Tsunade

The Fifth Hokage dispatches the missions that drive Shippuden's first half, from rescuing Gaara to hunting the Akatsuki. When Pain levels the village she pours her life force into shielding its people and falls into a coma, forcing the Leaf to choose a successor. Revived for the war, she fights as one of the Five Kage against Madara, blunt, gambling-addicted and fiercely protective to the last.

Tsunade presents as a woman in her twenties thanks to a transformation technique she keeps active at all times, with pale skin, light brown eyes and blonde hair worn in two loose low ponytails. A violet rhombus, the seal in which she stores years of accumulated chakra, sits at the centre of her forehead. She dresses in a grey-green kimono-style blouse held by a wide blue sash, with a loose green haori marked by a single large kanji across the back. When her chakra is spent the illusion collapses and she appears frail, wrinkled and elderly.

Brash, blunt and famously short-tempered, Tsunade solves many problems by shouting or by punching them. She drinks heavily, gambles compulsively and loses with legendary consistency, which her assistant Shizune treats as an omen of disaster. Beneath the bluster she is a deeply protective leader who agonises over sending subordinates to die and who refuses to abandon a patient. Years of grief once left her phobic of blood and contemptuous of the word Hokage, but by this series she has reclaimed the title and defends it fiercely. She is stubborn about her own limits, indulgent toward Naruto, and capable of startling warmth and dignity when the situation demands it.

Granddaughter of the First Hokage Hashirama Senju and grandniece of the Second, Tsunade grew up carrying the weight of Konoha's founding family. She trained under Hiruzen Sarutobi alongside Jiraiya and Orochimaru, and the three earned the title of Sannin after surviving a confrontation with Hanzo of the Salamander. She pioneered modern battlefield medicine and insisted every squad carry a medical ninja. The wars took her younger brother Nawaki and her lover Dan Kato, both of whom dreamed of becoming Hokage, and their deaths left her unable to look at blood. She wandered the countryside gambling and drinking for years until Naruto Uzumaki's stubbornness shamed her into accepting the hat herself.

1. Kazekage Rescue

   As Hokage she receives word that the Akatsuki have captured Gaara and dispatches Team Kakashi and Team Guy to Sunagakure. Her decisions frame the mission, and she later commends Sakura, whose medical training under her proves decisive when the poison used by Sasori has to be countered.

2. Akatsuki Suppression and Sasuke's pursuit

   Tsunade coordinates Konoha's response as the Akatsuki hunt the tailed beasts, authorising the squads that confront Hidan and Kakuzu and the teams that search for Sasuke and Itachi. Her authority is increasingly challenged by the village elders and by Danzo, who questions whether she is willing to do what leadership requires.

3. Pain's Assault

   When the Six Paths of Pain level Konoha, Tsunade refuses to flee. She extends her Strength of a Hundred Seal across the entire village so that every wounded civilian and shinobi is shielded and healed, an act that burns through the chakra she spent decades storing. The effort shatters her transformation and drops her into a prolonged coma.

4. Five Kage Summit

   Comatose in the ruins of Konoha, Tsunade is absent while Danzo is named her replacement and attends the summit in her place. She wakes as the crisis with Sasuke and the Akatsuki escalates, resumes her office after Danzo's death, and reluctantly joins the other Kage in declaring the Fourth Shinobi World War.

5. Fourth Shinobi World War

   Tsunade oversees the Allied Shinobi Forces' medical division, coordinating logistics before taking the field herself. She fights alongside the other four Kage against a reanimated Madara Uchiha, is gravely wounded, and is later restored and transported by Katsuyu to help sustain the front line during the battle against the Ten-Tails.

Naruto Uzumaki

Successor figure and surrogate family

Naruto's refusal to surrender reminded her of the brother and lover she lost, and she entrusted him with her grandfather's necklace. She indulges him, defends his reputation before the other Kage, and openly hopes he will one day wear the hat.

Jiraiya

Teammate of many years

Their bickering masks decades of trust. She approves his infiltration of Amegakure against her better judgement, and news of his death devastates her, leaving her to carry the coded message he sent back with his last strength.

Sakura Haruno

Apprentice

Tsunade taught Sakura medical ninjutsu, chakra-enhanced strength and eventually her own hundred-strength seal. She treats her student as a true heir to her techniques and trusts her with command responsibility during the war.

Shizune

Assistant and niece of Dan

Shizune has followed Tsunade since her wandering years, managing her paperwork, her debts and her drinking. Their bond is maternal and exasperated in equal measure, and Shizune reads her moods better than anyone.

Danzo Shimura

Political rival

Danzo considers her leadership soft and manoeuvres to take her place while she lies comatose. She distrusts his methods entirely, and his actions at the Five Kage Summit vindicate her judgement of him.

• She shields and heals every person in Konoha at once during Pain's attack, exhausting the chakra of a lifetime.
• Her transformation fails publicly for the first time, revealing her true elderly appearance to the village.
• She names Kakashi's temporary successor arrangements void and reclaims the Hokage title after waking from her coma.
• She joins the other four Kage in a combined assault on the reanimated Madara Uchiha.
• She formally passes the burden of the village forward by endorsing Kakashi as the Sixth Hokage after the war.

• Her habitual bad luck at gambling earned her a mocking nickname, and a winning streak is treated as a warning of catastrophe.
• She is the granddaughter of the First Hokage and grandniece of the Second.
• Her fear of blood, developed after personal loss, was overcome before the events of this series.
• She is the first woman to hold the office of Hokage.

• Naruto Uzumaki
• Sasuke Uchiha
• Sakura Haruno
• Kakashi Hatake
• Sai
• Jiraiya

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