39 Tsunade the Great Gambler

"Ah!"

Screams rang out one after another.

The few people who attacked Asuma, their wrists now showed signs of electrical burns, reducing the blood flow from the wounds.

Asuma was within reach, so he could see clearly -

Such a fast, accurate knife!

The force was also perfectly controlled, just enough to cripple their knife-wielding hands without any excess power.

By now, Shisui had also taken down his target.

"Tie them up and take them back," ordered Kyōichi calmly.

Asuma gritted his teeth, took out ropes from his ninja tool pouch, and bound all of the living people.

Afterwards, they cleaned up the surrounding corpses.

Those people were wrapped up with loot from raids, even freshly killed chickens and ducks tied around their waists, still dripping with blood.

Along the way, the captives kept begging for mercy, but no one paid them any attention.

Eventually, cloths were used to gag their mouths.

Peace and quiet returned to the world.

"Sensei, I'm sorry, if it wasn't for me..." Asuma came up to apologize.

If he hadn't lost focus, there would have been no need for Sensei to make a move. With their abilities, they could have easily dealt with these rogue samurai.

"You should apologize to your teammates. In a real battlefield, your actions just now would have gotten you killed or severely injured. Even if you survived, you would have become a liability to your comrades," Kyōichi said flatly.

Asuma reacted and turned to bow deeply to Kurenai and Shisui.

Kurenai quickly avoided it and said, "Sensei, I also bear great responsibility for Asuma's situation."

Those were just samurai, they wouldn't have been able to break her Genjutsu.

If she had used her illusions in time, she could have restrained those men.

However... she had panicked in that moment.

"What about you, Shisui?"

"I wanted to attack the enemy to force them to fall back, but I didn't expect that they wouldn't bother saving their comrades."

Shisui was still reflecting with some frustration.

A smile appeared on Kyōichi's face. "In Konoha we value the Will of Fire, protecting and helping each other. But they're different, they're bandits, licking blood off their blades. Losing a comrade probably means less money to split."

"I understand now," Shisui nodded.

If he had realized sooner, he would have chosen to cover their retreat with Ninjutsu, not the tactics he had used.

Kyōichi was very satisfied.

Students like this were good to teach!

No stubbornness, and their thinking wasn't bad either.

If it had been Kakashi and Obito instead, he himself would have been angered to death. Furthermore, given the situation, this new Genin team was already performing very well compared to normal.

Regular Genin teams would have been much more chaotic.

Therefore, Kyōichi didn't criticize them harshly. "It's good that you can reflect. Real combat is completely different from training and sparring. At least during training, you won't get splashed in the eyes with blood."

"Yes!" Asuma was somewhat ashamed.

Sensei was right, the reason he had froze for one or two seconds was because of the blood in his eyes. Another reason was that he had indeed been frightened.

"Let's take them back for the mayor to confirm they are the raiders. Also, after completing the mission, we'll visit the surroundings and see where these rogues hit, to return the money," instructed Kyōichi.

"Yes!"

These ronin must have just raided a village.

The loot was plentiful, but in truth not much money for them. Ill-gotten gains would not sit well, and Kyōichi had no intention of keeping it for himself.

Returning to town, the mayor was at the construction site for the new walls.

Asuma and the others were shocked to see shadow clones helping build the walls, taking quite a while to react.

Afterwards, "Mayor, while patrolling we encountered these ronin. Are they the bandits who raided Shirokumo Town before?"

"Yes, yes, that's them!"

The mayor didn't recognize them himself, but a foreman nearby immediately identified them, having been present during the previous raids and nearly losing his life once.

Kyōichi nodded.

Then they had caught the right people.

He had Shisui hand the prisoners over to them, then said, "Asuma, you guys help them repair the damage here. I'll take a look around."

"Yes!"

Asuma didn't object.

Although they were the children of ninja clans in Konoha, what was wrong with hauling water and building fences?

That was a ninja's life.

So they didn't feel anything was amiss.

Kyōichi left a shadow clone to help and headed into Shirokumo Town himself.

Earlier, his chakra sensing had not only detected the bandits from the west, but also someone with an extremely powerful chakra. He didn't know who it was, but...

This was the Land of Fire.

He felt it would be best to go take a look.

However... Kyōichi had some guesses - the Third had assigned this mission, so the chances of missing-nin appearing was probably low. With such enormous chakra, it was likely that person.

One of the Legendary Sannin, Tsunade!

Kyōichi focused his sensing again to lock onto her location.

Rushing over, he was basically certain it should be Tsunade, because the destination was a gambling den. Not only that, he had just seen a group of people charge inside in a hurry.

Judging from the situation... they were likely debt collectors.

"Better to wait out here."

Entering now, he might end up taking Tsunade's place to pay off her debts.

The problem was, he didn't have much money either!

Although he had earned some from mission payouts this month, compared to Tsunade's debts it was a drop in the bucket.

Kyōichi sat on a rooftop, chewing on a blade of grass as he watched the commotion.

After a while, a woman leaped out from a window on the other side of the gambling den, closely followed by a young girl.

"Troublesome," he sighed softly.

Shizune had left the village with Tsunade when she was five or six. These past three years she had probably been living this kind of life.

But what about that pig that kept getting pawned off?

Hadn't they raised it yet?

Kyōichi observed for a bit longer. He saw a group of people chase out after Tsunade, but those were just ordinary folk. Naturally they were no match for ninja at pursuit and evasion.

One turn, a transformation jutsu...

And they had lost the trail.

"Chasing after Tsunade's debts sure is difficult!"

Kyōichi sighed inwardly.

If it had been ninja participating in the debt collection, they might have even gotten beat up.

The next moment, he sensed a figure approach behind him.

"Stinking brat, seeing me get chased yet not coming down to help. Just sitting here enjoying the show huh?"

Glancing back, it was as expected.

Tsunade.

Tsk!

Such... such dazzling necklace!

Kyōichi averted his gaze and said, "Lady Tsunade, it's not like anything would happen to you. I'm just a poor guy, going down I still wouldn't be able to pay off the debt. Besides, next time you gamble again even if I did pay it off right?"

Principle number one - never lend gambling money addicts, even if it's Tsunade.

"Hmph!"

Tsunade didn't refute, looking him over a few times, then turned with a cold snort.

How fun could gambling be?

The brat Teacher talked about had silver hair, and with those looks, unconsciously reminded her of Tobirama Senju, Who coincidentally also disliked gambling.

"Lady Tsunade, where are you going..."

Shizune jumped up and saw a silver-haired boy sitting together with Tsunade. Both turned to look, with about three or four parts similar features.

Tsunade ignored her and instead asked sideways, "Brat, how about going for a drink?"

"You've lost all your money gambling again?"

"..."

So annoying!