The released Yin Seal

Tsunade stood at the window, staring at the cherry tree in the courtyard.

The scroll spread across her desk had gathered dust for two days.

She had revised the final stroke of the Strength of a Hundred Technique again and again, drawn and erased the chakra pathways for Creation Rebirth.

A blank line remained at the end of the scroll.

But what she held was not a brush. It was a porcelain bowl filled with alcohol.

It had all begun a few days earlier.

Hiruzen Sarutobi had brought Mito Uzumaki good news.

After tireless efforts, Konoha had finally reached another friendship agreement with the Land of Whirlpools.

The Land of Whirlpools was willing to provide Konoha with gifted members of the Uzumaki Clan to help the village contain the Nine-Tails.

Mito Uzumaki no longer had to worry about having no successor.

That very day, she personally released the Yin Seal she had maintained for so many years.

Afterward, the woman she saw in the mirror looked somewhat unfamiliar.

Most strikingly, the Uzumaki Clan's signature red hair had vanished.

That red, a symbol of abundant vitality, had faded to a lifeless gray-black, like burned-out charcoal.

And so she went to find Tsunade.

"Little Tsuna."

Tsunade did not turn around.

She was staring blankly at that empty line, still running through the chakra pathways for the third stage of Creation Rebirth in her mind.

Mito Uzumaki stood in the doorway, without a cane or an attendant supporting her.

She wore a plain kimono, her black hair gathered into two round buns.

Her usual gentle smile rested on her face, as though most of the world's joys and sorrows could scarcely stir her emotions.

Tsunade slowly turned, then froze as though a hammer had nailed her to the spot.

Mito had grown old.

This was not the slow erosion of the years. It was a sudden decline overnight.

Every mark of age forcibly suppressed by the Yin Seal had returned to her face.

Wrinkles, loose and sagging flesh, a slightly stooped back.

Or rather, this was how she should have looked all along: elderly and kind, her face lined by a lifetime of hardship.

The porcelain bowl in Tsunade's hand jerked, spilling a few drops of alcohol onto the blank space of the scroll, where they spread into a small damp stain.

She made no move to wipe it away.

"Grandma Mito, how could you..."

"I'm old. I don't have much energy to spare anymore."

Mito Uzumaki spoke as casually as if discussing the weather, seemingly unconcerned by her own aging.

She walked slowly up to Tsunade and gently tucked a stray lock of blond hair behind her ear.

It was exactly the same gesture she had made when Tsunade was seven.

Frantic, Tsunade pressed her hands against Mito's shoulders, instantly sending chakra through the pathways throughout her body.

Her pathways were clear, her chakra stable, her organs functioning properly. There was not the slightest outward sign of anything wrong.

Instinctively, Tsunade checked each possible cause.

It was not poisoning, damaged pathways, backlash from a seal, or chakra instability and exhaustion.

Soon, she detected the most glaring "abnormality."

The yin seal chakra Mito had maintained within her body for years was slowly dissipating on its own.

It was not that she lacked the strength to sustain it. She had deliberately stopped keeping the seal active.

Tsunade's fingers slipped weakly from Mito's shoulders and hung at her sides, trembling beyond her control.

Mito gently held her shaking wrist. "Stop examining me, Little Tsuna..."

"Everyone reaches their own end. My day isn't far away."

Tsunade said nothing.

Aging was the natural work of time, and death was the destination every life had to reach.

Even as Konoha's acknowledged strongest medical ninja, she was powerless against them.

She could mend shattered limbs within an hour.

She could heal a fatal blade wound deep enough to expose bone in three minutes, drag a poisoned, dying patient back from the brink of the underworld.

But she could not force an elderly woman who had chosen to let go of her remaining years to find the will to live again.

The Strength of a Hundred Technique could heal wounds, reattach severed limbs, and drive cells to divide and regenerate at tremendous speed.

But cell division had an innate limit.

Any jutsu with an upper limit could never halt the passage of time.

