Tsunade withdrew her gaze and looked at Ryo, who was still sitting cross-legged on the floor with that expression that clearly said, "Are you done making a scene yet?"
The trace of mischief she had shown when teasing Kushina vanished instantly. The anger she had been suppressing all the way back flared up again, burning so fiercely it made her lungs ache.
She reached into her robe and pulled out a recall scroll, the same one that Danzō gave her. Pinching it between two fingers, she snapped her wrist and, smack, the scroll landed precisely in front of Ryo. It unfurled, revealing Hiruzen's unmistakable red seal.
"Impressive. You have really got some nerve now, huh?"
Tsunade folded her arms, stepped forward, and blocked the doorway completely. The killing intent rolling off her made the air in the room tense. Grinding her molars audibly, she glared daggers at him.
"Not only did you charm that little vixen Kushina until she is dizzy and dazed, you even had the guts to cause a mess this big?"
Her voice suddenly rose, carrying the rasp of exhaustion and the heat of her suppressed frustration.
"Two-thirds of the village was covered by the blast. Tens of thousands knocked out cold. The medical corps is still packed to bursting. If the ANBU had not moved fast enough to clean things up, logistics would still be drowning in the aftermath."
She took another step forward, the murderous aura honed on the Ame frontlines flooding the small room. The temperature seemed to drop several degrees.
"Do you even have a clue how much the cleanup is going to cost? We could sell you for parts and still not cover a fraction of it."
Tsunade took a deep breath, as if imagining the horrifying sum, and her anger only grew hotter.
"Because of you, that old man sent me an emergency recall order like my life depended on it. Do you know what the front lines are like right now? Without me there, without my antidote formulas, people are dying by the dozen every day. And you, you little brat, were out here playing around?"
The more she spoke, the angrier she became. She could almost see all the funding, research budgets, and medical supplies that should have gone to saving lives on the frontlines, now all pouring like a flood into this bottomless pit of a disaster.
She, who should have been out there saving lives, was instead stuck here cleaning up after this brat.
After listening to her tirade in silence, Ryo finally moved.
He tilted his head slightly, just enough to dodge the flying droplets, then raised his eyes to meet Tsunade's furious glare, calm, steady, and unreadable.
"Are you done?" he asked evenly, his tone completely devoid of panic or excuses.
That only poured fuel on the fire.
Tsunade felt the blood rush to her head.
Ryo merely reached down with two fingers, lazily picked up the recall scroll from the floor, and glanced over it as if it were some unimportant scrap of paper. His tone carried the faintest edge of mockery.
"All this, just for that?"
He looked up and met her gaze.
"That old man called you back for this?"
Before she could answer, Ryo tossed the scroll aside again, as casually as if throwing away trash.
That did it. Tsunade's temper detonated.
"Do not you dare change the subject. You are the one who made this mess."
"Who said you needed to clean up after me?" Ryo interrupted, his tone steady but unyielding.
Tsunade barked a laugh, her eye twitching with disbelief.
"Oh really? Look at you, talking big. You are just a snot-nosed brat. Even if we skinned and sold you, you could not pay off a fraction of the damage. What did you negotiate, huh? You think Hiruzen can be fooled by a few sweet words? In the end, he dumped the bill on me."
Ryo looked at her, his silver-gray eyes as deep and cold as still water. When he spoke again, his words struck like a hammer.
"I made a deal with Hiruzen."
Her tirade stopped cold. The contempt on her face faltered for a moment.
Ryo continued, each word dropping like stones into still water.
"He called you back in a hurry," he paused, his eyes gleaming with knowing coldness, "and it had nothing to do with me."
"What did you just say?" Tsunade exploded, almost leaping in anger. "Nothing to do with you? What else could it be for, then?"
But the doubt slipped in anyway. Her brows furrowed deeply, confusion and unease flickering in her eyes.
Something was not right.
That familiar, icy shiver ran down her spine, the same dread she had felt on the battlefield right before the Second Hokage's chakra flickered out forever.
Her face went pale.
