Chapter 18: Tsunade

On the second day after we've rested, Naruto starts to beg to be taught the 'secret new move' that Jiraiya promised, so we paused so that Naruto could be taught the first step to the rasengan. After Jiraiya explained the basics, he turned to me with a curious look.

"Are you also wanting to learn this? Since you're here and all, I guess I could teach you too." He ponders out loud. I turn to Naruto for a moment.

"Actually, I was wondering if you could teach me how to do shadow clones. They are much more useful than regular clones. It shouldn't take long for me to learn, I can practice while Naruto works on this first step." I say confidently.

"Oh yeah! I promised to show you that!" Naruto says, distracted away from his water balloon.

"Hmm, I can show you how." Jiraiya says, "Naruto, you keep working on your balloon." Naruto grumbles and goes back to his training, and I turn to the Sannin. I'm surprised he volunteered. I figured he would be too lazy. "Ok, use your eyes and pay close attention." He went on to explain the basics about the move, and how it differs from regular clones. He then made three shadow clones for me with my eyes activated so I could see the distribution of chakra.

I tried out the new method, with the different hand signals. I made one clone, but it vanished shortly after being made. Jiraiya gave me some pointers on why, and we all continued our walk, me and Naruto practicing while we walked. By the time we reached the next village for a night of rest, I had proudly learned to make and maintain three shadow clones. I was beyond exhausted, between the fight yesterday and practicing today all day, I was tapped at my limit. I crawled into the bed at the inn, and slept hard until morning.

We were staying in this town for a while since Jiraiya had to do research to find info about Tsunade. He had me and Naruto go to a field to help Naruto practice, and I watched over him for days as he worked. I got bored, and picked up some books in town at a ninja store about seals and summoning's. These two things together are what's needed to use the Flying Thunder God jutsu, so I spent days reading what I could. From that, I designed my mark. As I was researching about seals, I started to discover a potential weakness for me in using it. Seals work best for sensory types of ninja, and for this technique, I will need to be able to 'sense' where I leave my mark. I am a sensory type, at least as far as locating specific targets with my Byakugan. However, I don't have much experience with locating or sensing specific chakra. Traditional sensor types are able to sense it, or feel it, but I can only see it. My theory is though, if I can see my mark, I can teleport to it. So, I will end up with a slightly limited version of the technique, but it still could be the difference between life and death. When I spotted Lord Fourth's kunai on display at the weapons shop, it was a combination of words that likely had meaning for him. In Lord Second's scroll, it was a symbol that looked like a summoning symbol. So for me, I decided to pay homage to Death, and I made my marking the kanji for 'Shinigami' with some wings on the side.

While Naruto spent the first week practicing, I practiced using my chakra to carve my symbol. Eventually though, I grew too curious on if I could also do the rasengan. So, I grabbed a water balloon and gave it a few tries. I knew it was similar to my Rotation technique, just miniaturized. It was a lot more draining to practice than I thought, but after a few days, I got mine to pop.

"Hey!" Naruto yells out, "How the heck did you do that?!"

"How are you picturing the water moving inside the balloon?" I ask him as he sits angrily in front of me. He hasn't made any progress so far.

"How do I picture it?" He asks me dumbly, and I sigh.

"Are you picturing the water moving in one continuous direction, or are you picturing it moving in several directions, all at once?" I ask and he thinks about it, I go on to explain, "When I use my Rotation technique, I picture all my chakra moving on one direction to create a solid sphere that impenetrable. However, when I use my fans or bow, I create two contrasting layers, going in opposite directions of each other, which is what make it sharp. For these balloons, I put the two concepts together. I'm picturing the water inside flowing in a sphere, but with part of it moving the opposite direction of the rest. That contrast, or chaos, is what made it pop." I explain to him.

He nods along as I speak, and I can see it setting in in his mind. "But how do you focus on creating the contrast?"

"For me, I've been doing it for a long time. When I learned though, I had to use a second hand to create the other direction. Try using two hands, and have each hand focus on one direction, clockwise and counter clockwise." I suggest to him. He practices with two hands after that for a while. I try giving him more pointers. When he gets it down, Jiraiya switches him to rubber balls. Jiraiya gives him more help and guidance through this phase as we move to the next village, which I'm thankful for because explaining things to Naruto is exhausting.

