Orochimaru makes a mistake, (and this is the mistake, not what happens after). He goes out on a mission, confident in his abilities, confident that he is too valuable to be betrayed—and that is his undoing.
The mission doesn't bring him down. Orochimaru is a legend, even when his teammates are far from him, (and do not send him messages or talk to him, and leave him alone in a place he is growing to hate), and he finishes the mission. He wades through blood and completes his objective, his mission partner issued by Konoha. No one he knows, (a member of ROOT, he assumes).
Here is what Orochimaru has not realised: Danzō knows that a child has the Mokuton, and knows that Orochimaru is no longer needed.
(A tool is only useful as a tool when it isn't turned on you. Orochimaru is too dangerous to be left alone.)
He finishes the mission, finishes it, and together—with his mission-partner—heads back to Konoha, (back to the place that should be home, but isn't home, because his people aren't there and the people that are there watch him and whisper and curse him with every breath they take). They're speeding through Hi no Kuni's forests when it happens. It comes out of nowhere.
One second Orochimaru is fine, the next a sword stabs through his torso and everything buRNS. He hisses, but Orochimaru has lived through wars, (won wars), and he might be alone but he is still deadly. On instinct alone, Orochimaru lashes out, poison coated weapons slicing through where his mission-partner had been.
Chakra flaring, Orochimaru calls his snakes, (and he can barely think past the burning pain in his chest, the poison coursing through his veins, and his body is already shutting down; he knows it). One of them, a beautiful, black deadly things, coils itself up in front of him. "Go," he hisses at it, "Hunt. Bring down the one who did this."
(Make them burn, he thinks. Make them pay. Take revenge for me while I die.)
Breathing is getting harder now. There's not much left to him, not much left to cling too. Lying on the ground, staring up at the sky fractured by leaves, Orochimaru huffs out a last laugh. To think that him, war hero and legend, would be taken down by a betrayal he should have seen coming. Killed by his overconfidence and poison, a weapon he chose to use more often than not.
Orochimaru laughs and the forest watches on.
(He dies and the forest lives on.)
Sometimes things happen that, at first, seem to be mistakes. Sometimes they work out for better, even if they're an accident. When Orochimaru called on his snakes, he reached out on instinct. Instinct born of war and last-breathes, (and when you're in a war, you often think you breathe your last).
Orochimaru called on Yūta, a black mamba who has remained with him throughout the years, who remains his best hunter, and will track and kill if Orochimaru asks, (even if Orochimaru doesn't ask, Yūta would go on the attack, because Orochimaru is one of Theirs, he signed the snake scroll and so he can claim them and they claim him in return). Yūta who goes slithering through the forest and hunts. He finds the ROOT-nin who attacked Orochimaru, (who left him poisoned and dying), and he attacks.
The ROOT-nin dies in pain and screams and screams and screams until his lungs no longer breathe. This is what happens when you cross someone the snakes love. People have forgotten this.
But Yūta wasn't the only snake that Orochimaru had called forward. He'd summoned Moe, too, a green tree snake barely the size of Orochimaru's hand but faster than any would think.
(When you live on the warfront, flirt with death, and wade through corpses, you know that you might die. You live if luck wills it, you die if your luck runs out. You prepare messages to send to those you love, notes for if you die. And Moe was the one who would deliver those messages. She had never had the chance to, never wants to, but she knows her duty. It has not changed.)
This is important. Moe does not want to deliver messages of Orochimaru's death to Tsunade and Jiraiya. Moe may be small, but Moe is a messenger. Moe is the first snake Orochimaru ever summoned, and Moe is the one who told Orochimaru who he should summon next.
Orochimaru is dying and Orochimaru is Theirs and Moe is a messenger who has messages of death tied to her scales. So Moe does what has never been done before—she summons another snake for.
Manda appears, coiling awkwardly to avoid Orochimaru's body, barely breathing. "What is this?" Manda says, voice quiet and deathly, (they are snakes and Orochimaru is Theirs).
"Death," Moe hisses back. "Unless we get help. He must go somewhere. He must be safe. He is Ours."
"We are not healers," Manda spits back, even as he manages to shift Orochimaru onto his back. "Where shall we take him? Back to Konoha? He would hate us for that."
"To Tsunade," Moe says, wriggling her way up to coil on Orochimaru's chest, where she can feel his heartbeat slowing and slowing. "And quickly."
"Where is Tsunade?" Madara asks, even as he starts slipping through the trees, going fast enough that their surroundings are a blur.
Moe lifts her head. "East," she says. She is a messenger with death letters tied to her scales—letters for Tsunade and Jiraiya. She knows where they are the same way she knows where Orochimaru is. She is tied to them, even if they do not know it.
