First chapter of Intertwined Generations by cholericDolphin. Beware of time travel, grammar, lousy story-telling and Jiraiya-perversion in possible future chapters.
Typical disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, not me.
Jiraiya the Toad Sennin had always thought that he had led a good life.
His childhood up till the academy had been a pretty normal one, running around with his friends doing things that he often better should not have done and getting punished by his stern but otherwise friendly and caring parents.
The Sannin's 'schooldays' had not been particularly bad, either. Although his grades had never been something to be really proud of, he had managed to avoid being placed as the dead-last. That this mostly had had to do something with the creation of his special peeping-jutsu being shared with the academy-teachers had never had anything to do with that.
He also had had great success in his ninja career. Being one of the students of the well-respected Sandaime Hokage and with an arsenal of jutsus and techniques that put a lot of Uchihas to shame, he had managed to accomplish many feats others would never even dream of. Of course, the path to becoming a Jounin and Toad Sennin had been more than hard, but he felt that the time invested in his training had been well worth it. His team-mates had not really been helping much back then, often discouraging him by Orochimaru simply being better than him in pretty much every aspect, Tsunade often almost killing him with her brutal strength while going ballistic every time he had dared to ask her out or had said something 'inappropriate' and Sarutobi-sensei always comparing him to his prized-but-mentally-more-than-a-bit-unstable-student and being disappointed in him.
Those small drawbacks had never made him too depressed, though. 'Man can never have everything, but he should try to.' was a motto he had accustomed to live by.
Orochimaru's defecting on the other hand had been a totally different thing, yet he could not change that anymore.
Jiraiya had also trained his own pupils, first the Ame-orphans and not very much later the freaking Yondaime and his team-mates for crying out loud. Naruto, the Child of Prophecy, too, although that had been years, or better said decades, later.
Training seven individuals into such amazingly strong people in only one lifetime was truly amazing. That four of them had a very early death was truly tragic, though not his fault at all.
The orange-haired orphan Yahiko had died for his friends and the good of their nation in their fight against Hanzou the Salamander, meaning the white-haired man could say that the boy had not given his live in vain.
Namikaze Minato on the other hand had sacrificed himself to seal the nine-tailed fox Kyuubi no Youko into his very own son Naruto to save the village. After Jiraiya had sobered from the information of his student's death, he had been so damn proud that he had looked into that huge fur-ball's ugly face and kicked his ass so hard that the blonde had become a legend definitely being praised forever.
The last two members of the Fourth's old Genin-team died a little bit less admirably. One died in the war against Iwa, some kind of brutal Doton-attack having crushed the poor man's body under masses of rocks. Cause of death of the only female on the team had been a heart-attack, of all things. Only after her death had everyone else found out about some kind of disease that had been plaguing the woman for years, she had just been too proud to admit it.
The Sannin also had other great accomplishments in his life, like somehow managing to build up a spy-network big enough to know pretty much everything that happened not only in the Five Elemental Nations, but also far beyond those.
Jiraiya even had a lot of experience with the three vices of ninja. In other words: Women, Alcohol and Money. In capital letters, of course.
He had had so many women to have 'fun' with that he had already stopped counting a long time ago. The one he had truly cared for had always been Tsunade-hime, so why bother? The white-haired man had never been really good at remembering great numbers anyway, except for the seemingly endless zeros on his bank account. Yes, he had always been filthy rich, thanks to his many high-ranked missions and his best-seller books. He had also saved a lot of money because he had gone on so many journeys and never bothered with renting an apartment or buying a house, always freeloading for some days at Tsunade's while in Konoha. Sleeping on her couch, of course. His enormous income had even been big enough to compensate for the numerous brothel-visits and covered up for his alcohol expenses, too.
He had always believed that after his death Naruto would inherit everything, that even if he could not protect the boy that had grown on him so much, that he came to think of like of his own grand-child, from the Akatsuki anymore, that the blonde could at least build a home for himself and his family in the future when all this Madara-induced mess would finally be over.
