The delegation left the next morning.
Tsunade stood on the deck of the battleship, her brown hair whipping in the wind, and waved at me until the ship disappeared over the horizon.
I stood on the dock for a long time after she was gone, the salt spray cold on my face.
"Big brother?" Kushina tugged at my sleeve. She was five now, her red hair pulled into a messy ponytail, her blue eyes full of questions. "Was that your girlfriend?"
"She's not my girlfriend."
"Then why are you sad?"
"I'm not sad."
"You're lying. Your eye is doing the twitchy thing."
I sighed. The twitchy thing—her name for my Sharingan, which sometimes activated without my permission when I was feeling strong emotions. "I'm not sad. I'm thinking."
"About her?"
"About the future."
Kushina frowned. "The future is boring. Let's go eat mochi."
I let her drag me away from the dock, back toward the compound. But I looked over my shoulder one last time, at the empty sea where the ship had been, and I made a promise to myself.
I will see her again.
I didn't know that it would take two years, a war, and the death of everything I'd ever known.