Orochimaru's lungs rattle with death throes and Moe her body against Orochimaru, like it might pull him back from the edge of death. She does not say hurry, but Manda moves faster anyway.
Tsunade isn't a sensor. It's not even part of her regular skillset. However, she's a Senju and she knows the basics, (learnt enough as a child to be able to sense her teammates from a distance and, later, that grew to include their summons).
Still, when she senses Manda's chakra at the edge of her sensors, she hesitates for a heartbeat. But there's no reason for Orochimaru to come here, no reason for Manda to be hurrying towards her, (and why can't she sense Orochimaru's chakra?).
She leaves everything and flees towards him, chakra powering her legs because she left Orochimaru, but she left him safe—safe in Konoha, safe with Jiraiya, safe with their sensei.
Manda meets her on flat ground and Tsunade's mind screeches to a halt upon seeing the blood covering Manda's scales and Orochimaru's own clothing. A small snake raises itself up, one that Tsunade met briefly, but remembered, (because Orochimaru had smiled at the small snake, easily and clearly content)—Moe.
"You must help," the little snake urges. "Please, he's dying. He needs your help."
Tsunade's still fixed on the blood, caught staring, even as Orochimaru's breathing seems to vanish into nothing and Tsunade can't move, can't think, (can't breathe). Moe coils herself forward and then lunges forward and lands on Tsunade. Without hesitating, the little snake sinks her fangs into Tsunade's shoulder.
On instinct, Tsunade flings the little snake away from her, but the snake straightens herself and lands on Manda. She reaches up to her shoulder and finds a scroll there. Orochimaru's chakra seems to slither around the seal holding it closed.
"Death letters for the one who let him die," Moe hisses.
A trickle of chakra has the scroll opening, and Tsunade can't help but read the message.
Dear Tsunade,
At the time I write this, we are still well into this dreadful war. I am hopeful that I will make it through relatively unscathed, (we all have nightmares, I am sure). By then, I will likely destroy this message and the information it contains. But if you do receive this… Well, I apologise. For dying, for leaving you, for not surviving this war.
If you do receive this, then you should know that the snake who delivered it is Moe. You might remember her. Be kind to her, even if you don't remember. The snakes are mine and I am theirs. The ties between summoner and summon are always strong, and the snakes cling to theirs more than most. It is the danger of being a snake summon. Moe will need your kindness and your strength. She is my first summon, and now she is my last.
There is not much to write. I do not have much to say. I have laid it out in my actions and spoken bluntly. I always have been able to with my team. I am thankful for that, even years later as we fight in a war that seems to throw body after body at us, (sometimes I feel like all I know is the feeling of corpses, the ease with which I unleash death, sometimes I wonder why we are doing this).
At the time of my writing this, there is one thing I have not said. One thing that remains unspoken, on my behalf, in our team. If I have died, I do not want to leave this unsaid selfish as that may be, (but you must know by now, I am a selfish creature).
Konoha whispers that I cannot love, that I do not know how, that I am a monster in human skin and lack the ability. They are wrong. Oh so very, very wrong. But what can I say? The love I have stays with me. It floods my body and makes me happy, but I cannot say it. I do not show it.
I was not made for love.
I will say it plainly, now, for there's no point doing otherwise. I love you, wholly. I love you in a way I never thought I could, in a way I never thought I would. I have loved you for years, silently and at your side. I could hardly do otherwise. But if I am revealing my secrets, I might as well reveal both that I have kept close to my heart, (for it is a weak thing, no matter how much I try to prove otherwise), I love Jiraiya too.
Konoha praises teamwork, gives us teammates and say they will be our family. We are family, I think, but only as teammates. I would like to be something more, something outside of teammates. I love you both, without doubt and without question. If you asked me to do something, if it is within my power, I would try my best.
Why do you think I stayed in Konoha? It was never for them, it was always for both of you. You love Konoha. And so I will love Konoha in turn. For you. For Jiraiya. Always and forever.
I will not take the next step forward, cannot. Perhaps that is because, at heart, I am a coward. I treasure our relationship too much to try and change it. I treasure what we have and have no desire to see it change, (no matter how much I may wish for it to be otherwise).
And now I am dead, and you are not. I am sorry to leave you like this. Sorry to leave you with a declaration of love even as I surely have died. But I am a selfish creature, and so I take the chance.
With all the love I am capable of,
Orochimaru.
