Tale of the Setting Sun
Chapter 29: "Man of the World"
Jiraiya called it 'gathering research' for his novel series. Naruto called it peeping on the women's bath.
Once they had reached Snow country and took up residence at one of the inns, the older man had made himself comfortable in front of the wooden fence that separated the gendered baths. It was not an unfamiliar sight for Naruto—though the last time he had seen Jiraiya in such a position, they had been strangers.
Naruto paused beside him. "You're a pervert, aren't you?"
The sage seemed to take offense to this. Tearing his eyes away from whatever vision he had been admiring, he shook a finger in Naruto's face. "Such mislaid accusations! You don't seem to realize the considerable following my books have. If these ladies understood how much of this is for the greater good, they'd be lining up for a chance with the great Jiraiya. And there's something you seem to be mistaken about." Drawing back and straightening his shoulders, he pointed at himself. "I'm not just a pervert... I'm a super pervert!"
Naruto found himself at a loss for words. Without responding, he left Jiraiya to his own devices and returned to the outdoor springs. It was empty, and as he settled in, fresh water was pumped into the spring, filling the air with hissing steam.
Snow drifted down from the sky. Several flakes landed on his skin, and the rest disappeared into the hot water.
He knew he was alone. And yet there in the spring, he thought he could hear someone whispering beside him. Closing his eyes, he let his body sink into the water and everything fell silent.
The land was thick with forests and rivers that teemed with freshly spawned fish. In terms of terrain and climate, Grass country was the most similar to Fire country out of all the other countries Naruto had visited thus far—which made sense, as they were neighboring countries.
During the day, Naruto practiced incorporating his nature release into his Rasengan. At night, they sat around the glow of a campfire, eating the fish Naruto had caught. Some nights passed in silence as Jiraiya wrote furiously in his notebooks. Other nights, they discussed Naruto's progress or planned where to head next.
The matter still felt rather strange to Naruto. When Jiraiya had invited him along his journey, Naruto had accepted without putting too much thought into it. At the time, he had only wanted to get away from it all. But as time passed and everything started to take on the faded glaze of the past, Naruto was beginning to wonder more and more what Jiraiya stood to earn from this.
One night, as Jiraiya picked at his teeth with a fish bone, he asked Naruto about his parents.
"I never knew them," was all Naruto had to say.
Jiraiya wore a carefully guarded expression. "I knew them. Very well, in fact. You have Kushina's hair, but you look like the spitting image of Minato at your age. I can tell you more – "
"No, that's okay," Naruto broke in.
A pause. "Are you sure?"
"They're gone and knowing more about them won't help me," he stated simply.
Once upon a time, Naruto would have jumped at the chance to learn more about his parents. He had used to haunt the Archives, pouncing on even the slightest possible reference to his familial roots. But that yearning belonged to a past age; to a child longing for the possibility of what could have been. Now, the only thing Naruto was concerned with was the present and the reality that came with it: To survive in this world, he needed to grow stronger.
That was what he kept telling himself, anyways.
The fire between them crackled, its heat warming his face.
Jiraiya lowered the fish bone from his mouth. "Alright then. Tomorrow, we'll work on getting you an animal summons."
"A toad summons?"
"You can sign the toad contract if you want. Or you can try doing what I did to find the animal you have a natural affinity for."
The next morning, as Jiraiya looked on, Naruto bit his finger for the blood offering. Molding his chakra with the appropriate hand seals, he planted his hand on the ground.
Nothing happened. Several seconds passed in silence.
Stroking his chin, Jiraiya looked bemused. "Huh."
Lightning flashed—thunder rumbled in the distance.
It turned out that the Land of Lightning was a country of vast mountain ranges; its name came from the year-long thunderstorms that lit up the clouds.
Jiraiya's reasoning for their presence there was as follows: "I noticed you were using your lightning release to speed up your reflexes. But it's unrefined. And there's no better place to hone your lightning release than in this country."
Naruto stood in the middle of a storm. He could see lightning fork out in the cold mist around him like branches of a tree. His whole body was tingling; he could feel the hair on his body standing on end.
