Konoha: The Absolute Justice of the Uchiha.

Chapter 485 Notifying the Konoha Police Force

He looked at Black Crow's slightly tense shoulders and back and said calmly, "Learning to completely relax your muscles is also part of a ninja's control over their body. If your nerves are always in a state of over-excitation of the sympathetic nervous system, your bodily functions will completely wither before you turn thirty."

Black Crow was silent for a moment, then nodded: "Yes, teacher."

He took a deep breath, untied his headband, and took off his undergarments one by one, folding them neatly and putting them into the basket.

When he turned around, the crisscrossing tiny scars on his back and lower abdomen looked particularly shocking under the warm yellow light, but under the misty vapor, the cold killing intent that had been emanating from him for years eventually faded a bit.

Pushing open the heavy wooden door leading to the open-air bath on the back mountain, a mountain breeze carrying the coolness of late autumn instantly blew in, mingling with the rising heat in mid-air, causing one's skin to tighten slightly.

The view before me suddenly opened up.

It was a large hot spring pool made entirely of natural bluestone. The hot spring water was a translucent milky white, and a few fallen red maple leaves floated on the surface.

One side of the pool is a rugged natural mountain wall, from which clear, hot spring water gushes out from the cracks in the rocks.

On the other side is a cliffside viewing platform, where you can see the lush green mountains to the south of Konoha Village and the sparkling Naka River.

Several small wooden tables were placed by the pool, and several round wooden buckets were neatly upside down on the stone steps.

"marvelous!!"

Lu cheered and, despite his unsteady gait, moved to the edge of the pool as quickly as possible.

Following Chi Quan's instructions, he picked up a wooden bucket, scooped up a full bucket of warm spring water, and poured it over his shoulder.

"Whoa!!"

Warm water flowed down his chest, sending a shiver down Lu's spine. Every pore on his body opened up in that instant. "Awesome! It's like I've come back to life!" Lu couldn't wait to slide down the stone steps into the hot spring pool.

"Gulp."

The moment the warm spring water reached his chest, Lu leaned back against the smooth pool wall, letting out an almost groaning sigh: "I can't take it anymore—I feel like I'm melting into the water—my bones are turning to dust—"

Chi Quan and Black Crow washed themselves and slowly walked into the pool.

The water temperature was around 41 degrees Celsius. As soon as the water was submerged, my sore thigh muscles immediately felt a slight stinging sensation, but that stinging sensation was then completely enveloped by the pervasive warmth.

Black Crow sat on a stone platform where the water was chest-deep, with his hands resting on his knees.

The warm mineral spring water gently enveloped his severely injured left arm, and the damaged nerve endings felt a tingling, slightly itchy sensation under the warmth.

"How are you feeling?" Chi Quan asked, leaning against a wooden pillow not far away with her eyes closed.

The crow looked down at the rippling water and answered truthfully, "The water is hot."

At first, my muscles were a little tight, but now—I feel like my blood is flowing much faster than usual, and the soreness in my left arm has lessened.

"This is a normal phenomenon of peripheral blood vessels dilating due to heat." Chi Quan did not open his eyes, and his voice sounded particularly distant in the empty mountain wind. "Hydrogen sulfide in minerals can penetrate the skin barrier and improve the metabolism of connective tissue."

Close your eyes, regulate your breathing, press the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth, and don't think about any tactics or ninjutsu. Let your parasympathetic nervous system guide your breathing.

Black Crow closed its eyes as instructed.

The mountain wind rustled through the maple forest.

The spring water crashes against the stone wall, making a crisp, tinkling sound.

A few clear bird calls occasionally drifted from afar.

There were no alarms of colleagues being assassinated, no kunai that could fly through the air at any moment, and no lingering smell of rust from the underground bunker.

The heat enveloped his entire body, and his fatigue receded like the tide. Black Crow's face, which was usually tense and looked like it had been cast in iron, relaxed for the first time, and his breathing became long and even.

On the other side, Lu soaked for a while and regained some energy, and his restless mouth started moving again.

"Hey, Ms. Ikezumi." Lu held a wet white towel over his head, gripped the edge of the observation deck with both hands, and looked into the distance.

"The scenery... 'Do you think if we came to soak in the hot springs every day, our physical abilities would improve by leaps and bounds?'"

