AN: Chapter title: Promotions and Celebrations Part 7
Hiruzen Sarutobi pinched the bridge of his nose, wished nothing but for this day to be over, for him to be free to rest at last.
Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, he had seemingly been cursed to take on this role, to bear the weight of the world on far too old shoulders. No matter how it appeared, how many Shinobi looked up to him, how some even envied here, he was growing far too old for the title of Hokage.
He was an old man, he should be retired or nothing but an advisor for his successor.
He should not still wear the ceremonial hat and robes of the office.
He should not be the one the village relied on in crisis after crisis, be the only one who could command action from the Hidden leaf.
He should not still be the only one many deemed qualified of holding the title.
A part of him was even beginning to wish he had never accepted the position of Hokage, that he had done something else when the Second had named him his successor.
The stress that came with the position, the headaches, the heartache, it was becoming a greater and greater burden every day.
A burden he was coming to understand he would eventually be unable to withstand.
'Hmm, I thought I outgrew these pity parties.' Hiruzen broke himself free of his depressing thoughts, a train of thought he was finding himself on more and more these last few months.
He took a moment to gather his thoughts, prepare his argument, before he looked to where Inoichi continued to stand in front of his desk, to where Shikaku silently stood at his side. As Inoichi had made his case, Jiraiya had decided against hiding himself as more and more was revealed to the white haired Shinobi. Presently, he stood behind and off to the side of the Hokage, merely took in the near barrage of new information Inoichi was so freely speaking. Nearly every word the Yamanaka spoke was information he hadn't been made aware of until today, until this very moment.
To him, it only proved how deeply intertwined the present situation with Mitarashi was to yet another of Orochimaru's mad experiments, of one of his attempts to master the Sage Arts.
'Things at least make a lot more sense now.' The mystery of Anko's Cursed Seal was still not entirely known to him but he could at least understand more about it, what it was so different from what he had encountered before. 'What the hell were you thinking back then Orochimaru? What made her so different to the rest?'
Hiruzen took a chance to glance to Jiraiya out the corner of his eye. Unknowing of his thoughts, and by the look on his face, Hiruzen concluded it was safe to say his once student was a little upset with everything he hadn't known.
"What you want is…I don't believe now is the right time. There will perhaps never be a right time to do what you wish but now is most certainly not the time." Hiruzen met the determined eyes of Inoichi with his own tired gaze. "I understand why you want to give her access to the truth, the information she has more of a right to than any of us, but now is simply not the time. Mitarashi is already suffering from her condition, is far from a fully rationale mindset. If she was to be given this information now, given the truth she herself wanted to lock away so many years ago, she could very likely break."
Hiruzen's gaze once more slid over to Jiraiya. The Toad Sage had stepped around his desk as he spoke, stood on the side of it.
"Jiraiya, you have the most experience with the fallouts of Orochimaru's experiments. If such a thing was to happen, how likely is the village to subdue her?" Hiruzen already knew the answer to his own question. He simply needed Jiraiya to be the one to tell the other two in his office.
Jiraiya didn't like being pressured into speaking like this, be part of whatever game Hiruzen played with the rest of the village when he was out, but, despite his current feelings, the safety of the village mattered more.
"It'll be a massacre. If she takes the information badly, there's nothing we can do at the start. Most people around her will be killed instantly by that scream of hers when it brings the village down around her, others will be killed when whatever technique she uses to absorb Chakra gets them. Of course, these are all the unintended deaths. Cursed Seals react strongly to emotions like grief, anger, hatred. The more she feels those, the greater the initial death toll would be when the Cursed Seal decides to lash out. That's also ignoring her own skills, whatever mentality she develops towards the village from…relearning all of that." Jiraiya turned to the appropriately horrified Inoichi. "We could also get lucky, maybe she takes it well, understands that she wanted them sealed."
"That doesn't sound likely." Shikaku spoke for the first time since entering the room.
"It's not." Jiraiya shook his head. "Grief, sorrow, they very easily give way to hatred, anger. Part of an endless cycle."
"I mean no disrespect, but I didn't come here to hear you state your philosophy Jiraiya-dono." Inoichi snapped out of his horror, focused on the matter at hand. "I understand your misgivings towards all of this Hokage-sama but I believe this is the proper course of action. You and I are the only two who know the release for the Memory Seal she asked for and I would like us to agree on a course of action before I leave here. I understand that you are trying to prioritize the safety of the village but Anko is not a threat to the village like you believe and she can handle this information, bear the burden of the truth of her past. She has been a loyal Shinobi her entire life, has gone above and beyond the call of duty time and time again. There is no reason not to trust her now, that she can maintain control of herself even with the Memory Seal broken." He stepped up to the desk of the Hokage, bowed his head. "Please Hokage-sama, I think it is time to repay that trust with the knowledge we were entrusted with, to give her the key to understanding what has happened to her. The reports of Ibiki on her condition, the information provided Jiraiya-dono, makes the solution to her current problem clear. She is unable to control herself without this truth. We must do this."