I can't practice the rubber ball stage as much as Naruto can. That kid has a bottomless supply of chakra, even without the nine-tails chakra. I'm not as motivated to learn it either, but it's nice to learn alongside Naruto. By the time we reach the next village, Naruto can make the ball explode, but it burns his hand to do it. I took a different approach, and tried infusing wind into it. I can shred the rubber ball, but it cut my hands when I did it. I had to take a pause from learning to let my hands heal up, which pushed me away from wanting to put the wind into the sphere at all. Jiraiya thought the idea interesting, but told me not to try it again. I'll just leave this to Naruto, it can be his special technique.

As we're looking around and examining the gambling spots in town, Naruto keeps practicing with the regular balloon while Jiraiya gambles. I just keep a watchful eye out, and practice marking random things with my new seal. Whenever we move to another place, I test how well I can see it with my Byakugan from a distance. Since the seals are made from my chakra, they stand out amongst the crowds. I think the next step of my training will be to practice sending objects through to the seals, rather than test with my own body. I won't exhaust myself practicing it though, because I'm pretty sure this is the village where we find Tsunade. I get confirmation of this when we come across a destroyed castle. Someone yells a warning for us to run, that there was a giant snake rampaging, so I summon my bow as we run to where it was spotted last. We find only the left over remains of a battle. We head back into town to a restaurant, where we find Tsunade at.

As Jiraiya asks Tsunade to become Hokage and Naruto freaks out, they move the topic to Orochimaru. They talk for a while as we eat dinner, until finally at a pausing point after Naruto interrupted them for about the tenth time, she points to us.

"What's with the brats, Jiraiya?!" She yells out in irritation. I've literally not said a word to her yet, but fine, lump me in with Naruto. I just sigh out in exasperation while Naruto gives off his rambling reasons. She gets bored and looks to me. "Well? What about you?"

"I'm Ami Hyuga. I have two friends in need of your medical expertise, and am requesting that once you return to the village, you can heal them. One friend is my teammate, who got his bones crushed in the Chuunin exams. The other friend is my oldest friend, who got attacked with Tsukuyomi genjutsu. That is why I came along." I answer her politely. She stares me down for a while for some reason, and I just stare back at her. Before she can say anything else, Naruto challenges her for whatever reason. Next thing I know, we're out in the street and they are going to fight. I just watch passively as it goes down, and as she destroys a chunk of the road with one finger and gives Naruto a bet. I know he'll win the bet, so I just nod as we part ways. We have about a week before the snake and Kabuto appear again. I'll keep my eyes out, waiting for the moment when Tsunade will poison Jiraiya. If I'm around, I can prevent it and he will be much more useful in the fight to come.

When a week had almost passed, Naruto had spent all that time training until he passed out every night while I wandered the town. I tried to keep close to Jiraiya for the last day, but I couldn't go into the bar with him because I'm underage and got kicked out at the door. He went in to have drinks with Tsunade, and I missed the opportunity to stop him getting poisoned, but I helped him back to Shizune, giving him a Nara antidote I got from Shikamaru recently. It's a general one, and it's safe to use on most poisons when you don't know what the specific poison is. I'm glad I did, because after we got Shizune and Naruto, I could see him perking up out of his disorientation a little bit. I lead them to where I could see Orochimaru in the distance, I decided to go with my typical greeting for him at this point, and pulled out my bow and shot at him. This time however, he had Kabuto summon a mud wall to block it. We ran up to join Tsunade by her side.

"You again." His raspy voice called out, his eyes locked on me. "You have made a very bad habit of doing that to me." He grabbed my arrow from the melting wall with his tongue and spun it around.

"Well, it took you three times to finally block it." I quip back arrogantly at him as he smirks. This guy is seriously creepy.

