WARNING: This chapter features description of gory injuries, and also a reference to a miscarriage. Please be careful reading.
Chapter 52
"There is no sound fiercer than a dragon's roar."
"Tsunade-sama, please teach me medical ninjutsu!"
Tsunade turned her head at the question, arching a single blond eyebrow. A small boy not even ten years old stood behind her with his torso dipped into a deep bow, his scruffy dark brown hair falling into his face. At this angle she could clearly see the red and white fan sewn onto his back, large and bright against the black fabric.
She huffed a small breath, turning to face the boy more fully. "What's this?" she drawled. "An Uchiha, actually coming to a Senju for help?" She smirked, putting a hand on her hip. "Grandfather would be so proud."
Her words had no bite to them, she didn't have a problem towards the Uchiha clan like some of her older relatives. Their clans may have been enemies but she'd grown up in a village with one as a classmate and near-friend. If anything, she just saw them as pretentious and snobby. This boy apparently hadn't reached the age where Uchiha start looking down on others yet, because he just bowed even deeper and hung his head.
"I am aware of our clans' past aggressions, but I beseech you to please set aside their histories and teach me! You're the best medic Konoha has, at your current rate you'll even surpass your honorable grandfather! I cannot ask for a better teacher than you!"
Tsunade listened to the impassioned speech with a growing hint of amusement, her smirk growing unseen by the bowed boy. "Kid, drop all the formalities, you sound worse than my great-uncle," she snorted. "I don't care about that old feud. I just don't see a point in spending time on a random brat. For all I know, you'll just lose interest in a week and move on to something else. Just go to the hospital and ask a medic there if you're so interested."
The boy stiffened at that, and he rose to stare at her with a face full of firm determination. "I swear, I won't just move on," he vowed, voice gravely serious. "Fighting only does so much good. The best way I can protect and help my friends is to learn iryo-ninjutsu."
His voice rang with resolve, and as she looked at him Tsunade felt a small smirk touch her lips.
"Alright, brat. Do you want to bet on it?"
"Tsunade-sama, look! I finally revived the fish! Will you teach me now?"
Tsuande nearly dropped her textbook when she heard the exclamation, snapping her head upwards with wide eyes. Sure enough there stood the Uchiha brat, smiling proudly as he stood next to the river bank above a violently flopping fish. Setting aside the book she swept over and swiped the fish off the ground, pulsing chakra through it. Everything felt perfectly in order, its vitals fine save for the strain on its gills from being outside water.
"Not bad," she allowed as she tossed the fish back into the river, eyes critical as she watched it splash into the water and swiftly swim away. Her gaze turned back to the boy, scrutinizing him closely. A look of utter satisfaction hung around him, a small smile lighting his face even as he panted tiredly from the exertion of what he'd just done.
She had to admit, she'd been surprised to see him again. Three months had passed since their first meeting, and she'd nearly forgotten about him and the bet they'd made. She'd bet on him losing interest within three months, and he had countered with a bet he'd learn to revive fish by then. It had seemed like such an easy win on her end, she hadn't really taken it seriously.
After all, the Uchiha clan specialized in combat above all else. Medical ninjutsu was difficult and sometimes downright boring compared to other fields, and medics couldn't fight directly on the front lines. This boy was young, still in the academy, so she had fully expected him to get bored quickly and move on to something more fitting of his family's specialties.
Obviously, she'd been wrong.
"Will you teach me now?" he asked, staring at her expectantly. She crossed her arms and closed her eyes, letting out a long-suffering sigh.
"A bet's a bet," she replied with a shrug. Needless to say, she had lost. Jiraiya would have a field day when he heard about this... "Alright, kid, you got yourself a teacher."
The boy's face lit up almost immediately, mouth stretching into a grin so wide and oddly familiar it brought a pang to her heart. "You mean it? Really? Yes! Yes! Thank you so much, Tsunade-sensei!"
