Chapter 215: Submission
The Hokage Office felt unnaturally still after Tsunade's furious outburst. Kurenai stood awkwardly to the side, her face flushed, while Akira remained seated, infuriatingly calm.
Tsunade, still breathing heavily, glared at him, her chest tight with a confusing storm of emotions – anger, humiliation, and something else she refused to name.
Akira finally broke the silence, his voice quiet but cutting.
"Tsunade."
He didn't look away. His Rinnegan eyes, cool and analytical, stared directly into hers.
"Do you… do you like me?"
Boom!
The question, asked so simply, so directly, detonated in Tsunade's mind.
Her thoughts instantly went blank. A roaring static filled her ears.
[She… what did she just hear?]
[Like him? Like him?!]
[What kind of joke is this?! After he humiliated me? After he treats me like... like property?!]
"Who… who likes you?!" The denial burst out automatically, defensively. "Don't be so self-centered here! You narcissistic bastard!"
Tsunade bristled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, her voice sharp and high-pitched.
But even as she denied it, Tsunade's flustered, dodging gaze, and the uncontrollable, fiery blush spreading rapidly across her cheeks, completely betrayed her true feelings.
"Is that so?"
Uchiha Akira looked at Tsunade's stubborn, defensive expression and chuckled softly. It was a low, knowing sound that grated on her nerves.
"If you don't like me," he continued, his voice dropping slightly, becoming more intimate, "then why are you jealous?"
"I… I'm NOT jealous!"
Tsunade immediately retorted, her voice even louder, almost a shout.
"I just… I just can't stand you messing around! In the Hokage Office! It's unprofessional!"
"Oh? Is that all?"
Uchiha Akira's face slowly moved closer to Tsunade's. He leaned forward over the desk, invading her personal space.
Their noses were almost touching.
Tsunade could clearly feel Akira's warm breath on her face, sending an involuntary shiver down her spine. She could see the intricate, swirling pattern of his Rinnegan up close. It was mesmerizing... terrifying.
Tsunade's heartbeat, which had already been elevated from anger, went completely out of control. It pounded against her ribs like a war drum.
"You… what do you want to do?"
Tsunade's voice trembled slightly, losing its earlier force.
"I warn you, don't mess around… Mmph!"
The rest of her flustered words, her threats, her denials, were completely swallowed by a domineering and forceful kiss.
Tsunade's hazel eyes instantly widened to their absolute limit.
Her mind buzzed, then simply... crashed. Blue screen of death.
[He... he actually... kissed her?]
[Right here? Now?]
[This scoundrel!]
[This lawless, arrogant, infuriating guy!]
Tsunade felt her worldview, her carefully constructed defenses, crumbling inch by painful inch.
Her first instinct, buried under layers of shock, was fury.
Tsunade wanted to push Uchiha Akira away.
She wanted to activate her Chakra-Enhanced Strength and punch his damned handsome head clean off his shoulders!
But the strength in her body seemed to be instantly, inexplicably drained. Her limbs felt heavy, like lead. Her knees went weak.
She felt soft and utterly powerless, caught in the undertow of his sudden, overwhelming action.
Uchiha Akira didn't give Tsunade any time to think, any time to gather her scattered wits or strength.
One hand cupped the back of her head, fingers tangling in her blonde hair, holding her firmly in place.
His other arm wrapped tightly around Tsunade's slender waist, pulling her flush against the desk, giving her absolutely no chance to escape, pressing her firmly against his chest.
The kiss deepened, demanding a response she didn't know how to give.
Tsunade went from initial, paralyzed shock... to a subconscious, weak struggle... and finally, overwhelmed and confused, to simply giving up resistance. Her hands, which had weakly pushed against his chest, fell limp.
After a long, long while.
It wasn't until Tsunade felt she was genuinely about to suffocate, her lungs burning, that Uchiha Akira slowly, reluctantly, released her lips.
He didn't pull away completely.
Their foreheads touched. Their breaths intertwined, hot and ragged.
Tsunade gasped for air, her chest heaving violently. Her beautiful face was already flushed with a captivating, deep blush, spreading down her neck.
Her eyes were hazy, unfocused, having lost their usual sharpness and assertive fire.
"Bastard…"
The word was a breathless whisper, lacking any real heat.
A sliver of Tsunade's rationality finally returned, cutting through the haze of shock and unexpected sensation.
She suddenly reached out, planting her hands on his chest, and pushed Uchiha Akira away with all her remaining strength.
"You… you shameless guy!"
She stumbled back two steps, breathing heavily. She fiercely wiped her lips with the back of her hand, as if trying to erase the feeling, the memory, of the kiss.
"I really… I really misjudged you before!"
Tsunade looked up, glaring at Uchiha Akira, her beautiful eyes now burning with a renewed fire – shame and anger warring within them.
"You already have Yūhi! You have Kurenai!"
"And now you're coming to provoke me?! To kiss me?!"
"What do you take me for?! Some... some conquest?! Another notch on your belt?!"
Tsunade almost screamed the words, her voice cracking, full of a raw, unexpected grievance.
"Do you really want to have both?!"
The question hung in the air, heavy with accusation and a pain she didn't fully understand.
"What if I said yes?"
Uchiha Akira's answer was simple, direct, and utterly unapologetic.
"What?" Tsunade was stunned into silence again.
Uchiha Akira took a step forward, closing the distance between them once more. He didn't touch her, but his presence was overwhelming.
"Tsunade," his voice was softer now, almost gentle, but his eyes were deadly serious. "Dare you put your hand on your heart and say you have no feelings for me at all?"
