Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jiraiya’s been experimenting with a new seal. Well, experimenting might be a stretch. If it doesn’t work, it’ll kill him, so he’s been saving testing his theory for a time like this.

It’s a light way to put it, but Pain has bested him, and as many scrapes as he’s made it out of miraculously... well, this was his last. There isn’t much time, possibly not even enough. Fukasaku jumps from his shoulder, and he burns a message for Naruto into the old toad's back, then begins his seal. He's in no shape to reach his ink and scrolls, but he's got the ground, and he's got the blood that pours from his missing arm. He writes as quickly as he can, before Pa is no longer a distraction.

Jiraiya had never pictured a long life, prepared to die for the village by age six, but he’s been granted the longevity so many shinobi are kept from. He’s 54. That’s over double of some of his friends.

If he fails, Naruto will get his message, and Naruto will save Konoha. It’s clear to him now that it was never Minato, or Nagato, but the orange-clad, hyperactive, thorn-in-his-side kid he’d been saddled with that is the child of the prophecy. Naruto can save them all. If Jiraiya leaves this world for good, if he dies here today, he’s leaving it in good hands.

Sparing one last thought to his godson, Jiraiya bites his thumb, and everything goes black.

If the afterlife is real, he must have been punished for his worldly sins. Groaning, Jiraiya rolls onto his side. He feels like he’s been drugged. His limbs are heavy, his head aches, and the scar on his chest is-

Wait a minute. The scar on his chest is gone. He snaps to alertness, running a hand down where the gnarled, raised skin should be, only to find that besides a few perpetual bruises and small lines, there’s nothing.

It worked. The seal worked!

Now all he’s got to do is figure out where the hell he’s ended up. Or rather, when he’s ended up.

It’s not Konoha, he can tell that much. The scratchy linens beneath him guarantee that it’s probably some rat-infested inn, probably in the middle of nowhere. And if this is a disgusting, rat-infested inn in the middle of nowhere he must be far enough in the past that Icha Icha has not become a bestseller (it won’t until book three) and he’s not rolling in money. His joints popping as he gets up tell him he’s at least written a few at this point. There’s no doubt that he’s not 25 again as he stretches his back.

He quickly packs his things and clambers downstairs to ask for the date. The girl at the front desk looks at him like he’s grown another head when he asks for the year, but happily gives the day.

"Oh, it’s October 10th."

Jiraiya glances over her shoulder at the calendar on the wall, and feels the life drain from his face.

He’d known the seal would send him back several years- that was the whole point- but he hadn't gotten around to figuring out how to specify the day. 

He’s out the door, sprinting, all thoughts of getting his bearings gone. It’s still light out. Is he close enough to make it to Konoha in time? The Kyuubi had attacked at night, he's sure of it. Jiraiya curses having been out of the village.

He recognizes the small border town he's frequented often in his travels. The inn is above one of his favorite information-gathering brothels and as he runs away he hears one of the girls call his name. He ignores her- e’s not sure what he’s doing here, but it can’t be as important as stopping the nine tails. If he can save somebody, kami, let it be Minato. Dealing with waking up in the past can wait until later, dizzying as that thought might be.

He runs, flying through the trees as fast as his body will let him. He'll be dancing with chakra exhaustion keeping this pace, but it's faster than summoning his toads. He runs until his legs burn, and he’s tired down to the bone and the sun sets, and he has the sinking realization that he’s not going to make it.

The sky is long dark by the time he reaches the outskirts of Konoha, and the Kyuubi has rampaged. He skids to a stop, remembering that Minato and Kushina weren’t found in the village. He searches for his next steps, literally pacing like a madman, when Gerotora appears, a hastily-scrawled seal on his belly. Naruto's eight trigrams. The feeling of dread that had filled him when he’d seen Gerotora the first time washes over him, and he knows without a doubt he is too late.

“Take me to him,” Jiraiya demands. The pit in his stomach grows, and he tries to keep the feeling from taking him over. He can’t go through this again.

Jiraiya follows Gerotora to an outcropping in the woods, next to the wreckage of one of the Hokage’s safehouses. The smell of blood and death is heavy in the air, and it’s not just the scattering of ANBU corpses.

He scans the scene, and finds what he’s looking for, a flash of blonde, a beacon he’s used to navigate battlefields many, many times.

He sinks to his knees next to his student. Minato probably has minutes left, if that. The Reaper Death seal has left him broken beyond repair, if the wound through his middle wasn’t enough. Kushina is already dead next to him, a matching hole through her torso he knows is not from the baby. There’s so much blood. Too much.

“Sensei,” Minato grits out, looking up at him and trying to smile. “You got my toad?”

Jiraiya nods, fighting tears, because out of all his students, Minato had been the one he’d seen like a son, the one he was most proud of. He’d met the kid as an orphaned nobody and now he’d say goodbye to him as his Hokage.

“This… is your godson,” Minato coughs. He’s fighting for every breath, and there’s very little color left in his face. The shining blue eyes that he’s known for are dull, and that sight alone would be enough to break him down. Minato hadn't been his weak little genin looking to him for help in a long, long time. “Naruto, this is… Jiraiya.”

A familiar presence begins to approach behind him, but Jiraiya ignores it. He’s going to spend every second Minato has left by his side, undistracted.

“You’ll… watch over him?”

In his last life, he’d thought about it a lot. Replayed Minato and Kushina at the kitchen table, giddy with excitement. He’d known as soon as he’d walked through the door what their big news was, but he’d been surprised they’d asked him of all people to be the godfather to their unborn baby. It was a huge responsibility. Hokage or not, two shinobi with no living relatives extending this to him was more than just a formality; it was a backup plan should the worst happen.

And he’d asked Minato, privately, to reconsider. Begged, even. Jiraiya was not godfather material. He was hardly fit as a goofy uncle or weird grandpa. He could barely keep up with himself most days and the thought of being confined to the village made him want to crawl out of his skin. Yes, Jiraiya had believed it better Naruto was without him.

That had been before he’d known Naruto. He’d absolved himself of any guilt by convincing himself that Sarutobi-sensei had been right, that Naruto was safer anonymous, but had he ever really believed that? In the wisdom of his old age, could he finally understand that he had run away?

He ruffles Minato’s blood-matted hair and puts on the best smile he can manage. “Of course! Of course I will. There is no one better for your son than the Great Toad Sage Jiraiya!”

Minato coughs again in answer, blood dribbling out of his mouth. Jiraiya wipes it with his sleeve futilely. These last moments are passing quickly, and in an eternity at the same time. 

He's not sure anyone had been with Minato when he died the first time. He was too afraid to ask for any details. He imagined Sensei had arrived, that Minato had not been alone, but perhaps that was only to quell his own guilt. The thought of Minato's death was impossible and unbearable at the time. He was the strongest Konoha shinobi in a generation, he was untouchable. If Jiraiya had heard the news from anyone but the summons he shared with his student he wouldn't have believed it.

It still feels like a bad dream even as it unfolds in front of him.

Minato stares up at him, voice trembling. “Jiraiya-sensei?”

Jiraiya sees his genin instead of a grown man, or the Yellow Flash, or the Yondaime, and squeezes his young student’s hand. “I’m here, Minato. I’ll be here to the end.”

He’s not sure how long he sits there, but it’s enough time that Minato’s hand is cold and limp inside his. Bleakly, he registers the screams of a baby behind him, and the voice of the old man, shushing and cooing.

Sensei had always been good with kids.

“Jiraiya,” Sarutobi says, finally, when he makes no move to get up from his place beside his dead student. Years of training, of being told that he must listen when Sensei calls for him, snaps him to attention.

It’s startling, seeing Sarutobi-sensei mostly unmarred with age, without the stress of the village weighing down his face. It’s nostalgic in a way that hurts, like if he closes his eyes all of this could be a dream.

If this is real, Jiraiya supposes he should get used to seeing ghosts.

“I was too late,” he whispers.

“The village has been attacked. We need you.”

His grief obscures any thoughts of the village, and he only has eyes for the newborn baby in Sensei's arms. Naruto.

“Give me the child,” he tells Sarutobi, rising to his feet. “I’m his godfather.”

Sarutobi narrows his eyes at him, brief defiance flashing over his features, but concedes, passing the baby over carefully.

Jiraiya had never once held the infant Naruto. When he’d returned the last time after Minato’s death, he’d refused to even look at the boy. They'd all agreed it was safer that no one know Naruto's true parentage, and what was the point getting attached?

He feels the regret like a kunai in his side as he cradles his godson now. Naruto is so small, with a scrunched-up red fac, and a dusting of fine blonde hair. He feels the comforting hum of Naruto’s chakra that he’s grown used to these last few years. It amplifies when the baby opens his eyes, revealing the bright blue of his father’s.

He swears then he won't let either of them down. 

ANBU descends upon them quickly after that, the time for comfort gone, and he and Sensei hurry back to the village, which is on fire, burning in stark contrast against the night sky.

He takes Naruto to the hospital and tries hard not to dwell on the thought that Tsunade might be in there (or has she also abandoned the village by now?) and how good it would feel to see her. 

Sensei relays the last conversation he had with Minato in-between directing the remaining shinobi around the village, taking back the mantle of Hokage easily, and Jiraiya’s reminded again that Minato had only had the hat for less than two years. Just enough time for his student’s face to look down on him from the mountain.

Sensei has nothing for him he doesn’t already know, so he joins the rescue efforts for the night, which ends up being long, the destruction widespread. Jiraiya’s not good at this part. He rarely cleans up the messes he leaves behind and somehow this feels like his mess.

Why couldn’t he have arrived in the past a day earlier? A week? He could have saved all of them.

Well then, what had he expected? His many failures hadn’t disappeared, nor would most of them at this point. Already, so many things had been set into motion. He can’t be so blind to think otherwise. If he starts getting caught in the what-ifs there will be nothing stopping him from making things even worse.

By the time he gets back to the hospital, woozy with chakra exhaustion, the sun is rising. In the daylight the village looks terrible. Selfishly, Jiraiya hopes his little house is still standing. He needs rest if he’s going to be of use to anybody.

The hospital is in chaos, and if he takes advantage of his status in the village to waltz directly to the nursery and all but steal his godson, who’s going to tell? The medics have bigger problems. He thinks briefly about leaving Naruto here, but he can’t bear to after he’d promised Minato, and surely one baby can’t best him. He’s not that dense.

A frazzled nurse does stop him on his way out, hurrying after him with a bag filled with newborn essentials and scolding him for not asking for help. She’s a pretty young thing, just his type, but he doesn’t have the energy to be particularly charming. It’s with a little glee he realizes he is young and charming again.

Ah, he’ll take advantage of that later.

Now that he’s all cleaned up, Naruto looks much more content, wrapped in a hospital blanket and peacefully sleeping. Jiraiya adjusts him in the crook of his arm, still in awe of how small he is. 

The baby doesn’t stir as they walk through the village even though Konoha hasn’t exactly quieted over the long night. People crisscross the streets in distress, shouting for loved ones or hauling debris away from their homes. The Uchiha police force has taken heavy losses, just like the last time, and it’ll be chaos for days.

As his luck would have it, his little house is no more than rubble when he arrives, but Jiraiya sighs and moves on, it’s not like he’d really lived there anyway. Anything important is on his person or sealed away. He’ll dig through the ruins later.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to take this to your place,” he tells Naruto, laughing humorlessly. He'd frequented the Uzumaki-Namikaze residence in the past, at least he had any time he was back in the village. Kushina would bustle about in the kitchen while he sat with Minato, whispering warnings about his wife’s cooking.

Now, the house is a memorial, frozen in time. It’s only when he goes to open the front door does he realize his hand is shaking.

The kitchen light is on. There are dishes in the sink and one of Kushina’s poorly-knitted throw blankets is haphazardly thrown across the couch.

They were just here.

It’s the little frog onesie that does it, though. Kushina must have picked it out to put her new baby into the minute they got home because it’s sitting right on top of the dressing table in the nursery.

Jiraiya can’t help it but to cry at the sight, landing in the rocking chair and sobbing as the day catches up to him. The grief feels so fresh, all over again, and he feels hopeless. He missed his chance to save Minato. He couldn't save Nagato. Maybe he’d been better off dying when he was meant to. How is he supposed to fix anything?

He’s such an idiot. Not once during all his research had he thought of how he'd change the past. Simply showing up was no good; there was a reason time-travel seals were forbidden, and now he'll get to live through his worst memories again in real time. He thinks of his Ame orphans, and his genin students, and Sensei, and his teammates, and all the friends he's ever made and lost, and bawls his eyes out in the nursery of the baby he’s just ensured will stay an orphan.

Naruto, ever the perceptive little bastard, chooses this moment to wake, blinking up at him with Minato’s blue eyes.

If this were his Naruto, years in the future, the kid would say something off-the-wall and at too loud a volume but it would work and he’d feel better. This version can only scrunch his little face up and wail alongside him.

In a way, it has the same effect. Jiraiya pulls himself together to hush Naruto, like he’d heard Sensei do and it works to quiet them both a little.

He reads over the nurse's checklist before he tries to get some sleep. Naruto is probably hungry, so carefully following the instructions he makes a bottle, making sure to burp him afterwards and change his diaper so they can hopefully both catch a few hours of much-needed rest.

He puts Naruto in the frog onesie, reads over how to let the baby sleep, and knocks out on the nursery floor next to the crib, just in case he’s needed.

Chapter Text

Hiruzen sighs, sinking wearily into his desk chair after a very long night. Well, the desk had belonged to him. He’s not so sure now.

No Kage lived to enjoy retirement, most wouldn’t have even dreamt of giving up the hat, let alone willingly. Hiruzen is the exception among his peers in that regard.

He had no strong desire to take back the position. At best, he’d felt palpable relief when he’d handed the hat off to Minato. The weight of the village is a heavy burden to bear for one man; two shinobi world wars on top of it all made it simply unbearable. Hiruzen’s not made to be a leader in peacetime. All his life, from the very first time he tied on his hitai-ate, he’d only known war. A new generation deserved the chance to lead- the very idea he’d pleaded to Danzo when his old friend had tried to suggest himself for Hokage.

Besides, for the first time in their lives, he was able to be home with his family without worrying he was failing the village.

There’s no doubt in his mind he’d failed Ayumu and Asuma instead. Asuma’s glares at him from across the dining table every night were proof of that. Biwako had assured him it was a phase just as often.

She can’t, anymore.

Not that it would have mattered- the crushing blow of his wife’s death will be enough to drive them all apart. No amount of patient reassurance could fix that.

Hiruzen will grieve later, when he is once again free of this hat, and then, perhaps, his family can rebuild.

He flips through the growing stack of reports on the desk. Death tolls, permits, assistance applications all blur together in a mess of ink and lost sleep. Every able hand is working outside the office. It would be a frivolous request to ask any one of them, even the genin, to stand with him and sort through paperwork.

His council would be available, but he does not ask them, will not ask them. Danzo is already throwing around accusations and he has no doubt Himura and Koharu feel much the same. He would die for his friends, as willing now as he was forty years ago, but his intuition suspects that perhaps that feeling does not extend back to him. Danzo believes him weak, and weak shinobi are sacrificial for the good of the mission.

Stepping down as Hokage was one of the few things saving their friendship.

“Sandaime, Jiraiya-sama is here to see you,” ANBU Rabbit announces, dropping from the ceiling soundlessly. “He’s brought… well, it seems he’s brought along the jinchurriki, sir.”

Rabbit can barely supply the word, as if it’s poisonous to say. Hiruzen frowns. All three of his students have given him trouble; enough for a lifetime or more. The sagging face that stares back in the mirror is his ready proof of the stress.

Jiraiya and Tsunade with their flitting in and out of the village more so than Orochimaru’s apathy towards his comrades have aged him. Despite Orochimaru’s antisocial behavior he’s been a model jonin, always ready to serve the village when called upon.

Jiraiya made no effort to conceal his reasons for traveling- at the very least Tsunade hid her flight from Konoha behind a bottle of sake and an apprentice.

Yes, Jiraiya is the village’s best spy, yet he is also its worst advertisement. His former student’s best behavior is enough to make a grown man blush. There is no doubt in Hiruzen’s mind Jiraiya is close to achieving greatness, but he isn’t close to completing his ‘journey of self-discovery’, as he describes his escapades and obscene book series, and it is high time Hiruzen put that nonsense to rest.

He dreads having to take the baby from Jiraiya and ask him to fulfill his duty, to take this damned hat and all the burdens that come with it. It should have been his job in the first place. Minato was a fine shinobi, undeniably powerful enough to have his face on the mountain, but Hiruzen knows through experience how thin the Hokage must stretch themselves, how quickly family slips away.

They will all be safer for it, little Naruto most of all. Despite Jiraiya’s fierce reaction last night, Hiruzen doubts his former student would have acknowledged the child at all had he not arrived unexpectedly.

Jiraiya’s oddly timed appearance is just that, a coincidence. His initial interest in Naruto will fade and he will either leave or accept his responsibility to Konoha.

With the right motivation, Jiraiya will find himself not out roaming the Five Nations, but here, leading the village.  

That, Hiruzen is certain of.

Jiraiya manages to haul them both to the Hokage tower after Naruto wakes for a second time, demanding to be fed. He’s grateful for his years of getting broken sleep thanks to missions because it means that he wakes feeling slightly refreshed despite his godson’s interruptions.

Sarutobi-sensei doesn’t look surprised to see him, though the old man is obviously overwhelmed.

“I see you and young Naruto are getting along,” Sarutobi says tiredly.

“Yeah, well, he’s just a baby…” Jiraiya trails off. “I wanted to see what I could do to help.”

Before Sensei can open his mouth to answer (and Jiraiya has a feeling he knows exactly what will be asked), the door bursts open and Hatake Kakashi storms in.

Jiraiya marvels for a second at just how tiny the young Kakashi is, all gangly teenage limbs he hasn’t grown into, and tries to quickly calculate his age.

“Where is he?” Kakashi demands. The kid looks ragged, with deep bags under his visible eye and stains all over his ANBU uniform, though his porcelain mask is nowhere in sight. His unkempt appearance is startling. The Kakashi he knows doesn’t show any real emotion, hidden behind one of Jiraiya’s books half the time.

Jiraiya looks to Sarutobi, and it’s clear neither one of them want to have this conversation with Minato’s apprentice.

“Kakashi-kun,” Jiraiya says slowly, and it’s all he needs to say. Kakashi looks from him to the blonde baby in his arms to Sarutobi-sensei and puts the pieces together.

“No,” he whispers, backing away. “I knew, Kushina-san but- I thought-“

“I’m sorry, Kakashi-kun.”

Kakashi takes the confirmation poorly. Jiraiya isn’t sure what he expected. As an adult, Kakashi had become level-headed and reasonable, unreadable, even. As a teenager, he jumps out of the window of the Hokage’s office, gone in a dead sprint through the ruined village.

Jiraiya doesn’t follow him, nor does Sensei send anyone to.

“It’s probably best we give the boy some time,” Sensei sighs. “He and Minato were very close.”

If he didn’t feel the same sudden, overwhelming grief as Kakashi he would have snorted at the understatement. Minato had practically adopted that kid, and Kakashi looked at him like he’d hung the moon. This was not a loss he would get over.

“He’ll have to learn to live with it,” Jiraiya agrees. Naruto stirs against his chest, and blankly, he passes the baby to Sarutobi. He’ll know better what to do than he does.

He swears he sees Sensei tear up with Naruto in his arms and it’s then he remembers Biwako has just died in the attack. He decides not to mention it, hoping he'll be grateful there is no attempt to discuss their feelings.

“The announcement regarding the Yondaime will be made at noon. The council is calling for a new Hokage already,” Sarutobi says, voice tight and twisted, like he’s holding something more than just Naruto. Jiraiya knows where this conversation is going already, he’s had it in his past life, twice.

The first time he’d made himself scarce around the village after Minato’s death, both avoiding his responsibility to Naruto and his responsibility to Konoha. The second time he’d been able to pawn it off on Tsunade. She was better suited for it, really.

He told himself he simply had no interest in taking the hat, but truthfully he’d been afraid of it. He’s still afraid of it.

“I don’t want it,” Jiraiya says honestly. It should feel like a relief to admit out loud, but it makes him feel even guiltier.

Sarutobi doesn’t look phased. He rocks Naruto in his arms slowly, shushing him as the baby squirms. Jiraiya knows Sensei had been fond of Minato, had believed in his ability to lead the village, perhaps in a way no one else would ever be able to.

“I’m getting old, Jiraiya.”

Jiraiya can’t say what he wants to, that, mentally, at least, they are only a year apart in age and he’s getting too old for this, too.

Instead, he says: “Give me a year.”

Sarutobi looks just as surprised to have heard that as Jiraiya is to have said it. He really should have tried to sleep more.

“You can’t raise him,” Sensei says knowingly, “he’ll be in danger.”

Those were the same words Sensei had used to absolve him of his guilt last time. And it was true, he couldn’t have exactly strapped Konoha’s jinchuuriki to his back and traveled the world, but he’d taken that as an absolution of his duties to Naruto and never looked back.

This time, Jiraiya has already fulfilled that part of the prophecy. There will be others capable of being spymasters.

Minato had asked him to look after Naruto.

“I can. And I will,” Jiraiya counters.

“It’ll have to be approved by the council.”

He takes a deep breath. He can’t allow himself to get angry. “I’m his godfather. I promised Minato, Sensei.”

Sarutobi gazes at baby Naruto but doesn’t falter. “No, Jiraiya.”

Jiraiya snatched the baby back from his former teacher and fled the office in short order, not unlike Kakashi. The old man made him insane sometimes, and the ridiculous politics of that ancient council had been one of the reasons he’d left the village in the first place. None of them could understand, and none of them would even try.

Naruto wails in his arms, clearly in need of something, but Jiraiya hadn’t even thought to pack a bag on their little outing today.

Maybe he can’t do this. What does he know about raising a baby? Kids, he could do, once they were old enough to walk and talk and hold a kunai, but a helpless infant was something else. Maybe Sensei is right, and Naruto is better off without him.

He takes them back to Minato’s house, but before he’s even halfway in the door there’s a kunai pressed to his throat. He looks down at Kakashi, who is absolutely seethed in Killing Intent. Prodigy though the boy is, Jiraiya dispatches him of his weapon easily, the kunai clattering to the floor.

“I’m really not in the mood for this,” Jiraiya grumbles, ignoring Kakashi to start on a bottle for Naruto, who gives his input to the conversation by screaming at the top of his little lungs.

“Give me the baby,” Kakashi demands.

“Oh, did the old man send someone that quickly? I’m afraid this is one mission you’re going to have to fail, Kakashi. Nobody is taking Naruto from me.”

Kakashi looks at him in utter confusion, the Killing Intent gone. “Lord Third wants to take Naruto away?”

Jiraiya softens his expression and settles down on the couch to give Naruto his bottle. Kakashi doesn’t sit, but inches closer, so they’re face to face. The kid’s obviously been crying. This loss isn’t an old, festering wound to him. It’s fresh.

He sighs. “I think so. Because of, well, you know.” He gestures to the whisker-like lines on Naruto’s chubby face. “He believes he is safer hidden away in an orphanage.”

Kakashi, an orphan, is outraged. “But there are people who want to care for him!” He exclaims. “Minato-sensei and Kushina-san, they wouldn’t, no, I-I wouldn’t let them take him away!”

Jiraiya thinks of how, in the past, Kakashi had to let them take Naruto away. Seeing the situation for himself in person this time, he disagrees with the gag order Sarutobi had placed on the village. At the time it seemed like the obvious solution, one that was guaranteed to keep Naruto out of harm’s way, but it will be more obvious that he’s the new host of the nine tails sooner then all of them might think.

And what safer place than with Jiraiya, one of the Sannin? There are few shinobi that could hope to face him and live to tell the tale, let alone the horror of what he would do to someone trying to kill his godson.

He decides it’s safer that Kakashi not take such a strong stance. “There may come a day where we have no choice. We serve the village first, Kakashi.”

Kakashi doesn’t look the least bit placated. If anything, he’s angrier, hands white knuckled strangling one of Kushina’s horrendous yellow blankets draped over the armchair. Hm. Jiraiya remembers Kakashi as more of a rule follower, down to the letter, according to Minato. The kid had been through a lot, though. Jiraiya knows better than anyone all the different ways people can snap.

 “Is Naruto not part of the village?” Kakashi yells at him. “It’s not his fault! He didn’t ask for his parents to die and give him the demon fox!”

Jiraiya closes his eyes, leaning his head back against the couch. He needs to lie down. His body may be younger, but his mind certainly isn’t, and the situation is weighing on him. Kakashi has a point. Naruto doesn’t get to have a say in this, nor had he the first time.

It’s an excruciating choice, especially because he knows the consequences of making it. His Naruto had been so alone, so desperate for friendship, guidance, and affection that it was annoying. But, true to Sensei’s word, he’d also been safe from any real harm.

Yes, the village had been cruel to him. Yes, he’d grown up in an orphanage that hated him, and cast him out. Naruto had told him once that the first person besides Sensei to be nice to him had been his academy teacher, and by then he’d been what, seven or eight?

Could he really leave Naruto to not know human decency until that age? It had been shamefully easy to walk away from a baby he didn’t know, to pretend with the rest of all of them that the Yondaime’s child had actually died.

It’s different now. The baby sleeping on his chest is here and he’s Naruto.

Naruto who would save them all one day. The kid with an unbreakable spirit, and endless energy and kindness. He truly is the best of them. Or he will be, one day.

Jiraiya’s already lived through abandoning the situation. Things can’t be worse if he stays.

“You’re right, Kakashi,” he says slowly. “Naruto is as much a part of the village as everyone else. It wouldn’t be fair.” Jiraiya thinks he can see Kakashi’s lip wobble a little under the mask, making him look much younger than fourteen. He never did like to see kids in ANBU.

“I will do everything in my power to make sure Naruto is looked after by someone who cares about him. Now, get out of here. You need to clean up, and then you need to go to the Hokage’s office and apologize to Lord Third.”

Kakashi, defeated by exhaustion or Jiraiya’s order, leaves without another word.

The council is very displeased with Jiraiya’s decision. He’s left Naruto with a very panicked and confused Kakashi for the afternoon (he doesn’t trust anyone else not to hand the baby over blindly) so he can deal with them in peace. Naruto may be a week old, but it seems he has the lung capacity of a grown man. Jiraiya feels sorry for their neighbors.

“It’s out of the question, of course,” Danzo scoffs. “The boy’s identity would endanger the entire village.”

“The Yondaime had many enemies,” Homura agrees. “It’s not safe.”

Jiraiya’s ready to rip his hair out five minutes into this meeting. All of this over if the baby’s intended guardian could raise him. No orphan had ever had this many people fighting over him in this almost comical, exaggerated tug-of-war.

 “If Naruto is not safe with, I, the Legendary Toad Sage Jiraiya, how could he possibly be safe in an orphanage?” Jiraiya pleads. Truly, even from a place of cool indifference this is the best choice. If Naruto is with him he can be protected, and more importantly he can be trained.

“You are Konoha’s spymaster, Jiraiya. What about your duty to your village?” Koharu asks, eyebrow raised.

“There are dozens of jounin capable of taking on that role. There are none I feel are better suited for Naruto.”

None of the council seem to consider that this actually makes sense. Stubborn old bastards. Not even Sarutobi-sensei is sticking up for him, and usually he can count on his old sensei to bridge the gap. He’s going to have to stoop to their level, make this about the ‘best interest of the village’, even though he’s pretty sure the councilors operate 50 years in the past and have no concept about what bettering the future even looks like at this point.

Well, Jiraiya is an expert in the future now, and he does.

So, even though it kills him to concede out loud, he makes them an offer he’s sure to regret. “The village needs a Hokage. There is no one stronger than me, no better candidate in Konoha. We can reinstate Sarutobi-sensei in the interim, but I should be the one to take the hat.”

Koharu and Homura are not appeased, but surprisingly, Danzo looks to be considering this carefully.

“If we fall back on Lord Third, it will look to the other villages that we have no stronger shinobi to fill the position,” he continues. “We must appoint a new Hokage within the year. What other options do you have but me?” He knows Danzo still would take the hat in a heartbeat, but if he does Jiraiya may as well start over with a new seal because he will have successfully doomed the village. “I only ask for one year, to be with Naruto.”

Danzo nods in agreement, looking to his fellow councilmen. Jiraiya can see the wheels turning behind Danzo’s eyes as they stare at him. “Very well, Jiraiya. We will give you six months. However, in the interest of fairness, might I suggest that you call upon an old friend to be your advisor? After all, he was robbed of the hat not so long ago. I think you’d find him valuable. He is an asset to the future of Konoha.”

Jiraiya’s blood runs cold. It had been too easy.

How could he have forgotten Orochimaru?

Chapter Text

In the end, they come to agreement, pending a clan head meeting he is not looking forward to, and Jiraiya finds himself, not for the first time, regretting all the decisions that led him here.

Why would he do something so stupid? He doesn’t want to be Hokage. In fact, it’s everything he doesn’t want rolled into one horrible, potentially life-long commitment. He’s taken on too many of those lately, he thinks, imagining Narutuo’s regular 3am screechings with a grimace.

He decides to vent his frustration by tracking down that cute nurse from the hospital and tells Kakashi he had an “important meeting” when he returns to the young jonin’s house to retrieve Naruto.

Kakashi looks less than amused, leveling a glare at him that’s impressive with only one visible eye. If he was in a better mood he would have commented on it, but he isn’t, so he doesn’t, just thanks Kakashi again and takes the baby, dooming himself to another sleepless night. He’s sure Kakashi is going to ask to be put back into ANBU rotation to spare himself babysitting duty.

It’s alright, Jiraiya wouldn’t be relaxed enough to sleep anyway, or hasn’t been, since Danzo had all but demanded Orochimaru be his advisor. That first night, he’d sat up with a notebook, trying to write down any event he could remember in regard to his former teammate’s horrific experiments. It was of little help. Most of this he’d heard secondhand.

He knows that sometime between Minato’s appointment as Hokage and one of Jiraiya’s brief returns to the village, Orochimaru began to conduct inhumane experiments on dozens of children to replicate Senju Hashirama’s Mokuton, succeeded only one time, and was driven out by Sarutobi-sensei, who couldn’t bring himself to kill his former student, though at that point he had surely deserved it.

Most frustrating of all, the reason Jiraiya can’t pinpoint the timeline is because he can’t remember where he was. The first time all of this happened after he’d received Minato’s last message he’d gone on a bit of a bender. Sure, it had given him some fantastic material for the third and most successful installment of Icha Icha, but aside from that he doesn’t remember what the hell he was doing. The last he'd been involved with it was when Sensei had asked him to do what he could not to Orochimaru, and in the end he'd faltered too. 

Orochimaru is still in the village, which means he has not completed his task. Jiraiya knows he shouldn’t waste any more time, there’s a possibility of saving innocent lives, but he’s not sure where to even begin.

So, the spymaster decides to do something decidedly un-spymaster like, and sends a summons to Orochimaru, to ask him himself. Even well after midnight, he knows he’ll get a reply.

Sure enough, he’s woken a few hours later, not by Naruto, but by a snake slithering its way up his leg. Kami, he’ll never get used to that.

“Your invitation is accepted,” the snake says, then disappears.

Jiraiya falls back on his pillow, exhausted.

What have I done?

Sensei summons him to the Hokage’s office the next day. Jiraiya brings Naruto along, strapped to his chest in a sickeningly adorable shuriken-print wrap that barely goes around him. Kushina had obviously sized it for herself and her slight husband. He probably looks ridiculous, but if it gets the kid to sleep instead of scream he’ll wear it proudly.

They’ve gotten into a routine. Jiraiya knows that Naruto needs to be fed every three or four hours, changed around the same interval, and he needs frequent naps throughout the day, which Jiraiya has been joining when he can. Besides the lack of sleep, being around the baby is kind of… pleasant, even. It’s a strange feeling. He’d never once imagined being a father, and had only panicked at the thought whenever he spotted a white-haired kid wandering around towns he’d, uh, made his mark in.

“Jiraiya. Come in,” Sensei beckons. He hasn’t taken to wearing his Hokage garb again, but the hat sits on the desk, just in case. Jiraiya had never seen Minato wear it either, but that was probably because when he’d been asked to be Naruto’s godfather he’d fled the village. Again.

“Sensei,” Jiraiya nods. “What can I do for you?”

Sensei tosses a scroll at him. Thankfully, not a mission, but a storage scroll. “The Yondaime’s personal effects. Kushina-san’s, too. I’m told you’ve taken up their residence.”

“Yeah,” Jiraiya admits. “My place was destroyed and that’s where all of the kid’s things are. Thanks, Sensei.”

They chat for a little while, Jiraiya lets Sensei peek in on a sleeping Naruto, and he’s about to leave when a familiar kunoichi steps into the office and it steals his breath.

It’s not in a fun, sexy way like in one of his novels. He can’t breathe because one of his dead students is standing not two feet away from him, in the flesh.

“Ah, Sadako-san.”

“Hokage-sama,” Sadako says, pointedly ignoring Jiraiya and placing her scroll on the desk, “I have the files you asked for.”

She’s older than he remembers. And grown into her looks, a woman instead of a teenager. Had Jiraiya never checked in on her once while he came back to the village? He supposes he should find the remaining member of Team Six while he’s at it, considering he’d never looked for the Nara boy either. Morio hadn’t died, last he’d heard.

“Thank you, Sadako-san. The police’s assistance is most appreciated.”

Sadako nods, and leaves through the window without a second glance. Jiraiya can’t help but stare after her. A casualty of the massacre, he hadn’t thought about his former student in years. Evidently, they aren’t on good terms.

Sarutobi-sensei sighs, lighting his pipe. “I’ll be glad to have this hat off my head,” the old man mumbles. “The Uchiha are none too thrilled about the rumors.”

“About the kyuubi,” Jiraiya nods. “I’ve heard a few myself. Ridiculous.”

“Indeed. But circulating Konoha all the same. I expect you already have an ear to the ground on it.”

Jiraiya shrugs. He doesn’t need to. He knows exactly how this will play out, and he’s confident his soon-to-be position as Hokage can extinguish this particular fire. However, it won’t hurt to have friends in high places, and the cooperation of the Uchiha would make his life much, much easier.

He bids sensei farewell, jogging a little to see if he can catch up to Sadako before she gets back to the police headquarters. If he’s going to stop the Uchiha massacre, he’ll need to get closer to them, which in of itself is going to be near impossible.

As a jonin-sensei to an Uchiha genin, the clan had proven so difficult to work with in the past that Jiraiya had all but given up on Sadako. He’d nearly gotten in a fistfight with the clan head after she’d gotten her Sharingan and the elders told Jiraiya he was not allowed to train her with it, raging war be damned.

“It is not acceptable to the Uchiha for an outsider to pass on her training.”

“And if she’s not alive to receive it?”

“Then so be it.”

The current clan head, Uchiha Fugaku, had made quite a name for himself in the third war. Jiraiya couldn’t remember if he was more reasonable than his predecessor. Knowing the Uchiha, probably not.

“Sadako-chan!” Jiraiya calls cheerily.

Sadako looks unamused, her posture tense, and says nothing to him.

“I know it’s been a while. But while I’m back in the village what do you say to a team dinner?” It’s an olive branch. Not a very sturdy one, but Jiraiya has to think it will do.

She laughs at him. “I don’t think so, sensei.” She spits the last word and it strikes him like a physical blow. He knows he favored Minato, but what had Jiraiya done to this woman besides his job? He’d seen her through to chunin, after all, and by the looks of it she’s become a fine ninja.

He doesn’t have time to ask, because Sadako shunshins away from him, leaving in a cloud of dust, which upsets Naruto.

Patting the crying baby on the back, Jiraiya sighs. Perhaps he’ll have better luck with Morio.

He does not have better luck with Morio. He can feel the kid’s chakra signature from his spot outside the front door, but he never answered. Jiraiya takes the hint and leaves dejectedly.

There’s several hours before he has to meet Orochimaru, so he brings Naruto home and decides to open the scroll Sarutobi-sensei gave him while the baby naps.

The bloodstained haori is the first item that he pulls out, followed by both Kushina and Minato’s hitai-ates. The haori Jiraiya will probably burn, but the headbands can be kept, along with Minato’s special kunai. Not much else is salvageable, but there are a few other items around the house he’ll seal away with them, until Naruto is old enough.

He has been living in their house for a bit now, and he’s not sure he wants to leave. If he’d only been experiencing the loss for the first time it would probably be unbearable to be surrounded by his dead student’s things, but with so many years to adjust he finds it somewhat comforting to be able to remember these parts of Minato’s life.

Photos line many of the walls in the house, evidence of happier times. Most of them are of Minato and Kushina, but Jiraiya features in several as well. Kakashi shows up in the next most, though he looks like he’s being held at knifepoint in every single picture. Notably, Minato’s team is mostly absent, and he wonders if they’d been removed from sight to spare Kakashi.

Kakashi must have frequented his mentor’s house. He’d opened a drawer in the guest room the other day to find it stocked with black face masks, and there were three sets of frequently used dishes at the front of the kitchen cabinets. Kakashi had also been able to get through the protection seals on the house, or so he’d thought, but with these clues Jiraiya believes more than likely Kakashi’s admission had been written into the seals themselves, so he could come and go as he pleased.

He feels sorry for the kid, but it only cements Jiraiya’s trust. He’s been away from Konoha for so long that his allies here are limited, and even of those he trusts exactly zero of them with Naruto. Reluctantly, he doesn’t even trust Sarutobi. He can’t guarantee his old sensei won’t change his mind, and it’s not as if he can drop the baby off with him to go secretly meet with Orochimaru knowing what he knows about the future.

Jiraiya won’t even tell Kakashi where he’s going, but he’s able to solve that with suggestive hints towards visiting some of Konoha’s more unsavory bars. Kakashi doesn’t really question it, and tonight is no different, though he does tell the teenager to come to Minato’s so he doesn’t have to lug around all of Naruto’s stuff. He really needs to hire a nanny.

With a wave goodbye and some exaggerated tale of a girl he met the last time he was out (to which Kakashi only rolls his eye), Jiraiya heads to the Forest of Death.

It’s been Orochimaru’s preferred training spot since they were kids. He’d always thought it was because his teammate was weird and liked scary things, but in hindsight it’s probably because no one dared bother him here. Even hailed as one of the Legendary Sannin and a two-time war hero, the village loved to bother Orochimaru.

It’s the perfect spot to have this conversation. Even if they come to blows, there’ll be no one to get in the way and get hurt.

Orochimaru waits for him at the edge of the forest, looking more like a regular Konoha jounin and less like the crazed snake he’d last encountered.

This version of the man is still unsettling, but then again so is every other one. At least Jiraiya can still see the remnants of his teammate that had cared, despite what people on the outside had thought. This Orochimaru feels within reach, in a way his future self hadn’t.

“Orochimaru!” Jiraiya puts on a big, blinding smile. “Long time no see!”

“Yes, some of us have not been allowed to roam as we please since there are jobs to do in the village,” Orochimaru answers coldly as they walk into the trees.

He should have expected that. He’s gotten a warm welcome home from very few. “Well, you know spying is hard work. Plus, there’s all the research I have to do for my books. Have you read them?”

“I’d never be caught reading that filth. What do you want?”

 “Well, you could at least say you’re not interested,” Jiraiya laughs uncomfortably. “I just- I heard a few rumors and I wanted to ask you about them. You know more about what goes on around the village.”

Orochimaru scoffs. “Yes, that’s what happens when you live here, Jiraiya. What is it?”

“I’m interested in your opinion. What do you think about Shimura Danzo?” It’s a loaded question. He wants to know about Danzo’s shadow organization, ROOT. He’d run across a few members over the years, and he didn’t need to be an expert in psychology to know their dead-eyed stares were a result of brutal conditioning, beyond the normal branch of ANBU.

Orochimaru’s face betrays nothing at Danzo’s name. “He’s a respected council member. Why do you ask?”

“Well, I’d just heard through the grapevine that he’s been doing some… unsanctioned work.”

“I’m afraid you’ve come out here for nothing, Jiraiya. I can’t help you.”

Jiraiya scoffs. “Can’t, or won’t?”

“Whatever you think you know, you’re wrong,” Orochimaru snaps. “I don’t understand what Lord Danzo has to do with you. I’m sure you already have his approval as the future Godaime.”

He says the last word with such hurt in his voice that Jiraiya almost forgets he’s here to ask him about torturing children and wants to comfort his friend.

“Orochimaru, I-“

“Just get on with it, Jiraiya,” Orochimaru hisses.

Jiraiya takes a breath, considering his options. He could try to kill him here, level this forest and hope that with his body in his prime and the wisdom of his older mind he’ll win. Or, he can make a bet, that the teammate he had once loved like a brother is still in there, that it’s not too late to bring him back, to change the future destruction Orochimaru will inflict on the world and on Konoha.

Orochimaru had done so much harm, had killed so many people. He may have already committed atrocities beyond forgiveness. But he has the capability to do good. Jiraiya’s seen it, has known the awkward brand of friendship he extends is still a worthy one, that under the indifferent exterior Orochimaru is still a person. Orochimaru will never be Hokage, Jiraiya will see to that, but perhaps he can still be a powerful ally to Jiraiya and to the village.

Jiraiya’s not much of a gambler, but he's never shied away from a little risk.

He tells his teammate everything.

Chapter Text

Sadako’s morning trip to the Hokage tower is one she does in cautious avoidance, in and out without so much as a word to anybody but the chunin manning the administrative desk.

She’s especially clipped today, finding she can’t shake the annoyance her brief encounter with Jiraiya, and it sours her mood enough that she slams the daily report onto Fugaku’s desk with enough force that it sends two other scrolls rolling to the floor.

“The daily. Also, Jiraiya is still here,” she growls at the police captain.

Fugaku doesn’t look up from the scroll he’s reading. “So I’ve heard.”

“They’ll make him Hokage.”

Fugaku exhales loudly in obvious irritation. Sadako finds she doesn’t care if she’s bothering him, they need to discuss this. Fugaku must see the dangers of her former sensei staying in the village longer than a day, and that’s not even touching on all the nonsense the Kyubi has stirred up.

“Minato we could work with, but Jiraiya- Fugaku-sama, he’s not-“

“Sadako,” Fugaku cuts her off sharply. “It is of no concern to the Uchiha who is Hokage.”

Sadako slumps into one of the wooden chairs in front of the desk, resting her chin in her hand. “Minato would have listened to me.”

“Minato is dead, Sadako,” Fugaku reminds her.

Miserably, she wishes it was Jiraiya instead. She misses her teammate already.

Among the three of them, she’d always assumed she or Morio would die first. That seemed inevitable given Minato’s exceptional talent. While they’d crawled their way to the end of the last war Minato had thrived well enough to become the Hokage- to think that he’d died on a random Tuesday in his own village still feels ridiculous.

“And the Kyubi? Don’t you hear what they’re saying about us?”

“This village will always talk,” Fugaku answers calmly. His even attitude makes her want to rip her hair out sometimes.

She supposes that’s why he’s the clan head.

“That doesn’t mean we’ll always listen.”

He doesn’t have to say anything to that, just stares at her quietly, with a look in his eyes that’s enough to force her to change the subject.

“I’m skipping the funeral.”

She waits for him to argue with her, to say something about representing the good will of the Uchiha, especially given that she’s the liaison to the Hokage, but he only sighs, rolling up his scroll and rising from his chair.

He pauses in the doorway but doesn’t look at her. “Do as you wish, Sadako.”

She does. She always does.

“Orochimaru-sama!” Kinoe rushes at him, scroll in hand. Kinoe’s large, startling brown eyes blink at him hopefully as he presents it, though surely he knows by now he will receive no praise. “From Danzo-sama, sir!”

Orochimaru peers down at the boy, face hidden behind his porcelain mask. What a waste of his abilities. His greatest masterpiece is capable of so much more than an errand boy, yet Danzo has kept him close to his side, confined in the village, akin to a dog on a short chain.

The scroll is a mission, mundane as it is highly important, but he sets it aside, turning back to his current experiment. With all of ROOT to command, Danzo should know better than to waste Orochimaru’s talent on something as simple as poisoning a few rogue ninja. If Danzo’s elite, hand-picked teams can’t take on a S-rank missing-nin that is no concern of his.

He pauses, hands stilling over his work. His research this morning feels futile. No, more than that, it is futile, provided his idiot teammate is telling the truth. Danzo’s promises feel empty and he finds his motivation to fulfill his end of the deal waning, eyeing the mission scroll.

There’s a funeral to get to, anyway, so he snaps off his gloves and replaces his lab coat with his flak vest and steels himself for his return to the surface world that is the village.

He emerges from the depths of his laboratory on shaky legs. He could attribute his unsteadiness to exhaustion, overworking, any number of poor excuses, but the truth is he’s been shaken to his very core by Jiraiya of all people.

“And what of the Sannin? What have we become in the future?”

Jiraiya can’t meet his eye. “You’re dead. So am I.”

Contrary to popular belief, he’s not collecting jutsu to prove anything to anyone. His work is tedious and often dangerous, not to mention the strain he’s put on his body. To think that it was all for nothing- that he’d died unable to fight back at the hands of a mere apprentice- it’s unbearable. His greatest achievement in the future would be killing his own sensei, something that according to Jiraiya, he’d only accomplished at great detriment to himself.

The scientific part of him wants to run through the scenarios over and over until he can find a way to make them successful, but the illogical, soft portion of his brain rotted by friendship and loyalty tells him there’s nothing that future can offer him but death.

He shouldn’t trust Jiraiya. Sitting shoulder to shoulder on the forest floor, he did.

“What is it exactly you’re asking of me?”

“I don’t know, Oro.”

He doesn’t commit to an opinion of the situation just yet, though he supposes showing his face at the Yondaime’s funeral will be enough for Jiraiya to think he has, which is to his advantage should he need to change his mind.

Shinobi have already filled the area, a sea of black and green all here to mourn for their beloved Hokage. He bristles as he walks through the crowd, feeling the eyes on his back. He should be next in line- or better yet, Minato shouldn’t have been here in the first place. He can never forgive Sensei for this slight.

“Jiraiya. Sarutobi-sensei,” he says politely, slotting himself in next to Jiraiya and pointedly looking straight ahead. It hasn’t escaped his attention how the crowd is staring at the baby strapped to his teammate’s chest, some cooing and crying, others barely restraining their disgust.

He doesn’t have much interest in Naruto. Not yet, at least, though he does find it curious that Jiraiya has taken on the infant’s care. He can’t expect that Sarutobi will let him out of the village with the baby, so it must be a temporary arrangement as a favor to his late student. Kami knows Jiraiya had enmeshed himself in Minato’s life enough to be talked into to caring for his child.

“What are you up to, Jiraiya?” He hears Sarutobi mumble before he takes his place in front of the crowd.

Orochimaru hardly bothers to listen. After hundreds of them, all shinobi funerals are exactly the same.

Jiraiya spends the entire funeral purposefully not listening. He can hardly bear to go through it again, standing under a cloudy sky with Minato’s portrait staring at him hauntingly.

There’s a huge relief when it’s finally over, and all active jonin are called into the command center. Jiraiya filters in, falling into step with Orochimaru, and realizes that there are about half as many people in the room as there should be. He wracks his brain, trying to remember who died where, or if anyone is here that shouldn’t be, besides himself, and in all probability, Orochimaru. Surely a few are out on missions, too.

Nara Shikaku stands at the front, posture lazy with his hands shoved in his pockets. Jiraiya hasn’t ever had much interaction with him, but he knows his reputation. This is a strategy meeting, and judging by where his eyes land on Jiraiya, it’s a strategy meeting about Naruto.

“Uzumaki Kushina, our previous jinchurriki, has died. As one of his last acts, the Yondaime made the quick decision to seal the Kyubi into his son,” Shikaku begins. “In doing this, he stopped the demon fox’s rampage, but also gave Naruto a great burden.”

A few of the jonin in the back begin to mumble. Jiraiya feels his anger flare, but it really isn’t fair to blame them.

Sensei had warned him as much about their opinions, not knowing Jiraiya had no need for it. He’s seen sixteen years of the village’s hatred for Naruto.

“I don’t have to tell any of you that this is an S-class secret, jonin and above only.”

More mumbles, a few sighs, but no outrage yet.

“Jiraiya-sama has graciously agreed to watch over young Naruto, but there will be a rotating guard-“

“Hey, wait a minute! Jiraiya, they say you’re gonna be Hokage! You really plan to raise that thing? It’s a monster!”

Jiraiya nods at the jonin who’d spoken up, smiling though there is no mirth behind it. “Here you go then, shinobi-san. Kill him.” He hands Naruto over to the man, who looks at Jiraiya like he’s seen a ghost. Naruto, unhappy to be taken from his wrap, begins to whimper.

“I can’t kill a baby?”

“Oh really? But, as you said, he’s a monster. Don’t be a coward.”

The jonin all but tosses Naruto back to Jiraiya, and he secures the baby, tapping on his back to settle him back into sleep.

“I’ll kill anyone that has a problem with me raising my godson, and I’ll do it with a smile on my face,” he more or less tells Naruto, though it’s intended for the crowd around them. “Are we clear?”

Shikaku doesn’t acknowledge any of this in slightest, and continues the meeting.

No one says anything else.

Danzo slips out the door before any of the other jonin. His patience with the jonin commander has been wearing thin the past few years. Shikaku is a bright man, certainly, but he lacks the ambition Danzo drills into his own shinobi, hiding his intelligence behind eye rolls and avoidance.

Even worse, Jiraiya still is leading them all in the delusion that he will be Hokage and Hiruzen is encouraging it, letting him parade around town with the jinchurriki. Jiraiya can stay or go, but he must not raise the child. Naruto is to be trained as the village’s greatest weapon, unlike his useless mother.

A tiny shadow joins him on his walk home, jumping through the trees with growing ease. Kinoe is one of his finest creations, and best of all he’s young, and can be raised correctly. The generation that have grown under Hiruzen’s soft rule are all volatile and emotional, with very few exceptions. Even the Hokage’s own sons are rulebreakers and pushovers.

It makes recruiting difficult.

Danzo settles in his living room, staring out onto the street and watching swathes of black file out of the Yondaime’s funeral. The village pretends to have loved Minato, that this is a tragedy, but Danzo will think of it as an opportunity to show the other villages that Konoha is not to be weighed down by weakness any longer. In these changing times they need a strong and capable leader.

The bumbling Jiraiya is strong, but capable is hardly how Danzo would describe him. Despite all his spying he seems to lack a certain steel that is essential to all Kage.

His every whim has been catered to him by his sensei, and what would he know of sacrifice? At least Danzo takes consolation in the fact that he and Jiraiya agree he’s not fit for the hat, regardless of his… sudden appearance.

The acceptance that he will never get through to Hiruzen on this matter is equal parts devastating and maddening.

He spots a head of silver hair in the crowd below, stone faced as a shinobi should be.

Perhaps the Hatake boy can enlighten him.

Jiraiya’s little stunt leads him to being pulled into the Hokage’s office post-meeting, which then leads to an ANBU trailing him around the village.

Apparently threatening the lives of all of Konoha’s jonin was “uncalled for”. He wondered how they would have acted had Minato lived. Would they dare resent their Hokage for his own son? Naruto might have been hailed a hero.

Jiraiya had forgotten how obsessed Konoha was with making monsters out of ordinary people.

He hadn’t planned on fighting any of the jonin, not really, but nor had he taken into account how high tensions would be after the attack.  Coming and going as he pleased for so many years had made him forget how cornered shinobi could start to feel after something like this. How would he have felt, if he was being asked to protect someone that he felt responsible?

Of course, Jiraiya didn’t have a family to lose in the first place, and the few people he actually cared about had mostly already died, either in the past or surely would if he didn’t do something about it now.

Back in Minato’s house, he feeds Naruto and sends a toad to tell Orochimaru he’s being watched and they’ll have to find another time to talk. Jiraiya has no problem losing an ANBU tail, obviously, he’s one of the best shinobi alive, but he isn’t going to risk letting one of them compromise his mission regarding Orochimaru while this little incident is so fresh. A few days ought to be enough time.

