Sealing Salientia - Chapter 42: Propinquity - Author: PenSmoke
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor make any profit from writing this.
Previously on Sealing Salientia: From that moment onward, Naruto stopped regarding Sasuke as a rival, instead thinking of the other boy as his own brother.
Southeastern Cloud Country
Thursday, December 31st, Year 71
The blades followed her wherever she leapt, steel slicing through all obstacles in between her and her pursuer. The grown man tracking her was relentless in his pursuit, the song of the swords carving through the air was as persistent as he was. Drops of sweat fell from her forehead before she raised a cloth covered arm to wipe away the offending beads. Her clothes were torn in several places with small cuts, grass stains and mud caking the knees and elbows. Dark hair, usually kept drawn up behind her, hang loose, frayed and knotted, a needle-covered branch still entangled by her ear.
She quickly glanced around, looking for a way out of the situation. Pale eyes scanned the horizon, avoiding the form of the tall, dark-skinned man that slowly walked towards her, a katana in each hand.
As the figure loomed ever closer, she was tempted to start panicking, but she knew that would only lead her to defeat. Taking a deep breath, she let the exhalation carry away the pressure of the situation. She closed her eyes for a moment, and concentrated her chakra towards her head.
She opened her eyes, her vision was ready to perceive what she had not been able to find before. There was an opening, she just had to take it. Victory could not be achieved by running, she would have to face her attacker.
"Have you reached your limit already, little girl? I thought you were trained by the best in the world!."
Her stoic face settled into an angry scowl, before another exhalation of breath took that emotion away from her as well. The man was trying to rile her up but she would not break. Instead, she separated her feet, bent her knee slightly and waited for the moment to strike.
A sword arm was raised up into the air, the steel glinting reflections of a late winter sun into her eyes. She refused to blink at the sudden increase in light, instead remaining ready to strike.
As the sword arm started to lower, she twisted at the hips, avoiding the first strike. A moment later, she raised her hand up with a kunai grasped tightly to deflect the second strike that she knew would be coming from the side in an attempt to bisect her at the waist. The metal shook with reverberations in her hand, the 'clang' from the weapon glancing away confirming her prediction. Knowing that it would take a split-second for her assailant to re-direct his blade, she lunged upwards with the kunai, hoping to ram it through his ribcage.
A sickening 'splurt' was heard as metal found its mark. She was instantly racked with pain, as the metal that connected was not hers. A third sword had manifested itself and was being held in the jaws of the man. The shaft of the blade jutted out from his mouth, directly into her shoulder, where it had penetrated through the top of the shoulder, just below the collarbone, trapping her in place.
She fought the urge to grimace in pain, instead concentrating on finishing her attack. She willed her arms to move upwards to plunge the kunai into his chest, only one of which responded. Her left arm remained locked in place, unable to move after the sword had pierced her. Struggling to command her right arm to move, it did so haltingly. She gritted her teeth and pushed even closer to the man, shoving the blade deeper through her shoulder, the metal grinding against her bones with a sickening scrape. As the kunai blade reached the edge of the white fabric on the mans' chest, and made contact with the bare skin, he suddenly vanished from her sight.
No longer being held in place by the grip on the sword that had punctured her, she dropped in an unceremonious heap onto the dirt. Her blood dripped and mixed with the brown dust under her, forming a gritty slurry that saturated the cloth around her shoulder. Her left arm dropped lifelessly by her side, unable to move. The sword remained embedded within her, the sharp metal cutting with each small movement. She struggled to push herself up with her right hand, but failed, slamming her face into the rocky ground with a muffled crunch.
She could hear the footsteps of her assailants' approach and managed to turn her head enough to cast the gaze of one lavender-hued eye upwards at him as he drew closer. The swords had disappeared from his hands and his mouth was now set in a disgusting smile. She cast a baleful glare at him, and tilted her head enough to spit at his feet once in range, defiant to the very end.
The man dropped down on one knee next to her, seeming to contemplate her very existence. She hated it, she hated feeling like she amounted to nothing next to this man. She had stood almost no chance, and had not even managed to make a scratch on the hulking figure that now kneeled next to her, gazing down at her body with this indistinguishable look on his face.
