Insignia

Gambling isn't Tsunade's only compulsion, granted that it's her most obvious one. The Legendary Sucker's name is known in every gambling circle within every shinobi nation. Betting is simply the most publicized of her habits. Slightly less infamous but equally visible is her appreciation for beverages with levels of alcoholic purity high enough to knock renowned drunks flat on their butts. At any given time of day, one could enter the Godaime Hokage's office and spy a telltale bottle (of good size too) sitting patiently on her desk. She's a high functioning alcoholic, though there doesn't exist a man with balls big enough to identify her as such to her face. Her third habit is subtle, private, and inconsequential. It's almost a nervous tic, really. Almost any time there's mention of Orochimaru, or if Anko's standing in front of her desk, she'll rub her neck subconsciously.

She rarely catches herself when she does it, and honestly she's shocked that she still does it after all of these years. After all, she'd only slept with him once.

It was nine days after Nawaki died and they were still in their late teens. For four days during the Second Great Shinobi War she killed every unlucky soul who happened to come across her on the battlefield and some who never had the chance to: to this day there are great canyons and cliffs in Amegakure thanks to her fearsome fists, cutting down enemies from clear across the field. For four days after that she heal-slaved comrade after comrade in steady supply, cementing her notoriety as a first class medic with a scope the likes of which had never been seen before. On the ninth day, she realized that neither slaughter nor medical miracles could soothe ache of loss that saturated her down to her bones. She had roamed the territory numbly then, with no certain destination, and eventually she'd run into him. Or he'd run into her; she wasn't too sure of who was coming or going at the time. And Orochimaru had stood there, all long hair and serpentine eyes and stupid unreadable smirk and she'd made up her mind in an instant that she was either going to screw him or kill him, and lucky him she'd gone with the former.

Her hair was greasy and he was covered in dried blood because neither of them had had a bath in days; baths were hard to come by on enemy terrain. But she crushed her lips to his all the same, and he'd said nothing in protest, easily responding in compliance. (It never crossed her mind later to question this, and she could only reckon that maybe he'd known she wasn't quite in her right mind then. Maybe it took a lunatic to recognize a lunatic.) The sex was mild, nothing earth-shattering but it was better than her novice experiences with horny teenaged boys who just didn't want to die virgins. At some point during, he'd kissed a trail down her neck to the juncture where it met her shoulder, then bit down. Hard. Hard enough that later that night, she actually had to heal the tiny wounds from his canine teeth; she wouldn't want infection to set in so close to the jugular vein.

Tsunade knew Orochimaru held no particularly strong feelings for her, yet he'd marked her with two little pinpoint scars anyway. Just because. Jiraiya noticed it immediately when he saw her a few days later, but kept his mouth shut, eyes returning to it every so often as if it were a crime scene. She knew he knew what it was, but he had the decency not to make a comment. (But she's known him so long that she knows what he's thinking and she wonders the same thing sometimes: Why not him? Why hadn't she picked him instead? Maybe everything would be different. Maybe nothing would be different.) Years later, Dan asked her about it when they were making out, but the blonde had ignored his questioning and silenced his lips with hers and he never bothered to ask again. (And she knows what he thinks too - a sort of injury, from a mission possibly. Not a lovebite. Not from the pale faced man who stares at him cooly enough to creep him out.)

These days her transformation jutsu hides it well from public view, but when she's alone and looks at her genuine self in the mirror there it is, the mark of Orochimaru's ownership plainly reflected for her eyes to scrutinize. The snake Sannin has been marking his possessions since long before Juugo was born, but she is not his property, he's dead and the dead own nothing. Senju Tsunade belongs to no one.

...but that's not what her body says.

A / N : Companion fic to a JirTsu I'm working on.