The moment the beggars registered who was walking toward them, the greed drained out of their faces and something colder and more urgent replaced it.
The leader went pale so fast it was visible even through the grime on his face.
His mouth worked twice before sound came out.
“M-My Lady…”
The others dropped their heads in unison, eyes finding the ground with sudden dedicated interest, none of them willing to meet the gaze of the woman approaching.
Tsunade walked straight through them without slowing.
Her eyes swept the group once — a single, flat assessment — and the temperature around her seemed to drop by several degrees.
“Did I go too easy on you before?” Her voice was quiet, which somehow made it worse.
“Or is it that you simply don’t value your lives?”
The beggars hit the ground.
Foreheads meeting dirt, hands pressed flat, a chorus of desperate voices tumbling over each other.
“My Lady, mercy — My Lady, mercy — we swear it, never again—”
“We’ll leave — right now — we’ll leave Tanzaku Town tonight—”
“Please, please—”
Tsunade looked at them for another moment.
Then her brow arched, sharp and final.
“Get out of my sight.
If I see any of you in this town again, it won’t be a warning.”
They scattered.
Didn’t stop to pick up the broken bowls they’d dropped.
Several looked back over their shoulders as they ran, as if they half-expected her to change her mind and follow.
In under ten seconds, the alley entrance was empty except for two people.
Tsunade turned.
Her expression shifted — not much, but enough.
The hard edge softened at the corners as she looked at the dirt-smeared young woman standing in the shadows of the alley.
“Are you alright?”
Keiko didn’t answer immediately.
She was doing rapid mental arithmetic.
Blonde hair.
That forehead mark.
The figure that even a loose top couldn’t contain.
The way those beggars folded the instant they saw her face.
Tsunade.
One of the Sannin.
Right here in Tanzaku Town.
Well.
Of course.
Tanzaku Town had more casinos per street than any other settlement in the Land of Fire.
If there was anywhere in the world you’d run into Tsunade between wars, it was here.
Keiko gave a small shake of her head.
Tsunade studied her.
No chakra signature — she’d already checked, instinctively, the moment she’d spotted the situation.
The girl was civilian.
Completely ordinary by every measurable standard.
And yet.
The moment their eyes met, something entirely unexpected surfaced in Tsunade’s chest — a sudden, irrational, and thoroughly inconvenient urge to step between this woman and anything that might threaten her.
She recognized the feeling.
She didn’t understand it.
She filed it away with a frown.
Strange.
She looked Keiko over more carefully — the stained clothes, the deliberate filth smeared across what was clearly a striking face, the careful distance the girl was keeping.
None of it added up to someone who needed rescuing in the traditional sense.
The silence stretched.
Keiko shifted her weight slightly.
“My Lady.
Thank you.
If there’s nothing else…” She kept her tone neutral, polite, already angling toward the deeper end of the alley.
“I’ll be going.”
She turned and walked two steps.
“Stop.”
The word came out before Tsunade had fully decided to say it.
Keiko paused.
Turned back slowly, expression carefully arranged into something confused and mild.
“…My Lady?”
Tsunade opened her mouth.
Nothing useful came out.
She was aware, with some irritation, that she had no actual reason to have said that — and now she was standing here needing to produce one.
She looked up.
The last of the daylight was fading fast, the sky above the rooftops going from amber to deep purple, the lanterns along the main street starting to glow in the dusk.
Well.
That would do.
She cleared her throat.
“It’s getting dark.
Tanzaku Town at night isn’t safe for someone traveling alone.” She kept her voice level, matter-of-fact.
“You can stay with my group tonight.
Tomorrow I’ll see you out of town and help you find somewhere to go.”
Keiko stared at her.
Since when does Tsunade do this?
This was a woman who had walked through three major wars.
Who had buried people she loved and come out the other side harder for it.
A combat medic who had killed as readily as she had healed, because that was what war required.
And she was offering shelter to a random dirt-covered girl in an alley.
Why?
Something was wrong — or if not wrong, then at least unexplained.
Keiko catalogued it carefully and decided to be cautious.
