Author's Note : Alas, no. This isn't pre-canon to Deja vu. Natsumi's not in here, and if she was she'd be utterly confused over what the everloving fuck is going on. Tera stole a march on the kitty general of sneakiness by being even earlier, after all.
I might rewrite bits and parts of Natsumi's story to coincide with this new variant of Konoha, might. Won't be posted to FF Net, if it happens. Sorry guys, I'll complete all on-going projects eventually… but I'm kind of done with this site's bullshit.
However, I will admit there are elements from Deja vu incorporated into the story. Headcanons, you know? As well as this tidbit I need to remind of here: There are a lot more Leaf shinobi these days, through a full clan added in the beginning to the Mokuton being continued so the Senju were available for more things even to an epidemic being short-changed before it could really hurt because Tera helped midwife the inoculations about thirty-some years before they would've been rediscovered in this variant of Konohagakure. It's not really something I can easily point out in story, so yeah.
Also, we are going to have forty-four chapters in this story. Theoretically. Kudos for any that know why. So, there is another chapter after this too. You might figure out why the 'epilogue' has the naming scheme it does before I can post the last of it.
Second to last… uh, guys? The Impure World Resurrection was 'completed' well beyond this point in canon. Orochimaru revealed an equally unfinished version only when fighting Hiruzen in Naruto's first chūnin exams, a stolen version, and in this reality he got a hold of it entirely legitimately and with the blessing of the Third so he's changed a few things. A lot of things. Kabuto finished the kinjutsu, meaning the limitations of the canonical version was his doing. This isn't a complete version, but it's very different in execution. Lecturing me on how it should work is kind of… putting the cart before the horse there.
Finally… Tobirama's and Terazawa's relationship was a secondary concern to both of them. They had plans, more like hopes really, but their relationship wasn't a 'front and center of their entire universe' kind of thing. They're both really reserved people, they both had other duties and roles that took precedence over what they wanted, the people that needed to know knew and they were fine with just that. Hashirama, Mito, Momori, Kesai, and Izuna all knew for sure because they were told. Hashirama made mention of why they didn't make it 'public', Izuna outed the rest of 'the rumors are totally true, and your flimsy denials are shit' bit. No, it wasn't front and center of the last third of the story because it really didn't change a damn thing and they weren't that kind of couple. The number of people that left a review saying they expected otherwise or the relationship was 'nonexistent' confused the shit out of me. Neither of them were very showy or dramatic people without reason, especially not in public, so there wasn't anything I could do beyond what I already did and still keep to the character of both.
Furthermore… what the ever-loving fuck happened to this series?
"I call BULLSHIT!" Jiraiya the Toad Summoner hollered on top of his lungs a tad bit desperately, as he lunged for the tongue of one of his own Toads wrapped around a new sprouted if fully grown tree half mired in the muck they turned this town into.
To keep both Summons and Summoner to the ground somewhat he had to grip the sensitive appendage a little harder than polite when the winds themselves picked up more. Whipping into a watery cyclone not feet away from him under the direction of an undead kunoichi who just flicked a fan.
"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS YOUR AUNT?"
It wasn't just Jiraiya who had issues with his footing. Those same violent winds ripped the lesser prepared remains of the Rain forces left alive around them, and quite a few corpses too. Even as he struggled to hold on to Gamahiro, the toxins threading through the battleground were ruthlessly being pulled away from his team by the winds directed by a green and red fan.
There really wasn't a whole lot left of them alive that weren't already imprisoned by Tsunade's roots, or dead from the previous few exchanges over the last day and a half. What there was left, were swept up in a legitimate fucking cyclone that ripped the air open between what was left of the opposing forces and forcing a legit breathing space to happen.
Then, if that wasn't bullshit enough, that cyclone widened. Without touching them, wrapping the Toad Summoner and their medic in a hollow of calmer air at the center of a sudden chakra tornado.
Orochimaru was cackling too hard to really respond with words, the creepy asshole, making use of the field control done to remove poisonous air from the three living Leaf ninja to close in on and actually make headway into fighting Hanzō the Salamander one-on-one with clashing steel instead of more draining chakra techniques.
"I, dear child," the resurrected Sekanji Terazawa answered for herself mildly as she walked unbothered over to them, swinging her heirloom weapon yet again to shift the winds so to knock off course the desperately thrown weapons and still keep the poison breath of Hanzō's Summons away from them all, "am a true wind user."
"Way back when," chipped in Tsunade in an almost wildly cheerful manner, twisting under the roots of her own trees and using them much like another would a ladder against a wall to return to the white haired shinobi's side and fix his right arm for him, "sometimes there were no jutsus to learn from. Some shinobi just had to make due with what they could cobble together themselves."
"Less than twenty percent of all the 'original' generation of the Leaf used jutsus, as we found out. Tobi was most exasperated with us all. It really seemed that only the Senju, the Uchiha, the Shimura, and the Sarutobi Clans were the only ones to bother. What the Inuzuka, Abrumane, Akimichi, Yamanaka, and Nara Clans knew of it were all linked to only their clan skills. The Hyūgas just… didn't have any."
Jiraiya distractedly nodded to his Summoned Toads, who both instantly ducked into the broken buildings to find a way to ambush the shinobi slowly gathering up outside those raging winds separating them.
"It's safer for the user to use jutsus, those blow up in predictable ways and can be easily taught from records, but those that don't… tend to be just that touch more… unpredictable. Refined. If they survived learning." With a hopelessly fond grin shot at the undead kunoichi, their team's incredibly impressive field medic who was usually such a stickler for professionalism and regulations outright abandoned Jiraiya once his arm was stable just to barrel heedlessly into the dead woman's arms. "Auntie Tera… I've missed you so much."