The title felt strange, her eye twitching at how swiftly he adopted the new honorific, but she brushed it aside as she spoke. "What's your name kid?" she demanded, because despite having met him before and making that bet, she'd never bothered getting his name. It had seemed pointless since—again—she hadn't actually expected to see him again.
The boy's excited whooping silenced instantly, his face serious once more as he stood ramrod straight and dipped into a bow. "Uchiha Ryuusuke, ma'am. I look forward to learning from you!"
Her eyes narrowed. "Uchiha Ryuusuke?" Something about the name felt vaguely familiar, distantly niggling on the edge of her memories. She looked at his face more closely, taking in the features of her new student. Messy brown hair and dark eyes, but skin just a few shades more tan than the average fair Uchiha—
Oh, she thought, a sudden sense of understanding washing over her. Suddenly, his desperation to learn from her made just a little more sense.
"Tsunade-sensei, I did it! The cut is totally gone!"
Tsunade nodded in approval as she examined her arm, the skin perfectly smooth and unblemished. No traces of the long, thin slit she'd made down the length of her forearm remained save for a bit of blood which had seeped out from the wound when she'd first made it. The cut had been smooth and clean, simple to heal, but that made the feat no less impressive.
"It's good," she admitted, and Ryuusuke's face lit up once more as she proceeded to wipe her arm clean.
Uchiha Ryuusuke was a quick study, and possibly a medical prodigy. Granted, reviving the fish had covered the hardest part of his early studies, but still—to get that down in three short months spoke of immense skill and talent. And now after one month of training under her, he'd already moved on to healing external wounds. She had to admit, he certainly had plenty of drive. He made a good student.
"Thank you, Tsunade-sensei!" he exclaimed, beaming at her with that smile so bright and un-Uchiha-like it almost made her smile too. She settled for a smirk instead.
"Don't get too excited, brat," she scolded, lightly bopping him on the head. That successfully wiped that grin off his face, and as he rubbed his head with a small pout she continued, "This is just basics. As it stands I wouldn't trust you with anything more than first aid. You still have a long way to go."
Ryuusuke nodded, his face solemn, but she could see traces of that smile glittering in his eye. "I know, Tsunade-sensei. I have no intentions of slacking off now. I will do my best to improve, no matter—"
"Ryuusuke-nii!" He stopped mid-sentence at a prepubescent voice, and they turned to see a small girl with black hair tied in a tight bun at the nape of her neck approaching from the edge of the training field. Obviously Uchiha, maybe two or three years younger than him. Ryuusuke's face softened, his chest falling with a small, mildly exasperated breath as he turned to face her.
"Riko-chan, what are you doing here?" he asked. "Aren't you supposed to be at the academy right now?"
"We got out early today," she told him. "You weren't at your house, and your mother said you'd be here."
"And so you came to look for me?" he asked.
"I was bored," she replied blandly, and Ryuusuke's palm met his face. Tsunade snorted in amusement, the corners of her mouth quirking up. The Uchiha girl finally glanced her way, eyes moving up and down her form before settling on her chest. Her face went almost comically blank at that point, making Tsunade's eyes narrow in mild irritation.
"Got something to say?"
"No," the girl replied immediately, and dipped into a polite bow. "Uchiha Ryoko, it is a pleasure to meet you, Tsunade-sama." She then yelped as Ryuusuke shoved her head, pushing her down a bit further.
"Please ignore her manners, she spends her time with Uzumaki Kushina," he deadpanned. "She rubs off on her. Which raises the question of why you're not with her now." He gave Ryoko a pointed look as she pulled away, shooting him a dark glare of her own.
"She's visiting with Mito-sama today."
"I'm surprised you didn't tag along Riko. Aren't you one of Mito's fangirls?"
"I am not a fangirl!" she snapped. "I am just very enthusiastic about learning about fuinjutsu from a venerable master."
"Hold on, did you say your name is Ryoko?" Tsunade cut in, faintly amused by the bickering and the prospect of her grandmother having a fangirl—and an Uchiha, no less. The pair turned to her, Ryoko dipping into another bow.
"I did."
"Then are you Katsumi's daughter?"
