Red.
It wasn't a color anymore; it was a physical weight. It coated the cobblestones, pooled in the cracks of the masonry, and sprayed across her vision like a fractured lens. The smell hit her a second later—hot copper and wet rust—invading her nose, tasting like a coin placed on the back of her tongue.
Tsunade couldn't breathe. The air in her lungs felt thick, liquid, and metallic.
"Look at you," Orochimaru hissed.
He stepped over a pile of rubble, his Kusanagi blade drawn. The tip dragged against the stone, sparking. The sound was a high-pitched shriek, a metal fingernail scratching down the chalkboard of her sanity.
He wasn't rushing. He didn't need to. He was the predator, and she was the rabbit caught in the trap of her own memory.
"The Legendary Sucker," he mocked, tilting his head. "Paralyzed by a little spill. You're shivering, Tsunade."
She was. Her hands were trembling so violently she couldn't form a fist. Her knees locked, refusing to retreat, refusing to advance. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a bird trapped in a cage, the rhythm frantic and useless against the ice in her veins.
Every drop of blood on the ground warped into a face.
Nawaki, chest caved in.
Dan, pale and fading.
Nawaki. Dan. Nawaki. Dan.
The ghosts weren't haunting her; they were suffocating her. They were screaming that effort was futile, that love was a weakness, that the only way to win the game was to fold before the dealer took everything. It was the vertigo of the gamble, the stomach-dropping sensation of watching the dice tumble and knowing, with absolute certainty, that they would land on snake eyes.
Orochimaru raised the sword. The blade gleamed, wet and hungry.
"Let me help you join them," he whispered tenderly.
He lunged.
Naruto saw the sword move. He saw the Snake Sannin lunge at the woman who was staring at the ground like she was already dead.
He didn't think about power levels. He didn't think about the fact that his shoulder was numb and his chakra was scraping the bottom of the barrel. His lungs burned with every breath, a dry, ragged heat that tasted of dust and exhaustion.
He thought about the bet.
One week.
He launched himself from the debris pile.
"HEY!" Naruto screamed.
He didn't aim for the sword. He aimed for the space between Orochimaru and Tsunade. He threw his body into the gap, his right hand clawing the air, blue chakra swirling into a chaotic, screaming sphere.
It wasn't perfect. It was jagged. It was unstable.
But it was loud. It sounded less like a technique and more like a jet turbine shredding the air, a chaotic scream of energy that vibrated in his teeth.
Orochimaru's yellow eyes snapped toward him. Annoyance flickered across the Sannin's face—the look one gives a mosquito.
"You again?" Orochimaru sneered. He shifted his weight, bringing the sword around to swat Naruto out of the air. "Die, boy."
He committed to the strike. He committed to killing the nuisance.
"You don't get to decide!" Naruto roared, thrusting the Rasengan forward. "You don't get to decide how this ends!"
He forced Orochimaru to block. The Sannin had to twist, bringing his blade up to parry the swirling chakra.
CLANG.
The Rasengan ground against the Kusanagi sword, sparks flying. The vibration traveled instantly down the blade and into Naruto's bones, shaking his skeleton so hard his vision blurred.
The impact threw Naruto backward, tumbling him into the dirt.
But the opening was there.
For one second, Orochimaru was off-balance. His sword was high. His torso was exposed.
And behind him, the shaking stopped.
Tsunade's head snapped up. The fear in her honey-brown eyes evaporated, replaced by a rage so cold it burned.
She didn't see a brat in an orange jacket anymore; she saw a flash of yellow hair and a dream that refused to stay buried.
She stepped in.
"Don't you touch him!" she bellowed.
She brought both fists down together, interlaced like a hammer. She didn't use technique. She didn't use finesse. She used every ounce of hatred she had stored for twenty years.
BA-BOOM.
She smashed Orochimaru's head.
The impact was sickeningly wet. Orochimaru crumpled instantly, driven downward with such force that the cobblestones liquefied. The sound wasn't a crack; it was a dull, wet thud that vibrated through the soles of everyone's feet within a mile.
A crater exploded outward, sending dust and debris shooting into the sky.
Tsunade landed in the center of the crater, panting, her fists buried in the earth.
"FUCK!" she screamed, the sound raw and animalistic.
She ripped her hands free and raised her foot, bringing it down for a stomp that would turn bone to powder.
CRACK.
The earth split. The shockwave knocked Naruto flat on his back again.
But the hole was empty.
Tsunade stared into the fissure. At the bottom, there was only a shed skin—a hollow, slimy casing of Orochimaru's body, ripped open at the back.
He had slithered out. He had taken the hit, shed his skin like a coward, and vanished into the earth.
Tsunade stood there, chest heaving, blood dripping from her knuckles. She wasn't shaking anymore.
I watched from the edge of the garden, safely tucked behind a wall of white slugs.
My head was still pounding, throbbing. My temples were utterly desecrated.
My ears would never recover from this. The world was muffled, wrapped in cotton, the high-pitched whine of tinnitus acting as the only soundtrack to the aftermath.
The dust was settling. The kaiju were gone—Manda had vanished when Orochimaru fled, and Gamabunta had popped away a moment later, leaving the castle eerily quiet.
Naruto was lying on his back, laughing breathlessly at the sky.
But I was looking at Tsunade.
She stood in the center of the crater, surrounded by the devastation she had caused. She was hurt. Orochimaru's sword had grazed her shoulder; Manda's thrashing had left cuts on her arms; the sheer force of her own attacks had torn her muscles.
She should have been collapsing.
Instead, she brought her hands together in a seal I had never seen before.
"Yin Seal: Release."
The diamond mark on her forehead didn't just glow; it unspooled.
Thick, black lines crawled out from the center of her brow. They moved like ink in water, winding down her face, across her nose, down her neck, and spiraling over her arms. They pulsed with a violet light, looking less like tattoos and more like circuitry burning hot under her skin.
The air around her grew heavy. It tasted ozone-sharp and dense.
"Creation Rebirth."
The sound that followed wasn't magical. It was biological.
Squelch. Snap. Knit.
Steam rose from her skin, carrying the scent of overheated meat and ozone, as biology was dragged kicking and screaming into reverse.
I watched, paralyzed by fascination, as the deep gash on her shoulder closed itself. It didn't scab over. It didn't scar. The skin simply... rewound. The muscle fibers rewove themselves in real-time. The blood stopped flowing and retreated into the veins.
It wasn't healing. Healing takes time. Healing follows rules.
This was a violation.
I adjusted my glasses, my brain firing so fast it made me dizzy.
Medical ninjutsu follows the rules of triage. You save what you can. You cut your losses. You accept that cells die and energy is finite.
Tsunade was looking at the rules of biology and saying: No.
She was forcing her cells to divide at an impossible rate. She was burning her life span to reject the reality of her injuries. It was cellular arrogance, a command so absolute that physics had no choice but to get out of the way.
She stood up straight, the black markings fading back into the diamond on her forehead. Her skin was flawless. Her chakra was terrifyingly vast.
I looked at my own hands. I thought about the "puddle." I thought about how I had stopped Kabuto not by overpowering him, but by refusing to let him move.
Chakra isn't just energy, I realized, the thought locking into place like a deadbolt. It isn't just fire or water or lightning.
Chakra is refusal made real.
The realization clicked in my chest like a key turning in a lock, heavy and cold and undeniable.
Naruto refused to accept he was weak. Tsunade refused to accept she was dead.
I watched the woman who had conquered death stand amidst the ruin of her past.
"That," I whispered to the empty air, "is what a god looks like."