Chapter 161: Chapter 161: The Memories Are Real
The evening breeze swept across the Hokage Rock, scattering the words of her question.
Kitahara Kaede’s hand, holding the handkerchief, froze in mid-air. He looked at the woman before him—her eyes red, her usual composure completely gone. His chest tightened.
He had imagined many scenarios for this confrontation. Perhaps she would suddenly show up at his apartment, or they would run into each other during a mission, or she might even corner him in the corridors of the Hokage building. He thought she might be angry, or demanding answers... but he never imagined Tsunade would be this devastated.
Kaede didn’t pull his hand back. Instead, he took a step forward and gently pressed the handkerchief into Tsunade’s palm.
Feeling the fabric in her hand, Tsunade snapped back to reality. She realized she had completely lost control of her emotions. She had only wanted to voice those memories to see if he shared them, but as she spoke, the grief buried deep in her heart surged forward, overwhelming her.
A legendary Sannin of Konoha, weeping like a little girl who had lost everything in front of a boy nearly twenty years her junior.
Tsunade abruptly turned away, scrubbing her face haphazardly with the handkerchief. She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself.
Kaede watched her back, his mind racing. He couldn’t mention the system. But every word Tsunade had just spoken carried the weight of genuine suffering. That level of pain couldn’t be dismissed with a simple "I don’t know what happened." He had to provide an answer that could carry the weight of these emotions.
The wind at the cliff’s edge died down.
Kaede spoke. "It wasn’t a dream."
Tsunade stopped scrubbing her face. She froze, her breath hitching, as if afraid the wind had played a trick on her.
"What you just said... I have those same memories."
Tsunade whipped around. Her eyes were still red, but her gaze had changed. "Really?"
Kaede nodded.
Tsunade stared at him for a few moments, then frowned. "If you remembered... then why did you pretend not to know me?!"
Kaede didn’t look away. "Because I thought it was just a fantasy... an unrealistic dream I was having about Lady Tsunade."
He gave a self-deprecating smile, his gaze drifting over her shoulder toward the flickering lights of Konoha in the distance. "In reality, I’m just a civilian orphan with no parents, struggling to survive at the very bottom of the village. And you... you are the granddaughter of the First Hokage, a Sannin, and the Medical Saint at the pinnacle of the shinobi world."
He shifted his gaze back to her. "If I weren’t sure you shared those memories and I just ran up to you saying we’d been in love for twenty years in a dream—that I even died for you—wouldn’t you think I was insane? Wouldn’t you have just punched me?"
Tsunade’s lips parted, but no words came out.
He was right. She realized that if she hadn’t possessed those memories herself, she would have assumed a strange boy coming to her with such claims was delusional.
She understood now. She finally understood the fleeting expressions in his eyes during her repeated tests at the hospital and at Minato’s house. She remembered the night he walked her home; when she asked who taught him medicine, he had looked at the road ahead and said, "Someone very important." She now knew the emotion behind those words.
Seeing her expression soften, Kaede’s voice grew quieter. "I didn’t know you remembered. I couldn’t let a vague dream disturb the peace of your life. As long as you were happy... it was enough for me to be the only one to remember that dream."
Tsunade gripped the handkerchief tightly.
He had been just like her—burdened by these memories, struggling with the dissonance of reality.
Kaede’s gaze dropped to the blue fluorite necklace around her neck. "That day at the jewelry shop, when I saw you put on this necklace, I almost couldn’t hold back."
He stepped closer, the fading glow of the sunset casting a warm outline around him. "I remember how I felt when I secretly bought it. And I remember the warmth of your hand when you placed that green crystal necklace around my neck on the Hokage Rock. For me, those feelings were never fake."
Tsunade looked at him for a long time. Every detail, every piece of evidence, every emotion finally aligned. She looked at the youth before her and asked the final, most critical question.
"Then do you know... where these memories actually came from?"
Kaede fell silent. He met her gaze. After a few moments, he simply shook his head. "I don’t."
Tsunade watched him for a long while, but eventually, she simply nodded.
The wind blowing up from the cliff felt cooler than before. Tsunade turned and walked to the edge of the precipice, sitting down on the rock with her legs dangling over the side, her toes pointing toward Konoha below.
Kaede watched her for a moment before walking over and sitting beside her.
Neither spoke.
One by one, the lights of Konoha flickered to life. The distant sounds of children drifted through the wind, faint and indistinct.
Tsunade still clutched the handkerchief in her hand. Kaede gazed down at the village.
After an unknown amount of time, Tsunade opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Kaede was also thinking. Everything that needed to be said had been said; everything that needed to be confirmed had been confirmed.
But as for what came next... neither of them dared to be the first to speak.
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