Blood seemed to rush up to her head and then drain all at once, leaving her cold and trembling. An unspeakable fear rose from the depths of her heart.
Could it be, Grandma?
No. Impossible.
Mito's seal on the Nine-Tails had always been stable. Hiruzen would not, but if it was not about the family, about the village's very survival, and about her most precious relative's life and death, then why would he pull her from the front lines in the middle of a war?
It could not have been about cleaning up Ryo's mess. That was a ridiculous excuse.
Fragments of realization snapped together in her mind, forming a horrifying possibility.
Hiruzen's vague, evasive tone.
Ryo's calm, knowing demeanor, like someone who had already seen through everything.
Tsunade swayed slightly, gripping the doorframe until her knuckles turned white.
"Heh," Ryo chuckled softly, almost mocking her moment of shock.
He stood, tall and imposing in the dim light, giving her no chance to question further.
"Enough," he said flatly, voice leaving no room for argument as he strode toward the door. "It is late. Go sleep."
He stopped in front of her, leaning down slightly to look her in the eye. His cold, sharp face twisted into a teasing smirk.
"What is wrong, Tsunade," he drawled, eyes flicking over her pale, unsettled expression, "you planning to stay and sleep with me?"
That one line snapped Tsunade out of her shock. Her eyes widened in disbelief, and she gawked up at him.
"You brat. Who do you think you are talking to? Trying to hit on me?"
The shame and anger flared back to life. She pointed a trembling finger at his face, her temper rising again.
"Do you have any idea what happened to that idiot Jiraiya the last time he said something like that? He was drunk and ran his mouth, and I sent him flying out of the bathhouse and into the old crooked tree at the village gate. Hung there for three days."
She huffed, clearly intending to scare him straight.
"I am not curious," Ryo cut her off coldly. He moved suddenly, stepping forward and shoulder-checking her aside without hesitation.
The motion was abrupt and forceful. Tsunade stumbled back a half step, caught off guard.
Ryo's voice followed, calm but ringing with youthful defiance.
"I am still growing."
He rested one hand on the doorframe, half-blocking the entrance, and added dryly,
"Some irresponsible person once said staying up too late would stunt my growth."
He looked directly at her, at her pale, furious, utterly conflicted expression, and drove the final nail in, one deliberate word at a time.
"Do not. Stay. Up. Late."
Her mind blanked. Memories flooded back, that night long ago, when she had tossed him the Kage Bunshin scroll and scolded him for his late-night training.
"Kid, go get a proper night's sleep. Keep staying up like this, you will stunt your growth. Hah, when you are grown and still shorter than Kushina, we will see how your fragile pride takes it. I am doing you a favor, you know?"
Her own teasing words echoed vividly in her ears.
Now, they had come back to bite her. Hard.
Ryo glanced at her mortified, color-shifting face, pale one second, red the next, and his lips twitched ever so slightly.
"Now get out of here," he said, tone final. "You are in the way of my training."
With that, he slammed the door shut with a bang so hard the frame shuddered and dust fell from the ceiling.
"?!"
Tsunade barely dodged in time, almost getting her nose flattened.
"You brat. Open the damn door," she shouted, furious, kicking it hard enough to shake the walls, but the chakra-reinforced door did not budge.
Inside, silence.
Only moonlight answered her through the window.
She smacked the door a few more times until her palms stung, then stopped, realizing it was pointless. Her grandmother was asleep, and Nawaki would wake up if she kept yelling. She could only grind her teeth, curse under her breath, and storm off down the corridor, her footsteps heavy and echoing against the stone floor.
The house fell silent again.
Inside the room, Ryo leaned against the cold door for a few moments, listening until her footsteps faded away. Then he turned back, sat down on his bedding, and exhaled slowly.
His silver-gray eyes reflected the moonlight, calm and deep.
He closed them again, sinking into meditation.
His vast chakra surged through his body like a silver current. In his mind, the intricate patterns of space-time jutsu unfolded, lines of chakra flow, formulae, and seals continuously being formed, broken, and reconstructed.
A Kage Bunshin silently dissolved beside him, reforming anew.
(To be continued.)