[Naruto] Complicated
Feb. 27th, 2007 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runespoorTitle: Complicated
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
runespoor7
Rating: PG-13
Summary: During and after the timeskip, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura. In which Kabuto is succinct, Ino is devoted, and Jiraiya is bemused. Who's complicated?(implied OroSasu, OroKabu, Ino->Saku, NaruSakuSasu and combinations thereof.)
Notes: …more of the basic 'I have created a monster'. So much for a three-part ficlet. (more or less Celebrationverse continuity.)
1. A simple truth
Kabuto's in daily contact with Sasuke, so he knows the inner workings of the Uchiha's mind better than most – if it wasn't his vocation, it wouldn't be his job – and he's amused alongside with his master at the way Sasuke is strung. Less amused and slightly more irritated, perhaps, because Sasuke's a pretty little knick-knack with ambitions of deadliness, and Orochimaru always had a fondness for pretty little angry things crying for power. It makes Orochimaru indulgent and Kabuto annoyed.
When Orochimaru's chuckling and graciously granting Sasuke's blunt, ill-mannered requests, Kabuto's the one who has to deal with the consequences of the actual granting of the request.
Conveniently, the only requests Orochimaru-sama isn't so anxious to fulfil are those related to training and teaching of new jutsus.
Less conveniently, Kabuto's also the one who has to endure the boy's moodiness when he's performing his weekly medical check-up.
Consequently, when Orochimaru-sama takes to attend said check-up, Kabuto almost starts looking forward to them.
Predictably, he's not the one Sasuke chooses to bitch at.
Itachi, is all that needs to be hummed in the air to make Sasuke anyone's willing puppet. Power, Orochimaru just has to whisper.
Kabuto can't say he's surprised when, during his first medical check-up on Sasuke after his love-stricken teammates broke into their hideout, Sasuke bitches in an even more furious, intense, frenzied fashion. He may have managed to shut his mind in denial in front of them – he's contrary enough when it comes to them, all the more since he understands nothing of his feelings, mistaking everything and cutting himself on the twisted edges – but he desperately wants to (get killed) (be saved) (make sure) prove he was right in leaving.
For that, he needs to get more power.
Kabuto meets his master's eyes during that session, and they exchange a smile.
Sasuke, for all that he has conflicting marks branded in his soul, is never a complicated person at all. Kabuto thinks that even his teammates know that about him by now, and he occasionally pities them a little.
He's more amused at the way Sasuke is distorting, denying, destroying everything he believes to have stopped holding dear, though.
Sasuke is failing, of course, but he's a simple person; he doesn't realise that.
2. A contradiction and a sacrifice
Once, Ino gets in a fight with Sakura.
It's worth noting that Ino and Sakura don't fight over much nowadays, and Ino is actually rather proud of that fact. She knows that she can't be accused of being Miss Perceptive but sometimes she feels like she's the only one getting the reason why she and Sakura never fight anymore.
Other people see Sasuke's absence – Chouji believes that's why – and note that Sakura's maturing – it was a pointed comment of Asuma that made her realise this – and imagine a quiet truce being struck over medic-nin-ness – and Shikamaru isn't entirely wrong, though he clearly doesn't have an inkling why either she or Sakura chose that path – and there's a little of all that here, but they're missing the big bad reason that has Ino worrying herself sick over her best friend.
Simply put, Ino isn't the one Sakura wants to outdo anymore.
She has other shadows filling that role.
Months and years go by and Ino finds herself hating those two shadows a little more with every day that passes as Sakura is driving herself out of anyone's reach except maybe the two for whom she's doing this to herself, but one couldn't even save an ant if it was drowning in his morning juice and the other's probably going to get killed because he's a loud reckless moron with more dumb luck than brains, and Ino's the one left home to take care of Sakura, whom neither one nor the other even gave half a thought about.
Ino hates them with a mind-numbing violence that sometimes get other shinobi to make a detour to avoid walking past her, or her team to mumble that if there's something wrong she's welcome to talk about it, or Mitarashi Anko to tap her on the shoulder and casually ask her to take it down a notch or ten, because it's getting difficult not to flip out and skin something.
Ino sometimes hates them so much that she'd like to erase the mere memory of them.
If she could, she'd go back in time and make it that they never even existed.
And then she'd come back to stand in front of Sakura with her hands on her hips and a smirk on her lips, and she'd watch down her nose as Sakura would turn beet-root and she'd snark something about it clashing violently with her hair. Half the time she needs to furiously bat her eyelids so she won't cry.
She remembers crushing on Sasuke, but now she wants to take a kunai and gut him like a fish. She remembers cheering for Naruto, but now she wants to drown him like a dog.
At the same time, she knows in her heart that she'd die for either of them, just so Sakura'd have a chance at having them back.
The fight she has with Sakura doesn't revolve around them at once, at least not for anyone but her.
Ino knows she's not Miss Straightforward and she's okay with that, because Sakura's entirely Forehead-Girl and when she has to mobilise all these considerable brains of hers to try and unravel the webs of tangled meanings Ino is slyly weaving around her, she's focusing on what's right in front of her for once, and not on people who might as well be on another planet for all the letters she receives from them, which is none, as Ino makes a point of knowing.
The fight seemingly starts about something as innocuous as Sakura's nails.
She's not taking good care of them. She hasn't been taking good care of them since she became Godaime's pupil.
Nor has she been taking care of her hair, which, now it's as long as Ino could ever wish, should be a cascading profusion of sakura-coloured tresses, sparkling under the sun and attracting admiring looks and envious glances from the appropriate genders and not the limp bleary eye-sore Sakura seems intent on inflicting upon the whole village. Ino uses exactly these words to make Sakura grasp the extent of the horror.
If there was a Miss Brains, Sakura might be it (Ino already thinks she is it, and she proclaims it every time she talks to her, Forehead-Girl), but she's definitely Miss Blind about some things, so she's bemused, startled in her distance at first, then slightly impatient when Ino doesn't let go, then growling and frowning and snarling in earnest when Ino is still egging her on. Occasionally Ino displays more affinities with a wasp than with a boar.
But maybe Ino got too confident, or Sakura really gained some things from her descent into trying to carve her heart out of Konoha, because she catches on before Ino's sprung the last trap.
And there's something so horrifying about Sakura's ice-cold eyes that Ino genuinely lashes out as well, half because everything's tumbling out of her anyway half because she's clinging to the hope that maybe this will shake Sakura out of that despicable mockery of control she's been working so hard to perfect.
Ino doesn't like losing control either, but this has been eating at her for over two years, so once it starts it won't stop.
You don't have to stop caring about everyone else so you can continue to care about them, she yells. And if you do need to, then perhaps you need to open your eyes and realise they don't deserve it – they don't care!
They fight.
It's very ugly, not so much because they're trying to get at one another but because Ino finds herself trying desperately to hurt the person she wants safe over anyone else, and there are so many things wrong about this Ino can barely wrap her mind around it.
In the end Ino looks into Sakura's eyes.
Sakura's been doing her fair share of yelling, a lot more effectively than Ino, she's red in the face and the kitchen table is wood fire on the ground due to the fist she slammed without thinking or controlling much of anything, so Ino counts that as a victory. She's unsure about what's still to come though, because there's an expression on Sakura's face she's never seen before, which is part sadness, part determination, part something else.
"Look, Ino-pig. I'm not asking you to understand."
Ino freezes a little, because this is it. Sakura really has cut her heart out for the two of them who don't deserve it, and she's going to cut Ino too.
"I'm going to make you understand."
Ino stares with her eyes wide, which she feels are starting to fill with tears. There's a determined gleam in Sakura's eyes which has been there ever since she started training, but right now it looks more lively than usual.
"Sakura, what?"
"I'm going to make you understand."
Ino's more at a loss than she felt since the time she saw Sakura cutting into her hair with a kunai to continue fighting.
"Thank you for reminding me that I don't just need to have them back; I also need for Konoha to have them back. And for that-" she throws a kunai at Ino, who manages to catch it through her incomprehension – ninja reflexes, yo "-I need to get Konoha to care about them again."
She sits on a chair, facing Ino, and says, "Please cut my hair." She quirks a smile. "It's easier to take care of when it's short."
When Naruto returns a mere two months later, Ino is able to rejoice as if she'd never wished for him to be worse than dead.
It doesn't change the fact that Sakura makes Ino's blood run cold far more often than any shinobi even twice her age, fight experience, and killing intent has any right to, and it's not even always when she's treating someone without ever seeming to see him. Ino doesn't get Sakura; she doesn't understand the way her mind is working and she knows it. What she does think she understands is that there's no sacrifice too big for Sakura's team, but even that falls short because she feels like Sakura isn't even using the same dictionary as she is, and that makes Ino's blood run cold too.
What makes Ino's blood run coldest, though, is that she's not sure there's anyone at all to understand Sakura, because here she's again falling back on Sakura's team and Sasuke's an emotionally-stunted asshole unfit to understand Ichiraku's menu and Naruto's a moron.
Ino finds herself realising she's not getting much of Naruto either, though, in spite or maybe because of the aggressive cheerfulness and bubbly confidence emanating from him. Must be too much of a moron, in spite of the newly-there attractiveness.
And when she's facing an Akatsuki member with Naruto acting brash and competent and screwing up but not letting go – when he's begging them with calm words to let him do this alone, in a determined tone Ino has come to know so well – when he speaks about the Yondaime and bridge to adulthood and things like that, she listens to what he has to say.
