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Disclaimer: I do not own any material belonging to the creators of Inuyasha or Naruto.
"Hey, hey!"
"What is it now, Naruto?" Jiraiya asked, a deep scowl marring his features.
"You keep asking about me, Ero-Sannin!" Naruto said. "It's time you tell me about yourself!"
"Myself, you say?"
"Yeah," Naruto nodded, his eyes bright with wonder.
"Nope, sorry. No can do, kid," Jiraiya sighed.
"What!" Naruto yelled. "But, Ero-Sannin!"
"Ero-Sannin, Ero-Sannin," Jiraiya mocked. "Maybe if you'd actually call me something a little less degrading I might be willing to share with you a tale you wouldn't soon forget."
"Ahh… really?" Naruto asked.
"Yeah, kid."
"Ok! Ok," Naruto nodded. "Come on, ah… Jiraiya… tell me something! Come on!"
"Stop being so demanding kid, it's not going to get you anywhere," Jiraiya commented.
"But, but, you promised!" Naruto shouted.
"Stop shouting, kid. You're starting to annoy me," Jiraiya sighed, rubbing at his temples.
"Yeah, well," Naruto started, his face scrunching up a bit. "At least I don't… don't… don't write those boring books!"
"Boring!" Jiraiya gasp. "How dare you say that about such a fine work of art! I'll have you know that many of those are based off…" Jiraiya's voice trailed off, and he grumbled for a second.
"Huh?" Naruto asked. "What were you going to say, Ero-Sannin? Come on, tell me!" Pouting when the older shinobi ignored him completely, he whined a bit. "Come on, Ero-Sannin, you can't be that mad at me. Those books you 'write'," he made quotes with his fingers, "have no plot, no action, no fighting!"
"Ha!" Jiraiya snapped back. "You wouldn't know a plot if it bite you in the butt."
Naruto scowled. "Tell me something, Ero-Sannin!"
"I thought I told you to stop calling me that," Jiraiya said. "You're not getting any closer to what you want, kid."
"Come on! Come on," Naruto said over and over and over again, bouncing up and down in front of his new perverted teacher. "Please!"
Jiraiya twitched a little. "Alright, alright, just calm down, Naruto. I was only going to tell you that my books are mainly based off of things I remember… and those pretty girls that just seem to come in packs!"
"Things you remember?" Naruto asked, completely ignoring the end of Jiraiya's sentence.
"Yup, a woman I remember." Jiraiya grinned when Naruto's face brightened, only for him to begin to scowl again. Wondering what was going on in the young shinobi's mind, Jiraiya blinked, and then regretted ever saying it was a woman.
"Ew! You're such a pervert, Ero-Sannin!" Naruto said. "What were you going, watching her bathe?"
Irritated, Jiraiya sighed darkly, "I'll have you know that she was very respected and she died fighting beside me."
Naruto's face softened, and he blinked a little. "Died?" he whispered the word so softly that he wasn't sure Jiraiya had caught his question, but felt the elder shinobi place his hand onto his head. "Fighting… beside you, Ero-Sannin?"
"Yeah, kid. Things happen, and she died during the war," Jiraiya sighed. "She would have been considered a Sannin, I imagine. The fourth Sannin; the tiger enchantress; the mistress of healing and Taijutsu."
Naruto's eyes brightened, "What do you mean a tiger enchantress, Ero-Sannin?"
"Well," Jiraiya said, "that's what I called her. She had a summoning contract with a tiger the size of Gamabunta! Or… she told me it was a tiger, Tsunade and… Oro… ahh… anyway,others were always trying to make me think it was another cat-like creature, since it didn't look like a tiger."
"Have you ever seen a tiger?" Naruto asked.
"No, but I had a picture of one long ago. Don't know where it came from just remember having it. Unlike the tiger from the picture, her's was black with red stripes and called itself Ashisu. It wore robes and had a giant sword, which it wielded by using its mouth, on its back," Jiraiya said, his hands waving in the air. "She could also summon a smaller one, about the size of a horse, and one the size of a puppy, but most of them were never simply orange and black, but blues and reds and yellows. They also had strange names, and I asked her once where she got the summoning contract only for her to tell me that she got it from her father, and she wouldn't say anything else."
