Truthfully, Mrs. Yukinoshita was dissatisfied with both daughters.
Did they have any idea how many people would kill for the life they'd been handed? Chauffeured luxury cars, elite schools, a company waiting to be inherited.
Ninety-nine percent of the world could work themselves to death and never touch the hem of what those two took for granted.
And for all of that, they couldn't stomach paying even the tiniest price?
Before, the late Mr. Yukinoshita had played mediator, shuttling between three women to keep a fragile peace.
Now he was gone, and what the mother-daughter dynamic would become didn't take much imagination.
Worse still, back in the Naruto world, when Mrs. Yukinoshita's life had been in danger, it was Makoto who'd saved her.
Days had passed since their return to reality. Neither daughter had come home.
What that felt like for her didn't need spelling out.
Two days later. The Yukinoshita residence.
A message from Makoto arrived on her phone, inviting her to move into the Suzuki estate.
This was the result of discussions between Makoto and Megumi Kato's group over the past few days. The Crablante incident had made one thing clear: the real world was sliding toward an age of superpowers.
Parents like Megumi's and Utaha's, ordinary people with no abilities, were the most vulnerable targets imaginable. Their daughters couldn't stand guard around the clock.
The solution was simple. Consolidate all the families in one place. Even setting aside Makoto as the ultimate deterrent, living on a top-tier financial dynasty's grounds with professional security teams was infinitely safer than staying scattered.
Mrs. Yukinoshita bit her lower lip softly and typed her reply:
"But Haruno and Yukino don't have that kind of relationship with you. What would my excuse be for moving in?"
Megumi's and Utaha's families could move in because everyone tacitly understood their daughters were... involved with Makoto, to one degree or another.
The Yukinoshita sisters were different. Plenty of people had witnessed firsthand how cold Makoto was toward Haruno.
That was precisely why, despite the family's rising status, the Yukinoshitas hadn't catapulted into the top tier the way the Sawamuras had.
Everyone knew those two sisters weren't exactly in Makoto's good graces.
Eriri Spencer Sawamura, by contrast, might not be especially close to him either, but at least Makoto didn't dislike the little blonde.
His reply came fast:
"Aren't you my little pet? Or maybe my little piggy."
"Go to hell."
Remembering how she'd behaved in front of him, a warm shiver rippled through her. She felt like a schoolgirl who'd just tasted her first forbidden kiss.
Another message followed immediately:
"My personal pastry chef, then. That should work."
Back in the Naruto world, plenty of players knew that whenever Makoto craved sweets, he went to Mrs. Yukinoshita's place. The two had always gotten along.
Using that as a cover was thin, but passable.
With the plan settled, Mrs. Yukinoshita immediately began getting ready. On the outside, the same impeccable silk kimono that covered everything from the neck down. Underneath, she'd selected something considerably more... deliberate.
She was about to order the car brought around when a servant bowed slightly.
"Ma'am, the young ladies have returned."
Her expression shifted.
Nearly a week since the return from the ninja world, and those two chose now to come home?
She fastened the collar of her kimono a notch tighter, flipping the switch from lovestruck woman back to the ice-cold matriarch of a financial empire.
In the parlor, both daughters knelt on the tatami in formal posture.
Mrs. Yukinoshita sat across from them and spoke with her usual severity. "Why the sudden visit?"
Haruno glanced at the servants standing by. "We won't be needing you. Leave us."
The servants bowed and withdrew, taking the attendants outside with them.
Mrs. Yukinoshita's brow creased further.
"Mom... you're going to see him, aren't you?"
Yukino's face was a tangle of disappointment and fury, her gaze boring into their mother.
Mrs. Yukinoshita's heart lurched, but she held her composure and feigned ignorance. "What are you talking about?"
"Mom, that night at the Suzuki estate, we came to talk to you. After you and Madam Tomoko went back to your rooms..."
The mask shattered.
So they'd caught her in the act.
"Mom, why are you doing this?"
Yukino had completely abandoned her usual prickly armor. Tears spilled down her cheeks in heavy drops. "Dad's barely been gone. Have you already forgotten him?"
