Who Cares?

"Eh heh~ Heh heh heh..."

Jiraiya stuck his butt out and peered through a gap in the wooden fence, trying to catch a glimpse of what lay beyond. Every now and then, he let out a lecherous chuckle.

"Pathetic..."

Seeing Jiraiya's lecherous behavior, Nawaki curled his lip.

"Hm?"

Hearing a voice behind him, Jiraiya turned around, his face still flushed with excitement.

The moment he recognized Tsunade, he jolted in alarm.

"Ah... H-huh? Tsunade? What are you doing here?"

"Obviously, we're here to catch a peeping tom!"

Tsunade sneered and clenched her fist with a loud crack. Her smile was unmistakably cruel.

Then, before Jiraiya could say a word, she punched him square in the face.

"Wait! Hold on!"

Jiraiya hurriedly dodged. He felt the fierce punch sweep past his ear, and cold sweat instantly drenched his back.

If that punch had landed, even if he somehow survived, he'd have ended up with a face like a crushed melon...

"I wasn't peeping! I was just... gathering material! That's right, I was only gathering material!"

Before Tsunade could respond, Minato tilted his head, his eyes wide with innocence. "If you need to watch women bathe to gather material, Jiraiya, why don't you ask one of the women in your family to help?"

"Uh..."

Jiraiya's expression stiffened. He was at a loss for words.

"Hmph..."

Seeing Jiraiya stumped, Tsunade gave a derisive snort and lowered her fist for the moment. She watched him with an easy smile, as if to say, Go on, explain yourself.

"If someone peeped on someone in your family, Jiraiya, how would you feel?"

When Jiraiya didn't answer, Minato pressed him further. He genuinely hated peeping.

Of the Sannin, Tsunade might be a gambler, but she never dragged other people into it.

At worst, the casino owners suffered, but even when dealing with loan-sharking gangs, she never used the banner of justice to dodge her debts.

Orochimaru was a villain, but he was honest about being a bad one and never tried to justify his actions.

But Jiraiya peeped on women bathing and had the gall to call himself a womanizer. That was going too far!

Was that being a womanizer?

That was being a pervert!

Minato wasn't trying to be some paragon of morality. But he was a normal man, and sooner or later, he'd get a girlfriend.

If this sort of behavior went unchecked, his own girl might be the one who suffered someday. Who could put up with that?

At Minato's words, Jiraiya's face twitched again.

He had no idea how to answer.

Even someone as shameless as him couldn't bring himself to argue when a five-year-old asked him that.

Minato went on, "As the Hokage's student, Jiraiya, don't you think this kind of behavior brings shame on the Hokage's name?"

At the mention of the Hokage, Nawaki perked up. He pointed at Jiraiya, indignant. "Exactly! Don't you have any sense of what it means to be the Hokage's student?"

Jiraiya really wanted to say that the Hokage liked peeping too...

But of course, he couldn't say that.

So, faced with Nawaki's accusation, he could only raise both hands in surrender and grimace. "All right, all right, I know I was wrong! I promise I'll never peep again! Just let me off this once, okay?"

"Hmph. Coming from you, that's not very convincing."

Tsunade sneered. "You've said things like that plenty of times before. Every time, it isn't long before you go right back to your old ways. Maybe I should just cripple you so you can't go out and hurt anyone again!"

"Uh... isn't that a little cruel?"

Nawaki froze. He hadn't expected his big sister to want to solve the problem at its root.

Tsunade shook her head and said nothing.

A lot of men thought peeping was no big deal. At the root of it, they figured they were only taking a quick look and weren't really causing anyone any tangible harm.

They had no idea how much psychological damage and fear that kind of behavior could inflict on women!

Did people who abused animals refrain from killing because they didn't want to?

At the thought, Tsunade's expression turned even colder. She looked at Minato. "What do you think?"

"Well..."

Minato thought it over, then let out a regretful sigh.

"I support punishing him severely! But... Jiraiya is your teammate, Tsunade-sensei, and he also taught me some things before. Killing him over one peeping incident would be a little too heartless."

At that, Jiraiya went pale with shock. "Hey, hey! Minato, don't say things like that! Tsunade never said she was going to kill me!"

Watching Minato's thoughtful expression, Jiraiya felt cold sweat trickle down his temple.

Only now did he realize that this boy, who seemed gentle and sunny, with a touch of absentmindedness... was actually a schemer!

Tsunade gave a soft snort and ignored Jiraiya, wanting to hear what answer Minato would come up with.

"Oh, I've got it!"

Minato smacked his palm and said with an innocent look, "How about making Jiraiya write a pledge..."

"Phew..."

At Minato's suggestion, Jiraiya finally breathed a sigh of relief.

What a scare. The kid really was still innocent after all...

Tsunade shook her head slightly, unsure why, but feeling a faint sense of disappointment.

As the two of them were lost in their own thoughts, Minato clapped his hands softly and continued in a gentle tone:

"We can submit the pledge to the Konoha Police Force. If another peeping incident happens in Konoha, we'll pin every one of them on Jiraiya! And put it on the village notice board!"

"What?! Noooo!!!"

"Ahahaha! A public shaming? I like it!"

Jiraiya's face turned deathly pale. Tsunade paused for a second, then burst out laughing.

Jiraiya tried to protest, only for Minato to twist the knife again. "And we have to make it clear that the peeper is Jiraiya, student of the Hokage!"

"You little brat! That's slander! You're framing an innocent man!"

Jiraiya finally snapped and shouted in a panic.

If things went the way Minato described, he wouldn't be able to show his face in Konoha again.

He was about to argue his case when Minato's lips curled into a warm, sunny smile. But his next words made Jiraiya feel as if he'd fallen into an icy abyss.

"Who cares?"

"When Jiraiya peeps, does he care what his victims think?"

"!!!"

Jiraiya's pupils trembled!

Minato's words struck him like a thunderclap, leaving his head ringing as if someone had clubbed him over the head. His face instantly turned deathly pale.

Yes. Who cared?

The people who framed you knew better than anyone that you were innocent.

When he'd peeped, had he ever cared what those girls thought?

In that instant, all the excuses he'd made for peeping, all those high-minded justifications, seemed so ridiculous and hypocritical now that he was the one being wronged.

He finally realized that what he'd always called his carefree charm was really nothing but perversion and depravity.

And "perversion" here didn't mean flirtation between men and women. It meant something distorted and terrifying, just as the word said...

When the veil he'd used to deceive himself was ripped away, when he looked at himself from the perspective of the people he'd peeped on, he suddenly saw how disgraceful his actions had been.

At that moment, facing the girl he'd loved for so many years, Jiraiya felt a shame he couldn't put into words.

That shame gnawed away at him, corroding his self-respect until it was full of holes, forcing him to flee the gaze of the person before him in humiliation.

Watching Jiraiya stagger away, Minato turned to Tsunade.

"Did I go too far?"

"No. That couldn't have been more perfect!"

Tsunade patted Minato's head with one hand, gave him a thumbs-up with the other, and laughed heartily.

Nawaki nodded again and again, but silently resolved:

From now on, he would absolutely, absolutely...

Never argue with Minato!