Pre-Chapter A/N:Welcome to October, guys! Let's smash whatever goals we've set ourselves this year. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Experimenting with two chapters a week, we'll see how long I can keep this up for.
XXXX- TSUNADE SENJU
She ducked into an alley as more flames flooded down the street. On the other side, she noticed Jiraiya huddled behind an earth wall. An earth wall that was beginning to rapidly disassemble itself from the heat. The same sweltering heat that bore down on her even with the flames passing by her. The flames came to a stop, and she jumped out of the alley, heading for her opponent. On the other side, Jiraiya did the same. The two of them formed Tactic 78 without even looking at each other or sending any messages. That was the value of the perfect teamwork that Sensei had beaten into them.
He had to choose one, the desert blaze. Either Jiraiya or her. He had to attack one of them, and while he did so, the other would attack him. And because she was faster, he would make the choice that everyone else made in his situation. He attacked her. He chose wrong, and he would die for it. She did not bother blocking the attack, knowing that that shock would give Jiraiya even more time. She was famous now. No one just expected to kill Tsunade Senju in a single blow.
And so they were shocked when it seemed that they did. The flames covered her entire upper body. An upper body that she had already deadened the pain receptors for, even as she screamed for effect. Her healing chakra was already flowing, fixing the pain as it was dealt. Her ultimate jutsu: precognitive healing.
The flames cut off, and she got to see the Desert Blaze, shock still in his eyes, as his head flew straight off his body.
"That looks terrible," Jiraiya said, turning to her now.
"Toss me a new shirt. I'm not going to fix the skin with you looking, damn pervert," she said, staring straight at him. Even a pervert like Jiraiya couldn't be getting much, if any, pleasure from the blackened, charred husk that she was presenting. It must have been jarring to him even as he wasted no time in bantering before unsealing a shirt and tossing it her way. She coughed pointedly, and he turned the other way. She allowed the healing to complete itself, the old dead skin being pushed off as new skin and flesh took its place. In a matter of seconds, she was good as new and had replaced her shirt.
A shirt that was tighter than it should have been. Suspiciously so.
"You damn pervert," she snarled in his direction, knowing that she would be getting him back for this one.
"What are you talking about, Hime-chan?" He tried playing ignorant, and she scoffed.
"Let's go help Orochi before he starts whining about being left alone all the time again," she said.
"I don't think he'd much appreciate that," Jiraiya chuckled.
"Then make sure you tell him."
—
Orochimaru had a bad habit. He was more a scholar than he was a shinobi. Of the three of them, much to Sensei's disappointment, Jiraiya was the only one built to be a shinobi. Orochimaru was a scholar, just as she was a healer. She would always be better and more suited for putting people back together than taking them apart, and Orochimaru's boundless curiosity would be the death of him. Case in point, the fact that he was still exchanging sword swings with the most famous kenjutsu master in the world. They would all approach fights differently.
She'd have allowed Hayate of the Six Swords to stab her through once and then turned his body to paste once she drew him close enough. Jiraiya would have kept his distance, not even letting the kenjutsu master bring his sword skills to bear as he battered him with ninjutsu. Orochimaru? Well, like a scholar, he wanted to learn everything there was to learn. And so he decided to start a kenjutsu fight with the foremost kenjutsu master in the world.
She watched as he stepped backward, not quite able to get out of the way of the blade as it left another cut along his arm. She counted over half a dozen of them already. Each of them were light and narrow slashes, but they wept blood regardless. Hayate would take his win by a thousand cuts if he needed to, while Orochimaru tried to get better and study his technique so he could improve his own kenjutsu while they did so. Tsunade reached out with her chakra, forming a half-ram seal.
It was a simple genjutsu, one designed to mess up his balance just slightly. It didn't work; his chakra smashed through the genjutsu almost instantly. Jiraiya had, at the same time, spat a mud bullet between Orochi and Hayate, forcing their teammate to withdraw from kenjutsu range lest he be knocked out of the fight. In all of Konoha, the only people with better earth release than Jiraiya were Sensei and Shori.
Orochi backflipped, jumping in their direction and landing between them.
"What are you doing?" His sibilant hiss wormed its way down her ears.
"Preventing you from getting killed," she said, stabbing her fingers into his chest. His chakra didn't even try to fight her—so used it was to her ministration—as she took charge of its processes and forced it to heal his wounds in a matter of seconds.
"I had him."
"Yeah, it sure looked that way," Jiraiya cut in before weaving more seals and smashing his hands into the ground.
"Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld," he said, and then the ground between them and their opponent turned to deep black mud. From experience, she knew that swamp was deep enough to sink a boss-sized summon if Jiraiya used it at full power. Hayate pushed off against the ground the second before it transformed, his hand flying to the blade at his side. Orochimaru moved in front of them, blade in hand, and blocked the swing from the swordsman. Fast, was her first thought. But she'd fought fast before.
