Chapter 258 - 262: The First Night with Tsunade

Shikkotsu Forest.

An enormous tree climbed into the clouds, its canopy lost somewhere above them.

The second God Tree in the shinobi world.

Natsuki studied it, then raised a hand and produced a storage scroll.

He opened it and released Otsutsuki Isshiki.

The man was still alive, though in poor condition — worse, obviously, without his eyes.

It hardly mattered. Today he’d be released from all of it.

Chakra surged from Natsuki’s palm, caught Isshiki, and drew him upward toward the canopy.

He never got close. Countless branches and vines came alive and wound around him first.

Terror crossed Isshiki’s face, because this was not the first time he’d found himself in this exact position.

But this time he was wrapped in Natsuki’s seals and there was no escaping.

A moment later the tree drew him inside, and his consciousness went out entirely.

The God Tree shuddered, and at its crown a bud slowly emerged.

It hadn’t opened yet. Even so, something unthinkable could be felt gestating inside it.

Natsuki nodded. The moment the tree finished digesting Isshiki would be the moment it bore fruit.

He turned and went back to the Hokage’s office.

"Natsuki," Konan said as he came in. "The Academy entrance ceremony is in ten minutes."

It was July, so by any normal calendar there shouldn’t have been one.

There were exceptions. Three months of construction had finished, and today was the day the students from the other villages enrolled in Konoha’s Academy.

"You’re turning into a proper Hokage’s secretary," Natsuki said, pinching her cheek.

Konan paused.

And with that, she finally understood why Uchiha Mikoto had been giving her those looks lately.

All of this had been Mikoto’s work before. Konan had taken all of it — and not only the work.

Though in fairness, this was Natsuki’s doing. He’d needed her close to continue her lessons, so she’d stepped into Mikoto’s place.

She’d worked hard at it, too, and had nearly finished learning the job. Soon she’d be able to split the load with Mikoto properly.

"Let’s go." Natsuki opened a doorway.

The Academy courtyard was packed.

To sharpen the competition, Natsuki hadn’t segregated the students by village. They were mixed together and lined up by class instead.

His arrival caused an immediate uproar. Leaf children and foreign children alike broke into exclamations.

His reputation had grown too large for anything else. The entire shinobi world both feared him and, in most cases, sincerely admired him. Adults and children, the worshipful and the resentful — the underlying reaction was much the same.

Natsuki took the stage, smiling.

Konan, masked, watched from the side of the platform alongside Nara Shikaku and Uchiha Mikoto. The two secretaries were running the ceremony.

Natsuki looked out over the crowd. There were a great many of them, but at his level he could take in every face without effort.

Most were strangers. A few weren’t.

Uchiha Itachi, for one. Five years old already.

Natsuki had set the enrollment rules himself: five and up could enroll, below five could not, six was standard. Children in this world matured early, but three and four was still absurd. In the original story, Itachi had been taken to a battlefield at four, which struck Natsuki as flatly insane.

Beyond Itachi, four other named characters were in the crowd.

Umino Iruka — in the original story, the Academy teacher who shaped Naruto and Sasuke’s early years. His combat ceiling had been Chunin and nothing higher, but his importance had never been in question.

Uzuki Yugao — Anbu in the original story, Special Jonin in strength, a specialist in Konoha-style kenjutsu.

Those two and Itachi were Leaf.

The other two were from the Hidden Cloud: C and Darui. The former had barely appeared in the original story. The latter had appeared a great deal, having eventually become the Fifth Raikage — though he’d never come close to the Third or the Fourth in raw power.

Both were eight or nine now.

The Mist, the Stone, and the Sand had no named characters at this stage. Not because none existed — because they were all too young. Temari and Chojuro were three. Deidara was two. Kurotsuchi was one.

The ceremony itself was unremarkable. Natsuki delivered half an hour of the expected remarks and stepped down.

He took Konan, Mikoto, and Shikaku back to the Hokage’s building. The Academy could handle the rest.

Night came.

After dinner, Natsuki went to the kitchen. He’d barely gotten his apron on when something soft pressed against his back.

He raised an eyebrow. He knew immediately who it was.

Tsunade. Nobody else was built like that.

"Tsunade-sensei." He slid a hand down onto her hip. "Something you need?"

"What do you want for your birthday next week?" She ignored the hand entirely.

"Anything, as long as it’s from you." Natsuki smiled.

"That’s not an answer." Tsunade’s mouth twisted.

"Mostly because I don’t lack for anything." He paused. "But if you really want to give me something — wear a secretary’s outfit on the day. With stockings."

He’d long held the view that Tsunade would suit a secretary’s outfit extremely well, on account of everything about her.

"You’re incorrigible." She glared at him.

"It’s my birthday. Is a request or two really excessive?" Natsuki asked, radiating righteousness.

"..."

Tsunade had nothing. She was, once again, being run over by the sheer thickness of his skin.

Which was, admittedly, how their relationship had gotten to where it was.

"Depends on my mood." She let go of him and stepped back.

"I have complete faith you won’t disappoint me." Natsuki blinked at her.

"Then wait and see." Tsunade rolled her eyes, turned, and left.

The week went quickly.

The Hokage’s office.

Uchiha Mikoto was staring at Konan with laser focus.

Natsuki caught it and waved a hand at her, and Mikoto flushed — though she looked more pleased than anything.

He shook his head.

All this over dango.

He left the two of them to it and turned to the documents on his desk — or more accurately, the petitions.

Villages, major clans, ordinary shinobi, civilians. All of them had submitted requests, and all the requests said the same thing.

They wanted to attend his birthday.

