Chapter Ninety-Seven: The Proper Way to XXX

The big black rat, in a rare display of complete obedience, repeated the order he had just given Kato Yufu. This time, his tone was far more polite.

"Now that makes sense. If you had said it like that from the beginning, none of this would have happened."

As he spoke, Kato Yufu pulled his feet off the desk.

After a moment’s thought, he decided his tone still was not warm enough, not nearly sufficient to express his respectful feelings toward Elder Shimura Danzo.

So Kato Yufu rose from behind the desk, strode up to the big black rat, and patted his shoulder with exaggerated enthusiasm.

"Look, we're all civilized Leaf shinobi here. We know manners. We're all working under Lord Danzo, so we're comrades, right?"

"And you don't need to call yourself Little Black or Little Rat anymore. That sounds awful. From now on, I'll call you Old Black."

"All right, I know what you came here to say. I'll tidy up here and head straight to the Spring Base to report to Lord Danzo. I won't make things difficult for you."

As he spoke, Kato Yufu kept slapping the big black rat's shoulder.

He did not stop until the man's body began to tremble, and only then did Kato Yufu turn back to his own seat and resume his pretended busyness, tidying things up in a flurry.

The big black rat fell silent.

He was not only trembling from the repeated pats on his shoulder; his mind, too, was growing fuzzy in waves, and a drowsy heaviness kept rising inside him, making him want to collapse and sleep on the spot.

And yet he was also painfully awake. More than that, he did not dare move at all. He could only stand stiffly in place, unmoving.

He knew he had been poisoned. The invisible senbon that had pierced the skin between his brows had been smeared with poison, a poison that made a person strangely alert and strangely sleepy at the same time.

For a while, the only sounds in Tsunade's office were the noises Kato Yufu made on purpose.

After quite a long time, the Root ANBU finally stopped trembling, but the heaviness of sleep inside him only grew stronger. He was close to his limit and wanted nothing more than to lie down at once and sleep where he stood.

Looking at Kato Yufu, who was still pretending to be busy behind the desk, he forced up the last scraps of his strength and said cautiously, "Lord... um, Lord Kato Yufu?"

"I am not trying to rush you. Take your time putting your things away. I just wanted to ask whether you might have forgotten something."

"Eh? Old Black, why are you still standing here? You haven't left yet? Is the Root organization really that relaxed? Can you openly slack off on the job like that?"

Only after hearing the big black rat speak did Kato Yufu look up in feigned surprise, acting as though he had only just realized the man had not gone.

The big black rat was silent again, utterly speechless.

So I'm the one slacking off? You don't know that already?

"Um, Lord, this... please, could you put these senbon away?"

"And also, I think I was poisoned... I'm terribly sleepy right now, I want to lie down and sleep, but I'm also oddly energetic. It's miserable. I can't even describe how miserable it feels. Could you give me the antidote?"

"Oh dear, sorry about that, Old Black. Look at me, once I get busy I forget all about the senbon."

Kato Yufu put on an expression of sudden enlightenment.

It turned out that the senbon floating around the big black rat just moments ago had never been withdrawn at all. They were still there, glinting silently with cold, lethal light, threatening every vital point on his body.

Seeing Kato Yufu's clumsy, fake performance while his own body and mind were suffering under a double assault, the big black rat could only grumble inwardly, I can't believe a word you say.

Kato Yufu had deliberately left the senbon in place. Part of the reason was obviously to torment the big black rat and vent his anger on him.

There was another reason as well: when Kato Yufu had just used the Wind Release: Wind Needle Technique, he had sensed that the power of his slacker energy seemed to have attached itself to the senbon.

When he had discovered at noon that the Spirit Shadow Slacker Clone Technique had mutated, this had been a new function he had not noticed before. He wanted to see exactly what it could do.

Now that he had observed the new effect well enough, and the nameless fire of irritation inside him had also been vented after all this time, he took the opportunity to dispel the jutsu and scatter the senbon that had still been threatening the big black rat's vitals.

At last free to move, the big black rat did not want to remain in that terrifying office for even a moment longer. All he wanted now was a place to sleep, but after thinking again about the poison in his body, he still opened his mouth to remind Kato Yufu.

