AN: Chapter title: The Search Continues Part 1
Jiraiya had elected to stop for breakfast.
He couldn't find it in him to protest the waste of time.
Naruto dropped into his seat, dragged a hand down his face once he was sure the Toad Sage was off placing an order or speaking with his contact or whatever he was after.
In all honesty, Naruto didn't much care.
His head landed on the table and he dragged one of his hands through his unruly blonde hair. His blue eyes were closed and he desperately wanted to simply fall asleep here and now, forsake any mission he had, or whatever was the reason he was out the village.
"Oh yes…I'm traveling with the Toad Sage…for some reason." Naruto had to nearly physically drag his head back up off the table, leaned his head back on the top of his chair. "This is just wonderful…absolutely wonderful…" He grimaced as he reached to his side, reached for the tin of bitter tasting pills in his pocket.
He popped another handful of them in his mouth, nearly gagged at the taste.
Regrettably, they were the only thing keeping him awake right now.
"Why am I even here?" He could only ask himself such a question again.
He let his head fall forward, blue eyes scanning for wherever the Toad Sage had gotten off to in his few minutes out of his sight. Despite how recognizable the man was, he couldn't find him.
A hand promptly settled on his shoulder.
"Hey there kid." Jiraiya set down a tray he had been holding in his other hand. "Still awake?"
"Of course, I am." Naruto refused to acknowledge the fact that he had nearly jumped out of his seat when the Toad Sage's hand had clapped him on the shoulder. "Are we done here?"
"Well, if you want to skip breakfast, you can get going now. Won't do you a lot of good since only I know where we're going." Jiraiya chuckled as he took his seat. "Anyway, eat up." He threw a hand out towards the tray. "I think it's about time to explain a little of why exactly the two of us are really out here."
"Yes, that would be amazing to know." Naruto resisted the urge to rub at his tired eyes, to do anything but give the Toad Sage an even stare. "Could you not move faster if alone?"
"Sure I could. I could keep myself hidden better too." Jiraiya leaned back in his seat, a grin on his face. "But that doesn't give us some quality bonding time, does it?"
Naruto found he could only stare at the white haired Shinobi, manage a blink or two as he processed what the mad man had just said.
"What?" He didn't know if he was more shocked or confused when he spoke the single word, used it to ask a question.
"I've got to admit, I should've been involved in your life far sooner but, for too many reasons to list, I couldn't be. Orochimaru, the safety of the Hidden Leaf, so many things got in the way again and again and again." He looked towards the sky, closed his eyes. "I'm certain both your parents want to have a word with me when we meet again." A sad smile crossed his face. "Yes, I'm sure Kushina's going to kick my ass something fierce." He returned to the present, offered a happier smile to the blonde across from him. "That's part of the reason at least. I've been wanting to get to know you for a while but, with that attack in the works, I couldn't exactly take you out the village. Most of the time we had together, I spent training you to be ready."
A proud smile came to his face.
"To be honest? I'm pretty sure you would've been fine on your own. I don't know what you did to Gaara but I've never even heard of a response of that kind from a Tailed Beats before." He couldn't help himself, his smile grew wider. "You've more than lived up to your name, to the legacy left by Minato and Kushina. They would be so proud of you."
For a moment, Naruto felt more than a little overwhelmed.
He didn't know if it was this talk about the parents he had never had the chance to know, if it was the look of something like fatherly pride on the face of the Toad Sage, if it was his own exhaustion catching up with him and rendering him unable to speak. He simply didn't know.
For a moment, all he could do was stare at the Toad Sage.
"I…I'm happy to hear that." Naruto settled on saying that. "I've only just learned of both of them but…it feels good to know they'd be proud."
"Your parents could never be disappointed in you." Jiraiya's smile wavered for a moment, a familiar old grief attempting to take it from him. "The love they had for you even when you weren't born yet, it was like nothing I'd ever seen before. There wasn't a thing you could do that would make them upset with you. The fact that you chose to be a Shinobi, that you've chosen to protect the village just like them, it would make them as happy as they would be worried for you."
"Yes…" Naruto decided he had enough of this talk. His parents…the topic was too unfamiliar, too raw, for him to discuss it now. He hardly had the chance to truly take it in since Jiraiya had told him his father's identity outside the gates. "What are your other reasons for bringing me with you?"
