Soon, Kabuto returned to his room and fell into a deep sleep.
He dreamt of Nono smiling at him, and the children of the orphanage having a beautiful future.
Only that ever-present feeling of swallowing kept him restless.
Unable to bear it, Kabuto woke up from his nap with a start, looking up at the clock.
Click.
It pointed exactly to half past one in the afternoon.
He glanced at the sleeping adults, tiptoed out of bed, and gently opened and closed the door.
'This sound is clearly coming from the office on the second floor.' Kabuto shrewdly deduced this, as if he were a natural-born spy.
He cautiously moved forward, step by step, ascending the stairs, finally reaching the second floor.
At the end of the corridor was where Nono was.
Listening to the increasingly clear sound of eating and swallowing, a thought flashed through Kabuto's mind.
'What is the director secretly eating?'
But Nono wasn't the kind of person who would secretly hide and eat things. Kabuto was puzzled.
As the saying goes, if you have doubts, you must resolve them. He walked over step by step. His hand, gently raised.
The moment he was about to knock, Kabuto felt an inexplicable unease. He put his hand down and placed it on the cold doorknob. Kabuto distinctly felt the temperature. He decided to go straight in and see what the director was doing.
Click…
As he pressed down, someone suddenly touched his shoulder.
Kabuto jumped, looked up, and saw the stern face of the worker.
"Director might be resting. Why are you disturbing her?"
"Ah, no, it's me…"
Caught off guard, Kabuto didn't know how to explain.
Click…
Kabuto's hand released the doorknob, and he gestured with his hands in front of his chest, seemingly trying to say that he had no intention of disturbing Nono's rest.
Unfortunately, the worker bent down and stared at Kabuto with a look of disbelief. This child had already broken the rules on the very first night he was taken in. He hadn't gone to bed when he was supposed to at nine o'clock, but was running around everywhere.
"It's nap time now. Director gave you her glasses, and you can tell time, so why are you breaking the rules?"
"I didn't mean to break the rules. I drank too much water this morning and needed to go to the restroom."
In a flash, Kabuto came up with a clumsy excuse.
He couldn't very well say that he felt uneasy and came to check, using such a vague reason to dismiss the worker. That would be seen as being perfunctory.
"Hmph, considering you've been working hard for the orphanage lately, let this be the last time." The worker spoke softly.
He was afraid that his argument with Kabuto would disturb Nono's rest.
Moreover, he had witnessed the children helping with chores recently, and he had seen Kabuto performing Medical Ninjutsu for some Ninja.
"Tha… thank you."
Kabuto breathed a sigh of relief and quickly said he would go back immediately. Before leaving, he looked back at the closed door.
What was behind that door?
…
Click.
The long-closed door creaked open.
Kiyoshi and Nono walked down from the second floor side by side.
"The children are all working very hard."
Kiyoshi watched as the children, after their nap, not one of them was slacking, all immediately went to do what they could.
"Yes… yes, they are."
Nono nodded deeply in agreement.
However, when she spoke, she couldn't help but frown slightly. This was partly due to guilt over the children doing these tasks, and partly due to the soreness from chewing too much food.
She looked at Kiyoshi, who was taller than her, and the emotion in her heart not only wasn't relieved but intensified into self-reproach and regret.
God, I hope this doesn't make this child fall deeper and deeper.
At this moment, Nono prayed devoutly to God, hoping that God would forgive her sins.
"Director!"
A listless Kabuto finally saw Nono and couldn't help but shout out.
"Hey, you haven't seen director for just a little while, and you're already this anxious? You're not a child anymore." Urushi patted Kabuto's shoulder in an old-fashioned manner.
In the orphanage, every child actually regarded Nono as their adoptive mother, the most respected person. However, everyone would endure, expressing their love through their actions of contributing to the orphanage.
After all, those who came here were either abandoned by their parents or their parents had died, leaving them to wander outside. Without Nono, they would have long died outside.
Such things happened daily in small countries that didn't even have orphanages, with people starving to death.
The situation in small countries was chaotic, they had neither the money to open orphanages nor stable places to allocate for them.
"It seems the children all like you very much." Kiyoshi smiled.
"They are all lovely children." Nono agreed wholeheartedly with this.
But there was still something she didn't say. Kiyoshi used to be just as lovely, but unfortunately, her negligence led to the twisted reality of today.
"It's getting late, we should go." Kiyoshi glanced at the sky.
They had arrived at the orphanage in the morning, and now it was already afternoon, it was time to continue their march. All necessary supplies had also been replenished in the town in time.
"If anything happens to the orphanage, please notify me immediately. I will do my best." Kiyoshi said.
Danzo still didn't dare to openly cause trouble right now, only resorting to insidious small actions behind the scenes. To put it bluntly, the Root was just a bunch of disreputable guys.
Just like Danzo.
During the Nine-Tails incident, the Root was nowhere to be found. When Pain attacked, the Root was also nowhere to be found. When his subordinates wanted to go out, Danzo slowly said no.
When was he most active?
Only during the Uchiha clan massacre, Danzo immediately sealed off the Uchiha with the Root. He also took the opportunity to collect a large number of Sharingan. To transplant so many Sharingan onto his arm, it couldn't have been successful in one go. This required multiple experiments behind the scenes, consuming a large amount of Sharingan material.
Listening to Kiyoshi's sincere words, Nono sighed deeply.
"I will." She nodded.
In that case, she wouldn't have to deal with Danzo and could better take care of these children.
Based on her understanding of Danzo's character, even if she went, the orphanage would likely not end well, and her own fate would also be hard to say.
Sometimes, no matter how much you contribute to the village, as long as you possess a large amount of critical information, you have already paved your way to death.
Kiyoshi nodded, then walked towards Yakumi.
Yakumi agreed with Kiyoshi's suggestion, the rest time had indeed been long enough.
Ninja were people of endurance. If they couldn't even bear this much hardship, then they were absolute cowards.
"You all take Nobuhiko." Yakumi said to several Hyuga clan members.
Before long, Nobuhiko was carried out again, only this time the person carrying him was Tetsu.
Once everyone had mostly gathered, the group prepared to set off.
"Let's go." Yakumi ordered.
"Kiyoshi, remember to eat more and sleep more…"
Perhaps from spending too much time with children, Nono became a bit garrulous. She told Kiyoshi many things to pay attention to.
"I understand, Nono-sensei." Kiyoshi smiled.
Watching Kiyoshi and his group leave, Nono held the scroll Kiyoshi had given her.
Her mouth… was hurting again.
This weight was truly hard for her to let go of.
The current situation was far from stable, this money must be used wisely. This was for the orphanage, and also for Kiyoshi, who had worked so hard to earn it.