(A/N) Month between! 14 chapters after this. Much long, haha. Originally in this fic I'd planned for a single Month Between chapter. I still have no Expect some head hopping as I try and squish in everything I need to do.
Naruto had, of course, noticed that he always felt like there were glass shards in his lungs whenever he exerted himself too much, but he hadn't quite realized it wasn't normal.
So, here he was, under the metaphorical knife.
Shisui had dragged him into it when Tsunade and Orochimaru strolled into town for the exams, so here he was, laying down on a medical table with Tsunade bent over him with her hands glowing green and Orochimaru slouched in a corner. Shisui was sitting next to him, and chattering away about something that sounded like boasting about his genin.
"Well kid, I know why you feel like that," Tsunade said after a moment, sitting back. "It's because you have literal glass shards in your lungs."
Naruto blinked at her. 'What?'
"You have glass in your lungs. I assume the furball is always passively healing the damage, but when you exercise, and generally exert yourself, the glass moves, and the furball can't keep up. Hence the pain. Theoretically, you'll be fine long term, but I would still suggest surgery to get rid of the glass."
'Fun,' Naruto signed sarcastically.
"I can remove it," Orochimaru said calmly. "With assistance from Fukuro. It will require a day of travel on his part, but I believe we can have it removed by three days from now."
"Don't you even dare I will be doing it." Tsunade barked immediately.
Orochimaru had a barely visible smirk. "Alright then. I assume you'll want to tour the hospital and select an area to work?"
"Obviously! I am not working in here," Tsunade huffed, glancing around the room. "It isn't anywhere close to sterile, and since I will be working on the lungs, I am not settling for anything but the best."
Naruto snickered silently. She luckily didn't look down at him, too busy glaring at the surroundings, which was Naruto's apartment, which was fairly clean, although definitely not hospital clean.
"Be at the hospital in three days," Tsunade told Naruto sternly. "Ten o'clock."
Naruto nodded quickly, and she left mildly dramatically, closing the door behind her with perhaps more force than necessary.
"If you'll excuse me," Orochimaru said cooly, getting up and following her. "I'll be convincing her to stay in Konoha in the name of fixing up the hospital."
Shisui snorted, not moving from his seat. "Have fun. I bet she'll be head of the hospital in less then a day."
Naruto nodded agreement with that guess.
"I do have to go make sure Yunikon isn't too annoyed by Gai and Lee's antics," Shisui said, laughing. "He wanted to train with them though, so it's his own fault."
'Have fun,' Naruto signed cheekily.
"Yeah yeah, we'll see about that," Shisui sighed, opening the door. "Well, I need to go. See you around Naruto."
'See you around,' Naruto replied in sign.
Shisui headed for where he knew Gai and Lee probably were, as it had been Gai's favorite training ground when he'd last been in Konoha. It was unlikely to have changed, as Gai was not one to just randomly change things every once in a while.
Sure enough, Gai was watching Yunikon and Lee go at it very enthusiastically, occasionally shouting out tips.
Once he noticed Shisui coming, he turned to him. "Greetings Shisui!"
Shisui inclined his head, watching his genin. "Yunikon's doing pretty well. He doesn't want to be speed based like I am, so I'm glad you could help him with this."
"Of course! He is an enthusiastic student! I couldn't ask for a better addition to our regime!" Gai was now crying big tears of joy, as you do when you're Gai.
"Uhh, right. I'm gonna go then…" Shisui tried to turn around and leave, but Gai clearly disagreed.
"YOU MUST SEE HOW YOUR STUDENT HAS IMPROVED!" Gai shouted, making Yunikon and Lee glance over.
Shisui winced at the volume. He was not getting out of this, was he. "Okay fine, I'll stay and watch for a little while, but I have to go check on my other students afterward."
"Of course!" Gai agreed enthusiastically.
Once he'd managed to pry himself away from Gai, Shisui headed for the training ground he was pretty sure Eidoko and Miyo were doing their best to flood.
On his way across the village to find them, he noticed he was getting more than a few strange looks.
Most of the people giving him strange looks he recognized as having known them while he still lived in Konoha. Maybe they were recognizing him? None of them tried to talk to him though, so maybe the heterochromia was helping disguise him. Honestly, it was weird no one who hadn't already been told had connected Shisui Uzumaki, who did have black curly hair, and Shisui Uchiha, who had black curly hair. Although to be fair to them, Shisui Uchiha was dead. Had been for nearly five years. They probably thought they were seeing a ghost.
Maybe he should've taken up Hoshiko's offer to dye his hair red for the duration of the Chuunin Exams.