"You enjoy getting in my way. Such an interesting little one you are. Powerful too." He says darkly. I have my eyes already activated. "It's a shame you are already cursed, or else I would take you for myself. Sadly, the Hyuga's curse is stronger than my own, isn't that right, little caged bird?" He asks me tauntingly.

Naruto interrupts then, yelling at Kabuto while Jiraiya starts to engage Orochimaru. Tsunade is paralyzed, her fear of blood immobilizing her. Naruto steps forward to fight Kabuto, but I step in front of him.

"Stay with Tsunade, Naruto." I tell him, then turn to look at Kabuto. "This guy is mine. Ready for a rematch?" I say with an attitude, swapping my bow for my fans. Naruto relinquishes, and goes to Tsunade, trying to get her to snap out of it.

"Oh, I have been waiting for this. I quite enjoyed our last battle." Kabuto says with a smirk, "I wonder how you will fair when I'm not holding back."

"I'm gonna guess the same, since I was also holding back." I say fiercely. I've gotten stronger since our last fight, that I still won then. I send a series of micro blade attacks to him with my fans. As he jumps to avoid them, I analyze the pattern on where he goes to avoid them, and start to plan a trap. I throw some regular kunai, hidden amongst one of my attacks, and throw them far past where he is. After a couple of more attacks, I pull the strings connected to them when he gets cocky, thinking he escaped my attacks. Three of the kunai lodge into his back as I take out the bow strapped to my back with lightning quick speed. I shoot off three arrows together in a scatter shot at him. He only manages to stop the first one, and moves just enough to not get any vitals hit with the next two.

"Impressive," he coughs out at me as I run to advance on him. "Your speed is something else. And so smart too." He is pulling the arrows out and his body starting to heal itself and I see him eat a small pill. "But you aren't quite strong enough."

He runs at me with full force, his hands emitting his scalpel chakra. We fight in hand to hand, and now I can really see his skills. I have my fans out and closed again to aid in my reach. He is so much faster than last time, and it's a struggle to avoid getting hit. He is overpowering me, and managed to get two hits in on me with his chakra scalpels, one on my leg and one on my stomach. The pain is unbelievable since the chakra he is using cut into my muscles. I grit my teeth and redouble my efforts, since even injured I still have the advantage slightly in speed and my eyes that see everything. I manage to get behind him, and thinking ahead, I place my new mark onto his back while I attack. I spin back around to his front and open one fan, and at point blank range, I send a full stream of deadly micro blades directly at him. He yell's out in pain, his body flying backwards. I run directly over to him, not giving him a chance to heal, but before I can, my eyes spot something heading to intercept me from the side. I look over, and jump backwards as Orochimaru's giant snake is heading my way, at least the one not stuck in Jiraiya's swamp technique.

"Getting saved by the creepy snake, hmm?" I taunt angrily as the snake doubles around, "Not good enough to beat me yourself."

"Oh I never admitted to being much of a fighter." Kabuto pants out, "My mind is my strength. You may indeed be the better of us here." He takes off towards Tsunade, and I get intercepted by the snake again who is now attacking me. I take out my bow and run as quickly as my injured leg will let me to avoid it barreling into me. I aim, focusing on getting its eyes just like back at the siege, and I shoot. The snake screams out in pain, but doesn't immediately go down, I go to aim again, but can't with its tail coming to attack me. I barely avoid it as it swings as me again and again. I take a high leap up into the air and finally get a split second to aim, and I let loose another arrow, this time it drills straight through the top of the snakes head. The snakes tail catches up to me right before it dies though, and hits me painfully back down to the ground while I'm defenseless in the air. I scream in pain as the wind gets knocked out of me when I impact, and I feel several ribs getting broken as the ground cuts into my skin. I manage to just barely roll out of the way before the tail lands on me again when the snake dies.

As I'm fighting the snake, Naruto is fighting Kabuto. When I catch my breath and stand gingerly on my own feet again, I see Kabuto knocked down in the distance, but so is Naruto, and Tsunade is trying to revive him. I see Orochimaru's head advancing on Naruto, a sword out of his mouth. I'm too far away to be able to stop it, but Tsunade jumps in between them. I look at Kabuto on the ground, who's about to get back up, and take a huge gamble. I use my new transportation technique. So far, I've only used it on small objects to send them to the marks, this is my first time sending myself.

