Published: 4/10/2021

Previously: Suzu makes use of her time on the road; Kushina and Jiraiya both speak to her about Minato; the Tsunade Retrieval Team comes across its first proper lead.

"I'm not interested," Tsunade said.

Jiraiya inhaled deeply. Then he began again, "Tsunade-hime, just listen. Like I said, we need—"

"I heard what you said," she snapped. "And I'm telling you I don't care. You're wasting your time."

"Tsunade-sama, please," Kushina tried. "The Hokage sent us specifically to—"

"Then he's sent you on a fool's errand. If you want to be angry, be angry with him. I'm not going back."

Some things, I thought as I shook my head with silent wonder, never changed—even things that hadn't happened. Tsunade looked over to where I was sitting and sent me a sour look.

"And? Anything from you, bratling?" she sneered.

How rude. She was definitely, I decided, trying her best to scare me off with attitude. I replied by tilting my head and giving her a vacuous smile.

"You're not fooling me with any of that," she said flatly. "There's no way an intel-nin on a mission like this is half as useless as you're pretending to be."

"Ah, but there's where you're wrong, Tsunade-sama." I laughed rather genuinely at that. "I am the very definition of superfluous window dressing. He would've sent this team without me if I hadn't horned in on it at the last possible moment." And I knew that to be true, because they had been mere hours from departure when I'd appeared unannounced at his office and demanded work.

"Suzu-chan…" Kushina frowned at me. Jiraiya eyed me contemplatively.

"You don't sound too pleased with him," Tsunade noted. She squinted at me.

"Neither do you."

"Of course not. But I'm not the one running missions for him. If you care for him as little as you imply, what are you even doing here?"

I contemplated that for a long moment. Well, there were a variety of reasons, and I was under no obligation to share any of them or even to tell her the truth. But after a moment I decided that I could part with some portion of it.

"Collecting a paycheck," I said, figuring that like appealed to like. "I'm coming off a six-month suspension. I need money."

"And that's all, is it?" Tsunade looked as unimpressed as ever. It figured she would know how to cut past half-truths. I shrugged.

"No, of course not. I'm very personally invested in the patient the Hokage wants you to heal. I want you to come back just as desperately."

"And you'll convince me by sitting in the corner and smiling at me like a bimbo, will you?"

Even I had to frown a bit then. If she kept that up she would reach Daisuke levels of aggression in half as much time. Still, negotiations were an art. I schooled my face back into neutrality.

"Oh, Tsunade-sama," I simpered at her in the most intentionally exaggerated way I knew how. "When I'm out to convince you, you'll know."

"Have you got a plan to convince her?" Jiraiya asked in the hall after the meeting had broken for a quick break. I suspected Tsunade was just stalling until Shizune returned and they could find a way to give us the slip together. Evidently Kushina was of the same mind since she stayed back in an attempt to continue persuading her.

"Not at all," I replied.

"What? Then it was all talk!"

"Of course it was all talk. Who do you take me for?" I half-laughed, half-snorted at him. "Someone with actual smarts and authority?"

"I thought you might have at least a little bit of cleverness hidden in your sleeve somewhere," he grumbled. "Minato's brat Kakashi likes to bust out strategies now and then. It's not unreasonable to think that you might do the same."

"How flattering. Kakashi's a genius, you know."

"And you're not? With the company you keep…" he gave me a side-eye. I smiled at him.

"That's the brilliance of it, don't you think? Tsunade-sama doesn't know me. She only knows the company I keep, so she can only assume she has to treat me with as much caution as she would the rest of you. I don't need to be anything more than hot air as long as I can keep up the appearance of having a gambit. I suppose in this case my mysterious origins as an intel shinobi play to my advantage." I patted his arm. "Good move, Jiraiya-sama."

"All right, so Tsunade's leery of you. What does that accomplish?"

"Why, more time for you and Kushina-nee to work something out, obviously. If she weren't worried about me springing some kind of trap I get the impression she'd be long gone from here already."

Jiraiya could only pinch the bridge of his nose at that. "You… I hate that I can't even disagree with you. I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't worried about her escaping. Truth be told, finding Tsunade's not the hard part, even if it does take a while. It's keeping hold of her that's the real challenge."

We shared a slightly weary chuckle before transitioning into a moment of companionable silence. I glanced over the hall. The boy from before was nowhere to be seen.

"What does she think I could possibly do to her, anyway?" I wondered aloud a minute or so after that.

"Not her, I think, but Shizune more likely," Jiraiya decided after a short pause. "Intel-nin have a way of dropping bombs and blackmail out of nowhere. Tsunade's cut most of her ties, but Shizune's still got family in Konoha."

"Has Shizune-san done anything worth blackmail?" I regarded him skeptically.

"Well, probably not. But she does have a number of aging relatives. It would only take a few well-placed comments to remind her of it."

"Would Shizune-san leave Tsunade-sama's side for that, though?" Judging by how long she had stuck with her teacher in the original series, I doubted it. By that time it was likely that some of her family really had already passed, but she had been right with her all the same.

"Hmm. Maybe not. In that case, she's worried you'll find a way to talk her around to our cause. Unlike Tsunade, Shizune's got a sense of ethics and a backbone besides—push her enough on her morals and she'll push back just to prove you wrong. If she finds out about Rin's story in the right way there's a good chance she'll start doing her best to convince Tsunade to return."

