Naruto, no matter how observant or mature, still is a child.
And children simply want to be loved.
-Tsunade-
She feels scared and it's a selfish kind of scared.
It's been less than two months and she already felt her heart ripping when Naruto cried.
She got attached too quickly.
In many ways, Tsunade regrets.
She regrets that Naruto had to grow up so quickly, had to learn to survive so quickly and she regrets that she had to make him mature so quickly. And she regrets that things had to be this way because it will only get tougher from here on out.
The deadline is in June.
Naruto's mind was already very observant but the training Tsunade had put him through the past weeks had just heightened his cognitive skills. The amount of thoughts and memories and subtle insinuations of the Villager's worlds were sharpened to a frightening degree.
They would be engraved into his mind.
If Tsunade had not come, Naruto may have been able to hold off his thoughts of ill. He may have been able to hold back his dark undertone that had developed through the childhood years of abuse. But Tsunade didn't regret coming to Konoha; she regretted not coming sooner. She regretted not being able to prevent those ill thoughts and his raging mind.
"You two who hadn't been there for more than a decade of my life! What do you know about me? How- how dare you-"
Tsunade was part Uzumaki and in various tangled family trees, Naruto's relative. (Would her anger towards Jiraiya be considered ignorant?)
This thought sticks to her mind for far longer than what is psychologically considered as 'healthy'.
Tsunade is made of human flesh and human bones. From her easily snap-able hair down to her painted toenails, she's human.
Why doesn't anyone get that?
She feels adamant and annoyed, frustrated and angry that they dared to do such a thing-
They treated her as if she was a Legend but then mocked her for being afraid.
'-you simply aren't stable enough to care for him.'
Yet apparently she was stable enough to be thrown into warfare if it was threatened. She was stable enough to run the entire medical facility, to teach and to interact with multiple aspiring Med-Nin who just didn't understand that she was human.
No one understood- tried to understand- why she was such a 'failure'.
'She was a Legend so she should've been able to tough it through.'
'I'm not that Legend!' She wanted to scream it, carve it in the darned ground with the 'monstrous strength' that people didn't understand was worked for not granted.
'So this is the Legendary Sannin, how disappointing-'
'Kaa-san, I thought Tsunade-hime was the greatest kunoichi-'
'What's so legendary about her, she's just a-'
'How could a Med-Nin be so pathetic-'
'And Konohagakure put hopes on the likes of her-'
'That drunkard? The one with the enormous-'
'Sitting Duck Tsunade-'
'A legend, yeah. A Legendary Sucker.'
Was she not allowed to grieve? Was she not allowed to drown in her sorrows? Was having an impenetrable, iron mindset supposed to be worshipped?
It was ironic how she seemed so impenetrable to Naruto yet was truly this pathetic. Naruto didn't really know what being a 'Legendary Sannin' meant. He just knew that she worked hard and now she was strong so he could be the same.
In ways, he was hopeful like that. But that meant Tsunade was lying to him. He didn't know how many malicious intentions had been crossing her mind- spiting the Council; ha, I'm taking the Jinchuuriki; Jiraiya, this is what you get- at the time. He didn't know how many weaknesses Tsunade had held and still holds.
How does she approach this? As a guardian? As a mentor? As a close acquaintance? As family?
'Sarutobi. Jiraiya. Minato and Kushina. Ojisama, Obaasama. What exactly do you want me to do?'
The pendant of her necklace laid heavy and cold against her sternum.
A bodiless voice replied to her: 'Just be honest. This is, after all, your 'Safe Zone' as well.'
Naruto always had a hand on her wrist or her haori, clenching with a fist every time she slipped too far away. She never strayed away from him after that realisation.
After hours of talking and squeezing every drop of knowledge out of her hazed memories, she starts talking about everything else. Kushina and Minato were merely slips of smiling figures in her bleary mind and neither Shizune nor her got the chance to... get to know them?
But why would they? After all, Jiraiya should be unpacking this mess in the first place but he's neither suitable nor does Tsunade want that foul man near Naruto.
And when the pent up words start, they don't seem to want to stop. She talked about everything weighing on her mind. She talked about everything she hated and loved and-
About Sarutobi. About Danzo and the Council. About the letter and the agreement. About her guilt and how she failed him. About why she left and the crimson she's now helplessly afraid of.
('Konoha will not manipulate Naruto. We won't let them.')
Perhaps a better, a kinder woman would understand that this information was too sensitive and burdensome on a twelve year old but Tsunade knew better. She could blink and visualise the thousands of different ways this information could be used to pry the boy away from them.
(Or perhaps Tsunade is just selfish. She doesn't want to imagine Jiraiya waltzing in and instantly garnering Naruto's attention. He doesn't deserve that.)
So she talks and he listens, angrily- tiredly, about his Godfather and his supposed 'Grandfather', about Kakashi and about the dozens of other people who had done him wrong.
She forces herself to not look away because the pain of staring into his wide blue eyes was nothing compared to the anguish he must've been feeling this entire time.
Naruto is quick to jump in defence of people he'd never known. 'They must've been burdened.' 'Torn between their loyalties.' 'They must've not known.' 'It must be guilt or duty.'
'I'm sure it's not their fault.'
But Naruto looks hurt and betrayed and Naruto is a child but Tsunade tells him that these are the things he must know to move forward.
If Naruto was to survive, he must not be treated as a mere 'twelve year old orphan'.