"Why not?" Naruto asked.
"Her father was murdered," Jiraiya replied. "She didn't like to talk about it."
Naruto blinked, nodding in understanding. "What was she like, Ero-Sannin? What was her name? Come on, tell me something good!"
"Good? Good," Jiraiya stressed the word as much as he could, scowling again. "What do you mean, good? Anything I tell you about her will be under my rules, and nothing that I tell you about her will be bad. I respected her greatly, she was someone that I was very close to."
"Closer than your team?" Naruto asked out of curiosity.
Jiraiya smiled a bit. "You could say that, yeah."
Naruto looked like he was thinking, pulling at the straps of his pack. Then, he frowned, seeming to think harder, as the Sannin eyed him warily. Almost instantly, his hand shot into the air, and he shouted, "I know! She was a foreign princess that came to Konohagakure because a band of blood thirty shinobi were after her family's riches, and she wanted you to save her, Ero-Sannin! However, you, and all your perverted-ness, ended up falling in love with her, but she didn't love you in return! Am I right? Am I right? Come on, tell me I'm right, Ero-Sannin!"
Jiraiya bobbed him on the head, watching as Naruto brought his hands up to rub at the bump. When tears formed into the younger shinobi's eyes, he sighed, and turned his head away. "Now, don't start that, kid. We're on a mission, remember? No need to start acting like a little girl," he mumbled.
"Why did you hit me, Ero-Sannin?" Naruto snapped. "That wasn't nice! It HURTS!"
"I hit you because you were way off, kid," Jiraiya replied. "She was not a foreign princess chased by blood thirsty shinobi who wanted her money. She was a shinobi of our village; one of the last members of a dying clan—much like your teammate Sasuke."
"Sasuke?" Naruto asked, his voice turning very quiet. He knew that Sasuke felt alone, or he thought Sasuke felt alone, so he imagined the woman much like him. Her back to him, her clothing loose enough to move quickly—a prodigy that seemed so aloof to the world. "She was like Sasuke?" he asked a little louder.
"Sort of," Jiraiya said, pulling a hand through his hair. "She wasn't the greatest in many ways, but she was good enough. She was considered a prodigy of her time, but she didn't act like it. She acted… much like you in a way, Naruto. She had this way of making others smile, and she liked to pull pranks on people whenever she could to see them smile and laugh more in dark times. However, there were times when she could completely close herself to the world and become exactly like Sasuke, just without the hatred for anyone bubbling underneath the surface—she could never bring herself to hate anyone or anything. She was…"
"Yeah?" Naruto urged.
"She was…" Jiraiya tried again, "someone that you could have looked up to without having to worry about being judged. Hell, she once told me that her best friend was a shinigami."
"Was she mad, Ero-Sannin?" Naruto asked slowly after that.
Jiraiya hit him again. "No, she had a very special Kekkei Genkai. She could see the dead, and without using a certain forbidden jutsu I know of, she could bring a soul wandering on the planes of existence back to life in the form of anything. However, it didn't work for long, and anything she brought back had to feed off her chakra for the amount of time it was alive again in order for it to be able to use its own jutsu. It was deadly, for the other effect was her being able to curse a soul, making sure it never reached the afterlife, and allowing her the option of bringing it to her at any given time to use it—much like the summoning jutsu."
Naruto rubbed his head again. "I guess that's pretty cool."
"Pretty cool, kid?" Jiraiya huffed. "You're dead wrong about that! I saw her use it once, and it looked painful on the user. Like they had been put into a state similar to that Tsukiyomi you saw Itachi use on Sasuke, only worse. Then, they suddenly ceased to do anything, simply falling to the ground, and when checked for any type of life, they were dead." He shivered, remembering it exactly as it had happened. "Like the Sharingan," he stated, trying to find something Naruto might be able to compare it to, "it drained her chakra a lot, and she often couldn't hold out."
"So… it was bad ass?" Naruto asked. He whined when he was hit again, and whimpered, "Why do you keep hitting me, Ero-Sannin?"
