Tsunade walked through the white corridors of Konoha Hospital with one goal in mind: to inform her daughter about Kushina Uzumaki's condition.
She stood still at the entrance, looking at several pamphlets outlining the various medical, ethical, and hygiene standards the hospital had to meet, along with information about a workshop on first aid and medical ninjutsu, which didn't require attending the academy or anything similar.
This reminded her how busy she had been since becoming the director of Konoha Hospital, a position she had obtained thanks to Miyu's ownership of the hospital, a result of the greed of the Third Hokage's former advisors.
With this, her dreams and goals had been achieved, but with it, her time for sleeping, drinking, and gambling had also been steadily decreasing.
I looked at her face, young enough to be identified as the current Hokage's sister, not his mother, but behind that youthful glow, I knew there must already be wrinkles and signs of weariness from her somewhat forced life of work.
"I need a vacation soon," Tsunade complained, continuing on her way to the Hokage Tower.
...
After waiting 10 minutes and repeatedly knocking on the door, Tsunade decided to enter the Hokage's office.
She usually wouldn't have gone in, assuming he wasn't there, but the tower's reception desk confirmed that Miyu was in her office, so she went in.
As soon as she opened the door, a loud snore filled the room. Miyu was fast asleep at the desk, drooling over some documents, with an iced coffee nearby.
At this sight, the Sannin couldn't help but smile in disbelief, feeling a pang of envy.
"This brat can sleep all she wants in her office while I'm breaking my back trying to keep the medicine supplies at the hospital," she muttered to herself, standing before the desk.
She scanned the room, finding no sign of any ANBU or ninja in general, confirming that she and Miyu were the only ones in the room at that moment.
Without any restraint, she threw the report documents onto the table with a resounding thud that echoed throughout the room.
At that moment, Tsunade, without thinking, moved to the side to dodge the kunai aimed at her neck by Miyu, who, barely feeling the impact, woke up and attacked.
It wasn't that Tsunade had incredible reflexes or could see the future, but it was a well-documented fact that those who entered the Hokage's office without permission tended to end up in Konoha's hospital. Therefore, she knew what would happen, and since she had entered without permission, along with waking her up like that, it was obvious to the Sannin what her daughter would do.
"Huh? Mother, what are you doing here?" Miyu said, realizing what was happening as she blinked rapidly and yawned. "Why didn't you knock? I could have killed you."
"I knocked several times and you didn't wake up," she said curtly, looking at the position she'd been in.
"Really?" Miyu asked listlessly, more concerned that her coffee was now cold.
"I came to inform you about Kushina's current situation," Tsunade explained, watching as she tried to heat the coffee using her die, which she heated through chakra transformation—more specifically, fire release—to warm her finger and dip it into the cup.
It wasn't an ideal way to use chakra transformation or heat coffee, but it was a way.
"How is Sleeping Beauty? Any signs of waking up?" Miyu asked, moving her finger around in the coffee cup to heat it evenly.
"That's the thing: Kushina's body is healthy; there's no reason why she shouldn't wake up. She has everything she needs to do so, but even so, she remains asleep, completely unresponsive to the outside world," Tsunade explained somewhat listlessly.
They had been monitoring Kushina's condition for almost five years. From a battered body with destroyed chakra coils to a healthy body, even capable of using chakra. Not at the level before the accident, but she could use techniques that required minimal chakra.
"Hmm, do you know what that means?" Miyu asked her mother, still staring at her coffee.
"What does that mean?" Tsunade asked, wanting to know what she was thinking.
"That the fantasy inside her mind must be much better than the reality she imagines of the real world," she concluded, finally looking at her.
"That means..." Tsunade began, but Miyu interrupted her.
"It means that, despite being able to wake up and having the means to do so, she prefers to be in the dream her mind created. It must be wonderful if she doesn't want to wake up; I can only imagine it's related to rejecting the idea that Minato is dead," the Hokage explained, taking her finger out of her coffee to take a sip. "She needs more sugar."
"So we'll have to enter her mind to bring her back to reality?" Tsunade asked.
