"At an early age I learned that people make mistakes and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them." - Angle Thomas
Living in somebody else's shoes, Tsunade discovered, didn't get any easier with time. If anything, it got that much harder. What sheer idiocy had possessed her, enough to decide that leaving Konoha would somehow make everything stop hurting? It seemed that even thinking it had prompted the gods to meddle thus why she was five again and sporting natural pink hair.
Rebirth had made it clear for Tsunade that she and Konoha had the kind of bond nothing could break. The village was hers, fuck and she belonged there. Could this be what they call 'brain washing' at its finest?
She shook her head. It went much deeper than that. Where the heart was involved, common sense had little to say. So, what if the love and loyalty she bore Konoha threatened to cross into 'borderline insane territory' (or already did, because really, killing and being ready to die, weren't they part of the job description? Wasn't the most natural thing in the world for shinobi to breathe and ultimately stop breathing for their comrades? Wasn't pure instinct that had you protecting your teammates and your client and anyone who could or couldn't protect themselves despite knowing you might die? Wasn't being capable of torture and murder for your village the most worthy of terror and awe-inspiring feat?)
Tsunade didn't died because Jiraiya and Orochimaru had asked that she help them. No, she didn't even die because of the fucker that killed her. Tsunade died because of her own choices. She chose to leave, had her bags and Shizune's prepared, had money in her bra and a bottle of Konoha's best sake tucked under her armpits. The village had called for its blonde, legendary soldier, however.
She, of course, answered the call without giving much thought to it. Her last battle for something good and oh so precious before she ran away like the coward she was and drank herself into 'older than dirt' age.
It made sense to her.
Until it didn't.
Nothing else did after that. Dying, that is and then living, again. As if nothing even happened. Some days Tsunade felt as if she were an intruder in her own village. So much had changed over the years and few people remained of those she had healed and fought besides. Seeing the brats she used to know as...well, brats, be all grown-up was surreal.
They were full-fledged shinobi now, having children of their own.
If she stopped to think, her class was crowded with a surprising number of clan heirs. Even back in her time, such cases were rare. Tsunade had to suppress a snort.
Shino, having inherited the Aburame observational skills, fixed her with a stare. Naruto, oblivious as ever, was busy setting-up a prank for a boy that had been particularly nasty towards him.
Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't condone such behaviour but hell, the gaki was five and Tsunade had witnessed firsthand just how cruel and unfair people were to him. If push came to shove and Umino suspected Naruto and decided to punish him, she'd shoulder the blame. It wasn't so far-fetched to believe that someone who injured a man three times her size wouldn't do the same to one of her peers if said fool did so much as touch a strand of Naruto's blonde hair.
Yes, Tsunade took her role as I'm going to regret this but sensei was stupid enough to let classified information leak and now I've got to fix his mess and oh kami isn't the brat a precious little thing? protector very seriously.
Aside from Shikamaru, Shino was the only independent thinker who could care less about the public opinion. He went out of his way to spend time with Naruto even when she wasn't present. The three of them were huddled together under a large oak tree, hiding from the afternoon sun.
Jade green eyes darted across the Academy's backyard. The chipmunk-sized version of Ino-Shika-Cho did what they were good at: boss people around, sleep and munch on food respectively. Sasuke was focused on his training, effectively ignoring all else. Kiba Inuzuka was talking animatedly to Hinata Hyuga while the poor girl pretended to be listening and not admiring Naruto's childish glory from afar.
The ones Tsunade didn't deem important would be none the wiser if a falling star descended from the heavens during day time.
It was safe to proceed.
"Did you bring it?" she asked.
Shino gave her a business-like nod, searched the inside of his trench coat then thrust the newest edition of the bingo book in her hands. The Aburame heir didn't ask why she needed it, didn't tell her that it was against the rules. Shouldn't he know better than fulfil her wishes blindly? His loyalty was ridiculous for a five-year-old.