She moved, quick as a whisper, as Orochimaru jockeyed for position with the swordsman, moving to punch through him. Before she could do so, though, several clay spiders fell upon them. Sensing chakra from within them, she jumped backward, allowing the explosions that formed to push her backward. Her chakra was already healing the burns on her skin. She stretched out her senses, finding both Orochimaru and Jiraiya by her sides. Wounded, but alive. Good. Wounded, she could fix. Dead? Well, not yet.
She stabbed her thumb against the weeping burn on her right arm and weaved seals as fast as she could with her wounds before slamming her hand against the ground. 'Kuchiyose.' She summoned enough of Katsuyu to cover her head, having her divide into three. She attached one to her neck, and feeling her teammates' positions, she hurled the other two at them even through the smoke from the explosions.
She felt Orochi's chakra seep into the smoke, thickening it as he attached Katsuyu to him. Jiraiya did the same, and through the bond Katsuyu kept with herself, she began to heal them.
"Hahaha. I know that wasn't enough to kill you, Senju bitch," she heard a voice cackle from above. And then a gust of wind blew the smoke away, robbing them of their cover. Their opponent was in the air, atop a giant clay bird? Some type of summon? No. It was a construct of some sort. Same as the spiders that had exploded. So their opponent was riding a bomb of some sort. That didn't bode well for her sanity.
Insane opponents were the worst. And for better or worse, they were far less common in this world of theirs than most would expect. It meant you didn't just see crazy people all the time, but it made each of them even more dangerous because all your instincts had been built around fighting people with some sanity.
"And who the hell are you?" she asked, as she realized that if the fight began now, Jiraiya and Orochimaru would still be far from fully fit. She could heal them while they were in motion, but that was not a skill she had shown off yet, and the chances of something going wrong were much higher when they were moving.
"Ask your cousin. He and I have a score to settle, you see. And while I could take him now, weak as he is, I think I'll take you first and then make you be the one to take him. That would hurt him even more," she cackled. Yeah, that did nothing to explain anything.
"Chiyo of Sunagakure. Puppeteer and poison mistress," Jiraiya said, and she nodded. She hadn't paid as much attention to the recent bingo books as she probably should have. She just figured that she'd hear about anyone who could be a threat to her either way… few as those were.
"And the other girl on the bird?" she asked.
"No idea. Iwa headband, though. She's probably the pilot of the clay thing."
"Source of the explosions as well," Orochimaru added, and she knew that tone. That was the tone that said he found something interesting. Tsunade was already beginning to pity the girl.
"Some version of the Explosion release, most likely," she said, taking note of what that meant in her mind. Earth and lightning release. The clay was probably going to mean it leaned more to earth than lightning. A weakness to either lightning or wind was possible. The former, she had; the latter, well, Orochimaru could call down Fujin himself if the mood hit him.
"Formation—" She never managed to finish her words as several insects flew at them again. She jumped backward, able to easily dodge now that she had some forewarning. And then the puppets appeared. One of them, a collection of blades all over—poisoned, most likely—moved towards Jiraiya, while another headed in Orochimaru's direction. A man fell from the bird next, standing in front of her.
He wore heavily ripped monk's robes that hugged a very muscular form. A gold aura appeared around him… interesting, and then he pushed straight at her. It had been a while since anyone engaged her so foolhardily in taijutsu, she thought to herself as she allowed his right hook to hit nothing but air. Her foot moved for his knee, and she struck with enough force to cleave a mountain in half. The golden aura did not budge. And then he was punching at her. She moved her hand in the way, and the ground around them shattered. Strong, she thought to herself.
But she had fought strong before, and her strength was only half the reason she was a nightmare to face in taijutsu. She stepped backward, allowing his follow-up to waste itself against the air. And then she grabbed on to his wrist before he could retract it. She spun, twisting her waist at the perfect time to flip him over her and into the ground. Then she thrust a knife hand straight into his chest. She didn't need her cousin's byakugan to fuck up some organs with her own version of the gentle fist. As she blew up his heart, and as his strength left his body, she turned, about to head for the puppeteer again.
That proved to be a costly mistake in the end. His feet lashed out and caught hers. She hit the ground. Hard. And then he was on top of her. One. Two. Three. Four. It took only three punches for him to break through whatever guard she could bring to bear, and the fourth had her head ringing like a bell. She moved chakra there to heal it instantly and then Jiraiya was there… or rather, his hair was, slapping the man off of her with a burst of effort. She stared straight ahead. The sky was marvelously blue today, she thought.
Explosions erupted all around her as she finally managed to finish healing her damaged brain cells. She pushed herself to her feet, and just in time, as two creatures of wood bore down on her from either side. One opened its mouth, unleashing a storm of cutting winds. Snarling, she stomped on the ground, calling on her admittedly clunky mastery of earth release to lift a wall in front of her.
