Chapter 4
“that old monkey must be freaking out by now”, Kurama says with amusement in her voice.
“I just sneaked out of the village right under their noses”, Izuku answers in his mindscape, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he sent a whole ANBU squad after me”.
“as if they would ever catch us in time, that magic thing of yours is really good at hiding chakra”, Kurama says, barely opening an eye.
“and since they can’t track my chakra, the only thing they have left is the info I told them”, Izuku says, walking around the city, trying to find where the Legendary Sannin would be, “too bad I gave them the wrong direction”.
“ha! That will teach them, but you gonna be in trouble the second you step back in the village”, Kurama says with a chuckle.
“that’s why I gave them one big ass gift in the shape of all the evidence of large scale embezzlement”, Izuku completes, “that will make my future punishment lighter”.
Izuku pauses as he comes across a restaurant.
“found her”, he says.
The sun had barely set by the time he got inside the humble establishment, a quick scan and he can see the target, sitting in the back stuffing her face was the well-endowed blond heir and Legendary Sannin Tsunade together with, if the files he read where to be trusted, the niece of her previous lover, Shizune and her pet pi Tonton.
“excuse-me, is this seat occupied?”, Izuku asks, walking to the table.
“it depends, who’s asking?”, Tsunade asks, narrowing her eyes.
“an admirer, Tsunade-Hime”, Izuku answers with a polite bowl as he sits down.
“who are you?”, Tsunade asks as Shizune readies herself to either fight or flee.
“maa, maa, I mean no harm, I just want to talk”, Izuku says sitting down.
Tsunade signals for Shizune to calm down.
“you are not easy to find I must say”, Izuku says, his green eyes scanning the surroundings.
“cut the sweet talk, who sent you?”, Tsunade asks, “are you a debt collector or a bounty hunter?”.
“neither, I’m just a humble citizen of Konoha who seeks the help of the Senju princess”, Izuku says.
“did sensei sent you? Or was one of those old farts from the council?!”, she asks, clenching her fists, reading herself for a fight.
“again, neither, I’m here of my own accord”, Izuku says.
“I’ll ask again and this time you better answer me, what do you want?!”, Tsunade asks, her honey brown eyes narrowing on the green haired stranger.
“is it wrong for a poor orphan to want to reconnect with his last living relative?”, Izuku says, dropping off the transformation, “hi aunty”.
Hiruzen was, for lack of a better word, frustrated, first the local toddler shaped demon had run off somewhere almost three weeks ago and the ANBU was running in circles like headless chickens trying to find him.
Then there was all the embezzlement debacle, it seemed it ran deeper than he tough and now on top of praying to Rikudou that Naruto comes back to the village, he was also buried in a mountain of paperwork that reached the sealing of his office from the flood.
Heck, he was spreading his chakra thin into six shadow clones to speed things up and yet the paperwork only multiplied.
“Hokage-sama!!”, Neko bursts into his office.
“what?!”, the stressed and overcaffeinated Hokage barks.
“We found him sir”, Neko says, cutting straight to the point.
“were is he?!”, Hiruzen asks, actually relieved Naruto had returned.
“with Lady Tsunade in the Senju compound”, Neko says.
Hiruzen freezes, his blood running cold and his fuzzy and tired mind clearing.
“he’s where with who?”, Hiruzen asks, his pipe almost falling from his mouth.
“he’s with Lady Tsunade in the Senju compound”, Neko repeats, “we just got confirmation from the Yamanakas”.
“he managed to bring Tsunade back to the village?”, Hiruzen asks, if his eyes got any wider they might fall off his face, “how?!”.
“well, all Lady Tsunade said was that he gave her something she desperately needed”, Neko says, “she also said and I quote ‘if sensei ever tries to make me take the damn hat I’m gonna shove it up his wrinkled ass’”.
“anything else?”, Hiruzen asks, sighing as his retirement plan goes out the window.
“yes, Lady Tsunade is also assuming the role of legal guardian of Naruto since she’s his last living relative trough Lady Mito’s side”, Neko says.
“wow, now that’s surprising”, Hiruzen says, scratching his goatee.
