Updated: May 24 2014
10. Jiraiya
Blurred light.
Nothing.
Voices.
Nothing.
Minato couldn't recall the endless times he was shaken out of unconsciousness, by the stress caused by people carrying him, or hanging over him, and at one point, he could feel the familiar sensation of healing chakra and bandages.
That was weird, why was he being healed?
Nothing.
It took a while for Minato to wake up and finally understand what was going on. He woke abruptly as though he had only taken an afternoon nap, and could hear voices nearby. At first, the voices were unclear as though he was underwater, and he couldn't find any sense in where he was or what happened. Then, things started to clear up, and he remembered. All the shinobi he had fought, the stabbing … But surely, he had gotten away? Or was he caught by the enemy?
The voices came closer.
"... we did everything we could to save him."
"But what the hell happened?"
He recognised the last voice. The image of a tall, white-haired man peeping through a hole in a fence popped up in his head.
"He was on a mission about a week ago, but I don't have any information regarding the actual situation," the first, unfamiliar voice, said. "He just turned up in the general's tent with a sword through his stomach -"
"Where is he?"
Minato sat up and winced of the pain in his shoulder, where he could recall being stabbed twice. He pulled off the white blanket and saw that he had been completely undressed except from his underwear, which someone had had the decency to change. His arm was patched with white band-aids, and someone had placed a compression bandage around his right knee. His upper body was nearly completely covered in bandages, and his shoulder looked like it had bled recently. His head was heavy, and a needle had been pressed inside his arm. He pulled it out. He felt extremely stiff when he placed his feet on the floor and braced himself to get up and probably get dizzy.
"He's in room five, but you can't -"
He heard footsteps.
"I'm sorry, but you can't -"
"But why not?"
Minato got up.
"He hasn't woken up yet and needs rest -"
He got dizzy.
"So his own sensei can't even check on him?"
He supported himself to a chair for a moment, before he stretched whatever wasn't bleeding and felt knuckles crack in various places. He felt a little better, and limped over to a shelf in a corner to get some water.
"He's not awake yet, and I think it's pretty clear how he's doing -"
Minato emptied a whole bottle, and was starting to get nauseous.
"I'm sure he can handle a visit."
The sheets to his room were pushed aside when Minato was about to empty another bottle, and in came a familiar face. The face lit up and a triumphant grin grew on it.
"I knew you'd be all right!"
"Hey, sensei," Minato smiled and was surprised by his own hoarse voice.
"How's my favourite student?" Jiraiya said, approaching Minato.
"Still your only student," Minato said, reaching for a third bottle. He winced when pain shot through his shoulder, and his hand clutched it automatically; it had started to bleed again.
"Hey, hey, calm down, kid," Jiraiya said and placed Minato back on the bedside when black dots appeared before his eyes again. The medic-nin came immediately to stop the bleeding.
"Do you remember anything?" the medic-nin asked.
"Most of it, I think," Minato replied and thought about it. It was difficult, considering the sharp pain removing his focus.
"General Hiromu will want to see you," the medic-nin said, and Minato nodded.
"So what happened, kid?" Jiraiya asked with a worried expression.
"I don't really get it myself," Minato said, shaking his head. "One moment I was on a mission, and then I was trapped in genjutsu by the Genjutsu Master and his back-up, and suddenly, a battalion shows up and attacks me."
"Why?" Jiraiya asked.
"I don't know what the deal with the battalion was, but the Genjutsu Master had been sent to kill me."
Jiraiya looked troubled. "I was on my way from the Rain and did one last stop when I got information about you taking out nearly three hundred of one thousand men. Is that right?"
"It might be," Minato said. "I was keeping count for a while, but I lost my focus on two hundred and eighty."
"You're kidding me, Minato," Jiraiya said wide-eyed. "The Rain sent a battalion after you, and you took out a third before you got out of it? Do you have any idea how many that is?"
"I do, yeah," Minato said a little modestly and felt like changing the subject. "How long have I been here?"
"Eight days," the medic-nin said. "Your chakra was exhausted, and you had no energy. A little more and you would be dead." He covered Minato's shoulder with a clean bandage. "Your wound should be fine now, but don't move it too much, or it'll start bleeding again."
"Get some clothes on, Minato," Jiraiya said. "We've got to see the general."
The medic-nin disappeared to tend to another patient while Minato found clean clothes someone had been nice enough to bring him. To get dressed was a challenge itself when his arm could barely move, his stomach hurt from a stab wound he didn't know where came from and dizziness easily caught up with him. After a while, they walked down the camp towards general Hiromu's tent, Jiraiya close to Minato in case of dizziness. The squad soldiers greeted them when they passed, and many of them seemed concerned about Minato. When the general saw them entering the tent, he got up immediately.
"Good to see you alive, Minato," he said relieved.
"Thank you," Minato replied.
"I can see if you're tired, but we have to get things sorted at once," the general said. "I want you to tell me everything that happened on the mission. Hizashi watched you when you fought Naoki, so he's already covered that part, but unfortunately, we don't know much after that."
