A/N: Welp... I'm back... Kinda... This is kind of a bitter sweet moment for me, as I can't think of any way to continue this terrible chain of stories. Oh well. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Or not. It's not like I can tell you what to do.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Don't think I want to. Make one single pairing choice and suddenly people want to kill you.
Tsunade looked at the two men with her in the hospital room.
Looking to her right she observed a man lying in a hospital bed. The man leaned forward from his bed and wiped some of his silver hair from his eyes. Although he was wearing a mask on his lower face, Tsunade could tell he wore a heavy look of contemplation.
"Everything should be fine, Kakashi," stated Tsunade as she placed her hands on her hips, "I'm sure that the Yamato and Sakura can handle whatever happens with Naruto."
Kakashi looked at Tsunade and let out a deep sigh.
"You're probably right. I trust all three of them, I just wish I was able to help out."
Tsunade looked to her left and looked at him for some sort of conformation.
The man lifted a hand to his face, and stroked his chin. He slowly turned to face the window on his left. Tsunade watched has his white ponytail slightly raised, as though the man was going into deep thought.
"They will be fine, right Jiraiya?"
Jiraiya let out a slight grunt as he turned to face Tsunade and Kakashi.
"As long as Yamato can keep Naruto under control, there should be nothing to worry about," Jiraiya said with a gravelly voice, "If Naruto succumbs to the Kyuubi, well."
Jiraiya paused for a second before continuing
"If he succumbs to the temptation, they may all die."
Kakashi's face darkened at Jiraiya's blunt revelation, while Tsunade slapped her hand to her forehead while muttering about the uses of tact.
"I will not lie to you," Jiraiya replied with a worn voice, "I nearly died three times. The first time was when Tsunade caught me peeping on her and she decided that I would get more use out of broken bones. The second was in a skirmish in the Second Great War when I got an explosive jutsu stuck in my chest. The third was when I was training Naruto to control the Kyuubi's chakra."
Jiraiya removed his gi, and Tsunade and Kakashi gasped as they saw a large round scar on his chest that had several webbed segments extending off the main scar.
"I was trying to see how much of the Kyuubi's power Naruto could handle," muttered Jiraiya as he started to put on his gi, "He had a cloak of the Kyuubi's chakra and had three tails behind him. He was doing fine, so I told him to try and take more. As soon as the fourth tail appeared, Naruto's eyes turned pure red."
Jiraiya now had his gi back on and he stretched as he walked over to the window and observed the village.
"His skin then started to fall off, and he started bleeding profusely from all over his body. His blood mixed with the chakra cloak until the cloak had become so thick that you could no longer see him. He looked like a miniature version of the Kyuubi."
Jiraiya paused as he put is palms on the window sill. The memory painful for him, not because of his own pain, but of what happened to the boy that he loved as his own son.
"After his transformation was complete, he went berserk. He could no longer distinguish friend from foe, and was determined to wreak havoc. The only reason I was able to survive was that I made some suppression seals unless this were to happen."
Tsunade and Kakashi looked at the man as silence filled the room.
Suddenly, Tsunade raised her eyebrow.
"Wait a minute," Tsunade stated with a puzzled voice, "You said you almost died in the Second Great War, I don't remember you ever mentioning this to me."
With a nervous chuckle, Jiraiya turned to look at Tsunade as he started to scratch the back of his head.
"Ah well I didn't think it was that import-."
"Not important!" Screamed Tsunade "You almost died! Who knows what would have happened if I, I mean we lost you!"
Jiraiya raised his hands defensively at the angry woman who had started to crack her knuckles.
"Well I was rather busy, and you were indisposed treating all the wounded," stammered Jiraiya as he started to back away from the irate blonde, "I didn't want to worry you, besides, I was healed very quickly. I was better within a day!"
Tsunade snorted in disbelief.
"In a day?"
"Yes in a day!"
"Oh then I bet it's an amazing story. Tell me."
Jiraiya contemplated jumping through the window as a fast means of escape from his imminent doom, but decided that he would just die tired.
"I don't want to."
"Oh but I think Kakashi would like to hear as well, don't you?"
Hearing his name Kakashi's visible eye widened and he raised his arms in defense while he said the most logical and safe thing possible.
"Oh yes Tsunade-sama, I think that is a great idea! In fact, we should probably have some sake as well right?" Kakashi replied in a panic.
"You heard the man! Jiraiya, you tell us this story after I get us some sake!"
Tsunade bolted out of the room in search for the nearest bottle of her favorite drink.
Jiraiya jumped across the room and started to strangle Kakashi.
