[7] A Househusband? No way.
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Chapter 7: A Househusband? No way.
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King Cobra and his wife, Nefertari Titi, were enjoying a relaxing walk in the hallway of the castle, watching the peaceful city below them.
The city of Alubarna looked more different than they ever recalled to be so. Trees were sprouting from this and that corner of the city, while the outskirts of the city was surrounded by a forest shaped like a pentagon.
"The Kingdom has changed so much since two years ago…"
Titi spoke with a small smile on her face.
"It's all thanks to that boy, Your Highness. No matter what you say, I still believe that me getting sick was a lucky incident, otherwise we wouldn't have stopped on that island and met him."
Cobra gave a short laugh at that.
"Maybe, I don't know. But whatever the case, I don't like to think you getting deadly sickness was a lucky incident. You are right about that boy though, he's really something else… Alabasta looks like a whole different realm now."
The entire country hadn't changed like Alubarna yet, but it was a start. A great one at that.
Looking far from the city, as the previously wavy-hot and sandy horizon looked much healthier and green now, the two royals couldn't help but smile amongst themselves.
"Your Highness. You know, he's close to Vivi's age."
Titi suddenly said, nudging him with her elbow.
“....”
"Just three years older. That's not a big age gap, right? You are 7 years older than me yourself."
Cobra let out an awkward chuckle.
"Ah, well, I guess. Then are you suggesting…?"
"Well,"
Titi hesitated for a moment before shrugging her shoulders gracefully.
"Unlike what the common people think, in this world nobility and things like royalty don't really matter.”
“Oh? I didn’t know my Queen had such a controversial opinion. Be careful, Alabasta might vanish from the map if any World Noble were to hear your words.”
The King joked, and though Titi knew that wasn’t entirely a ‘joke’, she still let out a giggle.
“Haha.” She shook her head gently. “Well, in the grand scheme of things, in front of direct power even a World Noble won't survive if they don't have strong people protecting them.”
“That’s true.”
“This boy has abilities, the ‘direct power’ that I just spoke of. We can tell from the countless small-time criminals he caught over the years. Yet, he is only a 10-year-old child.”
“Ah-huh.”
“I think he is strong enough to keep Vivi safe from all the dangers of this dirty world. On top of that his powers are ideal for a greater Alabasta for generations to come. No hard feelings, Your Highness, but I believe he could be the greatest King of Alabasta till date."
Cobra went silent after that, and for a while both of them walked beside each other without exchanging any words.
A while later, King Cobra scratched his chin. "I won't lie, I have thought of this before.”
“Oh?”
“You bring good points, he can make Alabasta reach a height I as the King can never imagine.”
“Please, when I said he might be a better King, I didn’t mean to shame you.”
“I know, my Queen.” Cobra laughed softly. “I wouldn’t be a King if my Queen’s opinion made me lose myself.”
“....”
“But… the only problem with that is, will Vivi accept him as her king?”
Titi chewed on her lips as Cobra continued.
“Our Vivi deserves to choose whoever she wants to be with, my Queen. Even if it's a commoner like that Koza boy. As long as he has good qualities and Vivi likes him, anyone can be her husband and consequently the King of Alabasta. I wouldn't force it on her, never, to marry someone she doesn't like."
"True," Titi nodded with a sigh. "She's still a little girl, we have time on our hands. I suppose she is closer with Koza than she is with Hashirama/ Though truth be told, I wanna encourage her to get along with Hashirama more, aside from all his powers I actually like him quite a bit."
She giggled before pausing, looking at Cobra with a surprised face. "Oh my, why are you frowning? My King, could it be that you are jealous of a little boy?"
"What?! No, of course not!" Cobra rapidly shook his head. "I was just thinking of something else."
Titi smiled teasingly, about to tease her husband a bit more— but right then, footsteps came from ahead of them. When Titi and Cobra looked ahead, their eyes widened in shock while Cobra's jaw seemed to fall to the ground.
Hashirama was running to them, and Vivi was in his arms, hugging his neck tightly as he ran with her in a princess carriage.
"A-ahh! Slow! Slow down!" Vivi was yelling, and only stopped when the boy started to slow down before stopping in front of Cobra and Titi.
"Vivi? Are you alright? What happened, did you hurt your legs? Why was he carrying you?" Cobra asked rapidly.
