Chapter 20 - Defeated by the Acorn Kappa
Naruto grabbed Might Guy's hand and tumbled into the bathhouse.
"Hey, Naruto before you get in, you have to take off your clothes and wrap yourself in a towel first."
Might Guy peeled off his green jumpsuit, revealing his impressively muscular physique.
He struck a bodybuilding pose muscles flexed, energy radiating outward.
Wow. So cool!
Naruto stared at Uncle Kappa, whose lower half was wrapped in a towel and whose upper body was completely bare, muscles bulging everywhere.
His usually wide eyes filled with something that looked suspiciously like envy.
"Right! Ha! Ho! Yeah!"
Might Guy shifted poses, proudly showing off every muscle group for his tiny audience.
"This! Is the power of youth!"
Seeing Naruto so captivated, Guy gradually lost himself in the moment entirely.
This continued until the towel around his waist suddenly came undone.
He grabbed it back up immediately remarkably fast, all things considered.
But Naruto was not an ordinary child. He had already seen everything in that split second.
"...Acorn?"
Naruto tilted his head and thought carefully before settling on what he felt was the most accurate description.
"..."
Guy, who had genuinely believed Naruto hadn't noticed, took those two words like a kunai to the chest.
He wrapped the towel back around himself tightly, stopped flexing entirely, and sank directly into the bath.
HOW?!
WAAAAH — how can it still be an acorn?! It's been YEARS! That's impossible!!!
Through the steamy water, Guy's face could be seen turning completely red beneath the surface.
---
Inside the sealed space, the atmosphere was solemn.
Hashirama had been staring into the distance ever since Might Guy appeared, looking as though something was trying to grow out of the back of his head.
Then it clicked.
Right. This must be Dai's son.
After all, in all of Konoha, only the Might family talked about youth with that particular intensity.
But his really is quite small.
Hashirama glanced down at himself and chuckled quietly.
One should never challenge a Sage's confidence in that department.
Rumor had it that during the early days before Konoha's founding, when Madara and Hashirama had gotten into a competition over who could aim farther at the riverside, Madara had gone completely silent afterward.
There was also a well-known if entirely unofficial account of the great battle before Konoha's founding, in which Hashirama had stripped down to just his underwear, driven a kunai into his own chest, and offered his life to Madara.
Madara had been so moved that he agreed to found Konoha on the spot.
Whether this story was accurate or not was unclear.
But it had definitely happened.
Seeing Might Guy sitting miserably in the bath, Naruto decided to go comfort him.
He unwrapped his own towel, waded into the deep end, and patted Guy on the shoulder.
"It's okay, Uncle Acorn Kappa. Look mine's only a little bigger than yours."
Guy opened his eyes underwater.
He saw a small figure somehow proportionally larger than himself bobbing cheerfully in front of him.
"SOMEONE PULL HIM BACK HE'S GOING TO DROWN HIMSELF!!!"
Hashirama, watching from the sealed space, screamed at Naruto to intervene immediately.
"Okay, okay..."
Naruto grabbed Guy's arm and hauled him back toward the shallow end before the man could actually become a kappa.
Guy now sat on the edge of the tub, feet still dangling in the water, eyes glazed.
"...Acorn... acorn..."
"Don't worry, Uncle Kappa. Some people's growth spurt just comes late."
Naruto patted Guy's leg with great seriousness and sincerity.
"Everyone develops at their own pace."
That last word hit something.
Youth.
The dead light in Guy's eyes reignited.
That's right. You can't give up on youth!
I WILL grow someday! THAT IS YOUTH!!!
"Young man —you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!"
Guy straightened his back, snapped upright, and was immediately himself again — blazing with green energy.
"Hmm. Uncle Kappa is back."
Naruto observed this recovery with mild amusement.
"...Hmph."
Guy turned and looked directly at Naruto. A slow, calculating look crossed his face.
Naruto felt a chill run down his spine for no reason he could identify.
"Naruto. You've never had a proper back scrub before, have you?"
Guy stood up and began walking toward him. Slowly.
His face was full of youthful enthusiasm.
That grin was absolutely not the grin of someone who had just come up with a terrifying idea.
"No. Whatever you're thinking no.
Stay away from me."
Naruto backed up. He didn't know exactly what a back scrub involved, but that expression made it very clear it was not going to be pleasant.
"Come on! How can you call it a proper bath without a good scrub? That's not youth!"
Guy grabbed Naruto's arm.
Green energy erupted from his body.
Eight Gates First Gate: Open!
"NO! I haven't even hit puberty yet! You perverted Acorn Kappa! LET GO OF ME!"
A vein throbbed visibly on Guy's forehead. His grin became, if anything, more unhinged.
"Age has nothing to do with it! As long as your heart is youthful it's always the season of youth!"
Heheheh. You're in my hands now, little Naruto. There's no escape.
Inside the sealed space, Hashirama and Kurama quietly closed their eyes.
Naruto had, admittedly, gone a bit far this time. They felt somewhat responsible.
"YAMETE! I DON'T WANT THIS! LET ME GO!"
Radiating green chakra from every pore, Might Guy snapped on a scrubbing mitt and pinned Naruto firmly to the scrubbing bench.
"Mmgh—!"
A sensation that was simultaneously agonizing and deeply, deeply satisfying spread across Naruto's back.
"Heh heh heh! Young man! Your youth shouldn't be buried under all this grime! Let me scrub it free!"
To be fair Naruto did have a shower in his apartment.
To also be fair no one had ever actually supervised him using it properly.
He was, objectively, quite dirty.
And so, under Might Guy's legendary eight-step scrubbing technique, years of accumulated grime were systematically removed from Naruto's back.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
Strange sounds escaped Naruto that could not clearly be categorized as either pain or pleasure.
Is it over? Please let it be over.
The image of Yugao flashed through his mind. He needed to find her. Immediately. He refused to spend one more second with this kappa.
Guy finally released him without a word.
Naruto sat up.
There were tears in the corners of his eyes not from sadness, but from sheer physical intensity. He filed away his revenge plan carefully.
Once I master Wood Release the first thing I'm doing is pulling off Uncle Kappa's pants and hanging them from the highest tree in Konoha.
But just as Naruto was savoring this fantasy, a sentence reached his ears that destroyed him completely.
"Alright! Now flip over time for the front!"
NO—
"YOUNG MAN! LET ME IGNITE YOUR YOUTH!"
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End of Chapter...