Chapter 68: Pervert! Drop Dead!
Steam rose in lazy curls over the water's surface. Droplets traced slow paths down pale skin. The warm spring water and the drifting mist together created the kind of scene that painters liked and moralists didn't, and a woman named Meiling was currently mostly submerged up to her chin, blowing bubbles, looking troubled.
"Ari," she murmured to her companion, "that kid has been up in that tree for a while now. It's a little weird."
She pointed.
Her companion — Ari — followed the gesture. There was indeed a tree outside the bathhouse wall, its upper branches conveniently clearing the fence. Draped across one of those branches, hands folded behind her head, a sprig of grass hanging from the corner of her mouth, was a small pink-haired girl with the relaxed posture of someone who had absolutely nowhere else to be.
"Oh, don't worry about it." Ari's smile turned impish. "Meiling, you're just that distracting — let me feel, I swear they've gotten bigger—"
"Ah! What is wrong with you—"
Water splashed. Meiling shrieked and scrambled to protect herself. Her friend's reach was relentless.
Up in the tree, Sakura observed this with perfect serenity.
Women, she thought, with the detachment of a thirty-something man in a twelve-year-old's body. Nothing. I feel nothing.
Honestly it was just bones wearing a surface. Pink bones in this case, but still.
...Though she had to admit, that Meiling woman was impressive. Almost Tsunade-tier, and that was not a comparison she made lightly.
She'd been staking out bathhouses across Konoha for a week now. She hadn't bothered hiding — just perched openly, watching. The benefit of being a girl was that no one had chased her off. A few of the more gregarious women inside had even called up invitations to come join. She'd declined every time.
If I'm in the pool when he shows up, I'm basically doing his job for him. Pass.
She also had a pretty good read on her own measurements and didn't need anyone else's opinions.
Hmm.
The corner of her eye caught a rustling in the shrubbery near the bathhouse wall.
She looked.
A tall figure, white-haired, dressed in earthy red-brown with a massive scroll at his back, was pressed into the undergrowth with the specific posture of a man who thought he was being subtle. His eye was against a gap in the fence. He was smiling in a way that should have been illegal.
Sakura stared at him.
...This man really never caught Tsunade, huh. Look at him.
She had a dead boyfriend with standards. And still she chose him over this.
Some losses you earn.
She took a breath. Looked at the women in the water. Cupped her hands around her mouth.
"THERE'S A PEEPER OUT HERE!"
"SOMEONE GRAB THIS CREEP!"
The bathhouse erupted. Shrieking, splashing, the thunderous sound of multiple women making for the changing room at speed. The surface of the spring sloshed.
The figure in the bushes turned his head toward Sakura with the stiffness of a man who has just realized that his afternoon has gone in a direction he didn't plan for.
"YOU LITTLE—"
"YOU—"
Jiraiya emerged from the shrubbery, visibly agitated, pointing at the girl in the tree.
Sakura dropped from the branch and landed in front of him without backing up an inch.
Jiraiya looked down at her. His gaze dropped briefly. An expression of theatrical mournfulness crossed his face.
"Kid, you're going to need a lot of formula."
"...Huh?"
It took Sakura a half-second. She followed his eyes. Looked back up. The vein on her forehead was throbbing.
He knows exactly who I am. He knows I'm the old man's disciple. He came here deliberately. And his opening move is this.
Her fist felt very firm at the end of her arm.
"PERVERT. DROP. DEAD."
The punch was a sound before it was anything else — a crack of displaced air — and then the large, decorated, internationally famous Sannin was airborne. He traveled a respectable distance and landed in the river with a sound like a small building collapsing, sending a wave up both banks.
WHAT—
What is she?!
Old man — when you trained Tsunade, when you trained Orochimaru — did you just quietly hold back an entire dimension of your knowledge and save it for the absolute last one?!
He got one foot under himself in the shallows. The other foot found a rock. He registered that something wet had landed in his mouth, spat it out, and found himself staring at a frog that seemed equally surprised by recent events.
He stood up.
The girl was on the stone railing of the bridge, arms crossed, looking down at him with an expression that said she had a verdict and it wasn't in his favor.
"So that's what a senior looks like." She tilted her head. "Can't even take one punch. You're way below Orochimaru's level."
Jiraiya stood in the river and stared at her.
She already knows who I am.
I already know who she is.
So that punch was just... for the comment about formula.
He absorbed this. He looked at his current situation — soaking wet, standing in a river, frog on the ground beside him — and then looked back at her.
She didn't use full strength. He could tell the difference between Tsunade's full strength and Tsunade's measured strength, and that had been measured.
...Though she mentioned Orochimaru.
...For the purposes of running-away speed, Orochimaru really does have the edge. That's just objective. He'd been chasing that snake for years and hadn't caught him once.
He sighed, and the sigh had layers.
"Alright," he said. "Fair enough."
(End of Chapter 68)