Kiba was trembling a bit.
The fact that the three girls weren't getting mad somehow felt way creepier to him.
But honestly, their lack of anger was perfectly normal.
Hinata, for one, was already shy and insecure by nature.
Being called ugly left her way too upset to speak, so she could only lower her head in silence.
As for Sakura, like mentioned before—she just took that formula, so she couldn't afford to get mad whenever she felt like it.
Even when thinking about teaching Naruto a lesson, she did her best to stay chill about it.
So after getting dissed by Sai just now, the second Sakura felt herself starting to flare up, her mind instantly flashed a terrifying image of the side effects kicking in.
If that happened, the places that were supposed to soften and rise would instead harden into solid chest muscles, her voice would get rougher, and the muscles all over her body would start swelling at a scary speed.
Just picturing it was enough to freak her out.
So Sakura quickly pushed down her anger and frantically recalled that time she and Ino guarded the Hokage's office and beat the crap out of Sai, one of Danzō's lackeys.
Only then did her heartbeat finally calm down.
As for Ino, there was even less to say.
She didn't take Sai's words seriously at all.
Last time, after she and Sakura beat up this little hawkdog of Danzō's and handed him over to Ibiki Morino for interrogation, Ino happened to be nearby when the results were turned in to Tsunade, and she curiously asked a few questions.
That was when she found out Sai's brain just wasn't wired right.
Back then, everyone assumed Sai was some secret plaything Danzō raised in private.
But after Ibiki Morino's interrogation—and a personal physical exam—the conclusion was that Sai and Danzō had no relationship beyond boss and subordinate.
Sai was just… cognitively weird.
What everyone saw back then came from Sai misunderstanding things due to his abnormal way of looking at the world, which led to some weird misunderstandings between him and Danzō.
Once Ino learned that, she dropped it.
'A person can't stay mad forever at an idiot,' she figured.
Later, Ino saw her parents arguing at home.
Her mom snatched a book right out of Inoichi Yamanaka's hand while cursing and chucked it out the window.
Ino got curious, sneaked outside, and picked it up.
It turned out to be part of Kakashi's 'Limited Tsukuyomi' (The one Tsunade's write) series.
Even though it was published under Kakashi's name, as Tsunade's disciple, Ino knew some inside details.
The contents actually came from Tsunade.
Even the royalties—every so often, she'd spot Kakashi bringing an envelope of cash to Lady Tsunade.
So the real arrangement didn't need to be spelled out.
Since it was basically her teacher Tsunade's work, Ino figured that reading it as a disciple wouldn't be a big deal, right?
So she binged the Limited Tsukuyomi books.
And once she did, her mind was blown.
'No wonder Tsunade is the teacher and I'm the student,' she thought.
'No wonder Tsunade is one of the Sannin, and the First Hokage's granddaughter.'
That was the huge gap between them!
The main takeaway was that Ino noticed one of the core settings in the Limited Tsukuyomi series: things were often flipped from reality.
So she came up with a theory.
'Maybe, in the eyes of an idiot, the girls normal people think are hot are ugly, and the girls normal people think are ugly are beautiful.'
'In that case, every girl Sai calls ugly is actually a total babe.'
'So what exactly am I supposed to be mad about?'
But after thinking that far, Ino got a bright idea.
All of that was just her own theory, based on the Limited Tsukuyomi novels.
It hadn't been put to the test yet.
"You say the three of us are ugly," Ino said, pulling a photo from her clothes and pointing at someone in it.
"Then what do you think of this girl?"
The photo was taken after she and Sakura finished their two-on-two Chunin Exams match against Sarutobi Amame and Akimichi Rianko.
After the match, the groups exchanged friendly greetings and snapped a souvenir photo together.
The one Ino pointed at was, of course, Akimichi Rianko—the girl who literally looked like two Chojis mashed together.
"How do three ugly girls like you even have the nerve to take a picture with her?"
"What a shame. That lady's figure is amazing, but her face is still kind of ugly. If she slimmed down, she'd probably end up ugly just like you guys."
Sai dropped that line while nodding sagely to himself.
"..."
Ino instantly confirmed her theory was spot on!
Rianko might be fat right now, but Ino was sure that if she ever learned the Akimichi clan's Butterfly Mode and slimmed down, she'd be a total babe.
And yet Sai was out here saying her body was great but her face was ugly.
Pure madness.
Ino felt freed.
Totally validated.
Over on Sai's end, he kept talking to everyone while starting the sealing work on the Second Hokage's detached ass.
"This looks like part of an Impure World Reincarnation body. Some Edo Tensei ninja nearby must've been beaten up, leaving this piece behind.
Since Edo Tensei bodies are immortal and will regenerate after taking damage, that's why this chunk keeps trying to fly off."
Sai made the other two sealing-team guys pin down the fragment, which kept trying to dart away any second, while he personally walked up and squeezed it twice to check the texture before dropping his analysis with a straight face.
That made everyone else shiver.
Not just the three girls—even Kiba and Shino felt a massive chill run down their spines.
"Edo Tensei? Then it probably isn't an enemy. Shouldn't we report it to the Hokage and have her called up Amegakure or Sound Village?" Shino suggested, pushing up his glasses.
"If it's Edo Tensei, then maybe we don't even need to seal it. We could just let it fly back and regenerate on its own, couldn't we?" one of the sealing team guys said.
"That makes sense…"
"Not exactly," Shino cut in before Kiba could agree. "This thing showed up under Sasuke, so it has to be connected to him somehow. Even if we do let it go, we should wait till Sasuke wakes up and tell us what happened.
What if this chunk of ass belongs to some enemy Sasuke ran into?"
That was a solid point.
Everyone suddenly realized Shino was actually a decent strategist too.
Ino especially felt a bit emotional.
Shino's brainpower naturally wasn't anywhere near Shikamaru's level.
But the thing was, Shino didn't slack off.
If anything, he trained hard, constantly trying to prove he existed.
That was the huge difference between her teammates.
Her old teammates were basically the walking definitions of sloth and gluttony.
Since holding the ass down by hand forever was out of the question, they just shoved it back under Sasuke again and decided to keep an eye on him instead.
Everyone then sat around waiting for Sasuke to wake up.
Sai even fed Sasuke another soldier pill.
...
A whole day dragged by, and Sasuke still didn't wake up.
Because he pushed himself way too hard, Sasuke was really low on chakra.
He crashed into a deep sleep and hadn't snapped out of it yet.
The soldier pills pretty much just counted as snacks. They didn't restore any real stamina at all.
Left with no other options, the squad set up camp and crashed for the night.
While sleeping, Sai and one of the male sealing-team guys each kept a hand pinned on Sasuke.
This was to stop Sasuke from waking up randomly in the night—or rolling over and accidentally setting the thing pinned under him free.
...
Late that night, Sasuke finally started to stir.
He was having a weird dream.
In the dream, he was skiing.
---------
Read 40 chapters ahead and support me on patreon.
patreon (.)com/Newbietranslator