ShuraZero
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Chapter 64: The Orange Tick
🕑 Added 2025-08-22 00:42:45 +0000 UTC"Brat…"
The voice was a guttural growl, a sound that vibrated with the promise of violence. It emanated from the shadows of a luxurious hotel suite, where a figure was sitting on the edge of a disheveled futon, holding her head as if she feared it might explode.
"I'll give you three seconds to get out of my sight before I use your bones as toothpicks for my drink."
A brilliant orange figure burst into the doorway. Naruto, his right arm still in a sling, held a tray with a glass of water and a crumpled note. His grin was so wide and radiant it seemed to generate its own light—one that directly stung Tsunade's sensitive eyes.
"No can do!" Naruto declared, stepping inside with a confidence that defied all survival instincts. "Shizune said patients shouldn't leave their doctors alone! It's my duty to take care of you today! Consider this my first mission as your unofficial apprentice!"
Tsunade looked up. Her amber eyes, clouded with alcohol and interrupted sleep, fixed on him. A dull, brutal pulse pounded in her skull, a hellish rhythm that accompanied the relentless sunlight filtering through the silk curtains.
"I'm not your doctor," she hissed. "I'm your executioner if you don't leave."
"But look! I brought you water!" he said, completely ignoring the threat and placing the tray on a nightstand. "And I wrote a note. With words of encouragement! It says, 'For the hangover, Grandma Tsunade! We have a big day ahead of us! Your number one fan, Naruto!'"
Tsunade glanced at the note, then at him. The vein in her forehead began to throb. Her plan for the day—a glorious itinerary that consisted of drinking in silence until the world made sense again—had just been sabotaged.
"Don't call me Grandma."
"But you're old!" he replied with devastating logic. "Besides, it's a term of endearment! Like when I call Teuchi 'Old Man.' It means I respect you!"
Tsunade put a hand to her face, massaging her temples. The hammering in her head intensified. This was going to be a very, very, very long day.
****
Breakfast was the first test of endurance. Tsunade had chosen the most expensive and quiet restaurant in the hotel, a place of dark wood and discreet whispers where she hoped to drown her hangover in bitter tea and solitude. It was a futile hope.
Naruto sat across from her, ignoring the murderous glare she was giving him, and proceeded to order five different dishes, creating a wall of food between them.
"Whoa, Shizune was right, the food here is amazing!" he exclaimed, causing several heads to turn in their direction. "Although, to be honest, the broth in these noodles doesn't have the depth of Ichiraku's. See, Teuchi's secret is boiling the pork bones for at least twelve hours, but he also adds a secret ingredient that I think is…"
"Shut up," Tsunade hissed, her voice so low it was barely audible but laced with enough venom to kill a battalion. "If you ever compare the food here to that noodle stand again, I'll make you eat with your eyelids."
"But, Grandma, culinary knowledge is vital for a shinobi!" he pressed on, oblivious to the threat. "Imagine you get poisoned! If you know the ingredients, you can identify the culprit! It's science! The naruto, for example, has to have the perfect swirl, you know? If not, it loses its whole essence. It's like a Sharingan, but for ramen. Try some of my pork! It's got more vitamins than sake!"
He held out a piece of pork with his chopsticks. Tsunade just stared at it with an expression that promised a slow and painful end. Reluctantly, Naruto ate the pork himself.
"Okay, okay, you don't have to be like that. But at least eat something. Shizune told me an empty stomach makes a hangover worse."
Tsunade ignored him, simply sipping her tea. Naruto sighed dramatically.
"You know, this reminds me of the time I tried to convince Iruka-sensei that empty ramen bowls should be considered official ninja weapons. I said you could throw them like a giant shuriken. He almost suspended me."
The story, so stupid and so quintessentially Naruto, drew an almost imperceptible twitch at the corner of Tsunade's lips before she crushed it with her foul mood. The rest of breakfast passed with Naruto telling one anecdote after another, a loud and energetic monologue that turned her peaceful corner into the center of attention for the entire restaurant.
****
The next stop was a desperate attempt by Tsunade to lose him. She plunged into the bustling Tanzaku market, a labyrinth of stalls, shouts, and smells. She moved with the speed of a kunoichi, dodging crowds and turning down narrow alleys. But it was useless. The orange blur followed her everywhere.
"Grandma, wait up!" his voice echoed above the noise. "That kimono is terrible! The green makes you look like a giant slug!"
Tsunade stopped in front of a luxury kimono shop, feigning an interest she didn't feel.
"Orange is the color of champions!" Naruto insisted, appearing at her side. "You should try it! It would match your hair!"
"If I wear orange, it'll be to blend in at your funeral after I strangle you with it," she muttered, examining a piece of fabric with absolute disinterest.
Naruto was unfazed. He ended up tripping over an expensive roll of silk, knocking over a mannequin that fell with a heavy thud and causing the shop owner to come out yelling. While Tsunade paid for the damages with a murderous expression, Naruto tried to teach a group of curious children how to make the Ram seal. The kids ignored the technique but laughed hysterically at his funny faces. Tsunade watched him for a moment. The way people, especially children, reacted to his chaotic energy… it was irritatingly familiar. It reminded her of Nawaki, of his stupid, brilliant smile. The memory was a sharp pang in her chest.
****
Finally, seeking one last refuge, she led him to a quiet park, a peaceful haven with a pond and weeping willows. She sat on a bench, hoping the silence would finally defeat him. It didn't.
"This park is awesome!" Naruto said, sitting next to her. "Though it's not as fun as the one in Konoha. That's where I organized the first-ever shadow clone frog-leaping championship. It was chaos! The Third Hokage said I had an 'innovative spirit'!"
