Backwards
Summary: Everything Tsunade does in her life, she does it the other way round. OneShot – Tsunade. And regrets.
Warning: -
Set: Story-unrelated
Disclaimer: Standards apply.
Two of the most skilled medics of Konoha and one from Suna tried and tried for hours to convince her to turn around but stubborn as she always was and always would be, the woman who later was to become the Princess of Hidden Leaf refused to see reason. Which was why she was born by Cesarean.
From there on, the story of her life unfolded.
...
"Tsunade, darling, you can't go to bed in your new kimono!"
Why not?
It had been a gift of Grandma Mito's, and it was patterned with flowers and birds and so beautiful she was sure she'd have beautiful dreams. It even smelled like Grandma.
...
"Tsunade, eat your soup first! You cannot start with the dessert!"
Why not?
The cakes and sweets looked delicious, and she was sure she wouldn't be able to try them if she started off with the soup. Besides, she hated soup.
...
"Tsunade, what were you thinking? You cannot pull other girls' hair like that and call them names!"
Why not?
Kureha had been mean, and she had made fun of her, and anyway they would become best friends not so soon after that incident. There was nothing wrong with that, was it?
...
Maybe it was the constant advice and the many rules she lived by that made her immediately do the opposite when anyone told her what to do. Perhaps it was her natural aversion against orders. Perhaps it was the fiery temper her grandparents had passed on to her. But whatever it was – as soon as Tsunade felt like something was not to her liking, she bristled in defiance.
It didn't get better over the years.
Although some things were, in the great picture of life and fate, rather small, while others were huge.
...
Tsunade missed Nawaki horribly before he even disappeared from the face of the world.
Tsunade grieved for Dan even before he died in (by?) her hands.
Tsunade gave up on Orochimaru long before he went beyond being saved.
Tsunade lost long before she ever started gambling.
Tsunade met the kyuubi before she even met Kushina.
Tsunade told Jiraiya she hated him long before he told her he loved her.
...
Backwards, everything backwards, and the greatest regret in her life is that she has never, ever, done one thing the right way round. The most important things she screwed up because of her own stubbornness, or pride, or fear, and she never paused to see what she left behind but she felt it deeply. It was her fault, everything was. If she hadn't tried so hard from the day they met, perhaps Orochimaru would have let her save him. If Jiraiya hadn't loved her so openly, perhaps she would have allowed herself to love him, as well. But one day she woke up and it was too late. Too late to repent, too late to change anything – too late to even grieve. Which was why she left the place she had called her home without a second glance back, taking only the under-age niece of Dan's and Shizune's ridiculous pig. If things went beyond bad, she figured, they'd still be able to eat the thing.
...
Guard your heart, love. Few things are lost as irrevocably as hearts are.
...
"What," she asks, "Are we still doing here, old friend?"
And Jiraiya grins and sighs and folds his hands behind his head, and his answers are as flippant as they always were, only now with the undertone of age. But nobody hears them and Shizune looks at her as if she is losing her mind. And Tsunade does not mind at all. Sakura brings her tea with a sip of sake, hot and strong, and smiles and listens eagerly. It is a déjà-vu, all over again, an eager child and a weary, old woman, and a myriad of reasons to not do what she is still doing. What she does again and again, she figures, no matter how much her heart is broken and her world is shattered and her soul is lost.
...
Because times are changing, lives are passing, and if someone asked her she would have gladly left years ago. But he got her – Jiraiya did – coaxing and luring and grinning his infuriating grin, dangling the bait in front of her and not letting go even after she swallowed it whole. Brought her back home and made her care again, and there she was, growing older with every day and still fighting. Still living, still watching, and the irony of the story that is her life would make her cry if she didn't laugh. So she laughs.
...
