Naruto raised his hand. He stopped midway, staring at Tsunade's back. "Hey... Grandma."
She didn't turn around.
"What?" Her voice was sharp.
"Just... wait a second." Naruto tried to push himself up on his elbows.
"What is it now, brat? Are you backing out?"
"No. It's not that." Naruto rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous gesture. "It's just... Here?"
Silence settled in the room for a second.
Tsunade finally turned just enough to look at him over her shoulder. "'Here' what?"
"You know... 'it'. The thing we're gonna do." He lowered his voice, though it was pointless. "I mean, right now? With...?"
He shot a discreet, and not at all subtle, glance toward the next bed. "In front of... her?"
There was an audible, very exaggerated sigh from the other bed.
"Hey," Temari's dry voice said, directed at the ceiling. "I'm still here, you know."
Tsunade tensed visibly. "No one is talking to you, Suna."
"Yeah, I noticed," Temari retorted, turning her head on the pillow to look at them with one eye. "But you're whispering like you're planning a murder, and you're two meters away from me. For a Sannin and the guy who beat my brother, you're not very good ninjas."
"Hey," Naruto protested.
Temari ignored him. "Look, I don't know what weird Leaf ninja stuff you're about to do, and honestly, I don't want to know. I'm stuck here, and the last thing I need is to see... whatever this is."
She turned back to stare at the ceiling, crossing her arms over her chest. "I am very, very interested in this water stain up here. It's fascinating. See? Not looking. I'm blind, deaf, and mute. Do your... Thing you're gonna do. But if you can, hurry up. I want to sleep."
Tsunade walked over to Naruto's bed.
She bent down a little, presenting her back in a different way. "Get on."
Naruto blinked. He looked at her. He looked at her back. He looked at Temari, who was intensely pretending to be asleep.
"Get on," Tsunade repeated, her voice low and heavy with impatience.
"What?"
"What are you waiting for? Get on my back. Now."
Naruto looked at her as if she'd grown a second head. "Get on? On your back? Seriously?"
"You got a problem with that, brat?"
"Of course I have a problem with that!" he said, indignant. "What am I, a five year old kid? I just fought a Jinchuriki, I don't need you to give me a piggyback ride like I'm a baby!"
"Fine," Tsunade said, straightening up abruptly. Her tone was falsely cheerful. "Then jump out that window and follow me to the roof. It's six stories high. With your broken ribs and the dislocated shoulder I just healed, you should be able to make it. Maybe."
Naruto stared at her. "You know? I think I'm... I'm a little sore. That battle definitely left some hidden injuries."
"That's what I thought." Tsunade bent down again. "You have exactly three seconds before I knock you out, sling you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and jump out that window. Your call. And believe me, my method is much faster and much less considerate of your injuries."
"I'm going, I'm going! So impatient!"
"One..."
"I'm moving!" Naruto, ignoring the stabbing pain in his muscles, moved awkwardly. Swinging his leg over her was agony. "And stop threatening to knock me out every five minutes! I'm a patient!"
"You're a patient who won't stay still. Hold on tight," she ordered.
"Hold on to wh...?"
Tsunade didn't wait for the answer. She pushed off with her legs.
She jumped.
They shot through the open window in a burst of speed. The gust of wind was so strong it sent all the medical reports and charts in the infirmary flying. Papers flew everywhere, some landing on Temari's bed.
Temari was left alone in the now silent, messy room. She slowly peeled a report off her face. She turned her head, looking at the empty window and the starry night beyond.
"Great," she muttered to the silence. "Now I'm the one stuck with the discharge paperwork and I have to explain to the nurse why it looks like a hurricane came through here."
She sighed again. "Wow... the legendary Sannin, reduced to a cargo service for a loud genin. Unbelievable. Gaara is never going to believe this."
The landing was anything but soft. Tsunade touched the roof of the hospital with the grace of a predator, but she simply straightened up sharply, letting inertia fling Naruto off her back.
He went rolling onto the cold tiles with a dull thud and a choked cry.
