Jiraiya's head tilted slightly. Kakashi didn't react, but he listened harder.
"The Sasuke situation is leverage," Shikaku continued. "A convenient one. Emotional, volatile, urgent. Perfect for forcing you into restraint without openly challenging your authority."
Tsunade's fingers tightened against the desk. "So they used him."
"They used the situation," Shikaku corrected. "The boy is collateral."
He shifted his weight, gaze steady on her. "Homura and Koharu didn't block you because they disagree with you. They blocked you because they don't want you setting a precedent."
Jiraiya frowned. "Precedent for what?"
"For acting," Shikaku replied flatly. "For deciding. For moving without them."
Silence followed.
"They framed restraint as wisdom," he went on. "Painted pursuit as recklessness. That only works if the Hokage accepts the frame."
Kakashi spoke quietly. "And if she doesn't."
Shikaku met his eye. "Then the obstruction escalates."
Tsunade exhaled slowly. "Toward what?"
Shikaku didn't answer immediately.
"Toward Danzō," he said at last.
Jiraiya's expression hardened. "You're saying they're backing him."
"I'm saying they've stopped blocking him, for some reason..." Shikaku replied. "Which, in practice, is the same thing."
He straightened slightly. "They don't want you gone. Not yet. They want you contained. Useful. Busy. Healing. Symbolic."
A pause.
"And if you push too hard too fast, they'll claim you're unstable. Emotional. Unfit."
Tsunade laughed once, sharp and humorless. "Let me guess. Because I care about a kid."
"Because you care at all," Shikaku said. "That's the angle."
Jiraiya clicked his tongue. "That son of a bitch…"
Shikaku raised a hand, stopping him. "Rage is what they expect. What they want is for you to make a move they can label irresponsible."
Tsunade studied him. "So what do you suggest?"
Shikaku didn't hesitate. "You don't fight them head-on. You outgrow them."
He met her gaze fully now.
"You consolidate quietly. You pass what you can. You build dependency. Medical reforms first. Logistics second. Make the village function better with you than without you."
Shikaku's voice stayed even.
Tsunade looked away.
"That takes time," she said flatly. "And right now it feels like I'm drowning in paperwork while everything important slips past me."
Her fingers tapped once against the desk, harder than before.
"I didn't come back to play caretaker while others decide what this village does."
For a moment, Shikaku let that sit.
Then he shook his head.
"You're actually underselling yourself," he said. "Badly."
She glanced at him, irritation flickering. "Am I?"
"Yes," he replied without hesitation. "In the last few days alone, how many ordinary shinobi have you personally healed?"
Tsunade frowned, thinking despite herself. "Too many."
"Exactly," Shikaku said. "And every one of them walks. Talks. Goes home. They have families. Teammates. Commanders. Word spreads faster than policy ever does."
Her expression didn't soften. "That doesn't give me authority."
"No," Shikaku agreed. "It gives you loyalty."
The word landed heavier than the rest.
"If you had no influence," he continued, "they wouldn't be blocking your major medical reforms so much. Ask yourself why those stalled. It's not because they're unreasonable. It's because they're afraid of what happens if you're seen as indispensable to our shinobi."
Tsunade exhaled sharply. "So what. I keep burying myself in hospital shifts until they get tired."
"No," Shikaku said. "You stop trying to do everything yourself."
She stiffened. "I'm not abandoning the wounded."
"You're not," he said calmly. "You're expanding your reach."
He gestured lightly. "Delegate all the paperwork one hundred percent. To me. To Shizune. To other qualified personnel, I'll put in place. You oversee and manage the entire hospital instead of vanishing into a single operating room at a time."
Her eyes narrowed. "And you think that's enough."
"I think it's a start," Shikaku replied. "You walk the village. You're visible. For example, here is another idea. Any jōnin injured on future missions, and there aren't many of them to begin with, especially now, gets treated by you personally. That kind of attention sticks, particularly when the risk of every mission is this high nowadays."
"There are only a few hundred of them remaining," Shikaku went on. "Every one of them matters. Heal them. Talk to them. Let them see you as more than a name on documents."
Tsunade was quiet now.
