"Old man, have you gone senile?"
"With my condition, even treatment in the Medical Department won't work."
"And you still want me on the front lines?"
"Are you afraid we'll win the war?"
The Third didn't get angry. He simply continued in a calm voice,
"I know about your illness, of course."
"I'll arrange for Nara Dan to serve as deputy commander."
"You can leave everything to him."
"You won't have to go to the front lines yourself."
"Smack!"
Tsunade slammed her liquor gourd down on the desk.
"I wondered why you were talking in circles."
"So you're trying to get me to go and keep someone else in check."
Tsunade let out a cold, mocking laugh, making no secret of her contempt for the Third's political maneuvering.
Tsunade couldn't go to the front lines, but no medical ninja could match her prestige.
Even if she only handled medical care and logistics, once the war was won, a little maneuvering would let her claim the title of chief commander.
Transferring the credit that should have gone to Nara Dan over to Tsunade wouldn't be difficult.
But Tsunade also suffered from Hemophobia, a fatal weakness that made it impossible for her to threaten the Third's political interests.
And if the war were lost, Nara Dan would surely take the blame.
In short, the Third had set things up so he could win either way. He'd covered every angle.
But Tsunade wasn't exactly a pushover.
"Forget it!"
"I'm not doing anything that underhanded."
"Let me tell you something, old man."
"It hasn't even been that long since what happened to the White Fang!"
The Third wasn't offended. He simply smiled and tried to placate her.
"Of course, I'm asking for your opinion."
"As your elder, I would never force you to do anything."
Tsunade gave a cold laugh and said nothing more. She knew the old man hadn't told her everything.
Drinking didn't mean she was drunk. As the strongest medical ninja in the Ninja World, she could easily control whether she got drunk or not.
"Since you're unwilling to take charge as commander,"
"we'll still need you for logistics and medical care."
"Only you can cure Chiyo of the Sand Ninja's poison."
"If you take charge, you can greatly reduce our ninja casualties."
"And if Nara Dan is made commander, it'll be his first time on a large battlefield."
"Only someone experienced like you can guide him."
At this point, the Third finally laid his cards on the table and revealed his true aim.
He wanted Tsunade to handle logistics for the Land of Wind battlefield and help Nara Dan, who had no experience on the front lines.
If he'd made his request outright, Tsunade, already shrouded in the shadow of war, might have rejected him without hesitation.
But human nature meant that people lowered their boundaries.
When you made an impossible request and got rejected, then followed it with a reasonable one, the chances of the other person agreeing went way up.
Tsunade was clever enough to understand this. In fact, worn down in body and mind by the war, she didn't even want to take on a task like logistics.
But in the end, her feelings for Konoha outweighed her inner conflict.
No matter what, the ordinary people and ninja of Konoha were innocent.
After a moment of silence, Tsunade waved a hand wearily.
"Fine. I'll handle logistics."
"Until then, just don't come bothering me."
But the Third clearly wasn't ready to let her off that easily. He asked another question.
"Speaking of Nara Dan..."
"Tsunade, you know more about Taijutsu than I do."
"Just how far has he come?"
"Do you know?"
At the name Nara Dan, Tsunade's expression turned complicated. It wasn't just because Nara Dan shared a name with her deceased former lover.
She and Nara Dan had a history of their own.
It went something like this: back then, Nara Dan had ignored everyone's objections and devoted himself wholeheartedly to the path of Taijutsu.
Tsunade had somehow heard about it. Because of their coincidentally shared name, she'd taken an unusual interest in Nara Dan.
She later discovered that Nara Dan really did have something special: his talent for Taijutsu was astonishing.
So, out of a desire to nurture his talent and the complicated feelings she had for her lost love, Tsunade had even contacted the Nara Clan to ask if they'd let her take him as a student.
She'd even wanted to teach him Strength of a Hundred.
In Tsunade's eyes as a medical ninja, the human body had limits, and Taijutsu couldn't reach a higher level.
Someone like Nara Dan, training at such a high intensity, was simply squeezing the decent potential out of his body.
His strength would rise rapidly in the short term, but later he'd definitely suffer from a host of side effects.
That was why even Tsunade, with the constitution of the Senju Clan, needed Medical Ninjutsu and the Yin Seal to support herself.
What Tsunade hadn't expected was that Nara Dan had turned down the Sannin's offer to become his teacher without the slightest hesitation.
He hadn't given any specific reason. He'd only left her with one sentence:
"Lady Tsunade's path isn't right for me."
Naturally, this infuriated Tsunade. He'd made her lose face.
But she couldn't bring herself to go after a child, so she'd only threatened him in return.
She'd said that with the way Nara Dan trained, he'd run out of potential and suffer a host of ailments in two or three years at most, or four or five at the latest. When that happened, he'd better not come to her for treatment.
But in the years since, Nara Dan had shown no sign of running out of potential. He'd instead made incredible progress and earned the fearsome title of Black Demon.
His achievements had already rivaled hers.
For the past six months, Nara Dan really had been stuck at a bottleneck. Tsunade had thought he'd reached his limit and would start going downhill.
But in the past few days, Nara had made another breakthrough. Even she, with her expertise in Taijutsu and Medical Ninjutsu, could barely understand the progress he'd made.
Tsunade shook her head.
"I don't know what level he's reached."
"A few days ago, I saw him from a distance when I was drinking at a tavern."
"He no longer had that feeling of vitality bursting forth, as if he were burning through his potential."
"Instead, his presence had become restrained, and his vitality seemed to have bloomed anew."
"Even his exaggerated build had slimmed down."
Tsunade carefully recalled the impression she'd gotten from seeing Nara Dan at a distance.
He'd seemed as vast as the sky and as deep as the sea, his vitality surging like the rising sun.
His presence had been completely restrained. That fierce aura he used to give off at the slightest provocation was nowhere to be seen.
In its place was a gentle, springlike feeling that made people warm to him.
The Third was secretly astonished. He hadn't expected the reports to be true.
That someone could change so completely overnight, in both bearing and build.
Those things were rooted deep in a person's power system.
For example, Orochimaru's darkness, the Third Raikage's gruffness, and the Jinchuriki's savagery.
They weren't things you could simply disguise at will. A Transformation Technique might fool an ordinary person, but for experts like them,
the ability to sense someone's presence mattered more than anything.
"When it comes to the path of Taijutsu,"
"he's completely forged his own way."
"I really am no match for him."
Before you continue