Prologue
AN: Just as a warning to you all OC's will feature heavily in this story.
Hiruzen Sarutobi was standing in what was once his office (and soon would be again) staring quietly at a picture of his wife when he heard the news that Tsunade was back in the village with her badly injured apprentice and a child in tow. It was clear that his messenger, a scrawny Inuzuka with a burned face, had been expecting a more positive reaction than what he was getting, which was a long suffering sigh as the old man (and he was old, the Inuzuka realized with a squirming in his gut, as though it were traitorous to admit that a Kage was as mortal as the rest of them) placed the picture frame he had been holding tenderly in his hands back on the desk. "And what is this Tsunade doing now that she's arrived in the village in the wake of our recent catastrophe?"
"She's taken charge of the medics Hokage-sama, sir, the head of the Medical Corps died and it's been chaos since." Almost as an afterthought he added, "And Tsume-san got a good whiff and says it's her all right and the Hyuuga who remember her say the same thing so it's not an imposter. Hokage-sama." The old man was silent. "Sir." Again, silence.
Finally, Hiruzen sighed again. Tsunade was not the student he had been expecting, but he would welcome her back. Perhaps she would even consent to being named Fifth Hokage, though the possibility was bleak and distant, even to him. "Take me to her." He ordered the Inuzuka boy, who was eager to comply and obviously relieved to see his temporary leader displaying some measure of authority.
Even after eight days, even knowing what awaited him once he left the Hokage's Tower, it still shocked him to see Konoha in such a state. The once proud walls had been buckled inwards as though they were wet pieces of cardboard that had stood before a hurricane. Entire districts had been reduced to rubble, others to ash. Worst of all were the citizens milling the street, or lying injured on the ground. There were too many dead to rely on body bags and he saw that the clean up crews had been forced to use mattress covers or, in some more gruesome cases, black garbage bags that held mutilated remains whose shape could no longer be called even remotely human. As he got closer to Tsunade, the corpses were slowly replaced by the injured until he saw her back. She was standing away from him and issuing orders to the medics around her in a clear authoritative voice that he once thought he'd never hear again. "Get all Hyuuga with even a cursory knowledge of medicine up here and set them to scanning our patients, we need to know if we're wasting our time and nobody can tell us faster than they can. Someone call the Akimichi and tell them to send all the soldier pills they can spare, we're going to need them. Old man, take this and sit down somewhere until I'm done." She abruptly turned around and thrust a bundle at him, which he took from her with quiet understanding. Tsunade was in her element here, she did not need a former Hokage looking over her shoulder as she worked.
Quietly retreating to a nearby corner that was free of both patients and medics, he looked down at the bundle he was carrying. Was this the child Tsunade had brought back with her? Somehow he doubted it, the shock of pink hair and the bright green eyes clashed too much with Tsunade's blonde hair and brown eyes to convince him of any relation. As he quietly conferred with one of his ANBU and rocked the child to sleep in his arms, Tsunade marched up to him and snatched the child back. "What do you want old man?"
"I haven't seen you for seven years. Can't I simply be pleased with the return of my student?" He asked, not bothering to mention her oddly youthful appearance, or the rumours of children and heavily injured apprentices that had surrounded her abrupt return.
Her answering glare showed that no, he couldn't. "You always want something old man, don't pretend otherwise." The child she was holding burst into tears and she gave a very unladylike curse.
"Perhaps this is one of the few occasions where my intentions are completely pure? And you're holding it wrong, that's why it's crying. What are you even doing with a child anyway?"
"It's a she, and her parents are deep cover agents from Kiri. So's she." Seeing his baffled look, Tsunade sighed and launched into an explanation of how exactly an eight-month old could be a deep cover agent. "She's been shifted from her true appearance by the effects of a fuunjutsu assisted semi-permanent henge, no I have no idea how it works so don't ask me ask Jiraiya, but among the very carefully hidden seals there's an entirely different combination seal located on the back of her skull that was designed to be able to retrieve all of her memories posthumously. I recognize it, the design was widely used by Uzushio before Uzushio itself was destroyed."
It troubled him that Kiri had access to such high level fuunjutsu. "Will you be able to strip the seals from the child and return her to her normal state without harming her?"