Tsunade rather liked the kid, though. It was rare to find someone who was content with nothing but your company. "Thanks." the once blonde Sannin intoned.
She bit the inside of her cheek as she scanned the bingo book for her newest object of interest. She pressed a finger into the page when she found it. The masked picture of her ANBU guard stared back at her. That silver defying gravity hair of his was a dead giveaway. Nearly as much as her own hair was.
Name: Hatake Kakashi.
Rank: A
Warning: Beware the jutsu he calls "Chidori"
Nicknames: Copy Ninja Kakashi, Kakashi of the Sharingan...
Legacy of the White Fang.
Tsunade stopped reading and pinched the skin between her eyebrows, sighing heavily. The resemblance was there, no doubt about it. He was Sakumo's only son. She didn't understand, however. How could a warm, kind-hearted man such as her old friend allow his child to be consumed by darkness? To most people, chakra meant three things: energy, jutsu and medical ninjutsu while the sensors would wager that there was a fourth: signature.
Tsunade begged to differ. Five things. There were five things all shinobi should know about chakra. Unfortunately, the fall and demise of the Uzumaki clan had ensured few people dug deeper into what chakra actually was.
It could do and tell you plenty. Tsunade counted herself lucky. Her grandmother, an Uzumaki by birth, had taught her that chakra was infinitely more. Read correctly, chakra would reveal to you more about a person than if you sat and talked together. On that front, sensors were better than the rest but not by much. Chakra doesn't lie, Tsuna-chan. Mito told her one day over tea and dango. People do. They wear a hundred masks on top of each and then wonder why nobody seems to understand them.
Eight-year-old Tsunade had been sharp, even at that age. She gave her grandmother a flat look. But you wear a mask as well.
Mito had smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. We all do. That's part of being a shinobi, I'm afraid but know the chakra of people and no mask in this world will ever fool you.
Tsunade never forgot those words and while she didn't have reading chakra mastered down to an art, not like her grandmother did anyway, she knew enough to see that Hatake was a special case, even among the most fucked-up ninja.
Which brought forth the following conclusion: Sakumo must be KIA.
She made a mental note to check-out the Memorial Stone and see whether she was right.
Tsunade wished that she wasn't.
Newest headache aside, she figured she ought to revisit old ones. The fact that she hadn't heard a single soul mention her teammates kept her awake at night. She searched for Jiraiya first and fought a snicker. Old fool. she mused, running her fingers over the smooth surface of his picture. Even aged, he was still that same pervert and dependable comrade.
If Jirayia is present in this year edition, Tsunade concluded, then he is a far cry from dead and buried.
But why does no one talk of him?
A voice echoed faintly at the back of her mind that sounded as if it belonged to her teammate. The best spies are the ones people are too busy laughing at to suspect, hime. I will grow-up to be Konoha's finest, just you wait and see. No enemy will catch us off guard then. I would have dealt with them long before that.
Tsunade felt her lips curl upwards into a sad, nostalgic smile. You kept your word, baka. I suppose I'm selfish. The village needs you outside of its walls more than it needs you inside them.
She wondered where he was now and whether he was hungry or cold or injured or drunk on porn and dreams of peace. Whether he still mourned her death and wrote sensei hundreds of letters, only a few with purpose while the rest were just to piss him off. She wondered whether he talked Orochimaru's ear off about everything and nothing at all and whether the Snake Sannin had mellowed over the years, soft enough to indulge him but still cold and dignified to bump him on the head after a particularly tactless remark.
Tsunade flipped the rest of the pages until she got to the last one.
The book slipped through her hands like oil. Her legs felt weak all of a sudden. It took every ounce of self-control she had not to react violently. Or worse, start crying.
Shino, who had been watching her curiously until that moment, caught the book before it could have hit the ground. Naruto, who had just finished adding the finishing touches to his prank, saw what happened and looked at her with big, worried blue eyes. "What's wrong, Sakura-chan?"
