They arrived in a chaotic cluster, all five of them practically spilling through the door at once, and Tsunade barely had time to look up from her paperwork before Naruto had already planted both hands on her desk.
"Make me a chūnin," he announced. "Right now."
Tsunade blinked once. "Excuse me?"
"You heard him," Sasuke said, stepping up beside him, jaw set with an intensity that left no room for negotiation. "Promote us. All of us. We're going to the front line."
A tick mark seemed to form on her forehead at that. Did this brat think this was a child's game, to promote anyone, or did they think war was a fun game?
"Absolutely not," Tsunade said, not even bothering to look up a second time, already back to her paperwork like the matter was settled. "You're genin. You stay in the village. That decision isn't up for debate."
"Then explain how Neji Hyūga is going," Sasuke shot back immediately, arms crossed. "He's our age. If he can go, so can we."
"Neji demonstrated combat capability well beyond genin level during the invasion," Tsunade said, finally setting her pen down with the air of someone bracing for a headache. "So did Sukuna, for that matter. Neither promotion was arbitrary. They earned it."
"We fought in that invasion too," Karin said. "All of us did."
"Fighting isn't the same as being ready for an organised war," Tsunade said. "There's a difference between defending your own village against a surprise attack and standing on a battlefield against an actual enemy army. I'm not sending children to do the second one just because they're upset about being left out of it."
"I'm not a child," Sasuke said, low and sharp. "I've fought in an invasion. I nearly died to Neji Hyūga in a duel, and I'm not going to sit here training against people I've already lost to while everyone else actually gets stronger out there."
"That's exactly the mindset that gets genin killed," Tsunade said, tone hardening. "Chasing strength for its own sake, with no regard for whether you're actually ready."
"I don't care," Sasuke said, and something about the flatness of it made even Naruto glance sideways at him. "I have to catch up. To Sukuna. To Hyūga Neji. To that an…" He trailed off, never saying the man's name…
"…I can't do that standing still in this village."
Kiyomi, arms crossed and clearly losing patience with the entire conversation, finally cut in. "Look, old hag, we're wasting time arguing about this. Just say yes so we can—"
Both Karin's and Sakura's hands clamped down on her mouth, stopping her by force.
"What are you doing? You want to die or something…" Sakura said sharply, cutting her off before she could finish whatever she'd been about to say.
"What? I was being polite," Kiyomi said, entirely unrepentant. "I'm not wrong, am I? She is an old H…"
Once again, her mouth was sealed. "Watch your mouth in front of the Hokage," Karin hissed, elbowing her hard enough to make a point.
Tsunade's eye had already started twitching. "I heard that."
"You were meant to," Kiyomi said, smiling sweetly, and it took both Sakura and Sasuke grabbing an arm each to keep her from saying anything further.
Tsunade pinched the bridge of her nose. She didn't even seem to have the energy left to get angry right now. She was tired, fed up with the paperwork, and her craving for cheap alcohol and losing money in casinos was making her suffer.
So, she visibly decided it wasn't worth escalating that particular fight on top of everything else currently demanding her attention. Her eyes finally landed on Sukuna instead, who'd been standing quietly near the door through the entire exchange as if watching a show or a drama.
"You," she said. "Talk some sense into them. You led them here, you handle them." She chided.
Sukuna opened his mouth, ready to argue to the old hag that he had nothing to do with this, but then thought otherwise. The last thing he wanted right now was more of her attention.
He turned to them, fully intending to break their naive delusions of going to war—and then he looked at them properly.
Naruto's stubborn desperation. Sasuke's barely contained intensity, something raw and genuine underneath all the posturing about catching up. Karin and Sakura, neither actually wishing to go but unable to stand being left behind while he and others went out there to protect them all.
And then there was Kiyomi. He genuinely think that if he left her behind, then it would be more troublesome than taking her along. Kami knows what she'd do to Konoha by the time he returned.
Something in him decided, almost against his own better judgment, that stopping them here wasn't actually the right call.
"Actually," he said, "I think you should let them come."
The room went dead silent.
"What?" Tsunade said, staring at him like he'd just grown a second head.
"They need the experience," Sukuna said, ignoring the disbelief radiating off her. "Sheltering them from this war entirely doesn't make them stronger; it just delays the day they're forced into something like it without any preparation at all. Better they get real exposure now, controlled, with someone experienced watching over them, than get thrown into worse circumstances later with no guidance at all."
"That's—" Tsunade started, already gearing up to argue.
"I'll take personal responsibility," Sukuna cut in. "Make it official if you want. A team under my direct supervision. I'll keep them alive. I already do that on a semi-regular basis anyway."
For a moment nobody moved. Then all five of them turned on him at once, and before he could brace for it, he found himself tackled from multiple directions simultaneously, a tangle of arms and gratitude that nearly knocked him off his feet entirely.
"You're the best," Naruto said, grinning ear to ear.
"Sigh… Don't make me regret this," Sukuna muttered, extracting himself from the pile with visible effort.
Tsunade, meanwhile, looked like she was seriously considering putting her fist through the desk. "You're supposed to be talking them out of it, not vouching for them."
"I changed my mind," Sukuna said simply.
"Oh… why the sudden change of heart?" She asked exaggeratedly.
"Look at them and you tell me. What do you see in their faces…"
Tsunade stared at him for a long moment, jaw working like she was chewing on several different arguments and discarding each one in turn.
Her eyes then passed through the faces of those annoying little grinning faces, and she exhaled hard, dragging a hand down her face.
"Fine," she said. "Fine. But not just under your supervision. I'm sending someone else along as well. Someone with actual battlefield command experience. You two will also be under him. If I hear even a single complaint that you or any of those brats disobey orders, then I'll drag all of you back to the village myself if I have to… Is that understood?" She heaved.
"Crystal." He grinned.
"Who?" Sakura asked.
"I mean, who are you assigning as our group leader?"
Tsunade didn't answer immediately, already scribbling something onto a mission scroll with the particular ferocity of someone who fully expected to regret this decision by the end of the week.
"You'll find out," she said. "Now get out of my office before I change my mind about all of this."
Nobody argued with that. They filed out quickly, buzzing with excitement that none of them bothered to hide, leaving Sukuna standing alone in the doorway a moment longer, already wondering exactly what he'd just signed himself up for.
xXx
A/N : I don't intent to make this a very long arc, I mean its just Kumo, Bee is half crippled and A is dead. They lack high-level combat strength. They most likely won't last very long. Of course, the situation changes if other village or someone else entirely decides to intervene.
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