"Why would you do this to me? After she hears the story she's going to kick my ass twice as hard!"
"I'm sorry, but I value my life more than yours! Besides I doubt you did something that stupid."
Jiraiya let go of Kakashi as he backed up and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"It's not that I did something stupid, it's the fact that the story is far-fetched that I sometimes doubt that it actually happened!"
Kakashi was about to ask another question as the door to the room slammed open as Tsunade walked in with three saucers and a bottle of sake.
Tsunade slowly poured out the sake into the saucers and handed them out.
Jiraiya gulped as Tsunade glared at him.
"Well what are you waiting for you pervert! Get started!"
"Gah, fine! You wanted the story, you got it!" shouted Jiraiya in a craze, "It all started one afternoon in Iwa while Orochimaru and myself were out on patrol from one of our outposts."
A young Jiraiya looked around the mountains for any signs of enemy ninja, cautious for another attack.
He had been sent with his friend and teammate Orochimaru to reinforce an old fort that they had captured in a surprising turn of battle. Orochimaru and he had been defending this outpost for the past week while they were waiting for the rest of their garrison to recover and for some more reinforcements to arrive.
Jiraiya removed a map from his ninja pouch to see exactly how far along his patrol he was. With a groan, he unfolded the map to look for any landmarks.
'Ugh I hate this place. All of these mountains look the exact same, and I can't tell where in the world we are.' Looking up from his map, he observed that he was in some sort of valley with several small outcroppings of black rocks surrounding him.
'I wonder if that jerk as anything figured out,' Thought Jiraiya as he looked over towards his pale teammate Orochimaru.
Said teammate was looking around the mountains and up at the dark clouds while occasionally flicking out his tongue, much like a snake would.
Jiraiya shuddered at the creepiness of his closest friend.
"Oi teme! You find anything yet!" yelled Jiraiya.
Orochimaru started to rub his temples at the idiocy of his teammate while he walked closer to Jiraiya.
"This is a patrol. We're trying to see if there are any enemies around, not attract them to us you moron." hissed Orochimaru.
Jiraiya blushed at his mistake and opened his mouth to reply.
Suddenly there was a loud crash from behind him.
Orochimaru and Jiraiya looked at each other and nodded.
Jiraiya started to creep towards the noise. He walked towards one of the large rock formations and knelt down to investigate while Orochimaru watched out for attackers.
Looking at the ground, Jiraiya saw a large pile of small rocks that stood out from the large singular rocks. Jiraiya started to pick up one of the small rocks when suddenly the pile jumped at him and punched him in the face with what appeared to be a fist made out of rocks.
Hearing the sound of rock meeting flesh, Orochimaru turned to see his comrade being assaulted by a man made of rocks.
Cursing at his luck, Orochimaru started to move to help Jiraiya but stopped as he sensed five more people appear behind him.
"Jiraiya, we have company," stated Orochimaru coolly.
Jiraiya, who had started to engage the rock man in taijutsu, huffed as he shouted at Orochimaru, "Oh no really? I thought I was going insane because I'm fighting a rock man!"
There was a loud crack as Jiraiya punched the rock man in the face with a right hook, as well as a yelp of pain from Jiraiya and what sounded like curses of anything hard.
Orochimaru slipped into the snake stance, as he observed the five people in front of him.
The five were standing in a V formation, with the leader in front.
The leader, a short man wearing a blue helmet that covered his eyes and only let the bottom half of his face show, raised his right hand.
The two people on the back of the formation moved in a blur to join their comrade in assaulting Jiraiya.
Orochimaru licked his lips as he let out a savage grin.
"Come over here," Orochimaru growled out, "I promise I won't hurt you."
The three remaining Ninja jumped at Orochimaru.
Jiraiya cursed once more as he kicked the rock man in the knee.
'Ugh what I wouldn't give for some sort of chakra manipulation technique that would allow me to get through this damned rock!'
The rock man pressed on, not feeling anything from the fight as his jutsu protected him from the physical assault of the Toad Sage.
Jiraiya did his best to avoid attacks without needing to block, trying not to have his arms broken from blocking.
As the rock man attempted to crush Jiraiya's skull with a palm strike, Jiraiya focused a large amount of chakra in his fists. Jiraiya watched the man's very telegraphed attack and ducked under the attack while preparing a brutal strike.
While Jiraiya let loose his attack, he felt a great force crash into his left shoulder blade, and then he was hit with a feeling of piercing through his shoulder blade. The force of the unknown projectile threw Jiraiya's chakra fueled strike off, and he barely nicked the rock man, who was sent back several feet.