Tsunade knew she should have somehow gathered her scattered wits to form a reply, a lie, but couldn't. She was frozen on the spot. The only thing that her mind kept repeating, much like a broken record would, trumped over any other thought or half-thought she tried having.
Orochimaru of the Sannin
Former village: Konohagakure no Sato
Nuke-nin
S-ranked criminal
Crime: experimented on children
To be killed on sight
She felt sick to the stomach. Betrayal was a difficult dish to digest but no, this was much graver than betrayal. Anything else, pretty much any other crime, she could have forgiven. Orochimaru had been jounin sensei to a team of genin once, to her brother's team of genin for crying out loud. She had watched him teach them, defend them and blame himself quietly when death took them.
He wasn't above killing foreign children, Tsunade knew. It was a hard pill to swallow that sometimes your target had yet to reach fourteen years of age.
But to experiment on Konoha's pure souls?
That would not, could not, stand. It went against everything her grandfather had envisioned for the village and Tsunade would see everyone who forgot that, crushed.
No matter what it did to her heart in the process.
Team Sannin was the one only thing that kept her going. The hope that one day, she'd get to see her friends, her family, stupid and irritating as they were, again. It wouldn't be the same because they'd look at her and see Sakura, not Tsunade but it would have been worth it. Knowing that even though she didn't make it out alive and sane, her boys did.
Too much a stretch, huh? Tsunade laughed bitterly, the sound being so alien when coming from a five-year-old that shouldn't know what heartache was. She wondered if they made a good horror story for children. The Legendary Sannin - a heartbroken spy, a dead princess and a genius gone mad.
Naruto shook her by the shoulders. "Sakura-chan." he adressed her before he snatched the bingo book from Shino's hands. He jumped to his feet and declared for all of Konoha to hear. "Did creepy guy scare you? I WILL KICK HIS BUTT WHEN I SEE HIM, BELIEVE IT!"
Shino pushed the blond back into a sitting position. "Don't be so loud." he chided him, not fond of the attention Naruto's yelling had just attracted upon them.
Tsunade ignored the stares. She barely refrained from tearing up, her bottom lip quivering, however. Facing Naruto, it struck her once more just how much of Jirayia there was in him. "Before you go around making promises, how about you become genin first?" she gave him a pointed look.
What the gaki had said touched her more than Tsunade was ready to admit.
Naruto nodded in agreement as he blushed a pretty red. "Of course." he told her in order to save face.
She would have smirked if it not for her most recent discovery. Tsunade had to leave before her cover suffered more damage.
"I will help." Shino spoke-up, surprising them both. He shut the bingo book and hid it inside his coat. "We need to grow-up and become strong shinobi until then."
"Yosh! It's decided." Naruto fist-bumped with the Aburame heir, the two of them, blissfully unaware of just how dangerous their intended target was.
When the time came, she'd ensure that they don't follow her into that battle. Tsunade had watched the life flicker away from too many people's eyes.
It was a good half an hour later before Iruka noticed he was one brat short.
She fled the Academy while no one was paying attention. Naruto had been asleep and drooling, probably dreaming about ramen if Tsunade had to take a guess while Shino thrived on studying his bugs like they presented the most beautiful puzzle known to man.
Who was she to spoil their fun?
It occurred to her, in passing, that skipping the Academy wasn't exactly wise, not if one stopped to consider her circumstances. Sarutobi-sensei hadn't yet decided whether she could be left unsupervised.
Ah, well, what's another bad call in a sea of bad calls, anyway? Tsunade kept up the pace, jumping on top of roofs to build up stamina and make her chakra reserves larger than life.
Or at least that's what she had been telling herself for the past twenty minutes. Logically speaking, she knew she shouldn't make such a big deal out of crying. At five-years-old, tearducts were supposed to be all over the place. What she just found out would have been a powerful enough trigger regardless of age. Also, it wasn't like anyone knew it was Senju Tsunade, the Slug Princess, inhabiting Haruno Sakura. To everyone else, the sight of a little girl bawling her eyes out was more than normal.