Tsunade does not sob. She does not cry. She does not roll up her sleeves, but her chakra bleeds grin and she blurs forward to where Orochimaru's prone form lies. "You're not dying on me," she tells him. His body is almost gone, heart stopped, but there's still brain activity. "You're going to leave," she says fiercely, eyes wide, as her chakra surges and begins to repair damage, even as she tries to get his heart pumping again. "You do not get to die on me!"
Bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.
There's no time to celebrate. Orochimaru's heart may be beating again, but his body's already starting to shut down, the poison still in his veins. Gritting her teeth, Tsunade calls on more of her chakra, heals the damage that the poison causes the second it does, whilst trying to heal the damage that a bladed weapon had done by stabbing through Orochimaru's chest.
"You don't get to dump this on me and leave," she tells him. "You don't get to say you love me and die. That's not how this works. You have to stay. You have to stay and tell me properly!"
His chest rises as he breathes. His heart stutters and Tsunade's chakra surges as she feeds more into her hands, trying to heal more damage.
"I deserve to be wooed," she tells him. "I wanted to be, as a child. I deserved to be wooed and what you gave me is a mockery of a love letter. I want a proper love letter. You fucking bastard, you don't get to die."
His heart keeps beating. His chest rises and falls as he breathes steadily. The poison courses through his veins but Tsunade is starting to drag it out through his injuries. It's the worst way to do it and going to cause even more damage—but Tsunade can heal that damage. She can't bring him back from the dead, not if he really goes.
"Fuck," she swears when his heart seems to consider skipping a beat. "Don't you dare," she growls at it. "Orochimaru, you can't go until I tell you I love you, you absolute bastard."
"A warm welcome," a voice says, raspy and one she hasn't heard in years, but one she knows as well as she knows her own.
She glances up from her work, catches the warmth in Orochimaru's eyes, the warmth he has tried to hide so hard for so long. He's tired, paler than normal, but he's alive. "Well if you didn't just try to die on me," she says, and there's water trickling down her cheeks but she doesn't stop for a second. "Why did you come to me? I- I almost let you die!"
A hand rests on her wrist, not interfering, but there—even if it is weak. He doesn't say anything though, but Moe is back and she wriggles herself so that she's curled around Orochimaru's wrist, head resting on the pulse point.
"I brought Manda to bring him here," she says to Tsunade. Then, to Orochimaru, "You're not allowed to die."
"Moe?" Orochimaru says, and he's so warm and soft with his snakes. Tsunade had forgotten that. "I didn't mean to summon you."
"Well good thing you did," the little snake says bluntly. "Saved your life and delivered your death letter without you dying. You're not allowed to do that again. Never again. Not ever."
"Moe is right," Manda says, curling himself around to look at Orochimaru with one giant eye. "If you die on us, I will never answer your summons again."
Orochimaru huffs a laugh, strangely enough doesn't point out the impossibility of such things, and runs a weak, trembling hand over Manda's snout. "You both saved me," he says. "Thank you."
"Remember you are Ours," Manda says.
Orochimaru inclines his head. "I had forgotten," he says. "I will remember from now on. I'm sure Moe will not let me forget either."
"I'm not leaving until you're done doing stupid things," the snake says, fierce enough that Tsunade's reminded of Manda for a heartbeat.
"In that case," Tsunade says to Moe, "you can keep him on bedrest. He's absolutely insufferable."
Orochimaru glances at her, warm eyes suddenly becoming guarded. "You are not coming to Konoha then?"
Love chased her from Konoha, broke her heart and left it in shattered pieces, and Tsunade has never managed to fix it. How could she go back? She loves Orochimaru, but she doesn't think it's enough to go back to Konoha for him, (she lies to herself, lies and lies and lies and doesn't think how she is the one making the decision; the only person stopping her is herself, not her past—just her).
"I cannot," she says, softly, as green chakra fades from her fingers. She's done all she can. She can do no more.
Orochimaru nods, doesn't quite meet her gaze—and something's wrong there. Something's very, very wrong. She's only ever seen him like this in the aftermath of his parents death, when he returned with Nawaki's bloodied hitai-ate. He only acts like this when he's… when he's…
"Orochimaru? What's going on?"
He laughs, it's a crackled, ruined thing. "I made a mistake," he says, baring his teeth in what definitely could not be considered a smile, (this is a snarl, this is desperation, this is everything he has never said). "I fucking trusted someone I never should have. I thought it was right. They gave me orders and I didn't question them. And now they've killed me for succeeding."
That's… That's a betrayal from someone in Konoha. That's corruption, plain and simple. That's something dark and evil and it never should have been in Konoha.
"Who?" Tsunade asks. "Who, Orochimaru? Who's done this?"
