Tsunade leaned against a tree, trying to keep herself upright even as her legs shook from fatigue beneath her.
Training was hard enough already, but she had to deal with two new problems. First was that her body was out of shape. If she was getting so tired this easily, she'd definitely been slacking on her training in the past.
Second, she couldn't pull out all of her tricks during training without asking too many annoying questions. Even though she had the strength to destroy mountains with her fists, she had to act like a run-of-the-mill newbie Jonin.
"No need to look so annoyed, Hime. You're crushing yesterday's records." Jiraiya cheerfully called out from his position in the shade.
Of course, that didn't do anything to soothe her anger. With war looming in the horizon, she needed to be much better than that.
"Some of us… actually… like working… hard." Tsunade responded in between heavy breaths.
"Don't be that way," he pouted. "I'm under orders to take some time to recover after my mission. And you know me, I never slack off."
Tsunade resisted the urge to throw a tree at him. Instead, she took a few more moments to steady her breath before responding.
"That's not true. You slack off all the time. Remember how often Sensei had to drag you to training."
"What can I say? We were all young and dumb once."
"You're slacking off right now." She pointed an accusatory finger at Jiraiya, who was casually lounging on the grass. "We don't get breaks after missions when there's a war."
He waved away her accusation. "If it's not officially announced, it doesn't exist." As frustrating as it was, Jiraiya was technically right.
"You can repeat that line to our enemies once they stab you in the knees."
"Less talking, more running."
Biting back a retort, Tsunade quietly walked back to the training field. There were more important things to focus on than winning this verbal spar.
Tsunade was never the fastest, hence why her colossal strength and the ability to shrug off damage became her best friends in the battle field.
As a result, she never really needed to be the fastest one out there. With just a precise punch, most of her enemies were as good as done. And for the rest, she had her teammates.
But this time was different. Now that she had her tricks from the future down, she had no excuses. Tsunade needed to start working on the things she never had, now that her body was back in its prime.
"Slower than the last one!" Jiraiya unhelpfully called out, just as she crossed the designated finishing line. "You're getting distracted, Hime."
Tsunade leaned against the tree, taking her time to catch her breath. It was a frustrating situation – torn between annoyance at herself and a desire to not let anything get in the way of training.
She wanted to take note of each victory and continue moving forward, but with the stakes so high, each stumble felt massive.
"Almost as if there's someone constantly trying to distract me." She sneered at Jiraiya, who only laughed in response.
"C'mon, we both know trying to prove me wrong really motivates you." Jiraiya finally got up, dusting off his clothes, "Anyway, it looks like you've been inside your head lately."
Again, he wasn't wrong, but it did irk her that others could see her struggling. As a a former Hokage and veteran of multiple wars, she really should be stronger than this.
"Well I know the perfect way to snap you out of this." Jiraiya interrupted her thoughts, stepping closer to her. "How about a chance to beat me up?"
"Huh?" Confusion visible, She wondered if she heard him correctly. Did he really just ask her to kick his ass?
"Come on! Nothing gets you more focused than beating me up." Jiraiya said, sliding into a fighting stance. "So let's spar. Right now."
In a way, she relished the chance to test her strength. At the same time, she couldn't use all of her tricks without having to answer some awkward questions. Nevertheless, she had to take this opportunity.
Without a word, she mirrored Jiraiya's fighting stance, causing him to break into a wide smile. Both of them knew the fight had just started.
"Let's see if you can still knock me over with one finger."
As a response, she rushed forward towards him. Instead of one single strong attack like he was expecting, she dropped down and tried to catch him with a leg sweep.
To her chagrin, Jiraiya casually jumped, letting the attack go harmlessly under him. It was a pretty damning reminder that she was just not fast enough.
Blocking the predictable kick from Jiraiya, Tsunade leapt back, trying to get some space between the two.
As expected, he was enough of a showboat to let her have that space. There was no way he wouldn't taunt her after that. And to make things better, she'd landed near the rocky part of the clearing.