Suddenly, she was yanked up into a standing position and the blade was removed from her so quickly, she wasn't sure if it hadn't just vanished. A moment later, as she drooped in her stance, barely able to support her own weight, she heard the clapping of hands. Applause.
"That was tremendously great! You made me use three of eight! Drawing blood from me, that was quite the sight to see!"
She found herself a split-second later slung over the muscled back of her long-time instructor, heaved up into position like a sack of potatoes. The vantage point that she had meant that her head could tilt down enough to see where his colossal finger was pointing to. Just next to his shirt that covered only half of his chest, there was a tiny mark of red from a cut that couldn't be more than a couple millimeters long.
The man quickly bounced off to their main camp, a few hundred meters away. As the blood loss left her woozy and on the verge of blacking out, she lacked the composure to resist showing the smile that bloomed across her face. None of them had ever managed to even land a blow on Killer B. Pride filled her as the blackness consumed her consciousness.
Several minutes later, she woke up to a green palm hovering above her shoulder and the face of her other instructor smiling warmly down at her. The woman had long dusky blonde hair, tied up with white strips into a long ponytail, a few loose strands forming bangs around the sides of her head. Dark eyes and typically fierce eyebrows were in a relaxed state, painted lips parted just slightly enough to show sparkling white teeth shining through. She was wearing a light purple tank top with a fish scale pattern on the upper right, which reflected the late morning sunlight, beams scattering across the area. The green energy coalesced around the girls' shoulder, slowly stemming the blood loss and closing the wound.
The slice had been clean, her instructor was no slouch in the skill and hadn't been aiming to maim her, simply stop the action. This meant the wound itself was little more than a thin slice of missing flesh all the way through, easy to heal with no scarring apparent after the process had completed. The chakra evaporated and the jade glow around the hand dissipated with it. Something that didn't disappear though, was the woman's smile.
"B told me that you managed to land a hit on him in practice today." The sentence was said proudly, the smile growing as the words left the painted lips of the lady. Her name was Yugito Nii, and she was the second of the instructors of the team of 3 children that included herself, a boy named Omoi and a girl named Karui.
The girl with the long, dark navy blue hair and pale eyes looked back into the eyes of her mentor, pupil-less lavender eyes glowing with both pride and determination. "I did. And next time I'll get him even better."
A light laugh followed that statement and Yugito raised her hand to cover her mouth. "I'm sure you will, Hinata."
Hinata pushed down with her right arm, the left one still filled with tingling sensations ever after healing, to lever herself into a standing position. A slight wave of exhaustion hit her, but she remained upright, her willpower and determination overriding the feeling. "If you're done healing me, I'm ready to go again."
A younger voice called from the side. "Oy, Hinata. Will you give it a rest already? We've been going all morning and you want to do more? Maybe you're just wanting to get injured even more, so that they can't heal you and you can go sleep the rest of the day. Or maybe you want to train until you drop dead from exhaustion so they can't do anything else to you. Or maybe…"
She tuned her annoying male teammate's voice out once he started his rambling. Omoi was prone to taking tangents and going on wild thought paths about anything that happened. She watched as everyone else in the small camp shook their head at the boys' continued spray of meaningless words.
"If I can hit him today, I want to be able to hit him again tomorrow. And again after that. Until he takes me as seriously as he takes you." Hinata spoke again, words directed at Yugito.
Yugito smiled warmly back at her. "Well, I believe in you. But let's take a quick lunch break first. Once we are sure everyone is fed and rested up, we can go back to training. I'll get some food going. You sit back and rest for a few minutes, make sure everything is good."
Hinata looked around the barren site in grim determination. The small valley in the mountain peaks was dipped just low enough that the snows didn't blanket the area inside their small cauldron, instead leaving it safe from the howling winds and blizzards that would often rage outside. They had a few small tents and one small ramshackle building that were where they lived. It was sparse and rugged, but it was home. She walked up to one of the tents and entered the sheltering canvas.
