Work Text:
“Lady Hokage! Lady Hokage!”
The repeated cries echoed through the Hokage Tower, down the stairs and into the basement, where Tsunade and T&I held another fruitless meeting, seeking to pin down the source of Pain’s powers.
The sudden increase in tension was palpable to all, but even more so to Yamanaka Inoichi, who paused halfway through his next sentence to stare at the ceiling with a furrowed brow.
“It’s the tower terrace. I don’t think it’s an enemy, but- “
Tsunade glanced up as well. She was not a sensor-nin, but even she could tell something was deeply, deeply wrong.
“Thank you, Inoichi.” Tsunade said “This meeting is adjourned. Return to your posts, and let me know if anything changes.”
She left without acknowledging the responses of the other shinobi.
Tsunade caught up to the overworked chunin in the corridor. The poor boy looked as if he had seen a ghost.
“Report!” she ordered without slowing her stride.
“Y-yes, ma’am.” The chunin fell in beside her, stumbling through his message “It’s Lord Jiraiya. One of the toads brought him back. He’s badly injured.”
For a split second she felt her heart stop in her chest.
She tried not to think of Dan, or of that damned lottery ticket, or of Jiraiya’s stupid, stupid fatalism.
Tsunade sped up to a jog.
“Has he been moved?”
“No, ma’am, but Lady Shizune is already with him.”
That, at least, was some comfort. Shizune should have been able to stabilise him, whatever his condition.
Barely breathing, and outright running now, she burst onto the terrace of the Hokage Tower.
Jiraiya lay on the floor, Shizune curved over him, holding her hands, glowing with green chakra, over his chest.
Tsunade’s instincts kicked in as she assessed his condition. Jiraiya’s left arm had been torn clean off, he had multiple piercing wounds, and his throat looked like it had been crushed.
He was completely unconscious, a small mercy, under the circumstances. The pain would have been unbearable.
He was also completely drenched in his own blood.
Please not again, not again, please don’t let me be too late again.
Tsunade swallowed thickly “Status?”, she asked in a shaky voice.
“He was stabbed with those rods.” Shizune nodded at the black cylinders that lay strewn around them “They were disrupting his chakra. I don’t understand how they work, but nothing I did had any effect until they were removed. The left arm was fully amputated – I’ve managed to stop the bleeding there, at least. The throat has received severe blunt trauma. He can still breathe, but barely.”
It was bad. Very bad. But not unfixable.
Tsunade took a deep breath, and knelt down beside Shizune, emptying her mind of everything else. They needed to get him stable enough to move to an operating room.
She didn’t know how long she worked. Her heart was in her throat and the metallic smell of blood was so strong it threatened to overwhelm her.
Shortly before sunset they had him brought to the hospital.
In those small moments in between trying to coordinate the transfer and catch her breath, Fukasaku had communicated Jiraiya’s message, which she had sent onwards to T&I for analysis.
That had brought some hope that not all had been in vain, that even if he didn’t…
Tsunade shook her head. She couldn’t allow herself to consider it.
She went into the operating room, and back to work.
It may well have been the hardest operation she had ever performed.
Not technically – Jiraiya’s wounds were very severe, and the damage caused by the chakra rods to his chakra system extremely difficult to control, but it was not unlike the many badly injured shinobi she had treated in her life.
The real difficulty was keeping a lid on the flow of memories, trying not to remember a forest clearing soaked in blood, and the last man she’d loved dying in her arms.
She cursed herself for not listening to her instincts.
She’d known something was wrong with this mission, she’d even warned him.
And yet, she’d sent him off alone anyway, on a mission that could well have been his death, completely unnecessarily.
She didn’t even go with him. She could have. She should have, knowing the stakes.
And then there was that that stupid, stupid bet.
Tsunade fought to remain focused, against the shaking of her hands, the flashes of hot and cold and the speeding of her heart that heralded the edges of a panic attack.
Please not again, not again, please don’t let me be too late again.
She’d tuned out the beeping of the machines, the movement of her assistants, anything but the flow of chakra and the quiet signs that indicated that he still lived.
When she finally finished later that evening and collapsed exhausted into a plastic hospital chair, her face was completely blank.
