The wind howled through the courtyard of the ruined shrine, but it couldn't drown out the echo of Orochimaru's promise.
I will bring them back.
Tsunade stood frozen, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. For a moment, she wasn't the Legendary Sucker. She wasn't the Sannin. She was a woman standing in the rain, holding a necklace that felt like a noose.
"You lie," she whispered. " death is absolute."
"Is it?" Orochimaru countered, his voice smooth and serpentine. "Or is that just what we tell ourselves to make the grief manageable? There are jutsu, Tsunade. Forbidden arts. Arts that the village deemed too dangerous because they broke the natural order."
"Don't listen to him, Lady Tsunade!" Shizune shouted.
Shizune didn't wait for an order. Driven by fear and loyalty, she moved.
"Poison Fog!"
She spat a cloud of thick, purple gas toward the pair. At the same time, she launched herself forward, five poisoned senbon glittering between her fingers, aiming for Orochimaru's throat.
Kabuto sighed.
He stepped in front of the fog. He didn't weave a complex seal. He simply gathered chakra in his palm and waved his hand, a sharp, surgical burst of wind that dispersed the gas instantly.
He caught Shizune's wrist mid-strike.
"Too emotional," Kabuto chided, twisting her arm. "A medic should have steady hands."
He raised a kunai to her throat.
"STOP!" Tsunade roared.
She didn't run. She punched.
She didn't aim at Kabuto. She aimed at the stone wall of the shrine behind her.
CRACK-BOOM.
It wasn't a crack; it was a detonation. The solid stone masonry didn't just break; it atomized. A shockwave of dust and debris blasted outward, shaking the ground so violently that Kabuto stumbled, releasing Shizune.
The entire east wing of the shrine collapsed into a pile of rubble.
Tsunade stood amidst the dust, her fist smoking.
"Touch her," Tsunade snarled, her hazel eyes burning with the terrifying fury of the Slug Princess, "and I will turn your bones into powder."
Kabuto retreated to Orochimaru's side, adjusting his glasses. He looked impressed.
"She still has the strength," he noted.
"Of course she does," Orochimaru rasped. He hadn't flinched. He stared at Tsunade with a hunger that had nothing to do with violence. "She is the only one who can heal this."
He gestured to his rotting purple arms.
"Here is the trade, Tsunade. I have developed a jutsu. Edo Tensei. Impure World Reincarnation. It pulls the soul back from the Pure Land and binds it to a vessel. It is not an illusion. It is them. Their minds. Their voices. Their chakra."
Tsunade felt the blood drain from her face.
"Nawaki," she breathed. "Dan."
To see them again. To hear Nawaki's laugh. To see Dan's smile. To apologize. To say the things she had been screaming into a sake bottle for twenty years.
"I will revive them," Orochimaru promised. "Two souls for two arms. A fair exchange."
Tsunade looked at his arms. Then she looked at his face. The face of the man who had murdered their teacher.
"And when you have your arms?" Tsunade asked, her voice trembling. "What then? You killed the Third. What do you want now?"
Orochimaru smiled. It was a smile of pure, distilled malice.
"I will finish what I started," he said casually. "I will go back to Konoha. And I will burn it to the ground. Every man, woman, and child."
The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush the air out of the courtyard.
"You want me to choose," Tsunade whispered. "Between the dead... and the village."
"The village that took them from you," Orochimaru corrected softly. "The village that sent your brother to die in a war started by old men. The village that let Dan bleed out while you watched. Why protect them, Tsunade? They took everything from you."
He stepped closer.
"Give me my arms. And I will give you your heart back."
Tsunade looked at Shizune, who was staring at her with wide, terrified eyes. She looked at the rubble of the shrine.
She looked at the ground beneath her feet. It felt like it was dissolving.
"I..." Tsunade started.
"Wrong," Anko said. "The answer was 'A shadow.' Fold."
I looked down at the newspaper on the tatami floor.
We were playing Jin Tori—Taking Ground. It was a game of riddles and balance. We started with a full sheet of newsprint. Every time you got a riddle wrong, or the other person got one right, you had to fold the paper in half.
If you touched the tatami mat outside the paper, you lost.
The paper was currently the size of a postcard.
"There's no room," I pointed out, adjusting my glasses with a sweaty finger.
We were already squeezed together. I was standing on my toes on the left corner. Anko was balancing on one heel on the right.
"Make room," Anko grinned. "Next riddle. I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with wind. What am I?"
I thought about it. The pressure of Anko's shoulder against mine was heavy.
"An echo," I said.
"Correct."
Anko grimaced. She had to fold her side.
She crouched down, wobbling dangerously, and folded the paper one more time.
Now, it was the size of a playing card.
"Okay," Anko said, standing back up. "This is it. The final stand."
There was no way two people could stand on a playing card. The physics didn't work. The ground had vanished.
"We forfeit?" I suggested. "It's a draw?"
"I don't do draws," Anko snapped. "Come here."
She grabbed me by the waist.
"Whoa!"
She hoisted me up. I instinctively wrapped my legs around her waist and my arms around her neck to keep from falling. She balanced on the tiny square of paper on one foot, her calf muscle trembling with the effort.
We were a totem pole of stubbornness.
"This is ridiculous," I muttered, my face pressed against her mesh armor. "We look like a circus act."
"We look like winners," Anko grunted, swaying slightly as she fought for equilibrium.
The room was quiet, the lantern flickering. The intimacy of it was sudden and jarring. I could feel her heartbeat. I could smell the scent of dango syrup and gunpowder that always clung to her.
We were clinging to each other because the world beneath us had disappeared.
"How long can we keep this up?" I asked quietly.
My weight was dragging her down. Her ankle was shaking.
"Until one of us falls," Anko strained, her grip on my waist tightening like iron. "Or until we make a deal to split the prize."
"There is no prize," I reminded her. "We're playing for honor."
"Honor is heavy," Anko whispered.
She looked at the tiny square of paper beneath her foot. It was fragile. It was disappearing.
"When you run out of ground, Pinkie," Anko said, her voice losing the playful edge, "you grab onto whatever is closest. Even if it bites you. Even if it's heavy."
She looked me in the eye.
"Just don't be the first one to let go."
I held on tighter.
I thought about Tsunade. I thought about the look on her face when she left the hotel this morning.
I wondered how small her piece of paper had gotten. And I wondered who—or what—she was going to grab when she finally couldn't stand on it anymore.