"A deal's a deal," she agreed, setting the glass down on the small table with a soft click. "You did it. You won. As I promised, I accept you as my student. Congratulations, brat. Now, go rest. We start at dawn tomorrow; there's a lot to fix."
Naruto blinked, confusion clouding his triumph.
"Fix? Tomorrow? No, no, no! You don't get it! We have to go to Konoha right now!" His voice, a moment ago a cry of victory, was now laced with growing frustration. "That was the promise! You'd accept me and come to Konoha to be my and Sakura's teacher!"
Shizune, who had been watching from a corner with Tonton in her arms, stepped forward with a cautious expression. "Naruto-kun, maybe you should listen to Lady Tsunade…"
"No!" Naruto interrupted, his attention fixed on Tsunade. "She promised!"
Tsunade let out an impatient sigh. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. Her voice took on the tone of a master, not a gambler who had just lost a bet.
"You mastered the form, brat. And I use the term 'mastered' very loosely. What you did was gather an absurd amount of chakra and force it to spin. You created a hurricane in your hand, but you don't have the finesse to control a simple breeze. Your control is pathetic. You flooded a teacup using a fire hose. It's effective, yes, but clumsy, wasteful, and dangerous. Your chakra is a runaway torrent, a wild beast you can barely hold back. You're staying here. Your real training is just beginning."
Every word was a blow that deflated Naruto's euphoria, replacing it with a searing anger.
"My real training is with my team!" he shot back, and his healthy left hand slammed the table with a force that made the tea set rattle. Shizune flinched. "They're in the middle of an exam that's a death trap, a planned massacre! My place is with them, not here learning to make prettier swirls while they're fighting for their lives!"
Tsunade stared at him, and for the first time, a flash of genuine irritation appeared in her eyes. The thrill of her victory, the brief moment she had seen an echo of Jiraiya and the Fourth in him, had vanished, reminding her just how exasperating this kid could be.
"The bet," she said, her voice turning cold and sharp, "was that if you succeeded, I would accept you as my student. Period. I didn't say a single word about returning to that nest of bureaucrats. That was your own assumption." It was a lie, a blatant twisting of the truth, but her pride, wounded by losing to a genin, was searching for an escape.
She leaned forward, her gaze hardening. "I'm offering you something most shinobi your age wouldn't even dream of. The chance to learn directly from a Sannin, away from distractions, from politics, from war. The chance to become truly strong. And you, in your infinite wisdom, want to throw it away to go back to an exam? How stupid are you?"
"I'm not like most genin!" Naruto yelled, his desperation shattering his self-control. The volume of his voice made Tonton squeal and hide behind Shizune's legs. Naruto's face was contorted with anguish. "You don't understand! It's not just a stupid exam, it's a trap! The village… the village is going to be attacked!"
A dense silence fell over the room. The buzz of a fly near the window became deafening. Shizune stifled a gasp and covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide with the sheer horror of his words.
Naruto, realizing what he had said, continued in a torrent of panic, as if the only way to justify the first insane statement was to add more.
"People are going to die! A lot of people! The old man Hokage…!" His voice broke, tears welling in his eyes. "Gramps is going to die if we don't do something! My friends, Sasuke, Sakura-chan… they're going to die!"
The slip was so sudden and loaded with such raw, genuine panic that it stopped everything. Tsunade froze in her chair. On her face, irritation gave way to disbelief, and finally, to a deep, cold anger. An anger that wasn't explosive, but icy.
She rose slowly. It wasn't a casual movement, but the unfolding of contained power. She seemed to grow in stature, her presence filling the modest room.
"Attacked?" Her voice was a low, dangerous hiss. "The Hokage is going to die?"
She walked toward him, each step measured and heavy. Naruto backed away instinctively until he hit the wall.
"Where are you getting this nonsense, brat?" she continued, her voice dripping with contempt. "Did you hit your head while training? Is the chakra exhaustion making you hallucinate? Or is this another one of your pathetic pranks for attention? Because if it is, I swear I'll…"
"They're not hallucinations!" Naruto insisted, his desperation making him sound almost incoherent. He was trapped between the terror of his knowledge and the wall of disbelief from the woman in front of him. "It's the truth! I know it! I can't explain how, but I know it!"