And then with a deafening boom, it struck him. Waves of electricity seared through every cell of his body. He was going to burst into flames, he was going to explode—and then it released him. Naruto fell to his knees, panting. Steam rose off of his skin.
It felt as though someone had taken his lightning release, magnified it a hundred times, and then deep fried him with it.
"Let's try that again," said Jiraiya.
"How is this going to help me?" Naruto asked bluntly.
Jiraiya made a low sound of disapproval. "I've seen you wincing while using your lightning release. If it's hurting you, you're not allocating it properly. To do that, your body needs to grow accustomed to conducting electricity."
"And just how many more times am I going to have to be struck?"
"Maybe a couple dozen times, I'd say."
"So your plan is to...barbecue me?"
A flash of lightning lit up the sage's face as he stroked his chin in contemplation. "Hmm... Remind me, how many shadow clones can you make?"
The border of Earth country ran along a rocky mountain range, while the country itself was comprised of desolate, rocky ravines. The wind blowing from the north passed over the mountains, raining down bits of rock and gravel on the traveling pair.
"Here we are," said Jiraiya, balancing on a board at the tip of a spindly rock column. "This is where we'll be spending the next few weeks."
He failed to mention, however, that they would be spending their nights there as well.
Whenever Naruto wearily nodded off to sleep, he fell and awoke to find himself hurtling down through the air. In the beginning, he came dangerously close to being speared to death—and was only saved at the last moment by an extension of Jiraiya's hair that grabbed him inches from the rocky ground. But as the days passed, his reaction speed grew faster and he started to use a wind jutsu to propel himself back into the air. And then as even more time passed, he stopped falling at all.
When three days had passed since Naruto's last fall, Jiraiya declared that their training there was complete.
"Where are we going next?" he asked, secretly relieved to leave.
Sniffing the air, Jiraiya wrinkled his nose. "A bathhouse."
At Jiraiya's insistence, not all their time was spent in training. They made a day trip to Tea country to visit one of their famous teahouses; the menu boasted an eel-infused brew that, according to the cackling sage, increased a man's vitality.
"Give it a couple decades and you'll understand," was all he said.
They paid several visits each to the Land of Noodles and the Land of Garlic, where after a taste of the local specialties, Jiraiya declared, "A frog in a well knows nothing of the great ocean."
They were warmly welcomed in the Land of Fangs, a country filled with mountains jutting from the earth; it turned out the daimyō was a big fan of Jiraiya's Icha Icha books. The Land of Birds was a warm tropical country filled with flocks of migratory birds from all over the world (and according to Jiraiya, with the most beautiful women in the world). In contrast, the Land of Frost was always cold and dotted with towering ice sculptures in the tundra.
They continued to travel. The seasons slowly passed, sometimes in order and more oftentimes not, as they crossed borders. The blue of winter melted into new leaf buds that peeked out from bare branches. Flowers bloomed and fell, their petals swept away by rain. The days grew longer and the nights shorter, and before Naruto knew it, nearly a year had passed since he'd first left the Hidden Leaf.
One summer day, as they moved further inland through a mountainous region, it began to rain.
Feeling the first drop of water hit his cheek, Naruto looked up. It was late afternoon, and the sun was still shining in the sky; there wasn't a single cloud to be seen—but all of a sudden, it began to pour.
Jiraiya pointed at something in the distance. "Why don't we take cover until the rain passes?" It appeared to be the roof of a wooden structure peeking out from between the trees.
As the rain continued to pelt them, they took a beaten trail that turned into a stone stairway lined with unlit lanterns. Eventually, they passed under a wooden torii gate and when the structure finally came into view, Naruto belatedly realized it was an old shrine.
Jiraiya rummaged in his pockets for a coin, which he tossed into an offering box at the altar. Bowing, he clapped his hands, before bowing again.
Noticing Naruto watching him, he said in a sage tone, "Rule of thumb: Avoid making enemies where you can."
The shrine smelled of moss and musty old wood. It continued to pour outside; the sound of raindrops hitting the roof drowned out the sound of Jiraiya's scribbling pen. Leaning his head against a column, Naruto closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was usually so tired from his training that he passed out at night and woke up in the morning without remembering a thing. But this time, he dreamed, and he dreamed fitfully.
