"No way."
Once Tsunade calmed down, she thought it over. She was extremely confident in her own strength, and even more confident in her control over chakra.
She was one of the greatest medical ninjas alive. Her chakra control had long since reached the peak.
So there was no way that little bit of force just now could have damaged this guy's brain.
"It went through."
Just as Tsunade was about to ask Rowan what the hell he was freaking out about, he suddenly sat upright and stared at her with bright, shining eyes.
"It went through? What went through?" Tsunade didn't quite follow at first.
Rowan said, "My ability. No, that's not right—it worked."
"What do you mean?" Tsunade looked even more confused.
Rowan pointed at his slightly reddened forehead and said, "The instant your air bullet hit my head, it felt like my brain suddenly got cleared out."
"And then I got this strange feeling, like something telling me my ability is usable now. I can connect to a new world."
Hearing that, Tsunade's eyes widened involuntarily. She stared at her own fingers in disbelief.
"My air bullet can do that too? Should I hit you a few more times?"
"The hell you should."
Rowan rolled his eyes at her. "I already told you it was close. It's just that when you hit me, my ability happened to become usable. It had nothing to do with you hitting me."
"That's not necessarily true," Tsunade said with obvious ill intent. "What if it did have something to do with it?"
Rowan looked at her suspiciously. "I think you just want an excuse to beat me up."
Tsunade felt insulted. She crossed her arms over her chest, making her already generous curves stand out even more, and snorted. "Do I look like that kind of person?"
Rowan nodded without hesitation. Yes. Yes, you absolutely were.
Seeing her eyebrow twitch upward and knowing she was about to blow up, he quickly changed the subject. "So, do you still want to go to a new world or not?"
Only then did Tsunade suppress her anger and say, "Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"
"Right now?"
"Right now."
Tsunade shot to her feet from the tatami. She was awake, she had eaten breakfast, and now was the perfect time to explore another world.
Rowan asked, "Shouldn't we wait for Shizune?"
As Tsunade's student and attendant, Shizune also knew about Rowan and the existence of other worlds. She had even read Naruto too.
So she counted as an insider.
Tsunade waved a hand dismissively. "One more person won't make a difference, and one less won't matter either. Who knows how much she drank with those friends of hers yesterday? We're not waiting. I can't hold out any longer. We're going now. Immediately. This instant."
Seeing that, Rowan said nothing more.
Tsunade was strong enough. As long as they didn't walk into some instant death trap, she could easily serve as his bodyguard and protect him.
So he stood up, walked forward a few steps, and placed his hand on the sliding door to the Japanese-style living room.
This was the Naruto world, inside a house belonging to the Senju clan, so the living room door wasn't a hinged door but a sliding one.
But that didn't matter. As far as Rowan's ability was concerned, a door was a door.
Didn't matter whether it was hinged or sliding, wooden or stone, iron or reinforced security—if it was a door, he could use it.
He took a deep breath, activated his power, and slowly slid open the living room door.
Normally, outside this Japanese-style living room was a hallway.
But what appeared before Rowan and Tsunade now was no longer a corridor.
It was a bright bedroom.
And inside that bedroom stood a woman in front of a full-length mirror, getting dressed up.
She was a tall young woman with long limbs, deep-set features, a distinctively high nose bridge, narrow eyes, dark blue pupils, fair skin, and a hime-cut hairstyle.
She wore a dark cowgirl-style outfit—bare midriff, low neckline, high slits—perfectly highlighting her graceful figure.
While adjusting herself in front of the mirror, the woman suddenly noticed through the reflection that her bedroom door had opened.
A strange man and woman were standing in the doorway, looking at her.
In an instant, her alertness shot to the highest level. The moment she turned around, she crossed both hands in front of her chest.
"Seis Fleur."
In the blink of an eye, six arms sprouted from Rowan's body, clearly about to restrain him.
And then those six arms froze.
Because the moment the woman spoke, Tsunade had already used the Body Flicker Technique and appeared behind her out of nowhere, pressing a kunai to her throat.
"Don't move."
Tsunade's icy voice echoed in the woman's ear, and the intense killing intent in it sent goosebumps racing across her skin.
She had no doubt that if she made even the slightest suspicious move, the woman behind her would slit her throat with that sharp blade.
So she truly didn't dare move.
"Everybody calm down."
At that moment, Rowan spoke up. He said to the woman, "Miss Nico Robin, release your ability first. We're not bad people. Tsunade, put the kunai away too. We can all sit down and talk."
That's right—the woman standing in front of the mirror was none other than Nico Robin from the world of One Piece.
Just as Rowan had recognized Tsunade at a glance, the moment he saw Nico Robin, he recognized her too.
There was no helping it. The way the two of them were dressed was just too distinctive. You could tell who they were in a single glance. There was no way to mistake them.
Tsunade didn't listen to Rowan and put away the kunai, because six arms were still growing out of his body.
Even the biting cold killing intent around her hadn't lessened in the slightest.
Nico Robin's gaze flickered slightly. Then she slowly lowered her hands, and the six arms on Rowan's body instantly turned into flower petals and vanished.
Rowan couldn't help reaching out to grab one, but caught nothing.
"Devil Fruit powers really are incredible."
Only after Nico Robin released her ability did Tsunade finally withdraw her killing intent, put away her kunai, and let Robin go.
But her eyes never left Robin for a second.
If Nico Robin made any suspicious move, Tsunade would kill her without hesitation.
After all, Rowan's safety was directly tied to whether or not she could save the ninja world. She couldn't afford even the slightest carelessness.
On the other side, once the kunai was removed from her throat, Nico Robin quietly let out a breath of relief and asked,
"Who are you? And why did you break into my room?"
Rowan smiled and said, "If I told you we're from another world, would you believe me, Miss Nico Robin?"
Robin's expression shifted several times before she forcibly managed a faint smile.
"Should I believe that… or not?"
That was what she said, but her eyes were clearly saying only one thing:
Yeah right. As if I'd believe that.
Rowan didn't expect a single sentence to make Robin accept everything. Instead, he asked, "Where is this, Alabasta? Or some other island?"
~~~
Thank you!