AN: Chapter title: The Search Continues Part 2

"Never thought I would be dreading a few boring weeks." Jiraiya sighed as he thought of the past few days. Nothing short of travel and boredom from the moment they broke camp to when they chose to set up another.

He had called an early stop today, had cut Naruto loose once he had decided against roughing it and spent the money on a hotel for the two of them. They had been roughing it for a few days already since leaving the village and getting the chance to sleep in a bed wouldn't hurt either of the two. Besides, his back could use something softer than the ground.

The latest town they had reached served as yet another bust in their search for his wayward teammate. Something he had expected at least, something going right for him for once. If they had caught up to Tsunade in a few days, he wouldn't know what to even say to her, where to begin. Like he thought, word was getting out, was traveling ahead of them, and Tsunade would keep on her path to stay away from them.

'What a fun reunion this is going to be.' Jiraiya frowned at his own thoughts, at how depressing this situation truly was. 'Teammates shouldn't have to hunt down teammates.' He shook his head. "No use getting into a pity party." He wasn't a drinker like his teammate but he figured the situation called for it, poured himself a cup from the bottle in front of him and downed it.

It wasn't enough to throw him off, to cloud his mind.

He leaned back in one of the chairs in their hotel room, dark eyes focused on the map on the table in front of him.

'We're not close enough to the border yet to think about turning back.' So far, his plan was to take Naruto near the Hidden Waterfall, get close enough to the Hidden Stone to let them know not to try anything, keep an eye on the Hidden grass while he was at it, and begin to swing around for the long journey back towards the village and Tanzaku Quarters. 'We'll need about another day, maybe a day and a half, before we can start heading back.'

'And that's if everything goes well.' There was no telling if the Tsuchikage would send his own message when word reached him of one of Konohagakure's Sannin traveling with the Jinchuriki of the Kyubi so close to the border to the Land of Earth. As much pride he had in his skills, he wasn't eager to test them against whoever the old man sent to "run into them".

Least of all one of the two Jinchuriki.

'Although, my reports have both of those two on the outs with Old Onoki.' That was at least something good he had dug up over the years. 'Doesn't surprise me with how much of a pain in the ass the old war dog can get when he wants his way. But, even if they won't listen to the Tsuchikage, that doesn't change the fact that both have had their Tailed Beast longer than Naruto's been alive. If they're masters of their Tailed Beast or not, I'm not trying to get into a fight with those two.'

He didn't know much about the man known as Han, could only say that he had a unique fighting style coming from his Boil Release and had held the Gobi long enough to earn infamy on the bloody battlefields of the Third Shinobi World War. Across his travels, he had managed to run into Roshi of the Lava Release a handful of times as the Jinchuriki had been in the middle of his own journeys after that bloody war.

From the brief talk they had the first time they had met, Roshi had decided on traveling in pursuit of something even he didn't know of. Seeing so much death, being the cause of so much of it in battle after battle, had made him want to distance himself from it all.

They had even shared a drink the last time they had met, one old man passing on advice to a younger man. Both had shared a fair number of stories with the other, had wondered if the other could provide answers to some of their own questions. He had even gifted him a copy of his latest work before they had parted ways.

As much as he respected the man for walking his own path, of pursuing discovery of himself and his place in the world, he didn't discount him as an enemy.

'And what a fight that'll be.' His body ached just thinking of the pain in the ass a fight with a Jinchuriki would be. 'I'd be lucky to walk away with all my limbs still attached.'

And none of this was even taking into account the fact that there was no telling what either the Hidden Grass or the Hidden Waterfall would do while he and Naruto were so close, were clearly making a show of force. The Hidden Grass no doubt already knew he was moving around and the why of his travels. He would guess the Hidden Waterfall would stay out of his way even if the village had a Jinchuriki of their own.

'Although, that's an idea…' A clash between Jinchuriki would draw eyes, would give Tsumade even more reason to think that they would be too far away from the festival at Tanzaku Quarters to bother with not attending. 'No.' He shook his head, discarded the idea as quickly as it had wormed its way into his thoughts.

