Naruto: Reborn as Zoro

Zoro returns to Granny Suzu's house in the morning after talking with Zabuza and Haku. He leaves them to do the plan without threatening them or anything. They are smart enough to know that it's best to not betray him because he can hunt them anytime.

When he returns, Zoro finds out that Granny Suzu's condition has worsened. She can't move her body anymore. While she can't feel the pain with the help of the pain killers, the pills can't just fix the damage on her body.

"U-uncle, grandma, please help grandma." Hiyori cries while holding Granny Suzu's weak hand.

Zoro approaches them and sits beside them.

"You're here, boy."

"How are you feeling, granny?"

"If it's my body, then I can't feel anything, but if it's my heart, then I feel quite happy. Boy, you've promised me."

"I know, I remember it and won't break it, so you don't need to worry about anything."

"That's good, I believe in you. Hiyori, don't forget what grandma tells you just now. You need to grow up well to be a good and beautiful woman even when I'm not there with you. Your father, your mother, and me will keep watching you from the afterlife, so behave yourself. Listen to your Uncle Zoro, but you also need to take care of him. Make sure he doesn't become a bad man, alright? You can spank him if needed."

"*Sniff* Yes, grandma." Hiyori knows that her Grandma Suzu's time is almost up, so she answers obediently.

"Boy, if you don't protect her well, then I will come back to life just to beat your ass. So raise her properly."

"Ugh, you will look like the most horrifying zombie if you do that, so please don't."

"Haha, then don't make it happen. About the inheritance, it's hidden right under the toilet. My late husband thought it was a good place to build a hidden vault to keep our treasures that isn't much actually, but he just loved building secret places. Pull the broken lamp post to open the underground door and you can take everything inside. Use them to raise Hiyori."

"Can I use them to buy booze?"

"..... I'll curse that booze from my grave."

"Geez, alright, alright. I'll use them as you wanted them to."

Zoro reassures Granny Suzu in his own way and it lightens the atmosphere a bit. The room is now filled with silence. Hiyori lies beside Granny Suzu and hugs her. Granny also hugs Hiyori back while Zoro just sits there silently, watching both of them feeling each other's warmth for the last time.

They have talked a lot before Zoro returned, so they don't need to talk more and just enjoy each other's company. No one says anything, making it feel like the time is moving very slowly.

*****

In the afternoon, everyone in the village is gathering in Granny Suzu's house with black clothes. They come to pay respect to her for the last time before her funeral.

Hiyori is sitting on Zoro's lap, asleep. Her eyelids are puffy and red after crying for hours. She lost another family member after losing her parents last week, so it's very hard for her 6 year old heart and she cried until she's really tired.

Surprisingly, Kakashi's team is coming too, along with their employer and other villages' residents. This doesn't happen in the original story, which means Zoro's actions have affected many things here.

Maybe if he didn't find Hiyori, she would have died in the forest and Granny Suzu would die even earlier. Or maybe some of his actions in the past actually became the reason Hiyori's family was killed because in the original, there's no mention of victims other than Team 7's employer's son in law, Kaiza.

Or maybe it did happen in the story, but it's not mentioned because it has nothing to do with Team 7 and they weren't crucial to the story. After all, knowing how cruel Gato was, there must be a lot more victims than just Kaiza.

Granny Suzu's funeral is held a while before dark. Her grave is placed right beside her husband, which is near Hiyori's parents as well. Hiyori holds Zoro's hand while crying again even though her eyes have swollen from crying too much.

Even Zoro is quite emotional now. He has just met Granny Suzu for a while, but they have gotten quite close. This might be the first time he grieves of someone's death. It actually surprises him a bit because he thought he would be indifferent about death.

*****

The next day, Zoro and Hiyori check the hidden vault in the toilet that Granny Suzu mentioned. Now they understand why this house's toilet is quite wide. They only thought it was the owner's preference, but it turns out they used it to hide something beneath.

It's really hidden well because the wooden floor looks very normal. Even the broken lamp post that they need to pull to open the door doesn't look suspicious at all, so those who don't know would never think of pulling it.

When Zoro pulls the broken lamp post that's placed right beside the real lamp post, a clicking sound is heard from the floor. The wooden floor panels on the left front corner suddenly raise a bit, showing a small gap like a door being opened a little.

Zoro lifts it open, showing a rather big storage underneath. It's about a meter square wide, but not too deep, only around half a meter deep and the vault is made out of wood. There is a good seal on the door too, preventing water from seeping in.

But they aren't focusing on that, they focus on the wooden boxes inside the vault. There are 3 rather big wooden boxes there. The boxes are moldy because it was still quite wet in the vault even with the sealings.

Zoro takes all of them out before bringing them inside the house. He doesn't forget to close the vault again. These boxes are quite heavy, which makes Zoro wonder what granny has put in them.

"What do you think is stored inside, uncle?"

"Not sure. Maybe gifts from her husband."

Zoro tries to open the boxes' locks, but he doesn't have the keys. So he just crushes the locks with his hand, making Hiyori clap in awe. It's good that she finally cheers up a bit, so Zoro doesn't stop at just crushing the locks.

He also tries to crush the boxes' lids to open it dramatically, but it doesn't go as he expected. The first box just breaks completely even though he doesn't use that much power. Hiyori looks at him with bombastic side eyes.

".... They must've been so old. Now I'm worried about their contents."

Luckily, the wooden box isn't the real storage, it's just a cover. Inside the wooden box is a ceramic box that won't be affected by mold or rust. Granny Suzu's husband had really thought this through. The other 2 boxes are also like that.

"No wonder they are heavy. These ceramic boxes are thick and hard. They were made really well. All these years and there's no real damage to them."

Zoro opens the 3 ceramic boxes and the contents are surprising. 1 of them is filled with jewelry, 1 another 1 is filled with coins, and the other box is filled with a bag of clothes. Each box has a big cup full of charcoal, probably to keep the inside dry.

"Wow, grandma was rich. But what are these clothes?" Hiyori looks at the clothes curiously.

Zoro takes out the clothes and most of them are children's clothes. It confuses Zoro because Granny Suzu said she never had any children. But then he sees a very old drawn picture of a baby and there's something written behind it.

"Our beautiful daughter who never saw this world." That's what's written there. On each set of clothes, there's also a small paper with numbers written on them. Zoro immediately understands whose clothes are these.

Granny Suzu and her husband must've had a daughter once but she died upon birth. They must've loved her so much and bought clothes for her every year for 25 years before they stopped and Zoro guessed it's because granny's husband passed away that year.

Now he understands why Granny Suzu loved Hiyori's family so much she could even endure the great pain all over her body. All because she wanted to find Hiyori and knew what happened to the child she loved so much.

"They were grandma's daughter's clothes that she never had the chance to wear."

"Grandma has a daughter?"

"Had, she had passed away long ago."

"Oh, then grandma must've met her again now."

"Yeah."

Zoro decides to put the clothes back into the underground vault. He's sure these aren't parts of the inheritance, after all, and even if they are, Hiyori can't wear them because they are already in bad conditions.

Age has worn them off even though they were kept well. So it's better to leave them where they were placed. He also puts granny's personal belongings in scrolls and puts them in the other 2 boxes that he has emptied before putting them in the underground vault too.

Zoro even seals the boxes using paper seals sold in the market. These paper seals are cheap and weak, but normal people still can't break them and they are more secure than normal locks, so these boxes will be safer now.

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Chapter 136. Investigation

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