Title: Secrets Chapter 5

A/N The much anticipated chapter 5. Hope everyone enjoys.

He returned to to the village of the leaf at the end of his fifteenth year. He'd spent most of his life there…but the three years he'd been gone seem to stretch back to eternity…how could everything here be the same when he had changed so much?

He'd spent the better part of his first two months home actually away from it…fighting wars that had begun before he was born. They could win the battles…but the war? The war had barely begun.

And so with this heavy heart he could be found on a rooftop not too far from the Hokage's tower and with an excellent view of the stone carvings. He knew no one lived in the apartment below…in as long as he'd been alive no one ever had and so it had been where he would invariably end up when the villagers would chase him off of their roofs…and he learned in time that if he sat here no one would bother.

When Jiraiya had returned to the village he'd been updated on what had happened with Gaara and with Akatsuki's spy. He'd found out that Naruto had had to once again let Orochimaru slip through his fingers…and that they were little closer to finding his comrade.

And so he sought out his student…and found him staring up at the horizon over the Hokage's Monument.

Naruto didn't need him to speak to know he was there…

"They were brave men, weren't they?" Naruto asked without looking away.

"Of course they were stupid…that's why they were Hokage" Jiraiya felt a nagging pull in the pit of his stomach…he was afraid of where this was going.

"I don't mean just brave…I mean risk everything for the slightest chance of winning brave…the kind of brave that always gets you killed in the end" He still didn't meet his eyes.

"Is there any other kind of brave that could save a village?"

"The First and Second…they died saving the village during the great ninja wars. The Third…he died saving us all from Orochimaru…and the…Fourth…the Fourth he died sealing the fox demon inside of his only son…" Naruto's voice faded off as if he wasn't sure he wanted to give voice to his thoughts.

"How long have you known?" Jiraiya finally sat next to the boy on the roof…it didn't seem his legs could carry him any longer.

"Since the moment I walked back into the village two months ago…I should have figured it out years ago. I was too stupid…I didn't see what was right in front of my face…but even I can't miss the fact that the face that's carved up there on that mountain is almost an exact replica of the one I look at in the mirror every morning."

"Do you hate me?" Jiraiya expected that he would

"No…if I hated you for not telling then I'd have to hate everyone who didn't tell…and I imagine that the list would be longer than even I can guess." Naruto paused for a moment "But still…why couldn't you have told me…do you know how that would have changed everything?" He sounded more tired than a fifteen year should have had to be.

"Yes" he couldn't lie, he knew things would have been different.

"And still you have no excuse?" his voice quavered

"As brave as those men on the mountain are…I'm that much a coward…I couldn't tell you because I didn't want you to hate me…he was like a son to me and I left you in that orphanage…I left you to grow up thinking that no one had ever loved you."

The two companions were quiet for a moment and now Jiraiya was the one who couldn't make himself look at Naruto…and looking towards the monument only seemed to increase the guilt ten fold. Finally Naruto stood up; speaking before he left his sensei. "We all have our burdens to bear; that shouldn't have stopped you…I deserved to know the truth…he was my father…I spent four years thinking that the beast inside me killed the parents I never knew…at least that you could have prevented.