Tsunade appeared just like that, reeking of alcohol, supported under the arm by Shizune…
Even though it was working hours,
even though Konoha was still at war,
even though hundreds of shinobi were waiting for treatment,
even though the village was short on top-tier combat strength,
Hiruzen Sarutobi still indulged this beloved student of his—letting her gamble, drink, and waste her days away without a care in the world, utterly disregarding the image of one of the Legendary Sannin, not to mention… her teacher's dignity.
It was just like in the original story: even after he caught Orochimaru with evidence of human experimentation, even after cornering him in the lab itself, he still let him go. That, in turn, led to Orochimaru attacking Konoha later and forcing Hiruzen to die stopping him.
Hiruzen shot Tsunade a look of exasperated disappointment, forcibly suppressing the anger rising in his chest, and had Shizune pour her a cup of tea.
The older woman sprawled carelessly across the sofa at the corner of the desk, grabbed the cup, and downed it in huge gulps. At that moment, there was nothing remotely ladylike about her—if anything, she seemed rougher than most men.
Maybe that was how she numbed herself, how she tried to forget the pain of losing first her younger brother, then her fiancé…
"Gulu gulu gulu…"
A whole pot of tea was drained in no time.
She seemed to sober up by more than half. Tsunade let out a satisfied groan, spread her arms, and collapsed back against the sofa.
Impatiently, she said, "If you've got something to say, say it fast. I've got somewhere to be. Tonight I'm definitely winning big and making back everything I lost these past two days!"
Beside her, Shizune helplessly took the empty teapot she tossed aside and quietly glanced at Hiruzen.
In the haze of smoke, the Hokage's twitching mouth was just barely visible. Clearly… he was doing everything he could to hold back his anger.
Still, business came first. As Hokage, Hiruzen had enough self-control to keep his emotions off his face. He opened a drawer and slid the [Limb Regeneration Technique] scroll Fugaku had submitted earlier across the desk toward Tsunade.
"Take a look at this."
"At what?"
"A ninjutsu."
"What's there to look at?" Tsunade got even more impatient, glaring at him. "Old man, if that's all, I'm leaving."
Hiruzen Sarutobi: "..."
Several veins visibly twitched at his temple. He was just about to blow up when, fortunately—
Shizune reacted fast enough to snatch up the scroll first. Clearing her throat, she said, "Tsunade-sama, I'll read it to you. It won't take long. It won't delay your 'important appointment.'"
With that, she opened the scroll and saw the five characters [Limb Regeneration Technique] clearly written on the front page. Reflected in her calm eyes, the words seemed to carry some kind of magic, pulling her gaze straight in.
Her lips moved, but for a moment, no words came out.
That only made Tsunade, who was already impatiently waiting on the sofa, frown even harder.
"Shizune…"
"Y-yes, I'm here." Feeling Tsunade's increasingly irritated gaze, Shizune—dressed in black slacks and high-heeled sandals—stood there clutching the thin scroll. Calling her Tsunade's personal bodyguard wasn't quite right; she was more like her personal caretaker, the one responsible for her daily life and making sure she didn't completely self-destruct and vanish off the map.
Still holding the scroll, she snuck another glance at Hiruzen. The old man remained seated in the smoke, lazily puffing away at his pipe. Taking a deep breath and steadying her shock, she slowly began to read:
"[Limb Regeneration Technique]. As the name suggests, its primary function is 'regenerating severed limbs'…"
"The chakra circulation route is as follows…"
"The hand seals are…"
"Wait!"
A pale, graceful hand suddenly shot out. Before Shizune could continue, Tsunade snatched the scroll right out of her hands.
At that point, it seemed as though Tsunade had truly sobered up. The intoxicating flush on her cheeks had faded, replaced by a look of serious shock.
That expression…
Forget Hiruzen—even Shizune, who was with her every day, hadn't seen that face in a very long time.
When had it disappeared? When had this all begun?
Probably from the evening Dan died.
From that moment on, the words "serious" and "proper" had vanished from Tsunade's life.
"Ah—"
She snapped the scroll open and sat upright on the sofa. Her beautiful eyes widened, fixed intently on the [Limb Regeneration Technique].
From the "initial hypothesis behind the technique's creation," to the "analysis of its principles," to the "repeated verification of chakra flow paths," and finally the "seal sequence," she missed nothing.
Aside from the small amount of "path verification" Uchiha Fugaku had added to make the technique seem more authentic—so it would look like something that had taken "a tremendous amount of effort" to research—the overall presentation really drove home one point:
this thing had not come easily.
