Ch128. Mei's prank

Tsunade looked between yet ANOTHER new issue of Bingo Book and Rei who busied himself with making breakfast and swiftly moved right and left in the kitchen, maintaining multiple stoves and pans while also masterfully adding chakra into the food.

"Hmm~, the Bingo Book is updating somewhat often these days..." Tsunade offhandedly stated, only her curious and sparkling amber eyes betrayed how much mirth she currently held within herself. "I must say I would never think Mei would have so much talent!"

Rei just smiled at her, instead of answering, he started putting the food onto plates while also activating stasis seals to plates belonging to people who were still sleeping. After he was done, he also sat down.

Konan just smugly nodded in reaction to that. She saw the newest entry to the Bingo Book and it was utterly hilarious. "Naturally, Mei was trained by me, after all."

That made Tsunade snort derisively and add her piece into the conversation. "Really? Maybe you should have taught her a bit of restraint... I mean, not that I am complaining. These threesomes with Rei when Mei starts pushing and pushing only for him to later find us to scratch the itch." Tsunade playfully smirked at Konan who wanted to groan.

Mei wanted to further her relationship with Rei and was starting to get more and more flirty by the day but Rei was unwilling to take that step until she was fifteen. This resulted in some tension which was mostly resolved in the embrace of Tsunade, or Konan, or both. Most often both as the two competitive women made a game out of it.

It was then the door slowly creaked open, instantly silencing the conversation, and into the kitchen walked a freshly awoken, still sleepy Mei on her wobbly feet. She was clad in light-blue pajamas with cute teddy bear pictures strewn all over it, and her hand was under her shirt, most likely scratching her belly. It was quite obvious the girl was still half-asleep and worked more on instincts which made Rei, Konan, and Tsunade chuckle in amusement at the youngest member of their merry band of Yozora.

Mei instinctively walked towards Rei and sat on his right side, promptly leaning on his shoulder with her entire weight and blissfully nuzzling her cheek and sometimes even nose into his shoulder.

'Well, the girl is certainly getting bolder and bolder.' Tsunade frowned but kept quiet. She could hardly fault the girl she saw as a surrogate sister. After all, she did rub on Rei quite a lot yesterday night. And the night before. And the night before that. And the... ugh. In short, quite a lot.

It was then she saw the amusing resigned look on Rei's face and decided to give him a bit of help. "Oi, Rei's ramen!" Tsunade exclaimed, making Mei snap at attention, straightening her back and widen her eyes as she fervently looked all around the table only to cutely pout when she didn't find what she wanted and Tsunade received a heated glare, making her chuckle.

"You tricked me!" Mei grumbled and snatched a mug of coffee straight away, uncaring about the food at the moment. Her body also relaxed and again leaned on Rei but this time it was more reserved, measured, and careful not to cause any discomfort.

Tsunade just waved her hand dismissively and threw the Bingo Book at Konan who caught it and her eyebrows went up into her hairline as she started snickering to herself.

"You really outdid yourself. How did you persuade the Bingo-Book-makers to issue that?" Tsunade asked, barely holding in her own snickers while Konan wasn't faring much better.

Rei tilted his head, not knowing what was so hilarious since he was busy making breakfast. He leaned more towards Mei and looked at the page of the Bingo Book in front of her to get a proper look only to cringe. His eyes landed at the newest entry to the Bingo Book, The Yellow Flash of Konoha, Minato Namikaze. The problem, however, was that his picture was him in battered pink attire with an openly gaping mouth in bewilderment and wide bulging shocked eyes present on his face, and to top it off, neon green spiky hair.

"Ou..." Rei winced. 'Poor guy. Bingo Book photo is something that should represent the ninja. I doubt this would win Minato much respect though. At best he would be regarded as a poof.' He briefly glanced towards the gleeful Tsunade who had a wide mischievous grin and her narrowed scheming eyes stared into space. 'And I bet I know who exactly won't let him live it down.' Rei chuckled and shook his head as he started eating his toast.

...

Meanwhile, in Hokage Office, one very tired monkey just finished an all-nighter of paperwork and thinly smiled in an indulgent way at the small but new Bingo Book where the biggest achievement of his successor, Minato Namikaze, was currently written. Konoha finally gained SS-ranked ninja!

'I was putting this off until I finish my paperwork. Now I can finally peek at the greatness of Minato, and indirectly at that of Konoha. This is exactly the thing Minato would need to endear Daimyo and the village council to help him and stop all opposition to him attaining the position!' Hiruzen almost proudly teared up, putting his pipe into his mouth and with shaky hands opened the book.

Needless to say, the second he saw the shocked-looking ninja in pink with neon green hair having Konoha headband, his pipe actually fell from his mouth as his expression froze and his heart almost gave out. The last thing Hiruzen thought before he fainted was...

'What is this shit!?'

...

Minato Namikaze was not having a great day.

When Kushina heard he was marked as SS-rank by the Bingo Book, she was ecstatic, and never before Minato felt so much pleasure and attention as what she showered him with during the following night. They celebrated his victory. His triumph over Iwagakure. Him alone ending the war even! But most importantly, his survival.

It was very hard to finally convince Kushina to teach him Uzumaki seals and Minato was aware there would be no way he could finish his Flying Thunder God Second Step without that. This victory, therefore, belonged to Kushina as much as it did to him and his girlfriend showed exactly how delighted she was.

So why was his day so bad?

Eh, it had something to do with his girlfriend actually opening the Bingo Book that was delivered in the morning onto their porch and seeing his picture... Now, Minato had his Flying Thunder God technique but even he couldn't quite dodge the frying pan that impacted his forehead and sent him flying towards the floor as nine streams of crimson hair rose into the air behind the furious Kushina in an apron. Minato was really not sure why he was sent flying by his girlfriend but...

The suggestion he is having an ongoing affair with Might Duy might have helped though.

Now, if only Minato found out how exactly did the Bingo Book got ahold of such precise information about his meeting with the man and even supplied a photo of the two huggin, ahem, in a manly embrace of youth, shedding tears together while their noses might or might not be quite close. Well, Minato did need the best physical conditioning and Duy was arguably the best guy to go for it.

'That's some serious photographing skills to get us in such a suggestive way.' Minato idly thought.

Alas, now Minato had to pay for his folly of not telling his clearly enraged girlfriend who was glowing crimson... and holding two frying pans... and her chakra was cracking the floor... and she was glaring at him...

"I always found it strange how much time you spent with Duy." Kushina growled.

"Eh... honey? It's not like that, we only... uh," Now, in a day where Minato was in a better state of mind, he would certainly just shut up and endured through the anger but today was not that day. "exchanged some liquid Youth?"

The walls and the ceiling suddenly cracked as the killing intent burst out of Kushina whose eye was now madly twitching and Minato just watched in horror with his mind completely blank except for one thought.

'Oh... shit.'

He didn't manage to run...