He’ll need to find a babysitter for Naruto, anyway. If this was any ordinary child, he’d simply file for a D-rank and leave him in the hands of a few genin, but it’s highly unlikely anyone without clearance will be allowed near the baby, forget alone with him. It’s clear from the display in the command center that even of those that did, few would probably agree to.

He hates to rely on Kakashi so much, but so far he is the only other person who has Naruto’s best interest at heart. He can’t imagine what it had been like for the poor kid the first time with no one to stick up for him.  

Ah well, he’s here now. Jiraiya sprawls out on the couch (as much as a man of his size can on this tiny thing), settles Naruto on his chest, and closes his eyes. They’ve earned some rest.

Minato’s house probably has the strongest privacy seals in all of Konoha. Not just for the benefit of the Hokage, but also because of Kushina. The Uzumaki and their fuinjutsu are unmatched. Any ANBU worth their salt knows that, and wouldn’t bother trying to listen in because they couldn’t. It doesn’t stop them from being posted outside the windows.

And, it doesn’t stop Hound.

“Yo,” Kakashi waves at him from the living room while Jiraiya trudges in with groceries, an angry baby, and drenched from the rain.

Did this kid not live in his own house?

“Kakashi-kun. Are you here in an… official capacity?”

Kakashi doesn’t answer, just smiles at him, and Jiraiya’s seeing in real time the teenager begin to turn into his older self.

Helpfully, Kakashi takes Naruto from him, bouncing him a little to calm him down. Naruto is not consoled. It seems what Jiraiya had thought to be a ravenous teenage appetite in the future is actually just Naruto.

Despite sixteen years being shaved off his body, as Jiraiya makes a bottle and eyes the mountain of dishes in the sink he feels too old for this. Nearly two weeks in he’s starting to get it. Babies are a lot. He’s fought wars that required less energy.

“As long as you’re here, Kakashi-kun, why don’t you stay for dinner? Naruto isn’t much of a talker.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Kakashi grimaces, holding the baby at arm’s length as Naruto cries at him.

Jiraiya shoves a bottle at Kakashi. “The little brat’s always hungry. How does udon sound?”

“Fine,” Kakashi shrugs. The kid is actually quite good with Naruto, but Jiraiya supposes he shouldn’t be surprised. Minato had once told him that Kakashi had made it his personal mission to complete the most number of D ranks ever in the village. Jiraiya knows firsthand how many of those would have been babysitting jobs.

The thought of him, Tsunade, and Orochimaru surrounded by screaming toddlers crosses his mind and he laughs to himself. The days before the war weren’t so bad.

He makes dinner quick and easy, the habit of an eternal bachelor, and Kakashi sets the table, Naruto in one arm the whole time. It’s surprisingly domestic from two master killers.

“I have something for you, after dinner,” Jiraiya tells Kakashi. The kid is long finished eating, having slurped down the whole bowl of noodles while Jiraiya had his back turned. He wonders sometimes what’s under that mask.

Kakashi looks at him, puzzled, nudging Naruto’s little cot to get it rocking again. “Is it another babysitting job? I’m going to start filing them with the missions desk, Jiraiya-sama.”

Jiraiya waves him off. “You can just call me Jiraiya, kid. And no, it’s not a job. It’s a gift. Kind of.”

He goes to the kitchen and grabs the scroll he knows he sealed Minato’s kunai in. He’d originally wanted to save them for Naruto, to maybe teach him the Flying Thunder God, but even if the kid has double the chakra control this time around it’s still nowhere near comparable to his father’s precision. Precision you need to not rip yourself in half flying across battlefields.

It seemed a shame to let the technique go to waste, to let it die with Minato. Jiraiya didn’t want it, really, too set in his ways to learn something like that and use it effectively, but Kakashi… Kakashi is young, and a prodigy, and most of all he deserves to inherit something of Minato’s that’s not just the weight of too much responsibility at too young an age. And perhaps with someone supervising his education now, Kakashi will pass it on to a more capable version of Naruto in the future.

He sets the scroll in front of Kakashi, who opens it cautiously, like it might bite him.

When he sees what’s inside, the kid actually begins to cry. Jiraiya’s… not really good at this, but he’s not a monster, so he lays a hand on Kakashi’s shoulder and talks to him.

“He’d want you to have it, kid.”

“I-I can’t accept these, Jiraiya-sama,” Kakashi manages to get out, and it’s clear he’s trying very hard to stop crying, swiping furiously at his eye. “They should go to Naruto.”

“Naruto is going to get plenty from his dad,” Jiraiya reassures him, patting him on the back, not unlike what he does to settle the baby.

Kakashi seems to lose what little control he had of his emotions and buries his face in his arms against the table. From what Jiraiya’s been able to piece together, Kakashi has had a rough few years. Minato had written both times he’d lost a student, asking Jiraiya not what he thought he should do for himself, but what he should do for Kakashi. It was irrefutable. Minato loved the kid.

“I failed them, Jiraiya-sama. I was supposed to protect them and I f-failed them,” Kakashi cries.

Jiraiya resumes patting his back. “It’s not you who failed, Kakashi-kun. I did.”

Kakashi’s head snaps up. “No, Jiraiya-sama, no one even knew you were in the village!”

Jiraiya doesn’t entertain that. It’s him who’s botched this whole thing. Even if he goes all the way back to the future where he came from, he can clearly trace the lines of his own faults to the creation of so much evil, to the creation of Pain. If whatever timeline he left still exists, Jiraiya hopes that it hasn’t been absolutely decimated.

He can’t exactly tell Kakashi what’s really going on, but all the same it’s his failure to carry, not Kakashi’s. He changes the subject.

“Come back tomorrow night and we can start training. How’s your fuinjutsu?”

That perks Kakashi right up.

Chapter Text

Jiraiya and Kakashi meet up almost every other night for a week, though he wouldn’t call it training more than it’s actually tutoring. Kakashi is frankly awful at sealwork.

Minato had trained under a sealmaster, been well on his way himself, and was married to an Uzumaki. The gap in Kakashi’s training, to Jiraiya, was inexcusable.

He had probably expected that Kakashi would just pick it up, which was fair, Kakashi does seem to have an uncanny talent for everything else, but sealwork is not something you can just do. There are rules.

Finally, they progress to a point where they can take the theory to a training field and Kakashi won’t write himself off a cliff. The thought of fighting again, even if it was just a little spar sounds very good to Jiraiya. Sixteen years off of his body, several regular aches and pains gone and he’s itching to do something.

They set up on a field miles away from the main village, though it proves pointless because ANBU still follows them, and Kakashi summons one of his ninken to watch over Naruto.

Jiraiya offers one of the toads, which Kakashi all but rolls his eyes at, already making hand signs. A little pug wearing a headband appears, wagging his tail at the sight of his master and greeting him a surprisingly deep voice.

“Pakkun. I need you to help me out with Naruto,” Kakashi tells the dog, who nods seriously.

“Of course, boss. Where is the little pup?”

“You’ve been letting your dogs babysit?” Jiraiya balks.

Kakashi smiles cheekily.

Naruto is really much too young to show any interest in anything, (apparently newborn babies don’t really do much but eat and sleep and cry) but he doesn’t seem bothered by Pakkun, who simply curls up next to Naruto’s bassinet and tells Kakashi he will call if he needs them.

Jiraiya sets them up in the center of the field for a warm up that quickly turns a little too enthusiastic. Jiraiya’s tried not to think too much about his old life, it stirs a feeling in him he’s not sure how to address, but, kami, if it didn’t feel good to be in his younger body.

“Don’t hold back too much, Kakashi-kun!” He yells at the boy mockingly. “I’m not as old as I look.”

Kakashi, not to be outdone by an old man, pulls up his headband. Jiraiya hadn’t forgotten, per se, that the kid had a Sharingan, but it still startles him, which is just enough time for Kakashi to swiftly kick him in the gut.

Jiraiya laughs good-naturedly. This is fun.

They trade blows, and he watches Kakashi intensely. He hasn’t seen him fight before, but it’s clear why they call him a prodigy. He’s fast, slight enough to use the fighting style of his mentor, but even with the Sharingan it’s not quite fast enough to beat Jiraiya. Wherever Kakashi is quick, Jiraiya is quicker, blocking and retaliating with practiced ease.

Jiraiya calls the spar when he throws Kakashi hard enough into a tree that he’s a little dazed.

“Sorry, kid. Guess I don’t know my own strength,” he laughs, offering Kakashi a hand up.

They work for the rest of the evening on the Flying Thunder God, which they make little progress on. The fundamentals of the technique Jiraiya is familiar with. Actually performing it is another story.

Jiraiya marks a nearby tree with Minato’s seal so they have something to work with, but warns Kakashi that Minato probably left seals all over the village, so to be very careful.

Kakashi has trouble (well, they both do, actually, and that’s something Jiraiya hasn’t had to admit in a while) not using shunshin to move to the tree, because while it looks the same, that’s not what Flying Thunder God is.

“It’s just like summoning yourself,” Minato had told him once, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Jiraiya understands now that that is a very oversimplified explanation. He’ll have to dig through some of his old student’s notes.

“I think that’s all for tonight, Kakashi-kun,” Jiraiya says, brushing leaves off the boy’s shoulder from where Kakashi had face-planted into the tree. “Can you do me a favor and take Naruto home? I just remembered I have an important meeting.”

“This meeting wouldn’t happen to be at the women’s hot springs, would it, Jiraiya-sama?” Kakashi deadpans.

Jiraiya laughs a little too loudly and claps him on the back. “You never know what kind of information you can gather from those places!”

Kakashi accepts this, grumbling a little to Pakkun as they leave the training field with Naruto, and Jiraiya waits until ANBU follows them before he heads to the Forest of Death again.

Orochimaru is waiting, looking mildly annoyed.

“Your ill-regard for someone else’s time hasn’t changed, Jiraiya,” he says stiffly. “Though perhaps it doesn’t feel the same to someone like you.”

There’s a question about the effects of the time travel in there, and what had Jiraiya expected but for Orochimaru to take a scientific approach?

“Ah, it’s not like that. I just got caught up in a little spar with Kakashi-kun.”

“Minato’s brat? I’ve heard he’s quite the ANBU. There’s a lot of interest in him.”

Jiraiya narrows his eyes. “I’m sure he’s content where he is,” he says carefully. The last thing he needs is for the same person who has Orochimaru to get his hands on Kakashi. Or for Orochimaru to get his hands on Kakashi. He has no idea at what point in his descent to madness his old friend is at.

“I have a question. Why me?” Orochimaru asks when they are far enough into the forest that no one will have eyes on them.

Jiraiya isn’t quite sure how to answer that. Why had he told Orochimaru about the future? It seemed like the only option at the time, but that’s not an answer Orochimaru is going to accept. he might be kidding himself if he thinks that’s the reason anyway. He knows it’s more complicated, that there’s feelings involved that go beyond strategy.

Orochimaru had been his best friend. Fighting side by side for years made a bond he believed to be unbreakable until it was shattered beyond repair. He couldn’t help but want it back, even if it was selfish. Anyone else in his place would have killed Orochimaru for the things he’d done in the future and all Jiraiya can do is bring himself to tread with a little caution.

“I’ll ask you the same. Why?”

Orochimaru seems to consider this carefully for a while, mouth drawn in a tight line. Finally, he answers. “Because it’s what has been asked of me.”

“You always were one for following orders,” Jiraiya mumbles. Orochimaru is not a stupid man. Quite the contrary. But even when their orders were being given by stupid men, Orochimaru had followed without question.

“I have never had another choice, Jiraiya. You and Tsunade may come and go as you please, but I have never had a choice.” There’s no venom behind Orochimaru’s statement, no bite to his words like he tends to add when he’s trying to be hurtful. “I am the village monster, and Konoha is my cage. I refuse to spend my imprisonment idle.”

That stops Jiraiya in his tracks. He’d never once thought of it that way. “Do you hate me?”

“Resentment is different than hate.”

“How many are in your lab right now?”

Orochimaru narrows his eyes, a flash of something in them Jiraiya doesn’t recognize. “I can’t answer that.”

That’s all Jiraiya really needs to hear. There’s no denial, which means the answer to his previous question of can’t or won’t, is the former.

“Whatever he’s got you doing, I’m going to stop it,” Jiraiya promises.

Orochimaru says nothing. Perhaps he doesn’t want to be stopped, but if that’s the case that’s too damn bad. Jiraiya has lost enough. He’ll drag Orochimaru back to the light, even if he’s kicking and screaming.

Naruto wakes him up that night, crying. In of itself it’s not an unusual occurrence, but Jiraiya tries everything, feeding, burping, changing, singing, all of it, to no avail. The baby is inconsolable, high-pitched screaming flooding the whole house.

By the time sunlight begins to peek through the curtains of the nursery, Jiraiya almost is too. He’s not an easily flustered man, but panic creeps up his throat. Something must be wrong for Naruto to cry like this.

Jiraiya decides he’ll have to take him to the hospital. He’s no medic, and he’s not so well-versed in this baby thing yet.

He knows he’s made the right choice, because they are seen right away, a nurse fluttering around them trying to get Naruto’s vitals. Thankfully, she isn’t the same one from a few weeks ago. He’s not really in the mood.

“How long has he been like this?”

“All night,” Jiraiya answers tightly, raising his voice a little over Naruto’s cries.

The nurse nods, scribbling something down on a clipboard and then taking the baby. “I’m sure we’ll have him fixed up in no time,” she says kindly. “You can wait downstairs until we’re done.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. Like most shinobi, he doesn’t like to spend time in the hospital. Too many of his people have gone in and never come back out.

He steps outside, close enough to the building that they can send someone looking for him if they need to, and falls onto one of the benches near the front lawn. It’s suffocating in there, and he and Naruto are already spectacle enough in the village.

He wouldn’t trade it, of course, not for anything except the lives of Minato and Kushina. Not for the first time he wishes they were here. He loves Naruto, of course he does. It’s impossible not to, but he shouldn’t be raising him. His parents should be. If only he had been faster.

An hour passes quickly, and a different medic-nin comes out to tell him to come up right away. He hardly registers that it’s Morio speaking to him until he looks up, face to face with his former student.

“Jiraiya-sama, are you listening?”

He can’t help but stare. The kid has changed so much since he’s last seen him, filled out and taller than he remembers from the gangly genin that had done his best to keep up with his energetic teammates.

Morio sighs. “Follow me.”

Jiraiya trails behind him, thoughts racing. Morio leads them to a quiet office, shutting the door behind them.

“Sit. I’ll explain.”

Jiraiya sinks into the chair, noting Naruto is not in the room.

“It’s his chakra levels, I’ve never seen anything like it before in an infant,” Morio begins tiredly. “It shouldn’t be possible.”

“He’s got chakra exhaustion?” Jiraiya asks. That can’t be right. He’s just a baby.

Morio shows him a diagram he’s seen a million times, most often as a genin, when he would overwork himself into chakra exhaustion and get a lecture from the nurses.

“This is the normal amount of chakra flow in an infant,” he explains, “and this, is what is happening to Naruto-kun. There’s so much chakra circulating in his body that it’s hurting him. There’s not much we can do to treat that, especially given his, well, unique condition. Perhaps a sealmaster could do more."

He stares at Jiraiya until the last sentence clicks and Jiraiya snaps his head up. He is the sealmaster. There is no better fuinjutsu user in Konoha.

“Take me to him.”

Morio leaves him with Naruto, who is still screaming in what Jiraiya now imagines is agony. The sight makes his heart twist painfully, and he has to clamp down on the urge to pick him up to comfort him. Steeling himself, he unsnaps Naruto’s onesie to look at the seal he knows is on the child’s belly.

Sure enough, there’s an angry, pulsing glow where Jiraiya touches. Of course there is. Jinchurriki seals are not meant for babies who have no chakra control. There’s a chance Naruto could be sending chakra to his seal without even knowing it, or even worse the Kyubi is testing the strength of it.  

If this had happened to Naruto in the past, Jiraiya hadn’t been made aware of it, but it’s no matter, this is his problem now.

He begins drafting solutions immediately, ignoring the questions from the medic-nin. He needs to find a way to put a stop to his godson’s pain, and then he’s going to need to figure out a way to work on the main seal without letting the Kyubi out and killing him.

And for that, he needs Tsunade.

Jiraiya takes the request to the Hokage’s office as soon as Naruto is settled enough to sleep, not caring in the slightest that he’s demanding audience with Sarutobi at six in the morning. It’s an emergency.

“There are other medic-nin in the village,” Sensei tells him tiredly. “Tsunade hasn’t been back for years now.”

“I know that,” Jiraiya snaps. “I don’t care. It needs to be her. She is the only one who could heal him if the sealing goes badly.” She’s the only one I trust, goes unspoken.

Sarutobi allows the outburst, which surprises him. Normally Sensei doesn’t tolerate Jiraiya’s or anyone else’s brash disrespect. Perhaps it’s his soft spot for the baby. “Do you have a team in mind?”

“I want Sadako-chan. And, I want Orochimaru. It’s Tsunade. He should be included.”

Sensei doesn't protest this demand. He looks resigned to it. He sends for his chosen team while Jiraiya paces the office anxiously. He can’t let anything happen to Naruto. He will kidnap Tsunade if he has to.

Orochimaru and Sadako are both available and Sadako comes directly to the office, only bristling when Sarutobi tells her who it is they are after. Jiraiya should have known that bringing an Uchiha on a mission to find not just a Senju, but the Senju princess would be troublesome. Old grudges die hard, and he knows it will take generations.

Curiously, Sadako perks up when Orochimaru is mentioned, but he decides to leave that alone.

The four of them meet at the gates an hour later and Jiraiya is surprised by how tiny Orochimaru’s chunin apprentice is. The girl can’t be more than ten.

“Mitarashi Anko!” She tells Sadako gleefully, bouncing up and down on her tip toes. “Nice to meet ya!”

Sadako looks the chunin up and down, which does nothing to quell Anko’s energy. “Uchiha Sadako.”

“And this is Orochimaru-sensei! He’s quiet, too,” Anko whispers, like Orochimaru isn’t directly behind her. “Hi, Jiraiya-sama! Nice to see you again!”

“Anko-chan,” Jiraiya smiles back at the girl, though he can’t quite bring himself to match her enthusiasm. He’s not thrilled Sensei has allowed an apprentice on this mission. They need to get Tsunade and get back, quickly.

Still, Orochimaru seems more relaxed with his student as a buffer. In a way, out of the three of them, Orochimaru has always been the best with kids. If things hadn’t gone so poorly for his first team, he probably would have been even better.

They set off after signing out at the gates, running moderately towards the gambling town Sarutobi-sensei thinks Tsunade is still in. It should take them less than two days if they don’t run into trouble, and they shouldn’t. The peace after this war is a lot sturdier than the last, and Jiraiya doubts they’ll even encounter bandits. Not that it wouldn’t be easy work for two Sannins and their supremely talented students.

He doesn’t know Anko well, not in this timeline or the last, but Sadako is a force to be reckoned with. Her goal as a genin had been to be listed as ‘flee on sight’ in the Bingo Book. She’s changed, now, but he has no doubt she could do it, he trained her, after all. Besides, there are very few completely talentless Uchiha, save for maybe Minato’s genin, Obito, who by all accounts was more clumsy than competent. Jiraiya wonders if clumsiness got him killed.  

He calls for a halt at dusk, sighing at the thought of having to camp instead of enjoying a nice, cushy, hotel. He really should sit down and write the third Icha Icha. Forget hotels, alcohol, and women, Naruto was bound to eat him out of house and home when he was older!

Orochimaru offers himself and Anko to take the first watch, which is arbitrary anyway with the protection seals Jiraiya lays down, but not unwelcome. He asks Anko to help him with the last seal, and claps her on the back for a job well done, pulling a little at her collar. While he’s at it, there’s another reason he wanted Orochimaru on this mission.  

Jiraiya checks twice. The cursed seal is not there.

Chapter Text

Jiraiya is awake long before his watch is set to begin, but gives an exaggerated stretch and yawn when Anko comes to get him. Sadako, who was actually asleep, blinks up at Anko, looking much like she had when she was his genin, wild black hair a complete mess and no awareness of her surroundings. She and Morio were always hard to wake in the morning. Minato and Jiraiya were early risers, unless Jiraiya had been at the bar all night and the three kids had to drag him out of bed with a hangover.

Those days are long gone, Jiraiya reminds himself. Minato is dead, and the other two hate him.

He expects Sadako to take up on the other side of their little camp to avoid him, but she plants herself right at his side and starts talking.

“Why did you ask for me? They don’t send me on missions anymore unless it’s police business.”

Sadako says it like it’s his fault, and maybe it is.

Jiraiya feels guilty. There were a lot of jonin that were more qualified to be here, but despite the bad blood between them, he still feels a lingering sense of trust in her.

“I haven’t worked with a team in a long time. I wanted people that were familiar,” he answers, and that is true. The last time he’d run an actual mission like this felt like a lifetime ago. He’d become used to working by himself.

“I lost my genin team in the war,” Sadako whispers. Her black eyes are far away for a moment, but she collects herself quickly. “That bastard Shikaku won’t give me missions anymore because he thinks I’m a little fucked in the head.”

The shinobi her age are all a little fucked in the head, he wants to tell her. Jiraiya’s team had been tossed onto the battlefield at age 10, rushed through the academy with no real chance to learn, then by the time it was their turn to teach the next generation there was another war, and even younger children to be used as fodder.

Even Minato, with his heart of gold, had no trouble slaughtering thousands when the time had come. There was something different about their generation.

Not that he had a problem with killing. Since there had been a kunai in his hand he had used it. But Jiraiya, though orphaned by war, had been raised in peacetime. He couldn’t understand. His actions in both wars haunted him, and always would, but he’d made his choices as an adult.  

“I’m sorry,” Jiraiya says, and it feels like it’s not enough. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry I keep abandoning the village.

Sadako doesn’t say anything else.

Carefully, so as not to startle her, Shizune shakes her teacher’s arm. Tsunade is awake instantly, flailing around for her perceived assailant but missing every strike. Shizune grimaces; lack of coordination spells a hangover, and a hangover spells a bad day for everybody. 

“You’d better have a damn good reason,” Tsunade snarls when she looks at the bedside clock.

Shizune wrings her hands, glancing at the blinking numbers but failing to work up the courage to tell Tsunade that most everyone else is already up by ten o’clock. Instead, she delivers worse news.

“Shisou, we’re out of money. The hotel is kicking us out.”

She braces for the yelling, but gets only huffed irritation as Tsunade begins to throw together her belongings.

“They’ll be begging us for forgiveness when we come back with our winnings tonight, you just watch!”

“Yes, shisou.”

The front desk doesn’t escape Tsunade’s headache-induced wrath, and it’s only with Shizune’s  waved apology that they make it out without getting arrested.

“Lady Tsunade?”

“Hm?”

Shizune swallows hard. “Should I see if they need help at the clinic?”

Tsunade narrows her eyes, and for a moment Shizune fears she’s taken offense to the offer, but her expression falls as she glances in the direction of the gambling district. “Whatever you want,” Tsunade says, not meeting her eye.

On a day like today, Shizune will take that. Her best hope is she can leave Tsunade at a café and pick up work to get them some money for the night. She’s sure they’ve run out of favors in this town and Tsunade is no good for anything except healing herself of alcohol poisoning and on the occasional day teaching her.

Of course she’s grateful to have been taken in at all- after Dan-oji died there was no one left in her family to care for her and she would have been close to aging out of the orphanage, especially with it full from the war. Tsunade isn’t the perfect guardian. Shizune has spent most of her formative years studying in the corner of dive bars and there are times she desperately misses the village, longing for the normal life her friends have, but she is grateful.

Deep down, Shizune knows Tsunade cares for her out of a misplaced sense of obligation. She can’t help but love her teacher all the same.

She loses sight of Tsunade on the way to somewhere respectable and pinches her brow. It’s a gambling hall, she knows it without even looking. Why does she bother? Tsunade doesn’t want her help.

There’s no point to trying to stop her, so Shizune hoists her bag up on her shoulder and makes for the clinic. In a gambling town there’s always black eyes for her to heal in the morning. Maybe today her teacher will make a bet she can actually win.

There are no incidents all night, as he expected, so just before sunrise Jiraiya rouses Anko. Orochimaru is already up; he’s not actually sure if he’s ever seen him sleep. They each eat a ration bar, (and kami, those are just as bad as Jiraiya remembers) and pack up camp quickly. If they run at the same pace they did yesterday they’ll make it before noon.  

They slow to a walk at the outskirts of town a few hours later, not wanting to draw more attention than they need to. Jiraiya still isn’t wearing the leaf headband or dressing like a Konoha jonin, so he breaks off from the group to ask around for information.

Sadako looks at him helplessly as she’s dragged by the sleeve into the town center by Anko. If Naruto’s life wasn’t on the line he’d have thought it was funny. Orochimaru follows the girls, but keeps his distance.

Jiraiya picks a seedy-looking gambling hall down an alley to try first and loses hundreds of ryo on a confirmation that Tsunade is here. Well, that a busty blond woman being trailed by a dark-haired teenager is, anyway. Jiraiya isn’t inclined to believe the man until he describes her as “some insane broad”, and that is for sure his Tsunade.

A few establishments later he deduces that Tsunade owes about half the casinos in town money, a couple in large sums. She’s probably out of cash or close to it, which narrows Jiraiya’s search.

The red-light district is quiet in the middle of the day, but he’s sure a bar is open somewhere. And if Tsunade is down on her luck she’s probably depressed, and if she’s depressed she’s probably drinking, and if she’s down on her luck, depressed, and drinking, she’s sure to be at the cheapest bar.

He hears her before he sees her.

“So my money’s no good to you, you bastard? I will burn this town-“

“Lady Tsunade, please!” That must be Shizune. Poor girl.

“-to the fucking ground and I won’t feel the least bit sorry for it!”

Jiraiya enters the bar, ducking under the door flap, to a scene he’s all too familiar with. Tsunade is halfway on the bar with the bartender’s shirt fisted in her perfectly manicured hands. The man is shaking in rage or terror, it’s hard to tell from here, but Jiraiya can’t help but smile to himself. Tsunade looks the same as he remembers.

He’d thought a lot about his teammate since he’d been back in the past, combing carefully through his memories trying to decide where he’d gone wrong trying to win her over. It was a very long list, filled with incidents that occurred long before now, too late to remedy.

Yet, when he’d set off to find her, he hadn’t thought much about Tsunade, only what she could do. In front of him in the flesh, she’s everything again. He missed her so, so much.

“You haven’t paid your tab from the last four nights, Tsunade-sama,” the bartender squeaks.

“I’ll pay her tab,” Jiraiya calls to him, and the poor man’s head smacks unceremoniously into the bar when Tsunade releases him, surprised.

“Jiraiya? What the hell are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing, Tsunade.”

She narrows her big, beautiful brown eyes at him in a glare that could kill a lesser man. “It’s none of your damn business. Shizune, we’re leaving.”

“Come on now, Tsunade, it’s been a long time. Can’t you spare a little time to catch up with your old teammate?” Jiraiya lays it on really thick, blinking his eyelashes at her like he’s a schoolgirl.

Tsunade remains unmoved, yanking Shinuze along by the wrist to the door. “I don’t care what you’re up to, Jiraiya, I will come back to the village when I’m good and ready. Goodbye.”

“You know, I was going to mention, I’ll buy all your drinks…”

Tsunade halts her retreat, pivoting enough to eye a bottle on the top shelf. The bartender looks like he wants to protest, but one look from both Sannin shuts him up quickly.

“Fine. One more drink.”

They settle in at the very back booth, and Tsunade sends Shizune away to find the rest of Jiraiya’s team. He doesn’t mention Orochimaru is with them, only that Sadako and another chunin are somewhere in the town center.

“So, what is it that the Hokage wants from me now?” Tsunade asks, straight to the point. He’d hardly expected anything else.

“Sensei doesn’t need anything from you,” Jiraiya fires back, feeling a little defensive of the old man. Orochimaru’s words ring in his head. I have never had a choice. Sarutobi-sensei had let Jiraiya and Tsunade run free. The least they could do was serve the village when they were called.

“Hmph, so it’s true, then. The Yondaime is dead.” Tsunade knocks back a shot, not even a twitch to her face. Then, her expression softens. “I’m sorry, Jiraiya.”

He flinches. No one has said that to him yet. Not one person has told him they were sorry Minato was dead, and meant that they felt sorry for him.

“Thank you, Tsunade,” he says quietly. “Did you know his wife was pregnant?”

Tsunade shrugs. “As much as anyone else. Could have been shinobi gossip.”

“It’s not.”

They sit in silence for a moment, Jiraiya trying to build the right words to ask her for help. In the future, he wouldn’t have even needed to hesitate. He and Tsunade had built a better relationship than they’d had in years by the time he’d met his untimely end. A comfortable friendship, even if it could be nothing more to her. It would have been enough for him, if he’d managed to come back like she’d asked him to.

He blinks away tears at the thought; he needs to focus on the Tsunade sitting across from him.

“I’m looking after his son, Naruto.”

Tsunade’s eyes widen. “Like your book? They named him that?”

“You read my book!?”

“Yes- but only that first one,” she amends, like she’s waiting for him to tease her about Icha Icha. He doesn’t. “Well, where is the little thing?”

Jiraiya pours himself more sake. “He’s ill. Min- the Yondaime had to protect Konoha. Naruto is suffering for it.”

“He’s inherited his mother’s condition,” Tsunade says carefully, considering. “What can I do about that? I’m retired.”

“Hopefully, nothing,” he answers honestly. “But I need to work on his seal. Tsunade, you are the only one I trust.”

She begins to laugh, taking another drink. “Have you so few friends in Konoha?”

“That I trust with the life of my godson? No.” Jiraiya says seriously.

Tsunade seems to be looking through him, not at him, when she raises her glass. “Let’s have another round.”

He’s half-carrying Tsunade out of the bar by the time night falls. She’s luckily a happy drunk, for the most part, relaying bits and pieces of some of Team Sarutobi’s funnier adventures to no one in particular as they walk to the inn she’s been staying at.

“And I swear-! If there had been one more of those beasts, Orochimaru would have been bald!!” She laughs loudly, poking at Jiraiya’s chest. “You remember that, don’t you, Jiii-raiya?”

He hasn’t been answering her for a while now, but it doesn’t seem to deter her. “You’re going to bring him to me, aren’t you? It’s been so long since I’ve seen Oro-oro-, ah, fuck it. The snake man. You know him!”

Jiraiya had indeed told Shizune to bring Orochimaru back with her, though that had been when Tsunade was in any condition to speak to him. Even in her drunken state, he’s not surprised she’s figured out the third member of their trio is here.

“I know you can sober yourself up if you want to,” Jiraiya mumbles as he hefts her up the stairs to her and Shizune’s room. The light is on and he can hear multiple voices, which he takes as a good sign.

Shizune takes Tsunade’s other arm as soon as they cross the threshold, looking concerned. Jiraiya’s a bit surprised given from what he’s seen and heard Tsunade is often drunk more than she’s not.

They deposit her on the far bed, and Tsunade makes no move to get up, staring at the ceiling like she’s waiting for it to talk.

Orochimaru, Sadako, and Anko, who had been drinking tea around the table take no action either until Jiraiya makes a shooing motion, which only Sadako seems to understand, nodding to Shizune.

“What the hell happened?” Sadako hisses, even as she’s yanking Anko out of the room to give the Sannin some privacy.

Jiraiya just shakes his head, closing the door behind the three girls. He’d expected he’d be having this conversation with Tsunade over drinks. It was Tsunade, after all, but he’s surprised to find how much the differences between past Tsunade and her future self affect him. This version of Tsunade does not have her Will of Fire back. Instead, she’s a broken, drunken mess, on the run from her problems and, it seems, her village.

As soon as she hears the click of the door, Tsunade shoots up, suddenly sober. “This feels like an ambush, Jiraiya.”

“As if we’d need to sneak up on you, hime,” Orochimaru says harshly. He seems oddly disappointed in the state of their teammate, and for once, Jiraiya thinks they can team up on Tsunade instead of Orochimaru and Tsunade ganging up on him.

Tsunade snorts. “Nice to see you, too, Oro. How’s Konoha?”

There’s a flash of anger in Orochimaru’s eyes that Jiraiya can’t necessarily blame the man for after their last conversation.

“That’s enough,” Jiraiya tells her, plopping down on the other bed. Orochimaru hovers over both of them, standing. “Tsunade, I need your help.”

“Oh, the Legendary Sannin, Great Toad Sage Jiraiya needs help? Well-“

“Tsunade.” Orochimaru says her name with such conviction that she stops herself mid-sentence. It’s only one word, but the three of them can read between the lines what’s been said.

We need help.

It clicks for Jiraiya then that this is exactly what they were missing in the past. All three of them had ended up loners, with no real peers besides each other. Being dubbed the Sannin had been a horrible honor, but it had also put them on pedestals they could only look down from. They are a team, and they need to work together if anything is going to change this time around.

Jiraiya had taken a huge risk telling Orochimaru about the future, but if this is the outcome, it’s been worth it. All he needs is for Tsunade to come home, to say yes, and he can fix things.

She hesitates, and it’s like she’s punched him. “I-I’ll think about it.”

When Jiraiya wakes, there is still no word from Tsunade. He supposes he’d be lucky if she even remembered last night.

What had he expected? That they’d have a team reunion and everything would be fine? He’s a bigger fool than he thought.

Defeated, Jiraiya begins to pack up, to go back to Naruto to find another solution. A wet plop distracts him from his work, and he turns to find a slug has landed at his window.

“Lady Tsunade is coming,” she tells him.

Chapter Text

They make for quite the odd traveling party. Tsunade seems embarrassed to be seen by her comrades, sticking to the back, especially away from Jiraiya and Orochimaru.

Shizune trails behind her, of course, and Anko flanks her other side, happily chattering away. He wonders what possessed Orochimaru to take on such a chatty apprentice when the man himself looks to be in physical pain trying to reciprocate the conversation.

Jiraiya is thankful for small miracles that their first day passes quickly and without incident, that is, until he announces a halt for the night in the middle of the woods.

Apparently camping would no longer do for the Senju Princess.

“Oh come on, Jiraiya! There’s hotels in town! It’s not like we’re on a mission!” She whines, awfully loudly for someone who has no money to pay for said hotel.

“Tsunade-sama, Tsunade-sama!” Anko cries. “Camping is fun! Orochimaru-sensei and I have to do it all the time!”

Tsunade’s eyes glass over, her protests quieted. Jiraiya knows she’s thinking of Nawaki. Judging by how Orochimaru looks away, he knows he is, too. The boy had been the biggest sore spot in their relationship. Tsunade couldn’t help but blame Orochimaru for failing to bring her brother home, especially from his first trip to the battlefield, and Orochimaru had been downright cruel to her when he gave the news.

“This is war, Tsunade.”

Once Jiraiya had convinced Tsunade to go home, her tears had dried and even worse than her crying, she tried to kiss him. He didn’t let her; as much as he wanted to know what it would be like to kiss her he couldn’t have, not in that state. Instead he’d put her to bed, shut the door, and left like a real coward, her sobs echoing down the hallway of the empty house, following him. He should have stayed. He thought about that night a lot.

“Enough, Anko,” Orochimaru reprimands harshly. The kid looks at him with big eyes, hurt and confused. “We are going to collect firewood,” he announces to the rest of the group and the two of them are gone into the woods in moments.

“Hey Shizune-kun, you know how to fish? There’s a river nearby,” Sadako says, glancing uncomfortably at Jiraiya and then Tsunade. Morio had once accurately described his teammate as “emotionally constipated”.

Shizune looks apprehensive to leave her mentor, but nods firmly, and they disappear too.

It leaves Jiraiya alone with Tsunade, but he knows better than to say anything until she composes herself, so he sits back against a tree and closes his eyes, breathing deeply until Tsunade’s breaths sync up with his.

“I taught you that trick,” Tsunade says quietly. She’s sitting next to him now, arms gathering her knees.

Jiraiya peels an eye open. “What trick?”

Tsunade huffs, and knocks her shoulder with his, but they don’t talk about it at any great length.

Sadako and Shizune return to camp first, triumphantly holding up half a dozen fish. Well, Sadako looks triumphant, anyway.

“Are you sure yours are safe to eat, Sadako-san?” Shizune asks nervously.

“What do you mean, safe to eat? They’re fresh from the river!”

“Well, yes, but you electrocuted them, so…”

Sadako, offended, takes out a kunai and begins to gut one of the rather… blackened fish. It’s guts are like charcoal and she huffs, crossing her arms petulantly.

“The stupid things weren’t biting.”

“Sadako-chan, didn’t we have a talk about using lightning jutsu to catch fish?” Jiraiya teases. “I seem to remember you shocking your teammates.”

“Then you’ll also recall they deserved it, Jiraiya-sensei.”

Morio and Minato had deserved it. They mocked Sadako relentlessly the entirety of their time working as a team for her inability and impatience when it came to survival skills. Both boys were geniuses with calm, level heads. Sadako had a temper to rival Tsunade’s.

Jiraiya doesn’t miss wrangling groups of pre-teens in life or death situations. He fully plans to pawn Naruto off on Kakashi when he graduates. Things should be much easier for all of them this time around, and he won’t deny Naruto the special bond he’d seemed to hold with Team Seven.

“I suppose they did. Anyway, it looks like Shizune-kun was successful enough for both of you.”

Shizune beams at the praise even underneath Sadako’s glare.

Orochimaru and Anko return shortly after, and they all eat, then set a rotation for watch. Again, Orochimaru volunteers himself and Anko first, so Jiraiya takes the middle of the night, much to his former student’s chagrin. He probably won’t even wake Tsunade. She’s years out of practice at this point.

Another uneventful night and half day later, they arrive at the gates of Konoha. He feels a little silly for haven taken a whole team, no bandit in their right mind would take on the Three Sannin, but how was he to know things would go so smoothly? In fact, the more he thinks about it, things have gone suspiciously smoothly.

Orochimaru, Anko, and Sadako bid them a hasty goodbye at the gates, and Jiraiya leads Tsunade and Shizune straight to the hospital. There isn’t a second to waste, and Jiraiya can only hope and pray that the temporary seals had done their job and Naruto hasn’t been in pain for four days.

Inside the nursery, his prayers are answered and Naruto is peacefully asleep. Jiraiya watches him for a few moments from the nursery window, trying his best to put on a neutral expression. The whole village doesn’t need to see their future Hokage so soft.

Tsunade sees right through him, of course, she always has. “Brat has you wrapped around his little finger, huh?” She says fondly.

Jiraiya can’t deny it. Naruto is his whole world right now. Even if he wishes he could have a full night’s sleep and there’s something about the pitch of a newborn’s cry that makes his ears ring, Naruto might be the best thing to ever happen to him.

“He’ll make a fine shinobi one day,” is what he manages to get out.

“I never pictured you with a baby.” The corner of Tsunade’s mouth upticks just a little into a poorly-hidden smirk. “It suits you.”

He can feel himself blush. Hearing her say that both hurts and makes his heart soar at the possibilities for the future. “I’m getting soft in my old age, I suppose.”

“Hah! We’re not dead yet,” Tsunade cackles. “Let’s get to this. Any longer and you’re bound to start sniffling over the damn brat, you big baby.”

They decide to keep Naruto at the hospital, just in case anything goes too badly, though the hospital staff seem none too thrilled at Tsunade’s demands. She still walks around like she owns the place, barking out orders for specific equipment and adequate rooms.

Shizune joins them, ready to assist, which Jiraiya is thankful for, since Tsunade’s fear of blood has not been cured or tested recently. He chooses to believe that if Naruto could break her out of it in the future, he can now, too. There’s something special about the kid, and they all know it.

For his part, Jiraiya hasn’t been idle while he was away fetching Tsunade, and he sets out scrolls with drafts to fix the seal while she and Shizune bustle around the room. Not the seal is necessarily broken, but it could be better. Jiraiya has a horrifying thought that Naruto might have just gotten used to the pain if his seal was like this last time.

So far, he’s determined that he needs to modify the seal to account for Naruto’s age, and will need to modify it again as he grows. He can’t replace it, that’s too risky, but using the seal key Minato had left with Gerotora and his own knowledge, he should be able to make some improvements.

For one, Naruto would know what was different about him from the start. In of itself that should make his chakra control much better because he’ll understand it. But with Jiraiya’s modifications, he’ll also be used to the Kyubi’s chakra if it can be mingled in more slowly. Minato seemed to have accounted for what would happen if the seal weakened by making the key to strengthen it, so most of the hard work has been done already. Jiraiya only has to re-write a few lines, and he supposes he can’t fault Minato for not producing his finest work while his wife was dying next to him and the village had been trampled.

He’s still nervous. Naruto isn’t yet two months old, and seals on an adult could be excruciating at times. Jiraiya won’t forgive himself if he accidentally kills his godson. It’s why he’d insisted on Tsunade.

“Are you ready, Jiraiya-sama?” Shizune asks. She’s rocking Naruto in her arms and the baby is still fast asleep.

Jiraiya does his best to put on a confident air. “Of course.”

He starts by placing all the elements for the modified seal before he activates the eight trigrams that’s already there, removing the temporary barrier seals. Naruto wakes up, screaming as soon as he touches it and Jiraiya feels tears prick in his eyes at the sound. Naruto’s cries are horrible, but he has to focus. One slip and the Kyubi will break free and take all of Konoha with it. The nine tails is already fighting the seal, hard.

Jiraiya works as quickly as possible, and it’s over before a minute has even passed. When he activates the seal again it doesn’t fight at him or glow like it’had before, and his godson Is still. Frighteningly still.

“Tsunade,” he barks at his teammate, who is already moving, shoving Jiraiya to the side.

“Move,” Tsunade growls, all the authority of the battlefield in her tone. He does on instinct alone and presses himself against the wall as he watches her and Shizune work. Naruto isn’t screaming anymore and the silence is scaring the hell out of him.

All he can concentrate on is the green glow of Tsunade’s hands as they hover over Naruto. If her hands are still working, Naruto is still alive. He tries to breathe through the panic. What if this is it? Jiraiya isn’t sure he can live with himself if it is. His trip to the past will have been for nothing, and even worse still he’ll have doomed the whole world and broken the prophecy.

Shizune shoos him out of the room and Jiraiya goes without complaint, unable to watch in real time his greatest failure.

Jiraiya sits in the hallway with his head in his hands for hours. Shizune had popped out to give updates once or twice, but Naruto is not doing well. Where at first he had too much chakra, now he’s in need of transfusions.

Finally, Shizune joins him on the bench, clearly exhausted. “He’s stable,” she says, rubbing at her eyes. “Tsunade-sama is going to stay with him tonight, just in case. She told me to tell you to go home.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jiraiya tells her.

“She said you’d say that,” Shizune sighs. She doesn’t fight him, just lays her head back against the wall and closes her eyes.

They sit side by side on the bench for a while (maybe, it’s hard to tell how much time passes at a time like this) until two ANBU drop down from the ceiling, ready to guard the approaching Hokage.

“Jiraiya. I see your mission was a success,” Sarutobi says casually. “How is little Naruto?”

“Stable, for now, Sensei,” Jiraiya answers tiredly. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Oh no, just came by to see how Naruto is doing and speak to Tsunade. I assume she’s busy, but that means Naruto is in capable hands.”

Jiraiya is not going to fall for this. “I’m not going home.”

“You’re no good dead on your feet, Jiraiya. I will have ANBU escort you.” There’s no malice in Sensei’s tone, but the way he says it makes it clear to him that this is not optional, and Jiraiya will not disobey his Hokage directly.

“I’ll be back at first light,” Jiraiya tells Shizune, who is half-asleep but nods, jerking more awake when she notices the Hokage standing over them.

“He’s going to be alright, Jiraiya,” Sensei says, laying a hand on Jiraiya’s shoulder. “But sometimes we must defer to those that are better suited to help.”

He doesn’t shrug off the hand, but instead leans a little into it. He knows with the benefit of hindsight that Sarutobi is not a perfect man, but he’s still Jiraiya’s sensei and he’s missed him terribly in the years since his death.

“Hound, escort Jiraiya home, and make sure he stays, please.”

Of course Sensei would ask for Hound. Kakashi the one person Jiraiya wouldn’t be able to escape out of his own guilt. In his haste to leave and find Tsunade,  hadn’t thought to tell the kid about Naruto.

They walk to Minato’s house in silence, Jiraiya trying and failing to formulate what to say to Kakashi to reassure him that Naruto will be ok. Kakashi is clearly attached to the baby, out of duty to Naruto’s parents or genuine love for the boy, Jiraiya doesn’t know.  

He’s starting to see that he owes more to Minato than just looking after one kid, and ushers Kakashi inside the house when he hesitates in the doorway. The more time Jiraiya spends with him, the more he realizes Kakashi is a freshly fourteen year old child, not just a hardened ANBU. He’s in obvious need of guidance that endless, bloody, s-rank missions cannot provide.

“You can stay in the guest room, kid,” is what Jiraiya settles on telling him. “I know it was yours anyway.”

Kakashi freezes in his tracks like he’s been caught red-handed. As if it wasn’t obvious to everyone how much Minato and Kushina cared for him.

“What, you think I didn’t notice? Come on, Kushina-kun wasn’t letting you go to your apartment after guarding her all night, was she?”

The masked Kakashi shakes his head, and when Jiraiya meets one grey eye, he swears he sees it shining.

Chapter Text

Alone in the bedroom he’d almost worked up to calling his own, Kakashi stares at the ceiling, willing sleep to come to him. His eyes are heavy, the room is dark, and yet, he’s wide awake, able to pinpoint every sound around him. The whirr of electricity running through the house. The tree outside his window swaying, even the soft footfalls of ANBU when they get too close. His senses are perfectly honed, and for years the knowledge allowed him to sleep, confident he and his team would not be ambushed.

His team. Minato’s disappointed face is all he sees when he closes his eyes. It’s a break from Rin’s, a break from Obito’s, a break from his father’s. It doesn’t feel like a break to Kakashi. There will never be a break for him. Their disappointed voices run laps through his head at all hours.

“Ka-ka-shi…”

He rolls over, as if that could block everything out, covering the side of his head with his pillow. The bed is too soft. The sheets are too clean. He can’t sense Minato and Kushina here anymore, just Jiraiya and echoes of baby Naruto. 

He doesn’t understand why Jiraiya of all people is pretending to care what happens to him. Before Sensei’s death, he’d been a mystery, a fairytale that children were told about the strength of Konoha. All the Sannin were.

Minato spoke of Jiraiya like he was a real person. Now Minato will be a legend, too.

Kakashi knows he shouldn’t stay here. His very presence is asking for Jiraiya-sama’s pity and he’s a busy man with no time to waste for something as simple as teaching. Besides, Kakashi hasn’t needed a teacher in a long time. He’s been a jonin for years.

Shinobi don’t need pity. Shinobi don’t need anything but the mission.

He closes his eyes. Guarding Naruto is a promise he made to Minato-sensei. That’s the reason he’s staying.

“You sleep with that thing on?”

Kakashi bolts upright in bed, palming at his face to check the mask is still there. He must have fallen asleep. Jiraiya-sama is hovering in the doorway, one eyebrow raised at him.

“Hey, it’s not even dawn, kid. Catch some more sleep, I’m just going to see Naruto.”

“I have somewhere to be,” Kakashi answers coldly. Jiraiya does no more than sigh, closing the door softly.

Kakashi falls back onto the bed. First light has just barely started to creep under the blinds, but there’s no way he’ll sleep again. He waits Jiraiya’s chakra is beyond the seals to get up, relishing the last few moments spent in bed.

Danzo-sama had asked to see him again so there’s little point to sleeping in.

He creeps out through the window, taking the familiar route off the roof and onto one of the sidewalls that borders the market district. No stalls are open yet, the streets quiet. Kakashi feels a sense of relief that he won’t run into his friends. The last time Gai had tried to approach him for a friendly challenge he’d nearly ripped his head off. Literally.

It was for Gai’s own good that he didn’t come near Kakashi. He’ll only do more harm than good as much as he knows Gai would argue. It’s why he’s been so careful to consider Danzo’s words.

“I’ll give you a few days to answer. Just remember, we might have had the power to contain the Kyubi if the Hokage wasn’t so weak. And then Minato and Kushina…”

It had never occurred to him not to trust the Hokage. Minato-sensei had, even his father had as far as Kakashi can remember.

But, if what Danzo-sama said was true, then it was his job to investigate it, for Minato and Kushina’s sakes. What was another regret to keep him up at night if he managed to uncover the truth?

The trouble is, Kakashi’s not sure which side is the truth. Danzo-sama says progress through any means necessary is what’s best for the village, but Hokage-sama hadn’t seemed to agree. If anything Sandaime had been sad to discover Kakashi in his office, almost as if he’d known he wasn’t there of his own accord.

“Do what you will with this information, Kakashi.”

Kakashi feels torn in two. He is angry with Sandaime. On the other hand, if Danzo had a ninja capable of stopping the Kyubi like Hokage-sama said why didn’t he?

He runs on the rooftops to ANBU headquarters on light feet, though he knows from experience how annoying it is to have shinobi running on your roof early in the morning, and secures his mask on before dropping down to enter the building.

There’s a handful of ANBU scattered in the lobby, probably waiting to dispatch on their mission, and he feels the way they stare at him. Cold-blooded Kakashi. ANBU are supposed to conceal their identities from each other, but he knows with his silver hair he’s not fooling anyone.

After the team clears out, Danzo-sama appears, approaching Kakashi with a flat expression. He’s never been afraid of his elders, but he can feel something about Danzo is dangerous.

“Have you made a decision?” Danzo asks calmly. “Will you do what’s right for your village and join us?”

Kakashi swallows hard, hoping he’s making the right choice.

“Yes.”

Jiraiya walks slowly through the village, only the quiet streets for company. He hopes Kakashi doesn’t follow him. The kid looks exhausted.

What had Minato been thinking, putting his own teenaged apprentice in ANBU? Kakashi is capable, of course he is, but he’s so young. When Minato told him the White Fang had allowed his son to be apprenticed to him rather than force Kakashi to stay in the Academy, Jiraiya hadn’t been surprised. Hatake Sakumo was a profoundly talented shinobi, on par with Jiraiya and his teammates, of course his son was a prodigy, too. He had been surprised to learn, however, that Sakumo’s son was just turned six years old, the youngest Academy graduate ever.

The barely teenaged Hound’s been mostly able to put on a brave face, but the village seems to be running Kakashi ragged. He’s only looked worse since Jiraiya first saw him, despite his lessened number of missions, but he knows better than to ask any questions. Kakashi will just put up a front as he’s been taught to do.

Jiraiya has been thinking a lot about child soldiers lately. He’d never questioned it before, it was just how things were in Konoha. He’d killed a man at age ten, and been taught how to for years before that. He’s seen the best of their system rise to leadership and hope for peace, but he’s seen the worst of it too.

He finds he can’t even think of his orphans in Ame and what they became, what they’ll become if he can’t stop it. The possibility that he’s already too late is paralyzing.

By the time he reaches the hospital the sun is starting to peek over the mountains, and he’s pleasantly surprised to find that Tsunade has kept her word and stayed the night with Naruto. Both of them are fast asleep when he gets to their room, Tsunade face flat against her pillow and golden hair sprawled around her like a crown, and Naruto snugly wrapped in his little cot.

His godson looks much better than he had when Jiraiya left. There’s pink in his cheeks again and the dark bags that had colored his eyes are all but gone. He lets out a sigh of relief, knowing that they’ve succeeded. The next time should be easier.

That small noise is enough to wake Tsunade, who sputters hair out of her mouth and peeks around, eyes finally landing on Jiraiya.

“Oh, it’s you,” she says flatly, yawning.

“Well, it’s a warmer welcome than I’ve gotten in the past,” Jiraiya teases. “How is he?”

“It was a long night, but I think his chakra reserves are finally back to normal,” she answers tiredly. “You owe me one, Jiraiya.”