“My Lady, I don’t want to be a burden.
You’ve already done more than enough, I couldn’t possibly—”
“It’s one night.” Tsunade’s voice carried a trace of impatience now, covering something else.
“Don’t make it complicated.”
A bird crossed the darkening strip of sky above the alley and cried once.
Keiko looked at her for a moment longer.
Declining a second time risked tipping this into an insult, and insulting one of the Sannin was a specific kind of problem she did not need today.
She bent her head slightly.
“…Then I’ll gratefully accept.
Thank you, My Lady.”
Something that wasn’t quite a smile crossed Tsunade’s face — quick, almost surprised.
She turned toward the main street.
“Good.
Follow me.
I need to collect someone first, then we’ll find a place to sleep.”
Keiko followed at a careful distance, keeping Tsunade in sight without closing the gap more than necessary.
The street noise hadn’t died down at all with the fading light — if anything it had gotten louder, the casinos picking up volume as the evening crowd settled in, the taverns spilling lamplight and raised voices into the street.
The smell of sake mixed with grilled skewers and lamp oil.
Keiko kept her eyes down and her pace steady.
At this distance from Tsunade, most people looked past her without registering.
After several turns through quieter side streets, they stopped in front of a small residential courtyard, the kind that let rooms to travelers wanting something calmer than the main street inns.
Tsunade knocked.
Three measured raps.
The door opened.
A young woman stood in the entrance — a Konoha headband visible at her hip, a small pink pig tucked in the crook of one arm, wearing a practical grey outfit.
Her face opened into a welcoming expression the instant she saw Tsunade.
“Lady Tsunade, you’re—”
Then her gaze moved sideways.
Shizune went still for half a second.
Her eyes did a quick, professional sweep — the stained clothes, the dirt-streaked face, the figure underneath both that the dirt did not entirely conceal.
The welcoming expression didn’t disappear, but it reorganized itself into something more measured.
She didn’t say anything.
The person had been brought by Tsunade.
That was that.
“Shizune.
Pack up, we’re changing locations.”
“Of course.” Shizune disappeared back inside.
The sound of efficient packing followed almost immediately — the particular rhythm of someone who had done this many times and had it down to a system.
She reappeared within minutes, bag over one shoulder, pig still in arms, and fell into step as naturally as if she’d been expecting the change all along.
The three of them walked.
Keiko could feel Shizune’s attention even when the other woman wasn’t visibly looking at her.
Short glances, quickly redirected.
Not hostile — more like the careful observation of someone trying to work out a puzzle without enough pieces.
What does she think she’s seeing?
Keiko ran through the possibilities methodically.
The dirt disguise was solid.
No chakra signature to read.
Nothing obviously threatening.
Unless—
Could she have heard something?
About the incident at the capital?
About Jinka?
She dismissed it.
Tsunade moved independently of the nobility by reputation and preference.
Shizune’s caution was probably simpler than that — a strange woman appearing without context, brought home by Tsunade of all people, with no explanation offered.
That alone was unusual enough to warrant a second look.
As long as it’s just that.
They reached an inn on a quieter block, the kind of place that prioritized discretion over decoration.
Tsunade went inside alone and returned a few minutes later with a key.
“Room’s booked.
Come on.”
The stairs to the second floor were old wood, each step announcing itself.
The hallway was narrow and smelled of cedar and lamp oil.
Tsunade unlocked the door and pushed it open.
One room.
Larger than Keiko had expected, furnished simply — a low table, a wardrobe, and a wide bed taking up most of the far wall.
A stick of incense was burning somewhere, the smoke already threading into the wood smell of the furniture.
Tsunade took one look at the bed and her entire demeanor changed.
She crossed the room in three strides and dropped onto it sideways with the unceremonious enthusiasm of someone who had been on their feet all day and had strong opinions about stopping.
She propped her head on one hand, rolled to face Keiko, and looked at her with bright, appraising eyes.
“You first,” she said, nodding toward a door in the corner that presumably led to a washroom.
“You’re covered in dirt.
You look like you crawled here.”
A pause.
“…You don’t look like a girl at all right now.”