"Gah! My back!" he yelled, rubbing his butt. "Don't treat me like a bag of potatoes!"
"I landed perfectly," Tsunade replied, already walking toward the edge of the roof. "You're the one who doesn't know how to be carried."
"Nobody knows how to be 'carried' when they're launched like a catapult!" He struggled to his feet, every muscle protesting. "Be careful with the patient! You're supposed to be the best doctor in the world! You almost broke me in half!"
"You were the one who wanted to get out of bed," she retorted, not looking at him. "And you're the one with a ridiculous healing factor. You'll heal."
"That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, Grandma!"
"Stop complaining."
She stopped at the edge, looking at the village spread out below them. The lights of the reconstruction shone in the darkness. The night was quiet for the first time in days.
The playful tone, or rather the harassing tone, vanished from Tsunade's voice. It turned serious. "Brat."
Naruto stood up, brushing the dust off his hospital pajamas. The tone silenced him instantly. "Yeah?"
"Before you do... whatever it is you're going to do. I need you to understand why."
He stayed quiet, surprised by her seriousness. He moved a little closer, standing beside her. The night wind was cold.
"Hiruzen got lucky," she continued. "He beat Orochimaru, yes, but it cost him several serious wounds. We got lucky that Gaara lost control early. We got lucky you were there."
Her jaw tightened. "And I hate relying on luck. Luck is for fools, gamblers, and losers."
Tsunade took a deep breath, turning her gaze back to the village. "Orochimaru is still out there. And from what you told me, that gang of idiots in black cloaks, Akatsuki... they're hunting guys like you."
Naruto tensed. "I know. I..."
"Exactly. Guys who can walk in and out of this village like they own the place. Guys I have to fight." She lightly touched her forehead. "I know I told Hiruzen I'd let this village rot with whatever came its way. However, I'm also doing this because I have to protect you."
He looked at her, confused. "What does that have to...?"
"My current strength," she said, cutting him off. "The Creation Rebirth Seal... it has a limit. Every time I use it fully, every time I force my body to regenerate from mortal wounds... it takes years from me. Years I can't get back." Her eyes looked old under the moon. "It heals you, but it kills me slowly. It's a terrible trade."
"Grandma... I..."
"Shhh, let me finish. It's a last resort jutsu. But against guys like Orochimaru or those Akatsuki monsters, 'last resort' becomes 'every Tuesday.' I won't lose another war because I wasn't prepared. I won't lose anyone else because I had to choose between my life and theirs."
She turned to face him, her brown eyes locked on him in the moonlight. "Whatever you have, that 'Falna' of yours... if it can give me a real advantage, if it can give me the power without the price... I'll take it. I don't care about the risk."
Naruto watched her for a long moment.
"Understood," he said, his own voice quiet. "I'll do whatever it takes."
"I didn't ask you to do 'whatever it takes,' brat," she replied, though her voice was softer. "I'm telling you why I am willing to do this. Do you understand the difference?"
"Yeah. I get it." Naruto nodded firmly. "I trust you, Grandma."
She turned her back to him. Naruto bit his thumb. The sharp, familiar pain. Blood welled up.
He took a deep breath. "Okay."
He pressed his bloody thumb against her back, right between the shoulder blades, on Tsunade's bare skin.
"Here I go. Get ready."
The ritual began.
Naruto felt the power leave him, but this time it was different. Immediately different.
"Okay, this is... different," he muttered, concentrating.
"Different how?" Tsunade's voice sounded strained, right behind him.
"Well, I just don't know how to explain it."
The Falna wasn't filling a void; it was crashing against an already existing power reserve, a mountain of compressed chakra.
"Ugh! This is tough," Naruto grunted, pushing harder. His knees trembled from the effort.
He felt Tsunade tense under his hand. He heard her sharp intake of breath. "Keep... pushing," she said through gritted teeth.
"I'm on it! It's not easy!"
And then, a sound. A dull BOOM, a giant impact that vibrated in his chest, right next to his ear.