In any case—
the longer she read, the more Tsunade started biting her nails…
She looked exactly like she had back in her student days, completely absorbed in medical ninjutsu research.
That sight fell into Hiruzen's eyes, and the old man's mouth curved ever so slightly.
A weight lifted from his heart.
Good. This was stable.
"Incredible. It looks like this technique really is workable… Ren, ah, with a child as talented as you, how exactly am I supposed to place you?"
Some people made others worry because they were too mediocre, or too stupid.
Others, however, made others worry because they were too outstanding—so outstanding they couldn't be controlled.
That black-haired boy with those sharp eyes was obviously the latter.
Tap.
Hiruzen parted his lips and let out a long puff of smoke, full of complicated emotion. The smoke ring drifted outward, slowly widening, thinning, and fading until it reached Tsunade and only the faintest trace remained.
Tsunade, her blonde hair cascading down her back, finally finished reading everything on the scroll.
She took a deep breath, pulled her face away from the scroll, and stared directly at Hiruzen.
"Who?" she asked. "Who developed this technique?"
At that, Shizune looked at Hiruzen too. There was no need to think hard about it—if Tsunade-sama had already examined it this deeply, then the technique was probably real.
And not just real.
It was probably far more than that.
Tap.
The Hokage's office fell utterly silent.
Hiruzen didn't answer right away.
Instead, he sidestepped the question.
"Do you think this technique has value for large-scale promotion?"
Tsunade frowned and thought it over. She even tried using the casting method Roy had summarized to test it for herself. After a long while, she nodded decisively.
"Yes."
"The technique itself isn't complicated, but the angle is incredibly novel. What's even more shocking is the creator's understanding of [Yang Release]. It's almost…"
"Almost like who?"
"Like my grandfather."
Grandfather…
The Hokage's office went silent again.
Shizune's eyes flew wide open as she looked at Tsunade in disbelief.
Her grandfather?
That meant… the First Hokage, Lord Senju Hashirama?!
Outside the window, the sunlight still blazed brightly.
Across the commercial district, Hokage Rock stood clear in view.
On the far left, the massive stone face of the First Hokage looked down over Konoha—
and, it felt, over Shizune and Hiruzen as well.
The two of them fell into silence once more.
Tap.
Hiruzen took another pull from his pipe, feeling the smoke burn hot as it traveled down into his lungs, forcing his spirit awake.
Then, through the haze, he quietly looked at Tsunade.
For the first time in his life, he had heard someone use the phrase "comparable to the First Hokage"—
and it had come from his own student's mouth.
But was Fugaku's boy really worthy of such praise?
The old man narrowed his eyes, remembering the [Wood Release] he had personally seen from the boy just a few days ago. He set down the pipe and let out a long sigh.
"The technique will have to be promoted eventually. Even if I didn't tell you, with your personality, you'd just investigate it yourself anyway, wouldn't you?"
Tsunade didn't deny it.
Yes, she had given up.
Yes, she had been hurt to the core.
But the moment something involved "family"—especially [Yang Release], the signature release of the Senju clan—she would instantly snap to attention and chase it down no matter the cost.
After all,
she was the last surviving descendant of the Senju.
Clutching the scroll tightly, Tsunade glared at Hiruzen.
"So who is it?"
Her voice was dry, almost trembling.
"Is it a Senju?"
Hiruzen tapped the ash out of his pipe and slowly shook his head.
"He's not a Senju."
"Quite the opposite."
"He's the Senju's… mortal enemy."
"The Senju's mortal enemy…" Shizune repeated under her breath. Then her mouth suddenly dropped open, and she blurted out, "An Uchiha?!"
"That's impossible!" Tsunade flatly rejected the idea without a second thought.
The phrase "the inherently evil Uchiha" wasn't empty prejudice.
In present-day Konoha, no one knew that the Senju and the Uchiha were the reincarnations of Asura and Indra, heirs to [Yang Release] and [Yin Release] respectively—
but the idea that [Yin] and [Yang] were incompatible, just like fire and water, had already become accepted truth across the ninja world, ingrained in every shinobi's mind.
The Uchiha, as embodiments of [darkness], were naturally at odds with [light].
Even if Tsunade racked her brain to the breaking point, she'd sooner believe some random civilian ninja had developed the [Limb Regeneration Technique] than believe it had come from an Uchiha.
What was more, in Tsunade's mind, anything involving [Yang Release] almost certainly had to be connected to the Senju—or to blood descended from them.
That was the proper logic.
That was the correct answer.
