Toyed With? A Chasm-Like Gap

"Aunt Tsunade is by the stream. The black-haired one's chakra stopped beneath a tree, and the white-haired one's chakra is up in a tree."

Kushina quietly reported the results of her reconnaissance.

She knew Tsunade, but she had never met Tsunade's two companions, Orochimaru and Jiraiya. After all, she had only been in Konoha for a little over three months. Unlike a certain cheat-enabled little brother, she still did not know much about Konoha, and most of what she knew was only superficial.

Fortunately, she had memorized Orochimaru and Jiraiya's chakra signatures outside the training ground earlier. Otherwise, she might not have been able to tell who was who.

"They aren't gathered together?" Minato stroked his chin as he thought.

Otome also furrowed her lovely brows, racking her brain for a plan, while Katsuki tugged on Kushina's sleeve and hurriedly filled her in on Jiraiya and Orochimaru. However, because he mixed in a few personal opinions, all Kushina heard was a pervert who liked peeping and a pervert who liked doing experiments... In short, two perverts, so she absolutely had to be careful around them and so on.

Kushina was skeptical of her younger brother's exaggerated descriptions and reserved judgment. What they needed to do now was try challenging Orochimaru's group.

None of the five present were afraid of trouble. Challenging jonin clones was nothing much, was it?

Katsuki had sparred with Sakumo before, though he had been beaten the whole time. Otoha and Otome likewise had an elite jonin father as their sparring partner. As for Kushina, she seemed to have a pretty good relationship with Tsunade. Minato was the only one without backing, yet he truly lived up to being the man who would become Hokage in the future. He was incredibly steady, not panicking in the slightest, with exceptionally strong mental fortitude.

After thinking it over for a while, they gathered together to discuss it again and finally decided to make Tsunade their point of breakthrough.

They had never thought about wiping out all of Jiraiya's shadow clones. If they dared think that way, they clearly had not woken up yet. Beating one up would be enough.

Destroying even one shadow clone was an almost impossible task, but they had to give it a try. Since Kushina was more familiar with Tsunade, even if she did not know her deeply, they naturally had a better chance against her than against Orochimaru or Jiraiya.

Katsuki did not know what fighting styles the young Sannin had, but looking at their later years, Orochimaru specialized in the strange and unpredictable, Jiraiya followed the orthodox path of ninjutsu, while Tsunade was the unconventional type who combined Medical Ninjutsu with monstrous-strength Taijutsu.

Of the three, Tsunade was the easiest to deal with. Not because Tsunade was the weakest, but because these rookies who had yet to master ninjutsu would probably find it hard even to get close to Orochimaru and Jiraiya. They would be wiped out by ninjutsu from far away, and what fun would that be? Tsunade, who used Taijutsu, might at least let them get a little closer, though her monstrous strength meant getting hit was fatal and getting touched meant death.

Still, this was only training. Surely Tsunade would hold back her strength.

"I'll take the lead. Minato, circle around and launch sneak attacks. Otoha, Otome, you two support me." Katsuki began issuing orders without ceremony. The others had no objections. They were all acquaintances, and whoever commanded them would use roughly the same strategy.

"What about me? What am I supposed to do?" Kushina grew anxious. How had they just left her out?

"Big Sis, you can stay here and cover us... All right." Seeing Kushina's murderous expression, Katsuki immediately changed his tune. "How about this? Big Sis, you and Otome will be one team. Otoha and I will be another. We'll pincer Senior Tsunade from the left and right."

The stream was crystal clear and only a little over twenty centimeters deep. Pebbles of all sizes were clearly visible on the riverbed, while finger-length fish swam through the water. A few particularly lively ones even leaped from the stream, splashing water onto Tsunade's sleeves.

"Attack!"

A thunderous shout rang out from the bushes on the other side of the stream. Shuriken tore through the air, hidden amid the yell as they shot toward Tsunade.

"Thud! Thud! Thud..."

All five shuriken missed, embedding themselves in a tree trunk not far behind Tsunade. Tsunade had merely crouched down without moving her feet at all.

"Little ones, next time, attack high, middle, and low at the same time. Attacking only the upper routes makes it too easy to dodge." Tsunade even had the leisure to lecture them. As she watched the four children rush out, a flicker of surprise crossed her eyes. So it was these little ones. She had thought the Hyuga Clan boy would find them first.

This was only a shadow clone, and it could not synchronize information with the real body at the Tower of Sealing.

Wading through the stream that submerged his calves, Katsuki's leg muscles bulged. He explosively leaped forward, curling his body into a ball. Only the sharp kunai thrust outward as he rapidly stabbed toward Tsunade.

Simple Taijutsu training had still been effective. Over the past five months, Katsuki had meticulously followed the training regimen White Fang had laid out for him, surpassing his limits time and again and digging out his body's potential. His strength and speed had both improved significantly.

The speed he suddenly unleashed now was about thirty percent faster than before. That was an astonishing improvement.

"Not bad speed!" Tsunade narrowed her eyes and stood barehanded on the bank without taking a single step. She coldly watched Katsuki close in. Just as the kunai was about to reach her, her right hand shot out like lightning.

She grabbed Katsuki's blade-like shoulder. Her forearm flexed slightly, power bursting from her palm. Katsuki immediately felt as though a wild horse had slammed into him head-on. He was sent tumbling backward, crashing precisely into Otoha behind him. The two fell into the water with a splash.

As for Kushina and Otome, who had charged in from the right, Tsunade lightly sent the two girls spinning with just her left hand. They rolled about across the grass by the stream.

"Whoosh!"

An extremely faint sound of something cutting through the air came from behind her ear. Tsunade calmly tilted her head, and a kunai brushed past her hair.

"Get down there."

Tsunade finally moved. She turned sideways to evade Minato's kick, then stomped one foot against the ground. The earth beneath her feet suddenly trembled. Minato, who had been preparing to follow up with another attack, stumbled and lost his balance. Tsunade seized him by the neck like she was catching a baby chick and tossed him straight into the water.

Katsuki climbed out of the stream, fuming with indignation. This was blatant discrimination. All the girls had remained on shore, while the three boys had all been tossed into the water for a cold bath.

It was now March of Konoha Year 32. Although it was already early spring, the stream water was still freezing, all right?

The ambush had utterly failed. Katsuki gritted his teeth, kicked up a spray of water, and charged at Tsunade with clenched fists, utterly unyielding...

"Splash!"

"Splash!"

After being tossed into the water over and over as though Tsunade were playing with them, Otoha and Minato reacted no differently. The three brothers attacked like madmen, using every method they had: Clone Technique, Transformation Jutsu, Substitution Technique. It was as if they had decided to fight Tsunade to the bitter end.