The Undesired Second Chance

Chapter 50: Old Friends, Old Problems

Jiraiya wasn't startled—that wasn't the right word for it. 'Startled' was falling out of a tree when he was caught peeping soft sights he had no place peeping, or waking up to a toad butt right in his face, or twitching when his student managed to sneak up on him again, or...

The point is, 'startled' was not it.

Not for something like this.

"You're... actually here?"

'Gobsmacked', 'bamboozled', 'perplexed': those came closer. The last whispers of her that he'd heard through his network placed her in a gambling den halfway to the border with no sign she'd turn back. And yet...

He wasn't sure, now, what he had been expecting when he followed that note and its nostalgic cipher. Plainly it hadn't been this. He subtly tried to break any genjutsu he may have been under, but nothing changed.

The house was still there, still abandoned, her carved diamond still on the frame even if the front door itself was missing. But most importantly, she was still there, standing shadowed just inside the old home she'd once shared with a loved one.

She was real. Back.

"For now." Tsunade, tired and frustrated but looking just like he remembered, waved for him to come closer. "Just get inside, before somebody notices you staring."

A paranoid check confirmed what he'd already known; nobody was anywhere nearby, as this building was far enough from both the edge of the abandoned district and the lone shop within. The... incident earlier in the year had long since been closed, though after what happened with the blacksmith they might look into it again.

At the moment, however, the area was quiet.

Jiraiya joined her inside. The floorboards creaked underfoot until he shifted his tread to the sturdier sections, carefully avoiding water stains. Many of the windows had been boarded up, leaving in interior gloomy and dark, but his eyes adjusted quickly.

It took him a moment to find any more words, but he finally landed on the only question that really mattered: "Why?"

She sighed. "Our snake's got himself tied up in knots."

He tensed. "Is he—"

"He's fine, idiot. I'll punch him later."

So. Orochimaru's living on borrowed time, then. But again, why?

From the change in her expression—from stormy to thunderous—either he'd said that out loud or she could see it on his face. Still, it seemed her ire wasn't actually pointed at him for the moment. Novel!

Then she fell from thunderous to just rainy, and he realized this was serious. No—he'd already known it had to be, for her to come back. This was more than that.

"What've I missed?" he asked, short and simple, but she knew what he meant.

It was more than just a request to be filled in on what had happened. He wanted to know what he should've seen—to know what signs of trouble had passed right under his nose unnoticed.

"I missed it, too," she admitted, which had him rearranging timelines in his head. Whatever this was, she'd just implied that it started when she'd still been in the village. "If I'd known... No. I should have known, should have guessed that could happen." She shook her head. "We always kept him... focused."

Tsunade kept the whole team focused, actually. And Jiraiya, in contrast, had basically made it his life goal to keep Orochimaru distracted. So he wasn't quite sure what she meant by that.