"Dare I ask?" Tsunade said as her three guests entered her office, eyeing Naruto with Sakura perched on his shoulders. "Care to explain how you could possibly fail something as simple as a beauty pageant so spectacularly?"
After an evening of overindulging in the expensive rice wine she had been saving for the Rinne Festival, Tsunade was beginning to feel the onset of a massive headache. She poured herself another glass of clear alcohol and downed it, if only to postpone the headache, but her cheeks suddenly bulged with sick. She grabbed a rubbish bin just in time and started retching.
"There, there," Jiraiya cooed patronisingly, sliding across the desk to Tsunade's side and patting her back gently. "Easy does it, good girl… there we go, let it all out…"
"Watch the fingers!" Tsunade growled, as Jiraiya's comforting pats began wandering dangerously close to the side of her swaying breasts. "Take them off, or I break them off!"
Jiraiya instantly retreated to a safe distance.
"Aww, come on, Tsunade!" he whined, throwing up his hands in mock protest. "It's Rinne Festival season!"
Tsunade glared at him, wiping vomit from her chin with the back of her hand. "It's the Rinne Festival season isn't an argument, it's a factual statement."
"But it is the season of partying," Jiraiya argued. "Come on, Tsunade, let down your hair and live a little! You deserve a little fun…"
Tsunade rubbed her temples.
"Let's begin with the mission reports," she said tiredly. "Let's have it. The Akatsuki, Orochimaru. Go."
Jiraiya began spinning a tale of gallantry and heroics: how he had fought the Akatsuki and Orochimaru in a three-way battle and emerged victorious, and how Naruto had helped a little…
"…and how you managed to burn down ten square kilometres of the capital in the process!?" Tsunade screamed, wincing as her pounding headache worsened. "What on earth were you thinking, you imbecile!? I've had to endure the Daimyō shouting in my ears for the past two hours! We're facing the worst financial crisis the Leaf has ever seen— all because of you three!"
"It's not my fault!" Jiraiya protested. "Blame Kakuzu and Orochimaru, not me! They found each other on their own and started fighting! If it hadn't been for me being there, the entire capital would have been reduced to ashes, so the way I see it, I deserve a medal! Or at the very least, a kiss!"
"It's a pity the world doesn't see it that way," Tsunade said coldly. "The Daimyō informed me that you were seen fighting Sakura— two shinobi of the Hidden Leaf, working together to reduce the historic capital to cinders…"
Sakura's doppelganger was no longer Tsubaki, the somewhat dim-witted genetic clone; it was Orochimaru, the Great White Snake, a genius scientist on a quest to achieve true immortality and acquire every jutsu the world had to offer, at any cost.
"Using your face and chakra signature, your clone has been going around slicing up kunoichi from other villages for some time now, and that's not the worst of it," Tsunade growled at Sakura, slamming a pile of wanted posters onto her desk. "At the Rinne Festival party in the capital, Terumī Mei testified that you ambushed her and stole her breasts and her two Kekkei Genkai! Several women were found scattered across the Fire Palace, either unconscious or dead, and all of them flattened! The Nadeshiko issued a statement declaring that this could only be the work of the Manyū!"
Dread started building up in the pit of Sakura's stomach.
"It was fine when it was just the Hidden Cloud," Tsunade said, "but now the Hidden Sand, the Hidden Stone, and even our potential allies, the Hidden Mist, are demanding answers from me!"
Even if the Fire Daimyō and the shinobi world could somehow be convinced that Sakura was not her doppelganger, Orochimaru remained a former shinobi of the Hidden Leaf. For all they knew, it could be an elaborate play for the Leaf to act as it pleased and pin the blame on its missing-nin. Someone had to pay… but Orochimaru was nowhere to be found.
"You did capture Orochimaru, right?" Tsunade said witheringly. "You didn't cause all this trouble only to return empty-handed, did you?"
