[Next Morning — Small Inn, Edge of Hot Spring Town]
The morning was cool, quiet.
Naruto sat alone in the open-air eating space of the inn, a half-empty bowl of rice cooling beside him. His plate was untouched except for the pickled radish, which he'd moved three times and never eaten. The small restaurant was otherwise empty, save for the sound of a sparrow somewhere overhead and the faint creak of bamboo pipes behind the inn.
He didn't look up when the footsteps came — chakra signature calm, focused, unfamiliar.
But when the shadow paused across the table, he raised his eyes.
Tsunade stood there — cloaked in travel gear, a simple white haori over a green blouse. At her side, Shizune bowed slightly in greeting, hands folded neatly in front of her.
"Mind if we join you?"
Naruto blinked once, clearly surprised. Then shrugged, pulling the extra bench out with a quiet scrape of wood.
"It's just rice," he muttered. "Not much of a meal."
Tsunade smirked slightly and sat. "Better than the crap Jiraiya makes over campfire ash."
Shizune, sitting beside her, gave a polite cough of disagreement. "He does try his best…"
Naruto just looked between them. Something was off — not threatening, but… personal.
"You're that lady from the hot spring," he finally said. "The one who beat him with the rock."
Tsunade smiled faintly. "That pervert earned worse."
They sat for a while, the silence comfortable. Tsunade reached for the teapot and poured without asking. Naruto didn't refuse.
It was Shizune who finally broke the stillness. "Lady Tsunade came here to speak with you, Naruto-kun."
He raised an eyebrow. "About what?"
Tsunade's voice was calm, but clear.
"Apprenticeship."
Naruto paused mid-sip.
She continued.
"You're alone. I saw it. Your swordsmanship is practiced — good stance, bit of experience.That only goes so far."
Naruto didn't respond at first. But his gaze had sharpened — not defiant, just alert.
"I already turned down one offer," he said, tone even. "From someone who wanted to teach me how to control something that isn't even his or mine."
Tsunade's brow arched faintly. "I'm not here to teach you how to use the Kyūbi's chakra."
That caught his attention.
"I'm offering to teach you how not to rely on it at all."
Naruto set the cup down, slow and deliberate.
"Why?" he asked. "You don't know me."
"I knew your parents."
That landed like a quiet stone in the silence.
Naruto flinched — subtly — but she saw it.
Tsunade's voice was quieter now.
"I don't expect you to want anything from them. I didn't come here because of some obligation."
"Then why?"
She looked at him steadily.
"Because you're not like them."
That drew his eyes — sharp, unreadable.
"You don't crave praise. You don't chase people. You've been cut off from the village for years and you still came back stronger. That means you've already made your own path."
"So?"
"So now I'm asking if you want a map. Not to follow — but to understand the terrain better before you burn through it."
Naruto didn't answer. He sat in still silence, eyes fixed on the rising steam of his tea.
Finally:
"I don't want to be someone's legacy."
Tsunade nodded once.
"Then be someone's first."
That made him pause. Just enough.
She didn't press him. She rose, smoothing her haori.
"I'll be leaving in a few hours. Back to Konoha.""You're welcome to walk with us. Or not."
Shizune bowed lightly again as they turned. But Tsunade paused at the threshold.
"Just know — I won't offer twice. This path is open now. It won't stay that way forever."
And with that, she left.
Naruto sat unmoving for a long time — until the tea finally went cold, and the sun climbed over the eaves of the roof.
[Later That Morning — Road Leaving Hot Spring Town]
The sun had risen full now, burning off the last of the mist.
Tsunade and Shizune walked side by side along the winding road out of the town. Their pace was unhurried — measured steps against the packed dirt. The village lay small and distant behind them.
Shizune glanced sideways.
"You didn't push him too hard."
"Didn't need to," Tsunade replied, voice even. "If he's smart, he'll follow. If not — he wasn't ready to."
Shizune nodded but glanced back once more toward the road behind them.
And there — at the edge of the next bend — came a familiar silhouette.
Cloak trailing faintly. Footfalls steady. Unhurried. Decided.
Naruto.
He said nothing as he caught up. Fell into step two paces behind them.
Tsunade didn't look back.
But her voice was faintly amused.
"Changed your mind?"
Naruto's voice was calm, no hint of hesitation.
"Not your map."
A faint smile curved her lips.
"Good."
They walked on.
No declarations were made. No promises exchanged.
But in that silence, something subtle shifted.
For the first time in years — Naruto chose to walk alongside someone.Not because he had to. Not because he owed them.
Because he had judged it worth the step.
Tsunade said no more. Shizune smiled quietly.And Naruto's eyes stayed forward — focused on the road ahead.
The finals would come soon.But first — perhaps there was something worth learning after all.
[Tsunade POV]
"Not your map."
Tsunade blinked — just once.
The boy's voice hadn't been raised. He hadn't sneered or smirked. He'd simply said it, flat and resolute, like iron being laid into stone.
Not your map.
He wasn't defiant for its own sake. He wasn't disrespecting her. He was clarifying the terms of this unspoken contract: I'll learn what you teach, but I'm not yours to shape.
Tsunade looked at him, really looked — this strange, distant boy who bore both the names that had once meant everything in this village. Senju. Uzumaki. Legacy weighed heavy in his blood, and yet he walked like a stranger to it.
So unlike Kushina, she thought, the ache surfacing in her chest like a ghost limb. And yet… not.
There was a hardness in him that hadn't been there in his mother or father. A guarded edge behind the eyes — not cruelty, not bitterness — but a relentless kind of caution, forged in fire not training halls. He didn't trust the world to be kind. And unlike most, he didn't ask it to be.
He had no illusions about what people expected from him. He had seen the hunger in other's eyes — for his strength, for his burden, for what he carried.
And still… he had followed her.
Not to be saved.
Not to be led.
But to walk beside.
Tsunade exhaled quietly through her nose, the tension uncoiling from her shoulders inch by inch.
You really are his son… but you're walking a colder road than even Minato ever feared for you.
Still, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Not if he survived it. Not if he could still learn how to carry others, not just his own fire.
Maybe… just maybe, being Hokage wouldn't just protect this boy.
Maybe becoming Hokage would teach him what it meant to belong — on his terms, not the village's.
Maybe it would be the one thing that could thaw what life had frozen.
She didn't smile. But something in her expression eased, softened. She turned away from him, letting the silence hold a little longer.
And in that silence, Tsunade made a decision she'd ever voice aloud — not even to Jiraiya.
If the time comes… I'll stand behind this boy.
Not because of his blood.
Not because of the beast.
But because of that answer.