By the time Sahara Mizu returned home carrying a basket of groceries, it was already evening.
He opened the door and took off his shoes.
A rapid thump-thump-thump immediately sounded from the kitchen.
"Onii-chan!"
Drawing out the last syllable, the girl crashed into Sahara Mizu's arms like a little puffball with a thud, knocking the hateful little grocery basket occupying the ecological niche in her embrace askew.
Sahara Yukie struggled to lift her head from his chest, looking adorably indignant. "Why are you only getting back now? Didn't you say you'd be home last night? Why weren't you waiting obediently at home for me to come back and absorb Onii-chan power?"
A deadly triple question!
Sahara Mizu vigorously ruffled the little thing's hair, helped her stand upright, and casually replied, "I went to the Hokage Building to turn in the mission this morning, so I was delayed a little. I bought some groceries on the way back."
"Yukie, shouldn't your patrol mission have lasted until noon today? Yet you got home this early."
Like a clingy cat, Miss Yukie did not step back after he helped her up. Instead, she grinned and wrapped herself around his other arm, speaking with perfect confidence.
"Because I was severely lacking in Onii-chan power, I used the Body Flicker at full speed to rush home right after the mission ended!"
"I stopped by the mission hall to look up Mizu's mission records. I was so happy when I saw that your team had completed the mission, but when I got home, there wasn't anyone here."
"Lady Yukie is so sad~!"
Hearing that, Sahara Mizu immediately leaned sideways and backward, looking at his sister clinging to him with an exceedingly subtle expression. She puckered her lips pitifully, looking like a little kitten.
If he remembered correctly, the patrol area on her mission sheet was at least eighty kilometers from the village, wasn't it?
—The mission had ended at noon, and this tiny genin had sprinted the equivalent of two full marathons back to the village at full speed. Then she had gone to the Hokage Building to look for news of him, before returning home before sunset and putting on a soft, limp act as she sat at the entrance waiting.
Just imagining that terrifying itinerary gave Sahara Mizu the illusion—and phantom pain—that he was being constantly drawn in by an invisible black hole, as though the immense gravity would twist the coming decades of his life.
A heavy girl?
Since when!?
However, when he remembered that Miss Yukie's Bond Level had already risen to "Four," Sahara Mizu calmed down again.
Before, he had not understood the true nature of this system.
But now, after personally witnessing how distorted Lord Tsunade—that woman with an obscenely sexy figure but unexpectedly traditional and serious temperament—could become on the "Ultimate Path"...
He suddenly felt that all of this seemed perfectly natural.
Think about it.
Saving her life, helping her in her hour of need, exchanging favors.
After all three came together, his Bond Level with Tsunade had barely reached Lv1—under normal circumstances, that should already count as laying down a fairly deep emotional foundation, right?
He had even ridden in on a seven-colored cloud ahead of time to save that beautiful young widow. Calling himself her "beloved" by rounding up was not excessive, was it?
From that, it was clear that the so-called "Bond Level" carried a truly frightening amount of weight.
And then there was the fact that Miss Yukie had been his first target for harvesting emotional knots.
"Hiss."
Sahara Mizu suddenly began having some very unsettling thoughts about Miss Yukie's "Ultimate Bond Path."
"Anyway, go wash your hands."
"You're such a big girl already. Even though you haven't started growing yet, you're almost at the age when you should develop. You're not allowed to hug all over your brother from now on."
"Ehh—!?"
Miss Yukie's drawn-out voice brimmed with enormous dissatisfaction. Her eyes widened as she pointed at him and raised her voice. "Mizu! I already reached my limit by reluctantly allowing you not to bathe with me!"
"And now I can't even hug you?"
"How can you keep pushing your luck like this?!"
Yet Sahara Mizu did not indulge her as usual. Instead, he changed the subject with a somewhat forceful tone. "Yukie should be hungry too, right? We're having hamburger steaks for dinner today."
