Konoha: The Absolute Justice of the Uchiha.

Chapter 449 Compliance with the Rules

He sat down, took a deep breath, and then sank into the water, leaving only his right arm resting on the rocks by the pool.

He held his breath underwater and used his left thumb to press on the radial artery of his right hand to count his heart rate—heart rate increases when taking a hot bath, which is a normal physiological response, but he wanted to measure how high his heart rate could rise in the hottest part of the water.

When he counted to sixtieth, he heard a very faint sound that did not belong to the sound of flowing water.

That sound came from the direction of the bamboo partition—the sound of something being gently tugged on the bamboo.

Kai opened his eyes underwater.

Through the mist between the middle and upper pools, he saw a blurry figure crouching in a corner near the men's bath area, behind the bamboo partition.

People who don't bathe in hot springs wouldn't be wearing a full Jonin uniform and squatting under the bamboo partition wall.

The figure's silver hair was almost invisible in the white steam, but the small orange-covered novel in his hand was unusually conspicuous in the steam.

"Intimate Paradise".

Kakashi.

Kai rose silently from the water, with only his eyes and nose visible above the surface.

He remained silent—not because he wanted to cover for Kakashi, but because he wanted to see what excuse Kakashi would use this time.

Kakashi squatted under the bamboo partition, holding "Icha Icha Paradise" in his left hand, and resting his right index and middle fingers together on a bamboo stalk of the partition.

There was an extremely thin gap between the nodes of that bamboo, only about two millimeters wide. Through the gap, one could see the blurry steam from the women's bath and the occasional fleeting silhouette of a person.

His Sharingan wasn't showing; his headband still properly covered his left eye. He was just peering through the gap with his right eye, his expression serious and focused, exactly the same as when he was reading mission reports in the Hokage's office.

"Kakashi." Guy's voice drifted over from the mist in the upper pool, soft but clear, "What are you looking at?"

""

Kakashi turned a page of "Make-Out Paradise".

"I'm reading a book."

"The way you flicked the bamboo with your fingers just now wasn't the same hand you used to turn the page," Chi Quan said from a corner of the middle pool.

He didn't look up; the back of his head was still against the pool wall, his eyes were half-closed, and his cane was lying horizontally on the edge of the pool.

"You hold the book in your left hand and pry open the bamboo with your right."

But your book is now turned to page forty-seven—I just saw you put a bookmark on page forty-six in the locker room.

You turned a page.

But you pried open the bamboo while turning the page.

A person cannot do two different things with their right hand at the same time.

So it's not your right hand that's used to pluck the bamboo.

'

'

"It's a shadow clone." Neji finished speaking.

He shouldn't have rolled his eyes in the hot spring. If he did, he would have been able to see all the mineral deposits in the hot water clearly, which would have been such a spoilsport.

Even without using his Byakugan, he could sense that on the other side of the bamboo partition, in the angle between the bamboo partition and the mountain wall, an extremely faint chakra reaction was slowly dissipating.

Those were the residual fluctuations from the last few seconds before the shadow clone dissipated.

Kakashi's main body crouched under the bamboo partition wall, pretending to read a book, while his shadow clone hid in the corner on the other side of the bamboo partition wall. The angle of that position was just right so that it could see the upper pool of the women's bath through the gaps between the sharp bamboo strips at the top of the partition wall.

Kakashi closed "Icha Icha Paradise".

He stood up, put the book into his ninja tool bag, then very naturally put his hands in his pockets and turned to face three pairs of eyes staring at him from the hot spring pool.

His expression remained unchanged, as natural and fluid as his usual "I didn't do anything" statement when he was late, "I got lost on the road of life."

One of the pointed bamboo strips in the bamboo partition wall has come loose.

I'm checking for safety hazards.

"Why did your face turn red when you were checking for safety hazards?" Tian Tian asked from the other side of the bamboo partition.

She had emerged from the pool at some point and was now standing wrapped in a bath towel under the bamboo partition on the women's bath side.

She has very sharp ears—she's been listening since the first sound Kakashi made when he plucked the bamboo with his fingers.

She listened to the relay-style exposé by Kai, Izumi, and Neji, and then delivered the final blow at the most crucial moment.

"It sounds like something's dripping from your nose."

Kakashi subconsciously touched his nose.

There was no nosebleed.

Every day, she would let out a very short, breathy laugh from the other side of the bamboo partition, saying how cunning she was.

"Tenten, you're eavesdropping on our conversation over at the women's bath," Kakashi said.

"I wasn't eavesdropping."