Jiraiya's smile shifted for a moment, his eyes saw past Naruto.
'More and more like your old man…He'd ask the same questions…'
"Never hurts to project a bit of power after an attack like that. Real or imagined, it helps to appear unaffected by something like that. Helps keep everything in order." Jiraiya pointed at himself and then to Naruto. "The two of us being out draws plenty of attention. Someone as legendary as me and everyone knowing your face thanks to your army of clones? It helps to show the Hidden Leaf hasn't lost a step even with the invasion. Combined with our Shinobi not dropping off on missions, with the chance to secure the border and the rest of the country with your clones, we're in a pretty good position. Even still, I don't expect everyone to get the message when we're being so obvious." Jiraiya unfolded a map Naruto didn't see him bring out, laid it down on the table. He pointed at Land of Earth, the Hidden Stone. "My main concern are these stubborn bastards."
"I could have three Cohorts ready to march in less than two weeks." Naruto scoffed, found this more familiar territory. Destroying an enemy, occupying territory, he had been readying for this in the days before he had left. This he could do very easy, didn't require him to sort through any of these unfamiliar feelings. "I could have five ready if I didn't have the send my so much of Legion to Sunagakure. Perhaps even six depending on how ready my fleet it."
"I'm sure you could." Jiraiya laughed at Naruto's joke. "But I'm not looking for a fight. As stubborn as the old man in charge can be, he knows how dangerous something like that would be. I'm more worried about his Shinobi, the stubborn kids that grow up on stories of the war, of being beaten by Konohagakure. That type of attitude can easily set the spark for a fight no one needs. If two of the Five Great Shinobi Powers end up in a battle, we'll drag the other three into it, no questions about if, only when." For a moment, Jiraiya truly looked his age, looked like a man who had gone through not only the Third Shinobi World War but had survived the battlefields of the Second Shinobi World War, had earned acclaim for his strength with three others. "The world doesn't need another war so soon after the last one…"
For a moment longer, he looked nothing but tired, burdened by a weight he had carried for so long.
"Look at me, reminiscing about the past?" He wore a tired smile, one with grief dragging it down. "This isn't a history lesson for you. I was telling you about what we're out here doing." He turned his gaze back to Naruto, back to the boy he saw so much of Minato in. "Now, as I was saying, we're going around on a tour to let people know Konohagakure is still powerful, that we haven't lost a step. While the Tsuchikage may not be a major concern, we're still going to have to deal with some Shinobi who think the war's not over yet, that now's the time to make a move against us."
Despite the situation, he found enough humor in it to laugh a little. Speaking of the Hidden Stone brought up memories of the Third Shinobi World War after all, brought his mind to a man who had earned fame during it. "You probably already know but Minato, your father, back during the war, had a flee on sight order for him. He was deemed so dangerous that no one was even supposed to fight him if they saw him. They were supposed to just run off, try and sound the retreat."
"…I remember reading something about that." Naruto allowed his mind to drift for a moment, focus on a lesson in the Academy on the Hokage, on the prestige of those who had held the position he had once aspired for. "The Yellow Flash once even wiped out an entire enemy army using his speed."
"Yeah…that Flying Thunder God of his made him a terror on any battlefield he stepped onto. Although, that wasn't the only thing that made your father such a threat. Him teleporting around like that wouldn't have done anything if he hadn't trained with it. The man honed his reaction time to act almost as fast as lightning, worked so hard on his strength to strike down any opponent as quickly as possible. Not to mention how he could sometimes put the Hyuga to shame with how he always knew where those things were. He swore up and down that he didn't have a seal to track them, kept a perfect memory of them." He found himself shaking his head, remembering the laughter of Minato when he had pressed for an answer, the teasing smile on both his and his wife's face when he had kept asking questions. "Knowing him, I'm sure he was just messing with me anytime I asked. His memory was great but those things moved around too much for him not to have some kind of trick with them. Not to mention with how many times he left the seal around to make his job easier."
"From Iruka-sensei's lessons, he was a very capable Shinobi. It's…interesting to know such a man was my father." Naruto didn't like how quickly the conversation had veered back to his father, how quick the Toad Sage was to speak about the man he had never known.
The man that he would never know.