She proposes her theories, her suspicions and he gives his own input- underground information, gossip amongst the Akasen. They delve deep into Konoha and wonder: who else has been cheated in Konoha?
Tsunade still has to ask: "Do you hate them?" She asked with a little bit of (horrible) nervousness because Tsunade is selfish and she doesn't want her innocent child to have that twisted, pained and bordering loathsome expression on his face.
Naruto grimaces and turns away. "I don't know. I'm angry though- I- I'm sick of it all. I'm- I don't know. Am I allowed to hate them?"
"You feel what you think is right, Naruto." Tsunade pressed his lips together and all that nervousness is bundled up and set on fire because- what the fuck. Tsunade will be hateful alongside with Naruto if that's what he wants. "But remember who you are. Don't ever let them hinder you."
"Don't get caught up in the past that you never knew, Naruto." Is what she meant to say. "You cannot fall behind."
As if to (spite her) prove her point, his eyes soon harden into a fairly settled and blank look of acceptance.
(Tsunade grows to absolutely despise that expression.)
"Do you still want to become Hokage?" Tsunade is selfishstillsososelfish and she still wants to remember Naruto as a next generation Nawaki or Dan. She doesn't want her words to completely destroy Naruto's goals and dreams.
"...Yes, I think... Yes." Naruto rubs his eyes, the childish action not hiding the resolve in his eyes. And, again and again, those selfish emotions disappear but by now she knows that it's only temporary.
"But that'll take a long, long time. I hate it because I still belong to Konoha no matter what. I'm just missing the hitai-ate as a branding mark."
Those 'wants' she'd had were forcefully quashed.
"Konoha isn't good for you." She tells him, eyes harsh and true. "Konoha isn't good enough for you. You won't become a Hokage without their acknowledgement but I won't let you run over your own life just for their nod of consent."
"Konoha isn't good." Naruto agreed with a maturity that she regrets that he has. "But that's why I'll become a Hokage better than any of the last ones."
"I've told you: none of the Hokages were without flaws. The ideal of being Hokage, Naruto... you need to fully understand it- what it means, how it could change you."
"I know." He said softly, "That's why Konoha became the way it is. But I... No matter what, Tsunade-baachan, I will reach for that title because even if they abandon me and spit on me, I-..."
The silence is telling, but the uncomfortable shift in Naruto's eyes isn't guilt.
-It's helpless love, helpless hate. Can he recognise the difference between 'belonging to Konoha' and 'belonging in Konoha'?
Naruto himself probably can't even identify and pick through the conflicting emotions so Tsunade couldn't ask him to stick to one thought.
She thinks back to the forbidden scroll and their abrupted talk about the Hakke no Fuuin Shiki and she wonders whether Naruto could ever be fully overcame by hatred- whether Naruto's love, no matter how poisonous or one-sided, could ever be extinguished.
'Ah,' Tsunade realises for what must be the hundredth time. 'Naruto is far, far too kind.'
How will she do this?
There's a cycle of unhealthy emotions. One where Tsunade is caught up with her past, then dragged back to the present, then hit in the face with the toxic emotions of overprotectiveness and possessive hatred.
Then Naruto smiles; softly or daringly, gently or brilliantly; and those emotions clear like sun breaking through clouds but then-
The cycle starts all over again.
How will she do this?
Tsunade reaches for her stash of snacks and bonks Naruto over the head with a chip packet. He startles and looks up at her, blinking confusedly.
"What do you think about taking the next day off and then the rest of the time we have left to train like fucking idiots?"
Deadline. June.
"Tsunade-sama!" Comes Shizune's half-hearted response.
"Yeah!" Naruto beamed, "What do you think about smashing the fuck out of the Exams and throwing arms with the old bastards 'n crones?"
"Not you too, Naruto..."
"I taught you well, brat." Tsunade sniffs.
When Naruto sleeps, she locks her self in the bathroom with a small, sharp knife and an antiseptic.
Shizune is on the other side of the door, a tone of desperate worry coats her hiss- "You can do it in other ways though..." The words are reluctant because she's seen Tsunade's determination.
She brings the gleaming edge to her finger and watches a single drop of blood bead from her skin. "I'm fine, Shizune. This is my road to healing."
It's tossing the words back into her face because Shizune's told Tsunade countless times to change and get on her 'road to healing'. It's harsh but it's true. It can only be like this because Tsunade is a Sannin and she can't afford to trust many with this fear. She can't afford long talk sessions on therapy- and they wouldn't work.
'It starts today.' She thinks to herself through her hammering heartbeat and growing unease. 'I have six months to get rid of this.'
The blood beads from her skin and melts along the fine lines of her finger print. Her heartbeat rockets and she tries to make her gasp a little less audible.
This is just one drop. It was nowhere near enough blood as Dan. Coated in dark red. The rain washes and dilutes the colour but it's still vivid and sticky on her palms- "I don't want to die... I still have things I need to do-"
Weak.
The next time the blade meets her skin, there's a lot more blood than a drop and there's a lot more fear than simple unease.
(The deadline is in June.)
"Baa-chan, doesn't need to feel bad though." Naruto smiles (like Kushina) and looks sheepish (like Minato) when he rubs the back of his head. "I know I said some harsh things but... you don't know- I really, really, super duper appreciate you and Shizu-nee! Really- like, a lot-ttebayo!"