"How?!" Kabuto yells out as I appear instantly behind him. I waste no time at all, and grab his arm to hold him still. I infuse some of the last of my chakra into my fan, and swing the whole thing down aimed vertically, and aim to slice his head off while he's crouched. I learned that method of precision, sharp wind attack from Asuma recently, where I basically make the fan a giant extra sharp blade, not unlike his knuckle blades. Instead of getting his neck though, Kabuto managed to move his body away just enough to keep his head, and I sliced his arm off instead. He screams in pain, falling back and clutching at his shoulder as I threw the arm behind me mercilessly.

"Heal from that." I spit out to him as he writhes in pain. As much as I want to keep attacking him, I hear Tsunade cry out in pain from behind me, and I direct my attention to aid her.

I'm too tired to use my chakra anymore, but I can still use my bow. I spin around and aim at Orochimaru, who's trying to stab at Tsunade and Naruto again. I ignore the pain in my ribs as I shoot off shots at him to intercept, and it works giving Tsunade time to activate her seal. She fully overcomes her paralysis, and kicks Orochimaru away. As my focus was on them, Kabuto ran away from me, and I can see him desperately running towards his master. Then, all three Sannin summon their ultimate beasts.

I quickly run to join Shizune and Naruto, far too tired and injured to do anything else. We make it to a safe distance away, and Shizune starts to heal Naruto, who is unconscious. I can feel my injuries setting in, my consciousness slipping as the pain is taking over. Shizune casts me a worried look, but I indicate I'm fine and she needs to focus on Naruto instead. I shake myself awake and watch in awe as the three Sannin fight an all-out battle. Well, as all out as one poisoned, one armless, and one rusty Sannin can fight. When it comes to an end, Orochimaru realizing he's beaten, and I go to get a closer look. I can't hear what they are saying, but I see Kabuto's eyes lock onto mine, and he smirks as they disappear. I give him a glare in return, not liking his overconfidence.

Tsunade and Jiraiya weakly make their way back over to us, and they both look down at Naruto. They talk about the after effects of Tsunade's seal being released, and I see her start to age rapidly in front of me.

"You there, Hyuga." She turns to me sternly and I look at her, "You fought very well, far beyond what's expected of a Chuunin of Konoha. You should be proud, you took down a top level summoning beast and went head to head with a Sannin's right hand man." She praises me.

"Thank you Lady Tsunade, but I'm just a genin." I inform her and she's shocked for a moment.

"Perhaps for now. However, if you ever tell another soul about my form right now, I will have you executed for treason." She says completely seriously, then turns to Jiraiya. "I'll take the job."

Shizune then goes about healing all three of us, and thankfully she is an excellent medic. I broke three ribs, nearly completely severed the two muscles that Kabuto hit, and had cuts all over my back, plus chakra depletion. Jiraiya had a broken leg and arm, plus still working off the final effects of the poison. We go back to the gambling village after the immediate injuries are taken care of, and we all sleep for a solid day. After Tsunade told Naruto about being Hokage, they fought again and I watched in boredom as Tsunade told him he won their bet. We all went back to Konoha together, and while we walked I explained in further detail about Lee's injuries and about Sasuke to Tsunade and Shizune.

I get home finally after weeks of being away, and find my twin glaring at me in the living room.

"Where the hell have you been?" He asks me angrily when I walk through the door.

"I was with Jiraiya and Naruto, going to bring Lady Tsunade here to be the next Hokage." I say questioningly to him. He should already know this from Guy Sensei. I look at his face for a second and sigh, "Which you would know, if Sensei had told you. Like he said he would." I say tiredly.

"Is that what he meant?!" He gasps out, "He just came here weeks ago going on about the fountain of youth and spouting his usual dramatics! How was I supposed to know that?!" He growls out angrily and rambles to himself for a few minutes before calming down. "I'll make you tea, you look like you've been through hell. You're going to tell me all about it." He adds firmly. He goes off to make us tea, then I go into a mostly full description of the events. I leave out entering Tsukuyomi and about Tsunade's old lady form. I tell him about my new technique though, and I can see he is proud of me, even if I can only use a limited version of the technique.