It seemed that Miyo and Eidoko were making a valiant effort to flood their area, and there was a heavy mist hanging around. Shisui could tell it was chakra laced, which meant it was probably on purpose, as opposed to the fault of one of the fire jutsu he taught Eidoko. He had to jump out of the way of four water bullets, landed in two feet of water, and look at that, time for revenge.
Orochimaru followed his old teammate to the hospital, silently praying for the two nurses he knew and actually bothered to know the names of in the hospital. Oh, wasn't one of Shisui's brats in the hospital training? Oh dear. Well, everyone would manage to survive Tsunade's wrath.
The best way to get an old comrade back into the village, point out what's been done to their place, and insist they stay to make sure the tragedy doesn't happen again.
If Hiruzen could pull it on him, he could pull it on Tsunade. No one could stop him.
Tsunade slammed the door to the hospital open, and all of the nurses inside jumped, as did many of the patients. One of the medics, which was one he knew, Nintaimi, she worked with ANBU primarily, and was quite skilled at handling traumatized shinobi who hated the hospital, just looked like she had accepted her death.
Which honestly, Orochimaru could understand.
Tsunade zeroed in on the Uzushio genin standing there looking both petrified and very confused. "You!"
The genin pointed at themselves. "Me?"
"You," Tsunade insisted like it meant anything. "You're an Uzushio genin, yes?"
The genin nodded cautiously. "I am, why."
"Are you here for the chuunin exams?"
"Yes but I got disqualified while in the preliminaries." She shrugged. "Was up against my teammate, I really had no chance."
"Your name?"
Oh dear, Tsunade had the 'I'm going to keep them' face on. This would be interesting.
"Umihebiro Iyashino Shio. You can call me Umi. She/her pronouns are fine." Yep, definitely one of Shisui's brats. If Orochimaru was remembering right, and he always did, all of Shisui's brats had names of mythical creatures.
"Right, minion, where's the operating equipment. I will require usage of some and a room in three days. Until then, I will be having words with everyone here about a few things!"
Orochimaru watched the nurses pale dramatically with no little amusement.
"Tsunade," Nintaimi said, calm as ever. "Umi just arrived, and we were about to give her a tour. Would you prefer if we just added you to it?"
Umi blinked at Tsunade, probably now realizing who she was. Most Uzumaki knew of Tsunade either through Jiraiya or Orochimaru, but hadn't met her.
"Fine, that will do. I want a briefing on each of the active nurses and their skill levels yesterday. I will be using the rest of today to get you into shape, then I'm going to get drunk and forget this ever happened."
Oh yes, this would be very amusing for Orochimaru. He'd have to essentially babysit her, but the ranting would be hilarious if nothing else.
True to form, Tsunade whirled through the hospital destroying everything in her path, Umi following behind like the minion she'd been called previously.
The nurses, with the exception of Nintaimi, mostly got scolded, given instructions to improve their medical jutsu, and generally told to improve the hospital.
So now here they were, Umi shifting awkwardly on the stool between Orochimaru and a currently drunk Tsunade.
"So, was I supposed to go?" Umi asked, looking around and hunching her shoulders. "I wasn't dismissed?"
Orochimaru shrugged. "When she starts talking, we'll know if she just forgot to dismiss you, or intends on attempting to train you."
Umi paled slightly. "Train me? Is that why I got abducted?"
"You didn't get abducted, you went with her willingly."
"She's Tsunade! She'd probably break me in half if I hadn't!" Well it was nice to know he and Jiraiya had sufficiently put the fear of Tsunade into them.
"Nah, you're too cute, and besides! Family!" Oh yeah, Tsunade was very drunk now. Her words were slurring badly, nearly unintelligible.
"Uhhh, kay?" Umi offered, looking like she was torn between scooting away from Tsunade and therefore closer to Orochimaru, or just straight up trying to leave. "Can I go now?"
"I'd suggest leaving now," Orochimaru said mildly. "I will fetch you in the morning should Tsunade require your presence somewhere other than the hospital."
"Uh, thanks," Umi muttered, quickly sliding off her stool and leaving.
Orochimaru eyed his drunk teammate and signaled for a drink of his own. He'd need it.
(A/N) Poor Umi. Ah well, she'll come out all the better for it. She'll be fiiine. The training field Eidoko and Miyo are occupying will be fine too. Once it drains. And I've had that Naruto thing planned for ages. It is only now coming into play. I was definitely very very foolish to ever think I'd need only one chapter for this. It might even extend into four at this rate. Maybe. We'll see. It shouldn't. Theoretically.