Both Uchiha started at that, shooting her matching looks of surprise. "How—?"
"She was in my class," Tsunade replied with a shrug. "I've been wondering how her kid was doing. So you get along with my student, hmm?"
"Yeah, she's like my sister," Ryuusuke said, at the same time Ryoko declared in the most perfect deadpan possible, "I'm going to marry him one day."
Tsunade actually laughed at that, while Ryuusuke jumped and whirled to face the girl with a red face. "W-what? No! Riko, you're eight! You're too young to think about love! And besides that, you're Kagami's granddaughter! You can't just marry me!"
"The heart wants what the heart wants," she replied with a shrug, and Ryuusuke just groaned while Tsunade kept laughing.
"Tsunade-sensei, I know it's advanced, but can you teach me more about how osteoclasts work in repairing bones?"
She looked up at the Uchiha boy sullenly, a half-empty bottle of sake sitting on the desk. "Now?" she questioned, too tired to even sound sarcastic or dry.
She must have looked awful, and she knew it. She hadn't left her study in three days, not since that horrible rainy evening when Orochimaru had given her the necklace she had gifted her younger brother just a few short weeks ago. The curtains had been kept drawn, the only light an old lamp on her desk, and she hadn't actually read a single word of the notes open on her desk. A picture of Nawaki sat in the center of the pages, the paper around it mottled with long-dried tearstains.
To his credit Ryuusuke didn't seem fazed by her bedraggled appearance though, just met her gaze steadily with a somber face. "Staying inside like this isn't good for you. You haven't been eating properly, and you know alcohol is not an acceptable option for staying hydrated. So."
And he leaned over her shoulder to point to the notebook, gently nudging the photo of Nawaki to the side just enough to reveal a hand-drawn diagram of a bone. "Teach me about osteoclasts. It's better than sitting around in the dark."
Her lips curled back at his blunt tone, glowering at him darkly, but she didn't push him away or tell him off. She stared up at him, his young face inches from her own, cheeks still pudgy with the final remnants of baby fat and his eyes tinted even pitcher black than normal by the darkness of the room.
Looking at him now she could see traces of Nawaki, so young and innocent and pure. Only twelve, a voice screamed in her head, shrieking to the heavens high above with a ferocity that shook her to the core and rendered her numb. He was only twelve years old, not even twelve and twenty-four hours and he's gone.
She scowled at the Uchiha boy, bronze eyes glimmering darkly, and he calmly stepped back. Without a word she rose, so sharply and forcefully it knocked her chair out beneath her but she didn't care. She just grabbed her notebook and lifted it up, only pausing long enough to slip the photo of her brother out of it and onto the desk.
"Osteoclasts are bone cells normally found in the outer layer of bones beneath the periosteum, and work to break down bone tissue so that it can release the minerals..."
As she began reciting the long, jargon-heavy summary of her research on bone resorption Ryuusuke just listened in placid silence, face perfectly smooth and blank.
But deep inside his shadowy eyes she could see the glint of relief, and it just made her stomach curl even more tightly and painfully than before.
"Tsunade-sensei, I know it looks bad, but—I need to do this. No one can know about this. Please, I beg you!"
She was shaking.
She could feel herself shaking as she stared at Ryuusuke, her face screwed up in absolute rage. Fear and apprehension warred on her student's face as he stood before her, a cowering Ryoko huddled on the ground behind him clutching at her bloodied sleeve.
She didn't think the shaking was just because of the blood on the girl's swollen wrist—so much blood, seeping through her fingers and staining everything, the rise and fall of his chest slowing beneath her fingers with each ragged breath—or from the chilly winds of late autumn. She didn't think it came from the revulsion of seeing such a horrid wound on a genin here, safe in the confines of Konoha and miles away from the nearest battlefields. No, she knew where it came from, all too well.
"This," she seethed through gritted teeth. "This is why you wanted to learn medical ninjutsu, isn't it?"