The bamboo partition doesn't block sound; your conversation was transmitted over itself.

Moreover—" Tenten pulled a loose, pointed bamboo strip from the top of the bamboo partition and held it up for Kakashi to see, "You just said one of them was loose"—I checked, every single one is tight.

Except for this one that your shadow clone loosened.

Kakashi stared at the sharp bamboo stick and remained silent for a moment.

Then he turned to Kay, "Your students are getting harder and harder to fool."

"She's not one of my students," Kay said.

He paused, then said, "But I agree with the second half of what you said."

Chi Quan changed his position in the hot spring pool, stretching out his left leg as well.

He began in the tone of a case discussion at an academic conference.

"Kakashi, do you know what the Konoha law should do if you're caught peeping at a hot spring inn?"

"I don't want to hear it," Kakashi said.

His voice carried a tone of resignation, yet a desire to delay the verdict.

Chi Quan didn't care whether he wanted to listen or not.

"The hotel owner can file a complaint with the Konoha Police Department."

The police will take statements from complainants—and do you know who the owner of Maple Soup is?

She was Sarutobi Asuma's distant aunt.

Although Asuma is gone, Kurenai is still in Konoha.

Hong and the captain of the police force were contemporaries.

Therefore, this complaint chain will be very efficient.

The lightest penalty is 48 hours of community service.

The most severe punishment—a lifetime ban from entering any hot spring inn in Konoha.

Kakashi took his hand out of his pocket.

"Is there any remedy?" he asked Chi Quan, because Chi Quan's tone sounded like he was negotiating.

"Read the contents of page 47 of 'Intimate Paradise' to us."

"Read it aloud," Neji said from the middle level of the pool.

His expression remained calm, just as calm as when he had described the bruises on Chi Quan's knees using ginkgo leaves.

Kakashi glanced at Neji.

There was no trace of a joke in Neji's eyes. For a Jonin from the Hyuga branch family to ask you to loudly recite "Icha Icha Paradise" while soaking in a hot spring is itself a form of performance art-level punishment.

Kakashi pulled out "Icha Icha Paradise" from his ninja tool bag, turned to page 47, and cleared his throat.

"—Her hand brushed against my skin like a spring breeze"

"That's enough," Chi Quan interrupted him.

Chi Quan's ears turned even redder than Kakashi's when he was tricked by Tenten earlier.

"No need to read it."

Just don't peep into the women's bathhouse again next time.

"I agree," Kay said.

"I agree," Neji said.

"I disagree," Tian Tian said from the other side of the bamboo partition. "He hasn't finished reading yet."

What came after "brushed past me"?

"Tian Tian," Kai called her name in a tone that suggested a teacher speaking to a student.

"Okay, okay," Tian Tian said with a smile as she retreated from behind the bamboo partition.

Her footsteps echoed on the wooden floor of the women's bath, fading into the distance, followed by the splashing sound of her getting back into the water.

Kakashi put "Icha Icha Paradise" back into his ninja tool bag.

He sat down by the pool next to the spring, without going into the water—he was wearing a full Jonin uniform, which was too much trouble to take off.

He simply dipped his feet in the water and looked up at the steaming sky.

The evening sky over Konoha, viewed from the hot spring pool, is an irregular, warm orange canvas, cut by camellia branches and bamboo partitions.

The colors of the sunset mingled with the steam from the hot spring, making the entire backyard look as if it were covered with a thin layer of orange cellophane.

The proprietress's cat jumped down from the eaves of the changing room, took a few steps on the warm pebbles by the pool, and then curled up next to Neji's towel and started purring.

Neji glanced down at the cat but didn't chase it away.

"I just finished reading your mission report to the Land of Fields." Kakashi's voice became more relaxed than usual in the steam, no longer the muffled voice that was covered by his mask—the steam had dampened the mask's fabric a little, making his voice more penetrating.

"Lady Tsunade wrote a comment at the end of the report: 'The mission was completed to an extremely high standard, but the process was too risky.'"

Next time, don't use medical ninjas as assault team members.

He looked at Kai after saying his last sentence.

Kai readjusted the splint on his right arm.

"I didn't use him as a commando."

He did everything a medical ninja should do throughout the entire process: diagnosis, sampling, bandaging, and first aid.

He only did some intelligence analysis and tactical simulations incidentally.

"And tactical deception," Neji added.

"And there's also the creation of false signals to interfere with the enemy's command system," Tiantian said again from the other side of the bamboo partition.

Her ears are really pointed.

Kakashi gently dipped his foot in the hot water, and ripples spread outwards, touching the pool's walking stick.