"...dear hime." Petting the blonde's pigtails almost absently, those blackened copper eyes remained flickering between their destroyed surroundings and all the bodies. "I would almost say the same… but I have no memory of being dead. Alas. But just look at you! Such a beauty, and so powerful. Tobirama would be proud of how well his heir has flourished, a true wild rose with thorns intact."
Then, swiping that fan up again to widen the still going cyclone giving them an impressive amount of breathing room to accommodate Orochimaru's sudden retreat back to them, Sekanji Terazawa's unearthly black ringed copper eyes locked on Jiraiya's.
He only met this woman alive once. Well before they all got saddled on the same team, and knowing who was important to each other was something to know. As much as he knew Orochimaru and Tsunade missed her bitterly, she taught some of their teachers' contemporaries, and she was one of the greatest biochemists in the Elemental Countries before her death… he knew her best through second-hand stories.
Not personally. This was kind of creepy as hell, to boot.
Either he couldn't keep it all off his face, which since this was the second day of pitched warfare and he should be excused if so, or she had Orochimaru's uncanny knack for knowing when he was disturbing other people but was nicer in allowing it to go unremarked. With just a simple nod of acknowledgement to him, the undead woman turned to her nephew that summoned her without disturbing Tsunade's grip. "Children… is that Hanzō?"
"You don't recognize him, Lady Aunt? Has he changed much since you last saw him?"
"He is… queerly diminished in my senses." Terazawa revealed thoughtfully, her creepy gaze going to the thwarted shinobi unable to throw his chains into the cyclone and catch them all even with the distraction going on. "I initially thought it was merely a nephew of his, not Hanzō himself. May I learn for what purpose we all are here, and just what is going on?"
"It was supposed to be diplomatic." Tsunade hissed into the taller woman's stomach, then drew back to get fully on her own feet and roughly scraped her wrist against her cheeks to get rid of the tear tracks cutting through the dry mud stuck to her skin. "Sensei thought Hanzō would be receptive to a defensive pact between us, that's what we were here for. Instead, the asshole killed our squads and launched this stupid… bullshit attack. He also won't fuck off."
Considering that, the undead Sekanji flexed the war fan to draw in pure if chilly air from above the clouds to negate the attempt to pour in poison into her cyclone by the Salamanders. "From what I knew of Hanzō, before my death admittedly… he should've been receptive. He was one of Hashirama's best ally in uniting the Elemental Countries after the last of the hidden villages were established. Yet… this is not that Hanzō. How strange and twisted he has become."
Another flick of that fan shifted the cyclone, it suddenly reversed directions and ripped up yet more of their already shattered battlefield to pepper the winds with lethal obstacles. Ibuse, Hanzō's Black Salamander Summons, got plucked off the ground to join with those Rain-nin already flailing in panic as the cyclone tossed them around.
Somehow. That damn overgrown lizard had been the bane of their last twenty-four hours, going underground and popping up at awkward moments the best it could. Almost as big as Manda, Katsuyu, or Chief Gamabunta, seeing the creature flail in alarm as it was whipped around was almost cathartic.
Jiraiya let himself hit the ground heavily on his ass, groaning in relief as he got the weight off his aching leg. "You, are just unbelievable. How are you doing that?"
"Take fifteen minutes to marshal your strength again, children." Spoke the dead kunoichi instead of answering him, her thin lips pulled taught into a line as she studied the kage of Rain across the broken city in a very reproving manner. "This cyclone should not be enough to hold him off… yet somehow it has. Take advantage."
"Like I would leave you with a capped chakra pool limited by anything but my own, my lady aunt." Orochimaru scoffed in insulted dignity, only to be instantly mollified by the sly teasing expression that stole across the woman's somewhat cracked features.
"You do fine work, my lovely Leaf snake." She murmured with audible satisfaction, but then she shook her head of equally long hair merely held back in a samurai's ponytail. "But no, that was not what I meant. Before the war, no few number of us had incidents where Hanzō put a stop to various missions to take place in his country until Hashirama himself went out to speak with him about such and reach an accord to allow it. Though his nature is fire and even my own water nature could mostly counter him in chakra use… these winds are heavy with poison and water both. The shinobi I once knew should be able to light my winds aflame easily no matter the water content, yet he cannot. And he has tried."
Jiraiya crunched the soldier pill Tsunade pressed on him with a pointed look, washing it down with a desperately needed pull from a mostly empty canteen he replaced with the supplies he carried for the whole team in sealing scrolls. "Well… he is old now. You're… ah… not."
Even more amused now, Terazawa smirked evilly at him.
...it was creepy how proud she was of that fact. Probably most of that was that her adored nephew pulled her back from the Pure Lands for a battle, but the Toad Summoner still was a little unsettled.
You'd think he would be used to creepy weird shit, especially for having been on Orochimaru's team for years now.
Apparently not.
While the Snake Summoner wouldn't explicitly inform anyone how his 'ace in the hole' jutsus worked without torture or a massive amount of bribery… completing the kinjutsu, the Impure World Reincarnation Summoning of Tobirama's, had been a concentrated effort from all three of them. Once Orochimaru got his hands on the Forbidden Scroll their teacher still held secured in his own office, roughly four or so years ago. Which meant Jiraiya was familiar enough with the theoretical details to know some of what the undead reincarnations were capable of once summoned.
The Second kage of Konohagakure had been the premiere chakra researcher and specialist of everywhere until his death, sure. He created the jutsu in his teenage years, but never intended to use it once he knew it worked somewhat. What they got through their kenjutsu and ninjutsu specialist the moment he got his hands on it was rough and barely functional, needing a control seal to be applied after summoning to force compliance and a living sacrifice plastered with seals to even start the process.
Orochimaru tossed out the control aspect instantly and the one minute paralyzation effect that allowed the undead to be implanted with control seals without them fighting it. He already had his aunt's permission given while she lived, blood drawn of her own volition kept safe sealed in little glass vials in her own lab for him to use, and he was confident the two previous kages would be equally as unconcerned with the violation of the natural order of things if they were summoned to help defend Konoha or Leaf shinobi. With that leeway Jiraiya and Tsunade eventually worked out how to use a recently deceased body instead of a living human to give the dead form.
