AN: Have a second chapter, why not.
——————————
After a long stretch of silence, Jiraiya finally asked, "You mentioned wanting to meet Tsunade specifically. Is there a reason?"
"You could say we have a bit of history. Some bad blood I wanted to settle," I replied with my eyes still closed.
"Bad blood?"
I only shrugged.
"Is that the reason you're reluctant to negotiate terms?"
I opened one eye to look at the solemn Jiraiya before confirming, "Without hearing an apology from the princess, both Konoha and my fiancée get nothing."
Sullenly, Jiraiya mulled it over before he inquired, "You would hold the prosperity of Konoha and Kiri hostage over something like this?"
"Imagine for one second those pills you want for Kiri's benefits are real and not someone's figment of imagination: What benefit would there be for the person or persons who created such miraculous pills? Would they care about Kiri getting some pity missions?"
"Everyone benefits in a striving village. Missions would allow your ninja to hone their abilities, feed their families, grow their clans," Jiraiya pointed out.
"You think too much. Kiri would achieve all of that with time. Is there a need for us to strengthen our foundations so quickly now that the Bloody Mist era ended? Any wars Danzō wants to start in the near future that we have to shore up our forces for?"
Jiraiya immediately stiffened for a fraction of a second before looking at me weirdly. Someone as smart and well-traveled as the Sannin would know about the extent of Root's influence, but obviously he couldn't admit that in front of me, the jinchūriki of an enemy village.
So for the first time, he had nothing to say.
Some time later, I stood in front of an inn that Jiraiya had brought me to in complete silence.
"Is there anything I can say to Tsunade that would increase the chances of her wanting to meet with you?" The Toad-sage asked as he was saying his goodbyes.
"Yes. Please hand her this simple scroll for me. It conveys everything I need to convey to make sure she knows of my dilemma," I jovially explained as I handed the man a small scroll barely as thin as my thumb. With a wink, I added, "No peeking."
—————
[POV 3rd person Senju compound]
Tsunade looked at her sleeping children with worry in her eyes. It couldn't be a good thing that their father came here personally.
Softly closing the door to their bedroom after stepping out, Tsunade checked on little Naruto who was sleeping with his head hanging outside the bed, both feet angled up in the air. For some reason the little bundle of energy never slept in a particularly comfortable position. But it was kind of reassuring for the Senju Princess to tuck him in a second and third time after he fell asleep.
"Tsunade," a white-haired shinobi greeted in a quiet voice as he sat at a table in Tsunade's living room.
"I told you not to come in on your own," the blonde kunoichi tiredly spat without any real heat in her voice. Ever since she came back to Konoha pregnant, her once-teammate stopped by almost daily to bother her with questions about her baby daddy and other things she had no plans to answer. He wasn't even summoned back by their teacher, Jiraiya simply came back to Konoha because she came back.
"Our alliance talks with Kiri are at a dead end," Jiraiya offered with a small sigh instead of a rebuke as he opened a bottle of sake for them both that he had brought as a peace offering.
"Already?"
The Toad Sage nodded and took out a small scroll. "Terumi Yoshihiro mentioned to me that your failure to appear was the reason. He instructed me to hand you this. You two have bad blood?"
Looking at the scroll with conflicted eyes, Tsunade failed to notice that Jiraiya studied her face closely. The reluctance and small amount of fear gave her long-time companion many guesses and possible conjectures about what was happening here.
He kept his promise and hadn't read this note, so Jiraiya also closely studied Tsunade's expression as she unfurled the scroll to read it.
Tsunade's trembling hand for a small moment was clearly seen by Jiraiya, his curiosity increasing more and more.
'Appear at the meeting tomorrow or I will burn down the Hokage Monument. Fail to appear again and I will start killing Konoha's council one greedy vermin at a time starting with your teacher. You owe me an explanation.'
Tsunade closed the scroll with a deep frown on her face and burned it with a small unranked fire ninjutsu that only required a bit of effort with nature transformation of chakra.
"Will you appear tomorrow or will I tell sensei not to bother?"
Tsunade shook her head with a determined glint in her eyes and inquired, "Which inn does he stay in? I will clear this misunderstanding right now."
"Cherry Flower Inn near the Yamanaka-"
"I know where it is," Tsunade answered and stood up. Giving Jiraiya a brief look, she made a Shadow Clone instead of a Wood Clone and made it stand guard over her children.
She still hadn't told anyone in Konoha about being able to use wood release now and she already had Wood Clones stationed in sealed states in her children's bedroom. These Shadow Clones were simply to discourage Jiraiya from snooping around.
Without saying anything else, Tsunade hurried in the direction of Cherry Flower Inn where Yoshihiro was staying.
After sending away the two ANBU guards she found near the inn, Tsunade arrived in the small rented courtyard and was greeted by a lazy voice.
"You dare come here alone in the middle of the night? I trust Jiraiya has delivered my message?"
Biting her lip for a short moment, Tsunade turned around to the source of the voice.
