They had left the village earlier, and camp was already set up. It had been fairly quiet, a subdued Jiraiya once more keeping a low profile as she hadn't really done since their academy days. It was frankly, confusing Orochimaru. Why had their sensei done that in public? Why hadn't he apologized? Surely, by now it should have been done? Not even Tsunade had thought to check on if Jiraiya's shoulder was alright when she was dropped. Oh, Orochimaru knew she hadn't dislocated it, he knew the precise way she hunched and grimaced when that happened but it was the very principle of the matter that had the young genius waiting.

And waiting.

No one was doing anything. It was rendering Orochimaru both speechless and a slowly growing fury down his limbs. Hiruzen had humiliated, completely, his best friend in front of the village they had been there to serve and likely would impact their reports when filed with the Hokage. Who knew what ways that would affect Jiraiya's career? Not only that but what if she was genuinely hurt? Tsunade had done nothing.

Orochimaru was not surprised that Jiraiya clenched her jaw and kept silent. They had learned that lesson early in the orphanage and on the streets. No one really cared about the nobody kids, they'd talk nicely certainly, but if facing giving up coin they wished to spend on themselves or a moment's discomfort to make someone else's life easier none of those who hadn't lived without and scraping to get by ever stuck their necks out.

Of those who had lived in such brutal fashion, none of those downtrodden ever expected anything and would often give what they had. Even Orochimaru and Jiraiya had shared their meager rations or spoils if they saw some elder or mother or sometimes it was a single father with the wife gone, who needed help. There was something about having nothing that tended to make you either hoard or share what little you had.

Jiraiya had more than once shared their clothing that they grew out of or stolen a size too big or too small with those in the red light distract. They had both babysat without pay so parents could go work jobs they'd never confess to their children. The very concept of what Hiruzen had done not being addressed was eating Orochimaru form the inside because it simply was not done!

It was only that Jiraiya said nothing, in the end, that made Orochimaru step up the next day. Against all the training he had, the knowledge that adults never did anything if there wasn't something in it for them, faded away. He'd give his sensei one chance to understand what he had done wrong and make up for it. That chance was only because of how much Hiruzen had done for them so far, that indirectly his speaking of summons was why Orochimaru now had the alliance with the serpents he did.

"Aren't you going to apologize to Jiraiya?" His voice was softly pitched as they rested for a time on their way back towards Konoha. Taking a break from the run, slowly eating the ration bars and drinking water that they had while letting tired muscles take a rest.

Hiruzen looked over from where he had been consulting a map and blinked. "You have me at a disadvantage, Orochimaru. What should I be saying?"

Cold. Cold furious anger swept through Orochimaru and it took a few slow soft breathes and the mental reminder that he was giving this man a chance, a chance to prove why he was better than the fools whom Orochimaru loathed and thought of as less than. That Hiruzen was not just another brainwashed idiot who hadn't his own mind to make up.

"For public humiliation and dropping her, causing her pain," Orochimaru narrowed his eyes as his voice dropped a little. "To start."

"It wasn't anything important. So she got caught?" Tsunade sneered over and at that moment Orochimaru felt even more disgusted. They didn't know how Jiraiya had found the base and helped him loot it clean of almost everything they wanted, planting evidence. They couldn't know that. A faint touch of fingertips on the inside of his wrist made Orochimaru swallow the poisonous words he would have flung otherwise.

"Is there a reason, a good one then, why she was not lectured by being pulled aside? Why we had to have her dropped on her shoulder instead of being set down. Why was she even being held upside down and shaken in the first place?!" Orochimaru felt his temper snapping and the touch became a firm grip on his wrist. In return he twisted the hold so he was digging his fingers, carefully he didn't want to hurt her, into Jiraiya's arm to help himself keep from attacking. He knew that would be a foolish maneuver.

