Published: 4/17/2021

Previously: Jiraiya and Suzu speak about strength and mercy; Kushina has no patience for trash talk.

The irony of it was not lost on me. A fiery Uzumaki, angered and fighting for the Hokage's honor, against a jaded and skeptical Tsunade, steadfast in her refusal to return to Konoha. The difference this time, of course, was that Kushina was a grown woman and a jounin in her own right. Whatever this confrontation was going to be, one-sided was not it.

"Is this a good idea?" I asked. Jiraiya, leaning against a nearby storefront with his arms crossed, quirked an eyebrow at me.

"Could you stop her either way?" he asked archly in reply. Well, he had me there. I wasn't about to step in front of Kushina now. Nor was he, by the looks of it.

"Well, it may play to our advantage. Kushina's got a lot of charisma. She's had a gift for convincing people since she was young."

"With her fists?" I watched as she sunk into a wide fighting stance, complete with a derisive spit-to-the-side, punch-fist-in-hand maneuver. It was thuggish in most delightfully Kushina sort of way.

"She likes to talk while she fights. I've actually seen her make a few friends that way, believe or not."

Naruto really did take after his mother in every way but looks. I shook my head again.

"Um…" a new voice spoke then. "Excuse me."

Jiraiya and I turned our heads simultaneously and found ourselves standing beside a familiar-looking teen, perhaps only a few years older than me. His hair was a ruffled black and his eyes were a light brown; he was dressed in a sleeveless grey yukata of the style common to Fire Country's inhabitants.

"You're the kid from the hallway," Jiraiya observed. "The one who wanted to be Tsunade's student."

"Yes, sir. It's an honor to meet you, Jiraiya-sama." The boy bowed deeply.

"Hmm. You know me. Who're you, then?"

"Ka—Kanta Kai, sir." The teen swallowed. "I… I have admired the Sannin since I was a child. I have always dreamed of meeting them."

"Is that so? Good for you," Jiraiya replied dismissively. I looked on this exchange with detachment. It seemed that Jiraiya, while infinitely more amiable than his teammates, could be quite cold in his own way. Kanta looked at me curiously.

"Are you perhaps Jiraiya-sama's apprentice?" he asked. I blinked at him, taken aback. Did I look like Jiraiya's student? What a startling thought. Spycraft aside, he was a 6"3' frontline summoner with a totally contrary elemental affinity. Forget hand-to-hand, we didn't even use the same types of ninjutsu.

"Is it your business?" Jiraiya cut in sharply before I could reply. "Do you need something from us?"

I glanced at him and was surprised by how open he was being in his hostility. Sensing that something else was afoot, I kept my silence and did not reply to Kanta's query.

"I—I didn't mean to be intrusive, sir, I apologize." Kanta's face flushed red. "I'm sorry to be a bother."

"Yeah, you are a bother. We have business with Tsunade and we don't have time for you to be butting in. She's not going to take you as a student, so why don't you just get lost?"

"I—" Sweat began to bead on Kanta's forehead. He looked anxiously at Jiraiya and then at Tsunade in the street. "You don't understand. I have to learn from her—my father fought in the Second War, and Tsunade-sama is—"

"Let me guess. He was poisoned and Tsunade was the one who saved his life with the cure," Jiraiya cut him off, looking unsurprised.

Kanta blinked. "Yes, exactly," he said in astonishment. "How did you…?"

"Hundreds of kids have tried and failed to apprentice themselves to Tsunade for the exact same reason," the Toad Sage replied. "It doesn't matter. I doubt you could learn anything from her anyway. Save yourself the trouble and scram."

Kanta went silent and stared up at him with wide eyes. Jiraiya just turned his gaze back to the road.

"What was that about?" I asked after Kanta had turned and slowly shuffled away. "You're not usually that aggro."

"Tell me, kid," Jiraiya asked in reply, "what did you think of that brat?"

Startled to have had my question answered with a question, I stopped and thought. Then I said, "Sycophantic."

"Anything else?"

"Bold, I guess?" I pursed my lips and pondered. "And—inquisitive…" I found my mind suddenly flashing back to a dirt road at sunset. The image of Kazuto in civilian clothes, standing at the entrance to the mine and asking curiously about Suzuka's "cousin" back in the village, flickered across my mind's eye. "Oh."