"It's the most arrogant and idiotic thing I've heard in years," she declared, stopping inches from him. Her shadow completely covered him. Naruto had to tilt his head back to meet her eyes, and what he saw there froze his blood. It wasn't just anger, but a bitter disappointment and a profound cynicism. "And you listen good, because I'll only say this once. Even if it were true"—she paused, her lip curling in a sneer—"which it isn't… that would be the perfect reason for you to stay exactly where you are!"
Her tone shifted. The personal fury dissipated, replaced by the cold, ruthless logic of a strategist.
"Or has your little overheated brain already forgotten what's sealed in your stomach?" she hissed. "You're the Jinchuriki of the Kyubi. Konoha's ultimate weapon. Its walking deterrent. In any invasion scenario, who do you think would be the primary target? The Hokage's tower? No. It would be you. The grand prize."
She leaned in, her face inches from his. Naruto could smell the faint scent of medicinal herbs and the fabric of her haori.
"Your mere presence in that village during an attack wouldn't be a help; it would be a cataclysm. You'd be a beacon, a giant flare in the night screaming, 'The treasure is here, come and get it!' The enemy would level entire neighborhoods just to get to you. Your friends, the very ones you claim to want to protect, would become collateral damage. Putting you on the battlefield would be like throwing a barrel of gunpowder into a forge."
Her logic was flawless, brutal, and every word was like a kunai stabbing into Naruto's heart. It disarmed him, turning his loyalty into recklessness.
"If the village really were in danger," she concluded, straightening up, "the most logical, most strategic thing Hiruzen could do would be to send you far away, to a safe place. Keeping you here, hidden and training under my tutelage, wouldn't be a punishment. It would be the smartest move to protect both the weapon and the village. So shut up and accept that you know nothing about how the world works."
Naruto remained silent, his back against the wall, processing the cruel truth of her words. He felt the weight of the beast inside him not as a source of power, but as a curse, a target on his back. For a moment, doubt assailed him. What if she was right? What if his return only made things worse?
But then, he saw their faces. Sasuke's arrogant smirk, Sakura's worried but determined gaze, Kakashi-sensei's calm confidence. He remembered the pain in Iruka's eyes and the warmth of the Hokage's hand on his head. They weren't pieces on a board. They were his family.
"I don't care if I'm a target," he said, his voice surprisingly calm. The hysteria was gone, replaced by a steely resolve that made Tsunade stop in her tracks.
Slowly, he pushed himself off the wall and took a step forward, moving out of the Sannin's shadow.
"I don't care if it's dangerous. Or if it's stupid. Or if I'm a beacon or whatever," he continued, lifting his head to look her directly in the eye. His small stature did nothing to diminish the force of his conviction. His blue eyes burned with a light that wasn't the Kyubi's wild orange. It was a blue light, clear and pure, entirely his own. "I made a promise to my friends. I promised I'd come back. That I'd protect them. That we'd be in this together, no matter what. And a ninja never goes back on his word."
He paused, the silence vibrating with the intensity of his declaration. His voice dropped to a whisper but felt louder than any of his earlier shouts.
"That's my ninja way. If you don't come with me, I'll go alone. And if I die trying, at least I'll die as Naruto Uzumaki, not as a weapon locked in a box. I'll die trying to protect my people."
Tsunade looked at him. But this time, she truly saw him. She saw past the loudmouthed brat, the incompetent prankster, the demon's container. And in the depths of those blue eyes, she didn't find the arrogance of a child who thinks he's invincible.
She saw a will.
A will so unbreakable, so pure, and so terrifyingly self-destructive that it felt painfully familiar.
The world around her faded. The smell of old wood was replaced by the metallic scent of blood and the antiseptic of a field hospital. Naruto's face blurred into that of her little brother, Nawaki, as clear as if he were standing there. He was twelve, the same age as the boy before her, and he wore the same goofy smile. The First Hokage's necklace hung from his neck.
