#e-e*

Note: Detective AU Drabble. Response to THIS drabble from CI. Here you go - seemed like the right day to post it. Ironic, ne? Ahem. @minaa-munch

“Reservation for four adults.”

Tsunade balances the phone against her shoulder as she reaches for the cup Jiraiya offers her. Her fingers are cold—numb enough that the heat from the hot chocolate bites when it seeps into her palms. January wind scrapes her cheeks raw, sharp and unkind, carrying the smell of exhaust and sugar and something faintly metallic she doesn’t register yet.

“Don’t forget to tell them about a seat for Naruto,” Jiraiya says around a sip of his drink. “You know Kushina. She’ll riot.”

The neon sign above them flickers, bathing the street in red. It paints the wet pavement like a warning. Like a bruise.

“Four adults and a baby,” Tsunade says into the phone, already tired. “Yes. A baby. That does change the number, doesn’t it?” Her jaw tightens. “Yes, we’ll be there by seven.”

She ends the call before the idiot on the other end can keep talking and shoves the phone into her coat pocket.

“Done,” she mutters. “You could’ve called instead, you know.”

She lifts the cup.

Doesn’t get to drink.

“Minato—!”

The name rips out of her as he barrels past them, coat flaring, steps urgent and wrong and fast. He doesn’t slow. Doesn’t glance back.

Minato never ignores her.

Ever.

Something cold and vicious hooks into her chest.

The cup slips from her fingers. Hot chocolate splashes across the pavement, steam rising like a ghost. She doesn’t notice the burn. Doesn’t notice anything except the way her heart starts hammering, too loud, too fast, like it’s trying to outrun her body.

“Minato!” she shouts again.

He’s already halfway down the block.

Panic seizes her hard enough to steal her breath. She’s moving before the thought finishes forming—boots slipping, coat snapping in the wind, his name tearing itself raw on her lips.

Why is he running?

Why won’t he stop?

Fear floods her, thick and suffocating, as she chases after him, heart pounding out a warning her brain is too slow to understand.

Fate has already made its decision.

Tsunade just hasn’t caught up to it yet.

The pediatrician’s office squats at the end of the street, brick walls bruised, neon sign flickering like it’s struggling to stay conscious. Cartoon decals peel from the windows—giraffes, clouds, smiling suns warped by age and heat.

Why here?

Why would he—

Her pace falters.

No.

No, no—

She spots Kushina under the streetlamp.

Red hair blazing, unmistakable. Naruto is tucked into her chest, swaddled tight, blanket pulled under his chin.

Alive.

Safe.

Relief almost lands—

Minato moves.

The tension snaps through his body so suddenly Tsunade feels it in her own. His head turns. His mouth opens.

Too fast.

The night explodes.

A sound like the world breaking its own rules. A flash in her peripheral vision.

Gunshot.

Her brain stutters.

Refuses to understand.

Then Minato jerks.

Once—

again—

Blood erupts.

It’s sudden—too bright, too much—spraying across Kushina’s cheek, her hands, blooming through Naruto’s blanket in a way Tsunade’s brain refuses to label as blood for half a second too long. It looks unreal. Like paint. Like something that can still be wiped away.

“No—”

The sound tears out of Tsunade before she knows she’s making it.

Minato moves.

Not back. Not away.

Forward.

Her eyes struggle to keep up—his body already committing, already in motion before sense can catch him. He doesn’t dodge. He doesn’t slow. He throws himself at them, and Tsunade sees it all in broken pieces: the violent snap of his shoulders, the way his chest arches as the impact hits, the awful, intimate certainty of bullets finding him instead.

His breath leaves him in a sound that isn’t human.

“Kushin—”

The name shatters in his throat.

He hits Kushina and they go down together, hard. He twists as they fall, curls around them, folding himself over Kushina and the baby with shaking arms, like his body is still something solid. Like instinct might outweigh physics. Like he can still decide how this ends.

Another crack splits the air.

Tsunade sees his body jerk—sharp, wrong, helpless.

His body jerks violently.

Too sharp. Too final.

Blood spills faster now, darker, pooling beneath them, spreading across the pavement in obscene, creeping lines.

Tsunade is running again—stumbling, slipping, lungs on fire.

“Minato—Minato—”

She hits the ground beside them on her knees, hard enough to jar her teeth. Her hands are suddenly red. Slick. Too warm. The smell of iron floods her nose, tangling with antiseptic and neon and terror until she can’t tell one from the other.

Kushina makes a sound beneath him. Not a scream. Not a word.

“Mina—”

Just breath. Just disbelief shaped like his name.

Her eyes are too wide. As if the world tilted and never bothered to right itself.

Another gunshot echoes somewhere distant.

Minato jerks again, a helpless, ugly motion. He presses closer anyway, forehead knocking against Kushina’s shoulder, arms shaking violently as he tries to pull them tighter, tighter—

As if proximity could undo damage.

Tsunade’s hands move on instinct. Pressure. Angles. Stop the bleeding. Except there’s too much of it. Her fingers sink into warmth that should not exist, sliding no matter how hard she presses.

“Look at me,” she says, voice breaking apart. “Minato—look at me—stay—stay—”

His eyes flick toward her.

Focused.

Apologetic.

Still there.

The look nearly ruins her.

Like he’s sorry. Like he knows exactly what this costs. Like he’s already letting go of something she refuses to name.

“No,” she breathes. “No, don’t—don’t you dare—”

Sirens wail somewhere far off. Too far. Warped. Useless.

Naruto makes a small, confused sound, alive and warm, fist curled in a blanket soaked with his father’s blood.

This isn’t happening.

This can’t be—

Partners don’t fall like this.