"You shouldn't say such things, Naruto. Such a mouth for one so young," Jiraiya stated. "How do you expect to get a girlfriend with that foul thing?"
"G-G-girlfriend!?" Naruto stuttered, his face turning bright red. He stopped in his tracks, Jiraiya unable to push him further, as if he'd rooted himself there. He stared at the elder shinobi, as if he'd suddenly gone crazy, his eyes widening with each passing second. Then, his mind popped with the image of Sakura turning toward him, smiling, her pink hair—though it wasn't as long now—blowing in the breeze that his mind created, and she winked at him. He seemed to melt on the spot.
"Kid?" Jiraiya asked. "Hey, kid!"
"Wha… what?" Naruto blinked, turning his face quickly. "Ah," he gulped, "let's keep going, Ero-Sannin! Don't want to be late, nope!"
"Hey, hey, slow down, kid," Jiraiya sighed. Noticing that Naruto was going to pick up the pace, Jiraiya grabbed him by the back of his backpack, and stopped him from zipping down the road. However, he seemed to be quite determined, digging his feet into the ground and trying to pull himself away from his grasp. "I'm not done yet, and we still have plenty of ways to go."
"Well then start talking, Ero-Sannin," Naruto shouted, trying to pull himself away once more. "You haven't told me anything!"
"I've told you plenty, Naruto. However, as the wonderful novelist that I am, I'm trying to make sure that you understand it as much as your small brain can," Jiraiya nodded. "But if you'd stop struggling I'll tell you how pretty she was…"
"Really?" Naruto asked, stopping instantly. "Was she prettier than Sakura-chan?" He doubted it, no one could be, but he wanted to know. Maybe there had been someone that held more beauty that Sakura, and it'd be interesting to find out if this still mysterious woman was.
"Oh yeah," Jiraiya grinned. "But, I don't think you're a strong enough shinobi to be able to know just how beautiful she was! Hm," he said, eyeing the boy, "maybe I should return to Konohagakure and tell Sasuke. I'm sure he'd appreciate me telling him about such a rare beauty, which not only held beauty on the outside but the inside. Why, I'm sure that such a strong shinobi like him will be so grateful that he'll fall to his knees and beg him to tell me more about her, falling deeper and deeper in love with each passing second!"
Naruto's jaw dropped, imagining Sasuke dropping to his knees in front of the perverted Sannin, begging to be told such things—worse, he could imagine Sasuke sitting by her grave, wishing she was alive to rebuild his clan with her if she was that beautiful. He shivered, kind of creped out by the image, but wanting to know. "Wait, wait! I'm strong, Ero-Sannin," he shouted, beginning to make hand seals. "You'll see! I'll show you!"
Jiraiya blinked humorously.
"Ah, ah," Naruto blinked, before shaking his head and beginning the hand seals again. Making the correct ones, without the mistake like the first time, he put his hand out, and stared, shouting, "RASENGAN!"
Jiraiya blinked again, watching closely as the young shinobi tried to force his chakra to do, as he wanted it to. Sighing, he knew Naruto wasn't going to get very far, nothing was happening in the first place, so it wasn't like there was any danger at that moment.
"Agh," Naruto frowned. "Rasengan!" Still nothing. "Rasengan!" Nothing. "Rasengan, Rasengan, Rasengan!" Nothing was happening. Biting his lip, he stared at his hand, and then allowed his eye to twitch. His fingers twitched where the chakra should have been forming, and he shifted his eyes to the amused Sannin standing next to him, before raising his hand quickly. "Come on, woooork! RASENGAN!"
"Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu," a familiar voice echoed into his head. There was no noise other than that except for the slight breeze in the background as he watched Naruto try again and again. "Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu! Gah, why is this the only jutsu that won't work for me! COME ON!"
"Ero-Sannin! Ero-Sannin, why are you staring at me like that?" Naruto asked in a scared voice.
Jiraiya blinked, "Huh?"
"That look on your face," Naruto whimpered. "It's scary. You're smiling, and it's… it's… pleasant."