Ino hopes his hidden-depth simplicity is what's needed to understand the pure sheer complexity that is Sakura, and she prepares herself for the day she'll need to do the same with the last teammate Sakura is still missing.
3. A history of surprises
Jiraiya knows about Kakashi's opinion on Naruto practically since Team Seven's sensei entrusted him with the boy's training for the first time. The first time Naruto catches him by surprise, though, is when Jiraiya sits on the window-sill of Naruto's hospital room and hears the scrawny brat shooting down his offer to train.
Three years as a Sannin's personal apprentice, rejected like that by the boy who is continually blabbering about becoming Hokage.
It's true, Jiraiya acknowledges, that the subject that took up most of Naruto's chatter, second only to his dreams of glory, was the Uchiha brat.
So the boy's changed his tune.
Jiraiya knows he's only setting himself up to be hurt all over again, and vicariously at that, not to mention that Jiraiya's as solitary as an irascible cranky old wolf when it comes to travelling and he fears that he's going to regret the over-emotional decision for the whole next three years of his life, and he's at an age where three years are starting to seem a lot again, but he finds – oh, who's he kidding, he doesn't find anything – he's defenseless against that particular brand of determination.
He's calling himself a fool at the time, though, because he has the hunch this is a tune he will get to hear even when he sleeps over the course of the next years.
As to that, he's wrong.
It takes Jiraiya ten days to catch on about how Naruto doesn't mention Sasuke at all. That name hasn't gone out of Naruto's mouth ever since they've left Konoha.
It's the second time Jiraiya's surprised at his student, and Jiraiya notes, it's the second time it's not over something related to training.
It's not that Jiraiya's disappointed in Naruto's progress, because Naruto is impressive and Jiraiya has no problem admitting it.
It's more that training-related issues are things Jiraiya's used to taking in stride, being a Sannin.
The only reason Tsunade and he never were called 'geniuses' even when they were kids was simply because their attitudes didn't fit, and Jiraiya, on top of teaching the one who'd grow up to be the Yondaime Hokage, was a jounin-sensei to boot, and not half-bad at it either, and a teacher who lets himself be surprised by his students' work isn't gonna be very competent, is his opinion.
However, he does come to realise what it was about Naruto that had Kakashi stumped.
Personality is okay. Teachers can be stricken dumb by their students' personality.
That's what he's reassuringly repeating to himself by the time the third time comes, half a year after they've left Konoha.
They're staying in the outskirts of Rain Village – two very uncomfortable weeks right under the nose of another Village have Jiraiya devoutly praying that the Village won't freak out and decide to whisk two nins of dubious Leaf origin out of existence, not the least because the more he's waiting for his information to take shape the less he's managing to convince himself that Tsunade didn't actually know what she was doing when she requested that he play the part of bait and find out Rain's resistance to an easy excuse to go to war.
Jiraiya doesn't like the thought that Tsunade's using him to possibly start and then stifle a war, but she'd point out that he only has himself to blame for not latching onto the Hokage hat when it was offered to him.
In any case, the situation asks for discretion, and any fool could understand that, right?
Particularly since Jiraiya's playing it so careful that the whole two weeks of training are devoted to the identification of genjutsu, the laying of traps, and mindless taijutsu of the muscle-memory building sort, in short, nothing that'd look even remotely threatening or unusual or would cause Rain to view them as any more suspicious than is already the case.
Surely any fool would get that, right?
Well, not Naruto.
Jiraiya understandably borders on having a seizure when he enters the hotel's courtyard and sees Naruto teaching the Sexy no Jutsu to some random nameless Rain runt.
He very nearly blows up their nonexistent rags of a cover here and there, possibly by siccing Gamabunta on Naruto's ass, but he reins it in with shinobi instinct for opportune moments and the prospect of the various ways he'll make Naruto regret he ever was so bloody stupid once they've left Rain and resumed their ordinary training routine.
Later, when Jiraiya can broach the subject without an urge to bash his stupid student's face in, he asks what came over Naruto, to teach a future Rain-nin a technique that, no matter the ridiculousness, is still an original jutsu for Sandaime Sarutobi's sake, but he manages not to say the last part aloud.
Naruto blithely smiles.
"Oh, Fuyumi-chan's alright. We talked."
A future Rain-nin, Jiraiya insists even as he fills away the mention of Naruto 'talking' with anyone.
Naruto grins cheekily.
"Guess that's just an added bonus."
Which makes it four.
The fifth time occurs a few months later, when Jiraiya wakes up in the middle of the night – aging, he knows – and hears Naruto consciously working at masturbating himself. This isn't the first time it has happened, and Jiraiya is not trying to pay attention, obviously, but he still can't help it if the sleeping bags are not even two meters removed.
In Naruto's defence, he's making commendable efforts at being quiet.
It's a sharp contrast with daylight, given how loud he is, and Jiraiya is almost impressed. His previous students, after all, were much more obvious. (Jiraiya could tell you stories about the Yondaime at that age, oh yes he could. The reason he doesn't is because it's frankly no-one's business except maybe that of those who knew and remember him for who he was, rather than what.)
But still, Jiraiya's getting to be an old man – it's not all Naruto's taunting there – and he'd like to enjoy the privileges of the old as well as the arthritis, in this case sleeping without being disturbed.
Jiraiya consoles himself by thinking that from the way Naruto's panting, this shouldn't take much longer; he's so involved in it that he's never noticed Jiraiya woke up, and so long as Jiraiya keeps his breathing regular, he won't freeze and look up from his cot, and wait painful minutes before daring to start again or worse, giving up at all.
As Jiraiya could tell you, courtesy to his experience as a jounin-sensei, travelling with sexually frustrated teens is never fun. Occasionally amusing, but never fun.
Finally, Naruto's body goes still and he lets out a ragged breath that comes to form a name.
"Sa–su–ke…"
And that's it.
Jiraiya is petrified on the spot.
Naruto leaves his cot to clean himself with muttered curses that Jiraiya can't hear and probably wouldn't be in a state to understand anyway.
He stays awake a long time after Naruto's gone to sleep, coming to the realisation that he doesn't know Naruto. He wonders if he ever thought he did; did he ever bother to form an idea of Naruto, like Tsunade did from the instant she set her eyes on him? It feels like he's given a whole new meaning to the phrase 'at face value'. He just never thought about Naruto, did he? He'd just accepted him as part of the routine.
In a way, it's not a bad thing. Certainly it makes the journey both new and comfortable. Besides, when has Naruto ever shown a hint that he might like a more personal kind of attention?
Well, Jiraiya takes him out for ramen from time to time, but Naruto never gave a sign that he might start confusing him with Iruka...
Never, that's when.
Naruto doesn't want – or doesn't need, or whatever – to look at him as something more than a sensei.
It suits Jiraiya just fine, who's then free to mull over the other, more serious topic.
Luckily he's a lot more practical-minded than his writings would have you believe, but even then Jiraiya's not sure how to cope. He remembers being thirteen or fourteen, and there's a difference between getting stiff while looking at completely inappropriate characters, because you're thirteen and an attractive body is an attractive body, and actively jerking off to someone while moaning their names.
Jiraiya doesn't get much sleep that night.
And the next morning, the next morning there's the sixth time.
Jiraiya's talking to a street vendor and he's not having his best day ever. The quasi-totality of his brain is obsessing over what he overheard last night, the far-reaching consequences, and, mostly, the realisation that there's more to Naruto than – than everything Naruto let Jiraiya be surprised at.
The vendor cuts himself off for a moment, exchanging good-natured yells with a woman walking by as she waves at him, and Jiraiya finds himself dragged by the sleeve several booths away by Naruto. He arches an eyebrow.
"That guy's totally ripping you off, ero-sennin," Naruto mutters. "Let me deal with it, okay?"
And without waiting for an answer, he struts back to the booth. His voice's loud enough that it carries at least words to Jiraiya, and his tone's bright and full of enthusiasm.
"Wow, that looks great~!"
"Sweet."
"Ya think you could–"
Naruto's doing well, Jiraiya can see it from his relaxed stance and the laughter from the vendor.
"Got 60 percent off," Naruto says once he's joined Jiraiya again, with a shrug.
Jiraiya's reaction is a non-committal grunt.
Naruto sends him a look. "You okay, ero-sennin? You're acting weird here. It's about the guy back there? 'Cause it went better than I expected sure, but 't's not like it's the first time I manage it. You jealous or something?"
A flash of alarm suddenly enters Naruto's eyes.
"You better not be thinking about asking me to use Sexy no Jutsu before doing that next time," he warns.
So Jiraiya realises that last night is nothing new for Naruto; it's just one of these things that he's never bothered letting Jiraiya know about. For all he knows, Naruto already did that before Sasuke even left – he doubts it, but it might be.
Jiraiya feels a little stupid that he's never envisaged Naruto's relation to Sasuke under that perspective; after all, he had never masturbated to thoughts of Orochimaru. He suspects that may be why he never questioned Naruto's – obsession, that's the only word.
He may have been a little too focused on equating Naruto and Sasuke to himself and Orochimaru, after all; their relationship obviously isn't the same, so they might well not be as similar as Jiraiya first thought – but then Jiraiya had never dreamt of being Hokage; that is one of the things about Naruto that reminds Jiraiya of the brat-who-would-become-the-Yondaime rather than himself.
Perhaps he should start comparing Naruto and the way Yondaime had dealt with his Orochimaru, who, for a little diversity, had been the team's girl. …retrospectively, he probably should have, but he knows better than to start doing so now.
