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English
Series:
Part 1 of Reflection upon Uchiha Sasuke
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Published:
2022-02-23
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563
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1/1
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Tsunade

Summary:

It would come as a surprise for some to learn that Tsunade doesn't hate Uchiha Sasuke.

Notes:

I'm tuz-on-ao3 on tumblr if you want to say hi and stare at my very not accurate update schedule. Kudos and comments make my day :)

Work Text:

It would come as a surprise for some to learn that Tsunade doesn't hate Uchiha Sasuke. 

Or maybe she does hate him, because while Jiraiya looks at the Uchiha and thinks of Oro (and he'll always be Oro, in the safety of her mind, which isn't a very safe place at all, he will always be Oro), and the rest of the ignorant villagers look at him and think traitor; Tsunade looks at Sasuke and only sees herself. She is intimately aware of the parallels between the two of them, and if Tsunade were younger, she would have spat in the face of it. Raged against it because growing up under the shadow of three Kage's never left much room for patience, only miles of distance between Tsunade and the men that made her so desperate to be like them and falling painfully short of it. 

But Tsunade is older now, even if the lines of her face don't show it. She is tired now, and there is no way for her to hide it. Tsunade feels the ache of her bones and back, the creak of her joints, and the weathered texture of her hands and face as she moves about her day. No one else notices Tsunade would never let her illusion fall. The cracks in her armor are already far too wide, and the thought of Konoha seeing how bloody it left her is mortifying and terrifying. 

Tsunade is the granddaughter of a Kage, the grandniece of another, the mentee of a third. She has never been allowed to bleed. Except bleeding is all the Uchiha Sasuke does. His love leaves red footprints as he leaves Konoha, and they trace a straight path to Itachi. 

Tsunade should hate him for it (his hands leave red prints along with Naruto, Kakashi, and Sakura's heart), but she doesn't. 

She sees her rage, and her grief, and the weight of history that rests in the curves and lines of the boy's name; Uchiha for the old gods that forged the first fires of Konoha and Sasuke for the warrior that would father a Kage and her mentor. Their lives became linked the moment Sasuke was born. The last Senju and the soon to be last Uchiha are all that is left of a bygone era. She looks at Uchiha Sasuke and is reminded of everything that Tsunade had no right to leave behind. 

(Look at what I've done, Grandfather, look at the boy that was left to remain broken)

Tsunade thinks she could have hated Sasuke if she had stayed in the village. If she wasn't so intimately familiar with the guilt that came with freedom. If she wasn't aware of how the oceans that crashed into the Crescent Moon Kingdom looked against a burning sky or how the trees of Bear Country stood taller than the ones in Konoha, towering and still. If she hadn't taken Shizune and run, and run, and run, away from everything and everyone that had needed her, maybe she could hate Sasuke. But their hearts are too similar, and their paths are two lines that will never touch. 

As it is, Sasuke reminds her far too much of herself, and Tsunade promised to stop hating herself when she came back to the village. 

It would be so easy to hate Uchiha Sasuke. Tsunade cannot, she will not. 

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