There was still a death required, but it no longer had to be the individual being 'sacrificed'. In a battlezone, a death was not hard to come by.
Terazawa should be still somewhat limited to Orochimaru's own chakra pool, plus the chakra left of whomever sacrificed to summon her. At least initially.
If Tsunade's tweaks fully worked, the recently dead body of one of their own subordinates should be left alive if still critically injured afterwards. If they hadn't been dead for all that long. That was kind of the key part, if they were critically injured or had just died from blood loss or shock the summoning would work as an emergency support system in lieu of emergency field surgery or blood transfusions to stabilize them. It had been a while since their subordinates were killed, so who knew if that worked or took at all.
If Jiraiya's tweaks worked, the summoned dead should be able to augment their chakra with natural sources carefully managed by the sealwork included in the initial summoning. Making it still cost about as much chakra as summoning a Boss Summons, there wasn't all that much wiggle room in the summoning cost even with cutting out an entire safety feature, but regeneration of that chakra was another matter. What would outright kill a normal human to channel was of no concern to the dead, theoretically.
If Orochimaru's tinkering could smooth it all into one single summoning, his aunt was a free agent if still dead and should sustain herself with limited draw from the living Sekanji and preserve a life at the same time.
His teammate's long-dead aunt was standing before them, utterly unconcerned with much but what reason she had been resurrected for. So presumably it worked.
The more time that passed, the stronger the summoned individual should be.
Should.
Theoretically.
As this was the only single time so far they required some assistance like an undead shinobi, none of them had any blessed clue how well this worked or even if everything they put into it would be successful. That Sekanji Terazawa was standing here whipping up full-blown tornados to give them literal breathing room said good things about it, but until she was unsummoned there was still a reason to be skeptical.
"So," Jiraiya couldn't help but start after they had distributed the appropriate mid-battle supplements and water about, because even an off-topic conversation would be preferable to semi-tense silence, "jutsu-less chakra use is… unpredictable."
"No hand signs." Tsunade dismissed tiredly, taking measured sips of the canteen before passing it back to him. "No matter how well you refine your jutsu down into, what you start with generally reveals what nature you're using. Not a problem with Auntie's generation, very few ninja used them so predicting what your opponent used wasn't as obvious of a tactic."
Orochimaru was more interested in watching the process of the remaining Rain shinobi try to figure a way around his aunt's winds than responding to his question. Well, either attempting to get past the cyclone or attempting to try dispelling a genjutsu in frequently more violent fashions.
The undead Sekanji, however, did respond this time. "Manipulating the very elements themselves takes more chakra, in contrast. Significantly more likely to harm yourself in interesting new ways when attempting something new with it. Young Sarutobi Hiruzen did take your team on, correct?"
"He was our team leader for our genin and chūnin years, lady aunt."
Terazawa tisked a little reprovingly, but then she also nodded and reversed the direction of her winds yet again to prevent any mischief from occurring without dropping anything including the damn building-sized Salamander. "Hiruzen is a little… biased on the topic, children. Not only because his primary teacher had been Tobirama, who had opinions on not passing along our little chakra tricks via structured jutsus. Hiruzen's own studies into chakra natures was stumped when attempting to ask others about their skills who used pure chakra instead of jutsus."
Orochimaru glanced at his undead aunt as little as he could get away with while also keeping a sharp eye on their frustrated opponents. "Are there no doton users left outside your winds, Aunt Tera?"
"They are all already in the air, with that dratted lizard." Purred the woman with a wicked smirk. "I picked them out well before whipping up the winds, that was no accident. There's three left, able to somewhat defend themselves even being tossed around… but not for much longer. Their landing will be… lethally fast."
"Yeah… but. There should be a handful that know doton jutsus even if it's not to their natures." Jiraiya pointed out in confusion, that they should've seen signs of such jutsus the moment the winds picked up.
"Against Auntie Tera's suiton control to fight against? She's no Uncle Tobi, but she's no slouch either. With Orochi's power behind her, she might just be able to give him a good run for his money."
"The grounds are very saturated, even if by logic I should lose that conflict by nature." Murmured the still older if no longer living kunoichi softly, but still loud enough to reach all three of them even over the whistling of her own winds. "Five minutes left, children. Anything left you wish to ask of me before we all see about your little issue?"
Tsunade instantly turned to poke at Jiraiya's various injuries, which he couldn't help but squawk at in useless protest. The medic got what the medic wanted, and if not he could look forward to a heavy and painful thumping once they were safely home again.
"Anything you wish me to convey to anyone in Konoha before we finish this, my lady aunt?"
"...not particularly anything specific." Terazawa allowed for slowly, sounding thoughtful but kind of absent at the same time. "My love to your lady mother, of course. If she has outlived me by a significant margin, then I am quite glad for it. If any of my samurai survive, then they have my deep undying gratitude for their services through my life and beyond. Especially if not. Inform Mito-sama we all eagerly await her reports of the years she survived us all, especially when it comes to you three. Remind Hiruzen to mind his manners, Koharu that I expect she has been comporting herself adequately as my very own apprentice, and someone tell Danzō a second set of eyes should not be a case-by-case basis but a regular review. And… someone kick Homura in the ass so he keeps moving, not resting on his laurels thinking what he has done is always finished."
The team's medic snorted, soothing something that twanged soreness throughout Jiraiya's busted leg for him even so. "That's not 'specific', Auntie Tera?"
Their kenjutsu and ninjutsu specialist smirked, amused at the expense of another rather predictably.
"All three of us?" Questioned the Toad Summoner uneasily, staggering somewhat upright with Tsunade's help.