And his death had come, faster than he had anticipated. Jiraiya had fought against his old pupil Nagato and had been fatally wounded, but at least he had managed to inscribe a final message on the old toad Fukasaku's back, hopefully helping his young apprentice in his fight that was sure to come. The Sannin had faith in his pupil though, and that was the reason why he had been able to go into the next world in peace.
In the end he had had no regrets and while dying he felt that he had fulfilled his purpose. He really had led a good life.
So why the heck did he suddenly feel so alive again, running away from a huge lynch mob of towel-clad women? Did he end up in hell? Sure, there were a lot of things Jiraiya had done that were dubious at best, having spent his life as a ninja for example obviously had meant killing a lot of people and there had been no time to give all his victims a burial, the way religious people always claimed they needed. His so-called 'Research' was usually frowned upon, too.
But was all that really a reason to possibly throw him into a never-ending cycle of being chased around by angry women? Jiraiya definitely did not deserve that, at least that was what he thought. He surprisingly let his followers behind pretty quickly, especially since it seemed that those ladies were not bad runners themselves. He ended up in some kind of forest and hid behind a random tree. Seemed like the mob had already given up on him and had decided to get some clothes.
In that exact moment he noticed something that he had blanked out in the commotion before.
Since when did hell contain trees? And a ground, a sky and people! Sure, he had absolutely no idea how the netherworld looked like, but he had not expected anything like this: a pretty much exact copy of the world he had just come from.
Scratching his head, Jiraiya tried to organize his thoughts a bit. Something definitely was off. Very off. He did not know what, though. First he had been in that big lake in Ame with who knows how many 'black spear thingies' pierced through him, feeling his life practically being sucked out, and mere seconds later he had found himself in front of an angry female mob.
He considered the possibilities. What first came to his mind was reincarnation though he quickly dismissed that idea because first, reincarnated people usually do not know anything about their earlier life, at least so he had heard once, and two, looking down on himself he estimated his height to be about the same as before he had died, meaning he definitely had not been reborn in the short time between his death and… this.
Frowning, he sat down on the dirty ground, leaning on the big tree he had used to hide himself before. The white-haired man tried to relax himself a bit. This whole situation was way beyond his grasp and seeing how those women from earlier had not yet jumped out of the underbrush or from behind some trees or bushes he could be fairly sure that whatever this place was, it was not hell.
Maybe the old pervert had been sucked into another world or dimension? Nah, can't be. I still would have died. Now that I think about it, I don't think I have any injury.
He checked himself, finding nothing out of the ordinary.
Groaning, the Sannin hit his head against the hard bark of the tree behind him. He had already run out of ideas and a mean headache seemed to manifest itself. It had really been a long time since he had last felt so confused and simply helpless. He remembered that particular day like no other, the day when the old toad Fukasaku had suddenly appeared out of nowhere while he had been out drinking with some ladies hundreds of miles away from Konoha. The day he had instantly sobered when the news of Minato's death had been relayed to him. It had taken him nearly a week to function properly again and about a whole month to take notice of the other gender again.
Jiraiya shook his head free from those depressing thoughts. Whining would not do now. He had to find out where he was and, if necessary, think of ways out of there. Of course, the faster he could make head or tail of his situation the better.
With, even if just a little, new determination he stood up, henge'd himself into a more inconspicuous middle-aged man with brown hair and trudged into the actually bustling little village he had failed to notice in all that towel-women-chaos before. The streets were wide and actually felt familiar to him, though he could pin the place to neither a name, nor a specific time he might have visited a similar site before in his life. There were a lot of different shops and bars, a lot of civilian people doing their daily chores, but he had yet to see a face that was known to him. The now-brunette sighed dramatically, it would take him a lot more time to investigate his whereabouts. He then rounded a random corner that led into a slightly ampler road and halted immediately.
The Toad Sennin stared.
Stared at the kimono-clad blond woman that resembled Naruto's Oiroke no Jutsu-form to a T and stood about thirty feet away from him, tugging gently at a stray strand of hair and looking at a display window.