"C'mon, Hime. You'll have to do better than that to take me out." Jiraiya taunted, making a show of dusting his clothes.
"So you don't want me to take you out?" Tsunade asked, probing to see if that could catch him off guard. At the same time, she was slowly straying to her right to reach one of the larger rocks in her vicinity. "I'm not sure I believe it."
Jiraya copied her movement and moved to his right so they were circling each other. "Of course I do, but it wouldn't be the same with a bit of physical activity, if you know what I mean."
Tsunade was now right beside a large rock which looked almost as tall as herself. Meanwhile, Jiraiya was in the empty part of the clearing with nothing to hide behind.
Instead of giving him the time to use Ninjutsu or make more bad jokes, Tsunade quickly knelt down and used both her hands to rip the massive rock from the ground.
Digging a foot into the ground for leverage, she gathered her strength before tossing the rock towards Jiraiya.
The attack was a fair bit more serious than what you'd expect for spars, but Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru knew each other's limits well enough at this point.
Like she expected, Jiraiya responded with a massive fireball that engulfed the rock before exploding it into small chunks. Tsunade used the light and sound of the explosion to camouflage herself as she darted forward.
When she exited a plume of dust and smoke that was recently a massive boulder, she caught Jiraiya still in the middle of forming hand seals. He was blazing through the seals, faster than either her or Orochimaru could manage at the time. Fast, but not fast enough.
All elegance tossed aside, Tsunade used the inertia of her rush to kick out at him. Just as Jiraiya finished forming the Tiger seal, her attack landed.
Instead of solid flesh, she felt her leg move harmlessly through smoke as Jiraiya's shadow clone popped.
"You—" Whatever curse Tsunade had was interrupted when she saw a fireball in her peripheral vision.
Using all of her strength, she jumped into the air just as a fireball struck where she was a second ago.
'This is going to be annoying.' Tsunade thought, before forming hand seals while in midair. Ninjutsu wasn't exactly her specialty so directly outmatching Jiraiya wasn't an option. But all she had to do here was pull something to catch him off guard.
Tsunade finished her hand seals just as she landed on the ground, only to notice another fireball heading right towards her.
"Doton: Doryūheki"
She slammed her hands into the ground and finished the jutsu, and felt the earth shift under her palms. Barely a moment later, there was a solid wall of earth right in front of Tsunade. Not a second later, a fireball hit the wall with a thundering crash.
Her view was clouded with dirt, debris, and the brightness from the fireball, but the wall held firm. She'd put enough chakra into it that Jiraiya would have to put some real effort into destroying this thing.
He'd eventually get through, of course so she wasn't completely safe. But with this reprieve, she had more than enough time to pull off her next technique. Using this out in the open was tough since it took far too much time to gather the chakra and finish the hand seals. She could do more damage with her punches after all.
But now was the perfect chance to use the attack. Something to hit Jiraiya from range that he definitely wouldn't expect.
As yet another fireball collided with her wall, Tsunade took a deep breath and focused on evening out the energies of her chakra. Another fireball crashed against the wall as she went through the hands seals of the technique, and just as she closed the final seal, Tsunade leapt away from the cover.
"Raiton: Kasei no Yari!"
Lightning chakra gathered in her right palm, before lengthening to the size of a spear. Every moment the jutsu was active, she could feel her control over it slipping slowly as the lightning yearned to escape.
The air was full of debris, dust, and smoke from burning grass, but she could easily pinpoint Jiraiya across the field. Without waiting for the jutsu to overpower her control, she threw the spear in Jiraiya's direction.
Jiraiya barely had any time before the blinding light came faster than any other raiton jutsu he'd seen before. He dodged, but just barely, feeling the residual wind hit his face. with a loud shriek the jutsu tore into the ground a few feet behind him.
Tsunade rolled on the ground before running towards him at full speed. Her jutsu might have missed but Jiraiya would definitely know that he can't just sit back and attack her. Not after she'd shown her own ranged Ninjutsu.
