CHAPTER 62: HEART TO HEART

Tsunade went home.

Not like she had anywhere else to go nor did she have anything else to do than talk with her son. She has messed up and for something that… was worth it but could have waited another day more. She was a slug sage now. Under Katsuyu’s guidance she had learned how to feel and harness nature energy to mould nature chakra. The most difficult part of the training was feeling the nature around herself, then gathering the nature energy into her body. She had used a cheat though. Katsuyu had given her a moss full of nature energy that grew all over Shikkotsu Forest. She had to sucked on it and feel the new energy fill her body. Not too much or she would have become… Well, she didn’t know for sure. Katsuyu didn’t tell her and with her chakra control she had no problem not going overboard. She had thought about it though and she believed she would either become part of the forest as a tree or moss, a slug or possibly a part of Katusyu herself. That would explain why the slug was so big. When she began moulding nature chakra, Tsunade had been able to sense everything around her and what she discovered had unsettled her greatly. The giant Katsuyu that she summoned? She was small compared to her true form. The real one was living under the soil of Shikkotsu Forest and was absolutely gigantic. She was pretty sure that she was at least as tall as the Hokage mountain. She didn’t dare imagine the amount of chakra needed to summon the slug in her ultimate form. Perhaps only a jinchuriki would be able to.

Her new status as a sage was attained within ten days and she chose to stay twenty more for two reasons. One to rejuvenate her body. No matter how Riku could do it with his Iryoken, her first experience with it made her reticent at experiencing it again. So she took her time to heal her cells back into two earlier cycles. To avoid for her breasts to grow even more by giving them a third taste of puberty she had decided to rejuvenate her body meticulously, part by part. That took roughly a week to achieve. Now, she was actually as young as she looked and wasn’t using her chakra and her seal to maintain the illusion of her beauty. Once done, she began to experiment with her healing abilities. She compared it to what she knew of her grandfather’s and her son's. She was almost as good as the former and far from the later. Why Riku’s healing was vastly superior was something she put on perhaps his drop of Uzumaki blood in his veins. The question as to why she didn’t have it crossed her mind but paid no attention to it. Karin had said that her mother had her special healing chakra but not the eye of Kagura nor the Adamantine chains. Her father, who had been an Uzumaki too, had neither. That made Tsunade realize that she and Riku really needed to study cells with more intensity to discover why one individual got something but their parents or their children didn’t. All in all, the training had been worth it. And now she was sure that she wouldn’t lose in a contest of strength against the Raikage.

That was the reason why she had left right after the summit. She knew that Riku would do an excellent job in her absence and also knew that the elders would not let her go through with it since she was the Hokage and war was upon the village. It was the perfect moment for her to go power up. But…. She could have gone back to the village discreetly, talked with Riku about it and then got reverse-summoned. Now, she had to shoulder the consequence of her actions.

Arriving in the dining room she was surprised to see no one there. Usually when she decided to have lunch at home there was always someone. Riku at the very least or Minato and Kushina. Leaving the room she went to her son’s and found his Botib in there. Opened.

She got inside and had a look around. She went into the garden first but didn’t find him there and returned to the main room. Wondering for a moment which room he was in, she noticed a new door near the Kitchen. Out of curiosity she went in and was baffled by what she saw. The new area wasn’t much bigger than the garden and at first look seemed the same, yet between the trees she discerned a small artificial lake, not very deep, with another Gazebo on top of it right in the middle. Her sharp eyes discerned the top of dirty blonde hair going over the Gazebo’s rail. Walking on water she made her way towards Riku who was busy writing seals on the ground. She couldn’t help herself. She hugged him from behind and he didn’t react beyond stopping writing his seal.

“I’m sorry.” she opened the conversation with.

“...”

“I have so much faith in you, in what you can do that I… didn’t take into consideration how you may feel about the things you had to do. You have always been blowing my expectations away, always pushed forward no matter what, as if you could shoulder everything. I took that for granted and I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have handed you my job like that for a whole month.”

“... I’m not mad that you handed the job to me.” he spoke up after a bit of silence. “I’m not mad that I had to shoulder the consequences of my decisions. I’m mad that you didn’t even bother to tell me yourself, I’m mad that… I felt alone to deal with everything. It brought me back to… a time where I had nothing and no one but myself to count on and nobody gave a shit about anything I did. I’m also unreasonably mad that I felt so out of my depth, observed and judged by everyone, from the kids running in the streets to the elders and the old generation. Ino, Karin and Hinata were there. The old monkey was there. Yugao and Shizune from time to time. Yet… Yet I felt alone even when they were present.”

