Jiraiya kept trying to pester me all the next day, but I pretended deafness and hung out with Shizune as we followed after Tsunade on the way to a bigger town. It was tedious walking at basically a civilian pace, but at least I could drop the Genjutsu. Not like we could be any more conspicuous, after all. Eventually Jiraiya stopped asking and we got somewhere with a little bit of action. I followed Tsunade around in the gambling parlors; I didn't play or anything, but I did watch and offer emotional support.
She needed a lot. Like, wow. I mean, it would be one thing if she actually tried, but she… I think gambling might honestly just be habit now. She has no strategy, no attempt to apply skill, just; here's some money, now tell me I lose.
It's actually a little bit weird, she must really be genuinely unlucky because I didn't see her win a single time in nearly a dozen different games, which is just improbable. She's pretty good fun, at least. Got a mean sense of humor on her, and she always seems to act sort of excited when the dice are rolling or the cards are being shuffled or whatever. And she can hold her liquor damn well.
I learned my mistake from that first night and stuck to simple green tea whenever she got going, despite Jiraiya's attempts to ply me with alcohol, and kept my stupid mouth shut. Ugh, should have seen that coming, honestly. And Jiraiya is the sort of nosy sod to try and hassle me about stuff with no respect for emotional boundaries. Total narcissist. And! And, his smut is badly written!
He eventually tried to bribe me with some lessons on Fuinjutsu but once we were done I admitted that I really didn't know much more than I had already said. I detailed as much as I could recall with confidence but... Too much was in flux, too much potentially changed by my presence, or worse, never as it had been in my memories. And I knew at least some of the things I remembered were based more on fanon than canon; like that thing about Danzo's not so stolen arm-eyes. Maybe Tobi really was Madara, or possessed by his shade, or then again, maybe not. I wouldn't know one way or another till I had to kill the moron.
After nearly a week of following the Legendary Sucker around Jiraiya was getting ready to give up, like always, and honestly I was sort of leaning that direction myself. The subtle underhanded approach to try and tug on her heart strings hadn't worked, so we'd probably just need to let Naruto do his thing.
Ooh, creditors!
"Hey, Tsunade-hime, do you mind if I take care of these guys? I haven't had a good workout in… ugh, like a month. Jeez, I am so out of shape."
"Who the hell do you think you are kid?! I hired some real ninja to make her pay back what she owes me; a shrimp like you ain't gonna stop me gettin' what's mine!"
I smiled slowly from beneath the hood, pulling my mask into a crease as I reveled in the stupidity of civilians.
"Ooh, this is my favorite part! Come on, please? I don't think I've ever had a chance to beat the stupid out of someone for my own entertainment before!"
Perhaps her grimace wasn't meant as assent, but if we always waited for explicit orders then where would we be? ...Probably not in a universe with the Uchiha massacre, and those guys were assholes.
"Hi there! My name is Hiroki, and I'll be your un-alive-ment transition technician today!"
I threw out a brace of seals attached to kunai and hit the interlopers with a powerful auditory disorientation Genjutsu timed to the strobing lights of the flashbang tags and helped along by the subtle tickle of altered timing.
Though to me it sounded more like music.
It is pathetically easy. These ninja are probably on par with a middling Chunin squad, but the five of them couldn't work together for shit. My dodge around one clumsy sword swipe turns into a punch in the face of one of the others, pushing him into the path of a third while I twitch-Flicker my bracers into position to deflect a thrown kunai. I am smaller than them, and faster, and more flexible, and that alone would guarantee my victory, but a twist of my wrist activated the barrier Seals on my bracers, thin purple-grey circles which are just large enough to block line of sight of half the group for a moment and give me a window to throw some senbon at the other half.
"If at any time you would like to stop the un-alive-ment process, please stand motionlessly with your arms at your sides."
A pulse of chakra from my fingers and the barriers reshape themselves into long ovals with even thinner edges, and another twitch-Flicker shifts me from a blocking hold to a position behind one of the taller ones, my arm already moving so the barrier's edge can slice right through his spine. His body makes a good shield against the guy with the sword, before another deflection from me puts a thrusting kunai right into sword guy's face. Thrusting arm snaps, and a pull drives the owner's stomach into my elbow, a spike of chakra hitting his diaphragm to paralyze his breathing and drive the air out of his lungs.
"If you have any complaints regarding the quality of service provided by your technician, please address them to Senju Hashirama, care of the Pure World."
