Author's note: This was a Tumblr prompt fill for the Deathless sentence meme as requested by mouseymightymarvellous - "I do not tolerate a world emptied of you. I have tried."
My thanks as usual to shipcat and Krikee for their support and feedback!
The woods are silent, dark, and still. There is no hint of a solitary rustle of wind, nor the buzz of a single pestilential insect in the stifling summer air. The portent is ill indeed, suggesting either genjutsu or the promise of a natural disaster looming close, and Orochimaru holds his breath, cloaked from sight and patiently waiting, his every sense attuned to the merest change in temperature or sound. This close to home there is no telling what awaits him among the redwoods this close to the Forest of Death, and he readies himself to move at the slightest flicker of chakra in his second sight, or in reaction to a new vibration along his skin. One thing is certain - he will not be caught unaware in enemy territory. And enemy territory it is, now that he has left home for good.
He doesn't like to think of it as home. Not anymore.
Konoha stopped being home the minute there was no one left in the village who could call him family or friend. He has only returned to seal the shrine and to bring his parents' ashes to the home of their birth. There are boltholes leading into tunnels that his clan created at the edge of their lands if he can just cross into the territory northwest of the Nara Forest. Even the Shimenawa held their secrets, never truly trusting those who held their fealty, placing contingencies where they needed them in case of calamity. If only he'd known sooner.
Orochimaru places his fingers on the ground sending out a low pulse of chakra to search for the seal, and he finds it several seconds later, once he crosses the border without incident. Then the wind shifts, and metal clinks, at once cold and biting at his throat.
"You know for someone so smart, you sure are stupid sometimes." Jiraiya's voice is bitter in his ear, his right arm suddenly snapping closed like a band of iron around Orochimaru's middle.
The snake summoner nearly laughs, as their position is practically absurd, and one he never truly expected. For a man of Jiraiya's stature and strength to move with such stealth in this terrain is something to be commended, even moreso if there is a genjutsu at work; it never was his teammate's strong suit.
"Someone's been practicing. Be careful, you might even bloody me." Orochimaru scoffs, daring to lean right into the press of the blade, calling his best friend's bluff. "Besides, don't you have some savior to go teach? Some prophecy to fulfill?"
Jiraiya's grip on the blade doesn't waver, and its well-honed edge kisses his flesh with a hot sting, but with all the adrenaline coursing through his veins, Orochimaru can hardly feel it. What he notices more is the low rumble beginning in Jiraiya's chest, and the glaring edge of righteous fury sharpening his sun-bright chakra into something more formidable.
Naturally, his immediate inclination is to taunt the raging bull even more.
"Oh, that's right. Your savior died. Prophecy is a farce."
"When will you just learn to shut up?" Jiraiya snaps. "I could literally slit your throat right now."
"You won't. You don't have it in you to kill me in cold blood." Orochimaru sneers, heart lurching, glad he cannot see the likely pain in Jiraiya's eyes.
A figure steps out of the tree line. "Or the both of you could shut up and stop fighting one another."
It's been at least five years, maybe eight, since he's seen her last, but it still hurts to look Tsunade in the eye, and she is not letting him look away.
"What are you doing home, Hime? Aren't there gambling halls missing their favorite moneymaker?" he smiles humorlessly, and he can see Tsunade's fists clenching hard.
There is hot wetness trickling down his throat and Jiraiya has not let up on his hold. Which makes it equally perplexing when Tsunade speaks.
"Let go of him so we can tell him why we're here."
At once, Jiraiya releases him, the irrepressible heat against his back is suddenly absent, and Orochimaru can breathe again.
"I've been tracking you for the last year, and I knew you'd be coming home for these." Jiraiya suddenly produces a storage scroll, and at once Orochimaru is livid, readying for an attack, Konoha be damned.
Their proximity to the Forest of Death will keep anyone in the village from noticing any chakra abnormalities, and if not, well, let them see what happens when the Sannin truly fight one another.
"Stop! Orochimaru, will you fucking listen?" Tsunade charges him, moves right into his face and grabs him by the front of his yukata, and her willingness to approach him unguarded gives him pause.
The sudden tingling coolness of healing chakra eases the sting of the cut at his throat and he looks at her with disbelieving eyes. Her honeyed eyes are shadowed, and she looks drawn and tired, for all that she hasn't aged a day past twenty-five. Even so, her expression has not lost its fire. "We had to neutralize you somehow. We want to talk."
"Give me the scroll." Orochimaru demands, looking aside to Jiraiya. "How dare you touch their graves - the shrine - You knew these were the last sacred things I had!"