Tsunade should have been crying, or relieved, or something, but she felt nothing but overwhelming exhaustion.
Shizune was kind enough to keep everyone but the medical team away, and to say nothing when she passed Tsunade a water bottle.
“Any news from the Decryption unit on Fukasaku’s message?” Tsunade’s voice was raw.
“They’re still trying to decode it. And Pain’s body is being autopsied as we speak.” She said, rather more softly than usual “Tsunade-sama…”
Tsunade fixed her with a glare and Shizune fell silent.
There were no guarantees he would make it through.
Tsunade knew that. Oh, she knew that better than anyone.
But she also knew she had done all that she could here today.
The village must come first, Tsuna-chan.
The voice in her head was Tobirama’s, but it echoed with the weight of three generations of Hokage.
She sighed, splashed some water on her hands and on her face, and stood up.
“I need to return to the Hokage Tower. Fukasaku’s message is of the utmost importance. Akatsuki’s leader could well be on his way here, and we need to prepare.”
Shizune nodded silently and fell in behind her as she stood up.
Tsunade walked off towards the Hokage Tower and didn’t look back.
***
Jiraiya slept through Pain’s attack on the village, and through its aftermath.
They told him, much later, that he had been among those shielded by Katsuyu when Pain’s attack had ripped through the village.
Naruto had saved them all, they told him, and the pride he had felt in that moment for one student had been comparable only to the grief he had felt for the other.
When he finally opened his eyes, he looked upon a changed world.
Nearly everyone had left for war.
Of the shinobi forces, only a few remained.
The young, the old, and the wounded had stayed behind to protect the civilians.
Jiraiya was not allowed to join the fighting. His chakra coils had been severely damaged in the fight with Pain, and it would take too long for him to be in fighting shape.
So, he took his place among the home guard.
It was where he belonged, he often joked, being both old and wounded.
At the joke, young Konohamaru had offered him a watery smile that did not quite reach his eyes.
No one else seemed to find it funny, either.
Staying behind, patrolling the same streets day after day, and being unable to do anything but hope that those on the frontlines would have the strength to succeed was a new feeling.
He’d spent so long fighting he’d forgotten how it felt to be helpless.
In that strange in-between world the borders that separated shinobi from civilian grew blurry.
They all had the same tasks – patrolling, rebuilding, keeping the flame alive.
The experience brought back long-forgotten lessons on the roof of the Hokage Tower and lectures he’d half slept through. It was good, sometimes, to be reminded of what you were fighting for.
Those days passed in a blur of cold mornings, rain and falling leaves, as the world around them shook with explosions and fragments of news so wild as only such a war could create.
Uchiha Madara is returned from the dead!
The Ten-Tails is flattening alliance!
The goddess Kaguya was secretly behind everything!
It sounded like madness, or a fairy-tale, and it would take a long time for Jiraiya to believe half the stories being told, even when later confirmed by those closest to the heart of it all.
Then there came a night where he sensed a familiar presence in the village.
More than one, in fact.
Jiraiya had been sorely tempted to reach out, at first in curiosity, later in anger. And then he’d understood that there was nothing he could contribute.
They would reach out to him, if ever it came to that.
He’d never been good at chasing after his friends, after all. That was more Naruto’s thing.
One night his dreams had been so vivid, he’d thought they were actually happening.
The next morning, he learned the same experience had been shared by everyone else.
The enemy’s plan, nearly coming into fruition.
A week later, when the conquering heroes returned to the village, the world had once again changed completely.
Rumours reached them a few days early, carried by every survivor who could still move, as the remains of the alliance converged on Konoha.
All voices carried the same word: Naruto. Naruto. Naruto.
Jiraiya only wished Minato had lived to see what his son had become.
Naruto returned home at the head of an army, and Jiraiya watched, aglow with pride, how the student who could have been his grandson retold the story to the adoring masses with an embarrassed smile.
He met those bright blue eyes above the crowd and let himself be tackled almost to the floor by a boy who suddenly seemed so much taller and more grown than the Naruto he had left behind only a few months ago.
Jiraiya let himself hug him back, relishing the joy, the pride and the relief that he had made it safely through.