First off, he had too little information on the new Jinchuriki of the Shichibi to risk bringing Naruto into a clash. All he had was a general age, around Naruto's own if his reports weren't off.

Second, he wasn't exactly sure how Naruto would take it all.

'I want to see the best in the kid but…there's some warning signs I can't ignore.' Half of the reason he wanted to get Naruto out the village was to see him out his element, get a better feel for his personality while they were out. 'This kid is going to hit a wall soon enough.'

He wouldn't deny he was strong but he was also bullheaded, saw things too simply.

He hoped to break him of some of those habits while they were out but it wouldn't be easy.

"Kid was too stubborn to even admit he was tired when we left." Jiraiya shook his head at the memory of Naruto nearly running into a tree while they were walking. The Chunin had ended up running into a signpost instead, Jiraiya having to catch him by the back of his Flak Jacket before he tumbled to the ground. "Pride like that is going to get you killed Naruto…especially if you try something with Tsunade."

Just thinking about that possible disaster risked giving him a headache.

'I really hope those two don't get into a fight.'

He took a moment to consider taking another drink before he thought better of it.

"Don't you know how to give me a difficult mission old man? Find Tsunade and bring her back? How the hell am I supposed to manage something like that? Do you expect me to take her down if she resists, get into a fight and destroy Tanzaku Quarters while we're at it? Or are we really that desperate that you're willing to risk exactly that?" The white-haired Shinobi found his frown returning as his thoughts drifted from his wayward teammate and towards Hiruzen, the aged Hokage swamped with work after the invasion. "Just how much longer do you plan to keep this up?"

He didn't know exactly how much longer Hiruzen could handle the job, had never thought the man would need to take medication to keep doing it.

Even thinking of it, a familiar guilt began to gnaw at him.

Hiruzen Sarutobi was a man who deserved to retire, deserved to have the chance to enjoy the peace he had fought so hard far, the peace he had struggled literal decades for. A man who had outlived his teachers, too many friends to count, and his own wife. He deserved so much more than he had been given, should've been allowed to pass on the burden of leader to someone else. He didn't deserve to have the position of Hokage forced on him again after selecting a near perfect successor.

A successor who they all had bet so much on.

A man who had died so painfully young.

"What a time to leave us Minato…" Even over ten years since that dreadful day, going on a decade and a half, the ache was still there. "And what a puzzle you left for us to figure out." His eyes drifted to his hand, the thin scar on his thumb that marked the day he had signed that summoning contract with the toads. "Just what were you after that night to use something as extreme as the Reaper Death Seal?"

While the options weren't many, there were still a number of Sealing Techniques that could've done the job of the lethal Kinjutsu Minato had ended up using. Perhaps not as well but it still could've been accomplished, could've kept Minato alive to oversee any of the potential problems stemming from it.

"Or perhaps we were lucky you used it?" With the manner of his death, he had, as much as it pained the Shinobi to admit it, made the right choice. Jiraiya had seen the bodies himself, his student's and Kushina's, and knew exactly what had dealt the killing blow. Even if the seal had been different, there was no telling if Minato wouldn't have gotten speared through by one of the claws of the Kyubi if he had used another seal.

The way the two had died, their positioning, they had likely taken the blow while shielding their son from the last attack of the beast. Both had moved at once without hesitation, had stopped the beast's attack just short of reaching their son judging by the single drop of blood Hiruzen had found fallen on Naruto.

'The love of a parent…' Jiraiya closed his eyes, wouldn't allow himself to shed tears. Not now. 'Both of you had to be on your last legs and you still managed to do something that incredible…'

The information he had from that night was still scattered, why Minato had taken so long to engage the beast still unknown. Just like who exactly was the attacker that night and that knowledge still chilled him to the bone some nights. Someone dangerous was out there, someone who had not only learned of the location of the birth but had the skill and knowledge to kill the guards, separate Minato from Kushina, and release the beast.

The ability to control the Kyubi, to control a Tailed Beast, was one few could say they possessed. Such powerful beings weren't easily cowed, were sealed into Jinchuriki by the Shinobi villages bearing the burden of possessing one for a reason after all.

