She crosses her arms. "They must have moved, or I was mistaken; I did lose exact track of them for a while there. I don't know where they are, now." Which isn't that blatant a lie, she's trying hard not to pay any attention to her chakra-sense, but that's like shutting her ears.

From the look on Jiraiya's face, he doesn't believe her.

"Brat, this's serious business," Jiraiya says. "Not an opportunity for you to goof around. Now. Where are they?"

"And what're you planning on doing when you find them?" she asks sharply.

He goes quiet, then: "Stopping the deal. Even if it means killing them both."

She shakes her head. "I won't let you do that. You won't be able to do that, they're both just as strong as you, even when you're not drugged." Shizune's gone pale, but nods.

"It's not up to you. If Tsunade makes herself a traitor..."

"She won't! It's not! Orochimaru resonated, and with Rian! There's no one more - more stupidly moral!" Mariko fights the urge to stomp her foot. That would just make her look childish. The impulse probably shows in her expression and posture, though. "They're not a threat to Konoha, but killing half of Rian might change that!"

Jiraiya scowls. "Rian was a child. Resonants are similar to start with, and when there's such a large age gap, the adult personality is dominant. The weight of his memories is going to be greater than hers."

"You don't know that! You don't know Rian!" she shouts, tears of - rage, she was going to call this emotion rage - starting to leak from her eyes.

"I don't have time for this," he says, turning to go.

She takes a deep, gasping breath, then grabs his sleeve. "Wait..." she says, and continues when he turns back to her, "Just... Try not to jump to assumptions."

He shakes her off. "I know Orochimaru, kid. I'm not assuming anything." And he's gone.

It's alright, though.

She's already tagged him.

Jiraiya curses the delay, curses his own stupidity for trusting Tsunade not to drug him - and for trusting Mariko not to lie, for good measure.

He still can't believe Tsunade would have done such a thing - certainly that she could, she's probably one of the only ones out there able to create a tasteless, odorless, colorless drug able to fool a shinobi of his caliber - but he'd thought she was still fundamentally Tsunade. Sure, he'd thought she might take some convincing to return, but to actively betray Konoha -

And to side with Orochimaru of all people, Orochimaru who was never kind to her, who never was a true part of their team -

And now he's seeing their story play itself out in the younger generation with this new Team Seven. Rian as Orochimaru, and he bets that Sakura girl will turn out all too similar to Tsunade, with Mariko as his stupid, stupid younger self, too blinded by his affection for his teammate to just see -

He's going to be too late to stop the deal. He can just feel it.

Hopefully he won't be too late to save Konoha.

Chihiro's able to easily identify that Tsunade has left the town on her own, heading for an empty field past the outskirts, near where the cliffs rise.

Ideal if she's planning for a fight, or even if she simply doesn't want witnesses to disrupt them. Orochimaru knows her, knows her weaknesses and strengths, knows how desperately she must want to see her brother and lover again... But they've also become aware lately exactly how unpredictable life can be. They'll trust her word, for now.

Orochimaru approaches her alone, leaving Kabuto and Chihiro at the edge of the field to watch, on the off chance their old teammate has changed enough to betray them.

"So, Tsunade... Have you made your decision?"

She hasn't. Not really. She remembers - everything - all the time she spent with her loved ones, good and bad.

Their dreams and wishes.

Their inevitable, foolish deaths.

"I don't fully believe your new ambitions, Orochimaru... But I'll heal your arms. In exchange, you, your resonant, anyone associated with you... Will all leave your hands off Konoha."

(She still doesn't know if she intends to heal or kill him. She supposes she won't, until she actually goes to do it.)

"Easy enough, since that's already my plan... But as for our original deal, there is something you should know... The resurrection technique is currently incomplete. As it is, it requires a sacrifice for each person to be brought back. I have little trouble finding willing sacrifices, and will provide the needed bodies, or you could wait for me to improve it, until it can function without."