Naruto had rubbed his tears away with his sleeve, and loudly made delighted comparisons about missing arms.
Later that week he would tell Jiraiya, in a voice so soft it was nearly a whisper, of how he had met Mom and Dad.
In that moment, the crowd surged around them, and Naruto was dragged off by his friends to celebrate, shouting that they would catch up later.
Jiraiya was left staring at the empty space, and of the one other person who had remained behind after the swell of the crowd had passed.
Tsunade looked rather worse for the wear.
She was dirty, bruised and horribly thin, and her Byakugo seal had disappeared entirely.
He had never been happier to see her.
He didn’t know which of them first stepped forward into that embrace. There were no words, at first. They held each other close, savoured the closeness and the warmth and the knowledge that they were both alive.
When they finally separated, she offered him a soft smile that twisted his insides into a knot, squeezed his hand, then took off to be Hokage again.
There would be formalities to be observed, of course, funerals to be held, damages to take stock of, a peace to build and a village to rebuild.
But today was for joy, and in those first few moments, they had been only two among the many racing to embrace their loved ones, able to lose themselves in the moment. It was a feeling he knew he would cherish for a long time.
Jiraiya followed the crowd into the village, passing by many tearful reunions and raucous celebrations. The merchants had brought out their best wares and were busy plying the glorious heroes with more alcohol than even the toughest shinobi could safely consume.
Smiling to himself, Jiraiya located Naruto, somewhat predictably, at Ichiraku’s. Teuchi, happier than Jiraiya had ever seen him, was offering everything on the house.
Naruto sat at the bar, surrounded by his young friends.
Jiraiya watched bemusedly as Naruto devoured five bowls of ramen, and the Hyuuga girl politely ate seven, all while a very drunk Kazekage sobbed into the shoulder of Might Guy’s green-clad student.
A familiar flicker at the edge of his senses disrupted his attention.
Leaving Naruto to his friends, he waved a quick farewell and melted into the shadows outside.
He took a moment to steel himself, then followed that presence to a small, nameless, dingy izakaya on the outskirts of town.
Its clientele had changed much over the years, but the establishment’s essential qualities remained – it was out of the way, the food was good, and the owner knew to keep his mouth shut.
And it was one of the few places lucky enough to survive Pain’s attack. Figures.
Jiraiya heaved a deep sigh and stepped inside.
There was no one else here at this time – the crowds had gathered in more cheerful establishments nearer the heart to celebrate their victory.
He nodded to the owner, slid into the booth in the corner and took in the sight of a long-lost friend.
“I thought you were dead.” Said Jiraiya.
Orochimaru shrugged pushed his dark hair over his shoulder and poured them both a heavy dose of sake, then drained his glass in one go.
Jiraiya raised an eyebrow.
It had been a very long time since he’d seen Orochimaru drinking.
He sipped quietly at his own glass.
“I thought you were too.” Orochimaru said, closing his eyes against the burn of the alcohol “Death is a remarkably fickle state these days.”
Was that a touch of emotion he was hearing? What in the world had happened to the Orochimaru he knew?
“Is that why you saw fit to reanimate Sensei and Minato’s corpses?” he was unable to hold back.
Orochimaru huffed “It was not my idea, if it comforts you. They joined the fighting of their own free will, and a good thing they did too. We would not have come this far otherwise.”
Jiraiya observed him with narrowed eyes. There was something off about Orochimaru’s posture.
He was trying to hold onto his usual mask of indifference, but it seemed to be slipping away and revealing something vulnerable and confused beneath it. Jiraiya wasn’t sure he wanted to see it.
“Why are you here?” Jiraiya asked.
The question seemed to catch Orochimaru off guard. He frowned, poured himself another glass of sake, and turned those unsettling golden eyes on him.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Why are you here, in Konoha? Don’t you have children to experiment on?” Jiraiya snapped.
A part of him wanted to hold his tongue, but sitting here across from Orochimaru, suddenly acting so open and so normal made him feel intensely angry.
The things Orochimaru had done, the people he had killed, tortured…
Children, his friend, had experimented on children. And he had the nerve to sit here in front of him and pour him a drink as if nothing had changed!