Jiraiya is slowly coming to learn that expecting a pattern out of Naruto is just setting himself up to be badly startled.
Consequently, when Naruto has to change hitai-ate because his was wrecked when he lost control of the Kyuubi, Jiraiya isn't surprised that Naruto takes a scratched head-band out of his bag and grips it until the skin of his palms cut across the edges of the metal plate and there's blood seeping between his fingers.
He admittedly didn't see it coming when Naruto comes back from the town's smith's with the head-band knotted around his head, the scratch rubbed and filled until Jiraiya needs to mentally give up on how he doesn't see where it cut across the emblem of Konoha. He can only be sure it's not Naruto's original hitai-ate because what remains of it is packed away with Jiraiya's own things; when Naruto's out for a walk around town that evening, he looks into his stuff anyway.
He spends a few minutes staring at it.
Then he puts it back and minds his own business.
He doesn't have to wait long for the (eighth? ninth?) time.
They don't have a lot of money, so as usual they're sharing a room, and either the hitai-ate thing bothers Jiraiya more than it should, either he's getting old, because he wakes up, again, in the middle of the night to the muffled sound of Naruto moving in the room. A shinobi should be able to wake up when someone enters his sleeping area, but they've been travelling together for over a year now and Jiraiya thought he'd managed to suppress this instinct where Naruto is concerned – otherwise they'd never get a full night of sleep.
Except something's off with the way Naruto's moving; he really does sound like he's sneaking into the room, and when he goes to the bathroom during the night he's usually stumbling about with his eyes fluttering closed and never too careful about making as little noise as possible.
Jiraiya suddenly remembers that when he went to bed – a bit earlier than usual, true – Naruto wasn't back yet, and cleverly deduces that Something May Be Up.
He sits up all at once in his bed, turning the light on as he does that and staring straight at Naruto.
"Eek!" Naruto yelps, jumping backward. "You startled me," he accuses, running a hand through his incredibly tousled hair.
Jiraiya starts to snort and prepares to let out some withering sarcastic comment about how Jiraiya ought to be the one saying that, and really, Naruto makes for a lame stealth ninja, when.
His brain kicks into what his eyes are seeing.
Incredibly tousled hair.
And, his brain helpfully adds, Naruto's not wearing the hitai-ate.
His eyes drop at once to take in the rest of Naruto's appearance, ignoring entirely the boy's expression. Clothes rumpled as though after a day of training – except Jiraiya's set firm regulations on where and when Naruto is allowed to train during the night, and they haven't on a new technique that'd tempt Naruto into breaking the rule. A shuriken holster that looks as if it's been hastily wrapped around his thigh again. Jacket zipper pulled slightly down. And… is that a hickey?
Jiraiya gapes in – alright, alright, shock. He chides himself; it definitely shouldn't come as a shock, but it totally, totally is.
Then he starts to cackle.
"What?" Naruto asks, eyeing him warily.
Jiraiya's face splits into a mad grin. "You," he declares proudly, "have become a man in the most fulfilling sense of the word."
Naruto's eyes become round with horror. "…No," he says, shaking his head slowly. "No way. You are not meaning what I'm thinking you mean."
The older man gleefully nods.
Everything considered, of course Naruto would get girls. Without even mentioning the top-notch education he's receiving from Jiraiya, he's a smart resourceful little guy, and he could win Tsunade over when he was twelve, and if that's not a proof that Jiraiya's charm is rubbing off on the kid – who had charisma in spades to start with – then Jiraiya frankly doesn't know what is. And they replaced Naruto's old jumpsuit because he'd outgrown it, a while ago, and now the boy's less eye-searingly orange Jiraiya's got to admit he has grown, over the past year and a half.
He doesn't look like a kid anymore.
He might be just a little precocious for a peace-time kid, when there's less urgency of the don't-want-to-die-a-virgin sort, but personally Jiraiya doesn't see anything wrong with that.
He puffs himself up.
In the most practical part of his mind, he's not a little relieved that it happened in the middle of a civilian town where Jiraiya knows very well the current shinobi travellers are only the two of them. The Rain kid was a kid, ten years old or so; he'd rather this situation didn't repeat with fraternisation rather than teaching of perverted ninjutsu (which Jiraiya already had a hard time explaining away to Tsunade).
Bad enough, whispers another part of his mind, bad enough that there's the thing with the Uchiha.
Naruto doesn't need any more entanglements with people whose loyalties don't go to Konoha – which is why, since he overheard Naruto, he's changed his mind about making a visit to Sunagakure. In Sunagakure, there's a jinchuuriki with a close bond with Naruto. In Sunagakure is Gaara, and though Jiraiya doesn't really think Naruto swings that way, he's not going to take any chance.
And, very deep, in the core of Jiraiya's mind, there's a voice, which Jiraiya privately calls the Sannin voice, assessing coldly just how much danger they've all been in tonight, and how blind he's been.
What would have happened if the boy had lost his control over the Kyuubi?
The voice blows like a chilly wind. He should have foreseen such an occurrence. He should have prepared for it; no, he should have brought it about, so when it happened he would have been in the next room, ready to intervene and put Naruto under.
Or worse, the voice adds with a grim, perfect composure.
Jiraiya's not ready to let the Sannin voice dictate his actions, though, not when it comes to Naruto's life and not as long as there could be the slightest chance it could go otherwise. It's because Orochimaru started to listen to the Sannin voice he built his human laboratories, leading in turn to his betrayal. Tsunade must have a Sannin voice too, but Jiraiya hopes he'll never have the proof.
He trumpets on.
"Tonight's an important night, now! We should celebrate your coming of age –"
"Ero-sennin, you sound like Gai-sensei," Naruto mutters.
"– so tomorrow I'm treating you. Sake, it's a special occasion and you can bet that pink-haired teammate of yours is going to have one or ten on you anyway, what with Tsunade."
Naruto blinks. "It's not a special occasion," he says blankly.
"What do you mean, brat? It's the most special occasion this side of getting Tsunade to not kill me when she realises! More special than your getting that first hitai-ate! More special than becoming Hokage, because that can happen twice! And this is not only special, it's unique!"
Jiraiya's aware he's waxing vaguely lyrical about all of this, but Naruto's attitude of 'I don't see what's the big deal is about' makes it difficult to stay impassive. Besides, Jiraiya has few instincts he'd describe as even vaguely paternal, but this stirs all of them, along with a fleeting nostalgia for things long gone by.
He has only the blurriest recollection of his own first time – it's not due to the decades that have passed – and an all-too-precise memory of his second; they say that embarrassment goes away with time, and, more than thirty-five years down the line, Jiraiya would like to be able to look back and laugh, but the best he feel he could achieve is a horribly tense smile.
Don't get him started on the third time.
All in all, Jiraiya concludes it's nothing short of a miracle he still wanted to get laid afterward. Logically speaking, he should've been scarred for life and taken up a life of chastity. Or he'd have turned to men, or little girls, or something.
Of course, now he's got a healthy number of kids and grand-kids strutting around several countries and never suspecting they might have any blood relation with him, which, while not the best part of it (of course not) is still pleasant to think about.
Naruto snorts.
"Oh, c'm'on, I mean sure it was good – it was great – but it was hardly unique!"
Half an eternity later, Naruto seems to realise what he's implied.
He wears a sort of 'oh shit' expression for a moment but he quickly blanks his face and tries to downplay it as much as he can. "It's not like it's the first time," he shrugs.
When Jiraiya is finally able to speak again, all he can do is demand how many.
(The part of him that channels other peoples' sarcasm notes, second time of the night. It's referring to Naruto throwing Jiraiya off loop.)
"Er. Times or girls?" Naruto's starting to blush slightly.
"Both."
"Oh. Um." The boy scratches the back of his head, screwing his eyes as he smiles sheepishly. "I didn't actually kept count of the times."
Liar, Jiraiya thinks, but he lets it go in favour of more important matters. "Well, girls."
"…Three." Silence. "G'night then," Naruto adds.
After that, Jiraiya keeps Naruto so occupied he's reasonably convinced Naruto doesn't have the time to spare, much less the energy, finding a girl to roll around with. The unknown quantities are Naruto's unnatural stamina and the way civilian girls seem to flock towards him.
Jiraiya refuses to consider the implications, and thinks he's already spent more than enough time on the subject, and ostensibly redirects his attention.
There are still other surprises after that, numerous and more often than not of a dubious nature – such as the time, when they're staying in a civilian town with an extremely renowned Red Light district, Naruto gets a job at a flowershop. Jiraiya throws a fit, and very seriously threatens to disown Naruto from his apprenticeship, but Naruto still goes ahead.
Jiraiya doesn't talk to him for a whole week, which he spends brooding and concludes that it must be related to the flowershop girl – but she's the owner's daughter, and anyway what girl would fall for a guy who worked at a flowershop?
Jiraiya shakes his head sadly and regrets that Naruto isn't still fixated on his teammate.
At the end of the week, he is brutally awoken from his little woman-shaped dream cloud by the fact that he seems to have run entirely out of funds without realising it, to the point where he can't even enter a drink house to have a glass of water.
That very evening, Naruto turns up at the hotel room Jiraiya is busy brainstorming how to avoid paying for, and wordlessly drops a plump spherical purse at his feet.
Naruto works at the shop for the two weeks more they spend there, and Jiraiya doesn't miss the fact that not only the flowershop girl seems to be extremely fond of him, the girl's father looks entirely oblivious and the town girls' frequentation ratio of the shop has vastly increased.
