In Another Life

The streets are far too loud for this late at night.

Noise seeps through the seams of the village like smoke—slow, intrusive, inescapable. There’s a drunken kind of warmth to it, a false comfort that rubs wrong against your nerves. Somewhere nearby, a tavern door swings open with a creak and a burst of laughter—ragged, vulgar, the sound of men who’ve had too much and care too little. It echoes between buildings like a slap. The scent of grilled pork wafts with it, glazed in something sweet and burning. The tang of cheap rice wine stings faintly in your nose, carried on a wind that won’t settle—tugging at awnings, flickering paper lanterns, disturbing the silence that should’ve come with the hour.

Above it all, a shamisen cries. The notes are plucked without grace, unsteady hands fumbling their way through a melody that sounds more like a sob than a song. It drifts faintly from a second-story window, half-open and glowing with amber light.

You cling to the shadows, high above on the slanted spine of a tiled roof, and try to ignore how none of this feels real.

It should. But it doesn’t.

The henge clings to your skin like sweat—sloppy now, diluted by fatigue and chakra loss, barely holding its shape. You’ve kept it on too long. The edges of your borrowed face warp with every gust of wind, and the weight of it makes your jaw feel foreign. Your reflection—if you looked—would show someone dull-eyed, unremarkable. Smaller than you are. Frailer. Someone people look past without thinking.

That’s the point.

But you don’t feel forgettable. You feel like a storm about to break.

Your heartbeat is too loud. Not frantic—but deep, insistent. The kind that reminds you how fast blood can turn to panic if you let it. You press your hand against the tiles to steady yourself. They’re cool from the night air, slick with dew.

Below, the town stretches like a dream painted in gold and shadow—warm windows lit from within, their owners tucked safely behind paper walls and deep futons. Lovers huddle beneath shared cloaks. Vendors sweep empty stalls. Cats dart between alleys, unseen. The village breathes around you in the soft rhythm of contentment, of people untouched by the weight crawling down your spine.

And somewhere in all of it—buried in this mess of quiet lives and flickering lights—Tsunade is hiding.

She has to be.

You search with your eyes first—darting from rooftop to alleyway to bathhouse entrance. There’s no sign of her. No ripple of overwhelming chakra to part the air. No crushing pressure on the back of your neck. You keep scanning anyway, pulse stuttering every time a chakra signature passes close—only to fizzle out as something ordinary. A jounin on mission. A pair of kids sneaking out of curfew. A merchant’s daughter with a flare of latent ability. Nothing that even brushes the weight of a Sannin.

But you don’t stop.

You can’t stop.

You land silently in a narrow alley between two tall buildings, the descent fluid, automatic. The packed earth crunches faintly beneath your boots. Dust swirls at your heels as you move—shadow to shadow, breath to breath.

No one sees you. That’s good. That’s how it needs to be.

Still, your body won’t let you relax. Your shoulders are locked tight. Your hands twitch like they want a weapon. The henge feels wrong again, like a mask that knows it’s lying. Like your skin is rejecting it—not because of chakra fatigue, but because some deeper instinct refuses the idea of deception when Kakashi might not have long.

He’s barely breathing.

The memory hits with the weight of a blade.

You’d adjusted his position. Checked for a pulse. Laid your palm across his sternum to feel the slow, struggling rise and fall beneath his uniform. His skin had burned beneath your touch. Not fever—something else. Like something was working its way out of him, something he was fighting even in unconsciousness.

You did everything you could. Clean bandages. Stabilization. Cooling packs. Gentle chakra pulses. Nothing worked for long. Nothing fixed what’s wrong.

Because you’re not a healer.

You’re trained to kill.

And now you’re in a world that doesn’t belong to you, where every street twists the wrong way and the people who should know you don’t. You’re chasing hope like it’s prey—and it’s always just out of reach.

You grind your teeth, bite down the rising ache in your throat, and keep moving.

