"… I hope you understand what I'm offering you, my old friend Tsunade. I will give you a week to consider, but you must have your answer by then."
The man, Orochimaru, left with Kabuto in tow. Tsunade was so conflicted. She had absolutely no idea what to do. The prospect of seeing the two men she cared about most, her lover and her brother, made her heart ache so bad. But was it truly worth it? To give Orochimaru his arsenal of jutsu back would be the same as forsaking the dreams of the men she held closest to her heart. Ah, Tsunade could really go for some sake right now…
Shizune's voice pulled her out of her thoughts. "Milady!" Shizune had finally found Tsunade. "What happened?" She looked around at all the destruction, alarmed.
A tick appeared on Tsunade's forehead. Sometimes, she truly hated how overprotective Shizune could act. It could be so annoying. "I don't wanna talk about it… let's just go to the local bar and get something to eat. I could eat a horse right now." And so Tsunade began to drown her sorrows in alcohol once again.
A few minutes later
"HURRY UP, NARUTO!" shouted a very annoyed Jiraiya.
"Gimme a break, Ero-Sennin! I'm so hungryyyyyy!" Naruto, of course, was just as fed up of his sensei as he was of him.
They arrived at the place where Tsunade had been talking to Orochimaru, only to find a bit of rubble. Jiraiya cursed under his breath.
"This is all your fault! If you had been faster, I would've found her!"
"You pervert! Who the hell gave you the authority to stalk a woman and call it a mission?"
"This one's a special woman, Naruto! You'll understand when you meet her, okay? You know what, forget it. I'm tired. Let's just go somewhere and get dinner, then crash for the night."
Mini timeskip
Jiraiya and Naruto walked into the bar, and Jiraiya immediately spotted Shizune and a drunk Tsunade. He quickly grabbed Naruto's arm and dragged him over to the table.
"What the hell was that for, Ero-Sennin?" said Naruto.
Jiraiya ignored him for now. "So, we meet again… Tsunade."
Naruto studied her figure with narrowed eyes. "Ero-Sennin, I still don't see what's so special about her. I think you've been chasing her for the same reason you peep at other women."
"Shut up!" hissed Jiraiya.
Tsunade put down her sake cup and acknowledged Jiraiya. Then, she grabbed the cup again and drained it.
"WAITER! GET ME A REFILL!" Then, literally a millisecond later: "WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE SERVICE HERE!"
Jiraiya chuckled softly. Tsunade shot him a glare with her eyes narrowed. That shut the man up. He even put up his poker face as if nothing had happened. She turned the glare at Naruto. "And who's this brat?"
A tick appeared on his forehead. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki! Believe it! And I'll become Hokage one day!"
Tsunade contemplated this. Naruto Uzumaki, huh. So this is the Yellow Flash's second kid and the Nine-Tails' Jinchuuriki. I wonder where their firstborn could be right now…
In a far-off land, at a dango stand (hey, that rhymes!), a certain kunoichi sneezed and Itachi said "bless you", almost reflexively. [Terrible humor, I know]
"Tsunade," interrupted Jiraiya. "I've been looking for you for a while now. I came here to tell you… that Konoha needs a new Hokage. You've been appointed as the Godaime."
Naruto was about to pounce on the two for totally ignoring him, but at the mention of this, he choked on his water.
"WHAT!"
"Keep it down, Naruto!" hissed Jiraiya. "Anyways, we really need you back, Tsunade. Please, co-"
"No. I refuse."
"We need a new Hokage. Sarutobi-Sensei is dead."
"Jiraiya, no means no."
Naruto butted in. He jumped up on the table and leaned in Tsunade's face. "What the hell, old lady! (a tick appeared on Tsunade's head) Don't you know how big that is?"
Tsunade headbutted him with a bit of chakra. He was really pushing her buttons here. "You shut up! Talking about Hokage like you're so high and mighty. You don't know anything!"
The manager came to the table at this point. Tsunade and Naruto found themselves outside.
Tsunade got a tick on her forehead again. "Look what you've done, you brat! I just wanted a good cup of sake!"
"Shut up, you grandma," he replied. The tick grew. "You're the one who rejected the position of Hokage!"
"You wanna fight?" Tsunade balled one hand into a fist, which began to glow with chakra.
"I'll destroy you, old lady!"
Tsunade scoffed. "Tell you what, I'll only use a finger to drive you into the ground!"
Naruto charged at her with his chakra blades drawn. Tsunade sidestepped him, hooked her finger through his forehead protector, and pulled him back. He fell to the ground. Having vented her anger, Tsunade was finally thinking more rationally. "Hey brat," she began, "why are you so touchy about Hokage anyway?"
Naruto softened when he realized it was a genuine question. "Because that is my dream. To become the greatest Hokage and solve people's problems."
Tsunade was taken aback by how the words rolled off his tongue. A tear threatened to fall down her face as she was reminded of her brother, Nawaki, and her lover, Dan. In their day, both had dreamed of the very thing Naruto had just uttered.
