NOVEL NEXT Chapter 13: Hospital (bonus)
"Are you mad? What were you doing so far away? Did you really think I was going to kill you or something, so you ran so far away in fear of me?"
As Tsunade continued to shout angrily at the boy lying on the hospital bed, Jiraya and Hiruzen simultaneously rolled their eyes upon hearing Tsunade's last sentence. In their opinion, it was a better choice for the boy to run away than to face an angry Tsunade.
Sarutobi Hiruzen interrupted Tsunade, who planned to continue berating Yuta and asked Yuta again about the source of his injuries.
As Yuta was about to sit up in bed, Tsunade pressed him back down with one hand, and Yuta helplessly answered the Hokage's question.
"Yes, a big bird appeared and attacked me. After fighting the bird for a long time, it flew away without looking back."
Sarutobi frowned and listened to the same answer once more. Meanwhile, he was carefully watching the boy's expression. Sarutobi believed that if a child of this age was going to lie to him, he would surely notice.
Sarutobi narrowed his eyes, looking for the slightest hint of lying, and asked, "And how did your body heal?"
Since Tsunade had made quite a mess while looking for Yuta, all the important ninjas who were not currently on the front line were in this room, all the important ninjas except Danzo, Minato, and Sakumo... Danzo had just left this morning to secure his position as the next Hokage, while Sakumo had already been on the front line for almost a month. Minato was still not important enough.
Everyone present perked up their ears at Sarutobi's question because they all wanted to know the answer to the same question.
When Tsunade heard her teacher's question, she felt the need to intervene angrily because she had not yet told Yuta how to keep secrets, and whatever was going on was likely to be Yuta's biggest trump card in the future.
"You all need to disperse now! Yuta needs to rest. Besides, are you here to interrogate him, old monkey?"
A vein of anger appeared on Sarutobi Hiruzen's forehead when he heard the word old monkey, but Yuta said he could answer that question and the vein in Sarutobi's head instantly disappeared.
"After the bird disappeared, a red-haired woman came up to me and told me to bite her arm. Of course, I didn't want to do that, but she forced me to hold my head and warm her arm, and then I felt like I had drunk something hot and then I started vomiting. When I looked up again, someone was wearing a strange mask on my head and I don't remember what happened next."
At first, Tsunade would have kept Yuta's mouth shut even if it made people suspicious of her, but when she heard the red-haired woman's words, she became one of the people listening to Yuta.
Immediately after the Hokage heard Yuta's words, he mobilized the Anbu ninjas in the room with a secret eyebrow movement.
Everyone who heard Yuta's words realized that this was one of the abilities of the mysterious Uzumaki clan. Besides, there was no other way to explain such a miraculous recovery.
"Leave the boy to rest and come to my office to attend the meeting."
As the Hokage's words echoed through the room, everyone quickly cleared the room, leaving Tsunade and Yuta behind. No one seemed to doubt Yuta's lie, except for Orochimaru, who stopped and looked at Yuta for a second as he left the room.
After everyone had left, Tsunade sat on the end of the bed with her back to Yuta and remained silent for a while.
At first, Yuta thought she was trying to suppress her anger, but the shaking of the bed and the barely audible sniffling made him realize that Tsunade was crying.
Tsunade had recently lost her brother, her last relative, and Sakumo had brought Yuta into Tsunade's life when she was in an emotional vacuum. When Yuta saw Tsunade crying, he realized that she was more attached to him than she had realized.
Yuta quietly got up from his bed, approached Tsunade from behind and hugged her. Seeing someone so concerned about him had touched Yuta a little after all.
When Tsunade felt Yuta's warmth, she stopped feeling embarrassed, turned around, and pressed Yuta to her breast.
___________________ Meanwhile, in the Hokage office
At the call of Sarutobi Hiruzen, all the Anbu ninjas on the loose began to search the four corners of Konoha.
The idea of a Uzumaki clan sneaking through Konoha's barrier and living in hiding in Konoha was not at all impossible. Moreover, if a Uzumaki ninja had actually done it, it meant that she was a highly skilled and knowledgeable Uzumaki ninja.
As the Hokage waited for news from the ninja, he secretly hoped that this Uzumaki ninja would be mature enough to realize the truth and bow her head and surrender instead of holding a grudge against Konoha.
If this woman chose not to hold a grudge against Konoha, it would not only help them calm the Jinchuriki, who were currently going through an emotionally difficult time, but they would also have a gateway to the wisdom of the Uzumaki clan.
As Sarutobi contemplated silently executing her and taking over her mind in case she held a grudge against Konoha, he sighed deeply and said that everything was for Konoha.
Of course, Sarutobi was not wrong. If this woman was able to break through the village barrier on her own, she was smart enough to think and realize the secrets behind the Uzumaki clan's destruction. If this woman did not surrender to the greatness of Konohan, it would be impossible to harbor her in the village.
Every Konoha villager who got close to this woman would learn the truth and tell their friends. So allowing this woman to settle in the village with hatred in her heart would be like leaving a cancer cell in the village. Inevitably the cancer will grow and cause a civil war.
It was also possible that the woman felt grateful for being accepted into Konohaya despite the hatred in her heart, or that she realized that she would be the initiator of a civil war and kept her mouth shut, but these were possibilities that did not find a place in Sarutobi Hiruzen's book.