Jiraiya twitched. "I just remembered something, that's all." He turned away, and began walking on the path again. Naruto caught up easily, looking up at him as if he was going to say something, but Jiraiya sighed first. "That woman I spoke of," Jiraiya said, "she had one jutsu that she couldn't seem to master. It was 'Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu', and you're entertaining display reminded me of a time when I watched her try over and over again to use it. Turned out the reason she couldn't use it was because she had been training earlier that day and when she was expected to learn something new, she just couldn't."
"Oh," Naruto said. "So, she struggled sometimes? How was she a prodigy then?"
"Her healing," Jiraiya said. "Her Taijutsu, and her Genjutsu. She wasn't as well known for using her Genjutsu, but it was probably better trained than her Taijutsu. She had little difficulty with fire, wind, earth, and lightning based jutsus when it came to Ninjutsu, but she got so worked up during training that she drained more chakra than she should have. It made her push herself harder."
Jiraiya smiled. "And she was very, very pretty once she turned fourteen. Her hair was onyx in color, but it did look like a very dark brown at times. Her eyes were blue, friendly—like yours, but much darker. Her body was curved, but she was tough to the point that she could send a guy flying if they got onto her bad side." Jiraiya's eyes twinkled, "Her name was—"
Naruto leaned closer, his eyes glittering.
"—Kagome."
Naruto blinked, his eyes looking confusion. "Who would name their kid that?" he asked. He hissed through his teeth when Jiraiya hit him again, this time harder than before, obviously not amused. "Seriously, Ero-Sannin, who would name their kid after that stupid game!"
"She wasn't named after the game, Naruto," Jiraiya snapped, his eyes blazing.
Naruto gulped at the serious look on the elder's face, and lowered his head. Ashamed, he decided not to raise his head again, before the Sannin placed his hand onto his head. Ignoring him, he wondered if what he'd said was so wrong. The name was weird!
"Show some respect for the dead, kid," Jiraiya sighed. "Her entire clan is gone, only a small trace of it left in the Uchiha bloodline."
Naruto stayed silent for a moment, then lifted his head. "The Uchiha bloodline?" he asked quietly.
Jiraiya nodded. "Yeah, your friend, Sasuke, has a tiny bit of her blood running through his veins. Only a few Higurashi, that was her clan's name, ever married into another clan, because most of them believed in keeping their surname. Uchihas, Hyuugas, Naras, and all the other clans would take the Higurashi name once they married a Higurashi, except for those few who took the other clans name. However, that small amount can only be found in the Uchiha bloodline now, but its not enough to show any signs of the Higurashi bloodline traits."
Naruto nodded in understanding, becoming silent once more.
Jiraiya sighed, eyeing him carefully. He hadn't meant to yell, but it had been his instinct to fight for her honor. He had ever since the day that she'd found him alone in a field, the day that she connected herself to him completely—a day he wished had never ended.
He glanced up, surprised to see her standing beside him, smiling so innocently. He huffed, a scowl crossing his face as he thought about what had happened. Orochimaru knew that he liked her; he knew that he wanted to get to know her, yet the jerk had tried to go after her anyway. He was positive still that she had merely been polite, not wanting to hurt his feelings, when telling Orochimaru she didn't want to go out with him, but she'd probably wrong anyway.
"You shouldn't scowl like that, it makes you look mean," she smiled.
"What do you know about mean?" he asked.
"Well, mean things make me sad," she replied. "And you look mean, so you're making me sad. I like it whenever you look happy."
"Yeah, well, maybe I'm not happy. Do you have a problem with that?" he rudely asked.
She reached out, and grabbed his hand out of his lap. Then, raising it to her eyelevel, she began to count them. After she was done, she dropped it, watching as he frowned in confusion, bringing it back to his face to look it over. "I don't like it when you're not happy, Jiraiya. You should happy!" she declared.
He huffed again. "Why don't you just go hang out with Orochimaru or somethin'? I'm not interested in your happy-crap."
She frowned. "Why are you being so mean, Jiraiya?"
"Because I want to be, alright," he snapped.
She lowered herself to the ground beside him. "I don't think that's true. What's made you angry with me? Please tell me, Jiraiya," she whispered.
"Just go away," Jiraiya said after a moment. "Go play with your prodigy pals, or train, or somethin', just go away."