When Naruto's eyes snapped open, his heart was racing and his palms were damp with sweat. It was nighttime; he could make out the dark form of Jiraiya slumbering on the far side of the shrine. It had stopped raining at some point for the air was crisp and clear.
There was a girl in a kimono standing in front of the shrine, staring at him.
Immediately, Naruto reached for his tantō—and then she turned around. In the pale moonlight, he saw something blue glint in her long hair.
Naruto felt his heart stop. The girl fled.
Before he could stop himself, before he could hold back everything he had been keeping locked away, he called out – "Mayu! Wait!"
She didn't stop. She was already at the torii gate before Naruto managed to pull himself together and began to give chase.
Somehow, the lanterns along the stairwell had all been lit. In the darkness, their glowing lights appeared to float in midair, illuminating a path much longer than what he remembered. The girl ran impossibly fast. It was as though the wind carried her; her sandaled feet seemed to barely touch the ground.
The air grew colder and thicker with fog. Finally, Naruto started to close the distance on the girl—she was right there, an arm's length away and almost within reach.
"Wait!" he cried out again, his voice breaking.
The girl must have heard him, for she let out a ghostly laugh. She started to turn her face towards him...and then disappeared into the fog.
His heels skidding on the ground, Naruto came to a quick stop. He spun in a circle, but couldn't make out anything. Almost fumbling in his impatience, his hands blurred through the seals: "Fūton: Daitoppa (Wind Style: Great Breakthrough)!"
Naruto exhaled, all the air leaving his lungs in a single rush, and a strong wind swept through the area, blowing away the mist. It left him alone in a forest clearing—there was no one else there. As the rest of his surroundings came into sharp focus, he suddenly realized that the jutsu hadn't cleared up just the mist, it had cleared up his mind as well. His stomach twisted, and Naruto felt burgeoning disgust for himself: What was he doing, chasing a phantom from his nightmares in the middle of the night?
Just as he was about to leave the area, however, he heard it—a faint rustling sound in a nearby bush. In an instant, Naruto moved. Reaching for a kunai with one hand, he lunged forward with the other and made contact. It was warm and had the texture of fur, and as soon as his hand tightened around it, it began to struggle furiously in his grasp. Paying little heed, Naruto yanked it out of the bush.
It was larger than a cat but smaller than a wolf, with a bushy tail and a reddish coat. It was a fox; its pointy ears lay flat on its head, and it yowled angrily, flailing in the air before him.
"What's the big deal!" it yelped. "Let go of me!"
"Was that you?" Naruto demanded.
"It was just a little prank, I swear; no harm intended!"
Naruto reeled—and in a flash, it seized the chance to bite his hand. Letting out a startled cry, his grip slackened. Wriggling out of his hold, it dropped to the ground and disappeared with a rustle into the bushes.
Blood dripped from his hand. Naruto stared after the bushes. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted mournfully.
Letting his hand drop to his side, Naruto's legs collapsed below his weight and he landed on his back on the ground. With that, the rows of trees gave way to the night sky. The first thing he noticed were the stars: They glimmered, shining like scattered dust across a black sea. He thought of how far away they were, and how small he was in comparison.
It brought back a memory of the first time Naruto had entered the Academy. Nervous and excited, he had looked up at the sign that hung above the doors and traced the character for shinobi in his palm. The separate characters of blade and heart came together in a word that by definition meant to endure.
"How do you deal with it, sensei?"
"We endure."
When the Nine-tails had been egging him on in the battlefield, that had been Kakashi's answer as well—to endure. What did it mean to endure? Did it mean to forget?
He had thought that by traveling the world with Jiraiya, he would be able to fill the void in his chest. To this end, for the past year, he had tried his best to avoid thinking about anything other than his training and his new experiences.
As he looked up at the stars however, just for that moment, he allowed himself to think about what he had left behind, and his heart ached.
"It's hard, sensei," Naruto said aloud.
But there was no response.
A/N: Pretty introspective chapter. Things'll pick up next chapter... I'm probably going somewhere with that fox. Thanks for the reviews.
Edit: Thank you to Enbi from /r/NarutoFanfiction for proofreading this chapter.