On the other side, Jiraiya couldn't care less where Naruto was going. He was blocked in the middle of the road by Tsunade, with pursuers in both front and back. There was no escaping.
Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted two people standing by the roadside: a boy and a one-eyed, middle-aged man.
Neither of them looked like locals, yet their presence didn't seem suspicious either.
Jiraiya's eyes darted around and he lunged in front of Boruto, shoving the binoculars into his arms with lightning speed.
"Hey, you two, could you do me a favor?"
Jiraiya spoke rapidly, a smile plastered on his face.
Boruto froze for a second, then puffed out his chest and nodded with a confident look. "Okay, leave it to me."
"Hey!"
Sasuke reached out to stop him, but before he could speak, Boruto had already taken the binoculars.
"Thanks, kid."
Overjoyed, Jiraiya patted Boruto's shoulder and spun around to run. He leaped across the rooftops and vanished without a trace.
Boruto looked down at the binoculars that had been forced into his hands, then looked up at the direction where Jiraiya had vanished. He opened his mouth, finally realizing something was wrong.
Before he could even react, the bathhouse owner had already chased them down with a group of women.
The owner gripped a mop, the veins on his neck bulging. Behind him, the women were all red-eyed, staring at Boruto and Sasuke with murderous glares.
"So it was you two peeping?!" The owner's voice was loud enough for the entire street to hear.
Boruto's body stiffened in fright at this spectacle, and he hurriedly waved his hands to explain.
"No, it was that person just now..."
"It wasn't you?" The owner cut Boruto off.
He pointed at the telescope in Boruto's hand, and said sternly, "The tool for the crime is right in your hand, and you still have the nerve to quibble?"
Boruto looked down at the telescope in his hand, then looked up at the owner's furious face. For a moment, he was speechless and didn't know where to put his hands.
"Ah, no, that person shoved this into my hands."
Sasuke stood behind Boruto and sighed. He reached out to press down on Boruto's shoulder, preparing to step forward and explain things clearly to the owner, when a voice cut in from the side.
"It isn't them. The person you are looking for has already been caught by Hokage-sama over there."
Everyone looked in the direction of the voice. Naruto walked over, the expression on his face calm.
The moment Boruto saw this face, his pupils constricted. "Dad?"
Sasuke's heart skipped a beat. Boruto's eyes were wide open, his mouth slightly agape.
The person in front of him was indeed his dad. His facial contours were exactly the same as the photos of his father when he was young. But this look was completely different from the middle-aged dad in his memory who was buried under piles of documents all day.
His hair was neat, his face was young and energetic, and his aura was different too.
How should he put it?
He looked more like the grandfather he had seen in pictures.
Sasuke's shock was no less than Boruto's.
'What is going on? This is definitely Naruto, but he looks different from what I remember. Could it be that after I left Konoha back then, he had a period where he looked like this?'
Sasuke tried to sense Naruto's Chakr but he couldn't sense anything. The Naruto standing before him was like a stagnant pool. Never mind gauging his strength, he couldn't even tell if he had any Chakra at all.
Keep in mind, his Six Paths-level sensory abilities could roam the Ninja World unchallenged, yet he couldn't see through this person in front of him.
If Naruto knew that Sasuke was secretly trying to sense his Chakra, he would probably laugh out loud. With Absolute Control, unless he actively released his Chakra, no one would be able to probe his bottom line.
However, that wasn't what Sasuke was most concerned about right now. He was concerned about the attitude the bathhouse owner and his group had toward Naruto.
When the bathhouse owner heard Naruto's words, the anger on his face vanished instantly, replaced by a polite expression as he rubbed his hands together.
"So it's Jonin Naruto. It seems to have been a misunderstanding. Since it's a misunderstanding, we'll be on our way."
After saying that, he quickly left with the women.
Sasuke took all of this in, a feeling he couldn't describe surging in his heart.
In his memories, when Naruto was at this age, everyone would walk around him when he walked down the streets of Konoha.
