Meanwhile, on the other side of the forest, Tsunade was moving at her limit.
The mark of her Yin Seal blazed across her forehead and upper body, her physique pushed by her peak chakra-enhanced speed.
Her eyes narrowed, and for the first time since she left the wounded hideout, a barely perceptible sigh of relief escaped her lips.
Through her senses, she felt it clearly; his pace had picked up again.
The small Katsuyu had seemingly reached him in time.
She eased her chakra flow, letting the Yin Seal markings fade for the moment.
She couldn't afford to leak too much power in a territory still under Kumo's control.
Her heartbeat steadied, but her thoughts didn't.
She remembered how earlier his speed had faltered, his chakra signature dipping in a way that made him look exhausted.
At first, she hadn't increased her speed, convinced it was still possible this was some elaborate ploy, and he wasn't from Konoha.
But then she had felt it, the sudden appearance of enemies she hadn't sensed until they were right behind him, their presence masked until the last second.
That was when she realized she had doubted him unfairly.
"This isn't a trick. He really was being hunted."
By the time she gave her full speed, the gap had already grown dangerous.
Even after he managed to lash out and create some distance, she felt the truth: he was tiring again, and this time there were no more tricks to pull.
He had purposefully stayed behind once, but not now. This time, he was collapsing for real.
She gritted her teeth. She knew she couldn't close the gap in time, not with her current pace, not even with the Yin Seal she now finally activated.
And the thought of letting him die, without answers, without seeing him with her own eyes, made her stomach twist.
She needed him alive.
That was when the idea came.
She summoned Katsuyu's smaller form with a single seal.
The pale slug emerged quietly, bowing its head.
She explained the situation in short, clipped words, her mind racing
Katsuyu replied in its soft tone that the smallest fragments of its body could move the fastest.
If she fed them chakra, they could reach him ahead of her and keep him alive until she arrived.
Without hesitation, Tsunade poured her own chakra into the summons, flooding them with her Yin Release chakra. "This would allow you to go even faster. Go carry this to him. Keep him standing."
The tiny slugs scattered, vanishing into the trees like water droplets sliding across glass.
And it worked.
She felt it almost immediately now, his chakra picking up, his pace surging again, like a flame being refueled.
Relief washed through her body, so strong it startled her.
She hadn't expected to feel this much weight lifted, hadn't expected to care so deeply.
A sliver of pride touched her expression. For once, she had chosen correctly, and she was proud of herself for it.
But the relief was short-lived.
As her senses over the group trailing him extended further, and she analyzed everything a bit more now, the details became undeniable.
The men pursuing him also weren't Kumo shinobi.
They were Konoha's as well.
She recognized the decent chakra threads instantly. Aburame, and others.
She immediately knew this wasn't a rogue cell or deserters. This was Root.
'Elites from the Root...'
Her stomach twisted tighter, a sick heaviness pressing into her chest.
She clenched her teeth, rage and sorrow boiling together.
She had never held much affection for Root.
Philosophically, they trampled everything her grandfather had built Konoha upon.
She had always known their methods were insidious, morally rotten.
But she had comforted herself with the thought that it was directed outward, toward enemy villages.
She never imagined they would turn inward, to slaughter their own talented children. And not just any child, a Senju.
Her lips pressed into a thin line, her fists curling until her knuckles turned white.
"He's one of us… and they're trying to erase him."
The thought echoed like poison in her mind.
Why? Why would they do this?
It wasn't enough to dismiss it as paranoia.
The sheer caliber of shinobi chasing him, and arrangements needed for that to be realized, proved it wasn't a mistake.
They wanted him dead for a reason.
Combining this with the previous deliberate suppression about him, she deducted, painted an even darker picture.
Her chest tightened as old whispers began to surface.
Faint memories she had pushed aside for years.
Voices of discontent from before and during the Second War, Senju clansmen who had refused to dissolve, who had openly opposed assimilation.
She had always thought of it as foolish talk, relics of a bygone age that had no place in the village anymore.
But then… they had gone silent.
Almost overnight, now that she forced herself to think about it again.
She had never questioned it back then.
She told herself it was natural for such "backward" and "non-progressive" ideas to simply die out.
And she had numbed herself in other ways, in drink, in dice, in the haze of grief and loss that had struck her in those same years.
"…But maybe it was too fast."
Now, with the truth running just ahead of her, those memories came tearing back, one after another, sharper than she ever remembered them.
Each one forced her to reevaluate everything she had accepted until now.
Her grief cracked.
Her coping, her indulgence, her depression, all of it splintered under the weight of a darker realization.
For the first time in years, her chest burned with raw emotion.
Her face twisted, ferocious, her eyes brimming with fury.
Her fists clenched so tight her nails cut into her palms.
"It better not be what I think it is."
But even as she said it, the hope that it wasn't was already slipping away.
***
Meanwhile, the five remaining pursuers were stunned.
They had been seconds from finally closing the gap, ready to drag their quarry down and make him suffer unspeakable torments before finishing him.
Yet his pace suddenly began to rise again, his chakra signature stabilizing and even strengthening. It was as if his body had found a second wind.
Tatsuma's eyes narrowed behind his glasses, his kikaichū buzzing angrily around him.
His swarm could still track, but without Yoji's Shōkaichū, the detail was blurred, clumsier. He snapped at the only remaining sensor among them. "Explain."
The man frowned, his own chakra still stretched wide. "I can't. It's like… something on his body is pouring chakra into him. Maybe a seal. But it isn't natural."
