Orochimaru's Guess, Uchiha Dan's Miscalculation

"You... were watching me?" Tsunade asked, her gaze icy and her tone hostile.

"I don't have that kind of free time." Orochimaru chuckled. "Jiraiya asked me not long ago whether you were unhappy being with Lord Dan. Otherwise, why did you always look so gloomy whenever you were alone?"

"That fool naturally couldn't figure it out no matter how hard he racked his brain."

"But I immediately understood the reason. Lord Dan still hasn't accepted you, has he?"

Tsunade fell silent at once.

Had she made it that obvious?

And what exactly was that bastard Orochimaru trying to do?

"Orochimaru, can I trust you?" Tsunade asked tentatively.

"Different people see things differently. I have never expected anyone's trust." Orochimaru smiled faintly.

"If you wish to speak, I'll listen carefully. If you don't, I won't press you."

"Your guess was right." Tsunade sighed helplessly. "Although all of Konoha is saying that Dan and I are together, and he really is very good to me, we still haven't made our relationship official."

"But how did you know?" Tsunade asked in confusion.

"A guess!" A faint smile remained on Orochimaru's face. "But I made that guess based on my most basic understanding of you and Lord Dan."

"Take you, for instance. Even though you held Lord Dan's hand and walked through half of Konoha that day, I didn't see a happy smile on your face in the days that followed."

"As for Dan, outside of work, he still spent most of his time at home."

"So you weren't watching me. You were watching him?" Tsunade's tone turned even worse than before as she glared fiercely at Orochimaru.

"To be honest, that's true." Orochimaru did not try to hide it at all. "Do you know? There are three people in this village who pay the most attention to Lord Dan."

"The first is you. The reason needs no explanation."

"The second is his younger brother, Namikaze Minato. That kid idolizes his older brother to no end."

"The third is me. My interest in him far surpasses even that of our teacher and Shimura Danzō!"

Tsunade's eyes flickered as she demanded, "What is your purpose in watching Dan?"

"It seems you still haven't fully understood Lord Dan's talent." Orochimaru continued steeping his tea, wholly unaffected by Tsunade's emotions and maintaining his own pace throughout.

"What do you mean?" Tsunade asked impatiently.

"The reason I began paying attention to Lord Dan was because of one of his pharmaceutical studies three years ago," Orochimaru explained. "We both make medicine, yet his boldness and innovation completely overturned everything I knew."

"When I saw the formula, I once thought I had read it wrong. The Revival Technique he developed left me utterly astonished."

"So I realized very early on that Lord Dan and I might be the same kind of people."

"Nonsense!" Tsunade immediately rejected the claim. "How could Dan possibly be the same kind of person as you?"

"It seems I misspoke." Orochimaru smiled as he explained, "Let me correct that. I meant that in terms of research, he and I are the same kind of people."

"Lord Dan noticed long ago that I would occasionally watch and follow him, but he was very guarded against me."

"Well, obviously! If some man watched and followed you for no reason, who wouldn't be on guard? It's scary just thinking about it!" Tsunade said speechlessly.

"You misunderstand, Tsunade. He doesn't think I'm a pervert. I can tell that he is simply wary of me."

"But it was through that process that I gradually came to understand his personality."

"As a rational third party, I can show you a different side of Lord Dan. Perhaps you'll gain something unexpected." Orochimaru coaxed patiently.

"You, explain yourself more clearly." Tsunade was growing anxious, though her tone was no longer as rude as before.

"Haha!" Orochimaru actually burst into rare laughter. "Lord Dan is someone who values bonds deeply. You should know that."

Tsunade nodded, acknowledging it. "He treats his adoptive parents extremely well, and he is so good to his younger brother that it makes others jealous."

"But Tsunade, other than the Namikaze family, have you ever seen Dan treat anyone else well?" Orochimaru asked.

"Uh..." Tsunade froze.

"Of course, you might mention yourself, Kushina, and Nawaki. But those are recent matters. Think back to a year ago—had Uchiha Dan ever treated anyone outside his family well?"

"No." Tsunade sighed and shook her head. "But why was that?"

"Because of his experiences, his guard was too strong for him to easily trust anyone."

"When he could face mortal danger at any time, he had to ensure that he could think with absolute rationality in the face of anyone and anything."

"So emotions had always been superfluous to him. Back then, it was difficult for him to fall in love with anyone."

"In his heart, he was always calculating everything that could be calculated and exploiting everything that could be exploited."

Hearing Orochimaru's analysis, Tsunade wanted to refute him.

But as she spent more and more time with Uchiha, she realized that everything Orochimaru said was true.

What was this? A tacit understanding between men?

"Whether it was using his work at Konoha Hospital to increase his own influence."

"Or taking advantage of Utatane Koharu's greed, providing help for free, and enduring her long-term humiliation."

"Or show his teacher his worth, making his teacher reluctant to kill him."

"Or, from time to time, show Hatake Sakumo-senpai how he had suffered every grievance yet gritted his teeth and persevered, forcing a smile."

"Every part of it was filled with calculation and exploitation."

"Many times, I actually admired him."

"How had he managed, without being able to contact those people or even gather intelligence on them, to understand their personalities so thoroughly and keep them completely under his control?"

"It was precisely because of those interlocking schemes that he survived under such difficult circumstances, finally parting the clouds and seeing the sun."

"Of course, the key factor in all this was you!"

"Me?" Tsunade already understood what Orochimaru was about to say, because his words were exactly what she herself had come to understand over this long period.

But she immediately became wary.

Could Orochimaru have come today to drive a wedge between them?

"Yes. You were the one he calculated against most deeply." Orochimaru sneered.

"If you don't know anything, then shut up!" Tsunade flew into a rage and roared, "What the hell do you know?"

"Of course I know!" Orochimaru remained remarkably calm in the face of Tsunade's fury. "But the one thing Lord Dan miscalculated was that he probably never imagined, even in his dreams, that he would truly fall in love with you."

The moment Orochimaru said that, all of Tsunade's anger vanished into thin air, and she stood frozen where she was.

And suddenly, she felt her heart settle. An unprecedented sense of security washed over her.

At that moment, even Tsunade's breathing became easier.

"Y-You... what are you talking about?" Tsunade asked, her voice trembling slightly.