The villagers' gazes held disgust, not this kind of trust and closeness.
'Wait, Jonin? Isn't Naruto a Genin right now?'
After the crowd dispersed, Naruto's gaze fell on Boruto's face, the corners of his lips slightly lifting up. "Did you just call me Dad?"
Boruto's body stiffened upon hearing this. His mind went completely blank, and he opened his mouth but couldn't utter a single word.
Sasuke had told him not to speak carelessly, not to reveal his identity, and not to change the past. Yet the very first thing he said had poked the biggest hole.
Boruto subconsciously took half a step back, bumping into Sasuke's chest.
Sasuke reached out to shield Boruto behind him. He looked at Naruto expressionlessly, his tone calm. "You heard wrong."
Naruto smiled and shifted his gaze from Boruto to Sasuke's face. "Mister, your voice sounds very familiar. It's very similar to a friend of mine."
Sasuke was startled, but kept his expression indifferent. 'When did Naruto's observational skills become this sharp?'
His mind raced, stringing together everything that had been off in the few short minutes he had observed.
Naruto's appearance, the villagers' attitude toward him, the completely undetectable Chakra on his body, and this sentence just now that made the back of his neck chill.
This was completely different from the past in his memory.
In his memory, the Naruto of this period, while having made progress in strength, was absolutely not like this.
At this moment, a chilling thought arose in Sasuke's mind. 'Is this really the past that I know?'
Just as the atmosphere became subtle, a series of screams came from the distance.
"Spare me, Tsunade! I was just going to look at the scenery! I really won't dare to do it next time!"
The voice was followed by a series of dull thuds of fists hitting flesh.
A moment later, Tsunade dragged someone who had been beaten into a swollen mess out of the alley.
Jiraiya's face was so swollen that his original contours were unrecognizable. Both eyes sported a purple bruise, a crooked bandage was stuck on the bridge of his nose, and a leaf of unknown origin hung from his white hair.
Tsunade dragged Jiraiya in front of Naruto and let go, clapping her hands. She then noticed Boruto and Sasuke.
Her gaze swept back and forth over the two of them, and her brows furrowed slightly. "You are not from Konoha. Who are you?"
Sasuke quickly assessed the situation before him.
Tsunade, the Fifth Hokage, one of the Sannin, whose monstrous strength could smash a trench into the street with a single punch—the risk of lying in front of her was extremely high.
But if he revealed his true identity now, the consequences would be even harder to manage.
He reached into the inside of his cloak and felt out a red sphere. He tossed the red ball into the air, and it burst in mid-air into a dazzling shower of colorful ribbons.
"We are street performers who travel from street to street. Passing by Konoha, we came in to see if there was any business to be done."
Tsunade stared at Sasuke, half-believing. The identity of a street performer, while suspicious, wasn't outrageous. There were indeed such roving groups of performers in the Ninja World.
"Without submitting an entry application in advance, according to the rules, you cannot move about freely."
Tsunade crossed her arms in front of her chest, her tone brooking no argument. "However, since you have already entered, you must accept full surveillance."
"That is only natural." Sasuke nodded, his expression showing no ripples.
Tsunade thought for a moment and prepared to call the Anbu over.
Such surveillance tasks were usually best left to the Anbu. Arranging two people to follow them the whole time would suffice.
At this moment, Naruto suddenly spoke up,
"Granny Tsunade, leave them to me."
Everyone's gaze fell on Naruto simultaneously.
Sasuke's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. 'Has he already become suspicious of us? Is he deliberately taking us into his own hands because he wants to observe us up close?'
Boruto stood behind Sasuke, not daring to even breathe loudly.
The dad in front of him was completely different from the one in his memory. The way he spoke was different, and the way he looked at people was different.
In his memory, the way Naruto looked at people was warm, occasionally carrying a bit of silliness, but the eyes of the person in front of him were calm and sharp, as if he could see right through a person inside and out.
What is this pressure about?
Was Dad like this when he was little?