Dale was still patting his chest, trying to understand what just happened.
Suddenly, Tsunade moved.
She was a blur.
Before Dale could even blink, she was standing right in front of him.
Her hands shot out and grabbed his shoulders.
“Hey! What are you—”
Dale tried to back away, but her grip was like iron.
She didn’t ask for his permission.
She pressed her fingers against his chest, his neck, and his arms.
She was checking his body, searching for any hidden damage.
“Let go of me!”
Dale yelled, pulling away as hard as he could.
She finally stepped back.
She looked closely at him.
Physically, there was nothing wrong with him.
There were no burns.
There were no marks.
The light had completely vanished into his skin without leaving a single scratch or scar.
But Tsunade narrowed her eyes.
Something was different.
She focused her mind and reached out with her senses.
Her eyes widened in shock.
It was there.
Deep inside this weak, ordinary boy, she felt a spark of energy.
It was abysmal.
It was so tiny and weak that a normal ninja would probably miss it.
It felt like a small, flickering candle in a large, dark room.
But there was no mistake.
It was chakra.
Tsunade stared at him in pure disbelief.
When she stepped outside his apartment earlier, she had checked the people walking on the street.
She had checked Dale while he was sleeping on his bed.
She had found nothing.
The people in this strange, metal world were totally empty.
They did not have chakra.
They did not have the energy network that connected the mind and body in her world.
Dale had been empty just five minutes ago.
Tsunade looked at the blank brick wall where the glowing lines used to be.
Then she looked back at Dale.
He was rubbing his arms, looking scared and confused.
The truth hit her hard.
The seal hadn’t tried to hurt him.
It had chosen him.
The seal had given him chakra.
Tsunade stared at the boy.
He was her only way home.
Before she was pulled into this strange world, tensions in her home were high.
The Second Ninja World War was about to start.
Her friends, her family, her village—they all needed her.
She could not stay hidden in this metal city while her people fought and died.
She had to get back.
She picked up the dropped phone from the ground and spoke into the app.
*”You have the seal inside you now.
I need to do an experiment on you to understand how it works.”*
The phone spoke her words in cold, robotic English.
Tsunade frowned.
She didn’t like using an innocent civilian.
She was a healer, not a torturer.
But she had a duty to her village.
She had to do it.
Dale’s face turned red.
He was incredibly angry.
“An experiment?”
He yelled.
“I saved your life! I brought you into my home!”
He took a step back, his hands clenched into fists.
“And now you want to hurt me? You want to treat me like a lab rat?”
His heart beat fast.
He felt a hot, rushing panic in his chest.
He didn’t know it, but his intense emotions were waking up the seal inside him.
Suddenly, the air around Dale started to buzz again.
The streetlights above the alley flickered and completely died.
He was absorbing all the electrical energy around him, just like the seal did to his phone the night before.
A bright, blinding blue light wrapped around his entire body.
With a loud, popping *crack*, Dale vanished.
He opened his eyes.
The dark alley was gone.
The ground was gone.
He was high up in the cold air, far above the tall city buildings.
The freezing wind hit his face hard.
Gravity instantly pulled him down.
He was free-falling.
*I’m going to die,*
He thought, screaming in pure terror.
The hard, concrete street rushed up to meet him at a terrifying speed.
Then, a blur of green and gray shot up through the air.
Strong arms grabbed him tight.
It was Tsunade.
She had leaped from the alleyway up to the roof of a building, using her incredible ninja strength to catch him in mid-air.
They landed firmly on a flat rooftop with a heavy thud.
The concrete cracked under her boots, but Dale was completely safe.
He fell to his knees, gasping for air.
His whole body was shaking with fear.
Tsunade knelt softly beside him.
She held his phone out and spoke calmly into it.
*”I am sorry.
I will never harm you.
I’ll give you my word.”*
Dale looked up at her, tears of shock still in his eyes.
*”I only need your help to open the door back to my home,”*
The phone translated.
*”If you help me, I will give you a fortune that will last several lifetimes.”*
Dale was breathing hard, trying to slow his racing heart.
“A… a fortune?”
Tsunade reached inside her green jacket.
She pulled out a small roll of paper with strange writing on it.
It was a ninja storage scroll.
She channeled a tiny bit of chakra into it.
With a small puff of smoke, a heavy, solid gold bar appeared in her hand.
She placed it gently on the roof next to him.
She was the Senju Princess.
Her grandfather was the First Hokage, the founder of her village.
She had not yet lost her heart to gambling and drinking.
She was incredibly, filthy rich.
*”There is a mountain of gold inside this scroll,”*
She told him through the app, her eyes serious and true.
*”Help me go home, and it is all yours.”*
Dale stared at the heavy, shiny gold bar resting on the rough concrete.
He thought about his life.
He thought about the late nights at his part-time job, his aching feet, and his nearly empty bank account.
He really needed the money.
He looked up at Tsunade.
She was terrifying and powerful, but she had just saved him from a deadly fall.
She had kept her word.
“Okay,”
Dale said, his voice still a little shaky.
“I accept. I will help you find a way home.”