"With Jiraiya here, her risk of death would drop down to about fifteen percent. I can't predict what she'll look like after the henge has been reversed, it may take several surgeries to do so since her chakra coils were affected too, but I'm guessing she's a Hoshigaki. The Kaguya are too valuable to use as spies." Both clans had significant physical differences, some would call them defects, brought about by their kekkei genkai, though if the child had shown any signs of inheriting either kekkei genkai she would have been sent back to Kiri immediately.
"Hm. And her parents?"
"They're with Ibiki." Seeing his questioning look, she clarified. "I requisitioned most of his torturers to serve as temporary medics, they're all trained as medics anyway, so he's understaffed at the moment and probably dealing with them personally." She shifted her attention back to the child in her arms. "Could you get one of your ANBU to put her in secure place, I have other things to do right now."
"Of course." He raised an arm and a figure in a canine mask appeared at his side. "Hound, please secure the child in ANBU headquarters." The figure took the child and left as soundlessly as he'd appeared.
He followed Tsunade into the depths of the hospital and noticed the slight tensing of her body and the way her fingers clenched and unclenched at her sides. No doubt the overcrowded hospital reminded her of the war. Suddenly, she stopped and Hiruzen nearly ran into her. Peeking over her shoulder (It still humiliated him to now be shorter than all of his students) he noted the cause of her distress. A young man who had rolled off of one of the many mattresses which lined the halls of the overtaxed hospital and now lay in a rapidly growing pool of his own blood.
"Idiot ripped out his stitches." Tsunade muttered to herself and it would have taken someone who knew her very, very well to notice the tremor in her voice and hands as she knelt by the young mans side, hands glowing green with healing chakra. After a few moments, her chakra receded into her hands once again and she rose to her feet. "Somebody dispose of the corpse and clean up the blood." She ordered as she grabbed a washcloth and furiously scrubbed at the blood on her hands. "Now."
As the orderlies scurried to do her bidding, she strode forward and reached a door at the end of the hallway which she promptly threw open. Inside what would have normally been a single patient room there were four gurneys with four inhabitants, and two more lying on the floor. As Tsunade walked over to a heavily bandaged figure on the floor, a small child attached herself to her leg. "Hello Sayori. I have to take care of Shizune-chan right now." The figure showed no signs of moving so Tsunade sighed and picked her up. "This is Hiruzen Sarutobi-san, Third Hokage of Konohagakure." She said as she turned around and faced him. "I want you to stay with him while I take care of Shizune-chan, okay?" The girl could not have been more than five years old. She was dark skinned, with dark brown hair and eyes. Hiruzen smiled gently at her, his curiousity piqued. She did not wear the Senju crest on her clothing but the resemblance to Tsunade was unmistakable.
"Hello Sayori-chan, it is an honour to meet you." He bowed and was rewarded with a small smile as the girl hesitantly walked over to where he stood, having been put down by Tsunade. He picked her up easily, she was quite light, and focused his attention on Shizune. The butcher of Numa was small and pale under her bandages, her eyes closed and breathing shallow. "I'm surprised she made it all the way here." He said conversationally as Sayori tugged on his beard, facial hair being an apparent novelty to her.
"You shouldn't be. She's stronger than you think." She said as she gently peeled off the final layer of bandages, revealing horrifyingly familiar wounds. Shizune's flesh had been cut and torn and in some places sheared off entirely, the gouges left all in the same vaguely triangular pattern. Her left shoulder and the left side of her face were affected the worst, and he knew that they would leave terrible scars.
"Sameheda. What has the Mizukage done?" The Third Mizukage was a cruel and brutal man, but he was not rash enough to provoke a Sannin and Konoha with her.
"You should thank him. Had he not found out that the great Tsunade was reduced to a shivering wreck at the sight of blood he would never have sent his swordsmen after me and I would never have overcome that fear." She furrowed her brow. "Shizune tried to take them all on herself, lead them away from me. I couldn't let her die. If I hadn't been such a coward it would never have come to this." She smirked suddenly, a cold and brutal thing that she had worn often when she was young. "Though with Sameheda gone I suppose any replacements he manages to scrounge up will be the Six Swordsmen of the Mist. Doesn't have the same ring to it does it?"
"I see." The destruction of Sameheda and the death of the Seven Swordsmen was good news. Now that Tsunade's reputation had been restored, Konoha would only prosper. With Tsunade back in the village, even Onoki would have to think twice before provoking them. The Mizukage truly had done him an immense favour.