Ryuusuke winced at her cold tone, his face wavering briefly. Behind him Ryoko flinched too, and bit her lip as she tried to scramble to her feet. "P-please, don't get mad at him!" she pleaded, only to cry out as she winced and grabbed at her wrist.
"Ryoko!" Alarm surged in Ryuusuke's voice as he spun to face her, catching her before her legs could give out. Her face twisted in pain as she leaned into him while clutching her wrist, red seeping around her fingers and a brief glimpse of white visible beneath them.
On any other day, the sight would make Tsunade nauseous. Just seeing the smallest glimpse of red on people's clothing and bandages had been enough to make her sick to the stomach lately, prompting her to stray from the hospital more and more. Her shaky hands were no good for healing, she couldn't keep them steady long enough to do more good than harm like this.
But for the first time since that horrible blood-drenched day on the battlefields she didn't care about the sight of blood. Tsunade strode over and grabbed the girl, shoving her to the ground and practically ripping the sleeve off her shirt to expose her arm. The wound was ugly, a jagged piece of bone jutting out from her wrist just above the palm in a gory mess.
"This is why you wanted to learn to heal broken bones," she growled, glowing green hands pumping chakra into the wound. "This is why you wanted to learn to heal cuts. This is why you wanted to learn iryo-ninjutsu. Not for some sense of duty to the village, but to hide this!"
She spat the word, venom lacing her tone as she roughly shoved the piece of bone back into place. "Ryoko!" Ryuusuke yelled when the girl cried out, lurching forward on reflex, but he stopped in his tracks when he received an icy glare from Tsunade.
No one spoke as she mended the bone and the arteries which had been cut by it's displacement, the only sound Ryoko's half-strangled whimpers as she tried to keep from sobbing at the intense pain. Only when the skin had closed, the bone fixing into place and arteries whole once more, did Tsunade finally cease the flow of chakra and rise. She didn't look at either of them as she turned around, blood-covered fists clenched tightly at her sides.
"Don't you dare try to do anything with that hand for a month," she ordered, cold and seething.
"But—but I have training!" Ryoko protested, ignoring Ryuusuke's attempts to shush her. The genin winced when Tsunade turned her head, amber eyes blazing with rage.
"I don't fucking care!" she snarled. "At this rate you're going to sabotage your entire career! And you, Ryuusuke!" The boy winced, rising sharply to meet her stern gaze with wide eyes. He shrunk as her face twisted into an ugly and ferocious scowl, making sure her gaze displayed the full extent of her rage. "You've been actively conspiring to hide this for at least three years! You're a medic, you should know better!"
His face crumpled, looking stricken and heartbroken at the admonishment. "S-sensei, I-I..." He trailed off, voice too shaky to speak, and once again Ryoko struggled to her feet.
"P-please, don't blame him!" she begged, repeating her earlier plea. Grimacing as she tried not to jostle her bad arm too much, she dipped into her deepest bow yet. "He wanted to tell someone, but I begged him not to. He was just trying to help me!"
"That doesn't matter," Tsunade snapped, her patience running thin. "Uchiha Ryuusuke is my student. I taught him better than this." She turned on her heel, her pigtails whipping behind her. "I won't report it this time. But I swear to the Sage himself, if you let this continue to escalate, I will step in and take measures myself. You're a Leaf ninja now. Your life belongs to Konoha, you're not allowed to throw it away."
She didn't wait for either of them to respond, just stalked away.
That night she went to the bar and got drop-dead drunk. She didn't remember how she got home, just knew she woke up in a pile on the floor inside her front door. Her back felt stiff and uncomfortable and her head pounded but she didn't care. All she could do was stand in her bathroom scrubbing her hands nearly raw in an attempt to get off the blood, tears streaming down her face.
There was no repeat of that incident.
Four years later Dan's brother and sister-in-law died in battle. At the funeral Tsunade held the hand of a little dark-haired girl barely five going on six, red-eyed and sniffling as they watched smoke rise from the crematorium because there hadn't been enough left of her parents to bother with a complete burial. Behind her Tsunade could sense Ryuusuke standing in silent mourning with his head bowed, and Ryoko whispering promises to the little girl to make her a pretty urn for the ashes because wouldn't that be nice, something special and unique just to them?
