25. Perverted Flames

(A/n- 100 Powerstones for a double release on Sunday)

A bijudama was just fired. 

It was slowly heading towards them. 

Okay, "slowly" was in their perception, not actually. 

Yukio clicked his tongue and released chakra from his feet, diving at Miyuki. 

Pakura was already unstunned, so she quickly escaped the bijudama by using a scorch release jutsu as a propeller she held up. 

It was aimed at Yukio's back, whose face was toward Miyuki. 

Miyuki placed her hand directly on Fugaku's shoulder. 

Miyuki and Yukio looked into each other's eyes. 

They could already guess what the other was saying due to their familiarity with each other. 

Due to the current situation, which only gave limited options, 

They knew they had to teleport away from there, but direct contact was needed for that. 

Yukio was still a few meters away, and Pakura's scorch release was almost upon him, with the tailed beast bomb only moments away from exploding on Yukio.

They were in a very bad position. 

A dangerous one, to be more accurate. 

Miyuki saw Yukio's eyes widen for some reason. 

She internally thought about whether he was feeling the jutsu's effect already from that distance, even with chakra enhancement.

Miyuki's eyes widened when she saw the scorching fireball behind Yukio get replaced by black flames. 

She instinctively reached her hand forward, and Yukio had already done the same. 

Their hands met the chakra strings Yukio had released. 

And the trio disappeared from that spot. 

The tailed beast bomb exploded in that place, killing multiple Suna ninjas. 

Pakura retreated, with a mad Roshi on her tail like a raging dog. 

It seemed Roshi had lost control over his emotions and was now rampaging. 

Pakura wondered what had caused him to lose so much control, as he was fine at the start of the battle with Yukio. 

'What did that kid do? And did the three vaporize, or did they escape via reverse summoning?' Pakura wondered while fleeing with the two Elite Jounins she had brought at the beginning. 

They were really useless, as they couldn't take care of two Jounins and one Elite Jounin. 

Well, they couldn't be blamed, as even she wasn't able to accomplish the task. There were a lot of mind games involved in this battle. 

Especially with Yukio, whose real body's location was still unconfirmed even after the battle. 

Pakura was somehow able to escape with one Elite Jounin alive. 

The other Elite Jounin died helping Pakura escape. 

***

"Woah, you guys can really teleport over such long distances," Fugaku commented, looking at the familiar scene of trees surrounding the area. 

"Yeah, we could. Didn't you already know?" Miyuki asked.

"Yeah, but as they say, seeing is believing," Fugaku chuckled. 

"You chuckling seems weird. Is that what you do after a life-and-death battle?" 

"Are you suggesting that I shouldn't smile?" Fugaku asked with a typical Uchiha expression. 

"I never said that. You should smile more; otherwise, people will think you can't smile," Yukio rolled his eyes. 

"I do smile quite often. You're just not lucky enough to see it." 

"Uhh, that sounds wrong for some reason," Yukio cringed. 

"Yeah, that sounds wrong, but for some reason, it fits," Miyuki also looked at Fugaku with a weirded-out gaze. 

"What, do you expect to hear something like 'a woman's smile is rare to see' or something? Quite sexist of you," Fugaku rolled his eyes. 

"Right, quite disappointing of me," Yukio berated himself internally.

He didn't want to see himself like this. 

'Be open-minded,' Yukio chanted internally. 

"Well, it's quite biased of us, I guess, but this does suit Uchiha males well. I don't know about Uchiha females..." Miyuki internally wondered if it was hard to see Mikoto-sensei smile. 

The answer was definitely no. 

"What do you mean, males? I think it's applicable to all genders for an Uchiha," Fugaku said and looked at Miyuki. 

Miyuki looked at Yukio, who also looked at her. 

Then both of them looked at Fugaku. 

"Say, Ossan, how often do you see Mikoto-sensei smile?" Yukio got straight to the point. 

"Hmm, what I said is applicable to her too... right?" Fugaku looked at both of them in horror. 

