Tsunade

In the ruins of the Hokage's office, two old faces stood before Jiraiya.

Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane, Konoha's advisors, had temporarily taken over the village's affairs after the Third's death. Their faces were expressionless, not out of indifference—it was simply that after sixty-nine years of seeing too much death, all that remained was duty.

"Jiraiya, take Naruto and find Tsunade. Konoha needs a Fifth Hokage."

Jiraiya leaned against a broken wall, turning a sake flask in his hand. The flask was empty, not because he had finished it, but because he had no mood to drink. He glanced outside. Part of the Fourth's face on Hokage Rock had been smashed away by falling rubble, while the Third's face remained intact.

"Tsunade won't come back. She's been gone from Konoha for twelve years. It's not that she hates Konoha. She's afraid of it. Afraid that if she comes back and sees everyone's faces, she'll remember the two people who died in her arms."

"That's exactly why we need you." Koharu Utatane's voice was level, so level it sounded like she was reading a mission report. "You're the only person she's still willing to see."

Jiraiya did not answer. He tucked the sake flask into his clothes, rose to his feet, and brushed the dust off himself. The dust had drifted out of the Third's office, mixed with charred wood chips and purple remnants of the barrier. He headed for the door, then stopped halfway and looked back.

"I'm taking two people. Naruto and Ringo."

"Ringo?" Homura Mitokado frowned. "That orphan Genin?"

"Not an orphan Genin." Jiraiya's voice dropped, three degrees lower than usual. "Before the old man died, he passed the flame to three people. Naruto, Sasuke, and Ringo. Sasuke's lying in the hospital. Naruto's still spacing out in the exam grounds' ruins. Only Ringo is still at the training field, beating a wooden post. He's been at it all night. That post is covered in steam burns, new marks over old ones, too many to count. So he has to come. Not because he's strong—but because he needs somewhere else to hit wooden posts. If he keeps going, the post will break. So will he."

Ringo stood in the middle of the training field, steam still rising from his right hand.

The wooden post was covered in burn marks, deep and shallow, new and old. Every one had been scorched by steam. He heard footsteps but did not turn around—not because he did not want to, but because he knew who was coming. Jiraiya's footsteps were heavier than Kakashi's, lighter than Might Guy's, and every step landed on the outside edge of his foot. It was the balance cultivated through toad sage arts.

"Kid, come with me. We're going to find someone."

"Who?"

"Tsunade. The First Hokage's granddaughter, one of the Legendary Three, the strongest medical ninja. And also—the person most afraid of blood."

Ringo's steam withdrew. Not because he deliberately recalled it, but because his chakra suddenly cut off. When Jiraiya said "most afraid of blood," his tone changed. It was not the tone of someone telling a story—it was the tone of a comrade-in-arms. Only those who had carried death together would speak of another person's fear in that tone.

"She's afraid of blood, so why do you want her to be Hokage?"

"Because only someone who fears blood knows how precious life is. The old man wasn't afraid of death, so he died. Tsunade fears death, so she can survive. What Konoha needs now isn't a Hokage who isn't afraid to die—it needs someone afraid of death who still dares to gamble."

Ringo said nothing. He brushed the wood chips off his training clothes and followed Jiraiya out of the field. At the gate, he looked back at the wooden post. The deepest burn mark had been made last night. Steam had burned a groove into the wood, and the bottom of that groove was black. Not charred—the steam had boiled all the moisture out of the wood. What remained was not a scar, but a changed texture. The wood was no longer wood. It was something that had been struck by steam.

On the road, Naruto walked at the very front, moving so fast that even when Jiraiya told him to slow down, he would not listen. Naruto had not cried since the Third died, not because he did not want to, but because he could not. He kept talking, talking about what Tsunade was like, what the Fifth Hokage should be like, how the Third had smiled once before he died.

Ringo walked at the very back, his card slot open and its scanning range spread to the maximum. The toad oil on Jiraiya's chest gave off a faint warmth, not because it had been activated, but because natural energy was resonating with it. Jiraiya had said that natural energy was not chakra. It was the world breathing. Every tree, every stone, every cloud inhaled and exhaled. Ordinary people could not sense it, and even Sage Mode sensed it only incompletely, in fragments. To synthesize complete Sage Mode, all the fragments had to be pieced together—not inside the card slot, but within the body.

"Stop." Jiraiya raised a hand and turned to look at Ringo. "The natural energy here is dense. Not because there are toads nearby, but because there are no people nearby. Without people, chakra doesn't interfere with natural energy. Kid, sit down and close your eyes. Don't sense chakra—sense what lies beyond chakra."