And her stomach twisted at the idea of this little girl being left with nothing but a ceramic jar of ashes as she was shunted into an orphanage. Only growing up knowing of her uncle as a name on a gravestone and her aunt just another victim on the memorial for the attack on Konoha during the Second War, her parents' faces eventually fading with time as all memories do—
Her teeth ground at the idea, her grip on the tiny little hand squeezing just a bit tighter.
No more.
There was no glory in the life of a shinobi. Shinobi did nothing but march off to war and die, good people dying far too young and their innocence shattered and broken and violently torn to shreds before they even realized it existed. They just left behind destruction on the battlefields and gaping holes in people's hearts, scarring the world wherever they walked.
Two weeks later she walked out Konoha's gates, a sealing scroll with all the possessions she cared about shoved in her bag and a little girl walking by her side. The child twisted around to wave back at Ryuusuke and Ryoko as Konoha vanished from sight, while she kept her gaze firmly forward.
She ignored the sad look in her student's eye as she left.
She didn't bother responding to the wedding invitation a cat delivered to her a few months later.
She did respond to a few of the letters, about the biology of the eye and how the Sharingan impacted both the chakra and optical networks.
She got annoyed when they somehow tracked her down to a bar near the borders of Tea and asked her to be their child's godmother despite not even being pregnant yet, but grudgingly agreed when they paid off her debt to the loan sharks hounding her.
And when she got an invitation to a baby shower, she commissioned a small charm from a blacksmith in Iron, a little brass pin in the shape of the Senju clan symbol to be attached to a necklace and sent it to Ryoko to wear during the pregnancy.
"What did you just say?"
Tsunade felt numb as she stared at the brown-haired man, his radiant smile so like her grandfather's it felt painful. For once she had no problems putting down the open bottle of sake in her hand, her drunken stupor instantly snapping into stone-cold sobriety as she stared at her former student.
"This is crazy," she whispered. "You—you sound like you're committing suicide." Next to her Shizune looked equally pale and stricken, her eyes wide with disbelief as she processed the scene unfolding before her.
"Ryuusuke-senpai," she whispered, and the title made Tsunade's stomach even more because the two had only met a handful of times and yet they both called her master, a kindred bond never able to be fostered beyond the regular letters carried around by those cats she so enjoyed cursing out.
Ryuusuke just smiled at them, dark eyes glittering and sad. "It's okay, Shizune-chan, Tsunade-shishou. I know I might not make it out alive, but I've made my peace with that." Tsunade couldn't speak, just stared at him in shock. Shizune had no such compunctions though, slamming her hands on the table as she sharply rose.
"You have children on the way!" the teenager protested. "Twins! And Ryoko-san—she's been through so much already! You can't leave now and leave her alone!"
Guilt flickered across his face, Shizune's words clearly striking home, and at the same time Tsunade felt a spark of emotion flare inside her. "They're Senju," she whispered. The name felt alien and odd on her tongue, unused for so long she almost couldn't remember how to use it, but saying it sparked the fire stronger, her hands clenching as she stared up at him.
"Those children are Senju," she repeated, more firmly and clearly this time. "They're not just your family, they're the last remnants of my clan—no, of our clan!"
The words felt so bitter on her tongue, her mouth dry and thick even as her vision blurred. Ryuusuke may bear the Uchiha name but he had Senju blood in his veins, even if his grandparents had both been fringe members of their clans married off in a sign of good-will after the village's founding. No matter how thin the relation was though, it did not change the fact that he shared the same blood in his veins—quite possibly the only one left besides her.
Even now she could see the ghosts of her family in his face. His broad nose so much like her Aunt Kamako's, his hair the same shade as her cousin Touma, and his smile so much like her brother and their grandfather before him—
She found her throat suddenly thick and lumpy as she stared up at the stone-faced man, so different from the boy who had been treated as an outcast by his family for bearing blood belonging their former enemies.