Brothers don’t bleed out under flickering neon and broken cartoons.

Tsunade presses harder, hands slipping, heart pounding so violently it feels like it might fracture her from the inside. Her vision blurs, edges tunneling.

Bleary blue, dragging themselves upward with effort that makes her chest ache. They find hers and lock. Hazel to blue. He doesn’t look anywhere else. Won’t let himself.

No.

No, don’t look at me like that—

“Minato,” she says, but it comes out wrong. Too thin. Too tight. Like the word is being strangled on its way out.

His mouth moves.

“Na…ru-to—”

The name hits her like a physical blow. Her hands slip in his blood as she lunges closer, pressure forgotten, instinct screaming over training.

“No,” she says again, louder now. “No, you’re not—don’t—Minato, stay with me—”

“Ku…shi-na…”

Each syllable costs him. She sees it in the way his chest stutters, the way his body fights for air that refuses to come. Terror blooms, hot and blinding, until it drowns out everything she knows how to do.

“Please,” she chokes. The word tears out of her, raw and undignified. “Please don’t. Don’t leave me. You promised—do you hear me? You promised we’d do this together. We’d find Nawaki’s killer together. We—”

His eyes flutter. Blur. Sharpen again, still locked on her, still tethered.

“Take…ca—”

The sound collapses into a wet, coppery rasp that makes her whole body jolt. Something inside him gives, and Tsunade feels it like a fault line cracking open beneath her ribs.

“No—no—no—no—”

She shakes her head violently, like denial might physically hold him in place. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to leave me like this. Not now. Not you.”

Tears spill freely now, hot and unstoppable, streaking down her face and dripping onto his. She doesn’t wipe them away. She can’t spare the hands.

“Stay,” she sobs. “Please, Minato, stay with me. I can fix this. I fix things. That’s what I do. Just—just stay long enough, okay?”

His fingers twitch weakly against the pavement, blood-slick and trembling.

Her breath hitches so hard it hurts.

“That’s it,” she whispers desperately. “You see? You’re still here. You’re still here with me.”

His gaze wavers. Hazels blur, refocus, blur again—but they don’t leave her. They won’t leave her.

A shudder runs through him.

Not a breath.

Something smaller.

Something final.

“Minato—” Her voice caves completely. She folds closer, forehead nearly touching his, like proximity might stitch him back together. “Please. Don’t make me do this without you. You said—remember? You said we’d see it through. Together. Always together.”

His chest jerks once more. A thin, useless pull of air that barely qualifies as breathing.

Her world fractures with it.

“No,” she whimpers. “No, no, no—please—please—”

His mouth opens, but nothing comes.

The urgency is still there in his eyes—love, apology, unfinished promises—but the strength behind it drains away, spilling out beneath her hands, soaking into the street, into nowhere.

Then his gaze softens.

Slackens.

Unhooks.

For half a heartbeat, the world holds its breath with her.

And then—

Her phone vibrates.

The sound is small. Polite. Obscene.

A bright, cheerful chime slices through the silence like a blade wrapped in ribbon. Tsunade doesn’t look at it. Can’t. It keeps buzzing against her hip, insistent, mindless.

Reservation confirmed. 7:00 p.m. Table for four adults. And a baby.

The words burn themselves into the back of her skull without ever touching her eyes.

Somewhere behind her, Jiraiya is talking.

She knows he is. She can see his mouth moving in her peripheral vision, hands gesturing, face pale, wild, trying to make sense of a night that has snapped clean in half. His voice reaches her like it’s traveling through water—warped, distant, syllables dissolving before they can mean anything.

“Tsunade—Tsunade, listen to me—hey, hey—ambulance is on the way, they said—”

She doesn’t answer.

She can’t feel her hands anymore.

Only the heat.

Only the wet.

A strange hush settles over the street, thick and wrong, as if even the city has realized it’s intruded on something sacred and doesn’t know how to apologize.

That’s when the snow starts to fall.

At first, she thinks it’s ash.

Tiny white flecks drift down, slow and lazy, catching in Minato’s hair, melting against the blood on Kushina’s hands, disappearing as soon as they touch the dark, spreading pool beneath them.

It never snows in Konoha.

Not like this.

Not ever.

The flakes grow thicker, heavier, turning the neon light into a soft, blurred halo. White against red. Clean against ruin. Each one lands and vanishes, erased the moment it touches what’s been spilled.

The street begins to look like it’s trying to forget.

Tsunade’s phone vibrates again.

Reminder: Reservation for seven. Table for four adults. And a baby.

Her breath finally breaks.

The sound that leaves her isn’t a word. It isn’t even a sob at first—just a raw, animal noise ripped straight from somewhere deep and unguarded, echoing off brick and glass and flickering signs. She folds over Minato’s body, forehead pressing into his shoulder, into the place where warmth is already draining away.

Naruto cries.

High and thin and confused, a baby's wail cutting through the falling snow, through the sirens now screaming closer, through Jiraiya’s frantic, broken voice.

The two sounds tangle together—hers and the baby’s.

Grief and life.

Loss and need.

A harmony so wrong and so perfect it feels like the night itself is splitting under the weight of it.

Snow gathers on Minato’s lashes.

On Kushina’s hair.

On Tsunade’s shoulders as she clutches him, rocking slightly, like the motion might undo what the world has already decided.

“Stay,” she whispers into his collar, voice shredded. “Just stay. Please. I’m right here. I’m right here.”

The flakes keep falling.

White over red.

Silent over screams.

And somewhere beneath the snow, beneath the blood, beneath the echo of her sobs and Naruto’s cries and Jiraiya’s fading, desperate words—

The reservation stands.

A table for four adults.

And a baby.

Hurls an icicle at him.