Orochimaru meets her gaze and he looks his age for once, tired and weary, (beaten down by the past, the war clinging to his shoulders, the ghosts still holding on). "Danzō," he says, and the word's a broken thing, beaten down and given up. He doesn't think she'll believe him, has no hope left, (is this what their team is? Broken bonds and ruined hope and battered love?).
"He did this to you?" Tsunade asks, (and there's a little girl within her, tucked away and hidden, who stood beside her teammates and never backed down).
"His lackeys did," Orochimaru corrects, tired. "He calls them ROOT. An army that listen to his orders. Hiruzen-sensei's approval has been on the orders, but…"
"But you don't know whether it's true or not," Tsunade guesses. "Was there anything that really stood out to you? Do you have anything that can be used against Danzō?"
"I know where the base is," Orochimaru says, eyes tight with pain as Tsunade helps him stand. He slings an arm around her shoulder and she worries, because he's either leaning little weight on her or is seriously underweight, (he'd been underweight in the war as well, but they'd all started getting thin, but Orochimaru had been the worse for someone who was often fighting on the frontlines). "And… I had my doubts that Hiruzen-sensei would order me to experiment on children to have them develop Mokuton."
He says the words slowly, like that'll change how hard they hit Tsunade. She doesn't flinch, but she does feel herself tense. Orochimaru, in response, does flinch, (she doesn't think about what that says about him, doesn't think about how he doesn't feel safe around her). She breathes out slowly, "You did it though, didn't you?"
"Yes," Orochimaru says, and he offers no excuses.
But Tsunade remembers how Orochimaru pulled away from them during parts of the war, when he'd be pulled down to the labs and asked to research, and Tsunade had never asked what he was doing. She regrets that a little now, (regrets it now that she's had Orochimaru almost die in front of her, die because Danzō betrayed him when Konoha was meant to be safe, even though it never really was for Orochimaru).
(She can't help but think to herself that this is a second chance.)
"What did they ask you to do in the war?"
For a heartbeat, Orochimaru doesn't answer. Then he does, "They wanted to improve their soldiers. Make them stronger. Make them faster. I developed antidotes to some of the common poisons or found out information that I relayed to you."
(She remembers that. Orochimaru telling her something that she'd just taken for granted, even as she used it to create antidotes to save lives. She wonders why she never asked how he knew.)
"There was some work around kekkei genkais, but Hiruzen-sensei forbode it once the war was won. Said to leave it all in the past and never speak of it."
(Sensei had always been an Hokage first, had put the village first. She remembers how his son had left him, had torn himself away from the family with a vengeance. Perhaps she should've thought about that a bit more. Orochimaru had always been Sensei's favourite until the war. She'd thought it was because of the bloodthirstiness Orochimaru had shown, how often Orochimaru had thrown himself forward into the war, but maybe it had been the guilt eating at him alive. She hopes it was the guilt, though he doesn't absolve him of his sins.)
"You're not going back," Tsunade says, but she doesn't want to run. Not from Konoha. Not from the village that had been Dan's and had been Nawaki's and should have been Shizune's too. "Not alone. We're going to fix this."
Orochimaru looks at her, shocked, with cautious hope clear on his face. "We're getting the team back together," Tsunade continues, strong and steadfast in her conviction, (the little girl within her remembers a team that stood by her side, a team that was happy and laughed and loved; the little girl grew up but her love just grew stronger).
"Why?" He asks, and he still sounds that little bit broken, and he still looks so pale from his near-death.
"Because I love you too," she says. And she doesn't know if she could ever love someone the same way she loved Dan, doesn't feel like she can, but she does love Orochimaru.
"Oh," Orochimaru says, sounding somewhat lost, (and it reminds her of him as a child, a lost and lonely child who'd held tight to his team with everything he had). "I…"
"I know," Tsunade says softly when he trails off. "You wrote a message and said it all. You don't have to say it aloud."
Orochimaru squeezes her shoulder, his gratitude clear. Together, they head back to town, where Shizune waits, where Orochimaru can finally rest, (where Tsunade can send a message long overdue to a teammate she hasn't seen in years).
The letter is strange. It comes from Tsunade which is unexpected, but it also requires his chakra to unlock it. Tsunade doesn't usually bother with such things, as the messages they send to one another, (long ago as that had been), weren't normally important enough to necessitate such a seal. He unlocks it with a flare of chakra.
Jiraiya,
I know I haven't contacted you in some time, and there was no good reason for that I'm afraid. However, I need your help now. We need your help—that is, Orochimaru and myself.
Orochimaru has found corruption in Konoha and has bled (and almost died) because of it. Much of the details cannot be shared unless we meet in person. I've written my location down the bottom for you so that you can come to us.
