Yet again, Yuna found herself inside Tsunade's office, but this time, instead of glaring at Yuna, Tsunade massaged her head with a hand, covered in green healing chakra, making Yuna chuckle in amusement.
"Mito's soul went back to the Pure Land like two days ago, Tsunade; why are you returning to your old habits already?"
Tsunade threw a death glare at Yuna before she continued massing her head.
"And whose fault do you think that is? I hope you are not even trying to pretend that you have nothing to do with all those alcohol bottles you gave me, literally trying to tempt me to drink them."
Yuna pondered on Tsunade's words before nodding in acknowledgment.
"Very well. I am willing to admit that I'm about 25% at fault. The rest is on you for actually getting tempted."
Tsunade felt like she was just hit by lightning when Yuna actually admitted to being partially at fault. However, a short moment later, she realized that even if that were the case, there would be no consequences anyway, which was probably why she didn't mind admitting to it.
No matter how Tsunade looked at it, she couldn't blame Yuna for her
getting drunk at her own home.
Tsunade shook her head to get rid of her idle thoughts and put a serious expression on her face.
"Anyway, let's get to the meat of the matter. Be honest with me, Yuna, did you..."
Before Tsunade finished speaking, the term "Be honest with me, Yuna" echoed through her head, again and again, making her realize how absurd it was.
She started massaging her temples again to counter her incoming headache as a tired sigh escaped her mouth.
"*Sigh* Let me rephrase that. Please answer me as reasonably as your twisted mind allows you to."
Yuna couldn't help but laugh out loud when she heard Tsunade's phrasing before giving her a thumbs up.
"Well said. I approve of that phrasing. Ask away, and I will see what I can do."
Tsunade's eyebrow twitched in irritation as Yuna interpreted yet another insult as a compliment. Still, after over three years of dealing with Yuna, that didn't phase her too much anymore, so she simply continued speaking.
"Anyway, as you might or might not know, a new batch of students is about to finish the shinobi academy, and one of them, a civilian born, suddenly started surpassing all of his peers throughout the last few months, despite being rather average for the whole time."
Yuna patiently waited for Tsunade to finish, and as soon as she stopped speaking, Yuna looked at her weirdly.
"So? What am I supposed to do with that information? Do you want me to give him a stern talking to for the audacity of surpassing the children of prominent clans? In fact, I'm pretty sure that some Uzumakis are in that class as well. Or maybe... you want to give me another genin team?"
Tsunade shuddered at the mere thought of having even more people tainted by Yuna running through Konoha and quickly shook her head in denial to both of her guesses.
"I think you know full well that I don't care about the so-called prominent clans. Besides that, the only clans who still care about that are the Hyuuga clan, which currently has different problems to solve than one of their younger generation not getting the top spot, and the Inuzuka clan, whose male children tend to compete for the position of class leader. Well, usually, their... mental capacity... needs some working on, making it rather unlikely for them to become the de-facto class leader."
Yuna thought about the attitude some Inuzuka clan members had and nodded her head in agreement. They certainly were good at tracking, but their one-track mind made them unfit to take on a leading position, which they usually only realize after they have grown up some more.
"Anyway, I obviously don't want to put another set of genin under you. I already have enough problems and would rather not increase them any further. No, what I originally wanted to ask is whether you henged into that civilian to have some fun and crush the confidence of the clan children out of your own amusement."
Pin-drop silence covered the room as Yuna gave Tsunade a weirded-out look.
"Okay, I admit that that would be pretty hilarious, but it seems you have overseen a rather daring issue in your theory: There is no way I'm willing to endure the boredom that is the shinobi academy again just to play a little prank on a bunch of random children I don't care about."
Tsunade nodded her acknowledgment when she heard Yuna's words. Frankly, she already suspected that it wasn't Yuna, but whenever something weird happened in Konoha, Tsunade's mind immediately assumed that Yuna was involved in it somehow.
"Yeah, I expected that, but I still would like to know why he suddenly started becoming stronger at such a strong pace."
"Well, he either held back from the start, or he got himself a pocket grandpa."
"What in the world is a pocket grandpa?"
"Err... Forget about that one. On a side note, what's his name."
Tsunade gave Yuna a confused look before rifling through a few documents to get the name and origins of the person they were talking about.
"Well, his name is Inari, and he is the grandson of a somewhat influential merchant called Tazuna from the Land of Waves."
Somehow, that name sounded somewhat familiar to Yuna, so after contemplating about it for a short moment, the vague image of a young boy with an oversized striped head appeared in her mind.
"So it was actually a pocket grandma, huh?"
"Sorry, what was that?"
Tsunade heard Yuna murmuring about something but couldn't hear it clearly.
"Well, you don't have to worry about him, Tsunade. I can guarantee you that he was simply holding back the whole time."
"O-Okay? And why would you think so?"
"Well, because I met him almost four years ago and told him to do so. He wanted to get stronger, so I designed him a training plan, and since I didn't know when I could get rid of Danzo, I told him not to reveal his strength too early."
Naturally, Tsunade was dumbfounded by Yuna's words.
"Are you telling me that a random civilian was capable of surpassing the children from Konoha's prominent clans simply because you gave him a training plan?"
"Well, obviously. Who do you think I am?"
A groan escaped Tsunade as the all too familiar Yuna-headache made a return, causing Tsunade to massage her temples again.
"Could you once do something that is not absurd? Only once!?"
"Sorry, no promises. On a side note, I improved the spying mechanism on the Akatsuki ring to make it possible to listen to them even when they aren't in a meeting. Are you interested?"
*Groan*