Hashirama Senju with his legendary prowess and Wood Release had managed what many had once viewed as impossible, Madara Uchiha with the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan had managed to control the Kyubi in the past, certain Ninja Monks had developed systems to restrain a Jinchuriki, and he had come across a number of sealing formulas during his decades of travel that he had stored away on Mount Myoboku. All of them were ancient systems, either impossible to replicate without a Kekkei Genkai or decades of training from a master. In the present, he knew Orochimaru had created drugs and the like to suppress a Jinchuriki and he himself had developed a seal capable of doing the same.

But both of those were mere suppression of a Tailed Beast's Chakra, a way to stop their influence on a host. Neither he nor Orochimaru had managed control of a Tailed Beast itself, needed the medium of a Jinchuriki to accomplish such a thing and hadn't been tested without such a thing.

'And whoever did it managed to get through Kushina's seal…Even if she was exhausted, even if the seal was weakened by her pregnancy and the birth, that's no small feat by itself.' He no longer saw the map in front of him, no longer saw the room he was in. Instead, he saw the battlefield of over a decade ago.

A mental recreation of that night, everything he had managed to piece together from his own investigation after the attack.

An attacker clad in shadows, his identity unknown to all but the dead. Minato standing against him. The only reason he wouldn't be at the sight of the Kyubi's attack in place of Hiruzen would have been if he was already locked in a battle. The fact that he felt it was too dangerous to leave the man and attend to the village only spoke of how dangerous his opponent must've been.

The man was an equal, if not greater, threat to the world as the released Kyubi had been.

Kushina holding Naruto within one of Minato's safehouses, her body ravaged not only by childbirth but by the Tailed Beast's extraction as well. Her fate that night had been sealed. She would likely know it, would have been sharing her first and only words with her baby while she had the chance, while her strength lasted.

'But she wasn't ignorant of the danger the Kyubi posed. She would've wanted to seal the Tailed Beast back inside herself before the night was over, stop its rampage once Minato had defeated the attacker.' The shadow defeated on the ground, Minato's final blow failing to kill him that night but he had broken his control. 'Minato protested, suggested sealing the Kyubi into Naruto.' Even in her exhausted state, even if she was near death, Kushina would argue with him. Yet he would explain to her his reasoning, explain why they couldn't afford to lose the Kyubi. 'And he managed to convince her.' She must've acquiesced since it was her barrier that had stopped Hiruzen and the rest of the Shinobi who had survived the battle from reaching the two of them. 'And he used something as extreme as the Reaper Death Seal, sent off the key to me using Gerotora.'

A part of him was tempted to summon the toad now, to go over the seal in depth to not only occupy his mind but plan for later training with Naruto. He wanted to do it but he withheld the urge even if his hand itched.

'Not yet. One problem at a time.' He had given Naruto ample training in using the power of the Kyubi to prepared for the invasion, ensure his readiness for an absolute worst-case scenario if he was to fight Gaara of the Sand, if the boy happened to be the rare Perfect Jinchuriki.

He had done nothing to the seal if he could help it, had provided a predetermined pathway to Naruto a few days before the attack.

The next step of their training would be actually weakening the seal, would focus on truly controlling the power of the Tailed Beast.

"I'm thinking too far ahead." Jiraiya allowed himself to breath in, breath out, center himself. "Before I even think of teaching Naruto how to control the Tailed Beast, I'm going to have to finish my own training."

He had been serious when he spoke to Ma and Pa, fully intended to head back to Mount Myoboku and finish his training in the Sage Arts.

'A man calling himself the Toad Sage can't exactly not be a master of Senjutsu.' He shook his head, could at least find it in him to laugh at his private little joke. Just as quickly as it came, it slipped away.

After all, there was a reason he hadn't finished his training, why Minato had been able to achieve mastery in a fraction of the time. It wasn't from his genius, wasn't caused by the prodigal skills that had allowed him the master the Hiraishin in the same way he had created a technique as powerful as the Rasengan.

If intelligence was all it took, Orochimaru would've mastered it by now. And he would've bashed his head against the wall enough times to figure something out.

Yet the both of them had failed their journeys to become true Sages. And, with the missing piece of the puzzle supplied by Shima, he had finally figured out why. Despite all their differences, their polar opposite personalities, they had both failed their training for the same reason:

Imbalance.