Now that he thinks about it, that was a masterful move. Tsunade, for all the bad rep she gathered during her travels was still a legendary sannin and a Senju, she was too much of a high name for the elders or even the general populace to reckless go against, so by having Konoha’s princess on his corner, Naruto made himself practically untouchable.
“smart move, very, very smart”, Hiruzen muses with a soft smile on his face that quickly turns into a sigh, “is anything else that needs to be reported?”.
“only one more thing”, Neko says, “Lady Tsunade is not happy with how the hospital is being handled, she intends on having a few words with the head doctor as soon as she’s well established, she also wants to have a few ‘words’ with the responsible for draining the Senju and Uzumaki funds and she hopes said funds to be returned as fast as possible”.
At that Hiruzen pales, the Uzumaki and Senju were some of the richest clans in Konoha, it was a well-known fact that combined their fortunes would put the Daimyo to shame. Tsunade’s gambling habits wouldn’t get close to even scratch the Senju funds and yet, the legendary fortune of the combined clans was all but gone now after years of being siphoned away to fund shady dealings.
Long story short, Hiruzen Sarutobi was thrice fucked, because where in the seven hells will he find enough money to reimburse the Senju and Uzumaki funds?
“alright, you five stay here and finish this, Neko, go fetch-me a bottle of the best booze you can find I have a student to visit”, Hiruzen says getting up from his chair and promptly face planting on his desk, “give me twenty minutes, I need a nap”.
Two hours, a nap and a shower later, Hiruzen was being escorted by Tsunade’s apprentice into the Senju compound.
“are you sure about it?”, Hiruzen hears Tsunade’s voice.
“it will work, trust me”, he hears Naruto’s voice.
“it better do you brat, or else your skull will have a very intimate meeting with my knuckles!”, Tsunade exclaim.
Upon arriving where the exchange was coming from, he see Tsunade standing next to Naruto a few meters away from the main house of the compound, which had every door and window wide open.
What Hiruzen and Shizune sees next impresses and scares them shitless.
Naruto takes a deep breath and fills his lungs with air.
“wind style”, he proclaims with his chest filled with air, “great breakthrough!!”.
He then releases a strong wind gust that flies into the building, blowing away gigantic clouds of dust and a few seconds later it stops.
“well, I’ll be damned it actually worked”, Tsunade says as the wind settles.
‘when did he learned that?!’, Hiruzen thinks with a little fear, ‘fuck, I need to get him in the academy asap!!’.
“lady Tsunade”, Shizune chooses that moment to make herself known, “Lord Hokage is here”.
“oh, thanks Shizune”, Tsunade says, turning around to see her sensei, “Sensei, it’s been a while, come on, let’s get inside”.
While the group walks inside, Tsunade turn to Naruto and Shizune.
“Shizune, could you keep Naruto company while me and Saru-sensei talk?”, Tsunade asks.
“sure…”, Shizune says, turning around and not seeing Naruto, “where is he?”.
“probably near the warehouse in the eastside”, Tsunade says.
“you mean the one next to that poison ivy garden?”, Shizune asks.
“that one, yes”, Tsunade says, “I’ve promised him he could do as he wished with that piece of land”.
“ok, I’m going there”, Shizune says, politely bowing before turning inher feet and running to where Tsunade said Naruto would be.
“come on sensei, we have much to catch on”, Tsunade says, “and I’m pretty sure not all of it will be pleasant”.
“you have no idea”, Hiruzen says.
An hour later and a few narrow escapes, Hiruzen gets to the meat and potatoes of why he was there.
“so, let me see if I got this straight”, Tsunade says, on her third cup of sake, “you want me to convince Naruto to enroll in the academy?”.
“pretty much yes”, Hiruzen says, on his fifth cup.
“sensei, I love you, I really do, but there’s no way in hell I’m doing it”, Tsunade says, massaging the bridge of her nose.
“Hime-chan, I’m at my wits end here”, Hiruzen says, “I don’t know what else I can do to convince him to join the academy”.
“well, can you blame him for not wanting to be a shinobi?”, Tsunade says, taking a sip of her sake, “like, once you take all the glorification out of the way, being a shinobi is pretty shitty”.