"You just keep growing, don't you?" He asks me softly at the end.

"So do you, brother. Maybe it's time you took up Guy Sensei's offer to learn some fire style techniques. We could start to combine our techniques then! Make some new fancy twin attacks that way." I say cheekily and he chuckles and agrees. "Hey, we could even add our natures into that new Air-Wall Palm technique Lord Hiashi is teaching us." I suggest as an afterthought.

"That's a great idea!" He says excitedly, then we spend some time discussing how that would work.

A week after returning from my mission to retrieve Tsunade, I got called into the Hokage's office first thing in the morning.

"Ami, thanks for coming." Tsunade tells me when I walk in, "Wait just a moment, we are expecting two more people." I nod and stand there patiently. About five minutes later, Shikamaru and Shirotsu walk in. We give each other curious glances for a moment as they step forward next to me.

"You wanted to see me, Hokage?" Shika asks skeptically. Shirotsu nods in silent agreement.

"Yes, I wanted to congratulate the three of you. I may not have been there for the Chuunin Exams, but I heard about all of your performances, and Ami I have seen firsthand what you can do." Tsunade says, then pulls something out of her drawer. "As of this day forward, the three of you have been awarded the rank of Chuunin." She says proudly, handing each of us a flak jacket. I take mine in my arms and thank her, stepping back for the others to get theirs.

"I don't understand. I lost my match. I didn't even land a single hit, why am I promoted?" Shirotsu asks hesitantly.

"Same, I lost my match too." Shika adds in lazily.

"Yeah, about that. I see from the notes of Lord Third that each of you lost, but you both stood out and thought ahead, and overall performed as would be expected of a Konoha Chuunin. Shirotsu, your plans to fight a close combatant using distance and to surround your opponent while keeping yourself hidden was intelligent. Your ability to call in 'reinforcements' when you noticed you needed them was admirable. Had you been up against another opponent, your methods may have worked. The council also took your preliminary match into consideration as well, since the exams were cut short. That is why you have been granted the rank of Chuunin." Tsunade says to Shirotsu, handing him his jacket as he nods and thanks her. She turns next to Shika, "As for you, your high intellect and knowing when to give up instead of recklessly moving forward is what earned you the rank of Chuunin. Sometimes, it's not always about getting the win, it's about getting out when you can. Congratulations you three, now get the hell out of my office." She finishes and turns her back to us, going back to her work. We head out of the door before I pause and turn around to her.

"Do I actually have to wear this?" I ask her seriously with a grimace, and she just bursts out laughing. I can see I won't get a real answer out of her, so I just walk away.

"Not a fan of the jacket?" Shika asks me as we walk out.

"No, it's bulky and doesn't match my kimono." I pout to him and he chuckles about me being 'troublesome'. We congratulate each other and part ways for the day.

"Ami Hyuga." I hear from behind me, and turn around to see Shirotsu walking up closer to me. "I want to thank you for our match. Your defense and offense were both terrifying, and yet I can tell, you did not take it easy on me. I must apologize, I wrongfully assumed you would be arrogant like your brother was, and leave yourself open when you felt you had won. You did not, and I learned my mistake." He says sincerely in his deep voice.

I turn to face him fully and smile genuinely at him, "I learned not to underestimate my opponents. I feel I must also apologize, I went a little overboard on you during the match. I'll admit to you, bugs creep me out like no tomorrow, so I was trying to end the match as fast as possible to get away. I do however recognize you are a formidable opponent, just bad luck to have gone up against me. Your methods would have worked on others."

He reaches out his hand for me to shake, and I hesitate before I reach up and take it. "Perhaps we can start over. We are fellow Chuunin of Konoha now, we will likely work together in the future." He says, then I feel something on my hand that he is holding and look down, seeing a bug crawling on my hand. My whole body locks up in a shiver as I resist the urge to scream. I can just make out a smirk on Shirotsu's lips before he lets my hand go.

