Chapter 23

Mito and Tsunade were very open-minded, learned, and accepting women. But the situation with Nono was confusing, to say the least.

First, the two children walked in the living room, where the two adults sat and drank tea together. The next, they started rapping and shaking their shoulders like hoodlums.

Nawaki's blood relatives didn't understand what rap was or what language the lyrics were in…Neither did Nono, but she didn't care, it seemed…

…Speaking of the little girl, Nawaki eventually had to introduce her. When Mito asked who she was, replying, he said, "That's not my girlfriend, grandma; that's Nono."

"Nono?" Mito turned to the blonde Yakushi.

"Yes, Nono Yakushi." Nawaki nodded and said. "She's a mute girl I decided to adopt today. If you're going to ask me why get Tsunade to look closely at her."

Nawaki was using code language: In their new code language, *look closely* stood for the windows.

"Yakushi?? Is she special?" Tsunade, who immediately picked up on the clue, said, moving her eyebrows. After examining Nono, who had an apprehensive, curious look, she said, "Oh, wow, she's special, alright…Nawaki, where did you find her?"

"The orphanage," Nawaki replied. "But that's not important. That's our little sister starting tonight."

"Sister? Am I not enough for you? Who did you ask?" Tsunade remarked, chuckling.

"Grandma, she makes the decisions in this house, If I recall?" Nawaki responded with irony, turning to Mito. "Grandma, you won't send her back there, will you?" When he said, he wasn't asking fairly. He knew Mito was too considerate, too lenient to do so. More importantly, he and his grandmother were very in love now. She'd do almost anything he asked.

As expected, the widowed Uzumaki replied with a wry, teasing smile, "Well, since you already took the trouble and went out of your way, of course not..."

"Thanks a lot, grandma. I don't know if there'll be a Next-time, but I'll definitely do what you say," Nawaki said like a good boy he wasn't.

"Haha, no problem, Nawaki...To tell the truth, she looks cute and can bust a move too..."

In front of Tsunade, he and Mito still had to act...

When the old jinchuriki was laughing, Nono quickly wrote on the slate, which she showed Mito and Tsunade: *Thank you very much, Mito-sama, Tsunade-sama.*

"Awww...." Seeing this, Mito looked moved. Melting up, she stood and walked toward Nono to hug and speak with her.

The two were speaking quietly, indistinctly, when Tsunade remarked, frowning, "...If what we see can be relied on, you found a talent..."

"...But that girl's really mute, is she? Was she born that way?"

"Yes to your first question and no to the second," Nawaki clarified without elucidating the details. Tsunade would soon know. Because it was like that, he walked up to her and whispered something relevant, questioning in her ear, "Did you see anything strange when you looked...UP CLOSE?"

Tsunade was too smart; she effortlessly understood the gamer-like jargon Nawaki came up with. It was straightforward, so she said, "Strange? Such as? Did I miss something?"

"Blank?" Nawaki tried her out again.

"Blank?" Tsunade repeated, squinting her eyes in bewilderment. "What are you on about?"

"...Nothing you need to mind," His worries absolutely gone, Nawaki said innocently. Internally, he'd relaxed a lot. The ROB was FBI-bust-worthy, but it looked like he could still think things through.