“I suppose I do, Tsunade,” he says, not taking his eyes of Naruto. Every time he looks at the small baby he thinks he’d go to the ends of the world if it meant Naruto would be safe. “You’ll stay for a while?”

Tsunade pauses for a moment, looking down at the floor. “I thought I might take a few missions. I need the money, and Shizune could do to see her friends here.”

The thought of Tsunade taking D-ranks around the village makes him huff out a laugh. “I’m sure Sensei will be thrilled. Finally, a team reunion.”

“It’ll only be a few weeks,” she scoffs. “And what the hell is going on with Orochimaru?”

Jiraiya considers telling Tsunade everything right then and there. But he doesn’t. Telling Orochimaru was enough of a gamble, and he knows for a fact Tsunade would go straight to the Hokage. At the end of the day, she’s a stickler for rules, unless of course they’re being applied to her.

“He’s working on a project for Lord Danzo, but I think it’s starting to get to him.”

Tsunade narrows her eyes. “What kind of project?”

“He wouldn’t say. It’s probably unsavory if Orochimaru doesn’t want to admit to it, but I have a hunch,” he takes a deep breath, “it’s about the Mokuton.”

“Nobody can replicate it, it’s a kekkei genkai,” Tsunade snaps. “No Senju has had it since grandfather.”

“I have it on good authority Lord Danzo has taken a special interest in it,” Jiraiya continues. “And we both know if anyone can figure it out, it’s Orochimaru.”

There’s fire behind Tsunade’s eyes, and it burns where she stares at him. “That bastard. I always knew there was something sleazy about him. We have to tell Sensei.”

“Tsunade, he already knows.”

A look of betrayal flashes across her face but her determination remains. “Fine! We’ll go to Orochimaru then!”

“He wouldn’t tell me anything. I think he couldn’t.”

“What do you mean couldn’t? Why not?”

Even Jiraiya isn’t sure of exactly why Orochimaru couldn’t talk to him. He knows the basics, the whispers of what Danzo was responsible for in the village, about the vile reality of ROOT, but nothing concrete enough to know where to start. He can relay, play by play, stopping international incidents by meeting the right person in the right bar far away from home but Jiraiya can’t even scratch the surface of what’s been going on in Konoha. It’s a daily frustration.

Naruto begins to stir, and Jiraiya picks him up gently, thankful for the familiar weight in his arms. “I don’t know. I’m working on it. Maybe you should talk to him,” he suggests.

“As soon as I’m done with Sensei, I will,” she promises. “Now hand over the brat. I don’t need you messing up all my hard work.”

Kakashi is gone when Jiraiya brings Naruto home, but he hadn’t expected anything different. The kid behaves much like a stray cat, and Jiraiya knows boxing him in isn’t going to keep him coming around. He’ll just have to continue to leave the door open.

He is surprised, though, to see a note pinned to the front door from one Nara Morio, requesting a meeting at his earliest convenience.

Since he’d had the door all but slammed in his face when he’d tried to see his former student a little while ago he wasn’t sure a reunion was ever going to happen until Morio was forced to report to him as Hokage.

He makes Naruto a bottle, and settles on to the couch to feed him. Every day the baby looks more and more like his parents. Jiraiya still feels like a ghost in their home, like he shouldn’t be here; or maybe it’s that he can’t move on.

They nap for a few hours (and why is it Minato’s tiny couch is so comfortable?) and after another feeding and an outfit change (into a frankly adorable Uzushio swirl onesie) he and Naruto make their way to the Nara compound.

Growing up he’d always been jealous of the clan kids. Jiraiya had been orphaned by the first war and had no family he knew of. Sometimes he would stare into the crowds at the market and carefully look for men with white hair or stripes on their faces, but to no avail. His parents hadn’t even left him a family name. Some of the kids at the orphanage were quick to call him a bastard, but there was no honor to defend so he never let it bother him.

The Nara had been much more welcoming to him than the Uchiha when he’d gotten his genin team. Instead of questioning him at every turn and making demands, they encouraged him to visit. Morio was not closely related to the main family, but the Nara clan head had met with them both personally and even offered for Morio to train with his own son, Shikaku. Jiraiya wondered how it would feel to be in a clan like that, if his full-time travels would be more or less appealing.

It doesn’t matter. He’s still a clan-less orphan, even at his old age, and the connections he had to the Nara and the Uchiha are all but severed.

Morio answers the door this time. He’s grown-up now, too, baby fat gone from his face and glasses that don’t slide off his nose at every turn anymore. He looks Jiraiya up and down, staring intently at Naruto. Minato and Morio had been close as kids, but since then Morio’s name hadn’t come up much, at least to Jiraiya. He wonders if Naruto means anything to him.

“I’ll make this quick, I know what a busy man you are, Jiraiya-sama,” Morio says as he ushers them in. It’s not said unkindly, but Jiraiya feels the stab all the same. At least Sadako had still called him sensei. He doesn’t try to make light of it; jokes had never worked on the severe Morio anyway.

They sit in the front room, on cushions that do nothing for his back, and Morio gets right to it, never one to waste time.

“My nephew has been kidnapped, and I need you to find out what happened to him.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re the next Hokage, obviously,” Morio scoffs, like he’s stupid for asking in the first place. “I can go to the police until I’m blue in the face, unless someone with a lot of power pushes this it’s going to go nowhere. An orphaned branch family member isn’t going to bring the village to a halt.”

Jiraiya will concede that to him. A clan kid is high priority, usually, but one from the outer ranks and orphaned would not draw much attention.

“Why do you think he was kidnapped?”

“I believed what the police said, at first, that he ran away. He’s an orphan, after all. But then, I heard from one of the Akimichi that one of their orphans ran away around the same time. Both boys had just proved their inheritance of their kekkei genkai.”

A pit sinks in Jiraiya’s stomach, because he has a feeling he knows exactly who is responsible for kidnapping children in the village. Orphaned clan kids with known kekkei genkais are the perfect target, and without the knowledge Jiraiya has, few would be able to connect the dots.

A bold move, none the less, to go after one of the Nara’s. Jiraiya has always found they aren’t nearly as lazy as they like you to believe.

“I’ll need all the information you have about the kids.”

This is a request his former student had anticipated, evidently, as he hands Jiraiya a small folder. “Everything I know. You know where to find me.”

“I’ll make sure we look into this immediately, Morio-kun,” Jiraiya says seriously. Morio nods in acknowledgement, and knowing now is not the time for pleasantries, Jiraiya sees himself out.

Immediately, he makes arrangements to meet Nara Shikaku as soon as possible. Since his father died in the war he’s the new clan head, and on top of that he’s also the newly-minted Jonin Commander. He needs to try to form a good relationship with the man anyway; the Jonin Commander has always been an informal advisor to the Hokage in addition to their other duties.

He goes to the Akimichi, too, and then heads down to Konoha’s orphanage. Jiraiya isn’t sure just how many kids are being experimented on or forced into Danzo’s shadow organizations, but it’s got to be more than two.

The woman manning the desk at the orphanage asks him with a grimace if he’s here to surrender Naruto, who has been so quiet Jiraiya had almost forgotten he was strapped to his chest. The little guy seems to be exhausted from his hospital ordeal, which is just as well.

“No, I just had a few questions for the Matron.”

Relief floods the woman’s face. “We’re up to our eyes in war orphans,” she tells him tiredly as they walk to the Matron’s office. “I can’t hardly keep track of them all.”

The Matron looks vaguely irritated when she sees Jiraiya being led into her office with a baby.

“We strongly encourage any other option, Jiraiya-sama,” she says critically. “We’re a bit overrun at the moment.”

“I’m not here to surrender him. I’d just like to have a look at your intake and adoption records. The Hokage’s office has heard of some runaways, lately.”

“None that I’m aware of,” she mutters, hauling a large book onto the desk, and licking a finger to flip through it. He watches as her face pales, all annoyance drained away as she goes back and forth between two sections.

“Oh, dear. There must be some kind of discrepancy, according to our records there’s fourteen empty beds, but zero adoptions.” There’s terror in her eyes when she looks at him. “What’s going on, Jiraiya-sama?”

There can be no more stalling. Jiraiya needs to get into Orochimaru’s lab, and fast.

Chapter Text

Nara Shikaku is meeting with an irate Uchiha Fugaku when Jiraiya arrives at the Jonin Commander’s office the next day. He’d taken Naruto back to the hospital that morning to be babysat but an unsuspecting (but compliant) Shizune, and he’s thankful for her with the tension that’s in the room; terse conversations seem to upset the baby.

“Ah, Uchiha-san, good to see you. What brings you here?”

Fugaku looks like the vein in his forehead is about to burst just looking at Jiraiya. Shikaku, who is none the diplomat, supplies no context to either of them, sitting back in his chair and gazing at the ceiling with a sigh.

“Police business,” Fugaku grits out. He’s probably not telling the truth, and it only serves to remind Jiraiya how tense it will become between the village and the Uchiha in the coming years. Things had ended… poorly, to say the least. He imagines Itachi’s face over Fugaku’s and resists a shiver.

The rumors of the Uchiha controlling the Kyubi have not quieted in the weeks since the attack. He sees it daily, especially among the civilians, how they turn away with hushed whispers at the sight of the clan symbol. The Uchiha, for their part, have responded to this angrily. He shouldn’t blame them, the police force had taken the most losses the night of the attack, and all to protect the same ungrateful people that gossip about them.

Jiraiya is no expert on the Sharingan, but he can’t believe that the police would be responsible for ransacking their own village and killing their own kin. If they’d wanted to take out Minato, there would have been easier ways.

“Of course, of course! Forgive me, Captain, I’m afraid I have an urgent matter to discuss with Shikaku-san,” Jiraiya says with a smile. There are years to the massacre, unfortunately the Uchiha will have to wait while he puts out a few more pressing fires.

Fugaku doesn’t return it, just brushes past Jiraiya with no goodbye.

When Jiraiya’s sure the police captain is out of earshot, he asks Shikaku what they’d discussed.

“Hokage-sama is suggesting the Uchiha relocate,” Shikaku says simply.

So it’s already happening. Had the move started so fast last time? Jiraiya had a fair memory, or so he’d thought, until he’d needed to remember these things.

It was strange, though. Sensei had seemed all too eager to pass the hat off to him as quickly as possible, but now felt he should make major decisions in the interim?

“What, move their compound?”

Shikaku at least has the decency to not look bored when he answers. “I guess. I don’t know the details. Sandaime isn’t as forthcoming with me as Minato was.”

Jiraiya can guess who his sensei is confiding in, instead. That damn council has their hands in every decision Sarutobi seems to make. It’s probably why they aren’t thrilled with the idea of Jiraiya taking over; his first act as Hokage will be to force all three of them into retirement.

Though, he supposes he can’t begrudge Sarutobi-sensei too harshly, for relying on old teammates.

“What can I do for you, Jiraiya-sama?”

“One of your clan orphans is missing. And at least fifteen other children.”

“Shouldn’t you be taking this up with Fugaku-san?” Shikaku sighs, though his eyebrow raises in concern.

Honestly, the thought hadn’t really occurred to Jiraiya. In the future, there were no police, and in the past he’d had little interaction with them, save sprinting away as a teenager when he was caught looking into the women’s side at the bath house. He’d come to rely on himself, first of all, to solve things, and typically his missions even when he was around Konoha were more of the “kill and don’t ask questions” type. The police were more for shinobi on shinobi crime, and dealing with civilians.

“I’m coming to you as the Nara clan head. Did you know the boy personally?” Jiraiya pivots, showing Shikaku the picture Morio had provided.

Shikaku studies it. “Yes, but not well. His parents were shinobi, both killed in action at the end of the war. The Nara take care of their own, Jiraiya-sama.”

“The police told my former student he ran away.”

Shikaku frowns. “He just learned Shadow Possession.”

Jiraiya doesn’t even have to confirm it’s not a coincidence out loud, Shikaku is a smart man and from the look on his face has already put it together.

“You have a lead on this,” he says calmly.

Jiraiya nods, affirmative, but offers no verbal confirmation. The walls could have eyes, or ears.

Shikaku leans back in his chair, hands shoved in his pockets and eyes closed in concentration.

“I plan to give Morio-kun an update tonight,” Jiraiya announces. Let’s meet at your place.

“Tch. If I can get away from my wife.” I’ll be there.

Jiraiya laughs heartily, if a little over-exaggerated, and claps Shikaku on the back. “Women, huh?”

Shikaku rolls his eyes, and Jiraiya takes his leave. The severity of the situation isn’t lost on him, but he feels almost giddy that Shikaku understood so quickly, that he had been right to assume the Jonin Commander was a powerful ally to have. He’s kind of low on friends, at the moment.  

As he’s wandering the merchant district, more in search of lunch than anything, he stumbles upon Uchiha Fugaku again.

He’s sitting at the bar of one of Jiraiya’s least favorite cheap, seedy establishments, still wearing his jonin vest but clearly not on official business. From his sour expression, Fugaku obviously does not want to be bothered, but one of Jiraiya’s specialties is bothering people who don’t want to be bothered.

He’s prevented wars over a beer, he isn’t intimidated by a little investigation with one police captain. Grinning, he slides onto the stool next to Fugaku, who does a poor job of hiding his disgust.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Jiraiya says brightly. “I wouldn’t have guessed the police captain frequented a bar like this.”

“Frequent might be pushing it, Jiraiya-sama,” Fugaku snarls. “What exactly are you implying?”

Jiraiya waves his hands placatingly. “No, nothing like that. I just meant the patrons here are usually up to no good. Let me apologize with a few beers, what do you say?”

Fugaku hums at him, which Jiraiya takes as an agreement. The bartender (a girl he can’t quite recall if he’s slept with by this time, but if he hasn’t he will- she’s gorgeous) takes his drink order with a scowl on her face (damn, too bad) and he takes over Fugaku’s tab, too.  

“What do you want?” Fugaku finally asks him when he seems to tire of watching Jiraiya scarf down bar food silently.

“Those missing kids,” Jiraiya says around a mouthful of excellent tempura. “I want to know what you think happened to them.”

Fugaku studies him, as if the answer to Jiraiya’s question is written on his own face. “Why bother me when you seem to already know the answer?”

“You’re a smart man, Uchiha-san. There’s Uchiha kids missing, too, aren’t there?”

“Please don’t strain yourself to pretend on our behalf, Jiraiya-sama,” Fugaku scoffs. “As if we’d lose track of our children so easily. Not to worry, though. You’ll have us banished from the village soon enough.”

There’s a genuine hurt behind the man’s eyes when Jiraiya looks into them. Fugaku is a war hero who has served Konoha for nearly as long as he has. To feel like the very village your clan has given their lives for over and over is being snubbed at best, punished at worst is unforgivable to the ones who caused it.

And yet, there has to be a reason for Sarutobi’s distrust in them. Sensei had agreed that the rumors surrounding the Kyubi were ridiculous and uncalled for but the Uchiha had also been banned from interacting with it when the attack happened.

“What did you think of the Yondaime?” Jiraiya asks. Had Minato trusted the police?

Fugaku downs the rest of his beer, Jiraiya already motioning to the bartender for another one. “He was easier than his predecessor,” he answers, not betraying any emotion. It’s his indifference that gives it away. “A little young for the job, maybe.”

There it is. Uchiha Fugaku, a hero of both the second and especially the third shinobi world wars, ten years older than Namikaze Minato might have been an excellent choice for Hokage. And yet, they all knew there was never to be an Uchiha on the face of the mountain.

“I’d like to improve relations between the police and the Hokage,” Jiraiya offers. It’s a pittance for what they’ve been put through, or what the village is trying to put them through, but it’s a start.

“If that’s all you want from me you’ll be happy to know Sadako-san is the official liaison. Surely she can help you,” Fugaku says shortly.

“Ah, I’ve bothered Sadako-chan enough lately,” Jiraiya laughs. “She’s not always happy to see her old sensei.”

“I wonder why,” Fugaku mumbles.

That makes him laugh even harder. “Are all your clansmen like this, Uchiha-san? So serious?”

Fugaku glares back at him, but there’s a glint in his eye that wasn’t there before. “Only the reasonable ones, Jiraiya-sama.”

They maintain a companionable silence for a few minutes, before Jiraiya has a brilliant idea.

”I’m meeting with the Nara about this investigation tonight,” Jiraiya tells him, just above a whisper. This bar may be for shinobi, but they’re the worst offenders when it comes to village gossip, let alone a sensitive meeting. “I’ll see you there?”

Fugaku’s face twists into something akin to confusion, but he nods once.

Jiraiya leaves the bar feeling better.

He retrieves Naruto in the late afternoon from an unimpressed Shizune, who shoves the baby back at him like he’s burning her. It’s a little dramatic, he’s been gone a handful of hours at best.

“You said he just needed a check-up, Jiraiya-sama!” She cries when he thanks her for babysitting.

“She should know better, huh? How is she surviving Tsunade?” He tuts at Naruto as they leave. Naruto stares up at him with bright eyes and dribbles drool in response. It’s a little disgusting, but somehow everything the boy does manages to be cute. He’s got to remember to take more pictures.

They swing by the house for a quick re-up of supplies and a diaper change and by then it’s time to go meet Kakashi for training, after which Jiraiya plans to saddle the baby with the kid. He has no intentions of taking Naruto to the Nara compound, too nervous in case things go south. It’s doubtful, after all the Nara clan head, the Akimichi clan head, and now the Uchiha clan head will be there, and Jiraiya knows all three men are formidable shinobi, but he will not take chances with his godson.

Kakashi is already at the training field, and by the looks of his bloody mask, has been practicing already.

“Any progress?” Jiraiya calls out to him in greeting.

Kakashi doesn’t even make to look up, just flashes away, again into a tree. He hits the trunk of it, hard, and doesn’t get up, blood gushing from his face.

Jiraiya sighs and walks over, poking at Kakashi with his foot. “You know, you’ll never improve through concussions, Kakashi-kun.”

Kakashi groans, rolling over on his side and clutching his face. “Minato-sensei never crashed into trees,” he grumbles.

Jiraiya lets out a laugh. “That’s not even close to true, kid. Here.” He shoves one of Naruto’s burp cloths at Kakashi, who wipes at his face with a grimace, turning so Jiraiya doesn’t see under the mask.

“You’ll get it,” Jiraiya assures him when he turns back around. He hates to coddle, but the kid looks close to tears again.

“Of course I will,” Kakashi snaps. “I just- I have a lot on my mind. I’m too busy to practice.”

That gives Jiraiya pause. Kakashi never complains about his workload, past, present, or future. In fact, at this age he would have been taking missions back to back and still asking for more just to keep busy. Now, the kid seems a little on edge.

“What’s going on, Kakashi-kun?” Jiraiya tries to make the question soft, but it doesn’t come out that way; he’s suddenly wary of the answer. “You’ve been acting strangely.”

Kakashi is silent for a beat, blinking rapidly. “Minato-sensei trusted you,” he says. There’s something off in his voice, a note of fear that hasn’t been there before. He phrases it as more of a statement than a question, but Jiraiya still nods yes.

“I can trust you.” Jiraiya nods again, resisting the very strong urge to prod too hard. Kakashi is starting to scare him. Something is very, very wrong.

“I’m being asked to do something, and I’m not sure I can go through with it,” Kakashi says, slowly, deliberately.

Jiraiya’s blood runs cold. Danzo.

“Whatever he’s telling you, it’s not true, Kakashi-kun. You know that.” His heart begins to beat too loudly in his ears. Kakashi has the nickname Cold-Blooded Killer, he follows orders without question, he has for years. If he’s pausing to question orders from a village elder…

Kakashi’s face twists, or what he can see of it does, like he’s fighting himself to say what he wants to. Jiraiya sinks down into the grass next to him, mindful of Naruto.

“Kakashi. Tell me.”

Before the kid can open his mouth again, they’re both rolling away from a kunai that’s a wisp away from making its home in Kakashi’s visible eye.

Jiraiya is up with his own weapon drawn in an instant, scanning the trees. He finds some rustled leaves as the only evidence of their assailant. Whoever threw the kunai is already gone.

“Kakashi- wait!” The kid is poised to summon his ninken and run, but Jiraiya has a feeling that’s what they’re waiting for. “It’s a trap, do not follow, do you understand me?”

Kakashi’s eyes are both wild, Sharingan spinning fast as he stares into the forest.

“Hey!” Jiraiya snaps his fingers in front of his face. “Listen to me, it’s not safe here. We’re falling back to Minato’s, you got that?”

Kakashi nods, coming back to himself. “Yes, sir.”

They both break off into a run, Jiraiya trying to shush the screaming baby in his arms. He can’t even calm himself down, shaking in anger at the thought that someone was bold enough to try to assassinate Kakashi while he was sitting right there.

Except, he’s had ANBU trailing him all over the village for weeks now. Either his tail had been in on the plot, committed it, or they’re dead. He’ll find out soon enough. He and Kakashi are having a conversation, then they are heading straight to the Hokage.  

Inside, they do a sweep, locking all the doors and windows. The privacy and security seals are still active, but even still Jiraiya does not let down his guard for a second. Naruto wails in his arms, refusing to quiet.

“Start talking,” Jiraiya snaps at Kakashi, who is pacing in front of the kitchen window nervously.

“I’ve been working with Danzo-sama,” he says quickly. “He told me it’s Sandaime’s fault that Minato-sensei and Kushina-san died.”

“Kakashi-kun, that’s not-“

“He has a kid with him, he’s really dangerous, he can use the Mokuton. Hokage-sama said it was forbidden jutsu, but Danzo-sama said I couldn’t trust him. He asked me to spy on Hokage-sama.”

Kakashi is borderline hyperventilating but they don’t have time to address that. He needs to get to Sarutobi-sensei. Kakashi knows too much to let him live now, and it’s possible that he’s not even their priority target.

It’s the Hokage.

It’s Sensei.

“I think- I think Danzo-sama wants Hokage-sama dead,” Kakashi adds, horror creeping onto his face. “I’m so stupid. Jiraiya-sama, we have to stop him!”

Danzo is Sarutobi’s closest friend. He wouldn’t. No matter how badly he wants to be Hokage, there’s no way. There can’t be.

He shoves Naruto into Kakashi’s arms and takes off from the house in a dead sprint. He hasn’t run this fast since he was trying to beat the Kyubi to the village. What a stubborn idiot he was not to try to learn the Flying Thunder God.

Whoever had tried to kill Kakashi must have alerted Danzo to their failure, which means that any assassination plot they might have on the Hokage will have to be moved up immediately so Kakashi can’t warn him. Jiraiya curses Danzo, over and over, then starts in on himself. This hadn’t happened last time. Probably because he hadn’t been here to go poking his nose into Danzo’s buisness. What was he thinking, talking openly about the missing kids all throughout the village? Danzo must have been listening the whole fucking time.  

It takes him less than five minutes to reach the Hokage tower, and he’d been right to trust his instincts, there’s a commotion of ANBU flooding the first floor, fighting off what must be ROOT. He doesn’t bother to join them, instead jumping up to the office window. He was fast enough this time, he has to be. He’s not losing Sarutobi-sensei, too. Not after everything.

The room is eerily quiet for a moment, and with sunset looming its dark enough that Jiraiya has to squint to make sure what he’s seeing is real.

Sensei, impaled through the heart with the Mokuton, and Tsunade, bloodstained and holding Shimura Danzo by the throat.

Chapter Text

“Tsunade-sama, here are those records you asked for- wait-!”

Tsunade growls at the med-nin that dared to enter her office unannounced, lobbing a wad of gauze at him, which he doesn’t duck. “Get out.”

The poor kid doesn’t need to be told twice, yelping like a kicked animal and scurrying away. Good.

The hospital light buzzes above her, harmonizing with her hangover, and Tsunade bangs a fist on the desk she’d abandoned years ago. What is she doing here?

It was one thing to do a favor for Jiraiya, but she hadn’t planned on staying for any amount of time, let alone in her old position at the hospital. She’d thought she’d pick up a mission or two, take her money and run away again. She’d be of more use roaming the country than she is here. Her refusal to heal anything but sprains and mild sickness is starting to wear on the hospital and she knows it.

They can kick her out for all she cares. The last thing she needs is for the brats that replaced her to see her having a panic attack during a simple surgery. She’d rather leave with her dignity intact, or what’s left of her dignity, anyway, since she’s lost her pride somewhere in a casino and can’t seem to find it.

Shizune is begging to stay. She has peers in Konoha. It’s not like Tsunade is much of a teacher to her; she knows as well as everyone else what she’s become. The Senju Princess, reduced to a quivering alcoholic, alone in her palace while the world moves on.

She can’t even keep up said palace. The compound is falling apart with no caretaker, and despite Shizune’s starry-eyed ideas for the main house Tsunade finds no amount of renovation could ever wash away the bloody memories that stain it.

The house she and Nawaki grew up in. The house her grandfather died in. The house she brought Dan home to. Remnants of her past are everywhere she looks except for the bar cabinet and the alcohol can’t chase away family photos and heirlooms she was supposed to look after and pass down. She’s surprised the place hadn’t been ransacked yet- maybe out of respect for her grandfather and great uncle? It’s certainly not because of her.

Tsunade skims the report, stamping it quickly for approval and gathers her things. She is no use here. After she talks some sense into Sensei she’ll take what she can pawn and leave. Shizune won’t miss her and Jiraiya can rescue Orochimaru.

She takes her time walking to the Hokage tower, memorizing the village just as it is. Each time she leaves could be her last, and despite her running, Konoha is her home. The trees grown by her grandfather salute her, dropping their final leaves. She briefly mulls over the idea of staying for the winter, but dismisses it just as quickly.

The tower is quiet as she ascends the familiar, winding stairs. It’s too quiet, even for the end of the day. Years of well-honed shinobi intuition put a pit in her stomach and she speeds to a run. She can sense no ANBU above her and it’s with sudden revulsion she smells blood. Something has gone horribly wrong.

Heart racing, she flings open the office doors, flashes of her grandfather’s mokuton creating trees from nothing to entertain her as a child coming to mind as she sees what’s inside.

Grandfather laughing as branches creep down from the ceiling, sweeping her off her feet.

“Jiji, trees don’t live inside!”

“They do now, Tsuna-chan!”

“Mokuton,” she whispers.

A thick, twisting branch has risen from the floorboards, interrupted by a body. Sensei.

The color drains from her face and she stands, rooted to the ground. Blood on the floor. Blood on the ceiling. Blood on everything. Sensei is bleeding. Sensei is dead.

“This is war, Tsunade.”

She scrubs furiously at her grandfather’s necklace, stained with blood only she can see. Never again. This will never happen again. She can get stronger. No one else has to die.

Her hands begin to shake despite her attempts to steady them as she meets Shimura Danzo’s eye. They are alone in the room, but in the moment it feels like they are alone in the world. No.

“An unfortunate turn of events,” Danzo says stoically, gazing over his oldest friend like he’d never known him.

Tsunade doesn’t think, her body moving of its own accord as it flies towards Danzo. She grabs him by the neck and throws him against the wall, cracking it. He smiles with crimson teeth and suddenly, blood is not the only red she sees.

Jiraiya is frozen for a moment by the scene before him, but Tsunade’s voice brings him back full force, and he’s forming handsigns before he even realizes.

“You fucking bastard!” Tsunade is screaming at Danzo, slamming his head into the wall with all her strength. His head flops around like a doll with the force of it. “He trusted you!”

Danzo, though he’s choking on it, blood pouring out of his mouth, begins to laugh. “He was ruining your family’s legacy, Senju Tsunade.”

“Keep my name out of your mouth,” she hisses, pulling back one hand, ready to punch. Jiraiya stands back, hoping the hit will send Danzo flying into the afterlife, but it doesn’t come.

“Mokuton!” A little voice cries, and there are branches suddenly weaving around all of them, separating Tsunade from Danzo and pinning Jiraiya and his teammate to the wall.

It takes Tsunade, with her brute strength, less than a minute to break out of the branch’s hold, but the tiny Mokuton user and Danzo are out the window by then, fleeing into the village. She doesn’t hesitate, taking off after them.

Jiraiya is stuck a little longer, squirming against the wood until he frees his hands enough to make handsigns to burn his way out. He stumbles to Sensei’s side, but can only confirm the man’s death, finding no pulse in his neck.

“Fuck!” He yells, kicking the desk across the room. He’s going to kill Danzo for this, and when he’s done with him, Jiraiya is going to kill Orochimaru, and after that, any ROOT agent he can get his hands on.

He needs to capture Yamato (if that is one of his names still), the Mokuton user, too. He cannot be allowed to escape, his ability to control the tailed beasts is too valuable in the right hands and too dangerous in the wrong ones.

He’ll kill the kid if it comes down to it, rather than let him go.

Jiraiya flies out the window after Tsunade, and for the second time in less than three months, Konoha is in complete chaos. It seems when the assassination plot went south ROOT decided to go to war. There are shinobi everywhere, clashing with masked figures who bear no resemblance to the comrades he’d thought they were as they slash away at their former brothers and sisters.

He pushes down the guilt that bubbles to the surface and chases after Tsunade. It’s an easy trail to follow, thanks to the twisted path of trees and branches that envelop the streets and nearby buildings, even with all the fighting. He doesn’t dare glance at any of the fallen shinobi, too afraid to see any more friendly faces.

Danzo has got to be badly injured after Tsunade had her hands on him, (Jiraiya’s been beaten by her enough times to know that if she means it she’ll do serious, if not lethal, damage) and Yamato is strong, but right now he’s just a kid, probably not yet ten years old. They can take them. They can do this, if not to avenge Sarutobi-sensei then to spare the village from being burned to the ground.

Along the way he fights off only one ROOT member brave enough to go after him, but the man’s belly is pierced quickly with a rasengan, easy work for someone like him, and Jiraiya keeps running until he hears the sound of a much bigger fight, shunshining closer into a nearby tree to get a better view.

He had expected to see Tsunade, and maybe some other high-ranking jonin that had caught on, but Jiraiya did not expect to see Orochimaru cutting through vines with his sword, trading shouts with Danzo. There’s a fire behind his old friend’s snake-like eyes he hasn’t seen in a long, long time.

Jiraiya’s heart swells with relief he can hardly describe. If the Sannin are together, if they are a team again, they can win.

“Tsunade! Orochimaru!” Jiraiya calls out, jumping down into the chaos. Making his presence known scares Yamato into shooting a tree up at him, which he barely dodges as it rockets out of the ground.

The three teammates fall in step with each other, muscle memory that all of them can’t forget after two world wars and years of training side by side. It doesn’t matter how much time passes (and it’s been decades for him), it just feels right.

“I can’t touch him,” Orochimaru tells them both. “And I can’t warn you.”

Jiraiya can work with that. “Make me an opening then! Tsunade!”

She nods to him, an almost feral grin spreading across her face. “Let’s kill this bastard.”

They practically fly towards Danzo as Orochimaru takes off towards Yamato. Jiraiya lets Tsunade take point, hoping a physical attack while Yamato is too distracted to protect Danzo with the Mokuton will be enough, and readies himself to summon his Toad Mouth binding to trap him. He doesn’t trust Danzo won’t get up even if it appears he’s dead.

Before Tsunade can land a hit, Danzo sweeps the bandages off his face and if he hadn’t been in a haze of fury before, Jiraiya is now. A spinning Sharingan watches him, and Jiraiya isn’t giving up until he wipes that smirk off of Danzo’s smug face.

“You think one Sharingan is enough to fight off three Sannin?” Jiraiya calls at him, summoning the Toad Mouth binding.

Though trapped, Danzo seems unphased, and a sickly smile crosses his face. “So much pride for one so stupid, Jiraiya. Izanagi.”

Jiraiya has no idea what horrible technique Izanagi is, but whatever blow it deals doesn’t come as Tsunade punches Danzo square in the face, the force of her hit nearly taking the man’s head off his shoulders.

Danzo is dead, he has to be, the sick crunching of his neck still ringing in Jiraiya’s ears. There’s not a moment for relief, though, because the mangled body fades into nothingness, and in its place a perfectly-healed Danzo stands, grinning ear to ear.

Tsunade whips her head around the Jiraiya in confusion, but there is no answer he can provide her.

“It won’t be that easy, I’m afraid,” Danzo croons at them, and before either Sannin can react, the Toad Mouth bind is gone and Danzo raises earth spikes from the ground.

Jiraiya swears he dodges them all, feels that he does, but it doesn’t seem to matter, every time he adjusts his trajectory to avoid them, the earth follows him unnaturally well, too well to be real. “Kai!” he yells, Tsunade doing the same, to no avail. If it’s a genjutsu he can’t break it.

He knows it’s coming when the spike pierces his side, but the pain still blasts through him, blinding and white hot and definitely not an illusion, and just as fast as the fight started it ends, Danzo, miraculously healed, sprinting away from them.  

Tsunade drops next to him immediately. She looks uninjured at least, which is about the best case scenario he can ask for at this rate.

“Forget about me, go after him,” he hisses. It’s not even a choice for Tsunade, who visibly swallows to steel herself and begins to prod at his side, her hands shaking. He’s too angry to be proud of her for mostly ignoring the blood.

“Don’t you fucking say that,” she growls at him. There’s no more talking between them. Jiraiya is in too much pain to hold a conversation, and Tsunade is busy, brows furrowed in concentration as her hands hover, glowing green against the wound.

Orochimaru is nowhere in sight, he must have run off somewhere, to where or to who he’s not sure of. It’d be useless for him to pursue Danzo, and the sounds of fighting have died down enough for Jiraiya to believe the ROOT shinobi are defeated or have made a retreat. Half-heartedly, he almost hopes Orochimaru is disposing of his labs. Jiraiya is going to be Hokage, and already the thought of dealing with that mess is enough to want to shove Tsunade off to let him die.

That doesn’t even scratch the surface with the missing kids, either. Lying bloodied on the ground his little investigation seems like a lifetime ago, but it’s still here, even if Danzo has fled. There’s no way all of them are gone, though the only one he can truly account for is Yamato.

After some of the longest, most painful minutes of his life, Tsunade must be satisfied he’s not going to drop dead at any moment, because she hauls up upright and takes his uninjured arm over her shoulder. “I’m sure those idiots that are running the hospital need me,” she mumbles, not acknowledging she just saved his life.

He supposes after so many times it’s no fun for her to tell him he owes her.

“They need to see you’re alive, too,” she adds. There’s relief in her voice, and he realizes that she must have watched Sensei die today.

“Did you see it happen?” Jiraiya coughs out. His side is a mess, he can still feel the burn of his damaged lung, even with Tsunade’s field healing.

Tsunade tenses, but doesn’t stop their agonizing pace towards the hospital. “No. I walked in on that bastard pretending to find him. It- it was already too late.” She’s fighting back tears, and for her own sake or his it doesn’t matter. Neither one of them is going to have the opportunity to break down, they’re too important to the village right now.

On the way they run into one of Sensei’s guards, and he agrees to take Jiraiya so Tsunade can rush to the hospital, where her skills are desperately needed.

“You have questions for me, I’m sure,” Raidou says as he takes Jiraiya’s arm. He’s bleeding from a cut across his forehead, blood trailing over his face.

Jiraiya hardly has enough energy to put one foot in front of the other, let alone start the investigation. But he can’t help but wonder where the hell the Hokage’s highly trained personal guard was in all of this.

“My captain sent myself and Genma to retrieve Danzo-sama, and bring him to the Hokage, but we got separated-”

“ROOT?” Jiraiya interrupts.

Raidou shakes his head. “No, he was dead when we got into the room. I-I’m not sure what happened in there.”

Jiraiya doesn’t provide him with an answer, mostly because he can’t talk without feeling like he’s going to pass out. He grits out what’s most important right now.

“Naruto? Kakashi?”

Raidou sighs. “Unknown.”

All logic would dictate Kakashi is more than capable of protecting Naruto, and after all its barely been an hour since he’d left. Still, the sooner he sees them both safe and sound, the better. “Find them and bring them to me.”

“Yes, Hokage-sama.”

The pain becomes blinding with those words and it’s enough for Jiraiya to hit the floor in an unceremonious lump, his new guard captain yelling his name.

This is all wrong.

All said and done Konoha takes just under a dozen losses from the fight, and three more from the tracking squad Danzo slaughtered. Jiraiya knows all their names because it’s his job now. Even if he’s signing death certificates from his hospital bed, he’s acting Hokage, and he’s supposed to be strong. The village needs it. Rebuilding efforts from the Kyubi attack aren’t yet finished and now there’s another village-leveling event to clean up after. ROOT had burned a few buildings to the ground, and the Mokuton has done serious damage where Tsunade had run after Danzo and Yamato.

Just another failure to add to his running tally so far.

True to his word, Raidou brought Kakashi and Naruto straight to him when he woke up, and the relief he felt seeing both of them alive and well was enough to make the past twenty four hours worth it. Naruto’s little coos eased the pain of the losses they’d taken, once again, because Jiraiya wasn’t fast enough. At least the baby is easily consoled.

Kakashi, on the other hand, hasn’t said more than he’d been ordered to report, and had all but jumped out the window when Jiraiya woke up. Knowing Kakashi, or rather knowing future Kakashi, Jiraiya suspects that the kid thinks this is all his fault.

Whatever he’s feeling, he’s not going to feel it in ANBU. Jiraiya’s first official act as Hokage is to strip Hound of his mask and give Kakashi Raidou’s vacant second-in-command position in the Hokage guard, where he can keep an eye on him.

The other man stands just outside his room, flanking the door with their third teammate, Shiranui Genma, turning away all visitors except for Tsunade and Shikaku, and the Uchiha police if need be. The remaining two thirds of the village council are appalled at their rejection when Raidou won’t let them pass, but Jiraiya finds he doesn’t care, nor does he want their approval.

Sensei’s closest friends had also been his downfall and it makes Jiraiya angry enough to never want speak to them again, consequences be damned.

Sadako is the first person they let in today, on official business, obviously, (he lost the right to social visits from his genin a long time ago) and she hardly spares a glance at him before diving right into her report.

“Five buildings are still undergoing inspection, including the Hokage tower, and all displaced civilians have been temporarily relocated, pending the results,” she recites, halfway to a yawn. The police are on clean up duty, again, and it’s all hands on deck.

“The missing kids?”

“No sign of them,” she answers shortly. “I guess this means you’re Hokage now, huh?”

There’s a bitter tone to her question that he recognizes from his conversations with Uchiha Fugaku, and he feels another rush of guilt. The kid he trained for years knows his character so little that she thinks he’ll continue to sequester her clan for his own personal benefit.

Yet, what can he say to persuade her that’s not true? It’s all lip service until he does something different, and from a hospital bed with paperwork up to his eyeballs what can he do?

“Thank you, Sadako-chan,” he says instead, dismissing her. Better not to say anything or make promises he can’t keep. Her black eyes narrow at him, but she leaves all the same, slapping files on the bedside table before she goes. He has a feeling she didn’t get through her full report.

Jiraiya wants to rip his hair out rather than look at one more casualty report, especially since the last one he read indicated Minato’s house had been somewhat demolished by the ROOT shinobi that attacked Kakashi and Naruto there.

He supposes he and Naruto can move into the apartment in the Hokage tower if all is well there, but with a pang of sadness he realizes he was comforted by the familiar walls of Minato’s house. While he was there he could almost pretend Minato and Kushina were just out on a mission, to return any day. A new place means acceptance that this is real, even if it’s wrong.

Ah, he’ll rebuild. It’s only a house, right?

Tsunade stops by in the evening, looking fairly ragged herself. The two days he’s been here she probably hasn’t done so much as sit down. The highly trained ROOT operatives injured more shinobi than Jiraiya is proud to admit.

“Orochimaru came back to the village about an hour ago with a little prisoner,” Tsunade sighs, awkwardly perching on the end of his bed. “Straight to T&I, I’m sure Yamanaka will send a messenger in here any minute.”

Orochimaru should probably be in T&I, too, with everything he’s done, under Danzo’s watch or not. He’s relieved though, that Yamato has been captured. As an adult, he couldn’t help but like the young ANBU captain. If his loyalties can be turned, he’ll prove to be invaluable to Konoha.

Jiraiya’s first stop when he’s out of this room is straight to Orochimaru so he can beat the hell out of him or thank him for not defecting this time, he’s not sure yet.

“There were a few ROOT operatives he caught, too. Most of them are in bad shape, not much of a threat. All kids, though,” Tsunade pauses, chewing on her lip. “When you said Sensei already knew, what did you mean, Jiraiya?”

He has to swallow back his own emotions before he can answer. What Orochimaru and Danzo have done to the children makes him sick, and Sarutobi-sensei’s death is just a raw wound. For all of the man’s flaws, this is a loss that hurts, maybe more than it did the first time.

“I don’t think he knew the specifics, if it matters,” Jiraiya says quietly. It obviously doesn’t to Tsunade, who clenches her fists. He can’t blame her, she’s looked into their eyes herself and seen the consequences of their sensei’s blindness.

“If he knew, then why?” She barely manages to choke out the question. Jiraiya wants to reach out to her, to hold her and tell her that everything will be okay, but he doesn’t. He can’t.

She turns her face away from him, tears slipping down her cheeks.

Neither of them move.

Chapter Text

The week passes in a blur, his appointment to Hokage sitting heavy on Jiraiya’s shoulders, weighing down everything he does. He can’t stop thinking about Danzo, and ROOT, and whatever forbidden jutsu he used that can revive the dead. Still unsure who to trust, he chooses not to mention anything about the fight to anyone, though he wants badly to ask Orochimaru if there’s anything he knows about Izanagi.

He can’t, because his old teammate hasn’t made a point to visit him, reporting directly to Shikaku for an S-rank as soon as he comes back from bringing in Yamato, and Jiraiya is still laid up. The injury to his side very nearly killed him, and every time he tries to leave his bed Tsunade sends one of her minions to yell at him.

Jiraiya isn’t sure how Orochimaru managed to capture the boy, the report he received was bland and vague. It’s a frustrating habit of his old teammate’s. Not to mention, it’s not just Yamato. The other children Orochimaru brought back are a concern, too. One among them, in particular. Yakushi Kabuto.

The younger Kabuto is just seven years old, on paper a lowly orphan, but according to T&I he’s also a highly trained ROOT agent, who attempted to bite the Yamanaka that went to speak to him, swearing his loyalty to Danzo.

It’s a different report than he’s received from the other children. None of them could talk about Danzo or ROOT, (Jiraiya suspects a seal, and he’ll investigate that himself), but seemed grateful to be rescued. Probably, it’s because they are recent “recruits”. Konoha is going to try to rehabilitate all of them at Jiraiya’s request, even Kabuto, if only because he knows how talented the kid has the potential to be.

The Nara boy is among the rescued kids, much to Jiraiya’s relief. He receives no acknowledgement about this from Morio, but he can’t take responsibility for his nephew’s retrieval. All Jiraiya had done to help was get the Hokage killed.

That’s not to say no one has visited him. People are in and out of his hospital room like it’s the Hokage’s office, and he supposes it is, for now, demanding he sign things he barely understands. He wishes for Sarutobi-sensei’s help- he can’t pretend he knows how to rebuild the village, or even how to file and assign D-ranks correctly. Shikaku had rolled his eyes and taken over the stack when Jiraiya accidently assigned an A-rank to a cat-retrieving mission that a very confused jonin had completed in less than ten minutes.

He’s itching to get out of this room, out of this bed, but he’s also technically homeless. It’s not for the first time in his life, after all, the whole wandering hermit thing didn’t lend itself to the best accommodations most of the time, but he’s the damned Hokage now, he can’t just spend his nights at the inn over the bar.

Tsunade is his most frequent visitor, of course, since she is also his medic, but half of the time he thinks she’s stopping in his room to complain about her other patients. He does his share of venting, too, though most of it is met with snaps about staying alive.

“The nerve of them, to ask if I knew how to do the surgery!” Tsunade huffs at him.

Jiraiya smiles, despite everything he’s missed hearing Tsunade’s voice and he’s glad to let her ramble on, even if it’s just thinly disguised complaining with a question or two about how he’s doing thrown in.

“You’d think they didn’t know who they were talking to, Tsunade-sama,” he says very seriously to her. It earns him a light smack on the arm.

“I’m not afraid to admit I’m the best,” she says, rolling her eyes. “How this hospital hasn’t burned to the ground without me…”

“We’re all very grateful you’re back with us, your Highness.”

She smirks. “And don’t forget it.”

They lapse into silence, with Tsunade poking at the mostly healed wound on his side and Jiraiya admiring the view as she bends over to do it.

She’s just so fucking beautiful, and she knows it. Scratch all of that other nonsense about saving Konoha, he’ll consider this mission a success if Tsunade gives him the time of day.

“You know, I’ve been thinking, the whole Senju compound is empty, and I heard about Minato’s house, so if you wanted, you and the brat could stay there,” Tsunade says casually, pulling his shirt back down.

He sags in relief (and yeah, sure, it’s mostly from flexing his abs while his shirt was up), he really doesn’t want to move from his dead student’s house into his dead mentor’s house. “We’ll take it.”

“Don’t go getting ideas, Jiraiya,” she growls at him when she catches his expression. “I’m just helping out a friend.”

“Aw, so we are friends! Tsuna-chan, you do care!”

“Shut up before I change my mind!”

He and Naruto move into the Senju compound the next day, once he’s successfully convinced the nurses to let him go. It’s good for him to be back with the baby, Jiraiya’s missed his godson’s company since he’d been staying with the Naras. Yoshino, Shikaku’s wife, had insisted that it was no trouble, that their son was almost the same age as Naruto, when Shikaku had mentioned there was no one to look after Naruto and Jiraiya is extremely appreciative.

Aside from his growing roster of potential babysitters, he hasn’t made much progress anywhere else. Orochimaru is avoiding him, though Shikaku confirms he’s in the village, and T&I offers no updates on Yamato or any of the lab kids.

He tries to focus on what’s in front of him instead. His physical condition is not at 100%, but it’s enough to move some furniture and unpack boxes. Tsunade stops by after her shift at the hospital, looking vaguely exhausted but with a bottle of sake in her hand that she and Jiraiya drink from, surrounded by cardboard.

It feels a lot like they’re actually young again, fifteen and all hanging out in Jiraiya’s brand new apartment when he’d finally moved out of the orphanage. They had lots of friends back then, but two world wars later most of them are dead.

“To Sensei,” Tsunade says, raising her glass.

“To Sensei,” Jiraiya echoes. They drain their cups and Tsunade pours another round. He knows they’re both seeing ghosts. He has to constantly remind himself around Tsunade that the losses she’s dealing with are a lot fresher than her future counterpart.

“I wish I could talk to him again,” Tsunade whispers after the bottle is drained. “I have so many questions.”

Jiraiya tries to smile, tries to remember that Sarutobi is a man he can mourn even if he’s finding more and more cracks in the image he’d always held of him. “I do, too. I’m glad I was able to see him again. I haven’t been around much.”

Tsunade snorts. “Like I would know. I can’t believe I let you drag me back here.”

“I couldn’t drag you anywhere if I tried,” he points out.

Her defeated expression melts into a smirk. “You’re damn right.”

They fall into a comfortable silence, unpacking Jiraiya’s meager possessions into the large house. He’s not sure who it belonged to in the past, but they’d maintained it well. The signs of age and decay are minimal compared to some of the other properties that sit in various states of disrepair around the compound.

He’ll have to add another stack of D-ranks to Shikaku’s pile, which he can imagine he’ll be none too thrilled about.

There’s four bedrooms in the house, way too many for himself and Naruto, but he selects the largest one at the end of the hall for himself and puts Naruto’s things in the room next door. Presumptuously, he’s also brought over Kakashi’s. Those go in the room at the opposite end of the house, along with a new bed and dresser to replace the set that was destroyed. He hopes it’ll entice Kakashi to stop by without being ordered to at the very least see Naruto.

Although, if he’s being honest with himself he’s growing fond of Kakashi, too. The kid has a bad attitude at times, and he’s aloof as all hell, but Jiraiya supposes that can’t be helped after what he’s been through.

“Oi, the brat’s crying!” Tsunade calls down the hall to him, pointing to Naruto’s bassinet.

Jiraiya raises an eyebrow at her in silent question  

“Not my kid,” she says, turning her nose up.

Jiraiya sighs and goes to tend Naruto- red in the face and probably in need of a diaper change. Yoshino had sent him back with some more supplies packed into a brand new diaper bag, and when he’d attempted to refuse her gift (while Shikaku tried to valiantly warn him from behind his wife) he was reminded swiftly of her infamous temper.

A lot could be said about Konoha, but she did not turn out meek women.

Nothing to complain about, in his opinion.

Naruto, settled in the crook of his arm with a bottle and quieted, will have no shortage of strong figures both male and female to look up to. He’ll need the village.

“Did you ever think about it?” He asks Tsunade.

“Think about what?”

“Taking the hat.” He kind of knows the answer to that question is no, but he’s interested to hear it from her. In the past she hadn’t been presented with much of a choice, and now having experienced it himself he wishes he supported her better.

She sits across from him on the floor (he’s sure they’re both mourning Minato’s little couch) and purses her lips. “Not myself. I’m a little cursed.”

She fingers the pendant around her neck, the one Naruto had won from her in the past.

“I don’t think so. None of that was your fault, Tsunade.”

It’s obvious she doesn’t agree with him, and more obvious that between the two of them they struggle with serious conversations. One of them will always wave off the other, change the subject, or laugh. He wonders if, nearing forty, they should be better at this.

“It’s getting late. I’m sure the kid is ready for bed,” Tsunade says, effectively ending this talk before it starts. Jiraiya lets her, they’ve been through enough lately and he doesn’t need to rub salt in those wounds.

She pats Naruto’s head fondly, and surprises Jiraiya by glancing his shoulder too before she leaves.

He puts Naruto to bed and drifts off not much later himself, still floating on the feeling.

He’s growing to hate funerals. 

Jiraiya stands at the front of the huge crowd gathered for the Sandaime’s funeral, feeling a horrible sense of déjà vu that he had just lived this, because he has. Attending Sensei’s funeral twice leaves a void he can’t seem to fill in his heart.

The jonin ranks are notably thinned. The civilians are sniffling. Kakashi is somewhere on the roof out of sight, on his first official guard duty after no contact with Jiraiya for days. Tsunade and Orochimaru are notable absences, one probably at the bar and one too ashamed to show his face and he could have really used his teammates today. Shikaku’s wife, Yoshino, quiets a squirming Naruto in her arms while his Commander holds their own infant, Shikamaru. He can’t look at the kids, can’t think of their older counterparts suffering because of his own incompetence. He can’t look at anyone.

Jiraiya tries to pick a spot in the crowd, tries to look anywhere that isn’t a staunch reminder of his own failures, but there isn’t a single face he sees that inspires any confidence. Sensei’s sons stare him down in cold indifference while he makes a speech about sacrifice, and duty, and all of the things he hadn’t wanted to hear at Minato’s funeral.

Jiraiya wants to reach out and tell them that he understands, if only in fractions, of what they must feel. Asuma, the younger one, lashes out, before he really even approaches as they all mingle among themselves after the service.

“It should have been you,” he snarls, tearing glazing his dark eyes. The blow is harsh, knocking the air out of Jiraiya like he’s been punched.

He stops Genma from intervening, and the elder Sarutobi holds his brother back. He walks away before Asuma is forced to apologize to him because he’s the Hokage now.

He pictured his appointment much differently. Selfishly, he’d hoped for a celebration. There had been a big party for Minato, where they all laughed and drank, toasting to a brighter future. Jiraiya assumes the hat like a burden, under a fittingly cloudy sky.

Yoshino’s brow furrows in confusion when he goes to take Naruto from her, but he wants the social crutch of the baby in his arms. He can talk about Naruto. People love to ask about babies.

“He’s growing so fast!”

“He’ll do us proud like his father.”

“Raised by the Hokage, how fortunate!”

He has about all he take of pleasantries and condolences and promises for the future about an hour later and excuses himself, whispering to Genma that he’s going home.

He’d never given home much thought until he’d come back to the past. In the future, home was simply Konoha. There was no building he needed to assign the title to.  The house he had in the village was all but empty, just a bed and a bathroom, with a few meaningless boxes of knick-knacks that remained unpacked for decades. His new house in the Senju compound is much the same. All of what could be salvaged of Minato and Kushina’s belongings, a crib for Naruto, a guest room for Kakashi, and yet it was only four walls and a roof.