"And most importantly," Shikaku added, voice lowering just a touch, "you're not doing this alone."
She looked at him again.
"You have my full support," he said. "And the support of the people who listen to me."
He didn't name them.
He didn't need to.
The room shifted.
Jiraiya let out a slow breath. "Huh. That's… subtler than punching the elders in the face."
Tsunade snorted despite herself. "Low bar."
Kakashi inclined his head slightly. "It's sound."
Tsunade straightened, some of the weight easing from her shoulders, not gone, but redistributed.
"…So I stop acting like a single overworked medic in the backrooms," she said slowly, "and start acting like a Hokage."
Shikaku allowed himself a small, satisfied nod.
"Exactly."
"But what about Sasuke?" Kakashi said.
Shikaku nodded once.
"Lady Hokage has already handled that part well," he said. "We keep him unofficial. Alive. Watched. Through other channels. That keeps your hands clean and your options open."
Jiraiya crossed his arms. "And Danzō."
He looked back at Tsunade.
"You don't need to beat him right now. You just need to make sure that when he moves, the village is already standing behind you."
"Additionally…" Shikaku paused, eyes narrowing slightly as he chose his words. "There's something else that concerns me connected to this."
The room stilled.
"The ANBU currently under your command," he continued, looking at Tsunade, "the ones you reclaimed from the elders' oversight, I suspect they may already be compromised. Not openly. Not uniformly. But enough that I wouldn't trust them blindly."
Jiraiya frowned. "You think the elders are already that deep in Danzō's pocket for some reason. But I didn't get that impression..."
Shikaku shook his head. "I don't know. That's the problem. Their actions don't align with their past behavior. Not completely. Not cleanly. There's no solid proof, and the shift is subtle enough that most would miss it. But it's there."
Kakashi tilted his head. "So you're saying they might not be acting of their own will."
"It's a possibility," Shikaku replied evenly. "Coercion. Even external control of sorts. I won't speculate beyond that without evidence. For now, it warrants observation, nothing more."
Jiraiya let out a low whistle. "That's… unsettling."
"There's more," Shikaku added. "The Hyūga have been bothering me as well."
That drew immediate attention.
"Not just the strength they displayed during the invasion," he said. "That alone raised eyebrows. But the way the elders have been circling them lately, pushing discussions, floating proposals, it feels like they're preparing something significant involving the clan."
Tsunade's brows knit. "You're saying this ties together."
"I'm saying it might," Shikaku answered. "And that makes it dangerous."
Kakashi spoke quietly, thinking it through aloud.
"Even if Danzō did something to the elders, how would he manage it under Hyūga protection. Their ANBU were guarding them constantly. That's why you're watching the Hyūga as well."
Shikaku nodded once. "Exactly. Not because I think they're compromised for certain, but because they're the necessary part of the equation we have to consider by extension."
He spread his hands slightly, palms up, as if laying pieces on a board.
"This is the shinobi world after all. Techniques exist for almost anything. Control doesn't always look like pure mind control or someone moving like a puppet. Sometimes it's leverage. Sometimes it's timing. Sometimes it's a choice presented as the only reasonable option."
His eyes sharpened.
"Influence works best when the target believes the decision was their own," he said. "Even more than when they're simply forced to rely on you to fix a problem you helped create, something technical, something like a jūinjutsu, although this is the more likely scenario we have to look out for under the current circumstances."
The implication settled in.
"So," Jiraiya said slowly, "we watch."
"Yes," Shikaku replied. "Danzō. The elders. The Hyūga. Quietly. No confrontations. No accusations. The last thing this village needs right now is an open internal conflict."
He looked back at Tsunade. "Your priority is stability. Consolidate authority. Build loyalty across wide civilian and shinobi ranks alike. Let the village grow used to functioning under your rule."
"And wait," Tsunade said.
"And wait," Shikaku confirmed. "Someone like Danzō always overcommits eventually. He won't be able to help himself."
Jiraiya scratched his chin. "What about Orochimaru. Akatsuki."
"We're not in a position to move against any of them," Shikaku said flatly. "Not yet. Until the rest is resolved. We keep our ears open. Eyes open. Nothing more."
