~ Every 100 Power Stones = Bonus Chapter!
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Tsunade produced a pair of dice cups from somewhere — nobody knew where.
She crouched down on the ground and patted the spot beside her.
“Sit here.”
Three years old, mimicking grown-up authority.
Adorably fierce.
Kitahara Kaede didn’t sit beside her.
He sat cross-legged across from her instead.
Tsunade’s face fell.
“I said sit here!”
“I can see better from across.”
She glared at him for two seconds.
Not enough.
She added a third.
In the end she probably decided arguing with someone this disobedient was beneath her.
She snorted and launched into the rules.
“Each person shakes once and guesses big or small.
Guess right, you win.
Guess wrong, you lose.
Loser gives the winner one candy.”
She dug a handful of candies from her pocket and spilled them onto the ground between them.
Every color imaginable, glittering in the sunlight.
She counted them once.
Then, uneasy, counted them again.
Then, while Kitahara Kaede was looking down at the dice cup, she quietly nudged a few of the biggest ones over to her own side.
Her technique was completely clumsy.
Her mentality was entirely seasoned.
“These are the wager.” She looked up at him, fully confident.
“You have any?”
Kitahara Kaede patted his pockets.
Empty.
“No.”
Tsunade swept her eyes over him from head to toe.
That look spelled out exactly two words — broke loser.
At least she kept them to herself.
After a moment’s hesitation, she pinched five candies from her own pile and pushed them across.
“I’m loaning you these.
Lose them all and you pay me back.”
“Fine.”
“Double.”
“…Fine.”
Only then was Tsunade satisfied.
She grabbed the dice cup, cradled it in both hands, and shook with everything she had.
Eyes shut, muttering something under her breath, impossible to tell what she was chanting.
She slapped it face-down on the ground.
“Big!”
She lifted it.
Eleven.
Tsunade covered her mouth and laughed, eyes curving up into crescents.
She jutted her chin toward the space in front of Kitahara Kaede.
“Your turn.”
He gave it a casual shake and set it down.
Three.
Tsunade’s hand moved like she was stealing something.
One candy was already on her side.
The next two rounds went much the same.
The curve at the corner of Tsunade’s mouth kept growing.
The candies in front of Kitahara Kaede kept shrinking.
By the end of the third round, he had two left.
Tsunade laughed so hard she nearly tipped over.
“You’re so dumb!”
Not a shred of mercy.
Kitahara Kaede said nothing.
At that moment, a system notification chimed in his mind.
[Side Quest: First Meeting]
[A White Moonlight cannot afford to leave no impression at all.
Host, take the initiative, give the future Fifth Hokage a small shock she won’t forget.]
[Rewards issued based on performance rating.]
Kaede glanced at it and closed the panel.
A White Moonlight isn’t something you hand over.
Let her win?
No.
That was Hashirama’s move.
Kaede knew exactly how this worked.
What a person remembers most deeply across their entire life isn’t the smooth, easy moments.
It’s the first time someone beat them, genuinely, seriously beat them.
“Again.”
Tsunade was stuffing a candy into her mouth.
“You’re almost out, you know,” she said, slightly muffled.
“This time I’m serious.”
She scoffed.
There were still candy crumbs at the corner of her mouth.
“You weren’t even bein—”
She didn’t finish.
Kitahara Kaede picked up the dice cup, gave his wrist a light turn, and set it down.
He lifted it.
Two sixes.
Tsunade stopped chewing.
“…Lucky roll.”
She shook her cup hard, defiant, slammed it down.
Seven.
Kitahara Kaede picked up the dice cup again.
Same motion, same angle.
Set down.
Lift.
Two sixes.
The smile faded from Tsunade’s face.
Third round.
She shook with extra force, muttering her incantation again, then slammed it down with a bang and lifted.
Eight.
Already very high.
She turned to look across.
Kitahara Kaede’s wrist turned.
Two sixes.
Silence settled over the pavilion.
Tsunade stared at those two dice for three full seconds without making a sound.
Then she silently picked up the dice cup, sealed the opening tight with her palm, closed her eyes, and shook for a long, long time.
When she slammed it down she put her whole body into it.
“Big!”
She lifted it.
Five.
Small.
She went still.
On Kitahara Kaede’s side, the cup was already set.
He didn’t even call big or small, he just lifted it directly.
Two sixes.
The space in front of Tsunade was completely bare.
Even the copper coins she’d won from Hashirama earlier were gone.