He had never known his parents. He’d been taken to the orphanage as an infant, and to this day did not know what became of them. He always supposed you couldn’t miss what you never had, and mostly, that was true. He had no home to miss, no fond memories in a backyard, or height notches in a doorway. But his upbringing had not been like Naruto’s, or even Orochimaru’s, filled with loneliness and rejection. Jiraiya was popular, and the matron had adored him.

Still, it was not a parental relationship. There had been no one to confide in, to share his achievements with, or cry to for a very long time. Then, he’d been assigned to Team Sarutobi. Sensei had always listened to him, even when Jiraiya was sure he was being a pain in the ass. Sarutobi was someone to be proud of him, a constant presence that he could rely on. Sarutobi-sensei is the closest thing he’d ever have to a father. And now he’s dead. 

It feels as if he swims through that grief, trying not to drown. For the first time since he’s been sent to the past Jiraiya has made things worse. It shouldn’t be a surprise to him, that he’s bound to break everything he touches, but it does. If he didn’t have Naruto, he would run again.

He lays in bed after they get home, replaying Asuma’s harsh words in his head over and over again.

“It should have been you.”

He’s right, of course. If Jiraiya hadn’t been dilly-dallying, if he’d taken the hat immediately like he was asked to it would have been him.

He hears Naruto begin to stir in the next room, but he has no strength to go to him. Useless. He’d never done a single thing right in his life. He can’t even change a diaper. Naruto is better off without him. The whole village is.

Jiraiya sinks into despair for what must be several hours. Naruto is screaming. Jiraiya might be, too. Every person he’d touched the life of turned up dead or ruined. Konan. Yahiko. Nagato. Sensei. Orochimaru. Kushina. Tsunade. Minato.

He curls into himself, covering his ears with his hands, trying to block it all out when someone- no, Tsunade, crawls into bed with him. He squeezes his eyes shut, not wanting to face her, not trusting himself to believe it’s real.

“Jiraiya,” she calls softly. It’s the softest he’s ever heard her sound in his life, so unfamiliar he wouldn’t know it was Tsunade without the faint scent of alcohol that follows her into the room.

She takes his hands away from his head (and Naruto is not crying anymore? Where is he?) and he opens his eyes.

“Oro is seeing to him,” Tsunade answers the question he must have asked out loud. “Jiraiya, look at me.”

He does, and she’s crying too. He did this to her. It’s his fault.

Tsunade inches closer to him, laying her head carefully on his chest and circling her arm around him. Her touch is electric, as always, and he doesn’t deserve it, especially not now. “It’s not your fault, Jiraiya.”

He buries his face in her beautiful blonde hair and cries. He cries for Sensei, for Asuma, for his Naruto, for all the people he left behind, but mostly, Jiraiya cries for himself. The feeling he’s been dancing around this whole time isn’t homesickness, it’s grief.

As much as he tries to pretend, the people around him don’t feel the same. They aren’t his. For all the things that are going right it’s still not enough, because sure, he’s sparing this Naruto a lonely childhood, turning this Orochimaru back on the right path, making progress with this Tsunade, but it doesn’t matter because they aren’t them. He’d failed when it really counted.

“We are going to make them pay for this,” Tsunade tells him shakily. He’s not sure if she’s trying to comfort him or herself. “You are not doing this alone.”

He knows. Kami, he knows.

Right now, it doesn’t matter.

Chapter Text

When he gets up the next morning, Jiraiya’s teammates are in the kitchen, quietly drinking tea. Naruto is asleep in his bassinet, unharmed despite his godfather’s negligence.

He sinks into the chair next to Orochimaru, barely able to look at Tsunade, and his teammate sighs and shoves a teacup at him, which is filled promptly with one of Kushina’s weird Uzushio blends they’d salvaged. The smell of the tea makes him want to cry again.

Tsunade had spent hours last night trying to get him to calm down. He’d been sure he was dying, more sure than when he’d actually died. He’d never felt like that in his life. Eventually, he’d been able to hear what she was saying again, and realized she’d resorted to explaining medical procedures to him in painstakingly great detail. It helped, though when he finally fell asleep he dreamed of the dead all night.

“I think it’s time the three of us talked,” Orochimaru says tiredly. If he’s been with Naruto all this time, he was probably up all night. Jiraiya is surprised to see him here. If their relationship wasn’t already twisted and broken and weird before he came back to the past, it is now. If he were in Orochimaru’s shoes, he’d be on the run already, evidence burned and with a new identity.

But his old friend is still here, still rushed to his house when he was so distressed and from the looks of it successfully soothed Naruto all through the night so Jiraiya could have his breakdown in peace. It gives him hope that not everything between them is broken.

“Whatever it is you’re hiding from me, Jiraiya, you’d better spill it now if you know what’s good for you,” Tsunade agrees, bite back in her voice. He’s grateful for it, feeling embarrassment flush his face remembering her soft words from yesterday.

“I suppose you’re right.” He’s been a fool to think he could do this alone. There’s a reason all ninja work in teams, and the best team in all of Konoha is sitting right at this table. 

“I’m not… I’m not me, Tsunade.”

Tsunade’s face twists into an expression that’s caught between flight or fight, but she doesn’t interrupt him, just raises a pale eyebrow at the unbelievable words.

“I’m from fifteen years in the future. I sent myself back as I was about to die.”

He starts from the beginning, the night of Kyuubi attack, and tells her everything about the future. Nothing is held back, even when silent tears stream down all their faces at the horrible events that transpired. Tsunade’s fists curl and uncurl when he talks about Orochimaru’s experiments, but she doesn’t truly break down until he gets to the part where their teammate killed Sarutobi-sensei and attacked the village.

Perhaps it’s because the event is so fresh, that they are all gathered here because the same man’s funeral was yesterday, but Tsunade’s temper gets the best of her and she has Orochimaru by the collar, dragging him outside, before Jiraiya can even finish telling the full story.

He follows quickly, not sure if he should separate them. As kids, they resolved disagreements with their fists; maybe it’ll help them all to fight it out. On the other hand, Tsunade is angry enough she might actually kill Orochimaru.

Tsunade swings first, throwing Orochimaru into the wall, hard enough to leave a dent in the concrete. “Did you know!?” She screams at him. Her face is red with anger, tear stained and blotchy.

Orochimaru is in tears, too, crumpled on the ground. It’s a horrible sight, one that Jiraiya has seen so few times he can count them on one hand. The man had been upset, maybe in a state of shock when he’d learned about the future from Jiraiya, but this is a much deeper reaction, born out of complete despair.

“Yes,” Orochimaru rasps out. “I knew everything.”

Tsunade pulls him up. “How. Could. You?” She punctuates each word with a punch, and Orochimaru just stands there and takes it.

“Tsunade- it was-“

“Shut the fuck up, Jiraiya!” She throws Orochimaru again, this time straight into the dirt. “Come on, you bastard, fight back!”

“Why? It’s all true, I did all of those things!” Orochimaru spits blood from his mouth, spraying the ground red. “At first it was because I was asked, and then, then it was because I could.”

“I trusted you,” Tsunade growls.

Orochimaru laughs bitterly. “Nobody trusted me! Why not give them a reason? If they only see a monster, I have nothing to lose by becoming one.”

“I never believed you were a monster, Oro, never.”

“Really? Well, you weren’t here!” Orochimaru roars, finally hitting her back.

She stumbles back, finally shocked into silence and rubbing at her jaw.

“I thought that finally, someone believed in the great things I could do. That someone saw me for my own power. Jiraiya proved that incorrect.”

Against all reason, Jiraiya feels another pang of guilt, like he’s taken away something precious from Orochimaru. Yet, whatever the reason Orochimaru had ever had for the horrible things he’d done, he can’t just let all of it go. As much as he doesn’t want to deal with the entire situation there are a dozen children sitting in T&I that demand there is some kind of retribution for their suffering, some kind of reparation. It’s his job now to provide that. If he doesn’t hold his friends to the same standard as the rest of the village, he’s no better than Sensei letting Danzo run amuck.

Orochimaru, dusting himself off, begins to walk away.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Tsunade calls, her voice low but missing the dangerous edge it had earlier.

Orochimaru stops in his tracks, staring at Tsunade like she’s grown another head.

“If you think after all of that I’m letting you out of my sight again, you’re out of your fucking mind.”

Orochimaru stills, blinking blankly at both of them. “You won’t kill me?”

Tsunade answers him by throwing her arms around his neck and dragging him into a desperate hug, burying her face in his shoulder. After a beat Orochimaru returns the gesture, snaking his arms around her back and holding her tightly. Tsunade wails in his arms and the two of them stay that way for a long while, in their own world, their own grief that Jiraiya doesn’t quite understand.

Feeling like he shouldn’t be witness to this any longer, he goes to head back inside to give them a moment, but Tsunade tugs on his arm, pulling him into their hug. He obliges, even though Tsunade is squeezing both of them way too hard and still sobbing.

“We’re going to f-fix this,” she cries.

Jiraiya nods, feeling Orochimaru do the same. He thinks all three of them mean it.

Tsunade, true to her word, forces Orochimaru to move in down the street in the Senju compound, right next door to her childhood home where she and Shizune have been staying. When they’d discussed it, Jiraiya envisioned it as a house arrest until he figured out what to do with him. Tsunade seems to think it’s free labor.

He and Orochimaru trade long-suffering looks when she barks orders at both of them as they fix up the house on a sunny morning, and it feels like they are twelve all over again being bossed around on D-ranks.

“You know, I am the Hokage now!”

“A real Hokage would have covered it the first time!”

He should know better than to think that would stop her, Tsunade hadn’t just gotten the nickname hime because of her famous family.

Only she would be willing to put the Hokage to work painting shutters while the rest of the village waits for him.

Jiraiya manages to sneak away only after Orochimaru tells Tsunade no, and in the midst of their argument he makes his escape, though calling it an escape is perhaps an overstatement of the work waiting for him at the Hokage tower.

The village is an absolute mess. His desk is stacked high with building permits, a million D-ranks, and of course the sizeable S-rank stack that he has so few jounin to fulfill. Every time another request comes in Shikaku looks like he’s going to blow that forehead vein under his nonchalant façade.  

It brings up an important point, that there are definitely a few chunin around Konoha that will have to be ready to take the jounin exam. He and Shikaku make a shortlist of those they think are qualified, and with their limited resources and manpower decide they’ll do individual evaluations themselves.

Jiraiya volunteers to handle Shizune and Genma, both of whom should easily gain their promotion, while Shikaku takes Sarutobi Asuma. He can’t bring himself to face Asuma so soon after his father’s funeral. The kid is extremely talented, so no doubt their next meeting will be soon, at his official promotion.

For Genma’s exam he tasks the kid with a solo S-rank. It’s an assassination job, one that should be easily completed for Genma with his trained eye and uncanny aim. Those senbons he’s always chewing on aren’t just for show. Technically, it’s above his rank, but if Minato had trusted him enough to put him on his personal guard at fifteen, he can show a little faith.

While Genma’s away, he tests Shizune. Her test is a little more unique.

She looks a little nervous as they wind their way through the deep hallways of T&I, eyes darting around like at any moment the walls will attack them.

It’s not necessarily unfounded. T&I has always creeped him out, too.

They reach the main desk, where Yamanaka Inoichi greets them. The young Yamanaka clan head to-be leads them the rest of the way, into the area where the ROOT prisoners are held. Most of the kids have been released, either back to their families or into specialized care at the orphanage, but a few of the special cases are still here.

“Kabuto-kun, you have some visitors,” Inoichi calls into the last room in the hall. It’s not so much a cell, really, there’s a door and carpet and an actual bed and desk, though it’s quite bland for a young child.

Based on Kabuto’s file, he’s probably used to it.

Kabuto, head on his gathered knees, is resting against the farthest wall in the room. The kid is so young. Jiraiya hadn’t guessed his age correctly, figuring he was Shizune’s age when he’d first encountered him.

“Kabuto-kun, this is Shizune-san. She’s a medic,” Inoichi says, ushering Shizune, still nervous, into the room.

Kabuto seems to perk up hearing this, adjusting his glasses when he stares down his new visitor.

“And this is Jiraiya-sama.”

His introduction is ignored, Kabuto pointedly not making eye contact with him. That’s fine by him, he’s finding it a little hard not to picture the sadistic older version of the small boy.

Shizune kneels on the carpet, far enough to be out of reach but close enough that she doesn’t appear to be a threat. She sets two scrolls in front of her, and unseals two dead fish.

“I’m told you have quite talent for healing, Kabuto-kun,” Shizune says carefully, nodding to Inoichi and Jiraiya.

Kabuto’s face scrunches up in a frown, and he rolls his eyes. “That’s all?” Quickly, he hovers his hands over both fish, breathing life into them effortlessly.

The adults in the room all exchange looks. Kabuto is already a powerful healer.

“You’ve been requesting some medical books,” Shizune continues, hiding her shock well. “I was hoping I could help you with your jutsu.”

Kabuto looks to Inoichi, a little dead in the eyes, like this conversation will have no bearing once Jiraiya and Shizune leave.

“It’s a serious offer, Kabuto-kun,” Inochi answers. “I’d like to give you a little time with Shizune-san before you make your decision.”

Kabuto nods, and Inoichi and Jiraiya duck out to give Konoha’s newest team some privacy.

“Do you think this is a good idea, Jiraiya?”

He has to give a more dignified answer than he doesn’t know, but he struggles to form the words. No, he doesn’t think this is a good idea, and in fact, is concerned that it will end very badly. But Kabuto is talented, and much like Yamato he is either an asset to Konoha or a liability. He has no way of knowing which.

“Shizune is old enough to take on a student, and Kabuto could do worse than learn from her,” is the answer he settles on. Inoichi seems to know that there’s more to the story than Jiraiya is letting on, but the curiosity fades from his eyes and an easy smile replaces it.

“So, I hear you took in Minato’s boy?”

“I did. My godson, Naruto.”

“Hanging in there? My daughter is around the same age and I don’t think my wife or I have had a solid night of sleep since the day she was born. I can’t imagine being Hokage on top of all that,” Inoichi laughs.

Jiraiya understands the lost sleep. As more or less a single parent, every cry in the night is his alarm clock, often for the day when he can’t get himself back to sleep, haunted by the future. When he’d first arrived in the past, it was manageable with no schedule to speak of, but being Hokage is demanding. And often, boring.

“There are days I’d much rather be home with him,” he says fondly. “I can’t believe how he’s grown already.”

Shizune interrupts them, poking her head out the door. Judging by the smile on her face, her mission has been a success.

Jiraiya should have known it wouldn’t be difficult for her to convince the stubborn boy, after all, she’s been wrangling Tsunade for years.

He takes her back with him to the Hokage tower, completing all the paperwork for her new promotion, and suggests they grab Tsunade after her hospital shift to celebrate with drinks.

“As long as you carry her out of the bar,” Shizune mumbles at him, and he laughs harder than he has in a while.

Shizune’s mentor is not hard to convince, of course, damn near abandoning her office at the first utterance of the bar.

“To Shizune!” Tsunade shouts triumphantly, clicking her glass on the table and downing it. Jiraiya and Shizune follow suit, and the new jounin grimaces.

“Don’t tell me that was her first drink, Tsunade.”

Tsunade cackles and elbows him in the ribs. “She’s a fast learner. Let’s get another round!”

They drink for hours, boisterous laughter from Jiraiya and Tsunade carrying through the room as they relay stories of the Legendary Sannin. Some of the other shinobi in the bar listen intently, but others roll their eyes, making hushed claims that they’d done better. Neither of the Sannin care, too immersed in their own hilarious retellings to notice how their howling laugher bothers any patrons.

The night is still very young, but eventually Shizune has had enough, the red flush to her face turning a sickly green, and Tsunade bids him goodnight, half-carrying her former apprentice out of the bar, laughing all the way.

Jiraiya can’t wipe the smile off of his face, even when he closes their sizeable tab. His favorite pastime with Tsunade had always been to catch up at the bar. There was little that couldn’t be solved between them over a few (dozen) glasses of sake.

He’s so immersed in his own joy that he barley notices when Kakashi jumps down in front of him, halting his walk home.

“Ah! Kakashi-kun! What can I do for you?”

The kid narrows his eye at him. “Why’d you take my stuff from Minato-sensei’s house?”

Jiraiya’s mood doesn’t sour, per se, just dampens a little. Could Kakashi really not understand why he’d give him a room in the new house? “Come with me, kid.”

Kakashi looks at him incredulously, because of course he’d follow him, it’s his job.

Nara Yoshino is waiting for them at the house, Naruto strapped to her front and Shikamaru to her back. “Just in time!” She says happily, handing Naruto over to Kakashi, who frowns.

“What? He smells like booze.”

“Ah, just a little celebration with Konoha’s newest jounin!” Jiraiya smiles. “Thank you, Yoshino-san. Tell your husband I’ll see him tomorrow.”

“He’ll be thrilled to hear it,” she deadpans, shutting the door behind her.

Jiraiya slumps into the nearest chair (he really needs a couch in this place), and motions for Kakashi to hand Naruto over. The baby is sleepy, though knowing his luck when it’s time for bed he’ll be doing his best banshee impression.

“Minato was the closest thing I ever had to a son, Kakashi,” Jiraiya begins, saying half of it to Naruto.

Kakashi shifts awkwardly. “He did talk about you a lot.”

“He better have, I taught that kid everything he knew!” Jiraiya huffs a laugh. “You were one of the most important people to him, you know that, right?”

Kakashi hums in acknowledgement, but his face is stoic, betraying none of the emotion Jiraiya knows he feels.

“That room is yours, kid. Minato gave it to you, and I’m never going to take it away.”

He looks away, like he’s trying to hold back tears, but none appear. “Thank you, Hokage-sama,” Kakashi murmurs, so quietly Jiraiya hardly hears it, but the tone is much different than the one he uses accepting orders. It’s personal.

“I told you, kid, you have to start calling me Jiraiya!”

There’s a mischievous glint in Kakashi’s eye he hasn’t seen in a long, long time, when the kid bows to him before retreating down the hall.

“Brat!” He calls after him, careful not to jostle the snoozing Naruto.

Jiraiya still doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he hopes it’s right by Minato.

Chapter Text

More than a year and a half passes in a blink. Jiraiya is so busy with being Hokage, trying to prevent future disaster, and raising a toddler (and on occasion a teenager) that he hardly has time to sit down, let alone plan a birthday party.

Naruto is turning two at the end of the week, and it also marks two years since Jiraiya’s return to the past. So many things have changed.

Naruto’s sunny demeanor and knack for making a nuisance of himself while Jiraiya tries to work, has not.

“Jiji!! Up!”

At first, he was stunned when Naruto had started calling him “jiji”, he wasn’t that old. Tsunade, in between her howls of laughter, had consoled him by reasoning Naruto wasn’t trying to say grandpa, but in fact was attempting Jiraiya’s name.

He’s still not sure which it is, (nor has he gotten Naruto to call her baa-chan- and he will, damn it!), but he scoops the toddler into his arms all the same, tickling his belly. “Ah! The real Hokage is here to do some work, huh, Naruto-chan?”

Raidou comes scurrying in after, looking exasperated until he spots Naruto giggling in Jiraiya’s arms. “Hokage-sama, I’m so sorry-“

Jiraiya waves him off. “It’s fine, Raidou-san, we should be heading home anyway.” He doesn’t fault the man for losing Naruto for a minute, they were all finding the nearly inhuman speed at which the boy seemed to run difficult to keep up with. When Naruto was still a baby, they managed via the wrap Jiraiya wore everywhere. As Naruto grows, it gets harder and harder to contain him.

Raidou sags in relief. “Tsunade-sama better let Kakashi-kun out soon,” he grumbles.

Jiraiya lets out a laugh, patting Raidou’s shoulder on his way out of the office. If Raidou thought he wanted Kakashi freed from the hospital more than the man himself, he’s sorely mistaken.

“Let’s go see Kakashi, then let’s see about dinner,” Jiraiya tells Naruto, who smiles and claps in return.

Naruto is attached to Jiraiya, but he adores Kakashi. Secretly, the feeling is mutual. Kakashi dotes on Naruto, though he acts indifferent when various toys appear in the house from an “anonymous” friend. It makes Jiraiya sad to think of the versions of Kakashi and Naruto who weren’t allowed to know each other. It’s been so good for both of them, particularly Kakashi.

When he’d first been sent back, admittedly, Kakashi wasn’t first on his mind. He’d known from Minato (and later Tsunade) how much the young jonin struggled, even well into his adulthood, but he’d never considered how deeply Kakashi felt Minato’s loss. He’d never seen Kakashi well-adjusted or happy, but he didn’t known he hadn’t until he did.

Gone is the vacant look from Kakashi’s eye, and the sarcastic, infuriating parts of his personality seem genuine now, as much as they drive Jiraiya crazy.

Not to say their strange household isn’t absolutely riddled with issues, all ninja homes are, but Jiraiya feels proud to call both boys his own, whatever that ends up meaning to them. Of course, that would also mean getting Kakashi to admit he lived in the house at all.

Jiraiya lets Naruto down as they near Kakashi’s room, flinging the door open at the last moment so his godson doesn’t catch it with his face. Naruto is still as clumsy and careless as he’d been a lifetime ago.

“Nii-san!” Naruto cries, running to Kakashi’s bed and clambering up the sheets.

Kakashi looks deadpan at Jiraiya, but accepts Naruto’s hug all the same.

The kid has finally started to fill out, and none too soon, had Jiraiya not known the adult Kakashi he would have been convinced he was destined to look like an underfed preteen forever.

“You’re not here to break me out, are you?”

“Afraid not, kid. You’ll have to take it up with Tsunade.”

Kakashi crosses his arms petulantly. “It’s just a little chakra exhaustion. Besides, aren’t you the Hokage?”

“Not in here I’m not,” Jiraiya mumbles.

Naruto climbs over Kakashi excitedly, pausing here and there to poke at him or tug at his mask. Lately, he’s preoccupied with finding out what Kakashi’s face looks like.

“Kaka-nii, my party?” He asks Kakashi, blinking his big blue eyes.

Kakashi’s expression softens, and he ruffles Naruto’s wild blond hair. “Of course I will come to your party, Naruto-chan.”

Thrilled by this news, Naruto hugs Kakashi tightly again, and they bid him farewell. Naruto is already asking for dinner.

They pass the main gate on the way home, just in time to see Sadako arguing with the gate guard and her genin team shaking their heads behind her in embarrassment. It’s a common enough scene for them that Jiraiya doesn’t bat an eye, just waves to his former student.

He had been hesitant to give Sadako another team, since she was so deeply traumatized by the loss of her first genin, but Fugaku had brought the idea to him, insistent it would be a good show of faith to the Uchiha, and that there was already a genin he had in mind for her.

He can’t recall ever hearing about Uchiha Shisui in the future. Perhaps the boy had died in the incident that killed one of his teammates and his jonin-sensei. Things are so different now it becomes harder with each passing day to pinpoint what divergence caused what.

None the less, Team Sadako had faired so well in their first month together that Jiraiya had thrown Yamato in the mix. His skill far exceeds that of any normal genin, but his socialization… well, to say it still needs work is an understatement.

Yamato, spotting Jiraiya and Naruto, ditches his teammates with their angry jonin-sensei and scrambles to join them.

“Jiraiya-sama! I’ll walk home with you!” He says brightly. The way Yamato talks without blinking is still a little unsettling, but he knows the boy’s strange behavior will resolve itself eventually.

“Oi! Yamato!” Shisui calls after him, pointing to Sadako. “Don’t leave us here with her!”

Sadako whips around in a fury of black hair. “Brat! Go on then if you hate me so much!”

Shisui sticks his tongue out at her and grabs their third teammate, Tatami Iwashi, by the sleeve, dragging the other boy along with him. Most jonin-senseis would never allow the level of disrespect Shisui shows Sadako, but according to his former student they are close enough cousins that she doesn’t see it that way.

“See you around, Yamato-kun!” Shisui calls, already leaving in the other direction.

Yamato stares after his teammates in confusion, until Jiraiya nudges him. “Oh! Right! Goodbye, Shisui-kun, Iwashi-kun!”

Naruto babbles excitedly at Yamato until they reach the gates of the Senju compound, where they part ways, Yamato scurrying towards the little house he has across the street and Jiraiya and Naruto to their own, much larger home.

Much of the compound is still a ghost town, being fixed up or torn down bit by bit, and so far the only residents are Jiraiya, Naruto, and Kakashi (though the kid would swear he still lives in his shoebox jonin apartment), Shizune and Kabuto, Yamato, Tsunade, and Orochimaru.

Orochimaru is forbidden from speaking to any of the ROOT children, and works, supervised, in the Hokage tower on developing justus Jiraiya first approves. It’s not a perfect arrangement, nor is it a perfect relationship between them (Jiraiya suspects Orochimaru hasn’t entirely forgiven him for making good on his word to send him to T&I) but anything over trying to destroy Konoha is an improvement in Jiraiya’s opinion. Besides, he’d be a fool to waste the man’s talent, and Orochimaru thus far has done nothing but prove over and over he’s willing to atone for the good of the village.

His student, Anko, comes around the compound often, and Jiraiya and Tsunade are convinced it isn’t to visit her mentor, but rather to spy on Yamato. Her strange crush on the boy becomes more obvious by the day.

It’s so obvious, in fact, that Naruto had cried and cried until he relented and let him invite both Anko and Orochimaru to his party because he thought Yamato would be lonely without her.

Naruto runs ahead of him into their house, wrestling his sandals off at the door and gesturing wildly to the kitchen.

“Noodles!” He cries, tugging at Jiraiya’s sleeve.

He can’t help but laugh and indulge the boy. Naruto is a much-needed light in the looming darkness of what’s to come. Ramen is a small price to pay.

Jiraiya knows that on any given day he’s responsible for at least one of Nara Shikaku’s migraines. He likes to think that they’ve become fast friends, in a way, but he knows on days like today where he’s up to his eyeballs in admin work that he’s been deftly ignoring, Shikaku probably wishes he’d never come back to Konoha at all.

He tries his best not to pawn too much of it off on the Jonin Commander, after all it’s not really his job, but Shikaku is a certified genius, and one of his many talents happens to be the ability to look at a pile of requests that seem impossible to Jiraiya and sort them in a matter of minutes.

Shikaku is complaining about this when a bloody lump shunshins into the room, collapsing squarely in front of them.

Genma jumps down from the ceiling and lands on the desk, quickly putting himself between Jiraiya and any threat.

Shikaku sighs deeply, rising from his chair and squatting next to the crumpled man. “It’s fine, Genma-san.” He rolls their intruder over, revealing Sarutobi Asuma’s bruised face.

Though some of Konoha’s shinobi may have believed otherwise, Jiraiya was actually doing a lot of essential spywork during his time away from the village. Especially after both wars, it was necessary to keep an eye on the fragile peace that had been established to ensure it stayed that way.

He’d run into quite the roadblock when he realized that, because of this damned hat on his head, the end of his spying career had come. Yes, he’d been famous as a Legendary Sannin (and renowned author, of course), but few had actually seen his face and lived to tell the tale. Even if he had the time, he no longer possessed the level of anonymity necessary for spying. And that left a huge gap in not just the protection of the village, but the prevention of the future.

At first, he’d considered begging Tsunade to take this burden from him, but even with a new Hokage he selfishly could not bear to leave Naruto now, nor was the boy near old enough to be travelling. Luckily, the perfect candidate had practically fallen into his lap.

Asuma was angry and suffocated, perhaps rightfully so, after the death of his father. He took back to back S-ranks for months, spending more time out of the village than in it. Jiraiya could understand how Konoha could start to close in on you, but, determined not to repeat the same mistakes as his predecessor, could not allow any more jonin to run around the great nations as the pleased until they felt like coming back home.

He could, however, offer Asuma a different chance at escape.

“Asuma-kun, you’re supposed to go to the hospital first,” Shikaku scolds. Blearily, their young spymaster opens his eyes, only to fall unconscious again immediately. “Tch,” Shikaku clicks his tongue, prodding at Asuma’s face. “Troublesome kid.”

Jiraiya helps Shikaku heave the young jonin up, still unable to understand how Sarutobi-sensei and his tiny wife could have produced such a large man. Asuma is nearly as tall and equally as broad as Jiraiya is, and he doubts the kid is quite full grown.

They hand Asuma off to two chunin (the smaller of the pair almost buckling under the weight) and retreat back into the office for the scroll he’d been carrying.

Jiraiya’s heart feels like it stops in his chest when he begins to open the document inside. His spymaster has returned to tell him he’s found the mercenary organization calling themselves Akatsuki.

“Genma,” He says evenly. “Tell Tsunade I need Sarutobi Asuma awake immedietly.”

Jiraiya tries to purge the feelings of dread about the Akatsuki from his mind for the day so they can celebrate Naruto’s birthday in peace. Tsunade had briefly allowed him to speak to Asuma in the hospital, but he wasn’t able to get much out of the kid before he’d collapsed again, and it would be days before he would be able to give an actual mission report.

He tells himself there’s nothing he can do to scratch the itch of anger and grief and pain that rises to the surface at the mere mention of his Ame orphans and the Akatsuki, but all the same it distracts him, night and day.

Further souring his mood, he’d also had to make a speech commemorating those that had died in the Kyubi attack two years prior, and he feels more than ever Minato’s stone face looming over him, watching. He’s been Hokage for longer than his student now, and that milestone hurt more than he’d ever considered it could.

Naruto, unaware his birthday is no cause for celebration for 90% of the village, is nearly vibrating with energy as guests start to arrive in their backyard for his birthday party.

Shizune and Kabuto arrive first, followed by Yamato, who looks very uncomfortable trying to politely get Anko to let go of the arm she’s hanging off of.

“Yamato-kun! Isn’t little Naruto-chan so cute!” Anko sings.

To what appears to be Yamato’s great relief, Sadako and Shisui arrive next and Sadako practically yanks Anko off her student by the scruff, scolding her for being so desperate.

“Anko-chan! Quit harassing my student!”

Yamato goes red in the face, embarrassed, but Anko does not, just flashing a bright smile at Sadako. “Yamato-kun doesn’t mind!”

Yamato-kun does very much mind, he thinks. Jiraiya and Shisui barely stifle their laughter at the boy’s expression as Anko latches onto him once more.   

Naruto greets each guest politely like they’d practiced, standing as still as one could expect from a two-year-old, but can’t quite hold back when his agemates start to arrive.

“Shika!!” He cries with joy at the sight of the Naras. Shikamaru, who had been sleeping on his mother’s shoulder, protests a little at being set down, but that’s soon forgotten when Naruto drags him away to look at the new toys he’s been given today. Soon, the other two-thirds of the next Ino-Shika-Cho formation join the party, as do their parents.

Jiraiya sits around his garden table with his own team, nursing a cup of tea he may or may not have spiked to soothe away the noise of screeching toddlers, though he can’t help but smile at the sight of Naruto playing with his friends.

“That brat is just like his mother,” Tsunade muses. “Kami help us all.”

It was true of all versions of Naruto, apparently. Jiraiya could see Minato’s face in his godson some days, but mostly, he was the spitting image of Kushina, especially his personality.

“He certainly sounds like her,” Orochimaru grimaces as a particularly loud squeal comes from the other side of the garden.

“An Uzumaki through and through. Good call, Jiraiya,” Tsunade agrees.

Since he isn’t attempting to hide Naruto’s parentage anymore, Jiraiya had considered giving Naruto the Namikaze family name, but it had never sounded quite right. Kushina had never even taken it herself. “I hope you can tell him about Mito-sama, Tsunade,” Jiraiya says fondly.

Tsunade huffs a laugh. “Of course. The little shit and I are the last of the Uzumakis.”

About an hour after the party starts, Kakashi finally makes his appearance, waving at Naruto with the other hand hidden behind his back. Jiraiya knows it’s hiding Naruto’s very own set of beginner shiruken, which if anything will make hide and seek a much more interesting game in their household.

Naruto opens all of his gifts, thrilled with each one more than the last and giving hugs to every single attendee (wanted or not) before digging into his cake like a wild animal. Jiraiya is glad Yoshino suggested ordering a little one just for the kid.

The day is sunny and perfect, and surrounded in friends he had never had the privilege to keep before. He’s never had so much worth protecting.

And that scares him.

Chapter Text

No shinobi is a stranger to nightmares. But they’ve been greeting Jiraiya every night like old friends ever since Asuma had delivered the news of the Akatsuki. 

Mostly he dreams of Minato, of Naruto’s birthday, always arriving a fraction too late to save the boy’s parents, let alone the smoldering village. Sometimes it’s huddling in the rain with Konan, Nagato, and Yahiko, failing to protect them from Pain. Then it’s the last mission he ran with his genin team, and instead of promoting them on the battlefield, he watches them all cut down, first Minato, then Sadako, then Morio. Lately that one haunts him the most. 

It feels like an omen, perhaps only because that’s how it happened in the future. Every time he sees Minato die in his sleep his confidence in saving any of his students chips away

Sadako is still a fleeting presence in his life, which he can hardly blame her for, in a way it’s an eye for an eye, but he can feel her drifting away from him for different reasons recently. 

He’s not sure what they are, yet. 

Morio reports to him as his Hokage, not his former Sensei, and Jiraiya can respect that, even if it feels personal.

The other three, well…

He shakes off the last clutches of his dreams and rolls out of bed, quietly, so he doesn’t wake Naruto or Kakashi. Kakashi will know to bring Naruto to the Hokage tower later.

In the early dawn he makes his way through his sleeping village, thankful for the peace and quiet as he stares down his own face on the mountain, wishing things were different, wishing he wasn’t so helpless.

Asuma is slow to wake. Jiraiya checks the hospital every day, hopeful each time that the news will be different. It’s not that he doesn’t care for Asuma’s wellbeing, but he really, really needs the kid to wake up. His written report is scraps that barely make sense strung together, and it isn’t good enough. He needs more information.

The receptionist relays the news to him before he’s even opened his mouth to ask today, and Jiraiya sighs deeply, running a hand through his hair. It doesn’t matter, it’ll only get squished by that stupid hat anyway.

He leaves the hospital lobby at a snail’s pace, lingering for almost an hour just in case his mere presence is enough to wake Asuma. It’s also because he’s been dreading his next task.

Though he does his best with them, the Uchiha police force are not easy to work with in the slightest. It seems every time he tries to suggest anything to them to bring peace amongst the clan and the rest of the village, it’s met with hostility. Since he’d given Sadako a genin team and no longer had someone he knew well as a mediator it’s gotten even worse. That Fugaku would even request an audience puts a pit in his stomach.

It’s only a reflection of tensions in the village. Though he knows (or wants to believe very, very badly) that the Uchiha had nothing to do with the Kyubi attack, the rumors of their involvement have escalated from whispers to shouts and accusations. In the two years that have passed it seems no one has forgiven the rampage that killed their Hokage.

Jiraiya hasn’t forgotten or forgiven either, he’s just not so blind to think that he can jump to the easiest conclusion and be done with it. There are always more complicated layers to these things, and after all, the Uchiha had reaped no benefit. In fact, as he enters police headquarters, he passes a memorial stone for the dozen or so members of the police force the Kyubi had trampled.

Fugaku personally greets him with a polite bow, and it feels like the rest of the station has frozen, staring intently at their intruder.

“Hokage-sama. Thank you for coming.”

Jiraiya extends the same formalities, then follows Fugaku back to his office, where the door is shut and Fugaku’s privacy seal activated.

“What can I do for you, Captain?”

Fugaku slides a folder across the desk to him. “You can tell me why I’m just finding out Shimura Danzo was in possession of a Sharingan.”

The mere mention of Danzo brings a headache to Jiraiya instantly. Konoha is still dealing with ROOT retaliation, even now. Not to mention Danzo has got to be one of the most dangerous missing-nin in the Bingo book to date. It’s also perhaps Jiraiya’s greatest failure so far.

He purses his lips, flipping through the pages of a document he’s not sure how Fugaku came to be in possession of in the first place. Lies run through his head, but there’s nothing he can say to persuade the very angry police captain in front of him to believe them. Fugaku is too smart.

Instead, he tells the truth.

“I chose to keep it between those who witnessed it.”

“Your… teammates?” Fugaku is clearly biting his tongue.

Jiraiya sighs, sinking into his chair in a way that does not for one second exude leadership, or power, or any of the things the Hokage should possess. “With all the accusations about the Kyubi, I thought it was for the best.”

“What, so that people don’t see the Uchiha as victims in this whole mess? Obviously, the eye was stolen,” Fugaku snaps.

“Fugaku-san, I know that. Tsunade knows it, so does Orochimaru, but a lot of the village is looking for reasons to blame the Uchiha.”

Fugaku says nothing in response to that, just stares Jiraiya down intensely.

They stay like that for a few minutes, in a stare down with no winner, until there’s a small knock at the door.

Fugaku doesn’t move his eye’s from Jiraiya. “Come in.”

It’s Sadako, and from her dark expression he knows she knows exactly what they are talking about.

“Don’t mind me, Sensei. Fugaku-sama, I’d like to speak to you after you’re done with Hokage-sama.”

Jiraiya doesn’t miss the coldness in her tone.

“I owe you an apology, Fugaku-san,” he tells the police captain. “The Uchiha have my trust.”

Fugaku acknowledges with a short nod, and Jiraiya takes his leave, an uneasiness sinking in. This conversation is hardly over.

“Jiji! Jiji! Watch me!”

Jiraiya obliges an over-active Naruto when he walks into his own office to find it occupied with Kakashi, Raidou, Genma, and Naruto, three of whom should be guarding his door instead of leaving it wide open to be used as the apparent target in Naruto’s latest shiruken lessons. Genma and Raidou at least have the good sense to appear guilty; he imagines Kakashi is wearing a shit-eating grin under that mask.

“Go on then, Naruto-chan.”

Naruto grins, bearing the few teeth he has and takes a poor throwing stance, launching the blunted beginner shiruken at the door. Only one of the three he throws sticks into the wood, but by Naruto’s delighted squeal, that’s an improvement.

“You’ll make a fine ninja one day, Naruto,” he says, patting down the wild blond hair he knows was combed this morning to no avail.

Naruto beams at the praise, shooting an I-told-you-so look at Raidou and Genma, who have inched their way out the door to their normal spots.

Kakashi hasn’t taken his perch above the door, but Jiraiya doesn’t scold him. Keeping Naruto contained to the building when he’s here is a job in itself. And besides, the Hokage guard is a formality. Anything that comes through that door with the intent to kill won’t last thirty seconds against Jiraiya.

He hasn’t been idle in his own training.

He shoos Kakashi off with Naruto, even though the latter’s pouts are very adorable, and sits at his desk, shuffling through piles of paperwork he’s put off.

He should hire a secretary. With that thought, he finds his Icha Icha notes and jots down a few ideas for his next book, whenever he’s freed of this damn hat. Being Hokage is no fun. No more women crawling over him at the bar, no “gathering intel” at hot springs, it’s, as his Commander would put it, a drag.

Said commander has not shown his face in the Hokage office today. Hm. Shikaku must be trying to get his own job done in between talking Jiraiya down from the ledge of desertion every time some old lady barges in complaining the genin teams just don’t do things fast enough.

He wants to snap at any that dare complain that at least there are genin in the village now. For years the civilians were on their own while the same children that can barely catch cats fought wars.

Tsunade wants to up the conscription age. Jiraiya and Orochimaru are against it. Just because there had been more than a decade of peace in the future doesn’t mean things can’t change, and there are barely enough Konoha shinobi to go around as it is. At least the genin are aged 12 again. For a time he’d seen bodies on the battlefield no older than 8 or 9, when the village was truly desperate.

They day goes quickly, meetings pressed between looking out the window longingly at the people free to roam the village and avoiding filing anything (surely that could be a D-rank), and before he knows it Kakashi and Naruto walk by his door, waving in to tell him they are headed home.

Jiraiya doesn’t follow them. He’s sensed a familiar chakra right outside his window for the last half hour, and he’s curious to see if she’ll show her face.

As soon as the building is cleared, except for Genma who lingers in the hall ceiling, Sadako makes herself known, sitting on the windowsill, idly swinging the leg that dangles into his office.

“What can I do for you, Sadako-chan?”

She half-smiles at him. “I just thought I’d come to tell you the things Fugaku-sama was too polite to.”

He sighs. “Such as?”

“Oh, maybe to start, how dare you keep this information from us, this is clan business, that sort of thing.”

“A clan elder in the making, Sadako-chan.”

She throws her head back, laughing. “I don’t know about that. Although I can’t imagine a much cushier retirement than sitting around in a circle, complaining about the old days.”

Jiraiya hardly feels like he has old days to complain about anymore. The past and the future have blended together so much he’s not sure which one feels real. “Retirement is a luxury in itself.”

“Hey, I’ve made it to the ripe old age of 27. And you’re practically dust already, Jiraiya-sensei.”

He rolls his eyes at her. “Wait until your students are taunting you, Sadako-chan.”

She snorts. “They already are.”

They lapse into silence, Jiraiya trying a failing to get the right words formulated in his head so nonsense doesn’t come tumbling out of his mouth.

“I meant what I said to Fugaku-san. I am sorry. I’m only trying to do what’s best for the village,” he says carefully. The last thing he needs is to set off two Uchihas in one day, especially Sadako. Fugaku is much calmer than his cousin.  

“Yeah. I understand. It’s your job to be cautious with us.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You think I’m scared of your clan?”

She scoffs. “You’ve always been a little afraid of us, Sensei. Or at least me.”

That stops him completely. “I’m not afraid of you, Sadako-chan. I wasn’t, ever. You were my student.”

“I wonder about that, sometimes, you know? Now that I’ve had my own teams, I just don’t get it. You were so eager to get rid of me.”

He knows he shouldn’t take the bait. He knows that Sadako is testing him, in the sly little way she has since she was ten and on his team. She’s waiting for him to say he was a good teacher to her, so she can tear his throat out for it because she needs someone to bite today.

But she’s wrong. He wasn’t trying to get rid of her. He wasn’t even afraid of her. He was afraid for her.

“I never wanted to get rid of you. I kept you all alive. The only one I failed was Minato.”

“Don’t you wish it was me instead?” She laughs humorlessly. “Let’s be realistic, sensei, please.”

“Be careful about what you say next, Sadako,” he warns her. He’s wont demand her respect on his behalf, but she will not speak ill of Minato.

“How dare you,” she spits, and it seems then that the real anger is released, no longer hidden by the easy back-and-forth they’d settled on since he’d come back here. “Minato was my friend, and this has fuck-all to do with whatever you saw in him that you didn’t see in me. He’s not here anymore to tell you this, but you abandoned all of us. You just came back for him.”

 Ah. It’s never been about Minato for her, has it? It’s about them.

“I had a responsibility to those three. They needed me-“

“We needed you!” Sadako stands, wiping furiously at her eyes. “Morio, and Minato, and me, we needed you. And you-you just ran off! Our friends were being killed left and right, and the war wasn’t over and when Tsunade-sama said you stayed in Ame- how could you?”

He had to. He had to stay in Ame. He couldn’t have walked away, not from three children who would have surely died of starvation or been killed without him. No matter the cost of that decision he won’t be made to regret it.

“You were chunin, you all could take care of yourselves, they were orphans, and they were starving-“

“I was THIRTEEN, Jiraiya, THIRTEEN,” she yells at him. Her tears are flowing freely now, and every other second there is a flash of her Sharingan, a grim reminder of why she’d been pulled from active duty in the first place. If he’d known giving her another team would go like this he’d have benched her like Sarutobi had, maybe rightfully so.

“Morio was only twelve, just a baby. Twelve... They were just babies.”

Sadako fights to compose herself. She’s not just talking about herself or her teammates anymore.

“I was so close to saving them,” she chokes out, pacing around the room like caged animal, one hand fisted in her hair. “And if I couldn’t keep them safe, who possibly could? Uchiha Sadako, the student of Jiraiya the Great Toad Sage, the Legendary Sannin,” she sings mockingly, anger creeping over the sadness on her face. “They were just fodder for the village, all of them, all of us!”

Jiraiya tries to think of watching Minato die, tries to amplify that pain times three to try to understand but he doesn’t. They are shinobi, this is what they have all been born to do. No matter the pain, no matter the cost. The ones that live, endure.

“Sadako-“

“Konoha wanted me to blame myself, and I did, I do,” she snaps. “But I wasn’t ready. I never was. I was thirteen with no parents, no teacher, no guidance, and after all you’d done for us, after you’d kept us alive for three whole years it felt like you were different from the people who sent us out the front lines, that you wanted to protect us. But in the end, you’re not different. You’re just a liar like the rest of them.”

“I did my duty to you, Sadako.”

Hurt flashes in her eyes before it’s replaced by an eerie calm. “No, you did your duty to yourself,” she says darkly. “If you’d given a damn about any of us you wouldn’t have deserted. And as far as that goes, I would be hunted down and killed as a missing-nin if it had been me. You’re blind to what this village does to the Uchiha, and all the people like us.”

She’s finally rendered him speechless, but before he can formulate a response, before he can let it set in that history could already be repeating itself, that this is where it all starts, Sadako is on her way out.

“Goodbye, Hokage-sama. I’ll give Fugaku-sama your regards.”

“I am the village monster, and Konoha is my cage.”

He has to fix this.

Chapter Text

The wind howls around the empty battlefield, chilling Sadako straight to the bone. It could be that her clothes are soaked in blood that she doesn’t think is her own, but she’s afraid to look down and see the red.

The war has been on for years now, dragging her with it. She can hardly remember what peacetime feels like; those days are a distant memory, overtaken by long hours of endless, brutal violence.

She’s good at it. So good that her team is almost always on the front lines. Jiraiya-sensei has tried and failed to have them placed elsewhere, but with Minato’s new jutsu she knows it’ll never happen. He’s too valuable on the battlefield and so she and Morio are as well.

Minato walks tall next to her, surveying the damage while Morio picks through the fallen shinobi, searching for survivors. There can’t have been many.  Iwa is ruthless and thorough and Konoha has barely held them back. Only a few other teams dot the large field, and most of them are no longer groups of three. Team Six will be called lucky, if anyone is left to tell them.

“Morio! Over here!” Minato calls over the wind suddenly. He drops to his knees next to a body Sadako had wrongly assumed was already dead.

Morio rushes over and helps Minato gingerly turn the man over onto his front.

“Fuck,” Sadako whispers, seeing the man’s face. It’s Kentaro-sensei, so bloody and bruised he’s hardly recognizable.

Minato looks at her, stricken. She wishes she said something more intelligent, but she’s just as shocked to see their academy teacher laid out in the grass, badly wounded. She hadn’t known he was even eligible to be out here. Command must be getting desperate for shinobi.

Morio works quickly, chakra from his hands glowing over the wound on Kentaro-sensei’s chest. From the tears that begin to drip down his nose, Sadako doesn’t think it will be enough.

“Morio,” Minato says quietly, but firmly.

“No,” Morio snaps. “No, I’m not done yet.”

Kentaro-sensei’s pupils rapidly dart between the three of them, chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. He opens his mouth to talk but all that spills out is blood. They’re too late.

They’re too late, and Konoha does not leave their own to suffer. Sadako draws her sword, the noise of it the only sound she can hear besides the rushing of blood in her own ears. The very man who had taught them about mercy killing lies before her and though she knows what she has to do, her hands are shaking.

Perhaps it’s luck then, that Jiraiya-sensei choses that moment to stumble upon them.

“Sadako-chan! Morio, Minato- what’s- oh,” Jiraiya trails off. His whole demeanor changes from relief to solemnity as he looks from her sword, to Morio, to Kentaro-sensei writhing. He crouches down and seems to understand what Kentaro-sensei had been trying to tell them. The two men stare at each other for a long moment before Jiraiya nods, and tells them, quietly, to turn around.

Sadako begins to argue, but Minato yanks her arm and she complies without a fight, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her teammates, braced for the inevitable. She’s not sure why she squeezes her eyes shut so tightly when it happens. How many men had she killed herself today? Why should Kentaro-sensei be any different?

“Open your eyes,” Jiraiya-sensei says, putting a hand on her shoulder. She does, one at a time, pointedly not looking backwards. “I’m being called away to Ame. I don’t know if I’m coming back.”

Ame. They’re sending him after Hanzo. For once Jiraiya-sensei might not be exaggerating. The tales of Hanzo the Salamander have put fear into all of Konoha’s forces. None who encounter him return alive.

“But Sensei-“ Sadako sputters, “you just got here!”

She doesn’t want him to die in Ame. If they’re going to die they should die as a team. And without Sensei, they will die.

“There’s a chance I can end this war, and I have to take it.” Jiraiya searches all three of their faces for a moment, studying them like they are strangers and not his own team of three years. “Besides, it looks like you’ve managed just fine without me. It’s time you all became chunin.”

“Do we report back to Konoha?” Morio asks. He’s standing at attention now, tears dried and looking every bit as confused as Sadako feels.

“No. Effective immediately.”

Sadako’s heart begins to race again. She’s been looking forward to this moment, dreaming of emerging victorious from the chunin exams with her team. She’d imagined a big barbeque dinner in celebration, and gifts, and proud looks from her clan and from Sensei. This… it all feels so empty. It feels like a goodbye instead of a new beginning.

He doesn’t give them time to argue.

“Minato, you’re with me. They need you at the outpost. Sadako, look after Morio and get back to base camp.” Jiraiya-sensei rarely looks so serious, staring right through them. “Congratulations on your promotions.”

She meets Minato’s eye just before he hirashins away with Sensei, and realizes everything is changing.

It was three years before she’d heard anything from Jiraiya after that fateful day when he’d promoted their team. By then, Sadako was already a jonin.

She shouldn’t have been so hurt by Jiraiya’s actions back then but she was, and scrubbing her face of tears now, she realizes she still is.

Fugaku-sama would surely not be letting her off the hook for blowing up on the Hokage like that but damn it, that bastard deserved it.

“Sadako-sensei?” A small voice calls through the closed door. “Are you alright?”

Sadako turns off the tap, cursing under her breath. She’d scheduled training this evening and forgotten about it. She hadn’t even noticed the kids entering the house.

Yamato startles when she opens the door, inches away from being hit by it. “Sadako-sensei, Shisui-kun and Iwashi-kun are fighting again,” he says, blinking up at her owlishly with his freakishly large eyes.

Sadako pats his head. “Let them. You can fight whoever wins.”

“Yes, Sensei!”

She follows Yamato to her small living room where Shisui indeed has Iwashi in a headlock, though he drops his teammate as soon as they spot her.

“Oh, hey Sadako-sensei! I was just helping Iwashi-kun fix his hair.”

Shisui’s impish grin is infectious, and she can’t help but laugh about it. “Looks like you just made it worse, Shisui-kun.”

Iwashi ruffles his hair somewhat back into place, pouting. “He caught me off-guard, that’s all.”

“It’s very difficult to sneak up on an Uchiha,” Yamato supplies matter-of-factly. “The Sharingan-“

“Lighten up, Iwashi! You’ll catch up to me one day!”

They all roll their eyes at Shisui, but Sadako does know that he’s well beyond his teammates. Shisui no Shunshin was already a standout in the war.

“Enough, boys. Whoever gets to the training grounds the fastest doesn’t have to run laps tomorrow. I’ll see you there.”

Shisui, laughing manically, shunshins away immediately, leaving his teammates scrambling after him.

Sadako follows them, lagging behind purposefully so nobody can spot her and report her whereabouts to Fugaku-sama. She’ll deal with that tomorrow.

They train for a good while, mostly team maneuvers that they haven’t had a chance to perfect. It feels good to stretch her legs. One of her favorite parts of teaching is training her kids to be her team, not just a team.

Shisui is fast, striking like lightning around them in a way that reminds her very strongly of Minato. He’s going to outgrow them quickly, she can feel it.

Not that Yamato and Iwashi aren’t talented as well. Iwashi is progressing in leaps and bounds with his kenjutsu and Yamato will master the Mokuton one day.