Pushing aside the heavy furred pelt that made the door flap, she noted the immediate change in temperature, as the biting winter breeze that did sneak into the valley was now blocked by the thick hide walls. Along the floor, there rested several plush fur blankets and a couple of wool padded pillows. She contemplated going back outside to train on her own for a moment but thought better of it. When her teachers instructed her to do something, it was best to listen, even if she didn't agree.
Hinata laid down and closed her eyes. Letting her thoughts run rampant for a few minutes, she watched as scenes played out on the back of her eyelids. She found herself in her daydreams, thinking of a warm climate, pictures of lush green trees and warm koi ponds filling her subconsciousness. She was walking down a path between several small buildings, one of her small hands firmly grasped in another, older, hand. Feeling the warmth emanating from it, it felt like a comfort that had been long forgotten. Tearing her gaze from the colorful fish swimming nearby, she looked up to see who was holding her hand. The vision started to blur beyond distinction and disappear.
This wasn't the first time that odd daydreams of a place she couldn't remember ever being had haunted her. She remembered waking up here with B and Yugito one day long ago, being told that she was a princess and that she would be trained the be the most powerful shinobi their village had ever seen. Ever since then, their group of 5 had rarely left the mountainside, certainly not far enough to see whatever place these visions were from.
She had asked her instructors about them once, some time ago, but was told that dreams were unimportant and not based in reality. To dwell on them was a mistake, best to let them be and focus on what mattered.
Sitting back up on the furs, she whipped her head around to see a small pile of red hair poke itself inside the tent flap. It was her other teammate, Karui. "Rise and shine, sleepyhead. Yugito says lunch is ready."
Grumbling at the slight insult, she clambered out of the tent, ready to eat, ready to train and ready to fight.
Konoha, Senju Compound
Thursday, December 31st, Year 71
The sound of a ceramic vase shattering against the wall just outside of his bedroom woke Jiraiya with a start. He hopped out of bed, immediately ready to jump into combat. He flung the bedroom door to the side, sending the sturdy panel slamming into the recessed opening. A moment later, he sense an incoming attack and raised his hand to deflect it.
Still slightly groggy, and his eyes not yet cleared of the crusty gunk from sleep, he was unable to tell what the projectile was. The feeling of the brittle ceramic of a pot shattering against his open deflecting palm, drawing thin lines of blood, instantly fully awoke him. This was followed by a shout.
"Put some damn clothes on Jiraiya!" Tsunade's yell came from across the room, likely from the bathroom across the way.
Simultaneously realizing that there wasn't an active threat to the house from an intruder and that he was indeed naked, the gallant sage quickly hopped back into his room and tossed on some clothes. Discretion was the better part of valor and all. A few moments later, he poked his head out to see the blonde lady on her knees in front of the toilet, loudly grumbling.
"I am so going to find a way to cure morning sickness. This is such bullshit!" She paused her rant to dry heave into the opening below. After several seconds of retching, she screamed aloud "I'm the best damn medical ninja in the world! Why the hell can't I make this go away?!"
Jiraiya wasn't really sure what he could do about the situation, but decided to do the best thing that he could think of. Gingerly walking over towards the kneeling blonde woman as to avoid getting beaned by a projectile thrown by the aggravated ninja, he knelt down behind her. His keen vision noted that the small table nearby had been violently knocked over, the contents spilling to the floor. The small vases that typically housed numerous small flowers were in shattered pieces strewn on the floor, or completely missing. He quickly surmised that these were the cause of the mess on the wall by his bedroom.
Lightly grasping the two long blonde pigtails, he tucked them behind her, nestling them into a fold in the green blouse to keep them into place. The sounds of more dry heaving coming from in front of him, he began to gently rub small circles just under her shoulder blades.
"Mmmmm, yeah, right there." Tsunade grunted in between two dry hacking coughs that were aimed at getting the remnants of the previous activity from her throat. She spit the nasty remains into the water below as Jiraiya continued to knead his fingers into tensed muscles.
