Previously: Tsunade tries to skip town; Kanta shows his true colors; Suzu takes a needle to the neck and a knife to the gut.


I came to with a rough, calloused hand persistently clapping me on the cheek.

"Hey. Hey, wake up, kiddo. Open your eyes for me. Come on."

Jiraiya swam into view above me. I blinked up at him, disoriented, and watched bemused as he pulled his haori off and bunched it up over my stomach.

"Kid, are you there? Can you hear me?" he asked urgently when he saw my eyes crack open.

"Y-yeah…" I coughed. Blood splattered across his sleeve. Oh, dear.

"Good. Stay with me." Jiraiya, heedless of this, just put both hands together and pressed down on my gushing stab wound. His jacket was soaked through almost immediately.

"Tsunade… Tsunade-sama?"

"She's safe," Jiraiya assured me even as he furrowed his brow at my bleeding stomach. "She's by the trees, hasn't moved. You kept her safe, kiddo. You did good."

"Then, Kanta…?"

"Asshole's right over there." The Toad Sage jerked his chin towards the patch of grass I'd tripped him on. "Seems like he's suffering from some sort of paralytic. Guess we found our B-rank from Urahira, huh?"

"Should've figured it out earlier," I muttered as I lifted a trembling hand to wipe the clammy sweat from my forehead. I ended up smearing a giant splotch of blood across my brow, which was far more uncomfortable. "Stupid..."

"No, kid, you didn't know better," Jiraiya denied. "I told you to disregard it. It's my bad."

"He's a Leaf-nin," I mumbled. "He's… a Black Sands orphan. Like me."

"Explains a lot," Jiraiya exhaled distractedly. "People have tried to kill Tsunade for less."

As he spoke he pressed down harder on my stomach. I flinched. "You're hurting me," I panted. "That… that hurts."

"Sorry, kid," Jiraiya grimaced. "But you're just bleeding so damn much. It's not slowing down at all."

I felt the urge to speak and say anticoa-something to him, but an ever-growing sense of fatigue pulled at me and made my eyelids feel heavy. Tired, I shut my eyes.

"Don't sleep," Jiraiya ordered sharply. He grasped the skin of my cheek between his fingers and twisted it hard. The sting of it brought me back from the daze I had been drifting off into. "I'm warning you, Suzu. If you sleep now you will die."

"Jiraiya-sama, I'm really tired," I protested faintly.

"I know, kid, but you can't sleep. Just hang on a bit longer. Kushina will be here with Shizune soon. Just stick it out til then."

Jiraiya began to chatter determinedly at me, speaking about the mission and the intel network, how the lack of info had really screwed us over, how he definitely needed to meet with Imasaki Naoto when we got back, and prompting me for my opinion between every other breath. Realizing his purpose, I struggled and did my best to try and give thoughtful replies, but a strange haze seemed to be falling over my mind. My responses became monosyllabic—then grunting—and then altogether nonverbal. Jiraiya shook my shoulder several times, but my eyes slid shut again before I could help it.

"Hey, kid, no! Wake up. Hey! Wake up!"

He began muttering furiously under his breath as he continued attempting to wake me, periodically interrupting himself to swear at my wound, at Kanta, and even a bit at Shizune and Kushina. Eventually, though, his frustrated muttering ceased. The pressure on my stomach eased.

I let out an incoherent moan and, with a sudden strange surge of strength, pried my eyes open so I could look up at him wearily. Jiraiya's dark eyes met mine silently. Then he lifted a hand, still stained with my blood, and brushed the hair sticking to my face away.

"Jiraiya-sama?" I croaked. My voice was feeble even in my ears. The look on his face made me wonder with distant alarm if I ought to offer my final words now.

"Kid," he said. "I'm sorry. It's my fault. I should've known."

Shocked, I realized that that was exactly what was happening now. A beat passed. Then, still speechless, I weakly lifted my hand. He caught it with his own. Our fingers were slick with gore.

"But I…" I mumbled dumbly as I stared at the bright red running in rivulets down my arm and knew that for once it was my blood doing that, not anyone else's. "But I just finally decided…"

"I know. I know, kid, I'm sorry." His face was grave. The last time he'd made a face like that, he—I paused. Had he ever made a face like that? I'd seen him be serious, and angry, and worried, but not… not resigned, not like that. Like it was over and he was bracing himself for an inevitable, unavoidable impact.

A jolt of fear shot through me.

"But Jiraiya-sama," I hiccuped weakly as horrified tears welled up and then spilled forth from my eyes. "But Jiraiya-sama, who will—who's going to—if I die, who can—"

"I'll do it for you," he vowed. He leaned forward over me, still clutching my hand. "It's okay, kid, you've already told me everything. You wrote me a great report. I've got it from here. Just leave it to me."

Lies and lies, and we both knew it. There was no way Jiraiya could handle it from a scroll alone. He had a timeline and a smattering of profiles for the relevant actors. It wasn't nothing, but it was far from enough.

