Tsunade's good mood had officially soured.

She was just about to cut her losses after an uncharacteristic winning streak—the first sign of troubles to come—when an all too familiar chakra signature made itself known behind her.

"Hime," Jiraiya said as he settled into the barstool beside hers, smiling wanly down at her. "It's been a while."

She sighed, downing her sake in a single gulp before slamming the cup down on the bar. "Go away, Jiraiya."

On her other side, Shizune watched their interaction nervously and Tsunade passed her a sign to be ready to run. Her apprentice nodded slightly, her grip on TonTon tightening enough to make the pig squeal in protest.

"Hime," her old teammate's voice was uncharacteristically serious, the jovial veneer he usually wore around her nowhere to be found. "I need your help."

She turned to look at him, face already twisted in a scowl, but he wasn't looking at her. No, he was looking over his shoulder at the entrance to the bar where three genin aged children stood looking back at him. Kushina's child was exchanging furious whispers with an— the —Uchiha brat, both boys shining beacons of how her desertion had hurt her Village. The girl with them was conspicuously shorter than them, with pale, freckled skin and curly brown hair that just reached her collarbone. She was dressed in a high collared shirt that was too similar to the Uchiha's jumpsuit for comfort. As if sensing Tsunade's gaze on her, she met it head on, the flat black of her pupilless eyes made all the more unsettling by the bright red of her bottom lashline. She hadn't seen markings like that since—.

"What's with the brats," her voice sounded just as strangled as she felt. "The old man sic another team on you?"

Jiraiya sighed. "Hime, sensei is dead. Orochimaru killed him."

The hubbub of the bar faded into silence as she took in that information. How was that possible? Sensei was one of the most powerful shinobi in history. Even if Orochimaru was his favorite, the idea of her teammate hurting him was so bizarre she couldn't even fathom it. Surely he wouldn't go easy on his old student with his life on the line? The thought that the man who'd told her so many stories of her uncle Tobirama was dead and gone, one more tie to her family severed, filled her with enough pain to cut through the drunken haze she'd purposely put herself in.

"So, what? Don't tell me the old fogies want me to take his place."

Of course, they did. Jiraiya wouldn't have come in person, otherwise. As much as it hurt to admit, he only ever sought her out when he needed something. She'd made it too difficult to be worth a casual visit.

"Yes, but that's not all," her old friend's aged face was dour as he gestured at the children. "Chibi-chan, come here."

The girl child answered him, leaving her teammates bickering at the door to stand between the Sannin on their barstools. Jiraiya reached out and placed a hand on her head, ruffling her curls with a grimace.

"This is Hanako Hatake, Kakashi's brat." Um, what? "She was one of Orochimaru's targets during his little invasion and ended up hurt. Go on, chibi. Show her."

Those fathomless black eyes darted between the two elder shinobi before a henge proofed out of existence, revealing a perfectly identical child—.

Oh.

The poor brat had lost an arm—a traditionally crippling injury for a ninja—missing everything below the perfectly clean cut just past her elbow.

"I don't suppose you have the arm?"

"I do, actually." Oh, good. The idea of it sitting in a lab somewhere was not a nice one. "But it probably won't do much good."

Tsunade worked a brow at him, sneering at his assumption. "And what makes you think that? This is obviously a recent injury, if you're asking for help. I hope you're not insinuating I've lost my touch."

"It's because of the seal." The girl's voice was quiet in a way that demanded attention, low pitched and stern. Light glinted off of pointed Hatake teeth—how long had it been since she'd seen those? "I tried to avoid it by cutting it off, but I wasn't fast enough, so—."

Tsunade held up a hand, reevaluating her opinion of the child in front of her. "You cut off the arm?"

The kid sighed. "He bit my wrist. In order to avoid becoming a horcrux, I cut off my arm. The Cursed Seal still took, though." As she said this, she unwrapped the layer of bandages covering the stump of her left arm. There was no fresh blood—thank the Gods—and Tsunade could tell that it was healing nicely. Well, as nicely as an amputation could. The remnants of a fairly large tattoo were also revealed, the three tomoe of Orochimaru's seal almost blending in with the design.

