Written a year ago to Nicholas in LJ.
progress
A year and a half after Orochimaru has left, his two only friends sit in a bar that has ridiculously low prices and pretty waitresses. Quite a long evening behind them, they don't mind having their cups refilled with sake, which is quite good actually, even by their standards. And not just because it's finally something they can afford, they both laugh.
The conversation slips into unpleasant areas after they have already covered everything from toads to village politics to pigs. Tsunade needs her cup filled again, and Jiraiya offers her the jug with a surprisingly unwavering hand.
"What are you going to do until we catch Orochimaru?" he asks seriously, with a deceiving red color on his cheeks.
"I'm going to train. My body, mind, heart and soul – it's not enough to catch him. I want to kill him."
"And after we've caught him?"
"…I suppose I'll train more. Train until…" Her voice trails off and she hides it with a sip of sake.
"Until what?"
"Until… I don't know. Until I'm strong enough." She doesn't like him at the moment. They're supposed to be having a stress-relieving evening together and he's not supposed to pry into her business like that.
"When will you be strong enough?" Jiraiya's eyes tell her absolutely nothing. Not why he's asking her such things, nor if he knows that this annoys her, nor even how much more alcohol he'll have to have to start making passes at her.
"When I'm able to protect those who are important to me." The cliché slips almost automatically from her lips and she lets it be – it's an answer good enough to nearly everything these days.
Jiraiya twirls the cup in his hand and says nothing more. The questions linger heavy around him in the air but Tsunade doesn't want to hear them. She sets her cup back on the table, stands up and offers her hand to him – an offer that lasts longer than the words never said aloud between them.