"It sounds like you brought a tactical command post that can use a cane with you," Chi Quan did not deny.

After soaking for about forty minutes, Kai came out of the upper pool.

His skin was scalded red, and he looked like a combination of a boiled crab and Matt Kay.

He walked to the self-service water dispenser at the entrance of the locker room, filled three cups with cold water with his left hand and drank them, then leaned against the door frame of the locker room to wait for his body to cool down.

Neji emerged from behind him, his right arm covered in a network of dilated capillaries from being soaked in hot water, and the last trace of bluish-yellow bruises on the inside of his wrist had faded somewhat due to the hot water.

He dried himself with a towel, put his wristbands back on, and then put his clothes back on one by one.

When Tian Tian came out of the women's bath, her hair was still wet. Instead of putting her hair up, she draped a towel over her shoulder and let it drip naturally.

Her cheeks were flushed red from the steam, the same color as her cheeks which had turned red from the night wind in the cave, but this time it was from the heat, not the cold wind.

She took out a small plastic bag from her ninja tool bag, which contained mugwort bath salts she had bought at a pharmacy in Mitsui Town.

She handed the bath salts to Chi Quan.

"I forgot to give it to you earlier."

"Adding a little to your bath is good for your joints." Chi Quan took it and smelled it—the scent of mugwort was very strong, and it would probably be quite irritating if mixed with the sulfur smell of the hot spring.

He put the bath salts in his pocket, intending to use them next time he took a bath.

Kakashi was the last to stand up from the pool.

He stood up not because he'd had enough soaking—he hadn't even gone into the water—but because the landlady peeked out from the back door and glanced at him.

That look made it clear: You've been sitting in the men's bath for almost an hour, neither getting in the water nor taking off your clothes. What exactly are you trying to do?

Kakashi gave the proprietress a standard smile, his eyes crinkling into crescent shapes, then picked up a towel, draped it over his shoulder, and walked out of the bathhouse.

Dinner was prepared by the owner of Fengtang Restaurant.

Maple Soup doesn't serve formal dinners, but the proprietress said she was in a good mood today because Mr. Kai finally paid off his debts, so she cooked them a home-cooked meal.

The menu consists of: rice, miso soup, grilled salmon, pickled radish, cold spinach salad, and a soft-boiled egg per person.

Onsen tamago (hot spring eggs) is a specialty of Fuyu. They are cooked directly with the hottest hot spring water from the upper pool. The egg white is as tender as tofu, and the yolk is a semi-solid golden yellow. After breaking the egg, the yolk flows onto the rice and is then mixed in before eating.

She ate two bowls of rice every day, but after soaking in the hot spring, her appetite was surprisingly good, and she ate two and a half pieces of grilled salmon.

Neji ate quietly, arranging the fish bones neatly around the edge of his plate, with almost uniform spacing between them.

After soaking in the hot spring, Chi Quan's right hand regained much of its grip strength, and he no longer trembled when holding chopsticks. He broke the hot spring egg and stirred it with chopsticks, his movements similar to those he used to stir the culture medium for culturing blood in the laboratory.

Kai eats with his left hand—he uses chopsticks more steadily than his right hand, and he picks out every single bone from the grilled salmon before eating it.

When the proprietress brought in the teapot to refill the tea, she saw the fish bones arranged neatly on the side of Neji's plate, paused for a moment, then smiled and shook her head, saying that in all the years she had soaked in hot springs, she had never seen anyone arrange fish bones so neatly.

After dinner, Tenten and Neji played shogi in the rest room at Maple Pavilion.

The chessboard is a public facility of Maple Soup. Two pieces are missing—one horse and one pawn. Tenten uses the ends of two kunai to replace the missing pieces, with the chakra guiding lines pointing upwards to represent the horse and downwards to represent the pawn.

Neji took three minutes to get used to the substitute pieces, and then began to play seriously.

After losing two games in a row, she secretly moved a "kunai" piece when Neji wasn't looking in the third game. Neji looked down at the board for a while, then looked up at her.

"You moved Guima from 1973 to 1985."

Guima can only move two steps forward and one step to the side; he cannot move two squares to the side.

"I can't even move the pieces properly—at least I have to do it according to the rules." Tenten rested her chin on her palm and looked at Neji.

"Then teach me." Neji put the pieces back in their place and began to explain the rules of shogi to her.

The lecture was very systematic, covering everything from beginner to intermediate tactics in just fifteen minutes. After listening to it, Tian Tian said, "It's clearer than Teacher Kai's lectures," and then continued playing chess.