Shisui’s speed and the restraining abilities of the Mokuton lend themselves well to the old strategies she’d used on Team Six. If Iwashi ever shows any interest in sealing it’ll really be like old times. She thinks for a moment about asking Minato to work with him if he ever has the time, but the reminder that he’s dead hits her faster.

And she’ll join her teammate before she ever asks Jiraiya.

The boys devolve into another petty argument when Sadako gives them a break to give her notes, as boys seem to do. It ignites a bitter fire in her. At their age she was a war veteran.

“Some of us don’t have to hide behind our swords,” Shisui sneers at Iwashi, who, red in the face, stomps his foot petulantly.

“Well some of us-“

“Enough!” Sadako yells. “That’s an extra D-rank for you all tomorrow. Go home.”

The arguing turns into a chorus of whining, which she ignores in favor of setting the training dummy on fire. It scares the kids away fast, but Sadako stays, watching it burn for a moment before she begins to beat the hell out of it. She hits and hits until her knuckles are burned and bleeding and the dummy is no more than ash.

Nothing she does soothes the anger inside of her. Fugaku-sama used to tell her it was because of her determination that she couldn’t let things go, but she isn’t sure that’s the truth. It all seems so hopeless. If she didn’t train these kids to be sent out to die then it would just be the next jonin’s responsibility. No decision she makes matters.

“You want a partner?”

Sadako whips around at the sound of Morio’s voice, startled. He’s just come from the hospital, still smelling like antiseptic and wearing his coat. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough. So, what do you say?”

“Sure, if you can keep up.”

Morio snorts, throwing his coat to the edge of the field and taking a fighting stance. “Try me.”

Sadako does, rushing at him with her full speed. She dodges at the last second, glancing up at the sky, and when the moon ducks behind cloud cover she makes her strike.

“No light, no shadow!” She gloats. Morio counters her taijutsu with his own, expertly blocking her kicks.

“You’re so wasted in the hospital, Morio.”

He doesn’t answer to the bait, cleverly kicking a knee out from under her while she’s looking at his face. Unlike her, he’s an expert at keeping composure. No enemy or friend will ever distract him with petty insults, and just as it was when they were kids, he uses her own tactics against her.

“I think we’ve both done more than enough fighting for a lifetime, Sadako.”

The graveness of his words stop her mid-move, and in the moonlight she can just make out his hands, formed for Shadow Possession. He releases it just as quickly as he caught her, shaking his head.

“You never learn,” he scolds.

She rolls her eyes, shoving his discarded coat back at him and shrugging on her own vest. She’s too tired to spar, anyway.  “How’d you find me out here?”

He raises an eyebrow at her, gently taking her hands one by one and healing them. “I saw your genin running amuck and thought they might have finally driven you to insanity.”

She flexes her fingers, the stinging cuts all scabbed over. “It’ll happen one day. They’re just as bad as-“ she stops herself before she can say it out loud, but Morio looks down at her sadly.

“Come on, I’ll walk you home,” he sighs.

She nods, collecting herself. She will not cry again today. They walk silently through the village, alone except for the sounds of the night market a few streets over. She tries to think of something to talk about that’s not Jiraiya, but comes up empty.

“I yelled at Sensei today,” she concedes after a while.

“I have no doubt he deserved it.”

She pauses, unsure if she wants to repeat the conversation. She’d lost her temper so badly. It’s not like she can tell Morio about the stolen Sharingan, so she settles on a more flattering summary.

“It was about our chunin promotion. Do you remember?”

“Of course,” Morio says seriously. “I wish I didn’t.”

They fall into silence again. She knows Morio is thinking about Kentaro-senesi. Sadako thinks of Minato, and the look on his face when he’d left with Sensei. They hadn’t known it was their last mission all together.

“I miss Minato,” Sadako whispers.

Morio slings an arm around her shoulders lazily. He’s warm and familiar and she leans into it, just as she has all these years. There’s nothing they can say about Kentaro-sensei or her team or Jiraiya or Minato that hasn’t been said before.

“I always thought I’d be first,” she says.

Morio sighs. “So little faith, Sadako-chan. Your ego should be bigger.”

“I mean it,” she huffs. “Minato was invincible.”

Morio doesn’t say it, and neither does she.

No, he wasn’t. Nobody is.

Unable to sleep, Jiraiya gives up sometime around midnight and finds himself knocking on Tsunade’s door. It’s not a rare occurrence, there’s so much going on in both of their lives that they can always find a reason to drink together.

His student’s words have echoed in his head since she fled his office. You did your duty to yourself.

How could she say that about him? Not just because he’s the damned Hokage, but because it’s not true! He sacrificed his own time, his own life in the village to help three orphans not starve to death. He was her jonin-sensei, how much did he really owe her?

Sure, he had field-promoted all three of his genin, not just because he’d been called away, but also because they were skilled enough for it. Morio was ready. Minato was ready. Sadako was more than ready. Team Six was feared on battlefields, not just because of Jiraiya, who had not earned the title of Legendary Sannin yet, but because of his three absolutely lethal students. No genin team had been so well-oiled since his own.

The door opens after a few minutes, and Tsunade looks unhappy to see him, in her sleep clothes with her hair up and all, but he’s sure she’ll get over it after a drink or two. “What?” she snaps.

Jiraiya frowns at the cold greeting, but steps inside anyway.

“Make yourself at home,” Tsunade mutters, though she doesn’t protest even a little when he grabs the bottle of sake from a high shelf he knows she can’t reach.

“Are you going to tell me what the hell you’re doing at my house at one in the morning?”

Jiraiya downs a good bit of sake, slouched at her kitchen table, before he answers her question with another. “Do you think I’m a selfish person?”

She raises a blonde eyebrow. “Kind of a loaded question, don’t you think?”

Jiraiya groans. He may pretend to be aloof but he knows what she means by that answer. Yes. He would have gone over to Orochimaru’s if he wanted to hear that.

“Sadako-chan came by my office tonight.”

Tsunade’s face twists in disgust for a moment. “Jiraiya!”

“No, no, nothing like that!” He says quickly. Kami, he’d like to think he’s above fucking his own student. “She wanted to talk about Danzo’s Sharingan.”

“I thought we agreed not to speak about it,” Tsunade says coldly. “Jiraiya, that makes you look-“

“I know what it looks like,” he snaps. “I don’t know how they found out, I heard it from Fugaku first. But Sadako was scary. I’m afraid of history repeating itself.”

“Well, without Danzo, surely…”

Jiraiya hangs his head in shame. Not only for his failure to capture Danzo, but because of one of the discoveries Tsunade had made as the two of them dug through Sensei’s files.

“It’s been almost a year since then, Jiraiya. You have to do something about it,” Tsunade prods. “To think what happened in the future was sanctioned- if that gets out we will have civil war.”

He wants to argue that there’s no proof, nor will there ever be, that the Uchiha massacre was an official mission given to a thirteen year old member of that very clan. And some scatterings of “dealing” with the problem via permanent removal could have just meant banning them from the village.

“Jiraiya,” Tsunade whispers, her pretty brown eyes meeting his.

He knows he’s wrong. All signs point to Konoha, to the Hokage, to Sarutobi-sensei. He fights to see the logic in it. Knowing what Uchiha Itachi would become, what he would contribute to, pops the bubble he’d always kept around his opinion of his old sensei.

Naively, he’d believed preventing the massacre would be as easy as intercepting Itachi, and mending the Uchiha’s relationship with Konoha with a few apologies and better cooperation. What an ignorant sentiment that seems now.

“I think I’ve already made a mess of things, Tsunade.”

She says nothing, just pours from the bottle and shoves the glass at him.

“Then clean it up.”

Jiraiya thinks for a moment he’s seeing the ghost of the real Godaime.

He has to send Kakashi out on an S-rank the next morning. It’s something he tries to avoid; last year Kakashi’s boisterous, jumpsuit-clad friend had burst into tears thanking Jiraiya for removing Kakashi from ANBU. In fact, most of Kakashi’s friends had expressed their relief, all concerned he was becoming suicidally reckless. The thought still makes Jiraiya hesitant to send him out on missions like these for fear he’ll get himself killed on purpose.

Kakashi isn’t technically his responsibility, not like Naruto, but Jiraiya finds it hard to imagine life without him. If he were to be killed, especially unaccidentally…

All of that aside, Kakashi’s talents are wasted in the Hokage guard. They’ve scarcely become more than babysitters for Naruto, as few are so stupid as to think they can take on the Sannin and win (that’s suicidally reckless) and Kakashi will be one of the greatest ninja Konoha has ever produced in the future. At sixteen, he’s already well on his way.

“But Godaime-sama, this mission is perfect for me! Why does Kakashi-“

Genma likes to complain loudly every time he gives Kakashi a mission, so Jiraiya cuts him off mid-bellyaching and sends him, too.

“Oh! Genma-kun, I didn’t realize the highly esteemed position you hold guarding, I, the Great Toad Sage Jiraiya, Hokage of the Leaf, was boring you. Perhaps you’d rather guard Kakashi?”

Genma at least has the good sense to look embarrassed, but Jiraiya doesn’t let him suffer for long, clapping both boys on the back.

“Go on and make your village proud. Genma, if you don’t slow Kakashi down I’m sure you’ll both be back this time next month.”

Genma pales, but Kakashi rolls his eye, halfway out the door. “It’s only an assassination. I’ll be home in time for dinner.”

Unfortunately, Naruto choses this moment to toddle into the office, and seeing his favorite person in the entire world about to leave, begins to sob.

“Take me with you, Kaka-nii!” Naruto wails, hugging Kakashi’s pant leg.

In the end, Jiraiya has to peel a kicking and screaming Naruto off of Kakashi so he can shunshin away, and he’s right back to being bored to his own tears in the Hokage’s office, having handed off his godson to an exasperated Raidou. Perhaps he really should find a nanny.

He shoves aside the paperwork on his desk and spends the afternoon writing. He hates to neglect his true passion more than he already has. For all the time he spends sitting on his ass he doesn’t have much to show for it.

Will Naruto even want to become Hokage if he sees the true nature of most of the job?

His work is interrupted by a knock on the open door, and he’s surprised to see Orochimaru holding Naruto on his hip.

“Jiraiya. Your ward is not to be running around this building freely. I nearly killed him.”

Naruto sniffles, shyly burying his face in a highly unamused Orochimaru’s shoulder.

Jiraiya smiles at the boy, unable to help his leniency towards his godson. He’s just so damn cute sometimes. “Come now, there’s no harm done, right Naruto-chan?”

Naruto doesn’t look at him, only nodding his little blonde head.

Orochimaru sighs, shoving the child at him over the desk. “You’ve gone soft. Punish him or something.”

Jiraiya isn’t going to, of course, but he shrugs at his teammate anyway. “We’ll see. He looks traumatized enough. Naruto-chan, what do you say we go for dango?”

The sad, kicked puppy act falls away in an instant and Naruto squirms out of his arms, running clumsily toward the door.

“That’s your version of discipline?” Orochimaru scoffs. “He’s going to be as bratty as Hime.”

Jiraiya takes a knee next to Naruto, steering the boy in Orochimaru’s direction. “Naruto, why don’t we invite Orochimaru along for dango? I’m sure he wants to go.”

He knows Orochimaru most definitely does not want to go for dango. In fact, the image of his stoic teammate with a skewer of pink strawberry dango is so funny he can hardly contain his laughter.

“You can wipe that smile off of your stupid face, Jiraiya, I’m not going. Unlike you, I was actually working.”

Jiraiya looks through his hair solemnly at Naruto. “Naruto-chan, did you hear that?”

On cue, Naruto stares up at Orochimaru with his big blue eyes and lets them well with tears.

Orochimaru, face twisted like he’s smelled something foul, relents, and the three of them make their way to the dango shop, Naruto insistent he hold Orochimaru’s hand the whole way.

“So, what was so important you had to be violently persuaded to spend the afternoon with your old friend?” Jiraiya asks once they’re seated at the park, each with a stick of dango (and yes, Orochimaru holding the strawberry dango for Naruto is just as funny as he imagined).

“It’s one of Sensei’s seals, if you must know. The Reaper Death seal.”

All humor of the situation feels as if it’s been sucked out of him. He’s seen it in action only once, when Minato was dying, but it’s the seal Sensei used to try to kill Orochimaru in the future. And if he’s thinking about it, he’s sure it’s not lost on Orochimaru.

“I hope it never comes to that,” Jiraiya says quietly, watching Naruto climb with a few other children.

Orochimaru purses his lips. “We can’t be sure it won’t. What of Asuma-kun?”

“Still not awake. Tsunade says at this point it could be the after-effects of a genjustu, but I’ve never seen someone so affected since…” Jiraiya trails off, mindful that there could be listening ears.

Orochimaru hums in understanding. “Of course, that isn’t possible.”

“He’s only a child still. Well on his way to chunin, if I’ve heard correctly.”

They lapse into silence, surrounded by the sound of children playing. Jiraiya can’t take his eyes off Naruto, a nagging guilt seeping into his skin. Naruto of the past had no playmates. It makes him angry at Sarutobi again, and even more upset with himself.

Nothing is perfect here. He feels like the more he tries to intervene, the worse things get. He burns bridges faster than he can build them. He can’t regret the effect it’s had on Naruto, though.

“Do you think I’m selfish, Orochimaru?”

As he’d suspected earlier when he’d asked the same of Tsunade, there’s no hesitation in the answer.

“Yes,” Orochimaru says concisely. “But so am I. So is Hime. So are all of us. The difference is you have to learn to put it aside.”

“I don’t want to be Hokage, Oro,” Jiraiya replies, somewhat childishly. “It’s not what I’m made for. I need to be out there! Adventuring, and traveling, and writing!”

Naruto runs back to the bench, a stark reminder of why he can’t do those things, giggling and snatching his dango from Orochimaru before rejoining his friends.

A testament to his friend’s patience, Orochimaru does not snap at him, or glare, or get up to walk away. “Jiraiya,” he says solemnly, “if you believe anything can be changed, you don’t have a choice.”

Mood thoroughly soured, Jiraiya collects Naruto not long after and they head home. Naruto’s head lulls against his shoulder, exhausted from playing.

It’s not yet seven in the evening, but he puts Naruto straight to bed (it’s not the first time Naruto’s had sweets and sleep for dinner), and, feeling nostalgic, brings out the box that’s been sitting under his bed, unopened, for years.

There’s lots of photos, most of which feature friends long dead, but a few rather funny ones of Team Sarutobi as kids. Beneath those is Team Six’s official photo. All three of his genin smile widely for the camera, copying their sensei. It hurts to look at. The worst one of all is the kids in Ame.

He remembers that before, around this time, when he’d believed all three of them dead, how grief and regret burned through him that they had been killed in their pursuit of peace in Ame. He deemed them fully capable and left with no warning, after all, much in the same way he’d left Team Six.

As much as he tries not to think about his last day, his last hours fighting Nagato, the horror of it has never really left him. As a child, Nagato had been so kind- empathetic in a much quieter, calmer way than Naruto. Loss had twisted him, like it twists everything it touches, but in their last encounter Jiraiya had hardly recognized the boy he spent years with.

He never knew what exactly had happened to Yahiko, and Konan would have followed either of them, even if it meant to her own grave.

He can’t deny he still cares for the three of them deeply. They were good kids that held good intentions. If he can figure out when that changed, there’s still a chance for them. Intelligence be damned, Jiraiya needs to see for himself where they are and what they’re up to. He’s put if off long enough, and it’s possible that they are not yet monsters.

And if they are, he will have no choice but to bury them.

Chapter Text

Genma and Kakashi arrive back to Konoha, Kakashi damn near in pieces. The kid is limping along when they reach the Hokage tower, half-draped over Genma’s shoulder. It seems Kakashi is incapable of coming back from any mission unscathed. He’s one of their best, that is irrefutable, but sometimes Jiraiya wonders if depth perception ever plays a part in Kakashi’s frequent injuries.

According to their report, the simple task of assassinating one corrupt official a few villages over turned into an hours-long standoff, then an even bigger fight with a dozen missing-nin who had been masquerading as bodyguards, and ended in several broken ribs, a dislocated knee, and an assortment of stab wounds for Kakashi.

Genma tells the story with much more embellishment than Kakashi does, giving highlights of the battle and making sure to pat himself on the back for his actions, and it’s then Jiraiya realizes these kids are way too comfortable with him. He can’t begrudge them too harshly, of course, he’d felt the same way with Sensei, but more and more he thinks about disbanding his guard.

He had considered making a new Team Kakashi with the three of them, because they are well rounded as a group, but he’s grown fond of them. The easy banter in the Hokage’s office may be borderline insubordination at times, but without it he might be truly bored to tears with only paperwork for company.

It’s all he’s left with when he sends the boys onto the hospital. Mission reports to be signed, budgets to be approved, invitations to clan parties he most certainly will not be attending, all in a never-ending pile.

“It’s no wonder you wanted rid of this thing, Sensei,” Jiraiya grumbles under his breath, flicking the Hokage’s hat he hardly wears to the floor.

His hand is just starting to cramp from signing and stamping when Kabuto bursts into the office, dropping into a low bow. Like most of the ROOT kids, he’s unsettlingly formal for a child.

“Hokage-sama. Shizune-sensei sent me to tell you Sarutobi Asuma is awake and alert,” Kabuto says concisely.

Jiraiya drops the stack of files, shunshining out of the office from rooftop to rooftop until he’s outside Asuma’s window. Protocol be damned, he’s the Hokage and Tsunade can bite his head off for it later. 

The kid is still looking a little worse for wear, dark circles under his eyes and wrapped in a thin white sheet, but he supposes that a weeks-long coma would do that to a person.

“Jiraiya-sama,” Asuma blinks at him, wasting no time pushing himself up to sit. “There’s an Uchiha in the Akatsuki.”

Jiraiya very narrowly controls his emotions because that can’t be right. Itachi is just a child, and as far as he knows there are no Uchiha unaccounted for, dead or alive, save for the poor bastard who had his eye stolen by Danzo. The clan is very careful with their dead, because of their dojutsu.

Jiraiya perches on the end of the bed. “Are you sure?” He asks carefully. 

Asuma swallows. “Yes.”

Is that reliable enough? Can he believe Asuma blindly when what he’s saying seems impossible? “Was this Uchiha alone?”

“There were two of them. Everything I’ve heard confirms they work in pairs, like you said.”

“And the other one? Did you see their face?”

“No, I hardly had visual- I didn’t see either of them, at least not their faces. Just the cloak.”

“You didn’t see hair color, height, anything like that?” Konan’s blue hair is distinctive, and if Kisame is with them at this point his height and skin would be, too. In fact, few of the Akatsuki had no defining features. There was no need for them to be unassuming with the power they all held.

Asuma shakes his head. “Jiraiya-sama, it was like they knew I was looking for them. The minute I saw those clouds you drew for me, I was under.”

Jiraiya hears the rest of the report and thanks Asuma, jumping back out through the window. On the ground, he sends toads to Shikaku, Orochimaru, Fugaku, and Tsunade, calling an urgent meeting. 

In under an hour, they’re all gathered in Sensei’s old private office and Jiraiya’s painted privacy seals on every wall, the ceiling, and the door.

Fugaku looks absolutely furious, fists clenched at his sides. “What the hell is the meaning of this? To accuse one of my clansmen of defecting to a terrorist organization is outrageous.”

Shikaku, the only one of them sitting down, clicks his tongue. “Nobody is saying you had anything to do with it, Fugaku-san.”

Judging by Fugaku’s reaction to all of this, Jiraiya agrees. The Uchiha work hard to maintain their image of an upstanding, ancient clan, and have been known to dispatch their own missing-nin themselves, lest they bring shame to the Uchiha, or die and let their Sharingan fall into enemy hands.

“Asuma-kun swears on his life it was an Uchiha genjutsu,” Tsunade says. “We have no reason not to believe him.”

Jiraiya glances at Orochimaru, narrowing his eyes in question. Danzo? Almost imperceptibly, Orochiarmu shakes his head no. He supposes he has no choice but to believe his teammate. Orochimaru had admitted to performing the eye transplant on Danzo, but had thus far claimed no knowledge of that Sharingan’s origins.

“We keep a record of all our dead. Only a handful have ever in our history been deemed impossible to recover,” Fugaku continues. “The only unrecovered Uchiha of this decade was just barely a chunin, and without training from his clan there’s no way he’d be able to use that level of genjustu. Not to mention, Obito was crushed to death in a cave in. His teammates witnessed it.”

“Obito?” Jiraiya frowns, trying to place the familiar name.

“He was Minato’s student,” Shikaku supplies. “The same one that gave Kakashi-kun his eye.”

Jiraiya’s heart sinks, but he pokes his head into the hallway and barks at Raidou to get Kakashi from the hospital.

“You don’t think it’s possible he survived, do you, Jiraiya?” Tsunade says cautiously.

“Kakashi is the only one who can tell us that,” he replies, though he doesn’t believe that Minato’s worst student could have, firstly, survived injuries so gruesome he was willing to give up his Sharingan, and secondly, become a ninja powerful enough to put Asuma under a debilitating genjustu from a distance. By all accounts, Obito was the clumsy, overzealous weak link of Team Minato. But, the way Asuma had described being put under the genjustu before he’d even approached… is it possible he was recognized?

“This is ridiculous,” Fugaku interjects. “Hatake is proof Obito is dead. That wretched transplant was done by an inexperienced medic, in the field.”

Tsunade nods along. “I agree with Fugaku-san. I have examined Kakashi’s eye myself. The kid that gave it to him was in bad shape.”

“Send an Inuzuka tracking team,” Shikaku suggests lazily. “Their ninken can confirm if the body is there or not, even if it’s still unrecoverable.”

Fugaku agrees. “We will send an Uchiha, too. If the body is reachable we need it burned.”

Kakashi, swathed in bandages, lets himself into the room apprehensively. There’s no doubt in Jiraiya’s mind he’s been listening at the door. “Yes, Hokage-sama?”

“Hatake-san. You were the last person to see Uchiha Obito alive,” Fugaku snaps at Kakashi, who, barely through the door, pales.

Jiraiya doesn’t intervene. As much as he wants to tell Fugaku to break the news gently, this is a conversation between shinobi, not a therapy session.

Coldly, Kakashi answers yes. “He was declared KIA by Min- Yondaime-sama.”

“And to the best of your knowledge, this is correct?”

“Kakashi-kun, did you see him die?” Shikaku cuts into Fugaku’s line of questioning. Fugaku glares at him but doesn’t interrupt.

“No,” Kakashi says simply, not a drop of emotion in his voice or across his face.

Jiraiya crosses his arms and leans against the wall, wishing that the answer was different, wishing that it was anyone else’s team. “Report, Kakashi.”

It’s barely perceptible, but Kakashi’s whole demeanor changes at the command. Jiraiya can recognize the empty look in his eyes, it’s one he’s seen in himself many times when there was nowhere left for his emotions to hide.

“Four years ago, Team Minato was ordered to destroy Kannabi bridge. En route, Nohara Rin was captured by Iwa-nin. Uchiha Obito was instructed to complete the mission but broke away in pursuit of Nohara. He was ambushed, and a cave-in occurred, which crushed him. The ensuing fight made his body unrecoverable. Team captain Namikaze Minato reported him KIA.”

Fugaku makes a noise of indignation. “Interesting you leave out the stolen Sharingan, Hatake-san.”

There’s no reaction from Kakashi, just the same glazed expression.

“We all know what happened, Fugaku-san,” Jiraiya says, unwilling to start up another debate. The contentious point of Kakashi possessing the Sharingan is not his concern. “I’m authorizing a mission to investigate this. Kakashi, you’re dismissed.”

Kakashi turns for the door, but stops short. “I want it,” he says quietly.

“Out of the question,” Tsunade snaps. “You’re too close to this-“

“How else will you know where to look? I’m the only one left alive in this entire village who could show you that cave,” Kakashi fires back, turning to Jiraiya. “Hokage-sama. I want this.”

As his pseudo-guardian, Jiraiya wants to forbid Kakashi from this mission, wants to agree with Tsunade that this is a very, very bad idea. As his Hokage…

“Very well. Kakashi, return to the hospital. I’ll send a team to brief you later.”

Kakashi’s expression darkens before it goes blank. “Yes, Hokage-sama.”

“Rival!”

Kakashi wishes the earth would open up and swallow him whole. Of all the people he could run across today…

He ducks his head, ignoring Gai like that would ever make him go away. He’s never taken a hint in his life.

Gai falls into step next to him, bouncing along without a care in the world. “Are you recovered from your mission?”

Kakashi considers telling him no, that he’s still very injured, but knows that will only lead to more questions and a possible trip to the hospital. “Yeah.”

“Wonderful! How about a challenge? Last I checked-“

“Sorry, Gai, not really in the mood today.”

Gai’s face falls. Kakashi feels like he’s just kicked a thousand puppies.

“What’s wrong, my friend? Has something happened?”

For a small moment, he fights the urge to tell Gai the truth. That everything is wrong. That Kakashi himself is a curse on this village and he’s struck again. If Obito is alive, if Obito is alive and doing horrible things, it’s his responsibility.

“No, of course not,” he snaps, harsher than he intended.

“If that’s the case, what do you say we get ramen? I think our ban has been lifted from Ichiraku!”

Kakashi can’t help but to smile at the memory. “You think you’ve been forgiven for throwing up all over the counter?”

Gai flushes red. “I did not realize you could eat so much without showing your face.” He pauses, thinking. “But then! Then it motivated me even more to get stronger! I’m sure I could beat you now, if we were having a contest.”

“Well, I’ve changed my mind. Suddenly I am ravenous. I challenge you, Gai, to eat more bowls of ramen than me. Loser pays, too.”

If he’d done something in his last life to deserve a friend as good as Gai, Kakashi is grateful for it. Gai lights up like a firework, excitement bursting out of him.

It’s almost enough to distract him from the dreadful feeling currently eating him whole.

Jiraiya decides, after a brief moment of guilt, that he has to join Kakashi. Not only is he itching to leave the village, but he’s afraid if he lets Kakashi go the kid won’t come back, no matter what capable shinobi he puts on his team. It’ll allow him to scout a little, too. A good henge is enough to fool most shinobi, and they’re only going to Kusakagure. He’s not sure if the Hokage should leave the village on such a mission, but they are at peace, and Tsunade and Orochimaru by themselves are enough to deal with any threats.

Tsunade looks incredulously at him when he asks for her to watch the village in his absence, but he reminds her that she is more than capable, having held the title for longer in another life.

“Besides, I can’t really ask Orochimaru,” he says, and even though the tone is light the deeper meaning is there for both of them.

Tsuande looks down on him from her perch half-sitting on his kitchen table. After their meeting had ended, he’d called his team back to the house, picking up Naruto along the way. Thankfully, after a long day of playing, he’d been tired enough not to protest being put straight to bed.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust Fugaku or Shikaku. He’d considered on many occasions telling the latter the truth- Shikaku is too smart for his own good and with a few clues he’s sure he’d figure it out. But there’s context that neither of them can have, and that’s another reason Jiraiya has to leave personally. Much like Kakashi and his cave, no one else will know what they’re looking for.  

After an hour of agreeing that this was the best course of action, that perhaps there were always two Uchiha in the Akatsuki, Orochimaru left, and Tsunade lingered for a glass or two of sake.

“Fine,” Tsunade agrees, pursing her lips, “but you better come back alive.”

It’s as if her words knock the air out of him. He’d never mentioned to her about the last conversation they’d had in the future, how the way she’d spoken to him then almost made him turn around and vow to never leave.

“Jiraiya?”

“That was the last thing you said to me,” he says quietly, unable to look at her.

 “Before you died.” Her eyes soften.

Often, he wonders what would have happened had he succeeded in his mission, had he come home. There was a sliver of hope that Tsunade would have welcomed him back differently than all the other times before because they had grown so much closer. Perhaps she had realized after Orochimaru’s death how much their friendship meant, or maybe it was all of the time they had overlapping in Konoha together where her feelings grew.

“What… what was I, to you?”

Jiraiya laughs wetly. “My friend. My Hokage. I could lie to you, and believe me, I want to, but that’s the truth.”

She doesn’t frown, not exactly, but her expression is hard to place. She swirls the last bit of sake in her glass and downs it, lost in thought. Jiraiya doesn’t push her to say anything. He’s not sure he wants to hear it.

“You mean it, don’t you?” She asks, finally.

He nods, fearing his voice will give way to rather embarrassing tears. He does mean it. He’s always meant it.

Her brown eyes sparkle in the dim kitchen light when she looks at him. “Well then, I mean it when I say come back.”

Chapter Text

Jiraiya doesn’t bother Kakashi when he returns home, though whatever meager parental instinct he’s developed is screaming at him to check on the kid. It’s not as if Kakashi is a chatterbox at the best of times, but he usually gets a “yo” and a wave out of him.

Tsunade had left an hour ago, and nearing midnight he was starting to worry Kakashi was going to take an overnight vigil at the memorial stone again when he’d heard the window to Kakashi’s bedroom slide open, then slam shut.

He’s not sure how best to approach the situation. He can’t draw from experience, through it all he never lost a teammate young (by the time Orochimaru died he was a long way away from that title, and they were past 50, after all), and Kakashi seems to just feel things more intensely.

Jiraiya wonders if he’s the broken one sometimes, able to brush off death and grief in a way his fellow shinobi can’t.

He gives it a half hour or so, waiting alone at the kitchen table just in case Kakashi makes an appearance, then peeks in on Naruto before heading down the hall to go to bed. As he passes the bathroom he hears the sink running, and decides he should ambush Kakashi when he comes out, just to make sure that he’s some semblance of alright before they head out for their mission.

He waits for a minute, then five, then ten, and while he lets his anxiety build with thoughts of Kakashi’s suicidal tendencies, he decides he’s breaking down the door.

He doesn’t have to. It’s unlocked.

Kakashi is violently washing his hands at the sink, scrubbing with a bloodstained brush at his palms and muttering under his breath.

“Still there… still there…”

“Kakashi? Kid?” Jiraiya’s all but snapping his fingers in front of him, trying to grab his attention to no avail.

Sighing, he turns off the tap and gently guides away Kakashi’s bloodied hands. He’ll take him across the street to Tsunade or Shizune once he’s calmed down.

The kid is breathing shallowly as he steers them both back into Kakashi’s room. He sits him on the bed and wraps a clean towel around Kakashi’s hands to stop the blood from dripping everywhere.

“Kakashi. Breathe.”

Kakashi looks everywhere except for Jiraiya’s face, one grey eye darting wildly around the room.

Jiraiya does what Tsunade had taught him back during the war and exaggerates his breaths, deep and slow, until finally, Kakashi catches on.

The poor kid is shaking violently, breathing but now on the verge of tears. It’s unsettling. Kakashi is normally composed to a fault, and Jiraiya often forgets that this Kakashi is sixteen, not somewhere in his thirties, and chest-deep in constant loss.

Jiraiya sets a hand on his shoulder, meaning to talk him down, but that seems to break a dam. Kakashi cries and cries, big, broken sobs that Jiraiya hadn’t thought him capable of.

He sits next to Kakashi and wishes for Minato to be here so badly his chest aches. The feeling claws at his ribs, fighting to escape, but there is nowhere for the grief to go.

“I miss them all, but when Minato-sensei was h-here i-it wasn’t s-so hard.”

“I miss him, too, kid,” Jiraiya echoes, waging a losing battle against his own emotions. He shoves it all down, hard, and runs his hand down Kakashi’s back until he’s boneless against his side.

They stay like that for a few minutes, enough that Kakashi’s cries are quieted to silent tears. Outside the room, Jiraiya thinks he might hear tiny footsteps. The door creaks open, and Naruto’s blonde head pokes through. “Nii-san?” He whispers.

Kakashi perks up, wiping at his eyes and pulling his headband back down over the Sharingan. “Naruto-chan, what are you doing up?”

It’s uncanny how calm the kid sounds all of a sudden, but Naruto is not convinced. “You’re sad?”

Jiraiya opens his mouth to send Naruto back to bed, but before he can get a word out, Kakashi pats the bed next to him and tells Naruto to come sit with them.

“I really miss my team, Naruto-chan.”

Naruto’s big blue eyes widen. “You miss my dad?”

Kakashi nods. “Very much.”

Jiraiya holds his breath. Naruto knows that his parents are dead, knows that Minato was Kakashi’s sensei, but he’s two, and how much can a two-year-old understand? It isn’t something they talk about often.

Naruto wraps his little arms as far around Kakashi as they’ll go. He understands enough. “I didn’t knowned him, but I miss him too,” Naruto whispers. “And my mom.”

“They were…” Kakashi clears his throat, choking back tears, “very special to me.”

“Jiji, are you sad? You knowed him,” Naruto asks innocently. Jiraiya recognizes this from his own childhood, unable to truly understand what the children who knew their parents felt like, but all the same knowing they shared the same loss.

“Your dad was very special to me too, Naruto. He was very special to a lot of people.”

Naruto clambers over Kakashi’s lap and wedges himself between them, yawning and tucking into Jiraiya’s side. “Can I have a dad story?”

He and Kakashi trade off, and they talk about Minato until Naruto is snoring next to him.

There’s no fanfare when they leave Konoha a few days later. If Jiraiya has it his way, no one will even know he’s left the village, save for this team, his team, the Captain of Police, and the Jonin Commander.

Kakashi hasn’t looked him in the eye since the other night, which is fine, he supposes, and trails behind the other two, Sadako, who hasn’t said a word to any of them, and Asuma, who insisted he come along to “keep an eye on” Kakashi. It’s not exactly his first choice of team, but he’d have been stupid to take his own.

Sadako’s presence makes Jiraiya particularly uneasy. Since their disagreement (well, who is he kidding, since their falling out), she’s made it a point to avoid him, sending her genin by themselves when their team is due to report. He’s sure this is Fugaku’s doing. The police captain and his former student seem closer than he and Sadako ever were, though that doesn’t say much. As she’d so astutely pointed out, he’d spent the most time with Minato.

Kusakagure is about three days away at a moderate pace, and two and a half at a brutal one. Even though his muscles itch to run, he knows already they’ll go slow. Kakashi is mostly healed from his injuries, but Asuma breathes heavily while they run, poorly disguising it with forced coughs and complaints about the changing seasons.

Kakashi reminds him it’s winter, and the boys bicker back and forth nearly until they halt for the night in one of the tiny towns Jiraiya’s stayed in before. There’s an inn here, but more importantly, there’s a bar.

His henge is a rather convincing (and dashing) young man with nondescript brown hair, and for the first time since the war, he wears the standard Jonin flak vest and sweater. It’s cold as shit anyway, and he tucks his hands into his pockets as he walks across the street alone. Kakashi and Asuma are already inside, but he doesn’t sit with them, instead sitting at the bar, fully intent on taking advantage of his own room and disguise with the pretty bartender.

Not for the first time, Sadako ruins his night by sliding into the seat next to him. He remembers a time when she and the boys would devise highly elaborate schemes just to thwart his “intelligence gathering”. They’d made a game out of it by the end of their time together. Naruto, too, in the future had done his best to scare any potential informants off, but Jiraiya’s sure that it was more the boy’s natural propensity for being in the wrong place at the wrong time than any planning.

It’s probably for the best, the bartender isn’t nearly as beautiful as Tsunade anyway, and he can’t help but cling to the hope that this time when he comes back, she’ll be waiting for him.

“Buy me a drink?” Sadako asks sweetly. It’d be enough to fool anyone else, but he knows her well enough to see she says it dead behind the eyes.

Jiraiya does, just some cheap swill, and they toast to a successful mission. He’s still not sure what success means in this case.

If they find Obito’s body, then they’ll rule him out, retrieve his remains and go home. But, he’ll be back to square one, and back to groveling to the secretive Uchiha to release more records. If they don’t find his body, that means Asuma is right, and there’s an Uchiha capable of extremely high-level genjustu in the Akatsuki, who no doubt will have a grudge against Konoha after being left to die.

Success, at this point, has very little connotation with accomplishment.

“Did you know him?” Jiraiya asks after their third round of drinks sitting in silence.

Sadako raises an eyebrow. “Obito? I did.”

“Well?”

“Not really. He was kind of the clan fuck-up. I know Minato tried, but that kid was never going to make it through the war.”

Jiraiya hums in agreement. It’s not even Obito’s fault. Most of the kids that did make it were just lucky.

“How’s Kakashi-kun?”

Jiraiya scans the tables, and finds Kakashi and Asuma in a corner booth, talking quietly. “He’ll be alright.”

Sadako scoffs. “There you go again. I’ve met rocks with more emotional intelligence.”

“He’s an adult,” Jiraiya counters. “And a damn fine shinobi.”

She sucks on her teeth. “Since he was five. Maybe that’s where my parents went wrong. I didn’t get into the academy until I was six.”

One of Sadako’s many talents was always her ability to antagonize. He was warned by her academy teacher she was more combative than they’d usually prefer in a graduate, but there was a war going on. Young and stubborn himself, they’d argued like cats and dogs constantly and she never saw him as an authority figure. He doubts even the Hokage’s hat has changed that.

But, Jiraiya is older, and literally wise beyond his years now, and more importantly he will not be baited into another fight.

“I appreciate you checking on him,” he says.

She doesn’t quite know what to say to that. Her jaw clenches, and he wonders what exactly she’s holding back, why she sought him out in the first place.

“Thanks for the sake,” she says, getting up to leave.

“Goodnight, Sadako-san.”

He lingers in the bar for a little longer, listening. All he gets is small-town gossip, the bill for his entire team, and probably a hangover in the morning.

They reach Kusagakure two days later, and the lightheartedness Asuma and Kakashi’s back and forth had provided is gone, replaced by a cloud of dread. Nobody likes retrieval missions. Even the presence of Kakashi’s ninken does nothing to lighten the mood, though Jiraiya hopes the little pug on Kakashi’s shoulder provides him some comfort.

Kakashi leads their small group until they come up on a cave, a stone’s throw away from the rebuilt bridge. The entrance is completely obscured, just as Kakashi had said it would be, and at the time Minato was correct to assume Konoha would not be sparing the manpower to retrieve Obito’s body.

Pakkun looks solemn as he jumps down, giving one last sad look to Kakashi before he squirrels his way through the rocks.

Jiraiya sits. There’s nothing to do but wait. Asuma attempts to talk to Kakashi several times, before Sadako tells him to shut up, dragging him by the collar to sit next to her and pulling out a pack of cigarettes.

She offers one to everyone, and he and Asuma accept. Jiraiya’s never been much for them, but it beats twiddling his thumbs while they wait for Pakkun. He watches Asuma smoke with practiced ease and almost lets himself smile. The first time he’d been caught smoking as a kid, Asuma had begged Jiraiya and Orochimaru not to tell his father, or even worse, Tsunade.

As if Sensei, who smoked like a chimney, would have cared.

Nearly an hour of anxious boredom passes before Pakkun wriggles out of a small opening, trotting straight to Kakashi and spitting out a collection of headbands. “There are bodies in there. But not Obito’s.”

Kakashi looks restored by this news. Jiraiya in contrast, feels no joy.

Sadako picks through the pile of fabric, turning over each metal protector carefully. “Iwa.”

“Are you sure, Pakkun?” Asuma asks the little dog.

“There’s nothing. Not even bones. I remember Obito’s scent.”

The momentarily elated expression Kakashi had is wiped from his face, but it’s Asuma who says it. “If he’s not here, and he’s not in Konoha…”

Jiraiya searches the sky like it’ll show him the answer. “He was taken.”

Chapter Text

Some unfortunate bastards with death wishes attack them just before they cross the border back into Fire Country. It’s a clumsy group, but confident enough that if Jiraiya had to guess they’re probably former shinobi. Not Bingo worthy, judging by the surprise on the face of the man whom Kakashi throws one of Minato’s kunai into. He flashes to it, ripping the knife out of his eye socket and burying it in another man’s throat.

The third and fourth members of the raiding party scream as they’re burned alive with Sadako’s fireball, and a fifth one shouts “it’s the fucking White Flash!” just before Kakashi appears behind him, sending chidori through his heart.

In total there’s more than a dozen, Jiraiya counts them as they scatter through the trees, but between the four of them it takes not even five minutes to eliminate the enemy. They’d had no idea they’d just attacked the Hokage, not to mention his deadly former student, his slightly unhinged ward, and the son of the Sandaime.

Sadako claps Kakashi on the back, looking proud. “Fuck, kid, you’ll be as good as Minato one day!”

Kakashi doesn’t smile, not really, but nods in thanks, wiping the blood off the kunai and storing it.

Asuma’s doing the same off of his chakra blades, whistling at the pile of bodies. “Kakashi, that was… that was something.”

Jiraiya knows that Kakashi is good, of course he does, they train together frequently, but seeing him in action is nothing short of incredible. Minato would be proud. Jiraiya is proud.

It’s bittersweet, not just because thoughts of his late student pass through his mind, but because it makes him realize he can’t keep Kakashi close in his guard anymore, his talents are too great. As soon as they get back he’s putting a new team together.

Their short trek to the border is a quiet one, and they meet up with a patrol to relay the attack. The chunin in charge just sighs, confirming there have been more and more incidents like this. All five Great Nations have suffered because of the back-to-back wars, and people are desperate. Jiraiya makes a mental note to include it in his report to the Daimyo, though he’ll probably leave out he’d witnessed this firsthand. He’s hoping the village hasn’t burned to the ground on his little “vacation”.

The rest of their journey is peaceful, everyone except Jiraiya in much better spirits than when they set off. Kakashi, especially, seems to be oscillating between genuine happiness and his normal serious persona, which scares Jiraiya because he recognizes this. It’s hope, and it’s probably misplaced. If Obito is the Uchiha they are searching for, he’s not a friendly.

By the time they make it back to Konoha a day later, it’s dark out, and Jiraiya slips away from the group to avoid the gate guards and head straight to the Hokage tower.

“I said to leave it alone, Hime!”

“We have to tell him, Oro, he’s the damned Hokage!”

“Irrelevant! He’s still Jiraiya.”

Jiraiya pauses outside the door, straining to hear the conversation his teammates are having. In hindsight, he probably should have left Shikaku in charge.

He eases the heavy door open, holding his breath for whatever international incident he’s about to discover, only to find his two teammates gathered around… Naruto? He’d left Naruto with Yoshino-san for a reason. Tsunade is hopeless with young kids and Orochimaru is, well, Orochimaru.

“Jiraiya. You’re.. early,” Orochimaru says, stepping to hide his godson from view. Tsunade is scrambling with something behind him, and Naruto is giggling like mad.

When he peers around his teammate to check on Naruto, the boy cheers, running to Jiraiya and hugging his leg.

“Jiji! You’re back!”

Genma leaps through the window just as Jiraiya is inspecting the unfamiliar knitted hat on Naruto, startling everyone. “Tsunade-sama! They’re at the gate! You- oh. Uh, hi, Godaime-sama.”

Tsunade stalks over to Genma. “You’ve done it now,” she growls.

Genma, wide-eyed, ducks the smack she’d aimed at the back of his head and waves sheepishly, fleeing out the window.

Orochimaru sighs, and plucks the hat off of Naruto’s head, revealing his butchered hair. Naruto grins up at both of them.

“My haircut!”

He can barely contain his laughter. The kid looks like his hair went five rounds with a fireball and lost, sticking up in all directions, with the pieces by his face cut to his scalp and the back untouched.

“Shikamaru-chan had a fever, so Yoshino-san dropped Naruto off with Hime,” Orochimaru explains flatly.

“It’s not my fault!” Tsunade interjects. “I turned my back for a minute!”

His teammates dissolve into a petty argument, which he’s very content to watch until a small hand tugs on his pants.

“Jiji,” Naruto whispers. “They’re weird.”

Jiraiya nods in agreement, picking Naruto up under the arms and swooping him onto his shoulders. “Let’s go home, kid.”

They’ll stop at the barber first thing in the morning.

Besides a little bit of paperwork Tsunade couldn’t sign for him, Jiraiya catches up with his Hokage duties quickly and weeks pass uneventfully.

Sometimes he resents Konoha for putting him on a pedestal, and sometimes he resents himself for letting them. If he’d just disappeared with Naruto would they have been able to come after him? Sensei had let many other things slide, and he wonders if kidnapping the Jinchurriki would be Sarutobi’s line.

Now, he’s holed up in his office every day, waiting for others to do the work he wants to do himself. He’d always told Sarutobi that spy work took time, but he’s beginning to understand Sensei’s prior impatience. So much would be easier if he hadn’t committed himself to the village like this. It might have improved his mood, too.  

For better or worse, his weeks of boredom don’t last long. A Yamanaka barges into his office one day with news that T&I discovered something interesting on one of the ROOT operatives they’d captured two years ago.

“Inoichi-san requested you right away, Hokage-sama.”

Jiraiya wastes no time, following the woman to the halls T&I. Shikaku is already there, feet propped up on Inoichi’s desk like he owns the place. If he recalls, they’re teammates, and it’s not as if he’s in a position to judge to what order they share news among their friends. He’d unofficially dumped the prior council and replaced it with his own team, after all.

“We’ve found the seal,” Inoichi says, a curl in his lip that almost suggests a smile. This has been a long project. “It’s been invisible this whole time because we were looking for physical evidence.”

“It’s in their heads,” Shikaku supplies at Jiraiya’s confused expression. “Very troublesome.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be easy to remove,” Inoichi agrees. “I would wager to say that we’d need you to do it anyway, Jiraiya-sama. I don’t know any of my clansmen that would compare to your skill in fuinjustu.”

“Can you do that?” Jiraiya asks. He’s never known a non-Yamanaka to mindwalk.

Inoichi looks at him incredulously. “Of course. Just think of me as a, hm, a tour guide, maybe?”

Jiraiya nods in agreement, eager to hear how exactly that’s going to happen but unwilling to show enthusiasm for it. Orochimaru will be very jealous.

“Who do we unseal first? We can’t exactly do a test run,” Shikaku points out. “Inoichi has an easier time mindwalking if the participant is willing and I doubt any of our guests here are going to line up to go first.”

Jiraiya frowns. If the seal is as complicated as Inoichi says it is, he’ll need time to work on it. Preferably peace and quiet, too. He can’t do that if they’re being fought every step of the way.

“I don’t want to try the kids first, but if it’s our only option…” Inoichi trails off.

Jiraiya does not doubt that Yamato would gladly offer himself up to be tested on, but he can’t allow that. Not just because of his age and his horrific childhood, but because to risk losing the Mokuton over this would be stupid.

Kabuto has made strides, too, but he wouldn’t count on the kid’s progress to waver if the choice to remain loyal to Danzo was dangled in front of him.

It leaves only one choice.

“Shikaku, please summon Orochimaru.”

“Orochimaru?” Inoichi balks. “Orochimaru-sama wasn’t- was he?”

“I’m afraid so. Shikaku, get him.”

Shikaku looks oddly betrayed but nods and leaves. Inoichi doesn’t say much while they wait.

“I interrogated him myself, Jiraiya. After Sandaime was murdered,” Inoichi whispers. “How did he hide that from me?”

Jiraiya stares at him dumbly, as if to ask if he really needs an answer for that. They lapse into silence again until Shikaku returns with Orochimaru.

“This better be important, Jiraiya,” Orochimaru snaps. “I was in the middle of something.”

Shikaku looks seconds away from manhandling him, and by his expression, Jiraiya knows that this discussion is not over. Probably, he’s due for a much bigger talk with Shikaku.

“We understand you worked with Danzo,” Inoichi says placatingly. “I’d like your help.”

“It would be possible to remove the seal,” Jiraiya cuts in. There’s no need to beat around the bush when Orochimaru knows everything already. He waits for his reaction, for his face to change, anything, but it remains stoic.

“I don’t think you’ll enjoy what you find,” Orochimaru says finally, after a long, uncomfortable silence.

Jiraiya knows he’s not wrong. He knows, secondhand, what was found in Orochimaru’s lab when Sarutobi raided it, and he knows how hard his teammate fought to flee the punishment for it because he’s the one who had to stop him.

(And failed).

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Jiraiya says. Orochimaru’s wince is almost imperceptible, but Jiraiya knows he is smart enough to read between the lines of those few words to know he means that he’s seen all of it already, in the future. And he should understand that Jiraiya has seen much, much worse from him.

“You’ve proven to me that you won’t walk the same path as you did, Orochimaru. As long as you remain committed to that, nothing will change.”

Orochimaru agrees to the mindwalk. They both know he doesn’t have a choice. That Jiraiya had presented him one at all, even if it was an illusion is more than any other Hokage would have done in his stead. He can’t approve of Orochimaru’s actions, but he also can’t ensure that the future repeats itself because Orochimaru free of Konoha’s moral chains had caused a lot of grief and destruction.

Inoichi briefs both of them, explaining in detail how the jutsu works for each of them, and all the conditions Jiraiya must meet in order to join him. He almost declines, asks for another fuinjustu user to do it, but if for his own morbid curiosity or something else, he doesn’t. He needs to see for himself so he can bring that bastard Danzo to justice.

And maybe, too, to cleanse the guilt from himself.

They meet again the next day, the four of them sworn to secrecy. Jiraiya’s done all the damage control he’s willing to do for Orochimaru and if any of this mess were to get out… well, it’s more than he can deal with diplomatically.

“Ready?” Inoichi asks.

Jiraiya’s not sure who the question is meant for, but he and Orochimaru both agree it’s now or never.

Inoichi begins forming hand signs he doesn’t pay attention to, and when he blinks T&I is gone, replaced with a vast blackness that he and Inoichi are alone in.

It feels wrong to be invading Orochimaru’s private memories, but he tells himself it’s for the good of the village, and for the good of his friend.

“What happens now?”

As if summoned, Orochimaru appears in the black void. Except, he’s not their Orochimaru, he’s a small child, and he walks through them.

Inoichi nods to the child. “We follow his memories until we find what we need.”

Jiraiya follows Orochimaru, walking through his childhood home. He’d never been to the large estate his friend had spent his childhood in, only heard about it in passing until one day Orochimaru deemed it useless and had it demolished. He supposes it was too much for one kid, especially with ghosts roaming the halls, and that he can understand.

Orochimaru’s mother is in the kitchen, baking bread and humming to herself. She’s also in the garden, picking ripe tomatoes off the vine and handing them to Orochimaru to collect. A dozen things seem to be taking place at once, and as the memories go past, things in the house change, but the family remains.

Jiraiya opens doors until another, older Orochimaru appears. This one is compelling, almost demanding that he follow it, unlike the few he’d seen in the house.

“I’m so sorry, Orochi.” A faceless woman tells the child. Orochimaru crumples, and the house seems to fall with him. This must be when his parents died.

Jiraiya doesn’t want to intrude. He and Inoichi move along, walking through some memories that Jiraiya recognizes because he shares them, and many more he doesn’t. He watches vestiges of his younger self laugh, a good sport getting his ass kicked by both his teammates and Sarutobi-sensei, until he learns self-control. It’s a strange feeling to see himself through Orochimaru’s eyes.

By the time he sees a jonin vest on his friend, Jiraiya is tired. He feels weightless and at the same time driven down by the gravity of all the memories demanding his attention. Orochimaru’s childhood, while at times unpleasant, is nothing compared to the memories they walk through now of the second war. It’s incredibly overstimulating, and he wonders how the Yamanaka manage to mindwalk frequently.

He sees things he’s never wanted to see. His friends dying. Nawaki getting blown up. Orochimaru sleepless in the giant house that belonged to his parents, experimenting.

He watches his team battle Hanzo in a sea of dead ninja. He watches his own face fall when they meet Nagato and Yahiko and Konan. He watches himself abandon his team.

(Orochimaru and Tsunade were silent on the trek back to Konoha, he never knew that.)

He has to hold himself back from following the trails that lead to Tsunade, and looks away when he spots himself and his genin team, as if screaming out to the memory of himself would make the difference. If Inoichi notices his discomfort, he says nothing.

Agonizingly, they get closer. There are flashes of the third war around them now. Bloody battles, bodies piled up, glimpses of himself and Tsunade and Orochimaru, not for the first time, standing alone on decimated fields.

Jiraiya feels another pull to one of the scenes around them, and follows that Orochimaru running fast through the trees, yelling about Tsunade’s reinforcements.