You search the riverside first. Tsunade liked the sound of water—or so Yui had said, muttered in a fond sigh. You watch the current for chakra flickers. You find none.

Then it’s the open-air bathhouses. You scale the outer walls, slip through the rafters, wait in the shadows above the steam. Nothing but civilian chatter and a few shinobi women blowing off steam.

Next: the garden district. A koi pond, meticulously kept. A pavilion built for drinking alone. Lanterns line the path like stars pulled down from the sky. You hold your breath as you move through them, scenting the air for alcohol, for medic salves, for the faint tang of something powerful.

Still nothing.

You circle to the upper quarters—the gambling dens, the high balconies where rich men and jaded kunoichi throw their ryo into crooked games. You peer through thin curtains and half-closed shutters, waiting for that pulse, that ache behind your eyes that would mean Tsunade is near.

Still, nothing.

You land, finally, on a tiled roof overlooking a crooked little street where the vendor stalls have all shut for the night. Some of the tarps flap lazily in the wind. Others sit stiff and still, like corpses left to rot in the open.

You crouch low, the city rising and falling around you like breath. And you close your eyes.

One last time.

You reach with your chakra—not aggressively, not like an attack, but like a hand searching through fog. You cast wide, a slow and subtle sweep. The sensations bleed in like ink: the slow, steady heartbeat of children asleep; the cautious flickers of shinobi keeping watch; the irregular, anxious pulses of lovers caught in secret.

And somewhere beneath all of it—

Something stirs.

Something in you. Not from the outside. Not Tsunade.

It’s small at first. Just a flicker. But it drags sharp across your nerves like a claw. You don’t recognize it. You don’t know if it’s grief or rage or something older. But it’s waking up. Crawling up from whatever pit you’ve buried it in.

You grit your teeth.

Push it down.

And then—

A laugh.

Rough, unrestrained. Barking and hoarse.

Two voices, not far.

You don’t open your eyes.

You hone in.

“They said she drinks more than she heals,” one voice mutters, slurred and low, words catching on a lazy laugh. “Probably wasted again tonight.”

You still.

The voice carries up from the street below—ragged, careless, threaded with amusement. You press into the shadow of the rooftop ledge, breath hitching, chakra curling tight inside your gut.

“Yeah,” the second man says, louder, bolder. “She was at Yato’s earlier. She’s probably holed up there right now, soaking in sake.”

Something in your chest twinges, a cold throb of recognition.

Your eyes crack open slowly. Lanternlight shimmers against the rooftops, trembling from the wind. The laughter from the taverns below suddenly sounds distant, warbled, like it’s underwater. You can’t feel your hands.

Then the wind shifts.

It brushes past your cheek with a breath of cold air, lifting the edge of your cloak, sweeping down toward the alley where the voices came from.

You move.

No sound, no hesitation. One fluid motion as your body slips from the rooftop, vanishing into shadow.

You land silent, weight distributing instantly across the balls of your feet. The air is thick with the tang of old smoke and rice wine. The two men are just around the corner, leaning against the wooden skeleton of a boarded-up vendor stall, their posture loose and stupid, like men too far gone to feel danger until it’s already pierced the skin.

Half-empty bottles clink beside them. The shorter man kicks one lazily, sending it rolling, and it catches the gutter light as it spins.

They don’t notice you.

Not until you’re already there.

You step forward, cloak whispering like breath across the dirt. One man turns, eyebrows lifting in the slow, puzzled blink of someone whose instincts are too dulled to realize they’re in danger. Maybe he’s about to make a joke. Maybe he thinks you’re lost.

But you’re not.

You seize him by the collar before he can speak, fist curling tight in the fabric, and slam him into the wall hard enough to rattle the wood and shake the bottles at their feet.

He chokes on surprise.

“Where is she?”

Your voice is low, flat—devoid of anything but intent. Like a blade laid across a throat, not yet pressed in.

The man gapes at you, blinking through the haze of alcohol and confusion. “Huh? What the hell—?”