"He was suspicious enough before he began trying to gather intel on us," Jiraiya muttered darkly. "Mark that one, Suzu. He has a motive."

"What could it be?" I asked, genuinely stumped. There had been no analogous encounter in the series. Something at the back of my mind fizzled, but no matter how I wracked my brain I came up with nothing. Kanta Kai was no name I knew.

"...I don't know. I don't have any info on him."

I put my cheek in my hand. That was not helpful.

"I'll ask Tsunade-hime what his deal is later. You can—watch it!" Jiraiya yanked me to the side just as there was an almighty explosion of rock and gravel. A chunk of road came flying and crashed into the space in which I had previously been standing. I whipped my head back to the road.

Kushina, unbothered by the cloud of dust and grit, ducked lithely beneath Tsunade's roundhouse kick before stepping smoothly into a lunge. Tsunade sidestepped her elbow and whirled with a punch. Kushina deflected this with a forearm before bringing a knee rocketing up towards Tsunade's gut; Tsunade spun away and brought her heel down in a vicious dropkick. The resulting crater in the road sent yet more debris flying in our direction, and I quickly slid behind Jiraiya as he threw out a hand to break the largest incoming rock in two.

"Wow," I uttered as Kushina flew into a flurry of megaton punches. Tsunade's blocks were unwavering, but each hit landed with such a solid, resonant thud that it made my bones ache just to hear it. Just imagining what bruises Tsunade might have tomorrow made me shudder—

And then Kushina stepped left. She feinted, pulled her elbows in, and then decked her opponent right across the face. My hands flew up to cover my mouth as Tsunade, sent sprawling, flew back a whole fifteen feet. Jiraiya's jaw dropped.

"Holy shit," I breathed as I grabbed a hold of his arm. "Did you—did you see that?"

He looked stunned. "I've never seen someone slug Tsunade like that in my life," he told me.

Tsunade didn't stay down long, however. She was on her feet in an instant. Her face, now sporting an incredibly vivid red splotch, took on a look of focus. Kushina spread her feet apart, cranked an eyebrow up, and slapped the side of her leg in taunting, brazen challenge. Even though the match had just started the road was already looking like someone had taken a jackhammer and gone to town tearing it up.

Unfortunately, though, Kushina landed no further hits that day. Tsunade began a vicious counterattack; Kushina began a frequent and extended acquaintance with the ground. Like a true Uzumaki, however, every time she went down she picked herself back up and went right back to throwing those same megaton punches.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Tsunade was finally compelled to ask after Kushina had rolled to her feet for the fifth time and launched into another vicious barrage of punches. "You're obviously not going to win. Why are you letting yourself get pounded so badly?" For emphasis, the Slug Princess performed a flawless sidestep and drove her fist right into Kushina's stomach. I cringed as the redhead ploughed headfirst into the crag-filled street.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" Kushina panted as she drew herself off of the ground, swiping her sleeve across her face before settling back into a fighting stance. "The better question is what's wrong with you, coward." She spat on the ground. Her saliva was colored a concerning pinkish-red.

"Coward?" repeated Tsunade incredulously. "Who are you calling a coward?"

Kushina's purple-gray eyes were full of fiery distaste, the likes of which I had never seen on her face before. Kushina was many things, but she was not by nature a derisive person. "Who do you think, woman? Do you think I'm talking to the flowers?"

Tsunade let out a scoff, but the sheer scorn in Kushina's gaze seemed to unsettle her. Her eyes slid away.

"I can't believe Konoha has to ask for help from a person like you." The fire in Kushina's gaze cooled into something colder and more contemptful. "You're pathetic. The Leaf deserves better."

It was not the words themselves that angered Tsunade, I thought, so much as the absolute conviction with which Kushina said them. For a moment all Tsunade could do was stand still and be judged. I wondered how many Leaf-nin out there would dare to call a hero-Sannin pathetic to her face.

Then she snapped her jaw shut. "Who cares about the damn village anyway?" the Sannin snarled. She raised an arm and began charging forward. "If some maniac wants to destroy Konoha, he can go ahead and do it!"