Sakura is named head of the hospital the same summer Naruto comes back with a tiny little bundle of child in his arms, and Kakashi, old, broken, caring Kakashi, retires and buys a piece of land in the outskirts of the village and plants strawberries and beans and carrots. Shikamaru walks in the next day and asks for the holidays he never took since he started working for her years ago. Hyuuga Neji, her ANBU captain, reports all of his ANBU are fit for duty. The heiress of the Hyuuga is preparing her clan for the summer celebrations and every clan does the same: the Akimichi, the Nara, the Inuzuka, the Yamanaka and the Aburame. Shizune, ever-loyal Shizune, brings her a cup of strong tea that reminds her of the tea Sarutobi-Sensei loved to have and Sakura brought her on days long lost. Tsunade turns around and sees the village stretched out under her, the thick glass the only barrier between what has become her life and what always was a curse for her. She never believed in fate, only believed that life was a burden, and years have not changed how she feels about it. But as her hand touches the band around her neck, for the first time, she sees not only the village behind her window but her own reflection, as well.
...
One day, distance and time will bring you together.
...
War, war, and Tsunade has fought and lost and won, has taught and learned and lost and loved, has lived and died a little bit more every day and yet – the strength to continue on was there, deep inside her. Always a part of her.
"Get up, Princess."
Somehow the name sounds loving, even if he glares at her like that. But she cannot get up. There is no ounce of strength left in her to obey his order.
"Get up!" He barks and she scrambles to stand, the weight of the armor pulling her down, the blood on her hands and on her face making her want to throw up, white-hot fury, exhaustion and something like fear in the face of his insistence and the anger in his voice all swirling around her in mad patterns.
"Let her have a break, Jiraiya," Orochimaru says, almost lazily. Jiraiya whirls around.
"I'm not letting her die because she is too lazy to get up, just like you! She's one of us, she can get up, she can continue on! We'll fight and we'll kill and we'll defend until the world is safe, and we won't go down without getting up again!"
"Fool," is Orochimaru's not-so-off-the-mark comment and Tsunade thinks she hates him, hates Jiraiya with all the little strength her tired body has left. Jiraiya does not even hear him. He never does. Jiraiya does not hear what he does not want to hear, does not see what he does not want to see and does what he thinks is right. And that, if nothing else, will kill him before she and Orochimaru are killed, and she does not know whether she hates him or hates the way he is and she can never become.
"You don't die," he snarls at her. "You don't fuckin die until I tell you you can, do you understand?"
...
This is the way legends are born.
...
"It's time," she says, silently, quietly, as she takes in her own picture. Grandma Mito was like her: beautiful at old age, looking like twenty and yet so, so old, and Tsunade knows the mirror shows her an old soul in a body which remained young for such a long time.
"Time for what?"
Shikamaru looks at her with weary eyes and Tsunade chuckles softly and shakes her head and thinks it is fitting, the way she leaves, because she left long before she died and she shouldered responsibility before she fell in love all over again. Head over heels, because it is the only way to fall. Deeper and deeper with every day, and trust stupid Jiraiya to not be there when she needs him because right now she needs him to grin and chuckle and call her Princess with that perverted leech of his.
…
Backwards.
It is just the way she is: she felt old when she was young, and now that she is old she feels young.
…
"Isn't that our job?"
"What?"
"Carry on the fire."
"You still dreaming of becoming Hokage?"
"Just wait and see!"
…
"Ready, Princess?"
His smile is as wide as the world, his face young and unmarked. His hands wander over her arms and fold her into an embrace warm and familiar. For a second, she allows herself to relax against his chest, breathe in the scent of air and rain and wet leaves. Then she pushes herself away because it is what they do: he tries to hold her and she moves away, he calls her princess and she calls him pervert.
His smile is so blinding she kisses him.
"Hey," he says after an eternity. "Shouldn't you say something first?"
"Say what?"
"Say that you love me?"
There, she thinks, and smiles. She did it again. Story of her life. But then, the other way round does not necessarily mean the wrong way round.
...
It is the greatest miracle of all. After everything, she still believes.