Shizune's brisk footsteps thudded dully against the creaking wooden floorboards as she beelined towards the Hokage's office. Tonton trotted dutifully at her heels, the sound of the little piglet's cloven hooves pitter-pattering filling the air, as it desperately tried to keep pace with its mistress's assistant.
"My Lady!" Shizune called out, as she pushed open the door to Tsunade's office, clutching two envelopes in her hands. "I have news!"
Shizune hiccoughed in surprise as she took in the strange scene unfolding before her.
Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi, Tenten, Karin, and the former Fifth Kazekage lay in a pile of tangled limbs in front of the Hokage's desk. And judging by the shocked look on her mistress Tsunade's face, she was just as surprised as she was!
"Mission accomplished, Milady," croaked Tenten, and then her eyes rolled back in her head. "The Hidden Sand have no idea that we're the ones who took Gaara."
From the looks of it, Tenten had exhausted nearly all of her chakra teleporting everyone to the Hokage's office. But then, why would Team Kakashi bother sending a message if they meant to use the Flying Thunder God Jutsu to return ahead of it anyway?
"That was wayyy too close, Kakashi-sensei!" yelped Naruto, slapping at the singed edges of his uniform to put out the flames. He glanced around blearily, before goggling at the busty woman behind the desk. "Lady Tsunade!? What are you doing here, y'know!?"
"That's my line," Tsunade replied flatly. "What are you all doing in my office?"
"Gerroff me, Naruto!" Sasuke grunted as he struggled to extricate himself from the pile.
The members of Teams Kakashi and Guy were in varying states of dishevelment, most of them unconscious. Their clothes were torn in places and scorched in others, and Naruto looked especially shell‑shocked, his hair so badly singed it had puffed out into an afro. As for Kakashi, he was as ever all tuckered out— most likely from overusing his Sharingan, Tsunade surmised.
Still, they all seemed healthy enough, if a little pale, so she decided to press on with her interrogation before sending them to the hospital wing for some well‑deserved bed rest.
"Will somebody please tell me what exactly happened here?" Tsunade asked authoritatively. "Where are Sakura and Guy?" She turned to Sasuke, who seemed to have most of his wits about him, at least compared to the others. "Uchiha Sasuke, report!"
"…we captured a member of the Akatsuki, an Explosion Style shinobi," Sasuke said moodily. "He sort of… exploded."
Tsunade gaped at him, so Sasuke reluctantly explained what had happened.
After parting from Sakura, who had stayed behind to treat Guy's poisoning, Team Kakashi was ambushed by said Explosion Style shinobi, who had promptly given chase from the skies, gleefully hurling explosives down upon them with surprisingly little regard for Gaara's life.
But then, no one was more shocked than Sasuke when Kakashi, quite without warning, revealed that he had managed to awaken the legendary Mangekyō Sharingan in his borrowed eye. With the power of his new Dōjutsu, Kakashi crushed their pursuer's flying clay bird from a distance, knocking its rider out of the skies.
Seeing that that unfortunate Akatsuki member had survived his fall, Team Kakashi had then given him a thorough beating before binding his limbs and sealing his chakra; deciding on the spot to take him back to the village for interrogation. But apparently, they had not searched his pockets quite thoroughly enough, because the moment he awoke, he bombarded them with a few choice slurs before promptly blowing himself up.
Thankfully, before they were blasted apart by Deidara's self-detonation, Tenten teleported them to the first place she could think of: her beloved Lady Tsunade's office, where she had left a Flying Thunder God Jutsu formula.
"…that's everything that happened," Sasuke concluded.
At last, Sasuke understood why his master had so often ghosted him during their two-year training trip: he had been honing his ocular prowess behind his back just to spite him! Personally, Sasuke was less miffed about nearly being vaporised than he was about Kakashi keeping his eye's evolution a secret.
To think a non-Uchiha had managed to obtain the eye of legend where so many true, full-blooded Uchiha had failed… khh, how infuriating!
