Rin Nohara gave a soft laugh. "Maybe you're both being too cautious. As I remember it, Ying Ai isn't that kind of child. If she were, Master Yin would have seen through her long ago. Don't forget, neither of you has ever managed to lie to him!"
Both women nodded in agreement. What Rin said was true.
Master Yin's scrutinizing gaze was no joke. Most people couldn't bear it; it always left them with the unsettling feeling that he could see right through them.
Mitarashi Anko still couldn't let it go. "Then why was Kurotsuchi hostile toward Kurenai?"
Rin laughed even harder. "Weren't you two hostile toward Lady Tsunade back then?"
Kurenai Yuhi and Mitarashi Anko froze for a moment, then stared at her in disbelief. "You mean...?" they said in unison.
Rin nodded approvingly. "Yes. Exactly what you're thinking!"
The two of them looked stricken. Kurotsuchi really was quite young.
But then they remembered how old they had been when they confessed to Master Yin, and neither could say much more. There wasn't much difference.
For a while, all three sank into troubled silence.
Master Yin's attitude toward Kurotsuchi hardly suggested he was indifferent to her. If anything came of it, life would probably get harder for them again.
While the three of them sighed over that prospect, Uchiha Izumi was having an even harder time elsewhere.
Standing before her was the Uchiha Clan's finest teacher, who had begun instructing her in how to use the Sharingan.
Until now, she had used the Sharingan only to observe, which consumed relatively little Chakra.
But now that she was learning to cast Ninjutsu with it, a single attempt nearly drained all the Chakra from her body.
In that instant, Uzuki Yugao nearly collapsed from exhaustion. The teacher reacted quickly and caught