Orochimaru's dead aunt regarded him levelly, then after a moment she smiled wryly. "All three of you. Like it or not, young Jiraiya, you are part of both my nephew and the hime. Even if you aren't a distant cousin of the Sekanji, yes. I am interested in you and your successes. Be strong, be proud, live freely the best life you can. I am terribly proud of you all as you are, here before me now."
The Snake Summoner dipped his head momentarily, the low tail his own long hair was gathered into preventing him from completely disguising his momentary flush of pleasure to hear his dead aunt's words. It was always weird to see a Sekanji with that papery white skin flush to any degree, much less this one. "Any critiques, my lady aunt?"
"I would prefer a measure of my poisons the next time you summon me if you could, my lovely Leaf snake. Only if you feel like it, of course."
Level metallic yellow met tempered copper set in black momentarily.
"Yes." Terazawa drawled very dryly, moving her massive war fan in a new pattern to withdraw the chakra keeping the cyclone of wind and water going around them. "I am fully aware you will do so again when you can, my heir and successor. I am content to return to aid you so long as you obey my restrictions on when and where. Are you all ready, my lovely children?"
\V/
All it earned them was three seconds of silence. Until Hiruzen huffed sourly, weirdly nettled by that accusation from beyond the grave. "I am not biased."
"Shut up, you old monkey." Koharu snapped at her old teammate, her equally as aged features as his own torn between fondness and old grief at hearing the words of her long deceased master of poisonous intentions. "Yes you are, and if you didn't want to prove it you should've told your students the differences between the types of chakra usage yourself."
The Sandaime glowered back at her, harrumphing irritably before refocusing on his very badly battered former students. Two of them, his kunoichi student was locked in the hospital for an urgent surgery right now. "Was that it?"
"Of course not, sensei." Orochimaru slyly admitted, satisfied and content in an entirely new way that didn't come from developing yet another ninjutsu for at least four or more uses or using both his teammates to advance something he was studying three giant leaps forward. "My lady aunt also passed along words for her samurai and my lady mother, a bit for both Shimura and Homura, and wished for me to pass on some words to Mito-sama when I next see her."
"I'd like to hear how the rest of the fight went, if you don't mind Orochimaru-kun." Asked the older kunoichi politely, before Hiruzen could say anything to that admission.
Not that he had anything to say against passing along well wishes or pointed reminders Sekanji Terazawa had for those left behind. Unsettling as it was to be the recipient of a dead woman's words, it was not his place to deny another Leaf ninja the right to pass on messages from beyond the grave…
Bizarre as that sounded in his head, he had full faith it could've been worse. Somehow.
He kind of dreaded whatever they would pull out next to top this. His team had never been boring from their very conception to even now, with the three of them 'formally' and officially disbanded from Team Hiruzen.
Yet even still, they kept on taking missions with one another. War deployments without one of them made the other two snarly and snappish, as frequent as that was with Tsuande taking the pains to revolutionize the hospital to be more than it was now.
"What she knew of Hanzō proved critical in the end. Once he was convinced it really was her." Admitted the Snake Summoner thoughtfully in his own good time, not even budging when Jiraiya staggered upright in response to one of the three children they dragged back to Konoha drowsily stirring on the couch that saw less use than the Hokage might wish. "It was by no means a simple process, Aunt Tera spent three straight hours, past the 'are you real' several hours of disbelief, arguing the disparity between what he once was and what he is now and pointing out how it is not the same. Refuting his claims of preservations with pointed examples of degradation, and I don't believe she fully convinced him either. I fear even still Hanzō will not be receptive to any further diplomatic overtures, not for some time at least. She did convince him to seek out the truth himself, naming someone called 'Mifune' in the Land of Iron to test himself against."
Here the young Sekanji Clan head huffed sourly, supremely satisfied mood ruined only slightly and the corners of his thin lips pulling downward.
"We did not win, per say. We survived. All three days of pitched battle, and left alive almost on equal footing with the kage of Rain. Neither we nor Hanzō left the battlefield whole, either. Jiraiya sustained the most damage covering Tsunade and I when need be, and the Nara kunoichi used to bring back my lady aunt was left in critical condition… if alive."
"Mifune lost against Hanzō when they first met in battle… if Terazawa-sama thought he could win now…" Hiruzen sighed heavily, regretfully, for all the lives lost on what should've been a simple and safe diplomatic mission.
Not in regret that a possible ally turned out to be an opponent, that was not all that surprising these days.
He had not sent green or even light-duty restricted shinobi along with his students, not the best fighters in the Leaf but no easily trumped fighters either. The loss was and would bite into him, even more in the coming days when he had to formally alert those ninjas' surviving families and conduct the funeral rites for shinobi that fell in battle.
Only his students and one critically injured survivor coming back?
Tsunade was still working on the chūnin kunoichi to pull through back to the living ranks.
That was all that returned out of a force almost twenty strong. They wouldn't know how badly wounded that other survivor would be in the end, especially as the Nara kunoichi had been subjected to a highly experimental jutsu in hopes of saving her.
"And the children?"
Orochimaru sulked, outright and without even a half-hearted attempt to conceal his reaction.
Jiraiya dryly snorted, finally speaking up for himself when his teammate refused to. "Rain-kids. Orphans, and I was going to stick with them for a year or so to make up a little of what hand I had in probably doing… but see. There's this little old story that girl-Orochi-teme once told us."
"Aunt Tera." Snapped the Snake Summoner with instant ill-humor, outright seething now the old team joke was brought up to annoy him with. "And such is defunct. I have not attempted to kill either you or Tsunade, the children are to be taught, I have the damn sword. End of that story."
…a spy of Jiraiya's caliber probably had an entire branch of his information network gutted by the tides of war, and likely required some time in the country to rebuild it back into something usable again. Without allowing Rain to trick him or control the information pipeline under his nose and until he had the redundancies in place to keep it from happening, he would have to rebuild at least the skeleton of a system while physically there to safeguard its infancy.
