Tsubaki (game)

Pale blonde hair worn long and green eyes give Tsubaki a look younger than her true age. Sickness drains the color from her face, though it returns as she heals. She dresses in an ornate red robe draped with a pink shawl and completes the outfit with sandals.

Tsubaki pours her devotion into her daughter Aoi while caring deeply about everyone around her. Widowhood has not dimmed her sunny disposition, and she gladly offers counsel to any who ask. One old sorrow lingers, that she never formed a bond with the Tree of Life as her ancestors did, but the news that the Tree Revival Village is nurturing it back to life lifts that grief.

Tsubaki descends from a clan that once dwelt in the Forest of Delusion, outside the Tree Felling Village, in the age when the Tree of Life itself was felled. Years after Aoi's birth and her husband's death, an incurable sickness began wasting her away, a worry that weighed heavily on her daughter. Around the time Naruto and Jiraiya arrive, the illness should have left her bedridden, yet she still moves. Her dread deepens when Aoi offers herself as Black Shadow's next sacrifice.

Naruto finds Tsubaki in the Forest of Delusion, and Jiraiya explains that Aoi entered the Crystal Cave not as a sacrifice but to retrieve leaves the Tree of Life had swallowed, leaves able to cure even fatal sickness. As Tsubaki finally loses the ability to move, Jiraiya watches over her while Naruto heads back to the cave, and she entrusts him with a protective family charm for Aoi. Once Naruto and Aoi defeat Black Shadow and secure the final leaf, the medicine Aoi brews restores her. She startles Naruto by being alive after his week-long coma, since Aoi had kept her recovery quiet.

Later, when Naruto returns to take Aoi to the Crystal Cave in search of the Tree's seed, Tsubaki frets over her absent daughter while out gathering herbs, then rejoices at word of Aoi's link to the reviving Tree, cooking a feast in thanks and sending Naruto off with a parting gift.