Jiraiya passes him the scroll with an easy hand, and crosses his arms. "Give me a little credit, bastard, you act like I wouldn't perform the rites first. And I did get the blessing of the shrine guardians, so kindly fuck yourself, it's all safe and sound and just as blessed as it was sitting there covered in dirt and brush."
Tsunade jabs Jiraiya in the upper arm and he winces hard. "Stop baiting him."
Orochimaru holds the scroll like something utterly precious and slips it into the inside pocket of his yukata as soon as Tsunade releases him. His heart rushes in his own ears and he fights back the rising anxiety that forces his fingers to clutch his sleeves, an old habit he squashes as soon as it rises. "You wanted to talk, fine. Talk."
He watches as Jiraiya reinforces what appears to be a barrier shimmering along the edges of the periphery, and likely the reason he did not sense either of them when he crossed into this side of the territory. Orochimaru chides himself for his lack of care, but then again, considering this is a barrier and not genjutsu at all, it is possible that he has underestimated Jiraiya's sealwork. His former teammate has always been good at misdirection.
"We're coming with you."
"Excuse me, what?" Orochimaru fixes Tsunade with his gaze.
"You heard me."
"You're not serious. This is a trap, a trick, and if you don't let me go now, the both of you will regret it."
"It's not a trick." Tsunade opens her hands, in a universal sign of surrender. "We can hash out the dirty details later. And so can you. But something is rotten in Konoha and we're both tired of being used. We've lost too much. Now, Shizune's waiting in Tanzaku, and we're ready to follow you so let's go."
"No, no, no. You two can't just show up here and ambush me after–"
"Orochimaru," Jiraiya starts, tone suddenly mild. "Don't you think it convenient that you were caught red handed working on an experiment you were supposedly authorized to perform, at exactly the right time, by exactly the right person, tipped off by the commanding officer who gave authorization?"
A chill creeps down the line of Orochimaru's neck. "Speak plainly."
"Let me say right now that I'm not excusing any of the terrible things you did in the name of discovery, but I've seen a lot of the same in T&I and among our own research initiatives. A rose by any other name well… it's even worse that it was children, but I'm saying plainly that you were Danzo's scapegoat; it wasn't a coincidence. None of the screwed up bullshit that has happened to any of us is. I have proof. And I am done." Jiraiya says.
The truth turns Orochimaru's stomach, but none of it comes as a surprise, no, a part of him feels somewhat vindicated, as if another reality has been confirmed. Konoha's elders have always been out to get him, and during such a time and opportunity as that one, when he was able to uncover the key to such a genetic mystery? Of course Danzo lied. He should have known, and perhaps a part of him always did. Even so, the memory of Hiruzen-sensei's last words to him still raises Orochimaru's ire, and he has to reign in the part of him that wants vengeance, or his killing intent will alert the ANBU sensors on patrol.
"So, can we go?" Tsunade asks, pulling him from his thoughts. "We can hash out the details in a secure location, but we need to get out of here soon."
"What did they do to you?" Orochimaru looks at her carefully, studying her reactions.
"Isn't it obvious? We fell apart by design. Dan was eliminated, deliberately. There is more but I'd rather not talk about it now." she smiles wanly.
There is a silent dare in her eyes, as if her truths are like a barely healed wound that runs deeper and darker than he wants to know; he wants so much to scratch at that wound until it bleeds again.
For him.
If only that inclination were not eclipsed by the desire to take her small yet impossibly strong form in his arms like he once would have when they were far younger, and she still sought both her teammates out in times of distress. He knows such things may never be again. Not like that. But here they both stand, offering impossibilities.
"You were free to live as you wanted regardless. Why do this?" he asks, golden eyes searching hers.
"Because I do not tolerate a world emptied of you. I have tried." Tsunade says simply.
At once, Orochimaru finds himself stripped of all attempts at a response, and perhaps this is good, because she continues.
"I have tried, and tried, and tried, and nothing worked."
Not even Dan? He wonders bitterly.
"I have thrown myself into cups and debt, into bars, and ditches. No amount of drink can drown out the fact that you aren't here, with me." She looks at Jiraiya pointedly. "That we are no longer together."
"Better together than apart," Jiraiya says softly, an inscrutable look on his face.
"No one can stop us if we will it so. I know there are still many things broken between us and we'll have it out when the dust settles, but we're coming with you, Oro." Tsunade affirms.
"You're a right bastard, and you still have a lot to answer for, but you're ours. You never stopped being ours." Jiraiya says, pulling another scroll from his sleeve. "I managed to salvage these things from your house. The cellar was still sealed after ANBU searched."
The lump in his throat is an unnervingly foreign sensation as Orochimaru reaches for the scroll, almost incapable of speech. "Thank you for doing that. I didn't expect that anything was recoverable."
Jiraiya smiles, softening. "Some things are worth saving."
I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it :)
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