I hate canon, so what better way to say fuck it to it than doing a time travel fix-it fic, with one of my favorite characters being the center of it.
I don't own Naruto otherwise, female characters would have 1000 times better representation.
this chapter just got a rewrite, hopefully you guys like it!
She watched the flames of the fireplace move in their endless dance, sitting with one hand holding a cup of Sake and the other passing the fabric of her haori between her fingers. The cold November breeze sent a chill down her spine, even with the fire roaring right in front of her.
Tsunade was thinking about the last events of the year. Against all odds, the Five Hidden Villages were at peace— something her grandpa could only imagine in his wildest dreams. Now the five Kage were working as a team, a shinobi alliance, a dream that the world had abandoned.
The fire's flames followed a fluid and hypnotic movement; it was endless and unstoppable, just like the will of the village that she'd led until recently. Taking the last sips of the bitter elixir, Tsunade remembered her life.
Everyone saw the Senju last name as an honor, but the story was different for Tsunade. From the moment of her birth, everyone expected something from her, from her grandfather's wood element to her grandmother's chakra chains. That was only the beginning of people's expectations of her.
Despite the help of her clan, she couldn't help but feel that she simply did not measure up to what people expected of the 'shinobi princess' of Konoha. She then did the only thing she could; train and train.
Her 6-year-old self would be dumbfounded to hear that her older self was grateful for the brutal training methods her uncle Tobirama applied. Once she was in the war ranks a few years later, she was thankful for how inclement her uncle had been. And if there was one thing that marked Tsunade in this life, it was war.
Twelve years was too cruel of an age to see your friends from the academy die in front of you
And now, looking back, she regretted having to grow up so quickly. Genin at age six, Chunin by age twelve, and Jonin at the prodigious age of seventeen. She remembered being an eager-to-fight Genin, ready to prove herself to everyone, and Kami, she missed it. Running around Konoha, complaining about doing D-ranks with her squad, oblivious to everything…
Dammit, she missed her teammates most of all.
After taking a moment to gather her strength, Tsunade got up from her seat and walked unsteadily towards the table across the room.
Ignoring the smattering of paperwork on top of the table, she leant down and opened the right underneath.
That cabinet held two things that were precious to her; photos of her teammates and her most expensive booze. And if she was going through the pain of going down memory lane today, the least she deserved was to do it while indulging in her vice.
She gathered the photographs in one hand and the bottle of Sake in the other before slamming the cabinet shut with a leg. The room wobbled around her as she slowly returned to the chair by the fireplace.
Looking at her old photos was undeniably painful. Instead of happy memories, they held concrete proof of all she has lost. She every once in a while felt the urge to burn them, as if turning them into ash would take the pain away.
Of course, she couldn't really bring herself to do it. As painful as they were, her photos were still one of the last ties she had with all those people.
At the top of the stack was a photo of her old genin team. Her teammates, people she grew up with, both as a ninja and as a person.
Despite what many people thought, Orochimaru wasn't always that amoral genius obsessed with immortality. He used to be her friend and a sweet, caring guy that would do just about anything for his teammates. After fighting, bleeding, and almost dying together in many battlefields, you couldn't help but form strong bonds even if the dark-haired Sannin would deny caring about anyone aside from himself.
No matter what happened later on, Tsunade still had many fond memories of them together. Like the time they laughed together at Jiraiya for being tied to the post back when they were fresh out of the academy. Or the time Jiraiya convinced him to dress up as a rogue nin to try and gain her over as if she needed a knight in shining armor.
And then there was Jiraiya. There was so much to be said about that perverted idiot. Most of her memories of Jiraiya had him getting on her nerves by trying to woo her, and yet there she was fondly remembering him with the kind of love only one other man had received for her. He would probably be doing one of his eccentric happy dances after finding out that she was the one missing him after all those years of rejection.
Not wishing to dwell on it, she flicked through the remaining photographs. Many were family photos from when she was a kid. Photos of a young Tsunade with her parents, grandparents, uncles, and so on. These photos would be unremarkable for most families, but it was all Tsunade had left of the Senju clan.