“you are a kunoichi yourself, can’t you side with me here?”, Hiruzen says.
“and because I am a kunoichi, just like you are a shinobi we know that being a ninja is not that all the stories make it to be”, Tsunade says, “heck, how many people of my generation, your generation got to live past forty? One look into the mortality rates is all anyone needs to not want to become a shinobi”.
“I know, but I need him to enroll”, Hiruzen says with a pained groan, “liking or not, he is Konoha’s greatest asset we cannot afford to not have him as a shinobi”.
“you should have tough about that before things got this bad”, Tsunade says, “heck, if I had people forming mobs to manhunt me every year on my birthday I would had deserted long ago”.
“I’ve been distributing severe punishments like candy left right and center and yet I cannot get hid of these stupid fox hunting parties!”, Hiruzen angrily states between teeth, “heck, I even did a public disclaimer that tempting fate is the best way to make it repeat itself, yet, those fuckers don’t learn!!”.
He gulps down his sixth cup in one go and refills it.
“hell, I even made very public knowledge that Naruto is NOT the fox, he is his jailer and if he dies, the fox will respawn, albeit where it was originally captured, but the thing is smart enough to know where Konoaha is”, Hiruzen says, “and it will come back. But this time, there won’t be anyone strong enough to stop it, let alone seal it”.
“and there’s the point he makes, why risk his life to protect people that hates him to the point of risking another nine-tails attack”, Tsunade points.
“I don’t know!!”, Hiruzen says, “I wish I know, I wish there was an easy answer to this, I wish things were different, I wish Minato was here!!”.
That was rare, Tsunade had never seen her teacher have an outburst like that, but she knew he was under extreme stress, so she let him vent.
“fuck, I hate that it comes to it, if I could I would let him be, let him choose to be whatever he wishes. I know he harbors no love for the villagers and I know he probably never will, fuck if I could I would personally just let him go”, Hiruzen says, the pipe in his mouth had fallen to the floor, “hell, I want him to be happy, to find happiness, but unfortunately, this damn world we live in had his claws on him the moment he became a jinchuuriki”.
Hiruzen makes a pause to breath.
“I fucked up, royally and there’s no arguing it”, Hiruzen admits, the alcohol in his system and the safety of being alone with someone he could trust his life to undoing any blocking his tongue might had, “I wanted to protect him from his father’s enemies, but instead I ended up feeding him to the wolves and the only thing I can do to try and fix things is to make him enroll in the academy and maybe find a purpose in following in his father’s footsteps”.
“sensei, I cannot say I agree with many of your decisions, but I see you have good intentions”, Tsunade says, “and I can see his talent, but I also can see his point, being a shinobi is not easy, never was and never will be. The best we can do is hope”.
“that’s all I’m doing now, hoping, he’s still young”, Hiruzen says with a sight, “talent or not, he’s just five, fuck, five years old and he already bears a heavy burden on his shoulders and this village is not helping making it lighter”.
“well, at least he’s not alone anymore, he has me now”, Tsunade says with a sigh, “as little as it may count”.
There’s a pause before Tsunade speaks again.
“I’ll bring it with him”, Tsunade says, “but don’t get your hopes up, if I’m lucky, which I’m not by the way, I’ll be able to convince him to attend the academy and even if he does become a shinobi, he will probably opt out of it after the mandatory period”.
“honestly, if I was on his position, I would have done the same”, Hiruzen says with a heavy sigh as he recovers his pipe, “also, I’ve been wanting to ask… how did he managed to convince you to come back?”.
Tsunade takes a deep breath and looks into the horizon.
“he gave me something I desperately needed”, she says, her tone filled with the kind of full filed melancholy only someone who defeat the inner demons of the soul could have, “he gave-me closure, heck, he even spent two weeks helping me overcome my hemophobia”.
“so he does have a heart”, Hiruzen says with a pained chuckle.
“that he does… and a mean hook”, Tsunade says with a chuckle while rubbing her right side, “I can still feel my ribs bruised”.
“did you fought him?”, Hiruzen asks.
“and lost, I have no idea what school of taijutsu he learned from, but he kicked my ass”, Tsunade says, “he has to teach me that roundhouse kick”.