Hiruzen was entirely understanding the real motives of one of his own students, and the Second Great Shinobi War was waning rapidly in some corners as diplomatic overtures produced interesting results to the combined Cloud and Leaf war parties. The excuse of three orphans in need of guidance was equally acceptable if a little unusual in timing…
Even still, all his former students had instead returned with the children.
Pulling his pipe out of his desk to give him a few moments to ponder the implications, the Sandaime Hokage lit it and spent a few more seconds while the two younger shinobi silently had a staring contest before speaking up to redirect their attention. "So… are you splitting the training between you three? Or is only Jiraiya-kun teaching them?"
Jiraiya hesitated over a little blue-haired girl peering up at him and his old teammate cautiously, a little taken aback. "Sensei, I fully intend to return them. That was kind of the main sticking point for the kids, they are Rain-born and they will be fighting as Rain shinobi in the future."
"It will make for a strong, unshakable bond between us in the future." Hiruzen allowed for only a little wryly, huffing out a smoke laced breath and keeping more of his attention on Orochimaru's non-reaction than the Toad Summoner's or the little girl child's dark but widening eyes over the arm of his office couch. "Perhaps in that same future we can finally gain a defensive pact with Rain, with their aid."
He had no doubt in the next year or so there would be many, many occasions white haired shinobi would be bothering him about any and all missions to Rain. Explicitly to visit with his young little students once they were returned after being trained for some time and in better health, but less obviously to do that spy network repairing since it seems his intentions had been derailed by something going unspoken.
Hiruzen didn't need to ask, Koharu was very obviously making a quiet mental note to put Danzō on Jiraiya's case about what he was delaying critically needed work on his spy network for. He was a little curious what the deceased Sekanji had passed along for the Shimura Clan head to hear, but finding out himself instead of asking would be a nice little diversion from endless paperwork headaches.
All of his former students were not entirely fond of Hiruzen's best friend but in particular the Toad Summoner held the greater grudge, and to be frank the older shinobi equally wasn't fond of Jiraiya's entirely honest perversion disguising his information gathering efforts. Danzō considered the younger shinobi a frivolous loud-mouth idiot with a few redeeming qualities, Jiraiya considered the older man a stuffy stick in the mud with ancient ideas of 'propriety' and equally outdated views on what 'shinobi' meant.
That was actually for the best, really.
The old spymaster of Konohagakure and the new one having vastly different methods meant they covered even more ground together than apart and could collaborate their information independently. Collaborating essentially meant that when the handover happened once Hiruzen settled on a successor himself, it would be as seamless as possible even with two entirely different men handling the reins at the same time.
...Danzō was still a kami-be-damned dick for stealing one of Hiruzen's students to succeed him.
Ah well… his own handpicked choices were coming along nicely and it shouldn't be all that much longer before their generation made way for the new one just as their teachers did the same before them.
Just with less final deaths and unavailability for guidance in those first few rocky years.
Katō Dan or Hatake Sakumo… hmm.
Dan may be currently clanless and reassuring to the civilian born ninja both already in service and those still yet to attend the Academy, but Sakumo would equally reassure their surprisingly enduring samurai-like streak of clan shinobi. Both factions deserved the champion of their different origins, and the men were very nicely matched in both power and reputation. Dan would have Tsunade and the Senju Clan firmly behind him, but he would be the third Senju-related individual to be Hokage. Sakumo on the other hand, the 'White Fang' hailed from an entirely different clan and the strong show of shared values between all Konoha shinobi would be equally as valuable to his possible future leadership.
Eventually something would edge one or the other out as a better candidate in his mind, hopefully in the next few years or so. He still had time to pick, unlike poor Tobirama who just had to make due with who was at hand at the time.
"All three of us agreed to teach the children at least something." Orochimaru eventually capulated to the lengthening silence, reluctantly but without the expected bitterness underpinning his tone. "Jiraiya is their main instructor… for appropriateness."
Honestly unsurprising.
Sekanji were not known for their tact, rather blunt-worded and intentioned even when they were honestly attempting a polite effort. Tsunade was both headstrong and bullheaded, but hyper focused on her medical studies. War orphans might not react well to being exposed to it too soon, and the medic would have no mercy if one of them required the information for their health.
Jiraiya, for all his multiple perversions and more commonly silly behavior, at least had a better sense of when and where to pull it out than Hashirama had.
Not by much, admittedly.
"As they're not slated to be Konoha-nin, I cannot give them their own pre-genin training field." The Sandamine informed them simply instead of remarking on his thoughts, replacing his pipe in his mouth as another of the children gave up playing possum to peer at him curiously around the girl. "But… I do believe the three of you could put in a claim on your own field. You would then be the ones to decide who could use it."
The young budding spymaster instantly and defensively bristled and his bushy white hair, worn as long as his teammates did their own, fluffed up as if alive. "In a jōnin field?"
Team-registered training fields did usually come with a commitment to them, generally assistance to other nearby teams if and when their training exercises got out of hand. Those assignments were also recorded down in public records. An expected assumption to be disgruntled over, even if one wasn't speaking to a very good spy.
"...I think not, Densetsu no Sannin. A kage's field. Outside the village's walls, fortunately."
Just so their inevitable antics didn't put undue strain on the fields kept for less overpowered shinobi, and the village's sensory-barrier team.
Hiruzen honestly didn't put any weight on even the Uzumaki-laid seal work laid into Konoha's foundations to contain everything his old team could dream up. They already had done the damn impossible, resurrecting a long-gone kunoichi back to battle for them. In-village training fields failed in some hilariously terrifying ways in the face of the Founders in several memorable occasions, the start of the 'Forest of Death' training field came to mind specifically.
