The wind in the ruined courtyard felt cold, but the chill settling in Tsunade's bones had nothing to do with the weather.
"One week," Orochimaru repeated, his voice sliding over her like oil. "Think about it, Tsunade. You can hold onto your grudge, or you can hold your brother again."
"Don't listen to him, Lady Tsunade!" Shizune cried, stepping between them. "It's forbidden! It's wrong! Dan and Nawaki died for the village! They would never want to be brought back if it meant destroying the thing they loved!"
Tsunade looked at Shizune. The girl was shaking, but she stood her ground against a Sannin.
They died for the village, Tsunade thought bitterly. And what did the village give them? A stone slab and a memorial service.
But then she looked at Orochimaru. At the purple, rotting meat of his arms. At the smug, confident set of Kabuto's jaw.
They were desecrating the dead. They were using Nawaki as a bargaining chip.
The grief in her chest began to curdle into something hotter. Something familiar.
Anger.
"You speak of them," Tsunade growled, her hands clenching into fists, "like they are toys you can just put back in the box."
She took a step forward. The ground beneath her sandal cracked.
"You think I'm just a grieving woman," she snarled, chakra beginning to radiate from her skin in visible waves. "But I am a Sannin. And I think I'll just kill you both right now and save myself the headache."
Orochimaru didn't flinch. He didn't even raise his useless arms.
He just glanced at Kabuto.
"She seems upset, Kabuto," Orochimaru hissed. "Perhaps she needs a reminder of her... limitations."
Kabuto stepped forward. He didn't take a combat stance. He didn't weave signs. He looked bored.
"A Sannin," Kabuto mused, adjusting his glasses. "A title that carries so much weight. But weight is meaningless if you can't move."
Tsunade tensed, preparing to launch a punch that would liquefy his ribcage.
Kabuto reached into his pouch. He pulled out a standard kunai.
He didn't throw it.
He held it up to his own face. He looked Tsunade dead in the eye, his expression flat and clinical.
Then, deliberately, slowly, he sliced the pad of his own thumb.
It wasn't a deep cut. Just a nick.
A single, bright red bead of blood swelled on his skin.
"Oops," Kabuto said. His voice was deadpan. Mocking.
He held the thumb out, letting the droplet catch the light. It grew heavy, trembling, perfectly scarlet.
Tsunade froze.
The anger vanished. The strength vanished. The world narrowed down to that single point of red.
Her breath hitched. Her heart stopped beating and started fluttering, a trapped bird in a cage of ribs. The red filled her vision. It smelled like copper. It smelled like a damp tent in a warzone. It smelled like Dan's last breath.
Her knees hit the stones.
She didn't fall; she collapsed. Her muscles turned to water. She grabbed the fabric of her kimono, gasping for air that wouldn't come.
"Ah," Orochimaru snickered, a wet, rattling sound. "Kabuto. You are ssso clumsy."
"My apologies, Lord Orochimaru," Kabuto said, wiping the blood onto his pants. "I should be more careful around the elderly. They have weak constitutions."
He looked down at Tsunade, who was trembling violently, her face buried in her hands.
"Pathetic," Kabuto stated.
He turned his back on her.
"One week, Lady Tsunade," Orochimaru called back as they walked toward the forest shadows. "I hope you make the right choice. For everyone's sake."
They vanished.
Leaving the Legendary Sannin shivering in the dirt, paralyzed by a drop of blood no bigger than a tear.
"And then I said, 'Pop?! I'll show you pop!'" Naruto gestured wildly with a pair of chopsticks. "And BAM! The rubber ball didn't know what hit it!"
"You burned your hand," Sylvie pointed out, sipping her tea. She looked tired. "You literally cooked your palm."
"Battle scars!" Naruto declared. "Pervy Sage says pain is weakness leaving the body! Or... wait, maybe he said pain is just pain and I should stop screaming. I forget."
They were sitting at a crowded outdoor table at an izakaya called The Tipsy Tanuki. The festival was in full swing around them, the Zomeki rhythm thumping in the background, but the food here was cheap and hot.
"Eat your vegetables," Anko ordered, stealing a piece of Naruto's pork. "You need the nutrients if you're going to blow your arm off."
Jiraiya wasn't eating. He was staring across the restaurant.
Naruto followed his gaze.
At a table in the corner, separated from the noise by a wall of palpable gloom, sat two women. One was holding a pig. The other was blonde, wearing a green coat, staring at her plate like she wanted to murder it.
"Is that her?" Naruto whispered. "The Granny?"
"That's her," Jiraiya said.
He stood up, grabbing his sake bottle.
"Stay here," he ordered. "Adult talk."
He walked over to their table. Naruto, possessing zero chill, leaned as far out of his chair as possible to listen.
"Tsunade," Jiraiya said, sliding into the empty seat across from her.
The blonde woman looked up. She looked like she hadn't slept in a week. Her eyes were rimmed with red.
"Jiraiya," she grunted. "You're loud. Even for you."
"And you're hard to find," Jiraiya said. He poured himself a cup. "I'm not here to catch up, Hime. I'm here on official business."
"I'm retired," she snapped.
"The Council sent me," Jiraiya said, his voice dropping to a serious rumble. "Sarutobi-sensei is dead. The village needs a leader. We want you to be the Fifth Hokage."
Naruto gasped. Hokage? Her?
Tsunade laughed. It was a harsh, barking sound.
"Hokage?" she sneered. "You came all this way to ask me to take a fool's job? Only an idiot would want to be Hokage. It's just a title for the person willing to die first."
Naruto bristled. He stood up, slamming his hands on the table.
"Hey!" he shouted. "Don't talk about the Hokage like that! It's the greatest—"
"Sit down, brat," Anko said, grabbing the back of his collar and yanking him back into his seat. "Watch and learn."
But Anko wasn't watching the argument.
She was watching the table.
The loudmouth kid was yelling about dreams. The pervert was talking about duty. The princess was talking about misery.
Politics. Boring.
Anko ignored the words. She focused on the details.
She looked at the apprentice—Shizune. She was eating a bowl of udon with tofu and vegetables. Standard. Light. Easy on the stomach.
Then she looked at Tsunade's plate.
It was a steak. A massive cut of beef.
But it was wrong.
Usually, a woman like Tsunade—vibrant, aggressive, a powerhouse—would eat her meat rare. Maybe medium-rare. You wanted the juice. You wanted the protein.
This steak was a briquette.
It was charred black on the outside. Tsunade had cut into it, revealing the inside. It was gray. Dry. Desiccated.
There wasn't a drop of pink in it.
It looked like she had ordered the chef to burn it until it ceased to be biological matter and became carbon.
Anko narrowed her eyes.
Why ruin a good steak?
Unless you couldn't handle the juice.
Unless the red stuff made you sick.
Anko watched Tsunade pick up a piece of the leather-dry meat. Her hand trembled slightly before she put it in her mouth. She chewed mechanically, eyes distant, not tasting it.
Hemophobia? Anko hypothesized, the detective in her brain clicking the pieces together. The greatest medic in the world is afraid of blood?
She glanced at Jiraiya. He was too busy arguing philosophy to notice the dinner plate.
Anko smirked, taking a sip of her sake.
Interesting, she thought. That's a hell of a lever to pull.
And if she noticed it...
She thought about the purple-clad snake boy she'd heard rumors about. The one who dissected people for fun.
...then Kabuto definitely noticed it too.