She said nothing but took note of a few things. First was that Hiruzen was now referred to as the ‘old monkey’ which told her that something must have happened between the two. Then he made no mention of Jiraiya, Minato or Kushina, who so far while not being a family has been helpful and kind of supportive.

“I’m sorry I put you through that. I truly am. It’s over now. I won’t leave like that again.”

Riku still didn’t look at her but leaned backward to melt into her embrace and sink into her bosom. A sigh of contentment escaped him but he didn’t care.

“I feel awful.” he finally said.

“About what?”

“Correction, I feel great right now but otherwise, I feel awful because… I killed them all and feel nothing about it. I don’t even remember their faces. I was going too fast to notice them. I just remember… the yells full of fear, the boom of their bodies exploding and the disgusting sounds their flesh made. I felt nauseous at the results of my touch but I felt nothing for them.”

“You… feel awful because you didn’t sympathize with them? Or felt guilty for taking their lives?” she asked, a bit confused.

“Yeah. I thought… What happened to Suna was an isolated incident. I was tired back then. I’ve been running myself ragged. But here? I was in perfect condition thanks to Karin. Despite having killed the rest of the Akatsuki and surviving Naruto empaling me, I-”

“I’m sorry, what?!” she exclaimed, doing a double take at what she just heard.

“Oh, yeah. That happened. That’s not the topic at hand though so I’ll fill you in later. What I’m worried about is what kind of person I am or becoming. I… have no qualms killing so many people when I should. On the other side of things I am genuinely compassionate towards people and I don’t understand how… I guess I can be both of such extremes? Does it make sense?”

“It does. You’re not the first ninja to be able to draw a line between caring and uncaring between people so radically. You do are the first to have so much power and use it. Uncle Tobirama was the same. He was way colder publicly than you are but in private he was as loving and caring. There is nothing wrong with that Riku and you’re not a bad person. Certainly not a monster if that is what you thought.”

“...”

Riku said nothing and contemplated what his mother had said instead. He didn’t tell her, or anyone but he was terrified that one day he would come to see everyone the way he had seen the Iwa and Kumo ninja. A task to accomplish, an annoyance. There was no point in thinking about this now. Not when he was feeling so good and mostly at peace.

“It’s going to be cuddle night all week.” he simply said.

“Fine by me.” she replied with a smile. “I miss them so much.” she added, squeezing him harder and leaning forward to kiss his forehead.

“Was it worth it? Your training?”

“Yes. I’ve accomplished much. I’ll tell you all about this at dinner tonight. Now… tell me what this place is about? Or who is it for?”

“It’s for Hinata. Most of our time together was spent in secret near the Naka river. I want to recreate the atmosphere but in a calmer setting. That’s not the core of the room though. I’m trying to set the Gazebo’s ceiling to display the illusion of the night sky. Make a different kind of romantic setting than the garden.”

“Why not use… you hate genjutsu. Forgot about that for a moment.”

“Yes. I don’t like messing with people’s senses like that.”

After a while, lunch break was over and Riku went back to work. To be more precise, Tsunade went back to work and Riku filled her in with everything that happened during her absence. She was baffled by what had happened on the day of the attack alone.

“So that’s why there was no one at the manor.”

“Yep.”

“I can’t believe Naruto… You were lenient.”

“I was. I was hoping that being confronted with the consequences of his actions would make him mature.”

“And? How is it going so far?”

“Minato and Kushina say that it’s a slow process. He understood that attacking me was wrong and that he’s lucky to be under house arrest and not dead. He also understood that it wasn’t the time for a fight and that he let everyone down. However he refused to acknowledge that Sakura did anything wrong and shouldn’t be in jail and that I didn’t have to kill Sasuke who in his mind is still his best friend. The only thing the therapist was able to tell me because of my position was that the sessions are not going well. There have only been four so far. It’s not much but from what I understood, Naruto stubbornly denies he has some mental issues and needs help.”

“Maybe I should visit him myself. I won’t be as nice as you are.”

“I know. I was of the mind to have him locked up for life but the Sandaime dissuaded me. Right now, I just want to tell him to suck it up.”