"Will Shizune-nee-chan be okay?" Sayori asked suddenly, though she did not look at Shizune herself. The girl seemed oddly at home in the cold stark setting of the hospital room.
"Yes. She'll scar but she'll be okay. If it weren't for the chakra exhaustion she'd be up already." Tsunade replied as the last of Shizune's bandages went into place. She stood up. "Come on old man, we need to have a little talk before I take a look at the new vessel." She took Sayori from him and walked out of the room.
The walk back to the Hokage's Tower was silent but for Sayori's occasional questions and fraught with tension. Hiruzen took some comfort in the fact that the citizens of Konoha saw only a legend and a Hokage walking among them once again. He felt vaguely guilty when he settled into the Hokage's seat in the Hokage's office as though it was his (it had been once) but perhaps Tsunade would fill the position of Minato as he no longer could.
"So, I'm assuming the child is yours?" He asked once the doors were shut and Sayori playing with a nearby ANBU agent.
"Might as well be." She responded vaguely. "I'm going to adopt her and name her heir to the Senju clan. Not looking forward to the paperwork."
"Are you sure that's wise?" He asked, surprised by the blunt admission that the child was not hers. "If she is not a Senju by blood than-"
"She's got the Mokuton and is therefore a Senju by blood. And no, she's not like Tenzo, I've already run all of the tests and there are no trace of my grandfathers cells in her, she got the Mokuton all on her own. Her parents and relatives are long dead."
Hiruzen blinked, surprised. "Well, I'm afraid you have more paperwork to deal with than you feared. While you were gone the Senju clan was dissolved since there was only one living member that we knew of and removed from the Council." She looked like she'd been expecting that. "I can place you back on the council automatically but the reinstatement of your clan will require a more bureaucratic approach."
"Take your Council seat, I don't want it." Tsunade crossed her arms across her chest. "You should have dissolved that thing years ago and giving me access to it will be a slap in the face to every other clan there, especially the Uchiha."
"No, you will take the Council seat. Adopt Shizune into the Senju clan and name her your representative if you must but I will not let you weasel your way out of responsibility this time Tsunade." His face and his bearing were stern.
Tsunade was not fooled. "You… want to piss the Uchiha off don't you?" Her eyes widened slightly as she considered the implications of the move Hiruzen was about to make. "Have you gone insane? The Uchiha are the most powerful and prestigious clan in the village, a move like this would be spitting in the face of the pact our forefathers made, it's going to open all of the old wounds and let them fester, it's-"
"Do you think I have not considered all of this?" Hiruzen interrupted her. "I did not get this long as Hokage by blindly ignoring village politics."
"Then why-"
"Biwako was present when the Kyuubi was ripped out of Kushina, and she managed to keep herself alive until my agents could reach her." Her death was a raw wound and saying her name aggravated it. "She says that it was a masked Uchiha who attacked Kushina as she was giving birth and released the beast."
"So you're going to punish an entire clan for the actions of one person?"
"I have no intentions of punishing the Uchiha, but I do think that in light of this devastation having one of the founding clans of Konoha restored to the Council would be a good thing, for civilians and shinobi alike."
"So one woman and a child constitute a clan now old man?" Despite her protestations some of the fire had gone out of Tsunade.
"I am the Hokage, what I say is law and if the Mokuton is truly present in this girl than few people will object." He could tell he was wearing her down. "Be reasonable Tsunade. The Senju estate may have been destroyed by the Kyuubi but the Will of Fire remains strong in both Konoha and it's citizens. I have made many mistakes but re-instating the Senju clan is not one of them."
Tsunade was silent for a while. "Fine. But before I do anything else, there's something I want to confirm." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "You knew that Dan would die when you sent him out on that mission." Her voice was not accusing, there was no fury or sorrow or pain in her eyes, just a flat resignation.