She continued browsing, finding some more somber family photos where she was failing to not look bored, and a well-worn photo of her Uncle Inoku carrying her and Nawaki on his back. Since her mother passed away while delivering Nawaki, she didn't really have a complete photo of her family. The thought had always pained her, no matter how many years passed.
There were a lot of photos of Nawaki as well, most of them taken by her. That also meant they were usually out of focus or messed up in some other way. There was one in the bunch that stood out, the one taken after he graduated from the academy.
The photo showed Tsunade and Nawaki, with the latter proudly displaying his new forehead protector with a giant smile on his face. Both of them looked so unbelievably happy in the photo that Tsunade felt tears pricking at the corner of her eyes.
Before Nawaki went and died, before the brutal war grinded her team down, before Orochimaru left the village, before it all got so messed up. She passed the page not wanting to spend any longer looking at it.
Next up, there was the most recent picture of her collection. It was her, Jiraiya and Naruto. Shizune had snapped that one afternoon they both took Naruto out to eat. The brat was staring at the camera with his trademark grin, looking no older than thirteen. Tsunade and Jiraiya were sitting on either side, not matching Naruto's enthusiasm but smiling nonetheless.
The picture was taken in one of the rare moments where they didn't drive her nuts. One could have mistaken them as family in that photograph. After pushing people away for so long, she finally found a reason to care again. And at that moment, it all felt worth it.
But life had a funny way of working out. Jiraiya was taken from them far too soon and the whole thing just collapsed. Of all the regrets in her life, and there were a lot, that was one of her biggest.
She tried so hard to protect him from the curse of her love, and yet here she was mourning once again. How she wished she'd told him that his feelings were reciprocated. He would have been so proud of seeing Naruto accomplishing all he did.
Tears pickled her eyes at the thought. No use to dwell on it, she was over it already; it was just the Sake making her nostalgic.
She repeated to herself, that comforting lie.
"Happy birthday, you perverted Baka." She muttered, raising the bottle high in the air before drinking it all to the last liquor was bitter as it went down her throat but she savored the feeling, letting it mask the tears falling from her eyes.
"I miss you." she whispered as tears overflowed her visage. All the photographs slipped from her hand and fell on the floor. A few seconds passed before Tsunade leaned down to scoop them up.
It was enough mourning for a day. She needed sleep, and hopefully, the amount of Sake in her system was enough to stop that trip into her unconscious from becoming memorable. She really wasn't in the mood for nightmares today.
In the fireplace, the dwindling flames were chewing on the last few bits of wood and the warmth was long gone. Without bothering to extinguish it, Tsunade got up and stumbled towards her room. Once inside the covers of her bed, she let herself be welcomed to a dreamless sleep.
Tsunade loved Sake; that fact wasn't a secret to anybody. Her love for the alcoholic beverage was just as well-known as her Sannin reputation or her lousy luck. And today, of all days, she thanked whatever superior beings existed for that holy liquid.
She slept like a rock throughout the night. She had such a lovely warm comfy rest under her covers, made even better by the dreamless sleep. If it wasn't for someone banging on her door, she could have stayed like this all day.
Reluctantly opening her eyes, voice thick with sleep, she muttered, "Shizune, five more minutes… I'm not Hokage anymore."
The banging stopped and almost in queue she curled deeper into her bed trying to find a comfortable position once again. Tossing the blanket off, the warmth inside her covers becoming too much.
Her rest couldn't have lasted more than five minutes before the knocking sound appeared once again, this time though it was accompanied by a scream. "Tsun-chan! It's nine already, time to wake up!"
She had to be dreaming.
She had to be dreaming because there was no chance someone was using that nickname and even less that they were saying it in that voice. The same voice that woke her up every day for more than a decade. What in the hell did the Sake do!?
Tsunade knew never to mix cheap Sake with an expensive one, but this had to be a bad joke. A distasteful joke played by her unconscious because there was no way that the person she thought was behind the door could be there.
Getting up from the bed faster than she had done in years, Tsunade opened the door to find an annoyed-looking woman staring back at her.
"Mito Baa-chan?" she finally asked, voice shaking in disbelief.
