Tsunade stood up and grabbed Sasuke by the collar.
"You. Come outside with me."
Shizune sprang up from her chair with Tonton in her arms. "Lady Tsunade?!"
"Take a break, Shizune. I'm going to ask him a few more questions." Without looking back, Tsunade dragged Sasuke toward the door.
With Tsunade tugging him by the back of his collar, Sasuke's toes dragged across the wooden floor, leaving two short scuff marks.
Jiraiya sat cross-legged by the low table, a cup of sake in hand. He watched Tsunade drag Sasuke out, the corners of his mouth curling upward.
"Well, Tsunade, are you kidnapping a kid?"
"Shut up, Jiraiya. Keep yapping, and I'll use that lousy novel of yours for kindling." Tsunade kicked the door open and hauled Sasuke outside.
The door slammed shut behind them.
There was a small clearing in the inn's back courtyard, covered with gravel. A few empty sake jars were piled in one corner, and several white bedsheets hung overhead, swaying lazily in the night breeze.
Tsunade let go of Sasuke's collar, put her hands on her hips, and bent down until her face was right in front of his.
"Tell me. What exactly is that energy you and your deer use? I'm very interested in it."
Sasuke straightened his collar.
He would have to explain Cursed Energy sooner or later. He just didn't need to reveal everything. Besides, he had a few experiments he wanted to try.
Tsunade was one of the best medical ninjas in the Shinobi World. If she was willing to help him study it, they'd make far more progress than he could on his own.
"Cursed Energy," Sasuke said. "That's what I call it."
Tsunade's brows knitted together. She had never heard the term before.
"What is Cursed Energy? Where does it come from?"
"Negative emotions," Sasuke said. "It's energy drawn from things like anger, hatred, fear, and despair."
"Chakra is a mixture of physical and mental energy. Cursed Energy, on the other hand, is pure mental energy."
Tsunade's frown deepened.
"Negative emotions, mental energy, drawing it out..." Tsunade moved her lips as if she were chewing over the words. Then her expression suddenly relaxed.
She thought of the Uchiha Clan's Sharingan.
The Sharingan was awakened by negative emotions. The clan members could only unlock it after enduring extreme pain and emotional trauma.
Had this kid Sasuke awakened some new ability after his clan was wiped out?
Wasn't he studying Cursed Energy because he had seen something even more fundamental behind the Sharingan?
Tsunade rubbed her chin, complex emotions flickering in her eyes.
She gave a soft snort through her nose. It was hard to tell whether she was impressed or sympathetic.
"You little brat." Tsunade's voice suddenly lost some of its bluster. She placed a hand on Sasuke's head and ruffled his hair vigorously.
"Digging into what lies behind the Sharingan and studying it? You've got some talent."
Sasuke's head dipped forward under her hand.
He slapped her hand away and turned to look at her.
Tsunade seemed to have misunderstood something, which was exactly what he wanted. He couldn't reveal everything all at once.
"More or less."
Sasuke brushed his tousled hair back and looked up at her.
"Since you've already felt some of my Cursed Energy, you should be able to condense some yourself. Give it a try."
Tsunade froze, then pointed at herself.
"Me? Condense Cursed Energy? Isn't this part of a Kekkei Genkai?"
"It seems more like a secret technique. I can sense that you should be able to condense it."
Tsunade stood still, looking down at her hands. She spread her fingers, then curled them into fists. She tried to recall something that would make her angry.
Tsunade closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She slowly separated some of the mental energy in her chakra pathways and transformed it toward Cursed Energy.
Ten minutes passed.
Tsunade crouched in the clearing and pulled three dice out in front of her.
...I lost a lot of money today.
She smacked the dice against the ground, stood up, rolled her neck, and closed her eyes.
A flash of blue energy suddenly flickered at her fingertips.
Tsunade opened her eyes and looked down at the thin blue film covering her finger.
It was the exact opposite of the positive energy she had felt when she first encountered Round Deer. This energy came entirely from her own mind.
It was as if she had dragged up all the garbage festering in her heart, balled it up, and shoved it into her chakra pathways.
"I did it."
"Mm." Sasuke nodded. "Now try sensing your Cursed Technique with Cursed Energy."
"My Cursed Technique?"
"In the Cursed Energy system, everyone has an innate Cursed Technique. It's similar to a Kekkei Genkai. Channel your Cursed Energy and focus on sensing it."
Tsunade pushed the Cursed Energy up through the pathways in her arm. It flowed past her shoulder and neck, then gathered at the Yin Seal between her brows.
The purple diamond-shaped mark suddenly glowed.
Tsunade froze.
She could feel the chakra stored in her Yin Seal stirring under the influence of that small amount of Cursed Energy, though only faintly.
But there was something else, too.
A sensation she couldn't quite describe. It felt like instinct, or perhaps some ability she had always possessed but never discovered, awakened as Cursed Energy flowed through her pathways.
