The air in the Tipsy Tanuki didn't just get heavy; it curdled.
Tsunade sat back in her chair, arms crossed over the green haori that smelled like three days of bad luck. She looked at Jiraiya, then at Naruto, with a disdain that was colder than the liquid nitrogen Orochimaru used to store his samples.
"Hokage," she repeated, tasting the word like it was spoiled milk. "You want me to sacrifice my life for this village? For these people?"
She gestured vaguely at the bustling street, at the drunks and the tourists and the fools.
"Sarutobi-sensei was a fool," she spat. "He stayed too long. He grew soft. He died protecting a pile of rocks and people who will forget his name in a generation. And you want me to follow him into the grave? No thanks."
Naruto was vibrating. The table rattled under his hands.
"Don't..." Naruto whispered, his voice shaking. "Don't talk about the Old Man like that."
"I'll talk about him however I want," Tsunade countered. "I knew him better than you. He was a sentimental old man who thought 'Will of Fire' was a shield. It's not a shield, brat. It's a suicide note."
"SHUT UP!" Naruto roared.
He lunged across the table.
Jiraiya caught him by the back of his jacket effortlessly, hauling him back.
"Sit down, Naruto," Jiraiya warned, though his own eyes were hard as flint.
"She's mocking him!" Naruto screamed. "She's mocking the village! We're supposed to take her back? She's the worst!"
"He's right," I said.
Everyone looked at me.
I adjusted my glasses. My hands were trembling under the table, but I forced my voice to be flat. Clinical.
"We don't need her to be nice," I said, looking at Tsunade. "We don't need her to be a good person. We need her biological data and her chakra control. We need a mechanic."
I reached into my pouch and pulled out a scroll.
"If she won't come willingly," I said, looking at Jiraiya, "I have a Four-Pillar Binding Array prepared. It's designed for high-density chakra suppression. If we catch her off guard, Anko and I can immobilize her while you knock her out. We can drag her back in a sack if we have to."
Tsunade looked at me. Her eyebrows shot up.
"A sack?" she laughed. "You've got guts, Four-Eyes. I'll give you that."
She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing.
"But you're wasting your breath. I'm not going back. Not for Sarutobi. And certainly not for the memory of the Fourth."
Naruto froze.
"The Fourth Hokage," Tsunade sneered. "Minato Namikaze. Everyone calls him a hero. I call him the biggest fool of them all. A genius who died young because he thought playing hero was more important than living. He left his family. He left his students. And for what? So you could eat ramen in peace?"
The noise of the restaurant died.
Anko, who had been loudly crunching on a cucumber slice, stopped.
She put the slice down.
Anko had trained under Orochimaru. She was cynical, violent, and loud. But I remembered the stories. I remembered who had been the Hokage when she was abandoned. Who had brought order back to the chaos.
Anko stood up.
She didn't yell. She didn't draw a weapon. She just went deadly, terrifyingly quiet.
She stepped up behind Naruto, placing a hand on his shoulder. It wasn't to hold him back. It was to back him up.
"Careful, Tsunade," Anko said softly. Her voice sounded like a kunai sliding over silk. "You're talking about men who cleaned up the messes you ran away from."
Tsunade's eyes flashed dangerous fire.
"I speak the truth," she declared. "Hokage is a title for idiots."
"I challenge you!"
Naruto tore out of Jiraiya's grip. He jumped onto the table, kicking over a pitcher of water.
"I'm gonna be Hokage!" he screamed, pointing a finger in her face. "And I'm gonna beat you into the ground until you take it back!"
Tsunade looked at him. She looked at the whiskers. The blue eyes. The sheer, unadulterated volume of his existence.
She smirked.
"You?" she scoffed. "Beat me?"
She stood up.
"Fine. Let's go outside. I could use a warm-up."
The street outside the Tipsy Tanuki cleared fast. Nothing clears a crowd like the promise of ninja violence.
Tsunade stood in the middle of the road, one hand on her hip. She held up her right hand.
She extended her index finger.
"Here," she said. "I'll make it easy. If you can land one hit on me—just one—I'll acknowledge you. I'll even drag that trash Naruto back to the village myself. And I'll do it using only this finger."
"You're gonna regret mocking me!" Naruto yelled.
He charged.
It was fast. Faster than he'd been in the Wave Country. He closed the distance in a blink, launching a haymaker aimed right at her jaw.
Tsunade didn't move her feet.
She flicked her finger.
THWACK.
She caught his fist with the tip of her index finger. Just the tip.
The momentum stopped instantly. Naruto's eyes bulged.
She flicked upward.
Naruto flew. He didn't jump; he was launched into the air like a ragdoll. His hitai-ate flew off, clattering onto the cobblestones.
He crashed into the dirt ten feet away, rolling to a stop.
"Is that it?" Tsunade yawned. "The future Hokage can't even beat a finger?"
I watched from the sidelines, my heart hammering.
My sensory perception was screaming. Tsunade's chakra wasn't just big; it was dense. It felt like compressed gravity. Even standing still, she felt like a coiled spring made of titanium.
We can't fight her, I realized. My binding array would snap like thread. Anko's snakes would be crushed.
Naruto scrambled up. He was bleeding from a scrape on his cheek. He didn't care.
"I'm not done!"
He charged again. Shadow Clones popped into existence—five, ten, twenty of them.
"Crowd tactics?" Tsunade sighed. "Boring."
She moved.
She didn't punch. She just tapped the ground with her toe.
BOOM.
The earth ruptured. A fissure opened up down the center of the street, swallowing three clones. She spun, her finger moving in a blur, dispelling clones with flicks to the forehead that sounded like gunshots.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
In seconds, the army was gone. The real Naruto was lying on his back, gasping for air.
"Stay down, kid," Tsunade said, her voice devoid of pity. "You have no talent. You have no power. You're just loud."
"Shut... up..."
Naruto pushed himself up. His arms were shaking. His jumpsuit was torn.
But his eyes...
His eyes were burning.
"I don't care if you're a Sannin," Naruto wheezed. "I don't care if you're a grandma. You spit on the Fourth's grave. You spit on the Old Man's dream."
He stood up. He swayed, but he didn't fall.
"I'm not gonna let you get away with it."
He held out his right hand.
He brought his left hand up to brace it.
"Rasengan!" he screamed.
Whatever control he had found with the balloon vanished. He was angry. He was desperate.
The chakra flared. It wasn't a contained sphere. It was a chaotic, jagged storm of blue energy swirling in his palm. It looked unstable. It looked like it was going to tear his hand apart.
Tsunade's eyes widened.
"That jutsu..." she whispered.
She looked at him. Really looked at him.
And for a second, she flinched.
I saw it. A ripple in her chakra. A hesitation.
She wasn't looking at Naruto. Her eyes had lost focus, staring through him at something—or someone—I couldn't see.
She's seeing ghosts, I realized.
Naruto didn't hesitate. He didn't see the opening; he just felt the rage.
He launched himself forward, the unfinished, screaming ball of chakra held out like a weapon.
"TAKE THIS!"
He closed the distance.
Tsunade stood there, frozen by memory, watching the dead boy run toward her.