Minato finally looks at me then. His expression softens—just a little.
"I was hoping," he says quietly, "you'd get Tsunade."
And just like that, the room feels smaller. Tsunade had earned her peace.
I wanted to say no. I wanted to say I couldn't do it. But how could I look him in the eye and condemn his daughter to a painful end?
Minato wasn't just another shinobi to me. I trained him personally. Watched him grow from a quiet, sharp-eyed kid into something frighteningly brilliant. To me, Minato wasn't a subordinate or a colleague. He was as close as I'd ever come to having a son.
My greatest success... My greatest hope.
And now, now, he was standing in front of me with that look in his eyes. The look that said he was out of options.
Tsunade had shed blood and bone for this village. Her clan was gone. Her brother was gone. The man she loved was gone. Every time she let herself care, the world took something back with interest.
Now all she had were ghosts. Ghosts that never stopped haunting her.
Dragging her into this, into the middle of a war. Into another fragile life teetering on the edge. It was cruel. Wrong.
The Leaf wasn't helpless. We had the best medical system in the world. Trained medics. Brilliant minds. People who had devoted their lives to healing instead of running from it.
Surely someone else could handle this. Every time I tried to cling to that thought, every time I told myself I could walk away, that face surfaced in my mind.
The face of my student. Eyes tight with exhaustion. Voice steady only because it had to be. The quiet, desperate calculation of a man who had already tried everything else.
He wasn't asking me because he wanted to. He was asking because he was afraid. I hated that I understood that look so well.
I told myself I was delaying the decision. That I just needed confirmation. That I needed to see it with my own eyes before I condemned Tsunade to another loss.
That's what I told myself.
The truth was simpler.
I already knew I was going to do it.
But I went anyway.
I told Minato I needed to see the child. To assess the situation. To make sure it wasn't just parental paranoia magnified by exhaustion and fear. Parents see monsters hiding in shadows all the time.
I wanted. Needed to believe that was all this was. It wasn't.
The moment I stepped into the room, I felt it. Not the small presence of a child, but the force of a crushing wind.
The air itself seemed heavier, as if the space around the crib resisted being occupied. Chakra pressed against my senses in a way that made my skin prickle.
I just stood there, staring down at a newborn wrapped in cloth and felt my stomach sink.
This wasn't a problem Minato could out-think or something Kushina could endure through stubborn will. The village's medical-nin couldn't handle this.
It was exactly as bad as Minato thought. Worse, maybe.
I straightened slowly, already exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with travel or war.
"Well," I muttered to no one in particular, forcing the barest hint of humour back into my voice, "I guess they don't make them like they used to."
Minato looked at me, hope and dread tangled together so tightly I didn't know how he was still standing.
I didn't meet his eyes when I spoke.
"I'll find her," I said. This time, there was no joke left to soften it.