Faded Photograph

Luna Silvereyes

The moon was bright. He knew it was a perfect night to sit up on the roof with a bottle of sake and watch the stars come out. Thankfully, the kid had fallen asleep rather quickly today, much more quickly than normal. It allowed the Toad Sage some room for his own thoughts, and not just coming up with ways to ditch the kid and go do some 'research'. However, current events were troublesome at the moment, and the appearance of his old teammate at the Chunin exams had left him a tad on the bitter side, though he'd never show it. As he sipped his sake thoughtfully, Jiraiya chuckled a bit at the memories dredged up, sighing a bit at other memories pulled in alongside them. One or two even earned him a grimace, memories better left buried. Hopefully, the sake would take care of that for him.

It hit him; that familiar old scent. He could smell somewhere in the village, someone was cooking something with hot peppers in it. He chuckled as one old memory in particular bobbed to the surface of his mind.

"What do you have hidden there, huh Jiraiya?"

"N-Nothing,"

"You'd make a pretty poor Shinobi if you can't even lie well,"

"I didn't ask for your opinion, Orochimaru! Shut up!"

Jiraiya sighed; of course, he'd had a point. He'd stolen some hot peppers from someone's garden that day and hidden them in his sleeves. On hindsight, he knew they'd looked fairly obvious. That and he knew his teammates could probably smell them. In any event, all that mattered at the time was the prank he'd had in mind. He was at least enough of a Shinobi at the time to successfully sneak the diced peppers into everyone's lunches, including Sarutobi's. However, while he'd managed to get past his two hard-to-fool teammates, he figured that he hadn't managed to pull the wool over their master's eyes.

"Well, this doesn't taste suspicious at all,"

"Orochimaru, how can you just sit there like that?! This stuff is HOT!"

"Agh! Why is it in mine, too!?"

"JIRAIYA!"

It had taken him most of the day to evade Tsunade's death grip. Jiraiya later figured out that Sarutobi must have used a Genjutsu to switch his lunch and Jiraiya's at the last second without anyone noticing. He recalled the day as only one-third successful, as Sarutobi didn't fall for it and while he got the desired reaction from Tsunade, it turned out Orochimaru didn't mind spicy food as much and so didn't really care that his food had been tampered with.

Jiraiya sighed and chuckled at the fond memory. He wondered now what his main motivation had been at the time to pull such a prank. Oh...maybe that was it. Their team was still fairly newly formed. He figured maybe he was just trying to get a rise out of his somewhat stuffy teammates, especially Orochimaru. Back then, you were lucky to get a decent sentence out of him half the time. As he recalled, Sarutobi's punishment for that day was for Jiraiya to spend the whole day on top of the wooden posts trying to balance a stick with a bucket of water on his head for three hours. He recalled wryly that, whether out of boredom or amusement, Orochimaru had spent the better part of that afternoon sitting on the ground and staring at him, unblinking and unmoving, much like a real snake. That certainly hadn't helped Jiraiya's concentration. He'd dumped the bucket over twice, and then a third time feigning accident just so it would land close to Orochimaru, effectively drenching him.

That got him riled up, at least. As far as Jiraiya knew, Orochimaru had hated getting wet and chased him around for about ten minutes before finally catching him and trussing him to a nearby tree. He then told their master that Jiraiya had skipped out on his water-balancing punishment and gone home, resulting in Jiraiya being left tied to the tree all night long. That was actually one of the few times he recalled his old teammate outright lying. He was known to stretch and bend the truth, but never more than that usually. He figured he must have been pretty pissed off.

"Orochimaru, come back and untie me! Come on, I'm sorry! I won't do that again! Come on, seriously? You can't just leave me here!"

"Watch me,"

"Orochimaru, you creep! Don't you dare leave me here! I'm gonna get you for this!"

"Ooh, I'm scared,"

He chuckled and gazed up at the sky. Before everything had gotten so out of hand, he'd actually considered the guy to be one his better friends at the time, even though they fought constantly. Naruto's rivalry with Sasuke reminded him of this more than anything, what with all the amusing stories Kakashi brought back from The Land of Waves about their constant attempts to outdo each other.

Another memory popped up then and Jiraiya reached into his pocket, pulling out a piece of paper folded many times over and yellow from age. He unfolded it, revealing a photograph Sarutobi had taken secretly after one of the training sessions. Jiraiya had found out about this one after their team photo had been taken and he caught Sarutobi showing it to his wife. His master had sheepishly admitted to taking it and asked Jiraiya if he'd like to keep it, which he did. He always figured he could use it to get Orochimaru and Tsunade riled up again in the near future, even though he wound up never showing them.