Hashirama had only thought for a split-second that an assassin had killed his wife, newborn daughter, and his brother all at once. That single half an instant of the God of Shinobi's pure rage still sprouted a terrifyingly hateful thicket that grew and grew, sprawling out all over the former and initial 'Hokage's Tower' complex and almost rendering it unviable for even other kage-level shinobi until Hashirama took it back in hand somewhat.
It still refused any further taming, the Senju Mokuton users taking pieces and replanting them outside the walls only worked to a point to reduce the virulent spread.
Every year a literal fire-team had to be commissioned to burn down the circumference just to keep it contained in one spot. An effort usually led by Uchiha fire experts, ironically.
Training Field Zero was another, the only kage-level training field inside the walls of the village, so tainted with Tobirama's and Izuna's chakra to this day no one else could even approach it. At least, without tripping over some trap one thought up to throw at the other hidden in the foliage and left behind in their wake so many years later.
It also still held Tobirama's chakra research laboratory deep underground, which was still unsafe to even probe for already wary jōnin trap specialists.
"They have their own security features, and it's upkeep will fall squarely on your shoulders alone. That should suit all of you, no?"
Orochimaru was instantly sold, of course. Those old fields last saw action under Tobirama's own hands, and before him not only Hashirama but Madara and Izuna. The mere possibility of locating anything one of those men left behind, accidentally or not, would always entice the Snake Summoner and Sekanji Clan head.
"Aa… so you heard." Sheepishly scratching the back of said shaggy hair, Jiraiya winced slightly then blew out a tired and gusty sigh. "Take it the old bastard knows too."
"Oh yes. Danzō was fairly itching to have a few words with you once you finally returned, Jiraiya-kun. Hence my surprise you actually returned on your own in a timely manner." Hiruzen confirmed both politely and pleasantly. "You may leave the children here, or take them to the hospital to await you. It will take no more than three days to arrange the proper paperwork for their… visitation, in the proper departments."
"…I was rather more intent on taking them to my lady mother once we are done here, sensei." Orochimaru suggested rather awkwardly, reluctant to open his compound to outsiders as per usual for any Sekanji but likely willing to bend just that little bit for his own teammate's aims regardless of his feelings. Since there was a legitimate need. "If anything, they require sustenance and rest rather than more hours of waiting for us to have time for them. She undoubtedly has dinner already simmering away for us all."
He gave his students a fondly proud smile for them both. Even if they were working together to attempt to hide something from him. Any teamwork from this team was worth it to encourage. "A fine idea, Orochimaru-kun."
He glowered in return, apparently having long since used up his daily allotment of social graces while on the last leg of their journey home.
Jiraiya's features tinged with something equally as wry as it was bitterly fond, a glance shot at his former teammate's back but no issue raised, before the shinobi merely shrugged. "Guess it's time to go face the music. Take care of the kids for me, teme."
"You have my word." Orochimaru vowed, strangely formal for such a casual request.
"One last thing, my boys." Hiruzen interjected before either could move to shepherd their new charges to be fed and find rest. "Orochimaru-kun… you will not cause a panic with returning the dead for a short time needlessly. Assure me."
"I will not intentionally cause a panic, sensei." Lied the Sekanji Clan head with a winsome smile that practically screamed deception for how flawlessly he pulled it off on the spot.
(ooo000ooo)
"I wouldn't suggest you buy into it all that much."
Danzō remained stone-still, staring at his inevitable replacement standing bold as brass in his office with his only eye. Who was still blathering stupid shit into his face, rather than allow him the moment to absorb the final words from his master in intents this occasion.
"The teme said none of them will remember their resurrections, what they've said already and what happened in each, so you're about to hear a whole lot of the same damn shit-"
"Jiraiya, Terazawa-sensei was Tobirama-sama's main teammate along with an Inuzuka kunoichi. They caused no few migraines around the village debating the merits of his applied chakra sciences or her budding infant biochemistry in various fields for sport. If she didn't already know the limitations and drawbacks to the Nidaime's kinjutsus before it being used on her, I'll eat the daimyō's wife's mangy hell-cat. Whole."
Koharu snorted sardonically on her side of the office, fussily going over her paperwork as if she hadn't already completed it some hours ago. Well before 'escorting' Jiraiya to this meeting so he wouldn't mysteriously end up rerouted for some inane task instead, like spying on the village's hot springs.
Again.
"They're not alive." Repeated the Toad Summoner pointedly and without mercy, bulky arms crossed before him and a pensive scowl on his travel-stained features. "They can't grow, remember, or do anything about the years since their deaths. Everyone the teme intends to bring back if only to let Tsunade hug them and terrify everyone else are static. Frozen in time, missing all the development and improvements in everyone else they can't immediately take measure of."
"Then why didn't she lash out at you? She half-raised your teammates until her death, so we know full well why they went unharmed in that first opening moment. You only met her once, a glancing thing between her war deployments." Pointed out the Shimura Clan head darkly, unamused at the split-second of hesitation his handpicked heir to the Leaf spy network gave himself away with. "Warring States shinobi, especially a samurai-trained kunoichi with chakra senses like teacher had, would have lashed out at all unknown signatures if the last thing she could recall was some cowardly criminal's kunai aimed to kill her or her Hokage. But, from your report… Terazawa-sensei did not require being informed she was no longer in that final battle with the Nidaime, their very lives on the line. She remembers her death."
"Master certainly could extrapolate the relevant details with decent accuracy, especially in something measly like five minutes. Much less fifteen. She trained us." Chipped in said woman's only formal personal apprentice, a little wry and mostly tiredly amused as she had some hours to adjust to the idea that the Sekanji Clan head succeeded in resurrecting his aunt for at least one battle. "Tell you what, Jiraiya, we'll only say 'we told you so' twice after she doesn't repeat the same words for Orochimaru or you to carry back to us."