With a bare chest and loose trousers, it was clear Yoshihiro had just taken a bath – but that made no sense. Jiraiya told her he spent an entire afternoon in the hot spring with her one-time lover. How could she know Yoshihiro spent almost a day inside another dimension by this point?
"What are you trying to accomplish by having us meet? You will not get my children," Tsunade inquired with gritted teeth and tightly clenched fists.
"You keeping them depends on whether or not you will survive tonight," Yoshihiro threatened with narrowed eyes. "Not on whether or not I actually want to take them away."
"You would dare kill the mother of your children?"
"I would dare to do just about anything. I killed two daimyo, two kage, my clan head and while I didn't kill my father, I might as well have. I killed and killed and killed. Why would I not dare kill you?"
Tsunade fought the urge to nervously gulp down some saliva hearing his admissions. Instead, she steeled her nerves and asked, "And you are so indifferent to my life and death, why?"
The Red Demon stood up from the chair he had been lying in lazily and walked over to Tsunade. Towering over her, his face twisted into a grimace for a short moment before he schooled his expression and spat, "I didn't even care about your brainless attempt on my life after our fuck. But you dared to tell Konoha about my pills."
The jinchūriki grabbed her throat in a lightning-quick movement as the air turned hotter. His eyes started to glow orange-red, like the smoldering embers of a bonfire.
"Did I leave you with the impression that I would let such a thing slide?"
Feeling his fury as his chakra burned her, though not with actual heat, Tsunade gained a reluctant smile and muttered, "It was not on purpose. Jiraiya discovered a pill Naruto hid under his pillow. The little troublemaker is much smarter than I thought and had heard my drunken rambling one night and repeated it all to his 'pervy-sensei' once Jiraiya asked for an explanation."
Yoshihiro searched the woman's face for a while before he released his grip on her throat.
"It is a good thing that I do not care to be seen as cruel by you," the Red Demon muttered with a dark expression and waved his hand. "I trust you remember her? As the sensei of their sensei it should be Jiraiya who is most familiar with her?"
Nohara Rin, the sleeping beauty Yoshihiro had rescued on a whim, appeared on a blanket near the two. He still hadn't managed to fix her heart.
"Little Rin?" Tsunade asked in astonishment before kneeling down to take her pulse. But before she could touch her, Rin's body lit up in flames.
The heat was overwhelming for the briefest moment and left behind nothing but ash in seconds.
"You!?" Tsunade stood up with the intention of cussing out Yoshihiro but kept quiet when she saw the fury in his eyes.
"Naruto kept a pill under his pillow for someone else to find? Overheard my secret by accident? Revealed it all to Jiraiya like a mischievous little kid? You must think I'm a gullible idiot," Saiken's jinchūriki quietly spat, but the anger was evident in his voice.
Tsunade didn't say anything but defiantly stood her ground until she heard him whisper, "One life is not enough. How about I go kill the other two Sannin tomorrow? After all, one dared to take my secret and tell it to your elders. And I'm sure a 'criminal' like Orochimaru slighted me in some form over the years, too. Maybe he experimented on some of my clansmen."
Tsunade's face gained black markings as her chakra's quality exploded. She entered sage mode when he finished his casual intimidation.
But who was Terumi Yoshihiro?
"Feel the air around us," he threatened with a deep sneer. "Attack me and I will ignite the air in Konoha until no oxygen is left and thousands of Konoha civilians die."
Tsunade did as the Red Demon said and her pupils turned into pinpricks. It was subtle, but in her sage mode she could sense the air all around them and she felt Yoshihiro's chakra flood their surroundings. No matter how far her sensory ability probed outward, his chakra was everywhere.
"Leave. And hope your teacher has some sense," the Uzumaki alchemist drawled and sat back on his comfortable chair. A glass appeared in his hand out of nowhere as he watched Tsunade exit sage mode and leave with regret written all over her face.
Just like Yoshihiro had guessed, Jiraiya learning about the pills had not been an accident but something she orchestrated to be able to claim ignorance.
Once Tsunade left, Yoshihiro put up another sealing barrier to stop others from sensing inside his courtyard and then he disappeared into his plant dimension.
Inside, he looked at a figure floating inside the lake by his little house.
"That was cruel," Saiken said as she appeared behind her jinchūriki. This time around, she looked like a mix between Mei and Ryuzetsu instead of Tsunade. Still, her pupils and hair were pink.
"Don't say more. I'm still debating whether or not I'll actually kill Orochimaru and Jiraiya," Yoshihiro ordered in an indifferent tone of voice.
Kneeling down, he put his chakra into the body of Nohara Rin to feel for any changes. The body he had burned in front of Tsunade had been a random corpse he changed to look like her with a transformation pill. But that left him with the dilemma of what to actually do with Rin.
Feeling no changes, the Red Demon of Kiri left the plant dimension and used his Mind's Eye of Kagura to its fullest potential. Once he pinpointed his target, his body vanished in a mirage with a single-handed hand sign.
A small flame traveled through the air of Konoha in a flash. The jutsu ended as the flame grew back into a person standing in an empty yard of a quaint, traditional house.
