Chapter 240: The Hokage Building
RawrSoFierce: Slept well, fresh start. Mornings are the best time to go mooch a meal off someone else. Got asked yesterday to judge some kind of exam — I get to stand around watching a bunch of kids take tests.
RawrSoFierce: Doesn't start for two weeks though. For now it's just free food.
Kaguya-sama: The Admin, live-mooching meals! Why don't you cook for yourself, Admin?
RawrSoFierce: Cooking's a hassle. My food's actually decent, for what it's worth.
Eternally Seventeen: Admin, just move into Gensokyo with me. Ran cooks every day, you could mooch off us instead~
RawrSoFierce: …I'm suspicious of your motives here. Are you trying to seduce me again? Is your mating season still going?
Eternally Seventeen: Hmph! I do NOT seduce men!
My True Form Is Cola: Senpai... I also want to mooch some food (′??`)
Eternally Seventeen: Crossing over costs 1,000 Points, you know. Right now the only people in this group who can casually drop 1,000 Points are the Admin and Little Kaguya.
Eternally Seventeen: Considering the two of them just finished their little private world together.
I'm Rolling In It: Don't know if it's just Uncle Tony's imagination, but I'm picking up a strong jealousy scent right now. Sour. Genuinely sour.
Eternally Seventeen: Is Stark looking for another stint in the timeout box? Ten-minute mute warning, courtesy of a certain youkai sage.
I'm Rolling In It: Ha. You think Uncle Tony folds that easy? I only apologise to Permissions Hounds who genuinely earn it!
Crazy Diamond: Pfft — that's a hell of a death wish on full display.
"…"
Ryū wasn't sure whether Tony's recent breakthrough with Wolffy on their joint project had gone to his head, but ever since the Mid-Autumn activity wrapped, Stark's tendency toward provoking moderators had gotten noticeably worse. Like he'd suddenly developed confidence he hadn't earned. Probably the research breakthrough talking — nothing else explained the recklessness.
The man was testing the absolute edge of how much he could get away with.
Whether Yukari — several thousand years of accumulated existence — would genuinely get jealous over something this small was its own question. And if she actually did have feelings in that direction, Ryū wasn't sure he was equipped to handle it. He couldn't beat her in a fight. If something ever went sideways between them and she came at him with an entire tier of power behind it out of anger, that wasn't a disagreement — that was domestic violence at a cosmic scale.
Why am I even thinking about this. Do I have feelings for the old youkai?
He'd just finished brushing his teeth and found himself standing there, mid-thought, toothbrush still in hand.
Yukari was undeniably attractive — though to be fair, every female member of the group was. The male roster, by contrast, ranged from unusual to outright strange-looking. Maybe that was just statistical noise though.
Do I actually have a thing for the old woman?
Was this what people meant by — what was the term — online dating? Not literally accurate, since the Chat Group wasn't internet-based, but the shape of it fit close enough.
"Whatever. Not worth thinking about right now. I'm still a minor anyway — by this body's actual birthday, I've got two or three months left before I'm of age. November 22nd, I think. So, give or take ten weeks."
He let the thought go, got ready, and headed out — he'd told Minato he'd be there today, and he wasn't going to flake on it.
Konoha was lively again, the visitor count visibly higher than the day before. Even out-of-village civilians and merchants with money to spend had started arriving for the spectacle. The Chūnin Exams, restarting after years of suspension, opening in the most recognisable village in the shinobi world, post-war — the tourist traffic made sense.
The street wasn't packed shoulder-to-shoulder — the shinobi world's overall population wasn't large enough for that — but it was busier and more colourful than usual. Vendor stalls had roughly doubled in number, every one of them visibly thrilled with how business was going.
He was partway to the Hokage building when something made him pause.
He looked back, mildly surprised.
Tsunade. Again. The timing was suspicious enough to be almost comical.
His first reaction, predictably, was a brief, involuntary glance at the obvious anatomical feature competing for attention. He redirected to her face quickly enough.
His expression didn't change. The proportions, impressive as they were, weren't enough to actually move him — he wasn't operating on that kind of deprivation, and if he were, the Chat Group's roster wouldn't leave much room for restraint either.
Tsunade waved and called out, smiling, "Didn't expect you out this early. Quite the coincidence, running into you again."
His mouth twitched slightly.
She really thinks I haven't noticed?
He'd known from the start that she was tracking his movements — his Observation Haki covered the entire village without effort, and noticing someone's attention on him wasn't difficult work. The word "coincidence" landing in her sentence was what made his expression shift.
Why she'd waited specifically until he left the house to "happen" to walk the same direction, he didn't fully know. Tsunade carried herself casually most of the time, but she was still a person with her own calculations, and shallow telepathy didn't pull much useful signal from someone whose motives weren't already close to the surface. Women's intentions were notoriously hard to read even with actual mind-reading available.
Minato, probably. Tsunade likely supported him. For that matter, every Sannin except Orochimaru probably did.
So this "coincidence" is an attempt to get friendly with me, with the actual goal being that I openly show some support for Minato in the village's eyes.
Funny, in a way — a non-shinobi background character somehow mattering this much to Konoha's internal politics. Apparently his power output registered as more frightening to the leadership than a Tailed Beast.
If someone at his level publicly backed Minato, the calculus around Minato's authority shifted considerably. The difference between "Hokage in name, controlled by the old guard" and "Hokage with actual teeth" came down to exactly this kind of signal.
Did his support actually matter that much? Apparently, yes. If you had someone capable of single-handedly wiping out a nation — comparable to Hashirama himself — visibly backing Minato, nobody would seriously consider treating him as a figurehead.
He worked through the logic and laughed quietly, turning to Tsunade.
"So my support matters that much to all of you? Makes me sound like some shadowy mastermind pulling strings behind the scenes. Very villain-coded."
Tsunade blinked, then realised her angle had been read clean through.
No point in pretending otherwise now. The easy smile faded into something more serious. "You said yesterday you weren't interested in the Hokage position. I still wanted to ask, respectfully—"
He cut her off before she finished. "I'm here for the food. Whatever you all want to do politically, work it out yourselves. Leave me out of it."
He continued toward the Hokage building, humming something tuneless under his breath, unhurried.
Tsunade stood where she was for a moment, processing.
Then something clicked. If she'd read him correctly, what he meant was: he'd accepted Minato's invitation, and whatever anyone wanted to make of that was their business, not his concern either way.
"Phew. Good thing he's reasonable to deal with. That much power and a temperament that easy — makes you wonder who raised something like that."
The curiosity surfaced briefly and she let it go just as quickly. Some things were better left unasked. If a person hadn't volunteered an explanation, digging for one rarely ended well.
Tsunade's read of Ryū's temperament as "easy to deal with" would have struck anyone with actual knowledge of his quest history as wildly optimistic — he'd killed plenty of people without hesitation whenever a Chat Group task called for it, regardless of personal grudge. Whether that counted as "good temperament" was a matter of perspective. But Tsunade wasn't a Chat Group member and had no idea any of that existed.
The two of them, walking at an unhurried pace, reached the base of the Hokage building within half an hour. The building itself wasn't dramatically taller than the rest of Konoha's architecture, but the footprint was considerable, and the overall design carried genuine presence.
The crowd of visiting shinobi here was several times denser than out on the main streets.
Tsunade noticed Ryū's mild surprise at the scene and asked, "First time here, Ryū-dono?"
He didn't bother hiding it. "Yeah. Usually I just stay home. Don't bother going out much."
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you