Chapter 239: A Chance Encounter with Tsunade
A few streets in, Ryū realised he didn't recognise a single one of the out-of-village shinobi he'd passed. No familiar faces anywhere — every one of them was an unnamed background character, the kind who never got so much as a line in the original story.
Actually, calling them background characters was probably generous. Background characters at least got a name-drop and a moment of screen time. These were the unnamed extras — and some of them, statistically, were probably the ones who died off-page before the canon timeline even properly started.
A street full of completely unrecognisable nobodies. Though, fair enough — the original story only ever gave memorable faces to maybe fifty people total. Statistically this checks out.
He stopped at a street stall he'd never visited before — busier and livelier than the streets near his own house. He pointed at a small trinket on the display rack.
"How much for this?"
No harm spending a little, given he wasn't short on funds these days. A small decoration for his desk wouldn't hurt. Or maybe he'd ask Umaru to send him some figures sometime — her world had Sword Art Online, One Piece, all the franchises he already knew well.
He paid, pocketed the trinket, and was about to move on when a familiar face caught his attention. Not a visiting shinobi — a Konoha native.
He studied her for a moment, murmuring to himself. That woman's still in the village? Last I saw her was about a week ago. I assumed she'd come back because of the Orochimaru business and would leave again once things settled.
The woman was unmistakably Tsunade — one of the Three Sannin.
She looked, unusually, deflated. Like something had gone badly and she hadn't fully recovered from it. Not a common look for her, by reputation, though Ryū had no particular curiosity about the cause. They'd never spoken. Walking up uninvited to ask would read as either pursuit or harassment, and Tsunade's proportions being what they were didn't change Ryū's level of interest in finding out the hard way.
He didn't approach.
She approached him.
Her eyes brightened slightly when she spotted him — recognition, clearly, though they'd never exchanged a word.
Right. Three Sannin. Of course she'd know who I am. His position in Konoha was distinctive enough that anyone spending even a few days around the village's senior leadership would have picked up his name by osmosis. Jiraiya's first encounter had gone exactly that way — neither of them had met before, and he'd still walked straight into trouble and ended up in a bin.
Tsunade stopped about three metres away. Her eyes moved over him with open curiosity, a faint flush on her cheeks suggesting recent light drinking.
Even approaching forty, she carried herself like someone in her twenties — the proportions, considerably more pronounced than even Yukari's, defied easy explanation. Though, on reflection, Yukari was several thousand years old and looked seventeen by her own insistent claim, and Tohru the dragon was tens of thousands of years old and looked similarly young. By comparison, a woman in her late thirties looking twenty wasn't even unusual within his current frame of reference.
After a few seconds of mutual assessment, Tsunade spoke first — her voice carrying a clear, almost musical quality with an undertone of weariness.
"You're the one Sarutobi-sensei mentioned. Ryū. Seeing it in person makes more sense of it — your presence really is different from everyone else's."
"Should I be flattered that Princess Tsunade has noticed me? Or should I be flattered?"
She'd opened politely enough; he had no reason to be anything but easy about it. Not really his style to be cold to people regardless.
Tsunade shook her head with a tired half-smile. "Don't joke, Ryū-dono. Your strength is above mine. My compliments mean nothing to someone at your level."
He shrugged, neither confirming nor disputing it. The truth was, the compliment genuinely produced no internal reaction at all. There was a time, before the Chat Group, when praise like that from someone of Tsunade's reputation would have been something to coast on for years. Now it simply registered and passed through.
"I heard you're participating in the Chūnin Exams."
He nodded. "Minato asked me to be one of the judges. Don't know much about shinobi exams, honestly, but free food's free food, so why not. Speaking of which — you're one of Konoha's top fighters. You didn't walk all the way over here just to exchange pleasantries with me, did you?"
Tsunade blinked, something curious crossing her flushed face.
"I'm curious," she said. "Are you genuinely uninterested in power?"
He shook his head. "If you're asking whether I have any designs on Konoha's leadership — I'll be straightforward. The Hokage title doesn't interest me. I have no intention of pretending otherwise."
He'd already known where the question was heading the moment she'd asked it — his Observation Haki ran constantly, and at his current level the shallow-telepathy branch picked up surface thoughts without much effort. Tsunade's intent had been written close enough to the surface that he hadn't needed to dig.
She nodded slowly at his answer, then smiled, something lighter entering her expression. "I see. By the way — I'm also one of the judges for this Exam. We'll likely cross paths again tomorrow. Looking forward to working with you."
She's a judge too? He recalled — wasn't Tsunade hemophobic around this period in the timeline? Chūnin Exams typically involved actual combat, and combat meant blood. Unless she was assigned to the written or theoretical portion specifically — which made sense, now that he thought about it. The village leadership would obviously know about her condition and route her away from anything bloody.
The logic behind her inclusion as a judge made sense too, the more he thought about it. The Exams weren't just talent scouting across villages — they were also Konoha's way of demonstrating, to every visiting delegation, that despite the recent war, the village remained the strongest among them.
After Tsunade left, Ryū noticed a fair number of eyes on him from nearby.
Reasonable enough. Everyone in Konoha knew Tsunade by sight — practically a living legend, recognised even outside the village. And he'd just spent several minutes in what looked like a familiar, easy conversation with her.
He let it go. People could look if they wanted; it cost him nothing, and he wasn't the type to take offence at being looked at.
"Konoha wants to flex," he murmured to himself, turning toward home. "Sounds like the Exams are going to be eventful."
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