“Where is she?” you repeat, and this time, it scrapes out colder. Tighter.

The other man steps forward, hands rising like a peacekeeper, but there’s something wary in his eyes now. He feels it. The heat under your skin, the way the air stills around you like it’s holding its breath. His mouth opens to speak, to soothe.

You let your chakra bleed out in a slow ripple, controlled but sharp—just enough to shift the air, to drop the temperature around you by a few degrees.

Killing intent. 

The second man freezes. He doesn’t speak again.

The first is trembling now, trying to pull away, but your grip tightens.

You don’t blink.

“I’m not going to ask again.”

There’s something inside you that’s pulsing harder with every word. It’s not adrenaline. It’s something older. Something that’s been growing since you left Kakashi’s side. Something hot and relentless and barely held in check.

The man’s resolve collapses. His voice is almost a whimper. “Okay! Okay, yeah—you’re looking for the blonde, right? The drunk one? She’s at the west quarter inn, near the bathhouse. Big place. Lanterns. Red ones. You—you can’t miss it.”

You stare at him for one long second, breath tight in your lungs, making sure he’s not lying.

Then you let go.

He crumples down against the wall, gasping like a fish dropped on the floor, his skin several shades paler than it was a minute ago. The other man stays still, wide-eyed, watching you like you might change your mind.

You don’t.

You’re already turning, cloak snapping behind you as you vanish into the dark again, one with the night.

But there’s something raw swelling in your chest now.

Not desperation. Not quite.

This feels different.

Like something ancient has cracked open inside you. Something not entirely yours. A shadow that doesn’t belong to your life, but fits you like it could.

You push it down.

You don’t have time for whatever this is.

Because you have a lead now.

And if Tsunade is where they say she is—if she’s really there, drinking herself into a stupor while Kakashi bleeds out—then gods help her.

Because you won’t.

The west quarter is quieter than the rest of the village—but it isn’t peace you find in that quiet.

It clings to your skin like sweat, thick and unyielding. The air here is stagnant, heavy with the smell of rice-wine, fermented vegetables, smoke, and something older—an odor that weaves through the alleys like memory. The silence has a pulse to it. Not comforting. Not restful. Just… sedated. Like something dead pretending it’s only sleeping.

You stay to the rooftops, shadows slipping beneath your feet as you dart from tile to tile. Every movement is efficient. Economical. You can feel your henge strain slightly against your concentration—just a ripple—but you press it down with ease. Your appearance holds: someone not quite familiar, a face that isn’t a lie but not your truth either. Skin a little darker. Eyes a little softer. A shinobi from somewhere else. A traveler, maybe. No one important.

You’re fast.

The sound of your passing is little more than breath, little more than the breeze curling through drying laundry and rusted wind chimes that clink lazily on iron hooks. Most people don’t look up. Not in this part of the village. Not when there’s nothing left in the sky worth worshipping.

This place is the undercurrent of the Land of Fire. A low hum of indulgence and forgetfulness. Gambling dens nestled behind sliding doors, inns with glowing lanterns but no names, women leaning from windows with painted lips and disinterested eyes. The buildings slouch, pressed shoulder to shoulder, thick with stories that no one will tell out loud.

It doesn’t feel like a place you would call home.

You find the inn by scent before you spot the gutter.

Sake. Strong. The burn of high-proof, cheap quality stuff and something floral buried underneath—perfumed perhaps, or poured over from a bottle that once held something sweeter. You land lightly at the edge of a wide, tiled roof and peer down. The cracked drain pipe hangs crooked, just as described, bent where something—or someone—kicked it in. A red paper lantern swings lazily in the breeze beside it, casting a pulsing light across the warped wooden panels of the wall.

You crouch there for a moment, staring down at it.

The place is louder than the others. There’s music somewhere inside—a koto maybe, or something similar, being played without much talent or care. Laughter, too. And voices, slurred and overlapping. Men boasting. Someone shouting for another round.

