Naruto : Struggle Of Childhood

Lullaby

Tsunade had learned from experience that winning streaks were anything but a good thing. When Tsunade was losing, everything was normal, but if she won for a long period of time, she knew that something horrible would happen.

The first time that she had had a winning streak had been right before her younger brother had died. She had won straight for almost two weeks, and even Jiraiya had stopped playing with her. After her world had been shattered by that death, her losing streak had returned, and Tsunade hadn't thought anything of it. The second time that she had had a winning streak was before Dan was killed in an attack. Tsunade was too distraught to worry about her gambling, but afterwards, she wondered. The third time was before the Kyuubi attack and when Orochimaru had began to act strangely. That time she had paid attention, and when she left the village after the attack, she always remembered to beware of winning streaks. They would come, but only when something horrible was about to happen. Getting attacked, meeting up with someone she didn't want to see, like her creditors, or some natural disaster always followed a winning streak, even a small one.

This was not a small winning streak. Tsunade had been winning the grand prize at everything for almost two weeks. She wondered if this meant that Shizune, her assistant and one of the last people that she was close to, was going to die as well, but she knew that if she anticipated something, it wouldn't happen. If there was something that was completely impossible to have occur, that was going to be what happened.

Shizune didn't seem to think that they were headed for anything wrong, actually, she seemed so thrilled that they were going to pay off their debt, Tsunade didn't have the heart to tell her that they were about to face some horror in the future.

Now she was just biding her time. What ever it was would come. It always did. When she ran away it met her there, when she stayed, it was waiting for her. Tsunade had developed a somewhat fatalistic attitude over the years, and the longer she had to wait, the worse the thing that was about to happen would be.

The day was bright and sunny with a mild breeze. It was warm, but not too hot. All in all, it was a perfect day in Tea Country. Tsunade had only arrived a few days ago, and she new that this was the perfect place for something horrible to happen.

At best it would just be Orochimaru or Jiraiya. Orochimaru would try to get her to join him and his stupid little crusade against Konoha that was basically his having a temper tantrum about not being allowed to be Hokage. Jiraiya would be worse. He would hit on her, and flirt with random women, and get drunk, and pass out on her, and basically humiliate her with the combination of his 'research' and romantic escapades. This would go on for about a week then Tsunade and Shizune would flee in the middle of the night.

That would be irritating, but not as bad as things could be.

"Another WIN!" the announcer yelled into the microphone as Tsunade stared at the Wheel of Fate, the casino's highest stakes game. The owner was starting to make his way towards her, and his look was all Tsunade needed to see.

The fact was, she was winning too much. It didn't matter that she wasn't cheating; the casino was starting to lose money on her.

"Shizune," Tsunade commanded, "Let's go."

"Hai!" the black hair girl chirped, she seemed to be in a disgustingly good mood, "Are we going to see your creditors now?"

"Maybe," Tsunade said thoughtfully as the reached the door to the casino.

She opened the door to face three filthy looking people, no children, in a huddle. They were of various ages, and indeterminate sex or appearance. They smelled foul and they seemed to be holding a small bag, probably something they picked up off the street, with maybe three ryou in it.