L.C.: So…I wrote this back in the day…and rereading it, even though I feel I've improved writing-wise, I still like the premise. So. new and revised.

Don't own it.

Mistakes

Jiraiya was not stupid. He just made a lot of mistakes.

It wasn't an opinion, it was fact. Jiraiya could never get justus right the first time (unlike that bastard Orochimaru, who always got every justus right the first time, the freak ), it was impossible to talk to women without getting punched in the face and when he began writing, he found thousands of misspellings and grammar mistakes.

It was just a mistake!

Mistake. Jiraiya used that word so often in explaining what he did wrong, Tsunade suggested that they change he be known as the 'Problem-sennin' instead of 'Toad-Hermit'

Next to Orochimaru, he looked like a fool. He knew it. Orochimaru knew it. The whole damn village knew it. And that was fine with Jiraiya. Let him be the mistake. That was okay. If Jiraiya was the mistake, he could do nothing wrong, because it was supposed to be that way.

Boy. Were they ever surprised when golden-boy-next-in-line-for-Hokage-Orochimaru became a missing nin. If Jiraiya had done it, no one would have cared one away or another. He was a mistake to begin with, they would have said. Let him go, they would have agreed to.

So he did.

But then he came back.

Because, eh. Why not?

But then he met Naruto. The kid was one mistake after another. Couldn't seem to do anything right. It seemed foolish now, but at the time, Jiraiya had some thoughts that teaching a demon-vessel (for no matter how un-demon-like Naruto is, he is still a demon-vessel.) was not a grade A idea.

But he trained him anyway, god help him, he did. Naruto was hopeless more so than any kid he'd ever met. But he learned. That's the thing about Naruto. He learned.

And it looked like things would be alright for a while. Help the kid become Hokage, write books, go to the mountains and die after living a full shinobi life. It was an acceptable end.

Then Sasuke Uchiha left.

And things weren't so simple anymore.

Because if anyone could bring him back it was Naruto. So Jiraiya set to work. He spied. He fought. He trained Naruto and trained him, trained the living daylights out of him, until Naruto surpassed even him, until no one could say that kid was a mistake because Jiraiya would not let them.

Jiraiya's biggest mistake was letting Orochimaru go and he would be damned if he let Naruto do the same.

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What do you think?