Chi Quan slowly opened his eyes and glanced at him indifferently: "Soaking for more than an hour every day will lead to excessive loss of moisture in the stratum corneum. At the same time, excessive vasodilation will increase the burden on the myocardium and lead to chronic fatigue syndrome."

"If you want to become a cooked shrimp, I can approve your coming every day."

Lu shrank back and chuckled dryly, "Then forget it—but teacher, is the women's area also open-air? The proprietress just said that the women's area is over by the wisteria corridor, and the scenery there seems to be even better than here."

"All the baths in this resort are open-air." Chi Quan picked up a cup of warm barley tea from the poolside and took a sip. "However, there are solid wood privacy screens and natural rock walls that are five meters high on both sides, and there are also simple barriers around to prevent chakra perception, so the safety and privacy are very good."

Lu pursed his lips: "I was just asking casually, teacher. Why are you guarding against me like a thief?"

"I, Suzuki Riku, am the future tactical mastermind of Konoha. How could I possibly be interested in such low-level entertainment as peeping?"

Black Crow opened his eyes and suddenly added, "People who actively emphasize that they won't do something have already subconsciously gone through the relevant deductions."

"Pfft!" Lu almost choked on his own saliva, staring wide-eyed at Black Crow. "Black Crow! How come your mouth turned so venomous after just one bath?! Do they teach mind reading in their ANBU training?!"

Chi Quan, standing to the side, slightly raised the corners of his mouth, but did not expose him.

The warm autumn sun shines through the tree canopy onto the water's surface, creating a golden halo.

The entire hot spring pool was filled with a rare sense of languor and comfort, and even the air seemed to flow more slowly.

However, this peace and tranquility lasted for less than twenty minutes.

"Aaaaaah—!!"

A sharp, piercing scream from a young girl, filled with anger and panic, shattered the tranquility of the entire back mountain without warning!

The sound was extremely penetrating, instantly sending several tits that were roosting in the maple forest flying.

The three people in the hot spring pool were suddenly jolted.

"What's going on?!" The towel on Lu's head slid directly into the water, and he straightened up instantly.

The crow reacted even more violently.

Almost at the same instant the scream rang out, his previously completely relaxed body suddenly tensed up like a spring, his eyes instantly changed from gentle to icy tactical alert, and his right hand subconsciously reached for his lower back before realizing that he was currently shirtless and soaking in the water after finding nothing.

"The sound is coming from the women's section next door!" Lu shouted, pointing at the towering partition. "It sounds like Huimei's voice? No, there are other customers' voices too!"

Immediately afterwards, from the other side of the high wall next door came the chaotic sound of splashing water, the clatter of a wooden bucket falling to the ground, and a series of angry female shouts: "Stop thief!!"

"Pervert! My underwear and yukata have been stolen!!"

"On the rooftop! That dark figure ran towards the back mountain!!"

"Hye-mi! Stop it!!"

"Don't run! Stop! Earth Release: Earth Flow 1 Oops, I forgot my scroll!!" The sound of Huimei stomping her feet in frustration could be clearly heard from next door.

"Pervert? Stealing clothes?!"

Lu's eyes widened instantly, and he seemed to have been injected with a stimulant. He slapped the water, creating a huge splash: "In broad daylight! Under the clear sky! Someone dares to steal girls' clothes at Konoha's hot spring resort?! This is an insult to us ninjas! Black Crow, Ikezumi-sensei, this is absolutely unacceptable!"

Chi Quan had already put down his teacup.

He didn't panic, but his expression became serious.

"Get ashore and get dressed," Chi Quan succinctly instructed.

"Splash!"

Black Crow didn't even dry himself with a towel. He pushed off the stone steps with one hand and leaped out of the water, landing silently.

Lu hurriedly scrambled out of the water, hastily throwing on a yukata while hopping on one foot in his wooden clogs: "Clothes—where are my shorts?! Never mind, I'll just wear this robe!"

Chi Quan's movements remained steady, but his speed was extremely fast.

He put on his bathrobe, tied the straps tight, and reached for the cane leaning against the door.

When the three of them pushed open the door and rushed out of the locker room, the courtyard in front of them was already in complete chaos.

The side door to the women's area was pushed open, and two young female tourists, their faces flushed and still shaken, tearfully told the hotel's female staff.

In the center of the courtyard, Huimei was also wearing a thick, dark red bathrobe, her hair still wet and draped over her shoulders. Her bare feet were on the wooden floor, and she was tightly clutching a bamboo pole used to hang her clothes. Her chest heaved violently with anger.

