~ Every 100 Power Stones = Bonus Chapter!
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Konoha Hospital.
A patient room.
The window was half open, the breeze pushing the gauze curtain out in a slow arc.
Tsunade sat beside the bed, her chin resting on the mattress edge, staring at Kitahara Kaede’s face.
From the moment they brought him in, she hadn’t moved.
When the nurse came to change his dressings, Tsunade watched the woman’s hands the entire time.
Unwrapping the bandages, applying the ointment, re-wrapping them, she tracked every single step.
The nurse’s hands started trembling under that stare and nearly smeared the ointment off-target.
Jiraiya came by once.
Right arm in a sling, left hand carrying a bag of apples, leaning against the doorframe.
“Doctor said it’s just chakra exhaustion.
A few days of rest and he’ll be fine.”
Tsunade didn’t move.
Jiraiya scratched his head and set the apples on the bedside table.
“…I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“Mm.”
The door clicked shut.
The room held only the cicadas outside the window and his shallow breathing.
Tsunade buried her face in her arms and stayed like that for a long time.
When she finally lifted her head, the rims of her eyes were red.
When did it start.
Getting used to having him beside her.
Getting used to him knowing what she was thinking.
Getting used to him taking one look and knowing she was putting on a brave front whenever she said “I’m fine.”
Getting used to him getting hurt.
That time at the Ninja Academy — a kunai straight through his palm, blood streaming down between his fingers, he said it was nothing.
And this time?
After the Chidori tore through his chest, he just dropped.
She ran over, flipped his body, pressed two fingers to his neck.
Her hand was shaking.
His pulse was so faint she almost mistook it for her own heartbeat.
In that instant, her mind went completely blank.
Every single time, he does this.
Every single time, he charges in ahead of her.
By the time she realizes what’s happening, he’s already down, and then, with that unreasonably calm expression, he says: it’s fine.
Tsunade’s fingers clenched.
She reached out and brushed the hair from his forehead.
Her fingertip touched his skin and stilled.
Cold.
She didn’t pull her hand back.
It came to rest on top of his instead.
Without even noticing, her fingers slowly curled inward, wrapping his hand inside her palm.
Tight.
“You always say it’s fine.”
Her voice was barely above a whisper, spoken to herself.
“So when you were lying there not moving — was that fine.”
No one answered.
She lowered her head until her forehead pressed against the back of his hand.
“I’ll get stronger.”
“Strong enough that you won’t have to step in front of me anymore…”
She didn’t know when she fell asleep.
…
When she woke, the sky outside was dark.
The small bedside lamp was the only light in the room.
Her neck ached fiercely.
Tsunade frowned, rubbed the back of her neck, and sat up in a daze.
Then she met a pair of eyes.
Kitahara Kaede’s eyes were open.
She had no idea how long he’d been awake, he was just lying there with his head turned, watching her.
Tsunade froze for a second.
Her brain hadn’t caught up yet.
Her eyes started burning first.
“You’re awake?”
Kaede nodded.
She stared at him for two full seconds, making sure he was really awake, really looking at her.
Everything she’d been holding back surged up at once, she wanted to ask if it hurt, wanted to ask why he charged in without a word, wanted to call him a liar.
Too much.
It all jammed together, and in the end nothing came out.
Kaede tilted his head slightly, taking in her reddened eyes.
The corner of his mouth moved.
“What’s all this about?”
Tsunade didn’t react.
“Who died?”
“…”
Tsunade grabbed him by the collar.
She didn’t hold back.
Kaede’s head was yanked off the pillow.
The wound at his side pulled sharply and he sucked in a breath, but that faint curve at the corner of his mouth stayed right where it was.
Tsunade saw it.
“You’re still smiling.” Every word came out through clenched teeth.
“Your chakra was so drained your heartbeat nearly stopped, and you’re still smiling?
You were lying there motionless, you wouldn’t answer when I called —”
Her voice broke.
Her hand was still gripping his collar, but the force went out of it.
“Do you have any idea how I…”
The rest didn’t come.
Kaede looked at her.
“Sorry” was right there in his throat.
He couldn’t say it, not because he didn’t want to apologize, but because those two words were nowhere near heavy enough.
Two seconds of silence.
Tsunade let go.
His head settled back onto the pillow.
She didn’t look at him, her head lowered.
“From now on, you’re not allowed to charge in alone.”
“Mm.”
“Not allowed to run off without saying anything.”
“Mm.”
“Mean what you say.”
“I mean it.”
Quiet for a few seconds.
Tsunade drew a slow breath and forced the wetness back from her eyes.
When she looked up again, her expression was composed, mouth pressed into a tight line, back to that familiar fierce look.
“Hungry?”
“A little.”
“Jiraiya brought apples.”
She turned, picked up the bag from the bedside table, took one out, peeled it, cut it into small pieces.
She speared a piece and held it up to his mouth.
Kaede opened his mouth and took a bite.
“Good?”
“Good.”
The corner of Tsunade’s mouth twitched up briefly, then vanished.
She was raising the second piece when Kaede spoke.
“Tsunade.”
“Mm?”
“…Thank you.”
Her hand paused.
“Thank me for what.”
She speared the third piece and held it out, her voice flat.
“Less talking.
Open up.”