"It's smaller than his other ones," Jiraiya said as Tsunade took the kid's arm in her hands, twisting it to get a better grasp of her situation. "Anko's is at least three times the size of this one, so you probably did something right, chibi. It's a shame it wasn't completely effective."

Indeed. Based on what little she'd been told, Tsunade guessed that this little girl had somehow managed to cut off her own arm before Orochimaru's chakra could take proper root in her system. Her old comrade tended to prefer the neck as a point of entry, but, barring that, he would always go for a tenketsu. There were two in the wrist, and with Hanako's slender build it wouldn't be hard to hit both of them at once with those grotesque fangs of his. The only way Tsunade could see it happening was if the kid had cut off her arm while Orochimaru was still injecting chakra, but that...

That took a lot of gumption. More than most shinobi Tsunade's age had. This fragile little girl didn't look like much, but Tsunade of all people knew how deceiving appearances could be.

"Well, chibi," she began, adopting Jiraiya's nickname for herself. "Do you feel any different?"

The kid nodded, sighing more heavily than a child her age had a right to. "I've noticed greater difficulty in regulating my emotions, especially anger. I can normally keep my frustrations to myself, but I've been voicing them a lot lately. Even when speaking with my superiors, I've been uncharacteristically short."

Jiraiya grumbled something under his breath and Tsunade got the feeling that this was probably the good child. A glance at the boys—trying and failing to sneak closer to their conversation—confirmed her theory.

"That's all? You haven't noticed any fluctuations in your chakra control or reserves? No changes in your cycle?"

The kid looked bemused at Jiraiya's sudden interest in his sake cup, clearly uncomfortable with the shift in conversation. "I haven't begun my cycle, yet, Tsunade-hime, and everything else is normal."

What?

"How old are you, chibi?"

"I will be twelve come the winter solstice, Tsunade-hime."

Too old. Especially for a kunoichi.

"Is Hatake your only clan? That's highly irregular, I hope you know."

The kid blanched, suddenly looking very small as she looked up at Jiraiya for guidance.

The white haired Senju sighed again. "That's another reason we came to find you, Hime, and classified information, besides. We'll need to go somewhere more private if you want to have this conversation."

How strange.

And annoying. The more time she spent with Jiraiya, the easier it would be for him to sink his manipulative hooks into her. Anyone else would have a hard time seeing his game, but Tsunade wasn't as young as she pretended to be. Their conversation had gone from 'sensei's dead' to 'my student's tragic backstory requires Privacy™', the transitions so smooth and natural it almost looked like her idea.

Hmph, he was lucky she wasn't a heartless monster, or she'd have tossed him and his cute little student out onto the road.

"Fine," she spat, making doubly sure to portray her anger with the situation. "Gather your brats and follow me."

Shizune, who'd been standing by, ready to run, paid the bartender and scrambled to keep up with Tsunade as she stormed from the building and out into the fading light of day. The boys fell over each other to avoid her, Kushina's son voicing his loud disapproval only to be scolded by Jiraiya. The Uchiha glared at her over a mask that was too much like Kakashi's to be based on anything else, the heat in that gaze bringing back memories of long dead friends before he was distracted by the girl linking her arm with his.

Oh~. Uchiha always were popular, weren't they? More so than the Senju, anyway.

Tsunade lead the way to the inn, ignoring Jiraiya's flirtations with the staff as she let the whole gang into the suite she and Shizune had shared for the past week.

"Well," she said, sitting on the couch with a huff and crossed arms. "Let's hear this 'classified information', then."

Five pairs of eyes turned to Jiraiya, the blue ones scrunching in confusion.

"Eh? Are we telling more secrets, Pervy Sage? I thought we ready did that!"

Jiraiya ran a large hand down his face, a lifetime's worth of exasperation written across it as Tsunade laughed, not even bothering to hide her amusement. The laughter brought tears to her eyes and she made a big show of wiping them away, taking even greater joy from the scowl on Jiraiya's face.

"That suits you so well, Pervy Sage. Ha! I love it!"

The blond brat preened under her approval, blushing in a way that brought up painful memories of his mother. Ah, her poor little cousin. Such a bright light, snuffed out too soon, just like so many others.