"I don't!" Tsunade retorted instantly, reflexively.
"I just… I just can't stand your actions! Your arrogance!"
"Is that so?" Akira took another deliberate step closer.
Tsunade instinctively retreated again, bumping into the edge of a bookshelf. Trapped.
"Then why," Akira asked, his voice barely a whisper, "are you trembling?"
She... she was actually trembling?
Her hands were shaking slightly. Her knees felt weak.
Was it out of anger? Or… fear?
No, neither.
It was because of a guilty conscience! Because his question, his simple, direct question, had struck a nerve she didn't even know was exposed.
Tsunade herself couldn't explain it. This infuriating man, he tied her emotions into knots.
"I…"
Uchiha Akira looked at her flustered, embarrassed, angry, and utterly confused appearance. He sighed softly in his heart.
[To deal with this kind of prickly, proud, emotionally-scarred, tsundere woman... you can't give her any chance to breathe or think.]
[You must strike while the iron is hot. Completely break through her psychological defenses before she can rebuild them.]
"Tsunade," he said, his voice gentle but firm, cutting through her internal chaos. "Stop deceiving yourself."
"You know best how you truly feel about me."
He reached out, slowly, giving her time to pull away. She didn't. He gently tucked a stray strand of blonde hair behind her ear.
"You're jealous of Kurenai. Not because I favor her, but because she can openly be by my side, and you feel you can't."
"You're angry with me," he continued, his gaze unwavering, "not because of some ridiculous Medical Department budget, but simply because the woman you saw in my arms... wasn't you!"
Tsunade's breath hitched. Her eyes widened, then quickly filled with moisture.
Her voice was already tinged with a sob she couldn't quite suppress. "You're… you're talking nonsense!"
"I'm not! I'm not that kind of woman! I don't... I don't want..."
"I know exactly what kind of woman you are."
Uchiha Akira reached out again and gently took Tsunade's trembling wrist.
This time, Tsunade didn't struggle. She didn't pull away.
"You are strong. Incredibly strong. And you are kind, even if you hide it."
His thumb brushed softly against her pulse point.
"But at the same time," his voice dropped lower, filled with an understanding that stunned her, "you are also fragile. Sensitive. And terrified of being hurt again."
"You use gambling and alcohol to numb yourself. You use assertiveness and irritability to disguise yourself, to push people away..."
He looked deep into her eyes. "...Simply because you're afraid of losing again. Just like you lost Dan. Just like you lost Nawaki back then."
The names, spoken so softly, hit her like physical blows.
Over the long, lonely years, Tsunade had carried too much pain, too many memories, entirely alone.
She had fled Konoha, using a dissolute, reckless life to try and cover up the gaping wound in her heart.
No one... no one had ever truly seen through the scarred, broken heart beneath Tsunade's tough, legendary exterior.
Until now.
"Tsunade," Akira murmured, his voice incredibly gentle now. "Let the past be the past."
His other hand came up, gently caressing her cheek, his thumb carefully wiping away the single tear that had seeped from the corner of her eye at some point.
"Nawaki wouldn't want to see you like this. Dan wouldn't either."
"Your life shouldn't be just memories and pain."
"You…" Tsunade's voice choked. "How... how can you say that? So easily?"
"Because," Uchiha Akira's gaze was incredibly serious, holding hers captive. "I can give you a different future."
"A future where you no longer have to bear everything alone."
Tsunade's heart was completely in disarray. His words, his touch, his understanding... they shattered her remaining defenses.
"Didn't you ask me," Akira continued, his voice regaining a hint of its usual confidence, "if I wanted to have both?"
Tsunade was startled, pulled back from the brink of tears by his sudden shift in tone.
A mischievous, almost predatory, smile appeared on Uchiha Akira's face.
"Then you'll just have to get used to it."
"Because I, this scoundrel," he admitted freely, "am sticking with you from today on. Whether you like it or not."
These utterly shameless, arrogant words... they made Tsunade both incredibly angry and, impossibly, amused. A choked, watery laugh escaped her.
She raised her fist and weakly pounded Uchiha Akira's chest.
"Bastard… you absolute bastard…"
The blows had no force behind them. They were just a release.
Uchiha Akira didn't dodge. He just stood there, quietly letting Tsunade vent her confusion, her anger, her years of pent-up pain.
After a long while, Tsunade's movements gradually stopped.
She didn't pull away. She simply rested her forehead against his chest, her shoulders shaking slightly. She lay in Uchiha Akira's arms, like a child who had suffered great grievances and finally found a safe harbor.
"Does your hand still hurt?"
Akira gently held her fist, the one she'd been hitting him with, noticing her knuckles were slightly red and swollen. He asked softly.
Tsunade shook her head against his chest, not speaking, just burying her face deeper, hiding.
"Then," Akira murmured, "let's go back."
He extended his other hand, palm up, an offering.
Tsunade looked at the broad, strong palm. She hesitated for only a moment.
Finally, slowly, tentatively, she placed her hand into his.
Akira's fingers instantly tightened, enveloping her hand tightly, securely, in his palm. A connection forged.
Then, Uchiha Akira activated his Mangekyō Sharingan. Space warped around them.
"Amenominaka."
[Inorin's Note: Amenominaka (天之御中, Heavenly Governing Inside) is a space-time ninjutsu usable by those who possess Kaguya Ōtsutsuki's Rinne Sharingan (like Akira likely does in this fic). It allows the user to instantly teleport themselves and others to different dimensions or locations.]
Their figures vanished from the Hokage Office, returning to the now-quiet Uchiha residence in Konoha.
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