Kaede bit into the apple.
A line of text materialized in his mind,
[Simulation Task Settlement: Land of Birds Escort Mission]
[Rating: S]
[Reward: Physical Fitness permanently increased by 5%]
He ran through it: Chakra Extraction +5%, Ninjutsu Release Effect +5%, Physical Fitness +5%.
Three permanent enhancements.
Physical fitness meant enhanced cellular activity, which meant his chakra extraction capacity would climb along with it.
He’d made out like a bandit.
Chewing, he glanced to the side on instinct.
Tsunade’s hand had stopped moving.
The apple was suspended in midair, not coming over.
She was frozen, her gaze fixed on his hand, on the back of his right hand, specifically.
Kaede didn’t think much of it.
His mouth was dry.
He opened it to ask her to pour him some water,
“Tsuna —”
A chunk of apple was shoved into his mouth.
Caught completely off guard, his mouth was stuffed full, the rest of his words jammed in his throat.
All he could do was stare at her.
Tsunade yanked her hand back, her voice a full octave higher than usual.
“Just eat!”
Kaede made muffled noises like he was trying to say something.
“Don’t talk!”
She slapped the small knife onto the cabinet and spun around, her back to him.
The back of her neck was red.
All the way down past her collar.
Kaede was completely baffled.
He hadn’t done anything.
His mouth was just dry, he’d wanted her to pour him a glass of water.
That was it.
But right now, it seemed like anything he said would be the wrong move.
He slowly finished chewing, swallowed, and looked at her bright red nape and her rigid, locked-up back.
He felt, suddenly, a faint urge to laugh.
The corner of his mouth curved.
Tsunade spun around as if she had eyes in the back of her head.
“What are you laughing at!”
“Not laughing.”
“You definitely are.”
“Really not.”
“…Try laughing one more time.
Just try.”
He very wisely shut his mouth.
The night breeze drifted in through the window, and the gauze curtain swayed.
What Kaede didn’t know was that in those few dozen seconds Tsunade spent with her back to him, her mind had gone completely to pieces.
She was stuck on one thing.
When, exactly, had her hand separated from his?
Before she fell asleep, she had clearly been holding his hand.
When she woke up, her hand was resting on her own knee.
So what happened in between?
Had she unconsciously let go when she shifted in her sleep?
Or…
had he woken up, and moved her hand away?
If he was the one who moved it, then he’d been awake for at least some time.
He was awake.
She was still asleep.
Her hand was still holding his.
He saw it.
And then he placed her hand back down.
Tsunade’s face burned hotter.
No.
There was another possibility.
What if he hadn’t moved it at all?
What if after he woke up, he just lay there without doing anything, and let her hold it, all the way until she woke up on her own?
Then the way he’d been looking at her just now, head turned, watching her,
How long had he been watching?
The tips of Tsunade’s ears felt like they were about to catch fire.
Stop thinking about it.
If she kept going she’d lose her mind.
She flooded her brain with white noise, counted the cicadas outside, counted her heartbeat,
The faster she counted, the faster it went.
Useless.
Tsunade bit her lip.
It was a long time before she turned back around.
The red had mostly faded from her face.
Her earlobes were still pink.
She sat down in the chair, two inches farther from the bed than before.
Both hands placed properly on her knees.
Kaede glanced at her hands on her knees, then at her pink earlobes.
He said nothing.
He turned back and looked at the ceiling.
Quiet and still.
The faint curve at the corner of his mouth never went away.
…
Three days later.
Outside the hospital entrance, the sunlight was warm and clear.
Kaede’s chakra had mostly recovered.
His left arm was still wrapped in bandages, but the doctor had signed his discharge papers.
The moment he stepped through the main doors, Jiraiya came up to meet them.
The sling had come off just the day before and his right arm wasn’t fully back yet, but his energy had more or less returned.
“You’re out?
I timed it right.” Jiraiya leaned in and dropped his voice.
“The mission got reclassified as A-rank.
So does that mean we pulled off an A-rank mission?”
“And what exactly did you contribute?” Tsunade didn’t look back.
“Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu!
Nailed all three!”
“And then stood there panting for five minutes.”
“That’s called tactical recovery!”
Kaede walked between the two of them and didn’t say a word.
On the street, a vendor was calling out his wares.
A kid ran past, chasing shadows on the ground.
“You three.”
The voice came from ahead.
Sarutobi Hiruzen stood beneath an old locust tree by the roadside, his pipe held between two fingers, unlit.
He looked at Kaede’s bandages, then at Jiraiya’s right arm.
His gaze settled on Tsunade’s face for a moment.
The Land of Birds matter had already been handed over to the ANBU.
The mission had been reclassified as A-rank.
There was no reason to tell three kids any of that.
But he remembered the day he assigned it.
He remembered his own hesitation.
A C-rank mission delayed two months, it wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed something was wrong.
Three children had almost not come home.
He tallied that debt against his own name.
“Let’s go.” He tucked the pipe into his sleeve.
“Where?” Tsunade asked.
“To eat.
You’ve been on hospital food for three days.
Time for something decent.”
Jiraiya’s eyes lit up.
“Sensei’s treating?”
“Mm.”
“Seriously?”
“Ask me again and I’m not.”
…
➤ Next: Fifteen Years