Mr Zebra
Sometimes she's a friend of mine...
Tsunade knew what she was doing when she picked Shizune as an assistant. Not only was she a damn good medic with the chakra control skills that would make your average jounin jealous, not only was she the yin to Tsunade's yang (although gods, her yelling went through Tsunade's head like a sword when the Fifth Hokage had been on the piss the night before), but she also had a skill that few jounin in Konoha possessed: the art of poisoning.
She'd have been at home in Sunagakure with those skills, the Fifth thought to herself as she unsealed a scroll that appeared to be from the Nara clan. The Sand Village was home to a clan of poisoners, not to mention the Puppet Squad with their love of nasty deathtraps, and she wondered if it was true, that Shizune had family in that clan. Like any good shinobi, she played her cards close to her chest.
One time, the two women had been on the road when Tsunade had encountered some dodgy-looking men who claimed she owed them money. It was entirely plausible; Tsunade had spent more nights than she would have liked to remember getting pissed and betting. They'd bought her a drink as they talked, and Shizune, naturally, was suspicious. When the two of them went off to the toilet, she sniffed the glass of sake they had bought Tsunade.
"You'd better not be drinking that," she warned her mistress. "It smells off." And Tsunade, knowing her assistant had a fine nose for poison, was minded to spill it on the floor, but Shizune had a better idea. She always carried antidotes, and the luck of the kami was on her side; one of the antidotes she carried would work against this crudely prepared poison. "You might feel a bit drowsy, Tsunade-sama," she had warned, "but you'll be fine." As Tsunade swallowed the antidote with apprehension, Shizune dipped her finger in a vial of yellow liquid and let two drops fall into each glass.
When the men returned, the four began to drink, and within a mere ten minutes the men were complaining of headaches and needing to go for fresh air. They left. Tsunade closed her eyes and let out a sigh of relief.
As the two women left the bar, they could see a crowd gathered outside, peering down at the floor, and Shizune smiled to herself.
Shizune had also told Tsunade a story about when she was assigned a spying mission, working as a housemaid for a rich gang lord who'd been at the head of a human trafficking ring. While everyone was sleeping, she'd sneaked into the kitchen, opened a tacky gold ring she wore on her left middle finger, and tipped a load of powder into the specially imported gin the gang lord had loved. For good measure, she'd also performed Dokugiri, blowing poison into the bottle.
He was the only person in the household who drank the stuff, she knew, and every evening he'd insisted on having his glass of gin before bed: a ritual which had to be adhered to without fail. Shizune had given the bottle a good shake, made her way back to the servants' quarters and thanked the gods for all the stealth training she'd done back in the Academy.
"What was in the ring?" Tsunade had asked. Shizune had not been able to remember. "Probably a few plant roots and stuff."
"Did he notice anything weird at all?" frowned Tsunade.
"What do you take me for, Tsunade-sama?" cried Shizune, uncharacteristically confrontational. "You're a shinobi yourself; you know a good shinobi is always subtle and never leaves tracks or clues for the enemy to pick up on. I made a point of choosing a poison that didn't smell or have a taste – why would I be stupid enough to put something in there that might make him reject the drink?" She flinched, fearing that Tsunade was going to thump her for her outspokenness, but Tsunade had just shrugged and said, "Yeah, that's a point. I should have thought of that. So. What happened?"
Well, things had gone to plan. The gang lord had had his nightly glass of gin, as per usual. At four o'clock the next morning, the gang lord had woken up suddenly, howling in agony as convulsions racked his body. The housekeeper called a doctor, but it was too late: by the time the doctor had arrived, the criminal was dead. Moreover, his skin was rapidly starting to turn black, and fearing that he had some kind of epidemic, his wife had had to have the body burned without any kind of funeral rites.
The house had been in such disarray that no-one noticed that the unobtrusive servant girl with the short dark hair had vanished.
"Too bad the cremation was premature," Shizune had laughed afterwards, and Tsunade had laughed with her. She also made a mental note never, ever to piss Shizune off.