DISCLAIMER: I own nothing from the Naruto universe but I do have an imagination of my own. I will take advice and suggestions from my readers while continuing the story; just leave a review or message me! I'm really interested to see what pairings, etc., you would like to see!

Thinking

Emphasis

Biju, etc. speaking

Biju, etc. thinking

Standing outside of the village gates with her was... Oh, gods: she hadn't even thought of this. Tears came to her blue eyes as she began to brokenly speak. "Ba - ano... I mean, you - you're Tsunade-hime, right?"

"What are you lookin' at, brat?" Tsunade asked Jiraiya's child - what a horrible concept - crossly as the little girl tried to keep up with her pace as they walked further away from the village.

"Ano," Naruto said, trying to will away her blush as these things weren't really important. "You're just - well, you're really pretty!"

"Tch!"

Tsunade-hime was widely thought to be the world's most beautiful kunoichi even back in Naruto's old lifetime. Even knowing that the Old Hag had been using a jutsu to make herself look younger, the blue-eyed girl was still surprised by THIS Tsunade's appearance. She looked to be in her early twenties at most and definitely looked younger than Jiraiya. I wonder if she's using that weird, sustainable jutsu or hers even now. "Or is it a genjutsu?"

"It was never a genjutsu, kit. You're making a great impression on her, by the way," Kurama said sarcastically.

"I mean, not that it matters," Naruto said in embarrassment. "It's just that you're known to be the world's strongest kunoichi and whenever you're mentioned by people or even in scrolls I've read, they always go on to say that you're like 'more beautiful than Amaterasu' and shit like that." Tsunade snorted and shook her head. "Oh, gods! It does matter, doesn't it?! I'm so screwed."

"You know how to henge kid?" Tsunade asked, frowning as she looked down at the little girl.

"Sure!"

"Good. I've had a shit month and there's a casino up ahead," Tsunade replied. Naruto henged herself into her older appearance. She wasn't sure if the look on Tsunade's face meant that she was satisfied with how she looked or not.

"You're really lucky to be with me then! I'm really lucky when it comes to stuff like that, and I've still got a good amount of ryo for selling JiJi out." Naruto pulled out a picture from her jacket of "Hokage in Drag," and Tsunade cracked up.

"Sensei makes a hideous woman."

"No doubt," Naruto replied while trying to keep up with Tsunade's rushed long strides. "Oi, shouldn't we have told the gate guards I was leaving with you? Oh, man: what a drag! I'm already in trouble for skippin' today!"

Tsunade stopped in her tracks and grumbled out a string of curses. "I'm not going back there. You can go if you want, but the Perv -er, Jiraiya, asked me to have a talk with you. I'm not talking if I'm not drinking, so the choice is yours, brat."

"I'm coming with you!" Naruto was actually really excited but became concerned when Tsunade faltered in her steps. She looked pained. "Ano, is something wrong?"

Tsunade's eyes became glassy before turning into a hardened stare into the trees. "No. Send sensei one of your summons, brat. Don't tell that old coot you're with me; just say your idiot father had one of his toads swallow you to bring you to... Hmm. Tell him it's a damn secret and he can go to hell!"

"Uh, no. But I'll think of something." Naruto bit her thumb and easily rolled through the hand signs for the Kuchiyose. Tsunade had quickly turned away from her, and when Naruto realized why she probably did so, she felt awful. She can't even handle the tiny amount of blood it takes to summon? That means she can't contact Lady Katsuya: that must be terrible!

A small frog had appeared. Naruto focused on it, not wanting to appear that she'd noticed Tsunade's discomfort.

"Hi, Gekomatsu! Can you deliver a message to the Hokage?" The frog nodded his head but looked bored. "Okay, tell him that Dad had me swallowed up by an unknown toad - seriously, I don't know who that guy was - and took me to meet one of his contacts for... training. Let him know I'm safe, but don't tell him that I'm with his teammate, okay? EITHER of them!" Naruto tapped her chin as she thought more about it. "Can you tell him you didn't pay attention to who I was with?" Gekomatsu looked like he disapproved of not only the request but also of her being here with Tsunade considering the way he was looking at the Slug Princess. He finally just shrugged his shoulders. "Alright, that's all. Umm, I don't have candy or anything," she added, patting her pockets for something else to offer him for his services.

Gekomatsu looked rather repulsed at the idea of sweets and poofed off without saying a word to deliver her message.

"So now what?" Naruto asked.

