The Heavy Scent of Liquor in the Night

Night.

There were no lights in the dilapidated house. Yan lay on the bed with his eyes closed, counting his breaths and probing for blind spots in the surveillance.

Yan mapped out the route in his mind.

He formed the hand seal for the Clone Technique.

Puff.

The clone was still less than perfect.

--But it would do.

Yan covered the clone with the blanket, leaving only a tuft of messy black hair exposed. In the pitch-black darkness, it looked exactly like a twelve-year-old child curled up asleep.

He rolled out of bed and landed without a sound. Keeping to the shadows along the base of the wall, he circled fifteen meters south and slipped into the narrow gap between two old Uchiha houses.

The entire process took less than eight seconds.

He did not look back. His Observation Haki told him he had not been discovered.

Three minutes later, he was at the edge of the clan grounds. Five minutes later, in the wasteland south of Konoha. Twelve minutes later--at the edge of the Forest of Death.

The moon was half-covered by clouds.

Yan found a clearing he had not used before, tightly enclosed by dense woods.

"Tonight, I'm practicing camouflage."

He raised his right hand, palm facing upward.

Driven by his will, dark crimson patterns emerged beneath his skin--but this time, he deliberately suppressed both their heat and brightness. The magma did not turn into a flowing molten state; instead, it condensed into a dark red shell over the surface of his palm.

It mimicked the manifestation of the "Magma Release" bloodline limit from the world of Naruto.

"If anyone asks... this is the bloodline limit, Magma Release."

Yan turned his hand over, studying the solid dark red shell on his palm. It felt like red-hot iron, with tiny bubbles occasionally surfacing.

Compared to Red Dog's magma torrents that could blot out the sky, it looked so shabby they hardly seemed related.

A twelve-year-old Uchiha orphan suddenly awakening some kind of Fire Release-related bloodline mutation--Fugaku believed that explanation, and the Third Hokage had not pursued the matter for now.

But if Yan publicly demonstrated core traits of a Logia Devil Fruit, like "turning his entire arm into liquid" or "letting physical attacks pass directly through his body"--

Then "bloodline limit" would not be enough to explain it for the time being.

Restraint.

Every card had to be saved for the crucial moment. Once he had enough strength, others would naturally fill in the blanks themselves.

Yan began practicing over and over.

"Retracting it is too slow. I need to get it under 0.3 seconds."

He repeated it more than a dozen times. His arm flickered between dark red and normal skin tone, like a string being plucked again and again.

On the twenty-third switch--

His Observation Haki detected something.

Yan had encountered this kind of aura before. It was the smell of someone who no longer wanted to live.

He should have turned around and left.

Enemy or ally, it made no difference. But he did not leave.

Because the information given by his Observation Haki was too detailed.

Yan softened his footsteps and moved toward the cluster of chakra he sensed.

At forty meters, he smelled alcohol.

It was not expensive liquor. It was the choking, harsh scent of cheap distilled spirits, mixed with the smell of forest soil and rotting leaves. It smelled awful.

Twenty meters.

The moon poked half its face out from behind the clouds.

Light filtered through gaps in the leaves, shattered into fragments and scattered across the ground.

At the roots of a giant tree thick enough that three people could barely wrap their arms around it, someone leaned there.

Golden hair lay scattered over her shoulders and the ground, a mess like a wheat field ravaged by a storm. A diamond-shaped mark sat in the center of her forehead, so faint it was nearly invisible beneath the moonlight.

Her clothes hung loosely from her body. Her green coat had slipped to her elbows, exposing a large expanse of fair skin.

One hand rested on her knee, an empty bottle caught between her fingers. The other hung by her side, its fingertips still stained with undried liquor.

Her face was buried between her knees and arms, making her features impossible to see.

But the chakra within that body--even drunk senseless, even in such a broken state--still felt immensely powerful.

Yan stood twenty meters away, perfectly still.

Tsunade.

Twenty-nine years old.

When he watched Naruto in his previous life, he had spent God knew how many years thirsting after her in front of the screen, with God knew how many fanart pictures saved in his favorites.