But even as a pink-haired kiddo, she already had a reputation. It's important that people started fearing and respecting her early. One less headache for Tsunade in the future. She had so many reasons to cry, though. Orochimaru's descent into the darkness was only one of them. The death of children, another. The death of her innocence, too.
Nawaki, Dan...
Who knows what tragedy had befallen Shizune as well. Or whether Jiraiya hadn't gone mad with grief himself.
Tsunade found herself picking up Naruto's habit of climbing the Hokage Mountain and sitting down on it. Only she didn't choose the Yondaime's head...but rather her grandfather's. Feet dangling over the edge of the rock, she didn't think about the danger of falling. Why should she? She had lived and breathed danger her entire life.
She can't help but wonder how Haruno Sakura would have turned out if not for her intervention. Would she have been loud, like the gaki, or more reserved, like the Uchiha?
Would she have even chosen the shinobi path? Tsunade believed so. Why dump her in someone's body who wouldn't go on to become a ninja? Her thoughts drifted to her grandfather next.
"Jii, I'd like to think you are listening and that you know it's your spoiled niece, Tsuna, talking." she paused feeling ridiculous and a little ashamed.
To think she had gone so long without speaking to him...
"How did you do it?" she continued, eyes watering once more. "Carry such a heavy burden? You built the shinobi system and though I know this isn't quite what you had in mind...Kami, half of me hopes you aren't watching, haven't been watching. But, if you do..."
Tsunade inhaled sharply, voice trembling. "I'm sorry. I failed you, I let Konoha become dark and twisted to the point where change for the better seems a faraway dream. The young generation looks promising but, they are so...fragile, too. Tiny beings that I want to shield, drag out of the Academy and make sure they never live the things you and I have. At the same time, though..."
Her expression hardened. "I know it's survival of the fittest, that there is a storm coming unlike anything Konoha has witnessed before. If reason were the solution...we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. The only way to protect those brats is to prepare them."
She wiped at her eyes, determined. "I won't let you down this time."
Tsunade kissed one of her palms before lowering it onto Hashirama's head. "I promise to come here more often. Mata oai shimashou, jii-chan." she stood up and left.
.
.
Anko wasn't amused, nor impressed with her skipping classes. "I looked everywhere for you, brat!" she barked, loud enough to rival Naruto. It occurred to her that the two of them would get along wonderfully.
Wait
DID SHE JUST CALL ME A BRAT AGAIN
Tsunade's left eyebrow twitched, her annoyingly small fists clenching and unclenching, itching to punch the name calling out of the purple-haired woman. "Stop calling me that."
She crunched low to look her in the eye, the action pissing the former blonde off even more. "Why? Pinkie doesn't like it?" Anko cooed at her, head titled to the side.
Once upon a time, the glare she was capable of giving would have scared people into submission. The one she was currently attempting probably made her look constipated or worse...cute. Tsunade wasn't trying to be cute.
SHE WANTED TO BE FEROCIOUS, DAMMIT.
"I don't hate my hair colour anymore." Cue a smug grin.
Anko watched her quietly for a few moments. "Good. You shouldn't. People will talk shit behind your back no matter how you look or what you do."
Tsunade's eyes softened. To her she sounded as though she had been speaking from experience. "But rarely to your face." the now five-year-old completed.
Anko grinned wildly, pointing a dango stick in her direction. "Never to your face if you grow-up to be a badass." she corrected, standing tall once more. "Why skip the Academy, kiddo? Iruka will pop a vein when he finds out, if he hasn't already."
I must hand it to her. This doesn't even feel like an interrogation.
Tsunade had body language mastered down to an art. Anko's was nothing short of brilliant. She gave little away. Schooling her features, the former blonde choked back a sob. "I got sad."
It's the truth, after all.