He did not know what to say to her. What could he say to her? That the Yamanaka would have killed Dan themselves for fear of his techniques, perversions of their own? That he had needed the young lords favour, but could not be seen refusing a contract on him, that most of all he needed her, the last Senju, the Sannin, whose name was feared by ninja twice her age, that he needed her back on the battlefield before she was lost forever to Dan's idealism and petty civilian honor? Before she'd met Dan she'd been perfect, the brilliant, ruthless kunoichi, ready to kill and follow orders without question, a weapon to be wielded in battle with impunity. After she'd met him she refused to go on assassination missions, she spent more and more time in the hospital, letting the skills that had kept her alive through thousands of bloody battles soften and go to waste. He had hoped to put her back on track, he'd had no choice, and instead he'd crippled her.
His silence was all that she needed. "You old bastard. You can't even say it can you?"
"Tsunade, I have made a great many mistakes-"
"The only thing that went wrong for you was my reaction. Sending Dan to his death was a never a mistake. Not for you."
"A Kage must make such decisions for the good of his village." And he knew as he said it that he had just destroyed any chance of her ever becoming Hokage.
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess they do." She moved to leave. "So are you going to show me the vessel or what?"
"His identity is to be kept a secret. Speaking of it for any reason will be tantamount to treason." Hiruzen said as they moved into the dark, familiar depths of the ANBU tunnels below the Tower. "His name is Naruto Uzumaki. He is Kushina's child." And they said no more until they came to the heavily guarded room where Naruto was being kept until Jiraiya could tell them if his seal would hold.
The seals that were painted upon every available surface were intricate and chilling to behold. They had been based off of Mito Senju's designs, and included many prayers to the gods. Hiruzen did not know if those prayers did anything for the seal or if they were merely added to give the maker some degree of comfort. No doubt Biwako would have known.
Tsunade strode up to the crib in the middle of the room without any of the fear or tension she had shown in the hospital and smiled down at the Kyuubi's latest vessel. "Well you don't look much like your mother, but you certainly have her smile." She informed the small, silent Naruto before picking him up and letting her chakra wash over his body. "His chakra coils are under too much stress with all of the extra seals around here. He should be moved out as soon as possible." She made a face suddenly. "I'll take care of him. Wouldn't want the orphanage workers getting any clever ideas and this way you won't have to spare an extra ANBU team to watch him." She sounded as though she were justifying her decision to herself.
"That is very generous of you Tsunade." Hiruzen said, surprised.
"Yeah, well we're distant cousins or something. Wouldn't feel right to leave him to the wolves." She ran her fingers through her hair. "Besides, Shizune would insist on taking care of him if I didn't so I'm stuck with him either way."
"I will provide you with a house." Hiruzen told her as they left the heavily guarded room. Seeing her open her mouth to protest, he cut her off. "All of the Senju holdings were destroyed during the Kyuubi attack. You have no place to live. Therefore, I'm giving you a house, no complaints."
"Make sure it has high walls." Was her only response to that.
"I know just the one, I'll have Hound escort you there." The masked figure appeared silently as they entered the Tower, and as Hiruzen gave Hound his orders, Sayori came into the room and attached herself to Tsunade's leg once again.
"Mom, are we going home?" She asked and Hiruzen was surprised by how easily she called Tsunade her mother.
"Yeah, kid, we're going home." Tsunade said softly.
Hiruzen watched them leave with a heavy heart. He would have his own medics confirm Tsunade's claims but a child with the Mokuton raised more questions, especially if she was not Tsunade's child. The Senju had been very careful about keeping their bloodline within Konoha, and he had an awful suspicion that Orochimaru was somehow involved in Sayori's birth. If he was, there would be no choice but to kill her before his plans came to fruition. Perhaps Jiraiya, when he arrived, would be able to weasel the truth out of Tsunade.
Jiraiya picked up the child Minato had entrusted to him with a careful touch. The poor thing looked so fragile that he was almost afraid to hold it while he inspected the seal. "Not the same one as Kushina's." He muttered to himself, intrigued.
"Is that good or bad?" The Third Hokage asked him.
"For the kid? It's good, it's really good. Kushina's seal was designed to be something that allowed the Kyuubi to be used as a weapon but it had a whole range of nasty side effects for her, including the pressure it placed on her psyche to be in such close contact with a demon all the time. Naruto's seal is designed more like a storage seal, if I'm right the Fox won't even be able to influence him at all unless he's put in life threatening situations. The benefits of being a jinchuuriki will still be there, the rapid healing, the massive chakra reserves, but none of the negatives will be. Hell I'm willing to bet that Naruto won't even be able to call on the Fox's chakra unless he meets with the creature directly." He examined the seal on the boy's stomach. "Kushina and Minato made sure that he'd be well protected from the Kyuubi."