King Cobra leaned down, gently receiving Vivi from Hashirama’s arms.
Titi on the other hand leaned over to Hashirama, ruffling his hair and looking at him with a gentle smile.
"Hashirama, did anything happen? Why were you running with her so fast? IIf you fell, it could have been dangerous for both of you."
"Well, some bandits came to grab Vivi. I had to get her to safety after beating them up, so I came running here." The boy said, about to wipe his sweaty forehead— but Titi stopped him and gently wiped it for him with her sleeves. "Thank you."
Even as the gears in her head spun, feeling enraged that people of her kingdom had tried to attack the Princess, Titi smiled at Hashirama.
Then she turned to Vivi. "Vivi? Did you recognise the people who attacked you?"
That question was more on the lines of— were you really attacked? But asking that would make Hashirama feel like they didn't trust his words, which was not a good notion. But by asking this, Vivi's answer will confirm his words anyway.
"No…" Vivi shook her head. "I never saw them before. But… they both looked scary."
Titi didn't speak this time and watched Cobra frown in fury.
King Cobra looked around and yelled. "Guard, who is there?! Come here immediately!"
At his shout, a bunch of guards immediately ran to the spot, and Cobra asked Hashirama to tell them where the two criminals were knocked out. When the guards were gone, Titi looked at Cobra with a smile.
"See?" She asked in a whisper. "What did I say? He is perfect."
Cobra closed his eyes in defeat and nodded slowly.
Titi then turned to Hashirama. "Thank you for keeping my girl safe. She can be a bit hard to endure sometimes, but I can’t be more glad that you two are friends."
The boy simply nodded. "It's my duty as someone staying in the kingdom to keep the princess safe, besides, as you said she's my friend."
Titi noticed from the corner of her eyes as Vivi blushed and looked away, burying her face in her father's chest while the latter just chuckled. Titi's smile grew gentler.
Looks like she won't have to actively encourage Vivi after this incident… since the little girl will approach him by herself.
Truly, this must be fate.
Titi grabbed Hashirama and pulled him into a hug, watching his eyes widen momentarily as his face was buried between her soft chest. She liked doing this to children, as they liked it too, and she didn't feel any dirt in her chastity since Hashirama was just a child.
"Thank you for saying that. How about you have dinner with us today? We can call your sister too if you want." She said, feeling him get comfortable in her hug and nod. "Alright then, it's decided."
While her husband looked at the scene in jealousy (it only made her more amused), she took the boy away to show him around the palace. He had come here countless times before so he probably knew everything around here, but she just wanted to spend some time with him to get to know better the person who will one day be her son-in-law.
* * *
'Okay, I don't like it.'
Hashirama concluded when the dinner had ended.
'They think they're subtle, which they are in the context that they think I am a kid, but they really aren't that subtle in reality. Unfortunately, I don't have any plans to become the future king of this desert.'
Not that he didn't like Vivi— knowing she will grow up to be as hot as her A-grade Milf of a mother. Problem was, to become the King he would have to get married into the royal family. Meaning, people will consider him a King only because he was lucky to be chosen by the Princess.
Besides that, there was also the matter that he wouldn’t be able to get concubines unlike the other Kings. Since it would appear he was biting the hand which fed him by ‘cheating’ on Vivi.
Hashirama didn’t have the level of relationship loyalty needed to be stuck with one woman his entire life. He's always been the guy to have two or more girls in one bed, otherwise it didn't feel right. Blame his master who passed down those qualities along with the martial arts he taught him.
So no way, he's never marrying Vivi.
Though what amused him today was his sister who was invited to the dinner. At first, she was cheerful when she heard he saved Vivi, and smiled widely when she noticed Vivi acting quite a bit embarrassed around him, clearly having fallen for him, but soon by the time dinner ended, she had a strange expression on her face.
See, these were the times when it really made him wonder if her jokes were just jokes or not.
It couldn’t be that his sister was into his 10-year-old dick, could it?
In either case, whatever she was feeling, she had decided to take those feelings out on him. So today it was one of their sparring days where he got one-sidedly beaten by her.
* * *
Just like that, another 3 years had passed. Now, Hashirama was 13 years old.
-Bam!