They hadn't come to reminiscence, though.

"This time, they're my secrets," the chibi was saying, straight dark brows furrowed in an angry scowl. "And I'd rather nobody knew them, at all."

"Chibi-chan," Jiraiya's tone was stern but gentle. "You can take the boys somewhere else, if you'd rather they don't know, but Tsunade-hime has a right to. Besides, this is my secret, too."

Tsunade's gaze narrowed on the tall man standing in her room, searching his face for some hint about what he might say. It couldn't be...

The girl scoffed, trying to cross her arms and failing. "And let you say whatever you want? I don't think so."

Smart girl.

Jiraiya pulled a gourd from his belt and took a long drink, his expression sour. "Tsunade-hime, I'd like to formally introduce my grandchild, Hanako Hatake."

The end table disintegrated under her fist, the force of her blow sending ominous cracks through the wooden floor. She sprang to her feet, grabbing hold of Jiraiya's red haori with both hands and dragging his face down to her level.

"What the hell have I told you about wrapping it before you tap it, you idiot? A grandkid? You mean there's a whole ass child wandering around out there? When the fuck were you gonna tell me, huh?"

Jiraiya took hold of her shoulders, expression placating as he explained. "Hime, please, you don't understand! I didn't even know about this until last week, honest!"

She released him, taking perverse joy in the way he stumbled back as she turned to look at the girl more closely.

She was short for her age and slender, skin pale and freckled rather than the healthy tans most of her clan once sported. Her brown hair was a shade commonly found among Senju, although the curls were not, and, while many of them had dark eyes, none had eyes quite so unsettlingly black. The red markings under her eyes made sense, now, though. It was always a toss up whether or not a Senju would have them, with even siblings being divided by their appearance. Her uncle Tobirama had hypothesized that it might have something to do with chakra use and development before puberty, but there were too few of them left to really test that. While she was glad she'd escaped the permanent marks, a part of her was always privately jealous that Jiraiya, a boy from a branch family, had got them instead of her, the heiress. Seeing them on someone else's face, a child's face, erased all of that. She would never have children, had made that choice, and had accepted that Jiraiya wouldn't either, accepted the death of her clan. Now though...

She reached out and took Hanako's face in her hands, poring over every detail and burning them into her mind. If her hands shook, the girl didn't mention it and Tsunade was grateful. Tentatively, she reached out with her chakra, letting her lightning brush up against—! Water. Of course, it was water. Tears came unbidden to her eyes and she ruffled the child's hair both to show her affection and to distract those too observant eyes.

"Hatake, huh? There are even less of them than there are Senju. I guess we won't be adding you to our registry, will we, chibi-chan?"

The relief that crossed Hanako's face was kick in the gut.

"Woah, Hana-chan, Pervy Sage's your grandpa? That sucks!"

"Hn."

Ah, the Uchiha grunt. The memories she had of that.

"Actually," Jiraiya said over the children's chatter. "Hanako isn't a Hatake, at all."

The girl in question hissed, baring her teeth at her grandfather as if daring him to continue. There was a light in those eyes, burning from within in a way that roiled Tsunade's stomach.

Orochimaru, then.

"Explain," Tsunade demanded, clinging desperately to the chance that another name might be added to her clan registry.

Jiraiya's expression turned sad then and he spread his hands in a 'what can you do' manner. "I'm sorry, Hime, but that information is for the Hokage's ears, only. Sensei signed off on it, himself."

Rage boiled over within Tsunade, the Slug Princess recognizing the corner her kinsman had backed her into. He knew all her weaknesses, all her innermost desires, and he'd used them to string her along just far enough that she would walk the rest of the way on her own. The bastard!

"Get out!"

"Now, Hime—!" He narrowly dodged the potted plant she hurled at his head.

"Out! I can't stand the sight of you!"

He fled.

Left behind, the three genin looked up at her, their expressions ranging from seething anger—Hanako—to fearful awe—Kushina's son—to a rapidly crumbling mask of nonchalance—the Uchiha. With a sigh she threw herself back onto the couch, holding her hand out to Shizune for a cup of sake.

"So, brats," she drawled after throwing back a shot. "Enlighten me; why the hell should I be Hokage?"