AN: Thank you everybody, for all your support!


"Kakashi-kuuuuun! If I die, make sure my son knows that I love him!"

"Hai, Kushina-nee-sama."

"You're designated Godbrother, dattebane! You have to help Miko-chan and Jiraiya take care of him!"

Kakashi was one-hundred per-cent sure she had just made that up on the spot. Still…

"Hai, Kushina-nee-sama."

"And don't let Danzō become Hokage!"

He wasn't sure how the hell she expected him to do that.

"Just concentrate on your fight, Kushina-nee-sama."

The redhead ducked, dodging the enormous log that Tsunade had just hurled at her head. It hit the trees behind her, exploding into splinters on impact. "Yeah okay," she said, calling up several shadow clones. "That's all the important stuff anyway." One clone disappeared into the trees above. One fired a barrage of kunai in Tsunade's direction while the third made a suicide dash at her.

Tsunade kicked the last in the chest, sending it flying. It dispersed immediately from the force, and Kakashi winced. Meanwhile, Kushina had taken advantage of Tsunade's slight moment of distraction to use kawarimi and switch places with one of the kunai at her feet, making a grab for the necklace. Tsunade leaned back, swinging the leg she'd used to kick the clone at Kushina's unprotected side.

Kushina yelped, and then exploded into smoke. The real Kushina leaped out of the trees – she must have kawarimi'd with the clone up there – landing in a crouch and immediately pushing off again, launching herself at Tsunade's neck. The Sannin didn't flinch, grabbing hold of Kushina's extended arm and tossing her aside. She hit the ground with a poof.

Another clone.

"Kushina-sama is quite good," Shizune, Tsunade's apprentice, commented quietly. Her black gaze was fixated on the fight before them. "Although I suppose that's why she was made Hokage."

Kakashi nodded, eyes also glued to the battling kunoichi. "I've never met anyone else capable of spamming shadow clones like that. Not even Sensei could."

Minato-sensei had been a genius, and calculated each drop of chakra he used so as to be more efficient. He'd had above-average reserves, but Kushina's eclipsed them entirely. It was insane.

As Kakashi watched, Kushina spat a huge sphere of wind chakra in Tsunade's direction before splitting into two. She went one way and her clone went the other, prepared for Tsunade to dodge. The blonde woman wasn't having it however, and instead slammed her fist into the oncoming jutsu, the strength of her punch causing the chakra sphere to burst with concussive force. Kakashi and Shizune, watching from behind a raised wall of dirt, ducked down to shield themselves – and felt the ground ripple.

Popping back up, Kakashi gaped.

Tsunade must have kept her momentum right through making impact with the wind chakra, because she'd spun just slightly in the direction the real Kushina had gone, and her fist was planted in the ground. Massive cracks spiderwebbed out from her hand for about ten feet, and then it was like the earth had ruptured. Clods of dirt were overturned in a gigantic wave, spreading out for a good twenty feet.

It was amazing. Not because of the damage; Kakashi had heard the stories about Tsunade's fearsome strength, and knew she could easily have flattened this whole area. No, Kakashi was amazed by her control. Causing widespread damage was easy: limiting it took effort.

He supposed Tsunade wasn't the world's best medic-nin for nothing.

The move had taken Kushina by surprise. As Kakashi watched, she bounced back to her feet, grinning wildly. "That was awesome, Tsunade-hime! I've never seen anybody punch a jutsu like that!"

Tsunade gave a sharp grin of her own in return. "Practise, Kushina. And it depends on the jutsu. Fūton can be tricky; sometimes they're too sharp to risk trying."

Kakashi winced, imagining it. The mess that would make of the person punching's knuckles would be horrific; Tsunade's haemophobia probably would've been triggered instantly. He was a little surprised that she had done it anyway – from what he could see, her knuckles were scraped raw.

The two women blurred back into motion, and Kakashi caught Shizune's gaze. Instinct prompted him to grin (something he hadn't done for so long that it felt strange on his lips). She grinned back, pride shining in her eyes. He could relate; it was the same feeling he used to get when he saw foreign ninja taking a step back at the sight of Minato-sensei. It was the feeling that seeped through him now, watching Kushina stand on equal footing with a legend.

"They're remarkable, aren't they?" Shizune's voice was full of awe.

Kakashi could only agree.