The younger shinobi made a disgusted huff at them both, despite long experience telling him how unwise it was to make bets with the kunoichi. "You're on, Koharu. I'll only rub it in three times when she does."
Danzō rolled his remaining eye hard, planting his own folded arms on top of his own impeccably cleared desk for the rest of this conversation.
"It means something to you." Deduced the Toad Summoner and newly proclaimed Sannin suddenly, glancing between the two senior ninja that controlled the external advisory seat for the Third Hokage. One officially, the other less so. "More than just some oft-repeated warning you've heard multiple times before, something applicable to right now that I don't know about."
"You know only half of what you need to, Jiraiya. Per usual."
"Think maybe it's time to expose the ROOTs, Grumpy?"
Biting back the first and instinctual response, he paused a full minute reviewing why a denial was his inclination to give on the spot. Eventually leaning back in his office chair to ponder some more, Danzō forced himself to consider it in spite of Jiraiya's loud-mouth and foolish non-facade.
The plan was for them to step aside as a generation as their various instructors did for them when they could no longer lead them as part of their generation, just with a lot less death making it necessary. Do better was the final charge they had been given by their peers before they sacrificed themselves for them, and Hiruzen was bound and determined to achieve it come hell or high water.
Izuna had not been given the same grace as he had now, a successor already before him and the time to fold the man into ongoing plans. Madara had even less than his brother and heir. Danzō discarded his superfluous feelings and weighed his options as his primary Uchiha instructors had taught them to.
"…such a shitty pun."
"I wasn't the one who named it. Which means we get to heckle Grumpy-One-Eye over there for the rest of his damned existence for the stupid corny pun."
"Shut up, Harpy. Jiraiya, sit." Ordered the Shimura Clan head shortly, reopening that lone single eye once again to pin the younger shinobi with a hard look. "Stay quiet until I get to the end, I know the objections and all the damn reasons why I should not have. I, we, did it anyway for a fucking reason. Several, in fact. And we were validated."
Immediately disobeying, for that was what the Toad Sannin always did no matter how serious the situation, he did sink into his usual armchair with less grace than he should have if he wasn't more than seriously injured. "This have anything to do with why you sent Nono to fucking Rock, when we desperately need her in Rain?"
He snorted harshly. "You are assigned to Rain, stop complaining about your own damn shortcomings as a spy."
The younger man spluttered on his outrage for a full messy second, loudly offended. "You old fossil! I didn't work the north-west side of the fucking network until you pulled this bullshit!"
"Shut the hell up, brat, and pay attention. You wanted to know where all the damn contacts come from, when 'all' we do is regularly pull shinobi out of it, right?"
"Sensei does know about this, right?"
"He made up the plan in his presence." Koharu admitted, relaxed as any hunting cat would be in the face of prey and predator alike and self-assured in how little her 'expressive' body language gave her away. "Hiruzen gave his blessing at the time, now we need a new pair of fresh eyes to ensure we haven't strayed from the right path for going forward now the war's stuttering to yet another stop. Maybe in another year or so, it'll be done. Which means the reason ROOT was formed is ending. It needs either adjusting or a plan to stop it."
Jiraiya obligingly, finally, shut up.
\V/
"I…can't…die…here…"
"No! Just hang on, Dan! I'm going as fast as I can!" The body beneath her fingers twitched under the strain of so much of her chakra forced through his flesh as he attempted to say something else to her, caught mid-death throw as she attempted to stem the inevitable tide of mortality. "No, no, no, no-"
"Summoning; Impure World Reincarnation!" Orochimaru roared, entirely too far away… before he threw something with all the accuracy of a battle-hardened shinobi straight at her.
Not at her, at Dan.
The chakra under her hands violently bucked when things exploded into smoke in her face. Shredding right through the whisper-thin medical ninjutsu she had been attempting to apply to twenty-seven different injuries of completely different severity, and cutting her off with a nasty snap of feedback.
The eyes that snapped open in the next were not dark green but an almost Sharingan red, ringed in black.
Tsunade was entirely too damn overwrought to do more than dumbly stare at her dead grand uncle's sudden appearance where her fiancé had lay dying before her, in shock and utterly disbelieving Orochimaru got that to work when he was so far from them.
He was not so passive, her deceased family member. Already waving off the minor amount of smoke caused from burnt chakra shattering the scroll painted with seals and his DNA that guided his resurrection, he rolled smoothly to his feet from a prone position as naturally as an uninjured shinobi of his vaunted skills could.
"Tsunade?" A firm, if undead, hand pressed against her shoulder to ground her as Tobirama moved the body of Katō Dan without any indication of the wounds the other shinobi had suffered to ensure she was alright.
Those same painfully missed, if now corrupted in death, red eyes flicked around the very obvious retreating skirmish line folding into the medic's standby point before returning to her then repeating that cycle in an entirely redundant double-check.
Somehow Dan's pale and bluish hair, longer than even hers, had disappeared into the shaggy white dandelion puff that was her uncle's nominal unkempt hairstyle. It was a stupid detail to be caught up over, but she couldn't help herself in wondering what happened to all of it.
Once the summons was released, would it all still be there?
Still in the blue armor he died in and they burned him in, the faceguard framing his face now much as it had in her memories framing those red lines tattooed into his skin, Senju Tobirama was obviously reaching out with his senses to see what the lay of the land was even as he firmly pressed a little harder into her shoulder to give her something more insistent to ground herself with if just touch wasn't enough. "Niece, speak."
Firm and maybe unforgiving to another's ear, Tsunade knew her great uncle. He named her his heir when her mother gently turned down the responsibility for her lack of leadership ability, he and grandmother Mito ensured she had something resembling structure for her early life past grandpa's death when the rest of the clan was too in shock to remember she would need help too.
There were notes of concern and worry buried in that even sounding tone, as much panic as this shinobi ever let himself feel.
Expressed for her.