"Wait, what are we sitting around on the floor like little kids for!?" Naruto howled as he leapt to his feet. "We gotta go back and get Sakura-chan and Bushier Brows-sensei!"
"This might shed some light on what happened to Sakura," Shizune ventured timidly, giving one of the two envelopes that had just arrived by messenger hawk a slight shake. "It's from Sakura herself, so she must be safe."
"Gimme that," snapped Tsunade, leaning over her desk and snatching the envelopes out of Shizune's hand. "Let's see here…"
Naruto and Sasuke waited anxiously as Tsunade skimmed through the message, her eyes darting back and forth. With each line she read, her frown deepened.
"That idiotic girl!" Tsunade suddenly roared, giving them both quite a fright. "What made her think she could take on an Akatsuki member all on her own!?"
Naruto's and Sasuke's faces paled.
"Still, as expected of my disciple, she was victorious in the end," Tsunade added, a slight smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "Sakura and Guy are both safe and sound, and they should be here within a day or two."
Naruto and Sasuke sighed in relief.
However, even though Sakura had acquitted herself splendidly, that did not mean Tsunade would not give her the beating of her life upon her return for needlessly risking her life.
She had heard nasty rumours about the man her disciple had faced down, Sasori of the Red Sands. A war hero of the Third Shinobi World War, known as a lunatic who went out of his way to commit mass murder for the express purpose of perfecting his art and creating armies of puppets…
"So, Sakura-chan and Bushier Brows-sensei are fine," Naruto said, breathing another sigh of relief. "By the way, Granny Tsunade," he then added, "this was an S-rank mission, you know?"
Tsunade nodded.
"In that case, can you give me a promotion like Sakura and Sasuke?" asked Naruto eagerly. "No need to give me your job straightaway, I'm fine with starting out at Elite Jōnin. I just feel a bit left out being the only Genin on our team, ya know, but I still want to become Hokage through my own power!"
"You can call yourself elite all you want, but there's no such thing as an Elite Jōnin rank in this village," said Tsunade bemusedly, "Jōnin is as far up as it goes."
Incidentally, Kage-level wasn't an official designation either!
"Ehh…"
Wondering where Naruto had picked up such a ridiculous idea, Tsunade simply asked him— and, as expected, the answer was Sakura.
"Okay, I have the gist of the situation," said Tsunade thoughtfully. "Shizune, would you mind taking the injured for treatment?"
"Wait," Tenten said weakly, her eyes fluttering open. "Did… did Sakura happen to mention something else…?"
Naruto, Sasuke, Tsunade, Shizune and Tonton stared questioningly at the ashen-faced girl lying on top of the pile of bodies on the floor.
"No, she didn't," said Tsunade, puzzled. "Should there have been something?"
Tenten closed her eyes in contemplation.
During her battle against Sasori, which she had somehow won without Lady Chiyo, Sakura ought to have learnt of Orochimaru's whereabouts in the coming week; yet it seemed that the butterfly effect caused by Tenten's alterations to the timeline had ensured this had never occurred.
Lady Tsunade had already gleaned a few vague images of the Land of Grass from the needle embedded in Yura's brain that had been controlling his mind, but if Tenten intended to recover Neji from Orochimaru, she would need to employ a few tricks to steer events in the right direction.
…
Meanwhile, hundreds of kilometres away…
"Come, young Sakura, I need to make up for my lost training time!" Guy shouted enthusiastically, chasing the poor girl in circles around a tree. "Let me return the favour and give you a youthful piggyback ride all the way back to the village!"
"No way!" cried Sakura, nearly reduced to tears. "I'd rather kneecap myself right here and now!"
As expected of someone who could proudly wear nothing but a green unitard wherever he went, Guy-sensei was nothing more than a perv! He definitely wanted to feel her boobs against his back through the thin fabric of his clothes!