He doesn’t understand the significance until he stops next to his teammate, who has a front-row seat to Kato Dan’s last breaths, Tsunade blocking most of the view, desperately trying to heal him.

Jiraiya had quite liked Kato, ironically. He was a hell of a shinobi, with all the passion for the village that Jiraiya had lacked at that time. He could understand why Tsunade had loved him.

Next to him, Orochimaru’s face twists in sadness, rare tears falling down his cheeks before he jumps down from his perch and runs to Tsunade. She throws herself at him as soon as he kneels next to her, howling with grief.

Jiraiya pauses, watching Tsunade scream into Orochimaru’s shoulder. There’s a flash of jealousy in him, which quickly fades as the memory unfolds. It’s worse than it was with Nawaki. And Orochimaru is a much better friend than Jiraiya had been. He doesn’t leave her side, even as she screams and kicks and hits, covering both of them in Kato’s blood with her thrashing.

Jiraiya looks for himself, though he knows that he wasn’t there. He wishes he’d abandoned whatever stupid mission he’d probably assigned himself, far away, doing “reconnaissance”.

He watches until Orochimaru begins to half-drag Tsunade from her dead boyfriend, pausing to retrieve Hashirama’s necklace. Tsunade cradles it to her chest, sobbing loudly, but there are no other words exchanged between them.

“Keep going,” Jiraiya tells Inoichi, but his eyes don’t leave his broken teammates until the scene fades as they walk in opposite directions.

Jiraiya doesn’t stop to look at anything after that, he’s too burned out by the horrific violence, and they finally come to a door, alone in the black void. It’s padlocked with heavy chains and Jiraiya knows that this is Danzo’s sealing work.

He begins working through it the best he can. Time passes differently, he knows from his brief with Inoichi, but it feels like he stands there for days, analyzing the seal and looking for weak points.

If he were anyone else, it would have been impossible. Maybe an Uzumaki could have broken it, maybe Minato, but he’s the only one alive who could find fault in this seal. Danzo is a fuinjutsu master, and they’d never known it.

“What happens if I break it?” He asks Inoichi.

Inoichi shrugs. “I’m not sure. But we exist here, right now, so if you could warn me if it’s going to kill us…”

There’s a definite chance that it might kill them. He chooses not to share that thought.

He weaves a seal of his own into Danzo’s, creating a key that’s hopefully permanent, but if not should at least buy them time, and activates it without hesitation. A quick death would be a mercy, if it comes to that.

The chains explode off the door and metal shards shower down around them before dissolving into the blackness. The door cracks open.

Jiraiya steps in, following the sliver of light.

Chapter Text

Whatever explosive scene he’s expecting to walk into isn’t there when he enters Orochimaru’s sealed memories. All the same, he asks Inoichi to wait, to only follow if it seems like he’s in danger. As it is, he’s already going to have a lot of explaining to do when they return.

These memories are darker, less defined than some of the previous ones. The seal seems to have pulled everything related to Danzo into one disjointed, blurry mess. Jiraiya follows Orochimaru first to Danzo’s official office, right under Sensei’s nose.

“They don’t appreciate your talents, Orochimaru-san,” Danzo purrs.

Orochimaru tenses, but agrees to an arrangement, interest piqued at the thought of a lab where he could run unlimited experiments.

He finds the next memory in said lab, and to say he’s unprepared for what he sees is an understatement.

Jiraiya thought he knew his friend. Thought he knew his character, his morals, his ability to do good.

Faced with Orochimaru injecting infants with the Shodaime’s cells (and where to even begin with that), leaving each one in excruciating pain, he’s not sure he ever knew him at all. Jiraiya is a shinobi, he’s lived through two wars and hundreds of missions, it’s not as if he’s never seen a dead child. Yet, the image of cold, lifeless babies who have died in agony makes him physically ill. He can’t help but to imagine an infant Naruto, crying in pain as the Kyubi tested the strength of its prison.

Orochimaru seems to care about the first dozen, darting around trying to save their lives, but eventually, he hands each one off to an assistant, a prisoner Jiraiya recognizes from T&I, and does not pursue their cries. None of the babies live.

“Infants are not viable for this experiment. Don’t bring me more.”

“Yes, what a shame. Such a waste of a finite resource.”

Somehow, Jiraiya doesn’t think he’s talking about children. Many more float in tanks, and with the orphanage records he acquired while he investigated the kids, he knows just how big that particular supply is.

How had Konoha failed its children so horribly?

He’s afraid to count just how many, and moves on, recognizing a familiar head of muddy brown hair that belongs to Yamato. He’s put through a similar round of torturous injections, but unlike the infants, he lives through them.

Danzo’s crocodile smile when he sees Orochimaru’s progress with Yamato is enough to make Jiraiya’s blood begin to boil. Sensei used to say they had a difference in political opinion. He’d left out that Shimura Danzo was, is, and will be evil until the day Jiraiya can get his hands on him again.

Yamato, once removed from Orochimaru’s lab, comes back often at Danzo’s side, obedient and unflinchingly loyal.

Jiraiya walks away from Yamato, feeling sick. Through another door, he follows an Orochimaru again, this time into a room with Danzo on a slab. There’s a scalpel in Orochimaru’s hand and instruments holding Danzo’s eye exposed, prepped for a surgery.

He hopes, against all rationality, that Orochimaru will slice his throat then and there, but of course, he doesn’t. Jiraiya doesn’t have to move around Orochimaru’s hunched form to know what he’s actually doing, the jar on the table with one red eye answers that for him.

“Do the Uchiha know?”

“That’s none of your concern, Orochimaru.”

When the transplant is complete, Danzo sits up, a wicked grin spreading across his face as the Sharingan whirls in its new socket.

“The Yondaime is getting suspicious, Danzo.”

“I fear our time operating freely in the village is nearing its end.”

The actual memory is missing here, the day he and Orochimaru talked in the Forest of Death about the future, but Jiraiya knows that it has happened when he’s drawn to another scene in Danzo’s office.

For a quick moment, he’s terrified Orochimaru told Danzo everything. Teammate or not, Sannin or not, Jiraiya would kill him for a betrayal of that magnitude.

“Jiraiya seems a little overeager to be home, wouldn’t you say?”

Orochimaru remains expressionless, but there’s a hint of something defensive when he answers.

“Jiraiya is none of your concern.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Danzo sneers.

A ROOT ANBU with a cat mask jumps down from the ceiling at Danzo’s signal, landing between them.

“Cat, report.”

“Jiraiya-sama has been to the future.”

What little color there is in Orochimaru’s face drains. Jiraiya feels the same, like his heart has stopped beating. They must have been followed into the forest. If Danzo has known this entire time…

“Why the long face, Orochimaru? By the sound of it, our endeavors were very successful. And once I have Hiruzen and Jiraiya out of the way, there will be nothing stopping us from achieving my goals.”

Orochimaru holds his composure until he’s safely back in his lab, at which point something snaps, and before the memory fades he’s nearly destroyed all of his equipment in a blind rage.

Jiraiya’s seen enough. Any more and he’ll kill Orochimaru the second he’s out of his head. He retraces his steps, watching memories play backward until he reaches Inoichi again. His head is spinning, red seeping into his vision.

“Let’s go,” he says.

Inoichi nods, weaving handsigns. Again, he blinks and he’s back in his body, back in T&I.

“The ROOT agent with the cat mask. Was he captured?” Jiraiya demands, wasting no time.

Inoichi is quick to answer. “Yes, he’s been held here since. We haven’t been able to get anything out of him.

“Execute him, immediately.”

If Inoichi is surprised, he doesn’t show it, only complies. “Yes, Hokage-sama.”

Jiraiya slams the door shut after Inoichi, trapping himself, Shikaku, and Orochimaru in the room. “I swear on the sage, start talking now, Orochimaru,” Jiraiya growls. “Who else knows?”

Orochimaru looks up at him, dead-eyed. “No one. Cat. Danzo.”

“Wait a minute, who else knows what?” Shikaku snaps.

Jiraiya ignores him, pulling Orochimaru from his chair by the throat. “If you want to live, you’ll tell me everything about that bastard.”

“I told you you wouldn’t like it,” Orochimaru answers, shoving Jiraiya off. Shikaku puts himself in between them, hands outstretched like he could stop either of them from mauling each other.

“Oi! What the hell is going on here?”

“It’s none of your concern, Shikaku,” Jiraiya says icily, stepping around him. “Get out of the way.”

“Not my concern? You’ve been acting weird for years, Jiraiya. I’m the damned Commander, if something is threatening this village, if you know something, it is my fucking concern.”

Jiraiya pulls Orochimaru out into the hallway. “Not today, it’s not.”

Shikaku’s protests are cut short by the closing door and Jiraiya drags Orochimaru outside, throwing him harshly outside the building.

“I thought I knew you,” he yells, watching his friend sit in the dirt. All the trust he’d placed in Orochimaru, all the progress they’d made, it feels burned, it feels ruined. He feels much the same as he had fighting to capture his former teammate when Sensei had asked him to. The same betrayal. The same nagging, illogical hope that this isn’t really happening.

“You did know me,” Orochimaru insists. “You just refused to acknowledge it.”

Jiraiya thinks perhaps he’s right, but in the moment it doesn’t matter. As soon as Orochimaru stands up he punches him square in the jaw. “Fuck you.”

“I didn’t lie to you, you lied to yourself,” Orochimaru hisses, rubbing at his face. “If you want to fight me, let’s fight over something that matters!”

“That matters? What you did, I can’t even believe that-“

Orochimaru hits him back before he can finish the sentence, fist crashing hard against Jiraiya’s cheekbone. “What I did was because I had no choice!” He shouts. “You’d think you’d be able to get that through your thick fucking skull! I thought I was making a difference! A few dozen lives for Konoha’s guaranteed security? For my own freedom? I was going to know everything!”

“They were children!” Jiraiya roars back, tackling Orochimaru into the alley behind T&I.

“What was the difference between a death in my lab or a death on the battlefield? Ten years? Maybe less?”

Jiraiya pounds his fist into Orochimaru’s face, blood splattering both of them. He hits and hits until Orochimaru disappears with the telltale pop of a substitution jutsu.

He doesn’t whip around fast enough, and the real Orochimaru kicks him in the ribs from behind, sending him flying.

“Don’t act surprised now, Jiraiya.”

They’re fighting each other in earnest now, trading kicks and punches back and forth. Neither of them specializes in taijutsu, but it goes unspoken between them that this is a good, old-fashioned fistfight.

Jiraiya’s not sure how long it goes on for, lost in the moment, lost in the battle, but just as he’s about to kick Orochimaru in the stomach something (or someone) rains down from above, making him stumble.

Tsunade punches the earth between them, sending them both into the air. “Not here, you fucking morons!”

He and Orochimaru have both landed on their asses, and it would be funny, it would remind him of the days of their youth if he wasn’t so angry.

“Whatever the hell is going on, you can’t settle it in front of the whole damn village,” Tsunade cries. “Get up!”

They both get to their feet, Orochimaru cradling what is no doubt a broken arm and Jiraiya stumbling as he suddenly feels every crack in his ribs.

He stares at Orochimaru over Tsunade’s head, still seething. “This isn’t over.”

Something akin to hurt passes over Orochimaru’s face. “You promised nothing would change,” he says quietly. Jiraiya can’t even look at him.

“That’s enough,” Tsunade says firmly. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow. All of us. Oro, go to the hospital. Jiraiya, fuck off.”

He does just that, shunshining to the roof of T&I to collect himself.

 Jiraiya visits the bar after he pawns Naruto off on Kakashi. He’s in a foul mood, and he doesn’t want to take it out the boys. Kakashi seemed to have sensed that and took Naruto without complaint. He didn’t dare go over to the Nara’s. He owes Shikaku quite an apology, and a huge explanation. Not to mention, how many people had seen them fighting? It’s not uncommon for shinobi to settle things with their fists, but he’s the Hokage.

He should drown himself in sake over it; what did he look like to the village, fighting Orochimaru like that?

Late in the evening, Tsunade finds him at their usual table and sits without a word. She’d refused earlier to heal his face, and he rubs at a sore spot on his cheek where Orochimaru got a lucky hit in. They drink together in silence for a while, and Jiraiya feels himself shrink under her disapproving stare.

“Do- ah, never mind.”

Tsunade raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“I had to do it.”

“Had to? Jiraiya, you didn’t have to do any of it,” she snaps. Her glass trembles in her hand. She must have already gotten Orochimaru’s side of the story. “You let your own curiosity get the better of you and now look what you’ve done.”

He frowns. “You’re saying you wouldn’t have looked?”

She sighs, fisting a hand in her hair. “No. I don’t think I would have.”

“It was a crime, what he did, Tsunade,” Jiraiya argues.

“And what good does it do to anyone now? Does seeing it with your own eyes make it real to you? Were the children that were freed from ROOT not enough evidence?”

“It doesn’t bother you that he was using your grandfather’s corpse for this!?” Jiraiya cries, smacking his fist on the table. “Why aren’t you angry?”

Tsunade shushes him. “Of course I’m angry! The more and more I find out about Konoha, the angrier I get! I’m angry with Orochimaru, I’m angry with Sensei, hell, I’m angry with all of the faces on that mountain! But this village looks to its strongest for guidance, Jiraiya. We can be angry, you can be angry, but not like that, not anymore.”

He is angry. He has been since the day he arrived sixteen years in the past. And it isn’t just Orochimaru. He’s had to make peace with so much, even his own death, and the further he immerses himself in the day-to-day of the past, the further he gets from going after the bigger picture.

“What happened in the future, or the past, or whatever, isn’t going to happen again. We’re making sure of that. But you have to let this go.”

“You didn’t see what I saw, Tsunade.”

“We’re wasting time going after Orochimaru,” she hisses, “you had your opportunity to punish him already and you didn’t take it. This is about Danzo, now.”

She looks away from him, downing another glass of sake and waving down the bartender. “Jiraiya, you told us you knew it already. You made your bed. Now lie in it.”

She’s right, he knows she is. He has to make the best of what he’s got. He glares at her, but shoves over his cup to be refilled and downs it. “Let me drown it a little first.”

She smirks, raising her glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

They do.

He wakes up tangled in a nest of blonde hair. He’s had this dream before. Soon, he’ll roll over and see Tsunade’s beautiful face, superimposed over whatever girl he’s brought home from the bar.

Carefully, he removes the hair from his eyes, only to discover he is not dreaming.

The events from last night hit him like a hurricane. They’d stayed in the bar for several hours, far past any other patrons, attempting to drink their demons under the table. Jiraiya thinks he might have succeeded somewhere around the time he and Tsunade were both hunched in the alley, puking. It was hard to think about dooming the village and failing his friends when the most pressing thing in front of him was not keeling over from alcohol poisoning.

He thinks he half-carried Tsunade all the way to the Senju gates, and then- then, he’d walked her home. Somehow, it seems, he didn’t make it back to his.

Tsunade stirs but doesn’t acknowledge the situation, just nestles into his chest further and sighs. “Five more minutes.”

His heart feels so full it might burst. He hopes she doesn’t notice how it races, with her ear pressed to his sternum. Even if this is just a drunken mistake and he’s sure they did nothing but actually sleep, it feels right and he doesn’t want it to end.

His thought about this since he’d first laid eyes on her, and over the years he’s come to realize that what he feels for her is more than just a lustful teenage crush. Tsunade is beautiful, yes, but she’s also funny, and fiercely independent and capable, and more importantly brave enough to call him out on his own mistakes.

He wonders- could she ever feel the same for him?

Eventually, Tsunade removes herself, offers him one of her many (questionable) hangover cures, and they eat breakfast together in near silence. The real world seems to creep into their morning, and there are other responsibilities they must tend to. He’s dreading all of them.

“I’d better go,” he tells her as he’s almost out the door.

“I’ll see you, Jiraiya,” she answers, and he thinks he might spot a ghost of a smile on her lips.

He’s afraid to ask what this means, unwilling to break it before it even comes together.

Chapter Text

The new team Kakashi is a two-man squad with Asuma, much to the devastation of Kakashi’s former teammates, who lament the news as soon as he’s broken it.

Jiraiya waves off their whining, even promising Genma they can have a say in the vacant position. He seems thrilled, until Kakashi casually suggests that Maito Gai may be available, and the boys devolve into a squabble while Raidou trips over an apology trying to separate them.

“Hokage-sama, ANYONE but Gai, please,” Genma cries from where he’s pinned on the floor.

Kakashi, triumphant and rather rudely sitting on Genma’s back, has an evil glint in his eye. “Jiraiya-sama, Gai is a capable and unwaveringly loyal shinobi. Genma would know. They were teammates.”

Genma wriggles underneath Kakashi, trying to buck him off. “Kakashiiii!” He whines.

Kakashi laughs unforgivingly, digging in his heels.

 “Now, now, you’ll both just have to defer to Raidou-san, he’s the captain, you know,” Jiraiya tells them noncommittally. His most meaningful interaction with Maito Gai had been when he’d mistakenly sent a flying kick directly into Jiraiya’s face, shouting about the power of Youth, and perhaps that colors his decision to privately side with Genma.

Gemma’s eyes light up. “Oh! What about a girl! Raidou, let’s pick a girl!”

Kakashi rolls his eye, letting Gemma up off the floor.

“Don’t you know better than to shit where you eat?” Raidou snaps, red creeping over his face. “Hokage-sama, I am so sorry for their behavior-“

“-hey! That’s not what I meant!” Genma cries indignantly.

“He’s right, Captain, he’s never touched a girl in his life,” Kakashi drawls.

Genma turns an amusing shade of beet red. “N-neither have you! I’ve touched plenty of girls!”

Jiraiya can’t help but laugh at the boys. He’s going to miss this.

He shoos the three of them out, Genma and Kakashi still bickering, sensing Shikaku lingering at the door. His reputation as a thoughtful, self-assured strategist is well-earned, and as long as Jiraiya has known him he’s never been so hesitant. It’s time they had that talk.

“Shikaku. Close the door.”

He does, stepping into the room with a serious expression. “Hokage-sama.”

Jiraiya is busy scrawling a privacy seal on the door and waves away the formality. “Jiraiya is fine. This is going to be a more off the record type of talk, I think.”

“Why are you here?” Shikaku asks, after they’ve both sat down. The windows are all closed and in the dim light of the office his face looks haggard.

“What do you mean?”

“Konoha. Why are you here in the village?”

“Ah, that. It’s kind of a long story. You might not even believe me.”

“Try me.”

He sighs. He’s thought long and hard about this. There’s nothing to suggest Shikaku isn’t perfectly trustworthy, but he still hesitates to tell him everything. In a way, it makes all of it so much more real if someone outside his team knows. He hadn’t even told Sarutobi-sensei, though perhaps that ended up being for the best.

“Fifteen years in the future, I used a time-travel seal as I was about to die. That was two years ago.” Jiraiya decides to relay the information simply, as if they were talking about ordering more supplies.

Shikaku doesn’t flinch, to his credit. “That still doesn’t answer my question.”

Jiraiya had expected more of a reaction, but he supposes he shouldn’t be surprised. Shikaku is probably the second smartest man in the village, next to Orochimaru, and if he accounts for social awareness, he’s the first. “I’m here for Naruto. Minato named me his godfather.”

“You didn’t come back the first time, did you?”

It’s only a speculation, but it’s true and it stings. He’s not sorry for his actions in the past, but he’s not sorry for them now, either. Naruto is the light of his life, the child of the prophecy, but without his knowledge of the future, he wouldn’t have been able to know that to make the decision to stay. The paradox of it all makes his head hurt sometimes.

“No. In the future, I didn’t come back for him. He was outcast because of it, and everyone in the village feared him. Shikamaru, your son, he was one of the few children who would even acknowledge Naruto’s presence.”

The corner of Shikaku’s mouth upticks, but he doesn’t add anything else.

“Orochimaru and Tsunade are the only ones who know. And,” he sighs, “Danzo.”

“So what’s changed?”

Jiraiya wracks his brain for a concise answer. “I have.”

He tells Shikaku a version of events not altered from what he told his teammates, but without the emotion the story seemed to drag up in him the previous times, and he’s not interrupted once.

When he’s done talking, Shikaku stares pensively at the ceiling, hands shoved deep in his pockets. “I think you should tell Fugaku-san.”

That he hadn’t seen coming. “What?”

Shikaku sighs, sitting up and resting his elbows on his knees. One hand props up his face. “You should tell Fugaku-san.” He pauses, raising an eyebrow, “Did I believe that Uchiha Itachi massacred the clan by himself?”

Jiraiya nods. “Everyone did. He was ANBU by eleven, a real prodigy.”

“Tch. Still, things must have broken down badly for Sandaime to authorize it, if he did.”

“From what I understood, there would have been a coup,” Jiraiya supplies.

“Then it’s worth it,” Shikaku decides. “You’re the Hokage, you can’t go on the hunt for the Akatsuki yourself. But the Uchiha- Jiraiya, you’re here in the village. This can’t go further than it already has.”

It’s maddening to hear, because Shikaku is right. What progress has he made with them besides halting the plan to move them to the outskirts of the village? He thinks of the betrayal written across Sadako’s face when she’d confronted him about Danzo’s Sharingan and concludes: none at all.

Peace was easier said than done.

“Invite him here and tell him the truth,” Shikaku insists. “If anyone deserves to know what happened to the clan, it’s Fugaku. Itachi is his son.”

He agrees. When Shikaku spells it out for him it seems so simple, so obvious an answer. Fugaku is not an unreasonable man. Bitter, yes, but it seems he has reason to be. If Jiraiya can gain Fugaku’s trust, there is hope to bring the Uchiha back from the brink of starting a civil war, and like it or not, the clan is home to the most talented ninja in the village.

That they are mostly stuck inside policing it, well, Jiraiya isn’t a stupid man. He knows what it means.

Perhaps it’s time he changes it.

He’s spent most of the day with Shikaku, but the sun hasn’t yet set by the time he meets his team at the training grounds. Tsunade and Orochimaru are both sitting against a tree, Tsunade with a scowl on her face and Orochimaru looking as nervous as he was probably ever capable of.

“What a welcoming party!” He grins at his teammates. Neither of them return it, of course.

Tsunade glares at him in annoyance. He must have kept them waiting.

Orochimaru hasn’t made eye contact with him, and Jiraiya briefly considers trying for levity, but somehow the tension between them doesn’t seem like one that could disappear with a misplaced joke or two.

“Where’s Naruto-chan?” He asks instead.

“Kakashi and his friends took him with them for training,” Tsunade answers. “They’ll be out for a while- the kid with the bowl cut insisted on walking to the training ground on his hands. Damn near blew my eardrums out yelling about it,” she grumbles.

Jiraiya hides a smile, though he can’t help but think he’s made the right choice blacklisting Gai from his personal guard.

They stand quietly. He can feel Tsunade glaring daggers at both of them, and Orochimaru must too, since he avoids looking in her direction.

“Well?” She demands impatiently.

Jiraiya catches Orochimaru’s desperate glance at their third teammate, it mirrors his own, but she has no sympathy for either of them.

“Come on then, I don’t have all night!”

He stares down at the ground intently, feeling like a scolded child more than a nearly sixty year old man (or is it forty?). He wishes suddenly for Sarutobi-sensei. Their teacher had always been a good mediator.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Before he can react, Tsunade has both of them by the collars, knocking their heads together then dropping them. “Start, you idiots!”

Orochimaru is just as startled as he is, but he knows they’d both rather fight than talk, so Jiraiya doesn’t hesitate further and tackles Orochimaru to the ground.

Orochimaru grunts as the wind is knocked out of him, surprised, but fights back, kicking Jiraiya off of him then pulling that disgusting sword out of his throat. Jiraiya’s always thought that was a horrible party trick.

“Don’t kill each other!” Tsunade shouts at them, then under her breath mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like “or do, what do I care” as she begins to walk away.

Jiraiya’s not one for swordfights, so he ups the stakes and summons Gamabunta, laughing as he stands on his dear toad friend’s enormous head.

“Jiraiya.”

“Bunta! Up for a little spar today?”

The giant toad nods, or at least that’s what Jiraiya thinks he feels him doing, then they spring into action.

Not to be outdone, Orochimaru summons Manda, landing atop the great purple snake and meeting their charge.

He and Orochimaru give it their all for nearly an hour, no words exchanged between them, just the ground-leveling Justus they both scarcely have had an opportunity to practice. Jiraiya can’t remember the last time he’d felt so strong. He’s become used to training by himself, or with the toads, or training while he teaches, and while that’s all well and fine, there’s nothing compared to the feeling he gets when he doesn’t have to hold back at all.

He’s missed having Orochimaru around as his equal.

The spar is only called when Manda becomes irritated he’s not allowed to kill and disappears with a pop, sending Orochimaru careening towards the ground. Jiraiya dismisses Gamabunta, too, a wild smile across his face as he enjoys the freefall for a moment before he slows himself down with chakra.

He hits the ground laughing, and quickly realizes he’s not alone. Orochimaru is laughing, too. He can’t remember the last time they’d done this, the last time they had fun together. He feels like a young genin again, laying in the grass, goofing off with his friends.

“Manda is the worst.”

Orochimaru ducks his chin, hiding a smirk. “He’s not. He doesn’t enjoy sparing.”

“He’s missing out!” Jiraiya exclaims. “Oro, we’ve got to do this more often!”

Orochimaru only rolls his eyes and they lapse into silence, the heavy cloud of why they’re here in the first place beginning to settle over them again.

“Oro-“

“Jiraiya-“

“I shouldn’t have looked.”

“No,” Orochimaru agrees.

There’s a long, awkward silence Jiraiya doesn’t know how to fill. Nothing they can say here today will truly fix anything. Nothing will bring back the dead.

“I regret it,” Orochimaru says quietly.

Jiraiya nods tightly, a lump in his throat, suddenly flooded with the memory of the Godaime Tsunade’s office, where they both looked at each other blankly, shocked after the news that Uchiha Sasuke had felled his mentor.

At that time, it had felt like Orochimaru really was immortal. So far into his obsession evading death, Jiraiya could truly not picture a scenario that would actually kill him. Even with his arms hanging dead at his side from Sarutobi-sensei’s Reaper Death seal, Orochimaru had put up a fight that had almost killed both himself and Tsunade, not to mention the state that Naruto had been left in.  

Jiraiya had wondered during that fight, fresh off the death of Sensei, if he could have done anything to turn Orochimaru, but came to the conclusion that it was out of his hands, and had been for a long time.

In hindsight, he wasn’t wrong. By then, the Orochimaru of the future had fallen so far Jiraiya could not have reached him even if he’d tried. He’d believed his former friend irredeemable. Perhaps Orochimaru had felt the same about him at one point, and that’s where their relationship had crumbled.

He’s been given so many second chances since he’s come back to the past. Some of them he’s fumbled, breaking everything he has the misfortune to touch, but he pictures Naruto’s sunny hair and babbling smile and realizes it’s days like this that are exactly where he belongs, no matter how much more there’s left to try to fix. Exhausted after a spar with his teammate, hopeful for the future with the woman he’s always loved, and grateful for the strange little family he’s built with two orphaned boys that he’d give his life for.

He won’t forgive, or forget, what Orochimaru has done. But there is room in his heart for acceptance.

He offers his friend a hand, hoisting him up.

“Orochimaru. I believe you.”

Chapter Text

Fugaku wipes the blood streaming from his eyes. If he were a more honest man he could admit that there are tears mixed in, too. Someone shoves a handful of tissues at him and sits on his left, prodding at his injured arm.

“I don’t know what the fuck just happened back there, but you saved both our asses,” Tsume says lowly.

(Fugaku often wonders where his teammate got off with such a foul mouth. No one had been surprised when little Hana-chan’s first spoken words were to call her father a bastard. Fugaku had been inclined to agree, but had also been quick to keep her playdates with Itachi short and supervised.)

The memory fails to make him smile or stop the shaking in his hands, long having let his sword clatter to the ground. Rota is dead. He’s dead and it’s all Fugaku’s fault. What will he tell his wife? His daughter?

“Don’t go and start with that shit,” Tsume whispers. “He wouldn’t want us to be all-,” she pauses, sniffling suspiciously, “worked up about him. You need to see a medic.”

“I’m fine,” he chokes out, hardly convincing himself.

“Yeah, look, I know I don’t get to know all the Uchiha family secrets but I’m pretty damn sure your eyes aren’t supposed to bleed like that. You’re hurt, Fugaku. Don’t throw yourself back out there and get killed.”

He begins to argue when he catches Tsume’s blurry eye. Either there’s still blood in his or his teammate is crying. Tsume never cries.

“I’m not losing both of you today,” she adds fiercely, gripping his shoulder. “Now get up or I’ll carry you there myself.”

Somehow, he finds the strength to get to his feet, swaying until Tsume swings in to support him. She chatters through the journey, a tell of her nerves, and he feels guilt gnawing at him, knowing he’s leaving her alone on the battlefield. The admittance of injury had made him realize just how badly he’s been hurt.

The med-nin declare him unfit for duty, and he’s sent packing back to Konoha. He’s not sure if he should be thankful or fearful.

His father is not an understanding man.

Nor is the Uchiha council of elders. He’s supposed to be making them proud.

He stands before the council, fresh from his excruciating trip back home, scolded and questioned like a child, as if he wasn’t the next clan head, or a jonin, or anything special at all.

“Did anyone see it?” His grandmother demands, clicking her tongue at him impatiently.

He studies the old woman, but answers quickly. “My teammate. She didn’t know what it meant.”

“See that she never does, Fugaku. Awakening the Mangekyo is too important to share it with outsiders.”

“It doesn’t leave this room, Fugaku,” his father says gravely.

Fugaku wishes for nothing more in this moment than to go home to his wife and child and sleep, but first, before he is a husband or a father or a regular human being, he is his eyes, his power.

No matter who’s using it.

By the end of the war, Fugaku is a hero. He stands among the other stars, all gathered in the Hokage tower, a constellation of unfathomable skill to the regular shinobi. Today, the Sandaime announces his retirement. Fugaku can’t mistake the reason this group is gathered here.

Quietly, the council must have been making decisions about who will take Sarutobi’s place. If he belonged to any other clan, he might have been flattered.

The Sannin group together, of course, and he stands to the side with Namikaze Minato. Their wives are good friends, and each uncomfortable dinner double-date gets easier, one after the next. He’s found that he and Minato have much in common with each other, and if he was asked, Fugaku knows Minato would count him as a friend.

He feels nothing but contempt for the moment. They’ve called him here to rub his nose in their own biases, to wave in his face something he can never have, no Uchiha can ever have, just to say they included him.

“Minato will be our Yondaime,” Sarutobi says confidently, the blow quick and decisive. Minato looks to Fugaku apologetically, with pity in his eyes that makes him sick. Danzo shares a similar expression with Orochimaru, who eyes his teacher angrily.

Only Jiraiya seems pleased. “Well! Now that that’s settled, I’ll be going.”

“Yes, I believe I will as well, Sensei,” Orochimaru sneers. “Uchiha-san, Shimura-san. Yondaime.”

Fugaku, in his barely contained disappointment, stays for a few minutes to congratulate Minato through gritted teeth, then takes his own leave.

Mikoto is waiting for him, Itachi on her hip. His son’s face lights up in delight at the sight of his father and Fugaku can’t help but feel some of the anger drain from him.

“Tou-san!”

Fugaku drops to one knee to receive an armful of toddler, hugging Itachi tightly. Mikoto meets his eye, but he shakes his head at her. She frowns knowingly, but their small family has a nice evening anyway.

He offers to put Itachi down for the night- not that his son needs it, Itachi has always been a highly independent child. The elders call him a prodigy. Fugaku is inclined to agree.

If he burns down the village in rage, if he stops fighting, there will be nothing for Itachi to inherit, nowhere for him to grow and thrive. He thinks he finally understands his own father’s pushing and training, looking at his own son sleeping peacefully. In the next generation, there is always hope.

“Itatchi. I will give you everything.”

“Fourteen years in the future, I used a time-travel seal.”

Uchiha Fugaku is a man of few words, but that has never meant that he’s been one to just sit there and listen to nonsense. He balks at Jiraiya.

“I don’t have time for games, Hokage-sama.”

“It’s not a game,” Jiraiya says quietly. “It’s the truth. There are things you need to know, Fugaku.”

The things he “needs to know” are a steadily growing, improbable list of events that Jiraiya cannot possibly believe himself. Every few minutes he turns to Shikaku, hoping, praying even, that he’ll find some understanding there, but the jonin commander nods along like it makes sense.

“In the end, the Uchiha were slaughtered. Every last man, woman, and child, except for your son, Sasuke. It was said Itachi left him alive so he could grow strong enough to join him.”

For a moment, the world turns inside out. “You insult me, Jiraiya,” Fugaku spits. He’s seeing red, blinding anger clouding his judgement. “Why would my son slaughter his entire clan?”

“Because he was asked to.”

The room spins. Itachi? The child who had cried and begged not to kill mere insects as a child, capable of the mass murder of his own clan? His own family? Fugaku has not been a soft father to his children, of course not, but would he have ever fostered such a hatred in Itachi that it exploded into such violence?

Itachi is his future. Not just the future of the clan. Not just the future of the village. Fugaku’s sons are hope that the world will improve, even when the life they are destined to lead makes that seem doubtful. His own death, he could come to terms with. The thought of Itachi’s, of Sasuke’s, takes his breath away.

“You’re lying,” he tells Jiraiya, and before he comprehends what he’s doing, the Hokage and Shikaku are under a genjustu of prosecutable offense, and Fugaku is shunshining out of the building.

Truth or fiction, it doesn’t matter. He will do anything to prevent the future.

He wakes up to Naruto’s heavy breathing right next to his ear. Blearily, Jiraiya cranes his neck down to get a better look at the toddler, who is fast asleep, sprawled over his chest in a mess of chubby little limbs.

He must have been absolutely exhausted last night to sleep through Naruto climbing all over him. Lately, getting him to sleep in his own room in his own bed has been an uphill battle and he’s been waking Jiraiya up in the middle of the night by sneaking into his. He shouldn’t be too surprised- even as a teenager Naruto stuck to him like glue.

It annoyed the hell out of him back then, but sometimes when he looks at his apprentice’s younger counterpart he feels a pang of longing to hear Naruto’s bellowing voice shouting “Ero-sennin, ero-sennin!” embarrassingly through a crowded market just one more time.

He sits up, carefully untangling Naruto’s arms from his neck, and scrubs a hand over his face. He feels completely drained despite over twelve hours of sleep. Yesterday’s talk with Fugaku had gone, well, he’s not sure if poorly is really enough to describe it.

Fugaku had been suspicious of the meeting before it had even begun, trying to decline the request and have Shikaku removed from the room. Once Jiraiya had finally convinced him to sit down and listen, he’d actually laughed at the mention of a time-altering seal.

That hadn’t lasted long.

For all of their reputation being heartless bastards, Jiraiya’s never seen anyone feel more than the Uchiha do. When he’d retold the events of the Uchiha massacre, Fugaku had rejected the story completely as soon as Itachi’s name was mentioned, snapping angrily at him. Jiraiya was grateful for the patience he’d gained from living with an out-of-control toddler and moody teenage assassin, otherwise he’s not sure he could have held it together in the face of such a blatant denial.

“Why would my son slaughter his entire clan?”

“Because he was asked to.”

Fugaku’s Killing Intent in that moment probably could have killed two lesser men. The police captain hadn’t entertained anything after that, putting Jiraiya and Shikaku into a genjustu to escape the room. Jiraiya hadn’t even gotten to what happened to Sasuke, though skipping it over was probably in Orochimaru’s best interest.

Neither he nor Shikaku followed him. Jiraiya could have had Fugaku arrested for attacking the Hokage, but what good would that do?

“Jiji?” Naruto murmurs, still half asleep.

“Yeah kid, I’m here,” Jiraiya says, smoothing a hand over Naruto’s fuzzy blonde head. (They’d ended up having to shave it after all; his team is officially banned from babysitting.)

“Can we have ramen for breakfast?”

He looks to the clock on his nightstand, already ticking past eleven in the morning. “No,” he sighs, “but I suppose we could have some for lunch.”

Naruto positively beams at the prospect of having Ichiraku, and scurries to his room to get dressed. Jiraiya does the same, lazily donning his regular uniform and shoving his hair back with his headband.

Kakashi’s already left, funnily enough, because for the next few days he’s still supposed to be guarding Jiraiya, so he waits by the door for Naruto, and they take a lazy walk to the ramen stand.

He orders the usual for both of them, keeping a keen eye on Naruto as he eats, because Jiraiya’s sure one of these days the rate at which this child inhales food will cause him to choke and he does not want to endure that lecture from Tsunade.

As they walk home, Jiraiya grumbling to Naruto half-heartedly about having to pay even though he’s the Hokage, he notices smoke in the sky, coming from the center of the village, near the Police headquarters.

The clan is known for fire affinities, and sure, training goes wrong every once in a while, but smoke like that should not be billowing from the Uchiha district.

He’s got a bad feeling about this.

He shunshins to the nearest roof to get a better look, Naruto giggling in his arms.

The compound is on fire because there’s a full-on battle happening within in it.

Jiraiya curses, quickly calculating it better and closer to try to leave Naruto with whoever is home at the Senju compound than run to the outskirts of the village to his usual babysitter, Yoshino.

He runs on the rooftops, careful not to drop his squirming godson, and nearly barrels over Yamato, Anko, and Shisui in his rush through the gates.

“Wait!” He yells at them. All three genin turn to him, confused.

“Here.” He shoves Naruto into Yamato’s arms. “I need you to watch him for a while.”

“Jiraiya-sama,” Anko cries, “we have training with Sadako-sensei!”

He grimaces. Better not to break any news if he doesn’t have all the information. “It’s cancelled. Do not leave this compound.”

Without looking back he begins his run back to the Uchiha district, heart practically beating out of his chest. This can’t be a coincidence.

“Hokage-sama!”

Suddenly, Shisui is running next to him, Sharingan active. He should have known better than to think one of the kids wasn’t going to follow him, and Shisui, even at his young age, is far more perceptive than a lot of jonin. He probably should have already been promoted.

“What’s going on? Something happened to Sadako-sensei, didn’t it?”

He looks up to the sky, briefly contemplating telling Shisui to go back, but he knows it’s unlikely that order will be obeyed. Shisui’s nickname amongst the veterans was Shisui no Shunshin, after all.

“Why do you assume it’s Sadako-chan?”

Shisui looks conflicted. “I-, well, she’s just been acting a little weird, lately.”

“Weird how?”

“Just, I don’t know, distant, maybe?”

If it was possible, Jiraiya’s heart sinks even further. He’s noticed that, too. Ever since they’d had their falling out, something was off. Everything about her seemed angry, and when she wasn’t avoiding him their interactions were insincere and stilted. He’d thought her new attitude had only been directed at him.

“Shisui, there’s fighting happening in the Uchiha district. I don’t know what’s going on, but for sage’s sake stay out of it, okay?”

There’s terror in Shisui’s dark eyes. He picks up speed, which Jiraiya matches, as they finally reach the compound, a few ANBU now following behind them.  

“Fugaku-oji!” Shisui shouts over the crowd. A few heads taller than Shisui, Jiraiya’s already spotted the police captain.

Unfortunately, he also spots who he’s fighting.

“Sadako!”

She doesn’t look up at her name being screamed across the market, just resumes a relentless assault on Fugaku.

“What the hell is going on here!?” Jiraiya shouts, to no one in particular. He’s already lost Shisui in the chaos.

ANBU Mouse jumps down near him, ready to report. He recognizes the jonin under the mask, Uchiha Shoko, as one of Sadako’s close childhood friends.

“Mouse, report!”

“Hokage-sama! Sadako-san and a few of the police and the elders-!”

He blinks, and a familiar curtain of black hair replaces Mouse. He twists to see the other woman as she’s run through with Fugaku’s sword. A look of horror draws across Fugaku’s face, and a wicked smile crosses Sadako’s.

“Mangekyo. You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Fugaku-sama, you spineless bastard!”

In a flash, the Hokage guard is now surrounding Jiraiya, weapons drawn. They’ve never had to use the Flying Thunder God to get to him, except briefly after he’d first become Hokage just to make sure the seal was correct. He’s rarely, if ever, been in actual danger in Konoha.

A startling realization dawns on him. They’re all in danger, because this is the coup. This is the growing division within in the village, it seems the growing division within the Uchiha, come to life. Fugaku must have believed him and made some kind of move after they’d talked. The faction of the clan fighting their former comrades obviously hadn’t liked what he had to say.

Jiraiya can’t hide his shock to see Sadako among them. He knew, to an extent, how she had been feeling towards Konoha, but had never expected to see her cutting down her own clan over it, let alone her friends. He feels the familiar rush of anger and grief he’d felt at Orochimaru, then the same towards himself. He’d been trying so hard not to lose another student to this hatred. He thought he had more time.

“Sadako. Have you lost your mind?”

“I have nothing to say to you, sensei,” she snarls at him, then she lunges, clashing blades with Raidou, who’s stepped in front of Jiraiya.

Raidou is a talented swordsman, and one of the best Tokubetsu in the village. He’s served the Sandaime, Yondaime, and Godaime well, but in the face of Sadako, he’s no match. He parries her kunai, but without a Sharingan, can’t find an opening to do anything but defend himself.

It happens in seconds. Sadako disarms him, then shoves her kunai into his gut, twisting the blade. Raidou’s face moves from determination to anger to shock as he frantically presses both hands to the wound.

At the same time, Genma struggles to fight off another Uchiha, finally sticking him with the poisoned senbon he’s always chewing on, then drags Raidou away from the battle. He shunshins back to Jiraiya’s side with a grim expression.

“Genma, Kakashi, leave this to me!” Jiraiya barks, directing them away. Fugaku has Sadako engaged again, but he knows that won’t be for long. “Sadako is-“

He looks away for a second, and where Kakashi was standing next to him, Sadako appears, handsigns forming another fire justu. Kakashi flashes back to him, kicking Sadako away in the stomach, hard enough that they’re only singed.

Jiraiya summons the Toad Mouth binding, readying an attack she can’t escape from, and it’s a small miracle he doesn’t kill the jonin that appears in her place. He’s just not fast enough.

Her new ability is proving to be near as frustrating as it was to try to land a hit on Minato, and that’s a sobering thought. The best bet against the Yellow Flash was to trap him in a genjustu and run, and Minato could be disarmed.

Short of getting a lucky shot through both eyeballs, that’s not an option with a fucking Uchiha. Does he risk trying to enter sage mode and hope Kakashi and Fugaku can keep her occupied? Can he count on the uncorrupted portion of the police to hold off the traitors?

He summons a messenger toad, yells at it to bring his teammates, then rounds on Kakashi. “We need to get a seal or a kunai on her.” The person best suited to wearing Sadako down is the recently-dubbed White Flash, if only because Kakashi will be the only one able to catch her.

Kakashi nods, tossing Jiraiya one of Minato’s kunai and throwing the other one to Fugaku, who without pause uses it to stab one of his former comrades in the side. “It’s the Yondaime’s!” Genma shouts to him. He’s got poisoned senbon threaded through his fingers like claws. “I’ll watch your back, Kakashi, Hokage-sama.”

They run after Sadako, who is moving quickly through the burning Uchiha district, putting civilians and shinobi alike in their path.

Fugaku throws his kunai as soon as she’s swapped, obviously hoping to catch her before she makes another jump, but she’s faster, and an unfortunate civilian boy takes the hit to the small of his back.

“Yondaime-sama was my fucking teammate! You’re not getting me with that!” She screams back at them.

Fugaku doesn’t stop running, tearing the kunai from the civilian’s flesh and shunshining to the roof of an apartment building to try again.

Jiraiya and Kakashi stay on the ground, doing their best to keep her in their sights.

Just as he’s wondering where the hell Orochimaru and Tsunade are, a huge snake appears a bit ahead of them, followed by the rustling of a million tinier ones slithering on the ground. It’s the same jutsu he and Orochimaru used to terrorize Tsunade with as kids, so he knows firsthand how unpleasant the snakes are.

“Jump!”

Kakashi follows him to the rooftops, where they catch Fugaku.

“Want to tell me what the fuck is going on?”

Fugaku glares at him, but it’s wobbly. “Not here.”

“Orochimaru-sama’s got her, down there!” Kakashi yells, gesturing to where Orochimaru is fighting Sadako. She’s struggling to dodge him and keep the snakes from encompassing her at the same time, but she spots them, and Fugaku just barely misses the lethal swing of Orochimaru’s sword.

Jiraiya takes the chance, spitting toad oil at her, knowing it will limit her fire jutsu, unless she feels like catching herself, too. She sneers at him, but doesn’t engage, switching quickly with a chunin that happens to be passing below, just before Kakashi closes in on her.

The snakes have been dispelled, so Jiraiya jumps down to Orochimaru and Fugaku.

“She’s heading for the gate!”

“Flank her,” Orochimaru suggests evenly, and they fan out into the sidestreets; Fugaku and Kakashi on the rooftops and Jiraiya and Orochimaru on the ground.

Sadako must be starting to tire, because he’s able to cut her off in an alley with a few well-placed paper bombs. Still covered in Toad Oil, she has to stop to extinguish herself and with all the buildings surrounding them, she can’t see anyone to swap with, so there’s nowhere to run. As his former student, she has to know that he’ll beat her easily in a one-on-one, as much as he hates to fight her.

“Sadako, why?” He begs, wondering if he’s smart or stupid for wanting to capture her alive. Maybe it’s just morbid curiosity- more than anything he just wants to know why this is happening and happening now.

There’s blood streaming from both of her eyes when she looks at him. As far as he’s ever heard, the Mangekyo is not sustainable for long periods of time.

“We can’t live like this anymore. And if Fugaku won’t save us, I will.”

She sounds choked, and he realizes there are tear tracks on her face, too. She begins to cry hard, hyperventilating around her words. “I’m sorry. Goodbye, Jiraiya.”

She's gone before he can grab her and a Hyuga jonin replaces her, disoriented.

“Shit. Where’d you come from?” Jiraiya shakes the Hyuga by his flak vest.

“The shop across the way- Jiraiya-sama-!”

Jiraiya doesn’t wait for him to finish that sentence. He sprints after her, ignoring the shouts of protest behind him.

Chapter Text

By the end of their third day traveling, Jiraiya’s exhaustion is down to his bones as much as the biting, painful cold is . His three genin shiver in the rain as they finish their trek through Ame, the promise of shelter at the border crossing the only thing he’s been able to dangle in front of the kids to keep them going.

Team Six has spent the last thirty days on the front lines, fighting off Iwa and Kiri. It’s a long rotation that no other genin teams have survived intact thus far, and, in fact, he’s too on edge to take any pride that they are the first, afraid he’ll curse them. The team they had been traveling back to Konoha with has already been killed, caught in one of Iwa’s cruel traps.

Minato limps with one arm swung around Morio, who, despite a handful of trainings with Tsunade, is too low on chakra to heal anyone.

They could all use it. Jiraiya’s got one hand supporting his broken ribs, and Sadako dizzyingly stumbles along, blood still trickling from a hit to her head. There’s not much he can do for her concussion. There’s not much he can do about any of this.

When the war had broken out, he, Tsunade, and Orochimaru had been sent out immediately, and their reputation as the Hokage’s students preceded them, painting a large target on their team. (Of course, it didn’t help that their descriptions had been accurate as well; even as regular Konoha jounin they stood out from the rest. Tsunade had been infuriated to be described as “busty but capable” in the Bingo Book and punched Jiraiya square in the jaw when he laughed.)

That type of war he could handle. The huge, decimating battles with his teammates, unrestricted completely for the first time. In a way, the power felt good.

Then Nawaki died, and it fractured their team. Tsunade blamed Orochimaru for getting her little brother killed, and Orochimaru grew angry at Sensei for giving him a genin in the first place. Jiraiya felt trapped in the middle, and distractions like that were bad for staying alive.

Tsunade was too shaken to return to the front lines at first, and instead of sending him out with just Orochimaru or another team, Sensei had seen it fit to pass along this mistake and give him fucking genin.

Early graduates at that. Three barely-turned ten-year-olds: Morio, branch member of the Nara clan, sharp and studious, Minato, a profoundly talented and well-spoken orphan, and Sadako, a fearsome and cocky Uchiha, trained since birth to make her clan proud.

He’d given them the same bell test Sarutobi-sensei gave him, praying they’d fail. They didn’t. He had no choice but to take it as a sign that at least Sensei hadn’t just assigned him blatant fodder.

They’d had exactly six weeks together to train before Jiraiya was called back to the front, and after that the kids had to join him.

He’s going to have words with Sensei when they return to Konoha. His team may be talented, but they’re not even a year out of the academy and the bloody fields of this war are not the best place to teach. The three of them look to him at every scream and shout and clash and he has to remind himself he’s in charge, he’s the adult, because this is his first war, too.

It’s so bad, sometimes he thinks about letting himself get injured seriously, just so they can all have a break.

“Jiraiya-sensei?” Sadako whines next to him. “How much farther?”

He blinks at the exhaustion, tries to see through the mist more clearly. He hates running through the rain on a good day, and he’s been awake for close to 72 hours now. “Soon, Sadako-chan. Keep walking.”

Her black eyes fill with tears, but she nods silently. He wishes very badly he had a better answer.

At the pace they’re going, it’ll be another hour or so until they reach the border outpost. He’ll be able to hang on until then, as long as they don’t run into trouble.

And, of course, that’s not how it happens. Because they do.

He’s so tired he barely dodges a whistling shuriken, so close to hitting its target he feels blood trickling from his cheek.

“Get down!” He screams at the kids, who have all dived away in a similar fashion.

He fumbles through hand signs, spitting toad oil at the three Iwa-nin that have shown themselves. They’re probably the same team that set the trap from earlier, here to finish the job.

Sadako, braver and stupider than the two boys, follows his oil with a fireball, igniting one of the men. It’s a combo he’s used with her in training, and the teacher in him itches to praise her quick reaction time. He doesn’t, because distractions are what get good shinobi killed in these situations.

He’s not in the mood for a lesson anyway. As far as Jiraiya is concerned, anything standing between him and a warm place to sleep is an enemy needing dealt with quickly.

He intends to do just that, yet his movements continue to slow. This is more than just exhaustion. It’s a horrific realization, and he brushes his cheek, smearing at the blood there like his clumsy swipe will rid him of what’s definitely a paralytic.

They are going to die here.

Before he can alert his team, one of the Iwa-nin is behind him, slashing at the back of his leg, cutting through the muscle he needs to keep standing. They’ll probably kill the kids first, just to make him watch. Sadistic bastards.

Minato sees him hit the ground, an understanding of the situation dawning in his big blue eyes. Sadako may be the bravest, but Minato is a born leader.

“Morio, cover Sensei!” He shouts at his teammate. The Nara Shadow Possession is useless in this downpour, and all four of them know it. 

Sadako is busy engaging the nin that cut his leg, fighting with fire jutsu that’s been weakened by the excessive, pelting rain. Minato joins her in a flash, small and quick, which is enough of a distraction for Sadako to hit the man to the ground with the saddest, smallest mud wall Jiraiya’s ever seen. Minato delivers the killing blow with a kunai, stabbing through the heart twice, just as he’s been taught.

“One more,” Sadako growls.

The fight moves behind him, and as the poison continues to set in, Jiraiya can no longer turn his body to watch. All he can do is look up at Morio, who doesn’t betray at all how frightening the situation is, eyes narrowed through his broken glasses, scanning for additional enemies.

If he could, Jiraiya might close his eyes, to spare him from the sight that he’s sure will haunt all his future nightmares. This one ninja, this one man Jiraiya could normally take blindfolded and backwards is going to wipe out his entire team while he can do nothing but watch.

“MINATO!” Sadako screams, cutting through Jiraiya’s thoughts. “Let him go, you bastard!”

In the sliver of peripheral vision he has from this angle, he watches Minato dangling in a chokehold from the massive arm of the Iwa-nin, a kunai pressed to his temple.

Morio darts forward to help, only to be kicked away unceremoniously.