Now, the real person stood before him.

Drunk out of her mind, clutching an empty bottle, curled beneath a tree root deep in the forest like a dog abandoned by its owner.

One of Konoha's Legendary Sannin.

The First Hokage's granddaughter.

The pinnacle of medical ninjutsu.

The future Fifth Hokage.

--Her younger brother was dead.

--Her lover was dead too.

--Hemophobia.

--At this point in time, she had probably only recently left Konoha.

Yan's mind raced.

Then the system appeared.

[Core plot character detected: Tsunade. Current emotional state--extremely negative. If the host can deeply affect her emotionally, an epic evolution progress reward will be triggered.]

Yan stared at the line for two seconds.

Epic.

His "deep fated interaction" with Jiraiya last time had only given him 7%. How much would an epic reward give?

He swallowed.

But another voice in his head sounded the alarm--Tsunade was twenty-nine, Kage-level, and even drunk, she could punch him flat against a wall.

"...I'll take the gamble. Let's do it."

Yan took off his coat.

He folded it twice and tucked it beneath his arm.

He neither lowered his presence nor deliberately concealed his aura. On the contrary, he intentionally stepped on a dry branch by his feet.

Crack.

The sound was especially clear in the silent forest.

Tsunade did not move.

Yan took three steps forward.

Fifteen meters.

Still no response.

Ten meters.

Wind swept through the canopy with a rustling sound.

Seven meters.

Yan saw what lay scattered across the ground--three empty bottles, a shattered wine cup, and a necklace crushed into a ball. A green gemstone hung from it.

The First Hokage's necklace.

Six meters.

Five meters--

Tsunade opened her eyes.

There was no transition.

No grogginess.

No pause for "sobering up."

A pair of amber eyes locked directly onto Yan.

Killing intent.

Not figuratively.

It was real, tangible Kage-level killing intent, carrying physical pressure.

Cold sweat soaked Yan's back within 0.1 seconds. Every hair on his body stood on end, and it felt as though someone had driven an ice pick from his tailbone all the way to the back of his skull. His legs completely stopped obeying him in that instant, and his knees sank two centimeters.

His Observation Haki screamed wildly.

Not "danger."

"Death."

Back in his previous life, when a director slammed the table and berated him at work, he had thought that was the greatest pressure he would ever experience.

Bullshit.

Compared to the killing intent of a Kage-level ninja, that was not even worth a fart.

But Yan did not run.

Not because he was brave.

It was because he knew--Tsunade would not attack.

A woman drunk senseless, hiding in the middle of nowhere to drown her sorrows, releasing killing intent at a twelve-year-old child--that was not combat instinct.

It was an injured beast warning anything that came close: Don't come nearer.

Yan raised his coat before his chest.

"...Your clothes are falling open."

The killing intent did not fade.

Tsunade's gaze moved from Yan's face to the coat in his hands, then back to his face.

"Uchiha?" Her voice was as hoarse as sandpaper scraping iron, and her tongue was clearly still sluggish from drink.

"Yeah."

"...Get lost."

Simple. Crude. She could not even be bothered to waste another word insulting him.

Yan did not get lost.

He gently placed the coat on the ground two meters away from Tsunade. Then he retreated three steps, crouched down, and rested both hands on his knees.

Keeping his distance. Remaining nonthreatening.

"I won't come closer," he said. "But I'll leave the coat here. Your clothes really are falling open."

Tsunade lowered her head and glanced at herself.

Her green coat had slipped to her elbows, while the collar of her gray top had been tugged wide open by her unconscious movements while drunk.

She clicked her tongue and pulled at her clothes. The movement was a little too forceful, knocking into an empty bottle beside her. It rolled away twice with a clatter.

The killing intent slowly receded.

Not because Yan had made her let down her guard.

It was because she closed her eyes again, as though she did not want to waste energy on a child.

"Let me ask you something." Tsunade kept her eyes shut, her voice slurred. "A kid like you, running to a place like this in the middle of the night... are you sick of living, or is something wrong with your head?"

"Both, a little."

Tsunade's brow twitched.