Chapter 681 - 681: An Unfamiliar Ceiling and an Eccentric King

"An unfamiliar ceiling…"

Though Tsubaki couldn't begin to fathom why those particular words would be the first to escape her lips when she awoke, she knew exactly who to blame for this. As a former resident of the Spiritual Plane, a world of perceptions, she was both a part of Sakura herself and a reflection of how others perceived her, which made her memories unreliable at best.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty, she's awake!"

Barely had Tsubaki shaken off her drowsiness and cast her first glance around the richly decorated room she had found herself in when she caught a glimpse of a maid running out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

"Ouch…"

Tsubaki let out a hiss of pain as she attempted to sit up. Glancing beneath the fluffy covers of the plush bed she had found herself lying in, she found that she was covered in bandages. Evidently, someone must have found her after the airship exploded, crashed into the mountainside and treated her wounds.

In any case, she couldn't just stay here and lie in bed. She swung her feet out from under the covers and tottered unsteadily to the window, where she glanced outside. The view was breathtaking; this place had to be situated at the very top of the Redaku mountain range, because there were mountain peaks as far as the eye could see. Smaller habitations had been built into the side of the opposing mountain, linked by a steep and rather narrow staircase hewn from the rocky face that led all the way down into the valley below.

"Just how high up is this place…?" Tsubaki murmured as she pressed her cheek against the window and peered down with one eye. "We're higher up than most clouds…"

"Ah, excellent, you're indeed awake!" a man's jovial voice boomed behind her, causing her to jump. "Welcome to the royal capital of Redaku— The Village Hidden Amidst the Mountain Peaks!"

Tsubaki whirled around and found that a civilian couple had somehow managed to sneak up on her… probably because her eardrums were still recovering. She had no idea how long she had slept, but she could still hear a faint ringing in her ears from the last gas balloon's explosion.

In any case, her saviours did not appear especially threatening, so she slightly relaxed her guard.

The first of her visitors was a rather rotund man wearing a bejewelled crown, holding a golden, ringed staff loosely in one hand. Beside him stood a woman wearing a smaller diadem, who held a small baby in her arms, upon whose head a teeny-tiny circlet had been haphazardly placed. Both man and woman were dressed in fine clothes dyed orange, while the baby was swaddled in equally orange cloth.

Tsubaki was noticing a theme with the colour scheme here.

"Please ignore my Lord Husband's ramblings, nobody calls the royal capital that but him," the woman said, shooting him a sideways glance. "He's still obsessed with fairy tales of ninjas and hidden villages, even at his age…. Hmph."

The man winced.

"Please, dear, we have a guest," he said, smiling apologetically at Tsubaki. "Can we save the snide comments for later?"

Tsubaki wasn't sure what was going on, but she could tell she owed these strange people her life.

"Thank you very much for saving me," she said, bowing deeply. Her breasts slapped against her rib cage with a wet clatch as she straightened, wincing at the pain of her injuries. "I am Tsubaki. May I know to whom I owe this debt of gratitude?"

The man started trembling from head to toe… and then, without warning, he exploded, like a volcano blowing its top.

"Gngngngn… She's PERFECT!" the man in orange hollered, stamping his feet repeatedly in trepidation. "Didn't I tell you so, Manten?" he went on, babbling excitedly. "This girl is just like one of those legendary kunoichi from my storybooks! The look! The attitude! The whole debt-of-gratitude thing! And she even only gave me her surname, just like a real kunoichi would! It's so… AUTHENTIC! Or should I say, authenthicccc."

Upon hearing her father's loud voice, the baby slumbering in her mother's arms instantly started bawling at the top of her lungs, as though she were competing with her father to see who could shatter what little remained of Tsubaki's eardrums in the shortest span of time.

"Look at what you've done, Sora!" the man's wife, Manten, said crossly as she angrily stalked out of the room. "You've woken the baby with your screaming, mou!"

Tsubaki knew nothing good could possibly come of asking the question, and yet…

"Perfect?" she ventured. "Perfect for what?"

The rotund man named Sora beamed at her, and Tsubaki instantly regretted asking.

"Why, for this new PLAY I've been organising for the NATIONAL THEATRE!" he said excitedly. "I'm a huuuuge fan of the Sixth Hokage! You know, the infamous Demon Queen of the Six Desires?"

Tsubaki gaped at him. They received news from the Five Elemental Nations in Redaku!?

"Ah, I see you're not familiar," King Sora said, striking a ninja pose. "Well, allow me to enlighten you about the coolness of ninja!"

He then clumsily began chaining hand signs with his sausage-like fingers before Tsubaki's incredulous eyes. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally clapped his hands together, causing his round belly to wiggle slightly.

"Manyū Assassination Genjutsu: Breast Illusion!" he declared, before striking a pose worthy of a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure character. "You have already fallen within my grasp; may you find a blissful end in the bosom of Sukhavati… Saṃsāra Māra."

Tsubaki cringed so hard that it actually physically hurt.

"Oh, my goodness, you're bleeding!" King Sora cried out in shock. "Could it be that I accidentally cast ninjutsu on you!?"

Could it be that he had finally awakened to his true power…? But wait, that wasn't important right now, this young woman's white bandages were blooming crimson at an alarming speed!

"I'm fine, I just reopened one of my wounds," Tsubaki groaned. "Ugh…"

Since many people knew about Sakura's prowess with medical ninjutsu, Tsubaki did possess a portion of Sakura's healing abilities, even without having trained a day in her life… but this ninja fanatic who had saved her life would surely never let her go if she revealed that she could actually use ninjutsu!