Chapter 46.3- Gamer of the Desert

XXXXX- JIRAIYA OF THE SANNIN

He did his best not to blink as they were guided down the waterfall and the twisting turns that marked the entrance to the Village hidden in the Waterfalls. He couldn’t see a thing, bound as his head was, but what he could do was prevent himself from giving in entirely. It was his own little bit of rebellion. He could already feel that both his teammates were nothing short of indignant at the reality of the situation. 

Even when they were mere genin, they’d been the students of the Hokaghe and thus gotten to use the more dignified entrance that was made for visiting dfignitaires. Those days were long passed though. The present situation- this insult was a representation of how far they’d sunk in the world with things going wrong and wrong. 

Perhaps also contributing to their indignity was the fact that they knew that the only reason they were being subjected to this was a power-play. They were the supplicants here, and the ever grasping council of the Village Hidden in the Waterfalls would not cease to remind them of that. They’d spent months in the Fire Lord’s court after recruiting Tsunade to their purpose, but they’d been forced to accept the reality that the man was going to equivocate and obfuscate until they got bored of asking him to pick a side. He could understand the man’s position, however. Having been the one actually connected to the village in the past ten years, he knew that the village and the Daimyo had scarcely been more distant, and he probably wasn’t too keen on meddling with an intravillage matter on the behalf of either side. If he ended up supporting the wrong side, the winner would have all the motivation to see him hang next to their enemies. But if he remained neutral, neither aiding nor hindering any side, then he denied the prospective winners of any legitimacy in attacking him.

He was probably right. No village would have the audacity to kill a sitting Daimyo, That was one way to ensure that the other four nations turned on you. It was pretty much expected at this point that the second a Daimyo was killed, the other four would band together to do whatever was necessary to rensure that those who’d done it would bnever be able to get away with it. It was both out of a sense of familial duty for they were all related in one way or the other, and a sense of self preservation. If the death of a Daimyo wasn’t ;t met with serious consequences, then no one would dare. It was most of the reason why the shinobi didn’t just jettison the entire Daimyo-led feudal system to replace it with a ‘might makes right’ kind of approach that was in common within the Shinobi villages themselves. The consequences spelt of a form of mutually assured destruction. Besides, the armies of thousands that each Daimyo controlled had some minor role to play in the matter. 

They travelled, and he kept a good sense of Naruto’s position next to him. It was one of the worries of travelling with Orochimaru. You had to make sure he didn’t get much of an oppotyiniyy to give into his base instincts. He still remembered their first. Conversation with Tsunade all; those months ago. 

_“Hey”_

_“Go away”She said, half asleep and slumped over in front ofr a table with an empty glass in front of her. They’d watched over the hours as the bar had emptied of patrons but she’d kept drinking and drinking. Even the bartender had simply given up, handed the keys over to her apprentice, Dan’s niece, and told them to lock up when they finished. It made me wonder how much she had already paid for them to get that kind of trust, _

_“Tsunade-sama?” Said apprentice called, whispering into her ears while she just maintained her half asleep posture. Those were the first words she’d managed to utter after having been rendered speechless by what must have been a sudden appearance to her. _

_“Yes?” She said, at least speaking to Dan’s niece in a much better tone than what she’d used when disregarding them._

_“It’s Jiraiya-sama” She said, pointing to him, and as if her skin was not already pale enough, it got even paler as she pointed at the man next to him. _

_“And Orochimaru” She said, making the idiot next to him burst into his ever familiar laughter. _

_If there was anything that would return Tsunade to wakefulness, it would be those words, and return she did, She bolted upright instantly, using reflexes that he would never have expected her to have while drunk to leap to her feet and connect an uppercut to Orochimaru’s head. It erupted into mud as he used a substitution to escape at the last moment while Tsunade did not even wait to notice that her attack did not succeed- because she never truly expected it to- before she turned around, gathered her apprentice in her hands in a feat of co-ordination and strength that bellied her drunken state as she jumped away from him at a simultaneously impressive and uninspiring speed. He was in front of her before her drink-addled. Brain could plot what to do next and he rendered her unconscious with a quick usage of Frog Kumite. _

_Having some of the benefits of sage mode without even triggering the transformation had been pretty much the only upside to having Orochimaru take over their village. Apparently, when the Great Elders flooded his brain with senjutsu to get rid of the genjutsu that had taken such a complete hold on his mind and that had done wonders for his potential with the skill after he got off the combat high. Once he’d calmed down, he’d noticed that several of the benefits normally associated with sage mode had stayed over even ion his base state. The best part was that he now had access to perfect sage mode when he meditated on his own. Time to train the skill had been sparse with them having to move so fast to keep ahead of Danzo’s plan but he could taste the potential_

_“You know Sensei being dead is almost entirely his faultm right” She’d said after returning to consciousness and being calmed down, pointing at Orochimaru. _

_“Sensei had decades of life left, even if that life would not have been as an active Ninja. Danzo was the one who took that from him.” He’d replied almost instantly. _

_“The only way Danzo would have gotten that opportunity was thanks to his damned invasion. I don’t see why you can trust this man and work with him, Jiraiya” _

_“Are we going to keep talking about me like I’m not in the damn room?” Orochimaru piped out from the other side of the admittedly luxurious hotel room. _

_“Yes We are” He said in reply, while Tsunade settled for glaring at him. _

_“Nevermind me then. I’ll just remain here trying to tempt your respective apprentices to my nefarious ways” He replied sarcastically, but remained content to sit in his previous position, next to a glaring Naruto and a skittish Shizune. _

_“How can you even trust him?” She asked._

_“That’s easy.” He replied, rolling up his left sleeve to reveal a set of seals that the uninitiated could have mistaken for extremely ceremonial tattoos. _

_“ I got the idea from Danzo himself. Juinjutsu” He explained to her as she went over the script with a keen eye. _

_“This is stupid, Jiraiya” She said to him as she read through the seals to understand their meanings. It was not an extremely well known fact, but each and every one of them had a more than passable understanding of the art. Tsunade was not known for it for some reason, and most people seemed to ignore the fact that she literally had one of the most impressive pieces of fuinjutsu on her forehead. The Strength of a hundred seal did not come to bear that name by accident. She’d made the seal herself, designed after the seal that her own grandmother had borne to contain the Kyubi no Kitsune. _

_“It’s necessary” He said to her. _

_“No it’s not. You don’t need him, and going to this length to secure his alliance is the most brain dead thing I’ve ever seen you do” She’d said with what he thought was worry in her eyes. He killed the very thought before it could rear into something ugly. He’d been down that road too many times to count. It only ended in one way. There was nothing but pain for him there. _

_“I disagree. I do need him. And I need you as well. Danzo killed Sensei. He has Konoha” He knew that with those last three sentences, he had her. He also knew that she was going to resist and make him work for it. But he knew he had her. She loved Konoha just as much as he did. _

Getting the team together had been for both selfish and selfless reasons. Yes, Tsunade was probably right. The two of them could probably manage what they needed to do without involving Orochimaru, but part of him couldn’t deny the truth. He wanted his best friend back. And for the time being, it felt like he had that. 

A/N; Another part of the chapter. In case, you can’t tell the experiment is its much longer but hopefully better written chapters. I’ll probably have to switch up the upload schedule on the public sites to accommodate this though.