She was watching the flames of the fireplace move in their endless dance, sitting with a glass of Sake in one hand and the other passing the fabric of her haori between her fingers—the cold November breeze making a chill run down her spine. Senju Tsunade was thinking about the last events of the year. Against all odds, the 5 Ninja Villages were at peace, something her Hashirama-ojisan could only imagine in his wildest dreams, the five Kage working as a team, a shinobi alliance, a dream that the world had abandoned.
The fire's flames followed the fluid movement; it was endless, unstoppable, the reason for the name of the village's will, the one that, until recently, she led. In a way, the motion was hypnotic. Taking the last sips of the bitter elixir, Tsunade remembered her life.
Everyone saw the Senju last name as an honor; for Tsunade, the story was different. From the moment of her birth, everyone expected something from her, from her grandfather's wood element to her grandmother's chakra chains. That was only the beginning of people's expectations of her.
Despite having the help of her clan, she couldn't help but feel that she simply did not measure up to what people expected of the 'shinobi princess' of Konoha. She then did the only thing she could, train and train, and went back to training. Her 6-year-old self would be dumbfounded to hear that her 54-year-old self is grateful for the brutal training methods her uncle Tobirama applied. Above all, she was thankful for how inclement her uncle was when she was in the war ranks a few years later. And if something marked Tsunade in this life, it was war.
12 years is too cruel of an age to see your friends from the academy die in front of you
And now, looking back, she regrets growing up so quickly, Genin at age 6, Chunin by age 12, and Jonin at the prodigious age of 17. She remembers being an eager to fight Chunin and Kami; she missed being that oblivious kid running around Konoha complaining about doing D-ranks with her squad. Dammit, she missed her teammates.
Picking up a bottle that she kept in her cabinet next to a table that held some of her most precious photographs if she was going through the pain of going down memory lane today, the least she deserved was to do it while indulging in her vices.
Her teammates' people she grew up with both as ninjas and a person in general. Despite what many people thought, Orochimaru wasn't always that creepy genius obsessed with immortality. He used to be her friend and a sweet, caring guy that would do just about anything for his teammates; he was close as people you almost died next to can get. She still fondly remembers the time they laughed together at Jiraiya for being tied to the post. Or the time Jiraiya convinced him of dressing up as a rogue nin to try and gain her over as if she needed a knight in shining armor.
There was so much to be said about Jiraiya, that perverted idiot that got on her nerves trying to woo her all the time, and yet she fell for that idiot. He would probably be doing one of his eccentric happy dances after finding out that she was the one missing him after all those years of rejection. How much she wishes to have told him that his feelings were reciprocated, she tried so hard to protect him from the curse of her love, and yet it wasn't enough.
He would have been so proud of seeing Naruto accomplishing all he did. Tears pickled her eyes. Dammit! she was over it already; it was just the Sake making her nostalgic.
"Happy birthday, you perverted Baka" she said with raising the cup high in the air, drinking from it till the last drop, letting the bitterness of the liquor mask the tears falling from her eyes. "I miss you."
It was enough mourning for a day. She needed sleep, and hopefully, the amount of Sake in her system was enough to make that trip around her unconscious a non-memorable one. Tsunade wasn't in the mood for nightmares today, not today of all days.
Leaving the couch after the last few bits of wood burned in the fireplace, seeing the flames disappear as she went to her room, finally inside the covers of her bed, she let herself be welcomed to a dreamless sleep.
Tsunade loved Sake; that fact wasn't a secret to anybody. Her love for the alcoholic beverage was just as known as both her Sannin reputation and lousy luck. And today, of all days, she thanked whatever superior being existed for that liquid. She slept like a rock. She had such a lovely warm comfy rest under her covers, only topped by the dreamless sleep being a gift from Kami, and she could have stayed like that all day if it wasn't for someone banging on her door.
Reluctantly opening her eyes, voice thick with sleep, she muttered, "Shizune 5 more minutes… I'm not Hokage anymore."
The loud banging continued, but now it was accompanied by a scream, "TsunTsun is 9 am, time to wake up!"
She had to be dreaming.
She had to be dreaming because there was no way someone was using that nickname and even less that they were saying it in that voice. The same voice that woke her up every day for more than a decade. What in the hell did Sake do!?
She knew never to mix cheap Sake with an expensive one, but this had to be a bad joke. An awfully distasteful joke played by her unconscious because there was no way that the person she thought was behind the door could actually be there.
Getting up from the bed faster than she had done in years, Tsunade opened the door to find a confused-looking woman staring back at her.
"Mito Baa-chan?"