It wasn't enough. Danzo hadn't just betrayed her—he'd nearly wiped Konoha off the face of the earth. The thought of it made Tsunade's blood boil. Fury, cold and sharp, clenched her fists until her knuckles whitened.
"The Second Hokage must be blind to take someone like Danzo as a student. If he saw what that bastard had done, he'd turn over in his grave."
Konoha had suffered horrific losses, but even that couldn't make her return. First, her hemophobia—a curse that rendered her, a great medic, useless on the battlefield. And second... there was Jiraiya. Orochimaru was a traitor, Sarutobi's teacher was dead, but her old teammate remained. With the village on the brink of destruction, who better than him to assume the title of Hokage?
He couldn't possibly be so weak as to need her help. As for Katsuyu's words about a "world-destroying catastrophe," Tsunade considered them a gross exaggeration. Uchiha Yue was just one person. How could he destroy the world? Absurd.
At that moment, there was a frantic pounding on the door.
"Lady Tsunade! This is a disaster!" Shizune's voice outside was hoarse with panic.
"Come in, Shizune. What else?"
Shizune almost stumbled into the room, pale and confused. Behind her, the figure of a shinobi in a Konoha uniform loomed.
"Lady Tsunade, this is terrible! The Third Hokage is dead, Konoha is almost destroyed!" she blurted out.
"I know," Tsunade sighed wearily, dismissing the news she already knew, and turning her gaze to the messenger. "Have you come to ask me to return?" Don't waste your time. Find Jiraiya. Let him become the Fifth. I'm no use anymore.
"Lady Tsunade, we... we can't!" The shinobi's voice trembled with despair. "We already found Lord Jiraiya, but he... he's crippled now. He himself ordered me to find you. Please, become Hokage! Konoha can't withstand any more shocks!"
"What?" Tsunade froze. "What cripple?" Jiraiya was perfectly fine.
For a moment, a sense of foreboding washed over her. Could he have encountered Uchiha Yue? No... that doesn't add up. A monster capable of single-handedly defeating all of Konoha, killing its teacher and that old schemer Danzo... you don't survive an encounter with him. You don't get away with being maimed—you die from it.
The ninja swallowed and quickly relayed the official, slightly embellished version of events: Jiraiya had fought bravely against Uchiha Yue and lost by only a small margin. The messenger omitted to mention that her comrade hadn't even seen the enemy's face and had miraculously survived in his terrifying "territory."
And then a thought dawned on Tsunade, deceptively coherent and logical.
Uchiha Yue's strength had been monstrously exaggerated.
Yes, he had killed many, but only because he had caught them all by surprise. And his teacher and Danzo... they had simply aged. Their former strength had faded. If Yue had been omnipotent, he would have razed Konoha to the ground. But he didn't. Which meant he wasn't confident of victory. And the cowardly shinobi simply fled at the sight of the first serious enemy. Had they all fought him together, this Yue might have been reduced to ashes.
The more she thought about it, the stronger her confidence grew.
"Let's go," Tsunade said decisively, rising. Konoha, her grandfather's legacy, needed her. And the fear of blood... in the face of such a threat, it seemed a minor obstacle.
Tsunade's return to Konoha was steeped in bitterness and heavy determination. But meeting Jiraiya turned everything into a disaster.
Jiraiya had been living in hell lately. Pain, despair, helplessness... A broken leg could be replaced with a prosthesis, but how could he compensate for the loss of... the main symbol of his masculinity? His "manhood" was destroyed. The doctors could only shrug their shoulders: their technology was powerless.
And in this despair, Jiraiya made a mistake. Upon seeing Tsunade, he, out of old habit, tried to hide his pain behind the mask of a reckless pervert. A bad joke, a dirty innuendo at the most inopportune moment...
Tsunade's reaction, her nerves stretched to breaking point, was instant and monstrous.
IMPACT!
CRUNCH!
— A-A-A-AH!
Jiraiya's figure, like a catapult cannonball, smashed through the wall of the Hokage's office and crashed into the latrine with a deafening crash.
"Quickly, get medics!"
"Lord Jiraiya!"
"Enemy attack!!!"
Chaos reigned in the temporary headquarters.
Inside the ruined latrine, amid the stench and rubble, lay Jiraiya. Both his arms were twisted unnaturally, his rib cage was crushed, and sharp rib fragments jutted out of his flesh, oozing blood. He coughed, spitting something vile, and stared blankly at the sky. Consciousness was fading. He imagined that on the other side of the Sanzu River, Master Sarutobi was already waving at him.
Death. He was dying. Tsunade's blow, delivered in blind rage, proved nearly fatal.
Shikaku Nara and the other shinobi, who had rushed toward the screams, froze in horror. Overcoming their nausea, they lifted the mangled body and carried it to the medical wing.
And in the office, amid a cloud of dust, Tsunade stood frozen. Her anger subsided, leaving behind an icy horror. She looked at her fist, stained red with blood—not someone else's, but his, Jiraiya's. Her legs buckled, and the fear she had suppressed for so long returned with renewed vigor. Hemophobia overwhelmed her.