"Hm. Will the seal hold?"
"Yeah it'll hold. I won't go into specifics but unless somebody tampers with it, it should hold until the day he dies." He swallowed, uncomfortable. "But uh, I know I'm his godfather and all but I've got other things I've gotta do and really I think I can protect him better from a distance and you know I'd make a terrible parent anyway, so-"
"That's alright, Tsunade has already volunteered to be Naruto's caretaker." Hiruzen smiled at the shock on his students face. "She arrived shortly before you did. Apparently the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist attacked her while she was in the Land of Coral and managed to overcome her fear of blood when Shizune was injured. Needless to say, the Mizukage will have to find some new swordsmen." His face turned grave. "However, there is something else that we must discuss before you deliver Naruto to her." He flicked his fingers and the ANBU agents surrounding them left the room, leaving Jiraiya alone with his sensei and the child in his arms. "She brought home a child gifted with the Mokuton, and it is not her own. She intends to name her heir to the Senju clan. Tsunade refuses to tell me her true parentage, and I fear that Orochimaru may have been involved."
"I'll get the truth from her." Jiraiya promised solemnly. "But what are you planning to do if the kid was created by Orochimaru?" Even now, after all these years, the name still felt like ashes on his tongue.
"I fear I may be forced to kill her to stop whatever plans he may have in motion."
"Surely there's no need for that."
"Do you think I enjoy plotting the deaths of children Jiraiya?" Hiruzen asked sharply. "If Orochimaru had any hand in creating that child then she is a threat-"
"So's Tenzo and I don't see you putting out any kill orders on him." Jiraiya snapped back.
"Tenzo was three days old when we found him, far too young to have had any hatred for Konoha planted into his subconscious. This girl is five-"
Jiraiya broke into raucous laughter. "You mean to tell me that you're so afraid of a five year old that you're willing to have her killed? You failed to kill Orochimaru once and the world has suffered for it but I am not letting you kill an innocent child over your guilt. If she's been created by Orochimaru, Tsunade and I will find some way to cleanse the kid of his presence but I am not letting you kill her!" Naruto started wailing and Jiraiya's expression abruptly changed from one of hardened determination to one of sheer panic. "Shit what'd I do?"
"You're holding him wrong." Hiruzen took the wailing Naruto from Jiraiya. "Let's get over to visit Tsunade, hm?"
In the backyard of their new house, safely kept out of sight by the high walls and genjutsu Tsunade had set up, Sayori threw the kunai into the training post with a determined look in her eye and it embedded itself near the center. She had been aiming for the edge. Tsunade sighed slightly. If her daughter (the word still felt uncomfortable to her, and it made her nervous to be addressed as though she were a mother) was going to survive as a ninja she would need to be a lot better than that and Tsunade mentally made adjustments to the already extremely punishing training regimen she had made for Sayori.
"Tsunade!" A disturbingly familiar voice bellowed. "Light of my life, apple of my eye, tell me how much you missed me!" Jiraiya approached her with his arms thrown out wide as though he were expecting a hug and Tsunade promptly buried a fist into his stomach. "That much, huh? I'm practically brought to tears by your concern for my well-being." He said after he'd recovered. "Manly tears mind you. Manly."
"What do you want Jiraiya?" Tsunade asked as Sayori clung to her leg, another habit she'd have to break her out of.
"Why, only to see my beloved teammate again after all these years. Also to drop Naruto-chan off and make sure your house is properly sealed against intruders. Also to introduce myself to this lovely young lady." He gave a sweeping bow, which caused his long white hair to fall from his back to the ground. "I am Jiraiya, Toad Sage and one of the Legendary Sannin! You are?"
"Her name's Sayori and she's not talking with you!" Tsunade snapped, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Have you been flirting with Shizune?"
"Of course not, she's not eighteen yet!" He looked offended but then his face warped into his customary leer. "But when she is…"
He barely managed to dodge Tsunade's next blow and was only saved from a terrible grisly death when Shizune herself barged into the backyard, her bandages gone, her fresh scars exposed and holding a small bundle. "Tsunade, Sayori come look at him, isn't he adorable?" Sayori, who had been forced to let go of Tsunade's leg when she went after Jiraiya, attached herself to Shizune instead. "Sayori look, this is your cousin Naruto."