Tsunade put her hand on Naruto's shoulder before smirking at the younger girl. "Now we see just how lucky you are, gaki!" She sunshinned the two of them a few blocks away from a little casino Naruto remembered getting thrown out of when she nearly cleaned them out in her first life.

"And you didn't notice who she was with? Was she alright? I had intended to check up on Naruto-chan, tonight in fact. I've been overwhelmingly busy."

"She's fine. Didn't say when she'd be back, though," Gekomatsu shrugged.

Hiruzen groaned. He hadn't dealt with this particular amphibian before, and as an official ally of Konoha, he seemed to be lax in his duties. Maybe he's new. "Alright, I'll just have to trust Jiraiya-kun. Thank you for relaying the information." Seeing the frog eyeing his tobacco, he reluctantly pushed forward the small silver box that housed the stash he kept on top of his desk. His lips twisted in irritation as the frog swallowed both the tobacco and the box whole. "I also need you to relay information to Jiraiya-kun."

The frog's eyes seemed to take on a more excited gleam. Hiruzen wondered if the tobacco was affecting him. "Yesterday, Hitomi-sensei said that Naruto-chan had an outburst in kunoichi class. She was said to have taken on what, to her, seemed like 'demonic features.'" The toad's expression faltered and he simply poofed away. "Well, that was rude."

It took ten minutes before the frog reappeared. Ten long agonizing minutes of paperwork... Hiruzen took the note his student had responded with and the toad dispelled. He couldn't stop the smile that crept up his face at seeing his perverted student's protective, fatherly words:

Tell that bitch that if she whacks or calls my daughter 'demonic' again, she'll be on the bad end of an oil-enhanced fire jutsu. I will thoroughly enjoy watching Gamabunta stomp her ass.

Oh. He hadn't heard about the woman actually slapping the girl. Jiraiya's declaration didn't answer all his questions about the little blonde by a long shot, but how dangerous could a small 5-year-old really be?

"JACKPOT!"

Tsunade squealed with glee. Naruto winced: it seemed that a younger Tsunade was a lot more excitable and girly.

"You've made my day," she hollered, pushing coins from the machine into a large paper cup. "Another go?"

"Sure. Why not?" Naruto responded. Tsunade dragged her off to play Baccarat. I'm pretty sure this is totally illegal, she thought. Future Tsunade had taught Naruto to play a crazy amount of games. Although the woman was terrible at all of them, she could definitely explain the games well and provide examples of what to do to be successful in different scenarios as long as she wasn't seriously playing. She just seemed to have no luck! At least the stakes aren't too high. Normally Baccarat was for really rich folks.

Tsunade's gleeful scream nearly deafened her gambling partner. The Senju was now laughing her ass off, piling the winning chips into a bucket. "I tell ya what kid: I like your style." She looked Naruto up and down. "Actually, your style sucks, but I can live with it if we keep winning!"

"Forget it, then! And what's wrong with my style?" Naruto was embarrassed. Really, she'd never had any sense of style nor anyone to help her figure out those kind of things. Henging into her adult self to look like she was wearing the black and orange jumpsuit that her godfather had once gifted her, only to be insulted, made her annoyed with Tsunade's comment.

"Ah, c'mon, kid: look. I didn't mean anything by it!" Her face softened at seeing the shame painted so clearly on Naruto's face. "You just need some female influence in your life, brat, and not the kind Jiraiya usually seeks out."

"Why does it matter, anyway? Oh right," she answered snarkily. "It's so I can supposedly seduce men!"

"C'mon, let's go," Tsunade said bitterly, her teammate's child still henged but following her to cash out their winnings.

Once outside and around a few corners, Naruto let her henge drop. Tsunade henged herself to look more like Naruto and dragged the girl into a sushi restaurant. She took a back-corner table, sitting toward the door, and eventually pressed chakra into a paper seal. "So, you've got questions about kunoichi missions."

Naruto looked down at her menu, unable to meet Tsunade's eyes. "I wouldn't call it concerns, I'd say it's more that the whole system is fucked up! I mean, seriously, I'm five and my friends are eight - and they're making us do some kind of seduction training?!"

"War's on the horizon, kid."

"Well, that much is obvious, considering how they're promoting so many people to my class. Seriously, if some of them DO graduate this year, they'll be cannon fodder!" Naruto exclaimed. "And who the hell wants to be with a pre-pubescent kid?" Naruto didn't see Tsunade's face darken, her expression one of anger and pity. "We'd be so much better off training like the boys do! Or them training the same way we do: it's not fair!"