The price of fame, Natsuki reflected.

Though it wasn’t only fame. It was power. As the single most important person in the shinobi world, everyone wanted to be on good terms with him — and so his birthday had become the hottest ticket in existence.

He genuinely hadn’t wanted the fuss. But times had changed, and so had his position.

He thought it over and landed on a solution.

Refusing outright would look bad, so he’d split it into two sittings.

Lunch would be open to everyone. Dinner would be for the people who actually mattered to him — Tsunade, Nawaki, Minato, and the rest.

Lunch was the difficult half, purely on logistics. There were simply too many people.

Fortunately, nothing about that was a real obstacle for a man who could requisition the resources of the entire shinobi world.

"Mikoto."

She looked up, still chewing.

"I’m hosting a lunch for everyone tomorrow. The Secretariat handles the arrangements."

Mikoto made two muffled noises of assent.

Natsuki turned back to his documents.

A while later, both women finished eating.

"You’ve made a mess of yourselves. Go clean up." Natsuki waved a hand and opened two doorways.

Konan and Mikoto glanced at each other, both slightly embarrassed. There was a fair amount of sauce involved.

Once they’d gone, Natsuki stood, and with a thought arrived in the Shikkotsu Forest.

He looked up at the God Tree, and a fruit caught his eye.

[Congratulations! Host has unlocked Otsutsuki Kaguya’s Template Ability 3: Rinne Sharingan.]

His mood lifted immediately.

Between his effectively bottomless nourishment and Isshiki’s sacrifice, the tree had finally borne fruit — and the last ability on the Kaguya template had come with it.

Then he made a small, puzzled sound.

He’d assumed a third eye would open in his forehead, the way Kaguya’s had.

It hadn’t. His left eye had become the Rinne Sharingan instead.

Natsuki considered that, and a possibility surfaced.

Because there was still a fruit to eat.

He leapt up to it and bit into it without hesitation.

The rest of it flowed into him like water.

His eyes shivered, and both of them turned into nine-tomoe Rinne Sharingan.

At the same moment, chakra surged through every part of him, without any apparent end to it.

Natsuki had no idea how much he was carrying at this point.

What he did know was that he had passed the Sage of Six Paths, and passed Otsutsuki Kaguya. He had effectively eaten two chakra fruits.

Kaguya had eaten one.

He stroked his chin.

Once his birthday was behind him, he could go deal with Kaguya. Beat her, and the shinobi world would finally have real peace.

After that, the remaining threat was Momoshiki and the others — decades away. A problem for a later decade.

Natsuki dropped back to the ground.

The fruit was gone, but the tree remained. As it stood, it was still functionally the Ten-Tails, carrying the power of all nine beasts inside it.

He’d already absorbed the first God Tree into the Black Holy Grail. He thought about it and put this one in as well.

Leaving it standing here would just be waste.

Night fell.

As usual, Natsuki, Tsunade, Kushina, Nonou, and Nawaki gathered for dinner.

"So what’s the plan tomorrow?" Kushina asked.

"Two sittings." Natsuki explained the arrangement briefly.

"That’s a good call," Nawaki said.

"Honestly, I’d have been fine with a normal meal." Natsuki sounded resigned.

"Maybe. But this is how people feel about you," Nawaki said, smiling.

"With that many guests, you’re getting an absolute mountain of presents tomorrow." Kushina blinked at him.

"One room won’t hold them," Nawaki added.

"They’re not much use to me. If any of you want them, take them," Natsuki said, unconcerned.

"I won’t say no." Kushina hooked a leg against his under the table.

"Natsuki." Tsunade spoke up suddenly. "Come to my room after dinner. There’s a ninjutsu I want to ask you about."

Natsuki paused.

Had Tsunade been researching a technique lately?

"Mm." He nodded.

The meal wrapped up quickly, and Tsunade got up and went to her room.

Natsuki did the washing up with Nonou, then went and knocked on Tsunade’s door, and let himself in when she answered.

He stopped in the doorway.

Tsunade was sitting on the edge of the bed in a fitted suit, and every seam of it was working overtime. A pencil skirt, stockings, and one leg crossed over the other, swinging slightly.

"Tsunade-sensei." Natsuki shut the door behind him and came in, smiling. "Which ninjutsu did you want to discuss?"

"That was a pretext," Tsunade said, without any change of expression at all.

"Then let me give you a massage."

He sat down on the edge of the bed and lifted her legs across his lap. Tsunade had to shift to accommodate him, turning to sit sideways.

"Why not wear this tomorrow instead?" Natsuki asked, working at her feet.

"Because being seen in it would do terrible things to my reputation." She rolled her eyes.

"Then wear it for me. Privately. Going forward."

Something in Tsunade went briefly hazy at that smile.

It was an outrageous thing to say. She was also very pleased to hear it.

"Depends on your performance," she said, recovering.

"My performance will be excellent."

His hands moved higher.

Tsunade’s chest tightened, but she didn’t stop him. She lay back instead.

Natsuki swallowed and unfastened her jacket, and then the shirt beneath it, and found himself somewhat overwhelmed by the result.

He leaned down and gathered her up, and buried his head against her.

Tsunade made a muffled sound and pulled him in tighter without thinking about it.

Natsuki smiled, wish granted, and didn’t move.

Under the steadiness of him, Tsunade’s body gradually let go of its tension, and eventually she drifted off, worn out.

Natsuki exhaled.

He hadn’t surfaced once the entire time, and only now did he get a breath of air that wasn’t her.

He kissed her flushed cheek and gathered her against him.

With her warm and soft in his arms, he felt more at peace than he could remember being.