutely, held Tsunade behind him and said, "I understand your feelings, but please don't get too excited, it might affect your own health."
Seeing Satoru coming, Tsunade's eyes suddenly lit up.
'Satoru!'
"You go back to the office first, I'll take care of this matter."
"But, they..."
"Don't worry, go back to the office to sober up and wait for me to find you."
Under the determined gaze of Satoru, Tsunade had no choice but to leave.
"Hey! You are not allowed to go!"
The father wanted to rush up to pull her back, but he was blocked by Satoru's body.
"Please mind your behavior, you can talk to me if you have something to say."
"What are you? So what if you are strong, but you are no official in the village, what can you tell me! Aren't you just the Hokage's kept-man!?"
As soon as this remark came out, everyone around fell silent, and even Tsunade, who had walked a few steps, couldn't help turning her head and frowning.
Just now, no matter how that person treated her, Tsunade was not annoyed, but when it came to Satoru, she started to feel that it was too much.
Satoru was powerful, and precisely because of his special status, no one accurately knows how much he had contributed to the village. In order to eliminate some of the unwarranted-doubts of the outside world, he never asked for any official position.
Unexpectedly, it turned out to be a point for others to slander him.
"Mr. Sato, please don't say anything else."
"Aren't I right?! Isn't he your kept-man?! Do you really think he loves you? He's just coveting the power of Hokage…"
Before he finished speaking, Tsunade had rushed over.
"Ah!"
Sato started to regret it the moment Tsunade came over.
What he said was indeed too much, but it was only a momentary impulse, but if had to bear the consequences of those words, the price would be undoubtedly big.
*Snap*
The palm did not touched Sato's body, but was grabbed by a strong hand instead.
Tsunade looked up in astonishment, it turned out to be Satoru.
Her heart was beating like thunder.
This extinguished all her anger, and after she calmed down, she began to feel scared.
If Satoru hadn't stood in her way, she might have done something irreversible by now.
*****
Support me on my Ko-fi page to keep me motivated to continue uploading chapters.
https://ko fi.com/rroy28 (put a "-" between "ko" and "fi")
I have added Uncensored NSFW Illustrations in my Discord server, available only to paid members.
I am working on the following projects:
✓ Killed For 100 Years in Hueco Mundo, Aizen Invited Me To Soul Society!
✓ Naruto: Senmei Asahi
✓ Naruto: Uchiha's Intelligence Dealer
✓ Naruto: The Fifth Hokage Is Naruto's Uncle
✓ Naruto: Who Made Him a Ninja?
✓ Bleach: In My Second Reincarnation, I Became The Ninth Kenpachi
✓ To Love-Ru: Spoiler Route [R-18]
✓ Naruto: The Accidental Incubus [R-18]