"Hmm, it seems it's rare for you only, old man," Yukio shook his head and patted Fugaku's shoulder. 

The man realized today that his wife rarely smiled at him, not because she smiled less in general, but only at him. 

"It's okay, you should accept that it's rare for a person to be in a super happy mood or laugh at a joke in your presence," Miyuki also patted his shoulder. 

Her words were definitely not helping. 

Yukio then placed a seal on the ground and looked at Fugaku. 

"So, old man, let's talk about the elephant in the forest." 

"Hmm, I don't see any elephant," Fugaku said, looking around. 

"You definitely are a father, Fugaku-ossan, 'cause that was definitely a dad joke," Miyuki smirked. 

Fugaku didn't show any embarrassment on his face over his failed joke attempt. 

He instantly maintained his stoic face and chose to act ignorant about the to save face. 

If you can fake it, then you can make it. 

Yukio sighed, "I meant let's talk about our recent experience unless you want to act oblivious." He was really tired of talking to shameless old men. 

He would much rather talk to shameless old women. 

That sounded far more interesting to him. 

"Hmm, why that face?" Fugaku asked with a confused look. 

"He was definitely thinking something perverted," Miyuki rolled her eyes. 

"You can tell?" Fugaku looked at Miyuki, who just shrugged her shoulders. 

"Ahem, I guess I need to recalibrate my facial expressions. It's hard to maintain a poker face after an intense battle," Yukio lightly slapped his face with both hands. 

Then he went back to his poker face. 

"So, what were you thinking?" Fugaku asked. 

Yukio was speechless at Fugaku's question. 

"Never mind, you can always talk to me in private," Fugaku assumed Yukio didn't want to talk in front of Miyuki. 

Yukio was technically an orphan, and his direct sensei was dead. The only other sensei was Miyuki, but Yukio might not be comfortable talking to her about puberty and related topics. 

"Umm, I don't think I need proper sexual education or guidance about emotions during this phase, but I am curious about how you'd explain it to me, so yeah," Yukio shouldn't have said that out loud. 

The other two just looked at him with deadpan expressions. 

If you can't be subtle, at least pretend to be subtle. 

"You really should talk to him. He hangs out a lot with Ero-Sensei, and I'm worried about his secret tendencies. Who knows what he does? I don't have a way to track him. His stealth skills are too good for me, and he even knows how to hide the space-time seal, which I could normally use to sense him." 

Miyuki decided to throw Yukio under the bus. 

Fugaku looked at Yukio. He really hated Jiraiya. 

Not just because of his perverted ways, though, yes, that was part of it, but that wasn't the main reason. 

That guy had thousands of reports of sexual harassment against him. In fact, it might soon exceed ten thousand in a few months. 

Fugaku had to answer why such a common sexual offender was not punished. 

He even brought the matter to the Hokage, but the latter said he didn't have much influence over S-ranks. 

So, you could only increase security at hot springs. 

That shameless old man said that with a straight face. 

Fugaku really wanted to find some evidence of the old man using his crystal ball to peep and put him in jail. 

A new Hokage could be elected, one who is not a pervert. 

Fugaku didn't know that Kakashi was next in line to be the Hokage and had recently picked up reading *Icha-Icha Paradise*. 

If he knew, he might have already resigned as head of the police department. 

Or just put Itachi as the head of the police department already. 

He would rather fight to put a kid in charge than explain why perverts are roaming around unpunished.

"Anyway, we should talk about your eyes instead. Since when... are they this red?" Yukio, despite having a silencing seal, didn't really trust his seal. 

What if the other person had some skills, a kekkei genkai, or a rare tool to listen to their conversation? 

The other two also picked up on that and agreed. 

One can never be too careful. 

"Well, it did get a bit redder in one of the previous wars. Still, it doesn't surprise me that you know about its existence."

Fugaku wasn't surprised anymore that Yukio knew about the Mangekyō's existence.

Yukio had already confirmed during a previous family dinner that he knew about the existence of Izanagi, so this didn't surprise him.

***

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