One green sleeved arm rose and wiped the cloth across her mouth, removing the last bits from her mouth. She remained kneeling in front of the toilet, so Jiraiya decided not to move until she did. He continued his ministrations on her upper back, pressing firmly enough to try and ease some of the tension he could feel in the muscles. Each circle that passed come accompanied by an unintelligible grunt or mumbled moan from Tsunade, as he hit what pressure points he knew of. His years spent in brothels had left him with a certain knowledge of where to press to help relieve stress, though he had usually been the recipient.
His calloused hands moved up towards the nape of her neck, the light, smooth skin practically calling out to him. The edge of his finger traced along the fine curvature on each side, sending a small shudder through his target. He found the mark that he knew well, a small cluster of nerves just below the base of the skull, a couple millimeters offset from the spine. Pressing in and moving his fingers in a rubbing motion, he activated the pressure point that he knew was best at relieving stress and creating a relaxed sensation.
The small mewling moan that came forth from Tsunade was unexpected in two ways. He would never have associated such a noise with the tough ninja that he knew Tsunade was. It was also unexpected in that it elicited a reaction deep within him that he had to immediately divert almost all of his focus to try and reduce.
His fingers losing track of what they were doing in his sudden change of focus, the skin contact was lost, and he quickly backed up to give her some room. He remained in a lowered position, not exactly trusting the action of standing up to be the most discreet move right now. His voice shakily sounded out. "Are you feeling any better now?"
After a long few seconds, honey eyes turned around to glare at him tensely. The stare of the eyes pierced through him as the lips parted to speak. The voice regained its timbre of the rough no-nonsense ninja that he was accustomed to dealing with.
"Why did you stop?"
Jiraiya wasn't sure how to respond to that. So, he didn't. Instead, he spent the timeframe where he could have responded with his mouth flopping open and shut like a fish on a riverbank.
"That felt good."
The sage's mouth finally stopped bobbing up and down wildly, but he was still physically locked in place, unable to move from underneath her penetrating gaze.
"You have 3 seconds to go back to doing what you were doing."
With that, she turned around, resuming her position just above the porcelain throne, once again racked by spasmodic exhalations that produced almost nothing.
"Two."
Jiraiya quickly jumped back into his previous position, knowing full well that she was still capable of punching him through a wall even when sick. His hands resumed their tender ministrations along the base of her skull, fingers prodding and pushing at the pressure points located just under the skin. A shudder ran through the warm skin under his fingertips, and he was utterly grateful that she was not facing him, as his reaction to such a sensation would have been hard to miss.
Trying his utter best to ignore the small whimpers of pain and pleasure that came from the buxom blonde, he focused his thoughts on the past few thoughts. Anything to temporarily distract him from what was currently happening, as he did not want to be caught with any sort of physical reaction after this encounter.
His mind quickly raced back to the first few days after Tsunade had spilled her secret to him. They had sat up until late hours of the night, talking about the past, present and the future, and what her impending status as a mother meant. They had discussed ways to modify her seal to include hiding a baby bump, which had been implemented. The topics of baby names had come up a few times as well, though he steadfastly refused to suggest anything, instead, just agreeing with the suggestions she thought of.
The following weeks had led to multiple surprises. After his apartment complex had been fixed up a week later, Tsunade had seemed sad that he and Naruto were going to leave. Jiraiya had a theory that Tsunade just wanted to practice being a mother, and had massive hormonal changes silently coercing her. He had initially thought it was more because of the boy than him, but a tear-filled Tsunade begging them to both stay had him wavering on that thought too. Both boys had agreed to the idea, as there was more than enough room for them all in the large complex.
There had been regular ANBU training sessions held in the complex as well. Tsunade had started on teaching some ANBU corps medical ninjutsu to aid in their mission rates. That had bloomed into multiple subjects being taught by both Tsunade and Jiraiya both. This had led to dozens of late nights, filled with talk of lesson plans and what techniques they thought ANBU should be equipped with for the field.
The more nights that they spent together, the more their friendship had slowly re-kindled. No longer were they the bickering teens, nor the young adults too busy fighting in a war, nor lost on the road of life teaching their various students. They had settled into a routinge, and they seemed to be growing closer each and every day.