The last two are wavering, the toxins on my earlier senbon seem to be affecting one more than the other though. The healthier looking bloke tries a Fire Jutsu, a wave of flame rushing over his fallen comrades towards me before it bends to my will, superior control weaving a cocoon of my own Fire-natured chakra, forcing the jutsu to billow out and around me rather than allowing it to consume my delicate flesh. The sickly one goes down to another pair of senbon hitting him dead center in the heart and throat, before I get right up in pyro's grill. And, eyes on, scream, scream, scream, and grab, and twist, and snap, and done.
I turned to the yakuza wanna-be with my best fear Genjutsu in place.
"We hope you enjoyed the un-alive-ment process."
He ran off, a trail of fluid leaking from his pants. I winced slightly and rolled my shoulder. One too many handsprings after not being stretched out properly, think I pulled something. I looked at the fallen 'ninja' with disdain.
"Anyone got a Bingo Book? These chumps worth anything?"
I glanced at Tsunade, who was looking a little pale. Hardly any blood, but I guess she just sort of dislikes violence in general now, huh? Not good, not good, damage control-
"Ahh, sorry Tsunade-hime. Um, I'll make it up to you? If we get some bounty money we can hit up a nice casino in Tanzaku Gai. How's that sound? Good?"
She ignored my forced cheerful gesturing, and Jiraiya frowned at me, giving me a significant look for a moment before he sniffed snootily.
"Not happening. We're done here, time for you to bugger off back to Konoha. Tsunade's not interested, so the mission is a failure. And don't think I won't be writing Sensei about your conduct on this little trip."
Tsunade tore her gaze away from the bodies to scowl back at Jiraiya.
"If you want to run off with your tail between your legs feel free. But I, personally, enjoy Hiroki-kun's company. Less of a nag than some I could name."
She huffed and threw Shizune a slightly embarrassed look, who returned it with a small, sad smile. The Slug-summoner turned away and started walking out of town, before pausing and turning back to me for a moment.
"You coming or what?"
I raised an eyebrow at her, and gave Jiraiya a side eye, catching the tiniest smirk in the corner of his mouth before he reset his features to a sort of grumpy betrayal.
"Will you teach me something?"
Tsunade rolled her eyes and huffed slightly, arms crossing beneath her generous chest.
"Fine, fine. I get all the bounty money though. Come on, hurry it up."
I gave Jiraiya a return smirk and quickly dropped the corpses into sealing scrolls before running off after the prettier Sannin. Maybe this trip would be worthwhile after all.
. . .
I didn't end up learning as much as I might have from Tsunade. She already had an apprentice, and I wasn't really interested in competing for Shizune's spot anyway, so it mostly amounted to some very good pointers and the opportunity to get some more practical advice to refine my technique and a few notes on seals, particularly ones for chakra storage.
Tsunade wasn't a master of fuinjutsu but she knew her way around a brush, same as everyone on Hiruzen's Team 7, and the small bits of practical instruction helped supplement and clarify what I had gleaned from Jiraiya's notes and single grudging lesson.
Unfortunately, to hear her tell it I was an embarrassment to the entire field of medical practitioners.
"No, not like that, you need to establish a stabilizing counter flow first or the vessel will rupture under the increased pressure. Geez, did they teach you anything in Konoha?"
My cheeks heated a bit from the criticism as I corrected the error.
"Well, they did their best. I think standards must have fallen a bit in recent years. And it's peace time so I guess they didn't see a need to try and keep things in tip top shape…"
I trailed off, splitting my attention between the twitching chicken under my hands and the muttered grumbles of the Slug princess.
"... Fine! Fine, I'll go back to stupid Konoha. Just for a little bit! Ugh, why do I do this to myself? Gonna be a massive pain getting all those idiots up to snuff if you're anything to go by."
She glowered fiercely at me as I turned to look at her with a very small smile.
"But I'm not going to be Hokage damnit!"
"Of course Tsunade-hime."
. . .
A/N: I don't think it makes much sense for Tsunade to be absolutely opposed to being Hokage, and then Naruto comes along and reminders her of all the people she loved who were dead, and that's what changes her mind. I think she had to have been essentially resigned to becoming Hokage, and was looking for any excuse she could to avoid that.
I've always felt that music would be an excellent distraction while fighting, particularly for someone like Hiroki who can twitch out of the way at the last minute, paired with the ability to tweak his enemies sense of time and so on. That, and dubstep is literally the best possible music for fight scenes.