Chapter 92: Mieko's Mother
Both of them snorted and turned their heads away, ignoring him.
Kaito sighed and said, "I went through a lot of trouble to bring you something. Never mind, I'll eat it myself."
This caught their attention. They saw a pack of sweet biscuits and a string of dango in Kaito's outstretched hands.
In less than a second, Hodaka snatched the biscuits, and Mieko grabbed the dango.
They both immediately started eating. As they ate, Kaito tilted his head, looked at Mieko, and asked, "Shouldn't you check if they're real or a substitution first?"
This made Mieko completely explode. She immediately stood up and yelled, "Bastard! Next time I'm definitely going to beat you up. Wait, no need to wait for next time—I'll beat you up now!"
After saying that, she got out of bed. Kaito backed away from her and asked, "Uh, are you sure I'm not a clone?"
Just as she was about to lunge at him, a middle-aged woman heard the commotion and walked into the room.
Her features were very similar to Mieko's, just more mature and refined.
She saw Mieko standing up, narrowed her eyes, and asked, "Why are you out of bed?"
Mieko immediately apologized and said, "Sorry, Mom."
Then she quickly jumped back onto the bed. Kaito looked at her reaction and thought, "Oh, it seems she's very afraid of her mother."
Mieko grabbed a second string of dango, and just as she was about to eat it, the dango disappeared from her hand.
Mieko turned her head and saw her mother standing by her bed, holding her dango and the remaining ones.
Her mother looked her in the eye and said sternly, "Young lady, you are recovering. Why are you eating dango instead of the fruit I brought you?"
Mieko nervously said, "Sorry, Mom. But I've already recovered, so it should be fine to eat a little dango, right?"
Mieko's mother didn't answer, just stared into Mieko's eyes.
Their staring contest lasted for about thirty seconds, then Mieko backed down, apologized again, and said, "Sorry, Mom. I was wrong."
Her mother sighed, and then began giving her a lengthy lecture!
Seeing such an interaction, Kaito's eye twitched. He was thoroughly amused by this scene and thought, "She's said 'Sorry, Mom' three times already. All three times she started the same way. This is hilarious."
The day before, Hodaka had already witnessed Mieko's mother's strictness firsthand.
However, he didn't find the scene funny or secretly laugh; instead, he stuffed all the remaining biscuits into his mouth and swallowed them quickly.
Mieko's mother noticed this and also stared at him.
However, Hodaka didn't look at her, only at the window.
She continued her lecture, scolding Mieko for five continuous minutes. During these five minutes, Hodaka awkwardly stared in another direction, while Kaito stood awkwardly to the side.
Meanwhile, Mieko kept looking down at the bed, trying not to cry over the injustice she faced.
"First, that annoying guy appeared and teased me. Although he brought me my favorite dango to make up for it, he teased me again. Then my mother took those dango away! Not to mention, she also lectured me in front of my teammates, making me lose so much face."
After the lecture, she looked at Kaito, stared at him, and said with a stern expression, "Kaito-kun, you first injured my daughter in training, and then brought her dango to eat during recovery?"
This immediately put Kaito on alert, and he thought, "Is she going to lecture me too?"
He quickly said, "Sorry, ma'am, sensei said she had already recovered yesterday, so I didn't think there would be any problem."
Without waiting for Mieko's mother to reply, Kaito looked at Hodaka and Mieko and said, "I just remembered I have something to discuss with sensei. See you later!"
Without waiting for anyone to respond, he used Body Flicker and vanished out the window. Hodaka looked enviously at the window.
"At least he can escape. I'm stuck here."
And Mieko was too embarrassed to think about anything.
Mieko's mother was surprised. She said to Mieko, "Your teammate can lie without changing his expression, without any embarrassment. You need to be careful around him."
Hearing this, Hodaka looked at Mieko's mother and found her staring at the empty wrapper that had contained his biscuits. He screamed internally in terror, "Oh no!"
As Kaito walked down the street, he thought, "Well, that was awkward. No wonder she always acts so confident and rebellious—she might be compensating for what she deals with at home."
"Anyway, both of them have basically recovered from their injuries, so we should start missions the day after tomorrow. Hmm, how should I spend these two days?"
He thought for a moment, then sighed.
"Besides training, I really don't have any hobbies in this world. Maybe sealing techniques count, but that's also part of training."
After thinking for a while longer, he had an interesting idea.
"Should I recreate some famous manga or novels from my previous world here? After all, due to constant wars and a lack of a safe environment, literature and entertainment here are quite underdeveloped. So those manga and novels should be very popular."
He further analyzed this idea, but soon shook his head.
"Although I remember their general stories and plots, I don't quite remember all the details... and it's been too long. Not to mention, it would take a tremendous amount of time. I don't have that much free time right now."
Since he had nothing pressing to do, Kaito explored other restaurants around Konoha, and later visited and relaxed at the village's famous hot springs.
A few days later, Team Renjiro gathered outside the Hokage Building.
The squad entered the Hokage Building together and headed to the mission assignment room.
Seeing the chunin responsible for assigning missions, Renjiro said, "Give us all the C-rank bandit extermination missions in the area between Konoha and Tanzaku Town."
The chunin nodded and handed seven mission scrolls to Renjiro. Renjiro looked at the missions and thought, "I haven't taken any missions for seven months. I know the Hokage wants me to rest, but I've rested for long enough. He still refuses to give me S-rank missions, so I should at least solve some problems for the village."
"These bandits are a good start. Hopefully, some of these C-rank missions will escalate to B-rank. This will also provide some good training opportunities for the kids. All three of them are ready to be promoted to chunin soon."
He put away the mission scrolls, then looked at his squad and said, "Let's go."
The genin nodded, and everyone walked toward Konoha's gate.
Over the next week, seven bandit bases were completely destroyed.
That month, Team Renjiro eliminated eighteen bandit bases throughout the Land of Fire.
The squad had eagerly taken on these missions at first, but now they were thoroughly tired of them!
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