Amado was instantly startled. "Holy crap! Why are you the one in the kitchen?!"
Then he immediately caught himself. "Oh! So Big Brother made the food! You and your wife are both such amazing cooks that I couldn't tell who made it for a moment."
The old man was quite sharp. What he said satisfied both Torikaze and Chisato, so they let him off this time.
"All right, wash your hands and sit down to eat."
"I'm heading to the Land of Whirlpools this afternoon. Does anyone have a message they want me to bring? I can pass it along for you."
Amado shook his head. "No. Even if we did, we'd use our phones."
Torikaze froze. "All right, pretend I didn't say anything."
Amado felt as though he had said something wrong again, so he lowered his head and focused on eating without saying another word.
Naruto and Xin loved Torikaze's cooking and repeatedly praised how delicious it was.
There were a few people missing from lunch today, though. Yahiko, Konan, and Hogen were all absent.
They had all gone on dates. Youth really was wonderful.
"How is the thing I asked you to research? Any progress?"
Amado shook his head at that. "No substantive progress yet, but I've already found a direction."
"Give me about another half year, and I might be able to make a breakthrough."
In that case, the progress was fairly acceptable. Torikaze had also begun to get some ideas regarding the development of Cloud Stone.
The progress on both sides was more or less even.
"All right, then take your time. I won't bring up anything else or put too much pressure on you."
Amado truly had not had any time to rest lately. After previously researching Artificial Humans capable of overcoming the human