Naruto : A Fool's Errand.

Tachibana's fingers clenched around the bark of the tree trunk they were hiding behind. His strength was enough to make the hard trunk of the long-lived tree groan under pressure.

Shizune was still calm but Tachibana didn't know how long she would remain that way.

Time ticked in moments, each moment dragging into eternity as Tachibana's brain started to pick up speed.

'I can't die yet!'

And before he knew it, Tachibana was already moving.

Not through space in the traditional sense by walking or even running.

No.

Tachibana teleported right into the heart of it all.

Tachibana teleported to the closest bomb that was about to explode.

And before anyone realised what happened, Tachibana launched the bomb towards the sky before teleporting away once again.

'One down!'

With just the first teleportation, Tachibana discovered that this method that had popped up in his head was meaningless.

He could definitely teleport to one, two or even five more explosive tag grenades.

But what then?

What about the remaining twenty or so?

Each time he teleported the remaining balls would burn further, and he knew he wasn't fast enough to make it to all of them in time.

Tachibana's fingers clenched tight.

His eyes scanned around as a general overview of the situation as a mental image of his surroundings formed in his mind.

Tachibana blinked for a moment but he was already moving.

Emerging out of the flames of another giant explosive tags grenade Tachibana launched several kunai from his fingers.

Each Kunai stabbed into a different explosive grenade.

Tachibana's shuriken and Kunai skills were pretty impressive given his Clown skills, but he still only had ten fingers, meaning he could at most release eight kunai at once.

But that was enough.

It had to be enough since that was the absolute best he could pull off right now.

Even though lacking in numbers, the kunai themselves were special.

Almost as soon as Tachibana launched the kunai in different directions, he launched kicked the explosive grenade closest to him into the sky.

It wasn't much but Tachibana managed to create a 'safe space' in the minefield that the Kumo shinobi had laid out.

Eight explosive grenades shot towards the sky following the one Tachibana had kicked because all the kunai were connected to the one he kicked using metallic wires.

It wasn't much, but it did create a small region in the entire blast zone that could be used to buffer through the ensuing explosions with a proper buffer.

Tachibana fell to the ground and almost instantly looked up with worry.

He didn't know any convenient shielding jutsu to save himself.

Except Shizune wasn't like him.

As Shizune realised what Tachibana was doing she'd already primed her chakra to create a water shield.

As soon as Tachibana landed on the ground, Shizune shunshined to his location before spitting out a flood of water which collected around the two of them in a large thick dome.

*BBBBBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM*

The explosion was loud and blinding.

Tachibana was forced to close his eyes and cower to the ground by making sure to cover his exposed skin since even through the water shield that Shizune set up he felt a searing heatwave pass over him as his skin turned to a deep shade of red to indicated he was being cooked.

Even in the midst of being cooked alive Tachibana had several questions.

'What's the use of stopping this one bombardment?'

'They could just keep doing it again and again until we finally died.'

'What about the other fronts? Are they facing the same bombardment? If they did the war's as good as finished. I doubt Konoha will have much longer after this.'

Tachibana's muscles tightened when he realised this.

His mind was already spinning in circles about his next actions but they were all held back when he realised that he might not make it out of this situation alive.

It felt torturous and unending.

'Why didn't I just divine about all this beforehand!?'

'I had the perfect ability to counter all this! I could've simply divined about it and warned everyone about it!'

'God damn it!'

Tachibana didn't even realise that the explosions had died.

His ears rang so loudly that he couldn't hear much of anything other than his own thoughts.

It was a miracle that he even felt Shizune tug on his shoulder when she did since his skin had long lost any sense of touch because of the blinding pain that had numbed it because it was cooked so thoroughly.

Tachibana got up from his crouching position and looked at Shizune who was similarly cooked but her wounds seemed to be healing quickly since she was using what Tachibana assumed to be the Mystical palm technique.

"No more explosions?" Tachibana asked Shizune as she shook her head.

Tachibana breathed out a *sigh* of relief that he hadn't realised he was holding.

He didn't know exactly why Kumo stopped bombarding the place.

Perhaps it was because Mabui, the woman who knew this technique, didn't have enough chakra to do it again, for now.

Or maybe the world had corrected itself and given her a sudden heart attack because she tried to kill Ninja Jesus Naruto! That would be for the best.

But Shizune's mystical palm technique suddenly reminded him of someone-

"Tsunade!" Tachibana's eyes widened as he quickly activated his spirit vision and found Tsunade some distance away from them all.

Shizune's eyes widened too and when she saw Tachibana rushing in a particular direction she rushed with him too.

'Is she still alive!?' Tachibana thought since he could see that her spirit body was still there in both her legs and torso.

'Perhaps she used the Hundred Healing Seal to save herself!?'

'She did something similar when Madara ripped her apart!'

'She can still sav-'

Tachibana's steps slowed as he reached closer to Tsunade until he eventually stopped.

Tsunade's eyes were unfocused, staring at the canopy or the light that came from beyond it.

The scene would've seemed serene if not for all the smoke in the air from the burning trees and bushes.

Even more if the puddle of red under Tsunade's body vanished without trace.

Shizune rushed past him shouting something but Tachibana's ringing ears couldn't quite capture what she said.

He did see Shizune collapse on her knees beside Tsunade and begin crying though.

Yamato rushed in after her, trying to use rudimentary healing techniques he knew but Tsunade simply stopped them from wasting their efforts with a shake of her head.

Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke all looked traumatised.

Tachibana's ringing ears slowly cleared up, at least enough to hear what Tsunade was whispering after he tried hard to read her lips.

"I'm sorry...I will not be able to go on any longer."

"No Tsunade-sama! I can do it! We can do it! We can heal you! Please summon Katsuyu-sama!" Shizune practically screamed.

Tsunade's lips grew into a vague smile, "I could've saved myself had I activated the Seal of A Hundred Healings…"

Tachibana knew what it meant.

He was directly responsible for Tsunade's death.

Had he not been so close beside her, Tsunade could've focused on herself and at least activated the Seal of Hundred Healings or just escaped from the area to save herself.

A strange sense of anger rose in Tachibana's heart.

He didn't really understand it.

He didn't understand why he was angry with himself and most importantly with Tsunade.

It felt harsh and unreasonable but he did feel that way.