"And the poison in my body... could you give me the antidote?"

Hearing the big black rat ask him for an antidote to the slacker power, Kato Yufu did not have anything of the sort. In fact, he wanted one himself.

Looking at the big black rat's face, twisted with that miserable state of being both awake and sleepy, Kato Yufu could not help wondering to himself:

Could this be the proper way to use slacker power?

But he could not very well admit that he had no antidote. So he casually picked up a bottle of candy pills Tsunade had left on his desk, took one out, flicked it into the big black rat's mouth, and said with complete confidence, "As for the poison in your body, that was a kind of hallucinogenic liquid your Lord Tsunade had just developed. It makes people feel energized and sleepy at the same time. Take this antidote, go home, and sleep it off. You'll be fine."

The big black rat was forced to swallow the candy pill. He still doubted it deeply, but he had no choice but to believe Kato Yufu. At any rate, Kato Yufu would not kill him over something as small as a lack of manners. However one looked at it, he was still a formal Leaf shinobi.

The big black rat said, "Then I, Little Black... no, Old Black, will excuse myself first. As for Lord Danzo..."

Kato Yufu waved him off impatiently. "It's fine, it's fine. Go on ahead. With my speed, by the time I reach the Spring Base, you may not even be back yet."

The big black rat did not want to remain here for a single second longer. Having received Kato Yufu's affirmative answer, he gathered the last of his remaining strength.

With a sharp whoosh, he vanished from the office the same way he had come.

After driving away the troublesome big black rat who had ruined his good deed, the fire of anger in Kato Yufu's heart had mostly subsided.

He was now preparing to set out for the Spring Base and report to Shimura Danzo, to see what business Danzo had with him.

Danzo, that old bastard, really was rotten to the core. I just wanted to keep slacking off for one more day. Was it really necessary to send someone all the way to the Leaf Hospital and ruin my plans? Fine. I'll put that on the ledger. We'll settle it together later.

Kato Yufu glanced at Tsunade again, still pretending to be asleep on the sofa in the lounge, wrapped up so tightly it was almost comical.

This stupid rabbit. In weather this hot, to wrap yourself in such a thick blanket so tightly—are you really stupid, or just pretending to be?

As Kato Yufu pondered whether Tsunade was truly foolish or merely acting, he walked over to the sofa in the lounge and smacked the prominent curve beneath her slender waist.

"All right, stupid rabbit, stop pretending to sleep. Everyone's gone. Get up and tidy yourself up."

"It's already this late, and you're still here slacking off and dozing. Do you even intend to work anymore?"

"Elder Shimura Danzo is looking for me, so I'm leaving. If I have time later, I'll go see the Third Hokage again. Otherwise, I'll come back and have dinner with you."

"And in this weather, why are you wrapped up so tightly in such a thick blanket? Tell me, aren't you stupid?"

After quickly finishing that final teasing remark, Kato Yufu's figure vanished from Tsunade's office, leaving her no chance to speak or curse at him.

"Ah! Kato Yufu, you bastard, just you wait..."

"You're the stupid rabbit! Your whole family is a bunch of stupid rabbits! Wasn't it you, you bastard, who covered me with this blanket? Just you wait!"

After Kato Yufu disappeared, Tsunade finally sat up, her face flushed red from holding back her anger. She clutched the spot where she had been attacked and kept cursing the rotten man who had angered her.

While Tsunade was still venting in the office, not far away from her office, in a shadowed corner atop the Leaf Hospital, there lay a short, sturdy figure wearing a black mouse mask.

It was the Root ANBU who had left Tsunade's office—the big black rat.

Through the holes where the mask's eyes should be, one could see that this man was not asleep at all. His eyes were wide open, staring at the white clouds drifting across the sky above him.

"What on earth was that poison I took? Didn't I already eat the antidote?"

"Weren't I told that sleeping would make everything better? Then why can't I sleep?"

"That cloud in the sky looks like a salted fish. How can a salted fish fly in the sky?"

"Who am I? Where am I? Where am I supposed to go?"

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