Just know this—come quickly and come silently and do not let anyone in Konoha know where you are going or who you are meeting (or that Orochimaru lives). This is something that must be kept within the team—Sannin only.
Konoha needs to see the Sannin as the legend they still are—not remember the legend they were.
Yours,
Tsunade Senju.
Jiraiya burns the letter, spreads the ashes on the wind, and then? Then he runs.
Jiraiya sneaks into the building where he can sense Tsunade. Orochimaru's chakra signature is carefully hidden, almost wrapped up by Tsunade's chakra. It's something they've done before, when they were younger, when Orochimaru tried to avoid the world. Once upon a time, Jiraiya would have been there with them.
Now he's sneaking through a building, avoiding detection, and knocking on a plain door. A girl opens it—Tsunade's niece—and she scowls. "You don't look like much," she tells him, even as she lets him in. She shuts the door behind him, locks it, and then slaps a seal over the top.
He looks on bemusedly. "Don't you know not to let just anyone in?"
"You're not just anyone though, are you?" The girl throws back, and he follows her further into the room.
The first person he sees is Orochimaru, laid out on the couch, a blanket thrown over him, as he sleeps. He looks pale. Paler than he should. And Jiraiya swallows, swallows whatever feelings of worry climb up his throat and tries to shove them away, (Orochimaru has never loved him, he reminds himself, he can't let his own feelings get the better of him).
When he'd left Konoha—the last time he'd seen Orochimaru, the other had hidden any sign of vulnerability, any sign of weakness, (any sign of softness), and had spat words and insults and left Jiraiya shattered and bruised and hurting. To see this? To see what could have been once, what might have been, what had once been?
Jiraiya aches. Soul-deep in a way that can't be healed, not even by the best medic-nin in the world.
"You said-" Jiraiya says, stuttering for the first time in years, "he almost died?" He drags his gaze away from Orochimaru, (too pale, too silent, too-).
"Yes," Tsunade says, and there's a strength to her that Jiraiya hasn't seen in years. Her voice is the same old stubbornness, but there's a set to her face and her body that reminds Jiraiya of the woman he fought beside in the war, (not the woman who fled from Konoha without warning or word; who never even said goodbye—not that Jiraiya was there, he was far away in another country, and he still can't bring himself to regret that, though he hurts regardless). "He did. It's only luck and help that he survived. His heart stopped beating and continued to try and stop multiple times."
"How?" He asks, helpless. He doesn't know what to ask—how Orochimaru almost died, how he got help, how any of this is happening.
"How what?" Tsunade demands, turning away from Jiraiya to look at Orochimaru again, (as if to remind herself that he's still alive). "Speak properly Jiraiya."
He swallows, finds his words and gathers his thoughts and says, "The corruption—what did you mean by that? What's going on? Why did you call me here? Does he- Does he want me here?"
"It's never been about what we want," Tsunade says, and there's something bitter to her expression, "our team's never worked like that."
It's true. That's how they were trained and brought up. What they had, what they did, it was about what they were ordered to do, what they had to do. Jiraiya slammed into that blind obedience and shattered it, and found himself in the dreary rain helping three children. Tsunade found herself in love, time after time, and finally broke the obedience binding her when she left Konoha, a woman almost broken by what she had to do.
Orochimaru's never been like them. He's pushed everything else but the obedience that kept his gaze fixed on one objective. He did as he was ordered and never questioned it, (Jiraiya hated him for that, on the worst missions, had spat that Orochimaru clearly didn't feel; the other man had never responded).
"Perhaps we should have," Jiraiya says now, years of time apart under his belt. Things might've been better if they had gone for what they wanted rather than blindly obey. "Things might've worked better like that."
Tsunade heaves a sigh. "Perhaps," she says, "but there's no point wondering about all of that. Shizune-chan, could you go get us some food?" Jiraiya startles, suddenly remembering the girl, but she doesn't spare him a look as she leaves.
"We need you here," Tsunade says, straightening herself and looking more like a kunoichi than she has in a long, long time. "Konoha needs to be reminded that our legend is not one of the past, but still stands and stands strong. Konoha needs to know we stand together."
When the Sannin stood together, they could stand against the world and wouldn't ever fail, wouldn't ever falter. The Sannin used to stand together and the world trembled against their might. Armies fled from them and they had only laughed. And now Tsunade wants them to do that against Konoha.
"What do we need to do?" Jiraiya asks, rather than ask why. He would do anything for his team, even if they broke his heart and kept breaking it—he'd never stopped loving them, (doesn't know how to live without that love pounding in his chest).