"Bingo, the problem is no longer in her body but in her mind," Miyu declared, touching her temple.
"Then we'll have to bring Inoichi so he can enter her mind and bring her back," Tsunade concluded. "Not so fast. Do you think that man who lets himself be dominated by his wife can pull her out of that dream? Most likely, the moment he tries, Kushina will give him a beating and knock him out of her mental space. Who says she doesn't hear what's happening outside her body? So, telling her such superficial things won't do anything to wake her up," Miyu explained.
"So, what do you propose?" Tsunade asked.
"The one with the best chance of entering her mind and pulling her out, ironically, is me," Miyu declared, pointing her finger and puffing out her chest as if what she was saying was a clear and obvious fact.
"You? How do you plan to do it?" the slug sannin inquired.
"Easy. With the Phantom Transformation Jutsu, I can enter Kushina's body and communicate with her," Miyu explained.
"Hmm, but you never completed the training to learn the jutsu," Tsunade retorted.
"Who says I can't learn it now? I can do it very easily. The only problem is that I don't have time right now; I'm busy taking care of some matters so I can travel to other countries later, except for the one on the other side of the continent, to forge an alliance. Therefore, Kushina's awakening will have to be postponed until I manage to learn my father's special ninjutsu," she explained unanimously.
"Are you sure this will work?" I couldn't help but ask Tsunade.
"Yes, of course, what do you take me for? It's obvious I'll manage," Miyu tried to reassure herself, but the Sannin noticed her hands.
Miyu was tapping her fingers repeatedly and steadily on the table, a habit she had when she wasn't quite sure what she was saying, something Tsunade, her mother, knew perfectly well about her daughter, having seen it many times.
But there was no other viable option at that moment, so there was no other choice but to take her.
With a sigh, Tsunade looked at Miyu, who was smiling at her, feigning confidence in her words.
"Changing the subject, when are my holidays?"
...
In the most secluded part of Konoha, a man in a leather jacket and elegant trousers—a mark of the yakuza—threw water from a bucket on the Uchiha, whom they had discovered yesterday in the lawless zone, jolting him awake.
"What? What happened?" the dark-haired man wondered, looking at the people surrounding him and trying to recall what had occurred. "You all," he said, his fury clear and overwhelming.
Several people surrounded the man, half yakuza and half mafia.
The Uchiha couldn't quite grasp what was happening. According to intelligence reports, the mafia and the yakuza were engaged in a cold war; thanks to the Hokage's intervention, a confrontation between the two had been averted, and, based on the facts, these two groups hated each other intensely.
This didn't add up; why on earth would these two groups ally themselves just to intercept him?
As he tried to piece together this mystery, he realized that, besides himself, there was another person sitting, more specifically, right in front of him.
According to what he remembered from the Uchiha patriarch's reports, the person in front of him was none other than Makoto, the head of the mafia.
"I see you're awake; I thought for a moment you were dead, considering how hard it was for you to wake up. It would have been funny to think that all it took was hitting the Uchiha on the head to kill them," mocked someone beside him.
When he looked at him, he knew immediately who it was. The individual in question was Daiki, the head of the yakuza.
At the insult to his clan, the Uchiha's eyes reddened, but without awakening his Sharingan, as he tried to free himself from the restraints on his arms and legs.
"Release me immediately! I'll kill you all, and when my superiors find out what you're doing to me, they'll purge your families. You'll see, you scum!" the raven-haired man roared, practically howling.
He tried to use chakra but realized he couldn't, which alarmed him.
"How annoying," Daiki complained, raising his foot and kicking him in the face, nearly breaking his neck, sending him sprawling.
The next second, the Uchiha spat blood and two teeth onto the ground.
"You'll pay for this. You won't have a peaceful death," he said in a lower voice, his eyes bloodshot as he stared at Daiki.
"No one cares about your delusions; what we need to know is that you spoke with that Root ninja," Makoto asked, finally speaking.
At that question, the Uchiha stopped, standing still with his eyes wide open, staring directly at Makoto.
