51 New horizons

I'm going to clarify a point that I see that people are confusing a lot.

Haku is a GUY in this FF. The reasons why perhaps it comes out referring to her as GIRL are only two: The characters confuse Haku's gender (deliberately due to my decision in the story to add humor) or it is a failure of the translation program when I converted it to English.

Everything is explained in chapter 0.

If you have also read my previous FF, you will know that I have been testing several programs over time and things have improved a lot compared to the beginning, but the genders of the characters seem to be a constant problem in all the programs.

Now, let's start today's chapter.

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POV Tsunade

Damn, these days have been insane, and it all started when I met Enel.

I made a friend in the middle of the night, exchanging drinks without realizing it, only to later discover from him the dark history my former sensei orchestrated behind my back, with the help of his bandaged friend, I have no doubt.

Dan turned out to be an undercover thug on a mission, my little brother died under the deliberate manipulation of those he wished to protect, and my grandfather's grave was desecrated by people from the village he founded.

And I don't believe for a second that that bastard Jiraiya, the Third Hokage's golden boy, didn't have an inkling of most, if not all, of these things. He's the ultimate spy master, but it seems he can keep certain secrets even from me.

In the end, it turned out that the most honest teammate was always Orochimaru, ironic as that may be. I should have realized when Jiraiya threatened to kill me if I deserted. Well, now it's time to see if he has the balls to do it.

And Enel doesn't seem like the kind of person who stands by when his friends are in trouble. I've already thrown a political shitstorm into the mix by deserting, and now I just need to wait for the fan to hit Konoha, targeting my former superiors and comrades.

Later, I deserted Konoha and decided to move to Seimeigakure, but not before leaving that box to Hiruzen. I hope whatever's inside serves its purpose.

After discovering that Enel isn't a sage who uses natural energy, I saw a fraction of his speed and how he casually produced a golden apple that seems to be a damn panacea for everything.

He threw one at me while stuffing another down Shizune's throat, causing my student to blush up to her ears.

The poison that still lingered in my body from the battle against Hanzo, the Salamander...

Gone.

I spent months trying to eliminate it with my medical knowledge, still experiencing occasional violent reactions that I had to suppress with alcohol. Enel just had to casually pull out a golden apple to outdo me.

So frustrating! But I haven't felt this good in years. I no longer have to adjust my nerves to bear the pain, and my muscles no longer tense up.

Now I don't even need to use my technique to maintain a young and beautiful appearance, which, I admit, satisfies my vanity as a woman to be able to say that now everything is natural and not the product of a ninja technique.

When I heard the properties of the golden apple, my first thought was that Orochimaru would go crazy if he knew of its existence. He's been obsessed with immortality for years, and if he were a good boy, all he would need to do is join the village, be obedient, and eat an apple a year to become immortal.

But the most mind-blowing part was Enel's village.

It's in the damn sky, above a huge cloud whose composition makes no sense, and if I understood correctly, it can move at will all over the world.

No wonder the villages can't get a single detail about this place!

It's completely understandable why Enel wants to keep this a secret. I think it's the only village that truly deserves the "hidden" part in its name.

How many ninjas can fly in this world?

They're already scarce enough to count on one hand, but to also be able to reach this altitude...

Oh, it seems like everyone in this village can do it by signing a contract with... another cloud.

The furniture is made of cloud, and the bed is the most comfortable I've ever tried in my life. I want to die in this bed.

The vegetables growing in the garden make me question what the hell I ate before.

The cloud foxes are so stress-relieving that I almost want one of my own.

The laboratory is like any researcher's and doctor's wet dream. The data precision leaves me speechless, and the quality of the tools is simply incomparable to anything I've used before.

There are machines I didn't even know how they worked until Karin explained them to me. And they're not even the most advanced machines, as I gathered from her words; they're just the most basic and essential ones since they're for public use.

I wanted to bang my head against a wall, but it was made of clouds. The fact that the most basic equipment here is even more advanced than Konoha's best research institute, which has had hundreds of millions of ryo invested in it for years...

But let's get back to Karin.

A young girl who, from what I understood, was Enel's medical student, and I must say I was very impressed. Not only did she manage everything in this place, but her basic medical knowledge is perfect, even more so than mine or Shizune's.

Damn, she even talked about things I didn't know existed as if they were elementary, and she helped me understand many things that were previously unanswered!

But when she said straight to my face that she had only been studying for a year, I nearly fainted on the spot from sheer shock at what that meant.

Suddenly, I felt a deep level of respect for Enel. If his student had learned so much in such a short time, how knowledgeable was my friend in the field of medicine?

She let me take a look at the first book she read, hoping to regain some confidence, but I only suffered a kick in the gut when, after finishing reading, I barely understood a third of its content.

I passed the book to Shizune, who stared at the first page completely puzzled, as if trying to read in a different language.

Were we still talking about the medicine I knew?

Why do I understand every word but not what they mean when put together?

I had to go outside to catch my breath and calm down, but I regretted it immediately when I saw the other village members who were anything but normal.

Anko, Orochimaru's former student who had disappeared under mysterious circumstances. I heard about her cruel treatment in Konoha, but I was still surprised to see her here because I knew how much she admired Orochimaru. More so when I found out that the cursed seal she had was resolved long ago, and now she had changed her idol to Enel.

Pakura, a woman of great talent and fame who was supposed to have died murdered in a Kiri ambush. I didn't expect Rasa to be so foolish as to try to kill his best asset, who was also a great deterrent.

Mariko, a remnant of the Uzumaki clan, who turned out to be Karin's mother. So technically, I had just found some distant relatives of my family, which gave me an even greater sense of belonging to this place.

Kimimaro, possibly the last living member of the Kaguya clan. Since when did his bones have a golden color? Oh, it seems Enel had something to do with that; it makes sense.

Ameyuri Ringo, one of the seven swordsmen of the mist, became a Kiri deserter without warning, taking two of the seven mist swords with her and is now none other than Enel's fiancée.

Haku is the most normal of them all, and yet, after learning about his past, it only improved Enel's image in my heart.

I wasn't even bothered by finding out that what happened to Kusagakure was his doing; that place was rotten to the core.

I know, I saw it with my own eyes in the past.

Everyone here has their circumstances, but there are no political intrigues, no power struggles, or bribes. They all help each other when given the opportunity and support each other.

This place feels like...

A true home, something worth protecting.

Perhaps this was the vision his grandfather originally had in mind?

...

If only it also had a casino...