Gaara slept the deepest, most tranquil sleep of his life.
When he opened his eyes the next morning, he found himself lying snugly beneath his covers, while Grandpa Zang floated in midair, holding a transparent cup that steamed with hot liquid.
“Oh, good morning,” Osamu said, raising a hand toward the waking child.
“Looks like you and Shukaku got along quite well.” Gaara scrambled out of bed, his eyes shining with unprecedented vitality.
“Grandpa Zang, I want to improve Shukaku’s living conditions!” “That was the first time I ever noticed where Shukaku lives.
It’s so narrow and dark, like being locked inside a box this big.” Seeing Osamu still smiling at him, Gaara continued, gesturing the size with his hands, his face showing empathetic sorrow.
“I don’t blame Shukaku.
If I had to live in such a tiny room, I’d be very sad too.” *Ah, this looks like a job for the System…* Osamu took another sip of tea from his cup and summoned his System Ball in his mind.
The System Ball doted on its host immensely.
It was originally created from the dying prayer of the host’s sister—”You must be happy”—and had chosen the host’s soul to fulfill that wish.
Whatever the host needed, it worked tirelessly to achieve.
Besides, the host currently just wanted to play the role of a loving, reliable elder.
So when Osamu called, the System Ball immediately responded to its host’s wish, digging around in its back-end system, skillfully turning on the cheat for infinite Momo Points, packaging a bunch of useful small props, and stuffing them into the host’s inventory all at once.
Osamu pulled out from his inventory with a straight face…
A bouquet of roses.
When the vibrant, brilliant flowers appeared before their eyes, both of them froze.
Gaara had never seen such delicate, beautiful blossoms and was thrilled by the flowers that shared a color similar to his hair; Osamu hadn’t expected that pulling out this item would make him look like a creepy old pervert confessing to a young boy.
And this pervert seemed mentally unstable.
Looking at the heavy pot attached to the bottom of the bouquet, as well as the plastic bag of gardening tools hanging beneath it, Osamu fell into silence once again.
Who gifts roses with the pot, soil, nutrient fluid, rake, fertilizer, and watering can attached?
It wasn’t until he read the item description that Osamu realized he had been thinking dirty thoughts.
[Enrichment Bouquet: A small gift for your domestic pet to experience a taste of nature.] [This item can change its flower type, quantity, and size based on the user’s expectations.] So that was it.
Shukaku was a house cat…
a domestic tanuki!
Suppressing the image of “Shukaku the cat” in his heart, Osamu stuffed the bouquet into Gaara’s arms.
Although the flowers were semi-transparent, Gaara held them steadily.
He joyfully scampered back into bed, eager to bring this gift to Shukaku as soon as possible.
Considering how hard he had been studying lately and how tiring his sand-fixation and afforestation work had been, Osamu let him fuss about.
“Host baby…” The System Ball circled around Osamu, clinging to his palm and rubbing against it exhaustedly.
As long as it could feel the warmth of its host baby, it could quickly recover its energy and go back to guarding Danzo’s physical body.
It refused to believe Nagato could keep that body inside the Gedo Mazo forever!
Regarding this System Ball that had been working hard running back and forth, Osamu had let go of his dissatisfaction.
It was just a newly born, naive little entity with a shallow understanding of happiness, only wishing for him to find a place to live in peace and reach a ripe old age.
In reality, being able to pass away peacefully in his sister’s company had already been a profound happiness.
A broken body like his couldn’t ask for more.
“By the way, Host, do you want to check the surveillance feed on the physical body’s side?” The System Ball suddenly bounced, drawing back Osamu’s drifting attention.
“I don’t really get why Nagato insists on keeping that physical body when it’s useless to them…
and Konan hasn’t tried to stop him either…” Osamu had no objection.
Having grown used to the information overload of the big data era, coming to a low-tech world like Naruto left him sorely lacking entertainment.
According to the System Ball, Nagato often muttered complex, cryptic words in front of Danzo’s body.