My mind whirled through the haziness. Even as the world grew fuzzy and cold I experienced a sudden throb of adrenaline. There had to be something. If it was foreknowledge, then—then the Earthlings? Half knew, so—Hideaki? Hayato-sensei? Uncle Souhei?

This was my task and my undertaking. I chose to do it. It wouldn't be right to push it on them. But if the time came and I wasn't there when Jiraiya really needed help—

"My uncle," I swallowed. "My uncle."

"Souhei?" Jiraiya asked, not understanding. "What should I tell him?"

"I…" I deflated, lacking the wits and the time and the lucidity to explain. "Just—just tell him…"

I found my gaze drifting upwards. The clouds, thin and faded, were stretched and flat across the heavens. They were too sparse to be very white. Instead they were splotches of lighter blue, brighter and more pastel against the saturation of the clear sky.

"Suzu," Jiraiya said. My focus returned sluggishly. I swallowed again.

"Just tell him—people can change, I still believe it," I finally uttered. Even if Jiraiya didn't get the message, maybe ojisan would. "Tell him that."

"Got it." Jiraiya gripped my hand. Then, after a short pause, he asked, "Kid, I… Is there anything I should tell Minato?"

My brain experienced another short circuit. I stared. "What?"

Jiraiya grimaced again. "Sorry," he muttered. "It's not my business, I know. But… I know you two parted on bad terms, and…"

And if I die here then that's how it'll end, I realized with a terrible, heart-stopping chill. An awful moment passed. Then tears began to stream from my eyes again.

"Jiraiya-sama," I half-choked, half-sobbed. "Jiraiya-sama, I don't want to die. There's… there's still so much I have to do. There's… there's too much… I have so much left to say, I—"

I lost the rest of my words to inarticulate weeping. Jiraiya looked on helplessly as I cried the rest of my strength away; the energy for huge, convulsive gasps quickly faded into small, miserable spasms, and then even that was too much. I was half-gone, limp in the grass, when the sound of unsteady footsteps began to approach quietly from behind.

"Tsunade, don't." Jiraiya's voice cut through the muffled darkness that had crept across my vision. "Tsunade, don't—don't come over here. No, you really don't want to—it's pretty grim—"

"Shut up," a woman's trembling voice replied. "Move over."

"Tsunade-hime, stop," he protested. There was the sound of cloth rustling. "Tsunade! Stop, it's too late for her. Don't do this to yourself again—"

"Shut up!" The reply was sharp and very slightly a scream. "Shut up, shut up! It's not over until I say it is! Now move!"

There was a small thud. Then, for a brief moment, pressure returned to my midsection. It was a different kind of pressure, though—not painful, but warm, and oddly soothing. I let out a small sigh of relief as I slipped away into sleep.


I woke up feeling like I'd been trampled by an entire herd of horses. I blinked up at a light brown ceiling, blank and aching, before stiffly turning my head to look for the source of the chakra song I was hearing. I didn't have to search hard—Kushina was dozing right there on the tatami beside my futon, snoring and eagle-spread. I stared at her for a long moment before concluding that we had returned to the inn. Then I shut my eyes and let out a long breath.

It was, I realized with a bit of a grimace, not an unfamiliar kind of exhaustion. I'd experienced this kind of overwrought, physically battered, emotionally spent state once before. It'd been shortly after another brush with death—after that encounter with the Iwa company in which I'd fought hysterically for my life and killed some thirty-odd people over the course of it. Hopefully this time we wouldn't be diving straight into a deathmatch with Kiri ANBU after, I thought to myself tiredly. If I had to fight with an ANBU today there would have been no point in surviving. I could barely move my own fingers.

I spent a long moment laying there with my eyes closed, not really sleeping, but not really completely processing everything that had happened, either. I'd almost died again… but something this time had been different. I reflected for a moment before concluding that last time, though I'd fought not to be killed, I'd done so driven by dread—by a fear of torture and suffering, with the stench of sweat and Yoshiya's blood still lingering in my nostrils. This time been different because something else had been driving me. Fear still, certainly, but a different kind. My head had filled with other things in those almost-last moments. With thoughts of my mission, my family, of Jiraiya managing the timeline alone, of Kushina—and Minato, back home in Konoha, sitting at his desk, receiving the news—

Last time, I concluded as I opened my eyes again, my head had been empty of things I had left to do in this world. I hadn't thought at all of unfinished business; I'd only been scared of reliving those bunker days. And even then, for a short while before I'd realized what my death at the hands of enemies might look like, I had been relieved—just for a moment—to think I wouldn't have to live anymore. I'd been looking for an escape, passively suicidal, all the time back in those days, hadn't I?

"Wow," I rasped. Then I immediately began to cough.

"Suzu?" Kushina shot upright, straight out of sleep, and looked down at me. "Are you okay?"

