Chapter Ninety-Two: The Eye of the Lazy Fish

Kato Mikaze stood before the mirror in his own home, staring at his reflection for quite some time now, and the more he looked, the more he felt that something was different from before.

His brows were still his brows, his eyes still his eyes, sharp and vivid; and there was also that handsome, angular face of his, along with his signature fresh, elegant short hair in a pale blue shade.

To say it without shame, the man in the mirror was a towering, polished, devastatingly handsome fellow, and that would not be an exaggeration at all.

And yet Kato Mikaze had been staring for so long that he could not shake the feeling that his bearing was somehow unlike his former self. The problem lay in those eyes.

Not because Kato Mikaze’s eyes had suddenly mutated into some strange white eyes, or a Sharingan, let alone a Rinnegan. Those eyes were far too distinctive; he would have recognized them at a glance.

His eyes had not changed much. It was the expression within them that had changed. Through the look in those eyes, the feeling he gave off was different.

That expression gave the Kato Mikaze before the mirror a strangely familiar sensation, as though he had only just seen it not long ago.

That faint, alien sense of familiarity was maddening; the answer was clearly right there on the tip of his tongue, and yet he could not quite recall it.

By now, the sunlight outside the doorway had shifted to the direct angle of noon, blazing bright and fierce, roasting the birds in the trees outside. Even their chirping no longer sounded as lively as before.

“Chirp... chirp... chirp...” The birds now sounded even more languid than they had a moment ago.

Languid...! Damn it! It’s the slacker clone!

Realizing at last what had changed in his gaze, Kato Mikaze swiftly formed hand seals before the mirror and began to circulate chakra within his body.

Mystic Shadow Slacker Clone Technique!

The brand-new secret clone technique he had just learned was unleashed, and a slacker clone identical to Kato Mikaze in appearance stood beside him before the mirror.

Kato Mikaze carefully looked at the clone’s eyes, then turned to compare the two reflections in the mirror. The clone did the same, examining the difference in their gazes.

The same lazy look, and even the clone’s eyes carried an even stronger air of languor.

What is this supposed to be? Slacker’s eyes? I only spent the whole morning loafing around and lying there like a fish, didn’t I?

The newly learned secret technique is called the Mystic Shadow Slacker Clone Technique, and what it creates is a slacker clone. It makes sense that it would have such a slothful expression, but for it to affect the original’s eyes...

“Haah!”

Kato Mikaze let out a long sigh before the mirror, feeling as though his entire being had collapsed.

Then he thought again about the whole morning he had spent sprawled on his bed, basking in the comfort and leisure of doing nothing.

So satisfying. Being a slacker is wonderful! ...So this is the power of the God of Laziness?

At last, Kato Mikaze accepted that he had come under the influence of the God of Laziness, and that his gaze had begun to turn into the eyes of a slacker.

“Fine, slacker’s eyes it is... As long as I’m still a handsome devil, that’s enough.”

He gave the mirror one last look at the two identical, stunning reflections, then dispelled the slacker clone.

After that, he turned and left his room, heading for the Hidden Leaf Hospital to find Tsunade. By the look of the sky, if he waited any longer, Tsunade probably would not wait for him.

Tsunade likes gambling. Now that his eyes had become the languid eyes of a slacker, perhaps in that regard he could finally keep pace with her.

He also liked taking baths in his spare time, and with these slacker eyes now, should he consider catching a fish to serve as his summoning beast? What about a salamander from the Land of Rain? It seemed a little ugly.

...Did the shinobi world even have a species called a slacker fish? Or should he use his spirit nurturing arts to breed an impressive one?

Having accepted the reality that he had become a fish-eyed slacker, Kato Mikaze kept thinking about related matters all the way to the hospital.

...

Hidden Leaf Hospital, Tsunade’s office.

By this time it was already past midafternoon. Tsunade had gone off to work in the wards and the operating rooms, leaving Kato Mikaze alone in the office.

He was not loafing around. He was attending to serious matters.

He was absorbing the soul fragments in his inner soul space, while also browsing the memory fragments that might be contained within them.

Well... though he was not slacking off, the way he looked and moved made him seem exactly like a fish lounging about and shirking work.

Pop.

The office door was pushed open from outside, and Tsunade, finally free after a stretch of exhausting work in the wards and operating rooms, walked in.

The moment she entered, she saw Kato Mikaze lying on the sofa in the office’s rest area.

A black line appeared instantly on Tsunade’s snow-white forehead, and her expression turned dark at once.

Kato Mikaze was not wearing his jonin flak jacket, and even his ninja sandals had been kicked off.

He was sprawled at a steep angle in the long sofa, hands resting on his abdomen, legs crossed and propped up on the coffee table in front of the sofa, his feet bouncing up and down with a very regular rhythm.

So casually and lazily was Kato Mikaze nestled into Tsunade’s sofa that, although his hair and clothes were not disheveled and there was still a comfortable, contented smile on his face, making him look every inch the handsome man, the few tufts of hair standing up on his forehead trembled in time with the bouncing of his feet.

With every bounce of his feet and every twitch of those stray strands, they seemed to be tugging at Tsunade’s nerves little by little. The more she looked at Kato Mikaze’s posture and expression, the more he seemed like a fish without ambition.

“That bastard!”

Tsunade had just come from being swamped in the wards and operating rooms, and now that she saw Kato Mikaze like this, irritation surged in her chest. She muttered those words under her breath.

As she strode swiftly toward the sofa in the rest area, she raised both hands before her chest, flexing her slender fingers one by one and clenching and unclenching her fists, preparing to wake the fish lounging on her sofa.

...

At that moment, Kato Mikaze had just finished absorbing the four soul fragments in his own soul space, leaving only the special fragment belonging to the White Zetsu clone.

The result was not bad. Two of the four fragments contained memory shards: one belonged to an elite rock ninja from the Land of Earth, and one to a chuunin of the Sand Village in the Land of Wind.

The memory fragment from the Land of Wind contained almost nothing of value, merely scraps from that sand ninja’s private life.

The elite rock ninja, however, was a ninja-type shinobi skilled in earth release, and the fragments of memory brought Kato Mikaze two sets of ninjutsu insights.

They were precisely the B-rank Earth Release: Yellow Springs Swamp and the C-rank Earth Release: Earth Flow Wall. It seemed that the small swamp technique and earth wall technique in Kato Mikaze’s ninja system could now retire.

(By the way, since so many people have been complaining about the protagonist’s ninjutsu names, all original techniques will hereafter use the names from the canon, except for the pepper-green original ones.)

By now, Kato Mikaze, comfortably stretched out on the sofa, naturally sensed that Tsunade had finished her work and returned to the office, rolling up her sleeves and heading toward him.

He glanced at the final soul fragment remaining in his soul space, the special green fragment belonging to the White Zetsu clone. Then he thought of Tsunade’s death-kiss debuff and the sensation of her licking his earlobe yesterday.

A warmth rose in his chest, and he made a decision.

...