A little sidestory for Chapter 93, first round of the Hidden Grass Chunin Exams.
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"They're plants," the Raikage snaps, waving his betting book around like it was evidence in a court case. "Does no one else see this rubbish? Konoha is disqualified."
"They're Genin," Tsunade says laconically, sipping the sake that had been so readily supplied and burning all the alcohol out of it with her chakra. A shame, it was good stuff. But even she doesn't have fortitude required to actually drink around potentially-enemy Kage. "Graduated this year. Or last year, in some cases. Why would we be disqualified?"
"A-ranks?" He reads out, incredulous. The performance was quite good. "S-RANK?" That actually is incredulous. Too bad, she'd put the note in about hospitalisation time to try and draw away from the Nara girl's ridiculous missions, to buy her a little more leeway.
Tsunade leans backwards, makes herself comfortable. Thinks about putting her feet up but decides it would be a step too far. "It's hardly my problem if your Genin don't match up to ours."
Point to Konoha. Then Chiyo cackles and Tsunade immediately retracts that point because she doesn't want to amuse the old bag at all. Not when her initial reaction to Kakashi had forced the reminder that the alliance was neither old nor stable.
"Kumo is hardly as desperate as Leaf to bolster our ranks of ninja that we're forcing our Genin onto A-ranks," the Raikage shoots back, which is a good attempt but hardly counts when he was complaining about it a second ago. Which is for the best, because it's true in all the ways that count.
Never mind that at thirteen, Tsunade had been leading troops into war. That Kakashi had been a Jounin and as lethal as a naked blade. They were children of war. These ones were not. Not yet.
The Mizukage smiles, slow poison. "Then surely you have no reason to protest their mission history?" she asks sweetly.
Tsunade eyes her, not sure how to feel about the subtle taking of sides, the slow and sly offerings of alliance building off whatever it was that happened between the Genin. She respects Mei, won't take the chance of not, just because she's a woman, just because she's as polished and dressed up - and, yes, beautiful - as a woman of the court. All those things can be weapons, too.
The Raikage grumbles and becomes a thundercloud – loud and annoying but ineffectual – when his first Genin loses to the Sand girl. He cheers up enough to make a point of it to Onoki when his second wins against Rock, but the third makes him send dark looks her way once more.
Tsunade runs a finger around the rim of her sake saucer and scoffs. "Who the hell taught her to monologue in the middle of a fight like that?" she demands of Kakashi, who is intently pretending that he's not watching the match. Given how neurotic he is about his students and how heavily he demanded to come along, she isn't even going to humour the pretence.
"Zabuza," Hatake says, immediately, offloading the blame onto someone else. She expected nothing else.
And yet the answer is so totally out of the blue that she has to pause to confirm it.
Momochi scowls at him, fierce and bloodthirsty. "The hell are you talking about?" he growls.
Hatake barely even acknowledges him. If this were Konoha, she wouldn't even be surprised. Kakashi Hatake is an expert at ignoring people. And twice an expert at being irritating while he does it. But this is not Konoha, and these are not friends.
"Well," Kakashi says. "She had to have learnt it somewhere." He shakes his head sorrowfully. "You were such a bad influence on my Genin."
Momochi scowls harder and crosses his arms. "Bad influence. Che. You don't even know what your brat pack did to Haku."
Tsunade looks down at her drink, just to check that she isn't actually drunk. The Mizukage is watching in fascination.
And yes, she has heard about this mission. Has read the files, even, when Naruto became so important to her. It still feels like the world has tilted forty-five degrees to the right. Somehow, this was never conveyed through those reports.