"W-water," I choked in reply. Just saying it hurt. My mouth and throat were painfully dry; I could feel the skin of my lips cracking just by opening my mouth. Kushina scrambled to her feet and procured a bottle of water before helping me sit up.

"How long—how long have I been out?" I asked after gulping down several greedy mouthfuls. I would have drunk more, but she took the water away before I could guzzle it all down and make myself sick.

"About two days," Kushina replied. "Tsunade-sama's just in the other room, I'll go get her—"

"Wait!" I caught her sleeve clumsily.

"What's wrong?" Kushina instantly returned to my side, kneeling beside me and enveloping me in a hug for good measure. I clung to her shoulders for a moment and found myself blinking away sudden tears that I wasn't hydrated enough to shed.

"Oh, sweetheart," Kushina said when she caught sight of them. "I'm sorry. It's my fault. If Shizune and I and gotten there sooner—"

"Everyone's apologizing and saying it's their fault," I laughed weakly. "You're all being like this."

"Can you blame us?" She squeezed me. "Oh, Suzu. I'm so proud of you. You're such a badass. You saved the mission."

She began to sniffle then. I, on the other hand, found myself struggling to compute the implications of those words. I had saved the mission? That—wasn't a lie, actually, was it? It was true that everything would have been for nothing if Kanta had killed Tsunade. He might have actually managed it with her so locked up in a flashback, too…

"I guess I was mission-critical personnel after all," I mumbled bewilderedly. "I wasn't superfluous window dressing."

"Gosh, Suzu, I can't believe you actually said that," Kushina burst out laughing. Then she pressed her forehead to mine. "You've really grown up, haven't you? You used to be so small, but look at you now. One of the finest kunoichi I've ever seen."

The door slid open. Kushina and I twisted around to find Tsunade standing in the doorway. We blinked; she looked down awkwardly at us in turn, eyeing Kushina with a strange and unreadable expression, before she abruptly cleared her throat and strode forward.

"You're up," she said to me. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been trampled by a whole herd of horses," I replied honestly. After a moment of struggle I managed to lift my trembling arms. "I can barely move."

"Ah," Tsunade replied clinically, "that'll be the lingering effects of the poison. I expect you'll be shaking for the next couple of days, possibly into next week. Don't be alarmed if your motor skills suffer—tremors are to be expected. Your knees might wobble every now and then, too."

Bemused, I stared up at her. Kushina just looked at me concernedly. There was a pause; then Tsunade cleared her throat. "Thank you," she said uncomfortably. "You… saved my life. I said some stuff to you, but… I take it back. You're an okay kid."

I found myself letting out a weak chuckle. "If there's anyone who should be saying thank you, it's probably me," I offered conciliatorily. You kept me alive when I had half-bled to death, didn't you? That… can't have been easy, right?"

There was a short, vulnerable silence in which Tsunade stared silently at me before looking away. Then she abruptly harrumpthed and put her hands on her hips. "Please," she said as she brought her gaze back around, "as if your case could have been any problem for me. Let's hope this Rin girl you all insist I save proves to be a bit more of a challenge, or else I'll be pissed that you lot dragged me all the way back to Konoha for nothing."

"Then you're coming back with us, babaa ?" Kushina asked in surprise. Tsunade shot her a nasty look, but it was Jiraiya who replied.

"I'd hope so," he grumbled as he appeared in the doorway. "Because if not I'm gonna need a refund for her gambling debts. Woman, could you be any worse at cards? How the hell did you manage to lose that badly?"

"My luck would've turned if they'd given me a few more rounds," Tsunade grumbled.

"I swear…" Jiraiya just let out a long exhale in response. He lifted his forearm above his head and rested it against the top of the doorframe. Then he caught sight of me sitting up and shot me a tired smile. "Hey, brat. You're looking better."

And I, despite the complicated knot of emotions tangled in my chest, found myself smiling back. The memory of it was fuzzy at the edges and not entirely easy to recall at this point, but Jiraiya had been there at that almost-end. He'd reassured me, agreed to carry on messages… he'd held my hand.

"Hi, Jiraiya-sama," I greeted back. "I'm feeling a bit better, too."


A/N: Triple update to catch you all up with the AO3 version of HSS. I highly recommend you read HSS over there if you want to experience timely updates. I hate using this site more and more each time I do. It's a real pain.

But in other news: So we're finally catching up! The Tsunade Retrieval arc was the last complete arc of the original draft of Glory, which now known to the internet as Hearts Stand Still. It's been a half decade getting here, which is just nuts. For the first time in over five years I'll be writing from the OG outline! That's bonkers, but I'm really excited. Finally we'll get to really know all the characters who have been lurking in the wings-Obito will be around, Akihiko will make his return, we'll meet a bunch of ANBU, we'll finally get around to the nastiness that is Danzou... I might even be able to start posting chapters of the spin-off story Myriad World once we get to the ANBU Politcs arc! All this unused content I've been sitting on for years... it's really exciting.