As Tsunade was lost in her reverie, she vaguely noticed a spiraling ball of chakra.
"Rasengan!"
She simply made a chakra needle and popped the Rasengan. Then, without thinking, she pulled the boy in and planted a soft kiss on his forehead. Then, she stepped back, reached into her robes, and pulled up a necklace.
"Your Rasengan is terrible. But you know what? I wanna make a bet with you. If you can master the Rasengan in, say, 2 weeks, I'll give you this necklace. It was my grandfather's."
"You're on, grandma! Watch me nail this in one!"
Tsunade smirked. Bad luck or not, there's no way I can lose this bet.
Naruto worked diligently on his Rasengan. At one point, about three days in, he went off somewhere to a forest to practice on the trees and didn't come back until the night before the last day. That happened when Shizune finally found him passed out on the ground where he had been training the entire time. Most of the trees had been destroyed by Naruto at some point after he had mastered the Rasengan.
Shizune reached the room with an unconscious Naruto and managed to get him on the bed. Then she promptly went to her room to get some sleep.
The next morning, Shizune woke up to find that Tsunade was gone, Naruto was back to normal, and Jiraiya was not looking too good.
"What happened, Jiraiya-san?"
"Curze zat Zoonade," he slurred in response. "shee jugged my jink wen I wazent loookinngg… I cant conjole my jakra." ("Curse that Tsunade! She drugged my drink when I wasn't looking… I can't control my chakra.")
Shizune gasped in shock. "No… we have to go after her, Jiraiya!"
Naruto walked back into the room with a cup of ramen. "What's going on? Did something happen to Granny Tsunade?"
Shizune nodded.
Naruto was pissed. "Well, we have to go after her! She didn't even wait for the bet to be over!"
From another building, Kabuto watched this through the window. Dammit, he thought, I can't kill that lady. Oh well, at least it seems that Tsunade will fix Lord Orochimaru's arms. He went back to report to Orochimaru.
Timeskip
"So, Tsunade, what do you say to my offer?"
Before Tsunade could say anything, a giant toad with Jiraiya on top appeared and attacked Orochimaru. Naruto jumped out and smashed Kabuto with his Rasengan.
Tsunade could only watch with wide eyes. No way… he actually mastered it!
But then, she remembered why she was here in the first place. "What the hell are you doing here!" she said, a tick on her forehead. "I didn't ask for you to butt in!"
"Tsunade, I can't let you betray Konoha. If you don't agree to help us, I will have to kill you. You need to get over Dan and Nawaki. They're dead."
Tsunade sighed. She knew Jiraiya was right, but her heart wouldn't stop yearning for that chance to see them again. But then her thoughts drifted to Naruto.
"I know what you're thinking, Tsunade. I bet that you realize their dreams live on in him."
Tsunade didn't know what to say. She was so conflicted. Where was the sake when she needed it most, dammit?
Naruto was trying to fight against Kabuto, but he had pushed him all the way back to where Tsunade was standing.
And it was here that the Talk No Jutsu's power began to shine once more. (haha)
"Granny Tsunade… did you see my Rasengan? I won the bet! Now gimme that necklace and accept the position of Hokage! Ero-Sennin told me about Nawaki and Dan. You have to do it, baa-chan! For them! What kind of person lets the dreams of their precious people die with them? Granny Tsunade, that's why I'll put my life on the line for you right here and right now! It's sad that I don't get to be the next Hokage after Old Man Sandaime, but until my time comes, I'm not gonna die, and you shouldn't throw your life away either!"
Tsunade was deeply moved by what Naruto said. Even though people like Naruto and Jiraiya could act stupid at times, she really was thankful that their kind existed to barge into the lives of others and show them the light.
She realized what she needed to do. Tsunade activated her Strength of a Hundred Seal. The markings began to creep down her skin. "Naruto, step aside!"
With incredible speed, Tsunade pummeled Kabuto and used medical ninjutsu to mess up his nervous system and switch around the results of various signals. Kabuto couldn't control himself. When he tried to get up, his hand would wiggle around instead. When he tried to do that, his right ankle would move. When he tried to do that, his other hand would slap him in the face.
As Tsunade took the time to heal Naruto (he had taken quite a few blows), Kabuto had managed to figure out which signal triggered which action. He got up and formed a scalpel-like thing as an extension of his dominant arm. He rushed Tsunade, and they exchanged a flurry of attacks until Kabuto used his chakra scalpel to temporarily disrupt/sever the connections between Tsunade's nerves and her muscles. Now, she was the one who couldn't move. Kabuto pulled out his kunai and moved in for the kill. But Naruto got in the way and stopped Kabuto's hand with his own when he tried to thrust it at Tsunade. Naruto's hand was cut badly, and blood seeped from the wound.
"Naruto, what are you doing? You have to let us handle this!"
Naruto scoffed. "As if you can do anything to protect yourself from this right now."
She sighed. He was being blunt, but he was very much correct.