She huddled behind it even as the winds cut through parts of it and stung her skin. And then another puppet moved, and the wall she hid behind began to melt. Some sort of acid or poison, she thought as she rolled to the side. It was not enough, as there was a third puppet there. A spider. Just how many creatures could this woman control at a time? The spider spat a wad of webbing at her. She rolled to the side, allowing it to hit the ground and nothing more.
Forming a chakra scalpel, she cut through the next two hits and then had to jump to the side to avoid another storm of cutting winds. She stretched out her senses through Katsuyu to feel her teammates. Jiraiya was burning through his chakra, casting jutsu after jutsu to keep the man with the gold aura at bay. Orochimaru was lurking. He was trying to get a good shot at the puppeteer herself.
Good. She would give him the opening he needed. She slammed her fingers to the ground, ripping out a massive disc of stone. The puppets moved at her, but in an instant, she formed a shadow clone that rushed the spider. The other two moved to defend and thus were out of position to do anything as she heaved.
She spun, increasing her momentum, and then hurled the disc straight at her target. Another puppet stepped in front of her, charging up a chakra cannon that cut straight through the massive disc of stone. Still, it gave Orochimaru the opening he was looking for. He jumped from a building—one of the few still upright—springing like a coiled viper to stab straight through the woman's heart from behind. Yes!
But then she began to turn white. Turn into the clay. Clay that softened at Orochimaru's feet and held him there. No, she thought, springing to move.
But then there was a blast of webbing at her feet, holding her still for the second it took to rip her out of it. The clay exploded, and she felt Orochimaru's life force dwindle as he was blasted away, deeper into the city. Orochi, she yelled in her mind, feeling her bond with Katsuyu.
There was enough of Katsuyu still left that she could begin remote healing, but before she could even form a seal, there was another storm of razor-sharp winds heading her way.
She dove to the side. And then acid. She clapped her hands together with all her strength, creating a shockwave that scattered the acid everywhere.
She formed a tiger seal and spun, breathing fire into her surroundings. Her natural affinity should have driven off the wooden puppets, but they dove closer instead.
"You think fire will avail you here?" she heard the woman's voice from all over the city.
Argh, she thought, rage pouring through her. And then there were a series of clay creatures around her. She jumped to the side, avoiding the explosion. Only for a seal to begin glowing. She stared at it for a second, trying to decode it, before giving up and crossing her hands in front of her.
Small pieces of metal shot from the seal faster than she had ever seen anything move, shooting through her body and tasking her healing almost instantly.
"Strength of a Hundred Seal: Release," she whispered, feeling disappointment course through her. The seal hadn't finished refilling itself. Not truly. But she had enough chakra to force the metal from her body and begin healing. At the same time, she flooded Katsuyu with chakra, beginning to stabilize Orochimaru's dwindling life force and giving Jiraiya even more power to work with.
The puppets came again. Four of them, surrounding her from all directions. Four?
The spider erupted from beneath her feet, stingers aimed at her. She dodged the first one, thanking her instincts. Only for the other two to slam into her shoulders, injecting her with so much poison even her healing began to struggle. She took the opening, grabbing the two legs stabbed into her, and then beginning to pull, ripping the spider apart with sheer strength.
Only for that to prove to be her undoing as the spider exploded once destroyed, covering her in webbing. She snarled from within, moving to rip it apart despite the lack of leverage. So great was her strength. But then the one made of blades landed upon her. Several blades stabbing through her. She felt one in each of the eight: larynx, spine, lungs, liver, jugular, subclavian artery, kidneys, and heart. And it was not just the blades. Through them, enough poison to kill a small army pumped its way into her bloodstream.
But still, she fought. She ripped out one arm from the webbing and grabbed the puppet. Her other arm joined it, crushing the thing's midsection with all her strength. She began to rip the webbing from her body when she was suddenly doused with acid. It felt like being placed in a stream of it. Her skin burned all over, and then her flesh, the muscle beneath. But still, she fought. She ripped her way out, not caring what she would have looked like, and began to swim her way out of the pool of acid that had formed around her.
One hand on the ground, she opened her single still-functioning eye—the other was still healing—and beheld the old woman there with a blade in her hand. She snarled, moving to attack.
"You Senju are monsters," the woman said, and then Tsunade punched through her, only for the body to turn to clay and explode, sending her back into the acid.
She felt her link to Katsuyu dispel. The summons had finally had enough. She could keep going. She just had to swim out of this. She just had to—keep going. She did not feel it when her flesh and muscle burned to the point that her hands were little more than bone. She did not feel it when her body healed near as fast as it burned, over and over again.
She crawled out of the pool one more time, twisting her body. Her eyes healed with a pop, and she looked out at the sky. It was so beautiful.
"May the winds guide your soul and give you rest," she heard, and never even managed to react before the blade separated her head from her body.
A/N: And that's the chapter. I'm sorry. Next six up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)(same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.