"You must still train diligently in the Yin Seal. Once you've stored enough chakra, you can preserve your youthful appearance for a long time. I simply can't be bothered to spend the effort maintaining it anymore."

Maintaining it.

Tsunade turned those words over and over in her heart.

It was not a lack of ability. Mito no longer wished to persevere.

Mito was one of the Shinobi World's foremost Sealing Jutsu masters, a jinchūriki who had kept the Nine-Tails perfectly suppressed for decades.

Keeping a mere Yin Seal active should have been effortless for her.

She simply did not want to keep holding on.

Mito Uzumaki had lived far, far too long.

Long enough to lose her husband, then her children.

The granddaughter she had raised stood before her now, fingertips trembling and eyes red, yet unable to do a thing.

Now even her own body was telling her plainly: it was time to leave.

"Hiruzen has finalized the agreement with the Land of Whirlpools. Soon, another member of my clan will come to take my place as jinchūriki.

"That day is almost here."

The Nine-Tails needed a new vessel, and Mito needed a suitable successor.

Everything had been arranged in perfect order.

The Shinobi World's greatest sealing master would complete her final mission, then peacefully take her leave.

It was the most graceful, most dignified exit she could choose for herself.

Tsunade abruptly released Mito's hand and stumbled back two steps.

Her lower back slammed into the hard edge of the desk. The scroll rolled onto the floor and unfurled, that blank line facing upward like a silent mouth that had never voiced a single hidden thought.

"No!"

Tsunade's voice was weak at first, then suddenly rose, filled with stubbornness and despair. "I will never accept this!"

She turned and rushed straight out of the room.

She dared not look back. She feared that if she did, she would never find the strength to leave.

As a child, when Grandpa Hashirama passed away, she had stood in the mourning hall and watched the First Hokage's likeness being carved into Hokage Rock.

A little older, when Tobirama Senju died in battle during the unrest in the Land of Lightning, she had stood before the Memorial Stone and watched her second grandfather's name being carved at its top.

She had already lost too many loved ones.

Now, she simply could not accept Grandma Mito leaving her too.

She ran desperately onward, through the long stone-paved lanes of the Senju Clan Compound, past vines spilling over the walls of the old residences.

Her hurried footsteps echoed through the empty lanes.

Only when the towering Hokage Rock came into view in the distance did she finally stop.

There, Hashirama's and Tobirama's enormous stone likenesses basked in the sunlight, silently overlooking all of Konoha.

The First Hokage's power surfaced in Tsunade's mind.

Hashirama could shake the earth with the slightest exertion, heal his wounds without even forming hand seals.

That overwhelming vitality that defied all reason. That ability to heal himself at will.

Yes. That was what she wanted to create.

Not treatment after the fact, not repairs after damage, but control over cells at their very source, the creation of vitality.

She returned to her room, bent to retrieve the scroll, picked up her brush again, and shut herself away to work.

The Strength of a Hundred Technique would store all spare chakra from everyday life within the Yin Seal on her forehead.

The instant she released it, she would gain extraordinarily sustained self-healing.

Creation Rebirth would forcibly stimulate the body's cells to divide at high speed, regenerating flesh the moment an injury occurred.

The foundations of both jutsu rapidly took shape in her mind, their complete formulas flowing onto the scroll with every stroke of her brush.

She succeeded. She had worked out the complete preliminary forms of both original jutsu.

Yet in the end, she still met with failure.

The final effects of these two jutsu, created through painstaking effort, ran counter to everything she had originally intended.

She took out a small knife, cut her arm, and activated the formula to trigger regeneration. The wound healed in an instant.

She cut again, healed again, and repeated the experiment several times.

The speed of healing never diminished, but the number of cell divisions kept soaring.

Every rapid recovery came at the cost of her remaining lifespan.

In other words, not only could these two jutsu not prevent aging, they would accelerate the depletion of life itself.

She had wanted to make a ladle that could remain filled with water forever. Instead, she had made a slotted spoon that leaked and wore out even faster.

Tsunade's gaze returned to the blank line on the scroll.