Minato nodded and sat in a chair in front of the general's desk. Jiraiya sat down next to him, and he and the general were silent when Minato began to talk. He told them how he had tied Naoki to the tree and turned to go back, but that Toru had sent him in the wrong direction … How Toru had planned on sending him to a squad of fifteen shinobi who stood waiting, and how he had defeated them all and taken Toru's necklace … How the battalion of a thousand men had attacked, and how he had tried to get through them with the little strength he had left so he could move back to camp. He told them everything until the part where he was pushed against a tree, and he couldn't remember anything after that.
"So you don't remember transporting yourself out of there?" the general asked.
"No. I remember knowing I could do it, and then it all went pretty automatically, I guess."
"You ended up here, actually," the general said and pointed at the corner of the table, where Minato had placed a seal the day he was hired. "Hizashi and Shikaku had just left to go looking for you when you fell over the table and took everything with you to the floor. Your shoulder was injured and a sword was pointing out of your stomach, so it was all pretty dramatic. And with that necklace, which I thought was cursed."
"Where is the necklace, by the way?" Minato asked.
"It's here in my office," the general said. "But you can have it back if you want. Hizashi looked at it, so go and see him if you want to know what it's all about."
Minato nodded and decided to find Hizashi as quickly as he could.
The general sighed. "Why a battalion was sent to you, I have no idea … But if Hanzou actually made that decision to get rid of you, it's pretty amazing. The plan wasn't even foolproof, you proved that. I think he's beginning to get desperate."
"Exactly," Jiraiya said and looked at Minato. "You took out three hundred men on your own, and that was after spending half your chakra on a different battle. If they had so many plans just to get rid of you, they must be pretty scared of you."
Minato only snorted, but the thought of a whole country being scared of him – or at least threatened by his existence – was pretty amusing.
As soon as Minato had been dismissed, he went against his body's desire to go to bed and sought out Hizashi instead, necklace in his hand. He found him on Minato's usual watch post, conveniently covering Minato's watch.
Hizashi was glad to see Minato awake, and told him everything he had figured out about the necklace.
"It was made by Toru himself," he said. "But the thing is, the necklace responds to the maker's chakra. As soon as the necklace is removed from the maker, or as in this case, the maker dies, the effect starts to wear off."
"So it's useless now?" Minato asked.
"Not yet. It takes some time for the effect to wear off completely, at least with this necklace, because the longer the maker wears it, the longer it works. I think Toru has been wearing it for a few years and it seems like a high-quality piece, so I can assume it works a few more years. Just know that it ends one day, but you'll notice by the red chakra around it. I think it gets colder too."
Minato nodded and looked down at the red-glowing necklace. Then, he noticed something else that had been removed from his body – and the blood in his face disappeared.
"The bracelet," he said. "Where -"
"Relax," Hizashi smiled, noticing the stressed posture Minato had possessed in spite of his attempt to keep calm. "I put it on your night stand. It doesn't look good, but ..."
Minato breathed out in relief.
"Is it important to you?" Hizashi asked politely. "The bracelet?"
"Kind of," Minato mumbled. That was an understatement; the bracelet meant a lot to him, and he was now convinced that it was his lucky charm.
Hizashi smiled. Sometimes, it was hard to see that Minato was known to be a dangerous, cold-hearted assassin.
Minato went to get the bracelet, which looked even worse than before. He also wanted to lie down on the bed, which was conveniently standing next to him and looked unusually tempting, but he had promised to stay the night at the emergency tent, so he walked obediently back and met Jiraiya on the way. He was busy packing a backpack, and had changed into the standard uniform of Konoha.
"Where are you going?" Minato asked, disappointed to see that Jiraiya wasn't staying. He hadn't seen him in three years, and missed spending endless hours training, messing around or doing nothing.
"Emergency call," Jiraiya said seriously. "The Rain has gathered forces, Hanzou is pissed off. We have to send people directly to the front lines."
Minato frowned. "He's pissed off? Why?"
"Why do you think?" Jiraiya said, but with a hint of pride. "He couldn't kill you, and now he's terrified. On top of everything he lost three hundred men trying."
"So now you're meeting him directly?" Minato said incredulously. "Just because I wasn't killed?"
"This has been planned for a long time, kid," Jiraiya said, squeezing Minato's healthy shoulder quickly. "Don't blame yourself. It was going to happen anyway, but now that he lost so many men he can't risk more of them dying before the final impact. We have to head out, or they'll burst into the Fire country, and we don't want that to happen. But don't worry, even though they've got larger numbers, we've got many skilled men. And no -" he interrupted when Minato opened his mouth, "- you're not going anywhere, not in your condition. Go back to conflict again and you're definitely dead."
Minato sighed in frustration. The last thing he wanted was for his comrades to be sent out to fight while he had to stay and do nothing to help.
"I know this makes you mad," Jiraiya said. "But you've got to stay here. Besides, the general is planning missions for you as soon as you're good. You just have to heal first, so don't do anything rash."
Said he who was jumping right into the Rain's front lines …
"Shikaku and Kousuke are staying too," Jiraiya continued when Minato didn't say anything. "The general said he was planning missions for the three of you."
Minato nodded; at least he wasn't alone at the camp.
"But I gotta hurry," Jiraiya said and picked up his bag. "I'm meeting Tsunade and Orochimaru on the way. Take care of yourself, kid."
He ruffled Minato's hair quickly, and Minato stood and watched his sensei disappear into the forest. He had a bad feeling about this.
Happy Easter, everyone!