“Would meeting his teammate help?”

“No. Sakura was diagnosed with another personality and is what is called a ‘limerent’. Don't ask me what it is, I don't know. I had better things to do than ask further about her.”

“Definitely need to talk with her therapist. She’s too good a medic for her talent to go to waste.”

“I agree. That’s why I’ve been lenient with her too.”

He then showed her the plans of the revamped Academy’s curriculum.

“That’s… In a way it’s not a harsher training but it is more focused.”

“I tried to give them the best instructions possible without sacrificing their childhood despite the political climate. If war starts again they will be ready for the kind of mission genin are supposed to do. There will be no naive immature idiot that gets themselves killed or their team because of it.”

“What was done regarding Iwa and Kumo?”

“Honestly? I suggested going to Iwa and slaughtering everyone but I was unanimously turned down.”

“Even Koharu and Homura?” She asked in surprise and Riku nodded in affirmation. “That's not like them.”

“No. Anyway, I sent them a threat. If a single Iwa or Kumo ninja steps a single foot inside the Land of Fire or the territories of their allies I will make what they did to Uzushiogakure seem like a happy event compared to what I will do to them. None of them answered.”

“... That’s a bit disturbing, Riku.”

“I know but I already have a reputation in the Elemental Nations so I banked on it. I’m not going to kill defenseless people from their village but the point is for them to believe that I will. To counterbalance that, I was thinking of being friendly with our allies or neutral countries. Our deal with Suna for the reconstruction of the village is technically in their favor, we are giving them resources while losing money. Except the resources are things like wood.”

“And we don’t pay for that since you’re making it with mokuton. So we’re not making money but we’re not losing some either. All the while we appear as generous and more interested in our relationship than in money.”

“Yes. It’s also the same for healing tags or seals of all kinds.”

“That’s a good idea. Which countries were you expecting to reach?”

Picking up a map of the continent from one of the shelves, he unfolded it on the desk.

“I counted ten. Spring, Hot Water, Yamato, Iron, Birds, Mountain Streams, Vegetables, Flowers, Valleys and lastly: Fangs.”

“Those are almost all countries sharing borders with either Iwa or Kumo. The exceptions being Iron, Hot Water and Fangs. Why fangs?”

“It’s next to Kiri and next to the land of Lightning through the sea. It covers the East side of the country while Yamato, the South and Hot Water and Iron the West. North is Spring.”

“Alright, it’s worth making an overture to these countries just for their location. I suppose you’re thinking of moving troops yourself through the Botib or storage seal?”

“Yes. I also intend to create permanent bases underground with an Hiraishin marker in each of them. More than that, I’m going to bury hiraishin tags everywhere to make a huge network.”

“What for?”

“Hit and run tactics. An open conflict would be too costly in resources and lives. If there are tags everywhere, troops could arrive, do their thing and disappear at a moment's notice. The enemy would lose their mind trying to find out how we destroyed their supply lines from the back when it’s well guarded.”

“They may think they have traitors in their ranks. Breeding mistrut and disunity. Clever.”

“I’m working on two other things. Both complicated and complex. One is using each base as a center of a sensing area which could allow us to know in advance the accurate movements of troops. Two using the hiraishin to make long distance communication available in real time without delay. No more messengers that take days or weeks to travel and with information that may not be accurate anymore.”

Tsunade looked at her son with wonder in her eyes. The ideas he presented to her were revolutionary. Should it be applicable, Konoha would have the military advantage in almost any situation. Should they be caught however, it would spell trouble.

“How long for… Everything?”

“I don’t know. The seals? A month, perhaps two. Placing them and the bases? Lot of time. Anbu would be overworked, that’s for sure. Maybe recruit infiltration specialists from the regular corps? I have plenty of Botibs to make too. That will take the longest.”

“Karin and Kushina?”

“Hm… I don’t know how long it would take for me to teach them how to make one and for them how to learn but it’s doable with shadow clones.”

“Good. I want this to be your priority. The faster everything is in place the better we’ll be prepared. I don’t know what kind of deal Akatsuki made with Iwa or Kumo but I doubt they will act before resplendishing their forces so it’s reasonable to think we have a bit of time.”

Riku nodded and flashed away back to the manor. He created two shadow clones and sent them to call for the village seal mistresses.