Kyōichi, Konoha’s Life Mentor

"Ah!!!"

Screams of agony rose one after another.

The ones who had attacked Asuma now had lightning-scorched wounds on their wrists, reducing the blood flow from their injuries.

Asuma was close enough to see clearly—

Such fast, precise sword work!

The control of force was perfect, just enough to disable their hands without any excess power.

At this time, Shisui had also taken down his target.

"Tie them up and bring them back," Kyōichi said without much scolding.

Asuma gritted his teeth, took rope from his ninja pouch, and tied up all those who were still alive.

Afterward, they cleaned up the surrounding bodies.

The pouches on those people contained all stolen goods, even freshly killed chickens and ducks tied at their waists, still dripping blood.

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

Eventually, they gagged them with cloth.

The world became peaceful.

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

If he hadn't lost focus, their sensei wouldn't have needed to step in. 

With their skills, they could have handled these desperados completely.

"You should apologize to your teammates. On a real battlefield, you could have been killed or seriously injured just now. Even if you didn't die, you would have become a burden to your teammates," Kyōichi said calmly.

Asuma realized this and turned to bow to Kurenai and Shisui.

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

Those were just samurai, incapable of breaking genjutsu.

If she had used her genjutsu in time, she could have controlled those men.

However.

At that moment, she had panicked.

"What about Shisui?"

"I wanted to attack them to force them to help their comrade, but I didn't expect they wouldn't try to save their teammate."

Shisui was somewhat discouraged, still reflecting on what happened.

A slight smile appeared on Kyōichi's face as he said, "In our Konoha, we value the Will of Fire, protection and mutual aid are our principles. But they're different—they're bandits who live by the sword. One less teammate might even mean more money to share."

"I understand."

Shisui nodded.

If he had understood earlier, he would have chosen to use ninjutsu to provide covering support instead of his current tactics.

Kyōichi was very satisfied.

Such students were easy to teach!

Not stubborn, and their thinking wasn't problematic.

If it were someone like Kakashi or Obito, he would have been frustrated to death. 

Moreover, this situation was actually considered very good for a rookie genin team.

A normal genin team would definitely be more chaotic.

Therefore.

Kyōichi didn't criticize much, saying, "It's good that you know to reflect. Real combat is completely different from training and sparring. At least in training, you don't get blood splashed in your eyes."

"Yes!"

Asuma felt somewhat ashamed.

Sensei was talking about him—his moment of freezing was partly due to blood getting in his eyes, and partly because he was indeed frightened.

"Let's take them back to let the town mayor see if these are the ones. Afterward, when the mission is complete, we'll visit the surrounding areas to see where these people robbed, and return the money."

"Yes!"

These wandering samurai must have just robbed a village.

They had quite a lot of goods, though it wasn't much money to them. Such money wouldn't sit well with their conscience, and Kyōichi had no intention of keeping it.

Back in town.

The mayor was at the construction site where they were building the wall.

Asuma and the others were shocked to see the shadow clone helping with wall construction, taking a while to process it.

Then.

"Mayor, during our patrol, we encountered these wandering samurai. Are they the bandits who previously robbed Shirakumo Town?"

"Yes, yes! It's them!"

The mayor didn't recognize them, but the foreman beside him identified them immediately, as he had been present during some of the robberies and nearly lost his life once.

Kyōichi nodded.

So they hadn't caught the wrong people.

He had Shisui hand them over, then looked around and said, "Asuma, you all help them with repairs, I'll look around the area."

"Yes!"

Asuma didn't object.

Although they were all from prominent families in Konoha, hadn't they done tasks like carrying water and farming?

This was what being a ninja meant.

So they didn't feel anything was wrong.

Kyōichi left his shadow clone there while he walked into the Town.

Earlier when using chakra sensing, besides discovering the bandits from the west, he had also detected someone with an extremely powerful chakra. He didn't know who it was, but...

This was the Land of Fire.

After thinking, he decided it would be better to check it out.

However.

Kyōichi had some suspicions—the Third's assignment of this mission clearly indicated a low possibility of rouge ninja presence. With such large chakra reserves, it was likely to be that person.

One of the Three Legendary Sannin, Princess Tsunade!

Kyōichi used chakra sensing again to locate their position.

After arriving, he was almost certain it was Tsunade, as the destination was a gambling house. Moreover, just as he arrived, he saw a group of people rushing in urgently.

Given the situation...

They were probably debt collectors.

"Better wait outside."

Going in now might result in Tsunade using him as a scapegoat to pay her debts.

The problem was.

He didn't have much money either!

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

Kyōichi sat on the roof, chewing on a blade of grass while watching the entertainment.

After a moment.

A woman climbed out of a window on the other side of the gambling house, with a young girl following closely behind.

"What a mess!"

He sighed softly.

Shizune had been following Tsunade since she was five or six years old when they left the village. 

These three years must have been spent living like this.

However.

Where was that pig they repeatedly used as collateral?

Had they not gotten it yet?

Kyōichi watched for a while, seeing a group of people chase after Tsunade and Shizune, but those pursuers were ordinary people—how could they match ninja in pursuit and hiding?

One turn, combined with the Transformation Technique...

Well, they were gone.

"Chasing Tsunade's debts is truly difficult!"

Kyōichi sighed inwardly.

If the debt collectors were ninja, they'd probably get beaten up too.

The next moment.

He sensed a presence appear behind him.

"You brat, seeing me being chased and not coming down to help, just hiding up here watching the show, huh?"

Turning his head to look.

Sure enough.

Tsunade.

Whew!

What a... what an eye-catching necklace!

Kyōichi shifted his gaze away and said, "Lady Tsunade, you wouldn't have been in any danger anyway. I'm just a poor person, I couldn't pay off the debts if I went down. Besides, even if I paid one debt, wouldn't you just gamble again next time?"

One principle—

Never lend money to a gambling addict, even if it's Tsunade.

"Hmph!"

Tsunade didn't argue, looked at him a few times, then turned her head and snorted coldly.

How fun was gambling?

The silver-haired youth her teacher had mentioned, along with that appearance, unconsciously reminded her of Senju Tobirama.

Who equally disliked gambling.

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

Shizune jumped up, then saw a silver-haired youth sitting with Tsunade, both turning their heads, their features sharing three or four parts similarity.

Tsunade didn't respond, instead turning her head to say, "Kid, how about going down for a drink?"

"Have you lost all your money?"

"..."

Indeed, how annoying!