"Go to the Third Hokage?"
Hearing Chiba's abrupt change of subject, Kushina first froze. Then she clapped her hands together, suddenly realizing what he meant. She immediately spun around and dashed upstairs.
"Wait there!"
A moment later, Kushina's light voice drifted down from the second floor, accompanied by cheerful footsteps.
What... was that about?
Seeing this, Chiba was a little dumbfounded. He blinked, standing there in a daze.
Wait... wait there?
She wanted me to wait here? Does that mean I don't need to go to the Third Hokage? Has she already settled the matter of the Curse Mark Jutsu?
That's what she meant, right?
I... just need to stay here, right? A string of equally baffled thoughts ran through his mind.
However, Chiba was not dumbfounded because Kushina had told him to wait. It was because of the girlish manner she had inadvertently revealed when she clapped her hands in realization, along with those light, cheerful footsteps.
This was the first time Chiba had ever seen Kushina like this. Her girlish bearing stood in stark contrast to the image he had always had of her as a teacher who took care of him, and that contrast left him stunned.
Still, that contrast did not change his view of Kushina as the teacher who cared for him. As for the sudden display of her girlish side, it was entirely because she had heard the news that Hirohiko was willing to communicate.
For Kushina, Yukina, and even Chiba, this was something worth celebrating. It was only natural for her to reveal such a side of herself.
It might even have been the first piece of good news they had heard in the past six months. Kushina was already being quite restrained by not jumping and cheering. No matter how much Chiba