The day it was taken, Sarutobi had issued a particularly grueling training session that left all three of them nearly sick from heat exhaustion and fatigue. Even the ever-resilient Orochimaru was left slumped on the ground, gasping for air after Sarutobi called for a break. Since that day was hellishly hot and not promising to cool off anytime soon, all three genin managed to make it to the shade of a large oak tree before collapsing. Jiraiya wasn't really sure of his memories of that day, but this picture proved that at the time, the three of them had been somewhat close at least. It showed him leaning up against the tree, fast asleep sitting up. Tsunade was slumped against his right shoulder and Orochimaru draped against his left, both passed out from exhaustion. Jiraiya smirked when he pictured Sarutobi snapping the secret shot of the three of them asleep like that, as if they were all closer than their constant bickering allowed for. Sheesh, he thought, bickering is right! Though they were an effective team, Jiraiya knew that in every age and era, boys would always be boys and several slower days were often spent planning ways to make Tsunade mad, especially since Orochimaru had figured out that Jiraiya had a bit of a crush on her.

"You're twisted, Orochimaru,"

"Hey, it was your idea. I just provided the garter snake. Don't worry; they're harmless,"

"I am NOT doing it,"

"If you don't, I will and blame it on you,"

"Yeah? And what makes you think she'll believe you?"

"Because I don't do things like this,"

"..."

"Are you going to do it or not? I'll take the snake back if you won't,"

"Ugh...I would get the idea to put a snake down Tsunade's shirt, wouldn't I? Some friend you are. You never come through when I need it,"

"Huh? How didn't I?"

"You should've talked me out of it,"

Yes, one idiot plus one genius equaled one evil genius. Even though Tsunade never forgave them for that incident and let both of them have it that day, they still remained a worthy team and at least held a fair amount of trust in each other. This held especially true when it was Jiraiya's turn to make lunch for the team. Deciding to play yet another trick on his silent teammate, he made his favorite food, eggs, and then wrapped them loosely, allowing the heat to escape and thus creating his least favorite food; anything cold. He'd gotten the lunchbox hurled at him along with the admonishment not to waste food. Although, it wasn't a total loss, he decided. It resulted in one of the few times Tsunade and Orochimaru decided to get along when she offered to share her lunch with him so he'd have energy for training.

"Jeez, Jiraiya, you're such a child, sometimes. Well fine, Orochimaru, you can have some of mine,"

"...Thanks, Tsunade...,"

"Really though, you could've saved that lunch and just reheated it later. It's not like it was really wasting it or anything,"

"It was a spur of the moment thing,"

"Oh sure, with Jiraiya, I understand,"

"I CAN HEAR EVERY WORD YOU TWO ARE SAYING, YOU KNOW!"

He chuckled at another memory, this time when he and Orochimaru were in cahoots on the same gag. Sarutobi had decided to punish them for arguing by forcing them to sit in on a lesson on the importance of teamwork on a mission with a group of eight-year-old Shinobi trainees back at the academy. After two hours of enduring giggles, stares, and the occasional paper wad, they met after class and decided to get even. Both of them were fairly proficient at advanced jutsu by this time, enough that they were able to correctly assume the others' physical identity. Once Jiraiya became Orochimaru and vice-versa, they returned to the training grounds where Sarutobi and Tsunade were waiting.

"Looks about right, Jiraiya. My hair isn't that long, though,"

"Hey, what's the difference, Chi? You look like a girl anyway, so who cares?"

"One, don't call me that, and two, remember who I'm impersonating, idiot,"

"Right back at'cha, Chi,"

"Stop grinning like that or you'll give us away,"

When the training began, both third student and master were understandably dumbfounded when Jiraiya suddenly began mastering extremely difficult techniques, but Orochimaru was the one bumbling up and messing up ridiculously simple techniques. Performing the others' trademark jutsus succeeded in confusing the hell out of Sarutobi who finally figured it out about two hours later and demanded the two switch back immediately. Even though both of them ended up tied to the posts that day as punishment, they both agreed that it was well worth it.

"..."

"..."

"...Well, this sucks,"

"...You can say that again, Jiraiya. But please don't,"

"I wish Sensei wouldn't tie these so tightly. I'm getting rope burns,"

"I lost feeling in my arms twenty minutes ago,"

"Hehe, still, that was a great job we did. We had them fooled for a while,"

"Heh, yeah. Remember the look on Tsunade's face when "I" fell flat on "my" face trying to jump from that tree?"

"How about Sensei's jaw dropping when "I" summoned your snakes,"

"Too bad we're going to be stuck here for a while. Sensei was mad this time,"

"Yeah. You know Orochimaru, you've got a weird sense of humor when you decide to use it,"

"I should, Jiraiya. I hang out with you,"

"You're lucky I'm over here, wiseguy!"