Turning around to see his new opponents, Jiraiya growled in frustration as he saw two men who were roughly the same size as he was, but they were slightly shorter.
One of the new enemies had a half red, half black mask on, and was reaching into his pouch to throw more shuriken at Jiraiya, while the other man, who had brown hair, and sunken black eyes, started to form hand seals.
Jiraiya growled as he reached for his own shuriken to attempt to interrupt whatever jutsu this new threat was casting. Looking behind his opponents, Jiraiya saw that Orochimaru was busy with his own trio of trouble.
Letting out a curse at his bad luck, Jiraiya threw five shuriken at the jutsu casting ninja, while the masked ninja threw five shuriken in an attempt to intercept his attack.
Three of the shuriken thrown by Jiraiya were knocked out of the air, while two flew towards their target, who didn't bother dodging. The shuriken sunk into the brown haired ninja, who seemed to not even notice he was struck.
Jiraiya groaned at the ineffectiveness of his attack, and pulled out a kunai from his pouch. He readied the kunai for close quarter combat, and dashed at his foe.
The masked ninja met Jiraiya's kunai with his own, as the two swiped at each other in a fast pace duel. Jiraiya feinted a stab at the masked man, who fell for the trick.
Jiraiya used the man's attempted block of his face to sneak a stab into the man's stomach. The masked man let out a groan as Jiraiya removed his kunai and went for a finishing attack of the man who was now clutching his stomach.
Before his attack could land, Jiraiya was pulled back and was grappled around the chest by the rock man.
Jiraiya attempted to get out of the grab, as he saw the brown haired man had finished his hand seals and had a large ball of rock floating in front of the man. The man gave a little push with his hands, and the rock lunged forward.
Seeing the projectile rush forward at him, Jiraiya used his right leg to destabilize the rock man that was holding him, and used his body weight to turn around, allowing the rock projectile to collide into the rock man with a loud boom.
The rock man, now with a large rock projectile stuck in him, let go of Jiraiya and fell to the ground. Jiraiya looked at the body with a smirk.
'And that is why you don't attack with one of your teammates in the way. They just become meat shields.'
As Jiraiya looked back towards the brown haired ninja, he noted that the back of the rock man had a large scorch mark, as well as several small rock fragments stuck all over his back.
'Well it looks like that rock jutsu is a type of shrapnel explosive. I would rather not be on the receiving end of that.'
Jiraiya watched carefully as the brown haired ninja seemed to move forward to cover his injured comrade. Taking a moment to glance at Orochimaru, Jiraiya was relieved to see that Orochimaru had disposed of two of his opponents.
'Well I guess I should try and take them out with some jutsu now that their little rock buddy is indisposed.'
Jiraiya quickly flew through hand seals and let out a great stream of fire that was at least twice the size of his body.
The brown haired ninja looked at the stream of fire and started running through his own hand seals as the fire consumed him.
Jiraiya held up the flame for a few more seconds before cutting off the attack.
As the fire died down, Jiraiya's eyes widened at what he saw.
There was a large flaming ball of rock floating above two charred corpses.
"Oh shi-"
Jiraiya was cut off as the large rock exploded.
Orochimaru looked at the three dead ninja on the ground and let out a growl of disgust.
These fools were barely a warm up for him.
He looked at the short hatted man clawing at his throat where a syringe was planted.
'Then again,' thought Orochimaru, 'I don't play fair.'
Orochimaru stalked towards the man with a predatory grin, kunai in hand, when suddenly there was a loud explosion.
Startled, Orochimaru looked behind him and watched in slow motion as a large chunk of flaming rock embedded itself in Jiraiya's chest.
Orochimaru quickly ran over to his friend, and gingerly picked him up, and ran towards their outpost.
'Thank God that I was smart enough to memorize the layout of the land. I have to get him back to base quick.'
Orochimaru ran into the outpost and laid down Jiraiya on a surgery bed.
He looked up at the seven remaining ninja. All that remained to defend this base.
"I need you all to make sure that we are protected. I swear to you that we can make it through this, I just need to fix up Jiraiya," spoke Orochimaru in a worried tone.
"I know some of you are injured, but you can at least fight. I wouldn't be surprised if Iwa was preparing an attack right now. If you can just hold on for a little longer, I guarantee I can save you. I know this isn't the best rallying speech, but I beg you, gather your courage and we will show that Iwa scum the power of the leaf!"
The seven remaining ninja looked at each other with a smile on their face.
"Oh we'll show them just what we can do, won't we lads!" said a Jonin who was wearing a black cap.