"You," she bit out, and her voice sounded so raw and hoarse, rawer than it had been since—since—
(—since she stared at the blanket-covered form of a child that could no longer be recognized,)
(—since she screamed herself raw as she pumped chakra into a dying man's chest,)
(—since she woke up to a red stain on her too-bright white sheets and a hollowness in her stomach where a small life once resided.)
"I'm sorry," Ryuusuke said simply, and dipped into that goddamn bow just like that day so many years ago when they had first met. "I can't tell you what I'm doing, but if I succeed, this will make things so much better. And if I don't..." She could sense his smile grow a little sardonic at that, perfectly able to picture the small twist to his mouth where the corners raised up ever so slightly. "Well, maybe I'll at least be able to do some good and deliver some good news."
Grief flashed in his face at that, the familiar look Tsunade used to see on the battlefield when her comrades talked their waiting families back at home with the knowledge they would likely never see their unborn children. Her stomach twisted, having hoped to never see it again, let alone on her own student.
"But I have to do this," he continued, his voice so calm—how did he keep it so steady?—as he met her eyes. "Not just for myself, but for Ryoko and the twins as well. If I don't, I feel like we'll always have regrets. But, because I know there's a chance I won't make it back, please."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick envelope, clearly hand-made with pale yellow paper covered in faint swirls which almost shimmered in the light. "This is a letter to the twins. I want you to give it to them."
Her stomach sank as she stared at it, the numbness creeping back up. Once again Shizune recovered her composure first, tears sprouting in the corner of her eyes as she stalked over to him. "That's it?" she demanded harshly. "You want us to deliver a letter for your unborn children? What about your wife, the woman who you swore to protect!? Are you just going to leave her alone with nothing?!"
"Of course not," Ryuusuke deflected, shaking his head. "Years ago when I had to go back to the field, we made two boxes, each one connected to our lives." He held up his wrist as he spoke, revealing a small black heart. Another sharp pang hit Tsunade as she remembered all those years ago when she'd found Ryoko with bone jutting from her wrist in the exact same place. "If I die, the box will spring open and reveal my letter to her." Shizune seemed taken aback by how calmly he stated that, and after a moment he lowered his wrist with a sigh.
"Why are you giving this to us, then?" Tsunade demanded lowly. She couldn't look at him anymore, just turned back to the table and stared down at the half-drunk sake with no appetite for the devilish liquid. "Why not just leave the letter there? We're not involved." She could feel Ryuusuke look at her once more, but she didn't turn around, just waited for him to speak.
Then she felt a hand touch on her shoulder, and she jerked her head upwards to find him leaning over her, a gentle smile on his face.
"Because," he said softly, reaching down to the table just like that day in her study after Nawaki had died, "You're my children's godmother. You said it yourself, they're your family too, and I can't imagine a better reason to trust you. You might not believe in yourself anymore, but I never lost my faith in you."
She felt him press something smooth and round into her hands, and she looked down to see a hand-carved wooden bracelet with a red lacquer finish.
"Shishou, thank you for teaching me all these years."
Now here she stood thirteen years later, staring at one of the two children of her former student and one of the final remnants of two clans. The last child with any of her blood, the child her grandfather would have hailed as a symbol of peace between their feuding clans for merely existing. Yet no matter how she looked at him Tsunade saw not Senju or Uchiha, but instead the boy who had called master.
She saw Ryuusuke in his hair (the exact same shade of brown and twice as messy), in his chin (slightly round with a regal point that would be so handsome once he lost his baby fat), in the eyes (shaped just like his mother's but with that same amount of soul always visible even in the pitch black depths)—
Tsunade looked at Uchiha Masaru and saw the ghost of a bright-eyed boy full of firm determination, the same boy who became a stone-faced man willing to go to his death and leave behind a family he would get a chance to meet, all in the name of some cause she never knew.