"Finally getting serious, huh?" Jiraiya called out, as a plume of dust from her attack settled around him. As she expected, he kept his ground and got into a Taijutsu stance.
They were going to finish this the same way it started. Tsunade was now too close for Jiraiya to use Ninjutsu without her interrupting. "Well I won't say no to a one-on-one physical session."
As always, Jiraiya couldn't help but make another immature joke. Meanwhile, Tsunade was trying to think of an avenue of attack. They really didn't spar often, and most of the time, it was a one-sided beat up after Jiraiya did something perverted.
Right now, he was faster and had more reach, on top of being well-rested. Her biggest advantage was the regeneration from her seal, but she didn't have it right now and it really wasn't the time to try. She still had her strength, reduced as it was, but it wasn't useful if she couldn't actually land a hit.
But while Jiraiya was still strong, he couldn't compete with her decades of experience.
She closed the distance between them once again, before raising her right hand for a punch. In response, Jiraiya simply stood where he was, confident in his ability to dodge her blows. In hindsight, her way of fighting was fairly predictable when she was young. Try to land a punch and make it as hard as you can. Knowing Jiraiya, he'd wait until the last second to dodge her, just to rub it in.
As she reached him, Tsunade slammed her foot down hard– far harder than she'd hit Jiraiya in a casual spar —and the ground gave way as if it was flimsy paper instead of solid earth under her.
For less than a second, Jiraiya lost his footing as the ground cratered, cracked, and spiderwebbed around the two fighters. It was a very short moment of imbalance but in a fight, that's all it took.
Unable to jump away in time, Jiraiya leaned to his right, trying to preemptively dodge her punch. And that was perfect as far as she was concerned.
Instead of a punch, Tsunade dropped her right hand and attacked with a palm thrust from her left hand. Jiraiya saw her move and brought his arms up to block the attack – too late to try and dodge now.
Her palm connected and Jiraiya was thrown across the clearing before coming to a sudden halt against the trunk of a massive tree. A thundering sound rang across the forest at the collision. She didn't have to wait for a confirmation; Jiraiya was down for the count after that hit.
Once the adrenaline rush faded, Tsunade realized what she had just done. Running to the spot where she sent Jiraiya flying, she found him collapsed at the foot of the tree with a Jiraiya shaped dent on the tree trunk behind him.
His eyes were lost, staring at nothing, while he lay breathless, his left arm, which had received the strongest impact, was bent in a weird shape. He looked like he was in a lot of pain.
Habit took over for her as Tsunade knelt down in a hurry and started healing his injuries. Her hands started to glow green as she surveyed his body, starting with his head. No internal bleeding there, good. Then she opened his robe to check his abdomen – no splinters poking in or broken ribs puncturing internal organs. Before she could move on to his arm, Jiraiya's voice suddenly piped up. "If I could have you on top of me this easily, I'd have done this ages ago."
Resisting the urge to bang his head against the tree, Tsunade gave him a fond smile. For a quick second, she'd thought she'd gotten careless and hit him harder than he could handle. Of course, Jiraiya was far too tough to go down that easily. And that comment just reassured her that he was fine
"Don't test your luck unless you want another broken hand." Her tone was still warm despite the harsh words, "Now let's check that arm."
With practiced proficiency, Tsunade cracked the egg before pouring it onto the bowl of rice. At one point, even doing this much would have been a challenge but she got the hang of it eventually.
Using two chopsticks, she quickly mixed the egg into the hot rice. Thinking back to her previous attempts, it was embarrassing how many bowls she shattered just by applying too much force.
Leaving the bowl for a second, she went to check the vegetables cooking on the stove and gave them a quick stir. Broccoli, asparagus, carrots, mushrooms and some other greens she found in the fridge. Adding a bit more sauce and some sesame seeds to them, Tsunade turned the fire on low.
Unlike her grandmother who frequently went overboard, Tsunade was fine with something simple for dinner. Still, it just felt nice to get some cooking done, something small she could control. Turning back to the rice, Tsunade poured Furikake and a splash of soy sauce before mixing it some more.
