The Legendary

"Bloodline origins?"

Tsunade scoffed. "What are you looking for? Some ancestral secret technique?"

"Which major ninja clan doesn't think its bloodline is noble? Which one doesn't hide away a few ancestral scrolls? But how many have actually turned their fortunes around by relying on that stuff?"

She paused, and an almost imperceptible complexity entered her tone.

"Kid, my grandfather was the First Hokage, Konoha's founder. His bloodline was noble enough, right? But do you know what he said?"

Sōji shook his head.

"He said ninjas shouldn't rely on bloodlines. They should rely on their hearts."

Tsunade smiled and took a swig of soup as though she were drinking liquor. "Of course, that old man had an absurd bloodline himself, so it was easy for him to say."

"But he wasn't wrong. Your bloodline gives you a starting point. How far you go depends on yourself."

She stared at Sōji, her golden eyes startlingly bright in the firelight. "If you want to search your clan's records, I won't stop you."

"But remember this: finding something is luck. Finding nothing is normal too. Don't stake all your hopes on those scraps of rotten paper."

"Those eyes of yours, combined with everything you've learned this past year, are already enough for you to make something of yourself. Don't live your life as Kaguya's vassal."

Sōji fell silent for a moment, then gave a slight bow. "I've learned much."

"Learned what? Cut it out."

Tsunade waved a hand and leaned back against the rock. "If you want to go to the Land of Water, wait until this voyage is over. You still have plenty of medical ninjutsu to learn, and there are gambling ships waiting for me in the Land of Lightning!"

She closed her eyes and said nothing more.

Shizune quietly leaned toward Sōji and lowered her voice. "Sōji, are you really going back to the Land of Water? It's very dangerous there..."

"I'm only thinking about it." Sōji lowered his voice as well. "I haven't decided when yet."

Shizune looked at him worriedly. She seemed to want to say something, but in the end, she merely sighed and continued feeding Tonton.

The campfire crackled, sparks rising into the night sky and echoing the lights of the distant mines.

Holding his bowl of soup, Sōji slowly spread out the vision of the Six Eyes. The hills rising and falling in the darkness resembled slumbering beasts. The roar of mining machinery drifted faintly from the mines, while farther away lay the outline of the snow-covered mountains in the direction of the Land of Iron.

The Cursed Energy system, ninja training, and the Kaguya bloodline.

Three branching paths lay before him.

The first was bloody and direct, but it required leaving Tsunade's protection and facing the costs and risks of killing alone.

The second was steady and cumulative. With the dual support of Tsunade and the Six Eyes, it was currently the most realistic path to becoming stronger.

The third was unknown. It might conceal some great secret, or it might amount to nothing. But if he did not explore it, he would never know the answer.

He took a sip of soup. It had already grown lukewarm, and the saltiness of dried meat spread across his tongue.

There was no rush. Half of the voyage to the Land of Lightning still remained.

They had already passed through the Land of Iron and the Land of Hot Water. Next came the Land of Moon, the Land of Frost, and only then the Land of Lightning.

There was plenty of time along the way to keep learning and thinking. As for the Land of Water...

He raised his head and looked toward that distant darkness in the southeast.

One day.

The Land of Gold had no ninja village of its own.

Yet the most defining feature of this land was that its military security relied entirely on the samurai of the Land of Iron to the north.

A samurai outpost stood every thirty miles along the border. Armored swordsmen patrolled day and night, ensuring that this ore-rich land would not draw the covetous eyes of neighboring powers.

The Land of Gold was also wealthy—one could even say obscenely wealthy.

The gold, silver, and copper mines buried underground had made this tiny nation the ore supplier for over half the ninja world.

Miners sweated in the pitch-black tunnels, while the wealth they earned gathered in Kanazawa Castle, the Land of Gold's only major city.

The city had been built in a basin surrounded by mountains, its streets broad and straight, with shops lining both sides.

Unlike the towns of other countries, the buildings here were mostly made of stone rather than wood. Their walls were embedded with decorations ground from colorful ores, glittering beneath the sunlight.

Fine dust from mining slag drifted through the air, mingling with the fragrance of liquor wafting from taverns and the lazy ease found only in prosperous places.

The merchant ship would dock in the Land of Gold for half a month.

A batch of specially made mining tools aboard needed to be delivered, along with a shipment of hot spring skincare products brought from the Land of Hot Water, said to be especially popular with miners' families.

Sōji needed to handle those matters, so Tsunade and Shizune came along. It was not as though they had anything better to do.

At that moment, the afternoon sun slanted across Kanazawa Castle's busiest street.

The three of them were heading in one direction. No, more precisely, Tsunade was striding purposefully in one direction.

Shizune jogged after her with Tonton in her arms, while Sōji followed at an unhurried pace, his eyes covered by black cloth and his bamboo cane tapping the ground, looking like a leisurely blind merchant.

Their destination was the three-story building at the corner of the street.

With its vermilion-lacquered facade, gold-lettered signboard, and bright red lanterns hanging out front, it was Gold and Silver Hall, Kanazawa Castle's largest gambling house.

At the entrance, a young attendant in short work clothes was listlessly sweeping the dust from the doorstep with a bamboo broom.

He yawned, his gaze vacant. Clearly, he had no interest whatsoever in this monotonous work day after day.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he spotted three figures approaching from the street corner.

The attendant froze.

The broom stopped in midair.

He saw a blonde woman walking at the front, her long golden hair tied high, with a diamond-shaped mark on her forehead.

Over her dark purple kimono, she wore a haori embroidered with black patterns. A large, wildly written gambling character adorned her back, and her strides looked as though they might shatter the stone pavement.

Behind her followed a dark-haired woman carrying a pink piglet, along with a silver-haired youth whose eyes were covered and who leaned on a bamboo cane.

It was a strange combination, but what truly made the attendant stiffen was what stood behind the blonde woman.

Three wooden chests.

They were not ordinary little boxes, but huge chests large enough to fit an entire person, made from thick timber and reinforced with copper at the corners.

Each chest normally required two strong men to carry, yet now the silver-haired youth was balancing all of them on a shoulder pole—a slender bamboo pole that swayed precariously but sat as steadily as if it had grown from his shoulder.

The attendant's pupils shook.

He had seen the weight of those chests before—chests used to transport banknotes—and he knew how much such a size could hold.

One chest could hold at least fifty million ryō. Three chests meant one hundred and fifty million ryō.

One hundred and fifty million ryō!!!

He swallowed, forcing his gaze from the chests to the blonde woman's face. Then he recognized her.

He had never seen that face in person, but who in the gambling house had not heard that legend?

Who had not seen those portraits? She lost every time she gambled—lost in spectacular fashion—and gambling houses of any renown across every country practically worshipped her as a goddess of fortune.

"Th-the legendary... Legendary Big Spender!"

The attendant was so excited that his voice cracked.

Tsunade paused and glanced sideways at him with her golden eyes.

There was no emotion in that look. It was merely a calm glance.

Yet the attendant's legs went weak, and he nearly dropped to his knees.

Tsunade ignored him and continued toward the gambling house entrance.

The attendant snapped out of his daze, threw down his broom, and nearly stumbled and crawled through the door. His shriek was sharp enough to pierce the roof.

"She's—she's here—!"

"The legendary Legendary Big Spender is here—!!!"

The clamor within the gambling house came to an abrupt halt, like chickens being strangled by the throat. Then an earthshaking commotion erupted.

"What? The Big Spender?"

"That Lady Tsunade?"

"One of the Legendary Three Ninja?!"

"Who cares what Three Ninja she is! She's here to give us money!"

"Quick! Tell the manager! Bring out all the chips!"