When Tsunade's knuckles connected with her forehead I thought for sure that Kushina would drop flat. But Kushina put a foot back, stayed upright, and, even as blood began trickling down her face, seized Tsunade's wrist. She yanked her forward. Their heads cracked together; then the blood was leaking from Tsunade's forehead, too. She froze.

"I've never met a woman as big a fucking bitch as you," Kushina snarled, heedless of the way Tsunade's eyes began to grow wide. "Maybe you can take Konoha for granted, but I spent years making it into my home. I don't care if you're just saying things you don't mean because you're angry. That place and every person in it is precious to me. Don't ever speak of it like that again."

And then, with no further ado, Kushina wound her arm back and delivered a final teeth-dislodging punch to the face. Tsunade fell into a heap on the road.

There was a heavy silence. All the frozen passersby who had been hiding along the street began tentatively to emerge from their hiding places. I released my white-knuckled grip on Jiraiya's sleeve. He didn't seem to notice.

Shizune chose that moment to appear with a bag of groceries in her arms and Tonton bouncing obliviously at her heels.

"I am so sorry for Tsunade-shishou's rudeness," Shizune apologized for the umpteenth time as she healed the gash on Kushina's forehead. "Did you say blood came out when you spat? Are you having a hard time breathing? Do you feel like any of your ribs are broken?"

"I just bit my tongue when I hit the ground, that's all," Kushina assured her, somehow managing to look quite cheerful and self-satisfied for all the fact that she was utterly covered in dirt and blood. Considering the number of times she had hit the ground I was impressed she was still in one piece. Truly, I thought, this woman is the mother of Naruto Uzumaki.

"You fight like a pack of dogs, Kushina-nee," I admired. It was a different sort of ferocity than I was used to seeing—the taijutsu monsters of my childhood had all been of the likes of Akihiko, Minato, and Kakashi, geniuses with perfect form and precision—but she was no less fearsome for it. Kushina shot me a wide grin.

"I'll say," Jiraiya muttered and shook his head. "When Minato said you'd be coming along, Kushina, I don't think that this was what he had in mind."

"Do you think I overdid it?" she frowned as she took the cold compress Shizune offered her and held it to her cheek. "I haven't let loose like that in a while. Not since I became pregnant with Naruto, anyway."

Shizune froze. "Did—" she worked her jaw. "Did you say pregnant?"

"Yeah, I had a baby six months ago."

Shizune sucked in a sharp breath. Then she resumed checking Kushina over with renewed attentiveness.

"I can't judge whether this is a good thing or not," Jiraiya sighed as he massaged his temples, "but if we're lucky, this will help us in the long run… maybe."

"Do you think knocking her teeth out will have been enough to convince her?" I asked curiously. "She put them right back in, anyway."

In fact, Tsunade had healed herself of over half her injuries by the time we had been up the stairs, though she had been trembling the whole while. Kushina, sparing no regard, had marched past wearing her bloody cuts and bruises like badges of honor.

"No, not at all." Jiraiya shook his head. "If anything, she'll be even more opposed to coming back to the village now."

Kushina had the grace to look embarrassed. My eyebrows rose.

"Then how can this help at all?" I asked.

"Because now she knows how serious we really are," the Sannin replied. "It's one thing to be politely told of a threat while sitting in a cozy inn room. It's another to be punched across the street over it."

"Well, actually, I punched her across the street more because she was badmouthing Minato..."

"Anyway, we'll have to stick close and make sure not to lose her before we can convince her," Jiraiya went on, ignoring this pointedly. "Shizune, will you let us know when you plan to set out again?"

"Of course, Jiraiya-sama," Tsunade's assistant immediately agreed.

Shizune was two years older than Kakashi, making her about three years my senior and therefore sixteen. She had been away from the village for around three and a half years, and though she was too loyal to leave Tsunade and return to Konoha on her own, it was obvious that she was more than a little homesick. No wonder Tsunade had worried I might try to turn Shizune to our cause. If I set my mind to it I really probably could, inexperienced or no—she was half in the bag already.

She was also already quite competent in iryou ninjutsu. After making sure Tsunade wasn't in too terrible shape she had immediately come over to our room and offered to heal Kushina as an apology. Despite the fact that the fight had triggered a mild episode of Tsunade's blood phobia—and that Kushina had started it—it seemed her apprentice harbored no ill will for it.