"The villagers won't be so worried now, it puts a friendlier more 'oh the shinobi are still like us' face upon things. Besides, Jiraiya is good at handling such incidents." Hiruzen started but then paused. He wasn't a fool, he just was not used to having to work so hard at reading children as if they were adults. The longer he looked though the more he recognized the body language of the two. So very, very, different from the other morning. They were banding together closing off from him.

Hiruzen would one day be known as The Professor, a wise man. But it started with a regular man who had to work to get there and for the first time he looked at the two damaged children and came to realize the methods that worked with Tsunade, himself, and numerous others he had known..would not work on those two. Indeed, he may have almost destroyed any progress already made and any he could in the future.

So instead, Hiruzen nodded. "I see. My apologies, Jiraiya. Orochimaru. It was unfair of me to treat you like that and you are right, if nothing else I should have not done so in public. Much as we wish the villages we work for to not be afraid of us it shouldn't have been at your expense. How is your shoulder?" Slowly he noticed the ever so slight shift of their bodies, the quick glance the black and white haired children shared before Jiraiya shrugged. Not with the side she had landed on Hiruzen noticed.

"I'll heal."

That was not the answer he wanted. Something bitter curled in his stomach and he nodded. "If it troubles you, please let Tsunade look at it. I promise I won't do that again."

Hiruzen pretended not to notice the low pitched hiss from Orochimaru. "No, you won't."

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After that the air seemed a little less stifled but the schism was still glaringly obvious. Small things like when the lack of good weapons had drawn attention to the difference between Tsunade and her teammate's but the way they had acted after Hiruzen's little act and his apology left the Senju heiress baffled. Oh, sure, sensei had been a little over the top but really they were acting like they didn't regularly get and exchange blows in practice and training! Tsunade frowned then, thinking. Actually, she didn't know anyone who really..hit or hurt anyone..outside of training that wasn't an enemy.

Licking her lips Tsunade decided that maybe this was one of those things that her teammates had tried to explain was different for them. Maybe they still didn't realize they could just ask for her help? Or maybe it was pride. Either way, she stomped over and huffed, hands on her hips as they set up camp, she was tired of the quiet traveling where it felt like her friendship with the two had all but vanished.

"Can I check your shoulder?" Tsunade asked, and while Orochimaru narrowed his eyes at her Jiraiya's met Tsunade's own and the two girls observed each other quietly. "Please? You know, you can always..ask. I don't want to be one of those nagging to always heal somebody type.."

With her own admission, Jiraiya sighed and nodded, lashes lowering. "Yeah. Guess we all have a bit too much pride, hey, Tsunade-chan?"

It was clear she was willing to move on, forgive, and the Senju heiress wasted no time letting the green hue of her medical chakra light up the area as she swept over the injured shoulder. Without asking she also sent it to soothe tired muscles and patch up a few scrapes she sensed that were healing slowly. "Just bruised but probably didn't feel very good."

"No. It didn't."

Orochimaru watched but said nothing. When Tsunade went to her bed roll later, leaving the two best friends alone, she looked up at Orochimaru and lifted a brow. Orochimaru canted his head to the side, regarding Jiraiya quietly.

"They apologized," Jiraiya stressed and Orochimaru frowned more.

"After we forced the matter." He shook his head then and looked up instead at the sky, only glimpsing the stars through the canopy of leaves. "I won't tolerate hand holding them."

"Yes, you will. Once." At Orochimaru's bright gaze locked onto her Jiraiya smiled, it was a tired one but still there. "Once, for each time they make a new mistake. Never for a repeat. I know you."

"In my mind, they have not yet made amends. Words are petty, a pittance." Orochimaru hissed out but as Jiraiya just smiled at him he sighed.

"I'll think of what they can do to make it up to us. In time."

"Of course. Just remember though, Oro-kun.." Jiraiya leaned forward and winked. "You have a ssssecret!"

"Idiot," Orochimaru mumbled but he was smirking back at her as he very gently shoved her on the now healed shoulder.

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