Jiraiya’s hand was shaking. He put down his drink.
Orochimaru drew back and adopted a carefully distant expression “I have been offered amnesty.”
“Amnesty?!” Jiraiya hissed “Has Tsunade taken leave of her senses?”
Orochimaru huffed “Tsunade? Of course not. No, you have your boy Naruto to thank for this, and his friend the Kazekage.”
“Gaara offered you amnesty? Didn’t you kill his father?”
What was the world coming to?
Orochimaru had the nerve to smile at that “I did. It seems they thought my services during the war warranted a pardon regardless.”
Jiraiya resisted the urge to punch him straight into a wall.
“What services?” he asked, though he knew he was playing into Orochimaru’s game.
Orochimaru drained his glass.
“Well, as you pointed out earlier, I brought our four past Hokage to the fight, and that helped tipped the balance. A lot. I also saved the five Kage’s lives.”
The disbelief on Jiraiya’s face must have been clearly visible, because Orochimaru looked like the cat who had caught the canary.
Jiraiya’s next question was interrupted by a voice from the entrance.
“He didn’t save their lives. He saved mine.” Tsunade gave Orochimaru a nod, took a seat besides Jiraiya, and signalled for another bottle of sake and another cup.
“And you used your formidable skills to save theirs in turn.” Orochimaru smirked.
Tsunade shook her head, and turned to Jiraiya “The Kazekage and the Tsuchikage insisted on this. I did warn them.”
At least she had the decency to look unhappy about it.
Gaara, from what he had been told, had turned sentimental and tended to follow in Naruto’s very forgiving footsteps, but Ohnoki? What on earth had possessed the old man?
“I’m a Konoha missing-nin, I’m sure if you really wanted me gone you could overrule that.” Orochimaru said with a twisted smirk.
Tsunade glared at him, as the owner brought their second bottle of sake and her cup.
Orochimaru poured another round for the three and raised his cup in a mock toast.
Jiraiya looked carefully at both his teammates. Orochimaru was playing it cool, but that fragile something that had been there at the start of this meeting had not wholly disappeared.
And Tsunade…while clearly also angry at Orochimaru, seemed more than a little relieved.
Relieved that Orochimaru had lived or that she had not been forced to kill him? Hard to say. Jiraiya wouldn’t have known what to do in her situation either.
But the Tsuchikage…He was not a man given to sentimentality. There had to be something about this, something that made the risk worthy in the old man’s cunning calculations. Orochimaru’s story about saving them might even be true, but that would not be enough for Ohnoki.
No, there was something more.
His research, perhaps? It wouldn’t surprise him if Orochimaru knew more of what was going on than just about anyone else.
“The Tsuchikage thinks you’re more useful alive than dead, and so do the others.” Jiraiya concluded aloud, and looked at Tsunade for confirmation.
Her expression – one part anger, one part frustration and one part hope told him all he needed to know.
Orochimaru shrugged and leaned back “I am to be watched, or so I hear.” He looked to Tsunade, who didn’t react.
“In Konoha?” Jiraiya asked.
“Close by, at least.” Tsunade muttered.
“And so, you thought to invite us for drinks.” Jiraiya said dryly.
“I thought the three of us surviving the end of the world merited a modicum of celebration.”
“You’re insufferable” said Jiraiya, torn between anger and amusement.
He sighed deeply and signalled for some food. They might be here a good long while.
Orochimaru stared at him, eyes slightly unfocused over the rim of his cup.
“How did you make it out of Amegakure? I heard nothing of it.” Orochimaru asked, sounding almost wounded.
“Through no skill of my own. That was all Princess Tsunade.” Jiraiya directed a smile and a soft look with Tsunade, who looked down at her own cup and then proceeded to drain it in one go.
“You did more than enough.” She said.
Orochimaru smiled, amused “Tsunade stitched you back together into one piece, or mostly, that I don’t doubt. But that wasn’t my question.”
Jiraiya shrugged “Shima reverse summoned me back to Konoha, then Tsunade did the rest.”
Orochimaru frowned, clearly still not satisfied with the answer.
“As for why you didn’t hear it, it might have something to do with the fact that you were dead yourself.” Jiraiya pointed out.