You scan the façade quickly. Lanterns out front, just like they said. A wide set of steps leading to a main entrance. An alley wrapped around the left side, where crates are stacked high and bottles clink softly behind the trash bins. A back panel door half-slid open to let in the night breeze. Rice paper windows glow with yellow light, some of them torn slightly at the corners.

There’s no doubt about it.

This is the place.

You drop down beside the building, landing with practiced grace against soft earth and moss, muffled by years of neglect and rain. One breath. Two. You close your eyes.

There—chakra.

It’s like a bonfire barely contained. Hot, old, and heavy. Not flaring, not hostile. But present. Deep and soaking. Like someone who’s learned to carry the burden of their own strength by letting it leak out around them in small, steady pulses. You recognize it from a thousand stories, from whispers in debriefing rooms, from old intelligence files buried deep in ANBU headquarters.

You know her before you see her.

Still, your heart stutters once when you peek in through the open door.

She’s there.

Tsunade.

One of the three Sannin. Princess of the Senju. Healer of legends. The woman you’ve spent too many nights chasing through shadows and false leads.

She doesn’t look the way you imagined.

No battle armor. No scowl. Her mouth is loose at the edges, relaxed in the way that only someone deep into their second bottle can be. She’s seated at a low table, one knee drawn up against the leg of it, the other leg stretched lazily out beside her, foot bare. Her yukata is expensive, rumpled only slightly, one sleeve slipped off her shoulder. Her long blonde hair is tied up with a ribbon that’s begun to fray.

She drinks without hurry.

Lifts the cup to her lips, tips it back, holds it there for a moment too long before setting it down again with a sigh. There’s a stack of dishes in front of her. Most of them untouched. A plate of sliced cucumber and pickled daikon sits off to one side, the vinegar tang of it mixing strangely with the heavier scent of rice wine and sweat.

She doesn’t seem drunk.

Flushed, yes. Relaxed. But there’s precision still in her grip, in the way her fingers curl around the cup, in the way her gaze flicks occasionally to the door as if checking for ghosts. She is drinking with intent. She’s here for this.

To forget. To be useless. To not be a Sannin.

Beside her sits another woman. Younger, neater. You don’t know her name, but you’ve seen her face in passing once—at a mission report drop in Fire Country. Short black hair, tied simply. A warm sort of chakra, anxious but disciplined. She watches Tsunade the way a medic watches a patient who won’t stay in the damn bed. You can tell she’s said something a few times already tonight. You can also tell it hasn’t made any difference.

You press your fingers against the frame of the doorway.

The wood is worn smooth from decades of hands and sandals. Your own hand trembles.

Because she’s sitting there. Laughing quietly to herself, pouring another cup.

And Kakashi is dying.

Something inside you splits, subtle but seismic.

You step into the doorway without announcing yourself. The warmth of the room rushes to meet you, filled with the scent of cooked rice, sake, and perfume. The soft squeak of your sandal against the wood makes the woman beside Tsunade glance up—but the blonde doesn’t look. Not yet.

The inn is low-lit and warm, a haze of sake-sweet smoke curling through the rafters like lazy ghosts. Lanterns line the outer walkway, swaying softly in the breeze, their glow casting amber halos across the wooden slats. Inside, laughter hums like a distant current—throaty, half-hearted, the kind born of trying too hard to forget something.

You stand just beyond the threshold, your henge casting a soft distortion over your features—something forgettable. Average height. Eyes a dim color, nondescript. A generic shinobi’s mask pulled over the lower half of your face. You’re careful with it. You’ve had to be. Ever since the moment you carried Kakashi across the border with his blood drying down your back and your bones screaming beneath his weight, you’ve been careful. Stealth has become your lifeline. Obscurity, your armor.

But that armor is starting to crack.

“Excuse me,” you say, voice even, cloaked in the gravel-edged tone your altered vocal cords now produce. “I need a moment of your time.”

Tsunade doesn’t look up.