She was never a particularly good cook, more like a disaster waiting to happen. Her uncle had a particular knack for cracking jokes about it. She hadn't learned the basics until later in her life, when cooking became a necessary skill.
After letting her grandmother cook for her for so long, Tsunade wanted to do something nice for a change. And of course, she might not get an earful for wrecking the training ground if the dinner improves Mito's mood.
Putting the bowl of rice down, Tsunade went and tasted the vegetable stew, just the perfect amount of saucy. Turning off the stove and taking the spoon and serving it on top of her rice.
In the distance, she could hear Mito's footsteps coming down the stairs. Picking up her pace, Tsunade prepared the next bowl of rice and finished just as her grandmother entered the kitchen.
Putting the last of the trays in the sink, she left enough space for both of them to sit down and eat. internally proud of herself for not making a mess of the kitchen.
While her cooking skills improved in leaps and bounds, her ability to mess up the kitchen more or less stayed the same. And nobody was more familiar with her kitchen disasters than Mito.
A part of Tsunade still felt like a nervous child as her grandmother examined the food she'd prepared. During the last time around, she never had the chance to make anything actually good for her grandmother. While this was a simple dinner, It was also the opportunity to show her how much she had learned in a subtle way.
Mito carefully tasted the stew, taking a few long seconds to take it in before responding. "It tastes… good? The hell!?"
Tsunade felt a confusing mix of pride and annoyance at her grandmother's opinion. She didn't put the bar that low, did she? Meanwhile, her grandmother looked visibly shocked as she tasted the rice as well and didn't find it inedible. Even after tasting it all, she continued examining the dishes with the air of an art critic looking at a painting.
"Were you expecting it to be poisoned or something.." Tsunade muttered petulantly.
"Well, not intentionally at least. You know how your cooking gets." Mito replied as she took the bowls of rice to the dining table. Tsunade ignored the lighthearted insult and started helping her set up.
Within minutes, only the sounds of chopsticks against the bowls filled the room as they ate together. Tsunade was just too drained from her spar to do anything but eat. Before she knew it, her bowl was empty and her stomach was still nowhere near full. Silently thankful she made more than necessary, she got up to go get some seconds.
As soon as she left the table her grandmother called out to her. She just followed her way to the kitchen to get seconds
"We need to talk."
She felt the grip she had on the bowl falter for a second at the four words. No other four words could be as anxiety inducing.
Tsunade put on a blank face as she slowly made her way back to the table, trying to not think of all the possible scenarios of what Mito might want to talk about.
"W-what about?" For fucks sake! Her composure was immediately shattered and she was stuttering like a child now.
"I can feel you shaking in your boots, Tsun-chan." Mito pointed out. "Nothing bad, I need to ask something from you."
"Sure?" Tsunade took a seat, trying to control her breathing. Even with decades of experience, she never quite outgrew her fear of her grandmother.
"I'll ask you a question, and I need you to be a hundred percent honest with me, understand?"
Not trusting her voice, Tsunade simply nodded in response.
Mito was sitting in front of her with her fingers steepled together, staring at her with more intensity than she'd ever seen before. It wasn't malice or anger, but a sense of pure focus, as if she was trying to see through her.
Unable to meet her grandmother's eyes, Tsunade dropped her head and looked at the table instead. A bowl of rice was right in front of her, looking less appetizing by the second. Instead of hunger, a deep sense of anxiety now occupied her stomach.
She continued staring, trying to focus on the smooth wooden panels of the table. In her peripheral vision, she noticed that her grandmother's bowl of rice was empty.
An uncomfortable silence stretched between the two before it was broken by a deep sigh from Mito, followed by her question.
"Who are you and what did you do with my granddaughter?"
We are back! Remind us to never promise to be more frequent at posting, it jinxed us so bad.
If you like comment fav/follow.
This is not going to be another abandoned work goddamit!