Naruto Tales: The Next Uchiha | SasuSaku, NaruHina, InoShikaTema, NejiTen +

XV: Doppelgangers in Konoha

QOTC: Look at yourself complaining, Tsunade-sama. We villagers look up to you Hokage because we've expected you to live in our terms; to provide peace, and yet here you are unsettling your work done. You grumble about not having experienced parentage is because you never searched for love. You missed all that opportunity you've had in your youth and now you reap what you sow.

- Inoichi to Tsunade

*******************************************************

Chapter 15: Doppolgangers in Konoha

"Lady Tsunade!" Shizune exlaimed with her usual catchpraise, breaking to the door like an intruder.

Tonton made a sound of "pui" when Tsunade wrinkled her brows in return. "What is it, now?"

"Have you seen your paperworks?"

But of course she hasn't checked them yet. She was busy filing them every other week for the previous days and leaving them idle. "Sadly they're all pieces of crap..."

Shizune scattered the papers that slid into the floor with the smoothness of the cement. "I know it's here somewhere—gotcha!"

The Daimyō quickly grabbed the drink at her desk as Shizune blocked her from looking into the window with a scowl. She gripped the paperwork in front of her, with a slight wrinkle on center of it. Maybe she should have thought of taking a good look within those papers before stamping them, or else she knew there's this big fish that got away.

CLANS ARE LOOKING FORWARD IN SEEING THEIR GRANDCHILDREN

It didn't occur to her that she wasn't paying much attention.

Tsunade gulped her drink a few times and repeated it in her mind.

It clicked.

She spat the tea coming from her mouth as it sprinkled into Tonton's skin.

She snatched the paper from Shizune's hand and read it in mass fury. "AN ARRANGED-MARRIAGE?!"

Shizune nodded in anxiety.

"On purpose?! Now that there's war coming?" Tsunade looked like she was about to explode.

TonTon felt a little bad for the stuttering Shizune, the fact that her mistress thought the world was about to come into an end and she's talking it out on her own niece. "They think it's b-best to unite their children before it's too late."

"WHAT??" Tsunade exclaimed as she stood up, her hands slapping her unbreakable desk. "And since when did I make approved of this??"

Shizune looked horrified. "I-it was just yesterday, my lady.."

Tsunade stomped at her armchair, and, tried to calm herself as best as she could. She placed a palm in her forehead, as she slid her chair against the window and stood up again... Gazing at the crystal-like casement of her office, Tsunade watched as children ran past, laughing and giggling for all matters. It was her only field of relaxation, really. There, she could see a few people she might recognize despite her dull sight lacking youth. The brightness of the sun dimming the villagers' silhouttes once her hazel eyes landed on the Kunoichi with bright bubblegum hair.

All of them were there: Konoha 11 spending another witty time at Gin's BBQ, the girls chuckling covering a hand over their mouth, Naruto and those kooky boys... Nothing could be much better than watching your own village living in peace. It's something Tsunade would like to give herself some credit for that; the fact that Konoha may have survived the following day and her home was never put into peril. And to think all that piece of fun would be warped away... What a frightening moment it is, to realize that it was another typical day at the leaf, nothing goes out of the blue... But then, every time the sun would set Tsunade knew she had to look back and take a closer outlook, either an enemy will be forced to infiltrate just like the invasion of Pein or something terrible will happen. Something far more worse....