Looking back upon it, working or owning a flower shop had never kept Yamanaka Inoichi from being rather popular with the ladies, and the Yellow Flash was an expert sewer.
The worst in that department had been when the Yellow Flash – who wasn't yet known as the Yellow Flash at the time – started working at the Yamanaka flower shop. And redesigned their aprons. There'd seemed to be an uninterrupted flow of females of all ages flocking to the shop. In fact, it was at that time that the Yamanaka shop got a revolving door.
In hindsight, Jiraiya should've seen it coming.
And then Naruto grabs Jiraiya's bank-book and starts to manage the budget for him.
Another such time is when, after a genjutsu that had Jiraiya fear for Naruto's safety, his student starts training even harder, with gritted teeth and eyes flashing with rage, and a hint of the smell of Kyuubi's chakra following him – which Jiraiya dubs normal until he stumbles unto one of these super-secret training sessions of Naruto's and discovers than instead of beating down trees with his bare hands in mixed anger and helplessness, Naruto's instead perfecting new perverted ninjutsu.
Jiraiya knows he told Naruto that the best Naruto'd be able to do on his own is think up perverted ninjutsu, he leaves the clearing without making his presence known. From what he could see, this technique was going to be fearsome.
He doesn't know what Naruto was subjected to when he was under the enemy's illusion. This time, he doesn't ask.
There's also when they go to Wave Country and some people in the main town seem to recognise Naruto, and everyone uses his name on a daily basis – Great Naruto Bridge indeed. Jiraiya has a great time on the beaches, and he insists that learning to walk on sea water is an exercise of a much higher difficulty than just on fresh water, and ignores Naruto's recriminations.
Then they run into a kid, or more accurately there's a kid running toward them, shouting Naruto's name.
At first Jiraiya can admit it's nice to meet these people, even if Inari is a little brat and Naruto took Jiraiya aside to very seriously warn him off of trying anything with their host's daughter before taking up Tazuna's offer to stay at his daughter's house.
But they ask about Naruto's teammates.
"Whatever happened to Sakura? Her name was Sakura, right? The brave girl with the long pink hair? The competent one, the one who did all the work while you and what's-his-name were off training? Ah – I can't find his name again – her crush?" "That handsome boy who was all about Naruto? His name was Sasuke, Dad, I tell you all the time…""I still go to the graves, you know. I don't put flowers because that's girly, but I make sure they stay clean. T's a good place to think."
Jiraiya doesn't think he's ever seen Naruto look like that, with such an open wound in his eyes, and then with such a brittle grin.
"Sakura-chan's becoming a great ninja and I think she might like me now! Oh, oh, and she cut her hair – it's reaaaaally pretty. And the bastard's still trying to get rid of us 'cause he's got selective memory and he's busy being stupid like that, takes up a lot of his time."
Later, Jiraiya seeks Tazuna out. They have a long talk, because Naruto never said anything about this mission and Team Seven spent three weeks in Tazuna's household, and it stands to reason that it's worth knowing any mission that could make people think of insignificant little Haruno Sakura as 'the competent one' – a girl whose existence Jiraiya had noted purely in correlation to that of her teammates' – and cold, contemptuous Uchiha Sasuke as 'all about Naruto' – Jiraiya tries to empty his mind of the incident when he overheard Naruto.
In return, he tells the old man a little of everything that happened since then.
There are lots about Naruto that Jiraiya doesn't know, and that he only understands when he does. When he comes to know about it, he's always taken off guard, before it dawns on him how much sense it makes.
More often than not he doesn't like the picture it paints, but he can't deny that he understands.
After he brings Naruto back to Konoha at the end of their period of training – sooner than he'd planned, but Naruto can nag like nobody's business, and there Jiraiya understood the urgency without needing to be surprised first – a few weeks go by before they meet again. When they do, Jiraiya already knows from Tsunade what happened to his student since they last saw each other – his rescuing Gaara, the failed attempt to retrieve Sasuke, the latest confrontation with Akatsuki.
Naruto's face when Jiraiya gets the drop on him is a classic now, not that it hinders Jiraiya's enjoyment of it. Nice to know that the youngsters still have some room for improvement. That's what differentiates shinobi from weapons; when a weapon gets older, it breaks. Weapons don't get stronger.
The boy sobers up quickly. "Ero-sennin, I need to talk with you. It's about Orochimaru. And Sakura," he adds when Jiraiya impassively looks back at him.
Naruto shifts.
"It's – I don't really know how to explain it, but –" he takes a breath and starts anew, looking into Jiraiya's eyes with a determined air, as if he's daring the Sannin to confuse him by glancing to the side. What Naruto is about to say obviously requires utter concentration. "Okay. You know about how Sakura-chan's getting to be the best scariest thing ever?"
Amused, Jiraiya cracks a smile, more at how Naruto's crush paints a picture in reverent madness than at the idea of Tsunade the Second.
"Well – fuck, I'm getting about it all wrong."
"Try getting straight to the point," Jiraiya suggests dryly.
Naruto nods. "Okay. Sakura wants to kill Orochimaru."
Jiraiya arches an eyebrow.
"And you're worried about her? It's not that I think she's anywhere near good enough for the moment – though that may change in a few years, if you try to take him both at once with a sound plan – but she doesn't seem the type to lose her head and throw everything away for a vendetta she knows she has no chance to complete. I thought she didn't want you to protect her?"
The boy is frantically shaking his head. "No! I'm not worried! Well okay, a little, it's Orochimaru and all, but that's not the point. The point is that she wants to kill Orochimaru."
Jiraiya stares at Naruto with incomprehension. Naruto is staring back with trepidation.
"Don't you want him dead?" Jiraiya finally asks blandly, because that's really the only thing he can think of. Nothing makes sense right now.
"'course I want him dead," he scowls. "But he's not ours to kill."
Parts of a puzzle are piecing together in Jiraiya's mind. "He's not yours to kill, because…"
"He's your teammate, to you and the old hag," Naruto goes on, apparently unaware of his sensei's epiphany. "Or at least he was, and that counts for something, right? So I'm telling you this, so you can tell the old hag about it too, because if Sakura-chan is going to fight Orochimaru with the intent to kill, like hell I'm gonna stand on the sidelines. I mean, I know you've got dibs and all, but I don't think Sakura really cares."
"Naruto," Jiraiya starts very cautiously, "what does this have to do with Sasuke?"
("He isn't yours…"
"In my presence, don't you dare talk of Sasuke as though he belongs to you!")
Jiraiya may have not been present to hear it, but he'd been told about it. And now he felt like he could finish the sentence – the one which had stayed unsaid.
"Sakura-chan agrees that Orochimaru has no right on him." Naruto's blue eyes are frighteningly clear. "Sasuke's our teammate."
Jiraiya appears with a hurried puff of smoke into Tsunade's office as soon as he and Naruto part ways. Once he's finished retelling the conversation and awaits for her reaction – they need to sketch a plan – Tsunade sighs and puts her hand over her eyes.
"They're so goddamn complicated," she mutters.
And Jiraiya stares and wonder why he never saw this simple truth about Naruto.
"They're mine."
It'd be much simpler if he could blame the Kyuubi, but the demon fox only influences Naruto on the rarest occasions and this, as far as Jiraiya is able to judge given everything he has witnessed since they started training, is pure Naruto.
Author:
runespoor7Rating: PG-13
Summary: During and after the timeskip, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura. In which Kabuto is succinct, Ino is devoted, and Jiraiya is bemused. Who's complicated?(implied OroSasu, OroKabu, Ino->Saku, NaruSakuSasu and combinations thereof.)
Notes: …more of the basic 'I have created a monster'. So much for a three-part ficlet. (more or less Celebrationverse continuity.)
1. A simple truth
Kabuto's in daily contact with Sasuke, so he knows the inner workings of the Uchiha's mind better than most – if it wasn't his vocation, it wouldn't be his job – and he's amused alongside with his master at the way Sasuke is strung. Less amused and slightly more irritated, perhaps, because Sasuke's a pretty little knick-knack with ambitions of deadliness, and Orochimaru always had a fondness for pretty little angry things crying for power. It makes Orochimaru indulgent and Kabuto annoyed.
When Orochimaru's chuckling and graciously granting Sasuke's blunt, ill-mannered requests, Kabuto's the one who has to deal with the consequences of the actual granting of the request.
Conveniently, the only requests Orochimaru-sama isn't so anxious to fulfil are those related to training and teaching of new jutsus.
Less conveniently, Kabuto's also the one who has to endure the boy's moodiness when he's performing his weekly medical check-up.
Consequently, when Orochimaru-sama takes to attend said check-up, Kabuto almost starts looking forward to them.
Predictably, he's not the one Sasuke chooses to bitch at.
Itachi, is all that needs to be hummed in the air to make Sasuke anyone's willing puppet. Power, Orochimaru just has to whisper.
Kabuto can't say he's surprised when, during his first medical check-up on Sasuke after his love-stricken teammates broke into their hideout, Sasuke bitches in an even more furious, intense, frenzied fashion. He may have managed to shut his mind in denial in front of them – he's contrary enough when it comes to them, all the more since he understands nothing of his feelings, mistaking everything and cutting himself on the twisted edges – but he desperately wants to (get killed) (be saved) (make sure) prove he was right in leaving.
For that, he needs to get more power.
Kabuto meets his master's eyes during that session, and they exchange a smile.
