Story: 25 Days of Femslash (chapter 1)

Authors: Blood_Covered_Pheonix

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Chapter 1

Title: By the Fire

          The flame in the lantern flickered dully, sputtering and licking high in its final death spasms. Shizune thought briefly of getting up to refill the well with oil, but her tired limbs had long ago lost feeling. By the time she had carefully maneuvered herself out of her current kneeling position and retrieved the oil, the lantern would have died out, leaving her in darkness anyway. It was some ridiculous hour of the night anyway, she should take the dying lantern as a sign that she should sleep but she rarely slept these days. Rarely ate, rarely did anything but wait. She was in an eternal state of waiting, waiting for the woman she loved to wake or for her to take her last labored breath and leave her forever, waiting for someone to realize just how much she was neglecting herself and pull her away from Tsunade’s bedside, waiting for own hope and dread to die out as time passed.

          So she entertained her mind with philosophical meanderings that she never would have had the time to bother with had Tsunade been awake. Well that’s how it’d been for the last few… weeks? The first week after the battle against the Pains, she’d been in a hospital recovering from her apparent death but the lack of supplies and trained medical ninja had allowed her a ridiculously early release. When she’d first come to Tsunade’s bedside, there was always someone else there, a medical ninja, a few of the older generation she was close with, one of Naruto’s friends, and an ANBU seemed to station themselves in the room. There was never much chatter, just solemn silence as everyone waited and watched for some sign of consciousness in the fifth hokage. As the days became weeks, and the weeks became a month, people trickled out. First the older ninja, then the younger ones as they were needed for the reconstruction, ambassador missions to other villages, recon on other villages and other official business, then the medical ninja gave up as Shizune was the best of them all and wouldn’t leave, didn’t sleep much and rarely allowed another person to lay a finger on her Tsunade. She’d taken care of her when they were broke on the road and constantly drunk, why should now be any different. She’d been a little surprised when even the ANBU began to leave gaps in the shift changes, but not when they stopped showing up all together. The message was clear to her, it had been too long for anyone to expect the Hokage to do anything but die a slow death while Shizune watched so they left her alone to grieve and come to terms with the inevitable.

          They failed to understand that Tsunade was the living embodiment of the Will of Fire. It had been her birthright, passed down through the generations of her family. She lived with the belief that if she was stubborn enough about something and threw enough of her will at it, it would change. She simply couldn’t die at this moment when her village was so torn and crushed and she was fighting against her own body to return to them. Her breath still came in shallow rasps, her heart still pumped slowly, her circulatory system worked through the glucose and fluids she was fed intravenously, after everyone had given up on her, had consigned her to a horrible slow death. It was hard to see the Will of Fire within her when she looked so old and fragile, hard to remember its power when it wasn’t stirring you to a cause. Shizune had spent most of her life in the presence of that will, been warmed by the fire of Tsunade’s heart for far too long for her to ever forget its power.

          She’d bumped along with Tsunade in her tour of the Land of Fire for over a decade, sometimes living lavishly but mostly camping out in seedy inns with good gambling parlors. At first it hadn’t bothered her, she was getting fantastic training as a medical ninja and spent so much time on her training that she didn’t notice exactly what kind of bed she was collapsing on at night, or what her mentor was up to while she was working. It had only taken her a year or so to complete the training Tsunade had set up so she began to notice the fact that they never had money, or if they did it was quickly swallowed up by a slot machine. She’d tried to stop the gambling for a few months, but Tsunade would just leave her behind and skip town to go gamble until she caught back up with her. She’d only needed to be left three times before she gave up on changing that habit but she could whine about the drinking all she wanted without too much of a consequence. Sure Tsunade would be snippy but after a week or two, she would come around and be pleasant and she never lost as much gambling. Though she was deeply miserable, would often mope for days in an inn until they got kicked out of the inn they were staying in after running out of money, then she would allow Shizune to figure out their next move.

          Shizune could never figure out why Tsunade was so defeated while sober, but figured that asking would only make her mentor begin drinking again, so she never broached the subject. When it was her responsibility to find their lodgings, the attendant would simply find an abandoned shack or homey cave and set up a living space there. She enjoyed playing house that way, cleaning up the place, cooking meals, serving tea. Her favorite part of those days were the times between her chores when she would lie on a futon with a forlorn Tsunade and be pulled into a tight embrace. It was a rare occurrence, but there was something comforting about being surrounded by a strong woman at her lowest, something that pleased her about being the strong core for once. They never stayed in Shizune’s choice for long because they usually ran out of food and had to move onto the next town, which meant Tsunade began drinking again.