A golden light, much, much more intense than with the others, enveloped Tsunade. The light was so bright, so pure, it forced Naruto to shut his eyes and cover his face.
The wave of power and pressure hit him, knocking him back several steps, almost making him lose his balance. The wind whipped his pajamas.
And then, as quickly as it came, the light faded. The sound ceased.
The silence that remained was deeper than before.
Naruto blinked, golden spots dancing in his vision. Tsunade still had her back to him. She was completely motionless.
A dead silence.
"Whoa!" Naruto said, his voice sounding too loud in the stillness. "That was... huge. Definitely the biggest one yet. Way bigger than Kurenai sensei's."
Silence.
"Grandma? You okay?"
Nothing. Not a single movement. Panic began to creep into Naruto's voice.
"Hey... Tsunade? You still there? I didn't break you, did I? Because Shizune is going to kill me. I swear, she'll skin me alive. And then Kurenai sensei will probably help her. And Temari will laugh. Please, say something!"
"What...?"
The voice that came out wasn't Tsunade's. Or it was, but...
Slowly, Tsunade raised her hands in front of her face. She turned them over, observing them in the moonlight.
"My... voice..."
Her voice sounded different. Clearer. Softer. Younger. Less rough from years of shouting orders and drinking sake.
Naruto watched as she looked at her hands. They were smooth. The scars from old battles, the age spots, the prominent veins... they were gone. Her skin was that of a woman in her prime.
"Hey... Grandma?" Naruto said, a note of nervousness and awe growing in his voice. "Why are your clothes... suddenly so big on you?"
The green jacket, which had always been snug, now hung loosely on her shoulders.
"What... did you say?" she said, her voice trembling.
She turned. Slowly.
Naruto's brain, container of the Kyubi, and notorious knucklehead, shut down. It just stopped working.
In front of him was not the fifty something Sannin.
It was the Tsunade of legends.
She was twenty years old. Maybe twenty five, tops. Her face was the same, but without a single line of exhaustion or age. Her skin glowed with a vitality that was almost palpable. The pure, vibrant energy radiating from her was almost visible. She was... dazzling.
Naruto stood rooted to the spot, his mouth open.
Tsunade looked at her hands again, then touched her face. Her fingers traced the line of her jaw, her cheeks.
"No... it's not possible," she whispered.
She clenched her fist. The chronic pain in her lower back, the constant twinge in her left knee from an old war wound against Hanzo, the stiffness in her knuckles in the morning... all gone.
"The pain... is gone," she said. She took an experimental step. Then another. She hopped a couple of inches in place, landing without a single creak from her joints.
She looked at a brick vent sticking out of the roof.
"Grandma... what are you...?" Naruto started to say.
Tsunade punched it. It wasn't a full strength punch, but it wasn't a tap, either. The brick and mortar exploded in a cloud of dust and debris.
She looked at her fist. It was perfectly intact. Not a scratch.
"I didn't even feel it," she whispered, her voice filling with a growing amazement. "I feel... I feel...!"
And then, she laughed.
It was a sound Naruto had never heard from her. A genuine, loud, clear laugh, full of a pure, explosive joy that rang out over the silent rooftops of Konoha.
"Brat! Brat, it worked!" she yelled, her voice vibrant with power and happiness. She spun toward him, spreading her arms. "LOOK AT ME! I feel like I could split that mountain in half right now! I feel... alive!"
She turned to Naruto with a radiant smile, a smile so bright it lit up the night.
Naruto was still on the ground. His mouth was still open. But his gaze wasn't on her face. Not on her hands. Not on her feet.
It was fixed, "entranced," a few inches lower.
The gray kimono she wore, now several sizes too large, hung loosely. And with the enthusiastic spin and jump, it had shifted, opening generously. It offered a very clear, very wide, and very... impressive view.
"Those are..." Naruto muttered, without thinking, his brain still rebooting. "Those are... the most incredible... mountains... I've ever seen in my entire life..."
