Chapter 51: Make Way, Make Way — Kurotsuchi Has Arrived
The short-haired girl in sharp red shinobi gear planted her hands on her hips and surveyed the front gate of Konoha — which was, frankly, miles nicer than her own rocky little home village of Iwagakure — and broke into the brightest, most provocative grin imaginable.
"BWAHAHAHA, bakas of Konoha!"
"Your Empress Kurotsuchi has arrived!"
Kotetsu Hagane and Izumo Kamizuki, on guard at the gate, swung their not-so-friendly stares toward the girl in unison.
"Heh heh, kids, what can you do, please excuse her~~~"
Kitsuchi watched his daughter strike her usual back-home-in-Iwagakure pose and felt his scalp prickle. He produced the joint Chūnin Exam entry papers — already prepared in advance — and offered them with a strained, ingratiating smile.
Then he wheeled around on his daughter.
"Kurotsuchi, zip it!"
She just pursed her lips. Her father's words went in one ear and out the other.
Izumo, expression cool, took the papers, gave them a thorough once-over, and waved the delegation through.
"Once you're inside, someone will be assigned to take you to your lodgings. Behave. And — please — try not to start anything."
"Of course, of course."
Kitsuchi had to keep that strained smile on his face for a pair of chūnin gate guards.
This Konoha trip wasn't, for Iwagakure, just about the Chūnin Exams. It was about the Land of Earth's follow-on resource cooperation deal with the Land of Fire.
The Chūnin Exams were just the Chūnin Exams. Lose, you lose — at worst you eat some pride. But the resource deal touched on the food security of a great many people back home. There was no margin for mishandling it.
That had been driven home personally by the Tsuchikage Ōnoki himself, and by the daimyō of the Land of Earth as well.
Even with two unimportant chūnin gate guards, Kitsuchi was not about to make trouble for his country. This wasn't just a case of one bows the head one must bow under another's roof — they were the side asking for a favor.
So Kitsuchi swallowed it.
Kitsuchi and Ōnoki were of one mind on this: face was illusory; what you held in your hand was what was real and useful.
Once the Iwagakure party was inside Konoha, not long after, Kotetsu and Izumo received a fresh batch of visitors at the gate.
"Hello. We're the Hidden Sand delegation for the Chūnin Exams. I'm jōnin Baki..."
"WOOOAH~~~"
Kurotsuchi was now full-on country-girl-in-the-big-city. Everything she saw was brand-new and amazing.
Iwagakure, after all, was nothing but rock and ravine — there was nothing pretty to look at. Even a single patch of green vegetation was treasure. Compared to Iwagakure, Konoha was just leagues nicer.
While Kitsuchi had led the rest of the delegation to their assigned lodgings, Kurotsuchi simply could not sit still and had dragged Akatsuchi and Haitsuchi (or whoever) out for a wander.
"Kurotsuchi, wait up~~~"
Akatsuchi watched the energetic girl darting one direction then another, gawking at everything, and immediately took off after her.
He was every bit as curious about Konoha as she was — he was just much better at keeping a lid on it.
The third one, Haitsuchi, trailed behind the other two like a small invisible bystander.
"Akatsuchi! Look at these dango — they look delicious!"
"Quick, hand over the cash!"
She had screeched to a halt in front of a dango stall, eyes locked onto the tri-color skewers in the display case.
Because of the recent food shortage in the Land of Earth, prices on basically every grain product had shot up — even ordinary three-color dango cost noticeably more than usual. Kurotsuchi wasn't strapped for cash; eating her fill was no problem. But splurging on snacks still required a moment of consideration.
Especially right now, when that old man Ōnoki was demanding she "set an example" as the Tsuchikage's granddaughter...
So even normally free-spending Kurotsuchi had had to learn restraint. Mostly.
For the moment, with old man Ōnoki not yet in Konoha, no one was watching her!
"Yo~"
Just as Akatsuchi was reaching for his coin purse, a small figure came barreling around a corner at full speed and bonked headfirst straight into Akatsuchi's stomach — and bounced clean off.
"Eh?"
"Hey, you okay?"
Compared to Kurotsuchi, Akatsuchi was extremely easygoing.
He saw the kid sprawled on the ground and made to help him up.
"OW! That HURT!"
"How dare you bump into ME!"
"Do you even know who I, the great Konohamaru, AM?!"
The boy on the ground clutched his head and, before he'd even gotten up, was already shouting — and there was a distinct undertone of threat in his voice.
Akatsuchi froze with his hand half-extended toward Konohamaru. A bead of cold sweat traced down his temple.
This was looking like a teeny-tiny problem...
Even so, honest-to-a-fault Akatsuchi still pulled the kid calling himself Konohamaru up onto his feet, voice apologetic.
"Really sorry. I didn't mean to."
"Konohamaru, are you okay!"
Two more kids about Konohamaru's age — a boy and a girl — came skidding around the corner.
"Hey, you little brat — you're the one who ran into Akatsuchi, and you've got the nerve to act like that?!"
Seeing Akatsuchi getting bullied by some random gremlin, Kurotsuchi was instantly not having it.
"Hah?!"
"And just who are you? You don't even know my name?!"
"My grandpa is the Hokage!"
Konohamaru folded his arms across his chest and smirked at the two strangers, full of himself.
"Your grandpa's the Hokage? My grandpa's the Tsuchikage!"
"You little punk!"
Kurotsuchi was utterly disinclined to coddle this kid — she stepped right up and started barking back without hesitation.
"You GIRL-MAN!"
"Nobody's gonna want to marry you!"
Konohamaru, finding his name-drop hadn't landed, immediately switched to delivering Kurotsuchi a "warm greeting" of his own.
A vein-popping cross-mark appeared on Kurotsuchi's forehead. She marched forward, grabbed Konohamaru by the collar, and hauled him up to her face, snarling.
"You little baka. Say that one more time."
Konohamaru, faced with this very real demonic-deity expression, was on the verge of folding instinctively — when out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of a very familiar figure, and his confidence flooded right back in.
"Sakura nee-chan!"
"HELP!"
"There's a girl-man bullying me!"
As Hiruzen Sarutobi's disciple, Sakura was inevitably going to cross paths with Konohamaru. But that didn't mean she enjoyed it. Konohamaru was a textbook little hellion, and Sakura had never made any effort to indulge him — when he had a beating coming, the beating got delivered.
The kid's lung capacity was simply too much. Even when she wanted to ignore him, she physically couldn't.
She glanced over — and the corner of her eye twitched.
What was she looking at?
A flying lady-of-the-evening?
"Sakura nee-chan, save me!"
Konohamaru, dangling from Kurotsuchi's grip, immediately flashed her a triumphant grin.
The pink-haired girl-man was admittedly also extremely scary. But that pink-haired one was his grandpa's disciple.
Way more dependable than this random black-haired girl-man he didn't know!
And for his grandpa's sake, the pink-haired girl-man definitely wouldn't leave him hanging!
This one was in the bag!
In that instant, Kurotsuchi and Sakura locked eyes across the street~~~