“I heard plenty when I was ‘dead’, but that news never reached me.” He looked curiously at Tsunade.
“I don’t know, alright? I didn’t do anything to hide it and I’ll remind you I was unconscious too, not too long after. I suppose it just wasn’t anyone’s priority, what with the war going on and all.” She snapped.
“We’re lucky Danzo didn’t murder us in our sleep.” Jiraiya muttered.
Orochimaru’s eyes darkened “I’m sure he tried. I should have dealt with that years ago.”
Tsunade looked surprised at the admission “I thought you were working with him.”
“For a time, it was useful. But that was before.”
“Before what?” she insisted.
Orochimaru nodded behind her as the food was brought to their table, and nibbled on a skewer instead of answering.
“Before what?” Tsunade insisted.
He finished his skewer and started curling a long strand of hair back and forth along his fingers. A very old nervous tell, and one he’d long got rid of.
It was the alcohol, perhaps, Jiraiya thought.
“It was the Uchiha affair that made me realise it.” Orochimaru said in a low voice.
“Realise what? Stop being cryptic for once.” Tsunade slammed her cup on the table.
Orochimaru had that look in his eyes that said he was running through the logical steps of the conversation ahead of speaking, and Jiraiya laid a staying hand on Tsunade’s arm.
She shot him an angry look, but didn’t shake him off.
“You remember, back then, the clashes between Danzo and your parents?” Orochimaru said carefully.
Tsunade nodded tensely. Danzo’s disagreements with the Senju faction had been well known.
“There was more to it than we knew at the time.”
“Meaning?” Jiraiya asked.
“Meaning it’s not a coincidence that both of Konoha’s founding clans are down to a membership of one.” He said quietly, looking into Tsunade’s eyes.
Tsunade tightened her hand into a fist and hissed “What exactly did you find?”
“You know I worked with him in ROOT for years, right?”
Tsunade nodded tersely, and waved a hand as if to say ‘get on with it’.
“I made copies of every document that came my way then. And after he came to me with that absurd request after the Uchiha incident, I started putting the pieces together. Danzo had a hand in damn near every single disaster that has befallen this village over the past thirty years.”
Jiraiya was tempted to point out that so had Orochimaru, but he had the sense to see that Tsunade might send him crashing through a wall if he interrupted now.
“And so, looking back, there was a lot that became obvious.” Orochimaru took a deep breath “Nawaki – Tsuna, it was a recon mission, we were never meant to be there in the first place. Sensei had initially sent us to the Suna border. I didn’t question the changed orders at the time.” His voice sounded almost pleading, the old nickname falling from his lips seemingly unconsciously.
Tsunade’s skin had turned to parchment.
He pressed on, the words tumbling out quickly “Then there was the ambush in Iwa – you remember the one with your cousins – they were supposed to bring a message to the garrison at the border, but the orders got mixed up and they tried to pass through the canyon. And then, of course, your parents themselves.” Orochimaru’s voice softened “These weren’t isolated incidents. Similar things happened to damn near every single one of your relatives. I should have seen it earlier. I had some suspicions, but there was so much going on and I never thought…” he shook his head. “And then later, of course, none of you would have listened to a word I said.”
He was staring intently at Tsunade, as if trying to communicate with his mind words he couldn’t bring himself to say out loud.
Tsunade sat in complete silence, staring out somewhere past Orochimaru’s head.
Orochimaru continued babbling, his voice taking on an unusually panicky edge “Tsuna, I-I know I should have, I tried to – sensei – but then there was the investigation, your grandfather’s cells – I think part of me knew then-“
She curled her fist and closed her eyes and her arm shaking. The table was cracking underneath the weight of her hand.
Jiraiya signalled urgently for Orochimaru to stop talking now and he took the hint and fell silent, staring urgently between the two of them.
Tsunade took a few deep breaths and the shaking subsided.
When she reopened her eyes it was as if a mask had come over her.
“Thank you for telling me this.” She said in a monotone voice.
Then Tsunade stood up, and walked out.
Orochimaru looked wildly at Jiraiya in a way that would have been almost comical if the situation had not been so serious.
They both stood up to follow her.