Sasuke, for all that he has conflicting marks branded in his soul, is never a complicated person at all. Kabuto thinks that even his teammates know that about him by now, and he occasionally pities them a little.
He's more amused at the way Sasuke is distorting, denying, destroying everything he believes to have stopped holding dear, though.
Sasuke is failing, of course, but he's a simple person; he doesn't realise that.
2. A contradiction and a sacrifice
Once, Ino gets in a fight with Sakura.
It's worth noting that Ino and Sakura don't fight over much nowadays, and Ino is actually rather proud of that fact. She knows that she can't be accused of being Miss Perceptive but sometimes she feels like she's the only one getting the reason why she and Sakura never fight anymore.
Other people see Sasuke's absence – Chouji believes that's why – and note that Sakura's maturing – it was a pointed comment of Asuma that made her realise this – and imagine a quiet truce being struck over medic-nin-ness – and Shikamaru isn't entirely wrong, though he clearly doesn't have an inkling why either she or Sakura chose that path – and there's a little of all that here, but they're missing the big bad reason that has Ino worrying herself sick over her best friend.
Simply put, Ino isn't the one Sakura wants to outdo anymore.
She has other shadows filling that role.
Months and years go by and Ino finds herself hating those two shadows a little more with every day that passes as Sakura is driving herself out of anyone's reach except maybe the two for whom she's doing this to herself, but one couldn't even save an ant if it was drowning in his morning juice and the other's probably going to get killed because he's a loud reckless moron with more dumb luck than brains, and Ino's the one left home to take care of Sakura, whom neither one nor the other even gave half a thought about.
Ino hates them with a mind-numbing violence that sometimes get other shinobi to make a detour to avoid walking past her, or her team to mumble that if there's something wrong she's welcome to talk about it, or Mitarashi Anko to tap her on the shoulder and casually ask her to take it down a notch or ten, because it's getting difficult not to flip out and skin something.
Ino sometimes hates them so much that she'd like to erase the mere memory of them.
If she could, she'd go back in time and make it that they never even existed.
And then she'd come back to stand in front of Sakura with her hands on her hips and a smirk on her lips, and she'd watch down her nose as Sakura would turn beet-root and she'd snark something about it clashing violently with her hair. Half the time she needs to furiously bat her eyelids so she won't cry.
She remembers crushing on Sasuke, but now she wants to take a kunai and gut him like a fish. She remembers cheering for Naruto, but now she wants to drown him like a dog.
At the same time, she knows in her heart that she'd die for either of them, just so Sakura'd have a chance at having them back.
The fight she has with Sakura doesn't revolve around them at once, at least not for anyone but her.
Ino knows she's not Miss Straightforward and she's okay with that, because Sakura's entirely Forehead-Girl and when she has to mobilise all these considerable brains of hers to try and unravel the webs of tangled meanings Ino is slyly weaving around her, she's focusing on what's right in front of her for once, and not on people who might as well be on another planet for all the letters she receives from them, which is none, as Ino makes a point of knowing.
The fight seemingly starts about something as innocuous as Sakura's nails.
She's not taking good care of them. She hasn't been taking good care of them since she became Godaime's pupil.
Nor has she been taking care of her hair, which, now it's as long as Ino could ever wish, should be a cascading profusion of sakura-coloured tresses, sparkling under the sun and attracting admiring looks and envious glances from the appropriate genders and not the limp bleary eye-sore Sakura seems intent on inflicting upon the whole village. Ino uses exactly these words to make Sakura grasp the extent of the horror.
If there was a Miss Brains, Sakura might be it (Ino already thinks she is it, and she proclaims it every time she talks to her, Forehead-Girl), but she's definitely Miss Blind about some things, so she's bemused, startled in her distance at first, then slightly impatient when Ino doesn't let go, then growling and frowning and snarling in earnest when Ino is still egging her on. Occasionally Ino displays more affinities with a wasp than with a boar.
But maybe Ino got too confident, or Sakura really gained some things from her descent into trying to carve her heart out of Konoha, because she catches on before Ino's sprung the last trap.
And there's something so horrifying about Sakura's ice-cold eyes that Ino genuinely lashes out as well, half because everything's tumbling out of her anyway half because she's clinging to the hope that maybe this will shake Sakura out of that despicable mockery of control she's been working so hard to perfect.
Ino doesn't like losing control either, but this has been eating at her for over two years, so once it starts it won't stop.
You don't have to stop caring about everyone else so you can continue to care about them, she yells. And if you do need to, then perhaps you need to open your eyes and realise they don't deserve it – they don't care!
They fight.
It's very ugly, not so much because they're trying to get at one another but because Ino finds herself trying desperately to hurt the person she wants safe over anyone else, and there are so many things wrong about this Ino can barely wrap her mind around it.
In the end Ino looks into Sakura's eyes.
Sakura's been doing her fair share of yelling, a lot more effectively than Ino, she's red in the face and the kitchen table is wood fire on the ground due to the fist she slammed without thinking or controlling much of anything, so Ino counts that as a victory. She's unsure about what's still to come though, because there's an expression on Sakura's face she's never seen before, which is part sadness, part determination, part something else.
"Look, Ino-pig. I'm not asking you to understand."
Ino freezes a little, because this is it. Sakura really has cut her heart out for the two of them who don't deserve it, and she's going to cut Ino too.
"I'm going to make you understand."
Ino stares with her eyes wide, which she feels are starting to fill with tears. There's a determined gleam in Sakura's eyes which has been there ever since she started training, but right now it looks more lively than usual.
"Sakura, what?"
"I'm going to make you understand."
Ino's more at a loss than she felt since the time she saw Sakura cutting into her hair with a kunai to continue fighting.
"Thank you for reminding me that I don't just need to have them back; I also need for Konoha to have them back. And for that-" she throws a kunai at Ino, who manages to catch it through her incomprehension – ninja reflexes, yo "-I need to get Konoha to care about them again."
She sits on a chair, facing Ino, and says, "Please cut my hair." She quirks a smile. "It's easier to take care of when it's short."
When Naruto returns a mere two months later, Ino is able to rejoice as if she'd never wished for him to be worse than dead.
It doesn't change the fact that Sakura makes Ino's blood run cold far more often than any shinobi even twice her age, fight experience, and killing intent has any right to, and it's not even always when she's treating someone without ever seeming to see him. Ino doesn't get Sakura; she doesn't understand the way her mind is working and she knows it. What she does think she understands is that there's no sacrifice too big for Sakura's team, but even that falls short because she feels like Sakura isn't even using the same dictionary as she is, and that makes Ino's blood run cold too.
What makes Ino's blood run coldest, though, is that she's not sure there's anyone at all to understand Sakura, because here she's again falling back on Sakura's team and Sasuke's an emotionally-stunted asshole unfit to understand Ichiraku's menu and Naruto's a moron.
Ino finds herself realising she's not getting much of Naruto either, though, in spite or maybe because of the aggressive cheerfulness and bubbly confidence emanating from him. Must be too much of a moron, in spite of the newly-there attractiveness.
And when she's facing an Akatsuki member with Naruto acting brash and competent and screwing up but not letting go – when he's begging them with calm words to let him do this alone, in a determined tone Ino has come to know so well – when he speaks about the Yondaime and bridge to adulthood and things like that, she listens to what he has to say.
Ino hopes his hidden-depth simplicity is what's needed to understand the pure sheer complexity that is Sakura, and she prepares herself for the day she'll need to do the same with the last teammate Sakura is still missing.
3. A history of surprises
Jiraiya knows about Kakashi's opinion on Naruto practically since Team Seven's sensei entrusted him with the boy's training for the first time. The first time Naruto catches him by surprise, though, is when Jiraiya sits on the window-sill of Naruto's hospital room and hears the scrawny brat shooting down his offer to train.
Three years as a Sannin's personal apprentice, rejected like that by the boy who is continually blabbering about becoming Hokage.
It's true, Jiraiya acknowledges, that the subject that took up most of Naruto's chatter, second only to his dreams of glory, was the Uchiha brat.
So the boy's changed his tune.
Jiraiya knows he's only setting himself up to be hurt all over again, and vicariously at that, not to mention that Jiraiya's as solitary as an irascible cranky old wolf when it comes to travelling and he fears that he's going to regret the over-emotional decision for the whole next three years of his life, and he's at an age where three years are starting to seem a lot again, but he finds – oh, who's he kidding, he doesn't find anything – he's defenseless against that particular brand of determination.
He's calling himself a fool at the time, though, because he has the hunch this is a tune he will get to hear even when he sleeps over the course of the next years.
As to that, he's wrong.
It takes Jiraiya ten days to catch on about how Naruto doesn't mention Sasuke at all. That name hasn't gone out of Naruto's mouth ever since they've left Konoha.
It's the second time Jiraiya's surprised at his student, and Jiraiya notes, it's the second time it's not over something related to training.
It's not that Jiraiya's disappointed in Naruto's progress, because Naruto is impressive and Jiraiya has no problem admitting it.
It's more that training-related issues are things Jiraiya's used to taking in stride, being a Sannin.
The only reason Tsunade and he never were called 'geniuses' even when they were kids was simply because their attitudes didn't fit, and Jiraiya, on top of teaching the one who'd grow up to be the Yondaime Hokage, was a jounin-sensei to boot, and not half-bad at it either, and a teacher who lets himself be surprised by his students' work isn't gonna be very competent, is his opinion.
However, he does come to realise what it was about Naruto that had Kakashi stumped.
Personality is okay. Teachers can be stricken dumb by their students' personality.