Naruto pulled away from the knife and prepared to attack Kabuto again. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
Kabuto swung his kunai around a bit and Naruto's blood flew into the eyes of the clones. Kabuto quickly took care of all of them. He moved in to attack Naruto but hit a log instead. Behind him, Naruto had formed another Rasengan with a Shadow Clone. He ran in to finish the job, but Kabuto dodged and used his chakra scalpel on Naruto's heart. Naruto forced extra chakra into the Rasengan, causing it to pop, and since Kabuto had barely dodged it, it had done considerable damage to him.
Naruto's vision suddenly started to go blurry and he felt his strength leaving him. In the meantime, Tsunade had managed to recover from the severed connections.
"I don't feel so good…" he said drowsily, before collapsing. Kabuto was busy trying to close the wound from the Rasengan, so Tsunade checked Naruto. His pulse was erratic. She began to worry that Dan and Nawaki's dreams would die with Naruto, so she tried to use her medical ninjutsu to fix it. Once she had verified that his pulse was okay, he started to stir. The recovery rate was absurd. Tsunade felt great relief then. And Naruto came to. "Baa-chan," he said. "I won the bet." Then he reached his hand out and mustered the energy to smirk. "That means… you give me that necklace." He grabbed its chain from the side of her neck, but wasn't quite well enough to lift it away from her just yet. Tsunade chuckled in a sad way, and took it off herself, putting it around Naruto's neck instead. She prayed that its third wearer would finally become a Hokage.
Kabuto had managed to finish quickly, and he was right behind Tsunade now, poised to strike. But this time, someone else stopped him. It was a masked kunoichi. When Naruto caught sight of her, he noticed that she had the same cloak as the person who had dragged Kisame away.
Some time ago, nearby
Minako could sense strong chakra signatures coming from somewhere. She recognized the chakra of Jiraiya and Orochimaru, and even Tsunade. Then, she sensed Naruto's chakra, but it was quite faint.
"No."
She rushed to the hotel and into her room, grabbed the Heiwa cloak and the mask, and ran toward the chakra signature. She cursed herself mentally for not having tried to put a Hiraishin formula on Naruto earlier.
Present
"Tsunade-san, thank you for tending to Naruto. I'll deal with Kabuto now."
Noting the chakra scalpel on Kabuto's arm, Minako called on the power of her tailed beast and formed a thick chakra cloak around herself. This should be enough to stop it.
Under the mask, her eyes changed again and the chakra around her took on a silvery color. Kabuto charged at Minako and slashed her arm with the chakra scalpel, but it got stuck in her chakra cloak. Minako elbowed Kabuto in the gut with her other arm, sending him flying and making him cough blood.
Rushing through some hand seals, she moved to where Kabuto was and performed a barrier jutsu programmed to release on command. Then, she turned to Jiraiya and Orochimaru.
"You look like you need help," she stated plainly.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Jiraiya had finally stopped slurring everything he said, but he was nowhere near full strength just yet. Even summoning a toad big enough to do what had just been done had taken a lot out of him.
"You can send back the toad. Summoning Jutsu!"
A werewolf-like summon appeared. "Milady," he said politely, acknowledging Minako's presence. Minako had already relayed instructions to him, so he knew what to do. He grew in size until he was about a quarter of the height at which Orochimaru's snake currently towered.
The wolf quickly gathered natural energy and created a mass of senjutsu chakra, which he molded into a longsword. He slashed at the snake with the blade. The snake moved back a bit, avoiding the blade itself, but some of the senjutsu chakra forked out from the blade, and it cut deeply. The snake was bleeding profusely now. Orochimaru couldn't let his snake die just yet, because he had so many other things he still had to use him for. So, he sent the snake back. Minako released the barrier jutsu around Kabuto at that time. Kabuto had already come to, and he ran off with Orochimaru.
Everyone who remained turned to Minako. "We really are grateful for the help, but just who are you?"
Minako's heart clenched. She wanted to tell all of them so badly, but now just wasn't the time. She took a shaky breath and composed herself. "That is irrelevant at the moment. I will reveal all in due time. That is, if you can find me."
She activated the Hiraishin Jutsu and teleported back to the room in which she was staying. She cursed herself for snapping under the pressure and not having faith in Naruto. But she didn't think she could take much more of this. She resolved to try and keep the intervention at a minimum from here on out but to always keep eyes on Naruto.
Back at the battlefield
Tsunade felt so liberated. The words that Naruto and Jiraiya had spoken to her had freed her heart of doubt and she could finally move on with her life. She finally relented and accepted the position of Godaime Hokage. The group had planned to stay in town for one more day, and then make their way to Konoha. And so they set off, bringing this chapter of the story to an end, and beginning the next.
That's a wrap. Hopefully this chapter is better than what I've written so far… Next time, we'll be taking a little break to delve into the life of Minako, starting with a profile that gives an overview of her identity and her abilities.
Next chapter: Minako Namikaze – Profile.
P.S.: I have quite a few exams to do now so I'll be out for a few weeks. The next time I update will likely be in May, if not earlier.