Her appearance was utterly breathtaking. The elaborate light-blue fabric that she had on her accentuated her beautiful curves just the right way, not revealing too much, so man could still let his imagination run wild. The blonde's pigtails were held up by small cute ribbons gently flowing in the wind, matching her Japanese-style gown perfectly and even the small part of her geta visible from under her kimono matched the rest of her outfit amazingly well.
All in all her clothing seemed to be pretty expensive, clashing horribly with the rather plain people in her vicinity. She was out for attention, that Jiraiya could be sure of. Which immediately made her suspicious.
Before he could shake himself from his stupor or even blink, he registered her smirking back at him and motioning with the curling of a slender index finger for him to follow. Believing that he had not many other options for now, he went after her, noticing that she made very random and quick decisions at nearly every road junction although it looked like the people around her could not sense her presence. It seemed that she wanted to lose any pursuers, or better said Jiraiya's pursuers, if there were any, and he was left frowning again. That could not be Naruto, right? Although the blonde had acquired some disturbingly great seduction skills over the years, this person was definitely not him. The Uzumaki brat sadly was not smart enough to think of ridding himself from any potential chasers in such a situation, he probably would have simply run up to his shishou and screamed the whole street down.
It had to be someone that knew him and his master-apprentice-relationship with Naruto and most-likely a man who had been a 'victim' of his student's particularly dangerous jutsu. But who could that be? That cross dresser, even thinking about that fact made the pervert sick, could probably be every male from Konoha and everyone that had seen them together on their training trip back then.
Jiraiya sighed for the umpteenth time. That really was not his day.
In the end the duo arrived at the same forest Jiraiya had initially walked out of. Said white-haired man had already lost his patience on the way and was fully prepared to beat him… her… whatever out of that freaking henge. Before he could possibly launch into an attack though, the kimono-wearing figure turned around and greeted the Sennin with a smile and a "Hello, Jiraiya-sama!".
"…Who the heck are you…?" Was the best reply the male could come up with at the moment.
She just looked at him like she had already anticipated that question, grinning that same foxy grin that Naruto should have gotten patented years ago.
"Oh my, wouldn't you like to know? But before I explain everything to you, I suppose you'd like to see your godson again, am I right?"
The woman then proceeded to pull the blond unconscious moron out of a random bush and gently placed him on the forest ground between them.
"Naruto-san kind of fell asleep when I brought him here, that's alright though. I don't think he'd be able to follow the conversation anyway, and I like it when it's a bit quieter. By the way, please take a seat, Jiraiya-sama."
She pointed on a spot behind the Sannin where somehow from nowhere a comfy-looking couch appeared. Jiraiya just stared at the piece of furniture that definitely did not belong to the middle of a forest. Turning around to see the Oiroke no Jutsu-girl sitting cross-legged on a similar sofa, he warily sat down, all the time staring at her and his unconscious student still lying on the naked ground.
"Well, since I've already told you I'd tell you about your current… situation, I suppose I'll have to choose a name you may call me if questions arise. I've heard that most humans prefer to know the name of the person they're talking to. So… how about Naruko? Is that alright with you?"
Jiraiya did not answer. He just stared at her as if she was crazy while she waited for a reply and played with a long blonde pigtail. After what felt like half an hour she decided to start the conversation anew.
"You know, I think it's impolite not to respond to a question. Besides, it would be better to finish my task here fast, I'm a pretty busy individual, just so you know."
The now-named-Naruko's blue gaze was fixated on the white-haired man's eyes. Something was unnerving about her. The way she spoke, the way she looked like, the way she moved, and what about those couches? Those were absolutely her work, although he had not seen her even move a finger for them to appear like they had. Although he had absolutely no idea what she wanted, whether she was a ninja or not, he had the feeling that she was not one of the 'bad-guys' but a mischievous person by birth. So, taking a deep breath, Jiraiya decided that posing questions was the best way to get things going and to get information at the moment. There were so many things he wanted to ask her, but there was one that took priority.
"Uhm, Naru… ko… Who are you?" Had his apprentice been awake at that moment he would have laughed at his shishou's expression.
