Three days after Naruto's death, Tsunade stopped sleeping.
She stopped eating the next day.
At first, she told herself it was just grief. The boy had meant more to her than anyone in the village seemed willing to admit.
But grief didn't explain why the autopsy request was denied.
Why the mission files were marked classified above Hokage level.
Why there was no body.
No blood.
No funeral.
Just Kakashi's word.
And Tsunade — the Fifth Hokage, with her name carved in stone — wasn't even given full access to the investigation.
She should have demanded it.
She didn't.
And she hated herself for it.
Every night since then, she returned to the Hokage Tower long after the lamps had burned low and the guards had fallen asleep. She poured over reports, field maps, scrolls that didn't match. Witness statements that sounded too clean.
Too practiced.
On the seventh night, she stared at a mission log signed by Danzo.
Dated two hours before Naruto "died."
The entry was blank.
She punched the desk hard enough to split it in half.
Shizune tried to talk to her once.
She left in tears when Tsunade slammed a bottle of sake against the wall and told her to leave the past the hell alone.
But Tsunade couldn't.
Because every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face.
Not the brat version. Not the loudmouth in orange.
The boy who had stood beside her, broken and stubborn, and said:
"I'll bring him back. I'll fix everything."
He'd smiled like a fool when he said it.
And she let him go.
She buried her head in the hospital records. Checked chakra signatures. Compared blood residues. None of it added up.
There was no proof Naruto had died.
Just a story.
And the more she read, the more the pieces didn't fit.
Sasuke had returned the same day.
No visible injuries.
Perfect condition.
Kakashi said Sasuke had been "overwhelmed by the curse mark" and had "struck Naruto fatally."
Then why hadn't Naruto fought back?
There were no injury marks on Sasuke.
No sign of a duel.
Not a drop of Naruto's blood in the forest.
Only an empty headband.
She ordered ANBU to revisit the Valley of the End.
They found a single seal fragment buried beneath a stone near the river.
Spiral-shaped.
Old blood embedded in it — not Naruto's.
She locked it in her private vault.
No one was allowed near it.
On the tenth night, she stared at the memorial stone.
She drank two bottles of sake.
Then threw one at Kakashi's nameplate.
She hadn't added Naruto's.
She wouldn't.
Because deep down, she didn't believe he was dead.
And if he was...
Then she didn't want to live in a world that buried him so quietly.
Tsunade sat alone in her office, eyes bloodshot, staring at a single photograph — Team 7. The one where Naruto was grinning, Sasuke looked annoyed, and Sakura was trying to pretend she didn't care.
She tore it in half.
Then she burned Sasuke's side in the ashtray.
When the council asked her if she approved of Sasuke's re-integration, she didn't respond.
When they asked again, she said:
"If I ever see him smile, I'll break his jaw."
Danzo said she was letting grief cloud her judgment.
She told Danzo that if he spoke Naruto's name again, she'd remind him what it meant to go through a wall without touching the door.
That night, a black spiral appeared on the roof of her house.
She didn't scream.
She just looked at it, heart racing, fists clenched.
It was gone by morning.
But the whisper in her heart stayed:
"I didn't forget you."
Every night she worked alone, hands trembling, chest aching with something heavier than alcohol and guilt.
She didn't want vengeance.
Not like that.
But she wanted truth.
And if the world had decided Naruto Uzumaki was gone, Tsunade Senju would tear through the heavens just to prove it wrong.
She didn't cry.
Not often.
Only when she woke up and realized she still had to pretend everything was fine.
Only when she saw Sasuke walking through the village without shackles.
Only when she heard the children laugh about how peaceful things were now that the "demon" was gone.
Only when she realized how much Naruto had truly held together — and how much he had broken when he vanished.
They didn't mourn him.
They moved on.
But Tsunade never did.
She never would.
Because even if the world erased his name, even if Konoha buried the truth…
She remembered.
And in the stillness of her office, deep beneath layers of silence and sorrow, Tsunade whispered one name every single night:
"Come back."