"I'll excuse myself for now, then," she said after she finished giving Kushina's head one last lookover. "Tsunade-shishou is probably not going to sleep well tonight, so I'll have to get started on some calming teas right away." I noticed her grimace a bit as she was on her way out.

"Serves her right, the dumb babaa," Kushina grumbled. I was suddenly hard-pressed to conceal my smile over the fact that she was using the exact same insulting nickname her son had come up with. "Let her have nightmares. I'll sleep better for it."

"Have you always been this vindictive?" Jiraiya wondered. Kushina harrumpthed.

"I hate people like that," she muttered by way of explanation. "What good does cynicism do for anyone? It's just miserable. So many ninjas would trade everything just to have a village, let alone be so esteemed by it." Her gaze turned distant. "I was lucky enough to have Konoha when my village was gone."

In that light it did make sense that Kushina took Tsunade's attitude so personally. She had spent years as an outsider in our village; she held the regard of its people very highly.

"Now that I stop to think about it, Tsunade probably resents you quite a bit, Kushina," Jiraiya muttered with a frown. "Not that you could be blamed for it. She was just born unlucky, that Tsunade."

It took me a moment to process that, but I connected the dots soon enough. Kushina, though, frowned and asked, "What is that supposed to mean?"

Jiraiya was silent for a moment, contemplating. Then he said, "Maybe it's not my place to tell you her personal history, but I think it's necessary, considering the impact it has on this mission. Kushina, you and Tsunade have a lot more in common than you think…"

And so it came: the story of Nawaki and Dan, their dreams, and the cursed necklace. Kushina and Tsunade had started in the same place, loving men whose only goals in life had been to become the Hokage, but their places now could not have been more different. Kushina, a brand-new mother, was happily married to the Yondaime Hokage, but where was Tsunade? On the run from debt collectors, drinking and gambling and wandering the country in an attempt to distract herself from the fact that her brother and her lover both went to their graves with their dreams unfulfilled.

I listened silently and watched Kushina's face. Angry though she had been, she was not hard-hearted. By the time the explanation was over her mulish expression had softened considerably.

"I see," she said softly. "...It doesn't make it any better, but at the very least I won't hold a grudge. She's been through a lot."

"I appreciate that," Jiraiya replied. Then his shoulders drooped and he let a long sigh. "This will probably be twice as hard when she realizes I've spilled the beans. Ugh," he groaned. "I don't know about you two, but I'm exhausted just thinking about it."

Between our arrival, the futile appeals, the fight, its aftermath, and this discussion, the sun had long since set. I suddenly became aware of a throbbing ache in my shoes and shoulders.

"It'd probably be best to head straight to bed, huh?" Kushina sighed as she looked out the window and came to the same conclusion.

After Jiraiya left for his own room Kushina and I changed into nightclothes. There was only one futon, but I had spent my entire life sharing my sleeping spaces. Kushina didn't mind either; apparently she had grown up with cousins as well.

We often talked a while before falling asleep, but tonight she was quiet. In the silence there was nothing to do but stare at the ceiling-shadows cast by the moonlight and wait for sleep to come. I traced their edges with my eyes, mind wandering; then, just as I was beginning to nod off, Kushina whispered, "I'm glad Minato is alive."

The immediate reaction, angry and still full of hurt, was to say the reverse. But as soon as I thought it I had to rethink it. "I'm not," I had uttered reflexively in my heart.

"I'm not," meaning "I would rather have him dead."

Would I rather have him dead? I turned over and found myself burying my face in my pillow. I pictured Minato as he would have been on the night of the Kyuubi Attack, lying in the grass with blood pouring from his chest. His eyes would be blank and empty just like the rest of them—like Yoshiya, like Iwao and Ichiei and Hayanari, like all the severed heads of those thirty-some shinobi who had bought me my bounty in the Bingo Book. I had seen those eyes on so many different faces. Even after everything that had happened, did I want to see them on his face, too?

"...I'm glad, too," I whispered back. My chest was full of roiling fire as I said it. It hurt to say it because no matter how angry I was and how much I wanted him to know it, it brought me no happiness at all to imagine a world without him.

Kushina put a hand on my back as I held my breath against the storm of emotion. It hurt, but it was the truth, and as I lay there bleeding betrayed love into my blankets, I realized how much I missed my big brother.