In a way, Jiraiya couldn't be happier. Here he was, getting to live and work with the woman that had always been his dream girl. Getting closer and closer to her every day, it was an amazing opportunity. He often felt extremely giddy and like he was walking on air when around the compound.
The downside was that the thoughts he had harbored and hid for so long had come racing to the forefront of his mind over the past few months, and it was driving him to distraction. His investigation into Danzo had stalled, as the man simply seemed to have eyes everywhere, no matter how stealthy Jiraiya was. It was like the man could see out of the back of his head and through buildings.
He had made almost no progress on the exploding tag fiasco, which was still unresolved with thousands of the tags lying undisturbed in the walls of numerous buildings. The network was untouched, as it had been determined that removing a single tag could set off the entire explosive chain unless done so carefully.
All of these conflicting thoughts had been putting him in a quandry. For many years, all he had wanted was a family of his own where each person would be loved for who they were, and not just treated as a price tag as he had been in his youth. He had eschewed that idea for so long that it was hard to believe that he might be in a position to actually claim it for himself, especially after having witnessed so many others grab it first. But, he also wanted to be the best ninja that he could be, making his hometown a safer place for everyone in it. Putting the missions ahead of potential romance had been a part of his life for so long, he wasn't sure if it was possible for him to stop now.
He shook his head, trying to clear his head, as he had wandered down a path he wasn't sure he really wanted to go. He tried to regain his bearings and ascertain how everything was in the real world. Tsunade was still gently murmuring from the effects of his fingers working out the tension in her neck muscles. It seemed that now was a good time to re-focus as she had just started to speak. Jiraiya caught just enough to understand what she needed.
"… up and get me to the sink?"
Jiraiya retorted, "Can I stop yet?"
"Not a chance."
Jiraiya grumbled while mentally smiling. He enjoyed the repartee between them, and wouldn't change it for the world. Jiraiya carefully scooped his arms under hers, hoisting her up slowly. He led her over to a nearby washbasin, where she turned on the water and slowly cleaned the gunk that had been near her mouth, and scrubbed off the sleeve that had been used to wipe her mouth. All the while, Jiraiya continued to massage the muscles of her neck and back, moving downwards towards the lower back while she was standing.
After a couple minutes spent cleaning herself up a bit, she simply said, "Couch?" Tsunade's words were slurred and mumbled, as if spoken from a deep trance.
As they started to move, she stumbled and leaned on him. He could smell the sweet scent of perfumed hair as it brushed against his face overpower the acrid tang of bile that hung in the air. As his stomach had been churning since he entered the room, it was tantalizing to have something pleasurable instead of disgusting. He discreetly inhaled as deeply as he could while her head was slanted against his, eyes closing for a moment as he savored the smell. It carried the odor of orchids and lilacs, and was like a sunny warm spring day against his nostrils.
Easing her over to the lengthy and cushioned couch, she collapsed into it once she was within range. Falling face first into the pillows that lined the furniture, Tsunade sank into the couch with a deep sigh. Unfortunately for him, she didn't collapse without letting go of his arm first, pulling him down in her tumble. He sprawled out on top of her, doing his best to not land harshly. His attempt was kind of wasted, as she wrapped one strong hand around his arm and tugged that arm down under her.
"I still didn't tell you to stop, you know." The voice was muffled from the soft padding of the couch, but still audible enough that Jiraiya was able to make it out.
The gallant toad sage attempted to pull out his arm from under her, but it remained firmly grasped within Tsunade's strong grip, unmoving. He sighed in resignation, and guided his remaining hand to again rub on the muscles across her back. She snuggled into the cushions more, wriggling back and forth, while contentedly exhaling.
Jiraiya let the smile on his face bloom. All things considered, he had it pretty good. He let his reservations go and just enjoyed the moment of closeness. In the ninja world, a moment like this was too good to pass up.
AN: Just a little fluff about Jiraiya and Tsunade, as I want to build their relationship. They are growing closer to another, and will be the only significantly talked about pairing for quite some time. As well as a reminder that a certain Hyuuga is still relevant to the story. More chapters coming soon, ages will be advancing quickly. I don't plan on spending more than another couple of chapters between now and Academy graduation, 5 maximum.