"I'm sorry, you got what now?" she stranded her ear as though she didn't hear right. The tokubetsu jonin shuffled her feet, suddenly uncomfortable. "Don't go crying on me kid. I don't know the first thing about comforting people and shit..."
Tsunade shook her head vehemently. "I won't." she retorted, a stubborn tilt to her lips. "That's why I skipped. So, people wouldn't see me cry."
A pause.
Then Anko started laughing, holding her stomach. "You are prideful for a five-year-old." she wiped a tear away from her eye. "Damn brat, look what you did. I haven't laughed to the point of tearing up since we pulled that prank on Gai all these years ago."
Brows furrowed in confusion, she scrunched up her nose.
Fuck, I'm starting to get the hang of acting like a child. Or maybe this body is pushing me from behind. Either way, it's good for my cover.
And bad for my ego.
"Who's Gai? Did Kakashi-san partake in it?" she hurriedly asked.
Anko ruffled her hair, earning another harmless glare. "Gai's part of my generation. Too gullible for his own good. We were classmates at the Academy. Hmm, I wonder if everyone would be willing to get on board and prank him again. We all have tight schedules so, I doubt it..." she started to ramble, talking to herself.
To Tsunade, she seemed...lonely.
Please let me be wrong.
Sure, the young purple-haired woman was batshit insane and grating on her nerves but she wasn't half bad.
"Kakashi..." here, Anko let out a long exhale. Eyes strayed on the horizon, she spoke. "Kakashi was different. He grew up faster than any of us. Didn't have a choice. Getting him to crack a smile, much less a laugh could have been labelled as an A-rank mission, it was that difficult. He rarely joined us at get-togethers, meant for pranks or something else and even then, he had to be dragged. I use the term 'join' lightly. He was off into his own little world most of the time, one that we couldn't hope to reach. We kept trying, of course. Inoichi-san told us it'd be good for him. Then, he joined ANBU..." as though she just woke up from a dream, Anko blinked and refused to speak more on the subject. "Don't tell Hatake I got soft while talking about him, okay kid?"
Tsunade nodded as she went over what the kunoichi had revealed, biting back a curse. ANBU training was brutal. The things you had to do afterwards? Even more so. There was a reason why Sarutobi-sensei had rejected her, Jiraiya's and Orochimaru's applications.
Her stomach churned. In the end, all his attempts at shielding them had been in vain. She had gone down fighting, Orochimaru had ventured down a path of no return while Jiraiya...
Did my death break him? Did Orochimaru's betrayal?
Did the two of them break the most optimistic soul to walk this earth?
Guilt and shame tore at her insides. Dropping the entire blame onto Orochimaru was easy, being angry and cursing him to hell and back, was easy. Admitting that she had most likely played a part in breaking Jiraiya?
Isn't.
A muffled sound of pain instantly brought her back to the present. "Where does it hurt?" Tsunade's hands nearly glowed green but she caught herself in time. Granted her current, pitiful state...she doubted she'd be of any help, even for minor injures.
Anko was clutching her left shoulder, breathing heavier than what was considered normal. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me, brat." she spoke through gritted teeth.
Tsunade's eyes narrowed, too concerned to get mad about the name calling. She grasped the sleeve of her trench coat, refusing to let this slide. "Liar." she chided, planting her legs firmly on the ground. "Tell me what's wrong. You are not fine." she hesitated for a long moment. "Do you need a medic-nin?"
Gods, the humility it took to voice that sentence, one she had never imagined herself saying.
Anko patted her head, wearing a pained smile. "I have been through much worse, believe me. The cursed mark is nothing compared to some of my most dangerous missions." she tried to assure her.
Tsunade arched a sceptical brow, not backing down.
Eventually, the pain seemed to disappear since Anko straightened up and declared that she will be taking her out to lunch, her treat.
A sigh.
She and the others don't know their luck. Were I in charge of the hospital, things would be very differently around here.
All in due time.