She’s seated at a low table near the back, half-shrouded in the golden cast of the inn’s lanterns. Her pale hair is tied loosely at the base of her neck, her shoulders relaxed in that falsely casual way—like a mountain trying to pass itself off as a river. You can feel the weight of her chakra even from here, dormant but heavy, like a tide just before it breaks.

“Not interested,” she mutters, waving a hand through the air with a flick more dismissive than irritated. “Come back when I’m sober.”

She doesn’t slur her words. Not yet. But there’s a lacquered emptiness to them, that familiar burn of someone trying to fall apart with grace.

Beside her sits another woman, a brunette. She watches you with quiet interest, her posture straighter than her companion’s, more alert. She’s not threatened. She doesn’t recognize you, nor does she sense anything dangerous yet.

You’re just another ghost with a problem.

You take a step closer.

“I said,” you repeat, keeping your voice calm, even, “I need your help.”

Tsunade tosses her head back and downs the rest of her cup. The motion is practiced. She’s been doing it a long time. Maybe years. Maybe decades.

“Everyone does,” she says, dropping the cup to the table with a sharp clunk. “You’re not special.”

Her fingers tremble.

Not much. Barely enough to notice. But you do.

Not from fear. No, this woman doesn’t know fear, not in the conventional sense. This is the shake of grief unburied. The echo of old ghosts rattling their cages inside her chest. You’ve seen it before—in the way Kakashi flinches in his sleep, in the way he stares too long at empty space like it owes him something.

It should make you hesitate.

But it doesn’t.

You’re already moving before your thoughts catch up, your hand extending across the last few feet between you—a reckless, desperate motion that any trained shinobi would recognize as suicide.

You latch onto her wrist.

It’s not a threat. Not a grip meant to control or harm. It’s simply contact. Skin to skin. A tether.

A plea.

“Please,” you say, your voice no longer perfectly even.

Tsunade’s chair flies back as she stands.

Her movement is pure reflex. The strength behind it is terrifying. She twists, body pivoting with flawless efficiency, and throws a backhand toward your center mass. It comes fast—so fast that the air whistles with its speed.

You move. Barely.

The edge of her palm grazes your shoulder instead of your chest, but it’s still enough to knock you back a step. Pain blooms down your ribs like a brushfire. Your breath hitches. You manage not to stumble, but only just.

Tsunade’s eyes blaze.

“You think you can walk in here, wearing a disguise, and grab me?” Her voice is steel sharpened on the whetstone of fury. “I don’t get involved in sketchy shit. Especially with shinobi who won’t even show their damn face.”

You’re breathing hard now. Not from exertion. From the fact that your body still holds too much adrenaline, too much fear, too much grief to function like it should. The way she looked at you just now—like you were dirt under her heel—somehow cracks something that had just barely started to knit.

She mutters something towards the brunette before her, something that is a mix of sit down and don't bother. 

The other woman, Shizune as you now learn, has risen to her feet but hasn’t stepped in. Not yet. She’s watching closely now, her hand at her side. Not threatening. Just ready.

You think of Kakashi.

You think of the way his head slumped against your shoulder when he lost consciousness for the third time. You think of the stutter in his breathing. Of how you had to carry him for days through forests that felt more like graveyards, your boots silent, your hands trembling.

You think of the way you tried to warm his fingers with yours, how he didn’t stir.

You think of how he might already be dying.

And this woman, this legendary Sannin, this medic-nin so many call a myth—she won’t even give you a second glance because of a goddamn jutsu.

Your hands shake.

And then you let the henge fall.

It melts off of you in a ripple, like ink running down water, like the last thread of a lie unraveling at the seams. Your true features return. Your eyes. Your skin. Your face.

Shizune gasps.

It’s not a soft sound.

It punches through the quiet like a chime in a war zone—shocked, high-pitched, involuntary. Her hand flies to her mouth before she even seems to register what she’s doing, dark eyes wide and trembling.

She’s staring at you.

