Naruto was at it again.
The river Tanzaku was a cold, rushing weight, its current a relentless shhh-vrowl that chewed at the muddy banks. Beside it, Naruto's chakra roared with a thick, churning heat—a riot of unrefined force that smelled like burnt sugar and ionized air.
The ball of blue light formed in his palm, spinning with a violent, uneven thrum, only to collapse a second later with a wet splat-hiss.
Naruto skidded back, his boots finding no purchase on the slick, mossy stones. He gritted his teeth, his whiskers twitching in a snarl as he glared at his own distorted reflection in the water. To him, the river wasn't scenery; it was a critic, its ripples whispering of every mechanical failure he'd committed in the last hour.
A few meters downstream, Sylvie was a small, hunched figure perched on a flat stone. She had spread a dozen seal arrays across the granite surface—stones marked with gritty black ink, their edges curling in the heavy humidity.
Every few moments, she paused. She rubbed her temple with two fingers, her eyes squeezing shut behind her polarized lenses. Tsunade watched the girl's jaw lock. She could see the static crawling under the skin, a neurological cage that was beginning to rattle.
Tsunade exhaled slowly, the air in her lungs feeling like compressed ash.
She didn't see failure. She saw the skeletal frame of the limits they were pushing against. Naruto's was a problem of structural mechanics; the sphere refused to hold because he hadn't mastered the centrifugal drag. Sylvie's was internal—a sensory overload that made the world taste like sour metal.
The river reminded Tsunade of things she'd tried to bury under a thousand bottles. She remembered Nawaki skipping stones, his laughter being torn away by a wind that was too light and too fast to be safe. She remembered Dan, his hands steady as he pored over a list of impossible, bureaucratic rules while she sat nearby, wanting nothing more than to rest.
She had believed proximity was a shield. She had believed her presence could overwrite reality.
Reality had corrected her with the scent of iron and the weight of a grave.
She didn't interfere. She watched Naruto's ball flop into the water for the fifth time, and she watched Sylvie rub her temples until the skin was raw and white. Let them fail. Let them breathe the river's rhythm and the taste of wet stone. Let them carry the biological tax themselves.
Responsibility wasn't a rescue; it was the cold observation of the current.
Shizune stepped onto the bank, her sandals making a soft, leathery scuff on the silt. She kept her hands clasped, silent and professional.
"They don't need saving," Tsunade said flatly, her eyes fixed on the students. "They need time."
Shizune nodded, her pen moving in a quick, scratchy nib-drag across her notebook. No comfort was offered. In the Land of Fire, clinical truth was the only currency that mattered.
"I'll… I'll get it this time!" Naruto shouted.
He lunged forward, his orange jacket soaked through and smelling of wet peat. He slapped the water—slap-splash—shattering his own frustrated face into a thousand shards. He wasn't just fighting the jutsu; he was fighting the world's refusal to bend.
Sylvie drew her symbols one-handed, her other hand pressing her glasses up as if the plastic frames could stabilize her brain. Every mark on the stone was a tether against the pressure.
Something beyond the river stirred—a shadow in the vibration that only she seemed to pick up. Tsunade saw the girl's chest heave. The high-pitched whistle against her molars was becoming a scream, but Sylvie didn't stop.
Tsunade's lips pressed into a thin line. She had been right about the necklace. She had been right about the crushing weight of proximity. Interference was a myth; history unfolded in its own jagged, bloody geometry regardless of who was watching.
"I can do this! I will!" Naruto yelled, his voice cracking with the strain. "Just… give me a second!"
He slapped the water again. Splut.
Sylvie paused, her pen hovering. She blinked at him—not with pity, but with a cold, clinical calculation. The static behind her eyes was a physical throb now, a heavy barometric drop inside her skull.
She looked at Tsunade.
There was no fear in the girl's gaze. Only the record of the effort. Only the framework of a kid trying to survive the chaos of her own perception.
"They'll learn," Tsunade said quietly, her voice nearly lost in the hiss of the water. "The river always teaches. And it doesn't care who falls into the mud."
Shizune scribbled faster.
Tsunade watched Sylvie's hand tremble. It was a microbeat of instability that preceded a collapse.
Idiot, Tsunade thought, her own heart feeling like a hot knot of lead. Brave, stupid idiot.
Sylvie wiped her nose with the back of her hand. The hand came away with a faint, arterial red smear. The scent of fresh copper hit the air, a sharp signal of a capillary bursting under the internal pressure.
Sylvie didn't flinch. She stared at the blood on her knuckles, blinked the static away, and went back to the ink.
The river didn't care about blood. And as Tsunade watched, she realized that neither did the girl.
They were learning the most important lesson of all: reality is a friction burn, and you only win if you're willing to bleed.