He spoke into the phone, and the robotic Japanese voice relayed his answer.
Tsunade smiled.
It was a small, relieved smile.
She nudged the gold bar closer to his knee.
*”Take this first,”*
The app translated her soft words.
*”It is compensation for scaring you.
Consider it a promise for the rest of the gold.”*
Dale reached out with trembling fingers.
He picked up the gold bar.
It was cold, solid, and incredibly heavy in his hands.
A huge, warm wave of happiness washed over his chest.
All the fear from falling out of the sky slowly faded away.
This one piece of gold was worth more money than he had ever seen in his entire life.
It meant he was finally free.
He could quit his exhausting part-time jobs today.
He didn’t have to worry about rent, or eating cheap food, or struggling to pay for his classes anymore.
He could just go to his university and focus on his studies, just like a normal person his age.
For the first time in a very long time, Dale felt a deep, genuine hope.
His tiring, gray life had just turned to solid gold.
Dale left his apartment with the gold bar hidden safely in his backpack.
He walked to a small, quiet gold store in a busy part of the city.
He knew selling a solid block of gold without any official papers was going to be hard.
The old man at the counter looked at the gold, then looked sharply at Dale.
He agreed to buy it, but he offered much less money than it was actually worth.
Since Dale didn’t have a certificate, it was a fair trade to avoid any questions.
“Deal,”
Dale said quickly, not caring about the lost value.
When he walked out of the store, he held his bag tight against his chest.
He stopped in an empty corner of the street and unzipped the bag just a little bit.
Thick stacks of crisp, clean cash filled the inside.
His hands shook.
His eyes burned, and he almost cried warm tears of joy right there on the sidewalk.
His days of struggling were truly over.
Before heading home, he made one very important stop at an electronics store.
When Dale finally unlocked his apartment door, he heard a strange, robotic sound.
“Ap-ple. Apple. Wa-ter. Water.”
He walked into the living room and blinked in surprise.
Tsunade was sitting on the sofa, holding his smartphone very carefully in her strong hands.
She was pressing buttons on a language app, repeating the English words out loud.
She was a highly trained ninja.
She knew she was in a strange place, and the first step to survival was learning the language.
She looked up when Dale walked in.
*”You have returned,”*
She spoke into the translation app, playing the English voice for him.
Dale smiled.
He walked over and pulled a small, flat box from his shopping bag.
He handed it to her.
Tsunade looked at the box, then opened it slowly.
Inside was a brand new smartphone.
“For you,”
Dale said, taking his old phone from her hands to translate his words.
“I bought it with the gold money. Now you don’t have to share.”
Tsunade looked at the shiny new device, her eyes wide with surprise.
“I already downloaded the translation app for you,”
Dale explained with a happy grin.
“And a language learning app. You can use it to practice English whenever you want.”
Tsunade gently touched the smooth glass screen.
The fierce, demanding look in her eyes softened.
*”Thank you, Dale,”*
The robotic voice translated from her new phone.
The voice was fake, but the soft, grateful smile on her face was completely real.
Living in a tiny apartment with Tsunade was completely new for Dale.
It was hard not to notice her.
She was incredibly beautiful.
Her long blonde hair, her sharp eyes, and her confident presence completely filled the small space.
Every time she walked past him in the narrow hallway, Dale felt nervous.
He was very conscious of her.
Tsunade noticed his shy looks, of course.
She was a master ninja.
She noticed everything.
But she didn’t mind at all.
He was just a normal young man, and he was always polite and respectful to her.
Later that evening, they sat at the kitchen table.
Dale finally gathered his courage.
He needed to ask the question that had been bothering him all day.
He typed carefully into his phone and showed the screen to her.
“About that experiment… What exactly are you going to do to me? Are you going to dissect me?”
Tsunade read the translated text.
She blinked in surprise.
Then, she threw her head back and laughed.
It was a loud, clear, and genuine laugh.
It echoed warmly in the quiet apartment.
She wiped a small tear of amusement from her eye.
Suddenly, everything made sense to her.
No wonder the poor boy had been so absolutely terrified in the alleyway.
She picked up her own phone and pressed the microphone button.
*”I am not going to cut you open, Dale,”*
The robotic voice translated, though Tsunade was still smiling brightly at him.
*”I am a medical ninja.
A healer.
I save lives, I don’t take them apart.”*
Dale let out a massive sigh of relief.
He slumped back in his chair, rubbing his chest.
Tsunade leaned forward.
Her smile slowly turned into a gentle, serious look.
*”The experiment is about energy,”*
She explained through the app.
*”The seal planted chakra inside your body.
But your body does not know what it is, and your mind does not know how to control it.”*
She pointed a strong finger at his chest.
*”If we want to use the seal to send me home, you need to understand the power inside you.
So, I will not dissect you.
I will teach you.”*
Dale sat up straight.
“Teach me?”
Tsunade nodded firmly.
*”Yes.
I will teach you what it means to be a ninja.
I will teach you what chakra is and how to feel it.
And I will teach you about the history of the world I come from.
That is our first step.”*