Kushina grunted, skidding back a few steps. Tsunade had just flung one of her own shadow clones at her, and the strength of the collision caused it to pop, smoke wafting in Kushina's face. She dropped to the ground and rolled even further back, in case Tsunade tried something while she was blinded.

She didn't, but Kushina remained on guard. It wouldn't do to take anything for granted in this battle. They had moved outside the city and into the surrounding forest, and were making a large clearing that Kushina's ANBU had found for them even larger. Said ANBU had disappeared into the treetops, while Kakashi and Shizune had chosen to remain at ground level, tucked behind a sturdy doton wall.

She deftly twisted out of the way of the fist that Tsunade aimed at her face, ducking under the blonde woman's arm and thrusting her fingertips at the dangling green crystal. She missed, unfortunately, but she wasn't surprised. It would take something more than just that to remove the necklace from around Tsunade's neck.

"You've improved since I last saw you, Kushina," Tsunade commented. "You do your rumours justice."

Grinning brightly, Kushina whirled around and stretched her fingers once again toward Tsunade's throat. "You've kept up with Konoha gossip, Tsunade-hime?"

Tsunade snorted and brought her heel slamming down onto the ground, cratering it and forcing Kushina to leap back out of her space. "It was hard not to, brat. You and that husband of yours really made names for yourselves, didn't you?"

Pride and grief gripped at Kushina's heart in equal measure. She and Minato really were a badass couple; it was something she'd always been proud of. And now he was gone, and Kushina had to be a badass on her own. She had a baby and a village depending on her.

"I guess we did."

She whirled around, giving in to her natural impulse towards rampant destruction and calling up a water dragon. It wasn't her strongest creation, given that she hadn't bothered with all of the hand seals (the water dragon was actually one of the first jutsu that Kushina learned to perform without them; it was such a stupidly long sequence that she'd been determined to become so good at it that she didn't need the damn things). But just because it wasn't her strongest, didn't mean it wasn't strong.

The beast roared into being, born from Kushina's chakra alone, and she immediately sent it crashing towards Tsunade. The blonde dodged, brown eyes wide, but Kushina had not spent so many hours of her life practising this jutsu for nothing. Water splashed everywhere as the dragon skimmed the ground, following every move Tsunade made.

The Sannin cackled, ducking and weaving, occasionally skimming a fist through the beast's head with a broad grin on her lips. Kushina, who couldn't claim to be on close terms with Tsunade, nonetheless felt confident enough to judge that this was a rare event. Haemophobia and emotional trauma probably made fighting one of Tsunade's least favourite activities.

She was kinda proud that she'd managed to make Tsunade enjoy herself.

But that still didn't help her figure out how to win!

No matter how monstrous her chakra reserves were, Kushina couldn't keep the water dragon going indefinitely, not without a plan. Otherwise it was just a waste of chakra.

Kushina once more aimed her dragon at her opponent. Tsunade dodged, of course, but Kushina wasn't trying to hit her; the dragon went wide, shooting past the Sannin and coiling up. Making sure to pour in enough chakra to make the water flow so powerful that Tsunade couldn't just bust her way out, Kushina sent the dragon up, up, up just a little more-

And then down.

The beast descended in a fury, jaws wide. Kushina couldn't see clearly through the twister she had created out of its body, but trusting her instincts was second nature. Mere moments before the cascade of water would have slammed into Tsunade's head – her raised forearms actually, Kushina noted – she cut off the chakra flow. One step, two steps, and as the formless water dropped out of the sky, Kushina stretched a hand towards Tsunade's defenceless neck.


Kakashi and Shizune sucked in simultaneous breaths.

They stared, wide-eyed, at the two kunoichi. They were both drenched from head to toe, red and blonde hair plastered to their backs. There was maybe a foot of space between them, and in the middle of that space-

A glint of green.

Kakashi almost couldn't believe his eyes. From Kushina's fist dangled a simple black cord, the attached crystal swaying in the air. Tsunade's own hand was gripping Kushina's wrist, preventing her from leaping away with her prize.

There was a beat or two of silence.

And then Tsunade laughed. She let go of Kushina's wrist, stepping away and pushing her sodden bangs back.

"I guess we're going back to Konoha, Shizune."

Beside Kakashi, Shizune let out a choked sob. She shot to her feet and vaulted the doton wall, scrambling over to her master. The sannin just smiled, placing a hand on Shizune's head.

Kakashi looked away, feeling uncomfortable watching the unspoken emotions flowing between them. His eye landed on Kushina, who was still standing there, gaping at the necklace in her grasp.