The words she had intended to write were "extend natural lifespan."

There was no need to write them now.

These jutsu were fundamentally incapable of accomplishing that.

In the days that followed, she barely left her room, keeping herself shut inside all day.

Sleeplessness became routine, as did drowning her sorrows in alcohol.

When she woke, she stared blankly at the empty space on the scroll. When that exhausted her, she drank, then sat thinking once more in a tipsy haze.

When her eyelids grew too heavy to keep open, she slept at the desk for a few hours. Upon waking, the cycle began again.

Mito Uzumaki never came to disturb her again.

She understood that such heavy grief needed time to settle.

Only once Tsunade truly came to terms with it would she avoid being shattered by pain when Mito eventually passed away.

Nawaki came several times during that period.

He gently set warm meals outside her door, knocked twice, and called softly to her.

"Sis, I've left your food outside."

She gave a quiet acknowledgment through the door. Only after the boy's footsteps had faded completely down the corridor did she open it and take in the food, long since cold.

But she never opened the door to see Nawaki face-to-face.

She needed something else to fill her tangled thoughts. Alcohol, studying jutsu-anything would do, so long as she did not have to speak to anyone.

Before long, Nawaki came again.

This time, he brought two names.

"Sis, do you remember Yakushi Nonō, the girl Aunt Senju En keeps telling you about?"

Of course Tsunade remembered.

En had mentioned the girl to her more than once, saying that this child from the Orphanage had exceptional talent, with Chakra Control unmatched among her peers.

Her progress in learning basic Medical Ninjutsu was even faster than Tsunade's had been at her age.

At the time, Tsunade had been entirely focused on developing her jutsu in seclusion and had paid those remarks no attention.

Now that Nawaki had brought her up again, curiosity stirred in her.

What was so remarkable about a child who earned Senju En's repeated praise and prompted her own little brother to come lobbying on her behalf?

En never exaggerated when praising others.

If she said the girl's blade was steady as a rock, then it truly never strayed.

If she said the girl had mastered basic chakra molding in two days, then her talent was genuinely outstanding.

"There's someone else too! Amamiya Maki, my best friend!"

Nawaki leaned into the gap in the doorway, his enthusiasm making him sound like an eager salesman.

"They're both classmates I met at the Ninja Academy! Amamiya Maki talks a little strangely, but he's a really good person!

"Last time, outside the Barbecue Restaurant, he helped Grandpa Sarutobi out of an awkward situation. The Third himself praised him for having the outlook of a Hokage!

"Even Aunt En can't stop praising Nonō's talent for medicine. Sis, could you please find some time to meet them?"

"All right."

Nawaki froze.

He had never expected his sister to agree so readily this time.

A moment later, the boy let out a delighted cheer, turned, and raced away.

His pattering footsteps rang down the corridor, interrupted by a dull collision, followed immediately by his cheerful voice talking to himself.

"It's fine, it's fine! My forehead's tough!"

Tsunade leaned against the doorframe, watching her brother hurry away.

She suddenly remembered that the last time Nawaki had smiled so happily was the day she had promised to take him out to buy Three-Color Dango.

She stood against the doorframe for a moment, then turned and went to her dressing mirror.

After days of heavy drinking and sleeplessness, the woman in the mirror looked pale and haggard, with deep dark circles beneath her eyes and dry, peeling lips.

She turned on the faucet, cupped cold water in her hands, and splashed it over her face to clear her head. Then she raised her hands and tied her loose, disheveled blond hair back into a neat ponytail.

The gifted Yakushi Nonō.

And a boy named Amamiya Maki, the best friend Nawaki had spoken of.

Tsunade stared at her slightly weary reflection in the mirror, slowly tightening her fingers into a clenched fist.

Perfect.

This was the perfect opportunity to take him along to see Grandma Mito and find out exactly what he intended by getting close to Nawaki.

If he harbored malicious intentions or ulterior motives, her unstoppable Monster Strength would make it crystal clear to him.

Just how devastating the consequences of scheming against the Senju Clan would be.