"You did that on purpose!" I call out to him as he walks away. He just chuckles and sends an arm up for a wave as he walks away, and I wipe my hand vigorously on my pants, trying to get the feel off it. I guess he's still a little bitter about my killing all his bugs, but I can tell we will get along just fine from now on.

Guy Sensei insists on treating us all to dinner that night, so he helps Lee get to the restaurant and the team celebrates my promotion to Chuunin. Neji is happy for me, but I can see he is bitter as well. When I asked him quietly about it, he is just mad at himself for being so narrow minded. Lee is sad too, I can see, and still in his depression from his injuries, but he is putting on a happy face for me. I don't like this dinner at all, and don't even get mad when Sensei says the best way to celebrate is with 100 laps around the village. He literally orders me to do them right in the middle of eating. It's a nice out to get away from the sad moods, so I just shove my food in face and take off. I let my mind wander to Sasuke as I run, knowing he will likely leave the village soon once he wakes up. I can still try once more to give him hope though.

I go to visit Sasuke after Tsunade heals and wakes him up. Sasuke asks for Sakura to wait outside when I walk in.

"How come you didn't end up in a coma too?" He asks me immediately. "You went under the same genjutsu, I saw it."

"I don't think he wanted to waste his time on me. Or maybe it took too much effort, I'm not sure. I don't know much about genjutsu." I say vaguely with a shrug. "How are you feeling? What did he show you?"

"He showed me how he slaughtered my family. Over and over again, for days. I'll kill him. I'll do it by any means necessary." He says darkly, his hand reaching to touch his mark. "I will avenge my family."

I grab his hand from off his curse mark and hold it for a moment, "If you are to avenge your family," I start slowly, trying to think best on how to phrase it, "Do it the right way. Make absolutely sure that Itachi is the real person to blame. You've said it to me in the past, that he was a good brother and a loyal shinobi. There could be something else you don't know. But if you are 100 percent sure, make sure you win with your own power, not by someone else giving you their power. I don't want to see you become a pawn, Sasuke. Not to your own hate, and not to someone else. You're smart, and insanely powerful, but you get too lost in your rage. But," I poke him in the chest, "You have a good heart in there, so I know no matter what, you'll never be completely lost. Focus on Justice, not Vengeance, and no one will be able to stand in your way."

He gives my hand a squeeze to show he listened to me, and I let his hand go again. I leave him to recover, and go to find Lee.

"How'd it go?" I ask him as I walk in.

"It was... not the greatest news. Lady Tsunade only gave me a 50% chance of success on the operation. And if it fails, I will die." He says sadly to me.

"We've gone into battles with worse odds than that. For what it's worth, I have faith it will work out, but you have to believe in it too." I smile warmly at him. I hate seeing Lee depressed, it's like seeing a puppy cry. I tell him all about my trip to get Tsunade, and how I fought Kabuto again. I get up to leave after, giving him time to think about the surgery, but he stops me before I reach the door.

"Thank you, Ami. You have never said I couldn't do something. You have always been someone I looked up to, as well as a rival. Just when I think I have you beat in speed, you go and invent a new way to go even faster. Your drive to be versatile and the best has always given me goals to train even harder. Thank you for always being there for me and supporting me." He tells be genuinely.

"You're always there for me too, Lee. That's what friends do, we support each other's goals. It's not every day you get to watch a loser transform into the 'beautiful green beast' of Konoha." I add cheekily to him with a smirk. He grins at me as I leave.

I know that the inevitable is about to happen soon. I could see it in Sasuke's eyes. I start to think about options, but as I plan, I think maybe it's not the worst thing if Sasuke leaves to train elsewhere. I know he will get powerful with Orochimaru. But, I don't want him to blindly hate the wrong person, the wrong target. I need to make sure he knows the truth before he goes. That night, I prepare multiple scenario scrolls and I keep them on me at all times. I don't know the exact day he will leave, I just know that no matter what, I will be going to retrieve him. No matter what, he will know the truth. I gave Itachi his chance, he threw it away, it's my turn now.