"He was the first Uchiha-born medic," she told him, voice hollow yet so very heavy and thick. "I trained him myself for years, starting in his final year at the academy before he even became a genin. He had four years on your mother and saved countless lives during the war, and yet everyone probably knew him more as her husband than for his skill."
She had to pause at that, her teeth ready to grind as she remembered the isolation he received from his clan because of the blood in his veins. Ryuusuke had been as fierce as a dragon and one of the brightest prodigies she had ever met, but the Uchiha never seemed to care. His greatness had been eclipsed by the small genius girl who he had treated as a sister and eventually fallen in love with. And yet—
"And yet he never complained. He was fine with being forgotten and ignored while your clan worshipped your mother for her work on the Sharingan, even though practically everything she knew about the Sharingan's biology came from him. He loved her too much to be jealous, and even though you and your sister hadn't been born, he loved you two just as much."
Masaru just stared at her in silence, his eyes wide. She couldn't look at him, once again forced to avert her gaze before the ghost of yet another lost loved one could rise and haunt her once more. She shoved her hand in the pocket of her jacket, pulling out a sealing scroll and thrusting it towards him. The boy quickly shot out his hands to accept it, nearly stumbling back with the force she used to shove it into his hands.
His breath caught as he stared at it. "Is this—?"
"That scroll has a letter from your father," Tsunade told him briskly. "He gave it to me thirteen years ago, two months before you were born, to pass on to you and your sister someday in case he died." She could hear the sharp intake of breath, feel the sudden reverence that washed over him as he gazed down at the scroll.
His fingers curled around it carefully, his head bowing. "Thank you," he murmured, voice so quiet she could barely hear it, and when she glanced back at him she saw a ghost hovering behind him, a wisp of a smile crossing its lips.
Somewhere nearby a bird chirped loudly, singing a farewell song to the waning summer as it took to the skies.
("Thank you, shishou. Thank you for everything.")
Not much to say. It almost feels filler-ish, but this chapter has some VERY important bits of foreshadowing and explanations. I'll clarify now, Masaru will NEVER have the Rinnegan. Ryuusuke's grandparents were fringe members of the Uchiha and Senju clans, their blood is too diluted to trigger it. It is, however, an important plot point for reasons which will become clear later.
Also, I want to apologize for the miscarriage scene. I got the idea from "Clarity of Perception" on AO3 by Shyaway95 and teslatempest. I felt it made Tsunade's hemophobia even more justified, and also makes her long-lasting grief and decision to take Shizune outside of Konoha that much more understandable. I know it's not pleasant, and I can't possibly begin to imagine how such a loss must feel, but I feel like it makes all of her decisions that much more powerful.
Also, on the note of everyone's ages: I'm using the timeline made by Seelentau on the Naruto wiki to figure this all out. I figure Ryuusuke's grandparents got married and had at least one child within two years of Konoha's founding in order to fulfill the terms of the political treaty, and then the eldest child quickly got married and had him around the time the Sannin would have been ten. At this point, I'm thinking Ryoko was a year older than Minato and Kushina, and Ryuusuke four years older than her. So had they been alive now, Ryoko would be around 38 and Ryuusuke about 42. Ryuusuke died at age 29, when Ryoko was 25, and she later died at 33. On a related note, it's not mentioned on the timeline but Nawaki was probably the same age as Mikoto since their registration IDs are close. So he probably died around 14 years before canon, when Ryuusuke would have been about 15, and Ryoko about 11.
Thanks to all the reviewers: Blackdrake (Very good theory~), Elise142, Mr Beaver Buttington, Guest (please, share your theory, I love theories!), xXSpades231Xx, May525, ManawaSasa, GoTherka (thanks for the spree reviews! And on the note of Masaru's reaction, let's just say there's more to it than meets the eye), Guest, Normandy1998 (well right now Sasuke has no motivation to leave, so that's one wrench in the plans), dreckman, TheSupevict (there IS a panther summon in "Yeah, Kunai are cool but have you had dessert?" although the protagonist is a civilian baker) and reebajee (you are making some VERY good catches~).
See you all next week!