He failed to dodge another of her attacks. Her punch hit his stomach, making his eyes widen as he was thrown backwards, barely controlling his body to land on his feet on the wall instead of his back.
Immediately regaining his footing, he leapt forward, pushing chakra into his legs to appear right above her and throw a kick on her neck that she barely blocked by raising his hands.
She was physically stronger than him, it turned out, thanks to her technique- [Strength of the Hundred Seal] and also her natural chakra control allowed her to empower her blows.
He also had that Seal now, though rather than on his forehead he had it on his chest. He liked it there better. However, to fill the seal with chakra, one needed precise chakra control rather than the amount of chakra, and though Hashirama exceeded his sister in chakra quantity, her control was better– a lot better– so his seal hadn’t stored as much chakra as hers and therefore the benefits weren't as strong.
At least he had faster reflexes, though it was debatable who was faster because in the next moment he got kicked in his stomach by her thick right leg.
Hitting his head against the wall in the far back, he realised it didn’t hurt as much as it did two years ago. Since then, he had grown a lot, both in physical powers and the usage of Wood Release.
But it was far from enough since he had yet to unlock, or show the signs of unlocking, any of the three Hakis.
He would have assumed that having powers from outside this verse came with the side effect that he couldn't learn the powers of this verse— such as Haki. But he actually never assumed that because his sister had shown the usage of Haki by now.
She knew what Haki was from before he was born, apparently, and had trained on them before as well. She had both Hakis, but not the legendary Conqueror's Haki. Though she wasn't sure if it would just be activated one day, or if she didn't have it at all.
Her Observation Haki was the basic-est, as she had only developed it accidentally by following the technique where she could sense his presence using chakra. Normal people didn't have chakra, so they couldn't be sensed that way, and that's when she accidentally activated Observation Haki one day while trying to sense some normal, chakra-less people.
She did have Armament Haki though, given she was a close-range fighter and even used her Elemental-Elemental Devil Fruit to enhance her hand-to-hand powers most of the time. As for how strong her Armament was, Hashirama had no way to judge since she hadn't fought him while using that on full force.
However, just with that much, he knew she was pretty damn powerful in this part of the sea.
As he tried to kick her face and jump back, she grabbed his leg and frowned, before slamming him to the ground.
"Awww…" Hashirama hissed, straightening his back and rolling on the ground. "That fucking hurts."
"Language. No cuss words in front of me." She warned, frowning cutely.
“No, fuck you- akk!”
She kicked him on the knee when he cursed again.
She said, "That was a stupid attack, by the way. Trying to use my face as a ground point to push your leg and jump off? If I was an enemy, I could have cut your legs in two."
"And I would have regenerated."
"That's not the point." She sighed. "You have to take this seriously."
He relaxed his back, lying straight on the ground.
‘Seriously’, she said.
That's what he had been doing all his previous life.
He probably would have done the same since the start of his life as well, if not for the fact he was locked behind a door until he was 8. But now?
Though his ultimate ambition was arguably higher than his last life's, now he also knew how to relax. It came to him naturally, like the Monks who isolate themselves from the rest of the world to understand and unlock the deeper person from within them.
"Sis," he looked at her. "If you keep telling me to get serious, I might just pull a Wooden Buddha on you. You sure you wanna have a go?"
"I don’t know what Wooden Buddha you are talking about, but sure. Any day," she raised her hand in the air as it caught on fire, burning brightly. "No matter if it’s Buddha or God himself, I will just burn your wood. Don't get cocky, I can beat you in my sleep.”
“Debatable.”
“Really?” She gave him a dry look that he so much liked to give when he was younger, though these days he was far more cheerful than before. “Get up, this is enough for today."
With a soft groan, Hashirama stood up with her help and then followed behind her limply, leaving their personal battle-gym where they were training.
Really, he was stronger than she thought. It's just that, obviously, he was physically weaker than his 29-year-old sister who had a similar genetic structure to his and therefore could get stronger at a similar rate to him. He had a faster growth though, thanks to the cheat words.
[Hashirama Cells]
Something else that bothered him though, was Crocodile. He hadn't pulled anything suspicious since that day when he asked Tsunade to join him.
He didn’t try anything even after Tsunade rejected his offer.
Really, what was that crocodile planning?
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