“I think it’s best if you stay behind right now.” Jiraiya said.
Orochimaru pursed his lips, nodded mutely, and collapsed into the booth.
The sight was disconcerting. He hadn’t seen either of his teammates so rattled in a very long time and dealing with both falling apart in a single evening had not been in his celebration plans.
He told the owner to put the meal on his tab and followed Tsunade out the door.
The night had grown chilly, though the sky was unusually clear for an October night.
He walked through the remains of the village at a leisurely pace.
Dawn was not far, and most of the revellers had gone home to sleep off the night. Here and there stragglers huddled around a bar, or shared bottles while sitting on piles of debris. He passed on quite a few toasts to the shinobi alliance.
Eventually he reached the spot where he knew he would find her. It was astonishing it had survived the attack at all.
Jiraiya sat down heavily on the bench at her side. She was bent forward, face in her hands and taking steady deep breaths.
He sat in silence for a time, offering nothing but his company.
Her breaths evened out and she straightened up. She looked shaken still, but that dreadful cold look in her eyes from earlier was gone.
“How?” she asked in a small voice “How did I not see? Was I so naïve, so stupid?” she asked.
It was clear she neither expected nor wanted an answer.
“I knew he disagreed with us on almost everything, but this…”
Jiraiya risked laying a hand on her shoulder. To his surprise she leaned into the touch.
“No one could have guessed that, Tsunade. No one would even have conceived of it.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed Oro.” She whispered.
“No, you had a right to know. And he wanted to tell you. He’s probably wanted to tell you for years. He seemed quite shaken by it. I’m surprised he didn’t go after Danzo himself.”
“Maybe he meant to.” She mused.
Maybe he had. Tsunade’s family had all but taken Orochimaru in when he’d lost his own. Was that why he has attacked the village? An attempt to remove Danzo from power?
But no, the attack had been too senseless, too blindly destructive. And Orochimaru had not gone after Danzo then, though he surely had the opportunity.
He’d targeted sensei instead.
Had sensei known? Could he have known? Should he? He’d turned a blind eye to Orochimaru’s own crimes for decades, would he not have done the same for Danzo, his teammate?
He couldn’t imagine a world where sensei would have willingly allowed the murder of Tsunade’s family, of his own master’s family. Then again, if the rumours were true, he had covered up the Uchiha affair.
Perhaps young Sasuke and Orochimaru’s anger ran closer than either of them would admit it.
Still, Jiraiya found it difficult to believe sensei would have been a part of this particular cover-up.
Jiraiya raised an eyebrow “If this was his idea of making it up to you, he went about it very poorly.”
“Tact was never his forte.” Tsunade snorted “And it doesn’t change anything, does it? They’ve been gone for decades. It’s just me, same as always.” Her voice faltered slightly at the end.
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” He said, as jovially as he could muster.
She gave him a hard look.
Jiraiya gestured at the half-rebuilt village around them “You’re Hokage now, you have all of Konoha with you. Shizune, Naruto, all these kids who look up to you.”
Orochimaru, even, apparently. And me.
She smiled softly, then stretched out her legs and sighed.
“Hopefully I won’t be Hokage for much longer.”
“Kakashi is finally stepping up to the chopping block, eh?”
“Very reluctantly, but yes. I’ve a pile of forms to get through, and I should be rid of the damn hat in a few months, at most.”
“What will you do then?” he asked, chest tightening.
“I don’t know yet. It’s a new world. If even Orochimaru can be rehabilitated, I suppose I can find something useful to do. But first, I think a trip to the Land of the Hot Springs might be in order.” She actually smiled then, though her eyes remained veiled.
“I’d say I’d join you, but I’m afraid for my physical integrity.”
“Idiot” She punched him in the arm lightly. It hurt, just a little bit. She never did have as much control over her strength when she was tipsy.
Jiraiya laughed and tried not to rub his arm.
They sat quietly, watching the village slowly transition into dawn.
Orochimaru joined them a bit later, half sheepish, his eyes heavy-lidded from all that sake, and leaned against the side of the bench in silence.
They let him stay.
There would be work to do, and accounts to settle later, but for now, they were here, they were alive, and that was one hell of a sunrise.