The seven gave out a cheer as they charged out the door
It was quiet and the only thing that could be heard was bird chirping as the sun was setting over the mountains. It was a very peaceful sight.
That was until a man in a wheel chair wearing a black cap and a young boy on crutches slide down a hill avoiding explosive kunai.
The both of these men had headbands on with the symbol of the leaf.
"Move old man move!" ushered the boy.
The man in the wheelchair pushed with all of his might that his broken arm would allow.
An explosion knocked the boy on the ground.
"Whoa who the fu-"
His cursing was interrupted as three paper bombs landed next to him and exploded, propelling him through the air towards a large building built into the mountain.
"UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUC"
The screams were interrupted once more as the boy's face smashed into a window, cracking the glass as a snake in the window looked curiously up at the boy.
The boy let out of a soft call, "Medic."
"Wait just one second!" yelled Tsunade, "Those people were absolutely fine before they left to fight, but now they are in wheel chairs and crutches, just what are you trying to pull?"
"They got injured in the fight and were patched up while Orochimaru was working on me, now do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?" huffed Jiraiya.
Tsunade moved her fingers across her lips in a zipping motion.
Loud laughing could be heard from the building.
"Wait, wait, there's more!"
"Hahaha please no more!"
Orochimaru looked down at the laughing Jiraiya, who had a large hole in his chest, exposing his ribcage and innards. Behind Jiraiya and Orochimaru there was a large bucket that had a glowing piece of rock in it. Hanging down from the ceiling was a strange barrel that had a beam of red light shining down on Jiraiya. In Orochimaru's right hand was Jiraiya's heart.
Orochimaru smiled as he continued with his story.
"When the patient woke up, his skeleton was missing, and the doctor was never heard from again!"
Jiraiya and Orochimaru broke into an uproar of laughter, Jiraiya slammed his hand down on a nearby tray, causing some of the operating equipment to fall onto the ground with a clang.
"Anyways," Orochimaru calmly said, "That's how I lost my medical lisence."
Jiraiya's face fell into a look of horror.
Suddenly a white snake burst out of Jiraiya's chest.
"Nozuchi no!" shouted Orochimaru in alarm as he shooed off the snake, who crawled out and slithered away into the lab.
"It's filthy in there, uck," exclaimed Orochimaru with a look of disgust.
Orochimaru looked at Jiraiya who watched the snake leave with a look of horror and confusion on his face.
"Snakes, what can you do?" Chuckled Orochimaru.
Orochimaru picked up a metal device that had three two inch bars, a meter, and random wires floating around.
"Now most hearts couldn't withstand this voltage," stated Orochimaru matter-of-factly as he pushed the device into Jiraiya's still beating heart and started to move it towards the red beam, "but I'm fairly certain your heart-"
Orochimaru's musings were interrupted as Jiraiya's heart exploded the second it touched the red beam, covering Orochimaru in blood, and sending a chunk of flying across the room, knock out Nozuchi.
There was a loud constant beep as Jiraiya looked around the room.
"What was that noise?"
"The sound of progress my friend," Orochimaru proudly said as he flicked the remainder of Jiraiya's heart off of the device and onto the floor.
Orochimaru walked over to a refrigerator in the corner and opened it.
He looked around the refrigerator and saw some bottles of sake, a sandvich, and a large heart labeled Mega Baboon.
"Ah perfect," mumbled Orochimaru.
As he took out the heart, a head of an Iwa ninja attached to a metal plate and a battery was visible.
The head looked up at Orochimaru.
"Kill me."
"Later," replied an uninterested Orochimaru.
With the new heart in hand, Orochimaru walked over to Jiraiya with a large smile on his face.
"Right, where was I?" questioned Orochimaru, "Oh yes."
Orochimaru put the device in the new heart that was three times the size of Jiraiya's old one.
The pale scientist held the large heart into the beam
The heart started to beat.
"Come on, come on!" chanted Orochimaru
As the heart started to beat more rapidly, Orochimaru started to let out a maniacal laugh.
Jiraiya started to nervously laugh as the heart glowed red.
The heart stopped beating erratically and was now a glossy red color, as if it were made of some type of metal.
With a smile on his face Orochimaru dropped the glowing heart into the open cavity that was Jiraiya's chest.
"There we go, that looks good."
Jiraiya, in a strange moment of clarity, asked "Should I be awake for this?"
With a nervous laugh Orochimaru replied, "Well, huh, no. But as long as you are, could you hold your rib cage open a bit?"
