Leaves naturally open toward sunlight, rise toward it, position themselves so that they can catch every last drop of golden brilliance that shines on them.
The shinobi of the Leaf turn naturally toward their sun, their Hokage – golden Minato, with the brilliant hair and the brilliant smile. Everyone loves him. He is young – the youngest Hokage ever, at twenty-four, and it will be his son who takes that distinction from him, nineteen years from now. But for the moment, it is Minato, young and golden, a shining Adonis who melts the hearts of nearly all the young women (and not a few of the young men, too).
Jiraiya loves Minato too – his shining protégé, the Golden Flash who shines like a beam of sunlight into the lives of everyone he touches. If Jiraiya had ever had a son – if he had been captivated enough by one woman to settle with her, captivated enough to beget a son with her – he would want that son to be Minato, and though they share no blood relation, in their hearts they are father and son.
Minato's smiles light up the darkness, his easygoing nature and intuitive understanding of those around him charm everyone into following him. The shinobi of the Leaf would die for their shining sun.
Instead, it is he who dies for them. He who sacrifices his life for them, voluntarily snuffs out his own brightness so that theirs may shine.
The next day, Jiraiya leaves the village. He has faced a lot, suffered a lot, lost a lot – but this loss, he cannot bear. He cannot look at Konoha without wanting to curse, to shout, to scream at each passing person, Do you know what has been sacrificed so that you can live? Do you understand that the sun has gone out of this world? None of you, not a one, is worth that loss!
So he quietly goes to the reinstated Third, the former mentor who has been at times nearly his best friend, and says simply, "I'm leaving."
Sarutobi is not surprised. He knows how much Jiraiya loved Minato. He knows, understands, on an instinctive level. And so he gives permission, accepts Jiraiya's rather abrupt retirement, and watches sadly as his last student leaves the village, perhaps never to return.
Depression settles over Jiraiya as he leaves Konoha. He no longer wants to scream – but he wants nothing else, either. Life is empty. He drifts from village to village, drinking, making halfhearted attempts to chase women, trying to bury his grief in the soothing oblivion of alcohol and the trained arms of the whores. The books he writes, in that first year or two after Minato's death, are dark and dreary, stories of emptiness and loss and futility.
Then he regains his feet, settles into an existence that is half a life. He writes mindless, empty prose, softcore porn and flowery, escapist romance; he spies on women, occasionally seduces them when they're in the mood to be seduced, and makes money hand-over-fist because his books appeal to others who seek the escape in reading what he seeks escape by writing. Always, he fights to push out thoughts of Konoha, of shinobi, of the battles he fought and the friends he fought beside, of the shining sun that should have been his son. That part of his life is over. He is not a shinobi, not a Leaf-nin, not anything but a writer, a pervert, an empty man.
And then the sun rises again, when the brash, noisy, unsubtle brat faces down Jiraiya and demands – demands, not asks – to be taught. It has been twelve years, but Jiraiya doesn't need to see the whisker-marks on Naruto's face to know that this is Minato's child.
And naturally – because no matter how hard he denies it, Jiraiya is a Leaf down to his soul – he turns again toward that shining golden sun.