That's what he's reassuringly repeating to himself by the time the third time comes, half a year after they've left Konoha.
They're staying in the outskirts of Rain Village – two very uncomfortable weeks right under the nose of another Village have Jiraiya devoutly praying that the Village won't freak out and decide to whisk two nins of dubious Leaf origin out of existence, not the least because the more he's waiting for his information to take shape the less he's managing to convince himself that Tsunade didn't actually know what she was doing when she requested that he play the part of bait and find out Rain's resistance to an easy excuse to go to war.
Jiraiya doesn't like the thought that Tsunade's using him to possibly start and then stifle a war, but she'd point out that he only has himself to blame for not latching onto the Hokage hat when it was offered to him.
In any case, the situation asks for discretion, and any fool could understand that, right?
Particularly since Jiraiya's playing it so careful that the whole two weeks of training are devoted to the identification of genjutsu, the laying of traps, and mindless taijutsu of the muscle-memory building sort, in short, nothing that'd look even remotely threatening or unusual or would cause Rain to view them as any more suspicious than is already the case.
Surely any fool would get that, right?
Well, not Naruto.
Jiraiya understandably borders on having a seizure when he enters the hotel's courtyard and sees Naruto teaching the Sexy no Jutsu to some random nameless Rain runt.
He very nearly blows up their nonexistent rags of a cover here and there, possibly by siccing Gamabunta on Naruto's ass, but he reins it in with shinobi instinct for opportune moments and the prospect of the various ways he'll make Naruto regret he ever was so bloody stupid once they've left Rain and resumed their ordinary training routine.
Later, when Jiraiya can broach the subject without an urge to bash his stupid student's face in, he asks what came over Naruto, to teach a future Rain-nin a technique that, no matter the ridiculousness, is still an original jutsu for Sandaime Sarutobi's sake, but he manages not to say the last part aloud.
Naruto blithely smiles.
"Oh, Fuyumi-chan's alright. We talked."
A future Rain-nin, Jiraiya insists even as he fills away the mention of Naruto 'talking' with anyone.
Naruto grins cheekily.
"Guess that's just an added bonus."
Which makes it four.
The fifth time occurs a few months later, when Jiraiya wakes up in the middle of the night – aging, he knows – and hears Naruto consciously working at masturbating himself. This isn't the first time it has happened, and Jiraiya is not trying to pay attention, obviously, but he still can't help it if the sleeping bags are not even two meters removed.
In Naruto's defence, he's making commendable efforts at being quiet.
It's a sharp contrast with daylight, given how loud he is, and Jiraiya is almost impressed. His previous students, after all, were much more obvious. (Jiraiya could tell you stories about the Yondaime at that age, oh yes he could. The reason he doesn't is because it's frankly no-one's business except maybe that of those who knew and remember him for who he was, rather than what.)
But still, Jiraiya's getting to be an old man – it's not all Naruto's taunting there – and he'd like to enjoy the privileges of the old as well as the arthritis, in this case sleeping without being disturbed.
Jiraiya consoles himself by thinking that from the way Naruto's panting, this shouldn't take much longer; he's so involved in it that he's never noticed Jiraiya woke up, and so long as Jiraiya keeps his breathing regular, he won't freeze and look up from his cot, and wait painful minutes before daring to start again or worse, giving up at all.
As Jiraiya could tell you, courtesy to his experience as a jounin-sensei, travelling with sexually frustrated teens is never fun. Occasionally amusing, but never fun.
Finally, Naruto's body goes still and he lets out a ragged breath that comes to form a name.
"Sa–su–ke…"
And that's it.
Jiraiya is petrified on the spot.
Naruto leaves his cot to clean himself with muttered curses that Jiraiya can't hear and probably wouldn't be in a state to understand anyway.
He stays awake a long time after Naruto's gone to sleep, coming to the realisation that he doesn't know Naruto. He wonders if he ever thought he did; did he ever bother to form an idea of Naruto, like Tsunade did from the instant she set her eyes on him? It feels like he's given a whole new meaning to the phrase 'at face value'. He just never thought about Naruto, did he? He'd just accepted him as part of the routine.
In a way, it's not a bad thing. Certainly it makes the journey both new and comfortable. Besides, when has Naruto ever shown a hint that he might like a more personal kind of attention?
Well, Jiraiya takes him out for ramen from time to time, but Naruto never gave a sign that he might start confusing him with Iruka...
Never, that's when.
Naruto doesn't want – or doesn't need, or whatever – to look at him as something more than a sensei.
It suits Jiraiya just fine, who's then free to mull over the other, more serious topic.
Luckily he's a lot more practical-minded than his writings would have you believe, but even then Jiraiya's not sure how to cope. He remembers being thirteen or fourteen, and there's a difference between getting stiff while looking at completely inappropriate characters, because you're thirteen and an attractive body is an attractive body, and actively jerking off to someone while moaning their names.
Jiraiya doesn't get much sleep that night.
And the next morning, the next morning there's the sixth time.
Jiraiya's talking to a street vendor and he's not having his best day ever. The quasi-totality of his brain is obsessing over what he overheard last night, the far-reaching consequences, and, mostly, the realisation that there's more to Naruto than – than everything Naruto let Jiraiya be surprised at.
The vendor cuts himself off for a moment, exchanging good-natured yells with a woman walking by as she waves at him, and Jiraiya finds himself dragged by the sleeve several booths away by Naruto. He arches an eyebrow.
"That guy's totally ripping you off, ero-sennin," Naruto mutters. "Let me deal with it, okay?"
And without waiting for an answer, he struts back to the booth. His voice's loud enough that it carries at least words to Jiraiya, and his tone's bright and full of enthusiasm.
"Wow, that looks great~!"
"Sweet."
"Ya think you could–"
Naruto's doing well, Jiraiya can see it from his relaxed stance and the laughter from the vendor.
"Got 60 percent off," Naruto says once he's joined Jiraiya again, with a shrug.
Jiraiya's reaction is a non-committal grunt.
Naruto sends him a look. "You okay, ero-sennin? You're acting weird here. It's about the guy back there? 'Cause it went better than I expected sure, but 't's not like it's the first time I manage it. You jealous or something?"
A flash of alarm suddenly enters Naruto's eyes.
"You better not be thinking about asking me to use Sexy no Jutsu before doing that next time," he warns.
So Jiraiya realises that last night is nothing new for Naruto; it's just one of these things that he's never bothered letting Jiraiya know about. For all he knows, Naruto already did that before Sasuke even left – he doubts it, but it might be.
Jiraiya feels a little stupid that he's never envisaged Naruto's relation to Sasuke under that perspective; after all, he had never masturbated to thoughts of Orochimaru. He suspects that may be why he never questioned Naruto's – obsession, that's the only word.
He may have been a little too focused on equating Naruto and Sasuke to himself and Orochimaru, after all; their relationship obviously isn't the same, so they might well not be as similar as Jiraiya first thought – but then Jiraiya had never dreamt of being Hokage; that is one of the things about Naruto that reminds Jiraiya of the brat-who-would-become-the-Yondaime rather than himself.
Perhaps he should start comparing Naruto and the way Yondaime had dealt with his Orochimaru, who, for a little diversity, had been the team's girl. …retrospectively, he probably should have, but he knows better than to start doing so now.
Jiraiya is slowly coming to learn that expecting a pattern out of Naruto is just setting himself up to be badly startled.
Consequently, when Naruto has to change hitai-ate because his was wrecked when he lost control of the Kyuubi, Jiraiya isn't surprised that Naruto takes a scratched head-band out of his bag and grips it until the skin of his palms cut across the edges of the metal plate and there's blood seeping between his fingers.
He admittedly didn't see it coming when Naruto comes back from the town's smith's with the head-band knotted around his head, the scratch rubbed and filled until Jiraiya needs to mentally give up on how he doesn't see where it cut across the emblem of Konoha. He can only be sure it's not Naruto's original hitai-ate because what remains of it is packed away with Jiraiya's own things; when Naruto's out for a walk around town that evening, he looks into his stuff anyway.
He spends a few minutes staring at it.
Then he puts it back and minds his own business.
He doesn't have to wait long for the (eighth? ninth?) time.
They don't have a lot of money, so as usual they're sharing a room, and either the hitai-ate thing bothers Jiraiya more than it should, either he's getting old, because he wakes up, again, in the middle of the night to the muffled sound of Naruto moving in the room. A shinobi should be able to wake up when someone enters his sleeping area, but they've been travelling together for over a year now and Jiraiya thought he'd managed to suppress this instinct where Naruto is concerned – otherwise they'd never get a full night of sleep.
Except something's off with the way Naruto's moving; he really does sound like he's sneaking into the room, and when he goes to the bathroom during the night he's usually stumbling about with his eyes fluttering closed and never too careful about making as little noise as possible.
Jiraiya suddenly remembers that when he went to bed – a bit earlier than usual, true – Naruto wasn't back yet, and cleverly deduces that Something May Be Up.
He sits up all at once in his bed, turning the light on as he does that and staring straight at Naruto.
"Eek!" Naruto yelps, jumping backward. "You startled me," he accuses, running a hand through his incredibly tousled hair.
Jiraiya starts to snort and prepares to let out some withering sarcastic comment about how Jiraiya ought to be the one saying that, and really, Naruto makes for a lame stealth ninja, when.
His brain kicks into what his eyes are seeing.
Incredibly tousled hair.
And, his brain helpfully adds, Naruto's not wearing the hitai-ate.