As silence reigned in the room after Inoichi's rather impassioned plea, Jiraiya turned his eyes to Shikaku Nara.
"What do you make of all this?" His question was simple.
"I'm in agreement." Shikaku's answer was just as simple.
If they had the time to summon him, Jiraiya was sure Ibiki would be of the same mind as the two in the office now.
All three seemed to be privy to more information than he had been, Mitarashi's strange issue with her Cursed Seal coming as less of a surprise to them than it was to him.
"It is a dangerous gamble." Hiruzen held up a hand, the simple gesture preempted any protests from Inoichi before he could begin. "But I will allow you to take it as long as you accept the following conditions." He held up one finger on his raised hand. "The first shall be this: It is done outside the village. I will have a list of locations prepared and one of my ANBU Black Ops will deliver it to you. You will select the location from that list and I will see to it that the location is readied for this procedure and, if necessary, will be able to contain her. My ANBU will be present ahead of any of us and serve as guards for the location you pick so once it is selected, there will be no way to alter it." He waited for the blonde to nod before he continued. He held up a second finger. "The second: It will be done within a barrier I and someone of my choice will maintain. If the worst comes to pass, I want it to be known I will not be able to guarantee your safety. I will not endanger the village so soon after the invasion if she goes mad. Unless the situation within is under control, I will not lower the barrier." He earned another nod. He held up a third finger. "Third: You will not be the only expert present. At least two others will be with you in the barrier and two shall be outside with myself and my chosen partner. They will be responsible for keeping all present appraised of the situation within Mitarashi's mind as you work."
He held up a fourth finger.
"Fourth, and last, is simple: Anko will be made aware of the risks we are taking when you present her with this idea of yours. Preferably, while I am able to speak with her as well. Regardless, she will have the chance to speak with me before she comes to a final decision. If she rejects you, it will be the end of this. If she accepts, we will follow the previous guidelines I've laid out."
He folded his hands in front of him, met Inoichi's gaze with his own.
"Is that acceptable with you Inoichi?"
The Clan Head only once again bowed his head, this time in gratitude towards the aged Hokage.
"I can only say thank you Hokage-sama."
"Then are business here is concluded." He leaned back in his seat. "You are dismissed to prepare yourself and a team for this assignment. Shikaku, for the duration of this, you will either select someone to replace Inoichi while he is otherwise occupied or complete his work yourself in his stead." Shikaku only nodded before he left the room with Inoichi, the two no doubt having a handful of replacements already in mind prior to this meeting.
The door shut behind the two.
Once teacher and once student were left alone.
Hiruzen didn't bother to turn to Jiraiya.
The Toad Sage set a bottle down in front of the aged Hokage.
"I think you could use a drink." Jiraiya dragged a chair over to the front of the desk, dropped down into it. "Frankly, I think we both could do for a few."
Hiruzen said nothing but he readily accepted the cup Jiraiya provided.
"I can guess you have questions?" Hiruzen would admit, a part of him dreaded this conversation.
For a moment, Jiraiya said nothing, merely downed his drink, closed his eyes for a moment.
"No."
He didn't laugh at the shock that suddenly covered his old teacher's face.
"Trust me, I want to know what's really going on with her but I don't need to know everything to do the job you need me to do. If you want to keep a few things hidden, not tell me everything, I'm fine with that. If nothing else, I figure you have a good reason for it, wouldn't withhold anything critical if you could help it." Jiraiya poured himself another drink. "This thing with Anko is a lot more delicate than I thought, than I would ever think when it concerns one of Orochimaru's Cursed Seals." He looked disappointed. Not in Hiruzen, but in himself. "I guess there's still a lot of things I don't know about that guy, that I'll never know about him."
Disbelief came to his voice as he shook his head.
"I just can't believe he honestly cared for her like this, that he could ever care for someone like that and just abandon them. It doesn't make sense to me, doesn't make sense to who I thought her teacher had been." Jiraiya looked to the Hokage for answers. "Did you?"
