AN: Note that I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any of the characters from either Anime. This work is a fanfiction written out of my love for the series and not in any attempt to make a profit.
Proofread by: Author and Kyluxia
A bit more of a relaxed chapter this time, I think? I dunno.
Chapter 62: On foot, on land, through the trees
Sakura's awakening was anything but orthodox. Not a lot of people could claim that they had woken up already fighting.
In Sakura's case, she had been awoken from a blow to her head and Heikō swearing in the back of her mind. Tapping into Heikō's train of thoughts, Sakura found herself fully alert as she realized that they were in a spar against Jiraiya with only Naruto and the Gochi twins to help them.
Heikō was glad that Sakura had finally woken up, as it meant that they could now operate properly. Sakura on the other hand was dismayed to feel Heikō's fatigue, both mental and physical, bleeding over to her. Their body felt slow and sore. Their thoughts felt slightly muddled, but Sakura's rested mind seemed to counter it to some degree, allowing them to dodge the next kick from Jiraiya.
Seeing Jiraiya's surprise at their sudden improvement, Sakura attempted to grab his leg, giving Naruto and the Gochi twins an opening, while steeling herself to deal with Jiraiya's retaliation using their Cellular Chakra Weave Technique. Sakura wondered why Heikō hadn't bothered to use it before, only to receive an embarrassed admission that Heikō had forgotten about it. Sakura made note of the fact that exhaustion apparently made them forgetful, something to keep in mind for the future.
Unfortunately, instead of retaliating, Jiraiya simply performed the Replacement Technique, leaving the twins holding a small log, while Naruto sailed past above them, having aimed for Jiraiya's head with a kick, and the Gochi twins collided beneath him, having intended to attack Jiraiya from below. What Sakura had seen as an opportunity had been a trap, and before any one of them could react, Jiraiya retaliated.
Despite being able to sense Jiraiya coming, there wasn't enough time to warn the others, or really do anything herself, as her body was too sluggish to react in time, resulting in a humiliating defeat moments later, as the twins and Naruto found themselves pinned underneath a pair of heavy toads. The Gochi twins were instead struggling to get out of Jiraiya's grip, as he held one in each hand.
"Now then, learned anything yet?" Jiraiya asked them in an amused tone.
"Never let Heikō lock me in my dreams, keeping me from helping her in a spar?" Sakura offered, less than pleased with her sudden awakening, and the condition of their body.
"Ah, Sakura, welcome back. Sorry about that, but I thought that starting the morning off with a serious warm-up might be a good idea." Jiraiya offered in return, which made Sakura scowl at him.
"You can let us go now," Naruto informed Jiraiya grumpily, only to glare at him as Jiraiya pretended to consider it, only dropping the Gochi twins, and allowing his toad summons to disappear as Naruto was about to explode in anger.
"Alright, I suppose that's enough for now." Jiraiya relented, sitting down in front of them, watching his students get up, and the Gotchi twins run over to their summoners.
Sakura also took the moment to look into what Heikō and Naruto had been up to during the night and found that not all the memories were clear, or even available to her.
"Heikō, why are there some memories missing from the night?" Sakura questioned her twin.
"Private conversation with Naruto. Since you were asleep, and I managed to embarrass him severely, he wanted me to promise not to show you the memories of it." Heikō answered. Sakura couldn't sense any lies from her twin, but still got the feeling that it wasn't the entire truth. Still, she decided not to look too deeply into it. She would respect the privacy of Heikō and Naruto having a moment together, it wasn't something that concerned her as far as she could tell. Heikō would have told her if it was anything worth worrying about, regardless of Naruto's wishes.
"Alright, what about the rest of the night? The memories seem a bit… unclear? Think it's because of how tired you are?" Sakura wondered, and felt Heikō agree with her guess.
"Probably. My focus slipped from time to time, and I think our mind is trying to compensate for staying awake for so long." Heikō added her own guess as to what had happened.
"Right, we remember things as we experience them. I didn't realize just how much fatigue messes with your head until now." Sakura commented sourly, before frowning and turning to look at Jiraiya.
"How come we have to stay awake all night, while you get to sleep? Aren't you supposed to teach us how to deal with the fatigue or something?" Sakura demanded to know from Jiraiya, making him chuckle as he shook his head.
"I'm afraid not. The first step when it comes to Sleep Deprivation training is to make sure you're fully aware of what it is you're dealing with and try to overcome it. Experience is the best teacher, so here we are." Jiraiya explained, making the twins and Naruto all pout.
"Yeah, definitely not joining you guys for this then." The Orange-eyed Gochi decided, nodding to herself.
"Hey! Why not? It sounds fun!" The Blue-eyed Gochi replied, resulting in the twin summons bickering about the benefits and downsides of the training, lightening the mood for the Haruno twins and Naruto.
"Well, you two can decide on joining us while we're on the road. We've got to get moving soon if we wish to make it within the next few days." Jiraiya informed them as he stood up. A second Jiraiya soon joined them, revealing that Jiraiya had been using a shadow clone to pack up their camp while they rested after their spar.
"I decided not to waste any time. I've already sealed your things up as well." Jiraiya revealed, handing Naruto and the twins a scroll each, making Sakura frown.
"You just packed everything into one seal?"Sakura asked, realizing that they weren't wearing their Chūnin flak-jacket, and therefore didn't have access to all of their seals.
"Not everything," Jiraiya informed her, throwing their flak-jacket at her with a smile. "Wouldn't want there to be a mess when you need something of yours," Jiraiya told them, chuckling, before handing Naruto another two scrolls, telling him what they contained, while Sakura checked all of the pockets in their flack-jacket, and finding all of their storage scrolls in place.