The same way he knew nothing of his mother for so long, that he had nothing but her last name.
He found himself ignoring Jiraiya as he went on and on about where his father had left his Flying Thunder God seals, how often he would use them.
'Perhaps I shouldn't have asked why he was distracted so often?' Naruto focused on the tray the Toad Sage had brought over instead. He decided to help himself to it, consider it just payment for listening to the Toad Sage go on and on.
If the situation was different, if they hadn't left the village, if he didn't have any number of other things on his mind, he would wish to speak with the Toad Sage in depth about the man his father was, learn more about his mother, but the situation simply didn't allow such a thing.
From the way the Toad Sage had spoken, they would be out for weeks, perhaps even months, looking for his wayward teammate.
There would likely be time for such conversations later.
For now, he would prefer to focus on the mission ahead of them than hear stories, hear about what the two of them should expect as they traveled across the Land of Fire, learn more about whatever path the Toad Sage had charted for the two of them to follow. There had to be any number of foes to battle with how Toad Sage spoke, any number of tasks for the two to accomplish as they did nothing but waste time while they waited for his teammate, as the Toad Sage had told him, "drink herself into a good mood".
The mission they were undertaking was something he could understand much easier than the emotions the Toad Sage's constant stories were pulling to the surface.
"Huh, finished already?" Naruto watched as the Toad Sage seemed to finally come back to the present, the man finished with his stories. He was also finished with his breakfast. "Ready to set out so soon?"
"We're on a mission, are we not?" Naruto popped another handful of the bitter pills in his mouth. He didn't exactly hate the taste this time but that may have also been because he had burned his tongue downing a scalding hot coffee the Toad Sage had gotten for him. He found he preferred having a burned tongue to tasting the awful thing.
"That we are." Jiraiya smiled at Naruto's eagerness to get going, collected the scroll and the pack he had sat on the ground. He also went about removing the seal he had placed on the table, had made sure the two of them went uninterrupted and without getting eavesdropped on. He watched Naruto drag himself out of his seat, drag his pack back onto his shoulders. "Now, let's get moving."
Naruto merely nodded, set himself to follow after the Toad Sage.
"Before we get going, I've got to ask something about the invasion."
Naruto merely gave the Toad Sage a look.
"Alright, alright. No need to give me that look. I got enough of that from your mother." Jiraiya laughed at the Chunin. "How'd you do it, bring down a kid was formidable as Gaara of the Sand Waterfall? The rumors in the village are going a bit wild about how you took down the Jinchuriki, too wild for me to piece together anything close to the truth. I've heard it was a seal you've been keeping for this exact moment, people are saying you took him down while the Kyubi and the Ichibi fought, and the rumors only get wilder from there."
The question was the easiest for Naruto to answer, one that posed no sudden onslaught of emotions he was unfamiliar with.
Recounting his glorious victory over not only the beast but his victory over Gaara as well? This was simple for him.
"It was far from easy but it was nowhere near as outlandish as the rumors would make my victory out to be." Naruto found his exhaustion could be ignored, that he could focus on something that brought him great joy to recount. "I had been awaiting the Ichibi's release while I battled Gaara. Due to some…unexpected issues, the Ichibi was released and, once it tasted my might, it fled like the cowardly beast it was."
Much like the Toad Sage was prone to do, Naruto's mind drifted away from the present and to the past, to his clash with Gaara.
"I pursued the beast, originally with my Legate before he was waylaid by a Shinobi who had the foolish idea to steal my battle form me. When I finally caught up with him, managed to start the battle, I found it…lacking. Gaara was not the ruthless killer I had originally believed him to be. The mad beast within him was at fault, was able to speak to him unlike how the Kyubi is unable to corrupt my own thoughts."
Blue eyes stared ahead, were focused only on the past.
"We battled but…at a point, my heart was no longer in each swing of my blade. As the battle continued, I came to the decision not to kill him."
Naruto didn't see the look on Jiraiya's face as he looked at the blonde, that he was hardly able to focus on the present with what the Chunin was telling him.
"I wasn't facing an opponent to destroy. I wasn't even facing a beast to triumph over any longer. I had already beaten the Ichibi, sent it fleeing like the mad dog from the firm hand of his master. The longer we fought, the more and more chances I had to face Gaara as he was without the influence of the beast…we began to connect."