"Huimi! What happened?!" Riku rushed over, shouting as he carried his wooden clogs. The hem of his yukata swayed wildly in the wind, making him look like a giant bat.

When Huimei saw Chi Quan and the other two come out, her initially flustered expression immediately regained its composure. She pointed to the bamboo fence connecting the courtyard to the mountain forest behind it: "Teacher Chi Quan! Just now, some guests and I were soaking in the outdoor pool when we suddenly heard a noise from the changing rack! When we turned around, the two bathrobes hanging on the rack, and—and several pieces of underwear, were all gone! Then I saw something move incredibly fast, vaulting over the five-meter-high wooden partition and running towards the back mountain!"

"Extremely fast?" Black Crow keenly caught the key words and strode to the bamboo fence. "How big is it? What color clothes is it wearing? Is its chakra fluctuation strong?"

Hui Mei rubbed her still slightly red eyes and recalled, "The moisture was too strong, so I couldn't see very clearly."

It was only about half a meter long, a dark, indistinct blob, and incredibly fast! What's worse, it had my favorite towel embroidered with cherry blossoms and a change of clothes in its mouth! I saved up my allowance for two months to buy it!

"Half a meter long? Extremely fast?" Lu stroked his chin, analyzing with a deep expression. "Could it be a dwarf ninja? Or an evil wandering ninja who has mastered some kind of special bone-shrinking ninjutsu? My god, these perverts have actually developed ninjutsu to this extent just to steal underwear?!"

"Smack."

Huimei didn't hold back and tapped Lu on the forehead with the bamboo stick in her hand: "Can your brain hold anything serious besides this mess?!"

"Ouch! That hurts! This is a reasonable tactical assumption!" Lu protested, clutching his forehead.

Chi Quan did not participate in the argument between the two.

He leaned on his cane and slowly walked to the bottom of the five-meter-high solid wood privacy screen.

His gaze swept carefully across the surface of the wooden board.

"There are slight abrasion marks 4.2 meters above the ground on the top of the wooden board." Chi Quan raised his cane and pointed to a small scratch on the top of the partition. "The surface was torn off by about two millimeters. What was left was not the rubber or fabric fibers of a shoe sole, but a sharp vertical scratch."

Black Crow stepped forward, lightly touched the ground with his toes, and leaped up gracefully. He grabbed the edge of the wooden plank with one hand for leverage, and his gaze fell on the scratch mark.

"It wasn't caused by the kunai." Black Crow landed, his tone cold and certain. "There was no dent from metal hitting wood, and the cut was extremely narrow."

Narrow and curved, like the toenail of some kind of creature.

Furthermore, a piece of moss had been rubbed off the top of the plank, resulting in a very small contact area and a weight that definitely did not exceed five kilograms.

Lu was stunned: "Five kilograms? A five-kilogram perverted lecher? Could it be a miniature summoning beast kept by some clan in Konoha?"

For example, the bugs at the oil lady's house—no, the bugs couldn't carry the clothes.

There are traces on the ground.

The pond points to the soft soil below the fence.

Because it is close to the hot spring's drainage outlet, the soil there is very moist, and there is a string of extremely small, plum blossom-shaped indentations that extend all the way into the dense bamboo forest behind the mountain.

A strand of pink fabric hung from the thorns of a low shrub, swaying gently in the mountain breeze.

"That's the thread from my bath towel!" Huimei recognized it at a glance, gritting her teeth in anger. "It ran into the bamboo forest behind the mountain! Ikezumi-sensei, we absolutely can't let it get away with this! Even if it's not human, it's still a wicked act instigated by some bad people!"

The innkeeper's wife arrived just then with several guards wielding wooden sticks, sweating profusely. "Oh dear guests, I'm so sorry! The mountain behind our inn is our private forest. We don't usually put up much barbed wire to maintain its natural appearance, but we never expected such thugs to infiltrate! I've already sent someone to notify the Konoha police!"

"By the time the police arrive, the traces will have been destroyed by the mountain wind and dew." Chi Quan turned around and looked at his three students.

His eyes were calm, without the slightest hint of panic, but rather carried a sense of testing.

"Lu, Huimei, Black Crow," Ichi Izumi said.

The three men immediately stood at attention: "Present!"