Haruno spoke up too, her voice thick with conflicting emotions. "Mom, we're not saying you can never be with someone else. But Dad just..."
Their father's death didn't mean their mother could never find happiness again. But at least give it time.
By any reckoning, he'd been gone barely a week, and she was already in another man's arms.
Thinking of how their father had exhausted himself trying to keep peace between three women, the sisters felt nothing but heartbreak on his behalf.
This was perhaps the first time in her entire life that Mrs. Yukinoshita found herself on the losing side against her own daughters. Caught off guard, her thoughts scrambled.
"Listen... Haruno, Yukino. You both know how much pain I've been in since your father passed. I thought I'd lost him forever. But recently, I've realized that isn't true."
She looked at them with an intensity that bordered on desperation.
"I've noticed that Makoto looks so much like your father. I didn't think so before, but lately, the resemblance is uncanny. Don't you see? Your father's soul must have transferred into Makoto. I'm certain of it! I can feel that your father has come back. It's his spirit inside Makoto that makes me feel this way!"
Haruno and Yukino stared, utterly stupefied.
Never in their lives had they imagined their mother, the woman who'd loomed over them like an unquestionable deity, could produce something this absurd.
"M-Mother, how can you say that?"
Yukino's voice shook, caught between rage and grief. "Do you have any idea what Makoto Nishikado is really like? How many people in Tokyo have died on his whims? Don't you think the Third Hokage's death has his fingerprints all over it?!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi's death had never sat right with her.
She had no proof, but her instincts had always picked up something off. Honestly, the feeling went back four years, to when Makoto first became the Third Hokage's student.
A man that arrogant, that untameable, wearing such a fawning expression in front of Hiruzen Sarutobi?
Genuine admiration? Please.
"Nonsense! Don't you dare take that tone with your mother!"
Mrs. Yukinoshita had been anxious to reach the Suzuki estate, and days of resentment over her daughters' absence came erupting out at once. She lost control completely.
"Do you two even know what filial piety means?! I gave birth to you, and you can't even let me have a little happiness?! Keep pushing me and I'll hand both of you over to Makoto as a package deal!"
The sisters' faces drained of everything except existential horror.
This time, it wasn't just Yukino. Even Haruno, the lifelong mask-wearer, crumbled. Tears streamed down her face.
"Mother... how could you say something like that..."
But the moment the words left her mouth, Mrs. Yukinoshita panicked too.
She practically fled, rising abruptly, brushing past both daughters, and striding to the car. She ordered the driver to go immediately.
On the road, the scene replayed in her mind, and even she couldn't help the wave of self-loathing.
What's wrong with me? How could I say that to my own children?
My husband, my daughters, this family... what am I supposed to do?
But as the car pushed forward and the Suzuki estate rose into view like a castle on the horizon, that man's silhouette crystallized in her thoughts.
In an instant, every shred of guilt and conflict evaporated.
It's fine. Just pretend none of it ever existed.
Meanwhile, another household was being thrown into chaos by Makoto Nishikado.
The Fujiwara family.
"Chika, do you truly not know Makoto-sama?"
For days, the second daughter, Fujiwara Chika, had been bombarded with the same question by every relative in the house.
A sixteen-year-old high school student appointed Prime Minister of Japan. The whole thing was beyond surreal.
After days of the same interrogation on loop, even someone as naturally bubbly as Chika was wearing thin.
"No! I've told you a million times, I don't know him! We've barely exchanged two words. Though... I think Kaguya might already know him."
"That doesn't add up," muttered her grandfather, a former Prime Minister himself, rubbing his bald head in bewilderment.
Given Makoto's personality, casually appointing someone as PM wasn't entirely out of character. But surely he'd at least pick someone he knew?
"If you don't want the job, Sis, can I have it?"
The youngest daughter, Fujiwara Moeha, couldn't hold back. A flicker of jealousy lit her eyes.
Why wasn't it me?
Ever since that day she'd visited the high school division to watch the excitement, the image of the world's strongest man, merciless to enemies yet gentle with his own, had burned itself into the middle schooler's heart.
Moeha had always carried a slight yandere streak, the kind of girl who'd once fantasized about locking the boy she liked in a basement.