          The drinking did give Shizune some experience she would have never had otherwise. Tsunade was just as lecherous as Jiraya on some points, in fact there were quite a few parallels that no one with any sense bothered bringing up between the two, but the blonde had a more tactful approach as she would often send Shizune on some ridiculous errand and take her chosen partner back to the inn for an hour, have her fun, then send them on their way. Sake sometimes muddled the order of the chore and the sex, so sometimes Shizune would be in the room when her mentor came crashing into the room with either some young girl enamored with Tsunade’s silver tongue or a middle aged man obsessed with her bust with an order to go acquire some rare but obtainable herb or fish. She usually just sat outside looking lost until the person left and she would return to run Tsunade a bath and make her tea. From Tsunade’s conquests she learned just about all the shapes and sizes people could come in, but she found the one she liked most was Tsunade’s own. A perfect balance of hard strength and feminine softness matched with an over the top personality. The sex usually made her cuddly too, which made the habit tolerable.

          All the years, all the ups and downs, the high times and low ones had taught Shizune just what Tsunade could accomplish through sheer will power. She’d also learned a bit of what she herself could do with her own will as she’d eventually worked up the courage to bed Tsunade properly. It was all that infectious Will of Fire that had been warming and burning her for years that was keeping Tsunade alive, because if she wasn’t alive the Fire would fizzle out and Konoha would be left without its most important piece of iconography and it too would sputter out. Somewhere the Fifth knew this and she was hanging on to life for as long as it took for the village to find a new hokage, a new champion, a new bearer to the Will.

          So Shizune knelt next to her on a worn out cushion, watching carefully the slow raspy breaths of her lover and master as she fought to retain that Will, that life while the Leaf Village rebuilt its self with a more useful form of the Fire. She sat by the Fire, and she hoped and prayed that one day Tsunade would  wake and embrace her and that the Fire would burn hot around her the way it had for years until this horrible incident. Across the room the lantern gave up its fight for fuel and went out with a final indignant puff of smoke. The brunette carefully maneuvered herself out of her dead legged kneel and onto her side, feeling all of her muscles cramp at once. She stretched them out as she rolled onto Tsunade’s futon and laid her head on the Hokage’s shoulder. She could feel and hear her exhalations now, so the light was not needed. For the first time in days, Shizune allowed herself to sleep.

          The next morning she felt something stirring lightly under her, a few breathy exhalations and some patting. She squinted in the bright morning light down on Tsunade’s chest and raised herself, feeling more angry muscles in her neck and shoulders. “Uhg, Shizune.” It was a croak. “Get this stuff, why are you are you crying? Useless girl, you’re making it hard to breath.” Despite the protest, she felt a hand alight on her shoulder and rub it comfortingly. “I’ll always come back. You know that.” Then she quit talking and she kept breathing and rubbing Shizune until someone heard the sobs and thought that she had died. Then Kakashi had come running to witness Shizune making a fool of herself. No one cared though. How could they when the Will of Fire had just woken up and was ready to inspire hearts and minds.

          It took her a few weeks to get the strength to be able to hold her transformation jutsu for a long period of time, but she spent most of it in her home reviewing the power struggle and then sending out paperwork, making plans for the long term reconstruction and beginning the preparation of what was shaping to be a war. All the while Shizune was at her side, faithful, loyal, loving. Always there to help her to her feet, offer some form of break, tea, food, and occasionally sake when she was tired and weak. The younger woman would force her to her feet to essentially carry her around the garden in her pajamas so that she would exercise her atrophied muscles every few hours, and it was often agony for her. But Shizune would forge on, humming and nuzzling her as they walked. Tsunade knew that the girl had spent just as much time inactive as she had, so the pain was just as real for Shizune, but she had the infectious Will of Fire pushing her on. Shizune pushed herself too hard, determined to be her only assistant now. She made tea and food, filed the paperwork, got brushes and ink and scrolls when needed. She even did the errands she used to leave to runners and still basically carried Tsunade through her walks. It was unreal to watch the girl attempt to make up all the time they had lost. She truly was unrivaled in her dedication, and that Tsunade chalked up to the effect she had on people. The will became iron and eventually steel and she relied on them as much as they relied on her for strength and guidance.

          With Shizune by her side Tsunade was sure that Konoha would recover well. They were all standing by the Fire. The Will of Fire that warmed them and strengthened all of the citizens who worked endlessly to restore the village.      

[End notes: First day of femslash my lover gave to me, Shizune and Tsunade.]

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