His eyes drop at once to take in the rest of Naruto's appearance, ignoring entirely the boy's expression. Clothes rumpled as though after a day of training – except Jiraiya's set firm regulations on where and when Naruto is allowed to train during the night, and they haven't on a new technique that'd tempt Naruto into breaking the rule. A shuriken holster that looks as if it's been hastily wrapped around his thigh again. Jacket zipper pulled slightly down. And… is that a hickey?
Jiraiya gapes in – alright, alright, shock. He chides himself; it definitely shouldn't come as a shock, but it totally, totally is.
Then he starts to cackle.
"What?" Naruto asks, eyeing him warily.
Jiraiya's face splits into a mad grin. "You," he declares proudly, "have become a man in the most fulfilling sense of the word."
Naruto's eyes become round with horror. "…No," he says, shaking his head slowly. "No way. You are not meaning what I'm thinking you mean."
The older man gleefully nods.
Everything considered, of course Naruto would get girls. Without even mentioning the top-notch education he's receiving from Jiraiya, he's a smart resourceful little guy, and he could win Tsunade over when he was twelve, and if that's not a proof that Jiraiya's charm is rubbing off on the kid – who had charisma in spades to start with – then Jiraiya frankly doesn't know what is. And they replaced Naruto's old jumpsuit because he'd outgrown it, a while ago, and now the boy's less eye-searingly orange Jiraiya's got to admit he has grown, over the past year and a half.
He doesn't look like a kid anymore.
He might be just a little precocious for a peace-time kid, when there's less urgency of the don't-want-to-die-a-virgin sort, but personally Jiraiya doesn't see anything wrong with that.
He puffs himself up.
In the most practical part of his mind, he's not a little relieved that it happened in the middle of a civilian town where Jiraiya knows very well the current shinobi travellers are only the two of them. The Rain kid was a kid, ten years old or so; he'd rather this situation didn't repeat with fraternisation rather than teaching of perverted ninjutsu (which Jiraiya already had a hard time explaining away to Tsunade).
Bad enough, whispers another part of his mind, bad enough that there's the thing with the Uchiha.
Naruto doesn't need any more entanglements with people whose loyalties don't go to Konoha – which is why, since he overheard Naruto, he's changed his mind about making a visit to Sunagakure. In Sunagakure, there's a jinchuuriki with a close bond with Naruto. In Sunagakure is Gaara, and though Jiraiya doesn't really think Naruto swings that way, he's not going to take any chance.
And, very deep, in the core of Jiraiya's mind, there's a voice, which Jiraiya privately calls the Sannin voice, assessing coldly just how much danger they've all been in tonight, and how blind he's been.
What would have happened if the boy had lost his control over the Kyuubi?
The voice blows like a chilly wind. He should have foreseen such an occurrence. He should have prepared for it; no, he should have brought it about, so when it happened he would have been in the next room, ready to intervene and put Naruto under.
Or worse, the voice adds with a grim, perfect composure.
Jiraiya's not ready to let the Sannin voice dictate his actions, though, not when it comes to Naruto's life and not as long as there could be the slightest chance it could go otherwise. It's because Orochimaru started to listen to the Sannin voice he built his human laboratories, leading in turn to his betrayal. Tsunade must have a Sannin voice too, but Jiraiya hopes he'll never have the proof.
He trumpets on.
"Tonight's an important night, now! We should celebrate your coming of age –"
"Ero-sennin, you sound like Gai-sensei," Naruto mutters.
"– so tomorrow I'm treating you. Sake, it's a special occasion and you can bet that pink-haired teammate of yours is going to have one or ten on you anyway, what with Tsunade."
Naruto blinks. "It's not a special occasion," he says blankly.
"What do you mean, brat? It's the most special occasion this side of getting Tsunade to not kill me when she realises! More special than your getting that first hitai-ate! More special than becoming Hokage, because that can happen twice! And this is not only special, it's unique!"
Jiraiya's aware he's waxing vaguely lyrical about all of this, but Naruto's attitude of 'I don't see what's the big deal is about' makes it difficult to stay impassive. Besides, Jiraiya has few instincts he'd describe as even vaguely paternal, but this stirs all of them, along with a fleeting nostalgia for things long gone by.
He has only the blurriest recollection of his own first time – it's not due to the decades that have passed – and an all-too-precise memory of his second; they say that embarrassment goes away with time, and, more than thirty-five years down the line, Jiraiya would like to be able to look back and laugh, but the best he feel he could achieve is a horribly tense smile.
Don't get him started on the third time.
All in all, Jiraiya concludes it's nothing short of a miracle he still wanted to get laid afterward. Logically speaking, he should've been scarred for life and taken up a life of chastity. Or he'd have turned to men, or little girls, or something.
Of course, now he's got a healthy number of kids and grand-kids strutting around several countries and never suspecting they might have any blood relation with him, which, while not the best part of it (of course not) is still pleasant to think about.
Naruto snorts.
"Oh, c'm'on, I mean sure it was good – it was great – but it was hardly unique!"
Half an eternity later, Naruto seems to realise what he's implied.
He wears a sort of 'oh shit' expression for a moment but he quickly blanks his face and tries to downplay it as much as he can. "It's not like it's the first time," he shrugs.
When Jiraiya is finally able to speak again, all he can do is demand how many.
(The part of him that channels other peoples' sarcasm notes, second time of the night. It's referring to Naruto throwing Jiraiya off loop.)
"Er. Times or girls?" Naruto's starting to blush slightly.
"Both."
"Oh. Um." The boy scratches the back of his head, screwing his eyes as he smiles sheepishly. "I didn't actually kept count of the times."
Liar, Jiraiya thinks, but he lets it go in favour of more important matters. "Well, girls."
"…Three." Silence. "G'night then," Naruto adds.
After that, Jiraiya keeps Naruto so occupied he's reasonably convinced Naruto doesn't have the time to spare, much less the energy, finding a girl to roll around with. The unknown quantities are Naruto's unnatural stamina and the way civilian girls seem to flock towards him.
Jiraiya refuses to consider the implications, and thinks he's already spent more than enough time on the subject, and ostensibly redirects his attention.
There are still other surprises after that, numerous and more often than not of a dubious nature – such as the time, when they're staying in a civilian town with an extremely renowned Red Light district, Naruto gets a job at a flowershop. Jiraiya throws a fit, and very seriously threatens to disown Naruto from his apprenticeship, but Naruto still goes ahead.
Jiraiya doesn't talk to him for a whole week, which he spends brooding and concludes that it must be related to the flowershop girl – but she's the owner's daughter, and anyway what girl would fall for a guy who worked at a flowershop?
Jiraiya shakes his head sadly and regrets that Naruto isn't still fixated on his teammate.
At the end of the week, he is brutally awoken from his little woman-shaped dream cloud by the fact that he seems to have run entirely out of funds without realising it, to the point where he can't even enter a drink house to have a glass of water.
That very evening, Naruto turns up at the hotel room Jiraiya is busy brainstorming how to avoid paying for, and wordlessly drops a plump spherical purse at his feet.
Naruto works at the shop for the two weeks more they spend there, and Jiraiya doesn't miss the fact that not only the flowershop girl seems to be extremely fond of him, the girl's father looks entirely oblivious and the town girls' frequentation ratio of the shop has vastly increased.
Looking back upon it, working or owning a flower shop had never kept Yamanaka Inoichi from being rather popular with the ladies, and the Yellow Flash was an expert sewer.
The worst in that department had been when the Yellow Flash – who wasn't yet known as the Yellow Flash at the time – started working at the Yamanaka flower shop. And redesigned their aprons. There'd seemed to be an uninterrupted flow of females of all ages flocking to the shop. In fact, it was at that time that the Yamanaka shop got a revolving door.
In hindsight, Jiraiya should've seen it coming.
And then Naruto grabs Jiraiya's bank-book and starts to manage the budget for him.
Another such time is when, after a genjutsu that had Jiraiya fear for Naruto's safety, his student starts training even harder, with gritted teeth and eyes flashing with rage, and a hint of the smell of Kyuubi's chakra following him – which Jiraiya dubs normal until he stumbles unto one of these super-secret training sessions of Naruto's and discovers than instead of beating down trees with his bare hands in mixed anger and helplessness, Naruto's instead perfecting new perverted ninjutsu.
Jiraiya knows he told Naruto that the best Naruto'd be able to do on his own is think up perverted ninjutsu, he leaves the clearing without making his presence known. From what he could see, this technique was going to be fearsome.
He doesn't know what Naruto was subjected to when he was under the enemy's illusion. This time, he doesn't ask.
There's also when they go to Wave Country and some people in the main town seem to recognise Naruto, and everyone uses his name on a daily basis – Great Naruto Bridge indeed. Jiraiya has a great time on the beaches, and he insists that learning to walk on sea water is an exercise of a much higher difficulty than just on fresh water, and ignores Naruto's recriminations.
Then they run into a kid, or more accurately there's a kid running toward them, shouting Naruto's name.
At first Jiraiya can admit it's nice to meet these people, even if Inari is a little brat and Naruto took Jiraiya aside to very seriously warn him off of trying anything with their host's daughter before taking up Tazuna's offer to stay at his daughter's house.
But they ask about Naruto's teammates.
"Whatever happened to Sakura? Her name was Sakura, right? The brave girl with the long pink hair? The competent one, the one who did all the work while you and what's-his-name were off training? Ah – I can't find his name again – her crush?" "That handsome boy who was all about Naruto? His name was Sasuke, Dad, I tell you all the time…""I still go to the graves, you know. I don't put flowers because that's girly, but I make sure they stay clean. T's a good place to think."