"I don't have any cousins, Shizune-nee-chan." Sayori said, looking troubled.
"The Senju and the Uzumaki clans are descended from a common ancestor, though they don't have any kekkei genkai." Tsunade explained. "It's distant, but he's our cousin and since his parents died when the Kyuubi attacked we'll be taking care of him."
"I'll put him in his crib, I think Hokage-sama wants to talk to you." Shizune said as she disappeared back into the house.
Tsunade walked into the house, brushed past Hiruzen, and grabbed a bottle of sake, which she promptly took a swig from. "I've talked to you too much lately." She grumbled. "It's getting annoying."
Shizune, who had deposited Naruto in his crib, walked back into the room and glared at Tsunade. "You're not supposed to drink in front of Sayori, you're setting a terrible example!"
Tsunade looked at her daughter. "Sayori, never drink alcohol."
Sayori looked at her mother. "I won't."
Tsunade shrugged. "See? Problem solved." She said over Shizune's enraged protests.
"Ladies, ladies, please calm yourselves." Jiraiya said, stepping in between the two. "We did come here to discuss something very important, after all."
"Which is?" Tsunade asked, suspicious.
"The parentage of little Sayori here and whether Orochimaru was involved in her formative years or not." Jiraiya raised his hand to still her objections, his face and posture suddenly serious. "I have no intentions of letting anyone kill her or take her away from you, but if Orochimaru is involved she may still have traces of his influence on her. I am the seal master after all, not you."
Tsunade sighed loudly and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I've already eliminated all of the seals. She's too young to have most of them applied anyway."
"So Orochimaru was involved with her creation." Hiruzen said, his eyes wary. "Why did you not tell me of this?"
"Because you were too weak to kill him before and you're too weak to kill him now, so you'd have wanted her dead instead." The tension in the room was growing thick. "Shizune, take Sayori to Naruto-chan's room and have her help you unpack." She looked like she might object at first, but she grabbed Sayori's hand and dragged her to the room. Tsunade took another swallow of sake. "So old man you want to know what your favourite student has been up to?" She sat down on her couch.
"I want to eliminate any potential threats to the village, Tsunade-hime. That's all I've ever wanted."
"Now are you gonna tell us who her parents are or what?" Jiraiya asked cheerfully as he sat down in the armchair opposite her, his feet propped up on the coffee table.
"Her parents are Hashirama Senju and some nameless peasant girl whose body I found in pieces in Orochimaru's main lab." She spoke quickly before they could interrupt her further. "No I have no idea how he did it but Orochimaru somehow got hold of my grandfathers stem cells and managed to manufacture sperm from them. Then he artificially inseminated sixty women from the Land of Coral. Thirty-nine of them miscarried. Two were stillborn. The remaining nineteen were kept in a facility hidden on an island just inside the Land of Coral's waters and tested for the Mokuton. Five inherited it, the other fourteen were discarded. Sayori is the only one of those five left. The others died in experiments or just because Orochimaru felt sadistic that day." She tried to banish the memory of how some of the bodies had looked when they'd been found, but it niggled at the back of her mind incessantly.
"How did you know where to find him? I've been searching for him for years and I've only ever found traces of his facilities." Jiraiya asked.
Tsunade snorted. "Who do you think told the Mizukage about my hemophobia in the first place? I don't know what Orochimaru wanted from the Mizukage but apparently my location, my weaknesses and my fears were what the Mizukage wanted in return." The current ruler of Kirigakure had never forgiven her for her role in the near extinction of his clan.
"He could have sold vital village intelligence to Kiri and you only tell me now?" Hiruzen sounded disbelieving.
"If he had you'd've known by now. Anyway I found the lab, and Sayori, when I managed to kill off five of the swordsmen. The wielders of Sameheda and Hiramekarei fled to Orochimaru's base to receive backup from him. Apparently he promised he would be there." She smirked. "He wasn't. When Shizune and I arrived, the wielder of Sameheda had killed the wielder of Hiramekarei for his chakra and fused with the sword."
"Fused?" Jiraiya asked.
