Jiraiya is not a bad man. But nor was he ever a normal one. A sannin is not like an ordinary person. Orochimaru created himself a demon. Tsunade invented a school of ninjutsu so complex that it defies explanation and reason that it could be the accomplishment of any one person. And Jiraiya...
Jiraiya was a spy. But not a spy in the sense of someone who transmits and finds the enemy's secrets. No, Jiraiya was never really suited for that kind of work. He contracted jobs out to those sorts of people, but his own role was always to create information, to plant it in front of the enemy, to lead others down a primrose path of false conclusions and faulty inferences. More than his abililty to fight on a par with a Kage, this was the reason he was among those that Konoha calls S-ranked.
When a man like Jiraiya dies, the shape of the world is changed, forever, and not for the better, regardless of whether one called him friend or foe. His skill is probably the only reason why I survived my childhood - oh, don't look so surprised, you knew that verbal tic was going to vanish once we were out of the public view. As I was saying...
If not for Jiraiya, the secret of who I was would have followed on the heel of the knowledge of what I contained. Its a truism to say that Iwagakure wouldn't have stood for it, but neither would any of the others. There have only been three shinobi in history to have been given the title of God. Your own sensei, Sarutobi Hiruzen was one. Hanzo Hattori, of Amegakure, was another. But the one "God" whose title Konohagakure never acknowledged was Namikaze Minato, who, after the battle that closed the Third Shinobi War was called the Yellow Flash by Konoha... and the Vermillion God of Slaughter by the rest, though never to our faces.
That's what happens, when a single man sheathes his blade in the throats of forty thousand in the span of a heartbeat. Yes, my father certainly ended the war... and he created such terror in doing so that, had the knowledge of a son surviving his death come around...
Jiraiya protected me from that. Even after Shukaku, he never stopped. But because he was protecting me from that, he couldn't protect me from the threats that grew behind his back, in the place he called home.
Jiraiya is not a bad man, but he wasn't my godfather either. He saved my life countless times, but did so at the remove that his duties demanded of him, and in spite of his ideals, I can't help but feel that were there but one man in all the world who embodied the moral writ in the name "Shinobi", the ideal of ones heart under a blade, that man should be Jiraiya. Though I never saw his influence in my life, as I grew up, that I did not die was a testament to his skills in protecting me from afar. That I lacked anything resembling warmth as a child can also be laid at his feet.
I don't blame him for it.
He was a man fighting for a better world, and that path always requires sacrifice.
I wish that I hadn't needed to be sacrificed twice over, but in the same breath, I can truly say that I have nothing but respect that he found it within himself to do it. If even half of the world chased their ideals with his fervour, the world would be a better place.
Jiraiya is not a bad man. I knew that then, and I know that now. Back then, I even considered him precious. Worth protecting.
So when he looked down at me with cold eyes, and named me Jinchuuriki as if it were a curse, I didn't understand.
But that comes later.
Atop the Hokage Monument
Everything began with the death of Sarutobi Konohamaru. When Gaara killed him, I lost my... hah. I can't really call it my innocence, can I?
I lost my ability to ignore reality. I lost my ability to see things as other than what they were. I lost the ability to project myself onto the world around me, and know it as better than it was.
I lost that, and everything that might have been was no more.
It is... simply indescribable, to see someone you love crushed to red mist in front of your eyes. I don't think I can place that feeling in words, that... subtle, cutting mixture of desperation and disbelief that goes to war within your heart, and burns through your being with the force of the sun. It's too much. Too intense. The words for it would break language.
But I don't need to, do I?
You know.
The force of that storm, which we've both lived, took me past grief, past mourning, past reason, and left me staring at Gaara with nothing rage, and the supreme clarity that rage brings.
I decided that I was going to kill him.
Then, I began to create that reality.
As other members of what would have been called the Konoha Eleven held off the Kazekage's children, I stepped forward, and held a single kunai before me, and called.
The Ninth answered...
... and Gaara laughed.
"What is this, mother? It thinks it can fight me with a kunai, and scraps of the Ninth. Yes. Yes! I agree completely. We will show it what true killers can do."
The emotion drained from his face, and his eyes went completely flat. And then... they bloomed.
As the pupils of his eyes split to four and a star, as the jade of his irises ignited into implacable gold, humanity fled from Gaara, and what was left in its place was joyous insanity. No. That was a fallacy of my perception. What was left was joyous asanity. What looked at me from behind his face was something that did not need sanity, and so couldn't lose it. It imposed its truth directly. Understanding was meaningless.
"Well," that-which-was-not-Gaara said, "isn't this a treat?"
It raised its hand, as if clasping the sky - and then, the world died.
- Arc I: The Hatred of the Sun -
start
A/N: Okay, so this is short. Why is this short? Experimentation!
Reviews are good! Please, motivate me, or tell me how bad I am. Your honesty is valued, your words kindle my will to write, and your silence is the word-killer.
Oh, also, if you're reading this chapter first, this is an AU. That's why the fight is happening on top of the Hokage monument (among other things). You've got to admit: it's a hell of a lot more cinematic than a forest.