Jiraiya obliged as he started pulling apart his broken rib cage.
With a tough push Orochimaru growled, "I can't seem to fi-"
There was a loud snapping as Jiraiya let out a loud scream of pain.
Jiraiya held up a rib in his right hand.
Sympathetically, Orochimaru put a hand on Jiraiya's shoulder as he grabbed the rib.
"Oh don't be such a baby, ribs grow back!"
Orochimaru threw the rib behind him haphazardly, and turned to a snake that was sitting on the beam machine.
"No they don't," whispered Orochimaru in a worried tone.
Orochimaru grabbed the beam machine and moved it closer to Jiraiya's open chest. As the beam got closer, Jiraiya's bones, muscle, skin, and even his clothes stitched together until there wasn't even a drop of blood on Jiraiya.
Not believing his eyes, Jiraiya touched where the hole had been, and took a deep breath.
"What happens now?" asked Jiraiya
"Now?" chuckled Orochimaru evilly, "Let's go practice medicine."
Jiraiya walked out of the door, with Orochimaru, who was now wearing a backpack and carrying the beam machine, shortly behind.
The two observed the battlefield as the saw the old man in the cap calling out for medic as he pushed his wheelchair as fast as he could, trying to avoid all sorts of jutsus and explosives.
Unfortunately he couldn't avoid them, and was sent flying out of his wheel chair.
Orochimaru smiled, as he flipped a switch on his new invention.
A long beam focused itself on the old man, who stood up, and cast off his bandages with his now fixed arm.
Looking to his right, Orochimaru saw a boy laying down on the ground, a pair of crutches next to him. He focused the beam on the boy, who then stood up, fully healed. He even regrew a tooth that had been knocked out when he collided with the window.
The boy let out a cheer and pulled out a tonfa.
The boy ran towards the fight, and hit an Iwa ninja who was so surprised at the boy's revival that he didn't have time to respond.
Seeing an opportunity, Jiraiya took cover behind a rock, about 5 meters in front of Orochimaru.
Jiraiya looked over at Orochimaru with a panicked expression on his face.
"Orochimaru, are you sure this will work?"
With a maniacal laughter, Orochimaru shook his head.
"I have no idea!"
Orochimaru flicked a switch on the back of his invention, as Jiraiya jumped out of cover.
Jiraiya let out a yell as he felt his heart beating faster and faster, when suddenly he was covered in a red shine.
Jiraiya walked forward as he did hand signs, kunais and jutsus bouncing off of him.
As he unleashed his jutsu, Jiraiya allows a large smile to grown on his face.
"I am Jutsu proof!"
Orochimaru and Jiraiya continued walking forward as dozens of Iwa ninja approached, only to be cut down by the dynamic duo.
Tsunade and Kakashi looked at Jiraiya with disbelief in their eyes.
"So," started Tsunade as her eyebrow started twitching, "Orochimaru brought you back from the brinks of death with a magic beam."
"Yes."
"And this beam could turn you invincible."
"Yes."
"And you slaughtered dozens if not hundreds of ninja in seconds."
"Yes."
Jiraiya let out a scream as Tsunade punted him through the hospital wall.
"Next time if you're going to lie about something, make it sound real!" screamed Tsunade
Kakashi was happy that he was not Jiraiya.
Orochimaru looked around his office one more time before he went to go follow Kabuto to a meeting with Sasori.
As he checked for things he may have forgotten for his trip, he saw a shimmer of light out of the corner of his eye.
He walked towards the light, and saw what appeared to be a type of barrel underneath some papers.
Moving the papers out of the way, Orochiumaru smiled at his creation that had made him into a god, if only for a short while.
Orochimaru let out a mental sigh as he remembered the downfall of his project.
'It was so promising. It worked for Jiraiya that one time before it started to malfunction. After that, the only way that I could get it to work is if I was wearing a hat!'
A large frown fell upon his face as he remembered the cost of using the machine.
'And for some reason, it would only work of the hat was on fire, but not burning! Of course I found a few, but I could never afford them, even with the budget of a village!'
Orochimaru hung his head as he remembered his attempts at stealing them merely got him attacked by a large man with a glorious grey beard.
'I don't know who he was, but I did not know how to stop him. He took that hammer of his and oof. I hurt just thinking about it.'
Orochimaru picked up the machine and moved it next to the entrance of his office.
'Well at least it makes a good coat hanger.'
A/N P2: So what did you think? I wasn't so sure about the fight scene. I'm more of a Romance/tragedy writer, and I have a hard time writing fight scenes. Got any tips for me? I'd love to hear them!