The System Ball couldn’t understand what he was saying, and listening too much filled its back-end cache with trash data, requiring repeated cleanups.
Osamu had some inkling about those complex words.
If Nagato had seriously pondered what he had told him, he might genuinely alter his plans and point his blade at the nobles lording over the ninja.
What an exciting scene that would be.
The surveillance screen opened— In a pitch-black secret chamber, Pain scooped Danzo’s body out of transparent liquid Chakra and yanked open Danzo’s clothes.
Danzo’s aged shoulder was half-exposed.
Osamu: …
How bold, Pain.
Aren’t you afraid of old-man smell?
Wait, hasn’t that body been sitting there for over a month?
Is it really not going to bloat into a floating corpse?
Pain leaned his face close to Danzo.
His Rinnegan was fixed intently on the unhealed wound on Danzo’s neck.
After inspecting it, his fingers reached over, carefully touching the severed rift inch by inch.
The System Ball bounced discontentedly.
“It’s really not coming back to life!
Watching and watching—it’s so annoying!” Suddenly, Pain asked quietly, “When will you finally be willing to wake up?” There was no one else beside Pain.
This line was undoubtedly spoken to Danzo, the “dead man.” His lowered voice sounded somewhat eerie.
The System Ball trembled in fear.
Osamu held it in his palm to comfort it, but Osamu himself remained staring at the surveillance screen.
For some reason, Osamu sensed an intensely icy emotion beneath Pain’s expressionless face.
“The wound hasn’t healed, yet the flesh hasn’t decayed.
Even with liquid Chakra and the Gedo Mazo, it shouldn’t be preserved this perfectly.” “You are not dead.” “You just refuse to come back to life, don’t you?” Pain wanted to shake the body in his arms, but the wound on the neck was too huge.
He feared that if he shook it, the half-severed neck wouldn’t hold up.
He had no choice but to support the head carefully.
Yet seeing the dead old man’s slightly upturned lips, an expression that seemed content with rushing toward death, Pain’s emotions crumbled for a moment.
He cupped that damned enemy’s head and stared at his aging face, his expression twisting as if he wanted to spew vicious curses.
In the end, however, he uttered no sharp words.
He merely stared at the corpse, opening his mouth softly after a long silence.
“The Daimyo of the Land of Fire has already become Tsunade’s puppet.” This single line hard-stopped Osamu’s hand just as he was about to close the feed.
Honestly, watching a man embrace a physical body he had briefly occupied was rather embarrassing.
Although he knew the Naruto universe was filled with a subtle homoerotic vibe, it didn’t mean he could directly stomach such an extreme obsession.
Can we…
just throw this body away?
From every angle, it feels tainted already…
With a complicated expression, Osamu stopped his hand from closing the monitor.
On screen, Pain cupped Danzo’s head, his expression growing colder and colder, and the words he spoke…
were completely unexpected by Osamu.
“Who would have thought?
The person you couldn’t let go of most before dying was Tsunade…
Makes sense.
She’s not only Konoha’s Hokage, but also a relative of your honored master.” “So even before dying, you used the opportunity of advising me to point out the problems that would arise in the future, paving all the roads for her beforehand, and after death, leaving all your life’s work to her…” Osamu was baffled.
Who is Pain talking about?
Me?
Back then, to convince Pain to leave, he had indeed mentioned many complex and realistic issues.
But that was purely to make Pain realize that obtaining the Ten-Tails wouldn’t bring love and peace to the world.
“What a fine act you put on, ambitious Darkness of Konoha.” Pain squeezed those words through his teeth.
Looking at Danzo before him, who still showed no reaction, as if he were truly dead, Pain opened his mouth, then fell silent.
He tore away the messy bandages and clothes together.
Finally, Osamu heard him whisper: “In your eyes…
what on earth was I to you?” Osamu: …
Hold on, have the two of us even known each other for ten chapters?