"You've been found out. You weren't very careful, so open your mouth and sing already," Daiki declared, grabbing him by the hair to force him to look him in the eyes.
"Rot in hell," the Uchiha said, spitting in the yakuza leader's face.
Daiki simply let go and turned around to pull a handkerchief from his clothing to wipe his face while pointing it at the dark-haired man.
"You know, boys," he said, making the yakuza present smile.
The next second, they all rushed forward and began to relentlessly beat the Uchiha while the mafia watched calmly.
"Stop," Daiki said after 10 seconds, making his men halt. "As much as I'd like to see him suffer more, we need him to be able to talk."
The Uchiha, now even more emaciated, was breathing with difficulty.
"No one is going to save you; your life is in our hands, so I recommend you talk once and for all," Makoto said, staring intently at the captive.
"Never. I'd rather die," the Uchiha declared.
"That's not allowed yet," Makoto said, looking at the woman beside him. "My teacher explained how the village works and various details about different clans in case you had any problems with them, and when she spoke about the Uchiha, she only mentioned one."
"The Uchiha without their Sharingan are nothing," Makoto and Daiki said simultaneously.
At that moment, the woman beside the mafia leader donned surgical gloves and pulled a scalpel from a bag containing other medical tools.
This was the mafia's medic, a former ninja of the Kurama clan.
The moment she reached the Uchiha, she roughly grabbed his head and forced him to look up.
"Blend your teeth, because this won't be pleasant," the woman said, pointing the scalpel at the Uchiha's cheekbones. "I was asked to use the old technique used to remove eyes before medical ninjutsu existed."
"Hold on, you're breaking clan law and ARGGGH!" He couldn't continue with her threat, as he felt the woman begin to open the eyes around his eyes, preparing to gouge them out in the most brutal way possible.
Blood began to trickle down the Uchiha's face and drip onto the floor.
Some in the room couldn't bear to watch and looked away; others watched without hesitation, either because they enjoyed this kind of spectacle, were accustomed to such scenes, or simply because witnessing an Uchiha suffer was something worthwhile.
After three minutes, the woman placed one eye in a container of liquid designed to keep human eyes moist and handed it to Daiki.
The Uchiha gasped, now able to see with only one eye, staring fearfully at the woman before him.
"Now will you open your mouth?" Daiki asked, looking boredly at the seemingly ordinary eye, but the moment he began channeling a large amount of chakra into it, it transformed into the Sharingan, making him realize how much effort it took to activate it.
"Everyone will pay the price, the consequences," the Uchiha muttered.
Makoto wasn't very surprised by this.
"Take out his other eye," the mafia leader said.
"STOP, I said to—ARGH!" the Uchiha yelled, but the woman, following her boss's orders, began to remove his other eye without the slightest care.
...
After 30 minutes of torture, the Uchiha clan ninja could be seen with blood-filled eye sockets and numerous wounds, several missing teeth, one ear, none of his fingernails, multiple scars, and numerous nails embedded in his body.
"Hmm, I think we went a little too far," Daiki said to Makoto, surveying the captive's condition, who looked more dead than alive.
"I may despise the Uchiha for their arrogance and unfounded pride, but I have to admit I can give this individual a little respect, since he didn't utter a single word of what we asked of him despite the inhuman torture we inflicted on him," Makoto declared to Daiki.
"Seeing his condition, I don't think he'll talk," the yakuza leader concluded.
"What do we do, leader?" some asked Makoto, who approached the still-living Uchiha.
"Doing our job," the mafia leader explained, unsheathing his katana and, with a single movement, beheading the Uchiha. "Killing traitors."
Daiki watched this, then stood over the Uchiha's eyes and, without hesitation, crushed them both with a kick.
"This thing's useless," Daiki said, lighting a cigarette. "The usual, boys, leave nothing behind."
"Understood, boss," the yakuza said, starting to bring in the canisters of flammable liquid.
"We didn't get anything this time. The boss won't like it," Makoto declared, leaving the area.
"What a nuisance," Daiki complained, following Makoto as the Uchiha's corpse lay in the background.