Tsunade's smile froze.
Her pure, explosive joy evaporated in an instant. It turned into a pure, volcanic rage.
She followed his gaze.
She saw exactly what he was looking at.
A nervous tic appeared on her newly rejuvenated eyebrow.
"WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, YOU PERVERTED BRAT?!"
Naruto panicked. The sound of her scream rebooted his brain, straight into survival mode. He leaped to his feet, tripping over his own feet and nearly falling off the roof.
"NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! I swear!" He waved his hands frantically in front of him. "Your youth! I was looking at your new youth, Grandma!"
"STOP CALLING ME GRANDMA!"
"Right! Tsunade! I mean, My Beautiful Master! You look great! Seriously! Like... new! I was looking... at your face! Yeah, your face! And your eyes! And the moon!"
He pointed desperately at the sky. "The moon is really bright tonight! Yeah, the moon! Very... big and round and...!"
Naruto stopped cold, realizing his catastrophic mistake.
"Oh no! I meant... bright! Bright! Not round! Dammit! I wasn't looking! I closed my eyes! It was the light! The golden light, it's still blinding me! Yeah, that's it! I'm blind! I didn't see anything! What mountains? Are there mountains here? I only see the Hokage Mountain! And you're not a mountain! Wow, that sounded better in my head!"
Naruto's panic was so genuine, so absolute, and so ridiculous, that Tsunade's anger faltered. She looked at him, at the boy babbling nonsense, the idiot who had given her back something she thought was lost forever... and the joy began to bubble up again, overcoming the fury.
Seeing her so genuinely happy, even a second before she wanted to kill him, made Naruto stop. He stopped waving his hands. The momentary, idiotic lust vanished, replaced by an overwhelming warmth.
"Seriously," he said, his own voice now soft, catching his breath. "You look... happy."
The word hit him. Happy.
And then, the cost of the ritual hit him.
The adrenaline from having rejuvenated a Sannin, the residual energy from the golden light, the panic of almost being killed on a rooftop... all of it vanished. The exhaustion from his battle with Gaara, the strain from his injuries, and now, the massive drain from having used the Falna on someone of Tsunade's caliber... it all hit him at once.
"I'm glad..." he said, his voice suddenly a whisper. "Really..."
His eyes rolled back. The world went black.
His knees buckled.
He collapsed forward.
Tsunade's anger disappeared completely, replaced by instant, motherly panic.
"Naruto! Hey, brat!"
With a speed she didn't even know she possessed, she caught him before his face slammed into the tiles.
She fell to her knees from the momentum, pulling Naruto's unconscious body toward her to cushion the fall.
He fell against her, his face inevitably, and with almost comical precision, landing and burying itself deep in the wide, soft, and newly revealed hollow of her chest.
Naruto was completely unconscious. But a small, foolish smile appeared on his face.
"What..." he mumbled in his sleep. "What a... comfy... pillow... zzzz..."
A small snore escaped him.
Tsunade froze completely.
Silence returned to the rooftop.
Her first instinct was to scream. Her second instinct was to activate her strength and launch him over the Hokage Mountain.
But she stopped.
She looked at her own hands, young and strong, now resting on his back. She felt the energy vibrating under her skin, a vitality she hadn't felt since before the last great war. She looked at the boy sleeping peacefully on top of her, snoring softly.
The idiotic, reckless, perverted brat who had given her back her life. The only one who had trusted her blindly, and whom she, now, trusted completely.
She let out a long sigh of resignation.
"Of all the idiots in this village... it had to be him," she muttered into the night air. "Jiraiya would be laughing his ass off if he saw this."
But this time, a small, genuine smile curved her lips.
"I guess..." she murmured, shifting him more carefully, wrapping a protective arm around his back so he wouldn't roll off. "You've earned it. What a pain."
She held him there, feeling the warmth of his body and the rhythm of his breathing.
"But if you ever tell anyone I'm your 'pillow,' I swear I'll break every bone in your body, brat."
***
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