Title: the world as it should be
Author: Elena
Fandom: Naruto
Summary: Years later, Sakura would wish she had known Jiraiya better. Maybe then she'd know the answer to the question of how to bring back someone who left by choice.
Years later, Sakura would wish she had known Jiraiya better. She had known him as Naruto's teacher, as Tsunade-shishou and Orochimaru's teammate, as the old lech who peeked at women in the bathhouse – all roles that impinged on her in some way when she was a student and he was still alive. But Jiraiya has been dead for years, and Sakura cannot ask any of the questions she has wanted to ask over the years since his death.
Right now, for example, she wants to ask how he managed to do what had to be done, and brought Tsunade home to a job she didn't want and a home filled with ghosts. Sakura wasn't there, and the only person still alive who could tell her is Naruto, and that's no help at all, because Naruto is the one who she needs to bring back. Naruto is the one who is going to be Hokage, if only she can bring him home.
"So, Haruno-san, where are we going? Do you even know?"
Sakura doesn't even have to look to know her young charge has a sly look of amusement on her face. She has known Sarutobi Aiko long enough to be cognizant of when the girl is teasing her, and this is one of those times. Sakura would lay even odds that Shikamaru has already told the girl everything he knows or suspects in his own laconic way, and Aiko is clever enough - and more importantly, familiar enough with his riddles – to understand most of it.
Sakura hopes he didn't tell her the real reason crabby old Haruno-san was taking a genin cross-country looking for a man who'd abandoned the village years before. Sakura hoped he didn't even know. Shikamaru looked at Aiko and saw Asuma's child, or Shikamaru looked at Aiko and thought that Naruto would see Konohamaru, which was probably true. But Sakura came home one day and saw Kakashi teaching the Third's granddaughter how to wield a spear. Sakura herself saw…well, she saw something else, something about that Great Will of Fire Sarutobi-sama had said to her class when she was just a student at the academy.
She'd seen that in Naruto once. She'd seen that in Kakashi, before her old teacher died on Sasuke's sword.
"Well, Haruno-san?"
Sakura stops thinking about Kakashi and starts thinking about Naruto, who's probably still alive. Probably. Sasuke probably – that word again! – still needs to kill Naruto to gain the Magenkyo Sharingan, but he wonn't be able to move fast, not nerve-damaged and paralyzed as he is. Sakura would probably find Naruto first…but only if they could get close enough.
"We're looking for my teammate – no, my other teammate," she says hurriedly, seeing the girl's face turn dark. "His name is Uzumaki Naruto, and he has blond hair and blue eyes and whisker marks on his face. The last I heard, he was still in this town called Gifu, right on the border between Wind and Fire country. Once we get there, you're going to have to go in alone – his apprentice is with him, a Hyuuga girl named Hanabi, and if she sees me, they'll flee. They don't know who you are, however, and that can work to our advantage…" Sakura trails off, thinking of all the ways this can go wrong, and Aiko waits awhile for her to speak again.
"Haruno-san?" The girl inquires politely, one eyebrow raised. Sakura shrugs and says, "We'll come to that when we come to that. Now, tell me something you want to learn while we walk, and we'll get started. A deal is a deal, no?" With that, the girl is sidetracked, and starts chattering about weapon-based ninjutsu and seals – it's more Ten-Ten's field than hers, but Ten-Ten is dead, so Sakura will have to make do.
They walk along the road through the forest, girl and woman, and Sakura thinks about Sasuke, who will stop at nothing to destroy Konoha; about Naruto, whose Will of Fire burnt out in the ashes of his wife-to-be's funeral pyre; about the Sarutobi girl, who doesn't remind her of Naruto at all, except when she does; even about Kakashi, who left her a house and some dogs and some books – everything to his name, in fact, even the title he wore for over a decade. Sakura refused it: that's Naruto's, if he'll take it.
And in the pockets of her robes, a book she's never read knocks against her ribs. The title is The Legend of the Utterly Gutsy Ninja. It was Kakashi's book, and one he read often, to judge by its' dog-eared, tattered state. Sakura doesn't know this, but the answers she seeks are all inside. After all, Sakura knows Naruto. She's only having problems remembering.