"Grrr..."
Miss Yukie still clung to him, making a kitten-like threatening noise in her throat.
"What? You don't like them?" Sahara Mizu tried to play dumb. "Then how about fried meat patties instead?"
The family relationship he had struggled so hard to maintain while concealing his identity absolutely could not collapse beneath the gravitational pull of this heavy-girl sister!
"..."
The siblings remained deadlocked in the entryway for a long while.
In the end, it only concluded with Miss Yukie giving a soft huff. She released him in displeasure and followed beside him with her hands clasped behind her back.
"Who said I don't like them?"
"As long as Mizu makes it, Yukie likes every dinner!"
Only then did Sahara Mizu let out a small sigh of relief inwardly. Carrying the grocery basket, he stepped into the kitchen and praised her, "Oh! That sentence just earned Miss Yukie a lot of points in her brother's heart."
"Of course it did."
Miss Yukie, who had been fuming just a moment ago, once more wore an adorable, smug smile. She took out the vegetables needed for dinner, washed and chopped them, her knife rising and falling cleanly.
Sahara Mizu picked up the hand-cranked meat grinder in the kitchen and ground the fresh pork into the paste needed for the patties, continuing to ask for advice.
"Does Miss Yukie have some secret?"
"How can you always make everyone around you happy with the simplest words?"
"Please teach the other socially awkward member of the Sahara family!"
Sahara Yukie placed the freshly shredded potatoes into a bowl. Holding her kitchen knife, she turned toward his back with a gentle expression.
"That's because of love, of course!"
"More than my parents, more than anyone else in this world, I love Mizu that deeply."
"Thunk."
The kitchen knife sank into the cutting board.
Sahara Mizu's heart seemed to give a slight jump along with the sound.
With her back to him, Miss Yukie spoke in a faint voice.
"So, Onii-chan."
"The gardenia fragrance and alcohol smell clinging to you, the two smooth golden hairs stuck to your shirt, and that sickly sweet scent that smells like three-colored dango..."
"Where did they come from?"
"You didn't go on a date with some girl who likes drinking, did you?"
The chill, like a sweeping winter storm, made Sahara Mizu feel as though his entire body had frozen in place, unable to move a single step.
I'm done for. My little sister has a serious problem!
While Mizu was being ensnared by his heavy-girl sister...
Deep beneath the ground lay a large Anbu training facility, known simply as—Root Headquarters.
Shimura Danzō sat at his desk, staring at the punishment and rectification notice issued by the Hokage Building two hours ago, his hands covering his forehead.
The stack of documents made him tremble with rage. Despite the blazing heat, cold sweat covered his body, and his hands and feet turned icy.
"Crash!"
At last, he could endure it no longer.
With a sweep of both arms, he violently overturned the heavy solid-wood desk before him, producing a dull boom.
He paced back and forth through the room with gritted teeth, loudly berating, cursing, and venting his emotions.
"That was an order! Attacking the Third Raikage was an order!"
"How dare they pin this blame on me just because the mission failed?!"
"The situation has deteriorated to this point. Everyone in Konoha is deceiving me, even Sarutobi Hiruzen."
"They are all a bunch of cowardly traitors without loyalty or righteousness!"
Seeing that things were going badly, Aburame Ryoma glanced at Orochimaru on the other side and tried to calm him. "Lord Danzō, you cannot insult Lord Third."
But Danzō raised his voice even further. "Cowards! Traitors! Useless trash!"
"Everyone wants to smooth things over just because of the threat posed by that little girl Tsunade and that idiot Hatake Sakumo, who only knows how to kill!"
"They even want to cut half of Root's personnel?"
"I absolutely will not accept this!"
(Sahara Yukie↑)
Thanks to readers My Yamato and Hello Bump for the monthly tickets!
The next chapter will be a little later. I'm out having dinner with friends today and will get home a little late, probably around midnight.
Before you continue