Not just at your face—but at who you are.

At who you’re not supposed to be.

You see her lips move like she’s trying to say something—anything—but the words won’t come. They die in her throat before they reach her tongue. She takes half a step forward, then freezes, like moving too fast might shatter something sacred.

Tsunade doesn’t speak.

Not right away.

She’s staring too.

But it’s not awe, not grief—at least not anymore.

It’s something worse. Something harder.

At first, it’s just a strange, flickering expression—like an old light fighting to stay lit through a storm. Recognition. Disbelief. Pain, buried deep beneath the skin. You feel it before she says a word, like a pulse thudding through the air between you. It’s not your name she’s seeing—it’s a memory.

Then her jaw clenches. Her shoulders square. Her expression hardens like cooling steel.

And you know.

Rage is coming.

“You think that’s funny?” she asks, voice low and shaking—not with fear, but fury. Her words crack through the air like a whip. “That’s not a trick you get to play.”

Her heel pivots.

She swings.

It’s fast. Faster than you thought she’d be after half a bottle of sake.

You duck—barely. Her fist slices through the air just inches from your head, the sound like a wind tunnel. The wall behind you doesn’t just shake—it craters. A spiderweb of shattered wood and stone explodes from the impact point, sending dust and debris into the air.

She would’ve taken your jaw clean off.

You leap back.

Your heart’s pounding too loud. Your vision sharpens. The whole room is suddenly nothing but motion and tension.

“I’m not here to fight you!” you cry out, voice raw. “I’m not here to trick you! Please—listen to me!”

But she’s not listening.

She steps forward again, slow and heavy this time, like a mountain preparing to collapse. Her chakra blooms around her, golden and violent, crawling over her shoulders like armor. It crackles in the air—hot, oppressive, furious.

“You’re not her,” she says, and her tone is low now—deadly. “I don’t know what you are. A mimic? A genjutsu? A corpse made to walk?” Her lip curls. “You think I haven’t seen this kind of shit before? You think I don’t know a lie when it stands in front of me with a false face?”

“I haven’t done anything to you—!”

“Exactly!” she explodes. “You have no fucking idea what you’ve just done.”

And she charges.

“Lady Tsunade!” Shizune’s voice cracks, sharp with panic. “Wait—!”

But she doesn’t.

The floor breaks under her as she leaps.

You don’t think. You just move.

She’s faster than anything you’ve fought before—like a force of nature wrapped in skin. Her fists glow with raw chakra, her legs a blur as she chases you through the ruined room. You vault over a shattered table, twist sideways as her hand cleaves through where your torso just was.

You hit the ground, roll, breathe, sprint again.

“Stop!” you scream, voice cracking under the weight of panic. “I’m not trying to hurt you—I need you!”

She doesn’t stop.

You’re not a person to her.

You’re an echo. A ghost. An insult made flesh.

And maybe—maybe that’s what you see in the mirror too.

Her next blow is so close it burns. It singes the fabric of your sleeve as you twist out of the way, landing low on your feet, panting, heart thundering.

“You came here to mock me,” Tsunade snarls. “You came here to take a face that you don't deserve and twist the knife. I’ve killed for less.”

Her fist slams the ground again—and the whole floor buckles.

You lose your footing, crashing into a half-collapsed pillar. You’re up again before you can think, hand to your side, not pulling a weapon, not striking, just trying to stay alive.

“I don’t want to fight you!” you shout. “I didn’t choose this—I’m not—whatever you think I am—I’m not!”

Her eyes are wild. Gold with fury. Her chakra flares hotter.

“Then stop wearing that face.”

You choke on the grief in your throat.

“She’s me!” you shout back. “She is me!”

And it’s true.

Not you. Not exactly.

But some part of you—some broken, beautiful, far-off part of you that existed in another place, in another world, in another life—that Tsunade once knew and lost and mourned.

And now she’s looking at you like you’ve dug up her corpse and paraded it through the bar.