Ringo sat cross-legged on the ground. The grass beneath him was wet, not with dew, but with droplets condensed from natural energy. They were invisible to the naked eye, but steam could sense them. Steam rose from his palms, not gold, but white—pure white, like mist. Natural energy passed through the steam. The steam was absorbing it, not by taking in energy, but by allowing that energy to pass through it. Steam was a medium, not a container.

He closed his eyes. It was not darkness—it was another kind of light. The light did not come from outside. It came from within, from the deepest part of the card slot, from Jiraiya's toad oil, from the stabilizing pouch on his chest, from every fragment. Jiraiya's sage art fragments were glowing, not gold, but transparent. Transparent light passed through the card slot, through his body, through his skin, through the ground, through the earth below, deeper and deeper and deeper—until it touched something.

Not something—a breath. The earth was breathing. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Its rhythm differed from a heartbeat. It was slower, slow as the tide, slow as mountains growing. Every breath carried energy. That energy was not chakra, not steam, not sound waves. It was—the origin of everything. Chakra had split from it. Steam had evaporated from it. Sound waves had vibrated from it. What he had touched was not energy—it was the source.

A line appeared in the card slot: "Sage Art Fragment (Gold), resonance activated. Two fragments responding simultaneously—synthesis path automatically opened—'False Sage Mode.' Enter a half-finished Sage state. All Steam Ninjutsu power +50%, duration 5 seconds, cooldown 10 minutes. This is the prelude to complete Sage Mode."

Ringo opened his eyes. The world's colors had changed. Not brighter—more transparent. He could see the veins in every leaf, not in the way the Sharingan saw, but through feeling. He felt the leaves breathing, felt the grass breathing, felt water flowing beneath the ground, felt Jiraiya's toad oil heating up, felt Naruto's Nine-Tails stirring, and felt, somewhere far away, a chakra burning. Not fire—life. The life of a woman drinking in a casino, burning for fifty years until only a tiny spark remained, but it had not gone out.

"Tsunade is over there." Ringo pointed west.

Jiraiya froze for a moment, then smiled. It was not surprise—it was pride. Pride that his student had found Tsunade the first time he sensed natural energy.

"Naruto, see that? This kid's more talented than you."

"Because he's Ringo!" Naruto ran over and stood before Ringo, his eyes glowing—not with the Nine-Tails' red light, but Naruto's own blue light. "Ringo, the old man said you're Konoha's future. So do you want to become Hokage with me? Not one person doing it alone—you standing beside me, together, making Konoha even warmer than it was in the old man's time!"

Ringo stood up. Steam rose from his right hand, golden, with a trace of transparent light mixed into the gold under the boost of natural energy. He had not become stronger—he had become clearer. He extended his hand, not for a handshake, but for a fist bump. Naruto's fist met his. Steam and Nine-Tails chakra burst between their knuckles, not in an explosion, but in resonance.

"Sure. But not Hokage—a synthesis ninja. Beside the Hokage, synthesizing everything that can make Konoha better."

Tanzaku Town. West of Konoha, a place with more casinos than inns.

Jiraiya stood at the entrance to a casino and pushed open the door. Inside was smoke, within the smoke were people, and among those people were fools who had lost money yet kept gambling. At the very back, a woman sat in the corner. Bottles were piled before her. She held dice in her left hand and a cup of sake in her right. Blonde hair, a purple diamond-shaped mark on her forehead. She was the same age as Jiraiya, but looked older—not because of her skin, but because of her eyes. The light in her eyes was dimmer than it had been in the Third's eyes before his death.

Jiraiya walked over and sat across from her. Tsunade did not look up. She spun the dice three times in her hand, then tossed them onto the table. Six. She had won. She pulled the money toward herself without looking at Jiraiya, her gaze fixed on the sake in her cup.

"Tsunade, Konoha needs a Fifth Hokage."

Tsunade smiled. Not happily—mockingly. She raised her head. The light in her eyes was not dim. It was extinguished. So extinguished that only a faint reflection remained in her pupils, and that reflection did not come from the window, but from the sake in her cup. The sake was amber-colored. When it swayed, it looked like the smoke from the Third's pipe, like the roots of the First's Wood Release, like the kunai in Nawaki's hand before he died, like the blood that flowed from Dan's chest when he died.

"Hokage? Only an idiot would become something like that."