Tsunade seethed with pent-up frustration, but she could only swallow it and trail behind Xuanye.
The five of them took advantage of the night to set off along the main road back to Konoha.
Tanzaku Town was not particularly far from Konoha, and tonight's moon was big and round, lighting up the forest road clearly.
Xuanye wrapped his right arm around Uzuki Yugao's slender waist, his hand roaming restlessly up and down over her clothes.
Uzuki Yugao's face flushed so red it looked ready to bleed. Both her small hands pressed firmly down on his wandering hand, stopping him from pushing his luck.
It was not that she resisted her man's affection. The main problem was Tsunade, who kept casting sidelong looks their way with a very peculiar expression, leaving her so embarrassed she wished she could crawl into a crack in the ground.
Fortunately, Xuanye's movements were discreet. Aside from the worldly Tsunade, who picked up on a little of what was happening, Shizune and Senju Nawaki were walking with their heads down beside them and noticed nothing unusual.
"Hey, Nawaki."
Enjoying the warm, soft body in his arms, Xuanye turned toward the boy beside him and spoke with a faint, teasing smile:
"Which sounds better to you: what I shouted earlier, 'I grant you another life,' or 'I grant you an official position in the Konoha Military Police Force'?"
"Anything you say sounds great, Big Brother Xuanye! I'll do whatever you say!"
Senju Nawaki thumped his chest and answered without hesitation.
In his eyes, this young man was the benefactor who had given him a second life!
His mind was perfectly clear, and he distinctly remembered that he had died on the battlefield long ago.
His last memory before death was of a teammate's unfamiliar face, twisted and vicious. After that, he had plunged into complete darkness and knew nothing more.
"Don't go claiming connections. I stopped being anyone's big brother long ago. Remember to call me Captain Xuanye in the village."
Chuckling, Xuanye reached out with his free left hand and pinched Nawaki's slightly rounded cheek.
The kid looked simple and honest, but he was quite sharp.
As they left Tanzaku Town earlier, Xuanye had casually asked a couple of questions about the battlefield back then, only to uncover a serious problem.
According to the casualty report sealed away by Konoha's Anbu, Senju Nawaki had recklessly advanced in pursuit of glory, blundered into an enemy explosive tag trap, and been blown to pieces.
But judging by Nawaki's scattered fragments of memory, that was not what had happened at all!
Their squad had not originally been taking the route where they were attacked. Someone on the team had deliberately reported false intelligence, leading them step by step into the encircling traps.
Worse still, the instant the explosive tags detonated, Nawaki had actually had more than enough time to escape with the Substitution Technique. But a sinister hand had suddenly reached out from behind and seized his ankle, forcibly dragging him into the sea of flames!
It made sense. Nawaki carried the purest direct bloodline of the Senju Clan and was Tsunade's own younger brother, personally trained by her. He had plenty of life-saving trump cards. How could a few lousy explosive tags have killed him so easily?
Now that he was alive again, investigating the case would be much simpler.
Once they returned to Konoha, Xuanye could simply drag the survivors of Nawaki's old squad into the Konoha Military Police Force's jail for questioning, and the mastermind would naturally come to light.
Of course, the easiest method would actually be to grab Orochimaru, the teacher who had led their team back then, and confront him in person.
Unfortunately, that venomous snake had defected from the village a couple of years earlier. Who knew which dark corner he was hiding in now, conducting human experiments? There was no way to bring him in for questioning.
"If you ask me, calling you brother-in-law would be even friendlier!"
Nawaki's eyes darted, and he grinned as he seized the opening.
Toward a powerhouse who could reverse life and death with a wave of his hand, and whom even his older sister had to obediently listen to, Nawaki felt nothing but gratitude and towering admiration.
That flattery hit the spot!
Xuanye nodded in satisfaction, finding Nawaki more and more pleasing.
After Uchiha Cong, he finally had another clever subordinate who knew how to handle himself.
As for Uchiha Itachi, whom he had just stuffed into the Konoha Military Police Force two days earlier?
Forget it. Expecting someone ruthless enough to kill even his own parents in the original story to flatter him was pure daydreaming.
"The village gates are just ahead."
Walking beside them, Tsunade suddenly stopped, looked up at Konoha's walls looming faintly in the night, and sighed softly.
Born and raised in Konoha, she naturally had feelings for this land that she could never sever.
But over the years, the successive tragic deaths of her loved ones and the higher-ups' cold-blooded scheming had long since worn away every bit of warmth in her heart.
That bone-deep weariness and emptiness felt just as awful as staring blankly at the ceiling after she finished rubbing against Shizune in an inn room in the dead of night.
If Xuanye had not brought Nawaki back alive before her eyes today, she probably would never have set foot in Konoha again, even if it killed her.
Coming back to herself, Tsunade grabbed Nawaki beside her, swiftly formed hand seals, and used a sophisticated Medical Disguise Technique to make subtle adjustments to his features and face shape. Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief.