She rushes you again, a blur of blonde and fury. You barely deflect the punch aimed for your sternum, and your wrist goes numb from the force of it.

You don’t remember when you started crying.

Tears blur your vision, sting your cheeks.

“Cut it out!” you scream, throat ragged. “Just—just stop, dammn it! Why won't you listen?! He’s going to—If he dies—I’LL KILL YOU! I SWEAR I WILL! Do you hear me?! I’LL KILL YOU IF YOU LET HIM DIE!”

Your voice shakes the room like a bomb.

It’s not a threat. It’s not a bluff.

It’s grief. It’s terror. It’s rage. It’s a heart breaking so hard it’s lashing out.

Tsunade doesn’t pause.

But something in her falters—just enough.

Enough for her swing to miss. Enough for her foot to misstep.

“I came here to beg you,” you gasp, voice hoarse and wild. “And all you’ve done is try to kill me! You’re a Sannin? YOU’RE A FUCKING DISGRACE!”

She doesn’t stop.

There’s no hesitation in her anymore—no lazy disdain or drunken sway. The woman who stands before you now is not the worn traveler sulking in a forgotten inn. She’s a goddamn legend. A Sannin. A hurricane wrapped in human skin.

Her eyes are fire. Not anger—not exactly. Fury, yes, but something colder layered beneath it. Recognition, maybe. Or worse—denial.

She sees you.

But not you.

It’s her. It’s always her. 

The space between you vanishes.

She lunges. A blur.

You throw your body aside at the last instant, chakra flaring through your limbs. Her fist collides with the wall where your head had been—wood explodes outward in a rain of splinters and plaster, the shockwave slamming into your ribs even without contact.

You roll, duck, leap up.

She’s already on you.

Her knee comes up toward your stomach. You twist midair, take the hit along your hip instead, but the force is bone-deep, shoving you into the floor like a ragdoll. You barely manage to catch yourself with your hands, chakra sticking you fast before you’re sent skidding across the tiles.

Your breath stutters. Your vision shudders.

And still—still—you block.

Not strike.

Because some part of you, even now, won’t hit her.

Because this is supposed to be the healer. The medic-nin. The woman who could hold someone together with her hands.

Not this.

Not this warrior.

You jump. The blow misses—barely—but the floor doesn’t survive.

Tiles shatter like glass, the earth beneath them cracking. The table is gone, obliterated, wood and sake and dust raining down around you. The smell of alcohol and crushed herbs is sharp and nauseating.

You stagger to the side, coughing. Your chakra flares again, instinctual.

This is a fight.

This is real.

She spins—faster than you expect—and lands a blow to your ribs. Even as you move to block, you’re too slow.

The hit lands.

Just a glancing shot, just a whisper of her full strength—

—but it feels like you’ve been struck by a falling star.

Air leaves your lungs in a choked gasp. Your body folds and flies, slamming into the thick wooden support beam with a crack that vibrates down your spine. Pain explodes behind your eyes. The world tips.

You fall.

Dust curls in the air like smoke.

Your hands scrabble, nails catching against splintered wood. Your shoulder screams. Everything hurts.

But you push yourself up.

Your heart’s a hammer in your chest.

Your blood sings panic.

Something deep. Something primal. Not fear—rage.

It claws its way up your throat and bursts out in a voice that doesn’t sound like yours. Something raw, something wrecked, something that’s bled out too many times already tonight.

“Damn it!” you scream, hoarse and shaking. “What is wrong with you?! Why won't you help me?! He’s dying! KAKASHI’S DYING!”

The words tear free like a gut wound, torn and ugly and real.

And then—

Then—

She stops.

Tsunade freezes mid-step.

Still poised to strike. Still glowing with chakra. But unmoving.

Her eyes are locked on you, and something inside them changes.

She breathes once. A quiet inhale, just barely audible over the blood in your ears.

“…Kakashi?”

The name falls from her lips like something she hasn’t said in years.

You can feel it shift the air.