"Jiraiya," a voice rasps, and he looks to Orochimaru, who's looking at him, warm and soft and impossible.
"What have you done to yourself?" Jiraiya asks, even as he drops to his knees to rest beside where Orochimaru's lying on the couch.
Orochimaru reaches out and touches his hand and Jiraiya can't help but lean into it—though this is something new. Something strange. Whatever lines stood between them seem to have vanished when Jiraiya wasn't looking.
"I've done nothing but what was ordered of me," Orochimaru says, pulling back to sit properly.
(Jiraiya bites back the words that rise to his tongue, sharp and harsh. He wants to say that Orochimaru always following orders is what the problem is, and always has been. But he doesn't say that—because he wants this moment, even if it twists away from him far too soon.)
"So now we're going to do the opposite of those orders, aren't we?" Tsunade says. In response, Orochimaru frowns but doesn't disagree. "So, Jiraiya, the rundown is this: Danzō has an army that Hiruzen-sensei might know about, but Danzō is definitely abusing his authority to create orders from the Hokage that aren't really from Hiruzen-sensei. This includes experimentation on kekkei genkai such as the Mokuton. Then he tried to kill Orochimaru, since he was no longer useful."
"Stupid man," someone hisses, and Jiraiya blinks in surprise at seeing a small snake curled around Orochimaru's wrist. "Shouldn't have gone for the snakes."
"Indeed," Orochimaru agrees, smiling faintly at the small snake. "Danzō may believe I have survived though, as his ROOT-nin never got back to him. Yūta made sure of that."
Jiraiya nods, swallows down all the words, the confusion, everything. They should take this to Hiruzen-sensei, but neither Tsunade nor Orochimaru seem to want to.
(And Tsunade had said to keep this within the team. There are few secrets they kept in-team and each had died with the end of their team. But Jiraiya had never whispered a word of them to anyone else, he's beginning to think the others did the same.)
"Do we have a plan at all?" Jiraiya asks instead. In the war, he'd been the one to run frontline battles. Tsunade had been in charge of rescue options, and Orochimaru had taken anything involving stealth and sabotage—though they rarely took such missions as a team. He doesn't know whether those same rules apply now.
In answer to his question, Orochimaru frowns faintly and keeps his mouth firmly closed. "We can't do anything if you don't talk," Tsunade says, and her words are gentle. Gentle in a way that Jiraiya's never been with Orochimaru, and he's not about to start now.
"Either tell us or we can't help you and you'll just go and get yourself fucking killed," Jiraiya says and, a heartbeat after saying it, he realises he's revealed too much of his hand, shown too many emotions. The sudden silence is loud in his ears and he swallows.
(This is why they can never be soft or kind or gentle with one another. One of them is always bound to ruin it. More often than not, it's Orochimaru. On some occasions, it's Jiraiya. And a few times it had been Tsunade.)
Orochimaru stiffens, and any sign of emotion is wiped from him, living him a cold stone statue. "You don't need to be here," he hisses. "I don't even know why Tsunade asked you to come. You always run off on your own, after all."
"What like you don't?" Jiraiya challenges. "At least I know where to draw the line!"
"I did as I was ordered!" Orochimaru responds, and he's getting loud, shouting, like he only ever does when he's with Jiraiya. "I followed my orders!"
"Yeah and look where that's gotten you," Jiraiya spits out with a laugh. And he's a ninja, he knows cruelty, knows how to go for the weak point and strike it hard and fast. He can't help but do it, even against Orochimaru, (this is why their team failed, because they never really knew how to be teammates for one another). "Killed by your own village with no team at your side and no friends and no family."
"Jiraiya," Tsunade says, voice hard enough that Jiraiya pulls up short, (sees Orochimaru's eyes, the heartbeat that he can see hurt there, before it all disappears). "That's enough."
(But not uncalled for, Jiraiya thinks. Tsunade hadn't said it either—so he knows she agrees. Knows Orochimaru knows that too. They've always been the best at hurting each other. Always been the worst to each other. The truth is an ugly thing.)
Maybe in another world, things would go differently. Maybe there would be no Sannins trying to bring their fractured selves together. Maybe this would be it and Tsunade would vanish into the wind with Shizune; Jiraiya would retreat, hurting and aching, into his spying; and Orochimaru would return to the man who tried to kill him and win a war on his own.
Not here though. Not here because they are not alone. There's one very small snake that keeps all of this from happening and they will never know just how close they all came to ruin, (or maybe they will because they have been dancing on the edge of ruin for years and years and years).