"You live like a corpse. This place is dead," the jinchūriki pointed out lazily.
The owner of the house tensed up immediately, taking out a kunai.
"Why are you here?"
"Hatake Kakashi, didn't you invite me over?"
His single visible eye turned confused for a moment as he mumbled a small 'what?' under his breath.
"That's just a cover in case your ANBU friends ask later. I was surprised it wasn't you who was sent to guard me. Instead they send some nobodies. Did I hurt everyone's feelings at the Tsuchigumo clan last time?"
"Why are you here?" Kakashi repeated. The experienced ANBU shinobi kept his emotions in check and revealed nothing.
"I originally planned to kill both your sensei's sensei and the other Sannin for Tsunade's folly. But I'm trying to be the bigger person here," the six-tails jinchūriki explained mockingly. "I'm giving you a chance. Tell Tsunade or the rest of Konoha about what I am about to reveal before I leave Konoha and I'll make good on my promise. Jiraiya dies. Orochimaru dies. The Shimura Clan will be annihilated for good measure."
Another theatrical wave of his hand, and Nohara Rin appeared before Kakashi.
"I grow tired of caring for her. You obliterated her heart with that chidori attack and I could never fix it fully. With my methods, she'll survive for another month at least in this state but she won't wake up. Her heart isn't strong enough."
With that, the alchemist disappeared in another subdued flash of fire.
"… Rin," Kakashi whispered under his breath as he kneeled down in his yard. His fingers reached out but they were too afraid of touching his old teammate.
Not only was the copy-ninja afraid of hurting her again, he also feared that what he was seeing wasn't real. A genjutsu that would fade the moment his hand passed through her.
Gathering his courage, he eventually tried to disrupt any possible genjutsu and then touched his friend.
She was real.
"Is it really you?" He muttered with hurt in his voice.
Eventually, he judged that Yoshihiro's words were true. Her heartbeat was incredibly weak and slow. It was a wonder that she was still alive, but Kakashi's medical knowledge was not enough to figure out if the rest of the red demon's words were true.
"Can he really kill Jiraiya-sensei and Orochimaru-sama?" Kakashi asked nobody with a conflicted expression.
—————
Tsunade looked upset. Outraged, even. But she kept her temper in check as she walked back and forth in her home.
Shizune woke up early to help with the children like she always did once they were back in Konoha, but this time around she did all of the work. Tsunade didn't even greet little Naruto before he stormed out to play with some of his friends after the aging sister-in-law of the Third Hokage came to pick him up – something Hiruzen had ordered his late wife's sister to do to repair some of the damage his actions and inaction had done. The few clan kids that finally accepted Naruto now that the last Senju vouched for the blonde orphan treated him like their leader. Now that it was revealed he lived with a legendary Sannin and was the son of the legendary Fourth Hokage.
"Tsunade-sama," Shizune cautiously called out after the two twins were given their breakfast.
"Hmm?" The Sannin answered with narrowed eyes.
"You're agitated. Is there anything wrong?" Shizune asked.
"You remember Terumi Yoshihiro?"
Shizune's eyes widened for a short moment before understanding came to her.
"He's in Konoha?"
As Tsunade's student, Shizune's day job was working at the Konoha hospital. She hadn't heard about the Kiri envoy arriving during her shift and nobody had told her after she came back to the Senju compound to look after the children. Tsunade was many things and a great mother… but she was a little careless sometimes.
It was Shizune's mission to make sure that she didn't forget to feed the kids or put them to bed.
But it didn't make much sense because there was genuine worry in Tsunade's demeanor. And the Red Demon turned out to be a nice guy, at least Shizune thought so.
"I made a mistake. He threatened me, or rather Konoha," Tsunade mumbled under her breath.
Shizune furrowed her brows. That didn't sound like the Terumi Yoshihiro she had met.
"Maybe I can…?" She stopped her question when she saw how her teacher looked at her.
"He's here for a diplomatic mission. They are about to meet at the Hokage tower for a second round of negotiations. Will you just knock on the door and ask him for another bowl of soup?"
Embarrassed, Shizune quickly looked down. It was true, she hadn't really thought it through.
"I don't know what to do. It was my mistake, I don't want Konoha to suffer for something that I did."
"I really hope you're not considering luring him into a trap," Shizune uttered under her breath as she shivered a little.
As much as she liked his personality during their meeting, Shizune was clear that the Red Demon was in a league of his own. His chakra felt overwhelming. It was the only time she felt like a little hare looking at the vast moon.
And then he walked out of the seal Tsunade placed on the ground.
That had never happened in the decade she had spent at her sensei's side.
"I'll go see him again. Jiraiya mentioned that the negotiation will not move forward unless I participate," Tsunade decided eventually. "I just hope he is reasonable… or, well, not unreasonable."
"Uh, he did have only a single rule. Don't sell his pills or he burns down the forests around Konoha. That doesn't sound entirely reasonable," Shizune pointed out with a wry smile.
"Look after the twins. Don't leave them out of your sight."