"There's someone at the door," Hanabi told me, in only one of my old shirts. She hadn't been dressing properly since the incident involving Hinata and the other room, and I thought it was an easy way to rebel against her father. "I'm gonna get it, okay?" I shrugged my shoulders, and she skipped off to the front of the house. About a minute later, she came back, followed by Sakura, who I hadn't spoken to in months.

"Hi, Tenten, I see that you're here. Hanabi isn't telling me where her father is. Could you please tell me?"

"He's not here."

She looked at me with worried eyes. "What do you mean, 'not here?' He wasn't assigned a mission."

"He's with the elders of the family. Been there for over a week and isn't coming back for a while."

"Are you serious? Oh well. I'm just going to have to tell you two, and then you must tell everyone else in this house."

I glanced at Hanabi, who was leaning against the wall. "We can do that."

"So, you know how Tsunade hasn't been doing the greatest, especially with her mind? Well, she lost it completely about a week ago and tried to kill herself. Shizune and myself stopped her, but since then she's just gotten worse and worse. We can't get her to eat. She's not fit to be Hokage anymore, and while Shizune is working on replacing her for the time being, I've been in charge of watching her. It's sad, and I think she'll lose this battle with herself soon." A lone tear fell down her cheeks.

"Oh no. You're serious? We have to go see her." I crossed my arms over my chest. "I don't plan on letting her leave me without me fixing my problems with her."

Sakura's eyes glistened with the tears that hadn't yet fallen. "You'd do that? I bet she'd appreciate it very much if you did that.

"Of course I would. Hold on, let me go get ready, and then I'll go. Hanabi, you're in charge of telling the others."

"Me? Uhm, no! I want to go say goodbye to the Hokage too!"

Who told who what was pretty interesting. I ended up needing to get into Hinata's room, where my favorite pair of shoes was held captive, so I was the one who broke the news to her. Hanabi went into my closet to find something appropriate to wear, and on her way out, she found Neji, so she ended up telling him.

The four of us all came back into the main room at the same time, and Sakura half-heartedly smiled at the sight of us. "Come on, we should head over there."

We all walked in silence. Sakura was leading the way, Hanabi right behind her. I was holding hands with Neji, and Hinata was somewhere behind us, trying to keep her distance from the rest of her family. It was a good little walk we had to take to get over there, but it was nothing compared to what we knew we were going to face upon arrival.

When we entered the building where Tsunade was staying, we were greeted by a solemn Shizune. "Hello there, everyone. She's up the stairs." Sakura nodded and escorted us into the room where the frail woman lay upon a bed. She was just laying there, not moving at all.

"My Lady, I have brought guests to see you," Sakura said, trying to be happy.

"Who are they?" the elder woman asked, before her breathing got heavy.

Sakura turned to us. "Let's see, I do believe these are the young members of the Hyuuga clan." She mouthed something about saying hi. At the count of three, all of us said hello.

"Is that Tenten's voice I hear?" she coughed, turning her head toward my general direction. "Or is it my mind playing tricks on me?"

"No, Lady Tsunade, that was me you heard."

"I never would have expected you to bring her here, Sakura."

I heard a snort coming over from Hanabi, but Sakura ignored it. "She was quite insistent on coming here, you know. She apparently thinks you two had problems."

"Those are in the past, my dear. And who else did I hear over there?" As everyone else started talking to her, I stepped back and seriously thought about this. She was putting all of that in the past? All of my horrible deeds? She, after all, was the one who dealt with me right after my engagement, when I was not too happy at the world.

At the same time, though, she was teaching me that what had happened was for the best. She showed me all the lives I had messed up with my foolish actions when I was younger, and that changed me. Here she was, dying, and she had forgiven me?

"Tsunade, wait," I said, interrupting Hanabi, who was in the middle of a sad speech. "You really think all of that is in the past?"

"Of course, Tenten. You never did anything wrong to me. Your actions were uncalled for at times, yes, but you did nothing wrong. Be quiet now, so I can finish hearing the little girl's story." With that, I shut my mouth, and let Hanabi continue.

What am I doing here? She's lying to me, isn't she? My hands were in fists now, and I was biting down on my tongue. I didn't like the whole idea of her really leaving, but if she was going to, there were things I needed to tell her. "It'll be okay," Neji whispered into my ear. "I promise." How sweet it was to hear my husband reassuring me about something he didn't fully know. I let a smile form, just for it to disappear when Tsunade looked back at me.

"Let me tell you something, Tenten. Death isn't pretty. You know this." She turned so it gave the illusion that she was looking at all of us. "You all know this. Life has been hard for everyone in this very room. But death isn't all that bad. It will bring a darkness no one wants to face, but life will also spring out of this dark. Never forget it."

As awkward as it was to do so, we left right after that. Our goodbyes were said, and Sakura walked us out and back to the house. The return trip was less weird as the trip there. Maybe it was the fact that we had just stared our leader in the eyes and saw the shell that was left of her. Maybe it was that cryptic message she gave us. But whatever it was, we talked the way back.

Or, at least, everyone else did. I walked in complete silence, just reflecting on what had happened.

Three days later, we were greeted with another early morning visit by Sakura, except this time, she was hysterical. "Guys, I don't know how to tell you this," she sniffed, once we let her in and gave her a seat at the table. "She's gone. Fell out the window this morning, and didn't stop herself. Only thing we h-heard was the impact."

Shock filled my body as she continued, but I was too lost to listen even slightly. She must have been ready. How many people had she seen in the past few days? Were all of her goodbyes taken care of, and all that was left was to die? Or was it fate, just fate?

"The funeral is going to be next week. You all better be there. She would have loved to see you all caring even more than the other day."

"Who's going to replace her?" It was a rude question to be be asking, and it surprised me that Hinata was standing there, arms crossed, asking such a thing. "We can't stay without a leader as long this time as we did last time, can we?"

Sakura didn't get around to answering, which I took to mean that she didn't want to even think about having to replace Tsunade. She hadn't been in leadership for a few weeks, anyway, so why should things have to change just because she had died? I wanted to answer with that, but I knew doing so would just worsen the mood.