"No shit," Tsunade agreed. "Something's changed in that village, Naruto. My grandfather had a different philosophy. He and his best friend founded that village so that children wouldn't go to war anymore," she added sadly. "He and my great uncle kept really young kids like you out of wars for over a generation, and although seduction missions still happened, they were rare and taken by members of both sexes. Of course, instead of seduction missions, they just interrogated then took out their targets."

"Yeah, that's another real win, right?" Seeing Tsunade's frown, Naruto continued to bitch. "I mean, we kill someone: their family or village wants to take revenge or vice versa. On and on the cycle goes, hatred breeds..."

"You sound like my grandfather."

Naruto tried not to let her expression change. Hashirama's reincarnate or not, handing out tailed beasts like prizes? No thank you. "Uhh, thanks I guess?! And these seduction missions... So what you're saying is that our Hokage is a sexist pig?"

Tsunade groaned before hitting her fist on the table, opening up a split in it. "Konoha's a military dictatorship, brat! Watch what you say about those in power or you could..." Disappear "..end up in a bad way." She took a long drink of her sake. "Those missions may not be as bad as you think, Naru-chan." Ignoring the girl's scoff, she tried to explain. "The missions are rarely to actually fool around with a client; it's usually to make men spill information and WANT to fool around. Then ya drug 'em and get the hell out of there!"

"Kunoichi can have valued intelligence, too," Naruto replied with heat.

"Thaaaat's why we have to be able to perform flawless henges, brat." Naruto obviously didn't understand. "If, say, your target is a homosexual shinobi or a heterosexual kunoichi, we women have to henge into a man." Tsunade thought it outrageous, too, but finally snickered a bit as Naruto was quite colorfully swearing in outrage as badly or perhaps even worse than she ever had.

"...such utter bullshit! And I'm a frontline fighter, 'ttebayo!"

"It's cute that you think that," Tsunade began.

"Well, I'll just have to prove it to you then, huh? And you're a frontline fighter and a kunoichi!"

"Not anymore," Tsunade answered bitterly, "I've had enough of that village."

Yes, Naruto was aware of that. "You still did it: you're one of the best of the best! And ya know: it doesn't matter if you're on the very frontline of not... If kunoichi or shinobi can't fight their way out of a desperate situation, they'll die." Naruto paused for a moment, feeling even more discouraged as they talked. "And what then? I mean, how many field medics does Konoha even have?!"

Tsunade let out a bitter chuckle. "Naruto, Naruto, Naruto. You don't think I've brought this up to sensei? I made a formal motion to put a trained medic on every team, and sensei turned me down flat. He didn't even bring the request to the full council or those old crones he calls his advisors! 'Too few resources,' he said. Tch!"

"It's too bad you're not in charge." Naruto flinched back as those words apparently made Tsunade break the glass in her hand. She offered a quiet word of apology then helped push the broken pieces to the far side of the table with her napkin. Fortunately, Baa-chan's not bleeding at least. "Oh-okay. So you don't want to lead. You could still train medics, ya know? And you could even work us poor little kunoichi into the ground with your crazy taijutsu!" Tsunade snorted, but before she could angrily respond - Naruto knew her tells well enough after dealing with the tantrums the Godaime occasionally lashed out with - the little blonde considered another possibility. "You could even train them when kunoichi come back from missions so that they eventually get certified. I mean seriously! More knowledge keeps more people alive, even if they're not fully trained."

Tsunade looked wistful, staring straight ahead of her even as their meals were placed on the table.

"You've got her thinking about it."

"Got her thinking about something, but I doubt she'd seriously do it," Naruto replied to Kurama. "I wasn't even really trying! I'm just glad to be with her again and get answers to my questions."

"Ha. I bet JiJi wants you back in the village so bad, he'd do nearly anything!" Naruto knew that in her last timeline that was certainly true. "Maybe he'd even pay you to advise on that crap or something if you can't do everything ya need to as a medic." Naruto grimaced at seeing Tsunade suddenly look up to glare at her. She's gonna think Ero-Sennin told me about her hemophobia and straight out beat his ass! She let out an awkward laugh as the two began to eat in silence.

At the end of their meal, Tsunade was smirking evilly at her, giving Naruto the heebie-jeebies. "So brat. I've decided to keep you with me through tomorrow." Somehow, her expression looked even more sinister at seeing the chibi look so happy about that. "So, let's see what kind of training you can handle, huh? If you can prove to be a potential frontline fighter like I was, I might just consider reaching out to sensei." Naruto stuck out her hand to shake on the deal. "Not that that'll happen."

"Whatever you say, hime! It's a bet, ne?"