Orochimaru's goal drove him to such depths, to such darkness, it was difficult to imagine the man he had known in the past was the same man in the present. Such a shift in his personality, with such a broken goal pushing him further and further down the path he walked, there was little chance of him ever learning the ultimate techniques of the Sage Arts.

On the other hand, he carried too many regrets. For all of his accomplishments, for all of his training, he had failed too much to view himself as a success. And with that mindset, he would never become a master of the Sage Arts.

"Body, spirit, and Natural Energy. Just like Ma said, if I can't balance all three, I'll never become worthy of a title like the Toad Sage." He let out another deep breath, allowed himself to wallow in his misery for a bit. "How the hell am I supposed to let go of a lifetime of regrets?"

"I couldn't stop Orochimaru." That fateful confrontation came to his mind, the day he had failed to stop his once friend. The day he had realized that his friend had a true and honest darkness to him, a darkness that he had been so painfully blind to for so long.

"I couldn't save either of my students, the two who were supposed to change the world. Minato, Nagato, I've outlived both of them." Minato, Nagato, the two he had thought were befitting of the title as heavy as 'Child of the Prophecy'. Both had been incredible, had talent far surpassing his own, but despite such a thing, the two of them had been the ones to find an early grave.

"My efforts in love are…poor to say the least." His complex history with Tsunade, the young love that had floundered, the comradery that had flourished in its place, the friendship at the end he had found he preferred. Before she had lost so much, before he had seen her consumed by her grief. A grief he had been useless to help her with, a grief that he hadn't even known was so heavy a burden until she was gone.

"And I'm not even that great of a student." Hiruzen had seen something in him, had become a complex mix of a teacher, a father, and a friend across the years he had known the old man. And he had failed him just as much as any others. He had decided to leave when there was so much he could've done in Konohagakure, when there was a chance he could've prevented so many catastrophes.

"I wasn't even there for Naruto." Kushina had picked him to raise her son if the worse had happened, had trusted him to be there if both she and Minato died. And he hadn't been. He had searched desperately for the man behind the attack, had tried to stop the worse of his once teammate's experiments later, had struggled to decipher the seal left behind by Minato.

"And that's nowhere near half of them." Jiraiya rubbed at his eyes, leaned his head back. His gaze was focus towards the ceiling, maybe he was looking for an answer above. He didn't even know himself. "Am I just supposed to forget all of my mistakes? Let them go? Let all of them mean nothing? Just move on?"

He didn't know if he was angry at the mere thought, if he was supposed to grieve the very idea of letting it all go.

At this point, his regrets had become some of the friends he had known the longest.

The only ones he hadn't been abandoned by, the only one who hadn't left him like so many others.

"And isn't that just sad." He let his head fall back, found his eyes drifting to the bottle in front of him.

Taking another drink was becoming more and more tempting.

"I need to get some fresh air." Jiraiya once again decided against it. He headed to the door instead, was resolute in merely leaving the room for now. He would take in the sights and sounds of the town they had stopped in, take the chance to see what exactly Naruto had gotten up to since he had cut him loose.

With any luck, the kid may have taken this all as a chance to take it easy and lose that overly serious act he had going on.

"That's one thing I can fix." He could almost smile. "I owe your kid his first drink." That's what he would do. Instead of wallowing in his regrets, running around his own head, he would teach the kid to relax for once. The only problem would be actually finding him.

"Wonder where he got off to?" He headed out the hotel, cast his senses out to find the Chunin he was traveling with.

He didn't need to go far, found the Chunin outside of town with a number of the clones he created using his Kinjutsu with him, the clones obviously reporting to him. The fact they had followed the two of them wasn't that surprising, he had been catching sight of them for days while they had been traveling.

Jiraiya didn't make his approach known, settled in to eavesdrop for a moment.

'Looks like he brought work with him.' He shook his head. 'Kid seriously doesn't know how to relax.'

AN: So, new idea continues which basically means trying for a new chapter every week or two. Maybe this works out, maybe this all crashes and burns.

Review if you want.

PM if you want.

Peace.