Origins

"You two... know each other?"

Dongfang Mao asked cautiously.

Seeing his reaction, Tsunade suddenly burst out laughing.

"Good, good. Hahaha..."

The laughter was filled with delight, but soon turned bittersweet. At the same time, a glimmer of tears appeared in Tsunade's eyes.

Dongfang Mao was completely baffled by Tsunade. He hurriedly turned to Shizune, only to find her face just as full of confusion. She seemed even more at a loss than he was.

Dongfang Mao was wondering whether he should move farther away, just in case Tsunade, who seemed a little unstable, suddenly took a swing at him, when her laughter abruptly stopped.

She wiped the dampness from the corners of her eyes and opened her slightly reddened eyes. Then she forcibly reined in her surging emotions and managed a faint smile.

"Kid... I'll call you Mao. Let's go somewhere else first. I need to have a proper talk with you."

"Uh..."

Tsunade's sudden gentleness gave Mao a creepy feeling instead, and he hesitated.

Tsunade saw his reaction and twitched the corner of her mouth. The emotions she'd just worked up were ruined by this clueless kid.

She immediately dropped the act. Hooking an arm around him, she tucked Dongfang Mao's head beneath her armpit.

She didn't seem to mind how dirty and messy his hair was, and vigorously ruffled it as she said irritably,

"Kid, if I really wanted to do something to you, do you think that rabble behind you could protect you?"

But Dongfang Mao had no attention to spare for what Tsunade was saying. He felt as though he'd been buried in a ball of cotton candy. Even through that layer of tea-green candy coating, he could feel how soft and pillowy it was, and its fragrance filled his nose.

The only problem was that the ball of candy was a little too heavy, leaving Mao with a deep sense of suffocation.

"Big brother!"

Whether Dongfang Mao felt more suffocated or more blissful at that moment, no one could say.

From Yasuke's perspective, his big brother had been taken hostage by that damned kunoichi in an instant. His eyes widened like saucers.

He grabbed his long blade and charged in from both sides with his men, surrounding Tsunade and Shizune so completely that not even a drop of water could get through.

"Oh? You're quite loyal to this kid, aren't you?"

Tsunade looked over Yasuke and the others, her expression amused.

She had to admit that the kid did have some ability. By her reckoning, he was only about fourteen or fifteen, yet all these people were willing to risk their lives for him.

Dongfang Mao heard the commotion and immediately forgot about the cotton-candy ball. He struggled to get free, and fortunately, Tsunade didn't restrain him any further, so he managed to break loose.

"Phew!"

He took a deep breath. The suffocating feeling finally passed, and he looked at the people in front of him.

"Yasuke, stand down. She's right. If she really wanted to hurt me, she wouldn't need to go through all this trouble."

"Yes, big brother."

Without the slightest hesitation, Yasuke led his men aside to make way.

He was still a little uneasy, but if Dongfang Mao gave the order, he would carry it out without question.

Still, he wasn't foolish enough to just stay put. He followed Tsunade and the others from a distance with his men, determined to see with his own eyes that his big brother was safe.

"Phew!"

After leaving the foul-smelling cave, Tsunade tilted her face toward the mountain breeze and let out a long breath.

Her excitement had helped her suppress the onset of her Hemophobia earlier, but the environment Dongfang Mao had deliberately set up had still made her feel very uncomfortable. Now, at last, she felt much more refreshed.

She led Dongfang Mao and Shizune into a nearby forest.

After finding a decent place to rest, Shizune sat down on a rock with her little ninja pig in her arms. Her gaze moved silently between Tsunade and Dongfang Mao as she came up with hundreds of possible explanations for their relationship.

Dongfang Mao couldn't help asking,

"Lady Tsunade, what did you want to talk to me about?"

Tsunade didn't answer right away. Instead, she asked,

"Mao, how much do you know about your father?"

"My father?"

Dongfang Mao scratched his head and answered without thinking,

"A nameless civilian from the Land of Fire who passed a bit of his good looks down to me?"

Tsunade's eye twitched.

"You're quite the dutiful son. Be serious."

She flicked him on the forehead, then couldn't help sighing again.

"A nameless civilian? So he really had given up back then..."

Dongfang Mao rubbed his forehead and got to his feet. He listened to Tsunade, curiosity in his eyes, but didn't speak, waiting for her to continue.

After a moment, Tsunade looked at Dongfang Mao with a complicated expression and spoke gently.

"Your father's original name was Senju Yusuke. He was once a member of the Senju Clan of Konoha. Before Konoha was even founded, he made outstanding contributions to the clan. He was one of the Senju Clan's true elite!"

Dongfang Mao listened and nodded in silence. He'd already guessed something from Tsunade's change in attitude, but hearing her say it aloud still gave him a strange feeling.

"Then why did he..."

Tsunade knew what Dongfang Mao wanted to ask: why his father had ended up in such a state. She shook her head and sighed again.

"That was in Konoha's eighteenth year. The Hokage at the time, who was also the head of the Senju Clan, was Tobirama Senju, my Second Grand Uncle. He was vigorously pushing for the Senju Clan to become ordinary civilians. His intentions were good; he wanted to help Konoha develop, but..."

"But change comes at a cost. Those who benefited supported it and cheered, while those who stood to lose their privileges fought tooth and nail against it. So my father was one of the opposition, right?"

Tsunade had only gotten halfway through when Dongfang Mao had already pieced together what happened.

Tsunade faltered, then looked at Dongfang Mao in surprise.

"I didn't expect you to be pretty sharp, kid."

Dongfang Mao grinned. He might not look it, but he was a bandit chieftain who'd once been in charge of hundreds of men. Naturally, he understood that preserving the status quo was easy, while making changes was hard.

When he'd first taken the top spot, he'd also had to kill plenty of people to push through new rules. Only after staining that mountain red had things gradually fallen into place.

Tsunade knew the kid looked young but had lived an unusual life, so she wasn't surprised. She continued,

"Your father was indeed one of the opposition, and he was even the most vehemently opposed. He'd been a core member of the clan since childhood, and had grown up listening to his elders tell stories of the Senju Clan's glory.

"So there was no way he could tolerate Second Grand Uncle's decision. He also had considerable standing in the clan, so things got quite turbulent at the time."

"He failed."

Dongfang Mao couldn't help shaking his head as he listened. Given Tobirama Senju's personality, there was no way his father could have changed his mind unless that cheap old man had seized power through a coup.

Of course, that assumed he had the strength to pull off a coup.