Jiraiya laughed awkwardly. "Well, you know Orochimaru, he's a proper slippery bastard. But Naruto and I did manage to eliminate Kakuzu, and Sakura captured Hidan of the Akatsuki all on her own…"
"…I see."
Tsunade closed her eyes and steepled her fingers and began turning over possible scenarios in her head. All of them ended badly.
"I'm sorry, Sakura, but I have no other choice," Tsunade said at last. "I've already told you what would happen if the true nature of your Kekkei Genkai were to come to light, didn't I?"
"But Lady Tsunade, I didn't do any of those things," said Sakura shakily. "It was all Orochimaru and Tsubaki… please… you can't…"
Naruto felt as though his head would explode. What was going to happen to Sakura? What was all this talk about the true nature of her Kekkei Genkai?
"I'm truly sorry, but as Hokage, I have to make the call. I must prioritise the future of the entire village over you… especially because you are my disciple," Tsunade sighed. "Though it pains me to do so, I hereby decree that Manyū Sakura be stripped of her rank as Jōnin of the Hidden Leaf… and sentenced to life imprisonment in Hōzuki Castle, the ninja prison."
"No…" said Sakura numbly. "This can't be happening. This can't be happening… argh…!"
Of their own accord, Sakura's eyes turned scarlet, as she drowned in the pain of her master's betrayal, the one person who had always had her back, the one she had trusted to lead the village towards a better tomorrow. The three black tomoe in her irises began spinning faster and faster, so swiftly that they seemed to flicker and morph into an entirely different form…
"You…" Tsunade said, her eyes growing wide. "Danzō was telling the truth…!?"
Tsunade instinctively averted her eyes, fearing indoctrination, and, taking advantage of her distraction, Naruto ran. Still carrying Sakura on his back, he spun on his heel, smashed through the door, and sprinted down the stairs into the snowy streets below.
"NARUTO, COME BACK HERE THIS INSTANT!"
Naruto ignored Tsunade's strident voice and looked around wildly. He needed to escape, find the quickest way out of the Hidden Leaf, take Sakura as far away from the village as possible…
Crash!
Shards of glass rained down on them as Jiraiya burst through Tsunade's office window above and drove his foot into the side of Naruto's head, knocking both him and Sakura to the ground.
"This isn't right!" Naruto cried. "This isn't how the village should be! This isn't what the Hokage ought to be doing! Sacrificing Sakura for something she didn't do? It's not fair, and you know it! I won't let you!"
War was something Jiraiya and Tsunade knew all too well. The meat grinder of the Third Shinobi World War, sending mere children to fight because they were running out of adults... Any alternative was better. And who knew? Perhaps, when things calmed down, Tsunade might even rescind Sakura's indefinite imprisonment order…
"I agree, it's neither right nor fair," said Jiraiya brusquely. "But do you have the strength to make things right? Can you capture Orochimaru right here and now and show the world the real criminal? Do you have the leverage to prevent all-out war?"
Naruto couldn't. He couldn't do a thing, not as he was now. He was too weak to save anyone, least of all the one he loved.
Jiraiya sighed. "Naruto, I've spent my entire life searching for a way to bring an end to all wars. I used to think the Fourth Hokage was the one I had been looking for, the Chosen One… but even that genius died without achieving anything. Do you truly believe you can surpass him? Do what even he couldn't?"
"For Sakura-chan? I can do anything," said Naruto confidently, as he scooped up her limp body and propped her up onto his shoulder. "Believe it."
Facing Jiraiya, a man towering over him in both height and ability, Naruto stood his ground, meeting his gaze unflinchingly. This was the boy, no, the man, who would one day be the Seventh Hokage. This was Uzumaki Naruto, believe it!
Sakura's heart fluttered… and Jiraiya's as well.
And it was in that moment, staring into Naruto's blue eyes full of determination, that the legendary Mangekyō Sharingan briefly vanished from her eyes, and Sakura's scarlet irises transformed into a lavender kaleidoscope of intricate patterns.
She had just Returned by Death.