Of course, even with all the good memories, there were bad ones too. One in particular made Jiraiya cringe even to this day. It was a day not long after Anko and the other orphaned kids had been discovered. While the kids were out of earshot, Jiraiya made a joke about how lucky they were, not having any parents to nag them about every little thing. He sighed as he recalled in very vivid detail what happened next.

There was a high-pitched shriek of rage and the next thing he knew, he'd been flung to the ground with an incredibly furious Orochimaru pinning him down, a vice-like death grip on his throat. Jiraiya was actually close to passing out from lack of oxygen by the time Tsunade finally succeeded in pulling Orochimaru off of him, all the while he was screaming and raving about how Jiraiya was a complete idiot. In fact, he was so downright livid and still struggling to attack Jiraiya again that Tsunade was forced to knock him out, leaving him unconscious for several hours.

"Orochimaru, stop! Stop it! Let go of him, knock it off! Orochimaru!"

"I'll kill you! You idiot! You idiot! IDIOT!"

"OROCHIMARU, STOP IT!"

The Toad Sage still shuddered at the wild look in his eyes that day. In those days, Orochimaru had been fairly passive for the most part, scary when angered, but pretty much bored with just about everything. When Jiraiya did manage to tick him off, it never lasted too long and after knocking him senseless or chasing him around for an hour or two, he was usually back to his old self before too long. In fact, Jiraiya dared to entertain the notion that they were pretty good friends when they were actually getting along.

But that day, something changed. When Orochimaru awoke, having passed from unconsciousness into fitful slumber, they saw he'd been crying in his sleep as he skulked away from them to be by himself. Jiraiya never forgot that, and that was when he remembered the pain and anguish Orochimaru had gone through with the loss of his own parents. He hadn't realized until then how hurtful his remark must have been. He never got the opportunity to apologize, either. It was around that time that Orochimaru had stopped talking to him and Tsunade as often. Although Jiraiya tried for several years to let him know how sorry he was for that comment, he never got a reply of any kind. Eventually, years went by, Orochimaru betrayed the Leaf Village and defected to parts unknown, Tsunade disappeared and Jiraiya decided to start writing his infamous books. Life moves on within the Shinobi Nations.

He stared down at the photograph in his hand again, smirking. It really was strange what an odd threesome they'd made back then. Now that he was older and dare he say wiser, Jiraiya knew that his offhanded comment wasn't what had caused Orochimaru to change for the worst. He knew there were many other factors involved. A lot of pressure had been placed on him by their former master to one day surpass him. That type of thing wasn't healthy for a kid of any age. Then there was the pressure of being a prodigy to boot. Jiraiya figured that he probably should have predicted all of this on top of being orphaned at such a young age would eventually cause his already fragile psyche to snap at some point. And so was born the monster that everyone remembered as the one who killed the Third Hokage.

"Well, old buddy, so we're enemies now," Jiraiya muttered into the wind, "Hey, it was fun while it lasted. Too bad you can't seem to recall any of the good memories anymore. And Tsunade's just not the type to dwell on that kind of thing like she does with other certain things. So I guess the job of remembering the fun times is left up to me,"

He took another deep drink of sake and sighed heavily, "So then, here's hoping that maybe you find what you're looking for, old friend,"

Even as he said it, Jiraiya knew he didn't mean it. He knew that he and Orochimaru would never be on good, or even neutral terms again. The man was so warped anymore that he'd be lucky if any of his days as a genin would come back for even a split second flashback. Now, Jiraiya was seeing the same thing happening again with Team 7. He picked up the bottle and closed one eye, peering down into it. There wasn't much left and he wasn't inebriated enough to dwell on anything anymore.

He set the bottle down and stared up at the sky, his hand still holding tightly to the faded photograph.

"All right you three, you're a team now. You need to learn to trust each other if you're going to survive. Remember, everyone here is family, so look out for each other as if they were your real family, understand?"

"Hey, I'm Jiraiya. So what's your name, huh?"

"..."

"Huh? You need to speak up, I can't hear you,"

"...My name is Orochimaru,"

"...Uh...nice name, I guess. Um...well, it's nice to meet ya! You don't talk much do ya?"

"Jiraiya, don't be rude!"

"What? I was just sayin'! C'mon Chi, lets' go before Tsunade gets mad!"

"..."

"What?"

"...Don't call me that,"

A glimpse into a past with a future that might have been, but never had the chance.

A/N: Luna imploring here! If anyone on Deviant Art wants to try to draw a fan picture of that photograph, I'd love to see it. The image I have in my head is adorable, but I can't draw for the life of me. Anyway, this was just a little drabble I decided to write. Nothing fancy.