Stop the Stars From Shining: Chapter Two
--
This is stupid. An apathetic-feeling Tsunade nudged at a few pebbles on the riverbed, her arms folded across her knees and cradling the lower half of her face. Her large brown eyes watched the clear water moving in front of her, the stream just barely touching her toes. It had been four days and half of Konoha was probably out looking for her.
Her initial escape had been successful. But that, she realized the morning after, was as far as she planned. After his…passing, all she wanted to do was get away, far away, and never look back. And now she couldn't return. No, scratch that. She didn't want to return, to see all the faces she had known since childhood and see them smiling with him not among them. It just wasn't fair.
Well, one thing was for certain. Tsunade would never again use her medical arts to save another ninja. They had failed her, couldn't protect him, couldn't save his dream, couldn't save him…what was she? Who was she? What use was it to have this, this talent if you couldn't protect the ones you loved?
Angrily, she splashed the water with her feet, disturbing the calm, steady flow trickling past. The ex-jounin stared hard at her reflection, distorted by the ripples of the water disappearing as the stream shaped itself back into its original shape.
The stream always keeps moving… she thought to herself, it doesn't matter if something's blocking its way. I wish people could be like that. I wish I could be like that.
Tsunade felt a sob climb up in the back of her throat and swallowed it back down. It was useless to cry; her tears would only add to the stream anyway. She would just…she would just have to learn to live without him.
Sighing, she stood up, flipped one blonde ponytail over her shoulder, and stalked off towards town. The sound of Pachinko balls were always calming.
--
"Tsunade-sama!"
Said Sannin froze, frigid, afraid that someone from Konoha had found her, or, even worse, the owner of one of the gambling houses she had scammed.
But no…the voice was too young.
But voices could be deceiving.
Turn around or run? She argued with herself.
You'll never know who it is unless you turn around!
But what if it's someone I don't want to see?
Then you'll know, won't you?
But if it's a person I don't want to see and I escape, they won't get me!
But what if it's someone you want to see?
Then—
"Tsunade-sama!"
"What!" A little more than annoyed with the voice interrupting her thoughts, she whirled around to face the person who had called her name.
A young, dark-haired girl beamed up at her. In her slightly pudgy arms, she clutched a more-than-slightly pudgy piglet.
Tsunade recognized that face. She had only seen the girl once, but she had seen the features in the face all-too often.
"Shizune…"
"Hi, Tsunade-sama!" Shizune smiled and squeezed the piglet, a little too hard, it seemed, as it suddenly squealed in protest.
"Oh, Ton-ton," The little girl giggled and let the piglet jump from her arms to the ground, where it ran around the girl with its nose to the ground.
"What are you doing here?" asked Tsunade, feeling weak in the knees with relief.
"Oh, I don't know." She said cheerily. "I think I was visiting some relatives but our carriage got taken by bandits. They let me go, though, as long as I didn't tell anybody about them."
Tsunade must have looked horrified because she added quickly, "But it's okay, because I don't even like Great Uncle Hiwa."
The Sannin sighed. "Which town were you headed to?"
"I don't know." Shizune shrugged. "Where Great Uncle Hiwa lives, I suppose."
"And your father in Konoha?" pursued Tsunade, knowing that talking about Shizune's mother, Dan's sister, was a touchy subject.
"He probably won't miss me." The girl replied happily.
The Sannin sighed.
I swore I would never return to Konoha. A lost little girl can't make me turn back now.
Well, there wasn't much to do about it.
"Fine," said Tsunade finally. "You can come with me."
"I can?" Shizune's face lit up like a light bulb. "Wow; thanks, Tsunade-sama!"
"Yeah, yeah…now just come on."
If they ever found her, she'd probably be accused of kidnapping the girl, but whatever.
--
It took Tsunade exactly twenty minutes at the Pachinko Parlor to realize that it was useless to let Shizune tag along unless she could do something useful.
"Tsunade-sama—you lost again! See? The little balls are going away and you aren't getting any more!" Shizune pointed happily at the cache. Tsunade grunted.
"Are you going to keep playing, Tsunade-sama? Huh? Huh? What are you going to do if you run out of money? Are we going to starve? What'll Ton-ton eat? Will we sleep in the streets like the people I saw in books? Are we going to have to wear those icky rags and—"
"Shizune!" Tsunade's eyes flashed as Shizune looked up at her innocently. The irritated Sannin forced herself to lower her voice as the other patrons of the parlor poked their heads around curiously. "Shizune," she hissed between clenched teeth, "After this game, I'm going to teach you to do something useful, okay? Just…just be quiet for a while!"
"Okay," whispered the little girl, "I'll be quiet; I'll be so quiet that you won't even be able to hear me at all—"
"Shut up!"
"You're not being very quiet, Tsunade-sama."
--
Eh...heh...heh...I kinda forgot about this for a while, but I decided to go through my old "Prose in the Process" folder and this popped up. So I decided to write another chapter; hopefully, I'll remember to write the third one. I also noticed that I made Shizune annoyingly innocent. My reasoning is that once she undergoes extensive training with Tsunade, she'll mature a lot more.
P.S. Angst is my forté. I couldn't help it. Shoot me, please.
Love it? Hate it? I'll never know unless you review!