"Yeah, fused. Apparently Sameheda was a sentient thing that fed upon the chakra of its victims, and its wielder. When it fused with the wielder it gave her its abilities, and significantly physically altered her as well." Though she wasn't about to admit it, it had been one of the hardest fights of her life with her so out of shape and Shizune wounded. "I smashed it after the battle was done. Then, once Shizune was stable, I started exploring the base. Sayori wasn't the only experiment I found who was alive, but she was the only one willing to cooperate with me." She sighed and let her head fall back. "There were no less than three dead man's switches on her body, a recording seal wired directly into her skull, seals to enhance speed, strength and agility located on her spine, seals to increase resistance to poison, seals to do god knows what all over her. She was practically covered with them."
"You deactivated them yourself?" Jiraiya sounded dubious. Sealing had never been Tsunade's area of study.
"Yes. I asked Kaguyu to help me okay, she knows a lot about seals." Tsunade said a touch defensively after Jiraiya looked doubtful.
"You want me to take a look at her?" Jiraiya asked.
"I doubt you'll find anything but sure." She replied finally. She looked at Hiruzen, who still stood. "Old man, there's something you should know." She closed her eyes. "You and the Uchiha and the Hyuuga and everyone with a kekkei genkai should know. When I was in Orochimaru's lab, I found research on a method to allow the soul to switch bodies."
"I know." Hiruzen interrupted her. "We found the same thing in his laboratory under Konoha."
"What you don't know is that the technique is nearly perfected." She responded grimly. "He's already worked out a way to make the switch, he just doesn't understand how to keep the replacement body from decaying after a few weeks due to stress between the new soul and the body. He was planning on using Sayori as a new body eventually, because of her Mokuton."
"And he will not stop there." Hiruzen sounded grim. "The Sharingan especially would be invaluable to his quest to learn all of the worlds jutsu." He leaned heavily on his cane and Tsunade was reminded of just how old he really was. "However, this does not convince me that the child remains free from his influence. He could have wanted you to find her and bring her here."
"I'm not letting you kill her." Tsunade said, her fingers clenching into fists.
"Nor am I suggesting that you do. I'm merely questioning the extent of his influence over her."
"His influence has been removed-"
You know." Jiraiya interrupted. "I could just examine the kid for seals and then go on my merry way but if you want me to keep on drinking your sake and listening to you argue I'm more than happy to do so." He had in fact, grabbed a bottle of sake and was taking occasional sips.
Tsunade turned her head. "Sayori!" She yelled. "Get in here!" When the dark-skinned girl did appear, she trotted obediently over to Tsunade, with Shizune and Tonton following close behind. Tonton let out an irritated grunt when she saw Tsunade and Jiraiya drinking without her, so Tsunade filled a dish with sake and laid it on the floor. Tonton immediately began drinking from it, a satisfied look on her face. "Sayori, Jiraiya is going to look you over for any seals that Orochimaru might have put on you. He won't hurt you, I'll kill him if he does, I promise." Ignoring Jiraiya's protests she lifted Sayori onto the coffee table. "Okay?"
"Okay." Sayori's voice was small.
The examination took a little over ten minutes, and Jiraiya found nothing but a strange seal on the sole of her left foot whose only purpose appeared to be inflaming the chakra coils of her body and forcing them to develop faster. "Well, that's it. You did a good job in removing those seals. Take good care of Naruto okay?"
"Report to the hospital tomorrow at ten, I'll need your help in an operation." Tsunade told him as he stepped out the door and he grunted in response. "You can leave now old man."
Hiruzen did not move. "Do you think you can heal the damage to her mind as well as her body?"
Tsunade was still for a moment. "I don't know." She admitted finally. "I hope so, but I don't know."
"Hm. I'll leave her in your care for now, but if Orochimaru does use her for any of his plans, you will be held responsible for the lives lost. Good day." With that, he left the house too.
"Is he going to kill me?" Sayori asked. The prospect of her death did not seem to frighten her, her voice was as level as it had been earlier.
"No. Never. Let's practice with senbon now okay? Shizune is really good with them, she can show you a few tricks." Sayori nodded and ran to the backyard but the feeling of unease Hiruzen's words had left with Tsunade didn't leave. If Orochimaru did hold any influence over her child, she was as good as dead.
AN: I really, really don't like writing fight scenes, I'm kind of crap at them. So uh enjoy this new story about Tsunade returning to Konoha and the consequences that follow.