“I’ll get to you next, I want to make sure this little bitch learns one more lesson.”

“Then you’re making a big mistake. I’ve watched enough people die!” She yells back, fiercely. “I’m not letting it happen to my friends!”

He hopes this man will at least make quick, painless work of the three of them, and as soon as this poison’s worn off, Jiraiya will kill him and every Iwa-nin he can get his hands on. 

The nin huffs out a taunting laugh. “A nice sentiment, kid. You wouldn’t have made it as a shinobi.”

Jiraiya braces himself for the killing blow, trying and failing to fucking move, but it doesn’t come. Sadako screams, and with a shaking hand, the man raises his kunai away from Minato to his own throat, and stabs himself, gurgling helplessly as blood floods out of his mouth and he drops to the forest floor, dead.

He hears Sadako vomit into the bushes, heaving breath after breath. The boys rush forward, Minato crowding Sadako, patting her back and thanking her, and Morio running to him, hands already uncorking a bottle of general antidote.

He pries Jiraiya’s mouth open, empties the whole bottle onto his tongue, then holds his jaw shut, waiting for Jiraiya to swallow. It takes a moment, but he feels the medicine begin to take effect, at least enough to move his eyes and talk again.

“Save your chakra, Morio,” he grits out, trying to pull away from where Morio’s glowing hands are now hovering over the knee that was slashed. The boy has to be running on the last dregs of an adrenaline rush, and Jiraiya will not be the reason he dies of chakra exhaustion.

Morio shakes his head, resuming his work. “If we get jumped again without you, we’re dead,” he says matter-of-factly.

Unfortunately, Jiraiya can’t argue with that. He’ll probably have to send one of the boys ahead to the outpost for help at this rate.

“Sensei!” Minato gasps. Jiraiya, with great effort, twists his head to Minato’s voice, where he’s wide-eyed and frantic over his teammate. “Sadako-chan- her-her eyes!”

Sadako raises her head, and there is blood pouring from both startlingly red, newly awakened Sharingan. Two tomoe spin in each eye.

“Jiraiya-sensei,” she wails, “I’m blind!”

He’s set a brutal pace for them, but his impromptu team don’t seem phased at all as they rush through the trees. He knows he shouldn’t have left the village in pursuit, but his heart is in his throat and his brain isn’t thinking so well.

He can’t get the vision of Sadako’s bleeding eyes out of his head. Mangekyo Sharingan are rare, and he shouldn’t be surprised she’d gained them of all people, but to hide her new power and to use it to attempt to take over the Uchiha? It’s a betrayal on par with what Orochimaru had done in the future, and it’s not just to him.

Fugaku hadn’t been blindsided, Jiraiya’s not idiot enough to think that this sequence of events is a coincidence after what he’d shared, but looks crushed all the same. Sadako had probably killed a dozen police and burned down half of the Uchiha district before Jiraiya had arrived.

He hopes Raidou lives. He hopes Tsunade can forgive him. Hopes Naruto, sweet, innocent Naruto, can forgive him for running off like this.

Most of all, he hopes Konoha can forgive him for letting this happen. That the Uchiha can, for failing them so badly.

“What shall we do when we catch her?” Orochimaru shouts over the rain that’s started to fall through the deep canopy of the trees.

Jiraiya squeezes his eyes shut, trying to keep out the rain, trying to blink back the memories of Sadako, to erase who she used to be.

He carried her all the way to the outpost while she sobbed into his shoulder, blinded and terrified, and the boys hobbled on ahead of them. He’d never been so relieved to see friendly faces in his life, and all but collapsed into his bedroll after handing over his injured kids to the medic. He slept like the dead and woke the next morning to three exhausted little genin nestled around him where they hadn’t been the night before. He studied their blood-caked faces, and realized he loved being a teacher.

“Uchiha Sadako is an S-rank missing-nin. Kill on sight.”

He blinks and blinks and blinks.

He’s always hated running in the rain.

Chapter Text

They’ve been pursuing Sadako for what feels like an eternity. Kakashi’s entire pack of ninken has fanned out into the forest, on the scent, and it’s almost boring running after the dogs. Or, it would be, if it weren’t for the sinking feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach and the rain pelting at them through the trees.

She has to be tiring by now. From his brief lesson from Fugaku, using the Mangekyo isn’t something Sadako can keep up for long, and deep in the forest there’s no one to switch with. If they’re catching her today it will be here, and it will be soon. 

Of course, the alternative is that she’s already managed to get a huge distance between them; they’ve run into three confused shinobi and one trader who’d all obviously been misplaced. 

All Jiraiya dares to hope for is that she hasn’t crossed the border and caused an international incident. That’s the last thing he needs; to have her break the fragile layer of peace Konoha is tip-toeing over and start yet another bloody war.

A few paces ahead of him, Kakashi sniffs the air, then announces to the group they’re being followed. Seconds later, Jiraiya senses a familiar chakra. He silently prays that it’s not Tsunade. Somebody has to stay behind to run the village. Kami knows what kind of beating he’ll return to for it- he’ll never really understand what it was about Naruto that managed to convince her to become Hokage, she seems to hate it.

Fugaku is the first to spot their tail, and he stops suddenly, catching the culprit midair by the collar as they jump past. 

“Shisui!” He yells sharply.

Jiraiya halts too, directing Kakashi and Orochimaru to continue on without them. They’ll catch up, sans their genin stalker. It’s more important nothing slows down the dogs.

“Let me go!” Shisui kicks at the air like a toddler in Fugaku’s death grip. “I can help!”

Jiraiya’s reminded of Naruto- this is exactly the sort of situation his godson would get himself caught up in, trying to help someone who doesn’t deserve or want it. How many times had he begged that boy to give up on Sasuke, to no avail? If he were here (or rather, past Naruto were here) he’d be kicking and screaming about friendship right alongside Shisui.

“This is not a mission for genin,” Fugaku spits, dropping his nephew but keeping a firm grip on his arm. The emphasis on the last word isn’t lost on Jiraiya. All three of them know that Shisui is a genin in name only. If they were at war he’d have been field promoted to jonin ages ago. Already, Sadako had signed her whole team up for the upcoming chunin exams. She’ll never see them promoted, now.

“You know I can help, Fugaku-oji. Don’t act like you don’t,” Shisui pleads, a desperate edge in his voice.  

They really don’t have time to entertain this. “Shisui, go back to the village. Trust me when I say you want no part in this.”

Tears well in the corners of Shisui’s black eyes, but don’t fall. The death of his mentor will hit him hard, no matter what she’s done. “I know that!” He snaps. “I know you have to execute her- I just-“

“You aren’t going to disobey the Hokage, Shisui. Back to Konoha. Now,” Fugaku orders. 

Shisui chews on his lip, suddenly appearing nervous. “I have another way. I could capture her, alive.”

Jiraiya’s first instinct is to reassure Shisui that they have the situation under control, that it’s not his concern, but there’s something nagging at him about the boy’s sudden caginess that makes him ask a question instead. 

“How?”

Shisui looks to Fugaku, who closes his eyes, then nods at him. 

“I have it too.”

“Have what?”

Fugaku shifts his position to stand nearly in front of his nephew, almost like he’s ready to protect him. “Mangekyo. Shisui has the Mangekyo.”

Sage above he needs to keep better tabs on everyone in the village. 

“Why didn’t you use it to catch her?” Jiraiya asks, trying to keep his voice even. 

“It’s not the same. I-“

“Shisui,” Fugaku warns. 

“I can, uh, influence people. I can make them do what I want.”

Jiraiya frowns. “That’s already a power of the Sharingan. Why hide that?”

“It’s… a little more than that. I’m sorry for deceiving you, Hokage-sama.”

Jiraiya doesn’t care about that right now, thoughts racing, swirling around the thought of potentially taking Sadako alive. If Shisui’s Mangekyo is powerful enough for him to chase the Hokage on an unauthorized mission…

“Sadako is set for execution, Shisui,” Fugaku says harshly. “We have no reason to capture her.”

“So we give up on her? That’s it?” Shisui cries, wrenching his arm out of his uncle’s grasp. “Sadako-sensei would never give up on us!”

Jiraiya sighs, leaning down to Shisui, and gently reaches for the boy’s shoulder. Sadako’s betrayal is a ripple through all of their lives. He knows firsthand that this grief is never going to leave any of them, especially the kid.

Still, Konoha must come before all of their feelings. He makes up his mind.

 “Shisui-kun. She already did.”

Jiraiya decides to halt them for the night when Kakashi’s ninken run down their time limit. It’s pointless to go ahead blindly. Sheepishly, Kakashi explains that by summoning all of them at once and running them so long, he needs a few hours to recoup. One of the few drawbacks of summons compared to regular ninja dogs like the Inuzuka have. They can go longer tomorrow, once Kakashi’s replenished some chakra.

The Sharingan is such a drain on Kakashi, and he’d been using it for longer than could be safe. Add in the Flying Thunder God, the hours of running, and a whole pack of ninken summons, and Jiraiya’s surprised Kakashi hasn’t already dropped from exhaustion.

If he’s honest with himself, Jiraiya could use some sleep, too, though he’s inclined to keep going. He doubts his thoughts will let him rest tonight. This is the worst day he’s had in a long, miserable time.

As tempting as it was to entertain the idea of capturing Sadako, he has vowed from the very beginning not make the same mistakes as Sarutobi-sensei had with Orochimaru. The thought of Sadako terrorizing the Great Nations because Jiraiya was too spineless to kill her is not a mark on his conscience he can live with, especially not as Hokage. He’s already got Danzo out there, hiding in the shadows, and his duty is to Konoha, not his personal feelings.

Shisui was furious with this decision, so much so that he’d almost sent Fugaku to escort him back to the village personally, just to be sure he wouldn’t try to follow. The kid is just as bad as Naruto.

In his room at the inn, Jiraiya scarfs down a ration bar and writes a detailed message to Tsunade, handing it off to the toads. He doesn’t plan on dying, of course, but there are things she needs to know just in case, for the sake of the village. He adds a post script at the bottom to also please spare Shisui from any punishment when he returns, too. They may have disagreed, but he’ll give the boy credit for having the courage to try.

“Hime will be fine,” Orochimaru tells him awkwardly, after the messenger toad has disappeared.

Jiraiya’s pretty sure this his friend’s strange, roundabout way of asking if he’s okay. Between the three of them they make up one unit of semi-functional emotional knowledge, and this is probably as close as they’ll get to a check-in kind of talk without Tsunade.

“She’ll do better than fine,” Jiraiya replies quietly. Kakashi is already asleep in his futon, masked face lax and peaceful in the dim light. Fugaku, who had stepped outside to clear his head a little, still hasn’t returned to the room.

“You should return to Konoha.”

I’ll kill your student for you.

“One rouge nin isn’t a job for the Hokage.”

Please don’t do this to yourself.

He never thought he’d be here, not once. On some level, he’d always known he’d failed Sadako, she had fair reasons to hate him, but he couldn’t have imagined a world where he’d have to call for her execution.

(By all rights he should put Fugaku’s head on the chopping block, too, but unlike Sadako, Fugaku had evaluated the situation and changed. Sadako only had half of the information to  make a decision. Maybe it’s not fair. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.)

When he thought of her, he always pictured the spitfire genin that had a habit of not listening. He’d never really known her as an adult. Sure, this time around he’s caught glimpses, but a handful of missions and reporting didn’t make up for all those years lost.

A blessing or a curse, it makes it that much easier to detach from what needs to be done. Sadako-chan can live as she was in his memory, and this rouge nin can be forgotten.

“Hime would say the same.”

Jiraiya doesn’t doubt that, but he won’t ask his friends to take on any more of his burdens than he already has. When the time comes, he’ll be the one to do it.

“Get some rest, Oro.”

They don’t spend a leisurely amount of time at the inn, nor any of the others they stop at over the next few days, just enough to sleep and eat and shower, and then it’s back to the hunt.

Kakashi’s ninken have been following the trail faithfully, and even without them, Jiraiya knows they’re close.

So many things begin to click into place as they close in on the Ame border.

They camp outside tonight, gathered around the fire he’s squinting at, trying to read Tsunade’s chicken scratch handwriting in the flickering light. Even without deciphering the words, he knows by her slanted characters she was spitting mad while she was writing.

(At most, he’s been able to make out “You two idiots better not be dead, or I’ll come out there and kill you myself” from the scroll Katsuyu delivered a bit ago. There might be a few sentences on how the village is squished between the threats.)

“She probably means it,” Orochimaru says pointedly, scrawling a quick note of his own back to her and sending it with one of his snakes. “Just so she knows we aren’t dead,” he adds when Jiraiya scowls at him.

He sighs, putting away Tsunade’s letter and choking down a few more bites off of another disgusting ration bar. He doesn’t have much of an appetite anyway, thoroughly dreading tomorrow.

If he was just Jiraiya, just him, not the body that had two lifetimes crammed into it, he’s not sure he would have been able to make the connection until he’d seen it for himself. (He sees Sadako in black, clouded robes in his dreams, then can’t help but find Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan there too.)

But he’s not just the Jiraiya of this time, and he knows better than to overlook the signs. Fugaku had confessed that Sadako had been angry with the village for all of her life, but that lately she seemed excessively dedicated to the Uchiha’s cause. The tipping event may have been Fugaku disbanding their coup, but there’s more there, he’s sure of it.

That he’s missing what exactly the more is, is a bigger problem. Likely, those answers will die with Sadako.

“You think it was them, don’t you?” Fugaku says suddenly, realization crossing his dark eyes.

Jiraiya glances at Kakashi, who appears to be sound asleep next to the fire, then nods. “It’s too much of a coincidence. I’ve never known her to have allies outside Konoha, and she would never go to Ame voluntarily after the war.”

“How could she have been recruited? Every time she’s left the village it’s been with her genin,” Fugaku argues. “And no one’s broken through the barrier seals since ROOT. We would have noticed the Akatsuki.”

“There’s ways around that,” Orochimaru says nonchalantly. “A formality only, if you have the right talents.”

And of course, Orochimaru would be the one to know.

“They probably have Obito, too, don’t they?” Fugaku asks bitterly. He sounds more resigned by the day. They all do.

Jiraiya doesn’t answer that, afraid that if he voices his thoughts aloud, they’ll become true.

Chapter Text

In the morning rain, Sadako limps through the streets in Ame, fighting the urge to vomit. She’s overdone it with the Mangekyo; she can feel the blood streaming from her eyes and her vision is blurry and dizzy.

It’s not the only blood she’s covered in. For once, she’s thankful for the rain in this hellhole village- if nothing else it can clean her up. She hasn’t stopped much at all since she’d fled Konoha, though she’s sure she’d lost Jiraiya a while back.

That’s not quite right. Jiraiya let her go. He could have killed her when he had her cornered in that alley and he didn’t. Madara is right; Konoha is soft and weak and her citizens have paid with their lives.

Fugaku, that spineless, cowardly, back-tracking bastard, had shredded the last bit of hope she’d held that their clan could be in their rightful place, that anything could be better. The Uchiha will continue to grovel like dogs for bits of scrap and she can’t force them all to change, nor can she force Konoha into the fairness they’ve never had any intention of extending.

She’d expected to feel a bit regretful taking up the offer to join the Akatsuki, but as she makes her way to the largest tower looming over the Ame skyline she’s surprised to find she doesn’t. There were casualties, but aren’t there always? The shinobi she’d killed with her own hands had signed up for a life of violence. It isn’t her mistake that they’re weaker than she is.

It wouldn’t matter anyway. She’s acutely aware that the second she drew her sword on her former brothers there was no turning back.

“I never expected them to get to you, Fugaku-sama.”

“This only ends in blood for us all. We must forgive our village.”

“Coward!”

Fugaku doesn’t waste a moment- he draws his sword at the same time she draws hers. The council devolves into chaos. There are Uchiha on her side. Once, they were all on her side. Fugaku’s cowardice can’t change that so quickly, not for all of them.

Blood doesn’t bother her. Death doesn’t bother her. Injustice bothers her. Prejudice bothers her. She can live with the violence and the destruction but she will not continue to put her life on the line for a village that detests her for being born with superior power.

“Ah, Sadako-san. We’ve been expecting you.”

Sadako watches Madara emerge from the shadows, intercepting her before she can meet the man they call Pain.

“Have you finally seen reason?” He asks her.

She wipes the weeping blood from her eyes. “I’ve seen everything.”

There’s a foot kicking at the small of his back.

“Jiraiya. Jiraiya!” Orochimaru hisses, looming above him.

Jiraiya blinks into awareness, a little dazed after only sleeping for a half hour. They’d better be about to die. He'd just laid down. “What?”

Orochimaru shoves another one of Katsuyu’s slightly slimy scrolls at him. “Shisui never made it back to Konoha.”

Frantically, Jiraiya skims the note, all thoughts of sleep gone. There are no petty insults this time from Tsunade, just a concise report that Uchiha Shisui had not made it back through the gates, and that a tracking team had been dispatched.

“Damn it all,” Jiraiya mutters, scrubbing a hand down his face. As if their miserable trip could get any worse. “Where’s Fugaku?”

They rouse Kakashi and Fugaku both, and Jiraiya half-considers not telling the police captain about the situation, fearing he’ll only make matters worse. Fugaku is not known for his calm temper.

“I’m going after him,” Fugaku declares, barely pausing to gather his things. There’s nothing in his voice that leaves room for argument, so Jiraiya doesn’t argue.

“Does anyone else know about his eyes?” He asks instead.

“Of course not,” Fugaku snaps. “Myself, Sadako, you three. His teammates that saw it happen died.”

Jiraiya knows no matter how well-kept a secret is, there’s always a possibility…

But does he let Fugaku abandon their current mission? Does he abandon the current mission?

If Sadako really is working with the fledgling Akatsuki, it’s possible when they find her she’ll be in the company of some very powerful people.

Underestimating them had quite literally gotten Jiraiya killed.

Potentially, the Akatsuki has already amassed around half of its members- his Ame team of Yahiko, Konan, and Nagato, the mystery Uchiha that attacked Asuma, Kakazu of Takikagure, and Sasori of the Sand. And that’s just who Jiraiya knew of from the future. There’s no telling who else could be involved.

Nagato alone is enough to require their full team with his Rinnegan.

All of them together is enough to require an army.

If Tsuande had sent one team for six Akatsuki in the future, no matter who it contained, Jiraiya would have called it murder.

“It would be unwise to split up,” Orochimaru suggests. “Konoha is tracking the boy.”

“I’m going,” Fugaku snaps. “Just try to stop me.”

“Nobody is stopping you, Fugaku-san,” Jiraiya says easily, hoping to diffuse some of the tension plaguing the room. “I’m calling off this mission. We’re going after Shisui.”

Orochimaru’s eye twitches slightly, but he makes no comment. Kakashi, who’s been silent the whole conversation, looks palpably relieved.

Jiraiya summons a toad and instructs him to sit near the border. As soon as he’s able he’ll return to investigate for himself, but his summons will do for now.

After they rescue Shisui, they need to regroup in Konoha. The only way any of the Akatsuki members had been taken down before was to separate them. Running into their headquarters to face them all at once is suicide.

(Maybe, too, a small pit of hope still exists in him that he can fix what he failed so badly. Sadako is lost to him, but his orphans…)

They need reliable intelligence. They need strategy. They need cooperation- and they can have it. Things have been unstable enough in the village- if he goes off and gets himself killed, he can’t fulfill his duty to Konoha or her people. He is the Toad Sage, and Legendary Sannin, and Hokage, and it's past time he acts like it.

If Sadako has joined the Akatsuki, so be it. Jiraiya has seen the future, and he will not be beaten again.

They don’t find Shisui right away, but they do find the tracking team- or what’s left of them- after two days.

“Missing nin,” Inuzuka Tsume reports to him, cradling her side. Blood is seeping through her fingertips and she and her ninken are all that’s left of her team.

“Which missing nin?” Fugaku growls. His mood has gotten fouler and fouler with each passing day, and it hadn’t been very sunny to start with. Jiraiya hadn’t dared ask much about Shisui.

“How the hell would I know?” Tsume bites back. “I was a little busy fighting for my life to get names. Fucking hell, this hurts.”

Her ninken nudges her side, looking pathetic (or as pathetic as any gigantic ninja dog is capable of looking), and Tsume curls one hand in the dog’s fur, sliding to the ground.

“Orochimaru?” Jiraiya gestures to Tsume, to which his teammate responds with a raised eyebrow.

“Should we not send her back to the village?”

“I’m not going back,” Tsume snaps, “I want those bastards’ heads on pikes for what they did.”

With a subtle roll of his eyes, Orochimaru kneels in front of her, hands glowing green with chakra. “Very well.”

While Orochimaru heals Tsume, Jiraiya scans the woods. They’re far from any town out here, about a day away from Konoha. Remote enough not to be found unless a dog caught the scent, or you knew where you were going.

“I think they might have been ROOT,” Tsume grits out from where she leans against a tree trunk. Orochimaru’s done what he can for her, but her face is still devoid of most of its usual color. “They put up a hell of a fight.”

Jiraiya hardly hears her finish her sentence, blood boiling. Fugaku’s chakra spikes dangerously next to him. Of course. They’d jumped from one fire directly into the next, and this one had Danzo written all over it.

“Danzo was looking for more Sharingan,” Orochimaru agrees. “It’s possible.”

“I should have never let him go alone,” Fugaku growls, kicking a nearby boulder hard enough to crack it. “Stupid.”

Jiraiya lands a hand on Fugaku’s shoulder, and is surprised when the police captain doesn’t yank himself away. “We’ll get him back.”

Fighting the entire Akatsuki just the four of them hadn’t been reasonable, but ROOT? They’ll wipe the floor with them.

“Lead the way, Inuzuka-san.”

They follow Tsume for several miles, not stopping. The forest around them is strangely quiet. Jiraiya’s found that to never be a good sign.

“Fugaku-san. Izanagi, you ever heard of it?”

Fugaku, like all other times Jiraiya had dared even breathe the Uchiha name, stiffens at the mention of the technique. “It’s a forbidden jutsu,” he answers carefully. “Extremely dangerous.”

He can’t help but snort at the understatement. The last time Jiraiya encountered Izanagi, he’d been impaled, but no one had been able to find out anything more about it.

“However, it’s said that it can only be used twice, one minute each, because it destroys the Sharingan.”

Interesting. Danzo’s previous Sharingan being rendered useless is an advantage, and that there’s a time limit even more so. He can work with that.

“Danzo used it?”

Jiraiya nods. “Tsunade killed him, but he used Izanagi to revive himself. We thought it was genjustu.”

Fugaku’s mouth is set in a thin line, as if he’s deciding whether or not to explain anything further. “It… it’s similar, Hokage-sama. Izanagi allows the user to make every action in their own favor.”

“That would explain it,” Jiraiya mumbles, absent-mindedly rubbing at the large scar over his ribs. If Tsunade hadn’t stopped to heal him, he’d be dead.

“Halt.” Tsume stops dead in her tracks, sniffing at the air, her ninken doing the same. “They’re underground.”

Kakashi nods in agreement. “Right below us. Hokage-sama?”

Jiraiya palms the ground, searching for seals. The ground is covered in them, well, he assumes the compound ceiling is, anyway. They aren’t digging their way in via earth jutsu, but having seen Danzo’s complicated sealing work he imagines no one is. “There’s probably an entrance nearby. Look for caves.”

It doesn’t take them long to find the correct spot with Tsume’s ninken.

“ROOT shinobi are kill on sight. Leave Danzo to me and find Shisui.”

Fugaku looks like he might protest, but Tsume nudges at him, shaking her head. “You’re his family,” she says fiercely. “Danzo’s just another missing-nin.”

Jiraiya throws one of Kakashi’s special kunai into one of the trees nearby, nodding to Kakashi. “Stay out of sight, and when I give the signal flash us back up here. Orochimaru, wait here.”

The four of them file into the cave, weapons drawn. Any sensor-nin have no doubt already alerted the whole complex to their presence, and they need to move fast. Jiraiya wouldn’t put it above Danzo to start slaughtering whatever prisoners are here, including Shisui.

They’re greeted immediately by half a dozen shinobi, but he can hardly call it a fight- they’re all dead in seconds. He’s not in the mood for interrogations.

“Split up,” Jiraiya instructs the group. “Kakashi, with me.”  

Tsume and Fugaku take off after Tsume’s ninken and he and Kakshi go down the opposite hallway. It’s eerily quiet, a long stretch of rooms in a line, and if this is anything like Orochimaru’s labs, the closed doors shut away whatever atrocities lay behind them.

He hopes Orochimaru understands he didn’t leave him outside because he doesn’t trust him. After all they’ve been through in the past few years he’d trust his teammate with his life. But even with Orochimaru’s seal removed he’d rather not risk anything before he gets to Danzo, and Kakashi is a more than capable partner.

As they snake down the hallways the encounter a handful more ROOT shinobi and deal with them quickly. Things are escalating, so they must be getting close, which is Kakashi’s cue to stay hidden, and the kid jumps to the ceiling, clamping down on his chakra and lying in wait.

Any lesser man would have probably made a run for it in Danzo’s position, but Jiraiya is confident he’s still here, waiting for them. Danzo would love nothing more than to kill him and make a triumphant return to Konoha, and he’s just the right kind of slimy politician to spin a story well enough to get away with it.

Imagining Danzo wearing the hat, sitting at Sensei’s desk makes him sick.

“I wondered when you’d find me, Jiraiya,” a voice calls from the room at the end of the hall. Danzo is alone, looking ordinary, casual even lounging in his office, like his men aren’t being killed by the dozens outside his door.

Jiraiya doesn’t hesitate for even a second to hear what will come out of the traitor’s mouth. He doesn’t give a damn what Danzo has to say. He’s got one Sharingan, one trump card. If Jiraiya can force him to use Izanagi he’ll just be another man.

Danzo seems startled by the sudden attack, and moves through handsigns as fast as Jiraiya does, barely dodging the fireball, then failing to dodge his Toad Oil. It’s only fitting. Danzo hadn’t given Sensei time to react when he’d killed his oldest friend, why should Jiraiya afford him the luxury?

Jiraiya blows more fire, igniting Danzo, who hisses in pain and sends a wind jutsu at him. Jiraiya waves it away.

“You’re weak, old man.”

“So are you, Jiraiya. Izanagi.”

On cue, Kakashi drops from the ceiling, grabbing Jiraiya by the arm, and they flash to the kunai at the cave entrance, where Orochimaru is waiting for them, counting out sixty seconds. Jiraiya uses the counting to try to breathe through his fury. As soon as he’d laid eyes on Danzo, the memory of finding Sarutobi-sensei with the Mokuton through his heart had surfaced intensely, and with it came all of the rage he’d felt.  

“Kakashi, find Tsume and Fugaku,” Jiraiya barks. Kakashi nods, darting back into the cave. Jiraiya turns to Orochimaru. If there’s one person who deserves to strike the killing blow…“Let’s end this.”

Jiraiya thinks he sees the corner of Orochimaru’s mouth uptick in a smirk as he finishes the countdown.

He and Orochimaru make near-instant work of the shinobi protecting Danzo up and down the halls back to the man’s office, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. How quickly ROOT must have forgotten that he and his teammate were feared by nations.

Jiraiya has no doubt Danzo was one of the strongest shinobi to ever serve Konoha. But years of sitting on the council, running the village from the shadows is not the same as actively taking missions. It isn’t the same as being Hokage.

“I only ever did right by Konoha. You’ll never understand what I had to sacrifice for our village,” Danzo sneers at them, cornered.

Alone in this room, just an old man against two of the strongest shinobi to have ever lived, he knows he’s defeated. Danzo has been hiding behind others, and he’s weak for it. There are no more tricks, no more places to run. Sarutobi-sensei isn’t here to save him now. No one is.

“You could have had everything, Orochimaru. So much potential, wasted.”

Orochimaru raises his sword, and Shimura Danzo’s head falls with a thump.

He looks, indifferently, down at his former master.

 “You’re wrong.”

Chapter Text

Danzo’s underground base is a maze of horrors, much the same as what he saw in Orochimaru’s memories, but on a larger, realer scale. Rooms are filled with bodies, some alive, some not, and equipment Jiraiya doesn’t want to imagine the uses for.

Orochimaru seems perturbed by it all, body rigid as they search the halls for the rest of their team. The scroll with Danzo’s body sealed into it is tight in his hand.

“Oi! Jiraiya-sama!” Tsume calls as they round the corner. Fugaku and Kakashi are with her, obviously fresh from a scuffle with more ROOT agents. It seems Danzo’s brainwashing had not died with him.

“Danzo?” Fugaku grits out, one hand putting pressure on a nasty wound to his thigh and the other white-knuckled around his sword.

Orochimaru nonchalantly holds up the body scroll. “Dead.”

“Good riddance,” Tsume scoffs. “All the bastard’s good for. Come on, I think we’re close.”

Her ninken trots on ahead of them, locked in on Shisui’s scent.

Nobody says it out loud, but Jiraiya knows they all wonder if Shisui is alive to rescue. He’s had one eye ripped out, at minimum, and from what he’s already seen, there’s a good chance Danzo’s body will not be the only one they return home in a scroll.

If he let his morbid curiosity get the best of him, he supposes he could ask Orochimaru what protocol ROOT had for this sort of thing, but, selfishly, he’s not sure he wants to know.

“He’s in there,” Tsume says lowly, pointing to the open door her ninken barks in front of.

The whole hall is quiet, but Fugaku goes in first, sword still drawn, and Jiraiya follows, bracing for the worst.

The scene before them is not far from that. Shisui, blood dripping from both empty eye sockets, is pressed into a corner, scalpel held in his hand like a weapon.

Surrounding him are four dead shinobi and a lake of pooled blood.

At the noise of Fugaku stepping into the room, Shisui waves the scalpel, a threat Jiraiya would have deemed pathetic if it weren’t for the pile of bodies with slit throats.

“Shisui,” Fugaku breathes out, barely, like the wind’s been knocked out of him. “Shisui, it’s just us.”

Shisui’s head whips to the sound of his uncle’s voice. “Fugaku-oji?”

Fugaku drops into a crouch with a wince, eye level with Shisui, though at the moment it wouldn’t have mattered. “Yes. It’s me, Shisui. I’m getting you out.”

Relief floods Shisui’s bloodied face, and he launches himself at Fugaku, burying his face in his uncle’s chest and sobbing like a child.

“You came for me!” Shisui cries.

Fugaku’s fingers thread into Shisui’s hair as he holds the boy in a shocking display of affection Jiraiya hadn’t believed him capable of.

“Danzo only had one Sharingan,” Orochimaru says quietly. “I’ll find the other.”

“Good. Kakashi, Tsume, search for any prisoners. I’ll have a team dispatched from Konoha.”

“We’ll see you there, Hokage-sama. Get that kid back home,” Tsume agrees, patting Kakashi on the shoulder to follow her.

Alone with Fugaku and Shisui, Jiraiya crouches down next to them, trying to announce his presence the best he can through sound. Up close, Shisui looks ragged, beaten, and hollow, like he’s been trapped here much longer than five days.

“Danzo is dead, Shisui,” Jiraiya tells him softly. “You did well.”

Shisui hurriedly swipes at his face, wriggling himself out of Fugaku’s arms and attempting to stand on his own.

“I’m sorry for getting captured, Hokage-sama.” The boy goes to bow, but stumbles, falling back into Fugaku.

“And it won’t ever happen again, will it? You could have been killed, Shisui! And your eyes…” Fugaku scolds harshly, lowering Shisui back to the floor. Shisui looks every bit of his young years, lip wobbling, head hung, trying to take on the world by himself.

“What were you thinking, following us in the first place? You’re thirteen, almost a chunin!”

You were chunin, you could all take care of yourselves, they were starving-

I was THIRTEEN, Jiraiya. THIRTEEN.

Shisui is still just a child. This is the kind-hearted, hot-headed type of mistake children make.  

Jiraiya cuts Fugaku off before the man can continue his lecture. “There is a reason all ninja work in teams. But I’m glad just to see you safe. So is your uncle. We’ll take it from here, Shisui-kun.”

Said uncle looks at Jiraiya like he’s grown another head for a moment before his expression softens. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“Yes,” Shisui answers quietly. “I-I had a hard time fighting them off blind. But I can walk!” He adds quickly.

Jiraiya exchanges a deadpan look with Fugaku. Shisui, missing both eyes, beaten and bloody is obviously not in any shape to be walking back to the village under his own power.

“Well then, let’s get you back to the village,” Jiraiya exclaims, scooping up Shisui before either Uchiha can protest. “After all, you aren’t a real ninja of Konoha until you’ve gotten a proper lecture from Princess Tsunade!”

“H-Hokage-sama! Please, I can walk!” Shisui cries, his cheeks flushing in embarrassment. Jiraiya snorts. Teenagers are all the same.

“It’s not just anyone that gets carried out by I, the Great Toad Sage Jiraiya, Hokage of the Leaf! What an honor!”

If it were even possible, Shisui’s face goes redder. Jiraiya’s laugh booms, echoing down the long hallway.

By the time they reach Konoha, all of Shisui’s earlier bravado has dissipated, replaced with absolute exhaustion. His head lulls against Jiraiya’s shoulder, almost in the same way Naruto’s does when Jiraiya carries him to bed.

First stop is the hospital, then he’s finding his godson. He’s missed the kid.

He would have preferred to hand Shisui off to Tsunade personally, but the med-nin at the front desk informs him she’s holed up in the Hokage tower.

Jiraiya frowns. Tsunade outside of her hospital doesn’t bode well for whatever workload has accumulated in his absence.

Shisui is taken away by nin he doesn't know, followed closely by his uncle. The kid looks defeated, and Jiraiya's reminded of a teenaged Naruto, devastated in the hospital after he’d failed to bring back Sasuke.

He lets them have this evening- sage only knows what the Uchiha compound has waiting for them- and goes to his office.

When he enters the tower, something already feels off. It’s with a pang of guilt that he remembers what happened to his guard captain.

He pushes away the thought until he can ask Tsunade what happened to Raidou for sure. Shamefully, he hopes not to encounter Gemma.

“About damn time,” Tsunade greets him from his own desk. “Well?”

“Ah, my report, of course, Lady Hokage,” Jiraiya jokes, mockingly bowing. “A bit of a mixed bag, I’m afraid.”

Tsunade is unamused. “What does that mean?”

“Well, if we start with the good news, it’s that the formerly esteemed Lord Danzo is dead.”

“That’s a hell of a start. What’s the bad news?”

Jiraiya sighs, feeling the energy drain from him as he slumps into Shikaku’s normal chair.  “Everything else.”

Tsunade screws her eyes shut, breathing deeply. “You have a lot of work to do, Jiraiya. I imagine I do as well, judging by all that blood.”

For the first time in days, he looks at his own clothing, which is indeed absolutely caked with blood and filth, none of it his.

“Uchiha Shisui had both his Sharingan ripped out. Orochimaru’s brining one back here. Can you reattach it?”

“Of course,” Tsunade scoffs. “Provided it’s in good condition. Eyes ripped out- what happened out there?”

He almost wants to laugh. What hadn’t happened in the last few days? It feels like a lifetime has passed since he left Konoha.

“Danzo captured him, probably for the Sharingan. It’s a long story.”

“And Sadako?” Tsunade asks carefully.

“Escaped. Likely to the Akatsuki.”

They stare at each other for a moment, tensions high.

“You let her get away to the Akatsuki?”

“We turned back for Shisui. And she crossed the border. We’re so close to coming to an agreement with Kumo, I thought-“

“Save it for later,” Tsunade cuts in, visibly frustrated. “There’s too much to do.”

Eyeing the stack of papers behind her, he knows she’s right.

“And get yourself cleaned up!” She calls as she’s halfway out the door. “You smell like a hospital dumpster.”

He rolls his eyes, but does venture into Sensei’s old rooms here, to shower and grab his spare set of clothes.

He works for a while after that, first calling a team to send to Danzo’s hideout, then filtering through requisition forms for rebuilding supplies and approving D-ranks for the demolished Uchiha district. He knows he’ll have to visit with Fugaku to assess everything, but he’ll save it for tomorrow. It’s already getting dark out and both of them could use a night of rest.

As he’s about to leave to go find Naruto (he must be with the Naras’), he’s surprised to see Morio storm into the office.

“Ah, Morio-kun, what can I do for you?”

His former student says nothing at first, then steps up, punching Jiraiya straight across the face. 

“Fuck you, Jiraiya.”

The ANBU that had been lurking in the hallway descend on him, but Jiraiya waves them off, other hand clutching his now-gushing nose.

“Leave us,” he says quietly, and the two ANBU release Morio and file out of the room. This is not a conversation that needs an audience.  

Morio looks winded, like he just climbed a mountain. Jiraiya guesses the thrill of punching the Hokage dead in the face is probably similar, he wouldn’t know. 

He is owed an explanation. Jiraiya sees his past grief reflected in Morio’s desperate confusion, and isn’t his whole mission to keep history from repeating itself?

“Sit down, kid,” Jiraiya sighs. “I think you and I have some catching up to do.”

Morio feels no relief from the punch, wanting more than anything to crumple to the floor and cry like a child. It isn’t fair, it isn’t right. Everything had been fine until Jiraiya showed up.

“What the hell did you do to her?”

“You don’t know the whole story.”

“I know enough,” he snaps. “Sadako would never- she- what they’re saying, it doesn’t make sense!”

“What do you know about her Sharingan?”

It’s a stupid question, so simple, so easy to lie and say he knew everything about her. He’s known Sadako for nearly all of his life, the sinking feeling that she had lied to him about this makes him sick to his stomach. He doesn’t answer, and Jiraiya continues.

“Sadako awakened the Mangekyo. Fugaku won’t tell me the circumstances, but it was when her genin died, wasn’t it?”

“I-I honestly don’t know,” Morio says miserably. Logically, it makes sense. Sadako had been an absolute wreck, he knew that, but he was so busy with his own duties during the war he’d scarcely had time to check up on her. And if he hadn’t had time, then who would have? Minato, who was busy carrying the entirety of Konoha’s victory on his back?

He feels another crushing surge of guilt.

“She was the leader of the Uchiha that rebelled. This was a long time coming.”

“How can you say that?” Morio snaps. Jiraiya visibly winces, but Morio finds he doesn’t care much for his sensei’s feelings. “She was so lost when you left. All she ever wanted was to belong and we all failed her. You, me, Minato, even her clan.”

“I understand how upsetting this is. But she made her own choices, she chose to hide this,” Jiraiya argues. “She would have burned the village to the ground to get her way.”

“Why?”

“She believes it’s what’s right.”

Morio runs a nervous hand through his hair, a habit he’s tried and failed to break for years. “She killed our friends. She betrayed the village, betrayed me, why don’t I hate her?”

Jiraiya doesn’t have an answer for him. Nobody does, except for Sadako and she’ll be dead before he can ask her. He finds himself overwhelmed and falling to his knees, cowering from the truth behind his own emotions. He’s pathetic, clinging to the memory of someone who so very obviously didn’t care for him at all.

Jiraiya puts a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I am sorry, Morio. I wish it were different.”

Morio doesn’t know what he wishes.

Hours later, collapsed into bed after settling an over-excited Naruto, Jiraiya feels weighed down by the horrible feelings of guilt that he’s sat with for over two years now. It’s evolved over time, of course, the very nature of him appearing in the past means that he no longer has the benefit of foresight that he came with, but it doesn’t do much to alleviate anything.

His conversation with Morio had broken his heart (and his nose) all over again.

Sadako had been long gone by the time he’d arrived here, but then again that had been the same excuse he’d absolved himself with when Orochimaru had betrayed him. Was he just destined for this?

Hours must pass while he stares at the ceiling, like it’ll have an answer for him, because he doesn’t have a good one for himself. All he can do is better, and it’ll be a shame it had to cost two of his own students. At the very least he’s started to build a bridge to the last one standing. Morio seemed… grateful for some answers. All might not be lost between them.

The window to his bedroom sliding open surprises, but doesn’t startle him. Tsunade’s chakra has been buzzing outside his room for a few minutes, unsure. She’d been snappy earlier, but he supposes he would be too if he’d been left in charge on no notice.

She doesn’t acknowledge her unusual entrance or apologize, just kicks off her shoes and slides into the bed, curling against his chest, and he wraps an easy arm around her shoulders.

“Just can’t stay away, can you?”

“Shut up, Jiraiya,” she says, rolling her eyes and shoving him, though she doesn’t make to move away.

“Raidou?” He asks after a long silence. “And Shisui?”

 “Not dead. Not good, but not dead. I-I don’t know if he’ll ever return to duty. I’m sorry.”

Jiraiya had figured as much. He’ll have to visit him tomorrow when he checks on Shisui.

“As for Shisui, the surgery was successful, but I won’t know how successful until his eye heals.”

“That’s… good.”

“What a fucking nightmare,” she whispers. “Everything’s a mess here.”

“Yeah,” he agrees quietly, leaning his head onto hers.

Tsunade’s hair smells like flowers, freshly washed.

“You okay?” He can feel her hesitating, probably chewing on her lip deciding if she wants to pity him or not. “No one saw it coming, Jiraiya. It’s not your fault.”

As if that would fix it all. He wishes it could, wishes he could feel happy for a successful mission without feeling the overwhelming failure of the other one. He doesn’t regret rescuing Shisui. To leave him to his fate would have been cruel. But he may as well have handed Sadako over to the Akatsuki himself.

Why had she gotten away? Did he let her?

“It doesn’t really matter. It’s my responsibility.”

Tsunade nods into his chest, but doesn’t ask anything else. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

Jiraiya holds her tighter; even if Tsunade can't chase away the guilt she's here, and that's everything. 

Chapter Text

Months pass, and before he knows it Naruto’s third birthday has rolled around. Jiraiya spends the evening before not party planning, but running back to Konoha at full speed, much the same as he had when he arrived in the past three years ago.

This time, there’s no looming threat of the Kyuubi, but rather the combined wrath of Yoshino and Tsunade. He’d sworn he’d be back three days ago, but after his trip to Ame had gotten sidetracked with some training on Mount Myoboku.

Perfecting his sage mode has always been elusive to him. He’s so close now- it was never for lack of ability, of course, just a lack of time to master it.

It’s easy to lose track on the mountain- he’d been there for weeks in the past without hardly noticing.

Of course, the angry women waiting for him did not understand that, and if Jiraiya was smarter he’d fear them just as much as he’d feared the Kyuubi.

Yoshino insisted she loved watching Naruto because he annoyed Shikamaru into doing the things normal children do instead of reading and sleeping all day, but had threatened him with bodily harm, Hokage or not, if he missed the elaborate birthday party she was planning.

Tsunade, on the other hand, was highly irritated to be left in charge (“I wear this damn hat more than you do!”) and had since instigated a four-day rule, promising on the fifth day to track him down and beat him to death personally.

(There’d been a time when he’d legitimately believed women should not be ninja. Tsunade had beat the thought out of him very thoroughly, only second to the time he’d tried to peep on her. He did not doubt her ability to follow through.)

Why is it he’s always surrounded by angry women, in this life and the last?

He doesn’t stop running even when he reaches the gates of Konoha, waving to the chunin guard and swatting away the ANBU that begin to flank him.

One has a suspiciously familiar bandana on and doesn’t leave with the others, falling in step.

“Tsunade-sama is pissed this time, Hokage-sama,” Genma warns him. “She threatened to send Gai on your rescue mission.”

“Ah, she’s all talk,” Jiraiya scoffs. “I’m sure she just missed me. What woman wouldn’t,” he laughs, nudging his guard captain.

“Your funeral,” Genma shrugs, disappearing back into the trees.

Jiraiya hesitates in front of his own house, not sure if he should knock. He doesn’t mull it over half a second before the door is flung open, and Genma was right, Tsunade is pissed.

“Damn it, Jiraiya! You said you’d be back last week!” Tsunade snaps at him, and he barely dodges a swipe to the back of the head as she drags him inside.

“You can’t hit me in my own house!”

“I’ll hit you wherever I damn well please!”

“Is that Jiraiya?” Yoshino calls from the kitchen. He can hear a spoon scraping a pot, and his stomach growls at the thought of a home-cooked dinner. “Tell him he’d better thank the sage Naruto is here!”

Ah, maybe not. Yoshino is a poison specialist, after all.

“Jiji!” Naruto barrels into him at full speed, knocking into his leg hard enough to make him stumble. “How are the frogs?”

Jiraiya laughs and scoops Naruto up, correcting him gently. “Toads. And they send their well-wishes.”

“One day, I’m gonna be the toad sage too!” Naruto declares, squirming until Jiraiya puts him back down.

“Oji-san! Jiji is back!” The boy yells, racing away into the kitchen. He hears Shikamaru scold Naruto for running; the whole Nara family must be over.

They all eat dinner together, including Kakashi, who shows up just in time to take the last piece of pork off of Naruto’s plate while the kid isn’t looking, and Jiraiya endures a brutal scolding from Yoshino, which turns into a double feature when Shikaku dares try to interrupt his wife.

“The training is important, Yoshino-“

“No business at the dinner table!”

Begrudgingly, they abide and spend the rest of dinner discussing party details, though Jiraiya finds it hard to believe that a three-year-old could possibly notice the color of outdoor tablecloths.

Yoshino leaves with a dozing Shikamaru soon after, and when Kakashi steps out of the room to put Naruto to bed, Tsunade’s expression turns serious.

“We have a bit of a situation, Jiraiya,” she says carefully, looking down the hall.

“Naruto probably won’t even remember the party,” he answers lightly, waving her away.

Tsunade rolls her eyes. “Not about the party, idiot. I’m talking about the village!”

“What Tsunade is trying to say is that our negotiations with Kumo have fallen apart,” Shikaku cuts in. “They sent an envoy, which arrived yesterday, except now they’re saying their head jonin is missing.”

Jiraiya frowns. An envoy from a foreign nation is always guarded closely. “And what do we say?”

“We say they’re full of shit,” Tsunade scoffs. “We didn’t do anything.”

“Maybe so,” Shikaku agrees. “But if this breaks down, we’ll be going back to war. Any updates on the Akatsuki?”

Jiraiya’s been staking out the Ame border every few weeks, poking his head in here and there, listening. So far he’s not even caught sight of any of them, but he’s heard whispers of the man that lives in the tall building, and his blue-haired companion, and he knows that’s Nagato.

“If they move out of Ame I’ll know about it,” he offers. “You don’t think Kumo is working with them, do you?”

“We can’t be sure,” Tsunade whispers. “Did this happen before? In the future?”

Jiraiya pauses, wracking his brain. This spat he could barely call a war with Kumo has been resolved more quickly than it was in the past thanks to him, but as he’s seen, history is always keen on repeating itself.

“Not at the same time. But yes, it did. Kumo tried to kidnap Hyuga Hinata.”

“I’ll pay a visit to Hizashi,” Shikaku sighs, getting up from the table. “If that’s what’s happened again we’ll need to decide what to do quickly.”

“No, I’ll go,” Jiraiya argues. “I’ve left enough responsibilities up to you, Shikaku.”

His advisor raises an eyebrow. “No offense, Jiraiya, but the Hyuga aren’t exactly amiable to outsiders, not even the Hokage. It’s better coming from a clan head.”

“Don’t look at me, being clan head by default of one doesn’t really count,” Tsunade says, shaking her head when Jiraiya sends a look at her. “Besides, I’m the one you’re overworking.”

“Leave it to me,” Shikaku agrees, patting him on the shoulder. “I’ll give an update tomorrow.”

With Shikaku gone, it’s just Tsunade left at the table, nursing a glass of sake she’d no doubt stolen from his kitchen. He wonders if she’ll stay the night.

It’s gone unspoken between them, but more often than not he wakes up with Tsunade in his arms, having either snuck in during the night or because she’d been there first when he went to bed.

They never do anything but sleep, and he never asks if she wants to stay, or what this is, exactly, but he still cherishes the time, cocooned safely in the house with her by his side. He’d trade a thousand of his prior lifetimes for just one morning spent with Tsunade softly breathing against his chest and he’d let the world burn if it meant she’d be safe with him.

Not that Tsunade ever needed his protection.

“I’d better go, too. I have some things to catch up on at the hospital,” she says quietly, downing the rest of her drink. “Tell the kid happy birthday from me.”

He watches her leave, the plea to stay dying on his tongue.

Naruto wakes him before the sun does, jumping up and down on the bed, yelling about his party. Jiraiya winces at the noise, covering his head with his pillow in the vain hope Naruto will go back to bed.

“JIJI! I’M THREE!” Naruto screams in his ear. “Jiji, look! I’m this many!”

Disgusting toddler fingers poke at his eyeballs, and he resigns himself to get up, puttering around the house half-asleep, making sure everything’s clean before the party planning committee arrives.

Yoshino is there just a few hours later, Shikamaru at her side and bags of decorations on her hip. Dilligently, Jiraiya follows her around until some of the kids arrive and he pawns off the decorating on them.

“Aw, Jiraiya-sama, it looks great in here!” Anko smiles, arm in arm with Inuzuka Hana. “Tsume-san said we could come early to help!”

Jiraiya doesn’t need to be told twice, dumping an armful of party banners into Anko’s waiting arms. “Have at it, girls!”

He dodges a few more barked orders from Yoshino, hiding in the kitchen, away from the grating sound of squealing toddlers coming from the backyard.

Fugaku finds him there, and while his wife herds their kids to the backyard, he helps himself to a beer from Jiraiya’s fridge.

“We had to drag Sasuke kicking and screaming,” he says tiredly. “He claims the other kids won’t leave him alone.”

“Imagine that, Fugaku’s son is too popular,” Inuzuka Tsume cuts in, taking Fugaku’s beer out of his hands and popping it open for herself. “You just need to socialize him! Look at my Kiba!”

Kiba and Naruto are indeed playing, except from where Jiraiya’s standing it looks like the kids are just taking turns smacking each other as hard as they can.

“Sure,” Fugaku agrees tightly, grimacing as Naruto lands a particularly loud slap on Kiba’s shoulder.

Six months ago Jiraiya couldn’t have even imagined Fugaku showing up to a party, let alone voluntarily conversing in the kitchen. Since the failed coup, it seemed like he’d tried his best to allow the Uchiha to integrate better into the village.

The clan looks to him more than they look to the Hokage, still, but progress is progress.

“I suppose it is good for him, too,” Fugaku says fondly, looking out the window.

Shisui, promoted recently to jonin, laughs with his cousins in the backyard, slapping Itachi on the back and doubling over.

The kid seems to be adjusting as well as he can to his lost eye. Morio had volunteered to see team Sadako to their chunin exams, and all three boys had thrived. Yamato and Tatami Jiraiya personally recruited for the vacant two-thirds of the Hokage guard, and Shisui joined up with team Kakashi.

Between Kakashi, Asuma, and Shisui, there had not been a single failed mission, and Jiraiya doesn’t expect there will be. Jokingly, he calls them the new Sannin, much to their captain’s embarrassment.

Come to think of it, said captain has been avoiding him all day.

He supposes it’s not that unusual, at times Kakashi could be irritatingly antisocial in the way that teenagers are, but he’d promised Naruto he’d be here. 

Jiraiya gives it a while as more people filter into the party, but the kid never shows up. “Has anyone seen Kakashi anywhere?” He asks the gathering in the kitchen.

Fugaku shrugs, but Orochimaru, lounging at the kitchen table, tilts his head in the direction of the front door, so Jiraiya excuses himself and makes his way to the front courtyard.

“Oi! Kakashi! You’re missing the party, kid!”

Kakashi’s posture is tense, perched on the edge of the fence with his arms crossed, staring intently at the street.

“Hey, kid, what’s going on?”

“Did you ever plan on telling me?” Kakashi snaps, whipping around to face him.

“Tell you what?”

“About you. About the future.”

Jiraiya feels his heart stop in his chest. “Kakashi. Listen to me-“

“No, you listen to me. I deserve to know what’s going on.”

He’s dreaded every single conversation he’s had about his time traveling, but he hears the sting of betrayal in Kakashi’s voice, and dread doesn’t cover it. He must have overheard Tsunade last night in the kitchen.

