Farewell, Return to the Village

At dawn the next morning, the sky was just beginning to brighten.

Minamoto Takuya stood silently on the high ground by the village entrance, watching the familiar figures—one large, one small—walk farther and farther down the road until they vanished beyond the horizon veiled in morning mist.

In another direction, inside a room reeking of alcohol, Jiraiya lay sprawled across his bedding, snoring like thunder in deep sleep.

He seemed to be dreaming of something. He even unconsciously reached down to scratch the base of his thigh, completely unaware that the person he had been thinking of day and night had already quietly departed with the little girl, Shizune, resolutely setting out on the wandering journey she had chosen for herself.

The morning chill had not yet fully faded, and the heaviness of his hangover still tugged at Jiraiya's consciousness.

Yet when Minamoto Takuya's calm words came down on him like a bucket of ice water, he jolted awake at once, the last remnants of sleep washed away by shock.

"What?! You said Tsunade left with Shizune?!" Jiraiya abruptly sat upright, eyes wide as though searching Minamoto Takuya's face for even the faintest trace of a joke.

Sunlight streamed through the window lattice, throwing the shock on his face into sharp relief.

Minamoto Takuya nodded, his expression unchanged. "Yes, Lord Jiraiya. Lady Tsunade entrusted the stored scrolls to me, then prepared to leave."

He paused, a trace of helplessness in his voice. "Before leaving, she specifically told me not to tell you where she was going."

As he spoke, Minamoto Takuya cast Jiraiya a seemingly casual glance.

There was no blame in that look, yet it seemed to silently state a fact: if you had not been drunk and unconscious all day, how could you have missed parting with someone