"Now then, keep up!" Was the only warning Jiraiya gave, before disappearing in a cloud of smoke, making Naruto swear and look to the twins who had immediately reached out with their senses.
"Got him, this way!" Sakura announced, setting off after their prankster of a teacher.
Jiraiya had ended up keeping a fairly high tempo through the treetops, occasionally testing their reflexes by throwing them an object accompanied with a command, or throwing weapons, followed by another command, trying to screw with them. Sakura had nearly lost a few fingers to a kunai the first time Jiraiya had told her to "catch the ball". Sleep-deprived and tired, it was a chore to try and keep everything necessary in mind to keep up with Jiraiya and his games. It took Sakura a while to realize that despite his words, Jiraiya was already training them, trying to give them something to combat their sleep deprivation.
On one hand, the twins were glad for the training, on another, Sakura wished she had kept her mouth shut. Maybe then they wouldn't have to keep their Senjutsu senses active for the entirety of the trip.
Something else that annoyed the teens was Jiraiya's reluctance to clue them in where they were headed, or when they would arrive. He had been incredibly vague, and they had left any roads behind long ago, forcing them to go through true wilderness at near top speeds.
Unlike the neat rows of trees available alongside the roads, all throughout Hi no Kuni, the land of fire, the wild forests of their nation required constant awareness to avoid missteps that could lead to injuries.
Fortunately, Jiraiya didn't completely dedicate his time to annoying them, trying to catch them by surprise with his tricks, as they still kept a conversation going throughout their travels. One of the more interesting topics had been initiated by Naruto.
"Hey, Jiraiya," Naruto called out, having just about managed to avoid a kunai that had been thrown at him.
"Yes, what is it Naruto? Getting too tired to dodge?" Jiraiya taunted, giving Naruto an appraising look, seeing that Naruto's breath was slightly labored, although not as much as the twins', or their summons'.
"As if! No, I wanted to ask you about being a Sannin. It's a title you share with Tsunade and Orochimaru, right? But what does it mean?" Naruto inquired.
"Ah, that stupid title," Jiraiya responded, not sounding all too enthusiastic about the topic. "You know, it's funny. As the Sannin, everyone seems to respect us, yet, for us, as the Sannin, the title was always something that made me feel regret." Jiraiya informed them, making the twins exchange looks with Naruto in confusion.
"What do you mean, Sensei?" Naruto asked, bewildered.
"Well, to begin with, the title of Legendary Sannin wasn't handed to us by our allies or friends, but by an enemy, a man known as Hanzō of the Salamander. Perhaps you know about him?" Jiraiya inquired, to which Sakura nodded.
"He's the leader of Amegakure, isn't he?" She tried to confirm, receiving a nod from Jiraiya.
"He no longer appears in public, but he still seems to be kicking. Anyway, during the second Shinobi war, Tsunade, Orochimaru, and I fought him along with plenty of other Konoha Shinobi. It was a complete massacre, and the three of us ended up being the only survivors, for which he decided to grant us the title of the Legendary Sannin." Jiraiya informed them with a frown, before sighing and continuing.
"As you can imagine, while we might have survived, we had lost that battle. We didn't just survive, no, we were spared, and despite how grand-sounding the title is, each time I hear it, all I remember is how our enemy spared us, and how we ran for our lives, tails tucked between our legs, unable to defeat him. The title of the Legendary Sannin is nothing but a reminder of how we failed that day." Jiraiya explained, letting the fact sink in for a moment before he spoke again.
"To make matters worse, it is also the last time that the three of us fought together as a team. While Orochimaru and Tsunade returned to the village, I decided to remain in Ame for a while. I…" Jiraiya trailed off, wondering if it would be wise to tell them about the mistake he had made back then, considering it for a while, until deciding that it would be a nice segway to explaining to Naruto the origins of his name.
"I stayed behind to teach three orphans how to become Shinobi," Jiraiya revealed, making his current students exchange looks once again. Neither of them said anything, waiting with anticipation to hear more.
Feeling a little letdown, Jiraiya decided to throw a kunai at both of them, startling them, even if both of them managed to avoid it. In the twin's case, even managing to catch the offending projectile, making him smirk. The next one would have an explosive tag attached to it.
"Their names were Yahiko, Konan, and Nagato. They had been orphaned as a result of the war, and I suppose I felt guilty over being part of that war. So much death, and now, there they were, homeless, familyless, and asking for training from a foreign Shinobi so that they could have a chance to survive. If anything, they had the courage to be Shinobi, and so I stayed, and I taught them.
"They were such a positive bunch, and talented as well, to a degree." Jiraiya mused, deciding not to mention anything about one of them possessing a legendary Dōjutsu, the Rinnegan. While it might have contributed to his decision to teach them, he didn't want the brats he was currently teaching to focus on that and possibly think less of him for it.
"One of them was the inspiration for one of my books, and the protagonist of that book is where you got your name, Naruto," Jiraiya revealed, reveling in Naruto's stunned amazement.
AN: Ah, traveling. A very opportune moment to have some casual, plot-relevant discussions, as pointed out by Kyluxia. Better than what I had originally planned. I don't really like significant time-skips in stories, so I try to ensure I keep slice-of-life moments in, as well as make them possibly plot-relevant. This turned out to be an ideal topic. My only worry is that Naruto might have already been aware of where his name came from. I feel like I might have already had him informed of such earlier in the story, but can't remember, and don't think I got that noted down in my notes. If I find it to be the case, I'll change it later.