Of all the days for this…

Well, that’s not fair. Kakashi did deserve to know, maybe more than anyone else. Jiraiya’s been leaning on him since the very first week he’d come back, before Orochimaru, before Tsunade, before Sensei, and the kid hadn’t complained, not even once. He’d taken to Naruto without question, changed diapers and done bedtimes on top of relentless training and missions. He’d made a name for himself, not just as the White Flash, but as Naruto’s big brother, as Jiraiya’s kid, the other, older one.

“You’re right, Kakashi. And I will tell you.”

“When?” Kakashi demands impatiently, sounding more like Naruto than his normally composed self. “Why do they all get to know first? I know you told Fugaku-san. And Orochimaru-sama, and Tsunade-sama, and Shikaku-san and who knows who else! Why was I not first?”

Jiraiya knows the reason he hasn’t told Kakashi about the future. He knows why he’s worked so hard to avoid this, and it’s not because Kakashi isn’t trustworthy, or that he needs to stay in the dark.

It’s because he knows Kakashi is bound to be angry with him, and that makes him angry at himself.

“I will tell you everything. But you are never to tell Naruto. If he knew…” he trails off, heart clenching at the image of Naruto’s sweet face collapsing at the thought of having no family.

He can see Kakashi thinking, and they don’t call the kid a prodigy for nothing.

“You abandoned him, didn’t you? You didn’t come back after Sensei died.”

“Kakashi, that’s not-“

Kakashi stands, shoving him against the side of the house. “Don’t give me excuses- Minato-sensei trusted you to take care of him!” Kakashi shouts. “And you left him alone!”

“Kakashi, you did too,” Jiraiya snaps, and he can hardly believe how unkind the words sound coming out of his mouth.

As soon as he says it, he wishes he could take them back. Kakashi’s face crumples, devastated. “Kakashi- wait!”

The kid is gone faster than he can blink.

Chapter Text

Not a single soul in the village has been spared from knowing at least one name on the memorial stone. Jiraiya could read off dozens. But Kakashi spends more time talking to the dead than he does to the living and Jiraiya’s seen him spend all night staring at that rock like it’ll answer him. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to change that, no matter how he rewrites the past.

It’s the first place he knew to look.

“Kakashi.”

The kid doesn’t look up, but he knows his approach has been heard, so he continues.

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I came here to apologize,” Kakashi says so quietly Jiraiya can barely make out his words.

That surprises him. He’s grown used to Kakashi’s avoidance. “There’s no need for you to apologize to me-“

“Not to you,” Kakashi mumbles. “To Minato-Sensei and Kushina-san.”

Oh. Jiraiya’s stomach drops. There hasn’t been a day that goes by he doesn’t think of Minato, but he’s had almost two decades to grieve. Kakashi, even in the future, never moved on from what he believed to be his greatest failure.

Jiraiya feels worse, if that’s possible. Kakashi doesn’t deserve the burden of mistakes he hasn’t made yet.

 “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t have a choice.”

“Ah, you don’t believe that, do you? There’s always a choice. You wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t.”

“Don’t regret a decision you haven’t made, kid.”

He means it, but Kakashi seems apathetic and unconvinced, still staring ahead with a familiar dead look behind his eye.

“Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their friends are worse than trash,” he recites blandly.

“You know, I’ve heard that before. From Naruto,” Jiraiya prods. From his perspective, it seems ludicrous to even imagine Naruto resenting Kakashi. He’d heard about him from the kid for three years, non-stop.

It’s hard to get a read on Kakashi most of the time with only a quarter of his face uncovered. After nearly three years of living with him, he knows a few tells, the slouched shoulders after a difficult mission, the book in front of his face when he’s uncomfortable, the way he slows when he’s a little injured and sprints when he’s actually hurt.

Sometimes he sees himself in Kakashi even more than he had in Naruto or Minato. The kid’s learned it’s safer to rely on no one, to never show weakness. He flat-out refuses to get close to people, despite the best efforts of his friends (and his obnoxious, jump-suited ‘rival’). And those are desirable traits in a ninja, but misery-inducing in a person. Kakashi swallows his emotions until he’s ready to pop, and some of the explosions are bigger than others.  

Jiraiya can’t blame him. He knows the feeling all too well himself.

“He admired the person he learned it from very much.”

“Sounds like he didn’t know him very well then,” Kakashi says cheerily, the mask on his face not his only one. “I’ve changed my mind, Hokage-sama. There’s no need to tell me anything.”

Jiraiya’s about to argue with him, snap at him to stop being such a self-deprecating bastard and stand up for himself when ANBU drops down next to them.

“Godaime-sama. You’re needed in your office.”

Jiraiya groans. No doubt this is about the missing Kumo-nin.

“We’ll talk when I get home,” he tells Kakashi, who doesn’t acknowledge him except to smile tightly.

Jiraiya looks longingly back towards the Senju compound. He’d much rather have gone back to the birthday party.

“You know, I was in the middle of something important,” Tsunade snaps as she files into the Hokage’s office behind Jiraiya. “Who’s dying now?”

Gathered around Jiraiya’s desk are Hyuga Hiashi, Shikaku, and Fugaku, all wearing grave expressions.

Shikaku sighs, shoving his hands into his pockets and leaning on the edge of the desk. “We found the missing Kumo jounin,” he says tiredly. “Care to explain, Hyuga-san?”

“Nope! I’m not the Hokage,” Tsunade says dramatically. “This is your problem, Jiraiya.”

With that, she leaves the room and Jiraiya wishes he could follow, dreading this report.

Hiashi, for his part, betrays nothing as he calmly tells Jiraiya the Hyuga have ‘eliminated the threat’.

“So you killed him,” Fugaku summarizes. “Damn it, now what?”

“My brother, Hizashi, has agreed to a solution I think we’ll all find the most logical.”

As it is with most events at this point, Jiraiya sometimes struggles to remember the details, but it all comes rushing back the second Hyuga Hizashi is brought up. He’ll never claim to be the perfect Hokage but he’ll be damned if he sacrifices one of his jounin to Kumo for a war they started.

“The delegation is furious, and they’d like my head on a platter. Kumo is demanding an eye for an eye.”

“Literally,” Shikaku snorts.

Hiashi is unamused. “They tried to kidnap the clan heir,” he snaps, glaring at Shikaku. “No doubt for the Byakugon. They were unsuccessful, so now they want me.”

“They’re the ones trying to stage a kidnapping when they’re supposed to be signing a treaty!” Fugaku exclaims. “We aren’t handing over a clan head over what they started.”

“Try telling that to the Raikage,” Shikaku says calmly. “I’m not saying Hyuga-san’s plan is right, but we’ve got to give them something. Personally, I’d rather not go back to the front line.”

Jiraiya tunes out the ensuing bickering. All three men have a point. At the surface, he’s most inclined to agree with Fugaku. The audacity to attempt a kidnapping during peace talks to steal a dojustu and then demand compensation is astounding to him, but that’s just how shinobi are- looking for every little opportunity they can to get the upper hand on the enemy.

And make no mistake- Kumo are still very much the enemy. He’s not stupid enough to think otherwise, treaty or no treaty.

As much as he’d love to quash this brash delegation and send them running home with their tails between their legs, he knows he’s got to be diplomatic. They aren’t getting the Byakugon, but there’s other forms of valuable currency and the potential of mutual benefit.

The enemy of his enemy is his friend is one of the cornerstone phrases of spying.

“I’ve got something.”

“What is it? I doubt they’re going to fall for a substitution justu,” Fugaku grumbles.

“Information,” Jiraiya declares. “Genma, find Tsunade. We’re going to meet with the Raikage.”

“Have you lost your mind?! The Raikage?”

Jiraiya barely resists rolling his eyes at Tsunade. The Raikage isn’t that scary. He’s never encountered Ay personally, but from what he’d gathered from Minato he is beatable.

“We’re not going to fight him,” Jiraiya insists. “I just want to talk.”

Tsunade is turning redder by the moment. “You think the Hokage can just waltz into Kumo? In case it’s slipped your attention- we’re still technically at war!”

“Nobody is waltzing into Kumo! If you listened to me, you would know that!”

“So what is the plan, exactly?” Shikaku asks, stepping between the two irritated Sannin. Tsunade had already been in a foul mood when Genma had retrieved her an hour ago and it hasn’t improved since. Between her and Fugaku it feels like a cloud is hanging over the Hokage tower.

“A neutral location. Ay can bring the whole damn army if he wants, We just need to speak to him in person.”

“Who the hell is we?” Tsunade snaps. “I have work to do!”

“Us, obviously,” he answers, gesturing to her and Shikaku. “And Orochimaru. As soon as he gets back, we’re leaving.”

“Troublesome,” Shikaku mutters, inching towards the window, looking like he’s contemplating whether or not to land nicely. “I’d better go tell my wife.”

Tsunade sighs, leaning her head back and slumping in her chair. “So we go to this “neutral location” and then what? You two shake hands, call a truce and eliminate the Akatsuki?”

“As long as we can get back to killing each other afterward,” Shikaku deadpans.

“Hah!” Tsunade snorts. “Even your master strategist thinks it’s a dumb plan.”

“Have you so little faith in your Hokage?” Jiraiya grins. The thought of negotiations makes him strangely happy. For all the pomp of being Hokage he hates being stuck in this tower instead of out there, making the differences no one sees.

“Okay, Hokage-sama,” Tsunade scoffs. “Tell me, if we’re all out there, who’s running the village?”

Jiraiya turns to Fugaku, who’s been sulking in the corner.

“What, me?”

Jiraiya claps him on the shoulder. “Why not? No one can deny you have the strength of a Kage!”

Fugaku, though still retaining his stoic expression, pales like he’s seen a ghost. “Are you sure, Jiraiya?”

“Go home, get some sleep. You’ll have a lot of work to do tomorrow,” he tells his friend, then, noticing Fugaku’s hesitation, adds: “If anyone has a problem with it, they can take it up with me. The Uchiha have repented enough.”

Fugaku gives a stunted half-bow as he leaves.

Tsunade eyes him warily. “You’re sure about this?”

Jiraiya nods. He never expected to, but he’d trust Uchiha Fugaku with his life. He’s stoic and snappy and the moodiest grown man he’s ever met, but he’s a good leader. And if that’s good enough for Jiraiya, then it’s good enough for his village.

When he finally makes it back to the house, the party has been cleaned up and he’s surprised to see Kakashi is already home, curled on the couch and reading to a sleepy Naruto.

“Jiji!” Naruto exclaims, clambering off of Kakashi’s lap. “You missed it! You and Kaka-nii!”

Kakashi looks away guiltily, and Jiraiya can’t help but feel like it’s his fault. Regardless, they can’t talk about it in front of Naruto.

“I’m sorry, Naruto. Hokage business. You’ll understand, one day,” he tells his godson, scooping him up and falling onto the couch with Kakashi.

“I’ll be fast like Dad so I can get back to birthday parties,” Naruto pouts.

“I’m sure you will,” he agrees tiredly. “I’m going on another trip tomorrow.”

Jiraiya regrets that as soon as he says it. Naruto’s lip wobbles, his bright blue eyes filling with tears. “You just got back!” he wails.

Jiraiya doesn’t argue, just rubs Naruto’s back while he cries himself out. He must be overly exhausted from the party.

“I-I w-want to go with you,” Naruto sniffles.

“I know,” Jiraiya says softly. “One day, we’ll travel together, just you and me. How does that sound?”

Naruto nods into his shoulder, hiccupping away the last of his tears. Jiraiya carries him to his bed and in that short walk down the hallway, the kid is already lulling.

Sometimes Jiraiya hates how soft he’s become. He looks down at Naruto, curled in his nest of blankets and can’t resist smoothing his wild hair and tucking him in tighter. The old ladies around the village tell him how much he’ll miss these times one day, and he’s starting to believe they’re right. He’s eager for Naruto to be older, to travel and train with him again, but once in a while, between the tantrums and tears, Jiraiya’s heart aches thinking of his godson growing up so fast.

He wishes Kakashi was so easy to soothe. Even in the low light the singular lamp in their living room provides Jiriaya can tell he’s still upset.

“Kakashi, I hope you understand one day too.”

Kakashi doesn’t meet his eye. “I don’t want to know.”

“You deserve to.”

The kid shrugs. “I don’t see what good it would do. And if I’m an asshole in the future-“

“I don’t know if I’d say that,” Jiraiya cuts him off. “A little aloof, maybe.”

“-and you’re an asshole in the future, who was looking out for him?” Kakashi continues. “Is that why you came back?”

Jiraiya can’t tell him the real reason, that he’d been curious more than anything to see if he could cheat death with a seal and start over. That Naruto had been an afterthought, that Kakashi had been an afterthought to him- that he was here in this house with these kids because it just worked out that way. That there was no plan. He hadn’t come back to save either of them.  

What good would that do, to pile more anger and confusion onto Kakashi?

He thinks of Minato, years ago, lamenting to him what a sensitive, anxious little kid his new student was. He’d hardly believed it- the White Fang’s son fretting about rules and punctuality and socializing seemed ridiculous. But underneath the mask, teenaged Kakashi is the same. He’s just gotten better at hiding it.

Jiraiya decides reassurance is better than the cold truth.

“Yes,” he lies. “Of course it is.”

Chapter Text

Travelling with the Sannin feels like a specifically constructed personal Hell just for Shikaku.

Orochimaru and Tsunade have been bickering since they left the village gate about some inconsequential mission that happened twenty years ago, and though Shikaku tried his best to tune them out an hour ago it’s proving to be extremely difficult. If it was just the two of them quietly arguing, he could handle it, but each time Jiraiya interjects they turn on him, yelling about bathhouses and brothels and his inability to write a book that doesn’t devolve into distasteful smut.

It's… loud.

“Please, lots of my fans read just for the plot!”

“A poorly planned threesome is not ‘plot’!” Tsunade cries at Jiraiya, waving her arms wildly.

“Oh, so you have read them!”

“Of course I haven’t!”

“I could always show you the best parts in person, if you wanted,” Jiraiya says cheekily, waggling his eyebrows at his disgruntled teammate.

“Shut the hell up!” She yells, rising to her tiptoes to poke at his chest.

Jiraiya has been extra flirtatious since they’d arrived at the gates to meet up with Orochimaru and Tsunade, the latter of whom decided to don the normal jonin uniform instead of her usual haori. Even Shikaku could admit she filled out the sweater quite… amply, but he’d had tact beat into him by Yoshino over the years and knew better than to stare.

Jiraiya, on the other hand, looked like he’d struck gold, and in turn, Tsunade struck him.

Orochimaru lets out a long-suffering sigh, rolling his eyes. “Jiraiya, show a little decorum, please.”

“If you wanted to see my decorum, all you had to do was ask!” Jiraiya roars with laughter, slapping Orochimaru on the back like he’s just told the funniest joke in the world.

Shikaku has worked with Jiraiya long enough to not truly be disappointed in the reality of the Sannin. They’re legends, deadly in everything they do and revered, but they’re also just a normal team, making dirty jokes and shoving each other like they’re twelve.

He’d be remiss to not worry a little for the village because of it.

Well, after all, that is his job. His father had warned him long ago that the jonin commander was much more than the title implied. Shikaku suspects it had been easier with the Sandaime, all those years. Where Sarutobi was calm and organized in his daily duties, Jiraiya treats the Hokage’s office like he’d rather be anywhere else, and sage forbid that he’s asked to do any admin work.

Jiraiya may put on a bumbling idiot act, but there’s real intelligence behind his eyes. Certainly more than enough to figure out how to efficiently assign missions.

As the Sannin argue ahead of him, Shikaku regrets not taking over for this particular assignment. He’d been looking forward to time outside the village. He loves his wife and son, but a few weeks away from Yoshino’s nagging sounded heavenly. A peaceful run through the forest, the sound of birds and the smell of trees…

“You disgusting bastard!”

“Just say you want me, Tsuna-chan! Ow! Hey-!”

Shikaku will be kissing the ground she walks on and voluntarily doing the dishes by the time they return, he can feel it. They haven’t even made it to the border, let alone the fragile peace talks.

Kumo is unpredictable. The only Konoha shinobi to fight the Raikage and live to tell the tale was Minato, and with him gone, well, Shikaku is capable of many things, but fighting Kage is not one of them. He’s woefully unequipped for that sort of thing, and short tempers make forming strategies difficult at best. He’d barely been able to secure this meeting.

He’d advised Jiraiya as much. Not that it seemed to phase him. Jiraiya’s blinding confidence probably would have comforted someone not burdened with genius like Shikaku is. It only makes him nervous.

“So, Shikaku, how’d you get saddled with babysitting duty?” Tsunade asks, falling back into step with him.

He shoves his hands in his pockets, grimacing. “I’m always on babysitting duty, Tsuande-sama.”

After a long day on the road, they arrive at their accommodations for the night around sundown. Jiraiya glances wistfully at his favorite brothel just across the street, then at Tsunade.

“How about we hit the town?” He asks his companions, slinging an arm over Shikaku’s slumped shoulders.

His commander makes a face like he’d rather be executed and excuses himself to turn in for the night, to Tsunade’s laughter.

“That poor man,” Orochimaru mumbles.

The three of them go out instead. There’s a dive bar a short walk from their inn that looks inconspicuous enough. Jiraiya slides into the back booth next to Tsunade, close enough that their thighs just barely touch, and for a moment it feels as if they’re young again, celebrating the end of a mission with a well-deserved round of drinks and greasy foods.

Settled in, Tsunade cradles her sake and raises an eyebrow at him. “So, the Raikage?”

“I admit I’m curious, too,” Orochimaru adds. “What truce do you think we could possibly come to?”

Jiraiya frowns into his drink. There isn’t an easy answer to that. He’s in uncharted territory attempting to make peace with another Kage. Konoha and Kumo have been enemies for decades.

“Do you think they’ll see the Akatsuki as enough of a threat to put an entire war aside?” Tsunade asks carefully. “We have no way of proving anything to them.”

“They don’t need to know that. As far as Kumo is concerned, our intelligence is coming from a spy behind enemy lines. I think the Raikage would kill me on the spot if I tried to tell him about my seal.”

“Well, even you couldn’t possibly be so stupid,” Orochimaru agrees. “I’d rather not die during negotiations. How embarrassing.”

“The Hokage can sacrifice himself for his people if it comes to that,” Tsunade mumbles. “I didn’t want to be here in the first place. The hospital is probably in shambles.”

“How do you think Fugaku-san is getting along?” Orochimaru asks thoughtfully. “Leaving an Uchiha in charge was an interesting choice.”

Jiraiya swirls the sake in his glass, downs it, and flags the bartender for another round. “Fugaku’s capable. It’s only for a few days.”

“People are going to talk, Jiraiya,” Tsunade prods.

She’s right. Of course she is. Leaving an Uchiha in the Hokage’s office, especially after what happened with the thwarted uprising could be a foolish decision. But he’s never had to earn the trust of the other clans- it’s been implicit with his position. The Uchiha are different, and with all the ways Konoha has failed them they deserve a show of trust.

“Let them,” he says, raising his glass. “To peace!”

“To peace,” his teammates echo.

They drink for several hours, until the pleasant buzz of alcohol blankets their conversations, strongly enough that they are asked to leave for their loudness.

“Shikaku’s missing out,” Tsunade slurs as they stumble away from the bar. Orochimaru hovers near her, close enough to catch her but far enough to dodge any vomiting- Tsunade isn’t known for holding her alcohol at the end of the night.

“I doubt he sees it that way- Hime!”

Tsunade lives up to her reputation, and Orochimaru shoves her towards the alley wall at the last second, disgusted. Vomit splatters the brick and slides down into the bushes.

“Hey!” Tsunade protests, though any other complaints are cut short.

Sighing, Jiraiya assumes a rather familiar position, holding back Tsunade’s long hair. One pigtail has come loose, half of her hair hanging freely over her shoulder. He twirls it over his hand as she heaves again, his other resting on her back.

“I told you to cut her off,” Orochimaru snaps. “She’s a lightweight.”

Well, perhaps compared to them, but Tsunade’s twelve glasses of sake could hardly be called amateur. “I suppose we got a little carried away,” he laughs.

“Let’s get her back to the inn,” Orochimaru sighs, crouching down to her, but Tsunade swats his hand away.

“I want Jiraiya,” she murmurs, falling backwards a bit onto him.  

Something flutters in Jiraiya’s chest at that, but he covers it with a laugh. “Ha! I knew I was your favorite!”

He hauls her upright, and if she wasn’t so drunk he could swear she swoons into him. Their height difference makes slinging her arm over his impractical, but he doesn’t dark risk her wrath trying to pick her up and slouches.

Orochimaru scoffs and impatiently walks ahead of them, disappearing out of sight with their slow pace.

“Yeah,” Tsunade says quietly to him, barely above a whisper. Her head lulls as she knocks into him with every step, a rhythm he’s been subjected to on countless nights out. “You are.”

Jiraiya can’t think of anything intelligent to say to that. A million confessions are on the tip of his tongue, but it isn’t the right time for them. They’re here to stop a war.

“Orochimaru is right, you know,” he says instead, hiking her back up from where she’s fallen off his arm, “we should have cut you off. Running is miserable with a hangover.”

Just the prospect of tomorrow seems to turn Tsunade green again, and he guides her back to the alley.

“It’s not fair,” Tsunade whines, wiping her mouth. “You didn’t ask if I wanted to come.”

He rolls his eyes at her, though she can’t see him in the dim light. “Next time, I promise I’ll ask what you want, Tsuna. To hell with the village.”

She gets up on shaky legs, bracing herself on his outstretched forearm, and shoots him a glare. “I want what you want, idiot.”

It’s a striking thought, but before he can begin to consider it, Tsunade falls to the ground again, and sighing, he kneels next to her. More pressing is how he’s going to get her back to the inn.

He knows she could use her insanely precise chakra control to sober herself, but selfishly, he doesn’t ask it of her. It feels nice to be wanted instead of needed.

Minus a few stops for Tsunade to lose her dinner, Jiraiya makes sure they make it back quickly, depositing his drunken friend into her futon. She’ll wake up in a few hours and clean herself up.

He settles on his own, sitting silent and still, gathering chakra. It’s a habit he’s taken to for weeks now, finally graduated from Pa’s constant supervision. It’s training, so it’s necessary, but it’s also the best way to calm himself enough to rest in the evening. He’d always poked fun at Sensei for aging like spoiled milk, but he understands now. Every line, crease, and headache, he understands.

The two additional days of travel pass quickly, and pointedly, the Sannin don’t venture back out to the bar. It isn’t worth the misery to any of them after an entire day spent with a headache-addled Tsunade.

Jiraiya wonders how in the world Shizune has been doing this.

Kumo’s wide-open sky and clouded mountains surround them before long, and if the villages weren’t sworn enemies, he thinks it might be nice to spend time here for a change of scenery. He greatly misses the variety that came with his wandering lifestyle. After a while, the leaf village is just that- all leaves. No tree more interesting than the next.

They are due to meet the Raikage outside the village border in the neighboring Shimi. Jiraiya lets Shikaku guide them, unfamiliar with these lands, until they reach a valley, the landscape decorated only with a handful of what look to be abandoned buildings.

Shimi, apparently, does not trust the Kage not to fight with ground-leveling results.

As they approach the town, a slim man with an eyepatch steps out to greet them, bowing shallowly to Jiraiya.

“You must be the Hokage. I am Dodai. Welcome. Raikage-sama is waiting inside.”

Brief looks are exchanged amongst the Sannin, and they follow Dodai inside an old café, dusty tables and chairs the only furniture inside. In the far corner, two hulking men sit at a table, and even if the larger man wasn’t staring into Jiraiya’s soul, he would have known this was the Raikage based off his chakra alone. It’s oppressive.

Not one to resort to intimidation first, Jiraiya masks his skill behind a façade of over-familiarity, grinning at the Raikage and introducing himself as he sits down.

“I didn’t come here for pleasantry, Hokage,” Ay answers coldly.

“What did you come here for?” Tsunade snaps. Shikaku puts a hand over his face while Jiraiya stifles a smirk. He hadn’t known Tsunade as Hokage long, and he thoroughly enjoys these glimpses.

“As a show of good faith, obviously,” Dodai says quickly. “Though you have wronged us so greatly just as we were on the verge of peace.”

Tsunade smacks the table, an argument imminent, but Jiraiya holds her back. “If you aren’t here for pleasantry, then let’s cut to it.” Ay narrows his eyes, but doesn’t speak, and Jiraiya continues. “Your delegation attempted to kidnap one of my people, and Konoha retaliated.”

“Retaliated?” Dodai sneers. “Our head jonin is dead at the hands of you people. We came to Konoha in nothing but good faith and what was our reward but to be slaughtered!”

“Dodai.” At the Raikage’s voice, his advisor sits back down, silent. “What are you insinuating here, Hokage?”

“I’m not insinuating anything. I’m telling you what happened. Your men attempted to kidnap the Hyuga heir,but were unsuccessful. An act of war, if I’m not mistaken.”

As quickly as negotiations began, they end. The Raikage flies out of his seat, leering over Jiraiya. The man who had been sitting next to him is also on his feet, and Jiraiya can see from the corner of his eye his team has taken similar stances. “How dare you accuse me,” Ay snarls.

He doesn’t move from his seat. He had hoped to buy a bit more time for himself, but these things can’t be helped. He should have known the Raikage would be hot-tempered.

“Have it your way,” Jiraiya grins, looking up at Ay calmly. He turns briefly to his team. “I think we’ll settle this, Kage to Kage.”

Shikaku sighs. “What a pain,” he mumbles.

“Jiraiya, you can’t be serious right now!” Tsunade cries.

“I believe he is,” Orochimaru says, with a guiding hand on Tsunade’s back. She looks between them, back and forth until it dawns on her.

“Senjustu?” She mouths.

Jiraiya nods, contained excitement breaking over him. Decades of training, past, present, and future, and he’s done it. The Raikage is the perfect tester.

Chapter Text

The sound of rain overtakes the bedroom with the window open, but Konan needs the drone of water hitting concrete. She’s never known differently. A sunny day is rare in Ame and rarer still is the sky silent. Pain chooses to bring thunder down from the heavens as an act of God more days than he stills the rain lately.

Their newest recruit is impatient, nails drumming on the small desk Konan instructed her to sit at a half hour ago. She’s been tasked with taking Sadako on her first Akatsuki mission, something about female camaraderie, but Konan is not the type of girl to make friends. She doesn’t get the impression Sadako is either. She’s made no attempt at conversation.

The other woman looks haggard, with bags under her eyes and limp hair falling into her face. It’s the look of someone who does need a friend, yet all Konan can think is that Yahiko would have hated Sadako and her brutality. That alone is enough to justify the distance. All of this, everything she does for the Akatsuki, she does for Yahiko.

“What?” Sadako finally snaps, meeting Konan’s eye. She must have been staring.

Konan doesn’t break the contact. “Why are you here?”

“Why are you here?”

“I’ve always been,” Konan answers concisely. Sadako seems bothered, lip twitching and fist clenching and unclenching on the desktop.

“I need to save my clan,” she finally mumbles. “Madara showed me that this is the only way.”

Konan quirks an eyebrow, keeping her initial thoughts to herself- that Tobi is selfish, that deep down, she knows he is using all of them. Since he had approached them the first time, she wished she could pack Nagato and the dreams of the Akatsuki into a box and take it with her, away from here, but their growing reputation makes it far too late for that.

“This is the only way I can help them,” Sadako continues. “I tried, back in the village, but the Hokage has the clan head wrapped around his finger.”

She says this as if Jiraiya is a criminal mastermind, planning the downfall of all Uchiha. Konan can’t claim to know the Hokage in a capacity beyond the three years he spent as her teacher, but devious is hardly a word she would have ascribed to him.

“I wondered what would happen after he killed the Yondaime,” Konan drawls. “Jiraiya was a natural choice, I suppose.”

The tapping stops, and Sadako turns to her, fully. “He?”

She decides not to answer further, rising to close the windows. “Come on, then. I’m supposed to come with you on your first mission,” Konan says quickly.

Sadako glares at her, following silently.

Primarily, the Akatsuki are mercenaries, accepting jobs too underpaid or gruesome for the average soldier and completing them in half the time. The work is less rewarding than it had been in the beginning. Rather than seeing the fruits of her hard labor around her own lands, she harbors destruction in others.

There’s an irony in what they’ve become- sowing the seeds of war instead of growing roots to stop it.

“I can handle it myself,” Sadako tells her, bristling at any instruction. “A mission is a mission.”

“We work in pairs,” Konan says with indifference. Sadako is not her partner.

“I don’t,” Sadako is quick to snap. “I’ll take it up with our leader. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

Konan doesn’t waste her breath arguing. Sadako grates on her already thin patience with her whining. “Don’t bother,” she says tightly, “just go.”

Pain has better things to do then micromanage who goes where. The job will be done. Konan finds she doesn’t particularly care if Sadako dies trying.

With Sadako out of her hair, Konan takes to the streets, puttering around the market as if she could ever pretend to be a normal civilian again. Her cloak, a sight that once inspired hope in her village now strikes a fine line between reverence and fear amongst the shopkeepers. They’ve taken to calling her God’s Angel.

She misses Yahiko. He had only ever called her friend.

Nagato means the world to her, of course he does, there’s nothing left for the world to mean, but he’s drowned by his anger and his grief. His grand plans coming to fruition mean widespread death in the name of peace, and it’s a contradiction that makes her throat tighten in a way she can’t explain.

Konan believes in reality. Yahiko’s dreams were just that, dreams. Nagato has plans.

She buys a bushel of apples, and between their sweet scent and the lingering smell of rain, she imagines the three of them, running through the streets, starving and sad and naïve.

When she brings her goods back home, she thinks of offering to share the fruit with Nagato, but her friend rarely eats these days, and certainly not for pleasure. It feels sometimes that her boys are both corpses, and strangely, Yahiko’s reanimated body is more alive than Nagato’s wasted one.

Pain waits for her in the shared living space, standing at the window as lighting flashes in the darkened sky.

“She went alone,” Konan tells him in lieu of a greeting.

Pain’s dead face nods back. Konan squeezes her eyes tightly and sets down her purchases on the cluttered counter to venture to Nagato’s room. She would like to speak to a real person, one that doesn’t wear Yahiko’s skin.  

The state of Nagato’s real body is hard to bear. It’s been years since Hanzo crippled him so brutally, but she’s never gotten used to the concaved stomach and thin, leathery skin that barely holds him together.

“She’s defiant,” Nagato says lowly, voice echoing in the empty room. “Tobi chose poorly.”

Konan approaches her friend’s mortal prison, wincing as he looks down at her and stretches a wound on his chest. “She’s powerful.”

“A fellow student of Jiraiya’s,” Nagato agrees. His eyes open agonizingly slowly, hazy purple blinking at her. “Her hatred for her village is motive enough to be useful.”

From what Konan has gathered, the hatred of Jiraiya alone would be enough. Sadako seemed to expect her to understand it, damning their shared teacher in every other sentence, but Konan has no ill feeling toward the Hokage beyond his possible interference in the Akatsuki’s goals. Jiraiya had always been well-meaning, and it seemed to her that he shared genuinely in their hope for peace.

She will not mourn him if that time comes, yet nothing had come so close to feeling at home as their little shack did. She can hear the laughter the four of them shared echoing in her mind, sharp and clear as if it still surrounded her. She misses that time more than she misses Jiraiya himself. She’s grateful for what he gave to them and that’s enough for her to understand his sudden departure.

Stability is not a luxury Konan has ever been promised and perhaps someone like Sadako, raised in a clan with food on the table can’t understand, truly, the freedom and fear of total independence.

“Things are moving forward,” Nagato continues. “Our recruitment process is almost complete.”

Konan swallows hard. She is a realist. And to be a realist means to acknowledge the possibility of pain.

“So quick to jump to violence, Hokage.”

Jiraiya smirks back at Ay, trying to contain the anticipation thrumming in him. Fighting with his mastered Senjustu is a thrilling prospect. Sparring with the toads is good, but not an accurate test of his new abilities.

The Raikage, looming uncomfortably close to him in an attempt at intimidation, either does not sense his ability or doesn’t care, lost in his own confrontational anger. His advisor eyes him warily, flickering between the two Kage, as if there was anything he’d be able to do to stop them. Shikaku is too smart to indulge in that pretense, and that’s why he’s outside.

“I know a thing or two about diplomacy, Raikage. It doesn’t usually start with kidnapping,” Jiraiya says lightly.

Ay scowls as his chakra crackles around him. It’s oppressive and impressive, stronger than most of the opponents Jiraiya’s encountered. The entire building feels heavy enough to collapse under the weight of their combined energies.

“Yo, Konoha came for peace, but now he’s gotta fight the beast.” The other man from Kumo stands and… strikes a pose? Jiraiya blinks at the interruption, startled to see where it came from. He had been sitting back, looking quiet and intimidating, a far cry from his current, ridiculous posture.

“Stay back, Bee,” Ay growls. Something in the Raikage’s voice is long-suffering and exasperated in a way that Jiraiya could almost find the humor in. This man must be Killer Bee. He would not have guessed with their differing personalities that these two could possibly be teammates, let alone brothers.

Bee, in his own world, grins. “Hokage can play it cool, but Killer Bee came to fight, ya fools.”

“Dodai,” Ay barks, “take Bee outside.”

Jiraiya’s almost disappointed. Bee is odd, but it’s the weird ones that usually put up the best fights.

“The beast is the eight-tails, isn’t it?” He goads. “Bold of you to bring your jinchurriki.”

Ay’s expression darkens. Despite the oddities, Jiraiya gets the sense that Bee is not to be messed with in the presence of the Raikage.

“Can a man like that really control a tailed beast?”

As he predicted, Ay launches at Jiraiya, appropriately as fast as a lighting strike and just as deadly. He defends himself with a fireball, quick reflexes enhanced by the senjutsu, throwing a Rasengan before Ay can go for another hit.

It destroys the wall of the old café, sending the rest of the building tumbling down.

“Fucking watch it!” He hears Tsunade shout from a distance as he dodges the rubble himself.

The Raikage is on him again quickly, lightning on his fists. Jiriaya thinks for a moment he should have brought Kakashi to show off the Chidori, but the brief introspection is enough to make his counterattack much narrower than it should have been, and he shakes all distraction.  

If he’s going to fight, he’s going to win.

He lands on his feet and watches as Ay gears up to launch another attack. “I have some information for you, Raikage!”

Ay doesn’t take the bait, and in a split second is aiming for him again with his fists. Jiraiya blocks the blows, absorbing what he can’t dodge with his hair.

“I don’t want anything from you but surrender,” Ay growls at him. “You arrogant bastard.”

Jiraiya can’t help but smirk. “It’s not arrogance if it’s the truth!” He spits toad oil at Ay and follows it with a fireball- one that would have charred anyone slower but barely singes the Raikage, who counters with, predictably, more lighting.

Toad-like, Jiraiya jumps to a high rock, perching there for a moment tauntingly before leaping out of Ay’s way. “There’s a threat to your village much larger than Konoha.”

Ay shoots a harsh glare at him. “Konoha is no threat.”

For that, Jiraiya spits more oil at him. “The Akatsuki is after the tailed beasts! They’re going to come for the eight tails, and I don’t have to tell you what that means for Bee!”

Ay looks contemplative, even as he zips away from Jiraiya’s attack. “Why would they take the tailed beasts? Who do they work for? Hanzo?”

“The man they worked for killed Hanzo single-handedly. They don’t belong to any village.”

Ay’s face twists as he runs in for another hit, only to punch Jiraiya’s needled hair. “They’re mercenaries. As if I would allow a simple mercenary to take Bee!”

“Simple mercenaries who will soon have the ability to destroy us all for their own gain. I have fought their leader myself and barely escaped with my life!” Jiraiya yells. “The Akatsuki could wipe out full armies as they are, let alone if they have all nine beasts! I don’t care about the kidnapping, or this stupid war. If they are allowed to start collecting the tailed beasts, that includes my own family! They’ll rip the nine tails from him and kill him. I can’t allow that to happen.”

“You would put aside Konoha for your son?”

Jiraiya doesn’t correct him, a warm fondness spreading in his chest. He would do anything for Naruto, but he doesn’t have to. “I believe in him! He can and will do great things and be even stronger than me! Don’t you understand?”

“I will protect my brother, I don’t need an alliance as pathetic as Konoha’s to do it!”

“I can set Konoha’s grudges aside to save the world. If we don’t stand together, Raikage, we’ll fall alone. Can Kumo say the same?”

Ay doesn’t answer, and the way lightning is crackling around him gives Jiraiya little hope he will. This meeting has been for nothing, and he forms another attack.

The Rasengan leaves his hand, flying at the Raikage.

“Bro! Maybe Hokage’s got a point, yo!” A giant tentacle bats the Rasengan out of the way, sending it careening into the mountain and leaving a sizeable crater. The fight stops, and Jiraiya jumps back, panting. Holding onto his senjutsu is growing more impossible by the second.

“Bee! Get out of the way!” Ay barks at his brother. Bee doesn’t move, still blocking him.

“Listen, yo! Trust my power, bro!” Eight tentacles fan out behind Bee in an impressive display.

“Don’t make me ask you again, Bee. Stand down, now! The Hokage is mocking us!”

Jiraiya leaps down to the two men, releasing his senjustu when he lands. The sudden loss of power is a relief- he might be able to execute it properly now, but his endurance is failing him. “I wouldn’t be here if I thought there was another way,” he pleads. “There won’t be villages left to fight for if the Akatsuki gets their way.”

Ay ignores him, taking a fighting stance. Jiraiya does not mirror him, staring back, defiant. He has no more reason to fight if Ay won’t listen, and there’s no satisfaction left if he walks away from this victorious but empty handed. He’s standing down.

“Konoha is offering, no, I am offering an alliance, personally.”

“You’re just looking to double cross us, and I’m not falling for it,” Ay yells at him, then rears back for what is sure to be a brutal punch.

Jiraiya doesn’t defend himself, taking the hit straight to his face. It knocks him back, but he remains standing, looking Ay in the eye. All of them are silent, the moment frozen in time. Then, something begins to change in the Raikage’s face, the set frown morphing into respect.

He offers Jiraiya a hand up. “Fine. Let’s talk, Hokage.”

Jiraiya takes it.

Kumo is more civilized than he expected. Orochimaru is not a fool swayed by propaganda, he didn’t truly believe Konoha was superior to every village simply because that’s what he was told, but the organization is a surprise.

On the battlefield, Kumo is brutal. He’s seen their shinobi resort to tactics that make even the likes of him feel queasy. Charred corpses from their lightning trail in Kumo’s wake in whatever conflict they participate in, and that’s not to mention the underhanded tactics, for example, trying to steal a dojustu by kidnapping a three-year-old child.

Well, Orochimaru supposes he can’t judge them too harshly for that. Every ninja does what they must to follow orders and survive.

Jiraiya and the Raikage walk ahead, talking too quietly for the rest of their group to overhear. The sour advisor, Dodai, has been tasked with leading them to guest accommodations but he won’t look any of the trio trailing him in the eye.

“Where the hell’s the bar around here?” Tsunade grumbles next to him. “I need a drink after all of that.”

Orochimaru is inclined to agree. He had not expected the meeting to come to blows so quickly, but perhaps that had been Jiraiya’s plan all along. It would be just like his idiot teammate to take a punch to the face that would have killed a lesser man in the name of peace and call it a success. “Hime, I do believe we should behave ourselves. We are guests of the Raikage, after all.”

Dodai’s ears turn red, a telltale sign he’s successfully antagonized their reluctant guide. He must be unhappy with the Kage’s resolution.

“Yeah,” she scoffs, “I’m sure Konoha will be getting a warm welcome here. We’re still technically at war.”

While Jiraiya is off signing treaties, he and Tsunade are led to a tower where they’ve been provided with rooms for the time being. Orochimaru admires the view from inside; he’s not so stupid as to be lounging on the balcony in enemy territory, especially given that he is so recognizable.

Tsunade knocks on his door shortly, not bothering to wait for an answer and barging in with a bottle of sake and a tense expression. “I’ll be happy to be out of here,” she tells him while she pours two glasses. “I never thought the Raikage of all people would host us.”

Between the two of them, there must be a staggering pile of Kumo-nin corpses. “It’s difficult to accept peace from the enemy,” Orochimaru agrees. He wonders if their alliance would mean he’s allowed into their libraries. “Perhaps there are ways we can benefit from each other.”

“Maybe,” Tsunade shrugs. “If we’re here any longer I’ll offer to help at their hospital. I doubt it’s as advanced as mine,” she says proudly.

They drink by themselves in companiable silence until dinner is served, at which time Shikaku joins them, looking exhausted. He slumps at their table, one elbow propping up his head and hardly eats.

“Well?” Tsunade prods when Shikaku provides no updates of his own volition.

Shikaku sighs, cracking his neck and leaning back onto his arms casually. “The treaty is signed. They certainly took their time with it. I’ve never seen so many petty concessions.”

“Such as?”

“Jiraiya asked for the best table at their finest restaurant for the duration of his stay. I’m surprised it wasn’t the brothel.”

It doesn’t escape Orochimaru’s notice how Tsunade frowns at the comment, pouring herself more alcohol. He considers himself above such simple meddling typically, but he’s beginning to tire of this stupid dance his teammates have been engaging in for years now.

“I suppose he’s finally decided to look for more respectable company,” Orochimaru says. Shikaku shrugs lazily, reaching for the final gyoza left on the table. Tsunade rolls her eyes.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Well, Orochimaru thinks tiredly, all she would have to do is open her eyes.

Chapter Text

In the dim light of her borrowed room, Sadako squints through tears at the scroll Tobi had brought her. She had once dreamed of the day when she’d be let in on the secrets the Uchiha so closely guarded, but the dull text bored her. She couldn’t stop thinking about Minato.

She’s on the verge of cracking the mystery, she can feel it, down to her very bones. The village had seemed to accept that the Kyubi appeared out of nowhere, or that the Uchiha had somehow released it. She doesn’t fall into either camp, and the anger she feels for Sandiame and Jiraiya had obscured the nagging thought that perhaps there was a greater plot, one that went beyond Uchiha-Konoha relations.

She gnaws at her lip until she tastes blood and the salt of her tears. There are too many pieces that don’t fit together. Too many loose ends she can’t tie. Minato would have figured it out already. She hates that she’s alone here.

“I wondered what would happen after he killed the Yondaime,” Konan drawls in her thoughts.

It must be someone close to the Akatsuki. Maybe even a member of the Akatsuki. It isn’t above them, they’re mercenaries, and fiercely talented ones at that. She’s stricken with regret. Not for leaving the village, not for trying to claw her way to justice for her clan by way of violence, but for having been led to these people, who don’t have convictions or a worthy cause that is apparent, at least to her. They don’t long for justice like she does. They care only for chaos and the money that’s made from it.

She begins to doubt Madara. How much could he care about restoring the Uchiha if it is his mercenaries that attempted to destroy them? He promised her a world of information for her, a world of power, a new world that would be built to not only accept her clan but revere it.

What would releasing the Kybui upon not only Minato, but the Uchiha, do to further the cause?

Her head hurts. That can’t be true. She doesn’t have all the information.

She wipes at her eyes, scrubbing her face of emotion, and stuffs the scroll into the desk drawer.

Konan is alone in the main room, sitting rigidly, deep in thought. Sadako hates her the most. She’s stuck up and cold, as if she thinks she superior, and Sadako’s never been good with playing nice.

“Is Tobi around?”

Konan looks up at her with dead eyes. “He’s here. Don’t bother him.”

“Don’t presume you’re above me,” she sneers back. The audacity of the other woman to assume she isn’t allowed an audience- as if she answers to her. She scoffs.

Madara senses her before she has the chance to knock on the enormous door to his room and ushers her inside. Sadako is no diplomat, but she tries to think of what Morio or Minato would do in her place and sits on the small sofa politely when it’s offered to her.

She’s surprised how bare the room is, as if Madara didn’t need anything to live, like he really is the ghost of the Uchiha.

“I’m worried about our clan,” she tells him seriously.

One piercing black eye stares back at her from behind the orange mask. “As am I,” he agrees.

“It’s gotten worse since the Kybui,” she ventures carefully, “and when Fugaku put a stop to the coup-“

“There’s no need for your impatience,” he cuts her off cooly. “In fact, I have a mission for you.”

Sadako perches on the edge of her seat eagerly. Relief floods her, and she feels silly to have doubted him. The persistent, nagging feeling that something’s not right quiets. These mercenaries are a means to an end, to their end. If she finds out that one of them set the Kyubi on her people, she can come to Madara and they’ll be dealt with.

He looms over her, extending one long arm to rest on her shoulder familiarly. She imagines he’s smiling.

“I think,” he purrs, “that it is past time we see to the Hokage.”

It’s not difficult to track down the Hokage’s party with the Akatsuki’s network of information. She doesn’t even have to sneak into Konoha, since her arrogant former sensei saw it fit to be running around the Great Nations himself. She almost laughs when she finds out he’s trying to negotiate with Kumo.

It makes it easy to intercept him, since there are few direct paths to Kumo, and she knows from her days as his student which one he’s most likely to take.

The long road that skirts around Ame is deserted. Since the last great war, there’s little reason for anyone to venture there. It’s a wasteland of decrepit skyscrapers and no industry, and though Pain’s reputation and retribution keeps it quiet, there’s an iron grip around that peace that doesn’t allow for outsiders to slip in easily.

Sadako hates it there. Despite her complicated feelings towards home, she misses seeing the sunshine of Konoha. She promises herself she’ll see it again someday, and with Madara she hopes she will. A warm feeling spreads in her chest, knowing he trusts her so much.

She hides in the treeline off the road, clamping down on her chakra as best as she can. She doesn’t have to hide for long if she uses the Mangekyo, and she doesn’t doubt she’ll need every bit of her power to kill Jiraiya, especially if he’s taken Tsunade or Orochimaru with him, as it was reported to her. She’ll have to pick him off first, and then make a quick exit. She’s sure someone else in the Akatsuki will be happy to take the bounty for the other two another time.

She waits for several hours, anticipation thrumming through her body. She imagines returning to Konoha with Madara, the glory they’ll feel when they liberate their clan. She’s waited so long for that day to come she had started to believe it wouldn’t happen. That she would be trapped in the cycle of subtle oppression forever, serving a village that offered her nothing but a life as a weapon they could never hope to understand. She vows to make them.

Branches creak and crack in the distance, and she spots her targets. The Sannin are together, Jiraiya leading the way. The stupid oaf looks happy, in no great rush as he chats with his team like the world around him isn’t burning. She half expects to see Kumo behind them, but the road is quiet, and maybe they’ve negotiated something. Jiraiya did love to go on and on about peace while they took mission after mission to prevent it.

She raises her head, intending to lock eyes with one of his companions behind him, but is met in a moment with her former teacher’s piercing stare before she has the opportunity. He spotted her first. She rushes him, fury flowing in her attack. She won’t give him time to think, or pity her, or talk her down. She’ll kill him here, kill him now, and-

She stumbles backwards, pain flaring in her ribs. The man with the fist in his stomach is not Jiraiya-sensei, who had begged for her reasons when she fled Konoha with pathetic tears in his eyes. She’s just challenged the Hokage. Her mind swirls like the Rasengan buried in her gut and what little she can conjure beyond the agony screams at her to move, to retreat, to live.

It’s impossible. She is not invincible.

Nobody is.

Anger strikes in her, hot and painful. Madara did this. He’d taken advantage of her emotions and set her on a test she couldn’t pass because she had dared to voice her doubts. She was too reckless. Too trusting. Too naïve to think anyone could truly understand. Not her students, not her sensei, not Fugaku, and not Madara.

Blood dribbles from her mouth and Jiraiya catches her before she collapses completely, lowering them both to the dirt. Rocks prick at her skin, imperceptible under the greater pain of her wound. She looks beyond her old sensei, at the clear blue sky, and wishes for the shade the trees of her village provide, for some small sliver of the home she abandoned to comfort her in her last moments.

She doesn’t want to die, not here, not at the mercy of this man who never cared for her. Yet another choice ripped from her control, and that’s all her life has ever been, hasn’t it?

Sadako grabs desperately at Jiriaya’s haori, clawing at him to look at her. The bastard owes her that much.

“Shisui,” she sputters, the name stuck in a wet cough. “Eyes. Shisui.”

The blurry form of Sensei nods and beckons for Tsunade.

Sadako feels no pain. She thinks of fire, and then there is nothing.

“Jiraiya. Get up.”

He manages to follow the order, hazy as it is. Grass is stuck to his knees, congealed there by Sadako’s blood. Orochimaru hovers over him, a sour expression splitting his face.

“Tsunade and Shikaku are on their way back already. Get up.”

Jiraiya blinks at his oldest friend and then looks to the mess at his feet. Tsunade had closed her eyes, but there’s an eerie emptiness on Sadako’s face. Some corpses look at peace. He himself could die with a smile on his face if it came to that, but Sadako’s dark features didn’t relax from their agonizing pose in death.

When he saw her from the road, lying in wait, there was not a hesitant bone in his body. She was too dangerous to leave alive, and always too bold and too stupid to be there for simple reconnaissance.

“Did I do the right thing, Orochimaru?” He asks hoarsely.

Orochimaru doesn’t hesitate, frowning at the body between them. “Yes,” he says shortly.

Jiraiya supposes he’ll have to live with that answer. As if there is any other choice but to live with it.

Orochimaru helps him to his feet, and they take their trek home in strained, alert silence in case they might be followed. The Akatsuki work in pairs. He thinks, cruelly, for a moment, that Sadako must have already driven her partner off. She was a terrible team player.

Jiraiya’s heart pounds heavily in his chest when the reach the gates. He can’t help but to think of Naruto, not the three-year-old that happily bounces around the playground, but the teenaged one who would have gone to the end of the world to save Sasuke. Naruto would have found a way to save Sadako. Killing her wouldn’t have crossed his mind.

“Go home, Jiraiya,” Orochimaru urges. “Another few hours isn’t likely to burn down the village.”

He shakes his head. There are no more breaks, from now on.

His old friend huffs but doesn’t make any argument as they make their way to the Hokage tower. He hopes, selfishly, Fugaku has already informed Shisui of his mentor’s demise. He can’t bear to look him in the eye and see Naruto, not now.

“Ah! Godaime!” Iwashi cries as they ascend the stairs, making to quickly get out of the way and back to his post next to Genma.

“That bad, huh?” The guard captain says from his favored spot, chewing thoughtfully on his senbon.

Jiraiya huffs a humorless laugh. “Something like that,” he agrees. “Is Fugaku here?”

Genma nods, nudging the door open with his foot. “Good to see you home, Jiraiya-sama.”

Unlike the times he’s left Tusnade in charge, the desk isn’t buried in a mountain of backlogged paperwork. The entire office is neater than he’d left it, and the windows are open to let in a breeze, ruffling the dark hair of the interim Hokage.

“Took you long enough,” Fugaku says, rising from his seat. His face is unreadable, but Jiraiya wonders what’s underneath. Is he mourning? Is he angry? Would he care at all?

Jiraiya’s not sure where to start but sinking into the desk chair seems as good as any place and he collapses into the familiar leather, relieved for some semblance of comfort after so long on the road.

“Shikaku was already here,” Fugaku says tightly. “I have my own work to attend to.”

Jiraiya can do nothing but nod as Fugaku leaves the office, Orochimaru right behind him. They’ll speak later, when they have the words, if they ever come at all.

He sits back and attempts to squeeze the ache out of his head by shutting his eyes. He’s greeted with Sadako’s bloodied, agonized face and he scrubs a hand down his own, defeated. He can’t decide how to feel. He hates her. She killed her own people. She killed his. Yet he feels grief over her death, knowing she wouldn’t have said the same if she’d won the fight and killed him instead.

Perhaps her fate would have been best spared to the massacre. At least she’d died among friends. At least her name had been etched onto the memorial stone instead of crossed out in the Bingo book.

He shakes the thought. There’s work to be done after Kumo, more than he was ready for when he started out, and he begins to poke through the desk. It’s then he notices what’s amiss in the neatened piles.

Atop the central stack of scrolls is a singular, perfect paper bird.