A small *PUFF* broke me out of my shock as I looked in front of me and found my arms wrapped around, not a slender waist but, a thick log.
"*sigh* substitution jutsu? Seriously? When did you switch out with a log?"
"When you blinked to dodge the senbon I threw at your face." Shizune calmly replied pulling back the senbon she had on my neck.
I shuddered a little thinking about how I'd assumed she had played right into my trap while I was dancing in the palm of her hands.
"You sure are a tough opponent to beat…"
"I have to be. Or do you think that someone who's trained under Tsunade-sama is a joke!?"
"Hehehe~ Does Tsunade-sama even train you? Or does she just go around gambling every day while you read medical ninjutsu scrolls?" I asked laughing a little.
Shizune's guard dropped instantly and she became teary-eyed.
"Finally! Someone gets what I have to go through every day."
We laughed for a bit while dissing Tsunade but stopped soon to go clean ourselves in the shower.
Meeting up after we showered we met up again for dinner and Tsunade kept looking at us with suspicion.
"Did the two of you think something wrong about me again?"
"Huh?" I was shocked, 'How'd she know!?'
"I kept sneezing while I was betting today! Someone must've been bad-mouthing me! I swear!!!"
I was about to make up a silly excuse but Shizune quickly took over, "Tsunade-sama! You can't blame your losses on sneezing!!"
Tsunade showed a silly expression and ignored Shizune altogether before focusing on the miso ramen she'd made.
I woke up the next day with a smile on my face because I had a good dream where I was fighting as a magic warrior.
'I should really figure out when in the world of Naruto I am.'
'If Shizune and Tsunade are on a trip that means it is sometime after the third shinobi war.'
'Has Naruto come into this world already? Have Minato and Kushina died?'
'I wonder.'
'I have to do this in a way that they don't suspect me of being a spy for some other nation.'
'And I'm pretty sure as long as I only ask about things a normal person must know they won't question it much.'
After we had breakfast, I looked at Shizune who was preparing the materials she needed to teach me about a few more complicated healing jutsu like the chakra scalpel and the chakra suture techinques.
"Don't you guys feel like returning to Konoha ever?" I asked casually.
Shizune's hands froze for a moment and I picked up on that but then she spoke calmly, "We think about it sometimes…but some places are better left unvisited."
"Bad memories?" I asked seeing the slight frown that had developed on the ever-smiling Shizune's face.
"It's not just about the bad memories, it's more about how people are treated in the shinobi villages."
"Huh? Being Tsunade-sama's direct disciple, I doubt anyone mistreated you? And even if they did I doubt Tsunade-sama didn't beat them up?"
Shizune's face cracked a smile at that as she reminisced a few good memories before she laughed and explained, "Remember how you told us that Shinobi villages didn't need to exist anymore since we're treated as tools of war that propagate more war just to exist?"
"Hm~m."
"Well just think about it this way, Tsunade-sama and I no longer like to be treated as tools. I personally think that Tsunade-sama did a good thing leaving the village. It has allowed her to become much more of a human being, rather than the soulless husks I see roaming everywhere in the village."
"A human huh…" I mumbled while thinking about how all Tsunade seemed to do nowadays was going around to gamble.
We started studying once more, and this time, the next jutsu wasn't exactly a jutsu for me to learn, but a chakra control exercise.
"I want you to create a chakra scalpel and attack the bucket of beans until everything inside it is ground into a fine powder."
"Wouldn't that be easy?"
Shizune shook her head, "Even though your chakra control is pretty good, it is hard to maintain a jutsu like a chakra scalpel during combat. It is one thing to use it while you're performing surgery where your entire focus is on it, but it is something else entirely to continuously use it in a fight."
I frowned, thinking it would be easy for me to do since I'd already spent a long time fighting with various healing jutsus in the SCOG world.
So I looked at the bucket which was filled with coffee beans with suspicion.
Shizune stepped up closer to the bucket and spoke calmly, "Look at how I'm going to do it and then you do it, is that alright?"
I nodded.
Shizune quickly formed a chakra scalpel without even performing the hand seals and then pierced the beans with her entire hand at full force as the chakra scalpel cleared the way and allowed her hand to sink in.
She slowly pulled out her hand and stuck to it were small pieces of coffee beans along with something shiny.
"Is that glass!!!!?" I asked with shock.
Shizune only smiled before speaking with a smirk, "As long as your technique is right, you won't get hurt by the glass, so don't worry. Don't you have good chakra control? It won't hurt then."
I looked at the demonic entity in front of me as I felt a shiver travel up my spine.
'This…why does it have to be so cruel!?'
"Wh- why?" I asked with worry.
"Of course. Tsunade–sama has decided to trust you a little more. So she said you'll be allowed to take missions in the black market to prove your skill to her by earning money!" Shizune said with a smile.
"This…"
"Didn't you tell her that you'll do whatever it takes to become her disciple? Don't you want to?"
"..."
I looked at the bucket of 'coffee beans' and then at the smiling Shizune and then at the wooden wall behind her.
My eyes shifted between the three for a few seconds before I *sighed*.
"Ok…."
'Frick this!!! I'm running!!!'
With my body flicker jutsus, I sped towards the wall and tried to make it across in a single jump but as soon as I left the ground, a barrage of senbon shot out from Shizune's hand and pinned all my clothes onto the wooden wall.
Finally, a single senbon stopped right in front of my eyeball, it was attached to Shizune's finger with a thin chakra thread.
"Oh? What are you doing Wick-kun?"
"Hahaha~ I just slipped, accidentally, completely unintentionally.", I replied with a soft nervous laugh. "What are you doing Shizune-sama?"
"Hahaha~ my hand just slipped…don't worry. You aren't going anywhere right Wick-kun?"
"Of course not. I'm eager to improve my chakra control by punching the bucket of coffee beans…"
"Oh? Eager? Good, good. Let's double the training time from an hour to two hours since you're so eager…" Shizune said with a smile that started looking more and more like a Grim Reaper's.
"Two? Why not reduce it to half an hour since I'm so enthusiastic."
"Four."
"Ok! Ok! Fine!! I'm coming!! Just remove the senbon!!"
Shizune looked at me for a few seconds and then flicked her hand. The senbon flew back into her sleeves and I was forced to move to the bucket.
That evening the village in the Land of Hot Water heard the painful cries of a boy being abused. And whenever he stopped or tried to argue, they all heard him shout like he was being chased by a pin cushion.
"Shizune-sama!!! No!!! Not there!!! They're precious!!!! I don't know how to heal them yet!!!!"
Simultaneously, they also heard the laughter of a crazy witch.
"HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE~ Someone finally knows my pain!"