She twitches. "I don't find myself in the mood to wait any longer to see them..."

"Very well, then. Now, if you would..." And he approaches her, holding his useless arms out to be healed.

She gathers chakra to her hands, ready -

And it washes over his arms, clearing away and replacing the necrotic tissue, repairing the damage done outside of the dead zones, sweeping away the infection. There's a lot; he's clearly been harsh on his body. She notes how his heart-rate settles and his breath evens as she works.

Finally she drops her arms, letting the gathered chakra fade.

They turn their hands over, flex their fingers, and then smile ever so slightly.

"Thank you," they say, "For my part of the deal, I will need to set it up, since I didn't know which direction you would prefer beforehand." They take stock of themselves; Tsuande had healed far more than just their arms, and had included their failing body in her sweep. They suspect that the timer on their inhabitancy of this body's just been reset.

Chihiro comes running up, then. "Summoner!" she chirps. "That Jiraiya's approaching now. Mariko and the other girl aren't with him. He feels angry."

Orochimaru frowns. "We may have to cut this short..."

Tsunade frowns and crosses her arms - and Jiraiya arrives in a blast of smoke.

"You're too late," she says, sharply.

Jiraiya's expression is long and grim. "I can't let you betray Konoha like this. I'm sorry, but I can't let you leave. Either of you."

Tsunade's fingers curl at her side. "I healed him. He'll be leaving Konoha alone now, Jiraiya - I know when he's lying."

He starts to form handseals -

And will suddenly find himself several feet to the side, the ground sloped under him differently enough that he has to stop and catch his footing lest he fall.

Between one blink and the next, Mariko appears between the three, arm thrown out, Shizune clinging to her.

"Stop. Fighting. And fucking talk to one another like the mature adults I thought you were all supposed to be!"

Jiraiya valiantly resists the urge to stick his tongue out at her.

"This isn't any of your business! Get out of the way, kid!"

"It became my business when you threatened to kill my teammate's resonant!"

Which, to her, is effectively threatening to kill Rian - she perceives the world through her chakra-sense as much as through sight or sound, and to her senses Orochimaru and Rian might as well be the same person in two locations. Which she suspects is more true than official policy about resonants would let on, what with talk about one personality becoming 'dominant.'

Exasperated, "She's not your teammate anymore, Mariko!"

"And Orochimaru isn't your old teammate anymore, either! You - you don't get it, they're a different person entirely, their chakra's different, their emotions are different - "

"She is quite right - while I have his memories, I no more identify as the old Orochimaru than I do as the old Rian. I am also not here to pick a fight with anyone." And they're cursing their inability to plan around Jiraiya - they'd hoped Tsunade would become Hokage, but it's looking like their rush to get their damnable arms healed has scuttled that plan.

They're also running through options in case this does come to a fight - Manda has refused them, which leaves them with the less powerful snakes like Aoda or the cats.

Jiraiya attempts to move - Mariko just bops him back to the position she'd originally stuck him in.

Tsunade watches, torn between 'annoyed' and 'amused' as Jiraiya and his student argue. "...It appears I lost my bet..." she mutters. "And I'd thought I was on a roll."

Jiraiya, meanwhile, has gone red in the face, focused entirely on Mariko, who has her hands planted on her hips as she shouts at him - she's currently on how Rian rescued her from the Akatsuki, when Jiraiya was too busy getting drunk and chasing women to notice two S-ranked criminals who weren't even attempting to hide.

Orochimaru leans over to Tsunade. "Do you think they'd notice if we just slipped off?"

"...Probably not," she responds, side-eyeing him.

"There's still the matter of my side of the deal... And they seem to be repeating themselves already; knowing the both of them, they could be here a while."

She snorts. "Very well, then. Do you have a place in mind?"

They nod and lead the way, updating Rian so the other can prepare the sacrifices. (They've found that the easiest way to find willing sacrifices is to offer exorbitant sums of money and top priority for resurrection when they finally iron out all the bugs for those who wish to return to life; they've gotten an interesting mix of people volunteering as a result).