Now she was starting to feel like her older sister was getting in the way.
"Could it be... that Lord Makoto has feelings for Chika?" the eldest sister, Fujiwara Toyomi, ventured quietly.
She'd actually seen Makoto before anyone else in the family, back when he'd stormed into the university division and tortured Akiba Kozo to death right before her eyes.
She hadn't said hello.
The family fell silent. Then Fujiwara Daichi spoke, his expression grave.
"Chika. We don't know why that man chose you, and we can't say whether he has any personal interest in you. But the Fujiwara family must take a clear stance." He paused.
"You're nearly an adult. As a member of this family, I expect you to shoulder your responsibilities."
As a doting father, Daichi's heart rebelled against making his daughter a piece on a political chessboard.
But feelings were feelings, and reality was reality.
Besides, Makoto wasn't some politician who could be weighed on the same scale.
"...Yes. I understand, Father."
The words were veiled, but a girl raised in a political dynasty understood exactly what lay beneath them.
Unlike the Yukinoshita sisters, Chika didn't fight the hand she'd been dealt. She'd always known this was how her life would go.
That was precisely why she threw herself into having fun, why she was always bouncing from one amusement to the next.
If she didn't savor her freedom now, was she supposed to wait until a political marriage locked her down and then sit there crying?
And when she thought about Makoto's overwhelming, almost divine power...
A quiet thought slipped through: If things really did go that way... it might not be so bad.
Unlike her best friend Kaguya Shinomiya, Chika usually walked to school. Political families had to keep up appearances of modesty. But with Shuchiin Academy's recent relocation near the Totsuki campus, she'd switched to the train.
The entire ride, her mind was a knot.
Even with her terminal case of social extroversion approaching a guy with that kind of intention? First time in her life.
What do I do what do I do what do I do...
She spiraled all the way to the Totsuki gates without reaching a single conclusion.
"Nishikado."
A voice snapped her out of it.
Chika's head jerked up. There he was, the man who'd been orbiting her thoughts for two days straight, standing right outside the school gates.
Behind him trailed the usual entourage of absurdly beautiful girls in every conceivable flavor.
Facing him was a slender girl with long black hair and looks that could compete with any of them.
Chika searched her memory.
Yukino Yukinoshita, wasn't it?
The standoff at the gates drew a crowd. Kinoshita Kazuya, Nakiri Alice, Katsura Kotonoha, and other students heading inside all stopped to watch.
Nobody knew the details, but the open hostility in Yukino's eyes as she stared down Makoto told its own story.
This girl, everyone thought, has serious guts.
"Something you need, Flatty?" Makoto said.
Her old nickname slipped out before he could stop it. Force of habit from his previous life.
Yukino's face darkened. She drew a long breath, wrestling her emotions under control.
"Nishikado. Are you really that desperate for women?"
The memory of her mother's state yesterday made it impossible to confront her directly. The only remaining option was to go after the source, to convince Makoto to leave her mother alone.
"Huh?"
Desperate for women?
Kinoshita and the others glanced at the parade of girls behind Makoto, every shape, every type, every one of them gorgeous, and collectively screamed internally:
How could he possibly be?!
Then again... maybe he could? Once you had one girl, you wanted a group. Once you had a group, you wanted a crowd. Human desire was a boulder on a mountainside. Once it started rolling, it never stopped.
Makoto understood instantly what Yukino was after.
His response was elegantly simple.
A soft laugh. Nothing more.
He turned and walked away.
Mrs. Yukinoshita had come to him of her own free will. How could he refuse? If someday she grew tired, grew bored, wanted to leave, he'd respect that completely.
But that day was a long, long way off.
If Yukino could convince her own mother, Makoto wouldn't stand in the way for a second.
But coming here to interfere with his choices?
Sorry. She didn't have that kind of pull.
"Wait!"
Watching Makoto and his entourage walk away, Yukino moved to follow.
"Like hell you will!"
A black blur shot out from the side. Leo Kick, aimed straight at the side of Yukino's face.
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No powerstones T_T , here's the bonus chap anyways.
Every 40 Powerstones = 1 Bonus Chapter