Chapter Eighty-Nine: Once More?

At a corner of the commercial district in the Hidden Leaf Village stood Kikkawa Tavern, while the night beyond was deep and dark.

Katoyofuu and Tsunade were dining inside, not drinking at all, only there to fill their stomachs.

Tonight Tsunade had done nothing but gamble away the hours and had barely eaten a thing.

It was already getting late, and most of the restaurants in the village had passed their evening rush and were preparing to close.

Katoyofuu had no choice but to bring Tsunade to the familiar Madam Kikkawa’s place to get something to eat.

After they left the casino, under Katoyofuu’s relentless questioning, Tsunade finally admitted the truth: over these past few days, while he had been away from the village, she had gone wild with no one to restrain her.

Katoyofuu had been gone from the Hidden Leaf for four days. Aside from the first day, when Tsunade had been relatively obedient and not gone to the casino, she had gone there every day after that.

Knowing he would soon be returning, Tsunade had specially taken advantage of a quiet afternoon at the hospital, slipped out early, and headed to the casino intent on playing to her heart’s content.

In the end, joy turned to sorrow, and Katoyofuu caught her red-handed.

“Slow down. No one’s going to snatch it from you.”

Katoyofuu had already finished his own dinner and sat at the table watching Tsunade on the opposite side gorge herself without a care for her dignity.

“Tsunade, you’re such a foodie, and the moment you get carried away you forget to eat. You really are something else!”

“All right, all right, I was wrong, okay? Let me finish eating first, then you can lecture me.”

While chewing, Tsunade answered him, her tone clearly showing she had no desire to hear any more about her gambling.

“Don’t keep bringing it up. I’ve already admitted my mistake. Tell me about your trip instead—did it go smoothly?”

Katoyofuu thought of the way Tsunade had just now pouted and apologized to him, and in the end he could not bear to keep scolding her.

Following her lead, he began to describe his journey in detail.

“The special antidote you prepared for me before I left worked very well. It was a huge help in the Land of Wind, especially against those puppeteers...”

“The weather in the Land of Rain is still as awful as ever...”

“My final destination was the Land of Earth. I wasn’t as lucky there as I was the first two days. There were two A-rank missions... and that cost me an extra day...”

“...That guy Sakumo has been married for more than half a year now, and he’s still that strange, withdrawn old self. I wonder if having a child will make his personality improve even a little...”

As Tsunade listened to the details of Katoyofuu’s recent outings, she smoothly finished her dinner. Whenever a subject caught her interest, she would occasionally cut in and make him explain in greater detail.

A little later, Katoyofuu and Tsunade said their farewells to the warmhearted Madam Kikkawa. After leaving the tavern, Katoyofuu escorted Tsunade home.

And, incidentally, he was also hoping to take advantage of the fact that Tsunade had erred today and was in a softer mood to see whether he could shamelessly linger at her house...

Earlier, in the casino, Tsunade had licked his earlobe, and Katoyofuu felt that the two of them ought to practice that a few more times to improve his own resistance. He could not keep having his body react with a faint hardening every time.

As a proper Hidden Leaf jonin, his bodily control on that point was rather substandard.

Or perhaps Katoyofuu could lick Tsunade’s earlobe instead... that would work too...

Walking ahead of him, Tsunade had no idea what bizarre things the man behind her was thinking.

...

“Hey, Katoyofuu, you said at the casino that you brought me a present. What is it?”

Walking in front, Tsunade turned and took his hand, asking about the gift he had mentioned earlier.

“On this trip I brought you two gifts: perfume distilled from plants unique to the Land of Rain, and a small carved figurine made from a specialty mineral of the Land of Wind.”

“I personally really like that pair of figurines. I’m sure you’ll like them too.”

“Here. Right here.”

As he spoke, Katoyofuu reached into his pouch and took out the perfume and the pair of figurines.

Tsunade was first drawn to the perfume, whose color was a brighter purple-pink; after that, her attention shifted to the adorable figurines.

The pair was small enough that Tsunade could easily hold both in one hand, and the colors were not especially bright. They had been carved from a kind of mineral Tsunade did not recognize.

What immediately captured her attention was the figures’ appearance and posture. They were none other than Katoyofuu and Tsunade themselves; the two figurines together perfectly recreated the image of Tsunade kissing Katoyofuu’s brow in front of the Hidden Leaf gate a few days earlier.

Delicate and exquisite, clear and translucent, the pair of figurines displayed the artisan’s superb skill in every feature, every expression, every pose.

From these obviously custom-made figurines, specially commissioned by Katoyofuu, Tsunade could see how much care he had put into choosing her gift.

The pair struck straight at the romantic heart of the girl within her.

“How cute!”

Tsunade cupped the figurines in both hands and lifted them to her chest to examine them closely.

“This one with the twin tails is me, and this one with the tilted body is you.”

“Cute, right? A craftsman from the Land of Wind carved them from my description. Do you like them?”

“I do like them, but was my expression really that fierce that day?”

“Katoyofuu, look at my figurine—she’s even glaring.”

“Tsunade, you need to have some sense of how fierce you actually are! That day you were grabbing my collar and nearly pulled me off my feet. Look, even my figurine is leaning over.”

Katoyofuu casually teased her about her exact movements that day, and while speaking he imitated Tsunade’s posture and expression.

“Honestly, this idiot. All that effort on such a thoughtful gift, and it’s wasted on him. Ah, ah, ah—my newly melting romantic heart... this idiot!”

Watching him imitate her gestures and expression, Tsunade carefully put the figurines away in the pocket of her robe.

Then she reached out with her right hand and seized Katoyofuu by the collar, reproducing the same action as before.

Her left hand was not idle either. She lifted it in front of his chest, spread her fingers, clenched her fist, spread them again, clenched again, repeating the motion four or five times...

“Oh? So you don’t think you can imitate me, is that it...?”

“Uh... artistic refinement in literary works, artistic refinement...”

“Tsunade, let’s talk this through properly. Calm down... calm down. Look at this perfume in my hand—supposedly it’s extracted from a plant that grows alongside the giant salamanders in the Land of Rain.”

“That plant is extremely rare and precious, and the perfume extracted from it smells very nice. Would you like to try it, Tsunade?”

“Tsunade? Princess? Calm down... ah...”

A moment later, a scream echoed through the streets of the Hidden Leaf.

...