Jiraiya doesn't think he's ever seen Naruto look like that, with such an open wound in his eyes, and then with such a brittle grin.
"Sakura-chan's becoming a great ninja and I think she might like me now! Oh, oh, and she cut her hair – it's reaaaaally pretty. And the bastard's still trying to get rid of us 'cause he's got selective memory and he's busy being stupid like that, takes up a lot of his time."
Later, Jiraiya seeks Tazuna out. They have a long talk, because Naruto never said anything about this mission and Team Seven spent three weeks in Tazuna's household, and it stands to reason that it's worth knowing any mission that could make people think of insignificant little Haruno Sakura as 'the competent one' – a girl whose existence Jiraiya had noted purely in correlation to that of her teammates' – and cold, contemptuous Uchiha Sasuke as 'all about Naruto' – Jiraiya tries to empty his mind of the incident when he overheard Naruto.
In return, he tells the old man a little of everything that happened since then.
There are lots about Naruto that Jiraiya doesn't know, and that he only understands when he does. When he comes to know about it, he's always taken off guard, before it dawns on him how much sense it makes.
More often than not he doesn't like the picture it paints, but he can't deny that he understands.
After he brings Naruto back to Konoha at the end of their period of training – sooner than he'd planned, but Naruto can nag like nobody's business, and there Jiraiya understood the urgency without needing to be surprised first – a few weeks go by before they meet again. When they do, Jiraiya already knows from Tsunade what happened to his student since they last saw each other – his rescuing Gaara, the failed attempt to retrieve Sasuke, the latest confrontation with Akatsuki.
Naruto's face when Jiraiya gets the drop on him is a classic now, not that it hinders Jiraiya's enjoyment of it. Nice to know that the youngsters still have some room for improvement. That's what differentiates shinobi from weapons; when a weapon gets older, it breaks. Weapons don't get stronger.
The boy sobers up quickly. "Ero-sennin, I need to talk with you. It's about Orochimaru. And Sakura," he adds when Jiraiya impassively looks back at him.
Naruto shifts.
"It's – I don't really know how to explain it, but –" he takes a breath and starts anew, looking into Jiraiya's eyes with a determined air, as if he's daring the Sannin to confuse him by glancing to the side. What Naruto is about to say obviously requires utter concentration. "Okay. You know about how Sakura-chan's getting to be the best scariest thing ever?"
Amused, Jiraiya cracks a smile, more at how Naruto's crush paints a picture in reverent madness than at the idea of Tsunade the Second.
"Well – fuck, I'm getting about it all wrong."
"Try getting straight to the point," Jiraiya suggests dryly.
Naruto nods. "Okay. Sakura wants to kill Orochimaru."
Jiraiya arches an eyebrow.
"And you're worried about her? It's not that I think she's anywhere near good enough for the moment – though that may change in a few years, if you try to take him both at once with a sound plan – but she doesn't seem the type to lose her head and throw everything away for a vendetta she knows she has no chance to complete. I thought she didn't want you to protect her?"
The boy is frantically shaking his head. "No! I'm not worried! Well okay, a little, it's Orochimaru and all, but that's not the point. The point is that she wants to kill Orochimaru."
Jiraiya stares at Naruto with incomprehension. Naruto is staring back with trepidation.
"Don't you want him dead?" Jiraiya finally asks blandly, because that's really the only thing he can think of. Nothing makes sense right now.
"'course I want him dead," he scowls. "But he's not ours to kill."
Parts of a puzzle are piecing together in Jiraiya's mind. "He's not yours to kill, because…"
"He's your teammate, to you and the old hag," Naruto goes on, apparently unaware of his sensei's epiphany. "Or at least he was, and that counts for something, right? So I'm telling you this, so you can tell the old hag about it too, because if Sakura-chan is going to fight Orochimaru with the intent to kill, like hell I'm gonna stand on the sidelines. I mean, I know you've got dibs and all, but I don't think Sakura really cares."
"Naruto," Jiraiya starts very cautiously, "what does this have to do with Sasuke?"
("He isn't yours…"
"In my presence, don't you dare talk of Sasuke as though he belongs to you!")
Jiraiya may have not been present to hear it, but he'd been told about it. And now he felt like he could finish the sentence – the one which had stayed unsaid.
"Sakura-chan agrees that Orochimaru has no right on him." Naruto's blue eyes are frighteningly clear. "Sasuke's our teammate."
Jiraiya appears with a hurried puff of smoke into Tsunade's office as soon as he and Naruto part ways. Once he's finished retelling the conversation and awaits for her reaction – they need to sketch a plan – Tsunade sighs and puts her hand over her eyes.
"They're so goddamn complicated," she mutters.
And Jiraiya stares and wonder why he never saw this simple truth about Naruto.
"They're mine."
It'd be much simpler if he could blame the Kyuubi, but the demon fox only influences Naruto on the rarest occasions and this, as far as Jiraiya is able to judge given everything he has witnessed since they started training, is pure Naruto.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 08:44 pm (UTC)I feel bad for Ino. In Sakura's chasing of Sasuke she's managed to become just as isolated and aloof, if in a way that's acceptable to her.
I like 'the Sannin voice'. You know that Jiraiya is a lot more than they show him in the anime, because it's all from Naruto's perspective, and he's kind of a retard.
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Date: 2007-02-27 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-28 08:24 am (UTC)And when they manage that many, it's generally because they're conflicting ideas. (case in point: Sasuke 'I'm going to follow my own path which is leading me straight to Orochimaru's waiting arms'. Or maybe it's just Sasuke.)
I feel sort of bad for Ino too.
She'll get better!I'm just torturing her because I love her, really.'The Sannin voice' is what makes Jiraiya and Tsunade shinobi of their time, with rules to stay alive as long as possible and secret wars in which you see your friends die.
Oh, Jiraiya's definitely more, not only than what Naruto sees, but than Jiraiya himself lets on, most of the time. I like that about his character - he's not just ero-sennin, he can be rational and quite ruthless when needs be.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-28 02:15 am (UTC)Nitpick:
he's so involved in it that he's never noticed Jiraiya woke up,
It would be better to say "he's so involved in it that he hasn't noticed that Jiraiya woke up/is awake/has woken up".
no subject
Date: 2007-02-28 08:35 am (UTC)Jiraiya began to see less and less of a paralell between himself, his prior students, and Naruto. It was refreshing, for a change.
I live to break That Damn Circle.
Thanks for the correction - I'll change it right away! :)
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Date: 2007-02-28 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-28 08:38 am (UTC)*blushes at compliment* Thank you!
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Date: 2007-02-28 04:26 am (UTC)the part with ino and sakura was very moving...sakura does indeed seem as though she was throwing away the now for the future...
and i totally loved the part with jiraiya and naruto. it nice to see them done from a different perspective, drawing the differences instead of the parallels. and i like that they both have duch depth here too...it's all too common to see the written as caraitures of themselves.
lovely writing!!! :)
no subject
Date: 2007-02-28 08:47 am (UTC)Ooooh, I love that formula. Yes, that's exactly it.
I'm mostly interested in pointing the differences between the Sannin and their apprentices, because I think that the point of the manga is to show how history doesn't need to be repeated. (I make it sound woefully didactic, but still.)
And, honestly, I want to write about the neverending drama that is Team Seven, and that means straying far, far away from the bittersweet acceptance of their mentors (at least in Jiraiya and Tsunade's case; Orochimaru's a different beast all right, if only because he didn't resign himself to accepting things he didn't like. In that respect he's very like both Naruto and Sakura. :D!).
Oh, I rambled again. Oh well.
I'm glad you don't think I wrote them as 'caricatures of themselves' - occasionally I wasn't sure I wasn't pushing it a little, so that's a relief!
no subject
Date: 2007-02-28 09:30 am (UTC)...I could probably need an Ino in my life too, from time to time >__>''
And about the last one; I've always been fond of Jirayia POV's. He's the only one who's got the whole picture, you know? I have a very hard time getting into Jiraiya's head, myself... But you've managed well, with a writing style that I wouldn't have thought to be fitting for his character, but you pull it off very well.
Your writing style is lovely all toghether.
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Date: 2007-02-28 09:47 am (UTC)The downside of Ino is that the way I write her, she tends to give off mixed signals and her caring and worrying for other people can take the appearance of a drama fit.
He's the only one who's got the whole picture, you know?
? ...I don't get what you mean.
I was a little worried about his characterisation from time to time because I have no earthly idea how they actually spent the timeskip. Naruto did most of the job here, so it may have helped.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-28 09:59 am (UTC)Your Ino is complete love.
Jiraiya is the only one who has seen it all happen... From the young Yondaime all the way to young Naruto. He's the only one who can make comparisions. ...Sandaime probably had an eaven more completely picture, but since he's dead... ^^'';
no subject
Date: 2007-02-28 10:30 am (UTC)If it were up to me, there'd be an Ino official day and everything, but then, if it were up to me, there'd be an official day for a whole lot of characters. *neeeeeeeds to find herself that Ino icon, dammit*
Oh, I see.
Jiraiya is the only one who has seen it all happen... He's the only one who can make comparisions.
Yes, he saw it, but what did he make of it? He may be misinterpretating things. Also, he's missing the bunk of Team Seven history, which I think is much more important to Naruto's character than the previous generations.