On Kaede’s side, the candies had piled into a small mountain.
She lowered her head and looked at the empty ground in front of her.
Then she looked across at him.
Her lips moved twice, but nothing came out.
Kaede muttered inwardly, damn.
Overdid it.
But Tsunade didn’t cry.
He’d expected her to wail.
A pampered little princess, losing everything, crying was only natural.
She didn’t.
She bit her lip tight, small fists clenched at her sides.
Tears gathered in her eyes and stayed there, stubbornly refusing to fall.
That same spirit, it was exactly the same as the Fifth Hokage in the original story, standing unbroken even after Uchiha Madara’s Susanoo had pierced clean through her body.
Kaede didn’t press the advantage, and he didn’t let any satisfaction show on his face.
He just sat there quietly and waited for her.
After a long while, Tsunade sniffled.
Her voice came out low and muffled.
“You cheated.”
“I didn’t.”
“Liar.” She looked up and glared at him, eyes red at the rims.
“Nobody gets two sixes every single time.”
Kitahara Kaede looked at her.
“It was two sixes every time.”
Tsunade froze.
She had a whole argument loaded up and ready to fire, and every word of it lodged in her throat.
She’d expected him to quibble.
Expected him to laugh.
Had imagined all kinds of responses.
The one thing she hadn’t imagined, that he would just admit it.
“…Then that’s cheating!”
Kaede didn’t explain, and he didn’t argue back.
He reached out and pushed the entire mountain of candy back in front of her.
Tsunade scrubbed her face hard with the back of her hand.
She stared at the pile of candies, then stared at him.
“…You don’t want them?”
“I don’t like sweets.”
She blinked.
“Then why did you beat me?”
“You said you wanted to play.”
Tsunade’s mouth opened and stayed there.
She couldn’t squeeze out a single stubborn word.
She was the one who’d dragged him into this.
She’d set the rules.
She’d loaned him the candies.
Her three-year-old brain spun and spun, couldn’t find a way around it.
She gave up on logic entirely and went straight for the actual question.
“Then how can you get two sixes every single time?”
Kaede didn’t answer right away.
He picked up the dice cup and placed a single die inside.
Then he flipped it over.
Opening facing down.
The die didn’t fall out.
Tsunade’s eyes went wide.
A four-year-old’s hand, barely bigger than hers.
But the die just sat there, perfectly still inside the upturned cup, not moving an inch.
She instinctively reached out to touch it.
Kaede gently intercepted her hand.
He flipped the cup right-side up, set it down, and lifted it.
Six facing up.
Tsunade stared at that die without blinking for several seconds.
Then she looked up sharply.
She didn’t ask how did you do that.
What she asked was,
“Can my grandpa…
do this too?”
The pavilion went quiet.
Kitahara Kaede looked into her eyes.
Three years old.
Only three.
And she already understood everything.
All those gambling games she’d never once lost.
All those rolls that always came up just a little smaller than Grandpa’s.
That man who always wore a troubled expression, spread his hands open, and said I lost again.
She was asking, but she already knew the answer.
She just wasn’t ready to confirm it yet.
Kaede gave a single quiet nod.
Tsunade said nothing.
She lowered her head and looked at the two dice sitting on the ground.
Then she turned and looked toward the main hall.
The silence stretched on.
A teardrop hit her knee with a soft plink.
Then a second.
Then a third, sliding down her cheeks, she didn’t seem to notice them herself.
Not sobbing.
Not the kind of crying that comes from being wronged.
This was what happened when a child suddenly understood something she wasn’t ready for, had no idea what to do with it, and the tears simply came on their own.
After a while, Tsunade scrubbed her face hard with her hand.
She lifted her head and looked at him.
Her eyelashes still caught the light where the tears hadn’t dried, but the look in her eyes had come back.
Clear and steady.
“Teach me.”
Kitahara Kaede glanced at her.
“Teach you what?”
“What you just did.” She pointed at the dice cup.
“How you kept the die from falling out.”
Something shifted, faintly, in Kaede’s chest.
He stood up, walked around to her side, and sat down.
“First, hold the cup.”
Tsunade stretched out both hands and cradled the dice cup in her palms.
Her hands were too small.
The cup wobbled and tilted, threatening to slip out of her grip at any moment.
She looked up at him.
“Then what?”
Kitahara Kaede reached out and gently steadied her wrists.
“Don’t rush.”
“Nice and slow.”
…
➤ Next: The Candy You Owe Me