"His loneliness, the pain he had gone through because he contained a Tailed Beast, was not something I could ignore. And he couldn't ignore the identical burden I carried, the pain I knew before I had my Legionnaires to call my brothers, before I could call Sasuke Uchiha the Legate of my mighty Legion. We recognized the pain each of us held, the pain of our burden that shaped us. The more we battled, the more I felt our very spirits forge a connection. The two of us found more things alike between ourselves than we did our differences and, eventually, we simply stopped fighting."
He remembered the moment he sheathed his blade, the moment that Gaara's sand retreated.
He remembered the moment he could no longer call Gaara his enemy.
"Enough." He dismissed the Chakra shrouding his blade, let it disperse into the air. Gaara's sand fell around him, began to, after a moment, return to the gourd on his back. "There isn't any reason for us to fight any longer." He dismissed his hold on the Chakra of the Kyubi, allowed himself to look upon Gaara with his own blue eyes as he sheathed his blade. "Do you agree?"
"I…I don't want to fight any longer either." Gaara appeared conflicted as he spoke, as he tried to understand why such a thing had come to pass. One hand rose to the self-inflicted scar upon his head, the scar that he had made as he proclaimed his once reason for living. "I don't know why but…I don't need to fight anymore."
"I feel much the same." He looked upon his once foe, seemed to come to a decision. "I have no desire to fight my brother."
He smiled.
Gaara, hesitant for but a moment, returned it.
"With so many things shared between the two of us, the burdens we carried much the same, our pasts so similar, neither of us could fight any longer." Naruto returned to the present. He turned to the Toad Sage. "Satisfied?"
"Can't say I didn't expect something like that once you started." Jiraiya smiled, one without the weight of grief, without the weight of his numerous regrets dragging him down. "There's an idea I've heard about from time to time that matches what happened between you and Gaara." Jiraiya lifted his hand towards the sky above, curled his fingers back into a fist. He turned to Naruto with his grin never dropping. "The idea says that, when two warriors meet in battle, the two of them are able to…connect in some way. Some say you can read the thoughts of another as you fight, others would say you can read the intent behind their blows. No matter what, it's a way to discover why your opponent fights, what motivates them. And, they in turn, can learn the same about you."
A glance to Naruto showed his disbelief of such a thing, a lack of comprehension of such a strange concept. He didn't blame him. It seemed rather outrageous to most when they learned about such a thing. Regardless, he couldn't help but laugh.
He could simplify it, had learned how to over the years.
"It's a lot like talking with your fists." Jiraiya lowered his hand, held it out to Naruto. The blonde looked confused at the gesture before he seemed to realize Jiraiya's intent, held up his own fist next to the white-haired Shinobi's.
They fist bumped.
"It's usually a lot more violent than that but that's the gist of it." Jiraiya continued to smile as he dropped his hand back to his side. He looked ahead on the path they walked. "The idea can be found everywhere, some monks will tell you it's the spirits of two people synchronizing, connecting to each other in a way that goes far beyond the physical. Others would say it's the act of such violence against the other that drives them to tear away any falsehoods, reveal their true selves in a more primal way. Regardless of what school of thought you think is right, it dates back too far to record, predates the era of Shinobi we live in now."
"Thanks to my time with the Toads in Mount Myoboku, learning from so many resources out in the Land of Toads, I've picked up a bit more than most people about this particular school of thought. Mainly, just how old it really is. It also went by another name then, was supposedly established by the Sage of the Six Paths himself. Back in his day, it was referred to as Ninshu."
"An interesting tale."
"Interesting history." Jiraiya chose to correct the blonde.
"It sounds like a myth."
"To a lot of people, the Kyubi sounds like a myth. From the idea of a giant fox to one having nine tails, it all sounds like fantasy, a story to tell misbehaving children. The idea of a human containing that kind of power sounds like nonsense to them too."
"…Fair point. I'll…consider it to be some kind of truth."
"There we go. Isn't compromise great?"
Both continued forward in silence.
Naruto turned away from the Toad Sage, grimaced when he popped yet another of the bitter pills into his mouth.
Jiraiya simply shook his head, a grin on his face, a chuckle threatening to escape his lips at the blonde's antics.