"Hmm. I guess Tsunade-sama doesn't have a problem blowing us off, but Shizune-san must be her weak spot."

"And she knows it. And to add to it, you're I&E, aren't you? Your lot's trained to talk people into becoming traitors. It's all part of acquiring informants and gathering intelligence. And for all Shizune's devoted to Tsunade… she is a Konoha-nin, too." Jiraya's face became thoughtful. "Now that I think about it, Minato really is sly. If all else fails, we really can try this tactic. It must be why he sent you. You'll have practiced at least a bit, even if you weren't with Imasaki and his crowd for long, and I could tell you how to do the rest. It wouldn't work coming from me because they both know me, but from a sweet-faced, sympathetic stranger like you, at odds with her Hokage but working hard to save her friend despite it…"

There was an immediate sourness in my mouth. That made me doubly resistant to the idea of it. I couldn't push back on it just for that, though. But even then…

"I don't think it's the favorable option," I said. "Even if Shizune-san is her weak spot there's no guarantee it would work. And it would be preferable not to alienate allies like that. By turning them against each other or making them pick sides."

Unexpectedly, Jiraiya dropped his large, calloused hand on my head and began ruffling my hair. "You kiddo," he said with open fondness. "No matter how hard you try to hide it, you're still soft on the inside, aren't you? All of your uncute faces are just an act. You don't want to spoil relationships if you can help it. You care as much as you ever did."

I froze up, unsure how to react. I looked up at his face and felt abruptly vulnerable. Even if I tried to cover myself up with cunning and play into the image of a manipulator picking and discarding the best plays, he knew it was an act. He had seen into my true intentions.

"It's the truth either way. If that's our opening act, we sabotage any further approaches if it fails. They won't want to deal with the village again, let alone us," I stalled, still searching for a response. Jiraiya raised an eyebrow at me.

"Hmm. That's true," he said without adding anything more. I bit my lip. Of course—he already knew that. He'd said it himself, hadn't he? If all else fails.

"...Did you think it wasn't an act?" I asked in a small voice as he continued to look at me knowingly. I found myself shrinking under his hand.

"Ah. Well, for a while I wasn't sure. When you first handed me that scroll you didn't behave in any way I'd seen you behave before. It's why I thought you were an agent."

I wound my fingers together and looked at the ground. I—supposed it couldn't be helped. If this was the profession I had chosen I had to get used to the fact that through my actions, no matter what greater good I was aiming for, people were going to get hurt. Maybe not in the same way they would have if I'd cut them, but they would. Intel work was its own kind of violence.

"That's a mistake the gentler kinds often mistake when they try to get into this field," Jiraiya told me quietly. "They think that because there are no knives there's no blood. But just because they're not breaking bodies doesn't mean they're not breaking hearts. And heaven knows what kind of bloodshed happens then."

"I knew it was naive," I whispered back at him. "Even when I was going into it, thinking that this was the better way. Deep down I still knew. That's why I still wanted so badly to quit. It's the only way to really get away from it."

"But you came back. You had an out and you fought to come back despite it. Why's that?" Jiraiya lowered his massive frame into a crouch so he could look me in the eye. I swallowed.

"Because I can't help if I'm running away. No one else can do what I can do," I breathed. "No one else is in the position to do it."

Not Uncle Souhei, not Daisuke, not Kyouya or Tsubasa or any of the rest of them. No matter how much it hurt to be here, no matter how hard it was to be a ninja, I had decided I would try to change the future. I couldn't just drop this on others and walk away without really trying to solve the problem—what would I be then? Someone just as Daisuke had said, throwing about lives to ease my own conscience.

"It's as good a reason as any, kid," Jiraiya told me softly. "And you know what? I don't tell you this glibly, and I don't mean to say that you're going to get out of this without having to make hard decisions, but let me tell you. If you do this right, and if you learn this trade well—if you really master it—you will find ways to do the things you need to do without destroying others on the way. You can do the things you couldn't with just your sword." He took his hand from my head and clapped it to my shoulder. "Become stronger, Suzu. Strength gives you choices. Mercy isn't something you give. It's something you earn with your wits and your guts and your determination."

A part of me had wondered in an idle way why a battlemaster like Jiraiya, who was tall and mighty and well-suited to combat, would trade the war-waging ways that had bought him his fame for something like a spy network. At this point in time the Akatsuki, if it had even been formed at all yet, was still pointed to its original purpose; Jiraiya would have no sense of responsibility to track their movements. Orochimaru hadn't defected yet, either. He'd become a spymaster for a different reason. Maybe this was it.

Jiraiya gave me a bit of a half-smile before he straightened and gave me a hard slap on the back. The force of it was enough to make me stumble. I turned and opened my mouth but then, before I could say anything, there was a loud crash from Tsunade's room. We traded looks before hurrying over to investigate. When we opened the door Kushina was standing across an overturned table.

"Come outside, Tsunade-sama," she said. Her face was stony with anger.

"I'm not going anywhere," Tsunade informed as she flicked a speck of dirt from her shirt. "Go run along home to your idiot Hokage and tell him you've failed. You can't—"

She was cut off as Kushina's hand shot forward and seized her collar. With her red hair flaring out behind her, Kushina leaned forward until her nose was mere inches from Tsunade's face and said, "Insult my husband one more time, hag, I dare you. Now come outside and fight me."

Jiraiya and I looked at one another again.

"Would you call this the favorable option?" he asked me.