"I…still don't know if I can believe it myself. The situation revolving around Anko is an outlier above anything else, far from the norm for his experiments as we both know." Hiruzen downed his drink, used the chance to compose his thoughts. "I would want to believe he couldn't, that he eventually became nothing but that dark drive inside of him, that he cast aside his emotions one after another for power, for whatever drove him to conduct his experiments." He shook his head. "A rather childish mindset I know but, sometimes at least, I wish to think monsters are just that, monsters."
Jiraiya couldn't help but nod. "That would make this a lot simpler." A pitiful smile came to his face, one that showed some of the sorrow, the guilt, he had carried for so long, for so many years. "If he was always a monster it would almost be alright to hate him, to despise him. It would help knowing all the times we shared were false, that the man I thought I knew was just a mask, that there was nothing to it beyond manipulation. Even when it doesn't make sense, when there's no reason for him to pretend in the slightest."
"Yes, it would help a great deal."
The two sat, and drank, in silence for a few minutes.
Jiraiya looked up from his empty cup and to the man across from him.
He was just as lost in his thoughts as he had been, thinking of better times instead of the mess the present had become. He couldn't blame him.
It was easier to think of what had been, let oneself fall into the mental bog of 'what ifs' and how things could have been so different, how things could've been changed for the better. He had fallen into the same more times than he could count, had spent hours thinking of his seemingly endless number of mistakes, what he could have done to change them.
With how long Hiruzen had lived, what he had seen across his lifetime, he had no doubt the man did his fair share of reflection.
"Sensei."
"Hmm?"
"I've got a question. Just something that's been bugging me for…for a while."
"I'm surprised you haven't asked whatever this is sooner, go ahead."
He set the cup down. "Do you ever regret training us?"
"Why would I?" Hiruzen seemed surprised at the question, had perhaps never considered such a standpoint himself.
"Just…just look at what became of the three of us." Jiraiya threw his hand out, seemed to try and encompass the whole world. "One of your students became one of the most dangerous criminals this world may ever know, another left and is all but considered a Missing-nin by most you can ask, and your final student…" He laughed.
There was no humor in it.
"The only one who managed to stay loyal is as poor a teacher as he was a student. Nearly every pupil I've taken on has inherited my foolish philosophy, has been a genius that makes even you look like a fool or someone with potential who dwarfs my own. Any one of my students should've been the one to change the world, to bring about a new age of Shinobi…yet they're all dead. Long before their time and long before me." He shook his head. "Their fool of a teacher is the only one left."
He let out another humorless laugh.
"The three of us make quite the picture, don't we? What did we really turn out to be in the end? The Sannin, the three oh-so great students of the legendary Hiruzen Sarutobi, have become nothing but three legendary disappointments. A criminal, a runaway, and me: a failure in all he does in life." He looked to his empty cup, the few drops that had stubbornly clung on gathering at the bottom. "What a sad picture…"
Hiruzen said nothing, didn't know what to say it seemed.
He looked to the ceiling instead, let his mind wander.
"I remember one thing about you three above anything else…" He closed his eyes. "On the day you became my team, that I was made responsible for the lot of you, I couldn't help but think: These three are ridiculous." He continued to let his thoughts drift. "I thought for sure none of you would make it as Shinobi, that, for one reason or another, you'd be out of my hair. But then I saw you, saw the teamwork the three of you could employ with minimal instruction, could see the potential all three of you held."
"That was one of the reasons for why I decided to teach you something like the Summoning Technique so young, spent so much time with each of you to specialize your training. Eventually, I stopped viewing the three of you as anything but my students, saw you three reach the potential I saw for each of you and later surpass it."
A smile had spread across his face as he spoke of such simpler times but, just as swiftly as it had arrived, his smile began to fade.
"I suppose I was the disappointment in the end. I trained you to be strong but didn't teach all three of you to value your teammates, value the village, served as a poor teacher beyond the Ninjutsu I taught you, in the ways I taught you to be soldiers before anything else."
"Huh…" Jiraiya didn't know what else to say, what he could say, once Hiruzen was done speaking.
"Huh indeed." Hiruzen nodded to the bottle. "One last drink before you go?"
"Ah what the hell. I'm never against one more." Jiraiya set his cup down, took up the bottle. In a few moments, both had a good amount in their cups.
"Good luck Jiraiya."
"Same to you old man."
The two clanged their glasses together before both downed their last cup for the day, both rising from their seats as they did so.
Without another word shared between the two, Jiraiya left the office and Hiruzen returned to his seemingly never ending workload.
They didn't need to speak to each other to know what they both needed to do.
Until Jiraiya returned, having succeeded or failed in his mission, the two of them wouldn't be seeing each other again.