He stood up.

"Congratulations, Kushina-nee-sama."

Wide violet eyes met his, and in but a second, Kakashi found himself wrapped in his Hokage's arms, being twirled around in circles while she whooped in his ear. He sighed and simply held on, resigned to the fact that he was going to end up just as sopping wet as she was.

"I did it, Kakashi-kun," Kushina said when they finally slowed to a stop. "I won. She's coming back."

"Of course you ended up fighting her after all," Kakashi sighed. "That water dragon was amazing, Kushina-nee-sama."

"Uwahhh, thanks 'Kashi-kun! Remind me to teach you one day, even if it does have a stupid seal sequence." She beamed at him.

Tsunade and Shizune, who were seemingly done with whatever emotional moment they were having, approached with smiles on their faces. Tsunade's was resigned and Shizune's was giddy, but Kakashi thought they both seemed a little lighter.

"Well brats," Tsunade huffed, looking down at them. "When do we leave?"

Kushina smiled, the setting sun lighting her hair on fire magnificently. "Tomorrow. Tonight, we celebrate!"

Kakashi spared a moment to wonder how Shikaku-san and Mikoto-san had been handling these past two days during Kushina's absence. He wondered how the Advisory Council had been handling them.


"Mou, I hope Kushina-chan comes back soon."

Squinting at her view of the setting sun, Uchiha Mikoto threw her pen down with a pout and reached over to scoop her youngest son out of his crib. Sasuke blinked up at her with sleepy black eyes, and Mikoto felt all of her exhaustion fade away to nothing. The babies would be going back to the compound soon, so she was going to get as much cuddle time in as she could before she had to give them up.

She was just placing Sasuke back down in order to pick Naruto up for his turn when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in!" She called, cradling her best friend's baby to her chest.

Nara Shikaku walked in, shoulders slumped and face pulled into a tired scowl. Mikoto laughed gently.

"Shikaku-san, I know we're in co-charge of the village, but you really don't have to stay here all night with me. Go home to your wife and child."

"Yoshino knows why I'm staying. I'll make it up to her when Kushina's back. Besides, I'm not letting you stay here all night either." He gave her a pointed look, to which Mikoto just shrugged sheepishly. "I know you've got some sort of pissing contest going on with the elders, but working yourself to death will do nothing except please them."

Mikoto snorted. "Please, Shikaku-san. Calling it a pissing contest would imply that those fossils were actually doing something worth competing over."

It was nothing new to Mikoto that the village elders held an intense distrust, or even straight out hatred, for the Uchiha clan. The hissy fit they had thrown over Kushina appointing Mikoto her personal assistant was astronomical. In fact, the only tantrum that Mikoto had ever seen rival it was the one they had thrown when Kushina put her in co-charge of the village for the duration of her absence.

From the moment Kushina left, they had been breathing down Mikoto's neck. They hung around the Hokage's office all day, making snide comments about traitors and demanding to go over every single piece of paper that Mikoto touched. Mikoto wasn't sure what exactly they thought she was going to do; being acting co-Hokage or whatever it was didn't actually give her any significant amount of power. She could sign off on paycheques, approve and assign missions (outside of ANBU), as well as continue on with all the various other tasks Kushina had previously authorized her to do. Shikaku was the one who had taken on the heavier aspects of Hokage-duty.

And yet it was Mikoto being scrutinised like they were just waiting for an excuse to execute her.

God, but she hated them.

Shikaku let out a tired laugh. "Okay, bad choice of words. But screwing around while they're here and then trying to get everything done after I get them to leave isn't in any way efficient, Mikoto. Your husband's going to think I'm pushing all my duties off on you."

Okay, so maybe she had stayed in the tower longer than she'd intended last night. But Fugaku didn't have a problem with it, Mikoto was certain. He was far too pleased that she had been given the position in the first place. That she was staying late only because she'd spent a good portion of the day deliberately winding up the Advisory Council would only make him prouder.

Mikoto shrugged, brushing a kiss over Naruto's tiny blond crown. She placed him back in his crib before taking up her pen once more. "Come on then, Shikaku-san," she smiled. "I've just got these two stacks left. Give me a hand, and hopefully we can both get home in good time."

He rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Right. And hopefully Kushina comes back soon. Otherwise she might come back and find that her best friend has killed the village Elders."

Mikoto just laughs.


AN: As I hope you all know by now - thoughts always welcome!

- Kelly