"Kiba, Shino, guys… you've gotta be misunderstanding Naruto-kun. Even if he and Sasuke really do have… you know, that kind of relationship, he still definitely wouldn't do sothing like this."
Hinata was still trying to defend him.
But from the way she phrased it, it was obvious that even Hinata had already started half-accepting that Naruto and Sasuke had so kind of improper thing going on.
"That's true. Their character… well, Naruto's bullshit aside, Sasuke probably wouldn't do sothing like this, right?"
Shikamaru had been about to speak up for the guy, but the second he opened his mouth, a vivid image flashed through his mind of Naruto as a kid, running around pulling crazy pranks and causing chaos.
He imdiately changed his tune.
"He absolutely fucking would!"
A voice full of grief and total indignation barked from behind them.
"Mr. Shigaraki Tanuki?"
Everyone looked at the newcor in surprise.
"You people clearly already have the answer, yet because of your personal feelings, you still want to deny it. That's nothing but emotional bias!"
Shigaraki Tanuki clenched his fists.
He had overheard Shikamaru's analysis.
Seeing these brats get so close to the truth, only to start making piss-poor excuses for the guy responsible, filled him with absolute anger.
Not long ago, he had run into White Zetsu.
That creepy bastard had told him about the state of his body, and ntioned that if he still wanted kids, all he had to do was earn enough contribution points and drag his ass to Orochimaru.
When he first heard that kind of garbage, of course he had refused to believe it.
But Konoha had recently been going through so heavy reforms, and part of signing up now ant getting a full physical checkup.
His own exam had only been half-completed before he took off with Sai on a mission, making this a perfect chance to get checked and put his damn doubts to rest.
The result?
White Zetsu had been telling the truth.
He had heard of boiling a frog in warm water before. He just never imagined he'd end up being the poor bastard slowly ruined that way!
Despair. Anger. Pain.
Shigaraki Tanuki kept thinking: 'The Raikage pushes his body with lightning all the ti and he's perfectly fine—stronger than ever, in fact. Yet I only went through one night of this crap, and it's already destroy my future.'
His grief slowly curdled into pure hatred.
Fortunately, because White Zetsu had handed him a possible backup plan ahead of ti, he hadn't completely lost his mind.
At the sa ti, two major questions had taken root in his head.
'That night, Sai and I both suffered together—so did sothing happen to Sai too?'
'Though, if those nasty rumors about Sai and Danzo were actually true, then maybe Sai's condition might have so older, ssed-up causes mixed into it.'
The second question was way weirder.
The dical exam flat-out stated his future as a father was toast.
Yet that morning, he had still… shown certain signs of life down there.
That was when Shigaraki Tanuki realized so other weird shit might be going on.
'Did the lightning reduce so things while sohow jacking up others?'
With Orochimaru as a possible out, Shigaraki Tanuki's hatred went down a notch.
Which led to the current situation.
He still wanted to track Sasuke down and demand an explanation.
So when he heard Shikamaru describing Sasuke as soone with "good character," even with his anger mostly cooled off, he couldn't help flaring up again.
'A punk who did this to still counts as having good character?!'
"Mr. Shigaraki Tanuki, are you saying it really was Sasuke? Do you have proof?"
Shikamaru didn't give a damn about being contradicted.
All he cared about was the truth.
The second he heard Tanuki say that, he sniffed out a lead and stepped forward quickly.
"Proof? Hell yeah I do… but I can't show it to you yet."
He almost said more, but caught himself.
His evidence was tied to his future "contribution points," and no matter what, he had to submit one copy to Agakure first.
"I could have told you before. But after hearing how you were just trying to defend Uchiha Sasuke, I'm not comfortable with it. I'm worried that if I hand over the evidence right now, you'll just destroy the thing. So…"
"Take to Agakure first. I want to submit a copy of the evidence there, and only after I've seen the results of your further investigation will I tell you the rest."
Shigaraki Tanuki pulled an excuse out of his ass on the spot.
"All right."
Shikamaru could tell Tanuki's issue wasn't really a lack of trust; the guy clearly had so other motive.
Still, there was no helping it. If they wanted the evidence, they had to play ball.
Fortunately, this wasn't exactly a hard request.
...
Before long, the group reached the outskirts of Agakure.
Shikamaru had Akamaru sniff around the area, looking for different traces.
Akamaru had morized three distinct scents: Naruto, Sasuke, and that mysterious Edo Tensei fragnt.
The most important one was the mysterious Edo Tensei ninja.
Normally, those zombie bodies had no real scent—but this one was a weird exception.
It slled like a mix of milk and sweet lilacs.
"Sasori, my man! You'll never guess the crazy thing I saw this morning!"
"Everybody knows I'm hardworking. I always fly around on my bird first thing in the morning to get so exercise."
"But today I stuffed my face with a little too much oden, so I got back a bit late. I sped up on the way back, and then—guess what I saw?"
"A flying ass fragnt with a flower stuck right in it was zooming back toward Agakure right beside ! We were moving at the exact sa speed!"
"I was so freaked out I almost blew up my own bird!"
"It was terrifying! Totally cursed!"
Deidara and Sasori happened to pass by the group, and Deidara was waving his arms around like a maniac as he described his morning encounter.
"…And then?" Sasori asked flatly.
Normally, Sasori had no interest in this kind of garbage news.
But the last stubborn traces of his humanity still forced a spark of curiosity out of him.
"And then? Then I kept chasing the thing. I wanted to see whose ass it belonged to, and then sothing even scarier happened. I sohow ended up right on your bed, Sasori, my man. Do you believe ?"
Deidara wore a completely innocent look.
"…That story doesn't make a shred of sense."
Sasori gave him a sidelong glance and stopped responding.
Because Sasori still had a living core and his brain could still get tired, he needed so downti too.
Yet this morning, when he woke up, Deidara had been sitting right on top of him with a dazed expression.
And who the hell was Akasuna no Sasori?
He was the guy whom even the naturally obnoxious Nine-Tails jinchūriki, Uzumaki Naruto, had failed to prank properly.
'Would I really be afraid this idiot has so weird designs on ?'
Even if Deidara had dug around and found sothing, who said it wouldn't just be a bunch of sharpeners and tools in there anyway?
Sasori had rely been curious as to why Deidara ended up there in the first place.
If the blond bomber didn't want to explain, then fine.
But making up such a ridiculous-ass story only made Sasori think even less of Deidara's precious "art."
"I'm seriously not lying!" Deidara looked deeply wronged.
The two of them continued bickering and gradually disappeared into the distance.
Shikamaru's group, however, had stopped dead in their tracks the second those two started talking.
They remained frozen there until the entire weird exchange ended.
"Did you hear that? It's kind of similar." Shikamaru rubbed his chin and thought.
"Similar? Of course it's freaking similar! We were frad too! All of us ended up in places we had no business appearing in. It has to be Sasuke and Naruto—they're trying to drag everyone else down into their ssy reputation! Look, even Akatsuki mbers got hit by this shit!"
The more Kiba talked, the more agitated he beca.
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