It wasn't until three in the afternoon that Tsunade returned to the hospital. The moment she saw Shin, she wore a look that clearly asked for praise.
"What's with that expression?" Shin asked curiously. "Where did you go?"
"I went to the Pharmaceuticals Department!" Tsunade said proudly.
"What?" Shin jumped up in shock, a bad premonition rising in his chest. "Why did you go to the Pharmaceuticals Department?"
"To help you, of course!" Tsunade didn't understand his reaction. "Why are you so jumpy?"
"Why would you go there? Did she ask you for help?"
At this point, Shin felt like dying. No, something had gone terribly wrong with the plan, maybe he really was going to die, and didn't have much time left.
What the hell was all this? He'd tried to make a risky move, and it completely backfired. Was that even possible?
"No, I contacted her on my own," Tsunade said cheerfully, completely unaware of how serious the situation was. "I heard you always get furious every time you go there, so I didn't want you to be wronged again."
"You… contacted her… on your own…" Shin's expression at that moment was indescribably grim.
"Hahahaha! You contacted her yourself, hahaha!"
He suddenly snapped. He laughed hysterically, unable to stop, even though Tsunade called his name several times.
"I'm dying from laughter, hahaha, contacted her yourself!"
"Hahahaha!"
"Enough! What's wrong with you?" Tsunade was frightened by his behavior and finally shouted to interrupt his laughter.
"Tsunade, oh Tsunade… Don't come to my funeral when I die. If you do, I won't forgive you even as a ghost." Shin's gaze turned vicious and cold.
After saying this, he looked like his soul had been sucked out. He walked out of the hospital, still laughing madly, heading toward a deserted corner of the village like a madman. By the riverbank, he picked up stones and threw them into the water one by one. Occasionally, a small fish was startled and leapt from the water, only to quickly fall back in.
He felt like that fish, no matter how hard he struggled to leap out of the water, in the end, the river would always swallow him up.
Tsunade, who had followed him all the way, saw that he seemed to have regained his senses and slowly approached him.
"Are you okay?" she asked worriedly.
"Go away. I don't want to see you." Shin replied coldly, as if devoid of emotion.
"What do you mean by that?" Tsunade was anxious. Everything that had happened so suddenly had left her completely lost. She had no idea why he had suddenly gone mad.
She thought about it the whole way, but came up with nothing.
It all started after he found out she had gone to the pharmaceutical department to help. Could there be some secret behind all this?
"Go!" Shin kept repeating the same word.
"You really don't want to see me?"
"Hahaha!" Shin suddenly laughed again, but this time his tone was icy. "To someone who's doing everything they can to kill me, what do you think?"
"You tell me right now, when have I ever tried to kill you?" Tsunade was getting more confused, but she desperately wanted to know the truth.
"You really want to know?" Shin asked, full of sarcasm.
"Of course I do!" Tsunade was angry too. She had no idea how things got to this point, but his attitude was breaking her heart.
"I'll tell you if you really want to know," Shin said bitterly. "But after I tell you, we will have nothing to do with each other ever again. Agreed?"
"You said it. Don't regret it!" Tsunade clenched the hem of her clothes tightly, holding back tears and biting her lip.
"Sakumo, get the hell out here!"
Tsunade didn't get Shin's explanation, but what came next was his furious roar.
Three seconds later, a figure appeared behind them.
"I'm about to have a private conversation with Tsunade," Shin said with a cold smile, staring intently at Sakumo. "Would you like to eavesdrop?"
"Uh..." Sakumo looked at Tsunade, clearly unsure of what to do.
"Please give us ten minutes," Tsunade said through gritted teeth, holding back her anger.
"Understood," Sakumo nodded and vanished from sight using the Body Flicker Technique.
"Now will you talk?" Tsunade's expression was cold and murderous, like she was ready to bite his head off.
She swore that after today, no matter how much Shin begged her, she would never deal with this bastard again. She had done absolutely nothing wrong, yet she was suddenly treated like this. No matter what the reason, she wouldn't accept it.
Shin, of course, understood what Tsunade was thinking, but he didn't care. In order to survive, he wasn't after love, what he needed was her guilt. Only deep guilt would make her willingly help him. He had been laying the groundwork for this day for a very, very long time.
Would it break her heart?
Who cared?
His own heart had been broken for seven years, and no one gave a damn, so why should he care about hers?
Taking a deep breath, he seemed to fall into a distant memory. He began to speak without any emotion in his voice:
"Twelve years ago, my parents died. They were killed in the war. Suddenly orphaned, I was completely lost. I had no money, no other relatives, I didn't know how to go on living. But Konoha's welfare system was decent. The village gave me a pension. It wasn't much, but if I was careful, my parents' combined death benefits were enough to support me until I became a chunin. Gradually, I accepted reality. I began to learn how to live. Alone, with no one to care for me, I tried hard to survive."
Tsunade frowned. "Why are you telling me all this?"
"If you don't want to listen, leave," Shin said calmly, as if he were talking about something that had nothing to do with himself. Seeing that Tsunade didn't leave, he continued as if she didn't exist. "It's not easy for a five-year-old to survive, but my parents had told me: As long as you live, there's hope."
"That's how I lived for five years. I finally got past the pain of losing my parents. I naively thought that in two more years I could graduate, and then I'd become a ninja and follow the path my parents once walked. But what I got wasn't graduation, it was expulsion. I didn't understand. But reality doesn't give you time to understand. Soon after, I was removed from the Uchiha clan records, and forced to move out of the clan compound. Then came the ANBU, watching me day and night."
"Of course, this has nothing to do with you. Just think of it as me venting."
"Surveillance? Fine. I didn't care. I was working in the hospital, I could survive on my own two hands. But when I was 12, I suddenly noticed something strange about the chakra of the ANBU watching me."
"Oh, did I forget to mention? I'm not just a medical-nin, I'm a sensory ninja too. And my sensory abilities are extremely strong. So strong that, when close enough, I can detect the most subtle shifts in someone's chakra. When I sensed a cold killing intent in the chakra of the ANBU watching me, I realized, maybe the orders they received had changed."