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Tsunade stared into golden eyes and she couldn't breath. She'd wondered for years what she'd do, if she ever found him again. She hadn't expected to. He was as dead to her as all the other things she'd ever loved. And now their teacher, too, was dead. At his hands. She should kill him. He'd betrayed the village. But then, wasn't the betrayal just as much hers? She'd left the village, left him. Alone. Unprotected. He couldn't see through the twisting upper politics as well as she could, and she'd left him, to hear years too late about his fall from grace, about the dream he chased too hard. The same dream that lived locked in the shattered remains of her heart. It was forbidden. But what had following the rules ever gotten her? Dead people, and addictions to help her forget. Now, he was here, real, alive. Orochimaru held out his hand.
"Shizune, run. As fast and as far as you can," Tsunade ordered. She took his hand.
Jiraiya, watching from a distance, closed his eyes. He couldn't watch them leave.