It snapped through that ugly tangle of emotions sitting heavy like a rough peach pit in her belly, the terror she was too late on the scene to save Dan and guilty relief her teammate managed the damn near impossible warring with the shock of seeing the change happen in both eyesight and chakra both. Much to Tsunade's own horror she promptly burst into tears, and couldn't stop herself from hugging his waist.
Armor plates and all. One of which she cracked with her forehead.
Crying as if she was four all over again and bawling because his brother and her grandfather had just died.
"Forgive us, Uncle Tobi." Orochimaru hastened to them instead of headcount their regiment as he should to catch any pretending they weren't injured before they dropped dead of poison, skidding to an ungainly halt in front of the resurrected Nidiame calmly petting her hair now. "I've… we've, altered your kinjutsu to preserve a critically injured life if one could be found. You are occupying Tsunade's fiancé's body at the moment. Bought with the life of a fox."
"I… see." Scaling back how battle-tense now he had most of the situation, she glanced up in time to see Tobirama cock a pale eyebrow in what started out as skepticism but turned considering almost immediately as he took stock of himself. His hand remained on Tsunade's hair regardless. "You removed the control aspects."
"We have no need of controlling you, Uncle Tobi."
"I would almost call you arrogant, Orochimaru-kun… but in this you are correct. Right now, I am… pleased. A very clever twist to my kinjutsu, the utility you have imbued it with is quite interesting."
The Snake Sannin's features twisted slightly unwillingly, the shinobi also cautiously relaxing how battle-ready he was as she calmed by increments and turning to pulling out the sealing scrolls. The ones Jiraiya made up to hold the very specific weapons and equipment of the shinobi they had agreed to summon only when needed. "...we had help."
"A seal-master's help, no doubt. Trained by my sister-in-law? Or is there another Uzumaki clansman in the village these days?"
"Jiraiya was indeed trained by Mito-sama, yes."
"Aa… Jiraiya."
Orochimaru heaved an aggravated, hissing groan of defeat as he handed over the Raijin no Ken to the shinobi that created it as well as a pouch of kunai and shuriken to see the undead kage back to the Fire border post. "Don't tell me my lady aunt told you that story too, Uncle Tobi."
"She had no need to tell me it, the story of the Gallant Jiraiya is not an uncommonly told folktale in the Lands of Iron and Frost." Now visibly taking stock of all whom were gathering nearby, from the chūnin too young to have been in service when he lived to the jonin who he obviously regonzied, the Nidaime gave a small but wry smirk for them all. "There was a kabuki drama going on one of the many times I passed through the regions, back before the Leaf was founded. It was… interesting."
"If I never hear about that blasted story again, it will be too soon." Vowed the grumpy living shinobi sourly, finally turning to at least pick up the slack Tsunade was letting slip through her fingers by bawling instead of picking her damn ass up off the ground and getting on with shit.
"Tsunade… this body yet lives." Her great uncle muttered just low enough for only her to hear it, a quick squeeze to her shoulder again before he settled his hand back on top of her head. "Calm yourself, niece. There is now time."
"Auntie Tera couldn't tell when we summoned her." She embarrassingly hiccuped, but the tide of unmanageable emotion had finally finished bleeding out of her as she continued to not fail in saving her fiance's life. She scrubbed her face clear on her sleeves, dirt would be greatly preferable than leaving tear tracks on her skin.
Tobirama blinked down at her slowly, shifting to give her a hand up now she was calmer and didn't need a grip on her shoulder or on her head to steady herself against. "...you summoned Tera first? Before me?"
The medic had to laugh at the faint thread of confused offense in his tone, a rough and sharp bark of mirthless humor that hurt her chest. "Orochimaru did the bulk of the work on your jutsu. He got it to work with all the changes we made, somehow. Hell if I know how, the arguments we had on what should be included were loud and often contradictory. Auntie Tera was very clear he couldn't summon her back for anything less than pitched battle when we needed her expertise. The moment he had a possible 'right situation', he went immediately to pull her back. You didn't… exactly make your own limitations clear."
Her great uncle shrugged that off, absently in motion and strangely more free than he would have done the same in her dim memories of him.
Though he held himself as if he was still mildly disappointed, ignoring the stares directed at him as he followed her around. "I am both dead and a shinobi. I care not if you summon me when you have a need I can apply myself to. I created the base kinjutsu, I left it behind in trust with the village fully aware that if someone had the right components I too could be called back. To save and preserve a fellow shinobi's life is an entirely adequate reason for my resurrection."
She got three ninjas checked over before he spoke up again. Well after the Inuzuka heaved a relieved sigh to hear his canine companion was merely dehydrated after the race through Suna's dunes to collapse their front back behind the battle lines, and the pair had wandered far enough off to not easily overhear.
"...I would advise you to warn your teammates to be even more cautious, niece. Now you have publicly summoned me back from the dead, the news that death is no longer a guaranteed end will spread far and wide. Placing a target on your backs, for both the components and the technique itself. However it was you got Tera's, you must guard our remains even more fiercely now."
"The very first thing we did after reading your notes, Uncle Tobi, was burn everything we didn't need for it." Tsunade informed him firmly, rinsing her hands off under his obliging sution control to help reduce water-waste given all the ninja she still had yet to check over waiting their turns. "The only way we got Auntie Tera's blood is because she left it to Orochimaru specifically for just in case. Sealed away in her labs to stay fresh until needed, but unfortunately still toxic to the touch even now. Her body was cremated just like all high-ranking shinobi, and every Sekanji. Especially the poisonous ones. Like you demanded for yourself."
"It's not paranoia if they are out to get you." Tobirama stated firmly, returning the unused portion of water back into her canteen. A sly, mildly amused expression stole across his features as great uncle and niece stole a moment for themselves to study each other. "I take it Orochimaru then found my labs and the samples I left behind as well?"
"He was ecstatic to find them, Uncle Tobi."