"I am not able to tell you that. On the other hand I can explain to you the 'why'. It's quite simple, really. I sent you here for a mission, the boy's just moral support for you." The woman pointedly glanced at Naruto's unconscious form, giggling.
"A mission? Just what-" Jiraiya could not end his sentence, being interrupted by her words.
"You are here to save a special someone's life that had unfortunately perished in the original timeline, I'm afraid. Because the gods are not allowed to mess with people's businesses directly, we had to make detour. Fortunately you've died, making everything a lot easier since we only had to overwrite your soul with the data you've acquired until your death. Naruto-san had been a way more difficult matter since he had no viable body with his soul in this timeline, so be grateful." She nodded, just the same way Naruto often had done at age twelve when he had felt he had said something particularly wise.
Jiraiya still stared at her, not knowing if he should believe what sounded like total bullshit to him, though that little titbit of information left him frowning.
"But… just who do we have to save…? And what's that with the gods… and time?" The sage felt like his brain had successfully turned into gooey mush.
"I'm sorry, but I can't answer any of those questions. I am not allowed to interfere with you any further, but be assured that you're going to find everything you really need to know out on your own. The person in need of saving will come to you in due time anyway and you'll find out just exactly when you are early enough. About the gods… just forget that one." Naruko said, standing up while the cushion under her vanished. She turned around, ready to disappear in a mysterious fashion when the white-haired man suddenly jumped up from his seat.
"W-wait! Just, why are you doing this?"
Her head turned around, revealing something akin to an evil smirk. "Well, the gods want that special someone to survive this time of course, but don't get me wrong. For me, this is all a game. A project to kill my boredom. That's the reason I sent you two back in time. Nothing more, nothing less. If you'd excuse me, I still have work to attend to." With that she quickly bowed and dissolved into thin air.
His headache seemed to have suddenly worsened, he had to notice and sat down onto the forest floor. The couch had vanished with her, too. Glancing at his apprentice he wondered what to do. Should he wake him up and try to explain just what had happened? Heck, he did not even know that himself. The only things he had really found out from that… crazy conversation… were that both he and Naruto had somehow been sent back in time to save someone who they did not even know the name of. Just perfect. The only positive aspect of his situation was that he was not completely alone, and alive, of course.
Jiraiya sighed for the umpteenth time and tried to shake the blonde next to him awake. It was time to have a little chat and do something, even if he did not know what yet.
The talking quickly escaped his mind when Naruto sat up and spotted the Toad Sennin, eyes assuming alarming proportions and watering, facial expression resembling a fish in perfection.
Even Jiraiya could not stop his tears the moment his apprentice flung himself at him in a bear hug.
Not too far away from the reunited master and student, but definitely out of their vision and earshot, a blond woman pulled ribbons out of her hair, making it flow down her back in graceful waves.
"I hope this was the right decision to make…" She murmured, wiping some black eyeliner off of her cheeks.
"…Father…"
AN: Well, this is the first chapter of my new project! o.o The idea just came to me, seeing as there are almost no great time travel stories left on (except for the masterpieces "For the Love of my Friends" by Foxie-sama, who I quite hate for abandoning it .,"Time and Again" and its sequel "Here and Now" by KyLewin, although it is so dark that I am seriously sorry for poor Naruto, and last but not least "Holding Destiny With Your Own Two Hands" by MKofGod, really brilliant and uses almost all characters of the Rookie12 including Kakashi). Although I personally don't think that my writing abilities can even remotely compare to those three in any aspect, I more or less try to sate my desire for reading more time travel stories by writing my own.
Also something I want to emphasize, I have absolutely no idea whether I am going to continue it or not. As of now, I kind of like where this is headed, but it depends on three things. First, if I'm going to have time. Second, if people even want to read it. Third, if I'm going to keep my interest in this or not. I make NO guarantees on this work.
And: The reason why Jiraiya doesn't think of genjutsu: Would you guys actually be able to think straight in the same situation, especially if you have technically died only moments before?