"You do not get to speak to my summoner like that," Moe says, tiny and weaponless and fierce. "He has bled for you and cried for you and laughed with you. You do not get to scorn that. Not when-"
"Moe," Orochimaru says suddenly, just before the little snake leaps through the air. He reaches out, trying to snatch her, but the snake is too smart and lands on Jiraiya, tiny fangs piercing down on the hand that caught her.
"Ouch!" Jiraiya says, "What was that for?"
A scroll appears in his hand and then Moe leaps back to Orochimaru. For a moment, the world is silent. Jiraiya opens the scroll.
Dear Jiraiya,
We have always been good at hurting one another. This will be the last time I do so, I swear. After all, if you're getting this message than I have died and Moe has fulfilled my last request.
I promised this war would not take me from you and I lied. I knew I was lying when I said it, (the war had already taken me by then), and I think you knew that too. And now I am gone to this war and you will hate me all the more for it.
Even now, I know the words that would foster that hate. It would be almost easy. We have always been experts at finding each other's weak points. That's almost what it means to be a Sannin, doesn't it? You know where your fellow Sannin hurts.
But I am selfish, as I have written in Tsunade's message. I am selfish and I refuse to die with regrets, not when I can change things—even if I do die.
And I will die, we all do, but not all to war.
My selfish last desire is to tell you this: I love you. I have loved you forever it feels. Sometimes there is nothing but love, and it is awful. How am I meant to walk away from you for a mission when all I feel is love?
Both you and Tsunade say love ties you to Konoha. And my love does the same—my love for you and Tsunade, though. I do not love Konoha. I don't mind it, but love it? Why should I? It has done nothing to earn my love.
I will write it out bluntly, which I am sure you will prefer. You do hate those stealth missions, though you are good at them. It's the intelligence officer in you.
I love you. Love you with all I am and all I have. It's not… not love that you talk about so often. Or at least, I don't think so. It's not the love my parents held for one another, at the very least. It's something different, something other. All I know is that it is love.
With all the love I am capable of,
Orochimaru
The sign off hits, hits hard, because Jiraiya has accused Orochimaru of not loving so many times. And maybe the love is gone, left behind in a war, broken when Jiraiya himself ran, but Jiraiya can't help but love in return.
"Moe," Orochimaru says, his gaze avoiding Jiraiya's face. "That is the second time you have given a death-letter without me being dead."
Jiraiya avoids Orochimaru's face too, instead looking at the little snake who looks very pleased with herself.
"Yes," she agrees. "And things will get better now. People always say secrets in their last hours and these secrets should be shared. For the better. And you are a clutch so there should not be such big secrets."
For a heartbeat, Orochimaru doesn't speak, and then he runs a finger across Moe's body. "Perhaps you are right," he says, "but you are not forgiven."
Jiraiya can't help but speak, not when Orochimaru's in front of him and… And looks like he's given up, like there's some fault he's spoken about and he's waiting for the fall.
"Do you still love us?" He asks, because how can he ask otherwise? This is what he's always wanted—a team that loves him and who he can love freely in return. Not a team that does its best but fails and slashes out, leaving scars and bleeding wounds in the wake of harsh words.
Orochimaru meets his gaze, eyes narrowed. "How often do I change my mind?"
The Sannin have always been stubborn, but perhaps Orochimaru is the most stubborn of them all, (the one who still listens to orders, the one who remains in Konoha, the one who refused to leave or give up or ever stop fighting).
A breath shakily falls from Jiraiya's lips. Even Tsunade seems frozen in his peripheral, like she herself hadn't realised that Orochimaru still loves them both. Carefully, cautiously, Jiraiya slowly reaches out to lay a hand on the back of Orochimaru's neck. The other man is tense, waiting, but doesn't attack, so Jiraiya leans in and rests his forehead on Orochimaru's.
"I love you too," he says, the words sincere and clear.
"We both do," Tsunade says, and there's a hand on Jiraiya's head and he has no doubt that she's leaning into Orochimaru on the couch now.
"Then why did you leave?"
Jiraiya's eyes snap open and he pulls back to look at Orochimaru, who looks like he hadn't meant to say such a thing aloud. And… and he doesn't know what to say. Because he did leave but that wasn't because he loved Orochimaru less or didn't love him enough.
"Oh, Orochimaru," Tsunade says, soft. "You can't just love someone into staying. Loving someone isn't enough to help them or fixed them. I needed to go."
"I stayed," Orochimaru says, and there's a slight tremble in his voice that reveals how much this hurts.
"I'm so sorry," Jiraiya says, "but you didn't have to. You could've come. I would've welcomed you in a heartbeat."
"I would too," Tsunade adds. "And maybe I should've come back and I didn't and that's on me. You can't control our decisions."
