Songs For The Heartbroken: That's What You Get

Chapter 30

Some shinobi, make a great effort throughout their lives to conceal the abilities they worked so hard to refine. Kakashi, myself, and most ANBU operatives were the case. It was to our advantage and benefit that the enemy misread or completely underestimated our power.

Senju Tsunade was not one of those shinobi.

The second you stepped into a room she was in, you could notice the change in the atmosphere, in the very air. She was not someone to be trifled with. Not unless you were looking for an early grave. The Hokage's office suddenly felt too small, too restrictive, like it did not have enough exits. For the first time in my life, I wanted to run; far and fast never to look back. And if the tension among the kneeling ninja was anything to go by, I was not the only one.

We were in the presence of something, someone, beyond us.

"Rise," snapped the woman's voice like a whip. "I'm not one to go on and on, so I will make it short and expect everything to run smoothly and everyone to do their job."

She was met with silence, pure obedience, blind loyalty.

"Any shinobi within my personal guard will be allowed a voice in this room. You are my shadows and often see more that I do." She strode back and forth in front of the twelve of us. "I do not want your services if you are not fully committed to me. Political freedom exists, we will normalize it, but I will not encourage or tolerate disobedience. You have a problem with me or how I run things? You bring it to me."

This behavior was so out of character, lacking all protocol, some of my seniors' shoulders kept tensing and I didn't know how many of them would remain after this.

"If it were up to me, I would disband the Hokage guard altogether, but there's only so much fighting I can do while running this village." She sighed and ordered us to take off our masks.

"Before the day is over you will choose your own masks, paint them yourselves or have your SO paint it for you. When you report to me you are to take off your masks, and never kneel before me again."

And within ten minutes, Senju Tsunade had inspired more loyalty than Hiruzen had in years. She was humble, but not stupidly so, she was strong and she knew it, but she didn't overestimate herself. Senju Tsunade had traveled the world and learned, and had realized that admitting to be ignorant was the first step towards knowledge.

I could follow this woman, I just didn't know if I could trust her yet. I neded to bide my time, to see where her allegiances lied, how deeply did the council and Danzo himself had their claws into her, how much did they plane to interfere in her rule. She seemed honest enough for a person who had been gambling her life away until Jiraiya convinced her to come back. Still I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

She had assembled a team of whichever shinobi were available at the time to try and get my Otouto back. Regardless of the failure of the mission, she had refused to brand Sasuke as a rogue, and that in itself meant something to me.

And then she took Naruto for her apprentice.

Everyone would have thought he'd leave the village the second he got the chance, but when Sakura asked Jiraiya to be her mentor, Naruto would not be one to lag behind. I asked the kunoichi of team 7 why the Toad Sage of all people, he was known to have quite the lecherous tendencies, her answer was quite simple: she had always been the kind to learn from a book, now she wanted to learn from experience. There were things the library would not prepare you for, and she never wanted to be caught off guard again. I respected her decision, but told her to reach out for Emiko should she decide her mentor was being a special kind of nasty.

On the other hand, Naruto had decided long ago that what he really needed was not more power, but to learn to control what he already had. And who better to ask for guidance that the world's pioneer in Chakra control? Senju Tsunade had been dragged back to Konoha as a blessing in disguise. On the outside, a gambling drunk old hag, on the inside an experienced shinobi and medic, the first to propose each team of three should have at least one field medic. A woman with knowledge of strategy, politics, and the experience of war and loss on her shoulders, not enough to traumatize, but sufficient to know the price for violence.