She frowned deeper, sadness entering her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"Huh?" he asked.
"I'm sorry. Whatever I've done, I'll fix it, I promise!" she said. She leaned closer to him, "Please, please tell me what it is. I'll fix it, anyway I can."
He looked at her completely, and frowned. "Do you… do you like… um…" he stopped for a moment, before saying, "Orochimaru…?"
"Orochimaru?" she asked.
"Yeah," he nodded.
"As my friend," she blinked. "Orochimaru is… kind of creepy, you know."
He smiled, nodding. However, his smile slipped, and he looked at her even more. "I meant, do you like him, like him."
She blushed, "Oh…" She turned her head to the side, and then eyed him from the corner of her eye. "Orochimaru's really not my type."
Jiraiya blinked suspiciously at her, before frowning deeper still. "What is your type then?" he asked.
She blushed a little more. "Um… I donno."
"Come on, you have to know!" he said.
"I guess I like… long hair," she started.
Jiraiya twitched. Orochimaru had long hair.
"A sense of humor…"
He wasn't sure if Orochimaru even could be humorous, which gave him a little hope.
"Someone whos… not that great at everything he does…"
Orochimaru couldn't even be put into that category! Jiraiya was cheering now, a smile twitching at his lips, though he told himself not to be too hopeful. She could instantly tell him something that could crush him just as fast.
"Who tells the truth… um," she bit her lip, "white…" she whispered after that.
"Huh?" he asked. "I didn't catch that."
"I said… hair," she whispered. "And… um," she moved a little closer to him, "I donno, red markings…?"
He blinked. "Really?" Hope blossomed completely in his chest.
She nodded shyly.
"Do you… ah… wanna… ah…?" Jiraiya stuttered.
She looked up, her eyes bright.
"Ah… ah…" Jiraiya looked around, trying to gaze at anything but her. "Do you… I mean… I'm not good at this… but ah… do you think that we… you and I, I mean… could… like…" He stopped for a moment, to make his words make sense. "Kagome… will you… ah… go out… with… ah… m—"
"Yes."
"What?" he blinked, still concentrating on trying to finish his sentence.
"Yes," she said again.
He smiled brightly, suddenly on his feet. "Like right now?"
She nodded, raising herself. "Of course! We can train together afterward!"
Jiraiya's face dropped, "AH MAN!"
"Hey, hey," that sounded familiar. "Are you paying attention to anything I'm saying, Ero-Sannin!"
Jiraiya blinked. "No."
Naruto's face dropped. "But, but, I was telling you what I thought!"
"Hm?" Jiraiya replied, urging him to speak his thoughts.
"I was saying," Naruto continued, "that this Kagome, was the woman you loved. But, but," he said, waving his hands when Jiraiya began to speak, "that's not the best part! You, you, had a rival that wanted her too, and you had to fight for her heart!" Naruto smiled to himself, glad for his explanation. He didn't seem to notice that it sounded very much like something he knew, except slightly different.
Jiraiya twitched, not thinking that Naruto might, just might, have hit the nail on the head. "Nope, totally wrong, kid," he said, continuing forward.
"What!" Naruto shouted. "But it was perfect!"
"It was wrong!" Jiraiya replied, almost singing it.
"Ah!!"
Sorry, kid, Jiraiya thought, some memories aren't always blissful.
"Don't go."
"I'm sorry."
"Kagome," came another voice.
"Orochimaru…?" he said.
The other male's eyes darkened as she sucked in a shaking breath, and her body fell limp in his arms. However, he didn't watch the male for long, his eyes returning to the woman in his arms. He began to shake her, not realizing that Orochimaru was still standing there, his face slightly pale, and shaking at the sight.
"No," he whispered. "No, Kagome." Looking up, he looked around frantically, and finally began to shout. "Tsunade! Tsunade, please! TSUNADE, where are you?! Tsunade, help her!"
"She's dead," Orochimaru hissed.
"No, no," he cried. "No…"
A roar filled the air, the giant tiger disappearing in a poof of smoke, though the roar spoke of mourning.
"Kagome…" he whispered brokenly. "God no, Kagome."
--Fin