Tatsuma's jaw tightened, fury biting into his expression. Root shinobi were supposed to be emotionless, and yet hatred burned through him.
Nothing had gone smoothly since this mission began. Every step, every carefully placed trap, had slipped sideways. And this boy — this brat — refused to just collapse and die.
"Why don't you just crawl into the dirt and stay there…" he seethed inwardly, his chakra leaking darker with every step.
"Why must you keep struggling against the fate we laid out for you?"
He remembered Yoji's corpse collapsing into the mud, the swarm dispersing uselessly.
His cousin, lost right in front of him. Danzo would not forgive this failure.
Tatsuma could already feel the phantom sting of punishment across his skin.
And yet, all they could do now was keep running. Only by tearing the boy down might they soften the punishment waiting for them.
But even they were tiring now. Their bodies screamed, their breath shortened, and still he ran ahead, the distance between them refusing to close.
Then it hit them.
The kikaichū shivered. The remaining sensor froze. Their eyes all went wide at the same instant.
A presence. Immense. Heavy. A tide of chakra rushing across the battlefield with terrifying force.
Tatsuma staggered for a fraction of a second, disbelief flashing across his normally cold face. "What… what on earth is that?"
It was bearing straight down on the boy, closing fast.
For all his years in Root, all his missions soaked in blood and failure, Tatsuma had never felt so many unknowns stack against him in a single day.
Yoji was dead, the ninken slain, their sensory ability crippled, and now this new storm of chakra was crashing toward them.
Even with his hardened heart, he felt the edges of doubt.
"…What monster is coming for him now?"
***
Ryusei staggered forward, his only tether still the warmth from Katsuyu's chakra.
Just as his steps faltered, a new pressure smashed into his senses.
Vast, sharp, alive - Senju chakra.
He lifted his head.
Tsunade descended from the trees like a hammer, landing in front of him with enough force to crater the ground, in her typical fashion.
Dust billowed around her.
Her eyes locked onto him instantly, scanning his face, his chakra, the way the slugs clung to him.
For a second, her heart froze, and then ached.
The spiritual resemblance to her clan's aura... and even physical resemblance to someone else... was undeniable.
That appearance was what made her heart turn from guilt into pure pain for some reason.
Her voice cut sharply, as if to hide the inner tremor. "Who are you?"
Ryusei blinked, lips twitching into a bitter smirk.
"What does it look like? Someone you don't want dying here."
She stared at him once more, her expression twisting.
"You… you're Senju. Why didn't I know about you?"
Ryusei laughed dryly. "Maybe you weren't supposed to."
"Took you long enough to notice. Guess hiding me worked better than I thought."
That answer dug into her like a knife.
She clenched her fists, not at his slight disrespect, but the truth and hidden bitterness in those words.
"You pushed yourself past the edge, so far..." she said evenly, though her voice carried a slight rasp. "Why?"
He laughed faintly, as if to himself, despite his exhaustion.
"Because no one else will keep me alive. I had to make sure I reached you. Then at least I would have a chance."
She inhaled abruptly through her mouth a bit, and then her lips pressed together as if in slight discomfort or self-blame, but then her eyes softened despite the storm inside her.
For the first time in years, she also felt slight pride stir in her chest, mixed with sorrow.
She stepped closer. "You made it. That's enough for now. I won't let your effort down."
Her chest heaved once, her voice thick but firm.
"Idiot boy… pushing yourself to death just to crawl to me. Don't worry, I'm not like that."
At the same time, it was as if all the turmoil from this conversation, inside Tsunade, suddenly burst outward, after tearing away the fog that had smothered her for years ever since then.
Her spiritual force, long dulled by grief and self-indulgence, recovered fully to her peak state and roared back to life in a single surge.
A wave of killing intent erupted from her, crashing straight toward the five Root operatives who had just emerged into distant view, behind some trees, frozen now as if pinned beneath a mountain.
Even Ryusei, standing right beside her, felt the pressure claw at his chest then.
It was the first time he had ever seen a shinobi of this caliber let their 'killing intent' spill out unrestrained, and even though it wasn't directed at him, just standing near it rattled him.
Yet beneath the shock, he felt a warmth inside, from the certainty settling into his bones.
'Yeah… I'm really saved this time. She won't let me die here.'
But then, he noticed her.
The way her eyes still flicked over him more than once, scanning his appearance with something sharper than casual observation.
Her gaze lingered, almost measuring, as if secretly searching for pieces of someone she once knew.
Ryusei's lips twitched secretly. 'That makes it easier. If she's already seeing it without me saying a word…'
'After all, I really did get this handsome face from him…'
And now, between that unspoken history and the simple fact that he was the last true Senju standing here, Ryusei took it as given: she would not let him fall now on her watch directly.
Unlike Hiruzen, whose 'morals' were quite questionable and fake, Tsunade was different.
She wasn't flawless, but her compass had never been rotten, as his own was, for example.
Despite her tough exterior, she was one of the 'purest' characters, really, in his opinion.
She had just been broken, confused, shackled by grief during the last few years, while also misled by those around her, like Hiruzen, since childhood, her entire life. But she wasn't cruel.
No long explanation was also necessary at this point; Ryusei understood, those words were enough. His existence alone was the best 'proof', and the fact that Konoha's Root was hunting him down was enough to light the fire in her even further. He liked it this way.
Everyone trusted their own judgment more than someone else's logical words, and letting her come to those conclusions herself was worth more than if he had tried to guide her with persuasion. Now the only thing left was to let her storm break loose slowly in the future.