"Looks like you don't believe it either." Hiruzen noted her expression. Knowing his student's temperament all too well, he pushed back his chair, stood, clasped his hands behind his back, and looked out through the giant floor-to-ceiling window toward the Uchiha compound.
Slowly, he said, "I know what you're thinking… When I first received this technique, I didn't believe it either. But the fact is…"
"It really was submitted by the Uchiha clan."
"And…"
"I've met the person who developed it."
Hiruzen narrowed his eyes and turned to look at Tsunade with a grave expression.
"Believe me, Tsunade. He's even more unbelievable than you think."
"I want to see him." Tsunade said it abruptly. "Unless I see him with my own eyes…"
"Don't think you can fool me!"
Crack!
The coffee table in front of the sofa had one corner crushed apart by brute strength.
Tsunade held the scroll in one hand, clenched the other into a fist, and wood splinters trickled down from her palm in a steady stream.
Hiruzen's brow twitched at the sight.
Damn it.
Snapping back to himself, the old man angrily pointed at her.
Tsunade stared right back, stubborn as ever, neck stiff and unyielding.
As the invisible standoff dragged on, poor Shizune stood stuck between them, growing more anxious by the second, hands twisted together helplessly, not knowing what to do…
Fortunately, Hiruzen had lived a long life.
And more importantly, he was Hokage.
Even if he didn't actually have the patience for it, he had to act like he did.
After a moment, he lowered his hand, snorted, and glared at Tsunade.
"I won't say this a second time after you walk out that door."
"His name is Uchiha Ren."
"Now get out."
"Uchiha Ren…" Tsunade silently committed the name to memory, then turned and strode away, the two enormous curves of her chest swaying as she left.
"Lord Hokage, Shizune takes her leave." Seeing that, Shizune hurriedly bowed and rushed after Tsunade out of the Hokage's office.
And just like that, only Hiruzen remained in the vast office—
along with the smoking pipe flipped open on the desk—
lost in long contemplation.
After a while, the old man lifted his eyes again toward Hokage Rock outside the window, toward the massive stone face of Senju Hashirama, and murmured softly:
"Uchiha Ren… if it's you, can you make Tsunade find her fighting spirit again?"
Whoosh—
A gust of wind swept in, stirring the leaves and scattering them who knew where…
Perhaps they vanished into some neglected pile of old papers.
Or perhaps, defying the limits of time and space, like the countless green leaves in the Demon Slayer world, they drifted past a certain boy—
and in the next instant were crushed to dust by the flickering Nen radiating off him.
Demon Slayer world.
On the mountain behind the Kamado family home,
before the grave where [Uta] and [Ryota] lay buried…
Roy stood alone in the moonlight, his flame-red hair swaying in the night breeze, quietly savoring the pure [solar power] the Blue Spider Lily had given him.
In that instant, it felt as if he had been thrown right before the sun itself—
pressed face-to-face against its searing heat—
watching sunspots, solar flares, prominences, and solar wind erupt in endless torrents…
And then he sank into it.
At times, he became a dark patch on the photosphere.
At times, he plunged into the chromosphere and burst forth as a surge of blazing energy.
At times, he rode the particles spewing from the corona, becoming one single thread of the solar wind…
In the deep forest, the flickering Nen around Roy grew more and more abundant, more intense, more scorching, more resplendent…
As he sank deeper into his realization, it began radiating outward on its own.
Gradually,
a single thread of light abruptly pierced the darkness,
allowing more and more light to emerge,
until it directly lifted Roy into the heavens…
In the haze, a hibernating brown bear tucked away in a cave mistook it for the return of spring. Drowsily, it poked its head out from the mouth of the cave—
and froze.
Its lantern-like eyes shot wide open. It raised a paw and scratched its head in confusion.
"What's going on?"
"It's still midnight. Why is the sun out?"
No one answered the bear's question.
It simply rose onto its hind legs and stared blankly at Roy, who radiated light and heat as he shot into the sky—
surpassing the mountain peaks and climbing until he seemed almost level with the moon.
Back at the Kamado home, Tanjuro—who had only just said goodbye to Roy—sat alone on the veranda, cup after cup of tea in place of wine, trying to dull the sorrow in his heart.
Then, at some point, he realized it had grown brighter before him.
A ray of sunlight had somehow broken through the cover of night, shoved the moonlight aside, and fallen straight into the small yard in front of the veranda.
The man sat there stunned for a moment, then abruptly rose, threw on his robe, stepped down from the veranda in two strides—
and looked up.
~~~
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