"I'm going to protect the village, Big Sis! I'm going to be Hokage, like Grandpa! And when I am, everyone will be safe! I promise!"
She had ruffled his hair, laughing at his dream, never seeing the shadow of war looming over him. He died the next day.
The memory dissolved, replaced by another.
She saw Dan Kato. The same fire burned in his eyes.
"We can't keep losing people like this, Tsunade. My little sister… so many others. My dream is to have a medical-nin in every four-man squad. To protect every shinobi in this village, so no one else has to die needlessly. It's a promise."
She had given him the necklace, the symbol of her own hope. And she watched him bleed to death in her arms, her medical jutsu useless against the internal injuries.
Both of them, Nawaki and Dan, had died for that same unbreakable will. For that same stupid dream of protecting everyone. And she had been powerless to stop them.
And now, this kid. Naruto Uzumaki. The same reckless spirit. The same stupid light in his eyes. The same suicidal promise on his lips.
He was going to do the exact same thing. He was going to run toward his own death. And she, for the third time in her life, was about to stand by and watch.
No.
The word thundered in her mind.
Not. Again.
The realization hit her like a punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of her. Arguing with him was useless, like reasoning with an earthquake. The only way to protect this reckless idiot, the only way to ensure he didn't end up as just another name on the Memorial Stone…
Was to go with him.
She let out a long, weary sigh. It was a sound of complete defeat that seemed to carry decades of cynicism and bitterness with it. The weight she had carried for years didn't disappear, but for the first time, it felt as if she wasn't carrying it alone.
"You are..." she began, her voice hoarse, "...the most irritating, stubborn, and troublesome brat I've ever met in my life."
She ran a hand over her face, rubbing her eyes as if trying to wipe away the ghosts only she could see.
"Fine," the word came out with difficulty. "You win. Pack your things. We're going back to Konoha."
The relief that flooded Naruto's face was so immense he nearly staggered. His legs, weakened by exhaustion, gave way a little, and he had to lean on the table. Shizune let out the breath she didn't know she was holding in an audible hiss.
"YES! Thank you, Granny Tsunade! I knew it! I knew you'd understand! You're the best! Believe it!" Naruto exclaimed, his energy returning in a surge.
"Shut up!" she snapped, her tone sharp again, a defense mechanism. "And let's get one thing straight, you hear me? I don't believe a word of your apocalyptic nonsense. I'm doing this because if I let you go alone, you'll get yourself killed before you even reach the border. And since you're my student now, you're my responsibility. What a pain."
Naruto just smiled. It was a small, tired, but genuine smile. He knew it was an excuse. He knew, on some level, that he had touched something deep inside her, something broken that connected with his own determination.
"It's not nonsense," he said, his expression turning serious again. "And… there's something else. I have a way to prove it."
Tsunade looked at him, raising an eyebrow with skepticism. "Oh, really? And how do you plan to do that, genius? Are you going to pull out a crystal ball?"
"I can't prove the future," Naruto admitted. "But I can prove that I have a power you don't understand. A power that changes everything. One that proves I know things I shouldn't know."
"Go on, then. Enlighten me," Tsunade said, crossing her arms. "Show me this 'power that changes everything.' What is it? Another flashy jutsu you half-learned?"
Naruto shook his head. "No. It's not a jutsu."
He turned slowly. His intense blue gaze didn't land on Tsunade, or on the glass of water on the table. His gaze went past the future Hokage and fixed, with unshakeable precision, on the most bewildered person in the room.
"Shizune…" Naruto said. His voice was calm, but charged with an intent that made the air feel electric. "For you to believe me, for her to believe me, I need you to trust me. And for that, I need you to take off your clothes."
The silence that followed was absolute. A stunned void that seemed to suck all the air out of the room. Shizune froze, her face turning from pale to the deepest shade of crimson in a split second. Tonton let out a squeak of pure shock and hid again.
Even Tsunade, the woman who had seen it all, who had survived three Great Shinobi World Wars, was left speechless, her mind trying to process the most absurd request she had ever heard. The impossible question hung in the air, so heavy and ridiculous it seemed to have stopped time.
What the hell was that brat going to do?