Chapter 55 (Patreon)

As soon as Kushina returned home, she swept her son into her arms and covered his face with kisses until his cheeks were wet with saliva.

However, when the corner of her eye caught the photograph hanging on the wall, her expression stiffened for the briefest moment.

“Lady Kushina, what happened with the war...?”

Kaorui poured Kushina a cup of tea before kneeling beside her with Karin in her arms, waiting to hear what had happened on the front lines.

“It’s already over...”

After briefly explaining the events of the war, Kushina began asking about everything that had happened at home during her absence.

In particular, she wanted to hear every detail about Danzo’s attempt to cause trouble here.

As for Roy, the moment he regained his freedom, he found it impossible to sit still.

While the two women talked, he wandered through every corner of the house.

Even though he had lived here for several months, everything suddenly felt strangely unfamiliar and new.

After finishing his exploration, Roy called out to Kushina and headed toward the door, intending to take a walk through the streets of Konoha.

Unfortunately, he soon realized that he had celebrated too early.

He could now move away from his usual position behind Kushina, but the distance between them was still limited.

The moment he moved more than roughly fifty meters away from her, the familiar pulling sensation returned.

In the end, all he had done was trade his cramped ten-meter prison for a larger cage that extended fifty meters around Kushina.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

With no other choice, Roy returned to the house.

At a time like this, only Kushina’s presence could comfort his wounded pride.

Of course, the increased distance was not the only improvement.

Unlike before, physical obstacles could now exist between him and Kushina.

While testing the limits of his movement, walls and trees had repeatedly come between them, yet he had not been forcibly dragged back to her side.

Instead of making him happy, however, the discovery left him uneasy.

“If Kushina finds out, will she make me sleep in another room?”

Previously, nothing could separate them, which was why Kushina had allowed him to sleep in her bedroom.

Their relationship had certainly grown much closer since then, but this was still the home she had once shared with Minato.

Roy honestly had no idea what she would decide.

“So... should I tell her the truth?”

Standing in the doorway, Roy scratched his head in frustration.

He was so lost in thought that he failed to notice someone approaching from behind him.

An arm passed straight through his chest and pushed open the bedroom door.

Nonō Yakushi then walked directly through his body and entered the room.

Just as Nonō bent down to remove her shoes, her body suddenly stiffened.

For an instant, she could have sworn that something had brushed against her lower back.

Roy was equally surprised.

When Nonō’s body passed completely through his and her back separated from him, he had clearly felt a faint sensation of contact.

Until now, Kushina had been the only person he could touch.

No one else had ever been able to make contact with him, nor had he been able to touch them.

Wondering whether he had imagined it, Roy reached out and lightly patted Nonō’s shoulder.

Nonō, however, was a trained shinobi.

The moment she sensed something behind her, her first instinct was not to turn around and look.

She immediately struck backward while throwing herself forward.

After rolling across the floor, she spun around and stared sharply at the doorway.

“That was close. I definitely felt something, but fortunately, I still couldn’t touch her.”

Roy stared at her with lingering fear.

He had completely overlooked how differently a shinobi would react compared to an ordinary person.

Had his hand actually made contact, Nonō’s counterattack would probably have left him crouching on the floor in agony.

“What happened, Nonō?”

Kushina and Kaorui stared in confusion at the woman who had suddenly rolled into the room.

“Something touched me near the doorway just now, but...”

Nonō struggled to explain what she had felt.

Even so, she was certain that she had not imagined it.

As a veteran spy, she had learned long ago never to ignore her survival instincts.

“The doorway?”

Kaorui already knew that an invisible presence existed inside the house.

However, from everything she had observed, that presence had always remained directly behind Kushina.

At that moment, Kushina was seated with her back against the wall, nowhere near the doorway.

Logically, whatever Nonō had sensed could not have been the invisible figure Kaorui already knew about.

But if it was not him, did that mean there was another invisible presence inside the house?

Or had an intruder managed to sneak in?

To be safe—and partly to satisfy her curiosity—Kaorui activated the Mind’s Eye of the Kagura.

The chakra fluctuation near the doorway belonged to the person she already knew.

It was Roy, who had always remained behind Kushina until now.

“So you can move to other places now?”

Kaorui opened her eyes and cast a peculiar glance toward the apparently empty doorway.

Thinking back on the scenes she had sensed before, she quickly understood why Roy had always stayed so close to Kushina.

After all, most of the times Kaorui had sensed him were either while Kushina was bathing or after she had returned to her bedroom.

For that sort of mischief, keeping his distance would have defeated the entire purpose.

Kushina glanced toward Roy, who was still standing blankly in the doorway, before turning back to Nonō.

“You must have imagined it. I haven’t sensed any outsiders inside the barrier.”

Hearing that, Nonō could only suppress her doubts and kneel beside the other two women.

Kaorui, meanwhile, silently added another thought.

“There really aren’t any outsiders. But Roy-kun isn’t exactly an outsider... or even someone most people would consider a person.”

Just as Nonō was about to speak, she suddenly noticed Kushina turning her head toward the entrance again.

“They arrived quickly.”

Kushina snapped her fingers.

The barrier surrounding the courtyard disappeared, allowing an ANBU shinobi to enter with Yugito.

After the ANBU conveyed the Third Hokage’s instructions, Kushina smiled.

“I understand. From now on, Yugito will stay here with me.”

Meanwhile, Shisui had barely returned home before Fugaku summoned him.

He did not even have time to drink a glass of water.

Fugaku stared at the young shinobi standing before him, his expression grim. For a long time, he said nothing.

Had Kumogakure not invaded, Fugaku might never have discovered that a member of the clan had awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan and even mastered Susanoo.

After a long silence, he finally spoke.

“I’ve already heard about your performance on the front lines. You did well. You did not disgrace the name of the Uchiha.”

Shisui listened quietly without responding.

To him, Fugaku’s words perfectly reflected the pride that had become so deeply rooted within the Uchiha clan.

They placed far too much importance on the clan—sometimes even more than they placed on the village itself.

As long as that way of thinking remained unchanged, how could the Uchiha ever truly live in harmony with the rest of Konoha?

“According to the clan’s records, awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan grants the user entirely new abilities. What powers did your eyes receive?”

“One eye possesses a dōjutsu that strengthens my genjutsu. The other enhances my perception and taijutsu, allowing me to use the Body Flicker Technique with greater speed and power.”

Shisui calmly described the supposed abilities of his eyes.

However, his thoughts returned to something that had happened during the journey home.

While the main force rested along the way, Kushina had specifically called him aside.

She had asked him about the dōjutsu he had awakened.

After witnessing Kushina’s actions on the battlefield, and remembering the goodwill that both she and Minato had always shown toward the Uchiha clan, Shisui had revealed the truth without hesitation.

“Kotoamatsukami can overwrite a person’s will. It is an extremely dangerous ability.”

Kushina’s expression had become unusually serious.

“That is why you must never tell anyone what your dōjutsu truly does—not the Uchiha clan head and not the village’s higher-ups.”

“If they learn the truth, it won’t only bring about your destruction. It could completely destroy the relationship between the Uchiha clan and the village.”