Tsunade stood motionless, her mouth opening slightly, then closing, then opening again.
"Huh?" Tsunade frowned and stared at her hands.
"I think I sensed something." Tsunade repeated herself, her tone completely different now.
She raised both hands before her, palms up, then turned them over to examine the backs.
Cursed Energy flowed slowly through her pathways, and the vague sensation grew clearer and clearer.
"I can accumulate energy." Tsunade spoke as she felt it out. The Yin Seal on her forehead glowed faintly along with her words.
"Once the energy builds up enough, I can trigger a boost. It feels like I can use it with any attack."
"And then..." Tsunade narrowed her eyes and focused on sensing the exact rules of the Cursed Technique.
Then her expression changed.
First she frowned, then the corner of her mouth twitched, and finally a vein bulged on her forehead.
"After I use it, there's a fifty percent chance of successfully boosting my attack. If it works, the energy is preserved and can boost my next attack."
"And there's a fifty percent chance the boost will fail, and all the energy I've accumulated will disappear."
Silence fell over the clearing.
Tsunade looked down at her hands, her lips pressed into a thin line. Her knuckles cracked as she clenched her fists.
Sasuke watched her expression and fell silent for a moment.
"For you, it's basically useless, right?"
"Say that again!" Tsunade whipped around, her golden eyes blazing. She punched the clothesline beside her. The bamboo pole snapped in two, and a white bedsheet fluttered down onto her head.
She yanked it off and balled it up in her fist.
"What do you mean, 'basically useless'?"
"With a fifty percent chance of success, based on our coin toss just now..."
Tsunade clenched and unclenched her fingers, desperately trying to come up with a rebuttal.
"This thing is bound to me. It's not like I chose it!"
"And who says I'll always be unlucky? Maybe I'll win ten times in a row!"
"You just lost more than twenty times in a row."
"That was gambling! It's not the same thing!"
"I think there's a fifty percent chance of winning at dice, too."
"You—"
Tsunade took a deep breath and swept her hair back.
"You're really not cute at all, you know that? Whatever. Let's get back to studying Cursed Energy."
Sasuke stopped provoking her. He sat cross-legged again, formed Hand Seals, and gathered Cursed Energy in his palm.
"Separating Cursed Energy from mental energy is only the first step. The truly efficient way to refine Cursed Energy is to use negative emotions from an external source as a catalyst."
"Right now, I'm mainly using one external source, but I don't get the chance often. If you can figure out a more efficient way to draw it out on your own—"
"It'll help you, too, right?" Tsunade raised an eyebrow.
"Right." Sasuke answered without hesitation.
"You little brat. You sure have no trouble giving people orders. Fine. I'm a medical ninja. Refining energy is my specialty, after all."
She sat cross-legged, too, closed her eyes, and slowly guided Cursed Energy into her chakra pathways.
Tsunade worked a little faster than Sasuke had expected.
After all, she was at the pinnacle of Medical Ninjutsu, with an unparalleled understanding of the chakra pathways.
Precise chakra control was basic training for medical ninjas, and Tsunade's ability to separate mental energy was dozens of times better than Sakura's.
The pitch-black night slowly turned gray-blue. Dawn broke.
"Six hours." Tsunade looked down at the Cursed Energy in her palm and turned her wrist, letting it flow between her fingers. "I doubled the separation efficiency."
Sasuke opened his eyes and looked at the Cursed Energy glowing in Tsunade's palm.
"As expected of a medical ninja among the Sannin."
Tsunade's lips curled into a smile.
"Of course. It's morning already, too. Let's go get breakfast."
When Tsunade pushed open the wooden door at the end of the hallway, she spotted Jiraiya at once.
He was crouching on the windowsill, holding a calligraphy brush and writing something on a sheet of paper.
A brown messenger hawk stood beside him, pecking at a rice ball on the sill.
Jiraiya dipped his brush in the last of the ink and finished the final few words. He rolled up the note and tucked it into the message tube on the hawk's leg.
"Off you go." Jiraiya patted the hawk on the back.
Tsunade walked up behind Jiraiya and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey, Jiraiya."
Jiraiya turned around, saw Tsunade's face, and froze.
Tsunade stood in the morning light, her hair a little messy and dark circles under her eyes. It was obvious she hadn't slept well.
But her eyes weren't dull and tired. They were bright and sharp, and she looked full of energy.
"What were you doing last night?" Jiraiya looked her up and down.
"What's it to you? What are you sending?" Tsunade leaned toward the window and watched the hawk fly away.
"A report to the old man. Your situation, that kid Sasuke's situation, the schedule for the next few days, and a few other things."
Jiraiya sounded a little more serious than usual, though not by much.
Tsunade nodded, then yawned as she walked past Jiraiya. "All right, I'm hungry. Let's get breakfast."
Before you continue