Shizune’s voice cuts in behind her, small, urgent, uncertain: “Tsunade-sama—”

But Tsunade doesn’t look back.

She’s staring at you now like you’re a ghost, a dream, a nightmare draped in someone else’s skin. Her fists slowly lower, chakra dimming at her knuckles.

You don’t wait.

You can’t wait.

Because something is wrong.

Something is wrong inside you.

Your hands are already moving, fingers twisting into unfamiliar seals—not unfamiliar. Not completely. Your muscles know them. Your bones know them. But your mind doesn’t.

This jutsu doesn’t belong to you.

You’ve never trained in it.

You don’t even know the name.

But your chakra flows into it anyway, wild and sharp and impossibly old.

The signs blur together. Faster than thought. Faster than memory.

And in the space between one breath and the next—

The ground splits.

It happens like a heartbeat.

The floor beneath Tsunade erupts with a roar, chakra-laced earth cracking open in a violent spiral. Energy lashes upward like lightning, slamming into her chest and lifting her bodily from the floor.

She doesn’t cry out.

She doesn’t need to.

Her body crashes through the far wall like a meteor, timber and smoke crashing down in a wave. The room explodes into chaos—wood and rice-paper walls collapsing, furniture tumbling, firelight sputtering out as dust floods the air.

Shizune screams.

The world stills.

You’re panting now, doubled over, your vision swimming.

Your hands are shaking.

Your mouth tastes like copper.

The silence after the crash is thick. Clinging. It presses into your ears like water.

Tsunade groans softly from the wreckage. She’s not out. Not even close. Fucking Sannin with the durability of planets. You didn’t hit her with intent to kill—but you did hit her.

And that’s what matters.

Because now…

Now maybe she’ll listen.

She stirs, dust falling from her hair as she sits up slowly in the rubble, her jaw tight. Her eyes—wide now. Distant.

Shizune doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink.

She’s looking at you like she’s seeing something dangerous.

Something not entirely human.

You raise your head. Speak through ragged breath.

“Are you all insane?” you rasp, voice trembling. “You want to kill me? Fine. Do it. I don’t care anymore. But heal him. Please. That’s all I want. That’s all I have left.”

And it comes out not like a plea—but a wound.

Your voice breaks on it. Just a little.

The name hangs in the air like smoke, like a curse.

Kakashi.

Tsunade is silent.

She blinks once. Then again. The movement is slow, like she’s surfacing from deep water. She stares at you across the broken room, the inn caved in around her like a temple to some forgotten god.

She says nothing for a long, long time.

Then, softly—more to herself than to you—she says: “Kakashi…”

It’s not just confusion now.

It’s fear.

And recognition.

Like something she tried to bury long ago is clawing its way up through the floorboards.

You straighten, your legs aching beneath you, your body throbbing with every pulse of your heart.

And finally—finally—you look at her.

Really look.

You don’t see the drunken healer.

You don’t see the warrior.

You see the cracks.

You see the way her eyes shine—not with rage, but with something glassy. Something dangerous.

You see that, in some twisted way, she knows you.

And whatever she thought she was looking at—it isn’t what she sees now.

Shizune takes a cautious step forward.

“Tsunade-sama…” she says again, voice tighter this time. “Please…”

But Tsunade doesn’t tear her eyes from you.

They are locked. Fixed.

And something breaks.

You see it. The exact moment it happens.

Not physically. But somewhere inside her.

A sharp exhale escapes her lips. Her shoulders drop.

She says nothing for a long, long moment.

And then—

“…I’ll help him,” she murmurs, voice cold. Rough with something buried. “But if you try anything—if this is some kind of trick—I’ll crush every bone in your body.”

You don’t speak.

You nod once.

Just once.

And then you turn.

And she follows.

Not like an ally.

Not yet.

But something has changed.

Something is changing.

And behind you, as the wreckage of the inn groans around your footsteps, you don’t look back.

Because forward is the only direction left.