"I've never been able to," Orochimaru says, and there's something wry to his mouth now. "But I never wanted to. I just wanted…" He falls silent, (just wanted someone to love me are the words he does not say).
"I'm sorry," Jiraiya repeats, because what else there is to say? Is it even possible to bridge the gap that lies between them? He reaches out, because Orochimaru isn't shying away from physical touch, and holds Orochimaru's hand. And maybe their team is ruined, maybe they can't return to what was or even make something of the mess they now are. But Jiraiya wants to try, (with Tsunade and Orochimaru beside him, he still feels like he can face the world—though it's been many years since they have done so). "Will you let us help you now?"
Orochimaru breathes out. "Yes," he says, and he's settled now. In turn, Jiraiya feels settled—and Tsunade looks it too.
(Broken, fractured people are still strong.)
"There's someone that Danzō took that I want to take back," he says. "The child with the Mokuton—he's mine. And I need to watch Anko too. She's just made chūnin and no longer under my purview and I worry that Danzō will be watching her."
(The things they don't know about each other is far too long to cover in one evening. But they know they love each other now. Love will not save them, but it might bridge them together until they make stronger ties.)
"You're the sabotage master here," Jiraiya says. "What do you think we should do?"
"We need Danzō to not be thinking about me," Orochimaru says. "I…"
"Jiraiya can return to Konoha and pretend he's meeting with Hiruzen-sensei," Tsunade offers. "We can sneak in while that happens and drop Shizune-chan with Anko-san. Two students of two Sannin will be enough for any ROOT-nins who come to them. And they'll be too busy with us anyway."
"Danzō will not expect you," Orochimaru says, nodding. "I… He will expect me. We can use that to our advantage. Tsunade, I'm going to need you to get the child—get him to Anko and Shizune-chan."
"And what about you?" Jiraiya asks. "You need back up, Orochimaru. You can't do this alone. Danzō is too dangerous."
"I'll call on my snakes for a hunt," Orochimaru says.
"And we'll come to help you the moment we can. You raise the earth and fucking shatter it; you hear me Orochimaru?" Tsunade says. "We will come and we'll raise hell like we did when we were young."
"Should I let Hiruzen-sensei know?" Jiraiya asks. "Because if we are causing this much chaos, Konoha's certainly going to notice especially when it's right under their feet."
Orochimaru hesitates. "I don't know whether Sensei will help Danzō or me," he says just quietly.
"He cannot go against the three Sannin," Tsunade says, and it's not hope in her voice—just hard fact. "Konoha will wonder and they will question, but if we're fast enough then we can bring Danzō and ROOT down before they get up in arms."
"I don't know whether we can bring Danzō down that quickly," Orochimaru says, more in caution than anything else. "He will fight hard and we are launching a frontal attack."
"Bring him out of the dirt and he'll have three Sannin to face," Tsunade says. "No one, not even Danzō, can defeat us together. And Konoha will pause before getting in our way."
"She's got a point," Jiraiya says. "And maybe people will whisper shit and whatnot, but they always do. We've never cared before and we're not about to start now."
Orochimaru breathes out slowly, lets his mind tick over the plan from various angles. "It might work," he says, and it's better than anything he could do alone.
"But we're going to wait a few days until I'm sure you're fully healed," Tsunade says before Orochimaru can say anything. "Once you're all healed up, then we can go cause chaos."
Usually, Orochimaru would protest. He doesn't though, just watches them with eyes that are soft more than they are cautious.
(This is what Jiraiya could've been seeing for years.)
"Alright," Orochimaru says, hopeful and cautious. "I can work with that."
(Against the odds, a week passes without chaos or shouting or arguments. They find their feet, find their ties, fix bridges they thought burnt down to ash. They learn how to be soft with one another too. They learn what their team could have been, if only they had done what they want rather than what they had been ordered to do. It's not perfect, but it doesn't have to be. They learn how to be soft, how to be gentle, how to be kind. They learn what loving's like when it's from up close rather than from a distance.)
(Orochimaru made a mistake, but that doesn't mean the world took a turn for the worse.)
You know what some of this characterisation definitely doesn't work, I don't know timelines, and this was meant to be like 5k words shorter. But! It's done and I'm glad and I hope some of you enjoyed?
Probably should've focussed more on the soft intimacy kind of stuff, but the characters disagreed because they were too busy planning a war on ROOT and Danzo. Anyway, I don't have much to say here, but I hope you enjoyed and also that we totally need more sannin stuff as a team? Because I want more team as family stuff in the world.
This is definitely far from my favourite writing for this week. I'm actually not that happy with it, but I'm putting it up anyway because I did write it so I might as well.