"And the other villages," Kakashi asked.
Shikaku's mouth twitched. "Suna has effectively submitted in all but name. Kirigakure is internally fractured, isolationist, and weak. Iwa and Kumo are too busy glaring at each other to coordinate anything meaningful."
He paused.
"The real external threats nowadays are individuals. S-rank monsters. Orochimaru. Akatsuki. And that masked group with the white-haired bone bloodline user as the leader. Forces that don't care about borders or treaties."
The room went quiet again, heavier, but clearer.
Tsunade straightened. "Then that's the plan."
Shikaku inclined his head. "For now."
One by one, they began to leave.
No grand declarations. No ceremony.
Just shared understanding.
When it was over, Jiraiya was the last to move again.
He lingered a moment longer, offering Tsunade a crooked smile. "You picked a hell of a time to come back."
She smirked faintly. "I always do."
He waited until the tension had thinned completely, then snapped his fingers softly.
The pressure in the room lifted at once.
Sound rushed back in, distant footsteps and village noise returning as if they'd never left.
Light straightened.
Chakra flowed normally again, the office becoming just another room in the Hokage Tower.
No trace remained.
Jiraiya rolled his shoulders, exhaling.
"And just like that," he muttered, "we were never here."
They spoke a while longer after that.
Mostly Jiraiya, in the end, offering a rough apology for not warning her sooner, for being gone so long, and for missing how things had shifted inside the village himself.
Tsunade waved it off.
She smirked at him in her own way, sharp and tired. "I'll survive."
With that, Jiraiya finally took his leave, and the door closed behind him.
Tsunade was alone again in the Hokage's office, the village stretching quietly beneath the window, breathing as if nothing at all were wrong.
Not in a million years had she expected Naruto and Jiraiya to drag her back into this.
She'd known the job would be hard.
She hadn't been naïve about that.
But this was something else entirely.
Too many threats, internal and external, subtle, powerful, and difficult to understand all at the same time, overlapping in ways that made everything way worse instead of clearer.
Problems that couldn't just be punched, healed, or shouted down.
As Jiraiya had joked earlier, beneath his quiet self-blame, it really was "one hell of a time" to become Hokage.
Tsunade sighed.
Then, a moment later, she smiled again.
She didn't blame them.
She'd agreed to this of her own free will.
And the more tangled the situation became, the more obvious it was that the village needed every bit of help it could get, her help included.
Not just as a medic, but as something holding the whole thing together, barely, so it didn't collapse under its own weight.
She understood now how much Shikaku was staking on her presence alone.
Understood what it meant if no one stood between the village and Danzō's kind of order.
"Restraining him…" she muttered quietly, then shook her head, a strange smirk tugging at her lips. "How ambitious."
She wasn't politically sharp like them. She knew that.
But unlike Danzō, she believed she understood something far more important.
How to stand on the right side of destiny.
Naruto Uzumaki.
The boy who irritated her, inspired her, exhausted her, and somehow made her believe again.
Someone who might one day grow into something so large it wouldn't even fit inside Konoha's frame.
Maybe the greatest 'hero' of them all.
And this wasn't blind optimism anymore.
It wasn't just sentiment.
From a practical standpoint, she could see it clearly.
Minato's son. Kushina's son. Heir to the Fourth Hokage. Uzumaki blood.
Personally trained by Jiraiya.
The Nine-Tails' jinchūriki. The host to the strongest of the tailed beasts.
She'd never say it out loud, not to anyone.
But her faith in him had grown so strong that she genuinely believed he might one day do the impossible, even 'tame' that monster inside him, to a certain extent, or at least make it want to cooperate, turn that curse into power.
So she would hold the line.
She would pave the way for him inside this village.
Shield him from its rot.
Endure. Stall. Heal. Govern. Whatever it took.
She would stay long enough for Naruto Uzumaki to rise to his full potential, even if he never understood it, never appreciated it, or one day blamed her for it.
And when he did, she had a feeling that a lot of these problems would simply stop being problems at all.
Tsunade turned back to the window, looking out at the village once more.
Still standing.
"For now," she murmured, settling into the chair.
And she stayed.