Legacy [ Naruto Reader-Insert ]

Tsunade never wins. Gambling and drinking are her vices and she's probably racked up more debt than Konoha's coffers can pay for, but she continues to accrue even more. Drowning herself in sake and seeking solace at the bottom of her cup, she's spent years idling by. Trying to forget everything. Her lover. Her brother. Her village.

For a moment. A short moment (though, her definition of short is quite questionable). All is good and well. She manages to drink her problems away, the liquid fire pouring through her veins, purifying her body from the demons she harbors in her mind.

And then a little girl who introduces herself as Mouse shows up in town. A pebble, dropping into the calm surface of her metaphorical pond that sends ripples throughout. And ending with a crescendo of a gigantic wave. Mouse gambles through the shatei and the other wakaishu, eventually ending at the Waka gashira of Tanzaku-gumi.

She's their stopgap, a prevention from the other gambling hotshots that come into town thinking they can empty the Tanzaku-gumi's cashbox and walk away with it unharmed. That's how she can still continue to gamble and drink everything away, you see. Konoha eventually stopped sending her the rest of her inheritance, it had run out it seems. The group shouldered her debt as long as she did this for them.

Make them cocky, then make them regret. That's how this whole thing works. She'd lose to them, let it get to their heads and after they've made a hefty sum of ryo, the Oyabun comes with his men and deals with them in kind.

They keep coming. She's never out of a job.

____

It's the scent of tar and tobacco mixed with some putrid musk again, the smell produced by the mixture is so rancid that it makes you want to puke your guts out. Your stomach drops and your veins turn icy cold.

You had this in the bag, counted all the fucking cards, calculated all your probabilities but lady luck isn't with you today.

The situation stumps you. A bead of cold sweat rolls down the side of your face as you look at the cards in your hands. No matter how much you reshuffle the cards in your hand, you couldn't seem to get a combination with enough points to win. The smug expression on Tsunade's face pushes you into the far corners of your mind. Her posture tells you everything you need to know, it seems like this is your first and last loss in Hanafuda.

For the first time, you slump backwards to lean on your cello case with defeat in your eyes as you shuffle the cards in your hand together.

Shizune balks visibly at the cards in Tsunade's hand, eyes round and alert as she keeps switching back and forth between looking at you and looking back at her cards. "Ah. Tsunade-sama. You..." Her voice trails off and she presses her lips together like she's about to spill a secret.

Tsunade's crimson painted lips turn up in a triumphant smile as she places her five cards down, unveiling them in similar theatrics as the last time you played against her.

She waves a pale palm over the cards to reveal them one by one.

"Goko." She says but she doesn't stop there, turning your knuckles bone-white from how hard you're gripping the edge of the table.