Konoha Hospital, third-floor surgical ward.
Tsunade pulled off her bloodstained gloves and tossed them into the waste bin.
Seven hours of surgery, from dusk until the early hours of the morning.
The wounded sent back from the front had come in one after another.
Exhausted, she pushed open the door to the break room. She didn't even turn on the lights, just slumped over her desk.
Her forehead touched the desktop. Her eyelids grew heavy.
A gazebo.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps.
The dice spun, making a crisp clicking sound.
A boy tilted his head as he looked at her, a slightly embarrassed smile on his lips.
"I don't know how. Will you teach me?"
The scene shattered.
When it came together again, she was standing in the wind atop a cliff.
The setting sun had set the sky ablaze in a vast swath of orange-red.
She closed her eyes and rose onto her toes.
The instant their lips touched, the sound of her heartbeat drowned out the wind.
The scene shattered again.
This time, when it came together, they were in a kitchen.
He stood at the stove, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He looked back at her with a smile.
"You added too much salt. Did you do that on purpose?"
She heard her own voice, reproachful and amused.
Then the kitchen vanished.
The morgue.
The white sheet was pulled back.
He lay there, his face ashen, a massive wound through his abdomen.
She reached out to touch his face.
Cold.
Cold to the bone.
"You lied to me..."
She heard her voice trembling.
"You said you wouldn't die before me..."
Her chest suddenly clenched.
Pain.
Not the kind of pain you should feel in a dream.
It was real, so real that even breathing