He proceeded to tell her, in excruciating detail, about every one of his most famous pranks, every punishment received, every moral victory over an exasperated Iruka-sensei. Tsunade wasn't listening, but the constant drone of his voice was a strange form of torture. Shizune had tasked them with looking after Tonton, hoping it would calm her down, so she tried to get the pig to perform the transformation jutsu, but the animal just sniffed her finger and grunted.
"Look, Tonton, this is how you do it," Naruto said, forming a seal. "Henge!"
A cloud of smoke enveloped him, and in his place appeared a miniature, cartoonish version of Tsunade with an absurdly large chest.
"I'm Grandma Tsunade, and I'm going to lose all my money!" he said, mimicking her voice.
Tsunade shot to her feet. The vein in her forehead was pulsing with fury.
"Enough," she declared. Her headache had been replaced by a dull rage. "If you're so determined to follow me, brat, at least make yourself useful. Bring me luck."
She headed to the one place she knew where Naruto's noise and chaos might be absorbed by an even greater chaos: the Shirogane Casino.
The air in the casino was thick with smoke, greed, and desperation. Tsunade moved through the main hall like a queen returning to her court. She sat at the high-stakes dice table, her expression now transformed. The hangover was gone, replaced by a gambler's mania.
"One round to start," she said, tossing a stack of chips into the center.
Naruto stood behind her, peering over her shoulder.
"I bet it's odd, Grandma! I've got a feeling! It's a future Hokage's feeling!"
Tsunade rolled the dice. It came up even. She lost.
"Your feeling sucks," she growled.
Her next stop was the card table. Naruto sat beside her, watching her hand with an intensity that unnerved the other players.
"Whoa, Grandma, you've got a terrible hand!" he said loudly, drawing the attention of the entire table. "I'd fold if I were you! That guy over there has a full-house face! I can see it in his eyes!"
The man with the full-house face smirked. The rest of the table folded. Tsunade lost the hand and a considerable amount of money.
"Brat, one more word and I'll use you as the deck."
Every time Tsunade was about to make a large, stupid bet, Naruto created a distraction. He sneezed so hard it blew the cards off the table. He stumbled into a waiter, spilling a tray of drinks all over the roulette table. He asked the croupier an incredibly dumb question about the rules right at the moment of peak tension.
"Excuse me, Mr. Croupier, but if the ball lands right on the edge between two numbers, who wins? Do you split the prize? Or do we have to have a ninja battle to decide?"
Finally, Tsunade's patience ran out. She spun around, eyes flashing, and shoved a stack of chips into his chest.
"Here. Lose these and get out of my sight. You're breaking my concentration."
Naruto took the chips, which represented a small fortune, with a radiant smile.
"Don't worry! Trust my future Hokage luck!"
He walked over to the roulette table, which had been cleaned after the accident. The crowd parted, curious to see what the noisy brat would do. Naruto closed his eyes and, without looking, tossed all the chips onto the table. They scattered across the felt, most of them landing on a single number.
"Everything on the Hokage's number!" he yelled. "Number Seven!"
The ball spun. The metallic sound was the only noise in a room that had suddenly fallen silent. It spun, it bounced, it seemed to settle on black, then on red. The tension was palpable. Finally, with one last, soft click, it stopped.
On number seven.
The crowd let out a collective gasp. Naruto had won an absurd amount of money, a mountain of chips that made Tsunade's initial stack look insignificant.
But Naruto didn't celebrate. He didn't shout. He turned, with the biggest, most radiant smile Tsunade had ever seen on him, and pushed the mountain of chips toward her.
"See, Grandma! I told you it was your lucky day!" his voice was pure joy. "Now you can pay off all your debts!"
Tsunade was speechless. She looked at the chips, then at Naruto, then back at the chips. Her brain, accustomed to the logic of loss, couldn't process the scene.
"Why…?" her voice was a hoarse whisper. "Why are you giving them to me? They're yours. You won them."
"Of course not!" Naruto replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "My mission today was to take care of you. And a good bodyguard makes sure their boss doesn't go home with empty pockets! It's teamwork! The first rule of teamwork is that the team wins, not just one person! And today, our team won!"
The walk back to the hotel was strangely silent. Tsunade walked ahead, her mind a whirlwind. Naruto followed, exhausted from a full day of being a "tick" but filled with the satisfaction of a job well done. The sun began to set, staining the clouds in shades of orange and purple. Naruto's energy, for the first time all day, seemed to have run out, and he walked with the heavy gait of a child who has played to the point of exhaustion.
That night in the suite, the mountain of newly won money was piled on the table. Naruto was sitting on the floor, nearly asleep, his head resting on the edge of an armchair. Tsunade poured him a glass of water, not sake, and sat across from him.
She watched him for a long moment. The annoyance and irritation had been replaced by a deep, bewildering curiosity. The boy was snoring softly. His apparent innocence contrasted with the immense will and chakra she knew he held inside him.
"You're an idiot, you know that?" she said quietly, more to herself than to him.
"The best idiot you'll ever meet!" he mumbled back without opening his eyes, a tired smile on his face.
She almost smiled. Almost.
"Tomorrow. At dawn. In the courtyard. Don't be late."
"I won't be."
"And that arm of yours had better be ready," she warned, standing up. "Because if you don't show me a perfect Rasengan, I'll use all that money you won to pay for your funeral."
Naruto watched her walk toward her room, his smile now filled with an unbreakable determination. The bet wasn't just about a jutsu anymore. It was about something much bigger. And he, against all odds, felt like he was about to win.
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