Jiro picked up the paper and scrutinized it as a heavy sigh came out of his mouth. The words written on it were very telling, but chilling at the same time. "A Hokage"s duty is to his people and the village. My dear students, beware of anyone who becomes or is Hokage."Teuchi also read the message and pa.s.sed it onto Duy. Duy laid eyes on it before pa.s.sing it off to Fugaku. The group of teenagers all knew what the message meant. The old man was part of the generation that took part in the First Shin.o.bi World War and he was experienced. Him leaving that message showed how important he thought the idea was.
Fugaku was well aware of what the message meant especially as the Police Force which had finally been able to consist of non Uchiha had been dismantled with Jiro leading the Uchiha in the border near k.u.mo and Konoha.
"See brother, even our sensei knew that the Hokage meant becoming someone placing the village as the highest priority."
"I know. Make sure to be careful on your side as well."
Jiro began to walk away as he juggled that information in his head along with other things he had to pay attention to.
"Obviously I"ll be careful. You need to leave already? It hasn"t even been a week yet and our fourteenth birthday is really close."
Jiro waved a hand backwards as he continued to walk away.
"I"m not leaving yet. I"m going to leave tomorrow. Don"t worry I won"t leave without telling you guys. We could probably hold an early birthday party before I leave."
Duy and Teuchi exchanged looks of horrified realization before the duo began to speedily walk away. Fugaku noticed their actions and a teasing grin popped up on his face.
"Oh my. Did somebody or two somebodies forget to prepare for me a birthday present?"
Fugaku grinned as Duy squirmed with an uncomfortable look on his face.
Before disappearing with Duy, Teuchi shouted back an answer that dropped Fugaku"s grin.
"Don"t worry Fugaku, I"ll buy you plenty of romance novels. I"ll get those ones by Flower Sprite that you seem to enjoy so much."
"..."
Fugaku was speechless.
------
Jiro smiled after hearing that conversation. In his mind, he also decided to gift Fugaku some romance novels. Before he could do that, he wanted to check on the tree. It had had been a while since Jiro last saw it and as he entered the Forest of Death, the smell of the place was still familiar. Jiro quickly dashed across the branches to arrive at the area where it lay.
The tree still looked like it kept to its pattern of looks and the smell of death was being blown over by the wind. Withered corpses in various states of decomposition were strewn over the floor of the tree with some brave animals darting in to take a corpse away.
Even with his Mangekyo Sharingan activated, Jiro couldn"t see anything too different about it so he left after one final inspection to make sure it wouldn"t be a hidden calamity. He decided to immediately head to a store that sold books in order to buy Fugaku a couple of romance books.
On the way to the store Jiro ran into Teuchi and Duy who all had the same idea. Duy thought that Fugaku really enjoyed romance novels while Jiro and Teuchi were in it to mess with Fugaku. The two mischievous friends made sure that the other had a serious present ready for Jiro, but when they asked Duy what his serious present was, he pointed at the book he had just bought for Fugaku.
Besides just a romance book, the other book was on how to get along with women. Teuchi placed a hand on the shoulder of Duy before remarking,
"You sir are either very stupid or tremendously brave."
"This book was the one that my girlfriend recommended to me."
Teuchi looked up. He stiffly remarked,
"Is that so."
Before bursting out into a rant.
"Agh, my parents want me to find a girlfriend already. But I have no idea how to do that and even worse, I think that their going to start making me go through set up dates if I don"t hurry up!"
He let out a scream of frustration before feeling multiple hands on placed on his shoulders in sympathy. A crowd of men, young, old, and even middle aged were all placing their hands on his shoulders. A particularly old man walked in front of Teuchi before preaching.
A couple Anbu with spot light appeared. They gave each others a high five before shining it down onto the old man. Naturally, the Anbu with songbirds on their masks appeared as well. However, the numbers had expanded. One pulled out a piano while another formed several shadow clones that picked up violins. The final Anbu pulled out a conductor"s wand as he began to wave the wand, the symphony began.
"Young man, it"s alright. I had to deal with over thirty years of nagging from my mother. I can recall how she would always remind me when I came home from the academy, "Did you find a girlfriend yet son?". However, the quest of finding a girlfriend continued to illude me and my mother was full of disappointment."
"She even set up several dates for me, but none worked out. I was just incompetent with women. They would always try to avoid me and if they made eye contact with me, they would just run off leaving me alone."
The violins and piano continued to play as the old man recounted his story. Even Teuchi and Duy were drawn into the story, but Jiro"s pervert detection senses were going off for some reason so he wasn"t immersed in the story. All the other men who had patted Teuchi"s shoulders in sympathy were nodding along with the old man as if they were there to see his life unfold.
"When she pa.s.sed, she was still muttering about how I was single. You can"t imagine how many tears fell from my eyes that day. She was gone and I was left alone!"
By this point, tears were streaming down the faces of Teuchi, Duy and the other men except for Jiro who"s pervert detection sense were going off even more now.
"That old lady who was an absolute pain was gone!"
As the old man danced, the music screeched to a halt as did the tears from everyone else. The spotlights were instantly taken away and the Anbu jumped down. One landed on the head of the old man knocking him to the floor while the others jumped on his body. As they walked away, each one lifted up their masks before spitting on the old man and swaggering away in anger.
The others including Teuchi and Duy looked like they were about to do the same, but a sudden shout caught everyone"s attention. Especially Jiro"s, his pervert detection senses were going crazy now.
"Look, that old man"s got a pair of laced white panties!"
"What!"
The collective shout of the other men gave Jiro, Teuchi and Duy a bad feeling.
"Back off, this is my precious you ungrateful youngins wouldn"t understand the pain and struggle I had to go through to obtain my treasures!"
The collective jumped on the old man and tore away at his clothes. Teuchi and Duy both had their mouths open while Jiro"s eyes were wide open. His pervert detection senses were overwhelmed at the ma.s.sive pile of walking debauchery in front of him.
"Look, he"s got even panties with stripes and they got a bear on it!"
"My precious, stop you fiend!"
"Mmmm. Lingeries are my favorite."
"Noooo! I spent five years waiting for an opportunity to bring those to me."
Even a kid who didn"t look older than five s.n.a.t.c.hed a pair from two bickering men before proudly putting it on top of his head and running off. As more and more articles of clothing were being s.n.a.t.c.hed, more and more men ran off with it. Before long, there was only the old man and another old man.
The other old man finally ripped away the last pair of panties from the hands of the old man before hobbling away. As the lonesome old man cried on the floor with his clothes ripped and bruises on his skin, the Anbu appeared again. They beat him up quite viciously. However, their voices were quite feminine with many sounding female.
"Pervert."
"Hit me harder mommy."
"Sc.u.m."
"Yes, let me smell your feet!"
The old man took a deep breathe. At this point, the female Anbu were spooked by the sheer perverted prowess of the old man and they ran away for a strategic retreat while shouting the words,
"You talking piece of deviancy!"
As they disappeared, the old man got up quite easily before wiping the dust away from himself. He removed the old mask he was wearing on his face to reveal the face of a young man who looked around twenty. He saw the gawking faces of Jiro and his friends, but he just smiled saying,
"Don"t mind me."
Before he ran off. It took a couple seconds before Teuchi and Duy could recover.
"What just happened?"
"I have no idea."
"I got it."
"Really Jiro, you understand what happened?"
"No I just know why the people were here."
"Was it because the store we were in front of was a store usually visited by women and young ladies?"
"Probably."
"Let"s quickly buy the books and go home. I feel dirty just from watching them."