"Nice work. With that fair little boy's face he has now, I bet the whole village would believe us if we took him out and said he was the illegitimate son we had during an affair outside the village."
Completely ignoring Tsunade's instantly darkening expression, Xuanye rubbed his chin and clicked his tongue in wonder.
Nawaki had been only twelve when he died in battle.
Although he had already graduated from the Ninja Academy and gone to the battlefield at that age, wartime and peacetime were entirely different matters.
To fill the enormous gaps left by casualties at the front, Konoha High Command had driven underage Ninja Academy students to graduate early in droves and serve as cannon fodder. Children going to war at five or six had been commonplace.
Then there was Naruto Uzumaki more than a decade later, who had loafed around the Ninja Academy until he graduated at twelve, and during peacetime at that. He had no idea how brutal real war was.
Now, Nawaki's newly reconstituted body was very young, looking barely over ten. No one really would question it if they said he was Xuanye and Tsunade's illegitimate son.
Of course, that was provided no one carefully calculated Xuanye's actual age this year.
Otherwise, counting backward along the timeline, Xuanye himself had still been a little brat ten years ago. Surely he could not have been riding an older woman like Tsunade back then?
"Watch that filthy mouth of yours and stop talking nonsense!"
Tsunade shot Xuanye a fierce glare and irritably shielded Nawaki behind her.
Konoha's gates were now right before them.
Xuanye stretched and glanced down at the docile, obedient Uzuki Yugao in his arms, planning to take her straight back to his mansion tonight and have her.
But before he could voice the words on his lips, his brow suddenly lifted. An unimaginably vast power of mental perception instantly swept outward from him in every direction!
The Mind's Eye of the Kagura, strengthened over a hundred times by the system!
In the blink of an eye, every stir throughout Konoha and for over a dozen kilometers around it appeared clearly in Xuanye's mind!
"Finally couldn't hold back any longer?"
The corners of Xuanye's mouth rose slightly, and a cold glint flashed in his eyes.
He had hurried Tsunade back to the village overnight for more than simply clocking in tomorrow morning.
He knew perfectly well that after his conspicuous departure from Konoha today, certain restless individuals in the village would surely seize the opportunity to make their moves.
Besides, tonight happened to be the third birthday banquet of Hinata Hyuga, the Byakugan princess and eldest daughter of the Hyuga Clan's Main Family!
According to the original story's course, there would definitely be a good show tonight.
What surprised Xuanye a little, however, was that his perception revealed more than one group of rats lurking in Konoha's shadows tonight, and the Hyuga Clan was not their only target!
The Fourth Raikage's explosive temper really had not changed one bit.
Envoy Samui had been detained in public in Konoha, utterly humiliating Kumogakure. The Raikage had already sent elites to settle the score.
Just then, a string of crisp system notifications suddenly rang out in Xuanye's mind:
[Ding! A serious public security crisis has been detected within Konoha. The Competent Police Force Captain side quest has been triggered!] [As the host is currently on leave, please make one of the following choices immediately:] [Option one: Refuse to work overtime while on leave. Go home and fall straight asleep! Settlement result: Today's daily quest rewards will be slightly reduced.] [Option two: Sound the rally signal and lead the Konoha Military Police Force in a crushing strike! Any madman who dares run wild in Konoha must face the Police Force Captain's thunderous wrath! Settlement result: The more thoroughly the unrest is quelled, the higher today's quest rating will be. The tier of the cumulative grand prize for the host's tenure will also increase significantly!]
Was there even any need to choose?
The system's second option practically spoke straight to Xuanye's heart!
Xuanye inwardly rolled his eyes.
As the head of the Konoha Military Police Force, he would be damned if he swallowed his anger when vermin from another village had crept onto his turf to take a shit!
He could legitimately cut people down to establish his authority while boosting the rating of the system's hidden grand prize. Only an idiot would pass up a deal that killed two birds with one stone!
At that thought, the casual air on Xuanye's face vanished instantly, replaced by bone-chilling cold.
"Tsunade."
Just after crossing the Village Entrance Marker, Xuanye suddenly stopped and spoke.
"What is it?"
Tsunade turned, about to snap back at him, only to meet a gaze as sharp as a blade. Her heart tightened, and she instinctively dropped her playful expression.
Had something serious happened?
Still, once this little bastard got serious, that air of authority really was intimidating. He actually looked handsome enough to make her heart beat faster.
"Have Yugao take you to the Konoha Military Police Force headquarters to get settled first."
Xuanye casually pulled a black-and-gold token engraved with a round fan pattern from inside his clothes and tossed it straight to Tsunade, issuing his orders in an icy voice:
"Give my captain's token to Deputy Captain Uchiha Shanyang. Tell him to sound the emergency assembly whistle immediately and mobilize the entire force to seal off the Hyuga Clan Grounds!"
"Arrest every suspicious person wandering the streets tonight on sight!"
"Anyone who draws a blade to resist is to be killed without mercy!"
Before you continue