Once the sounds of Jiraiya and Mariko arguing fade - and Orochimaru notes that Shizune, Chihiro, and Kabuto have followed them - Orochimaru stops and beckons Kabuto over. "We'll need to summon the sacrifices from our base," they say to Tsunade, then move to put into place the summoning seal. Kabuto assists, both in the placement and in the summoning itself, and soon enough two people appear before them. One is entirely calm, shoulders slumped and eyes half-lidded, while the other is high-strung, fingers tapping along her thighs. (Rian's memories of them filter over; the first had decided to spend her new-found fortune on going out in style, having already had a terminal disease; the second on securing her family's finances. Preying on the desperate is probably not the most ethical of ways to go about this, but it beats the old Orochimaru's methods, and they'll be putting back most of the sacrifices anyways, so.)

"You two understand your role?" Orochimaru asks. Both women nod, and move as they direct. Orochimaru takes out the Edo Tensei scrolls, choosing to first bring back Tsunade's lover, Katou Dan.

Tsunade watches in silence as ashes and dust envelop the first woman, gradually replacing her with Dan.

The final layers cake on, color slowly returns - and Orochimaru mentally severs their nascent connection with the summons, releasing Dan entirely.

He freezes when the technique releases him. His eyes slide open slowly, and he looks around, then down at himself. Slowly: "I remember dying... Is this that forbidden technique of the Second's?"

Tsunade chooses that moment to move, slamming into him in a hug that would probably be extremely painful if he wasn't currently made of dirt. "Dan - " she gasps out, choking on her own emotions.

He returns the hug, then asks, "How long's it been? You - don't look the way you used to."

She half-laughs. "I'm an old woman now... It's been twenty-three years, Dan. There's - someone you should see, too." And she steps aside, gesturing behind her to her assistant.

It takes him a moment, but - "Shizune? You've grown!" he exclaims, then steps up to hug her. "How is it I'm back, though?"

"Orochimaru discovered and improved on the Second's technique..." Tsunade explains. "He found two volunteers, for you and Nawaki - " She whirls on Orochimaru. "Wait! Dan's sister, Komayumi! You can bring her back too, right?"

"I'll need some DNA, so it'll take me a bit, but yes."

Dan blinks. "You - can bring my sister back? ...Thank you." Shizune is wide-eyed, meanwhile, and doesn't seem to know what to say.

Tsunade immediately returns to hugging her old boyfriend.

"But - " Dan continues, "How did you get authorization for something like this? I would've thought even if the technique was allowed, someone else would be prioritized..."

"Heh. That's a long story, that I'll let Tsunade tell..."

She sends him a quick glare, then turns back to Dan. "It's... A lot's changed. I left Konoha after a while - I couldn't stand to be there, with everyone gone and the village changing. Sarutobi-sensei let me go. Orochimaru... Left too, later on. Less peacefully."

"You're a missing-nin?" Dan demands, stepping back.

Tsunade shakes her head "No - well, I wasn't, I might be now, it depends on how Jiraiya reports this to the village... I traded healing Orochimaru's arms for you and Nawaki, and now Komayumi, to be returned to life." She breathes out, heavily. "Konoha isn't what it used to be. Isn't what I thought it was. I - might have been able to change it, they offered me the position of Hokage, but - I'd rather have Nawaki back. Have you. My family... I doubt the offer's still valid, anyways."

Dan goes quiet. "What now, if we can't return to Konoha? That village... It was everything to me..."

Tsunade glances down. "I know. I'm sorry to have brought you back under unideal circumstances."

"You'll all be welcome in Sound, my current village, as guests if nothing else."

Tsunade nods. "We'll have to talk that out, I prefer being on the road, but Nawaki should have somewhere stable to grow up... And it'll be safer, if Konoha declares me a missing-nin."